I just finished reading Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72 by Hunter S. Thompson. I want to write a longer piece about it but I can’t be fucked tonight. On the last page there is a quote. I had to read it a couple of times before I fully comprehended it.
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You will have to forgive the relative sporadicity of my blog posts of recent weeks. I have been insanely busy recently working as the senior research assistant on a 3 week project investigating Labor’s planned introduction of a mandatory internet filter. In addition to that, I have been lumbered with over 150 assignments to mark, which is one of the most mind numbing and repetitive experiences anyone can possibly face, so I have had effectively no free time to just think and write. Nevertheless, with the research I have been doing, I have become ensconced in the issue of freedom of speech and expression which is what I’ve decided to write about.
Australia is the only western liberal democracy in the world to not have incorporated either a statutory or constitutionally entrenched Bill of Rights meaning that there is essentially no expressed right to freedom of speech except other than the ambiguous ”implied freedoms” that the High Court has read into the constitution. I have maintained a cursory interest in the topic of a Bill of Rights for a few years now, but what with the ever present threat of a planned mandatory internet filter, I think that it is never more apparent to review the structure of rights in Australia. Firstly, in the interests of full disclosure, I passionately believe in the adoption of a Bill of Rights. But not only that, I believe that a Bill of Rights should be entrenched in the constitution for a number of reasons which I will enumerate.
Firstly, before entering into the Bill of Rights issue I must concede a point and that is a Bill of Rights is merely paper. Those rights that a bill would seek to protect spring from nothing more than a society apparent willing to protect them. One of the arguments often trotted out by those opposed to a Bill of Rights is that China, in fact, has one. True, a bill of rights only work if society and its government is willing to abide by them. Without such an implicit agreement there is no point in having one. Opponents would say that a Bill of Rights is then superfluous because Australian society already possesses that implicit willingness to abide by liberal principles such as freedom of speech, expression, association, worship. Similarly, there have been no substantive instances in our history where these rights have been infringed. I may tentatively grant that this point is materially correct, even though there are clearly cases in our history when the rights of minorities have clearly been infringed. Nevertheless, I cannot accept the premise of this argument. This argument is inductive and thus not certain. The fact that Australia has never had a major breach of human rights gives no regard to future breaches, breaches which I might add, are more important than the absences of breaches in yesteryears. It is constitutionally acceptable for the government to pass legislation which prevents you from declaring your political preferences in an open forum. The only thing we have to rely on to prevent such a law is that the judiciary would strike this down relying on some amorphous “implied freedom” understanding of the constitution. Some of you might laugh the idea of such a law off as preposterous, like it would ever get through parliament and the government which introduced it would be voted out of office at the next election. In today’s political climate I would agree with you. But it is in times of war, catastrophic economic upheaval and other instances which shake at the core of society where we could willing relinquish ours freedoms for the hope of extra security that a bill of rights is most essential. Fortuantly, we in Australia have never experienced such upheaval, but that is not to say that we will never experience one.
The other argument which is used by opponents is that a Bill of Rights politicizes the judiciary (as if it wasn’t already political). I agree with this point. But I question the characterisation of this point as ”undesirable”. The judiciary is a branch of our government, just like the legislature and the executive. They are inherently political. Every interpretation of the law rendered is indeed a political act. There is no escaping this. Whether it is the comparatively restrained political rulings of Australian courts or the contentious rulings of American courts, all rulings are nonetheless political. There can be no objective rulings because language is not inherently objective. Language is a battleground of meaning. Which brings me to another point of the anti-campaign: ”to define a right is not limit it.” So therefore, to not define a right means what exactly? Unlimited possibilities? This of course we know is not nor ever should be the case. All rights carry responsibilities. The problem of definition should not present an insurmountable challenge. Granted, to define a right is challenging endeavour, but it requires a deep, thoughtful and above all rational contemplation of what we as a society agree to be acceptable. A Bill of Rights is as much a cultural issue as a legal issue. A Bill of Rights bonds society under a declaration of agreed values. We as Australians are so ignorant of our rights that so few people even realise that it is illegal to sell pornography in every state in Australia.
But perhaps the most important reason why we need a Bill of Rights is because it protects us from ourselves. The framers of the U.S. constitution were highly aware that the greatest tyranny stemmed not only from the government but also from the people themselves. A constitutionally entrenched Bill of Rights affords greater protection to those who fall victim to an even greater tyranny, the tyranny of the majority. Yes, with a Bill of Rights an unelected judiciary can strike down a law which although immensely popular offend the rationally agreed upon values of society. Public opinion is oftentimes emotionally charaged. An entrenched Bill of Rights protects against the whims of public opinion. We must remember that the Nazi party was elected. A counter argument to this point is that the American Bill of Rights failed to protect Black American slaves and Japanese-American prisoners, which is a point conceded. While the American judiciary have acted in ways which are patently contradictory to their Bill of Rights, I argue that at no time has the Bill of Rights been used to subjugate people as has public opinion. In fact, the American judicary has led the way in other publically unpopular cases of obvious marginalisation such as abortion rights, miranda rights, equal rights for women, gay rights and desegregation.
