Australia - I'm standing in it!

Having expressed my disgust at the rapacious foreign policies of the US of A, perhaps it is time to turn a jaundiced eye to the politics of my own country and the once fairly congenial but now increasingly cringe-inducing society of which I am a part.George W., in a statement of remarkable stupidity and insensitivity, has dubbed Australia not America’s Deputy Sheriff in S.E. Asia, but the Sheriff of S.E.Asia. This was, presumably, an endorsement of Australia’s unquestioning loyalty to all US policies. Australia is indeed galloping down a path which I fear may see it end up as a tame tin-pot dictatorship. The loathsome Prime Minister of Oz, John Howard, (they can never get his name right in Washington), has done more to undermine Australian political culture than anyone else in the country’s history. Ever concentrating power in his own person, he has repeatedly usurped the functions of the Governor-General, the official head of state and the ministries of his own Cabinet. More and more ministries have been run, de-facto, from his office. It is now fairly widely realised that the recently demoted Health Minister was not really in charge, but the Prime-Minister’s office was. The same applies to the Defence Department and the Foreign Affairs Department. Parliament has long since been reduced to a talkfest, but at least cabinet used to have a strong voice. Howard has reduced most of his cabinet colleagues to minion status. He appoints a Neanderthal to the Environment portfolio and an ineffective, red-nosed buffoon to the Attorney Generalship. Policy is only to be extensively discussed on user-friendly shock-jock radio. Quality education is not to be squandered on the hoi-polloi. The poor, the vulnerable and the disadvantaged are to be severely punished to demonstrate solidarity with the wealthy. Particularly repulsive political head-kickers have been assigned this happy task.He has surrounded himself with a cloud (170-ish?) of ministerial advisors whose job it is to:intervene in other ministries;make sure that news he doesn’t wish to hear does not officially reach him;make sure no unfortunate outcome or dishonest political act can be sheeted home to him. (”Nobody told me !” )On assuming office he emphasised that a rigorous code of ministerial conduct would be enforced. His administration has been notable for scandals and improprieties on an unprecedented scale. He also pledged that Aboriginal reconciliation would be the major focus of his present term. This process has now officially died of neglect.How then, you ask, has this man managed to stay in power? There are three factors:He has claimed credit for a good economic performance which was built on the reforms of his predecessor and on the vagaries of world economic cycles over which he has no control, but which have favoured him.He has a demoralised and ineffective opposition. So efficiently has he shifted Australian politics to the right that his opposition has difficulty establishing a distinct voice.He has perfected the politics of fear. He promotes fear of refugees, of gays, of unions, of anything that didn’t emerge from a nuclear family surrounded by a white picket fence.I can’t think of an Australian politician that I have hated before, but this man and his trained media parrots, I TRULY DETEST ! ! ! End of rant.

It’s off...

It’s official, Arnold Schwarzeneger is Governor of California.Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha !!!Couldn’t happen to a nicer place, (Well Montana or Texas maybe).To quote the immortal Lina Lamont: “ Whassamadder with the way I tawk? Ya think I’m DUMB or sumpin? “Even Reagan had a long-standing involvement in politcs and even he never made a movie as bad as “Hercules in New York” It makes me feel so proud of our own State Governor, Dr Marie Bashir, internationally respected psychologist and humanitarian of Lebanese descent. As sukk said in his journal, what happened to the moral outrage that boiled within Republican breasts during the Clinton era?Too funny to be tragic, too tragic to be funny

Not the b...

