One of the first principles I learnt at the WA School of Mines was the Law of Original Horizontality, which states that sedimentary rocks are originally deposited in horizontal layers – much like yeasty scum at the bottom of a sulphurous backyard homebrew (my simile, not WASM’s). They rarely stay that way.
Ask your friendly neighbourhood geologist and he will tell you that horizontal rocks no longer exist in the Goldfields because around 2.5 billion years ago they were stretched, squashed, twisted and fractured by unrelenting tectonic forces; divided by red-hot magma; and transformed beyond recognition by intense heat and pressure. I know how those rocks must have felt.
When I arrived in Kalgoorlie I was soft and horizontal like newly-deposited sediment. I was made of quality stuff – my family had ensured that – but I had yet to consolidate. I was still malleable and ductile; still open to influence. I was, if you like, a blank canvas.
I ask you, my learned reader: Could this young man have chosen a finer place to splash him with colour? I say no. And to press you further: If this city were an artist, whose work would it mirror? I say Vincent Van Gogh; characterised by coarse, bold brushstrokes that inexplicably combine to produce something of splendour.
Superficially there is nothing subtle about Kalgoorlie. A passing observer may appreciate the coarse, bold things – money, trucks, holes, miners, pubs, hookers – but like a good painting, the warm internal elation of true understanding is saved only for those who fully immerse themselves in it.
I hear you ask: What factor – unappreciated by the passing observer – over time transforms Kalgoorlie’s roughness into beauty before one’s eyes? I answer you confidently: It’s people.
When I moved to town, the general concern amongst family and friends was that I would become a red-necked simpleton – how distant from the reality! The city’s very strength is that people of all backgrounds are compelled not merely to tolerate each other, but to co-exist and have a grand time doing it.
My best mates are professionals, tradesmen and shit-kickers; footballers and scholars; Tasmanians and normal people. I’ve discussed philosophy with driller’s offsiders, met likeable South Africans and performed drunken emu-hunting dances with the natives on the Paddy’s Alehouse dancefloor. What better place for an education in life?
My experiences here have taught me that we are all brothers and sisters, helpless products of our own environments, dealing with the same fundamental questions and problems. Ben Lee: I’m made of atoms, you’re made of atoms and we’re all in this together.
Many arrive in Kalgoorlie masquerading as hard-nosed economic mercenaries, but this futile façade inevitably crumbles as they realise that it is far easier to love than to hate. If they do ever leave – as I will be shortly – they do so softened and with an unshakeable feeling that they’ll be drawn back by forces beyond their control.
Had I stayed in Perth I have little doubt that I would have remained horizontal; slowly hardening in a familiar setting until I became rigid and lifeless. As it happened I came here aged 18 and spent seven life-defining years being stretched, squashed, twisted, fractured, divided and transformed by this city and it’s people.
Thankyou Kalgoorlie and, to a lesser extent, Boulder (ooh, what cheek!). I doff thy top hat and bid thee farewell.
A funny footnote: Everyone that spoke to me about “Out There” – absolutely without exception – believed that no-one else understood it. How typical of Goldfielders not to give themselves and each other credit!
Saturday 17 March 2007
Saturday 10 March 2007
Kalgoorlie Miner (24): Shark
In the nanoseconds that elapsed between hitting the water and the commencement of my frenzied swim back to shore, I painstakingly reviewed how exactly I had come to be in this situation; immersed in the dark, heaving Southern Ocean with a large squid head and a decomposing herring attached to my leg.
The most immediate reason was my clumsy unintentional dismount from the sea kayak that had carried me out from the sloping migmatite (granite for non-geologists) coastline; an ironic occurrence you’ll agree, given that my sister is an Olympic oarswoman, but not nearly equalling the looming potential irony of being eaten by a shark while setting a shark bait. I had one quivering hand on a Darwin Award.
That I would soon be dismembered and/or devoured was, I felt, a fait accompli. It was twilight and slightly overcast, there were 40 rotting pilot whale carcasses on an adjacent beach, and some weeks earlier my brother had flippantly informed me (now a thudding internal reminder on loop) that Great White sharks were frequently tagged at nearby Doubtful Island.
Unhappy with the initial conclusion that my own poor seamanship was to blame for my predicament, I began racking my brain for alternative scapegoats. Thankfully several years in the mining industry had left the knuckles on my blame-assigning finger well-lubricated and it’s tip extremely pointy.
