Peter Haas(z) - Almost Certainly Not a Dud Root

I’ve been thinking of reviving this blog.

Actually, I’ve been thinking about starting three blogs: one on electronic music, one on sport and one on politics and society. It didn’t take me too long to detect a small flaw in this plan, though. So for now I’ll see if I can write enough to resurrect this one.

Somehow in my absence this blog has reached almost 900 views. Perhaps the Anonymous who wrote “Seb Prowse is a dud root” in the comments section of an older post has been checking back regularly for signs of a reaction? If so, they just got one: I deleted the comment. There are some things a man likes to keep quiet.

Interestingly, the same phrase also appeared in the women’s toilets at Trades Hall late last year (or so I was told). The plot thickens. Either our perpetrator is being rather presumptuous, or we are dealing with a rather short list of suspects. Or, perhaps., I am merely the incidental subject of a post-ironic slogan which will soon be as ubiquitous as the dreaded Vote for Pedro or, preferably, the mysterious “Who is Peter Haasz?” graffiti campaign at Melbourne Uni in the late 1990s.

I never knew the answer to this question at the time, although I have met Peter Haasz several times in subsequent years. We bonded over achieving fifteen minutes of name recognition in ridiculous circumstances. If I ever meet him again, I’ll ask if his name has a ‘z’ on the end. I’ve written it both ways and neither looks quite right.

Pretty soon we’ll be saying that if you can remember the late 1990s in Melbourne, you weren’t really there. Or, at least, you weren’t getting your gear from Carl Williams.

Here I was taking a leisurely stroll down memory lane, and now I’ve run smack bang into a dead drug dealer. Time to end this post and think about what comes next.

Welcome back to A New Rhyme, and thanks for reading.

E-Tome Part Deux: The Slowening

"Well, I'm back."

(A bag of delicious hemp seeds for the first person to correctly identify the above literary reference AND decipher the puerile Hollywood referencing in the title of this, my second e-tome.)

I'm back in the spare room in Goonengerry, promising you, dear friend, that this e-tome will be HIGH IMPACT, in fact PACT WITH TOP ANECDOTES and even, dare I say (I do) ALL KILLER NO FILLER... there will be at least one NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE - not including the FISH HITTING ME IN THE HEAD incident - plus TWO LEECH STORIES and a potentially numerous CASUAL MENTIONS OF THE "BEARD". And all this in a GUARANTEED LOWER WORD COUNT (claim may not be accurate) than the first e-tome.

When we last left the story, your hero was bravely negotiating the faunal deathtrap that is the hinterland of northern NSW. Now make an extra-strong coffee and strap yourself in for Part Deux!

The Germans and I spent a sunny afternoon in Nimbin. And why not, after all? We are consenting adults. Hard to find good drugs in Nimbin though - on the main street at least - unless you want to buy them from the guys with the zombie eyes. The old woman offering cookies and mushrooms seemed nice, as was the guy in Happy High Herbs who sadly reminded me that Philosopher's Stone is no longer legal. But we are health-conscious, sporadically law-abiding folk and so, after a brief visit to a sparsely attended market where the undoubted highlight was three women singing accapella (is it still accapella if they hit wood blocks on every second downbeat) songs like "Shakti Woman", we bought some picnic food and headed to a swimming spot by the creek.

Later in my trip, my Uncle Neil caught me by surprise when he told me he had attended the Aquarius Festival at Nimbin in 1971. He then went on to explain he had been there with the Christian groups trying to save the hippies from eternal damnation, and that when the hippies had surrounded the tent and threatened to burn it down, angels with fiery swords had appeared and protected God's faithful servants. At the time I was somewhat lost for words but, looking back, it seems possible the two groups had been drinking from the same waterhole. But I digress.

On the drive back from Nimbin, we made a spontaneous decision to go to Queensland. It sounds crazy until you realise that Queensland was, like, 50 kms away. So that night Sarah, Marco and I camped once more at Brunswick Heads, or, as we soon came to call it, as loudly and as often as possible, 'Bruns' - before starting the drive north in the general direction of Agnes Water and the Town of 1770. According to the Lonely Planet, it is the 'next Byron Bay'. Warning signs NOT HEEDED.

It didn't seem that far on the map, but Australia is a big place, hey? Not to mention all the roadworks... Still, a few weeks' driving through potholes had completely changed my political philosophy from socialist ravetopia to "full employment through a permanent national road-building program", so I took my medicine with good grace. And a dose of Phillip Pullman. After a swim at Caloundra we made it to Rainbow Beach - on the mainland just south of Fraser Island.

