That sinking feeling

OK – let’s not fossick around the foliage. I was dreading it. My family Christmas is normally equal parts delightful and more than somewhat fraught.

In the recent past, to avoid conflict there have been ground-rules to keep the peace, the most challenging of which is “no talking about politics” which proves particularly difficult when that’s your occupation, and people ASK!!!

Normally my sis and I can exchange a look, and keep each other relatively sane when said rule is ignored and somebody pipes up with something objectionable.

However, after this year of sadness and misery, and with big sis off ramming whales and saving Japanese people or something, I’m left to fend for myself.

Family christmas was on the catamaran that my stepfather built – a magnificent achievement I’m still in awe of – which foils any option for a speedy getaway or a moment of respite.

I hid instead behind a painkiller-induced haze and Guy Rundle’s book about the US election.

My conversational skills were sharply honed – opiates do seem to provide unfettered access to my vocabulary while allowing some pain-free, lucid thought. Pain-free to me anyway, pretentious and condescending to everyone else, but hey – it’s not my fault I’m right a LOT.

The day was interspersed with the usual xmas barrage of generic well-wishing text messages, and the odd few genuine individual messages – mostly from some of my favourite women. I took the opportunity to reply, really just to gauge just what level of cheeky/arsehole I was exhibiting, a litmus test of sorts to see if I was going to need a lifejacket after being thrown overboard. Such is the benefit of having so many wonderful women as friends – I’m kept in (some sort of) order.

Now, when an older relative asks you what you think about something controversial, do you just suck it up, keep the peace and bite your tongue, or do you respect the fact that your opinion was sought, and answer truthfully, even if it invariably results in complete disagreement…?

I don’t think I chose wisely. I mean, I’m all for respecting people’s opinions and experiences, but…

Peace was eventually restored. Everyone made it back to shore. Everyone is still talking to everyone else, but I immediately retreated before I could wreak any further destruction.

My ride home provided its own entertainment – I couldn’t understand why the myopic fuckwit that pulled into my lane was so offended by my unmistakable gesture in response. Yeah, you try and stay zen next time someone tries to park their ute in your lap, arsehat.

Near-death experience – what a fine way to end the day.

Climate Contortion

Dear Kev,

When Australians voted for a change of government, I was proud, excited and unabashedly optimistic. A wave of hope swept across the country. That hope turned to tentative belief with your triumphant visit to Bali, where you set about restoring some of Australia’s shattered international reputation by signing Kyoto.

What we now know as the high watermark of that wave came when you apologised to our indigenous people.

Since then, your deterioration from crusader to crustacean* has been painful, heartbreaking, and – in retrospect – inevitable.

To offer any scheme to address climate change is to acknowledge the need for action. Yours has been the worst kind of capitulation, you can see the need for action – as did all of the Australian people who voted for you – yet you choose to do nothing significant other than to line the pockets of the very industries responsible for the problem. The people least in need and most responsible.

By your rationale Kev, if I was to go on a rampage in down town Brisbane, I could take my trusty pistol and beat a few pensioners to death with it, safe in the knowledge that you’ll buy me some ammunition for my next spree when I’m done. If I keep going long enough, you’ll no doubt purchase for me a shiny new sub-machine gun and some hand-grenades.

It’s coming up to Christmas Kev, that time of year when even the West Australian takes notice of homeless adults and abandoned babies. There are five million Australians aged fifteen or younger. Did you abandon them because they have no vote or because they have no money?

Is it because you’ve so accustomed yourself to fellating the coal industry that you no longer see any need to come up for (clean) air, so you just didn’t notice?

When it’s time for the post-Christmas sales to start, every tourism operator in Australia will be pitching in. There’ll be run-out sales on trips to the Great Barrier Reef, to Tasmania’s magnificent forests. Get yours before they’re gone.

History will condemn you Kev. In one fell swoop you’ve allowed those looking back to gloss over Howards decade of denial. He didn’t even pretend to care. But you just made that appear forgivable. At least that one did what the packet said it would do.

