Bedtime Stories #9.

Those Roman Women!

(From “History of Rome” ; Theodore Mommsen)

An equally characteristic feature of this period was the emancipation of women.  In an economic point of view the women had long since made themselves independent; in the present epoch we even meet with solicitors acting specially for women, who officiously lend their aid to solitary rich ladies in the management of their property and their lawsuits, make an impression on them by their knowledge of business and law, and thereby procure for themselves ampler perquisites and legacies than other loungers on the exchange.

Ode to Women’s beauty.

Speechless and numb, I gazed on her beauty there,

Her limbs, her hands, her soft flowing hair.

Her voice the whisper of an angel’s prayer..

SHE..roamed her eyes over the banquet fair,

The roasts, the salads, the fruits so rare,

And of my adoration, just so….au contraire.

“There is so much beauty before us here ,

It is so hard to decide….you tell me, my dear,”..

She said..

”What to you is the most desirous fare?”

But it was not merely from the economic guardianship of father or husband that women felt themselves emancipated.  Love-intrigues of all sorts were constantly in progress.  The ballet-dancers (-mimae-) were quite a match for those of the present day in the variety of their pursuits and the skill with which they followed them out; their primadonnas, Cytheris (Volumnia Cytheris was an Ancient Roman actress and mimae dancer). and the like, populate even the pages of history.

But their, as it were, licensed trade was very materially injured by the free art of the ladies of aristocratic circles.  Liaisons in the first houses had become so frequent, that only a scandal altogether exceptional could make them the subject of special talk; a judicial interference seemed now almost ridiculous. An unparalleled scandal, such as Publius Clodius produced in 693 at the women’s festival in the house of the Pontifex Maximus (Julius Caesar at that time..hence his divorce from his wife, claiming that now famous line ; “Ceasar’s wife must be above even suspicion”), although a thousand times worse than the occurrences which fifty years before had led to a series of capital sentences, passed almost without investigation and wholly without punishment.

The twist of the knife.

“ ‘Twas the cruel hand of fate”, some will attest,

“Plain bad luck..had to give it best”.

No plot nor plan nor Nemesis,

That loss of life, fortune..no redress.

There was that time for just the smile,

Luck, sweet mistress, walk a mile,

Friends, well wishes, oh wilful guile,

Was jealous intent? or blunt revile!

Chance will intervene yet awhile,

To arm the hand, repay the slight,

Fate; cruel mistress will plunge the knife,

Yes..Fate’s deft hand..would repay it best,

But truly I say ; ” ‘tis the twisting of the blade,

Gives most pleasure…

Above ALL the rest ”

The watering-place season–in April, when political business was suspended and the world of quality congregated in Baiae and Puteoli (Naples)–derived its chief charm from the relations licit and illicit which, along with music and song and elegant breakfasts on board or on shore, enlivened the gondola voyages.  There the ladies held absolute sway; but they were by no means content with this domain which rightfully belonged to them; they also acted as politicians, appeared in party conferences, and took part with their money and their intrigues in the wild coterie-doings of the time.

Any one who beheld these female statesmen performing on the stage of Scipio and Cato and saw at their side the young fop–as with smooth chin, delicate voice, and mincing gait, with headdress and neckerchiefs, frilled robe, and women’s sandals he copied the loose courtesan– might well have a horror of the unnatural world, in which the sexes seemed as though they wished to change parts.

A Cold, Cruel Dream.

I dreamt she’d died, unsatisfied..

And our children asked me to attend the rite.

And though divorced these many years,

Would I please to view her in state?

Now that, is not something I’d normally do,

The plastic presentation of death I eschew.

But curiosity urged me abide ,

To view that woman I’ve many years evade.

As I gazed on the broad, Irish face,

That had lied and cheated from my embrace,

I blanched at the look of innocence there,

Rose blossoms dappling her now grey hair.

As if to deny to me by this final sight ,

The justice for many years that was my right.

Forgiveness not what I sought,

But rather admission for the damage wrought.

Upon marriage, relationship and our children begot.

But now, in the silence of this final place,

No word from those lips so bitter she’d trace,

No reason, no ’scuse, no thought of disgrace.

Just an emptiness , as per her usual escape.

Nothing..save one long-stemmed rose strategically placed,

HER request, no doubt….sensitive to an image she’d like embraced,

Always keen to leave an impression entranced…

Enough!

I turned to go…then..in a moment inspired ,

I took that rose there so astutely attired,

Broke off part of the stem.. and did place

The thorny stalk, it’s vicious spikes,

Across those tight, pressed lips now forever chaste.

What ideas as to divorce prevailed in the circles of the aristocracy may be discernedin the conduct of their best and most moral hero Marcus Cato, who did not hesitate to separate from his wife at the request of a friend desirous to marry her, and as little scrupled on the death of this friend to marry the same wife a second time. Celibacy and childlessness became more and more common, especially among the upper classes.  While among these marriage had for long been regarded as a burden which people took upon them at the best in the public interest, we now encounter even in Cato and those who shared Cato’s sentiments the maxim to which Polybius a century before traced the decay of Hellas, that it is the duty of a citizen to keep great wealth together and therefore not to beget too many children.  Where were the times, when the designation “children-producer” (-proletarius-) had been a term of honour for the Roman?

Loss.

Into the fire she did cast,

Letter by letter until the last.

Her stern face, flame-lit aglow,

No pity nor sentiment did it show.

No regret, nor heartfelt loss,

As letter by letter she did toss.

Until the last in hesitant hold,

One short sentence writ in bold,

One final line that caught her eye,

And though the rest she did despise,

That one broken promise with love’s death,

Gave pause for memory’s catch of breath,

Forgotten above this, all the rest;

“Forever my Love, my love, to you,

I do bequeath”.

 

Time now, my little chickadees to sign off on both Roman Women and the day…night-night my little ones…

Joni Mitchell… “The Circle Game”.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9VoLCO-d6U

 

The Language of Class Control.

Back in my first marriage, when I was “encouraged” to attend many spiritual “workshops” in that miasma of “new age” enlightenment, run, in the most part by self-proclaimed wanker gurus from the legion of reformed middle-class hippie escapees of the “Leafy Suburbs”, The formula for discussion was to take one’s turn of holding the “Talking Stick” and then and only then quietly and serenely make your point or tell your story to the group…I don’t think I need tell you the actual jargon-stacked sentences that preceded and followed each “talker” as they held that sacred icon of conversation : “The Stick”…..I think the series ; “Kath and Kim” demonstrated such contrived jargon with fair and considered accuracy.

In short, we can differentiate between the social classes by the methodology of conversation practice used. There seems to be a bias toward what the middle-class calls “polite manners”..”polite conversation”..where one waits one’s turn while the incumbent “converser” talks their talk to the very end of what THEY wish to talk about…no matter the length, tediousness or delusion of their conversation…: “THEY have the right to be heard”…Whereas, in my experience in the building trade, any conversation of passionate expression held on site and carried over by habit to the front bar, has to be called out in a loud, firm voice, somewhat peppered with colourful expletives and colloqualisims..whilst in the action of doing work, that echoes between rooms and perhaps between floors of an empty building…the many conversations competing with other machinery sounds or even different conversations…so a regular cacophony of shouted points and counterpoints..layer upon layer..is the methodology of debate and this gets carried…as I said..over by force of habit and location into the front bar or back-yard BBQ where the surrounding noise of the other patrons/family groups or the several televisions playing different sports at the one time in a bar has to be competed with….THAT is the natural order of working class rhetoric and political debate..the pointed finger, the half eaten sausage on bread..between sips of wine or stubby..a kind of chaotic logic, where the most vitriolic voiced opinion will sometimes win the day, depending heavily on the passionate belief of the speaker…No nice manners here..and the proving of the point you wanted to make was encased in the solid belief in what you wanted to say…if you didn’t have the strength of voice to carry your convictions, you lost the conversation…simple as that!

And this is where the domination of the middle-class in matters of opinion and politics controls the MSMedia and the Parliamentary debate…it is no more than a continuity of that “well-mannered talking stick” holding the floor and delivering a one-sided, bias toward that class that has drawn up the rules-of-discussion, the conditions of loquatial  intercourse, where the short-patience, the tumbling-out of thoughts in a sudden envision of idea and schematic implementation with an unruly manner, the speaking over another less enthralling speaker to get one’s point across while it is fresh in the mind, like a spring zephyr…and not to have it suffocated under the oppressive boredom of another’s sermon of mind-numbing middle-class impotent drudgery.

Now with social media, we hear those same middle-class voices calling for censorship on the more rudely expressors of political contradiction to satisfy that pompous, pontificating, self-righteous endless rambling to nowhere conversations of the middle-classes…F#CK ‘EM I say!…I had a gut-full back in that first marriage of waiting for the “talking stick” that had to do the rounds of pontificating and patronising jargon before it got to you, and I won’t now, as an experienced adult stand in some f#ckin’ middle-class mannerism queue waiting till they have finished their waffling chatter…a seemingly endless stream of obfuscation and fillerbustering…one might as well wait for the blowing of Gabriel’s Trumpet sounding the end of the world!…And don’t they manipulate the “taking of turn” to have their say, using every methodology and trickery learned in debating class or from their cadgy mentors to hold on to that “right to be heard” until time or the subject matter is talked into oblivion…and so having succeeded by default in exhausting the subject where they had no capacity to actually do the job in the first place.

