An alcoholic's guide to modern life

New year, new examples of Western values

2012-01-20T11:05:00.001+11:00

Slaughtering the natives is one thing, but for FUCK's SAKE show some decorum.

This is an article I wrote that was first published in Green Left Weekly.

It wasn't long into 2012 before fresh evidence emerged of a democratic, free West's civilising mission, providing a sterling example to backward barbarians as the march towards global liberation continues apace.

All in one day, January 13, the media carried three reports shining a spotlight on the higher values and morality of the democratic West: the footage of United States soldiers urinating on the corpses of three Afghan men, the fallout of the murder of an Iranian scientist most likely committed by Israel and the recommendation by a US military tribunal to court martial alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning.

The stories coincided with the 10th anniversary of the US Guantanamo Bay prison camp opening. It is still going strong, holding an estimated 171 detainees without charge — who marked the anniversary by announcing a hunger strike on January 10.

The leader of the free world, US President Barack Obama, marked the occasion by signing into law the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act. Democracy Now! said on January 10 that “some legal experts say [the law] would authorize the military to indefinitely jail anyone it considers a terrorism suspect — without charge or trial”.

Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, told the show this made Obama “the first president ever ... to sign into law indefinite detention as part of the policy of the United States”.

US officials tried to portray the footage of US soldiers urinating on Afghan corpses while cracking jokes as an isolated incident that does not reflect the true nature of US-led occupations.

Just like the Abu Ghraib torture scandal in Iraq; the US army “kill team” that collected the body parts of dead Afghans; the British soldiers who tortured an Iraqi man to death in 2003 (using methods a public inquiry in Britain in 2009 heard was “official policy”); the killing of five Afghan children by Australian soldiers in 2009; and the 2005 massacre of Iraqi civilians by US marines in Haditha, gruesome evidence of which emerged last month.

Isolated incidents, all of them.

As were, no doubt, the much larger number of accounts of abuse, torture and murder by the democratic liberators occupying Iraq and Afghanistan revealed by WikiLeaks.

Manning, the alleged source of this material, is now facing court martial after being held in US military prisons without trial since May 2010. This included months in solitary confinement and being forced to stand to attention while naked every morning.

In an isolated incident, the United States military entirely destroyed the city of Fallujah in 2004, completely destroying more than three quarters of all buildings and slaughtering more than 1200 civilians.

But the most revealing thing about the latest scandal has been the way military figures have responded.

Retired US General Spider Marks, for instance, was quoted by ABC.net.au on January 13 as saying: "They may have slaughtered those guys and that's fine. You move off to your next mission. You don't do what we just saw."

No, clearly not. Slaughter is one thing — the civilised liberator knows that once you slaughter the natives you move on to your next mission, presumably slaughtering more natives. But pissing on the corpses of the natives you have just slaughtered is just not the done thing.

By all means, invade a sovereign nation, replace the brutal fundamentalist regime with a brutal fundamentalist regime, subject the population to a fresh decade of constant warfare, further destroy the poorest nation on Earth already ravaged by two decades of constant war, then slaughter those who fight back. But, for Christ’s sake, show some decorum.

ABC.net.au reported that, for his part, retired Australian Army officer Jim Molan insisted the incident “must be seen in proportion”. He said: “It’s wrong but this is nothing like Abu Ghraib.”

Trying to minimise an incident of abuse by comparing it with an even worse example by the same forces is not overly reassuring. He may as well have said: “You think this one is bad, hell, you should have seen 'em at Abu Ghraib! Woah, now that was some crazy shit!”

Meanwhile, key Western ally The Only Democracy in the Middle East (TM) proved its terrorist credentials with appears to be its latest assassination in Iran of an Iranian scientist (though the Iranian regime has also pointed the finger at the United States). Chemistry expert Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was killed on January 11 in central Iran by a magnetic bomb placed under his car.

The US denies any role. After Israel first refused to confirm or deny its involvement, Israeli President Shimon Peres said it was not involved "to the best of my knowledge". But, really, if you were accused of blowing up some poor bastard with a car bomb, and you were innocent, would you respond to questions of your involvement by saying: “Well, I can’t really say for sure either way, but I don't think so, as far as I can tell.”

Actually, you would probably not be saying anything — chances are you'd be too busy being tortured in Guantanamo.

I am surprised democratic Israel even found the time to kill Ahmadi Roshan, busy as it's been reinforcing its apartheid-like social structures. Already in the new year, Israeli courts upheld a 2003 ruling that bans “most Palestinians who marry Israelis from obtaining either citizenship or residency” in Israel, AlJazeera.net said on January 12.

Of course there is a lot more happening in the world than just these atrocities. Last year was marked, above all else, by the explosion onto the political scene of ordinary people standing up against oppressive and unjust rulers — from Cairo to Madrid to New York and beyond.

It is worth remembering that when former dictator Hosni Mubarak's thugs fired tear gas on protesters in Egypt, people showed the cameras what was written on the side of the canisters: “Made in the USA.” It's a pretty safe bet the same thing was printed on the side of the tear gas canisters fired on peaceful protesters at Occupy Oakland in October — including the one that nearly killed Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen.

As we enter a new year, it is clear ordinary people share a common enemy — even if the enemy tries in vain to present a democratic, civilised face.

"What's best for the Western and the greed? Kill 'em all? Let 'em breed?" I include this song by The Drones about the horrors of war because I fucking can -- until the United States' government introduces its online censorship laws and destroys the internet as we know it.

Once more on Rod Stewart butchering Tom Waits: A reply to a reader

2012-01-18T22:05:00.000+11:00

Almost five years ago, on February 19, 2007 to be precise, I wrote a post on this blog in a moment of raw anger and disgust after watching a film clip by Rod Stewart destroying Tom Waits' classic Tom Traubert's Blues.

It is one of the old blog posts that still collects hits thanks to the sterling work Google does in answering people's requests for links involving the words "Tom Waits Rod Stewart".

(Far more popular is a post from 2009 on how Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan sold out by getting his famously terrible teeth fixed. That one gets hundreds of random hits a week from the seemingly large numbers of people whose interest in MacGowan's dental health leads them to google "Shane MacGowan teeth", and the shameful paucity of commentary on this crucial matter leads them here.)

Despite still collecting a few hits, the post was made a bit less relevant after YouTube quite rightly took down the offending film clip of Stewart whining through the tale of "down-and-out" misery, heartache and alcoholism that is 'Tom Traubert's Blues" while dressed in a upmarket dinner jacket and suit. But as you can still hear the audio and see him destroy it live, it retains some relevance.

Rod Stewart. Bard of the underdog.

One of those who stumbled on this angry rant decided yesterday to leave a comment. "Mac" (f that really be his or her name and I cannot help but feel that at the very least we are being denied the full story there) wrote:

Isn't is possible to like both? I'm a huge Rod Stewart fan, and I love his version (particularly the "unplugged" version which is a lot less produced), but I love Tom Waits as well. He is a brilliant songwriter and a wonderful character - but I can only take so much of that voice. He also tries so hard to be eccentric and non-commercial that you almost get the impression (and from your comments as well) that the only way for him to succeed would be to fail. It's that genuine suffering in his songs that seems to matter to you - forget artistic interpretation.

In the same vein - Springsteen's "Jersey Girl" is another one of my favorites. Wait's contains no more passion, but it does grate on my eardrums a bit.

Sorry that Rod seems high pitched in comparison, and that this seems to devalue his worth as an artist in your view. To take a phrase from your comment, you might want to check out "Never a Dull Moment", one of Rod's early albums. I don't like the "anything for a buck" releases he has made in recent years, but to dismiss him the way you do is pretty ridiculous.

Oh good god. It is hard to know where to start here, but all this needs some unpacking. I shall use this at times offensive comment to try and explain a few things about Waits and why Stewart's cover of "Tom Traubert's Blues" fails to such a degree.

But first... let me take up the offensive part and then move to the content.

"Mac" writes: "[Waits] also tries so hard to be eccentric and non-commercial that you almost get the impression (and from your comments as well) that the only way for him to succeed would be to fail. It's that genuine suffering in his songs that seems to matter to you - forget artistic interpretation."

I must admit I was not aware that Waits was suffering. Perhaps "Mac" has some new information on his life. Sure, Waits is not obscenely, stinking rich like Stewart is, but I am not sure there is much evidence he is actually "suffering".

Unless, that is, you believe anything short of a relentless search at any cost to your principles, integrity and BASIC FUCKING HUMAN DIGNITY for more money you don't have the time or brains to spend in your pursuit of *even more* supermodels and big homes counts as suffering.

And here is Waits, living a quiet life in rural California in his own place with his wife and collaborator Kathleen Brennan (who have been happily together for 30 years and about whom Waits *wrote* that heartfelt love song "Jersey Girl" that "Mac" refers to) and their kids, completely failing to REALISE WHAT HELL HE IS IN!!!!

He needs 57 failed marriages to supermodels and 98 mansions around the world or whatever the fuck Stewart has accumulated by now to be happy -- his own, comfortable place with his family, his own recording studio, able to collaborate with who ever he wants, produce his art at his own pace, tour when he feels like is just *such a tortured existence*. What a fucking martyr to his art!

Artistic interpretation... that is *exactly* what Waits does so well. A little bit of genuine artistic interpretation from Stewart would have been very much appreciated in his cover.

What Waits *does* and Stewart *fails in that performance to do*, is *exactly* give an artistic interpretation that *actually works*. As I said in the original post, *you believe Waits*. Stewart does not make us believe.

The idea that Waits is *trying hard* to be non commercial and eccentric turns reality on its head. All he is doing is not trying to do the opposite -- not force himself into something he isn't but pursue his art as he wants to. It is sad that anything that seems outside the dominant is just "eccentric".

A suffering Tom Waits wants to know *where the fuck* his third mansion and seventh supermodel wife is.

OK, now that is out of my system... Let's look at the content.

Is it possible to like both? Of course it is. If you like both you like both. Who the fuck can determine what you like, but you?

Personally, Rod Stewart's version makes me feel homicidal. The reason is not because it is Rod Stewart, not because I think no one, be they Rod Stewart or anyone else, has a "right" to cover Tom Waits. Not because Stewart has a higher pitched voice.

It is because, as far as I can see, Stewart butchers this song terribly and this song, to my mind, is a brilliant song that creates a vivid, poetic tale in which all the ingredients work together.

Waits is a performer as much as any other performer, and I think he brings the song to life in the combination of vivid imagery of the lyrics, the music and his delivery.

On Rod Stewart, I am dealing with this cover, not Stewart in general. Rod Stewart was a pretty decent rock'n'roll front man with The Faces before deciding to go off and become more commercially-orientated pop singer. That is his choice and his right and I don't condemn him for it. No one has ever offered me all the supermodels I could marry and then divorce and all the mansions and fast cars I could eat, so far be it from me to judge his choice to take that road.

I judge whatever he does artistically on its artistic merits. And there is something very wrong with what he did to that song.

It actually *violates* the song. It is not just a version that isn't as good as Waits version. It is an "artistic interpretation" that goes *against* the song dramatically.

And as I really, really like the song, it means I really, really don't like what Stewart did to it.

I got no problem with Bruce Springsteen's version of Jersey Girl, which "Mac" raises. It is a good version.

I think Waits' version is better, but I also think "Jersey Girl" is, like "Tom Traubert's Blues", Waits at his best, so saying that is no insult in my book.

Springsteen manages to deliver the essence of the song well. Not surprising, he is a great performer and the song suits him.

However, the reason the song works so well for Waits says a lot about the essence of Waits as a story teller and why a cover version like Stewart's of "Tom Traubert" goes wrong.

You complain about the harshness of Waits voice getting to you after a bit -- and ok there is always personal taste here -- but in terms of the story Waits is telling in "Jersey Girl", that harsh roughness is essential.

It is a heartfelt love song heavy on sentiment. The roughness of the vocal is what makes it sound real. It drags it down to earth and makes it sound *ordinary*, an expression of someone real, gives it its grit. It undercuts the sweetness of the sentiments and, in doing so, heightens the sentiments.

That is why it works. Springsteen's version keeps the basic dynamic and so it also works.

But does Waits version really "contain no more passion"? This song, this heartfelt love song, was written for the woman he loved and would soon marry. I think that both Springsteen and Waits are great performers capable of injecting genuine emotion into songs with or without a personal connection, but Waits injects something extra into "Jersey Girl".

"And I call your name. I can't sleep at night." Waits sings the song he wrote for his future wife.

I can actually, unfortunately, provide an example where the band and singer goes all saccharine, where they *don't* undercut the sweetness but play up to it, and produce a version of "Jersey Girl" every bit as horrific as Stewart's version of "Tom Traubert" That would be the live version that can be found on YouTube of Bon Jovi playing the song.

It is actually kinda sickening to listen to. (Though I have to give Jon Bon Jovi points for passionately correcting the audience member who shouted "Bruuuuce" at the end of the song, and telling people they needed to know Tom Waits -- anyone who does that, including Stewart when he covers Waits, deserves some credit in my book, even if it doesn't mean we have to pretend a drastic failure is really OK.)

Waits has proven hard to cover well, but there are more than a few examples of it being done well. It succeeds when the singer tries to find a way, within their performance and style, to keep the essence of the dynamic between the poetry of the words and the music and performance that seeks to complement the imagery and story.

One good example is Lucinda Williams haunting version of "Hang Down Your Head" that is very different from Waits' version, but very effective. She even has, undeniably, a higher pitched voice than Waits -- just to prove the point I have no inherent objection to different pitches, more with how they are used or abused.

"Hush a wild violet, hush a band of gold. Hush you're in a story I heard somebody told." Lucinda Williams provides an example to Rod Stewart on how not to totally fuck up a cover of Tom Waits.

Let's even look at Stewart's *other* cover of Tom Waits -- his much better-known version of Downtown Train, which Stewart took to the top of the charts and no doubt earned Waits some badly needed royalty revenues. This, like "Tom Traubert", is Waits lyric writing at its best. The imagery is powerful and genuinely moving.

Stewart's version, as I said in the original post, turns it into an overproduced, overdone pop song. But it has to be said, it is nowhere near as bad a version of "Downtown Train" as his version of "Tom Traubert" is of that song.

In "Downtown Train", Stewart's version, though overdone, retains *just enough* of the song's weight, of its heartfelt drama, despite threatening to drown it completely in ridiculous guitar parts and string sections and OTT singing. The quality of the lyrics still manages to come through.

That is, Stewart didn't actually, in such a fundamental way, destroy the song's *essence*. Not that it touches Waits' original.

In my opinion, "destroy the song's essence" is exactly what he did with "Tom Traubert's Blues". Part of the problem here is that what provoked my outraged post was not just the audio -- though I think that is bad enough -- but the film clip he produced. YouTube have since taken it down, so a lot of what I was actually talking about isn't even there to see anymore (the live version I link to, while far from good, is nowhere near as horrific).

It is really when the audio and film clip are combined that the whole problem is clearest. Because it is not just that I think he voice fails to capture the song and express the lyrics, and I don't think it does. It is actually that in the film clip the whole essence of the song is fundamentally violated. He films himself, late 80s popstar perm, dodgy facial hair and gold earing and all, in a fucking dinner jacket all dressed up like he is about to accept a fucking Oscar.

Now what is this song *actually about*? Waits' brief explanation was it was about "throwing up on yourself in a foreign country". The longer version is it is about alcohol abuse, depression, heartache, loneliness, alienation and poverty -- set in an alienating foreign setting. And Stewart performs it in a FUCKING DINNER JACKET!!!!

The opening lines are stark, though with a typical dash of wit: "Wasted and wounded, it ain't what the moon did, I got what I paid for now. See you tomorrow ... hey Frank, can I borrow a couple of bucks from you...?"

Do you know what Stewart looks like he paid for? A fucking second course of caviar-stuffed trout. He looks like the only thing he might ask Frank to borrow is the key's to his friend's Porsche, only his is at the garage.

The stark depiction of a heartbroken man at the bottom comes with lines told with a simple, but evocative imagery. Such as: "It was a battered old suitcase, in a hotel someplace and a wound that would never heal."

Such lines remind me of Raymond Chandler at his best -- such as when his tired PI Philip Marlowe, stuck alone in a hotel room away from home, sums up his position in "Farewell My Lovely": "I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun."

Stewart's performance fails to draw any of this out. It fails to give any expression to it. That is why it fails. It runs counter to the song.

Ironically, as terrible as Bon Jovi's "Jersey Girl" cover was, they do a better cover of "Tom Traubert's Blues" than Stewart. I am *not* saying this because I think it is great version, but to actually do the song worse than Bon Jovi takes some doing. That is actually the depths to which Rod Stewart's cover falls.

But... perhaps you hear it where I don't. In which case, I wish I was you, because when I hear Stewart's version -- and in general I try not to -- I feel offended.

Finally....

All this stuff about "you only think Waits is good because he fails to be popular" is pop psychology at its worst. It is entirely wrong. If it mattered, which it doesn't, I can give you a long list of acts or particular songs I like and it will cover the full gamut from highly commercially successful to things not well known but for whatever reason I happen to have come across and liked.

Far from thinking there is something romantic or inherently cool or maybe even "martyr-ish" about a lack of popular success, I think the extent that Waits is marginal is a very bad sign.

I think someone who takes popular music seriously as an art form and seeks to do something new and different with it, and so often succeeds, deserves to be seen not as the "eccentric outsider", but as a starting point, a building block for others to develop the form even further.

And actually, Waits does play that role to a certain extent. He has a big enough following and enough critical recognition (especially by other musicians) to have an impact. The problem is popular music is a form dominated by lowest common denominator buck-chasing that undermines it. That, by its nature, leans towards the easiest, safest option.

Far from seeing this as something that gives Waits extra cred, I find it infuriating that popular music is so often twisted and deformed by this.

I love Waits because he is one of the greatest story tellers I have come across in popular music (to my mind, the greatest, though that is always a dangerous thing to say because there is always more out there to still find out about). Waits is not just a great poet, the entire product from lyrics to music seek to tell the story.

He is brings quite a cinematic quality to his music -- it is not just there to sound nice, but to set a scene, create a mood. The words and music work in tandem to serve each other.

I don't think this is in the slightest Waits being eccentric for its own sake, rather it is taking the form seriously and trying to figure out how to use it to serve the end of a great song. The problem is that songs are generally not given the same scope as literature or films -- no one expects a film to always look pretty or a book to deal with nice things. Waits tells stories via song that cover a range of genres.

For someone who does this, in my opinion, so very well, I would be ecstatic to see it recognised even more than it is. For it to be taken more seriously and be less marginalised, less seen as something off over on the fringes. But rather, treated like the great poets, authors and filmmakers have been treated -- as a great artistic achievement.

For this reason, Waits being accepted into the rock'n'roll hall of fame last year (which I hailed on this blog) was wonderful to see.

"Well with buck shot eyes and a purple heart, I rolled down the national stroll." Here is *another* Tom Waits song, not even directly relevant to this post, just because Carlo Sands is kind like that.

Scientists take three decades to discover what one evening's session proves

2012-01-12T22:56:00.000+11:00

Did you know it is 2012 already? I fucking noticed, to such an extent I even got three quarters of the way through a blog post on 2011 and the horrors awaiting to us in the new year ... until I procrastinated on finishing it long enough for laptop to fuck up, the cause of much whining on Facebook.

Now it is working again, I shall limit myself to merely noting this important news: Scientists have done it once more. Let no one ever call the fuckers useless again.

Yes... according to the Sydney Morning Herald, scientists, after a full 30 years of research, have provided conclusive evidence that drinking alcohol is fun.

A full 30 years of research, and they say: "Drinking alcohol makes people feel better because it produces the same chemicals in the brain as exercising and laughing, a study has proved for the first time."

In fact, we may say here that the therapeutic value of drinking, so important given the state of the world, is further heightened by the fact that I always find a drinking goes hand in hand with laughing. Quite possibly due to the fact that I always find that alcohol, taken in sufficient quantities, encourages me to dance.

And, on this topic, let me make it perfectly clear: I will "dance" while shouting "look at me, I'm dancing like Jarvis Cocker!" in return for booze. Same thing with my renowned turn as Axl Rose. (My rendition of Blaze of Glory is free. It is my gift to the world.)

If drunk, I will offer my rendition of this one for free, as my gift to the world.

And exercise... anyone who who has had a decent session in the company of the Conversation film series co-creator Ben knows that, at a certain time of the night, you are going to be sprinting from the cops ... or indeed Ben, carrying his tattoo gun bought for 30 bucks over the net from some obscure Chinese vetinary clinic, shouting "Do you trust me? Come on, just a small one!"

Apparently, these scientists studied the brains of drinkers and discovered the act of drinking releases happiness-inducing endorphins.

Now, I don't wish to be misunderstood here. Such a finding can only be welcomed in this age of relentless anti-booze propaganda and associated calls for laws to restrict our ability to consume it.

But... now, I do not wish to question the intelligence or efficiency of the scientific community. I would not dream of such a thing at a time when scientists can be killed with impunity by The Only Democracy In The Middle East (TM). (Seriously, why is it if I kill a scientist with a car bomb I am an "evil terrorist", but Israel does it and the world is all like, "whatevs"?)

And I mean it is not like there is anything more pressing for scientists to try and deal with.

But... I mean... 30 years??? What the fuck is wrong with these people? One decent fucking session at the Townie is more than enough evidence.

I mean, you work a fucking horrible job and you live in a fucking horrible world ... you want a fucking drink. Why? Because in a world run by goddamn arseholes you need *something* to make you feel good.

Oh but that is just alienation... OF COURSE IT FUCKING IS!!! If you are not alienated from a status quo as horrific as this one, you have some serious issues and are probably some sort of sociopath.

The only possible explanation I can think of for why it might take scientists 30 years to draw such a screamingly obvious conclusion is that they began their experiments back then and have only now sobered up enough to write up their findings. In which case, I can only say to them: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING??? Get back to pub you bastards, you are missing the very aptly-named happy hour.

Siobhan is having a whiskey, Siobhan is having a gin ... and she is happy and she’s warming, cause Siobhan is having fun! In one two-and-a-bit-minute song, The Tossers sum up what it seems to have taken scientists three fucking decades to figure out.

A Letter to Frank: Yet another groundbreaking poem by Carlo Sands

2011-12-08T17:42:00.001+11:00

Well, all I can about this is this is what happens when you drink *special* Johnny Walker, with extra ingredients of the sort my good friend Conehead might add, assuming Conehead drank booze. And then follow it with beer and Irish whiskey and special cigarettes at Conehead's. Indeed, as anyone who has been there will tell you, simply *walking in front door* at Conehead's place is enough to put most mortals in a frame of mind required to create a work of art of the sort above.

This is really just an in-between thing, a poetic interlude to pass the time until I finally get around with Ben to creating the much anticipated Conversation V film. Yes, it has been a long time the latest installment of this truly groundbreaking film series -- the critically acclaimed Conversation IV: This Time It's Sensual. All I can do is assure you that the fifth (and final) in the series is not long off...

And in the meantime... enjoy the poem.

I don't pretend, of course, that is the greatest poem ever written. That would be my masterpiece I Kill You Now Fuck Off And Get Me A Drink.

It is not even the second greatest poem ever written. Not while my undeniably brilliant Dedicated to a Fuckwit remains available to the general public.

But I like to think it adds something to a growing body of highly impressive work and the likelihood of random acts of violence against Franks committed by the general public.

Now I know *just* what is on your mind. Who *is* Frank? Well, I think *all* know a Frank, don't we? Frank comes in many shapes, sizes and even cover names. But all these pricks, to me, will always be what they are -- a Frank. Because I said so.

But I have said enough. Far better to let Tony Duggins from Irish-American Celtic punk legends The Tossers explain it far better than I ever could... in this great clip and album version of "Whiskey Makes Me Crazy" -- which YouTube WON'T LET ME EMBED!!!!!!!!

'Irish whiskey drives me nuts, yeah whiskey makes me crazy!"

Hello world, what's been happening?

2011-11-14T19:31:00.006+11:00

Hello!

I thought I would just check in. You know, it has been close to two months since my last post and I wouldn't want my many followers to think I had died. Again.

Anyway, it is not like much has been been happening in the world since September 22. I see the financial system now just directly runs Greece and Italy -- which really sounds like the simplest solution all round.

They did such a great job of running the global financial system and, sure, they own the governments but, at the end of the day, if you want a job done properly you have just got to do it yourself.

It sure calmed the whole thing down and I think the crisis is pretty much averted. If by averted you mean spreading to France.

Meanwhile, the British response to the crippling Global Recession is to start torturing the unemployed. Seriously.

Also, in an unrelated development, in cities around the world, a bunch of people have been hanging out having a chat and attacking police batons and tear gas cannisters and what have you.

Israel is continuing to be the greatest democracy in the Middle East, pursing its relentless goals of peace and justice. Libya has been liberated. Afghanistan continues to show how much it loves its occupiers.

The New South Wales police continue to be the non-violent, free speech-respecting and fundamentally progressive force we all know and love.

The world's climate continues to be just fine with absolutely nothing to worry about -- as Rupert Murdoch's The Australian keeps roping in renowned scientist, sceptic and Sydney Catholic Archbishop George Pell to tell us.

Oh, and I was *so* excited... THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND CAME!!! Seriously, she like, came to Australia!!! I love the English establishment, as fans of the blog can attest, and to have the head of the beast -- so to speak -- in my own country was a joy I could barely contain.

Quite rightly, Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle had the city centre cleared of all filthy commoner types ahead of Her Majesty's visit.

I did but see her passing by... which really makes it hard to get a decent shot fired off before the cops are onto you and you gotta run. I hate running.

In other news, my sister and her partner came to Sydney last Wednesday. They arrived at the train station at 10am, which, coincidentally, was the exact time the pub across the road opened.

And another highly important development. I have declared my latest campaign: to overtake the Devil Child Himself in Twitter follower numbers. Justin Bieber is, at current count, sitting on 14,447,678, which is *roughly* 14,447,632 more than Carlo Sands.

DON'T LET THE DEVIL CHILD WIN! YOU TOO CAN FOLLOW CARLO SANDS ON TWITTER! @CarloSands. Do it for humanity.

And finally, if you want and are in Sydney, you can see Carlo Sands on a stage in the preliminary final of the Comedy @ The Rox comp, at the Roxbury Hotel in Glebe. You might see something like this.

'Singing "God save the Queen"? Well I think fucking not! And I pray every day that in Hell she may rot...' Sydney City Trash, the greatest Sydney-based country folk punk act from Tamworth, express their love for the English queen.

PS: I don't believe I have ever said the word "fuckity" anywhere on my blog before. That has now changed.

The United States can get fucked -- By Oscar Wilde, preemptively.

2011-09-22T14:06:00.001+10:00

Their criminal "justice" system killed Troy Davis. Fuck them.

Let us ignore all the huge flaws in Davis' case, including eyewitnesses later saying they lied under police pressure and absence of any weapon tying Davis to the murder of a police officer. The death penalty in horrific. It always has been and always will be.

Let Oscar Wilde explain it in The Ballad of Reading Gaol, written about a real case of a man who was sentenced to death and hanged for murder during Wilde's two years in Reading Gaol for "crimes of gross indecency".

They hanged him as a beast is hanged:
They did not even toll
A requiem that might have brought
Rest to his startled soul,
But hurriedly they took him out,
And hid him in a hole.

MURDERED

"Southern trees bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees." These days they use lethal injections, rather than nooses from poplar trees. The point remains.

We should all be able to invoke the Israeli defence

2011-09-22T12:46:00.003+10:00

I have discovered the hard way that "But Israel gets to kill who they want!" does not actually hold up in a court of law as a legitimate defence.

This is very disappointing and, frankly, deeply unfair.

I guess we can't always get what we want. I mean, I got a friend who wants a tiny rabbit who can fit in her palm who'd be called Subcommandante Marcos so she can set up a Republic in her bedroom and rule it with the tiny bunny. (This is actually a true story -- you may not believe it but it is true: Carlo Sands does have a friend.)

But I still feel it would be fairer if we could all use the Israeli defence.

"The bastard spilled my drink, Your Honour, so I killed three Egyptian border guards and destroyed more of Gaza's power and water supplies."

"Oh, that's alright, Sands! Why didn't you say so! You are free to go, have a lollipop and the Golan Heights."

But no. It is one rule for Empire's favourite mass murderers and another for the rest of us.

It is quite stunning really. I mean it is nothing new but it is still quite stunning. Israel kills three Egyptian cops -- that is, you know, like another country's cops, *in Egypt* and Egypt's government ... asks for an apology.

I mean, they killed three fucking Egyptian citizens in an unprovoked attack. When your military murders another nation's citizen's in their own country for no reason, it kinda counts as a "significant diplomatic incident" -- just behind serving only light beer at the annual embassy piss-up.

