welcome to february

There was and probably is a very funny columnist (I’m not going to blow his cover) who wrote or perhaps still writes a column for an otherwise seriously crappy free music magazine on the Bellarine Peninsula under an obviously made up name. I was such a fan of the column I sent him a postcard (two actually, about a year apart, he later claimed not to have received the first, not that I don’t believe him) suggesting he write for The Big Issue, which I was at that time somewhat involved in in a minor editorial capacity. He wrote back and said ‘it’s me, I already write for The Big Issue,’ and that was bizarre and sort of disappointing too though I suppose it does show one example of me having minor nous. Well, one of those columns was a tirade against weather men-women who would talk about the rain, or other cold weather, as though it was a real tragedy, and the column was about how a huge proportion of Australians live in the south-east, and clearly if they really hated the rain or cold, they wouldn’t do that. Which was, in all honesty, pretty funny and pertinent.

People these days blog because they don’t believe in a God who hears their prayers, and all praying is really is venting, so can I just offer a vent up to the blogosphere above, to say, this fucking hot weather is wearing me down, seriously, and I find it very difficult a third day in a row to have a near-40 degree day, and I know I should be completely inured to it by now, and I am perhaps slightly more inured to it than I used to be, but really, this is bullshit man. At least I am now, as I write, on a slightly more comfortable airconditioned train but no doubt it will be packed tight by the time I get to N Melbourne.

Last night we went to see Another Year which was tremendously engaging and funny. In the spirit of continuing to vent to God, can I say I completely despise the Nova and the people who go there (apart from the ones I like). When the lights went up at the end of the film it was clear that it was one of those rare events where almost everyone in the theatre was about twenty years older than me and I don’t know if that’s an excuse but what I do know is that one is never surprised when, during the first five minutes of a film at the Nova, everyone gets phone calls and they are all fumbling for their mobiles (‘dratted… thing…’) and of course during the very last, final, completely silent scene, someone had to decide to indulge in an enormous lung-emptying phlegmsperience. I know in a way that’s just other people, I’ll be like that soon, and so on. Still it is crappy. Also, there were at least two big digital glitches in the movie – why should that happen? It rarely happens with DVDs, but the same thing happened when we went to see the 3rd Narnia film at Broady Hoyts – and additionally for a brief moment all the colour in the film was washed across with a kind of pus yellow. I know it wasn’t Avatar (which by the way I still haven’t seen…) which is to say, it’s not like you’re there for the glorious colour contrasts in Jim Broadbent’s face, and I suppose you could say it’s part of the experience. But in my present state of mind I would say it’s one more example of ineptitude and shabby treatment being sold to a mindless, senseless bourgeoisie who are made to feel they should just be grateful. At least the Nova managed to show the right film first up, which is always a bonus.

There are a lot of snifflers on the train. What do you think that means. A woman across the aisle from me is reading a book called Island of Shadows and drinking her snot and a man opposite me is eating a ham and salad roll, drinking lemonade and sniffing back.

Also, I hate mobile phone rings that are a woman whistling and calling ‘taxi!’ though not as much as the laughing baby mobile ring, which thankfully is on the wane as far as I can tell (did you have something to do with that God? I bet you did).

Anyway, so, hot day. Barry is being desexed today too. He wasn’t keen on going in the car, but that doesn’t mean he had figured something out – he’s never keen on it. I hope he’s OK but there’s no reason to think he won’t be. Broady Vets is actually pretty good.

Oh by the way I just want to tell you what I also hate is being called ‘boss’. It is somewhat a 21st century version of being called ‘mate’ (though I guess women are often now called ‘mate’ by men and other women, whereas I am guessing neither men nor women call women ‘boss’, but I’d be interested to hear otherwise). It is the sort of thing that should be challenged, except you come off like some kind of shorthaired hippy ‘I’m not your boss, mate, OK?’ The reason why it is similar to mate is that it can be used quite aggressively. If someone calls you boss they are usually (in my experience) in a position where they’re serving you (petrol, whatever) and I take it to be a way of drawing attention to this situation while at the same time saying, ‘you’re not better than me’. I resent this because I don’t think I’m better than anyone really, well, certainly people who have not shown me otherwise. Not in a status sense, I’m not ‘better’. So, it pisses me off to be called ‘boss’ because I feel it is demeaning to both of us - rare exception: irony. ‘Mate’ is a little more generic these days I guess but it is still irritating in some contexts. No-one calls each other son any more or love that often I think – there are exceptions.

