Starship Troopers: An Attempt at Persuasion

Lost in deep cover
"Dear John," said his lover's last letter
Emptied a full clip to feel better
Slipped a rung on Jacob's ladder
Desert boot camp deserter got stung by death adder
Don't get mad get even madder
A10 tank killer fodder
Interrogate? Why bother...
My brother for a last cigarette, no please not yet
One last dance, lest we regret
Look me in the eye, GI, and tell me you're not tired
I'm tired to death sir, I'm tired till it hurts
But when you thought it couldn't get much worse
Well it may...
We march at the break of day
Come what may, rules of engagement say
We will stand to the very last, shrapnel blast
A casket goes home...
Sons and daughters wrapped in stars and stripes to keep 'em warm

("Give peace a chance... that doesn't mean anything"
"It's like give peace a chance")

Under an orange dawn we draw the line
And those on the other side must stand and fight
Tracers like fourth of July in the night
Lighting up like Hiroshima
The perfect sight

I'm a Starship Trooper
This is my letter to dad, transferred from Saigon to Baghdad
And now I'm dead
An allied soldier, with skin boils from Ebola
I'll bring you back a souvenir of what we stole

I was only nineteen
Joined for the pay packet
Now my full metal jacket won't take one more hit
I don't give two shits about oil interests
But depleted uranium, just gave Joe a fit
Captain Kurtz said, "fight till the hurt stops"
Yet all I can see is burned crops
And mates shell-shocked
Morphine under lock and key
Their AK's talking to my M16
Pray for friendly fire
Haven't seen a priest, but plenty of funeral pyres
Triage nurse is dying
My name in the paper
Next to a faceless dictator
And another flag to drape
Here's the commanding officer
A total mess again
Crying in the mess tent
How to make mice or mince meat of his men

I'm a Starship Trooper
This is my letter to dad
Transferred from Saigon to Baghdad
And now I'm dead
An allied soldier with skin boils from ebola
I'll bring you back a souvenir of what we stole

I'm a Starship Trooper
This is my letter to dad
Transferred from Saigon to Baghdad
And now I'm dead
An allied soldier...

Those are the lyrics to 'Starship Troopers', a bleak, eerie song by The Herd that lays an impassioned image of the futility of modern war. I have always loved this song – I feel it has, along with Apocalypta from the same album (The Sun Never Sets), much more replay value and deep passion to be had than many of the other songs on the album, despite it being far less accessible a topic than, for example, a young man's relationship with his grandma (Under Pressure) or even their more popular war song, the cover of Redgum's 'I Was Only 19'.

When I was in high school – now that I try and remember I think it was year twelve, so I was seventeen – I wrote out the lyrics to this song, along with Apocalypta, and put them in an email which I sent to my English teacher at the time. I don't know what I was trying to accomplish at this point; we'd been studying poetry and I think I just wanted to show someone who I vaguely looked up to that I really was interested in what he was teaching, while at the same time also showing off a bit of my own knowledge coloured with the contemporary style of 'poetry' (hip hop) that I was familiar with. I don't know whether he received the email, although he must have, the teachers' email accounts were assigned by some formula or another and I was seventeen, sure, but I wasn't a fucking moron... but I always kind of wondered whether something had gone astray, because he never replied. Isn't that strange, that I still remember that even, and not only did he never reply, but he never even spoke of it to me... I found that really weird because he was the kind of dude that I thought would be completely stoked about having a kid in his class send him some shit that was kind of to do with what he was teaching, completely of his own volition. Apparently not though. The email went unread and I never got to share the song with anyone.

This was by no means the first time that I had tried to share a song that I loved with someone, and it definitely would not be the last. I have a long and proud history of being extremely forceful and single-minded when I get the idea in my head that so-and-so would like to listen to such-and-such song. I obsess over it. As soon as I see the person next, I'll have my phone ready with headphones and ambush them like a music rapist, before making them sit in complete silence while my anticipatory stares burn holes in the side of their head... appreciate or die, I can't help it guys, I just really want you to listen.

