titles of, and quotes from, various books, essays and poetry I plan to write about the hospitality industry

The Mystery of the Hair and the Blue Steak

‘Oh, waiter!’ cried out the floppy hacky sack of a gentlemen sitting on table 15. ‘I have found a hair, right here, on my steak!’

His fluorescent red coiffure wobbled awkwardly atop the bulb of his head,  as his lips—plumply immobile, pursed in a permanent o—struggled to wrap themselves around the r’s of his observation.

Venturing over, I noted the ruby hue to the sprig of follicle he furiously gestured at.

A clue!

‘I don’t share’: The Psychology of the Elderly Diner

            … with the elderly diner, one will often find that the merest noise elevating above the whispered rustling of two mice engaged in acrobatic coitus will distract them from their conversation and hence ruin their dining experience. Although this clearly has its roots in their physiological defects—that is, the deafness of aging—it is also an active attempt by the elderly diner to dictate the terms of their dining experience: take some form of control in their life that they lost with their descent into incontinence.

The Fruits of Passion

            Margaret came storming in through the door straight into the arms of her neighbour, Horatio. He was the husband of her best friend, father of her second child, a part-time pirate lord, and, above all, her muscular lover.

            ‘Why Margaret,’ he exclaimed in his clipped Nordic accent, ‘whatever is the matter?’

            ‘Horatio, it is just terrible, so so terrible. I can barely utter the terribleness of it.’

            He held her with tattooed arms, smelling of sea spray and buccaneer adventure. ‘It is ok. I am here.’

            ‘Marlborough has run out of sauvignon blanc. We’re hurtling headfirst into a drought Horatio!’

Free Your Inner Gluten

            Once we broke bread to celebrate hospitality and community. Today, that very bread tries to break us. But we shall fight back! We shall persevere! For bread cannot break us! Know your dietaries and be the Individual you know you are!

3am Children – A Series of Haiku

service has ended

they consume the alcohol

morning waits for them

but where now to go?

the night closes around us

Revolver calling

wine but no glasses

gin minus sacred tonic

get a few more straws

The Lost Sunday’s

‘We’re all frittatas in the end, made of nothing more than rejected embryos and the disappointing leftovers of a slow week.’

The Existentialist’s Menu

            How could he possibly choose something from this menu, when whatever choice he was to make would inevitably set him free-wheeling down the dusty, unsure road of a whole new fate? The direction of his existence, of the man he wanted to be, depended wholly upon this choice.

Right here. Right now.

The waiter approach warily again. ‘Ready to order, sir?’

The man felt sweat drip like Chinese water torture down his brow. He tucked his hands into his armpits, attempting to make himself small before the eyes of fatalism, and tried not to think of himself caught in the tornado of this uncontrollable destiny, loose limbed and tumbling head first into a future he could not comprehend, that terrified him.

Chicken or fish?

‘No. A few more minutes, please.’

Did You Just Touch My Balls: An Epic Poem in Three Parts

Grazing gently, gliding by

the graceless flick,

a tickle, meticulous machinations,

or not.

Only a moment’s tumult

unfolds in a universal

no time, on, then

not.

some true facts about the negroni

Last night, on something of a whim and in the company of some fine folks, I consumed maybe 4 to 6 negronis. These were drunk at the conclusion of the evening’s frivolity as a kind of figurative punctuation mark acknowledging the looming presence of midnight and the eventual need to head home.

Today I can feel all those cocktails sitting somewhere in the back of my head, perpetually crumpling up sheets of aluminium foil to hurl at my cerebral cortex, whilst singing Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic” in the wrong key, accompanied by a slightly out of tune guitar.

But despite the ruby campari haze I currently find myself lost within, and after much musing about the wisdom of ending nights as such, I have come to the firm resolution that there will never be an adequate reason for me to a) not drink negronis; and, b) not enjoy them more than my pitiful words can describe. If there were actually a nectar of the Gods—some Ideal beverage so perfect it is beyond human comprehension—a negroni would look dismissively upon this nectar, spit, probably fart, then mutter, ‘nice try,’ before finding the nectar’s mother and making fierce (but satisfactory) love to her.

