Ambrose Ambles

 

Twelve Caesars.

Book one…”Christopher Corridini”.

(secondo)

A new mythology.

On creating a modern mythology.

To George Theopolis…

Dear George..I have from quite a few years ago come to the conclusion that the western world..and perhaps even further than that limited realm..needs to be rescued from the suffocating and debilitating disease of middle-class ideology…that being a type of conservativism in political thought and multi-cultural acceptance and the accompanying death-blows of crazy-radical-entrepreneurial economics.

I have come to a conclusion in my own mind that about the only thing that can save our own western culture that has been transplanted to these ancient lands, on top of an existing ancient culture, is to create anew alongside those aboriginal mythologies…NOT WITH USING those ancient myths of the indigenous peoples…THEY have their own journey through time they are travelling, and our short interruption these last couple of centuries is but a hiccup in their story….But creating anew a separate…yet now joined at the hip through circumstance….mythology using the history and incidents that have occurred to US as a colonising people in this “new land”…

We need to create a continuity of story-line from the earliest days of settlement…toward the future, so as to give guidance…to shine a light down a darkened path that leads onward.

I prefer to use my working class experiences to create the hero/ heroines of this new mythology..We have no aristocracy that can claim warrior/kingship status and dominate our lives and dreams, we cannot use the middle-classes, as their “dreams” are so pedestrian that one would die of the boredom of predictability after the first page…so I use the working classes with their rough and ready incompetence / ability to “make do” where desperation and poverty stare them in the face..for there is accidental “honesty” in the desperate person who would steal and lie for the family well-being…be it clumsy, stupid or inevitably incriminating..there is a certain nobility in the struggle of the poor…so I will make them my heroes..

The demise of the impromptu story-teller , or raconteur has to be one of the greatest losses to Australian culture…with the conversion of many old-style front-bars to chic, up-market fashionista hangouts for the aspirational tradie, the loss of ‘habitat’ of these marvellous species is certain…as the consumption of alcoholic beverages is grist to the mill for the mood and pace of the yarn…sure, you can “attend workshops” where semi-professional “story-tellers” go about their business at a cost of so much per hour (cash)…but it would be like listening to the bending of plastic.

The beauty of an impromptu yarn, is that it can catch you unawares as you go about eating your lunch, or taking a sip on a beer at the bar..and the raconteur will, without visible prompting take up the “slack in chatter” and remark..something like..: “Now that reminds me of this chap up north I met many moons ago . . . “ …and there is a metaphorical drawing of ears and chairs.

I met a bloke like that up in a mining camp I worked at many moons ago…Kevin Cotton was his name..he’d be long dead by now..but Christ!..could he tell a yarn…side-splitters they were..the dust on the floor of the rough mess shed being raised with the stamping of his foot as he made a point and the rats in the rafters scurrying when his voice was raised in excitement making an exaggeration…

But he too was a man harried by the demon drink…the muse’s toll…I know of others..one young bloke down at The Seacliff was a trier…and he was good too!..but he had to pick his audience, as his stories usually revolved around too gross exaggeration for the more worldly listener and would be met with an askance glance and a mumbled ; “Bullshit!”….I’ll tell you about him someday.

But it has to be agreed, temperance and adult storytelling do not go together…

Thinking of you, George…regards.. Christopher Corridini.

I grew into and worked in the building trade all my working life..after completing an apprenticeship as a carpenter/joiner. But more of that later, for I want to tell this story in several parts..; the building up to..then the central years and now the finishing years working back toward a point of zero where I meet my alter ego somewhere in my middle life.

Whenever I arise from my afternoon kip, I lean on my mother’s old writing bureau for support to steady myself as I slip on my shoes…it is a plain wooden writing desk with a drop-down lid to write upon..it was here she would struggle to pen short stories that she would send to such publications as The New Idea…or The Woman’s Day…they were simple stories of everyday characters wrestling with love trysts or everyday problems…most likely drawn from her own experiences as a domestic in the suburbs..My mother never ventured into the tangled world of psychological intent, or working-class conflicts…her story was life through a simple lens..in complete opposite to what I wanted to imply or infer through the method of understatement and banality..though such things were evident in my Mother’s writing, they were there by coincidence..never deliberate or confected..satire was never my mother’s intent.. I doubt she would have really understood what it meant. My mother felt she occupied a secure, respectful role as a part of the bigger picture of social position, a conservative at heart, she never suffered from a feeling of complete isolation from the world of literature perhaps because of her absolute lack of institutionally albeit irregular schooled education common throughout for many in the Great Depression that I, conversely felt through a lack of the “patented education” of middle-class schooling..; the pretence of a patented education.

