Getting a little bit personal

I don’t like to get overly personal in this column because I’m almost certain you don’t care what I had for breakfast yesterday or what colour underwear I’m wearing today.

I don’t like to get overly personal in this column because I’m almost certain you don’t care what I had for breakfast yesterday or what colour underwear I’m wearing today.

However, last week an elderly gentleman stopped me in the supermarket and went about stroking my ego in relation to my other job, which is Editor of The Western Weekender newspaper in Penrith.

Despite his love for the paper, he said he wanted to find out ‘a little more’ about me – who I am, where I’ve come from and where I’m heading.

I wrote a column in the paper on Friday answering his call and I thought I would so the same today – just to give you a bit of an insight into the bloke who puts this whole thing together.

So, here we go.

I like true crime documentaries, musicals, rugby league, daggy television shows (ALF and Frasier come to mind), talkback radio, the cold of winter, long road trips and good (and bad) white wine.

I don’t like flying, reality television, red wine, losing at anything, the ‘Harry Potter’ movies, music without meaning (you know, the type of stuff that gives you a headache), tomatoes and the use of voice recognition systems used for the simplest of things like ordering a pizza.

Some say I can be rude – so much so that my girlfriend thanks drive through operators from the passenger seat because “I’m not nice enough”.

I’m passionate about many things including news and current affairs, sport, friends and family and ‘real’ people who live in the heartland suburbs.

However, I am probably passionate about nothing more than work. I love the newspaper and am passionate about it, and I love this website – in fact, this site has been so important to me over a long period of time and it has been a huge part of my life.

Recently I committed to staying on through 2010 and the new design here at the site has really thrust me back into the ‘theatrical mood’, combined with some really good shows of late including Tim Draxl’s superb cabaret work recently.

The theatre industry has given me some of the best friends I will ever have, some of my life’s most memorable moments and has opened to my eyes to something I never thought existed.

If you told an 18-year-old pimply faced kid that he would one day be editing a site such as this, he would have told you that you were crazy.

This industry means so much more than what is on stage. It is so much more than the drama and the controversy. It is a way of life, and I am thrilled to be part of it.