Happy I-Though-We-Lived-In-A-Secular-Society-But-I-Guess-Not Day!

Seriously, why the fuck have we not stormed parliament regarding the fact that because this is a Christian holiday the rest of us (and there are a lot) aren't allowed to buy alcohol?
Yes, it's true, last year I pretty much ruined day one of a family holiday because I bitched and moaned and whined about the same situation.
'It's okay,' I reassured the Yorke Peninsula general store/bottle-shop owner 'I'm not a Christian.'
'Sorry, mate. It's the law.'
'But ... but ...'
I wish I had said more. Or broken something. But it wasn't his fault. He should have just turned the other way while I left twenty bucks on the counter until the next day though.

No, I don't actually want to go out and buy beer on Good Friday especially. I just don't want to have to live in such a back-wood, no-string-banjo kind of country where religious freedom is a right, as long as you observe just one group's one kookie rule. Which you don't have a choice about anyway, because it's the law, just like not molesting children.

Topical Humour Man, awaaaaaay!!

Seriously though: Rove did free tomato sauce day. Why can't we have Ring It Through On Easter Saturday Day?

I hate all racists. And the Dutch.*

What do you do when, in your professional capacity working in a university, you come across someone who needs help, but somehow blames that need on "cashed-up Asians"? Not literally, but in that roundabout way that ingrained, casual racism has which makes it seem more thought out and considered to the user, but just proves how circuitous a route your racist is willing to travel in order to shift blame and retain their ideological laziness.

To sum up: her lecturer is unhelpful because universities care so much about attracting internationals with the folding stuff that they forget about "Australians". A guy doing a Phd studying Australian states is unsuitable because he's being paid to do so by a foreign government, the implication being that he will return home, taking that knowledge with him. Which is apparently a bad thing. All these foreign students have money and laptops and broadband.
"And many don't."
"Oh yeah, yeah! Heaps of us (note the familiar "us") are doing it tough."

It might seem unusual, but I'm actually pretty dry and straight forward when I'm at work. I take a little bit of pride in my direct, professional manner. I'll slip in the odd dick joke, but by and large I'm not "on". It means that I relax. I don't have to think of my own interesting little chit chats and opinions, it's just the company line, straight up and let's move on. I have a small reputation for efficiency and proficiency. It's comfortable; easy.
This doesn't really help when university policy has neglected to include tearing the retched flappy ears from pug-nosed racists who repeatedly identify themselves as being victims of equity issues.

So I went and wrote a blog.
That'll show 'em.

*Oven.

You should be thanking them!

And in the Channel Nine news this morning: Channel Nine show Hey Hey It's Saturday offends with a racist sketch on eternal Aussie favourite, Red Faces.

Cut to extended clip of five podgy white guys in afro wigs in blackface dancing and miming to a Jackson Five song. Stern commentary by our morning news reader informing us that these men had painted their faces black. More blackface dancing. They're mostly in sync.
Enter another white man, dressed as Michael Jackson circa HIStory, with his face painted white. (get it?!) More stern commentary pointing out that the newest member of the Jackson Six has his face painted white.
Cut to Red Faces celebrity judge (white) American, Harry Connick Jr, looking dumbfounded and drawing a shaky zero on his scorecard.
'If you had done that in the US,' pronounces the singer 'It'd be "Hey Hey Show's Over" - off the air.'
Cut to chubby little Daryl formally apologising to Connick Jr for offending him (no one else, just him), in that semi-fake TV apology tone where light-entertainment types have to eat humble pie and pull it off with all the sincerity of a group email.
Connick Jr says that he wouldn't have come on the show if he knew that Grown Up Golliwogs were going to be part of the deal.

Guess he underestimated the moronic desperation of insulated aging white guys ...
The man who played Michael Jackson now reckons that he wasn't being racist, because he's a) Indian (and of course no Indians are capable of racism because they get racismed themselves!), b) a doctor (and doctors are immune to racist behaviour, just like parking tickets) and c) don't forget, he was just trying to be funny! (Oh I get it ...)
When asked if he would perform the skit in the US? "Absolutely not."
Because racism is only okay when its subjects can't lynch you. And because no Australian Aboriginals (or anyone else who thinks that they're "black") should be offended because they should know that they were being Americans.
Not Australians - Americans. See? It's different.
No Aboriginals have the right to be offended and no way do they get an apology.
Only the white American guy gets an apology.
And noneof those black Americans get an apology either, because they didn't see it and didn't complain at the time.
And anyway, what has a bunch of wealthy doctors from "different racial backgrounds" painted in black face got to do with a couple of centuries of racism that's been over for decades?

And remember: they were just trying to be funny!

And when the rainbow jerseys arrive it shall be complete

I always sniggered (quietly, behind my hand) about the amount of latent homosexuality in the Australian football codes. You know the line: all those fit, hard-bodied men, sweating together in and out of their tight shorts, gripping and wrestling each other for a living. It's got to be more than one-in-ten in the national leagues, right? But of course, the Australian male hegemony being what it (still) is, of course no-one is openly gay in professional football. Not in such a way that it was ever discussed.
Until now.
In case you didn't know, Matthew Johns, former NRL player has been stood down from his job for his part in a group sex scandal. Turns out it's fairly common practise for NRL players to have group sex with a woman - "team bonding" is a phrase often let slip here, like a sly testicle from ill-fitting shorts.