I was only on the dilapidated kayak, I now figured, because Sam – who was visible on the rocks alternately doubled over in laughter and yelling encouragement or criticism (I suspected the latter) – was unable or unwilling (again, the latter is favoured) to paddle out himself. His concern may have stemmed from the fact that he shares a name with a breed of charitable seal.
But was I really even in danger? As a teenager on Perth’s coastline I had traversed the ocean without fear, so why now did I feel like a lone springbok drinking from an eerily deserted waterhole? Were Channel Seven and the Sunday Times to blame?
Ultimately I put the paranoia down to the circumspection that comes with age, the ceaseless shark-related comments around the camp and the xenophobia caused by seven years in the Golden Outback. Oh and there was the bait dangling from my leg.
Alas with this answer came another question: When Sammy opted out, why had I cast my hat into the ring ahead of Rhett and Christian? For this the blame lay squarely with Ajax the dog, whose words from last week were still echoing: “It’s the ‘I wish I did’ regrets that haunt you,” he had explained with wisdom beyond both his years and his species, “not the ‘I wish I didn’t’ ones.”
“Sure,” I had therefore mused on the rocks, “I may lose a leg, but at least there’s a Kalgoorlie Miner column in that. If I don’t go I’ll have to write about Brian Burke or mobile phones or the wall outside Woolworths and no-one deserves that.”
And so I had entered the surging ocean with Ajax’s urging voice in my head and with your appeasement – yes you, my bloodthirsty reader – as my motivation; a wannabe Gonzo journalist risking limb and/or life to relay news from The Great Shark Hunt.
It was following this thought that I screamed “Oh fuck! Oh fuck!” several times and set off in a frenzied primal freestyle, pausing momentarily to shove the slapping kayak landward.
The 200 lb monofilament had come loose from my leg, but three days spent wallowing in berley, mulies and fish intestines meant that I alone would have made a delightful hors d’oeuvre for any passing monster. The herring and squid were mere parsley on the parmiagana.
As I finally slithered back up the migmatite slope, babbling incoherently and with my nerves horribly jangled, a stunning adrenalin-driven revelation dawned upon me: I was no longer in the acceptably reckless age group of 18 to 25, having turned 26 just two days prior. The dream was over, I decided there and then. It was time to grow up.
The stiff wind had almost dried my now goose-pimpled skin when I realised that without the fuel of youthful foolhardiness and adventure, the raging inferno that was “Out There” would soon wane, flicker and ultimately be extinguished. I had to call it a day.
Next week: my final column.
Footnote: We didn’t catch a shark. I told the boys the bait was in 3 to 4 metres of water. That was a lie.
The most immediate reason was my clumsy unintentional dismount from the sea kayak that had carried me out from the sloping migmatite (granite for non-geologists) coastline; an ironic occurrence you’ll agree, given that my sister is an Olympic oarswoman, but not nearly equalling the looming potential irony of being eaten by a shark while setting a shark bait. I had one quivering hand on a Darwin Award.
That I would soon be dismembered and/or devoured was, I felt, a fait accompli. It was twilight and slightly overcast, there were 40 rotting pilot whale carcasses on an adjacent beach, and some weeks earlier my brother had flippantly informed me (now a thudding internal reminder on loop) that Great White sharks were frequently tagged at nearby Doubtful Island.
Unhappy with the initial conclusion that my own poor seamanship was to blame for my predicament, I began racking my brain for alternative scapegoats. Thankfully several years in the mining industry had left the knuckles on my blame-assigning finger well-lubricated and it’s tip extremely pointy.
I was only on the dilapidated kayak, I now figured, because Sam – who was visible on the rocks alternately doubled over in laughter and yelling encouragement or criticism (I suspected the latter) – was unable or unwilling (again, the latter is favoured) to paddle out himself. His concern may have stemmed from the fact that he shares a name with a breed of charitable seal.
But was I really even in danger? As a teenager on Perth’s coastline I had traversed the ocean without fear, so why now did I feel like a lone springbok drinking from an eerily deserted waterhole? Were Channel Seven and the Sunday Times to blame?
Ultimately I put the paranoia down to the circumspection that comes with age, the ceaseless shark-related comments around the camp and the xenophobia caused by seven years in the Golden Outback. Oh and there was the bait dangling from my leg.
