It's funny, because it's true :



Effective political advertising :

The front page of The Australian online gets downright cognitively dissonant one day into Federal Election 2010 :



"Labor has started the campaign well ahead of the Coalition..."

"Voter support for Labor has slipped since the election was called...."

The Australian should considering changing it's advertising mantra from 'Think. Again.' to 'Wait. What?'

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Some Sunday rock. The Screaming Jets doing AC/DC's Ain't No Fun (Waitin' 'Round To Be A Millionaire) live on a barge in Sydney's Darling Harbour in late 1991. None of the kids who jumped from the bridge were seriously injured, though one jumper (not caught on video) hit the water about an inch from the dock. An absolutely fucking insane day, hard to believe it was almost two decades ago.

Four of the top six most popular news stories of the week on the ABC News website are psychic octopus-related :



So much for ABC News readers being obsessed with politics.

Standing Up, Moving Forward, Falling Asleep

By Darryl Mason

So here we go. Federal Election 2010 is on. Even though we don't actually vote for the prime minister of Australia, politicians to the media are quite happy to play along and make it a battle of personalities, less so than policies, or even competence.

But it's not even really about coup prime minister Julia Gillard Vs the Mining Industry/Coalition's Tony Abbott. It's about Gillard & Abbott doing everything they can to stop The Greens from gaining the balance of power in the Australian senate, and completely undermining the two party system that has served Australia's richest people so faithfully for so many decades. It's fortunate then that the Labor Party and the Liberals/Nationals coalition can rely on the full support of the Australian Murdoch media doing everything they can to scare people away from voting for The Greens.

As coup prime minister Julia Gillard has made clear, by mentioning the phrase more than 20 times in a 10 minute speech, the Labor Party are for Moving Forward, or Moving Forward Together or Moving Australia Forward :



It's a corny phrase already making people grind their teeth, less than 24 hours after the election date of August 21 was announced.

The Liberal Party meanwhile have settled on 'Stand Up' :



'Stand Up' is, of course, the name of an excellent song by The Angels :



Note these key lyrics :

Promises are easy
You swallow every word
Just be sure of who you serve

And here's the first official Federal Election 2010 ads from the leaders of the Labor and Liberal parties.





Here's Greens' leader Bob Brown outlining his party's policies for the coming election.

I'll go easy on the Federal Election 2010 coverage here, because you're going to be inundated with it everywhere you turn, and I'll be a bit busy elsewhere finishing off my first movie 'Fuck The War', starring Dave Gleeson, for an October release.



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The Australian, July 14 :

Americans who are attending the annual conference (with Kevin Rudd) are curious.

They wonder how it happened that an Australian leader who appeared so popular and so comfortable on the world stage only 12 months ago could be tossed out so quickly -- even before he had faced an election.

Yes, what an absolute mystery it is.

The Australian, June 26 :




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The Herald Sun on the culturally vital website Things Bogans Like :

"...the best online port of call for the voice of bogan authority."

Things Bogans Like on The Herald Sun :

There is nothing a bogan loves more than being outraged. In particular, being outraged at people who, for a variety of reasons, it has made minimal effort to understand on ethnic, national, or religious grounds.

With an array of columnists with a hard-wired awareness of the bogan’s panic buttons, the topic du jour on the comments page......invariably revolves around blaming ‘other’ people for bad things.

Thus stimulated, bogans are equipped with sufficient righteous indignation to cover any encounter with a fellow at the water cooler, food court, playgroup or other designated daytime bogan convergence point.

There's a book of Things Bogans Like coming in November. Just in time for the Bogan Family Christmas stocking, which this year will be either Harley Davidson branded leggings, or Ugg socks (Do we have those yet? And if not, when we do, will they be called Oggs?)


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Kudos Kodos

I keep hearing coup prime minister Julia Gillard using variants of this phrase :

"We must move/go forwards, not backwards."

Such a familiar phrase. Someone else had used it, many years ago, in a gripping campaign speech, powerfully podium pitching their political wares.



It was Kodos :

"Tonight I say, we must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!"

I'm not being critical in pointing out that Julia Gillard appears to be sourcing The Simpsons for political rhetoric. I say More Of It.