I'd like now, if I may to set a reading exercise (does the fun never end?!). Read the following passage taken from an article in the Sydney Morning Herald entitled 'Defiant rep star says group sex romps will keep happening'. At the end, I'm going to ask an open question which I believe, if I'm right, might just change the ugly, ugly face of Rugby League in Australia.

THE comments of one senior NRL representative player indicate how difficult it could be to change the sexual behaviour and attitudes of elite league players.

He warned group sex among NRL players would continue regardless of a warnings from chief executive David Gallop that unsavoury sexual acts would put their contracts at risk. The representative player told the Herald that his colleagues were left stunned by Gallop's hardline stance when no player had been convicted of sexual assault, adding that the caution would quickly be forgotten.

"It's fine for David Gallop to come out and say you can't have group sex but the last thing blokes will be thinking about on a Friday night at the club is David Gallop," said the player, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "I don't know how a chief executive can come out and say we can't have group sex if it's consensual. It's like discrimination because that is a person's private life. It's like saying you can't be homosexual, or you can't have such-and-such sexual preferences. How can he tell us what we can do in our private lives?

"We already have so many rules: we can't drink on these days, we can't go to these places, now we can't have group sex. About the only thing we can do these days is go to club functions, and just hang around other players. That's just isolating us more from the rest of the world, and it could lead to even more violent acts."

Are Rugby League players finally coming out of the closet?
Read the passage again, but this time bear in mind the fact that while these players appear to engage in a lot of group sex, there aren't any women mentioned. Based on this, I firmly believe that the NRL is on the threshold of throwing open the flimsy plywood doors, tossing aside the coathangers and shoe racks and announcing to the world "We're here! We're queer! We have group sex with each other!" Imagine that. Out, proud and scoring tries. I reckon the NRL fans and clubs would breathe a collective sigh of relief: no more scandals, no more 'How to treat women nice' classes, no more lies! Just good, honest, consensual sex between large groups of large men without the apparently tricky and complicated inclusion of a woman.
Of course, the game itself may suffer from the channelling of all that built-up homoerotic tension away from the playing field ...

Boo Fucking Hoo Part TWO!!!

I am well-aware of what schadenfreude is, and, as of today, how warm it can feel.

Premium suburbs bear brunt as real estate market reels.

"At auctions across tree-lined streets in Toorak, Brighton and Kew, bidders are keeping hands in pockets, with auctioneers forced to pass in homes and hope. "I would say there has been a 10% to 15% fall."
Local agent Richard Mackinnon, from Bennison Mackinnon, referring to those suburbs.

Be strong, children. Think of the plight and thank your lucky stars and moons that you're not so unfortunate as to be selling a five-bedroom bungalow in Toorak!

I know, I know: shame on me, these people worked their whole lives, mortgage stress, etc, but hearing about 4-bedroom house going for "only" a million bucks after years of baby-boomer bubbling, completely fails to make me reach for the hanky. Being told almost weekly that my generation is one that will never be able to afford a house has hardened my impecunious heart somewhat.

Except for you, Kath. You go, girl. Gouge those finnicketty buggers.

***
GTH - Last post's picture was of Mele's Nonno's greenhouse and his homemade tools. Nonno died last year, but he left behind an amazing culture of love and respect among his family and through the stories they tell, the pictures they show and the things he left around the farm. I wanted specifically to say with this picture that not all death is pointless, leaving nothing. It can be delicate and beautiful and personal. Points to everybody who had a go.

Dear Big Brother Enthusiast ...

Of course we all dashed over to Ashleigh's excellent blog after the last post to read the very 2005 post about the braindeadness of HECS and the slight scamminess of the maths involved in making those who go to uni pay for their degrees a couple of times over, despite the apparent dopeness of not having to pay the fees up front while also trying to study, work, pay rent, buy food, drugs, beer, food, beer and textbooks.

I'm not sure if everyone might have made it to the comments section, because this little bewdy was first out of the gates:

"So that doesnt quite explain why the great mass of non-tertiary educated workers who pay the bulk of the tax end up funding an education system that they didnt use and which their kids may not use.. User pays I say!"

Thanks, Duncan.

I tried to explain this in my subsequent comment, but I think punching out a comeback some three and a half years after the original comment probably robs it of a little momentum.
That said, I am sick to my hairy head of the short-sighted shit that people drip around higher education in general.
"User pays"
Fine.
How about this:
Young lady wants to be a dentist.
No problem.
She goes to dental school.
There's no HECS, no help.
She works and borrows to get the upfront cash to fund her tertiary education.
She graduates.
She goes to work.
She charges double for her services, just like every other dentist in Australia because, although she wanted to fix teeth, she still had to pay for an education which other people are now receiving for the meagre price of keeping up her business loan, her staff payments and her living expenses. Her patients are using her education for free!
Fuck that, she says.
If education is an individually-allocated commodity, not a benefit to society as a whole, then she will be buggered if she's giving it away.
You're using her education to fix your teeth, Duncan. You pay for it.
Not just her here and now expenses, but the debt from the loans she took to become a dentist. The ongoing education for the repeat check-ups you will need at which you will probably prefer the latest technology, rather than a hammer and chisel. Fork out, buddy!

