Stray mailer - 22Sept05 - Part One of Many.
So. How best to do this thing. Just write it I guess.
Some of this is going back a bit, and a reasonable
amount has happened in the meantime, so a lot will
have been forgotten. Many of the ever so witty little
turns of phrase and frightfully insightful
observations, thought of while standing on the side of
some road waiting to be picked up. I’m sure I was
amused at the time and it helped to pass the hours.
Must buy a little notebook. It’s going to be ironic
when I forget to do that.
So. Um. Where did we leave off? Ah yes, completed
contracts and conspiracy theories.
A few of you have got back to me asking, so... Daniel,
what exactly are you saying about September eleventh?
If you’re challenging the existing explanation, surely
you must have an alternative! What’s the theory you’re
putting forward?
The fuck should I know?
As I said, personally I think it was Al Queda, just
because if it was an inside job, eventually,
definitely, someone is going to find out.
I wasn’t presenting any kind of theory at all.
But... there is, you must admit, some pretty freaking
weird stuff surrounding the whole thing. There is
absolutely no explanation, official or otherwise as to
why the third WTC building collapsed. There is no
explanation how a conventional fire melted structural
steel.
I just thought that was strange and figured you might
like to know.
Anyway. What else.
Had a wee Edinburgh reunion. Our good friends Holly,
Jason and Damien happened to be in town, and Jason’s
uncle booked us all to do a fire show for Camp
Quality, for kids with cancer.
Show went down very well and we stayed the night out
there, woken at seven a.m. or something by blaring
painfully crappy pop music from the camp’s own radio
station, Radio C.Q. (Or as Holly dubbed it, Radio Fu
ckyou.) But they did have some of the kids on, saying
how much they’d loved the show, so I stopped trying to
‘rewire’ the speaker outside our room and we shambled
off to breakfast.
Had a go on a giant swing, (‘s pretty big), had a go
on a flying fox (somehow I became the safety
supervisor for it and almost got Naomi stranded over a
lake), piled in the car and came home the scenic way.
Jo and Dave had left for work much earlier in the
morning.
Back in Melbourne we went to the Salmonella Dub gig in
St Kilda, stayed in a hotel a few doors down from the
venue. It was good seeing Salmonella again, it was
good seeing the Ed crew again.
Aaaah.
I’m just trying to sort in my head the series of
events. I think it was the next night we all went
pirate bowling. Which is just like regular bowling
except wearing lots of stripy stuff and saying
AAARRRRRR! a lot. This was something we’d lined up
with some Melbourne friends to celebrate International
Speak Like a Pirate Day.
Then things got a little messy and started involving
Tequila.
The next morning was largely occupied with trying to
find out what had happened to everyone else the night
before and where they now were. I ended up on the
porch of Cat’s new flat (which was actually one I’d
looked at during my ill fated flat hunt) with Tim and
Damien, playing manifestation.
Right, next car’s going to be green, traveling left to
right.
(And it was)
Ok, white car, late model Toyota hatch back, it’s
going to reverse park in front of the house, coming in
from the right, three people, one’s an architect,
they’re here to see friends.
Actually, as it turned out, the white car that reverse
parked in front of us a few minutes later turned out
to be a late model white hatch back _Nissan_, and none
of the three were architects. Guess we need to work on
our skills. We knew they were there to see friends
though because they came in the front gate.
Made the mistake of watching videos from our time in
Edinburgh. Made me a little sad.
It’s a bugger being in love with a period of your
life; it’s not like you can ever be reunited.
A few months ago the website and general twirling
Mecca homeofpoi had their first ever meetup, in
Adelaide. About eight of us piled into two cars and
convoyed on up, spent the long weekend lounging in the
sun, spinning pretty much everything it’s possible to
spin, some of which was actually on fire at the time.
Not much else to say on the matter, it was just one of
things that was nice to be there for but doesn’t make
for a particularly fascinating story. Only things of
mention; played hack for something like eight hours
over three days, and inadvertently insinuated to a
girl that she was ‘heavy’. Well, it was kind of easy
to create the misunderstanding with her standing on my
shoulders at the time.
It’s very hard to tactfully undo that kind of
situation.
