What the 2009 budget means for you

Buggered if I know and I suspect that most of the commentators and experts – if pushed – would probably come to a similar conclusion.

Bernard Keane over at Crikey makes the very valid point that a single budget isn’t really going to affect things all that much but it’s in the interests of the media and the pollies to beat it up into the all singing, all dancing budget day.

Why, I don’t know. Something to do with “narrative” or “discourse”, I suspect.

My opinion of the budget, based on blind hatred of the Tories and the fact that Neil Mitchell doesn’t like it, would be that Kruddy and Swanny have pretty much got the mixture right. True, I would have liked less of the “fiscal discipline” and more of the “social control of the means of production, distribution and exchange to the extent necessary to eliminate exploitation”*, but that’s just me.

There’s always some cunt, whinging that “there’s nothing in it for me”. Well, tough shit buddy. We’re in the middle of the worst international financial crisis since 1930.

Shut the fuck up.

*This is an incredibly obscure political in-joke. I will buy a roast diner for anybody who can pick it.

It's an Evolution

I'm a little pedantic when it comes to spelling, grammar and punctuation, although I'm far from perfect and my vocabulary needs work. However, I think it's important and a necessary part of good communication. And I think society's standards in this area are a fucking ridiculous mess. Just take a look at the frequency of misplaced or, conversely, superfluous apostrophes that pepper public places and offend the eyes.

However, I'm all for the evolution of the language. It can't be stopped anyway and why would we want to? English has been evolving since it was first recognised as a language. It had a Germanic beginning and has since been influenced by French, Latin and, more recently, American and the language of technology. Cyberspace. Terabytes. Google. As much as I hate seeing Australians and Brits write 'color' or 'flavor', I'm afraid the traditional spellings are done for - given time - along with recognise, surprise and, an old favourite, arse. Don't get me started on 'thru'.

The abbreviations of email, instant messaging and texting are catching on. I really hate this because it stems from the lazy fingertips of stupid teenagers. But, if I'm to embrace the evolution, I can't be picky about where the change comes from. LOL. OMG. ROFLMAO.

Even annoying words like 'workaholic' (you can't use a part of the word 'alcohol' which is totally unrelated to your obsession for work...unless you work at the Hofbrauhaus) and 'homophobic' (what, you're afraid of something that's the same...as what?) will endure and become acceptable. After all, the word 'ask' used to be pronounced 'arks'. Now if someone says 'arks' they are rightly mocked. Perhaps they're the pedants. And then there's 'its'. I really want to put an apostrophe in 'its' when it feels like it's a possessive. But I can't because it's wrong. But maybe one day I can, because it might be right. Or perhaps it once was right. In Shakespeare's day. Or something. Speaking of Shakespeare, that wag even invented words. What a character!

So, a note to pedants: go with the flow, dudes.

Weekend Wrap

My weekend really started last Thursday night.

I drove to Melbourne and caught up with The Sculptress at an art exhibition in Port Melbourne. Because this time I didn’t know the artist personally, I was confident that I wouldn’t feel compelled to buy anything, but yet again, under the influence of the free wine served by a particularly cute gallery chick, that whole Pavlov’s Dog thing came on. I think I understand those people who get addicted to Pokies – they claim it is largely due to the sounds and the flashing lights – because I think I have some sort of compulsion to the red dot at an art exhibition. At least this time I had the wherewithal to not spend so much and I did a Homer Simpson and bought the second cheapest artwork.

The Sculptress and I then went to Mario’s for tea (she, the salmon, me, the turmeric chicken risotto) and then on to see some bands at The Evelyn (Inverto: ace / Jackson Jackson: meh). I got home at 3am.

Worked Friday, went to bed early.

Saturday, back to Melbourne and caught up with The Drummer and we went to the footy to sit in the freezing cold and watch Richmond lose again. At one point, a six year old kid turned to me and said, “They’re not very good.” I looked back at him and said without any condescension, “No kid, they’re not.”

Off to Mum and Dad’s for fish n chips, more footy on TV and I stayed the night.

