SOMEONES GOT IT IN FOR ME/WE BUILT THIS CITY

Its now almost 7 months since our boy dropped. He's now lying in his cot, a riot of activity, pausing only to give me a beaming, slightly toothy grin, or to munch on his stuffed pet, Wudarabin the Emu. He kicks his legs like a frog regardless of whether he is in the water or on dry land. Though given the humidity over the last few weeks, there doesn't seem to be a lot of difference between the two.

MUSICAL MOMENTS

I'm now starting to feel remorse that Plax loves Aint No Fun (If the homies can't get none) by Snoop Dogg as his go to calm down music. If this is what he chills to, what the hell is he going to party to? Dubstep? God forbid.

Lovin' that new Frankie Ocean album, though it joins a distinguished line of albums wherein the preceding mixtape may have been better than the album itself.

And a letter:

Dear Dr Dre

First of all, my healtfelt gratitude for The Chronic and 2001 and much other goodness through your championing of Snoop (Doggystyle is an unbelievable, er, record), Eminem and more recently Kendrick Lamar. Not to mention your exploits with NWA.

With the above, your legacy is assured. And you gotta keep following your dream. However, if your dream currently involves whatever you call that thing you laid out on '3 Kings', for the sake of all us, please keep that to yourself. That shit was just undignified. Spruiking headphones and whatnot.

You could release Detox, for all of us to discover that its actually Susan Boyle and Justin Bieber doing a duet (AND singing together...aihh) and it would still have more artistic merit than that trash on 3 Kings.

Kind Regards

P.S Tell your old mate Tupac that your new mate Rick Ross is 'running rap' (as claimed in his Twitter bio ). I expect he will sort that shit out ASAP. Preferably with a Glock.

 

FATHERHOOD ADVICE/HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR EGGS?

So I'd hoped that I would be able to uncover some gems for you this month. Real wisdomy stuff. Gems so prized that you would subscribe to my PREMIUM ONLINE REAL TIME FEED SO THAT YOU TOO CAN HAVE A BABY THAT GOES TO SLEEP WHEN YOU SING BOB DYLAN SONGS TO THEM. Sadly though, I fear with the glut of information available for how to raise your child, and the dire consequences of not raising them 'like the books says', that half arsed comments from a man with way too much time on his hands would inspire you to scream 'NO NOT AGAIN!', much like I do when I watch the Dees carry out their/my weekly ordeal.

If you have already got your kids safely out the door, then congratulations. You may also be wondering what all the fuss is about. But given that parental advice in your day consisted of:

• When your babies are teething, rub a small quantity of top shelf scotch whisky on their gums. And yours. Repeat until either or both of you are asleep

Mmm...while todays parents are bombarded with terms like 'attachment parenting', ' controlled crying', 'minimalist parenting' it is no great wonder that people are overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by information, we seek to clarify our own thoughts. By writing them down. And then turn it into a blog.....and then into a philosophy. And then gets turned into a book. Which you then promote on the Today show, which for all my claimed lack of prejudice, is just undignified. (And yes, I'm referring to you, Mama Mia).

To give you an idea of how things in the interwebs age work, consider the following entirely unrelated piece of informations.

I know my way around an egg. And a spatula. I can fry, scramble, boil, omelette, poach, bake and even coddle adequately enough to please most egg lovers. I'm no Harold Helmer, but I have a few tricks amd they work for me for the most part. Possibly even got me laid half a dozen times (See what I did there?).

That aside, I don't profess to be an eggspert expert. (This gets better and better). I don't write about how to cook eggs because there are many different theories on how to, say, poach an egg perfectly. Or crack an egg. My mate cracks eggs one-handed while I use a flat surface to minimise shell shrapnel entering the white.

If, however, I did write about eggs, sharing the above gold with you, the comments section of my webpage would look something like this:

1. Eggs fried in pork fat are the best. Bit of tomato sauce on the side works well. R. Grinter, Mornington
2. EGGS ARE ANIMALS. ANIMALS ARE HUMANS. HOW CAN YOU EAT HUMANS? CRUELTY TO ANIMALS YOU WILL ALL BURN IN HELL. A. Non, Hippytown
3. I like a 3 egg white omelette cooked for 52 seconds on each side with no fat no carbohydrate rice bran oil. Garnish with a small amount of cocaine and eat it off shining white Tiffany crockery, carefully mind, so as not to get any on my ridiculously large sunglasses. Chug down a large soy frappuccino double decaff latte with dandelion garnish, then vomit the whole lot up and go off and play tennis with my chums. P.S why does everyone hate me? L. Bingle, Sydney
4. As long as they're served with 8 chicken parmagianas, I couldn't care how the eggs are cooked. P. Scully, Sydney.
5. Add 18 buckets of butter to a small non stick frying pan. Add one cracked egg. Possibly add more butter. When the egg looks like a glistening eyeball, ladle it into a bowl and garnish with a bouquet of organic herbs. And butter. Monsieur Le Giteau, French Embassy.
6. If Jesus was an egg, he'd be considered barn laid. Gay Marriage is Immoral and you will burn in hell. G. Pell, Sydney
7. To cook the best scrambled eggs, start the night before. Drink two glasses of red wine, licking the rim in a suggestive manner. Heat up your bain-marie to 59.7C. Beat the eggs in a clockwise motion (southern hemisphere) or anti-clockwise (northern), all the time gently rubbing your genitals with a silicone oven glove. Proceed until the eggs are beaten/you are ready to begin foreplay. Pour the eggs into the bain-marie, amd grind yourself on the bench top. Go to bed in crisp linen sheets and think naughty thoughts. When you arise, pour a bloody mary and pop on a lacy dressing gown. Tip the eggs into a provocatively shaped dish, balanced on the end of something phallic. Garnish with shaved truffle. N. Lawson, London.

