Dork Alert
Sometimes... most times, it is good, so good, to just dork out.
Let my children never know a father that doesn't give in completely and utterly to pleasures that others have labelled "childish" and "immature" for the majority of his life.
Let my children never know parents that never find the time to let go, wholly and completely, to the passion and emotion that envelops one's soul.
I took a train to the city today to meet a stranger from the internet. I've done it a few times, most notably once 7 years ago (almost to the day) when I met my once and future wife, but I was still a bit nervous. He was cool, I dorked out a bit, and we shared a couple of pints while talking about things that I don't reckon we get to talk about a whole lot in our lives.
I met this guy on a forum for grown-ups who collect G.I. Joes. We both collect(ed) comics and think playing with swords in Viking helmets is cool. He brought me several quite-hard-to-find G.I. Joes that made me squeal with delight (inside) and stammer a bit about how to say thanks.
Even aside from the gifts, he seems like a pretty excellent guy. And I met him because I am a G.I. Dork on a forum.
Tonight, while feeding the little ones dinner (older two are at The Others this weekend), Wifeage and I eschewed the standard distraction of the Idiot Box and put on music. The toddler enjoys certain CDs more than anything, and we all enjoyed it in turn, but then wife got an idea and put on The Phantom of the Opera.
Her birthday surprise of years ago revisited... never fails to give me chills and instantly suck me in through a space/time vortex back to that pivotal, intensely impactful, moment when I first felt the music of that incredible show.
We cranked it up, I made Quick Spaghetti, and we sang and danced and danced and sang and the baby grinned and yelled (as babies do when they think they're singing) and Jadeybug sang and danced and even wept when The Phantom did. Amazing and magical and about as dorktastic as you can get.
I simply cannot imagine being any other way. And goddamn... I wouldn't want to.
Thank you Banjo, for a great day. Thank you Wifeage, for a great night.
Thank you Universe, for putting these people in this life with me where I could find them.
Posted by JuddHole
This blog was the one that changed everything in my life, so it stands to reason that it continue to do so. I hope it starts with my underwear.Why Would You Make Them?
This is something that I don't hear enough about.
Indigenous people, some of them in that article not even seeing white people until the 80's (1980's, put some perspective on that), are being given money from the government for doing what they naturally do... only if it's a benefit to the community.
This CDEP (Community Development Employment Project ) says that if you're doing something that's valuable to the community (determined by the regional bloke in charge... indigenous, an elder, very important, etc) then you get paid. Which means that most of the White Man's Conventions leave you alone. Things like rent and vehicle registrations are not to be bothered with, because you taught 7 youngsters how to properly hunt kangaroo with a boomerang.
Say that last sentence again. Sound funny? Like you're busting out some Aussie cliches as casual as you please?>
Well think about it again. Indigenous people that haven't Ever Really Known the White Man's Way.
Why... why in the Blue Fuck would you seek to introduce the White Man's Way to these people, when history has proven, PROVEN OVER AND OVER AGAIN, that doing this to indigenous cultures does nothing but leave them irretrievably fucked, at best. And at worst? Forgotten FOREVER.
This project is set to end in 2013, where the White Man will implement another solution that will eventually amount to what they do now to the inner-city Noongars. Put them on the dole. Simply give them government money every fortnight because we feel bad about stealing their land and stealing their children.
I can't help but think to myself, which on my blog amounts to thinking out loud, about why we haven't learned that the White Man's Way is complete and utter bullshit? It's bullshit. The original European settlers of this land did almost the same thing that the same European-in-origin settlers did in America (and some in South America and Africa...).
They came in, took what they wanted, and either killed or drove away any indigenous person that confronted them on it.
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So here's this culture. This block of Australia full of people that have never been fully subjected to this bullshit. These people that only know that the bullshit the White Man has forced on them (like rent, groceries and insurance) has been ignorable if they just make sure that they're accounting for the shit they're already doing for their community, and it's ending.
The White Man is forcing it to stop so that they can enforce values like: "proper wages and conditions, including superannuation and leave entitlements"... from Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin.
Holy Fucking Shit. This is Two Thousand and Twelve. No Fucking Shit. And somehow, someway, somebody seems to still think that it makes more sense to make the Indigenous people of these lands conform to the White Man's way of thinking instead of just leaving them the fuck alone.
Which really, is all they've ever wanted.
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Mr Joopahroola of the Kiwirrkurra community, which is located in Western Australian's Gibson Desert, says "Centrelink will make people lazy and bit by bit they will start to leave."
He's absolutely right.
Because there's something that the Western/White Culture forgets about the Indigenous People of Australia. There's an old axiom that I've heard from one of the elders here: Give a man something for nothing, and that's exactly the value he'll place on it.
There's a lot in that. A lot we, the White People here, can learn from that.
If only we'd fucking listen.
They, the Indigenous People of Australia, don't want money for nothing. They don't want money from you to say sorry for The Stolen Generation, or to say Sorry For Stealing Your Lands.
