David Williamson hasn’t yet said how much money he has or how much he has given to other playwrights in the last forty years. The first sum I suspect is over eight million dollars, or, if you count his real estate and shares and money in trust for his children, over thirteen million dollars; the second under two hundred dollars, if you exclude shouts at the bar.
He will say this is none of our business but the money given to ex-premiers seems to be our business this morning and it can be argued that he is as big a public figure, with past earnings out of the public purse, as they.
The question remains of the hundred and four plays better than his best; or, taken at a slow count, the ninety-five. What compensation for their neglected genius do we, or David, owe them? Especially when we consider the plays they could not afford to write while David and his campaign manager Kristin were hogging the limelight these last thirty-eight years. How much do we owe them?
Or shouldn’t the question be raised? Shouldn’t we simply agree that the free market rules and if the free market wants Relaxed And Comfortable, that’s what it should get?
The trouble is that it wasn’t a free market, but the Socialised Arts Industry, that gave David a majority of his money, probably, through the MTC, the ATC, the STC, the QTC, the AFC, the NSWFC, the NSWFTO, the QFC, FilmVic and so on, and the question must arise, in the current Age of Transparency, of how much was that? And how much should he give back? And how much did he give back? And how much will he?
It cannot be said to be a trivial question. Many ruined or underfunded careers are at the heart of it, keen for an answer.
I invite him to use this space for his reply.
It would be good if he did some paragraphing.
Name:
What’s your net worth Bob ?
I’m two hundred thousand dollars in debt on a Palm Beach house worth, maybe 1.5 million, after selling, last June, my mother’s Lismore house for three hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
Have two old Volvos worth, maybe, seven thousand dollars, a flat screen TV and a couple of thousand books. Have no superannuation. Used to co-own a theatre called The Stables. Sold it for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in 1985.
That wasn’t too hard, was it.
David next.
Thanks for the answer. Just wondering.
David ? Oh, I get it.
Bob……….let it go. You’re starting to sound scary.
Scary how?
We know now how much Alan Joyce earns. We know how much Cate Blanchett gets for a starring role in an American film. We know what Martin Amis’s dental bill was. We know what Bryce Courtney’s advance is.
What’s the difference?
I don’t think he needs to give a cent back. He’s played the game. He’s won! Good on him I say. Lucky bastard. I wouldn’t give back anything either if I was in his shoes.
Australians are such a bunch of whingers trying to cut tall poppies down because he wouldn’t share his cash with the rest of the struggling no-hopers out there. Bugger ‘em. Let ‘em starve to death I say. It cleans out the gene pool and eliminates mediocrity. You can tell that I’m a Liberal supporter can’t you? I call it tough love myself… What a bunch of cry babies these Lefties are!
Get over it Bob.
I live in Noosa and have seen Williamson alone walking the beach at dusk looking lost, self absorbed and mumbling to himself like he’s mulling some dialogue in his head. He’s probably trying to figure out the number of that good restaurant he’ll dine out tonight on - all the coin of the hapless taxpayers and Left wing idiots that fund the Yartz in this country!
You then will have no difficulty in letting all the survivors of the Christchurch earthquake go bankrupt, will you? Let them die, you reckon, of dysentery or cholera, malaria or cold. They were mediocrities obviously, evolutionary failures, and should be ‘weeded out.’
Why should you help them? Or expect anyone else to? You’re a Liberal voter.
Discuss.
Is it true you hate Gillard because old vinegar tits weaned you off the ALP speech-writing teat?
No, I’m still on it, and no, she didn’t. The reason for it is in Suddenly, Last Winter. Buy it and read it closely. It’s in the first forty pages, and unmistakeable. I still write for seven politicians, five of whom pay me, and the semi-politician Kamahl.
If I was as corrupt as you imply, I’d be working for Tony Abbott and making a fortune. You would normally owe me two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for what you just said, by the way, but, sheesh, silly me, I never sue.
Silly me.
What a grub you seem to be altogether.
Discuss.
Bluster from the king of libellous doggerel.
The gift that keeps on giving.
Fuck you,Chowdah, you are off this page forever.
So let it be written. So let it be done.
Is it true that you allow yourself to be prostituted out by those that despise you?
“Sinc, Sinc……you really do love us……..don’t you?”
Ha ha! That’s the spirit!
AbuObamaMuttonhead,
Answer me this: why do you trade so unashamedly in hypocrisy?
Why won’t you entertain ANY dissenting views at your unctuous little clubhouse?
Is it moral cowardice?
Intellectual poverty?
Political ignorance?
Name it.
What the bloody hell are you talking about? The Cat is free for anyone to post at. Knock your self out.