Coming back I opted out of the car I came up in, as
they were taking the motorway back, lining myself up a
van with friends of friends who were heading back via
the Great Ocean Road. Nice bit of coastline, though
I’m a little spoiled for these things.
The first night we camped on the side of the road
opposite a service station, in the morning we filled
the tank there (horrendously expensively) and spent
the rest of the trip plotting our revenge on the
place.
Things started to go badly for the van shortly after.
We reckon they sold us dodgy fuel.
Hills, for example, became a problem. Motorways too.
Anytime the revs got too high the engine would sputter
and die, and we’d be stuck on the side of the road for
half an hour letting her vent and me holding an
impromptu workshop on Reiki For Cars.
My skills as automotive healer proved no match for
dodgy petrol, but we did manage to limp into home late
the next night. Just in time for me to miss a Fringe
Festival show that I’d made the mistake of buying a
ticket for in advance, and which the bastards wouldn’t
let me use for the next night.
So after all the noise I made about the New Zealand
goddamn elections, in the end I didn’t even get to
vote. But god knows I tried.
See, it was while I was working on the car commercials
(which have now started playing on TV here, which is
very trippy) so I didn’t have the time to get to
Melbourne’s voting place during the week.
I’d gotten Dave to fax off my enrolment form (at
pretty much the last minute) but apparently it come
through half missing because they ring me on my cell
phone from Wellington to get me to send it again.
While I have them on the line I double-check that I’ll
be able to vote on Saturday, the last day of voting.
They confirm that this is so.
Then everything goes horribly wrong.
Come Saturday, which happens to be the day of Earth
Dance, a big one-day festival thing in central
Melbourne, I head off for the address listed on the
overseas voting place’s website. And it straight up
does not exist. I’m looking for 515, or something, and
there’s no building between 510 and 530.
I’m tearing round trying to find the place anyway,
despite the fact that it doesn’t exist, try to get
another address for them but the payphones don’t have
phone books, I don’t have any change and for some
reason you can’t call directories from my cell phone
carrier. I somehow manage to get a number for them
anyway (through sheer strength of will) and get an
after hours answering machine.
My advice, whenever you’re stuck in a city and need
absolutely anything at all; is go to a five star
hotel. They’re paid to be ultra polite and helpful,
and if you’re someone like me will do whatever is
necessary to get you out of the place as quickly as
possible without any fuss.
But I couldn’t find one so I went into a place that
sold expensive looking suites instead. Same principle.
They look up the address online and I speed off, as
there is now only an hour or two left to vote. The
place, on the far side of the city center, isn’t open
on Saturdays and isn’t the right place anyway. I find
an Internet café and the site now announces that
overseas voting had closed Friday evening.
So. No votey votey.
And yes I know that it wouldn’t’ve counted for
anything anyway and all that, but fuck it
I WANTED TO.
O well.
And, rather tragically, Rod Donald, co-leader of the
Greens and the local MP I would’ve been voting for,
died last week of a heart attack.
We drink to you.
Man the election was close, too. I was more than a
little nervous about that one.
How did almost fifty percent of New Zealanders end up
voting for National? Their platform was, and get this:
go to war in Iraq, dissolve the nuclear ban, sign a
free trade agreement with the U.S., dissolve the
treaty of Waitangi (which was signed with the Maori
and effectively made NZ a country), remove the Maori
seats from Parliament and revoke all special native
rights, withdraw from the Kyoto protocol, and if you
vote for us we will give you $2,000 cash.
It may have been the last one what done it.
Did you know that kangaroos aren’t called kangaroos?
Really. Kangaroo actually means something like ‘what?’
i.e.:
White fella: ‘And what, prey tell noble savage, do you
call this beast, yonder?’
Black fella: ‘Kangaroo?’ (What’s he pointing at now?)
White fella: ‘Ah, yes. Kangaroo. I see.’
Black fella: ‘Kangaroo?’ (No, seriously, what?)
White fella: ‘Yes, yes. Very good.’
Black fella: ‘Koala?’ (What just happened here?)
True story. And then Black fella had his land, kids
and culture ripped off him, was actively culled by the
government until the 1940s and kept as slave labor
until the 1960s and ah Christ that’s right, it’s time
for another:
_Catalogue of Fucked Up Australian Shit_
Now in it’s fourth edition.
