My Island Home- Stealing Cultural Children

When you dig up a list of ‘best’ or ‘greatest’ or ‘most successful Australians’ or any other swooning prefix intended, at once, to celebrate great achievement and make you feel awful about the non-greatness of yours- you find a curious thing. Or, at least you would, if authors and publishers weren’t so on guard; protecting against the kind of points this piece will raise.

My mother, in the facetious and snide view and tone her gene pool kissed me with, often mentions- ‘our Rus’, ‘our Mel’, ‘our Dave Dobyn’. Well, yeah, the last one is a known NZ icon. But had he been any less Kiwi or any more Aussie, we’d have had him. 

By that same token what you don’t hear is ‘our Steve’, ‘our Ian’, ‘our Ricky’, ‘our Grant’, ‘our Margeret’, or ‘our Greg’. If you’re searching for surnames on those there people, let me get you there a little faster; Smith, Thorpe, Ponting, Grant, Court and Norman. Those names are immortal. Doubtless we do have ‘our Don Bradman’. But then, ‘even his friends say he isn’t human’.

This is my issue. This is why I, now, feel compelled to the soap-box. For the complexity of the unspoken doctrine of what is and isn’t  ‘Australian’, claiming cultural icons- or successful celebrities, is undoubtedly ‘Australian’. 

I know this is a running ‘feud-joke’ (also the title my upcoming comedy-metal album, check with your retailers) with New Zealand. For example, this knee slapper:

What do you call a successful New Zealander?

An Australian.

Pretty much…

I am not a humourless Australian. In fact I think that we take ourselves with little seriousness, can laugh at ourselves and chew a joke out of everything is; on good days, very charming and on bad days, a saving grace for this steaming pile of country. In what should be an admissible defence in court these days, people who know me will tell you that.

What I care about is the implications. Australia is a bastion of culture and creativity, we just don’t put it on front street. And we should. The emphasis here is on our sporting prowess, not that it shouldn’t be. When the USA has someone good at a sport they didn’t invent they sing it from the rooftops. But they don’t walk around claiming Jim Carrey or William Shatner as their own.

Why do we then? Does it fall under that old tattoo-motivator, Aussie pride? Is it blind nationalism, or really blind nationalism? Is it a defensive move or insecurity that motivates us? Is it that well-worn need to be one of the big boys? Or clinging to the only suburban dream that keeps you smiling, that basic projection that one of ours conquered the world and so we can too?

I, you, us, them will probably never know. But it seems anyone licked by Australia in whatever way becomes a big ingredient in the soup.

Take Collette Dinnigan. I watched her story on Australian Story this evening. She did well, dug her heels in and made the most of it. All quintessential Australian qualities. But is she Australian, the product of a South African and an Irishman, raised in New Zealand who came here and became successful. 

Does that make her an Australian, or just an Australian because of her triumph. Would she remain South African or New Zealander had she not made something of herself. Her friends kept saying things like; ‘for an Aussie girl to come to Paris and do this’. Is she an Aussie girl just because she went to Paris and did that?

I do not mean to call into question how any of these people identify themselves. I do not mean to delegitimise Collette Dinnigans own personal identification.

What I mean to call out is our tendency to latch on to people once they have come through it. We should, both the culture and the government, be providing an easier and more forgiving it through which to come. Not simply hedging our bets until one of ours, or one who could reasonably be considered so by whichever thread, makes it big and thus makes themselves valid to the Australian brain. Validity comes well before a seat at Fallon, Kimmel or Conan’s desk- we just need to know that and, in that quote bred into our bones, back ourselves. 

NP.

P.S.

There is at least one successful New Zealander.

And He Owns My Team.

And at least one successful Australian.

And He Lives 34 Blocks From Me, When He Is Not Being Super Great, The Best, Successful or Famous. 

On Funeral Requests: An Unsavoury and Important Thing.

Death is our future. No matter your attempts to be cool, suave , badass or ‘not all that contemporary’, you will end up shitting your pants in a box like the rest of us. Which does beg the question- how do you want to go?

Not your death, that is out of your hands but probably in those of your long suffering spouse. I mean, how do you want to be sent off?

Maybe you are indifferent, you will be dead- after all. Maybe you care a lot and have a very specific set of instructions for those still breathing- still it hardly matters, fudging the funeral literally means there is no-one to answer to.

Still it’s important, it is your say on your legacy. Here are three ways it could go awry.

-The Music.

Funeral music is super important. I have been to a weirdly large amount of funerals for my age and maybe ten percent have got this one right. It’s not like getting married, you don’t have to do the ‘Here Comes The Bride’ deal. Your funeral is the one and only pure selfish and pure apathy moment you get. It is your one chance to man the iPod with no protest.

