Ever notice how it's all the little dogs which bark most fiercely? Ever notice it's always short dudes who become bodybuilders. Threatened, intimidated. Reactive. Is this why Jesse Archer is so loud?
Where would we be without something to struggle against? Something to struggle for. And when it doesn't drive you to utter destruction, when you're not in the death camp or the strange fruit hanging from the Magnolia tree; when you skirt danger and still manage to survive - why shouldn't you employ whatever you have in your arsenal for the good fight?
Living in a struggle-free society on the suburban island continent of Australia - I can't help but think the tradeoff for not having to look over your shoulder is a super-nanny with a big stick. Drive more than a kilometer and you'll be readily reminded by gigantic billboards featuring police with massive radar guns announcing: "We're watching you!"
Half the year there are flashing billboards for would-be speeders which scream, "Double De-Merit Points Apply". De-merit points. Like when you break a fingernail at charm school. Enough de-merit points and you lose your license. You have the bravest of the brave Australian citizens breaking the law to get to work, driving without a license after being caught doing 45 in a 40 twice in a year.Just today the NSW premier, Barry O'Farrell is cracking down on graffitti artists by suspending their drivers license. Next week, the Australian state of Victoria will introduce legislation to make it illegal to swear. I swear! Any language deemed "indecent or offensive" will incur a $240 fine! The leitmotif repeats.
They also measure liquor shots here, which is why everyone buys beer. And you can't buy a round of shots after midnight. Same for a double shot. A phalanx of sniffer dogs with police greet you at dance clubs, witch-hunting and arresting partygoers for even possessing one pill. Clubbers now just chug all their drugs at the door and overdose on the dance floor.
NSW, Australia charges $16 a pack for cigarettes but they want to create a law that will make you obtain a license to smoke. Will the test ask your lungs how to spell fuck off?
Did you know you have to have a prescription in Australia to get Botox? The doctor said I didn't have enough wrinkles to get one! (fine, that's a joke) And ritalin, the only ADHD medicine they let on the market - is on the same schedule as morphine. There are so many speeding cams that they go *flash* when I jump the light jogging. Oh, if you so much as photograph a police officer, say hi to handcuffs.
But there is no critical mass here, no civil disobedience. Has it been squished? Is my own voice slowly being squelched in a life, in a place simply too struggle-free? Because a few more tsunamis, maybe an immigration battle, a terrorist cell, those psychopath Phelps people picketing funerals - and I guarantee the millions of dollars on speeding billboards will disappear. The top news story won't be about cracking down on graffitti.
Because why? Because when there's no problems, you create your own problems. Like the billionaire heiress who screams with rage at her maid for having left a sock in the dryer. Everyone, absolutely everyone, has a problem. So it might as well be an important one. And by important - I mean one that you can learn from. Because even the heiress' problem is huge, to her.
I wonder how adventure-less and blah (and bleating baaaa!) I'd be if I weren't an outsider. If I didn't learn from struggle. If my world didn't once turn on me so sharply that I could see not just mine but all of life refracted in new, clear and different colors, as light does through a prism. Without struggle there is no independence; can be no victory. It allows for growth, complication, challenge. It gives layers.
Without struggle - and when we refuse to accept the struggle: ----flatline.
In the immortal words of George Michael: The lessons you have to learn, you rarely choose.
Independence gives you the power to assert yourself. Which is precisely what so many people, and so many countries, fail to do or even try. They follow the leader. Even if that leader is a greedy stumbling superpower - which doesn't know up from down. They follow because superpowers always assert.
If the superpower is a nanny, instead of inventing your own super awesomeness - you appropriate laws that seem to work overseas, magnify them by twenty and call them your own. There are too few ways in which Australia asserts itself as an actual and authentic leader, but there are the boomerang and didgeridoo appropriated from the natives and now available as you exit through the gift shop! There is universal health care. Cricket. Vegemite. Drag Queens. Still it's no wonder the most famous thing about the country are its marsupials, as they had sense enough to invent their own super awesomeness.
This is not to say there aren't unique and awesome individuals living under the thumb of the oppressive super nanny.
And there is a lone incident of civil disobedience I recall. The other week, a guy climbed up the Syndey Harbor Bridge because the courts were not letting him get access to his child, siding with the mother, as courts do. He was at the end of his rope and climbed onto the bridge, stalling traffic to call attention to his plight. I met someone later that night who said the man should have been shot by the police because he made him two hours late for work! "Shoot to maim, not to kill," he insisted, and when I questioned such drastic action, he said flippantly:
"You have to break a few eggs to make an omelette" to which I replied: "That was precisely the protester's philosophy." What I should have replied was: What kind of omelette are you making?