It was a repeat of that sensation of isolation that I have experienced before..because myself, coming from a trade background of carpentry/building, where I started as a fourteen year old, so any education I have had has been a hotch-potch of curiosity and “catch as catch can”…no direct stream down a one-way career diploma…no diploma at all…just a read, work, read some more, work on and so pull the strings together that connect my work education with my various tomes and historical reading education…and I come out in the end as I am now…and you can keep your comments to yourself on THAT situation!

So the repeat of the above sensation was nothing new to me when I started casually talking South Australian history at a lunch-table of basically middle-class teachers or business persons..It was an impromptu chat brought about by our current surroundings in the Mallee/Murray River district…and I spoke of what I knew of the early division of lands by the South Australia Company who first “developed” the province of South Australia. I joined in the conversation of certain nomenclature of the streets and districts that were vanity named after so many of those directors of The Company…I then talked a little of George Fife Angas’s “Confidential Clerk” ; Charles Flaxman and the “swifty” he pulled over Angas in regards to the “Special Surveys” in the Barossa Valley……and it was at this point, when I looked to several others at the table that I realised they had not the foggiest idea what I was talking about!…..that “veil of obscurity” fell over their countenance that pulled my conversation up dead…I could see there was no point continuing. My talk of historical miscellany that demanded at least some sort of “dot-joining” comprehension on the subject, was become an unintelligible babble ..and the following inane polite chatter about “all-wheel drive SUV’s” and favoured restaurants shared in a comfortable manner between themselves, reinforced a correct decision to cease forthwith.

Two misconceptions here that I made…one in thinking that those who had obtained an higher education were, by the fact that it took much time and reading to get that education, reasonably cognisant of their State history of which I was speaking..and;  two..that those who had gained a diploma or degree through the orthodox channels of education would be in the slightest way interested in hearing what they were ignorant of concerning their own Anglo-centric culture from a self-educated dago working man…..because, of course, the unregulated discourse of spilling the beans of knowledge that comes from the enthusiastic lips of the amateur historian can be recognised straight away by those who have cultivated the idle chatter of a “patented education” that here is an unscholarly, undisciplined mind who has an unmitigated pretence to lecture the cognoscenti.

The mistake we of the working-class have made is to be tricked into confusing education with knowledge…and we have paid dearly for it.

Indeed, my ventures into the perceived ownership of “artistic endeavour” by the educated middle-classes have sometimes been met with open hostility and derision..to think that a tradesman should attempt the cardinal sin of “rising above his station”…the : “uppity niggah!” of a basically middle-class society raised the hackles of those lumpen wankers of the middle-class “intellectuals”. Having said that, I doubt that my works are sophisticated enough to be taken up by the “artistic” cognoscenti…there is a network, I suspect, that like any trade or profession network, demands entry at a young age and a perseverance within accepted themes to become noticed by those that matter and who will look at your work…There are many excellent writers lost in the forest of story-telling despair who cannot gain the attention of a suitable publisher…look at poor old Vincent Van…sold only one painting in his lived life…I believe…..No..I hold no great hope for the citizen body to look to my works any more than I hold hope that they will wake one day and see the cause and source of great social injustice..I cannot even get read by my own family let alone expect a multitude of complete strangers to come to my blog..the storyteller lives for the eyes that see and the ears that hear…
As to the solutions of the many malaise that haunt our society, I have written reams of script on the subjects and while I still rail inside at the cruel and mindless beasts that wreak havoc, I don’t feel I have the strength to keep banging the drum..perhaps like “the end of stories”…I have said enough.

But let me reflect on my own experience of this phenomenon of dismissal that I will call  The Promising Poppy Syndrome.

