Journal
A random and irregular journal of observational hoo-ha and miscellaneous stuff, etc
You can contact me here:
antonygmann at googlemail dot com
Older Journal entries are now in the Journal Archive!
2nd September 2010
I’ve been reading some books lately. It’s something I do now and again, it gives me a break from watching bad TV.
But this is true – and I think most people would go along with me here: to read a book you need to get hold of it from somewhere. And in Australia, the last thing you want to do is pay the cover price.
Nobody really knows why books in Australia are so expensive. Some people speculate that, many years ago, an invisible giant came along and sprinkled all the publishing houses with Magical Rip-Off Powder, and ever since then, people here have been paying over the odds for their reading matter.
Others think that publishers here are just g-g-g-greedy.
And then of course there is the despicable tax on reading, the government’s ten percent book GST.
Bastards.
Publishers (and some authors) say that they need to keep prices artificially high in order to benefit the authors themselves, by way of royalties. Really? Lower prices would mean more copies shifted, and the author would make the same amount, but with the added bonus of more exposure.
Which may conceivably lead to more sales (word of mouth, impulse buys) and more people reading. Go figure.
As it stands, if you live in Australia you need to source your books from outside the usual retail outlets. My own recent reading list is eclectic – not because of the subject matter, but because of where I found these books:
STATE OF FEAR (Michael Crichton)
The usual gripping thrills from the late master of suspense, but ultimately little more than a reactionary tract which argues in the most heavy-handed way against the existence of climate change. I felt compelled to turn the page while at the same time hated what I was reading. Impossible to like or put down. And I resented it for that. One of the few books I would gladly throw into the recycling if it wasn’t so heavy.
From: Local markets (second hand). Price: $7.00 Australian Retail Price: $16.01
FATHERLAND (Robert Harris)
An alternate history thriller set in the 1960s which postulates a world in which Hitler won the Second World War and is still alive. Xavier March, a jaded German policeman who hates the Nazi regime, races to solve the mystery of the murder of a high-ranking party official before the SS can find him and turn him into lampshades. A clever idea which echoes Philip .K. Dick’s THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, but for me, a couple of beats off page-turner status.
From: Amazon UK (new). Price (including postage): $12.00 Australian Retail Price: $21.99
THE ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE (Max Brooks)
As a fan of all things zombie, I was looking forward to this one. The title is self-explanatory, but though the concept is current and clever, the book is badly marred by repetition and a paucity of humour. At 250 pages, far too long. Lost interest half way through.
From: Amazon UK (new). Price (including postage): $12.00 Australian Retail Price: $22.99
LEAVING CHEYENNE (Larry McMurtry)
I’d heard of McMurtry through the TV series LONESOME DOVE, but didn’t really know what to expect. As it turns out, LEAVING CHEYENNE is a gentle but moving twentieth-century western, told in the voices of the three main characters. Pleasantly beguiling.
From: Local library withdrawals (second hand). Price: $0.50 Australian Retail Price: $31.99
THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST (Stieg Larsson)
The third and last instalment of the Millennium Trilogy by the Swedish author who tragically died before he could taste his own success. By the standards of the first two volumes – THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO and THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE – frankly not quite there. By any other standards, an excellent thriller. Hampered by its own structure, which sees the main character Lisbeth Salander spend almost the entire book in a hospital bed.
From: The Book Depository UK (new). Price (postage free): $11.00 Australian Retail Price: $27.99
THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy)
Initially, I had trouble with this. McCarthy tends to write in a portentous way which often slips over into pretentiousness. I don’t see how sentences like The snow fell nor did it cease to fall can be considered fine writing, no matter how much ‘meaning’ they are intended to convey. And yet, despite my resistance to the overwrought language, I was slowly drawn in and ultimately hooked. A man and his young son travel through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, following the road south under ashen skies. In the fight for scant resources, the few people that remain have descended into savagery and cannibalism. Bleak, remorseless, unremitting, you name it. But amidst the desperation McCarthy somehow kindles a hope that humanity will find a way to rise above. Fantastically compelling.
From: A friend – will return it soon, promise. Price: Nil. Australian Retail Price: $22.99
THE GREENWITCH (Susan Cooper)
The third part of Cooper’s THE DARK IS RISING sequence, comprising five books. I’d read the first two – OVER SEA AND UNDER STONE and THE DARK IS RISING – as a child, and spotted this in the kid’s section of the library, snapped it up and never looked back. Highly recommended if you’re into scary but intelligent children’s literature. Will be tracking down the last two volumes – THE GREY KING and SILVER ON THE TREE – and nudging the kids in their direction.
From: Local library. Price: Nil. Australian Retail Price: $16.99
Hmm. I think I just saved myself a lot of money. And the words on the page were exactly the same as if I’d paid one hundred and sixty dollars for them instead of forty.
