WE ARE AUSTRALIANS! (‘Nuff said!)

We, the people of a free nation of blokes, sheilas and the occasional wanker. We come from many lands (although a few too many of us come from New Zealand)and although we live in the best country in the world, we reserve the right to bitch and moan about it whenever we bloody like.

We are One Nation but we’re divided into many States:

First, there’s Victoria, named after a queen who didn’t believe in lesbians.
Victoria is the realm of Mossimo turtlenecks, cafe latte, grand-final day and big horse races.
Its capital is Melbourne, whose chief marketing pitch is that ‘it’s livable’..
At least that’s what they think. The rest of us think it is too bloody cold and wet.

Next, there’s NSW, the realm of pastel shorts, macchiato with sugar,
thin books read quickly and millions of dancing queens.
Its capital, Sydney, has more queens than any other city in the world and is proud of it.
Its mascots are Bondi lifesavers who pull their speedos up their cracks to keep the left and right sides of their brains separate.

Down south we have Tasmania, a state based on the notion that the family that bonks together stays together.
In Tassie, everyone gets an extra chromosome at conception.
Maps of the State bring smiles to the sternest faces.

South Australia is the province of half-decent reds, a festival of foreigners and bizarre axe murders.
SA is the state of innovation.
Where else can you so effectively re-use country bank vaults and barrels as in Snowtown,
just out of Adelaide (also named after a queen).
They had the Grand Prix, but lost it when the views of the track caused the Formula
One drivers to sleep at the wheel.

Western Australia is too far from anywhere to be relevant. Its main claim to fame is that it doesn’t have daylight saving because if it did all the men would get erections on the bus on the way to work.
WA was the last state to stop importing convicts and many of them still work there in the
Government and business.

The Northern Territory is the red heart of our land. Outback plains, sheep stations the size of Europe, Kangaroos, Jackaroos, Emus, Uluru and dusty kids with big smiles.
It also has the highest beer consumption of anywhere on the planet and its creek beds have the highest aluminium content of anywhere too.
Although the Territory is the centre piece of our national culture, few of us live there
and the rest prefer to fly over it on our way to Bali.

And there’s Queensland …………While any mention of God seems silly in a document defining a nation of half-arsed sceptics, it is worth noting that God probably made Queensland- it’s beautiful one day and perfect the next. Why he filled it with dickheads remains a mystery.

Oh yes, and there’s Canberra . The least said the better.

We, the citizens of Oz, are united by Highways, whose treacherous twists and turns kill more of us each year than murderers. We are united in our lust for international recognition.
Not that we’re whingeing; we leave that to our Pommie immigrants.

We want to make ‘no worries mate’ our national phrase, ‘she’ll be right mate’ our national attitude and ‘Waltzing Matilda’ our national anthem. (So what if it’s about a sheep-stealing crim who commits suicide??)

We love sport so much our news readers can read the death toll from a sailing race
and still tell us who’s winning. And we’re the best in the world at all the sports that count,
like cricket, netball, rugby, AFL, roo-shooting, two-up and horse racing.

We also have the biggest rock, the tastiest pies and the worst-dressed Olympians in the known universe.

We shoot, we root, we vote. We are girt by sea and pissed by lunchtime.
Even though we might seem a racist, closed-minded,
Sports-obsessed little people, at least we feel better for it.

I am, you are, we are Australian

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It started off with having a sleep in (excluding the extremely early hour my dog woke me up for his breakfast), followed by lazing around in my pyjamas for a few hours. That was a win already – any day that starts like that you know it’s going to be a good one. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door and a mate of ours, James, popped his head in. “Came over for a cold one!” he yelled.

An hour later we decided to head down to the local tavern for a bite to eat for lunch and have a couple of drinks. Unfortunately being the driver, I opted for the non-alcoholic beverage of diet coke, but I’m tough. I could handle it. The boys downed a few bourbons, and James having the excellent contacts that he does, got the first few rounds for free. Turned out he used to be the manager’s boss, and she had always been sweet on him. Another tactic to woo him over I guess (James is a pilot and determined to be single for another few years yet).

Also to the boys’ advantage was the backyard cricket match running live across the road from the tavern. It included girls in bikinis running, and for my viewing pleasure, men without shirts on. Unfortunately, none of these men carried a six pack on their stomachs; they each had at least a carton. Hence I turned my attention back to the tennis playing on one of the numerous tv’s scattered around the room. Much more appealing eye candy there.

After a while, we finished up and decided we would grab the dogs and head down the river for a swim. We switched from our little Suzuki hatch into our Suzuki 4wd, put the dogs in the back and headed to North Shore. We had packed a cooler bag full of drinks for ourselves, so first order of business after we’d arrived and set up was to get drinks. I served the boys their boubons, then made myself a fruit tingle.

