Michael Outhwaite

Jesus goes to Peak Hill

2009-12-31T10:24:00.002+11:00

Written out bush in September for the kitchen wall of the last remaining house in Peak Hill, 150 km north of Meekatharra. The house is owned by Tony Burrows, and has been in his family since 1899. Several vistors to the house have penned odes to Peak Hill. All refer to it as hell, if not directly then certainly between the lines.

When Jesus came to Peak Hill, His second time around,
He was chauffeured in a ‘Cruiser – no donkeys could be found.

It went rattle-rattle-rattle, over gully-outcrop-gully,
He said “What’s the problem driver? My back feels kinda funny.”

“We’re in Peak Hill,” the driver said, “And that’s just what it’s like.
If you’re keen I’ll cut ya clean, and lend ya my old bike.”

Jesus thought the bloke was lyin’ – pullin’ a leg or two,
So He threw a query back at him, to check his word was true:

“So in this big flat land, this pancake of a place,
You’re sayin’ there’s a little town that only billygoats could grace?”

The driver said “That’s right, but just cop it on the chin.
Muscles loose and mind at ease – don’t let Peak Hill win.”

Had broken many men, this town, or so the codger said.
The rocks, the dust, the heat, the flies: “It does things to your head.”

Jesus stewed up mighty dark, in the shakin’ shotgun seat:
“I been to Baghdad, Kabul, Meekatharra, but this one’s got me beat!”

Fed up, He got the sat phone, ‘n got right up his Padre:
“There’s two ways we can do this, Lord – the easy or the hard way.”

“Jesus Christ!” said God, “It’s ages since you called.
Now, about this Peak Hill place – I can explain the flaws.

“That first day was mighty long, designing A to Z,
‘Bout half-past-ten at night, I was craving a cup of tea.

“Then while I drank the cuppa (and, to be honest, a quiet gin),
Satan crept into the shed and carved old Peak Hill in.

“But JC, take it easy, your daddy’s got a plan,
To liven up the place, to make it rise again.”

So the bloke upstairs explained the go, while Jesus listened in,
And when the Lord was finished, the Son hung up with a grin.

“Hey driver would you like a tip, better’n greyhounds or the horses?
See me old man’s blessed a little mob called Alchemy Resources.

“So get your cash together – there’ll be copper, gold ‘n iron.
And with God as stand-in chairman, their shares will be a-flyin’

“But in place of you old characters, diggin’ out the dirt,
There’ll be a mob of useless Kiwis, in fluoro orange shirts.”

Sunday Lunch (Mapping Madness)

2009-07-14T09:42:00.000+08:00

There’s something glorious about a good Sunday lunch. I’ve just had one of the finest imaginable; one so fine that it was not just glorious but also heavenly, as though the whole ceremony was being cheered on by God and a choir of angels.

I was alone for my heavenly lunch, but not alone and sad like a king with a crooked crown and sagging jowls who has realised that for all his wealth and for all the pheasant and suckling pig before him he is still very poor, and not alone and pathetic like a kid in a coloured cone hat with a cake bearing many sparkling sparklers but no mates with whom to share the hilarity of trying to extinguish them – no not like that at all, but rather alone and peaceful like Wills after Burke kicked it or Burke after Wills kicked it or like Jacques Cousteau skin-diving on a pretty average reef as far as reefs go but without the burden of cameras filming him and having to make things seems more exciting than they really actually were. I was just alone and peaceful like that.

So there I was, alone in the sticks, and sitting atop what we in the business of describing landforms might call a spur off the side of a ridge, with spur meaning bit that sticks out as it does in just about any context I can think of the term being used, from riding boots to railway lines. Everywhere else I’d been this ridge had just been a ridge with no spurs but on this lucky day, this Sunday just gone, at precisely lunchtime or at least a time I deemed suitable for the taking of lunch, I lobbed upon a very nice westwards-going spur off the still nice but not quite as nice north-south ridge.

The geologist in me was quick to realise the reason for this spur’s existence, that being the fact that a series of milky quartz veins had burst through the rock in a nice regular pattern and hardened it up so that it was able to resist the blows of nature’s cold chisel while lesser rocks crumbled around it, but the romantic in me tried to push aside the geologist and think of the spur instead as a gift from God to a foot soldier, a loyal subject of His work, not in the sense that I read or follow the Bible at all, but in the sense that I spend my days unravelling the puzzles and vagaries that He created in the rocks on whatever day it was that He made the earth, and I suppose it was the first day when I think about it or else where would the animals have been placed?

It was a nice day in every way, that day. Sunny, Sunday, a sunny-sunny-Sunday I suppose, and just a little bit windy, just enough to rustle a few leaves here and there and provide the odd whoosh or two for excitement but not so windy that my geological maps and instruments were at risk of flight. I don’t know what the temperature was, what the number of degrees above zero degrees I should say it was and frankly I don’t care for the use of such a precise and rigid thing as a number to describe something of intangible beauty. It’s like when I used to ask my mate Clint how deep the water was when we were snorkelling and he’d say it was two Clints or three-and-a-half Clints deep, just to be ambiguous and cheeky – that’s how I feel like being, so let’s just say it was a nice temperature.

So I put my backpack down and got out my matches and shreds of fire-starting toilet paper and set about making a little fire to boil my billy, and was pleased to see that the Blessed Spur was rich with a type of tree I don’t know the name of but which has needles instead of leaves. The dead dry needles were thick on the ground and there’s nothing like a handful of them to get a fire cranking in its early stages so on went a few handfuls and up she went in no time. The good thing about a dry climate is you can get all the wood you need to boil a billy without even moving your feet from the fireside and so it went this day, but bear in mind that when I was in Chile the desert was so dry there was no wood at all and I had to have fruit boxes instead of tea, so there must be some tipping point of dryness where the wood situation starts to sour. The Eastern Goldfields must just be one of the world’s best fire-making joints, where there’s enough rain to grow a fair few trees but little enough that most die pretty quick smart before they get too big and proud.

This day I decided to experiment by placing the billy on a stone right next to the fire, with the stone sort of leaning into the fire a little bit to capture the heat but obviously not leaning so much that the billy might be at risk of toppling in and ruining the whole show. This experiment came about because I’ve been finding it a drag waiting for the billy-by-the-side method and am too risk averse to do the billy-on-the-sticks method which is good for a quick boil but has gone pear on me a good few times when the sticks have burned through and then there’s water in the fire and you have to start from scratch with the billy-by-the-side method and by the time the tea is ready you’re in a heavy rage and in no state to be enjoying tea.

To avoid having to raise the point again later I’ll tell you now that the billy-on-the-rock method didn’t work as well as I thought, maybe because the rock itself is cool and transfers heat slowly, but also maybe because my expectations were too high. Options for the future might be billy-on-the-rock but with the billy sort of overhanging off the rock into the fire, which I think would be an equal or greater risk of catastrophic failure than billy-on-the-sticks, or else billy-on-two-rocks-with-fire-underneath but that sounds like a lot of work for a plain old cup of tea.

I sat and ate my sandwiches once the fire was burning brightly and the stone and billy were correctly positioned downwind of the flames, and to tell you the truth the actual sandwiches of salami, cheese and lettuce on multi-grain bread were the low-point of the whole lunch, their only redeeming feature being the bits of red onion I’d dashed in there on top for something a little bit exotic and Spanish. I was still labouring through a mouthful of the second sandwich, which seemed somehow drier than the first, when the water came to the boil. This was a nice woody spot, as I think I mentioned, so with only a small swivel of my torso I was able to find a long, sturdy stick to lift the billy from the fire towards me without even getting up, and really it was these sorts of small graces that made this particular lunch so exceedingly pleasant and memorable.

I tore open two tea bags and threw in the leaves because that’s the way I like it, just leaves, and I don’t care what anyone says: you can definitely taste the paper and it’s not nice. I’m pretty certain that when Merrill J Fernando started Dilmah and named it after his sons Dilhan and Mahjong or something, he didn’t intend for his customers to be drinking tea and paper but tea only, and that he was forced into offering paper bags by a fickle and coarse Australian market he was determine to crack, and it’s unfortunate that the tea he’s really passionate about now sits in small packets called Premium Range as though drinking good tea is beyond the reach of the ordinary man. He compromised his values for cash, did Merrill J Fernando, and I’m sure he’d admit as much if he were here today and then he’d probably burst into big salty Sri Lankan tears and admit he’s been funding the Tamil Tigers too. Shame, Merrill, shame.

I thought all that about Dilmah while the tea brewed and I was just shaking my head and tut-tutting Merrill J Fernando when I realised that the tea was looking pretty dark and ready for drinking so I spooned in three or four sugars with the little teaspoon I stole from the mess and bent so it fit snugly inside the plastic sugar container I’ve got that fits inside my billy. That’s gonna get me onto The New Inventors, the all-in-one-billy, because you always forget something and this day I’d forgotten my cup and it’s ridiculous how hard it is to find a substitute for a cup in the bush without a damn good whittling blade and a few hours to spare so in the end I drank from the billy, once I’d wiped a section of the lip clean of soot.

Without really meaning to – another of these small graces – I found myself in a comfortable pose with my legs crossed and my back against a smooth tree, looking over the cradled billy, between the needle trees, and out onto the low red plain and salmon gums and blue-green cotton balls of saltbush. Then I entered this sort of rhythmic drinking of the tea where I kept it angled right up to my mouth and would first blow out a full breath into the fluttering tea, then I’d take in a big long breath and slurp the tea right at the end. Only as I savoured and swallowed the tea did I look out on the landscape – all the rest of the time I looked into the billy and admired the deep tannin juice and took care not to disturb the exhausted leaves resting at the bottom. I stared in the billy so long I noticed it was covered in stains and untensil scrapes from countless tea ceremonies and many packets of Mee Goreng noodles and tins of Tom Piper’s mince and vegetables, and I thought I could taste hints of the past in this tea and that maybe, like a good wok, it was benefiting from having never been properly washed.

I was disappointed when the tea ran out because the rhythmic drinking had caused me to become deeply thoughtful and now I had to fall back into regular thought, only I had nothing to worry about because things just got better. I found that by shuffling a bit to the side I could lie down without any bits of dolerite or milky quartz poking me in the back so I dragged my backpack over and put my jacket on top of it for a pillow and reclined back onto the thin cushion of needles, then I looked up at the sky through the needle trees. It was mostly clear but with a few clouds and that caused me to reflect on a book about clouds I read where the author raged against sayings like “blue sky” in a business sense because of the implication that clouds are bad news. On this day the cloud were certainly a welcome addition to the sky and had a pleasing symmetry with the puffs of saltbush on the ground.

It only took a few minutes reflecting on the clouds for the tea to begin pumping around my veins and muscles and vital organs, all of which seemed to expand with every heartbeat. The particular tea I used was Dilmah Extra Strong which I started to think was just plain old Dilmah Regular tea that Merrill J Fernando had cut with Afghani opium shavings to turn fickle customers into lifelong addicts and thereby strengthen the Tamils, because it really felt like champagne was fizzing through my veins and I mean that top-shelf champagne with tiny little bubbles that tickle your mouth. I think I really felt it go through me this time because I wasn’t distracted by the talking and shuffling of an ordinary tea party and it made me think how much more fun a tea party might be on your own, but then that wouldn’t be much of a party so maybe just together with friends but in total silence and with no visual stimuli.

I closed my eyes and lay there for a few minutes and in my mind I wanted to sleep but then the fingers of my right hand started spreading and contracting like a five-tentacled octopus – or pentopus as they are called – which I took as I sign that my body wanted to get up and work, so suddenly I sprung to my feet and strapped all my gear on and lunch was over just like that. I had a smile on my face which was strange because the end of lunch is normally such a drawn out and morbid affair. Once I’d pissed out the fire and taken in the view one more time I strode down the Blessed Spur with purpose to see what rocks were like at the bottom and the whole way down I was singing ABC-123 without really even thinking about it, which I thought Michael Jackson would have appreciated as a greater tribute than anything Sunrise could whip up or any teary rambling I might have left on an online condolence book. I’m pretty sure he and God were looking down from up there, and seeing as neither had visited the Eastern Goldfields they would’ve been a bit perplexed by the speck of khaki staggering and singing down the slope all on his own, but they’d have known from my joyful dodging and weaving and the spring in my step that I was one happy fellow doing something far better than just resting on the day of rest and that’s for sure.

Finland and the Finns: A woefully shallow assessment

2009-05-22T14:17:00.001+08:00

I’d like to preface this essay with the greatest example of subtle Finnish humour, direct from their own language.

Suomalainen: A Finnish person.

Suomaalainen: Inhabitant of a swampy land.

And now let’s begin, as they say, at the beginning...

During the last ice age, the best of the Finnish landmass was eroded away by glaciers and scattered throughout eastern Europe, leaving behind a mildly undulating landscape where every slight depression became a freezing cold lake of sub-noteworthy dimensions. Once-grand mountains were demolished, and cross-country skiing, arduous and pointless, became the sport du jour. And owing to the uniform climate and topography, conifers (and only conifers) thrived, growing just tall and thick enough to block one’s view but never so high as to earn one’s admiration.

I have to tell you these central facts because any half-arsed commentary on the Finnish people – or any people for that matter – must begin with a description of the environment in which they live. And I must say my initial observation was that Finland is flat, its trees are straight, and its people are flat and straight. Do I still think that? No.

I am looking out on a typical Finnish scene right now, from the lounge room of my third floor flat in Sodankylä, a small town in the northern state of Lapland. The apartment block is low and rectangular, all grey and white, with heavy double doors at the entry, faux-granite stairs, linoleum levels, and a dirty big boiler in the basement. The stairwell smells of stale cigarettes in the mornings and a mixture of fresh and stale cigarettes in the evenings, and when I trudge up it after work I always feel like Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov, on a social mission to smash in the skull of some lecherous old pawnbroker woman on level six. Luckily there’s only three levels. I think this literary flashback is induced by the Russian sounding names on each beige apartment door: A1 - Tolvanen, A2 - Kosola, A3 - Vaara, A4 - Tervo, A5 - Oravala, A6 - Tolvanen, A7 - Liikala, A8 - Salmela. After Salmela, and last of all, comes A9 – (Unnamed Mining Company), and the apartment I share with Jon, my boss.

But for the occasional person or car passing over the bridge below, the scene through our window could be painted on. A gently snaking kind of river, a hundred metres wide, slithers away from me, southwards, between the conifers that go right to its banks, though there is one cleared spot on the far side, occupied by a red wooden house with white window frames and a dark green roof – the kind that I imagine might be home to a quietly methodical deer hunter with a woollen hat and a modest fire burning. If I lean back a little bit even the bridge drops below my eyeline, and then nothing is moving. Sodankylä is about a hundred kilometres inside the Arctic Circle, so at this time of year the sun’s sub-horizontal shimmy means there is little change even in light conditions. The apartment’s double windows and doors keep out the cold but also any noise, only adding further to my feeling that nothing at all is happening.

In our first few days though, big slabs of ice were still coming down the river and we stood out on the balcony wondering aloud what it would be like to surf one, or cheering them on as they headed for, but never once hit, the bridge pylons. Back then I was still thinking very much like an Australian. Five kilometres downstream, the same river, having merged with another, passes the building where we are working, and it was down there on the bank that I first thought like a Finn.

See, as far as I can tell, when a Finn sees a chunk of ice going by, he thinks of nothing at all. He just watches the chunk of ice go by. He doesn’t think about riding it or smashing it or altering its course. He just contemplates it, like some cave-ridden Buddha contemplates the passing of days and nights. And so it went that lunchtime around a week ago, when I moseyed out along the river and saw a lone piece of ice – one of the last stragglers - and was happy just to watch it cruise. In fact I became so entranced that, if I enjoyed smoking tobacco and had some Rizlas and Port Royal handy, I’d have crouched down and rolled up a dart, and smoked it real slow and methodical-like, savouring the different flavour of each individual puff. Yeah, I felt properly Finnish then.

Now, two things happen to people who watch ice drift by (if I may use that as a proxy for The Finnish Condition). One: they become thoughtful, modest and dry-humoured. Two: they embrace guns, binge drinking and death metal music. Anyone who knows a few Finns will rattle off these characteristics. In fact, a Norwegian lady working for Cathay Pacific in Perth openly tried to talk me out of going to Finland, warning that the people were “very wierd”. And my brother Andrew, who spent a few years in neighbouring Sweden, told me that Finns were quiet and strange, but added that “I think you’ll like them”, which I thought an odd thing to say.

That Andrew – he knows me too well. Like their landscapes, the beauty of the Finnish people is slowly resolved. If you stare at Finland long enough you realise that their country gently sways and twists, their sun is just a happy drunk, and every third conifer splits in two halfway up. If you observe the natives for long enough you see the smirks, hear the intonation, and detect the humour in the eyes that you long thought barren. So subtle are they, that in a room full of Finns I feel like an American; like everything I say or do is coarse and clumsy, and my jokes are painfully overwrought. I’ve got new perspective on those poor Yanks actually, though I’ve still never felt the need to tell these “crazy Finns” that they “crack me up”.

Unless something better happens between now and the 28th May, my enduring memory of Finland – and my best personal example of Finnish humour – will be of when I burst in on the senior geologist, Markku, with a question that had arisen during the morning drive to work. Who, we Australians had been wondering, was the most famous Finnish person, rally and Formula One drivers aside? As is customary in Finland, or Lapland at least, Markku looked at me for a full five seconds before saying “Well...”, then leaning back in his swivel chair and clasping his hands. To my increasingly blank face, he then reeled off three architects, two classical composers and the conductor of the New York Symphony Orchestra.

“Yeah, righty-o”, I said. “Anyone else?”

“Well,” he said, reclining back a smidgen further as the smallest of smiles appeared, “For you, I think maybe it will be Santa Claus.”

Burned, humbled, but also deeply amused.

Postcard from Cue

2009-03-06T06:17:00.001+08:00

“What did the Chinese couple call their baby when it came out black?” asks the muffled Kiwi as the rod churns down.

“Dunno”, I shout, showing a pair of sieves to the fluffy sky.

“Sum Ting Wong.”

“Oh! Mmmm.”

There is relative silence. Another clay donkey-dick bucks through the sample hose and jams in the cyclone.

“I hate Asians”, he finally resolves, thoughtful.

“Yeah”, I say, ambiguous. I don’t hate Asians. I hate everybody.

The slower the drilling, the steadier the jokes – mostly lifted from Picture – begin to flow. These transported clays – a hundred or a hundred and twenty metres thick, vertical – are decaying us all. The less we do, the greater our lethargy. Lunch is earlier, rods are heavier, cable ties defeat my feeble hands. We are sweaty and restless.

And the flies. My Lord, the flies. I’d never worn a net before. One might as wear a tall pink cone, I’d thought, with ‘poofter’ painted on the vertical. P-O-O-F-T-E-R. Now, this fine mesh hood is my sanctuary and my prison. It keeps the flies out, or in, but denies me the ability to eat, drink, blow and spit with my usual abandon. Worse than that: together with the tinted safety glasses, it denies me pure light, that sensory pleasure so necessary for the serious geologist. And what of the earplugs, the broad brim, the hardhat, the sunscreen? A sensory holocaust! What chance of oneness with the environment, of melting into the earth and becoming the rock?

Enough! I declare. Enough of this half or three-quarter living! Could the unblunted reality be so devilish that, if naked, I’d wither before it? Surely not, or possibly so – I don’t care. A rod on the cranium instead of this filtered fog? Yes sir, topple one down! A hundred decibel blast of mist into my earhole? Line me up nice-and-proper! And for God’s sake man, give me a little light exfoliation from the sample hose while you’re up!

I retreat to an acacia, which sprays up, grey-green, as if from a puncture in the orange sand. There are two plant species in the Murchison: small acacias and slightly bigger acacias. Billions of bulbous fountains dispensing soul sedative, and not a decent gum to be seen. I collapse cross-legged under the shrub’s canopy and lazily drag all the protections from my head, casting them into the dirt. My forearms go to my knees and the hum of the rig sends me slumping forward to equilibrium.

At first, my focus jumps from fly to fly as they land or move or depart. The senior flies – the kings and queens – occupy the eyes, nostrils and ears, while the peasants work the beard and limbs. Soon, my mind can’t compute the movements of the fifty or a hundred or two hundred sets of legs and I enter a period of roaring, buzzing overload. I grimace and blink throughout, until ten minutes later, suddenly, I am Fly Buddha.

