Friday, 10 October 2008
Thursday, 9 October 2008
THE BIG CON
From the ABC's "7.30 Report", October 8, 2008 ...
KERRY O'BRIEN: And yet the local wisdom that has emerged from America's credit crunch, its sub-prime crisis is that our problems, whatever they are, are nothing like theirs. That the sub-prime crisis has been a very dramatic collapse in the housing market.
PROFESSOR STEVEN KEEN: Incredibly dramatic. And the reason was, the sub-prime was about lending to money to people who had a record of not repaying it and claiming it could make money out of doing it.
Which was a classic American scam and its now falling apart, of course it's not just in the hands of the poor Americans, but in the hands of the scam merchants as well.
So, that's something that is peculiarly American. But at the same time here our debt levels here are in fact slightly higher than those in America.
In 1940, David W. Maurer, a Professor of Linguistics, wrote a book entitled "The Big Con", a non-fiction study of the con-men, grifters and swindlers who thrived throughout the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century. Those who may be familiar with the George Roy Hill film "The Sting" may be surprised to know that the "big con" pulled by Redford and Newman on Robert Shaw's character was, in fact, a real scam, and Maurer takes the reader through the details of how this scam, among many others, was set up, the marks baited, hooked, reeled in and relieved of their cash. It took a hell of a lot of work and, while the people who pulled these cons may not have been the affable rogues as portrayed by Redford and Newman in the flick, they weren't exactly murderous sociopaths either. They enjoyed and took pride in their work and their talents and, reading the book, one can't help but feel admiration for their extraordinary inventiveness, imagination and ability to pick out the gullible, greedy little freaks, wallets stuffed with wads of cash, who would've happily stabbed their own grandmothers for a chance to make a few wads more.
These marks deserved to lose every damn nickel they'd ever flipped. In this, one finds oneself rooting for the swindlers. Colour? They had it in spades - handles like Limehouse Chappie, the Seldom Seen Kid, Devil's Island Eddie and Ocean-Liner Al among others. And Maurer, as a linguist, hauls out the lingo of the times and lays it down - stories of ropers, shills, sharpies, the cackle-bladder, the rag, the shut-out, the wire, and the pigeon drop among others. If this stuff weren't actually for real, you'd swear it was a Runyonesque fiction with additional dialogue from Raymond Chandler, delivered in the voices of Jimmy Cagney and Eddie G. Robinson.
The book's in reprint, and you could do worse for a way of spending some cash than grab a copy and give it the once-over.
But times change, and the nature of the con and the con-men changed with them. Roles reversed.
Government’s legitimised them, politicians curried their favours and their company, journalists lauded their so-called achievements, all and sundry drooling over them like hyperactive puppies upon hearing the rattle of a leash and the word “walkies”.
And so, the louche, lizard-eyed low-life’s of the legit shell-games that played out every day on the so-called “free market” found themselves highly in demand. And the colourful turns of phrase that used to mark the swindles of olden times faded like cheap flock wallpaper only to be replaced with an entirely new shill’s song –
… NO DEPOSIT; NO INTEREST TO PAY FOR FOUR YEARS; ONCE IN A LIFETIME INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY; BUY NOW, PAY LATER; YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US; OUR CLIENTS ARE OUR BUSINESS; CASH FOR DIFFERENCE; SUB PRIME …
Roll up! Roll up! It’s money for jam, folks! … Bring your own crackers!
The crackers came in droves …
And waiting for them, there was Dickie “Fastbucks” Fuld.
Fastbucks surveyed the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of his homeland’s teeming shore, the homeless and tempest-tossed, the poor, the downtrodden, and somewhere, somewhere deep inside the sucking sinkhole of shit that had always served his sewer soul so well in the past, so faithfully, he clasped his hands with what he thought may have been … pleasure? and the atrophied muscles of his sallow face involuntarily jerked themselves into a crack of something that he dimly remembered as a smile … a rictus grin would do, hell, who’s fussy?
Fastbucks gathered his crew and the order went out …
“Boys … It’s time for The Big Con. Get to work.”
Damn, these guys were good. Fat Fannie and Freddie the Freak hauled in marks like minnows and Fastbucks tied it all up - the rag, the wire, and then, the Shut-Out, Shut-Down.
They’d pulled it off. The Big Con.
Meanwhile, having realised they’d all been played for the lamest of the lames, the marks blew their brains out in their cars.
IS THIS A BLIND SPOT I SEE BEFORE ME?
There’s this movie, see? It’s called “The Blindness”, okay?
And look, Julianne Moore’s in it. Aside from being an exceptionally talented actress, Ms. Moore’s quite easy on the eyes too. Quite the stunner, in fact.
Here’s a pic to feast your optics on …
And look, Julianne Moore’s in it. Aside from being an exceptionally talented actress, Ms. Moore’s quite easy on the eyes too. Quite the stunner, in fact.
Here’s a pic to feast your optics on …
Now, that bats my lashes every time, whaddyareckon? Huh? HUH??
Anyway, this moving picture is based on the premise that some thing or other has caused the world’s population to go blind. Hence the title. “The Blindness”. Only, Julianne Moore’s character doesn’t go belly-up in the peepers, she can still see ‘round corners, up hill and down dale, a hunnert-an-twenny-twenny vision.
What? You want me to draw you a picture? Fuck off.
So, anyhow, when all these folks go dark in the head, they also go a bit whacky and start fucking each other about and gettin’ nasty an’ stuff.
Here’s a trailer so you can see for yourself …
What’s that? You can’t?
That’s a shame, ain’t it?
So. Let me get this straight. You can’t see the fucking movie, but you’d like to have a whine about it because it makes out that blind people like fucking each other about and being nasty an’ stuff?
IT’S A FUCKING MOVIE! IT’S MADE UP! IT AIN’T REAL! IT’S A PREMISE, A HOOK, A FICTION, A STORY! A METAPHOR IF YOU FUCKING WILL THANK YOU VERY FUCKING MUCH!
And you think you speak on behalf of some community? No, you don’t. You speak for your own self and a tiny, teensy-weensy noisy handful of other twitchy little fuckers simply because you’ve bugger all else to do with your time but root about trying to find stuff to bitch about. Like these retards over here.
What’s that?
You didn’t?
Well, maybe you can just feel your way through it. I’m sure you’ll get it eventually.
Mind you don’t hit your fucking head on your way out.
Anyway, this moving picture is based on the premise that some thing or other has caused the world’s population to go blind. Hence the title. “The Blindness”. Only, Julianne Moore’s character doesn’t go belly-up in the peepers, she can still see ‘round corners, up hill and down dale, a hunnert-an-twenny-twenny vision.
What? You want me to draw you a picture? Fuck off.
So, anyhow, when all these folks go dark in the head, they also go a bit whacky and start fucking each other about and gettin’ nasty an’ stuff.
Here’s a trailer so you can see for yourself …
What’s that? You can’t?
That’s a shame, ain’t it?
So. Let me get this straight. You can’t see the fucking movie, but you’d like to have a whine about it because it makes out that blind people like fucking each other about and being nasty an’ stuff?
IT’S A FUCKING MOVIE! IT’S MADE UP! IT AIN’T REAL! IT’S A PREMISE, A HOOK, A FICTION, A STORY! A METAPHOR IF YOU FUCKING WILL THANK YOU VERY FUCKING MUCH!
And you think you speak on behalf of some community? No, you don’t. You speak for your own self and a tiny, teensy-weensy noisy handful of other twitchy little fuckers simply because you’ve bugger all else to do with your time but root about trying to find stuff to bitch about. Like these retards over here.
What’s that?
“The National Federation of the Blind condemns and deplores this film, which will do substantial harm to the blind of America and the world. Blind people in this film are portrayed as incompetent, filthy, vicious, and depraved. They are unable to do even the simplest things like dressing, bathing, and finding the bathroom.”Hang on a moment, sunshine. Read this … Some fella in Vancouver by the name of Pete McMartin wrote it. He thought the movie was crap, but …
“That, I thought, was over the top, if not just wrong. The public image of the blind, I'd say, is one of downright admiration and empathy. The blind are empowered in our society, not demonized. I also thought the federation's objection to blindness as a metaphor for depravity was silly because it had either misread it, or not read it at all.Did you read that?
Had she read the book, I asked.
No, she said, she hadn't.
Had she seen the movie?
"I personally don't want to see the movie. The idea of it makes me sick."
Big irony here, of course: The federations' protests will draw people into the theatres to see what all the fuss is about, whereas if they had ignored it, it would have, believe me, come and gone in a week.
But the book, I pointed out, has been around much longer. It was written in 1995, and translated into English in 1997. Why hadn't the federation protested against the book's publication then?
"That's a good question," Lalonde said, one she didn't quite have an answer to, though she thought a movie's ability to reach a larger market might have something to do with it.