Alas with this answer came another question: When Sammy opted out, why had I cast my hat into the ring ahead of Rhett and Christian? For this the blame lay squarely with Ajax the dog, whose words from last week were still echoing: “It’s the ‘I wish I did’ regrets that haunt you,” he had explained with wisdom beyond both his years and his species, “not the ‘I wish I didn’t’ ones.”
“Sure,” I had therefore mused on the rocks, “I may lose a leg, but at least there’s a Kalgoorlie Miner column in that. If I don’t go I’ll have to write about Brian Burke or mobile phones or the wall outside Woolworths and no-one deserves that.”
And so I had entered the surging ocean with Ajax’s urging voice in my head and with your appeasement – yes you, my bloodthirsty reader – as my motivation; a wannabe Gonzo journalist risking limb and/or life to relay news from The Great Shark Hunt.
It was following this thought that I screamed “Oh fuck! Oh fuck!” several times and set off in a frenzied primal freestyle, pausing momentarily to shove the slapping kayak landward.
The 200 lb monofilament had come loose from my leg, but three days spent wallowing in berley, mulies and fish intestines meant that I alone would have made a delightful hors d’oeuvre for any passing monster. The herring and squid were mere parsley on the parmiagana.
As I finally slithered back up the migmatite slope, babbling incoherently and with my nerves horribly jangled, a stunning adrenalin-driven revelation dawned upon me: I was no longer in the acceptably reckless age group of 18 to 25, having turned 26 just two days prior. The dream was over, I decided there and then. It was time to grow up.
The stiff wind had almost dried my now goose-pimpled skin when I realised that without the fuel of youthful foolhardiness and adventure, the raging inferno that was “Out There” would soon wane, flicker and ultimately be extinguished. I had to call it a day.
Next week: my final column.
Footnote: We didn’t catch a shark. I told the boys the bait was in 3 to 4 metres of water. That was a lie.
Saturday 3 March 2007
Kalgoorlie Miner (23): Verandah - Part Two
There’s only so much a pooch can do in this backyard. Try to escape? Check. Lick the barbie plate? Check. Sit at the outdoor setting in mockery of my human captors and in flagrant contravention of their laws and customs? Check. I’m a settled twenty-something in dog years now, so shenanigans like knocking over the bin to drink the beer dregs are best confined to memory, or lack thereof. Ah, the foolishness of youth.
Regrets: I’ve had a few, but in my heart of canine hearts I don’t really regret them. “I wish I didn’t” regrets decorate one with life’s badges of honour and make for amusing self-depreciative anecdotes. Any three-legged mongrel will tell you that a story of cataclysmic tragedy or failure is an order of magnitude more popular than one of success. It’s the “I wish I did” regrets that haunt a dog on his deathmat or deathbench or deathbush or whatever object it is upon which he dies.
The front gate just closed, meaning that the boss is back from wherever he goes for five days out of every seven. He stays home unexpectedly sometimes, usually following a night spent out here drinking the brown bottles and, later into the darkness, the tall bottles of red stuff. On those nights the boys become jovial and affectionate and many a chop bone gets cast my way.
The back door has been left ajar as usual. I’m not allowed through the house, but if I stay low then I become invisible. I think. Here goes. Creeping, creeping. Out the front now and he’s looking at me sternly. Invisibility error. I’ll just sit with my head down, eyes up and tail thrashing and hope that he forgives me.
Oh hello Ajax, he says in his condescending sing-song voice. In my teenage years I cringed every time I heard that name. Not after the cleaning product, he tells newcomers, but rather the mighty Greek warrior from The Iliad. He just wants people to know that he’s read the classics.
What’s the word for him? Pretentious. Yeah that’s it. As pretentious as a Hannans labradoodle – or so he would probably say, given his obsession with similes or metaphors or whatever they are. I’m only a dog so how would I know the difference?
What song should I play Ajax, he asks. Anything but Radiohead. Paranoid Android you reckon, he answers on my behalf. Sigh. Radiohead again. He really should listen to his mother and learn some happy songs.
OK I’m in tune boy, he says, let’s go. You go – I’ll just savour the grass and the sun. Both keys to canine happiness and both sadly lacking out the back.
“Please can you stop the noise I’m tryin’ to get some rest…”
Ah, such blinding irony in that opening line. Only a Thom Yorke impression is more annoying than Thom Yorke. How can he stay so glum for so long? Is it not a phase that you grow out of? If I had opposable thumbs I would track him down and wring his skinny English neck, putting an end to his apparent misery. And mine.
