Reservation Chic

You know who I hate? Teenagers. And while I should say "Australian teenagers" to stay in keeping with the theme of this blog, my dislike of them probably has no geographic boundaries. And to be fair, I didn't like myself as a teenager either, so it's not like I'm just being Old. You just don't see that many kids in New York. It's not a kids' place. In Melbourne, they're everywhere. And for some reason they never have parents.

The main thing I don't like about teenagers is how they look, since I rarely engage with them otherwise — I cross their path while they're loitering in front of Flinders Street Station, or chewing with their mouths open in the Bourke Street Mall. I don't mind the nerdy ones, or even the ones that think they're Goth, because they're probably having a shit time just living if they're wearing a Bullet for My Valentine tee-shirt.

It's the Myer Basement audience; the loud, screechy ones that shop at Supré whom I find the worst. They're the over-confident, pancake makeup-wearing girls and their scaled-up jock-type boy counterparts that cause my ovaries to shrivel. It's not that I think my kid would be like this; it's that I wouldn't want to subject her to this.


I've written about Myer windows before. So this caught my attention the other day. It's a crap picture, but in case you're squinting ... trying to see if ... is that a... Yes. It's a teepee in the display window. With black mannequins wearing tee-shirts with horses and leather tassels and some other 'Native American-inspired' bullshit. Oh, and stereo speakers. And a picnic hamper. And stumps of wood for kneeling. And a tartan blanket. It's so historically adept it blows my mind. And right next door at Supré?



Well.

We couldn't be caught being original, could we?

For those of you who think I might be exaggerating or overreacting to how ridiculous this new trend — which will invariably attract the most vapid of the teenaged sect — imagine the following scenario:

Say you're Australian and you've gone to the States on holiday. Say you're in Chicago. (It's roughly the same size as Melbourne.) You're walking down Michigan Avenue, which is the main shopping strip in the city, and in the window of Macy's you see this:



Yes. It's the same thing.

Kites in the Reservoir: My Day in Darebin

If the Melbourne CBD is 'like New York' and St Kilda is 'like L.A.', then the City of Darebin is totally like Southeast Detroit. After an epic Sunday trip along the 112 tram line, I arrived at the Darebin Kite Festival, excited at the fact that I actually left the inner suburbs. It's a rare occasion.

Strolling across the grass with my travelling companions, Megan and Marcus, I found myself bemused at the scene.

"So here's where all the brown people are!" my inner monologue exclaimed. Scores of children of all colors ran around, with younger ones wandering glassy-eyed and overwhelmed at the excitement, while older kids' gazes were fixed at the kites in the sky. Weirdos on stilts got out a giant jump rope while 7 year-olds scrambled to queue. It was like a Benetton ad, without the clothes marketed to white people, and if you threw in women flying kites in burkhas.






We'd come all this way for a friend's birthday picnic, and it was well worth it. I do love a good community festival. We parked ourselves off to the side of the fray so as not to get garotted, and sneakily popped the champers, adding some orange juice for justification.

There was some un-authentic sounding gypsy music on stage, followed by African dancing. I zoned out for awhile and we went to go examine the wares for sale. There seemed to be an inordinate amount of politically incorrect kites for sale, such as the "Midget" kite:



As well as what was obviously the "Gay Shark" kite:


Still, all was going well until it became suddenly clear that one of the guys on stilts was on a dangerous course of his mushroom trip. By this time several kites had gotten stuck in trees, so the Ren Fest reject decided to climb a tree on stilts. You know bad shit's going down when you hear moms going, "really, it's okay! Just leave the kite up there."

Naturally, I wasn't going to let this go undocumented.



Sadly, he didn't die. Or maybe I got bored and left before the end, I don't remember. Anyway, everything was wrapping up and the cable-access trained Emcee for the day was blathering on and on into his microphone. A little girl of about 9 climbed up on stage, which prompted the Emcee to lean over and condescendingly ask her, "would you like to say anything about the fun you've had here today?"

"Bite me," she replied.

My day was complete.

Choice eh brew!

I've often said that New Zealand is the Canada of Australia. Let's look at the following parallels:

• New Zealanders hate when they're overseas and people ask them if they're Australian.
• Canadians hate when they're overseas and people ask them if they're American.

• New Zealanders have an amazingly beautiful country with 4 people in it.
• Canadians have an amazingly beautiful country with 8 people in it.

• New Zealanders end lots of sentences with 'eh!'
• Canadians end lots of sentences with 'eh?'

• New Zealanders spend lots of time criticizing Australia and touting their own country, yet 20% of their population lives overseas.
• Canadians spend all their time criticizing America and touting their own country, yet 90% live along the American border.



Lots of Kiwis and Canucks are actually super funny people, but they don't seem to have much of a sense of humor when it comes to Americans or Australians making fun of them. But sometimes they just make it so easy.


I picked this up in a hotel lobby in Queenstown, NZ last month. In their defense, the country's tourism went through the roof after the Lord of the Rings trilogy; how were they to know they inadvertently opened their doors to nerds the world over?

This 'official' Lord of the Rings Tour offers the following adventures:
1. Walking around on grass
2. Eating lunch in a restaurant
3. Hearing lots of information about the Lord of the Rings movies
4. Dressing up like an elf and/or wizard
...all for the low, low price of $170 per person.

