The Sky Bar

*

When all else fails help another alcoholic they say, but in these clashing times who was to know; standing in the Sky Bar drinking non-alcoholic beer with swathes of Bangkok spread out before them; sipping, fabulous, the boy there, looking sweet in his new shirt, foreigners drinking their 400 baht drinks, a scattering of often paid for Thais, yes well no doubt, the millionaire Australian wondering what he felt like drinking next, there in the nightfall, the sun setting across the Chao Phraya River; and all else, no doubt fabulous, the best seats in the house; of course; everything is fine dear boy, fine, marvellous in fact, I love it here, he repeated, when they asked him how long he was staying and wifie was going on about how now was just the best time to buy property in Bangkok because the government had cut the taxes, and he thought: you live in a different world, a moneyed world, and I'm happy to be here, in fact would like to stay here, but is this the real authentic experience, 64 floors up with attentive waiters and waitresses hovering at one's elbow. Well as authentic as anything else, he thought, as the boy told him how happy he was and they watched the lights in the surrounding skyscrapers come on and the cloud ridden sky change colour. Nothing was good; but everything was fine, there in the broken heart, there in the turmoil.

He had loved getting smashed in rooftop bars ever since as a kid he used to take acid and go up the top of Centrelink Tower, then the highest point in Sydney, and watch the colliding kaleidoscope sheets of colour collapse across the landscape, dancing light, before the holes in the brain fabric started to appear and everything was useful. It had, at that point, never occurred to him that the world wouldn't want to sleep with him; that there wouldn't be a queue of drinks and drunks every time he decided to make himself available, that the world wasn't one awesome place; not there for the taking exactly, it wasn't like that, but open hearted and minimalist, occuring not just in altered time but in a place of mastery and discontent, colliding feelings and fashionable landscapes, hearts of darkness and dripping, evil walls, and things that were not just a mastery of discontent but lyrically beautiful, so that the voices sang their own rhythms and everything, everything, spoke of an impossible beauty and a derelict path, the path of the artist. Well, that was not to be, not exactly, but everything moved wonders and everything was right with the world, shadowed, wholesome, handsome, making brief assignations and falling away, because there was no love in this world, none at all.

If there was one solution he didn't know what it was; except that he was older now and could buy himself a sleeping companion, and high up there with the city beneath, amongst the fabulous and the poseurs, where everything was fine and the menu for the adjacent restaurant, rahn-ah-han, kicked off with 40,000 baht caviar and buckets of iced champagne were prominently displaced. It was a different world from the street where he spent most of his time; a different world from rural Thailand where most of the boys he hung out with emanated from, and different again to the poverty stricken reaches where he had his country house; and the barren heartless streets where he had spent so much of his life. As if that was anything to count; anything meant by it. There was always congress; it was just the self imposed, self inflicted despair and dereliction which had come to seem so pointless; what was once an adventure now nothing but grime. He determined to become a millionaire so he would not have to go back. Easier said than done. He put his arm around the boy, affectionately he thought at the time, possessively, as it later looked in the photographs, and if only these days would last a little longer he could be happy. How long do you think it will last, Jaan asked, and he answered: who cares, I'm 58, let's face it, nothing's going to last that long.

And they don't see it that way either. I was in a disco the other night, he said, hanging out at the door sometimes because I get claustrophobic; and when one of the boys was insistently trying to pick him up, why not buy three of us, make this a special Bangkok night? the insistent lad was promptly informed by others that the mark's boyfriend was inside; they had been together a long time. A long time in this context being a fortnight or so at that point; which in Bangkok bar boy terms was an eternity beyond understanding, beyond accomplishing, beyond feasibility. Nothing lasted. Good cheer abounded. They flirted and did their job and then it was over, they could go spend their money at parties or in karaoke bars, admire the beauty of their girlfriends or the Thai prostitutes they so readily, routinely picked up; pay their school fees, send money to the family, make merit by helping their friends and then as quickly as it came, as quickly as the rain showers which fled across Bangkok at this time of year, the money was gone and they were back on the cat walk, wriggling their box and smiling engagingly at foreigners. All was not lost, he could see that now; but for so long it had been the way. Now he knew a different reality; and as he ordered another 400 baht alcohol free beer in an entirely pointless exercise, thought: this is putting me off the air and I don't care.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/18/2956984.htm

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has sidestepped questions over how much of a role her predecessor Kevin Rudd will play in Labor's re-election campaign.