In other words, a Nobel Prize-winning author's novel, which I have read, and which has been read all over the world, is so negligible as to be not worthy of the federation's scorn. It's just words, after all”
You didn’t?
Well, maybe you can just feel your way through it. I’m sure you’ll get it eventually.
Mind you don’t hit your fucking head on your way out.
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
HOW I FEEL ABOUT I.T. CONSULTANTS
A bloke I used to work with sent me this photograph today. It’s from my last job a few years back.I’m the one standing up. The other bloke was our I.T. Consultant/Programmer.
The look on my face can accurately be taken to mean …
“Yes, I checked that already. And that. And that, too … You haven’t got a fucking clue what you’re talking about, have you? You have no idea whatsoever, have you? For this, we pay you a hundred bucks an hour? … No, I checked that. Yes, I did that as well. No, I did not do that. Do you honestly think I would do that? … Jesus fucking Christ, is it time for lunch yet? … If you waste any more of my fucking time with this witless babble, I’m going to bash you to fucking death with a hammer. Wanker.”
ONE FINAL THING
Typically, in any given month, I may send one or two letters to the SMH. Sometimes, none at all. Occasionally, they get published. Rarely, however, do I fire off two in a week. This one was sent off way too late in the day (about 4pm) to be considered for publication, but it’s in response to Tran Duong’s letter of October 7 which I mentioned yesterday …
Dear Editor,
A letter from a 14 year old (Letters, October 7, 2008) defending Bill Henson? My God, will wonders never cease? I was under the impression that, according to so many so-called experts, anyone under the age of 18 was so gobsmackingly, uncomprehendingly stupid and easily led that they were incapable of figuring out what shoe to put on what foot on any given day. I was under the impression that people under the age of 18 got their simple jollies from doing things like sniffing chairs, snapping bra-straps, telling customers to f--- off in coffee shops, flushing their parents life-savings down the toilet or getting paid squillions for stuffing everything up for the rest of us by failing to do their allocated chores.
Silly me. Perhaps I was confusing these young folk with some other sector of society.
Regards,
Ross Sharp
And with that, I have nothing further to say on the matter.
Just thinking about it is killing valuable brain cells I should keep in reserve for random acts of binge drinking.
Just thinking about it is killing valuable brain cells I should keep in reserve for random acts of binge drinking.
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
GOSH! THAT’S SUPER, SUPERMAN!!
I have 2 superannuation funds.
One is the industry fund I’ve been in the last 8 years (extent of the damage as yet unknown as their annual report has been delayed due to a merger or some such thing).
The other is a fund whose television advertisements feature a bloke who became quite famous for his ability to either throw balls at wooden sticks or hit balls with wooden sticks. Which is quite a talent apparently. In 2001, some old fella whose name escapes me for the moment stated that the greatest living Australian ever was some other fella who used to hit balls with wooden sticks for a living way back in olden times.
Fuck, here I was thinking all I needed in life was a real job when instead I could’ve honed my skills in school hanging about in paddocks belting balls with wooden sticks and making a zillion and gittin’ it on with some blonde chick with big tits like all the other wooden stick-and-ball men seem to do.
Didn’t I tell you I was a loser?
Anyway, I started full-time work in 1976, so I’ve not had the, ahem, “benefit” of compulsory super for a fair whack of my working life. If I retire at 65, that means I’ve now got a bit over 15 years left to rack up some money to live on. The way things are going at the moment, I reckon I might see 3 or 4 decent weeks of living after almost 50 years in the workforce but, after that, it’s dog food and a thatched humpy under a water tower somewhere out Burra way, I guess.
At least it’s shady. And when you look up, there’s water vie- … oh … no, that’s a leak.
So here’s how wooden stick-and-ball-man’s fab fund has worked out for me this year …
Opening Balance at July 1 2007: $67,210.88
Tax Credits Received: $263.09
Change in Market Value: ($11,675.74 )
Add Income: $184.09
Less Ongoing Fees/Expenses: ($1,334.18)
Closing Balance at June 30 2008: $54,648.14
So, I’m down to the tune of $12,562.74. Which is 18.69%.
Twelve and a half grand. Fuck me.
Here’s how the fund is allocated …
Cash: 4.1%
Aust. Shares: 77.2%
Int’l Shares: 17.5%
Property: 1.2%
Now, what shits me is, apart from the “fees” which are ridiculous, is that late last year I was thinking of rolling this fund into my current one. The fees are far lower, for one thing. But if I had chosen to do that, wooden stick-and-ball man’s fund would have charged 15% for the privilege.
Thinking that was a bit rich, I decided to leave it as is.
Whoopsy.
The only reason I had this fund in the first damn place was because I had a bunch of small super balances from casual jobs I’d done, as well as my full-time job at the time (from which I’d just resigned back in 2000 after 10 years) and someone I worked with then recommended I go see his financial advisor to sort it all out and put it all in one basket.
Which I did.
Whoopsy!
And here’s another thing – from 1990 until 2004 I worked for non-profit, non-government agencies which are, traditionally, low-paying. Or, to be a little blunter about it, those cunts pay you shit. It’s only been these last 3, almost 4 years now, that my salary has come to represent what I feel is commensurate remuneration for 25 years in my particular field of “expertise” and my age.
I have no fucking idea what to do. If I rollover this fund, they’ll take another 8 grand in exit fees. And with what’s going on at the moment, it’s probably lost another couple of grand the last month or two.
What’s left would represent what my annual wage was 10 years ago. One year’s worth.
So, if I die when I’m 66, I’m laughing. All the way to the bank!
If there are any left in business, that is.
From 1931, Bing Crosby “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?”
One is the industry fund I’ve been in the last 8 years (extent of the damage as yet unknown as their annual report has been delayed due to a merger or some such thing).
The other is a fund whose television advertisements feature a bloke who became quite famous for his ability to either throw balls at wooden sticks or hit balls with wooden sticks. Which is quite a talent apparently. In 2001, some old fella whose name escapes me for the moment stated that the greatest living Australian ever was some other fella who used to hit balls with wooden sticks for a living way back in olden times.
Fuck, here I was thinking all I needed in life was a real job when instead I could’ve honed my skills in school hanging about in paddocks belting balls with wooden sticks and making a zillion and gittin’ it on with some blonde chick with big tits like all the other wooden stick-and-ball men seem to do.
Didn’t I tell you I was a loser?
Anyway, I started full-time work in 1976, so I’ve not had the, ahem, “benefit” of compulsory super for a fair whack of my working life. If I retire at 65, that means I’ve now got a bit over 15 years left to rack up some money to live on. The way things are going at the moment, I reckon I might see 3 or 4 decent weeks of living after almost 50 years in the workforce but, after that, it’s dog food and a thatched humpy under a water tower somewhere out Burra way, I guess.
At least it’s shady. And when you look up, there’s water vie- … oh … no, that’s a leak.
So here’s how wooden stick-and-ball-man’s fab fund has worked out for me this year …
Opening Balance at July 1 2007: $67,210.88
Tax Credits Received: $263.09
Change in Market Value: ($11,675.74 )
Add Income: $184.09
Less Ongoing Fees/Expenses: ($1,334.18)
Closing Balance at June 30 2008: $54,648.14
So, I’m down to the tune of $12,562.74. Which is 18.69%.
Twelve and a half grand. Fuck me.
Here’s how the fund is allocated …
Cash: 4.1%
Aust. Shares: 77.2%
Int’l Shares: 17.5%
Property: 1.2%
Now, what shits me is, apart from the “fees” which are ridiculous, is that late last year I was thinking of rolling this fund into my current one. The fees are far lower, for one thing. But if I had chosen to do that, wooden stick-and-ball man’s fund would have charged 15% for the privilege.
Thinking that was a bit rich, I decided to leave it as is.
Whoopsy.
The only reason I had this fund in the first damn place was because I had a bunch of small super balances from casual jobs I’d done, as well as my full-time job at the time (from which I’d just resigned back in 2000 after 10 years) and someone I worked with then recommended I go see his financial advisor to sort it all out and put it all in one basket.
Which I did.
Whoopsy!
And here’s another thing – from 1990 until 2004 I worked for non-profit, non-government agencies which are, traditionally, low-paying. Or, to be a little blunter about it, those cunts pay you shit. It’s only been these last 3, almost 4 years now, that my salary has come to represent what I feel is commensurate remuneration for 25 years in my particular field of “expertise” and my age.
I have no fucking idea what to do. If I rollover this fund, they’ll take another 8 grand in exit fees. And with what’s going on at the moment, it’s probably lost another couple of grand the last month or two.
What’s left would represent what my annual wage was 10 years ago. One year’s worth.
So, if I die when I’m 66, I’m laughing. All the way to the bank!
If there are any left in business, that is.
From 1931, Bing Crosby “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?”
OH, NOES!!! DÉJÀ VU’S!!!