The Egyptian people, fresh from having tossed out a US puppet complicit in Israel's crimes, took it a little harder. There were days of furious mass protests outside the Israeli embassy, which gave the world a brand new superhero: FLAGMAN!

Yes, Egyptian man Ahmed al-Shehat scaled the 22-story building that houses the Israeli embassy, and -- to the roars of the crowd -- tore down the Israeli flag and raised the Egyptian one in its place. The flag was duly delivered to the crowd, who promptly burned the fucking thing.

You can watch the glorious even on YouTube.

Finally, a Superhero to be proud of.

But not even Flagman's heroics were enough to shift the situation.

The humiliation for Egyptians was made worse when, more than a year after Israel massacred nine Turkish citizens in an unprovoked attack in international waters (that some fools compared to an act of "piracy", which as I have argued elsewhere is a gross slander on the good name of pirates everywhere), the Turkish government finally responded by cutting all military ties with Israel.

Israel still sees no reason to even say "sorry" to Turkey, let alone Egypt.

So, with the Egyptian regime still refusing to even expel the Israeli ambassador from Cairo despite Israel's refusal to even say sorry for its unprovoked murder of Egyptian citizens, the Egyptian people took matters into their own hands.

On September 9, a huge demonstration descended on the Israeli embassy in Cairo and, with sledgehammers and their bare hands, tore down the security wall protecting the Israeli embassy and then stormed the building, removing a whole lot of Israeli embassy documents in a kinda of mass direct action WikiLeaks moment.

The Israeli ambassador, all the diplomatic staff and their families were forced to flee -- being evacuated back to Israel by plane.

The Israeli media ran stories about how terrible this was, how as the protesters stormed the building, diplomatic staff were forced into some back room with nothing but armed Israeli guards to protect them against an unarmed crowd. Well, their lives were *clearly* in danger because there is simply no way Israel would kill Egyptians in Egypt is there?

It must have been absolutely terrifying for them, which is horrible because the border guards killed without provocation by an Israeli air strike probably at least had no time to be terrified. They were just blown apart with no warning. That is how *civilised* nations do it.

And so the Egyptian people decided to cut diplomatic ties themselves.

Let us recap.

On August 18, there were attacks in southern Israel that left eight people dead and 40 injured. It was, without any question, an atrocity. An atrocity to which no one has claimed responsibility.

Israel blamed the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees -- who denied having anything to do with it.

Cue fresh bombings of besieged Gaza. As well as the three Egyptian cops, by August 26, 22 Palestinians in Gaza had been killed, including children.

For attacks no one knows who was responsible for. Despite which, more than two dozen people are dead with no evidence a single one had anything to do with the initial attack.

If someone steals your iPod, and you go around breaking all the windows in your neighbourhood in retaliation, try the "Israel defence" in your inevitable court case. It won't work. You are not Israel.

Balance

But, it occurred it me, I may be guilty here of only presenting *one side* of the story. Perhaps I am not being balanced enough. And, as anyone who knows me can strongly attest, if Carlo Sands is anything, he is -- above all else -- *balanced*.

So I sought out the counter position on the question of Israel and its behaviour in general and I came across an article from The Australian, which being a Rupert Murdoch paper is one of the most balanced news sources you could find.

I found this article to very convincing and it made me seriously rethink everything I had previously thought.

In a June 7 opinion piece entitled "Palestinians' deadly strategy doomed to fail", The Australian's Middle East correspondent John Lyons opened my eyes to the true situation.

"It is time", he said, "for Palestinians to resume a non-violent struggle of negotiations and give up their strategy of confronting Israeli bullets".

This was in response to a series of protests that occurred in early June on Israeli borders by Palestinians and their supporters in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights in Syria and Lebanon.

The Israeli military opened fire on unarmed protesters on the frontier of Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. More than 20 unarmed protesters were killed.

Now you might think the aggressor here was Israel -- shooting down unarmed protesters demonstrating for an end to illegal Israeli occupation. But that is where you would be wrong.

Lyons' explains quite clearly the aggressor in this case is not the ones doing the shooting but the ones getting shot.

The Palestinians, you see, should stop "confronting Israeli bullets" in such a threatening and provocative manner. They were virtually *begging* the Israeli Defence Forces to shoot them.

How else is Israel meant to respond to such thugs confronting their bullets with with their bodies? Such a threat to Israel's very existence can not be expected to go unanswered.

The Palestinians getting themselves shot so willfully, Lyons points out, merely "allows Israel to argue that it cannot agree to a Palestinian state while it has so much instability on its borders".

The logic is so frighteningly simple, I cannot believe I never saw it before. The death of an Israeli at the hands of a Palestinian is a terrorist atrocity. Palestinians being killed by Israelis is "instability".

Instability, what is more, that is the fault of the Palestinians who brought it on themselves with all their unarmed "protesting" and other such anti-Semitic provocations.

So, "rather than being shot trying to climb through barbed wire" in such a horrifically violent way (just *imagine* how traumatising having to shot an unarmed Palestinian is for some poor member of the IDF!), Lyons argues reasonably that the Palestinians should continue to try and negotiate in the framework of the 1993 Oslo Accords that hs brought them so much progress over the years.

I have thought this through and I can finally see the big picture -- this whole "getting shot dead by Israeli bullets" is just the latest anti-Semitic plot to destroy the Jewish race. The Palestinians maybe irrational fanatics, but they are not stupid.

The plot is clear. If the Palestinains can force Israel to shot enough unarmed people asking for the return of occupied lands, as per countless UN resolutions, then surely, eventually, Israel will run out of bullets.

And then they will be screwed.

You only have to think this thing through to its logical conclusion. Who arms the Israelis? The United States, to the tune of US$3 billion a year.

And the richest nation on Earth is mired in a severe economic crisis and has a nationlal debt in the trillions. Some $2.1 trillion in spending cuts are coming -- while most of it will come from social security for pensioners are other luxuries, it cannot be ruled out that a bit, at least, might come from military spending.

The US is weak right now. It is vulneralbe. If only the Palestinians keep up their violent strategy of of forcing Israel to shoot enough bullets at them at their unarmed protests, they might bring the thing to a tipping point.

The bastards.

A Palestinian confronts Israeli bullets in a bid to bankrupt the Jewish state and drive all Jews into the sea. (*** NOTE ON THIS BELOW)

But the plot thickens even more.

There is an arguably *even bigger* anti-Semitic threat emerging *right here* in Australia! Yes, Palestine solidarity protesters have been holding protests calling for a boycott of Max Brenner chocolate stores.

Now, the protesters *claim* this is because Max Brenner is on a list of companies with ties to the Israeli military that dozens of Palestinian civil society organisations have called for a boycott against in a growing international campaign backed by the likes of South African Nobel Peace Prize winning anti-apartheid activist Archbishop Desmond Tutu, but really any thinking person can see it is being targetted simply because the multinational corporation was set up by Jewish people and this is *just like* the Nazi's boycott of Jewish owned businesses in the 1930s.

It has gotten so dire than the poor multinational chain has had to resort to using such renowned anti-fascists as the British National Party-linked Australian Protectionist Party to defend its stores from the anti-Semitic hordes and their chants asking Max Brenner to cut its ties with IDF army units responsible for serious atrocities.

It was the Murdoch press to the rescue *once more*, with a heartfelt piece in The Australian on how poor Jewish chocolatier Max Brenner is stunned to find himself at the centre of the Middle Eastern conflict.

"Max Brenner says he is a man of peace who hates all forms of violence," an outraged Cameron Stewart writes. "So how has this chocolate maker become the target of anti-Israeli protesters in Australia who accuse him of being complicit with the Israeli military?"

Stewart tells his readers that Mr Brenner was "not available for an interview", but produced a quote from 2009, in which Brenner apparently responded to the protests by saying: "Whether it is in Israel or not, anything to do with violence, aggressiveness or appearing at protests or boycotts seems silly (to me). But then again, I am just a chocolate-maker."

What is all the more impressive about this heartstring-tugging piece is that Max Brenner does not even exist.

There is no Max Brenner, he is just a corporate marketing creation.

Nonetheless, I see no reason why his non-existent status should blind us to how much he is suffering right now at the hands of the anti-Semites. Pretend people have feelings too! My heart breaks whenever I think of the fictitious Max Brenner crying himself to sleep every night, make-believe tears rolling down his not-really-there face.

All decent people should be haunted by the fictitious tears of the non-existent Jewish chocolate-maker Max Brenner, the result of his being targetted by anti-Semites asking that the multinational corporation his made-up name fronts stops sponsoring Israeli military units responsible for very real atrocities.

It is a terrible state of affairs. Having taking the time to *truly listen* to the other side of the story, provided with such objectivity by the Murdoch media, I can clearly see the error of my ways. As far as I am concerned, Israel can kill whoever the fuck they want!

Just so long, it is all I ask, that the rest of us are accorded the exact same privilige. It is really only fair and Kyle Sandilands has been *really* pissing me off.

"I wish I could take your tears and replace them with laughter, Long live Palestine, Long live Gaza!" Infamously anti-Semitic Iraqi-English hip hop artist Lowkey's anthem of hate calls for the total destruction of the Jewish race using code words such as "We stand for peace" and "I know there's plenty of Rabbi's that agree with me".

*** It has been pointed out, in the comment section, that this photo is incorrectly captioned. It is not a Palestinian woman in the photo who has so violently confronted Israeli bullets, but an American Jewish peace activist, Emily Honochowicz. Well, this just goes to show that evil anti-Semites come from all sources, no matter how unexpected. For more information on this question, check out http://nabisalehsolidarity.wordpress.com. It'll shock ya.

They are coming for our goon -- stand-up at The Shannon

2011-09-19T21:16:00.001+10:00

Dedicated readers of this blog will know that i have had a love and hate relationship with The Shannon Hotel, on Abercrombie Street in the inner-Sydney suburb of Chippendale over the years.

But, give them their due, they let Carlo Sands test out some of the things I badly think need ranting about last Tuesday at their Comedy on the Edge. That's right, five minutes straight of Carlo Sands ranting.

Well, I say "let Carlo Sands". I wasn't actually there, on stage, in person. I got some hack to do it for me. I felt if I tried it in person, the sheer glory of my cheekbones (as can be seen by my profile pic for this blog) would just far too distracting.

So, naturally, I got a redhead to deliver my lines. People always laugh at redheads, either that or physically attack them. (Interestingly, there is some good news for humanity on this front, with an international network of sperm banks banning redheads from donating. Apparently, and understandably, simply no one wants the stuff (except Ireland where sperm of redheaded origin "sells like hotcakes").

You can watch the clips, expertly filmed by a renowned director, who may or may not be both redheaded and Irish, below.

I can't say, in all honesty, I am entirely happy with how it went. I mean, for fuck's sake, I was trying to sound the warning that the FUCKING GOVERNMENT is coming for OUR GODDAMN GOON and these bastards simply LAUGHED! Did they not believe me? I was hoping for small riot at least.

It just goes to show, if you want something done properly, NEVER get a redhead to do it for you.

Eulogy from the man who beat me in a duel to the death

2011-09-05T11:19:00.002+10:00

Debate over Carlo Sands has raged amongst philosophers, theologians, exorcists, Carlo Sands, demon hunters, and debt collectors.

As you all know, on Friday from 6pm (local time) was my wake -- occurring everywhere in the world simultaneously. Absolutely *everyone* was there -- whether they liked it or not. My own speech to the wake was prepared in advance. I draw my loyal followers attention to the speech published below, which was prepared for the event by Leslie -- the cad who defeated me in a duel to the death.

Of course, Leslie is a treacherous, murderous bastard. There are elements to this speech that any decent person could only consider libelous and the worst forms of slander. Myself, I notice that it lies by omission. Leslie completely fails to mention -- even in passing -- Carlo Sands' key role in the 100 years war. It only took me 116 years, by I finally drove those Plantagenet bastards from France. This is an important lesson in the consequences in stealing Carlo Sands' beer. I don't give a fuck if you are called "Edward The Third, King of All England", you don't touch my schooner.

But I publish the speech ultimately because it deals with a topic so close to my heart -- Carlo Sands.

Do not trust this man around your stubby of VB.

* * *

Eulogy for Carlo Sands

By The Man Who Defeated Him In A Duel To The Death

Carlo Sands was a complex ... thing. No less so in death, apparently, than in life.

Always quick with a maniacal grin and never slow (after last drinks) to lend a machete to those in need, many myths have grown up around Carlo – most collected together in the Book of Revelations and the tales of Ragnarok. And much of his life has served as the inspiration for much art - the convincing sense of ultimate horror embedded in Lovecraft's Cthulu mythos, Poe's raven, Wilde's Dorian Gray, Conan Doyle's Moriarty, Bosch's visions of Judgement Day and hell, Brueghel's depictions of drunken peasant cavortings, Munch's "The Scream".

Munch's The Scream captures the sense of horror associated with the existence of Carlo Sands.

But I feel the true spirit of Carlo has only rarely been grasped throughout his time on this world. And even then, it is a knowledge that seems to die out very quickly in often mysterious circumstances.

Over the millennia -- almost from the very day he hatched -- the activities of Carlo have prompted conjecture on his nature. At first this was mostly along the lines of screaming and running away. When intelligent hominids came on the scene, it progressed to screaming and running away followed by the survivors' pre-linguistic equivalent of "what the fuck?!" and "WHY? WHYYYYY?!!".

As time passed and we developed better weapons and city walls, the discussion settled down and became more formal and reflective, and ever since debate has raged amongst philosophers, theologians, exorcists, Carlo Sands, demon hunters, and debt collectors.

A major question that occupied them all, second only to "WHYYYYY?!", concerned Carlo's insistence on continuing to be alive against all reason and sanity and persistent efforts to persuade him not to be. Was he immortal, or just remarkably well pickled?

On a day in 2009 that I'm sure found many of us torn between joy and happiness, that ancient question was finally answered. Well, technically, it was answered on October 21, 2008, when Carlo died, but it wasn't known to the world at large until Carlo found out.

To me it seemed like the end of an era. Like there may be no more running in blind panic from enraged emperors, kings, popes, conquering hordes, massed armies, and peasant mobs. No more looking over the shoulder for when the next attempted payback from God(s) would come. No more explaining that I was just holding the bag for someone. No more hangovers that made the big bang seem sedate and whimsical.

The only downside seemed to be that, although tragically dead, he was tragically continuing to insist on existing. Though this, to those who know him well, is not at all out of character and will no doubt provide a much needed boost to the philosophy sector of the economy.

But this is Carlo's wake, and tradition dictates that we must celebrate the departed. And as I -- against all my long-held expectations -- have managed to outlive Carlo and been the only person ever to have beaten him in a duel to the death, I find myself with my back safely against a wall and overwhelmed by magnanimity and benevolence.

Carlo's feats were many. Far too many to remember them all and sleep peacefully. So perhaps I shall limit myself to his earliest and possibly most fundamental contributions to humanity.

Ever since that moment he decided he couldn't be fucked looking for food and was just going to sit under that tree and wait for something to turn up, he has helped shape what we have become.

His inevitable discovery of the effects of fermented fruit. The - perhaps not unrelated - determination that he really, really needed others to share this new knowledge with (and to go get fruit for him). His decision (after some trial and error) that the "monkey people" were the most likely candidates.

Likewise his desire that we should be the beneficiaries of his discovery that if you spilt your grass seeds into your water and forgot about it for a while, you didn't necessarily have to chuck the whole lot out.

Many things that we take for granted today came from these simple acts of generosity. Brain shrinkage, dementia, cirrhosis, pancreatitis, delirium tremens, cardiomyopathy, gout, hangovers, some dodgy food and mating decisions – it is possible that without Carlo, we would never have discovered these, or at least had them in such abundance as we have enjoyed.

Carlo Sands may not have made our lives happier, but he sure made them hazier.

The hangover is just one of Carlo Sands' contributions to humanity that many take for granted.

Now, as his long time personal friend and advisor cum scapegoat and terrified innocent bystander who repeatedly somehow found myself mixed up in the fallout of his activities, I ask you all to charge your vessels and join me in saying:

Slainte, and Good Riddance!

Machete fights will be out back after closing. Thankyou.

'When the world is too dark, and I need the light inside of me, I'll walk into a bar and drink fifteen pints of beer ... I am going, I am going where streams of whiskey are flowing.'

Message to the world on the occasion of my wake (plus songs)

2011-08-31T17:49:00.013+10:00

[Due to the technical issues, I am unable to send to all my countless fans an audio recording of me reading this out. Below is a transcript of my speech for my wake, happening every in the world on Friday, September 2 at 6.30pm (local time).

It is a transcript of what I attempted to record, including an introduction that i have transcribed verbatim.

Also, I have created a playlist on You Tube for the event, which can be accessed at Carlo Sands' wake playlist. YouTube I have placed the videos below. Now, everyone in the entire world, who is attending this wake whether they like it or not, has both a speech to be delivered and appropriate tunes with which to mark the life a truly wonderful human being -- Carlo Sands.]

Hi,

This is Carlo Sands.

Well, actually I feel obliged to point out this isn't my real voice. I've hired an actor to read this on my behalf. This is not what I sound like at all. Carlo Sands' real voice is actually a lot more like, ah, say Sean Connery. You know, sort of deeper and more authoritative.

Actually, probably more Alan Rickman-esque.

It is pretty deep and very sexy and I really wish I could *share* it with you, but unfortunately I have... ah issues of a legal variety and it is really best I stay out of the public eye, or indeed ear.

Which reminds me, if Interpol come asking any questions about Carlo Sands, for christ's sake SAY NOTHING.

So, as I am sure you all know, Friday September 2, 6.30pm (local time), my wake is occurring everywhere in the entire world. This is taking place because, you all also probably know, I am dead.

If you *didn't* know, then I am very sorry to have to break the news to you. It's true. Carlo Sands is dead. I realise you are in a lot pain right now, absorbing this information, but really, think how *I* fucking feel. I am the bastard who's dead, for christ's sake! Have some FUCKING RESPECT!

I have been dead for sometime but never had a wake. This is being rectified. In honour of this significant event, I have composed the following speech to be read out at the many locally organised wakes taking place all over the world, on all continents.

Feel free to just cut this intro bit out and get straight to the speech if you like. Oh, but make sure you meantion the voice thing -- that's very important.

A message to the world on the occasion of Carlo Sands' wake, by Carlo Sands

Dear friends, disciples and Leslie,

It is an enormous honour to address you all on this most important of occasions. It is deeply moving to see so many people turn out to celebrate and/or mourn my life and mourn and/or celebrate my untimely demise.

To see so many thousands of people here tonight is amazing, I just hope those of you packed onto the nearby roofs and at the outer reaches of this human sea can hear me well enough. I thank you all for coming.

To confront one's own mortality is never easy. Death is a confronting experience. I still remember that terrible day sometime back in 2009 when, fool that I am, I made the literally fatal mistake of taking that damned Facebook quiz, "When will I die" and received my answer: October 21, 2008.

To die is one thing. To discover one has been dead for a number of months is especially hard. Luckily, I was drunk at the time so it is all a bit of a blur.

All I can say is Facebook is a dangerous thing, to be treated with caution. It censors you for supporting Palestine, it sells your private information to corporate giants to sell you pointless shit in annoying ads and, if you are not careful, it'll kill you with a quiz answer without so much as a "warning: this quiz may kill you" message to give you the heads up.

An experience like death takes a long time to come to grips with. This is the reason for the long delay before truly accepting it is so and holding the inevitable wake.

This is not a sad day. I lived a full life and had the opportunity to drink with many of the great men and women throughout human history.

And if there is one thing I've learned through the milenia, it is never drink with Ghengis Khan. Seriously, don't do it. It just never ends well. By the time you sober up, half of fucking Asia has been pillaged.

You'll end up richer, no question, but the hangover is really not worth it.

Also, I am sorry about the Welsh. That was my fault. The only thing I can say in my defence is pear cider is one bastard of a drink. Kids, stay off the pear cider.

I'd like to mention a few people here. To Johnny Depp, I'll never forget the times we've had together. Just the two of us and a bottle of absinthe, and my god when you did that thing with... well, you know.

Lily Allen. I forgive you. Well, actually no I FUCKING DON'T! Seriously, how could you marry that builder? A FUCKING BUILDER! Fuck you!

To Tom Waits. Please, please, please return my calls. I am really sorry, I was drunk. Can you really not move on from that night? Just pick up the phone. Please.

To all my loyal fans, I thank you for your continued support through a difficult time. To my disciple of the year for 2010, Mary Ellen, you know exactly what to do to win Disciple of the Year for 2011. This time, make it Irish whiskey.

To Leslie, that cad who beat me in the duel to the death. Well, tonight is yours to gloat but tomorrow shall be mine! My revenge will be sweet and I shall be wearing a large grin at *your* wake, you fucking bastard.

To all who have donated to the important cause that is helping Carlo Sands buy alcohol, your support is appreciated. The struggle against sobriety is not over and the PayPal button can be found at my blog, www.carlosands.blogspot.com, near the top of the righthand column.

Now, all I ask is a minute of respect where no alcohol passes your lips. Just one minute of not drinking. It is surely not too much to ask in memory of so great a man as myself, Carlo Sands.

...Just a minute. One minute, come on. LOOK, ONE FUCKING MINUTE! Seriously ... PUT THOSE DRINKS DOWN! Fuck, stop drinking you bastards! ONE FUCKING MINUTE!!!! You useless bunch of fucking drunks.

Fine, drink, you useless pricks,. Just fucking drink. I don't care. May you fall over and break your arm. Yes, Ben, the OTHER ONE AS WELL you bastard. God damn you all.

thank you,
Carlo Sands
deceased.

Oh, one final thing: FUCK ISRAEL!!!

Mark Steel tackles booze hysteria and saves me the trouble

2011-08-05T13:20:00.006+10:00

You know, I was just about to write a new rant on drinking hysteria when British socialist, comedian and columnist Mark Steel did it for me.

In his weekly Independent column, Steel focuses on the hysteria, which we know more than enough about in Australia.

As we *also* know only too well, the hysteria (of the "four standard drinks is binge drinking" variety) is just ground work for horrific attacks -- such as the outrageous reintroduction of drunk-and-disorderly laws in New South Wales.

Really, it is hard not to take this personally. I would not be surprised to find out the bill was informally known as the "Carlo Sands Law".

So, I warn the Brits to expect legal trouble.

Steel focuses his piece on the situation in Britain. From this we may conclude the attacks on drinkers are international, and therefore so must be our resistance!!!

As Martin Luther King Jnr once said, a threat of sobriety anywhere is a threat to intoxication everywhere.

Remember: When we drink, we are not just drinking for ourselves, but for humanity.

Mark Steel: Alcohol can be a problem, as can doctors

Britain is getting drunker than ever, apparently, with a government "consultation" expected to reveal the shocking statistic that, compared with 20 years ago, there are 80 per cent more documentaries or news items showing a clip of a girl in a short skirt being sick on a bench while a lad with no shirt makes a noise like a werewolf as he's thrown into a police van.

But more worrying is the increase in pompous doctors who come on the radio or programmes like The One Show to give us guidelines, telling us, "Those of us who think we're drinking moderately may still be at risk. For example if you have one glass of wine and then later in life have another, you are technically an alcoholic."

Then they say, "Of course there's no harm in drinking safely. I often enjoy an Italian wine with my evening meal, by opening the bottle and pouring it all into a bush. That way there's only a small risk to my liver, as long as I do it once a month as a treat."

Websites offering advice on safe drinking are full of tips such as, "If you're thinking of having a lager please consult your doctor first." Or, "One way of cutting down consumption while still enjoying a wild girls' night out, is on alternate rounds instead of having a drink have a bowl of soup, or go canoeing."

On the Drinkaware site I looked at, I was told three pints of medium- strength beer, twice a week, can lead to "heart disease, liver disease, impotence and cancer." I didn't check but I expect it went on, "and a fourth pint will cause cat flu, plague, rust, feeling like a woman trapped inside a man's body, fascism and a tendency to suddenly turn inside-out in the morning."

It also told me, "If you consume alcohol to feel good, or avoid feeling bad, your drinking could become problematic." So it's only safe to drink if it's to make yourself feel worse.

Still, alcohol can cause havoc, so we shouldn't be flippant. You only have to look at the demise of poor Amy Winehouse, who presumably had three pints of bitter on a Sunday and then another three the following Friday.

But the campaign against drunkenness doesn't seem to have learned from the "Just say no" anti-drugs campaign, which connects with hardly anyone as it insists drugs lead rapidly to disaster and aren't fun.

But if they weren't fun there'd be no need to tell people not to take them, just as there's no need to tell people "Just say no" to sticking your bare arse into a nest of wasps because no one does it anyway because it's not fun.

Similarly any attempt to reduce drunkenness must depend on acknowledging that people do it because it seems fun. The alcohol industry appears to be aware of this, which is why it markets drinks for teenagers as bursting with fun, then denies they're doing so with comments such as, "The product 'Marshmallow-alco', in which a marshmallow is filled with a cocktail of vodka and Southern Comfort, is not in any way aimed primarily at a younger market range."

But the Government's "consultation" is being run in conjunction with the alcohol industry, to such an extent that the British Medical Association have withdrawn from it altogether as a pointless exercise, because if we were to be cynical, the drinks industry may not be the keenest people to find ways of cutting down the sale of alcohol.

So the complex job of getting young people away from drug addiction and alcoholism will still be done by charities, such as Mentor UK. But they have declared the recent cuts in rehab clinics have made that almost impossible, saying these cuts "could have devastating implications".

So we're left with doctors telling us not to drink sherry on two consecutive Christmases, and if Amy was still around she could have updated her song by singing, "They tried to make me go to rehab but they said, 'Piss off, we've shut'."

"Would it be alright if I peeled an orange?" Because it is Raymond Chandler's birthday

2011-07-23T17:44:00.006+10:00

Because it is Raymond Chandler's birthday and because "Would it be alright if I peeled an orange?" is the perfect response to OUR FUCKING EVIL GOVERNMENTS THAT WANT TO MAKE FUN ILLEGAL!

For those reasons, I post the start of his 1949 classic The Little Sister. For those reasons, and the fact I just stumbled on the text of the whole book online and can't be fucked writing a proper blog post despite the fact I haven't written anything for ages.

(In other news, do you know how many Muslims were responsible for the atrocity in Oslo??? NONE.

It took the media quite some time of reporting it was an Islamic fundamentalist attack before they were forced to report it wasn't.)

Chandler was a good drinker and a good writer, who summed up the art of writing a detective story: "When in doubt, have a man with a gun walk into the room."

He inspired me to write up me own hardboiled experience about attending a talk by a wiseguy on Latin America at Sydney Uni. It really happened, just like I said. I still have nightmares about that experience.

And so...

The Little Sister

The pebbled glass door panel is lettered in flaked black paint: "Philip Marlowe . . . Investigations." It is a reasonably shabby door at the end of a reasonably shabby corridor in the sort of building that was new about the year the all-tile bathroom became the basis of civilization.

The door is locked, but next to it is another door with the same legend which is not locked. Come on in-there's nobody in here but me and a big bluebottle fly. But not if you're from Manhattan, Kansas.

* * *

It was one of those clear, bright summer mornings we get in the early spring in California before the high fog sets in. The rains are over. The hills are still green and in the valley across the Hollywood hills you can see snow on the high mountains.

The fur stores are advertising their annual sales. The call houses that specialize in sixteen-year-old virgins are doing a land-office business. And in Beverly Hills the jacaranda trees are beginning to bloom.

I had been stalking the bluebottle fly for five minutes, waiting for him to sit down. He didn't want to sit down. He just wanted to do wing-overs and sing the prologue to Pagliacci. I had the fly swatter poised in midair and I was all set.

There was a patch of bright sunlight on the corner of the desk and I knew that sooner or later that was where he was going to light. But when he did, I didn't even see him at first. The buzzing stopped and there he was. And then the phone rang.

I reached for it inch by inch with a slow and patient left hand. I lifted the phone slowly and spoke into it softly: "Hold the line a moment, please."

I laid the phone down gently on the brown blotter. He was still there, shining and blue-green and full of sin. I took a deep breath and swung. What was left of him sailed halfway across the room and dropped to the carpet.

I went over and picked him up by his good wing and dropped him into the wastebasket.

"Thanks for waiting," I said into the phone.

"Is this Mr. Marlowe, the detective?" It was a small, rather hurried, little-girlish voice. I said it was Mr. Marlowe, the detective. "How much do you charge for your services, Mr. Marlowe?"

"What was it you wanted done?"

The voice sharpened a little. "I can't very well tell you that over the phone. It's-it's very confidential. Before I'd waste time coming to your office I'd have to have some idea-"

"Forty bucks a day and expenses. Unless it's the kind of job that can be done for a flat fee."

