hobby

When I was a child I used to play with model trains. I remember fondly building railway stations out of lego and placing the little lego men and women on the platform to await their dreary nine-to-fives that approached with every tic-toc. I would set time-tables and interconnecting train and bus services and build customer service desks and little franchised coffee stands that sold overpriced lattes (50 cents extra for soy). Then there would be delays and cancellations that made these unhappy little passengers miss their connections and I would have to make the following announcements that would always come too late to be any use to anyone, raising tempers and blood pressures but I would always be apologetic, yes and understanding without accepting fault or liability.

tirade of self flagellation

I saw a woman on my way back from lunch today finishing off my last handroll from that sushi bar just around the corner from the Winsor Hotel. She was maybe Papuan, western pacific and walked with this haphazard gait from underneath her denim skirt almost touching the ground. A walk that suggested some sort of deformity or injury, perhaps polio paralysis or some other preventable disease of the third world that I suppose I should feel more passionate or at least more informed about. As I past her in the street I couldn't help seeing myself through her eyes or at least my objectified sense of how I thought she should see me or maybe more correctly projecting my own white guilt and self loathing onto another person based on poorly informed racial stereotyping. Geez!! This all makes me dizzy.

What a stupid world we live in where one of the leading causes of death in this country is obesity and its various related illnesses. When access to a nutritious diet, clean drinking water and adequate healthcare is no longer a problem we find disease and death in plenty. Just to walk around, just for a second, and see through the eyes of someone else and look upon the absurdity of it all.

Well that feels a little better. Thank you for humouring me in this little tirade of self flagellation I hope I haven't offended too many of you.

cigarettes

I started smoking the other week frustrated at a particularly awful day at work, it seemed like a good thing to do satisfied that what I was doing was slowly killing me. All very noir. Smoking a lazy three cigarettes a day I was on my second pack - Marlborough Lights with a ghastly grin of someone with mouth cancer, ulcerated and teeth a rotting green-yellow- until I was forced to stop. I had been revelling in displaying the pack to work colleagues, holding the pack centremetres from my ear, smiling wide showing my teeth in comparison. At lunch I caught up with a group of fellow smokers, conscious of their siege-like comradery that I was hoping to be part of when I was told by the heaviest and most nicotined stained smoker of them all "You do know you're not even doing it right. Smoking, I mean you're not even breathing it in."

I was heart-broken, publicly humiliated before my peers as a hack, an interloper. Running, almost in tears, back to the office I left the pack in the top drawer of my desk with the remaining cigarettes unsmoked.

Fuck-em I say and today I joined the gym.

melbourne sunset

The view from my window at work this evening 31 floors up. I just thought I like to share.

Even when things are getting pretty dark there is still something to be thankful for.

How I closed my eyes and prayed to Jesus

It's hard being a christian in this day and age after living under such darwinian oppression for hundreds of years or so I can understand why they feel they need to stay in the closet, why the Family First website doesn't mention jesus even once, even when their policies are directly informed by faith. Oh I mean every christian has their coming out story: to their friends, their family and work colleagues, having to watch their faces drop in shock and horror. I can relate, I truely can. I understand why they need euphemisms like "family" this and "family" that instead of "the bible says" this and "God smote" that and why they need to lie in order to hide their shame: their faith and their business interests.

Seriously. They talk about the hidden Green agenda but how can you take a Party seriously that pretends it's secular when they're all basking in the light of jesus? How can you trust a party who talk about defending families but have such the narrow definition of what a family is that unless you're the family member of some director of a large corporation you can bite their shiney monetarianist asses[sic]?

this state election sure is hotting up

Leaving my house this morning on my way to work I discovered my letter box open and a letter from my state ALP member torn up and strewn across my front lawn. Now a quick glance aside I could see several neighbours' boxes also thus open... hmmm I wondered: stupid kids fucking with peoples' mail or a concerted anti-labour putsch?

snatched conversation

I love overhearing little snippets of conversation. For example, today I was walking past the two dollar shop in Barkly Square, Brunswick when this rather upstanding gent, holding two champaign flutes in one hand and another just above his eye level in his other hand, examining so as to catch the light, said "Query," addressing the store clerk in his very best aristocratic British accent, "do these come any stubbier?"

the definition of a bureaucrat

bureaucrats are "...men who lose things and use the wrong forms and create new forms and demand everything in quintuplicate, and who understand perhaps a third of what is said to them; who habitually give misleading answers in order to gain time in which to think, who make decisions only when forced to, and who then cover their tracks; who make perfectly honest mistakes in addition and subtraction, who call meetings whenever they feel lonely, who write memos whenever they feel unloved; men who never throw anything away unless they think it could get them fired."

Kurt Vonnegut The Sirens of Titan. p. 56

mushroom cloud over chadstone

I went out with a few friends after work on Friday. We'd had dinner and finally ended up, two friends - Adrian and Cam - and I in Black Opal (a TAB joint in the city) playing a card game called cheat with a deck we'd won in some Heineken promotion; Adrian I've know since high school, some fifteen years now and Cam, well is someone I sort of attached myself to last year at the Meredith Music festival and suffice to say they come from opposite poles of my social circle. But it worked and I had and hope they had a fabulous time sharing stories from our various pasts between the devious ploys and counter ploys of a game that I am proud to say I won: where we had grown up, the shopping centres we had hung out. For Adrian and I it was Chadstone Shopping Centre and for Cam some complex in Doncaster.

* * * * * *

I was in the old stomping ground today, just driving through with my mum in the car on the way to Forster Road and the south-eastern freeway onramp. We were on our way to see Rachmaninov Vespers being performed by the Melbourne Chorale at Hamer Hall - her birthday present. We'd passed the 7-11 convenience store that Adrian and I had loitered outside on various summer evenings, the creek where we drank and smoked weed and the stormwater drain where these girls from our clique had graffitied some warning about a nymph of the sacred spring who slumbered there. I laughed as we drove past it telling my mum the story who in turn changed the topic. I don't think she was very impressed by this disclosure but then I suppose there are a lot of things about my life she doesn't know about, then and now and sometimes we're better for it.

It's been a big day. I was woken my the phone around half past nine.
"... an emergency. Your sister has gotten herself into a little bit of trouble," my mum said down the copper line.
"Say what!?!" I exclaimed finally waking up, wedging myself up on an elbow to give the conversation fuller attention. I'd gone out on Saturday night all by my lonesome to the Peel in some pathetic attempt to pick up and although I'd plucked up enough courage to eventually talk to this one guy, some accountant who worked for KPMG I could tell he wasn't in for anything more involved than a non-committal chat so I cut my loses and left.

"Your sister had a big night last night, a few too many glasses of wine," she said. "We need to go down and pick her up and that University car that needs to be returned today. I'll need you to drive my car home." My sister had been down at Phillip Island doing research for her PhD when somebody had tipped her glass one too many times and now she was apparently vomiting in a public toilet in San Remo.
"What about the concert this afternoon? By the time I get to your house it'll be midday; you think we'll have enough time?" As far as I was concerned she'd done the drinking and she could get herself out of it. It was all part and parcel of a hangover but my mum was insisting on being far more reasonable.
"I know, I know, look if we have to miss it, we have to miss it," as if repeating everything she said would some how sooth my rising irritation.
"Okay, I'll be around as soon as I can."

* * * * * *

We'd driven over 200 kilometres by the time my mum and I managed to take our seats B27 and B28 in Hamer Hall, oh so close to the front of the stage. The lights dimmed and the Melbourne Chorale walked on and for the next two hours we listened to the works of two Russian composers: Dmitri Shostakovich, a Soviet era composer who had gone in and out of Stalin's favour and Sergei Rachmaninov who had been writing chorale works for the Russian Orthodox church in the 19th Century. The Vespers by Rachmaninov were by far my favourite, truely beautiful, my mum later told me she had to fight back tears and while I can't claim such I did feel a chill down the spine. It goes to show I suppose that no matter how much power Stalin might have wielded he could never have inspired the kind of transcendence that faith in God brought out in Rachmaninov.

* * * * * *

I had a dream after the night out with Adrian and Cam. I was in the car with friends, old friends, driving through the old neighbourhood down Warrigal Road on our way to Chadstone Shopping Centre. I looked out of the window only to see a brilliant flash of light and a ball of flame barrel upwards into the atmosphere: the CBD below a roaring inferno. While I can't say why my friends couldn't see the explosion I nevertheless had to go crazy yelling at them to find a safe place. Acting on this the driver turned the steering wheel sharply and swung the car and us into the shadow of Chadstone Shopping Complex. We were safe.

* * * * * *

On the drive home from the city as the sky grew dark and the fat moon sat on the horizon, I told my mum that I was gay. I was shaking and could feel my stomach drop even though I had an inkling of what she was going to say.
"I kind of guessed that but I am glad you told me." She said but continued: "I don't claim to understand what homosexuality is all about but I am fine with who you are."

