Metal City - Hai Ina Ia Mai Ana Ka Puana

Just an addendum...

I just found this. Maybe some of you will enjoy it.

Buddha was once threatened with death by a bandit called Angulimal.

"Then be good enough to fulfill my dying wish," said Buddha. "Cut off the branch of that tree."

One slash of the sword, and it was done!

"What now?" asked the bandit.

"Put it back again," said Buddha.

The bandit laughed. "You must be crazy to think that anyone can do that."

"On the contrary, it is you who are crazy to think that you are mighty because you can wound and destroy. That is the task of children. The mighty know how to create and heal."

Crucified By The FCC.

Yeah, I know. I normally avoid talking about U.S politics, because - frankly - we get enough of that over here, usually at the expense of serious discussion of our own internal affairs. In this case, though, I'm going to make an exception, because I'm compelled to step up to bat for a hero of mine, who has endured vilification during the entire course of his career and now - because of his desire to voice his political opinion - he has been professionally castrated and legally threatened.

Howard Stern has been broadcasting his syndicated radio show for over twenty years. At one point, he was THE dominant figure in American radio, demolishing all of his opposition in any market he touched. He was, at the same time, a figure who garnered massive amounts of controversy due to the sexually explicit, barrier-breaking format of his program, which sought to provide listeners with a format in which there were no taboos. Everything could be discussed - and would be, from Howard's obsession with anal sex, prostitutes, strippers, lesbians, and bodily functions - to the childhood molestation of his co-host and sidekick Robin Quivers. The show wasn't simply a parade of sexual perversion and damaged behaviour, though - it was also uproariously funny. Stern was like an incendiary performance artist, hell-bent on provoking his listeners, and his guests, with his brutally honest questioning. He would demand to know the most intimate details of the sex lives of the famous - from their partners, to their fetishes - and his prey would often be stripped of the armour of celebrity that buffered them from the real world, and would be left naked and exposed - usually revealing the vapidity and self-indulgence of fame.

On February the 26th, 2004 - Clear Channel Radio suspended 'The Howard Stern Radio Show' from its syndicated network, citing an FCC violation during a call-in segment in which a listener used the word 'nigger'. During the segment, an interview with Rick Solomon - the star of the infamous Paris Hilton video, featuring the heiress engaged in a number of sex acts with Solomon - the subject of conversation turned to anal sex and penis size. The call in listener then asked Solomon if he'd had sex with any famous black women - using the word 'nigger', before being cut off by Stern. This, according to Clear Channel CEO John Hogan, presented Clear Channel with an opportunity to "(draw) a line in the sand today with regard to protecting our listeners from indecent content." Hogan also told the press that the show was "vulgar, offensive and insulting, not just to women and African-Americans but to anyone with a sense of common decency."

Fuck you.

I probably shouldn't care. Stern's show is largely inaccessible to anyone outside of the U.S, due to his reticense to embrace internet broadcasting - and so, for years I have made do with crackly samples of other people's favourite pieces of material. My introduction to Stern was his 1997 film 'Private Parts' - a fairly glib, soft-focus biopic on the man's career apotheosis, climaxing with his acceptance at New York's WNBC, his domination over both his radio rivals and his unsupportive administrative staff, and his self-declaration as 'The King Of All Media'. These were interesting times for me. I was beginning to evolve - slowly - from my traditional mistrust of any contemporary media, and I was starting to embrace the joys of living in the now. The idea that something was representative of MY time was very new and fresh to me in 1998 - I had, after all, spent the better part of the last 20 years absorbing material from the 1960's and 1970's, and to suddenly realise that art could, in addition to unlocking the experiences of dead time - could also be used to sandblast the dust and grime from the present in order us to see it with greater clarity and focus. And, as I started sailing the seas of contemporary media, one of my first ports of call was the Stern show.

It seemed so new at the time. So fresh, and vibrant - and, at the same time, so dangerous. Here was a man who posessed a tongue so savage and brutal that it could lash out and cut people to ribbons without a moment's notice - but at the same time, was so gentle at times, and while his self-deprecation may have been part of his schtick, the pain beneath it was obviously very real. Stern spoke from the heart, as well as from the brain and penis, and it seemed that the words were wrapped in that strangely nasal baritone, they were speaking the truth.