So anyway, I thought of all this today, because I started the afternoon off by listening to some Urthboy and reminiscing of the ethereal spring of 2009, and then, once I remembered how Urthboy is the best lyricist in Aussie hip hop, I moved on to a quick revisit of The Sun Never Sets, (easily top three Australian albums EVER by the way... cheers) and without fail, whenever this album makes it into my headphones Starship Troopers is always the standout. Every time. This song... fuck man, this song is like... I was listening to it on the tram home not fourty-five minutes ago, slowly building up the idea of writing this blog in my head, and thinking of what it is that I can say about it. What do I like about the song? What makes it good? What makes it stand out from the rest of the album? I don't know, it just fits together so brilliantly, and Urthboy's lyrics, especially the fifth line “desert boot camp deserter got stung by death adder”... I mean that's fucking brilliant. Seriously. The image of the desert and the allusion to operation desert storm. The alliteration on the three strongest words of the line; 'desert', 'deserter', 'death'. The rhyme of adder with ladder – Jacob's ladder, an allusion to the bible story where Jacob ascends a ladder to heaven in his dream. The deserter slipped though, he didn't make it to heaven, he was stung. Dead. Fucked. Fuck. Fuck. AAAAAAAAGH. I was listening to this song and walking down the darkened streets out of the gritty Asian streets of North Richmond and I wanted to scream out at the top of my lungs. Not anything, no words, just scream. Just to release some energy – thins song makes me edgy and stirs up turmoil within my body's walls. Please listen to it. Please. I don't know what else to say.

I can't force you physically, but fuck. If anyone can persuade a bunch of internet readers to listen to some song off of an eight-year-old Aussie hip hop album with only furious words and lot of swearing, it's me.
Because I'm fucking brilliant.

Peace, Taco.

Calling Out from a Good Place

Rising sounds, and the beat keeps rising. The time is ten twenty-one and it's Sunday evening, I'm sitting in the living room with Brodesh (that's Brodie and Desh – PICK IT UP!) and everything is happening. Where are the parents? Where are the law enforcers? Where is the landlord when we are skateboarding up and down her wooden passageway like a bunch of lecherous louts? “Who cares?” should be your immediate answer to all of those three questions, today is the day for answers, discovery, and simple solutions.

I'm not trying to say that we're somehow pioneering some new way of life – we're clearly not – and the phrase 'out front, breaking boundaries' has become so overused that applying it to a person now seems to imply a level of mundaneness completely separate from the original intention. But we're doing the do out here... something just feels right. Something happened by accident when I moved over here that has made life that much simpler, like the unintended triple-syllable rhyme at the end of a sentence you said to the cashier when you were down at Coles buying your groceries. I was doing absolutely nothing in Adelaide... for the last two and a half weeks I had a shitty, terrible MENIAL joke of a fucking 'job' selling electricity to people door-to-door. Not even selling, just convincing – I was a door to door convincer – trying to persuade people that their current electricity companies, whatever they were (it was irrelevant really) were somehow screwing them out of money and that the company I worked for could save them cash. (we couldn't... AT ALL) But even when I wasn't taken up with this worthless existence, when I had free time, I wasn't in the right place within myself to do anything with it. And before those deathly last two point five weeks when I had NO job, it was even worse. I couldn't bring myself to do anything, but coming over here just changed everything.

I don't even know what it was, but from the first day that I was in this city my life and my mind just felt different; as if a change of scenery was the permission slip I needed to get out and do something every day. Sitting in and watching movies and pretending to work no longer enough.

So now I'm sitting here with a tie wrapped around my head and fastened in a crude granny-knot with the two ends hanging down over my left temple like a cheap ponytail-wig and everything in my universe feels right. Of course I can't leave you here, how could I that would be like leaving myself. But I just want you all to know that from where I stand right now, things couldn't get much better. It reminds me of what Bill Hicks once said, that “evolution didn't end with us growing thumbs you know... now it's time we started to evolve ideas.” It's a stretch to tie in, but you know I'm up to it... I feel like I've gone about as far as I can in the happiness direction, being happy isn't even a goal any more, it's done. It's still happening, but I don't have to try any more. I have to find some new direction to progress in now, and that's where the idea of evolving ideas comes in... whereas for as long as I can remember since I emerged from the mist of adolescent emotional entrapment I've just been trying to find and maintain pockets of happiness in a chaotic life, I now know that regardless of the good days and the bad days and the dips and highs and swooping changes in my mood, I don't have to worry about that any longer. Now it is time to grow in another direction. In the last two months that search has begun, and it continues today. I just thought I'd report back for a second, and maybe rest on my laurels just that tiny bit.

