I've got writer's blog. Sorry about that punishment; I couldn't resist.
I have recently self-published a novel Iraqi Icicle, set in and around Brisbane, Australia, from 1986 to 1992. Like my play, Tosh: the Musical (visit www.toshthemusical.com ) it has popular music history central to the fiction.
In the play Tosh: the Musical, I look at Peter Tosh, Bob Marley and the Wailers, and the Jamaican reggae scene from its beginnings with ska in the 1960s until Tosh's murder in the 1980s.
In Iraqi Icicle, I am, in part, into the history of Brisbane alternative guitar pop rockers The Go-Betweens which formed in 1977 and broke up in 1990.
The band reformed a few years back with its songwriting nucleus of bassist/lyricist Grant McLennan and guitarist/music writer Robert Forster.
McLennan was born in 1958 and died in autumn, 2006. If you do the maths, he did fulfil the hope of dying before he got old, as the Who's Pete Townshend wrote in My Generation.
I am a few years older than McLennan but the novel is not about my generation. It might strike a chord with any fans of indie rock music between the 70s and 90s. Or those interested in the place of popular culture in the world. Or anybody who has ever pondered the relativity of good and evil. Or someone chasing a bit of black humour to light up our dark times.
I am a journalist by profession or trade or job or whatever. As well as doing general reporting, I write a couple of columns a week and they usually have a bit of a giggle in them. I find it hard to resist and both Tosh the Musical and Iraqi Icicle have humour.
I've an idea the novel Iraqi Icicle might appeal to the present generation of alternative music lovers throughout the world. I wrote both Tosh the Musical and Iraqi Icicle, in part, to give hope to (or at least entertain) teenagers and 20-somethings of today. They have got the rough end of the pineapple, as we like to say in Australia, living in the most despicable of times.
That's probably enough of an introduction, except to say you can buy Iragi Icicle in soft cover from from www.lulu.com or www.lulu.com.uk or, as an ebook, it is serialised in four parts at www.lulu.com
It is published by Bent Banana Books which is my own publishing house, but do not tell anyone that, as they might think Iraqi Icicle is less than a professional publication.
Spread the news,
Bernie
Friday, June 29, 2007
Monday, June 25, 2007
Voters might mention the war
WITHIN the next 12 months or so, voters elect governments in the US, Britain and Australia.
The three incumbent governments are in (Basil) faulty towers and are exhorting people not to mention the war.In the instance of the comic John Cleese creation, Basil Fawlty, the conflict not to mention was the World War of the II persuasion.
For President George W. Bush and former Prime Minister Tony Blair and Prime Minister John Howard it is the Iraqi War MkII.
It seems the world's people are in a mood to change governments at the moment.A few years back, Spain elected a left-wing government because its citizens did not like the consequences of the Iraqi invasion. Just recently, France elected a right-wing President, despite its citizens not liking the consequences of the Iraqi Invasion.
All this must put Bush, Blair and Howard on edge.
Bush should be the calmest because he is going anyway and he can take solace he is not the Republican who will be whipped at the polls. It is the first time, in my memory, that the next US President will be voted in through the Democratic Primaries, because after that it is a formality.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair also will not lead his (New Labor) Party at the next polls, but he will likely be upset if the voters mention the war and savage Gordon Brown led Labor. Blair strikes me as someone who wants everyone to like him, a supremely difficult task, if you have had a hand in the slaughter of tens of thousands of Iraqis.
In my country, Australia, the Labor Opposition clearly leads the opinion polls over the Government of John Howard, a few months out from an election. Labor has not mentioned the war much yet and may never mention it very loudly, seeing they brought up little opposition to Australia being part of the coalition of the swilling which invaded Iraq.
The voters, on the other hand, may mention the war. Before the unmentionable, Australians were opposed to an invasion without US sanction, though some swung around when they realised the invasion was inevitable. Some of these people might be angry at being duped.
Spread the Word,
Bernie
The three incumbent governments are in (Basil) faulty towers and are exhorting people not to mention the war.In the instance of the comic John Cleese creation, Basil Fawlty, the conflict not to mention was the World War of the II persuasion.
