hell’s paving stones

(image from BBC News)

I’ve wanted to make a fimo “dancing Kofi” doll in the likeness of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for some time now. Three factors stand in my way:

1. I don’t have a car. Ergo, I don’t have a rear-view mirror. Ergo, Kofi cannot dance as he ought.
2. The prospect of two sittings’ worth of braying laughter and derision from my closest friends.
3. He isn’t really my hero (insofar as that people make fimo likenesses of their heroes).

But he used to be. And he still comes pretty close. For the past few weeks, Annan’s been under general cynical scrutiny by the whole spectrum of news media outlets. Kojo (no, not that one, this one) Annan, Kofi’s son, was fingered by the second interim “Volcker report” (the UN-commissioned report on the Oil-for-Food scandal, or UNSCAM as it’s known in some political blogging circles) for allowing a major conflict of interest to develop by remaining associated with Cotecna, a “trade inspections” contractor, while the company submitted a tender for a place in the Oil-for Food Program. Kojo thereby exposed himself, Cotecna, Kofi and the U.N. to allegations that he had somehow exploited his father’s position to win the contract on Cotecna’s behalf. You can read more about it here, here, here and here (and, like, a thousand other places)

Alright, let’s not get too bogged down. Onto the next issue. The net result of the scandal has been to throw Annan seriously off balance, especially since he seems to have let himself into making undignified counterclaims about the Oil-for-Food scandal. At the time the Volcker report was released, Annan was trying to launch an unprecedented push for reform of the UN. This includes the recommendation (see pages 66-69), by a panel that Annan appointed in 2003, to expand the number of permanent Security Council seats from 5 to 11.

We all know how that’s been going. The headlines in East Asia are dominated by the Anti-Japan protests that have been taking place over the past two weeks. It seems that the protests have been sparked spontaneously by suggestions that Japan will get one of those hot new Security Council seats.

However, some commentators have remarked that the Chinese government has only in the past two days begun to shut down Internet message boards that contain plans for further protest. And judging from the Chinese foreign minister’s unapologetic statements recently, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Chinese pols have been using the demos to deliberately unsettle Japan. Remember the context: this is all happening at a time when Japan has been getting more involved in foreign affairs (peacekeepers in East Timor and Iraq, for example), and disengaging its “Self-Defence Force” from the constitutional restrictions on overseas deployment.

So Kofi’s reform of the UN is being assualted on two fronts: First by “the UN is the tool of the Antichrist” unilateralists in the Sates and elsewhere, and second by those who have a vested interest in the infirm UN system as it stands.

But Kofi, at the very least, has a fighting spirit. When asked if he should stand down as Secretary-General because of Kojogate, he said immediately, and in a level voice (HPS heard this on radio), “Hell no” .

The list of Australia’s top 20 celebrity intellectuals in the education section of today’s Age could easily be re-titled the 20 least influential people in John Howard’s Australia.

See also: Wonkette’s list of the World’s 25 least influential people (which contains maybe too many D.C. in-jokes to be overly hilarious).

Melbs.org, an “mp3 blog”, written by a bureaucrat, a hack and a grudge-monkey, is seeing its first full 24 hours of public scrutiny today!

Evil Uncle Joe, who keeps this site running, is keeping Melbs running too. With the very same crooked, mad grin on his face.

The launch was last night at the Corner. HPS missed it, like the losers we are. We were lying semi-conscious on our bed as our mobile buzzed spastically on the desk not three feet away. I’m told city city city were playing. I’m stabbing myself.

Melbs is now sprouting reviews of the finest and swinest of Melbourne’s musical progeny. Expect interviews, feature articles and a gig-guide. Melbs also has hyperlinks that look like they’ve been highlighted by hand with an actual physical highlighter! Too much. Visit it often.

Correction: the existence of Melbs.org was merely announced at the Corner last night, at some point before, during or after a Laura gig. Apparently this is a different thing to a launch. Actual launch TBA. Whatever, at least I’m less likely to get dirty looks from the grudge-monkey.

The next time my friends or relatives convene a cook-off, HPS is going to attempt to make one of our absolute favourite Dim Sum - cha siu bao. We’ll screw it up, of course.

It’s a steamed pork bun, basically. But that doesn’t do justice to the dish. A fluffy, stark white, piping hot bun encases incandescent slices of cha siu - marinated loin (I think) of pork that is barbecued in a Chinese fashion, and then sliced and mixed with a rich, intoxicating sauce.

