Thursday 27 September 2007

Who dares to speak of Love

Relationships are like dirty laundry. They shouldn’t be aired in public. And yet that’s where most of the drama seems to be. I reckon most people try to break up in public to stop the other person from making a scene. Yet that’s exactly what they will do. I got the tram on Thursday night and a young couple sat down beside me. He was dapper in a perfectly tailored dress suit and shoes that were so shiny you could direct the three wise men by them.

He walked three paces in front of his partner who was clothed in the sort of cocktail dress that would fit into a cocktail glass. They looked like they’d just come from the Oscars or some equivalent awards ceremony. By the expressions on their faces it was clear that they hadn’t won. They sat down and stared directly ahead as if transfixed by a magic lantern. After several uncomfortable minutes (particularly for me) he said something. She immediately turned away from him and stared out the window into the inky darkness. It seemed like one of those melodramatic movie moments, the sort where he suddenly utters the phrase she’s been longing to hear and she turns tearfully and hugs him in a passionate embrace. But this was the weak, washy way of true tragedy and she held her gaze into the comforting night.

Eventually their stop came along and the uncomfortable silence was broken. But only as far as the platform. She immediately took off in a direction he wasn’t expecting and he was left open mouthed and full of uncertainty. You could tell he wanted to chase after her but was extremely conscious of the tram load of passengers that he now had for an audience. She was also conscious of that audience but was determined to play up to them. She walked past the tram window, her head held high in the glow of the lights and her face a mixture of hurt and self satisfaction. It was clear that whatever had gone on, she was the winner. And if he thought he was having the last word in the argument, he was probably only having the first one in the row they would have the next day.

I thought of them on Saturday morning as I tucked into a rugby consolation breakfast. I’d dragged myself out of bed early to watch Ireland play France and after the middle class tossers had let the country down again I thought I deserved one of the specials that Tracy comes up with in her café round the corner. I was tucking into my new favourite of scrambled eggs on toast with avocado and mushroom, when Trent and Sharon wedged themselves in beside me. Couples in cafes on Saturday mornings fall into two categories. They are either long term partners or people who’ve just slept with each other for the first time. Trent and Sharon certainly fitted into the latter category. The long termers generally pick up the weekend paper on the way in, split it so that he gets the sport and she gets the fashion and then disappear behind the papers to eat their breakfast in total silence, save the occasional burp and grunt. The newbies like Trent and Sharon will giggle nervously and tease out information about each other that they can’t remember from their drunken exertions the night before.

Trent seemed to have her eating out of the palm of his hand until he made a fatal mistake. She was in mid sentence when his phone rang. He put up one finger as if to say “Stop, somebody more important than you wants to talk to me.” Even though at that point, he had no idea who that other person was. He shouted into the phone like he’d forgotten that electronic impulses carry your voice. In fairness he imparted the minimum information to his caller, that he was indeed very fine and more importantly was having breakfast with a woman. When he hung up, she was waiting to pounce. “Don’t answer your phone when I’m talking to you”. His face was a mass of confusion. He didn’t know her well enough to judge if she was joking. A second later the look on her face confirmed that she wasn’t. He floundered desperately, but it was clear that he was a man in a hole who possessed only a shovel. He did his best to apologise, but it was too late. The 24 hours of spade-work he had just put in had been ruined by one careless moment. As though putting the last card on top had caused the whole house to tumble.

She recognised that she’d been a little tough and tried to soften the blow. But her words were patronising and hollow and he knew it. They made their exits shortly afterwards, with half hearted commitment to call each other. But the moment was gone and even if they go out with each other for the next ten years, they will never recover the electricity and innocence they had before that phone rang.

After I’d got over the feeling that I must have the sort of face that people feel comfortable breaking up in front of, I got to thinking about the fragility of relationships and unfortunately that’s how most of them work out. If we have 100 of them in our lives, 99 will end in heartbreak and the final one in death. But as Professor Levy said in Crimes and Misdemeanours, “it is only we, with our capacity to love that give meaning to the indifferent universe. Most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even try to find joy from simple things, like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more.”

Trent and the dress suit guy will no doubt be back looking for love this weekend. I think I’ll join them and not worry about melodramatic scenes on railway platforms. For even on trams, the journey is often better than the destination.