So this is me, calling out. Aidan Jones, for one night at peace with the world, before the search resumes tomorrow.

Peace, Taco.

The Day I Woke Up

I woke up that morning with a heavy taste in my mouth and crust over my eyes, I knew the time was late, and I knew I had to get out of there. It was 5:45am I think. Looking around in this place I loved once, a pang of sadness crept into me, the first muffled rays of dawn shone through drawn blinds and hit the thick curtains. I think it was a Monday... I think that not because I remember the exact day or date, but because that seems a fair day for the sort of scene I am recalling right now to have happened. Monday comes after Sunday, and Sunday is the last day of the weekend where desperate souls try in futility to hang on to the high and ride the wave all the way in to the shore. For as long as you are prepared to wait until the next, surely bigger wave, you are doomed to be forever swimming back out, away from the shallows, and never making it all the way in.

The last few weeks had been different from what I had expected, the clubbing scene was not how I remembered it. In place of smiling faces and nods and handshakes and expectant conversations I had found numbness. The repetition of it all seemed so much clearer now, even the drugs seemed dirty. When first started going clubbing I remembered the highs coming on like uncontrollable frenzies, welling up inside you and taking over your mind first, only for your body to follow helplessly. I remembered sitting on a chair in Garage one Thursday night in 2009 and looking around with that last, deep breath, knowing that this was the beginning of something special. I remembered these things, but I began to question myself... had it really happened like that? We are all guilty of romanticising the past – each and every one of us holds on to sepia memories and foggy, glimmer-lit scenes of a childhood that no one can verify. Was it really that beautiful back then? Or was I just longing for a time that I knew for certain did not exist right now... maybe it hadn't existed back then either, but more likely then than now... more likely I was happy then, than happy with this. Waking up on a sullied, stringy couch at 5:45am on a Monday morning, back sore, head still muddy.

Even up until I had gone away, the scene seemed happier. I lay under the blanket and tried to roll back over and face the floor – 5:50, still no signs of life. I remembered that spring in 2010 when every Sunday was a sun-filled scene of mayhem. Cashed up and ready to go we were, and the city was our playground... that's what we used to call Friday nights at Red Square: 'Playground Fridays feat. Bollocks DJs and Neverland's Lost Boys'. Saturdays spent drinking and screaming in fits of laughter, Sundays spent jumping around in the grass and arguing about who was going to the bottle shop. Whose turn was it to go buy food. “You lit the Red Square fire Tugzy, I've got that shit on tape!!” Noonahs and nills and lawishi and a million other nonsensical rambling strings of words that couldn't make sense to anyone that wasn't there. They just couldn't, you had to be there for the ride, for the weekend. There were no passengers.

I knew I wasn't just imagining these times, those nights and mornings and frantic afternoons, I know I hadn't just imagined the last three years... so what was so different now? I'd woken up in someone else's house, on someone else's couch, with someone else's clothes on many more times than this... why did this feel different? I'd just gotten back from a four month trip overseas, and in those four months, things seemed to have somehow changed. But looking back from this uniquely privileged perch on Monday morning, nothing seemed to have changed at all. The weekend was still the same, and the clubs and the music and the drinking... maybe the drugs were slightly diluted and gritty, but that shouldn't really have mattered. The whole reason we had been comfortable living this life was because we knew, deep down, that we didn't need the drugs. Drugs are just a tool, they just keep you awake for longer so that you have more time to enjoy the things in the scene that you're really there for: friends, music, dancing, talking shit down Rosina Street and laughing at the kids with their fake IDs. Then selling drugs was just a tool too – everyone wanted them already, no one was pulling kids out of church and forcing the shit down their throats, they were just supplying an ever-present demand and funding their weekend in the process. Funding the life that they loved, that we all loved.