* * * * * *

I've been dreaming about the end of the world on and off for about six or seven years now, beginning just prior to the click over of the millennia and keeping me entertained since then. Sometimes I think they are more than some sci-fi obsession gone wrong but are actually building up to something. Oh... I don't mean in any kind of prophetic sense but a more internal, spiritual one. Because the apocalypse isn't about the end of the world so much as it is quite literally the revelation of a truth so profound that the world has no other choice than to undergo some fundamental change. And so I truly hope this one comes for the better.

my settler hat

I own a hat- yes I do - and I call it my settler hat, it's black felt and moderately brimmed curling all the way round and while not quite a fedora and more like a homburg I picture this hat on a dusty and probably illiterate Irishman staring back at me through the sepia toned photo-graph all the way from the 19th century- ay. It is thus my settler hat.

I was in diva bar last Friday waiting far too long for a friend to arrive throwing back a vodka and lemon- my second- listening to this awful pop fodder while watching some pretty somebody shake his sinuey shirtless torso to some top 20.... ah. Leaving my glass at the bar I pass my dancer friend on the dancefloor. "Say are you jewish?" Pointing to the hat.
"No, are you?" I asked, not being the first time someone has said shalom to me in a gay bar.
"Yes I am," he says taking me a little by surprise.
Hmmm. "Are you a practicing jew?" I ask. "Like are you going to synagogue tomorrow?"
"My parents bought be a property in Balaclava, if that's what you mean?" He giggled.

walk the line (of control)

I fell asleep last night reading Tariq Ali's The Clash of Fundamentalisms, the book shutting, eyes shutting closed just as I finished the chapter on Kashmir and Jammu. And this is what I dreamt:

Surrounded by the sublime beauty of the himilayan footfalls I sling my rifle on my shoulder surveying the vast green land beneath. I am on duty, a Kashmiri dreaming the dream of an independent state not torn apart by foreign powers with their foreign motives and objectives, fighting with foreign weapons. As I enjoy the autumn sunshine in this reverie I am punctured through my woollen tunic, my phiren by maybe two or three or four bullets, one entering through my neck; there was red and then an overexposed white that bleached the land and the sky leaving only the man, the interloper that shot me; maybe he is Jaish-e-Mohammed or Harkat-ul-Mujahideen or some such but as I spit blood trying to breath I use my leeched strength to prop up my Kalish, aim and pull the trigger watching the bastard crumple, my weapon flashing without sound....

... and then I woke in such a state that I was convinced I was still breathing through the hole in my neck that’d been pierced through by a 39mm shell.

... a friend at work said she thought I dreamt a past life and well I suppose this is a comforting thought when maybe that this is all coming from anywhere but inside my head.

wrong side of the bed

Jolted awake by a mobile phone alarm that'd been thrown to the opposite end of the room the night before as I've the tendency to switch my alarms off in my sleep. It occurred to me early on that if I was ever to get to work/school on time the clock needed to be a good many feet away to make any such attempt by my sleeping otherself foolhardy. Now with my decaying wooden single bed placed up against the room's whitewashed brick wall I threw myself out of bed and like a stunned blackbird who'd flown into a glass window I fell back almost unconscious. Rubbing my head I laughed to myself as I had quite literally got out of the wrong side of the bed.

these red eyes - the mothman prophesies

I just re-watched Mark Pellington's The Mothman Prophesies starring Richard Gere and the beautiful Laura Linney and although it plays out like a made for TV adaptation of some article found in an almanac of the uncanny, I really dug it. It's a dark film that uses its lighting and soundtrack carefully so as to never really give you the mothman itself, a plus for someone who is tired of hollywood's tendency to overbudget and show everything when what we are really scared of is not the monster itself but a fear of the unknown that it represents, the irrational, the pale face at the window: death my friends, the undiscovered country (thank you mr spock). Although you gain a few brief glimpses of the mothman (or Indrid Cold) blurred or bleached out in overexposure, its nature, its intent are left dangerously outside our knowing.

Based on true events, or more correctly based very loosely on a book based on a series sightings of strange winged man/creature in areas surrounding Point Pleasant and Charleston in West Virginia between November 1966 and December 1967 culminating in the collapse of the Silver Bridge over the Ohio River killing 46 people. After the disaster the occurrance of sighting began to drop off and the film claims that this entity is somehow tapped into and attracted to death and references are made to other sightings through out the world including eyewitness reports of such a creature being sighted just prior to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Now after doing a little research on the topic I stumbled on something a little unexpected, something that to my knowledge has not been widely reported in the media and I suppose not surprisingly. The photo besides was taken by NY resident Steven Moran on 11 September 2001 and appears to show a large winged creature flying near the smoke and debris of what were once the Twin towers. Now according to Wikipedia the photo has not to date been discredited or shown to be manipulation or fake and so I am left feeling, well.. what the ...? Now according to mothman.us there were reports of non military aircraft in the area in the minutes just after the attacks, a few mentioned "winged, flying-men". Doing it conspiracy/x-files style these reports have been largely been ignored or not investigated by authorities.

Sights/sites

The Mothman Wikipedia

mothman.us

02.10.2006

So it's my birthday and I am 27, having spent the evening with friends, dinner at Lentil as Africa in Brunswick and not satisfied with my three beers (to their apple frusion and three coffees) I buy a longneck at the bottle-o on the walk home as I begin to see my slow slip into alcoholism with an austere sense of humour that maybe I'm carrying some sort of generational torch, some family tradition. I think to myself, only had I my i-pod to distract me, how surprised I was to find a birthday card in the letterbox from my brother and that I didn't even have a number to call and thank him, then I think of how my weekend date was just another notch to add to a failed love life and my job something that I can barely get out of bed for.

I went to the doctor the other week about my panic attacks and he suggested I see someone, talk about it, open up to a professional saying "You see," he told me "it's all existential. You don't have to do or be anywhere or anything you don't want to be. It's an illusion that we are trapped, it's only convention that keeps us here." You're wrong I thought, I am trapped. It's all in here.

Happy birthday g-man

a not so evil empire

On this day, 17 September 1859, one Joshua Abraham Norton then resident of the city of San Francisco proclaimed himself to be "Emperor of These United States," printed in the city's newspaper the Bulletin it was sign Emperor Norton I. In a further decree the following January Emperor Norton I, citing corruption and the disproportionate influence of various lobby groups disolved the Federal Congress.

Now some have called this man eccentric, others have labled him crazy or even schizophrenic, but this failed business man who when he died on 8 January 1880 with no more than a few dollars to his name, tens of thousands of mourners attended his funeral and the procession that followed his casket was more than two miles long.

Indeed the man had his own currency and would eat in gratis at businesses bearing plaques reading "By Appointment to his Imperial Majesty, Emperor Norton I of the United States." Even the City allowed Norton a degree of recognition when in the 1870 census Norton's occupation was stated as "Emperor" and the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco appropriated enough funds to purchase new royal vestments.

In 1867 a police officer Armand Barbier arrested Norton with the intention of having him committed causing a public outcry. The then police chief ordered him released, stating that Norton "had shed no blood; robbed no one; and despoiled no country; which is more than can be said of his fellows in that line."

Indeed while on one of his "Royal Inspections" it is said that Norton actually put himself between anti-Chinese rioters and a group of Chinese. Apparently he bowed his head and began to recite the Lord's Prayer, with which the rioters shamed dispersed.

Crazy!

Read about him on Wikipedia from which this blog entry is sourced.

Wikipedia - Joshua Norton

having major panic attack or dying, not sure

Home safe now but you know public transport is a very scary place when in the middle of a full blown panic attack. Yes tonight has been truely awful. I am chilling out a little now but about an hour ago I thought I was going to die as I sat hunched over staring our the window of a bus, watching my breath condense and evaporate. I did the same in the tram and finally the train, doing my best to ignore the crazies all around me, those real and imagined.

It all started during my spanish lesson which my teacher offered to end an hour early as I was sounding unwell and having a lot of trouble concentrating on her set lesson and might I say that this is no small thing as it basically meant she was letting go of half her fee. Now we got to talking as we do and conversation quickly turned to my work and as I began to recount my day I promptly forgot to breathe.... disorientated I inhaled deeply, shaking and at that I explained that I had to leave stumbling to the door I said hasta luego.

I'm not going to die. This is all in my head. This is not a heart attack. I repeated my little mantra as I made my way to the bus stop, top heavy and very unsteady as my mind accellerated to light speed counting all the ways this could go, were those late night joggers over the road likely to know CPR, had I paid up on my ambulance membership and where was the nearest hospital? HElp, breathe, breathe!!! Alone at the bus stop waiting, waiting I looked at my mobile, who can I call? Who can help? Do I have enough credit? Will these be my last words? Breathe deeply and I settled on a text message. "Having major panic attack or dying, not sure," I wrote. Oh fuck!, what a dick head I am!, I thought and called him.

"What's wrong? Are you by yourself? Oh that's not good.... ummm... want to catch up over coffee tomorrow?"
That'd be nice I told him, I like to think he didn't understand the immediacy of my problem so I made my excuses and disconnected just as the bus pulled up. Now having a man sit a few seats behind you on an empty bus and sing and whistle loud to some sub-continental pop anthem might all sound funny to you but I was truely terrified. He kept this up a good ten minutes before I got off near the arts centre and while he held a pretty good tune my nerves were frayed... and all I could do was breathe deeply in and out again and again.