If we look back to the time of Barnaby Joyce’s faux pas with his paramour, we heard so many “finishing-school pontificators” demanding we “rude and noisy” people not criticise the minister on his degenerate behaviour, because : “It’s the rorting, not the rooting…you see?”…when all the time it was the betrayal of moral and ethical standards of the family and community that he represented..all the time!..and yet so much momentum was wasted of those flatulating commentators demanding we :”Don’t call her/him names..it’s not fair..” or wtte and now we see just how “fair” it was with that bastard colluding to run the Murray-Darling basin into the ground…literally!…Barnaby would’ve been castigated if not castrated if we had pinned him on the moral issue instead of the stupid pursuit of the rorting issue…a commonplace action amongst so many in his position..useless waffling middle-classes..a bunch of chatterers!

And really..it is no more than those medieval overlords forbidding the Irish to speak their Gaelic language, the forbidding by the mediaeval bishops of the translation of the Bible from Latin to English to stop any commons understanding of the religion, the attempts to squash the indigenous languages by stopping the spread or talking of such languages..by any other name..a tyranny!…WE..will speak in the language WE best know, WE best communicate with and which WE best understand!…The working classes don’t need middle-class lessons in debate or eloqution, for what eloquence we have lacked in the past, we will make up with our own vernacular…and believe me..we have more than enough colourful colloqualisms to describe bastardry behaviour than the proverbial Inuit has to describe snow!

Time for the working classes, vulgar as we can be, with our shouty rhetoric, our noisy demands to be heard, our earned moment on the dias and deserved voices to call in united yell to those bastards who THINK they hold both the Right to rule and the Floor of the Parliament to have their pathetic whinge hold pride of place in the vocal annals of humankind.

Social media IS the “common voice”…IS the crude instrument, IS the majority voice of those who have the lungs to shout from social “room to room”, from “house to house” and from “floor to floor” the message that will not be heard if we have to wait our turn for that strangely elusive “talking stick” so gratuitously and patronisingly “gifted” to us from the middle-classes.

NO!!….Here we are and we now take the floor…and by the living Christ..you will hear what we have to say..and YOU’LL..take your turn to remain silent till WE say it

 

The Flight of Icarus.

(The Lament for Icarus ; Herbert Draper).

The fall of Icarus has a legion of metaphorical interpretations...so I will add mine in that I believe those ancient Greeks were a bit more basic in their meanings and I too will go for the basic instinct in man and interpret the myth as a desire for the erotic and in delving too deep into the pleasures of female erotica, the young man...indeed ANY man will risk falling from grace and drowning in a despair of sorrowful loss..

The Flight of Icarus.

Wash over me balm of my soul,

Wash over me as sea-waves over shoal,

While I lay me here in my nights alone,

In refuge from waging a long war done,

The burns and wounds that you see,

Are remnants of a battle so, so weary.

What make of man does this man become,

Who has flown much too close to the Sun,

A fool, a jester, maybe a warrior undone?

Like Icarus whose vanity drew him too,

Seeking joys and elation calling him also.

Songs and arising cries from Siren’s Isles,

The warnings given by his father and elder men,

On deaf ears they fell for thrill of such flight

Of fancy, hungering toward erotic nights,

Flew him likewise too close to that Sun,

Too close to the heat of a woman in cheongsam .

Whose warmth and comforts coaxed him on,

To forsake all wisdom, all reason abandoned,

Flattered his manhood, melted all caution,

So to lose free flight, tumble, fall and drown.

Such is the fate avowed men so disdained,

Rejected, betrayed, or perhaps disowned.

Icarus, thou foolish youth indeed,

Were you not warned, why not heed,

Caution your desire, temper your needs,

Lest such sad fortune comfort thine enemies?

But alas such promises of sensual delight,

Lure greater by far than wisdom’s pale enlight’,

And the enticements of such wonderous flesh,

In wanton display will never redress,

What drives a man toward her state of undress,

So yes….

What becomes a man as a man so scorned,

Who has traded home, heart and hearth,

For the desires of a woman would be him done,

Recklessly, foolishly, again, and again…

Flying too close.. MUCH too close to that Sun?

 

Bedtime Stories.

I stare into time’s eyes…She stares back at me. Actually, it isn’t time as in measurement, it’s my cat..she has that stare of eternity..like cats seem to have..like she has been born into forever. I stare into her eyes sometimes as she sits on my lap..we exchange knowledge..I have to admit to her that I do not like raw, gutted mouse and she draws the line at chilli con carne…..lose the chilli, she says and she’ll give it a go…but she is partial to a nibble of smoked salmon…then she curls up on my lap and we both go to sleep.

I like bedtime stories….I like the night.

I am the night.

Beware the people of the day,

Their plans, their tools, the schemes they lay.

Beware the people of the light,

They have no feelings for the night.

I am a person of the night,

I bask and wallow in its quiet delight.

I stand drenched in the light of a million stars,

I wash my soul in Celest’s sweet baths.

Night..soft as scented smoke,

Velvet smoothed draping cloak.

Comes, caresses me gentle all around,

Sweet as complexion rain on a Derry Down.

I stand under the sight of a million stars,

Starlight pouring down on me,

Each a whisper in this night,

Each star a story delight.

I am a person of the night,

I bask and wallow in its quiet delight.

I stand drenched in the light of a million stars,

My soul washed clean in Celest’s sweet baths.

My mother used to read me “Lassie Come Home” when I was very young. My mother wanted to be a writer..she did write some short stories and sold a couple too. But in growing up in extreme poverty like so many of that generation from the great depression and the wars, she held her own self and her privacy closely guarded, so she couldn’t be hurt..so her stories didn’t go deeper than a recalling of anecdote or observation..for to tell stories of a person’s situation, you have to reveal some of yourself…you have to cut out a piece of yourself every time you draw that picture.

But I do have a scratch of a poem of hers she wrote when a teenager in love…it is only a section, but it says a lot..I think..

“Now at last I am free!

Off through the scrub I run

Where sheep tracks only are seen

Nothing but bush and sun

Till all of a sudden I come

Out where an axe swings free.

Cutting, for love and money

The axe bites deep in a tree…”

My mother married that axeman…an Italian interned as an “enemy alien” during the war.. They made a sort of life in the fringe suburbs of the capital city..on the southern hills near the sea…far from the bush and Mallee, far from the Dolomites…two strangers in strange country..but the irony must be admitted in the revelation in the correspondence and account books of my parents after their passing, that while my father sent a not small amount of money back to his parents in Italy, my mother, likewise, invested regular amounts in the Brighton Parish of the Catholic Church…and we kids went around dressed in hand-me-downs…But the Rosary figured central to our meals every night after eating.

The Tide.

Like a sailor old, who watches the tide,

Life’s many moods I do abide…and still I watch,

For there comes a wash of the river flow,

That carries the ebb, what comes and goes.

That “tide in men’s lives” that carries their thoughts,

Like flotsam swept before a wave wild wrought

By wind and storm or by deceiving calm they be brought,

To wreck upon Charybdis rocks or wash up on rugged tor.

Fortune for that sailor who with astute eye,

Will risk the temper of mood and tide,

And call the exact moment makes best to ride.

He casts the ropes that hold him belay,

All wind and storm be no delay.

Yet I and thee, chained to life’s fickle destiny,

Can but watch as the vessel sails away from we,

While idly biding…

Like empty shells scattered on a wide, broad shore,

Awaiting tide and waves also, to move us ever-more…

Anyway, we grew up in spite of our parents…even though they tried to stall that inevitability by sending us to Saint Theresa’s Primary School, to be harangued and psychologically tortured by some sexually frustrated nuns…the “Sisters of Mercy”…I think they lost their “by name” calling somewhere along the line…for merciful they were not!…I still remember one of them..Sister Mary Lawrence..who stalked the playgrounds looking for victims (most prevalently amongst the boys) with a chastising length of jarrah in her hands…growing up as a carpenter, I can perfectly record the measurement of that flitch as around 18 inches long, by 2 inches wide and ¾ of an inch thick…it was marked by having a bevel down each side along the full length…presumably done on Sisters instruction so as to get a better grip when inflicting pain onto a child’s hide!..I can recall one particular moment when Brian Hurley and myself were playing marbles in a “verboten” area of the schoolyard and Sister Lawrence bearing down upon us at great haste with that piece of jarrah held high like a missionary’s crucifix and her nuns habit flowing about her in a voluminous black terror…and to this day, whenever I hear a rendition of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”, I am instantly thrown back to that moment of descending doom!  It’s a pity those nuns couldn’t find sexual satisfaction with the priests in the presbytery next door…as I’m certain THEY TOO could have done with some release of tension!

When a catholic priest goes to a convent to hear the confessions of the nuns there, it is said he goes to ;”Dust the Lilies”….the lilies, of course, being the ;”Lilies of the fields”…: The nuns.

“Dusting the Lilies”.

Wither goest thou, Father John,

On such a splendid day?

Do you follow whimsy’s course,

A carefree wanderer…say?

A laugh, a smile, pause a while..

Then, cautious answer, yea..

“I go toward yonder gate,

Under stately blue-gum tree.

There, (with blessings of God)..

I go to ‘dust the lilies’.

To dust the lilies gently,

Lest such petals fade and die.

