You want fries with that?

There is nothing wrong with intelligence. 


Doesn't seem like much of a statement does it?  And, in truth it shouldn't be.  It shouldn't even have to be said.  But for too long now, intelligence has been damned with faint praise.  The only thing that seems to be encouraged by anyone - politicians, journalists, bloggers, artists, people on the street - is mediocrity.  Intelligence is the new elite; as if 'elite' were somehow a bad thing to be as well. 


Why is intelligence so frightening?  Why is learning so frowned upon, in our Western, Anglo-Saxon, English speaking world?  Suggest to someone that it's 'you're' and not 'your' and all of a sudden, you're 'one of them.'  A snob.  An elite.  A Nazi. 


I don't understand.  I have no problem with claiming intelligence.  Look, I didn't finish high school, but that doesn't mean that I finished learning.  I know a lot about a lot of things but there are many, many more things that I know nothing about but I don't think I'm stupid because of it.  And I'm certainly not proud that I stopped learning because, 'learning's for losers.'  What the fuck?  Why would anyone be proud of not wanting to keep learning?  "Oh, I don't need to know that.  I just need to pay the rent and feed myself.  It's all I need to know.  I aint no snob."  Huh?  People like this vote.  People like this are allowed to vote. 


Our previous Prime Minister - John Howard - made his whole platform about being an 'everyman.'  He was most forthright in blaming all the ills of the world on 'intelligence.'  On the 'elites,' of the world.  How much more elite can you be than being a Prime Minister?  Oh no, he just wanted to be like all of us.  I've written this before but, I don't want a Prime Minister or a President to be someone I can go have a beer with.  Or someone who knows the price of bread and milk.  That's what advisers are for.  I want someone who can come up with ideas to keep that price of bread and milk affordable, whilst providing me with the opportunity for a secure income and, even better, the ability for that income to grow so I can afford maybe bread and whisky.  Or whatever it is that's more expensive and floats your boat.  I don't want to place my trust in an everyman - effectively a me.  I want a thinker.  I want an ideas man/woman.  I want someone who can embrace intelligence and use that intelligence for the betterment of ALL of us; not just to get re-elected. 

But no, Australia - and especially Australia because that's where I'm writing from - everyone is supposed to be as good as everyone else.  There's no class warfare in Australia.  Well fuck that.  The fuck there isn't.  There's the rich, the poor, the middle class; just like every other fucking country but we have this over inflated sense of ourselves as being as good as.  Well that's fine, but don't do it by trying to tear down institutions of learning.  I've always, always believed that education should be free.  Free for everyone.  That's what governments are for: health, infrastructure, education, police and military.  But no, everything's got to be fucking privatised now.  It's all small government these days.  Look, I've no problem with the government not being in people's pockets all the time but they have to be there for something.  And I notice it's always the ministers and politicians who went through university for free that call the loudest for up front fees.  It was good enough for them but not for anyone else?  To me, this is just an easy way of bringing everyone down to a certain level.  A certain level of intelligence.  I'm not saying it's any sort of conspiracy or anything but it's certainly very effective.  There are still countries in the world who know this, who limit the amount of knowledge any of their citizens are allowed to access.  And we're doing the same thing over here but in much more subtle ways. 

And I'm not saying that everyone should go to university and study.  I never went and never wanted to.  Still don't.  If university were free tomorrow, I still wouldn't go.  But again, it doesn't mean that I want to stop learning.  I want to keep reading, I want to keep listening.  Not everyone would go to uni, because not everyone wants to be what they offer.  We need mechanics and plumbers and people who say, you want fries with that?  Your job doesn't limit your ongoing education.  Nor should it.  There are truck drivers out there who know more about the work of Degas than people ostensibly studying Degas.  Why?  Because they WANT to know.  Their job may define them in people's eyes but it doesn't define their intelligence, or their thirst for knowledge.  Neither it should. 