In tribute, then, to the negroni (that perfect bitter blend of gin, campari and vermouth on ice with an orange peel), I present here some true facts about the negroni.

1. The negroni was invented by Captain Alfred Whitehead Negroni in 14^th Century Albania to cure aggressive lethargy. The original recipe contained traces of mercury and instead of orange peels they adorned the beverage with a whole Kiwi fruit.
2. The negroni became popular in the 16^th century largely because of pirates (who also finely honed the recipe to its current grandiosity). Although pirates are commonly (and stereotypically) marked as rum drinkers, they have always been partial to negronis (violently partial one could say). As it became associated with the rough and tumble free-spirited pirate image, the popularity of the negroni soared to great heights, demanded by patrons of inns in countries as diverse as Angola and Lithuania.
3. Many respected historical scholars attribute the true cause of the French Revolution to the misguided attempt by the monarchy to change the recipe of the negroni so that Absolute vodka was used instead of gin.
4. Most waterfowl love negronis and there is perhaps nothing more terrifying in the animal world than a herd of ducks stampeding in search of a nearby negroni.
5. Although the negroni is named after its creator, by an intensely strange fluke, negroni spelled backwards is inorgen, which is a Dutch compound word that essentially means: ‘the splendid liquid sunset.’
6. The negroni was largely responsible for the Great New York City Fire of 1845. This was because the majority of the metropolitan fire brigade had been out the night before at a fancy dress party, all coincidentally adorned in pirate costumes (except for Eric Steelz who came as a clown and was promptly ostracised). When the firemen got over the shock that they’d all elected to wear the same costume, they thought it appropriate they consume only negronis. Most were too hungover to report to work the next day. Most agreed it was a top night.
7. Ideally, Negronis are best enjoyed—are, indeed, at their prime—if the drinker is dressed in full Conquistador regalia. Additionally, they should be sitting on an ergonomic desk chair.
8. People who are allergic to, or who don’t like, negronis, are in fact phantoms and should be banished to the NetherRealm from which they have mistakenly escaped.  
9. In primordial Amazonian culture, the negroni is used to water the rainforest.
10. In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was Negroni.

Some observations from the 930am train to Cranbourne

·         There are a lot of people on this 930am train to Cranbourne. I didn’t know Cranbourne was such a popular Friday morning destination. Maybe something is happening in Cranbourne. I’ll check Google. Nope. Nothing is happening in Cranbourne.

·         This train smells like rice crackers and I am not ok with this. Of all the unusual smells I’ve had to deal with on the 930am train to Cranbourne this is perhaps the most unusual and most strangely distinctive.

·         Why are you looking at me like that?

·         I do not care for how crowded the train is.

·         There is old couple talking loudly in what I think is Greek. It sounds like an argument. The wife consistently talks over the top of her husband whose voice is progressively dropping in octaves. There are less and less syllables in his answers. I have rarely seen a man look so defeated on the 930am train to Cranbourne.

·         Out the corner of my eye: she’s pretty.

·         Wait. No. No, she’s not. Stop staring, Dave.

·         There is a gentleman with a neat goatee wearing flannel. He is happily napping while nursing an open can of Jim Beam and Coke. It’s probably a little early for that. Maybe anything goes on the 930am train to Cranbourne.

·         Is that guy playing Counter Strike on his computer? On the 930am train to Cranbourne? How is he getting enough internet coverage? I think he’s winning. I have rarely seen a man look so victorious on the 930am train to Cranbourne.

·         A slogan for the 930am train to Cranbourne: Anything Goes.

·         Another slogan: Welcome! Have a cheeky can and a nap!

·         Another slogan: Who doesn’t enjoy the smell of rice crackers?

·         I do not like the smell of rice crackers.

