Am comin Home!

And so as I sit and write this, after visiting the Waverly Cemetry to look at its view and eat sandwich in the tiny cafe in Surrey Hills. I have been to stay in Sydney a few times over the years but never walked up to the beach in the morning before – the hangovers have been too bad for anything but poolside after the night before’s schlepping from bar to bar and swilling of spirits and the search for sex that keeps you up till the dawn.

But this time on the night before we ate at a superb restaurant and were in bed by 12 o’clock, and even though the thought crossed my mind to go on the search for debauchery before going to bed, we all knew that we would rather sleep and savor the expensive tastes in our mouths and the feeling of contentment rather than sluice it out with tumblers of vodka and the almost inevitable disappointment of finding out once again that girls don’t find drunk boys attractive at all.

And then after landing in Brisbane Airport, I return full of stories of the woman I have just met at the airport. “She was beautiful,” “I’m in love,” “She wore a white sundress,” and “You’d love her.” I have had my reward for putting aside the things of youth to act my age – I have met a woman of beauty instead of a troll in a nightclub, I have seen her in a clear-headed morning instead of through beer goggles and I have engaged her in meaningful conversation instead of the nightclub pidgin Franglias of, “Voulez-vouz coucher avec moi?”

And I think, “You know what? I’ve had enough of sitting here getting all maudlin and nostalgic for the loves that have gone, enjoying the delicious masochism of recherché de la bird perdue. I’m going to look for the new one – but this time I’ll be doing it in daylight and sober instead of drunk like a binge – drinking youth.”

Am trying hard to become a better person – had forgotten the meaning of word “gratitude”. The other night watched an Icelandic movie on SBS. Will never forget a quote in it – sums my current state of mind “In dreams, I sense the merciless assault of reality.” Where did I become this horrible person, I can still remember the times we used to spend on the podium in university, aimlessly talking about everything under the sun.

‘The horse of time is galloping fast: let us see where he halts. Neither is the hand on the reins nor the foot in the stirrup.’

24 Birthday

As winter settles across Sydney a certain wistfulness invades the mind. A longing for other times, a sweet nostalgia both melancholy and pleasurable, like the takes of a biscuit recalled across the decades: a remembrance of things past. Things with me have improved lately. Not positive, but definitely not negative – Neutral I guess. Work is fine and am getting some leads. Luke n I – celebrated my birthday @ yellow in potts point. A few years ago we would have been painting the ville red – or at least a deeper shade of vomit. There would have been dancing and debauchery and the constant, relentless, unrealistic search for available women.

I mentioned my first girlfriend that night, a girl who left me for another man after she got caught, metaphorically, with her knickers down doing the dirty behind my back, but I don’t remember this, I remember first the curve of her waist and the smoothness of her flawless brown skin, the color of a nut, as I run my hand around to pull her close, and then this warmth is replaced as I am filled with regret (why, oh why, did I ever let her go?), and then comes a peace (ah…better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all). And like my memories of the past, I forget the rows and the infidelities on all sides and the splitting up and the long, slow death of the relationship like a moth being overcome in a jar of chloroform, and get all wistful. Well, not entirely false but rose-tinted through time’s lens because I never liked it that much then.

Like Swann in Proust’s Remembrance Of Things Past, who takes a bite on a Madeleine biscuit and is sent on a seven – volume reverie as the taste and smell take him back to the events and the girl of many years before, we sit – us men who aren’t old and aren’t even middle – aged but also who aren’t young anymore – and we remember the girls who have come and gone and wonder at how age has mellowed us, has changed the way we want to celebrate, who aren’t involved with anyone, look back and ask ourselves, “Have we failed? Do we have regrets? Or is it all like a cycle – the good times come and go, that good women are seduced and abandoned, or abandon us and then we find ourselves sitting at a table remembering the feel of their skin and wondering when we will next know such love and whether when it arrives again, as it surely will, will we let it pass again or this time will we hold it and keep it? To try and pin the butterfly to a board this time, but by the very act of doing that, will we kill it once again?”

