Malignant Souls

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Our Redfern backyard.

"Right now, if the statistics are correct, about 15 per cent of Americans are not happy. Soon, perhaps, with the help of psycho pharmaceuticals, melancholics will become unknown. That would be an unparalleled tragedy, equivalent in scope to the annihilation of the sperm whale or the golden eagle. With no more melancholics, we would live in a world in which everyone simply accepted the status quo, in which everyone would simply be content with the given. This would constitute a nightmare worthy of Philip K Dick, a police state of Pollyannas, a flatland that offers nothing new under the sun. Why are we pushing ourselves towards such a hellish condition? The answer is simple: fear."
Erick G Wilson

I can see them in the crowds, pretending to be normal humans, mimicking the actions of every one else. But their distorted faces, misshapen chins, pockmarked skin, their eyes bloodshot from the excesses of the night before, their souls easily mirrored into the physical world, it all gives them away. They are encroaching. They are everywhere. Some of the people in the crowd had allowed themselves to be vulnerable to takeover from entities; and that is exactly what happened. Some of it was genetic weakness, most of it was something else, a corruption of their own soul, their own spirit, which allowed the take over. I shudder, I can see them so clearly. They are out in force this morning; gathering at funerals and memorial services, feeding off the distress, the grief, of well meaning others, waiting their chance.

Pad in hand, I pretended to be a normal reporter, taking notes on the physical world. The words tumbled out of diseased souls, and I recorded them in my makeshift shorthand. There was grief, there was no doubt about that, grief and shock at the passing of someone they had all known so well, had all regarded as part of the furniture. He was aging like the landscape across centuries, one speaker said. He knew he was not long for this realm. I took it down, I took it all down. He was preparing in those final months, leaving his legacy. It went unfinished. We tried hard to beat a path to his door, to say our farewells, to pretend that nothing was happening. What can you say to the dying?

Don't worry, things will get better, I started to say to Bruce, or Bad Boy as his graffiti trumpeted across inner-city terrace walls, the forlorn swish of the traffic on wet roads the opening tune of his final symphony. So many of them had died; I didn't know why I had been spared. It wasn't the purity of lifestyle; perhaps it was brains, knowing when to pull back. He shuddered at the arrogance of his past selves. If you can't handle it don't do it, had been his attitude; and he used the word moron repeatedly, referring to much of the rest of the world. But that same world brought him low, hammered humility into his resistant, glossy, flittery frame. And he looked up and said: yes, it's over now.

The symphony of didgeridoos droned across First Fleet Park, the crowd clapping in unions with the clapsticks, sending his spirit back to the tribal lands in the north. He loved this place, the tourists, the clutter, the P&O cruiser pulled up at the international terminal, the flags of the world flying from its top. He loved this place; everyone had known him, the shop keepers, the passers by. Tourists stopped, listening to the drone of the ancient instrument for a few minutes, sometimes exchanging a few words. He was the perfect showman, without resorting to loin cloth parodies, a modern man proud of his ancient culture; happy to sip cappuccinos and wear Jimmy Pyke t-shirts; to laugh and drink and carouse with his many friends.

Oh how could it be, that the best souls pass so early. How could it be that true brilliance, the genius of didgeridoo players, the Beethoven of the realm, how could it be that he was no longer here, that his body had given in. At 40. The sea-gulls squawked, milling in with the crowds of mourners, used to the handouts from the tourists. Through the frangipani trees were glimpses of the Opera House to the right, the Harbour Bridge to the left; the colonial grandeur of the Museum of Contemporary Art, the ferries, unchanged since the 1960s, plying in and out across the choppy water.

How could it be that such a vibrant spirit left this place so early? Some of the answers were in the crowd themselves, their eyes glistening, half mad. One of the mourners smokes a joint at the end of the ceremony. Others are clearly champing to get at the pub, despite the earliness of the hour; to feel the exuberance and soothing balm of alcohol coursing through their veins, inspiring their memories, bringing them closer together; their grief, their laughter, writ large.

AS a musician, the mourners reflected a rag tag, nomadic life; but one lived with great gusto, enthusiasm, friendliness. Cut the crap Mr A, he would shout to his good friend Atherton, a musicologist from the university of western Sydney. A deranged woman, flakey, high maintenance, hard to bear, danced to the unique aboriginal rhythm, as they sang and they clapped his spirit back to his forebears. Tourists stopped to watch, curious, unknowing. The same tourists, it might as well have been, that used to stop and listen to the ancient aboriginal sound, one of the few authentic sounds they would ever hear, a drone that opened a window back across thousands of years, traditions passed down with great reverence. Before the white man came.




THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/26/2172742.htm

One of Australia's best didgeridoo players, Alan Dargin, has died in Sydney, aged 40.

Dargin performed with high-profile artists including James Morrison and Tommy Emmanuel.

But he was best known for his solo work and his tireless efforts to share his knowledge about the didgeridoo.

Born in Arnhem Land, Dargin began playing the didgeridoo when he was five.

He recorded a number of albums and performed around the world - at London's Royal Albert Hall, in the US, China and Germany.

Long-time friend and fellow performer Charlie McMahon toured with Dargin in Europe.

"Alan was a fabulous didge soloist," McMahon said.