An hour later, unable to see a doctor in what was a vain attempt to acquire valium I was home and as I said breathing and calming down but still strung high as a fucking kite.

nick berg

The fear hits taught the strings of my heart that beats so fast it just can't keep on going like this. Death can see me as the outside darkens and disappears and the walls blacken and I turn inside myself. The world is ending and my hands are bound my clothes wet with sweat and captivity. They talk to the camera lens of revenge as my lines of fate draw in like light streaking caught in a singularity and all I want to think about is those I love, joy and sunshine but everything just keeps on shrinking down until this last act of violence that I know has been coming will end all this.

Nick Berg was murdered on 7 May 2004 to the words Allahu Akbar, God is great.

don't party too hard mister grey-HAM-ser

As the twentieth century ticked over into the twenty-first I swore that I'd get my license before the apocalypse. My driving instructer was one very large Mexican called Marco who would turn up half-an-hour late if he turned up at all, explaining that he'd had the sort of family problems that required the paid employment of lawyers. Still he would sit there with his Mcdonalds meal deal and discuss his latest fad diet as I nervously merged into freeway traffic cutting off a beemer or a merc, and we'd bond in some odd way when he'd pick me up at uni on hot thursday evenings undressing the ladies through his dark ray bans while I did my best to stay gender neutral; listening to bad fox pop laughing as he switched the car's inside lamp on and off to the beat: our party's strobe light.

And at end of each lesson he'd tell me "don't party too hard mister grey-HAM-ser" and in all honesty in the past few days I've been thinking about these wise words as I recovered from what could be only described as malicious self abuse.

I drink too much. Yes I do.

padre de octubre

Well it's nearly that time of year again with Christmas just a few months away and before you know it all the tinsel and the reindeer and the shiney little baubles will be hanging from the rafters of our hermetically sealed shopping centres and what with all the various feasts and saint's days in between such as St Francis Day (October 4), the Presentation and then the following Immaculate Conception of Blessed Virgin Mary (November 21 & December 8 respectively) and then there's my birthday it's time I make some gift suggestions.

Now with World Youth Day to be held in Sydney in mid 2008 the building frenetic excitement is sure to make 2007 catholic flavoured and what better way to feel part of the action than with a catholic themed calender.

Piero Pazzi an italian photographer has been bringing out the Calendario Romano, full of very hansome Italian "priests" for a few years now, published chiefly as a souvenir for tourists visiting the Vatican it has been latched onto by a UK website which has been selling calendars with one pound out every one sold going to Food chain, a british charity providing nutritional services including home delivered meals and health advice to men, women and children who are chronically sick as a result of AIDS. Now as it turns out these priests in the calendar are actually models and while one apparently was once an alter boy none of them it seems will be offering communion come sunday. Pazzi's website has put a call out to interested clergymen wanting to appear on the calendar but I've not been able to find out whether there's been any ecumenical niblings on this. Nevertheless these guys are very very pretty (my personal favourites being October, March and June) and I do believe this calender would make any good (or bad) catholic's trinity sunday* and while the naughty little catholic in me** is a little disappointed about the authenticity the plus side is that at least these guys haven't sworn no oath of chastity.

"What about nuns?" I hear you say. Well if that's your thing then maybe Nuns Having Fun 2007 Calendar is for you. The black-and-white photos from the 1950s and 60s brought to you by Maureen Kelly and Jeffrey Stone, show Nuns "frolicking through ... waves (yes, in full habits), nuns at the bowling alley, nuns on a roller coaster, nuns singing, nuns in a chorus line, nuns playing jump rope, nuns on a road trip, nuns in bumper cars. Oh, and what fun they’re having!"

Also:

Nicole Martinelli, Italian 'Priests in Calendar Are Models. Zoomata, 2 March 2004.

*Probably not to be displayed in the same room where el papa is hung.

**By the way not catholic, but who can say that there isn't a little bit catholic in all of us.

digital zombies

During an ad-break for VideoHits last week my friend Adrian and I, both very hung over from the night before encountered a chocolate bar commercial endorsed by someone I would consider to be one of the twentieth century’s most iconic celebrities. Nothing out of the ordinary there I hear you say except, that is for the fact that this particular celebrity is dead and has been dead for over thirty years. The advertisement in question for Mars Bars included the footage of a late Bruce Lee, shirtless and skin glistening in sweat at his peak physical prime and utilising the latest in computer imaging like techno voodoo has the dead kung fu master with his lightening fast reflexes eat one of their chocolate bars with their chocolate-malt nougat centre, covered in a layer of caramel and coated in milk chocolate… I was livid and quickly lept to my feet in indignation.

To many of us the idea that we will be remembered after we die holds a central part to our spiritual lives, our motivation to procreate and get up in the morning, hell the ancient Egyptians believed that if people forgot who you were after death you would suffer a second one. But no need to worry, that is providing your name keeps getting mentioned, allowing you to party in the afterlife to you ba's content and similarly celebrity status holds a key to immortality. Think Mozart, Shakespeare and Leonardo Da Vinci and you have a few members of what could be classically termed immortals. Now Bruce Lee is just a modern day entrant and he's not the only one. Indeed celebrity status met dizzying new heights in the twentieth century and for some being dead was an excellent career move, in 2004 Forbes Magazine published a list of the world’s top ten earning dead celebrities to which unsurprisingly Elvis Presley took top billing and it can be argued that, and I will attempt to minimise the schmaltz, that the use of their images, music, artwork etc with all the cash that come from it functions in keeping their memories alive (so to speak). And fair enough. Concord Moon LP, a company owned by Linda Lee Cadwell and Shannon Lee Keasler (wife and daughter of Bruce Lee) hold the name and likeness rights for Bruce Lee and through the non-profit organization The Bruce Lee Foundation has this stated intention. The foundation’s mission statement says that they intend to “enrich lives, open minds and break down barriers through the active proliferation of Bruce Lee’s legacy of undaunted optimism in the face of adversity, unwavering humanism, mental and physical perseverance, and inspirational presence of mind toward the betterment of our global community.” This apparently involves selling chocolate bars and whether the man in question would have objected or seen this as furthering his legacy I am not in a position to answer however it opens an ethical question as to whether the images of the dead should be sold and leached off to build a company’s brand identity or shift units especially when a company’s philosophy or product is seemingly incompatible with the person or the lives that they led.

A perfect example is the Street’s Magnum Swinging 60s promotion that my friend pointed out to me there in my living room mid rant, where Streets introduced nine new Magnum flavours, all with a 1960s theme, among them were Jami Hendrix, Woodchoc, John Lemon and Cherry Guevara. Now I could understand an Andy Warhol flavour (suggestions?) but what exactly is it about the lives of John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix or god forbid Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara that lends their posthumous support for tackily themed ice creams?

With the maturing of digital imaging technology and techniques in what I feel is becoming close to a virtual necromancy, where it is increasingly possible to have the dead talk and act as though they were still among the living. A situation where the dead are forced against their will, ripped from their peace to sell sell sell products and promote brands incongruent with the lives they lived: at the best distasteful and on the other extreme a form of electronic purgatory. Surely it would be more appropriate to attach the strings to those monsters of history like Hitler, Stalin and maybe Idi Amin and have them dance and make fools of themselves or maybe even have them apologise for all the wrongs they’ve done but then there’s no money in that, no parasitic brand can leach their je ne sais quoi and synergise.

Also:

Dan Glaister, Dead stars who rain money on the living. The Guardian 9 April 2005.

my last two dollar coin

I spend my lunch breaks alone and while I know this sounds awfully anti social well that's me I suppose, but really I just like to wander the city streets listening to my ipod thinking and humming to myself and am happy not to be bothered. And yesterday while doing this, standing at the lights near parliament waiting to cross I saw one of those AIDS trust fundraisers across the road just waiting there wanting to make me feel guilty for just passing by, looking all innocent and goodly made me rush rationalise why I wasn't going to drop a coin into her bucket. Look I give to them here and there, I even volunteer goddamn it and I mean solidarity and all but when you reduce it down to its basics I just don't know anyone who's positive and while that's not the limits of my generosity it is a deciding factor when handing over my last two dollar coin.

It was just then that an African couple, possibly Sudanese thinking I recognised the lady from Footscray, with their little boy approached the AIDS fundraiser in her plastic bib, the man stumbling around in his pockets for change as the pedestrian light went green playing some salsa hit by Ismael Rivera from the 1950s. The man took his son by the hand to cross, turning seemingly annoyed that his wife wasn't with him only to then smile with broad enthusiasm when he saw that she was hanging back rummaging through her purse for more change.

I don't mean to comment here on their financial situation even if it is true that many African migrants, especially those from places like Sudan are here in Australia because they have experienced extreme deprivation of their human rights but merely to say that I saw in a short seconds glance that to some people the statistics that I read about on BBC world are really a part of a plague that is of an irreducible immensity and even here in Melbourne on this sad cold and wet thursday of a horrible immediacy.

Regardless of all this and the fact that all I had to do was just get more money out of the wall I still didn't give up my last two dollar coin.

memed in

Thanks goes to Richard for the tag. The game's rules are this:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.

Now technically the closest book was El Principito, a spanish translation of that french classic Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, however as there was no page 123 I had to therefore settle for the book underneath it, the controversial Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.