Which brings me to chaxiubao, a Hong Kong food blog that is written (in a sweet, incredibly informative, and indelibly Hong Kong style) by an anonymous HK food critic and oenophile. He’s also included reports from his travels to the fancypants restaurants of Europe.

Read it, gwai lo, and submit yourselves to a superior gastronomic culture!

You…you must submit!!!

Photo taken from the China Daily. The sandy area is all reclaimed land. They just filled in the sea. For Disneyland.

A protest by part of Hong Kong’s fishing industry went ahead on Monday. Lantau fish farmers moored 10 of their boats off Lantau Island (which already holds the Po Lin Buddhist monastry, and Chep Lap Kok International Airport. The island also contains the “away from the hubbub” homes of many expatriates and richies). The fishermen believe that large drifts of sediments have been poisoning fish stocks in the Cheung Sha Wan Fish Culture Zone, which is on the south side of the island.

These sediments are a by-product of dumping tonnes of boulders and dirt into what was formerly Penny’s Bay, then dredging other parts of the surrounding waters to create 300 ha. of virgin, level, developable land. Upon this land will be built Hong Kong’s very own Disneyland, a project that is being run jointly by Disney and the Hong Kong government

The fish farmers have estimated that around 1.6 million fish, or 60-70% of their overall stock, have died because of the clouds of suspended sediment, but this neglects the effect on the wild marine life in the area (which probably isn’t in great shape anyway, considering Hong Kong’s famously polluted waters).

According to a report (”Sea-borne protest demands compensation for dead fish” 12/04/05, for those with access to a subscription or a newspaper database) by the South China Morning post, Disney has washed its hands of the issue, saying that the HK government was in charge of the reclamation project. For its part, the government has verified the level of pollution in the waters in and around Cheung Sha Wan. However, it argues that there is no proof directly linking the fouled water and the massive terraforming taking place about 20 kilometres away. It is so convinced of this that it has decided to grant the fish farmers compensation of around HK$15 million (approx. A$2.5 million) anyway.

The reclamation phase has finished, building has been well underway, and the theme park is set to open on September 12th.

Recruitment has started for the park’s staff. According to the SCMP again (”Disneyland set to bring in talent from Philippines”, 02/04/05), much of the singing, dancing, playing talent may be sourced from the Phillipines. So Phillipino mathemeticians and cardiologists, once restricted to nannying Hong Kong’s infants, can now sweat in furry suits and be kicked in the arse by Hong Kong’s infants. Apparently wages for these positions are quite attractive, a cleaner will pull around HK$9,000 (around A$1,500) a month, and front desk staff around HK$14,000 (A$2,300) a month.

Reports say that 3,000 such jobs have been created out of the park, so if any of the 200 or so folks who work at the Cheung Sha Wan fish farm have been temporarily done out of a livelihood, they can always go flip burgers on Main St., USA.

The Papua New Guinean government today said that it would suspend its receipt of Australian aid to the country until it receives an apology for an embarrassing diplomatic mistake.

Remember it? Late last month, their Prime Minister, Sir Michael Somare, was made to undergo “lengthy security searches at Brisbane on his way to and from New Zealand”. And, oh yeah - shoes were removed, apparently. The cool part is that two protest rallies have since taken place at the gates of the Australian embassy in Port Moresby (it seems that a third was postponed when JP II passed away).

But it seems that the incident hasn’t died down as a public issue in PNG, especially not since the PNG Foreign Minister disclosed that the Australian Governement had been notified well in advance when Somare would be arriving in the country. Furthermore, Australian protocol officers were travelling with the PM and attempted to rectify the situation, without much success. These facts are significant, because part of the Government’s spin on the embarrassment was to claim that Somare ’surprised’ us with his visit and stupidly took a commercial flight like any other hapless pleb. Conclusion - he was askin’ for it!

Indeed, His Royal Satanic Majesty has warmed to the theme, suggesting that Somare’s putting on airs and graces by protesting:

“I frankly believe these are things that if it’s good enough for the rest of the community, it’s good enough for the Prime Minister.”

Well… I guess if he puts it that way, he might have a point…hey, wait a minute! Didn’t we just have a whole raft of Royals in the country? Were they asked (using all the proper titles and so forth) to squat and cough? Let’s put it to the test next time.

But this is all relatively trivial stuff - what’s really interesting is the state of the “Enhanced Co-operation Program”, where, since 2004, Australia’s PNG Aid has been conditional on the presence of around 200 Aussie coppers, 18 Aussie prosecutors, nearly forty Aussie bureaucrats working inside key Papuan ministries and some border control guys in the country to crank up the old Law and Order quotient. The idea is to make the place less scary so that foreign investment increases. So lock up the raskols!

