ELECTION
DAY: The Bleep-Up Fairy Pays A Visit
Mar 25, 2007 | 7:11 AM
PST
Tags: bad
day, blog,
democracy,
Australia,
election,
women, mentor,
karma
Edit | Delete
Some days you wish had a button marked
"FLUSH". You know the type of day I mean: the kind of 24-hour
kill-me-now catalogue of disaster immortalised in films like Living In
Oblivion, Groundhog Day, U-Turn and After Hours. Just had myself a hall-of-famer
yesterday. Go grab a beer out of the fridge and settle in. I have to vent this
stuff on someone.
Miss Right's first name is Always
I wasn't in the best of moods to begin with,
having gotten myself beaten up by a girl I rather like the previous day- on my
own blog no less. (See the comments under my 2 most recent articles.) As the
ever-encouraging cici told me later in an email: "Silly,
silly man. You should know you can NEVER win in an argument against a woman...
You must enjoy getting a beat-down."
Now lean in close: I'll only whisper this. Just
between ourselves, I have the highest regard for women. My mentor in this
business, who taught me the ropes at film school nigh on 20 years ago and gave
me many of my best paid jobs since then, and who continues to critique and
improve my work for no reward other than friendship, is the venerable Ro Hume:
one of Australia's most respected TV writers and story editors. I've met many
brilliant people over the years, but she's the top. A good and loyal friend to
boot.
I put that out there in a desperate attempt to
alter my karma, which on the evidence of yesterday, couldn't be worse...
Power To The People
Like Winston Churchill, I truly believe
"democracy is the least worst form of government." So every four
years, I volunteer to play my part by becoming an Election Official for the
state of New South Wales. I'm the guy who sits at the desk at a Polling Place,
marks off your name, gives you the ballot forms and answers any questions you
might have.
I further believed this was a very important
election. The Labor Party’s had the reins for over ten years, and it’s time for
a change. Unfortunately, my constant addiction to OTL meant I didn’t get around
to reading my Election Officer’s Manual till the night before the poll. Ploughing
through that list of bureaucratic procedures was like wading through molasses
for my poor creative brain. It reminded me of somebody’s review of Star Wars
Episode One - The Phantom Menace:
“It’s like watching someone else play a video game
while Al Gore reads a VCR instruction manual in your ear.”
The knowledge it contained turned out to be 90%
redundant, but I didn’t know this at the time, so by the time I arrived at work
I’d already been up all night absorbing it, while one of the longest days of my
life still lay ahead.
Everyone's A Comedian
Voting is compulsory in Australia, so you cop a
lot of attitude as an official. People treat you like it's your fault that they
have to come and do this, and they think you're part of the government, so they
hit you with a whirlwind of accumulated resentment. Worse, the weird ones come
in early before you've got your defences up. I think they actually sit there
waiting for the polling booth to open, stunts prepared. Like the lady who,
despite the signs, came in with her 2 dogs and said they wanted to be
registered to vote. Our PPM (Polling Place Manager) told her politely "the
rolls are closed."
Other cracks were harder to deal with. All five of
us (it was a small booth) agreed that the next person who told us “the size of
this paper is ridiculous” was going to get hit. But perhaps they had a point.
The upper-house ballot has grown ridiculously large over the years. It’s
referred to here colloquially as “the tablecloth” and for good reason. It contains
300 boxes you can number if so desired, covering everyone from the majors
(Labor and Liberal) to the minors: The Shooters Party, The Fishing Party, The
Horse-Riding & Outdoor Recreation Party, The 3-Day Weekend Party and The
Beer-Drinking Party. (I’m not joking either: those names all belong to real
registered political entities.) Most people only tick one.
Hell Is An Endless Re-Count
The booth stays open till 6 o’clock- 10 hours
total- and it's hard to remember the order of the alphabet by the time you've looked
up and ticked off every stupid ethnic name in the electorate from Aabdalaal to
Zynovyeva. Yet the fun is just beginning. Next comes the count.