It’s a curious thing, and unlike the Tall Poppy Syndrome, where a person of well-known repute is attacked for being TOO obvious or famous, the promising poppy is attacked by their closest people from their own class BEFORE they can scale the ladder to known or appreciated works…when they first show signs of talent or ambition to venture into a skilled area of craft or artistic ability. The curious thing is that the budding talent is not destroyed by a more skilled operator, THAT may come later, but first they are humiliated or debased by some of their own level of class…by their peers..those who see themselves as a kind of “gatekeeper” of the status quo…always fearfully on the lookout for that most dangerous of agitators..; the “out of control talent” that may throw a spanner in the works of establishment order.

This is managed by those who themselves lack the “risk factor” in their personality to reach for that higher plane of achievement, a kind of social sloth living off the “fat” of cultural identity, hitching their wagon to the safe long-haul star of established reward and flattery..I recall witnessing just such a moment where a young, excitedly enthusiastic person, in describing a visual scenario in a moment of creative enthusiasm, who in lacking any sort of depth of higher education, mispronounced a word which was quickly pounced upon by just such a one of the aforementioned sloths and the flow of conversation was rudely interrupted while the slight mistake of vowel emphasis was sneeringly corrected with a ; “surely you mean. . . ?” and then followed by that social enforcer of belittlement..; the smug and self-confident derisive chuckle…The ruse worked and the enthusiasm of the young person died and a silence of disempowerment descended over the group..The death of creativity was complete.

The objective of conservative social order is to control the unregulated and creative person or mind, for there has never been throughout history more threatening to authoritarian order than the new idea…a new way of perception borne on the wings of the creative mind…witness Julius Caesar, Galileo, or even here in humble Australia with Albert Namatjira..a superlative creative talent that was crucified as a kind of “Black Christ” for daring to escape the conditioned cage he and his people  were trapped in.

If there is no direct or deliberate cruelty in such action, there certainly is no kindness, for the humiliation that is delivered on an opportune basis can be both cutting and destructive to both the individual targeted and to any relationship they may be involved with, as each moment of belittlement chips away at the base of relationship..and it is not as if such an individual may intend to abandon their obligations and responsibilities to family and society…I recall a conversation with a fellow worker who had set aside small brackets of time to pursue their desired calling so as not to deter from family responsibilities, only to then have those moments of reserved quiet interrupted with calls to their attention or chores suddenly dropped upon their shoulders that took them away from their personal fulfilment. This created both doubt in the integrity toward their partner and a resentment to the broader relationship that ate away at the once secure bond of their marriage.

The end objective may not necessarily be to stop completely the promising poppy’s activity, just to break the continuity of practice or perfection to their chosen craft so that they never can competently work toward that perfection of the art…and once enough interruption is done, the  seeds of self-doubt take over and the promising poppy grows forlorn and doubtful of its budding talent so the perpetrator can forever claim to it not being THEY who sabotaged a promising talent, but rather the person themselves lacking that certain skill that would have taken them to the next level of achievement, when in reality, what is most needed is patience in a personal space of time and silence to hone those skills to perfection.

Even in retirement, when one should have the time if also the health to pursue that long-held dream of finally taking up that task of perfecting their skills, the mischievousness of sabotage can creep into their corner..the continued harassment of “jobs that now can be done”…the interruption of that silence needed with calls to their time and person. There is a sadness in all this in that it seems to be mainly those of the working classes that suffer most the truncated ambition to achieve a dream..If I look back into the past of three female relatives..now since deceased, I am informed that they all had desires to reach for a higher objective than what their growing years of penury dished up to them..One wanted to be a writer, another a painter and the third a more pragmatic Vet….None however achieved their goal, even though they all chipped away with their hopes..and then their parents stealing away any capacity of making their lives more promising by frittering away a chance benevolence of enough money that could have set the family up with a more secure lifestyle…the selfishness of that action sealing the fate of their daughters ambitions by necessity forcing them into marriages that took away any hope of self achievement.