The other day I was talking to a friend. She told me she had a secret. She’d found this great site on the internet called the Book Depository, where you could buy new books for half the price you’d pay in Australia - with no postage charges. Word is spreading. People are disgruntled, and they’re not going to take it any more.
Of course I already knew about the Book Depository, and I’d mentioned it to some other friends as well. Recently I saw a stack of Book Depository books in their house. Among them, the whole Millennium series. Forty bucks it cost them.
They like reading. They like books. They know books are good. They know they make great presents, for their friends and their kids.
But they don’t want to spend double, just because they live in Australia.
12th August 2010
How To Write A Screenplay
1. Drop kids at school, buy paper, take home and read.
2. Curse at politicians blathering on radio.
3. Check email.
6. Check email.
7. Storm round house, searching for lost Post-It notes, spewing vituperous bile.
8. Have lunch.
9. Bemoan lack of peanut butter.
10. Check email.
11. Give up writing for day and go for walk.
12. Surrounded by inspirational natural bush wonderland, suddenly have bunch of cool ideas.
13. Scribble cool ideas in notebook.
14. Marvel at view of Mount Hay from Frederica Falls fire trail. Is it really fifteen
kms away? Looks a lot closer. Muse on unreliability of distance perception etc etc.
15. Walk home feeling utterly vindicated.
16. Repeat ad nauseam.
30th July 2010
Letter spotted in the local paper, the Blue Mountains Gazette (28/7/10):
Now is the time drivers considered a campaign of civil disobedience
to teach the state Labor government they can't treat us as fools
and cash cows.
For the month beginning on July 19 every driver should obey every traffic
law to deny those who crafted this mobile camera grab for cash the money
they expect to rip off us.
They will probably claim their traffic campaign was successful while they
gnash their teeth and look for other ways to relieve us of our hard-earned
money to balance their wasteful budget.
I've been getting in some practice as I drive around in preparation for this
campaign.
I urge all drivers to join me in sending a message that we've had enough of them
and their incompetence.
Hmm. Is this a joke, or actually the first recorded instance of incitement to
civil disobedience through obeying the law?
Answers on the back of a speeding ticket.
24th July 2010
So in the past two days I've had three calls from the new computer scammers.
It's a clever enough con, I guess, and might well catch out the unaware. The way it works
is, someone from the sub-continent's 'Microsoft Support Desk' or 'Computer Services' or
'Asian IT Scammers' calls you up and tells you that they've found malware on your
hard drive.
They direct you to a website, coax you into logging in, then proceed to..er...download
malware onto your hard drive.
After which they lift all your details and steal your identity and all your money.
Fair enough. These criminals need to make a living I suppose.
But, three times in two days? What, do they think I'm STUPID?
Well, maybe I am.
I've always prided myself on being able to spot these phishing scams a mile off. But
a couple of weeks ago I all but fell into one. More like collapsed, really.
It was late, I was tired, I was half pissed. Checking my email before crashing out, I
found an email from my UK bank, telling me that my account had been suspended due to
something or other. So why didn't I click on this dodgy-looking link to sort things out?
Which I proceeded to do.
Still tired and half drunk, and partially outraged, I then rang my bank, demanding to know
why they had suspended my account in the first place.
'Sir,' came the polite response. 'We don't send emails.'
Which of course a sober and alert me would have known.
One frozen account and despatched security pack later, I was able sheepishly to
wake my wife and ask her to log in to the account with her own details to check that our
hard-won cash hadn't been siphoned off to somewhere in Romania.
No problem. We're still as poor as we always were.
Ever since then, I've been getting emails from the scammers telling me that my account
is about to be suspended, so why don't I click on this dodgy link to sort it all out?
I give them 10/10 for persistence, and me about the same score for...ah...stupidity. Albeit
of the temporary variety. I hope.
Hang on, there's the phone, gotta run.
10th July 2010
Interzone 229 - with my story Candy Moments -
out now!
27th June 2010
We buy a lawn mower from the local second-hand mower place. It lasts ten minutes then
starts to laugh at us in that hur hur coughing mower kind of way. Then it dies.
So we take it back and haul home the replacement. Five hours. Okay, so where I’m concerned,
that does add up to six months. But still, five hours? Lucky it’s winter.
I’m thinking I’ll dust off the old bike and cycle over to see the other mower guy, the one
who hasn’t yet sold us a crock.
I’m pumping up the bike when the pump falls apart in my hands. Broken plastic and cheap
springs everywhere. Clearly it wasn’t designed for the arduous task of putting air
into tyres. What was it designed for? Guess I’ll never know.
And so it goes. The mower. The bike pump. The MP3 player which descends into silence
after four uses, two weeks out of warranty.
The trainers which bestow a month of training before the toe explodes. The remote
control car which will only turn left. With care.
