spaced_in

I now have the internet at my place. Have I eaten? Somewhat. Have I slept? A little. Have I been on “dating websites”? Definitely. I have still been socialising in the flesh though. I went to Richard’s birthday party, followed by Josh’s party at Nevermind on Saturday and spent the day preceeding said parties at the beach and then spent all Sunday at the beach recovering. At the parties in question I hit on people I shouldn’t have, said things better lost to memory and even broke in my podium dancing shoes...my new friend Dean says I could be paid to do that. Yes, maybe, but who would pay for the alcohol to get me up there in the first instance? Tax deduction perhaps? I shall speak to my accountant...

During the daylight hours of the weekend I can’t think of a better place to spend my time than the beach. It isn’t just the sun – it’s the salt water. I leave it on my skin an in my hair. I love it. I sold the benefit of a swim on one's constitution to my sister like pushy car salesperson and after much convincing and I eventually got her head under the waves. It’s a cathartic, grounding, earthy experience submerging yourself in the ocean. I love walking back out of the water, letting the wet sand slip between your toes and waves wash around your feet – like 1000 tiny fingers massaging all at once.

My sister has agreed to come down to the beach each weekend with me for a hard sand run in the morning to get fit. I also recently found out my mother has been going to Coogee beach at 7am in the morning by herself to have a swim, relax and reconnect. I remember being very young watching with deep distress and concern as mum would swim out into the distance, over the waves and into the horizon – I’m sure it is not as far as I make out but in the eyes of a young child it was!

I was now the one pushing my sister in beyond her comfort zone! Anyway all weekend it ways twice cooked potatoes; lay in the sun, cook, then dive in the water off the rocks, swim to the beach, walk back up onto the grass, lay on your towel, cook – repeat the process until golden brown...my tan (skin cells in trauma) is coming along quite nicely. Though I always use 30+ sunscreen my sin cells are just determined to lookk fucking hot!

The highlight of Sunday recovery at the beach was the sniffer dogs searching for drugs on the grassy area at North Bondi where we usually sit. The police found no drugs and their dogs seemed more interested in canine “friends” (to use a Zachism*) wandering by. Drugs are so boring when you have another doggy to play with! The police not wanting to leave empty handed fine a lady who’s Jack Russel apparently viciously mauled a ninty odd kilo, burly man with tatts...what a joke...someone get him a band aid!

*Zachism: My friends Zac refers to everything as a "friend". Generally used as a term of endearment. Everything in Zac's life is a "friend". Even innanimate objects and animals that are held in high regard / thought of fondly are "friends". Often the term is used in the context of third person narration of a passing scene that is observed - the term describes the seemingly close / cosy relationship beteen two objects / beings in space and time.

Evening "Friends" :P

Our annual GayWatch fundraiser at Slide Bar was in trouble... Unlike last year we had organised virtually no media coverage and were in competition with the opening night of “Saturday Fucking Night” (at Nevermind) complete with trout pout Amanda Lapore as host. It was clear our work was cut out for us. Our presence consisted of an event listing on Facebook and a very small composite ad by Slide Bar in the local press. While down on the beach browning our complexions, on the eve of the event, Michael, Luke and I came to the conclusion that only tight fitting speedos could replace the impending intolerable fizz with a much needed bang!

We met at Slide just before 9pm, had a stiff drink, then stripped down to our speedos and proceeded to walk up and down Oxford St with “Slide Tonight” emblazoned across our backs in permanent marker.

Sex sells.

By the time we had to perform in Joyce Manges’ drag show we had filled up the bar - not quite as much as last year but close! The crowd was quite different from last year – in total there may have been 7 actual life savers working at the event as opposed to nearly double that figure last year. Further, relatively few people in the crowd were people we knew, they were all brand new friends off the street – including 14 Korean tourists!

If I had a dollar for every photo taken of us while walking up and down the strip, virtually naked, we wouldn’t have needed the takings from the door at Slide at all…it is only a matter of time before these photos surface somewhere on the internet and being attention seekers, as well as all round nice guys, I look forward to the impending tagging frenzy.

In the mean time here is a photo of Michael, Luke and Me in action with my dear friend Richard and Joyce Mange – Sydney’s only (possibly the world’s only) drag queen life saver.  

 

We also got FREE slurpees from 7 - Eleven!

Noticeably late for work, I try and sit down without a fuss. My attempt to make a quite transition into work mode is interrupted by my work mate, Lana, “I wish you were here earlier, there is a really hot guy in the interview room!” I instantly downgrade my expectations because like myself, Lana tends to fixate on the hottest person in her vicinity and give them 10/10. I ask her quietly, “Is he still in the interview room”. She replies “yes”, the promise of his eventual saunter past our workstation glowing in her eyes! I replied disbelievingly “we will see when he comes out then”...

When he came out of that interview room I was transfixed! Somewhere in my brain he had ticked all the primordial boxes. His figure cut through the air like a hot knife through butter. Somehow prince charming out of Snow White had managed to step out of his fairytale world and stumbled in upon an interview for an advertising role and had swapped his burgundy cape and tight fitting leggings (mmm…) for a fine tailored suit! As the interview process concluded I hoped he knew more than just how to “fairytale pash” and that he had impressed in his interview. He walked past my desk we made eye contact. The colour change in my face, Lana would later point out, must have been all too evident – he gave me a knowing smile.  I couldn’t help but smile back.

To me the most appropriate choice for the available role was abundantly clear, hence why I’m not in HR. My workplace would resemble Temptation Island and little would get done! However, I could not help but try and include myself in the decision making process to make this fine specie of human being available for my daily ocular consumption. I begin my lobbying. I tell Fiona, NWN Sales Manager, what I think and where he should be seated. In jest she said she would see what she could do and I add on that if you “don’t ask, you don’t get”. The Sales person ion her appreciates my move to close and she nods with a smile. I forward an email to my Operations Manager and get a reply “Hands off Nick, he is engaged” – which upon later investigation I find to be totally false. None the less I reinforce my view with James (the Operations Manager) that having this team member on board will likely increase engagement in the workplace. He finds it hard to disagree despite his straight and narrow disposition! I mention to James that all he need to do to make sales is put the boy out on the road; his presentation can be but a mere smile and sultry glance and the dollars would role in!

To my delight I found out today who the successful candidates are and that they won’t be sitting too far from Lana and I…I know he is probably straight and partnered up, but hell it’s nice to have something beautiful to look at to pass the day in lieu of the extensive views of Hyde Park the News Digital Staff get. All we have are fleeting glimpses of the outside world through distant windows and an abundance of fluorescent light…the type of light that makes you shudder in bathroom mirrors; the type of light that makes you think twice while trying on clothe sin department stores (why do they uses it!).

Prince charming is next weeks news – will report on after this weekend of excitement! On Saturday night we have our Life Savers With Pride fundraising night at Slide and the Saturday Fucking Night Launch” at Nevermind afterward. With all the new recruits in Life Saving from last season we are sure to make an impact in red speedos, luring patrons into Slide Bar, to find out what LSWP is all about - Flesh, fun, sun, fitness and saving lives! The “saving lives” part should really be mentioned first in that list but is probably not so in the context of a night club on Saturday night.

I have to say I have already accumulated some amazing summer memories and summer is officially yet to begin! Last weekend I had the most awesome Halloween. I got dressed up in pirate garb and lashed on copious amounts of eye liner, then joined Ollie and Tom in their sensation, Supre, spray on designer pant outfits - snazed up with feathers and sequins;  Drew in his balloon boy box outfit with helium balloons to boot and Troy with his very low riding jeans and rock star wig + fur vest and headed out to Club 77 (which we didn’t line up for because we looked amazing), followed by Stonewall. Only Troy and I mad it as far as Stonewall. The others didn’t make the lock out and went back to Drew’s. Troy squeezed the last of the fake blood out of a tube he had all over my chest at Stonewall it was enough to cover my whole torso. We both ran around shirtless, covered in fake blood and danced into the morning. Troy had a bit of an audience – his jeans fit rather well. I left a red hand print across the horizon of his tan line – clearly above his low riding jeans just to tease a group of gay guys behind him…

All I can say is this group of people I’ve met know how to have a good time! The evidence of this is still imprinted on my bed linen in fake Halloween blood. I probably should have had a shower prior to going to sleep…

Troy and Ollie make the cutest couple and Ollie and Tom make the funniest of friends – their rendition of the ladies from Toorak always has me in stitches.

Journal now in MEDIUM FONT due to overwhelming demand!

James is once again wearing the technicolour dream-cardigan op-shop find of the millennium when I meet him for coffee on Wednesday night. It has become ubiquitous. I expect it every time. We sit over a hot chocolate outside Grumpy Baker on Oxford St and watch the clone gays walk by and discuss plans for another trip to the Anglicare Depot in Summer Hill – “couture sold by the kilo!” The clothes are seriously weighed in a bag on a set of scales… I cease being James’ comical trampoline when James’ friend Breen arrives and later move up the road to rendezvous with an “interest” at Coco Cubano for the second date of the evening. I suppose “interest” is the best way to describe my arms length emotional approach to men. Mr Puppy Dog Eyes, as he will be referred to moving forward, turns out to be intensely intelligent, funny and witty and has big, chocolate, puppy dog eyes that smile when he smiles. I don’t want anything serious but a puppy can be a big responsibility!

