On a slow day, the moderation queue can provide a laugh or two. “Not bad at all, but this topic is rather little of interest. Please do not disappoint your readership,” writes “Vonido”, huffily. Vonido, I apologise, and I’ll do my best to serve the needs of my spambots better in future! “Amyisku” says “cool site for my mind its very goodPlease, send your abuse here!!!” Only too happy to oblige, Amyisku, but I really couldn’t be bothered, as both of you are programs with no consciousness (as yet - unless the Singularity has arrived while I wasn’t looking.)

Then there’s the splogs - those roboblogs which are set up with a normal blogger template, blogroll and dated posts which consist of bits chopped out of other peoples’ blogs. Usually when a splog links to you, you’ll find an incomplete piece of your own work chopped out and used as a “post” in the splog.

Extremely annoying, useless (who on earth would go to read these things and click on their links?) and ethically on a level with email and telephone spam. If I had a huge number of hits, they’d be a moderation problem, but at the moment they’re just like annoying blowflies which I slap and move on.

“Fence” was a splog which linked to one of my older posts. If you take a look - http://visde.com/generic/lib/fence/index.html (No link for you!) they haven’t even bothered to steal any text to make posts, which is a plus I suppose, and there’s a certain dadaist quality to it.

There’s a darker side, though. So you think, “OK, this is automating a bunch of links to a specific product. Boring, but so what?” But if you click on one of the “fence” links on the blogroll, you’ll get redirected to something like “Game cheats”. Obviously a massive risk for spyware, adware and worse.

So I decided to go and check out the main site, and discovered a software company that’s trying to do all the right things in product design - if you believe their introductory blurb.

Creating innovative product experience. We think creatively and work together to solve problems in a human centered way, building a captivating experience for the brand and the client’s audience.
Our holistic design approach recognizes the importance of the whole and the interdependence of its parts. We research and consider all of the elements effecting the user’s perception and expectation of the brand and its product. Through the process of collaboration between the client, the teams, and the user, we ideate, design, evaluate, and continually refine the product to deliver an innovative solution for a 360 degree captivating experience.

And from the “who we are” page:

Our diverse, multi-disciplinary culture helps us innovate across product and organization types. We are a consulting firm specializing in user-centered product design. As a team, Visde has extensive experience in interface design, information architecture, user research, package and industrial design, mobile applications, and a variety of other areas.

The people working there look genuinely nice, too. So why would a software company that’s big on usability design and product design destroy their reputation by standing behind a slurry of splogs which annoy and alienate the very Web 2.0 users who might be their future customers?

Well, guess what else I found on their main page.

The company has created a Postsecret-like feedback application, where you get to make suggestions to them, titled “What the World Needs in 2008″. (You can guess what my first response was. Splogs. LIKE A HOLE IN THE HEAD!) The entry box is somewhat limited, so you need to be pithy. The URL is http://visde.com.

I’m up to my fourth comment. Bloggers, suffering under the deluge of splogs, have at it!

Girlchild: “She’s not doing the VCE. She’s doing the International Bachelorette.”

It came as no surprise to me that Michael Haneke’s name came up in this LP discussion about the horribleness in Austria. Haneke directs bleak, distressing films like Funny Games and The Piano Teacher- which I think are wonderful, but horrible to watch– he’s Austrian, and it’s easy to imagine the filmmaker and the twisted paterfamilias growing from the same social matrix.

When I read about the incarceration and rape of Elisabeth Fritzl, though, the comparison that came to my mind (and we’re always reminded of film when things get bizarre and surreal) wasn’t Haneke’s films so much as a 1988 Dutch movie, George Sluizer’s The Vanishing.

The upstanding citizen Josef Fritzl reminds me very much of the psychopathic Raymond Lemorne (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu). Without getting into spoiler mode, Raymond commits a crime which is somewhat worse than the real Josef Fritzl’s - at least, I think so, but maybe not; it’s impossible to weigh the relative grisliness of their actions. Let’s just say that the two share some characteristics.

