Advertising is cruel when it plays on universal fears and weaknesses. It is at its best when attempting to market ideas rather than products. Mobile phone ads sell liberation, autonomy and communication.
I hate the Nutrient Water bottles called Rehab. Sometimes I will glance over it in a store. It that something I need? Will that purple liquid suffice, save me from the gaping doors of the inpatient's ward?
I tried calling the dedicated Drug and Alcohol Counselling Service a few months ago. First I got an answering machine. I was very close to giving up but I left a garbled message. They called back swiftly.
Operator: Hello James?
Me: Hi.
O: You rang?
M: Yeah. I think I need to talk to someone about my habits.
O: Will you be needing Rehab?
M: I guess it couldn't hurt but I'm-
O: Surname?
M: Cunningham.
O: Date of Birth?
M: 30/01/87
O: Okay. And occupation?
M: I'm a barman funnily enough.
O: Hang on. You're 21. You need our youth services number. 9287 4556. Good luck.
I couldn't ring the new number. I couldn't believe the operator would offer rehab so quickly. As easy to get as Nutrient Water. It must be a real good service, considering the amount of grinning reformed junkies I see wandering about. Not. But surely all of them would have got the same treatment if they'd just had that little bit of self-awareness and hope and reached out that dedicated, understanding service. No questions asked.
The Coca-Cola Amatil knows this generation. Of course they do, they probably ask us more questions than any politician ever has. We are enamoured by drinks calling themselves Rehab, because we both glorify and fear the possibility, the absurdity of us needing it.
I think alcohol ads sell acceptance, community, joy and strength. If that's not good salemanship I'll never touch another drop in my life.
Hrmmm. I have lost one job and with it the little thing I was giving love to. It's okay, as the fawning affection and lack of independent movement was beginning to do my head in.
Spent a mad Saturday flying around in my car, tanning poet's corner savvy B from the bottle. Would enter suburb and burst into aptly located acquaintance's lounge-settings. So many home for a Saturday. Middle age arrives. Demand we have a drink, then rush out the door soon afterwards. Wished I was wearing a trench coat, but then it is 38 degrees.
Feeling the weight of my heavy vehicle around dockside roads, letting the engine find it's own rhythm. Late-night radio hosts provide me with some conversation. I like the way neither of us is really listening to the other. I stop in dimly lit car parks, with the pretense of searching for wireless Internet hot spots. Really I'm looking for other late night sojourners. I'm looking for grime and insidiousness, for desperation and intrigue.
There is no-one else. I open the laptop and madly research walking meditation and lucid dreaming, all the time reading all and understanding naught. My eyes drift often to the rear-view, fervently hounding the car park's entrance for the arrival of a fellow soul. I need a new low point, the entrance of someone so depraved and shat-upon that I can end my night drunk on a rich dose of catharsis. Disgusted with my reading a rev the engine and move on.
I arrive at a woman's. Her friend, a camp one, is there also. I pick them up before at a train station. While I'm waiting they get chatting to some people, just 20 meters from my door. I can't hear what they're saying. Who are they, chatting up two teenagers at midnight? I scream for them to get in the fucking car. They giggle and run over, hop in.
We go to the house someone has let her stay in. I ignore all conversation and download brit-pop, pausing only to sing the praises of some tawdry act or another. Then we go to bed.
Spent a mad Saturday flying around in my car, tanning poet's corner savvy B from the bottle. Would enter suburb and burst into aptly located acquaintance's lounge-settings. So many home for a Saturday. Middle age arrives. Demand we have a drink, then rush out the door soon afterwards. Wished I was wearing a trench coat, but then it is 38 degrees.
Feeling the weight of my heavy vehicle around dockside roads, letting the engine find it's own rhythm. Late-night radio hosts provide me with some conversation. I like the way neither of us is really listening to the other. I stop in dimly lit car parks, with the pretense of searching for wireless Internet hot spots. Really I'm looking for other late night sojourners. I'm looking for grime and insidiousness, for desperation and intrigue.
There is no-one else. I open the laptop and madly research walking meditation and lucid dreaming, all the time reading all and understanding naught. My eyes drift often to the rear-view, fervently hounding the car park's entrance for the arrival of a fellow soul. I need a new low point, the entrance of someone so depraved and shat-upon that I can end my night drunk on a rich dose of catharsis. Disgusted with my reading a rev the engine and move on.
I arrive at a woman's. Her friend, a camp one, is there also. I pick them up before at a train station. While I'm waiting they get chatting to some people, just 20 meters from my door. I can't hear what they're saying. Who are they, chatting up two teenagers at midnight? I scream for them to get in the fucking car. They giggle and run over, hop in.
