Marbles and Jazz

My birth mother is in Melbourne.

I'm in a very complex place when we meet. It's not bad, just strange. A room full of assorted lifetime bric-a-brac. Birthday photos that were never taken at birthday parties never held. Wardrobes and chests full of other lives that weren't. A sense that we are both still trying to find a sure footing, as if the floor is covered in marbles.

Down the far end of the room, it gets darker. There's an open door, beyond it's black. I don't know what's out there, whether it's bad, whether it even leads anywhere. Perhaps it's a black wall. Perhaps it's a vast unending purgatory full of screaming voices and unresolvable illogic that would throw my switch and leave me gibbering in a padded cell somewhere.

I'm not strong enough to peer through yet. Still balancing, arms out wide.

Tonight I'll take her to see jazz.

No good News Orleans

Tell me 10,000 dead is just one of those press overshots. It defies belief. Katrina's wrath is going to out-slaughter September 11.

And Guardian's Gary Younge reminds us that looters ain't looters: Iraqis who stole after the fall of Saddam were just swept up in the excitement of freedom, according to Rumsfeld.

Nic White's joined the Right to say we shouldn't be using this as an excuse to go after Bush before the waters clear. Maybe he's correct:

"These troops are battle-tested. They have M-16s and are locked and loaded," said the Democrat governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco. "These troops know how to shoot and kill, and I expect they will."

Le Blanco shoots le negres, that's something for the party of JFK to ponder.

Barista has collated a striking collection of photos from the disaster zone.

Hot bump 'n' grind on the sly

No, this isn't where I turn Nikki Gemmel. As of yesterday, beloved visits this site (and I'm still engaged, and still alive!). Just a hypothetical from a raging discussion held over a fine plate of Coopers-beer-battered Whiting and chips in a pub at the cusp of an Adelaide Hill.

"Which is the greater betrayal? "

A theory goes, and it is only a (biological determinist) theory...

Men, if they fool around, are driven to share their genes as widely as possible. In the tribal groups and pre-agrarian societies where these instincts were being honed there was no DNA testing or child support, so man's investment in the consequences of his actions was limited. Sex with a woman other than his partner had few risks. While he might choose the more attractive woman if facing a choice, he is not too discriminating. He can copulate with multiple women of varying degrees of attractiveness, and each act potentially furthers his genes. The instinctive residue of this is men today being, relative to women, indiscriminate and up for it.

Women, if they fool around, are driven to get the best genes possible. Until the incredibly liberating advent of the pill and control over their own bodies, a woman could get pregnant during any romp. Her fun could be heavy with long-term consequences. With no obstetricians birth itself is a mortal risk. So while women enjoy sex just as much, perhaps more, than men, they are highly discriminating. This carries into the present, where modern women who have no 'moral' problem with cutting loose and enjoying casual sex, and who are on the pill and have a bag full of condoms, still go about selecting partners in a much more cautious manner than males.

OK, it's generalisation, there are exceptions. And it's theory strongly opposed by the blank-slate school.

But a question flowing from this got a few of us arguing vehemently, and the split was precise along gender lines: if betrayed by your partner (obviously not good to begin with),

would it be worse that they did it with someone they don't find any more appealing than yourself, in a random act of opportunism, or if they did it with someone better looking or smarter or more successful than yourself because of the fact that the person is better looking or smarter or more successful than yourself?

Females felt that if you were betrayed because your partner couldn't resist a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be with a Johnny Depp, Gael Garcia or equivalent like Jolie or Longoria, that would be much easier to take than if it was with someone friendly you met in a bar one time. Men disagreed.

Thoughts? Experiences to share?

The man who would be king

Taking a moment out from his war on women:

Hours after John Brogden tried to take his own life, Tony Abbott said a particular health proposal "would be as dead as Mr Brogden's political prospects".

