Executive Style


Friday, December 21, 2007

Xmas thought: be nice to a public servant

thecopper.jpg So this will be the last post for All Men Are Liars until next year, when the lack of holiday pay will force me to recommence my toil January 15.

This year, unlike many Christmases past, I won't be working, but there will be thousands of Aussies who will keep the wheels of industry and commerce turning. From bus drivers to police, journalists, electricity workers, doctors and nurses, cabbies, even bar staff and bouncers at some hotels.

A lot of people take not working on Christmas day for granted, but the hardy souls above don't really get much of a choice - you might dodge it every second year, but usually if you're rostered off one Christmas, you'll have to do the next.

So here's a little Christmas thought to send you on your way - why not take some time out this festive season to thank these people and show your appreciation ...

Reader Benny emailed me, suggesting "you could shake their hand and say something like 'you've got a tough job and I appreciate the work you do. I hope you have a Merry Christmas,' or even write it in a card and stick in a scratchie."

"The trick is saying/writing something that conveys your respect and gratitude without sounding like a condescending prick," says Benny.

I reckon this is a brilliant idea, so here's a few other ways you can show your thanks:

Six pack in the bin for your garbos
This is an oldie but a goodie. A far better option is to actually get up to shake the guys' hands, maybe even split a case between the three or four of them on the truck.

Most garbos don't work Xmas Day, but they are the ones who have to pick up those mountains of rubbish the day after when you're lazing around in your pool drinking Bloody Marys.

Tip a cabbie
This may come as a shock to some of you, but it's not their fault there aren't enough of them this time of year and they cop endless abuse for it.

Slip one bloke a sly fiver or tenner and say "Merry Christmas" or "Allahu Akbar" whatever the case may be.

Give a nice bottle of red to the old bloke around the corner
You know the digger who lives on his own with his two Maltese terriers and always says "hello mate" when you walk past.

Knock on his door, wish him all the best and, if he if invites you in for a beer, stay for one and have a chat.

If you're getting public transport
Buy ten bucks worth of scratchies and give one to the train guard, the flagman etc and do as Benny suggests above.

It really is absolutely no fun working Christmas Day and when the people you're doing it for (that would be you) take it as a given, I imagine it galls.

Shake a copper's hand
Policing is a brutal job, and most of us just assume the cops will be there and do their thing, seldom reflecting on the person who chooses to work odd hours for crap money to deal with horror to keep us safe.

If you see a police man or woman on Chrissie Day, give them a nod or a smile and say "thanks for being here" - they'll know what you mean.

Oh, and this is a bit off the track but ...

Tell your mum and dad you love them
Don't just give them the traditional hug and kiss at the door, take them aside some time during Christmas Day, sit them down and tell them what a great job they did as parents, how much you love and respect them and then give them a massive cuddle.

Guaranteed it'll blow any present you give them out of the water.

Feel free to post your own Xmas thoughts if they're not too saccharine, have a good one and I'll see you all next year.


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Thursday, December 20, 2007

Summer reading

hamonrye.jpg I struggle to find books I love; I can't tell you how many times I've started a novel, got about 100 pages in and been paralysed by the realisation that it really is boring as batshit and I'm now going to have to grind it out to the finish.

A few years ago, I stopped feeling guilty about this, so now my bookshelves are littered with half-read efforts by authors like Orhan Pamuk, Céline, Willy Vlautin, W.G. Sebald, Tim Winton, Peter Carey, Michel Houellebecq and Jonathan Safran Foer.

I don't know whether this makes me stupid or that I have a goldfish's attention span but I like books to entertain and educate me, to take me places I've never been and if the author spends three pages describing leaves or gets too cute with language, they're given the bullet and I move on.

If the book has been enthusiastically recommended by someone, I'll also probably not jump to it next time they suggest a title - it's like trusting a girl who's cheated on you (this, perversely is why I'll go see any movie Sun Herald movie critic Rob Lowing hates - we have polar opposites in taste in film).

Anyways, there's no better time to get some solid reading done than over the holidays, preferably on a big soft beach towel next to someone tanned and tasty who wears cute bikinis.

The cool thing about books is the good ones never go out of fashion, so while there'll always be flavour-of-the-month novels, the great ones will be as fresh this Chrissie as when they were first released.

Here's a little stack of books I've loved over the years, most of which will not disappoint if you give them a chance and feel free to tell me if they do ...

Disgrace by JM Coetzee
This is a flat-out magnificent novel. It's just 220 pages long (nice and thin) and as such, a taut, lean little story that powerfully dramatises the problems that have beset South Africa.

Author Coetzee hails from that country but is now an Aussie citizen living in South Australia and, I believe, the only living author to have won the Booker Prize twice as well as the Nobel Prize for Literature.

In other words, he knows his way around a keyboard.

