…rural tinctorial #39

 central tilba ©070913

...I Was drawn to the local colours whilst doing the tourist round and also looking for a pub... I needed a double after that dreadful voting at the nearby polling booth... for one thing, the ballot paper was a mile long... one tiny mistake and I had to sheepishly ask for another one and start (from the beginning!) putting back those crosses to the millions (well, it was saturday morning and I'm a night person and I don't drink coffee) of candidates and weird party names (coke in bubblers party??... seriously... how did they come up with names like this... at a bubbly party?)

...on top of that, they provided you with pencils but not erasers!... and to avoid paying a hefty fine, you had to drag yourselves out in the morning after a friday all-night of cool moves to a muso with a drum machine and the digital supremes backing vocals, and go vote... although it was already a foregone conclusion that red speedo was to be your next prime minister...


"… we shoot, we root, we vote… we are girt by sea and pissed by lunchtime…" 

©070913

also,    "…we are united in a democracy so flawed that a political party, albeit a redneck, gun-toting one, can get a million votes and still not win one seat in federal parliament while bloody brian harradine can get 24 000 votes and run the whole country…
not that we're whingeing… we leave that to our pommy immigrants… we want to make 'no worries, mate' our national phrase, 'she'll be right, mate' our national attitude and 'waltzing matilda' our national anthem… (so what if it's about a sheep-stealing crim who commits suicide…)
we love sport so much our newsreaders can read the death toll from a sailing race and still tell us who's winning… and we're the best in the world at all the sports that count, like cricket, netball, rugby, afl, roo-shooting, two-up and horseracing
… we also have the biggest rock, the tastiest pies, the blackest aborigines and the worst-dressed olympians in the known universe…  and even though we might seem racist, close-minded, sports-obsessed little people, at least we're better than the kiwis..."
(collected by phillip adams + patrice newell)

Ϡ

…that morning in a pub… two blokes drinking beer… one keeps moaning and groaning and shaking his head and says, 'fuck the bastards!'… a minute later, another 'fuck the bastards!'… after twenty minutes of this, the other bloke says, 'if you keep talking politics, I'm leaving'…

Ϟ

… picture yourself near a stream…
birds are singing in the crisp, cool mountain air…
nothing can bother you here…
no one knows this secret place…
you are in total seclusion from that place called the "real" world…
the smell of pine and blossom is on the gentle breeze…
the soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity…
the water is clear…
you can easily make out the face of the person who's going to be…
australia's next prime minister…
there there now - feel better?

Ϛ

…wakes up in a new era, noon is high… saunters in shock - bugger it…

                            the waves await with glee…

©080913

ζ