I’ll embrace their hips,

Kiss their lips,

And whisper a little white lie!”

I blame our grandmother for the almost fanatical adherence to Catholic doctrine…SHE was a fervent believer that converted from Protestantism when she arrived in Australia…why..heaven knows..but I have my own suspicions and in any case, it caused the catastrophe of her meeting and marrying one Richard Hocking…Theirs was to be a tormented, impoverished existence that burned a sense of shame and frugality into the very souls of their children…I believe parents ought to consider very carefully their own state of existence before inflicting any such example upon their offspring.

I awoke in a startled fright

From a dream I dreamt last night.

From a memory so long ago,

I’ll recall the moment as it did go..:

A child, from the pusher,I broke free,

As my mother walked me by the sea.

I broke free to chase a rabbit fast,

Fled a shrub by the sea-cliff path.

I ran as does a child; sudden, swift,

As the rabbit fled over the cliff.

I too stumbled toward the edge,

But my mothers call of fright,

Drew me to a stop just right.

I could see the waves crash below,

She gathered me frightened in her arms…

But now, in this dream I did fall,

Tumbling over with rabbit and all.

As we fell in that slow dreamy way,

Each to each, eye to eye..knowing .

The creature looked to me to calmly say;

“Do not worry, you will not drown”.

But I kept falling, falling, falling down…

Just then I woke in chilling fright

And in that gasping, grasping struggle for sight

I stared and stared into the depths of night.

 

The stroking of a cat’s fur is so much more relaxing that that of a dog's…the cat is a more tranquil beast..it hunts, yes..just like a dog..but it hunts by silent stealth, whereas a dog will in most cases run down its prey and tear into it with force and brutality..and they hunt also in packs..I remember when I was in Rome for the first time around 1980 and the dog-packs were getting so dangerous that the authorities had to organize squads of police to mass shoot so many dogs to cull their numbers.

I like dogs too, mind..I like all animals…but I’ll be buggered if I will ever stoop to eating crickets and bugs for protein!…nah…fuck that!

Anyway, peeps..that’s all for tonight…I’ll read you some more tomorrow…goodnight.

The Beatles : “Goodnight”.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp_djIuQ2Cw

Why I live where I live.

Here’s several “cameos” of my personal interpretation of the place where I live. They are a personal slant and you can take it or leave it as you please….and of course : all names and references to persons are purely accidental and non-litigious…

#1..

A short announcement.

As well aware as we are these days of those “Great Moments in History” where an event is celebrated on canvas…like, say ; George Washington crossing the Delaware…or Captain James Cook bearing up proudly on the bow of the Endeavour’s whaler boat as he broaches the sandy shore of Botany Bay…or even our own Col’ Light on Montefiore Hill, with his determined arm outstretched pointing to the possible location of the future precinct of Adelaide….and how right he was!…. I’d like to draw your attention to those little moments in history…enacted in those little places way off the beaten track that, one must acknowledge, do deliver their own great moments within their own little worlds….less perhaps, “momentous” than “of the moment”!

Such an event happened on the evening of the 2^nd of June 1953…..on The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth 2^nd .. at the Sedan Hotel front bar, where was gathered a regular small group of loyal local blokes…many bearing the Germanic names of that peoples that had been enemies in two wars of recent memory….but wishing to scotch any rumours of disloyalty to The Crown, the publican of the hotel called for silence with the ringing of a spoon on the rim of a schooner glass and proposed a toast to;

“ Her Majesty…The Queen!”…..

THAT is the orthodox version of events…..I have it on good authority, though I will not vouch for it’s exactness of detail, that another short announcement accompanied that toast that created a certain amount of “discussion” within that small community….

it went like this..

I doubt it goes without some knowledge in these small country towns, that certain individuals practice ..habits..that are ..shall we say..of a different complexion to the mainstream. Most accomplish these little peccadilloes in the secrecy and privacy of their own homes…by themselves…of course there is a price to pay for all that secrecy…there is the paranoia that if discovered, the general consensus of “the mob” will excoriate and damn the individual in question to exile or worse….such “difference” is a heavy burden to carry..particularly if one is working every day, shoulder to shoulder with his fellows in the fields…it wears on a chap!

Such a burden had for several years weighed heavily upon one such chap amongst that gathering that evening in the front bar of The Sedan Hotel…(we shall not name names!)…He had come to the decision a week or so before that he would share this burden with his fellows and take the consequences ..whatever…he would “own” his idiosyncrasy.

He had chosen that particular evening and he had steeled himself for the occasion with rehearsed lines and solemn mood to deliver to best advantage that which he wished to say….the fact that the publican had chosen, with his unfortunate royal toast to the newly coroneted queen, the very apex of that moment, the very inhale of breath so to speak, was inconvenient, but not a deterrence…he decided to press ahead.

The silence was heeded, the glasses were charged, the toast was made..:

“To the Queen!”..”Hear, Hear!”

…the schooners were just touched to wetted lips when he made his own small announcement to the gathered circle …:

“I like wearing women’s clothes…..I always have .”

Several members of the party had to be revived after choking and spluttering on the amber fluid just then in the act of consumption.

I would not like to claim that he said it “gaily”…but rather, in a quiet, solemn voice…soft, but determined…his chin “steeled” to suit the gravitas of the moment.

You know, there are some hesitations in the general hubbub of public gatherings where a void of silence can follow momentous announcements…I’m thinking of Julius Caesar about to cross the Rubicon and he says quietly to the troops..;

“Jacta alia est” (the die is cast)..the legions, I suspect, fell respectfully silent…

..or Horatio Nelson with his famous telescope to the blind eye..:“I really do not see the signal”….

There are others…there are others…such a silence followed this announcement in the front bar of The Sedan Hotel….a full ten seconds silence…an eyewitness noted the ticking of a clock (two rooms away) for a full ten tocks…that record, I hasten to add, still stands!…I suspect the shock of this fellow navvy, this rough-handed roustabout, whom they were more used to see in moleskins and blucher-boots, informing them of his preference for women’s petticoats and finery threw some small confused images into their male minds…..it wasn’t long, however, “till the boat rightened itself”, the wave of confusion subsided and he was confronted with wide-eyed “enthusiasm”…..needless to say, his first suspicions of the possibility of estrangement, alienation and blind anger were quite sufficiently full-filled!

#2..

Sedan aspirations and goals.

Now, anyone here who has lived in a small country town will recognize the situation I am about to describe. There is a familiarity with both the pettiness of complaint and the seriousness of the minutiae of desire for redress that runs like “Orteses Thread” through the fabric of the community..and like all these little communities, a heady mix of “rumour, envy and shadenfreude” sustains all it’s members!

Into this community, there came the new CEO. of the local council to address the citizens in a “Community Aspirations and Goals meeting at the Sedan Memorial Hall, all invited w/ coffee and cake provided”. Now right there, from the start, any local could’ve told him that he could’a doubled his attendance if’n he’d offered ‘mini-savs’ on the menu! As it was , a goodly group turned up to ‘sus out’ the new CEO. I was one of that group…I had a couple of ‘goals’ of my own to suggest at that meeting!….

It went like this.

The new CEO came from the Sth East…Mt Gambier , to be precise..There is a lot of water down that end of the state..and maybe they are more used to partaking of THAT liquid rather that the Sedan locals..to whom beer and the like are no strangers! So it was as no surprise that several “known” members of the local public came to the meeting straight from the front bar of the Sedan Hotel..and I did notice that one such, with the nickname ; “Pull-through” (I won’t go into the reasons for these designations, it could be too tedious and convoluted…some though, give a hint!), skinny as he is, found the doorway a tad too narrow as he ricocheted off the jambs!

“ Now I don’t want to be sitting back in my office in Mannum dictating to the community what it will have”..the CEO began. “I want YOU..the community to tell me what are YOUR aspirations and  goals for Sedan…” and here he paused for effect to thrust his pointer at several headings written on a large piece of butchers paper blu-tacked on the wall…he swept his black-rimmed bespectacled and wide-eyed gaze accusatively around the room….feet shuffled..a sign of expected comment.

“How about a ramp in the gutter there outside the pub..there on the footpath” ‘Banger’ was first off the rank…the CEO raised his eyebrows.

“Oh, so ..a ‘disabled ramp’ in the kerbing?” he suggested.

“Well…” ‘Banger’ drawled “Not so much ‘disabled’…well not going IN..coming out maybe!..” this got a few laughs..” But you can make a miss-step there and do your self some damage on a Friday night”..a good deal of nodding and cross-chatter affirmed this point..

“…broke six bottles the other week!…”was heard in one camp.

“Yes, yes..I see…mark that down Mr. Parker. “ the CEO addressed his clerk. “Some more please”.

Of course, Banger’s first foray into the pond unleashed a tirade of ideas…from the problem with puddles outside the post-office (when it DID rain), painted house numbers on the kerbs (only a small portion of the town has kerbing) to a scenic car-park on the top of Sedan Hill for the visitors to the district (this last drew a muffled gasp from the crowd for it’s audaciousness…a pet project of Mrs. Auricht) ..several more trite complaints followed. The poor CEO, expecting more in the line of aspirations than desperations was becoming impatient at the somewhat pettiness of the requests..

