What follows is an amended version of an article that was published in The Nose early this year. As it was going to print I was flying to Denver hoping to see Pops before he died of cancer. Sadly, he passed a few weeks later leaving nothing behind but shattered friends, re-united brothers and a myriad of unbelievably tru-ish (depending on who you ask)  ’John’ stories. This is the only true story that I know of because I was there and I have his prison diaries. Now that’s another story.

* * * * * * *

It is generally accepted that there are three ways of getting busted in Thailand, or anywhere for that matter: the most common is that whoever sold you the drugs will dob you in to the cops for a profit. The second is somebody known to you drops you in the shit to save their own skin and the third is just plain bad luck and stupidity. My old man fell into category two.

It was October 1995, Autumn had arrived at the end of another predictably shitty wet Irish summer when I got a call from my aunt in sunny California. Word was that my errant father was now in the protective custody of the Thai Royal Police.

‘Well,’ I thought, ‘at least I know where he is now.’  I’d been planning a trip to Bangkok to catch up with the man who’d been masquerading as my invisible father for 20 years or so and was giving an oscar worthy performance so far. I’d recently acquired a P.O. Box address for him in Bangkok’s seedy Nana Plaza, but no home address. Luckily my initial plans were delayed by a month or so or else I might have found myself sharing his cell, guilty by association.

A few weeks later the flight was booked, my bags packed and Ireland’s reliably depressing weather was going to be drenching somebody else.

I hadn’t been to Asia since since the early 70′s after being born in Kathmandu in 1971. My parents were trail blazing hippies living the high life on top of the world with an eclectic group of truth seekers. A motley crew of poets, writers, artists, actors and musicians of all shapes and sizes had formed a colony of first world escapees and adventurers and were busy setting up book shops, workshops and rice paper printing presses.

My father opened The Rose Mushroom night club on Freak St. in the early 70′s. The first ‘club’ of its kind in Kathmandu and probably the ‘highest’ nightclub in the world which was to be the inspiration for the Himalayan pub scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Karen Allen’s character was based on a good friend, Tory French(R.I.P), an American heiress with a formidable capacity for alcohol and drinking mountainous men under the table. Poets mingled with Buddhist monks, off duty diplomats and rock and roll drummers(The Velvet Underground’s founding drummer  Angus MacLise being one!) while smoking charras balls and spinning prayer wheels. My father gave away free hash to his customers as he was prohibited from selling it. I was born into the heart of this hippy, post beatnik, renaissance paradise. But enough of me let’s get back to the nitty gritty.

I landed in Bangkok’s Dom Muang airport in the company of three Northern Irish guys on their way to Brisbane to make new lives amongst the man eating sharks, deadly red back spiders and  blonde meter maids. We shared rooms on Bangkok’s famous Khao San rd, several tuk tuks and a few beers too.The only thing we had in common was that we were all embarking on an adventure. Funnily enough I was only able to understand every other word they said such was the thickness of their bog accents, I had more coherent conversations with the Thai bar girls.

As soon as the Paddies left I moved across the road to something suiting my meagre finances; a room with a wobbly fan and a colony of ants for company, I was poor in cash but rich in problems. My first problem to solve was finding the prison. It took me three sweaty days of asking for directions, getting on the wrong bus and generally getting frustrated before I found myself outside the gates of Klong Prem Prison. Remember, this was the mid 90′s, years before internet smart phones and google maps!

The Bangkok Hilton, AKA Klong Prem- Lard Yao & Bombat

Klong Prem Central Remand Prison is comprised of the ‘Bombat’ or the  holding prison and Lard Yao-the men’s prison for sentences less than death or 33 years.  It’s situated a few km’s north of the city, is surrounded by a rat, snake and mosquito infested moat a couple of metres wide with the usual high walls capped with razor wire. The whole complex regularly floods in the monsoon season, the open sewers too.

‘Bombat’ is the first stop for convicts and those awaiting trial while going through the judicial system. After half an hour of asking directions and walking down dead ends I finally found the visitor centre as a bus load of prisoners were returning from the courts in Sanam Luang. I knew they were prisoners because they were weighed down with rusty 8kg leg irons. Each prisoner held a piece of string tied to the middle of the chain between their legs, some had garters tied to their legs supporting their chains. This stopped the chaffing of the ankles but also made them resemble depressed penguins on the march.

I filled out the forms at the visitor centre, presented my passport and was told that there was another guy waiting to see my dad. The guard pointed him out to me at the back of the waiting area. He looked like Jean Claude Van Damme(JC) with his tanned muscled body, crew cut hair and action man face. After I introduced myself  he reluctantly told me that he’d been in the same cell as my father only last week. He was French but spoke better English than my school boy French. We made awkward conversation and smoked Krung Thep cigarettes (locally known as klong dip on account of their cheapness and foul taste, resembling what might be found in the city’s rancid canals-klongs). Straight away I felt that I could trust him, I think he could sense that I was all at sea and he must have felt some sympathy for pops. We were the only sweaty farangs  among the families and girlfriends making their weekly or in some cases daily visits to see loved ones.

Eventually people started to move towards the main gates across the road where I had seen the chained prisoners disappear earlier. A few moments later we were sitting on a bench in a small courtyard with plants and trees in front of two sets of inch thick iron bars separated by a wall of hot dusty tropical air. I was nervous and sweaty. These were not ideal conditions to meet lapsed family members but nothing about my life had been ideal up to that point (kitchen induced drug and alcohol dependency-crap jobs-Catholic education and too much fucking rain) so you could say I was used to falling in the deep end and coming up for air.

Within moments there he was. All my memories of him were with a long mane of sunny hair, colourful clothes and a big smile. All that remained was the smile. The mane had been chopped down to a crew cut which revealed his enormous ears (I count my blessings that they skipped a generation). He was surprised to see me but played it cool, the next half an hour was probably one of the most awkward moments of my life.  I mean, what do you say to your father in a situation like this?

‘Long time no see!’            ‘Fancy meeting you here!’

‘How the hell are you?’        ‘Where have you been?’

JC could sense this and after making some small talk eventually left us to talk in relative private. I can’t remember a thing of what we talked about apart from his unfounded optimism that he was going to be released by the weekend and he’d be off to Bali on the next plane out of Don Muang international airport.

After buying a few slabs of Pepsi and a jar of Nescafe and Coffeemate at the prison shop for pops I left Klong Prem on the back of  JC’s 750cc Kawasaki. Pops had given me some contacts to go see, but first things first, we went to JC’s apartment for a joint and a beer. I wasn’t sure of the sensibility of this but after he’d placed a damp towel at the base of the door to stop the sweet pungent smell of Thai stick from wafting down the corridor I felt stupidly at ease and let the days events sink in.

I was stoned, on the back of a motorbike and racing down a freeway on my way to see a friend of my father’s at the famed Atlanta Hotel. We entered the lobby and asked the receptionist to page Ted so and so. A few moments later the living incarnation of drug induced paranoia crept down the stairs and sat down with us in The Atlanta’s famed restaurant.

Paranoia is rife among Thailand’s expat junkie community. During my three month stay in Bangkok Ted continually amazed me with his heightened sense of paranoia. He was convinced the CIA or DEA were watching him. Why, I never asked but you only had to look at the yellowed whites of his eyes to understand, and why he was staying in a hotel that actively discouraged junkies and bar girls was beyond me but in hindsight it was probably a master stroke of genius. Ted was no help but that didn’t matter, he was likeable and I needed friends.

Ted filled me in on some of the details of my father’s arrest;

A young Scottish acquaintance of my father got busted one day in his apartment which unfortunately was in the same block as my father’s. As the cops and sniffer dogs were leading him down the stairs  to a living hell the little fucker lead them to my father’s door, perhaps he wanted some company.

480 grams of cocaine and a party sized bag of smarties later,  and pops was staring down death by firing squad. Possession of cocaine is a category 1 offence and carries a sentence of life imprisonment (25 years and a huge fine) or death if disposal(dealing) can be proven and with half a kilo of the stuff pops was gonna need to prove that he had a very big personal habit! Don’t get me started on the smarties.

If the truth be told, according to the daily papers another accomplice, a young English squealer, was picked up and then set about relieving himself of the confidentiality agreement he had with his business partners tout de suite!  Pops was looking at life in the belly of the Big Tiger, the local name for Bangkok’s infamous Bangkwan high security prison, so-called because it’s a man-eater and you rarely get out alive. Its little brother is ‘The Bangkok Hilton’, a.k.a.Yard Lao, where the room service is legendary!

Facts of life in ‘Bombat’ prison:

1-You pay an inmate to make your food ‘cause what they supply you will kill you, that is if there is any left. 2-Prisoners sleep up to 60 to a cell, head to toe, with 24/7/365 flouro strip lighting. 3-One open toilet per room. 4-Everything you could possibly think of is rife and available for a price. 5-You will not meet Nicole Kidman there. 6-Death and disease are common.

Over the next three months I met all sorts of insidious characters, boring expats and sauced up journalists as I tried to navigate the Thai legal system. I wasn’t sure how I was going to help pops. So far I was buying trading supplies in the prison shop for him, perhaps I could get him a decent lawyer, perhaps one of his old wealthy friends could buy him out. I didn’t know and was doing my best just to stay sane. My worst memory is of foolishly going to the American Embassy one insufferably hot day without any real idea of what I was going to say. The conversation went something like this:

‘Hello, I’m the son of so and so and I can’t prove it because all record of my existence and lineage went up in a puff of smoke in Kathmandu when the government offices were burnt down by a well-aimed thunderbolt from the Hindu god Shiva. Something to do with Richard Nixon, the King of Nepal and foreign drugs policy, yeah long story, anyway, pops got caught with half a key of White Powder Ma’s best Mighty White  and, err, what are you going to do about it?’

The career cunt behind the bullet proof glass said ‘nothing’ and more or less gave me the bum’s rush out the security door. If he’d murdered a prostitute or robbed a bank things would have been different, anything but drugs. This was the word among my newly found expat drinking buddies who knew all the likely outcomes and didn’t hold back in their grim assessments of pops’ chances.

I left the embassy with angry tears cutting down my cheeks and vowed never to go back, instead I went to my father’s pad where I was staying and smoked the biggest joint I could roll. I’d scoured his place for anything incriminating, incase I got an unwelcome knock at the door from you know who, and found so many pill bottles and old baggies of weed that a local strain of paranoia started to infect me. I got Ted to come over and do an inventory of  what I’d found. He was happy to take a substantial commission before I flushed the rest down the toilet. I kept a few downers for myself so I could lose a few days here and there when things got too nightmarish.

