I want to be a PLEASURE ACTIVIST

I was catching up on some of Triple-J's Hack (a half-hour current affairs style shown on the National youth broadcast station) Programme, when I started listening to "Men who watch porn together" and the follow up story "Has porn changed your life?" and in that second story, a lady rang up claiming she was a Pleasure Activist.

Now, I'm not exactly sure what a Pleasure Activist is or does, but I think I want in!

Do you know what a Pleasure Activist is?

Are you a pleasure activist?

Drop me a line!

Enlighten me!

Sunday Night Dichotomy

Do you ever find yourself in two minds?

How do you get back?

I'm sitting here and recovering from my Saturday Night. On the one hand I want to go out and boogie on, on the other I need to recover in a stargate sarcophagus.

Last night was one of entertainment and debauchery that can only be experienced with the words "bucks night". After a night of drinking, mucking around, drinking, "educational entertainment", drinking, clubbing, drinking and finally home ... I was, to use the colloquialism, rat-shit.

Due to the strict non-disclosure-agreement signed for the event, all I can say, is that fun and frivolity was had, and I dare say more than one victim, err, guest, will still be nursing side effects on Monday.

Today's been pretty boring, finally woke up at 1330. Realised I promised a friend I'd go to the home show where he has a huge stand and take some photos, but that wasn't going to happen now. On top of which my lovely partner demanded I head off to Coles and do the groceries, go to the deli and pick up the lunch meats (and biccies of-course!), head to the pharmacy and get a few more things ... so nearly three hours later, I finally get home and I'm exhausted. However, if I want to eat anything other than a can of baked beans or take-away, i need to do the cooking, so into the kitchen I go to prepare some Lamb Ribs marinated in a black pepper sauce with a crushed potato mash with parsley, chives, dill and garlic. Finally, I needed to do some washing, so I shoved a load in.

So, now I'm proverbially stuffed. So, with that I bid you all a good night, and a good night to all.

So, it's the end of my first week ...

Sorry about the long delay in-between posts, but I can't begin to tell you how hard it has been on my poor brain this last week.

My Monday started with a general two-hour introduction to my new host company. Lots of the usual stuff - you know, how big we are, who our key customers are, where we're heading, policies to remember, etc.

Then I jump into the guiding arms of my buddy, who takes me up, shows round the place, introduces me to my new team-mates (who seem pretty ok on first inspection), and shows me to my new desk.

The rest of the week is pretty much going through the departmental induction process (which, by the way, is about 30-odd webex presentations on every aspect of the job, policies, guidelines, collaboration, etc). This can be simultaneously interesting and mind numbing while quickly reaching the information overload marker.

So I've survived that, only to find that you have to be careful what you wish for! I mentioned on Tuesday that I wish I had some projects on, so at least I could chew on a bone. Well, by Friday, I had five on my plate!

unfortunately, none of these I can do anything about, for one reason or another, and so, I'm twiddling my thumbs until the work can come round again.

As part of the global structure, a cool process that is in place is a formalised peer document review. So, I spent the end of the week going through four different proposals. That was fun.

Anyhows, my information overloaded mind is now officially numb, so I'm off to bed.

TTFN

What a week!

Wow, here we are at the end of the second week of August already!

In the last fortnight, I've come another year closer to my use-by date, I've resigned and left my previous employer, I've flown up to Sydney and attended a conference, had some Monday night madness (see previous post), flown back to Melbourne, had some coffee with some old work colleagues, built half a retaining wall in the backyard, went out for some dinner with one of my best friends in celebration of her getting closer to her use-by date and am currently preparing to celebrate my dad's 65^th tonight at a surprise party we've organised for him.

Phew!

Tomorrow I start my new life as a Solutions Architect with a worldwide Professional Services organisation ... I hear from my contacts in said company, that my name has already been bandied about in relation to a number of projects ... so it promises to be an interesting and exciting time.

Life in general is good, not too much to rant about at the moment, which is why (along with the aforementioned busy-ness) I haven't made too many entries lately.

I finally (after 4-odd years of fighting, grovelling and waiting) have had my ADSL service approved. I received my Modem/Router and central splitter by courier, went about installing everything ... and nothing.

Seems a technician forgot about the part of ACTIVATING the port at the exchange after approving it. So, I now have to wait for the Helstra people to work out their bums from their thumbs and get that back in order for me.

Well, that's about it for today ... I'm off to pick up some dry cleaning, and then get ready for tonight. I'm sure I'll report in tomorrow with news of my first day at the new place.

