A Particularly Shit Moustache - Part V

My Particularly Shit Moustache has been singing ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’ a lot recently—probably on account of It recently proclaiming some kind of Argentinian heritage. And yesterday, when I wasn’t really paying much attention, It tried to saddle a duck and migrate to its apparent South American homeland.

            Señor bye! my Particularly Shit Moustache cried before cruelly finding out that the mallard was not big enough to support my weight also on this adventure. It failed to see that I am actually a necessary component of Its being: we cannot be separated without my Particularly Shit Moustache losing all Its identity and, at best, threadbare substance. My upper lip can be Its only home.

Still, it whipped and whipped the poor duck, attempting to get the creature to soar, but it was all to no avail. It wept: pensé patos vuelan juntos.

            The Seeing had unfortunately given my Particularly Shit Moustache a misplaced confidence, as if It actually had autonomy distinct from me. But, as I gently reminded It, most people still cannot see It without prompting. The only person who really cares about my Particularly Shit Moustache—who feels it slightly itch in slightly humid weather, who examines it in the mirror, who pets it gently in moments of mild thought—is me.

            I create It and make It live.

            My Particularly Shit Moustache didn’t take this well. We’re not on great terms at the moment.

A Particularly Shit Moustache - Part IV

An amazing thing happened on my break from work yesterday.

            I was sitting outside in the sun, reading and watching Chapel St’s finest assortment of riff raff potter by, when the perfect series of almost improbable coincidences led to The Seeing.

            Firstly, it was 3.44pm. This fact, which would usually be utterly trivial, meant the sun was sitting at a nice angle in the sky—not directly above or parallel to me; rather, sort of at the angle of my hairline. Secondly, I was positioned so that the sun slanted across my face in what could be called a rakish manner.  It didn’t shine directly at me, face-on, which would have only caused an excess of light and thus blinding to the coming miracle. Thirdly, at this very moment in time I had just had a sip of beer, followed immediately by my eyes beginning their descent downwards to view my book.

            Then it happened.

            I saw my Particularly Shit Moustache. On my face.

It was The Seeing people had been telling me about, where you can look down your nose and see your own facial hair. I had not yet been privy to this experience, forlornly relegating any vision of my Particularly Shit Moustache to the mirror.

            Yet, the perfect angle of the sun, the shimmery residual moistness amidst the bristles, the path downwards taken by my eyes and 9 days of careful cultivation came together in a moment of beautiful exposure and unveiled my Particularly Shit Moustache to me first-hand: blonde and bathed in light, like a halo for my mouth.

            Hola señor! It said.

            I don’t know when my Particularly Shit Moustache decided it was Argentinian.

A Particularly Shit Moustache - Part III

Like buying a VCR in 2005, my Particularly Shit Moustache and I made some questionable life decisions last night. If It were able, It would bristle indignantly at the memory, but the best my Particularly Shit Moustache can do is commit to a barely distinguishable quiver if the breeze and light align perfectly enough to find the surprisingly rigid blonde strands and stir them to movement.

            My Particularly Shit Moustache seems to have little memory of what actually transpired, though the scent of beer and the feeling of self-loathing permeating It, gives away the gist of Its involvement in my activities: a slightly furry filter between my mouth and alcohol, convinced of Its own notion that it keeps out bad spirits. This morning, however, neither of us believed that any evil apparitions were successfully kept out. My Particularly Shit Moustache needs to work on this aspect of Its being if It is to be an active and valued member of my face.

            Unfortunately what can be assured, is that my Particularly Shit Moustache received no compliments.

            I placated It this morning by shaving the rest of my face, thus highlighting my Particularly Shit Moustache. It now has The Place of Honour on my face. My Particularly Shit Moustache is pleased with this development and has made it clear that It expects to always be treated so. Basically it wants to be catered for like a penguin in Norway.

A Particularly Shit Moustache - Part II

This was supposed to be a daily thing, but yesterday was the Cup. Public Holidays make the most earnest of desires collapse in pools of alcohol. 

            This was the first time my Particularly Shit Moustache had been exposed to this spectacle. Thus, we felt it prudent to ignore trying to get something up yesterday on account of the fact Its transparent blondeness was glistening with beer and wine: a lubrication which made writing difficult, but was nonetheless felt called for on account of how underwhelmed my Particularly Shit Moustache was by the whole event.

Interestingly enough, Its reaction to the Cup matched the reaction of anyone who happened to see It yesterday. My Particularly Shit Moustache is underwhelming, like a duck who you thought could do algebra, but who can only solve the easiest of fractions… at best.

            Today, however, It has emerged a little clearer, more full-bodied, like a Pinot Gris shimmering under a cloud in front of the sun. It remains Particularly Shit. It will forever be Particularly Shit. But at least today It promised to be more than just fluff hanging from under my nose, atop my lip, and seemed to strive for something greater than merely being gold. There is red in there, in my Particularly Shit Moustache.

A Particularly Shit Moustache - Part 1

Today is the beginning.

Today I have decided to let my Particularly Shit Moustache grow. Today, as I was shaving, after four days of being free of the Blade, I relented from removing the strands—the straggling blonde hairs striving, it seems, for the light—that constitute my Particularly Shit Moustache. Today I peered upon my Particularly Shit Moustache and felt a guarded pride, like a father who is delighted at witnessing the birth of his child, but also anxious about how alien this child looks … Could I have helped create that? Could it be that I am not actually its father? Do I need a paternity test?

After I shaved, I looked upon my Particularly Shit Moustache. It was Particularly Shit.

