Sometimes it's not easy being a doctor ... especially when you're looking after a really sick person. Take this poor bugger I'm looking after at the moment. Firstly, it should be said, he's not frail or sickly, in fact, to look at him, you sometimes get the impression that he's eaten every pie in the shop! He's huge – certainly the biggest I've ever had to work with. And to say he's sick is not necessarily true either ... well, at least that is if you take the definition of sickness being something that can actually be cured, which in this case it can't.
Y'see, this outwardly robust, but internally corrupting fellow that I'm managing at the moment is more disabled than sick. He's got a couple of appendages which are so debilitated that there's just no way they're curable as they are. In fact, these appendages are so damaged and decaying from within, that they're threatening to spread into the other, healthier parts of his frame, and he and everyone around him are frightened, and rightly so, that they will eventually take the lot down with them.
It's really sad to see, I know. But that's the problem with being a really good doctor – people see how sad it is, and they want something done about it. What's more, you have a bit of success from time to time curing, or at least patching-up other people, and everyone wants you to turn your healing hands to more difficult jobs.
I used to wonder why it was that people held out so much hope for these poor wretches, given that you can see the disfigurement already taking hold of their withered, dying limbs, but I've come to understand that these outsiders, very often with their own corruptions and ailments, see the potential in the rest of the person's body; its health and vitality providing an optimistic contrast with the putrid bloating of the offending limbs. I guess it gives them hope; a hope with which they turn to people like me.
But what everyone, sufferer and onlooker alike, fails to understand, perhaps deliberately, fearfully, is that these afflictions are a form of corruption, and like any decay, will continue if unchecked, until there is no vital flesh remaining. It's those with similar ailments who want people like me to make a difference.
But what they don't want to know about is the truth. What they don't want to hear is that, like this poor soul who I'm working with here, the only way he's ever going to get better is to cut off the putrid limbs. To let them fall, and allow the healthy to remain so. Removing the damaged limbs will mean life to the rest - that much is certain.
But this message fails to get through most of the time, because people just can’t get past their prejudices. It never ceases to amaze me how individuals with a serious disability; an ailment which renders one or a number of limbs completely useless, are so willing to go through extended agony and heart ache; how they are willing to risk their overall health, just to maintain the outward appearance of being whole – of having all their limbs in tact. They risk years of personal pain and torment, just to try to fool people into believing that they’re OK; to avoid becoming the focus of others’ pity. But really, with that useless, obviously non-functioning limb hanging off the side … who are they really kidding?
And what of that rotting limb, once it’s removed? What will happen to it? Of course, modern science and experience tells us that to sever the limb means it'll die, but what if it doesn't? What if severing the limb, and providing it with care and nurturing actually gives it a second chance? This is a theory that myself and a lot of learned colleagues are starting to explore.
The problem is that we're running out of time. The corruption that's been working away slowly at this poor bloke for years; a low-grade infection that simmers along, causing damage, sure, but at a rate that's manageable, has recently undergone a violent outburst in one appendage, and the heat and carnage of this more or less unprecedented outbreak is literally destroying whatever goodness, whatever promise is left in its ever-weakening structures.
While everyone looks on, placing their vain hopes in my ability to nurse him back to health, this poor, proud fool is dying, and with each day that we fail to act appropriately, anything useful left in the damaged appendage, anything we can work with in order to nurse it back to health, is also dying.
People in my line of work are the ones who have it tough. We're the ones with the facts. We know what's required to save lives; what's required to build futures for living beings. But it's hard. While the World looks-on, waiting and hoping, we watch people's futures slip away down the line. If I had it my way, I'd ask the World to let us cut off the ailing appendages, and to let us begin working with what we have.
To me it makes sense. Do nothing and watch two lives die, or act swiftly and decisively to save one life ... and maybe two. It’s time for us to make some decisions; to put our prejudices aside for the good of all, and to help convince this poor man to do what we have to in order to save what's left of his horribly disfigured, disabled appendage ... before it is lost forever.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Wrapped up in books
Despite being a hideously slow reader, I really love to read books – all sorts of stuff, from crime and thrillers, to historical novels and period novels, to sci-fi fantasy, to mystic realism and I've even, on occasion, wandered into chick-lit. I love reading so much, and I wish I could manage to cram more in, but the ol', mouse-on-a-treadmill Donkey brain just doesn't work that fast (perhaps I need a bigger piece of cheese?).
I tried speed reading courses back when I was at school, but was turned-off by the smarmy, well dressed, and slickly groomed Amway-types who sold the concept like some illicit pyramid scheme, and the notion of "chunking" felt too much like some kind of travesty – using your spare, quiet time, not to slow down and relax, but to read with your brain and heart going at a hundred miles an hour. Kinda made me feel dirty ... so I let the "skill" wither and die.
But despite the slow pace, my love for reading, books and stories has never diminished, and as I sat in the sun this morning, having finished a rather plodding, but no less enjoyable tale about European settlers north of Sydney, I started to think about where books had taken me in the last six months, a period during which Donkey has managed to squeeze in quite a bit more than usual.
The great thing about books is that they can take you away from wherever you are, and plant you smack into another place, another time, or even give you an entirely new personality ... oh, and they usually help you to get more sex than you might in your real-life circumstances ... well maybe that's just me; I guess it depends on what you read.
In the last six months, I have travelled from my little, sunny, south-facing room in Lhasa to Communist Romania and Bulgaria, tracking down the hideous father vampire (who curiously had developed an interest in books himself). This journey also took me to the grand old city of Istanbul and its predecessor, Constantinople, and helped me experience the cacophonous bustle of the markets and the smells of the fishing boats and galleys as they offloaded European merchants and slaves beneath the towering and shining dome of the Sancta (and later Hagia) Sophia.
Oddly enough, I returned to Istanbul a few months later, this time experiencing the grand city in its many incarnations as seen through the eyes of its weathered, mid-twentieth century inhabitants as they looked for meaning in their changing political circumstances and the corruption which was eating its way through the halls of power. In this heart-wrenching tale, I suffered with the main character as he discovered the sense of power which comes to an individual who, having lost everything he ever thought he loved, assumes the identity of another.
Fragile mental health seems to have been a feature of my reading in the last six months. It was evident in the culture of murder which had been handed down from generation to generation as the cathedral in Southern England had been erected, destroyed and re-built over and over again. It was also a theme to disturb as I found myself, a mere school boy, stranded on a deserted island with only my peers, and where I rapidly descended to the mentality of a blood-crazed animal, with no intellectual faculty other than that of the pack, and no drive other than to hunt and kill.
More sadness later as my denial pushed my friends and colleagues further away, and I descended into the maelstrom of chronic alcoholism and the imagined love of a fine drop of red.
Genocide seems to have reared its disgusting form also; from the cold-blooded extinction of the Hawkesbury River's indigenous inhabitants by European settlers in the early nineteenth century, to the crazed ebb and flow of the Hindu and Muslim mobs in divided Gujarat. Here I watched in horror as people turned upon their friends and neighbours in an instant, be they men, women or children, and committed the most alarming and sickening atrocities.
The same disregard for human life exists on the outskirts of the megatropoles of South America, where I found myself, displaced from my rural home, with its chronic drought and starvation, in an uncaring, inhospitable slum, and watching, first with confusion and later with horror as my friends and neighbours would disappear every day, without a trace nor a care from the authorities.
But my reading's not all doom and gloom. I enjoyed a couple of boys-own adventures in pre-revolutionary France, with their tortuous plots and rollicking, barely sublimated homosexuality, and I plodded through a ridiculously lengthy tale which hypothesized that it was magic, not tactics and military might, which saved the Brits from Napoleon at Waterloo (but really, Donkey's had about a gutful of these long books. If an author can't tell a story in 500 pages, then they sure as hell can't manage it in 800 - My kingdom for an Editor!).
At the other end of the spectrum, I enjoyed a quick little number which saw me join the upper echelons of turn-of-the-century British snobs; all "I say Old Top, this is awfully rum, wot? Why don't we journey on down to Wensleydale for a spot of pheasant shooting and a couple of snorts before supper, eh?". It just goes to show, as I said before, books can really take you to places you would otherwise never experience, sometimes to the most ridiculous extremes. Like meeting a medieval, Italian Franciscan monk on the windswept southern coast of modern-day Victoria as he saves the eels from dying (yep, that's kinda weird), and behind the closed doors of the grubby world of British horse racing, and the tangled allegiances which see an innocent man swing just because he's good at what he does.
And finally, I made it to one writer's exploration of music, and the importance of sitting down and reflecting on what you hear, and what it means – clearly the basis for this post. Reading, in the last six months, has taken me to all of these places, helped me to experience the lives of all of hundreds of people, from different cultures and with different beliefs and practices ... and this only in six months! How unquantifiably beneficial for broadening one's intellectual and emotional personality must a life-time of reading be? Maybe there was something in all that nagging of teachers and parents back in the '80s, to stop kids from watching so much TV.
But there's always a downside...
And just before I sign-off, I wanted to bring up something I've noticed during this little reflective exercise. It seems pretty common for writers to take an historical event, and with the few facts that are available to them, construct an entire story, complete with fabricated plots, characters and links to other events and circumstances in history. As a reader, I sit there lapping it all up, fitting the characters and events into a logical matrix in my deranged brain and thinking to myself, "Wow, I never knew that happened". As I reader, I spend weeks, sometimes up to a month, buying into the fabrication, taking these new insights and altering what I had previously thought to be the truth, and committing all the now-superfluous info to the trash.
But the crunch comes when I get to the end of the story. As I turn the last page with that empty feeling I always get when the characters I've been with for so long will now be gone, I come to the author's post-script, and a statement which usually reads along the lines of;
While the events of such-and-such did take place in such-and-such a year at such-and-such a place, all other information contained in this story is fictitious, and any accuracies between the characters in this story and those of history are entirely coincidental.
Now don't get me wrong, it's not just books that do this, and in fact, TV and movies may be even more guilty of this crime, but isn't it a bit irresponsible to have someone buy into such stories, with all their vivid, true-to-life events and characters; so much so that they begin to alter what they know to be true, only to tell them at the end that it was all just a farce? And what about those readers/viewers who never knew anything about the events in the first place? What are they likely to think really happened after reading this story, or watching this movie?
As to whether this type of thing should be allowed is a difficult question, as it impacts on the issue of the right to free speech, but in a world where people are reading less, and where one of the most commonly used sources of learning is an on-line, user-contributed reference database, one can't help but feel there should be some importance placed upon ensuring the real facts of history are not lost to sensationalist, Hollywood-style depictions. How to manage this, though; that's got me stumped.
I tried speed reading courses back when I was at school, but was turned-off by the smarmy, well dressed, and slickly groomed Amway-types who sold the concept like some illicit pyramid scheme, and the notion of "chunking" felt too much like some kind of travesty – using your spare, quiet time, not to slow down and relax, but to read with your brain and heart going at a hundred miles an hour. Kinda made me feel dirty ... so I let the "skill" wither and die.
But despite the slow pace, my love for reading, books and stories has never diminished, and as I sat in the sun this morning, having finished a rather plodding, but no less enjoyable tale about European settlers north of Sydney, I started to think about where books had taken me in the last six months, a period during which Donkey has managed to squeeze in quite a bit more than usual.
The great thing about books is that they can take you away from wherever you are, and plant you smack into another place, another time, or even give you an entirely new personality ... oh, and they usually help you to get more sex than you might in your real-life circumstances ... well maybe that's just me; I guess it depends on what you read.
In the last six months, I have travelled from my little, sunny, south-facing room in Lhasa to Communist Romania and Bulgaria, tracking down the hideous father vampire (who curiously had developed an interest in books himself). This journey also took me to the grand old city of Istanbul and its predecessor, Constantinople, and helped me experience the cacophonous bustle of the markets and the smells of the fishing boats and galleys as they offloaded European merchants and slaves beneath the towering and shining dome of the Sancta (and later Hagia) Sophia.
Oddly enough, I returned to Istanbul a few months later, this time experiencing the grand city in its many incarnations as seen through the eyes of its weathered, mid-twentieth century inhabitants as they looked for meaning in their changing political circumstances and the corruption which was eating its way through the halls of power. In this heart-wrenching tale, I suffered with the main character as he discovered the sense of power which comes to an individual who, having lost everything he ever thought he loved, assumes the identity of another.
Fragile mental health seems to have been a feature of my reading in the last six months. It was evident in the culture of murder which had been handed down from generation to generation as the cathedral in Southern England had been erected, destroyed and re-built over and over again. It was also a theme to disturb as I found myself, a mere school boy, stranded on a deserted island with only my peers, and where I rapidly descended to the mentality of a blood-crazed animal, with no intellectual faculty other than that of the pack, and no drive other than to hunt and kill.
More sadness later as my denial pushed my friends and colleagues further away, and I descended into the maelstrom of chronic alcoholism and the imagined love of a fine drop of red.
