Perth Voice Interactive

A CABARET performer whose act involves graphic piercings of his body says he shouldn’t be linked to self-harm.

Damien Kenny’s recent performance at the Fringe festival cabaret El Bizarro had the Voice’s reviewer scrambling out of the front-row to the safety of the back seasts, and caused her companion to faint, prompting her to question whether it was really just too gory (“Too far?”, Voice, March 3, 2018).

But Kenny says he mostly found Perth audiences very responsive to the heightened drama of his live performance, while in New York’s famous Slipper Room where he performs, it barely raises an eyebrow.

Pondering whether Perth’s isolation may leave some in the audience a bit more sensitive to performances that take them out of their comfort zone, Kenny says his show is far safer than MMA fighting or boxing.

“My performance will never result in brain injury, sudden injury or death,” the former boxer told the Voice.

“In terms of my recovery … well, no MMA fighter can fight night after night, but I have done 26 shows in a row.”

A decorated navy veteran, WA-born Kenny says he started body piercing in the 1990s, starting with baby steps before working up to his current performance.

“No one is performing body piercing in the artistic way that I am doing it,” he says.

“It is a traditional sideshow act, but no one was creating art out of it.”

He says his mime, accompanied by music from artists like Nick Cave, is similar to ballet in that the audience can enjoy the spectacle without necessarily understanding the story on which the piece hangs.

But he notes it bares no resemblance to self-harm and has never received feedback that his performance has led to anyone hurting themselves.

In fact, he says many former intravenous drug addicts have approached him after the show to say that it was a cathartic experience.

“I liken it to a Vietnam veteran returning to the country to clean away the trauma,” says Kenny.

by STEVE GRANT

A FORMER Perth council employee sacked four years ago has pleaded guilty to corruption and bribery, following a bizarre saga that included his arrest in a Canberra brothel.

Brett Edward Kenny (now called Brett Edward Peters) pleaded guilty on March 13 to “one count of acting corruptly in the performance of his duties as a public officer; one count of seeking a financial bribe in return for providing work; and one count of providing false or misleading evidence to a CCC examination.”

His job was to organise contracts for maintenance work at council house. He was also able to approve for maintenance services up to $5000.

Corruption charge

The Crime and Corruption Commission found that he awarded $350,000 worth of work to Harms Electrical Contractors in return for bribes.

The work should have first been offered to other electrical contractors.

HEC director Hervey Harms had previously pleaded guilty to a corruption charge “by aiding Mr Kenny to gain a benefit for himself and Mr Kenny”.

The CCC also found Mr Kenny had tried to bribe Shane Ross, an apprentice electrician employed by HEC. The plan was Mr Kenny would approve invoices for $5000 per month to be paid to Mr Ross, and in return he’d get a $1000 kickback. Mr Ross instead turned him down; then turned him in.

The CCC launched its investigation in 2013, leading to charges being laid in 2015. Mr Kenny left the state and changed his name, and was eventually arrested in October 2016 at “Sexy Honey’s” brothel in Canberra and extradited back to WA.

Mr Kenny’s trial in the Perth district court was due to start Tuesday but he pleaded guilty and he and Mr Harms will now be sentenced March 27.

by DAVID BELL

SOMEONE’S playing silly buggers with the Wi-Fi names down near the police building at Curtin House on Beaufort Street.

Regular Voice correspondent Andrew McDonald was in the area looking for a Wi-Fi hotspot when he noticed some suspicious signal names.

The names are customisable by whoever sets up the modem, and they usually have prosaic titles like “Cafe Wifi #1”.

But Mr McDonald, who used to run the sardonic website The Worst of Perth, spotted signals “POLICE_SURVEILLANCE_VAN3” and “POLICE_SURVEILLANCE_VAN4”, which would surely spook any crook from going online.

He says he tried some obvious password combinations like “Ben_cousins123” but had no luck signing in. We got in touch with the WA police media unit to ask if their officers could really be so blatant with their secret signals. Rest easy, they’re more subtle than that.

“None of the below Wi-Fi names belong to or have anything to do with police,” police media’s Susan Usher tells us.