Here we go:

'It was the Devil,' he says aloud to the empty air, making it true by giving it voice. 'The last time it was Shaitan.' This is what he has heard in his listening, that he has been tricked, that the Devil came to him in the guise of the archangel, so that the verses he memorized, the ones he recited in the poetry tent, were not the real thing but its diabolic opposite, not godly, but satanic. He returns to the city as quickly as he can, to expunge the foul verses that reek of brimstone and sulphur, to strike them from the record for ever and ever, so that they will survive in just one or two unreliable collections of old traditions and orthodox interpreters will try and unwrite their story, but Gibreel, hovering-watching from his highest camera angle, knows one small detail, just one tiny thing that's a bit of a problem here, namely that it was me both times, baba, me first and second also me.

midwinta protest

I went to that midwinta protest outside the VIC-state parliament on Sunday with a friend from work; we'd decided to add our shiney faces to the crowd demanding some public and legal recognition of our relationships should either of us ever find ourselves in one. It was my friend's first protest and well .... I'd been to a few here and there but nonetheless there were some first times there for me as well, such as the sight of a rather hansome hombre signing (AUSLAN) with a lisp and all those miniture purebreed such-and-such yap-yaps that only homos would think to bring to a political action. The crowd was bigger than I thought it would be with theage.com citing over 2,000 awashed in red, balloons and clothing. I wore red boxer-briefs beneath but kept this fact to myself.

On Wednesday last week in my lunch half-hour I'd walked past an anti-abortion protest on the steps on parliament and the day before that a freedom of speech protest that was nothing but a cover for various right-wing church groups who were fighting for the right to slander muslims. I stood there on Sunday, sun bright and sky cerulean with a satisfied grin on my face that our protest outnumbered theirs combined and then some. I was particularly moved by one minister who spoke on behalf of those christians who took Jesus' message about inclusion to heart, inviting gay men and women (single and in union) into the fold. It was nice to see the words of hate and exclusion and their adherents were down in the stats for once.

Labour and Liberal representatives were there and they skipped oh so merrily around the issues, voicing their support with one hand for the removal of discrimitory legislation but conveniently omitting the fact that both their parties oppose any formal recognition of same-sex unions: anything that resembles an adam and eve not adam and steve. The Greens were unequivocal and the Democrats took the middle ground.... but were we all there? There was something or someone missing... maybe?

Maybe it was the more outlandish among us, who were coming down from their saturday night... the drag queens were all sleepy heads in bed leaving it to the socialists, the red block to lead us into what was a very convoluted chant. Now don't get me wrong I like socialists, in fact I have my little secret activist boy fantasy but sometimes I feel as though they think the year is 1968. Let say they lack the pizzazz, the kitch, the glitter, and glam that I felt we needed as we walked into swanston street gawked at by so many happy snappy tourists.

Well... that said. Canada, the UK and various EU states have enshrined same-sex relationships on their books, are we so backward? If not now then when and will I have a boyfriend? I ask you.

i hugged a heater for warmth and got burnt

I am on my third set of pain killers today and my head just won't quit from hurting. I think it has something to do with the wisdom tooth that's pushing through the gum way back there in my food hole. Every year it does this... well at least the last three and reliable as ol' faithful, I say, come winter my mouth begins to swell and I start chewing check. But then as I get round to making an appointment with the dentist the pain dissipates and the inflammation goes down and I am made the fool and feel the hypochondriac.

the writing on the wall

"The lamb's teeth will be sharpened"

- scrawled on a rotting fence just east of Christchurch (city of churches), New Zealand circa 2004.

jogging on

My shorts are too short and tight I think to myself as I attempt to keep some semblance of pace as I jog around princes park. I hear the shocked and amused thoughts of those I pass in my head; the paranoid psychotic voices are always hard to filter out even when I am exercising but then again where else to go but inward. Strange weird swirly visual effect.

I find myself dwelling on a conversation I had with a friend of a friend last week at some homo party held regularly under inflation nightclub in geddes lane in the city. I sip on my vodka lemon/lime spritz spouting my usual crap, nonsense that comes out whenever I am nervous... which is most of the time. Imagine standing on the Bolivian plains of El Salar de Uyuni (something I hope to see next year) the world's biggest salt lake wearing pitchblack motorcycle goggles, the kind Tom Waits would be proud to wear... stillness and blinding light reflecting on the pure white lake contrasted by a deep breath of blue sky above. I say if only I could find the optometrist crazy enough (oh my, my poor myopic eyes) , say with the vision to undertake my patronage. Turning to me he grins in his sheepish way and without detectable venom "did you realise I stopped paying attention about five minutes ago." I am taken aback. Fuck you too I think and shut my mouth.

Disolve to a small cafe, a scene in which I sit with my soy latte retelling this to a friend; still a little put out by it all. His eyes light up, incredulous that someone had sought to shoot me down about this and we build together on my little fantasy stimulated by caffiene and we both dream of mad optometrists in lab coats surrounded by diodes as lightening flashes through tubes above.

My foot lands in a puddle on the path and mud splashes up my leg but I keep jogging.

Graduation Day 2002

On 14 February 2002 I stood with maybe a quarter of a million other people protesting the coming invasion of iraq and the Howard government's tacit (yet nonetheless full) support for it. I left work early and had driven in with friends joining an ocean of equally angry bemused citizens who were like me wholly unconvinced by the justification for any military action. Weapons of Mass Destruction? When was the last time you heard someone say that? If feels redundant now to even bring it up, the once sexy acronym rolling of my tongue. Terrorism? Well I could never understand how dropping bombs on a country the other side of the planet was supposed to make me feel safer. Why should I feel safer anyhow when some American 'smart' bomb detonates in someone else's living room fire and concrete... when isn't it better I feel a little bit nervous and let the owner of said living room continue watching the arabic equivalent to pop idol? Freeing the Iraqi people? From what? Saddam? According to BBC online an average of over one hundred Iraqis die now every day because of the violence. Yes we freed them alright. Freed them from this mortal coil.

Graduation Day: 20 March 2002. I woke up early to clean the house getting things in order for my little afterparty, my mum out shopping getting a few last minute supplies. The TV was stuck to the ABC watching the coverage and waiting for the expected... and when it came I stood in the hallway scrubbing brush in my hand, mouth open and tap running. The Americans were bombing Baghdad and I flooded my bathroom and bedroom.

Why did we go to war again? I'd like to say I told you so as if anyone was ever listening to me but that would denote some self satisfaction. I don't feel any. I would also like to tell you all the best way forward but I don't know, only that things look pretty fucked up and I am sorry for that.

deep-fried exorcism

The other night I witnessed (in a dream of course) the exorcism of a plate of french fries. Now I don't know the difference between one sort of potato chip from the next let alone one possessed by the devil... so I thus referred such prodding and pocking, decifering and deciding to the experts: the priest and laymen and laywomen who stood around the table that 'lay' this plate and its chips upon. I was just about to discover, truth revealed if the oil the chips were fried in had been unholy cursed when I was abruptly woken by my alarm... time to get ready for my office nine to five I said to myself, wrenching my tired body from beneath the covers.

My friend Darren who told me tonight, in response to this story that I have some of the strangest dreams around.

I tend to agree.

the last I dreamt

STFODC

I was at dinner with friends last sunday: shanghai dumplings off china town. A cheap and no-frills restaurant where melbourne's young creatives are increasingly drawn to dining by the low prices and chance of experiencing the authentic... that is until everyone else finds out about it and they are forced to move on like "Brunswick street used to be a community man, a hub of creative energy but now its soul is dead" unaware they are actually the cause of it.

Tim, the guy who did visuals for my friend's band Low Rise Estate, grabbed my camera. I had taken a few choice shots during their set at Loop and having finished my mushroom and veg dumplings was entertaining myself by pointing my camera at those left eating. He proceeded, most expertly to highlight its technical shortcomings and how other cameras more favourably compared (undoubtedly his). Satisfied that his male posturing had impressed he handed the camera back and began telling us about some new organisational technique that people on the web were buzzing about... I tuned out as he began as images of more entertaining telecommercial testimonials flashed infront of my mind.

What? I said, drawn back in. What the hell is a PAA Hipster? I asked. He brought out a wad of palm size sheets of paper held together by an bull clip, grining and like that yankee carpetbagger he called it macaroni. Apparently PAA stands for personal analogue assistant and is a technique being promoted by none other than google's Tom Limoncelli. This technique involves, now hold you breath: writing your thoughts down on paper.

Your kidding, right? I asked. It's brilliant and it really works. It clears valuable cerebral real estate for other thoughts, he said that now he doesn't have to think of things, he can think about things; upon which his dinner arrived and distracted, he accused the waitress barely maintaining composure, of bringing dumplings uncooked. You want them deep fried? She asked seemingly a little confused and without a hint of sarcasm. I was given the impression that she was unaccustomed to customer complaints.

I say to all you PAA Hipters out there: STFODC! It stands for stating the fucking obvious dumb cunts! It is actually called a notepad and not some exotic plant from the amazon that until the drug giant Pfizer discovered it only a few naked indians had heard of it.