Animal Day

This is beyond belief:

Storm victims were raped and beaten, fights and fires broke out, corpses lay out in the open, and rescue helicopters and law enforcement officers were shot at as hurricane-flooded New Orleans descended into anarchy...Tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon...looting, carjackings and gunfire...rescuers themselves came under attack...the ambulance service in charge of taking the sick and injured from the Superdome suspended flights after a shot was reported fired at a military helicopter.

Would we do this? Is it Lord of the Flies in action; human nature tearing away civilisation? Or is this what happens if your society is based so absolutely on power, guns and privilege?

The world's police have woefully dropped the ball as tens of thousands starve and rot in one of their greatest cities:

Outside the Convention Center, the sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement...

Terry Ebbert, head of the city's emergency operations, warned that the slow evacuation at the Superdome had become an "incredibly explosive situation," and he bitterly complained that FEMA was not offering enough help. "This is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace," he said. "FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control."

Dubya's helping though, with posturing and rhetoric:

President George Bush will tour the devastated Gulf Coast region tomorrow...

"I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this - whether it be looting, or price gouging at the gasoline pump, or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud," Bush said.

Oh good, just so we're clear on what evil is; raping and robbery and, um making false claims against Bush's insurance buddies.

C'mon Orleanos, you've give the world so much, you can pull through this.

Heavy boots for the Orleanos. Heavy boots for the poor Iraqis caught in the stampede. I think both stories managed to squeeze onto the commercial news last night, albeit somewhere below a bomb-scare-that-wasn't and an e-taking model. Glad we aren't inured to the pain of others, hey?!

UPDATE: More 'let them die' from the US Right, this time on FOX:

..people who move into such areas should assume the risk themselves rather than expect help..

(via Jarvis commenting on Surfdom).

Black armbands for Badger, the Blogger

Nothing in my own life is worth blogging about today. I've tasted the horror of losing everything to cancer, and been lucky, so far.

Via Sills Bend, I learn of Badger the Blogger.

Badger is a US graduate student. Her husband was diagnosed with liver cancer.

There has been an online campaign to raise money for their medical bills, because they are under the unspeakably revolting US medical system, so having liver cancer entitles you to bankruptcy. Melbourne's Laura is helping out.

Read Badger's chronicle of the successive worst days of her life. She knows there's more to come.

Today is the worst day of Badger's life. And her son's.

Sometimes it feels trite to console people you don't know, but I think there's something in blogging that means we appreciate everyone who stops and thinks about our pain, and takes the time to leave a message. I know I do, and I've never been where Badger is.

If you are up to it, leave her some love.

Fuck life is a dirty bastard.

UPDATE: So are people who support two-tiered medical apartheid. I've been reading more of Badger's story, about how they'd taken medical insurance but it wouldn't cover a liver transplant, and the government told them to truck off and die, and how she couldn't even get his prescription filled because they were not rich enough to deserve treatment.

The same so-and-sos who support, implement, and defend this vile system go absolutely nuts when it comes to removing the feeding tube from someone who's been a vegetable for years.

So angry.

Happy armaniac returns tomorrow.

Burnt coffee grounds

It's a depressing time to be a lefty. I find myself reading the op-ed pages, the political news, scanning for nuggets of optimism. I drink too much coffee trying to bounce back up, but still I can't break the addiction. One day I know I'll see the headline, screaming up at me as I walk in the newsagent:

BRILLIANT BASTARD LOVECHILD OF HAWKE AND WHITLAM TAKES OVER ALP

HOWARD AND COSTELLO CAUGHT IN ROMP WITH GOAT-HOWARD DENIES BEING GAY

CONSERVATIVE HIGH COURT DECLARES DETENTION OF REFUGEES ILLEGAL

90% OF AUSTRALIANS WANT TOTAL SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE- NEWSPOLL

MURDOCH SELLS AUSTRALIAN MEDIA HOLDINGS TO THE UK GUARDIAN

and so on I fantasize.

Toasted my 33rd on Friday and Saturday nights at Bender, Bar 303, Terra Firma and Wesley Anne, bastions of the High Street boho scene. It felt good sitting with friends, talking, drinking, doing nothing-much slowly.

Good friends are better than a bottomless packet of tim tams.