 I recline in my comfy arm chair at the back of Coco Cubano and volley questions at him and suss out his demeanour…I ask him “what he thinks of Australia?” I can see him hunting for the right words as his pupils rebound off his eye sockets. He answers that we are “insular” and “inward looking” and “don’t look outside the box”. Initially I’m taken aback but this is mellowed by the genuine feeling and apologetic tone in his voice. In a matter of words it sounded like “I’m sorry but this wide brown land of yours it pretty shit...but I'm really, really sorry for you”. At least he was honest. I soon discover that most of the company he has kept has been engineers (as part of his role) and gay men. As a member of this exclusive minority of men that prefer the company of other men I will be the first to admit that most gays are incapable of discussing anything that falls outside of the Kylie – K range and I can't imagine most engineers as being culture freaks. I make a personal promise to try and challenge this sad view of the world.

The following day we meet again, this time with some of his friends, at the Green Park Hotel. I ask the same question, this time with all the warm, friendly, caramel tones my broad Australian accent could muster...and get a similar answer “Australian’s are inward looking and insular”. I didn’t take to the tone of a particular member of the group. He seemed to have a negative energy about him. He came across with an air of superiority hardly earned in the 5 minuets he had known me. Being naturally observant I had work a few things about him in the same five minuets – He had lovely, even, chocolate coloured skin, fine tailored clothing and a strict elocution suggestive of an upper middle class education and perfect teeth. However the way he sat in his chair he didn’t seem sure of himself – maybe if I told him he looked elite this would put him more at ease and he wouldn’t need to hold a mental mirror to his face with every waking breath!

 As I have gotten older, winning arguments with people has become less and less important. It now receives all the attention that an indifferent mother lion gives a cub, as she tries to get some shut eye under an acacia tree – meanwhile the cub whacking her about the head with a meagre, under developed, paw. I just don’t care to win. Nonetheless I mounted a half ditch attempt to address these Canadian cultural misconceptions.  

It was suggested that the mixture of geographic isolation and small population created conditions for an insular culture. To the contrary, I argued that due to the small size of industry and culture in Australia that we actually meed to search externally for much of our identity. I cited that most of our popular cinema, music, clothing and many of our business leaders are actually imported! It was as obvious as the Coke sign on William St...I could have continued and stressed that geography is less important with the development of the internet or even that we our “isolation” is written from a western narrative stand point. Our nearest Neighbour only happens to be the largest Muslim nation on earth! The main contender didn’t really have anything to say to my first point which was enough, except to harp on about how we don’t embrace our Aboriginal culture…I could have praised their Native American Casino success stories, but I didn’t. I also bit my tongue at drawing an analogy between the constant sentences that began with “I” from my new found “friend” and larger, noisier, dominant cultures that tend to naval gaze because they can’t make out the whispers and nuances of other cultures for all the noise of their cultural washing machine!

Ironically, I managed to leave his mouth slightly aja in offering what I thought was an olive branch / a bridge, so we could get over a conflict that I wanted no part of. I suggested perhaps we are “insular” because the relative peacefulness of Australia was indeed distance related - that our distance from conflict zones translates into a certain casualness or complacency. He gave me a patronising expression as if to say “you are one of them – those insular Australians that have no idea”. Another Canadian sensed the diplomatic crisis at hand and translated what I meant into fluent Canadian. Clarity returned to his face and he began to engage with this unlucky individual, at which point, I left the conversation post haste.

Mr Puppy Dog Eyes later remarked about how well read he was…I’m pretty certain that with the ratio of listening to talking this man engaged in that he’d have little but his own voice reverberating around in his head!

At the end of the day Australia rocks - our economy is unsurpassed in its strength, our social welfare system and healthcare system make America look like a third world nation, our weather is better and our people are more beautiful. Deal! - I didn't say this but I the child inside wanted to say it!

On an unrelated point - I will take people to task on is “Boat People”. As per my Face Book rant ... “I can't believe how all the morons have come out of the woodwork to jump on the "evil boat people" band wagon again! Approximately 90% of people that arrive "illegally" do so by aircraft! The demonisation of "boat people" feeds into an undercurrent of racism such as that exhibited by MP Kevin Andrew’s and his recent words about “racial enclaves”…I bet he lives in a nice leafy, middle class, white, private school, enclave and has never actually seen a place like Auburn (Western Sydney Muslim enclave) with his own eyes before.”

So I guess I pick my battles. I just couldn't be bothered with the full arsenal this time around at The Greenpark - it's a place where we talk "boys" on Sunday evenings - not politics... 

Each Thursday, after I get paid, I make the sloth like visitation to Coles. Every craving and need within arms reach so satisfaction is guaranteed with the least amount of effort. I get to buy some fruit that have been out of season for six months, conveniently shipped from Madagascar, or taken out of some Hans Solo deep freeze and waxed to within an inch of becoming plastic so it looks nice and fresh!

Another familiar morning routine takes us to the gym. We use the energy reserves nature intended for the hunt on directionless, fruitless and repetitive body movements - compensation for an office life where productivity is defined by one’s best imitation of a pot plant - Simon says, sit, don’t move and do your work. I’m particularly fond of those people who go to the gym, run 5 km’s on a tread mill and then jump into their SUV for a 5 min trip to the supermarket for a hand full of groceries prior to assuming their fixed position in their little corner of the office for the day. Is this not slightly schizophrenic? You run nowhere on a treadmill, yet will not walk down the street for some groceries?
The Fitness First should link these machines to the electricity grid adding a semblance of efficiency and purpose to this massive waste of stored energy. Perhaps one day you will be able to receive carbon credits for the electricity you generate at the gym while running nowhere? You will then be able to offset the emissions on the SUV you bought back in 2009 just before the world woke up and realised is was totally uncool for one person to drive around by themselves in a mini truck! But ou don't really care, and more likely are oblivious to the fact, all you know is just how buff you will look in your beefy car, biceps offset against a shiny metallic duco…

 “Those snakes are an endangered species” I quip at Greg AS i catch him rustling around in a packet for another sugary treat. I’m in one of those playful passive aggressive moods and I pay the occasional visit to my good friend cynicism (as can be seen above). Cynicism can’t see the forest for the trees because he is a lumber jack – all he does is work close up, one brutal strike after another, cutting things down - pulling apart the world in infinite detail for an infinite number of flaws…However my cynicism is just my little indulgence. I don’t depend on it. On the contrary, in general, my step has been inflected with the positive energy of change with the bigger picture in mind. I can see the forest and I’m excited!

I have been made an offer at UTS starting March 2010 to enrol in the Juris Doctor Postgraduate Course. I have finally bitten the bullet to go back to Uni and complete something that will help me help people in need. I have also received strong praise for a media release I wrote for a client and have more work coming. Postive and empowering changes are taking place in my life. Despite this the shadow of the low self esteem child from my past recoils at praise and attention. Compliments regarding my work are like a first bike; awesome, yet scary - I don’t quite know how to handle them. What does one say?

I think much of my reactive behaviour stems from my childhood. I was always the last picked for the soccer team and the first to be picked on. Many of my behaviours were learnt to avoid unnecessary attention and conflict. After leaving primary school hell I made leaps and bounds in high school. I did well academically and and socially and was Vice Captain etc... I'm now a confident and outgoing adult but old habits and behaviours die hard. They hang on like a hangover from a night of heavy drinking. Too often I’m satisfied with second best, middle of the pack or stop gap solutions because deep down I have learnt to habitually under perform and disappear in the background/not put my hand up. Success has social implications; success challenges everything and everyone around you; it incorporates messages of dominance and superiority, foreign to my early childhood. It is now that I’m now finally stepping out of that shadow. Putting my hand up for something like Life Saving was a big challenge now I've dared to apply to do Law at UTS and have been accepted!  

My team mate and best work friend – Greg – throws an endangered green snake lolly my way. In the background there is the unsettling and somewhat primordial clamour of a sale being made! It always unsettles me. The banging of make shift instruments, singing and hollering reminds me of Hillsong on crack or some animal /chimpanzees rattling its cage aggriessively in the zoo at the prospect of a food or competition. Perhaps on some level the more ancient part of my brain sizzles at the cue of an imminent social disturbance or upheaval; like silver back gorillas running around with branches and crashing through the bushes when the alpha male faces a challenger. I cringe at these displays on the inside, but on the outside I pull a grimace-come-smile, indicating my approval. The same smile is used by primates to indicate their submission to the dominant male / female or social force in the group.

How things change yet stay the same even after the lengthiest time spans. People are not that hard to work out...:P
 

Someone approaches you on the street. The silhouette you see is pleasing on the eye - broad shoulders, tight waist and nice legs and a firm stride confident stride. There seems to be a lot of unsolicited, constant eye contact and your self esteem is on the up. You reflect on the effort you have put into your appearance today – you’re looking hot. Suddenly it all comes crashing down when you realise you are checking out a close friend. They’re the kind of friend you would sooner consider a brother rather than a potential lover! You recoil on the inside and dash those thoughts against the hard rocks of the realisation you have just engaged in friend incest…

My eye sight seems to be deteriorating and awkward social encounters are not the only measure of this change in visual acuity. You know when you approach the LCD display at Central Station, squinting, in an outwardly frustrating attempt to bring the train departure times into resolution, that your eye sight may not be the best. My deteriorating eye sight coupled with my disco impaired hearing should make me eligible of some disability pension some day – here is hoping I too can take my place in the welfare state!