Progress on my dad’s case was slow. He hadn’t been arraigned yet and was starting to fantasize about being busted out by his old buddies. Truth is they wouldn’t have touched him with a barge pole. I paid his lawyer a visit whose office was just a short walk up Sukhumvit. It lasted all of 10 minutes. ‘It’ll cost US$ 60,000 to buy him out of ‘The Monkey House’ with a medical certificate from the prison doctor, mai pen rai(no problems),’ said the lawyer from behind his desk. I looked incredulously at him and then at the mural of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers covering the walls and then at Fat Freddy’s Cat in the corner by the water cooler. Seriously, I couldn’t make this up if I tried. I bailed out of there and went straight to my home away from home, Cheap Charlie’s Bar on Soi 11, giving the owner, Satit, strict instructions to get me as paralytic as an Irish man can get. I was Satit’s best customer for several months.

Ted rocked up a few drinks later and did  several laps of the block to make sure he wasn’t being followed. He eventually relaxed enough to neck a few shots of whiskey before arriving at his preferred passively paranoid state.  I told him about the lawyer which I instantly regretted ‘cause he launched into a tirade about ‘drug stitch ups’ and ‘DEA’ informants and then started accusing the poor sex tourist schlub at the end of the bar of being a ‘Narc’. Business as usual at Cheap Charlie’s, the best bar off Sukhumvit.

Another remarkable character who I met in Bangkok was Dr Max Henn, Ted’s landlord. Pops had told me to call on the ‘Doctor’ for a bit of  guidance and advice. He was the owner of The Atlanta Hotel and one time spy for several of the world’s clandestine intelligence agencies. One day in his office he pointed out the bullet holes in the walls left over from failed attempts on his life, he also pointed out his prized portrait of Maggie Thatcher in his office and a picture of Louis Armstrong, George Bush Sr. and the King of Thailand that hangs in the restaurant. The Doctor was an old friend of my father’s and helped me out with various requests even though he was hitting 80 and juggling two Thai wives. He sadly passed on at the grand old age of 96.

It was becoming obvious that pops wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry and would soon be transferred to ‘The Hilton’ or worse yet ‘The Big Tiger’, to serve out a long sentence. Death or 33 to life were the expected outcomes. JC had asked his miracle-working French lawyer to help out as I’d dispensed with the services of  The Fabulous Furry Freak Brother  after my first and last visit, but even she couldn’t see much hope unless a father’s ransom was paid.

I was coming to the end of my stay in Bangkok and after 3 months of paranoia, stress, humidity and bad cigarettes I’d had enough. I’d been living in his flat, getting to know him by wearing his clothes which fitted me just fine and reading his books and diaries. The diaries interested me until I read about my younger half brother being flown regularly from America to holiday in S.E. Asia. There was me all fatherless and under the kosh of  restrictive Catholic Ireland when I could have been drinking Singapore slings by the pool and working on my understanding of south east Asian culture. Pops had been living ‘The Life’, I felt forgotten about. I stopped reading and started packing my bags. I hadn’t achieved anything of note in regard to his case, which was pretty open and shut, and I sure as hell didn’t have the money to buy him out so my job was done. I went home after Christmas, a New Years basket case.

While inside, Pops got to know his true self and what really goes on in the Thai collective mind that most of us never see or experience. Their close  attachment to Buddhism, realistic views on bodily functions and general acceptance of their lot in life. I bribed the prison guards(known as commodores) for extra visiting time, had a Christmas contact visit and my first face to face adult talk with pops. We shared a packet of Camel filters, the commodore let him sneak a few extra packets in with some hidden antibiotics.

My father got 25 years and was eventually repatriated to America as part of a standing prisoner repatriation agreement in 2000 after serving four and a half years. The Yanks processed him in LA for a few weeks then released him into the guardianship of an old friend. He was tattooed from elbow to knee, a bit malnourished and humbled but otherwise alive and more importantly hadn’t contracted any fatal diseases other than life.

Sadly, Pops passed away in March of this year after a short stoush with cancer. All he left behind were his prison diaries and some untold stories. I scattered his ashes with my half brother during a snow blizzard high in the Rocky Mountains, a world away from his Thai nightmare.

When friends would ask him what he was doing in The Monkey House he’d reply rather matter of factly ‘Oh, you know, just growing my nails.’

photo credit John C. Chick, Kathmandu, 1970′s.

Nothing.

And I’m not talking about exposure, focus and tints. Come on, Pops was surely whacked when he snapped this.

The title really should be ‘what’s right with this picture’.

I see fun, frolics, life, water, youthful innocence etc.

This picture was taken a world away from our current shitty state of affairs.

Imagine what the hippy(pops) looked like who took the picture, in contrast to the locals.

I see religious carvings and statues, I see smiles.

photo credit John C. Chick, Kathmandu 1970′s

Man, check out the pants on the dude there!

He is one well dressed funky little dude.

Rockstar in the making.

Is the dragon whispering the secret to eternal life in his ear?

The middle guy mining for boogers.

The lost look on the face of the wee fellah.

photo credit John C. Chick. Rose mushroom nightclub door, 1970′s.

Now here’s something I accidentally stumbled upon. I always wondered what the front door of The World’s Highest Hippy Nightclub , The Rose Mushroom,  looked like. I could be wrong though. If you zoom in on the sheet of paper…like so..

Photo credit John C. Chick.

you can read it, just.

Free hash man!

Free hash!!!!!

The following extract is from my as yet unpublished and unedited memoir from my time spent in Japan teaching Irish cooking to Japanese housewives and students.

I was also on my way to becoming Japan’s first Nepalese born Irish/Australian/American celebrity chef.

I was later to become the first Nepalese born Irish/Australian/American celebrity chef to be deported from Japan, but that’s another story for another day.

* * * * * * *

Dear Readers,

   For that is what you have become to me now and much as I might try and maintain an amicable friendship I feel that the battle lines have been drawn as such that we all know where we stand now. For my part I shall endeavour to educate and humour you, being the reader, with my hopefully urbane (hah) and witty (wishful thinking) observances on life where ever I may be at the time. I shall also throw into the deal the musings of my gradually sobering brain.

It has well and truly been hung out to dry these last few weeks and is nearly in a state of monkish deprivation due to the predicament that I find my self in. For your part, the reader, you should promise to give me at least 10 minutes of your time so that you may peruse my scribblings in a leisurely way and thus be better able to absorb my thoughts and thus understand my condition.

96 hours and counting

Just last Saturday I made a rather rash decision on one hand but on the other it was the most rational thing I could do. I decided to do away with a long time friend of mine. You could even say that we were wedded in blissful harmony and were bedfellows for some 15 years or so. I remember the early days of our courtship and all the sneaky rendezvous we undertook. I remember the initial dislike we had for each other but we seemed to work things out and persevered to see things through.

Ahhh, I can remember many a time when we, or more accurately I, were punished for our friendship and closeness in school and later persecuted for it in the work place. For where ever I went my other half was sure to go. Socially we were inseparable and quite often the belles of the ball or the bollocks with the trollops. To say that I feel no remorse over my actions would be untrue but a part of me, namely my sentient portion, is jumping in the air with joy while my dependant half is still craving their company and familiar feel and scent. Another hour has just passed since I ended their mortal coil and I hope many more hours shall pass before they ever consider rising from the dead. Some of my acquaintances have been guilty of the same crime but have gotten over it and moved on with their lives. And so they should. If I get to 96 days I’ll be happy and if I get to 96 years I’ll be old. It’s just like that David Bowie song;

“Ashes to ashes – dust to dust- planet earth is blue and there’s nothing we can do”

Washing your Buttocks

While I was in Shinjuku the other day I felt the need to have a ‘movement’ as some might say. It must be noted that here in Japan even though it is a very technologically advanced country squat toilets are still very common so it always pays to know of the nearest western style toilet at any time. I decided to duck into the nearest department store where the toilets are always up to par and without charge too. While waiting for several minutes for a cubicle to become vacant I couldn’t help but wonder what was taking the occupants so long. I could hear flushing and ripping and scrunching and wiping but sadly no unlocking of the latch so I went to another floor to try my luck there. I was able to saunter straight into the cubicle of my choice and plop my derriere down on the heated seat. I might add that the heated seat really does add to the experience especially in the winter months. It was only when I turned my head to the side that I caught sight of the user manual for this fully automated bidet, buttock washer and dryer.

The instructions informed me of the best way to wash my buttocks; their words not mine, and dry them. I was able to adjust the temp of the spray and also the water pressure to a setting of my liking. If that wasn’t enough there was also a hot air function to give you that dry feeling. I shit you not. It was half way through this experience when I pulled out my mobile phone cum camera and started snapping away. Then it struck me why people took so long in these toilets. They were either pissing themselves laughing, taking pictures or giving them selves a bit of a wash and tickle. It is made clear that the bidet function is only for women, as if men don’t need a good ball washing now and again, they get very sweaty in the humid heat here. I have the pictures to prove what I say.

  Free Willy With 

              Ginger  and Soy!

I went for a business meeting the other day in an area called Ueno Park. Ueno Park was the scene for one of the TV shoots that I did in spring during the cherry blossom festival. All I can remember of that day was the Irishness of the weather and its persistence in making my kidneys ache and my nose run. I will be able to show you video evidence of the shoot in question but only if you happen to be on my travel route, otherwise you’ll have to wait your turn.

A legless and homeless man in Asagaya.

Anyway back to the meeting .I was meeting with the president of a Conniaku company, pronounced cognacoo, who was interested in selling my recipes in the form of this cognacoo stuff. Its just like fruit or vegetable jelly, nothing special at all but it seems to hold a certain amount of affection in the Japanese heart. After our chat we headed for a nearby restaurant of sorts and had a few beers and some tempura. Because I was the guest I did not really have much say in what I was gonna eat or drink and to cut a rather un-pc story short I found my self being presented with a plate of whale sashimi and some soy, ginger, chive and cress to gobble it down with. In all honesty its not that bad, unless you are the whale that is, and kinda looks like dark red meat that has been tenderised a bit.

Cognacoo boss and whale eaters.

It was tender and succulent and surprisingly easy to eat. A wry smile came to my lips as I thought of all the tree hugging, don’t cull kangaroos, land rights for gay whales, tofu rocks and vegetarian activists that seem to inhabit every other organic nook and cranny in Melbourne that would no longer be seeking my counsel in all matters gastronomic.

Parking 

                  Tickets

                                  For 

                                           Greenies

Bicycles are everywhere in Tokyo and as a result can become a bit of a nuisance to the average pedestrian. Not that they are dangerous, not at all for people cycle rather slowly here and generally have a basket of shopping or a few kids perched precariously on the bike and their person and thus are less likely to speed. Space is at a premium in Tokyo so much so that they even have special elevated parking for bicycles just like they do for cars. They also have bicycle registration and if you dare to park you bike on a forbidden part of the pavement you will be issued with a parking ticket. I don’t know how much the fine is but if you liberate a bike from a train station and thus are not registered to it you have nothing to fear. Bike locks here a sick joke, think of the locks that you used to pick for fun in school and there you have it. However if you are a Gaijin here and working illegally I would advise you to refrain from pedalling your way around the city for it seems to be the first indication to the police that you have overstayed your welcome and have turned native without the proper documentation. It’s not looking good for my fitness levels that’s for sure.

