The world adores matt hayward

Sure you might not think the Olympics even matter or are interesting. I would certainly agree with you on that point. The spirit of the Olympics is an entirely different matter though. Wars are meant to stop, soldiers down guns and leave all prejudices left aside to compete as equals on a level playing field.

Sadly this won’t be the case from hereon in. In preparation for the Olympics, China is becoming so procifient in dealing with dissent that they’re simply killing dissentors in record numbers and in record time. No trial, just incarceration. If you’re thought to be a threat, apparently you could be dead in a jail cell within hours.

Weapon of choice, well an electric batton of course! Just get 7 or 8 cops in a cell and beat the shit out of the prisoner (no phone book required). After all they’re just doing their job. Oh just don’t damage the internal organs, because they harvest and transplant human organs to party faithful, and one can only guess the very, very rich.

This die in custody bit is a bit unusual. Usually the prisoner at least used to get the firing squad, or death by lethal injection. The later is typically done in specially designed trucks, so they can quickly operate on the victim in remote provinces and recover the organs on site.

So rest assured, some Communist Government cadre or rich Hong Kong guy is going to get a healthy new set of lungs for someone else’s free will. Geez I hope someone pisses on the Olympic flame. This is just not cricket! My condolences to the victims of these most recent and heinous human rights violations - even by Chinese government standards.

But remember kids, it’s important to hate the government, not the people. So if ever you needed an excuse not to watch the Olympics, I hope this helps.

Well at least you’d be saying this if you were Karl Rove. Whose apparently Norwegian, pierced penis, queer pioneer adopted father is meant to be according to this article. Some bloke who claims that Louis Rove used to go to piercing parties with him in the seventies, where they’d pierce each other on coffee tables, claims to own Mr Rove’s favorite golden cock ring.

If you’re really game, read the source article here. The alledged Louis Rove has so many piercings, he’s like an inverted colander or a gold plated, purple headed Darlek. Well at least he can follow in his son’s footsteps and join the Conservative Party in the UK…

Aah when the truth comes out about neo-cons. Oh dear god I hope that this is true. This is funnier than the refugees that snuck into England in Tony Blair’s customised BMW limo… Pure gold! Ironically I found this because I was searching for the apparent new You Am I album title “I’m Proud Of My Gay Son”. This find was almost as good as a new You Am I album. But please Timmy, top this one!

This has been bugging me for ages, what’s changed since I was a kid. Here are some of the answers

TV
Straight up this is the biggest change. There’s no darkness anymore! Comedy shows like Fast Forward feature scathing satire of political parties. Directly taking the piss out of the policies du jour. Even companies running advertising on their network! It wasn’t elitist, it wasn’t one sided. It was purely bi-partisan, satirical humour that reflected the concerns and the trends of the day, with absolute hilarity. Even A Current Affair used to dabble in it a bit with some parodies at the end of the week.

Parody was a tool used in TV to really get stuck in and remind you what was of genuine concern to people. Now you’re simply told what’s a concern unless you’re watching after 11pm on ABC. What we have now is simply witty skits and acted out puns, sans sexism, politics, current affairs or anything remotely sue-worthy! I’m talking about Rove, Skithouse, The Nation, The Wedge. Almost anything channel 10 puts out!

Sadly news stories are now delivered to journos shrink wrapped and ready to go and TV comedy has been watered down to barely even parodies of celebrities. Because even that is too litigious. It’s just lame. I really miss when television was entertaining because it was objective and intelligent.

Culture
OK so this has vastly improved. And at least if you live near the city, you’ll Melbourne is a part of Asia now culturally not just geographically. There are more cultural influences at fashion, work and play now. Not that you’d ever know if you were waiting to see it on commercial television but hey. At least there’s one good thing to say about the here and now.