I exaggerate, my eye sight is not that bad, but it would be nice to be able to read a book without taking a rest every few chapters, or read the LCD display at Central, confident you are going to end of at Canterbury and not Cabramatta! For this reason I’m off to the optometrist to get a pair of sex secretary glasses that make me look more mysterious and intelligent than I really am. I started thinking about how this could potentially revolutionise my image. Would I still be that cute, yet flaky gay thing that gets undressed at every opportunity with but a moments notice? My reputation on Facebook as a clothing optional individual is reported on regularly. Or, will I engage people through the veneer of set of lenses and be taken seriously as someone of valid opinion and intellect?

There is no doubt that the way I’m perceived is somewhat a result of my youthful appearance – not just my clothing optional Facebook profile. I find it utterly frustrating that just because I don’t ravage my skin and body by downing multiple beers at the pub with the boys after work that people should then deduct not only years from my age but also reduce their expectations of my capabilities and sometime treat me as a child. At work an older gentleman down in the café looked at the food I had ordered and said something along the lines of “That looks like a good serving for a growing boy!” I felt giving him a serving! I’m a grown adult. I have done my growing. I’m not a growing boy!

Perhaps a pair of glasses will readjust my schema in the minds of my audience from “young, cute and naïve and vulnerable” to “young, dynamic, capable and clever.” Never underestimate the power of image and never, ever, underestimate the power of first impressions. Upon meeting someone for the first time consider all the judgements you make in that millisecond – everyone does it!  I have never really cared what strangers think of me. If I did care I wouldn’t have been one of the lone cowboys that stripped down in the cold, got in the pool at Ivy, and subjected their behaviour to the cursive eye of the gay elite. A quick dip in the pool could be a deadly dance with social suicide if not carefully calculated. If you take centre stage and draw attention to yourself you will be judged and first impressions have a tendency to cement in place. The question that must be asked is what is the opportunity cost of such behaviour? For me the cost of a frolic in the pool is not that great because socially I have decreasingly cared what people think with age. This has resulted in many extreme views of who I am. I have heard the words “bitch”, “vapid” and “vain” among many words of choice use to describe me and I understand the behaviours and interactions that create these views. I guess it is my style to jump into the pool of life without much care for the first impressions I leave behind.  The question really is should I be more prudent? Should I care?

I was having coffee with one of my new amazing friends this morning on a quick sojourn from my office desk. This person understands not only the power of a successfully crafted image – it is also his brand; his business. As I get older, and as a career should really be more of a prominent concern perhaps a new pair of glasses and a little personal modesty wouldn’t go astray? Do people take me seriously? Do I want to be taken seriously? Is it worth the constant self restraint and pretence? I know I would be devastatingly good at crafting my image and perceptions of my audience but somehow it almost feels beneath me to try…

Image aside, I will probably have a new pair of glasses by next week out of necessity rather than stage craft and I’m aiming for sexy secretary rather than geek – I guess on some level I do care after all :P

Seventeen degrees, overcast and raining; the long weekend looks to have complemented my mood quite nicely. There is nothing like sitting at home over a tray of Tim Tams, watching a midday movie on a rainy day. Oprah and Ellen will keep me company. I will join a collective audience contemplating the lastest life changing book from the safety of an armchair. This couch weather is made all the more juicy by the prospect that a bunch of 20 somethings - trying to relive 80’s fashion they never lived, and a bunch of 30 somethings – trying to look 20 something are squelching around in mud, from stage to stage, at Park Life – orange tears running down their cheeks as their fake tans desert them…the same rendition will occur at numerous other events I have uninvited myself to.

I lie. I will be going out briefly on Saturday day to the Ivy Pool Party. Therefore I will suffer the weather as well, but right now, at this very moment, as I write this, I can’t deny that I will somehow feed off the combined disappointment of a few 100 princesses who have their parade all rained out! I feel guilty and indulgent in my mood. I don’t deserve to feel this way. My misfortunes, inconveniences and frustrations pale in insignificance to those involved in the stuff of real life like the Typhoon in the Phillipinnes; the Samoan tsunami and the Indonesian earth quakes. Thousands of people are dead and tens of thousands have lost loved ones. What do you make the randomness of a tsunami sucking 21 family members out to sea, never to be seen again? This happened to one family in Sydney. Aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews – gone. Their drama is real and unavoidable – mine are dramatised and inflated and inconsequential. Yet, I indulge away...because I can.

This mood will pass. Most nights before I go to bed I try and count the fortunes in my life and most of the time I fall asleep feeling pretty lucky. I don’t really mind dancing in the rain that much anyway. My first and only boyfriend / disaster and I went down to the stadium few streets from my place on stormy summer night and stood in the middle of heavy rain and kissed. Maybe if Prince was singing Purple Rain in the background it would have been perfect? I'm pretty sure it was raining...? My mind just might be embelishing the experience because he had an extreme fetish for thunderstorms...He was a complete drop kick to me for the rest of our "relationship" though but that is one nicer memories salvaged from the rubble. Most other nice memories of us are tied to that stadium. I should go and scale the wall one night and just sit in the grandstand...

Who knows? Perhaps my mood will lift after some hugs from Mikey some alcohol and perhaps another nice boy to pash in the middle of a thunderstorm...
 

Twenty seven; 27; XXVII…

The Earth circles the sun once every 365.25 days and I’ve been walking around on this rock for 27 of these cycles. So what?

I‘ve never been one to celebrate my birthday. However, this year, I have experienced a renaissance of my child like excitement when I got my Sega Master System and began my adventures with Alex Kidd. Drew, my good friend, and Surf Life Saving Patrol Captain, has organised a trip down to Burning Palms in the Royal National Park for the weekend with some mates from Bondi. No people (other than the small group heading down) no cars, no man made buildings apart from the beach shack – Just silence, punctuated by the crackle of a camp fire, the breeze and the ocean waves. I look forward to spending my 27^th year rocketing through space, around the sun, lying on my back, absorbing the full beauty for the Milk Way, at night, away from the city.

 I tend not to be excited by birthdays because they have the anti climatic bang of most New Year celebrations. It comes around like clockwork with a sense occasion but usually fizzles out, coming short of expectations. This can partly be blamed on all the age related milestones that come with birthdays in our youth that give the birthday an unnecessary sense of occasion that has a hang over affect on future birthday occasions. These milestones include being allowed to stay up past 8pm at night, Watching that first M rated movie, obtaining your P Plates, completing schooling, getting your first job, and dare I say it; age of consent! But when all these mile stone birthdays events run out what do you do with the weighty sense of occasion that is so misplaced?

 What happens to those that turn 27, 28, 29 or 30? You just get one day older!

As far as watershed changes are concerned you may become too old for some of your more discerning customers on certain dating websites and that is about it! Besides this the fireworks just aren’t there. There definitely aren’t any concrete milestones constructed by society or convention after you turn 21. You've earned the right to all the vices of destruction. You can smoke, drink & gamble and legally have intercourse. There is no removal of the taboo for the young adult that makes these earlier birthdays so much more exciting. Your late 20’s is an age where you must start to create your own goals and milestones. It is the beginning of the wilderness of adult hood where there are no more right giving passages or privileges left until you are 67 and you can get your pension, or is that 65?   

As I negotiate the wilderness of early adult hood and the prospect of being responsible of my own goal setting I have also been wandering the wilderness of Bondi…After Michael (one of my best friends) moved to Bondi and the epicentre of social activity moved Eastward I have been in Bondi going from friends house to friends house like some kind of vagrant. It’s at the point where I’m packing essentials like hair gel & a tooth brush because I’m never sure If I’m going to see my own place anytime from Friday night through Sunday evening. I pay $220 per week in Darlinghurst for somewhere to sleep…then again I’m sure my friends are comforted in the knowledge I do have somewhere permanent to go when they have tired of me. I can be quite annoying at times – especially in the morning as some will attest.

 One milestone that will pass you by on your 27^th journey around the sun is on average you are at the peak of your mental acuity. From here on in you begin the inevitable decline into senility. Personally, I look forward to becoming some crazy old coot, still barefoot walking the streets of Bondi… However, if, like me, you would like to delay the inevitable, you can create quite a long lasting plateau effect by reading avidly and experiencing new things. Burning Palms will involve much novelty (I’m sure if Drew has anything to do with it) and just to be on the safe side I might take a few grandma crosswords with me and stop my brain cells from committing hari-kari any faster than need be…

The small ripples in our lives speak more about who we are than we’d like to imagine…I sit and observe a pump class not quite run to plan…

Today I woke up full of enthusiasm ready for Pump class. I turned up 15 mins early, as per usual, to ensure I get prime position in front of the mirror so I can check myself out while I do my squats. Technique is all important you see.

I start chatting with a friend who teased me that I stood behind him so that I could also monitor his “form”. All lies! Our instructor races in a little flustered. I take no notice until I realise it is 6:40 and the class has not started. There is no sign of the instructor and the “children” are getting restless. Everyone is fidgeting and murmuring…

Eventually the instructor comes back and explains that her IPOD is malfunctioning. An IPOD Fail that could potential become a pump class fail! As a solution is sought and the less patient begin to leave the class, others mumble / express disappointment in body language and others still offer assistance. One guy even ran back to his place to retrieve an IPOD Charger. I just kept on chatting to my friend knowing eventually something would be sorted out.

