Man Yoga

I’m all for a bit of extra curricula. I once considered signing up for a CAE course - Pants that Fit and Flatter on the promise of pants that would not only a. fit (improbable) but also b. actually flatter (ludicrous given my large, white, hairy Italian arse). In fact, in a fit of enthusiasm I’d once gone a step further, enrolling in Trumpet for Beginners, mainly because I wanted to be Vince Jones. I’d met Vince, once, briefly, in the Galleon Café in St. Kilda. He was carrying a little plastic string bag of kiwi fruit. After the introductions, I panicked, blurting out - KIWI FRUIT? KIWI FRUIT? I LOVE KIWI FRUIT – I LOVE KIWI FRUIIT  - JUST AS LONG AS THERES PAVLOVA WRAPPED AROUND IT HA HA HA HA HA. Vince shot me a withering that scarred me for the remainder of the 80s.  Anyway, I rolled up to those trumpet lessons one cold wet Saturday morning only to find a note on the door cancelling the class (lack of numbers). 

Undeterred, thirty-five years later I enlisted in Yoga for Beginners, in an inner city suburb where yoga studios are out-numbered only by wine shops (and there are a lot of those). Why? I’d gone to see some mates play Masters League footy - a classy competition where all the players had names like Spanna, and Franga, and Chooka. The star was the captain coach, Bum-hole. No, really. It was fun watching them play, all red faced, leading for the ball, yelling out Bum- hole! Bum-hole! Bum-hole! but also deeply disturbing. Then it struck me - no one was bending over. There they all were - tearing around like rigid icy-pole sticks. And by rigid I mean as if the pole up Bum-hole’s bum-hole had a pole up its bum-hole. The inescapable conclusion? Middle aged men don’t bend. Can’t bend. That night I subjected myself to a  battery of tests (tried to touch my toes), and realised the terrible truth - I too was biomechanically compromised.   

So I paid my $170 for Beginners (what? no pants? are you sure?), rolled up in my Best for Less tracksuit, and spent three months twisting, turning, bending and collapsing valiantly trying to learn various poses (asanas) concocted by a friendly looking Indian masochist with eyebrows like John Howards’. ‘Asanas’ a good name for pose. They’re often a complete pain in the asana. In fact performing them will almost certainly kick your asana. Now for the uninitiated there are many things they don’t tell you about yoga, some horrible truths omitted from the brochures with their lotus flower motifs and smiley, glowing faces. Here are a couple. 

Spirelli’s First Law of Yogic Endeavour - bending causes farting, obviously.  It’s probably why you’re not meant to eat two hours before class. It’s so certain, so inevitable that it can be expressed as an arithmetic equation. Something like this. Yg = (Bn + Bn + Bn = Ft), therefore Yg = Ft. In my fourth class one of the women who apparently hadn’t quite mastered the art of yogic fart disguise let fly an audible one, followed up with a sheepish excuse me. I felt an instant urge to immediately abandon my asana, stand up and applaud her loudly. Bravo! They don’t warn you.  

Spirelli’s Second Law of Yogic Endeavour - it’s going to hurt. Sure, it’ll start off innocently enough. Stand up (that’s a asana). Stick your arms up (that’s one). There’s even one where you make a comfy little bed and have a nice relax (that’s one too).  They’ll calmly show you how to angle your feet, or align your arms, or lift your head. But it won’t be long before you’re manically wobbling around like some sort of demented, mildly overweight epileptic donkey in stretchy pants being jabbed with an electric cattle prod. The same sweet voice will now be barking out truly insane instructions. No! No! No! Come ON!  I said PULL IN that inside, left, upper back calf and REALLY DISTEND the right backward out-facing lower side flank. Keep that inner back side foot STRONG. STRONG! And just when you’re tittering  on the precipice of consciousness they’ll mentally torment you even further, ordering you to BREATHE  and to RELAX  and to SOFTEN YOUR FACE.  At that point, you’ll really want to soften their face too. 

Spirelli’s Last Law of Yogic Endeavour it’s all in the doing. Think John Kennedy’s famous three-quarter time peon to Hawthorn in the 1975 grand final…DON’T THINK. DOOOO!  Not as simple as it sounds. I’m up for just doing, but keeping a lid on my mind isn’t all that easy, strange given that I’m mentally vacant most all the time. But I try. I can sit with my legs crossed. I can close my eyes. I can even chant ohms - but it usually doesn’t end well.  Ohmmmmmm. Ohmmmmmm. Ohmmmmmmm …..Jake the Peg dittle, dittle, dittle,  dum, with the extra leg, dittle, dittle, dittle, dum and next thing you know I’m imagining Rolf Harris in a dustman’s overcoat, three legs poking out, trying to pull off a textbook trikonsana. Yoga is harder when you’re a born smart arse and sniggering at your own jokes isn’t allowed in class. 

But the most unexpected thing is that it works. There’s some sort of weird, inexplicable interplay between body and movement and mind that just sort of palpably re-sets you. Physically hard-core but not a sport. Mind engaging and mental but not a therapy. Neither but both at the same time. I’m happy to report that I’ve progressed at least a bit) and it’s as if WD-40 is being applied to my major muscle groups. So get cracking men. Grab yourselves a pair of stretchy knicks, avoid the egg salad sangers at lunch and pull up a mat. 

Nino Spirelli

There's Something About Jesus

Greetings all

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted on TWL. If I’d thought that this has left anyone the poorer then I’d feel sorry, but I don’t so, you know, so fucking what. By the way, notice how my stupid views on Ramsey pre-date all the publicity, huh. Don’t you hate it when that happens? Anyway much has occurred in the interim. An old Spirelli has departed, just with a whimper. A brand spanking new Spirelli has arrived, and there’s been an unfortunate development with a dim witted psychopath. All part of life’s rich, stained tapestry, as they say. They’ll all wind up as another dubious blog entry at some point. So, to current matters, here are my notes on things Catholic. By the way, whoever is leaving spam on my comments thing, can you please just fucking stop it. Yours, N. Spirelli

There Something About Jesus

Notionally I 'm Catholic. All the Spirellis are Catholic. I'd be surprised if there actually are any Italian Protestants, or Anglicans. Certainly no Italian Uniting Church, or Church of Englanders. There are bound some Rastafarians, despite the fact that all white boys with dreads always look like dickheads. And Jews. Just because there always are, you know, shuffling around, making bagels, trading diamonds, doing stand-up, humming tunes from Fiddler on the Roof. I was stuck in a transit lounge in Vienna, ingeniously called the 'Sky Lounge' presumably because it had windows and you could see the sky. El Al must have just docked on route to Tel Aviv because Israelis were in the lounge, Hassidim decked out in all the gear, rocking back and forth in prayer. What's that little black box that they strap to their forehead I asked my travelling companion, with all the interest I summons from sitting around for nine hours in hard plastic chairs in the world's most boring airport. She looked at me as if I was the most ignorant person she'd ever met. Well, obviously they use those black boxes for storing their car keys while they pray. I was so stupefied with boredom that I could barely smile at the joke. Some years before, again passing time in some god forsaken Indian shit hole I'd asked if she knew the forehead marking that the population was sporting that day. No, she replied suspiciously, I don't know what it means. Well, it’s really interesting. I replied. Obviously it’s a country of considerable hardship and poverty. Now, see that spot there, that red dot. Well if you scratch it, you can win a brand new car! No really, it’s a national scratchie system. There are all sorts of prizes. Even Selangor Pewter! From memory her response at the time as no different from mine in Vienna. I blame India (see stupid boring story below).

No really, that airport is the dullest I've ever had the misfortune to spend time in. Just a couple of very pedestrian cafes that I was instantly drawn to for the sole reason that I wanted to order a Footscray Coffee. Footscray coffee? You see, if you’ve ordered a Vienna Coffee in Barkley St, Footscray (that is if you’ve negotiated the junkies and avoided being stabbed in the neck with a piece of heavy gauge wire sharpened on the footpath), then logically, you’re obliged to order a Footscray Coffee in Vienna, until, of course, the Viennese barista tells you to fuck off, you ignorant Australian cunt. There are also a couple of tired duty free shops. Every place sold these Mozart themed lollies. Forget what they're called. Mozarttrufflekruggan or something like that. And there's a full-on dirty little porn shop, just there stuck in the middle of the walkway, by itself. Just what you really need to refresh yourself in transit. A stale pastry, a couple of weird, goopy Mozarttrufflekrugan and a copy of Adventures Und Fist. But that's Austria for you. Germany without the cool. Terminally bland, keen on dirty fingernail porn. A place where boredom is the natural state of affairs and pretty much characterises the national psyche.