Education
In the eighties, I didn’t know anyone that had ever been to uni. Not in my immediate family or friends. Uni students were labeled bloody lefty pinkos communists. Higher education was free but the spirit wasn’t. People went there to learn abstract, philosophical stuff or to become a lawyer or a dentist. But the arty students never went there for a straight career path. It was far more of a journey than a destination for most. A hypothetical, yet occaisionally radical, think tank. People were there to truly learn. And get stoned and pissed as farts, but that’s all part of learning to be open minded - something you definitely wont find on the curriculum today.

One thing I know is that I was one of the last of the free and easy uni students. Fees went through the roof, and you had to pay off your HECS debt (Higher Education Contribution Scheme) a LOT earlier in life (when you earnt $27K per year, down from $37). Sure enough for most, the countries’ greatest investment had to bear fruit a lot earlier.

Work
It used to be a means to an end, or what the Whitlam government called ‘extreme leisure’. People still worked hard but there was more family time. That was until you stumbled upon a recession or two which sucked. Nevertheless, there was a better balance and you didn’t have to commit career hari kari to have a house and kids and a life.

We actually had an Adidas factory down the road too. So we all wore Adidas stuff from the factory seconds shop.

Shopping
Strip malls were the go. So you were out on the street, not in an American style enclosed ‘mall’. You weren’t immersed in a capitalist, air conditioned wet dream. So long as you bought your wares from a family friend or ‘good bloke’, price wasn’t too much of a concern. You were lucky if they played some crappy music through an outdoor PA. Shops closed at 2pm on a Saturday and wouldn’t dream of opening on a Sunday.

Instead of looking at department stores or JB Hifi for meaningless crap, you had to find something constructive to do. Yeah it was boring, but not as depressing as just looking at stuff to buy all the time.

All the shop facades were uniquely Australian.  Notice in the last 3 years that places like Dominoes and Subway use exactly the same signage and facades as they do in the US?

Neighbours
It seemed people had a lot more in common, looked out for each other and basically gave a rats’ arse about each other. There may have been ‘keep up with the Jones” kind of stuff, but there was more openness, instead of every man for themselves as there is now. Most probably, you made similar money to your neighbor and that wasn’t an issue. Now everyone’s on individual contracts and that is that. You don’t want your neighbor to know if you’re making more than them for the same work.

Money
It wasn’t the be-all and end-all frankly. We weren’t collectively all so consumer goods oriented. It was more leisure oriented. In other words, the pool and the boat if anything over the plasma TV, the designer handbags and the cool car. Now one fell move on the fast track to success and people are scared still they’ll never have any of the bright shiny objects they so richly deserve. The bright, shiny objects that placate the missus and satisfy increasingly complex cognitive needs.

There was no fear if you didn’t own the latest and greatest TV, that your girl would lose interest, or you wouldn’t have any mates. It just wasn’t a fear based consumer economy. Consumer goods satisfied a purpose and not an innate desire, and did so for a much longer time!

In closing
We live in far more interesting times. There was a lot lacking in our culture 20 years ago, but there was more room for self determination. Both in what you wanted to do and what you wanted to think. People wait to be told now, by a media that’s lost all sense of news and objectivity. More so than ever, our possessions really own us, and we’ll fight to the death to protect them, but will have the rug slipped from under us with our basic liberties time and time again. There’s no time to get involved anyway!

Maybe it’s not just the glam rock and metal that’s keeping me in the 80s….

That’s right. This week our own Prime Minister, or should I say ‘il Duce’ has announced his Fascistic intentions. On last night’s 7.30 Report on ABC TV, he started talking about ‘aspirational nationalism’. Make no mistake, just about any Fascist movement ever has had nationalism in there somewhere. I’m not suggesting for one second Mr Howard is jumping to the centre of politics, but whoever’s writing his speeches should’ve pulled him up on it.

And this whole notion of federalisation? Are you insane! The Labor state governments are the only thing standing in the way of this guy running the country! Besides local affairs need local representation, not a one size fits all approach to one of the most geographically dispersed democracies in the world - well at least while it still is. Dear boy, you’re showing your age. Time to smell the roses and retire.

John Howard the Fascist! (well a link to a newspaper article anyway).

