Home

*

The red lights on the sky scraper behind them blinked in the early morning dark, a warning sentinel soaring over their house. Strange statue shapes on the corner of its upper tiers gave it a certain Gothic feel, while he could feel every shadow in the streets around, hear every moto-cie as they puttered off to work. There were haunted lovers too, in all those sounds, sheets through the glass, muffled shapes, dignity abandoned. That house could have been mine, if only I hadn't made a mistake. Many mistakes. Pass away, pass away. Unrequited, these things were for another era, or from another era. Harden your heart. What would you tell your best friend to do? Stay away, stay away. And so, little evil on the blessed land, he became someone else in order to survive. He was attracted to chameleons, people who were different every time you looked at them, a princess one minute, a butch little lad the next, masculine, dripping compromise, all bowed under layers of conformity. He had taken to using an old Peter trick when dealing with recalcitrant bureaucracies: just start ranting, I've worked hard all my life and nobody... Etc etc etc. Drives them mad.

Just like winging to the old ex when she came sniffing around for money. A winging drone can drive just about anybody away, and so became an effective weapon in the armoury of survival. The blokes seem to pick up the nicest girls at Electric Blue, he advised, although what would he really know, girls not being his forte right this minute. But he could see, as he descended into the morass of another culture, the descending wave of a western hand. I can feel you are awake through the ether; and the vibration on his mobile phone confirmed his psychic recognition. Heading to the streets. They used to always say: "It's down, down, down as Jack from the Cross used to say". Jack was dead now and every day rolled over anew; the world blessed with a rising sun and a million deaths, a corporate body constantly renewed. His own visit was short; glorious at times, despairing at others. There had been too many mistakes. His health suffered. Instead of rising to the occasion he fell to earth. The mud was like glue.

And then once again survival forced him to perform. He rose to every occasion and twisted in the air like a dervish. Constant waits were nothing compared to fatal obsessions. What would you tell your best friend to do, that's great advice, I've been thinking about it all day, Shaun said. An old sponsor used to tell me that, he replied, at least I think it was him, someone. Let's meet up in Italy, go shopping, have lunch, said a loud American woman. They went everywhere and saw nothing. He marvelled at the way they treated the world as a homogeneous unit, as an occasionally exotic background for lunch. Complaining if everything wasn't exactly the way they liked it. The water cold, condensation dripping down the side. Everything was wide off the mark. He had been missing so badly. Lured into circumstance. Lured into paradise. A nice house. A nice boy. A nice garden. And yet if he still had the physical stamina to be stumbling out of the clubs at dawn with some wretched little thief he would have probably opted for the latter. I just like getting trashed, he whined, what's wrong with that? Well nothing much except it's unsustainable. Greed is good, the woman seemed to be saying, telling us all she was alert, wide awake, conscious, on the edge of her seat. All you blokes, you need to share your thoughts with woman. They can help you. And later Andrew laughed: she's preaching to the wrong set of blokes. They're all survivors of divorce here. And he agreed: we've all survived some of the most toxic hurricanes the female gender can produce. We don't trust them. Full stop. A little misogyny is natural, at least amongst this group, Andrew said.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/obama-takes-his-daily-dose-to-defend-his-presidency-20101028-175sl.html?from=smh_sb

WASHINGTON: Barack Obama has defended his first two years in office, targeting young voters during an interview on a popular satirical TV talk show, urging them to keep faith with his legislative program.

Less than a week before Tuesday's midterm congressional elections in which Democrats are expected to be punished for America's tepid economic recovery and high unemployment, Mr Obama ticked off key achievements, namely that his administration had staved off a second Great Depression while posting historic healthcare and financial regulatory reform.

But the President told The Daily Show host, Jon Stewart, that it would take time to fulfil all of the pledges made during his 2008 presidential campaign.

''When we promised during the campaign 'change you can believe in', it wasn't 'change you can believe in, in 18 months','' he said. ''It was change you can believe in but, you know what, we're going to have to work for it.''

When Stewart pressed, asking whether the rhetoric of Mr Obama's election pitch had over-inflated expectations of an audacious legislative program, (''You wouldn't say you'd run this time as a pragmatist? It wouldn't be, 'Yes we can, given certain conditions?'''), the President conceded he would be inclined now to modify his mantra with a qualification: ''Yes, we can: but it's not going to happen overnight''.

It was the first time a sitting president has appeared on the show in which Stewart, a former stand-up comedian whose zany take on current affairs has drawn a cult following, often skewers guests by exposing hypocrisy.

Stewart will lead a ''Rally to restore sanity'' tomorrow in the National Mall in Washington as an antidote to the rallies over the northern summer that drew thousands of Tea Party and other conservative supporters.

The Obama interview ran for almost 30 minutes. But apart from occasional banter, Mr Obama remained serious, determined to push the Democratic cause, while taking issue with Stewart's characterisation of some of his legislation as ''timid''.

Clearly rankled, Mr Obama responded: ''Jon, I love your show, but this is something where I have a profound disagreement with you … this notion that healthcare was timid.''

Mr Obama added that ''the assumption is we didn't get 100 per cent of what we wanted, we only get 90 per cent … so let's focus on the 10 per cent we didn't get''.

On the economy, Mr Obama said: ''If you told me two years ago that we're going to be able to stabilise the system, stabilise the stock market, stabilise the economy and, by the way, at the end of this thing it will cost less than 1 per cent of GDP … I'd say: 'We'll take that'.''

But he dodged Stewart's next question about whether he would accept that same outcome had he known that unemployment would be near 10 per cent.

At another point, Mr Obama acknowledged voters' frustration and impatience. ''Over and over again we have moved forward an agenda that is making a difference in people's lives each and every day,'' he said. ''Now, is it enough? No. I expect, and I think, most Democrats out there expect that people want to see more progress.''

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=11997550

NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's election led many political pundits to predict the popularity of American satirist Jon Stewart would wane. After all, mocking Republicans was his bread and butter.

But two years later with the nation just days away from an election expected to shift the balance of power in Washington, Stewart and his Comedy Central stable mate Stephen Colbert are growing ever more successful.

On Saturday, the pair mount their most audacious stunt -- rallies on Washington's National Mall. Stewart's is a "Rally to Restore Sanity," while Colbert, whose show mocks conservative punditry, holds a rival "March to Keep Fear Alive."

Organizers haven't disclosed what exactly the rallies will be, but they will no doubt build on Stewart's huge following for "The Daily Show," which typically features the comedian commenting on the day's news in a faux anchor format and conducting interviews with top newsmakers.

"We all thought he would have less fun after (President George W.) Bush left office but that's not been the case," said Michael Musto, a culture writer at New York's Village Voice.


"There are still plenty of Republicans to poke fun at, and Obama's ratings are so low that he can now poke fun at Obama and the Democrats too," said Musto. "It's twice as much fun."

Experts say the explosion of Internet news, opinion and blogs and the 24-hour cable television news cycle have created a cacophony of shouting pundits. That, they say, allows Stewart to poke fun at overheated rhetoric on both sides.

Media and Society Professor Richard Wald of New York's Columbia University said Stewart is evocative of Will Rogers, known for such cutting satire as: "I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat."

Picture: Ashley Lock.