Next Week, On "Who's Your Favourite Baldwin?"...

I tweeted recently that we had had our inaugural game of “Who’s your favourite Baldwin”... and that Daniel was the winner.

I need to elaborate. Smurfy found this in Wikipedia:

In 1998, Baldwin was found running naked through the halls of New York's Plaza Hotel shouting "Baldwin!" and was arrested for possession of cocaine.

There’s nothing in that that sentence that isn’t good, but there is a fair amount that is baffling.

Yelling your own name… as though you have just won something. Brilliant. Makes the copper’s jobs a bit easier, too.

Arrested for possession of cocaine. While naked. Where was he snorting it from? Brilliant.

Again, from the same reliable source:

Baldwin starred on the VH1 reality television show Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, filmed in 2007, but left the show after the fourth episode. His stated reasons for leaving included having a prior commitment to an acting job and the others' behavior interfering with his recovery, but it is eventually revealed that he left because of inappropriate text messages he had sent to Mary Carey, fellow patient in the same treatment group as him

The only thing that’s not so brilliant about that is we originally read it as Mariah Carey and fell about laughing for about fifteen minutes. Can’t explain why. It’s not as funny when it’s not her, but as he seems to be living in a fantasy land so, you know, goose, gander, Baldwin.

Enemy Mine

If you’re going to have a nemesis it’s important to have a good quality one. Take me for instance… I have a proper one. I loathe and detest my nemesis to a level where I actually lose sleep over them. I stay awake, just to get in a little extra loathing. My nemesis is able to affect my life. He can make it good or bad. I'm pretty sure I can affect his.

I have talked to my nemesis every week, for at least an hour, for the last three years. I always talk to them on a Wednesday. That’s important, that is. You’ve got to have regular contact with your nemesis. You can’t just see them every now and then down the street or at school reunions. You’ve got to know them nearly as well as you know yourself.

I know my nemesis so well that my hatred is not pure. Sometimes, I feel a little sorry for them. Sometimes, I even see their point of view. That’s the way it has got to be with a nemesis. There has to be a little yin with the yang. There has to be some dependence on each other. Something that binds us inexorably across the fields of space and time. There has to be, let’s face it, a little love smattered through the deep, stinky veins of hatred.

I get shaky and angry for about 12 hours before I talk to them, and I feel an almost pathetic sense of relief when the phone call ends - and that’s where I want to thank my nemesis. Because, I talk to them on a Wednesday and after it’s over, I almost feel like the weekend has started. Everything else feels easy.

Thank you nemesis, for being such an unholy thorn in my side that I am able to relish at least two days of the working week. If and when our relationship is over, we'll keep in touch of FoesBook.

Sound Wedding Advice

My dear mates Gooby and Gooberella are getting married soon. This put me in mind to communicate one of those simple old bits of housewifey wisdom.


Something Gary Oldman
Something Gary Numan
Something Gary Borrowedman
Something Gary Blueman

A Book What I Read

You read a Steven King book for a few reasons:

You’re stuck in a flat on the 37^th floor by the one-night-stand who accidentally dead-locked you in - and it’s the only thing in the bookshelf to keep you entertained until they get home.

You’re in an airport in Soviet Uzbekistan and you found one of the books chocking up the wheel of an abandoned Tupolev and you’ve eight hours till the next flight out.

Bubba from the prison library hands it in through the bars.

Whatever the reason, you don’t read a Steven King book to be enlightened or delve into any larger philosophical realms. You read it to pass the time in a slightly more interesting way than trying to pick your nose until it bleeds.

King’s latest, 11.22.63 has a premise and tries to delve: Save the world by saving JFK. It also plods into the murky world of conspiracy theorists who are still certain of magic bullets and Lee Harvey Oswald’s incompetence.

He’s tried something less ethereally spooky and more down the straight Sci-Fi lines than his normal stuff by doing this time travel book and he’s not that good at it. His strength with the supernatural, spooky and gory sort of overwhelms his ability to have a bit of logic and internal sense to a world that is being affected by time travel. He was trying to be serious and really, he’s better at the semi-amusing possessed cars.

To be fair, it’s a tough trick to pull off, particularly around an event that is so well documented and scrutinised. Subsequently, he has too much source material to work with. There are huge chunks in the middle of the book where our hero is surveiling Oswald that simply don’t need to be there. It’s well known that Oswald moved around a lot and there was a lot of life’s messy backwards-and-forwards in his increasingly dysfunctional marriage. Even if our hero’s movements do dovetail in with these events to give the appearance of a story that is believable and logical, they do not make for good story telling. Real life shouldn’t interfere with a Steven King book and there is far too much of the mundane in this monster.