The dozen pencils which come with leads pre-broken. All the way through.
Still, we can live with it. And we do. Constantly. Because these days we take malfunction
and breakage for granted. We factor it in.
These days when we buy something, we think to ourselves, first time I use it, this’ll
shatter like an egg. And if it doesn’t then we’re pleasantly surprised.
As though, this time, the store has come through for us like an old friend. Thanks shop!
You sold us something which actually works! At least for the moment.
It’s not their fault though, is it? Someone has to sell the crap they make in China,
otherwise, where would it all go? And let’s face it, we’re the ones who buy it. Then
chuck it out.
They’re selling us so much garbage now that I wonder sometimes if it’s worth buying
anything at all. And it’s so cheap, it’s hardly ever worth the drive taking back.
Maybe that’s where we’re headed.
Towards a brave new world of shops that sell you everything pre-broken. So you
can sidestep the disappointment.
And save on petrol.
10th June 2010
Things I Wish I'd Said At The Time Instead Of Nodding Sheepishly And Saying
'Really?' No. 1
What, so I work three hours in the freezing rain while you're out then get accused
of ripping you off because it was raining that day so how could I have worked? Take your
low-paid boring job and get stuffed!!
3rd June 2010
When was the last time a fat actor went on a diet? Can you imagine a thin Jack Black?
A slender John Goodman? A skinny James Gandolfini?
For all his acting prowess, would Gandolfini really have landed the part of Tony Soprano
if he’d been a ninety pound weakling?
I gotta say, I feel a little sorry for all the overweight movie stars out there. It must
be a hellish existence, unable to lose weight in case it negatively affects your image
or the roles you might play.
Once you head down that path and find fame, that’s it. You’re trapped in your corpulent
body until you’re claimed by stroke or heart disease or diabetes. Just look at poor
John Candy.
On the other hand, you do get to eat a lot.
21st May 2010
So I'm watching an episode of V last night - the mildly diverting almost not very
good remake of the excellent old V series - which Channel Nine wrongly insists has
transcended normal programming and become an Event...
...so I'm watching new V and the woman who has been impregnated by Lizard Guy
Posing As Human and unbeknownst to her will soon give birth to a monster, this
woman has come over all maternal and expectant and is painting the purple room
yellow.
Fair enough. But how is she going about it? Has she laid any dropsheets
on the floor and over the furniture? No, she hasn't. Has she cut in round the edges of the
walls before she lets loose with the roller? Nope. Is she wearing overalls? Nu-huh.
What lizard-pregnant woman has done is slap a paint tray down on a table, pour the paint,
and start rolling.
Is that any way to paint a room?
No it's not.
Frankly, I'm disappointed.
9th May 2010
Forgot to mention: Zedgoat's new song Recreating Stone is now up on the internet.
Where all music starts these days?
Zedgoat is the band I'm in. Not really a band, because there are only two of us and
we don't play live, but maybe one day we will. Then we'll be a band.
If you click on this banner -
- it'll take you to the Zedgoat page at Reverbnation.
5th May 2010
Yowser.
I'm in a journal down period while I work on the draft of a screenplay.
I'm still fiercely annoyed about Australian Masterchef, the fact
that our mower is broken again, and Kevin Rudd's amazing school league table
adventure.
So here are some more song lyrics instead. A little serious this time. And political?
Democracy's Son
Democracy's son
Yes I am
I'm a kinky guy
I'm the sod
I'm big and bad
Oh yes I am the best
26th April 2010
Letter From Gallipoli
Going through some old papers recently, I came upon this letter by Private George Henry
Walden of the 3rd Australian
Infantry Battalion.
It was sent from Malta to my grandfather
Roy Vincent during World War I, at the height of the Dardanelles campaign.
It describes life on the front line at Gallipoli in
some detail, and is written in a touchingly matter-of-fact style.
I have tried to find out what happened to George Walden, but so far no luck. I managed
to track down the record of his embarkation from Sydney, but as to his fate - whether
or not he survived the war - I have no idea.
July 23rd 1915
Dear Old Pal,
Just a few lines to let you know that I am still alive and well, despite the superhuman
efforts of the Turks to kill, maim or otherwise injure me. I have not heard from you yet,
but our mail service is not very reliable at the front, so I suppose your letter is
chasing me round a bit.
I went to the front on June 7th, so you will see I missed all the early scrapping. But the
boys accomplished a feat (and without me too, be it understood) which certainly seems
impossible, that is, forcing a landing at the Peninsula.
It is necessary for one to see the towering mountains right in front of the beach to
fully realise the task that was set the Australians. Anyhow we are now on those cliffs,
and have roads etc made all over them. Our trenches (at the post where I am stationed)
are only 40 or 50 yards from the Turkish trenches, and day and night we are
forever “swapping” shots. In daylight we observe and fire through loopholes, but at
night we observe over the parapet of the trench, as the Turks have snipers always on
the job.