If those highlights didn't grab you, read the testimonials:

"4 words: Lord of the Tours." --H.K, United Kingdom
This guy thought that zinger up before he even got off the plane.

"ORCsome scenery, ORCstanding information." --Barb.
Is it bad that I assume Barb is obese?

"We are huge fans of LOTR and your enthusiasm and deep knowledge of the LOTR trilogy made the day so fantastic." -- Jing Man and James Kho
DEEP KNOWLEDGE.

And most disturbingly,
"Thank you for the most incredible day of my life." --D.R.



Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn't mention their 'weapons trail' which allows you to see their very rare collection of LOTR weapons. Uh. IT'S NOT REAL. The movies were made like 5 years ago--how are the weapons rare? Aren't they just props?

* * *

I've been slack in posting about my trip to New Zealand (unlike Mr Goody Two-Shoes Nick, who seems to blog his life in real time.) We were there for 2 weeks for my sister-in-law's wedding to a very large Kiwi named Anton, who is fantastic, but as I said, huge, and I don't want to make fun of his country because he might hurt me.



New Zealand is absolutely gorgeous. There's no disputing this fact. As one Kiwi declared to me, "Any Christian would agree it's the most beautiful place on Earth." I wasn't sure how to respond to this so I just smiled. Something tells me they don't have many non-Christians there, so I wasn't going to mention my slight case of Atheism, which occasionally tends toward Judaism.

We took a bunch of little day trips all over the South Island. On about Day 3 I declared to husband that I wanted to go on a hike.
"But you've only brought 3 pairs of high heels," he pointed out cautiously.
(silence....)
So I went hiking in my lowest pair of heels.

I tried not to bring up any place outside of New Zealand for fear of the Kiwis getting defensive; I understood the propensity toward it, but sometimes I wanted to point out that I wasn't comparing New Zealand with New York or Melbourne. That would be a pointless endeavor. Instead I learned all I could about the newest country in the world, drank Raro, ate Perky Nanas, and had about 5 cones of Hokey Pokey ice cream. I chased a sheep into a field, struggled to pronounce Maori words, and tried my damndest not to imitate their accents. It's harder than you'd think.

Let me tell you somethin' about Californians.

So on Friday I finally met Nick, against whom I am competing for the next five days in our nerdily-named Blog Off.

I was meeting up at my old studio beforehand, but because all trams to Collingwood suck, I ended up walking most of the way there and back, busting the caps off my heels and feeling the Crisco-like coating of summer evening sun slowly sink into my pores. By the time I got back to the city, I had to dash home and get some new pub crawl heels.

We met up at Hells, but not before I frightened him by texting "are you black?" whilst trying to figure out where he was sitting. As he'd already had a gander at Husband's tattooed-and-baldness, naturally he started wondering whether he'd just asked to have a pub crawl with Heath and Deborah Campbell. Not so, my friends. Awhile back (I may have been stoned) I was reading a post on Nick's blog and thought it would be awesome to be able to have an African-American friend from the States here in Melbourne. Somehow that led me to decide he was, in fact, black. Alas, he is white. But that's okay too.

Here are some things I've learned about Nick:

1. He neither sleeps nor eats very much, so I therefore ate 2 kilos of fries and calamari by myself, and started vaguely worrying whether he was going to faint, and what I would do in such a situation.

2. Bogans scare the shit out of him. I think, however, this may extend to blokey bloke drunk Aussies in general. I was stunned to find out that he thought Fitzroy was dodgy, and I set out to prove him wrong. I spend so much time with Australian men that I really don't notice that their abrupt manners and growly voices and convict heritages are a bit Rottweiler-esque, and it wasn't until we sat down in the beer garden of the Napier that I really thought about this.

3. He is modest and considerate; it was good of him to present himself on my home turf and open himself up to being scrutinized by the above Aussie men. I'm a bit of a Rottweiler myself at times, with a liquid courage attitude that says, "I may not be invincable, but I'll make you wish you were dead if you try messing with me."

4. He's not very good at talking shit. I think the closest he got to baiting was calling me a sissy.



5. Nick travels here and I don't.



Well.

I think this is where we established the divergence of our respective experiences. Because while I have been thrust into Australian life like Mowgli in the jungle, Nick has had to find his own way. And maybe this is why he doesn't feel so compelled to rant about these new situations he finds himself in. He embraces it, travels, makes Excel spreadsheets about his experiences. I whine about stupid shit like cop uniforms because I didn't come here to be in Australia.

But I know Melbourne. I haven't really left it in two-and-a-half years. I can drag an American from Centre Place to Gertrude Street; I can show him the original Niagara behind the bar of the Napier Hotel and lead him back to the city after 64 vodka-sodas. I could have shown him Smith Street — my first glimpse of Australia — and told him how the first time I heard AC/DC here was because I was living across the street from The Tote. I could have shown him the timeless Pellegrini's on Bourke Street, introduced him to Australia's top baristas, or shown him how to break into the North Melbourne pool.