I wish David Marr had chosen not to write a book about the so-called “Bill Henson case”, I really do …
Nevertheless, I’ll buy it next week when I’m financial (God, I hate monthly pays. Making 23 bucks last a week is quite a challenge, that’s for fucking sure). My feelings on this matter haven’t changed one jot since it first erupted, and they’re not about to change now.
Nevertheless, I’ll buy it next week when I’m financial (God, I hate monthly pays. Making 23 bucks last a week is quite a challenge, that’s for fucking sure). My feelings on this matter haven’t changed one jot since it first erupted, and they’re not about to change now.
Accordingly, I read Marr’s piece in the SMH yesterday, avoided Devine’s (you don’t have to click that link to know what you’ll find) and, when it came to reports on the news and those so-called “current affairs” programs (Bwahahahah!), I just punched the mute button.
Fuck ‘em. Far too much time can be wasted listening to the rattlings of imbeciles and, as a result, one’s brain can begin to resemble a coagulant of sticky white noise in a rancid fog. We all have far, far better things to do than pay attention to the addled ravings of Yosemite Sam wannabes like Whoopin’ Bill Heffernan, one of the most thoroughly repulsive strung-out streaks of political pelican shit if ever there was one.
A letter in yesterday’s SMH by Kerrie Pierce caught my attention, especially this bit …
Fuck ‘em. Far too much time can be wasted listening to the rattlings of imbeciles and, as a result, one’s brain can begin to resemble a coagulant of sticky white noise in a rancid fog. We all have far, far better things to do than pay attention to the addled ravings of Yosemite Sam wannabes like Whoopin’ Bill Heffernan, one of the most thoroughly repulsive strung-out streaks of political pelican shit if ever there was one.
A letter in yesterday’s SMH by Kerrie Pierce caught my attention, especially this bit …
“The question is not whether Henson's image is pornographic.However, there is no question that it is sexual in its portrayal. The question is whether we, as a society, believe a child of that age can truly give informed consent.”
Which prompted my response (unpublished) as below –
“"However, there is no question that it is sexual in its portrayal", writes Kerrie Pierce (Letters, October 6, 2008). Sorry to disappoint you, Kerrie, but I've never seen a 12 year old in life, or a depiction of one in art, either naked or clothed that has ever made me think of sex or sexuality. If there are people who do think like that, I would suggest those individuals have a level of emotional immaturity and sexual infantilism far, far inferior to that of any of the models in Mr. Henson's work.”
And today, in the SMH letters column comes this, from 14 year-old Tran Duong of Bankstown …
“Is Bill Henson really that bad? I'm a 14-year-old. And I say: to hell with all of you making decisions for another child who is not yours. I am happy for N. She is beautiful and innocent and there is nothing wrong with showing that off. Is she being violated or mistreated? No. She has her parents' permission; she understands the consequences of what will happen should any school mates recognise her, and yet she has done it anyway.
The reason Henson's models do not wear clothes is so the audience can see the complete beauty of the person. By wearing clothes, models are selling something else and the whole conception and purpose of the photograph is lost.”
Tran …
Thank you. Thank you so very much.
Thank you. Thank you so very much.
Friday, 3 October 2008
VIRTUAL PANADOL FRIDAY
I've recently come into possession of an iPod Shuffle, one of those tiny little player things no bigger than a thumb-joint. I won it in a competition at work, and it's the first such gizmo of its sort I've owned. I’m not really big on gadgets. Mostly, they break down and just piss you off or they sit around in drawers and cupboards for years gathering dust until you need to pack them into a box when you move.
Anyway, a couple days ago, I loaded this gadget with a bunch of cd's and tracks from home and I've been listening to it on my way to and from work.
So far, I've got 227 songs on it and it's only half-full. I've seen cockroaches bigger than this bloody gadget. How do they do that? But I'm convinced. It's a good gadget. And, as I didn't have to pay for it, that makes it even better.
Also, I think it may come in very handy when I'm up the pub trying to have a quiet drink. Strangers may think twice about striking up a conversation about some fucking game or other if they see I'm otherwise plugged in ...
"Who do you think's going to win the big game?"
"What game? Is there a game on? What of? Chess?"
One of the albums I loaded was "La Llorona" by Lhasa De Sela, and this live clip is a stunning version of one of the most beautiful tracks from it ...
From 2006 (?), Lhasa De Sela, “De Cara a la Pared” (Live)
Anyway, a couple days ago, I loaded this gadget with a bunch of cd's and tracks from home and I've been listening to it on my way to and from work.
So far, I've got 227 songs on it and it's only half-full. I've seen cockroaches bigger than this bloody gadget. How do they do that? But I'm convinced. It's a good gadget. And, as I didn't have to pay for it, that makes it even better.
Also, I think it may come in very handy when I'm up the pub trying to have a quiet drink. Strangers may think twice about striking up a conversation about some fucking game or other if they see I'm otherwise plugged in ...
"Who do you think's going to win the big game?"
"What game? Is there a game on? What of? Chess?"
One of the albums I loaded was "La Llorona" by Lhasa De Sela, and this live clip is a stunning version of one of the most beautiful tracks from it ...
From 2006 (?), Lhasa De Sela, “De Cara a la Pared” (Live)
Thursday, 2 October 2008
LET GOD SORT 'EM OUT
From the London Review of Books, "Cut, Kill, Dig, Drill", Jonathan Raban writes about Sarah Palin ...
"Like Wally the Green Monster, Baxter the Bobcat, the Mariner Moose and other giant furry creatures who accompany major-league baseball teams from game to game, Palin is the adored mascot of the anti-fiscal crowd. Her actual performance as mayor and governor counts for little beside her capacity to keep the fans happy during the intervals between play, which she does in the style she developed as mayor of Wasilla and then perfected in her triumphant gubernatorial campaign in 2006 ...
... What is most striking about her is that she seems perfectly untroubled by either curiosity or the usual processes of thought. When answering questions, both Obama and Joe Biden have an unfortunate tendency to think on their feet and thereby tie themselves in knots: Palin never thinks. Instead, she relies on a limited stock of facts, bright generalities and pokerwork maxims, all as familiar and well-worn as old pennies. Given any question, she reaches into her bag for the readymade sentence that sounds most nearly proximate to an answer, and, rather than speaking it, recites it, in the upsy-downsy voice of a middle-schooler pronouncing the letters of a word in a spelling bee. She then fixes her lips in a terminal smile. In the televised game shows that pass for political debates in the US, it’s a winning technique: told that she has 15 seconds in which to answer, Palin invariably beats the clock, and her concision and fluency more than compensate for her unrelenting triteness ..."
Read the full article. Palin is spectacularly creepy. She may not be smart, but she appears to have the type of focused rat-cunt cunning so typical of the contemporary political sociopath and aspirant. The type of person who, crashing rather than crashing through, would happily take you with her to the bottom of the wreckage. Raban also looks back at her reign as Mayor of Wasilla ...
"She abolished its building codes and signed a series of ordinances that re-zoned residential property for commercial and industrial use. When the city attorney ordered construction to stop on a house being built by one of her campaign contributors, she sacked him."
And what happened in Wasilla as a result of her fiefdom? Raban observes ...
"Present-day Wasilla is Palin’s lasting monument. It sits in a broad alluvial valley, puddled with lakes, boxed in on three sides by sawtoothed Jurassic mountains, and fringed with woods of spruce and birch. Visitors usually aim their cameras at the town’s natural surroundings, for Wasilla itself – quite unlike its rival and contemporary in the valley, Palmer, 11 miles to the east – is a centreless, sprawling ribbon of deregulated development along a four-lane highway, backed on both sides by subdivisions occupied by trailer-homes, cabins, tract-housing and ranch-style bungalows, most built since 1990. It’s a generic Western settlement, and one sees Wasillas in every state this side of the 100th meridian: the same competing gas stations, fast-food outlets, strip malls and ‘big box’ stores like Wal-Mart, Target, Fred Meyer and Home Depot, each with a vast parking lot out front, on which human figures scuttle with their shopping trolleys like coloured ants, robbed of their proper scale ... Wasilla is what inevitably happens when there are no codes, no civic oversight, no planning, when the only governing principle in a community is a naive and superstitious trust in the benevolent authority of the free market."
And we thought George W. Bush was the worst. If this woman comes to the White House, we're fucked. Frankly, given the way Raban writes about her, if this woman comes to the White House, John McCain won't live to get much older.
CLUSTERFUCK TO THE POOR HOUSE
Jon Stewart from the Daily Show. Sending a message to "belt-bucklehead" via a conk ...
BACK TO THE CHAIN GANG, WITH NO RELEASE IN SIGHT
My published contribution to today’s (October 2nd, 2008) Sydney Morning Herald ...
In future there will be no such thing as full-time retirement, a former treasurer once said. Now there will be no such thing as part-time retirement either, by the look of it. Perhaps as well as maternity leave, the Government could start insisting employers offer staff funeral planning options. We won't be going anywhere in a hurry.
