The most profound aspect of the whistle lies in its contradiction: it's impossible to whistle while you're laughing. And once the act of whistling has brought you to the point of unbridled hysteria, you must stop. Perhaps it's best to allow Rev Broomfield the final word: "Whistling can make one immeasurably happy, but in that happiness, it can never truly be enjoyed. This is the singular mystery of the marvellous whistle."
¹In 1928, a brave initiative saw the birth of the "Welsh Massed Whistling Choir". This band of swarthy whistlers had developed its craft in humourless mines and quarries. They gained notoriety with an inspired version of The Teddy Bears' Picnic, and an acappella whistling of The Wedding March. The novelty of the idea swept Britain like an outbreak of foot and mouth and within a year the whistlers arrived to a thunderous reception at the Albert Hall, and their whistling Waterloo. After a string of renditions of God Save the Queen(that had the audience on its feet), a young alto whistler fell into the ochestra stall. The choir went into a fit of hysterical laughter prompted by a comment by an elderly bass baritone along the lines of "Aldwyn's bark in der pit". The night was lost and the notion of the massed whistling choir was doomed.
²We do not like to think of the great villians of history as happy-go-lucky whistlers. Frightening images are conjured when we imagine a whistling Dahmer, McVeigh, Hitler or Pol Pot. Is it because whistling during acts of horror is so distasteful, or is it that it affords these killers a humanity that sits uncomfortably with us?
Where are the great Australian whistlers? Whistling competitions in other countries attract thousands of young hopefuls, but the profitability of the mercantile whistler is yet to be realised in the antipodes.
And, all said, a bad whistle can annoy the bejesus out of you.
Published in the Australian Magazine June 2 - 3 2001
Card-carrying members of the public, I beseech you, it's time to become a militant. Is your wallet or purse bursting at its seams with useless pieces of plastic that promise the world yet merely nibble away at your savings? Are you tired of the gimmicks, the discounts, the bargains, the advantages, the privileges, the opportunities that scream at you from every billboard hoarding but never cross the road from hyperbole to reality?
Have you "paid to belong" only to find you can't stomach the crowd? Have you discovered that although you carry the same card, you are not the same? Are you tired of standing in queues behind people who insist on paying for a pack of raisins with a frequent flyer card so they can get 1.5 m closer to the politically unstable paradise of Fiji and their "free" dream holiday? It is time to close our hearts, open our wallets, and burn every piece of credit-crap inside them?
The unhappy birth of the borrower occurs with the acquisition of that first credit card. The indignity of this moment cannot be overstated. You're treated like a maggot, often subjected to ritual abuse and a probing investigation into your personal monetary history. Your lacklustre financial existance is calibrated to a credit rating and then, with a pat on the back, you're away. Will you live up to society's expectations as a good creditor, or will you fail Australia and fall into debt?
For years you remain cautious - although, in truth, some of us only a few hours. Then comes the day, which in time comes to us all, when you're struck by the notion that somehow you're not spending your own money at all. You convince yourself that sliding an innocent piece of plastic along a harmless looking machine will never again impact on your life. And it doesn't until the second day of realisation*: when you fall behind in your payments.
You know the wrath of the corporate god is about to descend and you spend days terrified of what the mailbox might hold. When the dreaded letter arrives, though disbelieving and tear-stained eye, you find your credit rating has soared. In the developmental life cycle of the borrower, you've reached the chrysalis stage. You've transformed. Once, you were a series of uneventful numbers (the accountancy equivalent of flatlining). Now you've grown into a fully fleeceable bad creditor and a highly valued customer. You've been given your wings.
Suddenly your mailbox is overflowing with corporations eager to make your acquaintance. But they have to be clever; they know you have one card already. So as an incentive to lure you into a lifetime of financial servitude they offer you a gift voucher to spend at a major metropolitan store. $20: You beauty!
Typical scenario: There's nothing good in the store for $20. There is something okay for $65. With the voucher, that's half-price (irrational thought process and poor arithmetic to justify the bus trip to the store). With no cash, you use the spanky new card to make up the difference.
And they have you. There's no way they can lose. Daily and annual percentage rates, government costs, hidden charges, and those computer errors we all know never happen apart from the times they actually do. (A show of hands: who has ever been ripped off and that excuse was trotted out?) The way things are going, even a penny for your thoughts would end up costing you.
Every time a wallet is opened an array of credit cards tumble out, imitating expensive minerals - platinum, gold, silver. They're wearing a disguise. Beneath the veneer of paint and dye, they're just plastic, cheap plastic - the gutter tramp of the polymer world.
This is the greatest illusion high finance has ever achieved - all of us desperate to improve our standing in the community with fool's gold cards. Let us escape the debt throes of credit, brothers and sisters, and tear down our house of cards.
*There's a third day, where men with beads like meatlockers and clutching official papers appear at your door and, unsmilingly, bundle everything you thought you owned into hermetically sealed bags to sell to someone else.
Postscript.. A close friend of mine, who had been unemployed for several years, recently received an 'invitation' to join a major credit company His response was swift 'If they're handing American Express gold cards to people like me, it's seriously devaluing its worth. And how did they get my address? And what happens when all the people like me find they can't pay? And there's got to be something good in this store for 20 bucks; can you see anything? 'Cos I'm f .. ed if I can. '
Published in the Australian Magazine on May 19 - 20 2001
Thank you for the kind letters of support and praise re my unintentional brutality of George Michael (May 5 - 6). Due to the immense popularity of that previous "true tale from real life" column, I've been encouraged to relate another. This one's rarely seen the light of day, usually only making an appearance in the late hours of the evening for the amusement of republicans. The three elements of this tragic tale are:
1. The Gothic city of Edinburgh.
2. A very worthy cause.
3. A member of the royal family.
(I'm pleased to announce there was no alcohol involved in this debacle. I was able to make a complete arse of myself without any stimuli.)
Now it came to pass that on one dark, stormy night in Edinburgh, a charity benefit had been organised by a member of the Royal Family (the one with greasepaint in his veins) for some other less fortunate members of the community. I was with a musical/comedy trio, The Doug Anthony Allstars, and we were invited to perform at the charity, which was helping to raise money for underprivileged children. We were a strange call for the bill which boaster Ronnie Corbett as host, assorted grey-haired thespians from the glory days of music hall, and a chap from Brideshead Revisted who enjoyed walking around backstage in little more than a tea towel. According to the producer, we were there for "a taste of something different - a walk on the wild side..." Who'd have guessed that would happen before the show even started?
On the day of the performance, an afternoon nap produced a marvellous dream which led to me oversleeping. With little time to spare I found myself dramatically late, running frantically through a maze of twisting grey streets towards the venue. A heavy rain had started to fall and my feeble Australian clothing no match for it. By the time I charged through the stage door I was drenched to the bone and in a state of panic.
I stopped and shook the rain off me, inadvertently spraying a group of men loitering nearby. That was when it dawned on me that something was not quite right, something was definitely different. Normally the small hall was filled with a bevy of performers; tonight there were a gaggle of elderly women in evening frocks and five men, all dressed in black, with an average height of 200cm.
The men were peering down at me, this wee drowned rat, with faces devoid of expression. I noticed some of them had earpieces and there were subtle, but nonetheless strange, bulges in their suits. I assumed they were members of a Polytech theatrical society or a dance troupe from Scandinava. Before I realised, they had me surrounded. It's obvious to me now they were attempting to direct my attention to a man standing beside the wall. But my mind had one objective - to get to the dressing room. If someone had broken the silence it might have helped, but we were trapped in a mime moment.
I saw a breach in the suits and slipped through. I had almost made it to the dressing room door when a gargantuan figure rose up in front of me and blocked my escape. At this point I may have let out an expletive; in fact I'm sure I did, judging by the facial reactions of the henchmen and the delicate old crone in the elegant pale blue ballgown who fainted.
The figure beside the wall moved towards me, hand extended. I vaguely remember sneering. After all I was late, I had to get dressed, royalty was waiting. Then I heard a voice that was clear and sharp and endlessly purified: "Paul, I must say it's a pleasure to meet you."
It knew my name.
"Oh, yeah," I spat, my own tone modulated into an over-aggressive Strine. Didn't this fool know there were children in financial distress?
"And who are you? I snapped. The room froze. The dark guardians seemed to swell in stature. It was a bizarre moment where all boundaries dissolved and there was the imminent threat of immense embarrassment. And sure enough, no sooner had the words left my mouth than I realised, in a flash of clarity, who it was. I'd seen those piercing blue eyes before. I was no stranger to that balding pate. Even the fine, tapered fingers seemed uncomfortably familiar. I knew the immaculately dressed man before me was none other than His Royal Highness, Prince, er...(his name eluded me for another few moments). Edward. Edward. Edward.
"Edward," he said. "And a pleasure to meet you?" This time a question mark hung over the platitude. It was a strange moment to be recognised by a member of the royal family, and yet have no idea who it was. But I believe I saved the situation from complete disaster with a display of antipodean nonchalance: G'day," I said.
Published in the Australian Magazine May 5 - 6 2001
I seldom write about personal experiences in this column, as there are so many that could incriminate me or lead to prosecution. There are moments of brashness, bravado, youthful exuberance and viciously cruel practical jokes that, once revealed, could lead old adversaries back to my door However, of late, I find I cannot create new memories. My biological hard drive is cluttered with so many anecdotes I've little room for anything else. It's necessary to trash a few from time to time. This is one true-life saga that was just sitting around clogging my neural receptors, so it's time to share.
