Bad Ju-ju and a eulogy for Billy Mays

June and July have never been simple or easy for me. I've had more relationship break-ups, major house moves and general common-or-garden kerfuffles in the middle of the year, in both Hemispheres, than at any other time. Might be part of the reason I like Christmas so much...

Well, blow me down, what a hell of a month this one's been...the ground was laid back around March (yeah, I shoulda bewared the Ides, but I didn't bother to read the instructions until the thing started vibrating unnaturally, it could have happened to anyone), when we firmed up the dates for the long awaited visit of #1 Son...as fathers and sons go, we've had our share of moments, good and bad, and were both looking forward to a few weeks together with hope and happiness and some butterflies that all would go well...

...so, to cut a long story down to a hanging point, we had a ball; as road trips go (and I've had a few) this was senfuckingsational and so say all of us...and two days short of June, he'd gone off to the very same Big Apple of which I'd told him stories at my knee in decades past...and lo, the Sun penetrated further into the constellation of Gemini and the celestial bucket poured forth...

In the last 30-odd days or so:

· #1 son has moved on to NYC, hostelled in The Village and Harlem, started work, got an apartment in Brooklyn, and we've talked lots...this is all a Very Good Thing;

· I quit work on June 1st, because, well, it was time for me to move on from that job;

· I've re-arranged half the furniture in the house and created an office and a craft room out of 'spare rooms';

· with the help of a mate, I've finished painting the craft room and close to all the outside of the house - we sanded the window frames today, tomorrow we paint them and a job that's been 2 years in the making is finally come to its fruition;

· I got too close to a mate's dogs playing, and was lucky not to lose a finger tip...and for the first time since I packed it, the Travel First Aid kit suddenly paid for itself...the infection is under control, and despite being denied the sutures it deserved, the wound is slowly healing...man, have you ever seen hydrogen peroxide sizzle like that?;

· the strawberries, raspberries and lettuces in my first vegetable garden since the early 90s became, as the actress said to the Archbishop, good enough to eat;

· I got the Green Man tattoo that I've been considering since last Northern Fall, courtesy of my three kids clubbing together for my 50th birthday (it's all about the pain - the ink is just a souvenir);

· my boxes of Stuff that I packed back in 2007 finally arrived in staggered formation after 3 months At Sea, creating a feeling of numerous Christmases come at once and, it must be said, something of a Wherethefuckdoweputallthisshitordowecallitstuff moment that was ultimately resolved with the help of a receptive attic;

· my parents each turned 71 (Happy Birthday again!!!);

· I stopped smoking after 35 years at two packs a day;

· I've made contact with a dozen or more mates from High School that I haven't seen or heard from since 1976, it's been a hoot and it's wonderful to hear of all that everyone has been up to and no real surprise that there's a lot that hasn't changed;

· made some friends and let some go, sat, thought, stood up, spun round, fell over, got up again, made some plans, forgot a few others, welcomed the summer, took a gorgeous feral kitty and her 3 babies to the Humane Society's 'no kill' shelter (give it a rest, you'll have people thinking I've gone soft), and a bunch of other shit, big and small, that have slipped my chaotic mind for now, and...

Some icons died, all in the space of a few days...he may not be as well remembered outside the USA, but Ed McMahon, Johnny Carson's sidekick on The Tonight Show, was not unknown to night owls and cultural anthropologists elsewhere in the world...I remember McMahon, America's answer to Bert Newton. RIP to him and the variety show concept that gave a lot of fun to a lot of people over the years, and of which he was a pioneer...

Farrah's death was not completely unexpected but sad as hell...I was 16 when her red bathing suit poster came out, and the things I didn't do to that woman in my dreams aren't worth relating in this august forum...she was 29 at the time and, thankfully for her fledging marriage to Lee Majors, blissfully unaware of my spotty adolescent yet hopefully enticing fantasies...Farrah Fawcett Majors was an icon of health, hair, teeth and sexuality, a postmodern Marilyn who helped define the Seventies and pave the way for the shoulder padded, coke fuelled decade to come...talking of which...

Michael I'm Bad Jackson...Michael Jackson was my age...unlike many of his more recent fans, I watched him singing 'ABC' in 1970, at the age of 11, and thought "what's he got that I haven't?"....you know, apart from talent and personality...I am often fascinated by power and fame, although I don't covet them - too much like hard work, in my opinion - and Michael Jackson was one of those artists, like Prince and a few others, of whom I could recognise their talent even though I really thought their music was shit...and, as with the Bee Gees, became a falsetto parody of their early work and a stark reminder of the dark side of The Dream...I'm with Ron White - I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't have let my kids sleep over at Neverland...and I am also sorry for the bugger, y'know? I'd occasionally trade my life, but not for his...Michael Jackson made Elvis look functional, and outlived him by 8 years...maybe we should be grateful that The King was spared that fate.