Stern's show also presented a kind of postmodern incarnation of the nuclear family. Here was a father (Howard), a mother (Robin), and their children - Stuttering John, Boy Gary, Jackie Martling, Billy West, and the rest of the show's regular cast. The one thing that struck me as ironic as charges of racism are levelled at Stern are that if we are to assume that the show presents a family - it is an interracial family. Robin Quivers is a black woman - and her colour is never an issue. She is what she is. Just as Howard is. Call Stern many things - tasteless, abusive, and pandering to lowest common denominator tastes - but racist he is not.

It is ironic that Stern's dumping from Clear Channel comes at a time when he has changed his tune on the issue of the Bush presidency - revoking his initial support for the Idiot Manchild, and focusing his energies on mocking Bush's economic and military policies, running the 'leader of the free world' down, via a market which touches the entire population of the United States. When Howard faced the press, for the first time in his career, the bravado seemed to have finally dried up. Gone was the overwhelmingly self-confident man of the mid-1990's, who took on the FCC and won, and seemed capable of cutting through the layers and layers of stinking bullshit that clogged and continue to clog the mass media - and would say what he believed, whenever he liked. He may have been an insulting, toilet-mouthed verbal pornographer - but there was always the possibility that, as he always swore in his defense, he was simply SAYING things that were too painful, embarassing, or primal to be said. And not only was he doing that - he was doing it over the airwaves of the United States, a country that consumes media with an almost frenzied abandon.

The Stern show has been castrated - and Stern is now a toothless dragon, unable to move without being monitored by the facists at the FCC, which has presented a sickening display of nepotism in the appointment of Michael Powell, son of Colin 'Me Lai' Powell, the architect of the Iraq war, part time James Earl Jones impersonator, and all-round All-American guy. The Stern show has been branded 'indecent' for doing exactly the same thing it has been doing for the last twenty years. When did Stern NOT obsess over his bowel movements, the breast implants of strippers, and the burgeoning idea of interracial coupling as represented in the mainstream media? When did he ever soften his touch? The show is what the show always was - a freewheeling, anarchic mess of ideas and honesty, which veers into blue humour when that is the subject. It is in no way 'pornographic'. If you want to see something pornographic, go and catch yourself some Shock And Awe on CNN, and as you watch the pretty lights, think about the people who are disintegrating beneath them.

The easy way to combat the idea that Stern should be banned due to indecency is to ressurect the age-old defense of 'If you don't like it, turn it off!'. Although that is a cliche that is completely true, I'm not going to use that to support my pro-Stern stance. Instead, I have a few examples of material that were broadcast on 'The Howard Stern Radio Show' that may just make you think about the price of free speech, and just how useful it can be.

Remember 9/11? Sure you do. 'The Day When Everything Changed', screamed CNN and NBC and the Murdoch Empire. In order to pay tribute to the 'heroes' of 9/11, endless loops of people leaping from burning buildings were intercut with footage of those doomed planes bisecting the phallic towers of American imperialism, resulting in the definitive image of the early part of this century. Maybe we won't ever get over the carnage of the WTC - and not because it was anything out of the ordinary. People die in horrific, inhuman ways every day - across all corners of the globe. They don't always die, however, in America, on television, in a media event the likes of which we probably won't see again, short of a suitcase nuke being set off beneath the Hollywood sign. And for all the talk of the 'horror' of that fateful day, the only piece of broadcast media that I felt connected to on any emotional level was the Stern show. September 11th 2001 was just another day for Stern and his crew - the show had been going for an hour or two and the usual cacophony of blue humour and cutting remarks about contemporary American life had been crackling across the airwaves. Then, reports began flooding into the studio about a catastrophe downtown. The World Trade Center had been attacked. Was it an accident? Could anyone seriously have the balls big enough to attack America on American soil? The Stern show began to writhe with panic and terror as the cast watched the horror of the day unfolding before them from the station windows, and - as with all other material coming from Stern - they didn't hold back. They expressed their mind-shattering panic and terror at the thought of their city being turned into chaos, ravaged by an unseen foe, with the inhabitants - the New Yorkers who made up their listening audience, and were more friends than anything - being murdered en masse. As CNN's carefully constructed soap-opera unfolded across the televisions of the world, presenting the attacks on the WTC as an incredibily dramatic narrative - not unlike an episode of 24 or Buffy - Stern's panic and fear-induced paralysis conveyed more truth and insight into the events of that day than any hour of people falling from buildings and bulbous fireballs erupting from towers ever could.