We go to the house someone has let her stay in. I ignore all conversation and download brit-pop, pausing only to sing the praises of some tawdry act or another. Then we go to bed.
To the girl a couple of fridays ago...
There's a really beautiful look in someone's eyes before you kiss them. Well there is if they want you to kiss them. I mean, its not like I've ever kissed anyone who didn't want me to. Some people have been undecided though, and you've got to, you know, encourage them a little. But that's not as good as when they really want to, as much as you want to kiss them, and you both know its just about to happen.
At a party there needs to be some secrecy about it, and this makes it all the sweeter. That's because everyone is kissing everyone, or at least trying to and you don't really want someone you kissed last week walking in on you kissing their best friend. It's not really their feeling's that you're protecting, because fuck, you get over that shit. I did. It's just the drama. It's never fucking ending.
People dig drama. They plan their lives around it, though everyone claims they're trying to avoid it.
You don't phone friends to chill out. Whether that friend be a white woman, an red-haired man, a large-nosed child or a freaking monkey doesn't make a difference: You don't rouse someone to action to feel calm. No, you want sparks and fire and knowledge and experience, you want something to happen. If that something involves someone you know well, all the better. Now that action is your action. Yours to watch unfold; yours to comment on, with inside knowledge of the key players.
Just don't ever become a part of the action. An actor.
But we fall into these roles.
The secrecy at the party adds to the allure. You both know it's wrong. But there's a soft movement of eye and lip, across rooms that fuels ancient rituals. One half smile from both, and the dance is afoot. You talk to everyone, but hear nothing. I only have eyes for her little communiques, the impatientience in her brow as she waits for bored drunks to leave the room.
I only have ears for the impermanence for her brief chats with friends, willing them to leave her and I alone. Ostensibly we're are reading a picture book. The Very Hungry Catapillar.
Alone, the transition is swift. She draws me in, allows me to move towards her, seeking her lips. She is breathless and giggles. It is a brief moment, passionate and enveloping. I rub my hands through her hair and feel a deep, resonant contentment.
Then the door of the room creaks. I, terrified of discovery by some agent of gossip, leap off. Glancing back her face is painted with what seems like bemused resignation. And a little rsentment. Soon she leaves for home.
Why don't I stay, even for a moment, with something that feels right? Why run, fearing retribution from previous half-assed attempts you already fucked up, lost or ran from? Who are you protecting?
Jesus Jimmy I'd love a few answers to my questions.
At a party there needs to be some secrecy about it, and this makes it all the sweeter. That's because everyone is kissing everyone, or at least trying to and you don't really want someone you kissed last week walking in on you kissing their best friend. It's not really their feeling's that you're protecting, because fuck, you get over that shit. I did. It's just the drama. It's never fucking ending.
People dig drama. They plan their lives around it, though everyone claims they're trying to avoid it.
You don't phone friends to chill out. Whether that friend be a white woman, an red-haired man, a large-nosed child or a freaking monkey doesn't make a difference: You don't rouse someone to action to feel calm. No, you want sparks and fire and knowledge and experience, you want something to happen. If that something involves someone you know well, all the better. Now that action is your action. Yours to watch unfold; yours to comment on, with inside knowledge of the key players.
Just don't ever become a part of the action. An actor.
But we fall into these roles.
The secrecy at the party adds to the allure. You both know it's wrong. But there's a soft movement of eye and lip, across rooms that fuels ancient rituals. One half smile from both, and the dance is afoot. You talk to everyone, but hear nothing. I only have eyes for her little communiques, the impatientience in her brow as she waits for bored drunks to leave the room.
I only have ears for the impermanence for her brief chats with friends, willing them to leave her and I alone. Ostensibly we're are reading a picture book. The Very Hungry Catapillar.
Alone, the transition is swift. She draws me in, allows me to move towards her, seeking her lips. She is breathless and giggles. It is a brief moment, passionate and enveloping. I rub my hands through her hair and feel a deep, resonant contentment.
Then the door of the room creaks. I, terrified of discovery by some agent of gossip, leap off. Glancing back her face is painted with what seems like bemused resignation. And a little rsentment. Soon she leaves for home.
Why don't I stay, even for a moment, with something that feels right? Why run, fearing retribution from previous half-assed attempts you already fucked up, lost or ran from? Who are you protecting?
Jesus Jimmy I'd love a few answers to my questions.
Other people's houses
A child.
There's a big red van outside of school.
Outside, a familiar head runs (jeremy!). The child runs after. At the door of the van, a (big grinning teeth! it's blocking out the sun!) face swoops down.
-C'mon Nicholas, you as well. Remember you're coming to our house as well tonight?
Nicholas hops in. For a while, he is content, alongside Jeremy in the back. There is a Blinky Bill colouring book. Nicholas doesn't pick it up.