It makes me want to punch myself in the head.

jesus is coming... loudly

Seriously kids, if the words gay and jesus put side by side on a page makes you a might bit uncomfortable, then the sentence "he slowly began to stroke my rod" is unlikely to anything to allay this anxiety. So if this is the case then I strongly suggest that you don't click on the hyperlink below.


http://www.jesus21.com/poppydixon/sex/gay_jesus.html

west bank story

Check this out! This article entitled "Queen Hussein" gives a snapshot into the lives of two gay men living in the occupied territories and appeared in the lefty rag Monthy Review earlier this month (orig. translated from the Hebrew edition of Haaretz).

Queen Hussein

what i wish i'd said

It's always the way that you think of something really witty to say five or ten minutes after having the conversation. Some side that would have stung or back hand so fabulously devised and delivered that your cool quota is spent in one blow...

I was booking a ticket today for the opening screening of Renaissance at the Nova:

- We only have three split tickets left so you'd be sitting by yourself.

- That's fine.

- I can only get you a seat on the front row, either on the extreme right or the extreme left.

- If I realise they are the same thing do I get to sit in the centre?

(what I really said: well I better take the extreme left then... hehe)

But I suppose I come out sounding a dick either way.

666

Did you know that fear of the number 666 is called hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia? No?

Does anyone else feel that the only reason that 20th Century Fox decided to remake Omen, a film that cost a reported $52.4 million was for the sole purpose of releasing it on the 6 June 2006?

this things a party... Grandmaster Flash @ the Forum 3 June 2006

Whatever it was, it was the best fun I've had at a live event in six months. Flash if nothing else played the crowd so well he even managed getting my most stolid of friends shaking their booty in what was as much a history of hip-hop as dance party. "I made the decks into an instrument, no one else can say that" Flash proclaimed with out a hit of humility as he took us deck by deck educating the uninitiate in the ways of hip-hop, beginning with some old-school beats mixing through tracks from the 70s and upwards from Gangstarr and Snoop Dogg to Phil Collins and Nirvana, he said that hip-hop knows no discrimination be it "pop, rock... black, white, Australian or Japanese, when I play it, it's all hip-hop."

Through our journey Flash gave props to lost friends, dead hip hop greats such as Big L, Easy E, TuPac and Notorious B.I.G, addressing the crowd "if you see see someone that you miss... that you remember... that you love then I want you to make some noise" repeating as each image swirled up on the projector screen in cheap digital effects stolen it seemed from a powerpoint presentation.

Noise I made and dance I did as we hit level three paying tribute to the four pillars of hip-hop: the graffiti, the breakdance, MC and most importantly the DJ... counting them off with his fingers. But with a patch of floor so sticky it nearly stole my shoe, unnecessarily agressive security and Flash's increasing frustration at sound levels the show lost a little of it's earlier momentum which was nonetheless powerful enough to carry me all the way home still buzzing.

(props go to my friend Aaron who also assisted in getting me home)

what's wrong with me? seriously

How come I can enter into near empty pub and within minutes have a woman introduce her good self, interrupt whatever I was doing and sit down at my table but I struggle to even get a guy to speak to me at a gay bar? And when a guy does come up to me he turns out to be straight... but... what goddamn kinda wrong signals am i sending out? What strange pheromone is seeping out my sweet glands? I mean how the fuck in the stretch of one evening at q&a (local gay night-standing for queer & alternative) of the two guys who approach me one is so clueless (and straight) that he didn't realise he was in a gay bar-wanted to talk to me about some chick he'd scored- and the second wanted to pick a fight with me for being a screaming poof .... ?

What am I trying to tell myself? Would I have made a better hetero? Christ!!! Yes god, maybe you were right.

Postscript: Admittedly the young lady did then tell me that if her boyfriend saw us together he ... well it's not like he'd beat me up or anything, not if he only saw us together... but that's not the point... seriously I am not happy!

oh my gay lord its vodou!

In Haiti the lwa or loa, the spirits of vodou, leave their home beneath the ocean, bas de l’eau to walk the earth and commune oh-so personally with us through the act of possessing. During a service, held often in a hougan or mambo’s (priests and priestesses of vodou) house in a room called the peristyle (vodou chapel) where music, dance and sacrifice swirl around a central post that represents the universe the lwa chooses and then rides a person like one rides a horse, taking the reigns and guiding them this way and that way to the beat of the drums; there they demand, promise and prophesise, dance and cavort, there they swear and say dirty crude things to offend and titillate. Joan Dayan wrote that from a Western vantage these gods of vodou might appear to lack a certain grandeur or transcendence, surrendering themselves to the “spectacle of ceremony with a kind of rough immediacy,” as the lwa of the dead particularly, not tied to a mortal coil nor suffer its tiresome consequences engage in animated exaggerated sexual behaviour, that is much comic as it is erotic, as the Gede (the dead) dance the banda, thrusting their hips to a staccato beat.

Sidestep:

Thus travelling throughout the transcendental realms of the multiverse in my search for a true gay lord I journey to the Caribbean and find an island deep in as much the violence of the past as it is the present. Haiti, a land shrouded in the myths of hollywood zombie movies and technicolour CNN television coverage of its violence and political unrest. Vodou has gotten itself a bad name, whether through the media and church attempts to discredit it, colonial and neo-colonial slander perhaps or maybe it’s sometimes close relationship with the island’s nastier side of sorcery for sale, I don’t know. Regardless vodou is a religion that traces its roots back to Western Africa and was brought to the Caribbean with slavery and thrived despite it or even because of it and is practiced often alongside the christian faiths, primarily catholic who consitutute about eighty percent of the population with little (if any) perceived contradiction with gods from Africa often portrayed using the same christian portraits they do the saints.

Well… it is not exactly the place you’d expect to find some homo-friendly god or religion; where priests and priestesses practice their faith and their sexuality with little moral prohibity. Mambo Racine Sans Bout, an initiated and ordained priestess of Haitian vodou writes that gay men and women though “rigorously excluded from Protestant congregations, and frowned upon in Catholic services” find in vodou an outlet for spiritual expression. Saying that there are a higher percentage gay people at vodou ceremonies and in the priesthood than represented in the general population, knowing of a few peristyles in Port-au-Prince that have congregations where being gay is an entry requirement. While not unknown the priestess continues, homophobic attacks in Haiti are not on the level that they are in other parts of the Caribbean, like Jamaica that have seen mob attacks and killings. Although male machismo is as high in Haiti as it is elsewhere in the region a high level of bisexual activity may point to why it doesn’t easily translate into violence against gay men (lesbians are another story).

Sidestep:

Erzulie Freda, a powerful and important lwa of the Rada nation who was born in Dahomey and brought with the boats that carried the slaves to the new world; Freda is portrayed as the epitome of grace and has the airs of virginal mercy that can be seen in the eyes of Mother Mary. She is fair skinned and very beautiful and is often seen wearing fine jewellery and is the lwa of ideas, hopes and aspirations and is often said to hold a special place in Her heart for gay men who inturn place Her as their met tet (ruling lwa). Yet She is also a woman says Bob Corbett on his Haiti page, who walks with “a saucy sway to her hips”, a lwa who is pleasure loving, taking delight dancing kissing and caressing men. Mambo Racine Sans Bout says that the gay men in Her sway dance wearing the fine colourful dresses that She loves. Thus like nowhere else in Haiti or in the Caribbean for that matter they may openly flirt with other men. Indeed it is in vodou ceremonies she says that gay men are above all prized as dancers combining their athletic prowess with the “voluptuousness of women.”

Contrasting the feminine Freda is that of Her Petwo sister Erzulie Dantor, a strong black woman who was born in the brutality of slavery in colonial Haiti. An enemy of Freda, it is said that the scars that adorn her black face were obtained battling Her pale and delicate sibling. With her Dantor carries knives that she willing to draw in the defence of the vulnerable, deploring violence against women and children and will seek vengeance upon the men who abuse them. While married with children she is said to lie with both men and women in her bed and is seen as something of a patron to lesbians.

Vodou is a religion born out of and in reaction to poverty, slavery and life times of suffering and as Joan Dayan argues, the lwa of vodou do not sit high, detached up in heaven but live, love, hate and suffer with their people. They do not stand above us in some glow of moral puritanism, nor is there a priest to stand in the way of communion simply because of the partner you sleep with... gasp.

Disclaimer
*I have not been to Haiti nor have a witnessed a vodou ceremony so my apologies if I have anyway misrepresented vodou, its believers or the lwa themselves. I promise you it has not been my intention.

