Our home away from Home

I think that there could be a problem that the world don't see the "real" Australia. It has to be an issue that they don't get the right impression about us.
It seems that our reputation is based on a theory that we all say 'g'day' constantly, show off an extensive arsenal of knives, and occasionally tackling a crocodile and for being loud, abusive angry film stars in Hollywood. And this is all based on the fact that our best media representations to the world are our down to earth khaki wrestling crocodiles, our bus riding drag queens, our megalomaniac media moguls and a psychotic vengeance seeking lawman with a penchance for Leather.

I believe we should start to send out better representations from our moat-bound isle than these shallow representations of our fair nation. I don't think we can just rely on the bywords of our tourists and mentions in occasional distopyan action movies. Can we actoally get our greatest minds together and not throw money at Baz Luhrman as an ad campaign. I didn't have much respect for the Lara Bingle 'Bloody Hell' ad campaign but at least it showed a semblance of our dry humour and irreverent swearing to the world. Can we get our tourist ads produced on an "underbelly" tone with sex, violence and possibly bootlegging. Or maybe get our very own Kath and Kim production house to show the virtues of the outer outer eastern regions of Melbourne and surrounding housing estates in all their outspoken glory.


But this may not be a problem for our island nation but in actual fact I see this as a great opportunity. While we are percieved as fun loving freedom wanting individuals we can now plan our best takeover of the world. We can sit behind this thin mask of incorrect perception and plan for a global world domination.
Who's to say the process isn't already in effect with Australian expats getting control of major media outlets and the world beer supplies we may be halfway to grinding the world to a halt should our nefarious demands not be met.

And now, I think I should be off. Our nation is in need of an Art Deco style lair built around an active volcano. I have a spade and a shovel and I'm going to dig till I find Lava.

Newspaper killed the Twitter Star

After a time of yelling repeatedly at friends getting louder each time we finished playing Pictionary on the weekend. We were in high spirits and drinking other spirits as well and will, most likely, quote idiocy from it for years to come. I, personally, think we’d had more fun than cramming us all onto a dance-dance revolution to tap dance.

And, after this, I still think board games still can go the distance against there computer compatriots despite the death knell indicated in every article written about them. Every article written about them since the start of television will tell you that in the future no-one will crow over their family at Monopoly or cheat decisively at Cluedo. No-one has mentioned twister yet, though I think that has kept its high usage by children’s parties and drunken teenage drinking games (I make note that the second has never been exploited to its full availability by its parent company).

So why do media outlets think that for every new invention out there some industry should be wearing black, hanging up closed signs and deciding to form a band. Why, at every available opportunity, do we here about the iPod killer, the replacement for books and the end of radio? What real purpose can be seen by alluding to these pieces of plastic being compared to Jack the Ripper for sensational purposes.

I am still to see the death of radio, the end of children reading books, the replacement of television with the internet and all other visions of the future reporters seem to be bound to mention in their articles. Are we really relying on these reporters to give us our ‘vision of the future’? We seem extremely sceptical of a seemingly elderly crone crouching on a milk crate in a tepee telling us our future but should the writer from Newville Chronicles mention that helium balloons will replace the conventional automobile we bow to this opinion and nod over cups of tea at our next mad hatters tea party.


I am yet to see a train without a single person carrying one of the flimsy papers known as newspapers that has been said to disappear ever since the wireless came along. The wireless itself has still been on the ‘endangered species’ list on everything since the cathode ray made a name for itself. Who argued, in the 80’s, with the sentiment that video killed the radio star. I personally can’t think of any nightclub where a VJ (Video Jockey apparently) can make enough money to be called a starving artist.

So why is it only mediums that are already on the wanted list are the ones that are reporting these things? Why are there blogs out there telling everyone that no-one will be Twitting and not blogging. Is there such self loathing in the reporting industry for there personal medium? We should really be worried about this entire profession if they think that nothing they do is worth the paper it’s printed on. Maybe we need to have mandatory anti-depressants for these reporters if they hate their jobs that much?

Still, I think the best option is to slowly wind back a little and become technophobic again. This technological development may not be all that helpful. We need to look at what we’ve done in the past and try it over again. I’m going to start chipping away at some stone tablets for my next blog and get a personal slave to carry them to you.

It might not be next week though.

I like my reality with fantasy on the side

I was having a discussion recently musing over the thought of setting up a themed restaurant, a version of a standard eatery based on a forensic science style. Toe tags being a standard, zip lock bags with pieces of food inside, chalk outlines for the cutlery and microscopes to inspect the meal. Waiters wearing full body jumpsuits would end up saying profound, but annoying phrases in gravelly voices while looking into the middle distance. And that would be perfectly in line with CSI : Antarctica whenever it happens to be conceived.

And that is when the major issues hit me like a lead balloon.

That, while this would work based on the TV setting, the real forensic science is nowhere near as exciting. In fact the distance between the television version of reality and actual reality is so far that they wave at each other as though on differing magnetic poles.

It is, unfairly I believe, indicated that the media is glamorising the dramatic side of these jobs and that in reality, apparently, the whole case cannot be solved by the half centimetre of glass with an ants fingerprint on it.

And the problem with this whole issue is reality.
Reality, right now, isn't that exciting......yet.
Reality, should be a lot more like TV; glamorous, dramatic, riveting, sexy and all over within an hour.

This is the problem that we should go to our politicians, local council and radio shock jocks about. If we are truly entering into a nation dependant on the TV, computer and other fictional mediums. Can we really exist in such boring lives that we live in right now.

We should have police who can't enter a room without a diving role, forensic scientist who work alone to perfectly syncopated music tracks, delicatessens to meet with friends that do not smell like bad pastry's.
We should have some home lives where people don’t pay attention to living costs or budgets and hand over their credit cards without a care in the world. The fact then is that you get to have a new marriage/affair/kid/divorce every three months and the possibility that if you do seem to die you may be, saved at the last minute, resurrected, or have an evil identical twin.

If we really want to believe in the television lives we should make them real, in every way possible. We might get sick of the theme song every morning when we wake up, but our flashbacks would seem like we’ve just looked into a pool of bad stereotypical 80’s music videos.

Sure, it would mean that most towns would have incredibly high murder rates, security guards should keep up there life insurance policies but police would be invincible roundhouse kicking cowboys.

But until that day happens I'm going to work on my own life getting more 'dramatic'. Considering that I'm a photographer it should mean that I'll have to start investigating a large multinational corporation illicit happenings, get killed off in the first ten minutes so a friend of mine can investigate the case and shoot the head of HR in another 40 minutes before driving off in a sports car with a blonde sitting next to him.

Damn.