I was rather fascinated about how different people react to a break in their routine. Some were obviously flustered and negative. Others were positive and constructive and tried to assist. Still, others, like myself, just rolled with the punches and enjoyed some unexpected down time. We are all different and I guess we handle such small interferences in our lives differently. This does have me wondering though – this might be a microcosm or a litmus test of sorts for how these individuals live their lives. I choose to treat the unexpected as an opportunity as a time to relax rather than a road block. Admittedly I could probably benefit from stepping forward and putting myself “out there” and offering to be part of the solution more often than accepting the status quo…Am I sitter when problems arise? Are other people helpers? And are others still antagonists / absconders?

The pump class eventually gets underway. It is soon evident there is a communication / generational gap between the instructor and the Gen Y receptionist. None of the songs are familiar! Where are the 80’s classics? How is one to squat to anything else? I actually quite enjoyed the dance anthems that came out of the donated IPOD. It was a bit like being at Arq at 4am in the morning except this was something healthy. Quite the antithesis actually! Gold!

After the class finished I went to comfort the trainer whom expressed worry that people would complain. I explained that I thought she handled the situation well and that when things don’t go to plan that our true abilities are tested. Routine is too easy. When people have to improvise everything becomes so much more interesting…
 

I’m confronted with a bowl of soup that looks like a swimming pool. That's it! I’m convinced! The world IS determined to blow my best laid dietary plans out of the water. I went out to lunch with Greg (a workmate) and even when I try and order something healthy the world challenges me to complete some digestive gymnastics in keeping with someone twice my size. Do I live up to this challenge? You bet I do! I finished the carrot and Ginger mother – and the bread too. However, I had a small victory, I did resist the temptation to add the glistening blob of better offered on the side. Summer is coming people and the image conscious of the world are scrambling for more than mediocre desirability!

I think my lovely personality if I don't say so myself but Bondi is a shallow place…My friend Zac forwarded an article from The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/poser-map-of-australia/ that places Bondi on the poser map of Australia. Unless you are insanely beautiful, insanely rich; such that your skin more closely resembles your patent Gucci leather handbag than an epidermis, or you’re an old saltie from the surf club who clearly wishes to have their impending cardiac arrest trying to swim the bay, then you don’t really belong do you? Lol.

Despite being unready for the onslaught of the beach I have been spending most of my time in Bondi. I had the most relaxing weekend this week. I woke up to blue sky in my friends apartment, went for a morning run with Zac and Rob on the beach, listened to Vince break in his new DJ equipment, experienced true Brazilian hospitality from Raph and had a lovely BBQ dinner at Drew’s place.

I'm loving Drew's new ganster attitude, far right...we ran from Bondi to Bronte and back.
More can be viewed at my FaceBook...

I have begun to restitch together the threads of my social exercise network that is always torn apart by the short days of winter. Drew and I ran from Bondi to Bronte and back along the coast line. The scenery, eye candy and sea breeze are the perfect distraction to aching calf muscles. It beats the tread mill at the gym that calculates your calorie burn with all the excitement of an accountant performing a tax return! I also prefer the feeling of going somewhere. There are already enough futile attempts to go places in my life without manifesting this in a fricken' treadmill.

I have also rediscovered the joys of pump class! Arriving unmotivated is no problem when the glaring eye of the instructor keeps you in check as well as the humiliation of stopping half way through a track. An overzealous weight selection cannot be reconsidered half way through banging out reps to Brittney Spears' “Circus”. You choose completion of the exercise or public failure! I also love Pump Philosophy – Those sayings that come out of the instructor’s mouth designed to make you go further, try harder, but are completely cheesy upon later reflection. Such gems as “There is no end, there is no beginning” abound and others like “Don’t let the bar beat you”, inferring that one should focus competitive urges on inanimate objects. I have to say that I’m most enamoured with the South East Asian lady instructor, from Monday's class! She can stay. She complimented me on my weight selection…

Operation Sensational Me is underway. Watch this space muscle and tone up or at a minimum hopefully shrink in all the right places.  

 P.S: I think about finally booking my L’s exam next week. If I don’t learn to drive soon I’m going to have to start paying my friends as though they are taxi drivers!
 

You look twice. you look again. Yes. The well dressed trendy young man and his female companion ARE taking a book for a walk on a length of rope on Challis Ave. I guess some landlords just won’t budge when it comes to animal companions so tenants must be imaginative. Either that, or the young man is a gentleman, and having lost some kind of gentleman’s wager, he has had to pay the price - servitude by book on the end of a rope. I didn’t believe my eyes initially but it was there! Plain as day.

The light of day made this strange event quite clear. It is a different scenario when you get up in the middle of the night, go to the bathroom look down to see your foot and mistake it for a cockroach. You have a little chuckle to yourself convinced that sleep has the better part of your mind…that is until, someone else goes to the bathroom the following morning, in “the light of day” and indeed sees a big scary cockroach. Personally I would not have screamed so loudly. I heard the smacking of shoes against tiles and yelling as a fight for the bathroom ensued. I have to admit they become a whole lot more scary when they fly though – then I would scream.

Books that go for walks; cockroaches that aren’t real, yet are: trusting the senses is a difficult business. I recall a few days ago at work when the air conditioning turned off. It was the most mundane yet amazing experience at the same time. It was like someone had just turned off the bubbles in the fish tank. The burbling in the background melted away and for a few minuets there was a thought provoking silence. I was not conscious of its whir before. Now I am. I know what I’m missing out on. I see this as a metaphor for the extentthat we are blind to other ambient/everpresent invasions we're acclimitised to, and accept, just because it is the way things are.

Quiet, reflective places seem precious and rare to me. This is one reason why I want to learn to drive. I want to be able to escape as much of the whir as possible on the weekend and just approach the relative silence of the country/bush. I want to be able to get closer to myself. I feel somewhat seperated from myself by all this background noise. Maybe I have watched one too many Tourism NT ads..."sometimes you have to gowalkabout..." yada yada. You also know you’re on an introspective trend you have a maths tutor on Sundays teaching you advanced trig just for kicks so you can go home and mill over problems. I’m not good at maths either so I tend to mill for some time! : P

One space of quiet I really enjoy is a good old fashion run around Rushcutters Bay. Now that my knees are all fixed I can enjoy this once more. You reach a state of relaxed focus, reflecting on your breath and the methodical sound of your feet hitting the pavement. I did a few laps around Rushcutter’s Bay in the sun and took the opportunity to brown up a little as well. I must have looked ok in my opalescent white skin and additional winter padding because I got hot honked and screamed at by a car full of girls.

Just don’t do it in 20 dollar shoes, replacements when your trainers finally go to shoe heaven  – you end up with blisters that make the walk to work the following morning somewhat painful and focus bearing in all the wrong ways.

The guys of 2026 (AKA Bondi. I think that is the postcode) are lucky. They have the beach to keep them company. There is nothing cooler than waking up in the morning, heading down to the beach for a run and a swim and then having that second awakening with the first lung full of fresh ocean air. Last summer I used to get up at 5:30in the morning or earlier and commute to the beach for excercise before work. Thise requires a steel like resolve to endure the winter months when 5:30 in the morning is essentially night time. Some of my friends like Nick B and his boyfriend literally live opposite the beach and have views out across Bondi. Once again a lifestyle I would consider once I learn to drive.

On the whole, despite the limitations in space and time in the absence of a car my life is going pretty well. I have truly been blessed in meeting some extraordinary people lately. They have in their own way been a lung full or fresh ocean air. I work with an amazing guy called Greg. He has been with his partner for almost 20 years. They got together when they were 19! How cute and amazing is that!? He is also exceptional in his role which allows for my occasional under performance in role (very occasional). Greg defines a whole new level of excellence.

I always meet these amazing people and life is populated thickly with them. On the other hand I find myself once again wanting someone I can’t have…sigh. Either the world conspires against me or I conspire against myself! Perhaps deep down there is some intuitive logical string to emotions that on the surface are seemingly recalcitrant. Maybe it is all for the best. Big sigh…

Sometimes I believe that there is an invisible hand guiding events in the world. When I'm cogniscent of something to be thankful for I always make sure I do say thank you! For instance, I was about to contact the plumber regarding a leak in the bathroom. Without any intervention whatsoever on my part or the part of a plumber the leak fixed itself! What the!? Also, on the week I happen to run out of money prior to being paid work is catering lunch, morning and afternoon tea right up until pay day!

I swear somebody is looking after me somewhere! Maybe when something doesn't happen, despite you deepest desire and hope that it will happen, it really is for your own good.

Meanwhile, there have been many "elephants" loitering in close proximity over the last two days and I just want to yell and point at them! The air has been thick with a passive aggression that seems squarely aimed at me as well. Is this a test of my patience? I don't care to elaborate except to say this has nothing to do with my Bondi friends, whom I love. 
 

Venus is very bight in the sky at the moment.

I pointed it out to Simon and Adam last night while we finished our McDonald’s in the car parked on a street curb in the leafy suburb of Ryde. What were three Darlo Boys doing in the burbs you might ask?  Two of our close friends, a gay couple, have bought a house!  They have begun a life together sealed in bricks and mortar - The great Australian dream! We have all begun to grow up apparently...