When will America wake up and smell the bullshit? Robe Lowe is using his acting kudos to preach hybrid cars to Capitol Hill’? In this Autoblog Green article, there’s a Youtube video of newfound hippie Rob Lowe preaching the merits of hybrids a House Committee. How much is enough?! I mean GM produced a perfectly awesome FULLY ELECTRIC car in the 90s that could make mince meat of a Corvette (in a straight line) and decimate a Prius at saving the planet. But we’re still going to pretend that hybrid and alternative fuels are the only solution? Is our only salvation in warm fuzzy actors and not scientists and analysts? Did we never learn anything from Reagan and George HW Bush?

I just want to end on an anecdote. The reason we’ve never seen a crash test in a hydrogen powered vehicle is because the resulting explosion would probably destroy the whole Melbourne CBD. This is why I agree with your sentiments Rob, but keep your politics to The West Wing, and go back to shagging under age girls in your spare time. Until Detroit can find a way to put the consumables (all the profitable, servicable bits on cars) into electrics, there is no environmentally friendly solution. And all Lowe’s patriotic schooozing (Check the video. It’s pretty naff) ain’t going to do anyone but yourself any good. But hey, I guess that’s the intent.

On Australia’s finest stoner television, Today Tonight with Anna Cohen, I almost found myself applauding the TV at a news piece.  One of our mates across the pond on Maori TV called John Howard a ‘racist bastard‘. It was a New Zealand MP Hone Harawira that made the comment, and despite Coren’s reprisal, I damn well agree with everything he said.

If nothing else, Today Tonight is not current affairs journalism, it’s Cheech and Chongesque stoner comedy desperately looking for a red eye time slot to compete with Rage. It’s often so biased, typically lacking even the most basic neutrality and objectivity, you just have to laugh. How people watch this show every night with their children and tell them it’s news, I don’t know.

It didn’t take them long to start the attack. Tonight they interviewed the Maori party leader representing Harawira (interestingly it’s not on their website). In fairness to TT however, they did air about 2 minutes of Harawira’s dialogue that appeared unedited. Harawira claimed que bono [who benefits?] with Howard’s current action up north. Stating Howard’s modus operandi must be that if you move native people off of their land, they relinquish their rights to it. Not to mention to the plethora of natural resources under it. Oh yeah, not to mention that there’s an imminent election. Que bono indeed. With all this alleged child abuse occurring up there, it doesn’t seem the kids they’re so concerned about. But doing something about it while there’s an election imminent.

This much of what Harawira said is true: "He never sat down with the land councils. He never said to them ‘there is a problem here but we recognise that the best people to sort it out are yourselves, and here are all the resources’,". It would seem at least the most humane and altruistic way to solve a crisis. But no politician has altruism at heart. Evidently not Howard.

Insofar as Howard has a lot to gain by taking affirmative action on a very safe, if not problem of his own creation, I agree with Harawira. One thing is for certain that if Howard was genuine he’d should be flying in doctors, teachers and coppers, not soldiers and politicians. This isn’t affirmative action, it’s parapsychology. It reeks of Jimmy Carter’s Iran Hostage Crisis, where he delayed freeing hostages until the election was imminent, so he’d look great for it.

Even if Howard’s motives are pure, how come they have some much propaganda on the TV of soldiers and politicians flying into Aboriginal settlements like Condolezza Rice and George W? How can a man that refused to say sorry to native Australians have such a change of heart? Even if it was a bit harsh calling Howard a racist bastard, there’s enough to suggest it’s true. Maybe lying bastard would’ve been more accurate. There’s plenty to back that up. Like the GST we were never going to have!

Anyway one good thing has come out of this. New Zealand is by no means completely socially harmonious. They’re not without violent gangs or issues. But it does make you swell with pride to see a strong indigenous culture with a prominent voice stand up for what’s right. Oh yeah and if you really want to get me to vote Liberal John, get the hell out of Iraq!