Not the best couple of days.androkles continues in poor health and is very low on the mood-swing meter. The tempest in a teapot that he got into on another person’s journal, which was in part a result of his own testy mood but mostly the result a plain nastiness from some fuckchop he has had no previous interaction with, hasn’t been helpful. He was off to the eye-hospital early this morning to see if they can provide some treatment for the painful aftermath of shingles in and around his eye.He needs a lot of support, both physical and spiritual and after my recent bout of ill health. I’ve been feeling that I haven’t been up to par on both fronts. This has caused me to be feeling a bit low too.I sometimes feel that I’m not doing as well as I should but I realise that feeling guilty isn’t going to help and that no-one else is likely to volunteer for the position. Besides, cuddle-wise, the job has its compensations.All the more reason to be thankful to all of you who provided me with such fun in response to the recent “brush with fame” game . It lifted the spirits.I’m finding the California recall saga nearly incredible but then I remember they made Reagan Governor, then President. Arnie wants to savagely cut-back on spending,(read welfare, services, poverty programmes), which will translate as more poverty, more drugs, more crime, more high-security enclaves for the rich, even higher incarceration rates if that’s possible and even more money for cash-strapped superstars). The cost of his teeth alone could pay off the national debt of a small country. In the Us, as here, it seems that when an administration finds that a state or country is living way beyond its means, the first resort is to whack the poor, not the grasping CEO’s or bloated fat-cats. Why shouldn’t the wealthy pay proportionally more for the provision of services to the public?. It’s the same public that comprise the market from which they derive their often obscene benefits.That’s all for now because, as we’ve been told, bellyaching is Bad !!! (Actually, from my observations, it is one of lj’s most beneficial, cathartic, therapeutic functions.)

Awards Night

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the “Billies”. The standard of name-dropping was extremely high and the judges, as usual, were hard pressed to choose the winners. The judges were undecided whether to have the awards hosted by an unfunny American comedian, or an Australian drunk and in the end decided, mercifully, to dispense with both. So without further ado:The “ No-one Will Be Able To Top This “ Award: goes to kugelblitz, for “I Am Elvis’s Cousin”.The “Exotic Encounters of the First Kind” Award: goes to hlee for “Edward Gorey In Furs”.The “ Condoleeza Rice-Bubble-Butt-Crack-Den” Award for a Political Brush: goes to kugelblitz for “Unstained Adventures With Bill Clinton”.The “Jaw-Dropping Confession” Award: goes to ruralrob for “I Was A Spear Carrier for Joan Sutherland”.The “Oh, He Was Just Some Guy I Knew” Award: goes to susandennis for “I Didn’t Exactly Tell Tou Anything About William H. Macy’s Penis” (an out of competition entry on her own journal ) (some several hours later)Well it’s very, very late Ladies and Gentlemen, and I’m pleased to see that everyone won one of these beautiful awards. I’m sure many of you will be able to think of a number of creative uses for it. Thank-you, and you just keep lovin’ each other, y’hear?

Fobias and Phame

Because we have been unwell, our lives have been a bit dreary and housebound lately and I’ve been wondering what in the hell I have to talk about, as I haven’t done anything interesting. Reading my friends entries though, I have been thinking about two phenomena.The first is phobia, thanks to quetzalcoatl. I told him about a young woman who became hysterical at the sight of a feather. It’s the apparent irrationality of phobias that is so fascinating. My phobias are arachnophobia and acrophobia.I used to be so afraid of spiders that a little money-spider on a fence would make me break out in a cold sweat. This fear was much reduced when I remembered what triggered it: having a large back spider held up to my face by two big boys when I was about four. (Incidentally, arachnophobia is not so irrational in Sydney, we have the world’s deadliest spider (Atrax robustus) here. It’s not seen all that often around here fortunately. Recently an effective anti-venene was developed. My other fear is heights. Sometimes I’ve just had to bite the bullet and plough ahead despite my fears, having had no real choice but to proceed. Thus I’ve driven over high, narrow passes in the Hindu-Kush and the Swiss Alps, but I can’t say I found it very enjoyable.I think I’ve recently realised what sparked my fear of heights. One stimulus was watching firework rockets take off when I was only about three. They made me feel as if they were going to pull me up into the sky with them. The other was that my grandmother, a la Wacko Jacko, used to hold me out over the second-floor balcony to show me to passers-by. Maybe now that phobia will lessen too.The other thing I’ve been thinking about is celebrity and modern society’s obsession with it. This started me thinking of my brushes with fame. For a true brush with fame you have to have spoken to, or been near enough to touch the famous one. My brushes have been with:Vivien Leigh - she visited an amateur performance I was in and was EXTREMELY gracious.Deborah Kerr - You’d never believe it.Princess Anne - I was seated behind her at the opera after buying late rush tickets. I was very scruffily dressed, she had very expensive skin. It wouldn’t happen today.Bernadette Peters- I spoke to her and Sondheim at the stage-door after “Into the Woods”.Stephen SondheimAnna Russell - Late in life she toured outback NSW in a show called “The Last Gasp of Anna Russell with Resuscitations by Colin Croft”. I spent much of one week-end with her. She was one of the funniest people I ever came across and she could turn her face inside-out, or pin you to a wall with a raised eyebrow,So instead of a rather po-faced, serious conversation on celebrity, let’s play “My Brushes With Fame”

