Richard Watts
@richardthewatts
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Arts journo. 3RRR broadcaster. Hibernophile. Antifascist. Godless sodomite (versatile). Pink Magpies/Collingwood Pride founder. On Wurundjeri Country. OAM.
Melbourne, Australia
Joined July 2010
Six hours now. Six bloody hours queued up to get a bloody PCR test. Kill me now.
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‘The nine-year political attack on the arts and entertainment sector is now over. The neglect, the contempt and the sabotage of the previous government has ended,’ said our new Minister for the Arts @Tony_Burke MP.
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It’s not just Peter Stefanovic but everyone associated with Sky News Australia who should be apologising: producers, researchers, crew, everyone. What a low dog act you pathetic bastards.
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If you'd like to ask the Herald Sun news desk in Melbourne if they plan to crucify Scott Morrison for fleeing the country in a national crisis in the same way they pilloried former Christine Nixon for going out to dinner on Black Saturday, the news desk's line is (03) 9292 1226.
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I can't help noticing that the identities & cultural background of the two people who slipped through Sydney quarantine into Victoria hasn't been splashed all over the media, unlike some other cases. I wonder if that's because they're rich & white?.
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New Zealand have announced an NZ $175 million package to support the arts and creative sector. This is what leadership looks like @ScottMorrisonMP.
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Just had my second AZ shot at the beautiful Royal Exhibition Building. Knowing this was also where people were treated in the 1918-20 influenza pandemic gives this whole experience a lovely, historic synergy.
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Things I did not expect to happen today: choking up on air and almost crying at the start of my radio show as I started reading out the names of some of the many arts venues reopening in the coming days and weeks in Melbourne.
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Hey @abcnews why are you describing the arrival of a Vietnamese boat full of refugees as ‘illegal’? It’s not illegal to seek asylum.
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This latest Melbourne lockdown will be devastating for artists of all stripes who had shows booked for tonight onwards. If you have tickets for a show over the next 7 days, please consider donating the money rather than asking for a refund if you're in the position to do so.
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So @OperaAustralia posted a $5.6 million profit for 2018 but have stood down their orchestra without paying them whereas tiny @griffintheatre has committed to paying casual FOH staff while closed. The ethical difference is staggering. For shame Opera Australia!.
Members of the orchestra of @OperaAustralia performed with their instruments outside the offices of Opera Australia today to call on the company to reconsider its decision to stand down musicians without pay. #MEAASOMA #COVID2019AU
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I can hear the ecstatic crowd of Swifties from the MCG here at my flat in Fitzroy - here’s a toast to sheer unadulterated joy!.
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Big shout out to all the straight allies who've helped us queers make it through the last few toxic months. We couldn't have done it without you. #marriageequality #AlmostThere.
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So this just happened. .
Congratulations to @richardthewatts for winning the Facilitator's Prize at the Sidney Myer Awards. Full list of winners:
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@anne_src @chrisriddell50 @neilhimself I adore this book. And I’m very fond of this particular inscription:
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So apparently I can have letters after my name now? .
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Anyone else feeling slightly freaked out at the idea of visiting people and socialising again? After 267 cumulative days in lockdown to date, I think I've become slightly institutionalised. .
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Just burst into tears talking to the receptionist at my mum's GP while explaining that I need a support letter so I can apply for a travel exemption to enter the ACT on compassionate grounds. how's your day going?.
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Dear @abcnews given that you have a nightly sports bulletin that we sports-loathers sit through quietly, any chance of a nightly arts bulletin as well please, celebrating our nation’s culture equally?.
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Hugely honoured to be presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the @GreenRoomAwards tonight alongside the legendary @RZMaza. Much love and thanks to all the Melbourne performing arts community. #greenroomawards.
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This Thursday, after fire, devastation & heartbreak & a long campaign to raise the necessary funds to rebuild, our beloved @LaMamaTheatre officially reopens. As Chair, I’m so proud: especially of our amazing staff & their Herculean efforts. Thanks all who contributed. x.
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I'm one of these 21,997 new cases: got my positive result just before midnight last night. Luckily my case seems pretty mild. Thanks to the team at St Vincent's Hospital for processing tests so promptly despite them being absolutely hammered.
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Dear Melbourne: take heart: we have a government that listens to scientists and medical experts and their modelling. We will get through this - especially if we lean on each other when we need to for support. Stay strong. Stay safe. Wear masks. Wash your hands. Love, Richard. xx.
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@MoiraDeemingMP @VictoriaPolice Funny you’re only saying this now, not hours ago when it happened - like, when there was an actual microphone right there waiting for you to speak into it.
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I helped Mum move into a nursing home today. Even though it’s what she wanted - she made the decision to move into care; she even chose the nursing home itself - I still feel like a dreadful son at the moment. #fuckAlzheimers.
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Eight hours and 15 mins after I started queuing to get tested for COVID, I finally got swabbed. And now to isolate and wait for results. The system is so overwhelmed - I feel so sorry for the St Vincent’s staff, and also for security who bore the brunt of many people’s ire today.