Or, how about the kids teaching your kids in the public schools? They're using those teachers' education for free!

"User pays".
Hoik. P-tooey.

***
GTH - Point to Ashleigh, for the inspiration, Kath (she's gotta get something for $7 a fortnight and a bleeding boob)(welcome to double figures by the way) and Shippy for feeling the grue at 40 degrees C for his education.
My feelings for the picture were that a blurry glance at a shave-headed assailant is pretty much what any interaction with Cennerlink feels like.

Australia's Newest Shame

Investigative journalism is really getting into the cracks these days. Just when you think it's another article about Stephanie Rice, you read to the end and suddenly we have a new villain:

"Last Friday was a time of anticipation and excitement for Sunshine Flowers pre-school student Kate Daly.
Kate was due to attend a swimming clinic on Sunday hosted by her hero Olympic Golden Girl Stephanie Rice and drew a picture of Rice to go with the flowers she had planned to give Australia's newest starlet of the pool.
Described by her friends and other parents from Sunshine Flowers as 'a little battler' and 'the truest Aussie around', Kate suffers from cystic fibrosis, has a life expectancy of just 10 years, and is forced to take 26 tablets a day to battle the disease. The swimming clinic is one of the limited range of treatments designed to extend cystic fibrosis sufferers' quality of life.

Enter Johnny Wade.

Known as 'a little terror', 'a definite candidate for pre-military-school' and 'a typical four year old boy', Wade seized on the much weaker Kate's drawing and tore it up in front of horrified staff and students. Unconfirmed reports say that Johnny was laughing and dancing as he destroyed the image of the triple gold medallist, finally throwing the pieces into the air and yelling 'Snowstorm'.

Four-year-old Johnny Wade's parents remained tight-lipped today after the youngster faced accusations of bullying, assault, destruction of property and defacing a national icon. Refusing to speak to media, they dashed into their modest home after facing the judge in a closed court session earlier today."

Is it going too far?
Not far enough?

***

GTH - Miles, Miles, Miles. Bullseye.

Australian Top Gear: Revving High in Third!

I am a great fan of Top Gear. I get the British Shows well before they air here and also have a growing collection of the older British shows. I buy car magazines and read them cover to cover, Holden to Ford. I could explain to you in layman's terms how an internal combustion engine works and the various methods improving its output. I have my own opinions about cars and the automotive industry, but I appreciate British Top Gear for the extremely high level of production that goes into an iconic piece of entertainment.

I was apprehensive and even doubtful about the first franchised version of Top Gear. It could have been low-rent, stupid, colonial and natural as a peddle-powered Commodore.
It wasn't.
It was like a seventeen-year-old all dressed and ready for their first school formal. Amateur, awkward and slightly embarrassed to be there in the first place, but at the same time, excited, cocky and beautiful with hope, youth and vitality. This kid is going to break some hearts. Not a lot of them. Not too many outside its peer group, but it'll definitely do what it set out to, in the end.

There are many reasons to believe that Australian Top Gear will succeed. They are:

Charlie Cox: He is the least embarrassed and the most natural in front of the studio audience and also in the trademark sparring with his co-presenters.

The production looks nice and slick: Top Gear is basically a series of ultra-flashy music/porn videos featuring cars in place of synchronised dancing and whatever they show in porn videos. Quick pans, high definition video tricks, Bruckheimeresque soundtracks, lingering gazes at metallic hides and freeze-frame action shots of power-sliding engineering. The Australian film crews and editors have been paying very good attention to what works and why.

The cars are promising: The metal shown in the advertising campaign (Ford vs Holden battle, a nightmarishly black Ford GT, the intriguing mining truck vs ute race) are right into the eye-candy flash and dash that Top Gear audiences expect. All these are unique ideas in a field already well-plowed by Messrs Clarkson, May and Hammond.

They will get better: Yes, they were nervous. It showed. They were inexperienced. It also showed. The lack of bricks sliding down the presenters' trouser legs and onto the studio floor was thus commendable. BUT none of it seemed ingrained. These aren't nervous guys trying to appear enigmatic for the camera, these are obviously enigmatic guys trying to shake their nerves for the camera and doing a very commendable job. They will get better. Then the reasons they were chosen above 4000 other applicants and then from a short-list for their in-person chemistry and camaraderie will begin to shine through.

However, are there, of course, inherent problems with exporting the format to Australia with the straight copy-and-paste option taken by Freehand.

Fun And Interesting Cars Are Really Really Expensive: There is no way around it. The starring cars of most of the British Top Gears are almost all beyond the reach of most of Top Gear's viewing demographic in Australia. When old British motoring journo Jeremy Clarkson tells you that he simply loves Mercedes' new CLK 63 AMG Black then that's quite fine because you know that he could probably buy one because he's an international mega-star who changes exotic supercars about once a year.
He probably writes them off on tax.
That's the fun bit about the show. You sort of get to buy it with him, in your mind. He's driving it, you're sitting next to him, he's telling you what fun it is and you believe him. You do it together.
But when Charlie Cox whips the cover off the new Lambourghini LP-560 and tells you that it's $550,000, your first reaction as an Australian brought up under tall poppy syndrome with the housing bubble bursting all over your face is to heave a besser block through its carefully raked windscreen.