"That's far too much," the little voice said. "Why, it might cost hundreds of dollars and I only get a small salary and-"

"Where are you now?"

"Why, I'm in a drugstore. It's right next to the building where your office is."

"You could have saved a nickel. The elevator's free."

"I-I beg your pardon?"

I said it all over again. "Come on up and let's have a look at you," I added. "If you're in my kind of trouble, I can give you a pretty good idea-"

"I have to know something about you," the small voice said very firmly. "This is a very delicate matter, very personal. I couldn't talk to just anybody."

"If it's that delicate," I said, "maybe you need a lady detective."

"Goodness, I didn't know there were any." Pause. "But I don't think a lady detective would do at all. You see, Orrin was living in a very tough neighborhood, Mr. Marlowe. At least I thought it was tough. The manager of the rooming house is a most unpleasant person. He smelled of liquor. Do you drink, Mr. Marlowe?"

"Well, now that you mention it-"

"I don't think I'd care to employ a detective that uses liquor in any form. I don't even approve of tobacco."

"Would it be all right if I peeled an orange?"

I caught the sharp intake of breath at the far end of the line. "You might at least talk like a gentleman," she said.

"Better try the University Club," I told her. "I heard they had a couple left over there, but I'm not sure they'll let you handle them." I hung up.

It was a step in the right direction, but it didn't go far enough. I ought to have locked the door and hid under the desk.

"This past spring was the first where I felt tired and realised I was growing old ... It's the middle of July now, and things are worse than they were in the spring. In the spring I wasn't holed up in some dingy hotel ducking the police." Robert Mitchum nailing Philip Marlowe in the 1975 film version of Raymond Chandler's Farewell My Lovely.

Sometimes, dreams do come true!

2011-07-04T21:08:00.035+10:00

You know, sometimes when you look around the world, everything can seem really fucking dark -- and not just at night.

The goddamn oceans are screwed, Europe's economy teeters in the balance over Greece's inevitable debt default with only the question of whether they can force the already poor and overworked Greek working class to carry the fucking can *again* and avoid potential immediate collapse so as to collapse a little bit later when all the cuts and austerity drive the Greek economy further into recession, and, in Australia, the level of public debate in recent times on refugees has been so hysterical it has made EDDIE FUCKING MCGUIRE seem a voice of reason.

Yes, Eddie "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire -- WELL FUCK YOU I ALREADY AM!" McGuire. Eddie "Western Sydney is Falafel Land" McGuire. Eddie "Let's Make Homophobic Jokes About Athletes at the Winter Olympics" McGuire.

Eddie THE FUCKING PRESIDENT OF COLLINGWOOD FUCKING FOOTBALL CLUB McGuire!!!

So insanely outrageous, so divorced from reality, so mindnumbingly racist is what passes for "discourse" in this godforsaken country over the "threat" of being "invaded" by a few hundred "boat people" each year, that it was actually left to McGuire to call for calm in a Herald Sun article against "the boring, predictable, racist-tinged appealing to the worst side of our nature and the rekindling of fear in the populace led by our politicians and news media".

McGuire said, in a startling and perhaps unprecedented recourse to actual facts in the Sun, that we don't need "scare-mongering tactics over an issue that for the year so far has seen fewer people arrive than sit on one morning train to Flinders St".

McGuire complaining about racist populism must be like hearing Goebells tell Hitler to "steady on, mate" because some of his anti-Jewish rhetoric seemed a bit extreme and what does he have against gypsies anyway?

But that is where this country is at. It is up to the president of *Collingwood* to call Australia out on racism.

Collingwood Football Club being the one whose former president, Alan McAlister, declared in 1993 that Aboriginal players were alright "as long as they conduct themselves like white people ... As long as they behave like human beings..."

That same year, it was the relentless racist abuse by Collingwood supporters against St Kilda Aboriginal player Nicky Winmar during a game that drove Winmar to run to the boundary line right in front of Collingwood supporters and, in a famous image, lift up his jumper and point defiantly at his black skin.

And it was Collingwood captain Tony Shaw who, in the aftermath of that incident, publically defended racist abuse as "part of the game".

This is what this fucking country has been reduced to. Lectures on racism from the president of Collingwood.

So, good news comes as a welcome relief and it doesn't get much better than a heartwarming tale of *another fucking royal wedding*.

Just when you thought every inbred parasite on the fucking planet lucky enough to not be French in the early 1790s had blown their broke nation's budget on stupid hats and champagne in some pointless feudalistic ritual, they found a nation far from broke for a brand new fairtytale.

And what a fairytale Monaco's royal wedding on July 2 was!

There cannot have been a dry eye in the tiny little statelet on the French Riviera as Prince Albert II wed South African swimmer Charlene Wittstock, now "Her Serene Highness the Princess of Monaco".

There is nothing like a tale of true love to improve the world's gloomy mood!

Becoming a princess is, as we all know, every little girl's ultimate dream! And the romantic story of Wittstock marrying her prince is a mighty blow to those cynics who think dreams don't come true!

On the spot, the London Telegraph's Henry Samuel sets the beautiful scene:

"The couple's glittering religious wedding drew crowds of thousands to the Mediterranean principality on Saturday and the guest list included a host of heads of state, European royals and stars of the fashion and sports world."

And the blushing bride all dressed in white?

Samuel continues:

"But sources cited by Le Journal du Dimanche said the former Charlene Wittstock, 33, tried to take refuge in her country's embassy in Paris when she went to the French capital in May to try on her wedding dress.

"Instead palace officials confiscated her passport and persuaded her to take part in the weekend's nuptials.

"Later that month she also tried to escape during the Monaco formula one grand prix, they alleged.

"Then, last week, she allegedly had her passport confiscated en route to Nice airport via the helicopter service that runs regularly between Monaco and France."

"Smile, darling!"

"Don't even *think* of jumping."

Even when on show before the entire world, the deep, heartfelt love they share shines through.

This is a tale of true love. The true love Monaco's 35,000-odd residents have for their tax-free status.

Monaco is a desperate little statelet that that exists as a tax haven for the mega-rich, but badly needs its ruling prince to produce a male heir or else the statelet will revert back to French rule -- and French tax rules.

But it seems their saviour, Charlene, was not happy by some recent news. Samuel refers to Monaco "policy advisers" who are said to have confirmed that the prince has fathered "two illegitimate children, one already born and one on the way".

But did not the princess-to-be not realise? Those kids, even if they *be* male, are *illegitimate*, born out of the sacred bonds of marriage, and therefore completely useless for the principality!

No, if Monaco is to continue being the tax-haven, grand-prix hosting paradise the mega-rich have come to love, they need a woman who has gone through a wedding to get knocked up as many times as takes for a baby boy to be born. By the prince, preferably.

Her Serene Highness may have had second thoughts about a loveless marriage of convenience to a middle-aged, balding, toad of a prince, but Monaco was not about to stand by and let such a fine breeding specimen escape...

And so they "persuaded" the rather desperate princess-to-be to go through with the marriage ... by foiling her three breaks for freedom and confiscating her passport.

No wonder they all look so happy in pictures of the crowds at the wedding. They fucking caught her before she escaped.

A forced marriage. How quaint! It is reassuring that in this day and age, there are *some* who still believe in tradition.

Now, Her Serene Highness needs merely concentrate on doing her royal duty...

"So, as soon as the ceremonies are over, we can begin our duty of trying to produce a male heir ... now come on, darling, don't cry in public."

"Fuck."

"Fuck."

"Oh FUCK!"

"Don't *you* even fucking *think* of touching me! What is it with Monaco and ugly middle-aged men?"

Seeing Princess Charlene on her big day in her white wedding dress really brings to mind...well, Billy Idol.

"It's a nice day for a white wedding..."

* * *

The good news does not end there. Recent events have thrown up other examples of dreams coming true.

As fas as "victories for all humanity" go, they don't come much bigger than Essendon Football Club's heroic victory against Geelong last Saturday.

After a flying start to the season, The Mighty Bombers suffered something of a slump as injuries took their toll and the young team realised it is not always good to believe the hype. Five games in a row they lost.

Then they had to play Geelong -- unbeaten in the first 13 rounds. They had to do so with their captain and star midfielder Jobe Watson and a number of other midfielders out injured against one of the best midfield outfits in the AFL.

Four points. They beat the unbeatable team by four fucking points. And all the critics of Paddy Ryder can go and get fucked.

No one gave them a chance, but Carlo Sands tipped them! And all those who took my advice to put their life savings on a Bombers win are grinning now.

Just when you think the good news can't end, there is more.

Yes, arguably the greatest film ever made, Conversation IV: This time it's sensual. A short film on platypuses and goonbags, has broken the 300 views on YouTube barrier!

This groundbreaking short animated film, the fourth in the Conversation series, was co-written and directed with Ben. It is now the most popular Conversation film, with Conversation III:This time its personal on a mere 280 odd views.

They said 300 was impossible! We proved them wrong.

It wasn't easy. It took extremely wide spamming of the clip anywhere we could think of to achieve it. For a while, it looked too daunting. I was forced to turn to Twitter hastags of whatever was trending. "Check out this great clip of #Lord Monkton talking about the climate change fraud!" That sort of thing.

And "#youcantdateme if you don't love this clip! Also, you can't date me coz I'm dead and that would be weird."*

It wasn't easy, but having placed it in every single Facebook group I could find involving goon, we got there in the end.

Now, Ben owes me a freshly ironed pair of underwear for making 300. If we get to 400, Ben owes the world a naked run down King Street.

A groundbreaking and controversial film. The fourth in the much-acclaimed Conversation series is a sometimes disturbing but ultimately warm look at life, love and platypuses. Executive producer Conehead the Barbiturate. All rights reserved Conehead Studios and Laundering Services.

Don't forget, if you want to guarantee you don't miss out on Carlo Sands' invaluable commentary on world events, you can subscribe to this blog via the icon on the right hand column. You can also ensure I have access to enough booze to get drunk enough to write this stuff by donating via PayPal -- also found on the right.

* This is true. Carlo Sands is dead. It was that Facebook quiz "When will you die?" October 21, 2008. RIP.

More terrible booze news

2011-06-06T21:55:00.046+10:00

I don't know if it is true this world is going to Hell in a hand basket. I don't know what means are being used, exactly, to carry this goddamn fucking world into the fire-ridden pits of Hell.

It strikes me, however, that a hand basket would be impractical. Unless it was a really FUCKING BIG hand basket.

And that raises the obvious question of where a hand basket big enough for all the shit going to Hell could possibly be found.

And, if it is a really fucking huge hand basket, is it fair trade? Cos that sounds like a lot of starving African villagers, whose nations have been raped by the IMF, working some pretty fucking long hours.

I suspect it is more likely to be New South Wales' CityRail that is responsible for the travel arrangements, which would explain the overcrowding and delays.

Let us review the evidence, and it really is not very good.

More bad news on climate change with a fresh study showing carbon emissions higher than 2008, the previous record high.

The horrific slaughter of Afghans by their civilised occupiers bringing democracy continues -- as does the persecution of those seeking to expose the war crimes.

And as if that was not enough bad news, latest figures show -- and tears are streaming down my face as I type this -- that beer consumption is down in Australia.

Yes, beer consumption is at a 62-year low in this country. The last time less beer was consumed in Australia, the prime minister was Ben Chifley and he hadn't even gotten round to smashing the miners' strike by bringing the fucking army into the coal fields.

That year was 1947 and the country suffered post-war scarcity issues.

The average consumption per person of beer over 2009-10 was a mere 4.56 litres of pure alcohol coming from beer!

I mean, 4.5 litres??? That is just 12 stubbies of pure alcohol -- or a mere *handful* of decent nights out.

This demoralising statistic is utterly pathetic and embarrassing. To give a sense of how far we have fallen as a nation, in 1974-75, the figure was 9.2 litres per person.

And what is the government doing to reverse this trend? Where is the stimulus package providing incentives to average citizens it increase their consumption?

At the very least, if they are too tight for that, where is the fucking public awareness campaign?

An example of the type of badly needed public awareness campaign to reverse the frightening drop in beer consumption that this government refuses to invest in.

No. The government is moving in the *exact opposite* direction.

You see, in these depressing stats, I was pleased to note *one* area of improvement.

Wine consumption is up -- to a record 3.8 litres of alcohol from wine per person for 2009-10.

Well, more fucking fool me for trying to find a bright spot.

It seems our benighted government -- which seems on a crusade to make alcohol consumption as difficult as fucking possible for its citizens -- also took note of the same statistic.

Their response was reported in the media today. And, even given the crypto-prohibitionist moves this government has already implemented, it is shocking.

The government is seriously considering a proposal that could see the price of cask wine quadruple.

Yes, they want to dramatically raise the price of goon. They want to end this country's proud tradition whereby every citizen has the *goddamn right* to cheap wine!

From the four litre casks of Morris Dry Red to your more fancy two litre casks of Yaaumba Reserve Cabernet Shiraz for the more discerning customer, you can get your goon in bottlos across the country for, if not a tenner, then a twenty with a fair chunk of change.

But for how much longer?

Federal health minister Nicola Roxon has agreed to the development of the concept of introducing a legally binding "floor price" per standard drink.

At the moment, the price per standard drink is about $1.20 for beer, but only about $0.30 for goon.

No wonder beer consumption is down and wine is up.

But rather than doing the fucking obvious and *lowering* the price of beer, they wish to *raise* it for wine to the level of our overpriced beer.

And this godforsaken nation already some of the highest prices for alcohol in the world!

What the fuck are teenagers going to drink? What are impoverished uni students going to do? Or workers who just want something plentiful to put in their glass at the end of a shit day?

Will anyone ever make up a huge saucepan full of mulled wine at a party in this country ever again?

A thing of the past for all but the rich? The 'goonbag on the washing line' was one of Australia's few proud traditions.

You can forget Islamic fundamentalists and "illegal immigrants", this is the greatest threat to our way of life since this *same fucking government* declared four standards drinks to be binge drinking.

And that wasn't even a fucking law -- just the propaganda campaign to set the groundwork for shit like this!

The inventor of the goonbag, South Australian grape grower Thomas Angrove who died aged 92 just last year, must be be doing pirouettes in his grave.

(Our greatest-ever inventor and he didn't even score a knighthood -- which is just another reason in favour of becoming a republic.)

Let us look at the justification for this horrific idea.

Dr John Boffa said the government should not wait for a review but implement the plan now. He said: "We can cut self-harm, cut suicides and cut homicides by doing it now."

Really? Coz this proposal certainly makes this blogger vacillate between suicidal and homicidal tendencies.

Dr Boffa piles insult upon insult, being quoted as saying: "What would change is the price of awful cask wine that no one other than young people and heavy drinkers go near."

It is hard to know where to start, but let us unpack everything wrong with this statement.

First, what an elitist and judgmental fucker.

Awful??? Different drinkers like different things. Some quite like the bouquet on a cask of goon.

Second, what the *fuck* does he expect this nation's teenagers to drink?

They have to drink something or how will they learn alcohol's joys? For christ's sake, WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE KIDS?

And I want to say to Dr John Boffa: "YOU USELESS GODDAMN FUCKING HYPOCRITE!"

He grew up with cheap goon to get pissed on and now he wants to deny a new generation the same privilege!

And I will bet what is left of my liver that, somewhere in the world, there's a photo of a passed out 15-year-old John Boffa in a park with goon bag for a pillow.

Nicola Fucking Roxon is probably in the same photo passed out next to him

And third: "...and heavy drinkers".

C'mon John, why not be more precise and say, "and heavy drinkers TOO POOR TO BUY MORE EXPENSIVE BOOZE".

You know, unlike politicians who are famous as one of the biggest-drinking sectors of society -- but on the expensive shit they pay for with OUR FUCKING TAX DOLLARS!

So, the plan seems to be that now only the better off in this society get to destroy themselves at their pleasure in order to numb the pain of existence in this hellhole they have the gall to call a society.

Sure, the better-off like to get wasted, and who can blame them? But they have less of a *driving need* to kill the pain than others.

And so the cruel irony of this plan is it makes it much harder for those that really *need* a decent drink to actually get it.

I mean what sort of society do we actually in live here?

Well, this lovely country is one in which the government moves quickly, in response to public outcry following a devastating expose on a current affairs show, to take action against the horrific conditions in which cows are exported from Australia and slaughtered in Indonesia.

Of course, the treatment of the cows is not particularly pleasant. But this is *the same government* that keeps human beings imprisoned *indefinitely* in horrific conditions, without being charged let alone tried of any crime, in what are little more than concentration camps in which incidents of self harm occur daily.

Some of them, they even seek to deport back to Afghanistan to risk being slaughtered in ways no nicer than the cows -- a country declared "safe" by the government despite the ceaseless atrocities committed by the occupying forces, of which the Australian military is part.

Others locked up despite committing no crime are to be sent to Malaysia.

This is a nation that has never even signed the international convention on the rights of refugees, so as not to even bother with the hassle of violating it.

A nation in which refugees, like those our government is going to hand over, face horrific torture -- including regular incidents of caning so severe that it rips away the victims flesh.

This form of torture, according to Amnesty International, was meted out in Malaysia to 34,923 foreigners between 2002-08.

But the victims of such treatment are not cows -- they are only FUCKING HUMANS who happen to be FUCKING POOR AND DESPERATE. So FUCK THEM!

This is also a country in which we are subjected to governments that like to hand down budgets that kick the poorest and most vulnerable, such as the disabled, single parents and the long-term unemployed.

But a country that *also* has shock jocks and tabloid press that scream bloody murder about the same budget for supposed brutal attacks on those who earn 150 grand a fucking year -- who, we are assured, are most certainly NOT rich.

*This* is the country we live in and they think we DON'T NEED A FUCKING DRINK???

‎"Mummy, what's cheap wine?" will soon be the question asked in cars all over the country when the "classic rock" stations play this song by Australia's most famous pub rock band. That is assuming our government doesn't ban the song for "encouraging an unhealthy culture of binge drinking".

Do you wish to help resist? You can donate to the Carlo Sands Fighting Fund to help take on the crypto-prohibitionists, by helping ensure I can stay drunk enough to write this shit, via the PayPal button conveniently provided on the righthand column.

Oh for christ's sake, this is too much. On Spain, climate change, Estonia and being ignored by Cannes.

2011-05-25T22:12:00.040+10:00

I blame society. I am watching the fucking world and all its reality TV stars and wondering just what the fuck is going on.

First of all, what the hell is wrong with the bloody Spaniards?

Seriously, every since May 15, all these fucking Spaniards have been out on the streets demanding a "new system" and taking over all of these plazas in the centre of cities and towns like they are public property or some shit. We are talking 60 or more of these fucking plazas.

Youth leading the way of course, all going on and on about "corporate domination" of politics and society and the need for something they call "real democracy!"

They especially don't like the fucking banks. Oh, the government had to "bail-out the banks" and there was a fucking debt crisis and there is "austerity" against ordinary people.

Well of course there fucking is. The banks can't bail themselves out -- they are all fucking broke. The money has to come from somewhere.

I mean, what do these idiots think would happen if we had no banks? Where would we keep our cash? I mean, you only have to look at how rich some Spaniards are -- they don't have enough mattresses to stuff their millions of euros under. It is just not practical.

I really cannot see why this is an excuse for thousands of young people to go stand in public squares and wave their hands in the air like fools.

Crazy Spaniards wave their hands in the air in Barcelona's Plaza Catalonia.

A lot of commentators have pointed to the role of the huge level of youth unemployment in this debacle -- which is running at an official rate of more than 40%.

No doubt they are right. The lazy gits have nothing better to do with their time than complain about the capitalist system that has given them *so much*.

And now it has spread to Greece.

The banks just don't need this shit, they have a government to run.

We all know who we can blame for putting the idea in their heads to take over public squares: the goddamn fucking Egyptians.

I warned this whole "Arab Spring" thing would end in tears. You just don't walk around bringing down governments *carefully installed by the Land of the Free* just because they torture you and enforce policies that cause widespread poverty.

Where the hell would this end? I dare say the destruction of Israel.

Thousands of Spaniards take over Madrid's Puerta del Sol square, oblivious to the fact the banks are too busy with the business of governing to deal with their petty complaints.

As if that is not enough, we have fucking a bunch of pricks running around going on and on about the threat of human-caused climate change. Some sort of mobilisation is planned around this on June 5.

In this context, it has been left to none other than the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney George Pell to *once more* express scepticism about climate change and whether it is human caused.

It is especially impressive as this is not a man usually renowned for his scepticism.

This is a man who believes the world was created 6000 years ago and that Jesus's mum was a virgin.

He believes that Jesus could turn water into wine and cure leprosy -- and what is more, that Jesus didn't even *patent* his fucking cure and flog it off to a pharmaceutical corporation like any sensible person would, but continued to administer it FOR FREE!

I always found that the least believable part of the New Testament.

Pell believes the world was created in six days by some invisible bloke who lives in the sky and he sent his only son to go and tell everyone the GOOD NEWS that if you believe this shit you get to enter paradise when you die and spend your time with everyone else who thinks the best way to spend a Sunday morning is listening to some old git like Pell tell you fairytales as opposed to BEING FAST ASLEEP till the hangover wears off.

And that when they, quite understandably, killed Jesus for insisting on sprouting this shit, he rose from the dead three days later and ascended to this paradise -- but fear not he is still in all of our hearts if we only let him in.

No doubt this accounts for the high rates of heart disease in so many predominantly Christian nations.

Through Pell's church you can even *to this day* day drink Jesus's blood and eat his flesh via magically transformed wine and wafers. It does not sound healthy.

Pell believes all this and *still* has the good sense to question the so-called evidence provided by the *entire* climate science community who keep insisting, in countless studies, that the situation is worsening and drastic action is needed.

You've got to admire him for that.

Perhaps even *more* to the point on this crucial topic is US Republican Congressman John Shimkus, who is seeking to chair the powerful House Energy Committee.

His take is quite simple. A November 10. 2010 Daily Mail article informs us that Shimkus "insists we shouldn't concerned about the planet being destroyed because God promised Noah it wouldn't happen again after the great flood".

"Speaking before a House Energy Subcommittee on Energy and Environment hearing in March, 2009, Shimkus quoted Chapter 8, Verse 22 of the Book of Genesis.

"He said: 'As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease.'"

So let us not be concerned by the melting of the polar icecaps because God PROMISED!

Republican Congressman John Shimkus, who is seeking to chair the powerful House Energy Committee, explains we don't have to worry because God promised Noah we'd be alright.

All I can say is this is just as well, as the organisers of a June 5 national "climate action" marches are backing a government plan to deal with what is supposed to be the most serious threat humanity has ever faced by promoting a policy that -- thank christ -- will actually leave corporate power alone and lead to an emissions trading scheme.

You know, along the lines of the one in Europe that has not only failed to reduce carbon emissions but actually provided the rich with a new opportunity to generate more wealth through wild speculation and widespread fraud.

And this is badly needed, what with the whole subprime gig going belly up in the states back in '07.

I would have thought all this was bad enough, but no. We had to have a weekend, the one just past, that was missing the only fucking reason to actually have a fucking weekend in the first place.

Yes, in Round 10 of Australian Football League, the prime competition of the Greatest Game on this Godforsaken Planet. Essendon Football Club *did not even play*.

They had some sort of so-called "bye" -- and this after the travesty the week before when, through some sort of malicious conspiracy, the Bombers were beaten by *fucking Richmond*.

And as if that is not enough, I am stuck in Sydney in a fucking state whose main game is some sort of stupid sport I can't even *begin* to understand.

As far as I can see, from my brief time trying to watch this "sport", it involves two lines of lumps of beef running into each other, falling down, then repeating the process for 90 minutes.

I can't figure out who these fuckers are they find to play the game, but, going by appearances, they all seem to be pub bouncers. And god knows I hate bouncers -- what with their moralistic stances on "dress codes" and "states of intoxication".

And this is what they offer up as way of entertainment is this goddamn town.

Pub bouncers confront each other on a field.

And last Wednesday, I was told, they had some sort of "big game" on. I couldn't really figure out what it was all about, but someone told me they were going for Queensland.

I am not sure who Qld were playing against, but if they were playing Estonia again no doubt they made the right decision. Fucking Estonians.

People often ask me what the fuck I have against Estonia? They say surely it is just a discreet little place in Eastern Europe with one of the lower populations of any EU nation, reasonably high standard of living and, what is more (they always add) the highest levels of internet freedom in the world! What is my problem?

Let me just say this: If you should be approached by an Estonian who challenges you to a game of Ice Cricket, turn around and run away as fast as your legs will take you.

Yes, Ice Cricket. It is a real thing and the fucking Estonians are responsible for it. Estonia's claim to fame is to be the self-proclaimed Home of Ice Cricket.

This is *exactly* the kind of fucked up shit the Estonians *would* pull. Only the Estonians could invent such a thing.

What it is, should you have never heard of this monstrosity, is, basically, a game that is just like normal cricket only *much much colder*.

I am told the Maroons won on Wednesday and should it have been against Estonia I can only say *thank fucking christ*.

The fucking Estonians have a lot to answer for.

And yet, the horror *does not even end there*.

You will not believe this. It truly takes the fucking cake. But I swear to God it's true.

Conversation III: This Time It's Personal -- the latest film by Carlo Sands -- was *completely ignored* by the May 11-22 Cannes International Film Festival.

Not even a fucking invite to attend, let alone a fucking Palme d'Or or *any prize at all*. Not even a Lifetime Achievement Award.

It is just like Conversation I and Conversation II all over again.

And then, to make matters *even worse*, a further indignity on top of so many others, there was an *incident* involving Ben, world renowned as a co-writer of the Conversation series. Or "script assistant" as I prefer to call him, as it makes him sound less important.

The details are murky, but let's just say it involved a sudden decision by Ben mid-last week to go hitchhiking up the NSW coast.

Somehow, this got out of control when he ended up in Queensland at a Blues festival at Hell on Earth, also known as the Gold Coast.

This is where he was on Saturday morning, stood on the side of the road desperately seeking to flee the Gold Coast, when I received a text informing me: "Qld police really don't like the hitchhiker".

So I was a little surprised when three hours later Ben walked into the room in Sydney.

It seems a man of the law caught him in the act of requesting a lift from strangers. They don't like that of sort of thing up there, so Ben was duly fined $40 and driven to the airport with the heavily implied suggestion that he get the fuck out of the state ASAP.

Ben says he called in a few favours and promptly flew back to Sydney.

Now, no doubt you are thinking exactly what I thought when I heard this tale: how is it possible for some random cop on the beat to treat one so closely associated the Conversation films in such an atrocious way?

How did it come to be that such a person could be RUN OUT OF A FUCKING STATE?

I asked Ben whether he told the cop who he was. He said he was legally obliged to.

And he was *still* run out of Queensland! They truly are backwards, uncultured hicks up there.

It really is enough to drive a man to drink. Luckily, that is where I was *just* heading anyway.

(Speaking of which, check out the PayPal "Donate" button just on the right... getting drunk enough to write this shit is not cheap, but it is *so* important.)

You can view for yourself the artist achievement of Conversation III and the scale of the outrage perpetrated by Cannes and the Queensland cops.

Like A conversation: A short film on DrinkWise ads and ovaries and A Second Conversation: a short film on refugees and gaffer tape, Conversation III has been totally ignored by the film industry.

Good news and bad news

2011-05-04T21:17:00.025+10:00

There is good news and there is bad news.

The bad news is the planet is looking pretty fucked if we don't take urgent action need to combat the climate crisis.

The good news is total eco-destruction will take Nickelback down with the rest of us.

Although knowing the planet's luck, members of Nickelback will prove tougher to kill than cochroaches and be the only living things to survive - and lead singer Chad Kroeger will wander the barren lands for eternity moaning about how the eco-holocaust is "how you remind me of what I really am" backed by the dullest, most irritating band ever to be manufactured by the Masters of Evil that call themselves a music industry.

In good news, my home town of Sydney did something worthwhile for the first time since thousands protested some reactionary, old git in a dress who calls himself the Pope and egged Devil Child Justin Bieber during a recent concert.

In bad news, they largely missed. In even worse news, they didn't throw grenades or even a targetted cruise missile.

In good news for the world of culture, Carlo Sands has moved into film-making and directed and co-wrote a groundbreaking film exploring some of life's most important issues.

In bad news, proving the empty, hollow and utterly corrupted nature of film business, I have yet to be awarded a fucking Oscar for this work of genius.

Seriously, this film - with a co-writing with Ben from "that night at the Courthouse" - has not yet recieved a single fucking award of any kind despite being released to the entire world on YouTube last fucking Saturday!

Some have said, "Hey Carlo, show some patience. The next Academy Awards are not till next year, give it some time."