D

P.S. I don’t know what’s worse; my spelling, my grammar or my punctuation! Next stop Denver.

Oh no, they’re at it again.

Those paranoid lap-dogs of the dying empire, the Poms(derived from seedy pomegranates) have detained the partner of a journalist closely aligned to Edward Snowden(Snowy). The poor international traveller in question is the delightfully monikered Brazilian, David Miranda(Carmen Miranda). Remember her legendary performance in 1943′s The Gang’s All Here?

That fruity hat looks mighty suspicious.

In the old days it would not come as such a surprise to hear of a homosexual being detained under some arcane redneck law and we would have all tut-tutted and lined up the topic for mid morning tea break fodder. However, now all one must do is be the partner of a whistleblower enabling journalist to come a cropper of the authorities.

Poor David was detained at London’s Heathrow airport by the Poms for questioning under schedule 77 of the terrorism act of 2000. He was held for 9 hours without legal or consular assistance and if it had not been for the assistance of a mysterious security official(Deepthroat?) who placed a call to his partner, the sinister and Loquacious Glenn Greenwald(LGG), he might well have disappeared into the great labyrinthine maze that is Heathrow airport never to be heard from again.

To add insult to injury they confiscated all his electronic devices. How is the poor feller to survive the flight to Rio without Angry Birds?

Darth Bird ain’t happy, he’s angry!

Apparently he was on route to Brazil from Berlin, Germany where he had been meeting the firebrand documentary film maker Laura Poitras(Little Miss Trouble). I’m sure he also visited Checkpoint Charlie, The Brandenburg Gate where he admired the neoclassical triumphal arch and mingled with hipsters in downtown Berlin but that is not the issue.

His cafe mate, Little Miss Trouble, has been holding an uncomplimentary mirror up to the reptilian faces of the Orwellian Bovver Boys for all to see for a decade or so. They don’t mind what they see, it’s what everybody else sees that is there problem. Her much awarded documentaries have been less than complimentary of their business and military practices.

I can only imagine that they suspected Carmen Miranda of carry a whole treasure trove of confidential documents on a USB stick in his fruit bowl head dress that Snowy had liberated from the archives of the NSA and passed on to his boyfriend(remember the sinister LGG) and Little Miss Trouble(LMT).

Isn’t she adorable?

He was interrogated as to the nature of his contact with LMT by officers no doubt working under the auspices of GCHQ which I can only surmise is an acronym for Grand Chapter for the Harassment of Quislings(let’s stick with GCHQ).

Now, it would be perfectly logical to assume that the National Security Agency(NSA) were pulling the strings on the stage populated by the Pomegranate Puppets and in fact I would go so far as to say that the NSA really stands for No Strings Attached, hush-hush it’s top secret!

I mean seriously give me a minute to explain. They would like to read your mail, bug your phone, follow you, harass you, strip search you, probe you and eventually fuck you over with No Strings Attached. I can’t believe I didn’t spot it sooner!

As we all know Carmen Miranda is Brazilian and The Grand Viziers of the dying empire of the United States of Behemoth(USB) seem intent on pissing off their South American neighbours one country at a time, which is a slight departure from their usual modus operandi of subtle financial invasion and the subsequent insertion of an obsequious hand picked despot into the nation’s suspiciously vacant stateroom.

Where this will end is anybody’s guess but it has the legs to be made into the next big sequel producing Hollywood franchise. With or without USB approval. I wait with pavlovian anticipation for the expectant international outcry and Vladimir Putin’s(Vlad The Regaler) pithy opinion on this whole nasty barnacle of a debacle.

Biggus Dickus!

Stay tuned for the continuing adventures of Snowy, this can only get better.

Not sure where to start with this blog post, not sure what is real or CGI anymore.

How about 35 years. Yes-sir-eee, that’s the amount of time that poor Bradley Manning is destined to spend in the clink unless he gets early parole or somebody comes along and pardons him or her as the case may be.

Yup, the whole wikileaks affair has finally entered the outer limits of mondo bizarro world courtesy of Mr Bradley Manning disclosing, because that is what got him into this mess in the first place, his desire to become Ms Chelsea Manning. Some people have unkindly suggested that this was just a campaign led by the Feds to finally discredit the poor soul before they send him off to the ninth circle of hell. However, this is not the case. Bradley’s history is a painful one and in brief this is what happened.

Goldilocks.

His father, Brian Manning, met his mother, Susan Fox, while he was stationed in Wales while on military duty. They got married and moved to Oklahoma. Both parents were fond of the gargle and Bradley’s mother drank continually while pregnant so he was born with some effects of foetal alcohol syndrome. His mother attempted suicide and was still on the hooch. They moved back to Wales leaving his older sister with her father because we all know the Welsh don’t travel well.

He was bullied in Wales as he had been in the states. He was effeminate and ‘petite’ for his age and was openly gay for some time. At his father’s request he signed up for the Army in the hope of getting a decent education. Again he was bullied and nearly discharged but eventually found a nook for himself in some intelligence snooping department. At this stage Bradley started making friends in the hacking community.

So, off to Iraq he goes and that is where the whole wikileaks affair comes alive. All was going well until he was dobbed in by another hacker with who he had confided his sexuality to and his desire to be Chelsea. Some would say that Bradley was sick of living a lie(internal conflict) and couldn’t stomach the lie that the American Military Machine was propagating(external conflict) so he blew the lid on the whole God damn stinking tin of festering shit beans as if to cleanse himself and come ‘out’ as Chelsea.

You gotta have some sympathy for this lady: crap pregnancy, worse childhood and then to receive a prison term more severe than than all the combined sentences of the thugs involved in Abu Graib and the GFC combined. She didn’t even kill any one or steal any money!

I wish her the best of luck and hope she does get pardoned and can at some stage in the not too distant future have a fair go at a decent life and enjoy a bottle of Chardonnay with friends and laugh it all off.

Now, what can that old rogue Vlad the Regaler be thinking about this latest turn of events, especially considering The Kremlin’s stance on sexual deviancy?  I reckon he’s laughing his borsch off and hoping that Snowy doesn’t start exhibiting the same tendencies or else he’ll be booted out of the Soviets tout de suite!

Meanwhile back in Blighty the Godfather of all things leaky, the blonde Assange, is going a bit stir crazy. He’s been saying some daft things lately and is also trying to get elected to the Australian Senate. ‘Good luck matey’ is all I’ll say on that matter. He obviously is way out of touch with the average Australian voter who only cares about keeping the refugees out and their mortgage repayments down.

Interestingly enough Assange had some childhood issues(absent father syndrome) I wonder was Snowy similarly affected?

But wait, the real shit freezing news is that everyone’s favourite orphan, Batman, who has similar childhood damage issues is to be played by none other than Ben Affleck. The internet has been in a festering state of opprobrium since this story broke and already there are countless internet campaigns to have him dishonourably discharged from active super hero duty. Who can forget  his tissue breaking performance as Daredevil some years ago? I can’t even remember it because it sank to the bottom of the Mariana Trench along with Gigli and never made it to Australia.

I’m so hard!

Just recently I watched Hollywoodland starring Ben Affleck as George Reeves, yup you guessed it, the original Superman. Christ on a bike, it was truly God awful. Ben just doesn’t have a nasty mean bone in his body but you’d better ask Jennifer Garner(his wife) for a definitive answer on that.

Personally I’d get rid of Zack Snyder(director) if I could, and insert Peter Dinklage as Bats and Werner Herzog to direct with Nicholas Winding Refn and Lars Von Triers as back up or assistant directors.

Isn’t he cute

I’d also get Jon Hamm to don the red and blue underwear flying around the city dispensing bottles of booze and inciting all sorts of reefer madness.

My kind of Superhamm.

And just to top it all of how about a nice bit of Latino eye candy in the shape of the truly womanly and adorable Penelope Cruz.

Isn’t she adorable!

But, at the end of the cliche ridden day anything can happen. Remember when Michael Keaton got the gig as Bats? Yeah, everybody said ‘no way’ but then Tim Burton worked some magic and he turned out to be the best Batman for quite some time. Who remembers George Clooney and Val Kilmer donning the Bat costume?

As the BBC’s Mark Kermode put it; the only qualification for the role of Batman from an actor’s point of view is having a sizeable chin and he may be right  but I reckon Ben has a glass jaw and won’t last the distance. I hope to be proven wrong, for all our sakes.

Amen.

Hands up who voted today?

For those not from round these Antipodean parts, today is election day or vote in the village idiot day. Australian democracy is a curious creature. One not to be ignored or forgotten about. Here in Oz it is compulsory to vote, compulsory to drink drink beer to excess and have blonde hair and be an ex-Olympian.

On the stroke of noon, just as Film Buff’s Forecast came on the radio,  I ventured out with the whippet to cast my hard won vote. The sun was most generous in it’s universal suffrage but the wind was conspicuously absent. Possibly due to some preferential deal struck in a dark parliamentary cave somewhere near Canberra.

In short I was harassed by campaigners as I took my place at the end of the queue that stretched out of the school grounds and snaked down the street past the mobile organic beer bar on a tricycle; obviously a publicity stunt engineered by the coalition for intoxicated velocipedal hipsters.

I declined all sorts of bribery and blackmail at their insincere hands. Every time they tried to thrust a pamphlet of political pollocks in my hand I’d order my trusty whippet to ‘Kill! Kill!’ with much enthusiasm and vigour. And every time they’d wince back like premature turds stuck in a constipated apparatchik.

Past the free beer, cheap snags in even cheaper bread and fair trade chocolate hedgehogs I went all the while listening to 3RRR on my headphones and looking out for a friendly face in this sea of preference confusion. Upon getting my ballot papers I checked the register and was very pleased to see that I am not only the only Dorje Heavey on the register but also the ONLY Heavey too. Now I do feel special.

The polling working asked me if I had voted already, I replied that ‘I’ve got better things to do with my time on a Saturday than vote for this shower of cunts, twice’. She smiled politely, wished me luck and called the next hapless constituent.

A friend of mine was fond of saying that one should take the attitude of a young enthusiastic democracy when casting your vote: vote early and vote often, just to be sure. Sadly, convicted criminals serving time are denied their democratic rights here in Oz and as such he can only partake vicariously.