Needless to say, counting all of those
scribbled-on ballots is nothing you’d do for fun either. The only amusement
comes from those filled out by really pizzed-off people. Like the bloke who put
an editorial comment next to every party name:
Liberal/National Party – FASCISTS
Australian Democrats - RATBAGS
Labor Party - LIARS
Independent – WHO?
By the end of the process, we found that we’d
managed to count 20 more votes than we had actually given out. For the sake of
total accuracy, the Manager made us count ‘em again. This was 10:30 at night.
Our heads were reeling. But we did it… and the total on re-counting was even
higher. WTF? Were these things breeding?
The PPM gave up and called these totals through to
the electoral office anyway, with the message "You work it out."
That's democracy in action, folks, I’m sorry to have to tell you. Despite the
serious talking heads and fancy graphics used by television news to make
elections feel impressive, it's a pretty inexact science behind the scenes.
A Nice Pair Of Apples
At least I got to work with Lisa for several
hours. Lisa had worked on four elections, and Lisa was lovely. A taxi driver
once told me: "There's something about a 10,000 day old woman. It's when
she's ripe, like a piece of fruit." Which according to our wiz-bang iRoll
reader (which holds the details of all 4 million state electors) was Lisa's
age- round 28. She reminded me of 2 apples on top of each other- very edible
indeed. I was doing pretty well with her in conversation too, right up to the
point when I hit her with the hoary old chestnut: "What do you do for fun?
Do you have any hobbies?"
"Yes, I'm preparing for my wedding," she
said.
Crash and burn.
The Shut Out
At least she gave me a ride home, which was nice,
since it was raining cats and dogs.
I shook her hand good bye, walked up to my front
door, ready to take a well-earned sleep... and discovered I'd lost my keys.
I trudged up the street to a pay phone to call my
brother Jon to let me in. (Our door's too thick to hear people knocking, and
since both of us are artsy rather than practical, the doorbell doesn't work.) I
got our answering machine. I left a message. Given my mood, I think I expressed
myself pretty well: if you deleted all the expletives, all that'd be left is
hello and goodbye.
With my final coin, I managed to
locate him on his mobile: he informed me he was having a great time with his
actor friends across the other side of town, and wouldn't be home for several
hours. Why didn't I take a bus to Dad's place in the city? This seemed like
some sort of solution till I realised I could no longer afford the fare. There was
nowhere left to go. I schlepped back through the rain and a hailstorm of swear
words I'm guessing were coming from me, to huddle like a homeless person in the
doorway of my own bleeping home. It was now 1:30 a.m.
Too tired to move, too uncomfortable to sleep, and
too pizzed off to see the funny side of anything, I had plenty of time to
reflect on the old adage: "Some days you're the insect, others you're the
windshield." Jonny finally got home round 4 or 5, and as soon as he'd
finished laughing, let me in.
My Karma Ran Over My Dogma
Do we bring days like this on ourselves? Do
negative thought-waves echo back in the real world? Perhaps they do. But that's
the subject for another blog.
All I know is that this morning I went on-line to
be greeted by the news that our existing government had just been re-elected.
The reward for all the cost and work of staging this election was... another
four years of the same. The perfect end to a perfect day.
Do me a favour.
Kill me now.
Member Comments: 31
Delete
cici visit
blog
Mar 25, 2007 | 7:26 PM PST
Dave,
You are absolutely adorable when you're having a sh*tty day.
I would apologize to you, because it seems that my smart-ass remark triggered
the beginning of your nightmare of a day, but since your day resulted in such
an entertaining blog, I have to say I don't feel TOO bad.
:-)
Love your writing.
Delete cici visit
blog
Mar 25, 2007 | 7:34 PM PST
So help me understand the Australian
system here.
Can you be a member of the 3-Day Weekend Party AND the Beer-Drinking Party at
the same time???
If not, however could you choose??