Society too, has means and methods of locking out those who aspire to grace the artistic pages of their country with at least a little of their imagination…Society has framed those who “deserve” their work to be displayed with a border of “recognised training” in a certified institution that “honours” their students with an embossed paper that legitimises a certain level of imagination…a certain level and no more…some go on to a higher plane, encouraged by a network of access to openings of opportunity..while most are satisfied with that certificate of diploma that guarantees at least recognition of attendance and even less application to the chore of originality.

These institutionalised “keepers of the flame”, even though their qualifications may be for subjects completely alien to the one of artistic application, say ; social science or perhaps psychology, they will STILL insist that a amateur scribbler adhere to their most strident interpretation of structural purity even while one is striving in a different direction with poetic licence…and once again the low level of mockery is applied and one can be taken back to that instance of the mispronounced word accompanied by the quiet chuckle of derision…it is why so many “approved graduates” strive for the glittering prizes handed out to the favoured sons and daughters of those “noble institutions” solid built of sandstone but resting on foundations of clay.

It must be remembered and must be held close to the heart of the dedicated and honest promising poppy that the whole world of the established status quo runs on bluff and they have neither the right, capacity nor dignity to either correct impulse or steer ambition. Far too many decent but shy artists have been crushed by the juggernaut of petty jealousy of those who want creative originality but cannot achieve it and those who never had the courage and will not gain it.

A Place of One’s Own.

Within everybody’s heart ,

There is that little pump.

And in the still of the night,

You can hear its tremulous thump.

Within everybody’s heart,

There is a little room.

Upon the wall there is a picture

Of a place we silently yearn.

To some it is just a fantasy,

A desire they can’t fulfill.

Some will strive to seek it…

Some have not the will.

And some will substitute

A lesser philosophy

To dull and blind the senses

To a love they will not see.

We will survive.

Oh the flak I got when I posted my humble scribblings on certain social media blog sites..These social media blogs claim to be some kind of reservoirs of deep philosophy and knowledge, when in fact, they mostly reflect the sad, Ms.Informed and Mr. Google searchers of authority and feckless opinion. I once put up this story of a nun who got pinched by the local copper for stealing several romance books…trashy romance..I was told this little episode of life in the hushed tones of scandal by a nun I once knew many years ago…I thought it was one of the most tragic things in the everyday work-world that I had ever heard…but I got nothing but slander in the comments section for my trouble..

It went like this..:

The Last Lingering Kiss.

“ I can’t stop now!” she gasped a passionate moan as her arms reached for him..”I’ve desired you for too many nights.”

He responded huskily, his taut, muscular arms embracing her and driving out all resistance. It was as if some strange, torrid tempest had suddenly descended down on to their bodies as they struggled to out-do one another in the removal of their clothing. He grasped her in his arms and lifted her clear of the carpet, his lips parted and he moaned as he buried his face in her soft, ample, velvet-like breasts.

“Ohh. Brendon !”,she cried, surrendering her body to his firm, impatient, maleness.”Hold me”, she quivered.

“You’re trembling”, he whispered… ”

Sergeant Tom Flannigan closed the book with a wince and a sad hiss of breath. Distracted by a sudden rising of the wind in the mallee trees outside, he gazed in silent contemplation at raindrops streaking against the window.

“Right on time,” he mumbled to himself. He was referring to those first good rains of the season. ”Tim’ll be glad he finished seedin’ this mornin’ “.

His gaze moved from the window back to the book on the desk in front of him. He picked it up wearily and slipped it into an opaque, plastic bag that contained five similar paperbacks. He then folded the top over and sealed it with three staples and labeled it :

Evidence….stolen property, Crown v’s accused : Sr. Mary Margaret : Principal / Teacher ; St Joseph’s School, West Waylong…Victoria ..Age : 43 yrs.

Tom Flannigan read back over the label, he snorted when he came to Sr. Mary Margaret’s status in this small country town and spoke out loud..;

“Principal, teacher, Also ; lay missionary, August leader of the Sunday prayers, choir organizer / lead singer, dishwasher, cook, cleaner ,bottle washer, big mother to all the god fearing god hating lonely poor beaten, broken down and out bastards between Bourke and bloody Booleroo Centre….the “ear” to the community..God have pity on her.”

He rose and with an angry tug on a hanging string, extinguished the light. The police station at West Waylong was a residential, so the distance between work and home was the thickness of a door jamb.