“Yes, yes..but I was hoping for…for…” his eyes swept the room..he saw not the least sympathy….he understood..”…NO!..put those down, Mr. Parker..put those..those ideas in that ledger of yours….ok..any more?”

I was waiting for my moment..After a short silence and the turning of heads toward each-other negatively, I put up my hand.

“ I have an idea “ I volunteered. A disapproving murmur pulsated through the crowd..my reputation had preceded me!..

” A fountain!” I exclaimed boldly..” In the centre of the ‘square’ there…we move that cement obelisk..after all it is only a street sign, not a memorial..and we put a fountain in the centre of the town..as a mark of beauty and a testament to the resilience of this community living in a dry country…I envisage (yes..I spoke like that!..I had rehearsed)  a low, brimming bowl with the water lapping over a polished, curved lip..within this bowl is a tryptich sculpture of panels..three sandstone panels carved in relief with representations of (in the centre) ; The Ubiquitous Mallee Tree..flanked by on one side representations of the Indigenous peoples and on the other ; the Pioneers of the district..(There was silence in the room as I spoke..more now, I realise , from shock than from politeness!)…the entire fountain surrounded by beds of native flora….so that visitors driving into the town from any direction, will immediately see this amazing display in the middle of dryness and say ; “WOW!”…” I finished my little spiel with a flourish of my arms.

There was silence in the room..a full seven seconds silence…the record for Sedan is ten seconds!..then , like bursting through the surface of water after a deep dive, the cacophony of the world around came crashing in…a veritable HOWL of derision and outrage was flung in my direction…everybody moved away from me..of the dissenters, “Slammer” was most red-faced ..on his feet straight up..

“ Move the obelisk!?..” he raged,  “..move the fuckin’ obelisk !!?..my dad helped build that fuckin’ obelisk…it’s..it’s a treasure..almost sacred!…no!..no !…we don’t move the fuckin’ obelisk!..no, ferget it!” nodding heads and cries of support for ‘Slammer’ were thick on the ground , so that the CEO. gave a shake of his head to his clerk and then decided to wrap up the meeting. I quickly made my escape.

It was about a month before some folk would talk to me in the street after such blasphemy. But I do hold second place (I believe) in the ‘Sound of  Silence’ record in the community..There are some small moments to treasure with the experience of living in small country towns…I’ll tell you about them someday!

#3

Ziedel’s secret carburetor.

There’s a lot of ; “Eee bah guumly” in this district..or there would be if they were Yorkshiremen.. as it is there’s the equivalent!…in Germanic brogue…if there is such a thing..

Was asking for a bit of background knowledge on a long deceased relative of mine from the local aged mechanic…Peter….He and his offsider ; Vern, run the only workshop in the district..have done for near on fifty or sixty years!…I don’t know…neither does anyone else…not even them!

“He was a very inventive sort of chap” ..I assisted.

“Ooo, there were a lot of them about in them days” Peter opined “There was Pastor Ziedel…he was a sort of genius…Do you know, he invented this carburetor that could halve petrol consumption in a motor..but he was dammed clever how he done it.” and here Peter tapped the side of his nose.

“How so?” I asked.

“Well, you know he didn’t want anybody to find out how he done it, so he got those little jets and seats and whatnot made in many different places so no-one person could put them all together…Ooo..he was cunning alright”

“So did you get to see how it looked?” I pushed on. Peter stopped, pulled up and looked at me in wide-eyed wonder.

“No!..of course not, it was a secret…hell, he wouldn’t let anyone see how he done it…why, if he went to any motor event, he’d take that special carburetor off and put the old one on so nobody could pinch his design..Ooo, he was cunning , ; old Pastor Ziedel.”

“But if no one saw it, how do you know it worked?”

There was a pause in the response, which told me that this line of reasoning had rarely before been broached…then ;…

“Whhyy…of course it worked…you ask anybody who knew of it…he had it on his old Holden for years…of course it worked…and dammed good too!”

“Well, I imagine some one saw it after he passed away…was it in his estate when they went through his effects?”

“No..not that I ever heard..I suppose his son threw it out with a lot of other stuff.”

“What!” I exclaimed “I would have thought it would be a very valuable item.”

“Maybe…but because the old man was so secretive about it, I don’t suppose the sons would have know what it was if’n they came across it.”

And THAT is the wonderful way mythology is created!….eee bah guum !

 

 

Bedtime Stories #8.

Machiavelli.

 

The Cabal of Complicity.

There is a curious double standard inherent in these regional communities that goes way back to the pioneer days and has it’s roots deep in the soil of “old family / old traditions” loyalty. Sure and it is a misguided loyalty in these times as those same “old families” have been long watered down by new systems, new blood and new technology that has swept away the old work-ethic creed and community morality standard.

It works like this .. :

Every regional community has its’ number of “old families”.. “long-time residents” .. “long-time employees”. Every single one of these people over the years evolve to become part of a strata of acknowledged hierarchical status, ie ; They are allocated their place in that community. Some have a leadership place, some have a “drone” place, some have the inherited if unearned respect of an influential family, while others are what you would call “floaters” ; in and out of favour at some time or other … The perfect example of the Peter Principle .. Then there are the “blow-ins”.

(From) ; Ode to Machiavelli..

“. . .The biggest mistake being; not understanding history,

But make mystery of what we WILL NOT see..Is it just me?

Or is it thee who takes more pleasure from the infinite variety

Of incidents in this or that society and scandalous pleasure

As your measure of understanding, rather than demanding

We take heed to the answers to those deeds, as if these

Times have changed the behaviour of men and then of women too

It’s a shoo-in to see ; the Sun the Moon, the sea and thee

Have not changed their motions and power, hour on hour

From ancient times, I’d avower and from such error; allora!. . . “

All of these “old” regional communities seem to thrive on a social diet of rumour, envy and schadenfreude. There are short and long-term feuds, niggling, petty hates and overall the cautious, suspicious envy of what the neighbour may have that you have not .. and if they do have it, how did they get it!

The level that these petty trysts achieve and are operating on can be seen by the state of beauty or disrepair of the township. Those towns in a greater state of turmoil show little regard for their environment, or for the general civic repair or beauty of their town, being more concerned with their feuds than their civic obligations.

BUT! .. but, strangely, all these communities, no matter how divided within , will unite against what is perceived as a common outside threat. This unity of concentration is called ; The Cabal of Complicity.

The mirror tells its secret tale,

What is REALLY YOU will prevail,

When all may not be as it seems,

The really you will haunt my dreams.

There are, of course, the age-old bigotries against race, religion and politics … Then there are the new hatreds .. : Environmentalists seem to fill the void for a common enemy, as do refugees, strangely as most who came to this country and particularly those regional communities were refugees of one kind or another and there is that lovely old standby distrust .. : The Indigenous Peoples.

Curiously though, there is another “player” that comes into the picture about now, he is a “blow-in”, a newcomer, but he is saying all the right phrases that appeal to the local prejudices … He pushes all the right approval buttons. This toady targets the most influential to his station and needs. With astute flattery and sycophantic conversation, not to mention the strategic “on me” beer, he soon becomes accepted into the cabal as a “friend of the community”, he “legitimises” local opinion as being “in-tune” with the broader population and is often privy to a host of secrets, while juggling conspiracies and confederacies. He is a strange animal and in most cases a reject of the more cosmopolitan world of city-life.

Beauty.

These are things once memory sees,

Cannot be forgot, nor disdained.

These things that we do treasure,

Things lost or all forlorn,

Which I did adore is grown pale and wan,

What was ever so beautiful once,

Is gone…is gone.

Nature may mark the species,

But history marks the men,

Lies shape the person,

Whose fortune is already damned.

The stupid repeat their mistakes-and

A fool is condemned in vain.

These things our memory has seen,

Not to be forgot, nor to be disdained,

Lest that we most treasure, be lost or forlorn,

And which we adore grow pale and wan,

So THAT beauty that ever once was,

Is gone…is gone.

This “strange animal” adopts the dress, the language, the scepticisms and the inherent suspicions against that universal political generic : “The head office” … The Guvverment . There being no easier audience to find applause from than that who knows already and shares as their own ; your every story, every joke your every prejudice.

In each of us there is that twist,

That in the end will come to this.

No matter the culture, the mother, the art,

Each to each,

Heart to heart.

To enter such communities and hold views in conflict with the status quo (listed above) is to court social pariahism. For although you may be of the opinion that you have just had a “heated discussion” with only one member of the community …. because such a member “went to school with … “, “grew up with … “, “played football with … “, “drank with … “, “did a season shearing with … “, “works with … “, or just plain “is related to … ” , it won’t be long, regardless if the culprit is despised, hated, reviled or spurned by nearly every other single individual in the entire cabal ….. YOU will “have the problem”.

Because the one grain, perhaps the only grain of carved-in-stone knowledge in such communities is that its very weakness is its’ strength, so each is complicit in backing-up, right or wrong, innocence or guilt, with silent dismissal or wilful disdain, its’ “in-house” member.

Jacta alia est.

Jacta alia est..; The die it is cast.

Caesar quietly mumbles the words,

Mixed with the tumbling Rubicon’s waters,

And when he whispers his secret,

Who does he direct his knowledge to?

What lines do the poet place on page?

Is there those who will like the rhyme,

But curse the metre?

Will like the idea,

But curse the action?

Jacta alia est..; The die it is cast.

But there is no-one left

Who knows what chance is.