In the Cut by Susanna Moore
A really clever, literate, sexy, crime thriller that got made into a crap movie starring Meg Ryan. Some claim Moore's heroine is an insecure, obsessive. Me? I found her riveting.

I dunno what the hell happened to Moore with her subsequent books which my mum tells me were a disappointment, but this is a dead set ball-tearer of a story with some very dirty love-making scenes in it.

Lolita by Vladamir Nabokov
Speaking of dirty love-making, I don't know whether you can go past this classic for a story that both fascinates and creeps the hell out of you at the same time; a love story involving a 12 year old girl.

When I first read Nabokov I got depressed for about three years because I knew I'd never be able to write as beautifully as he does in this 1955 novel; it's disturbing and moving.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Probably one of the most "important" novels of the 20th century - and I hate important novels - because it shocked the entire Soviet Union with its depiction of how Stalin was repressing his own people.

The best thing about this book is you can read it in a day - which is refreshing when you compare it to all those other worthy, Russian novels that run for 1500 pages - and it's also very simply written and constructed; as the title suggests it follows one day of unfathomable hardship in the life of a Russian dissident in a gulag.

Solzhenitsyn knew what he was talking about; he spent eight years in a similar prison for allegedly insulting Stalin by describing him "Old Whiskers" in a letter to a friend.

Once you've read this book you will never again take being warm and well fed for granted.

Hard Revolution by George Pelecanos
Just finished this and really enjoyed Pelecanos's rendering of the mean streets of Washington during the 1968 race riots after Martin Luther King's assassination.

Though I wouldn't go as far as to put Pelecanos on the same hard-boiled perch as Raymond Chandler (see The Lady in the Lake) he draws great characters and doesn't make you think too hard.

Dispatches by Michael Herr
"The best book I have read on men and war in our time," said no less a judge than John LeCarré.

A harrowing, exhilarating reading experience. Herr soaks you with images and smells, emotions and sounds, describing his time covering the Vietnam War.

It could well be the greatest book I've ever read and it's the only novel I've read three times. I know I could die happy if I'd written this baby.

Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowksi
Another of the best books I've read.

I love Bukowksi, revere him, and he's inspired me more than any other novelist in my own fiction writing - he's brutally honest about his world and himself, hilarious, tough and kind.

This tells the story of his youth and affliction with cystic acne and it's just a wonderful lesson in how great writers make the mundane, fascinating. Have read it twice and will read it again.

Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh
Yeah, yeah, Trainspotting is close to genius and is also remarkably re-readable, but this novel, Welsh's second is criminally under-appreciated.

I love Welsh because he took a stick to literature and showed all the wankers and intellectuals you can write great fiction about shitting yourself, beating up people and scoring drugs.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
I love everything Steinbeck's written - East of Eden, The Grapes of Wrath, Cannery Row, Tortilla Flat - take your pick, the bloke's a machine.

Of Mice and Men, like a lot of the books on this list, is very, very thin, but it just picks you up, twists your guts and leaves you spent.

Microserfs by Douglas Copeland
If you enjoy books written by people much, much smarter than you, this is a special.

Copeland charts the beginning of the computer age and tech boom and also manages to produce one of the sweetest, least-hackneyed love stories I've ever read.

The Quiet American by Graham Greene
Another book set in Vietnam and a great companion piece to Dispatches.

Greene is a master story teller and this is a novel that unassumingly builds to a climax that leaves you wondering how the hell he does it.

Beautiful, lyrical, profound and sexy.

Moneyball by Michael Lewis
You don't have to love baseball to enjoy this book, but if you do, you'll just about soil yourself.

There's not many books that have changed the face of an entire sport, but Moneyball and its description of the managerial practices of Oakland A's GM Billy Beane has gone close.

A great story of David versus Goliath.

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
I've got no idea how McCarthy managed to write this; the dialogue, the descriptions of the American West and tone are note perfect.

There's a couple of descriptions in this book - of an Indian war party attacking a wagon train and a young boy trying to escape a lightening storm - that defy their human origins; McCarthy is an intimidating talent.

The courtroom chapter at the end of the book made me cry over and over, it's just so friggin' powerful, pure and true.

Eveless Eden by Marianne Wiggins
I was getting into this book, trying to make my mind up about it, when I hit a description of male sexuality, what it's like to want screw everything that moves, basically.

It was so good, so spot on, I turned the book over thinking 'this bloke's good' and then I saw the author was a woman and my respect shot through the roof.

As any writer will tell you, getting into the mind of the opposite sex is very difficult to do convincingly and Wiggins does it better than any author I've read.

This is a great book (but hard to find) about journalists, unrequited love and the fall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu; hard to believe it could be gripping but it is.


So that's my list; hope you can pick up one or more of them and they affect you the way they did me.

Some of them are harder going than others - In the Cut and Hard Revolution are probably breezier than the others, but all of them are immensely readable, they've all got a point and they'll all give you something to think about.

