Win-win

Yesterday, as I was sitting peacefully at my desk, strumming a few chords on my old Fender acoustic, I looked out the window and noticed a Landcruiser wending its way down my drive through the angophoras. Ascertaining that it was not the local constabulary come to pick me up on another trumped-up charge of "threat to public disorder" or some such, I sauntered down the front path and waited for it to arrive.

Now, I only mention the police because, a couple of years ago, I got a phone call at work from a bloke at the Greens' head office in Sydney, alerting me to the news that the then Prime-Minister, the execrable John Howard, would shortly be landing at the Richmond air-base for a Liberal Party luncheon at the nearby horse-racing club, and did I have any willing volunteers out there who could mount a picket at said establishment. Not being able to rustle anyone up on the spot, I decided a one-man protest was better than no protest at all, and jumped in the ute and headed down there.

Fortunately, I had a few Greens placards in the back seat, so I distributed a few of them around the fence - little messages like "Public education - not private largesse", and "Howard, you're a cunt", etc. (OK, the last one was not an official Greens slogan, I admit.)

Sure enough, before too long a cavalcade of limos came roaring up the drive to the race club. I could tell straight away that it had no intention of stopping so that the Prime Minister could get out and have a chat with one of his disgruntled constituents, so I hastily grabbed a placard and jumped in front of the first limo, forcing it to stop or run over me.

The driver jammed on his brakes, and the whole shebang came to a dead stop. The passenger window rolled down quickly, and a big, boofy bloke leaned out and said, in what he thought was the voice of authority, "YOU. GET THE FUCK OFF THIS ROAD NOW!" I very slowly moved to one side, and the driver gunned the car straight through the gates. The next car came by me rather more slowly, and there was the little rodent perched on the back seat. I began to tell him exactly what I thought of him, his cabinet, and the entire Liberal Party of Australia, in my loudest possible voice, and do you know what the slimy little prick did? He smiled and waved at me, as if I was just another admiring supporter. His car shot through the gates, and an attendant swung them shut and locked them, then called over to me "OK, you've had your fun, now fuck off."

Well, it had been a bit of fun, so I packed up and went home. I was sitting on the deck with a beer, feeding one of the kookas, when a for-real cop Landcruiser came tearing down the drive.

A sergeant got out, and said to me at the front gate "Are you Laurie F_____?" I confirmed that I was. "We've had a report that you were obstructing the Prime Minister a short time ago. Is that correct?"

"No, Sarge," I said. "I was exercising my democratic right to protest at that little cunt's malfeasance and complete incompetence in running the country. Besides, I wasn't aware that we'd become a police state overnight. You boys gonna put me in the back of that thing?" I asked, pointing to the lock-up on the back of their Cruiser.

"Fuck no, mate," the sergeant replied. "I just got a call to come out here and check out whether you were a nut-case." He leant over the gate, and offered his hand. "If you want my opinion, that piece of shit can get fucked, and the more people who tell him the better. See you later."

With that, they drove off, giving me a wave as they went. Bloody hell, I thought - even the coppers hate him.

Well, I suppose you're wondering by now who was in the car yesterday. Well, when I got to the front, two blokes in black suits with little name tags got out and smiled at me. Now, if I'd had a bit of fun with the coppers, this scenario had "pure entertainment" writ large all over it. It was the fucking Mormons!

God hates Australia

The internet is a mixed bag of nuts. I was rather fortunate to stumble upon this exquisite selection the other day. I'd only heard of Fred Phelps in passing, but after viewing his eloquent speech, I'm sure you, like me, will be beating a path to the doors of the "Westboro Baptist Church" in Kansas to supplicate yourself in front of such a holy and benevolent bloke. On a pedantic note, I think Pastor Fred is just waiting for the opportunity to put the "ugh" back in "Westboro".

