Heart and Seoul

A cautionary tale from the land of video games and fucked-up violence, from our man in Seoul, The Bee:

This is not a tale for everyone so if you don't enjoy blood and violence better to stop here. This is a story that i recently witnessed all too closely that sheds light on a darker side of korea.but hey,we're not perfect either.Not too long ago i was casually sampling a few sherberts at the local candy shop (aka a bar). sundown.nearing the end of the tastings a few disgruntled korean customers, one 30 something man and two similary aged and average looking women started a minor raucus when they steadfastly challenged the owner, a near eldery woman, that they were overcharged on the bill. the owner promptly double checked and reiterated that the bill was correct.stalemate.story should have ended there but this trio refused to back down or go away.they held their ground and voices began to roar. one of the girls was particularly vocal,noticeably inspired with dutch courage.the guy was equally stubborn but more controlled in his speech and of far fewer words.standoff.within minutes, any remaining chance of peace morphed into a ugly hardcore verbal wrestling match, without the script.the "ugly" korean woman was particularly abusive in her verbal attack on the older lady in a way which makes shane warne look like a perfect gentleman.while i don't understand the language i can read vocal volume, spitting and pointing - kinda like a john mcenroe outburst without the tennis racquet. lowdown.enter the young cook, a slight and slightly hunchbacked korean, nobly left the kitchen to bolster the home team.the 2 boys went outside.showdown.the next thing i saw was the cook stumbling back inside with a hole in his head the size of a golf ball and a trail of blood flowing from his temple at a worrying pace.a sickening sight,ostensibly the product of a glass bottle.takedown.the elderly lady voluntarily hit in the ground in an almost half faint/half statement and hysterically flapped her armed and legs about like a upturned beetle. tough to watch but she still had a element of control about her drama, and in fact i saw this same move on a tv drama several weeks later.laydown.looking at the growing pool of blood and the tears of the elderly lady set off my compadre, a 55 year a jolly,fat,white haired white bearded canadian red neck, appropriately named Santa Dave.Santa Dave had seen enough and quite liked this place.he shot a volley at the guy if he wants a war he's got one. nexts he fires at the witch "shut up." she snaps back with "i don't speak english" to which santa d gives her a free spelling lesson "B-I-T-C-H".putdown.Then he turns his attention to her male companion."look at this" gesturing at the ugliness of the scene."what's it all for?" he charged. "She overcharged me!" came back the original male antagonist."how much?"The most illuminating words spoken all night was the korean warrior's reply:"10 bucks." shakedown.Santa was in a festive mood and returned with "U f'n kiddn me - i'll give u 20 to f off right now!". "principle" came the korean reply.no backdown.Upon his offer to buy the group out from the premises being swatted down Dave promptly issued the staunch korean with one word "outside".meltdown.the most surprisingly thing was the korean dude held his ground.didn't move.despite possibly nearly killing someone, an ambulance on the way,the police probably likewise, and now he's been challenged by a man mountain of a guy who belies his 55 years.he hesistantly but not uncooly rebounds with, "this will be your grave" and made a series of phone calls with the air of a call for reinforcements. Santaty prevails on santa d and he calls the cops. calm down.ambulance arrives for the cook, a husband for our lady manager to relieve her after an enduring night and the police for the terrible trio.downtown.end of chapter but i think there's some sort of message about principle and korean culture in there.

You can't take it with you!

In lieu of the myriad draft posts I have not finished, I give you my greatest success of the week:

An ADDAMS FAMILY PB:

389,000,000 odd! All 12 mansion rooms! 3 extra balls! Tour the Mansion! 3 Replays and 6 free credits! Such success! The barman commented! And he works there! Highest Score! Grand Champion!

BEST SCORE EVAH!

All I need now is to conquer the king of Pinball: The Twilight Zone.

A vegetative state

One of my favourite little graffiti conversations is etched above the urinals at the Union Club. It warms my heart every time I read it:

"How many peas does it take to change a lightbulb?"
"None, they don't have any arms."

LAME!

Not really, it's just the way they're made

Silence is golden

The Trouble with Auntie

I'm not quite sure what the ABC is up to lately. It's the Saturday and Sunday night line-ups which have me puzzled. The old Sunday night in with Auntie is a long established tradtion in my household—well, it was when I was a kid, and it is now that I am a conservative old man. An old man who shakes his head in wonder that what on earth Mark Latham thinks he's achieving with all this bile; and the same goes for Robert Doyle and his spectacular policy launch last week; and for those New Zealandish voters; and, and I'll stop now.

The way I see it is grey-haired types stay home with a certain amount of regularity on a Saturday night. Agreed? Whereas, plenty o' people of all ages stay home on a Sunday night, what with work eating into our Mondays.

So the ABC gives us Midsomer Murders of a Saturday night. Fine. My grandmother will happily sit down with a stable-table and a boiled egg to sigh about how wonderful the old days were and reminisce about the verdant joys of a village life she's only ever dreamed of, where there was nothing untoward about two ladies co-habiting, the vicar rode a bicycle and red lipstick was considered garish (and red shoes too, for that matter). Nothing new there.

And on Sunday night, my parents, who are only just starting to grey, get all het up over New Tricks, about a quartet of grumpy old has-beens (both as actors and characters) including a feisty, muttony Alison Braithwaite, solving cases. The attraction here is that the characters in this TV show are slightly older than my olds, so they can sit there with their Sunday night boiled egg and guffaw at the old klutzes, thinking "thank christ we're not that old yet!" Nothing new there—onscreen, or off.

Recently, this has been followed by Canterbury Tales. My mother doesn't even get Canterbury Tales. "It's, like, Chaucer, mum. Surely you read this when you were at school. It was published around then." But no, it's the washing up and an early night for them after New Tricks.

The common denominator of this is that the audiences for both programs enjoy a boiled egg while they watch. They are old people. And these shows are on different fucking nights. Who on earth in the programming department deep in the bowels of Ultimo (it can't have been anything but some vogue-ish Sydney decision) decided that it would be fun to stretch the gerry programs over two nights, and follow them—each of them—with shows that younger people can relate to? Nay, can sit in front of with a pizza and still go "cool", or "phwoar!" or even just "what's this then?"at?

So, why doesn't Auntie program New Tricks to follow Midsomer Murders—that way, the boiled-eggers of this world could have a jolly good night in with a few chuckles and "I don't mind if I do have a little whisky before bed, it is Saturday night after all". While those of us with less, let me say, quintogenarian tastes, could stretch out on the couch with a nice little reefer, a vegetarian with hot salami and a cleanskin red, in front of Hustle, followed by Canterbury Tales. That way we get 2 hours of quality entertainment, each of us, on our respective nights. And never the twain shall meet.

OK, so all of this is because I was actually in on Saturday night, and caught Hustle again. And it rekindled my weak-at-the-knees crush on Jaime Murray:

Phwoar.

Out of Colac by way of Erinsborough

How awesome are Janelle and Janae Timmins, then?

Why I Love British Newspapers #13

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW, SOMETHING BORROWED,
SOMETHING BLEURRGHH

The Sun was thankful for a guerns to the stylish nuptials of Jordan and Our Peter Andre .

I want to be a part of BA, Buenos Aires' big apple

I'm going to be spending 5 days in Buenos Aires at the end of the year. At which of these hotels do you think I should stay?

• At an NH hotel?
• the Hotel Madero?
• at Hotel Bobo?
• the Four Seasons perhaps?
• or Wallpaper's recommendation, the Faena+Universe?
• 
  
• and now, a late starter, Malabia House
  

Decisions, decisions.

Kamikaze taxi

Saturday night, eh? Ended up hitting this Japanese restaurant that I've been a-hankering for for quite a while. Well, since I read a review about a year ago, and then discovered the place the old-fashioned way—that is, by walking past it—last week. It's all stick-ey, like yakitori-yum, with heaps of different varieties, so that the squid yaki came out wrapped round in a big circle, looking like some awesome white lollypop. Yum. And there were nasu dengaku ones and oh, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. And then delicious thick white fish sashimi, and other mouth-watering pieces of tenderness. All preceded by lychee martinis and washed down with Tsing Tao. Not bad for an evening which began with a "what's up?" phone call at 7:45pm.

So the locals ended up grabbing a cab home together from outside the Metro. While we're waiting, and this dude starts talking to us. He was looking for a cab too, and talking about all sorts of shit, kinda making three-quarter sense, about how he's an engineer and is spouting off all this stuff about the energy consumption of public transport. OK, seems like a nice-enough bloke. Then he decided to that he'd hail our taxi for us, which he cocked up, and so decided we should share his ride. Him to Fitzroy, us to NM. Hmm. Brunswick street wasn't too far out of our way, and he said he'd pay. He was pretty insistent, but seemed like an alright bloke, he didn't smell, wasn't cross-eyed, so we said alright. Well, he was in the front seat, so it was hard to toss him out.

