HI, MY NAME IS MELLIPOP, LET'S BE FRIENDS FOREVER

OK, so I’m feeling like some essential point of ettiquette has been overlooked as I stampede enthusiastically into bloggerdom and spill my guts for an entire planet of uninterested punters.

So to rectify - nay, celebrate - my awkward entry into the cyber-community I thought I’d take a leaf from my 14 year old diaries and introduce myself in finest teen-style, like a plump debutante in a red taffetta dress and white court shoes.

My adolescent journals document, to an extent worthy of a PhD in Social Anthropology, eveything I ever liked or loathed through my tortured teendom. Hence, seemingly important at the time, we have a list of My Favourite Cricket Players - a tough battle between 13 of Australia’s finest and a token Pom in the form of Darren Gough.

Then there was the all-important Favourite Football Players list (that’s NRL you crazy freakin’ West Australians), featuring - count them - 27 players all vying for the coveted top spot in the fickle hierarchy of my teen-esteem. From lists of names I liked, boys I loved and girls I hated, my diaries testify to the ever-changing landscape of my internal world, and what a crazy darn place it was (is?) to be, let me tell you.

So it is in that spirit that I present to you two of these revealing lists. The first, a selection from an entry dated 1st May 1991, the second completed this day in 2004 (without irony). The real Mellipop falls somewhere in the 15 years between.

May 1991

Fave colour – Black (universal symbol of teenage angst)
Fave band – Guns n Roses (the rebel aka bitch years)
Fave singer – Madonna
Fave guy – Slash from GnR
Fave food – Mexican
Fave show – The Simpsons
Fave magazine – Dolly (duh!)
Fave book – Flowers in the Attic – Virginia Andrews
Fave phrase – “Sad case”
Fave subject – Maths (closet geek)
Favourite planet (?) – Jupiter (must have been the planet I spent all my teenage years on)
Fave movie – Home Alone
Worst person alive – Vanilla Ice
Most photogenic – Bruce Samazan (ha ha ask your older sister)

September 2004

Fave colour – Orange
Fave band – Pavement
Fave singer – Eva Cassidy/Deva Premal
Fave guy – Dr Phil
Fave Food – Sunday Yum Cha
Fave show – The Office
Fave magazine – Adbusters
Fave book – Lonesome Dove – Larry McMurtry
Fave phrase – Anything that substitutes “freakin” instead of “fuck”
Fave subject – Woo woo
Favourite planet – Haven’t given it much thought of late, to be honest
Fave movie – The Breakfast Club
Worst person alive – I dunno, Bruce Samazan?
Most photogenic – Whatever…I’ll go Bruce Samazan again…

Ha ha, I love how in the course of 15 years, my "Fave Guy" makes the quantum leap from Slash to Dr Phil. I'm sure that Phil would be flattered... As to Slash's response, I'm sure he's probably OD'd by now anyway...

Some things, however, never change. From a journal entry dated in 1991, at the top of a list entitled “Mel hates”, the very first cab off the rank reads “People without opinions”. God bless my big, ever-tactless mouth….

P.S. For the trainspotter, circa 1990 (age 14) my Number 1 cricket player at the time was Ian Healy and fave footy player was Laurie “Kelpie Eyes” Daley.

P.P.S. Holy shit...I sure went out on a limb with all those Bruce Samazan jokes… What if I’m the only person who actually remembers who he is? I'll be damned if my pop culture references are gonna go begging for cheap laughs because Australia forgets the heroes that make this country great. I'm gonna darn well do something about this!

SOON TO COME:
“From E-Street to Begging-in-the-Street: The Bruce Samazan Story”
A retrospective tribute to the brilliant career of one of the finest Aussie soap stars never to crack the UK Christmas pantomime scene, exclusive to Mellipop. Dear readers, I am dead serious about this. Keep posted.