A million tiny masseurs and acupuncturists soften my overworked body. Then I am cool and drifting and tickled by sea-grass. My giggling grin is soon exploited. I am their greasy Gulliver, their crusty Kurtz. I am their temple of worship, with physical and spiritual sustenance leaking from every pore. Drink up, little sweat miners! The boom rolls on!

The driller taps me on the shoulder and thrusts a piece of rock at me. It’s bedrock. He shakes his head and walks away. I look past the chip in my hand and see a seething black crust over a cut on my calf. High-grade nutrient!

Sadly, I am no longer Fly Buddha. No sir. Now I am the Ass Phallanthropist! Yes, the Documenteur of Donkey Dicks! Fifty or eighty metre beds of pure schlongs, todgers, bell-ends, pork-swords and womb-brooms! Goodness me, what kind of mega-tooled fauna roamed this place in the Tertiary? What a menagerie of man-meat!

The rig rolls away, and I resolve to stop reading Picture. Burps and growls echo from the finished hole. I wander over and peer down into the darkness.

“Another one of them gold-eatin’ dragons”, I conclude, dropping the plastic cone in and jamming it down, nice and tight.

The Downturn

2009-01-27T19:52:00.002+08:00

I wrote this to MiningNews.net, in response to their call for the subscriber's perspectives on the industry downturn. And in response to the shrivelled-up, self-pitying rubbish they'd printed until that point in time. Of course, they didn't run with it. Humourless morons!

From where I am, out in the crucible of Cue, where the desk-bound fear to tread, there are no signs of a slowdown, nor of nervous speculation or self-pity. There are signs only of heavy summer rain, pock-marking the dust – the dust that holds dormant life, the dust that tingles when it lines my nostrils, the dust that tastes of anomalous gold when I lick it with fervour.

Show me your lousy balance sheet, Mr Managing Director! Show me your frayed suit and the tears diluting your coffee – yes, please do! And then I’ll show you rock, a great big boondy I smashed from an outcrop just this afternoon; a stone you can cradle while I lecture you on its formation and deformation and alteration and just what that rock means for you and your precious company. Resist me then, my good man. Say no to that last-chance drillhole then!

Far from crush me, the slowdown has cleansed my sinking spirit and honed my geological sword to a micron edge. Give me your project and I’ll carve the fat from it with a few choice strokes. If there’s any meat left I’ll hand it back to your overpaid secretary on a platter, the flesh still quivering lightly. If there’s no flesh remaining then all you’ll get back is a blood-spattered tray. And as your wife laments your soiling of her best pewter-ware, perhaps you should lament not hiring me before you paid top dollar for that miserable tenement.

But enough shouting now. I am the sanguine geologist. I am the camouflaged gecko. While many scatter from the swooping wedgie, I lie still. My heart beats slowly and my belly is warm against the dirt. If I am picked off, then so be it. At least I am out here, trying to find some gold – out here, where our kind belong.

The Atacama Llama

2008-11-26T13:34:00.001+08:00

My first crack at a short-story proper!

What a sorry sight he makes, this woebegone llama, down here in the lonely Atacama. Dessicating, evaporating, sublimating. His dusty white coat shuddering up and collapsing down with every breath, his tongue shivering and curling in-and-out, lapping at the sharp desert air. And that jellyscum around his sinking eyes, with its thickening crust. I wonder, can he see me still?

Every so often, a llama will come – and go – this way, winding down from the high Andes and through these desolate foothills, towards the promised coast. I can only guess at their motivations: love, hate, rejection, rebellion, bravado? Curiosity, fuelled by the idle speculation of elders? Dementia or youth, which are not so dissimilar?

I first spotted this one four days ago. How insignificant he’d seemed from the hilltop: a small white speck inching through the vast, dead river of red-brown stones. But out here, where nothing moves but the sky, it’s easy to spot a wayward llama, especially when you have eyes like... well, like a fox. He was moving at a decent pace then – still had that determined step – but when I visited the next day his legs were weakened, the heady fuel of adventure exhausted.

These bold young llamas will charge straight over the last running water they’ll ever see. And such is their enthusiasm for this new sparse environment and this romantic descent, that they’ll not notice the very last tinge of green as it races beneath their eager hooves. It’s subtle and wobbly and migratory, the limit of that hardy frontier growth, but so terribly sharp and absolute upon reflection. Only a few days past the boundary do they realise their mistake, but still they press on, guided by that natural optimism of the mountain-dwellers, straight out into my country.

I like it down here. I’ve spent time up high, in the trees and streams and the sparkling grass, but I always return to this desert, craving the dry air and space, and the discipline and patience it demands of me. There’s too many links in the food chain up there, too many backs to scratch and always someone picking at yours. Down here I keep lean and sharp and nimble, and worry only for myself. It’s no place for soft minds and bodies and morals.

This one wasn’t frightened when I first darted out – fresh from the mountains, they never are. They fail to grasp the new desert dynamic: size is a burden. The threats out here are small and simple, their urges primal and deadly. But they never run, these big, giddy llamas. Instead, they follow closely, driven by a thirst that has seized control. I am, after all, evidence of water.

On moonlit nights, I sit up on my peak and watch the thick mist come creeping in, advancing inland as moist air from the sea meets the sinking Andean chill. I watch it sweep and swirl through the latitudinal valleys and reach up over the saddlebacks, unfurling like the fingers of a silvery ghost. Its route and extent are temperamental, so I stay alert and take careful note of the gullies and overhangs it favours. Sometimes the cold mist slides right up with peculiar force and swallows me whole, and on those nights my sleep is filled with dreams of the dawn’s fine harvest.

That first morning, when this llama started to follow, I led him over to a black monolith that bubbles out from the fringe of the stony river, because there, in the rock’s permanent shade, grow eight fragile, leafless shrubs. Pathetic, dry plants they are, smaller than me and no good to eat, but their spindly branches collect enough tiny droplets of mist to slake a small thirst. I showed him what to do and he licked and licked, and I dashed away before he looked up.

It’s a futile thing I do, showing them those miserable droplets, and even a terrible thing, given that I don’t show them my best spots - they’re walking dead before I see them, and I don’t seek to delay their fate unnecessarily. But I’ve been up in their mountains and looked down on this and seen – I think – what they see, so I feel a host’s obligation to show them the desert way – the getting, almost, of water from stone.

He was happy to see me again yesterday morning, when I showed him some more dew-catchers and hidey-holes, but this morning he was drawn and vacant. The blade of looming death, which so hones my desert craft, had shredded through his fluffy soul.

All this long day, my tail brushed the ridgeback as I paced its length. My movements were rigid and ill-thought, and I cursed myself for the energy wasted. Eventually, late in the afternoon, he staggered and fell, right in the spot I like them to reach.

Now, his long white neck is arched back and, together, we take in the lower reaches of this long-dead river, which opens out toward the distant ocean and the sinking sun. His eyes still flicker lightly.

Long ago, torrents of glacial water carved out this landscape, moving and shaping the pebbles and cobbles and boulders that are now polished by the streaking, unhindered winds. Most stones lie flat and relaxed, hibernating through this infinite dry, but the rare ones stand tall and tortured, leaning down towards the coast and begging for a nudge. In this late afternoon sun their shadows are long, and the riverbed resembles a cemetery.

I think this is a good place for them. I like to imagine that the dusky light might deceive their wistful eyes; that the rocky hillsides bounding the valley might soften into grassy alpine slopes, and the piercing spires might capture the last intense sun and look for all the world like cool, snowy caps. Having been drawn down into these horrors by their rosy mountain focus, I like to leave them with a vision of home.

He shuts his gummy eyes to focus on every breath. My tail betrays me. When his chest stands still, and when the mist shrouds us both, I’ll go to work on him with no regrets.

THE END

Commuting

2008-10-10T08:35:00.004+08:00

I spin around the corner and see the bus-stop seat with its chunky concrete legs, its horizontal two-by-fours and its thick mission brown paintwork, and I feel my shoulders slump like the flimsy spines it is contoured for. It's made for four people but only ever used by two, of which I am now one.

My book rests back by the bedside so I prop my elbows on my knees and swing the laptop back and forth. Occasionally I look up for the punctual receptionist across the road - the unknowing harbinger of the 7-2-3 to the C-B-D. And there she is, out and dusting the mat and making it square with the door and standing back to nod in satisfaction. She's still nodding when I am flushed by a rude cloud of exhaust and the squealing bus wipes the scene.

A wiry little business lady jumps in first. It's a jungle dawn. I fumble for coins and when my turn comes I say "Just to the city please" as cheery as possible to endear myself to the driver. He plants it when I take the ticket and I am whirled down the aisle. No-one laughs at my slapstick entry, or even looks up. I'd be smirking at least.

I take the last seat, beside a skinny schoolboy, maybe a year seven or eight. He's reading a book so I read it too until he notices, then I look around the bus wide-eyed like it's all foreign and fascinating. But all I can see are dark-haired skulls and i-pods and briefcases, and those things gets me down and my weak, silly smile
starts to drop.

At the next stop, as the pilgrims push down the aisle next to me, I look out past the boy and see a cyclist struggling by, up the hill and out of the saddle, his gullet opened out and rhythmically stripping oxygen from the dull metropolitan air. The demands of his blood are met. His machine quality is enviably human. I am inspired to draw a deep breath - how long since my last? - but my blood is lazy. I imagine it is thick and dark.

I straighten up again and there is a middle-aged lady's arse next to my face. It is pleasant enough in form but such is its proximity that by the next stop I am beginning to resent its presence. Nevertheless, and in the absence of other options, I begin to study it more closely.

Ten minutes later, just as the arse is dissociating from its lady owner and taking on new absurdity as a free-standing entity, I feel a nudge from the schoolboy and he flicks his head to suggest that I move. He's getting out. I peer from him to the arse and back again. I flick my head towards it and raise my eyebrows in enquiry. The boy shakes his head quickly; I shake mine back, extra slow in mock disappointment.

I lift my hand and drift it towards the arse, gradually extending my index finger. I am looking at the boy, who is frozen with anticipation as I make to touch the cheek. But I change tack late and tap her on the jutting hip.

"Excuse me miss", I say, all business-like.

I get out too, though it's a stop before my usual. The boy and I share a shy laugh on the outside and I wish him a good day at school. He stamps off with his enormous backpack and I mosey away to work, sucking in the air.

God bless those tiny human moments - the eyes meeting like eyes - that make public transport bearable.

Harvey's Odyssey III: The Blind Prophet

2008-07-09T10:14:00.001+08:00

The pained caw of a grease-craving seagull tears through the cold, moonless Wednesday night at the Fishing Boat Harbour, laying an electric jolt over the softgurgling base line of lazy water. Three men are present: two bronze fishermen, rigid in pose, and the coach of the Fremantle Dockers, who leans against the wooden railing with locked arms and with legs intertwined, himself statuesque. Groans and clicks escape from the timber that supports him. What weight does this man bear? What density his flesh? Not that of an ordinary man.

Light blue-grey beams project from his eyes, illuminating still black ships and the wine-dark sea. A fluid tangle of baby squid bubbles up through the phosphorescence as it sweeps. Normally, such a sight would cause him – he who was, at least, absently amused by his ‘difference’ – to sniff and faintly smile. But not now. No, now his bottom lip slides further into his mouth, and his top incisors bite down on it ever harder.

He aggressively pushes away from the railing, sending it splintering into the sea. The resulting surge of water is matched, and now bettered, by a wave of sickly protest from the restless junkie gulls, who cry, it could be said, from under-the-bridge. He points his beams towards South Terrace and the juvenile squid sink down, the foolishness of their ecstasy realised.

Treading heavily through the deserted streets, the coach curses his newfound weight and the dull insistence of gravity. From a chain around his midriff he drags an immense, rusted-iron kinder egg – his personal egg – containing such ‘surprises’ as strands of hamstring and cruciate ligament, screwed-up newspaper articles, and a small Korean-Australian lawyer, all floating like shreds of clam in a thick purple chowder of expectation and Dockerliness. But is that enormous egg real, or is it imagined?

The main street is in darkness. But now Zeus, that unscrupulous sprayer of lightning, does his thing and a neon sign explodes to life: ‘The Clink’. An ominous stairwell beckons. Sighing heavily – the inevitability of Olympian incursions into his life is beginning to grate – the coach submits. Dragging himself over is a strain, but the descent is easy: now, slipping down towards the hot liquid core of the earth, the terrestrial Mecca of weightlessness, the only place where a heavy soul can be completely at ease – yes, now gravity is a splendid friend indeed.

Inside that warm black womb of the underworld, a malfunctioning Bundaberg Rum sign provides the only sound and light, buzzing to a crescendo, popping to life, and returning to dark silence. Its slow strobe reveals a single hooded figure at the bar, his orientation and inclination varying greatly between snapshots. Uncontrolled movement, and inebriation, are implicit.

“Haar-a-fee, harfeee”, calls a voice from the present dark. “Cumovareer”.

A curling finger and loose grin are revealed by the next yellow-white burst of the bear. The coach groans – those Gods! – and wanders over.

“What?”

“Umgonnagifyoosum... adfice.”

The coach’s eyes have just finished a secret exaggerated roll, when the bear suggests a round of rums and the hooded man’s face is exposed. Only, it’s not a man: it’s a boy. The child’s head is absurdly large and triangular, and fine tufts of regularly washed hair fan out from under the hood.

“Yep”, he hiccups from the dark, “Shoo need ta gerridda Paflisch. Heesh only goddanuvva shix sheashons innim.”

Who gave this boy a beer, wonders the coach. Look at him - all over the place, drunk for the first time, gibbering some nonsense.

The bear insists, and the face under the hood has dramatically changed. It’s now drawn and sullen, and lacking a chin of any note. None of these features are at all disguised by the small diversionary beard that covers them. Resident specks of drying vomit further rob the patchy mat of its intended nobility.

“Yagodda become more Fictorian Harfs,” the wise man gurgles through a mouthful of carrot, “and stand for Fremantle. And play Paflisch in the shenta, and up forward. And in defensch. And trade im.”

What’s hiding beneath those whiskers, the coach asks himself. In removing that hair, would one be exposing an absurd labradoodle? Peeling back the moss from a shallow (for they are never deep) bush grave? Scraping the fly-strike from some rotten, undersized flathead? His creeping nausea is heightened when the desperate bear calls lasts drinks, revealing a clean, bespectacled Greek beneath the hood. Before a word can escape those keen headmaster’s lips, the coach spins and marches away.

Every step back up is heavier than the last; the lure of sinking back strong, but not strong enough. The density of the coach’s flesh has, in recent months, passed that of iron, of lead, of gold, its exponential rise smashing through glass ceilings of physics like a streaming white tiger. But with greater density comes greater potential energy.

Stepping now onto the street, he is a rapidly collapsing purple giant. He will shrink and shrink, growing denser and harder. He will draw in and feed on the weak matter that surrounds him, until he is nothing but a tiny, shaking ball of Big Bang fury. He is Mr Fahrenheit. He is a collapsing, shooting star. He is an atom bomb. And he’s about to whoa-whoa-whoa explode.

War, Art, Sport

2008-04-26T11:45:00.000+08:00

I arrived in Subiaco obscenely early. It had been a long day - a dawn service, a big breakfast, a train trip to Mandurah for an Italian family lunch – and I was tired. I had waved goodbye to my girlfriend at Perth station: “I’ll sleep in the park for a few hours”.

An early, deserted football special delivered me at 4.00 pm. At the second-hand bookshop I searched the Australian section for something to read on the grass, or to at least serve as a rudimentary pillow. Right down the bottom of the shelf, an outward facing recent edition of Patrick White’s ‘Voss’ was prominent. Yeah maybe - I’d wanted to give him a go for a while - but what was behind it?

Not only spine out – for he of the supple neck and keen eye – but also covered by its shinier yet poorer clone, was a second edition hardback. ‘Voss’ – the only word on the disintegrating paper outer, scrawled in some crude freehand graffiti, and accompanied only by a wobbly line-drawing of the absurdly bespectacled, fictional German explorer of the Australian interior. The deal was done.

Inside the ground – I had foregone the sleep on the grass, too excited by the game and my $8.80 jewel – I searched for a common feature between me and the other early arrivals, at this stage numbering about three or four per block. They were young and old, grouped and alone, purple and plain and horizontally-striped.

Out on the ground there were cords and cameras, fingers pressed in ears and a bunch of misfits training. The Docker-for-a-day boy was ushered here and there by his smiling hostess. Every so often a player would wander out, still in his suit, for a chip kick and a cheap laugh. Mark Harvey appeared at the top of the race and stood alone and contemplative for a full five minutes. Shouldn’t he be doing something, I thought. Maybe he was.

I only got a few pages into Voss. There was too much fascinating build-up going on. But I think I already understood that, like any Australian masterpiece – of war, of art, of sport - it was going to end in tragedy. That German, he was gonna fry in the desert.

-----

On the way out of the ground, a Geelong supporter told his mate, quite without condescension, that Fremantle had played the better football. Never have I felt so deeply just how little that means. It means zero. I calculated to the 375th decimal place before giving up, and it was still all zeros.

The train home was dominated by quivering purse-lipped smiles. A lot of people seemed to have something lodged in their eyes. Barely a word was spoken: even the Geelong fans understood that any mention of the game would precipitate a volatile outburst of emotion, swinging wildly between tears and violence, or perhaps some comic-tragic fusion of the two.

When I got home I was locked out. I sat in the cold and dark, and the now-shredded cover of Voss flicked up in the wind like a viper. I was very close but oh-so-far from the television – the one thing that could, like a surgical laser, have numbed and killed the memory of Fremantle vs Geelong, ANZAC day 2008. I’d have peeled my skull back if I could’ve, and removed the offending three-by-one-by-one centimetre piece of brain-tube. And I’d have cast it out onto the footpath, beside the honeyeater chick that fell from its nest, and let the ants eat it alive. But, instead, I sat there and it spread.

That’s the problem with getting to the ground early: you invest too much. It’s far easier to turn up later and drunker. I took down my defences yesterday. I exposed myself. I stepped up, knowing fully but faintly what the outcome was going to be. And down I went, just shy of the oasis.

This (Rocky) Life

2008-03-27T20:01:00.001+08:00

Written for the 'This Life' section of The Weekend Australian, which calls for contributors to write a 600 word first-person account of some aspect of their life.

‘Bloody geos,’ the driller yelled the other day, over the roar of his phallic machines. ‘Give a group of ‘em a rock and they’ll argue over it for hours.’ A common anecdote in the mineral exploration industry, but a false one.

Now, I sit on the polished rubble of a pathetic low outcrop, one of the few God has delivered me in this remote quarter of Western Australia’s goldfields. Somewhere under this silent landscape there lies an economic accumulation of gold. I have to believe that. The prospect of there being no needle in the haystack – of this physically and mentally and financially expensive effort being not just fruitless but hopeless from the outset – cannot be entertained.

I will sit here studying the landforms and vegetation and the scarce red-weathered bedrock until I know, until I feel, what was happening here 2.5 billion years ago. Where would the gold-bearing fluids have deposited their treasure? If, indeed, there was any gold-bearing fluid. I shudder, despite the heat.

Contemplation – ‘becoming the rock’ – is a geologist’s most effective weapon. A multinational I once worked for asked that employees code their work time by activity performed. There was no code for ‘thinking’. The exploration department revolted and was made exempt.

The geologist is slow, but the earth is patient. The earth, in fact, is tormenting, showing just enough to bewitch, just too little to embolden. In my mind the geology and prospectivity change with each dusty scrap of evidence I gather, but the reality is that, out here, nothing has changed in a very long time. The earth is dormant, the gold either there or not there. But where? Or not where?

There’s a name for this illness of mine: gold fever. No, it didn’t pass with the 19th century. The only difference is that we have Landcruisers and water. No-one is dying. The lust, the passion, the absence of reason; geologists dragged away from their pet prospects, pleading with the money-men for ‘one more drillhole’. I see it often.

It’s strange behaviour to an observer, because the company geologist doesn’t stand to gain financially. It won’t be his gold or nickel or copper: he is paid good money to find it or, as is more often the case, not find it. But the fever is not driven by greed.