I am not saying that a Bill of Rights is a panacea nor will it guarantee anything. Only a deeply engrained commitment by the people to observe those rights will guarantee it – which I hope Australia continues to adhere to. But what I am arguing for is that a Bill of Rights is an added safeguard, an added resource in the fight against tyranny so that if/when the public opinion falls victim to emotional fiat, there is something there, standing behind it, fighting against it. We are a nation walking a fragile trapeze without a safety net. Even though other peoples beliefs might offend us to the very core, we must remember that we have decided that we want to live in an open, free and tolerant society and that we have a set of rationally derived values which we have decided to adhere to regardless of our own opinions. As trite as it is to close with, I am reminded of Voltaire’s famous dictum “I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Unfortuantly, in our democratic society where majority rules, if you do not agree with what I say, I get voted out of office. And we can’t have that now can we.
SAY “NO” TO A MANDATORY INTERNET FILTER!
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I’ve got a short snippet of time so I figured I would just write a short summary of the massive week I’ve just had. This is going to be a mega free write just because I don’t have time to write something coherent or particularly pensive, which this post probably warrants but alas you’ll have to make do. On Saturday night my cousin got married and I was fortunate enough to be invited to the wedding. The ceremony was held at a magnificant cathedral in the city, I can’t remember exactly the name, but it was Brisbane’s answer to Notre Dame. My cousin looked especially stunning in a wedding dress I can only imagine would push into the thousands of dollars. Incredibly lavish. The reception was held at Rydges in Southbank, on the top floor with a stunning view of the city (including a bird’s eye of my much despised Brisbane wheel). Thankfully, I was able to put my hatred for that inferior piece of machinery aside and enjoyed the three course meal. The evening started out temperate enough with brief discussions of Iran, the benefits of an Asianised Australia and some rough plans for a trip to Japan in the not too distant future. But from there things took a turn for the worse. Soon after several bottles of wine, a shit load of VB and more Champaign than I think I could soon count, I suddenly became that drunk cousin at the wedding who everybody just wished wasn’t there, not unlike this:
So anyway, you know that beautiful three course meal that I was talking about before? Well that ended up, after a brief sojourn though my digestive system, pretty much in tact on my balcony (we stayed at the hotel too). Anyway, I’ve come to realise that I am a disgustingly horrible person, which is magnified when I drink. The things I said to people could only come from a sick and depraved mind. Why can’t I be one of those nice people, you know like Noni Hazelhurst, who loves everybody and everything. Why do I have to be so corroded inside that I feel the need to abuse people I hardly know and dust it off with a casual “oh well, I’ll never see them again anyway.” So I’ve decided I’m never going to drink so much again. I’m generally going to make myself the designated driver wherever possible. I cannot let another display like that happen again. It was an embarrassing display of humanity.
Anyway, this week was also the week in which our uber-low budget psychological thriller was slated to go into production. Because I’m the producer, most of the work that I can to do was in the preproduction stage – organising locations, managing the budget, casting the actors, developing the schedule and the script and finally organising catering. It was only a four day shoot and we were lucky enough to secure a really talented actor to play the lead role. I’m not too sure how the footage turned out, I guess we’ll see in postproduction, but I am hopeful the story will come together. Nevertheless, it was incredibly draining. I’m still trying to recover my energy.
Finally, this week was also the week that a group of teenage kids crashed their car right in front of my house. One of the girls who was ridding in the car died instantly. My family were pretty much first on the scene. Some idiot unlicensed 17 year old was driving down our street at 120 km/h with 6 kids inside and only five seats. Maddie, the girl that died, had her neck snapped off instantly. It was the most horrendous thing ever. This is the second time I’ve been in close proximity of someone dying this year. It really makes you reassess those things in life.
Finally my schedule has died down a bit and I can do all those things which have been falling my the wayside (including my blog). Watch this space.
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A few weeks ago Sean and I attended the world premiere of a new locally produced Australian horror flick, Storage, at the Brisbane International Film Festival. The film was written and directed by Michael Kraft, a fellow QUT graduate and was financed completely independently (no mean feat for a production coming out of Brisbane). Overall, the film was generally enjoyable with exquisite cinematography that belied its low budget. Even though the film was generally enjoyed by all, I am pessimistic as to whether it will be seen by an audience significantly wider than BIFF. In fact, the film is yet to secure proper distribution which is usually obtained during preproduction. Quite frankly, without distribution having been secured before production, the chances of a film ever really seeing the light of day are minimal.