It is Particularly Shit.

Today, I wondered what adventures me and my Particularly Shit Moustache might get up to. It is currently mute on the topic. I am sure it will open up over time, as more struggling hairs arrive to give it the illusion of substance. 

things that the Abbott Government believes in instead of climate change

1. Yetis.
2. Koalas, enraged with syphilis, are savaging the domestic cat population and desperately need culling. Hence: Operation Rise & Fall of the Drop Bear.
3. Bushfires are like fairies: if you say you don’t believe in them, they cease to exist.
4. All men named Art, practice art.
5. Greythorn is a real suburb.
6. Morgan Freeman’s voice is the solution to all the world’s problems. Particularly the so-called, ‘penguin issue.’
7. Chupacabra is getting around QLD killing the banana trees.
8. Poor people don’t drive, nor do they care for education. Plus they all worship The Mothman.
9. There’s a subspecies of Gum Tree in Tasmania acting oddly: that is, autonomously. This genus is a threat and needs killing before the trees start hurling boulders at Hobart.
10. Your face went to the zoo on a scholarship funded by your mum’s moustache’s platonic fling with a professor fond of liturgies, corn flakes and dusty rooms filled with old armour.
11. Bunyips.
12. The numerous and exciting health benefits of Cocoa Puffs!
13. Sweden and Switzerland are the same country.
14. Coal is good for humanity, and, far from being a punishment, to receive a lump of coal as a child at Christmas is to be symbolically welcomed as a citizen of humanity.
15. The penguin recently knighted in Norway is now its King.[1]
16. The loch ness monster is swimming around Darling Harbour.
17. There are actually Orcs in New Zealand who are a major threat to that nation’s gentry. Interventionist action, however, has been complicated by the Orcs' Catholicism. 
18. The world is a poorer place in the absences of: Killing Heidi, Taxi Ride, The Androids, The Danni Minogue Corporation, Human Nature, Nicky Webster.
19. The government does not exist on the teat, and at the whims, of News Corp.
20. The bogeyman is real and it lives under Joe Hockey’s bed. It’s probably poor.
21. The polar ice caps are melting because polar bears breathe too much and they have a particularly warm breath. Also, all polar bears are left handed. They're failure of ambidexterity is their own issue and probably why they're failing as a species.
22. The Cosmic Duck Whose Quack Fails To Echo In Eternity.

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[1] http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26219632/ns/world_news-weird_news/t/king-penguin-receives-norwegian-knighthood/#.VFa2g_mUd8E

i suck at tinder: a true story

I wake up after another night out.

            I feel a tad worse for wear. I try to figure out what I actually got up to.

            I lean over and grab my phone from near my lamp. There are no messages or alerts or anything to give me some notion of the last evening’s activities. I keep scrolling across.

            And there it is. The little red flame, like a distorted upside down heart.

            Tinder.

            Dammit, Dave. Not again.

            Oh well, now it’s there, might as well give it another crack. I open it up and begin the soul-sapping process of judging women based on a handful of photos (mostly selfies, pics with cats/dogs, picturesque poses in front of international tropical/cultural/desert settings, or partying group shots), some Facebook affiliated ‘Shared Interests’ (a lot of ladies, it seems, like Seriously Chuffed Goats), and a brief ‘About’ description, which can be boiled down to statements like: ‘I live to travel,’ ‘I live for the gym,’ ‘I live for funny guys,’ ‘Intelligence is sexy,’ ‘Extra points for beards and/or tattoos,’ ‘I’m not DTF,’ ‘Creeps need not apply’ (as if that will stop them), ‘Not interested in your gym selfies, your abs, or pictures of you with a comatose tiger’ (guys actually do that?), ‘New to Melbs, just wanna make some friends to show me around,’ and ‘[insert inspirational/ reflective/political/Anchorman quote].’

            Let the swiping begin. Let the initially careful analysis and consideration of each profile slowly descend into the furious action of just swiping right to a) see if it’s working, or b) see if there is anyone out there at all who has judged me worthy. Let another round of few, to absolutely no, matches follow in its wake.

Well, ‘real’ matches. I don’t count it when that curiously joyous moment of physical validation which accompanies a Tinder match is immediately undercut by a message that offers the ‘full GF experience’ at reasonable rates.

Yeah, thanks, but I can do my whoring on my own time. Without an app.

            See, every time I embark on this shallow quest of left-for-no, right-for-yes, I realise that although I’m good, even excellent, at a great many things, Tinder is most certainly not one of them.

            I know this from addict-like practice instinctively and rationally. Yet, there is still some part of me that will seek out the app store when I’m not really paying attention and then, bang, its back for another round.

            It’s probably a mix of interrelated things that keeps allowing it to catch me unawares. Sudden surges in confidence (my ego is a wondrously fluctuating beast) leads me to mistakenly think, ‘ah hell, I’d be stupid not to in my current form!’ Tinder then presents itself as a really easy and impersonal option to play the numbers game: you get to faux-approach a lot of women without the rigmarole of having to, you know, ‘approach’ them. Finally, it is the perpetual inquiry from people around me when they find out I’m single: ‘you on Tinder?’ To which I usually reply, ‘nah, I’m shit at it.’ The seed, though, is again planted.

Later, despite my proclamations of being done with it, I’ll download Tinder, because it seems like my confidence, alongside an ease of access and this random assortment (of usually committed) people give me some kind of permission, bypassing both the awkwardness of being on it in the first place and the simple knowledge that, for me, it doesn’t work.