Yes, I’m afraid this will get a little political, but
do keep reading anyway or you’ll never know why I
spent three nights hanging forty-five meters up a
tree.
So. Where to start. It’s been a bloody year for
Australian politics. Even for Australian politics.
Jason was telling us about a German mate of his, here
studying. He went home for a quick holiday. Coming
back in, immigration mistakenly stamped him with a
six-month tourist visa, though he still had a year
left on his student visa.
One night six months later ASIO (the Australian secret
service) let themselves into his house, slam his head
into a wall at gunpoint, handcuff and detain him for a
week, then deport him. It takes him three years get to
get back in. He was engaged to be married at the time.
There’s been a couple of cases like this make it into
the media recently. A Philippino woman with
Australian citizenship was just found to have been
deported four years ago.
She’d been admitted to hospital with fairly serious
injuries either from a car accident or beating.
Despite head and spinal injuries and mental illness,
she was quickly flown to Manila and dumped. Records
show her file was accessed just before and after she
was deported, then again two years later, it was known
she was an Australian citizen but the mistake was
covered up.
She’s only just now back in Australia. The government
said she could come back (after the media got hold of
it) but that she wouldn’t be allowed any access to
medical care for more than six months (which is
strange since every other Australian is). She has two
young boys who haven’t seen her in four years.
A whole family was deported back to Pakistan after
four years in detention. They were actually from
Afghanistan. They had to pay for the flight.
An American guy was recently arrested and deported
for being an anti-war activist. He was given the
opportunity to appeal, but since that was going to
take over a year and he was paying $150 a day to be
kept in prison without the possibility of parole he
just opted to be shipped back to the States.
It seems like there’s something protest related here
almost every week, and they’re always about different
things. Five hundred people in Adelaide the other day
to protest the arrival of Donald Rumsfeld, five
hundred thousand around the country a few days before
to protest the government’s new Industrial Relations
legislation, which I can’t even be bothered going into
the fucked up shit thereof, because I’d be here all
day.
But some highlights are: holiday, sick leave and
overtime now have to be negotiated for, any company
employing less than a hundred employees can fire them
without reason, if you attend a strike the government
declares unlawful (which they can arbitrarily) $33,000
fine. If you ask for a union rep to be present at a
negotiation (just for asking) $33,000 fine, and
technically under they’re new anti terrorism
legislation, going on strike (or any kind of protest)
can be ruled an act of sedition and get you seven
years in prison.
Also under the anti-terror laws, using defamatory
language against the queen can get you jail time. A
person can be now held without charge for up to two
weeks, if they are a minor then one parent is
permitted to visit them, but if that parent tells the
other where their child is, they both face up to seven
years in prison.
But, what I say to anyone who voted for Liberal, and
apparently there’s a lot of them, what the hell did
you expect?
Me and six hundred other people attended a meeting /
talk thing about Gunns, a logging company who are
suing seventeen individuals and three community groups
for ‘engaging in a conspiracy to damage their profits’
for a total of 6.8 million dollars.
The conspiracy was things like, going to anti logging
protests, writing letters to newspapers and M.P.s, and
one woman who had managed to sue them the year before
for putting a pulp mill in her back yard.
The thing is, well one of the things is, that since
Gunns are acting out of a ‘profit motive’, they get
legal aid from the government and all other costs are
tax deductible. Since the people being sued are not
acting out of profit motive, they are not eligible for
legal aid, and even if they win will almost certainly
be bankrupted by the court costs.
I told Jo I’d been to a political meeting, she said
‘oh, Daniel’ in exactly the same tone of voice as if
I’d told her I’d been to a pedophile’s convention.
Fair enough.
The reason I’m going on about this is that I just got
back from three weeks in Tasmania, most of which was
spent on a logging blockade, in the middle of a old
growth forest.
It was pretty mad; visits from drunken rednecks,
constant threat of police raids, sleeping in some of
the world’s tallest trees. I also spent a week or so
hitching a lap of the state and got picked up by some
pretty dodgy characters.
But if I make these things too long (yeah, coz, y'know,
through them.
So stay tuned.