Mothers’ Day I went to my sister’s apartment with Mum and Dad for lunch. My sister has had some problems (pokies, prescription drugs) but is now mostly back to normal, except she can’t/won’t work. But the fact she can make us lunch is exciting because she hasn’t been capable of that for many years. Her son, my nephew, was also there. He’s just out of jail (two years, which was a year after spending another two years in jail) and he must’ve been working out in the prison gym because his shoulders were wider than the desert. He was in good spirits, and had bought his mum a giant teddy bear for Mothers’ Day. Crims still love their mums.

I drove back to Lorne and attempted my bi-annual roast beef. Dry again. I can’t keep a roast beef moist! How’s it done? Though the veggies were exemplary. I got into my pyjamas, fed the cat and watched a DVD, and fell asleep.

Yes, yes. A bland but comfortably safe weekend. No sex, no chance at sex, no gossip. But I have three points to make.

1. I did some things, which I have struggled to do in the past month... you know, things have been a struggle.

2. Throughout the weekend I was reading the essays of Schopenhauer, because I’m all highbrow and shit, and he says The Fall is the only thing in the Old Testament that makes any sense, and as such, we should regard mankind as, “...a being who exists only as a consequence of his culpability and whose life is an expiation of the crime of being born,” and what’s more, on the vanity of life, he writes, “...to our amazement we suddenly exist, after having for countless millennia not existed: in a short while we will again not exist, also for countless millennia.”

I don’t think we should regard Schopenhauer as negative. His words have the opposite effect on me. I was buoyed. Life is fleeting, and whether we sit around watching the dust settle, or go to the footy, or achieve great or charitable works, or amass fortunes or amass debts, or go to jail or not... it doesn’t matter, really, to anyone else, and certainly not to the Earth. We’re all guilty, or not, and vain to presume our actions have any consequence to anything or anyone. Which brings me to Point 3.

3. With my newfound energy to go out, and the words of Schopenhauer backing me up, I’m proudly going to see the Star Trek movie next weekend. I'm even going to try to get a date. Nerd, you say? FUCK. YOU.

*** UPDATE ***

Also, as part of my Schopenhauerian "I don't care what anyone thinks because it doesn't matter anyway" epiphany, I have, after years of being told I should, put up an RSVP ad for myself. I'm giving it two weeks.

I wish I'd written this (but didn't).

Well it's 9th and Hennepin
And all the doughnuts have
Names that sound like prostitutes
And the moon's teeth marks are
On the sky like a tarp thrown over all this
And the broken umbrellas like
Dead birds and the steam
Comes out of the grill like
The whole goddamned town is ready to blow.
And the bricks are all scarred with jailhouse tattoos
And everyone is behaving like dogs.
And the horses are coming down Violin Road
And Dutch is dead on his feet
And the rooms all smell like diesel
And you take on the
Dreams of the ones who have slept here.
And I'm lost in the window
I hide on the stairway
I hang in the curtain
I sleep in your hat
And no one brings anything
Small into a bar around here.
They all started out with bad directions
And the girl behind the counter has a tattooed tear,
One for every year he's away she said, such
A crumbling beauty, but there's
Nothing wrong with her that
$100 won't fix, she has that razor sadness
That only gets worse
With the clang and thunder of the
Southern Pacific going by
As the clock ticks out like a dripping faucet
Till you're full of rag water and bitters and blue ruin
And you spill out
Over the side to anyone who'll listen
And I've seen it
All through the yellow windows
Of the evening train.

I Don't Care What You Think of Me...Mostly

Everybody cares what others think of them. It's part of what makes us human. It's an evolutionary thing, geared to help us survive. The difference is how much you care. It's just a matter of degrees.

As I grow older, I care less and less what people think of me. But when you're younger, particularly at school, life's much easier if you conform, if you're pretty much the same as everyone else. If you dress similar, if you speak the same way, if you declare that you hold particular values that equate with the consensus, even if you really don't. It's safe. You're accepted. You're not teased, ridiculed or friendless - a sad state when you're a kid or a teenager. In a way I'd love my son to be an individual when he's at school (he's only 3), a character, an eccentric, an unpredictable artist. But another side of me, the side that wants to protect him, wants him to fit in, to be accepted, to be popular.