Anyway, back to Italy. There'd also be a smattering of Buddhists and Evangelicals in Italy, simply because every population has their fair representation of demented try-hards (in the first instance) and brain affected, aspirational nerds with bad clothes (in the second). But, by and large, Italians are Catholic. Italy equates with Catholism like dried fruit goes with flatulence. It’s like they have some sort of proprietary rights over it. The head guy (II Papa) is more often then not Italian, despite the current one having once been part of the Hitler Youth and the one before that a rabid, alpine loving Pole who would have most probably been rejected from the Hitler Youth for being too right wing. The last one was a strange old thing - all bent over, smiling away, doling out sainthoods like shitty school fete prizes. Imagine if he was your uncle at Christmas when you were a little kid. Nino, go over and give Zio Karol a big kiss. Urgh.

Rome is also the Catholic headquarters. Technically at least the Vatican is an independent state with its military, bank, postal service, diplomats and Olympic team. Well, no, there isn’t a Vatican Olympic Team. Not surprising since your average deacon or curate spends their lives frocked up in a full length dress. But if there was a Vatican Olympic Team, I'd vote for Father Damien Karras for captain, you know, the priest from The Exorcist,. He ran laps of the oval and looked pretty fit to me, a decent light welter-weight. And Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He's be starter. He would've been a handy middle distance runner in his day, though not strictly speaking a Catholic. He could use those freaky voodoo eyes of this to wig out the competition on the starting line. The HQ hasn't always been in Rome. There have been other locations in the past. Apparently there were once two HQs, one in Rome and another in Istanbul. It was also in France I think at one point.

Ah, Rome. The Eternal City. Founded by the half witted twins, Romulus and Remus. Unfortunately also scene of my second worst ever traveller’s toilet experience. The food in Italy is, of course, extremely good. A lot of Australians like to think we’ve come a long way in the food stakes but we cook like demented simpletons. We chuck in just about everything within reach, mix it up with a bit more of this and that, and pile the lot up into a tower of impossible height, adding even more stuff, just for good measure, and declare it to be innovative, a fusion of flavours. In fact, like lots of affluent, young industrialised countries, we have no real food culture, and in its absence we rely on ego. We learn the clichés and think we’re alchemists. Italians cook ideas that are often hundreds of years old and with extreme simplicity and it always, always works.

Anyway, I’d been busy scoffing food the whole time and might have been a bit ‘backed up’ but barely noticed. I was out early one day, intent on covering a good number of usual tourist sites. It started with a small abdominal pang which then became an ache and I was soon in urgent need of a toilet. Now Italy doesn’t have public toilets. They just don’t believe in them - a fact I was cursing as I scurried about in increasing desperation trying to locate one. I’d finally spotted an early opening café, and by the time I fronted the dozy barista, I was almost doubled up by cramps. I know I was sweating. Wanting to do the right thing I ordered un café grazie… e subito, in a clipped, clenched teeth sort of squeak. My face was probably purple. The minute or so it took him to make my coffee seemed like an eternity. By eyes were about to pop when I slammed down the short black and bolted for the men’s. I’d lifted the lifted and saw it was blocked with paper and god knows what else, solid. There was nothing for it. It had to be done. It was only after a full five minutes that I began started to feel some relief. And it went on and on and on. Just when I thought it was all over another pang urged me to stay put and continue ‘unloading.’

Finally, somewhat recomposed, I stood up, turned around and reeled back in horror at what I had done. I’d completely filled the damn thing. To the very top. Not only that, but I’d also just pushed the flush. It was just one of those automatic things you do. Press the button. Now it had a system where the water came in via two small pipes with jets, and these were literally submerged by kilos of whatever I’d eaten in the last two days. The pressure must have been good in that part of Rome because the damn thing was determined to do perform its thing and the whole pile started to quiver. I sort of cleaned up, hurriedly leaving the paper on top like some sort of horrific flag and bolted out of the café, ashamed and completely disgusted about what I’d done. There was nothing else for it. It’s not as if I could’ve gone up to the barista and said, look mate, here the thing. I’ve just filled you toilet with shit. No really, I’m not joking. It’s full. It was blocked anyway, so it’s not really my fault. I’m sorry and very embarrassed about it. Just thought you should know. And by the way, it’s probably all over the floor by now, probably the lot, so you might want to send someone in there rather than deal with it yourself, if you know what I mean. Someone had a very bad start to their shift that day.

So, yes, Rome, the very epicentre of the worldwide Catholic faith. It’s a bit unfair, I think. We should have a rotation system perhaps. Or a system where every now and then different countries would line up to bid for the right to be the administrative and political centre of modern day Catholicism. Like everything else, we've be in that. I'd nominate Albury-Wodonga as preferred option with Wycheproof and Manangatang as reserves. You can add any unlikely decrepit Australian country shit-hole to complete that particular joke. God knows there are plenty to choose from. Plenty. Even the ones that weren't quite shit-holes a while ago are now pretty much shit-holes. And the ones that started out being shit-holes are just shittier shit holes. How was your morning walk Môn senior Bruce? Fine, Father Bruce, but I do fear that I've stepped in kangaroo shit yet again and it seems to have become stuck to my new red sandals. Cue the theme music to 'Skippy, The Bush Kangaroo'. You can see it, right?

Incidentally, why Skippy, the bush kangaroo. Is it meant to differentiate that Skippy from Skippy, the Arid, Marginal Land Kangaroo, or Skippy the Regional Centre Kangaroo, or Skippy, the Urban Growth Corridor Kangaroo, or Skippy, the Ex-Pat Living in fucking Earls Court, with Fifteen other Deadshit Kangaroos Working as a Warehouse Labourer and Spending All Weekend Pissed off His Nut on Lager Kangaroo. Please feel free to add any other ridiculous kangaroo to the taxonomy if you like. Without wanting to harp on it, I always thought Sonny was a bit of a sad tosser. His only friend being a kangaroo and all. Moreover, Skip with his walnut sized brain, was clearly far cleverer than Sonny and his whole family, piloting hovercrafts to rescue farmers from raging torrents, single headedly repairing the helicopter to deliver life saving medicines, throwing cargo nets over pirates, resolving difficult mathematical theorems and so on. Hurray Skip, Local municipal elections have delivered greater influence to Right wing Phalangists in the Lebanon, altering the parliamentary balance of power…There's going to be trouble with Druze! Hurry! There’s no time to lose! And where's old Skip now I wonder. Probably perched on the end of the front bar at the Dimboola Hotel, pissed on port and Cokes, a roll you own ciggie hanging on his lip, babbling indecipherable shit with Ray fucking Schaeffer whose also probably also off his nut, reciting awful bush poetry to the broken jukebox (see even stupider and more boring story below).

Anyhow, the whole Catholic thing. I'm an ex-Catholic. Catholics call us, ‘fallen’ Catholics, or ‘lapsed’ Catholics. Some say there's really no such thing. Like almost all of us, we were never given a choice. Even as a kid it sort of freaked me out. It was the imagery mostly. My Italian grandmother had the whole collection of framed religious pictures, the Virgin Mary, Baby Jesus, the crucified Christ, the bleeding heart of Christ, Saint Gabriel, Padre Pio, Mussolini. No, obviously not II Duce. There's something apt in those images resurfacing decades later as high-camp kitsch in 1980s inner city cafes, the backdrop for left wing students, idle layabouts and shrill homosexuals. It was also the imagery of the crucified christ, hanging above a church door that sent me screaming at age five, despite Nonna Spirelli whispering to me that it was only my friend Jesus. He might have been my friend, but he scared the fuck out of me.

If the church is a house of god, then god needs to find a good designer since most of them are cold and ugly places, especially those built in the 1970s. They're empty, sparse places, and they echo, and there's always that strange smell, part candle wax, part cheap perfume, part old incense, part blue nylon slacks, part BO and old people. It’s a place where people often end up when there are no other options and they're desperate. It’s where they come with their terrible personal tragedies, their pent up guilt, and the inevitable personal pain and suffering of their bloody minded, ego driven, stupidity. And it’s where they dump their filthy, terrible sins year after godforsaken year. And it’s in this place, this stinking emotional toilet of anguish that Catholics, er, celebrate Mass, overseen by a mass produced plaster statute of a guy on a wall, with hippie hair, half butchered, hanging on a cross. Sound like a fun time to you then?