I sat up on the couch and threw the blanket lazily off of my body, only then realizing that there was another body lying one couch down from me – my feet must have been in his face I think. I rubbed my eyes, finally committing to something, and walked out the back to see if anyone was still awake. No signs of life. Six o'clock now and the sun starting to flood the open areas of this cramped back yard. Rouse had a garden for pissing in, and a tree for hanging lights off – little fairy lights that I assume he liked because of the 'Tinkerbell from Peter Pan' connotation. Never grow up. The couches were a bit wet, but I didn't bother to sit down, I was just out here grabbing my lighter and seeing if I'd left anything, I was quickly decided and it was definitely time to go. There was still time to salvage the day and fit in a bit of something normal. Time to write a poem, or maybe start readings for the new semester of uni. The difference between me and my brothers-in-arms – and that's what we were; brothers – was that I had found a life outside of the town scene. I had university, and I had pretended for so long that that was my passion that slowly it had started to become true... I got really, really lucky.

I padded in my bare feet around the house almost slipping on something slippery, almost stepping on something sharp. Bare feet turned to socks, and socks turned into one shoe, then the other as my body started to get it's bearings. Dishes in the sink, shove them out of the way just to get a glass of water. I grabbed what I hoped was the last of my stuff and shoved it in my backpack, then, offering my hand in front of Plummy's face as he stirred on the couch, I waited for a farewell handshake... these were always the sloppiest. Monday morning, who has the energy to do anything?

I never said goodbye to Rouse, it's just not what we did... he was asleep in his room anyway – hidden away and fragile, not to be disturbed. He knew anyway, no one ever left for good, it was just until next time. And we were all coming back, we needed it for ourselves... well that's what it had always felt like. Something was different this morning though, something about wallowing in the pit that we had made for ourselves didn't seem so glorious and appealing to me on that hazy day in the suburbs. I had come back from overseas, and something just didn't feel right any more. I felt like I wanted to purge my system, the thoughts hadn't organized themselves in my head yet though. All I knew was it was time to get moving.

I would come back, of course, many more times. And many more times I would wake up in the same situation, but I was only there to visit after this day, never to take part. From the moment I walked out of the front door to Neverland on that briskly cold Monday morning and stepped into the world, I would be merely a passenger on the ride I had helped to create. Never again to be lost in the high-speed blur of the night, caught up in the drug scene. I remember the cold and the ice on my skin. I remember taking deep breaths of fresh air that burned my lungs and ate at the tips of my fingers. That was the day I woke up.

Peace, Taco.

My New Room

I'm sitting at my computer right now in a black, fold-up chair that I stole from the back yard and wiped clean with the new(ish) towel I bought from the Salvos yesterday for like three dollars or some shit. My computer is sitting on top of one of my two speakers – also purchased from the Salvos, but the Adelaide one this time... the pair cost four bucks (YES!!). I've got my copy of George Orwell's 1984 open to my right and the left set of pages are held open with a peg that is fastened to a hard-cover children's book that I brought to Melbourne for this very purpose. I was typing it out before and have been every now and then since March, I find it really helps me clear my mind to completely fill my brain with someone else's thoughts... granted I got the idea from the Hunter S. Thompson documentary where it says that he typed out The Great Gatsby a bunch of times, but I like to think that I've found merit in the activity other than imitation of my literary idol.

On the floor, further to my right past the already burgeoning mess of cables plugged into a five socket powerboard that I'm sure Dad is pissed about me having (even though I know for a fact that he would have no use for it back home... motherfucker doesn't even own a cellular telephone-machine) is my second monitor. It's a 17inch flatscreen that I bought for three-hundred badboys when I was like fifteen or some shit. In the corner are some sheets that will never be used because really I have never understood the usefulness of sheets. Like yeah sure I get the ones that you cover your mattress with, and we'll get to my bedding situation later, but the other ones... that thin layer of superfluous cotton that is supposed to line the people-sandwich between person and quilt cover... they are bullshit. If someone is using those sheets then they are clearly too afraid of something.