I have no interest in the mining and the money. I just want, once, to defeat Mother Nature. Or, to put it better, to have Mother Nature applaud me as her equal. I just want to find that mother-lode and walk away, vindicated. Oh, for the high that would give me!

It’s a consuming profession. I see life through the framework of geology. I see people metamorphose under heat and pressure; erupt like Krakatoa; settle like silt in the Ganges delta. It’s also intensely individual: just me, alone, versus the 100 km2 or 1000 km2 I’ve been assigned, armed only with a hammer, a magnifying lens and my bare wits. Unless they’re going to sit in the dirt here with me, no-one else need be involved.

There’s no such thing as a group of geologists.

I wander over to the next subtle rise, breathing in the heat and the smells and the flies. There’s no sound but my own. Perfect. I kneel down and lick the dust from the rock.

I am in a deep ocean trench. Sediment pours in from the adjacent volcanic range, hot bombs fizz past from above. The earth cracks and grinds and I know that I am close. Think, Michael. Think.

Letter to Kalgoorlie Miner

2008-03-20T16:02:00.003+08:00

In response to:

As a resident of Kalgoorlie for the past 24 months, having come from Perth, I am becoming disillusioned by the current state and attitude by in the 'city of extremes'.

The majority of people here are (let's be honest) only here for the quick cash, and then bugger off somewhere else. I tend to find these types of people (usually identifiable by their apparent desire of material things like big 4x4 vehicles, several beer fridges, a 3 m wide LCD television, and basically a greedy nature without considering anyone else) they lack social skills when communicating with those of us who earn more modest incomes and live a more modest and real lifestyle.

Then on the other hand, you have people who won't lift a finger and find a job! They revel in dire conditions and choose to eat takeaway meals three times a day and wonder why they are obese!

Now before some whinge at me in defence, it is not jealousy or sour grapes, it's reality!

I mean, for a town that is probably one of the best known gold mining locations on earth, so little money is actually put back into developing a decent infrastructure for the benefit of residents! But then again the very roots of 'East Coolgardie' was greed and lust of the yellow metal. Instead we have wasted money on fleshy pursuits and crazy superficial projects that benefit only the wealthy.

What about under staffing at the local hospital, the terrible pot holes in the roads and the most embarassing thing I have ever seen for a supposedly 'rich' city, the third world-like road conditions when the heavy rains were here three weeks ago? I was driving through many a street and was absolutely shocked with the very poor drainage system. I thought I was in India, driving through the Ganges or some canal in Venice.

Sorry, but Kalgoorlie is a laughing stock when it comes to infrastructure and culture. I've lived in smaller towns that actually have a decent standard of living, where people show genuine kindness to each other, have a culture other than sex, beer and money, and where greed is not the be all and end all.

Kalgoorlie and Boulder need revolutionising. It's time many woke up and smelt the coffee! If the much expected worldwide economic crash happens, many will truly be in the poo.

P Walterman, Kalgoorlie

P Walterman, in his thesis (Letters 15th March) dividing Kalgoorlie-Boulder residents, all uncultured, into two further sub-classes – the greedy and materialistic, the fat and unemployed - begs us not to cry “jealousy or sour grapes” in response. Don’t worry friend, I won’t say either.

What I will say is that you are ignorant. What I will say is that you are hypocritical. What I will say is that you belong to that third and most unwelcome class of Kalgoorlie residents: the man who vainly elevates himself to the position of anthropologist upon his arrival in town; who forms his opinions on exteriors alone; who flaps about in the shallow fringes of the river, too weak and insecure to explore the depths.

What I’d really like to know, P Walterman, is what you look like. Honestly. What is it about your exterior image – your body shape, your clothing, your motor vehicle – that will catch my eye as I pass you in the street, and define you as a man of culture and intellect and integrity? Do you have a t-shirt that says “I’ve read Dickens”? Or perhaps it’s your “Free Tibet” bumper sticker?

You won’t know me, because I’ll be in a dirty orange shirt or a blue singlet or a pair of footy shorts or, from time to time, nothing at all. I’ll have a patchy beard. I’ll be driving a rusted out Valiant. And yeah, I’ll be eating Hungry Jacks.

You are the shallow and judgemental one. You are the one defining people by the money they have the good fortune to earn. But you are not only defining the people by their exteriors – you are doing the same for the town itself.

I urge you, P Walterman, to look for depth in Kalgoorlie-Boulder and in its people. It’s not hard. The only people I know who leave town bitter and untouched are those that refuse - they are not unable, they refuse – to look past the trucks and hookers and pubs and spoon-drains. Some are the greedy, some are the lazy, but many are the P Waltermans.

You need to stop observing town and become a part of it. Leap through that window behind which you sit and lament, my friend. It will only hurt for a bit. And Kal chicks dig scars.

Harvey's Odyssey II

2008-03-06T15:09:00.001+08:00

Startled by the heavy slam of the door behind him, the coach turns quickly, his dress shoes spinning on the sweaty white tiles. The shouts that lured him in die quickly to a murmur, and quicker again to nothing. Twenty-five pairs of taps screech, and the hiss and roar of twenty-five hot showers fades into the empty depth of twenty-five cold silences, one on top of another. The only sound remaining is the padded thump-thump of panicked hearts.

He can see nothing: some meddling immortal – that spiteful earth-shaker Poseidon, he supposes - has conspired to create a thick steam haze. His eyes scan the whiteness. It’s futile. He clears his throat and speaks sharply.

“What the hell is going on in here?”

The white-tiled walls return the query, unanswered. He can sense the bodies surrounding him, and opens his mouth to force the question, but a single faint drip interrupts. Biting his lower lip in contemplation, he surveys the mist again: nothing. Ten seconds later there’s another drip, a little bit louder now. It’s coming from the doorway. A long minute later, and the drip is beating at presto tempo in unison with the now-vibrating hearts.

The mist begins to thin. As his eyes begin to serve him, the coach is horrified by the sight of a swirling pink rivulet of diluted blood, sliding into the drain at his feet. Like prospectors chasing some cursed treasure, his eyes follow the trace upstream to the headwaters, slowly revealed by the mocking mist. Then Poseidon, with an impeccable feel for dramatic timing, sweeps the remaining cover away in an instant, revealing the source with stunning effect. Its form is unmistakable.

Minutes earlier, it had all been good fun. But convention dictates that after any period of good fun, somebody must lose an eye. That somebody was:

“Sandi?”

The 211 cm chunk of flesh now guarding the door had been the innocent victim of a twisted-towel whip fight between the two Johnsons: a typically-reckless Mark had missed a typically-agile Michael, lashing the eyeball of the typically-omnipresent ruckman. Several small midfielders now lay writhing on the floor as testament to the sickening violence that followed.

Sandilands now licks at the blood streaming from his bubbling right socket, savouring its thick metallic tang and salinity. His good eye peers up from under his brow, fixing on the coach, and a growl escapes from his cavernous chest. The men, now visible and pressed against the walls, await direction from their leader. Their leader awaits direction from above.

Bright-eyed Athene, Olympian advocate of the great purple chief, rushes to the scene from her mountain-top day-bed and sets about her task with urgency. She works first on her favourite’s appearance: browning his skin and making it lustrous with olive oil; broadening his shoulders and filling out his biceps; adding tasteful blonde tips to his mullet and smothering it in top-shelf product. Seeing that the men are now looking upon the coach in awe, as if he were some immortal god, the goddess sets to work on his mind, granting him cunning and craftiness over and above that for which he is already renowned. Pleased with her intervention, she whisks back to Olympus to spectate.

With the blissful knowledge that Zeus’ daughter has blessed him, the coach hesitates no longer, darting behind a low partition while the one-eyed giant stands frozen by a strangling mixture of admiration, fear and agony. Finding himself face-to-face with the sheepish Johnsons, he takes them into his counsel with a wink and, with a whisper, lays out his devious plan.

Slithering across the floor now, he grabs one of several soaps that lie conspicuously around Luke McPharlin’s feet, and flings it at Sandilands with godly dexterity. Atop Olympus, Athene hurriedly dons a panama hat and lobbies the archer god Apollo, who agrees, for a reasonable price, to vouchsafe the soap’s passage straight and true into the good eye of the terrible beast. Apollo is a man of his word.

The impact and sting of the soap blinds and enrages Sandilands, but his woes are far from over. The two naked Johnsons leap forth and begin slapping him in turn. Meaty thwack after meaty thwack batter his face and torso. Bang! Slap! Crash! Who has ever seen such furious Johnsons! They swell with pride at every blow, knowing they are serving their god-like leader with honour.

While the tormented giant spins and howls, the coach now opens the door and leads his troops out, like a simple shepherd boy leading his fattened-lambs from the woods. But unlike the shepherd boy, he strides before the pack glowing and surging and electrified by the motherly labour of bright-eyed Athene. The exhausted Johnsons bring up the rear of the pack, leaving Sandilands crying and staggering and crashing into the walls. As a final act of fury, the wounded giant throws great handfuls of loosened tiles towards the fading sound of jiggling buttock cheeks. But his tormentors are too far gone.

The coach lets the group pass him by. He looks back and sees Sandilands framed by the doorway, curled up in a ball amongst the dust and the rubble, wailing like some huge dying cat. It makes a sorry sight for his eyes but he’s certain that, with the goodwill of the Olympian gods, the ruckman will return to health in good time – if not by the time Dawn paints the sky with crimson, then certainly by Round One against Collingwood.

Kalgoorlie Delis

2008-02-21T07:34:00.000+08:00

In Kalgoorlie, the proprietors of my local delis were larger than life. They made every purchase an adventure, and left me with a story to tell, always. In Perth, at least so far, that hasn’t been the case.

You’ll have noticed that I used ‘proprietors’ plural and ‘delis’ plural just moments ago. See, in Kalgoorlie, I lived halfway between the Carbarn deli – or ‘Carbarna’ as a housemate of mine tagged it, trying to spice up its image – and the Wilson Street deli, and was able to choose between them on a whim. Sometimes I would step out with a few dollars in my pocket and not the slightest inkling where I was going. Usually, though, the choice was clear.

I chose between the delis not on appearance, nor by the goods in stock, but by the character of the proprietor, and, more specifically, the compatability of that character with my mood at the time. My moods were, and still are, variable, but the men running the delis were constants. Old Cheeseman at Wilson Street and Old Genovese at the Carbarn, eternally jovial and eternally melancholy, respectively; predictable, like the sun and the moon. Those men were the benchmarks, the standards, the knowns, that I, the unknown, gauged myself against.

Old Cheeseman was a talker. I knew a couple of his sons and they were talkers too. They may have descended from a long line of storytellers or bards. Or cheese men. Who knew? All I knew was that, before setting off to Wilson Street, it was wise to clear the diary for half an hour, maybe more. One certainly wouldn’t leave a pot of tea to brew at home, unless one was fond of cold, bitter tea. No siree.

He had a story for every item in stock, Old Cheeseman. Bottled water: his mate invented it. Chiko rolls: he knew how the filling got in. Washing powder: his dog ate some and had to be put down. These yarns would be told to completion in a slow and methodical manner, no matter your hurry or the hurry of those waiting behind you. If unsure of a narrative detail, he would stop counting your change and sieve through his mind, carrying on the story (and the counting) only when he had extracted the elusive and entirely insignificant fact in question. You could tap your watch or naked wrist, drum your fingers on the counter, clear your throat, pass wind, or scoop out your eyeball with a teaspoon, all to no avail. Nothing would stop him.

On certain days, though, when the sun was a-shinin’, the birds were a-singin’, and the lollipops were a-plentiful, I could appreciate Old Cheeseman and his quaint, saccharine ways. Wilson Street was the optimist’s deli. Steve Irwin would have liked it. Terri Irwin and Bindi Irwin and Bob Irwin would like it. And Marcia Hines and Brad Hogg and Scooby Doo. But sometimes the thought of clanging through that flywire door and seeing Old Cheeseman’s ruddy, smiling face would cripple me. Some days the sun was a-hidin’, the birds were a-rottin’ on the pavement, and the a-plentiful lollipops were a-laced with strychnine. On those days I went to the Carbarn, the pessimist’s deli.

The Carbarn was entirely devoid of warmth: physical or conversational or atmospherical, faux or genuine. Old Genovese made sure of that – in fact, like some strange deep-sea bacteria, he positively thrived in the anoxic conditions. But, like Wilson Street, the Carbarn was therapeutic for certain states of mind. You went there stressed to be served in silence. You went there jilted to be numbed in the cold. You went there angry to mentally duel with a man angrier than you; a man who would flog you with a liquorice strap as soon as sell you one. I found his weakness, though, and visiting the Carbarn then became a fiendish game.

See, Old Genovese had an unsettling habit of cupping his hand to receive my money before I had placed my goods on the counter. There his hand would remain, unwavering, as I furrowed my brow and fumbled my coins and apologised to all and trembled like a junkie sans junk. And all the while, he wouldn’t even bother to lift his eyes from the morning paper. At least, that’s how it was to begin with.

I knew Old Genovese didn’t tolerate ill-prepared fools like me; fools who interrupted his day with their petty concerns and indecision and clumsiness. So I adopted and exaggerated these habits, giving mad performances of verbal and physical slapstick designed to make him shake and sweat like I had before his motionless palm. As I searched for a dollar in ten cent pieces or considered aloud the pros and cons of having sauce with my pie, I casually twisted a red-hot poker into his gut, eager to hear him scream. But even my wackiest performances failed to break that most determined of warriors. I just wanted to make him laugh or cry, but he did neither, and for that he has my respect. Our silent armwrestle, imperceptible to the passing observer, and perhaps even to the man-of-stone himself, remains undecided.

Characters they were, Genovese and Cheeseman - annoying characters, but characters none-the-less. They were end-members of the personality spectrum - one light, the other dark, one warm, the other cool, one licky, the other bitey – but in having and displaying personality they occupied common ground, and made the deli run an experience.

I’ve no doubt that such personalities exist in Perth, but too often they are not displayed. The deli owners are friendly, efficient and helpful, but in the fashion of the air hostess. I find that paid familiarity disturbing, a whoredom of sorts, and I wonder about the society that demands it. I wonder about the society that values homogeneity; that puts smoothness before texture; that sands the edges off its sharpest and rarest stones, when it should be dusting them off and putting them on display in fancy glass cases.

But I’ve wondered long enough, so I step now onto my soapbox and I shout: “Shine on, you crazy diamonds, you Cheesemans and Genoveses! Pay no heed to my petty critique. Shine on, shine on!”

Harvey's Odyssey I

2008-02-02T15:38:00.000+08:00

The nail of his right index finger lazily scratches at the armrest of the recliner he now inhabits. Sweat-derived scum begins to peel away in distinct sections: a thick consistent top layer; a wafer-thin film; a pale and uninspiring goo; and, finally, a heterogeneous but strangely beautiful basal crust, whose peculiarities – like the pea beneath the princess’ mattress - are mimicked by the overlying strata. Blowing the scrapings away, he sees the clean black leather beneath. And he sees that it is good.

Easing back in the chair with hands clasped behind his head, the coach now forms an imposing silhouette against the grass and blinding concrete terraces of Fremantle Oval, the ground’s centre circle framed by the isosceles triangle of his left arm. His gaze drifts beneath the desk and, seeing the heavily-pilled tracksuit pants and tattered ugg boots, he eases forward again, feeling embarrassed, though no one else is around. If a visitor happened by – Pav, Rick Hart, that old water boy who looks like Yoda – he would have to remain seated.

He leans forward now, elbows on desk and fists on jaw line, forcing his cheeks high until they almost touch his furrowed brow. All of the videos and DVDs and books and papers lining the shelves loom before him, laughing and probing, coldly: “Are you ready for this?”.

“Dunno”, he whispers, stroking the patchy stubble on his chin. A short time later he resolves to stop conversing with inanimate objects. That was the downfall of Damian Drum, or so he has heard.

Abruptly, and without knocking, a deep mauve haze of melancholy enters the room, settling around him. He begins to feel strangely out-of-place, as though adrift in an ocean far from home. Frowning at his ill-fitting purple polo shirt, he plucks at its fabric, testing its reality. It all seems so foreign, so other-worldly. Doubts infest his mind, bouncing against and chewing at his skull’s inner wall. Was he good enough? Were they good enough? Why was he even here? Here, in this harsh, isolated place, far from the padded jackets and the icy breath and the sloppy, tasteless four-n-twenty pies of his earlier life? His head, involuntarily, rattles now from side to side and now from back to front and now round and round, fruitlessly attempting to expel the concerns through one or both ear holes.

Calming slightly, or perhaps advancing into a higher, Zen-like form of madness – it’s hard to say – he reaches for the phone, pining for the counsel of Kevin Sheedy. But just as his clammy fingertips touch the handset, a knock at the door jolts him.

Without awaiting his invitation, Cameron Schwab enters the room - at least, the bodily form of Cameron Schwab enters the room. The tense, squirming muscles and flickering red eyes betray his real identity: Apollo, deliverer of prophesies, cunningly disguised as Cameron Schwab. The coach is wary.

“Hi Cameron”, he says, smiling as best a former Essendon hard man can.

“We should never have sacked Troy”, booms Schwab, foregoing any niceties and displaying fury dramatically incongruous with his pale skin and delicate spectacles. “It leaves us lacking centre-square hardness.”

A droplet of sweat trembles on the tip of Schwab’s equine nose as he awaits reply. Knowing better than to engage in a shouting match with an immortal – a fiery death usually results - the coach is measured and unflinching.

“Hardness won’t be an issue Cameron. And Troy retired - he wasn’t sacked.”

“Oh”, says Schwab, noticeably slumping as Apollo, defeated, sublimes and dissipates through the open window. “Sorry, I...,” he starts, turning his flaccid body back from whence it came, “I don’t know what came over me.”

As Schwab’s shaking head is eclipsed by the closing door, the coach sits back in his chair and sighs. If he could ward off the meddling Gods – and he was certain they would interfere again – then, he reasoned, he was capable of handling anything, even a pre-derby press conference with John Worsfold. It was almost time to perform now: like a demon before the players, like a gibbon before the press, like a philosopher before the fans. Like a Docker.

With that thought lingering, he springs from his chair and strides out of his office and out of the building, possessed by supernatural energy and entirely unconscious now of his bogan attire. He would go home, roast a suckling pig for himself, cast another onto the fire to appease the Gods, and retire to enjoy the boon of sleep until the first rays of rosy-fingered dawn. Then he would awake and lay out his plan for the men, his plan to take them all to their rightful home: the MCG in late September.

Armenia Decides

2007-12-06T14:05:00.000+08:00

(published in the Kalgoorlie Miner on election day)

I have just recieved a frantic pigeon-mail from Michael Gorey, advising that an ‘Australia Decides 2007’ feature piece is needed from my out-station. “Get out and about,” he directs from his red-brick tower, “I want the opinion of the man on the street”. The editor’s oft-criticised decision to post a foreign correspondent in Kapan, southern Armenia, will now bear fruit, most likely a lemon.

I decide immediately that to connect with the man on the street, I need to become the man on the street. I dye my hair black – if you’re blonde, you’re a hooker – and pencil in a monobrow, then don trousers, a jacket, and pointy shoes, all in black leather. The thought occurs to me that it might have been easier to meet men on the street if I’d left my hair blonde. Too late now. The finishing touches on my disguise are a packet of long, peach-scented cigarettes and a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Right to go.

My trusty donkey, Alby Mangels, bucks as I drag him from his pile of cabbage stubs and cast an Iranian tapestry across his midriff. It takes three quick shots of vodka to settle him down - one more than usual. I jump on side-saddle, in observance of Armenian traffic regulation 1.1(a), and begin the ride to town, lighting up a cigarette and pop-pop-popping a few birds with the Kalashnikov, just to show I’m one of the boys.

The ride takes me down a pot-holed concrete footpath, past a crumbling concrete apartment building, through a damp concrete tunnel, and beside a long concrete wall, pocked-marked with bullet holes from Azerbaijan. “We showed them though,” a local once told me, aiming his imaginary AK-47 at the mountain side, “Three years ago, the nearest Azeri was up there. Now, he is 200 kilometres away.” I laughed for five minutes – any less would be considered un-Armenian.