Now, your Eucharist is your holist of the sacraments. There’s Baptism (you’re forced into the Catholic club by your smiling, imbecilic parents high on post war consumerist prosperity); Reconciliation (you confess your real and imagined sins in a small dark room the size of a shoe box to some old, dandruff ridden poof who’s nodding off to sleep or has his hand down his pants – priests, has there ever been a wackier bunch of perverts?), Confirmation (when you re-join the same club as a fully formed adult around the age of 12, and if you’re a little girl, you dress like a bride as if you’re going to 'marry' Jesus - think of it, thirty, forty little twelve year old girls, all dressed up in white with gloves and veils, all there, about to offer it up to Jesus – now tell me there’s nothing wrong with that then), Marriage (hard to think of marriage as a sacrament rather than just a big fucking act of lunacy - it allows Catholics to have sex, and its not available to gays or priests, so its just as well then that neither gays nor priests have sex), Holy Orders (where you too can sign up to become a doddering, dandruff ridden old poof, or a nun - nuns are basically the domestic servants of priests, and subject of that old joke about convent rules - lights out at 10. Candles out at 11.00) and finally, Annoying the Sick, which is actually Anointing the Sick (ie you're going to die and the old dandruff poof takes his hand out of his dirty, stained pants long enough to smear some oil on your head and says, no worries, mate, you're going to heaven. I would have preferred annoying the sick, personally.

Catholics believe that the Eucharist is where god turns little wafers (meant to be bread but tastes like a flavourless home brand rice cracker) into the body of christ. Interesting metaphor? No, not really. You see Catholics, mainstream Catholics, not even the nutty, psycho kind like Opus Dei, believe that those nasty, tasteless white wafers literally become the flesh of christ. Cannibalism. There you are, a little kid, with a bit of the god’s actual body stuck on the roof of your mouth, not knowing what to do. You’re walking back to your seat, thinking, what part of jesus is actually stuck to the roof of my mouth and what the fuck am I going to do about it? You can't actually chew it. And according to Catholics the wine become christ's blood. Vampirism. No wonder Catholicism has been a hit in places like Haiti and across the third world. You line up, hands crossed, and get to have a chow down on christ’s body and drink his blood. Is this the religion of sane people?

Most of the other bits of the Mass are just dull. There’s the Nicean Creed. It’s the part of the mass where Catholics make a verbal declaration all together. It's pretty basic stuff. They all stand there and say it in unison, like robots. We believe in one true god. We believe in heaven and hell. We believe that Jesus is the son of god. We believe that the Church is great. We believe that we're the one true religion. We believe that all other religions are deluded. We believe that we're the best. We can't believe how stupid all other religions are. Muslims are just idiots. They're all going to burn in hell. Serves them right. What's for dinner tonight? If you loved me you'd let me do you without a condom. Those last bits aren't really part of the Nicean Creed. Anyway, making these declarations in parrot like fashion is mean to build one's faith.

Then there's the 'Prayers of the Faithful' always one of my favourites. It’s a little ritual or ceremony where parishioners make short prayerful petitions. There are usually four of five of them in a row and they follow a pretty standard format. They go a bit like this. Petitioner walks up to the lectern: Holy Father, we pray for Cambodian refugees. May you ease the suffering of these filthy, ungrateful, heathen bastards. Congregation (all in that same robot voice): Lord hear our prayer. Petitioner: Holy Father, we pray for the swift recovery of your son Bruce Magillacutty who slipped while having a wank in the bath and has broken his hip. Lord hear us. Congregation (in robot voice): Lord hear our prayer. Lord, we ask your blessing for the Manangatang under 12s in their game this afternoon. May we truly kick some protestant arse. Lord Hear Our Prayer. You get the basic idea.

There’s also the 'sign of peace' which is the part of the mass where, at the priest's signal, you have to turn around and shake as many people's hand, saying, peace be with you. As a boy I liked to substitute it with a playful, Arthur Fonzerelli like peace finger salute, and say, heeeeey peace man and when I got slightly older, I'd assume a very grave look, look intensely in the eye of the parishioner and shake hands firmly, declaring peas be with you, trying not to laugh. I always wanted to quickly slip a white rubber glove on to my right hand just before the Sign of the Peace but never had the guts. Spirellis are always been smart-arses from a young age.

You can't forget the Readings. Probably the low point of the Mass. There are usually two of them. They go something like this. Someone rolls up to a lectern and says, the second reading is a reading from the Second letter of Saint Trevor to the Epileptics (short pause). And on the eight day Jesus and the disciples came upon a field and Jesus did seeth that the field was bountiful. And they cameth unto a small group of farmers who were resting from their labours under a shady tree. Jesus came upon them and did greet the group of farmers and did sayeth, 'The lord thy god has seen your green fields and he has witnessed all of your labours. Prayth what is thy crop?" To which the farmers did say, 'turnips my lord!, we are the turnip farmers of Antioch." And then the farmers then did hand Jesus some turnips which they had taken from their fields, and Jesus saw that they were good turnips. And Jesus smiled knowingly unto them, saying "blessed are you all, you the farmers of the turnips, and blessed be the turnips, whether they be baked, or whether they be steamed or whether they mashed." And so the farmers received the blessing of the lord and Jesus and the disciples continued their journey. The reading always concludes with the line...this is the word of god, to which you have to say in the robot voice, praise to you lord Jesus christ.

Then there are the songs, the hymns, those terrible, terrible hymns. There are probably three or four in every Mass. Lyrically and musically they're awful, mind numbing. Before computers and power-point they used to have a couple of kids up the front with a projector and a screen, and the words spelled out in texta pen on a transparent sheet, just so that everyone could join in. Invariably, they'd be a couple of ancient powdery old dears singing away in a bizarre, quivering super high falsetto, emitting sounds previously unknown to mankind. True. They’d start up and I’d swear, moments later you’d hear the sound of the neighbourhood dogs in the distance, either pleading for it to stop or tearing each other’s throats out. And they'd all be sung very very slowly. Some would take twenty minutes or so to get through. Yahweh is the god of my salvation. I come to him. And have no fear....Urgh. At boarding school in central Victoria we were forced to practice hymn singing for an hour every Saturday night. It was after dinner and before the weekly movie. It was so tedious that we’d think of ways to make it interesting, which usually meant trying to piss off the poor Christian Brother who happened to be in charge of us. Some times we’d only sing every second line, or we’d alternate between singing very quietly and very loudly. Other times we’d just try and ‘squirrel grip’ the kid in front.

It never sat right with me, the Catholic thing, even at an early age. It was mostly the doctrine, the teachings, the fundamentals like original sin that they drill into you and which to me just didn’t add up. You knew there was something fishy going on, but you did pretty what you were told and jumped through the hoops. Nearly two decades later I somehow found myself seated in a large lecture hall every Monday morning ploughing through 12 months of theology study. Fucked if I really know why, but there I was. In the interim I’d picked up some hard core critical analysis skills, pretty much just as a lark to fill in several years. I was determined to have another serious look, as an adult, probably thinking it was uncool enough to be cool. What struck me like a perverse reverse revelation was how crude Catholic doctrine was. I was expecting Darth Vader, and it was little more than one of the Three Stooges, pissed, and diseased, with a broken leg, singing Sea Shanties that sounded like the Birds Eye Fish Fingers tune. It wasn’t flawed, it was just ludicrously stupid. As an ideology, it was so unsophisticated. It was base and childish. It was the Dumb Club, and it made me realise that its power was outside its tenets and its teaching, and probably had to do with ritual, symbol and mysticism. Like that’s news to anyone. It closed the book on Catholicism for me, well, as much as it can for any former Catholic. But, strangely not for a number of my contemporaries, particularly when it came to marriage, or after the arrival of children. Many have sort of drifted back, explaining that it’s not really about the religion but more to do with community and values. I suspect they’re bullshitting me, after having bullshitted to themselves, and it’s really just a cover for a valid search for meaning. If that’s right, then good luck to them. I doubt they’ll find anything more than the same old testament fairytales and the empty, irrelevant braying of an organisation that speaks with no authority, knows very little, and insists on standing for even less.

Amen.

N. Spirelli

In memory of Vincenzo Spirelli

Vincenzo Spirelli (1845-1912)

Known as the worst poet in Calabria. His work was so bad that review after review made him chronically suicidal. Nevertheless he soldiered on writing shockingly bad poetry until 1890s, when after two failed attempts to cut his own throat lead him to be committed to an insane asylum and a life-time of Gillette razors. To this day, on every 29th of Feburary, his hometown of TestaDiCatzo holds a festival of bad poetry, where townsfolk are encouraged to write and perform their own bad poetry while everyone laughs.

The List of Unspeakable Torments: Number 2

I’ve never been accused of being a bleeding heart, strangely enough, but someone, somewhere has to finally do something to stop those filthy, ignorant, moronic little Japanese cunts from slaughtering whales. There. I’ve said it. I’m not embarrassed by it. I stand by that statement. I whole heartedly believe it. I’m not backing away from it. It’s just the truth - plain and simple. As Shaw put it in a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

And there you are, probably thinking I was hesitant about bagging the Japanese like that, in those virtually racist terms. Or else the inappropriateness of labelling any nationality as either filthy, ignorant or moronic. Or you thought I was being reluctant to use the dreaded C word that nobody would dare utter, and is now vaguely OK. Not really. I just have this thing for marine mammals, and the nimrods that refuse to leave them well enough alone. I don’t why and it vaguely shits me. It’s pretty much out of cultural character really. There are about as many Italian environmentalists as war heroes. By the way, for mine that Shaw quote is up there with the one wrongly attributed to Goring or Goebbels who was supposed to have said, every time I hear that word ‘culture’ I feel an irresistible urge to reach for my revolver. Now there’s Nazi gold for you. Genius[1].