The familiar roads of his universe fly past him. He knows some of the facades by heart. Well the flashes of them. His sister is allowed to walk home. Then there is a strange turn.
(i've been been here in a car with dad)
-This is near the tennis courts.
Jeremy turns, with gleeful wide eyes. - I know! I live two minutes from the tennis courts!
But it take ten minutes to get there because Jeremy insitsts, loudly, that he and Nicholas be given KFC drive through. Having never visited before Nicholas orders a large fries and feels he hasn't done his parents too much harm.
At the house Nicholas is impressed by its solidness. He likes the way it sits wide in its block, with high triangle roofs, all covered in little peices of red, as tall as the trees around it.
Inside the smell is like a wave. Everyone else hurries into the kitchen but Nicholas is rooted in the hall.
Nicholas is freaked. (home isn't like this) He wouldn't call it a bad smell. It's just so very strange. There's a grease to it, like when his dad cooks stir-fry on holidays in a cabin. But this doesn't have the void, carbonated aroma of the many time's rented, many time's clean. This house's scent is alive, a steady pulse, the true backbone of the dark wooden floorboards, unpolished and dusty. It creeps in the curtins and hangs above the rug.
Nicholas feels instantly uncomfortable. He starts looking at the figures that are presented to him, two large men ones who wore shorts under big bellies, and had hariy arms and legs, who were loud and jocular with big tanned faces (one has hair on his face!)
They are ok. But Nicholas needs to be home now, to ask someone (anyone) where the smell could be coming from. Its electric!
The people move the most. One of the big men ruffles Jeremy's har and taps him on the arm. Then prods him a bit harder in the stomach. Jeremy pushes past him, scowling, to slump in the hall and begin playing with lurid toys that spill from his room. His mother sighs at the two of them and reguards the clock accusingly. The man stalks out, snatching his beer from the table. The other man leaves with him.
-When's my mum coming?
-Five O'Clock, Nicholas. Twenty minutes.
(that's lucky. it's like the jungle book. wolf boy sense of smell.)
There's a big red van outside of school.
Outside, a familiar head runs (jeremy!). The child runs after. At the door of the van, a (big grinning teeth! it's blocking out the sun!) face swoops down.
-C'mon Nicholas, you as well. Remember you're coming to our house as well tonight?
Nicholas hops in. For a while, he is content, alongside Jeremy in the back. There is a Blinky Bill colouring book. Nicholas doesn't pick it up.
The familiar roads of his universe fly past him. He knows some of the facades by heart. Well the flashes of them. His sister is allowed to walk home. Then there is a strange turn.
(i've been been here in a car with dad)
-This is near the tennis courts.
Jeremy turns, with gleeful wide eyes. - I know! I live two minutes from the tennis courts!
But it take ten minutes to get there because Jeremy insitsts, loudly, that he and Nicholas be given KFC drive through. Having never visited before Nicholas orders a large fries and feels he hasn't done his parents too much harm.
At the house Nicholas is impressed by its solidness. He likes the way it sits wide in its block, with high triangle roofs, all covered in little peices of red, as tall as the trees around it.
Inside the smell is like a wave. Everyone else hurries into the kitchen but Nicholas is rooted in the hall.
Nicholas is freaked. (home isn't like this) He wouldn't call it a bad smell. It's just so very strange. There's a grease to it, like when his dad cooks stir-fry on holidays in a cabin. But this doesn't have the void, carbonated aroma of the many time's rented, many time's clean. This house's scent is alive, a steady pulse, the true backbone of the dark wooden floorboards, unpolished and dusty. It creeps in the curtins and hangs above the rug.
Nicholas feels instantly uncomfortable. He starts looking at the figures that are presented to him, two large men ones who wore shorts under big bellies, and had hariy arms and legs, who were loud and jocular with big tanned faces (one has hair on his face!)
They are ok. But Nicholas needs to be home now, to ask someone (anyone) where the smell could be coming from. Its electric!
The people move the most. One of the big men ruffles Jeremy's har and taps him on the arm. Then prods him a bit harder in the stomach. Jeremy pushes past him, scowling, to slump in the hall and begin playing with lurid toys that spill from his room. His mother sighs at the two of them and reguards the clock accusingly. The man stalks out, snatching his beer from the table. The other man leaves with him.
-When's my mum coming?
-Five O'Clock, Nicholas. Twenty minutes.
(that's lucky. it's like the jungle book. wolf boy sense of smell.)
So this girl takes up all my time....
Stuck in my head like a bad song lyric, Zoe (bah-bah-bah) Zoe (name withheld)
What do you do with a smart beautiful girl who don't want to play with your peen?