Well I guess you’ve heard about the controversy. Big Day Out promoters yesterday were asking fans not to bring Aussie flags to the event, to combat, well boganism. Everybody gave a bit of a serve to the BDO - to some extent justifiably so.

Firstly, I am biased as hell. Because for one, I am not about to give Americans heaps of crap for their stars and stripes regalia and then be a hypocrite waving the Southern Cross. The best celebration of patriotism are the quiet ones. Why should you have to wave a flag to prove your love? What if you don’t care so much about the flag, but more what makes us different as people first, then a nation? And you betcha I hate it when people hide behind unAustralian. So if I was told I couldn’t bring a flag, well that’s another hand I can carry beer with. And it doesn’t bring everyone else down with their populist, macho, jingoistic bullshit!

Secondly the lame part of the argument. BDO is about beer, ecstacy, speed, mates, moshing, pashing, pushing, groping, shagging, techno, metal, rock, exhaustion, cracked ribs, crowd surfing, injuries and the occasional punch on. The promoters have to turn a blind eye to everything but the punch ons or the crowds won’t come.  So they need to pay for police attendance, security and insurance for the event. So in lieu of a few hundred bogans on speed looking for a big arsed punch on with a bunch of drugged out emo kids, I say anything that doesn’t evoke racially motivated violence is a good thing. But my viewpoint on flags (in general, not just the Oz flag) makes it easier for me nonetheless.

Frankly I couldn’t think of any better way to celebrate the history of this country by just doing what you love. I for one don’t think that those that fought and died in the great wars (or those that refos that plain risked everything to get here) would want it any other way. I certainly don’t think they’d want us fighting each other to prove our love for a nation. And when the NSW Premier says ‘just kick out the trouble makers’, well what are you going to take away the sniffer dogs and add extra police FOR FREE to deal with the punch on ready bogans you’re defending? If it’s at a state event fine. But at a paid private festival, blow it out your arse! You didn’t even offer any extra police!

There’s no better way to pay tribute to your freedom. But punching the crap out of people because they won’t kiss your flag is what you’d expect Russian nazis to do to Chechnian refugees or some other Eastern Bloc country. A Macedonian mate of mine always used to joke that in 500 years, Aussies will be fighting each other like Macos and Greeks do now. Like time just never heals wounds. It scares me that some are trying to speed up this process.

Now the meaty stuff. Did anyone else notice that second in the news was one of the biggest cabinet reshuffles in Federal parliament Howard has ever done? What convenient timing! Bring up some ‘You have to agree with us, it’s unAustralian not to‘ bullshit and everyone’s too pent up and angry to ask who’s still around and what political alliances are being formed, and god only knows what else.

Now the big Kahuna. It won’t matter a flying fuck if we have the right to take our flag anywhere. Why? Because AUSTRALIA HAS NO CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH. IT WOULDN’T REALLY MATTER WHAT LAW THEY MADE UP. So why not get to the heart of the issue and have a referendum to change the constitution. Then flags are protected under the freedom of speech addendum in the constituion. But geez, I hate it when people carry on about petty stuff and not with the real issue. Not to mention the fact that Australians’ are loosing their rights to freedom of speech, sorry liberties, dramatically over the past 3 years - either at state or federal level.

Fact of the matter is, I think my Macedonian mate was right. Give it time and Sydneyites will be throwing Molotov cocktails at Melbournites. And one thing that’s always true. You can’t trust Howard as far as you can throw him. Oops the thought police are here! 1984!!!

So er, I guess you saw the videos on Youtube (hey where else) of the riots at Noble Park Maccas. I’d like to say I was neutral in the matter. I’m not.

*** Firstly a bit of perspective***
It was back in the olden days - 2001. When phones had green screens and ring tones were still monotonal. We were still getting used to predictive text! Nissan Silvias were still new and uncommon. You still bought video cameras that ran on tapes to the drags! We were some of the first to use these things called forums to organise car meets. Noble Park Maccas, Rowville and a few places in Notting Hill were the shiznit, especially in summer. Oh the hot summer nights. That’s when stuff got good.