Apparently Danny Nalliah was dead wrong, and the Victorian bushfires were a result of Australia's infatuation with unbridled sodomy. It seems that we Aussies cannot walk along the street anymore without fostering urgent desires within ourselves to fornicate with anything and everything, as long as it is of the same gender. Forget the slaughter of millions of innocent babies in the womb, Danny - these bushfires are the direct result of millions of blokes around the country being prisoners of the cesspool of their own steaming desire! What a tragedy. So nice of God to cleanse the place by burning two hundred or more of these fornicators to death, although how the dozen or more babes in arms who were killed got tangled up in sodomite excrescence might be something that Pastor Danny may care to address.

Fred's had a bit of a bee in his bonnett about Australia, land of the sodomites, ever since he attended the Westboro multi-plex in his raincoat and sat through a screening of Brokeback Mountain, apparently starring an Australian actor who is now luxuriating in Hell, because he portrayed a gay cowboy. Now, I don't know whether Fred's objection is that it was an Australian doing this, or whether it is an affront to red-blooded, chest-thumping American manhood that anyone could be as evil as to suggest that a pair of cowboys could ever harbour impure thoughts towards each other (oh, where is John Wayne when you need him?), but I believe a couple of teensy little facts may have escaped Fred's notice. 

The first is - and I know this is a difficult concept to get the old noggin around, Fred - it's called acting. Secondly, according to reports in the daily blatherers at the time of Heath Ledger's death, the actor was in a very happy relationship with a woman, and had, at least once, indulged in the god-sanctioned activity of vaginal sex, because the couple were the proud parents of a bonnie wee lassie!

Perhaps Fred needs to get on the royal telephone. "Ah, God, er, you know when I told you about that actor bloke, and you said 'Right! That's it. I'm burnin' Australia to the ground' - well, I might have made a bit of a mistake..." I'd be inclined to believe in Fred if 208 people and fifteen hundred homes were suddenly resurrected from the ashes, with a little note of apology from the Lord: "Er, Sorry, folks. My fault. Pastor Fred fucked up again. Carry on."

Now, all I can say about this business is that I think Pastor Fred has some secret he's not revealing, in that he obsessively desires the feel of something hard and long penetrating his own sphincter, but is too afraid to admit it. I'd help him out, of course, as one of his born-again flock, but I am afraid that total, fucktard, nut-job lunacy just might be a sexually-transmitted disease. I'd even go so far as to declare that the man's such a wacko that I wouldn't even fuck him with your cock, Brian!

The Italian connection

Leigh was undoing his shoelaces, with the arthritic machinations of a bloke who has seriously extended himself. I, for one, was not going anywhere near mine, for the simple reason that a) I couldn't feel my feet anymore, and b) it would have been asking the impossible for me to bend any further than it took to pull a beer out of the esky beside me.

We'd just done a marathon hike into a place called "God Knows Where", by way of a canyon called "Fuck Me, You Must be Kidding" and along a mountain trail named "If You Get Through This Alive, You're Doing Well", a graveyard littered with the dessicated bones of unfortunate Germans and Japanese who had unwittingly read Fahrenheit for Celsius.

At least, this is my recollection. I can't be entirely certain, because I'd begun hallucinating by the time we'd tramped about fifteen miles through venomous scrub over rocks that resembled razor-sharp hand-grenades which exploded underfoot.

"Loz," gasped Leigh as he drank his sixth bottle of water for the day, "I'm having a great time!"

He giggled for a while, then collapsed on the ground, heaving.

Remembering that fortune favours the brave, we opted for cowardice, and bid a strategic retreat through the fields of blood to a camp-ground that at least afforded a decent burial in the case of a misadventure like slicing one's wrist whilst opening a coldy.

Of course, it was a tribute to our erstwhile enemies that they'd attempted the trek at all. Back in camp, we were comforted by a group of Italians who had pitched a tent next to us, and, rather than face the vagaries of wind and sun, had very sensibly decided to cavort in the resort's swimming pool all day, only to return to their campsite in order to quaff ice-cold chianti and graze on a variety of superlative Mediterranean foodstuffs.

I know all of this, because Leigh invited us over to their camp in order to, as he said, "determine that none of their victuals were poisonous."