Racism. It’s one of the very few true, long held Australian values. The thankfully now ex-Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, would take that statement as being blasphemous, un-Australian. As the world first confirmed garden gnome come alive, Howard didn’t have the required grey matter to engage his opponents with dialogue, facts or argument. He liked to call them names, and he pretty fond of calling people who disagreed with him un-Australian. Of the new natural talents of Australians, apart from chasing balls, drinking beer, white-anting success and doing things with wire, is that they’re good at spotting bullshit so ironically the un-Australian tag is good measure of Australianness. But racism is an undeniable Australian trait and not confined to little, stuttering, short-arsed, conservative toe rags like that stunted dickhead Howard. The ‘White Australia Policy’ (1901-1973) was basically a ‘No Yellow Cunts Here Thanks Very Much’ Policy. It actually had pre-Federation origins, and has lasted in various guises to this very day.

The telling thing about that illiterate, cross eyed, pasty skinned, pointy nosed, middle aged, vacuous modern Australia bigot, Pauline Hanson was that every time the urban intelligentsia (pretty much all six of them) tried to take her on and bring her down, not only did they all fail dismally, but pretty much fuelled her appeal. Why? Because she reflected what a large chunk of Australia thought. They didn’t give a flying fuck about whatever the likes of Pilger, Manne, Greer, or Horne said about her in Arena or any other lefty rag. In fact, it was proof that she had the guts to step up and have a go. Good on her, they thought. At last, some one was speaking for the ordinary people. The ordinary Australians. The ones that weren’t interested in Wittgenstein, ASEAN, or monetary policy but the ones that used to tune into the squawking B.A. Santamaria from the National Civic Council, watched the Sydney to Hobart on Boxing Day, knew about Kadoka, had a Jack Absalom print hanging in the lounge, and used Moretein Fly Spray. And the ordinary Australian’s just happen to harbor a thick vein of suspicion and mistrust of anyone that doesn’t look, sound or act pretty much like they do.

I remember being in a queue at a newsagent at the time Hanson was proclaiming herself as ‘Mother of the Nation when I’d overheard some tottering old biddy mentioning to her friend how that Hanson ‘had a lot of good ideas’ and ‘spoke a lot of sense’. I butted in. Sorry, but what do you mean? Exactly which policies do you think has merit? She spluttered away, clearly unable to answer, so she straightened up and retorted in an indignant falsetto, well I support Pauline, she’s a great Australian, that’s MY opinion and I’m sticking to it. And that doesn’t mean I’m a racialist.

I let it go. I wanted to say, racialist? RACIALIST? You can’t even say ‘racist’. You just called it racialist. I heard you. Just then. Its not pronounced racialist. It’s called racist. R-A-C-I-S-T. As for your opinion, your stupid, creatanous, misinformed opinion. Your pointless, valueless, arsehole of an opinion. The opinion that you’ve malformed after countless hours of meaningless drivel with similarly mindless friends, all of you stinking of old pee and death, over bingo and bowls. Each of you contributing your own nonsensical world view fed from twisted personal bitterness and the grim fact that that you’re all irrelevant to almost everything and everyone. That’s what I wanted to say. That’s what I was thinking anyhow. But don’t get me started. Old people. Can’t live within them, can’t dose them with kerosene and set them on fire. It’s a deeply unfair world.

As much as that might shit you, there are others all too ready to excuse any manner of vile behavior under the banner of cultural practice, which should not only be tolerated but apparently celebrated in some sort of spirit of inclusiveness, preserved as part of the rich social diversity of modern Australia. Yes, sure, like female circumcision. You don’t see anyone applying for council funding for a street festival celebrating female circumcision. People defend Japanese whaling the same way. The have the right to hunt whales and dolphins because it’s a Japanese cultural practice. It can’t be because they actually want to eat whales. Apparently it tastes like shit, is only eaten by pensioners and is mostly used as cheap school lunch meat for a couple of million public school kids. The fact that they claim it’s for research is stupid beyond words.

The only other reason they hunt whales, I suspect, is because the entire world wants them to not hunt whales (except for Iceland and Norway who are pretty much useless as countries go[2]). It’s like when you were a kid, and your older bother or cousin had your arm twisted behind your back, telling you to do something, applying more pressure every time you refused. You get to the point where you know there is no way you’re giving in, that he’d have to actually break your arm to get his way. It’s the equivalent to giving the world the finger. The Japanese don’t need to kills whales. They don’t particularly want whale in their kitchen freezers. They could live perfectly happily not killing whales. But they’ll go on and on on indiscriminately slaughtering them for one simple reason - the fact that we say they shouldn’t.

I once sent an email to the Japanese embassy in protest. I spent a morning crafting a reasonable sort of written appeal. It acknowledged Japanese culture and custom. It said vaguely flattering things about their society, its leaders, its history and national character. It tried to calmly and reasonably explain my own personal objections. In the end it humbly asked that they kindly consider an alternative position. I though the tone was right. I wasn’t being smart-arsey about it. It was genuine. Of course I received nothing in response. In fact I don’t know what I wanted to achieve. I thought I might get a response from some low level embassy bureaucrat that said something along the lines of, look, you have to understand that apart from a couple of hundred fishing industry heavies and maybe the odd Yakuza, we basically agree with you’. A response that claimed that the natural world and nature are closer to the Japanese soul then perhaps any other. That whale really does taste like shit and no-one knows why we still hunt it. And that he’d pass the email on to higher authorities. That would have been enough, plenty in fact. But there was nothing. Well fuck that and fuck them.

The only ones who seem to be really on the ball are those Sea Sheppard guys who have that black boat, the one with the pirate flag, who believe in taking direct action. They regularly harass the whalers out at sea, ramming the boats, scaring off the whales, flashing brown-eyes, that sort of thing. They should, of course, be armed with torpedoes and really get the job done. Simple arithmetic. There are 127 million Japanese. There are 10,000 humpback whales. What if you accidentally ‘wasted’ 10 Japanese fishermen in your effort to protect 10,000 whales, just as collateral damage? To let them know that if they go out there, illegally, on the hunt, for no good reason, they’re pretty much going to cop it. Just ten or so, maybe fifteen. Let’s say under twenty for argument’s sake. Is that justified? There would still be well over 126 million Japanese left. More than plenty. I say ‘hell yes.’ Let’s get some perspective into the situation.

It’s not just the Japanese either. Not by a long chalk. No sireee. What’s even more loathsome and unjustifiable are the grimy, amoral Chinese obsessed with eating endangered animal parts. Rhino, tigers, bears, lizards, snakes, you name it, the Chinese are busily scurrying around either draining off its bile or noisily scoffing it down with both filthy hands. I’ve got a particularly personal thing about the Chinese and their disgusting dog eating habits. And it’s not just the fact that they insist on killing, butchering and eating intelligent, loyal and noble animals like dogs, animals with personalities mind you, the same ones that work to keep out drug runners and bail up criminals, that would drive into a raging torrent to save your life, or search through a blinding blizzard to find you buried in the snow, or lead you around the rest of your days if you were blind, or just lick your face when you’ve come after a hard day. But worst of all is the inexcusably cruel way these filthy barbarians treat them. Stuffing them into wire cages, binding them up by their legs, throwing them around on market trucks, breaking their bones, inflicting pain. Leave the fucking dogs alone, you scum-sucking dickheads.

And it won’t be long before the burgeoning Chinese middle class has single handedly wiped out the world’s entire tiger population. Why? Because your average Chinese office jockey thinks it’ll help him get hard and he’ll feel like a man rather than a snot nosed arse-wipe. They’re killing wild tigers to get a hard-on people, a hard-on! It’s a vicious cycle with tens of millions of the most reprehensible fuck-knuckles as players. It goes like this. Mr Chinese Noodle Nut shells out some serious yuan to buy tiger penis. Naturally, having bought tiger penis, he’s been thinking about rooting for most of the day. He goes through the motions of preparing and eating the tiger penis, all the time thinking of missus Noodle Nut and how the tiger penis is going to help him bang her. Surprise, surprise. Tiger penis actually seems to works due only to its placebo effect. A colour A4 of Paris Hilton’s ‘ham sandwich’ probably would have done exactly the same. So, Noodle Nut sticks it to missus Noodle Nut as she’s bending over the washing. Naturally she pops out more junior Noodle Nuts. Not only do they all spend the next twenty odd years or so sitting down to regular dinners of sweet and sour dog and treating any manner of ailments with bear bile or snakes blood, but now there are even greater numbers of male Noodle Nuts and even greater demand for tiger penis. More cash to the tiger penis suppliers, more cash to the poachers, and basically every living tiger on this planet will have his head blown off so that someone can hack its dick off with a machete and sell it the millions upon millions of brainless, fuckwitted Noodle Nuts. Well fuck that and fuck them[3].