But if the esteemed Academy had any fucking self-respect they would recall that ridiculous Oscar for Best Picture awarded to that pointless flick about some stupid fucking inbred royal who couldn't even string a fucking sentence together but was king coz of his birth and the fact his FUCKING NAZI older brother walked away from the gig to go live in the Caribbean and support Hitler, and they would immediately hand that fucking prize to Carlo Sands.

It would only be just and right. But no.

This is just like the whole Nobel Prize for Literature debacle all over again, with those fucking Swedes refusing to give me the award, despite my remarkable contribution to the field of poetry.

So I figured I had no choice but to create a sequel.

Even worse, there is more bad news. This second work of genius has also failed to secure any of the notable film industry awards. Not an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a Palme d'Or or even so much as a mention by the Australian Film Critics Association.

And don't get me started on the total silence being mantained on either of my works by The Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougo and the Kansas City Film Critics Circle.

Not just that, but like so many sequels it has struggled to match the impact of the original - having at time of writing been viewed only 56 times, compared to the 105 views garnered by the original.

It was so outrageous I had no choice by to create my own award. And so, I am please to annouce, here on this blog, that the inaugural winner of the Annual Carlo Sands Award for Finest Use of the Phrase Fuckity in a Short Animation goes to ... Carlo Sands!!! For A Second Conversation: A Short Film on Refugees and Gaffer Tape.

In other news May 5 marks the 30th anniversay of the death of Bobby Sands, Honourable Member of the British Parliament for Fermanagh and South Tyrone.

Sands died in the British-run concentration camp called Long Kesh after 66 days on hunger strike, followed by nine other men, because the Thatcher government refused as a matter of principle to "cave into the demands of terrorists" and let the prisoners wear their own clothes or organise their own fitness regiment.

And while the bad news was the IRA missed Thatcher that time in Brighton, the good news is that walking bag of rancid shit can't have long to go.

The world being what it is, you take what you can get.

""The kind people, have a wonderful dream: Margaret on the guillotine.... when will you DIE?! When will you die? when will you die? when will you die? when will you die? ... Please die" The best bit is the way the song ends abruptly to sound of a falling guillotine. The worst bit is it was written in 1988 and we are still waiting...

In defence of the gutter

2011-04-15T21:50:00.063+10:00

Well, it is there right under the big fucking slogan that reads: "An Alcoholic's Guide to Modern Life". A further statement. It reads: "We are in the gutter, but some of us enjoy it."

Now this statement, which I am told is a "play" on some sort of thing some prick called Oscar Wilde once said, was not actually something I personally came up with.

It was something that was once said about Carlo Sands by someone who, for reasons that escape me, calls herself "Amy".

The details of how it came to be said are a little hazy, but I believe it involved Canberra and a bad hangover.

And it is an accurate enough summary of the ideology, nay philosophy of Carlo Sands.

But I would, on reflection, go further and state: "We are all in a gutter but some of us DON'T EVEN FUCKING REALISE IT!"

No, some of us live in denial. Some of us think we can escape the gutter. And they think this is an easy task and one to be actively pursued.

The way you do this is you go some place to do your drinking, as we all must, that involves a greater wanker-per-head ratio than, say, some place with no one else there.

These places, for reasons that completely escape me, are usually full of people. And the way you can tell this is a place that its inhabitants think is above the gutter is, as well as the unseemly crowds, that the fucking beer costs more.

And sometimes, it even comes with a twist of some sort. Like if you hand over to the poor, overworked bastard behind the bar twice the cash for a standard beer, they'll kindly throw some fucking tabasco sauce into you beer for you.

You know, just for fucking kicks.

God knows why anyone would drink beer with tabasco fucking sauce in it, unless they were being force-fed it in Guantanamo Bay in the latest horrific torture technique invented by the Land of the Fucking Free as part of its bid to spread democracy one poor fucking tortured concentration camp prisoner at a time.

But apparently, the very possibility of ordering such a monstrosity, such a crime against humanity in blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions, is a sure sign you have taken a step out of the much-maligned gutter.

You know, as opposed to all those places that just serve fucking beer straight without the foresight of offering, for a just few extra hard earned dollars, a dollop of hot fucking sauce that renders your beer undrinkable.

And the worst thing about such places is they are never located anywhere fucking decent. By which I mean, located somewhere not overridden by fuckwits and wankers.

And yet, such places, in locations overridden with prats (to say nothing of very uptight bouncers) are considered, in some way, to be a step up from some dive in nowhere in particular.

That is, nowhere overrun by prats. Or, indeed, much in the way of anyone else.

And seriously, what is it with the bouncers in these areas? All you want is another fucking drink and you can't walk in to some place without being harassed by some meathead asking very impertinent questions, such as: "How much have you had tonight, mate?"

Ah, how about you mind your own fucking business is what you want to say. Or, clearly not enough as evidenced by the fact I am trying to walk into another fucking pub.

But you don't say that, because your chance of another drink is dependent on the goodwill of the giant slab of beef with an earpiece asking the question.

So you try and sound coherent and mumble something about "maybe a couple" and you get refused entry by the coked-up, steroid-ridden monstrosity who sees fit to judge your drug use.

That is the sort of neighbourhood where you find these "beer-with-tabasco-sauce" joints.

And, apparently, this is a step up from the gutter.

Well here is the thing. It really, really isn't. It is still the fucking gutter.

It is no less the gutter than some near-empty squalid pub with an old, drunken, redfaced Irishman behind the bar who insists on playing Kenny Rogers "The Gambler" on repeat on the jukebox.

It is still the gutter, only with more wankers in your way.

You can't escape the gutter. Not by choosing a different joint to try and kill the pain of late monopoly capitalism in.

The gutter is where we live. It is the place we are assigned to by our benighted rulers. Who, by the way, also live in the gutter — only with much more expensive booze and better views.

Or, in the case of those puppets the rulers like to pretend are allowed to rule, in Canberra.

The gutter is life in this society.

And by all means "look at the stars", as that absinthe-drinking Irish bastard once said.

Which means, as Wilde himself spelled out in The Soul of Man Under Socialism, dare to imagine a different society is possible, one in which we are not enslaved to some form of degrading labour, not alienated, not subjected to the horrors of war, exploitation and Justin Bieber.

And by all means, organise to overthrow this fucking system that threatens total destruction of all life on Earth.

Carlo Sands is for that. Hell, I even started the important work of scoping out a potential wall to put the motherfuckers up against.

But, within this nightmare, it is all just a nightmare.

That is why people drink, no matter how many times the government, who are all fucking alcoholics, or the media, who are all fucking alcoholics, warn us about the dangers of alcohol abuse and come up with insane, laughable formulas about four or more standard drinks is binge drinking.

There is no "step up". There is no "better class of joint". There are only more expensive drinks and more wankers in your way at the bar.

What do you need from a pub? You need available booze and a place to sit and talk to a small group of people about shit to in a bid to forget about the nightmare that is the world.

And maybe play a game of pool.

The best thing a pub can be is close. That is the best characteristic a pub can have, after "cheap" and "not overridden with wankers".

The worst argument that can be made is that going to some joint located in the middle of some wanker-ridden suburb is it means you have "more of a social life".

Jesus fucking christ, you want a social life go see the fucking theatre. Go and watch the goddamn ballet. Get up at 6am on a Sunday morning to join a bushwalking society. Go to flower shows.

But if you just want a drink to relax and forget the world, then just go and have a fucking drink. And pick your company with care.

But do not engage in illusions, nay delusions about where you chose to do your drinking.

And if you must enter one of these hubs of wankery, of pratness — let's pick a place at random and say Newtown/Enmore — then it is much more enjoyable if you assault the place in the company of someone, let's call him "Ben", who has been drinking goon all afternoon and is staggering up the street to the pub dressed in a suit for no reason other than he has been drinking goon all afternoon and it seems a good idea.

And, in between some decent, coherent discussion on the relative prospects of the Bulldogs or Bombers in the 2011 Premiership Season, you have to try and convince him that stealing one of those big, moveable heaters is not wise, nor is it advisable to stop random passerbyers to ask whether they like to wear condoms or just shout out, to the beer garden, "Woopha!!!" every half-a-minute.

You get to test out important life-phrases such as "C'mon Ben, don't do that..." and "for christ's sake Ben, SHUT UP!".

And wonder in amazement at how long it takes before the bouncers make their way over to advise that leaving sooner, rather than later, may be in everyone's best interests.

And at the fact it took some bastard at a nearby table to rat Ben out to the bouncers after he hid an empty jug in some bushes to pick up on the way home — especially as he completely forgot he put it there anyway.

And that he scored a free glass when, after the bouncers' "time to leave" message, he staggered out of the premises with half a schooner in hand - only to find out later it got confiscated five metres down the street. But, anyhow, it didn’t matter as he had another stuffed in his inside suit pocket he had forgotten about but discovered to his surprise the next day.

If you must drink in these places, best approach it in such a way.

But ok. I mean, you know, what difference does it make? Drink where you fucking like. It doesn't matter, you know, just drink.

But don't pretend where you drink is any better than anywhere else. It is still just the gutter with some fucking booze on tap. And *that* is all that fucking matters.

"Nine-to-five is eating us alive, eating us alive. We're not kings, we are footsoldiers. We are walking the road to nowhere ... Is there any other place for us to go? Or is there even anywhere we know? No, no, no, no ..."

Dedicated to a FUCKWIT.

2011-04-08T22:13:00.004+10:00

Yes, let no one deny
You, yes you
Are a fuckwit.
A total fuckwit.
Fuckwit
is what you are.
A total fuckwit.
Did I mention
that I think
you are
a fuckwit?
If not let me say here and now,
That
A fuckwit is what you are.
Jesus fucking christ
You are
A fuckwit.
FUCKWIT.
And,
lest there be any
misunderstanding,
Allow me to say
FUCK YOU.

"Like a nightclub in the morning, you’re the bitter end. Like a recently disinfected shit-house, you’re clean round the bend."

A rare win for humanity (Or: 'Hey mack, take the handcuffs off, I think he's a hall of famer')

2011-03-17T10:42:00.022+11:00

Good news is all too rare in this godforsaken FUCKING world.

In Libya, the butcher Gaddafi is drowning the revolution in blood with his Western-supplied weapons. This is emboldening other US client dictators to use their Western-supplied weapons to bloodily repress their people.

And now the West is taking advantage of Gaddafi's crimes and using his regime's violence against ordinary people, which the West cares so greatly about, to begin a bombing campaign already being criticised even by those who supported a "no-fly zone" for attacking civilians.

Then there is Japan, which goes to show our governments and corporations can always make a terrible situation utterly catastrophic.

It is further evidence of how we can destroy the world in one very easy step: let the rulers continue ruling.

(On a side note, I have a question for my great multitude of fans: Do any of you support nuclear power?

If you answered yes, please be kind enough to email me your names and home addresses to sands.carlo@gmail.com so I can kill you for the sake of humanity. Just stay at home and I’ll get to each of you in due course.)

And it is not like I don’t know firsthand the terrible injustices of this world.

Hell, just the other I went, happily whistling as is my quaint habit, to the fucking inner-west train station in Sydney closes to my own abode — only to find the station overrun with FUCKING PIGS.

For some reason in Sydney these days, they get actual proper pigs — not just the wannabe pigs who failed the entrance exams — to be deployed checking people’s tickets.

(I did see three of the wannabe pigs on Friday night at Central station showing why they probably deserve to be let in to the police force proper. Two of them had some poor bastard pinned to the ground as he shouted in protest while the third repeatedly kicked him.

Possibly, it might be the fact the bastard being kicked wasn’t black? You gotta get these little things right to be let into the NSW Police Force.)

But the pigs at my station were not just checking tickets. They also had a sniffer dog. At some small, pokey little fucking station at 9am in the fucking morning.

And they were there dishing out fines to people, no doubt with disappointment in their hearts that they had only found them without the appropriate train ticket and not half a kilo of smack up their arses.

My concern was simply that, this being just short of pay day, I had enough coins for a concession ticket only. And believe me, the fuckers won’t give Carlo Sands a concession card, no matter how threateningly I wave my machete.

So I had to turn around, trudge home and scour the fucking joint until I found enough ten cent pieces to make up the $3.20 I needed. Which I managed by finding the very last ten cent piece there was to be found anywhere in the house.

Then I had to trudge back and hand a very unhappy train ticket seller a big pile of ten cent pieces and then go past the fucking pigs and their fucking dog only, by now, they had given up checking tickets and DIDN'T EVEN ASK to see my FUCKING TICKET.

As a result of all of this, I was late for my meeting.

(Admittedly, I shouldn't complain as had I not found that last ten cent coin, I would have had to give apologies for the meeting on the grounds that it was impossible to leave my suburb without accepting a $200 fine... hang on, that means I would not have had to attend the meeting... GOD DAMN IT!)

I mean, what a fucking hassle. So believe me when I tell you, it's tough all round.

But, just when everything seems dark and the horror never-ending — or about to end all too soon in a horrific apocalyptic environmental catastrophe — something decent happens that reminds you that there is hope.

Hope that there is some good in the world. That it is not all bad and there can be progress.

Sometimes, our side actually wins something.

Yes, finally, the God Who Walks Among Us But Has Criminally Failed to Tour Australia Since 1979 was inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame.

Neil Young with Tom Waits at Waits’ induction into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame.

It might be argued that someone of the genius of Tom Waits, who truly seems to be able to do anything as a songwriter and musician, does not need recognition from an industry that has consistently pushed him out to the margins.

Sure, but it is a sign of something positive when the ultimate Bard of the Underdog, possibly the greatest storyteller in the history of popular music, gets some fucking well-deserved credit.

There is a common cliche when it comes to dealing with Waits, one that lets the music industry off the hook. (Neil Young actually repeats it in his intro when he describes what Waits does as "indescribable", though I have sympathy for someone trying to describe Waits at something like that.)

The idea is Waits is so "out there" that there is nothing comparable, he is total maverick, doing something so different from everyone, out there on the margins etc, etc.

There is some truth, of course, but actually, what Waits does is neither indescribable nor is it so disconnected from popular music understood broadly.

It is just Waits takes popular music as an art form seriously and seeks use the form to present stories, images and themes in a way that is original - in order to better express the stories, images and themes.

That is, he takes the form serious and seeks to use his creative powers to advance it. Which is really what artists should do.

But is exactly what the capitalist music industry has *no interest* in. More than that, it has an interest in *not* promoting this, because the safe and least offensive sells easiest.

Waits can clearly be seen to be working within the broad parametres of popular music, drawing (as Young notes) not just from rock'n'roll but blues, jazz, country and more.

But Waits both pushes the form's boundaries and uses it as a vehicle for his remarkable story-telling abilities. The music and lyrics work to reinforce each other, and the music plays the role of providing atmosphere for the stories and images he conjures with his (usually amazing) words.

Waits is far from the only artist to do this, he just happens to do it especially well.

For some reason, this is not generally what songwriters are expected to do. Filmmakers, on the other hand, are expected and allowed (within a different sets of constraints) to cover a fuller range of themes and genres.

Waits covers a broad scope of themes in his music over his nearly four decade-career that take themes ranging "romcom" (I Never Talk to Strangers, duet with Bette Midler from Foreign Affairs), "film noir" (Small Change, in which Waits appears to be channelling hardboiled crime novelist Raymond Chandler, from Small Change and Dead and Lovely from Real Gone), through to horror (Murder in the Red Barn from Bone Machine, How's it Gonna End? from Real Gone).

And a lot in between.

Any decent popular culture would not see Waits off on the margins; an eccentric, if brilliant maverick. It would seek to place the likes of Waits at its centre so other artists can build on the work done by such innovators in advancing the popular music form.

But that is something capitalist culture cannot do, because it does not care about the art form or creativity, only what it can mass produce and sell with ease.

It is in this context that any serious recognition of Waits, who is very highly regarded by other musicians, is a victory for humanity and our FUCKING RIGHT to a decent culture to help us survive ths GODDAMN FUCKING WORLD!

'Thank you, thank you. [Holding up the award] Is there a lighter version of this? ... They say I have no hits and I am difficult to work with. And they say that like it s a bad thing!' Footage of Waits being introduced by Neil Young, followed by Waits' speech.

The version of Waits' speech put up at his website ended with this line: "Someday, I hope to hear, 'Hey Mack, take the cuffs off him, I think he’s a Hall of Famer!'"

The report on Waits' website ended with this piece of news: "Meanwhile, Waits has been hard at work in his studio on his highly anticipated forthcoming album of new songs."

For christ's sake, let there not be a nuclear apocalypse right now. Not while Tom Waits is in the fucking studio.

'I'm just another sad guest on this dark earth. I want to believe in the mercy of the world again...' Waits performs 'Make it Rain' followed by 'Rain Dogs' at his induction.

'He couldn't make her love him, couldn't make her stay. But tell the good Lord that he tried'. Waits performs 'Get Behind the Mule' with Neil Young at his induction.

I wanted to put some of Waits songs up, but it is almost impossible to pick songs, much less pick songs that give an representative overview of his astonishing output over almost four decades, so I just picked particular songs that I have always especially loved, and love almost more than life itself, or have been listening to too much of in a recent period.

The alternative songs I could have picked, and would have in any different week, are about as long as Waits back catalogue.

'But you can't take your eyes off her, get another cup of java. It's just the way she pours it for you, joking with the customers. "Mercy mercy, Mr. Percy, there ain't nothing back in Jersey But a broken-down jalopy of a man I left behind. And the dream that I was chasing, and a battle with booze. And an open invitation to the blues"'. "Invitation to the Blues", from Waits classic 1976 album Small Change, probably the best album I have ever heard.

'Is there a light up ahead, I can't hold on very long.' I would say this was the sweetest, most genuinely heartfelt love song ever written, but that would be ignoring Waits' Jersey Girl.

'The sun is up, the world is flat. Damn good address for a rat. The smell of blood, the drone of flies. You know what to do if the baby cries ... Hoist that rag!' War is fun. Let's have more of it!

'We're chained to the world, and we all gotta pull ... Ask a king or a beggar, and the answer they'll give, is we're all gonna be just dirt in the ground ' Somewhat timely, in a disturbing sort of way.

'It's harder to get rid of than tattoos.' Waits hooks up with Keith Richards to produce this.

For this blogger, the existence of Tom Waits is the number one reason not to let the bastards destroy this world.

Conehead, again. On rocks, marathon runners and rare-done goats liver

2011-03-07T20:18:00.009+11:00

Well, after Conehead the Barbituate's first report, which deconstucted the signficance of airports in the degeneration of late monopoly capitailsm (I think that was his point), the international man of mystery logged his latest observations in the comment section of that post.

I feel it is only proper to post the comments in full here, if only because it gives my blog content without me having to do any of the hard fucking work of writing (which I find a fucking annoying distraction from beer).

Surprisingly, Conehead confirms the rumour he has been in Western Sahara. Which, for the record, has been occupied by Morocco since 1975, despite a 1991 UN deal for a referendum on self-determination. Not that stops Australian capitalists from buying phosphate stolen from the Saharawi people.

(Kids, don't ever say this blog is not fucking educational. Carlo Sands is a regular fucking encyclopedia.)

Conehead returns to his favourite theme of airports and, bizarrely, accuses Carlo Sands of making things up.

I post his comments below:

I'm pleased to report that I've found an airport where you can smoke cigarettes after you've gone through security: Tindouf, in one of the more remote parts of Algeria, in the middle of the Sahara Desert in fact.

I was happy to see not only were plenty of people lighting up inside the terminal buildings but many of them were uniformed officials. So I happily smoked the last of my fake Marlboros.

All in all, quite an atypical airport. Looks very old-world, kind of expected to see Humphrey Bogart wandering past (with a cigarette in his mouth of course.)

Going through the first security my carry-on bag was taken apart. At first I couldn't work out what they were looking for, but they then they asked "Do you have any rocks?"

And when they said "rocks" they meant rocks — this was not a code-word for drugs or anything like that — they meant stones, pebbles, boulders, that sort of thing.

They were also looking for sand.

Two things occurred to me. One was why the fuck would anyone want to put rocks in their luggage, the other was why would anyone care.

Weirdly enough, however, the dilligent security officers seemed to uncover all sorts of rocks, pebbles, stones, and sand in the bags of marathon runners, which were duly confiscated (the stones and sand not the bags).

The motivation for this attempted crime I think can be understood by the mentality of marathon runners.

They like challenges. These are the sort of people who think running 42km is not enough of a challenge so they run 42km in the Sahara Desert. They're planning one in the Arctic next year.

So obviously lugging lots of bags and suitcases around remote airports is way too unchallenging, so they fill any space in their bags with rocks and sand to make them heavier.

Why the authorities try to stop them is harder to explain.

Someone said something about them wanting to protect their natural resources, but I didn't observe any shortage of stones. And sand seemed quite plentiful: I don't think they are in much danger of running out even if they let every visiting marathon runner take as much as they want.

In case anyone is wondering what I was doing at a provincial Algerian airport with a planeload of marathon runners, the answer is pretending to be a journalist. I didn't manage to convince many people, however, except for Algerian immigrations authorities (who seem a bit unwelcoming towards journalists, not that I blame them).

It goes without saying that all the rumours Carlo posted about me are … FUCK! THERE'S A WORD LIMIT FOR POSTS!

Yes, Google can be fucking pricks. Conehead returned to his tale in a fresh comment:

It goes without saying that all the rumours Carlo posted about me are untrue, but I am interested if anyone knows of any NGOs who would be willing to sponsor some Parisian beggars to go to Australia to give workshops on entrepreneurial skills to our local beggars.

The truth is I acquired some money through entirely legitimate but thoroughly dishonorable means (inheritance) so there was nothing to do but give up my lumpen lifestyle, buy a suit, and travel the world prentending to be various things that I'm not.

To get on the plane to Tindouf, journalist seemed a better option than marathon runner. I don't think I would have even convinced the Algerian airport officials of that — for one thing they didn't find any rocks or sand in my luggage.

While I may not have made a convincing journalist I did find out about the nightlife in the local Saharawi refugee camps. Drinking tea is the most important recreational activity.

But this is not your dunk a tea-bag in boiling water sort of tea, but an elaborately made brew whose preparation involves boiling tea-leaves on a little open fire and pouring the contents from glass to glass from a great hight for hours.

The result if you wait (& its extremely impolite not to wait) is very sweet and very strong. Among Bedouin people the most impolite thing you can do is refuse anything.

Which is good news if you like very strong, sweet tea, camel meat or rare done goat's liver. The latter is given to guests at baby-namings & refusal would be particularly offensive.

Baby-namings are a popular recreational pasttime whereby new-born babies are named by lottery — potential names being represented by necklaces pulled out of a bowl of camel's milk.

Rather cool culture if you ask me. I know you're not meant to put on weight in a refugee camp but I didn't want to offend anybody.

Like anywhere, of course, there is juvenile delinquacy, and it was explained to me in one of my interviews that there was a problem with young people sitting around all day drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. This problem is being proactively dealt with through organising youth to be more socially engaged, readers will be pleased to hear.

And it should be said that smoking cigarettes in these parts certainly qualifies as substance abuse.

The only readily available cigarettes in the camps is a brand called "American Legend" which says on the packet "real American flavour".

This is a lie. The flavour, similar to glue, unmistakenly points to Chinese origin. I should know, I used to live in Footscray.

You can get a higher class of Chinese counterfeit cigarette, fake Marlboro's, if you are willing to spend a lot more money. These cost 200 dinars ($2.75 in Australian money).

Ok, thank you Conehead. You can stop being so interesting and witty now. This is Carlo Sands' blog and I don't like the competition.

The problem with the fucking British... 30 years on from Bobby Sands' hunger strike

2011-03-01T21:29:00.027+11:00

You know the thing about the fucking British? They fucking fuck shit up.

You can’t take the fucking Brits anywhere, they always insist on taking their fucking armed forces with them and invading and colonising the god damn place. I hear Cromwell was invited over to Ireland back in the 17th century for a FUCKING PINT OF GUINNESS.

Next thing you know, the entire place is blown to shit and the country bloodily subjugated. Again.

The British make the worst dinner party guests ever. More than anything else, they just never know when to fucking leave.

And when forcibly evicted, they insist on holding on to what they can. They grab at whatever bottles of wine and after dinner mints within their reach and won’t let go.

Possibly even more ink than blood has been spilled over the terrible violence during the Troubles in the six counties of Ireland the British insist on pretending are British despite the fact that a simple glance at a map would seem to indicate those six countries are actually IN FUCKING IRELAND.

And yet so little of what has been written starts from the basic premise that those six Irish countries... are... well... IRISH.

I realise this is a complicated concept. I realise when you brutally conquer and pillage someone else’s land all sorts of tricky moral issues arise such as “Is this our land? Or does it belong to the people we raped and pillaged?”

It is a tricky one, as we realise here in Australia. I mean yes, the land invaded and brutally colonised did belong to someone else.

But... did it really? I mean really? And what does ownership really mean?

These are the profound philosophical questions a brutal coloniser grapples with, but I'll tell you one thing, try and take Carlo Sands’ fucking beer and you will find out what ownership fucking means.

The Israelis also struggle with this question. Actually, they don’t. They have the charm of being refreshingly blunt and prefer to complain that the Arabs are breeding too fast.

And they don’t have any qualms about passing judgments that it is perfectly legal and justified to murder Palestinians in cold blood.

The British, on the other hand, have finally decided it is not legal to shoot Irish people. The Brits can’t just go around shooting Irish people in Ireland any more — it’s been declared unlawful.

This is a true story. It happened just last year.

The context is the findings released last year in an inquiry into the January 30, 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry in which 26 unarmed Irish people were shot by British soldiers at a civil rights protest. Fourteen people died, seven of them teenagers.

It only took the British some 38 years to publicly acknowledge the fucking obvious: that British troops had, in fact, gunned down unarmed Irish people, in Ireland, while they took part in a civil rights march.

It was a 12-year long inquiry that cost British taxpayers £191.2 million to decide that responsibility for the bloodshed lay with those doing the shooting rather than those getting shot.

Such a rejection of a venerable English tradition no doubt caused quite a stir among sections of the British establishment: first fox-hunting, then shooting Irish people — they must be terrified they’ll ban polo next.

It is always sad to see a venerable tradition go by the wayside of relentless modernisation

The Irish, on the other hand, should probably be grateful.

After all, it took Britain 150 years to apologise for the so-called “Potato famine”, in which about a million Irish people starved to death and another million emigrated despite the fact that plenty of perfectly good food was being shipped out of Ireland at the same time ... by the FUCKING BRITISH.

Such a deliberate policy could, by some nasty, small-minded bigots who just can’t let go of an odd million or so people being condemned to a horrific death by starvation in a totally unnecessary fashion, be considered genocide.

Regardless, at the very least, you can’t say the British are not getting quicker at acknowledging their errors/crimes against humanity.

I raise all of this because March 1 marked the 30th anniversary of the start of a hunger strike a young Irish man called Bobby Sands. He died 66 days later. Nine other men died on hunger strike in the prison they were held in.

Sands was incarcerated in what was best described as a concentration camp called Long Kesh and, with other Irish republican prisoners, was tortured and beaten remorselessly. He had been sentenced in a trail without a jury to 14 years jail for possession of a gun — five other men were charged for possession of the same gun.

Sands was a young man who personally faced brutal persecution and wanted to defend his community from fascist gangs and British soldiers (sorry, that’s a tautology).

For his troubles, he got railroaded through a jury-less trial.

In prison, republican prisoners began to protest the denial of basic civil liberties. They wished to be recognised as what they were: prisoners of a war brought to their country by Britain.

They did not wish to be branded common criminals, and refused to wear prison uniforms. Then, they refused to wash or empty the buckets the prison authorities kindly gave them as toilets — and the prison authorities reduced them to sleeping on piss-soaked mattresses and smearing their own shit on the walls of their cell.

Seeing no other way to get their grievances heard, a hunger strike was organised. Sands was the first to start, on March 1, 1981.

In return, Sands copped relentless abuse by the Thatcher government for being a cold-blooded terrorist — of the sort Thatcher would not deign to negotiate with.

This being the same government that was backing the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

In the middle of Sands’ hunger strike, a by-election in the seat of Fermanagh and South Tyrone was held. Sands was put up as a candidate.

Running from within the conceptration camp, Bobby Sands won.

On May 5 1981, Bobby Sands, honourable representative for Fermanagh and South Tyrone in the British parliament, died. One hundred thousand people turned out for his funeral.

When Thatcher eventually, finally, fucking dies — millions will fucking celebrate.

‘Five simple things we asked of them. Five simple things denied. Thatcher would not compromise.’

Can you find Ireland on the map? I’ll give you a hint, it is not in Britain.

SATISFYING NEWS: In the February 26 Irish elections that resulted in the Fianna Fail government getting lynched by voters for imposing savage austerity and handing the country over to the IMF, Sinn Fein candidate Dessie Ellis won a seat the Dail in the Dublin North West constituency.