On the British show, the quoted prices are in meaningless pounds (this also has the illusory effect felt by every Australian backpacker ever to visit London: "Everything is so cheap! But wait a minute ... times by three ... add tax ... bugger. We have to leave") and the cars are often so rare that the cost flashes by in a cloud of tyre-smoke and carbon fibre.
On the Australian show, the price they quote you is the price that you immediately understand in your head as being a number which cuffs this piece of escapism firmly within the television set with only bread, water and a Hyundai broschure. You're not sitting next to Jeremy Clarkson spinning the wheels in his new Lambo, nor are you reclining on the vintage leather of Richard Hammond's Charger. You're sitting in the pub with three complete strangers who you are quite willing to let be your mates because you are going to drive cars together, if only they wouldn't keep dropping prices into the conversation which you only hear mentioned in terms soapy, floating houses and the entire yearly salaries of striking surgeons.

Top Gear is a review show that turned into an action movie: Australian Top Gear has to pick up where the action movie left off, sliding gingerly into the back seat of the flaming Ferrari as it leaps over the Grand Canyon to escape the Taliban. And, like the passenger in the flaming Ferrari, there's not really a lot to add. Unless they are really really creative. Maybe some gun fire and a call to the Prime Minister?
Top Gear has the luxury of the review platform to base its pieces upon - its presenters are seasoned motoring journalists and are given ample opportunity (by a well-funded research department) to display this knowledge. Australian Top Gear's presenters all have media backgrounds and experience and it is claimed that they all have their motoring chops, but there has been (so far) little chance to show those off.

The hot cars have to be thrashed: The new Porsche 911 was driven sedately, the Maybach had its headphones shown off and the Lambo went nowhere at all. One suspects that those holding the keys to the comparably-tiny fleet of super expensive cars in Australia are not thrilled by the prospect of smart-arsed TV presenters tearing up their tyres and defecating on their insurance ratings.
(*To see what I mean either watch the entire video until the end, or just pause and let it load until 6:15 and then start watching. To see what I mean about price, click here and scroll to the very bottom ...)

My other criticisms are mostly niggly, fan-boy things that have either been satisfied by British Top Gear or may just yet appear on the show (GT-R in a passing hotlap? No Holden or Ford on the track? Ahh ... next time, Gadget, next time).

Australian Top Gear has started well with the mold it was provided with. Now it needs to smash that mold and set about adding a few modifications of its own.

We're getting something ... it's faint ... but ...

The communication below is over a week old. I feel like that Mars lander, sending messages and telling stories that won’t be heard until much later. The little log book below was written in real time on my four-day journey across Australia. Each evening I would pull out the computer and exercise my fingers remembering the little things that float around in your head when you’re alone and driving long distances. I’m trying to avoid writing a daily diary-style blog because it’s a bit indulgent and really, the tales of setting up a house are probably best left to one gloating tale of deals and rip-offs which will be called Lies, Damn Lies and Bargains!! Coming soon to a blog near you.

19th May 2008
Adelaide to Balranald
553 kms

Driving along at 100 km/h yelping with laughter and dribbling chewed up chocolate biscuit down my chin.

That’s what driving across Australia means in 2008. The Red Rocket (as tastefully christened by Trent) is utterly comfortable and I could probably drive across the planet in it if I didn’t have to make it to Bribie Island by Friday in order to be there for the electricity man who promises that he will turn the power on between 2pm and 6pm. That’s going to be a fun afternoon. Sitting around in an empty house, waiting for some business-like chap with an AGL polo shirt and a laptop in his pocket to flick a switch. Willie Nelson didn’t include that in his many odes to travel.

But back to the chocolate biscuits. I’m currently in a cabin in the Balranald Caravan Park. I have just watched The Simpsons Movie on my laptop and knocked the top off of my third Toohey’s New (having refused a plastic carry bag to the approval of The Thirsty Camel bottle-o proprietor – they value environmentalism in rural Oz), so it’s going to be the long version.

It begins with selling the Honda.

Yes, quell your gushing tears, the Honda is gone. I bought her (I’m fairly confident it was a girl) on September the 11th, 2001, about an hour before the first plane hit. We travelled far and wide together, on road trips and sumo gigs. I was given some oversized speakers to install, which were stolen. I replaced them with even larger speakers, on which I spent many hours playing music with complex and well-structured bass-lines and ensuring that I will spend the rest of my years yelling ‘What?’ to anyone who talks to me in anything but a loud, clear voice in a sound-proof booth. I never got a speeding ticket. The other various treasured memories I have of that car aren’t ones I’m willing to put on record, partly for fear of prosecution, and partly because it was purchased by another blogger who shall remain anonymous unless they choose to reveal themselves here or elsewhere. I am not in the business of outing people who wish to remain in closets automotive or otherwise. They also probably don’t want to know.

The reason the Honda had to go is that, although my beloved Civic was able to fit (via my bloody-minded mania for efficient packing) four sumo suits and a 4 x 4m foam wrestling ring in the back seat, it lacked any real suitability as an interstate haulage vehicle. It was time for a new car. If you’re a regular reader, you will know that story already. The untold portion is the one in which I pulled out my mp3-playing stereo from the Honda and had it installed in The Red Rocket.