Feel free to offer your suggestions for summer reading.


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Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Boys' Toys: so choice

boystoysslide.jpg I may bitch and moan occasionally on this blog, but overall, I really love my job; I get to write about whatever the hell I want, I can do it in my boardies at home, up the coast, wherever ... and every now and then I'm allowed to do cool things.

Case in point: last week I got to drive a two million dollar speedboat on Sydney Harbour while the cheeky captain overseeing me urged me to "give it to it!"

Soooo, instead of a post today, I'm going to give it to you; a peek inside one of the most luxurious, powerful pleasure craft jetting around our waters - in fact, it's the only one of its kind in Australia.

It's a hand-made Italian speedster by Riva and, in the words of my cinematic hero Ferris Bueller, "I love driving it. It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up".

See the video here and if you have any suggestions for other toys we should ... ahhh, investigate, feel free to post them below ...

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

The Eating and Boozing Special Olympics

drunksanta.jpg Christmas, also known as The Eating and Boozing Special Olympics (EBSO) in my family, gets under way next week and I'm expecting some stellar performances in all events from my friends and relatives.

If you're new to this blog, you may want to check out last year's All Men Are Liars' festive season survival guide just to get you in the mood.

For some reason December 25 and 26 always separates the pretenders from the contenders when it comes to the ancient disciplines of drunkenness, gibbering, gluttony, loud-talking and intentional dinner table farting.

I'm a specialist when it comes to this time of year, I know I can't dominate all events, so I pick my races (gas-passing and cheese-eating) and will usually destroy all rivals which is comforting for me, but confronting for new girlfriends when they get their first Christmas call up.

To protect the guilty and avoid possible inter-family lawsuits I've had to omit names from this EBSO preview, but I'm sure all of you will recognise personalities from your stable of rellies who are making their own push for medal contention ...

As in most families, there is one unassailable superstar in this discipline at our Christmas gathering who manages to take out gold in all the sprint events and is always irredeemably spazzo by lunchtime.

Surprisingly, in recent years he has also been surging past other athletes on the final day of competition (Boxing Day) to snare first place in the Marathon as well; just goes to show what years of conditioning can do for you.

Silver usually goes to one of my younger rellies but this depends heavily on whether he's brought along performance-enhancing drugs or if he's competed in the Christmas Eve events.

No-one cares about who gets bronze.

There are usually two standouts here, both cooks, who despite gasps of pleasure from all eating competitors, will manage to give themselves untold pats on the back for their culinary skills.

Suffice to say, the EBSO would not be possible without their efforts in the supermarket and over the stove, oven and wok; I just wish they'd just shut up about it.

The English and French teams in our family always do surprisingly well in this event.

At last year's event, competitors from both nations managed five pieces each of a sublime apple pie after the Afghani goodness did the rounds of the backyard.

In the Stinky Cheese-Eating Triple Lump, I usually dark-horse my way past a number of local veterans to successfully add 14 dimples to my man boobs and increase the number of active bacteria in my alimentary canal to 43,674,592.

For the first time in Olympic history, a dead-heat was recorded in this event in 2006, much to the discomfort of other competitors.

Both of the winning athletes completely lapped the field, actually pushing a car trip to the shops on Boxing Day onto the Surgeon General's list of known carcinogens.

(This picture was taken of me in 2005, still firing, at the medal ceremony seated next to a retarded boy we invite to join us most years; and yes, our family does fancy dress at Christmas).

A recently added event reserved for newcomers to the family.

Competitors maintain a measure of dignity during races, only to crumble about 10pm on Christmas night under the onslaught of the Gibbering and Loud Talking athletes, mutter, "f--- this, give me another drink," and are later seen taking off clothes somewhere brightly lit.

Alas, last year, we had no additions to the highlight reel but there were promising signs from one, very well-mannered Pommy fledgling.

Two supremely prepared athletes usually dominate this field, with a perky pair of blonde cousins giving the old hands quite a shake in past years.

While the incumbent record holder (not surprisingly, also the gold medalist in the Drunkenness events) will no doubt make an extraordinarily brave 2AM attempt to hold onto his title this year, I predict he'll be pretty much embarrassed into defeat by Games end by a female veteran who works in PR.

The scourge of professional sports - but heartily encouraged during EBSO events - performance-enhancing drugs were sadly absent from last year's Games, largely due to the non-attendance of several relatives aged under 35.

Weekend detention treated them well.

This year, I'm foreseeing a return to the grubby past that will make the New York Yankees and West Coast Eagle's clubhouses look like a Hillsong mass-christening.

With almost all competitors paired off and chemical free last year, this event lacked the electricity of previous clashes and absolutely no public nudity or sly rooting was observed (that I'm talking about).

In an upset of Steven Bradbury-like proportions, two French/Australian youngsters (aged seven), who changed outfits 12 times in one day took the gold in the team event.