But what are you going do? No point refusing to travel there when you’ve either already been or have never been that much interested in going there anyway. Little point boycotting their imports when you’re pretty much a minimal consumer, and there are millions of others who’ll gleefully purchase shiploads of future Chinese made landfill. Are there any alternatives to calling them names and telling them to ‘get fucked’ like some belligerent, snot-nosed schoolboy bully in a useless blog that no-one will ever read? Probably not. But strange things do happen. Fate. Serendipity. Who knows. Perhaps N. Spirelli will receive a windfall. A huge windfall. Enough to hire ammunition, enough to contract assassins. I’d buy them all sharp suits, and get them around an oval table in a boardroom. I’d brief them on personal missions. Sniper attacks on Japanese whalers, torture and execution of Chinese dog farmers. I’d have them round up as many Noodle Nuts as possible, dump them in purpose built coliseum and let half a dozen tigers go to work. And I’d televise the lot on the internet and pirate TV. Two wrong might make a right and I think time has come for a bit of payback.

[1] Goring or Gobbles might not have been serious when they didn’t say that. It might’ve been a joke. They might have been sitting around having a beer at Oktoberfest, listening to Himmler spinning some yarn. Ja, Ja, nice one Himmler, but you know, whenever I hear you use that word culture, I can’t help but reach for my gun, har har (chinking steins). But you never imagine that the Nazis had a sense of humour, liked the odd gag. Apparently, a Berlin munitions worker was executed for telling this one. Hitler and Göring are standing on top of Berlin's radio tower. Hitler says he wants to do something to cheer up the people of Berlin. Why don't you just jump? suggests Göring. Then there was this one. A senior Nazi visits a factory and asks the manager whether he still has Social Democrats among his workforce. Yes, 80 percent, comes the reply. Do you also have members of the Catholic Centre Party? Yes, 20 percent, the manager responds. Don't you have any National Socialists? Yes we're all Nazis now! Still, you can’t expect much from Germans humour-wise. If you want world domination, they’re your guys. Or snappy looking uniforms. Now those SS knew how to wear black. It’s like they’d hired Armani.

[2] What’s Iceland ever done for the world? Apart from that tuneless demented Bjork, famous for nothing apart perhaps for being the most boring weird person imaginable. Well, apart from Yoko Ono, whose similarly plain looking, terminally dull and talentless. As for Norway, all they’ve managed to do is pollute the entire world with mobile phones, and it’s because of freaking Norway that I’m forced to hear Shaz or Kylie-Anne or SuZianne inanely banging on to friends during every morning commute and AGAIN every evening. Thank-you Norway, a fundamentally selfish nation, populated by drunks and truck drivers, and mostly drunk truck drivers. At least the Danes made decent furniture.

[3] In this case, the sums here are even more ridiculous. There are currently around 5000 wild tigers left. There are 1.3 billion Chinese. My calcultor doesn't even have enough room to determine the number of Chinese per individial tiger but it must be a lot. If I had the resources I’d employ a food technologist to develop and release a couple of thousand kilos of fake tiger penis onto the black market, laced with a slow acting and fatal poison. If possible, one that involved rapid atrophy of the genitals. Word would soon get out. So, a couple of hundred Chinese pop off. Or even a couple of thousand. That’s probably less then twenty minutes worth of the current rate of Chinese reproduction worldwide, even without tiger penis hard on helper. No-one is going to miss them for crying out loud.

This Wonderful Life Hires New Publicist

Having witnessed Nino's anguish over the mediocre number of hits on TWL, Gina decides to take matters into her own hands...

Mustafa’s Burning Love

I’ve got a personal theory that you can’t genuinely accept another person, gender, race, nationality or whatever until you feel comfortable humiliating them. No really, the rest - that rhetoric about diversity and inclusiveness - is pretty much nothing more than empty, cloying middle class courtesy or worse still, boring clichés drawn from that endless stream of tangled, incomprehensible PC psycho babble, learned from god knows where, parroted throughout 20 years of what’s loosely called education, and finally ending up in that most pointless of all pointless places, regurgitated like bloated seagulls bringing up half digested sardines in some leafy suburb Book Club. God save us.

I think we only truly accept one another when we take the piss, an expression that I’ve never understood since I’ve never got the link between having a lend of someone in a playful way and confiscating their urine or anyone else’s urine for that matter. It’s along there with the saying, piece of piss. How’d that presentation go Garry? No worries mate, piece of piss. Or worse still, piece of the proverbial. For starters, I’ve never understood the connection between something being easy and urine and furthermore have always thought that urine would be easily segmented in way that a birthday cake might be for example. And I don’t think you’re likely to see a reference in Proverbs. They’d be nothing like, blessed are they that taketh the piss but I can’t be sure.

Thou shalt take the piss – the thirteenth commandment. I’d personally explain it this way. Jesus was wandering around one day, in a decrepit park next to a TAB, in his Birkenstock sandals, going about his business, preaching about this and that, giving advice on removing stains, signing some autographs, with the disciples just hanging around as they do, and a bit of a crowd milling about, when suddenly he hears someone say, Jesus its hot, I could murder a coldie. Having heard that Jesus produces two cans of ice cold Victoria Bitter stubbies, and a couple of Benson & Hedges cigarettes fished out from the bottom of this rucksack. He then asks the disciples to hand these out to the crowd. After a bit, he instructs the disciples to collect the stubbies and the butts from the mob, and to their amazement they find that they’ve filled four jugs with the dregs and rolled a full packet of Benson & Hedges from the butts. So Jesus instructs the disciples to pass these out among the faithful. After some time, the disciples collected up the jugs of VB and the rollies, and were astounded to find that the dregs now filled ten jugs of VB and were able to roll four packs of cigarettes. So he tells the disciples to hand these to the ever growing and appreciative crowd. Having collected the dregs and butts, the disciples discovered they’d two kegs of VB, ten cartons of Benson & Hedges, five Cuban cigars, a bottle of McWilliams cream sherry, and a copy of Hustler. No, sorry, forget about that Hustler bit. If there had been a copy of Hustler it would have invariable been St. John's. He was the good looking disciple (ie probably had all his teeth). The Bible hints that he used moisteriser and therefore was either a man-whore or gay.

Anyway, around 11.00 the next day, one of the crowd looks up with a shocking hangover and asks his friend, what the fuck was that all about then, probably in an Irish accent ie. aye, what ta fook was that all aboot. To which the other relies, fooked if I knoo, something about taking ta piss. OK, perhaps they were Scottish. And no, it’s not a punch-line. It’s just a stupid parody on how a thirteenth commandment could have come about. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a thirteenth commandment that the Vatican ‘conveniently’ dropped off, just like the Gnostic gospels. Just does to show, never trust blokes that wear dresses at work…unless of course they’re also wearing heels and have names like Candy or Bubbles Fontaine.

For some, that theory is characteristically Australian, something somehow related to irony which Australians apparently have in bucketfuls (in the same way that Americans have bucketfuls of Jesus or fried chicken or bile inducing hubris). There might be a bit in that. Perhaps most things genuinely Australian only actually existed a couple of generations ago in the black and white world of John O’Grady’s They’re A Weird Mob. The time when Menzies presided and country towns grew fat and cheery on wheat and wool. When jobs were everywhere and workers carried Gladstone bags. When one income and one family car were plenty and racehorses became legends. When men built their own houses and women drank in the Ladies Lounge. When kids wore hand knitted jumpers playing footy in the street and cracker night was a wondrous delight of perilous amateur pyrotechnics. When Rod Taylor and John Mellion were stars and Saturday night meant being bored shitless by Mary Hardy’s shrill, cackling co-hosting on The Penthouse Club [1]. You get the idea.

But if there was any truth in that it’s pretty much long gone. It’s hard to see what’s left that’s distinctly Australian in this fading, failing, jerry-built, A V Jennings pre-fabricated suburban wasteland. There’s little to suggest from the population of nervous, snivelling, self-obsessed, second rate middle managers, sales reps and franchisees. Go ahead and pretend all you like but the fact is that we’re all just getting as fat arsed and stupid as your average American. It’s a new Krispy Crème version of Australia, where the only things that count are the brand, the sugar, and the fat, and where substituting that sweet fried turd for food and misspelling ‘Crispy’ and ‘Cream’ clearly amount to a clever corporate strategy for a nation of white wobbly morons.

