Spills, Thrills and Bellyaches

June 26, 2013:

Will he? Won’t we? Who cares? Who else is sick and tired of what the Australian Labor Party has become – a popularity contest worse than any to be found in primary school. There’s been pissing contests less juvenile and (ultimately) less self-harming than this. Although a bit of fun has come from Leader of the House Anthony Albanese emerging from his office to a media scrum and using Manager of Opposition Business Christopher Pyne as a human shield. Hmm, is there a publishing spin-off here, 1001 Uses for a Christopher Pyne?

At 4.30pm, after a day of frenzied (more so than usual) speculation that a leadership spill would occur, and rumours of a petition to reinstall Kevin Rudd to the leadership, Julia Gillard announced a ballot to be held tonight at 7 pm.

So here’s me eating a Shirley Valentine-esque dinner of egg and chips in front of ABC News 24, ready to take it all in for you.

I’m in two thoughts over this: 1. If Rudd wins and becomes Prime Minister again, will he behave better than he did last time? For all the hissy fits over hairdryers, shunning and dismissing members of the cabinet and generally showing more signs of petulance and megalomania than Tony Blair (if that’s possible), Rudd better have learned his lesson and govern for all with all members of government. 2. It’s going to take a long time to get over this history of squabbling and in-fighting. Although I’m a proud “Gillardite”, if Rudd returns will that not give Labor the vote of the political apathetic who encourage the on-going popularity contests? I hope so, for more than anything I hope Labor triumphs, whoever’s at the helm, in order to keep Tony Abbott out of the top job.

And who is left to step up to a Rudd ministry? ABC News 24’s Lyndall Curtis earlier pointed out that there are “those within the party who have very strong opinions of Kevin Rudd … they are expected if he wins to stand down from the ministry.” So that leaves out Wayne Swan, Kate Ellis, Tanya Plibersek, and Peter Garrett … If Rudd is successful, it will be interesting to see who is elevated to a cabinet position. Bill Shorten’s announced that if Gillard remains leader he’ll resign his position as Minister for Workplace Relations and go to the backbench.

Independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, both famous for endorsing Gillard and Labor in this minority government, resigned today. Interestingly, Bob Katter has said he’ll support a Rudd Labor government. Until the election in September, if it’s not brought forward, will Oakeshott and Windsor continue to support Labor in the meantime?

“If I lose, I announce that I will not contest the next election.” Yes, Kevin. We’ve all heard you say that before. Gonna keep a promise this time?

It’s 6.57pm and Team Gillard has made its way to the caucus room – a defiant show of whose gang’s bigger than whose. Kevin Rudd trailed behind a minute later, on his own, curiously resplendent in a blue-tie.

—

I’ve been into politics since I was 14. I practically voted then despite being underage as from the 2004 election, my mum would ask who to vote for and I said she should vote Labor. Yes, we voted for a Mark Latham-led Labor, which in hindsight would have most likely been catastrophic, but it would have been bloody interesting. Who could forget when Marky Mark shouted down then-Prime Minister John Howard introducing George W. Bush to the House of Representatives as an “arselicker!”? And when he allegedly broke a cab-driver’s arm in an argument. And that handshake. The day before that election, Latham and Howard’s paths crossed at a radio station with dozens of photographers in attendance. Both decided to cordially greet each other and shake hands – instead, Latham grabbed on to Howard’s hand a bit too hard, and the resulting handshake turned into a body shake for the short and older Howard. Still, plenty of laughs though. Though hardly having the wit of Paul Keating, lest we forget Latham’s barrage of insults with a bully-boy edge. “Conga line of suckholes”?

—

7.19pm

Curiously, Leigh Sales is presenting an earlier edition of 7.30, and on the screen behind her is a picture of Rudd in close-up with “Rudd P.M.” as the title. Not even a question mark? Prescience or carelessness? As an aside, 7.30’s Chris Uhlmann, reporting from outside the caucus room, is married to Gai Brodtman, the Member for Canberra. Sure, a possible conflict of interest may arise from time to time, but I’ve never seen Brodtman in Question Time – is she the most hermit-like of backbenchers or is it just me?