Congratulations ladies, we're expecting big things from you in 2020.

The showcase event of the EBSO is always extremely tough to judge because so many of the competitors cannot be understood, even when sober.

Over the course of the two days, several bolters inevitably climb to the top of the points table but in the end, there's really no substitute for experience is there?

Champions are champions because they save their best for the largest stage and the superstar in this field (and the Drunkenness and Loud Talking events) never disappoints.

Prediction: he's going home with more gold than a Nazi dentist.

Here's an idea for a Christmas gift - the most expensive condoms you'll ever buy and you don't even get to use them. Why?

* They cost a whopping $20 (they're not ribbed, have no flavour and don't glow in the dark).
* You won't get to try them out.
* However, someone in Africa will, and it could save their life.

Considering the usual crap we give/receive at Christmas, Oxfam's condom gift from their Christmas catalogue (which is right here) is $20 well-spent to save South African teenagers from HIV and AIDS. Plus, the card is funny to give to your mates.

There are lots of other interesting gifts in the catalogue - goats, piles of poo, seeds, etc - if latex isn't for you. The point is, they're gifts that won't end up on Ebay and will actually make a real difference.

Or, you could just join the Kevolution.


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Friday, December 14, 2007

Wedding crashers: the prequel

murphy_sized.jpg As the only 23-year-old Aussie to attend Eddie Murphy's lavish 1993 wedding, I've watched his struggles over the years with street-walking hookers, paternity lawsuits and divorce from wife Nicole with the sadness usually reserved for old high-school mates you see hitting the skids.

Eddie may not have invited me to his big do at New York's Plaza Hotel - I snuck in wearing a tuxedo and a grin to cover the event for America's Star magazine - but ever since that night I feel I've shared a connection with the man who shot to fame as Detective Axel Foley.

I get a thrill every time he announces the birth of a new child (he has nine with five different women including his latest, Angel Iris Murphy Brown, to former Spice Girl, Mel B) and took it personally when Murphy got sprung in 1997 on Sunset Boulevard "giving a ride" to a transsexual prostitute.

Even now, I think if Eddie had just picked up the phone and called me to discuss his marital troubles or the wisdom of shagging a fading pop princess ... I could have helped him muddle through ...

Looking back on Eddie's wedding 14 years ago, I guess the fundamentals of his problems were already there: the screaming spotlight of celebrity, the ridiculous amounts of money and the pressure and temptations that come with both.

Still, on the night, I thought Eddie and Nicole was a fairytale couple - I approved.

New York in 1993 was just shaking off the first World Trade Centre bombing, Whitney Houston's song 'I Will Always Love You' was actually popular, a movie called Wedding Crashers hadn't even been written and its stars, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, were probably waiting tables.

Even so, Eddie and Nicole weren't taking any chances with security: the heart-shaped wedding invitations were embedded with a computer chip that was read by scanners in the hotel lobby and dozens of hired goons with earpieces blanketed the building.

It was a warm night and I was sweating, but that may have had something to do with the four scotches I necked neat at the Plaza's seriously snooty Oak Bar to psych myself up for my commando run past security.

Limousines longer than the Liberal Party's unemployment line crammed Fifth Avenue as guests Bruce Willis, Sugar Ray Leonard and Quincy Jones made their way up the red carpet past a seething maul of paparazzi and television crews.

I was counting on two things to get me into the Plaza's Grand Ballroom that night: an Aussie accent and knowledge of movies.

Remembering the famous tracking shot from Goodfellas, I knew if I could find the hotel's kitchen I'd be home and hosed - and, after pin-balling off security, playing the dumb, lost Australian, I made it backstage, nodded at a few bemused sous chefs, hit a set of double doors and voila, I was in.

There was Donald Trump on the dancefloor making time with soon-to-be-wife Marla Maples (and he had his own hair back then), Bill Murray was lost in translation chatting to German actress Nastassja Kinski and I soon found myself gabbing to a little-known comedian called Chris Rock.

The ballroom had been decorated with more than US$100,000 worth of roses and tulips air-freighted from Europe, while guests sipped vintage Cristal champagne and noshed on 'Chicken Nicole', lobster and king prawns.

I opted for a 35-year-old cognac, as you do, introduced myself as Eddie's long-lost Sydney surfing buddy and chatted to as many famous people as I could waiting for the guests of honour to appear.

Snigger, if you will, about Murphy's mistake of chatting up a shemale prostitute, but back in 1993, the mega movie star could certainly pick a good woman.

Catwalk model Nicole Mitchell silenced the crowd when she appeared in a plunging silk and satin white gown edged in Alencon lace and her bridesmaids weren't bad either (but that's another story).

It was towards the end of the night, I realised my party pals were abandoning the dancefloor, lining up to form an honour guard to shake hands with the newlyweds.