·         Oh, good. You are looking at someone else now.

·         I’m not sure of the brand of rice crackers the train smells like. This worries me and I am not entirely sure why.

·         I have absolutely no desire to visit Hughesdale. I’m unreservedly happy as the train leaves Hughesdale Station.

·         At Oakleigh Station a kid in wraparound sunglasses, an oversized t-shirt and baggy track pants boards. He has a lot of pimples and is carrying a stereo playing Aussie hip hop. It is probably turned up to about 7.5. He slouches right in the middle of the carriage and everyone has to listen to his music. Occasionally he sings along, particularly when a curse word features prominently. I do not like him. I do not like him at all.

·         I’m glad to get off at Huntingdale Station. It does not smell like rice crackers here.

13 Things That Can Make Men Fall Hard For You

Today I stumbled across this article on The Age website: “Glamour magazine retracts embarrassing listicle: 13 Little Things That Can Make Men Fall Hard for You.”[1] The list reads, as one angry Twitter-er noted, as a veritable instruction manual for that great mythical being: the 50’s housewife. It includes such valuable advice as:

• “Stocking the fridge with his favourite drinks. Bonus points: Bring him back to his fraternity days by handing him a cold one as he steps out of the shower.”
• “Making him a snack after sex. It doesn't have to be a gourmet meal – a simple grilled cheese or milk and cookies will do.”
• “Sitting side-by-side while he watches his favourite TV. It may not feel like quality time to you, but it's the best time to him."

Needless to say, I found these guidelines to be both hilarious and extremely out of line, particularly considering the etiquette and (however gradual) feminist advancements of our modern age that, you know, no longer assume that woman is solely there to serve man. So I decided to compile my own list of 13 Things That Can Make Men Fall Hard For You:

1. Stock the pantry with images of watermelons and portraits of Shakespeare. If he asks where all the food has gone, point at the watermelon pictures and simply ask: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
2.  After sex, make a full five course degustation dinner with matching whiskeys. Theme the meal with Dante’s Divine Comedy in mind—it doesn’t have to be the whole work, the Inferno is more than adequate. Serve under the light of an ornate chandelier. The soundtrack should be your favourite Gregorian chants and the laugh track from Full House. As he sits down to feed, suddenly hurl the meal at a mirror, pour the whiskey out the window, and jump up to swing off the chandelier. While you’re hanging above him, put on an opulent Peruvian mask and inform him that you’re hungry.
3. Treat his friends like they were broom handles: note how thin and taut they are, and how easy they look to grip. Express frustration when they don’t connect properly to your favourite mop head: the cat. He’ll love you for trying.
4. Regularly email him wry quips about his favourite herbs and images of famous Camel Wrestlers. You don’t need to be an expert herbalist or have anything other than a passing interest in Camel Wrestling, just show that you kind of care about these things, even if he doesn’t.
5.  Brag about his clavicle to his family and friends. Make a point of noting how pronounced it is and how he never breaks it. Say that this proves him to be “strong as a quail.”
6. Dress him in lederhosen and dance the cha cha to the chatter of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.
7. Buy a duck and name it Geronimo. Harness Geronimo to a wagon mounted with a stereo playing your man’s favourite song on perpetual loop. Have Geronimo walk around the house.
8. Don’t just be open to possibilities, become Possibility itself.
9. Spend an afternoon refusing to speak in any language other than badly accented Wookie.
10. When he comes home after a long day at work, answer the door in full medieval armour; or, better yet, just hit him in the face with a mace.
11. Find out what his favourite food is and buy all its available stocks. Through the mysterious and unexplainable mechanisms of the market, raise its value exponentially. Inform him that his tastes are now more valuable, thus making him more valuable. Serve his favourite food on a piece of cardboard cut from a homeless man’s shelter.
12. When watching TV together, insist that you sit on his shoulders; or, at least, on top of the couch right behind him. Intermittently yell, “Away Sagittarius!” and swat his ear lobe.
13. Repeat everything he says to you in the voice of a much younger, significantly more nasal you. Whilst doing this, raise your eyebrow and pointer finger as if to perpetually question the wisdom of whatever he says. He’ll love that you challenge him.