And there we met the schoolies. And they were just so... cute! So friendly and not even that drunk - probably because every time word went around of a party on the beach, the police turned up and confiscated all the grog. We mainly talked to a funny bunch of boys from Maryborough (a middling size town nearby), of whom as many were coolies (they'd left before year 12) and or toolies (their older mates) as actual schoolies. And when girls walked past one of them would skate over casually and then chicken out from actually making conversation. They thought we were cool because we came from so far away, had tattoos (OK, I don't have tattoos myself, but some of my best friends do) and looked like drug dealers (Marco).

So off we drove the next day with the scent of hopeful youth in our nostrils - for a vain attempt to see the turtles at Mon Repos, the desert vibe of Bundaberg which drove us panting into the nearest MacDonalds (I had a McFlurry) and finally, with fists pumping in the air, to Agnes Water... of which we quickly formed the impression that it was the next Noosa, not the next Byron.

But happy days nonetheless! Travelling with the Germans was a joy: so much nutella, so much banter, so many opportunities to say "I go to the toilet"... there was the time I panicked and forced them both to help me look for my glasses in the dark sand around my car, before feeling in my back pocket... the beautiful headland at 1770, where Captain Kirk and Mr Banks had landed all those years ago (not a joyous spot for indigenous locals, then)... and so much bodysurfing in underwhelming swell. The best waves were just south in the Deepwater National Park, where we spent a fun arvo in 1-2ft while birds divebombed into schools of fish - one of which, it is true, leaped out of the water and hit me in the head. A strange occurrence, and one that had me questioning my place (or otherwise ) in nature. It remains an open question.

I was due in Brisbane for a family do, so we headed south again via Poona west of Fraser - a strange campsite by the river where the sandflies vied with a fishing party obsessed with the Foo Fighters to see who could be the most annoying locals. By this stage I was sleeping in my tent to stay cool, as overnight lows were around 23 or 24, and with the music pumping until well past our bedtime (9pm) I just read by headtorch and rejoiced when the the Counting Crows came on. Torture is a relative concept.

In Brisbane I lived like a king for two days. My Dad has cousins in Brisbane, and although we have only been occasionally in touch over the years it was lovely to join Dad and Annie and all the family for my Aunt Pam's 70th birthday. My four (second or whatever) cousins were all there, a lovely bunch of boys who are all over 40 with families and jobs but very funny and playful with each other. I ate more seafood than I care to admit - including one prawn that bled on my bread when I ripped of its head - and a Moreton Bay Bug that looked a bit... chopped in half. And then fish. And chips. And fish kebabs. And cake. There may have been some more fish, but I made my excuses and drove into the Valley to meet the Germans for one last hurrah at the Dub Day Afternoon, where my friend Joe Lorback/ Comrade Dubs was playing... a lovely event with just the right amount of non-dub to keep us ravers interested. And surprising run-ins with mates Yasmin and Kaoru. And silly sober dancing which, at the ripe old age of 31, is apparently the order of the day.

A tearful farewell session with the Germans in the Brisbane CBD: one last iPod on shuffle, one last mango, and a tangy pineapple to boot. But in case you missed the memo: The Germans Are Coming To Rainbow Serpent!

The next few nights were spent with Dad's cousin Carolyn and her partner Anna, with whom Dad and Annie have stayed many a time in Taringa. I slept on the balcony, which was dry and mozzie-free and glorious. Carolyn told me a whole bunch of family history which was surprisingly fascinating - all these ancestors living these mostly forgotten lives! Thank god for Facebook: now we are all immortal. Dad and Annie did their morning walks up and down the hills, and on the second morning I boldly went out for a run - scarcely making it past them on the last climb before home.

Ew new (as Theresa would say), this e-tome is completely extra control...

I had a sweet couple of nights at Lennox Head with Joe and his housemates Dave and Emily - and the lovely Natalia who is now back in Melbourne. I jumped from a rock 10m high into the water at Dalwood Falls! I ran barefoot along the beach and made my calves sore! I made a deicious pasta feast with Joe and borrowed his copy of Bass Culture: When reggae was king (almost finished). I went to all nine op shops in Ballina. And I got to skype Theresa WITH VIDEO!!! I've been missing my beautiful girl a lot.