—

PROS for Rudd:

–          He’s got the popularity vote – mindless, apathetic, gormless halfwits will vote for him in their droves.

–          He’s had the top job before, so therefore experienced.

CONS for Rudd:

–          Temper tantrums

–          Being held up to even higher standards than before.

PROs for Gillard:

–          Personally, she’s awesome.

–          She doesn’t get into a flap. I’ve yet to hear anything of Gillard ever “losing it” and becoming a sweary scary rager like Rudd.

–          In the face of adversity (i.e. the “Noalition”), she’s never backed down from a challenge and never shown any signs of stress or difficulty with it.

CONS for Gillard:

–          All that crap since 2010 about her “knifing” Rudd. I don’t know why people and the media keep spinning this lie. She asked for a leadership spill, Rudd agreed and resigned before the vote. So she never really “knifed” him, did she? Why has nobody ever understood this?

8.30 PM

And the votes are in, with Rudd the victor with 57 votes to Gillard’s 45. Still no official word from either party and now I’m bored with the constant (over-)analysis of everything that’s already happened by the usual pundits. Truth be told my interest is waning – I now want to go straight to tomorrow and find out who’s got what cabinet role, and Jewish Mum of the Year is on ABC2. Typical, me.

So there we have it – Rudd as leader and ultimately to be Prime Minister. Will there be an earlier election? Will the Gillard-loyal politicians be sent forthwith to the backbench? Will Rudd learn his lesson and become a truly unifying leader for the ALP? All I know is I’m off to get me some simcha (and I mean that in the most respectful way) action on the other channel.

L’chaim, Kevin.

Don’t fuck it up.

— LINKS ADDED SOON

Related articles

• Rudd wins 57 to 45: Gillard defeated in ballot (theage.com.au)

Crying foul of crying fowl

Sorry, but it’s time for another rant.

The “menu” of Menugate, from theconversation.com

Another day, another sexist jibe at Julia Gillard with the usual defence of “I didn’t mean it like that” and “It’s been taken out of context”, and with the usual non-apology of “If I’ve caused any offence I’m sorry”. Well, how is someone supposed to take the insult of “Julia Gillard Kentucky Fried Quail, with small breasts, huge thighs and a big red box”? I’ve never known any male politician to receive insults based on his gender and appearance on the same level. And to all those who cry foul – and in this case crying fowl if not wolf – over Tony Abbott’s bathers getting branded “budgie smugglers” – are you not abusers enabling abusers? I’ve only ever heard two cracks based on gender and appearance at a male politician, to wit:

1. My then stepmother after a few glasses of wine greeted the news of former Deputy PM John Anderson resigning due to a prostate condition as, “Yeah, he’s got a small dick!”
2. My aunt didn’t vote for Labor led by Mark Latham because Latham “had man-boobs”.

Not exactly in the same league as a constant barrage of references to gender, sexuality and appearance is it?

This week started off with Prime Minister Gillard making a speech at a fundraising event where she stated that if Tony Abbott was to become PM, then abortion would be used as a “political plaything” and denouncing the Liberals as “blue ties”. For some reason everyone took umbrage to that remark and thought it flippant. The next day “Menugate” was revealed where at a dinner for more Liberal losers a menu was supplied with the aforementioned Quail remark. There was also some pith about eating your greens “before the Greens take over everything”. Hardly in the same league as Dorothy Parker, Oscar Wilde or the writers of Frasier.

Then come Friday the Prime Minister was against insulted by Perth’s 6PR’s Howard Sattler, who asked the PM if her partner Tim Mathieson was “gay” because he used to work as a hairdresser, and trying to accuse the PM of being Mr Mathieson’s “beard”. Thankfully Sattler was sacked, but is now doing the usual Liberal thing of crying wolf or fowl by claiming he was dismissed from his job because he has Parkinson’s disease. Don’t start getting the shakes now, Howard. To top it all off and make this a week of rubbish, Daily Telegraph columnist Piers Akerman (has there ever been a high-profile columnist in a News Limited publication that isn’t right-wing? Bloody Rupert) appeared on ABC1’s Insiders to say he’d heard plenty of rumours about the PM and her partner’s private lives and was basically trying to repeat Sattler’s theory, only to again offer the usual non-apology when called out on it.