---

[1] http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/glamour-magazine-retracts-embarrassing-listicle-13-little-things-that-can-make-men-fall-hard-for-you-20150729-gimlzw.html#ixzz3hFIkKnSC

that time I got really angry at Tony Abbott; or, a barely coherent rant

I'll forego my usual tendency to give context. I think my anger transcends the need. 

This article says it all really: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/qa-tony-abbott-says-heads-should-roll-over-zaky-mallah-episode-orders-inquiry-20150625-ghxeti.html

I’m going to say what the ABC seems to think it cannot:

Get fucked Abbott, you pathetic little man. Take your terror-mongering inept intellect that gives life to all your foul, simplistic epithets, turn it counter-clockwise, give it a spit-shine, and shove it up your nostril, flared perfectly by your righteous sense of carefully cultivated indignity. After you’ve wedged it up there, near your floppy deflated sack of a brain, blow your nose and watch that shit come out covered in your sickly, blue-tinged phlegm.  Perhaps then you might understand what people have to listen to every time your mouth flaps outraged spittle thinly disguised behind the veneer of a third word slogan. We are a significantly worse nation with you and your careerist fellows at the helm. You and your henchmen seem to do fuck all but cater to the worst base instincts of man—stroke the illogicality of their fears and doubts—while holding out your hands to enormously rich interest groups and individuals, all to ensure that your so-called position of ‘power’ is maintained; a ‘power’ that serves no real purpose beyond the ascription and maintenance of the title itself. For this is all I think you care for: to be called Prime Minister. The duties of this role—to do what is best for the nation despite what hardships and hard truths necessarily come of this action—are clearly secondary to the continuation of your piss-weak government and the self-satisfaction you must take nightly rubbing one out while loudly screaming: “I AM THE CAPTAIN!!” Just because the ABC has mysteriously cowered before your trollish, dim lit glare, like being looked at sideways by a particularly ugly reptile, does not mean that people cannot see through your bullying bravado. The chest puff with which you stroll around is something to behold solely for the fact that you don’t float away from holding onto that much hot air in your lungs; for, in actuality, it intimidates no one and gives you the permanent look of an aggravated goose who has lost his pond, but doesn’t want anyone to know. In the end Abbott, you will go down in history as one of our worst—if not the worst—PM we’ve ever had the misfortune of having, whose wretchedly short list of achievements will all eventually be seen for the gross abuses of public interest they are, catering not for the benefit of Australians, but for the comfort of your increasingly irrelevant corporate backers. You are, as far as I am concerned, a coward, permanently affixed with myopic lens only able to see as far as the next election, unable to be truly courageous enough to address the nation for the best of the nation, rather than the best of yourself and your assorted cronies and their dated interests. You bespectacled fuck. You will be remembered only for the uncomfortable twang of your execrable voice, reverberating nonsense and panic in the echo chamber of your utterly uninspiring existence.

nope, nope, nope; or, how we can treat a country

For the past month I’ve been in a pretty ordinary state of whole body pain and stiffness. At times, I walk around like Quasimodo after he’s drunk a bottle of Kraken by himself. Other times, I’m like a Thunderbird puppet navigating a steep cliff of boulders and pebbles. And sometimes I limp like I gotta mean ghetto shuffle going on.

            Earlier this week the ‘why’ of all this pain—and, indeed, a lot of the random aches and problems I’ve had over the years—was finally explained to me. I was told that I have an auto-immune disease that has been systematically savaging various parts of my body, probably since I was 13. Although, fortunately, it has avoided tarring my beautiful porcelain skin, it has taken turns attacking my joints, spine and eyes, and left behind everyone’s favourite pleasantly cynical angry bastard you all know as Dave.