In Melbourne, one wintry night circa 1990, a combination of factors led to a minor infringement on a male pop diva's personal space. They were:
1. Alcohol.
2. A pair of motorcycle despatch rider boots from 1918.
3. George Michael.
This final element was crucial. Without George, this would be simply a tale of accidental cruelty; with his inclusion, it's a tale of accidental cruelty featuring a celebrity.
The effect of the alcohol we can take for granted. The motorcycle boots were another issue entirely. I'd purchased them from St Vinnie's for $15. The transaction left me in financial ruin at the time. They were the sort of boots you could wear through the mud, blood, broken bones and landmines of Flanders. The drop-forged steel in the soles was enough to keep man grounded on the moon. They were pure evil - 42 holes, three buckles, hobnailed, with metal toe caps and thickly stitched leather soles. They would slide across a parquet floor, tearing strips off it as they went.
They were too monstrous to wear out, but one night the fates and a bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin conspired to send me to a nightclub dancing. It was a ritzy affair, and both 1 and my female companion were obviously out of place. The night turned surreal when George Michael and his entourage of employees, hangers-on and lovely ladies stormed the club. The bouncers sealed off the section we were in. George grabbed the hand of a foxy momma and got up to get down.
There were just four of us busting a move in this private, protected disco. My boots were suddenly like the red shoes; I no longer controlled them. Due to their enormous weight, they'd acquired a momentum all their own - they were two tan dervishes on a mission.
Over the deafening thud of Funky Cold Medina, I heard a faintly audible "snick". It was the sound of hobnailed leather with a metal reinforced heel biting into a fleshy kneecap. Under the epilepsy- inducing disco lights I watched as the uncrowned King of Pop, in tragic slow motion, began to topple. He looked like a half-felled tree clad in state-of-the-art denim.
For a moment I thought it could go either way. George teetered on the brink, then he toppled to the floor, clutching his right knee.
As he lay there twisting in agony I wanted to say something sharp, something witty, something like, "Sorry George, guilty feet ain't got no rhythm." Instead I stared at him impassively and the only thought that ran through my head was, "Would this make me more or less popular with my music-loving contemporaries?"
I was a clumsy assassin, the dumb dancer with the death-dealing boots. My victim's mouth contorted into a silent, questioning "Why?" I had no awareness his bodyguards were bearing down on me like three well- trained, badly dressed gorillas. As the first enormous fist made its way toward my head, my eyes instinctively closed; after all, I'd no desire to watch my blood paint the patrons of the disco red. Before my head had a chance to cave in around that gargantuan paw, George waved a magnanimous, all-forgiving hand. The fist stopped in mid-air. I opened one eye and I could see regret ringed across the knuckles hovering before me. The bouncer turned away, his expression like that of a Doberman deprived of an infant to snack on.
I don't believe I did any permanent damage to the leg of Mr Michael, but I've noticed George rarely gets his groove thing out in his videos anymore. If he does he tends to lean a little to the left. In the end, the night was a great success. For a start, I'd gone out and not been beaten up (a rare state for me to find myself in), and I had felled a giant of the music industry.
I regret it was George; it should've been Celine. Her wee stick knee would've snapped like a dry old twig, and I've the strangest feeling that her bouncers wouldn't have rushed to the rescue.
Published in the Australian Magazine April 21 - 22 2001(or 2000! as the Magazine says)
My thoughts were clouded by drink. I'd been out celebrating Sophie, Countess of "how many more feet can I fit in my mouth?" Wessex's, gaffes. I was swaggering down the street with a dipsomaniacal tilt when I heard a tiny voice. It was calling my name. I looked around, but in the darkened alley with which I'd chosen to share the lining of my stomach, there was no-one.
My mind groped instantly for the most obvious explanation: a ghost; an escapee from Scream Test, an astral travelling acquaintance; or a cockroach granted the divine gift of speech at one of those ecumenical groups that take on anyone (praise him).
After my sojourn into stupidity, I found the voice was still there, louder and more insistent - it was emanating from my arse. After a moment of deep-seated confusion I recognised the voice, which was bristling with sleep deprivation.
"Turn your bloody phone off!" it said.*
I'd woken someone two time zones away (or rather, my phone had) to engage in dialogue with the lint in my back pocket. It's one of the hidden dangers of communication - the bum dial, the arse call. This kind of call has opened up a whole new world of the "accidental'. For those with unlimited funds it's a unique way of meeting people, for those with a hungry rump it's a disaster, and for the phone companies it's another unexpected financial boon.
I've discovered the mobile generally favours darkness for this nefarious activity. Phones have an overwhelming desire to communicate. They need to reach out, they want to be involved, but once they've dialled the number they have little to say. They tend to enjoy background noise and ambient sounds. It's their one moment of power and they savour it - as they rarely, if ever, hang up.
Why is it they can never make a collect call? Why do they favour recorded message services? Why do they lazily redial the last number called? And why is it that they never perform these tasks while being watched? Seated calmly on a table, they exhibit the shyness of a panda, but nestled in the warmth of a back pocket, pressed hard against the buttock, they're capable of all manner of hideous telephonic crimes. Who has never plucked a phone from a pocket and caught it in the act, with a mass of seemingly random digits arranged across its face, just waiting for you to sit on the "call" function? My arse and mobile conspired to dial a lawyer, resting and renewing at a hilltop sanctuary in Peru. How they achieved this I'll never know. The number was so complex that I couldn't dial it sober. And yet with nothing more than a shift of weight in the cramped confines of my car, I've rung a coffee seller on a market stall in Istanbul, a business partner I'd been avoiding for six months, and the upset lawyer whom I'd neglected to pay.
Sometimes there's no way of telling who your phone has been calling behind your back until the bill comes in. I fear mine has become self-aware and enjoys making long- distance calls at premium rates.#
Yet the mobile is a two-way street, a double agent, one only now realising its full potential. We often forget, while we're talking, that people are also listening. I've experienced both sides of communicating 'cheek to cheek". I've eavesdropped via a treacherous spy phone that called me while its mistress was on a hens' night bender. From the darkened pit of a handbag, surrounded by the jingle of keys and the clatter of mysterious "womanly" objects, I've heard conversations. Dim, distant conversations, barely audible and yet, so deliciously covert, I've hung on every shadowy detail. As in the movie Blow Out, I once tried to divine the secret of a 24- minute garbled sonic communiqué left on my message bank, realising on the fifth attempt that it was a rather boring train trip to Frankston.
What other horrors lie in wait for us as buttocks and phones conspire? If only Sophie had sat on her mobile and let it do the talking for her. If only her arse had called the Queen and not decided to leap into her mouth. But, then, if that had happened, we'd have nothing to celebrate.
* There's a simple - solution to this dilemma: read the manual, usually a tome of Proustian dimensions in six languages, and find the section titled 'Locking the Keypad'. a simple procedure that ensures butt-free dialling. But, then, who's anal- retentive enough to do that?
# A friend of mine is convinced her phone is possessed by the angry spirit of a Russian dancing bear. It's the only way she can explain the phone's innate ability to call the same Georgian circus regardless of where in the world it happens to be.
Published in the Australian Magazine April 7 - 8 2001
The pieces of this puzzle have only recently fallen into place. The imaginary patterns that have occupied my mind have finally been given form and meaning. They've become a solid mass. There is evidence now before us that we must examine in depth and it concerns Michael Jackson and the riddle of the Sphinx.
The Sphinx, a mythological creature from Greek and Egyptian folklore, asked a question that Oedipus alone could answer: "What is it that has one voice, walks on four legs in the morning, on two at midday and on three in the evening?" That filthy, soon-to-be-blind Nimrod correctly answered, "Man." Today, the response may be trifle more specific. It is, "Michael Jackson."
Michael has "one voice" - a voice that has unified generations of disco dancers across the globe. And, despite being a genius from an early age, Michael is known to have crawled for, at least, the first few months of life. He dances very well on two legs. Most importantly, he recently addressed a faculty at Oxford University on the maintenance and caring of children. Footage of him approaching the lectern clearly shows he was WALKING WITH A CANE. Thus, the three legs of legend.
Some cynics may suggest that, as Michael is a "man", he would therefore conform to these criteria. But this was only the first link in unravelling a mystery as old as time itself.
It's often been suggested by tacky columnists that Michael, through the skilful use of LA's finest plastic surgeons, has been trying to transform himself into Diana Ross (who was in turn trying to transform herself into a younger version of the same). What if these forecasters are mistaken? What if Michael is striving for something never tried before in human history? What if Michael Jackson is attempting to become a myth? If he is not only the answer to the riddle, but indeed the monster posing the question? What if Michal Jackson is becoming the Sphinx?
The riddle of the nose: If ever there were more evidence needed, look no further than Michael's nose. There is indisputable photographic proof that something odd is going on in and around that proboscis. For years rumours have circulated that an excessive amount of plastic surgery has diminished the cartilage, allowing the nose to collapse back into the head. People have assumed this was an accident. I believe it was always the purpose of the surgery. And why? It seems so obvious now - the Sphinx at Giza has no nose!
At first this seems an outlandish claim and yet it can be backed up if one is to further scrutinise the appearance and behaviour of the king of pop. Let us begin, then, with:
The riddle of the glove: Michael always wears a glove, occasionally two. We've been informed by major women's magazines that this is to protect his sensitive skin from the ravages of a strong breeze. Perhaps there is another reason. What if dark forces are at work beneath the gauzy cotton and diamantes?
Medical and scientific advances have made it possible to transplant limbs and genetic engineering has advanced the concept of "hybrid species". Michael has the money and the willpower to manipulate corrupt members of the scientific community.