The shrapnel is the most dangerous – you can hear it coming through the air and never
know where it has landed until you see a couple of your mates toppling over. It plays
havoc with a man’s anatomy too, and if you are lucky enough to escape with your life,
a limb or something is sure to be found missing. They give us this for breakfast, dinner
and tea. In fact so accustomed are the boys to it that they look forward to their
“lyddite* sauce” and “shrapnel porridge”.
But Mr Turk has more than he can deal with, and they have given up the idea of charging
our “bivvies”. Oh, and doesn’t the navy tear the shells into them – you can see the
“torpedoes” and monitors moving up to the coast line and then a flash just like lightning.
Seconds after you hear bang-biff and then a Turkish family or two in Constantinople
mourns the loss of a relative or two. They have lost very heavily and our casualties
are not so great taking everything into consideration.
The life in the trenches is a very hard one, and it will break a man up in time. I am
having a rest at the island of Malta (it is a fine city) and we have great hospitals
here and the nurses cannot do enough for you. After the firing line it is just like
heaven here. Will be going back again on Saturday. It is just about 6 days sail to the
Dardanelles, most of the wounded being brought here.
Poor old “Darbo” is out at the front. He is doing splendid, and is now in the Machine
Gun Section. I have not seen him yet.
Well Roy, old chap, I hope you are well and doing all right. I suppose you get all the
“Dardanelles” news, so it is not much use me explaining anything further.
I hope the war is over by Xmas, and I think it will, but the Turks will not hang out
that long so the boys will soon be on the march to “Constant”.
Remember me to Reg.
So au revoir for the present, with best wishes, and in anticipation of a letter that
will last me a month.
Your sincere friend,
George Walden.
(aas)
P.S. Anzac (Australian-New Zealand Army Corp) – this is our own name for it.
*a type of shell filled with lyddite (fused picric acid).
11th April 2010
This probably should go in the News
section of the website, and maybe I'll put it
there too, but as there hasn't been any news recently, I may as well
put it here.
After giving up short fiction for a while, I've been getting back into it, and my
first story in five years - Candy Moments - has just been accepted into the top
British sci-fi magazine Interzone
Nice.
6th April 2010
Some new lyrics wot I wrote:
(Not Another Sodding Cover Of) Hallelujah
Well I heard it on the radio
Hallelujah Hallelujah
If Leonard Cohen owns the rights
Hallelujah Hallelujah
Now listen up, don’t get me wrong
Hallelujah Hallelujah
It seems to be a popular trend
Hallelujah Hallelujah
Hallesoddinglujah
27th March 2010
I’m enjoying being back in Australia.
The weather’s good, the people are friendly,
the pace is easy, and I still have no idea who most of the B-list celebrities are.
I see them on TV sometimes, these famous people with their perfect teeth and tans.
They’re usually advertising something demographically appropriate like face cream or
supermarkets.
They have that I’m Famous aura which the well-known somehow acquire
after prolonged exposure to the spotlight.
I know just by looking at them that they’re
famous for something.
I just have no idea what.
I don’t know who they are.
It’s nice being home.
8th March 2010
Don’t You Hate It When...
You fill the thermos with milk and hot water then forget to take the teabags.
The piece of grass you’re cleaning your teeth with isn’t thin enough to get between
the smallest of the gaps.
You wake up and everything seems too hard, the words don’t come out right and everyone
you meet seems like a wall-faced monster who hates you.
A charismatic redneck politician appears on the scene with racist and anti-poor policies,
because you know lots of people will love him and vote for him.
You think of something really fantastic and/or funny, then get distracted and forget it,
then spend the next half hour trying to remember what it was but never do.
You bowl like a genius at a great batsman for an hour but can’t quite manage to get
him out, then some pie-chucker comes on and dismisses him with a rank full toss.
You go to the pie shop and all they have left is that vegetarian crap.
You see something really annoying on TV and feel like complaining about it,
but then you realise that nobody gives a damn and actually, neither do you.
You spend five hours retracing your steps through the house looking for the keys, then
find them by accident, and inexplicably, in the box of carpet cleaner under the sink.
28th February 2010
A couple of additions to the website:
There's now a Music page from where you can play Zedgoat songs as they appear, as
well as the instrumental malarkey I've been revelling in.
Also: a Billy's Day Out page with an embedded Youtube link so you can watch the
film from here. Billy's Day Out is my short which won Best Short Film at the
Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2004.
That's it.
19th February 2010
In a month or two, the next door neighbour is moving out. He comes round to ask if he can
have some of the cardboard packing boxes which have been sitting on our front verandah
since we moved in here four months ago.