The central markets are abuzz when I arrive. The local currency, the ‘Cucumber’ (CBR), has strengthened against the greenback in recent times, and inflation – long the enemy of former Soviet states – has steadied, with a standard basket of pickled green tomatoes only CBR 2.15 more than this time last year. So men and women and transvestites are spending Cucumbers like there’s no tomorrow, which may well be the case if Iran, just 30 kilometres away, goes nuclear.

Amongst the throng I spot my language coach Cher, named after the singer Cher, the greatest living Armenian. She is a pretty young thing (this Cher, not that Cher): facial desiccation – the curse of Armenian women – has not yet taken hold, and her moustache is fashionably styled. I slither through the crowd and reveal myself to her, and by that I mean reveal my identity. With a little encouragement, in the form of a cabbage leaf dipped in vodka, she agrees to follow and interpret for me.

I canvas several market-goers, and most seem to favour the Coalition. In a country where brides must be virgins, and flatulence brings shame to you and your family (as I discovered during dinner at the mayoral palace), it is natural that Armenians favour the Howard Government’s social conservatism. I discover that WorkChoices is also revered: earning AUD $5.00 (approximately CBR 12.00) an hour is a dream here, where most take home less than twelve Cucumbers per week.

Moving across to the stalls, I meet Armen (after Great Armenia), a greying, 50-something vendor who specialises in cabbages and vodka. I show him pictures of John Howard, Kevin Rudd, and Bob Brown. I’d show him a picture of the Democrats leader but I don’t know who it is. Slapping each photo in turn, Armen speaks with great animation.

“In Armenia, we call these men The Shun, The Esh, and The Katu,” Cher translates, “That is The Dog, The Donkey, and The Cat. Howard is The Shun because, like an Armenian dog, he is rabid and wiley, but will whimper and lay down when cracked with a cane. Rudd is The Esh because, like an Armenian donkey, he is painful to listen to, and will bite off your fingers if provoked. Brown is The Katu because, like an Armenian cat, he pisses on all of your favourite things.”

I nod in agreement with Armen, and continue pushing through the crowd. At the far side of the market square I spot a group of old men – good for political comment in any culture - enjoying a traditional lunch of boiled cabbage and vodka. I greet the men, and reveal photos of some prominent candidates.

At the sight of Barry Haase, the men, all called Armen (after Great Armenia), giggle and mock his baritone voice. I show Alexander Downer and they laugh for a solid half-hour, stopping only when I fire a few warning rounds from the Kalashnikov. When everyone has their breath back I show Julia Gillard, and things suddenly get crazy.

The Armens descend upon me, tearing Gillard’s image from my hand and nailing it to a length of two-by-four. They parade it through the square, bouncing to the beat of spontaneous gunfire, and the crowd ascends into frenzy. As I flee the dizzying scene, leaving Alby Mangels behind, I remember that in Armenia, ginger hair is considered a virtue, a sign of The Chosen One. I sense a strong swing to Labor.

On the way home, I stop on the bridge and peer into the Kapan river. The water is a vivid azure blue, not because it’s sourced from melting alpine glaciers, but because it runs through the local mine, and contains enough copper sulphate to kill a man. A rotten cabbage races an empty vodka bottle through the eddies, and I am reminded of the local proverb: “In Kapan, look up - don’t look down”.

That wisdom, I decide as I wander off, applies equally to this election: we shouldn’t look down into the poison torrent of fear, we should look up at the brilliant mountain and aspire to reach its summit. We’ve been slipping down the slope for the past ten years. Now is the time to stick the ice-pick in, and claw back some national pride. I’m just sorry I won’t be on the ground to see it. I was gonna have a sick election party.

Dear Sam [former housemate]

2007-10-15T07:53:00.001+08:00

Your letter really got me thinking about what I am doing out here: Am I here because it's something I want to do, or am I here because society expects it of me? I genuinely believe I am here because I enjoy it; because, exactly as you and Tim discussed, you never know what a time you've had until you tell somebody about it. While sometimes it may be difficult, there is always a story to tell and laugh at years from now. While some prefer events to run smoothly, I prefer everything to be crazy and difficult and for shit to go wrong. The best travel adventure stories are always about shit going wrong: The time you got the shits, the time a rabid monkey scratched your face, the time you ate magic mushrooms and thought a googly-eyed German was the Devil himself. No-one cares for stories about beautiful sunsets, nice hotels, or friendly locals...

... But back to the question of why I am here - and, perhaps, why you are there. A lot of people, when I say I am finding the fly in-fly out a little bit difficult, will say something like "You'll get used to it", but I have concluded there is a great difference - a huge terrifying chasm - between "getting used" to something and letting it kill your spirit and soul. Do you know what I mean? If I keep doing this work and, after a while, it doesn't bother me, is it because I am "used to it", or because I have let it grab my soul, tear the skin away, and leave it hanging to dry from a meat hook, like a great piece of beef jerky, or "soul jerky", as it were?

Yes, this "soul jerky" is what we have to stop ourselves becoming my dear boy. There's people I work with out here who are definitely in the latter stages of becoming hard, dry soul jerky, and the sight of them causes me to dry-retch. They are career FIFO workers, whose lives have so subtely eroded away that they don't even notice it happening, until one day they find they have nothing left - no friends, no lovers, no passions. They have no reason and no desire to go home because they have no home. This lack of a centre to their lives is like the blazing sun to the meat of their souls. Without a spiritual hub, one is dangerously close to becoming soul jerky.

But enough of this depressing talk of soul jerky, though I do like the term I invented just now by the campfire, after a few beers. Aah beer, the lubricant to the cogs of my brain...

Dear Gerard [former workmate]

2007-10-15T07:53:00.000+08:00

... The shame is that after 9000 metres of RC drilling since my last letter I am not quite so excited about geology. I think I mentioned then that I had stopped reading high-brow literature between drillholes, taking to the hills instead, yes? Well guess who is currently sitting on the passenger side of my Landcruiser? Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It's official: I am burnt out.

Speaking of books, I have read but two about Africa [Gerard had just got back from a trip there]: Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and a biography of Cecil Rhodes. Neither, you will understand, endears me to the continent, but both were thoroughly excellent. The Rhodes biography was read at the tail end of a long period in my mid-late teens when I read only non-fiction, declaring to all that there was no need for escape to fiction - then I became an adult and discovered Aldous Huxley, who could tease the joy out of a dinner party, and Henry Miller, who could make it out to be a fiery pit of terror. So I altered my stance: The only books worth reading are those that find the joy, the terror, and the magic in the everyday world. Hmm, a tangent.

But yes, Rhodes - what a cunt, but what a brilliant cunt. And I mean brilliant, not as good or clever, but as 'shiny'. Yes Cecil Rhodes was a shiny, polished, flawless cunt, and if you don't know his story well then learn it. Cunts like that need to be spotted at an early age and shot. There's heaps of them out there, and all that you and I can do is buy a shotgun and read about the life and times of Cecil Rhodes. Knowledge is power...

Dear Peter [old Uni mate]

2007-09-03T14:23:00.000+08:00

What's new pussycat? Nothing is new where I am. It's all old, weary, rotten; and there's not a thing to be done about it, but learn to love it. No, things aren't so bad - in fact it's quite good fun, apart from the whole being away from Carlie and my friends and my dog; from the beach, the shops, the football; from the realm of the sane man. The Kimberley is a hub of insanity, a Mecca to pilgrims strange and dangerous, and an accepting, womb-like hidey-hole for those on the run.

But who - this is a question that has been brewing in my head - is insane, and who is sane? And who does the judging? And how do we know they are sane? Mental state can not - must not - be thought of as a linear continuum, with sanity and insanity as the opposing end-members. Why? Because sanity and insanity so closely approach that to distinguish one from the other is an impossibility. Take the example of a man who has given up all his worldly possessions and resolved to walk the earth as a primitive man - I met such a man a few weeks ago at the Kununurra Hotel (he hadn't given up beer, obviously). Is he insane because he can't see the value and usefulness of modern technology? Or fantastically sane and clear-minded because he has recognised the evil inherent in a world run by machines? You decide.

I have decided that sanity and lunacy, if not one and the same, are at least kissing cousins. My driller is walking the blurry line that I speak of, after seven weeks out here with a total of three half days off to get supplies and spare parts from town. At the beginning of the program he fooled me a few times by saying things like "We have to stop the hole here (short of target depth) - there's too much water/the bit is broken/the ground is too hard" or "Oh no! If we stop the hole here (after a particularly short hole, which they find frustrating) then the rods will get bogged and we'll have to stand down." After about 10 seconds, or after I realised he was bullshitting me, he would laugh and tell me he was joking. He says the same things now, but with dull, pleading eyes, where before there was a sparkle; and the chuckling has gone, replaced by an uneasy silence, a scuffle of the feet, and a half-baked excuse to drift away. Yes, my driller is walking the line and beginning to list badly - towards the anoxic cesspool of insanity.

The good thing about this "isolation-style" insanity is its temporary nature. It allows a normally sane man to look through the foggy glasses of insanity; to crawl towards the edge of reason and sing "cooee" into the abyss. But, to paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, the only people who really know the limits are those who have gone over the edge...

Dear Chris [old workmate]

2007-09-03T13:58:00.001+08:00

... Today as I staggered over yet another spinifex-matted gabbro outcrop, I asked myself this question (no, not aloud - I am not yet COMPLETELY mad): Is what I am doing living, or am I missing out on living? Is life the experience of walking through kilometres of thick, head-high cane grass in search of a high-magnetite gabbro, or is it the steady process of progression of work and play and meeting with friends for "a cup of joe" (I like that silly word that you taught me in the Norseman kitchen)? Or is it a bit of each? Who has lived more, by the common understanding: a man who spends every week of every year in the city, or a man who spends one thrilling week out of every four in the city and the rest of his time alone in the wilderness? Who is really missing out? Oh I do propose such leading questions don't I, and I think my feelings on the matter should be quite clear to you, if you have half the understanding of me that I believe you do.

The main goal I set for myself in my life is that I continue to add to my collection of stories, and that I also improve my ability to tell them, for I believe that all we can hope for in life is to laugh with and connect with those closest to us, and maybe add some new friends along the way. Maybe many people think this way, and that's why old grandpas and grandmas are always telling useless stories. Perhaps we should pay more attention and respect to old people. Nah, we shouldn't.

So how does one go about gathering stories? Do I simply walk the trail of life, picking up stories as I happen across them, or do I veer from the trail into the dampened thicket and return at some later stage - if at all - with a bloody great sackful? I'd personally like to think that even if I were to not leave this Coleman four-person tent (with vestibule*) for the rest of my days, I could still come up with a good story or two per day - true or false or somewhere in between.

I used to be a great believer that stories should be told modestly and accurately and with minimal foul language, but not any more. Any story can gain from a little embellishment, the addition of a hero or villain, or the skillful use - but not overuse - of the word "fuck" or one of it's many variants: fucker, fuckstick, fat fucken motherfucker, and so on. See how this letter has suddenly been brought alive by that sentence? Would the effect have been the same had I opened with "How the fuck are ya?" and carried on with the obscenity from that point forth? Hardly...

* My bedside dictionary defines a vestibule as "a room or hall just inside the outer door of a building". My fieldy and I have been puzzling over it's meaning since we found it on the tent boxes.

Postcard from Speewah

2007-09-03T13:15:00.000+08:00

[This was sent to my workmates, who send "postcards" from wherever they are working. As you may be able to tell, this one was "polished" - drafted, re-written, unlike the letters]

It's a knife fight. Sanity in the blue corner; Lunacy resplendent in red. The bell rings; the opponents meet in a flash of silver. It's desperate. In the second round I notice something odd: Lunacy's trunks have taken on a blueish hue; Sanity's have reddened. By the third round both fighters are purple, indistinguishable. At the beginning of the fourth the combatants shake hands and call for tea and scones; in the fifth they dance a waltz.

I laugh maniacally. I laugh, and then I cry....

Cat Stevens - my lone companion and confidante - tells me thrice daily that "out on the edge of darkness, there rides the peace train". I tell Cat that had he commandeered a stallion, jumped the tracks, and flogged the whinnying beast until it's legs gave way - well beyond the edge of darkness - he'd have reached a place neither light nor dark; a place filled with God and, paradoxically, forsaken by Him. A place called Speewah.

Yes the Lord did some of His finest work when He created the Speewah Dome, pushing a large chemically-unstable mafic intrusion into flat-bedded sandstone, ensuring that the resultant ovoid valley would be fenced in by steep golden cliffs. It must be Eden in the wet season as water gushes in through the Dunham and Pentecost gorges and any number of waterfalls, but in the dry season the sunken ellipse becomes a coliseum; a super-heated crucible where Heathens - counseled only by Cat Stevens and fuelled only by sweetened condensed milk - are pitted against Brown Snakes amongst a thick mat of spinifex and spear grass*. And just when a Heathen, seemingly victorious, staggers punctured and bloodied from the thicket, his face torn with horror, Hell's Monsoon - "the other monsoon" - breaks and the creeks and rivers and waterfalls flow not with water but with despair - at first in a trickle but, before long, in a rampaging torrent that fills the cauldron to overflowing. Then, as quickly and unexpectedly as it began, the great surge ceases and all becomes quiet, still.

It is from the bottom of this Great Lake of Despair, from the lowest point on the valley floor, that I write to you now; my body, though literally tanned and upright, is metaphorically pale, limp, and laying prone in anoxic sludge, faintly idling at -273 C - absolute zero. I am embalmed in loathing; pickled in dread. But don't send help - I am comfortably numb. Forget me, please.

.... Round six and purple tuxedos are being worn for what looks like a banquet. Entree breezes by amid dazzling good manners and gaiety, but after a brief uncomfortable silence, anarchy erupts. The original colours are restored. Lunacy springs forth, plunging his desert fork into Sanity's eyeball and - oh the humanity! - splits his temple with a candelabra. It's a bloodbath!

I stop my Toyota to scream at a cow. She bucks with bewilderment and staggers backwards, her bovine sensibilities severely jangled. "Holy Jesus", her limpid eyes imply, "A madman!" I frown momentarily as a small voice - soft, fading - suggests that the cow may be right: I have gone crazy. But my own sane, sane, sane laughter drowns out the whisper and I speed onwards in a cloud of dust. But again I step on the brakes as I see a black dog in the bushes - the same black dog I have seen each of the last two days. He watches me without expression from his beady black eyes, as I begin to wonder: Is it just a black dog, or is it The Black Dog; Churchill's Black Dog; Led Zeppelin's Black Dog? My laughter is gone, replaced by solemnity, and as I chug away down the track, the dog patiently, knowingly trots behind.

* A tall savannah cover that dispenses it's all-penetrating seed pods at scrotum height.

Dear Adrian [old workmate]

2007-09-03T12:42:00.000+08:00

[I butchered some of the lyrics, but you'll get the point]

I have two tapes in my shambolic Landcruiser wagon, but I will only listen to one of them: The Best of Cat Stevens. The other tape - The Best of UB40 - rests in the magazine slot of the driver's side door, destined never to be played again and, quite frankly, that tape is lucky it hasn't been smashed and burnt, such is my disdain for the band. I WAS happy to listen to it - after all, I bought it - until I read the tape cover during a quiet day and discovered they were white men - well one token black man and five or six white men. And they are English, not Jamaican. Who knew? Not me, and boy did I fly off the handle when I found out. Here I was all this time - years Adrian - with a picture in my head of three or four stoned Rastafari tapping on steel drums, up-strumming their guitars on the off-beat, laughing, crying, and eating two-minute noodles, and then I find out they are pasty white, skinny English geezers who wear dark sunglasses. Can you imagine my fury? I don't think you can, but you might get close if I tell you I paid $15 for that tape (and for Cat Stevens) from Kununurra Music, and that both had "45 rupees" stickers on them, meaning I should have paid around $1.50...

So given that UB40 is getting no airplay - I have resolved to burn that tape tomorrow when I brew my morning tea - and my radio doesn't work, it must be clear to you that I am hearing a lot of Cat Stevens at the moment. This is not an all-together bad thing, yours truly having been a fan for some time, but it would be fair to say that The Cat and I have been experiencing some turbulent times. I have begun to see The Cat as something more than a friend or a fling or a passing interest, and this kind of relationship change is not without its problems. Allow me to quote from The Cat's own work:

"Remember the days by the old school yard,
We used to laugh a lot.
Oh, don't you remember the days by the old school yard?

When we had simplicity,
And we had warm toast for tea,
And we laughed and needed love,
Yes I do, oh, and I remember you."

Don't you see Adrian? Can you fathom the relevance of those words to my situation; their astounding foresight? For years The Cat and I have had what one might call an open relationship: a bit of Cat here, a bit of Cat there; a bit of Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin or The Beatles or Jeff Buckley; a few weeks of silence; a bit more Cat beside the fire after a cask of port; and so on. It used to be so simple and carefree. I would generally just get drunk with the boys, have a bit of Cat, and then go to bed - no strings attached. I think Cat was just happy to be let out of the bag, so to speak. But now we're full-time, basically living together, and he wants more. Where before I just sang along, now he wants me to listen and understand. I'm not sure I want that, but The Cat's all I've got and silence is not an option - again, The Cat says it all:

"Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody.
I've got some money 'cause I just got paid.

Oh how I wish I had someone to talk to.
I'm in an awful way (he's in an awful way)."

Oh Cat, how can I question my need for you when you are so wise? I will always love you and need you - I can't believe I ever doubted it!

Sorry Adrian. I am trying harder to listen and understand The Cat. For instance, I am trying to piece together the puzzle of how The Cat became a convert to Islam: listening for clues in the songs, thinking about the year they were written. In songs like Morning Has Broken, Here Comes My Baby, and I Love My Dog, there is little hint at any religious awakening. Then there is what I call "the tipping point" songs, where The Cat is sombre and full of warnings - Wild World is the type-example. In these songs he is disenchanted, struggling, helpless, but in the third series he is reflective, as if looking back at the world he has left behind eg. Where do the Children Play. My ultimate goal is to find the actual specific drum beat where The Cat becomes Yousuf Islam, and I think I'm just about there.

The Cat IS giving me more love than ever, but we do still need a couple of hours apart each day, just to renew our feelings for one another. It's been good getting to know him more intimately - certainly better than 1/4-knowing 10,000 songs off an ipod. And, as with most occasions, he has the right words to end this letter:

"Whoever I'm with boy*, I'm always talking to you.
Always talking to you, but I can't think of right words to say.

And whenever I'm near boy*, I will put my arms around you.
Put my arms around you, like the sea around the shore."

Cant fit the rest [the page was running out]. Ciao.

* "Girl" in the song, but that wouldn't have made sense.

Dear Brendan [old housemate]

2007-09-03T12:25:00.000+08:00

I write to you from aboard QF1074 enroute from Perth to Broome...

... There is a swollen sickness in my guts at the moment, due, I think, to the eggs and gnocchi I had for breakfast, and the sweet, milky coffee that I felt obliged to drink at the airport. Do you feel this obligation to drink coffee? The drink physically sickens me and mentally disgusts me, but I drink it regardless because everyone else seems to be doing it. This behaviour disgusts me because it shows me that I, too, am a bloated consumer and slave to fashion. I don't need the caffeine - I'm sure it's not a physical addiction - but I need the camaraderie with my fellow hollow shells of people, who took up the habit, like me, after seeing Americanos - Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Eva Longoria, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler, and other such modern icons - drinking the stuff by the litre in mindless journals of our time like the favourite of Carlie, you, and I, New Weekly. Everyone's doing it man, and we'd be fools to do any different.

My nine days off in Perth were cluttered with the sorts of disgusting excesses that had become fantastically foreign to me during the preceding three weeks: sweet, milky coffees, as discussed above; thick, rich pastas and Asian dishes; cakes of all descriptions; sublime and ridiculous bouts of alcoholism, where I felt compelled to continue drinking, far beyond any reasonable limits, whether they be internal or imposed upon me by others; and, of course, all of this was underlain by a base of sedentary living. Sleep-ins were the norm; even the smallest task was too much. So, as I return to the bush now, I do so carrying extra weight around my waist - though I am still, as many folks observed, skinnier than usual - and, more disturbingly for me, weight around my brain.