I can’t help but feel there is a crisis in the Australian film industry. But surely it has nothing to do with a lack of talent. There are internationally successful Australians in most facets of the film industry: direction, acting, cinematography, sound and even costume design. Yet, if you look at the statistics, Australia, along with Canada, are the two markets in which local films can barely break 5% of the theatrical market share. Alternatively, in countries like France, Japan, China, India and South Korea, local films comprise anywhere from 30% to 90.5% of the local theatrical market. There is not one reason for why this is the case but rather a confluence of factors which have combined to create a perfect storm for the Australian Film Industry. Below I will suggest why these factors have become so damaging and propose some ideas for how we could possibly reorientate the industry towards greater commercial success.
I think it be sensible to begin my analysis of the Australian Film Industry by asking, what industry? Ok, I am being overly provocative but the Australian film industry exists in highly disparate parts. Can you name me even one Australian production house? Yet if I asked you to name an American one I’m sure most of you would have heard of at least one of Warner, Universal, Paramount, Disney, MGM, 20th Century Fox, Columbia or maybe even New Line or Dreamworks. Perhaps the only other international movie production house worth a mention outside of the dominant “majors” is Lionsgate, a Canadian outfit who has experienced phenomenal success in recent years. The point is, there are no dominant, market orientated Australian production houses which have the economic viability to produce world class quality product (perhaps Village Roadshow Productions is the closest thing we have to a successful production house along with Palace Films being the only other one of note).
Production Houses and the Need for Collateral
An historical analysis of the Hollywood’s major’s rise to power will indicate that the most important critical success factor for a flourishing movie industry is the possession of collateral. What do I mean by this? Well since the U.S. film industry began in the early 1900s up until 1949, the industry had always been vertically integrated. Vertical integration is where a firm owns all the value adding parts of the distribution chain. In this vertically integrated business model, the major movie studios owned the production, distribution and exhibition parts of the value chain. This ensured a vertically integrated oligarchy in which a few firms dominated the industry – an oligarchy which more or less still exists today. But it wasn’t necessarily the vertically integrated business model which ensured the success of the oligarchy. In 1949 the Supreme Court of the United States decreed that the major studio’s vertically integrated model was in breach of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The court forced the studios to either sell off the production or exhibition arm of their value chain. All the studios choose to retain their production houses but the ruling precipitated one of the greatest declines in Hollywood’s history. For about 25 years, the studios had to contend with falling profits, flop and flop and the concomitant rise of television.
It wasn’t until a new breed of filmmaker emerged who brought new ideas about how films should be made that Hollywood’s fortunes began to reverse. This new paradigm became known as the Blockbuster strategy and involved Hollywood producing few films at bigger budgets in the hope of drawing audiences to the theatres to witness the spectacle. But it wasn’t this new strategy in isolation that saved Hollywood. Just around the corner in the late 70s and into the early 80s another innovation was about to hit the market. This new technology would breathe new life into Hollywood – the VCR. Even though the initial technology was met with trepidation by the majors for fear that it would cannibalise theatrical profits, it would actually give rise to a market larger than the theatrical market itself.
What am I trying to say with all this information? Well the secret to Hollywood’s success as an industry boils down to the sine qua non of a successful film industry – collateral. From the early 1900s to 1950, the major studios funded each and every one of their films on the basis of the collateral of their theatre real estate. It’s what allowed them to mitigate the risk for investors, diversify their assets and made investing in feature film production a less risky endeavour. Then in 1949 their real estate was yanked away from them. The business model was thrown into turmoil and no longer could the risks be diversified. Massive budget flops (such as Cleopatra) nearly sank entire studios.
It wasn’t until the rise of the VCR and the post theatrical market that Hollywood really found its teeth again. The reason why is because the post theatrical market gave back collateral to Hollywood. Before the VCR, a completed film which had run in the theatres had a carry-over book value of $1. It was essentially worthless (in fact it was a drain on resources because of the cost of warehousing). Then suddenly all these films became valuable again. With the VCR studios were able to turn their old movies into products – videos – which consumers were keen to buy or rent. Suddenly, the Hollywood studios could finance their new projects on the basis of their film libraries which suddenly skyrocketed in value. This has continued with the advent of the DVD which simply exploded the post-theatrical market to a point where it now comprises some 70% of Hollywood’s revenue. The latest statistics foretell doom as the DVD market starts to mature – Blu Ray and HD will keep it at bay for some time but there are big structural upheavals that will occur in the industry in the next 20 years (but I’ll save that for a later blog post).
This brings me to the first thing we need to get right for a successful Australian film industry – the creation of a production house with enough collateral to maintain a viable production slate. Both Village Roadshow and Palace are cinema operators but they are too focused on the more lucrative exhibition end of the market. There is little incentive for them to allocate resources to production which is fraught with higher risk and smaller potentials for return. This is part perception, part reality. Just because no Australian firm has never been able to create a sustained portfolio of films doesn’t mean that theoretically one can’t. The problem with most Australian productions is that the production company is usually an ad hoc creation for the sole purposes of financing that one film. After the film has been produced and inevitably failed, the production company disbands and recedes into the night. This does not an industry makeith. Most films fail. Most Hollywood films fail. Even blockbusters fail. Waterworld (which I still maintain is a good movie) exemplifies this. But the reason why Hollywood studios remain in profit is because they diversify so that the failures are absorbed by the profits of the runaway successes. Without such diversification, you cannot maintain a viable company let alone industry.