Jammed with the band last night. They are very heavy. They reminded me how out-of-practice I am on guitar. In that they are tight, competent and high-energy this is good. Being mid-late 20s they reminded me of my age, though their sound had a good mix of influences. If it means anything to any of you I say Tool, Mars Volta, Alice in Chains...

It went pretty well. But joining would involve shelving my desire to vox, yet again.

I'll never have a rolls-royce voice, but I love singing, writing lyrics, even my own bastard form of dancing. Losing yourself completely to the sadness, anger, rage, love or optimism of the song in front of a crowd is amazing, it can't be described. Strengths. Dreams. Strengths. Dreams.

Hand me a long stiff drink, please.

They may not want me, that would make it easy. Easy, in my current state-of-mind, is good.

Friday Shorts

Beloved lost her engagement ring while we were jogging. We heard it bounce into a garden, spent an hour foraging with the help of the people who lived there. She cried, and it broke my heart.

Labor has decided to inch further to the right. My Labor membership card has been moved from its position near the loose change to a spot right next to where the scissors are kept. One word about tightening up on refugees and I may take executive action. Anyone for starting a political party, specifically aimed at giving some political representation to members of the hated latte-left (like myself)?

A friend who is a gun bass player, in a very good heavy rock band, asked me to try out as lead guitarist. Although I've been trying to learn to sing, this offer was very good for my battered ego, and I may just give it a look in. They gig, they've got potential, I wanna rock- there's a fit there somewhere.

I learned today that my ex-boss, who wasn't very pleasant, suffered a tear-inducing humiliation after telling everyone she'd picked up an acting executive role that in fact went to someone else.

Oh, and we found the ring. And befriended the nice old couple who lived in the house. Taking them a bottle of Tullamore Dew next time we have a quiet evening. Many tears and regrets averted...

Howard to meet rednecks, homophobes at summit

Why not? They hate us and the society we've built. And they inspire so much terrorism, lest we forget...

Racial intolerance and homophobia leads to terror:

His anger was channelled into virulent rightwing extremism and he finally vented his hatred on black, Asian and gay communities.

Ranting about leftism and political correctness leads to terror.

People with flags on their trucks who love guns become terrorists.

Blaming muslims in a knee-jerk manner can lead you up the wrong tree.

Ask a conservative near you: are you doing enough to discourage extremism in your community? They need to face up to the horror backward-looking views can inspire.

More birthday kisses...

To B xx and G xx, now I'm thinking you two must be twins.

Shedding dreams like dead skin

This morning I picked up the guitar, and pulled out the lyrics again. For several days I've been working at Just Looking (Stereophonics). It's not getting any easier. I've moved it down from G to D. My voice still shits itself, breaks into falsetto or comes out like Phil Anselmo.

A week ago I got dragged onstage by a mate at a jam night. It didn't feel right, it wasn't a jam night crowd. We played Karma Police, Yesterday and an original. We were messy, but in tune. I leaned into the mike and asked if anyone had a request. A woman who'd been talking the whole time next to the bar stopped and said

"Just don't play any Radiohead; I like them too much."

If there's an uglier mistress than music, I've never laid eyes on her.

When I was at private school, hating everything except music, I started to get serious about guitar. People told me I had no ability. I had nothing else. I worked and worked and one day the notes just started to flow. I was, for a little stretch where I practiced constantly, a very fine guitarist. I'd pick up a guitar at a party and people would stop and stare. In the good way.

I stayed in Darwin. My energy drained as I jammed with musician after musician who didn't like what I liked or share my dreams. I didn't get out of my bogan town.

I was accepted into law school, and classical guitar, and I went into law school.

Music poisoned my law degree, or law poisoned my music. It's so hard to tell sometimes where your dreams are really manifested, as opposed to where you stuff your neuroses- needing fame to prove everyone wrong, needing career to sate the insecurity of your parents.

These things can haunt for lifetimes.