We know that the Sphinx possessed the body of a lion and the head of a man. MICHAEL HAS A MAN'S HEAD. And it is possible that, beneath that all-concealing glove, the heavily furred paw of the king of beasts is already developing? Could this be a first stage of an experiment that will eventually see Michael Jackson become the human embodiment of this mythological creature? Stranger things have happened, although not recently.
For those sceptics out there, consider this: his lustrous hair is often referred to as "a mane". And, as with a lion, it makes him seem larger than he really is. Michael stands a compact but perfectly formed 90 cm - the same height as the male lion. He has referred to his own children as "his cubs". And two years ago, while fleeing fans in Amsterdam, he was clocked at a land speed of 45km/hour - eerily close to that of the big cat in "kill mode".
The riddle of faith: Michael often talks about god, but which god? Could the god that Michael refers to be the Canaanite god Haurun?
If so, other piece of the puzzle fall into place. The Egyptian Sphinx, built at Giza around 2613 to 2494 BC, is thought to be a combination of two deities - Haurun and the sun god Horus. To reinforce the relationship, the Sphinx faces east and the rising sun.
Michael's landmark album of the 1980s was titled East. And he appeared on the cover in a bandana featuring a RISING SUN (or was that someone else?).
Published in the Australian Magazine March 24 - 25 2001
A year ago I bought the fridge. Which is the domestic euivalent of buying the bullet - social death. But my whitegoods have betrayed me, as if they're conscious of my attmepts to conforma and want to defeat me. My fridge is driving me out of my home.
Some dweeb, some acne-encrusted, bend-eared, over-eager sales assistant with barely a week's worth of experience in the area of feeding himself tells me, through his developing baby teeth, this is the best fridge for my needs: top of the range, smart, compact and from a reliable company. He even hsakes my hand when he sells it to me. Bargain, I think to myself. I have entered the other world and survived my initial purchase.
A month later, the first of the premoulded white plastic shelves in the door cracks under the weight of a single carton of eggs and a bottle of mayonnaise. I'm thiking I should ring the company, but I don't. I want to give the fridge the benefit of the doubt. The carton of eggs and the bottle of mayonnaise have joined the assorted mustards on the second shelf.
A month passes. It seems to be sagging. The second shelf gives. The eggs, mayonnaise and mustards descend to the third and final shelf. Did they ever test the load bearing capability of these shelves? Did they test them in the weightlessness of space? Three times the weight in the same space. I know the maths is wrong.
One week later, the shelf is gone. Lying there in the broken rubble is the remainder of my pathetic condiments. My dried chilli mix (nam prik klang dong) is scattered over the floor, fusing with the mayo. I won't be able to make it to Chinatown for a week. Can you sue for inconvenience? For lost condiment trauma?
There are no shelves left in the door. The only functioning part of this side of the machine is the "softline" transparent butter cover - sitthing there proudly protecting nothing and blissfully unaware that it has failed dismally at the one thing it was meant to be good at.
It's over between me and the fridge. I'm thinking (again) that I should ring the company, but life keeps getting in the way.
I store everything in the main body of the whitegood. I know something will go wrong, but I'm not prepared for what does. It's the rubber seal. The rubber seal that runs around the door and opens with a seductive "thhpok". The rubber seal that gives the fridge its identity, that separates the fridge from a cupboard, has come away from the metal. Now the length of rippled rubber hangs limp and useless as the pizzle of an anorexic hippo. It trails on the floor.
But then why should it have any pride when the shelves just gave up?
It's little more than a closet - a wet closet. A miserable rainforest, because with no seal it rains constantly inside the fridge. A visit to the fridge has become a visit to Ireland, but with none of the local colour. Salamanders, green tree frogs and a can of Guiness are the only things that could survive in this environment. The butter has no chance. Pools of poisonous "fridge water" loitering above like damp stalactites are eddying in the Allowrie. It's enough to make you sick. Can you sue if you're poisoned?
I should contact the company, but what else can go wrong?
The constant rain shorts the light. The one transcendent grace the appliance offered was illumination in darkness. The light pour out, surround you, warm you and invite you to tuck into leftovers. With the light on, you had choice. No light - no choice. And danger lurking everywhere. Not the danger of slicing your probing hand on a razor blade in a hastily packed overnight bag, or searching for shoes and stumbling across a present from a jealous cat. No, it's the danger of sinking your finger into a rotting cucumber, or popping the single cherry tomato in the crisper like a bloodshot eyeball, or knocking the coagulated milk to the kitchen floor at four in the morning. The dangers of the darkened fridge cannot be overestimated.
There was one last insuly, one final, cruel, humiliating blow. With the rubber ring as loose as Liberace's lips after a night on the Las Vegas tiles, the fridge was easily pernetrated by pests. This summer, to my eternal shame, I've opened the useless door and flies have groggily departed after a night of feasting. There is nothing you can say to loved ones when flies depart your fridge. You wilt under their gaze, you begin to rot.
Can you claim for eternal shame?
Should I mention the name of the company? Whould that be a good thing? An act of revenge? How can I? Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Published in the Australian Magazine March 10 - 11 2001
I'm not a critic, and this is not a film critique. It is an attempt to comprehend the complexity of the religion known as Scientology through its first commercial cinema release, Battlefield Earth, in the wake of the Tom and Nicole tragedy.
A great deal has been written about Scientology of late. It's filled the pages of women's magazines and Sunday papers and has stood accused of being the "other woman" in this century's most grievous tale of magical love gone wrong. Coffee shops have become crowded with concerned parents balancing leaking, flatulent offsprings on their knees. They all ask: "What hope do any of us have at cracking eternal love if the couple of the millennium, blessed with good looks, style,
intelligence, business acumen and loads and loads of lovely folding money, can't make it work?"
Much of what has been written about the church has been based on fear and ignorance. A small cohort of hate-motivated journalists has tried to slander the church using Tom as a scapegoat. For comparison, I've watched Battlefield Earth, quite possibly the worst film ever made, to gain a greater understanding of the break-up and the religion itself.
The film is based on a book of the same name by L. Ron Hubbard (LRH), who also wrote the bible of Scientology, Dianetics. This would akin to the Apostles having a sideline writing Mercanaries of Gor, or if Mohammed turned his hand to a few tales of swords and sorcery featuring Kull the Conqueror. LRH is not only the physical and spiritual father of Scientology, he is also the supreme OT (Operating Thetan*), a philospher, the grand auditor, the greatest word clearer and....dead.
This normally restrictive state was not the final word for L. Ron. In fact, since his demise, his literary output has continued unabated. Most surprisingly he's a regular contributor to Scientology News. Proof, if any were needed, that he's an extraordinary man (although personally I find it's in the wearing of cravats that his true genius is best illustrated).
So here is my dilemma: if this film was written by the creator of Scientology and if, as Scientologists claim, through a process called clearing, they've access to 100 per cent of their brain power - how, on any planet, could you allow a film like Battlefield Earth to be made?
The church may not be discredited through documents amassed by jealous reporters, but I reckon if Battlefield Earth 2 comes out, the whole thing will go down the gurgler faster than a Thetan at the family planning clinic. Never before in the history of cinema has artistic theft been so blatant and misguided.
The opening of BE is Xena: Warrior Princess crossed with the Arthurian legend. From here the script "borrows" the idea of the "forbidden zone" (Beneath the Planet of the Apes) and the quest for enlightenment begins. Our hero/saviour sets off to find a future (last seen in Twelve Monkeys), suffers the fate of crashing through several sheets of glass (Replicant death - Blade Runner), flees through exploding columns surrounded by gunfire (The Matrix, or anything by John Woo), and comes face to face with the arch-nemesis of humanity, the Pychlos, a hybrid form of Klingons (Star Trek) with hairstyles stolen from Bootsy Collins and George Clinton during the most crazed psychotropic years of their "cosmic funk" band, Parliament (hence "Psychlos").
In its final ten minutes the film, in a spectacular display of filching, rips off the battle with the Death Star (use the force L. Ron), pays homage to the explosive-strapped sacrificial lamb of T2 and plunders the visual imagery of Raiders of the Lost Ark in a shot-for-shot closing scene.
Along the way we visit Star Wars-type bar, the jail scene from Tango and Cash (who knows why?), El Cid's horse and some of the better sets from Dr Who. If L. Ron pilfered all this for the film, it makes you wonder how much fell off the back of a truck for Dianetics.
I've heard from people in the know that our Nic saw the flick and showed Tom the door - case solved. I hope this brings some stability back to our community. If you want your love to last, don't rent Battlefield Earth. Now, more about what really happened....
*Theta is Greek for the numeral 8 and has second symbolic meaning - death. Scientologists claim the Thetan is a spirit being inhibits the foetus a few weeks before birth. (Yeah, right.) P.S. If any OTs are reading this, please do not report me as a Type 111 PTS (Potential Trouble Source) to the RTC (Religious Technology Centre). Even though I'm aware all the above is of interest to the IGN (Inspector General Network), I must inform you that I've been implanted this lifetime.
I heard the owl call my name
Published in the Australian Magazine February 24 - 25 2001
As part of my eternal yet increasingly desperate search for tranquility and harmony in lige, I've discovered packaged on CDs for the person who hates the smell, look and feel of nature. It's like wildlife in a can for the stressed city dweller. A friend suggested these albums that feature no music or voiceovers as a wat of combating my erratic behaviour. At first I was sceptical but, as the grating tones of traffic were replaced by the eerily sweet sounds of the bush, I was swept away. I lay back on the couch, closed my eyes and was transported to the Daintree.