So necessary ingredient number one: A group of production houses with the capital/collateral to finance a diversified slate of movies.
Why is Marketing Such a Dirty Word?
Another major perceptual battle the industry needs to fight is the anti-marketing credo that seems to reverberate around the industry. Unfortunately the artisanal vs. product debate will rage on regardless of whatever happens but I think it is a distraction. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy independent artisanal films, in fact when I lived in Petrie Terrace I would always saunter down into the nearby Dendy and watch the latest independent fare (in fact the night I went down to watch John Pilger’s War on Democracy changed my career goals over night). But artisanal and commercial films do not necessarily have to be mutually exclusive. Similarly, a thriving commercial film industry can support the production of creatively risky artisanal films that would have never been produced without the support of an industry behind that is willing to take creative risks – go read about Sony Pictures Classic for more information.
The secret to any film’s success is good marketing. For some reason the term marketing with all its pernicious stigma has come to be seen as the weapon of highly invidious corporations out to destroy the soul of humanity. But marketing is really a grassroots thing. It’s about information and providing the consumer with the knowledge they require to make an informed choice. Ok. Let’s cut the bullshit and just sober ourselves to the simple reality that if nobody knows about your film, nobody is going to see it. The secret to Hollywood’s formula is the fact that each film’s marketing budgets comprise at a minimum 1/3 of their production budgets. In Australia, most films are barely able to acquire the financing to cover the production budget let alone anything for exploitation (Hollywood’s early term for marketing). In fact, marketing is just something that is given an afterthought. Producers and directors think that if it’s a really good film then people will somehow find out about it and go and see it. Unfortunately, this mindset is naive. Likewise, Australian’s seem reticence to self-promote. Perhaps the is a cultural vestige or whatever, but unless we start to champion ourselves and our own products (even at the risk of being a tall poppy) then we will never have a viable industry.
Movie theatre owners seek to fulfil one objective: arses in the seats. They don’t care who produces the film or what the film is, as long as it’s going to bring people to the cinema. Therefore, production and distribution houses need to stimulate pull demand where the consumers themselves are the ones who force the exhibitor into showing the film through a groundswell of demand. That’s why I’m a firm believer that when you a writing the on-screen story (a script), you should also be crafting the off-screen story – or the story which will go out into the public sphere and which will fulfil the role of stimulating people’s desires to see the film.
Necessary ingredient number two: Whenever acquiring the funds the finance the film, make sure you at LEAST apportion 2/3 of the total funds raised into production and 1/3 into marketing. For every good script there must be a good off-screen story which can be spun to arouse people’s desires to see the film.
Let’s Murder the Auteur
There is another odious spectre haunting the film industry and that is the curse of the auteur. It seems to be common amongst small film producing nations such as ours that when we do create a national spectacle, we need to do so with a stylistic punch. I don’t know about you, but I really can’t stand most of Baz Luhrmann’s movies. This is just my boorish, uncultured opinion. But my point is that all of Baz’s films are highly stylistic. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but for a film industry to succeed we need directors who are willing to suspend their stylistic desires and rather create films which appeal to a wider market. I realise this point will probably be my most controversial. But it is a necessary fact that we need to face to sustain an industry. Overly stylistic pieces only appeal to certain markets. To have broad appeal, then films need to appear as though they could have been directed by anyone. That is not to say that film’s need to sacrifice their art. But every film slated for production need not be directed by an artiste with a highly developed and iconic style. Yes, Luhrmann has been an internationally successful director, but it is not sufficient to sustain an industry.
So necessary ingredient number three: Kill the auteur.
The Australian Cultural Cringe
The final issue which I wish to discuss is the Australian cultural heritage which acts as an impediment to the successful growth of our industry. Problem number one: our accent. Americans can’t understand us. And quite frankly, when I am watching an American production and an Australian appears, it is actually quite jolting. Sometimes, I too, am hard pressed to understand what the Australian is saying and I am an Australian. We need to find a way to neuter our accent. Or at least make it palatable to international audiences.
But also, just because we are a small nation with a small film industry does not mean that every Australian movie needs to concern itself with hackneyed Australiana. Sure Kenny, The Castle, Muriel’s Wedding, Young Einstein and Priscilla were successful (even internationally) but these films were black swans. They come around once every 4 or so years and satisfy our (and the international community’s) palette for Australian fare before we (and they) go back to usual diet of American blockbusters. My question is why do we have to produce films that are typically Australian often to the point of cliché? The United States film industry does not restrict itself to American stories. They do stories about China, Japan, Europe and Canada. Why can’t we produce films about the United States? Why can’t we write stories set in China, with Chinese actors? There is nothing to stop us. We can’t restrict our cinema culture to stories about Australia – for one thing these stories do not necessarily play well to international audiences. Secondly, we just do not have enough of a history to sustain enough fodder for films. Thirdly, Australian consumers generally don’t like stories about Australian people. I make no normative claims about whether this is right or not. This is just the way it is.