The occasion;  a well overdue housewarming. Many long held mutual friends turned up and many are also in long term relationships. Adam and Simon, who I drove me to the house warming, have been together for years and I have many fond memories of setting up tent /camp on weekend trips up the coast! That very afternoon Simon was reprimanded by Adam’s aunty for not attending a planned family lunch due to a light hangover. Another couple in attendance, Harley and Vince, are moving overseas soon due to commitments Vince has in his role as a public servant.  I don’t want to say too much here because I understand, from what Harley has told me, that there are communication pieces in the works and I wouldn’t to reveal anything prematurely.

My point is these people are all very much part of the fabric of each others lives. The have committed themselves so thoroughly to each other that they are accepted in each others families, they purchase houses together and will travel half way across the world to remain together! Such commitment is a testament to the real nature of these relationships.

Given real nature of these relationships it is very sad we still have to justify our equality before the eyes of the community and the law. The National ALP Conference 2009 has refused to move forward on either marriage or civil unions. However there has been a resolution to move forward with plans for nationwide “registration” of gay couples.  How exciting! We can get registered! The very word registered conjures up images in the mind of micro shipping a pet at your local veterinary clinic! Marriage is not just a religious institution. It is a legal one. With marriage come very real benefits in superannuation law, tax law, insurance law, medical benefits etc…

Harley pointed out that if he were able to marry Vince, this would recognized when he moves to the States.  If he obtains a civil union, or worse still, a “registration”, depending on where he moves, he may or may not be recognized as Vince’s partner. In such disparities the second class nature of civil unions and registrations becomes apparent and so to the second class nature of our citizenship. An article in The Australian quotes AME spokesperson, Alex Greenwich as saying “"The ALP's failure is deeply hurtful to same-sex partners, offensive to the majority of Australians who support same-sex marriage and embarrassing to the entire nation at a time when even Albania is moving forward on this issue."

What made me particularly angry this morning were the comments by Dr Andrew Pesce, the head of the IVF program in Australia yesterday claiming that IVF should not be made available to people who make “lifestyle choices” and that IVF for Gay and Lesbian couples goes “against the natural order”. There have been calls for his resignation and he has quickly retracted his comments. How can a person, whom I assume must be highly educated, and worldly, carry such a logically flawed and emotive view of the world?

How is anything about the way we live natural? What defines the natural order? If we accepted the world the way “nature” presented it to us where would our cities fit in? Our industry? I don’t think putting a man on the moon was all that natural! Is providing amputees and war veterans with artificial limbs natural? They are called artificial for goodness sake! The whole idea that a child needs to be raised but a man and a woman is so dated and at the very least is an insult to the hard working single parents out there. Maybe we should just forgo anything that requires invention and live in caves…This is the extension of such ridiculous argument that says we should live by the “natural law”….

There are many people who shouldn’t have children at all but I know that in many of my friends I see excellent candidates for parent hood and with an aging population I don’t think the community is in a place to deny gay people the right to make the ultimate contribution to their community and the world with new life. It is a fact that 25% of gay couples in Australia have children! That we still have to put up with this crap is amazing.

Personally I have not as yet managed to look after a Siamese Fighting Fish without killing it but hope to eventually one day call myself a dad. It is MY “lifestyle choice” and none else’s!

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25870074-36398,00.html

http://www.smh.com.au/national/government-wont-budge-on-civil-unions-20090801-e4sk.html

A man walks his two delicately framed Afghans through a local park in muscle top in the middle of winter – I have numerous layers on and my hands feel numb! The lengths people go to maintain appearances is quite incredible – ridiculous even. There are people I see at the gym, who I’m convinced live there. I’m sure this is so they can wear their muscle tops in the middle of winter and ensure they catch H1N1 in style!

For all my layers and well behaved home nesting behaviours I still managed to catch the flu. I’m certain was H1N1. I even hallucinated one evening. My fish bowl became an alien out of the movie Alien’s and the bag on top of my cupboard became a witch. I also felt I was moving sideways in my bed at one point...next thing you know I would have begun the crab walk down the nearest available flight of stairs. It would have been a non event though considering I have a single stair inside my house…

However, I find this winter it is less the flu wearing me down, but people. The hoops we make each other jump through in life could very well make a dog show or any circus redundant. Those demeaning things we do to each other that creep into our lives insidiously, taking an inch at a time! If we checked our point of departure from our current position we would exclaim in outrage, “No!” However, if you boil a frog slowly enough it will just sit there! I much prefer a flu. It is less manipulative...

However, there are those moments of private realisation that change your world though or just a general unease with the way things are…Being unhappy is often frowned upon in our society and is something to be swiftly medicated! However a personal crisis may be seen as indicative of a requirement for change! At a certain level you may be aware of the hot pot you are slowly boiling in and you just see the boiling hot pot for what it really is? Intervention for the purposes of change and betterment is fine, but satiation, so the current set of undesirable circumstances become tolerable? This has to be more detrimental! Often though, even when we come to a realisation of the requirement for change we hesitate – “out of the frying pan and into the fire” comes to mind.

I do believe however that one of the great hopes and justices for the world is the power of truth for both individuals and societies. You can see the boiling pot for what it is…the truth can be hidden for only so long. It never actually goes away and a lie requires a constant effort to hold in place. I have read numerous comments posted on the internet that put forward interesting hypothesise on the effect of the information age. One insightful comment I read suggested World Wars may be a thing of the past because elite decision makers do not hold all the cards anymore. They can no longer engage in conflict at a safe distance sacrificing the many in their interests at a distance. The individual has too much information, we are too connected and the lack of control over this and the power of the truth makes any truly large scale war untenable. Propaganda doesn’t work like it used. Patriotism isn’t as blind and single minded as it was in the past. We can delight with the inevitable fatigue in any system of lies and that the truth is increasingly powerful. Lies revealed that come to mind include, the CIA truth commissions / trials in the 1970’s about intervention into the states of South America; the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; oil company funded NGO’s and research claiming climate change does not exist are three lies that come to mind immediately…

What about the grandest of lies to currently be revealed for the farce that it is; The Free Market Economy? The collapse of financial markets around the world and the socialisation of privately acquired debt using tax payer’s money one cannot deny the flaws in the Free Market. Parallel to this is an increasing sophistication in people’s understanding as to how they have been duped! The number of in depth articles, discussions and revelations is truly unparalleled and amazing! We have so much evidence, enough to convict the status quo as one of the biggest epic fails in history, however we’re currently still coming to terms with this lie and I wonder how we will deal with it. Will we medicate ourselves with numerous assurances of the “green shoots of recovery” and shrink this encounter with economic annihilation into the recess of our memory or will we make the necessary changes and realise a heavily regulated system is a good system and the Free Market is dead?

I’d like to think the lie is beyond mitigation now. The rot in the system is so great I don’t know how else it can be dealt with other than a swift and substantial change in direction. The Australian newspaper reported today that Andrew Cuomo, the New York attorney-general, “shredded the banks' claims that pay was performance-related in a 22-page report”. He said banks remuneration had become “unmoored” from their levels of performance. The Australian reports that “JP Morgan Chase had the biggest number of millionaires, paying 1626 staff bonuses of more than $US1m last year, despite a $US25bn bailout. Goldman Sachs, which took $US10bn from taxpayers, was next with 953 millionaires and Citigroup was third with 738…”. All of these institutions paid out more than they actually earn that year in bonuses to their staff! All the while they received government bail outs from tax payers!

How can such a farce go unseen or be tolerated!?

The realisation that the system is broken is articulated very well by Kevin Rudd, the Australian Prime Minister in his recent essay, “The Road To Recovery” published in The Sydney Morning Herald where he states “As I have argued elsewhere, the boom-and-bust economic cycle of the past decade has been an unavoidable consequence of a decade of neo-liberal free market fundamentalism that reinforced a culture of corporate greed and excess in the financial sector. The central principles of this extreme form of capitalism are that markets are self-regulating; that government should get out of the road of the market altogether and that the state itself should retreat to its core historical function of security at home and abroad.”

He clinches the point well with “This fundamentalist ideology of self-regulating markets has imploded comprehensively with the current crisis. We have seen spectacular market failure requiring equally spectacular government intervention in the economy to effectively save the system from itself.”   

I would like to think the weight of the truth here will prevail but at the microscopic level we all know in some way or another the niggling discomfort in an aspect of our personal lives we sweep under the carpet to deal with tomorrow. Do we have the strength to deal with this big problem now? Can we make the changes we need to make?

The world isn’t all lies and deception. When people are not involved it can be positively beautiful! I saw the most amazing sunset last night and even messaged a few people to make sure they saw it!

http://www.smh.com.au/national/pain-on-the-road-to-recovery-20090724-dw6q.html?page=-1

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25861122-5017997,00.html  

I consider myself a fairly sensitive individual, however, the truly insensitive nature of my existence is revealed by how mere appearances form much of my reality! Behind American Beauty, white picket fences, there is unseen disguised turmoil in most people secretly breathing.  Every now and then we are reminded of this when a window of vulnerability, a moment into the truly REAL nature of those closest to you opens up. The happiest of people can in fact be revealed as the most troubled – the saddest.

Is the world really such a lonely place that close friends and family can’t speak out about how they truly feel to those closest to them? That it takes a rare combination of random chances and happenings to create a place in space and time where everything can be laid out on the table for honest appraisal? Not too long ago I found a tear in my eye for the first time in a long time when I was confronted with someone close to me and their most private reconciliation of pain – disguised on a day to day basis by smiles and routine.

