None of this ...

Uhr, thanks Gail,  thanks The Verandah for hosting, & thanks Dan/Formosa Hut for publishing the poem i'd like to read tonight

First, acknowledgement to the Bunjalung,  I pay my respects to elders past & present.  First Nations people were (a) here first (b) fucked over by Colonialism/Organized Religion … but have somehow endured to tell the tale of resistance against the system.  We need that spirit now more than ever - thank you for keeping the stick smouldering ...

Then of course, big thank you to you, the audience, for making this a live event!

Uhmm, just before i start, i also want to quickly thank the tables & chairs here tonight.  You guys do your job 24/7 on the frontline, & the bottom-line, but rarely get the attention you deserve. 

Chairs provide great support for our buttocks when we need them, while tables are bloody useful for putting food & drinks on, elbows, u-name it.  Never a word of complaint.  In these times of crisis, you, the furniture, are the unsung heroes gathered with us tonight …  We see you, we feel you …

& i  want to send a special thank you to Bat Lady (Shi Zheng-li) & Bat Man (Peter Daszak) & the rest of the Bat Pack scientists for cooking up Covid in the Bat Lab @ Wuhan Institute of Virology. Then cooking up the bullshit-story to cover it up.  Including great Aussie input from our own Pangolin Boy (Eddie Holmes).   Without your creative vision,  i never would have realized that, when it came to the crunch: THE Science was as corrupt-a-Global-Org as THE Church or SportsBet.  So thank you so much for that revelation …

Finally, I want to give a massive shout-out to THE Universe for existing!  Ahr, there’s a lot of hard work went into making the universe.  Everyone talks about the Big-Bang, but there’s all that pre-bang existence, or non-existence, black-holes, alternative universes, getting those non-sentient elements to align right for biological life to form on earth...

It’s that behind the scenes stuff that most of us never see. We take it for granted. But without the Universe, none of this here tonight would have been possible … So Thank-you Universe(s)!  You’re fucking awesome!

Thank you