Love you long time!
Daniel.
Some of this is going back a bit, and a reasonable
amount has happened in the meantime, so a lot will
have been forgotten. Many of the ever so witty little
turns of phrase and frightfully insightful
observations, thought of while standing on the side of
some road waiting to be picked up. I’m sure I was
amused at the time and it helped to pass the hours.
Must buy a little notebook. It’s going to be ironic
when I forget to do that.
So. Um. Where did we leave off? Ah yes, completed
contracts and conspiracy theories.
A few of you have got back to me asking, so... Daniel,
what exactly are you saying about September eleventh?
If you’re challenging the existing explanation, surely
you must have an alternative! What’s the theory you’re
putting forward?
The fuck should I know?
As I said, personally I think it was Al Queda, just
because if it was an inside job, eventually,
definitely, someone is going to find out.
I wasn’t presenting any kind of theory at all.
But... there is, you must admit, some pretty freaking
weird stuff surrounding the whole thing. There is
absolutely no explanation, official or otherwise as to
why the third WTC building collapsed. There is no
explanation how a conventional fire melted structural
steel.
I just thought that was strange and figured you might
like to know.
Anyway. What else.
Had a wee Edinburgh reunion. Our good friends Holly,
Jason and Damien happened to be in town, and Jason’s
uncle booked us all to do a fire show for Camp
Quality, for kids with cancer.
Show went down very well and we stayed the night out
there, woken at seven a.m. or something by blaring
painfully crappy pop music from the camp’s own radio
station, Radio C.Q. (Or as Holly dubbed it, Radio Fu
ckyou.) But they did have some of the kids on, saying
how much they’d loved the show, so I stopped trying to
‘rewire’ the speaker outside our room and we shambled
off to breakfast.
Had a go on a giant swing, (‘s pretty big), had a go
on a flying fox (somehow I became the safety
supervisor for it and almost got Naomi stranded over a
lake), piled in the car and came home the scenic way.
Jo and Dave had left for work much earlier in the
morning.
Back in Melbourne we went to the Salmonella Dub gig in
St Kilda, stayed in a hotel a few doors down from the
venue. It was good seeing Salmonella again, it was
good seeing the Ed crew again.
Aaaah.
I’m just trying to sort in my head the series of
events. I think it was the next night we all went
pirate bowling. Which is just like regular bowling
except wearing lots of stripy stuff and saying
AAARRRRRR! a lot. This was something we’d lined up
with some Melbourne friends to celebrate International
Speak Like a Pirate Day.
Then things got a little messy and started involving
Tequila.
The next morning was largely occupied with trying to
find out what had happened to everyone else the night
before and where they now were. I ended up on the
porch of Cat’s new flat (which was actually one I’d
looked at during my ill fated flat hunt) with Tim and
Damien, playing manifestation.
Right, next car’s going to be green, traveling left to
right.
(And it was)
Ok, white car, late model Toyota hatch back, it’s
going to reverse park in front of the house, coming in
from the right, three people, one’s an architect,
they’re here to see friends.
Actually, as it turned out, the white car that reverse
parked in front of us a few minutes later turned out
to be a late model white hatch back _Nissan_, and none
of the three were architects. Guess we need to work on
our skills. We knew they were there to see friends
though because they came in the front gate.
Made the mistake of watching videos from our time in
Edinburgh. Made me a little sad.
It’s a bugger being in love with a period of your
life; it’s not like you can ever be reunited.
A few months ago the website and general twirling
Mecca homeofpoi had their first ever meetup, in
Adelaide. About eight of us piled into two cars and
convoyed on up, spent the long weekend lounging in the
sun, spinning pretty much everything it’s possible to
spin, some of which was actually on fire at the time.
Not much else to say on the matter, it was just one of
things that was nice to be there for but doesn’t make
for a particularly fascinating story. Only things of
mention; played hack for something like eight hours
over three days, and inadvertently insinuated to a
girl that she was ‘heavy’. Well, it was kind of easy
to create the misunderstanding with her standing on my
shoulders at the time.
It’s very hard to tactfully undo that kind of
situation.
Coming back I opted out of the car I came up in, as
they were taking the motorway back, lining myself up a
van with friends of friends who were heading back via
the Great Ocean Road. Nice bit of coastline, though
I’m a little spoiled for these things.