Over the next few weeks I listened to the records continuously. During the day they kept the modern world ar bay at night I found that the marmonious, uncomposed songs of wildlife helped me sleep better. I'd drift into a trance surrounded by elegant nocturnal noises as visions flooded into my head. However, if I chanced to wake while the CD was still playing, I found myself in the middle of Apocalypse Now - sans explosions. The jungle was all around me, invasive, dense, close. In this semi-hullacinatory state I was terrified to enter the kitchen. It was alive with sooty owls and yellow-bellied gliders; brown snakes crowded for warmth in the microwave, taipans slithered underfoot through the leafy damp glades beside the fridge.
I'd been momentarily confused, but the CDs caused near psychotic reactions and irreparable damage to the creatures with which I share my home. The many pigeons roosting in the roof, obviously bored with the friendship of the filthy bin-loving ibis, were glad of the imaginary company. Their cooing became frantic as they eagerly sought a social encounter with the crescent honeyeater or the yellow-tailed cockatoo that burst into full throated stereo every few minutes. Tragically, the native birds failed to respond to their plaintive cries and over the weeks the pigeons became depressed, almost suicidal. (I noticed one hurling itself at the head of a statue protected by deadly barbs with something more than mere feacal defacement in mind.)
While the pigeons struggled with their lack of popularity, the mice had a totally different response. Their miniscule brains, barely able to cope with the complexity of a T-junction and only really useful for chemical experiments, were driven into a frenzy. They scurried about, filled with fear, as the house became engulfed by predatory beasts that had no scent and left no trail. These poor rodents, who'd never left the confines of inner-city Sydney, were unfamiliar with the array of invisible wildlife that was now competing with them for scraps. They were curious about the green-eyed tree frogs lurking in the subwoofer, cautious when the black butcherbird called to them, yet it was only when the wedge-tailed eagle began circling between the light fittings that they called it quits and fled the house.
I've since expanded my library of natural sounds and have travelled to numerous treasured environments around the world without leaving the safety of the house. I've experienced the wonder of the Maldives and the strangeness of the Galapagos. But it's not all beautiful. I was distressed by an album of destruction, screaming and wailing, entitled Natural Distaters, and I think I wasted my money on Great Deserts of the World. A word of caution: never listen to Great Oceans and Wonderful Waterfalls in a car, especially on a full bladder.
I'd found a comforting retreat in these worlds of illusion that nothing could penetrate, until one night something did: a sound emanating from the garden, rising up and forcing its way into my digitally remastered environment. At first I was annoyed at the interruption. Then I listened and heard the rich, lustrous song of cicadas interspered with the steady thrum of a cricket. I turned the stereo down and heard nature in its omniphonic glory. I didn't have to purchase a CD of sounds from tall, closed forests, dark jungles or mosquito-laden wetlands; I just had to open the back door.
For days I lingered on the patio, soaking in the ambience - until last night, when disaster struck. I was deep within the life-affirming, claming universe of natural sonic therapy when the cicadas suddenly stopped, as if someone had just pushed a button, and were replaced by Ricky Martin shaking his bon-bon. I knew of the skilful lyrebird but doubted even this gifted creature could replicate the Latin heartthrob's lyrical intensity on She Bangs.
I'd been deceived. Somewhere else in the cluster of densely packed houses, another troubled soul had sought escape. And I realised, as The Corrs cranked up yet another syrupy Irish riverdancing ballad, that neither if us had found it.
It doesn't add up
Published in the Australian Magazine February 10 - 11 2001
Curiosity lured me to this place, to this office that had never seen the light of day. I felt exposed under the hum and scrutiny of the fluorescent light while the only other occupant, a bespectacled and balding man with a complexion like wet cement, sharpened a 2H pencil to a lethal point. Huddles over a calculator, he fixed me with watery eyes and, in a voice high yet conspiratorial, began to speak: "It has long been known, by those in the know, that the departments of treasury and taxation are hotbeds of Masonic activity with emphasis on the lost art of numerology, and the mysterious nipple-slicing, apron-wearing members of this bizarre, quasi-religious ex-public schoolboy business club control the country. The GST, our ABNs and BASs are connected in a mystical labyrinth that few can navigate. There are cosmic rhyths, concealed meanings and hidden powers in the numbers that surround us every day.
"the success or failure of your small business is locked within the coded sequences of your ABN. I can predict the future of your business, its success or failure, by unravelling that code." His face creased below his nostrils in what I took to be a smile "Give it to me," he said.
A week before I had run into a friend of mine; he was euphoric, he'd seen the light - the same fluros that now flickered above me. He had been baffled by the BAS, confused by the GST and virtually destroyed by the TAX he kept paying. He, like so many of us, had enlisted the aid of an unscrupulous accountant with the moral backbone of a box jellyfish. He'd paid outlandish amounts of money to update his accounting systems yet was still losing the numbers battle.
Then, at 2:37 on a public service payday while waiting in line for four hours at an uncaring sub-branch of the bank that was about to foreclose on his business, grasping the pathetic earnings he had taken for the week, it came to him. Like an epiphany crashing through his mental stability, he realised there was divination in the numbers. And if there was order in the chaos, then perhaps, just perhaps, there was a way to untangle the mystery of this new and terrifying tax system. Perhaps the numbers themselves held the key to unlock the door to financial security. Perhaps with the right numerical combination one could not only survive the GST, one could profit from it.
Thus he found himself one sentence away from a straitjacket at the door of an oft-overlooked mystical accountant, trembling from a five-day caffeine rush, a wet patch the size of Florida in his strides and a well-thumbed copy of Foucault's Pendulum in his pocket.
He'd been told straight up his business would fail, it was in the numbers. There were too many zeros (nothingness, the person without power) a surplus of twos (conflict, ambivalence, division). A single five suggested hope (marriage between Heaven and Earth, balance, a stable centre), but the final grouping of sixes was too much (damnation, destruction, poverty, isolation). The only way out, the only way to secure future happiness was to find a new number. Something with a scattering of threes (the universal, the godhead, the trinity), nines (gestation, birth, exertion, success), and with an isolated 21 if at all possible.
He left the office feeling elated and that was how I found him. And that was how I found myself in this office, about to hear that judgement on my ABN.
That thin, high voice spoke again. "They're beautiful," he said. "The harmony of the eights juxtoposed against the chaos of the zeros. The symmetry of the twos is almost sublime, but ..." My small business would fail in the first six months of 2001 and, guess what, there was nothing I could do about it - it was all in the numbers. *
I was to realise later that everyone received the same prediction; in fact, the only small business that was booming in this time was his. Plato called numerology "the highest level of knowledge" but, thankfully, he never explained the levels of idiocy that 3000 years of human development in the field of taxation have produced.
The best advice that I can offer is do not succumb to fear - turn a profit by exploiting other people's fears. Presently I'm studying all I can about numerology because, if all else fails, at least I'll know when my number's up.
* Another unhinged business assocaite researched the day his ABN was "born". He then had a zodiac reading done for that day and discovered his ABN was a Scorpio - fiery, opininated and sexy. Its lucky numbers were 7, 32 and 113 but, unfortunately, its lucky year was 1922.
Published in the Australian Magazine January 27 - 28 2001
It was a sign, or at least it could read as a sign. A few dull days into the new year and there it was, a symobol, a portent, an omen - a message on an innocent-looking rectangle of photocopied paper. It blocked my path, lying lengthways across the threshold to my home, and I stepped over it before my eyes had taken in its content. Now, in the bleak darkness of the corridor, the words floated from the scrap with a Poe-like intensity, omnious block letters that suggested my lack of organisational skills were a mortal sin: "PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD". I can't even prepare a tossed salad, so what hope would I have with the creator of the universe? Preparation us a skill I definitely lack (though modesty permits to me to boast I'm skilled at procrastinating, which is diametrically opposed to preparation). Then there's the whole "meeting" aspect. This is another enormous emotional hurdle for a person who's barely able to meet a deadline. And what do you say to someone who knows everything? Someone who's aware of what you'll say before you've said it? Do you try appealing to the supreme being's baser emotions with a compliment? ("I like what you've done with the universe. How did you get that beautiful colour in the Crab's Head nebula?") Do you apologise for your lack of faith or do you lay blame squarely at the feet of the creator for making you too critical, too cynical? After all, if the holiest of holies gave you free choice, how upset could He be that you chose to go the wrong way?
Perhaps I could ask how that slip of paper managed to stretch itself, like a stealthy black cat, across my doorstep. And how it so effectively insinuated itself into my world. I picked up the paper knowing one day it'd come in handy, and that night 1 slept uneasily with visions of redemption and salvation oscillating in judgmental tones of grey.
Then (in what I prayed was a totally unconnected incident), I received two bibles in the mail the following morning. They arrived from separate parts of the country in brown paper envelopes with no return address and no sender's name. Just a gift from the gods.
As I tore the second package open I wondered whether someone was trying to tell me something, but couldn't for the damned life of me figure out what it was. It was unsettling, and as I sat down to write I felt totally unstable. Perhaps some well-meaning minion from the legions of the faithful had decided I was godless and in need of instruction. Let me assure those caring Christians flinging bibles willy-nilly into the postal system, I'm adamant we shout the name of God loudly and frequently at every opportunity.
After all, if the name of God were forgotten, it'd take ail the fun out of war. I'm full of praise for the oxymoronic idea of Holy Wars. When a higher order gets dragged into our petty earthly struggles, it substantiates the conflict. War is always more inspirational when the name of God is calied upon. One can hardly imagine charging into battie and certain death as an atheist. (Apart from liberating the oppressed from the oppressor, maintaining regional stability and establishing mutuaiiy beneficial economic systems, what's the paint?)