“Ambition makes you look pretty ugly…”
I used to have ambitions and urges but two changes – one instantaneous and one creeping – have put an end to that. Firstly, the operation that stripped me of my manhood. Now I can only be “good friends” with the bitches. That just sounds gay.
Secondly, the increasing dominance of my inner Staffy over my inner Border Collie. Oh for the days when the desire to sleep was hammered into submission by the twitching genetic compulsion to spring into the air and to corral other animals!
“Raaaiiin down, rain down, c’mon raaaiiin down on me…”
It’s been raining down on me lately. Pouring from a great height. Went for a run out bush and wore the pads off my feet. At least I wasn’t out on Hannans Lake this time – talk about adding salt to the wound. I got to roll in some rotting wildlife on the weekend though. That’s a positive.
Here comes the conclusion. Nearly time to leap up for a pat before he begins his next melancholy ballad. The smart money is on Jeff Buckley.
“God loves his children, yeah!”
And now for the power chord finale. Ho hum. Prepare for some Eau de Dead Kangaroo mister.
A, A, C, A, G#, G#, G#, C, D, A.
Jump. Woohoo!
Regrets: I’ve had a few, but in my heart of canine hearts I don’t really regret them. “I wish I didn’t” regrets decorate one with life’s badges of honour and make for amusing self-depreciative anecdotes. Any three-legged mongrel will tell you that a story of cataclysmic tragedy or failure is an order of magnitude more popular than one of success. It’s the “I wish I did” regrets that haunt a dog on his deathmat or deathbench or deathbush or whatever object it is upon which he dies.
The front gate just closed, meaning that the boss is back from wherever he goes for five days out of every seven. He stays home unexpectedly sometimes, usually following a night spent out here drinking the brown bottles and, later into the darkness, the tall bottles of red stuff. On those nights the boys become jovial and affectionate and many a chop bone gets cast my way.
The back door has been left ajar as usual. I’m not allowed through the house, but if I stay low then I become invisible. I think. Here goes. Creeping, creeping. Out the front now and he’s looking at me sternly. Invisibility error. I’ll just sit with my head down, eyes up and tail thrashing and hope that he forgives me.
Oh hello Ajax, he says in his condescending sing-song voice. In my teenage years I cringed every time I heard that name. Not after the cleaning product, he tells newcomers, but rather the mighty Greek warrior from The Iliad. He just wants people to know that he’s read the classics.
What’s the word for him? Pretentious. Yeah that’s it. As pretentious as a Hannans labradoodle – or so he would probably say, given his obsession with similes or metaphors or whatever they are. I’m only a dog so how would I know the difference?
What song should I play Ajax, he asks. Anything but Radiohead. Paranoid Android you reckon, he answers on my behalf. Sigh. Radiohead again. He really should listen to his mother and learn some happy songs.
OK I’m in tune boy, he says, let’s go. You go – I’ll just savour the grass and the sun. Both keys to canine happiness and both sadly lacking out the back.
“Please can you stop the noise I’m tryin’ to get some rest…”
Ah, such blinding irony in that opening line. Only a Thom Yorke impression is more annoying than Thom Yorke. How can he stay so glum for so long? Is it not a phase that you grow out of? If I had opposable thumbs I would track him down and wring his skinny English neck, putting an end to his apparent misery. And mine.
“Ambition makes you look pretty ugly…”
I used to have ambitions and urges but two changes – one instantaneous and one creeping – have put an end to that. Firstly, the operation that stripped me of my manhood. Now I can only be “good friends” with the bitches. That just sounds gay.
Secondly, the increasing dominance of my inner Staffy over my inner Border Collie. Oh for the days when the desire to sleep was hammered into submission by the twitching genetic compulsion to spring into the air and to corral other animals!
“Raaaiiin down, rain down, c’mon raaaiiin down on me…”
It’s been raining down on me lately. Pouring from a great height. Went for a run out bush and wore the pads off my feet. At least I wasn’t out on Hannans Lake this time – talk about adding salt to the wound. I got to roll in some rotting wildlife on the weekend though. That’s a positive.
Here comes the conclusion. Nearly time to leap up for a pat before he begins his next melancholy ballad. The smart money is on Jeff Buckley.
“God loves his children, yeah!”
And now for the power chord finale. Ho hum. Prepare for some Eau de Dead Kangaroo mister.
A, A, C, A, G#, G#, G#, C, D, A.
Jump. Woohoo!
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