Genocide seems to have reared its disgusting form also; from the cold-blooded extinction of the Hawkesbury River's indigenous inhabitants by European settlers in the early nineteenth century, to the crazed ebb and flow of the Hindu and Muslim mobs in divided Gujarat. Here I watched in horror as people turned upon their friends and neighbours in an instant, be they men, women or children, and committed the most alarming and sickening atrocities.
The same disregard for human life exists on the outskirts of the megatropoles of South America, where I found myself, displaced from my rural home, with its chronic drought and starvation, in an uncaring, inhospitable slum, and watching, first with confusion and later with horror as my friends and neighbours would disappear every day, without a trace nor a care from the authorities.
But my reading's not all doom and gloom. I enjoyed a couple of boys-own adventures in pre-revolutionary France, with their tortuous plots and rollicking, barely sublimated homosexuality, and I plodded through a ridiculously lengthy tale which hypothesized that it was magic, not tactics and military might, which saved the Brits from Napoleon at Waterloo (but really, Donkey's had about a gutful of these long books. If an author can't tell a story in 500 pages, then they sure as hell can't manage it in 800 - My kingdom for an Editor!).
At the other end of the spectrum, I enjoyed a quick little number which saw me join the upper echelons of turn-of-the-century British snobs; all "I say Old Top, this is awfully rum, wot? Why don't we journey on down to Wensleydale for a spot of pheasant shooting and a couple of snorts before supper, eh?". It just goes to show, as I said before, books can really take you to places you would otherwise never experience, sometimes to the most ridiculous extremes. Like meeting a medieval, Italian Franciscan monk on the windswept southern coast of modern-day Victoria as he saves the eels from dying (yep, that's kinda weird), and behind the closed doors of the grubby world of British horse racing, and the tangled allegiances which see an innocent man swing just because he's good at what he does.
And finally, I made it to one writer's exploration of music, and the importance of sitting down and reflecting on what you hear, and what it means – clearly the basis for this post. Reading, in the last six months, has taken me to all of these places, helped me to experience the lives of all of hundreds of people, from different cultures and with different beliefs and practices ... and this only in six months! How unquantifiably beneficial for broadening one's intellectual and emotional personality must a life-time of reading be? Maybe there was something in all that nagging of teachers and parents back in the '80s, to stop kids from watching so much TV.
But there's always a downside...
And just before I sign-off, I wanted to bring up something I've noticed during this little reflective exercise. It seems pretty common for writers to take an historical event, and with the few facts that are available to them, construct an entire story, complete with fabricated plots, characters and links to other events and circumstances in history. As a reader, I sit there lapping it all up, fitting the characters and events into a logical matrix in my deranged brain and thinking to myself, "Wow, I never knew that happened". As I reader, I spend weeks, sometimes up to a month, buying into the fabrication, taking these new insights and altering what I had previously thought to be the truth, and committing all the now-superfluous info to the trash.
But the crunch comes when I get to the end of the story. As I turn the last page with that empty feeling I always get when the characters I've been with for so long will now be gone, I come to the author's post-script, and a statement which usually reads along the lines of;
While the events of such-and-such did take place in such-and-such a year at such-and-such a place, all other information contained in this story is fictitious, and any accuracies between the characters in this story and those of history are entirely coincidental.
Now don't get me wrong, it's not just books that do this, and in fact, TV and movies may be even more guilty of this crime, but isn't it a bit irresponsible to have someone buy into such stories, with all their vivid, true-to-life events and characters; so much so that they begin to alter what they know to be true, only to tell them at the end that it was all just a farce? And what about those readers/viewers who never knew anything about the events in the first place? What are they likely to think really happened after reading this story, or watching this movie?
As to whether this type of thing should be allowed is a difficult question, as it impacts on the issue of the right to free speech, but in a world where people are reading less, and where one of the most commonly used sources of learning is an on-line, user-contributed reference database, one can't help but feel there should be some importance placed upon ensuring the real facts of history are not lost to sensationalist, Hollywood-style depictions. How to manage this, though; that's got me stumped.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
1 Song
You don’t need to have the mind of a criminal genius to recognise that Donkey hasn’t really been firing on all four hooves of late, and I’d have to admit that I’m not really sure what future, if any, this blog has, but in an attempt to get things moving, I thought a metaphorical soaking in kerosene, a vigorous squeeze and a struck match to the little bugger may just pump some life back in and provide me with an indication of whether I’m onto a winner, or merely flogging a dead ol’ nag.
So I’ve been reading Nick Hornby’s interesting, albeit rather self-indulgent, 31 Songs, in which he wittily reflects on a number of songs and albums which have affected his life in some way, and being at home in Australia at the moment, catching up with family, old friends, their families, old work colleagues etc, I got to thinking about the significant role music has played in my development as a person, and in particular, the special role that a hard-working local blues performer played in shaping my behaviour as a young adult, and which almost certainly directed my actions towards a sense of social justice and responsibility.
Just across the street from one of Melbourne’s oldest and busiest markets, in a quiet, shabby, narrow laneway obscured by hulking, stinking, over-flowing dumper-bins stands a small bar with an unusual, 24-hour liquor license. The Public Bar has, for generations, catered for the early morning appetites of the market workers as they finish setting-up the stalls each morning, receiving the fresh produce as it arrives from the docks and market gardens, and distributing it amongst the sleepy-eyed stall owners. While the city snores beneath their quilts in their hermetically sealed bunkers, the Public Bar hums, as it has done for close to a century, with the nocturnal buzz of union dissention, football club speculation, political dissection, bawdy jokes and negotiation of sexual liaisons (both paid and otherwise), all wrapped-up in the atmosphere of a kind of topsy-turvy six-o’clock swill at the wrong end of the day.
By the time I was old enough to know better, as in many cities of the world, the inner suburbs of Melbourne were changing. The working class battlers, upon whom our politicians of either persuasion love to wax lyrical, had been shoved out of their traditional environs to make way for Porsche-driving young executives or funky hipsters indulging in hedonistic, drug fuelled pursuits of artistic brilliance. At that time, the seedy Public Bar, with its peeling paint, cracked ceiling roses and chipped plaster cornices; with its mildewed wall tiles and filthy, gummy carpets changed its entire image. Oh, the dirty tiles and carpets remained, and the ceiling was still in need of a good coat of Taubmans, but the cracks of the market-workers, poking up out of frayed bar-stool cushions, had made way for the less hairy slots of uber-trendy Levi’s low-riders, and the unshaved chins of the drunken labourers were replaced with the peach-fuzz goaties that characterise recently nest-fled university arts students.
Also part of the change was the entertainment. The satellite TV hook-up of greyhound and horse racing, American football, cricket, billiards and darts was taken down from its corroded stand above the ciggie machine, and in its place live music bloomed. Unlike the slick venues across town with their neon-rimmed mirrors and Cougar Bourbon promotions, however, the Public Bar was neither well located, nor well-reputed to attract headline acts. What it did have going for it, though, was its unusual liquor license; a loop-hole in Government legislation from the 1880s, exploited long ago by the labourers’ union, and institutionalised through eighty years of all night revelry. It was its ability to remain a nightly stayer, long after all the major venues had gone nigh-nighs that soon attracted serious musicians and music fans alike, and which eventually cemented the Public Bar as the place to be after 2am, if one wanted to hear talented musos jamming together and trying out new material before heading into the studio.
It was to this filthy, stained, smoky chamber of horrors that Donkey gravitated after late-night shifts, a move much maligned by his peers, who tended towards the afore-mentioned shiny bars with their neon glow, and where he first learned to feel at home amongst strangers. It was here that he learned to appreciate that a public place can also be owned, in a sense, by the individuals who visit it, and it was here where he first heard many an unknown, talented musician as they emerged from obscurity, and began their climb to the mainstream market. It was also here that Donkey was first blown-away by Chris Wilson.
One late evening, Donkey was plonked on an uneven, rocky bar stool when a touring Sydney three-piece blues outfit, seemingly to me at the time, invited one of the older bar flies up on stage to accompany them. This fat, balding slob of a man lumbered up onto stage and whipped out his harmonica to the usual, good-natured jeers of the crowd and then disaster struck.
No one knew quite what happened, either then or after, but it appeared that a huge freight train had derailed and come screaming through the front window of the Public Bar, bringing with it a howling hot wind and the screech of metal. Everyone in the bar was thrown backwards by the shockwave of the impact, and after a dazed moment or two, I opened my eyes to see Mr Chris Wilson and the three Backsliders in the middle of one of the most amazing blues instrumentals of all time. The noise, reverberating through every one of my organs was as physical as being beaten with a cricket bat; the sound coming from that tiny mouth organ was intense.
I stood there awed for about 18 minutes while the instrumental played itself out, and then joined the throng in enthusiastic appreciation before the group started up again, this time with a much slower air, and Mr Wilson slipped-in with powerful vocals that soared to the highest peaks, and plunged to the resonant depths of the deepest chambers. I was awed … I was hooked.
I talked of little else for a week, and then dragged a friend back for a listen. This friend, far from being a fan of drinking, seedy bars or music, was about as glowing as one could have hoped, “Well, he didn’t play any numbers that I didn’t like”, and so I know Chris Wilson had to be good.
I soon began to see and hear his name everywhere. It seemed as though he was performing somewhere, almost every night of the week. I would come back to the Public Bar every Wednesday to see him, and each time I would see someone else that I knew, who had also stumbled across the performer, been blown away, bought the $10 CD (about the best music buy you’ll ever make) and become hooked.
Looking back, part of the charm of Chris Wilson, and those gigs at the Public Bar, was the interaction of the patrons. Wilson would have a laugh and jeer at someone, who’d give it back just as wittily, and everyone, be they wealthy and well-dressed, wealthy and terribly-dressed or poor and not dressed much at all, would interact with comfortable, jovial banter. I even went along with some of my homeless clients from time to time, who’d become fans themselves, and who, despite their usual, opportunistic requests, would happily go in a shout together – such was the atmosphere of the place, its clientele and entertainer, the Big Man, Chris Wilson.
And what about him? I mentioned he was a hard-working muso, but I also stumbled across him one day in my work, while he was working as a volunteer English teacher to migrant kids. On another occasion, I attended a gig he performed at a barbeque our organisation was holding for disabled children and their families, but it was all coincidence … it had nothing to do with me; he was doing this stuff – contributing his drive and talent – for his community, and clearly other people had discovered him, and his music. It was as if everyone I knew had a secret obsession for this artist, but that we were all unable, or unwilling to share that obsession with each other.
This was supposed to be a piece about one song that blew me away, or changed my life. I don’t think any of Chris Wilson’s songs actually changed my life … it wasn’t a song, it was a place, and a way of interacting, and a feeling of familiarity and solidarity amongst a performer and his audience, and a way of valuing and celebrating people for who and what they are which helped change my views on a whole host of things.
The Public Bar, always changing, I guess, has now had a real-life face lift, and predominantly caters for the booming backpacker market (let’s face it, you just can’t beat the lure of English pounds). The carpet has been replaced with polished floorboards, and the gritty tiles with French windows, but the all-night license still sees the odd grungy type hanging around at 4am, and the open mic nights still lure the avant garde poets on a weekly basis. Chris Wilson is still pounding out live performances, and can be heard all over Melbourne just about every second night of the week, albeit on a different stage, however the lesson remains; the Public Bar, Chris Wilson, and the people that gathered there to see and hear his performances demonstrated to me that there is something to value in being part of a community – that unique, expressive individuals, and the interaction between them, are not easily found in the plastic, throwaway society of today’s cities, but like all things, those that are hardest to obtain, are usually all the more valuable for it.
So I’ve been reading Nick Hornby’s interesting, albeit rather self-indulgent, 31 Songs, in which he wittily reflects on a number of songs and albums which have affected his life in some way, and being at home in Australia at the moment, catching up with family, old friends, their families, old work colleagues etc, I got to thinking about the significant role music has played in my development as a person, and in particular, the special role that a hard-working local blues performer played in shaping my behaviour as a young adult, and which almost certainly directed my actions towards a sense of social justice and responsibility.
Just across the street from one of Melbourne’s oldest and busiest markets, in a quiet, shabby, narrow laneway obscured by hulking, stinking, over-flowing dumper-bins stands a small bar with an unusual, 24-hour liquor license. The Public Bar has, for generations, catered for the early morning appetites of the market workers as they finish setting-up the stalls each morning, receiving the fresh produce as it arrives from the docks and market gardens, and distributing it amongst the sleepy-eyed stall owners. While the city snores beneath their quilts in their hermetically sealed bunkers, the Public Bar hums, as it has done for close to a century, with the nocturnal buzz of union dissention, football club speculation, political dissection, bawdy jokes and negotiation of sexual liaisons (both paid and otherwise), all wrapped-up in the atmosphere of a kind of topsy-turvy six-o’clock swill at the wrong end of the day.