And so he's crapping on about working in the mines up in far WA, how he was two months on, two weeks off, and he did it for six years and had a girlfriend the whole time, and then he quit to spend more time with her and it broke up after three weeks. So we're thinking this guy's a bit weird, and he keep saying he wants to go to Easey Street Fitzroy, but Easey's in Collingwood. Meh. I couldn't work out if he was pissed or loved-up or what, but he kept kinda forgetting shit.

Anyway, we get to Brunswick street, and he goes "Oh shit, I'm not going to Easey Street Fitzroy, I'm going to Smith Street Richmond." "WTF?" "Sorry guys, I'll pay the whole way, I've got $20 for the fare, it's ok, we'll just keep going". Um, no we won't. So we're like "Um, driver, can you stop here please", and again with spirit, louder and sterner. And louder and sterner again, until finally Mr Taxi driver stops and we jump out and bid our fucked-up friend farewell, much to his continuing protestations.

Lesson of the week: don't share cabs with strangers.

Why I love British Newspapers

It's headlines like this one in today's Guardian:

Last gasp: French kick the Gauloise habit
Gauloises no longer to be made in France. Le pays, as the French do not say, is going to les chiens.

Gauloises, incidentally, are my favoured coffin-nail, en France.

What do these two people have in common?

The Question of Zion

If you've got a spare 15 minutes today, I highly, highly recommend reading the transcript of the interview Tony Jones conducted last night withProfessor Jacqueline Rose. Better still, watch it.

Jacqueline Rose is a British academic who works, as she said, on the borders of literature, politics and psychoanalysis. She is also a jewess. She has written a book about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and in particular the use of rhetoric in support of the Zionist cause, that is, the expansion of Israel as a 'holy' Jewish nation. I have never been able to understand the ferocity of the hatred the Israeli right has towards the dispossessed arabs upon whose soil they live. I do not deny Israel it's right to existence. However, I am appalled by the military invasion and military occupation of the West Bank (and until just a few days ago Gaza). I am appalled by the subjugation and denial of human rights to people of the these areas. I am appalled by the policy of 'targetted assassinations'. I am appalled at the double-standard that inherently lies beneath these actions—that is, it is justifiable for us appropriate your land, because you were hostile towards us; to assassinate your leaders, because they oppose us; and to do all of this because the German Nazi party and the Third Reich treated us in similarly appalling ways. Somehow, because our people were the main victims of the Holocaust, because the property and livelihoods of (some of) our ancestors were visciously torn from them, we can do this to a current generation of people who were in no way related to the fascist concentration camps of Middle Europe, and upon whom we were foisted without their consultation.

To me, this is akin to me savagely beating and robbing a passerby, because my own great-grandmother had been murdered in another city in another part of the world many years before, and I felt I had the right to protect myself incase this person, child even, had a sinister glint in their eye. This is not respecting one's neighbour, it is not doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. It is not fair, nor decent, nor justifiable. Neither is suicide bombing, mind you.

Read or watch the interview. Professor Rose is a much more eloquent exponent of my point of view.

El Presidente

The week I decide to be a Venezuelan Leftist Fanboy is the very week the US Religious Right decides to out itself as the gun-toting fascist bullyboy that its always been. I expect a few harsh words will have been thrown down the phone from the oval office this week, along the lines of that Alanis Morrissette star-vehicle You can't do that on Television. For those of you who don't know what the fuck I'm on about, a quick primer on my hero for the week, Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías:

• he's the president of Venezuela
  
• he's popular
• he's a lefty
• he's an ex-paratrooper
• a colonel, no less
  
• he's established free medicine
  
• and increased literacy,
  
• he's a good friend of Fidel's (and a friend of Fidel's...)
• HE'S DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED, and
  
• his is the fifth biggest oil producing nation in the world
• and it has the world's tallest waterfall
  

The US has already tried to unseat him twice, once covertly—by backing a coup in 2002—and once overtly—by funding a recall referendum they lost last year. All the while prattling on about representative democracy. And they have still manged to cock it up both times. And now, Mr Robertson, they can't much assassinate him because we'll all know who was to blame. HA! What's that about cutting off one's nose to spite one's face?

Somebody mention Salvador Allende?

Fuckers.

/rant

postscript: This is the article to read about Venezuela

George n Tony

Festival Finale

And so, a triumphant end to my Festival:

The Wayward Cloud

A woman returns from Paris to Taipei, with a suitcase, in the midst of a drought. The drought is so bad that people are encouraged to substitute watermelon for water. She can't open her suitcase. Upstairs, her love-interest is taking a lead role in a bunch of home made porn films. Yeah. And it's punctuated with high camp musical interludes.
An explicit Taiwanese lovestory, eh? This is one strange, strange film. It is easily the most aural film I have ever seen. With fuck-all dialogue—you never hear the lead male speak at all, and probably only get a good 40 words from the female lead (there's more dialogue between the Japanese pornographers than there is between the leads)—the emphasis is put on those everyday sounds: her constant footsteps up and down the hallway of her apartment block; the shooshing of plastic bags; a jackhammer; the gooey, crunchy sounds of chewing; of choking and swallowing; of slurpy, slappy sex; of heaving breathing, sighing and grunting; of pouring water, dripping water. So while we watch as our heroine goes about her everyday tasks, her suitor is upstairs shagging his co-star senseless, literally. Watermelons used as sex-toys, as food, as drink, as birth surrogates. And there are bodily fluids to match the sounds, there's saliva and tears and cum aplenty. And an ending that I am at a loss to explain. Just plain disturbing. Explicit and disturbing.

Le Pont des Arts

And within 15 minutes I was back in the cinema. For a pair of parallel love stories, of sorts. He on the poster is a disillusioned student with an all-too-serious serious girlfriend. She is a classical singer with an amazing voice, an arsehole conductor and a misunderstanding, well-meaning boyf. She is at the end of her tether. She can't handle it anymore. He hears her recordings and pulls his head from the oven. They fall in love. Ish, because she's dead.
Film-making by numbers this one. French film-making by numbers. The entire film was shot direct-to-camera, all speech by all characters spoken to camera, all very nouvelle vague. Our lead fills the role of Jean-Pierre Léaud, the self-substitute used by both Godard and Truffaut, very well—to the point that he looks like him. All very left-bank and outre and gauloises-smoking. And so while holding up the arts as lofty and sacred, it took the piss out of the arts, the arts being run, in this case, by a shady trio of ridiculous, aging, sugar-daddy queens sharing their aspiring art-boy 'stewards'. There was more direct-to-camera business. There was a bunch manifesto-like Godardian philosphy. There was musing and repression and very little expression. There was some humour, there was a lot of very beautiful music. I liked it. In a wanky French trying-too-hard kinda way. And it didn't end with a woman with a cock in her mouth and tears streaming down her face.

"We would have made more progress against terrorism if we had brought peace to Palestine rather than war to Iraq."

A man who had the strength of character to stand aside from his cabinet position in Tony Blair's government as a protest against the ilegal invasion of a sovereign nation, to voice his dissent publicly when so many kept their own counsel. Vale Robin Cook.

More Festival

Round two.

Ding ding

A Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji

Back to Uchida Tomu, and this time a samurai flick. A road movie even, as a samurai lord and his two retainers make their way to Tokyo to deliver a teacup. Yep, a teacup. That you only see once. Briefly. This so-called cinematic masterpiece focusses on the experience of the samurai's lancer, played by the self-same actor who emotionally portrayed the birthmarked hero in Yoshiwara: The Pleasure Quarter. We also get to watch the enthralling escapades of a bunch of people we initially met on a ferry: amongst them a travelling player and her young child—a daughter who offers one of the most enthralling interpretations of the renowned 'slave dance', accompanied by koto; a reticent old peasant farmer selling his beautiful yet innocent daughter to a slave-trader, a nasty and deceitful thief and a comedy blind priest. Brilliant!
Well, kinda. A black and white genre pic. You could almost call it a buddy movie. A samurai film without violence (wha...?) but peppered with Ben-Stiller-type eeeww jokes. It was packed full of messages: all people are equal; violence is vanity; alcohol is evil. It sure moved at a clip compared to all the flicks I'd seen previously, and the sidekick kid stole the show.

Housewarming (Traveaux)

A French comedy in the tradition of Les Fugitifs and The Dinner Game, this one concerning a beautiful, lefty, dancing lawyer, a handful of illegal imigrants and the nightmare that is renovation. Yes, a high-kicking, dancing lawyer.
It's amazing the difference in crowd at these Festy screenings. For Saraband it was all grey-haired, serious types; for the Japanese ones it's nerdy-looking fan-boys and fan-girls; for the French comedy, it was all women in coats, mittens optional. And oh, it's fun. A light-weight laugh if ever there was one—and well worth it. I was a little peeved that ony the French was subtitled—and there was a fair bit of Spanish being spoken by said Columbianos. And [spoiler] the place looked better before the renovations than it after them.