Twenty-two years ago, a Fianna Fail government handed Ellis over to the British to face “justice” for resisting British occupation. On February 26, he took a seat belonging to Fianna Fail.

JUST IN: In a piece of even MORE satisfying news, the Irish just beat the English in a World Cup cricket match...

‘And THAT’S for Cromwell...’

Conehead enjoys the airport

2011-02-28T20:00:00.009+11:00

Loyal readers of this blog will remember Conehead the Barbituate as a dedicated, if irregular, commentator on the posts of Carlo Sands. Conehead was also very kind to share with all of my fans his own personal cake recipe.

What my huge fan base may not realise is Conehead has come into some money through means I am really not at liberty to discuss in such a public forum (and one that is monitored so closely by 60 Minutes.)

No one quite knows where Conehead is or has been. In fact, no one really knows how the fuck he managed to catch his flight out of Sydney.

But the rumours are flying think and fast. The more reliable of them put Conehead first in Paris being chased onto a train out of there by Roma beggars who cleaned him out then tried to hit him up again after he went to an ATM — but not before Conehead was able to be infuriated by the arrogance of the French.

One story goes that even the lumpen elements in Paris have their standards and when one tried to scab a cigarette off Conehead at the Gare du Nord and Conehead offered him one of those weird black Gitane cigaettes that he couldn't wait to smoke in Paris, the guy said, “Gitanes? non!” and stomped off.

Further unconfirmed rumours put Conehead in Bonn, to his dismay and fury at being stuck in a place he is said by some to have described as the “Canberra of Europe, only more sterile”.

Well, Conehead has provided an actual message to the world in the form of two comments on my post The best fucking poem ever fucking written by fucking anyone that places him at an airport somewhere in Europe, I think.

One of the stranger, less believable rumours suggested Conehead was flying into Western Sahara with a team of marathon runners, which would without a doubt provide for the quickest game of “spot the odd one out” in human history.

This is hard to believe, though it could be one of those prank TV shows where the presenter says “What Conehead doesn’t realise is there is no flight out of Western Sahara and he is going to have to run the marathon... Our hidden cameras will capture his effort and you can join our online poll about whether he will make the 500 metre mark before collapsing.”

I post here Conehead’s observant little sketch of airports, a masterpiece of social commentary and story-telling that begins by paraphrasing the best fucking poem ever fucking written by fucking anyone (also known as John Cooper Clarke’s “Chicken town”):

“The fucking plane is fucking late
You fucking wait & fucking wait”

I post the rest below. It is important for the story to understand that there is more than one type of substance Conehead likes to chain smoke...

* * *

The worst thing is having already gone through passport control I CAN’T HAVE A FUCKING CIGARETTE

To tell the truth, I’m not really down with this passport control shit.

That's my impression of travelling. Like its fun & all that, except for the fucking passport control. And all that security shit where you have to put all your stuff like keys & money in trays and it goes through an x-ray & then because something goes beep they make you go somewhere else to get felt up or your bag rifled or whatever & you think I might need that money & keys & shit that are sitting over there in a fucking tray where any fucker could grab it.

Then you go through, the plane’s delayed, so you have to wait WITHOUT A FUCKING CIGARETTE!

Which leads to another question: as you, Carlo, observed in your gritty realist Western Sydney drama the thing you do if a bus or train is late & you want to make it come, what do you do? YOU LIGHT A FUCKING CIGARETTE!

So how can I make the plane not be any later when I can’t light cigarette because I’ve been through fucking passport control.

Whoever made up this airport procedure thing obviously hadn’t thought things through. The stupid fucker.

PS. wonder what all those comments in Chinese mean. Like why did 莊雅和莊雅和莊雅和 say practice what you preach?

* * *

Conehead then sent a second message through not long after that read:

“AHHHHHHHH! Now they've started making announcements ‘Passengers are reminded that smoking is not allowed!’

“Like they just want to rub it in! I DON’T WANT TO BE REMINDED!”

I believe Conehead eventually got his flight, presumably without too much innocent blood being shed.

Waiting for a bus in outer Sydney

2011-02-24T21:11:00.016+11:00

New South Wales is a strange state and it's got a strange government. A strange government that, over its two-odd-decades in power, has degenerated somewhat. A strange combination of neoliberal attack and ugly, sleazy nepotistic corruption overseen by incompetent gangsters.

The approaching March 26 election reminded me of an incident that happened… sometime in the last decade or so. It is all been a bit of a blur, what with the blood/alcohol content a citizen is required to maintain just to live in this fucking place.

I can't recall exactly where, but it was one of those places on the very edges of suburbia, one of the fartherest outreaches of civilisation. An isolated, nowhere land where dreams go to die and nightmares go shopping at Westfields. It was maybe Penrith? Somewhere like that.

This is a true story. I wrote it up at the time like this because I decided to turn it into a film script, but unfortunately Ken Loach has been very busy these last ten years, apparently. And I thought he appreciated gritty realism.

The Bus Stop

[Carlo Sands waits at a bus stop. There is no shelter, just one of those planks of wood stuck in the ground and painted yellow with a Sydney Buses logo sprayed on it. A small girl, maybe five, approaches.]

SMALL GIRL: Hello sir, could I please borrow 50 cents?

CARLO: [looks at girl] Fuck off.

SMALL GIRL: If you give me 50 cents, sir, I’ll fuck off.

CARLO: [Looks at her, she stares back] Oh for fuck’s sake! Lucky for you I hate kids. [gives her a coin] Now fuck off.

SMALL GIRL: Thank you sir. I always keep a promise!

[She kicks him in the shins and runs off]

CARLO: Good! Ow.

[A man walks up as Carlo rubs his shin while looking down the road for a bus.]

MAN: Howyagoin there mate?

CARLO: [looks at him then back down the road, hand on shin] Bruised.

MAN: Let me guess, you had to pay 50 cents for the privilege?

CARLO: The little fucker got you too, did she?

MAN: She’s infamous round these parts. You’re not a local, clearly. No shin pads.

CARLO: You mean the little pigtailed princess violently assaults people all the fucking time? For cash? Why doesn’t someone deal with the little prick?

MAN: She’s the daughter of the local member. She’s got connections.

CARLO: What the fuck does she need 50 cents for then? Old man’s fucking loaded.

MAN: He’s a gambling man. Pokies. You can find him down the RSL most days losing our hard-earned taxes. When he runs out of coins, he sends his little princess out to do the rounds.

CARLO: Jesus Christ! Well, thank fuck I’m outta this hole. What time’s the bus come?

MAN: Bus? [Laughs] Mate, we haven’t seen a bus round these parts in years. That’s an antique you’re standing next to. Should be in a museum, but the council keeps it out for show.

CARLO: What the hell are you talking about? When’s the fucking bus come?

MAN: I told you, you’ll wait here for ever. You want my advice, you’d better start moving. You don’t want to get caught out here after dark.

CARLO: [Staring at the man] You’re serious! So why the fuck has this shit hole got no fucking buses?

MAN: The MPs got debts. Our honourable representative lost a fair swag of this state’s revenues on the fruit machines. He acts in our name, so we gotta pay it back somehow. It’s only fair, they said. First thing they took was the buses.

CARLO: Oh, for god’s sake! Why don’t you boot the bastard out?

MAN: Ah, c’mon! You really want to let the other mob in? No one wins by replacing a mongrel with a rabid dog, that’s how we look at it ’round here.

CARLO: [looking down the street again] But surely you can’t just accept having no buses…

MAN: [looks at him carefully] You know, we used to have a few of your sort round here. Idealists. Most of them never did a day’s work in their lives, of course, but you had to admire them for their beliefs. But end of the day, you gotta play the game with the hand your dealt. If they’re selling oranges, no point dreaming up recipes for apple crumble.

CARLO: [turns to the man] Look, I’m not advocating a fucking insurrection! I’m not suggesting a free-love commune with magic mushroom handouts for the unemployed. All I’m saying is, this place needs some fucking buses! And quickly — it’s getting cold.

MAN: It’d have to get a whole lot colder round here before a bus stops.

CARLO: Well, I’m not waiting for this hellhole to freeze over. Just tell me how to get out of here.

MAN: Hmmm… You could try walking to the next stop. Fair way though. And like I say, you don’t want to get caught out here after dark.

CARLO: What happens, someone head butts your elbow?

MAN: Very funny. Just take my advice. I’ve got better things to do than talk to arseholes. Have a good one.

[He walks away.]

CARLO: Good fucking christ.

[Gets timetable out of his pocket, unfolds it and squints. ]

CARLO: [reads] Hmm, 2.10. [Looks at watch) The bus is pretty late.

[A teenage boy walks past. His pants are low and baggy. He is listening to an iPod.]

CARLO: Hey! HEY!!

[Carlo walks right in front of the boy who, his path being blocked, reluctantly looks up.]

CARLO: Hey! [The boy takes his headphones out.] What time’s the bus come?

TEENAGE BOY: Bus? What’s a bus?

CARLO: Jesus Christ. Taxi. T-A-X-I. You fuckers heard of them out here?

TEENAGE BOY: Of course, like what’s your problem man?

CARLO: My problem is I want to catch one out of here…

TEENAGE BOY: Then, like, call the number dude. Jesus.

[He steps around Carlo, puts the headphones back in and walks off.]

CARLO: [calls after him] And what’s the number? What’s the fucking number?! Fuck!

[He looks up to the sky.]

CARLO: And now it’s getting dark …

WOMAN: [from behind Carlo] Do you always talk to yourself?

CARLO: [turns around startled to see a smartly dressed woman with a sly smile] Oh, fuck! I didn’t see you. You here for the bus? I’m told they don’t exist.

WOMAN: [smiles] Locals will tell you that. You just got to know where to find one.

CARLO: And where the fuck would that be?

WOMAN: Well, you’re in the wrong place for a start. Far too obvious. To catch yourself a bus out here, you’ve got to think creatively.

CARLO: Really?

WOMAN: That’s right.

CARLO: Do you want to give me a hint?

WOMAN: And what’s in it for more me?

CARLO: I’ll fund your election campaign to kick out the corrupt son of a bitch who gambled all your fucking cash away.

WOMAN: You mean my husband? He’s done more than a few good things for this place you know. More than most people appreciate.

CARLO: Like what?!

WOMAN: He’s abolished waiting at bus stops. That’s why it’s so obvious you’re not from around here.

CARLO: Ok, just tell me where I can catch a fucking bus out of here so I never have to talk to one you asylum escapees ever again.

WOMAN: [points] Walk ten k’s that way.

CARLO: That’s not creative!

WOMAN: You couldn’t figure it out. I’d get moving, too, things can get nasty after dark.

CARLO: [looks in the direction she pointed, thinking reluctantly of the walk suggested] Why does everyone keep saying that? What happens after dark?

[No answer. He turns around but she’s gone.]

CARLO: Fucking nutters. [shuffles impatiently] I know how to make the fucking bus come. Light a fucking cigarette, never fucking fails.

[Carlo gets a cigarette from a packet in his pocket and tries to light up, with the lighter failing.]

OLD MAN: [from behind] Smoke a whole bloody packet, it wont help ya. Tried it myself plenty of times in the old days.

CARLO: Yeah? Well I figure, if it doesn’t bring the bus out of here, at least I’ll die quicker. Either way I win. [Lighter fails again] Fuck!

OLD MAN: I remember the day they abolished the buses. Smoked a whole bloody carton. Waited 48 hours before it kicked in and I realised: they’ve finally done it, the bastards. They’ve gone and abolished the bloody buses.

CARLO: Look, someone has obviously slipped a tab of acid into my schooner. I’ve got better things to do than fuck around here talking to a community of outpatients. Now, I realise none of you are exactly the strongest beer on tap, but can someone tell me, please, how the fuck to get out of this god-forsaken, loon-ridden, shin-kicking, pokie-addicted, iPod wearing, busless shithole of a fucking place?!

OLD MAN: Well… [thoughtful pause] I can tell you what happens after it gets dark.

CARLO: I can’t believe I left my machete at home. Look, I don’t give two flying fucks what happens after it gets dark! Look around you, you useless, old, busless bastard, it is ALREADY fucking dark! Well, you know what? Fuck it! I give up! If I’m stuck here — you do have a pub don’t you?

OLD MAN: Take the second right, one block down.

CARLO: I need a FUCKING beer!

[Carlo storms off. The old man passively watches him leave. He shrugs.]

OLD MAN: Kids. At least in my day, we had some buses.

[The old man wanders off. The bus arrives, turns out it just been running a few years late.]

At least, I assume that is how it ended. It was all a bit of a blur.

Tell me more about the moral scruples of US dictatorships: a small question for the Wall Street Journal.

2011-02-22T21:28:00.021+11:00

Well, it seems some big shit is goin' down in some place full of crazy Muslims wearing towells on their heads over there somewhere. Somewhere near Iraq, I think.

Actually, in Iraq too. I mean what the fuck is that about? We gave those ungrateful fuckers democracy. Some people are just always looking for an excuse to be upset.

God only knows what the hell is going on over there these days, though I must admit, as far as that place with pyramids and mummies is concerned, I found a very informative site called IsMubarakStillPresident.com

But, the more I looked at the situation over there, there more something strange struck me: the United States of America, which is the World's Greatest Democracy by presidential decree, has gotten itself in a bit of a pickle.

Despite doing their very best to support the democracy in the region, as President Barack Obama emphasised so strongly in his 2009 speech in Cairo, they have somehow ended propping up vicious dictatorships that, in a total coincidence, just happen to then implement policies favourable to the interests of US governments and corporations.

This has begun to worry me a bit, as it isn't a great look.

Now my love, admiration and respect for the United States of America and the values it upholds is very well known.

And so I was very heartened to hear just last December US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton say after a visit to Bahrain that its monarchy is, like, a *totally* modernising govnerment.

"I am very impressed by the progress Bahrain is making on all fronts — economically, politically, socially," said Clinton.

I thought it was actually quite lucky, really, seeing as the US has a quite important airforce base there and had just signed an agreement to significantly increase the US navy presence. To strengthen democracy.

But it *would* seem unfortunate when impoverished people, many from the persecuted Shiite religious majority, took part in protests to ask the king - not to resign but for a few reforms that might alleviate their crippling suffering. And got rather rudely met by soldiers opening fire on them, killing simply *dozens* of unarmed people.

Investigate journalist Robert Fisk wrote from the scene, in a really quite unpleasant story: "'Massacre – it's a massacre,' the doctors were shouting. Three dead. Four dead. One man was carried past me on a stretcher in the emergency room, blood spurting on to the floor from a massive bullet wound in his thigh ...

"One poor youth – 18, 19 years old, perhaps – had a terrible head wound, a bullet hole in the leg and a bloody mess on his chest. The doctor beside him turned to me weeping, tears splashing on to his blood-stained gown. 'He has a fragmented bullet in his brain and I can't get the bits out, and the bones on the left side of his head are completely smashed. His arteries are all broken ...'

"Blood was cascading on to the floor. It was pitiful, outrageous, shameful. These were not armed men but mourners returning from a funeral, Shia Muslims of course, shot down by their own Bahraini army yesterday afternoon."

And then I thought about this a little more. And I must admit it seemed to me, without trying to be unfair to the no doubt sincere intentions of the United States government, that this was a little similar to what happened in Egypt.

The US kindly gave the now former president Hosni Mubarak about US$1.3 billion a year in military aid and next thing you know more than 300 pro-democracy protesters were killed by Mubarak's security forces and 20 million people were on the streets forcing the poor guy out.

And, now I think about it, when people protested against the US-backed regime of Ben Ali in Tunisia, the United Nations said more than 200 people were murdered by the security forces.

The US has had a really bad run of luck. They really seem to be poor character judges, what with them loving democracy and yet so unfailingly ending up supporting murderers and torturers.

It is just like that friend with a terrible taste in partners, but you are never sure whether it is polite to point it out.

I was starting to get worried about this. But then I read a thoroughly reassuring editorial in one of my personal favourite newspapers, the Wall Street Journal, on February 16.

But it also raised a further question in my mind. So I wish to take the opportunity to ask the journal a question from a friend.

Dear Wall Street Journal,

I have been worried about all this apparent evidence that the United States of America has been backing brutal dictatorships in the Middle East.

So, as you might imagine, I was *very relieved* to read the following in an editorial in your February 16 edition: "To put it another way, pro-American dictatorships have more moral scruples. The comparison is akin to what happened in the 1980s when U.S. allies led by authoritarians fell peacefully in the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan, even as Communist regimes proved tougher."

This is a real load of my mind.

It would seems, *yes* America does actually prop up dictatorships. But it really is not *that* big a deal, as you explain, because *your* dictatorships have more moral scruples than dictatorships not allied to the Land of the Free.

But I must confess to some lingering questions.

I am hoping that perhaps the good people at the journal will prove kind enough to answer my questions and resolve my confusion (I know you are all *great* fans of the blog so will see this request).

I was thinking about this and, basically, what I want to know is *how exactly* do you torture someone utilising moral scruples?

Does this perhaps mean the torture implements have been blessed by the Pope?

I mean, what *exactly* is the moral procedure?

I was wondering about how this worked in the case of the torture of Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib in Egpyt - personally carried out by Egyptian intelligence head Omar Suleiman.

There must have been some exerising of moral scruples, because when the democracy uprising was underway in Egypt, Suleiman was the man the US pushed to replace Mubarak - and I am confident that would not be the case unless Suleiman had some moral scruples of which to speak.

Dictatorships, and ones that more or less belong to the United States are yet to prove much different, have a nasty tendency to kill opponents - be it through extrajudicial assassinations or "disappearances".

Or just - as in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain (and for that matter Libya, seeing as Gaddafi has been a pretty reliable friend of the West for quite few years now) - by gunning people down in cold blood in the streets when they protest unarmed.

So, what I am interested in, for my own understanding, is exactly how many of their own people do dictatorships have to butcher before they can be considered to have lost their moral scruples?

I am wondering, you see, about the case of Indonesia. In 1965, the CIA helped organise a military coup that overthrew a nationalist government and brought General Suharto to power.

Estimates of the number of people killed over a four month period in 65-66 range from 500,000 to three million.

Now I realise most of those killed were members of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and that the only good red is a dead red (unless it is shiraz, in which case it is far better drunk).

Given that we can *all agree* that the life of a Communist Party member is worth less than the life of someone in full agreement with the aims and practices of US foreign policy, I am wondering: how many of the workers, farmers, slumdwellers, students and intellectuals who made the choice to join the PKI would have had to have been killed before it could be considered that Suharto had lost his moral scruples?

And then I was wondering about East Timor. The occupation of East Timor, started with US approval in 1975 by Suharto and finally ending in 1999, one year after Suharto's overthrow, resulted in the death of about one third of the Timorese population.

It may be an impolite question, and I would never dream of being intentionally rude to a nation so great it has produced your journal, but given the fact that the ratio of those killed was greater than in Cambodia during Pol Pot's reign, exactly how many Timorese would have been killed had Suharto not enjoyed the moral scruples belonging to pro-US dictators?

And, also, did Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge develop moral scruples when the United States started to back them after Vietnamese forces ending their genocidal rule?

If so, with these new found moral scrupples, should the new US-backed Khmer Rouge have found it was way back in power, how do you think they would have applied their new found moral scruples to the second round of their genocde?

Also, I have to ask, is it *really* true that the struggle that bought down the US-backed Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines 1986 was "peaceful"?

It is just I happened to be in Manila last year and there was this giant wall called the "Wall of Heroes" and it had all of these names, more than I could count, of people who were said to have been killed in the struggle against the Marcos dictaotrship - whose military, armed and trained by the United States, had an awful tendency to murder and torture opponents.

I was told the wall did not come close to naming all those who fell fighting the pro-US dictatorship.

Again, I realise quite a number of those killed were Communists, but far from all.

I would also be interested to hear about the application of moral scruples in Chile under Pinochet, Guatemala under succesive US-backed military regimes, El Salvador, Nicaragua or any of the other military dictatorships across Latin America in the 70s and 80s that commottied horrific crimes and were US trained and backed.

Oh, I nearly forgot, also the US-backed dictatorship in Honduras, how does it apply moral scruples when it assassinates farmers, democracy activists and gay rights activists?

I thank you for your patience in dealing with so many questions on the role of moral scruples as it relates to the killers and torturers promoted by the United States. I do realise you are busy with the complicated task of explaining how it is that the democracy-promoting United States has got itself tangled up with promoting so many brutal dictatorships.

It is just that it does some raise some uncomfortable questions that all us proud supporters of the United States and its freedom agenda would be very glad to have clarified so we can continue our full support for the US-led struggle for democracy just absolutely *everywhere*.

I await with eagerness for your reply.

Your friend in the fight for freedom,
Carlo Sands.

Oh, and by the way, I nearly forgot: FUCK YOU, GADDAFI. Muammar Gaddafi is Carlo Sands pick for Arab ruler most likely to end up like Mussolini.

This is for everyone in the world

2011-02-19T15:37:00.006+11:00

As I am taking forever to do my post on comparisons between Tom Waits' songs and cover versions of them (in small part, at least, due to a sustained outbreak of a condition known to medical experts as “drunkeness” that I have been afflicted with in recent evenings), I offer this in the interim.

I dedicate it to the entire world, except Justin Bieber.

“And this endless crutch, well it’s never enough...” As far as your faithful blogger can figure out, Irish American Celtic punk band Flogging Molly just do not know how to fail. I have never heard a song by them that was not, more or less, fucking awesome.

Don't these people realise Mubarak agrees with them?

2011-02-04T10:17:00.018+11:00

Somewhere between 6-8 million people took to the streets of Egypt on February 1 to demand Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt via martial law for three decades, get out of office.

Now the thing is, Mubarak agrees with them. He is “fed up” with being in power.

Mubarak does not want himself as president either. I mean, who would?

He has reluctantly committed himself to staying on till September, but Mubarak has been telling anyone who’ll listen (which I think right now is pretty much the Obama administration, the Israeli cabinet, the Palestinian Authority, a couple of Arab kings and Tony Blair) that, like the protesters, he actually really, really wants himself to stop being president right now too.

It is just he can't leave the presidential office at this moment. He has locked himself in and lost the keys, or something.

And there is chaos. How could Mubarak possible abandon his beloved people in the middle of such chaos?

It is really hard to imagine. Because what is going to cause chaos in Egypt right now is Mubarak leaving.

The chaos on the streets of Cairo and elsewhere has nothing at all to do with him staying, despite him ignoring a week-and-a-half of the largest protests in Egypt’s history demanding he get on a plane and fuck off to a villa in Saudi Arabia.

Mubarak insists he would love to, but the flights to Riyadh are all booked out till September.

Now, February 2 saw some unfortunate clashes on the streets when, as the media keep telling us, pro-Mubarak protesters just happened to run into anti-Mubarak protesters on the streets.

It is the sort of awkward accidental meeting of someone you are in a dispute with that could happen to anyone — the type in which you never know whether to acknowledge them with a brief hello or just hurray on and pretend you never saw them.

A lot of people blamed the pro-Mubarak protesters, but how were they to know there were tens of thousands of anti-Mubarak types camped in Tahrir Square? It is like when walk into a party, stop in your track and whisper to your friend: “You didn’t tell me they would be here!”

It was an innocent mistake made by the roaming gangs of paid thugs and undercover cops armed with bricks, petrol bombs, knives and batons. Some were even riding horses and camels and found themselves in the middle of the crowd before they know what happened.

‘Oh, hi! Fancy seeing you here ... Well, this is awkward.’

In their shock, some bricks and petrol bombs were accidentally dropped from surrounding buildings and bridges on the protesters and before anyone could apologise for the misunderstanding, it was on for young and old.

You may be thinking that launching yourself on an unarmed crowd with petrol bombs and bricks and baton-wielding men on horseback, even by mistake, makes for a funny sort of a protest.

You may feel, perhaps, it comes across less as a protest and more as a sort of... violent assault.

But, remember, this is the Middle East and these are Arabs. They do things differently there, as the media like to tell us.

We can't impose our Western standards of “freedom of expression” on these people. Sometimes, this is just how those people express themselves. They are different from us.

This is exactly why Tony Blair is so concerned about the need to “manage” any post-Mubarak regime to ensure a “proper democracy”.

It is a very dangerous part of the world, so the West must step with care and be careful to avoid doing anything rash, such as stopping US military aid worth US$1.5 billion each year to the Mubarak dictatorship.

I mean, by all means “investigate” and “review” such aid in light of recent events. But let us not just stop propping a regime up because its people want democracy — anything could happen! Even democracy.

Meanwhile, at Tahrir Square, the poor US-funded army didn’t know what hit it and spent the day wandering around in utter confusion and shock before realising at least 13 people had been shot dead in a terrible accident in which some of the pro-Mubarak protesters’ automatic machine guns had accidentally gone off.

More than 800 anti-Mubarak protesters were injured, but I am sure a large percentage of these injuries occurred when they tripped over, and at least some of them walked into a door handle.

And no one was more surprised or upset at this tragic turn of events than the Egyptian government. Hell, they even announced an “investigation” into the incident!

They’ll get to the bottom of these terrible events.

And, rest assured, there really was no one was more disappointed and upset than Mubarak himself. Here he was, desperate to finally relinquish the power he is “fed up” with after 30 terrible years, and this chaos breaks out!

He can’t leave his people now, he just can’t.

It is always the way, these things happen at the worst possible time. My heart breaks for this dedicated public servant.

So, we now have a stand-off between a US- and-Israeli-backed dictatorship, whose figurehead is teetering, and more or less the rest of Egypt — a few paid thugs, security force members and public officials whose jobs depend on the regime notwithstanding.

Western governments and Israel are all in spin and frankly seem to be getting a bit desperate.

How desperate? The Obama administration even took up George Bush’s offer to give Mubarak a bell to help sort this whole mess out.

Bush said he volunteered coz Mubarak is “an old friend”.

Dragging in George Bush to help with your foreign policy is up there in desperation stakes with calling on Carlo Sands to run your AA class.

The details of the phone call are not known, but the New York Times said government officials told the media it did not involve Bush asking Mubarak to resign.

However, we can probably guess the conversation involved a phases such as: “Egypt. That’s somewhere in Iran isn’t it?”

I am not picking on Bush. It is an easy error for Americans to make.

But never let it be said the Western media are racist.

Sure the British Independent is running eyewitness coverage by Robert Fisk — in which the veteran journalist betrays his terrible bias towards unarmed, peaceful mass demonstrations demanding an end to a dictatorship that has imposed poverty, corruption, censorship, rigged elections, torture and murder on its people for 30 years against small gangs of thugs seeking to kill said protesters.

But it is balancing it up with thoughtful commentary such as this by Julie Burchill: “It would be wonderful to think that what replaces Mubarak will be better. But here’s the thing about Middle Eastern regimes: they’re all vile. The ones that are ‘friendly’ are vile and the ones that hate us are vile.

“Revolutions in the region have a habit of going horribly wrong, and this may well have something to do with the fact that Islam and democracy appear to find it difficult to co-exist for long.”

I think we get the picture. Arabs in general, and Muslims in particular, are basically vile.

A fair point that needs to be considered and debated on its merits, without all this “political correctness” causing liberals, leftists and terrorist-apologists to jump to kneejerk reactions and accuse her of VILE RACISM.

Some terrorist-lovers might, in response to this useful contribution, suggest that if you replace the world “Middle Eastern” with “Jewish”, and “Islam” with “Judaism”, Burchill may be mistaken for Goebbels.

But some people are just totally unbalanced like that.

Actually, Goebbels confessed he thought Burchill had a point.

Despite Mubarak’s insistence he really wants to resign, it seems this thing is going to keep going with big demonstrations today.

No one knows how it will end, but, as there are reports that the protesters have started chanting for Mubarak to be hanged, it could easily have a very happy ending.

‘History doesn't happen it's made. How much did you get paid today? Pulse of the city stops, we're met by a thousand cops. Black's on Blue lines they cross and justice is a baton wound. You have the right to remain silent, we're gonna have to use violence’

Now this is going too far

2011-02-03T08:17:00.005+11:00

It seems Tony Blair was right, as usual.

(In fact, I am not sure he has ever been wrong - and if you want the evidence check out this wonderful site Keep Tony Blair for PM, which is both informative and gives an indication of to what end Tony Blair spent his last days in office.)

Mr Blair expressed his concern that a transition to democracy needs to be carefully managed, something the former British PM knows how to do correctly, as any Iraqi or Afghani will happily tell you.

And now we see why.

The fundamentalist anti-Semites calling for an end to 30 years of martial law in Egypt have given us an indication of just why not torturing Arabs is such a bad idea.

They say they are for "democracy" and yet when confroned with a peaceful, legitimate demonstration of paid thugs, violent prisoners kindly given leniency by the government and released from jail, and cops out of uniform - whose views just happen to differ from them, we see how they behave.