Delete
JessicaMarie
visit blog
Mar 25, 2007 | 10:02 PM PST
You're such a brilliant writer.
Stop hating it so much, and embrace it.
That sucks that your day sucked, but I still adore you...
Delete ManifestDreamer
visit blog
Mar 26, 2007 | 1:43 AM PST
“…ticked off every stupid ethnic name
in the electorate…” Ha! Instant Karma got you good boy. That’ll learn you to
dis multi-tribalism, skippy.
Seriously, you’re to be commended for your voluntary masochism. I can’t imagine
how much tougher your job would have been if you had to ask voters for photo
ID. Now THAT would start a revolution. It would also cut voter fraud, but you
would be lynched in the process. So I award you a gold star on your forehead
and an elephant stamp on your wrist. Plus you get to sit at the front of the
class and look up teacher’s dress. Well done m’lad.
Delete
Edit videowilliams
visit blog
Mar 26, 2007 | 12:53 PM PST
I'm glad the lot of you find my suffering so amusing. If
you're not going to kill me, I guess I'm going to have to respond...
Delete Edit videowilliams
visit blog
Mar 26, 2007 | 1:49 PM PST
Jessica, you are one sick puppy. When I
read your advice, I think of the signs on the FBI exercise course in the
opening titles of "The Silence Of The Lambs":
HURT - AGONY - PAIN - LOVE IT
Perhaps the best I can do is to follow the advice of the French writer Gustave
Flaubert:
"I love my work with a love that is frenzied and perverted, as an ascetic
loves the hair shirt that scratches his belly."
It's an S & M thing.
Delete
Edit videowilliams
visit blog
Mar 26, 2007 | 2:09 PM PST
cici, there's a definite theme emerging here. The harder
I try to be serious, the funnier people find me. The same thing tends to happen
with my films. I set out to make a drama, and people go
"Ha, what a wonderful comedy!"
In a similar vein, I think you would have to make a serious ideological
commitment to EITHER The 3-Day Weekend Party OR The Beer-Drinking Party. If you
tried to be a member of both, people would think you were just joking around.
Delete
Edit videowilliams
visit blog
Mar 26, 2007 | 2:50 PM PST
Manifesto, I love your comment. But I think our American
readers might need a glossary to appreciate its cleverness...
MULTI-TRIBALISM - a put-down way of referring to multiculturalism, borne out of
frustration with certain immigrant groups who come to Australia, drink our
water, take our money, but refuse to assimilate. In the US, people say
"The Melting Pot is turning into A Salad Bowl" which amounts to the
same thing.
SKIPPY - A nickname used by people of ethnic background to refer to
Anglo-Australians, after the star of the 60's TV show "Skippy The Bush
Kangaroo". Often just abbreviated to "skip."
DIS - dis
...Thank you all for your interest in politics. I'm glad you treat it with the
seriousness it deserves.
Last edited by videowilliams on March 26th at 2:56 PM.
Delete JessicaMarie
visit blog
Mar 26, 2007 | 2:59 PM PST
Whaaaaat? S&M and Silence of the
Lambs from my lil ole comment?
Whaaaaat?
Delete
Edit videowilliams
visit blog
Mar 26, 2007 | 3:09 PM PST
I have no problem with:
"That sucks that your day sucked, but I still adore you..."
which is as sweet as the apple pie you're never going to bake me. What set me off
was:
"You're such a brilliant writer. Stop hating it so much, and embrace
it."
This article was hell to write, even by my standards. Couldn't you hear my
screams in Cleveland?
Last edited by videowilliams on March 26th at 5:19 PM.
Delete Edit videowilliams
visit blog
Mar 26, 2007 | 3:46 PM PST
Here's another quote, from "Barton
Fink":
BILL MAYHEW: Ain't writin' peace?
BARTON: No, Bill, I've always found that writing comes out of a deep inner
pain...
