I haven’t previously had much opportunity to indulge in that wonderful piece of mobile street theatre: the rant of the Australian taxi-driver. Despite the variance in the subject matter, which broaches such diverse topics as immigration, petrol prices and indigenous affairs, it is generally of a similar structure. It begins with a light tap on the accelerator as the driver veers just that little bit too much to the right as he jets around a driver going less than a hundred kilometres an hour. As he overtakes on the right, he’ll snort and glare across at the driver of the other car. This is the key moment in deciding the thematic content of the rant.

If our taxi’s commander-in-chief spots that the other driver is non-Caucasian the argument is likely to be about immigration and how Australia’s skilled migration policy is flooding the country with low-skilled workers who are nothing but a burden on the hard-working Australian taxpayer. If the other driver is white, the commentary will invariably focus on why the public servants that flood the streets of Canberra after taking long morning teas, cigarette breaks and extended lunches are nothing but a burden on the hard-working Australian taxpayer. Aboriginals, well, they’re desperate for welfare payments and nothing but a burden on the hard-working Australian taxpayer.

At this stage, I sit quietly in the back seat and choke on my tongue, being careful to remember not to pass out. You see, I wouldn’t want to have to go to hospital, as this would be a tax on our national healthcare system. This could then be construed as the behaviour of a dole-bludger, someone who is nothing but a burden on the hard-working Australian taxpayer.

Today, however, I got an entirely more targeted rant. You see, today was the Olympic torch relay and much to the organisers surprise rather than the expected mass of pro-Tibetan rabble rousers they were faced with a sea of red flags lining the course. Thousands upon thousands of flag waving Chinese supporters that had been bussed in from around the country, presumably by the Chinese consulate. Everywhere you looked there were the same mass-produced white and red shirts, and the same flags draped over shoulders. The pro-Tibetans didn’t stand a chance.

This particular taxi driver had spent the afternoon ferrying Chinese students back and forth between city and the airport and he had cooked up his own little timeline of how the world would end. “It will start with petrol prices,” he said, “the crude will go up, and they won’t be able to regulate it. A national watchdog, that won’t do anything, mate, you’ll see. Once it hits a buck eighty, two bucks, that’s when we’ll see it. This whole relay thing is reminiscent of 1936. That’s when this started, this torch relay thing, parading around the world, it’s not about sport, mate, nah, it’s about politics. Show the rest of the world your might and power. Show us what you’re capable. And don’t think they won’t use it, mate, don’t think that for a second. 1936, that’s what’s it’s like and that was the fuckin’ nazis. Set a golden fuckin’ example didn’t they. You know what they did with every country they ran the torch through? They invaded it, mate, invaded it and burnt it to the ground five years later. It’s the next four years that are going to determine the future of this country, you can bet your bottom dollar on that.”

I grunt in as non-committal a fashion as I can manage, and then quietly choke on my tongue. Breathe, Dan, remember to breathe.

Chinese students aside, I will admit that my favourite taxi driver comment came a few weeks earlier, on a run back to the city between presentations. The taxi driver this time was a pock-marked 60 year-old with a beer gut and a copy of auto-trader sitting next to him on the front seat. We pulled up at a set of traffic lights and a somewhat chubby teenager pedalled past on her bike. The driver raised his eyebrows as she wobbled over the curb, before exclaiming, “Jeez, get a load of that girl on the bike. She’s solidly put together, she is. I reckon a couple of her would roll you over in a scrum.”

A scrum otherwise populated by hard-working Australian taxpayers, no doubt.

Posted in Oz on Sunday November 2, 2008. Shoutouts.

“Do you think it’s like this as a matter of course? Do you think people wake up, roll over, and say things like that spontaneously? Or do you think it takes an army of pale underlings, in a room without windows, digging at an archived picture of the underbelly of the internet for whatever scraps of dirt they can mobilise against us? Do you think that this idea of us is really relevant here, or have we become part of the greater whole, the greater good, the one big happy family, like, like we’re skipping the stages of familiarly and swapping racist jokes straight after we meet?”

“I think, you think, too much.”

Posted in Oz on Sunday September 7, 2008. Shoutouts.

This morning, I stood outside on the decking and watched as the rainbow lorikeet on my hand picked away at the remains of the mandarin I had been eating. It wasn’t long before a second scratched its way down my arm to share the spoils. I hadn’t before realised how red their eyes were, or how similar to worms their tongues are. Around me, the detritus resulting from a larger than normal night lay piled high, and it took a walk for caffeination before we roused ourselves and tackled it.