Do I again need to share the link to Dr Anne Summers’ lecture on the barrage of misogynistic abuse, not that it doesn’t already bear endless re-reading to hopefully educate people to make a stand when sexism occurs?

So where does all this misogyny come from? Stupidity is the obvious answer, but how is it allowed to be ingrained and grow in the first place? Why are the criticisms of the current government based on gender and sexuality instead of policies? There’s one lesbian in parliament, the awesome Senator Penny Wong, Minister for Finance; but why do deadshits have as an insult that all women in the cabinet are lesbian? Are these not the same homophobic idiots who repel from the sight of a single gay man yet love to get their rocks off watching lesbian porn? And why is that? Really, I’d like to know as I’ve never been able to fathom that old chestnut of idiocy.

The whole thing is fucked up, and it’s time to end it now as there’s less than 100 days until the next election. For if Tony Abbott and his band of bullying thugs form the next government, then misogyny and abuse will become legislation; even though I’m just a single white male (UGH!), that scares the shit out of me.

As hoaxes go, it was hardly Dreadnought.

Today the media’s been whipping itself into another frenzy about the “Royal Hoax” and one of the hoaxers involved, Michael Christian, who’s been crowned the winner of a competition to find Australia’s “Next Top Jock” (got my hopes up after the excitement of thinking Alan Jones had died). Why all the attention? In wanting to find a “shock jock”, to my understanding any idiot with a microphone who can court controversy – then hasn’t the award been warranted? A radio presenter who has made controversy by getting even more controversy for the merit award of getting the original controversy. This whole “hoax” business is just a moraliser’s football, bouncing around and kicking own-goals for the self-righteous and people who do and think as they’re told.

I’ve never understood all the outrage over the prank, which Christian and his fellow announcer Mel Greig did by calling up the hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was being treated for morning sickness. Greig’s impression of the Queen was pissweak (yes, I could have done better – in fact, go to any pub and you’ll find a dozen people who could imitate royalty better), not to mention Christian trying to dither like Prince Charles too – I’m sure not even the work experience kid would’ve gone near that one.

As hoaxes go, it was hardly Dreadnought.

Nor can I fathom how Christian and Greig are referred to as DJs – do they jockey discs? With the title “DJ” I think of people like Paul Oakenfold, Judge Jules, Fatboy Slim and David Bowie’s “DJ” – not people who sit on a swivel-chair (and the chairs always make me think of Lily Savage‘s insult of flipping the bird with “Sit on that and swivel”) and click a mouse for an MP3 to play.

In all the news outlets I read when the hoax happened – from the print editions of the Courier-Mail, The Age, The Australian to The Guardian, The Independent and other blogs and sites online (nerd that I am) – the finger of blame has all been placed on the “DJs” themselves. I disagree. The only instance I’ve found where somebody shares my view has been Germaine Greer in The Age, writing Saldanha had been

“ballyhooed into a heroine done to death by the dastardly Aussies”

and

“The only person to be blamed for a suicide is the suicide.”

My belief is that suicide isn’t the final answer but sadly the first of many questions that the family and friends of the victim have to ask – but it wasn’t the “DJs” fault. Yes, somebody died as a result of their attempt at a practical joke and a worse impression than those found in How Green Was My Cactus (when I listen to it I keep hearing Blinky Bill despite which politician they’re supposed to be lampooning), but that’s just a collateral incidental really, not knowing that Jacintha Saldanha was obviously in need of help. I can’t buy that Saldanha was a “victim” of the hoax – she only transferred the call to another nurse who happily gave out the details on the Duchess’s condition. Saldanha wasn’t “fooled”, “tricked” or any other word for answering the call, but was taken with the idea of riding the fame to get her mortgage paid.  Not really a “victim mentality”, huh?