Shouldn’t it, then, be something that reflects you. A song that is the sum of your bits. Or, at the very worst, a song you liked.

Too often we get classical nonsense, the usual bog standard. Someday I hope to hear motorhead at a funeral, until then- let’s stick with bog standard.

-The Speakers.

You know and I know that some of the people speaking at funerals only barely knew the deceased. Still, there they are, professing what a great love they and the carcass shared. We all know it is horse-shit. These people need to be the centre of attention and need, so desperately, to feed their ego by pretending the lump of flesh in the box was a dear friend.

You, said lump in box, deserve more. You should be able to designate people to speak for you, since you cannot clearly speak yourself. One of my recurring dream-fears is that everyone I ever hated is speaking at mine. It is some kind of hell.

-The After Party.

If you are from the same kind of people I am from, the after party is of prime concern. Of course, we call it a wake. But, to a certain extent, donning a suit deserves a few drinks. Crying over your lost comrade deserves a few more, shaking hands and sharing hugs earns a few more still.  Basically, what you call a wake, we call a party. Basically any definition of grief, or joy, or memorableness involves us all getting leathered.

Not that I am saying that should be the go-to for everyone. Some will revel in lukewarm cups of tea and cold fish sandwiches. Some will, indeed, revel in beach snap-shots and cold-cut picnic, then some will like to get home and watch a movie that Timothy really loved, like Lassie or Spirit: Stallion of The Cimarron.

Not for me though, when I cark it- drink until you don’t  know why hands exist.

NP.

Change The Fuckin Anthem: It’s Dumb.

I know a lot of people are fond of our national anthem. Like the flag, which so many men with Southern Cross tattoos (or Southies, if you are a certain kind of cool) reject changing because their grandfathers died under it, it is beloved- but super out of date. But, you say, my grandfather killed and died for that anthem. That song of our people, that call to arms, that chorus that is us and belongs to us.

Well, no he didn’t. The anthem was adopted in 1984 and, I say, 31 years is within the window of arseing a bad idea. 

The song though was written in 1878 which means a 106 year disparity between composition and performing. How can we willingly sing a song that dates back to ankle-length skirts, the racial hierarchy and land-owners with the vote.

Let me break it down, to highlight how shit it is:

“Australians all let us rejoice,

For we are young and free;

We've golden soil and wealth for toil,

Our home is girt by sea”

"Girt is...Surrounded? OK, if you say so.

Australia is an ageing country, the ABS stats support that. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/1CD2B1952AFC5E7ACA257298000F2E76?. Hard to say we are old, but suffice to say we are not young.

Though we are certainly free, our prison population is just proud of thirty thousand and, by most standards,per capita, that is free.

We also have wealth for toil, the average Australian miner earns over one hundred grand a year for dangerous toil. To see real toil talk to the KFC employee on fifteen bucks an hour.

“Beneath our radiant southern Cross,

We'll toil with hearts and hands;

To make this Commonwealth of ours

Renowned of all the lands;

For those who've come across the seas

We've boundless plains to share;

With courage let us all combine

To advance Australia fair.

In joyful strains then let us sing

"Advance Australia fair!" “

I have no major issue with this verse. Oh, I do actually. ‘For those who’ve come across the seas, we’ve boundless plains to share’. Apparently we don’t. We do have boundless cash to throw at prisons within which we keep these people. But our ‘boundless plains’, they are all ours baby. And so they fucking should be, what right does anyone have to take the land we took a bunch of time ago?

I do love this country. Or certain things about it. I love the Australian humour and how anything is a joke to us, I love the Australian language half born or creativity most born of laziness and I really love the Australian people one Xenophobic, Racist and Intolerant mass- fucking love that.

NP.

5 Annoying Phrases Used Too Often.

A big part of what characterises us as people is the way we speak. And a big part of the way we speak is our recurring little turns of phrase. We all have things we say on the reg, and ‘on the reg’ is one of mine. The way you speak sets you aside from the crowd, or at very least puts you as a part of a smaller crowd, and that has been a human endeavour since bums looked good in tight dresses.

But there is a danger in this. In saying a cute little expressions too often you become defined, in something that was meant to rid you of definition. Your lingual quest to set yourself apart can set you, in quick form, to being a very annoying little prick indeed.

“Do You Know What I Mean”

I once worked with a man named Tekken. I spell it that way because I love the game and have no idea how it is spelled in it’s traditional Turkish.

He was a good guy, don’t get me wrong, happy-go-lucky and smiling, nothing seemed to bring him down. But he would continually query my understanding of what he had just said. Like:

‘What use is it to my kids to learn Turkish, Do you know what I mean?’

Of course I did. As with anyone who uses this phrase too often it is, in the vast majority of times, following an obvious phrase. That is probably most of the problem. If we didn’t know what you meant, we would check.