I ask myself then: why not? What is it about me that makes me so terrible at Tinder? Or at least so unattractive a prospect?

Besides the fact that I cannot grow a beard and refuse to scar my porcelain skin with tattoos—both of which are apparently mighty attractive in our day and age—I take awful photos, which is of course not ideal for a dating app designed for immediate aesthetic, skin-deep gratification, where coupling success is achieved, and measured, by means of appreciating how good someone looks in a few pics.

For me, who has always struggled when stared down by a camera, this is both a conscious and unconscious problem.

Consciously, I will often make stupid faces. Contorting my mighty large head into a variety of rubber expressions designed to shock and awe. My mouth will usually be wide open, my double-chin out and about with full bravado, one eye slightly closed, and my nostrils flared. Impressive though these photos may be on some level, I wouldn’t say that they are attractive. And there are a disturbingly high number of them. I've mastered the art of the dumb face when someone catches me unaware with a camera.

Unconsciously, my go to smile for pictures is kind of vanilla and a little bit disconcerting in its rigidness. In these, I poke my head slightly forward, rip my mouth open into a grinning rictus to expose my clenched teeth, and then freeze. It’s still and slightly unnatural, and my eyes are never quite focused. There is such an underlying intensity and concentration to look natural, that naturalness has packed its bags and said, 'fuck this, good luck buddy.' Turning around, the naturalness then says, with sincere pity, 'sorry, but without me mate, you look like a lot like a slightly unhinged manikin. Like a ventriloquist doll.'

Even then, with all my flaws at the end of the lens, I would think that some lady out there would be able to look past a couple of odd photos and mutter to themselves, ‘actually, not too bad.’

But, no.

This leaves me with only one possible option for my failures at Tinder: I’m too attractive. So good looking that it’s actually intimidating. Even in my awful photos does this sheer, sun-blinding hotness reach out and, alas, transpire against me. For who could be self-assured enough to swipe right to this?

It is my blessing. And curse.

Anyway, I’m going to delete it again.

I’ll be back in a fortnight.

Some True Facts About Quail

Over the last couple of weeks I have been lucky enough to eat some particularly fine quail. Although small, quail packs quite the flavour punch, like there are a bunch of people engaged in a lively, albeit humorous, debate in your mouth, which rapidly descends into a friendly, almost sexual, play fight that features the gratuitous use of pillows and, eventually, pies … probably made from quail. Who would have known that this small flightless bird could attain such rarefied airs of sublime deliciousness? Well I didn’t. Indeed, I realised I know very little about quail, which is clearly a failure of Australian educational practices. I had to remedy this absence of knowledge. Thus, after some exhaustive research this morning, I present Some True Facts About Quails to educate us all about this delicacy that we like in and around our mouths.

·       The word ‘quail’ is often thought to be derived from the latin, quaipollus, which essentially means ‘tiny poultry.’ However, its etymological roots lie in the French word, quaileux, which translates roughly to ‘flightless morsel.’

·       The quail can be genetically traced back to the velociraptor of the Cretaceous Period.

·       The quail’s flightlessness belies its surprizing agility and uncanny ability to locate rabbit burrows for safety.

·       Like the duck, the noise of the quail is a robust ‘quack.’ Unlike the duck, however, the quail’s quack is capable of echoing.

·       It was the spirit animal of the Mongolian conqueror, Genghis Khan, who learnt his exquisite horseback bow skills chasing them around the steppes of Asia. He ate no less than five whole quails before engaging in any battle, displays of (unspecified) might, or romps of virile fornication.

·       The quail is the unofficial bird of Scotland. They believe it espouses values of rugged freedom underneath an exterior too small to actually do much about it.

·       Although it has fallen out of use, to be called a ‘quail’ in the Elizabethan era was quite the complement. By way of analogy, to be dubbed a ‘quail’ then, is to be named a ‘total babe’ now. ‘That Queen Elizabeth is a quail, sir.’ ‘Yes, quite a quail.’

·       The first documented recipe for quail is attributed to the 16^th century German alchemist, Günter Gertler. Believing the flesh of the quail—which he held sacred—to be the key in turning base metals into gold, Günter slow-cooked it in a sauce of goat’s milk, magnesium and sodium, with a dash of chlorine. Unfortunately, the concoction failed to convert iron to gold, but, curious at the robust scent of his work, upon taking a nibble of quail, Günter was astounded to discover it was delicious to the palate. For a brief period, before the schnitzel assumed prominence and people realised it was causing them all severe heartburn, goat’s milk chlorinated quail was the dish of Germany.

·       Although the main dietary source of the quail is small nuts, they have also been known to devour insects and hunt down field mice (true to their velociraptor heritage).

·       The collective noun for a group of quail is ‘a grounded.’

·       They make terrific pets for young children as they are prolific at games of fetch, although it is recommended that twigs, as opposed to smaller marbles, are used.

·       The quail will viciously defend its eggs in March, thus the notable of absence of steak tartare with quail egg from menus during this period.

·       In BMX parlance, a ‘quail’ is the manoeuvre when a rider goes over a jump and doesn’t get any air.

·       The source of its deliciousness has been the frequent study of many fine food-science minds. Theories range from their diet of field mice, to more theological notions of their apparent godliness embodied in the universality of quail appreciation. The only common hypothesis, however, seems to revolve around the flimsy bones of the quail, which most agree imparts some measure of its deliciousness. For some excellent elucidation on the mystery of quail flesh see: White, The Bird That Wasn’t, But Was (2000), Grey, On Matters of the Tiny Poultry (1967), and Hammersmith, Quizzically Questioning Quail’s Piquant (1876).