So how can Greig and Christian be blamed? I don’t believe like others have said that the pair have “blood on their hands” or should be charged with manslaughter. I see the whole incident as if I went to a shop, bought something and as the cashier was giving me my change slammed a finger in the till – how is that my fault? Because the cashier was giving change to me or tried to close their cash drawer too fast while I was there? It’s not right.

Now let’s get over it and listen to some real DJs:

Pop culture & the MSM and an afterthought on Michael Douglas

Why no irreverent study of popular culture in the mainstream Australian media? The best we ever had was the ABC’s Mondo Thingo, presented by the awesome Amanda Keller – from Clive James chatting away about celebrities without his usual loquacious loftiness to the emergence of flashmobs (apparently around since 2004 – I know, right?). It was easy to understand, entertaining and most of all fun. Who else knew little of the thrill of Eurovision or the stereotype-come-to-life of Ebonics until Mondo Thingo?

So what do we have now? Only intentionally serious and unintentionally boring reports on the evening news where the “latest” fads and crazes have already hit the limelight; features in weekend supplements that cater to a female audience that largely doesn’t exist either – yes I’m a male, but the “Yummy Mummy” tag is ridiculous because it implies that mothers have to be soft and stupid – my mum (known as “The Glacial One” – which I love as nickname despite at first deriding it with Paul Keating‘s “All tip and no iceberg” quip) isn’t, and neither are any other mothers I know. At least there’s Fairfax’s The Tribal Mind blog which gets a nice little strap at the end of the opinion pages every Sunday, but it sometimes tends to be more academic than needed.

The only real yet fun, irrelevant but also learned study of popular culture now is of course from blogs and social media. When’s the day going to come when bloggers are readily paid – properly – for what their writing is worth, without having to let an MSM site steal their words for a bit exposure or take advertising? Take the Courier-Mail as an example – they’ll happily publish a glib tweet from a nobody to fill space, but is that nobody getting a quid for it? And not to mention around the edges of the letters page there’s handpicked tweets from “celebrities” – either politicians, athletes nobody knows or cares of or talent-show plebs who rate even less. They’ve even quoted “models”, FFS!

There’s been many blogs and social media users from Australia and around the world that have gained prominence for their take on aspects of modern culture – some have been able to use this success to get books published, like Stuff White People Like and others have inspired television series, like Shit My Dad Says (much like the old schoolyard threat of “My dad could bash your dad”, my Dad could give his a run for his money).

DAD: … and she had all this thick gold rubbish and trinkets hanging off her, like Sammy Davis, Jr. What’s that called?

ME: Bling?

DAD: Ah, yes … “bling”.

So why doesn’t the press directly source (and pay) from blogs, instead of the usual “blogs” hosted on their websites that are nothing more than opinion columns for less pay – Sam de Brito‘s All Men Are Liars, John Birmingham‘s Blunt Instrument – even Katharine Feeney’s Citykat (and what a ripper euphemism that could be with the right dirty mind).

Yes, I’ve only been blogging here for a fortnight as a way to hone my own writing and hopefully use it to get published, a portfolio of sorts, but I’m writing this piece not just for me, but for all the bloggers out there who entertain, provoke and inspire thought: I’ll admit Bob Ellis has pretty much burnt his bridges with nearly every paper in the country before his blog Table Talk, but what about Heathen Scripture? If blogs are now as “free” as media gets (no Rupert Murdoch, or as he’s known in my family, Elliot Carver types looking over shoulders) – then why doesn’t the media start publishing the works of bloggers more often instead of the usual coterie of repetitious middle-class opinion writers – how many columns have you read in the last week that riff on themes of either the same shrill opposition to any government policy without a second thought or about how “happy” (read: boring) family life is?