I don't like to admit that I've learned much living here. It feels too much like a betrayal to the home I miss every day. But the truth is, this is my home too now. I'm emotionally invested and will be sad to leave even though I know I'll be back again before long. Nick and I talked about how once you're gone from the States long enough, you start feeling displaced, because you don't really belong anywhere anymore. And that was how I felt for a long time. It is only now, that I am leaving, that I can say otherwise.

Mondays, Unemployment, Christina Aguilera and other stuff that sucks.

I'm on a bit of a roll today folks, and that's because I am currently without any client work, which makes me cranky and nervous, instantly resorting to eating poor people food. I made a tuna melt for lunch and inexplicably added beets to it. This is what happens when I try to assimilate. What was I trying to prove by engaging in this totally weird Australian custom of adding beets to everything?

I realized I had bought Coles brand tuna and Coles brand beets in an attempt to save 60 fucking cents and in the process I ruined what is arguably the greatest and most underrated American sandwich by adding purple.

And while I'm on the subject of Coles, why is it that they can get away with getting Christina Aguilera in my head? I've now been humming 'Genie in a Bottle' for the past two hours. I listened to a new Wu-Tang track and that Linda Perry-written bullshit still won out. I would like to call in my one wish to the Wu-Tang genies to meet up with Christina Aguilera in a dark alley to wipe that skank's face off her head.

* * *

BRB, I'm gonna go frown at some tourists.

* * *

Okay. It's T-minus 16 weeks until Dangerous Girl and Husband go back to the States for a long sejourn and I am freaking out about the Global Economic Crisis. It would be fine if I like, knew how to grow some vegetables and was living in a place with grass or some shit, but we're moving back to New York City, which was hard enough when employment was relatively easy to come by.

I do this though; I sort of manifest little dramas like this because I think it makes life interesting. And Husband is so easy-going that he doesn't seem to mind it. That laid-back confidence truly is the Aussie way (as opposed to the neurotic, over-researched confidence that only an insomniac with ulcers can seem to maintain.) For example, it wasn't enough drama for me to decide, 6 weeks ahead of time, to move to Australia instead of staying in New York. Nope, had to quit my job, move out of my apartment, sell my possessions and throw in a wedding in there, forcing my family to fly into NYC on very little notice, and the in-laws to fly in from everywhere else. What was the hurry? Dunno. But everything turned out fine.

Americans love a conflict.

Dear Readers,

I received the following email in my inbox today from a fellow American who lives in/blogs about Melbourne:

Dear Sister, My name is Nickolas James Gardner of Inglewood California USA and I am of the royal descent of Jasper Tudor and a total idiot that is a direct descendant of King Henry the VIII.
I run a solo institution that I call my life that is published under the guise of www.nobodylikesanamerican.blog.com. I challenge Husband and thee to a blog off. Accept or don’t accept, Nickolas Gardner

This was my reply:

Bring it.

What should the terms be? Here was my idea: Nick and I will each post once per day for one week, encouraging our readers somewhere in each post to mosey on over to the rival's site, and declaring a daily winner in the comments section. The loser has to [insert annoying American antic/public shame here]

Nick's idea is that we meet up, go on a pub crawl, and the next day, write about our antics on our respective sites.

I like the idea of American v. American in Australia. I imagine for our Aussie readers it'll be a bit like watching some kind of illegal dog fight, except between two dogs you think are obnoxious, so you don't really care about their welfare.

Pun Times in Sydney

If Melbourne is home to the hair salon pun, I guess Sydney wins "most pervy". After 2 years in Safety Town, I finally ventured up there and spent a very nice Christmas just outside the home of Hugh Jackman. [Not literally. The closest I've come to stalking an Australian actor was drunkenly going through Heath Ledger's recycling bin in Brooklyn. I wish I were kidding.]

Anyhoo. I was strolling along Oxford Street when I looked up and saw a booze store entitled Lick-Her Shop. It actually exists! I'd been told about it but assumed my friend was just talking shit.

Not only is it real, it happened to be adjacent to The Tool Shed, which I'm guessing is a euphemism for a vagina because, well, it looked like a vagina club. Lo and behold I was on to something, because right next to that was The Pleasure Chest. Apparently Sydney is also home to Governor's Pleasure Lingerie Restaurant as well as Bada Bing Nightclub. I didn't see these last two, and they're not puns, but wow.



I was also impressed by Sequins of Events and wondered how the fuck someone would want to work at a place that undoubtedly caters to bridezillas.



Verne Jewels took me a minute. Hot air balloon: Jules Verne. I didn't go inside, but it didn't seem terrible. All in all I didn't spend enough time in Sydney to find more businesses with pun names, but based on what I did see I'm sure it's chock full.

* * *

This image just needed to be up here. Unbelievable.

6 Ways to Punish Assholes

I hate guns. I think they should be illegal in the States the way they are here and most other places in the world. Proponents of the "right" to bear arms are fucking retarded for not seeing the link between legalized weapons and shitstorms of gun fights. But I can't help but wonder if they are the deterrent to certain types of crime in the United States. Because senseless violent crime in Melbourne is rife, and the perpetrators don't seem to be afraid (aware?) of the consequences of shit they instigate.