None want to take the risk.

So he says it quietly..under-breath,

And leads the dumb and blind

On to their deserved death.

It is the strength of their denial, it is their unifying fear of “divided they fall”, for each individual, lacking a worldly confidence, distrusting worldly knowledge, has no solid footing, but is fixed in the matrix of all .. it is the age-old maxim of “honour among thieves” …. so take on one, you take on all!

It is The Cabal of Complicity.

And now it is late for this little tacker to be up and about…time for sleepy-byes…night, night tweeps…sweet dreams..

“The Windmills of Your Mind” ..: Noel Harrison.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEhS9Y9HYjU

 

Bedtime Stories #5.

The search for soul…

Down the Adelaide Central Market, between Marino’s butchers and the Samtass fish market, there is a walk-through breezeway to Gouger Street. Years ago there was an arcade type stall there selling second-hand books..it was run by a bloke in his fifties, if I recall…I used to browse there when I was going past.

At the end nearest the street, there was a tray holding hundreds and hundreds of these …”penny dreadfuls” I suppose you’d call them…not even with a cardboard cover, but just some lurid pic on paper with around 50 pages or so stapled in a folded booklet type thing. Many of them so old and dog-eared as to be almost a throwaway item..

I asked the man behind the stall there about them..

“What are all these scribbled, tags inside the front cover?” I asked.

“That’s the personal initial or tag to identify that someone has read the story”. He replied…He then continued on…” I get orders from several old folk’s homes for them, so I bundle up about a dozen or so at the time and deliver them there on my way home. “

The Unloved.

Who will give them kisses, sweet kisses,

Essences distilled from secret sentences.

With touching fingers palpitating the heart.

And..and desire..

Ahh! DESIRE!..that wicked,

Wily, wonderful want! That demands attendance

At just about twilight.

When everyone else but thee is in a clutching embrace.

And then, late at night,

When all the bedroom lights turn off,

Leaving thee with no company…but the “cold, dark press of night!”

And unshakeable echoes of regrettable vanity.

…or pride (O’ the affection you scorned!),

“But they were hopeless, boors, losers!..

Where is that damn paper when you need it?

Ah! ..Here!” :

Read..: “Do apply if you are honest,

Attractive, with positive outlook.

I am an interesting intellectual,

54 years.

Seeking same for intimate evenings,

Sharing thoughts and hot toddy’s

By a flickering fire……………”

“Reads good!..I hope it brings ‘em in…”

“ What do they sell for?” I asked out of curiosity.

“Oh..there’s only sentimental value in them” he informed me “ I sell them to the people in the homes for 50 cents each…they read them over some months, mark them with that special tag and then I buy them back off them for 25cents each..and they go round and round…I know all their tags now, so I send them ones they haven’t read yet…they are slow readers and it keeps them content…”

Ah..growing old has its mercies..but also its regrets…would that one could drink from Ponce de León’s fountain of youth..I’m sure I would not let so many chances slip by…

If only..:

Would my wit be a sage much wiser.
Would my courage be somewhat bolder.
Would that time could take me back yonder,
To de León’s youthful fountain mythical . . .
There in a blush of delight so typical,
Would I and thee..as Adam and Eve,
As those children in the garden of Ede’,
Brighten our eyes to that first sight,
Of a new dawn rising over the mountain’s height.

If only. . .

I skimmed through some of the copies…they were mostly blatant romance or westerns with a romantic theme…on the front would be a “gunslinger” type or some “muscled young man”, his sleeves rolled up and a touch of “action man grime” in just the right places, with his arm around a “gal” and that determined look on a “chiselled jaw” face…that type of thing..

“ I wonder what they see in them?” I pondered “ They all seem to be about the same”..and I thumbed a copy..

The Secret.

I first heard its whisper in the wild oats,

Whose husks had shed their seed.

The breezes hustled the golden sheaths,

Where small lizards scurried beneath.

It was hushed to me in the cries of birds,

The scratching bark of the mallee tree.

It was held to me in my lover’s embrace,

When we kissed our anniversary.

The secret came from the other side,

Of the wide, vast universe.

But it really started right here and now,

In the confines of this Earth.

It is nothing strange or unusual,

But it can never really be told.

It is as young as a first desire,

As a drama about to unfold and

As needed and as fought for,

As  the last breath of the old.

“Yes..I wondered on that too once…” the seller said “And I asked this German woman who was a regular customer here at the stall..”

“Do you buy them for the romantic story?” I asked her..

“No, no…I am too old for the fictional romance…though I do like that side of it..but I read them to get …” and she struggled for the right words..” to remember the FEELING…the feeling of the emotion of romance…like when you were young….one forgets the feelings…you can remember the doing of some things..but the feelings of those moments slip away..and I want to still feel the emotion of those times and sometimes…not often, but just sometimes I get that feeling back…”

“I would never have thought of it that way” I remarked…but I was much younger then..Now, a much older man, I know exactly what she means…I too now have the beautiful memories…and I like to at moments hold or “freeze-frame” those moments and to then plunge into my emotions to surround that memory with the appropriate emotions and sensual feeling…to marry the moment with the desire…it is a difficult thing, but sometimes it just works…and it is a wonderful feeling..like that first kiss.

The Vanishing Door.

Though pleasant enough ;

These days of wine and roses,

When the wash of an evening sunset

‘Purples the fleece’d horizon.’

And yet..yet..does this doubt seep

Over me, like the fevered shiver

Of an approaching cold.

I have everything..and yet the

Small freedoms I have traded

Seem to hark back to me as whispers

From behind a wall..or door!

A vanishing door!

Through which passes every thought,

But I stay.

I see them vanish, but I stay.

Last night’s dreams..I’ve forgotten,

Yet , I still feel I enjoyed them so.

Gone, with my youthful memories,

Through the vanishing door.

And even the door soon will close forever.

But I fear…I will stay…

I think I can add a quote…for better or worse…from F.Scott Fitzgerald here..it is taken from his later writings toward the end of his life…from “The Crack-up”..essay #3..:

“So what? This is what I think now: that the natural state of the sentient adult is a qualified unhappiness. I think also that in an adult the desire to be finer in grain than you are, “a constant striving” (as those people say who gain their bread by saying it) only adds to this unhappiness in the end—that end that comes to our youth and hope.”

But this aging relic must now go to bed and claim some sleep…best if we all close our eyes and dream sweet dreams…goodnight my sweets…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWc5kD6Fa_c  (Everyone’s gone to the moon…Jonathan King )

 

Dead souls..

The title of this piece is from the Russian novelist Nikolai Gogol.

“The purpose of the novel was to demonstrate the flaws and faults of the Russian mentality and moral character. Gogol portrayed those defects through Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov and the people whom he encounters in his endeavours. These people are typical of the Russian middle-class of the time.” (Wiki..)

I believe we have reached a nationalist age level (if not yet an adult one) of maturity where we will have to confront the moral and ethical vacuum resident in our national communities. The decline of moral and ethical politics over the last few decades is a reflection of deep-seated flaws in the social contract between the structural/social classes in the community. The lack of interest in examining the moral and ethical standards of those members that have been elected to Parliament in the last few elections demonstrates a set of principles of integrity sadly lacking in the electorate.

The emphasis by those candidates on economic reward for choosing them over their opposition even after accusations of scurrilous moral or ethical behaviour shows a keenness in the communities more for financial blackmail than for social good..in short, it demonstrates that the voter base can be bought…and once an object is bought, it is “owned” by the purchaser.

“In the Russian Empire, before the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, landowners had the right to own serfs to farm their land. Serfs were for most purposes considered the property of the landowner, who could buy, sell or mortgage them, as any other chattel. To count serfs (and people in general), the measure word “soul” was used: e.g., “six souls of serfs”. The plot of the novel relies on “dead souls” (i.e., “dead serfs”) which are still accounted for in property registers. On another level, the title refers to the “dead souls” of Gogol’s characters, all of which represent different aspects of poshlost (a Russian noun rendered as “commonplace, vulgarity”, moral and spiritual, with overtones of middle-class pretentiousness, fake significance and philistinism).” (Wiki…)

Hence we have a governing class of politicians who juggle their policy mandates to suit their class economics, with little consideration for those from the working classes who suffer grievously from such decisions…We saw tens of thousands of household incomes lost through the cancelling of subsidies for the car industry, while billionaires in the mining sector were granted personal tax relief. We saw other tens of thousands of household incomes lost through outsourcing to overseas interests those jobs in ; IT, banking, airlines servicing, telecommunications, manufacturing and energy while stripping away funding from higher education and trade training here at home…purely to satisfy the barefaced lie that it would “save the bottom line in the budget”..We see hundreds of thousands of workers on cheap labour wages brought into the country on temporary visas to satisfy dis-loyal employers hunger for cheap labour.

The people who are “managing” this chaos of class-warfare, are of the same pedigree who sent us in the space of one hundred years into two World Wars, a depression in between in the 1930’s, stultifying conservatism of the Menzies era culminating in the gross destruction of a war in Vietnam, the betrayal of the National Political Trust with the Whitlam Dismissal, an unlimited farrago of credit driven by a shonky stockmarket surge in the 90’s ( “go on, have a go..it’s going gangbusters!”) , followed by the inevitable Global Financial Crisis of the 2000’s and now another blundering about with absolutely no idea of direction by another conservative govt’ as we head to a crisis of Global Warming and yet they STILL spruik the benefits of burning coal over renewables..These people who are managing us are the private school, elite university trained bozos of the upper-middle class who talk like they have both descriptive nouns and money to burn but in reality do not know shit from clay..their arsehole from their elbow..