PNG never asked for it. In fact, the whole program is seen as a sign of Australian Neo-Colonialism in the South Pacific - along with the other police intervention in the Solomons and the Australian push for a “Pacific Union” supranational political entity, kind of like the EU (except totally not). Which is why it’s so great that PNG is refusing Australian Aid - it’s the ultimate refusal to submit everything to the will of charity. Good on ‘em.

But there’s a little bit of disagreement over how effective the program’s been. The PNG paper The National yesterday reported that there’s been a significant increase in reported crime in Port Moresby. However, the retort from the city’s commissioner in today’s issue counterclaims that the level of actual crime hasn’t changed, but people are beginning to report crime more. He doesn’t say it, but the subtext is that citizens have had little confidence in the PNG police force. With some good reason - they’re poorly paid, many are corrupt and police violence has been an established practice. But then again, fear of PNG coppers was used by those claiming an increase in actual crime too - the logic in that argument is that criminals now think the harshness of law enforcement is likely to decrease with whitey police around. Is our police intervention working? Who’s right?

Whatever - that’s a job for someone with research skills and a brain. But for the moment, let’s keep one thing in mind. Raskols don’t pop into existence when you feed a gremlin after midnight. Papua New Guinea’s criminal gangs are a huge problem - but they are a product of massive unemployment and urbanization. Lock up the worst of ‘em, but the symptoms won’t vanish completely until the cause gets nailed. And that’s what our aid should be doing - more so than it is at the moment.

(from the Guardian)

Pope John Paul II died in the early hours of the Australian morning on Sunday 3rd of April 2005.

Between the 17th and the 22nd of April, the College of Cardinals will come together for a conclave to elect the new Bishop of Rome.

Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei.

Found in the Gentlemens’ Amenities between the 1st and 2nd floor of the John Medley Building, East Tower, Melbourne University.

HPS staff planned to do a post on the toilet cubicle graffitti around the Melbourne Uni campus way back last year, but never got round to it - something about carrying a camera into the Gents’ seems a little unsavoury. There were some beauties though, including an epic dialogue in the loo at the Student IT labs between an atheist (or possibly a Muslim, it was never very clear) writing in pink pen, and all comers. It took up two of the available walls.

The basement Gents’ in the Baillieu Library is always interesting - there’s a guy who gets very passionate about causes that generally went out of style a few years ago - Ban the Grand Prix, Privatisation of Public Transport, French Nuclear Testing etc. He often uses the microfilm readers to print out newspaper articles from the ’60s (”Menzies turns away defector ballet dancer Nureyev”). Nobody ever takes him up on his declarations (”Vote Marlboro”). We wouldn’t mind meeting him one day… for a few minutes.

Unfortunately, Buildings Maintenance seems to have adopted a zero tolerance policy on graffitti since late 2002 - there’s a lot less of it around from when we started uni 4 years ago.

Anyway, an interesting fact: an anthropology student at Melbourne Uni is writing an honours thesis on toilet graffitti at that same campus. If we ever get a chance to find this person and pick their brains, we’ll let you know what transpires.

Okay, so Charlie Kaufman wins the Best Screenplay Oscar and hell’s paving stones gets resuscitated. Coincidence?

“…I was waking up every morning freaking out. I thought my career was over”

- That’s a quote from an Esquire magazine interview - Dec 2002, v.138, i.6, p139.

You and me both, Charlie, you and me both. Since about, oh, May of last year, Joe would eye me up and down and growl with that psychotic stare he gets when he remembers what human flesh tastes like. And he would say: “You’d better be back on that treadmill, champ - or I’m going to flay that weaselly yellow hide right off of your back and then I’m going to sell it to the first Chinese stoat-fisher with a reasonable offer.” Then he would screw a lit cigarette into my forehead.

Now HPS has a new home, a little cottage to call its own. But like most lazy, sulken adolescents with designs on moving out, we’re still totally subsidised by our parents - the new domain name is Joe’s handiwork. He still does my cyberlaundry for me.