Nowhere else have I seen so much random drunken wreckage of one's own city. Glassing is becoming more and more common--one famous football player, Wayne Carey, glassed his own girlfriend in the face in a pub in front of a bunch of people. Large groups of drunk men prowl around the city, completely off their faces, baiting people so they can kick the shit out of them. I don't think guns are a solution to anything, I just wonder if it's that unknown variable in the States that perhaps causes people to hesitate before instigating such violence.



The pic above is a ghost bike: a memorial to a cyclist who died on the road. This is the first ghost bike I've seen in Melbourne, but they're not an infrequent sight in New York. But this is the first time I've seen one kicked and bashed by what was obviously random drunken violence. What makes this one so especially sad is that the cyclist, Carolyn Rawlins, was crushed by a bus a few months ago on Swanston Street while on her way to work. She was only 33, and she was pregnant. There are countless things that make this story so tragic, but the pointless abuse of her memorial by violent drunks is unconscionable. For one thing, what kind of monster vandalizes a memorial? I don't care how drunk you are, you don't fuck up a humble memorial. Secondly, why is it okay to kick the shit out of any bicycle? These assholes don't go around bashing people's cars--why is someone's bike any different? I'll tell you why: because the suburban pricks who demolish the city love their fucking cars, and they have no respect for people who ride bikes, and they certainly don't want to share the road with them. The really sick thing is that Safety Town is crawling with cops. But they're either blind or, more likely, just don't think all this is a punishable crime.

As if that all weren't bad enough, Safety Town has a new mayor, who insensitively ran on a promise to open Swanston Street up to regular traffic (right now it is only open to buses, taxis, and other service vehicles) right after her death. The average morning sees thousands of commuting cyclists down Swanston Street, and adding more traffic and danger is so not the answer to anything, except perhaps appeasing the morons who complain about traffic jams in a city (oh really? you say the second largest city in Australia is...full of people?!).

If you've gotten this far in my bitching, I applaud you, and hope that this preface has inspired you to suggest your own additions to the list below:

List of How to Punish Violent Suburban Drunks

1. All city residents are invited to go to VSD's McMansions and piss and vomit in their front yards without consequence.

2. If you've got a girlfriend or boyfriend you want to have an argument with, preferably a fight where you just talk bullshit in Outside Voice, I'd like to invite you to do so underneath a VSD's bedroom window.

3. Slash their SUV tires and/or bust their tinted windows with a baguette because we are all French fags.

4. Replace all the King Street strip joints with organic supermarkets and hybrid car dealerships.

5. Nutslaps.

6. Draw face pubes on their David Beckham/Bono posters with bike grease.

Suggestions welcome in the comments.

"Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization"

Thank you adbusters, for fueling my disdain for the vacuous and self-obsessed era of hipster, the only people who've managed to make me feel bad about myself while actually just being ignorant assholes.

While I openly admit to ascribing to some of its definitions, (I ride a bike instead of driving, and it is fixed-gear) I attribute the similarities to a generational trend (I live in a city, I don't drive in Australia, it's ethically sound) rather than some embrace of apathy. Apathetic I am not; I am not afraid of describing and defending what I find interesting or what might move me to feel something, and I'm certainly politically and socially aware and active.

But maybe that's because I'm not a teenager, and I don't think that having an informed opinion makes me vulnerable. Also: I'm a feminist. Most of the hipster girls I meet are too concerned with looking like an American Apparel ad and being perved on by Dov's disciples to care much for the fight for equality.

All this brings me, however, to the fact that I've just justified how I am not a hipster. And as my friend Tim once observed, "only hipsters talk about hipsters."

UPDATE: There's an interesting response here, from a former Vice writer.
I think my biggest thing with hipsters is not so much their conformity (the Vice guy is right, that's just the case with the majority of the population) but their apathy. The hipsters I know are not the ones the Vice guy is talking about; Melbourne hipsters are small-town kids who think they're hot shit, don't know anything about the world and don't care to. They are politically and socially retarded and they're proud of it, and it is precisely that ignorance mixed with arrogance which drives me to hate people--anyone.

That's More Like It.

From the NYTimes: "An eight-ton, 72-foot Norway spruce lit up with sparkling holiday colors as thousands of onlookers packed into the streets surrounding the center's plaza, with its famed skating rink and gilded statue depicting Prometheus bringing fire to mankind."

Christmas: Oh come ON, Australia.

* * *

I was one of those lame kids who totally gets in to the Spirit Of Christmas. Come Thanksgiving I was all head-high and grinning (lips closed of course--this was pre-toothal-rearrangement, mind you,) making hand-made Christmas cards and carefully selecting which flavors of Jelly Bellys I would arrange in clear plastic boxes from Cargo Hold for the two people I called friends in middle school. It was so pathetic that when I was 14 and still hadn't come out to my parents as An Official Non-Believer in Santa, my stepmother pulled me aside and said, 'I know maybe you're just accommodating your little brother and sister, but Santa really doesn't exist [she braced herself and squared my shoulders:] it's JUST ME AND DAD.'