The first night we camped on the side of the road
opposite a service station, in the morning we filled
the tank there (horrendously expensively) and spent
the rest of the trip plotting our revenge on the
place.
Things started to go badly for the van shortly after.
We reckon they sold us dodgy fuel.
Hills, for example, became a problem. Motorways too.
Anytime the revs got too high the engine would sputter
and die, and we’d be stuck on the side of the road for
half an hour letting her vent and me holding an
impromptu workshop on Reiki For Cars.
My skills as automotive healer proved no match for
dodgy petrol, but we did manage to limp into home late
the next night. Just in time for me to miss a Fringe
Festival show that I’d made the mistake of buying a
ticket for in advance, and which the bastards wouldn’t
let me use for the next night.
So after all the noise I made about the New Zealand
goddamn elections, in the end I didn’t even get to
vote. But god knows I tried.
See, it was while I was working on the car commercials
(which have now started playing on TV here, which is
very trippy) so I didn’t have the time to get to
Melbourne’s voting place during the week.
I’d gotten Dave to fax off my enrolment form (at
pretty much the last minute) but apparently it come
through half missing because they ring me on my cell
phone from Wellington to get me to send it again.
While I have them on the line I double-check that I’ll
be able to vote on Saturday, the last day of voting.
They confirm that this is so.
Then everything goes horribly wrong.
Come Saturday, which happens to be the day of Earth
Dance, a big one-day festival thing in central
Melbourne, I head off for the address listed on the
overseas voting place’s website. And it straight up
does not exist. I’m looking for 515, or something, and
there’s no building between 510 and 530.
I’m tearing round trying to find the place anyway,
despite the fact that it doesn’t exist, try to get
another address for them but the payphones don’t have
phone books, I don’t have any change and for some
reason you can’t call directories from my cell phone
carrier. I somehow manage to get a number for them
anyway (through sheer strength of will) and get an
after hours answering machine.
My advice, whenever you’re stuck in a city and need
absolutely anything at all; is go to a five star
hotel. They’re paid to be ultra polite and helpful,
and if you’re someone like me will do whatever is
necessary to get you out of the place as quickly as
possible without any fuss.
But I couldn’t find one so I went into a place that
sold expensive looking suites instead. Same principle.
They look up the address online and I speed off, as
there is now only an hour or two left to vote. The
place, on the far side of the city center, isn’t open
on Saturdays and isn’t the right place anyway. I find
an Internet café and the site now announces that
overseas voting had closed Friday evening.
So. No votey votey.
And yes I know that it wouldn’t’ve counted for
anything anyway and all that, but fuck it
I WANTED TO.
O well.
And, rather tragically, Rod Donald, co-leader of the
Greens and the local MP I would’ve been voting for,
died last week of a heart attack.
We drink to you.
Man the election was close, too. I was more than a
little nervous about that one.
How did almost fifty percent of New Zealanders end up
voting for National? Their platform was, and get this:
go to war in Iraq, dissolve the nuclear ban, sign a
free trade agreement with the U.S., dissolve the
treaty of Waitangi (which was signed with the Maori
and effectively made NZ a country), remove the Maori
seats from Parliament and revoke all special native
rights, withdraw from the Kyoto protocol, and if you
vote for us we will give you $2,000 cash.
It may have been the last one what done it.
Did you know that kangaroos aren’t called kangaroos?
Really. Kangaroo actually means something like ‘what?’
i.e.:
White fella: ‘And what, prey tell noble savage, do you
call this beast, yonder?’
Black fella: ‘Kangaroo?’ (What’s he pointing at now?)
White fella: ‘Ah, yes. Kangaroo. I see.’
Black fella: ‘Kangaroo?’ (No, seriously, what?)
White fella: ‘Yes, yes. Very good.’
Black fella: ‘Koala?’ (What just happened here?)
True story. And then Black fella had his land, kids
and culture ripped off him, was actively culled by the
government until the 1940s and kept as slave labor
until the 1960s and ah Christ that’s right, it’s time
for another:
_Catalogue of Fucked Up Australian Shit_
Now in it’s fourth edition.