Australian adults rarely escape from the safe position. We have our Australian values. We only vote for 2 political parties. We all love sport. We still dress more or less the same as each other. We all watch reality television, blockbuster movies and read Bryce Courtney books. We listen to 3AW and read the Herald Sun, believe what we hear on Channel 9. Break away, people, think differently. Explore new ideas. Forget what other people think. Argue, discuss, challenge. Provoke.

The point I anticipated making here was that I no longer care very much what people think. Perhaps about 5% of what I did when I was 15. I'll challenge people's opinions at dinner parties. I'll admit to my own weaknesses. I'll confront people who are being unjust. I'll piss people off.

Here's something that proves I don't care what people think. And I'd like you all to contribute something too. Something that you might not have liked to admit when you were 25 and thought you were cool:

I went to a Billy Joel concert in 1987, and I enjoyed it.

Beginning of a Great Adventure

WARNING: The following contains high levels of sentiment. Readers with a weak stomach and Desci may want to turn away and have a crack at the crossword.

The other day I had the honour of helping do the reading for the prep class at the school that The Boy attends.

I say “the honour” because, with perhaps one exception, they were the happiest, most cheerful little kids I’ve ever come across. They had about them so much spark, so much curiosity, so much energy that they were almost bursting out of their skins with joy.

Reading to them (or perhaps with them, as most of them were pretty much reading on their own) wasn’t a chore – it was a delight.

And this wasn’t some posh-o school in what the media delights in calling “Melbourne’s leafy eastern suburbs”, but a state government school in what was – until fairly recently – a solidly working class area (until lumpen- intelligentsia like myself blew in).

Happily, The Boy is still of an age where everything delights him. Witness this exchange on the weekend;

The Boy: “Daddaddaddad, come and look at Kitty!”

Out we go, to discover the cat having a dust bath.

The Boy: “Kitty’s having a bath!!”

Me: “Yes, Boy.”

The Boy: “In the dust!!”

Me: “Yes, Boy.”

The Boy: “In the dust!!!” *peals of hysterical laughter*

Kitty: “What! What? Stop laughing at me, you human cunts.”

All of which left me wondering, where does it all go? That joy, that wondrous sense of optimism that your day is going to be full of good things and good friends and excitement.

Fucked if I know.

Climate change is the new black

While reading a particularly sycophantic interview with Missy Higgins in the paper* the other day, I was struck by this sentence.

Missy is passionate about climate change.

Of course you are, poppet, of course you are. Just like every other fucker who wants to boost their public profile.

Long ago, the entertainment industry’s spin-doctors realised said industry was populated by people who were vain, stupid and not particularly nice. They also realised the punters wanted a form of emotional connection with said artists before they forked over their readies and people who were seen as vain, stupid and not particularly nice were likely to attract few**.

They understood, however, that artists who were vain, stupid and not particularly nice would be reluctant to put their hand up for any cause that would require - you know - any actual sacrifice or effort.

Thus was born the passionless passionate.

It’s so easy. Just attach yourself to a cause which isn’t going to affect you personally (anti-uranium mining, ending poverty, climate change), mouth a few clichés that don’t really mean anything (in this case bang on and on about your latest DVD/concert/tour being “carbon neutral”) and bingo-bango you’re seen as “socially aware”.

It's almost as sick-making as people who discover "spirituality" (and yes, Ben Lee, I'm looking at you).

Missy also says she’s a supporter of PETA.

I rest my case.

* I was bored, OK.

** Except here, of course.

Dokic - 2 Things

Jelena Dokic has gone public with the sporting world's worst-kept secret - that her crazy nutjob father used to physically abuse her. I feel for this girl, always have.


One Thing

I am reminded of the time I unwittingly made the front page of the Herald-Sun. It was Jelena's first match in Australia representing Serbia. The Herald-Sun (and other tabloid outlets) had made a big deal of it in the lead up, suggesting that people would jeer and boo because of her seemingly unpatriotic decision to represent the country of her birth rather than the country that raised her. But, as always, the tabloids undersetimate the average intelligence of the common person. We could all see that it was her crazy father's decision, not hers. She was 17 or 18 at the time, and clearly under the thumb of a despot.