My national duty done for the day I shall now take my hand made bust of Tony Abbott on the tram and down to the pub for some cheese and onion banter and lashings of rooted beer followed a wee bit of voodoo magick.

And here’s the proof…

Before

Sometime in between

After.

Well, all the drama of the Australian election fail for rational thinking has me in a terrible state, so terrible that I’ve decamped for the land of Saints and Scholars. Why? Well surely I can find an answer here as to why we(the Australian public) felt the need to vote in a budgie smuggling, climate denying misogynist. I am in shock at what I have read in the limited national press but I don’t need to worry about that anymore because….well I reckon he’ll be smashing the presses and banning boycotts and Abbott only knows what else.

So here I am in the depressed Emerald Isle which is currently shrouded in a comforting cloak of myopic mist and determined drizzle. I took a walk down the main street of my old home town yesterday afternoon after cooking meself up a feed of fortifying sausages, black and white pudding, smokey cured bacon, perfectly fried eggs, toasted and hot buttered batch loaf and a few spears of asparagus just for good measure because you never know where your next meal is coming from in the rare old town of Dubh Linn:

Fortifications.

So, after Wolftoning down the lot I was off on my merry Joycean way and this is what I saw:

St Michael’s Church, Marine rd, Dun Laoghaire.

What a majestic sight! Tickling God’s arse through the fog.

A poor soul a bit the worse for wear across the road from the church.

At least nobody stole his crutch! I was wondering how long it was going to be before I came across a victim of the national pastime.

A few minutes later I was on the DART(Dublin Area Rapid Transit) speeding up the coast and off to the City of Dublin. Unfortunately for my camera there wasn’t much to see through the mist but the memories came flooding back all the same as the train passed through the stations of my youth like rosary beads through fingers.

Booterstown station  heralded its approach with the usual sulphuric stench of tidal seaweed, somethings never change. Methinks something is rotten round here.

Upon arrival in Baile Átha Cliath I chose Tara street station as my point of disembarkation  just so that I could take in the quays and a bit of the infamous northside. I was justly rewarded with the following vistas:

The verdant River Liffey in all it’s stagnant glory.

Such a beautiful combination of claustrophobic grey skies and glassy green water all towered over by the usually eye-sorish Liberty Hall.

Liberty Hall. One of the ugliest buildings in Ireland

I wasn’t expecting such a fine example of illustration and graphic design. The CFMEU should try and emulate this.

After picking my jaw up from the expectedly dirty footpath I continued my amble down memory lane wearing my tweed cap’n’ jacket combination and thought to myself I must look quite the Irish gent. My opinion was seconded as I was accosted by a track-suited gurrier with a look of mild insanity on his pasty mug. I knew I was had because I stupidly made eye contact with his feverish orbs and was then asked in a fine piercing brogue ‘Are you from Dublin?’  I feared for my wallet, dignity, moustache and whatever else I had on me and immediately retorted ‘Fuck yeah’ and sped on by making sure not hang around for his next probing question.

I decided I’d better head to safer streets and crossed the slumbering aromatic river at O’Connell Bridge under the shadow of the Millennium Spire, more commonly referred to as ‘just another prick on the northside’ by the witty southsiders of the city. As I made my way to Ireland’s Mecca of tourism and English stag parties I found this lovely shop sign on the edge of Temple Bar:

William Butler Yeats, bespoke maker of icons.

Good to see old speccy four eyes keeping watch over the streets of Temple Bar.

The next hour or so was spent wiping nostalgic tears from my inner eye as I strolled along streets filled with memories of youthful indiscretions, wet afternoons and exploitative workplaces. I kept my camera in my pocket for fear of being mistaken for a Scandinavian tourist but couldn’t help myself upon reaching the sanctuary of Grogan’s Castle Lounge. A pub full of artists, writers, dossers and sun dodgers where I used to hide out and do the cryptic crossword accompanied by a brace of pints, an Irish coffee or two and one of their mythic toasted ham and cheese sandwiches with a cheeky pot of hot english mustard as my condiment of choice.

Today I settled on just the pint o’plain as I my put upon innards were still combatting the asparagus spears and pudding from breakfast:

As the Argentinians say ‘Perfecto!’

The funny thing is there’s more substance in the creamy head of a pint of stout than between the pages of the once venerable Irish Times.

A selfie portrait of the artist as a not so young man partaking in the national pastime of imbibing the black stuff whilst observing the fine folk of Dublin on their odyssean perambulations of an otherwise unremark-worthy afternoon in September punctuated by nothing more than the occasional squeeling of peripatetic porter pulling porcine patrons prattling on their portable phones who are by no means potophobic.

I shall endeavour to furnish these virtual pages with more photographic observances but I make no promises, only idle threats.

I’ve got a whole heap of words floating around my pickled tongue but I can’t get them to co-operate with me fingers so I’ll just wing it and see what comes out. I’ve just arrived at Dublin airport on a gloriously Irish day of abundant greyness and inconsiderate rain; it’s cousin the considerate one stayed away these last few days and allowed that shy old fellah the Sun to come out in his birthday suit. He’s been more than welcome but some types would be thinking he’d over-stayed his welcome and deserved the bum’s rush.

The aptly named Sandycove with Dun Laoghaire in the distance.

James Joyce’s Martello tower, Sandycove. A veritable citadel of literary greatness.

The round room mid way up the tower, often referenced in Ulysses and more.

The view from atop the tower looking over the Forty Foot bathing place and onwards to Howth across Dublin Bay.

A panorama shot from the top of the tower.

So named after the 40th foot regiment who were fond of skinny dipping in the chilly waters when they weren’t battering the bejaysus out of the locals in the old days.

Crystal clear but mighty cold water at the Forty Foot. However this is the best time to swim as it has warmed up nicely over the toasty summer.

I grew up in the shadow of these eucalyptus trees on Ballygihen Avenue. There’s a fine bang off them as you walk by.

Beware of false Gods trying to walk on water!

My morning vista down by the Grand Canal Dock. Right next door to Google don’t ya know!

– Portrait of the piss artist  as a DART commuter with the new Lansdowne rd way of in the heat haze

–Big sky over Dublin’s river Liffey.

–Pretty sure this was taken in the back of an emerald green  rickshaw down Temple Bar way, lovely effect from the shaky cobble stones under wheel.

Sitting down to write award winning prose is not all it’s cracked up to be. I had several paragraphs of beautifully arranged words and witty retorts all written in the shower, then when I put the laundry on I did some editing and gave the piece a nice bit of spit’n'polish before finishing it off over some marinated chicken wings that were bracing themselves for the top shelf of the oven. The aroma of spice and chipotle wafted up in great pungent thunderheads and coloured my prose with exoticism and tongue tingling sensation. As I sat at the kitchen table finishing my morning latte I buffed every facet of my gem and held it up to the light to see my reflection in its brilliance.

So named after the 40th foot regiment who were fond of skinny dipping in the chilly waters when they weren’t battering the bejaysus out of the locals.

After I contemplated the meaning of the phrase ‘polishing a turd’ I set about making a list of the things I’d misplaced on my recent trip to Europe. Stuff like money and socks are perennial inclusions followed on by time. A recent arrival on the scene. Luckily I am still the proud owner of a wee digital camera and an old smart phone but I can’t get over the loss of my shaving brush. I’m too traumatised to even write about it.

In my three week odyssey I lost the ability to spell the word ‘odyssey’ without spell check and I reckon a few words per minute on my typing speed are also lost for the time being. On a more serious note my body says to me ‘ok dude, enough with the teenage shenanigans already. You’ve just lost a month or two on your sell by date’. So now I find myself attempting to discard one vice into the bin and temper another down to manageable measures. One mustn’t set the bar too high on the first umpteenth run as failure often offends.

I couldn’t find the right image so I’ve used this one. Not as funny as Mark Twain’s quote regarding loss, regret and mental acuity but still…

When I was a student studying science way back last century before the world was aware of corporate obesity and state sanctioned financial treachery I had a slight artistic streak in my genes. This manifested itself on the back of my lab coat by way of a hand drawn and coloured replica of a Roy Lichtenstein piece. This was a rather crazy thing to do in Athlone RTC as there wasn’t an art department or even a philosophical course on offer. Pop Art didn’t exist unless you considered the decor of The Waikiki Club as art.

Is art the result of inspiration or the trigger?  Is there an analogous relationship with perspiration? If the pharmaceutical companies started championing the modern arts would we call the result pop-phart?

You see, that’s the problem with probing thought, you tend to end up asking more questions and receiving proportionately less answers. What is the correct answer to ‘ou est le centre de George Pompidou?’

So, there we have it. I’m all worn out now and my tummy is rumbling. Chicken wings cooling on the sideboard, warmth in the spring air and things to do involving speaking bad racist Italian to my landlady(because that’s the way she likes it) and loitering with intent to linger on my porch.

Have I got news for you? Well possibly not but I have enjoyed watching the BBC show lately in all its witty glory. I wish I could say the same about #MEDIASTAN. A documentary or perhaps wikimentary/Assangumentary might be more apt titles for what was a well meaning film made by young idealistic euro-journalists with Wikileaks footing the bar tab and gas bills. The premise of the film was to travel through the ‘stans’ of central Asia peddling the latest US Embassy cables to any press interests that might be crazy enough to publish them without getting arrested by the spooks.

A ‘stan centric map of the ‘stans in question.

We saw picturesque gorges and ravines under oppressive skies and palatial mansions that looked like they were designed by Stalin himself all topped off with liberal doses of kitschy gold flake. As far as I can remember the gallant troupe of five unemployed journos were Swedish, German and female. I’m not being sexist here but I can’t recall the ladies doing anything at all in front of the camera and one of the three guys was a cameraman so … perhaps they were the sound department?

It turned out to be quite amusing in some respects. The general flow of the film was the crew would rock up to a press agency in Shambolickstan and try and coerce the editor to sign a ‘memorandum of agreement’ in exchange for all the US cables that pertained to Shambolickstan. The naively expected outcome would have been ‘gimme gimme gimme’ but the reality was that after a quick call to the newspapers owner(generally in Washington or Prague), the editor would refuse to have anything to do with them and summarily call the secret service.

The irony of one situation was that Radio Liberty in Anarchistan would have loved to air the cables but was prevented from doing so by the fact that it is funded by the US Congress. Another organisation didn’t have anytime for democracy and the editor even boasted about reading Aristotle in Greek and was of the opinion that nothing ever changes. There was no pulling the wool over his eyes.

A Skype conversation with the dazzlingly coiffed argentine tinted Julian Assange himself was not enough to change the editors’ minds, in fact, it generally hardened their resolve to kick out the idealistic Assangists and call the feds. I reckon the whole film(loose term) could have been summarised in four or five lines:repeat after me(5 times), do not waste your time and/or money watching this film.