If God is forgotten, whose name will be called out in moments of ecstacy?* And whose name will you cry out when you smash your thumb to smithereens with the ciaw hammer or when you miss the 8.25, or when you discover the fish you've been eating at the vegetarian banquet with your politically correct comrades is really delicious slivers of lovely, loveiy, soft-as-a-baby's-bottom veal? But there's one positive aspect to this saga - as long as blasphemy exists, so will God.
*I'm in accordance with the Pope on this issue. If this vulgar act of physical union must occur it should do so only between consenting adults, in numbers no greater than two, with one being representative of each sex for the sole purpose of reproduction (that, of course, means to the exclusion of wild beasts).
Afterthought One: My current surplus of bibles could be due, in part, to Michael McDermott. Over the Christmas season my shameful name-sake in the States shot several co-workers in a psychotic rampage. Perhaps people confused the two of us. This can happen ifyou stay up all night waiting to be saved by Benny Hinn afteryour mind is fritzed on an overabundance of infomercials.
Afterthought Two: The slip of paper that began this journey is now neatly folded and sitting under the right front leg of my desk. Where it's precisely the right size and shape to bring some stability to my work. Praise Him.
Exhaust pipe dreaming
Published in the Australian Magazine January 13 - 14 2001
It fumed. Not as ordinary cars fume, this vehicle fumed with purpose. Amid the blaze of pre- Christmas shopping, in the smog haze of sweltering traffic, its wheezing exhaust filled the still air with fragrance. Here was a thing of rare and uncommon beauty - the car of lost cause. It rumbled at the lights, almost stalling, rusted, stained and yet proudly valiant (I had never seen a Holder more valiant).
Its owner had transformed the car into a force for good - a Don Quixote of automobiles. And I was little more than Pancho Sanchez, ascribe destined to tell of the passing of this vision of steel and rust. What made this car so extraordinary was the wide array of sentiments plastered over its rear. Here was a car wearing its heart on its bumper bar.
I feared the driver might have been blinded by his political views, only because there was a real danger he couldn't see out the back window: I am an Australian for reconciliation! Say sorry! No uranium mines in Kakadu! Vote for the Republic! And the saddest of all: Rabbitohs - we'll be back!
As I read I realised that in each of these cases, although the wars were far from over, the battles had all been lost. The forces of good had not prevailed and here was their silent, yellowing legacy.
I looked around, filled with the spirit of Christmas, but there were no "fish" stickers in sight. Just the John the Baptist of Hoonmobiles, a six- cylinder saviour, a solitary station wagon crying out in the wilderness. While other cars stood as mute accomplices to the status quo, one lone, rebellious vehicle rattled for social change. While other vehicles idled at traffic lights, here was one car that could never be idle. It spoke its message without the need for sound and it could never be silenced because it will never be heard. But for how much longer would it be tolerated before a fleet of overpaid government cars was sent out to hunt it down for its rusted skin, to dispatch it to the auto graveyard?
The noble sentiments the stickers espoused stood in stark contrast to the usual array of vulgarity found on the chrome rumps of cars: The avaricious - My other car is a Mercedes. The obvious - lf you can read this, you are too f"king close! The cruelly misogynous - Wife and dog missing.. reward for dog. The curiously bestial - I love my German Shepherd. The long-suffering spouse's rejoinder - If you think this car is a wreck you should see my failure of a husband.
The only other competition for my attention at the traffic lights was a compact runaround with a single sticker adorning its tail. At first I couldn't believe what I had read and had to look twice to confirm the disturbing vision: "I love line dancing. " There it was, as bold as brass in black and white with an enormous red heart to confirm the emotion.
I needed to see who was behind the wheel. I had to know whether the owner of the car was stupid, brave, or possessed of a perverse sense of humour. It's one thing to meet in the still of night in crowded, distant barns for this cowpokes' equivalent of Morris dancing; it's another to admit to such a bizarre practice in broad daylight. What would the children think? Would questions, difficult to answer, arrive unbidden at the dinner table?
Then the sheer genius of the sticker struck me. Surely this was the simplest form of automotive protection. No need for an expensive wheel lock or complex tracing devices. Who in their right mind would steal this car? Who would run the risk of being jeered by their homeys as they spun around the corner in a mauve line-dance-lovin' Daihatsu? And what child would want to borrow the parents' car if it meant their friends might discover the old folks' sicko passion for dancing in lines wearing cowboy boots and checked shirts with press stud buttons?
I'd lost track of time when, finally, the lights turned green. How long had we been there? How long had we been trapped in that desperate Christmas traffic jam? I've no idea, but the strange intersection that forced us together began to clear.
In a flash the Daihatsu was boot- scootin' its way toward the city and, with one last contemptuous blast from its exhaust, the car of lost causes disappeared into the future.
It left behind too many questions to answer, and a thick black cloud of carcinogenic smoke. I wondered why someone so interested in the environment and important social issues couldn't be bothered fixing his car's filthy tailpipe.
I remember reading somewhere once, probably on a bumper sticker, that "magic happens". Unfortunately, sometimes, so does shit.
The men's room
Published in the Australian Magazine December 16 - 17 2000
Our journey began simply enough: an innocent cad ride to see a movie. What harm is there in that? Little did we know that the events of that evening would change our lives forever. Arriving at the cinema, lights as big as your imagination screamed obscentities. The first flick was the tumescently titled Shaft. Blinded momentarily by the vulgarity, we stumbled straight into Guy Ritchie's Snatch. The two of us pondered whether Hollywood was courting the lucrative porno dollar by attempting to dupe cold cream-carrying members of the plastic mac bridage. Where was the Reverend Nile and the Christian Crusaders? How could they allow this to happen? As the unwashed masses poured into Snatch, Shaft stood lonely as a lighthouse with a mere trickle of patrons. I struggled against it but a feeling of dread settled on me. Did no-one think it strange that these opposing terms were side by side? We moved on to be assaulted by another curious choice: Billy Elliot, a film in which a boy from a Welsh mining community desires to become a ballet dancer, or Girlfight, where strong women want to beat the living crap out of each other in the boxing ring. Men dancing, women fighting….what's wrong with this picture? Then it happened an epiphany, a blinding flash of clarity that made me realise we had lost it, we had lost control of the world.*
The very fabric of our male-dominated society is unravelling. It began years ago with seemingly acceptable concessions like equality and the vote, but now it's happening so quickly and subtly we're barely aware of it. Take the penultimate clash on the TV show Survivor. The climax of the series was between a woman and a gay man - not a heterosexual male in sight. We're dinosaurs. We've lost the battle of the sexes. Horrifying as it sounds, there are films being made where women are the lead actors and men play nothing more than tokenistic support roles. In the new version of Charlie's Angels, the fawning popinjay Charlie possesses the girls in name only. They're their own angels - strong, defiant women who can take down a "droog" with a well-placed kick to the "yarbells".
TV ads have begun to feature lager lads with middle-age spread in domestic roles. Apparently we can now cook, clean and wash our own clothes. Only five years ago most men didn't know where the laundry was, let alone how to operate the mysterious machinery lurking there. We could lug a washing machine upstairs, but how many of us could comprehend detailed instructions like "Lift and turn dial to 3"?
Women have always been more intelligent than us and clinical tests prove they have a much higher pain threshold. An why not? They've had to put up with us complaining for centuries. As further proof, women embrace the agonising miracle of birth, often going back to pump out several new beings in the course of a lifetime. We're not even needed to propogate the species anymore. The best of us can be frozen and stored, racked and stacked like so much cold meat. Two thousand years after the fact and virgin birth is possible again without having to hire a ghost as a go-between.
Not only are weak and stupid, dear brethren, we've also been objectified. Scantily clad bot-Tramps with pumped pecs and lunchboxes as big as Texas fill the pages of classy women's magazines. How can we "mere males" be expected to live up to the physical "perfection" of these body-conscious freaks? On the whole, women are more aesthetically pleasing. They live longer. They have profound connection with all living things, whereas men have traditionally preferred to kill all living things. In short, my brothers, they're superior to us in every respect.
The goddess is not only dancing, she's also involved in corporate takeovers. Madonna is bigger than Elvis, the Spice Girls have beaten The Beatles and Hillary's political career is on the rise while Bill's limps off to be dissected. My brothers, we've been encircled and enclosed.
Some of the brotherhood believe that behind every great man there's a women - with a knife in her hand. I say be not afraid, welcome this change, allow the lovely ladies to take over the running of the planet. The patriarchy hasn't done such a great job. Let's pull up stumps, take our balls and go home. Let us concede this new century to them. We should do what men have
always done best - sit back on the couch and watch. Let us be patient, oh my brothers, for if all goes well, in about 50,000 years our time will come again.
* I must confess, dear brothers, I was unable to make these connections myself. My Earth mother/goddess/female companion had the "epiphany". I borrowed it because she has no means of public expression available to her.
Come in, whatever you are
Published in the Australian Magazine December 2 - 3 2000
The media have gone into a feeding frenzy recently over the number of shark attacks in our waters. talkback hosts are incensed, current affairs programs earnestly tell us we should defend ourselves, and the black and white editorials of the newspapers are splashed with red. the only people benefiting, for a change, are the country folks. They've had to deal with floods, droughts, bank closures and communications belligerence, but at least they can feel safe in the knowledge that there've been no great inland shark attacks, as yet. Fear has gripped this "land girt by sea" (the "girt by sea" bit being the worst place to be).
Just when we were poised to take advantage of the Olympics, those pesky sharks surfaced and took a huge chunk out of our tourist market. Who's going to want to come to our sun-drenched paradise just to watch family members being taken by white pointers? So I thought, at this moment of hysteria, it'd be appropriate to cite some examples of living in harmony with nature.