“How’s The Weather?”

This is what Martin Amis would call ‘Dead Words’, he might not capitalise but hey, I am kinda a god around this free and little-read blog. We ask about the weather because it is the safe option. If you know  nothing about your conversation partner you can relate on the weather, in a different citty, state, country it works. It is literally universal, not that the weather is the same everywhere just that we all experience weather.

Obviously there is disparity. As an overweight six foot dude I experience mother natures period differently to a anorexic five nothing woman. That is life. Nonetheless I can talk with this woman about the weather and, hey, it might just spark something. That is the point after all, isn’t it?

“That’s Life”

And so is everything. You know, you hear it all the time. It is a consolation prize of a phrase really. You don’t hear it on a yacht, or with  a bunch of high-end hookers or when a Maserati hits a Rolls Royce. No, this is a phrase reserved for the working class, the downtrodden, the shit on rather than the shitters. There is no real point in commenting on life when it is good.

You use this, I use this, we all use this when life is unbearable or shitty or just gets you down. Blaming the all eternal and external force of life is easier than admitting you ate some random shit.

“Wait Until Your Father Gets Home”

You all know it well. You have just rubbed your dick on your sisters toothbrush. Yeah, I know, I know- a super hilarious prank. But then your mother catches you. Your dad is busy at work drinking or whatever it is he does, but the minute he gets home it is time for pain.

Trouble is, everyones dad is a violent alcoholic. Aren’t they? I am sure we have all heard this one time too many. You can threaten the old man all you want, you are just playing the same old game; endlessly repeating yourself.

“I will call the police”

I hear this one all the time. All the damn time. They really won’t shut up about it. You flash your dick and its ‘I will call the police’, you eat a snickers you didn’t pay for and walk out it’s ‘I will call the police’, you drive pissed one time, ONE TIME, for a burger and the window girl will call the police. 

Stop saying it, it is old like  hessian pair of boots. Don’t let your wanting to mention police involvement define you. I mean, I have seen what it has done to the young women in my basement and I can say, they are shadows of themselves. They used to be so vibrant, willing and loving of life, now they just talk about police. Bitter.

NP.

The Danger Of Living Through Sport.

We sports fans, true sports fans, live through the game. It is the only reprieve, setting aside the vast amounts of alcohol and days off that accompany the game, to a week of shitty work. When it is going well, it is going very well. When your team is winning there is really no higher state. It says something about you, your team. Or, more realistically, it becomes a metaphor for the tract of your life.

This is obviously illogic and holds no scientific weight. But a winning streak, a commanding ladder position or a real shot at the flag is something to believe in. Faith in your team is a projected and detached faith in yourself. 

You can, to some extent, brush off your twelve hour days in a dead-end job with a rat-shit boss if your team comes through for you over a couple (or more than a couple) cold ones on a Friday or Saturday night.  It is not going to change your life but it might give you that little shard of solace that keeps you sucking the big money dick for another week.

It's A Cold Economic Climate. 

To think like this is to hope you are always winning. If you are not it’s just the next thing on the pile of shit that is your life. I know, I know, dramatic. But it’s truth, if you feel the way I do.  The difference between a Saint and a War Criminal is a boundary, wicket, try, goal or point.

If you have been keeping up with the international sports, you know what I am talking about. Australia are about to return the urn to those Pommy Bastards. Yesterdays innings was the shortest of all time, all out for 60- fucking pitiful.

I was able to comfort myself with the thought that Souths might win tonight. Just over an hour ago we went down by twenty points. Now I am down and that’ll be a long road back, typically you only get OK with it on the night of the next match- a chance for the ruin of the following week.

Thinking this way is obviously too extreme, but really it is worth it for the elation of a win. A win can change everything and keep you in good stead for a week or a year. I don’t pretend for a minute my life wasn’t a whole lot better when we won the premiership last year, and it’s only just carried me to today- where it all goes to shit again. 

4 Totally Usual Things, That Should SCARE you SHITLESS- or do Scare Me.

Fear is a normal thing, an evolutionary trait that is a useful thing in keeping you alive. Daredevil, the so called ‘Man Without Fear’ could only be that because he had cool radar blind-guy stuff in place of fear that kept him alive.

Though fear is also a crippling hurdle. It is why I no longer talk to women, why I can’t pre-game drinks before the pub, why I don’t go to the pub, also why I dress up when I don’t go to the pub.

Fear is with us people and mostly it is normal. Sometimes its stupid and hair-triggered. But there is a pretty large grey area, a DMZ of rational and irrational fear that hides in the folds of each and every day.

Using The Phone As A Phone.