Sure, we say. Before Christmas we got rid of a forty of the damn things to a teacher
at the kids’ school. Then over the summer holidays I used twenty or so to build a maze
for the kids to play in. But alas, the maze has come down now, and lately we’ve been
wondering what to do with the rest of them which doesn’t involve any arduous trips
to the recycling centre.
So, last few days, the neighbour comes and goes. I see him through the screen door, taking
the odd box or two each time. Today, though, instead of taking a box, he brings one of his own and
chucks it there with the others.
I guess that’s how he sees our front verandah. As though it’s a dumping ground. Maybe
that tells you something about him. It couldn’t possibly tell you anything about us.
Funnily enough, when I go out to look at the crap he’s bequeathed us, I find a whole
bunch of stiff cardboard off-cuts. Which will be just perfect for the kids and their
craft projects.
So everybody’s happy.
8th February 2010
I like the way, in the Transformers movies, the old robots have beards made of metal.
But that’s about all I like.
Sure, the first movie was okay until the robots made an appearance, but went downhill
pretty fast after that. Does anybody really buy the idea of a robot which
can turn into a car? Unless you're five?
With the second film - Transformers: Revenge of the
Fallen - taking place a couple of years after the first, when the Transformers are
an accepted fact of life, by the US military and conspiracy theorists at least, it can’t
really ever transcend its inbuilt mediocrity. No matter how many times giant clanking
robots collide with each other in mid air.
The problem lies with the robots themselves. Unlike in, say, I, Robot, where
the robot had some soul, here they’re little more than chunks of animated metal
involved in the vast galactic struggle of GOOD v. EVIL.
They lack character, they have little nuance beyond the narrow triangles of their faces
(EVIL) or the red, white and blue of their burnished armour (GOOD) – or for that matter
the dangling metallic strips of their facial hair (OLD).
Call me picky, but I find it useful while watching a film to have someone or something to
identify with. Otherwise I may as well be watching something by Peter Greenaway while
gnawing my own fingers off to keep myself entertained.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen makes that difficult. With the robots either
too mawkishly virtuous to care for or too dastardly to take seriously, that just leaves
the humans. Sure, there is a bit of drama and suspense happening – will the guy ever tell
the girl he loves her? Will the girl ever forgive the guy for almost having sex with a
girl robot who was trying to rip his throat out?
But as soon as the robots make the scene, the tension evaporates like so much sweat on
Megan Fox’s tanned and shiny shoulders. Because what can humans do in the face of quick,
powerful, intelligent evil robots with futuristic weapons who want to kill them?
Run! Hide! Run and hide! That's what.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen boils very swiftly down to that: good-looking
people running, good-looking people trying to hide. Quirky-looking people making wise cracks
about running and hiding. Or, in the case of the leads, the aforementioned Megan Fox
and Shia Labeouf, trying to tell each other they love each other. Which slight commitment
anxiety seems to be about the sum total of what their relationship amounts to.
Which is very little.
All against a backdrop (and foreground) of big robots beating each
other up.
A lot.
Too much.
5th February 2010
So we got the satellite TV. The man came round, he put the dish up on our roof in the spot
where it’s visible from outer space and not obscured by giant trees, he ran the cable down
through the wall cavity to the socket, then he connected up the satellite box and started
pumping fifty channels of drivel into our living room.
Sure, it’s better than terrestrial. I don’t deny the terrestrials run some decent shows,
but it’s an endurance test watching them.
Apart from the ABC, they stack them with so
many ads that sometimes you wonder if you’re still alive, or if some bastard hasn’t killed
you and sent you to hell where you’re being forced to hear about the new Ford Mondeo
over and over and over again until your ears and eyes bleed.
For some reason they end all their shows five minutes late. A little tip for the
commercial programmers: start your day five minutes earlier, then it won’t be a problem.
With satellite, though, you get the box which can stop time/pause live TV, as well as
record programmes in advance.
You can get the terrestrial channels through the box,
so you can stick it to The Man by pre-recording shows and fast-forwarding through the ads.
Admittedly, sometimes there are so many ads that you end up doing more fast-forwarding
than watching, but at least you’re sticking it to them. That counts for something.
Yes, satellite is better. But not much. The time-stopping recording box is a you-beaut
idea in theory, but in practice it’s the worst piece of kit I’ve ever seen.
It has the brain of a redneck, slow and temperamental. It will pick up on your
instructions, but in its own good time, thanks, and not before. It deletes programmes
without explanation, or simply doesn’t record them. Odd little numbers appear on the
screen at random. It resets itself without warning, goes to the wrong menu,
or else bans you from watching The Muppets unless you have your pin number handy.
All to a backing track of infuriatingly dull jazz classics recorded by
The Mogadon Ensemble.
Not to mention, watching satellite TV is like sifting through a tonne of garbage to
find a ten cent piece. There are whole channels dedicated to twenty-year old repeats.
There are whole channels dedicated to forty-year old repeats. There are cooking
channels, celebrity channels, channels which show back-to-back reruns of
Law and Order like they’re doing you a favour.