(Nb. I also installed my old non-mp3-playing stereo back into the Honda all by myself, just like a real man! I did ask my mechanic for advice and that advice did turn out to be ‘Connect the same coloured wires together’, but still – in is in and it didn’t melt the car when I turned it on, which I believe is a common problem).

Enter Bill Hicks. Bill Hicks is one of those rare comedians whose material remains relevant 20 years after it was written. Not to mention hilarious. The jokes he was making about the first Gulf War could easily be told onstage today for just the same impact. Even his anti-PC tirades in which non-smokers and anti-abortion lobbyists are grouped together in an extended stream-of-consciousness free verse poem involving Barbara Bush and a scat-munching right-wing US senator still trick you into loud, honest hoots of laughter, despite the unwelcome mental images he coerces into your mind. I had decided on a second chocolate chip fudge biscuit (packed by Mele with love and care) when Hicks began his bit about teenage white-girl American popstars who make money selling a product which has the gall to call itself music. He pushes the appropriately sweet-sounding Little Debbie (vaguely heard of her – think Strawbery Kisses-era Nicki Webster if you need to visualise) into a locked recording studio with the still-living Jimi Hendrix, an electric guitar and a lot of sexually-charged feedback. His impersonations of her screaming for her mother while Jimi plays Voodoo Chile all over the top of any of the pretensions to musical insight and, ahem, innocence she may still possess are the true meaning of comedy. As is me, squealing with goose-like laughter while trying to catch a fountain of mostly-chewed, liquid chocolate fudge tumbling from my lips.

(Nb. Sadly, Bill Hicks is dead. In an ironic twist, which would have been best appreciated by a man who mocked the jogging guru Jim Fixx for dying while jogging and then followed it up with a counter-bit in which he himself speculates about his own death at the hands of cigarettes, Hicks actually died from cigarette smoking. Although Hicks died from cancer, and not, as in his routine, at hands of a pack of rancorous anti-smokers: ‘I tried to run, they were too fit! I tried to hide, they heard me wheezing!’).

I’ve been cruising along all day in 21st Century mode. The iPod is plugged into the stereo, the mobile phone has been on (but out of service – thanks Telstra), the cup-holder (a cup holder! Such a modern conveyance!) has been cradling the best lattes the Murray region’s four baristas-in-training have to offer and the digital camera has been taking photos of road signs and curious pubs – all by itself, mind you. Both hands on the wheel for me. Oh yes. I lunched upon polish sausage and cheese from the Central Market and ate fruit from Mele’s Nonna’s trees.

I’m not shot of Adelaide just yet.

20th May 2008
Balranald to Dubbo
674 kms

Today I had an auditory-visual co-experience. That means that I experienced exactly the same sensation through my ears as I did through my eyes. I crossed the Hay Plane while listening to Melbourne talkback 3AW with Neil Mitchell. The Hay Plane has been accused of many things, but I think the intellectual curiosities and broader cultural and philosophical challenges posed by talkback radio (mixed 50/50 with advertising) are the most accurate comparison I can make to the neural stimuli that the Hay Plane presents. I don’t know which was more bored, my eyes staring at the same piece of road rolling under the Red Rocket or my ears, sagging with the drones of people who would rather complain about road-works than the Burmese junta euthanasing its own people.

Other than 700 kilometres of fairly similar driving, the only other highlight was dropping into the Parkes Radio Telescope (otherwise known as The Dish) a slick 15 minutes after they had closed the visitors centre for the day. Nice timing, dingus. I did still get to have a good look at the thing, take some iffy photos and see it moving! I’m pretty sure (although not 100% certain) that they were receiving alien communication transmissions!

21st May 2008
Dubbo to Glen Innes
556 kms

Ho. Ly. Shit. The New England Highway is fucking beautiful. Scooting through it in the Red Rocket in late late autumn is just as wondrous and wonderful as the Hay Plane with Neil Mitchell was unenlightening. Every town has rows of tall trees leaving ridiculously gay piles of leaves on the highway. Rock formations abound. I practised much restraint by only going to one lookout outside Tamworth and discovering that it had been spray-painted with racist slogans and swastikas. Just as I was leaving, a gentleman who Nick Earls would describe as a man who puts on a hat to go driving pulled up in the empty car park. He had a younger passenger who grinned at me and looked vaguely glad to be able to race up the steps to the lookout ahead of his chauffeur.
‘Which way are you going?’ our bespectacled driver asked, absently patting an oblong bulge in his brown wool jumper which could have been either a glasses case or a pacemaker. I explained that I was driving to Bribie Island and he responded, as 75% of people do, that he knew it and had been there on holiday (the other 25% screw up their noses, declare cheerily that they’ve never heard of it and ask questions about ferries). He then took a full five minutes to explain an activity to me which I simply had to try. I didn’t understand it, nodded and smiled anyway and drove off to piece together in my mind what the hell it was he was actually talking about. I eventually worked out that he was telling me about an amazing thing I must see which would involve me turning around and heading back towards Tamworth. I was to search for an exit very similar to the turn-off which lead to the lookout, drive up it a short distance, turn around again (got me? Heading back towards the highway), put my car in neutral and let it roll towards the main road, touching neither gas nor brake peddle. He insisted that I try this complicated stunt because once I reached the flat ground just before the highway, which sloped gently uphill, my car would still keep rolling through some mysterious magical and/or magnetic force which would pull it uphill against gravity for a distance of ten to fifteen metres!
Sadly, dear reader, I was most of the way to Armidale before I figured that out and so left the magnetic miracles of the New England to those who are chosen to experience them.