It's like people who have made a success of themselves but still claim to be 'aware of their roots.'  I'm still, I'm still, Jenny from the block.  No, fuck that.  You've made something of yourself to get away from that mentality.  Isn't that why you worked so hard in the first place?  Why, if you grew up in poverty and made a huge success of yourself, would you still want to associate with that poverty?  Because it's more real?  Ask the people who live there.  Ask the kid who hasn't eaten in five days because his parents have left, or they have paid the rent and nothing's left for food.  Do you think that's more real than desire?  The desire to leave and never look back?  Sure, go back and help change things if you want but don't use that poverty as some sort of symbol of pureness if you're doing nothing to alleviate it for others still there who didn't have your drive, or talent or were just proud of being 'not intelligent.'  Fuck that, fuck that and fuck that again, I say. 

It's my biggest bugbear about this country.  The pride in being stupid.  The pride in never reading a book after high school.  The pride of not going to university because, 'that's for snobs and wankers.'  Fuck you man.  Educate yourself before it's too late. 

Which it might already be. 

Trippin' down memory lane

I was going through my old posts and when I say 'going through' I mean reading the titles and trying to work out from that, whether I'd written anything in a similar vein. Deciding that I haven't, I'll continue.

My last post was talking about signs you encounter that reinforce the old age gap and one of the things I mentioned was liking the music on commercial radio now. Especially the 'oldies' station. And when I say old, I'm talking few songs before 1978 - the year I started high school. One of my regular commenters - UB - mentioned that the music you grew up with is the music that stays with you. And he's completely correct. But I also replied that, the music I grew up with is kind of embarrassing. Which is also correct. So, come with me now as we explore "tennysoneehemingway's guide to what he listened to while he was growing up." Bit long for a book title I suppose but, whatever.

For the most part of my formative years, I grew up on talk radio, jazz and classical music. My father was a musician in the RAAF for over twenty years so, the first music I can ever recall hearing was something they played. It might have been a march, it might have been a swing arrangement, it may even have been something classical. I can't remember that much but it would have been something from the archives of the RAAF band. Other than that, my dad listened to heaps of jazz so I was exposed to Benny Goodman, Buddy Rich, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Oscar Petersen, Lionel Hampton, Ted Heath and Duke Ellington. Not a bad education I suppose but not really something you want to hear when you're twelve. I wanted rock and roll man!! ROCK AND ROLL!!!!!!! Which I got from the only rock station in Victoria - 3XY.

There will be very, very few of my readers out there who know what it was like to only have AM radio. Certainly not my American readers, who've had FM for far longer than I even knew it existed. We, in Australia, didn't get FM radio until 1980. Yeah, that's right, 1980. So the only 'alternative' radio we had, was 3XY. And they did a pretty good job too. First place I heard AC/DC.

But this is getting off track. Talk radio, jazz and classical - my bread and butter. It wasn't until I hit high school that I even knew guitars existed. Or that, if you wanted, they could be loud. But even then, I didn't embrace that for a long, long time.

I've always had an inherent distrust of anyone who can instantly tell me their favourite five whatevers. Be they bands, records, films, books, TV shows, food; to me, it smacks of giving up. 'I like other things but THESE are my absolute favourite.' I always struggle when people ask me that. I can't instantly name five favourite anythings because I'm always on the look out for something new. Or different. I don't even have a favourite musical genre. I like a lot of different things, depending on my mood. I hardly even go back to things that were favourites. Having five favourite whatevers sets you in a time a place forever. To me, at least. I used to listen, almost exclusively, to U2. All their albums up to Joshua Tree would get constant rotation on my stereo. I still like all that old stuff but I haven't listened to it for years. Once upon a time though, they would have been in my top 5 'favourites.' There is something for holding onto the classics though. But keeping them as your favourites? I just don't know.

However I do break my own law when it comes to one. I have several favourite 'ones.' For example, my absolute favourite - always has and always will be - song is Dancing Queen by ABBA. Loved it when I first heard it and never lost that love. So what's the difference? Well, I think having a favourite one gives you more room to move. You're not locking yourself into only. You're not a punk, or an intellectual, or a dilettante, or a water colorist, or any of a hundred different tropes. My love for Dancing Queen doesn't preclude my love for The Menstruation Sisters, or Andy Warhol, or even Two and a half Men. Besides, Dancing Queen was one of those songs I grew up with. One of the less embarrassing ones.