My first uninvited non-human companion was a mouse. He'd made his dream home in the electric range top. I'm not adept in the kitchen and he was quickly aware there was nothing to fear from the oven suddenly firing up. The interior of the old Modern Maid must've been a palatial apartment to the rodent. It featured a giant smoked glass window with uninterrupted views of the kitchen, four seperate living areas above a warehouse-sized space with dark enamel walls, and a charming entrance through the missing back left element. I knew, as I prepared the cold cuts and he stole them, that we were living together.
My companion eventually became so bold he'd stroll across the wooden floorboards, grab a couple of cotton balls for pillows, and settle down with me to watch TV. I felt, as an inter-species "odd couple", we might make it through to late middle age without even the ripple of an argument. However, it was not to be. I went away on a trip and left the house in care of some friends with cooking skills. I choose to believe that my TV buddy packed his bags anf left, his tiny mouse brain unable to cope with my Macarthurist intentions. The other option is just too horrible to contemplate.
After this tragedy I lived alone for a while. That is, until they came. I've always hated pigeons. They spread disease. They're little more than rats with wings - murky grey monstrosities that feed off the waste of society. But when you live with them, you get to see a different side. For fours years now a family of pigeons has made its home in my loungeroom air vent. It's a great location - north facing with versatility and character, second-story rear lane access and close to overflowing bins. Each year they prepare their nest, and there's nothing so gosh-darn cute as watching twigs falling from halfway up your loungeroom wall. I've been there for the romance, the difficulties and the disappointments. I've listened to their gentle and fevered cooing and recently heard the sweet, wheezy high squawks of new and uncertain life.
As spring rolls into summer, they parade their fledgling charges with puffed-up pride on the window ledge beside my desk. I'm as familiar to them as Jane Goodall is to a Gombi chimp. There's no doubt in my mind that I share my house with a loving family of birds. Now, if I could just hit them for some rent, there'd be no tension at all.
When you become aware you're living closely with groovy inner-city creatures, you begin to see their residences everywhere. And occasionally, their mistakes - a sparrow's nest in a cement mixer or a "bluey" curling up for a nap in the Weber. Because, just like us, there are not only happy homemakers, there are some stupid ones as well. But what catches a pigeon's darting domestic eye? Why do some prefer broad, tree-lined streets in ritzy suburbs and others the greas exhaust outlet at the rubber factory? Are they content to find any accomodation or do they go house hunting? What does a redback like in a pile of bricks? In the past we've constructed houses and offices to protect us from the elements and distance us from nature. Today, our buildings are more sympathetic to the environment. So would it be possible to incorporate architectural havens to a number of families? Homes where teenagers are not the only animals that come and go as they please?
There's a world of wonder out there - perhaps we could invite it in. And, sometime in the future, when the sharks frolic happily in the above ground, we might find some mutual respect.
Help me, readers
Published in the Australian Magazine November 18 - 19 2000
I am in the grip of fever. The hellish arms of influenza embrace me every night and when morning comes I find myself fatigued and overwrought. The only strangely positive aspect of this torture are the dreams that have come flooding into my mind. My most recent journey into this abstract world of wonder has left me confused and I'm turning to you, dear reader, to aid me in my quest to understand it. If anyone would care to delve beneath the surface of my life and dredge up the truth, then this is an open invitation.
I concede that the initial imagery of the house is a boon for Jungians. However, if you have a Freudian interpretation I would be equally happy to hear it. I don't care if your analysis is one of perverted guess- work, a gift from the gods, a genetic predisposition or the product of too many years of crystal-gazing during government- sponsored classes at the local high school learning about the tarot. runes, numerology and dream interpretation. And it doesn't bother me if you're our much-maligned Prime Minister or enclosed in the deepest, darkest pit of our illustrious judicial system: can someone please tell me what this means?
I find myself in a large house. I'm aware that the house has many rooms. And although I'm seated on a sofa in the lounge, I have an intimate knowledge of the outside of the house and its surroundings.
It's a two-storey wooden building, large, rambling, inviting and set well back on the block. There don't seem to be any other properties around it. The garden is lush with Australian natives and deciduous trees, but it's overgrown and unkempt. From my position on the couch I know the season is spring but there are collections of leaves in the driveway, suggesting autumn.
The inside of the house is painted in calming earth tones, soft creams with borders of white. The paint in many areas is peeling, cracking off the walls. This does not make the house decrepit; rather, it gives it a comfortable, lived-in look.
On the couch is a close female friend of mine. And she's sitting uncomfortably close to a tall, good- looking stranger (he's a stranger to me, but it appears they are well acquainted). There are many others moving through the house. The lounge, it seems, is a meeting place for all sorts of strange people and projects.
In one corner, the members of an aspiring theatre troupe are running through their lines. I notice in their number another friend I have not seen for years. He turns to me and smiles. I walk over, my hand extended to shake his, but as
I approach he lifts his arms to show me he has lost both his hands.
I am shocked by the stumps but admire the way the long sleeves of his shirt have been neatly stitched over the top so that no gnarled flesh is exposed. I ask him, "How on Earth did this happen?" He looks me square in the eye and says softly, but with conviction, "oh, you know."
After this exchange I flee the lounge and find myself wandering through many sparsely furnished rooms. I open the door to a bathroom and find a beautiful tiled floor, a deep old bath, a shower with an enormous shower head, two friends of mine, Flacco and The Sandman, and, curiously enough, a pool table. They're attempting a difficult shot and keep hitting the cue on the rim of the bathtub. They decide to move the table. As they do so, they smash the ceramic base off the toilet. Water begins to gush out of the hole in the floor, flooding the bathroom. I'm shocked by this development but Flace and Sandy seem unperturbed. I leave them trying to complete that difficult shot as the room fills with water.
I enter another room. The first thing my eyes alight on is a large, curved sculpture. It stands about waist high, is three metres long and looks like a headless eel. The surface texture is seductive: highly reflective silver with tiny painted scales.
Facing the main body of the room I discover three highly motivated, yet dedicatedly nude, people. They're not embarrassed by their nudity, but I feel a little embarrassed for them. Each of them is holding what appears to be a stick dipped in silver paint, about 30cm in length.
On closer inspection I find they are mackerels. They're holding them across their stomachs.
A woman in her forties with a warm face smiles at me. "We're getting ready for the show," she announces and thwacks herself with the mackerel. Every time she strikes herself with the paint-soaked fish it leaves an impression on her body - the same brilliant silver and delicate scales I have seen on the headless eel.
I return to the lounge but everyone has gone. In the distance, a dog barks. I wake.
Gum Control
Published in the Australian Magazine November 4 - 5 2000
Why can't they just swallow? Why must they leave their discarded chewing gum, like obscene gifts, for others to find - sticky, masticated messes from someone else's mouth clinging to the underside of tables or the backs of chairs with all the brain-dead tenacity of a mussel?
Their favourite hiding places are public transport and food halls, where the gum can nimbly transfer itself from stainless steel to silk, from Formica to the back of your hand. I try not to think about it too long. The idea that any part of my flesh has come in contact with the gooey cud of another is so repulsive, it's enough to send me into an emotional tailspin. How long has it been there? Whose mouth did it come from? What was their oral hygiene like? Do I know them? How much more gum is out there waiting, undiscovered?*
It's not only the individual who suffers the indignity of these vulgar finds. As a society we pay the price, our piebald streets strewn with the darkening gum-baccy of the lazy. Our pavements are dotted with spots, and millions of dollars are spent every year in an attempt to rid them from our proud concrete structures.
In other countries where civic pride borders on fascism, it's illegal to possess chewing gum, much less chew it. These countries, often developing nations, have seen how this blight can ruin the smooth architectural lines of a city, especially one made exclusively of cement.#
Now, at last, something is being done. In the cummunal heart of our nation's capital, Canberra, there's an inventive and radical concept to battle these "melanomas of the pavement'. Nestled in the left ventricle of Garema Place is a white panel, no bigger than a door, emblazoned on which in fine print are the words, "disposable chewing board".
The idea is simple - instead of throwing your chewing gum onto the street or tossing it in a bin, you whack it on the board. What surprises me is that people are actually using the board. Its surface is clustered with colours, from drab greys to luminous blues. Fresh deposits glisten in the bright Canberra sunshine while older ones have dried rock hard. It has the appearance of a miniature climbing wall, or a fun park for insects.
The popularity of the board is said to rival that of the Captain Cook Jet Memorial Fountain. There's a rumour (and, I admit, not one that I invest a lot of faith in) that this marvel of inner-city cleanliness is so popular that people travel for miles to deposit their mouth-waste there. They come from Belconnen and Woden, they journey in micro-buses from Tharwa, eager just to say, "I've touched it". Family outings and school groups have given a new vitality to Garema Place as people stare in disbelief at the amazing diversity of sticky mouth candy.
Meanwhile, the kindly folk of Queanbeyan, many of whom love a good gum, remain quietly jealous of the clever capital they dwell beside. The area has become a Mecca for the devotees of Juicy Fruit, PK and sugar-free Extra. Conveniently, toilets are located nearby for the overexcited who consume too much of the latter, which can have a "laxative effect" when taken in great quantities, although this is a risk it appears many are prepared to take.
But late at night, when the rest of the town sleeps, who'll be watching the board? What will prevent feral packs of ravers attacking the hoarding in search of free, tasty snacks to cushion the pain of their manically grinding jaws?
* Rarely, if ever, allow chewing gum to pass through my body. I have an inherent fear that in years to come, when some ailment forces a surgeon to open me up, they'll find a stick of bright pink 'Big Charlie' stuck to the underside of my small intestine.