Princess Raccoon

Legend has it that if an human and a tanuki fall in love, all hell will break loose.
Now,a modern film... but a Japanese comic opera? From esteemed director Sejun Suzuki—certainly the most arty of art films I've seen recently. It's very much a stage-y film, very much an opera: most of the action takes place on a set with a rousing chorus, complete with the comic characters you would expect from an Italian opera. Starring Zhang Zi Yi, you can't really go wrong—I mean there's one of the hottest women in the world up there, even if she is heading towards over-exposure. Yet, still, it ran for too long; it was slow, slow, slow.

The Mad Fox

The third in my Uchida Tomu homage, this film was strikingly similar to the aforementioned Princess Raccoon. To the point where I'm pretty damn sure that it was the inspiration for Suzuki's enthralling 'lyrical tale'. This one is about a man falling in love with a fox—the other of Japan's two mythical, mystical shape-changing animals. The fox, however, is wicked, while the raccoon is jolly. Whatever. This 1962 technicolour number, considered Uchida Tomu's best by someone, somewhere, starts with a simple court-intrigue plot, the murder of the royal astronomer and the jockeying for succession of our hero and the Lady MacBeth-esque widow's favoured replacement. Which all ends in disaster about halfway through the film with the burning of the sets. And instead we switch to this weird-arse fox love story. Trippy weird. Too weird. Complete with rotating stages, animation, paper butterflies and fire-lighter blocks on wires, and a doll wrapped as a baby. Oh, and no sign of my friend the samurai lancer/pock-marked rural silk mogul.

So the upshot of all this Uchida Tomu business is that, frankly, the fellow rightly pales into insignificance behind legendary names like Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi. Watch Tokyo Story. You won't need to see another film ever again.

And so a rating for these four?

1. Traveaux
2. A Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji
3. Princess Raccoon
4. The Mad Fox
   

The Invasion of Iraq makes Australia a terrorism target

Can anyone seriously believe they are still trying to deny this?

20 years of Erinsborough

The documentary Annalise made? The so-called cameos? Meh. Fat Phil is still fat. And my, Terrence Donovan is looking old. They should have brought Ruth back with Phil instead. This poor imitation of a cast-member returning has been best summed up by Line of Contempt and Ausculture. So much anticipation, so little reward.

But last night: Joe Mangle, GOLD.

My Festival

Every year at this wet and chilly time, Melburnians huddle under awnings across the city, black-coated and cigarette-smoking, rubbing their eyes from the overstimulation of the visual orgy in which they have been participating. Ah, all the arty inner-city lefties climb down off their reality-TV-hating highhorses to salivate over the latest soporific gem from such esteemed names as Abbas Kiarostami, Constantine Costa-Gavras or Jia Zhang-Ke.

And so, 100 words or thereabouts on the films I have seen so far:

Saraband

A film by Ingmar Bergman. My first Bergman—about time for someone who works in the game. Taking up 30 years on from his famous SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE, the 60-ish ex-wife visits her now geriatric husband at his country home and becomes embroiled in a nasty little interation between ex-hubby and his recently-widowed son (who is the same age as his step-mother), and the hotness nordic granddaughter. In ten dialogues, each featuring only two of the characters, a nasty little set of family relationships plays out.
Man, heavy shit. In that heavy sombre Scandinavian way, replete with the hints of incest and outright hatred. The focus is squarely on the acting, and it's blowaway. Extended facial close-ups leave them nothing but the actors' expressions to tell the story through their looks and facial tics. The film is structured dramatically and feels theatrical, two players on a fairly bare stage. But what I dug was the intensity of the performances.

Yoshiwara, the Pleasure Quarter

A genre piece from a 'recently re-discovered' Japanese director, active in the 1950s and 60s. A horribly-disfigured orphan has made-good but can't snare a wife because of his hideousness. He is taken to the pleasure quarter in Edo (Tokyo), where the geisha also shun him, and so the whoremaster sends their latest endentured slave, a common street-whore dressed up, to attend him. Having no hope and no reservations, she acts tenderly towards him, winnng his love. With dollar signs in her eyes, she promises herself to him as his wife, on the proviso he can make her reach the highest level a geisha can, a grand courtesan. And so we watch as our country squire squanders his wealth and reputation on this scheming temptress, the whoremaster swindles him and his friends and backers desert him.
A melodrama indeed. Glorious in technicolour, it brings to mind films like Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind, all lurid and flambuoyant and overwrought with emotion. Except in a demure, restrained Japanese kinda way, with kimonos, palanquin chairs and funny dances involving fans. And, truth be told, it was a touch on the slow side. It is very much a film of its time, the late 1950s, and as a curiosity/retrospective piece it was pretty solid. Not an undiscovered gem, but a curio of its time.

Kissed by Winter

An uplifting Norwegian film about a woman's grief over the death of her son, all tied up in the mysterious death of an Iranian lad. Just what you'd expect from the Skandinavians—lots of snow, silence, and longing looks. And grief. Or the suspension of it rather. She moves away from her husband to the country to plunge headlong into work and avoid thinking about the death of her kid. Whose poresnce weighs heavy on this film.
This one kinda felt a bit like a telemovie, and particularly dislikeable was the actor who plays the love interest in this snow-covered rural hamlet. Well put together and well-structured, it was somehow light fare, even though its subject was grief. It didn't feel particulalry deep, as opposed Saraband, and it certainly wasn't folly, like Yoshiwara. I spose this was because the whole film concerned the mother's repression of her grief, and continuing to avoid it by focussing on the death of the refugee kid and the investigation into that. The best part was her calling her old answering machine to hear her son's message, over and over again.

Hawaii Oslo

I like films like this. I like stories told in this way (David Mitchell, my lord and master) interwoven plots, intersecting here and there, but not necessarily parallel or even echoing each other. Like some sort of ensemble piece for storylines. Five storylines in fact, each happening on a blisteringly hot day (what, about 29 degrees or something) in Oslo.
The cast were all young and pretty, as only Scandinavians can be—but that was kinda strange, hardly an old codger in sight. And this one was moderately-paced, indeed the fastest paced of the films I have seen so far. It rolled along really nicely, tying the tales together, frustrating you when you needed frustrating, rewarding you when it was required. It's one of those films by hip young things, bit of edgy camerawork here, bit of montage there, and some really great shots littered throughout. Particularly the closing shot of a bird's-eye view of Oslo at dawn.

So if I had to rank them, it'd be

1. Saraband—because I'm still thinking about it now
2. Hawaii Oslo—because it was the most audience-friendly
   
3. Yoshiwara the Pleasure Quarter —for its colour and its nature as a period-piece
   
4. Kissed by Winter—an undeserving last. Because it was still better than most films I've seen this year: Star Wars anyone?
   

What is it with me and Norwegain films this year? Must be the roots.

Language I hate #2

When I was young, I was always asked to make a choice between alternatives. Women, I learnt, sometimes found it difficult to make up their minds. When I was nearing the end of my schooling, I was told I had to MAKE a decision about my future, MAKE a decision about which courses I wanted to apply for, and if I didn't, certain decisions about my future would be MADE for me.

When the fuck did it become TAKE a decision?

I don't know when this happenend, but I'm sure it had something to do with March 2, 1996, a partially-deaf man and a room full of spin-doctors trying to create an impression of "I don't want to do this but...", of responsibility-by-dint-of-duty-alone.

Weekends, eh?

The highlights of the last three weekends, depicted pictorially:

The Grand National:

I am allergic to horses. Badly, badly, grim-reaperly allegric to horses. When I was about the age of 6 or 7, my parents went on their first holiday since being saddled with a handful of grubby, snotty-nosed little angels. We were sent away to my grandparents farm for a couple of weeks, a good 5 hours from Melbourne. This place was, and still is heaven. Even if it was burnt out almost three years ago, and then blanketed in 3 inches of snow last week. It is the place of all my childhood memories. It is the place I grew up. I don't have memories of my early years in Melbourne aside from a vague memory of red jelly in glass teacups, a flotilla of cousins and the Edna Walling garden of my other grandparents. But of butchers' paper and that big box of derwents, the aga stove and poddy lambs, that old white dodge ute, the weeping birch, the smell of lanoline and sheep sheds and woolly jumpers, ah me, I'm getting sentimental.

So the olds were away and my grandmother decided to show my brother and me the joy of horses. She put us on the last horse she ever broke in—a beautiful docile grey called MaryLegs (or was it MerryLegs?)—and led us up the driveway to the cattleramp and back, proud as punch, I'm sure. Then I started to sneeze. And sneeze again. And again. And rub my eyes. And wheeze. And go all red and puffy. And my nose ran. And my eyes ran. And I sneezed again. And breath came harder and harder. And she watched in horror, two hours drive from anything better then a six-room country hospital, fearing the worst.