On Why '15 Ways To Turn a Good Girl Bad' Is Just Plain Awful

In my daily tasks of procrastination to avoid PhD-ing, I found a thought-provoking article on The Age website.[1] The article was concerned with a recent Men’s Health, in conjunction with Yahoo!7, series of, um, ‘sexual suggestions,’ from six apparent (curiously, female, although the context of their arguments are never entirely clear) (s)experts in the field. The point of these hints and tips is laid bare in its title: 15 Ways To Turn a Good Girl Bad[2]—not as in naughty, but as in naughty.  

Needless to say, The Age analysis of this piece falls very much on the ‘are-you-fucking-serious?’ side of things, and probes the pertinent question about the obsession with the idea of the ‘bad girl’: the stereotypical saucy, uninhibited minx, always on the verge of a quivering overt sexual desire, which ostensibly resides in the dark, repressed recesses of every woman, waiting to be unleashed. Essentially, the Men’s Health article argues that it is man who has ultimate control over a woman’s sexuality, that it is his right to lay claim to it, and gives guidance into how this sexuality can be provoked into a series of actions that, far from being mutually beneficial, favour the sexualised ideal of the man and, thus, his desire and personal gratification over that of the woman.

In this sense of elevating the male above the female in matters of the bedroom (or wherever suits …), 15 Ways To Turn a Good Girl Bad really does open itself up to criticism. There is something enormously problematic about thinking a man is able to, through various means of subterfuge and weird mind games, with a decidedly physical notion of ownership, control the way ‘his’ woman behaves and, more importantly, how she should behave; that this mysterious sexual beast under the skin of every woman just needs the right kind of ‘encouragement’ to be set loose. In this paradigm, he comes first (pun sort of intended).

Yet, what should be really obvious in our day and age is that women are not a pet to be unconsciously conditioned through what mostly amounts to positive and negative reinforcement. And I don’t believe I actually have to write that down. Men are in no way entitled to the sexuality of women. And in no way can it be trained to do his horny bidding.

Let’s have look at some of its suspect ‘advice’ shall we?

• The by-line reads: “Six sexperts suggest 15 ways to make her great in bed (without her even noticing)”
  Um, 'without her even noticing'? That seems like rape. Or, at least, a really messed up mythical mind control. But if she is not party to the action of sex—any action—that’s mostly rape.
• On oral sex: “‘If she’s going down on you, take her hand and show her how to use as she sucks you,’ advises Allison. ‘Many women think it’s all about the mouth, not realising how much easier—not to mention quicker—the whole ‘job’ can be using hands as well.’”
  Because the man getting off, and getting off quickly, is the most important part of any act of intimacy (this is a consistent theme in the article). Plus, he’s totally doing her a favour by making it all a little ‘easier,’ and, therefore, presumably bearable.
• On matters of vaginal tightness: “If her tunnel of love doesn’t feel as snug as you’d like, sign her up for a pilates course.”
  Firstly, in an article that has already overtly discussed ‘sucking off,’ I find the innuendo of ‘tunnel of love’ slightly peculiar—why try to sugar coat it? The feeling is that the female anatomy is yucky and needs ‘beautifying’ so that it is boiled down to amount to little more than its sexual role—much as the hypothetical woman in this article is.
  Secondly, really? She doesn’t get a say in pilates? The man just ‘signs her up,’ unbidden, because he isn’t getting the ideal amount of ‘snugness’? That strikes me as insulting on multiple levels. ‘I’ve signed you up for pilates.’ ‘Why?’ ‘I’m, um, worried about your core strength.’ ‘Why?’ ‘I just think it can be, you know, tighter, I mean, stronger.’ Ultimately, man doesn’t get a say in how woman decides to treat, or live in, her body.
• On the man wearing a blindfold: “If you want to see her complete transformation from mild-mannered to minx, stop watching.”
  The notion is that a woman is more likely to be ‘naughty’ if she is free from the gaze of male appraisal. Because nothing says, ‘I think you’re sexy,’ more than ‘I don’t want to look at you while we fuck with eyes full of judgement.’ Great self-esteem lifter that one.
• On withholding sex: “‘Sometimes women become sexually defensive or shy, because their partner is always there first, asking or angling for some action,’ according to relationship counsellor Paula Hall. ‘Stop asking and you may find her sexual appetite gets the better of her, revealing a hunger that brings out her more confident side.’”
  Well, this is just plain no fun for anyone. It’s emotionally manipulative (as The Age article notes) and, frankly, kind of cruel, leading to an assumption that confidence can come out of an adopted disinterest, which I would think is more likely to do harm to any sense of ‘confidence’ than good. Yep, all that hunger needs is more starvation!
• Using toys to “Make it easy on yourself”: “‘Getting her to the level of orgasm can be a hard slog,’ admits Spurr. So stage your own industrial revolution and bring some machinery to bed.”
  This reinforces the notion that her pleasure is a task, where a man’s is a right. And if it’s all ‘too difficult’—a ‘hard slog’—best turn to toys, not cause they might be fun or different or whatever rocks your proverbial boat in the waterbed, but because they are a convenient way to get her out of the way so the man can round the bend and quickly be tended to himself. Sex, in its way, should be easy. A means to take the mind away from other matters to narrow the focus onto intimacy. But to make this ease singular—‘easy on yourself’—misses the entire point of the, you know, coupling process.
• (there is then two final bits of advice sorted under the heading ‘==if she’s lazy …’ because, clearly, a woman who doesn’t want to have sex is just being lackadaisical; it has nothing to do with her immediate feelings or desires, which means she can easily be tricked or persuaded into being less 'lazy')
• “Give her a break”
  Not because she’s tired, or sated, or had her fun, but because the quicker she rests, the quicker he can return to the important mission of getting off himself. Be careful, then, the article advises, of abiding to the principle of ‘ladies first,’ less the man is robbed of his orgasm.
  “In the past few decades, women have learnt that orgasms, like voting and equal pay, are their right,’ says Spurr.
  We can all be grateful that at least this article is aiming to amend that particular fallacy. Next, we’ll strike down voting and equal pay rights! Men will have their rightful place at the top. 
  “[The] tide of female emancipation has led to a ‘princess-and-the-pea syndrome’—her ‘pea’ gets all the attention, while everything else gets sidelined … Stand up for your rights, man!”
  Again with the innuendo! It’s called a ‘clitoris.’ And who the hell suddenly proclaimed that sex has become solely the domain of the clit anyway? Even then, so what if it gets attention? I hardly think that that puts everything else on the ‘sidelines,’ as if it is suddenly isolated from the rest of the sexual act, sitting somewhere up in the bleachers getting crudely groped by the cool kid while the rest of relevant anatomy and feelings sit uncomfortably off to the side muttering, ‘well, what a greedy slut.’ And this is what this piece of ‘advice,’ and the article in general amounts to: slut shaming. It is loudly protesting against women who dare to control their sexuality; a sexuality, the article argues, which is rightfully the domain of men to do with as they please and spur into action according their own personal whims and fantasies. It presupposes that the woman’s fair right for an orgasm is selfish; that men need to firmly realign sex so that they are back on top (pun intended) and that if they so choose to hand out an orgasm—as if it is a fucking Christmas present—the woman should be grateful. Women, though, are not tools of male sexual gratification. And, again, I don’t believe I actually have to write that down. The act itself of sex, whether it be a one-night stand or something more serious, should be a matter of two people physically, sometimes emotionally, engaging each other for mutual satisfaction. This is idealistic, sure, but also makes the firm point that it is not just men who enjoy the act, and never men who get to control the terms of the act. This is what 15 Ways To Turn a Good Girl Bad is about: control, based around the inarguably flawed reasoning that women owe men something. I would’ve thought archaic shit like this wouldn’t pass muster anymore. But, clearly, I know nothing according to this insipid, rancid skid-mark stain of writing, lost so far up its own misogynistic arse it can see Tony Abbott residing just above its lungs reciting hashtags from #notallmen while cradling a copy of The Game under his arm. 