I suppose that defining what you grew up with, also means defining the time that is 'growing up.' For me, I think that's high school 12-18 (depending of course, where your birthday falls). For me, high school was 12 (going on 13) to 16. 1978-1982. Not exactly Golden Years for music. Unless, of course, you followed the massive outbreak of classic Punk from that period. I did not. I look back now and think, 'I was the perfect age for Punk to really affect me; what happened?' and the only conclusion I can come to is that I was born in Australia. No, that's probably not very fair. For all intents and purposes, The Saints released the first punk single in 1976 - the brilliant I'm Stranded. There will be many schools of thought to this so, let's just say this is my opinion. But it still came out fully two years before Never Mind the Bollocks - still considered the standard Punk release. But I was living in Geelong and listening to...well, not really very much. I honestly don't remember much about music from when I was in high school. I certainly don't remember anything like punk. I remember there being punks at my school but it never connected with me. I guess I liked pop music. But even then I might be mis-remembering.

So what did I grow up on? Talk radio, classical and jazz. But even then I was a devotee of Countdown, the only music show on TV. Kind of Australia's precursor to MTV. Except not. More like Top of the Pops. And I, like most people around, worshipped pretty much whoever was in the Top Ten. That could've been ABBA, or the Little River Band or Air Supply, or 10CC or Fleetwood Mac. If they were in the Top Ten, then I liked them. For no other reason than they were in the Top Ten. I wasn't discerning enough to hate anything back then. Except 'Fernando.' Man that song was No.1 for so long, I REALLY hated that after a while.

Look at those names; I grew up on some of the lamest, whimpiest, soul-sucking, GREATEST pops groups of all time. Some of these bands released their greatest works at the time I was listening to them. Fleetwood Mac - Rumours; ABBA - Arrival; 10CC - I'm not in love; Air Supply - All out of love; Little River Band - Reminiscing; the list goes on. And this was only the stuff that filtered through to Australia. No Internet back then. No MTV. No FM Radio. Just whatever got on AM, that's what I had. I'll bet if you Googled 1978 now, you'd come up with piles of great stuff that was released. I mean, I still remember going to the drive in to see Star Wars - and that was 1977. What was I saying about Golden Years again?

The point is, I grew up on some truly shitty music, if you consider some of the gold that my parents grew up on. But then I think of the Generation that came after me - which includes a fair whack of my readers - and they're referencing things I grew up on as 'classics.'

Maybe beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

The dog's hind leg

It surprises me still, that the notion of 'honesty is the best policy,' holds such traction. Because, as any fool knows, it absolutely isn't true.

We all lie. It doesn't matter who, it doesn't matter our age, it doesn't matter our social standing, it doesn't matter our occupation, it doesn't matter our ethnic origin or our religion. Whether we have one or not. We all lie. Lies are a matter of necessity. Without lying, we'd never be able to get through the day.

I'm not saying that being honest is a redundant option. Honesty is still a valuable commodity. If more people were more honest, the world would be in a better state.

Which comes down to our definition of honesty and the definition of the above epigram. WHEN is honesty the best policy? With only the big things or with small things as well? And who and how are these 'things' defined?

I'm thinking of the Ricky Gervais vehicle of last year; the movie where everyone was supposedly 'honest' and he invented lying. But, if truth be told (see what I did there?) the movie was less about people being honest, than it was about some strange sort of ADD crossed with Tourette's. People would just blurt out whatever came into their heads. Which is less honesty than mental problems.

For example, when he rang Jennifer Garner's doorbell, she answers it with, 'I was just upstairs masturbating.' Which may have been true but, as he didn't ask what she'd been doing, why did she feel compelled to mention it? Honesty? No, that's more of an obsessive/compulsive problem.