Tom Flannigan was one of those few who could leave their work worries behind them at closing time, besides, Tom had his own worries, for several days now, he had put off writing a reply to his fiancé, not for nothing to write about, but rather, (as she had complained of a “cold, distant feel ” in his correspondence),because of a forlorn search for a more passionate wording of his feelings toward her in his letters.

Although this was the second time around in the marriage game for Tom, it was no easier for him to overcome that word-block of emotional and verbal commitment demanded by women from their suitors! Tom scratched behind his ear as he jiggled the eggs and bacon in the pan..; what to say, what to say;

“I do love you Beth’ with all my heart!” he mumbled such clumsy sentences to himself as he completed cooking his evening meal and crossed to the table. He placed the plate on the table, and after a moments hesitation , decided that the eggs and bacon needed a bit of a “lift”…he took a small tin of baked beans from a cupboard and added it’s contents to the bacon and eggs, speaking theatrically as he did so…

“Your eyes are like the moon,.(a gesture with the hand) your lips are as cherries nah! …your lips are as…as that girl on the toothpaste ad’ nah!”

So you can see, Tom. Flannigan had his mind full of that awful doubt that trips and tangles the lovelorn. Added to this was the fact that his future bride had no intention of ever…ever living in such a distant , lonely town like West Waylong! ….

So he had no thought to ponder on why a respectable, well-educated person like Sr. Mary Margaret would steal tacky romances of pulp-fiction. There were laws in place to govern the prosecution of criminal actions and his was the task to follow those laws through.

Rule# 1 : Never confuse the laws of state with the laws of sentiment. In the morning ,Tom Flannigan would transpose the interview he had with Sr. Margaret from tape to document and pass it on to headquarters for its consideration. As far as he was concerned ; the end of the story….

” Interview with Sr. Mary Margaret… 12th August 19….

Accused of stealing six paperback novels from the “Criterion Book Shop” Main Street , West Waylong ..

Present .Sgt Thomas Flannigan.. Fr. Dennis McCarthy ..Sr. Mary Margaret

Questioning..: Sgt Flannigan..:

I ask: “Were you in the Criterion Book Shop last Friday afternoon?”

Fr. McCarthy. “You answer the questions as best you feel ,Sister.”

Sr. Margaret. “Thank you for that valuable advice Dennis,….to your question , Sgt, : Yes, I was there.”

I ask. “While you were there, did you pick up this book? ( shown paperback).title: “The Last Lingering Kiss”?

Sr. M. “Yes, I did.”

I ask. “You were then seen to place this book in your bag and walk out of the shop….Did you deliberately intend to steal it?”

Fr. McC. “Now Sister, keep in mind you have not yet been charged with any misdemeanour. so you don’t…Sgt, (He confided) I’ve had a call from Monsignor, He has suggested, not without a considerable amount of thought on the subject… keeping in mind the age of Sister and that troubling time of life for women of that age, maybe (he glances to Sr. M.) a touch of kleptomania brought on by the stress of menopause?”

I ask. “Do you wish to comment on that, Sr.?”

Sr. M. “I’d rather retain what little dignity I have left than to respond to ..to Monsignor’s …er, suggestion.” (she crosses hands on top of desk).

I ask. “Then I’ll ask again….did you intend to steal the book?”

Sr. M. (silence…turns eyes askance, blushes…then looks directly at me)”Yes.”

Fr. McC. (groans).

I ask. “These other books were voluntarily given in by you….did you intend to steal these also?”

Sr. M. (breathes deeply)”Yes sergeant, I did.”

Fr. McC. “Why Sister, Why?”

Sr. M. “Because Dennis , of a reason I very much doubt you would understand! neither you nor the Monsignor!”

Fr. McC. “It goes beyond all rational thought, Sister, that you, in particular, could have the slightest interest in these…these trashy productions!”

I ask: “Fr. McCarthy, I am at this time trying to establish the plea of the accused, I am not looking for whys and wherefores…Do you Sr. Margaret, admit to the theft of the aforementioned books?”

Sr. M. (Takes a deep breath)”Yes, Sergeant ,I do.”