References:

Websites:
- Richard Ammon, Gay Haiti 2003, Global Gays

- Mambo Racine Sans Bout, The Vodou Page:
Sex In Vodou
Homosexuality In Vodou

- Bob Corbett, Bob Corbett’s Haiti Page
NOTES ON CENTRAL LOA

- Kevin Filan, Ezili Danto: Single Mother with a Knife, Widdershins, vol 9 issue 5, 2006

- Wikipedia, Haiti

Essays:

- Joan Dayan, “Vodoun, or the Voice of the Gods”, Sacred Possessions: Vodou, Santería, Obeah and the Carribean, 1997, pp. 13-36.

quote of the day

Walking down the steps into missinglink today, searching for Wheat album I couldn't find at JB I stumbled on an instore performance by grind band Fuck... I'm dead. Surrounded by a sea of black metal t-shirts and long unkept hair I stuck around and listened to a few songs, when lead singer Jay Jones said to the crowd "if you don't like someone, set them on fucking fire." Take of this what you will... but I shook my head and left the store, suffice to say I didn't get my CD.

halley's comet and a luminous trail of sentimentality

I remember my dad waking me in the early hours of the morning, and with stern prodding and despite my several determined attempts to fall back asleep he suceeded in getting me out of bed. It was 1986 and we were driving down an unsealed road in our '76 Holden Torana, binoculars on the passenger seat and my siblings and I in the back. I was six years old. We were to witness the comet that Edmond Halley had named and had last visited this bright blue globe in 1910 and wouldn't be back for another 76 years or so for its fifth flyby since Halley had spied it through his telescope. By all projections I'd be lucky to see it again.

My father has been dead now for about 15 years and like many father-son relationships it was a distant one. My father was an academic who spent most of his time in his room slash study and many of my memories about him involve a kiss to a face covered in stubble, as I had quietly interrupted him and his work to say 'night'. Someone recently told me that the love of a father is different to that of a mother but that it could nonetheless be found beneath all the anger, derision and disappointment aimed at his fat sad son. And then sometimes I think maybe Freud was right.

You know I even thought about telling him? It was less than a year before heart failure threw him to the ground. I was eleven and my grandmother was staying with us and in need to accommodate the Empress Dowager in our modest homestead my father and I were sleeping in a caravan we'd hired and parked in our driveway. I think it was really my brother who was supposed to sleep there instead but there had been an argument and a fight, with my father and brother falling into each other so clumsily and my mother screaming for them to stop... well perhaps this is why my father was sleeping out in the caravan and not in the house.

I was in bed and reading when my father came in. The book was about some ecologists fighting poachers in deep dark Africa, sort of a dumbed down 'Gorillas in the Mist' for children where justice and universal good sense prevail. Instead of the murdered researchers bodies being found their heads split by Hutu extremists who would go onto pile the land and rivers of Rwanda high with the bodies of their Tutsi neighbours.

I lay there nervously with the words sitting on my tongue but I said nothing, either because I was scared of how he would react or simply incapable of fully articulating my feelings at that age, I don't remember. But the lights went out in silence and I fell into sleep.

We left the car in a gravelled car park and made our way to the oval. The air was that kind of frigid that sets your skin taught so as to remind you of the boundaries of your self and the outside atmosphere and we stood still and looked up into the universe above and to be honest, even with the assistance of the binoculars I don't remember seeing very much at all; unable to tell the comet from the stars. Maybe there were too many clouds or too much light pollution but I was tired and unimpressed. So we headed back to the car with my father in silent irritation and whether he was angry at the comet or me I don't know.

I could of course try and recall this a little differently, construct an alternative memory to exist alongside this one where I was really awestruck by the sight through the binoculars of this streaking sliver of light. With my father crouched next to me helping me hold the binoculars, speaking in a soft warm tone explaining how this comet travels through cold dark space being warmed by the light and love of the sun that gave birth to it, causing it to stream and sparkle like the magnesium fire on top of your birthday cake. Crossing these skies striking fear, awe and joy into the hearts of many men, reminding us of our place in the world and those things that are really important.

I understood not a word of it yet given how much I saw of him I enjoyed just being near him and in hindsight am grateful to have had moments like this however fleeting before he too disappeared into the night.

a giant wombat & me

For the last week and a half maybe I've had nightmare after nightmare. Almost every night a new one. It is getting to a point where I am beginning to wonder about my own mental state.

On sunday night I dreamt that I had angered a giant wombat. Perhaps it was a Diprotodon australis or a some great and terrible animal spirit of the land. Maybe it was both, I don't know but what I do know is that he took a particular disliking to me and for whatever reason he wanted me dead or at least severly crippled.

I ran from him as fast as I could to my house, the one that I grew up in. There an assortment of friends and family waited for me and as I told them of my plight one by one they made there excuses: shopping to be done, rock concerts to be seen, new countries to visit and they left me, abandoned me.

Meanwhile the great Diprotodont recruited many other animals to his cause, to aid him in my destruction. And they gathered around my house; a keen labrador stood by his side: his able lieutenant.

I rang every number I had on my phone in desperation: no answer, can't talk, too busy. I thought of places to hide, doors I could lock but a sense of finality gripped me and my stomach dropped. A wombat the size of a truck could easily smash any door, any lock, any wall that I might put between us.

I was grade A fucked.

the last I dreamt

no silence in the graveyard

"... as silent as a graveyard," the English reader read.

"What is this?" my student asked underlining the word 'graveyard' with his finger.

I started explaining speaking clearly and carfully spacing my words: "It is a place where dead people are buried, where funerals are held when they die. Do you know the word cemetery?" And I knew he knew.

"Ah." He read the line again. "But in a graveyard..." reading the word slowly, sounding the syllables out with due care "... there is many noises and lights."

fate of the ill handed messenger

Recent translations of a New Kingdom sarcophagus inscription, dating early in the 11th century BCE gives an inciteful glimpse into the religious life of ancient Egyptians.

"lo Anubis held the feather aloft, placeth upon the balance scales that only Thoth may read, that weigheth the heart of the deadman according to the life lived and if crimes were made against the goddess* in life, the man that never returned messages of text even when credit was owned his heart outweighed the feather of ma'at/truth and lo it was thrown into the mouth of Ammit the bone eater to die a second death."

See ancient wisdom bastards! So if someone text messages you it's only polite to reply. Be here warned.

*the goddess - Ma'at or truth, both a goddess and idea who is represented by a feather.

other moral prescriptions for a good life

more on my dreaming 2

Sick again and while I am blaming the latest dream on the fever that I am running, I do sometimes wonder why my dreaming life is far more exciting and imaginative than my waking one. I mean last night's dream reads like a Tom Clancy novel.

Here I am a CIA undercover agent operating in Africa who is ordered to sway a particular civil conflict in a way that is favourable to the US government. To do this I travel to of all places Havana, Cuba to recruit mercenaries that will fight and train local troops.

I could never ever admit this rather realpolitikal geopolitical fantasy to my lefty friends. They'd be all like "man" and I'd be all like "I know man but it's just a dream and it's not like I love the US, I hate them and think George Bush is stupid" but they'd be still like "man".

It'd be like admitting that I had a nocturnal emission about Alexander Downer... and I didn't... really... seriously.

the last I dreamt

more on my dreaming

I dreamt another fantastical dream last night:

War had visited us once more, poking another of its ugly little hydra heads through the crust of the earth to breathe foul flame and death and destruction upon creation, upon the cities of this fair land. Hmmm … this is all a little too dramatic perhaps (and a little inappropriate) so I will endeavour to tone down the literary flourish just a tad and try to siphon off just a little of my own bathos if you will permit. And I am sure you will. Suffice to say the cities were not safe and while no declaration by our distant enemy had been made they had made veiled threats and my city had been on the top of the list of targets. So the atmosphere at home was palpable, thick and heavy-laden with fear and foreboding.

My apologies: there I go again with the over-acting prophesising end-of-the-world routine, I really must desist.

I absconded my responsibilities and took a little sojourn into the Victorian countryside and admitted my self into the best mental hospital money and privilege could buy. And while the title mental hospital is technically correct it is perhaps a little misleading, a term like Healing Farm might be more accurate and fitting at least in terms of the hospital’s marketing strategy. The Farm was built on a small Gippsland property not so far from Churchill and the staff were experienced and supportive, the facilities warm, friendly and very open; trips into town were frequent and encouraged so we spent our time there watching movies, doing chores, and of course talking about ourselves and our problems whether it was in group or over cake and coffee in town.

It’s not that I wasn’t sick as I’d been depressed for years and quite frankly I fitted in there better than I had anywhere else in all the days of my life but there was something not right…. and then I was woken by my mobile phone feeling a little unsettled.

the last I dreamt

dead flag blues

Heard a tune by God Speed You Black Emperor called The Dead Flag Blues today and I scrawled this down on a series of receipts that I had in my wallet. Apparently the dialogue is part of some film one of the band members efrim has been working on. So if your feeling like you just wish the world would end now now now, like I am, then as Molly Meldrum says: "Do yourself a favour, check it out" and revel in it.

Transcription:

The car's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel
and the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides
and a dark wind blows

The government is corrupt
and we're all on so many drugs with the radio on
and the curtains drawn

We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine
and the machine is bleeding to death
the sun is fallen down and the billboards are all leering
and the flags are all dead at the top of their poles

It went like this
the buildings topled in on themselves
mothers clutching babies
picked throught the rubble and pulled out their hair

The skyline was all beautiful on fire
all twisted metal stretching upwards
everything washed in a thin orange haze

I said kiss me you're beautiful
these are truely the last days
You grabbed my hand and we fell into it
like a daydream or fever

Oh my gay Lord!