They have ads too. Lots of them. Plus, satellite companies Foxtel and Austar
charge you a bomb for this dross, then want a bunch more for movies and sports.
And now I hear, Foxtel aren’t just broadcasting the Winter Olympics in Canada.
They’re charging for the privilege. Four dedicated channels from Vancouver, and you can
pay to watch it. Pay? To watch skiing??
Gimme a break.
Frankly, I like my TV. I like The Sopranos, Damages, Mad Men,
Band of Brothers. I like The Wire, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and
obscure brilliancies like The Eagle: A Crime Odyssey.
But I’m paying for it. Not just with money. But with the ads and the rubbish technology
that’s five years behind the rest of the world in everything but price.
With the lack of choice amidst all the choice.
With the crappiness of how it is, watching TV in Australia.
21st January 2010
Proof that you shouldn't go through old papers...or that you should?
Dark rain on a dark road. The echo slices through silence again and again. Someone is
shouting too loud.
Here in my arms is the logical sequential to a biological impulse. Here is the expression
of my feelings of hatred and violence, my death wish, between the shoulders and the hands of
my arms.
Here in my world where the thoughts are always for me, where I eat to feed myself, and
laugh at others, or laugh with them as we laugh at others.
Here, where the chameleon in my brain aches to be like every greener pasture I will ever
see. Here, where I long for a love without lust, where I sink below at midnight under
grimy bedclothes.
Where the rain makes me happy. Where she is for a while.
From here I look out the windows in my head, through my superior glasses at the dirt
on the street. From here I wish I could sit back, take her perfect hand in mine, look
not too long, say just enough, want nothing, and know that she wants nothing because
I've given her all I have to give.
Up at the house, voices are making like the world is still alive. But here on the road,
in my car, for a second the darkness has showed me for time's smallest division how
a love should be.
November, 1979.
18th January 2010
I read today that French pensioner Jean-Louis Lioret has been arrested and detained in
Abi Dhabi after making a bomb joke on an Etihad Airways flight from Paris to Bangkok.
Apparently, when asked by a fellow passenger if he could mind a packet of cigarettes
on the seat next to him, this poor bastard replied, “I hope it’s not a bomb!”, was
overheard by cabin staff, and shortly after the plane landed found himself behind bars
in a Middle Eastern prison.
Is it just me, or is that a wee bit harsh? What is the world of bomb jokes coming to when
you can’t make an off-hand remark about the plane going down in flames without being
suspected of planning that very thing?
And it’s not as if Mr Lioret said he hoped it was a bomb, he said he hoped that it
wasn’t. What are the charges being laid here? Hoping that a terrorist attack
doesn’t take place?
Can you even say the word ‘bomb’ any more if you’re on a plane thirty thousand
feet above a watery end? If you’re watching the Transformers sequel on the
in-flight TV and happened to mutter to yourself This movie is a complete bomb
will you get hauled up before the beak and locked away indefinitely?
If there were signs in passenger planes which said Please Do Not Say The Word ‘Bomb’,
You Will Be Regarded With Suspicion, Cause Hysteria And Shortly Afterwards Be
Arrested, would the person who wrote those signs and indeed included the word
‘bomb’, find themselves rotting in prison?
I feel sorry for Mr Lioret, who finds himself in the middle of an absurdist comedy
which to him must not be very funny at all.
Security is one thing. Crazy paranoia is another.
8th January 2010
Film Ideas That Never Quite Made It No. 2
Home With Only A Couple Of Other People
A young boy is accidentally left all alone at home over Christmas, with just a couple of
other people.
While the rest of the family is away, the boy and the other people have to fend for
themselves, but there are enough of them to deal with any problems that arise, and
in fact, they easily succeed in scaring off a pair of local housebreakers.
The young boy sure would have been scared if he'd been there on his own, but luckily for
him, this time at least things didn't turn out like that.
The End.
17th December 2009
The other day I did something very brave – and very foolish. I’d been listening to ABC
Radio Sydney all day – as is my wont – and at the end of it, I logged on to the net,
and hunted down the presenters I’d been listening to.
Not literally – hunting people down is illegal. What I did was search out their faces,
to see what they looked like.
As it turned out, not a great idea. Not because of what they do look like – that’s
frankly none of my business. No, it was because, after so many hours of listening to
these people, I already had a very firm picture of them in my head. And when I saw that
in real life they were different – which of course they were – very – it jarred me to the
core.
Because now I had two pictures of each of these people in my head. On the one hand,
there was the image which had been meticulously crafted by my imagination, drawn straight
from the sound of their voices. On the other, their actual faces.
It reminded me of the first time I watched The Fellowship of the Ring. After
reading The Lord of the Rings half a dozen times over the years (tragic – but not
as tragic as some) I had a pretty firm idea of how the Fellowship dudes actually looked.