Tuesday 18 September 2007

Scenes from the St Kilda Tram

I’ve heard St. Kilda being described as the Blackpool of the south. This is a little unfair as the sun often shines in St. Kilda and I haven’t seen busloads of factory workers with “kiss me quick” hats. It does have a Luna Park however, a ramshackle collection of roller coasters and bumper cars rides. But that makes it feel like Coney Island just after the war. The sort of place that Tony Soprano goes to in dream sequences and Woody Allen uses to show the loss of innocence. So each time I pass it, I feel like I’m either going to be whacked or find myself felling nostalgic for a time that never once.

Besides, I’ve never actually seen anyone on the roller coaster.

The rest of St Kilda is made up of funky little restaurants that sell gluten free food and bars that are full at 11am. Because of this, St Kilda attracts more than its fair share of back-packers, winos, new age hippies and the occasional International banker like myself. You can find all these on the St Kilda tram, a fine piece of public transport that runs from the City to the beach every 10 minutes or so. I broke my Ipod last week, (sorry Andrew!) so I’ve been reduced to eavesdropping on other people’s conversations and living my life vicariously through them.

It seems that every tram has to include one example of the lesser-spotted Australian tramp. This migratory species is generally healthier than its European cousin and in the winter months at least, they display a fine plumage, usually in the form of a bushy white beard and riotous hair. For some reason, these tramps are usually sober and sit quietly without muttering arguments against the inequities of the world. However, even without the beard you can spot them easily by the four empty seats either side of them.

At weekends, the smartly dressed middle-aged tourists and scruffy back packers dominate the tram. The back packers could blend in with the hippy locals were it not for well-thumbed copies of Lonely Planet peeking inquisitively from their bags. They can often be found gabbling excitably into mobile phones in various European tongues. What they are saying is anyone’s guess, but the smile that accompanies “I met an Aussie girl last night and went back to her place”, is the same in any language.

The Irish of course can be found in any situation where the people of the world meet, be it on the new bus service from London to Sydney or the unfortunate plane crash in Phuket. I reckon that when Sherpa Tensing recounted the tale of his climb to the summit of Mount Everest, he neglected to mention that there was already two Irish guys there brewing a cuppa and complaining about how you can’t find Barry’s Tea in Nepal. So on every tram I’ve been on to date, I’ve heard Irish accents or simply spotted a big paddy head with pale as milk bottle skin and eyes that sparkle like a Caribbean lagoon. The old song about “when Irish eyes are smiling” is not wrong; you really can spot Irish people abroad by their eyes, although the St Vincent’s GAA club fleeces are normally a giveaway too. The modern Irish traveler is a confident soul, far removed from the “tip your hat” sort of the 1950’s. I sat beside a bunch of these on the tram yesterday. One of them was wearing a t-shirt that boasted “The Irish Abroad, building the rest of the World”. It was a big statement, although by the size of him, he looked strong enough to be doing it on his own.

They spoke with a kaleidoscope of accents, which suggested they were college friends who had come together for their big year out. They obviously hadn’t been here long though as their eyes lit up as we rounded the corner onto the esplanade and the sea opened up in front of us. Groups of guys display a similar dynamic. The quest to be the alpha male. In this group it was difficult to spot. You had the talker, who had an opinion everything, usually what he had just said as no-one else could get a word in. He spent most of the trip talking about some obscure video game and the best way to kill people to ensure maximum points (a knife through the rib cage from behind apparently). Not the sort of conversation you want to come in on half way through.

Then you had the tall silent guy who didn’t even smile at the talker’s occasional attempts at humour. It was hard to decide if he was cool or simply vacant. Maybe it’s the same thing. The third guy was a giggler, desperate to ingratiate himself with everyone and in the process alienating all.

It took me a while to realise it but the alpha male was clearly the fourth guy. He had smiled occasionally at the inane conversation of the talker, all the better to soften him up before he moved in for the kill. The talker was just moving into what seemed like the 3rd hour of his discussion on the unfairness of how you only got three lives in whatever blood soaked gore-fest he was recently playing.

The fourth guy interrupted with some enthusiasm to say, “yeah, wouldn’t it be better if a shot in your leg meant that you couldn’t use two fingers in your right hand, which means you only have 60% pressure on your trigger hand, so the bullets would travel 40% slower and the baddies had more chance to escape. But heh, you’d save a life”. The talker stared at him for a second before he realised he had been gazumped. The only way to deal with somebody talking complete shite is to answer it with bigger shite.