"He played a very original, fast, complex and quite loud style. All his own.

"That really impressed people very much at the time - in the mid to late 80s when people were starting to get a lot more aware of Indigenous culture, especially overseas.

"A lot of people would play didge [in] what the Top End people would call that lazy aeroplane style - you know, which is a soft, kind of new age droning sort of thing. Whereas Alan was really a gun player."

Dargin's album Bloodwood: The Art of the Didgeridoo with Michael Atherton was released in the late 80s and received critical acclaim.

He was also a versatile actor.

He had roles in several films including The Fringe Dwellers and Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

In one scene, he invites three drag queens to a nearby camp. There they put on an impromptu show.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23294592-2,00.html

Iemma forced to act on donations

By Simon Benson and Joe Hildebrand

February 29, 2008 01:40am
Article from: The Daily Telegraph

NSW MPs will be banned from receiving donations of any kind and will have their personal campaign accounts scrapped under the most fundamental reform of party political funding in the country's history.

Compelled to act in the wake of The Daily Telegraph's continued exposure of the links between allegedly corrupt developers and the ALP, Premier Morris Iemma will also force developers to declare political party donations when submitting building applications.

And Planning Minister Frank Sartor has announced he would remove himself from future major planning decisions in an effort to avoid perceptions of conflict.

The changes would rewrite decades of political culture in NSW in which corporations have sought to exert influence and exhort favour from politicians by making donations to individual campaigns.

The move follows The Daily Telegraph's revelations this week that both Mr Iemma and Mr Sartor were linked to a questionable developer who donated more than $100,000 to the ALP.

It is an admission by the Premier that the entire electoral funding process is rotten and open to potential corruption.


http://www.theage.com.au/news/us-election/smart-money-says-its-obama/2008/02/28/1203788536068.html

Smart money says it's Obama

Anne Davies, Washington
February 29, 2008

IF HILLARY Clinton wants to know why Barack Obama is likely to beat her to the Democratic nomination for president, she need look no further than his campaign's announcement that it has secured its millionth donor online.

That's not the millionth donation, but the millionth person in America who pulled out a credit card to donate — on average $US109 ($A116) each. In a population of 290 million, where roughly half are conservative-leaning, that means one in 140 Democratic supporters has funded the Obama campaign.

This presidential contest has been groundbreaking in many ways, but none more than in the race for campaign cash. So far in this primary election season — in 2007 and in January 2008 — the candidates raised a combined $US542 million from individuals, the Campaign Finance Institute said. That's nearly double the record of $US285.7 million four years ago.

For many voters, the main exposure to the candidates will be through television ads, and on that score Senator Obama is winning hands down. Advertising consultants say he is outspending Senator Clinton by huge margins in Texas and Ohio. Unless Senator Clinton can win a big share of the vote in these delegate-rich states next Tuesday, it could all be over.

To add to her troubles she lost a prominent supporter, Democratic Congressman and veteran civil rights leader John Lewis, to Senator Obama on Wednesday.

He said he wanted "to be on the side of the people".


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7268707.stm

Steely resolve as Clinton battles on
By Jamie Coomarasamy
BBC News, Washington

Hillary Clinton campaigns in Ohio, 27th Feb
Ohio and Texas are the next big tests for the candidates

When it comes to presidential candidates' planes, it seems that oranges ARE the only fruit.

Just as my BBC colleague travelling with Barack Obama found, on Hillary Clinton's aircraft, the press roll oranges up the incline towards the first class section, as the plane takes off.

It is a case of fact and fiction becoming blurred - a "West Wing" tradition being applied to a candidate whose husband's time in The White House inspired the TV series.

Hillary Clinton feels barely-suppressed anger towards the media at the moment, for what - she argues - is the favourable treatment being given to her Democratic opponent.

So you would half expect her to pick up any orange which reached her and hurl it, past rows of shocked-looking secret service officers, towards the press contingent, as they whistled and feigned innocence.

Now that would be a story.

In reality though, the Clinton plane doesn't seem like the sort of place where much news is made.

Lacking drama

On a flight from Washington DC to Cleveland, Ohio, on Tuesday, the New York Senator remained huddled with her advisers, preparing for what was billed as a debate, where she would "throw the kitchen sink" at her opponent.

In the event, it turned out to be a combative, but uninspiring affair, rather lacking in drama - of the kitchen sink, or any other variety.

So the reporters languishing at the back of the plane were reduced to guessing which outfit she would be wearing at the debate (answer: a brown trouser suit) and, in one case, to doing a passing impression of her husband, Bill.

It has been a long campaign.

The following day, Mrs Clinton did wander back to talk to us, on a short flight from Cleveland to Columbus, which had begun in a blizzard.

But when she did, her words - in contrast to the weather - were pretty undramatic.

Resolute gaze

The whole event had a rather formal air about it: a stump speech on the economy, which she just happened to be given in the aisle of a Boeing 737, as it was coming in to land.

Hillary Clinton (left) and Barack Obama at the debate in Cleveland, Ohio, 26 February 2008
The Cleveland debate was combative but uninspiring

As reporters struggled to hear her above the plane noise, she brushed off a question about whether or not she had landed a knockout blow in the previous night's debate, saying the prize fighting analogy was simply not relevant.



Photographer Sam