I’ve got a particular thing about MacDonald’s. I used to say that their food was nothing. That it has no history. No cultural meaning. No origins. It belonged to no-one and no-where and meant nothing, unlike cacciatore for example, or the humble onion frittata. But it’s a bad argument. The quarter pounder actually represents a lot about America, about post war corporate mechanisation of agriculture into agribusiness, about standardisation in the retail food sector, about exploitative labour practices, and sophisticated mass social psychological manipulation that allows that freakish, perverse, dribbling, grinning pscho Clown give it to us up the McArse. None of what it says is much good. Anyway, don’t get me started.

Now we’ve all seen the growing numbers of skinny ribbed, sun-burned teenagers and twenty-some things wandering around draped in the Australian flag. Surely, here’s true Australianism. But just wait till one of them opens their mouth and you quickly realise that their braying patriotism is as superficial and empty and manufactured a sentiment as whatever you periodically scrawl in those oversized novelty cards that do the rounds at work when someone manages to retire, find another job or is quietly admitted to a mental institutional. Dear Janine, Terrible to see you go. Just terrible. While we’ve not had the opportunity to work together or the fact that we’ve probably actually never spoken to each other in the seven years that you’ve been here. I’m going to miss you terribly, and it’s a terrible loss to the organisation. Good Luck. Keep up the mediation. Save a spot in your ward for me. Ha. Ha. Mindless, hysterical patriotism. Imported from America, exploited by the fear-driven, ugly, squawking dickheads who call themselves our leaders. Give them a tour of the Middle East.

Speaking of which, I have to confess that there’s one cultural import that’s personally seduced me. Few freely admit to doing it. Yet millions do. There are countless websites devoted to it and some souls are hopelessly addicted to it. Reality TV. Still, there’s no great surprise in that. Spirelli’s have always been engrossed by misery and humiliation, especially when it’s served up gladiatorial style in prime time. There are almost no downsides to reality TV. True, your expectations start low. You don’t want to be informed. You don’t want to be impressed. You don’t want to be inspired. You don’t want plot or story. You’re not even that interested in being entertained. It’s TV that you happily switch on after you’ve spent the day having your hard work disassembled into complete shit by some skew-eyed nuff-nuff manager who owes their position of authority over you to the cruel but simple and unavoidable fact that their obvious myriad personal and professional deficiencies actually makes their manager look less incompetent and therefore more powerful. No, it’s pretty much TV for no reason, which is where TV is at its best. The allure is the deep voyeuristic satisfaction of watching ordinary folk in some sort of genuine pain. The quiet tears of the medical intern who discovers her fiancé has porked some fake titted Los Vegas croupier on Temptation Island. Or the thrashing indignation of the management consultant whose demise has been coldly engineered by his smiling best friend on Survivor.

One of my personal favourites was My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss, one in series of clever parodies of genuine reality shows – in this case, Trump’s The Apprentice. There was another called My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé which was a take off of The Bachelor. They ran the same formula but pushed it to extreme and bizarre limits, just to show just how stupid and gullible the participants could be, since they believed they were part of a real deal. Each week he would give them a challenge. Where Trump had his people devise marketing strategies for new movies or fast food, the Big Fat Obnoxious Boss had teams develop their own cute furry corporate character and marketing jingle for a known carcinogenic product and then make a story book presentation to school kids who then voted on the best character and song. Where Trump had his guys designing brochures for luxury cars, Todd has his on the streets of New York trying to sell re-usable toilet paper, eco-tampons made from sticks and bark, and an aerosol spray that purported to take carbohydrates out of food. In another, contestants had to navigate a fake office obstacle course in a field, dressed in a suit, while being attacked by Mr Todd with a rapid fire paint ball gun, the only protection being a briefcase.

All the while, Mr Todd peppers the young greedy aspirants with a series of managerial insights into corporate success, each one more mangled, improbable and incomprehensible than the other. They listen. They try to understand. They clearly don’t. Yet they say nothing. Worse still, one of Mr Todd’s helpers, a handsome senior executive, starts to take a shine to some of the men, and his affections become increasingly obvious. They catch on. They don’t like it. Yet they do nothing. Then Mr Todd starts inventing activities where the females end up having to wear skimpy clothing and bikinis and he starts to generally favour them for no apparent reasons part from the fact that they’re good sorts. They understand. Some of the women hate it. Some play up to it. The men hate it. Yet they do nothing.

Each week, losing teams would isolate their worst two competitors, and Mr Todd would then consult a mysterious head boss in another room for an elimination decision. You only ever saw the back of the head boss’ chair. Finally, when only two contestants had survived the implausible challenges Mr Todd goes to consult the big boss, and the chair swings around to reveal a chimpanzee in a suit that spins a wheel to decide the winner of the $250,000 prize. It works on so many levels. Just so brilliant.

But they’re all getting a bit predictable those shows. We need a new, fresh angle. I personally propose a new show, called, My Fourth Wife where women compete to become the fourth wife of a well to do man, with a surprise twist at the end. It’s an Islamic Bachelor.

Scene One. The Introductions. A large black limo pulls up to a mansion, with Jeff the host and Mustafa standing out front. Out comes the first woman in full burkha, with that little see through window, walks up to Mustafa. Out comes the second – also in full burkha, same deal. Then the third and so on. All in full burkha. As each contestant is introduced Mustafa is increasingly animated, his eyes getting wider and wider, until after the seventh where he’s almost overcome. Jeff: Well Mustafa you seem to have particularly liked Fatima. Mustafa: O, yes, Jeff, yes, I’ve always loved redheads!

Scene Two. The Group Date. Mustafa invites a group of select contestants for an intimate dinner. They arrive and are ordered out back to cook kid goat and cous cous. Mustafa and seventy five of his cousins arrive and eat the food. The women are never seen. They’re sent back to do laundry. Mustafa to Jeff…Jeff, I think that went quite well.

Scene Three. The individual date. Mustafa invites Fatima to a date. Fatima is looking in a mirror, straightening out the creases in her dress, turns to the others in the room and asks…does my bomb look big in this? The limo pulls up with Mustafa in a dinner suit and carefully waxed moustache. In comes Fatima (in full burkha). Then old crone chaperone one in. And then another old crone. And then another. Until the limo is impossibly crowded with twenty two chaperones a la Marx Brothers in Duck Soup.

Scene Four. The Individual Date (continued). The party arrives for their date. Mustafa picks up a glass of champagne, Fatima picks up a glass of pomegranate juice (and straw), and they slowly walk in glowing evening sunset up to a firing range, where they don AK47s and simultaneously fire indiscriminately in target cut outs of George Bush and Christian crusaders. Mustafa turns and looks at Fatima expertly emptying her automatic clearly impressed. An old crone comments…and she can do rocket launcher too. Mustafa gets an instant erection.

Scene Five. Elimination ceremony. The women are lined up; Mustafa reaches for a grenade, calls out, Fatima. Fatima walks over, kneels. Mustafa, explains – Fatima, you will accept this and continue this journey with me Inshallah! Towards the end, Jeff strolls up and says, ladies, this is the last grenade. Each of the picked contestants then do that tongue rolling cheer in delight. The loser is walked off. You hear a short burst of automatic fire somewhere.

Scene Six. Grand Finale. Mustafa waits in the Rose Garden as the winner Fatima arrives in wedding burkha via camel. He orders her into a white van, and we watch as they drive off at great speed and slam into a white washed UN compound, exploding in a violent fire ball. They play Lionel Ritchie’s Three Times a Lady as the scene of smouldering buildings and strewn body parts is framed by a giant red love heart and slowly fades from the screen.

You’d have to watch it.


[1] The Penthouse Club was Melbourne’s idea of sophisticated evening TV. Mary always wore a gaudy scarf tied at a strange place high on her neck. Popular option was that she used it to cover a failed suicide scar. She had that look of someone that had drank too much, smoked too much and had generally done it hard.

You Gotta Get Hot to Play Real Cool

There is creativity, then there is artistry, and then there is sheer genius....