The rest of the trip was quiet. That’s what alpha males do.

Wednesday 12 September 2007

Snow in September

It’s best to contemplate the philosophy of skiing when you are lying on your backside in the snow, legs akimbo and your skis pointing vertically in some strange semaphore formation. I found myself in such a position on Saturday morning on the slopes of Mount Buller. I was wondering what is this fascination we have with sliding down mountains while trying to get up from the crumpled mess I found myself in.

I was at the bottom of a T-Bar lift, a piece of machinery with which I share a checkered past. I think the last time we locked horns was in the early 90’s when Jella and myself were taking on the Austrian Alps. After 5 days tuition from the lovely Inge, we felt confident enough to tackle the beast that was the mountain overlooking the little village in which we stayed. Our challenge all week was to ride to the top of the mountain and then ski non-stop to the bottom where a welcoming Gluwein awaited us.

The last stage of the trip involved riding a T-Bar, but we were gung-ho at this stage and would have ridden an elk to the top if that were required. For those unfamiliar with this hideous contraption, it involves having a piece of metal unceremoniously wedged under your posterior, which then drags you up the mountain. In Austria, Jella and myself decided to go halves on a T-Bar, so that we could share our boasts about the fantastic skiers we had become. We made it to within a couple of yards of the summit when the incline suddenly steepened. Our new found confidence ebbed away like spring snow and we panicked. We both gripped the central bar and this brought our momentum towards the centre. Suddenly, there was shuddering jolt as our skis crossed and we looked like drowning men clinging to a life raft.

For a few seconds, we held onto each other in a desperate quest for balance. Then our second ski crossed and I was faced with a damning realisation. It was going to be a dog eat dog situation and it was no fun being a poodle. I let go of Jella’s arm and he fell backwards grasping for air onto the icy trail. One of his skis came loose and it scuttled off into the bushes like a frightened deer. In the meantime, Jella began to slide back from whence he came.

I managed to cling on and risked one guilty look backwards. Jella had just taken out the couple on the T-Bar behind us and was continuing his decent like an accelerating bowling ball, scuttling all that came before him. I could see the look of terror on their faces as they could but watch as a screaming Irishman came hurtling towards them. He took out about 12 couples before he managed to direct his momentum into the ditch. It was a scene that Homer Simpson would have been proud of. In the meantime, I sailed sheepishly to the top and began the decent alone.

An hour later, I was tucking into my 3rd Gluwein when Jella appeared looking like somebody who had just spent 3 years making it back from the American Civil War. He had walked down the mountain and then organised a search party for his missing ski. They found it as dusk was falling and the sun was throwing fantastic colours across the snow. Forensic tests would later discover that it was covered in the blood of 10 Germans and a mountain goat. They still talk about that day in Austria in the same hushed tones they invoke when discussing the day the Russians appeared in the valley in 1945.

On Saturday last, fate and the T-Bar caught up with me. I had knocked off a couple of easy runs and my confidence was high. The sun was up and the sky was a brilliant blue. I was in the process of musing on how wonderful everything was, when I made it to the front of the queue. I’d been using chairlifts all morning, so I had become used to sitting down and letting the machinery do all the hard work. Somehow when it was my turn I switched off. Maybe I thought it was a chairlift or maybe I’m just dumb. Anyhow, I sat down when I should have stood and three seconds and some desperately unballetic maneuvers later, I was lying in a heap in the snow while being giggled at by the forty Aussie teenagers waiting in the queue. The final indignity arrived two seconds later when the next T-Bar whacked me on the back of the head.

Having dusted myself off and searched among the slushy snow for my dignity, I gripped tightly to the bar and contemplated the point of all this. The trip up the mountain is long and arduous. You get up at the crack of dawn and put on more kit than an American football player. You carry heavy skis in clunky boots uphill to lifts. You queue for 20 minutes to get a lift to the top of a run that takes 4 minutes to descend and you sweat in your 4 layers of clothing in the sun and freeze in the shade.

Maybe we do it because mountains provide a challenge by just being there. Maybe it’s all about the post snow bath and the feeling of accomplishment that you’ve pushed your body to limits you didn’t know possible and conquered the pull of gravity in the process. Or maybe it’s because of the fresh air, the view and that sense of freedom you get when it finally clicks and it no longer becomes a battle between you and the mountain. Then you feel part of the mountain and your descent becomes an effortless and graceful glide.

