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.

reasons to live

I have sworn my life and blood to the holy war against the western christian materialist imperialists and while my life will be short, the death of a martyr is a celebrated one, in this life and the one to come.

Or so I keep telling my self. Sometimes... sometimes I have my doubts. It's true I can admit this in the relative anonymity of this blog and I can say that I've attempted it several times but there's always something, something that gets in the way. Sitting on the train there is always that child on their mother's lap who won't stop looking at me, staring wide-eyed with an un-remitting grin, forcing me to get off at the next station. I mean, are infidels really so bad? I knew plenty in high school and was even friends with some. Even recently I got a call from a work collegue who invited me to dinner with him and his wife in their appartment in the suburb across. They'd even done their homework, buying a halal cook book and so my other plans had to wait once more.

Sometimes I think I am not disciplined enough; to be honest I don't even have an exercise regime. I think of all the pictures of the mujahadeen that you see on television, in magazines and newspapers and on the internet, they are all dusty and lean, their eyes that stare straight through you. My mother's cooking is too good for me and even if I did lose all this weight, maybe I think that when I am dead the infidel media will just print old photos of me anyway. So I say to myself second helpings cannot hurt.

Sometimes I don't even take the belt with me. I tell myself later, when I get home that I forgot it, that I have too many things to think about that it just slipped my mind. But then there are days where I get so angry, a guy pushes in front of me at the supermarket or I see poverty or things on TV and I feel as though they need to pay. But there is so much anger around. So much righteous anger that I wonder whether from my perspective my blacks and whites are really not greys seen from above. And that I am not in the position to judge anyone in my name or someone elses'.

Sometimes I think about these things.