Ms Gillard has kicked off her campaign in the key state of Queensland today after just three weeks as Prime Minister.

She has cuddled babies in Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan's seat of Lilley and announced a $200 million to boost regional housing affordability.

However she has also faced several questions about Mr Rudd in his home town.

A Galaxy poll published in News Limited papers today showed that 57 per cent of people thought Mr Rudd's axing from the prime ministership will harm Labor's re-election chances.

When asked if Mr Rudd will be involved in Labor's national campaign Ms Gillard replied, "I anticipate that Kevin will be predominately working in his local electorate."

And when asked if she would visit his electorate of Griffith, Ms Gillard said, "I will as Prime Minister go where I'm needed to campaign for Labor right around the country."

Ms Gillard's rise to the top job has been under scrutiny in recent days after claims emerged that she reneged on a deal with Mr Rudd that would have let him stay on as leader if the polls improved.

The Coalition is seeking to capitalise on the claims during the campaign and have questioned Ms Gillard's legitimacy as prime minister.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/julia-could-be-making-tony-more-electable/story-e6frgd0x-1225886430542

ONCE upon a time there was a prime minister called Kevin who everyone agreed paid way too much attention to party polling.

One day party boss Karl visited Kevin with yet another folder of the stuff, but Kevin refused to play. This made Karl cross and the data ended up on journalist Andrew Bolt's blog instead.

And the villain of this incident was . . . Kevin.

What a difference a leadership change makes. Until Wednesday of last week, political observers almost unanimously favoured (with not much strength) the Rudd government to survive the next election. Now they nearly all agree Labor "could not win" under Rudd.

Hey, let's all live in the present, where the fact that X has occurred retrospectively vindicates it. A psychologist would probably tell us these after-the-fact rationalisations are part of the human condition, but aren't we supposed to have our thinking hats on?

The caucus vote was not a referendum on the government's electoral prospects. One Gillard supporter says he and others "knew we would win (government) under Kevin" but that would only lead to even more organisational dysfunction and abominable behaviour towards his colleagues.

Others, especially the class of '07, were nervous, and this left the way open for the faction boys to come in with their agendas, smooth words, polling and carrots and sticks.

The first published polls show a great improvement in the leader's ratings, but this nearly always happens after a knockdown leadership change. It happened after Rudd was installed in 2006 and with Mark Latham in 2003. And when John Howard replaced Alexander Downer in 1995 and when Downer replaced John Hewson in 1994.

The significant shift in primary support from Green and others to Labor, and more modest two-party preferred improvement, were also predictable, because that's what happened after the moves to Rudd and Latham.

Last week's polls mean little. As we get closer to the election, polls will mean more. Assuming some sort of resolution to the RSPT, the most likely election outcome under Rudd was an increased majority. The leadership change has now ripped the contest open. Julia Gillard's undoubted popularity may still carry the government through to a big win. But there is now a vacuum that the Coalition can fill, and the result could go the other way.

Rudd would probably have won because of the combination of new incumbency and a risky opposition. Voters would have drifted towards the government as election day approached, and fear of the unknown - an Abbott prime ministership - came into play. Even John Howard clawed back 4 or 5 per cent on his two-party preferred vote in the 2007 campaign. And Rudd wasn't even behind in the polls.

Gillard is new, doesn't have the incumbency stuff and doesn't seem much interested in getting it. It's like she's going to call an election soon. She's not even going to move into the Lodge.

It's almost like we have two opposition leaders. This spread the risk factor around. Abbott no longer looks like such a gamble, and the government is not as much the safe option.

Yet Gillard still carries political baggage, the list of which you can recite by heart.

The government's rhetorical problems remain. Gillard is a wonderful, warm communicator, but is as weak as Rudd at explaining policy. There's a big chunk of incumbency floating around unclaimed, and if I were the opposition I would try to grab some of it. Turn the risk tables around. If I were Gillard I would hold off on the election until November, and do things prime ministerial.

The new prime minister favours neither a big country nor a big electorate. She is reconnecting, in monosyllables, with the battlers, feeling their pain. Keeping it simple, staying on message. This is the sort of thing Latham did - it is no way to get a national two-party preferred majority, but it is a very NSW Labor thing to do.

Photograph by Peter Newman, Australian multi-media artist, taken on a visit to Bangkok's spectacular Sky Bar; 17/7/2010.