And if none of that works, there is always the après-ski party and the opportunity to bore everyone when you get back to work on Monday.

Wednesday 5 September 2007

Reach your hand for the crescent moon

Reach your hand for the crescent moon, take hold of it by the hollow.
If it sits in the palm of your left, then the moon will be fuller tomorrow.

I’ve bored enough people in Ireland over the years with that Cowboy Junkie’s lyric whenever I’ve spotted a half-moon. But it doesn’t quite work down here. Like most things, it’s the other way round. In Singapore, it appears to be the top half of the moon that goes missing when the moon is on the wane. That’s just one of the funky things that happens when you’re dancing around the equator.

22 minutes out of Singapore, heading south by south east, that’s precisely what we were doing. We reached 33,000 feet and flightpath, the on-screen map that keeps you amused while waiting for the movies and the tasteless food was showing that we were right over the equator. Although given the size of the plane on these maps in proportion to everything else, we were also over Indonesia, Malaysia and several islands inhabited only by man-eating tribesmen and Japanese soldiers who forgot to surrender in 1945.

I was on the flight back to Melbourne and the moon kept me company most of the way. I glanced out the left hand window and there it was, a wispy orange galleon tossed upon cloudy seas. For a moment, I thought it was the sun, but as it was close to midnight and half of it was missing, I quickly realised that it was in fact the most beautiful moon I’d ever seen.

Huge and throbbing, it danced among the clouds like Ginger Rogers beneath a chorus line of twinkling stars. I don’t know why I’m so fascinated by the moon. I’ve seen more than 15,000 of them after all. But like butter chicken and Guinness, you can never get enough of it. Except in Singapore of course. There was a stall near our office that sold butter chicken, rice and nan bread for $5 (about 2.5 euro). Due to my unfortunate combination of laziness and in adventure, I rarely made it past this stall in 3 weeks. By the time I left Singapore, I had enough butter and cream in my arteries to earn a cardiologist a new Porsche.

Guinness, alas, lived up to its reputation of worsening the further you get from St James Gate. One sip in Singapore’s foremost kitsch and formulated Irish pub was enough for me.

That pub however, did give me my biggest chuckle of the trip. An Irish guy was talking to a local at the bar about their favorite horror movies. “Did you see Saw” said the local. “I did”, said the Irishman “and I saw Saw two too”. I guess you had to be there.

On the trip back I realised that I must get out to movies more, because you can’t depend of in-flight entertainment for your cinematic stimulation. Even these days, when business class offers 81 interactive choices, the curse of the lowest common denominator still strikes home. If you’ve seen one Will Farrell movie, you’ve seen approximately one too many. And the summer block buster action movies lose some of their luster when projected onto a six inch screen. It makes me realise how crazy the world has become when people think that the height of technical advancement is the ability to watch movies on a mobile phone.

The Arts section did at least give me the opportunity to massage my self-inflated ego. I dipped into “Betty Blue” for a few minutes until I remembered the Peep Show’s assessment of it as “film about sex and suicide that made an entire generation of teenage boys fancy mentally deranged girls”. Thankfully the flight back was only six and half hours, a mere hop, skip and jump in this part of the world. So a ludicrously implausible Anthony Hopkins vehicle got me through the night.

I got back to Melbourne and put my jacket on for the first time in three weeks. Heat is all very well, but there’s a certain pleasure in raising your collar to the unexpected bite of an early morning chill. The taxi drove through deserted Sunday morning streets with only the litter from revelers on Saturday night for company. The driver talked about footy and how Carlton were “tanking it” (Aussie for deliberately throwing games). He played Arabic music and spoke with a middle eastern Aussie accent that involved saying mate at the end of every sentence. More worryingly he appeared to have been awake as long as I had, as he swerved all over the road like a drunken sailor.

It was late and I was tired, so I said nothing except some nonsense about the weather. We turned the corner onto St Kilda Esplanade. The sea bobbed like a giddy child watched over by a motherly moon. I looked up and noticed that its left hand side was missing, so the moon was on the wane. But it was there, like it has always been there. One constant in a sea of change. And as a cloud passed across its tip, it seemed to wink and say “Welcome Home”.

At 5am, I can get whimsical like that. But a twelve hour sleep sorted me out and I’m back to being as bitter and cynical as ever.