By the time I was old enough to know better, as in many cities of the world, the inner suburbs of Melbourne were changing. The working class battlers, upon whom our politicians of either persuasion love to wax lyrical, had been shoved out of their traditional environs to make way for Porsche-driving young executives or funky hipsters indulging in hedonistic, drug fuelled pursuits of artistic brilliance. At that time, the seedy Public Bar, with its peeling paint, cracked ceiling roses and chipped plaster cornices; with its mildewed wall tiles and filthy, gummy carpets changed its entire image. Oh, the dirty tiles and carpets remained, and the ceiling was still in need of a good coat of Taubmans, but the cracks of the market-workers, poking up out of frayed bar-stool cushions, had made way for the less hairy slots of uber-trendy Levi’s low-riders, and the unshaved chins of the drunken labourers were replaced with the peach-fuzz goaties that characterise recently nest-fled university arts students.
Also part of the change was the entertainment. The satellite TV hook-up of greyhound and horse racing, American football, cricket, billiards and darts was taken down from its corroded stand above the ciggie machine, and in its place live music bloomed. Unlike the slick venues across town with their neon-rimmed mirrors and Cougar Bourbon promotions, however, the Public Bar was neither well located, nor well-reputed to attract headline acts. What it did have going for it, though, was its unusual liquor license; a loop-hole in Government legislation from the 1880s, exploited long ago by the labourers’ union, and institutionalised through eighty years of all night revelry. It was its ability to remain a nightly stayer, long after all the major venues had gone nigh-nighs that soon attracted serious musicians and music fans alike, and which eventually cemented the Public Bar as the place to be after 2am, if one wanted to hear talented musos jamming together and trying out new material before heading into the studio.
It was to this filthy, stained, smoky chamber of horrors that Donkey gravitated after late-night shifts, a move much maligned by his peers, who tended towards the afore-mentioned shiny bars with their neon glow, and where he first learned to feel at home amongst strangers. It was here that he learned to appreciate that a public place can also be owned, in a sense, by the individuals who visit it, and it was here where he first heard many an unknown, talented musician as they emerged from obscurity, and began their climb to the mainstream market. It was also here that Donkey was first blown-away by Chris Wilson.
One late evening, Donkey was plonked on an uneven, rocky bar stool when a touring Sydney three-piece blues outfit, seemingly to me at the time, invited one of the older bar flies up on stage to accompany them. This fat, balding slob of a man lumbered up onto stage and whipped out his harmonica to the usual, good-natured jeers of the crowd and then disaster struck.
No one knew quite what happened, either then or after, but it appeared that a huge freight train had derailed and come screaming through the front window of the Public Bar, bringing with it a howling hot wind and the screech of metal. Everyone in the bar was thrown backwards by the shockwave of the impact, and after a dazed moment or two, I opened my eyes to see Mr Chris Wilson and the three Backsliders in the middle of one of the most amazing blues instrumentals of all time. The noise, reverberating through every one of my organs was as physical as being beaten with a cricket bat; the sound coming from that tiny mouth organ was intense.
I stood there awed for about 18 minutes while the instrumental played itself out, and then joined the throng in enthusiastic appreciation before the group started up again, this time with a much slower air, and Mr Wilson slipped-in with powerful vocals that soared to the highest peaks, and plunged to the resonant depths of the deepest chambers. I was awed … I was hooked.
I talked of little else for a week, and then dragged a friend back for a listen. This friend, far from being a fan of drinking, seedy bars or music, was about as glowing as one could have hoped, “Well, he didn’t play any numbers that I didn’t like”, and so I know Chris Wilson had to be good.
I soon began to see and hear his name everywhere. It seemed as though he was performing somewhere, almost every night of the week. I would come back to the Public Bar every Wednesday to see him, and each time I would see someone else that I knew, who had also stumbled across the performer, been blown away, bought the $10 CD (about the best music buy you’ll ever make) and become hooked.
Looking back, part of the charm of Chris Wilson, and those gigs at the Public Bar, was the interaction of the patrons. Wilson would have a laugh and jeer at someone, who’d give it back just as wittily, and everyone, be they wealthy and well-dressed, wealthy and terribly-dressed or poor and not dressed much at all, would interact with comfortable, jovial banter. I even went along with some of my homeless clients from time to time, who’d become fans themselves, and who, despite their usual, opportunistic requests, would happily go in a shout together – such was the atmosphere of the place, its clientele and entertainer, the Big Man, Chris Wilson.
And what about him? I mentioned he was a hard-working muso, but I also stumbled across him one day in my work, while he was working as a volunteer English teacher to migrant kids. On another occasion, I attended a gig he performed at a barbeque our organisation was holding for disabled children and their families, but it was all coincidence … it had nothing to do with me; he was doing this stuff – contributing his drive and talent – for his community, and clearly other people had discovered him, and his music. It was as if everyone I knew had a secret obsession for this artist, but that we were all unable, or unwilling to share that obsession with each other.
This was supposed to be a piece about one song that blew me away, or changed my life. I don’t think any of Chris Wilson’s songs actually changed my life … it wasn’t a song, it was a place, and a way of interacting, and a feeling of familiarity and solidarity amongst a performer and his audience, and a way of valuing and celebrating people for who and what they are which helped change my views on a whole host of things.
The Public Bar, always changing, I guess, has now had a real-life face lift, and predominantly caters for the booming backpacker market (let’s face it, you just can’t beat the lure of English pounds). The carpet has been replaced with polished floorboards, and the gritty tiles with French windows, but the all-night license still sees the odd grungy type hanging around at 4am, and the open mic nights still lure the avant garde poets on a weekly basis. Chris Wilson is still pounding out live performances, and can be heard all over Melbourne just about every second night of the week, albeit on a different stage, however the lesson remains; the Public Bar, Chris Wilson, and the people that gathered there to see and hear his performances demonstrated to me that there is something to value in being part of a community – that unique, expressive individuals, and the interaction between them, are not easily found in the plastic, throwaway society of today’s cities, but like all things, those that are hardest to obtain, are usually all the more valuable for it.
Blues harp, fags and beer: a pretty typical night at the Public Bar, circa 1995. Pic: http://www.chriswilson.com.au
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Presentation is two thirds of the meal
They usually say that the new year is a time to look forward, and speculate on the good fortunes to come, rather than dwelling on the past, and what has been and gone, but true to his thirty year history of cutting-edge, extremist, confronting radicalism, Donkey has decided to kick off the new year by harking back to a report he filed way back in September when he first arrived in Lhasa (he heh, "filed", makes me sound like a hard-boiled, J. J. Jamieson-type news editor). Fair's fair, though, this particular rant was sparked by an incident that took place in this new year, so let's get on with it...
The post I'm referring to explored the odd practices of meat vendors throughout the world, and in particular, here in Lhasa, in regards to presenting their wares in order to make them appear more attractive to the consumer. As I described, the practice here is to skin a huge hock of yak right back, but to leave a big shag of fur hanging off the end, which can be sculpted into an attractive, foodie-fashion statement using the tasty morsel's very own juices.
Now on the weekend, while making my way back to the sparse air of Lhasa after spending an awesome week on the beaches of Goa with Mrs. Donkey, I found myself stranded in Kathmandu for an extra day thanks to the rather sinister flight re-scheduling of Air China. Regular readers would be aware that Kath-ers is one of Donkey's favourite cities in the world, so spending an extra 24 hours there was no great chore. After wandering around that enchanting place for the day, taking in all the wondrous sites, sounds and smells, I found myself meandering along the very same, narrow street of Thamel that had been my first introduction to the developing world, coming up on a decade ago.
This happened to be the very same street that I'd referred to in the afore-mentioned post, and at the very end of the street, I was not so surprised to see the exact same, open-fronted butcher shop with the same rickety table outside, its flimsy legs straining under a mound of grisly wares. You will recall my amazement at the glistening, perfectly bled and skinned white flesh of the goat on display a decade ago, but ten years has obviously been good for Adesh the Butcher and his family, because what I was confronted with as I approached his shop, was not dismembered goats, but a number of enormous pigs. And not just any old, garden variety, pink porker with a curly tail, oh no, what I saw as I stood there, agape, oblivious to the on-coming traffic, was this...
OK, OK, the change in Adesh's merchandise was shock enough, but have a look at the colour of that thing – it looked like one of those single, male, British septuagenarians on holidays in Ibiza, looking for a bit of teenage skirt and having overdone it a bit with the rub-on tan on the first day – Porky was completely orange.
And will you have a look at that mohawk – it would make Mr T look like a "damn fool" (oh yes, bravo Donkey, that was magic!). A massive, spiked mohawk right down his porcine back. Incredible! I always did have a hunch that Adesh the Butcher was more artist than gruesome murderer of defenceless beasties, and now I'm certain of it.
It was quite a strange, and I'll admit, harrowing discovery on the dusty streets, and I was shocked for some time thereafter. I can only imagine this form of presentation is all about impressing the would-be shopper, and if that's what turns on the good folk of Old Kathmandu, then all I can say is they've got a lot more to worry about than homicidal royals and Maoist guerrillas. Still, I guess Porky's unusual get-up had the benefit of standing out from the crowd of other dead, partially intact pigs, and I suppose that's what Adesh was gunning for. On the streets of Kathmandu, presentation is definitely the key.
Which brings me to the title of this post, "Presentation is two thirds of the meal", an oft-quoted missive from Donkey, especially when he serves up some steaming bowl of bland-looking (and more often than not, bland-tasting) brown, topped with a jaunty sprig of green, such as some coriander leaves or parsley. Ridiculous really, but the quote is all effective, and puts a sharp stop to any criticisms, which I think you'll agree, is very handy indeed.
The actual origins of the quote are a bit spurious, and if I hadn't had a few beers while writing this crud, I might not tell you that between you and me, I may just have made it up. But be that as it may, it's a part of the cultural landscape now, so there's no turning back, and despite its implausible origins, I think there may actually be some truth in it.
I've already given you the examples of the butchers of Lhasa and Kathmandu, and we've all sat uncomfortably in a restaurant whose entrées alone are way above our means, and wondered why the teaspoon-sized morsels are delivered on plates which, angled in the right direction, can pick-up restricted communiqués between North Korean subs, but if you're still in doubt, perhaps this might seal the deal for you.
There's not much you can do to make a stock-standard, everyday sausage look particularly attractive or appetizing, but a while back, I nearly ended up with a step-sister-in-law (that's another story for another bed time, kiddies) who, trying her darndest to break into the entertainment industry, often took on work as a model in some of your less high-brow "gentlemen's" magazines. On one photo shoot, Shirley (not her real name, obviously) was seen bending towards the camera wearing nothing but a string bikini, holding an ordinary, although incredibly phallic (I wonder if they knew) pork and onion sausage up to her open mouth while looking seductively at the camera. Now I never did get to see the shots which appeared in that particular issue (my subscription must've lapsed), but I hear on the grapevine that the sales of pork and onion sausages went through the roof for a week and a half after the issue's release.
So you see, when it comes to serving up a steaming, pile of crap, presentation is AT LEAST two thirds of the meal.
The post I'm referring to explored the odd practices of meat vendors throughout the world, and in particular, here in Lhasa, in regards to presenting their wares in order to make them appear more attractive to the consumer. As I described, the practice here is to skin a huge hock of yak right back, but to leave a big shag of fur hanging off the end, which can be sculpted into an attractive, foodie-fashion statement using the tasty morsel's very own juices.
Now on the weekend, while making my way back to the sparse air of Lhasa after spending an awesome week on the beaches of Goa with Mrs. Donkey, I found myself stranded in Kathmandu for an extra day thanks to the rather sinister flight re-scheduling of Air China. Regular readers would be aware that Kath-ers is one of Donkey's favourite cities in the world, so spending an extra 24 hours there was no great chore. After wandering around that enchanting place for the day, taking in all the wondrous sites, sounds and smells, I found myself meandering along the very same, narrow street of Thamel that had been my first introduction to the developing world, coming up on a decade ago.
This happened to be the very same street that I'd referred to in the afore-mentioned post, and at the very end of the street, I was not so surprised to see the exact same, open-fronted butcher shop with the same rickety table outside, its flimsy legs straining under a mound of grisly wares. You will recall my amazement at the glistening, perfectly bled and skinned white flesh of the goat on display a decade ago, but ten years has obviously been good for Adesh the Butcher and his family, because what I was confronted with as I approached his shop, was not dismembered goats, but a number of enormous pigs. And not just any old, garden variety, pink porker with a curly tail, oh no, what I saw as I stood there, agape, oblivious to the on-coming traffic, was this...
OK, OK, the change in Adesh's merchandise was shock enough, but have a look at the colour of that thing – it looked like one of those single, male, British septuagenarians on holidays in Ibiza, looking for a bit of teenage skirt and having overdone it a bit with the rub-on tan on the first day – Porky was completely orange.
And will you have a look at that mohawk – it would make Mr T look like a "damn fool" (oh yes, bravo Donkey, that was magic!). A massive, spiked mohawk right down his porcine back. Incredible! I always did have a hunch that Adesh the Butcher was more artist than gruesome murderer of defenceless beasties, and now I'm certain of it.