I was embarrassed; clearly my enthusiasm had caused my parents to rethink whether I might actually be retarded. No, I didn't really still believe in Santa, but by now I believed in Mariah Carey's first album, and that was enough to make me happy even as I was realizing that Michigan was not a romantic place to be for drama queens like me. I also didn't want to get less presents in the event that I did confess to knowing the truth. Anyway, like a normal teenager, I quickly discovered hatred for most things around me, and so the Spirit of Christmas evaporated, like bong smoke on a windy day.

My spirit was renewed, however, upon visits to Chicago in my late teens, and to New York in my early 20s. The cities boasted big Northern trees in their central squares—20-foot Norwegian furs, stacked with tasteful Christmas bling and nestled in an attractive depth of snow (holy shit I should write Pottery Barn catalogs). People bustled on Michigan and Fifth Avenues, shopping and pretending to look fucked off but secretly enjoying the dramatic and romantic vapor that reminded them of familiar movies.

Let me restate that I'm a total drama queen, and that a lot of the time I was herding through the masses in New York I had just had a pot brownie or had slipped Jamesons in my latte to help warm the walk. Like, that explains the stoned euphoria. But still. It was something.

* * *

So when they put this tree up every year in City Square in Melbourne, I just have to audibly sigh. Why are the tourists taking pictures of this thing? It is to make fun of it, right? You're not actually thinking this is what Christmas looks like, right?

Then they put these cheese-butt banners up on the major streets that say "Christmas" in whimsy bullshit lettering, to remind you that while you're sweating and getting skin cancer in this harsh Australian sun, you should suspend your belief long enough to think of Santa, snow, the North Pole, roast turkey, wool sweaters, extra blankets and milk. But the problem is just thinking about that shit when it's 85 degrees WILL ACTUALLY MAKE YOU VOMIT.

I say: just give it up. Stop calling it Christmas and just make it Presents and Lobster Day. Gifts n' Grog. Whatever. You're just making the rest of us reminisce for the days of Mariah*.

*Vision of Love was a good album, shut up.

Live Blogging the U.S. Election

I'm sitting here at Jeremy's with Stuart and Rachel and we're all pretending to be really important, sitting in front of Jeremy's gigantor TV with our various Mac laptops. It's funny watching this in Australia, where Australian television has just succumbed to streaming the American Broadcasting Company, with Channel 9 anchors occasionally jumping in to go, "uh. Yeah, so...this is a...historic...uh...black person." Rachel predicts the Aussie broadcasters are going to talk about Barack Obama being "clean" and "articulate" at some point in the game today.

11:27: Channel 9 has made their "break to commercial" graphic the U.S. presidential seal with a Hendrix-style guitar riff of Pomp & Circumstance. Nice.

11:37: CNN's pundits have amazing skin. Anderson Cooper is a gay icon.

11:41: Every woman involved in this campaign, including Diane Sawyer, is wearing false eyelashes. I have no problem with this. Charlie Gibson is annoying me already. RIP Peter Jennings.

11:47: Channel 9's studio anchor is asking the US Correspondent, "how did those people behind you get in? Did they have to buy tickets?"

11:52: One of Channel 9's pundits is bright red and possibly still drunk from Cup Day.

12:01: Charlie Gibson is telling us which states he wants Obama to win: Delaware, DC, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Connecticut and Massachusetts. Yessss. John McCain's got Kentucky, Oklahoma and Tennessee. "People project Florida too early to their own peril"

12:07: CNN dude loves his touch screen software. He's pointing to random counties and babbling about some kind of trend, "John McCain cannot afford to underperform George W Bush in these areas." What?

12:09: ABC dude is talking about going to a bowling alley in Altoona, PA for reasons unknown.

12:15: Sources tell us CNN has 3D holograms!

12:18: Obama is hott.

12:26: Australia's Channel 7 news anchor to their Phoenix correspondent: "are the Republicans looking morose yet?" Also, Sarah Palin voted in jeans and a Carharrt jacket made out of moose.

12:30: Wolf Blitzer in da house!

12:35: Channel 7's anchor says, "this is not just about who's going to be in the White House, it's also about bums on seats in congress."

12:39: Wolf is calling Pennsylvania for Obama. WOOT!

12:51: The Australians around me are scared of James Carville. Fair enough.

12:54: Four years ago I spent about 9 months volunteering with NARAL, registering women to vote through phone banks and later, by bussing myself and elderly Jewish women to Pennsylvania most Saturday mornings to do non-partisan door-knocking. I ended up campaigning in some capacity in 4 states, and while those all went blue, I spent Election Night crying in front of the television at my friend Brian's house, spliff in hand, after a very long and exhausting day in Pennsylvania.

It kills me a little that I wasn't able to be active in my community during this campaign. I certainly would have been more inspired by this election cycle, and I've got friends back home who say they were sad I couldn't have been there with them.

Anyway, I'm glad to be here. And this year I'll be smoking a celebratory spliff.

1:00: Michigan goes to Obama! REPRESENT!

1:02: Tom Brokaw's experienced timbre joins the fray. "It's all about the economy." No shit!

1:03: NBC's map is an ICE RINK upon which they're sticking red or blue vinyl state stickers. Lame. [UPDATE: I am dum and didn't realize it's Rockefeller Center. That makes more sense.]

1:04: The Australian anchor wants to know: "If Obama loses, will there be riots in the States?" You wish, Shane.

