Garrett Bound

The talk of politicians
The sentences of cynics
…They’re all talking shit to me.
- ‘Brave Faces’, Midnight Oil. 1981.


Ladies and Gentleman, where the hell is Peter Garrett?
Once the inspirational vocal infusion of fire and peace loving vitriol, the chrome domed rock enigma appears to have been caught in the dirty, perilous vortex of party politics. Wedged between rock n roll and a hard place, Garrett gravitated towards the latter; the filthy, frustrating, grandstand of absurdity where people in suits yank the rusty strings that pull and spin the institutional cogs of this crazy thing called Democracy. I just don’t know if he’s going to get out alive.

I’m not normally the type to fall for the human want to glorify their own kind and spin tales of the ‘hero’. Heroes are the protagonists of myth and myths are but stories lullabyed to help us form some semblance of meaning as to why we are such strangers in a very strange, infinite land. However, if there was ever someone in public life that I was forced to elevate to a pedestal of adulation, then Oils-era Garrett is probably the closest thing to it. Garrett is the seminal pub rock Prometheus who stole fire from the political gods of his day. Yet Prometheus Garrett now appears to be suffering a comparable fate to that of his ancient Greek counterpart.

As president of the Australian Conservation Foundation in the 80’s, Garrett assisted in campaigning with fury against the construction of Tasmania’s Franklin Dam. The Unions, the media and the High Court all backed the project, yet after 18 months and $67 million spent, the dam was dropped – testament to what is possible with tenacious demonstration and protest. Today, Tassie faces a new Franklin. The $2 billion Gunns Mill in the Tamar valley is set to go ahead, thanks to predictable bi-partisan support from the Canberra Labiberal party. The once anti-Franklin campaigner Garrett has said that he personally has no problem with the Mill – a project set to destroy 2000 square kilometres of native forest over the next quarter century whilst dumping 64,000 tonnes of toxic effluent into the Bass Strait every day of operation. I cannot believe that this is the real PG speaking.

Oh get down, getting down, so much money in the ground
For the people who don't deserve it now
It's a circus we're the clowns as the giant ones disown
Every bit of something we call home
“Stand in Line’ - Midnight Oil. 1971.

Garrett totally ripped apart every stage that Midnight Oil graced, night in, night out for a generation of twenty five solid years. He espoused transcendent visions of ideal that most humanitarian minded people could resonate with and get behind. If ever there was a musical entity that could wake the dormant rebellion lurking in an otherwise unsuspecting member of the Australian populace – rat bogan or otherwise - then Midnight Oil, with PG at the forefront were certainly the ones with the power and juice to do it. Garrett and the Oils took fire from the Gods and fuelled every person who came to see them.

I miss the Garrett of old; the cro-magnon browed, freakishly unco, whirling dervish of chugging 80’s rock. I miss the soapbox diatribes, his poor sense of fashion, his brutal on- stage assertions telling Malcolm Fraser to “get fucked”. I miss his venomous critique of the political wankerdom that he now finds himself immersed in. I know that I am never going to hear the words “US Forces give the nod: It’s a setback for your country” sung, screamed or even uttered from his mouth again. And considering I’ve never actually seen the Oils perform live, I can tell you that’s more of a downer than Alexander is.

Yet I maintain the hope that this initial period of lost credibility might be a means to an end. After pinching the fire from Zeus, Prometheus was chained to a rock as punishment whilst, on a daily basis, a belligerent eagle consumed his regenerative liver. Garrett is currently chained to party politics, with a belligerent ‘big L’ liberal eagle swallowing his credibility on a daily basis. But eventually Prometheus was freed from those chains by Heracles, who shot the well fed eagle to death in a great big livery mess. If Garrett can hold out until November 24, with hope and luck the electorate of Heracles will blow away Garrett’s smug conga dancing eagle to death and the bespectacled rodent riding on its wings. As for the chains…well, party politics aint likely to change anytime soon. But at least that bloody eagle will be gone.

Then the party's over, it's a free-for-all
I'm under the table, I got my foot in the door
- Naked Flame. Midnight Oil. 1979

Fuzzy Muff

I can’t talk for long…
It’s too risky. I can’t take any chances at the moment. None whatsoever, Bucko. So just back off. BACK OFF fool!. I’m layin low…blinds are shut, eyes are peering clandestine through parted slats, and it’s just me now…me and me alone.
The fuzz are on my tail. The fuzzy muff. The boys and girls in blue. The heat. The man. The purveyors of pork produce. I’m, layin low, y’see; layin low and shelving out a little downtime before my next move.