Necessary ingredient number four: Look further afield. Write stories which are not just about Australia. Seek stories that are global but which can be produced locally.
Conclusion
I have only really just scratched the surface. In fact, most of what I have written here is a crude, reductionist account of what’s wrong with the Australian film industry. My analysis of Hollywood is incomplete; my discussion about auteurs borders on hysteria, my elaboration of why marketing is important is poor; and my analysis of what’s wrong with Australian stories is weak at best. And I have made no effort to analysis the global hegemony that Hollywood has over worldwide distribution networks. But what I think we need to do is start thinking about the possibilities for Australian film. I might sound like a capitalist pig by trying to commoditise an art form and I’m sure there will be people who deride me for this. But films create jobs. Films give us the ability to express ourselves. This nation has world-class facilities (Narnia is currently be filmed on the Gold Coast), we have world-class actors, cinematographers, directors, we have world-class equipment and yet we have a third-rate industry. We can barely crack 3% market share of our own market! In a world where most national market shares are clawing back ground from Hollywood, our industry remains in the doldrums. Our film students are resigned to a lifetime of living on skid row because we, as a nation, cannot get the formula right. I suggest that we can do it. We just need people to take the risk and with the right strategy we can develop a world-class, competitive, globally focused industry. And I suppose if New Zealand can do it, surely we can too!
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Often I will see fliers around campus emblazoned with a deeply saturated picture of Karl Marx, stylised communist insignia and provocative headlines which insists on the superiority of a socialist alternative to capitalism. I often find it peculiar that Marxism persists as an ideology in a day when a large portion of Marx’s social critique has been falsified by developments in post-industrial society. There are still fringes of the academe that hopelessly cling to a Marxist framework in their critiques of culture in an almost obsessive way indicating their inability to just “let it go.” Personally, I think it’s pointless to anchor yourself in a defunct social theory which has little relevance today, but this does tie into a few other conversations I’ve been having lately.
I was talking with one of my friends a few months back about the changing nature of Australian politics and how ideology seems to playing an increasingly diminutive role in both policy and during elections. I have mulled over this conversation for a while now as I wanted to collect my thoughts about what’s been happening and why the beginnings of a post-ideology transition seem to be occurring. Then recently news broke in one of our local dailies that the opposition leader, Malcolm Turnbull, a relatively new parliamentarian by most standards, attempted to solicit membership of the Labor party before he ultimately entered parliament with the Liberal party. It got me thinking, has ideology become so insignificant that politicians are merely choosing political parties on the basis of the one which is most likely to result in electoral success than on some lofty notion of ‘the ideal?’
My friend seemed to think that it was time to abandon ideology and its manifestation in political parties in favour of a pragmatic approach that focuses on good governance above all else. But what has created such a situation in which we could possibly be discussing the abandonment of ideology in a political sense? In order to understand the process of a post-ideological political framework we must think about what an ideology is. In its simplest form an ideology is simply an ideal about how society should operate – both socially and economically. Therefore, in order for a post-ideological world to exist, a necessary precondition would be the mass convergence of “the ideal.” Therefore, what evidence is there to suggest that there has been a convergence of the ideal in the first instance?
To ascribe a cause for this I had to think back to the socio-historic reasons for the creation of Australian political parties in the first place. The Labor Party, formed out of the labour movement, was surprisingly enough created to protect the interests of labour. The Liberal party, formed by Robert Menzies, was created through the amalgamation of non-labour parties and interests. Therefore, the creation of both major political parties in Australia can be attributed to Marx’s infamous idea of the struggle between the interests of labour and capital or more simply, the struggle between those who sell their ability to work in a market for a wage (workers) and those who “rape” the labour of workers in order to create profit (capital). But in returning to my opening paragraph, the idea of class struggle has been proven to be somewhat of a phony war. Why?
Was there a point in history were we all just woke up and found out that we were bourgeois? If you think about it, Marx’s biggest oversight was his assumption that workers would always be raped for their labour and capital would always appropriate labour for profit until such times as labour overthrew capital and installed a Communist utopia. Whilst I do conceded that there was a historical period where it was largely the case that capital raped labour for profit (Marx’s own socio-historical time), the contemporaneous development of representative democracy as a corollary to capitalism actually brought about increased working conditions and wages for labour. (I do concede that this was largely the result of socialist governments whose policies was specifically targeted towards ameliorating the conditions of the working class). Nevertheless, by 1980s Australia, very few people could not be considered bourgeois for the simple fact that wages (and the implementation of the minimum wage) had ensured that most people were receiving an income beyond basic subsistence level. This could then be used as capital by labour for their own profit – a necessary condition of social mobility. Today, any worker in Australia, whether they know it or not, actually has owns some portion of the means of production by virtue of their superannuation account. Therefore, can we really say that there exists anyone outside of the bourgeoisie (other than perhaps the sick and indigent)?