Saturday was Daniel's birthday, so I brought the Goonengerry crew (including Phoebe's indomitably pregnant friend Mikhaila) down to Byron for Joe and Dave's first reggae pool party at the Aquarius Backpackers in Byron... also on Blonderer's special day, we ate chocolate pancakes, hit the beach at Broken Head for the first time, swam and ran around the headland for a mad bodysurf at the next beach south which may or may not have been a beat... not knowing it was his birthday, I had found China Mieville's first novel King Rat for 50c in Ballina - a Pied Piper fantasy novel set in London's 1990s jungle scene... Bo!!!!

ANyway, I'm bored again DAMMIT!!!! And I haven't told the story of the leech (it was only on my ankle, and there is video footage), or Dan's leech (it was in his ear when he ran the Minyon Falls loop), or me and Dan running Minyon Falls (about 8km) sans leeches and sitting atop the 100m falls at the end... or all the healthy food we've been eating in two large meals a day... or Phoebe and I trying to improve Dan's djing... but I'll just end up with the (so-called) NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE, which took place at Bruns yesterday.

Dan and I drove down to Bruns for a bodysurf, despite the inclement weather. There were a few waves the around breakwater, and a southerly was blowing them towards the rocks - so we got in about thirty metres down. The water was warm and we caught a few waves, but after swimming back out I realised we were out of our depth, being swept towards the rocks... and it was all looking a bit dicey. We tried to swim away from it but had no luck, at which point Dan (being super-fit, a strong swimmer and an all-round gentleman) offered me the fins he was wearing. These I put on as the waves buffeted us around, and then we spent a few minutes trying to swim away from the rocks again... to no avail...

Now in case you didn't know I grew up by the beach, am experienced in the surf and a reasonable swimmer. I am generally confident in the water but this was fast becoming the dodgiest ocean situation I'd ever gotten myself into. We decided to try to surf towards shore, and Dan caught a little wave and managed to get out on the rocks - only cutting his leg slightly. I was further out and briefly tried to do the same, but it quickly became apparent that this was more dangerous than the alternative - I almost got smashed on the rocks and had to backpedal fast.

In the back of my mind throughout the last five or so minutes was the idea that I might have to go beyond the breakwater and try to swim in the head of the river. I was getting knocked around by waves and at one point swallowed a fair bit of water, was feeling buggered and a bit panicky, and decided to give it a go. As soon as I stopped fighting the current it quickly swept me around the rocks to the head of the river, where I floated on my back and used the flippers and the current to kick my way into the river (where we'd swum many times before - thankfully the terrain was quite familiar).

Dan was on the rocks where a few fishermen were also standing, and we gave each other the thumbs up because once inside the river, although still tired, I knew I'd be fine. I still had to swim a fair way into the protected beach, but I'd rested a bit and that only took a few more minutes. he dived in and swam the last fifty metres with me - and then went off to try to bodysurf further down the beach while I got my breath back and got changed, feeling a bit spooked but relieved.

So there it is, my brush with death... not really, but a dicey situation and one that should have been avoidable by sitting and watching the surf before we got in, as Dan said afterwards.

I'll leave it on this note. I'm alive and well, and in fact healthier than I've been in ages... tonight we're dining at Mikhaila's place, tomorrow Dan and I go camping for a few days, on Saturday surfing with Joe and Dan, maybe a doof at Broken Head after that... and next week I start the trek down to Melbourne to meet Theresa and hopefully enjoy a short camping trip with her before our longer trip to Tassie in January...

If you made it this far, HAVE A GOOD HARD AT LOOK AT YOURSELF! Seriously, get a life wtf. But I love you for it, and hope Part Deux has lived up to its predecessor.

Missing all my friends and family, and looking forward to seeing you all soon :)

Love Seb xx

P.S. The 'beard' is a day-by-day proposition... some days I think it's a goer, other days not so much... on a good day you can almost see it from a distance of more than a metre, in a certain slant of light, if you know what you're looking for...

P.P.S. I have lost it!!! I almost forgot an awesome dinner with my beautiful buddies from the student activist days, Edmee, Jess and Kim up in Brisbane... see my iPhone photos for proof... love you guys!!!

The first e-tome

(What follows is, by now a retrospective: the first Facebook note I posted about my recent ravels on the east coast of Australia.)