1:14: Holy shit. Obama is leading in Ohio AND Florida. Although Fox News is saying McCain's only .4% behind in the popular vote. Aw HELL no!

1:20: Charlie Gibson is on the touch screen. I hate watching old people try to use computers.

1:27: OBAMA HAS JUST WON OHIO. NO REPUBLICAN IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD HAS WON THE PRESIDENCY WITHOUT IT.

1:31: Oprah says "it's a moment for all Americans." I'm waiting for her to say "you go girl" to Obama.

1:40: Some country hoo-ha moron is playing the gee-tar on stage in Phoenix, trying to temper the blow of those assholes losing Ohio.

1:44: In the background of Channel 9's coverage in Phoenix, it totally looks like they're packing up the stage. SBS is covering the election after 2pm, after "Cooking in the Danger Zone."

1:46: The Australians are reporting, "you blokes are gonna need a miracle mate." I think we should be drinking every time someone says "blow."

1:47: Who the fuck styled Channel 9's "Mike"? He's wearing a tie Jeremy describes as "novelty squirting tie"

1:53: This girl is totally reporting "statistics" that she read on Facebook and Twitter. Um. She's getting paid for this? Why isn't she reading DGIST?!

1:56: Australian correspondent says "I think this election will make a difference in America more than Australia."

1:59: Anderson Cooper says, "Joe the Plumber isn't the face of America, don't they get that?"

2:00: Mormons love McCain in Utah, ____* love Obama in Iowa.

*who lives in Iowa again?

2:02: Anderson Cooper wants to know if they can go home once Obama hits 270. His pundits are working out the math of what time they can split.

2:03: There is a collective "awwww!" in the room as I announce Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are on live now (and it's not syndicated on TV here.)

2:07: James Carville, while describing the monumental Democratic sweep, is basically saying "I'm not going to get laid for awhile, folks."

2:12: Aussie correspondent says, "I was talking to a black American at the airport, a black American who was cleaning shoes, and he says he is scared that Barack Obama won't win."

2:15: Australian "US Politics Analyst" is totally using the wrong terminology..."the Republican caucus needed to fix the economy."

2:17: IT'S OFFICIAL: Channel 9 declares Barack Obama the next president.

2:24: Jezebel blogger says "SPENCER: Take a drink every time Dana Bash blinks and you will be FITSHACED." Dana Bash looks like the dad in Finding Nemo.

2:25: Harry Malkonian is the only American on Aussie TV and Carolyn says "is Michael Musto's dad."

2:29: Channel 9's interim guitar riff has switched to the Star Spangled Banner!

2:32: Anderson Cooper is trying to make some random point and his pundits basically just told him to shut up. "Let's resist the temptation to characterize the Republican party as old white men" FUCK OFF OLD WHITE MAN!

2:38: Al Franken may win a Minnesota senate seat?!

2:43: Just drank for first mention by Australian anchors for "first Jew." Who knows what he's talking about. Lieberman maybe?

2:58: VIRGINIA FOR OBAMA! Hasn't happened since LBJ in 1964.

3:00: CNN Breaking News: Barack Obama elected president!!!!!

Otherness

I'm starting on the sauce a bit earlier than usual next Wednesday, to kick in the Obama presidency in real-time. So like, 8am screwdrivers. I've been really bummed out that I haven't been in the States these past two years of campaigning–I'm one of the most politically-obsessed people I know–but it's been interesting to have this faraway perspective.

My friends in NYC are describing this feeling of surge and renewal around them, despite the economy collapsing, due mostly to Obama. As I've scoured the NYTimes every day, I've been thinking a lot about the divisive nature of people—of only feeling strong by feeling a part of something that others are not a part of. It's a basic instinct and has been used blatantly and successfully throughout our collective political history.

But being behind the candidate who kicks the dust off the high road, and "incidentally" into his opponents' faces, I can't help but feel embarrassed for having bought into my own aggression. It makes me feel like getting called up as being mean when really I'm just at a loss of something better to say.

I haven't written a post on here in 6 months because I'm feeling this "otherness" so overwhelmingly that I've considered scrapping this blog and renaming it The Reluctant Australian. It's like I'm telling myself, "I'm here, not there, get over it." It's just that these little Aussie things aren't so funny any more. Or maybe they are still, but my lone laughter is sounding a bit tragic.

Don't get me wrong: Safetytown is alive and well. I'm still noticing hilarious signs, or big useless clusters of them, or a row of bike racks mowed down by a Friday night motorist: (why did they put safety tape around it? "Don't hit the bike racks again."?)



But my point is I can be and am critical about anything and everything, so the scope of what I write may not be defined by my lack of connection to Safetytown anymore. It'll make it easier to write, at the very least.

Whatever, I'm not even drunk. It's Friday night and I'm blogging. If I were saying all this aloud, next to you at the bar, you'd rightly call me an emo and tell me to fuck off.

So I'll follow your advice and sign off now.

Cheers mate!

Ute tell me.

The Ute is truly an Australian icon, as well as being the mullet of the car world: business at the front, party (or vehicle for livestock) at the back. I made this observation the other day while making a hook turn on my bicycle, and thinking "oh that sedan is about to tur---oh that's not a sedan, it's the ugliest car ever designed."