For President George W. Bush and former Prime Minister Tony Blair and Prime Minister John Howard it is the Iraqi War MkII.
It seems the world's people are in a mood to change governments at the moment.A few years back, Spain elected a left-wing government because its citizens did not like the consequences of the Iraqi invasion. Just recently, France elected a right-wing President, despite its citizens not liking the consequences of the Iraqi Invasion.
All this must put Bush, Blair and Howard on edge.
Bush should be the calmest because he is going anyway and he can take solace he is not the Republican who will be whipped at the polls. It is the first time, in my memory, that the next US President will be voted in through the Democratic Primaries, because after that it is a formality.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair also will not lead his (New Labor) Party at the next polls, but he will likely be upset if the voters mention the war and savage Gordon Brown led Labor. Blair strikes me as someone who wants everyone to like him, a supremely difficult task, if you have had a hand in the slaughter of tens of thousands of Iraqis.
In my country, Australia, the Labor Opposition clearly leads the opinion polls over the Government of John Howard, a few months out from an election. Labor has not mentioned the war much yet and may never mention it very loudly, seeing they brought up little opposition to Australia being part of the coalition of the swilling which invaded Iraq.
The voters, on the other hand, may mention the war. Before the unmentionable, Australians were opposed to an invasion without US sanction, though some swung around when they realised the invasion was inevitable. Some of these people might be angry at being duped.
Spread the Word,
Bernie
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Laughing at the Disabled
AN academic squabble from Brisbane, Australia, is entertaining consumers of popular media.
Former journalist and current doctorate film student at Queensland University of Technology, Michael Noonan, is making a film called Laughing at the Disabled as a large chunk of his thesis.
Cultural Industries academics Dr Gary MacLennan and Dr John Hookham have been suspended without pay for six months for criticising the film and its auteur in the national newspaper The Australian.
I have connections with some threads of the drama.
As a journalist, I worked for the same newspaper chain as Noonan and I worked alongside the sports reporter on occasion though we were never based at the same office.
Gary MacLennan I knew from the civil liberties campaigns in Brisbane during the 1970s.
Like MacLennan, I have a disabled family member, in my case, a 10-year-old son with an intellectual disability.
Unlike MacLennan, I have not seen the early rushes of Noonan's film, so I cannot pass judgement on its content.
The film's title Laughing at the Disabled does not offend me because I believe it needs to be judged in the context of the film.
Champions of the rights of the disabled cannot have it both ways. You cannot say they are marginalised and made invisible and then condemn a film title which places them front and centre.
Maybe the title is only undergraduate attention-seeking. Maybe its confrontation has a more positive aim.
While I cannot, through lack of evidence, support MacLennan and Hookham in their condemnation of the film, the university's penalty seems outrageous.
The gist of their crime seems to be expressed in similar terms by QUT Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Coaldrake and Noonan who was quoted as saying ``criticism..... should be channelled through the appropriate academic forums''.
Ah, what goes on at uni stays at uni and violators of this principle will have the book thrown at them.
In my novel Iraqi Icicle (available at www.lulu.com/uk ) I have my street-wise protagonist Steele Hill invited as a guest speaker at a university lecture in cultural studies.
A student asks Hill a question about sociologist Erving Goffman's study of total institutions, such as prisons, the armed forces and mental hospitals.
Of course, Hill has never heard of Goffman and asks what he was in prison for, but the astute reader might suspect I am raising questions about whether universities have elements of total institutions about them.
As a great academic institution should, QUT, its staff and students appear to be contributing to that debate.
Spread the news
Bernie
Former journalist and current doctorate film student at Queensland University of Technology, Michael Noonan, is making a film called Laughing at the Disabled as a large chunk of his thesis.
Cultural Industries academics Dr Gary MacLennan and Dr John Hookham have been suspended without pay for six months for criticising the film and its auteur in the national newspaper The Australian.
I have connections with some threads of the drama.
As a journalist, I worked for the same newspaper chain as Noonan and I worked alongside the sports reporter on occasion though we were never based at the same office.