I'm sitting in the spare room of Dan and Phoebe's house in Goonengerry, near Mullumbimby in northern NSW. There are two "Dan and Phoebe"s, in case you didn't know. There's Danny Duck and PB down in Melbourne, and then there's this lot, recently of Docker River, NT. We've spent a few nights with them in the last week - and we is me and the Germans. Sarah and Marco are sleeping in Roland, their trusty Holden Jackaroo, although I reckon the sun will just be waking them up by now.

It's hot sleeping in a car, so I'm usually pretty comfortable with my choice of vehicle for this trip. I ended up with a 2002 Camry station wagon. It's just big enough to sleep in at a pinch, although so far I've been very happy in my swag. It's one of the deluxe models with three little poles that form domes at head, waist and toe - plenty of room and a reasonable foam mattress to boot.

You know the start of The Lord of the Rings, how it takes them a while to actually get anywhere and get going properly on the quest? (No? Well, take my word for it.) Well, I think I've finally arrived in Rivendell. From here on in it gets serious...

The trip began in Adelaide, where Mum helped me buy the car and I spent some lovely time with family while stocking up for the trip. My first long solo drive was the familiar road to Melbourne, Triple J alternating with Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy on CD, and a night with Theresa and then another at Candy St before heading to Canberra for a couple of nights with Dave. I drove into our nation's capital listening to the Senate on the radio, and with Dave hung out at the National Library, the Rob De Castella running track, the local pool and a sinophile dinner party.

All very, very civilised - unlike the first experience striking out on my own. From Canberra I drove to Newcastle, where I had my first ocean swim of the trip before realising I was due up in Byron Bay the next evening for a 6pm rendez-vous. Somehow I'd lost a day already. So I pushed on north and ended up just north of Port Macquarie as night fell, hoping desperately to avoid sleeping in a highway rest area. Thankfully the little town of Crescent Head turned out to be a great find, and I spent the night in a deserted carpark by the beach with my swag beside the car. At first I experienced a slight combination fear of rangers/ drunk locals/ Wolf Creek scenario, but somehow I feel safe in my swag. What or who could harm me in there? How would they even be able to see me? I slept like a log.

Waking at dawn and walking on the beach was a magical experience. I had the whole place to myself, the surf was beating down on the shore and I wandered sleepily around collecting beautiful shells that seemed to be everywhere. Then I climbed the headland for a view as the beach began to fill with runners and dogwalkers. I think I'll be back in Crescent Head before too long...

The drive to Byron still took most of the day, but by 5pm I had negotiated the descent from Bangalow and had arrived in what seemed to be the right place - but without a single sign welcoming me to Byron Bay. Was I in the right place? My iPhone confirmed that I could have just kept driving and hit the beach, so I got back on the main drag only to see Sarah and Marco walking up in the opposite direction. After a quick hello I parked right on the seafront and jumped in the water - it was raining, but I needed a wash and had already broken my rule about swimming in every beach you walk on that morning.

The Germans had already been in the area for a week or two, and had a found a nice place to camp a few days before - only to be moved on by the irate owner of the property! Undeterred, they found us another secluded, empty block of land a short way along the road to Bangalow. It's a good spot, and we've spent a few nights there already when we're around Byron.

Have you read The Byron Journals yet? When I wander around Byron I keep thinking about Melbourne Dan's novel, as well as all the stories that didn't make it in - could there be a second book on the cards... Bullshit: The Real Story Behind The Byron Journals??? (I taught the Germans 'bullshit' as part of my very brief Surfing 101 class, which also included how not to drop in and get your lights punched out by psycho locals - and Sarah hasn't seen Point Break, and neither has Phoebe, so we are building towards an epic viewing at some stage soon.)

We've experienced the drum circle, complete with Byron hardcore local boys trying to pick up dolled-up tourist girls, and the Pass and Tallows, although the waves have not been great at either. We've been camping more regularly at Brunswick Heads just 15km north, a pretty little town with a great beach and river that is perfect for swimming - a rope swing to jump off and local kids doing back flips off the bridge. And we've got our hippie on up here around Goonengerry, swimming at the foot of Minyon Falls, eating 'organic doughnuts' at the Mullum markets and mostly raw food feasts on D and P's beautiful deck overlooking gardens with wallabies and pademelons... and, last night, visiting the outdoor compost toilet in the dark and then keeping perfectly still, heart in mouth, as a large snake slid slowly across the path. I think that one was the friendly local python, but Phoebe has video footage of two brown tree snakes FIGHTING IN THE LIVING ROOM from a few nights ago.