Like the last book from him, Under the Dome, the covers are far too far apart and I wonder if editors aren’t afraid to edit King. I wonder if there is such an aura around him now that no-one but the most foolhardy attempts to tell him that quantity is not necessarily quality. Also, like the last book, there is absolutely no deeper explanation as to how the enabling “magic” happened. It’s akin to a doctor saying, “In an unlikely turn of events, you have contracted Pernicious South American Bum and Gum Rot” and you asking, “How is that possible? I’ve never been to South America?” and him saying, “I have absolutely no idea in the world - but it sounds awesome so I’m sticking with the diagnosis.”

There are elements of the book that are likeable (the main character’s voice is pleasant. The female lead, if shallow, is ok) but King makes a mistake he warns against in his own advice on how to write. He “tells” rather than “shows” on too many occasions.

If you ever want to be beaten over the head with a repetitive phrase, this is the book for you. He must have typed the words, “The past is obdurate” a thousand times. Again, in the quantity is not quality way, repeating things endlessly does not necessarily make them true. It just gets people to agree because they can’t bear to hear it one more time. Writing a book about repeating the past till you get it right, is not necessarily the right thing to do either.

Mr Z

Thankfully, it’s not often that you sit in front of someone that you’ve known for over 20 years and have this conversation:

He starts, “Hello my dear old friend, how lovely that you could come.”

I answer, “Hello mate. Sorry it’s been so long. What’s it been… three years?”

“Yep. I was working it out the other day. Three and a bit.”

“God, it just gets away from you sometimes doesn’t, it? We were supposed to have that big dinner, postponed it for one reason or another, and the next thing you know it’s another year later.”

Him, “Nobody’s fault, mate. It just happens. You were busy. I was busy. Then I was sick. Nobody to blame. I didn’t tell you because I thought I’d just get better and then we’d finally get to do that dinner.”

Me, “So, what’s the prognosis?”

“I’ll be dead in two weeks.”

“I’ve never done this before and I’m betting you haven’t. Are you terrified?”

Him, “No, I’m ok with it. I sort of had to choose this route. The other had no quality of life. If they did throw everything at the problem, I might be able to make it to a loo 10 metres away instead of five, but still won’t be able to eat and I can’t work… so…”

We then chatted like old times for an hour, and then he said, “Mate, I’m going to fade soon because I’m due for a dose of morphine, so help me up and we’ll say goodbye.”

I got him up, a six foot man who now weighs under 50 kilos, we hugged, and he said, “It’s been great to know you. Make sure you enjoy your retirement when you get there. I hope you and EC have happy lives together. Take care of yourself, big fella. I won’t ever see you again.”

I gulped back the lump in my throat, “It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to be your friend, Mr Z. Goodbye.”

And I walked away. I walked out to the car park, put on my sunglasses, turned the stereo up  full blast and gave the car an absolute thrashing all the way back to my side of the city. It wasn’t anger, it wasn’t sadness, it was just wanting to really be there and do it.

Mr Z and I started in cabs on the same day over 20 years ago. We became instant friends, partly because it was unity in adversity over our boss, and partly because we genuinely had a lot in common. We shared a flat and a cab plate in Manly for years. We would watch cricket and he would drink red wine and me beer. He caught a little bit of my left leaning opinions and I caught a little bit of his right leaning opinions. When I became single, he cooked roast dinners on Friday night for months on end and we’d watch telly and play trivia games. When I was ready to face the challenges of girls again and eventually met EC, he was supportive and gracious as I took my leave and moved in with EC over the other side of town. He was at my sister’s wedding at my sister’s invitation.

Mr Z is charming, intelligent, amused and amusing. He was a deeply civilised man with refined tastes, indulgent habits and absolutely no idea how to turn up on time. He used to give me the absolute poops the way he’d leave me waiting places for him to arrive, but it was always worth the wait. For a man who was continually late, it seems so unfair that he should leave early.

Charisma Moonchild Makes Her Claim

I know that bumper stickers aren’t supposed to be the font of any knowledge but I do find the odd one amusing.

Today, I saw on the back of a rusted Telstar, “Hippy Chicks Rule.”

As I was sitting there trying to get a look at the driver (so I could judge them more harshly) it occurred to me that I couldn’t think of a less accurate statement.

Hippy chicks rule, hey? What exactly? I can’t name another group that has so singularly failed to get their hands on the reins of power.

The other sticker holding the car together was, “I believe in unicorns, good men and other mythical creatures.” Oh my sides. How rouge!

When I did get a good look at the driver, he was a late-middle-aged businessman with a wedding ring. He was also hunched down in the seat, not making eye contact with anyone. Maybe this particular hippy chick did rule. She’s obviously got her dad to drive her shitbox to the mechanics and I bet he ends up paying the bill. She wouldn’t be able to afford it what with only doing volunteer work down at the co-op ‘cause no one wants to hire someone with an eyelid piercing.

