do you like the bleeding obvious

I was randomly looking through old posts and thought of this one, christ those people are now approaching forty (they're probably 37ish). I assume this is about Deakin students but I was trying, I suppose, to deidentify them so I wasn't specific about the subject, even the campus. But in any case that's the reality - they would have been 18 or so, and it's 18 and a half years ago. I don't really know why this is even worth mentioning, that people who were born in (say) 1987 are going to be 37 this year, except I suppose when I distill it I realise I have been blogging a long time. Yeah, that's probably the crux of my engagement with that stupid, irrelevant, idiotic short post. 

I also have precisely no recollection of any of the students from that time. Sorry if you were one of them, but I am guessing you probably weren't. I do know that those kids never said anything about hoping to read my blog in 2024. 

I reckon I only started being interested in teaching around 2005. Certainly, when it was suggested to me that I could get some tutoring work at Deakin, where I was doing my PhD, it had never occurred to me that I could, would or even should do that kind of job (I know people say things like that and you go, 'sure', but honestly, I remember the conversation with my supervisor - we were driving along Glenferrie Road Malvern, I have no idea why - and it was a novel concept to me). 

By the way the above picture is AI's idea of 'the bleeding obvious 2005' without cows, people or blood (it gave me two bloody images so I had to specify no blood). Thanks AI I think you nailed it

progress reports

Also in the mysteriously boxed stuff were ten of my school reports (of which, presumably, I once had 12, as they came twice a year I think). 

I have probably whinged here before how disgusting John Gardiner High School was to attend on a daily basis and how much I hated my time there 1977-1982. I am always surprised when I meet people - occasionally, and not necessarily dumb people - who think they peaked at secondary school and that was the best time of life. Similarly when it comes to JGHS I am genuinely surprised to find on fb a testimonial from one former teacher 'We had some wonderful times, spanning from the sublime to the ridiculous but at the heart of it was a dedicated band of educators. There were others too. I was privileged to have had that  time there with them.' I mean even pushing through the formalities of polite language there, seriously? So many of those people sucked so badly, not just as teachers but also at life, I would say, completely dysfunctional. Of course, looking at their pictures today (I'm thinking about the teachers at the moment) many of them were of course more than half the age I am now and about as equipped to live in the world as I was, and I was aged 14 or whatever, but still, wtf could anyone say they were dedicated to!? As for the students all cracking hearty on the fb page not quite 'best days of my life' (look, maybe some of them are saying that) but fuck's sake. It was so grotesque. 

It's forty years later though give or take and I think I seriously have to get a grip on how angry I continue to be about that poor education. The fact is, I can't really sue the Education Department; those who should (?) be punished are now dead anyway, and even if I was successful the end result would not be interpretable by society at large as yes! public education should be much better but either that was public education in the 70s/80s who gives a fuck or private education you pay a massive amount for is the only way to go. 

The other thing is that I might well have to face up to the two-way street that maybe I have, or had, some complicity in this. It was not necessarily my teachers' job to challenge me (or pander to me for that matter) at every juncture, and just because I had arcane interests at that stage doesn't mean I was particularly special. Clever little boys aren't the precious commodity they were brought up believing they are. It's arguably true that the jerks I had to share a classroom at school with, the ones who ended up going to jail a few years later or whatever, had no prospects or proper guidance outside that institution and possibly deserved some extra care (who knows if it did any good). 

Well, I could go on (and may at some time) but it's difficult sometimes to face up to the fact that you aren't as hard done by as you've worked yourself up to imagining you are, so I might have to brood on it for a little longer. 

PS I can't believe I kept these, and that was a six-year project obviously, to keep them, and to retain them. Certainly my parents wouldn't have filed them away and certainly no-one ever said 'go back and look at them again' or anything like that. So strange I still have them. 