Remember the story of the 3 little pigs
One played a pipe and the other danced gigs
The 3 little pigs are still around
But are playing music with the modern sound

3 little pigs were in the groove
Everything was running smooth
The pigs were due for a big surprise
For the wolf appeared with red rimmed eyes
Oo you cool, oo you cool, oo you cool man cool

Well sho he was friendly he shook their hands
Announced he was joining up with the band
Instead of starting an argument
A 1 and a 2 and away they went

The 3 little pigs were really gassed
They’d never heard such a corny blast
We’ve played in the west
We’ve played in the east
We’ve heard the most, but you’re the least

Well the big bad wolf was really mad
He wanted to play music and wanted to play bad
They stopped me before I could go to town so I’ll huff and puff and blow their house down

The house of straw was blown away
The pigs had to find another place to play
Dew Drop Inn the house of sticks 3 little pigs were giving out licks

Well the piano playing pig was swinging like a gate
Doing the Libarace on the 88 (I wish my brother George was here)
The 3 little pigs were having a ball
When the big bad wolf he entered the hall

The big bad wolf he sat right down
C’mon cats we’re going to town
From the crowd came an angry shout
Stop the music
Throw the square out

The Big Bad Wolf was really sore
If they’re going to get tough I’ll give them more
They don’t know talent in this here town
I’ll huff and I’ll puff and blow the place down

Dew Drop Inn did drop down
The 3 little pigs crawled out of the rubble
This big bad wolf gives us nothing but trouble
We won’t be bothered by his windy tricks
The next place we play must be made of bricks

Sturdy place this house of bricks
Built in 1776
High class place with the high class crowd
Sign on the door no wolves allowed

The wolf was sore and fit to be tied
He was sworn and determined to get inside
He huffed and puffed at the house of bricks
But the bricks are stronger than straw or sticks
He huffed and puffed and bleeped and blooped
And at 10:00 was completely pooped
When all of the sudden came a ray of hope
I could disguise myself, boy what a dope

Well the big bad wolf took it all in stride
He figured out the way to get inside
I’ll show those pigs that I’m not stuck
If I can’t blow it down I’ll blow it up

Well the big bad wolf was really gone
And with him went his corny horn
Went out of this world with out a trace
Didn’t go to heaven it was the other place
The big bad wolf he learned the rule
You’ve got to get hot to play real cool

Spirelli Entree

From left - La Familia Spirelli - Rosa Spirelli, baby Mario Spirelli, Enzo Spirelli, Nonna Spirelli, Luciana Spirelli, Gina Spirelli (senior), Fabio Spirelli. Exiled by Papal Decree after Enzo's sexual encounter with a Sicilian witch lead to permanent blindness and demonic possesion. Second from the right is a Vatican agent. Apologies to David Moore (Migrants arriving in Sydney 1966).

Thanks to those that have ill-advisably wasted at least some small portion of their remaining conscious lives reading the vitriol offered below. Still, I think the pictures are quite nice. Special thanks to those that have left comments, be they good, bad or barely literate.

I’ve recently added a site counter which allows me to either fuel my vanity or be mercifully reminded that there’s just no-one reading. It tells you not only the location of where people have accessed TWL but exactly how they've managed to get to it. Clearly many visits have been purely accidental – where people have stumbled here through search engines. The counter even displays the actual search terms people have used. One person typed ‘hairy armpit pictures from beauty salons’ into Google and ended up here. Another put ‘plastic surgery “hairy mole” Mumbai.’ Worst still, another used ‘black cock “old wino” pussy’. I swear it’s true. Funnily enough I’d never intended to write anything even remotely related to cocks, moles, nor hairy armpits for that matter. I’m simultaneously appalled and delighted.

Yours in bewilderment – N.S.

The List of Unspeakable Torments (Part 1)

Traci Moffat's Something More

(no relation to Alan Moffat, winner, Bathurst 1000 1973 & 1977)

Writing certain things on certain bits of paper. That's mostly what the bureaucracy is about. Writing bit of paper about things you couldn't humanly care less about and then diligently passing it on to people who cared even less than you did. They then pass it on to someone else that you don't know of and naturally couldn't care less about. Sometimes it would come back with comments like - rubric? what's that mean? Rephrase. Or a post-it note instruction to replace a colon with a semi-colon, demonstrating that their knowledge of grammar comes directly out of their own large colon. Good one, Spirellli.

But in the end it all ends up either shredded and surreptitiously carried away in black plastic bins at night or put in bar-coded white files archived in a storage unit in some industrial estate surrounded by cheap residential housing where people eat bucketfuls of KFC convinced that you can't beat that taste. Pointless? Pretty much. Amazingly I'm told that its now less pointless than it used to be, and here I am stupidly thinking that something pretty much had some sort of inherent relevance or just didn't, much like Catholicism, male nipples, frozen pizza and hippies. How on earth could this have ever been more pointless?

But it just wasn't working for me today. I'd gone to the well and it was dry. Not only dry but full of scorpions, and not just those ordinary scorpions, angry scorpions. Angry, defiant fundamentalist scorpions, intent on bloody jihad. OK, that's probably overstating it. It wasn't the normal distractions of the open plan office. Sure, someone was graphically reporting to someone how her incontinent dad had shat on the new carpet, again. Yesterday in all seriousness they'd advised their pregnant friend to think about getting the obstetrician to organise liposuction for immediately after the delivery. You might as well Cheryl. They're going be down there anyway. Urgh, colleagues. Can't live with them, can't sink a rust pitchfork into their necks. Not legally at least. Unable to start resolved to make a list.

I'd once worked for a forgettable and thankfully brief period in the non-profit sector. The place had started as an advocacy group for women in vocational training - marshalling teenage girls into plumbing jobs and motor mechanic apprenticeships they they had no interested in and didn't care for. That sort of self righteous thing. They'd started small and through determined effort and careful strategy managed to stay that way, despite having dropped the chick thing to quaify for richer funding pickings. It was a weird place full of little secret rules. One was that you were under a daily obligation to begin every single day re-capping in minute detail every single thing that'd happened in the hours since you'd last seen them (or in fact might have happened). This included, but was not limited to, last night's dinner, conversations, visitors, children, the ABC, cardigans, hair, the shocking government, shoes, and impotent husbands that refused to listen. And if anyone happened to have a shopping bag of any description there had to be a ritual of show and tell, and naturally yet more talking. Even a fucking Safeway bag. You had no option. Even if it was a single tin of damn tuna. You were forces to waste at least an hour of your remaining life talking about tuna or tuna related topics, which would inevitably lead on to last night's dinner, conversations, visitors, children, the ABC, cardigans, hair, the shocking government, shoes, and impotent husbands that refused to listen. The place had still pretty much carried its old lefty women's rights attitude on its sleeve. So, there'd you'd be, the only male sitting at a meeting of the board of management where other women who didn't actually work there would naturally bang on about last night's dinner, conversations, visitors, children, the ABC, cardigans, hair, the shocking government, shoes, and impotent husbands that refused to listen, and occasionally they'd throw up any number of self congratulatory comments. They'd say things like behind every successful man is a woman, and behind every successful woman is a list. And how they'd all guffaw, chins a-wobbling, as if it was the funniest joke ever told. I'd smile, pretending to be in on all of it. Secretly I felt like chucking most of the time.

Anyway, the list. It was meant to be a list of the Top Ten most personally annoying and aggravating things. No real surprise in that. In a world so jam-packed with justifiably hateful things I though it might help to isolate the worst and put them in priority order. Then, perhaps, I could concentrate on these, make them manageable. I've made similar lists. I'd once made a list of my previous sexual encounters while pretending to listen to some bloodless insect drone on endlessly about some sort of legislation. I'd been given the choice of that or a seminar on Workplace Diversity. If drinking a litre of petrol had been the third option I would have gladly opted for that. A least it looked like I was taking notes. The guy next to me was whistling through his bulbous nose asleep. It's a depressing list both in terms of quantity and quality. A short lived flurry that coincided with my worst nihilist period and then almost nothing. Little more than what's known in common Australian parlance as a handful of lame, passionless sympathy roots.

Some of the entries are just places since I'd forgotten the unfortunate girl's name or been too drunk to have ever known - the Prison View Hotel, Middle Footscray Station, the Discount Camping and Motor Home Show, Coburg Wholesale Bulk Cheese Factory, Ashton's Family Circus. Others are more cryptic, based simply on scant details dredged from long distant memory (Panda, Carpet Girl, Racoon Armpits, Spastic Eye, Pancakes, Rover). Allegedly one poor girl had once complained to her friend after I'd tried some fumbling drunken move that she'd rather a dose of viral pneumonia than sleep with that moronic Tourettes' affected dickhead. And to think it was my essays that got her through Marxist Theory in fourth year. But who was I to argue. Anyone stupid enough to think they can trade an undergraduate understanding of dialectical materialism for a head-job is a moronic, Tourette affected dickhead. ASSHOLE. ASSHOLE.