We are getting older. And we are starting to think like grown men instead of like the headless chickens we used to be – running from bar to bar and woman to woman, cocky with the availability of love and the ease with which it could be found and discarded – like fat boys in a sweet shop, tasting everything but savoring nothing. We are starting to realize that the sweet shop may not be open forever, that bingeing and women, on bars and clubs) may be young man’s game, that just as we would rather now sit and debate where to have dinner rather than run from town to town searching for a fuck, so maybe next time we find love we might like to sit and enjoy it, instead of always snogging with one eye open, looking over the shoulder of the women we are with to see who else is available.

D Day + 01

Sydney seems as a city created on an architects' day off. Considered at best, bohemian and decadent, at worst, dangerous and depraved, the suburbs immediately east of the CBD - Woolloomooloo, Potts Point and Darlinghurst - have recently been transformed into some of the most happening enclaves of Sydney. They are areas where backpackers rub shoulders with junkies, transvestite prostitutes, sailors, writers and young professionals wanting an apartment.

South of the mammoth Coca-Cola sign over traffic clogged William St. is Darlinghurst, the hippest of the suburbs. Speared by the Horizon apartment building looming over a low-rise warren of Victorian terraces, 'Darlo' is home to movie auteur Baz Luhrmann, actor Hugo Weaving, Tropfest, the biggest short movie festival in the world, and many a struggling artist, several of whom studied at the art college based in the handsome sandstone former jail on Burton St. It also has more than its fair share of latte - serving cafes, prime locations to practise urban trend spotting.

Woke up this morning with massive hangover and an urge to eat. The fact that I had brought the weather with me (sunshine baby) instilled the eagerness in Luke n I too soak in the rays. Rise n Shine apparently - no, not here. All the sunny spots were already taken, all the cafes were bursting with people n their all important pets. After circumnavigating Potts Point, Darlo.....We gave up. Followed a pretty gurl to a cafe for a compromise - decided we could do better....One phone call, jump into a cab and voila - we are in Surrey Hills. In a quiet end of the city - the wickedest, zennist cafe....With our kind of patrons (read drunk n hungover) and also the most disgruntled Korean car owner ever. Sydney's rag trade is clustered around Forveaux Street - Rupert Murdoch's newspapers The Australian and The Daily Telegraph are produced here - and the area seems to have a strong reputation for interior - design and furniture stores.

The huddled Victorian terraces have attracted a spill over of house hunters from Paddington where prices have already escalated. Surry Hills is going the same way, while retaining a grittier, less prettified edge.

The day included a trip to Bondi Junction in chase of illusive jumpers.....the dream continues. Stayed indoors the rest of the day.....Fragile body performed fine for its last day as a 23 year old. Tomorrow I shall be 24 - six years in Aussie....Will this be the year? Will I find happiness? Will I start dreaming n chasing the right things? Will I start caring for the people in my life n atlast learn the true meaning of the word - Gratitude?

Last year has been tumultuous to say the least. Things went oscillating at the extreme ends of the pendulum of life....Weakened resolve, shattered aspirations, cynical n cruel - I dust myself n try again. First u don't succeed!

& da winner is Syderrr....ney!

The Airtrain is not working due to trackwork. Central station looks like something out of the "We don't need no education.." anthem. morbid, depressing, drab, East German....Pot pourri of masses. Kings Cross lives to its reputation....Kiwi bouncer who fails to acknowledge the existence of neighboring suburb. Bangladeshi cabbie who doesn't speak English and insists - West St. is West Ave. "Welcome to Syderrr...ney!

Atlast, Bombay street smart gets smarter 99 - and pulls Luke out of the dark side....Hey, whose his daddy? Bang, we are off for some retail therapy - Oxford Street was scavenged thorough. Got some knick & knacks.