TTFN.

Monday night madness

So, tonight was my first night in Sydney. I came up for a conference on the red-eye this morning, straight into a whirlwind of techno-business knowledge and finally arrived (via the cocktail party) at my hotel room, feeling a little worse for wear and looking forward to a good night's sleep.

Unfortunately, I've hit that over-tired speed hump where I'm just not going to get any sleep if I go to bed now ... so, off to the bar downstairs to sink a few Corona's and burn that puppy out. On my way back from my little nightcap adventure, I go to my floor, and an Asian lady follows me out of the lift. She casually remarks on my sense of fashion style and asks if I'm a musician. No, I reply, just well dressed. She asks if I'm busy at the moment, it's her first night in Sydney, and she'd like a little company. OK, I say, so back to the bar we go for a chat and a few extra drinks.

She informs me she's from Shanghai, here on an exchange program with the Sydney Orchestra for a performance on the weekend. I respond with the usual questions of curiosity and small talk - how did you get into music? what's the weather like in Shanghai? etc, etc ... and similar questions are asked (and answered) from the opposite end of the table.

After forty minutes or so, I inform my new friend that it has been a long day and I'm going off to retire. She agrees she should also do the same, and we continue our chat as we go back to our respective rooms.

We reach my room first and she asks if I'd like a coffee before going to bed? I mention that I'm not going to make the effort to go back to the bar, so she suggests we just make an instant coffee from the in-room kettle.

[Yes, OK, this should have been an obvious cue - I know! I just wasn't thinking with that frame of mind]

So, I [stupidly] agree and we enter my room, where I put on the kettle and make preparations to pour two cups of coffee. She asks me if I mind if she uses the bathroom? Why would I mind? Off she goes, and I kick up the laptop to check my email account.

After a few minutes, she comes out ... naked as the day she was born.

I've quickly turned away and ask her to put some clothes on, and she [seemingly confusedly] places a towel around her.

She asks what's wrong? I mention that my partner may seriously object to this behaviour. She retorts that my partner isn't here, and that we should continue to provide each other with company for the rest of the night.

I patiently explain that I'm not like that and would very much appreciate it if she would go back into the bathroom and replace her clothing.

She goes back in, and I'm sitting in my room astounded that I missed the cues! I just wasn't thinking like that, and those that know me know that I'm a genuinely friendly bloke who likes to meet new people ... so, that, and my tiredness, are going to be the cloak of my excuse.

She comes back out and tells me that my wife must be very lucky, how long have we been together? Twelve years, I reply. Shes asks with a bewildered look if I've never been with another women in all that time? No, I haven't, I reply. So, she leans in, and in the most earnest of faces says, "you know, it's good to have a change every now and again".

Damn, where was this sort of forwardness 13 years ago?

I thank her for her interest, and ask her to please leave my room now, as I no longer feel comfortable with her presence there. She asks if I mind if she finishes her coffee first, and I grant the concession.

After a few minutes, she finishes her coffee, makes another pass and I finally forcibly ask her to leave, herding her towards the door.

So she finally leaves the room and I'm left thinking about a weird night alone in my room. After twenty minutes or so, I decide I'll go out for a cigarette and clear my thoughts with some crisp night air, so I make my way to the lobby and am asked by the concierge if I'd like another key made for my wife?

I respond that I'm staying alone, but thanks. He responds with "oh".

So, curious, I ask him to explain, he mentions that a room service call was made from my room earlier, and that "my wife" signed for it at the door, and then said she had locked herself out, but would eat the meal downstairs until her husband got out of the shower.

Well, blow me down! The sheer audacity of this woman!

So, I explained the situation and he tries not to smirk at my naivety in this situation, and then directs me to the security room, where I can identify said women from the surveillance tapes. They'll make sure she doesn't bother me again and will try to apprehend her if she returns.

No problem, such is life ... now I just have to explain it to my wife ...

_____________________________

Updates (Sunday 14/08/05)

1. My wife, the caring understanding woman she is, just laughed at me, but was primarily annoyed that I "lost" $40 (the room service bill)
2. The hotel have checked their records, and have refunded me the amount for the said room service bill, they apologised for the inconvenience, the woman was apparently known to them for seconding her way into guests rooms before, and that they felt that they share some of the blame as they should have denied her access before my unfortunate meeting with her on my floor.

_____________________________

Well, that was my night ... not much left to say after all that!