By now, security had ringed the ballroom and I was 75 percent cognac - there was no dignified escape route; I took my place beside my chatty new buddy Chris Rock and stuck out my paw.

"Congratulations, I'm very happy for you," I smiled.

I could see the gears turning in Eddie's head, wondering who'd brought along the slurring Australian, but with 500 guests it's hard to keep track of partners.

"Thank you, brother," he replied.

So there you go, I was part of the family.

What's your brush with fame?


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Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Where to find a single man

lifesaver.jpg Tricky Dick Pratt has moved onto his second billion recycling all the newsprint that's been expended on metropolitan Australia's so-called "man drought".

You can't crack open a Cleo or finger a Marie Claire without reading some poor darling's despondent account of how speed-dating, rsvp.com and set-ups by married friends have amounted to nothing but slimy midnight texts from oversexed losers. I feel your pain, ladies.

On the weekend, as I paraded around a certain city beach wearing a silly orange hat re-doing my bronze medallion, it struck me that if a gal truly wanted to meet a healthy, community-minded fella who enjoys the great outdoors she need only join her local surf club.

This was confirmed later in the day as I talked to one of my female fellow clubbies who called Australia's surf life saving movement the "great untapped resource for single men."

"There's eight guys for every girl, they're fit and you get to check out the goods when they're in their Speedos; what more could you want?" she beamed ...

I've written in other posts about the positive effects on men of them joining sporting clubs - it's the advice your grandmother would give you if you told her you were bored or lonely - "why don't a join a club, sweetheart?"

Joining a surf club opens up a huge social network, it forces you to meet new people and to do new things, as well as giving you access to an incredible array of equipment and facilities.

This is just as pertinent to females, except surf clubs have the added bonus of being chock-a-block full of snake-torsoed young blokes (if I could think of a club where 80 percent of the members were female and got around in swimsuits, joining up would be a no-brainer.)

Of course, this is also one of the big obstacles to women joining surf clubs - you do have to get your gear off, which can be confronting if your greatest physical activity is walking to the bar to get your ice bucket and white wine.

You also have to do a lot of swimming and paddling of rescue boards in your cossie, which is a very good incentive to get up for those morning runs instead of hitting the snooze button and hoping the man of your dreams will appear at brunch when you drag yourself upright at midday.

My little clubby mate said as much when we chatted on the weekend: "I think a lot of women, especially as their friends get into relationships or have kids, they're left wondering - 'what am I going to do on the weekend?'"

Involvement with a surf club quickly answers that question - and what more, aside from getting you active and improving your fitness, the first time you haul a spluttering Irish backpacker out of a rip or give first aid to a kid with a blue bottle sting, you realise you're doing something very worthwhile.

A couple of years ago I was walking up from Bronte Beach and a middle-aged woman collapsed, striking her head dreadfully on the concrete path; I was first to her and stuffed a towel under her head as her daughter screamed but, as I searched my high school memories for how to do mouth-to-mouth, I realised I'd forgotten.

I ran to the beach and alerted the clubbies and they rushed up with oxygen, the woman came to and everyone went home alive but I couldn't shake a feeling of impotence - if the situation had been slightly different, my ignorance may have cost that woman her life.

Now, thanks to lessons I've had drilled into me, I reckon I'd at least be able to keep someone alive while an ambulance arrived and that's one of the great values of surf clubs - the knowledge you learn is vastly practical, as evidenced by the fact SLSA members save more lives away from the beach than they do on the sand.

Surf clubs also connect you with older and younger generations and you quickly realise how your example can inspire kids as much as the craggy old diggers heading out to swim the bay inspire you.

Then there's those cossies.

I was trying to work out what I find so attractive about some clubby girls - particularly the iron women - and it dawned on me that they don't flounce like a lot of females, they strut, they hold their shoulders back, proud of their bodies, unselfconscious, capable.

I just wish there was more of them.


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Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Not the done thing ...

nose-pick.jpg Social convention is a slippery beast because what is accepted behaviour in a city like Mumbai (say, having a poop in the street) could well get you arrested in Sydney or Melbourne.

Being a country of immigrants, Australians have a pretty high tolerance threshold because new arrivals are often ignorant of what should or should not be done in certain situations; it's only natural that foreigners are going to be slower on the uptake than others.

However, blokes who've lived here all their lives ... that's another thing altogether. There seems to be a small percentage of guys who either don't understand there are certain inviolate codes of conduct for the modern Australian male.

Sometimes it's hard to put your finger on, other times it's absolutely clear cut, but when it happens you'll find yourself shaking your head and saying, "hang on, that's not the done thing" ...

Contacting your mate's ex
I know a bloke who's a special for this. The tears haven't even dried after the break-up and he'll be texting and instant-messaging the girl because he wants to "be there" for her and "doesn't want to take sides". Phone calls, texts, emails, Messenger, morse code. It doesn't matter. It's not the done thing.