The two funniest stories from the trips so far both happened around here. After the first night we spent here, almost a week ago when it poured with rain, Daniel (as Phoebe calls him, and it might be easiest if I do too) and I got up and went for an early morning run. It sounded doable, 5kms return to the orchard where you can pick up custard apples on the side of the road. I hadn't factored in the steep climbing driveway however, so I was buggered before we even made it onto the road, and exhausted by the time we made it back - with Daniel carrying all three custard apples. We stripped off for a dip in the waterhole (and yes, skip this part if you are squeamish), and I waS feeling almost human again and was giving myself a, ahem, cursory wash when I noticed something that felt unusual attached to the side of my scrotum...

We had already been enjoying Daniel's "leech on penis" stories for a while, so I feared the worse... but upon exiting the water it became clear that it was, in fact, a tick. So it was the naked walk back up to the house, where Phoebe, Sarah and Marco were relaxing on the deck - and Phoebe used her apparently renowned anti-clockwise rotation technique to remove said tick with the trademark popping sound. "We're friends for life now, Seb" she told me.

So, story number one is the tick. Story number two is a more straight up Seb travel story.

On Friday morning we woke up at Brunswick Heads, and after my morning swim we headed up to Mullum to rendez-vous with D and P at the Farmers Market. I drove into the carpark with the electronic dub sounds of Bluetech blasting through wide open windows, before we wandered around drinking cane juice (amazing)... and ran straight into Fred, a Melbourne man who lives ON CANDY ST, and who told me with a big smile that his band Lubdub were supporting... you guessed it, Bluetech that night at the Buddha Bar in Byron Bay!

So Friday night was a surprise party night. We chilled out in the afternoon with a swim at Brunswick Heads, the now traditional lunch with way too much nutella, and then Dan drove us all down in the Camry. The Buddha Bar is at the Byron Bay Brewery, and out the back in the beer garden a band played covers of U2 and god knows what else while inside the launch party for the Earth Freq festival 2012 was going down. We missed Lubdub but caught The Mollusk (that guy could get a dance floor going in a morgue), then Kilowattsplayed a mix of broken beats and crunchy dub techno before Bluetech took over for an hour and a half of thunderous bass and waterfall melodies that, apparently, made Daniel need to go to the toilet five times during his set.

It was an indoor venue and, with the exception of The Mollusk, the music was mostly on the chilled side of party, but it was still a shoes-off dancefloor with lots of smiles, interpretative dancers up the front, the occasional smelly hippie and LOTS of beautiful people. I ran into a few friends of friends too, so have a few more people to hang with if I stay in the area a bit longer. Bluetech played only three tracks I recognised, and at one stage I confidently declared (with the holier-than-thou certainty of the fully sober) that his fourth track was one of the best bits of electronic music I had ever heard. I'm not sure if anyone was listening.

But enough! It was fun, and a lovely coincidence - and afterwards I was the designated driver doing 30kmh up the dark winding roads to Goonengerry, and we all arrived safely home to listen to happy hardcore on the deck (it's a long story, but a true one).

By now you must be as sick of reading this as I am of writing, but I did want to check in with my friends and family and assure you that ALL IS WELL! The only downside is how much I'm missing Theresa, but we have skype chatted the last few days and I'm looking forward to a Tassie adventure with her in the New Year. Oh yeah, if you have an automatic car - or even just a licence because she will soon have use of a car - and want to take her for a drive, do it!!! Her Ps test is in a couple of weeks :) :)

All that remains is to say I LOVE YOU ALL (obligatory) and I'm sorry not to be writing to all of you individually - I'm sure you understand. Be assured I am driving carefully, eating too much and never showering.

The next few weeks I'll head up to Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, hang in Lennox Heads with my mate Joe, and who knows what else? Oh yeah, and tonight I think we're going to the premiere of a new indigenous-themed doco in Mullum, with Xavier Rudd playing live - sounds all right, hey?

xx

Oh yeah...

Reading: American Gods by Neil Gaiman (next is The Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban). Marco is enjoying the copy of Hating Alison Ashley I bought him and Sarah at an opshop.

Listening to: my iPod on shuffle, Marco playing the guitar, Spiral Tribe.

Eating: coconuts, mangoes, bananas, hemp seeds, strange berries, avocado, crumpets with nutella.

Learning: German, driving, hopefully sewing because my stubbies are in trouble.