Religious Cultural persecution in the name of terror

Ipso scientia protestas est et timendi causa est nescire.
(Knowledge itself is power and Ignorance is the cause of fear. )

How true this statement is today in the post 911 era.

In the western world, we view ourselves as liberated, free, educated, and above all, civilised.

We celebrate the the fact that we have a state free of religion and the power of free speech. We congratulate ourselves on being the saviours of the less fortunate and protectors of the weak and prosecuted.

How true is this self-praising perception of ourselves and our society?

Are we truly armed with the understanding and the knowledge to evaluate our perceptions and actions in an objective fashion?

Or are we trapped by the propaganda perpetrated by the powers of our government?

Are we being educated by the influx of information from the media or is the ignorance simply spread further by the sensationalist ratings-grabbing nature of the business?

The current "war on terror" era shows the west in a new light, one that we do not wish to find ourselves in. We are a society that is run by confusion, ignorance and, above all, fear.

As a species, we like to simplify our world. In the west, where we pride our technological civilisation and the quantity and speed of information we deal with, we like to simplify concepts into basic units so as to deal with them with greater ease.

In the christian dominated west, we have defined a highly meaningless and binary definition for Muslims. They are either "moderate" or "fundamentalist".

In a single swoop, we have removed all the history, culture, identities, struggles and complexities of an entire sub-set of the world's population and placed them into one of two single dimensional boxes.

But what do these words mean? They are literary symbols portrayed upon what in reality is a diversely expressed, international religious community, but have now become a narrow political identity.

Symbols by themselves have no inherent meaning, and are by their very nature, a canvas for a subjective projection of cultural or personal translation.

In the 19th Century American definition of the fundamentalist (originally denoted to the Christian movements of the mid west), the word is meant to describe a movement to return to what is considered the defining or founding principles of the religion.

It especially came to refer to any religious enclave that intentionally resists identification with the larger religious group in which it originally arose, on the basis that fundamental principles upon which the larger religious group is supposedly founded have become corrupt or displaced by alternative principles hostile to its identity. This is evident in the many offshoots of Christianity, especially within the evangelical and baptist movements.

Yet, in the context utilised upon the Islamic faith, it has become synonymous with words that surround it like radical, militant, extremist and jihadist.

It has come to stand for evil. It is has come to stand for enemies of the western free world.

So, now, upon contemplation of any Muslim, they are immediately reduced into a single dimensional fiction of either a tolerable or intolerable Muslim. They are either with us or against us. We cannot accept, nor comprehend, that a Muslim may be complex with mixed thoughts, beliefs and ideas ... that is to say, we cannot comprehend that they, like us, are human.

The media, against the original dictation of their craft, no longer report items with objectivity, representing both sides of the story. With all the talk of free speech and independent minds of the freedom of the west, they no longer perceive that they are victims of their own fear and ignorance, and by association, have become puppets in the propaganda machine of the war on terror.

While we report and study our own society and traditions with pedantic precision, we do not afford this same attention to detail to any outside our own, and especially not to the Muslim communities ... even those who are our neighbours.

Thus, we find that the entire sub-set of civilisation, the Muslim world, reduced to the personification of a handful of cliches, framing any discourse on Islam with terms of terrorism, misogyny and totalitarianism. We do not reflect upon the spiritual, material or human aspirations or struggles of these people, for to do so may show them as human as you or I.

This is reflected by the fact that the Muslims only come into our attention when an article is deemed to be newsworthy, that is to say, when a bomb is detonated in a location that has an economic, political or cultural interest to ourselves (and not anywhere else). Else, the articles are written to show-off the evil nature of these people in "human interest" stories, highlighting the gross violation of human rights or the tale of harrowing misogyny.

In this light, we are invited to consider that such oppressive, criminal and antisocial behaviour and practices are an inherent function of Muslim existence. Thus, when any Muslim does something evil, it is because that is what Muslims are.

Consider the practice of Female Genital Mutilation. This has become a story inextricably linked to the Islamic faith. Yet, it is a practice that only a tiny minority of Muslims practice.

Female circumcision is today mainly practiced in Sub-Saharan African countries. It is common in a band that stretches from Senegal in West Africa to Somalia on the East coast, as well as from Egypt in the north to Tanzania in the south. It is also practiced by some groups in the Arabian peninsula, especially among a minority (20%) in Yemen.

Would it surprise you to know, now, that the majority of these countries are actually Christian? The practice is cultural, not religious, yet we demand that every woman who stands to talk about Islam must denounce the practice. Why do we not demand the same from every Christian women?