Anne Rice and other dishes

I woke up this morning to an amazingly lurid sunrise. androkles got up and took a photo. Check it out.To my shame I have succumbed to the temptation of taking out of the library another book in the fast-read franchise that is Anne Rice. This one is called “Blackwater Farm”.The Usual Suspects, the usual formula, I have composed a doggerel, herewith:Vice, Anne RiceIs all very nice,But your character, LestatIs a twat.His addictionTo pederastyLeaves the kiddiesFeeling pastyThe godlike powers Conferred by his fallSeem devoted to purposesRather banal.As a penance, I have taken out the rather formidable looking “Mason & Dixon” by Thomas Pynchon. That’ll teach me! I read “Gravity’s Rainbow” about thirty years ago but I confess I have no memory of the book except that it was rather difficult, and I have the vague image of the very tip of a WMD rocket about to fall on the top of someone’s head. I have just seen the first episode of the American series of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”. I know it’s set in the States but in what century? Just as well all us gay guys are wealthy. It gives us so much freedom with image management.I’m slowly getting better, but the trouble with any other illness for a diabetic is that it throws your control regime all over the place.

IR...

I’ve been missing from lj for a few days because I’ve been feeling very ordinary and about as alert as the first summer blowflies (blowies) , which have begun to appear with the first heat. They are immensely slow and stupid and irritating if you are trying to take a nap. You are faced with the prospect of poison , squashed blowfly or chasing them physically out of the house.While I’ve been hors de combat, I,ve been exposed to more than the usual amount of television. It reduces everything to the same value: an atrocity in Africa is given the same weight and excitement value as a new snack.Trying to stay informed without becoming depressed can be difficult. Sometimes I like turning the programmes into a continuous opera, with basso-profundo arias for right-wing politicians and counter-tenor ariettas for soft-drink and snack-foods. Appearances by Arnold Schwarzenegger have severely strained my heldentenor. I was very moved by my rendition for John Ashcroft and Osama Bin Laden of the duet from “I Purtitani” There is also an extended coluratura aria for Prime Minister before parliament, The words are a bit repetetive and drained of meaning, but the florid decoration of the vocal line seems to thrill the nation. The words go: “Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker....(variously).I am a bit worried about the large cracks in the walls of our old house. They are making me feel a bit Edgar Alan Poe. For now though, hiking the mortgage enough to do much about it is out of the questiont. I may have to change my name to Roderick.

"The Birds" - Again.

Feeding an Australian MagpieWe went to see my mother, Alice, at her new place in a luxury retirement village. It has pools, cinemas, bowling-greens, beauticians and a restaurant/ bar. I hope they tighten the security though, she still seems to be able to leave quite easily!It is built on the site of an historic convict mutiny. I hope it doesn’t give her ideas. While we were there, I made friends with the handsome fellow you see above. There is a pair of them nesting nearby, and they’re very hungry. They are so bold they will come in through her patio door, looking for food.Alice lives next door to her sister and her husband, my father’s brother (which makes three of my cousins, genetically, more like siblings). She seems very happy there.

Someone...

Someone was talking about what they believed. I’m a bit sick of belief. I want to know what you know, what you’ve experienced, what you feel, what you think, what you deduce, even what you intuit., but I no longer much care what you believe. I’m over it. I think belief is what you get when “magical thinking” congeals.On a lighter note, there’s an utterly hilarious satirical news programme showing on the public broadcaster here in Sydney. It’s called “CNNNN” Its sends up CNN, Fox, in fact any commercial network news. My favourites are the “ Dow-Jones Dancers” who spell out the market trends, Busby Berkely style. The newscast has its own band, a la Letterman. Its advertising is for a burger called Fungry’s which features “Patty the Cow”. The is also a range of cosmetic products called “Esteem, Because you need it!” Last night it sent up Australia’s infantile obsession with sport. Donald Bradman, a nasty man who played cricket very well, has, with the help of our Prime Minister been put on the fast track to secular sainthood. Thousands of dollars have been raised to return some of his “baggy-green” sports caps to Australia, CNNNN launched an appeal to “Bring back the great man’s sock” ....and all the while that little line of text at the bottom drivelled on and on. I love it.Ian’s gone off collecting and photographing shells. I have an extremely glamorous load of washing to do but not before a nice cup of tea. I must get out over the weekend, the wildflowers the other day were breathtaking.