This is not the time or place to barrage you with the numerous preferable alternatives – you’ve already ignored them. You’ve forsaken the opportunity to secure Australia’s mid and long term environmental and economic future because you can’t face the prospect of sending the fossil-fuel addicts to rehab.

You’ve failed Kev, you’ve sacrificed our international reputation, the economic opportunities of a green new deal and our natural national  treasures on the altar of unsustainable business-as-usual atavistic short-term greed and ignorance.

Come 2010, the betrayed reality TV generation will vote you off the island.

Yours sincerely (I’m sorry if that word baffles you Kev – here’s a link to the definition),

t-p-s

*Thick skinned, no spine, and full of shit

If you haven’t grasped just how atrocious the governments plan is, you can have a look here

Mobile Phone Russian Roulette

After being reminded about it during a conversation with a friend on the weekend, I think it’s long past due that I explained the official rules to this most dangerous game.

Start with a group of people, you really need at least four, but the more people, the funnier it gets.

Place either everyone’s names on a piece of paper, or the phones themselves, into a bag, for each player to blindly select. Alternatively you can just sit in a circle and pass them around to the person next to you. Just try to make sure that there’s no way for deals to be made, like you each have each other’s phone, so you’ll be gentle. No way – that just spoils it.

Once you have your nominated persons phone, compose a text message. Any text message. Make it inappropriate, suggestive, funny, disturbing or just plain mean. It cannot allude to, suggest or imply that it’s anything other than absolutely serious. You must not under any circumstances divulge that it’s a game in the message you write.

Place names/phones back in the bag (or pass along to the next person in the circle).

Do the lucky dip again. Read out the message that was just created on the phone you now have, then choose someone from the contacts in the phone to send it to. Who you choose will depend on the nature of the message, and how badly you wish to mess with the phone owners head. It can’t be anyone you’re planning to see that evening, and certainly not any other player.

Announce who you’ve sent it to after you’ve pressed send. (If you’ve sent it to their ex-partner, you’re just nasty. But it’ll probably be funny for everyone else.)

If you receive a reply, you must pass the phone to another player to read out and craft a response to – this can be anyone playing the game other than the phones owner.

Continue as long as the message conversation is running if you keep receiving replies.

If you don’t get at least one response to keep the group amused, go back to the beginning and start again. (This time write something either more outrageous or more believable.)

You may like to have a previously agreed-to limit on the quantity of messages so you don’t run up a bill that’s too high. But at 25c a message, even ten messages is a cheap evening’s entertainment.

For the record, the last message I wrote while playing this game was;

“Fuck! The second test was also positive. I don’t know what to do! You should get checked out too I guess. I’m so sorry.”

I can’t remember who it was sent to, but I imagine family dinner was a little awkward that weekend.

Festival season (part 1)

It’s summer, so the first order of business is to figure out which concerts and festivals are worthy of my patronage. Gone are the days of me going to everything - because I just can’t afford it, some of the line-ups are rubbish, and many of the shows are wwwaaaayyyy overpriced.

I’ll deal with the looming economic crisis by fence-hopping at some stage I’m sure.

To get me in the mood to decide, here are some of my favourite festival and concert experiences:

The Arcade Fire, Enmore Theatre, Sydney – The best gig I’ve ever been to? I can’t say for sure, but probably. I think capacity is around 1700, and possibly every one of those people (with the exception of my friend who was not yet a believer) yelled at the top of their lungs to the first soul-stirring notes of Wake Up and didn’t stop until the final encore – a remarkable rendition of The Violent Femmes Kiss Off performed with just megaphones and acoustic guitars. Life changing. Rage Against the Machine was the previous night. It was good. But it was made to look decidedly mediocre 24 hours later.

Soulwax Nite Versions, Amplifier, Perth – Dance music played live can be good. I didn’t realise quite how good. Some people say you can never truly understand dance music unless you take ecstasy, just as to truly understand Pink Floyd or Hawkwind, you need to take LSD. I say never mind the drugs – if you didn’t feel the urge to gleefully and shamelessly jump about at this gig, you weren’t just straight and sober, you were probably dead.