In fact, let me help out. I submit following stirring political views of Homer Simpson for inclusion in future speeches by our coup prime minister :

Children are our future. Unless we stop them now.

If something goes wrong.....blame the guy who can't speak English.

Volunteering is for suckers. Did you know that volunteers don't even get paid for the stuff they do?

How is education going to make me smarter?

I wish God were alive to see this.

Stupidity got us into this mess, and stupidity will get us out.

Marriage is like a coffin and each kid is like another nail.

I never apologize, I'm sorry but that's the way I am.

It takes two to lie....One to lie and one to listen.

When are people going to learn? Democracy doesn't work.

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Movie News

By Darryl Mason

It's been a bit quiet around here for the past week or so because I've been finishing off a movie. It's a hostage thriller set during the Sydney Student Protests against the Iraq War in 2003.

The basic plot is this : The prime minister is giving a speech at Sydney's Town Hall. An anti-War On Iraq protest outside turns violent, and during a scuffle the prime minister is separated from his security. One of the protesters manages to kidnap the prime minister. He lashes him to a chair in the cellar of an empty house and interrogates him over the deceptions and lies that led Australia into the War On Iraq.

The movie is called :



The movie stars Dave Gleeson, lead singer with The Screaming Jets. Gleeso ripped into the role like a professional, found plenty of laughs where there would have been none without him, and generally pulled the gold from a way too long script and made it shine.

Some images from Fuck The War, straight off the rough edit :









I'll get some clips from Fuck The War up on YouTube soon.

It'll be out on DVD and digital download in a couple of months.

If it sells 500 copies, Fuck The War will be one of the few Australian movies of 2010 to turn a profit.

If it sells a few thousand copies, we get started on another movie.


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Election advertising in Australia gets mega-mashed up :

Some Saturday tunes.

Amazing. Redgum's John Schumann performing Cold Chisel's Khe Sahn :



Not the lyric change from "teenage Chinese princess" to "jaded Chinese princess."

Redgum are best known for the spine-chilling ode to youth lost in the Vietnam War, 'I Was Only 19' :



And here's an excellent clip of Redgum doing a now all but forgotten classic. "They went through my bags like McCartney in Japan, didn't have a thin so I didn't give a damn."



The Australian government had to insist on two month limit visas for Australians in Bali back in the 1980s. Tens of thousands of Australians would never have come home again if they could have stayed, thousands didn't anyway.



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Australia. So great it's even endorsed by The Kinks :



How catchy is that? Why has this song, or parts of it, never been used for Australian tourism ads? What a theme. And such great Ray Davies' lyrics (excerpts) :

Opportunities are available in all walks of life in Australia
So if you're young and if you're healthy
Why not get a boat and come to Australia

Australia, the chance of a lifetime
Australia, you get what you work for
Nobody has to be any better than what they want to be

Everyone walks around with a perpetual smile across their face

Pretty cutting amateur satire :



I've never linked to, or really watched, those Hitler Downfall parody vids. But this one about Kevin Rudd is very well done, covers the history, and was done extremely fast, online within a day of the Australian Coup.


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So many, many swears :

The Australian Coup : Does Kevin Rudd Know Something We Don't?



In the Twitter reality, Kevin Rudd is still prime minister of Australia, and was not deposed in a coup on that began one week ago, on the morning of June 23.

This is the @KevinRuddPM twitter page on June 30 :



Shortly after the coup, the 'Verified Account' tick disappeared from the @KevinRuddPM page.

Last night the 'Verified Account' tick reappeared.

@KevinRuddPM is still posting updates to his 930,000 or so followers on Twitter about moving his family from Canberra back home to Queensland :


For nearly a week, Australians have been posting messages to @KevinRuddPM on Twitter pouring out their shock and disgust at what happened to the prime minister they believed they elected, and had the right to vote out at the next election if they weren't happen with his performance.

The messages are a portrait of a country, outside of Canberra and the mainstream media, where support for Kevin Rudd as prime minister remained in the majority, and his literally overnight disappearance as their leader remains mostly a mystery. How can they his happen in Australia? they ask, over and over. Aren't we a democracy? Don't we get to choose our prime minister?
What have they done to you? What have they have done to this country?