Swinging your arms
People who turn up at parties without so much as a stubbie of beer or a bottle of wine ... i.e. swinging their arms ... not the done thing.

Taking beer home
Ever seen a bloke who'll arrive at a barbecue with a case of cold ones, smash his fair share, then decide he's going to take a six-pack with him and the party's still in full flight? Not the done thing.

Crowding the trough
You're right down one end of the urinal, it's 40 metres long, yet some spanner comes in the brasco and stands. Right. Next. To. You. I mean, it's just not the done thing.

Cutting the opening batsman's grass
If your mate has started chatting to a group of women and he's made it known which one he's keen on, you have to respect that. He's done the hard yards, he's softened up the bowling attack, so you cannot swoop in and start working the same girl. It's not the done thing.

Perving on school girls
There's about three billion women in the world for you to leer at, so the least you can do is let teenage girls enjoy their adolescence with out creeping them out. Giving school girls sleazy looks; not the done thing.

You lend a mate a sly $50 on a big night out and see him a couple of days later and no mention is made of the cashola. It's not that you're stingy, it's just the principle of it all. You might be drunker than 20 homeless men, but if a mate lends you money, you remember it. Not remembering ... well, it's not the done thing.

Eating ...
... a pizza or a meat pie with cutlery. I mean, what's wrong with you, man? It's not the done thing.

Inappropriate toilet use
Your friend turns up at your place on a Sunday morning and says he needs to use the dunny and proceeds to angrily splatter the bowl while your missus looks on disgusted. Really ... not the done thing.

Lack of tact
Guys who laugh or are otherwise flippant when their mate tells them their dog/cat/budgie has died. The animal might have meant sweet bugger all to you, but your friend could be genuinely grieving. Denigrating their loss ... it's not the done thing.

Trying to root your mate's sister
Not the done thing.

Inappropriate skolling
You're on a first date and you're waiting for a table in the restaurant, so you've gone to the bar for a quick beer. The waiter appears, says your table is ready to go but you can't take your frostie. Do you skol your pot in front of this new woman? Not the done thing.

Trying to root your mate's mum
Not the done thing.

You're an adult, solo male and you get in the back seat of the cab like it's a limo. Fair dinkum ... not the done thing.

Trying to root your mate's daughter
Definitely, not the done thing.

Treating the woman who cleans your office every day as if she is completely invisible, as if she is a non-person. Generally, not saying 'hello' to people you see every day, regardless of their job or role is not the done thing.

Picking your nose ...
... and eating it, after about age 14. Not the done thing.

Talking in accents to waiters
You're in Chinatown for yum cha and the bloke at the next table is talking in a 'ching, chong chow' voice to the waiter, taking the piss. Think it might be time to lean over and say, "hey, mate? Not the done thing."

Feel free to share your examples.


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Friday, December 7, 2007

The myth of drink spiking

drinkspike.jpg Party season is upon us, so today I thought we'd talk about a subject that affects men and women alike, because we both end up dealing with the wreckage when it happens and the hysteria it causes the rest of the time: drink spiking.

Let me ask you all a question: if modern medicine could make a drug that was odourless, colourless and tasteless and knocked you out for hours, why the hell do sleeping tablets taste so bad?

Why does Aspirin, perhaps the most widely ingested medicine in the world, taste like a sugar-soap thick shake? Why does cough medicine taste like crap?

Why? Because it's almost impossible to make a drug that is odourless, colourless and tasteless and this is the great myth of the drink spiking that lurking behind every night club pillar is a loathsome creep who's armed with this mystery drug ...

The Australian Institute of Criminology's `National Project on Drink Spiking' report says that "the term `drink spiking' refers to drugs or alcohol being added to a drink (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) without the consent of the person consuming it." (The Italics are mine.)

It is an interesting bubble in our collective morality that we rightly see adding a sleeping tablet to someone's vodka and tonic as wildly irresponsible, yet ordering a 60kg woman a double or triple without their knowledge is just a giggle.

In fact, adding extra alcohol to a friend or stranger's drink is the most widespread form of drink spiking in the country "but people don't see this as drink spiking", says Paul Dillon of Drug and Alcohol Research and Training Australia.

The National Project on Drink Spiking report says that "despite considerable media and public perceptions concerning the prevalence of drugs such as flunitrazepam, GHB and Ketamine being used in drink spiking, the forensic evidence to date does not support these claims".

"Alcohol has tended to dominate results and it is not clear whether this is because (a) alcohol is commonly used to spike drinks, (b) other drugs have left the body by the time of testing and so only alcohol is left to detect, or (c) people are unaware how much alcohol they are actually drinking."