Aghast with panic, she hauled me off and into the house and frantaclly ran a bath, the only solution she could think of. And so I was dunked repeatedly and vigourously, as only the rural can, to rid me of the nasty little mites that had caused the allergic reaction. Soaking, coughing, wheezing, I must have made quite a sight. After a hour or so sitting in this now tepid bath, I slowly began to return to something of my normal form. Cleansed.

To this day she still whinces in pain at the thought of that day: "I really thought I was going to have to explain to your parents that I'd killed you" she says.

I can't even feed a horse without having to vigourously scrub my hands thereafter, lest I go all allergicky again.

I love horse-racing. Luckily for me, it doesn't involve me actually touching any of the animal myself. I can even stand down-wind of one and, well, not exactly breathe the country air in deeply, but, well, I just stand down-wind of a horse. As a regular race-goer, I had never before been to a hurdles race. Never. Not once. They are not common events at most racetracks, hurdles or steeplechases, although there are certain carnivals that specialise in that sort of thing. The point being, I was desirous of attending some form of horse/jumping/ractrack event this year, a decision I made after the Autumn Carnival.

And then lo! An invitation lobbed into my mailbox, "The chairman and committee of the VRC invite skander and guest to join them at for lunch on Grand National Day, in the committee room at Flemington. Blah blah. Please ensure you arrive before 12:20 as the chairman will begin his welcome address at this time. Please also ensure your guest conforms to VRC dress standards." Or a close apporoximation of the above. What the invitation declined to make glaringly obvious was that at this luncheon was, in fact, 100%, you-beaut, fair dinkum laid on. Yep. Not a shilling would I have to shell (aside any wagers I cared to lay, of course).

We missed the speech, of course. But the buffet was something to write home about. Red fish, white fish, chicken, lamb cutlets (remember them?), fillet steak, roast beef, and salads galore. Start with a champers, red with the red meat, beer for the arvo and a quick spirit or too before heading off. Meanwhile there was a dessert buffet, with all manner o' tartes, sweetmeats (as opposed to sweetbreads) and cremes brulées, leter follwed by afternoon tea, with a whole new selection of savoury and sweet delights. A fine day was had by all, half of whom had grey hair, but the other half of us ran the gamut up from 30ish. I even knew three people there, which surprised me.

But the highlight of course was the sport. The day boasted only one jumping event, which was the Grand National pictured. And I had absolutely no luck. But that's not the pupose of a winter's day at Flemington.

The Coast:

The beach on a cold windy day. What more do I need to say? It rocks. That's Phillip Island in the distance, the place all you tourists trek to for a glimpse of our fairy penguins. A once in a lifetime experience. As in, if you've done it once, there's no reason to ever do it again.

Nike Savvas at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art:

Any Melbournian who hasn't stopped for 15 minutes at the ACCA in Sturt Street, South Melbourne: do so. Before the end of this weekend. The ACCA is that fuck-off new rust coloured building next to the Malthouse theatre. If you're driving past, or on a Number 1 tram, stop in and check this baby out. And awesome little room of whimsical digitalness which will leave you with a smile on your face and a spring in your step. Well worth it.

The Mulatto King

Care of The Independent

Prince Albert II was formally enthroned yesterday as the new ruler of the speck of gold dust on the French Mediterranean coast: His Serene Highness , Prince of Monaco, Duc de Valentinois, Duc de Mazarin, Comte de Farette, Sire de Matignon et de Marchais etc etc.

A week earlier, Albert, 47, the only son of Prince Rainier and Princess Grace, formally recognised 22-month-old Alexandre Coste, the child of Nicole Coste, a former air hostess from Togo, as his son. In an interview with French television on Monday night, he said: "I know that there are other people out there who are in more or less the same situation ... "

What? Of mothering bastards to the Monegasque throne? To the Grimaldi fortune? Or to [cue lightning and thunderclap] the Curse?

MUHAHAHAHAHAHA

Foot of Clay

A local anæsthetic and a lot of poking around with the sort of instruments one would see in David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers, and I am finally free of the irritant ingrown toenail I forged falling down the stairs last year. Hurrah! Not more periodic limping around (except for the next few days, that is)! No more visits to the podiatrist (except for the redressings, that is)!

I tend to have trouble with my feet. Most of the last round of injuries were all caused by that one late-night stair-slipping incident, where I rammed my big toe fairly and squarely, with a good 84 kilos behind it, straight into a brick wall at 3:00 in the morning sometime last September. Aside from the initial limping, and the spunky regional doctor telling me it was no use x-raying my foot as the treatment is the same for a broken toe as for a slightly injured toe, the pain disappeared quite quickly—a week or two. Since then it has resurfaced every few months in raging soreness, irritation, infection and disablement.

A few years before that, stumbling home with the flatties, like you do, we spotted a drain-grate that had been removed from the gutter due to roadworks. We all thought that looked like the world's best-ever found-object barbeque grill, and between the four of us, we hoiked the mother-fucker up and carried it a good 25 yards before the whole 7okg of cast-iron slipped from its surround and landed fair and square on the bridge of my foot. My favourite pair of motor bike boots and half a dozen stitches later, I have a lovely blueish knotted scar on the upper of my left foot, should anyone need to identify me after an earthquake or tsunami.

Le Superhéro

Cool Britannia?

Oh well, it was a matter of time really. That tube system, as wonderful and exciting and intricate and efficient as it is to one who is could be classified as a public transport anorak, it was a sitting duck.

I was in London on Septmeber the 11th, 2001. Unemployed, I had just wandered up the road to buy some tickets from the local movie theatre (Moulin Rouge, actually) when the moby buzzed with instructions to put the telly on. Not telling me why, just put it on. That not being possible I aimlessly wandered the Clapham High Street, and have particular memories of being outside the Sainsbury's when I finally found out what was going on. An aeroplane had flown into the World Trade Center. A second hadn't yet. My informant had the radio on, and was listening, agape, to the unfiltered, uncensored news.

I made my way by tube to Tottenham Court Road, I can't remember why. I had some work to do, to get some work. Everyone was thinking "London is next". Indeed, they did evacuate the city. And there I was, standing in Tottenham Court Road as it started to rain. In the shop-windows in front of me were TVs, hundreds of TVs big n small, flatscreen and bedside, all playing the same scene, of that black woman running away from the site, covered in dust.

Strange how you just randomly bump into people in foreign cuntries. There was Kooky Vegetarian Ange reflected in the same window, peering at the same sights as me. "Haven't seen you for a fair while—still in London I see", "No, not since we randomly bumped into one another in that fish'n'chip shop in Herne Hill last year", "How's things?","Good. Feel like a drink?", "Sure, these are my mates..." and so it goes. Conversation over a handful of pints turned mostly on the "Chickens Coming Home to Roost" theory, the 'with a history of foreign policy like theirs they have to expect some retribution at some stage' theory that a day or two later became something whispered in dark corners between like-minded people.

As did the radio news of the flight being shot down over Pennsylvania (to be replaced with a story about "let's roll" valiance), and of more 'planes coming from North Africa and Korea (WTF?).

But that was it. City workers got half a day off, and everything pretty much stayed the same, Tancredi. There was the hysterical talk of "the Tube, the Tube", but there's always been that.

And so it was. And so it shall be.

And what timing! And, in my opinion, spectacularly low success rate. They did a much better job in Madrid, if it was them. I'd thought, if someone attacked the tube, the deaths would be in the hundreds, if not thousands, and the casualties ten times that. That warren of tunnels underneath the old dart was more resilient than I thought.

Nonetheless, a death is a death is a death.

Don't mention the war, eh Tony?

Anyway, to keep the mood light and airy, have a listen to this little instrumental number, and we can all move off to that happy place where ethnic stereotypes were ripe for plunder, the French are all saucy, the Swedes serious, and there are hilarious misunderstandings that follow the mistaking of the Chinaman for a Japanese!

Bounce

This is creepy. Fascinatingly so.
Much more so than the Toady and Connor bikini shop storyline of the same name.

Tony Jones, I covet thy job

So, last night, I'm watching Lateline, as is my want.