Then, yesterday, there was the unexpected death of Billy Mays. What can you say about Billy Mays? I hated his ads with a passion. Upon breaching America's shores in 2007, there was much of this fascinating nation to which I was unused...infomercials weren't one of them...I hate the self-styled 'pitch men' with a dark and violent passion...in Australia, I often satisfied my homicidal inclination toward "Television direct-response advertisement salesmen " by imagining Gerry Harvey, Big Kev and numerous other nails-down-the-chalk-board spruikers duct taped in a cellar and played, over and over and over and over, their own ads and finally let loose on each other....waterboarding is a very conspicuous demonstration that the CIA lacks imagination...

So, again, what does one do when someone at whom one has screamed "Fuck Off !!" and been restrained from throwing the remote through the screen for but one bright shining moment of blessed relief from "and wait!! there's more!!".....what do you do when he dies, the same age as you?.....this wasn't a guy who had incredible musical talent beaten out of him at a young age; wasn't a drop-dead gorgeous big-haired model whose time had come and got their lucky break on an international blockbusting TV series; and didn't die being remembered as the cosy, familiar old sidekick face of an American television legend for more than a generation....

I read one of the first press releases of Billy Mays' death, and someone was quoted as saying that Billy had a big heart and had helped a lot of people realise their dreams. I don't doubt it. No, seriously. Like many of us, I had a rush of blood to the head in the 70s and 80s, an era when Dale Carnegie had been reincarnated by corporate America, guys like Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins were killing the pig, and JR Ewing personified the credo that if money couldn't make you happy, well, it could sure as hell give you the power to get back at everyone who ever pissed you off...on my path to being the next billionaire, to cut a long story short, I tried my hand as an Amway distributor, worked for a long time in sales, I sank a year's pay into a business idea that was doomed to failure, and generally made my own costly sacrifice to Greed...I may arguably be a better man because of my failure to realise those dreams, sorry, goals, but I sure didn't plan it that way ...Billy Mays left Pittsburgh and started hawking TV specials on the Atlantic City Boardwalks in his early 20s...if you've ever done any kind of cold selling, you know how hard a gig that is...

The past day or so I've been thinking a bit...about kids from hard-doer towns like Pittsburgh and Port Kembla and Newcastle Upon Tyne that bust their arse to make the most of the hand they're dealt, rather than sit on it and whine..Billy Mays had recently been filming a series called Pitch Men, a show I have seen advertised and for which I was torn between a bizarre compulsion to watch and a parallel need to stick matchsticks under my fingernails...this, from an interview just before he died:

"My hope and wish is that they get a peek into Billy Mays's life and they see that he's not just a guy who shouts," he said. "I'm not just a 'yell and sell.' I want the world to know that I'm a very generous guy. I'm a very humble guy. And I work hard."

I disliked his work with a passion. But I wish, for his sake, he'd got the chance to have his wish. RIP Billy Mays, you mad bugger. I'll take both harps and the steak knives, thanks.

The sound of one hand painting

I've got a bit to get done around Chateau Quarterdane. The northern winter took me by surprise last year. I knew that painting outside was ill advised over a certain temperature, the paint starts to turn very gluggy at about 90f....I was not aware that you could not paint outside when it falls below 50f, or 10c. Several home projects that I would have enjoyed leisurely completing during the several months of Summer, Still Summer, Indian Summer and Cooler But Still Really Quite Pleasant Autumn in Australia were hacked down in their prime by an American winter that exceeded my expectations. To cut a long story short (never my forte - I am generally considered incapable of shouting "Fire!" without a 15 minute prologue), I got half the house painted last September....you can see the punchline coming, can't you?....see, the house was a rather unattractive shade of light blue, and even given the unlikely possibility that the colour was once attractive when it was fresh, it had become about as fresh as my breath on a Saturday morning...

I tried. No, really, I thought I had at least another month up my sleeve. There was no perceived need to rush this particular project toward the top of the mounting To-Do List.

By October, it was so cold that I couldn't look out of the window without putting on my red long johns....for 7 months, the temp did not get above 50.....for 4 of those 7 months, the garden was under snow......lovely, picturesque, iconic, don't get me wrong - my American friends actually threatened me with physical violence if I didn't shut up about "how cool is snow!!??!!".....I guess they've seen a bit more of it than I have.....the half of the outside of the house that I'd painted green looked great, but even I could not deny that the other half that was still a shabby faded blue just detracted from the whole effect I'd been aiming for, you know? Especially given that I'd started at the back of the house, and half of the front of the house was green and half was blue. The neighbours fucking love me.....