They want what they've always wanted. The freedom to roam the land. To hunt. To fish. To go walkabout. To explore. To feel like there's nowhere that they're NOT allowed to go, and to feel like they can do what they like, because THEY know that doing what they like isn't going to cause millions of tons of pollution, nor is it going to choke a city's water supply off, nor is it going to impact anybody really, in any fucking tiny way.
That's how they lived, and that's how they want to live. And we're too fucking stupid to let them.
Posted by JuddHole
This blog was the one that changed everything in my life, so it stands to reason that it continue to do so. I hope it starts with my underwear.A belated thanks
Things like this usually pop into my mind when it's the anniversary of a particular event or something. It's not, but that doesn't mean I don't think of it fairly regularly.
It was August 2005 when I first laid claim to being an official Australian. I'd languished in an alcoholic depression for most of the summer in Colorado, desperately missing my newly-discovered Other Half. Looking back, I'm amazed that my friend/roommate put up with me, my company didn't fire me, and my co-workers didn't barf openly in my presence from either the smell of my lack of hygiene (or said alcoholism) or the sadsack lovesick waif that I sometimes was. None of that time was fun, but I'm incredibly thankful for the people that put up with me through it.
Then, not only was I not fired, but they gave me my stock options early, enabling me to save up to bring the wife back at Xmas. And to top it all off, the lovely co-workers passed the hat and gave me pre-charged debit cards. No fussing with exchange rates or ridiculous amounts of cash. They knew exactly what to give me to send me on my way.
I don't know if I ever told you folks, but those cards paid rent and bought groceries for the first few months of my being here. This not only helped heaps in financial terms (since I was technically a tourist and couldn't work for a bit) but it gave my wallet and my mind time to not only adjust to my new life, but to honeymoon with my new love (AND learn to be Dad to my kids, who both now can't even really remember a time when I wasn't Dad...).
It's coming up on 7 years and I've never been happier with my decision and I am so incredibly thankful that I had such support from some of you wonderfully awesome folks.
Just a note to say thanks. Thank you to the HealthGrade peeps. Thanks to the fellow hockey players. Thanks Mom. Thanks everybody that helped me get to where I needed to be.
Thank you for getting me home.
And to everybody else that told me I was crazy or cursed me for abandoning my family and/or being generally unsupportive: *raises middle finger*
Posted by JuddHole
This blog was the one that changed everything in my life, so it stands to reason that it continue to do so. I hope it starts with my underwear.This Friday Morning
The morning bike ride to take my youngest daughter to school (Pre-Primary kids need dropped off, the older just ride their own bikes) is usually a pretty good indicator of how my day will go. If it's a smooth and beautiful ride, then I’m likely to have a pretty good day. If the wind blasts around the corner and makes the ride slower, hotter or colder, or just more crap in any way, then that’s usually how the day will go. If the Bug is annoying me, she’ll annoy me when I pick her up.
Sometimes, like today, it’s just gorgeous, and I breathe deep and am thankful for every little thing that I have in this world. I took the baby and we all went to Breakfast Club, where the Dept of Po’Folks Food sponsors a bunch of bread-oriented things to be cooked up by volunteers and all the little refugees and indigenous kids with crappy homelives can get a decent meal and a cup of milk.
Of course, we don’t quite fit the criteria, but screw it. We definitely AIN’T rich and my kids suck at eating breakfast, so any way to get them to put a few mouthfuls together is worth it. Plus, Baby Boo loves seeing all the kids around and stuffing his little face with buttered bread.
There was an assembly afterward, so no reading to Bug this morning. We were a bit late, as always, and I got to hang with an indigenous fella whose oldest boy is in Bug’s class. He was pushing the pram for his middle child, an absolute stunningly gorgeous child that I remember crawling around in nappies a year ago, and he was having a good day I think. We chatted, as really casual acquaintances do, and I was reminded that a very strong facet of their culture is not liking somebody like me straightaway.
I’ve probably chatted with him a half-dozen times, but it was only when some of his slightly drunk and rowdy mates were passing by me at the newsagent that he strolled up and told them off, grinning at me with a cricket bat over his shoulder, telling me that I should join them sometime. Since then, he’s friendly and brings up conversation on his own without my obnoxious prompting or any awkward silences. Today he puffed up a bit when I told him that I remembered a little girl from years ago when I was helping with the Year 3 Maths class who was a little turd and is now a pretty damn good kid. His niece is clearly an apple in his eye.
He confided in me, with no small note of pride as well, that he was sending a resume to the mines in the hopes of a good job. “4 on 1 off,” he told me with a frown, “but it’s real good money.” I offered to help with a resume in a way that simply suggested that I’d done lots of ‘em, and he nodded that he would probably appreciate some help. I told him it’s not necessarily because I’m so well-educated or anything like that, but because of my gift for bullshit. That brought a very big smile and a quiet thanks.