What does all this have to do with the breakdown of ideology? Well, with the disassemblage of the Marxian working class, the prophesised epic show down between labour and capital has been thwarted. Today labour is turned into capital and capital continues to fund labour. Therefore, what meaning do the old class distinctions continue to exert? I would argue very little, hence a possible reason for the decomposition of ideology in the politics of today.
But this analysis sees the world solely through economic tinted glasses. What social changes have occurred in history that has facilitated the convergence of ‘the ideal?’ In encountering this question I started to think about recent history and got struck by the idea that perhaps as society has become increasingly tolerant of diversity, paradoxically we have actually become more homogenised. Since the advent of the cultural regeneration of the 1960s and 70s, many of the great minorities in societies have been brought into the confluence of the mainstream. Whereas previously minorities were seen as outsiders, be it women, blacks, aboriginals or sexual minorities, they have now come to be regarded as largely equal with the advent of discrimination laws and equal representation in the media. As such, while there are still incidences of discrimination that does occur from time to time, the great divide between a largely silent set of minorities and an omnipresent mainstream has evanesced. In doing so, what has resulted is an engorged mainstream that seemingly accounts for the greater preponderance of society. Most people, whoever they be, are now unfettered to pursuit their idea of happiness.
Therefore, I suggest that these changes in society have fomented a breakdown in the sharply divided ideals of yesteryear between capital and labour on one front and between the mainstream and minority on the other. We have become a society homogenised in our pursuit of ‘the ideal’ of freedom to choose what constitutes happiness for ourselves and the ability to get rich (let’s not mince words). As long as governments maintain the status quo on these two fronts than we don’t give a fuck about who is in power. There is a pithy remark about politics which I quite like, “politics is the organisation of hatred.” So perhaps we can see the emergence of a post-ideological world as one which has begun to tear down the odious fabric of hatred that has consumed society for much of its history. Maybe this is one step closer to a Star Trek-esque future utopia where we boldly go forth in peace and harmony.
Note: Obviously I am neglecting the terrible problems still faced by the third world, the damage that our pursuit of wealth is reaping on the environment and the real discrimination felt, even within our own society, by minorities which have still yet to be enveloped into the mainstream. I’ve just focused on the mass socio-historic trends which have resulted in our newspapers been flooded with stories about what Obama ate for breakfast and what Malcolm Turnbull said on his Twitter the previous morning as opposed to stories of policy.
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So I woke up yesterday morning and thought that I needed something to look forward to. Sean is busily planning and reshaping his whole life and I remain fixed in Brisbane for the time being as I finish off my Masters. But when an email came into my inbox proclaiming flights to LA for $900, I figured the time was ripe to do something. I’ve always wanted to go to LA, Las Vegas and San Francisco but my travel plans have just never really complied. Also, I need to go to LA to do some research for my thesis so I’m killing the proverbial two birds with one stone. Therefore, on the 20th of November I head out of this dustbowl known as Brisbane for the even dustier bowls of Sunbelt, USA. My plan at this stage is to spend 4 nights in LA where I’ll stay in a backpackers. On two of the days I’ll visit the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda and the Reagan Presidential Library in the Simi Valley (the research part). On the other two days, I’ll go to Universial Studios, do the Hollywood Walk and all the other touristy things. After this I’ll fly to Las Vegas and stay at the MGM Grand. The thing I find hilarious about Las Vegas is all the themed hotels. There is so much variety. I think movie themed is probably the one for me, so MGM Grand it is. Although the cost is much higher than a backpackers I think it’s best to live the high life while in Las Vegas. Plus I intend to win all my money back on the poker tables. Then I intend to fly to San Francisco for the final 3 days where I’ll stay in a backpackers once again and just explore the city and immerse myself in the liberal city by the bay. Finally, I intend to do all this in under $2000. Can I do it? Who knows. But I’ll try. It’ll make good blogging fodder at least.
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I’ve decided to rejig my 101 things in 1001 days list because after reading some of my previous things, I’ve come to realise they are simply not obtainable (I must have been high when I wrote it). Therefore I’ve removed the stuff about starting a business (even though I want to start a production company at some stage) and replaced it with a lot more managable items. I have also left 6 spaces blank because I want you, my readers, to give me 6 things that you would like to see me do. I think this could be kind of cool, because apparently friends are meant to know you better than you know yourself (according to Time Magazine). So please comment on what you would like to see me do and I’ll assess it and put it on the list. It can be challenging but not unobtainable.