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[1] http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/the-obsession-with-good-girls-turned-bad-sex-tips-20140922-10kb7m.html

[2] https://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/mens-health/sex-and-women/a/10311485/15-ways-to-turn-a-good-girl-bad/

In Defense of Camel Milk

Finally. 

            Finally, we have camel milk demanding the sort of attention it clearly deserves from the Australian public as a viable alternative to the tired old liquid we have traditionally extracted from the udders of cows.

            Long have I heard Australians bray in distress about the pitifully small selection of milk—and milk sources—we have available.

This sacred white nectar of the desert beast, then, is the very least we deserve.

I say: we milk cows, goats, soy beans, rice and almonds, so why not milk a camel? Why not enjoy its life-sustaining treat? Why limit ourselves when confronted with a product that demands a milk additive to archaic tradition and subjective notions of taste? Why, when I am enjoying cereal, tea, coffee, or perhaps making a dessert, should I be constrained in my choice of milk when there is camel milk out there, waiting to be consumed and appreciated?

Choice is a core value in a democratic society and I feel that there can never be enough choices. Particularly, when it comes to something which as vital to the functioning of life as milk.

And why don’t we ever think of the nomads? As a society, Australians value hard work, ingenuity and creativity. To then ignore camel milk is to ignore the determination of the brave—one may say, ‘heroic’—desert nomads who first thought to themselves, ‘I’m gonna have a crack at milking that wild, spitting, grumpy, humped bastard. Because, dammit, I really need something to wash these weetbix down and water just doesn’t cut it no more.’

We owe it to those plucky souls to enjoy the fruit of their toils; to appreciate the sheer genius of attaching a handmade, ivory tap to the hump of a camel to withdraw its milk, a task as harrowing as it is later fulfilling when downing a warm, nutritious cup of camel milk.

They have given us what we didn’t necessarily know we wanted, but which, deep down, we were subconsciously crying out for. They have filled the recesses of the camel milk void in each and every one of us. We are now a more satisfied people as our milk choices expand out before us reaching out to animals and plants and possibilities we never dreamt could become reality. Surely, owl milk is just over the horizon?

Friendly to those who are lactose intolerant, with more salt on the palate, and additional Vitamin C, camel milk lurches past the faux health benefits of soy and almond milk, whilst easily evading the fallacies of skinny (or skim) milk. Moreover, the very act of drinking camel milk is loaded with an imparted self-satisfaction, so that in swallowing it the recipient feels the kind of heavenly bliss we usually associate with being inarguably correct.

Why would you not want to drink a camel milk caffe latte? Why would you not submerge your Special K with camel milk? Why use formula for your baby, when camel milk is the perfect substitute for breast milk, coming as it does from a similarly shaped hump?

I, for one, am planning to invest in camel milk farms, where hundreds of camels with industrial sized taps attached to their humps reign freely, spitting and making their spittle-loaded throat noises, waiting their turn to have the tap turned on and, thus, be milked. It is the future of not just milk, but the entire culinary culture of Australia.