Glen Innes, however is an excellent place to have stopped. I’m glad I was enthusiastic enough to shop around caravan parks for a decent price because the first one I wandered into seemed very impressive, but for such a delightful dorf I was a bit Big Bottom Lip about staying at a place which doubled as a service station off the main highway. The place I chose (Blue Sapphire) was cheaper and looked like a country cottage which decided to throw up a few cosy cabins and call itself a caravan park. In fact I suspect that’s just what it is. No one was attending the front office, which was left with its money-laden till wide open and a note instructing visitors to call a number on the phone provided because the owners had just popped into town for some shopping. I thought about pocketing every last cent and getting a B&B with a spa, but picked up the phone instead, just in time for the chatty owner to come in from preparing a roast lamb with rosemary.
‘And a bit of lemon and garlic, eh?’ I enquired, ever the culinary enthusiast.
‘No. Just rosemary.’
Mele will tell you that this ambivalence about garlic is indicative of our move, but to that I say fiddlesticks. We shall bring garlic to these people, whether they want it or not.

And now, I am off to eat a counter meal and watch the first State of Origin contest because I am a northerner now and that’s what we do. Right Benny?

22nd May 2008
Glen Innes to Bribie Island
439 kms

After a burger, a few pints of New (that’s Toohey’s New, for the uninitiated, the increasingly misnamed beer of the eastern states), some light abuse at the hands of some New South Wales supporters at the Glen Innes pub and a cosy old night in my cosy old cabin, I struck out on the home-away-from-home stretch.

The themes of inordinate beauty combined with ABC radio continued as I crossed the Main Ranges. I pulled over on a gravel park to throw out some garbage and have a slash. Right next to the garbage bin were two peacocks. Not nesting, and not exactly feasting on McDonald’s wrappers either. Just standing in the bushes, taking me in. Checking me out. I took it as a Good Sign and took Many Photos, which made me realise that I Want A New SLR Camera.

Seriously though: peacocks. A pair. Big and strong and healthy. And on the other side of the gravel truck park zone? Someone had tossed a large television into the thick vines and scrub which grew over the side of the drop-off. I think that sums up Queensland for me so far: surprising natural beauty frequently punctuated with examples of humanity’s need for thoughtless consumption. Or, if you prefer, lush rainforests and gargantuan shopping malls. Often side by side.

Thankfully, Bribie Island is easy to find and the freeways are easy to negotiate. There are monolithic signs everywhere that unmistakably lead you to where you want to go. You also get about three or four acre-sized warning signs for when your turn-off is coming up.

NORTHERN SUBURBS AND SUNSHINE COAST
LEFT LANE

your gargantuan sign will read.
‘Does that mean I get into the left lane to get to the Sunshine Coast?’ you ask, squinting into the ubiquitous sun.

YES
JUST GET INTO THE LEFT LANE
WE WILL DO THE REST

‘Aaaah!’ you scream. ‘Fuck!’ you yell. ‘Get out of my way! I am going to miss my turn-off, you arseholes!’

YOU HAVE 6 WHOLE MINUTES TO CHANGE LANES
JUST INDICATE AND SLOWLY DRIFT OVER
RELAX

So the freeways are large and fast, but easy to handle in a bright red car with South Australian number-plates stuffed to the air-vents with linen, books and cooking equipment.

Bribie Island itself is just as lovely and picturesque as it was when we visited in January. And if our car manages to avoid getting keyed, we will be ahead on points already.

As soon as I was over the bridge, I couldn’t help myself. I drove straight to the house. It’s a semi-detached jobby, connecting garages with an identical house next door which is owned by the landlord. Something the real estate agents conveniently left out until I had signed the lease for real and handed over our deposit … However, it’s not all that big a deal because as I pulled into the (deceptively steep) driveway, scraping the nutsack out of my loaded-to-the-springs new car, Mavis the Midget appeared and welcomed me to Bribie Island. Mavis is a lovely little old lady who can’t be an inch over four feet tall. Lives by herself with a little dog named Bess (or Jess) and enjoys a chat. So much so that she followed me through the house as I performed an initial inspection. Thanks, Mavis. I’ve got it from here. I might actually take a piss now, if you’ve finished showing me the window-locks.

How is it? The Tribe has chosen well. Big north-, south- and west-facing windows, large rooms, gas cooking (as I may have mentioned) and you can see the ocean from the front garden. I have unwittingly engaged in a sea-change lifestyle and really, baby-boomer-bashing aside, it has much to recommend it. The sea, for example. And the tropical birdsong, which I’m sure will have me in the Bribie Gun Shop within the week pricing scattershot rifles, but for now, it’s quite uplifting. There is a church directly across the street, which is more amusing than anything for a person who holds the views on organised religion I do. I’m sure we’ll get along just fine, just as long as no-one tries to welcome anybody else to the neighbourhood with pamphlets and hymns.