Take a read of any online article to get an idea of whats going on.

In this day and age, of media creating sensations and controversy in order to douse them, strongly held and expressed opinions seem to be the order of the day. Opinions with little or no scientific backing. 'Personalities' are readily turned into 'experts' (not vice-versa) so that the media can fill time slots. Meanwhile, the millions of dollars we invest into medical science (and other sciences) is being wasted as we instead choose to take advice from some twat on Oprah. (HEY ARE YOU REALLY FAT? ITS PROBABLY BECAUSE OF THE TOXINS IN YOUR DIET WHICH YOU CAN ELIMINATE WITH A LEMON DIET AND OUR SPECIALY FORMULATED SYRUP - ONLY $100 FOR 7 DAYS! Its definitely not because you're sitting on the couch watching Oprah).

Meanwhile, some of us simply revert to doing what our mothers and fathers did, because after all 'we didn't turn out too badly'. Hate to tell ya kids, but if we do that on every front we'll all be poor, then dead, and very quickly too, because our topsoil will be ploughed away, and we'll be living in asbestos houses and taking cocaine for headaches (Hang on, this might turn out okay...). I believe in taking advice from experienced people, but just because people have experience, doesn't mean they're right.

Personally I think that if you're genuinely doing the best for your family, and are genuinely doing the best to be informed on medically approved practices, then the 'experts on the side' should go back to reading their star signs.

Which brings me to my next segment.....

I'M NOTORIOUSLY BIG IN JAPAN

Its kind of cool when you step off the plane in Japan and automatically become an above average size, buffet plundering monster who can double handedly and single mouthedly destroy profit margins at all you can eat restaurants.

Then you slowly start thinking about the reasons for the size difference. Japan isn't a developing country. Food supplies are adequate. So it must be just genetics, right? You know, we're big, they're not, its just how we're born.

Well, kind of. Japanese babies are born smaller. In fact, Japan is the only country in the world producing thinner babies each year (nb: if you are Japanese, THIS IS NOT A DESIRABLE THING). Oh, and Japanese babies also have a spina bifida rate almost 3 times that of other developed countries. Why? Well, its kind of difficult to tell exactly, but it is relatively common for women to go on a diet here once discovering they are pregnant. In order to make labour as easy as possible. In some cases, this is supported by advice from doctors here. And the reason that this incorrect advice persists? Possibly because doctors do not want to change their (currently incorrect) advice and lose face. Wow, thats comforting to know. What professional integrity. Check this out for more info. I won't go so far as to claim that this worrying health issue exists because the medical profession is dominated by males here and females remain discriminated against in basically every domain, mainly because I have no evidence to support this opinion. But I suspect it may be a factor.

I'm not saying that science holds all the answers to all the questions: I believe in many things that currently cannot be explained by science. Like how Snoop Dogg is neither dead nor in jail. But I'm willing to accept rational arguments based on logic. Kinda like the Berkeley Earth Science Project, which with the support of many climate change skeptics set out to find the 'real truth' about Climate Change. They examined more data than any other study previously had, eliminated inconsistencies that had been criticised previously, and addressed basically all concerns expressed over previous studies. The author of the study 'concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.'

Kinda awkward conclusion to come to when the project donors include an oil company.

JAPANESE PRODUCT OF THE WEEK

Ooh, so many contenders.

But this has to be the winner. Has to be.

 

This twin threat/double trouble/2 for the price of 1 deal penetrates the same category as the curiously named Honda That's (a car), Mitsubishi Scrum (a truck), and Collon cream filled snacks.

JAPANESE INGENUITY

The weather here gets reasonably warm in summer. The common ways to keep your chassis cool here are wet towels around the neck, using a hand held fan (if you got photo-induced epilepsy I recommend you avoid festivals - people be flashing LED lit fans like they're throwing gang signs at a Lil Wayne concert. Soo Woo).

When It comes to housing, most building materials here are light and reasonably poorly insulated. Eaves are small, due to small block sizes, and therefore most people rely on good siting and alignments to minimise exposure of living areas to solar radiation. Air conditioning is a staple of all houses I have been to.