            Moreover, this prick will be with me till the end of my days.

            However, before you all despair and contact the Make A Wish foundation (a chance to stare ((uncomfortably)) at Scarlett Johansson from up close, is all I ask), know that this thing is treatable with fortnightly self-administered injections. If they work, this treatment will do absolute wonders for stopping my intermediate flare-ups of random pain and bouts of loud sooking.

            Of course, I’ll have to jab myself every two weeks for the rest of my life, but I think I can live with that—some diabetics have to do it four times a day, and heroin addicts at least once … I think I win. Plus the opportunity to add ‘I suffer from an awesome genetic auto-immune disease, get in line ladies,’ to my Tinder profile is, surely, a plus in anyone’s book. I’m certain there are women out there turned on by the phrase: ‘Wanna administer an injection?’

            The downside, and what initially scared the shit out of me, was discovering the cost of this medication. I won’t post that figure here, but let’s just say it’s more money than I have and, with the aimless academic path I am on, probably more money than I’ll ever have at any one time in my life.

            Again before anyone gets out there and tries to crowd fund for my health (I know at least one of you cares … I hope), it turns out, much to my great fortune, that the treatment is subsidized by the Australian government and, visits to the doctor to get the script renewed aside, will cost me nothing out of pocket.

            As I left the doctor’s office on Monday, processing the information I had just received that I’ll have to treat this lingering trumpet cunt of a disease for the rest of my life, I did give serious thanks to the fact that I live in this country; a nation, that on the whole, actually seems to care for the health of its citizens, recognizing and carrying the prohibitive cost that such healthcare can burden one with.

            Then, of course, I remembered Tony Abbott’s ‘nope, nope, nope’ in response to Australia resettling the 8,000 Rohingya refugees stranded at sea. They cannot enter through the backdoor (presumably, Tasmania), nor jump the cue, he said.

I imagine his vision of immigration is some kind of immense Beast of Order—bespectacled and adorned with both a clipboard and pocket watch—given to enforcing strict lines as if carefully controlling a supermarket lineup on a Saturday morning (ignoring, of course, the crafty and aspirational cockroaches intent on cutting). In this simplistic vision, Abbott ignores what essentially amounts to the chaotic diasporic spectacle of displaced individuals seeking a better life, whatever the cost—even those who enter the country by the so-called front door (presumably, Darwin).

We talk of the elimination of boundaries and borders in a globalising world. Yet, it’s astounding how fast these lines happen to reappear when they pose some kind of political advantage.

Ultimately, I believe that the issue of refugees and so-called ‘boat people’ is more complex than the, at-times, simplistic opposing polemic we are inundated with every day.

Yes, a country should have some measure of control over who crosses its borders; there are checks and medicals that need to be properly performed. But it absolutely should not submit people who have attempted to secretly enter the country via boat to a form of involuntary containment and borderline torture to send a message of no tolerance. It is needlessly cruel and drags our standing as nation down into the dankest corner of the proverbial cellar where all the cheap Wolf Blass wine has turned to vinegar.

At times, to speak truly, I think the whole debate has been blown out of proportion: a purposeful attempt at distraction from the challenging issues Australia needs to (perhaps more immediately) face, like the dispersal of wealth, tax law, damage to the environment, and regulating, and de-weaning ourselves from, mining companies and profits. On and on. In comparison to a few hundred people trying to sneak onto our shores every year, these problems seem of much greater significance and cast a much longer, more damaging shadow, festering, in part, out of sight and mind.

Thus, I want to go past the ‘border protection’ propaganda of the government and our spineless opposition; past, even, the simplistic cries of ‘just let em in.’ This is about more than just ‘stopping the boats’ and more than just determining who is allowed into the apparently exclusive club, Australia. It is about more than pandering to some fanciful notion a terrorist may be embedded on one of these vessels. It is about more than these people uncomfortably challenging our way of life and, therefore, our identity as Australian.