It was quite a strange, and I'll admit, harrowing discovery on the dusty streets, and I was shocked for some time thereafter. I can only imagine this form of presentation is all about impressing the would-be shopper, and if that's what turns on the good folk of Old Kathmandu, then all I can say is they've got a lot more to worry about than homicidal royals and Maoist guerrillas. Still, I guess Porky's unusual get-up had the benefit of standing out from the crowd of other dead, partially intact pigs, and I suppose that's what Adesh was gunning for. On the streets of Kathmandu, presentation is definitely the key.
Which brings me to the title of this post, "Presentation is two thirds of the meal", an oft-quoted missive from Donkey, especially when he serves up some steaming bowl of bland-looking (and more often than not, bland-tasting) brown, topped with a jaunty sprig of green, such as some coriander leaves or parsley. Ridiculous really, but the quote is all effective, and puts a sharp stop to any criticisms, which I think you'll agree, is very handy indeed.
The actual origins of the quote are a bit spurious, and if I hadn't had a few beers while writing this crud, I might not tell you that between you and me, I may just have made it up. But be that as it may, it's a part of the cultural landscape now, so there's no turning back, and despite its implausible origins, I think there may actually be some truth in it.
I've already given you the examples of the butchers of Lhasa and Kathmandu, and we've all sat uncomfortably in a restaurant whose entrées alone are way above our means, and wondered why the teaspoon-sized morsels are delivered on plates which, angled in the right direction, can pick-up restricted communiqués between North Korean subs, but if you're still in doubt, perhaps this might seal the deal for you.
There's not much you can do to make a stock-standard, everyday sausage look particularly attractive or appetizing, but a while back, I nearly ended up with a step-sister-in-law (that's another story for another bed time, kiddies) who, trying her darndest to break into the entertainment industry, often took on work as a model in some of your less high-brow "gentlemen's" magazines. On one photo shoot, Shirley (not her real name, obviously) was seen bending towards the camera wearing nothing but a string bikini, holding an ordinary, although incredibly phallic (I wonder if they knew) pork and onion sausage up to her open mouth while looking seductively at the camera. Now I never did get to see the shots which appeared in that particular issue (my subscription must've lapsed), but I hear on the grapevine that the sales of pork and onion sausages went through the roof for a week and a half after the issue's release.
So you see, when it comes to serving up a steaming, pile of crap, presentation is AT LEAST two thirds of the meal.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Bah, Humbug!
Why is the lead-up to Christmas always so fucking crazy? Even in this country which doesn't celebrate the "festive season"; a country whose children don't even know that Santa exists, and one which won't be looking forward to a massive New Year's piss-up for at least another two months yet, life is still friggin' ridiculous at the moment.
Back when I was forced to join all the other pre-Christmas zombies as we jostled around the marble-lined, suburban mausoleums (mausoleii?) in search of expensive items that people won't even use, let alone want, I used to think that the pre-Chrissy build-up was contrived by sharp-suited, elusive hawkers of corporate consumerism, way up there in their untouchable glass towers, and was a phenomenon over which we had absolutely no control. And yet, even in this land of alleged non-materialistic, humanitarian, respect-to-all-living-beings society, here I find myself, the week before Christmas, busier than a $2 whore on pocket-money night!
And what's more, even over the frosty, impenetrable Himalayas, in this more-or-less exclusively Buddhist land, the consumerist Christmas still manages to protrude it's big, shiny, jolly, red snoz into one's business, as I discovered just a couple of nights ago when I was forced to make an emergency dash out into the chilly night for a packet of peanut butter and chocolate Oreos (Gawd, how good are those things?). It's certainly pretty hard not to get just a little cynical about Christmas when propped on an escalator in a monolithic, Chinese owned and operated supermarket in the middle of Tibet, and as you crest the stainless-steel horizon, you are faced with a huge, brightly-coloured sign wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving, above which is perched a fully-decorated and sparkling Christmas tree, winking it's merry lights, flirtatiously as it entices you with its bounty of cleverly-wrapped yak jerky!
If ever the purists needed some rock-solid evidence that the Spirit of Christmas Present, after having been out on an eleven-and-a-half month romp of debauched depravity during which he'd lost the plot in his own putrid pool of Christmas sherry-induced vomit, and was now fully out to corrupt the unsuspecting masses, then this was it.
So anyway, I've got two days to go in which to complete two months of work; reports, plans, ass-kicking, ass-licking and so forth, and then I'll be off into the Big Blue, and on my way to kiss Mrs Donkey on a pristine, tropical beach, beneath the swishing, swaying palms of Goa.
It's been a very strange six months for Donkey in Blogland; not being able to enjoy all your wonderful thoughts and talents, but I have still been flattered when I peek through the internet-keyhole to see who's been visiting, and I am especially thankful to all you regulars; Pub Man, Sabyj, Lived Legna, The Editor, Cakey, Kate S*, Gouda, Loosey, Pomgirl and new-comers Boarking and Ann O'Dyne. To all of you, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Eid-Ul-Adha, whatever your persuasion ... and whatever your poison, make sure you get plenty of it into you over the next couple of weeks.
Now that's what I call the real spirit of Christmas. Pic: http://snacks.cyberpunks.org/oreo-peanutbutter.gif
* Sorry Kate, I couldn't locate your link - but look her up in the comments...
Back when I was forced to join all the other pre-Christmas zombies as we jostled around the marble-lined, suburban mausoleums (mausoleii?) in search of expensive items that people won't even use, let alone want, I used to think that the pre-Chrissy build-up was contrived by sharp-suited, elusive hawkers of corporate consumerism, way up there in their untouchable glass towers, and was a phenomenon over which we had absolutely no control. And yet, even in this land of alleged non-materialistic, humanitarian, respect-to-all-living-beings society, here I find myself, the week before Christmas, busier than a $2 whore on pocket-money night!
And what's more, even over the frosty, impenetrable Himalayas, in this more-or-less exclusively Buddhist land, the consumerist Christmas still manages to protrude it's big, shiny, jolly, red snoz into one's business, as I discovered just a couple of nights ago when I was forced to make an emergency dash out into the chilly night for a packet of peanut butter and chocolate Oreos (Gawd, how good are those things?). It's certainly pretty hard not to get just a little cynical about Christmas when propped on an escalator in a monolithic, Chinese owned and operated supermarket in the middle of Tibet, and as you crest the stainless-steel horizon, you are faced with a huge, brightly-coloured sign wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving, above which is perched a fully-decorated and sparkling Christmas tree, winking it's merry lights, flirtatiously as it entices you with its bounty of cleverly-wrapped yak jerky!
If ever the purists needed some rock-solid evidence that the Spirit of Christmas Present, after having been out on an eleven-and-a-half month romp of debauched depravity during which he'd lost the plot in his own putrid pool of Christmas sherry-induced vomit, and was now fully out to corrupt the unsuspecting masses, then this was it.
So anyway, I've got two days to go in which to complete two months of work; reports, plans, ass-kicking, ass-licking and so forth, and then I'll be off into the Big Blue, and on my way to kiss Mrs Donkey on a pristine, tropical beach, beneath the swishing, swaying palms of Goa.
It's been a very strange six months for Donkey in Blogland; not being able to enjoy all your wonderful thoughts and talents, but I have still been flattered when I peek through the internet-keyhole to see who's been visiting, and I am especially thankful to all you regulars; Pub Man, Sabyj, Lived Legna, The Editor, Cakey, Kate S*, Gouda, Loosey, Pomgirl and new-comers Boarking and Ann O'Dyne. To all of you, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Eid-Ul-Adha, whatever your persuasion ... and whatever your poison, make sure you get plenty of it into you over the next couple of weeks.
Now that's what I call the real spirit of Christmas. Pic: http://snacks.cyberpunks.org/oreo-peanutbutter.gif
* Sorry Kate, I couldn't locate your link - but look her up in the comments...
Friday, November 30, 2007
This guy makes David Brent look like Donald Trump
So you reckon nothing much changes in life. Well here's a bit of a tale to demonstrate just how much my current existence has altered since just a year ago.
For a long time now, even way back in the dark ages before Blogging, I have usually written some kind of story or reflection for World AIDS Day. If you're interested, you can wander back and have a bit of a squiz at last year's offering (which is decidedly better than what you're gonna get this year). This little ritual has come about as a result of a number of different life experiences, usually hovering on the periphery, but never directly relating to the horrible condition known as AIDS, including an interesting encounter with the very first hospitalised cases in Australia, back in 1984.
Anyway, many years after that, but possibly as a result, I started to direct my career to working in the field of HIV and AIDS prevention ('cause initially, that's all there was) and later, treatment and care. I worked like a Donkey to get there, often being able to do a little bit, but never quite getting the opportunity to work exclusively in my preferred field. This all came to a head this time last year when I very nearly lost it through utter frustration as I, with an inexhaustible passion for HIV and AIDS prevention and who had devoted years of determined study, research and application on the topic, was forced to sit idly by while my boss at the time took it upon himself to conduct the World AIDS Day activities for a significant proportion of the world's population.
And this was his idea. My boss decided that on World AIDS Day, 2006, he would invite a bunch of HIV-positive people to our office at lunch time. I know what you're thinking, "Well Gee, Donkey, that actually sounds like a nice thing to do". But he wasn't talking about sitting them down and serving them up a few chapattis and lentils, oh no, my boss thought it would be a great idea to have them make us lunch, and to serve it up to us!
OK, so perhaps there was some method to his madness. Perhaps his intention was to demonstrate to the staff of the organisation that people with HIV are just like you and me, and there's nothing to be afraid of in terms of their cooking and serving up food. Maybe ... but no! This guy's intention, when questioned about his plan, was to give the HIV positive people something to do, to make them feel wanted by society! Excuse me?
Fortunately, this genius' plan never eventuated. Unfortunately, it was not because people objected to the idea, it was just that, like so many of his plans, he never got up off his throne to put it into action. So instead of forcing HIV positive people to wait on us while we dined on a three-course meal of their creation, my boss decided he would make a speech to the staff of our organisation on World AIDS Day, demonstrating the importance of the day, and of the cause.
Again, unfortunately, my boss' legendary lack of planning kicked-in and he failed to prepare said speech, and so arrived on the day with lots of ideas floating around in that near-empty vacuum, but no butterfly net with which to harvest them.
Now it's fair to say that there are some people in this world who make fine public speakers, and for whom this lack of preparedness would not be a problem. But my boss had already demonstrated his deficiency in this area some months before, when called upon at his former director's farewell party to make an impromptu farewell speech, and proceeded to do so, amidst uncomfortable silence and nervous shuffling of feet, saying that he didn't really think anyone was going to miss Harry very much.
So, with this tremendous record under his belt, my boss approached the podium on World AIDS Day, 2006. He started off strongly by saying that AIDS is a very important health issue affecting communities in many parts of the world ... but that's where the fine oratory ended. He then began pontificating about how AIDS was not the only important health issue affecting communities in many parts of the world, and that there are many other diseases and illnesses which kill just as many, if not more people than AIDS. By the time my boss had delivered a detailed account of half a dozen or so illnesses affecting developing communities in the region, the congregation's initial confusion was transforming into barely concealed mirth. Perhaps sensing he was losing his audience, my boss decided to wrap things up abruptly by muttering that while he's willing to concede that World AIDS Day has some merit, he couldn't see why there shouldn't be a World Diarrhoeal Disease Day instead.
As he sat down, and the embarrassed silence thickened to suffocating levels, I couldn't help wishing that a troop of HIV-positive men, women and orphans in chef's hats and waiters outfits would come piling through the door loaded with plates of steaming venison, roast potatoes and barrels of red wine, y'know, just to ease the tension. But there was nothing doing. I returned to my desk with fire coming out of my ears.
And if that wasn't enough for me to get my walking boots on, a few weeks later, when one of his staff suggested that in 2007 they target some of their HIV and AIDS activities on women, he replied that HIV and AIDS was not about gender, and that there was no need to do anything different for men and women. Right-oh, that was enough for me ... it was time for Donkey, quick as you like, to get rollin' right on outta there...
And into an entirely new setting where, finally, he gets to work exclusively on his chosen specialty. This year, it's all about HIV and AIDS. Not diarrhoea. Not malaria. Not avian influenza, measles, dengue fever, chikungunya, yellow fever or even gout. No, this year, if Donkey's got anything to do with it - and what d'you know? He does - it's gonna be about prevention of HIV; it's gonna be about clean syringes; it's gonna be about safe sex education; and it's gonna be about condoms, frangers, dingers, rubber johnnies or whatever you wanna call 'em, I don't care, just as long as you use 'em.
Happy World AIDS Day everyone, please wear a red ribbon and remember those who have died from, and those who are living with HIV and AIDS, all over the world.
Wear a red ribbon on World AIDS Day, 1st December.
For a long time now, even way back in the dark ages before Blogging, I have usually written some kind of story or reflection for World AIDS Day. If you're interested, you can wander back and have a bit of a squiz at last year's offering (which is decidedly better than what you're gonna get this year). This little ritual has come about as a result of a number of different life experiences, usually hovering on the periphery, but never directly relating to the horrible condition known as AIDS, including an interesting encounter with the very first hospitalised cases in Australia, back in 1984.