Posted by JuddHole
This blog was the one that changed everything in my life, so it stands to reason that it continue to do so. I hope it starts with my underwear.All About Perth
And by "All About Perth" I mean "A Little Bit That I Simply Copied Out Of An Email To A Friend's Wife".
She asked a very simple and sweet question about what it's like to live in Australia, and I answered back in my usual fashion of writing a novel where a novel wasn't requested. It's moments like this that always remind me that I don't write enough.
So here you go:
I can really only speak about Perth, so I'll explain a bit about that first. Given that the continental US is about the same size as Oz, Perth would be LA, Brisbane = DC, Sydney = Tallahassee, Melbourne = New Orleans and Adelaide would be roughly Texarkana. Since these are the most likely cities in Oz that you'd make it to, I find it best to equate them with American cities.
Oh, and in-between Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane there are rural towns, smaller cities and geographical terrain and climate very much like the entire state of California. Beaches, deserts, heat, cold, snow, trees, mountains, hills and rivers. But all these cities are on the coast (virtually).
Then, there's Perth. On the assend of a continent that's on the assend of the world. Know how I laid out the cities and their US counterparts? Yeah, make everything from the Nawlins to Vegas a freakin' DESERT with nobody in it. That would make LA feel pretty lonesome you can imagine.
So here we are, in the World's Most Remote Capital City. Western Australia is shortened to "WA" which is then renicknamed "Wait Awhile". We bitch about that constantly, but secretly like it that way.
- Brisbane is the surfer's paradise and is probably more like Venice Beach than Venice Beach is except with fewer freaks.
- Sydney is big and bustling and they love rugby.
- Melbourne is hipster and San Francisco-ish and it rains alot and even if they ride fixies they have footy which is Australian Rules Football and not rugby (which is also called "footy") and not soccer (which is also called "football" sometimes).
- Canberra has politicians and I don't think anyone there drinks or smokes or has sex.
- Adelaide has a lot of churches and one rock metal chick who's a friend of mine.
- Perth is nicknamed "Dullsville" (I shit you not) but we like that and if we don't we move to Melbourne and bitch about the rain.
As you can see, I don't know much about the other cities (not having lived in them) but I know a bit.
The people, the life though, are all so wonderfully excellent that I truly believe that I've landed in the greatest place on earth. Aside from the healthcare, which is all top-quality and FREE, the streets are clean and the housing is big if not terribly affordable. The attitude just about EVERYWHERE is "no worries mate" and the people here live like they're really not in that much of a hurry or a worry. It's awesome.
That said, the healthcare and anytyhing publically run is so great because our taxes are insanely high. There's an 11% Goods and Services Tax (GST) on everything and anything "vice" is stupid expensive. A pack of Marlboro's and a 6-pack of cheap beer will run you $13 each.
A pair of jeans is $30-$50, a pair of shoes is around $25-$50 (unless they're Chuck Taylor's, which are around $100 a pair). Big W (Walmart), Target (same) and Kmart (well, you know) are the places to get shirts and undies for under $20 but everywhere else will double that.
A loaf of decent bread is $3.50, milk is $3-$5 for 3-litres ($4/gal), cheese is $10/kg ($6/lb), ground beef (mince) is $6-8$/kg (or $4.50/lb) and gas (petrol) is $1.55/litre ($5.50/gal). A beer at the bar is $7.50-$9 and ordering a Dominos pizza delivered will run about $30 for the "family" size. McDonald's (Macca's) Big Mac meal is $8 and Hungry Jack's (same as Burger King) is about the same, so feeding a family of 2 adults and 2 kids will be around $25-$40.
A midsize home in the burbs will run you $400,000-$600,000 and a decent zip-around co-ed car is $15,000-$35,000 new. It'll cost you about $600-$800 a year in registration and fees for your vehicle (though that includes 1st level insurance, the only one that's mandatory) and a bus or train on our clean and reasonably polite public transport into the city from the burbs is $3.80 one way. Flying to any of the cities over east is $300 one way on Deal Day, and about $500-$800 any other time. Flying to the US with careful planning is about $2000-$2500 per person and in an emergency (like a funeral) it's about $4000-$5000 per person.
If you're a struggling small business guy like me, you'll stand to live on (and be poor on) about $35-$50K a year. If you work for a company in the city and are reasonably good, you'll pull down $80K, and if you work anywhere in the Mining Industry, you may actually shit money.
That's all I can think of for now, but I reckon I've more than used up my allotted time for your question. Heh. I'm just going to post this on my blog and see how many Aussies (pronounced Ozzies, not AwSSees) want to correct me.
Oh, and for the most comprehensive, I'm New Here book on all this, read Bill Bryson's "In a Sunburnt Country". It'll tell you all about Shit That Tries To Kill You, which I've conveniently left out. Oh, and he writes NOTHING about Perth which again, is probably how we like it.