At the end of my last three weeks, my mind was sharper than that of a fox. I felt able, in an instant, to slice through difficult situations, removing slabs and swathes of useless information with one or two sweeping strokes of my mental sword - the "slash" finale of the bayonet technique you once taught me in the loungeroom - leaving only the meaty core of the issue at hand. But the city, Brendan, the city dulled my blade almost instantly, and I couldn't summon the will to tend to it, or even the will to care...

Dear Andrew [brother]

2007-09-03T12:16:00.001+08:00

... In addition to the incomprehension and taking of offence over my decision to bathe in the river [rather than using the shower cubicle], there is also an unspoken conflict over the quality of drinking water being collected. While the two field assistants wade out into the deepest pools to collect the purest water, I take mine from a fast-flowing, oxygenated, and sediment-charged section of the river. In my area, what I am collecting is not so much water as it is what I like to call "Dunham Juice".

Dunham Juice is painstakingly collected to ensure a complete lack of consistency in the end product, with the theory being that the drinker will imbibe whatever the river decides to deliver into the jerry can: one mouthful will be pure water, the next will be 10% leaf matter, and the last may be slightly damp sand and algae. Regardless, I will drink it, wiping the muddy remains from my face and giving a loud "Aaah, fuck yeah" after each mouthful; as far as I am concerned, a high solid content is a good thing, and a sure sign that the drinker is capturing all of the river's vitality, minerals, and water-borne diseases. The water SHOULD taste like humus, fish shit, dead cow, and seven different strains of meningitis...

Dear Darryl [brother]

2007-09-03T11:53:00.000+08:00

Do you remember the old Hale School chapel song about not building your house on the sandy lands? Here it is, in case you don't remember:

"Don't build your house on the sandy lands; Don't build it too near the shore.
Well it might look kind of nice, but you'll have to build it twice.
Oh you'll have to build your house once more.

"You'd better build your house upon a rock; Make a good foundation on a solid spot.
Oh, the storms may come and go, but the peace of God you will know."

Quite a catchy tune, I'm sure you agree, though not as catchy as the one that started "He may be short, fat, red-haired and freckle-faced...", which I used to say was about Nick John. That bizarre thing about THAT song, looking back, is that it was about tolerance, but it's very words imply that being red-haired, for example, is something that must be TOLERATED. It treats gingerness as an undesirable trait, but one that some poor souls are afflicted with, and asks that we try to find it within our hearts to treat them as equals, however difficult that may be. Quite rightly too, I might add. Bloody rangers.

But back to the point, which is that I built my four man tent on the sandy lands on the bank of the Dunham River; right on the bank, and in coarse, loose quartz sand. And yes, in keeping with the song, it does look kind of nice. Perhaps I will have to build it twice after a storm; perhaps God will choose to destroy my dwelling in a fit of tempest. I will cross that biblical bridge when I come to it, and in the mean time I will not be moving my tent to a rock. I'm certain that God wouldn't wish a bad night's sleep on a loyal subject after said subject had toiled hard all day and not engaged in any devil's activities, besides pooing down old drillholes, bathing naked without shame, taking nips of Stone's Green Ginger Wine, clubbing pesky bugs to death with an empty bootleg cane spirit bottle, and coveting thy neighbour's Sunrise fruitbox.

No, He is a happy god, because I am in His country, not just passing through it or admiring it from afar, but living in it, breathing in it, eating in it, pissing and shitting in it, fishing in it, bathing in it, exploring, feeling and loving it, and immortalising it in words for my brethren. He is a satisfied god, because He knows that wherever I look, from the river valleys to the sandstone peaks, from the scorpions to the crocodiles, and from the light to the dark, I see Him, or at least something like Him...

Dear Gerard [former workmate]

2007-09-03T11:35:00.000+08:00

How are things in the Barrick-sphere; the solemn and holy depository of geological knowledge; the impenetrable citadel of all that is known to be good and true? I know that, due to company policy, you are unable to divulge anything - not even what day it is there - but that's why letters are so great, and why I am single-handedly restoring them to power: nobody can filter them, unless you are in prison or North Korea. Fuck, shit, nigger, cunt, filthy jew, PIMA, geochemistry [those last two are a geological "in-joke"]. See?

Working out where I am - [specific description of place] in the East Kimberley - there are no rules or regulations or people watching over your shoulder. It's amazing to see what happens to a man when he is released into a world of freedom and personal responsibility, from a tightly regulated world where he is mothered and dictated to. At first there is a period of excess, in the manner of the teetotaler who leaps from the wagon, where the subject feels compelled to work in the most hazardous manner imaginable: riding on the back of utes, wearing singlets on drill rigs, walking barefoot through what the aboriginals call (adopt aboriginal accent here) "the long grass" (end aboriginal accent) - home to snakes of all descriptions.

But following the excesses - and this is where it gets interesting, and the stage I find myself in as we speak - there is a period of sobriety, to continue with the drinking analogy, where the subject reflects on the past and present and settles on a sensible middle-ground. This concept of "personal responsibility", foreign to me for so long, is a revelation, and tremendously empowering. It spreads from safety behaviour to geological behaviour to fiscal behaviour to romantic behaviour, moving through one's life like a slurp of Stone's Green Ginger Wine through the bloodstream of a man freshly emerged from his evening bath in the Dunham River.

The increased geological responsibility and empowerment are a God-send to me and, in tandem with the nagging pressure of contract work, have transformed my waning lust for rocks into a violent and unstoppable cinder cone of productivity. Where in the past I would have sat in the ute reading high-brow literature between drillholes, I now switch on the GPS, don my mapping jacket, and scale the sandstone ridges, paying heed to all I see and, if possible, measuring it's orientation with my brand new (now slightly soiled) Frieburg compass. I am doing the best geological work I have ever done...

Dear Tim [old Uni mate]

2007-07-27T17:05:00.000+08:00

What's news in your stretch of these damp, fungus-infested woods? News here is that I just had to kill an as-yet unseen insect that was traversing my tent underneath the canvas floor. The fucker was making a hell of a racket, tricking me into believing he was inside the tent, and forcing me to start flinging my belongings around on a merry invisible goose chase. Before long I saw the shifty bugger's outline moving across my floor, and I beat him a good twenty or thirty times with an empty bottle that once held Cane Royale - a fine blend of cane spirit, coffee, and chocolate that is brewed at a place called The Hoochery Distillery in Kununurra, and makes a perfect belly-warmer after my evening bath in the languid and chilly Dunham River.

Jesus Christ, there's bugs trying to get into my tent flat out tonight; flying straight into the paper-thin walls and scaring the buggery out of me. It's going to be another fiftful sleep, riddled with Franz Kafka-style nightmares about gigantic insects...

...After my bath, the warmth of my chosen neanderthal exercise has faded and I am decidedly chilly. At this time I dry off and return to my tent, remaining naked but casting a thin blanket over my goose-pimpled body and lounging back on my swag and stretcher. The ecstasy of this warmth is spine-tingling, but the two or three or four slugs of Cane Royale that follow are orgasmic, and the highlight of my day. I can feel the heat of the liquor travelling through my chest and into my stomach, and I re-learn every day the origin of the saying "it hits the spot".

Following the slugs of Cane Royale - men have "slugs"; women and homosexuals have "nips" - there is a ten minute period of reflectance and thought, covering vast spans of subject matter and travelling through time and space infinite. If I could write letters during this time, they would be the best ones, but the mere act of picking up a pen and paper would spoil the purity of thought, and recapturing it would be a dream...

Dear Stuart [old football mate]

2007-07-27T16:05:00.000+08:00

[Content warning! If the first sentence disgusts you, please do not read on. If it intrigues you, please continue; but do so at your own risk, and with a sense of humour]

I had the best turd of my life today, and if you care to listen, I will tell you about it.

Let me preface this entire story by taking you back a few weeks in my life to a period where I was reading a book of essays by Sigmund Freud, the famous German psycho-analyst. "What does Sigmund Freud have to do with glorious turds?", I hear you ask. "Plenty", is my reply.

This particlar book, "Five Short Accounts of Psycho-Analysis & The Question of Lay Analysis", was interesting in parts, but not what one would call spellbinding. It was generally to do with the idea of the subconscious, the nature of memory repression, and the question of the suitability of using lay people, meaning non-doctors in this case, to perform psycho-analysis. The two sections that I found the most interesting, though, were those covering dream analysis, which I won't go into here, and infant sexuality, which I will go into.

Freud believed, and I understand it is now widely-accepted, that the sexual instinct is basically present from birth, not from puberty as one might expect. He claimed that common childhood behaviours such as sucking of the thumb, fiddling with the genitals, and the old "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" game - I know you've played that one Stuart - are expressions of this infantile sexual urge. I read this information with mild interest, at first questioning the theory, and then conceding that yes, maybe he was right. The only part that outright surprised me was when he said that defaecation or pooing or shitting or number twos or releasing the chocolate hostage or dropping the kids at the pool, or whatever you want to call it - he actually said that we get a sexual pleasure out of it. Until today, I didn't really undrstand what he meant.

Everybody knows that the most enjoyable turds are camping turds. The explanation for this is two-fold. Firstly, the nature of camping dictates that it is not practical to lay three turds a day; most will only lay one per day, or as few as one per three days, and this generally means that when a turd is lain, it is a full and satisfying one. Secondly, the layer of the turd appreciates the primitive and raw sensation of snapping a steaming grogan off into the dirt, just as the cavemen did; it's the same pleasure that one gets when gnawing meat off a large bone. So the two factors are basically size and environment; but today Stuart, today there was more than that. Yes, today was a religious experience, that much is certain.

It happened high on a sandstone ridge, overlooking the broad grassy valley that slopes away towards the Dunham River. It was around 10 am, I had done the bulk of my morning's work, and I felt an almost imperceptible movement in my lower bowel. Understanding that nature waits for no man, nor his drill rig, I solemnly took the paper roll from the back seat of the wagon and began my ascent of the hill, eyes wandering between the treacherous rocky ground, the stark dry scenery, and the flawless sky.

I found an old drill site - only in the good-old-days would they have had the guts to put a drill rig up this far, I thought to myself - and luckily the 150 mm PVC collar was left sticking from the ground. It was an angled hole so there would be some skid marks, but that wasn't my concern; the God's had smiled upon me, and I fully intended to take their gift graciously.

Lowering my pants, I took a deep breath and sighed, before flexing my knees and placing the estimated position of my anus over the hole, making a small allowance for the backward momentum of the stool. The first 3/4 of the faeces came in a rush, as if it had been eagerly awaiting it's release; like an innocent man from the prison gates.

While waiting for the aftershocks, I again took in my surroundings, eager to savour the moment. My earplugs had dampened the roar of the drilling into a low and pleasing hum that seemed to gently massage my bowels, and the sun was just high enough to shed the first golden light on the high west-facing cliffs towering over the Dunham. Yes this was God's own country, I decided, and He was with me now as the final dregs exited my satisfied arsehole.

It was only as I zipped up my Yakka shorts that I thought about what Freud had said. He was right you know; by the time I had reached the bottom of the hill I was convinced of it. The tension was released from my muscles; I had a small smirk on my face; my legs were a tad wobbly; I felt I needed a cigarette. The troubles of the day had washed away, just as the skid marks on the PVC collar had washed away with a few handfuls of dirt, some extra toilet paper, and a dozen good-sized rocks. Shitting is like sex; no shitting IS sex. Sex IS shitting, in every way. Both are releases; one of sexual tension, the other of decomposing foodstuffs and other bodily waste. Think it through; right through to the end. You know it's true...

Dear Michael and Ngaire [Kalgoorlie Miner editors]

2007-07-27T12:03:00.000+08:00

Top of the mornin' to you! It may not be morning as you read this, but judging by the stars it's about 4 am here, and I am writing to you in real-time, so top of the morning to you. This business of waking up at 4 am has got to stop, but until the business of going to be at 8 pm stops, that just isn't going to happen. Normally I just lie here in my swag, thinking about how cold my face is and waiting for a bird to start chirping, but starting this morning I have resolved to start a series of morning letters, to juxtapose with my series of evening letters. It will be interesting to see how their styles differ. Looking back at the letters I wrote last night, I am immediately struck by their rambling and incoherent nature, and the scrappiness of the hand-writing...

...[if Kalgoorlie was attacked by terrorists] I would join the army without a moments hesitation.

I would make a poor soldier: ill-disciplined, messy, fond of drink (on no, a bird just chirped - time is running low), a preference for chaos over order, an abhorrence of killing people I don't know (and, for your peace of mind, people I do know), look bad in khaki, don't make my bed, long-haired, unshaven, meek, yellow, timid, soft, cowardly, and, to top it all off, a deserter.

In many ways, and on many days, I regret deserting Kalgoorlie. I have seen new and interesting places, but at the moment they have the cold and short-lived embrace of a random floozy from the Palace Hotel corner bar; I long for the warm and reassuring breast of my first true love. I read in Dolly magazine that to get over a relationship, one needs to allow half of the duration of that union, in which case I have around three years of desperate pining to go. Unless I come back.

Ciao for now, from the banks of the Dunham River, East Kimberley.

Dear Frog [old football mate]

2007-07-27T11:44:00.000+08:00

I just heard a frog croaking outside my tent and it reminded me of you. Why are you called Frog? It's one of my life's biggest regrets that I never found out. I always assumed that it was because you are green and say "ribbit" a lot and you are covered in slime that makes one hallucinate when one licks it. I came close to licking you on many occasions, but you always hopped away at the last moment, damn you.

I would lick one of the frogs outside right now, but this would be a risky place to be hallucinating, especially of a night. It would almost certainly be a bad trip. There is water, fire, crocodiles, aboriginals, snakes, spiders, bush geese, bulls, falling trees, spinifex, scorpions, hypothermia, heat stroke, silicosis from RC dust, burst eardrums from the noise, red berries, brown snakes, stingrays, piranhas, fast-moving locomotives, trapdoors, wild boar, deranged field assistants and drillers, wedgetailed eagles, steep cliffs, quick sand, cannibals, ewoks, star troopers, klingons, muslims, jews, white pointers, white supremacists, white-tipped reef sharks, black-tipped reef sharks, pink-tipped reef sharks, and reef sharks with no tips at all but very sharp teeth indeed.

... But yes it would be a bad trip - there is too much worry. I certainly wouldn't be leaving my tent at night without a sharp mind, a sharper axe, and a fucking good reason...

Dear Drew [old uni/house mate]

2007-07-27T11:30:00.000+08:00

... My stupid rechargeable lantern went flat after that sentence, and it is now the next night, Tuesday 10th July if I'm not mistaken, which I probably am. A freezing cold night it is too; cold enough for my penis to shrink to a mere 6 inches when I jumped into the mighty Dunham River after my evening jog. That's 6 inches across, in case you were wondering, which you probably were you seedy cunt. Honestly Drew, grow up and get your mind out of the gutter.

All this talk of penises has made me lose my train of thought, which was a narrow-guage, two-carriage, rickety steam train of thought anyway, so it's no great loss.

What would be a great loss, would be if you and I were not to meet when I am next in Perth - I believe between the 20th and 29th of this good month. Unfortunately Skywest do not fly people around according to when the passenger "believes" he is travelling, so I will need to somehow confirm those dates. No easy feat when your only form of communication is a good loud yell. I suppose I could just yell out my message and ask that anyone who hears it, can they please yell it on in turn, but it would no doubt lead to a horrible Chinese-whispers-style balls-up, where my message "When am I flying back to Perth?" would become something like "Dead-eye driving, smack the smurf" or "Jedi flying, slack the berth" or, worse still, "Cup of tea please. Milk and two sugars. Oh, and a milk arrowroot". Can you imagine the embarrasment? I only take one sugar!...

Dear Sam [old housemate]

2007-07-27T11:22:00.000+08:00

You are the second person (besides Carlie, who is always No. 1) to recieve a letter from my book of Kimberley letters. I have often thought of you as my No. 2, and please don't take that in the toilety way because that brings to mind all sorts of horrible images, and would also add new meaning to my reference to Carlie being my No. 1 - meanings that I don't think she would appreciate.

But yes, you and I are a fine partnership: completely different at surface but precisely the same at depth. We are both men of values and morals that rest deep within us, and that nothing can change. We are strangers to each other, but we go together well. You are the dexi; I am the scoob. You are the pork chop; I am the apple sauce. You are the roaring fireplace; I am the $5 cask of Old Tawny Port...

Dear Carlie

2007-07-27T11:13:00.001+08:00

It's me, your boy, writing to say hello, and to add that I love you and that all is well, despite these troubled and difficult times of terrorism, facism, starvationism, and me working for weeks at a time in the Kimberleys...ism.

All is not lost in the Kimberleys though, my gorgeous one. It is my bold and outrageous intention to fill this 100-page Spicers Olympic Carbon Book "with extra carbon" (it says that on the cover, which I, for some reason, found to be quite hilarious) with letters to all of my lovers (of which there is but one*), relatives and friends alike, so that they may benefit spiritually from my ye-olde-fashionede letters, and that I may benefit financially and egotistically by selling the book's contents for many millions of dollars, if and when I become famous. What say you of my plan? Dare you dismiss it as impossible?

Regardless of your stance, it should hearten you to know that you are No. 1 in my book, quite literally and probably even "with a bullet"...

*Maybe two, counting Stuart, who often refers to me, and me to him, as "lover".

Coming Soon: Something New!

2007-07-26T09:53:00.000+08:00

Hello...hello...hello...is there anybody out there? Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone at home?

Whether you want to read it or not, I will soon be posting some new stuff, probably in the form of letters, or excerpts of letters, that I have written to friends or relatives. Some names may be changed, some parts may be left out, but they will otherwise be word-for-word and punctuation-error-for-punctuation-error, as written in my Spicers Olympic Carbon Book "with extra carbon" from wherever I was at the time, and in whatever state of mind I was in.

Material may come on in spasmodic bursts, because I am often working outside the techno-sphere.

Kalgoorlie Miner (25): Farewell

2007-03-17T13:00:00.000+08:00

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!

Kalgoorlie Miner (24): Shark

2007-03-10T13:00:00.000+08:00

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.

Kalgoorlie Miner (23): Verandah - Part Two

2007-03-03T13:00:00.000+08:00

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!

Kalgoorlie Miner (22): Verandah - Part One

2007-02-24T13:00:00.000+08:00

Blimey it’s hot out the front, but it’s either this or the damp, stagnant jungle out the back. Question: Flies or mosquitoes? Answer: Flies – they don’t inject piss into you. Question: Melanoma or Ross River virus? Answer: Melanoma – you can cut it out. Question: People-watching or introspection? Answer: People-watching in summer, introspection in winter. The front verandah it is.

Curse this daylight saving. I like to think I’m Progressive, but give me cooler earlier over lighter longer anyday. Sam the Stubborn Boilermaker (is there another kind?) was right about it all along. Note to self: Don’t tell him that. Can’t have my housemate saying I-told-you-so. Vote No, then feign excitement when the Yes vote wins.

Oh hello Ajax. The mighty Greek warrior. Where did you come from? Part Staffy (lazy), part Border Collie (hyperactive). Confused, like a three-toed sloth on amphetamines. Sleep in the dirt… ROUND UP FLIES… slowly lick testicles… JUMP THE FENCE AND RUN AWAY.

Bloody guitar is out of tune. Daylight saving almost certainly to blame. Excessive heating (expansion) and cooling (contraction) of strings. Top E always goes to E flat. Damn you Matt Birney.

What song should I play Ajax? Paranoid Android you reckon. Radiohead again? What did my mother say once? Mickey why can’t you play some happy songs? Like what? Like… I Love the Nightlife. Most I’ve ever laughed. OK, I’m in tune boy. Let’s go.

“Please can you stop the noise I’m tryin’ to get some rest…”

Vegetable garden is looking miserable. Corn and beans stunted, tomato yield down. Can’t even spare any to throw at the phonebox. Last season an old granny came to see the corn. Talk of the retirement village, or so she reckoned. Not so this year. Where are you random grandma? Improvements must be made. Note to self: Conduct bankable feasibility study into garden expansion, plus acquisition of a Chinaman’s hat and team of buffalo.

“Ambition makes you look pretty ugly…”

Little bottlebrushes are improving. Straight, dignified and independent. Had to untie them from their stakes because they weren’t progressing. Sink or swim, I said. Now or never. Like a mum sending her babies off to pre-school. In the first days they drooped like overworked gigolos. Had to resist the urge to interfere. So proud they’ve come good.