The only problem with this place is the smell. It holds the musky scent of holidays. Of exciting plane journeys, visiting relatives, sleeping on the beach, walking through rainforests, swimming in waterfalls, fishing at sunset and sleeping to the breathing of palm trees outside the window at night.
Not the most conducive environment for completing a Phd. Wish us luck and lots of it.

I can knock a hundred dollars off that Trucoat!

New Kids On The Block were wrong. Step One was not, contrary to their toe-tapping super ballad, lots of fun. Step One was securing a rental property on Bribie Island by bullying my extended tribe into inspecting a slew of houses, apartments, units, granny flats and garden shed. Prices ranged from suspiciously low to spectacularly outrageous.
One agent actually tried to connect us with a nice old couple who had renovated the bottom floor of their Queenslander and turned it into a self-contained, one-bedroom unit. The agent told me over the phone that it came fully furnished, with all bills paid and Foxtel and broadband connections.
'Really?' I asked, impressed. 'There's actually cable and broadband included?'
'Oh yes!' trilled Martha* 'They have all the connections there, you just have to sign up with a provider and get it turned on and that's not included in the rent, but they have all the connections there!'
'So ... they have a phone line ... and the street has Foxtel cables ...'
'Yes!'
'Right. E. O. How much?'
'$300 per week!'
'Hmm. Thank you, Martha. Allow me to talk it over with the missus.'
*click*

Despite the general hilarity involved in renting a property via telephone and intermanet (why would they only include three angles of the same kitchen?), we are now the proud renters of a three bedroom house with a garden and gas cooking. The drawback will be having to walk the entire 200 metres all the way to the beach when we want a swim. Too, too trying, dahling.
Mwahahahaha!
Seriously though, do come visit. Three bedrooms = cheap Queensland accommodation 4 U! Ring now!

NKOTB had it a little closer to the mark with Step Two. There definitely is much we can do. However, I believe The Boys were talking about holding hands, necking and Levi-searing frottage sessions, whereas our activities have included looking for cars, inspecting cars and ... as of 3pm today buying a car.
Yessiree. I done gone and negotiated myself into a Toyota Camry station wagon. Central locking. Electrical mirrors. Red enough to deliver your mail. The first car I've ever owned that didn't need a choke. I took it for a test drive down to our Sainted Family Mechanic who pointed out oil leaks and bald tyres, then I called Dad (who has flogged the odd used car in his time).
'You don't want to come down?' I asked with the trepidation of a young warrior on his first hunt.
'You've haggled in China, it's just the same thing. But whatever you do, don't go in there and tell them that you liked the car. Tell them what's wrong with it and offer them a price less the cost of fixing it. And the rego.'
So I did. The British salesman brought me in, sat me down and I recited the faults and repair costs and need for new tyres. The good old used car salesman gave me his banter: they wouldn't cost that much to repair, their mechanic would fix that in-house, there were plenty of people interested, it's a great car, those are country miles, Toyotas are bullet-proof, a guy came to drive it this morning, Indian families love these Camrys (not sure how that was working on me), we sell 35 cars a month here and after all that - do you know what, my friends?
It was marvellous.
The used car salesman is a cultural institution. A character, a caricature, a legend and an experience all rolled into one, like cowboys and politicians. We all know what they're like, but to actually meet one in the flesh and talk to him, and have him talk to you! The marvellous things he says would come straight out of a book of clichés, were it not for the actual, factual, silk-tied, stripe-shirted being lounging there on the comfortable-for-Officeworks chairs, shuffling foxed manilla folders around and explaining proudly about how it is an Australian requirement that they sell a road-worthy vehicle. 'Lots of 'em do,' he answers when I ask about re-treaded tyres 'But not here. It's illegal to put re-treads on. We don't do that here.'
For a story-teller and a writer to hear this most beautiful brand of bullshit is quite a rare occasion. I'd rather spend a few hours negotiating for a used car than attend a poetry reading. What fan of Fargo hasn't wanted to spend more time with William H. Macy's Jerry Lundegaard?
I offered him my price.
He ummed and ahhed. He looked at me.
I looked at him.
'I'll have to ask the boss,' he said, and disappeared into a back office. Assuming he was probably doing the same thing, I picked my nose and looked outside at the sun for a few moments.
He returned and offered me just under halfway between my offer and the sale price.
I ummed and ahhed. I looked at him.
I asked about the warranty (nationwide, as it turns out) and said that I would call my Dad.
He offered me the private phone in his goldfish tank office and left me in peace.
Dad and I talked. We discussed. We opined. We picked our noses and looked outside at the weather. We took our time.
'Do you think that's okay?' asked Dad. 'It seems reasonable.'
'Yeah. I'm pretty happy with it. It's a good price.'
I said goodbye and went outside and found my modern cultural artefact directing a gormless teen in baggy pants to wipe down a bunch of cars with a sponge.
'What did your dad say?' he asked. 'I bet the old man's going to try and screw me down!'
I smiled on the inside and squinted regretfully on the outside.
I offered him a hundred dollars less.
We shook hands.

In the section on the sales contract where it calls for my details, I instructed him to put "Writer". He liked that. 'You've got it made, mate!'