Essentially, to really deal with this, Australia needs to come to grips with its deep-seeded xenophobic nature and work towards education, rather than three-word negation or terror. Instead of catering for the votes of the fearful, politicians should take it upon themselves to illustrate the futility of these peoples’ distrust. Turning human misery into politics is the worst side of democracy.

What an idealistic notion, I know.

But if I can live in a nation that will pay as much as it will to just allow me a life without the discomfort of a degenerative disease, then surely it is capable of the kind of compassion that goes beyond ‘nope, nope, nope,’ and finds within itself the power to mutter, ‘well, maybe we’re better than this.’

And I’m not just talking politicians here.

life philosophies of an iron

•       There is no troubling wrinkle scarring your clothes that cannot be ironed out, as there are no problems in your life that you cannot handle.
• ·      There is always another setting on an iron—cotton, synthetic—to correct aesthetic imperfections, much as there are always other options to correct your life.
• ·      The ideal way to use an iron is in long, languorous strokes. We can learn from its caress when we are with our lovers … or ourselves.
• ·      To misuse an iron is to potentially ruin your clothing, and to misuse your greatest tool—yourself—is to potentially ruin your life.
• ·      Always be wary of being in one place too long, such stagnation can only lead to burns.
• ·      The hiss of an iron can be the whisper of success.
• ·      The iron will miss no detail, no nook or cranny, in its pursuit of smooth perfection. Be sure to iron the armpit of your life and between the buttons of existence.
• ·      The modern iron is a highly adaptable tool. So is the modern you.
• ·      We iron to evade a crumpled, messy appearance; the iron knows that appearances matter. Avoid untidiness. Iron your life. Iron your physique.
• ·      A dropped iron is an iron uncared for. Be wary not to carelessly drop your life. Care for it as if it is perpetually balanced on the ironing board of the world.
• ·      Much as we are mostly composed of water, the iron, too, needs water to fuel its steaming powers. If ever you feel weak, desperate in the face of life’s challenges, remember to have more water. Steam power your life.
• ·      The iron is resolute and utterly driven in its single-minded task.  Be like the iron: focus, it is the only way to advance and correct imperfection.
• ·      Remember, the iron can only get so hot. Your life, too, has its limitations.

manuscript synopsis

Last week I went way out on a limb and submitted a manuscript of poems to a prominent (at least in the sphere of poetry) publishing house. This was a  maneuver worthy of the limb cliche because for whatever reason I am not a widely or frequently published poet - either, my work doesn't fit within the current poetic zeitgeist, or is just not very good ... probably both - and one is in need of a certain roguish poetic street cred to get a book out which isn't self-published.

I honestly don't expect for them to put my work into print. But why the hell not try? Maybe I'll receive some kind of feedback beyond the usual, 'thanks, but no thanks' rejection email.

The collection, pretentiously, maybe temporarily, titled relationship(s), consists of work I have written over the last four/five years, although work produced over the last year makes up more than half of the book. In piecing it together, I tried to find in my writing some kind of consistent thematic thread. I'm too obsessive compulsive about structure to just present a smorgasbord of my 'best of' poetry; there needed to be something to ground the whole project. The title is indicative of what I searched for and found consistently in my work.

This obsessiveness proved useful when it came to producing the 'synopsis' that the publishing house asked of me in the process of submission, for I already had a general idea of what I was attempting to communicate, transmit, expose, uncover, analysis, contain, frustrate, entangle, whatever.

