Wednesday, June 29, 2005

RE: Cycle

I have an upcoming post wherein I regurgitate writing that particularly struck my fancy but this isn't that. A couple of months back I booked into the skin cancer clinic for a check and was reading an Australian Woman's Weekly while waiting. It really hasn't changed much, not having succumbed to the scuttlebut that sells more copies of New Idea and Woman's Day. Anyway, there was this article on Don Burke and he made an astounding claim that recycling was a waste of time. An assertion he repeated when interviewed on Enough Rope, so evidently one he feels passionate about. Now I don't dislike Don but he probably votes Liberal so I thought he might be doing a Harry Butler on us but now I discover there is substance to his claims. But I can't bring myself to start throwing everything I've been meticulously collecting for the recycle into the bin. This is just a cheery community service for those lazy bastards who couldn't be bothered. Now you don't have to feel guilty.

II

I've always been amused at how table tennis has two names: the formal name for those with sufficient skills to play competitively and ping pong for those who whack the ball all over the place.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Living next door to Alice

If you do read this blog then the gods bless you and keep you safe. I'm so gratified that I'll give you a free tip that will keep you healthy this Winter. If you have a needle phobia like moi or are prone to the sniffles and worse, I have a magic potion you can take - and I've had two colds in the last six years, neither of which lasted long - Royal Jelly. You can buy it in Chinatown for less than ten dollars a box; about thirty vials I think. So it's dirt cheap. The only catch is that it is so fucking powerful that it can kill you! (yeah, I know, that's some catch). Each vial is plastered with a sticker warning that asthmatics and highly allergenic people have been known to experience fatalities. I'm allergic to bee stings and it doesn't affect me in anything than a wholly positive way. You need to test it first to be on the safe side. Consult a good homeopath or Chinese herbal medicine practitioner.
Oh and some people don't like the taste so they get the flu instead. The logic beats me completely but there you go.

II

Kind of appropriate for Alice Cooper to be on a show called 'Enough Rope'. I'm not a fan as such but have no trouble acknowledging his importance in the rock pantheon. Marilyn Manson is, and always will be, a pale imitation.

I knew about his enthusiasm for golfing and the fact that his outrageous persona is largely confined to the stage. I didn't know he was a Christian but this is apparently an outcome of his overcoming his alcoholism. I do take issue with his support for a certain retarded statesman but found that interesting too (I don't really consider "Dubya Deathtoll" a statesman, it just sounded good). The thing is, I doubt Mr Furnier has thought very deeply about the issues. He was at pains to emphasise how Groucho Marx and contemporaries from that era saw the Alice Cooper show as vaudeville; the animal cruelty and fake guillotine were part of a macabre act much in the way that Mr Vincent Price was a perfect gentleman who just played dark and sinister characters.

And he said that rock music and politics don't mix; that when his parents would start discussing the issues of the day, he'd go into his room and put on the Rolling Stones. Fair enough in a way. I don't know where that leaves half the stuff I follow - yer Dead Kennedys, yer Clash City Rockers.
Even yer Sex Pistols - nihilism is as much a political philosophy as any other. But I'm not going to argue with what Alice Cooper perceives to be the province of rock. It's true for him, so be it. If Bush isn't for rockers who take a too-casual interest in proceedings then who is he for, after all?!

Monday, June 13, 2005

Laying of Hans

Readers of 'Touched By The Son' may also be interested in:

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Key powder veer

Okay trust the Aussie activist - never a flourishing or luxurious species at the best of times - to fuck it up. I actually thought there was some touch of genuine insight taking place but instead the protest is taking the same form as our political masters: bullshit thinking and mindless hostility.

The thing I've been indignant about with the whole targetting of our institutions by fundamentalist whackoffs is that they deliver blows against the wrong targets and make everything worse than if they've crumpled into an apathetic heap. Now we're copying them


So much for thinking I was impervious to 'the rodent's' chicanery: it turns out that there have - wait for it - 360 white powder scares since September 11, there is no evidence of what connection the recent scare at Indonesian embassy has to events and, in fact, a strong suggestion that it wasn't some misguided Aus activist since THE THREAT LETTER WAS WRITTEN IN INDONESIAN. I hope I don't run into Howard in the street as I really hate liars.

II

I actually came to administer koolaid and sacrificial scones because today marks two solid years of blogging and, despite the fact that I get less interaction than the average person who does naught but twitter on about how the friends we know nothing of are shitting them or how the shoes we have never seen are pinching their feet, I'll continue. Why? Chiefly for the process. It happens to be fulfilling to write what would once have been considered a 'super essay', with the best footnotes you could imagine. It's all about discovery. If those little browneye zero comments continue then I'll console myself with message boards and newsgroups.
This is, after all, vanity publishing on a grand scale, and as likely to be read.

Nor do we help our case by encouraging people to wander off