Now, here were all these competing images – Viggo Mortensen as Aragon, Elijah Wood
as Frodo, Ian McKellen as Gandalf – right in front of my eyes, trying to tell me that,
all this time, I’d been wrong, and this is what those characters really looked like.
I guess that’s the danger inherent in watching the film of the book – if you love the book.
If you hate the book – or if the book sucks – then who cares what they do to the
characters? They can turn them into animated phlegm for all I care.
But for characters you love, characters you know, it’s not so easy. It’s a painful
farewell.
I miss the Lord of the Rings images which came out of my mind. Gradually the film
faces replaced them, and now they are gone forever.
Oddly, though, I can still see the imaginary faces which sprang out of the radio ether,
there in my mind’s eye, whenever I hear the voices.
So I’m keeping those ones. Somehow they seem more real.
7th December 2009
So the other day I look out the back window and I see that damn cat, prowling around on
the lawn like it owns the place.
‘Hey Zac!’ I say, ‘Want to throw something at a cat?’
‘Yeah!’ he says.
We grab a cricket ball – not a real one, but one of those intermediate ones half way
between a real one and a tennis ball – hey, we’re not cruel – and we go out onto
the back verandah.
The damn cat is just down there, mooching. It doesn’t even acknowledge our presence.
That alone is enough to infuriate me.
‘Oi!’ I shout at the stupid thing. It looks at me as though I’m some kind of dirt. But it
doesn’t move. It’s too smug. It feels too safe. Too secure.
Maybe it’s led a pampered life, eating whatever birds and lizards and rodents and snakes
it wants to, then swanning home to lie in the sun and think overly self-satisfied
cat thoughts.
Maybe it’s never been ejected from a garden before. Maybe it’s about time it was.
I hand the ball to Zac. He’s got a pretty good arm these days. He scored a direct hit
run-out just the other week. Not bad for a little guy.
Then I notice the neighbour, waving at me. She hasn't seen the cat. She thinks I shouted
‘Oi!’ at her.
‘Uh, hi!’ I say.
‘Just enjoying some time in the back yard,’ she explains.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes. Lovely day for it. Not cold like it was earlier in the week.’
She’s looking at me and Zac, at the cricket ball.
‘Next time,’ I whisper to Zac. ‘We’ll get the bastard cat next time.’
‘Huh?’ says Zac. ‘But it’s right there..’
‘Next time.’
The cat shows us its butthole and saunters off through our garden, like it has so
many times before.
My neighbour does the same, though in her garden, and without the butthole bit.
Now she thinks I’m the sort of person who would start a conversation with her by
screaming ‘Oi!’ at her from over the fence.
And the cat doesn't.
Bastard cat.
28th November 2009
Zedgoat are here!
Pretty well, anyway.
Linking up with my old mate Ian Neilson
has begun to yield some new and interesting original music (which actually has lyrics),
and you can listen to our first completed song
Know The Answers at your leisure.
My musical association with Ian goes back about thirty years, which is a bit scary
when you think about it. Well, not when you think about it. When I do.
I'm on guitar and keyboards on this one, and Ian plays the guitar and bass and does
the drumming. Ian will usually be singing (nice) but for some reason I ended up lead
vocals on Know The Answers, possibly because I can mine those jaundiced depths
more cynically.
Ian gets producer credit.
There are a million bands out there, and we're almost one of them.
19th November 2009
So here's an upcoming Aussie novel
by this guy I used to drink black coffee
with on the verandah at Dartford Rd.
Thirty years ago.
I was lucky enough to check it out in ms
form, and it's well worth checking out when
it comes out early next year.
Reads like a dream.
18th November 2009
Okay, so I've been losing a few pounds. Thanks for noticing, yeah, I know I look pretty
good, and I feel pretty good too.
I've noticed too that these days less of you are shooting surreptitious glances at my gut.
Fine. It wasn't your fault. I know, because I do it too.
I glance at your guts and think, man, what a gut. So I'm aware of the
process. I know it goes on, it's part of the human condition.
So what's my secret? Where have my pounds gone which once were there?
Well, I came across a new way of slimming.
It was there in my head all along and that's where I found it.
I call it the Eat Slightly Less Than Before Diet.
The way it works is this: you still eat, because if you didn't, then you would eventually
die of starvation, which is apparently a horrible way to go.
But the trick of it is - and here's the cunning part - you eat slightly less than
before.
So, supposing you eat a lot. Now, with the Eat Slightly Less Than Before Diet, you
eat slightly less!
See how it works?
There's gotta be a book in that.
Or two.
7th November 2009
I knew this lady once who could tell your star sign as soon as you walked in the room.
She lived up the road and round the corner from us when I was growing up. I knew her kids,
they were a little too far from us to hang around with, but it was a neighbourhood where
eventually everybody got to know each other.