Now despite some genuine and heartfelt attempts by some on both sides of the picketed fence of the sexual divide, gays and lesbians are not generally accepted let alone catered for in contemporary mainstream religion. Now there are those amongst the faithful who would take me to task on this telling me that they readily accept homosexuals but—I would ask them—do you really? Do you accept them but not their sins or some other idiotic mantra? I personally would be hard pressed to think of too many faiths that don’t place some form of moral restriction upon gays and lesbians, from celibacy and guilt-ridden self-denial to out-right heterosexual conversion aka ex-gay ministries but don’t get me wrong there are plenty of groups out there that are bent on challenging the establishment like the Metropolitan Community Church and Al Fatiha but they’re just that: challenging, fighting the system line by line, verse by verse so that G-d, Jesus and Allah open there arms and welcome us into heaven so that talk of smashing sodomite heads on the sides of mountains all becomes resigned to history as a bad and unhelpful interpretation (and there have been many to go that way), that they are viewed as an insignificance to be absorbed by a greater understanding of the word of God. But alas this is not how things are going. The way things stands most religions are pretty uncomfortable with same-sex couples and as the Anglican church threatens to schism, their conservative elements use the gay-card to wrestle control of their church back out of the hands of the more liberal elements, fundamentalists in the Moslem world (among others) describe homosexuality as a western disease to be stamped out and decree horrible punishment for those found practicing it.

But who are we to pray to then? Are we then a godless bunch, the unchosen children, the un-inheritors of God’s kingdom? I downright refuse to accept that I am the willing servant of Satan as some have labelled me so then what are we to do? Surely there is in the great pantheon of heaven one god who will stand up and be counted to protect the gays and lesbians amongst us. Surely!

It is fine to say that God loves us despite our sins but who is willing to say God loves us because of our sins, or who sees love between two men or women as a beautiful thing? Who is it then that I ask for divine intervention when I want to go to bed with this really cute guy that I met the other night? What ceremony do I perform upon a prophylactic so that its latex skin stays true and unbroken and then what words of thanks do I utter when he calls me the next day?

This is my project.

the only gay in the village

My uncle would visit us every couple of years and after knocking back a few drinks would proceed to tell us kids what exactly was wrong with the world.

"Don't get me wrong but what those poofs do to each other really disgusts me but look if they can keep their hands to themselves, stay celibate, you know then I have no problem with that," he took a sip from the beer that my mum had bought especially for his visit. As my dad had died a few years before there'd seemed no sense in keeping alcohol around the house anymore.

"There was this gentleman who lived in my town in Tassie back when I used to work at the mill. Now everyone knew he was a poof and while we might'n't have said it aloud, I mean he never pranced around or wore dresses but you could just tell in the way he would look at you. But you know he never did anything with any blokes at least not that I knew of; he just kinda kept to himself. You would see him drinking in the pub on a Friday night sometimes amongst a group from the mill but usually alone.

"Now I know that some of the guys from around the town roughed him up a few times but I had never had anything to do with it. As far as I am concerned if they keeping it in their pants I don't see anyone should have a problem with that but I suppose if he had been all la-de-da it would've made things worse for him."

But then it goes to show you can do the right thing by some people and still get fucked.

the occult activities and manifestations survey and evidence for my demonic possession

A colleague at work today told me that word around the office was that I was insane. Although I am pretty sure she was joking, plagued with self-doubt I asked myself whether this could this be true. After an extensive search on the internet I made a most disturbing discovery on the world-wide-web that not only might I suffer from a mental illness I could also be POSSESSED! The Occult Activities and Manifestations Survey that was designed by Rex Rosenberg a conservative christian clinical psychologist and chief evaluator of sexual offenders at Larned State Hospital in Kansas offers a less earthly means of understanding and hopefully battling 'mental illness' or DEMONIC POSSESSION. His belief in what he terms demonically-mediated dissociation (DMD) caused some controversy amongst many of his (non-believer) colleagues and his attempt to gain any formal recognition of this side-project was turned down, his submission to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for DMD was rejected.

For all those who witnessed the final and rather confronting episode of the SBS comedy John Safran vs GOD that aired in late 2004, where Melburnian comedian Safran is exorcised by American Bob Larson of all the demons that had been accumulating throughout his show. At the beginning of the episode Safran was asked to fill out a rather in depth survey relating to his contact with the occult: a lengthy list indeed. The Rosenberg questionnaire, similar in its purpose to the Larson one is designed first to identify whether a patient is possessed (probably) and then next determine the exact nature of the creature inhabiting them.

And indeed what better way to do this is to have this patient sit down with a seven page survey (in the case of Rosenberg's questionnaire- sorry mother nature I printed it out) with a black biro in hand and circle where appropriate. How very civil. I am not sure Blatty would have approved. Now I am not trained as a psychologist or a pastoral counsellor so I am not sure how I’m supposed to interpret my results so if someone who is happens to be reading this please offer me your opinion.

I must confess I don't believe in God so I score pretty poorly on that front in the survey. When questions 20, 21 and 22 (to name a few) ask whether I feel hostility to, or rejection to Jesus of Nazareth or the Holy Spirit, the Bible or would describe myself as agnostic or atheist I was forced to circle yes. This generally extended to being unable to pray to God or Jesus and I must admit at times I have found it hard to read the Bible. Although I'd always thought it was because the book was not much of a page turner and not a sign of demonic infestation, nashing teeth and blasphemous profanities and the like. Then again I did have trouble sitting through Mel Gibson’s The Passion and I do wholeheartedly deny that this film was the word of God, inspired or otherwise. So maybe Rosenberg has a point there.

Next I admitted to experiencing puzzling phenomena in the environment (question 50) and that I could find myself in “Trances” throughout the day, unable move or speak but knew what was going on around me. Although these question were a tad vague I could see how they could apply to the modern cubicled office life I live. So I circled yes to a sense of extreme anxiety and admitted to feeling that my attention span would suddenly become impaired, followed by a sense of powerlessness akin to some external force affecting me or having power over me.

In question 61 I circled yes to smelling strong foul odours, finding this largely related to my earlier admission to hearing “growling” sounds inside the body which was no doubt connected to my later confession to my personal involvement with Hare Krishnas, namely eating at their vegetarian restaurant Crossways on Swanston Street in the city.

Then we turn to the topic of Homosexuality, a question that pops up several times in the questionnaire and finds itself amongst the promptings for vomiting or coughing of phlegm in response to prayer, eyes turning red or yellow when very angry (cool) and eating feces, and I suppose I am guilty as charged (to homosexuality that is). I thus admitted to having personal involvement in homosexual fornication (scribbling ‘although not enough of it’ on the margin of the page) and the use of pornographic books and movies (due to a lack of the former). I then proceeded to circle yes to seeing fairies and having contact with an ascended master. And while I am not sure exactly what an ascended master is and being something of innocent in ways of S&M, I circled it nonetheless because it sounded like it might be fun.

Finally I admitted to liking and listening to Heavy Metal music, finding that it makes a great workout soundtrack, and while it might be hard for myself to admit I did play dungeons & dragons with some friends over beers and pizza while I was doing my undergrad Arts degree. But it was only the once.

True I do not levitate or generally feel like I am possessed by a dead person. Nor do I have a irrational fear of annointing oil or had sex with a Succubus or an Incubus for that matter.

Nevertheless do you think I am possessed? I throw it out to the audience.

occult activities and manifestions survey

conflicting views about multiple personality disorder

crimes of cohabitation

It's true. It's official. I really am a bad house mate. Not only am I anti-social and don't clean the bathroom but when switching off the iron this morning I accidently turned the freezer off. So effectively I left the iron on all day and let the freezer defrost but thankfully the house didn't burn down and there was no meat in the freezer to go bad. Indeed the fates did smile fondly down upon me this evening. My housemate who seems to be avoiding me at the moment came home from work late and is thus wholely unaware of my crimes; so am I going to tell her? Fuck no.

prayer for the traveller

Oh Lord, oh God of progress, monster of the sky, one who takes the oceans in your stride I ask you to tear asunder, your skin slip and disappear, your engines burn and flame and fail and fall away. In fire render me into nothing, destroy me in jet propellant flame into ash so that I might be reborn; made again my bone and skin and sinews of muscle. Obliterate me oh Lord so I might begin again.

AMEN

valentines day approaches

It is that time of year when all those lucky enough to be in a relationship get to talk oh so loudly about hallmark conspiracies and other corporate highway robberies, how february 14 is just another day on the calendar and Valentine was just more smoke and mirrors, the creation of a middle ages church wanting to usurp another pagan holiday. But here I am about to let another Valentines day pass me by and all I can think about is sitting in some high school classroom aged 16, oh too fat and heavy, miserable in the summer heat refusing to take off that woolen school-jumper and I knew then instinctfully that this day, St Valentine's Day would always be tinged with bitterness and loneliness. That I would then sit in my room at home and write bad metal lyrics with my less than subtle allusions to suicide and back in the present with only the barest minimum distance that irony allows me I embrace this day as mine and I dedicate it to some poor make-believe martyr whose church will no longer acknowledge him and to those pagan gods whose festival has been co-opted first by a religion bent on winning converts and now by greeting card companies set on making money. We are the hapless victims of this holiday and with forboding and the weight of history, theirs and mine, Valentines Day approaches.

dr spankenstein

From the studio that brought you such homo-porn monster classics as Cum-sucking Vampires and Nightmare Attack of the WereBears comes director José Vasquez’s most accomplished work: Spankenstein. This 1970s classic has been digitally remastered and dubbed into English from the original Spanish for your viewing pleasure.