“Raaaiiin down, rain down, c’mon raaaiiin down on me…”

Ah, another recycler emptying their little yellow bin into the big yellow bin. Every day a reminder that people care. As Kevin Costner said in Field of Dreams: If you build it, they will come. As I say to a right-leaning friend of mine: It’s global warming, it’s David Hicks, it’s recycling… it’s just the vibe.

“God loves his children, yeah!”

Get off me you stinky mongrel. Rolling in dead kangaroos again. You can take the dog out of Kambalda, but you can’t take Kambalda out of the dog.

Next week: Ajax's perspective.

Kalgoorlie Miner (21): Western Australia

2007-02-17T13:00:00.000+08:00

I'm sick of Western Australia’s resources boom – in fact if I hear about it again, I tell you I shall spontaneously combust. Resources boom, resources boom, resources boom. Feeling uncomfortably hot. China, India, uranium. Ouch, it burns!

Sure, high commodity prices are putting the wine and goat’s cheese on my table, but I am beginning to resent all of these economic refugees coming into WA from other states to snaffle a piece of our pie. “My pie!” I cry, my face crinkled up and my lower lip protruding; and your pie too, my learned reader.

These eastern seaboard vultures covet our womenfolk, refuse to adopt Western Australian values and have the gall to prattle on about the superiority of their homelands. They mock us because we speak slowly and use two syllables to say beer like “beeya”, here like “heeya” and fear like “feeya”. Ooh, the nerve – I’ll show them feeya! Listen up now as I give them all a frightful literary spanking – take this, inferior scoundrels!

Queensland is only the second-biggest state. It’s full of lanky ginger-nuts who like to cover their ruddy, freckly faces with zinc and go surf-lifesaving with their bathers wedged between their buttock cheeks. They pronounce "pool" like "poo" but with an "l" on the end. They tackle, bludgeon and stab animals for fun, all the while rhythmically guffawing like a bunch of lobotomised Dr. Hibberts. Intolerable simpletons!

New South Wales bears no resemblance to the south of Wales. It’s people have spray-on tans, artificially-whitened teeth and those gym-formed Ken (of "Barbie and Ken" fame) muscles that have no practical value around the house or workplace – they’re just for show! They like shiny things and pastel colours and they cry easily. Pansies!

Victoria is cold and pointless. Why does it exist? There’s no industry. It’s bohemian residents just lounge about in trendy (read small) cafes, sipping mocha frappucinos and reading Franz Kafka essays or The Weekend Australian. They wear black-rimmed spectacles – even though their eyesight is fine – and produce art-house films that romanticise heroin addiction. Poseurs!

Tasmania is a rude shape and it’s inhabitants are strange. Jim Morrison once reasoned that "people are strange when you're a stranger" but he never visited Queenstown, where the people are strange even if you are Sigmund Bloody Freud. My brother and I spotted that banjo-playin' yokel from Deliverance there once. I tried to make a quick getaway, but was slowed by the tricky foot-operated handbrake in our rental Tarago. The boy almost got us. The horror!

South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory are... Sorry – I’ve got nothing. Nothing good, nothing bad. A blank. These places are black holes in the universe that is one’s mind!

The Northern Territory is OK with me, except for the crocodiles and poisonous jellyfish in the water – that’s just plain silly.

There is no doubt that Western Australia is the greatest state. We don’t build hideous monuments because our natural wonders are infinite; our arts scene is lagging only because it’s too pleasant outside to bother painting or sculpting or writing in some dampened studio; we are annoyingly casual because with a population density of one person per square kilometre, there’s really no need to stress; and Sunday trading won’t come in because we damn well don’t want it to.

It’s high time we seceded from the rest of Australia. It will be a glorious and, at times, bloody revolt led by me, your Supreme Commander. I‘ve already done the hard part and gained control over the media – I ordered the editors to call this column “WA: The Mighty State” and they did. Now grab your pitchforks and meet me at the border – I’ll go first, you follow!

I’ll just kick back and have another beer first though…

Kalgoorlie Miner (20): Bali

2007-02-10T13:00:00.000+08:00

START OF PLAY.

(A hotel pool in Bali, June 2003. People variously reclined on banana lounges, skylarking in the water, or face down on massage tables. A no-doubt pirated copy of The Red Hot Chili Peppers "Californication" is on repeat. MICHAEL dives in, surfacing at the barstools.)

MICHAEL: (softly addressing the barman) One Strawberry Daiquiri please.

BRAIN: (mocking) Have a look at you – swanning about ordering cocktails like you’re flamin’ James Bond. And speak louder you idiot.

BARMAN: (clipped English) No worry Aussie mate, which room you in?

MICHAEL: (yells) Number nine.

BRAIN: (hypnotised) Number nine, number nine, number nine. Revolution 9 – The White Album. What is that song about?

MICHAEL: (staring vacantly into water, whispers) I really don't know.

(LES, a leathery, greying, well-fed Australian, takes up an aquatic perch adjacent to, but unseen by Michael)

BRAIN: (excited) Hey if you stare at the ripple-sunlight interaction on the pool floor for long enough it begins to resemble a troupe of frolicking Chinese dragons!

MICHAEL: (with growing enthusiasm) Hey yeah – and they're dancing in time with Scar Tissue!

LES: (friendly, inquisitive) Scar tissue? You talking to me mate?

MICHAEL: (startled) What? Who? Oh. (reddens, scratches head) Yeah sorry, that was nothing. Just mumbling to myself... ha ha ha... hmmm. (brightens) So what brings you to Bali old buddy?

LES: (leans back, broad crooked smile) The wife and I come here for three weeks every year. Look around (sweeps arm across pool) – it's paradise. Beautiful hotels and beaches, everything is so cheap, and the people are wonderful, just wonderful. So friendly!

MICHAEL: (with lacklustre enthusiasm) Wow yeah, it sounds like you really love the joint. I've only been here a few days myself – still finding my feet I suppose (half-heartedly hops from foot-to-foot, demonstrating the finding of one's feet).

BRAIN: Bad joke. (anxious) Don't you ruin this man's contentment Michael – I know what you're thinking. (pleading) Listen to me for once. Michael!

MICHAEL: (thoughtfully frowning) See, I reckon you've got to consider this place on a deeper level. (pauses, looks around) I mean I would have a hard time describing it as paradise, strictly-speaking.

LES: (taken aback) I'm not sure what you mean.

MICHAEL: (calm) Well there's rubbish everywhere, the natural attractions are rundown, and there's, like, monkeys eating westerner's vomit off the streets. And the people...

LES: (angry) What about the people?

MICHAEL: (remains calm) Well they are generally friendly, but see it from their point of view – they need your money to survive. It's not a balanced relationship and, as such, can't really be taken on face value. They’re friendly in the way that a cotton-pickin’ Negro slave is chummy with his boss-man.

LES: (dumbfounded) That's a bit bloody cynical isn't it?

MICHAEL: (on the front foot now) Outrageously cynical, but surely you must recognise the reality of the situation. (wildly gesticulating) We spend 100 dollars on a night out, urinate on their streets, then come past in the morning and barter hard over a two dollar t-shirt. They don’t love and respect us. They tolerate us out of necessity.

LES: (paddles away, mutters) Christ you're a prick mate.

MICHAEL: (suddenly guilty) Wait Les, come back!

LES: (turns, incredulous) My name isn't Les.

BRAIN: (laughing) You called him Les because he looks like Sir Les Patterson you turkey! (reflective pause) Hey let's not come back to Bali champ.

MICHAEL: (sighs) Amen to that brother. (rejuvenated) Hey the dragons are grooving to Otherside!

END OF PLAY.

Kalgoorlie Miner (19): Kebabs

2007-02-03T13:00:00.000+08:00

I was struggling for a column topic today (that is Wednesday) so I stepped into my pool, expelled the air from my lungs and resolved to lie face down on the bottom until I came up with something acceptable. I hoped that the silence, the zero gravity sensation and the threat of imminent death would get my creative juices flowing - and said juices did flow, my dear reader.

As I lay prone in what was potentially my watery grave, I began thinking about kebabs - not about how delicious they are, not about their potential for carrying deadly bacteria, but about the role they have played as a binding thread through the ragged quilt that is my life thus far.

Weightlessly hovering in my liquid environs, I remembered my first taste (literally) of kebabs - a job at the now-defunct Kebab Company Scarborough, next door to the Stamford Arms. I thought of the 6.00 pm to 2.30 am weekend shifts that I worked for $8 an hour; of the summer twilights spent with a pair of open burners slow-roasting my back and the setting sun in my face; of the drops of sweat that would fall into kebabs from the tip of my nose, remarkably unnoticed.

My fists mutely pounded the fibreglass as I recalled the abusive English skinheads that I tolerated without a whimper; the musclemen who would angrily insist that the yolks be removed from their eggs; the arrogant South Africans who thrived on belittling me and who's behaviour was an order of magnitude more offensive than that of any slobbering drunkard.

I grimaced an aquatic grimace as I relived the paralysis that gripped me when confronted by groups of giggling beach babes. Halfway through an involuntary bumbling parody of my kebab making routine, one of my Scarborough Football Club mates would inevitably burst in, make a crude joke about hot meat, then strut back out with the chicks in tow - to pash behind the Surf Club I supposed.

Yes, I cooly reflected from the depths, the kebab shop taught me many of life's great lessons - it made me a Labour man, it taught me to stick up for myself, and it showed me that when girls talk of men in uniforms, they speak not of a 17 year-old in a hommus-stained polo shirt.

As I relaxed and entered the "acceptance" stage of drowning, other major kebab-related life events flashed before my eyes.

My first proper girlfriend and I broke up while watching "He Died with a Felafel in his Hand", a movie which I enjoyed immensely nonetheless. I too would like to die with a felafel (my favourite kebab) in my hand... as I ride my bicycle through an electrical storm (refer to column 17).

I was eating an authentic Greek kebab as I watched Sally Robbins famously collapse and deny my sister Sarah a medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics - yes my actual certified sister was rowing in the same crew, and no she neither slapped Sally, nor smote her with an oar. As delectable as that particular kebab was, I felt obliged to spit it out in disgust.

My decision to quit Croesus Mining Norseman exploration crystallised after the 2005 local race day, while staggering around the small town in search of a kebab shop that I knew didn't exist. I had to settle for stale potato gems and a microwaved chicken roll from Caltex - that was the last straw.

It was after this thought about Norseman’s kebablessness that I, your wrinkly narrator, emerged from the pool content with my musings on the matter and ready to put pen to paper, or fingers to little buttons, as it were - a few brain cells poorer yes, but far more deeply in touch with my inner kebab.

I leave you this day with a suggestion: be nice to the people at Acropolis - friendly people get bigger kebabs.

Kalgoorlie Miner (18): Inevitability

2007-01-27T13:00:00.000+08:00

As Australia edged towards victory in the Adelaide test match late last year, I began to experience a strange and complex set of emotions that I hadn’t felt since observing a remarkably unremarkable boy on a Mumbai ferry some six months earlier. How were these events related, I wondered?

The emotional triplet began with pity, gave way almost instantaneously to guilt (at feeling pity, because pity implies superiority), and then slowly morphed into a deep and unreasonable sadness; and I mean unreasonable in the literal, dictionary-defined sense – that is “not governed by or acting according to reason”.

Every time Andrew Flintoff’s sagging, ashen face graced the screen on the fifth day in Adelaide, I recoiled as a fallen skateboarder recoils from the sickening sight of his own splintered forearm. His eyes were filled with the glassy, helpless terror of a poorly-anaesthetised man lying conscious through his own open-heart surgery. It was terribly difficult to watch, even for an Australian. I felt unable to revel in our victory because I felt so bad for the English*.

Precisely six months earlier, my comrade Tim and I were aboard a wooden ferry returning from an island in the Mumbai harbour. It was the final evening of our journey around India, and the setting was ideal for the resultant languid reflection - the boat advancing almost imperceptibly through the oily brown water; the sun sinking through the suffocating haze just as the light was metaphorically fading on our savage and testing oddyssey.

A glance around the ferry revealed a large component of relatively wealthy Indian tourists - the dignified parents, the spoilt, slightly flabby sons, and the heart-wrenchingly beautiful daughters - all chatting, laughing and texting. As an aside (grant me a moment of indulgence), no-one in the world delivers a more heavenly interpretation of the English language than a young, well-educated Indian woman - their frivolous, delighfully-inflected banter is the auditory equivalent of rolling around naked in silken bedsheets.

Anyway, juxtaposed against this well-to-do crowd was the remarkably unremarkable boy. He had a dark, serious face and wore a short-sleeved chequered shirt, a navy blue pair of straight-legged, long-zipped jeans, and a set of worn black leather shoes. He and his friend both had stern expressions that seemed completely at odds with both their age - which I estimated to be around 18 - and the jolly, relaxed tone of the tourist-filled vessel.

The critical event that triggered the pity-guilt-sadness complex was when the boy pulled out his positively monstrous camera - this thing must have been from the 1960s or 1970s. As he wound the film on he looked around and saw many of the younger, digital camera-owning people openly pointing and giggling, and when his mate took the photo - a photo that should have immortalised what was probably a rare and exciting experience - the boy wore an unforgettably sad expression, just like Andrew Flintoff's.

Q: What common factor links the remarkably unremarkable boy with England's defeat, and causes the pity-guilt-sadness emotional triplet?

A: Inevitability.

There is tragedy in the inevitability of heartless class discrimination, just as there was tragedy in the inevitability of the Adelaide test match.

Oh well, I've answered the question that was bugging me - whether or not you got anything out of it is another matter entirely. Sorry if I've wasted your time.

* Un-Australian I know.

Kalgoorlie Miner (17): Bicycle

2007-01-20T13:00:00.000+08:00

A wise man who, like all wise men I know of, had a penchant for wearing tight leather pants, once said: “I want to ride my bicycle. I want to ride my bike. I want to ride my bicycle. I want to ride it where I like.”

Like Freddie Mercury, I want to ride my bike. Like Freddie Mercury I also believe that fat-bottomed girls make the rocking world go round. Unlike Freddie Mercury, however, I rarely feel compelled to sing “I want to break free” while mopping the floor in women’s clothing.

But back to the bicycle, and to a point of clarification. When I say I want to ride my bike, I suppose I should say I do ride my bike, and I guess I do ride my bike because I have to ride my bike, and I must concede I have to ride my bike because I was caught drunk-driving, and it shames me to say I was drunk-driving because…

(cue blurry screen, descending harp arpeggio)

Judge (red-faced, spitting): Have you any excuse young man? Any excuse at all?

Villain (cooler than something very, very cold): Yes, Your Honour. The ridiculous amount of alcohol in my bloodstream made it quite impossible for me to determine right from wrong. I wouldn’t have even contemplated drink-driving, had I been sober.

(cue blurry screen, ascending harp arpeggio)

I’m sure that legal loophole has been closed, though it does seem to get people out of other offences: “I only bashed that granny because I had snorted three grams of cocaine”. That’s another column entirely though – the sort of fire-and-brimstone column best written by Graeme Campbell or Doug Daws. Has anyone ever seen those two in the same room?

I am digressing again. Sorry.

I’m super-glad that John Q. Law stripped me of my driver’s license, because it has enabled me to re-discover the joys of bicycle riding. Such a smashing way to get around, I tell you.

I revel in the feeling of traveling under my own steam, watching the cars go by with the straight-backed nobility of an aging horseman in an era of helicopter cattle mustering; the dumb pride of an amoeba in a world dominated by multi-cellular organisms.

I pity the fools in their air-conditioned vehicles, for whom every trip is an inconvenience – for me every ride is the trial-filled (prickles, unfavourable winds) equivalent of Ulysses journey home from Troy.

While drivers ruefully glance down at their pale, limp bellies, I gorge myself with high-energy food so that I may propel to and from work in world-record time, and as they furrow their brows over fuel prices, the screaming of my parched, oxygen-deprived lungs drowns out any such trivialities.

Like Robert Pirsig in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” (see columns 1 and 4 on the website), I have become tuned to my bicycle. It is an extension of my body. I feel and hear it’s every flaw and tinker with it religiously, despite the fact that, historically speaking, I am far more an “in-the-grand-scheme-of-the-universe-who-cares-about-a-squeaky-chain” sort of person, than a tinkerer.

I leave you today with a tale.

I was powering through a deserted Centennial Park during an electrical storm late last year, and was overcome by a feeling that I was about to be struck by lightning. The funny thing was I really didn’t care – in fact I went no-hands, raised my arms in a Jeff Farmer post-wizardry salute to the sky and screamed “Take me Lord, take me now you bastard!”

He didn’t take me, but I think it would have been a fine way to go – fanging along in top gear, hair streaming out behind, adrenalin pumping. Oh well, there’ll be other storms.

On your bikes!

Kalgoorlie Miner (16): Shane

2007-01-13T13:00:00.000+08:00

I’ve decided to write about Shane Warne’s greatness – a subject so clichéd that to call it a cliché is itself a cliché. In order to differentiate between myself and other admirers though, I specifically want to write about Shane’s face (first name basis lends the column an intimate air).

The seeds of this column were planted in my mind last Sunday afternoon aboard the Prospector (yes I’ve been to Perth and back on the Prospector again*), just 8 throbbing, hazy hours after I had been dragged out of Fremantle’s “The Clink” by a mean-spirited Indian doorman.

Admittedly I made several mistakes in the nightclub, not least of which was trying to reason with him in Hindi, a language in which I know just three phrases: namaste (hello/goodbye), apka shubh nam kya hai (what is your name?), and kanjus makhi chus (you are a miser and a fly-sucker). You can probably guess which one came to mind after 27 gin-and-tonics.

But I digress.

On the train I began idly thumbing through my cohort Rhett's Sunday Times and was stunned to see, on the front cover of the TV magazine, a raw, stark close-up photograph of Shane’s face. No airbrushing, no make-up.

I simply could not look away; partly due to the dull catatonia that defines the savage transition from drunk to hung-over, partly due to the numbing effect of a mouthful of pain-killers, and partly due to shock at seeing something of quality within the pages of a newspaper that is to the Kalgoorlie Miner what Danni Minogue is to Kylie. But mostly it was due to the intense character and meaning in the photograph.

His eyes were the first thing that struck me; army green irises with flecks and rough streaks of a sulphorous yellow (lookout Mills & Boon). Almost crocodilian. Gloriously bright – not in colour, but in stored and radiant energy. The intensity of the whites doubly strengthened by their frames of darkened skin.

A deeply-etched fan of grooves could be seen escaping from the outer point of each eye, like so many rays from a Japanese Imperial sun. The term “laughter lines” is misleading for these grooves, because the causal accordion motion of the skin can also be attributed to toil, stress, anger, or despair, and one strongly suspects that Shane has experienced all of these emotions many times over.

The skin on his face was that of an average man twice his age. Deeply weathered and pock-marked. The sun damage on his upper cheeks and nose has exposed a fine mesh of red capillary veins, the likes of which one would usually expect to see covering the face of a gout-ridden barfly in a darkened English alehouse. No doubt Shane has been there too.

The overall impression of the face is that it belongs to a man who has lived a life worth living; a life spent amongst the towering peaks and frightening troughs of the Southern Ocean, while others were happy to languish in sheltered bays.

His face contains happiness and laughter, not only at his successes and strengths, but also at his failures and weaknesses. He so closely approached perfection in his craft, but is sage enough to know that perfection is unattainable, and that it is necessary to make light of one’s mistakes. The key to his legend is that, unlike a Tiger Woods or an Ian Thorpe, he is gloriously, magnificently human.

Later in the train trip I was reading a book called “Eyeless in Gaza” by Aldous Huxley, and came across this pertinent passage:

"Progress may, perhaps, be perceived by historians; it can never be felt by those actually involved in the supposed advance. The young are born into the advancing circumstances, the old take them for granted within a few months or years."

People of my generation, though they may not fully recognise it now, have been thoroughly blessed to have grown up as the legend of Shane Keith Warne was being written.

Shane, I salute you and everything you stand for.

*Thanks for the free coffee Di – I won’t tell your boss.