Gary MacLennan I knew from the civil liberties campaigns in Brisbane during the 1970s.
Like MacLennan, I have a disabled family member, in my case, a 10-year-old son with an intellectual disability.
Unlike MacLennan, I have not seen the early rushes of Noonan's film, so I cannot pass judgement on its content.
The film's title Laughing at the Disabled does not offend me because I believe it needs to be judged in the context of the film.
Champions of the rights of the disabled cannot have it both ways. You cannot say they are marginalised and made invisible and then condemn a film title which places them front and centre.
Maybe the title is only undergraduate attention-seeking. Maybe its confrontation has a more positive aim.
While I cannot, through lack of evidence, support MacLennan and Hookham in their condemnation of the film, the university's penalty seems outrageous.
The gist of their crime seems to be expressed in similar terms by QUT Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Coaldrake and Noonan who was quoted as saying ``criticism..... should be channelled through the appropriate academic forums''.
Ah, what goes on at uni stays at uni and violators of this principle will have the book thrown at them.
In my novel Iraqi Icicle (available at www.lulu.com/uk ) I have my street-wise protagonist Steele Hill invited as a guest speaker at a university lecture in cultural studies.
A student asks Hill a question about sociologist Erving Goffman's study of total institutions, such as prisons, the armed forces and mental hospitals.
Of course, Hill has never heard of Goffman and asks what he was in prison for, but the astute reader might suspect I am raising questions about whether universities have elements of total institutions about them.
As a great academic institution should, QUT, its staff and students appear to be contributing to that debate.
Spread the news
Bernie
Thursday, June 14, 2007
10 best books ever written
IN Australia, our national TV and radio broadcaster asked viewers and/or listeners to name their favourite book.
I am sure many of you would have been invited to frolic in a similar exercise in your own countries.
It is chewing on a piece of gum for the mind, because
a. popular books will fare better than the classics and
b. more recent books will fare better than the classics and
c. most viewers have not read the classics or, if they have, it was long ago.
Academics like to make lists and they love to be considered smart so, they too, are sometimes invited to compile their 10 best books ever written.
It takes the fun out of it, if you cite criteria for what is a great book, but it would be interesting to see what the general public would nominate as their favourite 10 books if they could not list a book written in the last 50 years.
Of course, your 10 favourite books are not necessarily the 10 books you consider the best ever written. Sherlock Holmes books are fun but not fantastic as imaginative fiction
Go to it. Name the 10 best books ever, not including any of the past 50 years.
The real buzz about a compilation like this is reading someone else's might prompt you to discover a gem or re-evaluate something you have read.
The downside is you cannot imediately remember all the books you loved.
I will start the list with this proviso, if you asked me next week, it might be different.
1. The Adventures of Don Quixote by Cervantes
2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
3. The Nigger of the Narcissus by Joseph Conrad
4. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
5. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
6. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence (Could be just my associating because Lawrence and Huxley were mates.)
7. The Trial by Franz Kafka
8. A James Joyce novel though I have never got past the first five pages of any.
9. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos because Joyce preferred to have that read to him, when he was near blind in his old age.
10. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett because a book can be play.
Won't you return the ball: what's your 10 best?
Spread the Word
Bernie
I am sure many of you would have been invited to frolic in a similar exercise in your own countries.
It is chewing on a piece of gum for the mind, because
a. popular books will fare better than the classics and
b. more recent books will fare better than the classics and
c. most viewers have not read the classics or, if they have, it was long ago.
Academics like to make lists and they love to be considered smart so, they too, are sometimes invited to compile their 10 best books ever written.
It takes the fun out of it, if you cite criteria for what is a great book, but it would be interesting to see what the general public would nominate as their favourite 10 books if they could not list a book written in the last 50 years.
Of course, your 10 favourite books are not necessarily the 10 books you consider the best ever written. Sherlock Holmes books are fun but not fantastic as imaginative fiction
Go to it. Name the 10 best books ever, not including any of the past 50 years.
The real buzz about a compilation like this is reading someone else's might prompt you to discover a gem or re-evaluate something you have read.