So. A new week, a new plan. I'm pumped, I'm, like, READY man, you know what I'm saying?!? Hoo-ah! Git R' Done! Yesterday we - my mate Pug and I - hooked in all day, threw several gallons of green paint at the front of the house, including the little known North Face, and called it good. Today was gutters and downpipes day. I was up and about at 5:30 and raring to get into it....my attitude has always been that when you ask a mate to give you a hand with a project around the house, you make sure you're out of bed, dressed and into it before they arrive, you work harder than everyone else, take shorter breaks and you don't call it quits until they look like they've had enough....maybe that's just me...a shower and two cups of strong coffee later, and I've emptied the dishwasher, done two loads of washing, and I'm twitching to get to the hardware store to purr chase a couple gallons of white satin exterior....I kill time by doing a grocery run, dropping into the Post Office to collect a parcel.......and it's still only 7:35, 25 minutes until the hardware store opens.....by 8:30, I'm home with the paint, seen Fred off to work, and I'm into it...Pug pulls up 15 minutes later, and the job's on....

Today was one of those days when you get it done and you're knackered but you look at what you've got done and it's all worth it. The house looks really good, better than it has in years. Working on the outside of your house is, well, there's not much like it....sunshine, fresh air, a cruisy 70f/20c, and mind numbing repetition....I had a few things on my mind this morning....I have no idea what they were, now, I can say that whatever it was doesn't seem anywhere near as important now as it did this morning.....hours on end of doing a pretty good impersonation of Daniel-san, up-down, paint the fence.....the hours and the cares melt away.....the 3rd beer has gone down well, and it really is time for a shower and an early-for-me night....tomorrow it's window frames and eaves.....world hunger? Iran? Too easy, I'll have a solution by teatime tomorrow...watch this space....

It's the little differences

I am the only Australian American I know. I've lived here in the States, in an iconic blue collar neighbourhood in the Pacific North West, for over a year and a half now and I've only heard one other Australian accent, other than that of my two grown sons who have passed through on their way to and from. They tell me that my neighbourhood used to be a small country town, a separate identity all it's own. Nowadays, it's considered a suburb of the City that sits about a half hour drive away, the last outpost of a now seamless amalgam of urban sprawl. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with urban sprawl, I guess, people have to live somewhere and there's more and more of 'em as time goes by. You've probably noticed.

Some countries are completely different than you're used to from the word go...the food's different, the climate, the language, the physical appearance of the people, the fact that you get 500 of their currency to 1 of yours...you expect that when you go there, these are often precisely the reasons why you do go there. Besides being cheap. Moving from Australia to America, however, is like stepping through a portal into a parallel Universe. The big stuff is obvious. There are more pines and firs here and less eucalypts. The weather's the opposite way round. When it's night time here, it's summer there. You get the picture. These are the big things you know and expect before you get here, especially if you are among the select few of the world's population who watch American television. People drive on the other side of the road although, interestingly, that's the easy part - it's remembering which side of the car to walk to with the keys in your hand, that takes a while. The little things.

There is also much that is similar. Thanks to the wonder of cross-cultural exchange, the food is often identical. A Big Mac is the same in San Francisco as it is in Sydney, or Newcastle Upon Tyne for that matter. There is now at least one American googling Newcastle Upon Tyne to see if it's in Australia. Everyone can mimic an American accent, we've all grown up hearing them in songs, on TV and in the movies.

The area where I live now reminds me a lot of Wollongong (which is in Australia...), where I spent much of my adolescence. Stunning natural scenery, lots of trees and water, and a big factory right in the middle of it. The folks here are cut from a similar cloth, primarily denim and flannel. People live in houses, and mow their lawns on Saturday morning. They work at the mill, or drive trucks, and as a general rule they drink beer. Domestic. They're not prejudiced, but they know a lot of people who are. Overall, I like it. The rules are pretty easy to remember, life is reasonably simple and fairly routine, and airs and graces aren't well tolerated. To a large extent, what you see is what you get and 'the way we do things around here' isn't likely to change a lot anytime soon. Fit in or fuck off. I know those rules.