History tells us that the humble beginnings of the Ute were born from a rural Australian woman, who asked some dude who worked at Ford, "Why don’t you build people like us a vehicle to go to church in on a Sunday, and which can carry our pigs to market on Mondays?"



Why, indeed. Now, I'm not knocking the obvious benefits to having a Ute. They're very handy if you're moving and a friend happens to have one. Tradesmen use them for work. Some people probs still put their pigs in the back. That makes sense, if you have pigs you want to drive around. What does not make sense, however, is trying to make them glamorous, or even remotely attractive. They should not be painted yellow. Yellow is a ridiculous color for a car anyway, but on a Ute it's especially offensive because you can't help but have to look--not only at the ugliest car ever made, but at the invariably frightening owner of the vehicle.

I would venture to describe your average yellow Ute driver in more scathing detail, but I'm not exactly incognito here, and frankly I don't feel like getting my ass kicked by a local. I'll just post a picture up and then you can be in charge of being judgmental.

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Yesterday, my friend Nev brought the Deniliquin Utemuster to my attention. It's some kind of Ute convention, not wholly unlike lots of events I'm sure Southerners call "tradition" and "heritage," which include essential props like cowboy hats, random sofas in parking lots, and women who pretend to be interested so they can get some fucking attention from their mens once in awhile.

This is all leading up to an inevitable post that will chart the similarities and differences between white trash and the Aussie bogan. Stay tuned.

Google in Cahoots with Safety Town

Google Maps caught this dude eating shit on his bike, right here in Oz. Let's all take a moment to laugh at him and applaud Big Brother Google for this morning's entertainment!

Thanks to the f for the heads-up

Spliffs, Krums and Pies

I've got a few small observations for you guys, none of which warrant a whole post.

The first thing is, you guys need to get with 420. It's not that hard. 420 (four-twenty) means marijuana celebration happy times. That means that if I happen to glance at the clock one afternoon and declare "4:20 doods!" in Ultimate Surfer voice then you should understand that I am excited about the prospect of someone having weed on them to share with me.

But the thing is with you guys, this explanation is never enough for you. You have to know why it's called 4-20. And if it has anything to do with Four and Twenty Pies (no) and if it's a reference to Cheech and Chong (also no). The point is, you're missing the point. Who cares what it's called. It's time to hit the bong.

The 20th of April is a special day for the world, worth celebrating and pondering: Earth Day. The anniversary of the Bay of Pigs. The beginning of the French Revolution. And a day during which millions spark doobs. It's communal spirit braaahh.

* * *



Yesterday whilst celebrating I went to the grocery store and bought these breadcrumbs, both because the name was so ridiculously Aussie--Krummies--and because I thought the packaging was old school and adorable. But now that I've had a look around the internets I've decided I must have bought a box of Krummies that had been sitting around the store since the last time they branded.

Krummies reminded me of a couple other brand names that make me laugh. One is Kumfs. It's a brand of ugly shoes from New Zealand. I also like the v. popular ice cream "Golden Gay Time". The other one is this store that has American Apparel-like clothing called Cotton On, which (I think) is an Australian expression for catching on to something. But every time I pass it I think,
"Cotton On Garth!"
"Cotton On Wayne."


* * *

I art directed a photo shoot last week out at a new housing development we like to call Satanic Ridge. Once we compiled a list of names we'd have chosen for a new subdivision, and it included such gems as "Crystal's Hymen" and "Guiche Creek." I'll have to dig up the list for you guys. But anyway, while we were at the shoot, one of the kids, who was ten, asked me which footy team I support.

"Collingwood," I said to him.

He squinted his eyes and hissed, "damn you" before walking off. !!! I lamely called after him, "well which team do you like?" He didn't even turn around, just called out "Carlton" and rejected me for the rest of the afternoon.

Heading to the Hills

I've been feeling antsy lately about the fact that I live in Australia yet have no idea what Australia is about. I don't leave Melbourne. That's partly because nature is some nasty shit and also because part of me is afraid of Australia. Sharks eat people here.

But lately I've been thinking, at some point I'm going to be stuck in some gray, shitty-ass apartment in an inconvenient area of New York and think FUCK MAN, I used to live in Australia! but have no idea what that actually looks like, aside from what I've seen in Wolf Creek and Rogue.




Way to go Tourism Australia.

So anyway, enough of me being a pussy. I've been here a year and a half (next Wednesday, but who's counting?) Time to check out some cultcha.

The first thing we did was go to Sovereign Hill on Easter. It's a recreated gold-mining village in Ballarat, where 1/3 of the world's gold was found during the Victorian gold rush in the 1850s.



Here is a photo of me in the welcome center, recreating real history by stealing the chinaman's gold. I play the role of Whitey.




It was your typical family/tourist destination. We, of course, were stared at like we were circus performers; at one point while standing in line for the underground mine tour, people were staring at Ed's tattoos so blatantly, he offered to do a little jig for them while we all waited. Luckily none of them spoke English so conversation wasn't actually necessary. I'm just kidding. Some of them spoke English, but it sounded like "SHANE STOP HITTING NARELLE!" so I just tuned out.