If they really were "democracy protesters", the right response to having their terroristic mass demonstration challenged by an expression of views and a rain of bricks and petrol bombs would be to accept that some people don't agree with them and to go home and let the Mubarak government get on with its mandated job of imposing poverty-causing neoliberalism and violently repressing anyone who resists.

I mean, a few freedom-lovers happen to ride in on horses and camels and start bashing everyone in sight and next thing you know the terrorists show their true face by insisting they will not leave Tahrir Square that they have taken over and imposed Sharia law on, as Robert Fisk clearly explains.

(Note, the renowned investagive journalist Fisk is talking in code. When he says, from Tahrir Square, that the protests are totally secular and not in the slightest Islamic in nature, he is merely sending a signal that such is the terrible fundamnetalist terror that he is unable to speak freely.)

They clearly don't understand that even a dictatorship's police force and paid thugs have the right to freedom of expression and association. If they want to express themselves with batons and petrol bombs, then that surely is as much their right as those who have sought to terrorise society with their peaceful marches.

The violence of the "anti-Mubarak forces" (as so much of the corporate media correctly call the millions of people who have taken to the streets), responding to the bricks, petrol bombs and batons by actually seeking to defend themselves rather than lying down and getting burned or bashed to death shows just how unreasonable these people are.

And *still* the government, in its incredible display of restraint and moderation, says it is *still* willing, despite everything, to neogitiate with those involved in the terroristic protests.

*All* the vice president Omar Suleiman, a wise statesman with many years experience in torturing terrorists gathered from the streets of Egypt or sent his way by the United States (allegedly), has asked in return is these people end their demonstrations for democracy.

And protest organisers respond by refusing to meet or negotiate with the government! I really don't know what more this government could do.

Mubarak, last Friday, promised reforms. He promised reforms to deal with issues such as price rises and poverty.

And his supporters, in what must be an early government pogram along the lines promised, go to the protesters with petrol. Petrol prices are far too high, so, as price rises are said to be a cause of the protests, you might think these people would be grateful.

But what do they do? They throw petrol back!

Well, Mubarak has done all he can, and this is how his people repay him.

If Mubarak can truly no longer guarantee security and manage the transition to democracy he has so kindly promised, then perhaps it really is time for him to sadly leave the scene.

My suggestion is it is time to fly in Tony Blair and instal him as president for life to oversee this transition. If these terrorists don't agree, let US marines and the Israeli Defense Force go there to prop him up.

And these people are smart... you just wait for the calls for "intervention" to "restore stability".

Supporters of President Mubarak seek to peacefully express their views by taking over military tanks to use agaisnt protesters

And just LOOK at how the "pro-democracy" terrorists respond... those are ROCKS! really, what chance do those who want to keep Mubarak and his 30 years of martial law intact have?

Those fucking Arabs are doing it all wrong

2011-02-01T12:57:00.022+11:00

Well, this year has sure gotten off to a bad start. So far, 2011 has caused your beloved blogger to fall into such deep despair I am still yet to do my post announcing the winner of the 2010 Carlo Sands' Person of the Year for Services to Humanity and Drunkeness.

How do I loathe the year so far? Let me count the ways.

First, some bastard thought a good way to cheer me up as we head into a new godforsaken decade would be to send me a press release from the Australian Bureau of Statistics that explained: “Beer consumption in Australia has fallen gradually but consistently since the 1960s ...”

Overall, Australians only drank 10.4 litres of pure alcohol per person in 2008/09, down from 13.1 litres in 1974/75.

Second, fucking goddamn Newtown bouncers. Seriously, just because we were pissed out of our fucking brains in the early hours of Sunday morning is no god damn reason to deny us entry into pubs to drink more.

Even worse was one of them was an Irish pub! An IRISH PUB! Do you know how distressing and demoralising it is to be rejected as too drunk BY THE FUCKING IRISH?!

Third, and worst of all, a bunch of fucking Arabs have decided they want to run their own fucking countries.

First Tunisia, now goddamn Egypt and there are suggestions this fucking wave of fucking Arabs fucking taking their own affairs into their own fucking hands is spreading to such places as Jordan, Yemen and god knows where else.

Frankly, this just proves how anti-Semitic Arabs truly are. This turn of events is going to make it even harder for Israel to keep insisting it is “the only democracy in the Middle East” without every person within earshot collapsing into laughter.

I mean, presenting Israel as a democracy is hard enough by itself without a bunch of rabid, Jew-hating fascists giving a display of popular power and participatory democracy in glorious revolutions that actually overturn dictatorships backed by Israel and the West.

This can only undermine the moral force of the Jewish state and gives its enemies ammunition. Popular revolutions in Arab countries to overturn US-backed dictatorships are a cruel anti-Semitic maneuver truly worthy of Hitler himself.

This helps explain why Israeli leaders has taken such a clear line against democracy in Egypt.

Another reason why this is such bad news is Arabs are supposed to be all Muslim, all fundamentalist and all terrorists. This state of affairs exists to allow Hollywood writers not to have to actually use their imaginations when inventing bad guys.

A secondary, less important, effect of all Arabs being fundamentalist Muslims terrorists is it enables Western governments to use racism to divide their own people and justify wars for natural resources on behalf of big corporations.

If ordinary people of the West actually come to view ordinary Arabs as ACTUALLY HUMAN like them, as having the same aspirations, the same values and many of the same struggles as them... well god help the Free World is all I can say.

And yet the mass movements in Tunisia and Egypt, by all accounts, are FUCKING SECULAR! Sure, the largest opposition party in Egypt is called the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a pretty good start you might think.

But, first of all, by all accounts they are not behind the mass protests and even abstained in the early stages. Also, it turns out they are actually pretty fucking moderate and EVEN RENOUNCED VIOLENCE back in the 1970s!

I mean for fuck’s sake, they weren't even terrorists in the 1970s??? I mean, who WASN’T a terrorist in the 1970s? It is like the old saying, if you never blew some shit up in the ’70s, you weren’t really there.

It is even worse in Tunisia, where the previously banned Islamic party Hizb an-Nahda came out and said they support women’s rights and do not support imposing Islamic law. They even formed a united front with secular democratic groups as part of pushing for democracy against attempts by remnants of the old regime to hijack the popular revolution.

I mean, fucking hell! What are the Arabs playing at now?

In Egypt, by all accounts, Muslims and Christians are marching together. And some of the sentiments are highly disturbing.

Watch the video below. Seriously, check out the protester at 0.45.

This guy has really let us down. And he seemed so promising! Dark skin and big beard? Check. Shouts really fucking angrily? Check.

Says "It doesn't matter if you are a Muslim, a Christian, or an Atheist! You will demand your goddamn rights! And we will have our rights, one way or another!"? FAIL!!!!

I know Meatloaf said two outta three aint bad, but what would that fat git know? In this case, two outta three aint even close to good enough.

And aren't all the women meant be all downtrodden and shit? Then WHAT THE FUCK IS WITH THESE PICTURES?

Oh for fuck’s sake, you are supposed to be DOWNTRODDEN!

This disturbing portrayal of ordinary Arab people as inspiring, brave, secular, freedom loving democrats totally undermines ALL THE HARD WORK Israel and its supporters have done, as a legitimate means of self-defence, of presenting itself as a small besieged nation amid a sea of dangerous Muslim fundamentalist terrorists.

How can Israel possibly defend itself under such circumstances?

But the worst thing, what really grates, is not even that these ungrateful bastards want democracy.

I mean, fair enough, no one likes being tortured or suffering extreme poverty while their dictators, fat with Western “aid” and loans, get even fatter by stealing the nations wealth.

Fine.

But they are GOING ABOUT IT ALL WRONG!

This point was noted by hero of the free world and all round great guy Tony Blair.

(I believe the Egyptian people actually asked specifically for his opinion. There are widespread reports of people on the streets chanting “Mubarak out? Tell us Blair, please, what do you think?” and walls sprayed with the slogan “Tony where are you? We need your help!”)

In response to such calls, what Blair said, and quite rightly, is that it is perfectly legitimate for Egyptians to want democracy. Democracy, everyone but Israel totally agrees, is a lovely concept for Egypt.

But with the proviso, Blair added, that this move is “managed” properly so ensure a “proper democracy”.

I really shouldn't have to spell out what this means, but there has been so much confusion caused in the minds of ordinary people in the West who are usually fed a steady diet of racism and Islamophobia by this most uncalled for outbreak of popular uprisings that I fear I must.

It means, if they want democracy, the CORRECT procedure, as all freedom lovers know, is to FIRST OF ALL have your nation invaded by the United States and whichever other nations it can bribe and bully into tagging along.

THEN you get the invaders to install a puppet regime and privatise state-owned assets so multinationals can buy them up. All this should be enforced by tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of foreign troops.

The foreign troops really have two key roles: to brutally repress any opposition to the occupation (including by bombing weddings and gunning down foreign journalists) and to foment a civil war by arming sectarian militias to stir up strife where there was never any before, thus justifying the presence of the foreign troops needed to prop up the puppet regime to hand the resources over to the US corporations.

And then, if the Egyptians or any of these countries no one can find on a map and have only just discovered even exist, are patient, in about a decade or so their countries will be just as free and as prosperous as Iraq and Afghanistan are today.

THAT, loyal fans, is how democracy comes to the dark, uncivilised, bearded Muslim parts of the world.

It most certainly does not come from a mass uprising of the oppressed, defying brutal repression, overturning regimes the Land of the Free has painstakingly propped up with billions of dollars of military aid each year.

We all know what will happen if a government comes into being in Egypt responsive to the popular will.

Extremism will reign, possibly even going SO FAR in its anti-Semitic designs as to actually get rid of the giant fucking wall on the border with Gaza that quite rightly stops the Palestinians getting medicines, building materials, coriander and chocolate for their evil, terroristic plots.

We live in strange and disturbing times.

Images of anti-Semites from across the Arab world threatening Israel with their mass, popular uprisings for an end to dictatorships that have killed and tortured them for decades. These disturbing pictures were posted on site of the fundamentalist terrorist lovers’ central, Al Jazeera.

The right response when the fuckers try and stop you enjoying a drink

2011-01-03T16:56:00.014+11:00

We live in a pretty fucked up world. The brutal imperialist war on Afghanistan and Pakistan continues unabated by remote control, the rulers of the world have decided to ignore the dire warnings and to allow ongoing ecological destruction, and new statistics suggest the most influential person online is the devil child himself: Justin Fucking Bieber.

And, in the face of all of this, the approach of those that rule us seems to be to make it as difficult as possible to cope with the horrors of their system by enjoying a fucking drink or twelve. Just to really torture us.

Hell, as well as proposals in some states to raise the drinking age to 21, the Northern Territory has gone ahead and banned the sale of cask wine in quantities of more than two litres!

This is going too far - the four litre goonbag is part of the goddamned national culture. Poor old Tom Angrove, the inventor of goon who sadly passed away last March aged 92, will be rolling in his fucking grave.

If you can't get a four litre cask of the red-coloured goon for about ten bucks, then what the hell is this godforsaken country about? What the fuck are highschoolers and uni students meant to fucking do? At the very least, it is going to require return trips to the goddamn bottlo.

Well, take heart fellow liver destroyers, at this inspiring tale of resistance by prisoners in a British jail.

All the poor fuckers were trying to do is what people have been doing the world over as a new year rolled in: drinking to forget what a fucked-up year it was and to forget how fucked-up the next one will inevitably be too.

An AFP article, entitled Buildings razed in British prison riot, tells the heroic story:

LONDON: Specialist police have quelled a riot at a British prison after inmates set buildings alight when staff tried to breathalyse some of the 200 prisoners amid fears alcohol had been smuggled in on New Year's Day.

Authorities are investigating the day-long rampage involving about 40 inmates which began early on Saturday at Ford open prison near Arundel, in Sussex in south-east England.

Several buildings were burnt to the ground and police in body armour and firefighters were called in. Television pictures showed flames leaping from several buildings at the 1960s-era prison.

And why shouldn't the poor bastards be allowed a fucking drink? Or is getting pissed only for the rich and privileged in Britain, as suggested by a recent study showing high income earners drink the most?

Carlo Sands says good on the prisoners! That is how you fucking do it. We need more of this.

I personally witnessed a smaller version of this type of resistance a week or so ago when I was on the the first floor balcony of the Newtown pub Kelly's at about 3.30am. The pub security guy had been trying to put a downer on people's alcohol-fuelled fun when one young guy from a table of drunks got up and bravely started singing Bohemien Rhapsody as loud as he could.

Inspired, from every table on the balcony people rose as one to join him in his stand - as the security man raced out in a panic, despairing as he tried to put down the Queen Rebellion.

It was a small gesture, perhaps, but it shows the collective power of a group of drunken strangers when they decide to unite, stand as one and shout "Mama just killed a man, put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger, now he's dead!"

It would, of course, been much better had they been singing The Pogues, but you take your inspiration where you find it.

"And in the Euston Tavern you screamed it was your shout, but they wouldn't give you service so you kicked the windows out. They took you out into the street and kicked you in the brains, so you walked back in through a bolted door and did it all again". The Pogues "Sick Bed of Cuchulainn" would have been a better choice for drunken rebellion, but, in a world as fucked up as this one, you take your inspiration where you find it.

It's fucking Christmas, pass the fucking booze

2010-12-24T16:14:00.006+11:00

Apparantly, it's Christmas time. There is only one thing for it. A true country Christmas...

"Mum got drunk then Dad got drunk at our Christmas party..." Robert Earle Keene provides the guide to surviving this goddamned ode to the dysfunctional family system and insane consumerism killing the poor, godforsaken planet.

And you might as well listen to this song from the Mighty Stef, toosimple because I'm in a Mighty Stef mood.

"They say way down in nelligan's, they say there is a ship wreck for every soul in heaven and for every soul in hell. For power, greed or money, do not sail the devil's waters, for on the devil's ship, the devil rings the devil's bell..."

We want blood...

2010-12-20T20:28:00.013+11:00

"We want blood! (we want blood), We want blood! (we want blood), let the scarlet red river turn our cities into mud..."

Finally, someone has stood up and said what needs to be said. And that someone is the great singer-songwriter from Dublin, The Mighty Stef (born Stefan Murphy).

The Mighty Stef aims his rough-as guts, drunken, impassioned, bluesy musical guns at the Irish government and calls them out for what they are: fucking lying thieves.

Having turned those parts of the Emerald Isle not still occupied by the British into a happy hunting ground for corporate plunderers (corporate tax rate lowered to 12%), when the good ship Corporate Plunder ran aground, the good people in the Irish government gave them 70 billion euros.

I mean, seriously, they gave it to them. It was not a loan. They wont have to pay it back. Just "there you go, you cheeky scamps, don't spend it all on lollys".

And these are the sort of people who wouldn't give a beggar a buck in the snow.

I mean, I was personally a bit strapped for cash a year or two back and I asked Brian Cowan himself if he could lend me a few bucks for a few pints in his nation's lovely pubs.

Well, the reply I got from his personal secretary's staff clerk's assistant's secreatary is not printable even on this blog.

Hell, I was only trying to do the bastard a favour. The economy clearly badly needed a stimulus package to get it back up and running and nothing stimulates an economy like a Carlo Sands' drinking binge.

But no.

But a bunch of goddamn fucking thieves in suits who fucked the economy up in the first place give him a call and next thing you know its 70 billion pounds from the public coffers straight into the veins of the profit junkies.

And it all gets blown on debts and speculation. Soon as they get the cash, it's straight down to their dealer round the stock market and whole sad and pathetic cycle starts again.

With the cash not being spent on anything *actually* productive or useful, far from saving the economy, it drove it further into crisis. Unemployment has tripled since 2007, numbering hundreds of thousands. Wages are 20% lower than three years ago.

Mass migration, that terrible feature of Irish history that has foisted morbid, miserable Irish folk songs on innocent people all over the world, is raising its ugly head once more.

And, after it all, the government has found itself a little strapped for cash.

The solution? Pay for the bailout of the parasites by squeezing the fucking people that *actually* do something useful in society, that actually produce something of social value: brewery workers and bartenders.

And the working class in general, they were just the first that came to mind.

The problem is it wasn't even the government's cash to begin with. It was money provided by taxpayers.

And the rich in Ireland generally don't pay taxes (do they Bono?).

So the government gives the rich the working people's cash. Then, it makes up the balance by making the working people pay even more.

It follwed this up by slashing billions out of social services, cut funds to education and hike up tuition fees, slash public sector jobs, reduce pensions and increase taxes for ordinary people.

But that was still not enough, because the Irish government claims it still can't pay its loans to... the FUCKING BANKS.

The solution? Well, "dear banks, get fucked" is the one understandably that struck most Irish people, who polls say back a default.

Instead, the government went crawling on its knees to the International Monetary Fund and European Union and got 90 billion odd euros in a loan at high interest rates, in order to burden the Irish people minus the six counties claimed by Britain with *even more* debt it never asked for. (But don't worry, the six counties claimed by Britain are having to pay for debts racked up by the British government for handing billions of euros to British banks.)

And in return the cash, the government will lose economic sovereignty and hand the running of the day-to-day economy over to IMF and EU bureacrats *and* commits to implementing *further* savage spending cuts and other neoliberal austerity measures - of the sort that helped cause the fucking crisis in the first place.

This, you might think, may make people angry. Well, the government is on the verge of collapse an some 100,000 protested in Dublin on November 27 at this state of affairs.

The Mighty Stef goes further: "Let the downtrodden rise with a fire in their soul ...how many times do you need to be told? We want blood!"

How to organise such a thing? I made some general suggestions on the issue of how to make the streets run scarlet red with the blood of the ruling class, followed by what may be best described as a "colourful" discussion in the comments section, in my post Could *this* be the wall?

But the practicalities are largely to do with Australia and the Irish people will have to find their own solutions. And, indeed, their own walls.

The Mighty Stef has rightly raised the issue and got the ball (if not yet the heads) rolling. And this from a man whose previous experience of protest songs was this effort in response to Ireland losing a football match to France in the "Hand of Frog" scandal.

But I like the Mighty Stef in general. Rough, raw and drunken... Irish, in other words. If you want to hear some more, here are three song suggestions (though I could list more):

Death Threats: "It's getting to the stage I guess I always knew it would, where I can't walk down my street. I'm getting death threats here, death threats there from everyone I meet..." Carlo Sands can relate, especially to the empty beer glasses in the film clip.

Poisonous Love: "I'll return, your jewelry, I'll return your keys. I'll return your records and your poxy DVDS. I'll give you back your innocence that you blindly gave to me, and I'll sink you to the bottom of the sea..." The Mighty Stef shows the mature way to deal with a relationship break up.

Waitin' round to die: "I came of age and I met a girl in a Tuscaloosa bar, she cleaned me out and hit it on the sly. I tried to kill the pain, I bought some wine, hopped a train..." The Mighty Stef teams up with Shane MacGowan to cover Townes Van Zandt's classic.

Or you could just get on with the task of spilling their blood.

"Coz I've heard all the lies that I'm ever gonna wanna hear... we want blood!" Accoustic fury this time.

Alcohol: a love song (part two)

2010-12-19T19:32:00.014+11:00

Ealier this year, I published a post entitled Alcohol: a love song. It was about what I described as "one of the great all-time love songs — an ode to a tempestuous but profound love affair".

The song in question was Gogol Bordello's "Alcohol". It remains untouched in its raw passion and commitment to love, whatever the consequences.

It may not be matched, but loyal readers of this blog deserve a sequel. It comes courtesy of North Carolina outlaw country outfit Bourbon Crow, from their first album in 2006, appropriately titled "Highway to Hangovers".

Bourbon Crow take their country seriously, as any decent person should. They have deep respect for the outlaw legends, such as Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard.

And they know that every country song worth anything is marked by referrence to one thing above all others: booze. Not uncommonly, booze is coupled with heartache. Hell, in Haggard's classic Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down, booze *is the source* of the heartache.

(I realise country music is renown for its relationship with misery, but that is truly the saddest song I've ever heard. I discuss it in my post Merle Haggard, country music and a dystopian nightmare that speaks to our deepest fears.)

Bourbon Crow stand, swaying unsteadily, in this proud tradition.

And they have produced a fine ode to alcohol, in which they defiantly defend it against the slanders poured on it ("and you get all the blame") and defiantly declare their love ("Alcohol is awesome, so fucking awesome").

At times like this, with serious suggestions of raising the drinking age to 21 in this godforsaken country, we need such public stances more than ever.

Still,it is not going all the way of the prohibitionists. An important victory was scored recently when the City of Sydney was forced to back down on enforcing a midnight closing times on pubs.

This is an important victory, if only because I could not have otherwise been in Petersham's Livingston Hotel on Saturday morning at 5am trying to convince some bloke I just met from Kent that I was an Argentine in order to try and pick a fight over the Falklands.

So, listen to this song with a drink to celebrate our victories and to remind ourselves why we fight the bastards trying to stop us drinking.

"As far as I'm concerned, AA stands for alcohol... is awesome"

Alcohol is Awesome

Dear alcohol last night we had a ball
i lost my left shoe
don't worry i don't blame you
your my best friend
there til the end

i love the the way that you taste
you put a smile on my face
and you get all the blame
as far as im concerned
A.A. stands for alcohol is awesome

all my friends are worried about me
they say i need a meeting
they say i got a problem
i don't have a problem
they said thats half the problem
and you get all the blame
as far as im concerned
A.A. stands for alcohol is awesome

alcohol is awesome
so fuckin awesome (keep repeating)

and you get all the blame
as far as I'm concerned
A.A. stands for alcohol is awesome

alcohol is awesome
so fuckin awesome (keep repeating)

If you want more Bourbon Corw on the importance of being drunk, there are a few more songs:
Alcohol Express ("Yes it's true, alcohol I love you")
In the Mood for a Drinkin' Song ("My girl has left me and my money's almost gone... and I'm just in the mood for a drinkin' song")
Ol Whisky Mountain ("I got this ol' guitar and a bottle of jack. I've got no plans, but I've got no regrets, so line 'em up bar tender, aint even started yet")
A Dead Body ("I'm too drunk to dig this grave, I've been drinkin for 17 days, and I'm livin the American dream, a dead body and the bottle of beam..." - this one truly sums up Carlo Sands' life)

The cruellest spam and most outrageous slander against alcohol ever... PLUS a way forward proposed

2010-11-18T10:49:00.025+11:00

Not fucking true!

The Sydney Morning Herald reported today on a particularly evil piece of email spam involving one of this nation’s biggest liquor store chains, Dan Murphy’s:

Liquor retailer Dan Murphy’s has been hit by a hoax offer that claims friends and family of the business can buy alcohol at a 30 per cent discount.

The Woolworths-owned liquor seller confirmed there is a flyer circulating online that advertises the fake discount. The retailer warned consumers on its website that the offer is not valid.

“To avoid any disappointment, please be aware that a hoax flyer is being circulated that did not originate from Dan Murphy's or Woolworths Ltd,” the company said. “THIS OFFER IS NOT VALID.”

A fucking hoax! The spammers have gone too far. There are some things you just don’t joke about and cheap booze is one of them. Not in this country. Not with this alcohol tax regime (combined with profiteering scum alcohol industry involving the likes of ... Dan Murphy’s).

What makes it so much more hurtful is that it is not as though this type of thing is not badly needed! The news is bad for alcohol on all fronts.

The mainstream media maintains its ceaseless flow of biased anti-drinking propaganda. The SMH today contains possibly the most outrageous story yet, entitled “Binge drinking puts young women at risk”.

You read it, expecting horror stats of brain damage or inflated livers, but no... The risk?

“Heavier drinking is exposing young women to increased risk of sexual assault for which male perpetrators routinely escape blame, a government-sponsored study has found.”

There you have it, fellas. It is young women drinking that is to blame for men sexually assaulting them.

Really, young women should just fucking stay at home where they fucking belong and do nothing so unladylike as enjoy a fucking beer. And then men would not be tempted to rape them.

Now, does anyone else recall the flood of outrage when Sydney Muslim cleric Taj El-Din Hamid Hilaly made the following offensive comment about how women dress: “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat?”

The question is what is the difference between excusing rape on the basis of women dressing in a way that provokes it and excusing rape on the basis that a women brought it on herself by being “too drunk”?

Consider this comment. The SMH reported that, in response to this study, “Trish Worth, chairwoman of DrinkWise, said there was a need for Australia to reshape its drinking culture”.

That’s right. Rethink its “binge drinking” problem. Because if there has been a rape, it is quite obviously all this damned drinking that is to blame.

It is like we have suddenly been transported back to the 1950s and the mainstream media is rehashing the plot lines of propaganda films such as “Reefer Madness!” — only instead of the demon weed we have FUCKING BOOZE!

Rethink its binge drinking culture? Here is a small suggestion from Carlo Sands, feel free to accept or reject it: How about ... you’ll laugh at this, no doubt it is just a silly thought but I’ll throw it out there ... how about ... just give it some thought ... rethinking a culture that allows men to think they can rape and sexual assault women???

I know. I’ve always been a radical. But don’t just dismiss it out of hand as the ravings of a mad Bolshevik. Give it some thought.

What about rethinking a culture that, when a young woman is assaulted, a study finds “victims of sexual assault were more likely to blame themselves and alcohol and exonerate men”.

Well, it is quite clearly booze’s fault, isn’t it, because the study says “young women often used alcohol to ‘transgress social norms’ of being female, then found themselves drunk and prey to the sexual advances of one or more young men”.

Right. Drunk and “prey” to sexual advances from men.

Carlo Sands is not now, nor has he ever been, a young woman. But I am going to take a stab in the dark and say young women don’t need to be drunk to receive sexual advances from “one or more young men”.

There is, of course, a difference between being prey to sexual advances that may be unwanted and actually being assaulted. And to be assaulted, a young woman does not need to be drunk or sober, just at the mercy of a rapist.

And if a woman is raped, it is not because they are drunk. It is because the rapist made the decision to rape them.

Now, why would a rapist do that? If I may go out on a limb here and make another radical suggestion (I know, I’m fucking sounding like fucking Trotsky addressing the fucking Petrograd Soviet on the question of storming the Winter Palace), but maybe the problem here is not how much the man who commits the assault has drunk, nor how much the woman who is assaulted has drunk, and maybe it is NOT ABOUT FUCKING BOOZE at all!

Maybe the problem is misogyny.

Maybe the problem is deep-rooted sexism in society and in our culture that gives too many men the assumption that women are objects to satisfy men, and they are, or should be, a man’s property, and they are beneath men and that men have a right to take advantage of them.

Both booze and the young women who enjoy consuming it are innocent. Young women who are sexually assaulted don’t bring it on themselves because of what they wear or what they drink. They have a right to wear or drink what they like.

“You can't knock em out, can’t walk away. Try desperately to think of the politest way to say, ‘Just get out my face, just leave me alone. And no you can’t have my number’, ‘Why?’, ‘because I’ve lost my phone’ ... ‘Please fuck off. No, it’s not going to happen, not in a million years’.” Lily Allen (with a great film clip made by young wommen at St.Angela's Sixth Form in east London) on the pressing question of how young women should, while out drinking, deal with arseholes making unwanted sexual advances. Presumably, SMH thinks whatever the arsehole may or may not do, the young woman in question had it coming, what with the explicit setting of this song in a pub and everything.

Beyond my heart attack-inducing rage at the SMH piece, my point is: this is is just the latest, if one of the more offensive, series of attacks on drinking. It all works to creates the atmosphere for such proposals as the one from the City of Sydney to close all pubs at midnight.

The result of all of this? Media and government hysteria notwithstanding, the tragic news has come through: Alcohol consumption has dropped for the fourth running year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has reported.

It is in this context that this fake offer has been made. It is undoubtedly cruel to get drinkers’ hopes up in such a way, only for them to be so horribly dashed after a drinker has made the effort to stagger or crawl to the nearest Dan Murphy’s bottlo.

But let us not only blame the spammers. Much responsibility lies with Dan Murphy’s too. The prices in these liquor stores are too high!

It is ridiculous, the way beer prices, especially, are going through the roof.

I know the capitalist gangs in control of liquor production and distribution will blame the government’s taxes. And they have a point — they are ridiculously high. Why should our livers pay for their system of corporate welfare and the privileges of the bureaucratic and political class?

But, if that is solely to blame, then I ask here, before the world, why will these liquor giants not open their books and allow society to see for themselves their profit margins?

In a matter so crucial to society’s function as access to alcohol, society must be in a position to ensure it can be accessed in a fair manner and not left to the whims of those whose minds are only on profit, not on the drinkers’ well being.

Let us collectively decide what would be a reasonable return for these companies!

And any company in the liquour industry caught abusing their position and engaging in excess profiteering should be NATIONALISED and WITHOUT COMPENSATION! Then we can begin to create a network of alcohol production and distribution under collective control and for the collective interests of the drinkers.