Let us all enjoy a refreshing cup of camel milk. Let us bow our heads to our wild herds of camels as more than foul-tempered pests. They are divine creatures, filled with a satisfying treat.

Bless you camel milk.

Malaysia Airlines MH17

There will undoubtedly be a stream of Facebook statuses and tweets about the Malaysian Airlines plane that was shot down overnight in Ukraine. These will be updates and news articles, alongside messages offering hopes and prayers, sympathy and tears, perhaps anger and retribution. Social media will grieve. It’s a process I am usually averse to, finding that it cheapens the ‘real’ grief of those who are the subject of the largely anonymous voices of the Internet crying out as one.

            Yet, I find myself sitting here, reading through the news coverage of flight MH17 facing a nearly unbearable sadness. And I don’t feel any need to hold that back.

Such an utterly senseless loss of life.

298 people, three of whom were infants, one a premier figure in AIDS research, the rest someone’s daughter, son, sister, brother, mother, father, lover … people who boarded a plane never thinking that they would not arrive at their destination, innocent of any involvement in the Crimea, never believing they would be blown out of the sky, now lying scattered among charred wreckage somewhere in Ukraine. Never to come home.

The world is subject daily to tragedy: lost homes, lives, futures. It is the startlingly simple antithesis to the grace of our existence; something we, as humans, must face. And sometimes when something like MH17 happens, I fear we cheapen the impact of these tragedies, forgetting in the force of the news cycle’s main event that all over the Earth people are suffering needlessly. I worry that in the rising crescendo of social media we can conveniently forget these other happenings to latch onto what is more immediate in our modern short-term consciousness.

What a cynic am I.

For as I write this, knowing full well that I am adding my own voice to the growing pool—soon a flood—of voices that are in essence only trying to make sense of things, I realize that this is just the age we live in; that there is nothing cheap or disingenuous about trying to make your feelings heard when we are provided, have even created, the platform to do so. We all have our digital soapboxes and if we want to climb atop them to cry to the heavens that are the endless reaches of the Internet then why should we not? Who is anyone, and who am I, to belittle anyone’s expression of grief, hope, fear as anything less than honest? As anything less than genuine?

And in releasing our feelings about MH17 online, I wonder whether rather than pushing other tragedies to the periphery of thought, we are in fact putting these into a kind of relief. Reminding ourselves how fallible living actually is. For our shock is the realization that the randomness of the event means that it could have been you, me, a loved one. There is no telling when or how a life will end. When we express our horror and our sympathy, we express, in a sense, our joy of life beside the guttural, deep sadness that anyone can have theirs cut short, irrespective of the tragedy and the way in which we wish to tell our world.

Our focus may fall here on MH17 and the almost nameless sensation that accompanies the idea that a passenger plane can just be shot from the sky for no reason other than the perfect awfulness of the circumstance, but really it is more than that. We don’t forget about the rest of the world—Africa, Gaza, refugees, so on and on and on—and we don’t rob people directly related to the incident of their grief, presuming to adopt some of their pain. What we do is lend ourselves to the social collective that is humanity, reminding ourselves of how we belong to something greater than our own selfish beings, how we are all suspect to machinations very much outside our control. It is these things that we all have in common, which any expression of grief implicitly acknowledges.

For this reason, I will mourn and feel immense sadness that so many people can have their lives cut short; remembering also, that it is an unfortunate part of the human condition, all over the world. 

My thoughts and hopes with those lost aboard MH17.

Some True Facts About Immigration Minister Scott Morrison

I have from a distance always had a special spot of loathing for Scott Morrison. I mean anyone who continues to promote and condone Australia's utterly xenophobic, fear-driven and cruel policies of handling supposed 'boat people' is worthy of such scorn, particularly in the sense that it is now more to do with vote gathering politics than it is with dealing with, you know, real people who have suffered terribly in their home nation and have seemingly run out of options. But Mr Morrison is a whole other kettle of shit in a party, nay parliament, filled with vessels of shit. A grotesque flabby excuse of a human being at the forefront of the Coalition's (and in some respects Labor's) race to the bottom in matters of how to address our apparent 'problems' of refugee boat arrivals: a question of who can establish the most craftily nasty way of 'turning back the boats'; of making Australia so damn unappealing that the risk of escape and resettlement is just not worth it. Pathetically (and pathetic is a word that goes hand in hand with this trumpet cunt ((TC is back))), Morrison acts out like a kind of Big Brother, desperately trying to control the refugee narrative through his controlled, infrequent press conferences, limitations of media access and continual insistence to incorrectly alter the semantics of the issue by amending the title 'illegal' to refugees. They are not 'illegal' refugees. They are simply refugees. It is not a matter of legality. It is simply a matter of an inherent strand of racist fear that runs through Australia that politicians are all too keen to play on, rather than try to change.

But the latest to come out of Morrison and the Coalition is one step too far. Essentially (I am speaking generally here throughout), they are dramatically altering the terms of whether or not a refugee is in danger in their home country, which in turn decides whether or not they will be forcefully sent back. The current threshold that decides whether a refugee is in real danger (I'm talking torture, deprivation of rights and death here) is around 10%; that is, if there is a greater than 10% chance of them facing serious danger, they will be considered for protection and not sent back. The proposal by Morrison is to raise this to above 50%. The refugee needs to prove that if they were to be sent back there is a better than 1 in 2 chance of them facing torture. By the way, they need to prove this on their own because they are refused, or not allowed, legal aid. Hypothetically, if you can only prove a 48% chance of torture, tough titties you're heading home. How these statistical probabilities are to be established is a bit of a mystery. Indeed, how the likelihood of danger can be measured in any respect seems fairly screwy. Who puts this numerical value (even the 10% threshold) on a person's life? To assume that 55% is better odds than 35% when we're talking about FUCKING TORTURE is utterly unhinged - this isn't a bet, this is someone's well-being; their goddamn existence.