Tuesday, 30 September 2008
DUCK DODGERS FOR PRESIDENT. PLEASE.
Sarah Palin.
What on earth was John McCain thinking? The woman might well be able to kill her own food, but outside of that, she's dumber than a box of rocks.
Why can't we have someone with a brain if we're going to have someone at all? I mean, isn't it about time after 8 fucking years? Why do we have to have stupid people trying to run the world all the time? Why do we let them? Why can't they stick to playing sport like the stupid people are supposed to do?
Haven’t we had enough of dumb?
I'm not going to run about beating my chest and banging my head against a wall if McCain's elected President in November. After George W. Bush was installed for a second term in 2004, the futility of that type of response became quickly apparent to me. It hurts for no good reason. To be perfectly honest, after Bush they could make Duck Dodgers President for all I fucking care.
But Sarah Palin?
I'd rather see Britney Spears as V.P. The most damage she could do would be to wobble about the White House lawns drunk and throw up on some bushes.
But Sarah Palin?
She's an intergalactic traveller without a ship. An antler short of a full set. Not only is there nobody at home, the roaches fucked off 'cause they were scared of the dark and the mice have hung themselves by their own tails. There's naught there but dust bunnies now. Dust bunnies and crusty bits of antique snot under the couch cushions.
I'm scared, mummy.
There's a crazy woman on the tee-vee.
She wants to run the world.
And she can see Russia from her house.
From 1963, Matt Monroe “From Russia With Love”
What on earth was John McCain thinking? The woman might well be able to kill her own food, but outside of that, she's dumber than a box of rocks.
Why can't we have someone with a brain if we're going to have someone at all? I mean, isn't it about time after 8 fucking years? Why do we have to have stupid people trying to run the world all the time? Why do we let them? Why can't they stick to playing sport like the stupid people are supposed to do?
Haven’t we had enough of dumb?
I'm not going to run about beating my chest and banging my head against a wall if McCain's elected President in November. After George W. Bush was installed for a second term in 2004, the futility of that type of response became quickly apparent to me. It hurts for no good reason. To be perfectly honest, after Bush they could make Duck Dodgers President for all I fucking care.
But Sarah Palin?
I'd rather see Britney Spears as V.P. The most damage she could do would be to wobble about the White House lawns drunk and throw up on some bushes.
But Sarah Palin?
She's an intergalactic traveller without a ship. An antler short of a full set. Not only is there nobody at home, the roaches fucked off 'cause they were scared of the dark and the mice have hung themselves by their own tails. There's naught there but dust bunnies now. Dust bunnies and crusty bits of antique snot under the couch cushions.
I'm scared, mummy.
There's a crazy woman on the tee-vee.
She wants to run the world.
And she can see Russia from her house.
From 1963, Matt Monroe “From Russia With Love”
Monday, 29 September 2008
PAUL NEWMAN
Patricia Bosworth looked over some highlights from Paul Newman's life and career in last month's Vanity Fair ...
From 1967, "Cool Hand Luke"
"There has never been anyone in show business like Paul Newman. He is as famous as Oprah but doesn’t flaunt his celebrity. He has changed the lives of literally thousands of people (among them more than 100,000 children) with his generosity, and he’s entertained us and moved us with his films. He is an honorable man—“a man of conscience,” his friend Gore Vidal said. If Newman doesn’t want to tell us about his cancer (if he has cancer), why should he? As he has said so often about his private life, “It’s nobody’s business.” "
From 1967, "Cool Hand Luke"
Friday, 26 September 2008
I’M A LOSER, BABY, SO WHY DON’T YOU KILL ME
Some people have seriously fucked up their lives by not choosing to do stuff that other people have done and those people will die.
And I am one of them.
Oh, poo.
Anyway, here’s a few of the things I forgot to do, and, in the forgetting of them did I unwittingly seal my fate forevermore as nothing other than an insubstantial fart of failed fat cells flapping impotently over the face of the planet …
A HOUSE
I forgot to buy a house.
Oh, poo.
I live in a rented flat. I’ve been living in rented flats and houses for the better part of 27 years, ever since I moved out of my parents’ house when I was 22. And half of that time has been spent living in rented flats with other people.
That was called “sharing”. I don’t think “sharing” happens much nowadays as lots of people seem to think they’re far better off living at home with their mums and dads until they’re about 45 years old at which time they just might be able to afford to buy a bedsit up a back alley in King’s Cross just down from where that whacked out crackhead smashed her baby’s brains out on a park bench the week before last until some cops shot her in the kneecaps. It’s only about one and a half million bucks, but it’s close to shops and transport and it’s certainly got character alright, that’s for fucking sure. Where else can you entertain yourself at night when there’s bugger all on the box by peering out the window at the winos underneath beating the crap out of one another and then hoiking up their stomach lining on your front stoop.
But hell, it’s a home, goddammit, and it’s yours and you’re entitled. It’s an Australian right. It oughta be in a constitution somewhere.
Whydonchawritealettertoyalocalmemberofgummentandseeifyacangetitputin? Huh? HUH?
I’ve been perfectly comfortable up to now renting flats and houses and sharing some of them with other people. It meant we had more money for other things. Like going out and seeing bands and movies and shows and buying compact discs and having parties and eating out and drinking and taking drugs and all that stuff I thought people were supposed to do when they were young enough to do it.
But I was wrong. I should have left high school and started to think about planning for my retirement when I turned 18. Apparently, that’s the way to go. Leave school and start preparing for when you’re dead.
I thought renting a place to live in was perfectly acceptable in today’s modern society but according to some people, it’s the utter fucking pits of deprivation and despair and it’s a wonder it hasn’t yet driven me and others like me to fling ourselves off our balconies in foaming fits of self-loathing.
Oh, well.
Some friends of mine just bought themselves a very nice house on the NSW Central Coast.
It cost them about $325,000.
I don’t have $325,000. I pay $1300 a month in rent. If I borrowed $325,000, I’d probably be paying double that in mortgage installments and I’d have to eat wild thistles and lick the cheese off discarded burger wrappers in order to live. I don’t think that would be much fun, but apparently it’s a far better thing to do than living in a rented flat according to all the people who are supposed to know what the better things to do are.
My friends had to borrow some of the deposit for their house from their parents. That’s fair enough, I guess, especially if the parents had it to lend.
My parents can’t afford to lend me money to put a deposit on a house for me to own, though.
They’re on a pension. It’s all they can do from day to day to scrape up enough pennies to buy themselves some new bits of cardboard so they’ve got a clean surface to eat their own poo off of. Or some old bottles that they can keep their urine in for when they need to freshen up with a splash under the armpits before venturing out in public to forage in skip bins for rotting root vegetables and bruised fruits.
Fucking losers.
Which brings me to the next thing …
MARRIAGE
I forgot to get married.
Oh, double poo.
I don’t know why this is, but the concept of marriage never seemed to take a hold on my mind as a thing that desperately needed to, or even should, be done. I could’ve taken the option a few times, really I could have. I just didn’t. If I had taken the option, I’d be part of a “working family” right now and my life would have some sort of validity. According to some it would, anyway.
Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I grew up with married people. My parents.
As a child, I remember watching as my parents argued, or had a fight about some trifle or other and wondering to myself, “Why do you bother with this? You all seem so fucking miserable”. Sometimes my parents would go visiting other married grown-ups, friends or relatives, and, as is the way of these things, poor fucking Ross would get bundled into the backseat of the car to go visiting too when all poor fucking Ross wanted to do was stay home and get down and dirty with some Lego or paint camouflage stripes on a Tamiya model kit tank.
So I’d wind up sitting in the houses of these married people who mostly seemed to communicate with each other through a series of guttural, monosyllabic grunts and grimaces and, if some sort of conversation ever actually happened to evolve from these primitive beginnings, it was usually about how this or that relative of theirs was fucking hopeless or in trouble with the law or was getting divorced or was having kids or had the shits with them or it was about the dickhead neighbours next door or it was a bit of shocked oohing and aahing over the fact that a Chinese couple had just moved in down the other end of the street which was unusual in those days and did you know the Chinese buried their food in the backyard for 12 days before they ate it and when they did eat it it was made of cat and Mabel three doors down lost her cat last week and it wouldn’t surprise us in the least what happened to it if you know what I mean, you know? Bloody foreigners.
Jesus Christ, the things you have to put up with when you’re a kid.
And through all this, all I could think of was how miserable and “small” everybody seemed to be. It was as if, having exhausted whatever few joys they thought marriage had to offer them, they then settled for a life devoted to giving each other the shits on a regular basis instead.
No thank you.
But, turns out I was wrong again. Finding that someone special to spend the rest of your life with and yell at and be yelled at and get the shits with is supposed to be good for one’s longevity.
Fancy that.
Which brings me to the other thing …
CHILDREN
I forgot to have children.
Oh, poo all over.
