jailbird

I'm not writing this post to brag or to sound bad-arse or to seek sympathy. There's nothing self-indulgent about this post at all...

No, instead this edition of Teddy Pickle will be an unashamed, unrestrained, no-bullshit, absolute FUCK YOU to a certain group of Victorian Police who treated me and more importantly - my friends - like worthless pieces of shit late last week - a certain assortment of self-righteous bastards from the Victorian Police force who i'm sure will continue to sneer and puff out their badged chests until someone fucking does something about it.

To cut a long story short, my friends and I were leaving a bar in the early hours of a Sunday morning last week (in Old Melbourne Town, a city which i'm quickly losing faith in). I attempted, in my own drunken little way, to hail a taxi on Swanston Street when I was intercepted by the said band of policemen (and a cow of a policewoman. I'm all for girl-power, but this slag was a right old bitch).

Yes, I was drunk. Admittedly that was my only crime ("drunk in a public place", oh dear - shoot me down constable!). But was I aggressive? No. Was I violent or uncooperative at all? No. Were my friends being aggressive, violent or uncooperative? No, I don't generally befriend people like that, thank you very much.

Was I arrested, stripped of my shoes, my phone and my wallet, thrown into the back of a divvy-van, held in a cell for 5 hours without being told exactly what i'd done wrong and without being told how long i'd be locked up for? Yes. Was I served with a fine for $478? FUCK yes I was.

And worse of all, my friends, who were "guilty" of attempting to come to my aid and ask the police officers what the problem was, were each slapped with fines. There's the price of friendship, 60 bucks a pop.

Before all this, I held a little respect aside for the police force. No more. Clearly, the po-po have become more concerned with handing out fines than actually helping the citizens they're paid to protect.

Dear "Victoria Police Enforcement Agency", I wasn't trying to hurt anyone. I was drunk, I knew that and I just wanted to catch a fucking cab home.

Thanks for your help, pigs.

(My sentiments, artistically represented by a young guerilla artist in Prahran East).

the end is nigh

 My fellow citizens,

I'm not a religious man, but God help us.

I've seen a glimpse of the future, and it's one ruled by an army of precocious, pre-pubescent child-stars. Fuelled by a bloodthirsty insatiable fame-hunger and bred by pushy stage-parents, the Willow Smiths and the Justin Biebers of the world are just the beginning of a truly grim future.

Willow Smith, daughter of the juggernauts "The Smiths"  (Will and Jayda) has already landed a record deal, has seemingly walked more red-carpets than most stars three-times her age and has developed a very cocky trademark Smith-smirk in her own right.

I implore you, fellow citizens, to end this madness. Stop buying their albums, stop snapping their photos. Hell, I should probably stop blogging about them...

We're only encouraging them.

come to daylesford, free baptism included!

This promo for Daylesford tourism frightens me. I'm not quite sure why. Perhaps it's the use of religious imagery (churches and the like never fail to creep me out), that shot of Isabel Lucas looking into the camera at the end... or perhaps because I just plain don't get it.

Why is the State Government urging us to go to Daylesford, have a watery rendezvous with wait staff, be baptised and "lead a double life"? The ad has more confusing, contradictory elements than a Lady Gaga music video (the image of Gaga in latex-nun garb swallowing a string of rosary beads comes to mind for some reason...)

This article by Morag Zwartz for The Age is interesting, but I don't agree with the way Christianity is treated by the writer as some untouchable thing. Artists have every right to use religious imagery to critique or evoke... but why they chose to use it in the Daylesford tourism campaign escapes me...

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/governments-moral-compass-gone-awry-in-tawdry-offensive-ad-campaign-20101007-169nl.html

kodi smit-mcphee's growing pains

 I'm starting to feel sorry for this kid. Ok, he's barely 14 years old and already a respected actor - so I should hate him, but looking at the roles Kodi Smit-McPhee has taken in his short yet already commendable career is enough for me to pat him on the shoulder and say "there, there.. chin up!"