Yes, I’m afraid this will get a little political, but
do keep reading anyway or you’ll never know why I
spent three nights hanging forty-five meters up a
tree.
So. Where to start. It’s been a bloody year for
Australian politics. Even for Australian politics.
Jason was telling us about a German mate of his, here
studying. He went home for a quick holiday. Coming
back in, immigration mistakenly stamped him with a
six-month tourist visa, though he still had a year
left on his student visa.
One night six months later ASIO (the Australian secret
service) let themselves into his house, slam his head
into a wall at gunpoint, handcuff and detain him for a
week, then deport him. It takes him three years get to
get back in. He was engaged to be married at the time.
There’s been a couple of cases like this make it into
the media recently. A Philippino woman with
Australian citizenship was just found to have been
deported four years ago.
She’d been admitted to hospital with fairly serious
injuries either from a car accident or beating.
Despite head and spinal injuries and mental illness,
she was quickly flown to Manila and dumped. Records
show her file was accessed just before and after she
was deported, then again two years later, it was known
she was an Australian citizen but the mistake was
covered up.
She’s only just now back in Australia. The government
said she could come back (after the media got hold of
it) but that she wouldn’t be allowed any access to
medical care for more than six months (which is
strange since every other Australian is). She has two
young boys who haven’t seen her in four years.
A whole family was deported back to Pakistan after
four years in detention. They were actually from
Afghanistan. They had to pay for the flight.
An American guy was recently arrested and deported
for being an anti-war activist. He was given the
opportunity to appeal, but since that was going to
take over a year and he was paying $150 a day to be
kept in prison without the possibility of parole he
just opted to be shipped back to the States.
It seems like there’s something protest related here
almost every week, and they’re always about different
things. Five hundred people in Adelaide the other day
to protest the arrival of Donald Rumsfeld, five
hundred thousand around the country a few days before
to protest the government’s new Industrial Relations
legislation, which I can’t even be bothered going into
the fucked up shit thereof, because I’d be here all
day.
But some highlights are: holiday, sick leave and
overtime now have to be negotiated for, any company
employing less than a hundred employees can fire them
without reason, if you attend a strike the government
declares unlawful (which they can arbitrarily) $33,000
fine. If you ask for a union rep to be present at a
negotiation (just for asking) $33,000 fine, and
technically under they’re new anti terrorism
legislation, going on strike (or any kind of protest)
can be ruled an act of sedition and get you seven
years in prison.
Also under the anti-terror laws, using defamatory
language against the queen can get you jail time. A
person can be now held without charge for up to two
weeks, if they are a minor then one parent is
permitted to visit them, but if that parent tells the
other where their child is, they both face up to seven
years in prison.
But, what I say to anyone who voted for Liberal, and
apparently there’s a lot of them, what the hell did
you expect?
Me and six hundred other people attended a meeting /
talk thing about Gunns, a logging company who are
suing seventeen individuals and three community groups
for ‘engaging in a conspiracy to damage their profits’
for a total of 6.8 million dollars.
The conspiracy was things like, going to anti logging
protests, writing letters to newspapers and M.P.s, and
one woman who had managed to sue them the year before
for putting a pulp mill in her back yard.
The thing is, well one of the things is, that since
Gunns are acting out of a ‘profit motive’, they get
legal aid from the government and all other costs are
tax deductible. Since the people being sued are not
acting out of profit motive, they are not eligible for
legal aid, and even if they win will almost certainly
be bankrupted by the court costs.
I told Jo I’d been to a political meeting, she said
‘oh, Daniel’ in exactly the same tone of voice as if
I’d told her I’d been to a pedophile’s convention.
Fair enough.
The reason I’m going on about this is that I just got
back from three weeks in Tasmania, most of which was
spent on a logging blockade, in the middle of a old
growth forest.
It was pretty mad; visits from drunken rednecks,
constant threat of police raids, sleeping in some of
the world’s tallest trees. I also spent a week or so
hitching a lap of the state and got picked up by some
pretty dodgy characters.
But if I make these things too long (yeah, coz, y'know,
through them.
So stay tuned.
Love you long time!
Daniel.
posted by Unknown @ 10:38 am
0 comments