Anyway, many years after that, but possibly as a result, I started to direct my career to working in the field of HIV and AIDS prevention ('cause initially, that's all there was) and later, treatment and care. I worked like a Donkey to get there, often being able to do a little bit, but never quite getting the opportunity to work exclusively in my preferred field. This all came to a head this time last year when I very nearly lost it through utter frustration as I, with an inexhaustible passion for HIV and AIDS prevention and who had devoted years of determined study, research and application on the topic, was forced to sit idly by while my boss at the time took it upon himself to conduct the World AIDS Day activities for a significant proportion of the world's population.
And this was his idea. My boss decided that on World AIDS Day, 2006, he would invite a bunch of HIV-positive people to our office at lunch time. I know what you're thinking, "Well Gee, Donkey, that actually sounds like a nice thing to do". But he wasn't talking about sitting them down and serving them up a few chapattis and lentils, oh no, my boss thought it would be a great idea to have them make us lunch, and to serve it up to us!
OK, so perhaps there was some method to his madness. Perhaps his intention was to demonstrate to the staff of the organisation that people with HIV are just like you and me, and there's nothing to be afraid of in terms of their cooking and serving up food. Maybe ... but no! This guy's intention, when questioned about his plan, was to give the HIV positive people something to do, to make them feel wanted by society! Excuse me?
Fortunately, this genius' plan never eventuated. Unfortunately, it was not because people objected to the idea, it was just that, like so many of his plans, he never got up off his throne to put it into action. So instead of forcing HIV positive people to wait on us while we dined on a three-course meal of their creation, my boss decided he would make a speech to the staff of our organisation on World AIDS Day, demonstrating the importance of the day, and of the cause.
Again, unfortunately, my boss' legendary lack of planning kicked-in and he failed to prepare said speech, and so arrived on the day with lots of ideas floating around in that near-empty vacuum, but no butterfly net with which to harvest them.
Now it's fair to say that there are some people in this world who make fine public speakers, and for whom this lack of preparedness would not be a problem. But my boss had already demonstrated his deficiency in this area some months before, when called upon at his former director's farewell party to make an impromptu farewell speech, and proceeded to do so, amidst uncomfortable silence and nervous shuffling of feet, saying that he didn't really think anyone was going to miss Harry very much.
So, with this tremendous record under his belt, my boss approached the podium on World AIDS Day, 2006. He started off strongly by saying that AIDS is a very important health issue affecting communities in many parts of the world ... but that's where the fine oratory ended. He then began pontificating about how AIDS was not the only important health issue affecting communities in many parts of the world, and that there are many other diseases and illnesses which kill just as many, if not more people than AIDS. By the time my boss had delivered a detailed account of half a dozen or so illnesses affecting developing communities in the region, the congregation's initial confusion was transforming into barely concealed mirth. Perhaps sensing he was losing his audience, my boss decided to wrap things up abruptly by muttering that while he's willing to concede that World AIDS Day has some merit, he couldn't see why there shouldn't be a World Diarrhoeal Disease Day instead.
As he sat down, and the embarrassed silence thickened to suffocating levels, I couldn't help wishing that a troop of HIV-positive men, women and orphans in chef's hats and waiters outfits would come piling through the door loaded with plates of steaming venison, roast potatoes and barrels of red wine, y'know, just to ease the tension. But there was nothing doing. I returned to my desk with fire coming out of my ears.
And if that wasn't enough for me to get my walking boots on, a few weeks later, when one of his staff suggested that in 2007 they target some of their HIV and AIDS activities on women, he replied that HIV and AIDS was not about gender, and that there was no need to do anything different for men and women. Right-oh, that was enough for me ... it was time for Donkey, quick as you like, to get rollin' right on outta there...
And into an entirely new setting where, finally, he gets to work exclusively on his chosen specialty. This year, it's all about HIV and AIDS. Not diarrhoea. Not malaria. Not avian influenza, measles, dengue fever, chikungunya, yellow fever or even gout. No, this year, if Donkey's got anything to do with it - and what d'you know? He does - it's gonna be about prevention of HIV; it's gonna be about clean syringes; it's gonna be about safe sex education; and it's gonna be about condoms, frangers, dingers, rubber johnnies or whatever you wanna call 'em, I don't care, just as long as you use 'em.
Happy World AIDS Day everyone, please wear a red ribbon and remember those who have died from, and those who are living with HIV and AIDS, all over the world.
Wear a red ribbon on World AIDS Day, 1st December.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Teaching mediocrity to the multitudes
Back in the '80s, did you ever see the Indiana Jones trilogy? That series of rollicking adventures set in pre-World War II Egypt, India, the Amazon and Europe, in which the witty, sexy, debonair and occasionally flawed archaeologist, Indiana Jones, took on the Nazis at the height of their power in an exhilarating chase for some of history's most famous biblical artefacts? Great stuff, wasn't it? It was awesome how Indie was this stuffy, clumsy, be-spectacled academic in "real life", who would swap his pen and books for a slouch-hat and bull-whip and take to the field to become this daring, robust cad who broke the rules and took risks in order to obtain ancient treasures, and who enjoyed a fist-fight as much as his numerous tumbles in the hay with some genuine stunners. What a hero!
And do you remember those other great archaeological thrillers of the '80s, the Filipino Smith trilogy? No? He was that short, fat, pasty, balding archaeologist with glasses, a nasal voice and who was always wearing a grey suit. You remember. He lived with his mother, had no friends and would spend years in his office writing letters to various authorities requesting permission to dig up ancient archaeological sites. Smith was wrist-slashingly patient about doing things strictly by the book and was committed to searching for his archaeological treasures through academic research which never once took him beyond three kilometres of his mother's home. As a result of his cautious nature, his total contribution to the world's collection of ancient treasures was a three-hundred year old (American) Indian moccasin ... well, actually, it was just one chunk of an Indian moccasin, which, he maintained throughout the trilogy, proved conclusively that Indians once wore moccasins. Really? You don't remember those films? That's odd.
Now that I think about it, I suppose in comparison with Indiana Jones, Filipino Smith wasn't really much of an adventurer, or at least not much like the kind of adventurer we admire. In fact, when we break it right down, there isn't really much to admire about him at all. He wasn't attractive in the least. He wasn't witty, interesting, charming, energetic, courageous or even the kind of person who could handle himself in an argument. He was neither independent in his personal life, nor in his work, and he was not likely to be tumbling in the hay with a buxom beauty any time soon.
But we watch and enjoy movies all the time which feature hopeless characters like Filipino Smith, so why weren't his movies as successful as Indiana's? I reckon it comes down to what we really admire in a hero; not the wit, physique, affability and intelligence - all admirable and attractive in their way - but the willingness to recognise what is right and just, and to break the rules and take risks in order to achieve it. That's what Indiana Jones really had going for him, and that's why he was such a fantastic hero.
This admiration for those who'll break the rules and take risks in the name of a just cause goes way beyond the thrills of fictitious action trilogies. In Australia, our entire national identity was founded on the battlefields of The Somme in World War I, when "our boys" distinguished themselves from the obedient, British "Tommys", by breaking all sorts of centuries-old, military conventions in order to take-on the wicked Hun, and as a result earned themselves a reputation as fierce shock-troops upon whom the allied military came to rely whenever an urgent offensive push was required. Their brash, outlandish and often undisciplined behaviour, which so often riled the British officers, far from being maligned back home, became a badge of honour, and the admirable virtues of true heroes.
Since those years, Australians have always admired those who are willing to take on the establishment for a just cause. We have always worshipped the daring, and the risk-taker, and by contrast, we detest and chastise those who would stand idle before a great wrong, for fear of personal disadvantage.
For example, how much do we admire that fellow employee with the sour disposition who has been with the organisation for thirty years, has never had a promotion and who complains every Monday morning about how much they hate the boss, how much they hate their job, and how "these young ones think they know everything"? And by contrast, what do we think of that "young one" who is just as miserable in his/her work, but who, after five years with the organisation, decides to throw it all in to go back to school for four years in order to have a crack at that career in journalism to which they always aspired? Of course, we admire the one who had the guts to take a risk, rather than the one who sits around and complains, but does nothing about it. Isn't it interesting that even though we know nothing about either of them, we start to think of this younger person, this urban hero, as likeable in comparison with the older individual ... and possibly even a bit sexy?
So without being able to help it, we admire the risk taker - it's part of our National psyche, and we'd all like to think that we, too, would take risks if it would contribute to the greater good. Which brings me to my point (Phew – it's about bloody time, Donkey!).
When out and about in the world, Donkey regularly finds himself employed to train various officials and personnel on how to plan their annual programs and activities by setting goals and objectives towards which they can work, and up until recently, I've always reckoned that I'm not too bad at it. Now, with one short exception, every job I've had in the last five years or so has been funded by Australian organisations, to meet Australian expectations and requirements. So when I work with people to develop goals and objectives that they should work towards achieving, what do you think is the first thing I tell them? "Remember, when setting your goals, make sure they are achievable. Don't ever set your goals too high; if they're too high you'll never succeed". In other words, "Do not try to achieve beyond your current abilities and remember, under no circumstances must you ever take risks!". Doesn't sound very Aussie, does it? Doesn't sound like the kind of stuff you'd expect from a bunch of people who'd be prepared to break all the rules in order to achieve what is good and just, does it? What are we teaching people from developing countries? To remain as mediocre as possible? Are we deliberately suppressing any tendency towards daring or bravery? Is this some capitalist ploy to keep the poor people poor?
Possibly the only thing less attractive than choosing to do nothing for fear of personal disadvantage, instead of taking a risk that could contribute to the greater good, is to teach hundreds of people to be just as cowardly and mediocre. Hmmm, perhaps it could be time for a change of career, Donkey!
Post script:
On the eve of the Australian Federal Election, one has to wonder how it is that a nation of people who supposedly admire the daring, the risk-taker and the kind of person who will break the rules in order to achieve what is good and just, has, over the last eleven years, demonstrated utter cowardice for change in the face of gross miscarriages of justice and human rights, and an increase in the number of disadvantaged, low-income Australians, simply so that they can hang-on to their precious tax cuts, petrol subsidies and low interest rates on their mortgages. One would hope that tomorrow, when Australians go to the polls, they remember who and what they admire, and that they right a great, eleven-year wrong, by daring to take a risk, and vote for change.
Indiana Jones or Filipino Smith: which would you choose for a tumble in the hay? Pics: http://www.filmsy.com and http://i.treehugger.com respectively.
And do you remember those other great archaeological thrillers of the '80s, the Filipino Smith trilogy? No? He was that short, fat, pasty, balding archaeologist with glasses, a nasal voice and who was always wearing a grey suit. You remember. He lived with his mother, had no friends and would spend years in his office writing letters to various authorities requesting permission to dig up ancient archaeological sites. Smith was wrist-slashingly patient about doing things strictly by the book and was committed to searching for his archaeological treasures through academic research which never once took him beyond three kilometres of his mother's home. As a result of his cautious nature, his total contribution to the world's collection of ancient treasures was a three-hundred year old (American) Indian moccasin ... well, actually, it was just one chunk of an Indian moccasin, which, he maintained throughout the trilogy, proved conclusively that Indians once wore moccasins. Really? You don't remember those films? That's odd.
Now that I think about it, I suppose in comparison with Indiana Jones, Filipino Smith wasn't really much of an adventurer, or at least not much like the kind of adventurer we admire. In fact, when we break it right down, there isn't really much to admire about him at all. He wasn't attractive in the least. He wasn't witty, interesting, charming, energetic, courageous or even the kind of person who could handle himself in an argument. He was neither independent in his personal life, nor in his work, and he was not likely to be tumbling in the hay with a buxom beauty any time soon.
But we watch and enjoy movies all the time which feature hopeless characters like Filipino Smith, so why weren't his movies as successful as Indiana's? I reckon it comes down to what we really admire in a hero; not the wit, physique, affability and intelligence - all admirable and attractive in their way - but the willingness to recognise what is right and just, and to break the rules and take risks in order to achieve it. That's what Indiana Jones really had going for him, and that's why he was such a fantastic hero.
This admiration for those who'll break the rules and take risks in the name of a just cause goes way beyond the thrills of fictitious action trilogies. In Australia, our entire national identity was founded on the battlefields of The Somme in World War I, when "our boys" distinguished themselves from the obedient, British "Tommys", by breaking all sorts of centuries-old, military conventions in order to take-on the wicked Hun, and as a result earned themselves a reputation as fierce shock-troops upon whom the allied military came to rely whenever an urgent offensive push was required. Their brash, outlandish and often undisciplined behaviour, which so often riled the British officers, far from being maligned back home, became a badge of honour, and the admirable virtues of true heroes.
Since those years, Australians have always admired those who are willing to take on the establishment for a just cause. We have always worshipped the daring, and the risk-taker, and by contrast, we detest and chastise those who would stand idle before a great wrong, for fear of personal disadvantage.