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.

late night dogs

Well Charlie woke me up completely rearranging the living room (ripping up a cardboard box as it transpired). I put her outside and she ran amok out there for a while (2.30 am). Then barked to be allowed back in. This woke Millie up who has decided she has some serious fidgetty shit to accomplish. Now Charlie is asleep again and Millie is going. It's only me that's awake. I am dreaming I am blogging, which is almost embarrassing.

I checked sitemeter again, always a relevation. Recent success stories here have been the stuff on Knockout from a few months back alongside the old hits of 'what relation is your cousin's child to you' and '1001 songs you must hear before you die'. I actually wrote some entries for the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, eg the entries on Godd's A Wizard, a True Star; ZZ Top's Tres Hombres; and the Bee Gees' Trafalgar. It took a real sublimation of the instincts to work for that book (though the editor was great to work with, a pro, and there were no lies told) because of course everyone has their favourite 1001 albums - why stop at 1001 - and I was railing all the way against non-inclusion of so many things I thought were so much better than so many other things, but luckily it wasn't my call. I would have produced a book without Sgt Pepper (that would have been in the book 1001 cultural artifacts you must avoid until you die, along with 2 1/2 Men, Macleod's Daughters, Star Wars, The Joshua Tree and London). I did feel privileged to write on Pere Ubu's Dub Housing which is in my opinion one of the top ten best albums ever made. There was nowhere near enough Australian stuff in there of course, probably Back in Friggin' Black and that's about it. Back in Black is such a chronically awful record - look, I know - its broad appeal, like that of internet porn, makes me despair for almost anyone.

I went to the doctor's tonight because I was worried I might have swine flu. Headaches, cough, fever. He said if I had had it, which I might have, it was mild and it has more or less passed. When I say I was worried, I was only worried I might be a carrier and/or that it was the beginning of something huge and horrid. So I felt fine. The headaches are the only really bothersome bit and can be managed. I did have to watch 2 1/2 Men in the waiting room. The upside of today aka yesterday: a student sent me an email saying of a course I taught this semester: 'Everything was fantastic. By far my favourite subject so far in my tertiary education' - god that's nice to hear! - and the redoubtable Clarkey, a woman much on my mind lately as I have been tramping the wilds of her former planet, Templestowe the last couple of weeks, texted me to say she was at a service station in Joondalup and saw someone wearing those silly converse I drew, and fell into a converse-ation with him, and he told her he loves them and so does everyone else he's ever met. OK, I'm being flippant. But I now know of 4 satisfied owners out of 4. So since the dogs are now asleep and power snoring, I am going back to bed. Night.

PS (I'm not writing this, I'm dreaming I'm writing it) actually a book called 1001 Cultural Artifacts You Must Avoid Until You Die would be a fantastic idea - the new Stuff White People Like I reckon - everyone would get enjoyably up in arms about the stuff that was dissed in there because they'd all know it - classic. If you decide to run with this idea, cut me some royalties please OK? OK.

on becoming a man

Well I picked up a book called On Becoming a Man today in a rather remarkable Hadfield op shop. It is in beautiful condition, to the degree that I suspect whoever was once given it did not actually read it, or if they did, they respected it immensely. Since the subhead is 'A book for teenage boys', the first five words in the title create the name OBAMA, an extraordinary piece of prediction (though it doesn't explain the rest of the acronym, which reads in full OBAMABFTB) The 20th century Nostradamus responsible is one Harold Shryock, whose name is an anagram for Hard Rocks Holy and Arch Lord Oh Sky.The book has no date (it might be from 1968* but it does not mention the Jefferson Airplane) and though it is American (Shryock was from the College of Medical Evangelists, Loma Linda, CA) it was published in Warburton, outside Melbourne, by a publishing house called Signs. I can picture it now.

By the way, some seem to regard the work as still relevant. This is not my other blog.

