Thoughts for this week

The Definition of hip
I think, is when you notice that Massive Attack borrowed a riff from the Cure in one of their tracks.

Women
I strive to ascertain the intricate differences in demeanor which determine whether the outcome of a random “hello” results in the girl returning to her friend and saying
“hey, I got chatted up. giggle”
as opposed to
“that loser was trying to talk to me”

Sometimes I do it. Other times I know for sure its the latter horrible outcome. A work in progress.

Aussie TV
A few weeks ago I finished watching Underbelly, a dramatic series based upon the “Gangland war” which gripped Melbourne through the late nineties and into the new decade. I love the word Gangland, and ever since the events down there first began to attract media attention I’ve been a bit fascinated with the underworld.

As far as locally produced TV goes I think it’s not too bad. The acting has its moments. Most of them are ex Home and Away, Neighbors, Blue Heelers, that sort of jazz. The thing that struck, and really amused me is actors who first came to prominence on those relatively prudish, utterly conventional shows are suddenly snorting coke off each others naked bodies, having sex, and beating the shit out of everyone in sight.

And thats the one thing I never did get about Home and Away. It strikes me as a bit of a tragedy that young, upcoming actors have little choice other than the above sorts of shows through which to prove themselves. it seems to me its not the actors themselves that make the show so difficult to stand, its the techniques and style they are seemingly forced to adopt.

Why do they patronise the audience to the extent they do? You can preach the value of honesty and good old family blah blah in a less nauseating way, surely. I mean I get their logic. They believe that Aussies are champing at the bit for our nightly dose of weak dross, that we don’t want to be challenged. And speaking in terms of the majority, they could be right. But come on, it can’t hurt Australia to bring Home and Away and Neighbors into the twenty first century. Most of the actors have potential I think, and even the storylines are mostly passable. Just tune up the acting styles ffs and I might even watch.

If the networks are afraid of alienating their audience, why not make the transition an indescrete, gradual process. The unaware audience would slowly become more cultured, and before the commercial networks realise what’s going on, they would have educated their target audience out of existence. Meanwhile dinkum battlers have subconsciously flicked it over to SBS, turned vegan and become members of the Greens.

Hmm, so maybe i do understand why it’s so.

It sucks.
Understanding I mean. I wish I could enjoy Home and Away.

Prejudice
It becomes heavy to lug around. Better then to drop all judgments and base your views on our own experience and reading, rather than the rants of others. Shame it took me this long to work that one out.

Summer
It’s awesome.

What I’ve been up to.

I’m throwing something on here, for the most part because last one was a little negative and bashed into existence one some random week evening after I’d had enough. And also because for some reason I called this Dirk’s news, and I have a bit that might be mildly interesting to some. Of news that is.

So I’m no longer employed by Telstra Corperation. It’s been two days and I’ve already forgotten everything I had to know. Excellent.

I worked that job for nearly two years. What do I have to show for it? Well a little cash. Also met a few cool people, however I’ve been so slack with maintaining friendships this year that they might not survive now I don’t automatically see them at work.

So not much else has been gained. Two years is a fair chunk of youth; I contemplated how I could have better spent the time. I could have completed two thirds of a bachelor degree for example. But then I suppose I’d be as much in the red financially from that as I am in the green as a result of working for The Man. And in any case, busting out degrees and stuff is not exactly my style at this juncture. I’m not an overachievin’ kinda guy. Furthermore, even if I’d done something along the lines of going full steam into some random uni degree I’d be not much closer to what I really want. Mistakes. I’ve made that one before!

What DO I actually want? Well, basically I want power. Influence. Not the pussy kind that politicians have either. I don’t want to piss away my existence feigning support of pointless causes, posturing and towing the party line. I’m couldn’t be less interested in celebrity, having my own makeup team, networking with fatcats and getting photos with babies. I find myself unmotivated by money because I don’t enjoy buying and owning stuff. The shit you own, it ends up owning you. Anyway, I’ve decided I’m pretty sure the true movers and shakers are operating behind the scenes. Influencing policy, quietly pulling the strings.