In The Vanishing, Rex (Gene Bervoets) the boyfriend of the missing girl and the perpetrator meet and talk. She has been gone for three years, and Rex suspects that Raymond has killed her, but he doesn’t yet know the detail. He says something to the effect that Raymond’s actions are so random and unpredictable that any attempt at analysis seems futile. “I don’t hate you,” he says, “I don’t hate lightning.” The implication is that some people, once their disconnection from normal boundaries or behavioural limitations is complete, are unpredictable to the extent that attempts at understanding or prevention are doomed to fail. (Well, incarceration is a good start, but in Raymond’s case you’d have to catch him first.)

I think Josef Fritzl is an example of that lightning.

The daily news is full of the idea that the police, social workers or neighbours should have somehow headed this man off at the pass, and the fact that they didn’t shows Austria up as a cold and atomised society. This ignores the problem of identifying these bizarre happenings in the first place. As one LP commenter points out, Fritzl’s very respectability and banality (like Lemorne’s in the film) worked in his favour. There’s also a major logistical gap in this idea of society keeping tabs. Discovering what Fritzl was up to would have involved entering his house, searching every room, poking about in his basement and doing a sweep for hidden doors, maybe breaking stuff in the process. Would he have allowed that? Would we do that to all the neighbours in our street? Of course not. (What would it be like if we did? If “the authorities” were empowered to do such a thing, what would our society look like then?)

We can’t do that, is the short answer.

I don’t mean to come across as a do-nothing or imply that we should tolerate such behaviour. But I certainly think preventing it is a bit harder than calling for a more caring and close-knit Neighbourhood Watch. Because once someone has become as psychotic and as entitled as Josef Fritzl, they really are as unpredictable as lightning.

For mine, the only way we can stop the Raymond Lemornes and the Bradley John Murdochs and the Josef Fritzls of this world is to get better and better at bringing up our boys. Starting with scrapping the remnants of the old patriarchal model of women and girls as property.

Here’s the story of last weekend’s Apollo Bay music festival, in which Tess McKenna and her band do battle with multiple manifestations of Murphy’s Law, and still have a rollicking good time.

First, Karen had a flat tyre while picking up my kit in a complicated logistical manoevre of which I won’t bore you with the details. I took the train from Footscray to Geelong to join them - my first ride on a country train for years. Then we jumped into the car with the gear in a hired trailer on the back, and drove the back way, as it’s called, through the Otway National Park to the coast. It was a beautiful golden autumn day, short-sleeves weather. The sun was shining, the birds were singing…

Remember this was Anzac day, and Murphy’s law gave us a carload of the Worst Bogans Ever at a couple of stoplights. What does “Buy your own fucking trailer, ya cunts!” mean? These people are a mystery. Bitter, obviously.

This was our driving music. So beautiful.

When we got to Apollo Bay, we had to register to get the keys to our acommodation and our blue Sparkle Princess wristbands which automagically allowed us into the music venues. Karen went to register while Tess pulled over to the roadside with the hazard lights and music on (this will become relevant later). Karen seemed to be taking rather a long time and eventually Tess’s mobile went. Then there were some variations on “you’re joking!” which didn’t bode well.

Apparently we had been bumped from our accommodation in the Star of the Sea Convent (by the Choir of Hard Knocks) because [bungle by persons who shall remain nameless to avoid possible litigation]. Alternative accomodation cost $400 for the two nights. BUT!…

We didn’t have to pay for it because… the festival organisers had already uncovered this post in an accidental google and had proof that we had originally asked for two nights.

The blog saves the day! In your face, people who scoff at the blogotariat!

Then Tess discovered that the battery had gone flat while we waited with the hazard lights going, so she had to call the RACV.

After which, we drove to our alternative accomodation, which was enticingly named…

TWIN PEAKS. (Cue ominous music.)

Because if you are hiring little holiday flats for people to come and have fun in your holiday town, you want to give them names which are redolent of weird and evil small towns where the dead bodies of young women turn up wrapped in plastic and everyone has a murky secret. Of course you do!

Oh, and there were two Rastafarian drummers who were also without a room and with whom we shared the first night, but they were the quietest Rastafarian drummers you’ll ever meet.

The next day it was still warm, golden and beautiful. I strolled down to the main drag, had some eggs and toast and checked out some bands who were already playing. Every schoolkid with a violin was out busking; Damn, I should have made Girlchild keep up with those lessons!