Seriously…they do – not – know – shit – from – clay…but they DO know which side of the bread the butter is on and by Christ they spread it thickly when it suits themselves! This clueless class has had its moment in the sun..”MOMENT!!” did I say…they are baked fuckin’ dry!!.. they are already struggling to lie their way into the next election and only a lack of clear choice will give them a chance. There needs to be an indelible line drawn under the rule of middle-class politics..they are finished..they have proven over time that they cannot govern, only rule, they cannot manage, only demand and they cannot advance into the future, only retreat into a fantasy world of their own delusional past.

There needs to be secession from middle-class-capitalist politics to more equitable management of social contract of working-class politics. The trade unions and representatives of the indigenous peoples along with honest representatives of commerce and industry (cough! cough!) need to be brought into the inner circle of governance..no longer a single Head of State, but rather a “Tetrarchy” head of four to divide the nation into four governing quarters combining with State Governments..

With this form of governance, there is more chance for those of the educated working-class to step-up to positions of responsibility through Local or State Authorities via Union activity or Indigenous or cultural serving abilities. This will also put an end to “charismatic leadership” , where the oleaginous main-stream media can promote an individual from the LNP of doubtful moral and ethical quality to rule the nation…as the only way to the top will be through channels of merit, a path more than not denied by intellect AND ability to those from the private school system.

The time of sole middle-class politics is ended, the chaotic voting patterns seen in recent elections of both Houses has left us with a host of wannabe crazies with no hope of redemption and less of usefulness cogitating on bills and laws totally beyond their limited imagination.

There is only one class of citizen with the experience and life-skills inherent in their workaday lives to understand truly what depth and responsibility a social contract requires..that is the working-class..pure and simple…time to reject the failed idiot sons and daughters of the wealthy and bring in new blood and hope to the chaos of Australian politics.

“ The institution of a leisure class is found in its best development at the higher stages of the barbarian culture; as, for instance, in feudal Europe or feudal Japan. In such communities the distinction between classes is very rigorously observed; and the feature of most striking economic significance in these class differences is the distinction maintained between the employments proper to the several classes…” (Thorsten Veblen; The Theory of the Leisure class)

 

“The House”.

Anyone familiar with that 1998 film.: “The Truman Show” will not be too amazed at what I am about to reveal. I will warm those unfamiliar with the aforementioned film up a tad and bring them up to speed on my revelation.

“ He doesn’t know it, but everything in Truman Burbank’s (Jim Carrey) life is part of a massive TV set. Executive producer Christof (Ed Harris) orchestrates “The Truman Show,” a live broadcast of Truman’s every move captured by hidden cameras. Cristof tries to control Truman’s mind, even removing his true love, Sylvia (Natascha McElhone), from the show and replacing her with Meryl (Laura Linney). As Truman gradually discovers the truth, however, he must decide whether to act on it.”  (Wikipedia: The Truman Show).

Of course, that was just a film…and with The House, being of course a reference to The Houses of Parliament, we are dealing with a different kettle of fish…these “fish” in the Parliament operate into and out of our everyday lives, making laws and decisions that affect our well-being and survival….and that being so, have you ever wondered, as I have why some obvious mis-demeanours and obvious fraudulent criminal activities by the members of The House are seldom punished or just receive a “slap on the wrist” misdemeanour warning at worst and THEN proceed to be voted back into The House at the next election with an increased majority!

Well, thanks to a close acquaintance with an accountant from an old family business of accountants, I have recently been informed that there is some rather strange goings on involving the major parties and the running of our Parliament.

It all started before a Federal election some years ago with this accountant being given the task of sorting out and separating the investments and incoming moneys and arranging the accounts of a sitting member of Parliament so as to make his position legally accommodating to the rules and requirements for sitting members of The House.

Of course, coming from an old and trusted establishment of solicitors and accountants, the accountant was given complete access to the Members financial details..but the thing that had changed from the old days of written ledgers and account books, was the access to the internet and the capability to cross-check and deep-delve into domestic and overseas accounts..to “follow the money” so to speak..and the accountant in question, being the youngest member of that “old Family”, was super-savvy at digging and delving into domestic and…most particularly..overseas accounts…as a matter of fact, he delighted in noseying in and out of tax-havens to see just who was here or there and where the money went in such cases…he sometimes would, on a “quiet day” peruse a client’s accounts as an amusement..chasing their connections to this or that company or corporation through a labyrinth of data and discombobulation.

It was on a meander through the incoming moneys of the contracting Member of The House, that the accountant stumbled upon a most intriguing list..a list of sources of incoming payments into various accounts held by the Member of The House…it all seemed innocence enough until it came to the Parliamentary salary he received…for there, entered against the regular amount was a name of a corporation familiar to the young accountant of a Company registered in the Seychelle Islands as a tax haven foundation.

At first, thinking that it was just a diversion of funds through another established account, he dug deeper into the source of the Seychelles deposit amount and found that it had come from another tax-haven account registered to a different corporation in another area of the world. This threw some suspicious doubt upon the legitimacy of the moneys and he decided he would consult with the head clerk of accounts,  one : Ambrose Symonds and see if he could enlighten the situation…but even there, he met with cautious advice…

“I would suggest you leave off with the delving INTO sources and concentrate more on the shelving OF such accounts…” and Ambrose adjusted his spectacles on his nose whilst looking down at the young man with a most imposing stare.

Of course, this was grist for the young investigator’s mill and he made it his “outside work hours” hobby to pursue the matter further..and this is where I came in.

The young accountant..we’ll call him “Dexter” for convenience..and I played tennis in the same competition…in the same club and occasionally teamed up as a unbeatable doubles combination!..After the day’s competition, the common practice was to adjourn to the clubrooms for libations and chatter…This day, Dexter was a bit more subdued…it took several mixed drinks to ease the reason out of him..and I could feel it was a weight lifted to share his doubts.

He told me the above mentioned details about the separation of accounts and the restructuring of the members stocks, shares and holdings…a moment of absolute, crushing boredom to one of the physical work-world like myself..and then he paused, gazed about suspiciously and lowering his eyes and his voice spoke in a conspiratory tone..

“The thing that threw me” Dexter leaned into me “was that when I checked the salary accounts of several other parliament members we have on our books, they were also paid from the same account.”

“Well, perhaps the party has a deal with that company to take the moneys from the Parliamentary salaries office or wherever they are paid from and distribute it via that account accordingly”….I casually remarked..

Dexter again looked about in a suspicious manner and replied..:

“The accounts we hold are from different political parties…BOTH major parties!”..he almost hissed.

“Hang on,” I said..trying to get a hold on the situation..”You’re telling me that those members salaries of the major parties are paid into the one account in this tax-haven and the moneys then go from there to your clients?”

“YES!” Dexter made a grimaced face.

“Well..I don’t know..perhaps they ALL have a deal with this company because they offer the best options…I don’t know..a bit above my pay-level I’m afraid..” and I gave a chuckle.

“Yes..that would be all well and good, except I did some more digging…I have contacts through the company with a level of accountants in Treasury and while I did not speak or inquire directly about the said accounts, I could circumnavigate around the issue to find out some more information of direct payments to certain “efficiencies”….that’s what they call them..”efficiencies”..and it has led me to a conclusion that even YOU would find extreme and outlandish!”

“Shoot…” I said….Dexter winced at my slang term.

“Well, to cut a long story-trail of “following the money” short, what if I told you that there really isn’t any such a thing as a political party in this “government”…” Dexter framed his last word with fingers making inverted commas…..I stared at him with a smile for a moment then laughed softly..

‘You’re joking….aren’t you?…..you’re having me on…” and I laughed a bit louder…”C’mon, Dexter..we’ve only had a couple of drinks…you losing it this early?”…

“I wish I was…” Dexter swilled the drink in the glass “Perhaps I am losing it…but it gets worse..”….and here his face went a tad paler and he really did lean into me to whisper…

“What if I told you that there really isn’t even a Parliament…well not in the sense we understand it…oh it is there in front of our eyes on the Floor of The House, for sure…they go about their business, passing bills and laws etc..and perhaps the greater majority of those members are unaware of what or who they are really serving as they do go about their working lives…”…and he downed the remainder of his drink.

“Hang on..hang on..” I paused him..” so you’re saying that you have found a link between the moneys that are paid these members of The House from Treasury to some…some vague entity slash corporation that pays..or perhaps HIRES these members…..UNKNOWN TO EVEN THEMSELVES….who go to work every day in an “constructed establishment” we know as the “Houses of Parliament?”…I sat back in my chair and blinked.

“Yes…I am saying exactly that!..” Dexter continued..” and this is what I have surmised from the results of my digging far and wide..from this country to the other side of the world…thanks to the internet and my hacking skills..I will tell you this..:” and Dexter started to count off on his fingers the points he made…

“One.. While the government bureaucracy exists and does its various tasks, the paying out of the Members of The House salaries in total does not go into those individual members personal accounts before passing through a complex filter of overseas corporate accounts and various tax-haven accounts.