I reckon I've met a dozen girls (and one guy) who claim to have been spiked - and while I'm sure they all believe that to be the case, many people fail to take into consideration things like a day in the sun, dehydration and an empty stomach, then slam four or five Smirnoff Black Ices and when they feel dizzy and nauseous, think it's spiking.

"We also have this myth that it's impossible to detect spiking drugs, and that you can't taste or see them,'' says Dillon.

The majority of drink spiking cases probably involve sleeping tablets, "which leave a gritty, bitter residue" or the drug GHB, "which is the most vile-tasting, foul-smelling substance you can imagine", he says.

"Anybody who says they couldn't tell they'd been spiked with GHB was probably pretty intoxicated to start with," says Dillon.

And this is where the mythology of drink spiking does more harm than good.

I'd wager many people, young girls in particular, feel vulnerable because they're told they'll never be able to tell if their drink is spiked as date-rapists have perfected this "odourless, colourless and tasteless" magical drug.

In fact, in the majority of cases where drugs are used, you will be able to taste or see a change in your drink, so the best way you can avoid being spiked is to keep your wits about you when you're in strange or unfamiliar environments and not get slaughtered.

Personal responsibility when it comes to alcohol intake may be an unpopular message at this time of year (or any other time of the year for that matter) but it is the easiest thing you can do to safeguard against spiking.

"If you're stone cold sober it's gonna be a pretty brave drink spiker who tries it on," says Dillon, "that message gets lost in the drink spiking discussion. One of the big things about drinking to excess is that you are automatically more at risk."

This is not to say that sober people are never spiked, or that drunk people deserve it, but it's an unfortunate part of life that we all have to be aware of, so be safe peeps.


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Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Man haters

misandry.jpg This blog has tackled the topic of misogyny many times over the last eighteen months, most notably discussing how knee-jerk, two-minute feminists consistently confuse a hatred of women (misogyny) with sexism, as well as how men need to be aware and responsible for the way they and their friends talk about the fairer sex, as well as just how common anti-female attitudes are in this country.

Misogyny is an ugly word and it's my opinion it gets thrown around far too lightly; if you criticise or mock women in any way, some second-year gender studies student will accuse you, the media, the advertising industry, big business or Canberra of misogyny.

Feminist Gloria Steinem declared in 1996 that "woman hating" is the only form of prejudice still acceptable. But what of its male equivalent?

Ask ten people on the street what the opposite of misogyny is and eight will probably say "polygamy" or "trigonometry"; in fact the term for a hatred of men is "misandry" and it's so rarely used Microsoft Word's spell check doesn't even recognise that combination of letters (go and try it, I'll wait.)

The fact is, if you were to apply the same criteria to misandry that some feminists use for misogyny and its "pervasiveness" in Western culture, you couldn't turn on your TV, open a newspaper or attend a hens night without being swamped by our "hatred for men" ...

In the book Spreading Misandry writers Paul Nathanson and Katherine K. Young make the observation that "like misogyny, misandry can be found in almost every genre of popular culture - books, television shows, movies, greeting cards, comic strips, ads or commercials, and so on...

"The misandric artifacts and productions of popular culture promote a particular world view. It is not a complex one. On the contrary, it is very simplistic. Symbolically encoded ... is what we call 'the conspiracy theory of history'.

"One specific group of people is identified as the threatening source of all suffering and another as the promising source of all healing. There is nothing new about this theory; only the names have changed.

"At various times over the past century, nations, classes and ethnicities have replaced religions as the representatives, or incarnations of good and evil. Today that is true of the two sexes as well."

Now that it's politically incorrect to blame black people, the Irish or gypsies for the world's problems, assigning fault to men has become the wallpaper of modern life, with any number of TV shows, movies, books, comedians and commentators happily pronouncing men as stupid, vile, insensitive, greedy, destructive, self-obsessed "lesser" beings compared to women.

In her article 'The Worse Half' published in the National Review in 2002, Charlotte Hays said "that the anti-male philosophy of radical feminism has filtered into the culture at large is incontestable; indeed, this attitude has become so pervasive that we hardly notice it any longer."

Like all prejudices, misandry does contain a kernel of unvarnished truth, as do misogyny and racism: some men are cruel, exploitative, manipulators of women and the earth, as some women are capricious, vengeful manipulators of men and the earth and some races are more war-like, prone to alcoholism, gluttony or dressing in polyester track suits.

This kernel of truth doesn't make misandry, misogyny or racism acceptable but it does show us where the prejudices begin and offers men the opportunity to push against the stereotypes.

Perhaps the most notorious man-hater in recent history would be Valerie Solanas who literally shot to fame when she fired three bullets at pop-artist Andy Warhol almost killing him.

Solanas, who ended life as a prostitute turning tricks in San Francisco, was the author of a hilariously deranged 1968 rant, the SCUM Manifesto, in which she advocated all like minded women "destroy the male sex."