Kalgoorlie Miner (15): Uncertainty

2007-01-06T13:00:00.000+08:00

In 1927, young German physicist Werner Heisenberg discovered that the more accurately one measures a sub-atomic particle's velocity at any instant, the less accurately one is able to measure that particle's position in space. He wrote down his findings, rewarded himself with an super-sized bratwurst and sauerkraut value meal, then downed 13 steins of lager at the local beer hall.* He fell while clumsily attempting a complex German dance step, and was thrown out by over-zealous security guards.*

Next morning he decided that, in order for his theory to catch on, it would need a really mintox name. Unfortunately, due to a cruel mind-numbing hangover, the best he could come up with was "The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle" (today he'd have to call it something like "The Werner3000 Xtreme Particulator System" in order to be noticed).

Despite it's inglorious name Werner's principle soon turned the world on it's head (at least it would have if the world actually possessed a head), because it revealed to physicists that they could never achieve perfect predictive knowledge of the sub-atomic environment – something that, up until that point, had been thought obtainable.

This all seems very boring, despite my attempts to "sex it up", doesn't it? Well look into my eyes much-loved reader (in the eyes, not around the eyes) and promise me that you won't turn the page just yet. Soon the subject will switch to cricket and skimpies - it really will.

One effect of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is that no matter how closely we look at the physical world, there will always be blurriness. Just when we believe we are on the threshold of gaining perfect understanding, we discover that our goal is as far away as ever.

Cricket broadcasters use increasingly complex technology every summer as part of their quest to come up with the perfect judgement of a dismissal, apparently unaware that young Werner doomed them to failure back in 1927. Channel Nine could study a caught-behind decision with an electron microscope and still be uncertain if the leather atom struck the willow atom – just as uncertain as the umpire who watched the event with the naked eye.

Lesson One: Like a cartoon donkey chasing a dangling carrot strapped to his head, so is the person who strives for perfect knowledge.

Say you wanted to check out (insert name of semi-precious gemstone here) – the newest skimpy at the Federal Hotel. From across the bar she might look glamorous, maybe even better right up close, but what would happen if you studied her with a magnifying glass (assuming you don’t get kicked out), determined to see her beauty on a whole new level? You may start to uncover imperfections – a mole on her back, fine hair on her upper lip, tiny wrinkles around her eyes – and your worship of her as an impeccable goddess fades. By finding fault in her detail, you forget her general loveliness.

Lesson Two: While striving for detailed knowledge should be encouraged, it is important to remember the bigger picture. Be sure to see the trees AND the forest.

So think about Werner next time you’re at the pub. Study the effect of alcohol on blurriness and scribble your own thesis onto a beer coaster. Scream “Don’t you know the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?” at Ian Chappell when he starts his inevitable whinge about umpiring standards. Quantum physics is fun!

* Almost certainly not true.

Kalgoorlie Miner (14): Prospector - Part Two

2006-12-30T13:00:00.000+08:00

In the prolonged blink of a tiring eye, a scenery change has occurred. Green into gold like a bolt from the blue. A fine line scribed in over time by statistics, economics, and a dash of hope. A sharp boundary imposed on a gradational change. Wheat can grow profitably here, wheat cannot grow profitably there. Gutsy to be farming out this far.

I am starting to get unnerved by the sterile and refrigerated atmosphere of this train. Rail journeys should be hot, loud, blustery affairs. Character builders. The Prospector is safe, quiet, comfortable, and therefore boring. Option of living dangerously engineered out. My sealed window acts as little more than a television screen, scenery mutely panning by. Jack London: the proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I wonder if they’ll let me on the roof?

I have never felt as alive as when hanging out the side of a battered, groaning steely hulk of a train bound for a village 40 km south of central Calcutta, my life literally in my hot clammy hands. An adrenaline-heightened awareness of the speed, the heat, the colours, the smells, the people. Of life. A glorious engagement with my environment as a pulsating participant, rather than a disassociated rubberneck. Living.

I just got a bottle of water, and on the way back I couldn’t resist a stickybeak at what Junior Beckham was scribbling on his notepad. Angst-ridden lyrics for a new teen anthem? A bloody massacre scene? No. Calculus equations. Somewhat unexpected I must say. School holidays isn’t it? Very studious young chap.

In year 8 mathematics I raised my hand and asked: “Why do we have to learn calculus?” The room was swept with shocked intakes of air. Numerous murmurs of qualified support. Minor giggling. A 5 minute discussion with the teacher failed to convince me of the subject’s merit, and I was asked to stay behind. He offered me a book on the usefulness of calculus. I dismissed it offhand as blatant propaganda.

The showdown was the talk of recess. I was a hero. Sure, I was wrong – calculus is important – but what was more important at that age was that I took it to The Man. I kept the bastards honest. George Orwell: better the lone wolf, than the cringing dog. I was back to being a cringing young pup come exam time though. The Man has far-reaching tentacles.

Just got another cup of tea from the snack bar. A ham-cheese-tomato sandwich in the display case is labelled “connoisseur” and “gourmet”. Better be some damn fine cheese. A silverside-cheese-pickle version is “delialfresco” when to me it is neither of those thoughtlessly concatenated words. The individually-packaged muffins are “home-style”, just like those loaves of bread that are “country-style” because they have a bulbous shape, a dusting of flour, and a smattering of rolled oats glued to the top. I begrudgingly dips me lid to those marketing folk. They know that a thin swirling smokescreen of old fashioned goodness is more than enough to distract our attention from the accelerating erosion of same.

At Merredin now, and a woman has taken the spare seat next to me. Looks busy and efficient. Sharp features. Fixed nervous smile. Like Reverend Lovejoy’s wife. My greeting is warmly reciprocated, but nothing further is offered. Silent trip on the cards?

I’m typing this up in Perth now – it turns out she was very, very talkative. One comment on the weather and we were away. Certainly no time to pen a part three or four. Lovely lady.

Footnote: the journey’s token “annoying little boy” got out at Midland and donned a West Coast Eagles jacket. I should have known.

Happy New Year to you all!

Kalgoorlie Miner (13): Prospector - Part One

2006-12-23T13:00:00.000+08:00

I sit aboard the Prospector bound for Perth, feeling very proud. The hostess said “Oh you’re the boy that writes those lovely things in the paper”. Recognition at last. Pitfalls of fame I suppose. Assistant failed to pack Groucho Marx disguise. Note to self: sack her.

An old English gentleman’s pre-recorded voice is giving me the lowdown on the finer details of the journey. Michael Parkinson or similar. Englishmen’s voices sound important, distinguished. Australianmen’s don’t.

I imagine Paul Hogan: “We will arrive at East Perth Terminal at approximately 1:30 pm”. Or Bryan Brown: “A gap exists between the train and the platform”. Insincere. Passenger confusion over whether the piss was being taken. Australian humour is all in the eyes. That’s why I can’t wear sunglasses. People try to fight me – especially foreigners. Kiwis are OK.

A teenage boy sitting across the carriage to my left is wearing sunglasses. Large aviators. Completely unnecessary in a train on an overcast day. Looks like a junior Beckham. He and mum going backwards. Dad and younger sister opposite, going forwards like normal people. Better to look forwards than backwards, or so motivational people and books say. Have to look backwards sometimes though. One can see what goodness, badness, happiness, sadness or sameness is left in one’s wake.

Junior Becks’ glasses are designed to hide embarrassment. Family train trip to Perth for Christmas I suspect. Beneath the surface indifference he still loves Christmas though. Young enough for receipt of material goods to triumph in struggle with rising cynicism. I’ve got all I need. I can afford to be cynical. George Orwell: it is fashionable to be cynical when times are good (or something). Biting the hand that feeds you. True.

What is the “true” meaning of Christmas? If “truth” is what most believe then – at this moment and in this country – Christmas is a time to give and receive increasingly more expensive presents. And nobody can deny, as the song goes. There’s the cynic in me. Stop it.

Junior Becks’ old boy is listening to headphones. He speaks up about something out the window but does so far too loudly, as people are prone to do. Wife and son groan in unison. “Dad, shut up” threatens Junior Becks, with slow emphasis on the latter two words. Fair call. Dad laughs uncaringly. Junior Becks shakes his head, mouth open. I suspect that a squint of disbelief lies beneath his shades. The reflective glasses deny his father the intended effect.

Stop press: he has just taken his sunnies off. Goodness and intelligence in his eyes. Cruelly held captive before.

He has a pen and notepad. Like me. Pen in mouth and eyes wandering, then a burst of pen on page. Like me. Good Lord, could he be writing an alternative view on life aboard this carriage? Judging me as I judge him? Misjudging me as I misjudge him? I vainly adjust my hair. Just in case. My appearance is a bad way to judge me, the speed of my speech is worse. Only one person I know talks slower than me. His name is Christian.

Just returned to my seat from the snack bar. Cup of tea, cheese and biscuits. Prospector tradition. Driving tradition is a cheese sausage at Southern Cross. No license at the moment though. Pissy driving on Kal Cup day. Silly me.

Unfortunately the tea is in a paper cup. I prefer a proper dainty cup and saucer, so I can pretend to be a moustachioed British Officer riding a first-class train through a newly conquered landmass. Tracks laid by oppressed local savages. Safari suit. “I say, this looks to be good grazing country. Now where’s that brandy chaser? Three huzzahs for the Queen old chaps!”

I finish with a piece of cake, baked by my housemates during an unusual fit of domesticity. Christmas treat. Moist. Icing on the cake was, for me, the icing on the cake. Thanks boys.

Not even in farming country yet, but so much written. Part two next week. Merry Christmas to all.

Kalgoorlie Miner (12): Trust

2006-12-16T13:00:00.000+08:00

In the Kalgoorlie Miner earlier this year, a lady visitor was asked what she thought of Kanowna during “Back to Kanowna Day”. Her response was stunningly blunt, but absolutely correct: “There’s nothing here”.

Initially I just giggled and turned the page, but in the ensuing days her words drifted around my brain like a ping-pong ball traversing the Sahara. I was unnerved by her candor and acute powers of observation and began to wonder whether she was simply stating the facts - in which case I admired her cutting forthrightness - or shrewdly implying that something far more sinister was going on.

Was she calling the very existence of the town into question? Where I had seen - in my imagination - Father Long preaching endless riches from the balcony of the Kanowna Hotel, had she seen nothing but bare ground and the ever-present fragments of tin and glass? When standing atop Warden’s Hill, had she looked out and seen a monumental conspiracy, where I had been naïve enough to picture a bustling township?

I’m sure the lady wasn’t so skeptical, but her comment reminded me that a trip to the Kanowna townsite, like many aspects of life, is largely an exercise in trust. I never personally had a rum can in the White Feather Hotel after a hard day's labour at the battery, but historians assure us that such places existed and I have no reason to doubt them.

We need to have some trust in those better informed than us, or else we could only ever know that which we had seen with our own eyes. Think about what you would know if not for a trust in others.

Problems arise though when experts attempt to convince the public of facts that cannot be "seen", which goes a long way towards explaining the reluctance of some to accept the science behind global warming. I've never seen global warming but, being a scientist myself, I have faith in the rigorous scientific process. I’ve never seen love but I believe that it exists because I’ve seen hardened men dragged into shoe shops, heads hanging low, by gorgeous womenfolk.

I watched "An Inconvenient Truth" last weekend and yes - like all documentaries - it aims to make the viewer feel a certain way, but what makes it so utterly compelling is it's use of graphs and images to present global warming, thereby allowing the layman to "see" the evidence.

The first courageous step, to paraphrase Alcoholics Anonymous, is to admit that we have a problem, and I feel that to continue to deny the phenomena's existence, or our contribution to it, or the urgency of the situation after viewing the film is to put oneself on a par with members of the Flat Earth Society.

So surely the debate must now move on to solutions, where for once - and I feel dirty saying this - I am partially in agreement with the Howard Government: we certainly need to reduce our own emissions, but by far the biggest contribution we can have as a nation is to use our world-class scientific resources to develop technology that will help out the world's biggest polluters.

Hooray for science!

Kalgoorlie Miner (11): Information

2006-12-09T13:00:00.000+08:00

Loyal readers of this column will remember last week’s hypothetical everyman, who’s ordered existence at the Broad Arrow Tavern was thrown into chaos by the arrival of a nightclub and kebab shop. Disloyal readers should hang their heads in shame, recite fourty Hail Marys, and read on in search of redemption.

Regardless of which camp you are in, prepare now to let your imagination run wild as we rejoin our lovable simpleton on his perilous journey through modern life (if this was television the screen would go all blurry now, and a harp would start playing).

Old mate is perched at the bar of the Broady listening to RadioWest on his first ever wireless, which just arrived in the mail from the big smoke. After a short while, and despite his limited intellect, he tires of listening to the nauseating rememberance of yesteryear and switches to the ABC where, after a few inoffensive jokes from a delightfully smug chap called “Ted Bull”, the news headlines come on:

“Kambalda invades Widgiemooltha for rich nickel reserves: insurgents fight back. Rising sea levels swallow statues on Lake Ballard: tourists numbers fall, Menzies residents struck by poverty. Celebrity shock: Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughan split."

He is startled by all this suffering, nearly toppling off his bar stool, and becomes concerned that Widgie terrorists or global warming may destroy his beloved home. He is also desperate to know who Jennifer and Vince are, and why they felt it necessary to separate.

In order to keep abreast of developments, he decides to subscribe to the Kalgoorlie Miner newspaper; an outstanding and impartial journal that is worth every cent of it's crazy low price - or so he has heard.

He reads the paper cover to cover every day, but starts to become confused. In the Kalgoorlie Miner, the Widgiemooltha combatants claim that they are "freedom fighters", not terrorists, and a man in a cowboy hat says that global warming is "a pack of lies", even though all the qualified labcoat-wearing scientists say that it's true.

He begins to feel less certain about life than ever and, despite nothing having changed at Broad Arrow, decides to lock his doors at night to keep out Widgie terrorists, Menzies refugees and that nasty love rat Vince Vaughan. He lies sleepless worrying about rising sea levels and the fate of poor Jennifer, who is so unlucky in love (cue blurry screen and harp music).

Last week our unfortunate friend found out that greater choice can cause greater stress, and he has now discovered that more information can lead to more uncertainty, fear, and helplessness.

Of course just like choice last week, more information is a good thing, but the dilemma for the modern person is that they must suffer either the guilt that comes with ignoring everything that happens to unfamiliar people in far-flung places, or the sense of helplessness that comes with taking it all to heart.

Well, luckily for us, a clever person came up with a solution: "Think Global, Act Local".

So if you want to stop global warming then don't have baked beans for breakfast. If you want world peace then invite someone from Boulder over for tea and scones (keep an eye on your silverware though). If you want more laughter then write a ridiculous opinion column for the local newspaper.

Before you do anything ask: "What would the effect be if everyone did what I'm about to do?"

Kalgoorlie Miner (10): Choice

2006-12-02T13:00:00.000+08:00

Consider a situation where a friend rings and says “I’m at the pub, come down for a drink”, then hangs up without telling you which of the 30 or 40 local bars they are referring to. It would be pretty hard to find them wouldn’t it? Or would it? In reality, most of us probably only frequent a handful of trusty drinking holes.

For example I go to the Tower for drinks after work on Fridays (not during football season though, because the coach gets all sooky and unreasonable if we turn up for training legless), deBernales for Saturday night benders, and the Federal for lazy Sunday afternoons betting on Cannington dogs or Hong Kong trots or whatever other group of filthy animals happens to be running in circles at the time.

So when faced with so many choices, why is it that we drift towards the same well-beaten track? I think it’s a desire for familiarity that we all have. The quandary of these sparkling economic times though, is that as our choices increase we become less able to find the certainty and comfort that we crave.

A man living at Broad Arrow, to continue with the pub example, will be comfortable when in need of a grease-laden hamburger and an icy cold beer because he has just one place to go, but what would happen if a nightclub and a kebab shop opened over by the water tank?

Maybe he would continue to frequent the Broad Arrow, but be torn with longing to know what is going on in the flash new nightclub, or to taste one of these new-fangled Mediterranean treats. Maybe he would abandon the Broady for the new disco-dancin' souvlaki-eatin' lifestyle without hesitating, but then wistfully look back at his old haunt with a quivering tear of reminiscence in his eye. You would have to agree that whether it’s better or worse, easier or harder, his life is certainly more complicated.

Moving along, it strikes me that one of the peculiarities of the modern world is that the wealthy are the worst affected by stress, depression, and other "lifestyle diseases". How is it, for example, that a man living comfortably on $2000 a week can be more stressed or depressed than a checkout chick on $300 a week, or a Somalian corn farmer earning $10 a week?

I think that the wealthy man simply has so many choices that he gets sucked into a sort of alphabet soup whirlpool, drowning amongst Ralph magazines, Harvey Norman electrical catalogues, and copies of Business Review Weekly. He is constantly reminded of all the fashions, gizmos, shares and properties he needs in order to be considered successful, but countless high-profile examples demonstrate that wealth, and therefore greater choice, do not equate to happiness - if anything, the opposite may be true.

Don’t get me wrong, choice is essential, but the challenge for us modern folk is to make choices that complement our true passions and goals, and to not allow ourselves to be blinded by the neon lights of consumer culture.

I leave you today with words from the song "Freedom of Choice", by iconic 1980’s keyboard pop group Devo:

“In ancient Rome there was a poem, about a dog who had two bones. He picked at one, he licked the other, he went in circles till he dropped dead."

Kalgoorlie Miner (9): Nimbin - Part Two

2006-11-25T13:00:00.000+08:00

They came at us like dreadlocked zombie salespeople, their toothless mouths stretched into pleading grimaces, trinkets rattling from their gaunt outstretched arms. As their slow advance relentlessly smothered us, panic and paranoia set in and their numbers swelled into what seemed like hundreds. The situation, my learned friend, was bleak indeed…

Last week I left you as your heroes Angry Turk, Billygoat, Typhoon and Sooty were with me aboard the lemon yellow Corona wagon, lazily gliding through picturesque hills bound for Nimbin. Unfortunately, as you will find out, if the highway we were slithering down was a long black snake, then Nimbin was surely the venomous apple lodged in it’s fangs.

But back to the action.

The great surging tide of hippies was by now so close that we could smell the lentils on their breath. If a clove of garlic, a silver bullet, or a stake through the heart would kill a vampire, then what, we frantically asked ourselves, would repel this plodding army of emaciated John Butlers and Janis Joplins? Soap and a scrubbing brush? A barrage of unsustainable Brazilian beef and battery eggs? A macro-economics textbook?

Mercifully, just as their yellowed fingernails began clawing at us, we found refuge in the local kebab shop, where we ate, drank, and came to the consensus that our stay in Nimbin would be brief. So after chilling out for a while we stepped back onto the street, the mob having diverted their attention towards another group of unsuspecting visitors, and quietly slinked back towards the Corona.

Just before getting in though, our hearts softened and we bought a Nimbin tea-towel off an aging woman, clearly fried by decades of drug use, who without a hint of irony warned us “Don’t go to the park. That’s where all the junkies are.”

As we drove away the woman became entangled in a screaming and clawing match with another vendor, who seemed to believe that the sale should have been hers. Textbook irony, my friend and reader - an embarrassing display of greed and competition in Australia's communal living mecca.

Angry Turk skidded the Corona out of there, not being an admirer of hippies at the best of times, and we soon became quietly contemplative, as people are prone to do on the return leg of a memorable road trip. To be honest I can't remember what music Billygoat chose for the drive back, but I'd like to think it included Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine".

It seemed to me that capitalism must organically grow out of socialism, like penicillin forming on mouldy bread in a share house pantry - was it really inevitable? I was sure that Nimbin once worked, but as soon as a single member of the commune started selling glass beads or organic beetroot then powerful economic cogs began to turn and the end of the dream was nigh.

At least on the Gold Coast the greed, glamour and excess were shamelessly on display, so as we cruised back in there we felt strangely comfortable. Later that night Typhoon, Sooty and I made our customary trip to the casino, ordered a round of mango daiquiris, settled in around one of the bile-yellow roulette tables, and chased the elusive capitalist dream.

Kalgoorlie Miner (8): Nimbin - Part One

2006-11-18T13:00:00.000+08:00

"Look mate", said the orgasmically smiling Hertz man, "if you want to hire a car around here, don't say you're going to Nimbin. Say Byron Bay or something."