With the death of Johnnie Romeiro, one of gay porn’s true gods, famous for his gorgeously fine body and bubble buttocks, his eagerly adventurous stage performances and not to mention an 11 inch member, the news that his MGB Roadster convertible had careened off a sea-side cliff during the filming of his latest film sent the gay-world into morning. Rainbow flags everywhere flew at half-mast with the gay ambassador to the United Nations declaring an international day of morning.

Meanwhile in Romeiro’s home town the bookish but nonetheless beautiful gay-scientist Dr Augusto Spankenstein renown for his unorthodox methods channelled his grief into his work: bringing Johnnie Romeiro back to life. Midnight: making his way through the impeccably maintained gay quarter of the town’s cemetery passing headstones shaped like Mae West’s lips and stately stone phalluses that stand erect like Egyptian obelisks, Spankenstein located the dead star’s grave below a majestic bronze statue of a rather well endowed angel and began to dig.

Back at his laboratory Spankenstein got to work. What hadn’t been widely reported in the papers was that Romeiro had lost a leg and his right hand in the crash but with contacts in the Sacred Heart of the Screaming Queen, a local hospital the Doctor was able to locate the replacement parts and using the latest in mad-scientist diodes and electrodes, the power of lightening and the gravitational pull of the planet, Spankenstein made Romeiro whole and brought him back to life.

What Spankenstein didn’t know at the time was that this second-hand right hand was once the property of a rather stern Headmaster of a particular stern private boys high school and after an immensely passionate encounter with his creation Spankenstein finds that the hand remembers only too well its former role in the administering of punishment. Buttocks red and raw his creation abandons him to wreak horrible spanking destruction upon the world.

Will his Spankenstein’s monster be his downfall?*

Spankenstein is out now through Halcón.

*Academic note: Spankenstein is largely seen as an allegory for Vasquez’s struggle with his own sexuality, which by this time had come into conflict with his traditional Catholic upbringing. After rediscovering God some time after the films release Vasquez denied having ever made this or any other of his films.

my own private apocalypse

As you’ve probably guessed I have a fascination with things religious. Some have labelled it a sick obsession, suggesting that a hobby of collecting flyers that certain Christian groups hand out at the corner of Burke and Swanston in the city was a strange thing to have. “Heaven: The Club of Clubs” says a glossy coloured business-card I was handed sometime back. Picturing Jesus in a leather trench-coat, wearing dark-glasses it says “Free Entry: If you know the bouncer.” Corker that one I must say… especially when Bouncer Jesus actually looks like the un-dead Rasputin. Life’s like a nightclub the card continues as “we all run with crowd”, convinced that “lies, lust, homosexuality, hate, etc are O.K…”; loving the oh so casual etcetera. But then Heaven is also like a nightclub; you don’t get in unless you’re invited. And suffice to say Hell it ain't no party.

The motivation for all this I guess is a curiosity, a wish to sense the transcendal, touch the eternal and feel as though I was part of something bigger than myself. But I have a problem, call if a handicap if you will but I simply cannot believe. A guy I met at church one time, engaged in an argument asked me: “how can you not believe?” Acting as though I was denying myself sensations that were almost certainly there. I was taken aback, totally agape. What do you mean how can I not believe? How can you believe!?! How can you go around preaching and judging others, so certain in yourself that your belief isn't anything more than consoling yourself with the ultimate fact that you’re going to die?

Part of me wants to believe yet I think god is man-made and angels are nothing more to me than homo-erotic fantasies. All this considered what religion could possibly suit me?

I found a quiz on the internet the other day. It is supposed to determine the religion best suited to you. I was kind of hoping I’d get something out of left field, something that would take some accomodating in my life, it'd make me more disciplined like with Islam or make me more fun at parties like say Voodoo. But alas my suggested spiritual path the Belief-o-matic tells me I “scored as agosticism.” Well that cleared it all up for me: the perfect religion for me is some wishy-washy non-belief. Christ!

I could also be a Buddhist.

Link:

belief-o-matic

neuro-seismology

A guy a know from work suffered a pre-stroke on Friday. I am not really a medical-knowing kinda guy but it seems to me that a pre-stroke is somewhat analogous to tremor in the ground before an earthquake. He woke up on Friday night, drooling uncontrolably and as things further deteriorated he lost the ability to speak and found using his hands increasingly difficult. As I listened his description on the phone I imagined myself gripped in the fear as my body stopped working knowing I was going to die. I made the frantic push in any direction to stay alive. He told me that had is legs not worked he would have been majorly fucked (pardon my french). As it stood he was able to get help and his family got him to a hospital but he was told by our lords of science the doctors that had the stroke hit him in the right side, the other side of his brain it might have stopped his heart. And that this little tremor was the harbinger, the herald of a stroke that would most certainly end his life.

He's now on medication to try and prevent this from happening.

I sent him a "get well soon" card today but because he's a contractor my work won't do anything official.

dinosaur adventure land

Planning your next holiday? Do yourself a favour and swing by Pensacola Florida where you'll find Dinosaur Adventure Land, the latest addition to the must-see American theme-park experience. A place where good decent law-abiding folk can come and learn the truth about Earth's History. The website promises "fun for all ages" and indeed Dinosaur Adventure Land is "one of the most amazing Creation Parks in the world." Challange yourself, your mind and your eternal soul to have some fun, some fun at Dinosaur Adventure Land.

"You can believe that you came from a rock, or you can believe that a loving God created you for a purpose."

We are told at school and by the media that by the time mankind had left the trees the dinosaurs had been dead 60 million years. That some catastrophe wiped them out because they could not evolve to suit the changing environment. Evolution they tell us answers everthing. Yet there is nothing, a media blackout, conspiracy of silence, about the indisputable and undeniable flaws of this theory. While evolutionists can show in a laboratory that mutation of viruses can mutate and thus evolve on a microevolutionist level (or what we call biblically non-threatening science) there is no evidence to support evolution on a larger level: what is called macroevolution or abiogenesis (or how we evolved from dirty monkeys). The later requires the earth to be very old indeed. So much we are told as truths are merely theories based in guess work. To maintain objectivity we must remember to keep and an open mind and question those things we are told to accept as truths. This is what true science and is all about.

There are some very important questions that beg asking. When did the the dinosaurs really die out? Did they perhaps live alongside in harmony with mankind not so long ago? Could they even be alive today?

The Bible has a lot of things to say about dinosaurs. It even mentions them directly on multiple occasions. For instance Job refers to a creature not unlike the brachiosaurus. Could the behemoth really be a dinosaur?

"(15)Behold now behemoth which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. (16) Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force hs force is in th navel of his belly. (17)He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together."

Think for yourself but the answer is yes. Of course it is, it cannot be denied and is actually true. Dinosaurs were actually created by God to live with man in the garden of Eden in harmony. Haven't you seen the Flinstones? Fred had a pet dinosaur and what's more he worked with dinosaurs every day at work. They were the God-ordained tools of his trade. There was even an episode where a pterydactl was used to carve a "photo" from inside a little box. Truely amazing.

Geologists and paleontologists do not readily accept that fossilisation can happen in less than a second and those who do, who support this snap fossilisation hypothosis are shouted down and harrassed. At Dinosaur Adventure Land we learn how to challenge and conquer such irrational evolutionist dogma with the warm and loving hand of truth, where we learn that the mass extinction of life on earth seen in rock formations may not have been caused by a meteorite but is probably evidence of a massive global flood.

Maybe dinosaurs are still around. Ever heard of the loch ness monster? Well then... case and point.

During the thousand year reign of Christ we will live again with our dinosaur bretheren but until then Dinosaur Adventure Land will have to do. Go to Dinosaur Adventure Land because it is fun for the whole family.

Links:
http://www.dinosauradventureland.com/

The Bible

every man is an island

Maybe you're right that this is the ineveitable come-down, the crash we were all expecting from the MDMA I took on New Years eve. "You feel as though the world is going to end," someone told me but then I feel this whenever the neuro-chems in my head or whatever the fuck down turns my mood into black holes of bad goth poetry, so to say this isn't a new or remarkable experience is an understatement. So fuck it all. We all live and die alone.

To bring this all into my bad goth conclusion: Tristan da Cunha is the most isolated (inhabited) island in the world being 2800 kms from landfall in South Africa and it is through this poorly explored alegory that I make this tired late night comment on the human condition... and here's a link to a related website:

http://www.sthelena.se/tristan/tristan.htm

In this seeming isolation (at least according to this website) the inhabitants thrived. In 1961 a volcanic eruption forced the entire population to relocate temporarily. When the all clear was given, the website writes, "Almost all chose to return to the island" two years later resisting the temptations of "civilisation" and thus the fair citizens of Tristan da Cunha went onto live happily ever after. They say that "The Union Jack flies over the houses, and the hearts of the islanders are as warm and generous as they have always been." We are all alone... but it ain't all bad. What a crazed mess it all be if we couldn't retain some sense of indivuality.

Enough of the glib statements. Fuck off.