Past that along the wall to my right are a few books including the English-Spanish dictionary given to my upon my departure from Bolivia in February by my formerly estranged, now slightly-less-estranged ex-lady Melanie. She wrote a nice note in it for me when we left and I plan on holding on to that guy because, as it says in 'Everyone Has the Right to Wear Sunscreen': “keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.” There are no bank statements in this room... you can do that shit online now. Then more books and a fat pile of clothes, most of which I don't really like any more but I know will eventually be worn out of sheer laziness and aversion to trips to the laundromat. I only have one laundry bag and while it is a hefty piece of bagery, I really can't see myself making that trip any more than once a fortnight... that's fine, I needed to buy new socks and underpants anyway. (On that note, just quickly, the list of stuff that I lost that I ended up losing to the hostel tax grew by three pairs of socks, two undies, and another tube of toothpaste along with countless food items in the final weeks... I've come to terms with the fact that those losses are largely my own fault)

Behind me, after the door and the appropriate amount of empty floor-space to account for that, are my shoes, and some of Phil's shit that he left here like a the lowly drifter that he is – also mate your jacket is hanging on my door, come get it back or I will spit in the pockets. Then there's my bed; a single mattress with the fitted sheet-cover ON (ladies) and five pillows arranged in the optimum arrangement to avoid floor-touchies and the dreaded midnight head-roll. (trust me, I've done tests) Now we're on the wall to my left, just over my left shoulder and if you have a good ability to spatially visualise what I'm writing about you will have noticed (do the sums guys, it all adds up **gasp**) that my bed is on an angle with the wall and actually forms a nice little right-angled triangle between the short end and the two sides of the corner over my left shoulder for those of you playing at home. There's my big bag – the one with the 'Troop 712' tag still on from my heady junior days at the Australian Jamboree – and a few hoodies and shoes and then directly to my left are the sheets that will, god and Hubbard willing, be going on my queen size bed when it arrives from Adelaide. (it's on the list, you can't rush art, dickhead)

Finally, the most important item in this room, and the one that has allowed me to begin reclaiming my sense of normalcy and begin to make this bare, languid pit my new home: my Dad's old stereo amp. He told me that it didn't work when I brought home the two speakers from the Salvos a few months ago in Adelaide but I took it out of the shed in Naldera Street and plugged it in anyway and, well long story short... it did. It works fine mate, thank you nineteen-eighties. This badboy has already done about ten solid hours of work in the five days that I've been living here... actually make that twenty... and don't you people let anyone say that I let a hard slog go unappreciated. On top of that are my wallet, keys, and oh yeah to my right my phone is on charge. Piece of shit is always on charge. Feels like my life is on charge every time I walk into a room and I see a power point to plug that bastard tool into. Okay... time to stop, I think things are about to get a little too serious.

Peace, Taco.

(29/10/12 EDIT: For the sequel to this post, click here)

Still Boring Things

It's been a big week for your olde boy Tuck this week, no word of a lie. Just a quick thought before we dive into the serious shit though; I've been considering how much of a funny funny thing it would be to open comedy spots, or indeed this post, with the greeting, “good evening ladies and people”. Do you GET IT? Fuck yeah you do. The kicker here – and I've italicized for those of you still struggling – is that the classic 'ladies and gentleman' has been ever-so-slightly changed so that the greeting implies that 'ladies' aren't people. It's a little bit sexist, and fun for all the family really. Just a cheeky poke in the ribs for all of you who had let your guard down... IT'S STILL ME MOTHERFUCKERS... anyway, that's neither here nor there...

Three days ago I moved into my new place and two days ago that new place was the scene of a terrible fire-storm crunk session the likes of which will never be repeated in this or any other dimension. Next weekend will probably end up pretty raucous too though.... eeeh. But other than being kept up through to lunchtime by a bunch of lecherous party fiends and a man wearing a cold war gas-mask brandishing a knife, this place is pretty near tranquil. My room is severely lacking in furniture and a bit heavy on the clothes-on-floor aesthetic, but we'll get there Jimmy. We'll get there one day.

Rachel – my pretty girlie girl – left for her adventure to the foreign, depression-stricken lands of Europe on Tuesday which fairly sucks dongs and I've been kind of coping ok I guess. Frantic emails have been flying across the world in both directions but it really does suck that she's gone for pretty much the whole summer. Pretty much. Pretty certain. I saw her friends today at the Worker's pub for the regular Monday morning hang, and kept half expecting her to turn around a corner... anyway, fuck that sepia dream, I'm doing alright. And I know that crazy bitch is going to rock bells over in Europe and I'm going to be hearing all about it so there's not too much wrong with that...