I haven't read it from cover to cover, of course I read the section on homosexuality as, being such a mad fag myself, I love to see how we are persecuted (actually it just fell open at that page). I notice that Shryock adheres to the interesting fallacies of the time (he sees gay men as frozen in an emotional state by, for instance, the death of a family member at a sensitive time) but considers a two-step scenario the most likely, wherein a boy is oriented to homosexuality by personal tragedy but only then activated - turned on, if you will - by an exploitative older man. Anyway, Shryock doesn't pull too many punches, except perhaps the punch that, while the book is plainly a Christian book, it doesn't say anywhere that it's a Christian book, until you start reading the fucker.

The pictures are possibly the best bit (since I'll never read it fully I'll never ever know). They are a mixture of oddly posed photographs and strangely but finely painted scenarios.


(By the way is it a syndrome that sparks off songs in your head when you're reminded of them? Because I keep thinking of a ditty 'bout Jack and Joanne. You can't really see the caption, not if you've got eyes like mine, but it's worth clicking on the pictures if that enlarges them. They look strangely more lovely pixilated anyway I think).

This one intrigues me, not just because I believe its central message to be true:



But also because I wonder what the hey this trusted pedagogue has drawn on his board. I mean, really:


It's so easy to laugh at this kind of stuff (I don't mean this picture specifically, but the whole book) that it's almost not funny. I suppose there is a generation or two of people whose knowledge, such as it is, of this sort of cheesy upright western civillisation certitude is derived entirely from retro greeting cards with funny talks balloons. This thing was probably published in my lifetime but I could never have ever looked at a picture like this without simultaneously finding it creepy, possibly funny, eminently defaceable, ridiculous, and standing in some ways for many things it is meant to be entirely the opposite of.

I mean, the world moved on; it doesn't matter particularly. But it does bear some consideration, that this kind of thing - I was almost about to say this kind of garbage, because that just seems so self-evident - represents a universe that is entirely gone now, with a huge amount of evidence left behind, but evidence which is for most of us entirely meaningless. I am not saying people don't still believe in families or America or god or whatever this stuff is supposed to represent, but that the certainty of its moral position and the coccoon-like right places for everyone has been entirely assailed and to my mind destroyed. When I see a picture like this, the endpapers of the book which for some reason I've made really teensy but you can still make it out kind of:

I can only see a phallic building over the back fence, a perverse set of relationships between the women in the picture and the young man in purple, and the whole thing so unutterably fraudulent and sterile, yet fraught with strong and corrupt meaning. None of these people can ever be happy until they cast off their crippling stereotypes. I mean maybe it's just me. Is it just me?

*Actually Father Dave says it is from 1951, which seems more plausible, I saw an edition on eBay dated 1968 however so maybe there was an update to mention Jefferson Airplane.

sunday

Drove Mia to Bunnings to get D rings (you hang pictures via them) and then we each had a pretzel from the great pretzel place at Broady. If I had a month to live I would just sit in there all day eating their pretzels and occasionally going to the gelo bar (30 seconds away) but sadly I do not.

One week till teaching begins. It is no doubt only a matter of time before my students uncover this blog, if they give a loose root about anything I do outside lecturing/ seminaring them. Well, that is fine, I don't do anything here I'm ashamed of particularly unless you count revealing my appallingly boring behaviour. (A colleague I respect said the other day he was impressed by my ability to write 60 000 words on a relatively obscure subject, I told him my specialty was to find boring things interesting.)

Applecore yesterday was pretty great, what I saw of it (I got sick of it after a while, particularly when the drink started to kick in amongst those around me and they got all talky about totally nothing). Unfortunately the great fig trees in the garden where it was being held were not offering anything of edible standard, either too unripe or too ripe. Sad as I was quite into the figs all day thang which incidentally leads me to momentarily go off onto another tangent of things I find staggeringly irritating in 2008:

1. People who say thang
2. Discussions about vegetarianism
3. People who, in seeking to convey how annoying they find a particular sound, way of talking, etc, replicate it really loudly
4. People who might be accusing me of being a revisionist historian (if it's me they mean)
5. People who titter
6. Boys who utter obscenities on the train.