Hey Courier-Mail, if I have to read yet another column in tomorrow’s edition from a middle-aged fart writing about domesticity, I shall set myself on fire in your office – consider it a scoop. And on the C-M, nothing they’ve done has outraged me more than when the PM gave her awesome fifteen minute defense to the misogynistic attacks of the Opposition in Question Time last year, which set social media on fire and was viewed by millions around the world, a mere three paragraph report buried behind the front pages and even the “celebrity” pages. I think I was actually “unfriended” (the end of any friendship in modern etiquette is via Facebook) by someone who works for them – I’d love to know if it was because they thought I just posted crap (I couldn’t care less) or because I slagged off their editor; another instance of the mainstream media unable to handle the real world?

Wake up and shake up!

PS – I’ve just seen in The Guardian that Michael Douglas’s throat cancer was apparently caused by oral sex. Eew! Who would want Michael Douglas lapping at their laps, despite what the great Big Girl’s Blouse had to say on the subject:

Bread and bullshit circuses

What a hard time Julia Gillard has of doing her job. Running the country, trying to get policies legislated and out there and instead the media’s focus is – again – on a sandwich being thrown.

Granted it is out of the ordinary to have food as a weapon (apart from all those old Hitchcock-esque murder mysteries where a wife who’s had enough belts her husband with a leg of lamb and then cooks and eats the joint so there’s no evidence), but how will the PM be able to go to Aussie’s café in Parliament House without riot gear? Bring out the shields, lads – there’s sangers about!

Today whilst on a meet and greet at a high school in Canberra to spruik the Gonski education reforms, the Prime Minister had a salami sandwich thrown in her direction; I could say thrown at her but it was so widely off the mark that even non-athletic and bone-idle moi could have aimed better. In a gale. With my eyes closed. Listening to Elvis Costello’s “My Aim is True”.

Only last month whilst visiting a school in Brisbane, Ms Gillard had a sandwich thrown at her in a school playground for the first time. Again, the sliced-bread assailant missed, and the alleged offender was suspended from school – not before getting his mug all over the evening news – what more could a teenager want? Instant fame (or infamy) and the beginnings of what Max Markson would surely call a “media profile”. Add that one to your show-reel, kid.

And hasn’t the humble sandwich come a long way from it’s unsure and indefinable beginnings? There’s the whole Earl of Sandwich lark where either his good lady wife or his valet stuck a chunk of meat between some bread and gave it to the Earl so he could gamble whilst eating. That’s nothing – try filling out your trifecta slips at the pub while eating chips and gravy without a fork.

Other sources say it was Hillel the Elder, ancient Jewish religious leader (Philosemite that I am – my heart has swooned and my stomach is rumbling) who “invented” what we’d call a wrap now, by putting some leftover Paschal lamb on a bit of matzah. Next time you want to stir up a radical lefty, look them in the eye and with the most deadpan look you can muster, ask them: would you be eating that (no doubt wholemeal) sandwich now if it wasn’t for the Jews? I dare you!

I’ve never considered food let alone a sarnie as a weapon. Drinks, yes – the number of times I walked past then-Lord Mayor and now Queensland Premier Campbell Newman in King George Square with a coffee in my hand hot enough to cause GBH. Instead I behaved and laughed my head off instead when nearly he fell off a bicycle outside City Hall. Unfortunately (to me) despite not wearing a helmet, if he did fall Mr Newman would have no doubt been unharmed by just bouncing off his ego instead. And does drowning in your favourite cocktail count as “death by misadventure”? I’m off to enquire about a swimming pool of gin and a dash of tonic.

So why do the mishaps and unfortunate events overshadow the Prime Minister’s actions? Is it because she’s a woman? Yes – I’ve known of no other political leader in my 20-odd years be abused and insulted for their gender; from being considered “unfit” to be Prime Minister because they’re “deliberately barren” to having Opposition Leader Tony Abbott continue the insult from shock-jock (more like joke) Alan Jones that Ms Gillard’s father “died of shame” and that the “government had died from shame”. The Prime Minister’s response to this in Question Time was the best 15 minutes of 2012.

Yes, I’ve voted for and support Julia Gillard as Prime Minister – sometimes I must be the only young white guy (ugh!) around who does. For more on the abuse the PM cops just because she is a woman, read this lecture by writer and journalist Anne Summers: Her Rights at Work – it is powerful in it’s truth and shows just how much bullshit the Prime Minister gets thrown her way – and, in Dr Summers’ words: “a conspiracy of silence” by the media.