I once had some friends who had children and one day, the mother cooed to me, “Oh, Ross, you don’t know what you’re missing”, to which I could only reply, “Yes, I do. I’ve met your kids. They’re fucking horrid.”
Needless to say, that was not a friendship that endured much longer after that. But it was true. Her kids were insufferable little shits. When the family popped over to visit, the kids would run rampant through the house, into any room they wanted, into the fridge, constantly yelling at the top of their fucking lungs about this, that or the other thing until, after an hour or two of this, all I wanted to do was grab them by the scruff of the neck and shove their heads into the toilet bowl and piss on them.
And I was once in a relationship with a woman who had a two year old son. My God, this kid, when he decided to void his bowels, you’d swear the spirit of Jackson Pollock had taken nest in his colon. There wasn’t a Huggie on the planet that could withstand the power of his explosive expulsions of luminescent poo. They could’ve made a Huggie from titanium and vacuum sealed it to his butt and still that stuff would find its way to splashy, smelly freedom. The odds of getting the bond back on that rented flat at the time was a long-shot bet, that’s for damn sure.
But I’m realistic enough to know that not all kids are like this. Many children are utterly delightful, given to refreshingly innocent but honest appraisals of life and the world around them, such as “Look at that old bald man, mummy.”
I’d be a crappy father. I would, I really would. Not deliberately, on-purpose crappy, but crappy nonetheless. I’m bad-tempered, impatient and I need lots of time to myself or else I get really ratty in the head. Having a kid crawling all over me demanding attention to its every action or utterance on a daily, nay, hourly basis would melt my brain.
But I’m wrong. I shoulda had one for the country, one for mum, and one for dad (which would be myself, I guess). We’d send the one for the country off to fight a war somewhere and take a bullet through the head so we could have a parade and some things for the display cabinet at home; the one for mum would take her side during the divorce proceedings and hate my guts for the rest of my life and say nasty things about me on the internet; and the one for dad (which would be myself, I guess) would dutifully and lovingly nurse me in my shriveled dotage, feeding me mushed pears and peas with a spoon, wiping the drool off my chin and making sure I didn’t choke to death on my own dentures if I decided to get adventurous one day and eat some solids.
Talk about fucking everything up in life. Boy, did I take a wrong turn.
I’m sorry.
I shoulda bought a house and I shoulda got married and I shoulda had kids and then I coulda been somebody. Instead of what I am. Which is a bum. I coulda been a contender, Charlie. You was my brother, you was supposed to …
Hang on.
I don’t have a brother called Charlie …
…
Never mind.
Anyway, I see it all now. My whole life before me. Or at least what’s left of it.
Spending the rest of my days living in a rented flat without a wife and a bunch of kidlets to keep me warm and comfy. There to expire one distant day in isolated anonymity with only the stench of my rapidly decomposing corpse to alert the neighbours to my passing. The door smashed down by ambulance officers who, upon entering, will upchuck their lunches and then settle down to the business of scraping my innards off the walls after the build-up of gases in my internal organs made my stomach explode like a red roman candle.
Shit, eh?
I’ll make sure there’s some BAM in the laundry.
At this late stage in the game, it’s the least I can do.
Sorry about that.
And I am one of them.
Oh, poo.
Anyway, here’s a few of the things I forgot to do, and, in the forgetting of them did I unwittingly seal my fate forevermore as nothing other than an insubstantial fart of failed fat cells flapping impotently over the face of the planet …
A HOUSE
I forgot to buy a house.
Oh, poo.
I live in a rented flat. I’ve been living in rented flats and houses for the better part of 27 years, ever since I moved out of my parents’ house when I was 22. And half of that time has been spent living in rented flats with other people.
That was called “sharing”. I don’t think “sharing” happens much nowadays as lots of people seem to think they’re far better off living at home with their mums and dads until they’re about 45 years old at which time they just might be able to afford to buy a bedsit up a back alley in King’s Cross just down from where that whacked out crackhead smashed her baby’s brains out on a park bench the week before last until some cops shot her in the kneecaps. It’s only about one and a half million bucks, but it’s close to shops and transport and it’s certainly got character alright, that’s for fucking sure. Where else can you entertain yourself at night when there’s bugger all on the box by peering out the window at the winos underneath beating the crap out of one another and then hoiking up their stomach lining on your front stoop.
But hell, it’s a home, goddammit, and it’s yours and you’re entitled. It’s an Australian right. It oughta be in a constitution somewhere.
Whydonchawritealettertoyalocalmemberofgummentandseeifyacangetitputin? Huh? HUH?
I’ve been perfectly comfortable up to now renting flats and houses and sharing some of them with other people. It meant we had more money for other things. Like going out and seeing bands and movies and shows and buying compact discs and having parties and eating out and drinking and taking drugs and all that stuff I thought people were supposed to do when they were young enough to do it.
But I was wrong. I should have left high school and started to think about planning for my retirement when I turned 18. Apparently, that’s the way to go. Leave school and start preparing for when you’re dead.
I thought renting a place to live in was perfectly acceptable in today’s modern society but according to some people, it’s the utter fucking pits of deprivation and despair and it’s a wonder it hasn’t yet driven me and others like me to fling ourselves off our balconies in foaming fits of self-loathing.
Oh, well.
Some friends of mine just bought themselves a very nice house on the NSW Central Coast.
It cost them about $325,000.
I don’t have $325,000. I pay $1300 a month in rent. If I borrowed $325,000, I’d probably be paying double that in mortgage installments and I’d have to eat wild thistles and lick the cheese off discarded burger wrappers in order to live. I don’t think that would be much fun, but apparently it’s a far better thing to do than living in a rented flat according to all the people who are supposed to know what the better things to do are.
My friends had to borrow some of the deposit for their house from their parents. That’s fair enough, I guess, especially if the parents had it to lend.
My parents can’t afford to lend me money to put a deposit on a house for me to own, though.
They’re on a pension. It’s all they can do from day to day to scrape up enough pennies to buy themselves some new bits of cardboard so they’ve got a clean surface to eat their own poo off of. Or some old bottles that they can keep their urine in for when they need to freshen up with a splash under the armpits before venturing out in public to forage in skip bins for rotting root vegetables and bruised fruits.
Fucking losers.
Which brings me to the next thing …
MARRIAGE
I forgot to get married.
Oh, double poo.
I don’t know why this is, but the concept of marriage never seemed to take a hold on my mind as a thing that desperately needed to, or even should, be done. I could’ve taken the option a few times, really I could have. I just didn’t. If I had taken the option, I’d be part of a “working family” right now and my life would have some sort of validity. According to some it would, anyway.
Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I grew up with married people. My parents.
As a child, I remember watching as my parents argued, or had a fight about some trifle or other and wondering to myself, “Why do you bother with this? You all seem so fucking miserable”. Sometimes my parents would go visiting other married grown-ups, friends or relatives, and, as is the way of these things, poor fucking Ross would get bundled into the backseat of the car to go visiting too when all poor fucking Ross wanted to do was stay home and get down and dirty with some Lego or paint camouflage stripes on a Tamiya model kit tank.
So I’d wind up sitting in the houses of these married people who mostly seemed to communicate with each other through a series of guttural, monosyllabic grunts and grimaces and, if some sort of conversation ever actually happened to evolve from these primitive beginnings, it was usually about how this or that relative of theirs was fucking hopeless or in trouble with the law or was getting divorced or was having kids or had the shits with them or it was about the dickhead neighbours next door or it was a bit of shocked oohing and aahing over the fact that a Chinese couple had just moved in down the other end of the street which was unusual in those days and did you know the Chinese buried their food in the backyard for 12 days before they ate it and when they did eat it it was made of cat and Mabel three doors down lost her cat last week and it wouldn’t surprise us in the least what happened to it if you know what I mean, you know? Bloody foreigners.
Jesus Christ, the things you have to put up with when you’re a kid.
And through all this, all I could think of was how miserable and “small” everybody seemed to be. It was as if, having exhausted whatever few joys they thought marriage had to offer them, they then settled for a life devoted to giving each other the shits on a regular basis instead.
No thank you.
But, turns out I was wrong again. Finding that someone special to spend the rest of your life with and yell at and be yelled at and get the shits with is supposed to be good for one’s longevity.
Fancy that.
Which brings me to the other thing …
CHILDREN
I forgot to have children.
Oh, poo all over.
I once had some friends who had children and one day, the mother cooed to me, “Oh, Ross, you don’t know what you’re missing”, to which I could only reply, “Yes, I do. I’ve met your kids. They’re fucking horrid.”
Needless to say, that was not a friendship that endured much longer after that. But it was true. Her kids were insufferable little shits. When the family popped over to visit, the kids would run rampant through the house, into any room they wanted, into the fridge, constantly yelling at the top of their fucking lungs about this, that or the other thing until, after an hour or two of this, all I wanted to do was grab them by the scruff of the neck and shove their heads into the toilet bowl and piss on them.