Mr McDonald suggests if they are on the hunt for undercover names they could go with something like “Generic_Pizza_Van_4” to throw off the crims.

by DAVID BELL

THERE’S barely a mention on the web of how “CET (Dick) Lucas Park” in Bayswater got its name, or who it was intended to honour.

To get to the bottom of the moniker the chook tracked down Mr Lucas’ son, who turned out to be City of Swan mayor Dave Lucas. He was happy to share the tale.

“Yes, the park is named after my late father Cecil Edwin Thomas Lucas, known to everyone as Dick.”

He was awarded the Service Medal of The Order of St John and the British Empire Medal for his long service to St John Ambulance.

Saving lives

The elder Lucas was involved with the ambos as a youngster in Southend on Sea, and then went on to serve as a medical officer in the British Royal Navy in WW2.

He moved to WA with his wife Phyllis in the mid 1950s and joined the Australian Navy.

Mr Lucas says his father, who was called “Dick” by family and friends since he was a boy, learned the critical importance of first aid in saving lives and dedicated his life to passing on those skills.

“He fundraised for several years and convinced the City of Bayswater to gift the virgin block of land at the intersection of Collier and Crimea, the site of the current ambulance centre, to be used as a St John sub-centre.

“I remember us chopping and sawing down trees on that virgin block of land in the early 70s to get the site ready for the building. He virtually raised all the money and had the centre built with the money he raised.”

Mr Lucas says “he then taught first aid at that centre to thousands of people until his passing on January 27, 1991.

“He passed away from mesothelioma as a result of him working as the first aid officer at the blue asbestos mine in Wittenoom in the early 1960’s.”

His wife, Phyllis, was the first woman to go into the mine as his assistant.

“The day before he passed away he was awarded the City of Bayswater Citizen of the Decade for his long and distinguished service to St John and for constructing the St. John Ambulance Centre in Morley.

“After my father’s passing the City of Bayswater through the then mayor John D’Orazio decided to name the small park on the corner of the site CET (Dick) Lucas Park, as dad was known to most in the City as Mr St John.”

In 2013 a new $2.2 million expansion to the St Johns Ambulance depot was completed adjacent to the park, featuring a photograph and plaque of Cecil Dick Lucas to honour him as the founder of the inaugural centre.

by DAVID BELL

FORMER Subiaco ratepayers who were swept into the City of Perth during council amalgamations are fuming the new councillors who’d served them well have been suspended.

Anna Vanderbom from the City of Perth Western Residents Association says her members aren’t happy they’ll be represented by three state-appointed commissioners while an investigation takes place into elected members’ conduct.

Ms Vanderbom says that if unelected commissioners make a planning decision that affects them, they’ll have no recourse to vote them out.

Perth council took over parts of Crawley and Hollywood in mid-2016 and Ms Vanderborm says many residents there feared the city would just focus on the needs of businesses.

But she says they’ve been pleasantly surprised with how dedicated some councillors have been, naming Jemma Green, Reece Harley and Steve Hasluck.

“They’ve been incredibly responsive, hard working and respectful of the community,” Ms Vanderborm says.

“Reece Harley has come to our residents meetings. We must have had 20 or 30 different different issues people have raised with him over the past one and a half years, and he has approached them systematically, he’s worked through these issues for us, he’s been fabulous.

Hefty warchest

“Jemma Green’s been fabulous … Steve Hasluck has attended residents meetings. They’ve been responding to our concerns.

“When we first joined the City of Perth we were very concerned …. since then we’ve become a lot happier that residential ratepayers’ concerns are being considered.”

That optimism was dashed when it was announced three commissioners—former WA Planning Commission chair Eric Lumsden, former Perth Education City chief Gaye McMath, and ex-Rockingham council CEO Andrew Hammond—were being appointed.

In a recent speech to the WA Urban Development Institute, Mr Lumsden said one of his proudest achievements was convincing the Barnett government to introduce Development Assessment Panels, because councillors “play games on planning decisions”. The DAPs instead have three state-appointed members and two councillors to make decisions on big planning projects.