# In countries where there's a chewy crackdown, a lucrative black market has sprung up. The high cost and dwindling supplies of Western gum have meant gum fanatics take terrible risks with inferior brands developed in the sweatshops of South-East Asia.
An afterthought: With this valiant system in place, I believe the time has come to combat other social ills - like spitting. I've noticed, of late, a rise in the number of public spitters. People are hoiking up all over the place. I suggest creating a spitting pit somewhere near Parliament House where people of all races, ages, creeds and colours could come and spit together. Where men and women with flooded lungs could romantically heave an oyster or two against the backdrop of that magnificent edifice. Canberra already has one man-made lake - why not create another that is truly man-made?
The future is another planet
Published in the Australian Magazine October 21 - 22 2000
It was unlike anything I had seen before. It wasn't merely a functional domestic tool - this was a state-of-the-art, design-conscience killing machine. I fell to my knees on the dirty floor to praise it. It was nothing more than a vacuum cleaner, but it was the vacuum cleaner Mrs Robinson would have used on Jupiter 2 (if they'd had any carpet.) * the designers had borrowed extensively from nature to create a vehicle dedicated to universal cleanliness and harmony.
They had found the best the natural world had to offer and stolen it. From its body, an egg of curled plastic, to its retractable power cord, it was the culmination of our search for cleaning perfection. The swan's body, on which I believe the vacuum design was based, had developed over millions of years of evolution to gain access to the tasty morsels lurking beneath the pond's surface. The cleaner replicated the smooth, flowing line of the grateful creature's neck to gain easy access to the ninth circle of filth hidden deep beneath the lounge, an area no vacuum had been before. Its wide head, clustered with bright, yet gently abrasive surfaces, was reminiscent of the gaping mouth of the sperm whale. It boasted that it was a "friend to pets", loving nothing more than to ingest their stray hairs. And its efficient wheels, although not found on beasts in the wild, would be the envy of any professional skateboarder.
To me it was a thing of beauty hidden in the linen closet of suburbia. To the dust mites sheltering in the shag, it was a weapon of mass destruction: a stealth vacuum, a Philippe Starck spacecraft effortlessly rolling over the microscopic alien landscape they inhabited deep in the twisted '70s Berber. At the touch of a button, its engine hummed confidently into life and ripped them from their squalor. As they descended the transparent chamber to their final resting place, I could hear the tiny scraping of their germ-laden limbs.The vibrations rattling off their doomed antennae seemed to cry out, "This sucks. It really sucks."
Sadly, as with most modern advance, there was a casualty - the trusty old Hoover. It peered at me forlornly, like a mechanical Fred Basset, rolling off on crumbling Bakelite wheels to die alone in the corner. It had accepted its fate, beaten by a vacuum cleaner from beyond the stars.
The future is here. The future is now. It's all around us. The magnificent visions hatched by fanciful science fiction magazines and preposterous cartoons have come to pass. We live in the world of the Jetsons: wristwatches that play our favourite songs in three dimensions, pens that record our thoughts, computers that tell us where we made mistakes, and toys for children that grow as they grow, learn as they learn. We live in a world where we can create fives to save lives, where Star Trek-style automatic doors open with a "snnick", removing the embarrassment of outmoded gentlemanly behaviour.
If any further proof were needed, then the Olympics confirmed we no longer live in the present. We're ahead of ourselves, living beyond our expectations. Superhuman athletes routinely broke world records and charmed the cameras with the skill of seasoned performers. They stood confidently in futuristic arenas with the hopes of nations pinned to their chests and came through with flying colours. They glowed in body-hugging suits that put the X-Men to shame, flying over the track and through our television sets in shoes threaded with gold or glittering with chrome.#
Now that the joy has dissipated and the crowds have dispersed, we're left with the chaos of the last few months. Our streets are filled with tickertape and confetti from the passing parade and our garbage bins overflow with happy memories. This brave new world has to be cleaned up - and my mother has the vacuum cleaner to do it.
'Although lost In Space was a progressive and insightful program, gender roles got.5tuck in regressive '50.5 mode. The one exception was the robot which, although quasi- masculine in its on-screen persona, was as comfortable defending Will from the unwelcome attentions of Dr Smith as it was wearing an apron and having a good dust.
# I'm primarily referring to competitors from the US. Many poorer nations attending the sublime Festival of the Physical wore outfits that little athletics threw out in 1982. As their garments fluttered loosely about their bodies, I realised that although spirit and determination can create winners, abelluvalottamoney doesn't hurt. In the long run, and numerous other events, the Games served to maintain the current world order - its not whether you win or lose, its how clearly you can see the sponsor's name.
The wide brown land and me
Published in the Australian Magazine September 30 - October 1 2000
A great divide has always existed in this land between those who make the country their home and those who dwell in the city. It's a barrier created by nothing more than misunderstanding, ignorance and suspicion, but it's as real as any physical barrier. In order to better understand our country brethren, I and a couple of friends decided to take a two-day extensive fact- finding mission to our rural heart. This is what we learnt:
I. Country people are obsessed with water - particularly rainwater.
The amazing thing is, you don't have to travel very far from the city to find this out. As soon as you see a bit of dry grass, people seem to be more interested in the weather.
The problem is that it can be taken to the extreme. The people we met were almost fanatical about rain, going so far as to suggest that if it didn't come soon something terrible would happen. I took this to be a reference to some kind of pagan orgy and virgin sacrifice to the Wheat God, but my companions disagreed. As the country folk prattled on I thought of my uncle Arturo, who would use any excuse to talk about the weather. Sadly, being holiday makers, our only natural enemy was rain. Any hint of cloud could bring about an instant depression and an over-reliance on card games. And although we looked earnestly empathic, we crossed our fingers behind our backs when we said, "Yeah, we really hope it rains, too."
2. Never mention the 'wonderful burnt aroma of the bush ".
As we journeyed deeper into "the country", we were impressed by the purity of the air. At one stage, we even dared to wind down the windows and experience some of this wonder first-hand. It was crisp and sharp with the unmistakable tang of something. Something I couldn't quite put my finger on. It was as if someone had thought to perfume the air with charcoal. As we raced along, the aromatic scent filled our nostrils with its "campfire charm" and made us dizzy with excitement. We were informed later that the reason for the smell is that during certain months of the year the whole place is on fire. This places property, businesses, even people in danger and is also the reason, we were told, why rain is so highly valued.
3. Never assume that country folk don't want to make gratuitously violent American--style splatter movies in their own backyards.
Our next stop was a Sunday market. It turned out to be a small communal affair with New Age stalls sitting neatly beside more traditional wares. The market was organised around a beautiful but derelict old building, flowers were in full bloom and children pranced happily in the sunshine. In a delirium of rural bliss we picked up some jams, a few records, a book on palmistry and the vague feeling that all was not right in this sleepy little hollow. Beneath the surface of rainbow colours and organic goodness we overheard dark, conspiratorial murmurings. A group of locals, dressed in natural fibres and eating vegetarian fare, were talking about making a big- budget film using the idyllic setting. We looked around and saw gentle folk doing gentle things: laughing together, crying together, sharing their lives and produce. It was a place of such serenity the only film we thought you could make was Little House on the Prairie 2000 (The Angels Get a Massey). But the good folk of the country surprised us when they pictured a Reservoir Dogs-style bloodbath in the old building - walls coated with arterial sprays and corpses littered along the wide, sunny verandah.
4. Never assume that anything is the same as it is in the big city.
I saw a queue at the market (which surprised me in itself) and joined four other people whom I believed were desperate for the toilet. It took me a while to realise we were all waiting in line for a psychic reading. What shocked me was the look of surprise on the face of the psychic when she opened the door and saw people waiting there - you'd have thought she'd have known.
We left the country and returned to the grey grid of the city. Why, we wondered, would anyone want to leave such a pristine place? There wasn't a cloud in the sky, the sun was a brilliant fiery shade of red and the air was fragrant with smoke. With heavy hearts we passed through lush valleys and over beautiful rolling hills strangely dotted with "for sale" signs.
The signs made us aware that we often undervalue the country. We undervalue the strength and courage of the country people but we especially undervalue the land. This notion was made infinitely clear when one of my fellow companions said, "Hey, that house is cheaper than my last Balinese holiday."
The curse of the killer birthday
Published in the Australian Magazine September 16 - 17 2000
Each of us has one. Sometimes we're ashamed of them and hide them from view. At other times we take them out in public and celebrate them in the most painfully exposed manner. Some we choose to forget and some we can't even attempt to remember. They can hang precarously on a word, be lost in a veil of immutable sadness, or be redeemed in an instant.
Our birthdays are usually cause for celebration but some members of the community they're a yearly curse. Their approach is enough to cause panic, dramatic changes of character, upheaval and tragedy.
I became aware of the hidden dangers of birthdays when I met a man born on November 22, I973 - ten years to the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. His paranoia took seed when he discovered there was no way he could seperate his birthday from that terrible event. Every year, as he opened his presents, the Zapruder footage would be shown on TV. By the age of ten he found himself subconsciously tearing wrapping paper "back and to the left". When he cut his birthday cake he saw grizzlt subconscious images of "exposed cranial material". He lived with the persistent feeling of being less interesting to his own family than a dead American president.
After his harrowing account I asked a number of people if their birthdays coincided with horrific events. I was surprised to find a great many who claimed their birthdays were marred for life by natural disasters, man-made tragedies or bizarre quirks of fate.
Like in I997, when disaster struck a girl, born on August 3I, who was looking forward to celebrating a happy 25th birthday. It was on that day that an unbuckled Diana careened off a tunnel wall in Paris. It was on that day that our hearts stopped dead in their tracks and a young girl's birthday stopped being a joy. How could she ever truly celebrate "her birthday" again, knowing it was the same day the "princess of hearts" departed this realm? No-one wants to have to share their birthday with anybody else, especially when it is someone the world truly loved.