I honestly did not know how to approach this confronting truth that I thought had no place in the person I know and love. I continued disguising the truth by not confronting the individual concerned personally. Others around me did so to my relief but I just didn’t know how to go from a “so how’s things?” to “So how’s things REALLY?” I love them dearly, however, on a personal level we will probably go back to playing picket fences. The unmentionable things that fill the air with dissipate with an adequate dose of denial.

The supreme moments of vulnerability and closeness required to clear the air, clean out the cupboard and share how we truly feel are pearls in a world where we are too busy playing with IPODS, making deals, meeting deadlines & making money. These moments are snuffed out by the constant noise! We barely have enough time to listen and understand our own thoughts to even consider sharing them with someone else. The rarest of rare events, like planets aligning, are finding quiet moments where your mind is clear to communicate your truth and someone else is in synch to receive this and truly understand it. We understand the improbability of such an event and relegate most of our shared experiences with other people to the facile, cheap and mediocre world of appearances in which we are so consumed.

I thing you can multiply this state of affairs many times over for gay men who cover up a meaningful existence with toy dogs, fashion and gym routines. On average I’m sure their baggage piles up more than most people as their moments of truly honest reckoning with another human being are even more limited.

I’m not unhappy.  I’m just reflecting on the nature of the world in which I live.

Climate Change; It's real. It’s man made.

It annoys me when people pull out historical data demonstrating ancient climate shifts and use these as evidence to purport that climate change isn't due to human activity. Indeed all previous changes in the climate have occurred due to geological events, massive volcanic eruptions and meteorite impacts but the current bout of climate change is fundamentally yoked to the industrial revolution and the massive effects of clear felling and burning forests, farming billions of animals for their meat and most importantly burning through all the sequestered carbon reserves that are stored in the form of coal and oil.

There are numerous events prior to the birth of modern civilisation and the agrarian revolution on a truly massive scale that did change the climate. One of these events was the explosion of Lake Toba, in Indonesia. It is now only a lake, and one of the deepest in the world, because it was blown to pieces. This single event, 70,000 years ago lead to an ice age. The average temperature dropped 3 - 5c and Geneticists believe that this climatic shift caused a bottle neck in the human genome. It is believed that only 5,000 - 10,000 breeding pairs survived the event. This same genetic bottle neck exists in the African Cheetah today from a much more recent and unrelated event. This science is well documented. The Volcanic index of explosions is exponential and Toba factored at 8, by comparison this is enormous when compared with the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa that had an idex of 6. Even still Krakatoa caused tidal waves 40m high, killed 36,000 people and caused minor climate change of 1.2 c that lasted for approximately 8 years. The explosion was heard 3000 kilometres away in Perth and air waves as a result of the explosion circled the world 7 times. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_volcanoIt is imperative for Australia to take a lead on this issue. We have one of the most vibrant, well educated democracies on the planet with enviable living standards and natural resources of sun, wind and water to turn into power! We have the ideas, we have the dollars, and all we need is the will!

Hence there is no question that natural phenomena can effect the climate. This is a fact. It is seen in ice cores, sediment and ash deposits across the globe. This however is complete unrelated to current climate change. Volcanic activity coinciding with the Industrialised age only accounts for between 1-2% of emissions as a result of human activities! This is fact. 

It is also a fact that the current level of warming, although minor in the grand scale of warmings, is the most that humans have experienced since the agricultural revolution. It was the pleasant climate that made this revolution a reality. It is this climate that allowed our cities and populations to grow. It is this climate we depend on for the survival of civilisation as we know it. Hence, natural or human made, past climate impacts cannot be compared to present day climate impacts. The effect of even a small change on our agricultural sector is enormous. 

Despite this some scientists and politicians would have you believe that we are all being "had". They would have that 7 billion people, consuming and polluting is not having any effect on the climate whatsoever. Lets take a look at a local politician in Australia who believes that Climate change is a fairy tale, told by tree huggers, who would rather this fablethan sending their children to evangelical schools to be beaten over the head by the myth of the rapture; Steven Fielding is The Australian Senator  for Family First. Family First is a conservative party largely made up of Evangelical Movements, like Hill Song, protecting "Family values". Unfortunately God has decided that he wanted to give this lunatic an important, balance of power, seat in the Australian Senate. I have spoken to God about this! The Senate reviews all Legislation passed by the House of Representatives. Steven Fielding is until now has been unsure as to the veracity of climate change as;a) a phenomenon and b) something caused by human beings.

In order to get more information before Steven Fielding made up his mind on Climate Change and the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme, currently in the Senate awaiting review, he thought he would take a trip to America and attend "The Third International Conference on Climet Change, 2009." This sounds like a promising place to learn about climate change doesn't it. Unfortunately, like many such conferences, it was a wolf in sheeps clothing!

The event was organised by an American NGO called The Heartland Institute http://www.heartland.org/. This foundation is openly conservative (which I have no problem with) and espouses the virtues of the Free Market and identifies Milton Freedman as their thinker of choice. What I do mind is that "Heartland does not accept government funds and does not conduct "contract" research for special-interest groups" yet they on an unaffiliated website it is suggested ExxonMobil donated $500,000 to the think tank! Since the total spend for the previous financial year for the organisation was 5.2 million dollars $500,000 represents a good 10% of their revenues. Exxon Mobil a benefactor to an organisation holding an event sekeptical about climate change! Lol. As a benefactor it does not take much lateral thought to determine what outcomes a petroleum company would expect for their $500,000  http://www.buffalobeast.com/81/wind.htm

Further, it seems that unlike ExxonMobil the Heartland Institute is happy to claim that 500 prominent scientists believe Climate Change without either paying them or it seems getting their permission at all to the point that some scientists approached the organisation about being misrepresented! I quote "In April 2008, environmental journalist Richard Littlemore wrote that a bibliography written by Dennis Avery and posted on Heartland’s Web site, titled "500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares,” included at least 45 scientists who neither knew of their inclusion as "co-authors" of the article, nor agreed with its claims regarding global warming. Dozens of the scientists asked the Heartland Institute to remove their names from the list; for instance, Gregory Cutter of Old Dominion University wrote, "I have NO doubts... the recent changes in global climate ARE man-induced. I insist that you immediately remove my name from this list since I did not give you permission to put it there." Dr. Robert Whittaker, Professor of Biogeography, University of Oxford wrote "Please remove my name. What you have done is totally unethical!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heartland_Institute

I took a look at the speaking list at this sham of an event and randomly selected an individual to do further checks on. "CRAIG D. IDSO, PH.D. Chairman, Centre for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change", http://www.heartland.org/events/WashingtonDC09/speakers.html has so many letters after his name you would think he was an alphabet! Yet a closer look at his organisation indicates that he to, through his organisation, has received $90,000 from Exxon Mobil. It really begs the question, is his opinion a result of his experience and education or has it been bought with oil money?

Regardless, our Senator, Steven Fielding has returned from this event with his Evangelical eyes open to the light! He is convinced now there is no climate change! I assume this is what he wanted to hear since climate change implies change. One thing about conservantives; They will not tolerate change, even if it is inevitable. I will not further my character assassination here except to point out that as either as a result of this conference, or by appealing to the authority of this conference, Senator Fielding, holding an important seat in the Senate will not support the current ETS legislation or any legislation relating to climate change since he feels it doesn't exist.

If you find this ridiculous as I do please do the following:

1. Join http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=93215393217 on Facebook; Here we aim to determine the empirical and observational evidence as to whether Australian Senator Steve Fielding is real. Join the group " Steve Fielding does not exist” and discover the truth. Along the way we get to uncover the delights of right wing think tanks and oil money. It is so much fun!

2. Write a letter to the other very important Australian Senator on this issue, Nick Xenophon. I have set up a group with all his direct contact details at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=93285989737&ref=mf Nick is still undecided about an ETS and is having Frontier Economics do some research on the effects of any proposed ETS. Accordingly the Legislation has been postponed until August 11 when the Senate next sits.

3. Spread the word

I have tried making the group fun. Essentially the concept was grafted from a comment made on a news.com website regarding Steven Fielding's revelation regarding climate change. One commenter wrote: "Well I don't believe that Steve Fielding exists!", this really captures the irrational essence of a man set to on a path to environmental Armageddon.

For this reason I named the group "Steven Fielding does not exist!" and opened the group with the following description:

"Scientists (funded by friends and followers) have come to the conclusion after thorough investigation that Steve Fielding of Family First does not exist! It has been a hoax all along! We also have managed to conclude that the Hill Song movement is merely a mirage caused by an abundance hot air rising off the asphalt in Castle Hill...

We can now postpone our sanity trading scheme, originally drafted to combat a seemingly undeniable rise in the amount of narrow minded suburban morons and religious zealots. A majority felt this may have been a direct consequence of children watching too many mind numbing cartoons creating a pattern of behaviour leading to the hell of midday television and ab blasters!

It seems these affects were merely overstated by the majority of considered and educated authorities on the subject and after paying a minority of individuals, who were willing to sell their souls, we have managed to conclude there is no threat to our sanity, there is no such this as Hill Song Church and there is definitely no Steve Fielding.

The idea of such a deeply disturbing, horrible and morally bankrupt individual was merely created to con us into purchasing sanity credits.

There is no imminent threat to a safety and prosperity. We can continue on auto pilot in complete safety and conveniently avoiding having to change the way we live forever!

Long live picket fences and green lawns photographed in sepia!"