Ms Vanderbom says they’re a little worried as they view the DAPs as being very pro-developer, and if the commissioners make a planning decision that affects them they’ll have no recourse to vote them out.

The three commissioners will decide whether councillors will get paid during their suspension.

Ms Vanderbom says those who haven’t been found to have done anything wrong should still be paid.

She says there’s a perception the wealthier councillors are more representative of the big end of town and should there be a new election down the line they’ll have a hefty warchest to run a re-election campaign.

She’s worried that the less affluent councillors, which she feel represents her residents, will face a financial Matterhorn if they have to run again.

by DAVID BELL

MAKING an independent feature film is not easy.

Most low-budget filmmakers have to call in favours from a mate or two, or in director Peter Renzullo’s case—a few hundred.

Mr Renzullo is shooting Anticipation in Perth and is looking for a horde of extras for a crowd scene at the Civic Hotel in Inglewood on March 23.

“The Civic holds 500,” he says.

“We’re not expecting anywhere near those numbers, but it would be great to get as many people as we can.

“There will be a number of local hip-hop artists performing on the night, so there’s entertainment as well as getting the chance to be an extra in the film.”

Anticipation is about Lenny (Glenn Herbert), a solo artist who’s determined to overcome his crippling social anxiety and make a living from playing music.

Along the way he is supported by his sister Hayley (Kate Lloyd).

“We are a very small team,” says Mr Renzullo, who wrote the film and is also its director, cinematographer, editor and composer.

“I couldn’t do it without the support of the amazing talent in front of the camera.

“I couldn’t thank them enough for helping me to bring this story to life.”

Mr Renzullo hopes to have Anticipation finished by the end of the year, in time for the 2019 film festival circuit.

by MATTHEW EELES

• This vacant block has been transformed into a garden of “useful weeds”.

A ROSE by any other name would smell as sweet, wrote Shakespeare, but could a field of weeds be a beautiful garden?

A group of Perth artists have transformed a cruddy old vacant block in central Fremantle into an ordered garden of weeds to challenge perceptions of worth and draw parallels to displaced people in the community.

Lead artist and DADAA creative producer Chris Williams says Field of the Unwanted was inspired by a wheat field grown in central New York in the 1980s by artist and environmentalist Agnes Denes.

Milk weed

“There was a beautiful notion of seeing a piece of land transformed within an urban area,” he says.

“And we came across this site in Fremantle that was just full of weeds. Somebody said, ‘weeds are just plants that grow where they’re not wanted’ and then someone else said they felt like a bit of a weed, unwanted and displaced. That was the start point for this project. I suppose we are playing with a bit of a metaphor.”

The project is a collaboration between International Art Space’s Know Thy Neighbour, and DADAA’s Green Brigade, with artists responding to and engaging with the urban setting of Fremantle.

“This garden is a reconsideration,” says Williams.

“I want to put forward a question about the value of things.”

The garden’s central location at 8 Queen Victoria St leads to lots of conversations as people pass by.

“Most of them are really positive, but there are some people who have gone; ‘Why are you doing that? You could be growing veggies’,” says Mr Williams. “I do think if we had of done a field full of flowers, because they are aesthetic and pretty there would have never been a question asked at all. We are just growing something that is. The idea is to get people to take a second look, to not assume. It’s about not being so quick to jump.”

Many of the weeds are edible or have medicinal uses.

“There’s blackberry nightshade, those berries are edible, and purslane, that’s great for salads and dips, it’s from the succulent family, really mild in taste,” says Mr Williams.

He reckons fleabane can be used as insecticide, prickly cabbage can be eaten, and milk weed might cure skin cancer and skin lesions.

“Lots of women have been using it for years for sun spots. We’ve also got fennel, amaranth, red clover, dandelion, chickweed. Lots of weeds have really high vitamin content.”

But, not all the weeds are useful.

“Some have absolutely no use,” says Mr Williams. “We tend to them all one and the same.”

In line with the garden’s deeper meaning, many homeless or displaced community members have come to get involved.

by MOLLY SCHMIDT