Big Kim and his rabble are having a go over our lack of troops in Afghanistan. They were withdrawn sometime ago, it seems. Now, this, in the same week as Mark Latham is spraying his spleen all across the nation, reminding every columnist in the country of his "Troops out by Christmas" call. There is hardly a columnist around who hasn't labelled that call daft, usually because they think that, despite the majority of this country opposing an unprovoked invasion of a distant, sovereign nation, the Australian public believe that once we're doing something, we want to stay "until the job is done" whatever that means, weasel-man. Basically it means not admitting your mistakes, as far as I am concerned. The line ran that the Australian public is too 'nuanced' (fuck off) to go for a simple line like "Troops out by Christmas"—you know, give us some respec' here—but not 'nuanced' (fuck off) enough to be able to untangle Johnny's lies, and instead kinda shrug and say, well, we're there now, Georgie-Boy needs us, so we'd better stay, because he will give us special yankee treats (read: scraps from the G8 table, like dodgy trade liberalisation pacts).

Anyway, on one side we've got Latho's "Troops out by Christmas" and on the other side we have Beaze's "More troops for Afghanistan", which, as Dolly Downer said last night, doesn't make any sense. No matter how much they try to deny it, it's a fuck up of a foreign policy, whatever their policy actually is. And I don't blame the Ol' Ruddmeister for it.

So here's the line that I think is 'nuanced' (fuck off) enough to make sense to any old bastard in the street, without dazzling them with conditional Howardisms, or offending Big Brother: Australia will support and contribute to operations conducted under the UN umbrella, no matter who is the commander—US, Australia, France, Russia, whoever. But will not contribute toor support private "coalition" missions à la GWB's latest fancies. Now that's not too hard to understand is it?

Tony Jones, I covet thy job.

As a post script: on AM this morning, I hear that some ex-servicemen have fingered the new Iranian President, one Mahdi Ahmadinejad, as a ringleader in the 1979 US embassy siege in Tehran. It has all begun again.

Thursday early arvo

I am at a complete loss today. So, a stolen meme:

Listening to: Club 8, Strangely Beautiful
Wearing: Carhartt daks, Kronstadt top, Merrell shoes, M&S socks, n a pair of Rio underwear my mother gave me the morning I took these photos. Aint mums grand?
Fragrance: L'eau par Kenzo pour homme (I had to look for a visual cue. Bad metrosexual.)
Nails: N/A
Drinking: Moccona: snow white, two dwarves, from the tea room.
Eating: "ham, brie, seeded mustard and leaf pide" from the café round the corner.
Dreaming: of not crunching these sales stats anymore (moi? sales stats? never!) , and of January 2006.

Not that he deserves any more column inches...

"Before I was a Scientologist, I never agreed with psychiatry," Cruise said. "And when I started studying the history of psychiatry, I understood more and more why I didn't believe in psychology. ... And I know that psychiatry is a pseudo science." Tom Cruise, care of Reuters.

Studying psychiatry will help you understand psychology? Just like studying astrology will help you understand astronomy. Go somewhere and die please.

Which is what the American version of The Office has done. There is a god!

Oh, and while I'm on the teev: as soon as I saw the magnanimous reprieve Kate gave Christie on BB05, I was sure we'd be seeing the back end of Glenn. As sure as the day is long. Until I read about what Dean and Logan have done, that is. Ugh.

But slightly more upbeat(ish), Four Corners on the Nelson reforms last night was a very interesting program. Much more so than the tripe on 7. The systematic gutting of our proud publicly-funded traditions in this country by the Howard Government turns my stomach as much as the above article did.

Mamma Mia!

Gotta love the Italians. If only we in this country were less apathetic, we might do something like this.

Er hat ein mund bei ein katzen assloch

An old schoolmate of mine texted me at about 1am on Sunday:

«Ins Österreich heute.»

Yep, he used the umlaut—we did three years of German together. Him having mentioned going to Vienna for the weekend for a date (a date!), I replied:

«Sehr gut. Wie geht es mit dein konduktor?»
«Jetzt sehe ich Rage auf der tele.»

Excuse any faulty German syntax. I have hardly used it since 1989. The conversation continued...

«I will be in a box next to the orchestra pit»
«Lucky you! Enjoy!»

After which I resumed devoting my full attention to Tori Amos and her Rage selections. Which I must praise. Seminal video clips like Aha's "Take on me", Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" (remember that?) and the Bjõrk/Spike Jonze take on Singing in the Rain for "It's oh so quiet" that I hadn't seen for years. And that was just a brief selection which she chose because she liked the clips themselves.

«Is attempting to bust up a loveless 7 yr relationship morally wrong?»
«Not if he's worth it. Not unless less you're doing it just for sport. Hang on, haven't you two been together before?»
«Yes»
«Are you serious about him?»
«I would like to be—he lives in Berlin»
«Where does he stand on you?»
«Not sure—the sex seems to work»
«Go for it. Blow his mind. Do your darndest. And on that note I'n going to put my sleepy antipodian head to bed. I wish you all the best on your mission.»

It wasn't until about 3:46am this morning that I received the next message.

«Oh Vienna! Went well!»

I don't know where that puts the loveless seven year relationship, but it sounds like my old mate had a good time, and the plan is on track. He does seem to like doomed trans-continental relationships, but he also likes Berlin, and German-speakers. Funny for a jewish boy, no?

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog. Yo.

I have fallen in love twice this week.

I have read this comment of Ruth's over at Jess's Lefty Tim to Win campaign repeatedly, everyday this week. And I still chuckle, still, even now. I heart it:

I’m certainly not delving into the Behind BB live feed archives to find the exact wording, but one night the boys were teasing [Lefty Tim] about being a geek, and he said, “I’d never get called a geek in the outside world. I was smoking cones before any of you had even tasted beer.” To which one of the Logans smarmed, “Smoking dope doesn’t make you cool.” Lefty Tim replied, “Yes it does”.

It’s funny because it’s true.

And because those Logans are both fucksticks. Who don't or can't open their mouths properly when they speak. Just like Kane from Home and Away.

But Ruth's live-feed observation has been replaced in my fickle heart (already! Ah me!), by Jess' chronicling of the Bogart and Bacall love story for the ages, Romance: 21st Century Stylee. Not a more beautiful and honest tale has been told since Lang and Rose:

My heart beats as one with Ausculture. It was this post what did it.

Conversations with Taxi Drivers #467

Our brief exchange went something like this:

"Holy Shit!"
"%$@!%$$#@"
*gasp*
*gasp*

On Saturday night I opened the door to get out of a taxi. And it was promptly taken off by a passing tram.

Tuesday 9pm

Grammar Nazi

I hear these two all the bloody time:

"There are incidences of this sort of anti-social behaviour occurring all the time." It's incidents not incidences.
and
"I'm obligated to do visit my parent in the nursing home." No the fuck you're not, you're obliged to do it, and it is an obligation to visit them, but you are not obligated to do it. Or anything else for that matter.

I think I'm fighting a losing war on the second one.

New Neighbour

Back posted from Spy2, The Sunday Age, June 19, 2005.

When you've finished the Da Vinci Code...

I got hit up for a recommendation of something to read today. Initially blank, as I'm spending waaay too much time pinging between an epic RPG and a children's book at the mo', it got me thinking. At my last workplace, the beer-sodden Friday night conversation would often turn to books once the backstabbing and breaches of confidence had been exhausted. My new one is all about AV: it's what's on TV, what's on DVD, what on at the cinema. It's also younger. And there's less drinking (and less beeyotching too). What does this say about the youth of today?

So Dawei, a handful of books, fiction being my bag:

• Death of an Ancient King by Laurent Gaudé. An awesome little parable, about war and brotherhood, fantastic, bliblical, mythic. An easy couple of days read, with shades of Italo Calvino or early Paolo Coelho.
  
• The Leopard by Guiseppe Tommasi di Lampedusa. Ok, so I studied it in year 12. And I still rock out just thinking about it. Tancredi, Angelica, Don Fabrizio, the joke and that dog. In the throes of revolution, watch as the gentry mutate to survive.
  
• The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst. It beat the bookie's, and my, favourite, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, to the Booker Prize; but it's a great piece of writing about the excesses of London society in the mid to late 1980s. And it's all worth it in the end.
• Atonement by Ian McEwan. Like watching a car crash in slow-motion, you know what's going to happen, but it's all too fascinating and grizzly to look away.
  
• Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. One man's life charts the history of India from independence.
• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Because he has to be on any list of books. And because love conquers all. Eventually.
  
• Anything by David Mitchell or Laurence Durrell. I'm simply not worthy.

I have to draw a line somewhere. So consider it drawn.

Scratch that. If you like Could Atlas, check out If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino. Postmodernity in type. I'm feeling weak at the knees jus' thinking about it.

And finally The Periodic Table by Primo Levi. Existential chemistry from a man who threw himself down a set of stairs.

Cardinal Puff has his first drink for the evening

After a heated conversation I had last night, what are everyone's ideas of an acceptible level of alcohol consumption?

