Swooped Into Routine

*



Murals, Redfern.


"It's been agony, sheer agony. Mind-numbingly frustrating. You can soften the blow by talking of the privilege to serve, but there's no escaping the loss of constantly challenging work, almost overnight ... this is the hardest thing to adjust to, harder than the loss of prestige. You couldn't walk 10m in Parliament House as a cabinet minister without being stopped and engaged. Now, you're left on your own. It's a weird feeling that'll only get worse."
Peter McGaurin

"We all need grief counselling. It's like a bereavement. Not as bad as losing a child or a spouse but up there with losing a parent. It's very hard. To be one minute the general manager of a multi-billion-dollar enterprise and the next minute in charge of a press release... You have more time to spend with family, recharge your batteries, take a sabbatical, but you go into politics to make a difference. It's bloody hard to do that in Opposition. Being a minister means you make decisions. What you do counts. As a shadow minister you can't make a difference to anything."
Tony Abbott

Recently beaten members of the Liberal Government eating humble crow, courtesy of Kate Legge.

Here in the corner, ready to fight, once beaten but not twice shy. He was caught in a frame he barely recognised from his younger self. It wasn't all bad news. He prayed for inspiration. The common thread: they all asked for help, and he pricked up his ears. There had to be a way froward, from this anomie, this absence of God, the flat despairing nature of the world he had inherited. Sooner or later the bones would stop hurting. Sooner or later he would come into his own.

They were welcomed like returning soldiers, victorious. The magnificent homes, palaces really, that spilled down to the harbour foreshore, that perched around Wollesly Road at Point Piper, that housed the city's very rich, he couldn't help but be fascinated. He had always thought he would end up there, casually, fame and fortune his destiny, the wind blowing through his long silver hair as he climbed in and out of a red sports car, eccentric, of course, but naturally fab-u-lous.

That was what Fragment Me Quick, Blue Queen, had been all about, escaping our natural order, zipping around the Tangier hills, taking part in our own astonishing destinies. Sugar daddies would always be there, until he was so old there was no choice but to face facts and become one. Money and work were only marginally connected, as the royalty payments poured in. The dreariness of the last two decades of his life was not in the picture; not for a second.

He could never have imagined he would work out his days in a dreary job, unrespected, jumping to the commands of others. He thought it would all amount to something; that in this world talent would triumph, the eccentricity of their days would lead them to a new world order, that his great capacity to appreciate beauty, tripping at dawn, talking intensely, watching the sunrise off his scone, again, "you were always more thirsty than anyone else I ever met", Ian said, the sky startling in its corrugations, those moments when we held on to each other and that was the way the world was.

After Ian's suicide attempt, when he rose up from under the blankets with his arms streaming blood, after every one but him traipsed down to the hospital to see him, and Ian came back and they had that terrible conversation, and each glass that he finished he smashed into the fireplace, threatening, contemptuous, shrugging off the chains of love, brutal in his queenly malice, that day he would never forget, lived to regret. A tiny kindness wouldn't have hurt.

But it was the tiny kindnesses that led to bigger, heavier things, to their moping eyes and forlorn expressions. "I had to see you," Hoffman says to the rent boy in Before The Devil Knows You're Dead. "Next time make an appointment," the rent boy snaps. That was the cruelty of the bought, the hooker, the chained. You could take their flesh but you could never take their heart. No kissing, as if somehow kissing would make a difference; would jump across the great divide of caring.

Faces always came back to haunt him; Fergus, with his big grey eyes and his wealthy mother, the paintings on their Paddington terrace walls, worth God knows how much. He couldn't come without being fucked, that was what we all found so astonishing in some one so handsome, amazingly handsome, and his heart went boom. Titty boom. And the desperate wheeling of the planet stopped. And there was only, in that moment, the two of them. And yes, he tried to kiss him. Boom. Autumn leaves falling. Boom. The shuffle of the chickens out back.

He thought the world would always be like that; cast in a thousand frames; irrigated with meaning, soaked with ecstasy, profound in every minute and unfathomable way; boom. Always desired, always wanted, always the centre of things. Sitting, fab-u -lous, on the bar stool at the Grand Nation, calling, twittering to each other, the crisp, clear air of the outside world another place, the smoke twirling, in the days when you could smoke in pubs, and far-off the city itself, where the plebs went to work, streaming into their offices, living out their tedious routines.