If one good thing may come from this cruel trick, let it be that these questions are posed before society.

In the meantime, Carlo Sands blames both the spammers for raising false hopes, and the liquor giants and government for creating a situation so unfair that these tricksters can prey on our hopes and dreams. To all of them, I dedicate the following song by a group of Welsh rock legends...

“But there’s no — no truce with my fury... you stole the sun from my heart.” Carlo Sands saw the Manic Street Preachers play on Monday and they rocked. They played this song and Carlo Sands jumped around almost as much as a much mascara-ed Nicky Wire.

In lieu of my Google ads so cruelly taken from me, here is a special offer from Carlo Sands to my loyal readers who love Tom Waits

2010-11-15T18:19:00.020+11:00

When I discovered the terrible news yesterday that Google had disabled my Google adsense account and taken away my beloved Google ads, I felt a crushing sense of disappointment that I would no longer be able to offer my beloved loyal readers so wonderful an array of shopping opportunities.

Google, in its wisdom, has found Carlo Sands in violation of its so-called terms of agreement.

It doesn’t explain. These giant corporations never do.

It merely accuses my blog of generating “invalid clicks” — clicks on the ads done not with the intention of genuinely checking out the products on offer, but merely to generate cash for the blogger.

I mean, as if! As if the glory of my google ads was not the reason for their runaway success! Why would my loyal readers not be attracted to the ads?

Oh, the offers! A common one was “Alcohol treatment”. Who does not wish to be treated with alcohol?

But there was so much more. Let me quote from the ultimate source: myself.

In a recent Letter to a reader on the crucial question of google ads, I pointed out what was on offer:

...from "Beer" to "Spirits" to "Alcohol" to... all sorts of things.

Sometimes they go all left field and the ads will offer a range of seemingly random things, such as a series of NGO jobs: "Teach English", "NGO jobs", "NGO jobs in Kenya", "NGO jobs in Bangladesh".

There is always choice on offer, such as the time the two google ads on offer where "Humanitarian aid" and "Un humanitarian aid".

Choice is what this blog is all about and I am proud to provide ads that allow people to decide for themselves whether to help or hinder the less fortunate.

My personal favourite, though, was one automatically generated by my last post about Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow, which offered "Pirate Treasure Chests". I really think you cannot ask for more than this.

And yet Google would have us believe that some of the clicks on such wonders were “invalid”!

Well, what a joke!

I actually think my ads were the victims of their own success. So enticing with their offers of “Alcohol treatment” and “Un humanitarian aid” that the clicks seemed illegitimate.

Now, my mass fan base are of course my first concern in this matter, but I should like to point out that Carlo Sands has suffered too.

Google disabled my account owing me 92 bucks! The fucking god damn thieves. Google says it has given that cash “back” to the advertisers in question!

Well, Google, you fucking owe me $92 and I here by declare before the entire world that Carlo Sands shall get it. I shall, in the first instance, use your appeal processes and point out the fundamentally injustice that has been committed.

I mean what utter scum. Never trust a corporation, that is the lesson I’ve learned the hard way, though I guess I could have just learned it from Joss Whedon or the entire rest of humanity that happen not to be a major share holder and/or executive board member of the top 200 corporations that own this fucking planet.

Google... it starts wars in Central America and it steals your fuckin ads...

It hurts, it really does. I loved those ads. They were my reason to keep on going, knowing I could offer them to my legion of fans, knowing it was a way Carlo Sands could give something back.

Seriously Google, why didn't you just steal my heart too when you nicked my ads, coz what use is a heart so badly broken?

Google has as its unofficial motto: “Don’t be evil.”

I fucking kid you not. It is on Wikipedia and everything.

The fucking irony...

So, I would like to try and make it up to my fans with a very special offer. A free live album from God himself, recorded in Amsterdam in 2004.

This offer of free Tom Waits really is the least Carlo Sands can do.

So, check out this site: http://bootlegsfrombucklberry.blogspot.com/2009/05/tom-waits-amsterdam-2004.html.

Follow the easy to assembly instructions and you'll have yourself a few album — but be quick, the offer is going to run out sooner or later.

There you go, loyal fans. An *entire* album worth of live Tom Waits songs. Some 22 songs all up. Includes many favourites from his then just released brilliant album Real Gone.

So... I can't offer Google ads, at least until my appeal is accepted or Google somehow sees the error of its ways... but I can offer you free music from the Greatest Fucking Singer-Song Writer In The Entire Fucking World Ever.

Ok.

Now, while we are on the topic of FUCKING Google, below is the delightful Manic Street Preachers with the closing track from their latest album Postcards from a Young Man. A song written about Google, entitled “Don’t be Evil (Just be Corporate)”.

(I am off to see the Manics in just a couple of hours, I mean I don’t like to boast, but I fucking am...)

“The sickos and the bullies praise your name. You've enriched their lives with pleasure and fame. As a corporate as the suits you won't wear, as stupid as the jeans you tear, as evil as the pretense you care, God save us all from Satan's stare... Don't be evil, just be corporate. Fool the world with all your own importance...” The Manic Street Preachers give Google a well deserved kicking. Did I mention I’ll be seeing them in a couple of hours?

No can do this, no can do that, what the hell can you do, my friend, at this ‘community festival’?

2010-11-14T18:05:00.022+11:00

“Where there’s a music shall be comin’ out of every car, there is a silence all over downtown. Where community celebrates shall be aroused,I walk the sterile gardens where life is on pause ... No can do this no can do that, what the hell can you do my friend, in this place that you call your town?”

I swear to god Gogol Bordello have been to the annual Newtown Festival. I turned up today to what is self-described as “an iconic Sydney festival, creating an annual community celebration of creativity, diversity, sustainability and inclusion”.

What a load of utter bollocks. I mean, you could argue it is bad enough being in Newtown and that the wanker quota could not but go through the roof. This is true, but misses a bigger point.

Seriously, I mean, for fuck’s sake, why is it that *everything* in this fucking society gets fucking fucked up?

Fucking Newtown fucking festival, you fucking approach it and the streets are hot and packed and there are fucking pigs everywhere (which is just fucking unhygienic) and the cafes are in ceaseless competition with barbeques offering sausages in a roll that cost them probably 30 cents each for $3.50 and I found one offering them for a mere three bucks (though the manager conceded the smokey taste came from never cleaning the BBQ, so they no doubt save on labour costs).

And you approach the “festival” and dodge the pigs that occupy the centre of the roads leading to the park and you get to the park and are confronted with the fact the public fucking park is fucking surrounded by a three metre high fence and there is only a narrow fucking entry point and there is a fucking *queue* to get into a public fucking park!

And you look closer as you approach and realise the fucking entrance you have no fucking choice but to fucking use, along with hundreds of other fucking people at the same fucking time on this hot fucking day, is fucking infested with festival officials with buckets insisting you give a gold coin “donation” before you are allowed enter the *fucking* public *fucking* park!

And then you realise that *beyond* the officials with their buckets and their stupid fucking stickers to stick on those who “donated” lies the official security forces in strong numbers and they are fucking stopping every poor fucker with a fucking bag and searching it for fucking booze so that every single poor bastard who has braved it this far has absolutely no choice but to join a long fucking queue to buy overpriced fucking beer inside the fucking grounds.

And the fucking security that fucking swarm all over the fucking place are fucking keen to ensure no fucking unauthorised fucking material gets distributed or, for that fucking matter, no *authorised* material gets distributed in an *unauthorised* place. (“I’m sorry sir, you have to return to your designated stall area.”)

And it is too fucking hot and there are too many fucking people and it is like a fucking traffic jam on some corners and you can’t fucking move and the only free stuff being handed out are fucking DOG TREATS! What the fuck am I going to do with dog treats?

And, let us not forget what this is: a fucking “community” festival in a fucking public park! Why are their security officials swarming every fucking metre of it throwing hissy fits if you fucking breathe out of line? **

Why are the so many fucking pigs, including the surreal sight of pigs on horses, whose horses take the opportunity to fucking *shit* on the middle of the path in the middle of the stretch of fucking food stalls?

It has gotten worse over the years. I remember a few years back, sure it was overcrowded and too hot, but at least the public fucking park was not enclosed by fucking three metre high fucking fences so you have no choice but to join a queue just to enter the fucking place so the fucking pricks can search your bag to ensure you get price gouged every time you want a fucking drink.

Which, in the circumstances, is straight away and constantly.

And you could distribute or sell newspapers without being harassed outside some officially designated little fucking ghetto at the far end of nowhere.

I am sure there were many nice things going on and some good stalls and tasty food and decent bands. But if I had stayed long enough to find out, there would have been at least one unfortunate machete incident and I just don’t need that kind of trouble when I’ve got drinking to do.

As a great man once said: “The drinks were few and the people were many. It was everything I expected and less! I’m never going outside again, unless I need some place to throw up.”

“I guess you can’t expect much from the hometown. Well, I don’t know if you can even call it your own...” Gogol Bordello frontman Eugene Hutz makes the point accoustically.

** It is worth pointing out that the security official that broke the news to Carlo Sands that he should cease his attempt to sell Green Left Weekly on a shady corner in the middle of the *public* park was actually a really nice guy forced to do so by his boss, who was clearly embarrassed and in disagreement with his orders. The first time he came up and asked whether the paper was official material, and when I told him we had a stall looked overwhelmingly relieved and asked, for form’s sake, where it was over the other side of the festival. I had no idea where the proper GLW stall was so just said yes, which he was more than happy with.

But a minute or two later, even more sheepishly, he returned, completely apologetic, and said “I’m, sorry its my boss, he says you have to distribute material in your designated area”. And then he said, with real spite, “It’s fucking ridiculous!”, thus saving me the effort. Embarrassed, he told me he loves the good work Green Left does, and then conspiratorially, lent towards me and said: “Just sell on your way back, just walk around and sell ... I didn't tell you that that (wink)”

Day of the Meerkat: a damn good band

2010-10-18T14:25:00.016+11:00

“History doesn't happen its made. How much did you get paid today? A city stops when met by a thousand cops. Black and blue lines are crossed and justice is a battered word...” Day of the Meerkat perfom "History Doesn't Happen Like it Used To" at the Gaelic Club.

Carlo Sands was pleased to get to see Sydney band Day of the Meerkat at the Live Red Art show at the Marrickville Community Centre yesterday. It has been a while since I saw this intoxicating mix of hillbilly rock live.

Day of the Meerkat are aptly described at the Band Next Door blog in this way: “Some wild form of raucous and rough stuff is what Day Of The Meerkat are known to do best, and for now, they are one of the best.

“Something which is suitable to drinking those cheap beers at the danky pub in your inner city bohemian land.”

This is a practice, the blog argues and Carlo Sands agrees, that “should be revived in this land of boudois venues and heavily legalised way of having fun”.

“Day Of The Meerkat is that band to save us from it all!”

The clip at the top is a performance of “History Doesn’t Happen Like It Used To” from the band’s May 22, 2009 launch of their EP Dirty Tricks on Sinking Ships at the Gaelic Club in Sydney.

The song is about the 2007 APEC protests and the way Sydney was turned into a police state during the forum attended by war criminal and then world emperor George Bush. (I remember seeing the Meerkat playing at the post-APEC protest party and benifit gig.)

I was there at the EP launch at the Gaelic Club. It was a great show, Carlo Sands was down near the front dancing as only Carlo Sands can: very badly.

In fact, if I recall, I was sick as a dog that day and drugged up with codeine. The only sensible solution to this predicament was to drink as much beer as I could before the gig, during the gig and after the gig.

In the audience shot at the end of the clip, in may be possible to grab just a glimpse of a notoriously secretive and rarely seen in public Carlo Sands, but about that I can say no more.

Day of the Meerkat perform at the Gaelic Club in May last year. Carlo Sands was out there somewhere, drunk and dancing poorly.

Sources close to the band have informed this blogger that the Meerkat have an album due out next month. Included on the record is the song below, “Bird on the Windshield” — of which I am a fan and got to see performed live yesterday.

"You were right, I was wrong, I was nuts all along." Carlo Sands approves.

NOTE: You can download (for free or a donation) Day of the Meerkat’s songs from their first two EPs here.

A reply to a reader on the question of google ads

2010-10-11T22:11:00.019+11:00

I received a note from a reader of this blog that raised some very serious questions - nay allegations - in relation to the service provided by the blog of google ads for the readers' shopping pleasure.

These said ads are in my humble opinion - and it is my fucking blog so my opinion is what fucking counts - one of this blog's most attractive features.

(Asides, that is, from my profile pic in the top right hand of the blog. I am told I remind people of a famous film star. I don't see it myself, but then I have never been a fan of Tom Hanks.)

There are so many advantages to the google ads, which you will find at the top of the blog just above the post.

A key one, besides the cash Carlo Sands earns, is the wide variety of automatically generated ads. Everything from "Beer" to "Spirits" to "Alcohol" to... all sorts of things.

Sometimes they go all left field and the ads will offer a range of seemingly random things, such as a series of NGO jobs: "Teach English", "NGO jobs", "NGO jobs in Kenya", "NGO jobs in Bangladesh".

There is always choice on offer, such as the time the two google ads on offer where "Humanitarian aid" and "Un humanitarian aid".

Choice is what this blog is all about and I am proud to provide ads that allow people to decide for themselves whether to help or hinder the less fortunate.

My personal favourite, though, was one automatically generated by my last post about Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow, which offered "Pirate Treasure Chests". I really think you cannot ask for more than this.

Some, it seems, disagree.

It is really hard to please some people, and Carlo Sands received the following disgruntled letter from a reader not at all satisfied with the results of clicking on a google ad.

I provide the letter below.

* * *

Dear Mr Sands,

I was perusing your most excellent blog whereupon I noticed a Google ad for "Binge Drinking". "Don't mind if I do", I thought to myself, and clicked, expecting a bounty of alcoholic options to be arrayed before me.

What I must ask you now is this: What are you playing at? What in the blazes do wedding photography, Floriade and Bob Jane T-mart have to do with binge drinking?

I expect you'll claim innocence, blaming Google or somesuch. I say this will not stand.

sincerely,

A disappointingly sober fan.

* * *

Calling the quality of Carlo Sands' google ads into question is no small matter. If the implications of this letter were true, it would be serious business indeed.

However, Carlo Sands feels greatly wronged. And therefore allow me to publish the following Open Letter to a Reader on the Crucial Question of Google Ads:

Dear A Disappointingly Sober Fan (and I agree it is a great disappointment to find you in such a state),

I mean, for christ's sake! Take a good look at yourself, Disappointingly Sober!

Most people in this world are too damn poor for google ads and you are whining that the one you clicked on didn't present you with choices you consider adequate!

Oh the shame of it.

Allow me to state what should be blindingly obvious: if you, Disappointingly Sober, require the assistance of google ads to partake in the joys of binge drinking, then I dare say you are doing it wrong!

What you do, for future reference, is walk to the fridge and/or cupboard, open the door and consume all the booze within.

Should such spaces be empty, then you open the front door, having picked up your wallet from wherever the fuck you said you liked to leave it in that pointless meme, and walk to a pub and/or bottle shop.

Then you buy as much booze as the contents of your wallet allow and drink it.

Now, can google ads play any role in this process? Yes, in two ways.

First, look at the wedding photography that so drew your ire. I mean, seriously look.

Keep looking. Avoid the temptation to avert your eyes or scratch them out. Do this for a good, say, 15 minutes.

Now, don't you feel an overwhelming urge to drink as much as you can as quickly as you can?

Try it with Bob Jane T-Mart. Maybe it wont work for you, but I gotta tell you, a Bob Jane T-Mart catalogue sure sends me running to LiquorLand for their strongest brew every fucking time.

The second way it assists is it generates cash for Carlo Sands and Carlo Sands spends that cash on booze.

He may be willing to buy you a drink out of the bounty, but not of you keep acting up like this.

Grow up, Disappointingly Sober! Stop blaming Carlo Sands and his google ads for any state of sobriety you find yourself in, get yourself some decent fucking booze and fucking DAMN WELL DRINK IT!!!

yours sincerely,
Carlo Sands
(deceased)

P.S.: Thank you for your support.

Wherever people long for freedom, Johnny Depp is there

2010-10-10T13:32:00.029+11:00

Yes, it is all over the media.

The Greatest Actor of His Generation turned up at a British school in full pirate regalia after a young fan wrote to him seeking help to stage a “mutiny”.

“Beatrice Delap, nine, wrote to Captain Jack Sparrow — Depp's character in the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies — asking for help with an uprising against teachers at Meridian Primary School in Greenwich, south-east London”, ABC.net.au said.

“We are a bunch of budding young pirates and we were having a bit of trouble mutiny-ing against the teachers,” Delap wrote. “We’d love if you could come and help.”

Recognising that surprise is of the essence in a successful insurrection, Depp gave the school just 10 minutes notice of his visit in response to the call for assistance in the students’ liberation struggle.

Panicked, the school establishment called a hasty assembly, into which Depp strode in full pirate regalia, accompanied by four pirate offsiders. The students, we are told, burst into applause.

No doubt this ovation was also accompanied by many cries of “Long live the revolution!”, “Fourth graders united shall never be defeated!” and “To the wall, teacher scum!”

However, corporate media accounts omit any reference to such chants.

Despite the element of surprise, it turns out there was a turncoat in rebel ranks. Addressing the rebels, Depp was forced to advocate a tactical retreat: “Maybe we shouldn’t mutiny today because there are police outside monitoring me.”

This was a wise tactical move. With the forces of reaction mobilising their repressive apparatus against the rising in advance, the rebels were surrounded. A hasty rising in such circumstances could only lead to a bloodbath.

And a heroic but failed rising is of no use to anyone — unless you’re Irish, perhaps.

Far better to keep the powder dry, regroup, gather the forces, strengthen preparations and prepare to launch a successful insurrection tomorrow.

“So we’ll mutiny, take over the school and eat lots of candy till our teeth fall out.” Depp expounds the rebels’ action program.

Now there is more to Depp than his role as revolutionary leader. He also directed and starred in the clip below for the Shane MacGowan and the Popes song “That Woman Got Me Drinking” — an ode to the noble art of mending a broken heart with huge quantities of booze. (Of course, this features Shane MacGowan before he sold out and got his teeth fixed.)

“She said she’d always love me, she said I’d be the one. Now look at the way she treats me, just like a piece of scum. That woman’s got me drinking, look at the state I’m in. Give me one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten bottles of gin.”

From assisting primary schoolchildren in their bid to throw off their oppressors, to directing a clip celebrating binge drinking as a legitimate response to heart ache, to completely failing to win an Oscar despite being the greatest actor of his generation and despite Tom Fucking Hanks winning two... it seems there is truly nothing Johnny Depp cannot do.

And here, on this very blog, Carlo Sands has been kind enough to provide, in one single post, no less than two clips featuring Mr Depp.

And I do this entirely free of charge, purely out of passion for my work.

And all Carlo Sands asks in return is you have a look at the google ads kindly provided at the top of the page for your shopping pleasure, check them out, and, if you see anything like, give them a good click or two.

You'll find if you refresh the page, google kindly provides an entirely different set of ads — feel free to check them all out!

Some good news for a change

2010-10-06T13:47:00.049+11:00

Oktoberfest beer festival in Taybeh, occupied West Bank.

It can be hard to find good news is this god-forsaken hellhole of a world.

When I look in the papers these days, two things repeatedly send that shiver of horror and disgust up my spine: the latest Western-backed Israeli crimes against the dispossed Palestinian people and the latest crypto-prohibitionist assault on our right to drink to forget the world right here in this grand nation of ours.

But there is some good news amid the horror.

I like the October 5 Sydney Morning Herald story pasted below because it is about beer. And Carlo Sands likes beer.

I like it because the story of the Oktoberfest festival in the Palestinian West Bank town of Taybeh is about enjoying beer in the face of far greater odds than drinkers in this country could dream of.

And I like it because anywhere people defy the odds to get pissed is a victory against the anti-drinking elements everywhere.

And by "anti-drinking" elements, I don't mean those who don't drink. I mean those who seek to stop others drinking. Usually, such people drink themselves, the selfish fucking hypocrites.

In the story below, a Muslim Palestinian, who has never tried the beer, says she thinks "the festival is a good thing".

A large number of Muslims are like my friend Conehead - their poison is coloured green. Like Conehead, they do not judge others for the intoxicants they use to deal with this insane world.

The Israeli authorities, on the other hand, no doubt drink like fucking fish. But Israel has made it near impossible for Palestinians in the West Bank to enjoy some booze themselves.

The West Bank having been militarily occupied by Israel since 1967, its only brewery was only opened in 1995 thanks to the small easing of conditions Palestinians lived under as part of the Oslo Peace accords.

The article below details the difficulties the brewery faces trying to operate under Israeli occupation, with the free movement of goods and people denies, with endless militarty checkpoints and checkpoint closures, and the heavy costs bringing in needed goods from Israel.

And it is not just military occupation. More and more Palestinian land in the West Bank is being annexed for illegal Jewish settlers. All sorts of Jewish-only roads and other forms of infrastructure are taken up by the settlements.

Also, water is diverted to the settlements, making it scarcer for Palestinians. No doubt this is an extra impediment and cost to any Palestinian who may wish to brew beer in their own fucking country.

Despite these formidible obstacles, the article explains, such is the passion for letting Palestinians enjoy a few fucking beers that brewery owner Nadim Khoury works 16 hours a day to get the stuff out.

What a fucking hero. This is a good news story indeed.

It is inspiring. But there is a scary side worth considering: if they were to set this festival up on any of the 180 streets in places such as Kings Cross, Redfern, Surry Hills and Newtown that the authorities have now declared alcohol-free-zones, then the cops could seize the booze and fine those involved $2200 each.

The SHM article:

There was meat grilling on barbecues, children with painted faces, stalls selling crafts and cakes, a stage for live music and even the odd priest wandering about. Everywhere people were clutching glasses of beer in the afternoon sun.

Welcome to the annual beer festival in the West Bank, specifically the village of Taybeh, home to the only brewery in the Palestinian territories.

Around 10,000 people were expected to attend the weekend's Oktoberfest, which would have made it the biggest since the event began in the Christian-dominated village.

It is a mark of the festival's success that it was crammed with food stalls doing a lively trade to Palestinian families (both Muslim and Christian), diplomats, aid workers and tourists.

But it was the eponymous beer itself, briskly selling at 10 shekels ($2.80) for a half-litre glass, that was the star of the show.

Made without additives and using water from the spring of Ein Samia - ''delicious'' in Arabic - it was slipping easily down the throats of thirsty visitors.

Business, according to the brewery's owner, Nadim Khoury, is booming despite the obvious difficulties of operating in an overwhelmingly abstinent Muslim environment. The brewery faces ''many obstacles - religion, culture, occupation, closures'' plus a prohibition on advertising alcohol, Mr Khoury said.

''I'm on my feet 16 hours a day to promote the beer, going door-to-door, bar-to-bar, hotel-to-hotel. It's not easy in this part of the world.''

The firm started brewing beer in 1995 in the optimistic years after the Oslo accords. When the second intifada started in 2000, the brewery faced a crisis.

But output has since tripled to 600,000 litres a year and there are plans to expand. A non-alcoholic version of the beer for the Muslim market has made a good start, said Mr Khoury. He would like to see an end to the expensive ''back-to-back'' system of moving goods from the West Bank into Israel.

The beer has to be unloaded from Palestinian trucks at checkpoints and reloaded onto Israeli trucks, often involving long waits in high temperatures.

At the festival, two young women are listening to a Brazilian band. Nibal, 22, a Christian Palestinian, enjoys drinking Taybeh beer, but Samah, 24, a Muslim, has never tasted the village's famous product.

''But I think the festival is a good thing,'' she says.

Beer on offer. Half a litre costs about $2.80. Even in the West Bank under Israeli military occupation, despite the high costs and difficulties of importing goods, despite the scarcity of beer, it is still cheaper than under Australia's aclohol taxation regime.

On a Redfern street, these would be confiscated.

Israeli settlers are yet to take all the water. There is still enough for a few draught beers.

Looks like it tastes good. But, like, hang on! Aren't, like, Palestinians all, like, woman-oppressing Muslim extremists? Why is, like, a young woman drinking beer in public? We haven't been, like, fed bullshit propaganda have we? Surely not.

Life's greatest joy: sitting around drinking beer.

That guy has clearly enjoyed his Oktoberfest. Lucky he isn't on a Sydney street, lest he be arrested under the noticeably drunk laws introduced last year.

All in all a rare, badly needed good news story. And good news calls for a celebration. And that means its time to drink some booze.

As nearly seen on 60 Minutes

2010-10-02T19:12:00.078+10:00

I have long been aware this blog has fans in important places. It attracts the crème de la creme of the Australian, indeed world intelligentsia. True leaders — doers, not just thinkers.

The movers and the shakers (and not just with DTs).

So you can only imagine how disappointed I was to get an email from someone from 60 Minutes telling me she “loved the blog” and wanting a chat.

The first I heard of this strange episode in Carlo Sands’ life (you can refer to yourself in third person if you are famous and Carlo Sands has decided nearly being on 60 Minutes counts) was an email from one of the administrators of the “Who is Carlo Sands?” facebook group that posed the obvious question: “what the fuck?”

The administrator had received a message via facebook from 60 Minutes seeking help in tracking Carlo Sands down.

A few thoughts occurred to me: this was someone's idea of a joke; 60 Minutes were planning an attack on binge drinking and figured a few cheap shots at a proudly alcoholic blogger would score easy points; or possibly it was about that cake recipe from Conehead the Barbituate I posted, even though I clearly specified it was for educational purposes only and, if you really wanted to bake it, to use the non-THC strain.

I didn't have to ponder too long, as I discovered 60 Minutes had sent Carlo Sands a message too.

There it was in my email account, which I rarely check as only spammers and fake hit-collecting sites seeking "link exchanges" ever email Carlo Sands, with the official Channel Nine logo at the bottom: "Dear Carlo, I saw your blog and would love to chat with you about it..."

It struck me that whatever 60 Minutes wanted, it was unlikely to be good news for Carlo Sands or the much-maligned binge drinking community.

But, curious, I sought more information. Sure enough, I got this response: "I’m working on a story on alcohol and the push to change legislation, cut opening hours etc

"I’m looking for someone who can defend those who like going out and drinking. It wouldn’t necessarily have to be you but I do love your blog. I’d love a chat on the phone if you have a minute…"

Well, it is true the attacks are increasing alarmingly.

The propaganda comes first. Salvation Army released a widely covered report aimed at proving kids today are all out-of-control drunks.

Even god damn mX got in on the act with a stunning front page story on September 17 that purported to reveal shocking evidence of damaging “memory loss” among youth due to binge drinking.

But the free Murdoch rag then shredded its credibility by quoting some “expert” speculating an increase in youth dementia rates “could be because alcohol is more readily available and affordable”.

What the fuck? More readily available than where? Saudi Arabia?

It is certainly not more readily available or affordable than times gone past in Australia. Anyone who thinks it is should read my post and the comments on it about the now-demised South Pacific Rugby Club in Canberra and ask themselves what odds such an establishment has of existing in today’s anti-booze atmosphere.

More affordable? Jesus, with taxes ratcheted up, the only way you can afford a few schooners these days is to apply for a mortgage.

I gotta cousin who has moved to Dubai and says booze may be harder to get, but it's a damn sight cheaper. Our god damn livers are being taxed to death.

The propaganda sets the stage for action. The September 17 Sydney Morning Herald reported the City of Sydney Council had declared 180 inner-city streets "alcohol free zones".

The cops will have the power to seize alcohol and issue fines of up to $2200 for those drinking in public within these zones.

Drinking in public is legal in New South Wales - asides from the now-proscribed areas.

Then, and at this point I nearly decided to just end it all now than try and live in such a horrible fucking world, came the news of a push to force pubs in Sydney to close up for the night at... GOD DAMN FUCKING MIDNIGHT!

Midnight! I mean for christ's sake.

I am not saying it is necessarily bad thing to call it a night and stagger to the train station at midnight. With a few good hours of drinking behind you, it can often be fine.

But not all the god damn time.

No, there are some nights, they happen to us all and to some of us quite frequently, whereby midnight is just not enough. More drinking is needed.

This is especially the case if, for reasons outside your own control, you started drinking late. Reasons such as work.

Some people work late. Some are fucking shift workers. Their right to cope with the mind-numbing, soul-destroying horrific job they are forced to do to pay the fucking rent by drinking and then drinking some more is under attack.

Indeed.

These attacks are too serious not to take any opportunity to resist. My duty was clear: I gave the journo my mobile number.

When she called, she started by asking a whole lot of impertinent, but predictable questions, such as: was my name really Carlo Sands, or else who was I? What was it I did?