The downside is you cannot imediately remember all the books you loved.
I will start the list with this proviso, if you asked me next week, it might be different.
1. The Adventures of Don Quixote by Cervantes
2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
3. The Nigger of the Narcissus by Joseph Conrad
4. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
5. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
6. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence (Could be just my associating because Lawrence and Huxley were mates.)
7. The Trial by Franz Kafka
8. A James Joyce novel though I have never got past the first five pages of any.
9. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos because Joyce preferred to have that read to him, when he was near blind in his old age.
10. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett because a book can be play.
Won't you return the ball: what's your 10 best?
Spread the Word
Bernie
Sunday, June 10, 2007
The lessor of two evils
The concept of the lesser of two evils fascinates.
Even lukewarm supporters of the TV forensic show CSI were drawn to the double episode directed by Quentin Tarantino who also wrote the story line.
In the yarn, a CSI officer is buried alive in a glass coffin, but left with a gun to shoot himself: ah, the lesser of two evils.
I recall an old joke which lacks a little in logic, as they sometimes do, when they are transferred orally and not subject to the scrutiny available to the written word.
I will try to repair the logic of the joke which is rather juvenile and not that funny, but suits our purposes, here.
Oh alright, I'll just tell the joke; no one likes a preamble anymore.
A man catches his wife having adultery and the outraged husband grabs her naked male lover down to a shed and puts his penis in a vice. The husband turns on a welder and naked man screeches: ``you are not going to burn me with that thing?'' No, the husband replies and he uses the welder to burn the handle off the vice.
To the relief of the naked man, the husband leaves but he returns with a huge kitchen knife and places it beside the penis of the naked man who screams: ``You are not going to cut it off, are you?'' The husband replies: ``No, you are; I'm going to burn down the shed.''
The lesser of two evils, you see, as well as men's fear of castration. How could a joke like that fail, even when it's juvenile and not too funny?
Let's switch to real life. I wouldn't be the only one this happened to.
You have a landlord who is buddy-buddies with you and says you can lease the comfortable abode he owns for as long as you like. He is not going to sell.
Lease renewal time is nearing and your buddy tells you he has an offer too good to refuse on the place and you will have to go. But this bloke is your eternal buddy and he will make it up to you by giving you the choice of leasing one of two other properties he owns.
Only, neither one is near as good as the one you are about to be kicked out of.
But you know you have to take one of them as you need a roof over your head. In making the choice, you, silently but mightily, curse your landlord who is the lessor of two evils.
Spread the News
Bernie
Even lukewarm supporters of the TV forensic show CSI were drawn to the double episode directed by Quentin Tarantino who also wrote the story line.
In the yarn, a CSI officer is buried alive in a glass coffin, but left with a gun to shoot himself: ah, the lesser of two evils.
I recall an old joke which lacks a little in logic, as they sometimes do, when they are transferred orally and not subject to the scrutiny available to the written word.
I will try to repair the logic of the joke which is rather juvenile and not that funny, but suits our purposes, here.
Oh alright, I'll just tell the joke; no one likes a preamble anymore.
A man catches his wife having adultery and the outraged husband grabs her naked male lover down to a shed and puts his penis in a vice. The husband turns on a welder and naked man screeches: ``you are not going to burn me with that thing?'' No, the husband replies and he uses the welder to burn the handle off the vice.
To the relief of the naked man, the husband leaves but he returns with a huge kitchen knife and places it beside the penis of the naked man who screams: ``You are not going to cut it off, are you?'' The husband replies: ``No, you are; I'm going to burn down the shed.''
The lesser of two evils, you see, as well as men's fear of castration. How could a joke like that fail, even when it's juvenile and not too funny?
Let's switch to real life. I wouldn't be the only one this happened to.
You have a landlord who is buddy-buddies with you and says you can lease the comfortable abode he owns for as long as you like. He is not going to sell.
Lease renewal time is nearing and your buddy tells you he has an offer too good to refuse on the place and you will have to go. But this bloke is your eternal buddy and he will make it up to you by giving you the choice of leasing one of two other properties he owns.