Would you publish stuff that would more than likely end up with you breaking stones in a uranium mine for the rest of your life?

As you might expect in the spirit of the whole tedious affair I illegally downloaded #Mediastan in torrent form but is it illegal to download something that is about the illegal distribution of classified material that was obtained by eavesdropping and stealth then stolen and trafficked across numerous borders? I don’t know but perhaps the NSA can tell me once they’ve read this email.

Hislop and Merton, the funny guys.

I reckon the producers of #MEDIASTAN would have had better luck sending the Beebs’ Ian Hislop and Paul Merton on the road to flog their wares. At least it would have been funny. I have to admit that the funniest part was the enterprising journo in Afghanistan who boasted that he made $12,000US in three days while doing legwork for the Swedish press. The idealistic journos fell silent when they realised that was half their annual salary and their entire annual budget pickled herrings. It got even funnier when he suggested that he would be available to do legwork for Wikileaks for the same bargain rates. The bloke was barely out of nappies but spoke good english and had one of the brassiest necks I’ve ever seen on the box. I expect him to be running his own ‘stan one of these days.

I’ve just read the blurb on the webpage and cannot believe that I was watching the same film. They say it’s a road movie! All road movies have drugs and murder as a central theme or even ‘finding your inner self’. Give me ‘Salvador’ any day. The blurb also says that somebody famous says something about Obama, ah well, I must have fallen asleep by then.

Many years ago before the internet was unleashed on the unsuspecting masses and coffee was a mug of Maxwell House I had the (one handed)pleasure to work in the film distribution sector of the Soho(London) porn scene. Oh those were heady days indeed; breaking the law, earning tax free cash, buying ‘hot’ stuff from local thieves fresh out of HMV and Tower Records. Oh the times, the high times.

So, apart from gaining an in depth knowledge of German, French and Italian 90′s porn and the associated short hand lingo I learnt five very valuable things. I wouldn’t call them lessons, just things that stick in your mind, or cheek.

#1

The first thing I learnt was that Soho would have to be one of the worst red light districts in the world, apart from Dublin which didn’t have one at the time but funnily enough the whole city was pretty much an open brothel in the old days of the empire. I was shocked and appalled at the constant rip offs being perpetuated in the name of sleaze along the streets of Soho. Never, ever set foot in a hostess bar in London. I’d marry a pox ridden Tory with leprosy before I’d venture there.

#2

No matter how much I tried to tell the Japanese tourists that the Mickey Mouse video covers were not for sale they wouldn’t listen to me, by law we had to stock a percentage of none filth. In the end I’d  sell them a few copies just to get them out of the shop as they were bad for business. This taught me that the Japanese have a very open and ancient relationship with pornography. I was able to experience this in person many years later when I lived in Japan. Oh the culture of it all; best food in the world and the most sophisticated erotic entertainment industry around.

Doesn’t quite compare to Barbara Windsor in a Carry On romp.

#3

Selling porn in the old days was like shooting fish in a barrel. Nobody ever complained or returned the dodgy VHS cassette that you sold them for 25 pound sterling. Chances are they would be back in their bedsit 50 miles away before they’d realise they’ve been ripped off and were watching a very unsexy b&w snowstorm after 30 seconds of hard core undressing. I worked in Danny’s Video Store on Compton St and our point of difference was that we gave you a quick preview of the video before stuffing it into a nice brown paper bag and relieving you of ten pound. We were honest porn pedlars. The boss would go to Amsterdam twice a year and stock up on new titles to copy by the hundred. It was as simple as that and I worked on commission. It still is the only sales job that I’ve ever achieved sales targets in.

#4

If you flash a pair of tits in the face of a man and apply some pressure they’ll buy anything out of some prehistoric knee jerk pavlovian reaction type thing. I often wonder who gets exploited here. I suppose it could be compared to diamonds and fancy shoes for women without getting all feminist and nasty about it.

Yes ma’am, I’ll buy that.

#5

All sex businesses can’t but help sprinkle carpet powder all over the carpets in the hope of breaking up the musty smell of spunk, sex and desperation . They rarely hoover it up properly so now whenever I go into somebody’s house who still does the shake’n'vac thing I can’t help but think of Heidi the Horny House Maid getting acquainted with Vlad the Impaler and his army of onanistic helpers. It makes me wonder would patchouli oil or sandalwood oil make the places any less sexy?

And I’ll throw this last bit in for free; any industry that earns its keep off the weakness of individuals is generally owned by the types that your mother warned you to steer well clear of.

Imagine a world with no pokes, wall posts, status updates, baby photos or bitchy public break up arguments? All you need is a time machine to go back to the early 2000′s.

As fascinating an idea as this may seem there’s actually not a lot of writing in the topic. I mean…would anybody miss it? Surely there’d be a replacement up within minutes, a beta version of something or other. Hopefully bot MySpace because I just thought that was a a market place for amateur music and egos.

What would they do different in a new facebook? Who is ‘they’?

More privacy less ads? I doubt it. But I suppose it all depends on who stands to benefit from it? Commerce or public? The yanks vs the rest of the free world?

Perhaps there could be regionalised versions based on language or nationality or sexual persuasion?

Would it be Manbook vs Womanbook vs Fembook vs Fagbook vs Boganbook vs Slutbook vs Crookbook vs Dumbbook vs PCbook vs Gossbook vs Gentilebook vs Jewbook vs Musbook vs Budbook vs Hinbook?

It might even be time to get rid of the ‘book’ part altogether and call it facekindle, which kinda sounds like a nasty hate crime to me.

Sorry I just had to drop out and check my facebook for bay status updates and the latest feel good bullshit posts from people who actually think that if you sign your name to an online petition and send it to an African warlord, who believes that he’s the son of God,  that he’ll stop torturing and raping every girl within a 50km radius once he’s stopped chopping off the hands of every male in sight.

Or perhaps Monsanto really has been kicked out of another poor country and Russell Brand is about to change the world by financing a world wide revolution based on his drug free and celebrity status. I’d rather follow Katie Perry if the truth be told, she’s got a nicer behind.  Oops, there’s me being sexist again. Dang, methinks I need to join Rehabbook and change my ways.

There’s always make believe too! How about Elfbook for those of a Tolkien persuasion or Gnometome for the gardening set.

T’is a jaded expression but I do believe that ‘a walk down memory lane’ really does describe both the physical and mental process of reliving emotions and feelings that we call memories.

I am recently returned from an overseas trip where every path led me down a memory lane, a grove of mementos, a remembrance avenue and then finally onto a beach so full of life and all the senses that are tossed by the winds coming off the bay. Are these the same winds I fought against 35 years ago? Do they remember me? Why would they? I remember them though. My bones can never forget how they were chilled and blown asunder, sometimes I had to hang on to my hair lest it be uprooted and strewn across the foreshore.

Sewage beach at Salthill.

There was a sewage pipe, I shit you not, pumping out used condoms-flushed nappies-errant turds and gallons of drunken piss into the bay. Straight onto the beach it all went, never quite reaching the deep waters and the currents that might carry it away to Wales. Sometimes the the pipe would burst and great fountains of shitty sewage would cascade over the walkway and run down and over the stoney pebbles before hitting the seaweed bank and pooling up. Nothing was ever done.

Seapoint’s Martello tower, if only the French had arrived.

At the other end of the beach, lunatics would swim 365 days a year in the icy cold waves under the the shadow of a defunct Martello tower. There used to be a shop in the tower selling ices-sweets-minerals and perhaps a cup of shite tea if you were lucky. In the olden days the tower was manned against a possible attack by Napoleon. I reckon that could have been a great thing. Imagine the culture in Ireland had the Frenchies been our overlords. Imagine the culinary delights his brigade of chefs could whip up with the great Irish raw ingredients of fish-meat-dairy and grain. That’s another story.

The seafront at Seapoint and home of many great beachcombing treasures.

I remember harvesting starfish down the beach after humongous storms had washed up a milky way of the creatures. Stranded they were, like alien creatures not normally seen ashore by seven year old eyes. And then there were the jellyfish. I’m sure they weighed more than me. They were bleeding massive things with four blue circles and monstrous tentacles laid out like plastic bags filled with water. They didn’t sting you once they were dead. I know this because we would cut out squares of wobbly see through flesh with our swiss army knives and dare each other to touch the quivering mass. We found ginormous mussels once. The size of a man’s fist if not bigger. We tried to open them with our little frozen fingers but that didn’t work. Then we shouted at them as they sat there in buckets of water on the old wooden kitchen table. They never opened but at least they didn’t stink like the rotting starfish in the wheel barrow out the back.

The storms in those days were legendary, well at least to seven year olds they were. They seemed to blow for days if not weeks. Who knows what they’d do in the middle of the night? What favourite climbing trees would be felled before morning? How many loose slates nearly chopped a man’s head clean off at midnight as the gales battered the old Georgian terraces and teased the blue guillotines to run away with them.

I wrote a poem once about memory. It was rather good if my memory serves me correctly. It had lines about goading memories and smells from the dark recesses of my mind, hewing out whole slabs of past times and throwing them into the light of the present for examination and regret. I don’t know where that poem is anymore. It was in a book of poems and writings I started over twenty years ago, ironically enough I can’t remember where I put it. It could be in Dublin, Athlone or even Cork. Chances are it’s long lost under a pile of debris at the tip.

Way way back in 1997 I attended my first Melbourne cup on the first Tuesday of November. For the non Antipodeans among you this race is a national holiday, the race that stops a nation. What! A public holiday for a horse race?  Yup, that’s the truth and they love it here. Spring time in Melbourne is known for three things in my book; the end of the ‘footie’ season(thank heavens), it’s irascible weather(don’t bet on it) and a horse race(what me bet?).

Australians have an innate addiction to gambling and a certain predisposition to losing their shirts. I’ll get back to that point in  a minute but first let’s finish off the 153rd running of the worlds richest handicap. The race length of 3,200m culminates in a prize pool of AU$6.2m. That’s 4.3mEuro or US$5.9m. Not to be neighed at.

Wagurtail Burger!

The day itself is a hodge podge of badly dressed bogans, over paid celebrities and tragic aftermaths once the last race has pounded down the home straight. More often than not a micro storm will brew up in Adelaide in the morning and canter over to Flemington(the race track) just in time to dump a wee shower on the best and worst dressed during the race. If I was a betting man I’d put my money here rather than on the nose, but not this year. All I can see is blue sky so far and the forecast is good.

Now, what’s all this about Australians losing their shirts, hey? Well, t’is true. Indonesia and China are buying up the Land Down Under wholesale just like it’s going out of fashion. We’re selling off all our mineral reserves for tuppence ha’penny a tonne and our illustrious idiot of a leader don’t believe in climate change. He does however believe in fighting forest fires on his down time and doing triathlons. He also has a lesbian sister but doesn’t believe in gay marriage and is willing to fight it until the ‘roos come home. This guy is an honorary republican if ever I saw one.