However, compare with the real world now. If, in our recent past, banks had have told people in the Sub Prime mortgage collapse that they really shouldn't be borrowing ANY money, let alone enough to buy a house, perhaps more people, and our own economy, would be better off. And, further to that, if government, the private sector and general common sense were involved and being honest, maybe this whole mess wouldn't have even started.

But still, there's no great answer to 'does my bum look big in this?' unless, of course, you lie.

Golden Plains

Just back from a weekend of camping in Meredith, for the Golden Plains music festival. First time for us at this particular festival, but not the first time. You see, Meredith Music Festival is held in the same place, but Golden Plains is the smaller one. And, usually, a much better line up of bands.

After dropping our dogs off to a kennel (only second time in their lives that we've had to do this. And they're both 13), we headed off to Meredith. It's only about twenty minutes or so from our house so, before we knew it, there we were. Now, to find the best spot to camp.

After driving around for a while, we decided on The South Pines. Close enough to the main amphitheatre, but far enough away to not be too disturbed come sleep time. Next job? Set up the tent.

We bought a new tent, especially for this weekend. We'd had a practice set up in our backyard but, unfortunately, we didn't have quite enough space, so this was the first time we could really get the whole thing up. And, while it wasn't quite a debacle, it wasn't pretty. Have you ever set a tent up in a howling gale? Then you'll know how we went. If not, imagine trying to read a newspaper in a hurricane, and you'll get the general idea. Not only was it a howling gale, it was about 27 degrees, so the wind was hot. In short, we sweated more than if we'd done a 10k run. Turns out, we also set the thing up backwards. It has an open back, that you can attach to your car. This is supposed to give you more room and make it easy to transfer things from the car to the tent and back again. We managed to do this but at the wrong end. Oh well, next time.

Once the first beer went down (for me, obviously Lady Hem isn't drinking), we headed on down to the stage. It seems there are a lot of 60's revival bands around. Certainly the first band we heard whilst setting up were doing this. But the first band we wanted to see were The Cosmic Psychos.

You'd have to be Australian to know who they are. I don't think they ever played overseas, though they may have toured with L7 in the 90's but I'm not entirely sure. Anyway, they're an old fashioned, Aussie rock 'n' roll band. What's that? Well; here are some song titles. Dead Roo, Nice day to go to the Pub, Fish and Chips, What are you lookin' at? and the list goes on. I've seen them a few times and it's always a bit of a treat. They play well, they don't take themselves too seriously and they don't outstay their welcome. What more could you ask to 3 in the afternoon?

Still hot, so more drinking was to be had. A lot more. Bad mistake. Mainly because I don't remember much of the rest of the afternoon. I was drinking Kilkenny, which I found out from our Irish neighbours (two boys who set up a tent next to us), is the Irish Fosters. IE: nobody in Ireland drinks the shit. But, I did, coz I like it. And it comes in big cans. So, after 5 of these, I decide to keep the buzz going and get two Pink Flamingos. The Pink Flamingo is the bar on the grounds of Meredith. A Pink Flamingo is Vodka and grapefruit juice and it ROCKS.

I had two in quick succession but the one thing I forgot to do (besides drink water) was eat. I'd had breakfast but that was about it. So, as the Clean took to the stage (a band I really wanted to see), I pretty much passed out on the ground. I remember hearing them, but I didn't see them at all. I also remember vomiting out my nose. Well, something ran out my nose and it tasted like vomit. Glad you've read this far, hey?

By the time I was ready to get back up, Joanna Newsom was playing. She was alright. But, I was fast falling down, so we decided to go back to the tent to have a little nanna nap. The Irish boys were up, so I spent a bit of time drunkenly talking to them, while my wife laughed her arse off. I didn't end up going to sleep, but I did end up drinking another couple of beers.

By around 10pm, I was feeling better, so we all went back down and watched The Hold Steady, who fuckin' cranked it. They've lost their keyboard player, so they've recruited another guitarist. At several points during their set, they had three guitars going. It was a sonic joy. But, enough of this.

We went back to the tent and went to bed. Now that I've riveted you with this tale, why not join me tomorrow for more scintillating descriptions of our weekend that just makes you feel like you were there. Why not indeed.