Growing: what is euphemistically being described as "a beard".

P.S. I forgot the story about trying to find a bush doof, going down a dodgy track, puncturing a tyre, not being able to get back up the track, calling 24-hr roadside assist, getting the tyre changed on the slope and then towed back up, completely missing the party which was shut down and then moved 30kms away but deciding maybe that was for the best because everyone who stopped and asked us for directions seemed a bit weird and possibly too stoned to be driving safely... oh well, that's not a very good one anyway.

Footy allegiances

I used to boast of being the world’s only raving Trotskyist footy fanatic. And by ‘raving’ I don’t mean ranting, although no doubt there have been times when I’ve frothed at the mouth.

I still encounter surprise around the Left, and the electronic music scene, when I display my love of footy. It’s part of me. I grew up in the southern beach suburbs of Adelaide, and Dad would take my brother and I from Saturday sport to his parents’ in Glenelg for lunch – then we’d walk down to the Bay Oval and get in for free in the second half. At three quarter time we’d run out onto the ground and try to dob bananas from the boundary line with all the other kids, or converge on the home team’s huddle to gee the boys up and hear the coach give one last spray.

But I inherited my team from the other side of town: Norwood, where Mum’s grandfather had been a parish priest. When the Redlegs made the finals, she’d drive us across town to watch weeknight training and get the players’ autographs. I wore Gary McIntosh’s no. 14 on my back, and one year he winked at me across the boundary fence.

Macca was the last great Norwood player not to pay VFL/AFL. He was too loyal, and didn’t fancy the big smoke of Melbourne. Once, when a North Melbourne recruiter came knocking, he jumped out a side window of his own house to escape. And when a young Stuart Dew was threatening to win the 1997 prelim final for Centrals, Macca belted him a few times to make sure we made the Grannie.

So Macca didn’t play in that historic match, the last SANFL game that really mattered to me. Even then I had missed the whole season, my first at Melbourne Uni, but I took the overnight train back to Adelaide to see the Legs smash Port Adelaide. Afterwards we joined thousands of fans back at the Parade to celebrate.

Earlier that week, the victory parade for the Crows’ first premiership attracted 100,000 people. It was a new era all right. I love the AFL but, when your team of birth isn’t even in the competition, it’s hard to adjust. More than a decade later, I still don’t have a team I can really call my own.

Melbourne was my VFL team of choice growing up. They shared Norwood’s red and blue colours, and made the finals for the first time for ages in 1987 – the year they could have won the flag if Jim Stynes hadn’t run across Gary Buckenara’s mark in the dying seconds. That tragedy made a Demon fan of me, but when I moved to Melbourne I found it hard to love the club. Despite what David Bridie and Martin Flanagan might say, it’s the old money team and it always will be. Its struggle doesn’t grab me, and what fans it does have usually repel me.

When I watch the Crows play a big game in Melbourne, I can channel the ‘statriotic’ fervour of the old State of Origin games. Outside the Docklands before the Hawthorn final a few years back was like being out on Rundle Street: familiar faces everywhere, all folk who have made the move to Melbourne. There’s a certain clannishness I enjoy over here, but dislike back home. Maybe it’s just that in Melbourne we’re the underdogs – which brings me to my other team (three out of sixteen ain’t bad, hey?).

I lived in Footscray from 2004-2006, and loved it out west. My housemate worked for Slater & Gordon (Peter Gordon is a big Footscray man) and at Trades Hall it’s mostly split between Collingwood and the Doggies. My fondness for the Doggies has cemented by my girlfriend Avalon’s budding fanaticism, and I go to matches occasionally with Kevin Davis, the retired printers union official who volunteers at the New International Bookshop.

There are big hopes for the Doggies this year, and if they win the flag it would mean a lot to a lot of people who mean a lot to me – not to mention most of the western suburbs. There’s a story there that appeals to me. Plus there’s some great young South Aussies: Adam Cooney, who went to Blackwood High with my stepsister, and Ryan Griffen, whom Avalon says has nice arms. And there’s Bob Murphy who wrote No War on his bicep, and Aker, and now Barry Hall to balance out all the young pretty boys.

So I tried on a Doggies jumper at the Salvos over summer, and found it fitted quite nicely. I might never be a ‘real’ one-eyed AFL supporter, but I’m happy to settle for that.