She probed and took a guess I worked in the media. She claimed this was because I clearly knew how to write (has she fucking seen the typos on this blog?), but really I think it is simply because stats show almost no one drinks more than journos.

She asked me questions about what I thought about booze and binge drinking and the new laws. Then she got to the point.

Most media, she said, would do the standard youth binge drinking and alcohol-induced violence story. 60 Minutes brilliant idea for a different angle was this: How about they filmed "me and my mates" on a night out drinking, to show a different side, that people can go out and drink and joy themselves without causing or getting into trouble.

A 60 Minutes cameraman and producer would simply tag along, film it and try and not get in the way.

Note: Nothing was said as to who would pick up the tab.

My first thought, again, was: Has she read the fucking blog? She wants a night that *doesn't* end in messy chaos?

I am not saying I don't have such nights, but I try and keep pretty quiet about the fact.

And I was certainly not thrilled at the idea of such a night being fucking broadcast on national TV! Carlo Sands has a reputation to uphold.

My second thought was: it's a set-up. Whatever we do, we'll have no control over how 60 Minutes presents it. Commercial current affair shows specialise in that shit.

I suspect that wasn't the plan at all. For one thing, they would have offered to pay - to make it more attractive and ensure we got shitfaced. I suspect 60 Minutes did just want a different angle.

Now, Carlo Sands is willing to do whatever it takes to resist the crypto-prohibitionists. I have no problem doing whatever would give me a national TV audience to that end.

Hell, I reckon they should take me to a pub, fill me up with beer and film me ranting about crypto-prohibitionists in an extended live-to-air special feature that ends sometimes after 2am.

But convincing anyone else it is a good fucking idea to let Channel fucking Nine film them getting pissed is a different matter.

It isn't so simple to say to someone: "Pub? Just for one..." ("Just for one" is code for "Till we stumble out at closing time and try and find another venue open for more").

"Oh, by the way... 60 Minutes are going to film us."

I told the journo I'd give her an answer the next day.

There were those who strongly advocated taking up the offer. Whatever happened, it would be amusing.

But almost without fail, such people were safely in another city. (Though there was at least one offer to fly in to Sydney for the event - I make a point of never using people's real names on this blog so let us just call him "Ben".)

In the end, almost no one actually in Sydney was willing to take a public stand and get pissed on the telly. I had no choice but to say no.

60 Minutes would have to find some other alcoholic to con his friends into letting a comercial current affairs show stick a camera in their boozed-up faces for a night.

Yes, Carlo Sands’ one big chance at glory, at showing this god-forsaken country just how it should fucking be done, at smashing the crypto-prohibitionists with one big televised binge... it has come and it has gone.

It could have been Carlo Sands' one shot at the big time, at fulfilling a life’s dream: getting pissed on prime time TV.

Fuck, I need a beer.

“Now he’s spilling whiskey and learning songs about a one that got away”. Tom Waits captures the tragedy of those who nearly made it.

Nothing to fucking see here

2010-08-24T17:09:00.012+10:00

A profound analysis of recent events.

Nobody watched nothing talk about nothing while nothing gave answers about nothing and nobody replaced no one to give more nothing than ever before and nothing pledged nothing and no one waved and shouted about nothing in a bid to win nothing from nobody.

And nothing happened and nobody won.

But at least the nothing is 100% recyclable and, in this day and age, that, at least, is something.

In other news, Justin Bieber got hit in the head by a bottle.

"Ow? That didn't feel good." The Labor machine empathises with Justin Bieber.

If you really need more, I guess you could check out Green Left Weekly. or if you are really looking to get a serious in-depth persepctive, try this lovely set of charts from Townsville. Its graphic depiction of the hat question is particularly illuminating.

More crucial election news: must see video

2010-08-10T08:37:00.009+10:00

"Ooww? That didn't feel good."

Without doubt, the most exciting news so far in the Australian federal elections 2010, scheduled for August 21, was released this very morning.

Finally, previously suppressed footage from a concert featuring so-called singer and Devil Child Justin Bieber being attacked by a brave hero in the crowd has been made public. Ninemsn tells the story:

Video footage has emerged of tween pop star Justin Bieber being attacked with a water bottle onstage.

The 16-year-old "Baby" singer was performing at a concert for US radio station 107.9 The End in December last year when a concertgoer hurled the object at him.

"But yeah, I just wanted to see everybody because I love you guys," Bieber says, before the bottle hits him in the head.

The crowd can be heard gasping as Bieber turns his back and clutches his forehead.

"Ow, that didn't feel good," he says.

"I don't know why she just threw that at me."

Ok, now Justin (or should I call you by your correct title "Spawn of Satan Sent to Destroy All Culture and Enslave Us All"?), let me tell you something. You know when you got hit in the head? And when you said "ow?" you made it a question?

That type of thing helps explain why someone threw the projectile and they aimed straight for your head.

That and the fact you had a microphone in your hand and were clearly threatening to "sing". That was a dangerous provocation.

It is inspirational footage, but the feeling remains this video represents yet another missed opportunity in this election campaign. An empty vodka bottle would have been much more effective, especially if filled with petrol and a rag and then set alight.

Still, in this campaign, when the offerings are a mad monk in budgy smugglers or a faulty robot with multi-personalities who can only move forwards - both of whom being determined to destroy all life on Earth - you take what you can get.

From now until August 22, the best advice your faithful blogger can give you is turn off your TV whenever the news comes on and just watch this clip over and over again.

PS: Don't forget the google-ads just at the top of the page. Every time you click them, a Justin Beiber CD dies.

Have you heard there’s an election on?

2010-08-09T11:15:00.005+10:00

If I can’t vote for killing Justin Bieber, it’s not my election. And they call this a democracy.

However, we all do still have some freedoms they are yet to strip away. We can unite and click the google ads at the top of this blog!

Oh, the rich and powerful don’t want you to, make no mistake about it. They would have you believe it is *impossible*, at the current hit rate, for Carlo Sands to actually ever *earn* the 150 bucks required for google to bother sending him a check any time before the coming climate apocalypse destroys the planet and, with it, the requirement for Google to send Carlo Sands a check.

That is because they are scared! Sure, the amount earned over a year or so so far has barely reached double figures, but remember what Ghandi said: first they laugh at you, then they fight you, then they give you a check for $150 bucks and you go out and get pissed!

Don’t let them fool you! Take a stand! Click the ads!

Dare to struggle, dare to click! If you don’t click you lose!

The best fucking poem fucking ever fucking written by fucking anyone

2010-07-11T18:45:00.029+10:00

It is my considered opinion, avid clickers on the google ads kindly provided by my good self at the top of this blog, that John Cooper Clarke, “punk poet” and the “Bard of Salford”, is a fucking legend.

I have already drawn attention to one of his more charming poems, entitled “Twat”. And there are plenty more delightful ditties to be found on his website.

But more than anything else, Mr Cooper Clarke should be celebrated as the writer and performer of indisputably the Best Poem Ever Written By Anyone Ever.

Now, I can hear the cries of my loyal google-ad clicking fan base. Yes, Carlo Sands is also a poet.

And, yes, my masterpiece, I Kill You Now Fuck Off And Get Me A Drink, was one of those rare pieces of art that totally redefined a genre, revolutionised an art form and was so ahead of its time that time travellers from 2750s feel like backward hicks when they stumble across it.

It is true it was an important, if controversial, piece of work that bravely tackled such taboo subjects as the practice of yelling at corpses that fail to bring you a beer. Which, in my experience, is pretty much all of them.

But, if my more fanatical supporters will permit me to say so (and seriously guys, maybe you should relieve a little of that passionate energy with a few google ad clicks), it still falls short of Mr John Cooper Clarke's “Evidently Chickentown”.

Put to music by his Invisible Girls backing band for his 1980 album Snap, Crackle and Bop, featured briefly in the film clip to the Joy Division song “Transmission”, and played over the closing credits of an episode of The Sopranos, "Evidently Chickentown" is really fucking good.

It presents the most vivid picture ever provided in word form of what it is *actually like* trying to live under late monopoly capitalism.

Inspired by the wonders of working class life in northern England in the late ’70s, it describes life for ordinary people in the “developed” world everywhere.

It may also have served as inspiration of a sort to a post of mine entitled “Dear Motherfuckers” — but I warn Mr Cooper Clarke now, he wont ever see so much of a cent of my google ad revenue.

“The reason I like to do this number is, quite simply, I can't do this on TV. They wont let me do it on TV because last time I did it, the beep operators sued for repetitive strain injury. Also, my swear box doubles as a high-yield pension scheme.”

Evidently Chickentown

The fucking cops are fucking keen
To fucking keep it fucking clean
The fucking chief's a fucking swine
Who fucking draws a fucking line
At fucking fun and fucking games
The fucking kids he fucking blames
Are nowehere to be fucking found
Anywhere in Chickentown

The fucking scene is fucking sad
The fucking news is fucking bad
The fucking weed is fucking turf
The fucking speed is fucking surf
The fucking folks are fucking daft
Don't make me fucking laugh
It fucking hurts to look around
Everywhere in Chickentown

The fucking train is fucking late
You fucking wait you fucking wait
You're fucking lost and fucking found
Stuck in fucking Chickentown

The fucking view is fucking vile
For fucking miles and fucking miles
The fucking babies fucking cry
The fucking flowers fucking die
The fucking food is fucking muck
The fucking drains are fucking fucked
The colour scheme is fucking brown
Everywhere in Chickentown

The fucking pubs are fucking dull
The fucking clubs are fucking full
Of fucking girls and fucking guys
With fucking murder in Their eyes
A fucking bloke is fucking stabbed
Waiting for a fucking cab
You fucking stay at fucking home
The fucking neighbors fucking moan
Keep The fucking racket down
This is fucking Chickentown

The fucking train is fucking late
You fucking wait you fucking wait
You're fucking lost and fucking found
Stuck in fucking Chickentown

The fucking pies are fucking old
The fucking chips are fucking cold
The fucking beer is fucking flat
The fucking flats have fucking rats
The fucking clocks are fucking wrong
The fucking days are fucking long
It fucking gets you fucking down
Evidently Chickentown

Morrissey is all Kevin has left now

2010-06-27T17:04:00.015+10:00

“I’ve been stabbed in the back so many, many times I don’t have any skin. But that’s just the way it goes.” Morrissey sings Kevin Rudd’s life.

Yes, Morrissey’s Why Don’t You Find Out For Yourself is actually about the music industry.

But Hunter S. Thompson once summed up the Australian Labor Party perfectly when he said: “The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.

“There’s also a negative side.”

It may be about Morrissey’s own experiences, but this song from the master of misery’s 1994 album Vauxhall and I is the lament of fallen Labor leaders everywhere with its chorus: “You’ll never believe me so — why don’t you find out for yourself? Then you’ll see the glass hidden in the grass.”

Mark Latham wrote an entire, vitriolic book with that simple message — he could have saved some trees and a lot of time and just posted a link to “Why Don’t You Find Out For Yourself” on YouTube to his Facebook page.

Former NSW premier Morris Iemma is now wondering the streets of Sydney shouting to to all and sundry about Mark Arbib: “I told you all! He knifed me, now he’s knifed Kevin! I told you all but you wouldn’t listen!”

This was the very clear message from the man who took over from Iemma, Nathan Rees, when the factional headkickers that run NSW Labor did him in last year. They did him in and his replacement, Kristina Keneally, would be their puppet.

Then they'd do her in too — we’ll find out for ourselves.

Of course, this is what cynically brutal hatchetmen with no loyalty to anything accept power and their own petty careers do. They sit in Vietnamese restaurants in Kingston with two phones and a list of names and they stay there until they have the numbers to bury the hatchet into your back.

Which in Rudd’s case was before the entreas arrived.

Each of the whining Labor leaders knows this full well because that’s how they got the job themselves. Installed by number-crunching headkickers, they never seemed to believe it would happen to them.

Then they found out for themselves.

Julia Gillard’s turn will come, as it must to all.

Thats what you get for being a greedy, power-mad puppet with no principles, willing to serve any cause and argue any case in pursuit of feeding your own bloated ego with delusions of a grand chapter awaiting you in the history books.

When, in fact, you are nothing but a jumped-up petty salesperson for the rancid oligarchy that the actually rules this fucked-up country. Whose interests are actually administered in government by overpaid, faceless, unelected bureaucrats while the politicians keep themselves busy with grandstanding, press conferences and knifing each other.

Therefore, while we are on the topic on whining rock music, Radiohead kindly provides the right response.

“You do it to yourself, just you, you and no-one else. You do it to yourself.”

Don’t forget to check out the array of google ads at the top of the page.

Songs for Kevin (or: let's save money and just let Clive Palmer elect our leaders)

2010-06-25T18:51:00.065+10:00

“I've never seen a night so long, when time goes crawling by ... The silence of a falling star, lights up a purple sky ... And I'm so lonesome I could cry.” Seasick Steve gives his rendition of the Hank Williams' classic, looking just like our fallen PM will after a decade of drinkin' to forget, with a chaser to kill the pain.

Christ, it was a sad sight that press conference. Kevin Rudd in tears after getting dumped as Dear Leader before his first term even finished after enjoying record approval ratings for almost the whole time since we threw out that other fascist Johnny Someone.

It was hard not to feel sorry for the little guy. He got brutally knifed by a political machine uglier than a local council-commissioned public sculpture on the theme of “Harmony”, and more brutal than a Mafia gang that’s just discovered a snitch who not only ratted to the Feds but also claimed the Don’s breath smelt.

Then I remembered that not only did Mr Rudd utterly fail to confront the somewhat urgent threat of runaway climate change, despite calling it the “greatest moral challenge of our time” and the mounting evidence of impending catastrophe.

No, much worse — he also declared war on booze.

The little fucking weasel.

Now I don’t like to boast, but I gotta say: Carlo Sands called it.

Hell, I called this one two years ago with an insightful, razor-sharp comment piece entitled Rudd’s honeymoon over? Let’s ask Tex Perkins.

Now, it goes without saying that Carlo Sands is never wrong. Sometimes, however, I am ahead of my time.

Some may argue that my call that Rudd’s “honeymoon” with the Australian people was over, coming more than a year-and-a-half before his record-levels of popular support began to seriously erode, was a little hasty.

I, however, prefer to call it prescient.

So what went wrong? How did Rudd go from record popularity to being the first Labor PM ever dumped by his own party before his first term even ended?

I think the history books will clearly record the seeds of Rudd’s destruction lay in the ill-fated decision in his first year in office to run a campaign declaring four standards drinks (that’s less than three stubbies!) to be “binge drinking”.

This alienated him from both the public at large and the Labor party machine. I mean, have you seen how much those factional headkickers drink? No wonder they knifed him with such glee.

But there were clearly some other, if secondary, factors at work.

Rudd basically continued the same policies as the former Howard government in all key areas. But most of all, his failures on climate change cost him big.

The serious slide in Rudd’s popularity coincided with his government’s decision to dump its proposed “emissions trading scheme”, which it had been touting as the solution to the threat of total eco-destruction.

Environmentalists actually pointed out the ETS itself was just political window dressing that not only would not reduce carbon emissions, but would actually make the problem worse.

But that is neither here nor there. The decision to dump it as soon as it became a “hard sell” revealed Rudd for the unprincipled, power-hungry weasel he is. It made him look cynical, hypocritical and totally untrustworthy.

Plus, the climate issue is kinda urgent.

But worse was to come for our wowser PM.

Desperate to make up lost ground and searching for an issue that would prove popular and make him seem like he actually stood for something more than his own career, Rudd made the ill-fated decision to seek to impose a quite modest “supertax” on the extremely wealthy large mining corporations currently enjoying record profits.

The 40% tax only kicked in once the profit rate exceed 6%, was bound up with continuing subsidies to the sector, was full of loopholes and was going to be used to cut the corporate tax rate overall from 32% to 28%.

But my god did the billionaire shriek like a three-year-old whose favourite teddy got washed down a sewer.

These principled men, who like to whine about “economic blackmail” should any of their workforce dare engage in industrial action, immediately threatened to bring the country to its knees with a coordinated “capital strike”.

They went on telly to deliver their snarling threat: Dump the mining tax or thousands of jobs get it!

They immediately embarked on a well-funded media campaign, with attack ads promising all life on Earth would come to a screeching halt if Rudd wasn’t stopped.

Seeing a chance to get the Liberals back in, the Murdoch media and shock jocks jumped on the bandwagon.

Suddenly it was 1951 all over again and the Communists were coming to eat our babies.

Rudd, weakened by his “binge drinking” and climate disasters, was in no position to withstand the assault.

Even if the multi-national corporations failed to exactly win public sympathy for their plight, they caused enough unease and fear to ensure Rudd’s poll slide worsened.

With an election just months away, the Labor machine didn’t need to be told twice. Rudd was dumped and the mining shares rose at once. Gillard’s first move was to sue for peace.

As the saying goes, it's all fun and games until someone tries to tax the mining giants.

I must admit, it does make me wonder whether all the effort of getting 20 million people to vote is just an inefficient waste of our time and hard-earned taxpayers money.

Surely it would be much cheaper and time-efficient to just get the Business Council of Australia to hold a straw poll on who should hold the keys to the Lodge. Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt could be granted a vote at the council when the question arises, just so all key stakeholders have a say.

That way, the rest of us wont lose an hour of valuable drinking time one Saturday every three years and the good businessfolk can ensure the corporate tax rate is set at the responsible, investor-friendly level of -75%.

In the end, Rudd managed to alienate both his own social base and the extremely powerful forces that actually govern this godforsaken country. The generals moved in for the kill and the coup was quick — if disappointingly bloodless.

It is a shame the our new Dear leader wants to suck up to the Evil Forces Threatened All Life on Earth (known as “miners” in the press for some inexplicable reason, despite never having fossicked for anything more than a hors d’oeuvre that fell under the table at a cocktail party to celebrate another record breaking profit return).

But, to date, she is yet to announce her policy on booze. Therefore, Carlo Sands withholds his judgment.

As for Mr Rudd, all that’s left for him is to redeem himself in true country music style. He must now take his guidance from Merle Haggard.

“I got swingin' doors, a jukebox and a bar stool. My new home has a flashin' neon sign. Stop by and see me anytime you want to, coz I'm, always here at home till closing time...”

If Kevin Rudd had any dignity or self-respect, this is how he would spend his declining years.

An outrageous slander involving Israel

2010-06-08T17:23:00.025+10:00

I have been shocked by the events of last week and their aftermath.

I mean, holy shit. You know, holy shit. I mean shit, you know, that has *actually been* fucking *blessed* by someone holy. Whoever — Moses, Buddha, Tom Cruise, I mean whoever you consider holy, I am telling you, they have blessed this shit.

That is how holy this holy shit is.

Yes, I am talking about Israel and the events involving the Freedom Flotilla.

These events have been the cause of much mystification, lies and outright slander from all the usual suspects.

One of the most common allegations directed by bigots the world over is that Israel committed an "act of piracy".

Such hate-filled ignorance. What an outrageous, slanderous analogy. Pirates may be thieves, but they are not cold-blooded mass murderers.

Israel's actions were a crime against humanity and an act of war against Turkey at least. But what has it got to do with pirates?

There is no record of any pirate massacring 1400 people over a few weeks of sustained slaughter in a giant prison and then maintaining a crippling siege that condemns the lives of 1.5 million people to utter misery.

And then, when badly needed humanitarian aid comes in boats, boarding those boats heavily armed, using stun grenades, tear gas rubber and live bullets on the unarmed passengers, killing at least nine people and stealing the humanitarian aid to ensure 1.5 million people stay starving.

I mean, the sadism of Israel's siege takes on surreal proportions. You can view a partial list of banned and allowed items here.

The banned list includes A4-sized writing paper. Nothing is mentioned about A5 paper, so we can only assume Israel is confident A5 is too small to build paper planes big and strong enough to fly over the wall and cause significant destruction inside Israel.

Goats and chickens are banned — and it isn't hard to see why. Israel no doubts fears Hamas would not hesitate to sacrifice them in voodoo rituals to place evil curses on God’s Chosen People.

They have been kind enough to allow in fabric softner, so the ordinary Gazans don’t have to be subjected to the horror of starchy clothes. Also, toothpaste and shampoo are in.

You might think this shows some serious consideration for the importance of clear hair and teeth — until you realise there is a serious fucking water shortage. So the Gazans can stare at the shampoo, then stare at the sky and realise with growing horror they will have to put up with greasy hair until the next time it rains.

Coriander is banned, as is chocolate, ginger and cumin. However, Israel has been kind enough to allow in cinnamon, black pepper and seasame paste.

It is almost as if they chopped up all the words in a cooking book, dropped them in a hat and pulled them out one by one applying an alternating "in-out" ruling.

It may seem utterly irrational, but you can imagine a US spokesperson responding: “We are of course very concerned with the plight of the Gazans and hope the situation can improve in the near future, but we have to understand Israel’s legitimate security concerns.

“There are a small percentage of the world’s population that suffer an unfortunate allergy to coriander that can cause discomfort, including the break out of an itchy rash. If Hamas were to build a coriander-filled homemade rocket and fire it into Israel, there is a small chance an Israeli citizen with just such an allergy may accidently eat the rocket.

“It is a risk too great for Israel to run and we demand Hamas pledge to fully dismantle all coriander rockets before Israel can be expected to lift the siege.”

Israeli government spokespeople could chime in to condemn the anti-semetic plot to fire rockets filled with chocolates into Israel in the hope the unguided missiles land somewhere near a primary school, thus enticing Israeli children to eat so many of the sweets they become too fat and diabetic to defend themselves from the inevitable mass invasion.

That, dear reader, is Israel. On the other hand we have pirates.

Pirates, the old style pirates, the sort that go "Aaaarrrgggh, me hearties" and drink rum, have nothing in common with this sort of cruel, genocidal madness.

These pirates generally stole from the rich and were a thorn in the side of the powerful. They were often escaped slaves or others fleeing tyranny of one sort or another. They would often share their wealth and practice a sort of popular democracy on board.

And they drank lots and lots and lots of rum.

Pirates are cool. Everyone likes pirates. There is even a "Talk like a Pirate" day.

No one has yet proposed a "Talk like the Israeli government" day, where you go around stabbing people in the eye then saying "We condemn the spurting of blood from the eyeball onto our new shoes. We will not stand for such terror, the eyeball was funded by Iran.

“If it doesn't stop spurting there will be serious consequences."

People like to dress up as pirates. They like to go and watch pirate films starring Johnny Depp where he delivers witty one liners in a strange mongrel accent while staggering around wearing lots of eyeliner and swigging rum

And yet, at this moment, when pirates are subjected to an unprecedented torrent of hate and slander, these same people are silent! It is shameful.

Carlo Sands is not afraid to speak up! And I say to all who hear me: leave the fucking pirates alone!

Sources close to Captain Jack Sparrow say the pirate is “deeply disturbed” by the comparisons with Israel, whose crimes he “unconditionally condemns”. A spokesperson said in a statement: “Cpt. Sparrow wishes to emphasise that, in his line of work, you get your fair share of ‘scurvy dogs’, but that pirates have no tolerance for the rabid variety.”

This is not just a historical question.

Swedish crime novelist Henning Mankell who took part on the Freedom Flotilla, makes the following outrageous slander in his diary of the trip: “The Israelis have behaved like pirates, no better than those who operate off the coast of Somalia.”

I understand Mankell is furious and possibly traumatised by his experience. But that is no reason for this slander to go unanswered.

Actually, the Somali pirates are true descendants of the dispossessed that, hundreds of years earlier, took to the seas, flew the Jolly Roger and nicked what they could from the ships of the European empires.

They are a product of the disintegration of Somali society and a means of the local community both earning a living and defending their seas from pillaging. Like the pirates of past centuries, they steal from the rich.

Said Green Left Weekly: “Like the piracy of the ‘golden age’, contemporary Somali piracy is a response of the downtrodden to the devastating effects of globalising capitalism.

“Today's Somali pirates have been victims of the destruction of local fisheries by industrial fishing and the dumping of the first world's toxic and nuclear waste in Third World locations ...

“Like 18th century pirates, Somali pirates see themselves as fighting for justice. As Sugale Ali told the October 1 NYT: ‘We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas. We are simply patrolling our seas.’”

You can get your T-shirt here.

The obvious question is: what has any of this got to do with god damn Israel?

To those having trouble discerning the difference between the two, we can go back many centuries for a simple anecdote:

“In the ‘City of God,’ St. Augustine tells the story of a pirate captured by Alexander the Great. The Emperor angrily demanded of him, ‘How dare you molest the seas?’ To which the pirate replied, ‘How dare you molest the whole world? Because I do it with a small boat, I am called a pirate and a thief. You, with a great navy, molest the world and are called an emperor.’”

The powerful murder and steal because they think they can. The powerless do so as a last resort. To confuse the two is deeply unfair, so I hereby appeal to the world: stop blackening the noble art of piracy!

"Anarchy, the scourge of every sea! The anti-christ aboard a rig, with us your cuthroat thieves!" Pirates are cool and Israel isn't. End of fucking story.

Could this be the wall?

2010-05-16T18:11:00.017+10:00

“Can this be the wall we put the coal barons up against?”, is the thought provoking question from Fitzroy, Melbourne. It poses a very important question indeed.

Too often, the great mass of the oppressed go into a mass insurrection, driven by hatred of an outmoded social system that condemns their lives to utter hell, without fully thinking such questions through.

Too often, essential questions such as that posed by this piece of graffiti are not answered in advance. The result is ad hoc solutions are found.

Well, no need this time.

We know who is responsible for the coming eco-holocaust. And we know what needs to be done.

And we have concerned citizens thinking ahead and putting in their bid.

So, to the question posed: *Should* this, indeed, be the wall?

Well, I decided to investigate for myself. I went down to Melbourne, took the 86 tram to Fitzroy and found the wall in question in order to carry out a thorough study.

The conclusions drawn from my investigation are mixed.

In short: the wall is adequate. It is definitely high enough and has a reasonable length, so as to ensure a relatively efficient process

However, I would caution against any rushed conclusion that views this particular wall as *the* wall.

For a start, while relatively long, it is far from *long enough* to line up all the coal barons and associated hangers on — such as the entire parliamentary grouping of the NSW ALP, to say nothing of the editorial board of various Murdoch tabloids.

If this is the *only* wall, it may take some time to get through them all.

It seems to me, if this is to be done in a relatively short period of time (and climate scientists keep emphasising that the time in which to act is short), then more than one wall is required.

This wall may well prove useful for those traitors to humanity as can be rounded up in Victoria, but further walls should be investigated for use in other key regional areas.

Those of us in Sydney have a particular responsibility, I feel. Even more so those in Newcastle.

In short, Carlo Sands wishes to congratulate those in Melbourne who have thought ahead and found a wall *before* the mass insurrection that condemns this fucking insane fucking system — that fucking threatens fucking destruction of all fucking life on fucking earth so a few fucking corporations can fucking earn some fucking unimaginable fucking profits — to the fucking dustbin of fucking history.

But, the rest of us should not take this as a signal to rest on laurels.

This wall is merely a good start. Many more will be needed. Time to get scouting.

"You can crush us, you can bruise us. But you'll have to answer to... the guns of Brixton."

Alcohol: a love song

2010-05-14T20:38:00.005+10:00

“And you know that I'll pick up, every time you call. Just to thank you one more time, Alcohol.” Gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello sing one of the great all-time love songs — an ode to a tempestuous but profound love affair.

It is so beautiful, so moving and so just god damn true that I feel obliged to produce the lyrics in their entirely below for the enjoyment of the wide and diverse Carlo Sands' readership.

There is no need to thank me for this selfless public service. I simply bring your attention to the google ads at the top of the page and request you think hard about giving a good click to anything that captures your eye.

Alcohol

Yeah o yeah you seen me walk
On burning bridges
Yeah o yeah you seen me fall
In love with witches
And you know my brain is held
Inside by stitches
Yet you know I did survive
All of your lovely sieges

And you know that I'll pick up
Every time you call
Just to thank you one more time
Alcohol
And you know that I'll survive
Every time you come
Just to thank you one more time
For everything you've done

Alcohol
Alcohol

And I'm sorry some of us
Given you bad name
yeah o yeah, cause without you
Nothing is the same
Yeah o yeah i miss you so
Every time we break up
Just to hit a higher note
Every time we make up

Who's crawlin' up my spine - alcohol
I was waiting long long time - alcohol
Now you teach me how to rhyme - alcohol
Just don't stab me in the back with cartisol

Now we reunite - alcohol
And forever be divine - alcohol
Screw a light bulb in my head - alcohol
may that ceremony be happy or sad...

And you know that I'll pick up
Every time you call
Just to thank you one more time
Alcohol

Oh, that is just so moving. It is just... I am sorry, it is these onions I spontaneously decided to start chopping... it is just... please, I just need to be alone for a minute.