Two.. These corporate accounts then distribute the monies into their allocated parts into the private member’s bank accounts without them being aware of exactly where from or who is paying them.

Three.. The major parties moneys paid from treasury are held in the one corporate entity in an account in the Seychelles in a company name of SD&E Corporation…a shortening of “Social Distribution and Equity Corporation”.

Four.. These same major parties are held as ownership trade-marks by that corporation and the rights to operate under those trademarks are restricted to various franchises…call them factions…operating within the party.

Five.. The performances we see in The House are an orchestration derived from the confected conflicts of various opposing agenda “written” into a kind of script of which the outcome is already settled, to give credence to the farce that we call a Two Party Democratic System of Governance.”

And Dexter finished with a large inhale and exhale of breath like it was a throwing off of a great weight from his shoulders. I have to admit that I just sat there open mouthed at the audacity of even the notion of such a vast and complex operation…after a long silence I finally had my mind around the notion to speak.

‘So…there are no major political parties…just some kind of franchisees…and the members of those parties are just patsies going to work not knowing that they are doing the work of a corporation and not their nation…and then in effect, there really isn’t any REAL Parliament, just a …..a…performance..like on a stage and everyone there are players in a super script…a theatrical illusion?”…I finished.

“To which  I assert that “The Crown”, has outsourced the Australian Parliament to an overseas corporation-slash-corporations..” Dexter added.

“Yes, but at each new government those elected members are …. “

“Are sworn in by the Governor General…the CEO of ‘Australia Inc.’ ”…Dexter finished my sentence.

He then continued…:

“Have you not wondered why there can be so much outrage at certain decisions made in The House, and nothing can change or will change it?…How some members seem to hold an invulnerable position in their electorate and can do almost as they please…; act immorally, steal land, funds and collude to corrupt laws and bills yet have no charges laid against them?…How the main-stream media SEEM to “expose” so many outrages that then come to nothing?…that’s because it is all NOTHING!…things seem to be happening in this or that location…but where exactly are these places..do you know where they are…I don’t know anybody from some of these places they talk about on the news..I suspect only a handful of real people DO!..and then they are “nobodys” that no-one takes any notice of after an initial “expose” of a kind..and then it all settles down to “business as usual”…elections are run, polls are constructed, bookies consulted and votes counted…but when has there ever been an unsurprising outcome or a surprising one at that, that has been put under a microscope to see just how or why it happened?…..never…life just goes on…because we ALL are now so disconnected from each other, from the world around us, our “friendships” little more than temporary acquaintances that we meet on the internet…so that we hardly know even our closest friends… many of us are little more than some “Gravitar” on a social media feed“

THAT was the gist of my conversation with Dexter that afternoon in the clubrooms of the “Barossa Valley Tennis and Netball Club”…and it ended about that moment as we were then joined by the club secretary very curious why our heads were so close together in deep conspiracy….we laughed at the idea…

It was the next Thursday that I rang Dexter to confirm our partnership for the weekend tennis…his phone was answered by a sparkling young lass, who had to disappoint me in regards to Dexter and the tennis because he had left earlier Monday that week to go for a holiday to Argentina with his girlfriend….

‘Oh…right..” I replied to the lass..”Oh well, it’s back to playing singles for me then…another losing weekend, eh?”..and we laughed at my self-disparaging humour…but you see..I know for a fact that Dexter is still “in the closet” with his sexuality and his family and he has no “girlfriend”.

 

Warrior.

A short biography of a working-class warrior.

Let me present to you an image of an aged man, rather heavy-set, sitting deep in a relaxed posture in a large, plump, rounded sofa purchased “unused” from an eBay seller five years ago that was gifted to this same man sitting in it from his children on Father’s day. The sofa is large and the man is content. You can see he is content by the fact that he is looking plump and relaxed with a remote control for the CD player in one hand and a stubbie of “West End Draught” beer in the other….there is a smile on his lips not dissimilar to that which plays on the lips of the “Mona Lisa” painting currently held in The Louvre in Paris.

Mark Price is a contented man.

Wisdom, according to the ages is a thing learned not with education, but rather accrued through pragmatic experience. That experience can be one personally lived..the most instructive method..or one witnessed with the actions or situations enacted upon others. Mark was a witness and experiencer of both methods of instruction from a young age.

Mark Price was a learned man.

But Mark Price held no trade, no profession, no specialised employable skilled base or self-employment record at all. In this world of “market-based” consumerist demand, Mark Price was never “in demand”. Oh, yes..he worked..at menial labouring tasks, applied when requested or required to put shoulder to the wheel for family sustenance and need..but never was he recruited for any specialised skill or trade application. And that was precisely the way he wanted it, having learned by witness at a young age just what a consumerist society really wanted from those most willing to give their precious time of life to the wheels of industry..the consumerist society did not want your intelligence, your applied skills, your hunger for promotion or “recognition”, it wanted your blood!..pure and simple, along with the many disposable items consumed by society, the “market society” wanted to consume YOU…for body and soul has a value to be bought and sold.

Mark Price had learned this from a young age. In high school, he would see his teachers drive in everyday with their aged cars..step out in their workaday clothes..the same ones for quite a few days..holding that same brown-leather satchel…lock the car and if chance placed them near a favourite colleague, they would flirt whilst on their usual way to the staff-room. They did not see Mark, but he saw them..he did not make a habit of deliberately watching the teachers, workers on the trains or anyone else for that matter, they were just acting out their everyday roles and Mark saw them..and in seeing them and other people and family acting out their everyday roles, he began to recognise a pattern of social behaviour.. a pattern of conversation..and a pattern, eventually, of a predicted ending.

Wisdom is a learned thing..and through his growing years, Mark was being pragmatically educated by the practicalities of his impoverished upbringing. Mark was learning.

He learned the meaning of “losing with grace” from his friend at school when the friend was chastised by the station master of Brighton railway station when the friend, who was captain of the school baseball team tried to re-position some of the hopelessly inept players in the team to different positions so as to improve their chances of winning at least one game…”You are the captain, NOT the coach..and I will decide who plays where!”…his friend was scolded. “But we can’t win a game” the friend complained “It is not all about winning”, the station master lectured, “it is also about losing with grace…one must learn that when one loses, one should show dignity.” The collector of the Sunday Catholic mass plate collections informed Mark’s friend.

Mark saw examples of “dignity in losing” amongst his family and friends as he grew.

He saw the working men down at the Seacliff Hotel drink themselves drunk on a Friday night to alleviate the pain of strained muscles and arthritic joints..he saw them make fools of themselves whilst in this drunken state..trying with their limited vocabulary to explain what was missing in their lives…when what was missing all the while was that love of self that had been beaten out of them with labouring or war so many years before..He saw the dignity in losing on the bruised face of Ruth Holmstrom around the corner of his street, after being beaten once again by her drunken husband while herself also drunk. He saw the dignity in losing in the lonely eyes of Jack Mitchell who lived out his loneliness with his old spinster sisters, the three of them sharing the same family home they all grew up together in…He saw Jack slowly drink himself to tears down at the Seacliff Hotel, always dressed in a salesmen’s suit, tie and polished shoes..the last vestige of his respectability..oh yes, Mark learned from witnessing others the dignity in losing. He saw a friend’s father drunk on the train coming home after the day’s work at the building site, drop his ticket and the smirking porter give the workman surreptitiously, a nudge with his knee as he struggled in his fuzzled state to bend down to pick the ticket up, sending the old bricklayer sprawling onto the floor of the carriage in front of so many laughing passengers…

Mark Price saw the lifetime of honest work be debased in the dignity of losing.

Mark Price was learning that there was something remiss with the promise told him so many years before by his school teacher that hard work and an honest forbearance was what “got a man through life with success and happiness”….Mark was learning that there was a war going on between those who HAD and those who NEEDED…it was very difficult to get what was needed from the hands of those who had. There was a lie being told that was never being voiced..a lie that was being written but never audible, printed but never read..there were those who would be warriors and those who would remain slaves.

Mark Price saw what slavery looked like..and he didn’t like the look of it.

Mark had by now reached an age where he developed a philosophy to guide his steps through this battlefield of demands upon his time and his own needs to survive without falling into slavery..His learned experiences and the witness of others attempts at suburban security has shown him that there being so many variables that await to ambush the best laid plans of mice and men that it was almost impossible for someone like himself, with absolutely no assets available and no working skills to sell to gain material possessions without resorting to thievery or skulduggery, but seeing those who had tried and failed through no real fault of their own taught him that in most cases of making a decision one way or another, the best thing one could do was to do nothing and await fate to direct his hand. This was the most wise and fortunate philosophy someone of his position in an uncaring society could attain. In a world where “doing something” was wasted value, Mark Price succeeded most well at doing as little as possible.. so that having time to see opportunities arise while others were too busy “achieving”, he was able to place himself in the right place at the right time. Some would call it luck, but Mark knew that it was a strategy that allowed him to move about freely to pick up many rewards that a lack of time and availability denied to so many of his friends. Mark built a network of job-sources with foremen and hiring staff of different industries so that he could always find casual employment in a menial job with local councils or a building project..he never took a job that demanded higher responsibility..Mark had no interest in contributing to the good or welfare of a society that respected only profit and materialism..he only had interest in maintaining his and his own family’s needs, for the rest, they could go to hell!