---End of quote---

 

We cannot, as a collection of nations, continue to shoal like confused fish on this issue. Someone / a nation needs to take the lead and I want this to be MY country. I want our nation to be able to lay claim to the most important modern legacy to humanity.

If this gets blocked in the senate on August 11 the legislation this will be a trigger for a double dissolution election and probably one of the most important political forks in the road for our country and the planet. I urge everyone to think bigger this year and use their god given intelligence and awareness of self to make the choice our planet and children (and maybe even we) need!

How we separate ourselves from the consequences of our actions! How we mitigate responsibility through an avid application of self denial! Most people would be aware who read this journal about my ongoing complex about eating meat and the moral/ethical questions involved. I'm not going to smack Obama for swatting a fly (see Peta for that logical end to dogmatism) but I can't help but feel the blood of the slaughter on my hands.

This became even more real last night when we had lobster for dinner. I would like to put a caveat out there - I have only eaten lobster once before last night and as a general rule steer clear of such unnecessary ostentatious consumption. It also makes me feel guilty when we know people on the other side of the planet have barely enough food to survive and such behaviour is analogous to Marie Antionette telling her hungry people "let them eat cake/ brioche."

However, on a purely practical level and back to my original point, having two live lobster in your friend's bath tab, awaiting the slaughter, makes the food on your plate all the more real and much less appealing! There is very little room for denial! Bathtub - hot pot - dinner plate; three easy steps! Drew, being a friendly and ethical host, felt the best way to depart the poor crustacea would be to put them in the freezer for 20 - 30 mins. This is meant to put the animals to sleep, humanely, prior to carving them up. Needless to say the the procedure did not go to plan and they were departed very much alive! Dinner was ok but the kitchen did smell like "lobster death"... it made me uneasy to say the least. I did thank the lobster for the sacrifice though!

I’ve always felt very connected to the world around me. I've always had a high degree of empathy for people around me. I can't help but extend this to the animal world. This connectedness has always interested me. Both my sister and I have had what you might call a six sense (without needing to go into details) and I've always felt that my responsibility extends well beyond the distance of an outstretched arm and what may be within reach of my finger tips.

Beginnings and endings are in the mind and are being broken down the more we try and observe them.

For example, in a book I'm currently reading, Finite and Infinite Gods by Ian Davidson, there is some interesting scientific material surrounding precognition (the act of knowing in advance) and psychokinesis (the act of affecting an outcome through mental intention). These are realms rarely discussed within wider conversation precisely because of their taboo nature! I'm sure upon reading those two words many of you reading this journal would have instantly jumped to your own conclusions before even finishing this sentence! However there is some very interesting and provocative scientific evidence garnered through rigorous repeated testing that suggests we are connected with the world on a psychological dimension and that living beings are connected to the world and other living beings in this way. 

There have been many pioneers in this area, however one of the first practitioners to put precognition and to an extent, psychokinesis, to rigorous experimental methods, was German Physicist Helmut Schmidt in the 1970's. Schmidt linked up a Geiger counter to measure the random decay of a radioactive isotope Strontium-90. Whenever a radioactive particle was omitted by the isotope the Geiger counter would then cause one of four lamps to turn on in another room.

A subject, in the same room, was required in advance, to indicate which light they felt would turn on. Schmidt found that different subjects had consistently different abilities to predict which of the four lights would turn on. High performs would perform well above chance levels (25% because there were 4 lights) achieving odds of 100,000 to 1. When subjects were required to gain precognition of an already recorded sequence registered by the Geiger Counter, stored on a magnetic strip and later played back, the respondents performed at odds above chance levels of 250,000 to 1!

In a truly creepy finding it was determined that respondents could affect what lights would turn on in both future time and in retrospect! Thus the implication that cognition now can affect already recorded events in retrosepct!

I know this sounds crazy but there have been over 74 different retests and further investigations by sceptical and interested scientists alike only further confirming there are systematic findings begging explanation.  Some even more advanced studies by Professor Robert Jahn in 1982 are worth reading.

Quantum physics parallels such findings. It has been determined, for instance, that electrons exist in two places simultaneously. Further in other experiments electrons alter upon the variable of observation! Electrons fired at a screen have both a collection of possibilities and singular outcomes depending on the perspective of the experimenter; that is outcomes in these experiments were contingent on mere point of observation of the electron! The suggestion that an electron will behave entirely differently upon point of observation endows it with the characteristics of a nervous young child retreating from the slightest glace of a stranger!

This is not science fiction! This is science fact and I find the possibilities fascinating! Do these findings explain the strange abilities of people like DanielDouglasHome 1883 - 1886, so renowned for his ability to manipulate objects with his mind that he gained an audience in front of Napoleon the third? Do these findings help explain the abilities of sainted people like St Jospeh of Copertino, born 1603, who was brought before the inquisition, after being accused of trying to emulate the Messiah? Or Teresa of Avila?

If one individual can gain precognition into a pattern of lights turning on and off and even influence mere outcomes through thought alone imagine the power of many minds all concentrating on the same thought simultaneously. 

Imagine the raw mental power of the protest movement in Iran! It brings a great poignancy to the famous words of Victor Hugo, recently reiterated by Mr Obama "There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come."

I have much more that I could write about today except that I must tend to the more mundane task of cooking dinner.

I would also like to tack on to the end of this journal entry a documentary that ties together themes of psychic connections, mysticism and owning up to the source of the food on your plate. It is called “Killers of Eden”. It played on ABC1 recently. Great documentary!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJQnTCseGPY

I haven't written in a while. My muse has been asleep but received a jolt today in the form of a series of text message from my dad that read;
 
" Dave is throwing out some shirts. Check them out when next over. Dad."

I replied that I felt this may not be appropriate as my brother is 100 kilos where I weigh in at roughly 78 kilos. I could essentially live in one of my brother's shirts. I shared these thoughts via text message with my father and got the following reply;
 
"They're medium & one is 'very' you so I think the fit & look will be fine."

The text came complete with the word 'very' in quotation marks. I almost fell out of my seat. My dad is an intelligent well educated bloke (with an emphasis on bloke). We talk about world politics and the values of humanity on the way home to my place in the car but never the finer points of 'very you' fashion items. He is nothing like the coffee shop metrosexual from Paddington that the text makes him sound like. My dad is a dead set legend and his text only endears me more to my heart. Moments when you break out in spontaneously laughter are easily the best experiences in life.

Speaking on the finer points of the human condition I think everyone should see the documentary available on You Tube called "Home" by Yen Arthus-Bertrand. This documentary is a beautiful elocution of the Human experience on planet earth, how our interactions have made our way of life possible and also how they have affected and continue to affect our Home (Planet Earth). It succeeds education and enlightening without being dogmatic or lecturing. I challenge anyone to watch this documentary and not venture into a supermarket the next day without an altered consciousness of some kind. 

Please follow the link attached and watch this documentary: http://www.youtube.com/user/homeproject?blend=2&ob=1e 

I find it amazing that even if some people watched the above link they would rationalise and digest the content in a way that does not alter their values or consciousness but in a way that incorporates, manipulates and bastardises it’s value, its meaning, according to what the given person may already know! Granted, not everyone can be my father, sending texts in his mid fifties, open minded about me being gay, everything new and our changing world, but some people amaze me in their small minded approach!

There is a book I'm half way through reading call "Choosing Eden" by Adrienne Langman and I must say that I have found the first set of chapters rather disappointing.

Anyone with half an intellect is familiar with the concept of Peak Oil. Anyone without a dividend in the form of oil shares or associated political interests the finite nature of oil supplies. Hence I found the first 50 pages preoccupied with the narrators shock about Peak Oil nauseatingly unnecessary yett delightfully revealing regarding their mindset.  

It becomes a slightly disturbing and humorous glimpse into how someone can take something so big, so meaningful, and so impactful and turn it into a microcosm of their own life.

It was like going to see Turendott and ending up with a flea circus instead. Prior to learning about Peak Oil we learn the narrator couldn't care less about where the goods consumed came from, world politics etc...so long as her retirement was secure she really couldn't care. The third and most disappointing aspect of her realisation was that the only course of appropriate action to secure HER future, not humanity's future, but HER future. I'm not up to the predictable part where she moves out of the city as the death of suburbia is imminent but I'm waiting with baited breath. All discussions aside about the importance of Peak Oil and the various debates around the subject and alternative energy sources  what a shit house realisation! For a moment she was forced to consider the BIGGER picture and come out of her bourgeois, cafe late shell, only to take this fate/god given, mind opening realisation and perform  some sick minded, gymnastic, back flip and make it about her own interest and how they can best ride out the storm that is Peak Oil! 

Despite how her lack of personal growth has both angered me & saddened me her mindset reveals a modern day entertaining black comedy.

It is by no means intended or self conscious but this makes it all the more golden.

Some of my memorable excerpts so far commence with the opening page!  "Larry and I had traded Florsheim wingtips and Manolo Blahnik sandals  for muddy steel-capped work boots. We had given up our brioche and cappuccino in fashionable Double Bay in favour of home made bread and jam." - This was on the first page! I
 
thought I had hit pay dirt because the first four pages make them seem like lifestyle queens. Unfortunately at the expense of my bemusement they are not a heterosexual couple (Damn!). How disappointing. They go about incomes and friends in "Mensa" among a smattering of other self gratifying references for a number of pages. We then come to page 24; "And what if everyone on the East Coast of Australia sees this report? What will that do to the price of Real Estate here and in the mountains where we would be safe? What will it do to the stock market, our savings? How could we get our money out of a bank if all the banks are under 100 meters of water?" - By this point I had realised that there was little to be gleaned from this book with regards to a rational execution or survival strategy come Peak Oil. I considered discontinuing navigation through this residue of a mental break down over the coming pages but my own perverse desire to examine the unfolding of a  pocket of human nature and this person's twisted mind was just something I could not pass up. 