I had always thought that a glass or two of wine each day was acceptible, so let's say that's equal to a couple of beers, or a shared bottle of wine over dinner. And then let's throw in one, maybe even two, proper nights on the piss a week, not falling over drunk but a good solid Friday night session sorta thing, a few laughs and the like, maybe a mild hangover, and a dry day. I was told that this was the position of an alcoholic. My response was, predictably, that according to most of those sort of labels, everyone I know is an alcoholic because the common definition is some sort of prudish Seppo self-help-book definition of consumption of more than two glasses of elderberry-wine three times a week is 'alocohol addiction'.

What do fellow residents of the blog-o-sphere think?

And while we're at it, where do you stand on the regularlity of recreation drug use? Or a healthy level of exercise?

Anorak

I get excited by things like this.

Seriously.

Old Glory

I am ashamed. This is not the Australia I grew up in, not the open, tolerant, enthusiastic, outward-looking, well-liked Australia, Paul Keating's Australia. This is Pauline Hanson's Australia, John Howard's Australia, bigotted, jingoistic, mean-spirited and small-minded. Yes, John, I blame YOU. Personally.

Last Saturday, The SMH's Alan Ramsey wrote about the various ways we are all dealing with the changes that have been wrought over the past 10 years, in the name of fashioning "John Howard's Australia":

[Social Researcher Hugh] Mackay thinks he sees "three emerging responses" to ... John Howard's Australia.

"First, there is increasing talk about the need to 'restore balance', to 'get my life under control', to 'live the way I want to live'. This quiet revolution will be led by women, who are increasingly reaching levels of authority and influence in business and the professions and, looking around them, are concluding that 'this is no way to live'.

"The second trend is less attractive.

"It is heard in the growing voice of those who are not saying, 'I want to get my life under control', but 'I want to get your life under control'. This is the voice of regulation.

"These are the religious, social and cultural fundamentalists - the people who want to see tougher sentencing, more censorship, more laws to control everything that moves. That is their answer to the instability and uncertainty of contemporary life - 'if only we had more rules and regulations' to restore our sense of security.

"The third signpost comes from the rising generation of Australians, who are showing us how to make sense of life in an uncertain world. Having never known anything but an accelerating rate of change and an unpredictable future, they have developed three strategies for coping: keep your options open, as a way of incorporating 'realistic uncertainty'; a spiritual framework is leading them to explore post-material values; and they have become our most tribal generation, having realised the most precious resource for coping with an uncertain world is each other."

Mackay concluded: "It is hard to be confident, but the emerging culture may be the best news we've had for a long time. Good for individuals who need the security of the herd, good for nuclear families who will not be under the same pressure to satisfy the herd instinct, good for communities as people move out to find new and creative ways of connecting."

Mr Howard, recognise yourself in the second of these categories? You should. You have nutured them and given them succour—and now we as a nation are reaping as you have sowed.

Give me the honest and honourable Australia of Malcolm Fraser, of Bill Dean, of Gareth Evans any day. The Australia of sunburnt faces and eyes squinting into the sun, of "she'll be right, mate" and "go for your life", of dust and heat and salt on my skin, of the click-click-click of sprinklers, the bang of wire-doors and the 6 pips marking the hour followed by the ABC news theme , of vernadahs and lemon trees and bowls of roses; of dim-sims and souvlakis, of red curry duck and mozzarella di buffala and roast lamb with home-made mint sauce; of beer and wine and gins and tonic; and the smells of lanolin and eucalyptus and sausage fat and freshly cut grass; of people who are interested in difference, who want to see the world, be a part of the world, and accept the world as it is, as different and intriguing and instructive, not mould it into a palimpsest of a picket fence and separationist tea party, some veneer of civility covering a dark, prejudiced, jealous heart. Bah!

There's no other store like...

Has anyone else noticed how strange the woman's voice is on the DJ's ads at the moment? She has this truly weird-arse accent thing going on, kinda half Lillian Frank, half Kath'n'Kim, that someone in the ad agency must reckon reverebates with "class" and "quality" and "cardigans and velvet slippers", but it's just so very wrong. Particularly as Dimmeys and Forges, long the Bastion of the Bargain, seem to have hired the same voice talent...

2046

A film just for looking at.

A Musical Baton

A meme from the ever-lovely Ladycracker.

Total volume of music files on my computer: Not a single note. New job, new desk, new environment, fucking old machine. Until this morning, that is, when a lovely new black box came a-sliding over my desk. Bring it on.

Song playing right now: none, for the above reason. But I can hear Prince's "Little Red Corvette" emanating from the desk across the way.

Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:

Reel Around the Fountain — The Smiths (Hatful of Hollow)
Folk Song — Bongwater (The Power of Pussy)
Strike Me Down — The Reindeer Section (Son of Evil Reindeer)
I Must Be Getting Soft — Tex Don and Charlie (Sad but True)
Where Do You Go To My Lovely? —Peter Sarstedt (every bloody album he's ever released)

A handful of people I'm tossing the baton to: Greta, Riza & J(aded)

Conversations with Taxi Drivers #17

Sitting in the front seat of a taxi. I'm ambivalent about it. Particularly since that beer ad/song thing where he said I'm an Aussie and this is a national trait. That's the downside. The upside is that directions are easily received. And I give good direction. Believe you me. But I usually sit in the front seat when travelling alone in a taxi out of some sort of misplaced social repsonsibility I feel about somehow snubbing the cabbie if I sit in the back. Which is actually pretty fucked up, but, well, at the very least I get my directions followed and offered the odd blowjob. I'm a fairly amiable fellow, and count myself up there with best of conversationalists. No really.

So, taxi's hailed. Oooh, it's a swish one, black leather seats, doesn't smell of stale sweat. The driver is verging on obese though.

We start with a random conversation about routes through North Melbourne, the upshot of which is that Mr Taxi Driver believes, and I mean believes, that Queensberry Street is The Chute, the miracle of inner northwest Melbourne. Hey, I'm cycling, and it's got a nice wide bike lane so I'm happy. I have secret plans for bike lanes fo when I rule the world, but I'll share that at another time.

The radio is on. Bland commercial FM stuff.
An ad comes on for a strip club.
He turns up the volume. I raise an eyebrow.
The strip club is in Campbellfield. Like, Campbellfield? WTF?

"It's a good club that" he tells me.
"Huh?"
"Really good strip club that. But they're having a tough time."
"Oh. How do you know?"
"My mate owns it."
"Ok. So, is it like, more than just a strip bar, you know, can women go along too, like do they have a ladies lounge, or pokies, or a beestro and somewhere to put the kids?"
"Nah, it's a strip club mate. Like Club 20."

In Campbellfield?

Anyway, there was a falling out between two owners, and not-the-taxi-driver's-mate nicked off with half the cash and half the girls. And so taxi-driver's-mate is doing it hard. And we pause for a short silence.

"The girls make good money, you know"
"Really?"
"My girlfriend works there. She's 36. Some people think that's a bit old, but mate, I tell you, if I ever had the cash, I'd open up a strip club with older women. Men love the real women, you know, the full figure, especially older men."
"Do you mean, like, it's something attainable as opposed to, say, pneumatic 19 year olds." Wha...? I actually said pneumatic?
"Yeah mate, those young chicks you know, that's not where the money is. The older girls are much more popular. My girl, she works four nights a week and takes home $1,500 to $2,000 a week."
"Wow. I could do with money like that."
"Pretty good isn't it. And she only has to work 4 nights a week"

So we hit the directions again. Almost there.

"You know mate, she does really well, my girl. Two kids. She loves her kids mate. They're nice boys."
"How does she manage nights at work and the kids then? If you're in a cab?"
"Her mother looks after them."
"Lucky."
"They yours?"
"Nah. Good boys though. They're 13 and 15, so they don't need too much supervision."
"Make their own tea n stuff..."
"Yeah, and they're both in private school." Howard's Battlers, perhaps?
"My she is doing well!" I don't think I actually said 'my'.

We go through the paying motions. He give me my change.

"I really hope she makes her mind up soon."
"Huh?"

I have the cab door open.

"Well, you see, we're kinda having a break at the moment, me and her. And I really love her."
"Sorry mate, I've gotta fly. Thanks for the ride."

Scary Fanboy

At the risk of turning 2characters into a Neighbours spoiler site, I have discovered the following tidbit: 5 permanent characters will be leaving this year, to be replaced by a new family. Word is some are leaving voluntarily, some not so voluntarily. They are:

Marisa Warrington's Sindi Watts
Marcella Russo's Ljilana Bishop
Kev Harrington's Dave Bishop
Blair McDonough's Stuart Chooka Parker
and Marisa Siketa's Summer Hoyland

Oddly enough, my favourite character of that lot would probably be Summer.

Ultimate Dining

Every now and again, I will be kicking about, looking the other way, and generally minding my own business when someone of the most amazing calibre strikes me over the head with a very large stick. Last night, it was our Cate. I was well enough aware of her before, in a kinda patriotic, she-was-robbed, she does interesting films, never seen her interviewed kinda way, but little did I realise how generally brilliant , and fucking down-to-earth and real she is. I mean, it's almost sickening how much of a nice bird she is. And a hottie to boot.