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Ok. I admit it. I suck at buying birthday presents. It’s my least favourite thing to do in the world. I come from the school of thought where cash is the best type of present one could ever receive and yet so few share my sentiments. Anyway, given the recent spate of birthdays around this time of year I’ve had a hard time thinking up suitable presents. If you are one of my recent friends who have been unfortunate enough to receive a present from me I apologise. I must admit, however, there was one present for one friend that I came up with which it better than average.
I’ve always wanted to go to a psychic. Depsite the recent turn in my blog entries that have tended to privledge the occult, I am generally a very skeptical and logical kind of guy. (I think just like to play Devil’s Advocate when I write about science’s dominance in our society). Nevertheless, soliciting the services of a psychic is one of the things on my 101 things to do list.
When a close friend of mine recently became infatuated with someone in a whirlwind romance and considered uprooting his entire life on a bit whim in addition to his rapidly approaching birthday, I figured it would be the perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone – see and psychic and fulfil the social chore of giving a birthday present.
The psychic that I choose was one which had been recommended by another friend who saw her and was shocked by her accuracy. So on Saturday afternoon, I put the plan into action. The pychic’s little stall is situated at the Southbank markets. When we first arrived we approached the little purple and pink tent where in we stood a stout woman of about 60 years. I loudly proclamed to her whilst pointing at my friend, “he’s in need of direction. Can you help?” Her voice boomed and sounded faintly slavic but it was masked by the sound of onset emphysema. She held a unlit cigarette in her hand and appeared as though she was just about to leave. She looked us up and down and then asked, “Sure darlings, but are you going to let me have this first?” motioning towards her cigarette. “Sure. No problem” we both nervously proclaimed. As we stood with her while she chugged away at her cigarette we soon came to learn that her name was Rava or Raja or Rasha or something like that and that indeed she was from Yugoslavia. She had grown up with Gypsies and had come to learn how to read these special type of cards, which weren’t Tarot but purportedly more emotionally charged. I figured this was perfect, if we were going to be conned, we might as well be conned by the master Gypsies.
As the minutes wore on, Rava, snuffed out her half finished cigarette and placed it in her pocket for what I can only assume as use after we left. She must be a true Gypsy. Anyway, my friend went first. Some one and a half hours later, Rava was done. It was a marathon read, she said. Obviously she could sense the issues that were plaguing him. In fact, her accuracy on many of these facts were truly astounding. Now I am aware that most fortune tellers are just using an age old skill of cold reading when performing their “magic”, but it’s worth the money just to watch them use their intuitive skills to pick up on issues and things that seem to be bothering you. Like, I know it’s mostly based on the way they observe your actions and the way you say things, but I liken the experience to watching a tennis player or an entertainer use their skills. It’s the same thing.
Anyway, after an hour an a half of working through my friend’s problems, it was my turn. The first thing Rava said to me was that I’m a very private person and don’t reveal much about myself, which generally is true. But she could have probably sensed that from my actions during my friend’s reading. So I cut the cards, placed them into a couple of groups and she laid them out. After about 15 minutes, I was done. “Yeah, look, your cards are pretty balanced.” Which I suppose is a good thing. Actually during my reading, Rava actually turned to my friend and starting talking about his problems all over again. Which I found amusing and typical. One thing she did say about me was that I tend to want too much. I need to do everything and this results in you really achieving nothing, which is 100% correct. I’ve been doing everything but researching my thesis for the last 4 months and now I realise that I need to hammer down and start working on it and stop formulating excuses for not doing it. Also, I’m going to travel in December or April sometime. Which is true, I was planning to travel in December. But she said that I need to choose one place and stick with it. You can’t do everything (which is relevant given that earlier that day I was contemplating an around the world ticket because I could decide where exactly I wanted to go).
Overall, I would recommend her and think the experience was worth the money. If anything, I have decided to start focusing more on my thesis and doing some actual writing, which even if the psychic is full of shit, can only be a good thing. I think my friend got something out of it, which was my intention and I got out of having to think up a birthday gift plus one less thing on my 101 things to do list.
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It was the last year of my undergrad degree at university and I had just scored a new job mentoring first year students with their studies. The program was a new innovation introduced by the university and was being run in a pilot mode by one of the softly spoken but kind hearted university administrators, Tim. I can vividly remember working there for the first few months in which we really had no idea what we were doing nor how long we would continue to be employed. Only a few errant students would ever drop by for a casual chat just to scope out the nature of the program and what we could do for them, but this was rare. The university had provided us with a tiny little office on the fringes of the campus that was awfully hot and sticky in the summer months, dreadfully cold over the winter and so small that the four walls felt like they were taunting us.
For the first few months I had been stuck on duty with one of the other boorish students who had been recruited with me. His endless discussion of cars and his supposed Lotharian exploits with ”chicks” was unbearable to me. He was the type of guy that whenever one of his jokes would take his particular fancy he would finish off the punch line with a horrific roar of laugher that would reverberate endlessly within the tiny room with such a force that it would make me feel as though my flesh were being ripped asunder. It served only to make me retreat further within myself, a victim of my own shyness, and more reluctant to engage with my fellow co-workers. I had developed a reputation as a bit of loner.