Hibernating

The computer mouse was playing up yesterday amd I was sick, so no post. Since I was diagnosed as diabetic a couple of years ago I have learnt that the simplest viral infection can leave you feeling like you’ve been on the wrong end of a rhino stampede. Ian’s been sick too and is still suffering some effects of the shingles, so we were two sore, grumpy bunnies. We took to bed for most of the day.I think I’ll spend a quiet afternoon watching “The Two Towers”. I enjoyed it more than I expected at the cinema and thought it much better than ”The Fellowship of the Ring”. In fact I have enjoyed the movies more than the often turgid and, to my mind, rather over-rated books. (Yes, I know what an amazing achievement they are but iI must confess to having been more than a teensy bit bored.)I saw the final part of the excellent but very depressing BBC doco-series about terrorism. This episode was about state-sponsored terrorism. Iran, Libya and Argentina may have a lot to answer for, but US activities in Nicauragua under Reagan/Bush surely qualify as state-sponsored terrorism in my book (not to mention Chile and a few other little interventions). The truth is out there, but it’s buried miles deep in mass-media spin and patriotic bombast. I admire so much about America but its foreign policy often seems to me so self-defeating. Barbara Tuchman spelt it out in “The March of Folly” but no-one, especially in the Pentagon or the neo-conservative think-tanks was listening. With the formation, after WWII, of the National Security State, perpetual warfare became a necessity for its own continuation. Little vassal states like Australia adopt the polemic and you end up with messes like the one we face now.There are two other factors that I think are at work here: the intimidation of moderate Muslim voices by the extreme Wahabi form of Islam and the failure to engage with the rest of the world by the average American. Over 200 people (88 Australians) were killed in the Bali bombing. I was amazed that one lj’er that Ian and I talk to had never heard of it. I was also amazed when travelling the US how many people had no idea where Australia, Iran or Woop-Woop were. Maybe its all the testosterone generated by all those quasi-military gym classes in high-school. Don’t get me wrong, apathy is a very Australian sin, but our highly multi-cultural society does tend to make us aware of more than our own back-yards. Now I’ll just grump off ‘til I feel better.

Little Billy

Sydney, Winter of 1951

Shakespeare and Shakespere

I’ve been having another Shakespeare binge, having recently re-read the best book of Shakespearean analysis that I have ever read, Ted Hughes’ “Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being.” Now Hughes has his own barrow to push, but if you skip his repetitive explanations of his thesis, this is the best analysis of the underlying themes of Shakespearean Drama you’ll get anywhere.I have also been reading books about the authorship controversy. I have always dismissed claims about alternative authors as nonsense, but if you look at some of the genuine mysteries surrounding the authorship of Shakespeare, you begin to realise it’s not all pie-in-the-sky fantasy. Certainly there was an actor/ businessman called Shakespere active in the theatre, but it seems increasingly unlikely that we have got the whole story from our brilliant but oh-so-slippery Elizabethan/Jacobean ancestors. For a good overview of this enigma, see ”Who Wrote Shakespeare” by John Michell. Also for an excellent read about the events leading up to the murder of Christopher Marlowe, try “The Reckoning” by Charles Nicholl. It reads like a thriller .Ah, English History of the late-sixteenth/early-seventeenth centuries, a bottomless well of fascination!

Advertising subtext

I’m amazed at the apparent subtexts of some commecials. The new MacDonald’s ad has a smarmy Mom who is flogging the new”less fatty, more healthy’ menu. She says:”I used to come here for the kids. Now I come here for lunch!” To me the subtext seems to scream”I have no control over my kids diet, so I’ll just look after myself”and the sub-subtext is,” I’m happy to feed my Kids unhealthy crap,but now they’ve come up with something I can eat without going into cholesterol-shock”, The lies that tell the truth.

susanden...

susandennis, what have you wrought? He only started last night and now its impossible to drag androkles from his knitting. You have to be so careful with these compulsive types!