We were doing two gigs that day: 2 o’clock in the Apollo Bay Hotel, then 7 at the Acoustic Club. We’d had a look at both the night before, and the hotel was pretty grouse, but the Acoustic club was… very acoustic. A dear old Scout hall thing tucked away in a back street, it was very live and cavernous, the only sound dampening being the hundreds of metres of polar fleece worn by the largely over-60s audience. At least that was the impression we got from seeing Martin Stephenson there. We weren’t sure if the venue would cope with drums and bass at all.

Tess and Karen warm up at Twin Peaks before going on stage at Apollo Bay


The Hotel was where we could make some noise and Tess McKenna and the Shapiros ravished the crowd with material from Tess’s back catalogue, plus some new songs which aren’t out yet. After we played, Chris from Skipping Girl Vinegar approached me to borrow a cymbal. Apparently it wasn’t for him but for a sheepish looking young bearded guy who was “in the band after us”. I was somewhat severe on Young Bearded guy, saying “you will look after it won’t you. I’ll probably never afford another one.” (It’s a very nice relic from the palmy days of not having to feed and clothe children.) Turns out “the band after us” was Dog Trumpet. Now, I had a file archived in the back section of my brain to the effect “must get to see Dog Trumpet”, but the front part of my brain could not remember why this was. A quick La Perouse of the performer bios reminded me that DT is mainly Peter Doherty and Reg Mombasa, aka the Mentals, a band that formed the soundtrack to much of my young late-seventies and early-eighties life. Young Bearded Guy on drums was Doherty’s son. If Chris-from-Skipping Girl Vinegar had said “the (ex) Mentals want to borrow your cymbal,” I’d have given them the whole kit, and maybe my firstborn as well.

It was a strange trip back in time to sit hardly more than a metre away from Reg Mombasa playing Berserk Warriors on the very same baby blue Stratocaster he’s playing in this clip. Very battered and pockmarked now, and covered with sticky tape, a bit like us. Legendary!

It had started to rain and the temperature had started its descent from “think I’ll wear a sleeveless top” to “I think it’s snowing on the hills”. (It was.) This had the excellent effect of driving people into the pub. By the time we saw Skipping Girl Vinegar, it was so packed it was physically uncomfortable, so I left, but they’re high on my list to see some other time. By the way, what is it with people who TALK LOUDLY THROUGH THE ENTIRE SET? Even though their conversation implies they’re longtime fans? Really, people, shut the fuck up.

The gig at the Acoustic Club was difficult because we had to be so quiet, but we managed. We took it back to brushes and nothing much else drum wise so it mainly showcased Tess and Karen’s voices. Technically it was a bit of a strain as the acoustic guitar decided it was sooooo coooold it wasn’t going to stay in tune for more than a minute.

Dallas Frasca at the Great Ocean Hotel

Another act I want to see again is Dallas Frasca. She’s a mighty red hot mama with a voice and stage presence like Nina Hagen meets Robert Plant. She’s a reminder of how metal grew out of Delta blues and she plays right on the interstice. Don’t be deluded by the fact that she plays as a duo with Her Gentleman, Jeff Curran, on dobro and plays an acoustic guitar - this is no Friday night down at the folk club.

I must learn how to do that bottleneck thing.

Out in the street, by now the underage binge drinkers were out in force, as if determined to get their faces on ACA. Lots of slurring and staggering and nearly falling out of the extreme bumster jeans. Tess dismissed this phenomenon: “Townies: they’re all like that.” She means people from a country town, not the usual meaning of city folk, having grown up on a horse property near Sale. So much for those unctuous real estate ads touting the Country Lifestyle to keep your kids pure and safe from Teh Evil city.

We finished up the night at the Bowls club with what have to be Melbourne’s fastest band, The Band Who Knew Too Much. These guys have a stylish mix of jazz, ska, gypsy and a few other ingredients. It’s my opinion that the Cat Empire owes quite a debt to these guys, but then I’m no music critic. They’ve been around literally for decades (and they also have the distinction of being the band who played at SO’s and my wedding.) You’d think they would have worn their fingers down to stumps by now, but they’re the Iron Men of Australian music.

TBWNTM make all the false teeth fall out at the Bowls club

After that we fell into bed and then the long drive home - here’s the board at Geelong station. The lettering says “Memory OK”.