When this sort of epiphany comes along, the object of my admiration and/or desire gets added to the ultimate dinner party list. And yes, dead people can come, although there are only two in this version of the list, as I've decided Che a) too trite and b) most probably interminable on the struggle against American imperialism. And so, at table this week, we have:

• Cate Blanchett
• Sir Peter Ustinov
  
• Julia Davis
• Fidel Castro
• Robert Fisk
  
• Dame Maggie Smith
  
• Gareth Evans
• Sid James
• David Mitchell
• Arundati Roy

Kennedy for PM

To all my devoted pommy fan-base out there:

If you do nothing more today, go out and put a number one (or a cross or whatever it is you do) against your local Liberal Democrat's name.

May they overtake the nasty, mean-spirited and racist Tories to become the true opposition party.

Laying the boot in

First, from the Daily Telegraph, Co-star in a bad Blair day:

THE Chaser boys, who won a little statue for the Most Outstanding Comedy, probably put it best when they said the top comedy act really belonged to Thorpie's hair.
Not that the hair scare himself took that to be funny – the Thorpster was so embarrassed he left the room and didn't come back until the end of the ceremony.
And his excuse for the do?
"My mum wouldn't let me have an undercut when I was little," he said. "That's showing me up for the pretty boy I am, isn't it?"
Ah, yeah....

and then this, by James D Buttler, Crikey's Logies insider, The Logies: where celebrity, booze and politics mix

...
Ten – those open-minded people... The Ten Network likes to let it all hang out, so much so that one well-known senior female Neighbours star brought her girlfriend along and were pashing at the after party, and no-one batted an eyelid. Cleaners busted two young Ten employees, a male and a female, together in the disabled toilets. Let's say they weren't involved in a deep and meaningful political discussion...
What's going on, Thorpedo? Swimming champion Ian Thorpe's behaviour puzzled some in the media room. He seemed to spend most of his time swapping in-jokes with FOX FM Radio man Adam Richards, the warm-up man for the room, and largely ignored everyone else. The Thorpedo's shock new hairstyle was universally given the thumbs down.
...

Now, poor Ian Thorpe has been coming in for a fair bit of criticism, and particularly, today, from Dawei, and not only for his fucked-up hair; however,in my opinion, the best perspective on 'Australia's greatest swimmer' comes from Darp, in "The Pink Thorpedo" third article down on his greatest hits page. Read it.

But, Ian, if you don't want conjecture about your sexuality, don't leave your beard to spend the whole night tittering with a national radio station's breakfast program's token screaming queen. You Idiot.

As far as Our Lady of Erinsborough goes, conjecture away.

Skander-san's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld 13or The Entertainer

Once more, I nudged that envelop—just a little further—another 15 minutes late. Although this time it is to my chagrin. As I entered the dojo, I noticed the students were sitting, lined up as though going through our beginning-of-training devotional ritual, except lounging—not kneeling with their back straight like a row of buddhist priests—shinai at their side, eyes intent on something unseen.

Before them are a pair of dancing duellists, wielding naginata halberds, these long wooden poles ending in short, curved blades. And as I discard my shoes, bow and enter the dojo, they finish and my captivated comrades thank the demonstrators with a short round of applause. Fuck! I missed it. I know nothing about it. I can't even describe it or explain it, other than it involves a pair of peeps who wave these awful long poles about. And that they are usually women who do it. And they were wearing white gi and hakama.

So I sidle up to the end of the row, plonk myself down, and give the bloke next to me that quizzical "WTF?" look coated in a fine veneer of "oops", only to get a reproachful glare and a nod of the head in the direction of the show. Endearing character, me.

So anyway, the two naginata ladies disappear off into the distance, as much as one can do that in a dojo mae from a converted-warehouse with a saw-tooth roof. Man, I dig saw-tooth roofs. And are replaced by a fellow in black gi and hakama. Looking all dark and sinister and, well, completely different from the white-clad naginata ladies or the blue kitted kendo-ists. Actually, it was more the look on his face which made him evil and sinister, because it did not move once throughout his show, he just kept that gallic upside-down smile which conveys a vague air of displeasure, kinda handsome in a sneering sort of way. I remember reading someone describing the raison behind that particularly French facial expression as running along the lines of "in this world, there are problems that are mine, and there are problems that are not mine, and this problem here is definitely not mine", accompanied, of course, by that little shrug of the shoulders.

Back on topic. This fellow's art was jodo, which is not disimilar to kendo, other than is does not involve swords or sword substitutes such as shinai. It's the art of the staff. And it is purely a defensive art, a bit like the way aikido is meant to be a non-aggressive, martial art aimed at pacifying one's opponent rather than injuring them. Although his one is aimed at pacifying one's opponent who is armed with a sword. By using only your staff, or jo.

This one was pretty interesting actually, as our instructor went through the motions of attacking stone-faced-man-in-black-kit. And stone man would just knock the shinai outta the way, and usually end up with the attacker on the ground with the jo to his throat. Nice and pacifying. Except that stone man has a very strange, high-pitched squeal of a kiai which is ridiculously funny and completely inappropriate. Think Forrest Law with his balls in a vice. It was the best I could do to restrain any audible sounds of amusement. After about half a dozen kata, which are set exercises, and the only thing one does in jodo, as far as I could tell, he replaced his jo, and wandered off to the far side of the dojo.

And returned with a fuck-off sexy, sharp and glinting Japanese sword. It was time to cop an eyeful of iaido. Now iaido is a strange and mystical art. Or at least it seems that way to the observer. It is a solitary art, and this is where ol' stoney must have been rehearsing the not moving a single facial muscle thing. Because throughout this demonstration, which went for a good 20 minutes, his expression did not change at all. And iaido is also a silent art, rehearsing and replaying the 4 types of cuts which one could make with a blade as sharp as a razor. After showing us the blade, stone man resheathed the sword and began his demonstration of iaido: beginning from a kneeling position, he would first equip himself with his sheathed sword to his belt on the left-hand side, in that slow, determined way that you see old chinese dudes slicing the air with their palms in the Exhibition Gardens on a summer morning. Moving the sword from one side, the "I'm not going to attack" friendly side, the right, to the "fuck you cunt, you're dead meat" side, tying the cords to the appropriate parts of his belt, then unsheathing the sword, and making a variety of cuts—4 in each series, each accompanied by a short, sharp, high-pitched, howling kiai—some from the kneeling position, some from the standing position, all the moves you really do see in awesome flicks like Throne of Blood, before returning to the kneeling, devotional position. And then commencing a different series of the same 4 cuts, and returning to kneeling, and then repeating the elaborate, though carefully controlled ritual of resheathing and disarming the sword from his waist. It was pretty amazing to watch, I have to admit, all these slow, controlled movements, interspersed with sudden, swift cuts and cries and that whooshing sound you get from waving a blade about.

Demonstration over, off he disappeared, like the naginata ladies did. Somehow. In a not physically possible kinda way. And even our instructor commented on the stony-faced nature of the stony-faced man.

So now we had seen the entirety of the arts offered a by our dojo: kendo, naginata, iaido and jodo. The four main Japanese fighting arts involving weapons. Something I dig about the Japanese I remember reading in Jarred Diamond's history of the world in 450 pages, Germs Guns and Steel: it was that they renounced the gun. The Portuguese had sold them into Japan through their toehold in Nagasaki, and the Japs had taken them up. But then decided they were a little crass and maybe too hard to keep up or something, so they reverted to the arrow and the sword, not to mention the naginata and the jo, and shunned guns. That's foresight for ya. Or not.

It gets sadder and sadder

Because I have been very slack with my posting lately, and because I am desperate to move that picture of Mark Raffety down the page, and because I'm a freak, and because it's easy, and most of all because you all want to know, I give you the list of confirmed returnees for Neighbours 2005 season as of today's date:

• Lesley Baker as Angie Rebecchi
• Melissa Bell as Lucy Robinson #3
• Andrew Bibby as Lance Wilkinson
• Rachel Blakely as Gaby Willis
• Brett Blewitt as Brett Stark
• Joy Chambers as Rosemary Daniels
• David Clencie as Danny Ramsay
• Fiona Corke as Gail Lewis-Robinson
• Bernard Curry as Luke Handley
• Kimberley Davies as Annalise Hartman
• Terence Donovan as Doug Willis
• Delta Goodrem as Nina Tucker
• Richard Grieve as Sam Kratz
• Stephen Hunt as Matt Hancock
• Annie Jones as Jane Harris
• Mark Little as Joe Mangel
• Daniel MacPherson as Joel Samuels
• Todd McDonald as Darren Stark
• Craig McLachlan as Henry Mitchell
• Benji McNair as Mal Kennedy
• Shauna O'Grady as Dr Beverly Marshall #2
  
• Moya O'Sullivan as Marlene Kratz
• Ann Scott-Pendlebury as Hilary Robinson
• Ailsa Piper as Ruth Wilkinson
• Mark Raffety as Darcy Tyler
• Ian Rawlings as Phil Martin
• Marnie Reece-Wilmore as Debbie Martin
• Rebecca Ritters as Hannah Martin
• Jansen Spencer as Paul McClain
• Jesse Spencer as Billy Kennedy
• Jacinta Stapleton as Amy Greenwood
• Eliza Szonert as Danni Stark
• Holly Valance as Felicity Scully
• Kym Valentine as Libby Kennedy

Back at the coal face

New job. Fun. Deep end. Scary. Income. Saviour.