He's a funny guy. That much is a given. But even I can admit that sometimes, he crosses the line. Especially when he's dealing with members of the public who are neither as witty, nor as intelligent as he is. One morning, a naiive young lady called the Stern show, and almost immediately launched into a barrage of fan-worship, exaulting her love for Howard and his crew with an almost manic zeal. Howard seized on this opportunity to make her call a comedy bit - and he proceeded to sell her the Brooklyn Bridge. She bought it.

Then she called back.

Howard admitted that he had fooled her - and almost admitted that he thought she was a complete imbecile. He decided to give her a short test to ascertain her intelligence - and she had trouble with most of the questions. Then, she burst into tears - telling Howard that she loved him, and her husband loved him, and she just wanted to be their friend. Howard realises that he has been cruel - and it is an amazing thing to hear the voice of The Beast evaporate - as he proceeds to promise her a trip to New York for her and her husband, in which she could come into the studio and meet the stars of the show. Amusingly, he also promises her a watch which he will rub on his genitals.

Childish? Sure. Cruel? Maybe. The point is, by-now-bored-reader, that at the same time as Howard allows himself to run amok as a bile-spewing radio demon, he is also capable of extreme kindness. To hear him softly talking to the girl he has upset is to hear the sound of a complex, difficult man, who seems constantly at war within himself. He is three-dimensional - a real human being, who just happens to be on the radio. And at that moment, on that particular broadcast, he showed the kind of gentleness and sweetness that is all but barren from our mainstream media. Can you imagine someone like Neil Mitchell in Melbourne caring about whether he upset a listener? Sometimes, humanity can be found in the strangest places.

The bravest piece of radio I have ever heard involved a caller to the Stern show. His name was Daniel, and he was calling to tell Howard that he was a rapist. He had raped women, and continued to do so. Robin sounds upset - and unsure of whether they should let the airwaves serve as a forum for this sick individual's undoubtedly twisted worldview. But Howard keeps him on the line. And, instead of attempting to find humour in this eerie situation, he did something that I have never heard a broadcaster do in my entire life. He talked to Daniel The Rapist. He was calm. He wasn't rude. He wasn't impolite - and he wasn't accusatory. Instead, he wanted to know exactly how a rape happened - and he wanted to know how a rape could be avoided. He asked Daniel to tell the listeners what he looks for in a rape victim, how he chooses his women, and how the women can protect themselves. What could they do if they were cornered? How could they escape? Stern didn't flinch, and he let Daniel tell his disturbing, violent stories. Then, as quickly as he'd appeared, he disconnected. Stern had alerted the police during their discussion - and, in the aftermath, he seemed genuinely upset by the experience. But it had to be done. As he told both Robin and the listening audience - he has daughters of his own, and if broadcasting that information over the airwaves saved one girl from the indignity, and soul-destroying madness of a rape, then it was worth it.

Stern now spends his time flailing against the FCC, accusing Bush of tampering with the minds of the American people, and indulging in gloomy tirades on his own impending doom as a broadcaster. It's a sad state of affairs for one of the most complex - and certainly most misunderstood media personalities in American history. Maybe Stern is just a pornographer, peddling to the lowest common denominator in his obsessions with sapphic love, breast augmentation, and celebrity sex scandals. But, maybe, when you cut to the heart of what Stern is really about - he is simply a nodal point upon which the unspoken thoughts, feelings, and emotions of the American people can find a voice. A voice which is unafraid to say what it shouldn't. And a voice which allows itself to be as damaged, scared, tortured, complicated, angry, and contradictory as that of its owner.

Can you say the same thing about yourself?

Australia - The Invisible Country.

I'm reading Noam Chomsky's new book at the moment - 'Hegemony Or Survival' - and it is, essentially, an overview of America's attempts to Take Over The World, and turn into Little America(tm). Noam Chomsky scares the absolute shit out of me. I know it may sound odd for me, a strapping, powerfully built 25 year old, with steely blue eyes, a firmly-set square jaw, and a body ribboned by thick belts of muscle (see footnote one) to be scared of a skinny seventy year old man with grey hair and a monotone voice - but I am. Chomsky scares me because Chomsky makes too much sense. He's right, of course - America DOES want to own the world, and have every intention of colonising the continents, both militarily and culturally. There is little hope of resistance. At the moment, anyway.