“free for anyone to post at”?!?!
haaaa
aah
aah
ah
Just as I suspected.
All three!!
You know they despise you, don’t you?
I mean “Sinc” and Co.
You are aware that they see you Catallaxy fodder as simply prostrate Fools and lickspittles, right?
Sinc? Congratulations on your ventriloquism!
They… They do?
Mate, thanks for the tip.
Your most welcome.
The things that I have heard!
You see AbuSycophant…in this medium you never quite know who is who…..who knows who….who betrays who….who sits in one’s company…who lunches with one’s family, wife or friend….
It’s an awful place to declare allegiances….so openly…so innocently…
Puppets on a String.
He seems a grub, J.G., and I’ll abolish him soon. He lowers the tone, like his Tea Party gurus.
Or I’ll tell my better-mannered friend Tony Abbott to fire him.
Go on, ban me. The hypocrisy is delicious.
Chop chop.
AbuBystander,
You care for some “hypocrisy”???
Ask your Puppeteer about it.
Ask him!
Summon your courage, push aside your cowardice, and ask him!
Do it!
Do it!
And then come back and tell us all about it.
I await!
To Bob and JG :
“A man does good business when he rids himself of a turd”
(King Edward I)
So Abu Chowdown may be eliminated, as the King said.
LOL
There are more things in heaven and earth, Fellatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
To JG :
Apparently some intelligent idiots can access Dr Google for quotable quotes, though what Hamlet has to do with the matter is doubtless lost in the cesspit of Abu Chowdown’s ‘mind’.
I may address some such once or twice, but once their absurdity is proven beyond a reasonable doubt I will not further engage. To follow my own advice, I will not argue with idiots.
Pissing on a corpse is not flavour of the month right now, but when it comes to one’s real enemies it is quite satisfying to the animal mind in all of us.
Monsters from the Id, anyone?
It seems the turd has been eliminated.
LOL
By all means piss Doug!
Relieve yourself!
Empty each and every orifice!
Ellis waited too long.
I would call in Rocinante and Sancho Panza to assist as well, but I fear the late unlamented Abu Ghraib(?) would enjoy it too much.
Doug, just a quick aside.
My comment to you on the Young article on the Drum was cut in two.
As buttress to my point I called forth our Unctuous Bystander here as witness to the absurdity and horror borne of things other than religion.
The mods thought that my mention of it, discrete as it was, not fitting.
The frequency of such arbitrary culls or deformities is extremely upsetting.
Irony of ironies! The advocate of censorship mourns his pearls cast down the memory hole.
What a twat you are.
You still here Bystander?!?!?!?
Have you found the courage to ask your beloved “Sinc” why he doesn’t allow for ANY dissenting views???
No….of course you haven’t.
Ellis - bury this maggot now!
Or I will.
You haven’t even the brains to be embarrassed by your hypocrisy.
You see it as hypocrisy because you haven’t asked Sinc.
Fool.
But how could you ever know?
It’s not as if the lickspittles are told anything.
Is it?
Just fodder.
If Ellis doesn’t clear your shredded ass off this forum by the weekend remind me to tell you a quick story.
You’ll find it…revelatory.
Maggot.
I await.
To JG
The Drum probably banned him/it years ago.
It says much for Bob’s patience and willingness to allow free speech that he/it was tolerated for so long. Enough is enough.
As for things other than religion causing absurdity and horror, no doubt there are many; and some may be almost as culpable. I suppose that it is not really religion to blame, but the propensity of human beings to create God in their own image.
If religion did not exist, some other absurdity would be called into service, and our monsters from the Id would still run free.
Well said!
Ah Bob Ellis!
whether this was by design or default matters not……it is a glorious outcome!
A Fool time stamped AND mute!!!
Haha
Haaaa
H
Haha
Aaaaaahhh
you have delivered the perfect coup de grace to this unctuous troll!
and have saved me a phone call.
drinks on me!!
7 sharp.
I tried to get rid of this last one but the computer won’t let me.
“little war woody”???
No, no, no…….maggot…..it be a Sequoia……and you on the end of it!
Hahah
Ah
Aa
Ha
H
H
Haa
There is much buffoonery in you yet Maggot
Yes, there is much more…but “Maggot” seems appropriate for right now.
Oh, your cowardice, your effeminacy….still exude, rank and absolute.
Well done Sinc….your fondlings quiver….
Dull Moppets All!
No, there he goes. No more Chowdah.
What an enemy of democracy.
Thank you Bob Ellis - you took too long, you do realise that don’t you?
Clear off his other pseudonym “ObamaChavez” to complete the task.
Again, well done.
Now, where were we……?
Wassail!