Again, without problems- there is no problem-solving. The resulting recipe? A flaccid, impotent, microwaveable omelette. One that might shoot peaceful protesters, if given arms, guns and bullets.
I was asked to work for an independent, incumbent politician, Clover Moore, on her campaign day in Sydney. She's pro gay-rights, pro-environment, and doesn't take money from any political party. I'm handing out flyers at one of the poll stations saying: "Vote for Clover, she's good luck for Sydney!" (because I always permit puns). And voters were generally nice (she won) but the biggest complaints, and there were some pretty vociferous complaints, were that Clover Moore - in all her evil hideousness, had the temerity to put too many bike lanes around the city.
She did not...replace bicycle lanes with a toxic chemical plant, no. Clover Moore was responsible for too many bike lanes! Apparently bike lanes slow traffic, and there "aren't enough cyclists" here. Now If this is the biggest complaint you've got about your city and its government, you are a spoiled and perspective-less individual who needs to go spend time in a township in Namibia. Without a bicycle.
It's all too easy. I mean, four months in Sydney and I haven't even been called a faggot yet, a regular occurence anywhere else. Now I realize my thesis here may be centrally flawed because it's kind of self-loathing thing to say I might miss the enemies and idiots and an ever-present element of danger. So I wonder if I'm too used to living in direct reaction to feeling threatened and intimidated, or if it's just I'm truly, madly, deeply, crushingly bored? The new challenge is, as always, give up, give in or do something about it.
Where would we be without something to struggle against? Something to struggle for. And when it doesn't drive you to utter destruction, when you're not in the death camp or the strange fruit hanging from the Magnolia tree; when you skirt danger and still manage to survive - why shouldn't you employ whatever you have in your arsenal for the good fight?
Living in a struggle-free society on the suburban island continent of Australia - I can't help but think the tradeoff for not having to look over your shoulder is a super-nanny with a big stick. Drive more than a kilometer and you'll be readily reminded by gigantic billboards featuring police with massive radar guns announcing: "We're watching you!"
Half the year there are flashing billboards for would-be speeders which scream, "Double De-Merit Points Apply". De-merit points. Like when you break a fingernail at charm school. Enough de-merit points and you lose your license. You have the bravest of the brave Australian citizens breaking the law to get to work, driving without a license after being caught doing 45 in a 40 twice in a year.Just today the NSW premier, Barry O'Farrell is cracking down on graffitti artists by suspending their drivers license. Next week, the Australian state of Victoria will introduce legislation to make it illegal to swear. I swear! Any language deemed "indecent or offensive" will incur a $240 fine! The leitmotif repeats.
They also measure liquor shots here, which is why everyone buys beer. And you can't buy a round of shots after midnight. Same for a double shot. A phalanx of sniffer dogs with police greet you at dance clubs, witch-hunting and arresting partygoers for even possessing one pill. Clubbers now just chug all their drugs at the door and overdose on the dance floor.
NSW, Australia charges $16 a pack for cigarettes but they want to create a law that will make you obtain a license to smoke. Will the test ask your lungs how to spell fuck off?
Did you know you have to have a prescription in Australia to get Botox? The doctor said I didn't have enough wrinkles to get one! (fine, that's a joke) And ritalin, the only ADHD medicine they let on the market - is on the same schedule as morphine. There are so many speeding cams that they go *flash* when I jump the light jogging. Oh, if you so much as photograph a police officer, say hi to handcuffs.
But there is no critical mass here, no civil disobedience. Has it been squished? Is my own voice slowly being squelched in a life, in a place simply too struggle-free? Because a few more tsunamis, maybe an immigration battle, a terrorist cell, those psychopath Phelps people picketing funerals - and I guarantee the millions of dollars on speeding billboards will disappear. The top news story won't be about cracking down on graffitti.
Because why? Because when there's no problems, you create your own problems. Like the billionaire heiress who screams with rage at her maid for having left a sock in the dryer. Everyone, absolutely everyone, has a problem. So it might as well be an important one. And by important - I mean one that you can learn from. Because even the heiress' problem is huge, to her.
I wonder how adventure-less and blah (and bleating baaaa!) I'd be if I weren't an outsider. If I didn't learn from struggle. If my world didn't once turn on me so sharply that I could see not just mine but all of life refracted in new, clear and different colors, as light does through a prism. Without struggle there is no independence; can be no victory. It allows for growth, complication, challenge. It gives layers.
Without struggle - and when we refuse to accept the struggle: ----flatline.
In the immortal words of George Michael: The lessons you have to learn, you rarely choose.
Independence gives you the power to assert yourself. Which is precisely what so many people, and so many countries, fail to do or even try. They follow the leader. Even if that leader is a greedy stumbling superpower - which doesn't know up from down. They follow because superpowers always assert.