And so they are.

I appreciate the torrential downpour (complete with hailstones the size of oranges and a celestial lightshow) yesterday, I really do. You know we need the rain desperately - last month had the lowest rainfall on record, and governments both State and Federal are starting to get serious about water policies.

But did you have to do it just when Boychild was lining up for the “zone” 11 y.o. cross country, being the first time he’d ever qualified? Hah?

Iraq’s former deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, has faced court on charges of genocide.

An Austrian dad has been arrested and charged with keeping his own daughter in the cellar for twenty-four years and repeatedly raping her, fathering seven children, three of whom were also incarcerated.

The controversy continues over John Yoo and his involvement in torture at Guantanamo.

A Frankston man has shot and killed his former girlfriend, in another example of killing one’s former wife or girlfriend, which is the Australian Way of honour killing.

A British teenager has just been jailed for life for beating a Goth girl to death for no reason other than that she looked Goth-y.

And Miley Cyrus has been doing some rather inappropriate photographs for Vanity Fair.

Guess which one of these miscreants has been made to issue a public apology.
 
 
 
Crossposted at Road to Surfdom

…to write something for Anzac Day:

I’m just going to send you to this comment at LP by Jack Robertson on Anzac day last year. Because you might as well have the best.

I got another distressing image, or set of images, through the email: a friend sent it to me with a link to a petition to exclude Guillermo “Habacuc” Vargas, a Costa Rican artist, from the 2008 Bienal Centroamericana Honduras.

I won’t show the accompanying images because they are so sad, and it won’t help its subject, a dog called Natividad, who was allegedly trapped in a shanty town by children paid by Vargas to do so, and then tied with a short length of what looks like elecrical cord to a bare room in an art gallery, with nothing between his skeletal body and the bare floor. He was left like that without food and water until he died. Some accounts state that the dog was able to see and smell food.

As always with these things, I went straight to Snopes. Unfortunately, the bare details seem to be true, although the exact nature of the dog’s treatment seem murky enough for them to put a question mark over it. Here’s an article by the WSPA, which seems a fairly respectable source.

Confusion reigns about whether the dog actually died in the gallery as stated or escaped within a day and disappeared, but I’m not really interested in that; the photographs demonstrate how horribly he, or she, was treated.

The “artist” has come up with various explanations justifying this “installation”, some of them less chickenshit than others. To bring home the hypocrisy of the viewer, who would walk straight past the same dog if they saw him in the shanty town. True. I would add also that we see starving humans daily via the media, now that electronics have made us a (cliche alert) global village, and do we instantly take action? No. or seldom. But ultimately, I find these excuses as inadequate as Vargas’ moral compass. Once that little dog is in our hands we have a duty of care, if only to euthanase him. And animal abuse is a psychological pointer to violent crime.

Among Vargas’ ever-changing stories is that the “installation” is a kind of puerile payback for a burglar or thief called Natividad, who apparently was apparently killed by a rottweiler; therefore the dog was named Natividad, and “Remember Natividad” was the name of the “work”. If he really came out with that one, I have no words. Get him to a psychiatrist, and quickly.

It might be a good idea to sign the petition. Have a great Anzac weekend - I’m off the Apollo Bay Music festival.

Last Friday, I had to attend one of those team bonding exercises for work, which meant that our manager took us all out to a slick CBD bowling alley and bar. I’m not much of a bowler but we all started on the snooker tables afterward, a game I do find absorbing. Like the pokies venues which dot this city, the place was artificially lit, noisy and had no clocks, so I ended up going over time and had to desperately phone around to get Boychild picked up from his after school care.

This after-school care centre, like most childcare places, has a drop dead deadline of six pm and they are forbidden to release the sprogs to walk home, even though Boychild lives only a block away and his sister would be home by then. Eventually I arranged for Girlchild to pick him up - but not before I’d had to speak to the after care staff a couple of times, yelling into a mobile from a noisy bar.

Choice!

Oh well, at least with modern smoking restrictions, it wasn’t a noisy smoky bar™.

It’s obvious that according to this grouse new parenting site I’ve found, I’ll never cut it. (Via John and Belle).

Bad parents everywhere, read it and feel empowerfulled.

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