Remember, urban witches, it’s the dolphin in the tuna that makes it taste good.

What To Do With Dark Corners

Christopher Hitchens and Kim Jong Il both died this week and I've just been pondering the difference in their contributions. Between them, they represent the extremes in our ability to face 'the truth' and illustrate how those differing abilities can have serious consequences.

First to The Hitch. Atheism has found a natural home on the net. It suites us in so many ways from the most trivial to the most serious. Organising a group of people who are naturally suspicious of formalised organisations is best done by a shapeless, organic entity that is hard to pin down. That's the net. There's no gathering under big arches and spires to abase yourself in front of a pitiless god. It allows broad ranging interests to be pursued from any location and it allows it to be done anonymously. Anonymity is very important to atheists in some parts of the world. I don't need to explain why – but again, that's the net.

Remembering Hitchens in A Grey Area will only represent the tiniest percent of the tiniest percent of what has and will be written about him and by much more serious thinkers. But, the fact there is so much activity on the net surrounding his death is interesting. The medium has enabled a growth in a particular philosophy of life that is hard to imagine without the enabling technology. I only get a keyhole view (I am only one person) but my feeling is that non-belief, reason, and the humanist movement has got an enormous lift from the net. The truth will out and it outs much more easily when it's democratic.

Christopher Hitchens faced the most unpleasant truths unflinchingly and with open eyes. He was not a foxhole atheist who converted in the face of his demise. He had worked too hard at uncovering and exposing the hypocrisy of religion and I have nothing but contempt for the religious who either a) prayed for him to get better so that they could shanghai him into the ranks of belief, or b) those that relished his painful death and gloatingly make statements about hell and damnation. A pox on both your idiotic and immature houses.

Hitchens made the world a better place. He might have changed a few minds, he certainly put a few plonkers back in their place and he entertained. Be anything, but don't be boring. He was never that. I'm going to miss him.

Similarly, I don't relish the thought of the demise of Kim Jong Il. Not because he was a blessing to his people, not because he was a blessing to comedy, but because he was the devil we knew. This next fat little porker is entirely unknown and I can only hope that he follows the rule of the third generation in a dynasty that inevitably fails its father and grandfather.

I have been reading for years the horrors that come out of North Korea. The profligate spending on the military while the locals are forced to eat the bark off trees and finally resort to eating each other before burying what remains of an emaciated corpse. I've been astonished at the level of brainwashing that has been maintained in the peninsular. Dear Leader really had most of them fooled and it's to his credit that he did this in the face of the growing news content on the web.

Some years ago, I saw a doco on an ophthalmic surgeon who went over the DMZ and did a few hundred simple eye operations that restored sight to all of the recipients. It was an operation that the North Koreans were unable to perform. The reaction of the patients was chilling.

As the American surgeon pulled the padding from the eyes of the afflicted, they'd look up at the beatific picture of KJI that can be found everywhere and thanked Dear Leader for returning their sight.

To be so literally and figuratively blinded is the work of a religion and I don't think that KJI is being given enough dues when his leadership is simply described as a cult of personality. It sounds a little paltry.

Kim Jong Il closed eyes, Christopher Hitchens opened them. It's about light. It's funny how that word means both not being a burden and illuminating.

You Could Go Farming In Here

I'm driving Emergency Contact's little car. She's in the passenger seat. The following exchange takes place.

Me: The inside of this car is disgusting.

EC: It's not that bad. Stop carrying on.

Me: It is exactly that bad. Look at that. And that. And how in the hell do you get coffee into there?

EC: It's the schoopid boys up the road.

Me: What, they lean in and splash it around?

EC: No, I had my coffee and had to make a few calls and send messages and the traffic was really stop-start and those guys up the road always fill the cup to the absolute top.

Me: I see. Why don't you drink a bit before you set off.

EC: Too hot.

Me: Ask them to put a little bit less in.

EC: It's all I can do to get them to remember, “Soy flat white, one sugar.”

Me: I'll grant you that. They confused my order with the order of a four foot, white haired 90-year-old, Greek lady the other day.

EC: See?

Me: Ok, the coffee I get, no matter if it is visually offensive. But it doesn't explain a whole lot of this other stuff. What's that?

EC: Sunscreen.

Me: How'd it get on the window and why is there soooo much of it?

EC: You know how it is.

Me: No. And is that yoghurt?

EC: Oh, is that what that is? Good one. I'd been wondering. Interesting.

Me: I'm getting a disease just from looking at the dashboard.

EC: Oh stop it. It's really not that bad.

As she's finishing the phrase, “that bad”, I am breaking at a red light. A petrified potato comes rolling out from under the passenger seat and lolls up against the handbag at her feet.

I look at her and raise an eyebrow. She says, “Goddamnit!”