Our Great Barrier Reef is dying thanks to pollution from something or other and we have a major salinity problem in the out back, otherwise referred to as ‘The Great Big Dingo’s Toilet of Australia’. Let’s see what else is up, oh yeah, we’re flying up America’s arse so fast soon all you’ll be able to see is our Union Jack painted toe nails. The democratic process here is taking on an ugly bipartisan hue. It was never a love in I’ll admit that but the shite that they are peddling these days is…just that shite dressed up as policy. Apparently refugees and public spending are a danger to Australia.

T’is a curious fact that both Julia Gillard(ex labour PM) and Tony Abbott(current Liberal PM) are boat people yet the two of them viciously opposed any softening of our asylum laws. Ms Gillard arrived from Wales in 1966 and Tony from England in 1960. Sure gives credence to the old saying of ‘last in bolt the door behind you and fuck the rest’.

Ah fuck this for a lark, nothing makes sense anymore. The Australian Liberal Party is anything but liberal in the broadest most liberal interpretation of the word liberal. Australia ain’t the Lucky Country, my first ever record was ‘two little boys’ and now Rolf Harris is a paedophile!

I’m off down the pokies and the TAB to lose my shirt or better still somebody else’s if I can help it.

And there I was after climbing my own food mountain(just completed a 1,000 page metaphysical exploration of caramel’s indecent and covert love affair with salt), all knackered and in need of a good feed. So I took myself off to my favourite hip boutique foodery which specialises in the latest culinary fads and existential tastes.

After ambling down several lane-ways I arrived at where I thought I was going to tantalize my educated palate and lighten my wallet.The multimillion dollar fit out was gone, so too the spacious and echoing ambience and subliminally designed retro frontage. Imagine my surprise at being confronted with a lack of be’stached and tattooed waiters, haughty maitre’d's and faux fake Danish decor and instead having to settle for a flimsy stool at a laminex counter and sharing elbow room with several other equally astonished patrons.

I was a mere few inches away from a simmering pot o’stock and a chimeric cleaver chopping away at a beautifully glazed piece of BBQ’d meat.

‘Holy O.H & S accident claim waiting to happen,’ I screamed to myself.

I was now sitting at a ‘pop-up’ hole in the wall operation under a see through plastic awning going eye to greasy eye with some guy who I presume was the chef, owner, waiter, cashier and dish pig all ballotined into one.

After barely half a second he moved on to another equally bemused patron and placed a large white bowl of steaming  meat and vegetables in front of him. “Meat and two veg!” he said. “Now you, what do you want?” he said brisketly.

“Oh, is there a menu?” I said. My hands flapping about the counter looking for something to critique and assess.

“Look on wall mister!” he said, pointing to my left. And there it was, clear as a dirty smoggy day in L.A., it read:

Meat and two Veg

Fish and two Veg

Tofu and two Veg

With noodles

With rice

Beer  (tap)

Water (tap)

‘Oh,’ I said to myself. “Where does the meat come from? Is it organic beef?” I asked, always trying to be ethically conscientious with my eating habits.

“It come from happy cow in field, same as fish and tofu. All very happy.”

I was momentarily taken aback, what field was he talking about? The verdant pastures of Southern Gippsland  perhaps, or that little hidden creek in the  Yarra Valley.

“Is it Wagyu?” I enquired further.

“With noodles or rice?” he snapped back while serving another bowl of steaming goodness to my right.

“Errr, noodles” I replied. I was curious as to what type of noodles were on offer; soba, rice, wheat or gluten free?

My doctor had advised that because of my Irish heritage I’m prone to gluten intolerance and should cut back on just about everything I enjoy.

“Rice noodle” he said.

“Excuse me, could I get extra garlic too?” I asked sheepishly.

“Ahhh, you bring own menu,” he snapped before turning away and tossing the contents of a wok high in the air.

The diners to my left and right were eagerly shovelling heavily laden chopsticks of food down their throats and slurping at raised bowls that hid their surprised eyes as the stock pot simmered away. The set up was exquisitely simple: rice cooker, stock pot, grill, sinks, small fridge all bathed in the atmospheric glow of two flickering fluoro strip lights hanging from meat hooks attached to the awning. A narrow ‘u’ shaped counter with seven side by side stools on one side and a few haggard chopping boards on the other. There was also a small, refrigerated keg of beer in the corner.

“What’s the beer?” I asked nervously.

“Happy beer of course, good for drinking. Comes from same farm as happy cow and happy fish,” he said. My celiac condition denied me beer unless it came from The Boutique Brothers Beautiful Buckwheat Brewery in Baw Baw.

“Water please. Is it ionised or sparkling or filtered at least?” I asked.

“No! It’s happy water from…”

“Let me guess,” I interrupted, “from a happy stream in a happy field, with the happy cows and all!” I said.

“Ah, you been there too?” he said, rather sarcastically.

Ignoring my naturopath’s advice I relented,“Ok, gimme some happy beer,” I said, barely able to hear anything  over the din from my neighbouring diners as they slurped, gurgled, scraped and wolfed down their bowls of happiness.

A light drizzle had started to fall around the tiny restaurant. Everybody subconsciously squeezed in a few inches under the plastic awning as if to get closer to the warmth and smells wafting from the grill.

I started watching the chef whip around his work space. One moment he was ladling stock into bowls, then he’d be slicing meat or fanning  a boiled egg onto a mound of half submerged noodles without a moments hesitation. His actions were smooth and subtle, yet energetic and forceful when needed. Not a movement was wasted. Even when he charged a customer $8 for his meal there was something seamless about it.

I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of my choice in restaurant. Thoughts of my favourite meal from Swanky Bubbles Quinoa and Grill came to mind; an entree of Iberian hemp-line-caught Sardines served  ‘in the freshly opened tin’ followed by a baked brace of Steiner educated and ‘raw food’ fed  spatchcocks with a garland of fair trade Dingleberry flowers and thrice smoked heirloom tomatoes. Naturally, I always order a side of ‘Congan blue’ single origin pureed potatoes with radically activated almonds to balance the flavours out a bit.

“Wake up!” said the chef as he placed a bowl of noodles on the counter bathed in clear stock with a garland of glistening rainbow coloured vegetables and several small pieces of expertly grilled meat atop. I noticed a small armada of clear spheres of fatty flavour orbiting the noodles and was instantly reminded of that scene in Tampopo.

“Garlic!” he snapped while giving me a small garlic press and some peeled cloves.

Twenty minutes later I had scoffed my way to happy farm happiness and was eagerly picking at my teeth trying to extract the very last pieces of deliciousness from between my crowns and thinking about the small happy creek with the happy fish and cows when the chef snapped at me,” you done, you $12, cash only, next customer sit here please”.

“Wha…, oh, yeah, gimme me a second,” I said, squeezing myself out from under the gently dripping awning and gulping down the last of my beer.

“But you only charged him $8 for the same dish!” I said pointing at a guy walking off down the lane-way exhaling billowing clouds of cigarette smoke and burping his approval.

“He no ask stupid questions. Quick, $14 please,” he said.

Another wet customer quickly brushed me aside and was now absorbing the residual warmth from my vacated stool.

“Tofu and two veg with vegetable stock please. what type of tofu is it? Silken or firm? Is it macrobiotic? ” she asked.

I knew what the reply was going to be and I laughed. I wanted more but my belt said no and so, off I went into the soupy inorganic night thinking ‘if only everything could be this simple.’

‘Murder here, murder there, blue bloody murder everywhere!’ – Pussy Willow, said sometime before being hung for crimes against humanity.

Google says the definition of murder is : the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another. As I see it the term ‘unlawful’ is open to interpretation and isn’t always the most constant yardstick with which to justify murder for so often the law is found to be an ass or compromised or biased or unjust in its lawfulness. What the headhunters of Papua New Guinea deem a good and lawful death would most likely end up on an episode of CSI:Bougainville.

For such a simple act, the loss of life, we have a myriad of terms and words to describe such an act depending on who the off-ended party is: regicide, patricide, infanticide, matricide, assassination, friendly fire. And then don’t forget manslaughter, death by misadventure, crimes of passion and justifiable homicide which of course takes us back to the original problem: legality.

Under Apartheid and Deep South rule the life/death of a coloured friend was a trivial affair more akin to the loss of livestock, which is nothing abnormal if you consider the history of humanity where there’s always one tribe trying to impose it’s will on another lesser tribe, where the laws of nature deem death a suitable side-effect of conquering arable lands and fertile women. Sometimes if one could be bothered the poor wretches lined up for death would be spared and given into slavery which was often a fate worse than involuntary expiration depending on who had the whip hand.

Murder can be excused depending on the contents of your wallet, the colour of your skin, the sex in your knickers or the holy book in your back pocket. Oh, and before I forget, most victims of murder are murdered by a close acquaintance or family member. That’ll help you sleep at night.

Let’s go right back to the beginning of the life cycle; men give the seed to the women, women then incubate the seed and give birth to life, depending on the maleness of the infant and it’s parentage the child may survive or become a victim of infanticide/abortion. Both types of murder.

However for our purposes let’s go even further back in time, back to the dawn of man and murder: the myth of Cain and Abel.

There’s a horrible piece of gossip doing the rounds which would suggest that young Cain was sired by a fallen angel who’s identity has yet to be ascertained as there were bound to be unpaid child support payments due. Now, apparently Cain represents the sacred race of Homo sapiens who were in the ascendant during the early days of the bible where as Abel, whose parentage is not doubted, was the mascot apparent of the Neanderthals. The ability to form metal and plough the land was a higher ability attributed to Homo Sapien culture and thus Cain would be seen to embody the future of an industriously agrarian mankind. Abel on the other bloodied hand was a hunter-gatherer type who lived by his wits as he roamed the land looking for organic goji berries and verdant fields of fair trade quinoa and thus represented the primitive Neanderthal, a truly savage but noble beast.

Rumour has it that the brothers fell out over a woman and not just any woman but their sister! She was apparently a twin to boot so there would have been all sorts of shenanigans going on in their yurts when Adam and Eve weren’t looking. Cain got the better of Abel and struck him down thus ending his mortal coil and committing his sanguinous insides to the dirt of Mother Nature below and providing cheap novelists with more fodder than you can shake a burning quill at. This can be interpreted as the Homo sapiens clearing the land of the sub human Neanderthals who would be competing for valuable resources and comely women folk. And here we have anthropology’s finest moment.