The young Aussie rose to fame alongside Eric Bana in the emotional family-drama Romulus, My Father a film where he played a young boy who had to deal with a pretty grim family life. He then went on to what's been his most recognised role to date, as "the boy" in the monumentally depressing post-apocolyptic road-movie The Road. Add to that his role as a terminally-ill cancer-patient in Matching Jack and his recent role in the US version of the Swedish film Let the Right One in (where he plays a lonely companion to a hungry little vampire girl) and you've got yourself the new Haley Joel Osment.

Let's pray for his sake that he isn't. (Ok, that's not fair. Haley was a damned impressive actor back in the day. But let's face it, he got type-cast something awful).

However, with all the emotionally-straining roles he's already undertaken, it wouldn't surprise me if he started seeing dead people.

For God's sake... give the boy a role in Nanny McPhee 3 or a voiceover for a talking animal or something!

australia: the wide, blonde land

So some toff from the UK ("branding expert" Simon Anholt) has flown down on his magical black umbrella to tell us all that we've officially been stereotyped as "attractive, but shallow and unintelligent".

Yes, put your hands on you hearts Australia - we're the "dumb blonde" of the world.

The Brit credits our beautiful scenery yet supposed lack of culture combined with our infamously vapid tourism campaigns (fair call Anholt, the recent "There's no place like Australia" is just downright painful to behold).

Reasons aside, we're now the "dumb blonde" of the global high-school class - chewing gum, twirling our hair and sleeping with every boy in the football team.

Well, at least we're not the loud, fat bully sitting in the back row (the US), the whiny pale kid with the bad teeth (the UK), the arrogant exchange student (France) or the quiet, nerdy Communist one (China).

 (If we're the dumb blonde, then the US is Michael Moore. I'm happy with that.)

I realise i've just reeled off a list of very unfair stereotypes. I'd say "dumb blonde" comes under that category, but as narrow-minded generalisations go - I can honestly say that being the peroxide-headed bimbo of the crowd isn't such a bad thing.

Well, at least Oprah likes us.

the simpsons gets relevant again

Just when I thought The Simpsons had lost its pop culture cred, they let infamous street artsist Bansky direct this genius opening sequence.



How Fox let this go ahead, when it's basically a direct stab at the corporation, escapes me. Perhaps they foresaw the media storm that it's already attracted and saw an opportunity for publicity. Let's face it, The Simpsons has lost a lot of it's lustre in recent years.

Maybe the Banksy touch will be successful in injecting a bit more cultural bite into the longest-running animated series.

LOST: a scared little white boy in the big smoke

 Let me begin by saying that I honestly believe that I am one of the least judgemental, least prejudiced and most open-minded people going round the southside of the mighty Yarra. But there's something inescapable, unavoidable and deep within that creeps up on me every so often...

My parents aren't racist. My childhood chums aren't K.K.K members. My favourite book growing up wasn't Mein Kampf... so why, why, WHY do I feel these occasional surges of racism from deep within me? It happens when I least expect it - i'll be on a tram, lining up to grab some sushi at Melbourne Central, passing through the quadrangle at uni when BAM! it hits. It's this horrible, defensive, frightened feeling when I realise that I can't actually see any Caucasian people. I know i'm going to be villified for saying it, but it happens and I might as well be honest about it.

 Please don't take me as a supporter of Abbot's ridiculous "stop the boats" mentality... but I can't deny the strange feeling I get when I'm waiting for a train at Melbourne Central and can't understand any of the languages being spoken around me. I honestly think it's a deep, inbuilt defense mechanism that's inside of us all, this natural discomfort - a kind of fear of the unknown.

We've all felt lost in foreign surroundings (I think it's a vital part of learning and growing), but sometimes I think we're taken aback when we feel this in places that are usually familiar to us - and I think that's ok. But in this day and age, we just need to suck it up and accept it. We (...or am I just referring to myself here?) can't go on living life in that idealised, cordoned-off little white-bread suburban bubble forever.