Reminiscin'

This journal is most at ease when discussing the dead, but not the recently departed. The news today of the demise of Mr Rowland S. Howard is cause for great sorrow. His contribution to history is immeasurable. I gather he did something musical, but that is of little consequence. (OK: he wrote Shiver, one of the all-time great songs.) A man of integrity, in a world that knows not the meaning of the word. An alternative to the alternative. A man who refused to have anything further to do with Nick Cave when Cave went all mainstream. A man who stayed true. Man.



Mr Howard’s death got me thinking about the 1980s. How we loved that stuff: that crazy alternative music and life, that dressin’ in black and going to see the touring punk and post-punk bands (not that they were called post-punk then folks)(at one such gig at the Grosvenor I recall, distinctly, Mr Howard {touring with his then special friend Lydia Lunch} telling me - me, personally - to fuck off: Lor' I was proud) and living near Hyde Park and taking acid and scaring folk in Hyde Park and such and so on. Well, you may recall my earlier mention of movan, and now you know I moved back to the environs of my youth. The house was built in the 1920s – very old by Skinny City standards: its age being a second enticement for this preticular (very competent) historian. I imagined (in addition to being somewhat scared of the weirdos that hang out in Hyde Park these days) that a house so steeped in history (verily dripping with the stuff) would have stories. And indeed it does. But not from the early days (at least, not as I have yet discovered). No, a friend I had not seen in years recently returned to Skinny City for a visit and when we caught up I discovered he had known the house well, back a coupla decades. He knew some of the former residents and their various peccadilloes: I don’t recall all his stories but there was mention of heroin addiction, prostitution, theft and general fuck-ups.

I was extremely pleased.

More (another) conspiracy

As you know, this particular journal of history is not afraid to call it when necessary, and, gentle readers, it is again necessary: CONSPIRACY (and not a Hildebrandt to be seen).

This time the sinister tentacles reach to the highest level: the West Australian state government. OK, as highest levels go, the WASG is a bit of a non-event, but here goes anyways.

The West Australian government department in charge of telescopes gave a talk at my boy's school. It was tremendously exciting and now many of the area's five and six year olds know how many moons Saturn has. But that's not all. In the course of this talk the boffin at the mic stated that it was necessary - again, 'necessary' - that 'we'** land manned flights on Mars by 2030 and begin mining certain valuable minerals thereon because deposits of said minerals on Earth will have run out by that date.

Now, staff at the West Australian government department in charge of telescopes are officially the last government employees to be updated on any issue you care to name. If they know WA's minerals are gone in twenty years so does the gov itself. And they've kept mum. For yer foreign brains, WA's economy is in boomtimes, based entirely on (a) our cleverness in having settled a land that has stuff in the ground that makes the world's mobile phones work; (b) the fact we thieved said ground off the blackfellas, without so much as a 'excuse me'; and (c) our unsurpassed ability to dig holes (of which i have written previously).

Now, the boomtimes have an endtime.

The cheap, rapidly erected pre-fabricated concrete apartment blocks, the jet-skis, the inordinate numbers of Pajeros, the oversized Ferris wheels, the freeway extension and, dammit, the very big holes in the ground: these are all things we have grown used to pointing at excitedly and saying 'we did that.'

The historically-minded among you will know that European settlement in WA has known two decisive eras: the 1830s to the 1890s, when the lack of what we now call venture capital stymied the dynamic, adventurous, entrepreneurial colonists, when there were plenty of good ideas but no money to implement them; and the 1960s until now, when there's been nothing but stupid ideas but all the money in the world to make them happen.

And now? We have twenty years left. But don't tell anyone.

** By 'we' i suspect he meant not the employees of the West Australian government department in charge of telescopes nor even West Australians in general, but the worldwide brotherhood of Boffins, Inc. (that's a mixed metaphor but this is too important to get hung up on trivial details).

death by one cut

SUMMER

I do love this season of increasingly hostile weather, but summer brings its own peculiar issues, foremost of which, to my mind, is the question: what is the technical term for a fear of ceiling fans?