So, Cain gets the threesome with his twin sisters, all the land he can plough before sundown and a nasty mark that won’t wash off for his troubles. Everywhere he goes people shout at him ‘ hey, killer of Abel! Listen up ‘cos Yahweh says we can’t expedite your pathway to heaven so no need to give up that awful smoking habit.’ ‘But,’ replies Cain, ‘I’ve done the world a favour by metaphorically destroying the neanderthals and advancing humankind to the bronze age and the safety of grain stores, roast chicken dinners and door knocking Jehovah’s Witnesses. God told me too! I’m sure he did.’

And there we have another problem with lawful murder, the old ‘God told me to’ excuse. This petard of an excuse is still used today and is probably the most widespread reasoning for digging another race into the dirt so as to become fertiliser for future fields of proverbial civilization. It’s just as despicable as the other favourite excuse of murders; get orf my land/porch/stoop!

If ever you wanted a handbook of murder and the mighty act of smighting you could do worse than read the Bible for it’s full to the brim of blood in the Old Testament before slacking off a tad in the New Testament. Even the death of Jesus was unlawful and most probably due to bad PR on his part and a biased crowd baying for their Friday night jollies. They were a thirsty mob in those days and I would counter that they are still a thirsty mob given the right circumstances.

Let’s get back to Cain who escaped the death penalty only to be tattooed for ever and a day lest he or anybody else forget what a great service he performed for Homo sapiens and the future of the human race. Surely a life of torment and ridicule is a fitting punishment for murder where the felon actually understands the philosophy behind his sentence?

Let’s move on to that other legally sanctioned form of murder; war. Whereby one bunch of united people seek to destroy another bunch of similarly united people all for the sake of some land or a perceived Royal slur. We all know that ol’ hoary chestnut of an excuse ‘might is right’ which seems to overrule any opposition to death and effectively justifies murder and reclassifies it as ‘collateral damage’.

The CIA coined a great term some time ago when they decided that a certain enemy of America’s overseas interests should be ‘terminated with extreme prejudice’. What wordsmithery I say! Don Watson would call them ‘weasel words’. I reckon they could have settled for ‘bust a few caps in his ass’ but then that would have tipped the hat to the ugly side of America where murder is punishable by an indefinite spell on death row and endless reality TV reruns.

Murder is all the rage. Every day in every country the press’ front pages are full of tales of death and misery. We love to read about it, watch TV shows about it and in some countries you can go see it live at the town square, for free no less.

In some countries it is illegal to terminate a pregnancy due to rape or abuse with rape or terminal deformity but it’s legal to execute somebody for pointing out the true nature of the Emperor’s new clothes. It is against the law for me to murder myself or to ask somebody else to help me do it yet somewhere in a brightly lit room in a clandestine army base there are teenagers guiding drones to their death targets. There are corporations producing food which effectively murders the consumer or renders them incapable of discerning the difference between nutrition and poison.

It all gets a bit confusing to be honest. The current trend is that property is more valuable than human life. If you trespass on my property I can kill you. If you steal my property I can kill you. If you look like you might want to interrupt my business model I can kill you or I might enrol the police to do it for me.

It is perfectly acceptable in this climate to wage war, kill dissent, ethnically cleanse and deprive people of their liberty Monday to Friday and then on Saturday attend the funeral of Nelson Mandela and snap a few selfies. Such hypocrisy! Such bare faced cheek of the murderous Mugabe to show his uncracked face. But there we have it, writ large on the big screen with the complicity of the World’s Media.

Now, here’s an interesting if not controversial topic; what if those Neanderthals from the days of Cain and Abel were still around today? Would we subjugate them to a life of slavery and laboratory toxicology tests? Would we cherish them as our ancient ancestors without whom there would be no us? Would we treat them like wild savages and excommunicate them to the toxic wilderness? Would we keep them as amusing house pets, mere trinkets and pets of amusement? Or would they all be rounded up, boxed up and stored in that gargantuan warehouse of The Smithsonian Institute like all of Indiana Jones’s great anthropological discoveries.

Truth is we all know what would happen and I daren’t not write their fate down lest I tempt it’s precosious nature.

Oh, and while I’m at it what would the religious loons have to say about our extant cousins? I dread to think of the measures they would take considering their past history of punishments among their own kind.

At the end of the clichéd day we are but animals fossicking around on a rock that is supported by four sacred panda bears balancing on top of a white elephant which is in turn precariously placed atop a spinning crystal plate under the command of a bipolar monkey with itchy  palms and acute attention deficit disorder and all circled by a pod of smiling benevolent dolphins being ridden by internet savvy felines.

Our existence is accidental in the great scheme of things but we justify it as divinely intentioned, eternal and worthy of great adulation before starting to tear down the bricks of this beautiful house that Mother Nature and Father Time accidentally created for us. We are murdering the hand that feeds us and in the end it will be that very same hand that puts us in our place, that buries us in the soil that spawned Adam.

The truth is that we are overpopulating this planet, murdering all the wild animals that don’t taste good in a cheese burger who will eventually rise up and murder us back in return. They will ‘exterminate us in our billions with extreme prejudice’ but no malice or forethought because that is just the way that nature works and it’s also the best defence for murder too.

Today marks the first day of my month long lease on prison cell #7 in Old Melbourne Gaol, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. My cell is on the third floor and came furnished with two office desks, a filing cabinet, a chair, an electric heater and some shelving. Not quite spartan I’ll grant you that but it is a double cell and after having seen the single cells down stairs I can understand that the problem wouldn’t be writer’s block but writer’s cramp! Even the cell door is barely wide enough to walk through without turning sideways before stooping over to walk in.

My lucky cell#7.

One of the previous resident of cell #7 left behind The Manhattan Transfer Anthology ‘Down in Birdland’ and The Greatest Songs from the Musicals- a 3cd box set with 42 classic tracks- and a whole spindle of blank CD-Rs. I look forward to blasting out ‘I dreamed a dream ‘ from Les Miserables and ‘Thank heaven for little girls’ from Gigi. Perhaps I could start burning a few copies to sell from my cell door.

I’ve also found an Australian pocket dictionary and a novel by Rose Tremain which shall remain unread as far as I am concerned. Upon further fossicking around I’ve uncovered two bottles of wine, one white t’other red, a box of glasses, some stationary and other random things. You know, the usual things you find in a disused prison cell, like an unwrapped thermometer hanging on the wall which reads 22′C or 72′F and several grubby power boards.

It is pretty obvious that this very cell was the headquarters of The Justice Project(standing up for a fair go)some years ago from all the paper work and office stationary lying around. Their aim appears to have been something along the lines of “Human Rights in the Age of Border Protection”. The only paperwork I can find is dated 2007, I hope the wine hasn’t been here that long.

I was given a key to the heavy padlock on the door, a brief tour of the facilities, a phone number incase a mischievous member of the public decides to lock me in(happens regularly) and then I was allowed to get on with my project and acquaint myself with my new literary surroundings.

My cell is a double one. I stepped it out as being roughly three by three and a half metres and nearly three metres high. The roof is curved like an old aircraft hangar. The walls are painted off white with dark cracks between the large stone blocks. A smattering of fine black dust from the cracks in the roof clings to the edges of the blocks. Alarmingly the flagstone floor has been carpeted with the same cheap stuff that my own landlord used to carpet my home. There are two windows looking down over me which remind me of the eyes of the Buddha. They have bars on the outside, two inches thick, and perspex on the inside. The external walls look about two feet thick.

Why am I here? Mmmm, well, hopefully to write. My aim is to finish transcribing my father’s prison diaries and then start to form a book around them. A book of stories, thoughts, diary entries and remembrances. A book that might act as a deterrent to other fathers who might want to sell drugs in Asia but apparently nobody reads these books until they’ve been to prison! A book that might illustrate my father’s mind to all those people who thought they knew him, thought they knew what went on in his head and for me too so that I can understand this guy with terrible parenting skills and even worse responsibility issues, I swear that no back door ever went unused when my father was around!

I started off by listening to some of my father’s audio recordings just to set the mood, that failed when the audio quality dipped badly. Pops was not good with technology. I was getting into his stories of meeting Ginsberg and co’ in Boulder, and his tales of derring-do high in the Himalayas Then I tried a few BBC podcasts and lastly I have stuck with Brian Eno’s Music for Airports which I find quite peaceful and err, I suppose motivational. One thing that I did share with my father was his habit of being in airports with an onward ticket at hand.

There is a constant stream of noise from outside the cell along the walkway as tourists shuffle by. These old gaols weren’t designed for the obese or overly tall. At the moment there is a little plate on my door which reads ‘office’. Apparently I should have a piece of A4 paper saying ‘writer in residence…Dorje Heavey’, I might have to get on to the Screws about that. The previous occupant has left a post-it note with three tips. I wonder if she also left the music too.

I took myself on a quick sticky beak round some of the display cells and I was slightly spooked upon entering a cell displaying the hangman’s chest of tools. In the cosy cell a whispered voice crept up behind me and released a word that I can’t define, such was my amazement at being spooked. It could have been a ‘shush’ or even a ‘Dorje’ I can’t quite recall but I did do a double take and looked around for a tourist or guide to lay the blame on. I was all alone. I hope I hear more of these murmurings, I wouldn’t be averse to seeing something from the spectral plane either.

Then came the weekend and I was glad of it. I’d been given a challenging assignment by my editor and would now have to get quick with the research and go and actually interview somebody. Somebody who could fill in the gaping holes of ignorance I’d not had time to furnish yet. Well, there I was, rocking up to a nice cafe in North Fitzroy. I parked my trusty old rust collecting push bike alongside some thoroughbred models and plonked my arse on a hip stool on the pavement.

I was there along with my interviewee and just getting down to business when some shiny legged pompous ass in cycling shorts made for his stallion. ‘Ah excuse me, let me move my bike for you,’ I proffered only to be rebuffed with ‘I hope my bike isn’t scratched,’ and a snotty sneer from his weasel like face. My interviewee was taken aback by such a show of bullshittedness that he started grinning with disgust, I slowly let the words sink in and was tempted to say many things but I know that such a velocunt will get his comeuppance on the lethal roads of Melbourne sooner or later, it’s inevitable.

Now, the interview has started and things are going nearly as well as Vlad Putin’s macho PR campaign but there wasn’t a dead bear or salmon or Chechen in sight. That’s when the disgusting piece of animated turd came along and sat right beside my coffee partner. I’d not seen this vile, wrinkled excuse of a scrotum for a few years and I was happy about the status quo.

I’d reported this walking fecal anomaly to the police for stalking and harassment and was only instances away from getting a restraining order when he miraculously stopped thinking that his world revolved around my every movement.  Now he was barely three feet away and desperately trying to make eye contact. Desperately trying to worm his maggoty self into my consciousness.

I should state for the record that I in no way encouraged this scutty anus of a creature in his obsession but that is the way with delusional stalkers.

