Deadbeats

So there I am, several hours of wakefulness on the wrong side of a pathological hatred for all mankind, when it has a go at me…

IT (too damn hateful for a personal pronoun) has got a problem with me smoking… in a smoking area.

Immense physical tiredness and slight cramps are nudging me towards psychosis and some daft sod wants to up the ante.

Now let me be clear here, I like to consider myself a ’sensitive’ smoker - aware of those around me, happy to reasonably temper my habit for the sake of others in my presence. But, the absurdity of someone going out of their way in order to give a smoker a hard time is quite beyond by ability to rationalize. It’s rude, pointless, aggravating and, potentially, rather dangerous, I am, after all, a man on ‘borrowed time’ as she is only too happy to remind me, would you really antagonize a man with nothing to lose? For all she knows I may well snap and do something destructive to her wizened bulldog’s arse of a face, you know… just for fun; hooligan smoker that I am. The temptation was strong but, exhausted, I was beyond the physical ability to act.

If this had been Heathrow, with its smoker’s section reminiscent of a waiting room in Soylent Green, fading yellow people puffing voluminous clouds, the air of fatalism as thick as the nicotine stains on the formica; I may well have killed her… driven temporarily insane by my surroundings. But this is Singapore and they do things better here. I am in the ‘Sunflower Garden’, my dry and desperate skin being slowly revived by the ‘tropical mist’ that is sprayed from chrome pillars onto our bodies, the heat and brightness of the early morning sun forcing we night journeymen to shed layers and add sunglasses.

She is lucky, I am away from my cramped airplane seat, a cappuccino sweet and frothing in one hand a duty-free American Marlboro in the other. I am reduced to simple pleasures, basic lusts, these two are better than sex to me right now and all I need to survive the hour’s wait before my next flight is silence on the part of this dreadful creature.

“I’m a mother!” she cries, waving her hand in front of her nose with no less energy than had someone just taken a healthy dump on her hairy upper lip. This piece of logic has me stumped. We (for there’s a reasonable crowd of us fuming deviants by now) assume - against the evidence of our own eyes - that this aging beast is pregnant, then she clarifies: “I have children!”

Right… this… thing… has reproduced and that is why we should cease our habit this very instant. Presumably in deference to the fates that allowed someone to find this harridan attractive enough to indulge in physical contact beyond stabbing at it with sharpened sticks.

Then we meet one of these hallowed offspring, male, early thirties - doomed to be crucified upon a Sunflower unless he stops the exaggerated ‘puffing’ smoker mime he’s performing for us with all the bravura ludicrousness of an idiot child teasing animals in the zoo. It must be genetic - this incredible and mind numbing arrogance and insensitivity. I was (and still am) utterly at a loss to explain this woman’s immense attitude problem - I wish I could say that she was mentally ill in some form, ranting and insulting those gathered with all the unfortunate abandon of a Tourettes sufferer. Truth is, she was absolutely rational, just another ignorant member of an increasingly belligerent and hostile society.

The ultimate irony is that I have decided to give up smoking. Partly due to the fact that I really cannot put it off for any longer (like many smokers, I always felt I would stop soon… it’s picking the precise time that’s hard) and partly out of the realization that If I ever meet this woman again I’d love to have sufficient energy in my body and air in my lungs to give the cow a run for her money.

G.

Spread the love, it’s good for your skin:

	Listen to: Reality - David Bowie Because I’m a fanboy, obviously, I mean, c’mon, this is Bowie… why weren’t you cueing to buy it on the day of release?.
	Read: Batman: Arkham Asylum - Grant Morrison Probably the first thing I read by Mr. Morrison, certainly not the last. Took the Batman character and proceeded to make him genuinely interesting for 96 pages. Also features the sublime artwork of Dave McKean, more about whom next week I think…
	Watch: Bill Hicks - Totally [1994] Or, indeed, any other video or album you can get your hands on, probably THE best stand-up comedian to come out of America. Painfully funny, also gifted with being opinioned AND right, not always easy. Died like a martyr ten years ago.

So, barely two columns in and I’m already travelling the world in order to increase your reading pleasure. No… please don’t thank me, happy to put myself out…

Really.

So… Perth. The most isolated city in the world, and, after Chicago, the second windiest. Hogging a chunk of the Western Australian coastline it seems ignorant of its inferred inhospitality, basking in the ‘winter’ sunshine it wears its wealth and cosmopolitan air with all the smugness of someone who’s damn well earned every cent of its fortunes.

And that’s the point isn’t it rather? My initial impression of a carbon copy America populated by painfully frank Yorkshire men is (while accurate in some ways) barely grazing the surface of it all. This is a nation who have carved themselves a culture and a place to house it all out of a desolate wilderness. An Island that was as potentially hostile as it was large, an island that dwarves ours in every respect. (True, it was already inhabited when they got here and they proceeded to dominate and eradicate the aboriginal population with all of the gusto of… well… of English settlers frankly so let us not get too sanctimonious on that point shall we? Glasshouses and stones spring to mind so maybe we should turn that particular page of history over quickly.) A certain amount of national pride is, therefore, to be expected.

And they have it… in spades. ‘Made in Australia’ emblazons products with all the fierceness of a battle cry. Walk into McDonalds and you’ll find even America’s notorious attempts at culture stamping shoved aside, those bastions of the ‘free-spirit’ such as the Big Mac superceded by the glories of the ‘Oz Burger’ (made with 100% Australian Beef) - presumably making the point that the testicles of Australian Bulls make far better snacks than those of their Yank counterparts; unable and unwilling to test the assertion (there being no Oz Cows in the neighborhood willing to ‘kiss and tell’) I’ll choose to sit on the fence. But the patriotism stands.

There has been much talk of Australian’s dislike of the English, not something I have experienced myself, politeness across the board frankly, but I would have understood it had it been the case. We make a joke of them, a nation of sheep farmers with no history, crass and crude, base. It is an impression that they partly convey if we’re honest, anyone calling cheddar cheese ‘tasty’ rather than ‘mature’ is asking for comeback. But I would hazard that there’s a touch of jealousy inherent in our criticisms, we look down on them as we do all ‘nouveau riche’, wondering how they dare make so much of themselves in so few generations.

But they must be careful, patriotism often leads to jingoism. Already there are a few hints of superiority creeping in, suggestions that not only are they good at what they do but that they do it better than anyone else. Wouldn’t that be an irony, desperate to distance themselves from the ‘Motherland’, they could end up mirroring it more than they would have ever believed. After all it was England having that attitude that put them there in the first place…

G.

Spread the love, it’s good for your skin:

	Listen to: Spirit of the Century - The Blind Boys of Alabama The musical equivalent of gravy. The thick rich sounds of voices matured to the point of ‘extra-tasty’ (if you’ll forgive the Australianism). Blues and gospel stuff that reaches out to non-fans of the genres.
	Read: Watchmen - Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons Slightly clichéd choice really but it had to mentioned sometime. It is easily forgotten in these enlightened times what a ground-breaking work this was. Never had the super hero genre been so successfully speared and laid out as interesting for those with a mental age above 12, an absolute must have for anyone who has even the slightest interest in the world of graphic storytelling.
	Watch: The Big Lebowski [1998] For John Goodman’s ‘World of Pain’ performance and that final joke.