Could this, in an extreme case, cause a vehement hatred of the princess? Could it produce irrational and paranoid responses to hearing her name. For a sensitive person, could it ruin their lives? Heaven help the child born on the same day that that black Mercedes bit the bitumen in Paris. If you were born on that day you'd have to be inhuman not to feel, in some way, directly responsible.
Without doubt, the worst day to enter the world, in terms of the Western calendar, is December 25 (although I'm sure all other major religions have days of significance that stymie the enjoyment of socially condoned and encouraged selfishness).
I have met several embittered individuals who share the date of their birth with the Christian God-made-man. It's been my experience that these individuals have a countenance and physiognomy dictated by this unfortunate coincidence. More often than not their eyes sit uncomfortably close together, their brows are bovine and their thin, colourless lips are permanently pursed. I'm sure it was never the Son of Man's intention but it has left a legacy of broken and embittered people. They're usually hunched over, as if beaten low by life, as if it's an enormous struggle for them to continue their contempt for humanity. And who could blame them? Could you contain your jealousy? Even the most lavish birthday party, with as many firends as you could muster, could not compare to the celebrations for His birth all over the planet. It must signifcantly diminish your "special moment" when everyone around you is aimlessly giving generously, and loving each other indiscriminately. How could you not fall into fits of madness and develop massianic tendencies?
the hidden dangers of birthdays can be devasting, but it isn't all bleak. Occassionally people share their birthdays with a moment in time that continually showers them with joy: Nelson Mandela's release from jail, the birth of Mozart, the opening of the first chain store, Crick and Watson's discovery of the double helix, oral contraceptives, the first moon landing. I'm fortunate enough to know someone born on the day Jimi Hendrix set fire to his guitar at Woodstock. Each year, the media is filled with stories of happier days, of nude hippies rolling in mud, of pipe dreams of peace, of one world united by the music of Donovan. And whenever she has a birthday, you can't help but smile.
Space for rent
Published in the Australian Magazine September 2 - 3 2000
There is no final frontier. NASA astronauts have joined Russian cosmonauts to create the first group house in space: an orbiting fixture in the sky, clearly visible from Earth. On completion, this noble venture is expected to be the size of a small skyscraper and home to a number of scientists from a variety of countries. The station is set to become a symbol of international cooperation - our first faltering step as we U-Haul to the stars. But sadly this brave project may be overshadowed by the legacy of what is left behind. As these heroic pioneers work for the greater glory of humanity they may, unwittingly, be laying the foundations for the first suburb in space. And suburbs are like cockroaches - they're rarely, if ever, found alone.
So it's another small step for mankind, but one giant leap for gutter-crawling, garbage-mouthed real estate agents everywhere. If creating deceptive buy-lines to sell a derelict apartment on Earth can be fun, imagine the opportunities space .presents for the inventive property writer (one with the imagination of Borges and the perversity of Bukowski). In space, the "opportunity of a lifetime in need of TIC on sunny Beach Road*, situated a stone's throw from the thriving 'soma' district, close to transport, suit FHB" would translate to an unsewered, unconverted second-stage booster rocket with zero gravity and no atmosphere.
While a sensible, down-to-earth person with something approximating a soul might view "marketing the void" as an ideological dilemma of immense proportions, most real estate agents would see it as the culmination of their ..craft" - the selling of endless amounts of emptiness. "The view might hurt your eyes but you can't get any closer to the Sun. And with this north-facing unit you'll get a lovely glimpse of Earth - for two days every January.
With all the trouble in the world, wouldn't it be better to just get out? Weird weather, greenhouse gases, global warming and those annoying protesters whingeing about human rights issues is getting to be too much for anyone. Why bother fighting it when, from the comfort of space, you could watch in temperature-controlled luxury as our little blue and white planet turns a mouldy shade of brown? Eventually the whole sky will be filled with condominiums surrounding a deserted ball of mud. By that stage the old rental property will appear very small. We'll be constantly looking over our shoulders saying, "How on Earth did we live there? No wonder we were always at war - there's no room. look at those pathetic oceans. Look at those tectonic plates - they're minuscule. Europe, what a joke, why fight over that when it's no bigger than my thumb?" It's highly unlikely that we'd miss any aspect of our Earthbound existence; after all, who needs that "old reality" when you've got great reception for satellite TV?
The wealthy, as always, will be the first to head into orbit (several billionaires have already attempted to buy a berth on the station). They'll leave us poor dirt-eaters behind, envious, as they nibble on the edge of the cosmos. But there'll come a day when the stratosphere becomes overcrowded and, assuming nothing else does, land prices will start failing in space. By then, flights to the newer satellite suburbs should be as regular and safe as an old Greyhound coach on a winding coast road. Zero-gravity retirement villages will become all the rage. Recently evacuated, unrenovated space junk will be in every young homebuyer's price range and really, who wouldn't like to live a little closer to heaven? Tragically, with the influx of the poor and those annoying protesters, the sanctity and perhaps even the silence of space will be shattered. If the descendants of the pioneers ever develop away of graffitiing the outside of their orbiting homes, then high-density-upper-atmosphere living will go to hell in a handbasket. On a positive note, the meek may finally inherit the Earth because everyone else has left it.
With space becoming a slum, the wealthy will want to leave and they'll be eyeing up that largely forgotten ball of mud. Thus, having made their fortunes selling the carefully legislated boundaries of acceptable saleable space, the real estate agents, property developers and the rich will return to Earth, leaving the hapless rabble circling the planet. And the cycle of life can begin again - at a price.
*If you're already thinking of the future and want to pick up a cute-as- a-boot space capsule for your nuclear family, then the only advice I can offer about buying in the sky is to never buy a property on Beach Road. Few things in life are certain but this is:
any road called Reach Road will be as far away from the beach as possible. (And when you're in the stratosphere that's a long, long, way from shore.)
The pall of mirrors
Published in the Australian Magazine August I9 - 20 2000
The mirror looks innocent enough but its judgment is harsh. It's one of those professional jobbies mounted on an extendable arm with a magnifying mirror on the flipside that blows up the head to massive proportions. I've seen beautiful faces in those mirrors but under such scrutiny skin of flawless alabaster resembles the surface of a pitted asteroid. it's worse still with the head staring back at me: crow's feet, sagging jaw, bloat, red, dry skin, pustules all captured with microscopic precision. I can see the arteries of my eyes, like little road maps to hell.
Our relationship with the mirror begins at an early age. It may not be the first relationship of our lives but it's one of the most important because that face stays with you through time. Family, friends and lovers will come and go but as long as you've a head on your shoulders, that face will be there. It's the face you understand more than any other, the one that greets you every day although, some mornings, you may choose not to recognise the creature staring back. Even if you avoid the mirror, it's reflected at you from the hoods of cars, shopfront windows and chrome fittings. No other face will ever draw the same level of recognition in your life. And when you look deeply into the eyes of that face, you discover a truly kindred spirit. Here area set of eyes that understand every nuance of your joy Eyes that know all your dark secrets and half-truths and yet they empathise. Eyes that can forgive even the most heinous crime and they wait for you on the other side of the mirror.
I'm still stuck there trying to uncover some hidden message in the Braille-like blemishes clustered around my temple when I notice I have age spots on the side of my head. In some parts of my skull my skin has become transparent and I'm sure I can see my weedy veins wearily transporting blood. There's an army of whiskers pushing through a dry ruddy cheek, and more deep lines than Paradise Lost. I've conjured an image of the future and it's staring back at me with certainty in its eye.
Thankfully, I'm distracted by the follicles of my eyelashes. They've become gigantic towering plant forms in an alien landscape. Do we attribute magical properties to mirrors because it's through them we're better able to see ourselves? Or are we just like budgerigars, flying into them head-first, in a vain attempt to escape the world in which we're trapped?
I'm pondering this when I realise there is a solution to the terror of time that is more beneficial, immediate and effective than a $400 jar of skin cream - myopia and mist.
If you're lucky enough to have the gift of shortsightedness, then simply combine it with a standard bathroom fog and you can knock decades off.
A foot from the mirror and you'll still look about the same age, but each step back takes off about a year - escalating over distance. A large step may take you back several years in one go. With the right balance, you can take on the appearance of a 16- year-old Audrey Hepburn - the quintessence of beauty.
This exercise is, of course, only for your head - god knows what type of mirror you'd need to help your body. No amount of mist is going to slim down those love- handles (but, if you're determined, you could always use the edge of the door and the door frame as a "cropping" device).
A red welt on my chin has now caught my attention and I realise scratches are taking longer to heal, hay fever has stopped being funny and it's an eon since I picked a scab off my elbow. (I was a clumsy child. I ran by -sense of feel. I always knew where the ground was because it stopped me failing through the earth. The cost of this knowledge was having elbows and knees that were permanently scabbed. I spent the first half of my life fused to jumpers, the prickly wool of the school knit and my tree-sap-like blood meshing to make the removal of clothing difficult. Now, it's only in the deepest-black- olive-pip-pupil of my eye that I can see any trace of the child.)
If you fail into this sort of narcissistic self-examination, there's no escape. I had been flung forward and back in time and never left where I was standing. So after scrutinising the craters and crevices and creases and cracks of my scone, in magnificent if unsettling close-up, I took four steps away from the mirror. Soon I was little more than a blur in my mid-twenties. The effects of age can always be defeated with self-deception. The mind is a wonderful thing to waste.
*In my case, unfortunately, I took on the appearance of a teenaged Charles Laughton.