The Hurt Locker

Three things should have prepared me to dislike The Hurt Locker. First, a trusted friend gave it the thumbs down. Second, it won the Oscar for Best Film. Third, director Katherine Bigelow thanked the “men and women in uniform” twice at the Academy Awards – and failed to mention the people of Iraq.

Nevertheless, I went along with some anticipation. Bigelow had directed two of my favourite Hollywood films in the 1990s, Point Break and Strange Days. Media reviews seem to have been unanimously positive. At the very least I expected a piece of sustained, suspenseful drama.

Unfortunately, The Hurt Locker peaks in the opening scene. The intent is clearly to ratchet up the tension with each bomb that needs defusing, but in fact it ebbs away. James’ motivation is a mystery (the closest to an explanation we get is the opening quote: “war is a drug”) and his recklessness with the lives of others makes him rather unsympathetic. Attempts at character development – playing soccer with the Iraqi kid, drinking and wrestling with his team members – seem clichéd.

In short, if he doesn’t care whether he blows himself up, why should I?

Politically, the film has little overt to say beyond “it’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it”. The possibility that the American occupation is the root problem in Iraq – or that the resistance is justified – is not touched upon. This might be a stretch, but the underlying metaphor seems to be that of a crazy American who is just trying to help.

Hopefully Paul Greengrass’ The Green Zone will have something more substantial to say.

Curse ov Dialect, After Hours @ Live on Light Square

A few years back Channel Ten programmed an amazing Saturday night movie double: Godzilla followed by Head On.

I swear the monster flick actually mutated mid-screening because, when I turned on five minutes before the scheduled finishing time, it was barely halfway through. In fact, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise: the explosion-packed, b-grade excess of Godzilla helped me appreciate Ana Kokkinos’ adaptation of Christos Tsiolkas’ Loaded for the masterpiece it is.

I had a similar experience Live on Light Square during the Adelaide Fringe last night, when quintessential local act After Hours opened for Melbourne’s multicultural freaksters Curse ov Dialect. Rarely has the chasm between Oz hip hop and inner city ‘hippie hop’ been so clearly spotlighted.

The colliding worlds were obvious from the moment we arrived. The outdoor setting was cute and grassy, with couches and random bits of décor like 10-foot inflatable asparagus in the corner. (This seems to be a Fringe theme this year: the city is dotted with giant blow-up astronauts, one of which overlooked us from the UniSA Arts precinct.) The crowd was small, overwhelmingly male and dressed in caps, hoodies, white t-shirts, jeans - far from skinny but much less baggy than the homie pants of yore - and skate sneakers. Suffer from Hilltop Hoods was chilling towards the bar near the back.

So while Avalon and I settled down with a glass of wine and a blanket over the knees, After Hours jumped up and delivered an enjoyably predictable set. Bouncy beats with excessive bass and scratching? Check. Individual MCs dropping verses with rhymes delivered in unison? Check. Lyrics which, when decipherable, covered time-honoured themes of making ends meet, bitches taking their clothes off and, well, Adelaide? What more could you want?

How about a crowd-pleasing encore entitled “Party and Bullshit”?

After Hours left the stage with the obligatory call to “stick around for Curse ov Dialect” - and half the Adelaide crew headed straight for the exit. Those that stayed, and the few weirdos who had come especially for the headliners, experienced a flicking of the switch from lazy Friday night to deranged sideshow of the imagination.

The last live act to blow me out of the water was Boris in 2007. I didn’t expect it from Curse ov Dialect, whom I’ve seen several times before (although not for years). And I suspect it’s not them who’ve changed, it’s me. Their show is a magical union of psychedelia with hip-hop: we’re talking next-level costumes, choreographed and improvised dance moves, political rants and much, much more…

Paso Bionic’s production is sample-heavy, squelchy and spaceous in just the right places. Of the MCs, Raceless is the most schizophrenic, one minute leaping off stage to initiate a bark chip fight and attack a table, the next winking at us with a sly grin. Vulk Makedonski comes across as the Balkan Che Guevara: he attacks (South Australian Premier) Mike Rann for besmirching the Macedonian community, aims an antique pistol deadpan into the crowd, shows off a bit of folk-dancing and then brings it home with an amazing acapella freestyle. The other two (whose names I shall have to learn) are dressed like a geenie and a gimp, and they are both equally mesmerising.

They read newspapers on stage during a song attacking the media, then rip them up and fill the air with snowflakes. Late in the piece they instruct the small but loose dancefloor to sit down and relax, to pretend we’re not at the show for a moment - then it’s back up and jumping around. I’m not sure why they did that, but it was fun.