As with all places like this we got tired and dusty, and since I was intelligently wearing a dress and heels we proceeded to whine to my mother in law until she fed us sandwiches to shut us up. Yes, we're 30 years old.

But here were the things I did like:

1. Oooh! Type! Ye olde printing presses!



2. And, curiously, all the things named after America. I guess the American gold rush was probs going on around the same time but I can't be sure because who can be fucked going to California to find out? I played plenty of Oregon Trail in 8th grade, I don't need no education.

* * *

Another thing I did recently was go to Luna Park, Melbourne's version of Coney Island.


I'd been wanting to go and I was in a shitty mood on Sunday, so I decided to ride my bike there. I figured it's impossible to stay shitty when there are terrified children on rollercoasters to laugh at. Also, I figured going on the old ass rollercoaster is a rite of passage like Coney's Cyclone. But when I got there the coaster wasn't running, so I took a seat, bought a crap coffee and people watched. After a few minutes I started wondering whether being there by myself was bad, so I texted my friend Matt to ask.

ecs to Matt: I'm at Luna Park by myself. Is that weird?

Matt to ecs: That depends if you are on acid...

ecs to Matt: Not on acid but it's interesting people watching. Scared kids' faces are hilarious.

Matt to ecs: Are you scaring children?
Matt to ecs: I like the idea of you frightening children.

ecs to Matt: Okay well let's go with that then. You should see my makeup today. It's disturbing.

Matt to ecs: That is why they are crying. Plus you are stamping on their feet as their parents look the other way.

ecs to Matt: And poking them with needles that are taped to my fingers. Uh oh security guards. Gotta go.

* * *

Tomorrow I head off to explore yet another corner of Australia: Sandy Point, about 2.5 hours outside of Melbourne.

Beach, ocean, house. I'm turning 30 on Saturday. Stay tuned.

Cops, comin' try to snatch my crops.

I spent a good part of last week sitting in my darkened-but-still-hot-as-hell living room, watching a pirated copy of Melbourne mini-series, Underbelly. It's not only pirated but banned from Melbourne TV, by order of the Supreme Court of Victoria. Underbelly documents what came to be called the Gangland Murders in Melbourne between 1998 and 2006, during which time like 34 people were killed in underworld power struggles. Some of the trials are still going on, which is why it's banned from TV here, but I didn't feel bad about watching it because I can't be on a jury here anyway. Also, supreme court? Nothing is safe from public knowledge. It's called wikipedia.

Anyway it's an awesome series and really piqued my interest because of how unsafe it all was. I also learned about how inept the cops are—or at least were—while this was all going down. I thought that was pretty interesting because I remember noticing as soon as I moved here how non-threatening the cops are.

3 signs that you may have lost your authoritative hold on the public:
1. You drive a white station wagon.
2. You wear a blue and white checked baseball cap.
3. You have billy clubs, but no helmets.




If I were a crim and that chick in front tried to arrest me, I'd just punch her in the tit. Also, why are they wearing black leather gloves? Are they breaking in somewhere? Lock their keys in the wagon? Someone get these jacks a stylist.

Okay, I didn't exactly condone Guiliani's technique in New York of putting a cop in fatigues with an assault rifle on every corner in order to stop crime, but (ahem) it worked. Sorry. You should be afraid of cops. Especially if you're thinking about doing something like, I dunno, killing people.

In Underbelly they kept this running line throughout the script about how the cops didn't have the budget to properly surveil these gangsters so they could catch them before they killed more people. Like, honestly, I don't really care about the drugs part. They were ecstasy pills. As tragic as I find flourescent clothing and drum n' bass, E doesn't really destroy lives. It just turns you into a tooth-grinding, bad-dancing, owl-eyed, sleepless, grinning, bro-downing moron for several hours before beating you into submission until you're fetal and can't remember anything about 10th grade. Seriously, the worst it can do is turn you into this:


Killing people is (marginally) worse. But I suppose when you've been a cop in Safety Town, killing sprees catch you off guard. You've been too busy launching a campaign against jaywalking.


I understand not wanting to come off as a bunch of fucking thugs, like a lot of cops are anyway, but there is a spectrum of authoritative figures available. Below, I list my nominees for Melbourne's police academy, Class of 2008!

1. Robert Patrick: either his character in Terminator 2 or the real dude. Either way: tough as nails.



2. The mom from Malcolm in the Middle. You won't mess with this mom. You know you won't because she's already got some psychologically fucked up plan to make you terrified of spoons for the rest of your life.




3. I realize I'm getting into big budget territory, especially with the rising cost of fuel. So another option is just to stick with Australian enforcement, like Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. He's already gone through all the training, he understands bogan slang, and he has sword fingers.




4. The Ghost of Steve Irwin. Ghost + crocodile = "yessir officer". Can you imagine a crime going down when Steve was on the clock? Cops could just throw barricades up around a drug deal and throw some crocodiles in. Those things will do anything for Steve.



If this is all a bit too OTT for the Victorian police, can I make a suggestion? Get some new uniforms. Paint your cars black with big silver gun decals down the side. Put a big ass (useless) spoiler on the back. Dumbasses always think that makes a car go faster. And stop trying to be cyclists. It's not a good look.