Old HST died some time ago. Here’s part of the last page of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72:

Later, when the big rain started, I got heavily into the gin and read the Sunday papers. On page 39 of California Living magazine I found a hand-lettered ad from the McDonalds Hamburger Corporation, one of Nixon’s big contributors to the ‘72 presidential campaign:

PRESS ON, it said. NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN TAKE THE PLACE OF PERSISTENCE. TALENT WILL NOT. NOTHING IS MORE COMMON THAN UNSUCCESSFUL MEN WITH TALENT. GENIUS WILL NOT: UNREWARDED GENIUS IS ALMOST A PROVERB. EDUCATION ALONE IS NOT: THE WORLD IS FULL OF EDUCATED DERELICTS. PERSISTENCE AND DETERMINATION ALONE ARE OMNIPOTENT.

I read it several times before I grasped the full meaning. Then, when it came to me, I called Mankiewicz immediately.
“Keep your own counsel,” he said. “Dont draw any conclusions from anything you see or hear.”
I hung up and drank some more gin. Then I put a Dolly Parton album on the tape machine and watched the trees outside my balcony getting lashed around in the wind. Around midnight, when the rain stopped, I put on my special Miami Beach nightshirt and walked several blocks down La Cienega Boulevard to the Losers’ Club.

You really have to read the book to grasp the full, chasmic, paranoic, fatal, sorrowful poetry of the “full meaning”. But the gist is this: Great Forces are at work. They are the twinned forces of mediocrity and success, incarnated by Richard M. Nixon and McDonalds. The best instincts of the human character are weaker than these, and for you and I, who might believe in those instincts, the reality of that weakness is hard to bear. But keep your own counsel. Don’t let the facts of defeat, humiliation and worse than both of these - failure - crush hopes for the resurgence of those better instincts, those better powers.

Welcome back to hell’s paving stones.

Welcome to the Losers’ Club.

Welcome to the Gang of Good Intentions.

Alternate title of post: “Vincent O’Kane: winner of drunken arguments or guilt-ridden, subservient blog writer?”

Hah! Take it from me, Joe is a sly one - and he’s never as drunk as I think he is. Last Thursday night, between two maudlin games of pool with a bemused Harry and the ever-eerily observational Jackson, he claimed that Charlie Kaufman is a shameless self-publicist. A diversionary challenge was substituted for evidence: “Name one other screenwriter who doesn’t direct or act”.

I flapped my mouth open a couple of times to the tune of, “The guy who wrote A Beautiful Mind. Uh, starts with A”, before composing myself. I gently tried to explain that Kaufman became a curiosity to Hollywood after making a string of unusual, sincere movies. The hitherto cynical and decadent film circles then chose to align themselves with him - and later to hype him up - out of fascination and maybe also a suspicion that he could be worth something. The idea that they had been won over by some kind of masterly careerist rhetoric on Kaufman’s part, I said, borders on conspiracy theory. At this point I made a tentative analogy with Benjamin Franklin’s demi-god celebrity in Paris during his time as the American minister plenipotentiary to France - that the hysteria surrounding Franklin hadn’t been generated (entertained, certainly, but not generated) by himself, but rather by the dynamics of social reputation and a crazed domestic thirst for novelty in Enlightment France. Confident that I had illustrated my point perfectly, I shouted the entire pub to a round - a gesture which met with a hearty chorus of HEAR, HEAR, VINCENT! and many congratulatory slaps on the back from previously surreptitious eavesdroppers.

This was not enough for Joe. “Those movies were interesting sure, but hardly original.” Why was it, he insisted, that it was Kaufman that I could name and no one else? The reason, he declared in a fit of unhinged postulation, was that Kaufman had aggressively sought, via his contract, to insert himself into the marketing of his movies. In so doing, he forced the development of the popular recognition of his name, which according to the fundamental laws of physics in Hollywood, accumulates power at the rate of:

P =[R(F$) + L] – l/m

Where R = reputation (as quantified by the relative success of dropping one’s own name in conversation with Kate Moss and getting a positive reaction without her appearing to associate the afore-dropped name with the person talking to her), F = the number of favourable reviews, $ = the net profit at the box office, L = the number of mentions in Letterman monologues during any given week, and l/m = the cost of 2 lunch mains, one for you and one for Harvey Weinstein.

Struggling to discover $105 in my wallet to pay the barkeep, I continued to protest against this line of unsupported reasoning. A little too quickly, Joe said: “Alright, you have until Saturday to write a post saying why I’m wrong”.

In one stroke, I’d been cornered into feeding my starving blog or else surrender my treasured and locally acknowledged status as an articulate, quick-witted dilettante. Uh…

By next week, I will supply you all with conclusive proof to believe that Kaufman is not masterminding his own rise to fame - proof garnered from a cross-sectional analysis of promotional material, Hollywood theory and other sources. Stay tuned.