A recent sampling :




As far as most of the media here are concerned, however, this official approval of the coup from Rupert Murdoch is all that needs to be said :


But millions of Australians don't agree. Labor politicians are acknowledging "the anger out there" over the coup, but they've done little to address it.

If Julia Gillard doesn't round up Labor voters lost thanks to bitterness, anger and bewilderment over the coup, they're going to be in real trouble.

Last night, Julia Gillard attended a function in Brisbane. She must have been thanking whoever you thank when you don't believe in God that the protesters weren't holding up 'Bring Back Kev' signs :





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Police violence against Sydney anti-war protesters 2004 - 2007 :





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Mr Percival : Hero Or Barbarian Pelican?

By Darryl Mason

Storm Boy, the 1977 movie of Colin Thiele's childhood altering book :



Storm Boy got a screening on ABC2 on Saturday night, decided to catch it because that's how I roll (now I don't rock so much). We did the Storm Boy book and movie in primary school. It's fascinating to re-watch, many decades later, a movie that impressed you, made you weep, as a kid.

However, Storm Boy is a bit hard to enjoy as adult without thinking horribly/cynically, 'Wait...Mr Percival might be smart and might really like this kid, but that pelican grew up with a free feed, he can fend for himself, but he doesn't want to. He's lazy. That pelican is there primarily for the fish handouts.' Therefore, Mr Percival was a New Barbarian.
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And another thing becomes starkly clear, early on, that didn't register as a kid who thought it would be plenty cool to live on a beach with a fucking huge pelican....well, for a while anyway, it becomes obvious that this dune shed isn't a dream place to dwell and that the father is living with the kid, nicknamed Storm Boy by a local Aboriginal man, in a scrap wood and sheet metal humpy in amongst wind blasted sand dunes because he's utterly shattered by the death of his wife, and has literally withdrawn from the world, from the 20th century, taking his son with him.

If the trio of orphaned pelicans, fresh out of their eggs, hadn't turned up in the lives of Storm Boy and his dad....

Some observations made via Twitter as I soaked up Storm Boy last night, spoiler warning in effect :

What a brilliant children's story Storm Boy is (Ch 22). Kid lives on a beautiful beach, no shoes, doesn't have to go to school and his best mate is a pelican

Storm Boy rescued the pelican, Mr Percival, when he was a baby. He returned pelican to the wild, pelican returned. They play catch together

Aboriginal friend from up the beach reveals that when a pelican is shot, big storm arrives. Don't tell drought stricken farmers that.

Haven't seen Storm Boy since 8yo. Forgotten the ending. The boy & that pelican are such good friends, sure hope nothing happens to that bird

Storm Boy's dad : "Radio? You don't want to listen to radio. Fill your head with wanting this and that. Things you don't need." Communist!

Storm Boy is a child. He doesn't realise pelican he rescued now and adult and is using him to catch & cut up fish dinner & snacks. Pelican trained boy

Uh oh. Storm Boy has to go to school now. No shoes, can't read, hangs with pelicans. The other children will be brutal, vicious, relentless.

"We miss you Storm Boy. Me, your dad, and Mr Percival." Storm Boy's joy at discovering school is actually quite nice ruined by dependent pelican

How long do pelicans live anyway? What happens when Storm Boy turns 18 and heads to uni? Having a pelican following u round then would be weird

Storm Boy back at home now with dad & pelican. The kid & dad prepare for a gale at the beach humpy. Pelican bails when there's hard work to do

Boat caught in gale off shore. Only way to save people on boat is to get a line out there, reel them in. Mr Percival volunteers to do it

Pelican saves boatload of people, possibly asylum seekers, Storm Boy realises pelican isn't a total sponge. Pelican waits for fish reward

"I knew you could do it, Mr Percival! You're really great, Storm Boy tells pelican, who seems to be getting annoyed no fish reward is forthcoming

People rescued by pelican discuss possible newspaper headlines. One of the rescued men tells StormBoy when hero pelican is dead he'll look "great stuffed and in a glass case"

Weird that when StormBoy discusses rejecting life of school, shoes, electricity with Mr Percival, pelican immediately flies off in the direction of hunters

Hunters are shooting at Mr Percival. Oh fuck,now I remember how this ends. "They shot Mr Percival!"