A local friend yells in my ear: “They always get small crowds in Adelaide, I don’t know why.” Ever the smart arse, I tell him they always get small crowds in Melbourne too. This may not actually be true but, if it is, it’s a disgrace. Curse ov Dialect are surely one of the most original, exhilarating and just plain entertaining groups this country has produced.

Maybe they’re too good to find a bigger audience, but fuck that. The campaign starts here. Curse ov Dialect are my new favourite group - and they should be yours, too.

Teratology – Fri 26 Feb @ Pony

We are a little nervous heading to Pony. All rock venues scare me a bit, but it’s Avalon’s first night out in town since smashing her kneecap, and the 86 tram is a mid-level debacle of broken air-conditioning and teenagers on heat. Worried this is a taste of things to come, we console ourselves with an on-the-spot truism: the weirder the music, the nicer the crowd. And on paper the music tonight looks pretty fucking weird.

Without a lift to the bush doof, we are heading to Teratology – a night of breakcore, plunderphonics and related sounds from the electronic division of the punk scene. The main attraction for me is Toecutter from Sydney’s System Corrupt crew; three years ago a warehouse party near Sydney Central was shut down before he could take the stage, and I’ve never managed to see him since.

The bouncer takes a long look at my sandals, then waves us up stairs shaking beneath the bass-heavy beats of Dysphemic. The instant relief of cool air and seats up the back is tempered slightly by the stale smell of beer, but this was Pony, after all. How long has it been? About two years since my old workmates from Sydney band Crux blasted their hardcore/death/krust/??? at a demographically similar but larger crowd.

Am I imagining it, or is this crowd a bit older? Hell, I’m a bit older. My guess would be breakcore peaked years ago, but this scene (or sub-scene) seems to be happily ploughing along with its DIY ethos, eardrums and sense of humour all well intact. And if they’ve lost a few people along the way, noone could be too surprised. Just listen to the tunes, if you dare.

But it’s fun to get outside my comfort zone for a night - and into someone else’s, as it turns out, because at times the cliquishness seems over-the-top. During the first of several equipment malfunctions, when Toecutter jumps on stage and leads the crowd in a chorus of happy birthday to the apparently well-known Melody, Avi wonders whether we’ve invaded someone’s lounge room. But when he continues to buy time with an inpromptu stand-up routine – a tour nightmare story involving drinking from the Seine and becoming violently ill in an Amsterdam squat – we are beginning to feel like old friends.

Dysphemic returns with some faster broken beats, and then it’s time for Anklepants – and one of the most ridiculously enjoyable shows I’ve seen in yonks. Dressed in a strange mask with a rotating penis where the nose should be, he drops danceable beats from 80s to hard’n’fast techno – only occasionally straying into splatter territory – with live vocals reminiscent of a dentist’s drill. It’s a silly scene, and Avi is up and dancing on her stool (an impulse she regrets somewhat later on). Anklepants brings the noise, be sure to check him out.

The American headliner, Robert Inhuman from Realicide, plays a stupidly hard set of breakcore with live vocals – which puts us instantly in mind of a good set of earplugs. I find most of it hard to contextualise, but his opening and closing addresses are both magnificent: heartfelt pleas to come up and dance, pick up one of his posters, send him an email and make friends – interspersed with comments about what a great man Toecutter is. I think it’s ironic but, not quite sure, yell out “I love you man!” at the end. As every grandmother alive would say, he sure seems like a nice guy – such a shame about the fucked-up music.

Toecutter brings the night home one shamelessly plagiaristic slammer after another – although many of the tracks play for half a minute at most before he cuts them off with a “That’s that!” and proceeds to take requests and banter with the crowd. The persistent demand for AC/DC is denied, but one epic track moves effortlessly from an uplifting trance sample to a classic Metallica riff (I think, or was it Slayer?), and a number of people seem to know every breakdown and shout-out. He’s undoubtedly a popular scene figureheard, and is certainly an intriguing looking fellow with glasses, short hair, bushy beard – and are they toys hanging around his neck?

The whole thing is almost strange and funny enough to make me want to be a punk. But of course, I enjoy being a hippie at punk gigs way too much for that. As we head home on a freezing 86 tram, pondering why fucked-up music makes both of us so happy, I award Avi the cool points for digging up the evening’s entertainment on - where else? - Facebook.