We've already boiled these people down to being little more than words - 'illegal refugees' - little more than statistics - how many boats last month? - little more than mouths to feed and bodies to cater for on an island out of sight, out of mind, and now the Coalition is making a mockery of the kind of perpetual danger these people are escaping from by boiling it all down to the chance of this danger doing bodily harm, conveniently forgetting the kind of psychological hardship one has to face when there is still a 35% chance they might be tortured or killed; forgetting that in a place with a 35% chance of horrid things happening there is no standard of living that would be considered acceptable by most people (although, fuck me, but I don't have the statistics to back that claim up).

As a grand get stuffed, I present Some True Facts About Immigration Minister Scott Morrison:

·        He feasts on baby pugs. They are his primary source of protein.

·        His bloated, unhealthily red, piggish appearance is a tribute to both Kim Jong Un and Al Capone. He believes that his fat expresses power and prestige. He always enjoys second helpings of pug.

·        He denies the existence of rainbows.

·        He only reads Ayn Rand.

·        His closest cousin is a sack of rancid potatoes.

·        He sleeps in a coffin draped in the Australian flag, surrounded by poison ivy, in Western Sydney.

·        He believes that the Earth is still flat, the fractures of the ozone layer a myth, and that somewhere right near the edge of world is a nifty temperature control device that is just waiting for someone brave enough to venture that close to the precipice of nothing to turn it down a touch. This will solve global warming.

·        He feels that he is too valuable a human to risk getting that close to the edge of the world. He likes to point out his credentials: media control, genuine understanding of the supposed refugee ‘plight,’ wordsmith, penmanship, pastry chef par excellence, and Parliament hotdog eating champion.  

·        His favourite hobby is to continually push over children. He is particularly fond of nudging toddler’s off-balance.

·        His laugh sounds like a dehydrated goat bleating through a crackly megaphone.

·        He attends Hillsong and subscribes to their evangelical, religious-right doctrine, except the bits about caring for your fellow human beings. This, he believes, is open to subjective interpretation. One can admire Jesus, but gee whiz he sets some lofty standards.

·        He believes that the role of the press is to write what he says. He views his press conferences as a kind of circus act where he is the ringmaster and the press corps his clowns. He honestly believes he could get them all to fit in a two-door Nissan Mirage.

·        He believes he could have been a ringmaster in another life.

·        Information and fact is what Scott Morrison says is information and fact. Scott Morrison is, in fact, the embodiment of an absolute Information and Fact. He is the Truth.

·        He knows the danger, for he is the Danger.

·        He believes that seeking refuge is an illegal sin.

·        He thinks 49% is still pretty good odds.

Arthuring Your Hangover

My brother and I went out last night.

            Today I feel like a well-trodden area of grimy dirt speckled with dead flies, some bird shit and a few scraggly weeds. It’s just moist enough to be squelchy and clings desperately to anyone who passes through it. Nothing will grow there. It is utterly barren.

            We started with a bottle of wine at home. We then went to Kong (a new, and excellent, Korean BBQ joint in Richmond). We had to wait for a table, so pottered down to the Prince Alfred for a couple of ales served by surly bar staff with flaccidic[1] dispositions. We received a call from Kong informing us of our table’s availability. We ordered a litre of the house wine. We ate and drank with overly enthusiastic gusto. We left Kong. We were both a little drunk. We wandered down Chapel St to the Sweetwater Inn behind the Jam Factory. We drank five dollar tinnies of Melbourne Bitter. We watched a snowboarding video.

            …

            I don’t really recall much more of what happened. I do remember feeling like I stood out at the Inn due to my lack of hat and beard, along with the aesthetic anomaly of my boisterous blondeness and neatly cultivated neck/chin fluff. I vaguely recall talking to various hospitality people my brother knew about waiting work, slurring credentials that probably went: ‘Mate, I’d love to work there. I know Russian.’ Or: ‘Buddy, you’ve never seen a man with hips as snake-like as mine. I weave through tables like a granny knitting a particularly egregious scarf. I also know Russian.’

            I also know we caught a cab home. But I only ‘know’ in the sense that I woke up this morning in my bed with my pants only half-way off, a receipt from the trip dangling out of one of the pockets. For all I remember, without the evidence of the receipt, we could’ve saddled some salamanders (that’s not innuendo for a particular type of person by the way, I actually mean overgrown lizards) and ridden them home, gleefully whooping at the fun of it all.

I took the receipt because when I reach a certain level of intoxication I completely lose all faith in cabbies as honest human beings, levelling them with distrustful, hate-filled stares of blonde malice, accompanied by muttered unpleasantries and curses (as in Gypsy curses where I don’t just curse the driver, but also his entire familial lineage). I always demand (not ask, demand) receipts in case they decide to add a little something more to the fare, examining them through the narrow slits of my drunk, angry eyes before disembarking.

