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.

letter to the editor

The existence of multiple universes that run parallel to that of our own throws up some interesting and deeply troubling moral dilemmas for us as a society. If for example I was to meet an alternate g-man because of… say a transporter accident, would it then be wrong, nay reprehensible of me, given the right set of circumstances to have sex with myself. If churches and secular moralists alike wish to stay relevant in this day and age of bioneural computer circuitry and Alcubierre drives they need to start contemplating these important issues.

Might such an act for instance be considered incest, comparable with sleeping with a member of my own immediate family? Or might it be considered closer to a some form of existentialist masturbation similar to jerking off in front of a mirror?

In fact I can think of a few people who would jump at an opportunity to go fuck themselves… but me? Well… to be honest, I think I have better standards.

Sons and Daughters - my meredith diary (part three)

Half an hour had passed and I’d felt nothing. People seemed surprised when they asked, I could see it in their eyes: the “is there some wrong with you?” look. But then I was thinking the same thing and having tried a mushroom cap the night before I suspected that I'd somehow fucked up swallowing tablets. While watching City City City and Okkervil River on the Friday night, I stood there staring at the lights asking myself whether the colours were normally this vivid and wash-bright and am I normally so fascinated by singular things such as the colours of these lights when I really should be paying attention to the music. The answers being yes and sadly yes again. Rob, another campster of ours joked that at least I could say I got my shot of B2 vitamins.

Well now… mushrooms aside, this Saturday night as we headed towards the stage I did feel a little strange, floaty even, but it really wasn’t anything that I couldn’t put down to my sustained alcohol consumption over the day and it being a red wine day... well we all know that those histamines can do funny things to your head. We positioned ourselves midway between the stage and the sound tent, our little plot that we’d staked out on Friday amongst the littered beer cans. Here we danced to a band called Sons and Daughters, Scottish post-punk with toe-tapping highland flair, dark and with a sense of end-world drama that Johnny Cash would’ve tip his hat to. Indeed their song, his namesake and another Rama Lama, a tune about a girl who drowns in a bathtub were set highlights of mine; their sound, the essential elements mortared by pestle into definitely my thing.

I left the “supernatural amphitheatre” during Wolfmother (the following band), not feeling the overwhelming tour-de-force that I’d been promised, so I worked my way through an increasingly dense and hostile crowd. I felt irritated and claustrophobic, annoyed that this band’s fans were conspiring to ruin my mood. “Who do you think you’re kidding?” a girl shot at me as I stepped through the maze of people. “Obviously not you,” I backhanded, still unsure what I meant but certain it sounded cutting and sarcastic. *Swish* to me! While I am sure that the band members of Wolfmother are entirely proficient in the use of their instruments I cannot profess to like their music or their stage performance. Richard called them “derivative.” When I asked him whether this was a nice way of saying that they were just one notch above a cover band he just laughed.

Finding company away from the stage I sat under the large oaks where beams of silver light reflected off a mirror-ball suspended high in one of the trees’ branches; the circles of light moved in larger circles around us, the wind blowing tree trunk and branches, and one could be mistaken in thinking this was timed to the music. We sat and compared our favourite live music shows of all time and still I felt nothing. No overwhelming ecstatic joy or love for my fellow man or women. Nothing extra-ordinary. But I was with friends and it was all pleasant enough. Fuck the drugs.

my meredith diary (part two)

The sky was a deepening blue as the sun sat low in the west on this the second day of the Meredith Music Festival, a three day event that attracts ten thousand people each year in a largely disused paddock somewhere between Geelong and Ballarat. This was the festival’s fifteenth incarnation and had apparently sold out in ten days, well before the band line-up was announced but as I have been repeatedly told by almost everyone: “no one comes to Meredith to see the bands.”

Skipping the Aussie rock troupe Airbourne I met the others back for dinner at base-camp, with me a yellow curry wrap, it small and overpriced, I poured myself another cup of my cask cab-sav while listening to a lively discussion about Airbourne's show. One of our campsters Richard described them as OZ-Rock rip-offs, over-hyped and totally unoriginal; he questioned not only the intelligence of the band but anyone in the crowd who stuck around enjoying themselves. I had to laugh but didn't say anything. Not that I disagreed but best to in these situations, at least when conversation turns to music, as I often come out sounding stupid, ill-informed etc.

I moved off and joined another conversation. “You can tell which part he works out on..." Glen laughed, "do you thing he’s had surgical implants?” he asked, gesturing to one of the boys in a neighbouring encampment. “His arse is pretty big,” I agreed only fully comfortable with discussing things of a sexual nature if I can make fun of it. The man we were ogling was wearing just a pair of tight white footy shorts, with longish tawny hair and moustache, his body tanned and musculated. You had to wonder whether he was aware that he looked like a 70’s porn-star (I thought he was probably was). And there (*subtle tilt of the head to indicate direction) was his arse… pert and taut and enormous, inflated semi-circular cheeks and with his friends surrounding him, largely shirtless, athletic bogans, one wearing a lifesavers skull-cap; what a mouthful. They were drinking their beers and laughing and we were there watching them as expertly and slyly as possible. Nevertheless, differing sexualities aside these men were probably engaged much the similar conversation themselves.

Having finished dinner Dan and Andrew finally got about setting up their tent. Dan who’d arrived late on Friday night slept in his car, and after doing his very best to catch up with drinking and all other manner of things he ended up vomiting out one of his car doors. I was kicking around the dust and grass while waiting for some movement out of the camp, when I found a finch, flat and lifeless on the ground. Using a shovel from Dan’s car I proceeded to dig a shallow grave and had made several attempts before I was able to lift the bird into the earth. I am always lost for words at funerals but wished her a long and lasting sleep; imagined the ground empty of caravans and tents, bogans and me, just the yellow grass sweeping in the wind with the deep breath blue sky above.

The tent now standing by itself, pegs (and now bird) in the ground, Darren suggested we go on a sunset ride on the Meredith Eye, a 18 metre ferris wheel just east of the Pink Flamingo. A fine idea, I thought to waste some time until Sons and Daughters came on. So I decided to join them. Cam walked over to me as we were leaving and handed me a ticket to the ferris wheel, a small rectangle slip that said admit one. Apparently they had a spare from last night. Thanking him I placed it in my wallet; he’d just saved me three bucks.

g is for gonzo - my meredith diary (part one)

Jumping up I grabbed my fluorescent-green plastic cup of red wine in one hand I pushed the tent flap aside and entered. “Here’s your pill,” my friend said as I sat down, dangling a small plastic satchel containing two pastel pink tablets. “As this is your first time,” he paused and I offered no protest, “I suggest you take half now and the rest later.” Using thumb and forefinger he attempted, unsuccessfully to break one of them in two. “Tough little bugger,” I said in sympathy as I watched him try and snap it along the indentation. I was excited and nervous too but I’d been looking for an opportunity to try MDMA for a while and this was a good one: three days, two nights, maybe thirty acts, a high proportion of bogans and eight very cool people to spend it all with.

After a protracted search for a knife and using a melways to cut it on, he handed me the two halves. Choosing the smallest one, turning it around in my now slightly shaking hand, I watched it drop accidentally into my plastic cup. “Shit,” I said not sure what to do as I looked down at the red ripple. “Ah…. um” and with newly found rock-and-roll abandon, knowing this was probably not recommended I gulped down my wine only to find the pill stuck to the bottom. I signed and with my index finger fished it out and left the tent to find some water.