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This seems like an appropriate thing to turn up in the mail a year to the day since I interviewed @neilhimself for @MelbWritersFest.
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I’ve been volunteering at @3RRRFM since 1993, regularly since 1997, and presenting #SmartArts as a volunteer broadcaster since 2004. I refuse to let a pandemic stop me from talking about art and culture on the radio. Mask, sanitiser, social distancing, travel permit, go!.
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Hey @PeterDutton_MP how does it feel to have not only failed at having the numbers for a tilt at PM but losing a safe Liberal seat as a consequence of your buffoonery? #Wentworthvoted.
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How good’s waking up in an Australia where @ScottMorrisonMP has lost the election and his pigheadedness and hubris has seen his own party gutted?!.
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Had my first session with a psych yesterday re my ongoing depression/anxiety after waiting months for an appt, and feel so much bloody happier/calmer today. There's definitely something to be said for taking proactive steps towards managing one's mental health! Also, fuck stigma!.
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New Zealand-born, Australian adopted comedian Cal Wilson was one of the kindest and most genuine people in comedy, and will be much missed.
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While cinemas and theatres will remain closed in Victoria for the time being, I'm advised by a gallerist friend that commercial galleries are now classified as retail businesses and so will be able to reopen on Wednesday along with bookshops etc. Time to go look at art again!.
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@angijones The Nazis are there to support you and your ideology. What does that say about you?.
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The pleasant fact that @cporterwa will never be Prime Minister now, that his career will always be permanently tainted, is outweighed by the fact that a woman is dead, and that there are thousands of privileged pricks just like him waiting in the wings.
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Tomorrow will be the 15th anniversary edition of my weekly program #SmartArts on @3RRRFM. No bells, no whistles, just business as usual: looking at a range of productions, exhibitions and political issues shaping the Melbourne arts ecology.
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I expected this news re Melbourne going back into stage three lockdown, but it's still a blow. Fuck.
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I'm going on a date shortly. It's the first date I've been on for about a decade. I've rather forgotten what one does on dates, if I'm honest. Help.
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@vanOnselenP I’m old enough to remember when journalists recused themselves from writing about their friends when they had a clear conflict of interest.
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@therealgrantmay @BrilynHollyhand Hello from Australia, where 38.9% of the population reported having no religion in the 2021 Census, up from 30.1% in 2016, and where our last mass shooting killed 3 people in 2022. You’ve had what, 190 mass shootings THIS YEAR. It’s not secularism - it’s guns, dickhead.
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A couple of months ago Melbourne had 700 new COVID cases a day. Now we're at zero for the 27th day in a row. Lockdowns work - and fuck the Tory scum who bleated that economics were more important than human lives, and that zero cases was an impossible achievement.
For the 27th day in a row Victoria has recorded no new COVID-19 cases or deaths. It means the state is on the cusp of eliminating the virus. It's a milestone many believed was impossible just 3 months ago, especially Melbourne's frontline healthcare workers. #abc730 @kirstenrobb
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Victoria’s Minister for Creative Industries, the Hon. @MartinFoleyMP today announced a new $16.8 million survival package designed to save hundreds of jobs in the state’s creative and cultural sector:
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My respect for @TamePunk has grown even more today: not only has she ruined #scottyfrommarketing's PR moment, she's highlighted the societal pressure that's constantly placed on women to smile, to be polite, to not risk offending a man no matter what sexist remarks he's made.
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How can we reframe the conversation around drag story time events and stand up to the far right? Big thanks to @PPantsdown and @tom_tanuki for speaking with me for my latest @ArtsHub piece.
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Despite being an overweight homosexual with no fashion sense, he was nonetheless a moderately successful arts journalist. #myozobituary.
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@MarkRobinsonMP As a gay man I’m sad too. Sad that Wilson Gavin was taught to hate gay culture and hate himself. You have failed him. Our society has failed him.
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@LyleShelton @AuConservatives He signed a contract agreeing to a workplace code of conduct. He then broke that code of conduct. Twice. This is not about free speech, it's about appropriate workplace behaviour.
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Tonight’s reopening of @LaMamaTheatre was magical, joyful, and a much needed celebration of community & creativity. The highlight was without doubt the Phoenix - an aerial act rising above the theatre itself & dancing in the air, evoking the theatre’s renewal. Magnificent.
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As a random aside, the fact that baby puffins are called pufflings never ceases to delight me.
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Just talked to my mum to wish her a happy birthday - her dementia is rapidly advancing - it felt like talking to someone on a raft who's slowly drifting out of earshot. I just wanted to shout "I love you," constantly. #fuckdementia.
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If you or anyone you know needs support as a result of the widespread discussion of Pell's acts of abuse, you can contact the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732), Lifeline 131 114, or beyondblue 1300 224 636.
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3 hours in the queue and counting to get a PCR test today and at least another 2 hour wait ahead of me. This is insane.
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This is going to be my last post for a week: I'm doing a digital detox and an actual detox as part of a week long residential therapy program I'm undertaking to help give me the tools required to master my anxiety and depression. See you next Sunday once I'm out!.