In reference to the below

I came across this pox picture of the Darstardly Doctor on the Taylor and Khoo website. It's all in a good cause, I spose (that cause being local, sustainable economic development in Siem Reap, Cambo).

Domestic God

This is how dull my life is right now. I have completed the following in the last 24 hours:

• defrosted fridge and freezer
  and found 7 varieties of gluten-free soy n linseed loaf, while storing the salvageable frozen goods somewhere else freezy
  
• mopped kitchen floor
• and laundry floor
  after desposing of the previous (utterly useless) mop and visiting my favourite old-skool hardware store to buy another one, you know, proper mop head n handle, none of this sponge-on-a-stick shite, and a nice new philips-head screwdriver
• assembled said mop with said screwdriver
  
• 3 loads of washing
  (Surf Ocean Breeze)
  
• 2 sets of washing up
  (Blast, the Aussie-made/owned one in red-apple (huh?) flavour)
  
• jiffed the stove
  
• tidied loungeroom
• polished surfaces
• dusted
  
• watered garden
  
• acted as chauffeur for various members of my family
  
• sorted my finances
• paid parking fine
  and energy bills
  and received on of those nasty insidious speed-camera tickets
• and did the house shop at the South Melby Market (gotta love 3 grapefruit for $2)
  
  Add in 2 hours of kendo, and that's my life.
  

Is it any wonder I look forward to Neighbours of an evening.

And gin. I forgot gin. My little helper.

Coma Karma

Oh yes, the news we've all been waiting for has been announced: Darstardly Doctor Darcy Tyler, he of the purple muscle shirt, of that oh so nasty green jacket, has awoken from his (when last we heard, irreversible Terri Schiavo-esque) coma, and descended on Erinsborough to wreak vengeance on you-know-who.

It's all good.

Skander-san's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld 12or 8 Seconds

Sunday practice is a tough ask. Easter Sunday practice is an even tougher ask. You mean you want me to forego the second longest public holiday break of the year? How does get fucked sound?

So instead I hit the Buchan rodeo. Originally it was meant to tbe the Omeo Rodeo, but things didn't go quite to plan—we didn't make it over Hotham until round 4, and a measly 45 minutes or so didn't quite cut the mustard. But we did miss out on the spectacle of a horse jumping the railings and careering through the crowd. Fun n games eh?

Nothing quite so eventful happened at Buchan. But I did buy myself a new stubbie holder, proudly emblazoned with "Buchan Rodeo" and a buckin' bronc, and got myself a wretched dose of horse-allergy hayfever. Hadn't ever had that trouble before up at Omeo or at Flemington, but well, maybe it has something to do with the venue.

You see, whereas the Omeo Rodeo is situated behind the Omeo football oval—the very same football oval which was the designated safe haven during the Australia Day fires of 2003, the very same football oval that caught fire while under the watchful eye of the DSE on Australia Day 2003, right up the top of town—a good 1500 metres above sea-level and open to the raging, firebringing northerlies and biting snow-laden southerlies, the Buchan Rodeo is in a damp gultch of the mighty East Gippsland forests. With no breeze, no air movement, and a hell of a lot of horse hair and dust hanging in ther air, so thick you could see it. And me sneezing like a trooper. Great fun.

Still, only three blokes in the open bareback bull comp were able to stay on for the required 8 secs, à la Luke Perry, so there wasn't a heap of actual competition in what we saw, or, seen from a different angle, the bulls were winning.

Skander-san's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld 10 or Death of 100 Cuts

Number 10. Nice round decimal number. As is 100.

Everything goes along swimmingly today, jogeburi here, single-time men-saburi there. Yeah, give us something to challenge ourselves fellas!

And so they do: first they ask us to do one-handed men. With right fist on hip and our shinai in our left, away we swing. Ichi. Ni. San. Shi. Go. Rokku. Shichi. Hachi. Kyu. Jyu. My god that's tough! For an unfamiliar left arm like mine, it really is hard (and now, it actually is hard as stone, as a result of doing this repeatedly). My arm was aching after 10 of these unfamiliar swings. Pounding aching. "Do it again". I aint no skinny, freckled, chicken-chested nerd person who doesn't see the sunlight, despite having a blog. Oh no! And yet my (now rippling) bicep was totally thrown by having to swing this shinai back and forth, from 45° behind the head to our imaginary opponent's now nicely sliced open forehead, held only by my left hand.

Now the tricky thing was not actually the strength needed in the arm to raise the shinai, but the strength required to stop it at the right point. Not letting it swing too far forward so it is lodged deep within my victim's brain and takes two hands and a leg to wrench it out and move on to the next screaming psychopath. And to stop it, we use tenuchi. Tenuchi describes the squeezing of the shinai handle to give you more control of your implement. You see, if I was to just swing a sword at you and your beady eyes staring at me, and didn't use tenuchi, my blade would probably bounce off your skull after cutting ever-so-slightly into it. Just a wee cut. But if I use tenuchi, that is, a tightening of the grip at the end of my stroke to take control of it, I would be able to pass through the barrier that is your skin and skull and hairline with absolute surety, and, well, there'd be a lot of blood and those beady eyes would be kinda dulled.

The other thing that single-handed men help with is getting the line right. Each stroke is mean to come straight down the centre of the body, not waving the shinai around like a proud Pole in Rome with his red-and-white flag. The left hand is the driver, the right hand steers. So the left hand is really like a brain-numbed Pole on a kielbasa production line 20 years ago, eternally repeating the same tasks, day in, day out. Raise, strike, return to kamae, raise, strike, return to kamae, raise, strike, return to kamae. While it's the right hand which gets to lark about, decide this cut should hit the do, the stomach armour, this one should hit from the right at a 45° angle, this one should take out my opponent's wrist, decide which stroke to play. All the while my poor old solid, reliable southpaw just keeps on truckin', raise, strike, return to kamae, raise, strike, return to kamae... And one-handed men sure makes you know what your left and right arms are doing, and how!

So with aching left arm, we launch stright ito something else to test us: that's one hundred double-time men-saburi. It doesn't sound so hard. All we have to do is step foward and swing ourselves a nice, centred men cut, and then step back while doing another. Fifty times. With our left arms pounding. And it's not so easy. Making sure every part of every stroke is as good as it can be, that your footwork is correct, your kiai is strong enough and you have a vague idea of where you are in the 100 cuts. And so we struggle through this, breath coming shorter. Ichi. Ni. San. Shi. Go. Rokku. Shichi. Hachi. Kyu. Jyu. Ichi. Ni. San. Shi. Go. Rokku. Shichi. Hachi. Kyu. Jyu. Ichi... and make it to the end! Hurrah! "How was that?" wer're asked, "hard?". Our response, in unison: "Hai!". "Excellent", he says, "One hundred more". Groan.

Ichi. Ni. San. Shi. Go. Rokku. Shichi. Hachi. Kyu. Jyu. Ichi. Ni. San. Shi. Go. Rokku. Shichi. Hachi. Kyu. Jyu. Ichi... Jeez this is getting tough. I'm losing concentration, my strokes are all over the shop like a mad woman's custard, I'm starting to think I might not be able to make it to 100 again. Exhausted. And then the kiai kicks in. "Kiai louder" he says, and as I do, like a revelation from the Lord, the clouds open, a shaft of light catches my eye and the Virgin Mary is there, smiling softly, just like at Fatima. Well, nothing like that at all really, no light, no madonna, and especially no revelations to pox-ridden children, but the louder I kiai, the easier it is to execute the stroke. And the better I seem to be doing it. Real mind-over-matter stuff.

So there are two things at work here, in the death of 100 cuts: the zen of repeating the same motion over and over again, focussing on it in the most minute detail, refining it, again and again; and the mind propelling the body forward, like those slight mothers who can lift the car their children are stuck beneath.

La Mala Educaçion

Go to see Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education.

Best, smartest, most rewarding flick I've seen in a while