Hmmm, gentle readers?

Holden vs Ford

At the newsagent at Skinny City's fine airport a young lad - of some nine summers - in front of me in the queue (and let me just say, airport queues are among the finest queues known to humanity) laid down on the counter the magazine he wished to purchase. It was a motoring magazine and had on the cover a picture of the new Commodore. I was overjoied to see a new generation of footsoldiers in the Holden vs Ford wars was on the way. Some had told of the demise of this particular cultural conflict back in the nineties, but clearly 'tis not so.

Hallelujah

Decoy Britney

A youngish singer of popular tunes by the name of Britney Spears came to Skinny City recently to perform some of her better-known songs. Perhaps you have heard of her. I must confess I had not; an oversight for which I forgive myself. I found, however, a number of odd conditions attached to her visit.

Firstly, I’m told the youngish lady in question did not actually sing, but rather mimed her way through the show. Vicarious karaoke is a new concept to me, and I shall have to ponder its worth. By all means, convey your thoughts on this matter.

Secondly – and this I experienced first-hand, as Ms Spears stayed in a well-known establishment offering short-term accommodation opposite my place of employment – there was considerable media interest in the visitation. This led to Ms Spears employing subterfuge; to wit (and I quote Skinny City’s fine daily newspaper), using a “decoy Britney.”

Holyfuck.

A decoy Britney!

Friends, I want one. Oh, no, please: not for prurient reasons; nothing lurid here. I would set up the decoy Britney on my front veranda, to wave at passers-by and cause immense envy amongst the neighbours. A status symbol if you will. A decoy Britney. I just had to write it again.

James Moderate, citizen

One cold evening in mid June 1901 - the seventeenth, to be exact - it being too late to use the miraculous coming together of six disparate states to form the one indivisible commonwealth that would come to be known simply as Australia as an excuse, but with the death of good Queen Victoria (bless her) perhaps on his mind, one James Moderate was charged by Kalgoorlie police with being drunk.

Which can only mean, in this all too interconnecty world, that somewhere there's a chap by the name of Albert Pisshead who can think himself very lucky not to have a police record.

nude

Well.

Movan' did not turn out to be be quite the joi i had been expecting. That Beatnik thang about the journey being more than the arrival: that's bollocks. And, to introduce a historical perspective, let me say that when i write my 'History of the Real Estate industry' it will be a one-word affair. And that word? A noun; plural.

Here's a thing: Though it grieves me, as a very competent historian, to do this, i must. I read this mos' excellent book one time and now i forget the source. So i can't tell y'all... I can't cite, and that's upsetting. And unprofessional. But it's such a great story.

So here's what happened: This guy, from the Ravensthorpe district on the south coast of Western Australia, goes off to fight in the First World War. He goes through a bunch of shit, but survives, and comes back a changed man (no surprises there). In the early 1920s he self-publishes a book about his experiences, in which he, firstly, shreds the British officer he had served under (the aphorism that WWI Tommies were bulldogs under the command of rabbits comes to mind). Thus far, standard fare, very popular in Aust. But then he lays into the Aust Army - critical of their lack of organisation and rationale on the Western Front. The Aust Army tries to ban the book but people are having too much fun.

So this guy has, in time-honoured style, upset the authorities, including his assault on the Aust Army at a time when pride in our fighting guys was at its peak (didja know we started celebrating Gallipoli in 1916 - just twelves months after the landing took place). And i like that. But it gets better. In a fit of pique the guy returns to the Ravensthorpe district, takes up a returned soldier's land grant some miles out of town and stop there the rest of his life, doing the minimum amount of farming to keep himself alive. And he strips off. He spends the rest of his life out there on his block, naked. The locals joke about how you have to sound your car horn when you go visit, so he can put a shirt on (1920s car horn - toot, toot!!). It's a great story, and when i relocate the book i'll tell more.

I completely endorse the notion that we are pygmies, standing on the shoulders of giants. It just gets a little ick when one realises some of those giants were starkers.