This week, of course, saw John 'Cocksucker' Howard's evil free trade agreement with the yanks. I won't describe it in too much detail because it isn't relevant at the moment, but the one thing that interested and disturbed me were the sections regarding the media, and the flow of cultural material. Looks like the Australian television and film industries are about to be decimated as hordes of cheaply priced American drivel is pumped into the brains of Australia's consumers, the nauseating cancer of America culture being given new flesh to consume, as local talent is subverted in favour of hour upon hour of mind numbing MUST SEE T.V.

Getting back to music and film, as I always must, this poses an interesting retrospective scenario to ponder. But I'm going to preface it, so that I don't leave myself open to charges of simply being a nasty, racist swine with an axe to grind regarding our fun loving American brothers.

I do love this country very much. Oh, yes. I adore Australia. Everything about it. When I was a stupid, pretentious teenager - it was my dream to flee this cultural wasteland for greener pastures. New York! Paris! London! I had no interest in Melbourne. Pah. Fuck Melbourne. By virtue of being an Australian city, I had been convinced that it was Not Good Enough by default. And as my self-absorbed pretention skyrocketed to dizzying heights, culminating in Our Year Of Joy Division, my distrust of Australia - spurred on by the mental masturbators I was associating with, peaked. What has Australia ever produced, after all, except sheep, wheat, and some really quite good sportspeople? What good is this country at all?

I was wrong - and, looking back, I was a victim. I know that sounds like a cop out - but it is absolutely true. As a young laddie growing up in Melbourne, I was - for the most part - unaware of where I was, culturally. Australia didn't exist. But America certainly did. I could turn on the television and see it. I could go to the movies and watch it. I could listen to music that both euologized and mythologized it. Clothes that advertised it. Posters that praised it. An endless torrent of pro-American material that bamboozled me to the point where I simply forgot about Australia. I was certainly never taught to love Australia - and I was never shown images of Australia that I could relate to, and connect to. When Australia did exist in film and literature, it wasn't an Australia I knew - it was a land of deserts, farmlands, and lonesome windmills sihlouetted against blazing orange sunsets. It wasn't the weatherboard houses, rainy days, and long, chipped fences covered in cracked green paint that I was accostomed to. And, as I got older, I forgot that Australia was even there. All I knew was that I was living somewhere that wasn't as good as America - and couldn't offer me anything that I could ever want to use.

Then, at about nineteen or twenty, I began to notice that I didn't know Australia. I didn't turn on the television and see myself, or the people I knew, or the places that I loved - I had no access to cultural representations of my life, or my world. I noticed that, in the eyes of the rest of the world, I was living in an invisible country - seemingly so insignificant that any attempts to try and understand it, rationalise it, or - shock and horror! - LOVE it would be laughable. Being an obtuse, contrary sort of fellow, I decided that this simply wasn't good enough - and I decided to find Australia. I knew it was out there somewhere, and - being me, a rock geek and film nerd, the only place I could start was by jumping in the deep end of the endless sea of records and video tapes (remember them?) that were out there.

So, I started buying albums. Cold Chisel records. Dragon records. Split Enz. Crowded House. The Master's Apprentices. Russel Morris. The Easybeats. Anything that smacked of Australia, I would snap up and run home with, sitting in my bedroom and listening to them over and over again. And sure enough, I started to figure out things. I started to learn about the country I was in - and the one feature of the Australian character that I think holds the key to all of this, is that the music seems timid. Afraid. It isn't self-aggrandizing or arrogant - even the bluster of the Master's Apprentices - who locked into an incredible mass of fury and power on their live 'Nickelodeon' album - seemed tinged with a sense of inferiority; A piece of all of these bands seemed to be dedicated to the awareness that by virtue of their country of origin, they could never be recognized globally. They'd never be loved the way their idols were. There was not going to be a Beatles coming from Australia - because Australia simply didn't exist, and by association, the music didn't exist.