For example, how much do we admire that fellow employee with the sour disposition who has been with the organisation for thirty years, has never had a promotion and who complains every Monday morning about how much they hate the boss, how much they hate their job, and how "these young ones think they know everything"? And by contrast, what do we think of that "young one" who is just as miserable in his/her work, but who, after five years with the organisation, decides to throw it all in to go back to school for four years in order to have a crack at that career in journalism to which they always aspired? Of course, we admire the one who had the guts to take a risk, rather than the one who sits around and complains, but does nothing about it. Isn't it interesting that even though we know nothing about either of them, we start to think of this younger person, this urban hero, as likeable in comparison with the older individual ... and possibly even a bit sexy?
So without being able to help it, we admire the risk taker - it's part of our National psyche, and we'd all like to think that we, too, would take risks if it would contribute to the greater good. Which brings me to my point (Phew – it's about bloody time, Donkey!).
When out and about in the world, Donkey regularly finds himself employed to train various officials and personnel on how to plan their annual programs and activities by setting goals and objectives towards which they can work, and up until recently, I've always reckoned that I'm not too bad at it. Now, with one short exception, every job I've had in the last five years or so has been funded by Australian organisations, to meet Australian expectations and requirements. So when I work with people to develop goals and objectives that they should work towards achieving, what do you think is the first thing I tell them? "Remember, when setting your goals, make sure they are achievable. Don't ever set your goals too high; if they're too high you'll never succeed". In other words, "Do not try to achieve beyond your current abilities and remember, under no circumstances must you ever take risks!". Doesn't sound very Aussie, does it? Doesn't sound like the kind of stuff you'd expect from a bunch of people who'd be prepared to break all the rules in order to achieve what is good and just, does it? What are we teaching people from developing countries? To remain as mediocre as possible? Are we deliberately suppressing any tendency towards daring or bravery? Is this some capitalist ploy to keep the poor people poor?
Possibly the only thing less attractive than choosing to do nothing for fear of personal disadvantage, instead of taking a risk that could contribute to the greater good, is to teach hundreds of people to be just as cowardly and mediocre. Hmmm, perhaps it could be time for a change of career, Donkey!
Post script:
On the eve of the Australian Federal Election, one has to wonder how it is that a nation of people who supposedly admire the daring, the risk-taker and the kind of person who will break the rules in order to achieve what is good and just, has, over the last eleven years, demonstrated utter cowardice for change in the face of gross miscarriages of justice and human rights, and an increase in the number of disadvantaged, low-income Australians, simply so that they can hang-on to their precious tax cuts, petrol subsidies and low interest rates on their mortgages. One would hope that tomorrow, when Australians go to the polls, they remember who and what they admire, and that they right a great, eleven-year wrong, by daring to take a risk, and vote for change.
Indiana Jones or Filipino Smith: which would you choose for a tumble in the hay? Pics: http://www.filmsy.com and http://i.treehugger.com respectively.
Post-post script (24 hours later):
You bloody ripper!
Saturday, November 17, 2007
The case of North versus South
I've worked in the Pacific for a good number of years, and it's not uncommon to be sitting on any given evening, in any given city, under the ramshackle shelter of a "yacht" club, beside the gentle, lapping waters as the horizon turns from gold to a deep, dark crimson, and listening to some balding, grey-haired Australian of immense proportions, dubious qualifications and in an advanced stage of inebriation, banging-on about how lazy Pacific Islanders are, be it his maid, driver, staff or the greens-keeper at the golf course.
I'm sure you can appreciate that this is a bit rich coming from a man who, in his own country (and indeed even while he is working abroad), wakes up of a morning, steps into an instant, hot water shower, followed by a breakfast of hot coffee (the water for which was boiled in a matter of minutes in an electric kettle) and toast (made from bread he bought the night before, and cooked, again in minutes, in an electric toaster) with butter (kept at just the right temperature in his electric refrigerator). After breakfast, during which he's had time to cast a lazy eye over a newspaper that was delivered to his door early in the morning, our man gets into a ridiculously large vehicle and drives himself along immaculately maintained highways to an office with all the latest computer hardware and furniture and, as it happens, another electric kettle with which someone makes him another coffee before he kicks-off the day's work.
This typical, daily Australian scenario makes it pretty difficult to argue that any hunter-gatherer community, be it in the Pacific or elsewhere, could ever be compared with its Australian counterparts and come-up appearing lazy, and yet, the old stereotype of the lazy Pacific Islander continues to dominate the Western psyche. It has always perplexed me, until recently, when, here in Tibet, I stumbled across some very plausible evidence to suggest that Pacific Islanders are not lazy at all, but just appear to be on go-slow, because in comparison with everyone else in the world, they have more time in their day to get things done.
I can assure you that Donkey is not about to dust-off his Year 7 science project and start prognosticating on the average hours of daylight in the tropics compared with sub-polar regions. This new evidence has little to do with daily solar meanderings, and a great deal to do with what it takes for individuals in different parts of the world to get up and out into the world each day.
Take Donkey's daily routine at present. At 7.15am, the alarm goes off to bring Donkey back from his nocturnal land of liveried dwarves and go-go girls wearing nothing but knee-high boots and hula-hoops, but it's so ridiculously cold, he can't bring himself to emerge from under the doonas (note plural) until 8.30am. After ablutions and bathing, the making of the essential morning coffee takes twenty minutes because at this altitude, water takes much longer to boil (9.10am). With breakfast done (9.30am), it's time to head-off to work, but before this can happen, one has to get ready to step out of the front door – herein begins the real ordeal.
In addition to my regular work clothes, which are already on and looking a million bucks, if I do say so myself (I have to, really, 'cause my Mum's not around to tell me how spiffy I'm looking today), I must put on a scarf which I wrap very tightly around my neck and face. Over this is placed a polar fleece jacket, followed by a larger, puffy-type jacket which zips up over the whole ensemble. On the scone goes the beanie, and on the hands, the yak-skin gloves. With bags gathered and filled, I squeeze through the front door and waddle down to my bike, which I unlock and drag outside. I then go back inside to fetch my bags, which I fix to the bike, before fumbling in my pockets to produce both front and rear lights, which are placed in position, and finally I'm ready to go.
Now, if you were to see Donkey naked at present (urgh - easy stomach!), you truly wouldn't recognise him. Indeed, I myself am still a little uneasy when I look at this stranger in the mirror. I have lost so much weight since I arrived in Tibet that I've dropped four inches off my waste, and I have discovered the kind of defined, cat-walk class, high cheek bones that are the cosmetic surgery dreams of aspiring, teenage models along the entire length of the Gold Coast. I am also enjoying the relative silence that comes from no longer hearing the slap and smack of jowls each time I turn my head. Basically, I am a new Donkey, in peak physical condition, but each morning, as I climb up into my saddle, I am so rugged-up with layers and padding, that I look like the Michelin Man after he's had a sex change and been knocked-up with quintuplets!
By the time I set off for work, it's 10am, and just getting light. By contrast, our Pacific Island friends, due to the brightness and heat of the early-morning sun, and with some considerable assistance from the day-break activities of the numerous, vocal Pacific roosters, have been up for four hours. In this time, they've washed and dressed (simply by wrapping their single lavalava, or sarong, around their waists). By way of making breakfast, they have peeled taro and yams with the edge of an empty corned-beef tin, scraped the flesh from twenty open coconut shells to make cream, peeled three bunches of green bananas and gathered and chopped wood for a small fire, on which they have boiled their coffee and cooked all of these goodies. By the time they've eaten, it's still only about 7am, leaving them plenty of time to relax and talk ... or look lazy.
At 10.20am, I'm still struggling along on my bicycle, my painstaking progress as much to do with the lack of oxygen in the air, as the fact that the oxygen is covered in jagged, razor-sharp icicles which slash my windpipe and lungs with every breath. By the time I get to work, it's 2.30pm, and it takes me another twenty minutes to peel off my 1960s space suit. Straight away I need a cuppa to help me catch my breath which, again, at this altitude, takes a good twenty minutes or so, followed by a further quarter of an hour thawing-out in front of the heater.
By 3.30pm, I sit down to work, and get just enough time to check my emails and Facebook, before it's time to close up and start getting ready for home. I know what you're thinking; 3.45pm is a little early to be going home, but it'll take me an hour to layer-up again, and I have to get home before dark lest I freeze to death in the street. Do you remember, when you were a kid, they used to have those ice-blocks shaped like a rocket, with a little jelly astronaut frozen in the top? Well that's what homeless people end up looking like here if they get caught outside after dark, and there's no way I'm letting that happen to me! So by the time I've unlocked my bike, replaced all the lights, struggled home and then repeated all this in reverse-order, it's 8.30pm and time for tea and then bed. What a day!
So you see, Pacific Islanders aren't lazy, they just get a lot more time in the day to do what needs to be done, compared with those who live in colder climes. I mean, look at Tongans and Samoans - not exactly starving due to being too lazy to get a meal together, are they? No, to those fat, privileged Australian piss-heads in the yacht and golf clubs across the Pacific, I say that real laziness is having everything you want at the flick of a switch, or the handing-over of a wad of cash. To them I say that real laziness is not being willing to open your eyes and look around at the way your maid, driver, gardener, staff or greens-keepers at the golf course live, and not being willing to understand just how much they've already done each day when you're only just falling out of bed with your thumping hangover.
What's this? A bird's-eye view of Donkey riding to work.
I'm sure you can appreciate that this is a bit rich coming from a man who, in his own country (and indeed even while he is working abroad), wakes up of a morning, steps into an instant, hot water shower, followed by a breakfast of hot coffee (the water for which was boiled in a matter of minutes in an electric kettle) and toast (made from bread he bought the night before, and cooked, again in minutes, in an electric toaster) with butter (kept at just the right temperature in his electric refrigerator). After breakfast, during which he's had time to cast a lazy eye over a newspaper that was delivered to his door early in the morning, our man gets into a ridiculously large vehicle and drives himself along immaculately maintained highways to an office with all the latest computer hardware and furniture and, as it happens, another electric kettle with which someone makes him another coffee before he kicks-off the day's work.
This typical, daily Australian scenario makes it pretty difficult to argue that any hunter-gatherer community, be it in the Pacific or elsewhere, could ever be compared with its Australian counterparts and come-up appearing lazy, and yet, the old stereotype of the lazy Pacific Islander continues to dominate the Western psyche. It has always perplexed me, until recently, when, here in Tibet, I stumbled across some very plausible evidence to suggest that Pacific Islanders are not lazy at all, but just appear to be on go-slow, because in comparison with everyone else in the world, they have more time in their day to get things done.
I can assure you that Donkey is not about to dust-off his Year 7 science project and start prognosticating on the average hours of daylight in the tropics compared with sub-polar regions. This new evidence has little to do with daily solar meanderings, and a great deal to do with what it takes for individuals in different parts of the world to get up and out into the world each day.
Take Donkey's daily routine at present. At 7.15am, the alarm goes off to bring Donkey back from his nocturnal land of liveried dwarves and go-go girls wearing nothing but knee-high boots and hula-hoops, but it's so ridiculously cold, he can't bring himself to emerge from under the doonas (note plural) until 8.30am. After ablutions and bathing, the making of the essential morning coffee takes twenty minutes because at this altitude, water takes much longer to boil (9.10am). With breakfast done (9.30am), it's time to head-off to work, but before this can happen, one has to get ready to step out of the front door – herein begins the real ordeal.
In addition to my regular work clothes, which are already on and looking a million bucks, if I do say so myself (I have to, really, 'cause my Mum's not around to tell me how spiffy I'm looking today), I must put on a scarf which I wrap very tightly around my neck and face. Over this is placed a polar fleece jacket, followed by a larger, puffy-type jacket which zips up over the whole ensemble. On the scone goes the beanie, and on the hands, the yak-skin gloves. With bags gathered and filled, I squeeze through the front door and waddle down to my bike, which I unlock and drag outside. I then go back inside to fetch my bags, which I fix to the bike, before fumbling in my pockets to produce both front and rear lights, which are placed in position, and finally I'm ready to go.
Now, if you were to see Donkey naked at present (urgh - easy stomach!), you truly wouldn't recognise him. Indeed, I myself am still a little uneasy when I look at this stranger in the mirror. I have lost so much weight since I arrived in Tibet that I've dropped four inches off my waste, and I have discovered the kind of defined, cat-walk class, high cheek bones that are the cosmetic surgery dreams of aspiring, teenage models along the entire length of the Gold Coast. I am also enjoying the relative silence that comes from no longer hearing the slap and smack of jowls each time I turn my head. Basically, I am a new Donkey, in peak physical condition, but each morning, as I climb up into my saddle, I am so rugged-up with layers and padding, that I look like the Michelin Man after he's had a sex change and been knocked-up with quintuplets!