So one night, we were at Noble Park Maccas, a few hundred of us. One bloke was in a Mitusbishi Evo at the lights. His 6 year old son was licking an ice cream cone in the passenger seat, while he waited for a worthy oponent at the red light in front of those golden arches. The kid was just there for cover. But who knows, he probably asked his dad to come along. After all this is Noble Park, an absolute shit hole of the Eastern Suburbs. Hoons just think it’s their collective right to congregate there. God knows we did!

There was a vibe that something was going to go down, but we just didn’t care. Hell I guess that’s what makes it exciting. Call it young and stupid We’d been getting away with it for a few too many weeks and the Maccas manager (who could if but for the uniform and the pay cheque been one of us) was itching to call the cops.

All at once the cops raided. And I do mean raided. They even blocked the Maccas drive through. About 30 cars, most of which were from the traffic infringement unit (i’ve forgotten the acronym). Every hoony car on sight was roadied. When the cops broke into a VL Interceptor (the owner had bolted) to ‘roady’ it, about 30 blokes started getting testy. My mates car had already been ‘roadied’ from here to kingdom come, so we just wanted to bolt quick smart. But the cops didn’t win any friends that night.  And those that could get away did - probably to another drag spot.

We never went back. My mates old heap was off the road for at least a year. I sure as hell didn’t want to learn the lesson twice. Between us we now had thousands of dollars in fines for being a dickhead in cars. We licked our wounds and that was that. For some, they don’t seem to learn so easily. And that’s where the problem starts.

***my parents did it, my brother did it IT’S MY RIGHT to do it!***
What happened in Noble Park days ago was like (albeit not racial) Cronulla: nothing new. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if the shops there have been looted before. It’s been happening for at least 10 or 15 years. It probably goes back further than the Sharpies of the 70s. Blokes (and increasingly girls) are always going to want to drag or get in fights. Every year the cops crack down harder and every year the scorn gets greater. Everyone wants a story to impress their mates with, and deep down, tell their grandkids about. What are you going to have a car twice as powerful on your Ps as your uncle’s old Holden VK and not have a story to tell? Hell no! It ain’t just this generation going feral. It’s been reaching boiling point for a long time.

To me this seems to be the aggregate effect of tougher laws on a new generation. They’ve taken away all the fun. So more than ever they want to get back at the cops for spoiling it. Especially now you can have a video on your mobile and all the bragging rights that go with it!

Unfortunately things will get worse. SMS travels faster that 11 444 calls any day of the week.

*** So here’s the corny ending ***
Screw judging people. You watch A Current Affair and you’re so filled with hate, you just want to make laws so kids can’t shit their pants without their parents’ consent. You know to feel safe. I dare say, laws have provoked the situation. The very thing that made many parents and cousins etc cool (I have a mate who claims his parents first met at the illegal drags) you’ve made illegal. So look for some more deep rooted causes before you point the finger baby boomers please! You’re kidults are bored shitless with an arsenal of toys. Aaah can’t you feel the hate.  . .

Secondly, I love cars. I love drags. I love the smell of buring rubber. Just absolutely adore it. It’s only got worse as i’ve got older (in a Jeremy Clarkson, quasi mature kind of way). But there’s simply more to life than driving around industrial estates waiting to get another $500 fine because you can’t find something to do. This is the really corny bit peoples. If you’re going to those drags, sadly you haven’t got enough on your plate and you should find something meaningful to do. There you go, I said it. Urrgh it feels disgusting saying something mature! The further you get away from your car, the more attractive you usually are to women (by default) anyway.

The drags are fun to a point doing it, but it’s mostly just fucking stupid and it’s only getting worse. I’m not even concerned about the car safety aspect (go natural selection!). Just the idiots that show up are obviously finding it harder to get a bad reputation than ever and are probably ready to start stabbing each other just to get on Youtube. Go somewhere CHALLENGING you can really shit yourself in a car: advanced driving, skid pan, DECA days, track days, do a rally course. Prove yourself to yourself. Don’t show off to bogans It’s far more rewarding.