One additional area where people seek to minimise solar radiation to their house is in the use of 'green curtains'. It is very common for fast growing vines (such as morning glory, or goya/bitter melon) to be planted on the western side of the house, generally in a pot, and trained up the side of the house. In the humid conditions of early summer these vines thrive and then provide thick coverage of the afternoon sun. You don't need to be a scientist to appreciate the benefits of plants providing shade to your house, however studies suggest there are benefits beyond those immediately recognized, such as lowering the pollution levels in the vicinity of houses. The best bit about these temporary installations is that they can be easily dissembled in late Autumn to allow the house to soak up that precious solar radiation come winter.

Commonly supported by bamboo, green curtains are well utilised

 

On a larger scale, I have seen installations such as the one featured on the ACROS Building in Fukuoka (pictured below), which aside from all of the above, would bring additional benefits due to the diversity of plants providing precious habitat in highly urban areas. Reportedly, it was built on the last green space within the city, and hence the desire to retain some green characteristics.

 

Check out its footprint on google maps here or just look at the hastily copied version below. Impressive.

And if you want to find out more about this kind of stuff, check out Junglefy's work here. They are a Sydney based company that do work Australia wide. I'm obliged to tell you that its my brother-in-laws company, so please don't call the brigade from cash-for-comment, as they will surely haul me over the coals for this explicit endorsement. However, as my readership seems largely confined to my immediate family, the flow on effects will probably be small. (As befitting my brother-in-law, who is quite the wee man himself).

 

 

PLAY OF THE WEEK/CIRCULAR ARGUMENT/MAN UP

Well its taken about 30 years but its finally over. The Melbourne Football Club has finally overcome my natural inclination to look on the bright side.

My dad told me recently that he could find reasons to look back and enjoy every part of his life to date. What a wonderful outlook to have.

He certainly imparted this to me: one of my first notable statements related to the Wallabies being 3 points down to Ireland in the closing minutes of the 1991 Rugby World Cup quarter finals. I squeaked at the time 'While theres life, theres hope' to my then despairing Dad. Sure enough, the mighty men of gold pulled one out the hat, and in doing so became a 'team of destiny'. A team that would gather irresistible momentum from that victory, smash the All Blacks in the semi fianl and go on to win the coveted World Cup. (Did I mention that we smashed the All Blacks?)

Perhaps witnessing something like this at such an impressionable age gave me wildly unrealistic expectations about what sporting teams could do with their backs against the wall. The MFC has spent my entire life with its back to the wall, except when it had its front to the wall, mainly because Hawthorn and Essendon were royally sodomising it to the tune of 96 points and 60 points in the '88 and '00 grand finals respectively.

Every week until now I have secretly harboured hope that the Dees would get up and win. Insane, illogical hope that could get me arrested if expressed out loud. Truly crazy amounts of optimism. Belieber like devotion that only a few other long suffering supporters could understand. Like the sort of optimism that Hitler and the Emperor of Japan shared in early 1945 about their chances of world domination. I've had to stop participating in footy tipping and fantasy team competitions because I couldn't suppress the urge to nominate my team for season long domination and each and every player to suddenly reach the peak of their powers, simultaneously. I've kept the faith to a ridiculous extent over the last few miserable years: far out, I've even gone to Cranbourne to watch practice matches. Sober. When teased by opposition supporters, I've maintained my composure, and kept a tiny bit of red and blue glee secreted deep inside, suppository style, ready to bust out in the unlikely event of victory.

Every loss has been an anomaly; every win a vital plank in the wall of my sanity and logic. Even truly mind blowing defeats (and the Dees specialise in this area) have been dissected, rationalized, internalized, and consigned to the 'lessons from disappointment bin' (currently overflowing).

Now though, having attained a modicum of perspective by being out of the country for the longest time since 1995 (in which the Dees were one of the pre-season favourites for the premiership and promptly responded by losing the first 6 games of the season), I feel like perhaps things won't be okay. I feel bloody traitorous for saying this, but perhaps Jack Watts won't ever realize his potential. Perhaps Jurrah will go to jail for his machete related mishap, and Sylvia probably will too just for being a shit bloke. Maybe the players really don't care about the club; if you go by their inane comments on Twitter (and I do), perhaps they should follow their true passions of ping pong and video games.

Now that Jimmy Stynes has died, I don't know whether I'll/we'll be okay ever again. Which is exactly what Jimmy would not want me to say. I can't bear the thought of disappointing Big Jim.

So here we are again. I'll keep the faith. Till I die (which, as irony would have it, will probably be caused by keeping the faith. When the Dees lose their next grand final by a point, look for a defibrillator and then find me).

I realise now that I haven't worn the jumper in a while. I'll pop it on tomorrow, I'll watch the clip below, and I'll keep believing. And cry a little bit.

 

After all, life's like a movie, write your own ending, keep believing, keep pretending....

 

 

MFC