Solanas' tract is largely repulsive (SCUM stands for Society for Cutting Up Men) but, as mentioned above, it does contain seeds of truth that describe large numbers of men and suggest the way many women who've been abused or wronged by males perceive us.

"The male is completely egocentric, trapped inside himself, incapable of empathising or identifying with others, or love, friendship, affection of tenderness. He is a completely isolated unit, incapable of rapport with anyone," writes Solanas.



This is a tad more eloquent expression of the old "all men are dogs, cheats, arseholes" line, which you can hear in most hair salons, nightclubs or Sex and the City episodes; however, while Solanas is instantly identifiable as a fruit bat, women who express similar views are seldom castigated for them or asked to question their assumptions.

As I've argued in other posts, it's quite acceptable to act out mutilating a man's penis in a television advertisement, when even the suggestion of doing the same to a woman's vagina would see the spot pulled and pilloried and probably draw litigation.

So while hatred for women has an easily identifiable and much-despised name (misogyny), hatred for men (misandry) can barely be articulated but is accepted as part of life.

The nub of all this is that if we're trying to actively combat one form of contempt, we're almost certainly doomed to failure if we don't address the other.


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Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Greatest night of your life

chez_george.jpg Ever had one of those nights that come from nowhere and suddenly you're dancing in a crowd of good-looking strangers, thinking 'if I have any more fun I'm going to end up a puddle at some chick's feet'?

A few years ago in Paris was like that for me and some mates.

Myself, mon ami Mick Hart - the internationally acclaimed singer and songwriter and a posse of Spanish, Norwegian, Brazilian - even French - friends went out to blow the froth off a few after our language class at Alliance Française. We ended up at a tiny bar off the Place Saint Sulpice (which takes its name from the church featured in The Da Vinci Code).

It was an unassuming little joint called Chez Georges ...

We barrelled downstairs into the converted 15th-century cellar and ordered a couple of bottles of Brouilly beaujolais and took in the scene: candelabras mummified in years of red wax, lurching wooden tables, a murderously low, mouldering stone ceiling and Louis Prima thumping out a steaming 1950s version of 'Just a Gigolo' on the stereo.

I went to some kick-arse places while I lived in Paris: an awesome Irish bar called La Truskel that's somehow become the indie hang for Parisian musos; a ridiculously entertaining multinational BBQ on the Cambodian campus at Cité Universitaire where even Jodee Rich wouldn't have had to pay for a root; a classic little cafe in Montmarte where we saw a drummer Mick swears was as good as Keith Moon; and a buzzing art gallery cum local pub in the 16th where I drunkenly almost spent 400 euros on an oil painting of a fat chick talking to a fish.

Chez Georges, however, was just that little bit above them all - dead set, door-blowin' awesome.

Our group looked at each other as we settled into a prime corner table and thought the same thing; "f--- me, this is real Paris."

We were certainly happy to be there and, though it was pretty busy already, our group amped the energy in the cellar, clapping, singing, playing air drum and the owner - I'm guessing his name was George - seemed to appreciate it.

An hour later, the place was jammed with Parisians and we were dripping with sweat, stomping to Greek music, Spanish classics, big band swing, Edith Piaf and a dozen other French singers, swilling chilled red, licking the salt off girls who could barely understand us.

George, who was portly, in his mid-50's, was raining perspiration as he worked the bar and his obscure, international CD collection with the intuition of a rave DJ.

Around midnight, I turned my attention from a slinky French anthropology student named Alise and watched as a stunning blonde Spanish chick shimmied through the crowd and began a flamenco dance, hips moving like some kind of MIT, perpetual motion machine.

Wherever I looked, men were gaping, hypnotised by what was the most stone cold sexy display I've witnessed in a cellar.

Mick turned to me and said: "Am I actually seeing this?"

Manuel, a shy Spanish guy I went to school with, suddenly jumped up and transformed, becoming the man, slamming his heels, curling his hands, standing into his culture like an Aussie steps into thongs. For an hour he was Antonio Banderas.

Eight bottles of wine later, the four of us who were left from our group were fantastically drunk, massacring French as we tuned five divine Parisienne students when George handed us another Brouilly.

In Australia, if the management sees you dancing on a table drunk, they set the goons on you and cartwheel you into the street; at Chez Georges, they give you another carafe of wine for free because you're adding to the ambiance.

I don't know if it was just lightning in a bottle of beauj, but everyone in that bar seemed to be feeling the river of life moving amongst us instead of just around us that night - and trust me, there wasn't a pill, line or pair of chocolate brown Havianas in the postcode.

At the end of the night we stood out on the street, the cool AM air delicious after George's inferno and Andre, who was from Rio de Janeiro, looked at us, eyes blazing, sweat still jumping off his face and nodded seriously.

He said: "The four of us, we will remember this night forever."

D'accord, Andre. Yes we will. At least until the next time we go to George's place ...

Tell us about your favorite night out.


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