By the time I set off for work, it's 10am, and just getting light. By contrast, our Pacific Island friends, due to the brightness and heat of the early-morning sun, and with some considerable assistance from the day-break activities of the numerous, vocal Pacific roosters, have been up for four hours. In this time, they've washed and dressed (simply by wrapping their single lavalava, or sarong, around their waists). By way of making breakfast, they have peeled taro and yams with the edge of an empty corned-beef tin, scraped the flesh from twenty open coconut shells to make cream, peeled three bunches of green bananas and gathered and chopped wood for a small fire, on which they have boiled their coffee and cooked all of these goodies. By the time they've eaten, it's still only about 7am, leaving them plenty of time to relax and talk ... or look lazy.
At 10.20am, I'm still struggling along on my bicycle, my painstaking progress as much to do with the lack of oxygen in the air, as the fact that the oxygen is covered in jagged, razor-sharp icicles which slash my windpipe and lungs with every breath. By the time I get to work, it's 2.30pm, and it takes me another twenty minutes to peel off my 1960s space suit. Straight away I need a cuppa to help me catch my breath which, again, at this altitude, takes a good twenty minutes or so, followed by a further quarter of an hour thawing-out in front of the heater.
By 3.30pm, I sit down to work, and get just enough time to check my emails and Facebook, before it's time to close up and start getting ready for home. I know what you're thinking; 3.45pm is a little early to be going home, but it'll take me an hour to layer-up again, and I have to get home before dark lest I freeze to death in the street. Do you remember, when you were a kid, they used to have those ice-blocks shaped like a rocket, with a little jelly astronaut frozen in the top? Well that's what homeless people end up looking like here if they get caught outside after dark, and there's no way I'm letting that happen to me! So by the time I've unlocked my bike, replaced all the lights, struggled home and then repeated all this in reverse-order, it's 8.30pm and time for tea and then bed. What a day!
So you see, Pacific Islanders aren't lazy, they just get a lot more time in the day to do what needs to be done, compared with those who live in colder climes. I mean, look at Tongans and Samoans - not exactly starving due to being too lazy to get a meal together, are they? No, to those fat, privileged Australian piss-heads in the yacht and golf clubs across the Pacific, I say that real laziness is having everything you want at the flick of a switch, or the handing-over of a wad of cash. To them I say that real laziness is not being willing to open your eyes and look around at the way your maid, driver, gardener, staff or greens-keepers at the golf course live, and not being willing to understand just how much they've already done each day when you're only just falling out of bed with your thumping hangover.
What's this? A bird's-eye view of Donkey riding to work.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Indignant spiritual indigestion
You know, I don't really mind if people want to have opinions that are wrong, but why-oh-why must some (for want of a more appropriate term) FRIGGIN' IDIOTS insist on banging-on about them in public places, to all within ear-shot? For example, I'm a hard-workin' Donkey, and so, when it comes to Sunday morning, I like to rise late and take a leisurely stroll down through the multitudes of monks, beggars, vendors and pilgrims, past the massive gold ornaments of the Jokhang Temple and make my way to my favourite, chilled-out eatery where I like to sip two or three cups of dark, steaming Colombian, eat my over-easies and grilled tomatoes and sit in the bright Lhasa sun, keeping to myself as I read a book or, if I am lucky (and I was very lucky today) an Australian newspaper lovingly brought over by some thoughtful friends. Not too much to ask, now is it? A bit of Donkey-time as I sit and drink-in the atmosphere of old Tibet.
But I really cannot understand why other patrons of Donkey's favourite, chilled-out eatery seem hell-bent on shattering the quiet ambience with megaphonic observations of "the thing that's going wrong with Tibet", in a pompous, American East Coast, Ivy League drawl. Try as I might to ignore this twit, by the time it had gone on all the way through coffee numbers one and two, and through the first googy and tomato, I had to get up and stick my head around the corner to see just who this loud-mouthed braggart was actually talking to.
And what do you know? The poor sod who had been stuck listening to this nit-wit for the last hour as he spouted his opinions on why there were no monks at this or that monastery, and why Tibetans are no longer interested in spirituality and the old secrets was perhaps the only person in Lhasa who was not allowed to turn their back on an obnoxious, ill-informed prat. She was the poor, young, Tibetan waitress who, without this job (and all the trials that go with it), would be forced to return to her family and spend a long, draughty winter without a steady fire for warmth. In essence, she just had to endure it.
What else could I do? I gave her an out by calling her over and ordering another Colombian. My incredulous shake of the head was answered with a pleasant, conspiratorial grin, and for a short time all was calm and peaceful in the land, until some more of his countrymen came in and forced me to endure the whole procedure again – this time in stereo! That was it! I scalded my tongue as I downed the last caffeine hit and ducked out of there as Mr New England was proclaiming all the reasons why Tibetans today will never reach a state of heightened consciousness through tantric meditation.
My walk back home, usually very pleasant in the warm midday sun, had been soured. I had been cheated out of my pleasant weekly ritual, and now all I could think about were his last, anger-generating words about heightened consciousness. I was angry 'cause a) it wasn't true, and b) 'cause he was just another ill-informed, Martin Scorsese-worshipping "Boo-dist" who'd been here a week. Besides, of all people, he was the least likely to reach a heightened consciousness through tantric meditation ... certainly a lot less likely than the poor waitress with the bleeding ears.
Besides, what's so special about a heightened consciousness anyway? I've been clubbing - I know what it's like to have all my friends e-ing off their heads and hugging and drooling down each other's shoulders. And I've seen people lying in the gutters off Smith St, blissfully oblivious to the freezing Melbourne rain pelting down around them, or of the warmer, darkening patch around their groin.
And me. I get pissed pretty often, allegedly as a means of reaching a heightened state of consciousness, but I can't say that the results are all that cosmic or spiritual. For instance, just the other night, after about ten Lhasa beers, I got into a heated argument with someone who didn't believe that in the Tom and Jerry cartoons, the only humans are the housekeepers, who we imagine to be big, black, Queen Latifah-like ladies, although all we can see of them are a pair of stripy socks. Strike me down if it isn't true (unfortunately this place prevents me from Google-ing it), but either way, I'm sure you'll agree that neither of us seemed to be approaching Nirvana through our heightened consciousnesses.
Crikey, see what happens when I don't get my quiet, Sunday morning breakky?
Tom and Jerry, the new spiritual quest for weekend "boo-dists" everywhere. Pic: http://www.tomandjerryonline.com
But I really cannot understand why other patrons of Donkey's favourite, chilled-out eatery seem hell-bent on shattering the quiet ambience with megaphonic observations of "the thing that's going wrong with Tibet", in a pompous, American East Coast, Ivy League drawl. Try as I might to ignore this twit, by the time it had gone on all the way through coffee numbers one and two, and through the first googy and tomato, I had to get up and stick my head around the corner to see just who this loud-mouthed braggart was actually talking to.
And what do you know? The poor sod who had been stuck listening to this nit-wit for the last hour as he spouted his opinions on why there were no monks at this or that monastery, and why Tibetans are no longer interested in spirituality and the old secrets was perhaps the only person in Lhasa who was not allowed to turn their back on an obnoxious, ill-informed prat. She was the poor, young, Tibetan waitress who, without this job (and all the trials that go with it), would be forced to return to her family and spend a long, draughty winter without a steady fire for warmth. In essence, she just had to endure it.
What else could I do? I gave her an out by calling her over and ordering another Colombian. My incredulous shake of the head was answered with a pleasant, conspiratorial grin, and for a short time all was calm and peaceful in the land, until some more of his countrymen came in and forced me to endure the whole procedure again – this time in stereo! That was it! I scalded my tongue as I downed the last caffeine hit and ducked out of there as Mr New England was proclaiming all the reasons why Tibetans today will never reach a state of heightened consciousness through tantric meditation.
My walk back home, usually very pleasant in the warm midday sun, had been soured. I had been cheated out of my pleasant weekly ritual, and now all I could think about were his last, anger-generating words about heightened consciousness. I was angry 'cause a) it wasn't true, and b) 'cause he was just another ill-informed, Martin Scorsese-worshipping "Boo-dist" who'd been here a week. Besides, of all people, he was the least likely to reach a heightened consciousness through tantric meditation ... certainly a lot less likely than the poor waitress with the bleeding ears.
Besides, what's so special about a heightened consciousness anyway? I've been clubbing - I know what it's like to have all my friends e-ing off their heads and hugging and drooling down each other's shoulders. And I've seen people lying in the gutters off Smith St, blissfully oblivious to the freezing Melbourne rain pelting down around them, or of the warmer, darkening patch around their groin.
And me. I get pissed pretty often, allegedly as a means of reaching a heightened state of consciousness, but I can't say that the results are all that cosmic or spiritual. For instance, just the other night, after about ten Lhasa beers, I got into a heated argument with someone who didn't believe that in the Tom and Jerry cartoons, the only humans are the housekeepers, who we imagine to be big, black, Queen Latifah-like ladies, although all we can see of them are a pair of stripy socks. Strike me down if it isn't true (unfortunately this place prevents me from Google-ing it), but either way, I'm sure you'll agree that neither of us seemed to be approaching Nirvana through our heightened consciousnesses.
Crikey, see what happens when I don't get my quiet, Sunday morning breakky?
Tom and Jerry, the new spiritual quest for weekend "boo-dists" everywhere. Pic: http://www.tomandjerryonline.com
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Living in the Wild, Wild West
You gotta love Spaghetti Westerns; the macho gun-slingers in their shiny boots and spangley chaps, bright leather holsters ever at the ready and both a sparkling eye and a gleaming pistol for some buxom, fast-talking dame with a frilly, pink skirt that she doesn't mind hitchin' up above her garters as she storms out of the saloon in mock-disgust over something her charismatic, boyfriend sheriff has uttered. And then there're the Indians; those hollerin', homicidal, feather-headed madmen in ug-boots and fawn, suede chaps - every one a savage, and not to be trusted. Man, I just love the black-and-white politics and emotions of the Spaghetti Western. It's easy to know who to root for, and who to detest and despise ... so easy, in fact, that even as a kid, sick and home from school ('cause that's the only time they were ever on the teev) you could turn on the box at any stage of the film, and you'd know exactly what was going on. It was kind of comfortable – like putting on a nice, clean pair of old undies.
Did someone mention clean undies? Naturally, 'cause that's what Spaghetti Westerns are all about, I reckon. Think about it. Here you are, a ten-year-old, snivelling mess, lying back on the couch with a blanky all tucked-up nicely under your chinny-chin-chin, and you're staring at the tele, into what is ostensibly, so they tell us, a window into the past ... a window into the Wild West.
But while it's always easy to know when the moustachioed, black-hated villain is gonna draw on the count of two, or when the barman is going to duck as a half-empty bottle of sippin' licka flies in the general direction of his balding, bespectacled head, there are some things about the Spaghetti Western which, as one gets a little older and wiser, just don't make much sense.
The case-in-point is that the Spag Western, being, as we said, a window into life in the Old West, portrays a place where it never rains, where everywhere is dust and mud, and where cowboy desperados, after months out on the Ponderosa swallowing cow-dung or "going fishing" up on Brokeback, mosie on into town with only enough time to whore and drink, before copping a silver bullet between the shoulder blades or being chased away by Sheriff Charisma. Certainly not enough time to wash their dust and sweat-stained bodies or launder their fraying hats and dirty breeches, and yet, in the Spaghetti Western, there's never a dusty hem or sweaty underarm in sight.
And the Indians too; out there on the prairie, thwacking off arrow after arrow at some bastard landowner and/or buffalo, then skinning both of them and dousing 'emselves in blood and gore before going off for a chuff of the peace-pipe. Now come on, when are they gonna have time to scrub the blood out of their clean, light-brown daks with all that going on? – I went to Uni, I know how unclean stoners are the next morning! But the Spaghetti Western would have us believe it was all clean, brightly-coloured pants; clean, frilly knickers; clean, Whorehouse Madams with hearts of gold; and clean Sheriffs with a sense of morality and duty, while all around them was dirt and lawlessness.
Something doesn't quite fit, does it? I'll admit that the realisation that Hollywood has been lying to me about the state of cleanliness and hygiene in "the olden days" was, ironically, brought to my attention by the silver screen itself. In John Hillcoat's The Proposition, a "Western" set in olden days, outback Australia, the portrayal of life is anything but clean, and the contrast with its genre forefathers was both brilliant and startling. But still, the movies are the movies, and after a sickly, stay-at-home childhood of sparkling silver spurs, starched, silver-lined collars done up to the neck and perfectly-proportioned, unblemished suede hats, it's hard to know what to believe about life and hygiene in the olden days.
In hindsight, some questions about life are best left unanswered, as I discovered in the Wild, Wild West last week. The setting was a little further west of Texas and California, but despite being a little off-course, the Tibetan plateau makes a pretty good meal of the American West in the olden days, and I can assure you, it's been quite some time since the cowboys and whorehouse dames of western Tibet have had a wash!