Fr. McC. “You do realise, Sister, where this places us, the church, in the eyes of the community?”

Sr. M. (heatedly)” Oh damn the community!….( Fr. McCarthy leaps to his feet) and damn you Dennis and damn the Monsignor and double damn the damn Church!”

Fr. McC. “Are you gone mad ,Sister, are you mad?”(I grasp Fr. McCarthy by the arm and sit him back down).

I ask. “I must ask you , Fr. to restrain yourself, you are here only as a supporting representative of the diocese so please restrict your comments to that role….and I remind you, Sister, that all you say can and will be considered as evidence…”

Sr. M. ”Oh shut up Tom!…(She stands with fists pressed on table )and you Dennis!….both of you….shut up!…Are you blind? can’t you see we are all of us here in the same situation? (Fr. McC and I remain silent)..All obliged to serve an institution….an unforgiving, blind institution!…and..and a so called infernal “COMMUNITY!” that denies us any right to a life of our own..no!, don’t you interrupt me Tom Flannigan, I know all about your last marriage, you lost that because of the hours you spent on the job rather than with your family. The police force demanded it. The community demanded it  and you ,Dennis, how many more years before the bottle claims your soul?…ah! don’t deny it, I know you only too well.. it’s written all through your eyes.. and those “Holidays” to dry out down by the coast..We’re all three of us damned to play a set-piece for the Community, the Law and the Church. (she sits wearily down)…Oh how I longed desperately to be able to go home at night sometimes to children of my own…a man! …of my own, be him hopeless, be him ugly , but be him human…just human… rather than the dried out waffling of the writings of a “holy book”!…(she pauses, stares blankly ahead, speaks quietly, slowly) do you have any idea how empty a sound, is the parched, crisp, turning of the pages of a prayer book in the quiet of an evening always alone?
The three of us have committed social crimes here, only my crime is more visible….I haven’t neglected a family, nor tippled with the altar-wine…I am guilty of a crime of passion….I have tried to steal a modicum of illusion of fantasy….of lust with a man.”

(there is a moments silence as we gathered our thoughts)

Fr. McC. “But why steal the books? Why didn’t you just buy them?”.

I ask: ” Yes Sister, why did you steal them?”.

Sr. M. (sighs, leans back in the chair )”Looking back on it, I could say I don’t know..the first one was an accident…I slipped it into my bag absent mindedly as I picked up another thing I wanted to buy…but when I discovered the error later, I stayed silent..why?..; a kleptomaniac impulse….a thrill? no, not a thrill I think rather, it was a part of the desire, to steal a moment of lust, an integral component of the hunger…a hunger for the love I did not have…I believe as we grow from the child to the adult, each of us seeks that love..that particular love, most denied…perhaps we are all assigned a set amount of little crimes in this life…alongside our everyday duties, little grubby crimes, along with the humdrum of responsibility and rules..and when we step outside of that regular pattern into the more shady area of our deeds, we must accept a completely different set of rules..”Oh what wicked webs we weave…”(a bitter laugh)….I fought with myself for years against the desires…like you, Dennis with the bottle..and you Tom with the duties of the police officer in a little country town but when can one stop?…can one stave off forever the natural impulse to drop the facade of religion. of law and order?…some can…I couldn’t…anymore…I desired a passionate embrace from a man (she leans forward over the table and speaks slowly)Gentlemen,…I too, wanted a moment of being desired!..how I envied Magdalene her Christ.. and these trashy books were as close as I was going to come to it in this God-forsaken place!…in this God-forsaken church in my own human forsaken life!”

(The three of us sit silently staring ).

Interview terminated….

Nine days later.

Tom Flannigan glanced up from his desk in the office to meet the eyes of Sister Mary Margaret. He stood to receive her proffered hand. She was leaving the district.

“Just to say cheerio, Tom…and wish you luck.”

“Thanks sister…thank you and yourself.” he fumbled with the biro in his hand ,then dropped it casually on the table. “What…what will happen to you?” he asked

The nun laughed softly,

“Oh,…it’s a big institution; the church…I’ll be swallowed up in it somewhere after a little penance….I’ll become anonymous once again.. slowly ,I trust, the desire for the human touch will be “cleansed” from my soul.. like Dennis’s liver..( another chuckle)….and you ,Tom.?”