I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist of the exchange. (My friend Jacqui
McKenzie used to call me Barton, by the way.) I am simply green with envy that
you find it all so easy. It's funny: this "Gee, you write well,
David" comment just keeps coming up. I feel like John Rambo: my skill set
condemns me to a lifetime of pain.
Oh, but S & M is good. I did not mean that bit as put-down. Maybe I should
post a mini-blog in the style of the one you dedicated to me:
S & M is good
...and see what happens?
Last edited by videowilliams on March 26th at 3:59 PM.
Delete
cici visit
blog
Mar 26, 2007 | 6:39 PM PST
Dave,
Writing causes you pain because you expect it to cause you pain and because
deep down, you somehow enjoy the pain.... S & M is good indeed.
Sadly, I can relate to the pain part when it comes to writing. Nothing at all
comes out of my brain without some form of accompanied pain. OUCH! OUCH! I may
have just had a thought... DAAMN that hurts!!
Fortunately for me, I enjoy the Sadistic part of the S & M far more than
the Masochistic part, so the more you write, the more fun I have reading.
Heehee.
Delete Edit videowilliams
visit blog
Mar 27, 2007 | 5:42 AM PST
You've got a devil in you, cici! It
must be why I like you.
While we're talking S & M, I remember a very racy line from a John Donne
poem, in which he's basically banging his mistress, and he says:
"her eyes twinkle betwixt pleasure and pain".
It's a fine old line between 'em: no wonder some of us end up with our wires
crossed! I think my attitude to writing is best summed up by the scene in
"Animal House" where the new recruits are getting their azzes
spanked, tears are running down their faces, but they're forced to keep
repeating:
"Thank you, sir! May I have another?"
"Thank you, sir! May I have another?"
"Thank you, sir! May I have another?"
...God, I'm one sick puppy, aren't I? Nice to know I'm not alone...
Last edited by videowilliams on March 27th at 6:10 AM.
Delete
DawnAkemi
visit blog
Mar 27, 2007 | 12:29 PM PST
I don't know what's wrong with me but my mind keeps
taking the "o" out of "Hell Is An Endless Re-Count" and I
see something else....it happened three times!!!!
I need help!
My pardon to the ladies (whose membership I obviously have to exclude myself
from....)
Delete
DawnAkemi
visit blog
Mar 27, 2007 | 12:35 PM PST
Regarding S & M....please see my joke in your prior
blog!
Creativity is a birthing process :-D
Delete DawnAkemi
visit blog
Mar 27, 2007 | 4:06 PM PST
Ah! I remembered my favorite passage on
pain:
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun,
so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life,
your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always
accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and
tranquillity:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the
Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay
which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.
--Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
Last edited by DawnAkemi on March 27th at 4:07 PM.
Delete
Edit videowilliams
visit blog
Mar 27, 2007 | 4:23 PM PST
Oh, it just keeps getting better...
There are no ladies here, Dawn, don't worry: just myself, my Aussie buddy
Manifesto, Calamity Jane and the Thing From Krypton. We are all as uninhibited
as each other!
Thanks for your Freudian misreading of the perfectly innocent word
"count". It reminds me of a story Robert Redford told William Goldman
in "Adventures In The Screen Trade". He said whenever he looked at
the cover of Time Magazine, which had a picture of him accompanied by the words
"ROBERT REDFORD - ACTOR", he saw:
"ROBERT REDFORD - AZZHOLE"
I thought Jessica's "trucking crocksluckers" was the foulest thing
this site would accept without crying BLEEP-but you've just topped it. Now if
we could just work out a way to combine "count", "truck"
and "crockslucker" into one sentence, we could cause a total
BLEEP-down!
So much for keeping it PG-13. I'm glad you're here!
Last edited by videowilliams on March 27th at 4:24 PM.
Delete Edit videowilliams
visit blog
Mar 27, 2007 | 4:25 PM PST
And now to raise the intellectual tone
considerably...