So began our search for the Gold Coast's shadiest car rental agency - the only firm brave or foolish enough (for it's a fine line, dear reader) to grant a cheap one day rental to a derelict trio of gentlemen on a football trip; that trio being Elephant* (your narrator), Billygoat*, and Angry Turk*.

Sooty* and Typhoon* would join the pilgrimage later, for they were still in bed desperately and fruitlessly attempting to recall the liquor-ravaged details of our previous evening's messy, graceless ejection from Conrad Jupiters casino, and subsequent skinny dipping shenanigans.

Anyway, we eventually stumbled across "Yahoo Car Rentals". It had a yard full of pre-1990 Fords, Toyotas and Mazdas, and the name certainly sounded reckless and carefree enough for our requirements. Yes, we each silently decided, this was the one.

After edging past two well-groomed Italian minders, their hands clasped mafia-style, we came across a jolly fat bloke in a Hawaiian shirt, halfway through a beer. He was the boss.

"Can we hire the Mini Moke?", enquired Angry Turk, never one for small talk or diplomacy.

"Nup", was lightning reply. He'd seen our type before. It transpired that he had owned several nightclubs in the area, but this was his business now - a dodgy business I suspected, but what's a bit of money laundering between new best friends. He refered to me as "old mate" and I like that in a man.

"How about the Corona?" I prodded, refering to the lemon yellow family wagon that caught all of our eyes on the way in.

Well, before you could say "i'll just whack it on old mate's credit card", we were swinging past the hotel and collecting the sleeping pair. Angry Turk was the designated driver and Billygoat assumed the navigator/DJ role, leaving Typhoon, Sooty and I in the back. Sooty, being the youngest and thinniest, was naturally made to sit in the middle.

A beer stop was made, shirts were compulsorily removed, Angry Turk pointed the car towards where he believed Nimbin to be, and we relaxed, trusting that his renowned driving skill would guide us there. For a while we cruised down the gently winding coastal road, crossing bridges over sparkling rivers and inlets, and at some unknown point entering New South Wales, but before long we turned right and headed inland.

Billygoat wisely selected The Smashing Pumpkins for the mountain leg, we gradually slumped further into our seats, Angry Turk's right arm found it's niche on the window sill, and pretty soon his steering arm expertly had us sliding and swaying down the road like well-lubricated prey down the belly of a long black snake. Bethlehem stars of sunlight panned across the bonnet and windscreen, and all was well in the world.

This blissful state of relaxation and meditation was soon shattered though, for Nimbin was all that I knew it would be and hoped it was not. But, ladies and gentlemen, that is a story for next week, when this two-part saga will reach it's conclusion.

* Names have been changed to protect the identities of those involved.

Kalgoorlie Miner: (7) Understatement

2006-11-11T13:00:00.000+08:00

With the passing of Wally Foreman last week, we not only lost a legendary WA sporting figure and commentator, but I believe we also saw another nail embedded in the coffin of what was once the critical defining feature of Australian-ness: the gentle art of understatement.

Wally was more a Richie Benaud than an Eddie McGuire, more a Bush Tucker Man than a Crocodile Hunter, more a Pat Rafter than a Lleyton Hewitt. He was more a slowly brewed cup of tea than he was an instant coffee.

The slow death of understatement is of course is largely related to the influence of United States culture, and can be observed in just about every aspect of Australian society.

For example, modern Australian man will have an energy drink and watch a game of 20/20 cricket rather than have a beer and watch a test match. He will seek the fleeting fame that comes with morally corrupting himself on reality TV rather than take time to achieve something that is actually worthy of adulation. He will explore for enlightenment in a bookshop before he bothers to explore for it in himself, his environment, or those around him. Quick fixes are everywhere, and quality is hard to find.

The phenomenon is well illustrated by the rapid devaluation of the exclamation mark in writing. Unable or unwilling to express their extreme thoughts and emotions with the thousands of words available in the language, the modern email or text message writer resorts to using ever increasing numbers of exclamation marks, much like an amphetamine junkie who needs to up his intake each day in order to achieve the desired effect.

Where will this exclamation mark addiction end though? Will we invent a new punctuation character that means “extremely excited”? Sadly, many have already resorted to the punctuation equivalent of smoking crack cocaine: smiley faces and emoticons. Don't fool yourself though - the effect of those will wear off too.

The only answer is to just say no. Set yourself the challenge of not using a single exclamation mark in the next email or letter you write. Go cold turkey. You will have strong withdrawls, and your friends may become confused and upset, but stay strong and force them to decide for themselves whether you are serious or joking, genuine or sarcastic. Apparently it's poor email etiquette, but it's much more fun.

Bring back the understatement in your speech as well. A bone-dry quip mumbled by a casual unsmiling larrikin holds in it far more pleasure than brash and predictable American sitcom-style humour.

In fact, let's get rid of the exclamation marks from all aspects of our lives. Let's chill out, slow down, and have a good time. Peter Costello can stick his economic growth targets into the hole in the ozone layer as far as I'm concerned.

Organise some mates to chuck a sickie with you this summer, buy a few cartons of king browns, toast to Wally's memory, and settle in to watch the Ashes until the booze runs dry. Discuss the Englishmen’s pasty complexions and unsanitary bathing habits between overs - it's the Australian way.

Kalgoorlie Miner: (6) Fractures

2006-11-04T13:00:00.000+08:00

In the glamorous and high action world of geology, it is recognised that observations made on a small scale are usually replicated on a large scale, and vice-versa.

For example, one can observe millimetre-wide fractures in rocks on Nannygoat Hill and proceed to speculate that there is a much larger-scale fracture nearby. And of course there is - the kilometre-wide Boulder Lefroy Fault Zone (BLFZ), which links the gold deposits of St Ives with those at Paddington, passing through South Kalgoorlie Mines and the Superpit along the way.

The BLFZ was the driving force behind the formation of these deposits over 2 billion years ago, and is therefore to be thanked for founding the glorious City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder and it's most sacred institutions: Race Round, skimpy barmaids, that bloke who tried to drive to Perth backwards, and of course the almighty Railways Football Club.

As mentioned the principle also works in reverse, so if I were to put the rock from Nannygoat Hill under a microscope, I would observe that each fracture is comprised of thousands of smaller fractures.

"So what?" I hear you say, "I stopped caring about rocks when old Tommy Smith threw one at my head in kindergarten."

Well, loyal and learned reader, stop shaking your fist at the sky and cursing Tommy Smith, because now that I've laid the geological groundwork, I want you to consider the application of this phenomenon to the worlds of business and politics.

So do you think that the large-scale actions of political and business leaders are reflected in the behaviour of individual constituents or employees? I think so.

A positive example from business might be a boss who catches the Prospector to Perth for a meeting, stays in a three-star hotel, and eats breakfast, lunch and dinner at Dodgy Gino's Coffee and Kebab Emporium. Such a boss can ask for cost savings and hard work from employees without inspiring contempt and cynicism, because he or she has led from the front.

Negative examples abound in the world of politics.

Can a Prime Minister who presides over pre-emptive strikes against other nations, legitimately be surprised or disgusted by a bouncer who pre-emptively strikes out at drunken nightclub patrons?

Can a Foreign Affairs Minister who turns a blind eye to torture, unashamedly scold a child for pulling the wings off a fly?

Can a local Federal Member who supports the oil-grabbing war in Iraq, cry injustice when a colleague takes his Caramello Koala from the communal office fridge?

I say no to all of these questions.

A fracture in values at the highest level inevitably causes a network of smaller fractures to spread throughout the lower levels - what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

The flipside though, is that if enough members of the gaggle are willing to change their own attitudes and behaviours - towards their environment, workplace, community, or anything else - then they can force the powerful geese to change. In life, as in geology, the microscopic controls the macroscopic.

Kalgoorlie Miner: (5) Kalgoorlie Image

2006-10-28T13:00:00.000+08:00

Once upon a time, back in my student days, I was wandering out of Centrelink having collected my polony and rice money for the fortnight, when I saw a kangaroo hopping eastwards along Egan St. I watched it casually make it's way past the world's tallest bin, had a chuckle to myself, and then grinned like a Cheshire cat who just ate the cream and was about to stretch out in the summer sun.

A similar, if slightly less dramatic, event occurred only a few weeks ago when I saw a tumbleweed moseying down Roberts St on a breezy day.

Occasions like these are exciting for me because they confirm my preferred reality of Kalgoorlie-Boulder - not actual reality, but my reality.

Such events make me feel like the legendary Don Quixote de la Mancha, from Miguel de Cervantes 1605 novel "Don Quixote", who becomes obsessed by fictional knight's tales of valour, and henceforth roams the world believing that he is a mighty knight - of course in my reality I am not a knight, but rather a lovable rogue scraping through life armed only with my razor-sharp wit and trusty six-shooter.

The widely accepted "Wild West" image of the city, as inaccurate as it may be, is what brings tourists here and makes it an exciting place to live, so I don't see the point in trying to fight it - in fact I actively promote it.

I say lets tear up the bitumen roads, make saloon doors and honky-tonk pianists compulsory in pubs, and demolish houses not made from weatherboard and pressed tin. Let's have the council employ a dozen bearded ruffians to swagger up and down Hannan and Burt Streets in their underground gear, king browns of Hannan's Lager in hand, scaring tourists with threatening glares all the while.

I want visitors to regale and captivate their city-dwelling friends with stories about the perversely alluring aspects of the Goldfields that we all know and pompously pretend not to love - skimpies, bikies, and gold-stealin' miners. Let's keep the 90:10 male:female ratio myth alive just for laughs hey?

I'm certain that most of us thrive on relaying yarns (feigned disgust optional) that portray Kalgoorlie-Boulder as being rougher than a chain-smoking brothel madam. For example, when I saw a couple of bikies at the Kalgoorlie Cup this year, I made sure to point them out to visiting friends and then relay highly dramatised legends from Ora Banda and The Foundry Hotel.

Can you (yes you, the reader) tell me, without your pulse quickening or brow sweating, that you don't get any joy or chest-swelling pride out of telling such embellished half-truths about life in this city? If you reckon you don't then with utmost confidence I hereby brand you a liar and/or a wowser.

So I say let’s promote Kalgoorlie-Boulder in a way that gets people coming here, and let them be pleasantly surprised when they arrive. If travelers wanted to experience fully clothed barstaff, well planned streets and Eton manners then they would visit Canberra, and if they wanted to lounge about under a palm tree then they would surely choose a tropical Queensland island over a grubby Burt Street round-about.

I'd like to go into the Wilson Street plastic grass but that's a 500 word rant on its own.

Kalgoorlie Miner: (4) River of Knowledge

2006-10-21T13:00:00.000+08:00

During a five week trip around India earlier this year, my mate Tim and I made it our aim to leave the country with at least a workable understanding of how Indian society functions despite the apparent randomness encountered at every turn. Broadly speaking we failed, but there were small gains made.

The central pillar of Indian craziness, the monumental cliff face from which all other madness is shed, is chronic inefficiency - pointless rubber stamping, elaborate systems of back scratching, and unnecessarily laborious work practices are commonplace.

Examples include women who are employed to hammer rockmelon-sized pieces of rock into marble-sized pieces of rock for use as road base in the Indian Himalayas, men employed to check your ticket to tourist attractions literally two metres from where you bought it, and the failure of anyone to collect rainwater in Darjeeling, where there is a water shortage despite the fact that it drizzles all day.

Of course it is a given that there will be inefficiency and seemingly menial work in a country of over one billion people, most of whom are poor, but the examples above are government-related, which led Tim and I to suspect that there was beauracratic method behind the madness.

In the end we formulated a theory that, mathematically speaking, if 'x' is the population and 'y' is the work available, then everyone simply does 'y/x' work each day. Using this (questionable) theory, if the population increases then each person does less work or, more commonly I suspect, unnecessary new jobs are created in order to keep individual work levels constant - hello zero unemployment and crippling inefficiency!

Another fascinating aspect of the Indian labour force that Tim and I noticed was the single task expertise of the street-level workers: zip-repairers, shoe-polishers, chai-makers etc. I was most impressed by the mobile phone repair men set up on many street corners with nothing but a school desk and a soldering iron - they put our woeful "send it to the east coast" electronics repair systems to shame.

This notion of a single expertise reminded of a passage from "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", where Robert Pirsig says (and I'm paraphrasing here) that the river of human knowledge, which used to be deep and narrow, is now shallow and broad - only in this example we are talking about across cultures, rather than through time. Basically, through improved transport and communication technology, we in the first world have become jacks of all trades and masters of none, and therefore rarely get the satisfaction and wellbeing that comes from having a complete understanding of a particular subject or two.

The deepest part of my river is probably my work as an exploration geologist. I love the challenge of trying to gain a perfect understanding of the rocks in my area - my colleagues and I joke that to fully understand a rock, you must become the rock (an impossibly sad and unfunny joke for non-geologists I know).

So for me it's rocks, for another it's zips or brewing tea, and for others it's fast cars, stamp collecting, or miniaturised poodles. The only people I can't relate to are those without a passion - a deep river is a good river!

Kalgoorlie Miner: (3) Inside the Whale

2006-10-14T13:00:00.000+08:00

I share my house with three other young men. In the communal toilet there is a variety of reading material including the obligatory trashy magazines (they disappear when parents come to visit), joke books and, surprisingly for some guests, assorted high-brow literature and poetry.

The odd book out is "Russian Political Institutions", a 300 page volume on the inner workings of communism. No-one knows how it got there, and no-one has ever soldiered on past the first ten pages.

Anyway, one of the toilet books is "Inside the Whale and Other Essays" by George Orwell (I just realised that it is probably bad form to have "Russian Political Institutions" alongside a book of essays by Orwell, who is best known for anti-communism novels like "Animal Farm" and "1984" - my comrades and I will rectify this). In the feature essay, the title of which is a reference to the biblical story of Jonah and the whale, Orwell explains that novels generally use either passive or active characters, and does so using the whale as a metaphor for life, or the world.

Passive characters are said to be inside the whale; willing Jonahs, happy to let the whale go where it pleases, riding through life inside the protective blubber, and indifferently accepting everything that happens to themselves or others.

Active characters are outside the whale; renegade Jonahs, emotionally unprotected by the blubber, and constantly questioning and attempting to control the whale's direction.

I'll get to the point now.

I reckon that much of the western world is deeply inside the whale, far too easily ignoring or forgetting or feeling helpless against wrongs done to themselves, to others, and to the environment.

Why and how are issues like the irresponsible invasion of Iraq so effortlessly swept aside come election time, drowned amongst trivial nit-picking and competition over who has the shiniest teeth?

I think we are just so warmly cocooned inside the thick blubber of a booming global economy, that we will sit idly by while basic human rights and values disappear. We will more than happily trade the right of an Australian citizen to the presumption of innocence and a fair trial, for new "rights" like having a plasma television and a boob job.

Where is the rage in the electorate? Are we plain dumb, just forgetful, or has "Big Brother" (read Orwell's "1984") successfully trampled our spirits and brainwashed into this state of permanent and disgraceful apathy? Evidence suggests all three.

One man who maintained the rage up until the day he died was Hunter S. Thompson, who most people, perhaps unfairly, think of only as the maniacal, drug-addled, gun-toting fiend who wrote "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". He certainly was all these things (and more), and was from all accounts a complete and utter bastard to deal with, but only because he never ever compromised on his values.

I urge anyone who needs an injection of rage to get a hold of Thompson's writings, in particular a compilation of his letters called "The Proud Highway" - you won't forget it. He was a man who sat defiantly on top of the whale, bottle of whiskey in hand, jerking on it's reins and flogging it until he was red in the face - we need more like him.

Kalgoorlie Miner: (2) Forest-Desert

2006-10-07T13:00:00.000+08:00

Are you a forest person or a desert person?

I am a certified desert person, both literally and metaphorically, and this characteristic expresses itself in many aspects of my life.

From a literal point of view I am a desert person because, in simple terms, I would prefer to sit and look at a single tree on a sand plain, than to be amongst hundreds of trees in a valley. I am eternally thankful that my subconscious led me into the field of exploration geology, a profession in which my chances of encountering thick forest are slim - as long as I'm in this country anyway.

Metaphorically I am a desert person because I prefer space over clutter, simplicity over complexity, solitude over crowds.

I don't know too much about art, but I do prefer more minimalist paintings and drawings over more complex ones. I can appreciate the skill required to produce a detailed peice, but there is certainly just as great a skill in knowing what to leave out - the background noise, so to speak. There has to be space for my imagination to fill.

My preferences in music are much the same, in that I generally enjoy simple or spacious music, performed with as few instruments as possible. I love it, for example, how the White Stripes perform such unique and energetic music with only Jack on guitar and Meg on drums.

In a documentary about the making of Pink Floyd's 1972 album "Dark Side of the Moon", keyboard player Rick Wright says that he placed great importance on leaving "space" in his playing - something that he and the band did expertly on that record and on it's follow-up, "Wish You Were Here". Sometimes the space or nothingness holds in it a lot more meaning than a chord thrown in for a chord's sake.

In terms of possessions, I would rather not have "things" than have them. I like it when there is nothing around to distract my attention and I am free to explore what I can do with myself - music, writing, reading, or just thinking. When there is too much going on my brain ceases to function.

This lack-of-desire for material possessions can be quite demotivational workwise and, when coupled with my tendency to melt down when faced with complexity, potentially makes me a useless employee. Luckily, for both my boss and my loan shark, the passion for geology is just enough to drag me into work each day and keep the dollars coming in.

Finally, I reckon that this topic relates to the common misconception that country people are simple people. I think that country people just want simple things, and have the ability to think simply, so in my classification they are desert people. It's the old "nature vs nurture" debate though - are they born or made?

So anyway, what are you - forest or desert? Maybe I've simplified it too much and there is another type of person not accounted for - mountain people, swamp people? Let me know!

Kalgoorlie Miner: (1) Classic-Romantic

2006-09-30T13:00:00.000+08:00

I was going to write a universally appealing column of introductions and banal generalities first up, but rather than just meekly testing the water I have decided to go straight into the deep end and alienate more than half of the readership by explaining why I like the Dockers and dislike the Eagles. Football is nearly over, so I thought I should get this out of my system.

Thankfully for all, rather than use traditional anti-Eagles arguments involving their appalling hairdos or the comical amount of oil on their arms, I will be analysing the issue in terms of the "Classic/Romantic" split from Robert Pirsig's 1974 book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".

Hippies amongst you may be familiar with the book, in which Pirsig begins by examining the different approaches he and a friend take to looking after their respective motorcycles, and ends up penning a brain-bending philosophical thesis on "everything". It's an amazing book, and I'm sure future columns may include references to it.

Anyway, one key aspect of the book is that Pirsig believed he could cleave a population in two based on whether people had a "Classic" or a "Romantic" mindset. To briefly summarise in my own terms, a Classic personality looks at a tree and sees wood and leaves, and thinks about using it for firewood. A Romantic personality looks at the same tree and sees God, or beauty, or life, or some other vaguely mystical concept, and feels more inclined to write a poem about it.

Now it is my belief that Eagles supporters belong to the Classic mindset, in that they see a football team simply as a machine comprised of 22 men that will inevitably prevail if it does everything more efficiently than the opposition. A series of undoubtedly Classic coaches in Mick Malthouse, Ken Judge, and now John Worsfold, have turned the team into one that Classic personalities can appreciate.

Conversely, Dockers supporters have Romantic minds, in that they see their team as a transcendental "concept" that fate will deliver to it's destiny. Fremantle has been led by a succession of eccentric coaches who recruited and created numerous unusual/flawed players, and in doing-so fashioned a team that appeals to Romantic personalities.

The divide can be most clearly illustrated by using the example of ex-Dockers forward Clive Waterhouse, truly one of the strangest enigmas to have ever pulled on a studded leather boot. For those not acquainted with him, the archetypal Clive exhibiton would involve him taking mark of the year and then torpedoing the Sherrin out-of-bounds on the full. While Eagles supporters ridiculed this man as the absolute anti-thesis of "percentage football", Dockers supporters loved him dearly, preferring to think of him as a God-given artwork commenting on the duality of man.

So I hope we all now understand that, owing to deep-seated psychological differences, Dockers people will never understand Eagles people, and vice-versa. People that claim to support both teams clearly have a multiple personality disorder.

Let me finish by conceding that unfortunately Classic football generally conquers Romantic football – but we Romantics have more fun.