Coffee, with amazing Danish & other desserts (when will Brissi get this)....@ a venue straight out of StyleCity:Sydney. A lot of business seems to be conducted on milk crates and tree stumps in front of Bar Coluzzi, a Victoria Street institution.

Dinner was amazing chit-chat with great fried lamp dumpling....with ladies - ugggggh. The views, views, views.....Only 19 year olds n apparently 35 year olds with disposable incomes.....That's the wide smorgasboard of females on offer. God I love Das Kapitalist.

Drinks @ Hilton to start....N the yeah - u r reading it right - The Wham...With 19 year old central coast gurls...

My hvnz (it sure aint a pickup line down south in Mexico). After 0300, night gets murky, with me reminding every passerby....Queenslander!!!! We have the Origin - Go Lockyer.

No Pizza....Only Crash in the amazing bed. Sleep like a baby...waitin for the AGB (after grog bog session).

The mother of all insults

The suggestion that Marco Materazzi might have insulted Zinédine Zidane's mother during the World Cup final seems justification enough for the head-butt that followed. But why is it that the worst insults in the world are always about your mum?

It was seven minutes before half time. Real Madrid were 2-0 down against already relegated opponents in May 2004, when David Beckham tackled Real Murcia's Luis Garcia. The England captain thought the tackle was clean but the linesman flagged for a foul. Leaping to his feet, the Dagenham-born galáctico unleashed a volley of idiomatic Spanish, calling the official a "hijo de puta" (son of a whore). The referee, Turienzo Alvarez, had no hesitation in producing a red card. But was that the right decision? After all, Beckham's Spanish had been so risible in press conferences hitherto that this sure-footed demonstration of his grasp of Hispanic rudery surely should have won him a round of applause.

The Sun even drew up a list of mother insults that Beckham could deploy if he sought an early bath on future occasions. They included the rather infantile Tu madre tiene un bigote (Your mother has a moustache) and the frankly laborious Anda la puta que te pari (Go back to the prostitute who gave birth to you), but not the one that would surely have got him lynched in the Bernabeu, namely Me cago en la leche que mamaste (I shit in the milk that you suckled from your mother's breast).
In Finland, for example, there is an expression "Äitisi nai poroja!" which means "Your mother copulates with reindeer!" Sweet!

Thus, if indeed Marco Materazzi did impugn Zinédine Zidane's mother as a prostitute or a terrorist or perhaps both (busy woman!) in Sunday's World Cup Final debacle that concluded with Zizou head-butting the Italian's chest, an ancient ritual was being played out.

Right now there is a show on MTV called Yo Momma, popular in the US and the UK, "Yo momma so ugly her mum had to be drunk to breastfeed her", "Yo momma so fat, she's on both sides of the family", "Yo momma so stinky she uses Right Guard and Left Guard".

In Mandarin Chinese, one of the worst insults is Nide muchin shr ega da wukwei (Your mother is a big turtle). It is thought to be particularly insulting to call someone a turtle egg because a turtle does not know its father and turtles are promiscuous. And the disparagement of a rival's mother is a global rhetorical tactic: even in Britain, where one might think such rhetoric lacks force, such terms of abuse as "bastard" (implying that a mother is necessary, but the lack of a known father is shameful) or "son of a bitch" (impugning the rival's mother's sexual integrity) still imply sexist contempt for mothers, even if Britons do not find such terms especially insulting.

Why aren't fathers the butt of insults so much as mothers? Had David Beckham said to the linesman "Tu padre es un gigolo que tiene cópula con una multiplicidad de diversos socios" (Your father is a gigolo who has intercourse with a multitude of different partners), he probably wouldn't have got a red card. Just a baffled look, and applause from those impressed by his command of his second language. "The underlying idea is you're attacking what your rival came out of" . "That's why it's mothers rather than fathers who feature in the more potent insult. Everybody comes from their mother".