            Anyway, to speak in general and understated terms, my brother and I were not in particularly high spirits upon waking. Our rooms had the pungent odour of alcohol, our eyes were bloodshot and leery, and the best we could say to each other was, ‘I have a headache,’ dosed with a liberal use of the word, 'fuck.' Reckless pantlessness (my brother was also vesting hard with no shirt) was the order of a large chunk of the morning as we took to that hopeless, dazed, zombie-ish wandering around the house that is the affliction of any hungover person trying to make sense of the cruel world.

            We decided to go and get breakfast. Over the course of the drive we heard Steve Winwood’s ‘Call On Me’ and Europe’s ‘The Final Countdown.’ Neither of these songs were at all reflective of our state, it was just a neat run of songs. We tried to crank the radio in the Party Mirage, cracking the windows so Chapel St could enjoy their majesty with us, but it pathetically begins to crackle over ’20.’ Still, the Party Mirage presides.

For maybe an eight minute drive, the conversation got surprisingly weird really quickly:

·         We discussed hybrid dogs that have been bred from poodles and other hounds. Our favourite was the spoodle (part cocker spaniel, part toy poodle). This quickly degenerated into using the term as pure euphemism. As in: ‘Dude, I’d give her the spoodle.’

·         Spoodling, as we came to affectionately call it, continued into a conversation about ‘docking’ or, more amusingly, ‘aardvarking.’ From UrbanDictionary: When two men touch their penises together tip to tip and one man rolls the foreskin of his penis over the penis of the other man. It is necessary that one man is uncircumcised. We wondered at how this ever came about and, indeed, how one would proposition another man to a bit of the old ‘aardvarking.’

·         ‘Aardvarking’ reminded us of the children’s cartoon Arthur. The titular character, an aardvark, looks nothing like an aardvark (see below) and presumably behaves nothing like an aardvark. Of course, I am only assuming that aardvarks don’t wear lame sweaters and learn lessons of basic morality/growing up on a daily basis. ‘Aardvarking’ became ‘Arthuring.’

·         Some flannelette shirts in a store distracted us from the peculiarities of ‘Arthuring’ and aardvarks with rabbit best friends (I know, what the fuck?), and we robustly discussed that weird trend of not actually wearing the shirt, but using it as a belt. Like inverse grunging. Flannelette is a shit belt was the gist of it. 

·         We arrived at the café.

So, all this aside, I still feel really quite terrible. My eyes are trying to gnaw their way through vision, I keep breaking out into awkward sweats, and my stomach has expressed continually to me its displeasure. 

Please let know if you’re open to gently swaddling me in a blanket and holding me. You can whisper sweet soothing words of nothing into my ear and feed me bacon. We can watch episodes of Arthur together.

Think of me as the puppy. Look how much it needs your affection and soft touch. Look at how fun it is. I can be this fun. After the right amount of bacon.

             

---

[1] ‘flaccidic’ – a floppy, cranky acceptance of being in a mental state akin to erectile flaccidity – example: ‘he appears full of hopeless scorn and anger, what a flaccidic gentleman’

why I don't drive

I'm known for many things: my charming disposition, my way with grilling most meats, my attachment to cream cheese, my extensive library, my odd predilection to remember random passages/information I read in some leftist newspaper I found in a city alley months ago but almost always forget where I am and sometimes where I am going. Everyone's favourite trait though is that I don't drive. At the ripe old age of 27, edging dangerously close to 28, then even closer to 30, I am without a license. This state has unfolded in a variety of ways: frequent close proximity to public transport, friendly friends, an almost obsessive foreknowledge that I will perish in a car crash, the unbearable truth that I will never get my hands on the ghostbuster station-wagon. Yet, there is more to the story. A list:

·      I’m too cool.

·      I need to be known for at least one annoying trait, for otherwise I have none.

·      Someone needs to be the designated lift weasel.

·      I’m a Triple A-Plus Mark Seven Walker. Meaning: I recklessly stroll into a strut purpose designed to take me places, like the shops, park, or the spaces between Time.

·      I worship at the altar of the Walk.

·      A gypsy named Olysandra in a prophetic cask-wine dream foretold of The Blonde Man Who Should Not Drive, sometimes referred to in gypsy culture simply as, The Blonde. He is an awe-inspiring figure of natural movement; the harbinger of The Stride; the final bastion of The Leggéd Shuffle. I am this man.

·      I am a defender of fossil fuels. I believe them best left in their natural habitat, not in the slave service of the car.

·      Cars have a tendency to startle me.

·      I’m sure cars are haunted by (literally) blank-faced Papua New Guinean children with self-esteem issues. They are their doomed vessels to the afterworld, which we are burdened with never arriving at.

·      I have the spatial awareness of a blinded-folded, thrice spun around, drunk toddler with Attention Deficit Disorder and a severe fear of not being able to see, while being attacked by a falcon This is not a state conducive to driving a car.

·      Steering wheels are one of life’s great mysteries.

·      I’d probably be prone to ramming people with very little reason. Cut me off: ram. Beep your horn at me: ram. Drive slowly: ram. Drive quickly: ram. Friendly wave: ram. Old lady walking across the street with her basset hound, a portrait of her deceased war hero husband and an armful of knitting: ram.

·      They call me Angry Dave for many reasons, and I’m sure driving will bring forth the Angriest of the Angry Dave’s. My eloquent hate-filled rage, though, would be something to behold: I’m thinking ‘Cock Goose,’ ‘you Bryan Fucker’ or ‘Empty Arse Sink’ will be frequently uttered; as in, 'you morally inept cock Goose! Go and fuck Bryan you vapid, empty arse sink!'

·      I don’t have a license.