BARRY HUMPHRIES/ AUSTEN TAYSHUSby Professor Ross Fitzgerald AM
Since the death of my long-time friend, the comic genius Barry Barry Humphries, by far the most outrageously talented stand-up performer in Australia is the Sydney-based Jewish comedian, Austen Tayshus.
Indeed Barry told me that Austen Tayshus was the only contemporary comedian who made him gasp, before he laughed. In comparison, most other stand ups were, he said, “about as funny as an orphanage on fire!”
Last week I attended The Comedy Store in Los Angeles.
With the exception of a Korean lesbian who’d had four …
Barry Humphries/Austen Tayshusby Ross Fitzgerald AM
Since the death of my long-time friend, the comic genius Barry Barry Humphries, by far the most outrageously talented stand-up performer in Australia is the Sydney-based Austen Tayshus.
Indeed Barry told me that Austen Tayshus was the only contemporary comedian who made him gasp, before he laughed.
Last week I attended The Comedy Store in Los Angeles.
With the exception of a Korean lesbian who’d had four abortions, none of the stand ups who performed, for hours, were a patch on Austen Tayshus.
Anyone interested to learn about the …
Journalist Spotlight | Interview with Professor Ross Fitzgerald AM, Columnist for The AustralianBy Darla Tejada20 December, 2024
Professor Ross Fitzgerald was born in Melbourne on 25 December 1944. Since the death of his wife, Lyndal Moor, five years ago, he has lived alone at ‘Greystoke’, an 1898 terrace in the Sydney suburb of Redfern.His books include a best-selling memoir My Name is Ross: An Alcoholic’s Journey, and its sequel Fifty Years Sober. And in 2024 he published a major work of fiction, The Ascent of Everest. Professor Fitzgerald has co-authored, with …
“Journalist Spotlight | Interview with Professor Ross Fitzgerald AM, Freelance Writer.”
by Darla Tejada
Medianet, 19 December, 2024.
Professor Ross Fitzgerald was born in Melbourne, Australia on 25 December 1944. Since the death of his wife, Lyndal Moor, five years ago, he has lived alone at ‘Greystoke’, an 1898 terrace in the Sydney suburb of Redfern.
His books include a best-selling memoir My Name is Ross: An Alcoholic’s Journey, and its sequel Fifty Years Sober. And in 2024 he published a major work of fiction, The Ascent of Everest.
Professor Fitzgerald has co-authored, with Ian …
50 years ago today, my final year Politics student & fellow cricketer at the University of NSW, Jonnie Sheens and I, were in Mozambique when the revolution was in full sway.We seemed to be the only Europeans driving into the troubles.Coming from Swaziland (where we had won a motza at the casino) we were stopped at the border by armed and angry Frelimo fighters.Jonnie’s response, “We are friends of Gough Whitlam!.” was greeted with puzzlement.On the way in to Mozambique , we saw squads of Portuguese families fleeing what is …
“Alcoholism is an illness that can take your life before it kills you.”
Professor Ross Fitzgerald AM
Author of FIFTY YEARS SOBER: An Alcoholic’s Journey
(Hybrid Publishing :Melbourne Australia)
Coauthor with Neal Price of MY LAST DRINK: 32 Stories of recovering alcoholics
(Connor Court: Brisbane Australia)
Both books are available online from Amason etc
Have a peaceful, productive, and sober New Year.
Ross Fitzgerald <r.fitzgerald@griffith.edu.au>
Some books to buy for Christmas 2024 and New Year 2025 – in print and online
Ross Fitzgerald’s latest books published by Hybrid in Melbourne and available online, are a memoir Fifty Years Sober: An Alcoholic’s Journey and the Grafton Everest adventures The Ascent of Everest, in which American president Donald Thump and Russia’s Vladimir Putrid are both assassinated
The Ascent of Everest is a boxed set of four coauthored Australian political satires comprising Going Out Backwards, The Dizzying Heights The Lowest Depths and Pandemonium.
All these adventures of the corpulent, teetotal Dr …
The inhumane treatment of inmates at the Alexander Maconochie Centre prison in Canberra
by PROFESSOR ROSS FITZGERALD AM
So far, the only media outlets courageous enough to publish my revelations about the inhumane treatment of inmates at the odious Alexander Maconochie Centre prison have been Canberra’s CityNews and John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations website.
Prof Ross Fitzgerald.
On 22 October 2024, I finally received a response on behalf of Richard Glenn, Director-General ACT Justice and Community Safety Directorate.
This followed my September 25 email in which I directed a number of questions to the then ACT Minister for Corrections and Justice …
THE LAST POST MAGAZINE REMEMBRANCE DAY ISSUE – John Olsen feature.
Since in its inception in 2011, The Last Post has been Australia’s number one print and online national veterans magazine.
John Olsen: A Gift to the Nation.by Professor Ross Fitzgerald AMMy dear friend, the great Australian painter John Olsen was, at 77, the oldest artist to win the Archibald Prize.
In 2019, over a long lunch at Catalina restaurant in Rose Bay facing the Sydney Harbour, I was with John and Barry Humphries when they yarned about what might happen to John’s …
ROSS FITZGERALD
In last Saturday’s state election, the Liberal National Party of Queensland has decisively ended the ALP’s nine year run in office.
This means that, in Queensland’s one-house parliament, LNP leader, the MLA for Broadwater on the Gold Coast, David Chrisafulli will be able to form government with a workable majority.
As readers of Pearls & Irritations may remember, on 21 October I predicted an anti-Labor swing in Queensland of up to 10%.
But the Queensland-wide swing of 7.3% is misleading.
The reason that there wasn’t an utter ALP wipe out was that, by …
Clean slate for prison reform in the ACTBy Andrew FraserOct 30, 2024
The Canberra community decided on 19 October to remove from its parliament the two most recent ministers for corrections, Mick Gentleman (Labor) and Emma Davidson (Green).
In mid-2023, Minister Gentleman chose not to act on the findings of the second and final report of Neil McAllister, the then independent inspector of correctional services.
Instead, Gentleman went on the attack, suggesting not only that the report was wrong in its conclusion that ACT prison conditions were deteriorating but claiming also that there …