Some stuff in the world is not going so great right now. It struck me long ago that worrying achieves nothing, so instead I file it all away and listen to folk bands and go to the beach and enjoying the simple pleasures. Ultimately I do hope to make a bit of a difference though. It’d be a good feeling.

The way I see it I have two choices. I can close my eyes and hold on for the ride; staple my fingers crossed that elected leaders and the lobby groups they represent are going to somehow get us through the challenges. I feel like I’m in a car, at 3am on a Saturday. The bumpers are held on by zip-ties, the springs cut, exhaust’s leaking into the cabin somehow and the driver has an a couple of open smirnoff’s in the centre console. As the vehicle screams down Ghost Hill at a dollar eighty, it floats and skips on buggered suspension. I glance at the wasted driver and think to myself “This dude is not in control; we’re totally in his hands, but I don’t think he realises. Am I going to come out of this alive or is the whole show going to smash into that parked semi that we’re sliding towards, now sideways out of compression lock.”

The other option is to accept some bad shit is happening, and try and be part of the force of good. As Plato said, the price good men pay for indifference to public affairs, is to be ruled by evil men. And so it goes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally over the obsession with the doom and gloom which gripped me for some time. That shit achieves nothing and alienates you from the world. Why not accept some things are bad [not all, mind you] and just do your best to change? I’m not going to nail myself to shit, feed african kids or wear an anti-war badge. I’m not going to make a martyr of myself and dedicate my life to ambitious causes. I’ve even abandoned the idea of leading a coup to establish a marxist socialist state and sit in a sentry tower defended by lasers. Heh.

I don’t feel I have a calling or whatever. I’m equally good at most stuff. So I might as well throw myself into something that I’ll feel good about and hopefully do everyone some good. Anyway I know I reduce it to good vs evil, but honestly it’s not straying far from the truth. The ones screwing the world for their own gain can only go on while there’s minimal resistance. The corporate controlled media placates most, but even a few thorns in the side can suddenly bring the fresh, sweet breath of of change and justice. I think it’s about someone brought the vehicle under control. Might as well do our best to make the world a nice place, and try a bit harder to look ahead, rather than at our navals.

So, anyway, stepping off the podium now.

So far I haven’t done much with the free time. Yesterday I slept in, went for a walk and saw some bird of prey which I figured out to be a Square Tailed Kite. I like birds of prey. Also the various migratory birds which I usually refer to as “Summer birds” such as the Channel-billed cuckoo and the Coell. Balmy summer evenings you can hear their amazing calls echoing over the hills along with distant thunder. It’s awesome.

Today was good. Yesterday I received a text from my friend who drives a semi for a living. “Wanna come for a run tomorrow mate? Starting at five, we’ll be about twelve hours, to Rocky and back via Gladstone”
I was like “Righto”

So 0430 this morning, alarm rings. I sit up, dazed. Still half asleep, the stupidity of the situation hits me. “I quit the job because I got warn out and shitty with everything. Now one day into my holiday I’m waking up at four am to go sit in a truck for twelve hours. Nah stuff this, I’m going back to sleep.”

So I sent an apologetic message to my friend, felt slightly guilty and lay back down. Fairly awake by this point.

Then the phone beeped. I chose to ignore it.

Beep again.
Once again I chose ignore.

Beep. A third message. FFS. I picked it up to find three messages consisting roughly of

“COME ON YOU PUSSY. YOU’RE SOFT. YOU’RE FUCKING SOFT. GET YOUR PISSWEAK ARSE OUT HERE”

Truth. Noone has ever achieved anything or had any adventures out of being weak. So what if I’d had four hours sleep and a crap six months. Getting out of this town would do me good, and a chat with my good friend was long overdue in any case. Satisfied with my choice, I looked at the clock. By this time I had ten minutes to put on clothes, grab wallet and stuff and make the fifteen min journey to the depot. So on went the flanny and thongs, and off I went.