Anyhow, this lady was a hobby astrologer, I guess you'd call her. You could get astrology
leaflets off her, and she'd do readings for you if you wanted.
I was pretty credulous in those days - as I've written in this journal - and astrology was
one of those things that I had no problem believing in.
It's different now.
Today, I have no problem not believing in it.
But whether or not I believe in it, doesn't changed the fact of what happened. One night
our whole family went round to a party at a neighbour's house. The astrology lady was
there, standing in the entranceway, doing what must have been her parlour trick.
One after the other, as we walked in, she told us our signs: Aquarius, Pisces, Cancer,
Virgo, Capricorn.
Kinda weird, huh?
Spooky.
Today, 2009
Up here in the Blue Mountains, people have garage sales.
There are ten or twenty on any given weekend. You can get all sorts of stuff: books,
furniture, toys, clothes, games, tools, crockery.
People advertise in the local paper, or they put up signs on the telegraph poles saying
GARAGE SALE! 25 IDIOT STREET! TODAY!
Then, after the sale is over and everybody has gone home with the junk they’ll soon
be wondering why they bought, what do the people do?
Do they come get the signs and take them down?
Like hell they do.
They leave the signs on the poles. Day after day, they leave them there, the signs which
say GARAGE SALE! 25 IDIOT STREET! TODAY!
Do you see what that means?
If you drive past that sign, doesn't matter when, you’ll think, the sale is on today!
Which it isn’t.
If you drive past it three weeks later, you’ll think, the sale is on today!
Which it isn’t.
Unless you drive past it more than once.
That's different.
But when is today? Is it yesterday? Three days ago? A month?
People, do us a favour. When the sale is over, take the signs down.
Or else, put the date on the sign.
Do it TODAY!
23rd October 2009
Sympathy For Zombies #1
Tash: But all they really want is to eat people's brains.
22nd October 2009
It’s amazing, isn’t it, how everyone’s taste except mine is complete crap?
I was thinking about it last night while flicking through the recorded programmes
on our digibox. Wow, I’d think, look at that crap my wife has gotten me to record for her!
How can she even be planning to watch that when she gets a spare hour in three weeks time?
Then, my eyes would light upon a show which I had chosen, and I’d think, yes, good choice
there, you’ve done it again, selected a fine programme to take in at some unspecified time
in the future, possibly while nursing a beer and eating roasted salted cashew nuts straight
from the bag.
It’s not just the television either. I see my wife reading a lot of rubbish books, and I
know she listens to crap music. It’s everything.
And it’s not only my wife. There are my friends as well, they all seem to have crap
taste. My brother and sister and the rest of my family are the same, even the ones I
haven't seen in twenty years.
And then there are all the people I’ve ever met in my life, along with all the people
I haven’t. Their taste is pretty bad too.
Which is a shame. I feel sorry for all those people out there watching crap telly and
films and reading crap books. Even my kids are growing up to have bad taste. They like
different cartoons than the ones I do, and different types of fruit juice.
Once it would have bugged me, seeing all these people suffering through mediocrity when they could be reading and watching excellent stuff such as that
which I choose. But I've gotten over it.
So what if all these people want to read, watch and listen to utter crap the whole time?
What’s it to me?
Raised the gun
With a twinkle in his eye
Said, don't like to see you die
But in the name of the father
I'm going to send you to hell
Not Vietnam
I'm worthy of greater things
I write the histories of kings
In the name of the father
Who taught me so well
And I'll tell you why
I've been known to screw
A whole country or two
Still, they must have been asking for it
And I gave it to them good
Who bought off God
With the promise of a billion souls
Grafted to remote controls
On a diet of misinformation
Guess I'm just misunderstood
I've got the biggest Dad
I'm best at sports, I'm best at games
I'm best at shooting down in flames
I'm best at so many kinds of violence
I think it's called sex appeal
In the Wild West
I'm a movie star
I'm America
And I like to drive my planet
With my hands off the wheel...
No. 2042
Priv. Walden, G.H.
W. Company
3rd Battalion
Anzac
Dardanelles
The other day, hey what do you know?
Some bloke deciding he wanted to stick it to you
It seems he had a new record to sell
And he’d thought to himself, hey what the hell
I’ll record another version of Hallelujah
He must be having sleepless nights
About so many covers of Hallelujah
I guess at least he’s raking it in
‘Cause some other twat thought he would sing
Another sodding cover of Hallelujah
I’ve always thought it was a cool song
And I know Jeff Buckley’s version did it for you
But it really has been ruined for me
One of the great songs of history
By so many assholes singing Hallelujah
To milk something until the end
And that’s sadly what has happened with Hallelujah
So can I suggest to the Next Big Thing
When you’re deciding what to sing
Please don’t make it a sodding cover of Hallelujah