They were from Florence - a mildly respectable centre of culture, that Leigh (who is a traveller of distinction), reckons is on a par with Cessnock or Heddon-Greta. "The trouble with Florence, Loz," he said with the air of the world-weary, "is that it doesn't have a smash-em-up car derby track like Heddon-Greta. Couple of good paintings and statues, though. Keeps the locals contented, although I reckon they could use a good Hoyts multiplex and a Henny Penny or two." Fortunately our Italian companions knew not a word of English, and if they did, were sufficiently familiar with irony to ignore the Barbarian Australian who was refined enough to know the value of fine wine. Besides, it's not difficult to tell when Leigh is joking. He begins to chuckle before telling you his story, breaks into giggles between sentences, then falls about laughing at himself at the end. His humour is completely infectious, and it wasn't long before the Florentines and we had become firm friends.

The following day we took them to Sacred Canyon, a tiny (by Flinders Ranges standards) cleft in granite cliffs, some twenty k from Wilpena. A dry, rocky creek bed led us, a kilometre or so, to walls of granite in pinks, reds and greys. And on those walls were hundreds of beautifuly engraved circles, animal prints, and campfire motifs. We were looking back in time - thirty to forty thousand years of it, in fact, at a civilisation that had used this little gorge, a place in the absolute middle of nowhere, as a meeting place, campfire and rest spot along a trade route that extended up into the Northern Territory and across to Cape York. These blokes must have been seriously good navigators, because this part of the country is so homogeneous that you can get lost just by looking over your shoulder.

The people of this area, the Adnyamathnha, or "hill people", inscribed these rock engravings with pieces of granite. We wandered around the gorge, inspecting everything, including a beautiful, big python that had serenely lain up in a crevice about four feet off the ground. Our friends were captivated by its sparkling green and yellow diamonds, and spent minutes studying and photographing it. To our chagrin, they were one pair of foreigners we were unable to scare silly with snake stories. When Leigh began to describe the rising panic one could expect in a victim were she suddenly pounced upon and wrapped in the python's vice-like coils, Eleanorae coolly looked down her nose at him and said "Their diet consists wholly of small marsupials and birds' eggs. We are not prey." Italians 1, Barbarians 0.

Sitting on a rock, staring up at the engravings, I began to ponder the sort of minds responsible for these at once ritualistic and practical symbols. What did they think of their world? They were, quite obviously, well beyond the simple "hunter-gatherer" stereotype our colonial ancestors ignorantly ascribed them. This was not some paleolithic graffiti. The engravings were works of great care; their draughtsmanship marvellous, and there were obvious signs that many of them marked out routes, waterholes, and food sources. This was the ancient equivalent of sat-nav and A Brief History of Time in one - a testament to intelligence, skill and tradition. Eleanorae and I sat together, enthralled. Eventually, she took my hand, briefly, and said very seriously "Laurie, you and your countrymen are very lucky." I could not but agree.

Humbled by our encounter with serious time, we returned to camp, where modernity returned with a rush in the form of several grey nomads who had parked their lurid behemoths all around our tent-site, and were busily erecting satellite dishes so that they would not miss the next episode of The Young and the Restless. Eleanorae, Rafael and we decided that culture was best promoted, instead, by that which draws the hearts of our two countries closest together - wine, and plenty of it!

From the ashes emerges a grub

The "Pastor" of some tin-pot joint called "Catch the Fire Ministries", a certain Danny Nalliah, today blamed Victoria's new, more liberal abortion laws on the fires that have killed 173 people in the State (and counting.)

This cunt says he "woke with a flash from the Spirit of God: that His conditional protection has been removed from the nation of Australia, in particular Victoria, for approving the slaughter of innocent children in the womb."

The only thing I have to say about this, is that it would be a just and fitting irony for the clubhouse of "Catch the Fire Ministries" to catch fire itself, preferably with Pastor Danny trapped inside, on his knees, his pants around his ankles, with the flaming sword of Gideon lodged firmly up his criminal arse.