Worse again to lose interest in an instrument and want to sing. I have this analogy I tell people:

singing is like having one guitar all your life. Some people have a Gibson. Some people have a $40 Kmart job with strings an inch off the fretboard and bits that will always buzz no matter how hard you work at it.

There are no doors in this room.

"Tantamount to corruption"

Via Nic White, another honest public servant speaks truth and gets shot down in a hail of lies.

Snow report with saucy diversion

You want the saucy diversion first, don't you? Here it is, the tale of a Dutch couple who, er, coupled on the bonnet of a police car. With the incredulous police sitting inside. It says something about the Dutch that they only got in trouble because they refused to leave!

The snow was beautiful, even if it's in the process of melting. It was a long uphill push to the nice bits, by the end of which our lesson had ended. We caught our breath, then took off along the path to a section called Panorama. Here's a shot, some more, and a trail map for the hardcore.

Compared with alpine the skis were hard to control in the downhill stretches, but that kept things exciting. And the other bits, as Zoe suggested, were just like bushwalking. Only faster and better.

The views were heartstoppingly beautiful, and there was about an hour out there in the backcountry where we didn't see another person.

I had one of those amazing days where you don't feel down or angry at all, from 1st coffee to last waking moments snuggled up watching rage, drifting off with a smile on your face.

It's my birthday today. I'm 33. In addition to the skiing, and a fantastic dinner that night in cute alpine Marysville, I'm gettin a wine appreciation course and copies of Dispatches

"...wrote about the Vietnam War for Esquire magazine, gathered his years of notes from his front-line reporting and turned them into what many people consider the best account of the war..."

and the Tyrannicide Brief

"..a life of John Cook, the bravest of barristers, whose bowels were publicly burned as punishment for sending the King to the scaffold."

Sweet. Nice when people get birthday book-buying bang on the mark!

UPDATE: Spoke a wee tad too soon. 'Dispatches' arrived, and had somehow morphed into a travel book called 'Unquiet Vietnam'. Hmmm, well, I guess I can't complain, they tried. And I'm sure it will be an entertaining read.

How can you get those things mixed up though?

Pleasures of the mind and flesh

Enjoy this post full of hilarious idiocy; Star Bores 3 translated into Chinese then back into English subtitles.

He big in nothing important in good elephant

could be my favourite.

Armaniac's 33rd birthday comes up in the next few days, and beloved has taken my hints and booked me in for an intro to nordic skiing. There will be cold extremities, sore muscles, but hearty country cooking and glasses of red, possibly followed up by namesake, to ease the pain.

I love these weekends with beloved. Long drives, listening to albums from start to finish. Time to connect.

Nordic skiing looks like harder work and less excitement than boarding and alpine (both of which I'm obsessed by, in strange periodic phases, like Nirvana's Nevermind) but makes sense in a country where the hills are flat and the resorts are crowded with Toorak Tarquins.

And it's the best exercise apparently. And I like wandering around in the bush. And I'm gonna build me some ripped quads like the Norwegian dudes who do this for a living.

Wish me luck. Ladies can leave birthday kisses but please form a queue and no funny business.

In Cold Blood

Res Ipsa Loquiter: *

(damned lies and their inconvenient counterparts in truth)

Police officers were monitoring the building closely...

...a police officer failed to videotape him leaving because he had been on a toilet break.

He was dressed suspiciously in a big puffer jacket...

....witness accounts and photographs leaked to ITV [show] the man in a light denim jacket walking calmly.

He jumped over the barriers, ran to the train...

...He walked calmly in. [He even picked up a free newspaper according to the TV news last night.] He passed normally through the barriers, went down on the escalators and boarded the train.

Where he was apprehended, held down, and shot 8 times.

Murder. In cold blood. With a dose of abject incompetence thrown in. Covered up by lies, lies and more damned lies.

Is this what they did to the Irish in Belfast? Is this why blacks in Brixton don't trust their friendly bobby?

I was depressed and so very angry after seeing this last night. I drank a Tuborg, too quickly. I patted the cat, breathing slowly. I went to bed early, sought warmth from beloved.


(* Let the facts speak for themselves.)