However, weirdly, even uncomfortably, the piece I wrote for this submission is probably better than anything in the collection itself, albeit without the misdirection, literary references and self-indulgent turns that scar my poetry. I thought I'd share it. No rhyme or reason, like most of my work:

largely considers the relationship(s) we have. not just with loved ones, but with those who inspire us to write, read, exist—some kind of tradition—&, all too obviously, the relationship(s) we have with ourselves. the poetry assumes, embodies, presents, tries (but fails) to become the instability of any contact we have with these external & internal figures, often as they come to us at the same time. we are ourselves in others, & others are in us, so that we—as consciousness, as writing, as comprehension—are the cumulative totality of these interactions. yet, who are we if we are only the sum of others' opinions? who are we when it is only in another that we feel we can know ourselves? the poetry is about, & evades, this knowledge & these questions: trying to be itself in an existence which will inevitably measure it against whatever gave it impetus to exist in the first place: lust, admiration, confusion, love, hurt, reconciliation. it wonders if we are all surface. it adopts a reflective sheen to its movement. it is a voice whose flavour drifts away on the air, only given sense in the act of this dispersal that leads to the eventual immersion in others.

household items more deserving of a knighthood than Sir Prince Phillip

Firstly, how odd does it sound to call someone ‘Sir Prince.’ It’s a bit of an archaic, monarchist title overload, almost tautological in a sense. That is, unless you’re Prince the pop-star, who, let’s face it, is in serious need of some Knighting. Only then would 'Sir Prince' make what I consider to be acceptable sense; or, The Knight Formerly Known As Sir.

            Secondly, I really enjoy that this was a so-called ‘captain’s pick.’ Abbott decided to anoint a foreign royal as a knight of Australia not through careful deliberation with the rest of the Liberal party, but because he, as self-appointed Captain (presumably of Australia), decided he would. I can only wonder if he insists on acquaintances and underlings referring to him as Skipper, or Cap’n, or just plain old Captain Tone.

            Thirdly, why the hell didn’t he choose me? I thought my argument for knighthood was compelling,[1] particularly next to that inbred, narrow-faced racist, Phillip, who, lest we forget, asked an Indigenous Australian if they still throw spears at each other. Well, yes, of course they do Phil. Just like you royals insist on sending each other to the guillotine, occasionally engage in a casual full steel armoured joust, and lick mercury to cure yourselves of scurvy.

            Even then, I thought Cap'n Abbott’s intention was to knight preeminent Australians. Phil is about as Australian as a polar bear yachting down the Amazon telling tall tales of Paul Bunyan to the enchanting tune provided by a choir of Mongolian throat singers.

            In the spirit of my frustration that The Skipper elected to knight the closest thing I have seen to an actual walking and talking cadaver—a walking and talking cadaver whose wife is the figurative head of my nation no less—I have decided to come up with a list of household items surely more deserving of a knighthood than dear old Sir Prince Phil.

• Some brooms
• Vegetable crispers
• A rusty fire poker
• Cutesy, occasionally innuendo-laden signs some people hang in their toilets
• 6m extension leads
• An out-of-date tub of kiwi fruit yoghurt
• Your family portrait hanging slightly off-centre in the entrance hall
• Full rolls of aluminium foil
• A cutting board laced with salmonella
• That almost racist picture book from the 20s given to you by your grandmother
• $2 razors
• The VHS collection you still haven’t thrown out that dwells in your cupboard
• All of the breastsummers[2]
• That awful picture of a gorilla given to you by your three-year-old child/niece/nephew/sister/brother/student
• The exposed wires in your living room lamp
• A Bertie’s showbag from 1994 which used to store twine for knitting, but is now forgotten and weirdly mouldy, left under the house
• Robot vacuum cleaners
• An out-of-tune piano
• Gramophones
• All the racing car beds

---

[1] http://arantingdistraction.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/a-letter-to-tony-abbott-expressing-why.html

[2] “a horizontal beam supporting an exterior wall over an opening, as a shop window” - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/breastsummer?s=t

the Charlie Hebdo attacks - changing the language

(image found at http://junkee.com/cartoonists-around-the-world-respond-to-the-attack-on-charlie-hebdo/48284 - drawn by Glen Le Lievre from The Sydney Morning Herald on his twitter account)

I woke up this morning to the news of the attacks in Paris on the offices of the satirical newspaper, Charlie Hebdo. 12 people shot dead, 11 more seriously injured, by masked men sporting assault rifles generally reported by the media to be self-proclaimed extremist Islamic militants or terrorists or gunmen or whatever title best suits their violent actions.