Mark learned the price and value of many things..He knew what was most valuable to himself..; Time…”You can always make money but you cannot remake time.” He would say.

Fortune smiled upon Mark in the companionship of marriage. It favoured him that his future wife knew of his behaviours before she even started going out with him. Mandy frequented the Seacliff Hotel regularly and was able to notice Mark’s more exuberant behaviour..she didn’t mind his behaviour and she accepted his invitation to accompany him. Mark was wary of marriage..he had witnessed close friends, tradesmen in the building industry marry and build the family home…several family homes in fact, for disgruntled women…unhappy wives who resented even the name “wife”, who resented the idea of being a companion to a male..who resented having to defer to the husband to make, repair and structure a home for their mutual benefit. A society that profited from the separation of the sexes MORE than the unity of the sexes would promote dissention between men and women, even in the case where both parties were of the same working class, the same level of struggle, the same struggle to improve their and their children’s lives…anger, dissent, distrust…these were the tools of divide and rule in the world of middle-class profiteering..TWO adults needing double the housing, furniture, whitegoods and cars made for a more profitable bottom-line…divide and rule it will be, even if both parents be impoverished and the children denied…A happy wife is a happy life was the theory that guided many men…now it made many men despair of ever attaining such.

Mark had no intention to build many houses..he only wanted one home and fortune had placed Mandy inside his realm of satisfaction..they both were content with what they had.

And what they had improved as the years went by and children graced their table. Five healthy children grew by Mark’s table and garden shed, Five healthy children grew and did in turn find partners of their own and produced grandchildren that grew by Mark’s table and garden shed..Now, secure with an aged pension, Mark could look back on a life well managed, on fortune envious of nothing and no-one, for here with the evidence of so many arrows in his quiver, could the suburban warrior arm himself against a future that would be denied some of the more industrious, worked to the bone for little gain save the bitter gall of seeing their hard-earned possessions snatched away from them when old and care-worn..to be left to rot in the ironically named “aged care” facility…to be forgotten by those children that a quarrelling world of men versus women made resentful of the feeling of being abandoned when the administration of divorce forced them to take sides. No, this was not the fate of Mark and Mandy, laugh if you will of their seemingly comical circumstance that a more “sophisticated” person might spurn, but here they were and deny them you cannot, surrounded at every celebratory event by generations of caring children and grandchildren, Mark would revel in idle appreciation of fuss and touch of his tribe. The noise of laughter and delight a song of assurance for the continuing health of the family.

Mark realised the blessings of good fortune and he worshipped at fortune’s altar with suitable penance.. for deep in his soul and spirit, he was sincerely grateful…Mark had the Pagan’s respect for chance.

It was Christmas day, the entire family with grandchildren..all ten grandchildren..were in the house making merry and preparing the Christmas dinner. Mark had one grandchild on his left knee as he sat deep in the club lounge chair given to him on Father’s Day by his children five years before. He sat in a contented state with a stubbie of beer in one hand and the remote for the CD player in the other..under his instructions, his grandchild that sat on his left knee had just inserted a CD of Mark’s choosing into the player and awaited Mark to select the track and press the play-button…which with great satisfaction he now did and turning up the sound so the music bellowed out over the cacophony of Christmas noise, Mark smiled his “Mona Lisa” smile and wallowed in the pure saturation of Jimi Hendrix’s “All along the Watchtower”…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLV4_xaYynY

Wisdom is a thing learned not with education, but rather accrued through pragmatic experience. That experience can be one personally lived..the most instructive method..or one witnessed with the actions or situations enacted upon others. Mark was a witness and experiencer of both methods of instruction from a young age. Mark Price was now a wise man.

The Warrior feasted on his victorious bounty.

 

Essay..: The Joy Of Walking.

There’s a Whole World Out There! or:  The Joy Of Walking.

I now have no car. That statement in itself may require an explanation in these self-commuting times. But no … too tangled and tiresome a story, sufficient to state that the reason reaches back into the mists of time to when I once committed myself with a vow of : “I will”. And speaking of another thing that has ended, I feel I can state quite categorically ( as an observant walker) and declare it official that the daisy bush has replaced the geranium as the stalwart mainstay of verdant flowering flora in the suburban front garden! The long-lashed cheeky button flower of the daisy, has edged the precocious petals of the geranium off centre-stage. I suppose in this age of “go-get-‘em” attitude and “in-your-face” aggressiveness the battling geranium could hardly match the many blossomed, fast growing daisy-bush might .. is now right!

I notice these small things on my walks into the town where I live. Hybrid roses too have muscled-in on a place next to the footpath. all bright and starry-eyed like the budding stars they are, their many-hued blooms huge and alluring to the passer-by although I myself, religiously adhering to the adage : “Always take time to smell the flowers”, find little delight in discovering so scant a scent in such wonderful blossoms .. and I feel a little cheated, like false advertising that encourages false expectations , for surely, if there is any flower that looks delicious enough to kiss, it is the rose … and like any kiss, a fellah needs to take away with him an exotic, lingering scent of delight to caress and steel him against all the crassness of the outside world and … but I think I have made my disappointment plain …. the hybrid rose, without its scent is, to this man at least, as a woman without mystery!

It is Summer where I live and the fruit trees are bearing wonderfully! None more so than the cherry-plums along the railway track that I cut across on my way into town. For some reason these delicious trees are shunned by the public and much of the fruit is left to fall and rot on the ground. Bearing no such animosity to this sweet harvest, I make feast on their berries! … These, and plums galore accompany the walker on his journey and I make note the fruit of the nectarine tree leaning precariously over the corrugated iron fence of “Such and Such Ltd …. motor repairs” is deepening its crimson blush and fattening itself up for the pickings  not long now!

A Serbian I once worked with told me of the struggle against hunger in his youth after the 2^nd WW, and how he made it his business to note when every fruit tree, every vine in every back-yard or lot in his village was ready to be  raided! such are the necessities of survival … In Australia where we take such things for granted, it is one more joy to be embraced on my walks.

Another thing I have noticed, although it has fallen out of fashion with the onset. of “Estate Housing” is the front fence The front fence is one of the last and lasting expressions of individuality in a world of shrinking imaginations.

In Australia, indeed, the world! … the front fence like certain hobbies, was open slather to any fetish of taste or tastelessness. I have seen them constructed of everything from shells to bits of ironmongery and even bones.. ‘TAKE THAT”! was the creed for some of the monstrosities separating the incumbent from the innocents in the outside world …. From bits of off-cut wood to animal bones and noduled limestone rocks! and what was the flower that inevitably graced these icons and filled the gaps in the masonry? … The geranium! Alas, it is gone now, as is that generation of front fence builders that, although predictable in all other mannerisms pertaining to suburban life, could be counted upon to equal or maliciously out do the neighbour in design or complexity the Bastille like structure of the front fence and gone also, is the geranium … alas, alas!

Windmills, simple in structure were a regular feature of front gardens, but these too have been replaced by more complex : “paddling duck” or “rowing men” and even by mass produced “cupid” bird-baths . Some of the more bombastic citizens plant spread-winged eagles gargoyled on top of gate-pillars which gaze threateningly down on the walker as he moves past. I remember seeing a young woman innocently walk past a live wedge-tailed eagle perched on a fence at eye level next to the footpath. Obviously a pet of the house there .. I was watching from a train at a station. As the woman drew abreast of the bird, she turned her head toward it (there is an impish spirit that provokes these actions!) . I presume she didn’t expect to see such a large creature a foot or so from her face, the sudden leap to the centre of the road was Olympian to say the least! and when her knees buckled under her, I thought she was going down for prayers on the bitumen! but no, she as swiftly regained her composure and with only a few deft pats of adjustments to her bobbed hair, promptly moved on …. against such nerves of steel, the male of the species has no chance …. though to this day I don’t know if it was the bird that screeched or the woman.

I keep a small box at home in which I place all the “treasures” gleaned from the roads when I walk. There are shiny (I prefer them to be shiny!) bolts and hose-clamps, a squash-ball, a mobile phone, spanners and other miscellaneous objects, some unidentifiable but interesting …. what few coins I find I spend.

The gutters and the shrubs are receptacles for all the detritus of mankind. Bits and pieces that fall off cars end up scarred and scraped into the kerbside gutters. Drink containers and waste paper end up stuffed, like bodies up chimneys in Poe’s : “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”  , into any nook or kicked under bushes. At nesting time any excess chicks forced or pushed out of nests end up little mounds of fluff on the footpath or flattened on the roads. I can’t help but feel pity for these helpless chicks. who don’t even get a start in life before it is brutally taken from them. But then, what animal in the wild ( even domestic) does not meet with a violent end? Though once, when a flock of starlings flew over me, I saw one fall, for no apparent reason, out of the flock almost to my feet,  dead as a doornail .. heart attack? old age? who knows, but it was only once that I saw that.

Walking can be very educational, peaceful and fulfilling. One’s thoughts fall into the rhythm of the step and rare is the worry or problem that cannot be resolved in oneself in the space of a good long walk. The relaxing contrasts of sunlight and shade, water sprinkler and breeze, the chlorophyll’d odour of fresh-cut lawn near the lake, the idle paddling of the ducks mixed with the joyful cries of children at play lend a certain visceral ambience to the atmosphere of the clinging world around us that we call life!

Ah! The Joy of walking..