And I was once in a relationship with a woman who had a two year old son. My God, this kid, when he decided to void his bowels, you’d swear the spirit of Jackson Pollock had taken nest in his colon. There wasn’t a Huggie on the planet that could withstand the power of his explosive expulsions of luminescent poo. They could’ve made a Huggie from titanium and vacuum sealed it to his butt and still that stuff would find its way to splashy, smelly freedom. The odds of getting the bond back on that rented flat at the time was a long-shot bet, that’s for damn sure.
But I’m realistic enough to know that not all kids are like this. Many children are utterly delightful, given to refreshingly innocent but honest appraisals of life and the world around them, such as “Look at that old bald man, mummy.”
I’d be a crappy father. I would, I really would. Not deliberately, on-purpose crappy, but crappy nonetheless. I’m bad-tempered, impatient and I need lots of time to myself or else I get really ratty in the head. Having a kid crawling all over me demanding attention to its every action or utterance on a daily, nay, hourly basis would melt my brain.
But I’m wrong. I shoulda had one for the country, one for mum, and one for dad (which would be myself, I guess). We’d send the one for the country off to fight a war somewhere and take a bullet through the head so we could have a parade and some things for the display cabinet at home; the one for mum would take her side during the divorce proceedings and hate my guts for the rest of my life and say nasty things about me on the internet; and the one for dad (which would be myself, I guess) would dutifully and lovingly nurse me in my shriveled dotage, feeding me mushed pears and peas with a spoon, wiping the drool off my chin and making sure I didn’t choke to death on my own dentures if I decided to get adventurous one day and eat some solids.
Talk about fucking everything up in life. Boy, did I take a wrong turn.
I’m sorry.
I shoulda bought a house and I shoulda got married and I shoulda had kids and then I coulda been somebody. Instead of what I am. Which is a bum. I coulda been a contender, Charlie. You was my brother, you was supposed to …
Hang on.
I don’t have a brother called Charlie …
…
Never mind.
Anyway, I see it all now. My whole life before me. Or at least what’s left of it.
Spending the rest of my days living in a rented flat without a wife and a bunch of kidlets to keep me warm and comfy. There to expire one distant day in isolated anonymity with only the stench of my rapidly decomposing corpse to alert the neighbours to my passing. The door smashed down by ambulance officers who, upon entering, will upchuck their lunches and then settle down to the business of scraping my innards off the walls after the build-up of gases in my internal organs made my stomach explode like a red roman candle.
Shit, eh?
I’ll make sure there’s some BAM in the laundry.
At this late stage in the game, it’s the least I can do.
Sorry about that.
THE PITS
OH FOR GOD’S SAKE WOMAN, GIVE IT A FUCKING REST, WILL YOU?!
We’re bloody sick of it.
Do you realise what we all have to go through news-wise when, every second Tuesday, you get a jones on for adding another to your broody pile of cunt nuggets?
Jesus Christ, girl. What do you think you're doing, collecting action figures?
Why don’t you buy yourself a fucking puppy or something?
We’re bloody sick of it.
Do you realise what we all have to go through news-wise when, every second Tuesday, you get a jones on for adding another to your broody pile of cunt nuggets?
Jesus Christ, girl. What do you think you're doing, collecting action figures?
Why don’t you buy yourself a fucking puppy or something?
Monday, 15 September 2008
DEAR MR. COSTELLO ...
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
Friday, 12 September 2008
VIRTUAL PANADOL FRIDAY
I first became aware of the music of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt when some of his works were used for the soundtrack of the 1996 Canadian adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's "Mother Night" (an excellent film).
I was trying to track down a decent clip for Pärt's "Requiem for Benjamin Britten", but no luck. Instead, this is an interesting visual interpretation of a shorter piece, and quite well done ...
I was trying to track down a decent clip for Pärt's "Requiem for Benjamin Britten", but no luck. Instead, this is an interesting visual interpretation of a shorter piece, and quite well done ...
Clip by Cesar Harada
Thursday, 11 September 2008
A FACE FOR RADIO
ABC Sydney 702’s afternoon host James Valentine now offers a video stream of his program and it’s a hoot to watch, so if you get a chance check it out.
UPDATE - Appears it's an occasional thing only.
UPDATE - Appears it's an occasional thing only.
WE’VE GOT BEAM!
It’s not difficult to get caught up in the enthusiasm and excitement of the various boffins and scientists who’ve gone all gooey over this thing even if, like myself, you’re buggered if you know what it all actually means. But, as Dr Karl Kruszelnicki was working himself into a nerdboy lather about it this morning on Channel 7’s “Sunrise” program, I couldn’t help but share a sense of wonder and awe over the achievement …
… Typically however, as the world came to know of the impending experiment and the usual suspects in the foot soldiers of the stupid indulged their penchant for end-of-times panic, many chose to focus on the cost of it all.
$4.75 billion dollars.
“Heavens!” they whined, “Surely we can find better things to spend our money on? Think of the starving millions!”
But as the host of "Sunrise" was about to bring up the cost with Kruszelnicki on the program as if it should be relevant to him (or us), the doctor was quick enough to politely point out that it was equal to “the cost of 3 American bomber planes”.
Which ended that line of inquiry quick smart.
Perspective. The good doctor has it.
“Sunrise” host. Pwned.
… Typically however, as the world came to know of the impending experiment and the usual suspects in the foot soldiers of the stupid indulged their penchant for end-of-times panic, many chose to focus on the cost of it all.
$4.75 billion dollars.
“Heavens!” they whined, “Surely we can find better things to spend our money on? Think of the starving millions!”
But as the host of "Sunrise" was about to bring up the cost with Kruszelnicki on the program as if it should be relevant to him (or us), the doctor was quick enough to politely point out that it was equal to “the cost of 3 American bomber planes”.
Which ended that line of inquiry quick smart.
Perspective. The good doctor has it.
“Sunrise” host. Pwned.
Wednesday, 10 September 2008
JACK KETCHUM
I mentioned this writer briefly just recently. Some of his books have been adapted for films that we have yet to see (and maybe never will), and another one is about to be.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to track down his books in any local stores yet, but I may have a bit more luck next week when I hit Sydney for a break.
In the meantime, this interview with Ketchum at Evolver continues to have me intrigued about the man and especially keen to become acquainted with his works. Especially this bit …
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to track down his books in any local stores yet, but I may have a bit more luck next week when I hit Sydney for a break.
In the meantime, this interview with Ketchum at Evolver continues to have me intrigued about the man and especially keen to become acquainted with his works. Especially this bit …
“I've never been interested in being politically or socially correct. That's not to say I frequently vomit into someone's lap at parties. It just seems silly to me to abide by any more rules than those you absolutely need in order to get by. I think we've become more and more neurotic in the years since I was in my twenties and thirties. We're afraid of everything. We want to restrict everything and manage it. Well, life isn't terribly manageable. The frequency of natural disasters ought to be enough to tell us that. But somehow we don't get it. When I was a kid the idea of putting on a helmet to ride a bike would have gotten you laughed out of the neighborhood - and rightly so. And I don't remember anybody wearing one against all those riot-sticks during the Vietnam protests either. It would be nice to live long enough to see the world get some guts again - but I don't think it's going to happen, sorry to say.”
Groupthink. I has one.
TRAVIS B. SHOOTS FOR CHUCKLES
Robert De Niro made his feature film debut in 1968 for Brian De Palma's "Greetings". He made a further 8 films prior to 1973's "Mean Streets" from Martin Scorsese. Then he did "The Godfather: Part 2" the year after that, and his next film was "Taxi Driver" in 1976 as Travis Bickle. Before the 70's and 80's were over with, he gave us Jimmy Doyle in "New York, New York", then "The Deer Hunter", "King of Comedy", "Once Upon A Time in America", "Brazil", "The Untouchables", "Midnight Run" and, of course, Jake La Motta in "Raging Bull". In the 90's, we got "Goodfellas", "Cape Fear", "Mad Dog & Glory", "Casino", "Heat", "Wag The Dog", and "Jackie Brown". Among others.
Then, in 2000, he produced and appeared in ... "The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle".
Nobody's perfect.
After 40 years in the movie business, De Niro finds himself regularly criticised for the roles he now takes on. As Philip Horne notes in the UK’s Telegraph, according to many De Niro has squandered his talents these last several years in sub-standard vehicles that do him no credit whatsoever. "Analyse That" anyone? "Godsend"? Who’d like to sit through “The Good Shepherd” a second time?
Well, no, but ... Excuuuuuuuuuuuse me …
At 65 years of age and with 78 feature films to his credit, I think De Niro, given all that he has achieved as an actor as I’ve noted above, can do whatever the fuck he feels like until he drops dead.
And who the hell are we to insist he fulfill our ridiculous and unrealistic expectations that he pile on the pounds and powder up to bring us “Raging Bull Pt. 2”? Perhaps he should have a word to Scorsese about reprising his role as Travis Bickle in … let’s see now … “Bus Driver”? Would that help?