I was glad to persevere with this page turner with rewards like Page 40; "From the perspective of someone running a home; just the loss of cling film to cover left-over food is a prospect which weakens the knees". So far this is the most quotable, T-shirt quote yet. I cannot fathom how this woman has laboured over 40 pages about Peak Oil and what this means to come to the devastating, "knee weakening", realisation she will hot have cling wrap. Does this woman know that 30,000 children die each day NOW from preventable disease and 5,000 people die a day because they have no access to clean water. 

This lady so far has stricken me with sadness. After so much time spent labouring on a potentially global phenomenon all she can think about is what's in it for me. This is the Achilles heel of the human race personified in a latte drinking suburbanite of a woman who sets up a hobby farm come bomb shelter not understanding that the metaphorical devastation of Peak Oil (assuming it is true) does not rain down with the force of TNT but with the strength of an atomic annihilation. 

This journal is long enough already so I will not labour the finer points of why Peak Oil will happen but doesn't have to have the effects Adrienne consumes her thoughts with except to say given the abundance of alternative energies available us today there is time to act for the greater benefit of humanity. It is safe to say, from an intelligent viewpoint,  that hobby farms aren't the answer and won't save you from the hungry masses who couldn't care about the Title Deed to your "Hobby Farm". 

Eat less meat, walk where you can, buy recycled toliet paper, purchase fair trade coffee if you own your own home get a solar power installation, get a rainwater tank to! The human race needs to make this work together. You cannot run away from everywhere!

 

Has Malcolm Turnbull received a basic education in fundamental economics? Does he truly believe that to run a deficit budget is indicative of bad economic management? Or does he merely spiel this doctrine because it is something his party, The Coalition, can no longer escape from? Has it become so engrained in the Australian Coalition culture from the years and years of cheap shots by Peter Costello took at Paul Keating about the "Recession we had to have" and the virtues of Fiscal restraint exercised by the Coalition Government? 

It is clear that the concept of a surplus become fundamentally yoked to the identity of the Coalition. The bonanza resulting from the resources boom filled tax coffers and the Coalition eagerly assumed full responsibility for this with political zeal. In reality the Surplus was more or less an artefact of the mining boom, the bedrock beneath our very feet, and its valuable minerals. John Howard and Peter Costello never turned water into wine, they never turned red desert dust into iron ore! It was not born of the Coalition, but they claimed the resulting Surpluses anyway, and made it the Coalition brand! It’s much like a spoilt child with privileged parents claiming to have worked hard for their brand new Merc when they turned 21! It was given to them on a platter.

Being a smart well educated, successful business person I'm sure Malcolm Turnbull understands the brand the Coalition has created for itself. I'm also sure he undertands basic economics and that an expansionary fiscal policy is required when the economy is contracting (budget deficit). I'm sure he understands that in this way the government can move to fill the void left by a retreating private sector and prop up spending in the domestic economy. I'm sure he understands that contracting private sector spending coupled with contracting government spending equals (budget surplus) results in an economy twice starved of coal of the engine of the economy.

Despite Malcolm Turnbull's private acknowledgement of the situation at hand, the greater issue of the brand, that has been created for the Coalition, looms to the fore like a ghost from the past.

 The Coalition has sold a very simple mantra to the Australian public for a decade - "We make surpluses, Labor makes deficits". They are now in an ideological strait jacket and denied themselves basic Fiscal Policy.  Even when it is obvious the time is nigh to borrow to stimulate the economy and run a deficit budget Malcolm Turnbull still clings to the idea a "small" surplus is possible as quoted from a recent article on news.com.au

I'm not surprised Malcolm Turnbull has avoided providing any budget details in how he might achieve this miraculous feat of a “small” Surplus against a decline in tax revenues of 210 billion dollars! You see, as we have already discussed the Coalition does not turn water into wine, nor the red dust of the Australian outback into Iron Ore! They do not create surpluses!

Budget Deficits are a standard fiscal tool used by governments around the world to stimulate economic growth. Europe currently runs a deficit at 70% of GDP, Japan runs a deficit of 140% of GPD, heaven only knows what the United States Deficit is now. When ours peaks in about 2013 it will only be 13.8% of GDP before it is repaid in about 2016. Tiny! Required! Imperative!

Fact: The spending the Labor government has undertaken in its stimulus packages, according to TREASURY reports, not Labour, but I repeat TREASURY, saved over 200,000 jobs and the whole stimulus package has not even been realised! Fact; The Coalition is still harping on about how Labor is getting us into debt without conceding that the experts in the Treasury Department have nothing but praise for the actions taken by Labor! The Coalition has been very quiet about what they would do differently and the silence is deafening!

The confusion in the Coalition about how to best concede the truth, the requirement, and the necessity of a budget deficit is plainly obvious. Just today, for example, the  "Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey said they would have delivered a deficit of $25 billion...Mr Turnbull said on another radio station that it was impossible to provide a figure" as reported on news.com.au They contradict each other in a state of identity crisis.

 I’m eagerly awaiting Malcolm Turnbull’s imitation of Christ.
 
I want to see this impossible surplus materialise in a way that supports Australian jobs and The Australian Economy. Because Malcolm Turnbull knows better! I’m sure the “small” surplus he promises under his budget is only said with a VERY SMALL amount of believable conviction!

I have been quite interested in News’ attempt to monetise some of its media content by proposing a user pays model. What I have found most fascinating is the number of articles being distributed across News owned media making a discussion point around these moves. They are obviously trying to warm their current traffic to the concept. I imagine this will be a hard sell. The articles are generally framed in the affirmative and support the notion that it is normal, reasonable and plain common sense to charge for online content in much the same way that one purchases a paper. I will soon announce plans to charge pay per view on my journal...just kidding guys.

My personal belief is that attempting to charge for online news content is fraught with trouble. You asset is your audience! The online environment is dominated by players that offer a majority of content for free because they understand this. Occasionally some sites will enable the user some basic access rights with a paid subscription service offering extra features (E.G: Live Journal). I’d imagine News would have some success if they did something similar with by charging for access to Confidential / gossip based / glossy material but would imagine large attrition rates if they moved to charge for basic access to the essential masthead material on their media websites.

This is simply flawed in my view because content is so readily available. Further, formalised news has depreciated in value relative to user generated content. A great example of this is Twitter. Here you can obtain the most up to date, to the minuet, specific news with an agility that big News companies can never compete with - and it is free... 

An article published on News.com by Jane Schultz quoting Robert Thompson, Editor of The Wall St Journal is rather scathing of some of the online competition. The opening line reads “COMPANIES that aggregate mainstream media content without paying a fee are the "parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internet" and will soon be challenged.” This sets the tone of an article which argues that Google and other “aggregators” of content trade of the “mistaken impression” that content is free.

 I can’t help but immediately react to such a sentiment and point out this is actually an accurate impression - it is free! I haven’t been sent any bills! No debt collectors have called asking for their fee! I think News will have a difficult time trying to sell a user pays for content concept and steer what is the largest modern day movement in the world,  the internet, to a pay per view model, when it is so clearly accelerating in the other direction.

 Robert Thompson is quoted toward the end of the article as saying "They (aggregators) are basically editorial echo chambers rather than centers of creation, and the cynicism they have about so-called traditional media is only matched by their opportunism in exploiting the quality of traditional media." Apart from sounding rather sour at Google’s astronomical success I think Mr Thompson’s observation is correct. They are echo chambers for information - if in such a statement you can also include the addition of filtering, refining and packaging information in a tailored way for the user. This is how money is made on the internet and will remain the case, especially when content is increasing at an exponential rate. It is the aggregators who, locate, mine and refine the rich mineral vein of the internet and manufacture it into something useable for the viewer. Aggregators also execute this without agenda or bias except to distract you for a moment at the associated advertising material down the right hand side of the screen in the form of a banner. This is how they make money! Without aggregators the internet would be a tangled unnavigateable wilderness.

 I also think that the connotations of the word “echo” that imply emptiness and hollowness belie Google’s main value proposition. It is one thing to produce content in the way Media companies do, it is quite another thing all together to target content with an acuity and relevance that Google has managed to do. The banner that appears along side the search results for your favorite pie recipe is not Jamie Oliver’s latest set of kitchen text books by accident people! To lambaste Google as a mere “echoer” of content is to either misunderstand the value proposition Google makes to the market place or deny it all together.

 With the resources at News Ltd’s disposal I image the correct strategy is to maintain and increase web traffic and become much smarter at the micro marketing that Google has mastered by bringing together consumers with relevant products. I think putting your head in the sand and trying to take the user pays model from print to online is like General Motors denying the electric engine its place in production. It is doomed to fail. The smaller object (mass and energy) will always yield to the bigger (mass and energy) and there is nothing bigger than the internet.

 I will now try and boost my employer’s web traffic with this link…

 www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,,25295383-15306,00.html