And then, somehow, he had become one of them, living out his life in tedious routine, going to work each day, counting the pennies, kow towing to the bosses, paying the bills, protecting his children. Somehow he had turned into an ordinary person, swooped into routine, joining the hordes as they trampled up the escalators, politely avoiding eye contact as he jammed into the lift with other office workers. Somehow what he had naively assumed would be a fabulous life had turned into grim labour. There was no escape. The children were not old enough to wander off. Teenagers, nonetheless they still needed him. And he got up, ironed his shirts, sat at traffic lights, dodged parking cops, walked across parks, his own heart chained down. He had been stapled to the ground; quashed, his spirit smashed into oblivion, his beaten eyes neither cruel or understanding; the only sign of his former self their furtive, intelligent darting as he sized up the room. And he kept coming back to the same conclusion: there was no way out.




THE BIGGER STORY:


http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/04/06/1207420202542.html

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has been drawn into an international row over the Beijing Olympics as he prepares to visit China this week.

Mr Rudd is keeping his options open on whether to accept China's invitation to attend the Games, but says his schedule, rather than issues of principle, will determine his response.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have said they will not go to the opening ceremony unless China meets conditions that include beginning negotiations with Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

Mr Rudd said yesterday he had told the Chinese that he was not in a position to confirm whether he would go. "It would depend entirely on time constraints," he said.

He said that his long-standing view was that boycotts did not add up to much. "The key thing is to ensure that we have an effective diplomacy which produces a better outcome for the Tibetan people," he said.

Mr Rudd's comments were made as the Olympic torch was about to pass through London. Two thousand police were deployed to deal with demonstrators along the 50-kilometre route from Wembley to south-east London.

Mr Rudd told the BBC the Tibetan situation had to be put into historical context.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=acmpJuWdjj.c&refer=australia

Rudd, Meeting Queen Today, Says a Republic Not a `Priority'

By Gemma Daley

April 7 (Bloomberg) -- Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who is due to meet Queen Elizabeth II in London today, said turning his nation in to a republic is not a ``top order priority.''

Rudd, who is in the final week of a 17-day world tour, said his Labor government included the policy in its platform but he would not give a timeline on when it might happen.

``I have always been a republican, it's in our platform of the party,'' Rudd told BBC television yesterday. ``It's not a top order priority just now.''

Rudd, 50, ended John Howard's 11-year rule at an election in November. He is due to meet Queen Elizabeth II, who serves as Australia's head of state, this morning in London after a meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

``Her Majesty the Queen is regarded with much respect right across all Australians,'' Rudd said. ``We are committed to the Australian republic, I am a republican and that is what we will work toward over time.''

A referendum to create a republic and sever Australia's ties to U.K. failed in 1999.


http://www.scopical.com.au/articles/News/4155/Gillard-dismisses-PM's-'Bush-salute',-says-Rudd-is-'highly-focussed'-

Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard has dismissed criticism of the PM, saying that he is working hard during the 17-day world trip.

Mr Rudd's endurance has been brought into question during his world tour, however Ms Gillard has dismissed the criticism, saying he is a highly focussed, hard working leader.

"Kevin Rudd is always highly focused on the job and able to do an amazing amount of work," Ms Gillard told the Ten Network.

"People know when you travel around the world you're in different time zones and the like, but Kevin's always on top of the game and top of everything that's happening."

Mr Rudd has so far visited the United States and Europe, and is due to fly to Asia next week.

The Prime Minister said this week that he made no apology for working hard during the world tour, adding that it was crucial for Australia's future.

The Acting Prime Minister also deflected criticism of the PM's light-hearted salute to US President George W. Bush, saying that it was done in jest.

Mr Rudd was late this week caught in a "half-salute" to the President during a NATO meeting, with the Opposition saying it was "unbecoming" of a leader.

Ms Gillard said today that the Prime Minister was being "human", and was having a joke with the President.




Murals, Redfern.