For God’s sake, live in the world.
Imagine spending 40 years of your life in the film industry. Liars, thieves, shills and spivs, con-men, bullshit artists and the flat-out deluded and insane – these are the men and women who, if they thought it would help get them an “assistant producer” credit on a flick, any flick, would happily shoot their mothers through the head, pack a bag and grab the first plane, train or automobile to Hollywoodland for a 5 minute meeting and a glass of warm water with someone’s stationary clerk.
The only thing worse than 40 years in the film industry would be spending 40 years in the fucking music industry.
For example, in his recently published diaries, director Bruce Beresford goes through a period of (I think) two years trying to get a couple of projects that he has an interest in off the ground only to be dumped on again and again and again as dodgy finance people (read, “producers”) reveal themselves to be full of it, actors won’t work with him, and various other self-absorbed, talentless shitheads with Patrick Bateman business cards endlessly fuck and fart him about. Eventually, desperate to work simply for the sake of having some work to do to keep him busy, he winds up lumped with a project he thought was crap from the start, but at least has some names attached and a green light, so … we get “The Contract” (Unfortunately (or not), I can’t remember anything about “The Contract” other than John Cusack and Morgan Freeman were in it, and I only watched it about 3 weeks ago).
That’s life in showbiz.
And if you’ve spent 40 years as an actor in it, well over half of that time will have been spent sitting on your arse wondering why you were called at 5am in the morning and it’s now 2pm in the afternoon and all you had to do was a one line reaction shot …
“Fact is, Mr. De Niro, we might have to bring you in tomorrow for the scene as the bombulator we needed for your shot has slipped a snigget and it’s a four-hour drive to the next county to pick up a new one as the snigget manufacturer’s delivery guy went on a cocaine bender last night and shot some fellas in a MacDonald’s after an altercation with a trans-gender lap dancer and the production designer won’t dress the scene until the vintage Pez dispenser he wanted for the bedside table gets here from eBay … Also, someone put superglue in the boom operator’s Fleshlight and he can’t stand up straight right now.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Sorry.”
At which point, one could be excused for thinking, “Maybe I could open a restaurant. Or a bar. Start a film festival, perhaps? Hell, why don’t I produce my own movies and as long as I don’t have to do much or not even be in them, I wouldn’t have to deal with this shit …”
Then, in 2000, he produced and appeared in ... "The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle".
Nobody's perfect.
After 40 years in the movie business, De Niro finds himself regularly criticised for the roles he now takes on. As Philip Horne notes in the UK’s Telegraph, according to many De Niro has squandered his talents these last several years in sub-standard vehicles that do him no credit whatsoever. "Analyse That" anyone? "Godsend"? Who’d like to sit through “The Good Shepherd” a second time?
Well, no, but ... Excuuuuuuuuuuuse me …
At 65 years of age and with 78 feature films to his credit, I think De Niro, given all that he has achieved as an actor as I’ve noted above, can do whatever the fuck he feels like until he drops dead.
And who the hell are we to insist he fulfill our ridiculous and unrealistic expectations that he pile on the pounds and powder up to bring us “Raging Bull Pt. 2”? Perhaps he should have a word to Scorsese about reprising his role as Travis Bickle in … let’s see now … “Bus Driver”? Would that help?
For God’s sake, live in the world.
Imagine spending 40 years of your life in the film industry. Liars, thieves, shills and spivs, con-men, bullshit artists and the flat-out deluded and insane – these are the men and women who, if they thought it would help get them an “assistant producer” credit on a flick, any flick, would happily shoot their mothers through the head, pack a bag and grab the first plane, train or automobile to Hollywoodland for a 5 minute meeting and a glass of warm water with someone’s stationary clerk.
The only thing worse than 40 years in the film industry would be spending 40 years in the fucking music industry.
For example, in his recently published diaries, director Bruce Beresford goes through a period of (I think) two years trying to get a couple of projects that he has an interest in off the ground only to be dumped on again and again and again as dodgy finance people (read, “producers”) reveal themselves to be full of it, actors won’t work with him, and various other self-absorbed, talentless shitheads with Patrick Bateman business cards endlessly fuck and fart him about. Eventually, desperate to work simply for the sake of having some work to do to keep him busy, he winds up lumped with a project he thought was crap from the start, but at least has some names attached and a green light, so … we get “The Contract” (Unfortunately (or not), I can’t remember anything about “The Contract” other than John Cusack and Morgan Freeman were in it, and I only watched it about 3 weeks ago).
That’s life in showbiz.
And if you’ve spent 40 years as an actor in it, well over half of that time will have been spent sitting on your arse wondering why you were called at 5am in the morning and it’s now 2pm in the afternoon and all you had to do was a one line reaction shot …
“Fact is, Mr. De Niro, we might have to bring you in tomorrow for the scene as the bombulator we needed for your shot has slipped a snigget and it’s a four-hour drive to the next county to pick up a new one as the snigget manufacturer’s delivery guy went on a cocaine bender last night and shot some fellas in a MacDonald’s after an altercation with a trans-gender lap dancer and the production designer won’t dress the scene until the vintage Pez dispenser he wanted for the bedside table gets here from eBay … Also, someone put superglue in the boom operator’s Fleshlight and he can’t stand up straight right now.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Sorry.”
At which point, one could be excused for thinking, “Maybe I could open a restaurant. Or a bar. Start a film festival, perhaps? Hell, why don’t I produce my own movies and as long as I don’t have to do much or not even be in them, I wouldn’t have to deal with this shit …”
From ?, Robert De Niro “How to Piss Off Robert De Niro in 30 Seconds”
Actors do not act in order to prove they can to an audience. They act in order to prove to themselves that they may achieve what they have set out to achieve to their own satisfaction and to the satisfaction of the director in accordance with the rules of the script. Anyone who does otherwise is not an actor, they are a “celebrity”. De Niro is not a celebrity and he has absolutely nothing he needs to prove anymore as an actor. Having turned himself inside out physically and emotionally for a couple of decades in order to meet the demands of the roles he was fortunate enough to score and subsequently succeed in, he’s well and truly entitled to a nice long fucking rest.
And for anyone who thinks that De Niro has “lost it” – if your video store has one of those 7 rentals for 7 bucks deals, grab any 7 of those movies mentioned in the first paragraph and watch one a night for a week. Then imagine what “Taxi Driver” may have been like if Jeff Bridges or Dustin Hoffman or (God forbid) Neil Diamond had been given the role of Travis Bickle. Bridges and Hoffman are fine actors, but somehow … As for Neil Diamond … truly, the mind not just boggles at the thought, but returns a “file not found” error report.
In the hopefully not so far off future De Niro may come upon a script or a project that fires him up sufficiently to knock us senseless with awe once again. We can only dream.
However, given his choice of roles these last several years, I think it could be reasonable to assume that he really couldn’t give a flying fuck about accumulating Academy Awards and the like just now and has been doing precisely what he feels like when he feels like doing it.
And if that means taking it (relatively) easy in work at an age when most people are expected to retire and eat dog food and whine about the pension, so be it.
From 2007, Robert De Niro in “Extras”
Tuesday, 9 September 2008
MY FATAL ERROR
I knew it wouldn’t last. Against my better judgement I popped over to Bolt’s blog to have a gander at his rattlings.
Now …
What the fuck does this mean? …
Now …
What the fuck does this mean? …
WHAT ON EARTH DOES IT MEAN???!!
That’s the whole post. That’s it.
I haven’t been paying attention to anything Jimmy Olsen has been blathering on about for almost a month now. Honestly, it’s like a multi-vitamin shot to the brain. Now, having spied this one post on this one occasion, I fear all my good work has been for naught …
Brain function = Fatal Error. Fail.
Ctrl+Alt+Del = Restart ...
Brain function = File Not Found. Fatal Error. Fail.
Shutdown.
Send Error Report?
…
?
No, just bring me a beer …
That’s the whole post. That’s it.
I haven’t been paying attention to anything Jimmy Olsen has been blathering on about for almost a month now. Honestly, it’s like a multi-vitamin shot to the brain. Now, having spied this one post on this one occasion, I fear all my good work has been for naught …
Brain function = Fatal Error. Fail.
Ctrl+Alt+Del = Restart ...
Brain function = File Not Found. Fatal Error. Fail.
Shutdown.
Send Error Report?
…
?
No, just bring me a beer …
Next time I get the urge to “read” something of Bolt’s, I’ll employ some CBT techniques and pop off to Bloody Disgusting instead.
MEMO TO ALL STAFF
We had previously received a number of comments from staff concerning the general condition and cleanliness of the office toilet facilities and did at that time attempt to convey to staff the need to maintain these facilities in a relatively hygienic fashion for the benefit of us all. However, we really just couldn’t be bothered any more as many of you appear to be thicker than a swimming pool deck and so repellently filthy that the proverbial shithouse rat is beginning to look like June Dally-Watkins in comparison.