You keep her as a friend which is like keeping a poison shrub whose fruits get engorged with desire and resentment and edge ever-closer to the hard ground where a nightingale will swoop and peck.
Stretched in cashmere.
Buy them gifts which make them smile... laughter used to be a key now is filled with derision.
Get off the pipes.... takes time yes siree.
What do you do with a smart beautiful girl who don't want to play with your peen?
You keep her as a friend which is like keeping a poison shrub whose fruits get engorged with desire and resentment and edge ever-closer to the hard ground where a nightingale will swoop and peck.
Stretched in cashmere.
Buy them gifts which make them smile... laughter used to be a key now is filled with derision.
Get off the pipes.... takes time yes siree.
Put your toe in the water
Can’t you just see it? The homestead, sitting cheerfully squat in a grove of eucalypts, a happy puff of smoke rising from the chimney. The lights are on. Dusk is deepening to night. Through the widow you can see my mother.
She is soft and golden, reading to me (just a child!) and we both have our backs stretched against the big blue bunk. Its hard wood that bunk-bed but the comfort of my mother’s voice makes it soft, like a nightclub chaise sofa (but that comes later). The book is about chickens, which lay funny shaped eggs.
All day I have been running, like a mad chook! All over the yard; between the branches of that big peach; leaping to the pagoda roof. I got tangled in the vines. They criss-crossed my legs those green tendrils. I breathe a contented sigh of relief.
My mother looks down fondly. She smooths my hair too hard. “My beautiful boy,” she whispers. “My beautiful baby boy.”
And then she’s crying, great racking sobs turning her eyes to beetles, her hair to straw. I know, simply, that she not crying for me. I hug her with my little two-year old arms. I wait it out.
She quiets, slowly. Then looks at me. "My little guy." I sit up straight against the bunk and put my fists on my hips. Stick my bottom lip out like a stoic little policeman. Her mascara is still running. We both laugh. Rolling around on the floor.
Next day she's better. She dresses me in a red jumper; it's real struggle getting my head through the hole! I kick and fuss, all for show and she fusses over my hair, smoothing it down to hard. Like a harpy claw!
Outside there's my head under a beanie (grumble) and lots of teensy-weensy ants under a rock. I wanna feel the air in my hair! Sheesh. All the sky and no little fellers head to land on.
Mother goes down close to the rock on her belly. Her nose sits right beside their trail. They pay her no mind, even though her nose is huge! I can't stop laughing, so I run in a really fast circle.
She's up in a flash and pounces on me. Ha ha ha!
Dad's inside. Mum sits me on the kitchen table. I wriggle on to my knees and reach for dad's hair. I give it a yank and he spins (like a flash! They're so fast at this time). His eyebrows are up. Enormous hairy things. Laughter keeps bursting out at my mouth edges. "Rascal." He is a rotten scolder. Except when he's angry. Which is rare.
She is soft and golden, reading to me (just a child!) and we both have our backs stretched against the big blue bunk. Its hard wood that bunk-bed but the comfort of my mother’s voice makes it soft, like a nightclub chaise sofa (but that comes later). The book is about chickens, which lay funny shaped eggs.
All day I have been running, like a mad chook! All over the yard; between the branches of that big peach; leaping to the pagoda roof. I got tangled in the vines. They criss-crossed my legs those green tendrils. I breathe a contented sigh of relief.
My mother looks down fondly. She smooths my hair too hard. “My beautiful boy,” she whispers. “My beautiful baby boy.”
And then she’s crying, great racking sobs turning her eyes to beetles, her hair to straw. I know, simply, that she not crying for me. I hug her with my little two-year old arms. I wait it out.
She quiets, slowly. Then looks at me. "My little guy." I sit up straight against the bunk and put my fists on my hips. Stick my bottom lip out like a stoic little policeman. Her mascara is still running. We both laugh. Rolling around on the floor.
Next day she's better. She dresses me in a red jumper; it's real struggle getting my head through the hole! I kick and fuss, all for show and she fusses over my hair, smoothing it down to hard. Like a harpy claw!
Outside there's my head under a beanie (grumble) and lots of teensy-weensy ants under a rock. I wanna feel the air in my hair! Sheesh. All the sky and no little fellers head to land on.
Mother goes down close to the rock on her belly. Her nose sits right beside their trail. They pay her no mind, even though her nose is huge! I can't stop laughing, so I run in a really fast circle.
She's up in a flash and pounces on me. Ha ha ha!
Dad's inside. Mum sits me on the kitchen table. I wriggle on to my knees and reach for dad's hair. I give it a yank and he spins (like a flash! They're so fast at this time). His eyebrows are up. Enormous hairy things. Laughter keeps bursting out at my mouth edges. "Rascal." He is a rotten scolder. Except when he's angry. Which is rare.
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