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@outbackandsides Given I’ve had death threats from neo-Nazis on multiple occasions, are you expecting me to present a facile ‘both sides’ argument? The fash want me dead because I’m queer. That’s their end game. So fuck the idea of ‘balanced coverage’.
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Such a powerful episode of #4Corners tonight - congratulations @Milliganreports @MaryFFallon and all involved. An honour to take part alongside some absolute legends and allies. Here’s hoping it inspires cultural change and young queers in equal measure.
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Colour me chuffed. Err, whatever colour a chuff is, that is.
Best interview in years. And so much fun! Thank you @richardthewatts and the audience!.
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Happy (and slightly nervous) to announce that I'll be hosting the @MelbWritersFest's in-conversation with @neilhimself next month at Melbourne's gorgeous #ArtDeco #CapitolTheatre. Very much looking forward to it.
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Heading home tomorrow after spending just over 3 weeks with Mum. In another few weeks she moves into a nursing home, because of her Alzheimer’s diagnosis earlier in the year. To say I feel conflicted about leaving tomorrow is an understatement.
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Imposter syndrome is so weird. Every time I’m asked to chair or facilitate a panel, I get so nervous in the lead-up to it and then afterwards I’m like “oh that’s right, I’m actually quite good at my job”. Stupid anxiety brain.
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After several months, I finally just got the call I've been waiting for from the psych whose waiting list I've been on, and have my first of 15 free mental health sessions booked in, in a couple of week's time. I'm so relieved.
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Artists around the country are reeling from the news that the Federal Government has removed them from the political agenda.
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@ScottMorrisonMP There were neo-Nazis out in force on the streets yesterday, Scott - why not come out and condemn them in the strongest possible terms?.
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“Excuse me boys,” I said to the young same-sex couple cuddling as they walked down Smith St together. “Every time I see a queer couple showing affection in public it helps heal my poofter-bashed teenaged self. So thank you for being yourselves “ They said thanks. I beamed. Scene.
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Boosted! (At four months and eight days.) Only about 10 people ahead of me at the Royal Exhibition Building and got a shot of Dollyjuice very quickly. Hurrah for medical science!.
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Anyone would think Tommy ‘Adolf’ Sewell was a police informant or something, given the number of times he’s avoided jail to date….
A Melbourne neo-Nazi leader will avoid facing trial after pleading guilty to a violent attack on a group of hikers at a Victorian state park.
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I know it’s a first world problem and probably something to do with the USA’s prissiness around ‘cuss words’ but if @Apple could arrange it so that my iphone’s autocorrect didn’t change fucking to ducking, I’d be a lot fucking happier.
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Just saw a pair of tawny frogmouths (I think) in my Fitzroy street. I saw one perched in a tree overhead; as I stopped to admire it, another swooped silently down beside it. The two birds vocalised gently then the first flew silently away. How lovely.
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Is @ScottMorrisonMP going to go down in history as the Prime Minister who allowed Australia’s internationally respected arts sector to die on his watch?
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Any chance you might be able to signal boost this discovery please, @neilhimself? I figure comic book fans will be intrigued by the news.
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To add insult to injury after @LaMamaTheatre has been defunded, I can’t even get a consoling hug from a friend because of this stupid fucking virus.
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Hey @abcnews why did you just highlight a murdered woman’s career as a sex worker and not mention the job of the other woman stabbed in the same incident?.
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Aboriginal people lived there about 120,000 years ago . longer ago than most experts believe humans walked out of Africa to begin populating the Earth.
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@tomwaterhouse If you’re trying to prove you’re grossly sexist, you’re going about it the right way.
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Oh no, the notorious fascist Avi Yemeni has blocked me on Twitter because I mentioned his history of domestic violence and chopping boards. However will I cope?.
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Three years [after a devastating fire] and $3 million later, @LaMamaTheatre has risen from the ashes and opened its new home on Faraday Street.
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Thanks to everyone who's been in touch since I tweeted yesterday about having my first ever, full-blown, curled up on the floor hyperventilating & sobbing panic attack. Not at all fun, but feel so much calmer & better today - and very much cared for & supported. Thanks again. x.
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@bhakthi An ex-boyfriend asked me to be his best man. Foolishly, I agreed. The bride’s family glared at me all night. I got drunk and flirted outrageously with the waiters at the wedding reception. It wasn’t as nightmarish as some of your other replies but fuck it was awkward!.
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@zachsilberberg I'm increasingly convinced that the Big Bad of this season is the Master of the Land of Fiction, last seen in the Second Doctor's era: so many references recently to stories, storytelling etc - but also will be delighted to be surprised and wrong.
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Thank you #abc730 for such a detailed story about the McLachlan sexual harassment claims. Such abhorrent behaviour must be stamped out in the theatre, and in every industry.
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This is the only time I’m going to say his name: Rowan Baxter was a weak prick whose sense of entitled masculinity was so fragile and poisonous that his response to his wife leaving him was to kill her and their children. What a pathetic man. My fellow men: please be better.
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Now, if we can just get rid of Scott Morrison, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro, Rodrigo Duterte and Viktor Orbán. .
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