I am no real fan of the phone.  Thats not really true. A phone nowadays, in twerking country, is very different to what a phone once was though.  Nick Offerman, in his Netflix special ‘American Ham’, said the phone used to be something you could hang up. Now, obviously, it is something you can carry with you and look at all the time. I do that and I am for that. I have some nostalgia for the good old days of unresolved arguments about nothing, but I do like the digital ability to find anything out RIGHT NOW.

Though the unbridled convenience the digital age has afforded us, largely on the phone, is all the more why I dread answering the fucking thing. I am too old a new-dog to do practical old tricks. Talking on the telephone is hard 90s.

The Real Hard 90s.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not when friends call- then I usually answer. And it goes without my saying it anyway, the better the friend the more likely I am to swipe whichever way will get their voice piping down the electric magic that is modern tech. But see, my friends don’t call that much because there are a million other avenues of communication in these rapidly changing times.

When an unknown number calls though, it is sheer terror. ‘Who are they?’,’What do they want?’, ‘Why are they calling now?’ and so on. If you live a loose life you wonder if the call is about money, it mostly always is.

Worse is calling others. I did a feature article for Uni on bowls clubs, as I have spoken of, and any reasonable person will tell you that a dozen emails ending in ‘bigpond.com’ aren’t likely to yield a response, still I persevered. Praying that there was one slightly tech-davy golden oldie in the mix. Why, because I hate calling people.

Even factoring in the worst thing is a ‘fuck you I hope you die’ and figuring that not so bad, I am a thin skinned man. 

And as a result I don’t go to the phone, except to look at Facebook and pictures of nude arses every few minutes.

Answering The Door.

If people calling was a dinosaur move steeped in dread for me, imagine the door-bell ringing. No friend would ring the door bell. True friends come through the back door.

A Silk-Sheet Test Determined This Was True.

But a ring out front? Terror. As a renter, or tenant, or whatever I always assume it is the land-lord, a charity collector my weak will won’t let me say no to, someone selling something I will buy or a pissed off neighbour.

Any way you slice it it works out bad. All of those people hold the power and most of them don’t even know it, like a kid with a flame-thrower. I get my brother to answer the door most times, I ignore the knock the rest of the time.

I do have one older friend who does the polite thing, but usually he has texted before coming by so I keep an eagle eye out for him. Otherwise, just show up, don’t keep my waiting for the bullet.

Smelling Bad.

I work a manual job and I smoke. In some sense, I am a double-threat. Though really the only double-threat is to my heart, lungs, pancreas and all the other little packets of meat that are keeping me a citizen.

The Only Double-Threat Worth Paying For.

But my odour is always on my mind, like, always- to the point of breathing insanity. See, my boss is a staunch non-smoker and not close to the heavy-sweater I am. I try not to stink for him. Then, I deliver heavy furniture upstairs a fair part of the time or deliver heavy furniture to overheated offices all the time.

I am bound to stink, at least some of the time. That is life, we huff it, we move on and we all have a merry Christmas. But I worry ceaselessly about it, smelling like smoke and man on getting a signing for a delivery because someone- and I shan't name names- decided to keep their office at a crisp 35 degrees to cater for the one forty-kilogram Asian chick who works there. Work-place bureaucracy gone mad. 

As a result, I douse my clothing with a good dose of women spray in the morning, slather my underarms and neck and smoking fingers with a hard shot of roll-on before work and take a pull on the no-name toothpaste I keep in my bag three to four times a day. The things you gotta do to stay employed.

The Land-Lord and The Real Estate

As a renter, or tenant, or whatever you might as well be getting arse-fucked every day. They have all the power and you have none. I have had my bond sheared from me more times than I’d like to remember and it is all because they dress in suits and abuse themselves with perfume and cologne and seem like they will win, so they do. And so, bond is free money.

As a result whenever there is an inspection, there is not a Noel Pride. I walk the dog, hide in a park, go to work or get lunch at 10 A.M, or late breakfast. I cannot deal with their criticisms. Though one thing remains constant- the text to my brother. 

Are We Fucked?

Wherever I am it is the same thing, ‘Go OK?’. My brother is an optimist, and clearly more of an adult than I could hope to be. Though you have to sacrifice your first-born to get a house and they want everything from you. They complained about my curtains being tied up.

We have had our heater out since we moved in. Not a problem until winter hit, the coldest in some time. We called the real-estate when it got too much, they send the land-lord. 

He brought a ‘plumber’, which I can only assume means ‘friend familiar with pipes’ in Mandarin. Any who, he couldn’t fix it and told my brother and his girl-friend ’10-20 Days’ then, moments later, told me ’20-30’ days. That has to have been a month ago. We live in blanket and hot-water-bottle town.

Though it was nice to see the ashtrays emerge when the guy and his ‘plumber’ were gone. 

NP.