With all that happening, who gives a rat’s about a sandwich?

From pleb to sleb.

“A celebrity is a nothing but a nonentity who got lucky,” wrote Kathy Lette (don’t ask – there was nothing else to read and I was desperate). Although looking at most “celebrities” you’d expect the luck to be long gone, drained and not even a few dregs caked on to the bottom of the barrel.

Ten years ago the whole “famous for being famous” thing hit the big-time with Paris Hilton, what with her sex-tape and describing anything she liked with a drawled “That’s hot”. Now we’ve got the Kardashians, and although I could, like everybody else, bag them, most of what I hate about them has been said before by people much smarter than me, so I’ll make it short:  They seem to promote illiteracy – last time one of them came here (I don’t know which, the one that doesn’t look like a bloke) Channel Ten had a news item on this visiting Kardashian that was titled, in the spirit of the Kardashians taking the letter K to levels not seen since the Ku Klux Klan, “KARDASHIAN KAOHS” – see, try to do a Kardashian and they can’t even spell the word “chaos” properly. The only positive thing I get from them is that at least the famous-for-being-famous crew has become a bit more ethnically diverse.

I think the best nonentity though was Kim Duthie, otherwise known as the “St. Kilda Schoolgirl”. What a fun January that was! In 2011, stories appeared of an underage girl attending a training camp in the US with the St Kilda Football Club. And that this girl (who had so far remained unnamed due to her age) had leaked photos of naked footballers arseing about in all their chest-waxed and pube-shaved glory (ugh!). Sure enough, pics were seen of Nick Riewoldt grinning and baring all and Nick Del Santo playing with himself – which prompted the joke about doing a nude calendar of the club, and having Del Santo as “Mr February – because it’s the shortest month.” It then transpired that she was sleeping with a player-manager, Ricky Nixon, and that she was going to have his baby (subsequently debunked when she was hooked up to a lie-detector). And didn’t we all taste a bit of sick in our mouths when we read that over breakfast? That a young girl was banging some fat old walking, talking beer-gut? Best of all was that Duthie was on Twitter and tweeting away without a care in the world, especially for legalities. One night a middle-aged female friend and I, high on Cab Merlot and dope, tweeted Duthie but sadly got no response: “Hey, when you banged Nixon how many times did you orgasm? NONE!” And then we got onto the maestro and puppet-master of slebs for no reason everywhere, Max Markson. “Hey Max Markson, when are you gonna’ get Duthie to kiss ‘n’ tell for a few bob?” Again, no response and after we sobered up and realised how stupid we were, we thought we’d sensibly leave the poor girl alone.

A week later my friend had one of her “cunning plans”, which usually involve something that would cause outrage to simpletons and be hilarious if all goes to plan. “I was driving from Richmond today and I drove past Carey Baptist Grammar”, the biggest private-school in Melbourne, “and Nixon used to teach P.E. there, so I thought why not go there at night and graffiti along the front wall HOUSE OF NIXON and a Pisces symbol? It’s right in the bible-belt and everyone’ll think it’s the sign of the devil!” How could I disagree with this? I took the next tram up to Kew and walked round the entire length of the school, sadly realising that even at night the road was too well-lit and virtually impossible to spray-paint one letter let alone HOUSE OF NIXON and a Pisces symbol before being caught. Oh well, better a cunning stunt then a … Yeah.

And yet after all this, Ricky Nixon still gets in the papers. Abandoning sports management for stand-up comedy (which of course bombed) and proposing marriage to his next pretty young thing in a McDonalds in Moe, of all places (you just know his honeymoon was going to be at the Best Western in Dandenong) – does anyone really give a shit?

As much as a celebrity may only be a nonentity who got lucky, I blame lazy journalists and lazy editors too. If you have the “power”, for want of a better word, to give the luck that can make or break, surely you have a duty of care to use it wisely.