Once we’d cleared Sydney, I set the cruise control for one twenty and listened to Roy and HG call the last day of the Olympics, while Nate snored gently on the seat beside me. The flat, brown tablelands scurried past the window and I realised that this is my zen. Now, if only I could learn to understand fishing and rugby league, I’d be a fair bet to move to the coast, grow a mullet, and be happy forever.

Posted in Oz on Sunday August 24, 2008. Shoutouts.

The Hollowmen is a new Rob Sitch comedy on the ABC that uncannily mirrors the world I have lowered myself into. You can watch each week’s episode online after it airs on Wednesday nights. Required viewing for those seeking to, or who already are, involved with the gub’ment.

Posted in Silverscreen on Friday July 18, 2008. Shoutouts.

Posted in Oz on Monday July 7, 2008. Shoutouts.

I am eating a packet of mixed nuts and I have just noticed the warning on the back of packet, “WARNING: MAY CONTAIN TRACES OF NUTS.” Wow.

This afternoon, as I pedalled up the cycle lane of a major road, I noticed that someone had replaced the A’s on the bus shelters with penises. A stubby veined cock snuggled up to CTION. Admittedly, the public transport here isn’t the best, but our wannabe graffiti artist had obviously felt very strongly on the issue, as they’d put hairy balls on every A for about five kilometres.

Is Australia getting stupider, or is it just me?

Posted in Oz on Sunday July 6, 2008. Shoutouts.

I sit across from Nick on the crowded 2am train and listen as he engages in a serious conversation about the advantages of rent-free garages with a clown, giant shiny red shoes and all. Her boyfriend is wearing a top hat and has black crosses painted over his eyes, and he’s throwing twisties at her from a crumpled packet on the seat beside him. They catch in her fluoro coloured wig and she snatches one from a tangle of green and chomps on it, yellow crumbs on smeared white face-paint.

The African guy opposite me rolls his eyes at the pair and as he gets off a group of Australian girls, arms locked with an equal number of Irish boys, wobble onto the train and take his seat. They argue about the legal standing of the “pinkie pact” and whether it would stand up in court. I realise I am staring at them, and look away.

I wonder if there’s a theoretical limit to absurdity, beyond which the human brain ceases to function, and I wonder whether different people have different thresholds before they snap and start gabbling at the night sky. Right now it would probably take a penguin in sunglasses flying past the window of the train to unnerve me, and even then, only for a moment.

We decide we’ll run home from the station. It’s only as we cross Beaufort street and I realise that Nick is in a suit, that I wonder what people in cars are thinking at these two white boys belting up the middle of the road. Perhaps we can be their penguin.

Posted in Oz on Sunday June 15, 2008. Shoutouts.

Reason 1: Fireworks

Last night we grabbed some beers and a veritable shitload of explodable goodness and trotted down to the local park to set things on fire. We had so much fun running in circles and screaming that we’re going to do the same thing tonight. I think everyone needs to release their internal pyromaniac once or twice a year, don’t you think?

Posted in Oz on Sunday June 8, 2008. Shoutouts.

The leaves blow in ripples across my feet as I stride northward, spring in my step, and I need sea legs to navigate this sea of shifting golden waves. A crunch as soles grind veins underfoot and a hop, skip and a jump, legs flailing in giddy, ungainly glee.

Every island of yellow is a place to seek a moment of sanctuary before my next step. This tiny palmate quay is mine for this moment, mine to chart and explore. I think I have plotted a course when another gust kicks the white-cold breakers up and over my sneakers, the backs are white and in sharp relief as they flip end on end.

A bus rolls past, headed for the academy, and its tyres rumble over the uneven corrugations in this poorly maintained back-street. This is my ocean, and it whispers to me.

Posted in Mwah on Saturday May 17, 2008. Shoutouts.

The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney has become the first museum in the world to release publicly-held historical photographs for access as part of Flickr’s Commons Project.

The Commons is an attempt to share with the world’s public photography archives, while at the same time allowing users to add tags to these photos. The first photos the Powerhouse have put up form part of the Tyrrell Collection, a series of glass plate negatives by Charles Kerry (1857-1928) and Henry King (1855-1923), two of Sydney’s principal photographic studios at the time.

There’s some great photos in there, like this one of the GPO or the modern Australian shearer.

Posted in Oz on Tuesday April 8, 2008. Shoutouts.