It's the little differences that throw ya. Supermarkets. It's not that American supermarkets have more variety per se, they just have a different kind of variety. They have cupholders in the trolleys. Stuff has different names. We all know that tomatoes are known as tomatoes here, and many know that capsicums are called bell peppers, and that petrol is gas. Although I'm not sure what they call gas here, I haven't needed to buy any yet. I'm thinking I'll just buy an empty cylinder one day, walk into a gas station and say "fill this up". Thongs are underwear, not footwear. Swedes are rutabagas, polony is baloney, firewood is bought by the cord, whipper snippers are weed whackers and they don't put beetroot on their hamburgers. Myabe that's because here, it's called 'sliced pickled beets'. That's a particularly big mouthful, pardon the pun, if you don't want any - "Gimme a burger, love, without the sliced pickled beets" When you order coffee, they ask if you want cream, even though I've only ever been given milk. The carton is labelled 'Milk', but there's no point ordering your coffee without milk, they don't have any, you have to have it without cream. In an event somewhat parallel with transfiguration, if you want the same white stuff that came out of the carton labelled 'Milk' for your cereal, rather than being cream as it was for your coffee, it is now, mercifully, milk again.

In Australia, there's a bunch of different brands of tomato sauce, more brands than you can poke a stick at. And, until very recently, there was only one brand of barbecue sauce, in a brown squeeze bottle with a yellow lid. I can never remember the brand name, but why would you? It's the only show in town. No-one eats it. In America, there's more brands of barbecue sauce than there is barbecues. Barbecue sauce with Guinness, with Jim Beam, with Jack Daniel's (several types), there's half an aisle devoted to the stuff. If I ate barbecue sauce at every meal, it would take until the end of my days to work my way through the entire selection. However, there are but two types of tomato ketchup - Heinz, and the generic Safeway brand, and they get about two square feet of shelf space. No matter, really, as best I can tell I'm the only person in Town that eats it. I get funny looks when I put it on burgers. Here, they have mayonnaise and mustard on their burgers. Yes, both of them. On a hamburger. You ever seen the Arnie movie, Total Recall? Remember that scene where the fat guy in glasses is trying to convince Arnie that 'all this is a dream, and what gives him away is that lone bead of sweat that runs down his temple, and that's when Arnie realises that he's not dreaming and the world really is turned on its ear? That's what it feels like to watch someone put mayonnaise and mustard on a hamburger.

It's not called tomato sauce here, either. Tomato sauce here comes in cans and it's used for cooking. It looks like something that's half-way between tomato paste and tomato soup. I have no idea why, nor what it's for. I have hitherto been unaware of a deficit in my culinary resources that could not be satisfied with either canned tomatoes themselves, or tomato paste. Or, at a pinch, tomato ketchup. That's it. No wonder meat pies aren't popular here. Whoever heard of putting barbecue sauce on a meat pie, I ask you?

On the rare ocassion I've found lamb here, it's been pushing $20 a kilo. In Australia, they give the stuff away. I buy lean beef here for $4.50 a kilo. Sausages in America cost more than lean steak. A parallel Universe, I tell ya. Pork is the other red meat here, and it's as cheap as steak. I'm told you can buy lamb in other parts of the country at lamb prices, but I haven't seen much of that yet. I think it might be an urban myth.

Eating out is a whole new experience. America is the only country that refers to the main courses as an entree. The first time I ate at a restaurant here, I checked out the entrees and thought Jesus, how big are the mains? It's a French word. It means entry. I've eaten at French Restaurants, in France. And an entree is a small meal to prepare one for the main course. They invented the word. Okay, they kinda invented the word. How and why America came to confuse the word 'entree' with a term appropriate for a 3lb lump of dead cow, swimming in mashed potatoes and gravy, is probably lost in the mists of time. The best explanation I've heard so far is that Americans are all about getting to the dessert, and the main meal is simply an entree to dessert. Not bad off the top of his head, but I'm not buying it. Americans get into trouble when they try and mess with other languages.

This is the only country I have ever visited - and this is a long way from my first rodeo - where people have routinely asked me if they have an accent to me. What the...? I was stunned the first time anyone asked me that. Um - so how else would I have picked that you're an American, I'm wondering? People remark on my Australian accent, often. A rare few try and mimic it. Here's a tip. If you are American, do not try and mimic an Australian accent. Or any other accent, for that matter. It is not a part of your individual or your national skill set. I don't care how much you liked Crocodile Dundee or Steve Irwin. Leave it out. You know how when someone foolishly remarks that they can speak a foreign language, there is almost always someone who wants them to "say something in Lithuanian". Again, America is the only country in the world where I've been asked to say something in my Australian accent. I believe I could make money standing on a street corner in the City, with a tin cup in front of me, reading the Yellow Pages. That might be my next travel-fund booster, I think.