I drive out on Monday the 19th.

***

GTH - I can't go past T.O.o. Sam for the points here. Along with a slew of excellent suggestions for slogans and what could be the beginning of a worldwide advertising campaign, he also got the jump on the current champion, River, by correctly identifying the painted gluteus maximi as everyone's phavourite physio first.

Sorry

Taken from the ABC report on The Apology in Adelaide:

"A critic of the formal apology is Port Lincoln mayor Peter Davis.
He says he can't see it making any difference to the real problems facing Aborigines.
"As for instance granting equal citizenship the 1967 referendum, the same euphoria from the same southern (and I'm not being disrespectful) 'do good' sectors resulted in no real physical or mental better wellbeing for Aboriginal people," he said."

This is probably the same guy who doesn't let his children have a party and cake and singing on their birthdays. What good would it do?

I got a little bit emotional this morning watching it on television. Those stories hurt. I suppose I could understand what Nelson was meaning when he had to blah on about war veterans - that an apology for past actions doesn't mean a blanket of shame over everything - but if you don't understand that by now, then a politician's speech isn't going to educate you.

I think the difficulty that Australians who are against it have with the apology is a lack of understanding of what it means to the Stolen Generations and Aborigines in general. I think that in the decade of silence since the Bringing Them Home report was first issued, John Howard has taught Australians to act their political lives on a purely personal level and encouraged the belief that everyone was entirely responsible for their own circumstances. This equated to an attitude that those in need had, in whatever small way, placed themselves there. They were to blame for their situations. He took this attitude right to the end when he took full responsibility for the Liberals' election defeat.
But his ten years of "You Look Out For Yourself" policy had the effect of telling Australians that they were never, ever wrong, as long as they never admitted it. You can have a four-wheel-drive, as long as you don't feel bad about it. You can buy anything you want (education, health, etc) as long as you earn the money to pay for it.
The Stolen Generations and their request for an apology didn't fit into that brand of "self" politics. John Howard had trained the political hearts of Australians to look no further than their own immediate influences and something as complicated as assenting to an apology on their behalf by a democratically elected government in the present made on behalf of previous governments for now-overturned well-meaning-yet-horrifically-catastrophic policies that have effected all aspects of life for a specific group of people is just too far removed from the Howard-era mindset that truly believes that since they didn't physically take the children away then there's nothing that they can offer. Regret. Sure. That must have been tough, but you were only a little kid and plenty of people have had tough lives and have really pulled their finger out in this great land of opportunity and really made something of themselves.
These people can't get it through their skulls that they are not the ones saying sorry. They are not responsible in the way that Howard has taught them they were (or could be). They are also not the ones who have lived with racism and the pain of decimated families. To paraphrase Brendan Nelson in this morning's speech: I challenge any of those detractors to visit the Aboriginal communities where the results of past Australian governmental policy are all around and truthfully say that they wish they had been born there.

Sorry doesn't fix anything on a practical level, it doesn't bring families back together. But, for the people who needed to hear it, hearing it from the government they needed to hear it from, it does make a difference. It makes it a little bit better.

But what now?

***

Update: Further quote from Pt Lincoln mayor in a new variation of ABC story: "

"I mean, to me life is a lottery whether one is Aboriginal or black or white or blue or brindle.
"As far as I'm concerned [it] makes no difference; the past is past, we've got to make our life into the future.
"And I can tell you I personally have no sorrying to do, nor have I on behalf of the Port Lincoln community." (bolding mine)

Sort of proves my point really...

Wake up, Australia

It's been a little while since I mounted a crusade on this blog. In fact, I've only ever mounted one from memory and that seems to have either been very effective, or so unimportant that it dropped from view anyway.

This one, however, is an issue I have come to feel very strongly about. As all of you will know from her blog, Nai, of Legend of a Cowgirl fame, has recently completed a month of working in the Pitjantjara Lands in Central Australia and has written two of the most confronting and evocative blogs I have ever read. They are the thoughts and emotions of a young white woman working in an indigenous community in 2007. The two posts, entitled Welcome to the Hellmouth (Parts 1 & 2) show her journey from feeling the responsibility of a gentle, comfortable, white outsider to respect and work with the community

"I like to think (and man, I hope I'm right) that I am in a different category from the reactionary right because I can see the 'how's' and the 'whys' not just the mess that needs fixing, but I could be wrong." (Part 1)

to the shock, anger and despair for the current (almost?) irreversible situation that indigenous Australian communities are in:

"Here is another basic timeline: Stone-age hunter-gatherer culture, invasion and disempowerment, dehumanisation (not citizens until 1967!), indentured and forced workers, limited education possibilities for the majority of indigenous people and then; "Here, have a multi-million dollar corporation and welfare/guilt money- but don't fuck it up". (Part 2)

If you only read one blog post about the current state of indigenous Australia, read this one. It's in two parts, and I strongly urge you to read them both:

Welcome to the Hellmouth (Part 1)
Welcome to the Hellmouth (Part 2)

If you have a blog, an email, a large-readership print publication, whatever, please try to direct your readers to this fascinating and infuriating piece.

***

GTH The points go to River for getting in first and fastest in this week of multiple blog entries! They were ginger pork dumplings from Beijing and the most delicate things I've ever eaten.