“Me!…oh, I’ll just….just carry on as usual I ‘spose.. hmm…. look, Sister, I know they are going to prosecute this case in the city, so I won’t be seeing you again….I want you to know that I erased that last part of the interview the three of us had I didn’t see it as relevant to the case and I don’t suppose it would have interested the people at headquarters ”

“Yes, I expect you are right, Tom, there are some aspects of the lives of our community leaders that are best left in illusion (she chuckled again)..a bit like a trashy romance.”

“Well,Tom, goodbye.”

“Cheerio, Sister, cheerio.”

Here is the response I got to the placing of that story..; 8 Comments..

Noel Bourke..

Corridini, I’ll give you the tip, Henry Lawson, you are not. A fluffy bit of fantasy writing, maybe, but far from believable.

My reply to Noel..:

”Corridini, I’ll give you the tip, Henry Lawson, you are not.”……Why, thank you Noel…I’ll pass that on the next time I meet Henry….”Henry”..I’ll say..”I’ve had the good oil from Cyril Connerly’s understudy that YOU are so much the superior writer than I…….like another drink, bro’?”

Now fuck off, Noel..

K-Leigh..

Corridini,

If we put our writing up on a public post, we are inviting comment and criticism. If you can’t take it, then you don’t have to do it. But as "Tich" pointed out, we rely on donations and readers to keep going. We must be mindful of that. On your own blog, you can do as you please. Here, we try to get along. That doesn’t mean we all agree but we try to be civil.

My reply to K-Leigh..

Passive aggressive at its best..

Tich Tailer.

K is right, Corridini.

Charole and I pay good money for someone to promote our articles. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t get the traffic that we do. And without the traffic … we don’t earn the money that goes towards the site’s costs.

Telling a commenter to eff off undermines the work – and money – it takes to bring the commenters here.

My reply to Tich..

Tich…that “Noel Bourke” did NOT give legitimate criticism…he was just trying to be a smart-arse…surely you have knocked about the sticks long enough to know that..and if HE is the type of reader and commentator you want on the site, then you are lowering both YOUR standards and the site’s standard.

I might add that the petty critique he did offer was of such churlish miserableness, it wouldn’t qualify for a primary school reward star!…such a person with so mean a hand ought not be encouraged…surely?

Personally, I wouldn’t value such low capabilities as a wanted commentator…he’d desert you and the site as soon as you confronted him…but that’s your call…you know how I feel about those sort of people.

Kerri..;

This is the real issue with Corridini’s writing: it lacks coherent argument. This makes           for frustrating reading and no doubt frustrated comments.

A good writer knows what they want to say and then they say it. Saying one thing then writing about another entirely unrelated thing is sloppy and self indulgent. Even the most creative writer understands this: refer to Lawson’s poem: its one theme from start to finish.

I agree with Rosemary he would be better off with a Blog or at the very least some heavy editorial reviewing before publication. This will help the author as well as the reader.

Viking Duk..;

Once again and for the last time, l’ve had it confirmed why I delete Corridini (the ego has landed).. Corridini dribbles, unread. That legend in his own headspace to me is just another pretentious wanker. So Corridini, please fuck off.

Apologies to administrators, etc., writers and commenters usually don’t piss me off to this extent, so no more, straight to the bin goes Corridini.

My reply to them all..;

You bastards are just shitty because this chap; “Corridini” ..a “fuckin’ dago”, has more of an idea of the cultural idiosyncrasies of Australian society then you Anglo’ know-alls..AND can get them down in writing…screw you all!

This endless parry of passive- aggressive banter dogged my time and my patience in story-telling, for what one most needs and which throughout my working life was viciously denied me, is the peace to gather one’s thoughts and collate one’s memory of place or incident and to then scrupulously put it down on page in a manner both enlightening and entertaining..like the moment of pause by the oral story-teller at the front-bar, beer in hand, gathering his style for the continuity of the piece..keeping the thrill of the punch-line to such a pace and tempo that brings the desired feeling of completeness to the story and the nodding of heads or guffawing of laughter..then back to the beers at the bar ready for the next one.