Americans are extraordinarily polite, much to the surprise of just about anyone who visits here. When I first passed through, close on 20 years ago now, I expected everyone to be armed and paranoid. I guess they may well have been both, but I loved how polite and helpful everyone was. Ask someone for directions, and they all but put you in their car and drive you there. I've been called 'sir' more times in the past 18 months than I have in the previous 40-odd years living in Australia. Not surprising really, I guess, having spent most of my adult life wondering whether it's possible for an entire nation to be suffering Tourette's Syndrome. It's not that I want people to call me sir, it's just noticeably different than being called a bastard.

It surprises me how much it surprises Americans that I actually like it here, I think it's a good place to live. I'm told that it's not the country it used to be, the price of everything has gone to hell ('gas' hit an unbelievable $1 a litre last year - a little over half the price that the rest of the western world has been paying for years - and the nation almost ground to a halt) and that all their freedoms have been eroded. I tell them they need to get out more. Australians accepted Random Breath Testing without much more than a murmur. I've told my American mates about RBT, and most have recoiled in horror. More than one has made comparisons with Nazi Germany. It is, apparently, everyone's inalienable right (albeit illegal) to drive home tanked, as long as the lights are all working and you're driving within the speed limit and in a straight line. Pretty much everyone I talk to is aghast that the police could just pull your car over at random, even if you haven't been doing anything demonstrably wrong, solely for the purpose of checking to see if you've been drinking. They really do take this personal freedom stuff seriously here.

I love America. It's a strange place. The people look the same. They speak the same language (albeit with no accent), and live similar lives. It's the small differences. More to follow.

The Green Man and others...

I don't recall ever hearing of the Green Man until the end of last year when I bought a namesake candle at our favourite 'woo-woo' store in Town....I read the label - death, rebirth, seasons, all that - and it nipped me.....I don't attribute magical qualities to candle burning as Fred, my quasi-wiccan wife, does, but I do find it useful for helping me hold a thought or belief or concept at the front of my brain while the candle's burning....

The latest quarter century has arrived for me, and even for an optimist it seems likely that life is now well and truly into the second half....yeeee haaa.....I'm more than mildly surprised that I've made 50 after all the things I've done to my body over the years....so it seemed fitting to use this anniversary as a watershed between the never-time-to-scratch-your-ass years from 25 to 50, and the more leisurely pace to which I'd like to become accustomed....AND the whole concept of the Green Man fits well with my hodge-podge of Buddhist, Taoist, Christian and Neo-Pagan beliefs, not to mention the tribal polytheistic religions of the tribal Aborigines I lived among for a couple of years....

A side consequence, or benefit depending on your viewpoint, of the last few years has been the opportunity to make a clean break from my Life So Far. It's not everyone who gets a clean slate, who has the chance to leave everything, the good, the bad and the ugly, thousands of miles away, on the other side of the world in fact.....hard to believe that 5 years ago, I was depressed more often than not, too many square pegs in round holes....these days, I have a lot of people tell me how calm and relaxed I am, that nothing seems to get to me.....I could point them at a few people from my past who would assume they must be talking about a different person....selling up everything you own and stepping off into space isn't for everyone, but I'm confirming for myself that the more I trust the Universe/Big Giant Head, the more consistently It provides.....something always comes up....always...

Fred insists that I have the best acquisition karma she's ever seen, and over the last few years (and probably before, without my having eyes to see it at the time) every time something has come along to knock me over, there's been something at hand to set me back on the path....given my high levels of fat and alcohol consumption and the fact I smoke too much, it's hard to believe that I haven't had a sick day in years....someone or something is looking out for me, if only I could more consciously manifest what I can do for the Universe in reciprocation.....I imagine It will be in touch when It feels the need, although it's been somewhat busy with the Global Economic Crisis and an unseasonal run of civil unrest and armed conflict......I'll try and keep myself out of mischief in the meantime.....

Although I'm currently doing an impersonation of 'settled', I've still got my nomad on....I love America, always have, and living here is still an exotic adventure for me.....if you have been born and raised in the Village it's not really very exciting to be a minimum wage bartender there....but when you've left all that's familiar in the Bush to travel several times around the world and back, winding up working as a barman in a Village in the Pacific North West is pretty quirky, in my view....

But, now it's dice-rolling time again.....the bar job is behind me, getting the house and garden beaten into bloody submission in the next week or two is in front of me, as is a new riding season on the Harley....it's shaping up to be a good summer.....and another very interesting quarter century.....


Jack the nomad