So when she came out to face Lindsay Davenport, nobody really jeered. Oh, there was a clown or two up the back, drunk, trying to join a mob that failed to materialise in the first place, but from my seat, one row from the front, all I heard was a mix of quiet and generous applause for Jelena. I cheered louldy for her. We knew the poor girl was suffering under her father, and our cheers were as much in sympathy as they were celebratory.

But the tabloids ignored the real event. Front page of the Herald-Sun the next day came an article saying the crowd had 'mixed feelings', and ran a shot of some people cheering, some not. There, right smack bang in the middle of a close up of a randomly picked section of the crowd, was me. I was eating sushi, and my mouth looked like it was in a frown. They clearly took the photo at some other time, because when she came out on to centre court, I was cheering for her.



My Mum rang: "Did you boo that poor girl?"
Me: "No Mum, Jesus. I was eating sushi. I cheered."
My Mum: "And who's that girl you're with? She looks pretty."

Seconds later my sister rang from Sydney.

"Did you boo Dokic?"
"Did Mum ring you?"
"No, you're front page of the Sydney paper."
"For fuck's sake."
"And who's the curly-haired chick?"

The Sydney one was worse, because the picture was much bigger and the headline was, 'Fans Boo Dokic'.

The calls and emails kept coming, and worst of all, Damir Dokic, the anti-christ himself, was interviewed and he got a hold of the paper and pointed at me saying I was a disgrace for jeering his daughter... but I didn't! I would've jeered him because he was a cunt, but not hs talented and obviously abused daughter.

Sigh.

But anyway, years later, of course, the tabloids are now throwing so much support behind her that you can smell their guilt in it.

Second Thing

I hope that none of the resident TSFKA-ers with kids even remotely act like Domir Dokic (I'm sure you don't). I remember as a kid doing aths and footy - there were some parents of other kids that were insane about their child's sporting performances, and as even as young as 10 years old, I knew that their parents were acting stupid. I'm not a parent, but I'd like to think that if I was, I'd give support to my kids' sports, but never ever be one of those parents on the sidelines screaming abuse. My Dad was perfect... he was the athletic club's treasurer and volunteer, so he was involved as such, but never once did he become angry or even pressure me to perform better. He helped me to perform better, but never insisted that I do.

Domir Dokic is of course the extreme opposite of this. He is a failure at life, a failure as a father, a failure as a real man, and for that, he punished his extremely gifted daughter. I have nothing but sympathy and support for Jelena.

I just hope they don't make a schmaltzy film about it. But they will.

Weekend Champions: Stephen Malkmus

Stephen Malkmus is a champion. His music fills me with happiness, wonder and awe.

Since the release of the first Pavement album Slanted and Enchanted in 1991 through his collaborations with Silver Jews' songwriter David Berman to his current solo career, the guy has been delivering R.E.M., Sonic Youth and Pixies-inspired brilliant, witty and original songs to the independent music scene on a regular basis.

He is also a guitar maestro. His long live jams are legendary and his outstanding guitar work is equally evident on studio albums. Furthermore, his songs are catchy and many are unforgettable.

If you're not familiar with the guy or any of his guises, I highly recommend getting hold of a Pavement album such as Brighten the Corners (particular for the unbelievable song Shady Lane) or Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, the Silver Jews' album American Water or his latest solo work Real Emotional Trash.

This is not an ad. This is a community service announcement.

A poem I could have written (but didn't).

When things go wrong and will not come right,
Though you do the best you can,
When life looks black as the hour of night -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

When money's tight and hard to get
And your horse has also ran,
When all you have is a heap of debt -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

When health is bad and your heart feels strange,
And your face is pale and wan,
When doctors say you need a change,
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

When food is scarce and your larder bare
And no rashers grease your pan,
When hunger grows as your meals are rare -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

In time of trouble and lousey strife,
You have still got a darlint plan
You still can turn to a brighter life -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

By-the-by, today is May Day, the international day of the labour movement.

I might have a beer later to celebrate.

It’s also the first day of Spring in the northern hemisphere, but fuck that.

I hate Spring.