No, but seriously my Top Ten started with one entry. What is it about the country that it's always associated with any number of virtues, purity and god fearing goodness? The simple, uncomplicated life where you get up in the clean crisp fresh air and with a strong arm and stout heart begin your honest day's work in bright sunshine, the chorus of morning birdsong in the trees, the warm, life-giving earth under your fingernails. It's about being one with nature, working with the land, the cycle of life, and being part of god's plan. It's about honouring the pioneering ancestors, respecting your parents, saving yourself for marriage, toiling without a harsh word or complaint for your family. It's about being part of a community, about stoically enduring floods and drought, being the first to volunteer, and fighting raging bushfires with your bare hands. It's about treating your neighbour like your brother, about stepping up to help the weak and vulnerable, about defending your country without the slightest hesitation or fear or question, about being solid, having pride and never letting yourself down, and never letting your mates down. For fucks sake its all about having a heart as big as Phar Laps', cheering the Don with a cold VB in your hand, the spirit of ANZAC, Bob bloody Menzies, and each and everyday sinking to the hard wooden floor and on your bony knees unashamedly crying out thanks to almighty god for all your blessings and most of all for Australia - the greatest country in the world.

The more I thought about it the less I couldn't think of any other entry as potentially hateful as the country. I've lived there can speak with some authority. And we're not talking about those little quaint villages nestled in green hills with antique shops in the day tour 'tea and scones' belt two hours out of metropolitan Melbourne. No siree. I'm taking of a hot, dry place where the stinking corpses of rotting, fly-blown kangaroos adorn the road and a municipal town sign peppered by the shot-gun pellets of bored, listless youth. A monochrome town bleached by the crushing relentless sun with sad abandoned shops, broken fences and pissed aboriginals camped under the struggling Eucalypt trees. A home to a millions flies where no tourist in their right mind has ever been. And to be honest, it's not the place itself. Even a scrubby desert or a dank backwater can usually lay claim to some particular charm. But, without question, what makes the country such an awful place is the people that live it - county people.

Country people. I once spent some time in Maroopna, just outside Shepparton in the Victorian fruit district. It called itself 'Fruit Salad City' and I was on the run from real estate agents that were hunting me down like the Yule Bruner character from WestWorld. I ended up on a farm planning to sweat out some fast cash and anonymously head back to the city. I was staying in the single men's quarters, basically just tin Nissan huts with beds made from galvanised pipe and chicken wire. You'd queue for breakfast each morning and they' slap a chop dripping with fat into a chipped enamel bowl and had it to you. For lunch you got two greasy chops in your bowl. Dinner, naturally, was three rank oily chops, but with sauce. The pickers were a pretty rough crew and although there was nothing obvious to single me out it instantaneously clear to everyone I wasn't one of the tribe. It wasn't long before the tribe came a-calling.

It was late one afternoon. I was sitting in the door step trying to digest my three-hundredth fatty chop for the week, reading. One of the guys just came over and brazenly kicked my hand sending by book flying almost into the paddock. A couple of others let out a nervous giggle. It was one of those moments, like in prison where you have to step up now or pay the price for the rest of your time. I chickened out. I did however collect my book, went into my hut and in a small act of defiance, continued reading. Basically they were personally affronted by the fact that I was reading something that wasn't titled Pregnant Jugs 2, The Best of Fuck City Cum Dumps, or 1001 Vaginas. It's not as I was reading Heidegger for godsake. In fact I think it was Peter Benchley's Jaws without a cover and missing the first couple of pages that I'd picked up from a charity shop that stank of old people, pee and boiled sprouts. Chances are every one of those guys is now living lives of abject misery. That's consolation enough for me.

Perhaps country people are not dumb. But I have been told stories. One about a young farmer that discovered an old wrecked Model T Ford in some ditch and having dragged it out with his tractor, decided to restore this historical piece of rural farm machinery to its former glory. He proceeded to work on it day and night, sparing no expense, and unveiled the polished and gleaming end result to much applaud from friends and family. Until someone asked how he proposed to get it out of the lounge room. It's not an isolated incident. Another independent source once recalled how some country genius sent off for a one man helicopter kit and had successfully assembled the impressive machine, again, in the lounge room. But that's all anecdotal. You'd have to do an empirical study. There could be a PhD topic in it. The purpose of this dissertation is to precisely determine just how stupid country people are. Perhaps then it's more a question of narrowness.

A friend of mine once travelled to Mildura in the far north west of the state with his new girlfriend to meet her parents, a pretty urbane, friendly sort I knew from school. He wore a lot of black and listened to Joy Division. We'd smoke joints and watch art house films. Now, Mildura's famous for many things, including probably the very worse rural TV on record. Every evening Sunraysia TV presented the Stock Market Report where for one hour some startled guy dressed like a carnie in a cheap checked suit would come on. He had huge sideburns and a brylcreamed come-over, and would stare down at a sheet of paper the whole time studiously reading out the daily prices for fat sows, yearlings and wool in a flat monotone voice. He'd end it by suddenly looking up and in a relieved voice say and that was the stockmarket report for Tuesday the 14th of June as if he was reading out your Miranda rights.

Worst still were the live STV commercials from local traders. At 3.00pm every Thursday there'd be Joyce, from Joyce's Cosy Country Crafts in a red gingham apron and Coke bottle glasses (she was clearly blind as a bat). She'd proudly show off her knitted tea cosies, dried flower arrangements and various bits of crafty rubbish. Ladies, here are these marvellous gift ideas. Aren't they lovely? Just in today at Joyce's Cosy Country Crafts, 15 Langtree Avenue Mildura. And you've got all your pretty colours. Here you've gottya greens. You've gottya yellows and youse even gottya blues. And the cameraman would very, very, very slowly pan across each of the terrible tatty items, the image all shaky from the symptoms of the cameraman's alcohol withdrawal. You'd be there as a kid, your life barely begun and you'd look around astounded by the fact that with the whole world of potential and possibility lying endlessly in front of you, there you are, alone, watching Joyce shuffling around bumping into the cheap sets. You'd end up thinking Joycie, at least you will never, ever realise just how fundamentally offensive you are. Too harsh? Probably, but the anger would have subsided by the time the guard-tower hit the ground in the opening scenes of F-Troop.

Anyway, my friend came back with a shiner. He'd gone to the Mildura Working Man's Club that once had the title of having the longest bar in the world for nothing more than a quiet drink. Some of the local heroes had taken him out back and given him a belting. Why? Because he was wearing pointy black shoes. For fucks sake, it was the 80s, we were all wearing pointy black shoes. He never went back. If you're planning a trip to the country, make a note - only pack books with pictures and round toed shoes only thanks.

Perhaps this narrowness is best evidenced by the degree of self obsession exhibited by our country cousins. Who on earth spends more time and energy thinking about and taking about themselves then country people? There are entire programs on TV and radio devoted exclusively to rural life with a seemingly endless stream of country people, one after the other eulogising about how great the country is and how great they all are. So deep and ingrained is their self love that normal words often fail and they can only express it lyrically through home made, tearingly god awful, rhyming bush poetry. And if they're not inducing your bile with their own sickly sentimental poems full of down to earth, home spun wisdom, they're braying homage to those champions of tedious bush literature, Banjo Patterson and Henry Lawson who truth be told were little more than talentless, opportunistic, bi-polar, wife beating, alcoholic miscreants. And if its not poetry, it'll be some sort of never ending, pointless old country 'yarn' that is neither funny nor remotely interesting to any living sole apart (from other country people), usually spun by some smart lackey, dirty bearded old country 'character', (re: coot) sitting there milky-eyed in the front bar of the otherwise deserted Dimboola Hotel, half tanked on port and cokes. And when they've exhausted every single opportunity for self aggrandisement, they'll then move on to their second favourite topic - complaining.

Who complains more than country people? OK the English perhaps. But still the do whinge a lot and like the poms they have their favourite topics. Above all else, they love criticising the Government. To them, it's the number one scourge all time, the source of almost all evils. Bureaucrats with noses firmly in the tough sucking the life blood out of the bush through taxes. Kow-towing to the Europeans, the Americans, and the Chinese, signing dodgy trade deals that sell out the bush. In bed with their mates, the foreclosing banks. Giving any number of hand outs to the dirty blacks. The Government. Funding the arts wankers. Sympathising with the AIDS spreading poofters. Listening to the deluded environmentalists. Supporting immoral single mothers and the bone idle dole bludgers. Worst of all cranking the flood gates open to the tsunami of Asian migrants who aren't Christian, can't speak Australian and god forbid, don't have Australian values. There was a TV story recently about a young rural tackle and bait shop proprietor who so incensed by customers with poor English that he banned them. He'd fashioned a homemade sign from some cardboard and had proudly and defiantly displayed it in the front window. It read...If you cant speak english then dont arsk for service. It may as well have read...Owned and operated by a slow talking, dim witted, xenophobic, gun totting, red neck dickhead. Moron. I hope he goes broke.

So there you have. As uncharitable as it is, that's the first entry to the List of Unspeakable Torments.