Similarly, the term suicide bomber has become synonymous with Islamic Fundamentalism.

Let us ignore the fact that the most prolific suicide bombers were the Tamil Tigers and the Kurdistan Workers Party of Europe. Let us ignore the fact of that Palestinian Christian Priests have praised it.

Honour killings are also another of these phenomena. We do not perceive these as an aspect of the low socioeconomic class, where feudalism and poor education are strife, but rather vilify it as a religious endeavour.

Hindu and Sikh families of India practice this atrocious act far more commonly than any other, but so too do Christian families of the middle east, and even Italian and Greek migrant communities did so.

Why do we not vilify those communities?

Why do we not condemn all of those acts?

In a world where we are raised to see everything in the light of black and white, where the complexities of the world around us is too complex for us to handle, it is easier to place a unanimous box around an entire section than to make an effort to understand the amalgamation of history, culture and religion that has defined a people.

It seems to me that the Bush led administration is propelled by the Christian Right, a group just as Fundamentalist as the term projected onto their Muslim counterparts. A view which is supported by the fact that Bush himself said after the 911 attacks "This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while."

This is what it feels like, that the entire war on terror is actually the tenth crusade. There seems to be a terrifying alliance of Judaeo-Christian fanatics, conjoined in their dreams of the recovery of the Holy Lands of the West Bank, Judaea and Samaria supporting the administration and perpetrating this continued effort.

Before I hear arguments of Christian goodness, let us not forget that the influence of these people has affected our society as well, but instead of collapsing the right-wing-fundamentalist Christians into a single mental construct like we have with Islam, we conclude instead that these are extremist groups, outside of our norm, because the reality is that we are too familiar with our own culture to essentialise it in the same way.

Consider the Pro-Life movement, which advocates stronger regulation or prohibition of abortion, in the belief that abortion constitutes murder - yet the more extreme of these groups have killed the doctors that have performed abortions. Is this not the same extremist fundamentalism we shroud with those of the Muslim faith?

Opposition to gay rights by groups such as the Focus on the Family, Family First and Traditional Values Coalition because they believe that homosexual behavior is a violation of Christian doctrine. They demand that this behaviour should be criminalized and that the basic rights that the rest of us enjoy should be removed. Police reports also show, that especially in the religious mid-west US, numerous "gay bashings" have been attributed to this fanatical viewpoint. TV Evangelists Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell even attributed the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to God's wrath against "abortionists, pagans, feminists, gays and lesbians".

The reality is that we in the west are just as fundamentalist, just as extremist, just as violent, and above all, just as evil.

It is easier to not perceive our world as a human creation. One that is controlled by a complex human behavioral matrix in which complex cultural, sociological and psychological factors, dictate our actions and those of our neighbours.

Perhaps one day we will realise, that just like us, these people are only too human, and that by making an effort to remove the veil of ignorance, by prying open the eyes of objectivity, that we can perceive the world in a new light, and thus find solutions to live in harmony.

just babbling ...

Sorry I haven't made any posts in the last two days, I've been off in la-la-land. What with it being my birthday yesterday and this also being my last week with the employer that has been a world of entertainment.

It used to be that when someone gave their notice, they'd finish up their tasks and be shown the door as soon as possible. Not due to any disrespect, but basic human characteristics means that any motivation to be productive when you've completed all your tasks and are about to leave opens the possibility of said soon-to-be-ex-employee wandering the halls looking to converse with people.

So, that's what I'm doing now ... all my tasks are completed (even the extra bullshite ones that were dumped on me to "keep me busy") and they just want me to sit at my desk until the week is over. Such a waste of time ... my time specifically.

So, so, so bored!

I didn't do much to celebrate last night, sat at home with my partner, ate some BBQ Chook, drank a bottle of Brown Brothers Dolcetta and promptly fell asleep on the couch.

Anyhow, I've got a big night planned on Friday as it's my resignation (freedom?) party with a phenomenal night set up in the VIP room of Ffour (very cool blade-runner set style bar in the Melbourne CBD) and followed by some dinner with friends at Tony Starr's Kitten Club (another very hip establishment in the Melbourne CBD) and plenty of Aspirins set aside for Saturday morning.

I've gone off and purchased myself a nice suit from the coolest clothing store in Melbourne - Anton's - which is a 1920's speakeasy meets Jazz meets the naughties black suit with green pinstripes and a Betty Page shirt. Looks awesome and just screams NuRetro style.

I'm just babbling now ... so I'm off home.