A very wet Turbo on Australia Day

Unfortunately, Turbo is not well enough trained to know not to run away when we take him off the lead. Thus, he had to stay on the lead today while we were playing in the water. Generally it was fine, the only problem was when other dogs came along and he wanted to run off and play. He’d pull on the lead, get in trouble, then cry….that whole routine was repeated several times during the day. Other times it was great! We would say the magic words “do you want to go for a swim” then we’d walk into the water and he’d run in after us and start paddling in. James’ dog, Hunter, a great big doberman, was there as well but he’s much more obedient than Turbo. James had brought a ball for Hunter to play with, and took to throwing it out into the river. Hunter would then race in and swim out to the ball, grab it with his mouth, and swim back again. After a while Turbo had picked up on the game, and we were able to let go of the lead while he swam in after the ball, then came back. It was great while it lasted!

Overall we spent about 3 hours down at the river, during which time I’m pleased to say I didn’t get burnt. I had put on the good ol’ 30+ though, so it’s not really surprising. Around 6′ish we packed the dogs back into the vitara and headed home. We had timed it perfectly, to hear the last few songs in the Triple J’s Hottest 100, which we’d tuned into several times during the day (alas we didn’t have a radio to bring with us onto the beach). Along the way home the boys insisted on going via Mooloolaba, obviously to check out the “talent” aka women. They had a bit of drink in them at this stage, and tried to tell me they just wanted to see “the scene”, which was really just a thinly veiled attempt at trying to convince me otherwise. We ended up driving down the spit, at which point John Farnham’s “You’re the Voice” came onto the stereo. Mat immediately turned it up to an insane level, and they hung out the windows singing at the top of their lungs. Being the driver, I should have been more stern on them, but really it was just hilarious to see. There was a large number of people at Mooloolaba Spit at the time, and I’m fairly positive almost every single one of them turned to look at our car. I hope we brought a smile to someone’s face at least.

I dropped the boys off at James’ place (along with Hunter) for a swim in the pool while I came home to shower. I bathed Turbo as well to get rid of all the sand scattered amongst his hair, threw in some clothes for Mat and rejoined the boys. More drinking ensued (mostly for the boys, only one more drink for me being the good sensible non-drinking-driving girl that I am), along with a trip to McDonald’s for dinner. We’d left dinner until 9.30pm, and everything was shut at the time except for Mickey D’s…so that was on order. Got home at ate, then Mat and I decided it was time to depart and return home. After all, we had to work the following day!

Overall, it was an extremely enjoyable day, and I think it really summed up the Australian way of life. We’d managed to tick every box for Aussie priorities. Having a drink, hanging out with mates, going to the beach, and cricket. What more could you ask for?!

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It may just be due to my age (I’m only 24), I’m too young to really know anything about their previous presidents except for Clinton (and the only thing that sticks out to me about him was that he has a thing for cigars and head jobs). With President Bush, I’ve been subjected to a lot of music protesting against his actions. And again, it may only be due to my age, but I’ve only just realised how many overseas artists are willing to sing about their political views. The most notable that springs to mind is Bono and U2 – I even studied Sunday Bloody Sunday in high school! He doesn’t hesitate to speak his mind. And as time goes on, more mainstream artists (if you can call them that) are talking about politics as well e.g. P!nk, Green Day, Dixie Chicks?

Then I look closer to home, and wonder where all our outspoken artists are. Perhaps I don’t listen to enough Australian music, or pay enough attention to their lyrics. But the only songs I could think of was Paul Kelly’s “From Little Things, Big Things Grow” and Midnight Oil’s “Beds are Burning” (another I studied in high school). I’m positive John Butler Trio would have some political songs amongst their mix, John Butler is very outspoken on particular things (like the uranium mining).

(Side note – I was actually at Live Earth in Sydney when they sang this, and the song echoed around the stadium with everyone singing along…fantastic moment)

**update – for more information about the inspiration behind this song, check out this wikipedia article on the Gurindji strike**

I searched for Australian Political Music on Google, and instead found this – an article written in 2006 where Midnight Oil used their induction into the hall of fame to call for more protest songs. I also found another article of a history of Australian Music pushing the boundaries of politics and social acceptance, but it only goes to the year 2000.

I asked the question on Twitter, and immediately got the following suggestions (thanks Oli!!):

• Paul Kelly’s “From Little Things Big Things Grow” (previously mentioned)
• Powderfinger “Day you Come”
• Blue King Brown’s “Water”
• The Herd “King is Dead”

Perhaps I’m either ignorant to the lyrics of music, listening to the wrong radio stations, or just have my head buried in sand….OR is it possible that Australian political music is either not prominent or not getting the attention it deserves? Or are the songs not being written?

Not pointing any fingers at all, otherwise I’m fairly sure I’d be shot down in a second, and I don’t think there is a wrong or right about it. I’m just curious to see where it all is, whether it died in the 90′s or if Australian artists are more conservative about taking a stand. Or whether I’m just being ignorant (have I said that enough already??) I just wonder if we’re going to start hearing music about Kevin Rudd anytime soon.

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