So, in future, when using the toilets, by all means please:
1. Go ahead and urinate in the sink.
2. Smear your faeces over the walls. While you’re at it, write a verse or two.
3. Please use your indelible makeup to scribble on the mirror and benchtops.
4. Throw your bloated, befouled tampons wherever. Why not toss them to the ceiling and see if they stick?
5. Don’t use toilet paper! Just drag your saggy arse across the floor and make sure you press your shit into the grouting as you go. The cleaners are grateful for the overtime.
6. If you do use toilet paper, don’t put it in the bowl, the floor’s there for a reason too, you know.
7. Wash your hands? Nah. Go and rub them all over the biscuits in the lunchroom upstairs.
8. Hepatitis is a real buzz if you can get the right drugs, so don’t bother with soap.
9. Hide your discarded syringes in places where other people might sit on them. What a hoot. Whoopsy!
10. Last, but by no means least, don’t flush that big brown thing, you silly nong! The people who come in after you are really keen to have a look-see.
Thank you all.
THE MANAGEMENT
Friday, 5 September 2008
BRIT-NAY'S MAMA (APOCALYPSE REDUX)
I'm currently busier than a maggot on a stackburger so, in view of the news of these "shocking" revelations, and instead of buggering about with something new, the time seems apt for a re-presentation of Rebus Flatbush and "The Tale of Brit-Nay's Mama" ...
From “Rebus Flatbush’s Famous Fables & Folk-Tales of the American Mid-West” ...
“Now ... Feetus, Teetus an’ Meetus, you boys git in here and settle yerselves up for bed cause I’m a gunna speak a story at yer ... This here’s a story ‘bout Brit-nay’s momma ...
Once upon a time Brit-nay’s momma done once lived raht here in this ol’ trailer park, an’ afore she done popped out Brit-nay, she useta set in her trailer a’drinkin’ an’ a cussin’ at herself ‘cause she weren’t a fam-ous person. She’d rub her big bumpy belly and take a big swig a’ corn likker and tell herself, “Mah baby’s gonna be someone one day, yessir she is, I’m a gonna show ever’one I ain’t no common piece ‘a trailer trash, no sirree I ain’t! I gots talents! An’ so will mah chil’, dagnabbit!!”
Then she’d let go of a buncha burps and farts so loud they fair stunned all the woodchucks fer miles aroun’ and set the grizzlies a-runnin’ for higher ground and then she’d fall down lahk a dead person an’ set fire to herself agin an’ we’d all haveta come a-runnin’ with buckets ‘a water and put her out. This useta happen, oh ... ‘bout every day or two.
(Feetus ... stop rubbin’ yerself agin yer’ brothers an’ pay attention, boy ... )
Anyhoo, Brit-nay was popped outta her momma’s belly one afternoon in the toilet block while she wuz givin’ Otis the janitor a seein’ to ‘bout sumfin’ (though why they wuz both nekkid at the time ah ain’t ever been able to figger, but ah guess that’s a’ no mind of mine to think upon), an’ she picked her baby up outta the toilet bowl an’ says “I gots myself a ticket to a fortune at last!”
An’ she taught that chil’ how ta dance an’ swivel her liddle hips an’ poke out her chesty bits and sing into a hairbush, all the time tellin’ her, “You gonna be fam-ous, Brit-nay, yes you are, an’ ah don’ wanna hear any arguments about it, you gonna be someone and ahm gonna be someone too! ... Now you gotsta learn how to poke out yer liddle baby pillows sum more and smile when all those nahce men from the talents agency come ‘round ... Oh!, that reminds me ... we gotsta git yer teeth bleached agin! ... You stay raht there now whiles I git the Persil.”
An’ sure e-nuff, Brit-nay got herself fam-ous an’ made a whole buncha money, an’ her momma made a whole buncha money too coz she done went and made herself Brit-nay’s manager person.
An’ then one day, when Brit-nay was a lot older, she started actin’ jes lahk her momma what with the drinkin’ and the smokin’ an’ cussin’ an’ gettin’ herself tattoos an’ havin’ a baby wif some fella who lahked to wear his pants ‘round his knees so as to show off his unnerwear an’ such ... Yessirree, she was actin’ up sumfin’ feerce all the time, an’ she got herself a dee-vorce an’ lost custody a’ her own l’il baby, an’ on top a’ all that, she went an’ tol’ her ol’ momma to go feck herself, ‘cause she was mahty sick of her.
An’ her poor ol’ momma soon found she had no more money left an’ she weren’t fam-ous no more an’ she had to come back an’ live with Otis the janitor in the toilet agin’.
Now, the moral of the story, boys, is this – no matter how many times you change the size an’ shape of yer trailer, the trash’ll always stay the same ...
(Er, Teetus ... take yer thang outta Meetus’s earhole and git yerself off to sleep, son.)”
Wednesday, 3 September 2008
DON'T JUST SIT THERE, GO GET US A STORY!
Lindsay Lohan's DJ girlfriend flew into Sydney this morning and, upon leaving the airport terminal ...
...
LIT. A. CIGARETTE.
...
That's it.
And this has been deemed worthy of (online) reportage by The Sydney Morning Herald.
Jesus wept.
...
LIT. A. CIGARETTE.
...
That's it.
And this has been deemed worthy of (online) reportage by The Sydney Morning Herald.
Jesus wept.
Tuesday, 2 September 2008
YOU’RE LEAVING US? AWWWWWWW …
The Managing Director of the company I have worked for these last 3 years retired on Friday. A number of functions had been held in the previous couple of weeks to mark the auspicious occasion – after all, he had worked here for over 20 years and an appropriately spiffy series of send-offs seemed well and truly warranted after such a lengthy stint.
So, rather than simply scribble a few inane remarks on the card that came around, I decided instead to send the dear fellow an email with some personal thoughts and observations as to the matter of his departure.
This was it …
So, rather than simply scribble a few inane remarks on the card that came around, I decided instead to send the dear fellow an email with some personal thoughts and observations as to the matter of his departure.
This was it …
Dear Mr. D********,
Even though I am a mere newcomer to this illustrious company (relatively speaking in respect of yourself, that is) I do feel that, in light of the recent comments and speeches and slideshows and spontaneous bursts of politely restrained laughter and applause that have accompanied even the most banal or slightest of enthusiastically intoned anecdotes as regards your impending departure, some things have been left out, and in the leaving of them, a somewhat skewed and unarguably unrealistic portrait has been conveyed ...
So, please indulge me a few final thoughts in order to restore some semblance of truth to the matter ...
Now certainly, while those who have spoken of you have done so fondly, I feel, in all honesty, that it is with a fondness for the man they once knew at his peak rather than the sad and distressing spectacle that so many of us have had the misfortune to witness you become in these, your declining and debilitated years ...
And while it is undoubtedly fair to say that your contribution to the success of this organisation is respectably significant (I mean, let's not so obligingly shoot our heads up our own anus just yet, shall we?), none of us who now remain will feel any sense of loss whatsoever at the recent sightings of you shuffling about the lunch-room in an old pair of fluffy slippers and poo-stained pyjama bottoms, regaling any poor bugger within earshot of the ever-increasing number of ailments with which you have now found yourself afflicted.
Frankly, we'll all be a damn sight better off now that we won't be hearing the gloopy details of your irritable bowel syndrome and erectile dysfunction problems while we're trying to chow down on a bowl of curry or a banana. I mean, for fuck's sake.
And it will certainly be reassuring to know that we will now be able to move freely through the building to go about our business without our senses being shockingly assaulted at every turn by the toxic by-products of your embarrassingly inappropriate occasions of explosive incontinence. Did you know that one of the cleaners was so overwhelmed by the fetid stench from your office that she thought she was Timothy Leary for a week and is now looking at spending the rest of her life in an iron lung? At least we'll be able to attend to meetings from now on without having to bring along our own sponge and bucket and cover our clothes in Glad-Wrap. Thank fuck for that.
Nevertheless, despite these often disturbing aspects of your character and person, may I take this occasion to wish you well for the future. I'm sure that the life you have decided to map for yourself in retirement will be an auspicious one and exactly as you desire. That is to say, spending many a gloriously lazy day at the Golden Years Caravan Park up from the Ipswich Bowls Club, eating sausages and meatballs from a can while sucking VB from a 44-gallon drum through a bendy straw and throwing rocks at any poor pigeons who have the audacity to poop on the heads of your impressive collection of garden gnomes.
Have a nice time.
P.S. I hear Pauline Hanson's looking for a fella. You'll be in the neighbourhood, why not give it some thought? All you'll need do is shove a plug up your butt on the night and who knows what might just happen?
I really do wonder sometimes precisely how I’ve managed to remain employed for the last 30 years …
But then again, why settle for just pushing an envelope when turbo-charging one is so attractive an option?
It also helps if the boss has a sense of humour.
Lucky me.
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