I had a teacher in Grade 5, Mr. Howard, who was very Terry-Thomasish, he called all the girls in his class Biddy because he couldn’t remember their names (I think, though he might have given us another explanation and said we weren’t to read anything into it). I interviewed him for the school newsletter. He had a stroke half way through the year and we had replacements for the rest of the year. Come to think of it, it was Grade 6, because in Grade 5 I had a complete arsehole for a teacher. I suppose I should be ashamed that I derived enormous pleasure from the fact that I heard he had his arm cut off by an airplane propellor in the late 70s, then significant disappointment when I heard many years later that it wasn’t true. I told one of my former classmates that man was a piece of shit and he said, ‘Oh, you just feel that way because he hated you.’ Good enough reason.

Yes I am bitter! About that.

early train

I finally managed to catch a pre-7am train. These are the trains that get to town before – guess! – 7 am at which time if you have validated a pre-7am ticket then you don’t have to pay. My problem is not so much getting up at 5 in the morning – although I am a bit dysfunctional and it just occurred to me then that I might not have turned the heater off, though I think I probably did, but anyway I’m going to have to call Mia and wake her up to check which something tells me she won’t thank me for (later: I did, but I had, she as predicted didn't) – but getting to the train by 6:22, which is the last possible train I can get that gets me into the city before 7 (the one after is just after). Well actually I got there with tons of time to spare, considering the train was late (though not as late as the platform indicators said - they were still saying it had 4 minutes to arrive when it was virtually there, then they suddenly flash to ‘NOW’ which makes you feel like you’ve just jaunted), indeed, enough to go around from platform 1 to the main ticket place on platform 2 and tell ‘the man’ that the ticket validator wasn’t working, to which he made a noise that sounded to me like ‘yes I know we’re having someone come out and look at it as soon as possible thank you for bringing it to my attention’.

It’s a pretty packed train, really, at least, probably about 2/3 of the seats are filled and we’re not at Strathmore yet. It’s not quite light as yet and a nice time of day. One of the things I was wondering about on this trip was whether I could bring my recently refurbished (by Mia) bicycle on this train and ride it to work from N Melbourne. The issue then of course would be I wouldn’t be able to take my bike back on the train between 5 and 7 so I’d be stuck at work or some strip club biding my time until I was able to return.

Now we are at Essendon this will be the proof of the pudding how packed the train gets here. If it gets substantially filled with people I will either have to think about getting an even earlier train… it is pretty filled up but it’s not like it is an hour later when all those paying people block up the entrance ways and there is literally no way (aside I suppose from standing in the doorway from the outset) that people like me can comfortably get off the train at N Melbourne. I think so far (now we arriving Ascot Vale) this would be OK bikewise. Unless a billion people get on here or at Newmarket or Kensington, all those yuppie scum stations, it should be fine.

Last night I watched The End of Suburbia the documentary from about four years ago re: the demise of suburban life in the US because of the demise of oil/petrol. When I say I watched it, I’m a liar, well, literally I did but I fast-forwarded through a bit of it in a ‘yeah yeah’ way. We at our house are not dependant on our cars, we just use them all the time, except for things like Mia’s band, but that’s just one more example of where it wouldn’t take much of a rearrangement of the world – a little bit of pressure that would probably come from somewhere else – to make this unnecessary, i.e. I am told in Japan they have all the required equipment at the venue and you borrow it for the night, which sounds like just a brilliant idea and when you think about it they probably pay that off in a matter of weeks because the whole band would then drink a lot and the extra profit would come to thousands very quickly. Perhaps in Australia more than Japan the whole band might drink a lot and then smash the equipment but I doubt it actually, anyway all you’d have to do is make them sign some liability and then when they woke up the next morning and realised they’d trashed the equipment and were liable for thousands and thousands of dollars they’d either skip town or top themselves, either way it’d be good overall for society and the music scene. The venue owners could by law have first pick of their DVDs and Smiths albums as compensation for their lack of compensation.

So The End of Suburbia was I thought a bit too much red-faced middle-aged (or older) white men, not that I am against them per se because after all I am one, arguing vociferously. Who needs it? A lot of time spent convincing us the people (or the American people actually) of something that is bleeding obvious, and then 10 mins at the end featuring the alternatives, which is what I was really interested in, Peter Calthorpe etc. I think this might be another example of an American film which can be sold to provincially-minded alternatypes who don’t realise how provincially minded they actually are, and are happy to pop Australia into the same category as Dallas Texas a place they haven’t been and won’t go to, ever (and have probably never gone to the Australian places they are comparing it to). Neither have I but I know it’s a whole different ballgame. I’m not saying that I don’t therefore think that people should quit driving their cars all over the place all the time like idiots, befouling the environment and sequestering themselves off from reality, but I am saying that we can’t always take on American warnings as though we’re ‘just behind’ America. The rest of this post was so stupid and badly written I had to come back a day later and cut it off. Sorry it makes even less sense now. Actually that's arguable. Anyway, here's a picture of a balloon I saw on the way to work soon after writing the above.