Of course, Crowded House saw success. They all did, to a limited extent. But outside of AC/DC, Australian music has been ignored - banished into a wasteland populated by forgotten artists and broken dreams. Go to the All Music Guide sometime, and look at the writing on Australian acts, and the one word that seems to continally crop up is 'underrated'. Oh, Dragon were so underrated. Oh, Russel Morris was so underrated.

I met Russel Morris once. I remember I was seeing this chick, and I was just becoming interested in Australia's cultural history - and I bought her a copy of Russel Morris' greatest hits album. She played it - and she couldn't believe that it was by an Australian. She'd ask me - 'How was this guy not bigger than he was? How did he not become an international star?'

I didn't get the answer until a few years later. My mother is a curious sort of lady who tends to find out about things that are happening in our area - and on this particular occasion, Russel Morris was going to be playing - wait for it - the Greensborough R.S.L. I didn't believe her at first. The guy who did 'The Real Thing' - reduced to slogging it through R.S.L clubs and bingo halls? You have got to be fucking kidding me. But, no - he absolutely was.

And we watched him. He did 'The Real Thing'. He did 'Wings Of An Eagle'. He did 'Sweet, Sweet Love'. Beautiful, soulful things, all - and afterwards, he descended from the stage and made his way towards the back of the hall to talk to the crowd.

This blew my mind. A musician actually interested in talking to us - a bunch of nobodies from the middle of nowhere? What was his game? What was the punchline?

I wanted to talk to him, so I slithered near him and yelled in his ear - "You're fucking GREAT!"

He jumped, and turned around, staring at me. And he smiled - a weird, crooked sort of smile as though he couldn't tell if I was kidding or not. I was, after all, some punk kid in a hideous mustard-coloured t-shirt, with thick, greasy glasses and comically-oversized front teeth. I figured that I needed to be taken seriously, so I racked my brain for a factoid with which to stun him.

"Hey, Russel! When's fucking 'Bloodstone' coming out on CD?"

He stared at me again, and then grinned. "Next year.", he said quietly. And then I grabbed him and pulled a 'Look who I'M touching' face, as my mother quickly grabbed a photo.

I knew this wasn't going to be a 'My friends will NEVER believe this!' moment - my friends couldn't care less. Russel who? Sweet, sweet what?

But I came away feeling sad. Here was a guy with a sublime artistic vision and a thirty year career - who was a world-class talent, and ran rings around hundreds of major-label American and British artists - yet, by virtue of being born in the Invisible Country, his talent was left to atrophy in the gruelling pub scene of Melbourne, where he was never going to be respected or honoured in the manner which he deserved.

There's a shop in the local plaza near me. It's called 'Touchdown', and every time I see it, I want to vomit. It sells Bling Bling gear. Is that what it's called? The stuff that rap guys wear. Stupidly oversized jackets, and shirts with pictures of that 50 Cent idiot on them. That kind of crap. And hanging across the entire back wall, like a swastika in the Reichstag, is the American flag. The stars and the stripes, staring out at the poor, confused shoppers. The kids go in, and they buy shirts with 'U.S.A' emblazoned on them. Windcheaters with the American flag. An endless array of paraphenalia promoting 'Gangsta Rap'.

I feel sorry for them. I feel sorry that they are going to grow up like me - robbed of their country, mindfucked by American culture, and constantly reminded that no matter what they do, no matter what they say, and no matter how hard they try - they will never be as good as America. And in the end, I think, a lot of these kids simply stop trying.

Maybe I just miss my country. Someone has stolen it - and I want it back.

I have an album here. A recording of the Sunbury '73 rock festival - and towards the end, there is a song by Glen Cardier. It is called 'Australia' - and I just want to share the intro with you.

Glen takes the stage, and in a quiet voice, says: Finishing off now with a song I wrote for Gough Whitlam. He said in the paper the other day that he wanted a national anthem. Well, I wrote a song about a lady called 'Australia'. I think she may be sitting here right now - I don't know. But, this is mine anyway.

I know how you feel, Glen. I think it is time that we all started spreading lost dog notices around the world.

Lost: One country. Answers to the name of Australia. Last seen sometime in the mid 1960's. If spotted, could someone please return her - because we love her, and we miss her.

* Footnote one - My physical description may not exactly match the one detailed above.