The Who, Vodafone Arena, Melbourne – The first and only time I’ve ever wanted You Am I to hurry up and finish their set. I was in Melbourne for 25 hours with my then-girlfriend, and we had our doubts about how good the show would be, after seeing a terribly mixed live cross from a Sydney gig a few days before. The 40-years-later-and-it’s-still-stunning intro to Can’t Explain put that to rest. By the time the unmistakable sound of Baba O’Reilly filled the room, I was in heaven.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Burswood Theatre, Perth – My sister set the tone (well, A tone anyway) for the evening by deciding that she was going to commence her campaign to reclaim the word “cunt” for all of womankind. So it was the prefix to every conversation. “Cunt, have you ever seen a song played live anywhere nearly as well as The Mercy Seat was played tonight?” I hadn’t, and still haven’t.

U2 (with Pearl Jam), Aloha Stadium, Hawaii – It was an impulsive, “wouldn’t it be funny” idea that actually became reality. So one of my dearest friends and I undertook quite possibly the most indulgent adventure I have ever, or will ever experience. Both bands captured the incredible free-wheeling excitement that can only come at the conclusion of two years on the road. I met some astounding and inspiring people. The set closed with a rollicking, joyous rendition of Neil Young’s Rockin’ In the Free World. It was almost sabotaged by a dangerously drunk Eddie Vedder, and it followed an equally fantastic Saints Are Coming with Green Day’s Billie-Joe Armstrong in fine form, all under a balmy moonlit Hawaiian sky.

Franz Ferdinand, Big Day Out, Perth – I had not been successful in my attempt to recruit any of my friends to come to see them, so I went down to the pit alone. The sun was setting, my E was hitting full stride, and the band were in spectacular form. Dance rock gets no better. Actually, that’s not true. I probably could have done without the not-a-day-older-than-fifteen-year-old-girl deciding that I was the object of her deep loving connection during her first BDO/Ecstasy experience.

REM (with Bright Eyes), Burswood Dome, Perth – I (mercifully some have said) missed the Monster tour. You know, the one at the start of their previous world tour, that allegedly sounded like a sound-check? It was probably the only six-month period of my life where I didn’t LOVE REM. So I wasn’t going to miss this. Front row, staring straight up at Peter Buck – who actually smiled – and Michael Stipe, who I still have a man-crush on. Oh, and some guy named Conor came and danced with us during the final encore.

The Rolling Stones, Perry Lakes Stadium, Perth – The first big gig I ever went to. Sprinkling with rain, we nearly didn’t make it because I hadn’t really ridden my bike in the rain with a passenger before. It took ten years before I saw another show as good, and I don’t think I’ve seen a show so visually spectacular to this day.

Augie March with WASO, Kings Park, Perth – Tickets went on sale just as One Crowded Hour was going supernova. The show was on while that song was everywhere. When they played it, an incredible wave of spine-tingling joy swept through the crowd. Despite the cheesiness, I should have asked her to dance with me, instead of awkwardly joking about it. Because just a few days later, everything changed.

Cinema Prague, Mojo’s, Fremantle – Their first gig for a couple of years, their last gig with their original line-up. The catalyst for every great band to come out of Western Australia since? If these guys were a just few years later, they’d be national superstars. As it was, they were quite simply the best small-venue band I have ever seen.

Part two will follow, when my ears stop ringing.

Surrounded

Though nothing can fill the gaping void in my life left by recent events, it has been an amazing experience to be so nurtured by my friends and family over the past few weeks.

People that I haven’t seen or spoken to in far too long have contacted me just to check in, just to make sure I’m doing OK. My closest friends have kept me from spending unhealthy amounts time wallowing or feeling sorry for myself. Other than the one person who thought it would be helpful to remind me of something else to cry about, people have been incredibly generous with their time and energy.

My deepest heartfelt gratitude to everyone that has dragged me out of the house, called, or sent a message of support – especially the people that have kept me laughing. And thanks for putting up with me while I’ve been a sulky shit.

So, I guess it boils down to this: What have YOU done for me lately?

No, really.