You know how, when the desperados ride on into town, chewing tobaccy and spitting here and there, all the town pokes grab their children and skedaddle pronto? And you know how all the shutters on the windows bang closed and within seconds there's no sound in the sandy, dusty, single street other than the wind blowing between the rickety buildings? Well that was exactly Donkey and the Team wandering into our first stop on the road trip. That dusty town, a grimy pimple on an otherwise flat, featureless landscape emptied of inhabitants immediately upon our arrival, and just like in the movies, the only place left open to us was the saloon.
Whisky being a little hard to come by in these parts, we settled for the local brew, chang, and turned to look at the filthy bar, with its stained inhabitants staring back at us. After a couple of heart-starters, it was time to order a feed, and just like food from the un-refrigerated larders of the Wild West, the meat that was presented to us smelt as bad as it tasted – sort of like how you'd expect that lung on the anti-smoking ad to taste after it had been dried out in the sun and then pissed on by a diabetic yak - so it wasn't long before Donkey was looking around for a bathroom. I could have been still looking now, if it wasn't for my interpreter who informed me that there was no toilet, and that I had to go around the back. Well, "around the back" was over a small wall, through a knee-deep pile of rubbish and suspiciously human-looking excrement, past a cow with a hideously protracted anus, and around a corner to the back wall of the establishment, where I quickly discovered I had not been the only person to use these amenities in the last three years. Hmmm, as the sick little Donkey of years before, all curled up on the couch, I don't ever remember seeing the Sundance Kid's boot covered in Butch's crap! Something was not right; while the setting rang true, this town was nothing like the clean, well-kept locales of the Spaghetti Westerns. Feeling even worse than I did after the meat, and not a little puzzled, I returned to the bar and was able to gather the troops with very little prompting.
That night, we pulled into a steep valley just before dark. Our destination, with the exception of the Tibetan prayer flags above, which were so abundant as to blot-out the final rays of the setting sun, could well have matched a Californian gold-mining town of the Great Rush of the 1850s. The bustle was loud and intense as we threaded our way through the series of rickety wooden buildings to find the hotel – a windowless, coffin-like box with more dirt on the floor than a graveyard. The soiled sheets on the beds looked like they'd wrapped a few corpses in their time, but the nun who ran the place didn't seem to notice.
On the way down to our exciting new lodging, I was a little shocked at the rubbish piled up in the small stream that ran between the closely spaced buildings, and the smell was quite something else. The reason for the latter soon became apparent as I squeezed my way along a particularly narrow stretch of track, and out of the periphery of my right eye, saw a lady, slightly raised on a stone platform, about level with my waist, glance at me, casually squat and ... well, let it all hang out!
By the time I had dumped my gear in the coffin, I was almost ready to curl-up and admit defeat – the Wild West was not the highly sanitised and civilised place I had believed it to be, but rather was a squalid, impersonal and grossly immoral reservoir for disease. Unfortunately, giving up was not an option, because by that stage, the lung-meat-a-la-yak-urine from lunch was really making itself known. To its credit, in addition to the stream we'd followed earlier, this town had a toilet. Up the hill I climbed, and in the dark, I accidentally went into the Ladies'. The stench was something to be believed, but under the circumstances, I could ill afford to be fussy, so I let it all go, and heard the disturbing splash as the processed lung meat landed in the river far below.
There's truly nothing like the thought of a disgusting toilet to keep you sleeping all through the night despite the pain of a near-exploding bladder, but at first light, there was no alternative but to trek back up the hill. On arrival, I realised my embarrassing mistake of the previous evening, and this time selected the correct door.
On entering, I became aware of the extreme sexism which exists in modern society, even in this filthy community run by nuns. Y'see, while my experience of the night before had been brought to you by the phrase, "over-powering and physically debilitating stench", that was nothing compared with the Blokes'. Clearly, as evidenced by the fact that you could actually see the floor of the Ladies', the nuns do try to clean up their toilet every month or so, but the Blokes'! Oh my Gawd! The floor was coated from wall to wall, and the unmistakable scent of both fresh and fossilised human faece was like a blow to the head. So the nuns are more than happy to clean their own, but us cowboys can go to hell, right? Sexist in the extreme! Maybe ... but who knows, it was so ... confronting in there that perhaps the guy employed to clean the Mens' died while working one day, and fell through the hole. It certainly felt possible, and they'd never know 'cause no one would ever dare to venture close enough to the sluggish river below to search for his body.
As you can imagine, the Mens' toilet was not a place in which to spend too long, and as I turned to leave, I had to side-step a young man urinating on the door-step, as if, out here in the Wild, Wild West, close enough is good enough.
My recent visit to the Wild West of Tibet has given me a pretty good whiff (OK, bad expression) of what life must've been like in the olden days, and my rudimentary understanding of public health is such that if the Cow-pokes of the Spag Westerns had lived in conditions such as these, there's no way they would have sported the wonderfully unblemished complexions I envied as a sickly, young Donkey, nor the sparkling, cleaned and pressed outfits of the trusty sheriff and his posse. Once again Hollywood has lied to me, and another piece of my youthful innocence has been flushed down the dr... ah, I mean, dropped into the river!
Beneath the mass of prayer flags, deep down in the "bowels" of the valley, something dark and smelly lurks in the river beside Tidrum Nunnery. Pic: Hagas
Did someone mention clean undies? Naturally, 'cause that's what Spaghetti Westerns are all about, I reckon. Think about it. Here you are, a ten-year-old, snivelling mess, lying back on the couch with a blanky all tucked-up nicely under your chinny-chin-chin, and you're staring at the tele, into what is ostensibly, so they tell us, a window into the past ... a window into the Wild West.
But while it's always easy to know when the moustachioed, black-hated villain is gonna draw on the count of two, or when the barman is going to duck as a half-empty bottle of sippin' licka flies in the general direction of his balding, bespectacled head, there are some things about the Spaghetti Western which, as one gets a little older and wiser, just don't make much sense.
The case-in-point is that the Spag Western, being, as we said, a window into life in the Old West, portrays a place where it never rains, where everywhere is dust and mud, and where cowboy desperados, after months out on the Ponderosa swallowing cow-dung or "going fishing" up on Brokeback, mosie on into town with only enough time to whore and drink, before copping a silver bullet between the shoulder blades or being chased away by Sheriff Charisma. Certainly not enough time to wash their dust and sweat-stained bodies or launder their fraying hats and dirty breeches, and yet, in the Spaghetti Western, there's never a dusty hem or sweaty underarm in sight.
And the Indians too; out there on the prairie, thwacking off arrow after arrow at some bastard landowner and/or buffalo, then skinning both of them and dousing 'emselves in blood and gore before going off for a chuff of the peace-pipe. Now come on, when are they gonna have time to scrub the blood out of their clean, light-brown daks with all that going on? – I went to Uni, I know how unclean stoners are the next morning! But the Spaghetti Western would have us believe it was all clean, brightly-coloured pants; clean, frilly knickers; clean, Whorehouse Madams with hearts of gold; and clean Sheriffs with a sense of morality and duty, while all around them was dirt and lawlessness.
Something doesn't quite fit, does it? I'll admit that the realisation that Hollywood has been lying to me about the state of cleanliness and hygiene in "the olden days" was, ironically, brought to my attention by the silver screen itself. In John Hillcoat's The Proposition, a "Western" set in olden days, outback Australia, the portrayal of life is anything but clean, and the contrast with its genre forefathers was both brilliant and startling. But still, the movies are the movies, and after a sickly, stay-at-home childhood of sparkling silver spurs, starched, silver-lined collars done up to the neck and perfectly-proportioned, unblemished suede hats, it's hard to know what to believe about life and hygiene in the olden days.
In hindsight, some questions about life are best left unanswered, as I discovered in the Wild, Wild West last week. The setting was a little further west of Texas and California, but despite being a little off-course, the Tibetan plateau makes a pretty good meal of the American West in the olden days, and I can assure you, it's been quite some time since the cowboys and whorehouse dames of western Tibet have had a wash!
You know how, when the desperados ride on into town, chewing tobaccy and spitting here and there, all the town pokes grab their children and skedaddle pronto? And you know how all the shutters on the windows bang closed and within seconds there's no sound in the sandy, dusty, single street other than the wind blowing between the rickety buildings? Well that was exactly Donkey and the Team wandering into our first stop on the road trip. That dusty town, a grimy pimple on an otherwise flat, featureless landscape emptied of inhabitants immediately upon our arrival, and just like in the movies, the only place left open to us was the saloon.
Whisky being a little hard to come by in these parts, we settled for the local brew, chang, and turned to look at the filthy bar, with its stained inhabitants staring back at us. After a couple of heart-starters, it was time to order a feed, and just like food from the un-refrigerated larders of the Wild West, the meat that was presented to us smelt as bad as it tasted – sort of like how you'd expect that lung on the anti-smoking ad to taste after it had been dried out in the sun and then pissed on by a diabetic yak - so it wasn't long before Donkey was looking around for a bathroom. I could have been still looking now, if it wasn't for my interpreter who informed me that there was no toilet, and that I had to go around the back. Well, "around the back" was over a small wall, through a knee-deep pile of rubbish and suspiciously human-looking excrement, past a cow with a hideously protracted anus, and around a corner to the back wall of the establishment, where I quickly discovered I had not been the only person to use these amenities in the last three years. Hmmm, as the sick little Donkey of years before, all curled up on the couch, I don't ever remember seeing the Sundance Kid's boot covered in Butch's crap! Something was not right; while the setting rang true, this town was nothing like the clean, well-kept locales of the Spaghetti Westerns. Feeling even worse than I did after the meat, and not a little puzzled, I returned to the bar and was able to gather the troops with very little prompting.
That night, we pulled into a steep valley just before dark. Our destination, with the exception of the Tibetan prayer flags above, which were so abundant as to blot-out the final rays of the setting sun, could well have matched a Californian gold-mining town of the Great Rush of the 1850s. The bustle was loud and intense as we threaded our way through the series of rickety wooden buildings to find the hotel – a windowless, coffin-like box with more dirt on the floor than a graveyard. The soiled sheets on the beds looked like they'd wrapped a few corpses in their time, but the nun who ran the place didn't seem to notice.
On the way down to our exciting new lodging, I was a little shocked at the rubbish piled up in the small stream that ran between the closely spaced buildings, and the smell was quite something else. The reason for the latter soon became apparent as I squeezed my way along a particularly narrow stretch of track, and out of the periphery of my right eye, saw a lady, slightly raised on a stone platform, about level with my waist, glance at me, casually squat and ... well, let it all hang out!
By the time I had dumped my gear in the coffin, I was almost ready to curl-up and admit defeat – the Wild West was not the highly sanitised and civilised place I had believed it to be, but rather was a squalid, impersonal and grossly immoral reservoir for disease. Unfortunately, giving up was not an option, because by that stage, the lung-meat-a-la-yak-urine from lunch was really making itself known. To its credit, in addition to the stream we'd followed earlier, this town had a toilet. Up the hill I climbed, and in the dark, I accidentally went into the Ladies'. The stench was something to be believed, but under the circumstances, I could ill afford to be fussy, so I let it all go, and heard the disturbing splash as the processed lung meat landed in the river far below.
There's truly nothing like the thought of a disgusting toilet to keep you sleeping all through the night despite the pain of a near-exploding bladder, but at first light, there was no alternative but to trek back up the hill. On arrival, I realised my embarrassing mistake of the previous evening, and this time selected the correct door.
On entering, I became aware of the extreme sexism which exists in modern society, even in this filthy community run by nuns. Y'see, while my experience of the night before had been brought to you by the phrase, "over-powering and physically debilitating stench", that was nothing compared with the Blokes'. Clearly, as evidenced by the fact that you could actually see the floor of the Ladies', the nuns do try to clean up their toilet every month or so, but the Blokes'! Oh my Gawd! The floor was coated from wall to wall, and the unmistakable scent of both fresh and fossilised human faece was like a blow to the head. So the nuns are more than happy to clean their own, but us cowboys can go to hell, right? Sexist in the extreme! Maybe ... but who knows, it was so ... confronting in there that perhaps the guy employed to clean the Mens' died while working one day, and fell through the hole. It certainly felt possible, and they'd never know 'cause no one would ever dare to venture close enough to the sluggish river below to search for his body.
As you can imagine, the Mens' toilet was not a place in which to spend too long, and as I turned to leave, I had to side-step a young man urinating on the door-step, as if, out here in the Wild, Wild West, close enough is good enough.
My recent visit to the Wild West of Tibet has given me a pretty good whiff (OK, bad expression) of what life must've been like in the olden days, and my rudimentary understanding of public health is such that if the Cow-pokes of the Spag Westerns had lived in conditions such as these, there's no way they would have sported the wonderfully unblemished complexions I envied as a sickly, young Donkey, nor the sparkling, cleaned and pressed outfits of the trusty sheriff and his posse. Once again Hollywood has lied to me, and another piece of my youthful innocence has been flushed down the dr... ah, I mean, dropped into the river!
Beneath the mass of prayer flags, deep down in the "bowels" of the valley, something dark and smelly lurks in the river beside Tidrum Nunnery. Pic: Hagas
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