That all changed one autumn day. There had been a shake-up in the rostering and the person who I had been working with was changed to a different day and I had been paired with a new buddy. It must have been a warm day because I can remember she walked in the room exuding the complete positivity of summer. Her name was Maria but she went by as Mia. From the moment she entered the room, there wasn’t a uncomfortable pause nor a momentary minute wherein I wished I could escape like I often felt when working with the other guy. She put me at ease in the first instance and here I sit some 3 years later and I still feel the same way to this very day. Mia and I couldn’t be more different as people. Where she is outgoing, I am reserved. Where she is tenacious, I am cautious. Where she is positive, I am not. And yet for all our differences, it doesn’t matter. We had a complete rapport within minutes it’s like we had known each other our whole lives. She made me come out of my shell and engage with the others around me. She taught me how to interact with people. She asked me straight up why was I so shy. She is strong yet friendly, persistent yet subtle. She is an amazing person and continues to bewilder me.
Now both of us have moved on from that silly little job that provided us with the money to scrape through our undergraduate. But that year we gained something more permanent than two lines on our resume. We gained an enduring friendship that still exists to this day. And here, on the eve of her 23rd birthday, I wanted to take the time to thank her for everything she’s done for me. As trite as it is to say, I wouldn’t be half the person that I am had we never met. I feel inexorably lucky that our two paths collided on that fateful autumn morning three years ago and know that even if our paths should happen to diverge in the future, it’s a period in my life that I will cherish until there’s no longer a thought left in my mind. Happy birthday.
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“You’ve just got to read The Alchemist!” two different people told me this week. And so I did. I spent my entire Saturday night in bed reading The Alchemist. I read it cover to cover in one sitting. I was speaking to my sister last night and she told me that many of the issues I was discussing in my previous blog entry specifically relate to the theme of the novel. Indeed, it did. Overall, it was a great read specifically because many of its issues did, in fact, cover many of the topics I’ve been thinking about recently. Anyone who knows me of any significant depth would realise that I have a strong interest in the question of determinism vs. free will. Throughout the book, the main character relies on omens to guide him through to the fulfilment of his journey. I am not a religious person by any stretch of the imagination, actually, many would probably consider one of the most logic driven person they know but my thoughts drifted to the nature of omens in our lives.
We live in a world dominated by rationality and the scientific method; however, in our post-God existence have we sacrficed a proportion of the human experience because of rejection of things which lack clear explanation? Our thoughts are primed so that we think of everything in terms of causality, reason and logic. This is usually the result of our schooling and the dominantion of science within our culture. But has society’smovement towards a state of scientism cost more than we know. Are we all victims of a state of hyper-rationality wherein we will reject anything that falls outside the proper confines of a scientific explanation. I suppose the most grotesque mutation of this scientism which I speak of can be demonstrated by the quote, “if it can’t be measured then it doesn’t exist.” Science requires measurement. Without measurement, we cannot know science. But how can we measure things such as the human experience of love?
I don’t want everyone to think that I’ve turned New Age or that I am positing a justification for institutionalised religion nor has the boredom of my suburban existence driven me to the occult, but I am concerned that in our efforts to “scientise” our existence we are missing a piece of what it actually means to exist. For example, in reference to my earlier discussion of omens. Do omens exist? The rational part of my brain cries out in agony when I even entertain the possibly that an omen could exist. How could an omen possibly exist? Everything is random. The fact that I encountered such a person, object, text, thing, idea was the direct result of chance, nothing more. And yet, this explanation doesn’t sit easily with the other half of my brain which wants to desperately for omens to exist.
But if you think of omens on another level, maybe I can get a greater understanding. Yes, it might seem serendipitous that a certain thing came into contact with me on my journey through life. It may seem that that particular object is trying to tell me something. Whether or not it was “fate” that such an object would be placed on my path, doesn’t really matter. The greater significance is that explanation which I apply to that particular omen. When we think we see an omen we are obviously placing an interpretation on to that object. And therein lies the true significance of the omen. It’s not the object itself, it’s the intrepretation or explanation that we place upon that object that we should pay attention to. We go through our lives goal seeking. We want things. We want security, love, food, shelter. Sometimes we don’t really know what it is that we want. Perhaps the omen is the thing that helps us realise what we want. We might build the intrepretation and apply it to an object but within that interpretation is the real guidance. We want to believe that that object is an omen because we want to be told to follow that particular path. Now this obviously brings into play numerous questions relating to our subconscious and the influence that it has upon our actions (which feeds into the determinism vs. free will debate). But I guess the point that I’m trying to make is that when you do think that you have seen an ”omen” what is really telling you is that you actually know what you want or what move you need to make, you are just looking to your environment to help you justify your decision.
Or maybe I’m just nuts.
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