If the superpower is a nanny, instead of inventing your own super awesomeness - you appropriate laws that seem to work overseas, magnify them by twenty and call them your own. There are too few ways in which Australia asserts itself as an actual and authentic leader, but there are the boomerang and didgeridoo appropriated from the natives and now available as you exit through the gift shop! There is universal health care. Cricket. Vegemite. Drag Queens. Still it's no wonder the most famous thing about the country are its marsupials, as they had sense enough to invent their own super awesomeness.
This is not to say there aren't unique and awesome individuals living under the thumb of the oppressive super nanny.
And there is a lone incident of civil disobedience I recall. The other week, a guy climbed up the Syndey Harbor Bridge because the courts were not letting him get access to his child, siding with the mother, as courts do. He was at the end of his rope and climbed onto the bridge, stalling traffic to call attention to his plight. I met someone later that night who said the man should have been shot by the police because he made him two hours late for work! "Shoot to maim, not to kill," he insisted, and when I questioned such drastic action, he said flippantly:
"You have to break a few eggs to make an omelette" to which I replied: "That was precisely the protester's philosophy." What I should have replied was: What kind of omelette are you making?
Again, without problems- there is no problem-solving. The resulting recipe? A flaccid, impotent, microwaveable omelette. One that might shoot peaceful protesters, if given arms, guns and bullets.
I was asked to work for an independent, incumbent politician, Clover Moore, on her campaign day in Sydney. She's pro gay-rights, pro-environment, and doesn't take money from any political party. I'm handing out flyers at one of the poll stations saying: "Vote for Clover, she's good luck for Sydney!" (because I always permit puns). And voters were generally nice (she won) but the biggest complaints, and there were some pretty vociferous complaints, were that Clover Moore - in all her evil hideousness, had the temerity to put too many bike lanes around the city.
She did not...replace bicycle lanes with a toxic chemical plant, no. Clover Moore was responsible for too many bike lanes! Apparently bike lanes slow traffic, and there "aren't enough cyclists" here. Now If this is the biggest complaint you've got about your city and its government, you are a spoiled and perspective-less individual who needs to go spend time in a township in Namibia. Without a bicycle.
It's all too easy. I mean, four months in Sydney and I haven't even been called a faggot yet, a regular occurence anywhere else. Now I realize my thesis here may be centrally flawed because it's kind of self-loathing thing to say I might miss the enemies and idiots and an ever-present element of danger. So I wonder if I'm too used to living in direct reaction to feeling threatened and intimidated, or if it's just I'm truly, madly, deeply, crushingly bored? The new challenge is, as always, give up, give in or do something about it.
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1 comments:
It's funny that you wrote this post, because, coming from Canada and immigrating here I didn't find much of a change except that the weather was heaps better.
I take it for granted that there would be health care and welfare and a general level of peace. I expect there to be laws about speeding and behaviour and that in general people just do the right thing.
I do notice that there is a pride in Australia about the convict history and that one should always stand up for a mate, but I suppose too there is a bit of a feeling that things should be done for the greater good so everyone can get along and concentrate on just having a good time.
There isn't the same struggle as you read about happening in the States where there is so much struggle between rich and poor, various cultures and religions , about equal rights between men and women, and about sexuality.
In Canada everything has been legalised and made equal by the Constitution. It's not about being able to shoot a gun but it's about being able to marry who you love. But Canada is parodied as the country whose graffiti artists tag DO THE RIGHT THING when they are rebelliously painting the fence.
Maybe that's the cultural difference that you are struggle to live under now here.
Australia hasn't got their own constitution yet, but it's heading there. Soon there will be equality and freedom for all, but I think it's because the majority learns to work together and aim for the same goal. People aren't as extreme so it becomes easier to create change.
And once that has happened it opens up time to be creative, advance your career, make a movie, go to school? Hell, the government will pay for you to do most of that!
Or maybe hanging at the beach surfing, having a beer with your mates, or being creative is not as fun when it's allowed. Maybe part of how you perceive fun is when you are doing something you aren't supposed to. Drinking booze is never as fun as when you've snuck out of your parents window to do it. Walking down the street at night is never as endorphin pumping as when there is an element of danger.
Does an element of the possibility of danger or abuse or retribution make you feel alive? Or does the lack of it make you feel free and relaxed and more able to focus on other goals?
I'm interested to see how you will feel about being here in a year or two or three. Will you feel liberated or stifled by the lack of general animosity and fear in this laid back culture? Will it spur you on to greater things that come from a different place inside you, one that is more peaceful and accepting and celebratory? Or will you be bored shitless and yearning to return to your motherland and the thrill of the rollercoaster ride that is NYC?
xoc
ps. i'm stoked either way - if you stay, we've got you here! and if you go, well i'll have a place to stay in the Big Apple! win win!
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