StormBoy visits grave of his pelican friend. Contemplates lesson learned by his mate Mr Percival - save peoples' lives, get shot at

Hmm, no storm appeared when Mr Percival was shot dead. So StormBoy's friend from up the beach is a liar.

Aboriginal friend shows StormBoy nest of recently hatched pelicans. "Like Mr Percival started all over again." Pelican poses in sunset, credits roll

Beautiful movie.

A near perfect children's movie.

Do kids still think it's kind of cool to run around without shoes and live without TV and refrigeration? Probably not.

But Storm Boy will instill in children who view it a lifelong respect for birds that have beaks big enough to hold more fish than their bellies can. It may possibly also introduce a mysterious suspicion of radios to their mind state. And also ingrain a slightly crazed, yet justified, loathing of hunters who shoot pelicans for fun and teenage hoons who tear up protected sand dunes for kicks.

Like I said, a near perfect children's movie.

A beautiful passage from Colin Thiele's novel :

"And everything lives on in their hearts the wind-talk and wave-talk, and the scribblings on the sand; the Coorong, the salt smell of the beach, the humpy and the long days of their happiness together. And always, above them, in their mind's eye, they can see the shape of two big wings in the storm-clouds and the flying scud, the winds of white with trailing black edges spread across the sky. For birds like Mr Percival do not really die."

Unfortunately, the talented Mr Percival died last year. He was 33 years old. As in the movie, Percival made sure he really did not die, mating successfully into his declining years. And his tale has a wonderful ending :

Mr Backhouse had cared for (Mr Percival) since starting at the zoo in 2000.

"....I’m 33, so I remember Storm Boy pretty passionately as a kid.’’

A boy who loved Mr Percival in Storm Boy ends up looking after him, until his death.

Where's Australian Story?

Face reality, the producers are running out of interesting humans to squeeze a half hour out of. The old Australian Story is already running repeats, or "encore presentations" as they're now known, of the Julia Gillard one. And what's she done lately of interest? Nothing.

The first series of the New Australian Story, one which is not speciesist, can focus on a living things that everyone loves. Hero animals. Like the Australian Defence Force dogs that died serving their country in Afghanistan. Brendan Nelson can introduce one on Simpson's donkey.

Series two can deal with thespian pelicans.


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Trouble Brewing :

The circumstances of Rudd’s removal are a graphic exposure of the thoroughly worm-eaten character of both the Labor Party and the entire system of so-called parliamentary democracy in Australia. The Labor Party long ago ceased to be a mass political party in any meaningful sense of the word, but the depth and breadth of the gulf between it and the lives and concerns of the mass of ordinary people have never been so clearly demonstrated.

The leadership challenge was not decided by a move from the caucus but by a tiny handful of unknown factional bosses and union bureaucrats responding directly to the demands of powerful corporate and financial elites for a revamping of the government.

Not only did backbench MPs have no idea of the events on Wednesday evening, Cabinet members were in the dark as well. As one minister told the ABC: “I am sitting in my office watching all this unfold on TV. I have no part in this and no idea what’s going on. This is madness.”

Much has been made of the collapse in opinion poll support for Labor as the underlying reason for Rudd’s demise. But the opinion polls reflect more the impact of the media on popular consciousness than any genuine social or political movement. When key sections of the media and the corporate interests they represent backed Rudd, his opinion poll ratings reached record highs. Once he lost their confidence and their support was withdrawn, his opinion poll rating, and that of the Labor Party, fell accordingly.

The ousting of Rudd—the only time a Labor prime minister has been removed during his first term—was not carried out as a result of a movement of the working class, but by key sections of the financial and corporate elites.

ABC Managing Director Mark Scott knows a coup when he sees one :






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Wreckage

From this :



And this :



To this :



And this :



Homer Simpson :

"When will people learn? Democracy doesn't work."


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