I don't have much to say here again, but I still want to keep y'all (all two of you) filled in and interested in how things are moving along over in Melbourne. Well they're moving along pretty well, donchaknow. I promise tomorrow I'll sit down and write a story on here, because these mundane status updates are barely even interesting enough to hold MY attention, how can I expect them to hold yours? Tomorrow I'll write a story, I promise it'll be good.

Peace, Taco.

Make Me Angry

So it's looking like I'm going to be moving in with Brodie and Desh in the next week or two as Tim moves out of the Richmond place and in to his own sex-nest (my words, not his) with his lovely lady-friend Lauren. Logistics for this move will be tricky and Ill be recruiting my main main Philly P for transport duties when he drives down from Adelaide next week, hopefully with my queen-size mattress fixed semi-securely to the roof of his car. Bond is only seven-hundred-and-something dong so that shouldn't be a massively stressful ordeal, and seeing as rent is taken out monthly by direct debit I'll just have to make sure that my bank accounts are set up nicely so that more than enough is sent to my net account each week so I can't get at it with my evil plastic money funnels. I'm definitely looking forward to being out of this hostel and into a room of my own where I can crank beats and kill the light at any hour I desire, although I will miss the communal feel of this place and plan to come back every now and then to kick it with the few friends that remain... god damn it I feel really boring today, is this really all I have to say? 'really' twice in one sentence... I can't even string a sentence together. AGAIN? REALLY TACO? REALLY?

Fuck, should I get fired up about something? Uuuugh... This morning at knock-offs after work conversation turned to the now-recurrent theme of government and civil rights and I must say the fact that this is becoming a regular topic is both scary and exciting. Exciting because it's nice to talk with people about the shit that gets me really revved up and ready to debate, but scary because I know, before even entering into the discussion, that my frequently held position as devil's-advocate may not sit nicely with my work-mates, including managers and owners of the venue. Nevertheless, when we started talking about minority rights and the three other people sitting at the bar all begun the ritualized back-slapping that is common to people who are prepared only to energetically agree with eachother and sit back in comfortable chairs while the world's problems solve themselves, I could see exactly where things were headed. I raised the point that while affirmative action and quotas may hold a part of the solution to problems of, specifically, gender inequality, their implementation could conceivably, and from experience, does, cause resentment and feelings of tokenism among the non-minority groups. I'm not claiming to have a better solution here, but I would rather be a part of a debate where unfinished ideas are fleshed out and considered openly than sit back as one side's unfinished ideas are presented as though they are complete and uncontested, and then accepted as truth.

God damn it, still not really getting riled up here am I... What is wrong with me today? I don't feel blurry or anything, although Remi, my French room-mate, did just ask if I was hungover today, so maybe I am a bit worse-for-wear this morning (7:13pm) than I thought? I'd start on another topic here for the sake of attaining the magical number of three different ideas for this blog, but I really don't see the need... or have the impetus or energy. Yesterday Rachel and I went to Alex's new place in Coburg where they had bands playing in their basement and a fire going in the back yard. The place is fucking enormous and promises an amazing summer of backyard parties and lazy Sunday afternoons... but I'm finding it hard to gather up the furious excitement that I know that place deserves right now, so even with this hot at hand, I'm going to leave you guys waiting. I'll tell you about it next week.

Feeling half-faded –
sad, unenthusiastic.

That's me, signing off.

Peace, Taco.

No Sleep

It seems unlikely that I've lived for so long... I just don't remember ever existing through the near-infinite series of moments like this one right now – when they are noticed, they seem to stretch on forever. When you look at the clock and watch the second hand snap between one second increments it feels like time is everlasting. Focusing on the actual passing of seconds, minutes, hours... it can be easy to forget that there are only a certain number of them left. Every waking moment is precious and should be savoured like this... but then again, if we spend time savouring moments like fragile winter flowers, then they too will be wasted, for to sit and notice every moment from now until forever, is to sit and do nothing. All this time, but still never enough.

I never sleep, cos sleep is the cousin of death.

Peace, Taco.