The interview went on swimmingly and I managed to keep my gaze averted from the miasma emitting sewer of his presence. My interviewee was totally unaware of this situation as he filled my microphone with stories, names and all sorts of priceless data that I could not do without, yet right beside him was somebody who shouldn’t be permitted to get out of the gutter. Harsh words maybe but when somebody crosses my line of tolerance they are surplus to the human race in my world and t’would be an unforgivable loss of face to even acknowledge their presence.

This charade  went on for an hour and a half. The meeting was over, bill paid and as I gathered my bits and bobs and made to mount my bike I could see him sneakily trying to catch my eye. He failed like a politician trying to honestly fill out their expense report.

Well fuck you miserable man. You lose.

I have recently taken to writing for The Australia Times in the capacity of theatre reviewer and such stuff.

Here’s the link to my article concerning Australian playwrights and the current state of Australian written content on the antipodean stage.

Or, for the link averse, you may read it below:

A year after Sydney was founded as a penal colony in 1789, The Lucky Country hosted its first theatrical performance. The Recruiting Officer was staged by convicts in honour of King George’s birthday and attended by an audience of prison officers. It was a comedic take on the recruitment of men in a small town. Not a rollicking start to a nation’s theatrical history, but a necessary first act nonetheless. It would take another 45 years before Henry Melville’s The Bushrangers was performed in Hobart as the first Australian written and performed play. Its themes were surprisingly contemporary and as relevant then as now, with themes of bush life, discrimination, honour and treachery.

To say that the infancy of Australian theatre was characterised by excessive bawdiness, impromptu stage invasions and a certain larrikin-esque attitude would not be stretching the truth. More music hall than drama society, early theatre was populist entertainment and mostly patronised by the working and criminal classes. It featured minstrels in black face and parodies of the ruling classes. Things could not be any more different now; where only 16.3% of the population go to the theatre on a regular basis and the play is likely to be a re-interpretation of an already established, classic, written by an overseas playwright, dealing with weighty metaphysical issues.

Australia had finally become a federation and, with thanks to a unique history hewn from two world wars, the misery of Gallipoli and The Kokoda Trail, and the jaw dropping extravagance of the gold rush which furnished the adolescent cities with architectural gems far beyond their cultural level, among other events of significance, Australia could now explore themes of national identity and direction. A young country without centuries of cultural adornments and mythical achievements by nation making heroes. It was founded by illiterate criminals and their gaolers, not idealistic pioneers and wealthy dreamers who would have brought a rich cultural tapestry with them to seed a nation’s imagination, like a grain of sand in a pearl oyster. We had the anti-hero Ned Kelly then and we still have him now, clutched close to our hearts.

Australian theatre didn’t come of age until Ray Lawler unleashed The Summer of the 17^th Doll onto a thirsty audience who eagerly lapped up its intoxicating themes of mateship, loyalty, dreams and 1950s sexist stereotypes; the ”ocker’ persona was now well and truly established. Prior to this, years could go by without an Australian written work being performed on stage. The Melbourne Theatre Company was founded on the back of The Summer of the 17^th Doll; the first production to be exported, which found success in the West End but sadly flopped on Broadway.

Theatre for the working man was on the way out thanks to the distractions of cinema in the early 1900s and then television in the 1960s.As such, its subject matter slowly changed to reflect the middle class, white Anglo-Saxon world, its main patrons.

Sometime around the time when man first landed on the moon, Australian theatre truly became of age and entered a period of rude health called, originally enough, The New Wave — with David Williamson and Jack Hibberd, among others, finding success and thus helping to establish many new stages on the back of their creative popularity. Sydney and Melbourne saw new production houses spring up like The Nimrod, La Mama and The Pram Factory.

Williamson’s Don’s Party again illustrated the rampant misogyny of the era alongside the failed aspirations of the male characters, while Bob Ellis’ and Micheal Boddy’s hugely successful musical The Legend of King O’Malley dealt with the loneliness of the outsider and the larrikin nature of the average Australian — even when they’re an elected member of parliament.

You will not find an abundance of plays dealing with female issues of the time because, well, there really weren’t any female playwrights getting the necessary exposure in Australia. Dorothy Hewett, Mona Brand and Dymphna Cusack were the grand dames of Australian playwrights, but mostly  found fame overseas. Hewett’s and Brand’s communist and feminist leanings were unpopular during a time of male dominated political conservatism, however Brand has had many more plays staged out of Australia than Williamson, the successful male playwright. It could be argued that their themes of race discrimination, feminism, socialism, atomic weapons and Aboriginal rights beat the pedestrian tropes of male playwrights hands down; but they weren’t anywhere near as popular despite their relevance to the theatre’s audience.

In 1992 Jane Harrison was commissioned to write the hugely successful Stolen, a play about the lost children, as they were then known. Her Indigenous Australian background gave her license to explore the issues of identity theft. The play was well received and toured extensively around the world, demonstrating that Australia was far from an adolescent of nationhood, lacking a cultural history. It has an estimated 60,000 years of indigenous settlement. How many fantastic stories are tied up in the Dreamtime? Stories that cannot be told or adapted by Anglo-Saxon playwrights due to, justifiable, cultural sensitivities.

Recently Patricia Cornelius penned Savages, examining the shocking gang rape of a woman on a cruise ship, based on actual events; not dissimilar to The Boys by Gordon Graham. Again we appear to be returning to common male related themes and the mistreatment of women. Hardly light-hearted material and not a song and dance routine in sight, unlike the notable comedy festival success of Keating! The Musical and Shane Warne: The Musical. Not exactly highbrow subject matter; but undeniably successful and dealing with mercurial characters that the general public can identify with, without having a degree in the performing arts and being aware of in-jokes relating to Ibsen or Beckett. Instead, they return to the style and content of early Australian vaudeville.

If we jump forward to the present and have a look at the theatre listings in the local press for last year’s Neon Festival, one could be forgiven for thinking that Checkov and Williams had been resurrected as antipodeans with reinterpretations of The Cherry Orchard and The Glass Menagerie  hogging the limelight while allegedly purporting to support vibrant independent theatre.

Last year Malthouse Theatre had a schedule of what you could call reruns and reimaginings, starting with Stephen Sewell’s celebrated Hate in January which brings us back to dishonest politicians and family politics, which is still pertinent 25 years on. One has to look as far ahead in their calendar as August before one finds a new Australian play: a one woman act titled Stories I want to tell you in person, being performed by the playwright, Lally Katz, where the subject matter is the life of the playwright. In-between these bookends are works by an Iranian, a Russian and a Briton.

Why is this so? Quite simply it comes down to business and the perennial problem of bums on seats. Even the major Hollywood studios have taken to remaking old films and adding numerical suffixes to already successful franchises rather than take a risk on something new and original.

While researching this article I enquired about the finances required to stage a modest play — nothing fancy mind you, but sourced from original Australian material — and was flabbergasted at the infinite charity needed to get even to the opening night if one is not funded by a mainstream theatre company. At the end of a two week season the players and technicians would be lucky to walk away with enough for a round of boutique beers and perhaps a fish taco to share.  The show might be a great critical and commercial success, but small theatres can only hold so many paying punters. If I was a playwright earning peanuts for my craft I too would pack my bags like the hordes of talented actors have done and decamp for Hollywood, where I might expect to get a “fair suck of the sav” were I any good.

Small local markets can only support so many jobbing writers. We already have Joanna Murray-Smith and Daniel Keene (both of whom account for more than half of all Australian plays produced overseas), as well as David Williamson, all perched atop the money tree. Sadly, not much trickles down to the poor wordsmiths fossicking around for an income in-between making lattes and teaching dramatics to toddlers.

Last year the Melbourne Theatre Company (MTC) hosted the Neon Festival and asked five independent production companies to put on shows with funding to be staged in The Lawler Theatre, which can seat 150. A brave move for the conservative MTC, but unfortunately the independents were not so brave, instead choosing to rewrite proven classics which some would argue, as does the Australian Council for the Arts, can be self assessed as new Australian writing by the theatre company in question.

Australia has no ‘Off Broadway’ scene where new material can be honed and polished to something approaching a theatrical diamond while being supported by an enthusiastic and forgiving audience. In fact, I would argue that Australian culture is fast aligning itself with the glitz and glam of west coast America where the tradition is overwhelmingly cinematic and not theatrical, like the east coast which still has cultural ties to Old Blighty. New work needs this period of refinement and it also helps if they are inherently theatrical and entertaining.

Perhaps there aren’t enough idealistic young playwrights penning brilliantly relevant scripts based on today’s burning issues. The theatre world is still reeling from Wesley Enoch’s incendiary diatribe  delivered at the Philip Parsons Memorial Lecture late last year. He sums it up thus:

“Payment for work in the Independent Theatre scene is the equivalent of in theatre busking. In fact, artists make a better living street busking than having a career in Independent Theatre. But that’s okay, because we don’t do it for the money.”

What are the burning issues of today that would get the common man and woman behind the footlights? The metamorphoses of king hits to coward hits, ice addiction, the obesity epidemic, organic versus non-organic vegetables, the refugee crisis, the sex life of Eddie Maguire, or how about why only 16.3% of the population goes to see plays?

Traditional theatrical appreciation requires a certain level of pre-knowledge and initiation into the winks, nods and asides of the stage. Those in the know are declining and already morbidly conservative, you could say they ‘circle the wagons’ and develop a siege mentality to prevent those not in the know from having a look. The insularity of traditional theatre would be a great theme for theatre, but by its very nature would be self serving and inward looking.

There is some relief to be seen in the LGBT theatre of The Sisters Grimm and others, whose limited audience isn’t going to diminish when they put on challenging theatre; they have nothing to lose unlike the mainstream. The midsized production companies have died off leaving the bigger theatres to cherry pick the best of the independents and leave the rest foundering for limited grants and funding.

Despite the doom and gloom one might be inclined to think that there is a wealth of talent lurking around the stage door just waiting to entertain the Lucky Country, but, and here’s the kicker, we as an audience must support the smaller stages and be more vocal in our appreciation of good playwrighting. The playwrights in turn need to tap the zeitgeist and engage the audience in

contemporary themes that are not hidden behind layers of knowing winks and metaphysical nods. Personally, I wouldn’t mind going to see a topical review show laced with bawdy carry on, cutting wit, insightful questions and that elusive quality, theatre magic.

Hollywood is currently smothered by our young and talented crawling over each other for a bite of the golden apple that is mainstream success. I would like to think that when they are done blowing air kisses and walking the red carpet they might come back to populate the green rooms and inject some life into theatre. A bit of government help and support would be welcome but perhaps a fanciful notion, none the less the next new wave is just around the corner and who knows what it will look like; Refugees: The Feel Good Musical We Had to Have.