Only, neither one is near as good as the one you are about to be kicked out of.
But you know you have to take one of them as you need a roof over your head. In making the choice, you, silently but mightily, curse your landlord who is the lessor of two evils.
Spread the News
Bernie
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Armenian zoo buys long-necked lizard as giraffe
A RECENT fable, passed around as true, had Japanese dog fanciers buying sheep, thinking they were expensive poodles.
The story leapt across the international news wires into world-wide newspaper and TV before it was exposed as an urban myth.
These creatures are the facts, stranger than fictions, which turn out to be fictional. I fancy their being erroneously called only ``urban'' myths could come from rural mythology: you know the yarns about travelling city slickers who imagine themselves as sophisticates only to turn out to be dumber than dog do.
The sheep-poodle myth was somewhat racist in that it had rich Japanese being stupid enough to be sold, not a pup, but a lamb.
As a practising journalist, I have come across these urban myths from time to time. I was working on a provincial paper which ran a staple: a family dog kills a deadly snake threatening a baby. The canine saves the infant's life but, unfortunately, dies in the process.
I did not tell the editor of my suspicions he had been conned because I had previously felt the wrath of people when I suggested they might be duped.
Urban myths have symptoms of untruth. These include imprecision of detail and the story being second or third hand: `my cousin's best friend saw it'.
I have always thought to expose urban myths is more laudable than to spread them but I may be responsible for creating one.
I have been writing a humorous column in our local newspaper for six years. When our State of Queensland was hunting down icons to venerate, I proposed two French poodles, Fi Fi and Fa Fa, which, in 1954, won the sheep dog trials at our annual show.
It was all a bit of fun, but months later, I found my brother, who also lives locally, read my yarn and actually believed it. What's more; my sibling, who is of above average intelligence, told others of the wondrous exploits of the fictional poodles Fi Fi and Fa Fa.
If any of you have been seduced by stories of French poodles winning your sheep dog trials in the dim past, you can probably trace them back to my article and I apologise.
What is your favourite urban myth and how was it exposed? In the meantime, have you heard how Armenian zoos having been buying long-necked lizards passed off as giraffes? You haven’t? Good, let's keep it to ourselves.
Spread the News
Bernie
The story leapt across the international news wires into world-wide newspaper and TV before it was exposed as an urban myth.
These creatures are the facts, stranger than fictions, which turn out to be fictional. I fancy their being erroneously called only ``urban'' myths could come from rural mythology: you know the yarns about travelling city slickers who imagine themselves as sophisticates only to turn out to be dumber than dog do.
The sheep-poodle myth was somewhat racist in that it had rich Japanese being stupid enough to be sold, not a pup, but a lamb.
As a practising journalist, I have come across these urban myths from time to time. I was working on a provincial paper which ran a staple: a family dog kills a deadly snake threatening a baby. The canine saves the infant's life but, unfortunately, dies in the process.
I did not tell the editor of my suspicions he had been conned because I had previously felt the wrath of people when I suggested they might be duped.
Urban myths have symptoms of untruth. These include imprecision of detail and the story being second or third hand: `my cousin's best friend saw it'.
I have always thought to expose urban myths is more laudable than to spread them but I may be responsible for creating one.
I have been writing a humorous column in our local newspaper for six years. When our State of Queensland was hunting down icons to venerate, I proposed two French poodles, Fi Fi and Fa Fa, which, in 1954, won the sheep dog trials at our annual show.
It was all a bit of fun, but months later, I found my brother, who also lives locally, read my yarn and actually believed it. What's more; my sibling, who is of above average intelligence, told others of the wondrous exploits of the fictional poodles Fi Fi and Fa Fa.
If any of you have been seduced by stories of French poodles winning your sheep dog trials in the dim past, you can probably trace them back to my article and I apologise.
What is your favourite urban myth and how was it exposed? In the meantime, have you heard how Armenian zoos having been buying long-necked lizards passed off as giraffes? You haven’t? Good, let's keep it to ourselves.
Spread the News
Bernie
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