Wow, I want to be Khalil Gibran when I grow up. His name is always attached to
something deeply profound. That's a wondrous poem, Dawn, really. I think you've
won the Final Word On Pain by quoting it.
All I can answer with is something from "Before The Gates Of
Excellence" by Richard Ochse- a Cambridge University professor who nailed
the source of creative genius:
"Before the Gates of Excellence the High Gods have placed sweat- the sweat
of labour- often mingled with the sweat of pain."
...Heck, I'm off to buy some leather straps and whips, and maybe a torture rack
as well. Let's get creative!
Last edited by videowilliams on March 27th at 4:45 PM.
Delete
DawnAkemi
visit blog
Mar 27, 2007 | 4:36 PM PST
All you have to do is double-dog-dare me and I could
probably lower that BLEEP bar even further!
:-D
Delete Edit videowilliams
visit blog
Mar 27, 2007 | 4:45 PM PST
Double-dog-dare you?
OH MY GOD!
What kind of person have I let into my house?
Last edited by videowilliams on March 27th at 4:46 PM.
Delete
DawnAkemi
visit blog
Mar 27, 2007 | 4:56 PM PST
I'm sorry.....I should have said double-dog-DAVE-dare
me!!!
I'm really that easy....
(insert joke here)
:-D
Oh! I'm glad you like Kahlil Gibran....I've released many tears over that
poem....he's terrific ;-)
Last edited by DawnAkemi on March 27th at 5:03 PM.
Delete
Edit videowilliams
visit blog
Mar 27, 2007 | 5:19 PM PST
You've answered one long-standing mystery for me tonight,
Dawn.
When I visited New York some years ago, I saw a church that had been built 100
years ago specifically for actors. Apparently the need existed because the
regular churches refused to marry "people of that type". I couldn't
work it out: what kind of people were they saying actors were?
Babe, now I know.
Last edited by videowilliams on March 27th at 5:20 PM.
Delete DawnAkemi
visit blog
Mar 27, 2007 | 6:15 PM PST
Whooo-hoooo, I am a solver of
mysteries...check that one of the list!
I think what you are saying is that being married to an actor would bring about
many challenges. It's not for the great un-washed....so to speak. That a plebe
might be overwhelmed by the enormity of the task.
You're probably right.
I was thinking that I wouldn't let you have the last word on this post. That I
would add comment to your comment, and back and forth until we top Melodie's
1000 comments. This is just the kind of activity which appeals to my stubborn
nature.
btw...I said on my blog that I hope you write/direct comedies!
Maybe satire...it will mix your desire to contribute to the world with story
and be skeweringly funny all at the same time! Brilliant!
Delete
Edit videowilliams
visit blog
Mar 27, 2007 | 6:25 PM PST
Now you're pulling out the big guns, Dawn. I'm melting...
Delete DawnAkemi
visit blog
Mar 27, 2007 | 6:35 PM PST
Huh? Like I threw a bucket of water on
you wicked witch of the west melting?
Delete
Edit videowilliams
visit blog
Mar 27, 2007 | 7:03 PM PST
Exactly right... also I have to go to work...c u
tomorro... oh no, my head just fell off... now my hands are
going@#$%^&*()SPLAT.
Delete DawnAkemi
visit blog
Mar 27, 2007 | 7:44 PM PST
Have fun at work!....with what's left
of you anyway!
;-)
Delete
DawnAkemi
visit blog
Mar 27, 2007 | 7:46 PM PST
Last word!!!
Ha Ha!!! NahNeeNahNeeBooBoo!!!!
Delete
JessicaMarie
visit blog
Mar 28, 2007 | 2:30 PM PST
trucking crocksluckers.
Delete Edit videowilliams
visit blog
Mar 28, 2007 | 2:44 PM PST
Ladies, ladies, enough. Only one person
gets the last word on this blog and that's ME!
Delete
JessicaMarie
visit blog
Apr 1, 2007 | 9:13 PM PST
well, sometimes, it just has to be....
JessicaMarie.