And so it was that at 5am I found myself in the cabin of a rather large rig in the crisp morning. As the sun came up and the smell of diesel and hot oil wisped about, tinny music played on the radio, and an open road stretched before us, I knew I’d made the right decision.

So I did a Brendan Nelson, except I didn’t look like a thunderbird, and actually turned out to be some use to my mate.

I have learnt that being a truckie involves the following aspects:

- The ability to work thirteen hours, every day, for six days, have a day off, then do it again.
- The ability to fluently intersperse the word fuggen in general conversation, especially in radio chatter.
- A particularly windy, steep vally on the hiway is known in the industry as “the dipper”.

Not unusually for any adventure with this particular mate of mine, several shenanigans occurred during the day.

The first instance occurred after delivering all the cars around rock, as well as loading up a few more. The next drop was in Gladstone, to a private individual’s home. Which was unusual – the bigger trucks generally just go to the depots and the customer picks the car up from there. Anyway this private delivery wouldn’t have been an issue. Except for the fact that the home was situated in one of those new “estates” in some hills on the outskirts of town.

You know those sterile, uniform suburbs. A sea of brick veneer, tiled rooves, cauldersacs, roundabouts, turf, stupid looking plants. There must be millions of homes like that all over Australia. All boring, rather poorly designed rubbish as far as I care.

Anyway, it turned out to be a mission.

Piloting this mother:

Around this:

Well in my mate’s word, it ruined his “fucking day”.

As the truck lumbered and snorted further and further into this quagmire, I instinctively ducked as the four point something metre high rig slid under low slung powerlines which criss-crossed everywhere. “They’re supposed to put those four point six metres high, we uhh, should be alright” he said. They were supposed to, but since when does a developer follow planning guidelines? As the roads became narrower and steeper, and the growl and clap of the exhaust brakes echoed off the homes, my friend’s temper deteriorated. At one point we had no choice but to drive over a roundabout which we may or may not have destroyed. Or at least made it less pretty. Ahh well, fuckem. I hate those estates. At least we gave it some character.

We managed to deliver the car though. We endured old mate’s bogan quips and retarded laugh for fifteen mins or so while papers were signed, then off we went again, becomming lost in a dead end street in the process. At this point my mate’s normally rock-solid demenor was quickly being eroded. He threw the refidex at me. “Fuck this mate. This is a crock. Help me get out of here. Tell me which way to turn!”

Awesome situation. Put in charge of navigation of the bastard snapped me awake.

We did it too. We managed to find out way out after that and finally drew breath. Cursed the idiot who had assured us the roads were suitable for a semi. In reality he had no clue and simply wanted the car to his door instead of having to pick it up from a depot. Ahh well, another lesson learned. And a huge credit to my mate who piloted the thing with comparatively little destruction to what there could have been.

Later on on the second last delivery I was able to climb up the trailer and slide into one of the cars through a window which my mate could not. Good to be useful. Especially an unemployed bum such as myself.

So anyway that’s what I’ve been doing. I’m also attempting to live off shares, mildly succeeding [most of the time watching in horror as the market implodes further]. I’ve been runnning lots, working out, making mushroom burgers, all that jazz. Also writing down dreams as I remember them. For the first time in a long time I have time to read, relax and hang out. And it’s sweet.

My sister and I applied to volunteer putting up fences before the Woodford folk festival this year, which entitles us to free camping and festival patronage for the five days. Which saves four hundy. That should be interesting as well.

Sleep now.

Sick of it

Biden’s mother in-law dies? New macbook? How to get rich? God people shit me. I just had to express that.

Anyway, when I was sitting outside work today, staring at something or other, through dark aviators, I was jolted out of my brooding by someone commenting that my demeanor resembled that of a hit-man. I replied with something to effect that I was glad I looked fearsome, and that people in general should stay out of my face. I haven’t been very sociable lately.