Dark Chatter

First published in The Skinny, March 1, 2009

Trips to the country generally require interaction with a local yokel, and whether they’ve been here for eight generations or eight days the Victorian bumpkin can always be relied upon to be civil. However, here’s the thing – this cordiality masks a mindset characterized by obsequiousness, hostility, mistrust and megalomania.

The question ‘What can I do for you?’ drips with servility but it is really a philosophical black hole, an infinitely expanding hypothetical that is not quite expected when simply trying to purchase a decorative stained-glass wind-chime. What, indeed, CAN be done for you? I have always settled, in these circumstances, for having my house painted but the choices are infinite.

Or you might face the more direct but no less perplexing ‘Are you right?’ an inquiry that assumes that truth is absolute and that you must pronounce your degree of correctness if you are ever going to escape with that fine example of Goldfields handicraft. Or is Krystal attempting to discuss party politics? Do Liberal voters not get to buy souvenirs of the Macedon Ranges?

Then Krystal attempts to put you on his mailing list, saying ‘What was your name?’ and thus revealing that he thinks you are either a fugitive from justice or aware of your many past lives. What was your name before you joined the Witness Protection Program? Or when you were an Egyptian Sun God?

Then, just as you are leaving, Krystal mutters ‘Have a nice day’, an order that encumbers you with an onerous burden. What if you can’t? What if you don’t want to? And what gives Krystal the right to put the onus on you? If Krystal wants you to ‘have a nice day’ then maybe he and his ilk shouldn’t constantly barrage you with treacherous platitudes guaranteed to ruin it.

Wild Means Mild – Plain Means Pain

First Published in The Skinny – 01/02/09

The Australian bush is littered with a wide range of fauna; possums, wombats, animal liberationists and serial killers all roam the great outdoors, but here’s the thing – an animal’s name is in inverse proportion to it’s its propensity to kill, the rule of thumb being that the more benign the moniker, the more excruciating your death.

It has been suggested that the Brown Snake or Red Back Spider are so-called due to the fact that the early pioneers were apt to live somewhat in the moment and upon encountering, say, a snake that is brown or a spider whose back is red, stating the bleeding obvious is a far as they would get before joining the holy choir invisible. However, it is alternatively argued that these names have a deeper resonance and that the Stone Fish is named after a person’s state of animation following interaction with one, while the Box Jellyfish is so titled for the receptacle an interactor would be placed in.

Either way, steer clear of anything with an overly non-descript, poly-functional or downright practical title like Funnel or Salt Water, as its appetite for destruction will be on a par with the serial killer who just bought you a beer, the quite type who keeps to himself but who possesses the capacity to inflict death whenever the fancy takes him.

No, stick to the more colourful Kangaroo or Koala who are programmed to merely endanger the local flora and whose nutritional requirements and general levels of malevolence are no greater than the animal liberationist who so passionately handed you a leaflet – a tad grumpy but a threat to nothing more than a salad sandwich.

Tree-Changed But Well Arranged.

First published in The Skinny – 01/12/08

Isn’t it lovely, the countryside? As you holiday in bucolic splendour, the scuttle and scurry of the local fauna, the glorious spectacle of the native flora, the cute little tumbled-down shacks that draw the eye of the more seasoned home renovator, the kilometer upon kilometer upon dusty, parched kilometer of serenity and surprisingly fine coffee served at every turn are enough to make you want to leave your inner-city nook far behind forever, but here’s the thing – you have be qualified.

The hardy souls that live and work in rural and regional Victoria are highly trained individuals; for example, that lone figure traipsing across the field is not a farmer – it’s a set designer with a Melbourne University Fine Arts Degree on her way to make sure the rotting timbers of that fixer-upper are artfully arranged just so.

And the crusty old characters you met at the pub last night? NIDA graduates using their expensive educations to convince you, the idle motorist, that rusticity prevails throughout the land – as soon as you left the bar they all started critiquing their performances – ‘I felt very centered, Nigel’ – and writing tomorrow’s skit about mending the vicar’s roof.

The native-born yokels have shifted to the cities where their talents for eradicating trees, building brick veneer bungalows and generally being practical are far more appreciated, but for those doomed to scratch a living out of the arts, well, they have to go where the work is, and this is why it is now possible to buy a decent ‘latte even in rural Victoria’s most god-forsaken ditch – the Victorian government’s Culture and Heritage Preservation grants may mean the difference between life and death, but there are some things former residents of Fitzroy just will not go without.