            I have another term for them: fuckwits. And another: dickbags. And another: cockheads. And another: the crusty skidmarks in the undies of an obese man whose diet consists only of cranberries, protein powder and deep-fried goat. And another: frothing insane trumpet cunts.

            For what I felt this morning, after a moment of (what will surely be everlasting) grief and sadness that such violence can be so senselessly committed, was an intense anger.

Of course, there is always present a certain fury after these kind of events: a frustration at the world and the handful of its idiotic inhabitants incapable of any kind of expression beyond their own misguided rage, who hide behind religion and their twisted interpretations like it is some kind of impenetrable mask uttering justification.  

            But this morning was slightly different. This was not just a senseless attack to provoke fear, as most terrorist actions are, but a retaliatory action directed at a media outlet well-known for savagely satirising various religious institutions, including, but by no means limited to, extremist Islam. My anger was driven by a kind of disbelief that anyone, even these raging fuckwits, could be so callous and fearful that they would strike out at a group of people who merely had the gall to call them out on their inconsistencies and the farcical nature of their existence, where they are crouched behind a text and a prophet one gets the distinct idea they do not understand.

This was in one sense an attack on freedom-of-the-press, which admittedly can be treacherous terrain, but perhaps more importantly it was also an attack on the ideas of provocation and image, and an utterly insane defence of this (and any) extremist group’s notion of its own infallibility.

            In the crudest possible sense, and with no intention of cheapening the horrific nature of this incident, it was no more than a group of people incapable of taking a joke, whose reaction was not to ignore it, nor meet it with neutrality, but violently punch back as if this would take the humour out of the situation; as if this would eliminate the gag from memory; as if this would deter more people poking fun at their expense; as if this would prove they cannot be laughed at for they are impregnably armoured against laughter.

            Terrorism is by its very nature over-the-top. In some sense it is designed to be more fearful spectacle than reality. And it relies on the maintenance of this illusion of being feared or even being fear itself. No one should be able to laugh or poke fun at fear. Perhaps nervously, never confidently. They should be too frightened, cowered in a distressed ball, unwilling to venture out into the world.

But by targeting Charlie Hebdo as they did, a magazine that even under the duress of numerous threats continued to publish satirical cartoons and articles about extremist shitheads, they exposed their own fear. They were violently responding to the fact that, yes, they are as suspect to being made fun of, belittled and laughed at as any other person or institution. If their mask of terror and ‘religion,’ which apparently gives them some kind of divine right to their bloody thuggery, is suddenly challenged, then the ground upon which they preach their absurdities looks a hell of a lot less stable; the world a hell of a lot less threatening.

People have less fear for something they can make fun of.

And this is why I refuse to call them militants, gunmen, terrorists, or any other name that leans on connotations of fear and hatred. Language creates the reality we all have to live within, and to do them the service of pandering to their reality is only to continue to implicitly position them above mockery: as totems of a gut deep terror.

But if I refer to them in a language that refuses this fear as anything other than the shiver one gets when a wanker in a bar has the odd audacity to think anyone really gives a shit about his opinion and, moreover, identify their essential dickheadness, their symbolic resonance as agents of fear is, at least partly, torn apart.

They’re not terrorists. They’re trumpet cunts with a seriously messed up vision of the world, too frightened to admit that they’re the ones who are perpetually terrified as it dares to change around them and fail to fit into their myopic perspectives.

It is heartening then to see various cartoonists’ reaction to this atrocity. They have not gone back into their shells or suddenly decided these people are beyond satire. No. They have come out in numbers to prove exactly what this attack was on and what it was afraid of: the pen.

It is proven that the pen, and the ideas it will continue to fearlessly espouse, is mightier than any hopeless notion that fear will still it strokes.

My heartfelt wishes and thoughts are with the victims and their families.