So um, that’s it. This stuff will continue to go in cycles, well at least until the Maccas manager calls the cops or the winter kicks in. Maybe after all it’s just the heat?!

I must be honest. Promotional DVDs really annoy me. AOL (and hundreds of other ISPs) have filled tonnes of land fill up with their useless ‘connect to the internet now’ style discs on magazines. It’s useless consumption and as far as i’m concerned the most environmentall unethical form of promotion.

So anyway, yesterday local MP for South Yarra sends me his Vote Clem DVD in the mail. Less than 24 hours ago, I sent him this email

Dear Mr Newton-Brown,

Yours truly
Matt Hayward.

Well bugger me dead! In true politican style, any publicity is good publicity. Here’s his response:

hi matt,
thanks for your thoughts (yes i did read it all!)
No time for an in depth defence now, but I would be pleased to be forwarded
your blog site.
best wishes,
clem
ps any chance of a second preference?!

Credit where it’s due. Always have a smile on your face. It doesn’t change my disposition in regards to the vote, but remember to write letters to your politiicans kiddies. Sometimes you’ll get a response.

Yes they were the famous words of Johnny Rotten. As he jumped on stage at the Sex Pistols swan song gig in San Francisco in the late seventies. They played one song (after no soundcheck), Rotten promptly laughed into the microphone, threw it to the ground and well, that was it. They broke up and that was that. The crowd gave an uproarious applause. For they had seen a true moment.

Well I probably was barely alive then, but one moment I was truly alive to see was 911 September 2001. Frankly I am agnostic to the politics, because i’d rather be erudite than patriotic; true to oneself before one’s country. Because despite all the conspiracy theories (and some damned compelling evidence), something I remember was before that event made me realise that I too was cheated, as were we all.

Sometime around 1999, I was at Monash Uni in Clayton campus waiting to start an exam. I was proabably eating a sandwich, or nervously flicking through notes before the big exam. Anyway, we were around the engineering wing of this campus and I was looking at something I thought was some avant garde corporate art sculpture, by your typical acid whacked 1970s type.  I was crap at studying my notes so I took a closer look.

What I thought was Kraftwerk in steel was actually an artefact of a great tragedy. It was the piece of the Westgate Bridge in Melbourne that buckled in 1970. A small plaque next to it confirmed its plight. Now this was a bridge that took almost 10 years to complete, connecting Melbourne’s east and west. Relatively insignificant in the overall world sceme of things (with all due respect to those who died).

You could forgive those in Manhattan for not knowing of their tragedy 30 years ago. Anyway this big hunka steel was put there, in the grounds of the engineering wing, so that they could determine what the hell went wrong and caused the bridge to collapse. Pretty rational post mortem stuff. You know, so it doesn’t happen again. I didn’t think anything more of it (for years) and marched with the other sheep into my advertising exam.

Then it hit me the like so many tonnes of bricks. Four or so thousand people died when the three towers fell. And you know what, the steel trusses that collapsed were sent to a scrap yard in New Jersey. Within days of the collapse, they were on a junket to Iraq (how ironic) as scrap metal. FEMA or no other nerdy government boffins for that matter weren’t allowed near them.

Tens of tradies died in the seventies making this bridge, god rest ‘em. Anyway my point is this. Why, IN BIG CAPITAL LETTERS, W H Y is this artefact still on public display at Monash Uni and the ruins of the Twin Towers (and Tower 7) have probably been melted down into Saudi scrap?

I’m not asking you to dismiss everything else, or start wearing a beret and a cap. But even the most right wing Bush lover would have to admit that’s a bit suss. Three big towers 4000 dead, no post mortem on the trusses. Bridge collapese in Melbourne, 30 or so dead, piece still on public display. You can’t put that down to culture.

With a big snarly Johnny Rotten smirk on my gob, I ask you, ‘ever feel like you’ve been cheated?’.