Last night I celebrated the commencement of my long weekend via the usual means – a night of good times, laughter, and customary swathe of alcohol. It was a brilliant night; I caught up with old work mates that I hadn’t seen in a good three years; folks I’d come to know through a past foray into fashion retail during my much heralded Surf Dive N’ Ski tenure (aka Muff Dive n Ski/Surf Divinsky).We kicked on and on until the wee hours, before the better part of Melbourne city was left painted red. As reality and exhaustion hit, my subconscious mind delivered a message that it was high time for me to get the hell out of whatever iniquitous den I’d found myself in. Some place called Ping Pong – a vast, split level meat market where everyone seemed at least a decade younger than me and the cohort I was travelling with. We drank tequila and showed the youngsters a thing or two about the art of dance. I trundled up Flinders Lane from William to Swanston, stopping briefly by my place of work to have a bollocked conversation with the hostel Night Porter.

I trundled up along Swanston street, contemplating a sobering walk home, but instead opted for a lift, eventually hailing down a yellow sucker after a pitiful attempt at footing it back to Fitzroy. I made it to Lonsdale St and that was enough.
The cab ride was nothing unusual, nor anything special. My Indian driver seemed friendly enough. I mumbled the acceptable array of sparkling cab repartee, ‘how was your night?’, ‘been busy?’, ‘anyone ralphed in your cab tonight?’, etc, etc…I’m always thinking of ways to expand drunken cab comminique but I seem to fall back on the regular horseshit. To be frank, the cabbie was probably doing just fine without my inane banter and bloated verbal runoff.

We pulled up a few cars down from my house, and suddenly the night took a very unexpected turn.

My vision was inundated with the luminous flood of flashing red and blue. We were surrounded by police. With a clear, if not hazy conscience, I wished my cabbie well and handed him some cash – the conviction crossed my mind that he was in the deep end and had been smuggling automatic weapons mid-shift, if not operating an unliscenced vehicle or stealing candy from children.
It wasn’t to be the case.

Enter Cam Hassard – public enemy number one.

The cabbie got out of there quick smart with my 10 spondoolies, delivering ‘Hassard: Renegade’ into a swarm of hardline Johnny Ossifers. I was surrounded. Five blokes, one chick; in not one, not two, but THREE police vehicles. Evidently some shit was up; otherwise it had been a very, very quiet night for our local constabulary. I remember thinking it was a nice touch that they’d covered the vehicular spectrum quite efficiently – meeting me in one divvy van, one squad car, and one unmarked blue holden; just to cover their bases.

I was confronted by fuzz.
“What seems to be the problem?”, I asked.
“You tell me”, replied a dumpy cop sporting a thick molester moustache.
It’s funny how you talk to cops like they do in the movies. I could have just as easily retorted, “How the bloody hell are ya China, what’s the craic!?”
It felt as if was in the process of being ‘Punk’d’ and I wondered who was responsible.

Because I failed to note down anyone’s real name, and for the sake of clarity in the following reel of events, this first ossifer’s name shall from here on be ‘Dumpy Moe’. Evidently it was his turn at assuming the lead role in this particular drama, his moment to shine amongst his admiring peers

A second unsavoury protagonist in yellow reflective vest arked up in between Dumpy Moe’s textbook diatribe. This scallywag will be referred to as ‘Vesticles’.
“Do you think it’s a good idea to let police car tyres down!”, Vesticles belched.
Vesticles wanted answers damn it, and stat! Inhaling a stick of nicotine, the cancerous drug seemed to supply Vesticles with confidence to project his fearful timbre with profound assertiveness. I reasoned that he must have taken up the habit in order to quell the disdain at how bald he’d become over the years; how unattractive he had been to the opposite sex for the majority of his life.
Chang on, Vesticles, I summoned. Inhale that glory stick and give me your worst!

The interrogation continued. Dumpy Moe and Vesticles hogged the limelight whilst another bald cop took down my name and address with the fervour and nonachalance of an overworked Italian waiter at Marios. Later I was asked to pose for a photo.

Dumpy Moe’s ego had not been checked at the door and oozed like pus, blindingly, from every pore in his moustachioed stump of a body.

For those who came in late;
‘our hero has been lured into a concentrated sting from the establishment by a non-conversational Indian cab driver; allegedly capping off an enjoyable, legal evening with a good ol’ fashioned spate of squad car tyre slashings and was now being accused of the aforementioned criminal action on the strength of a ubiquitous(and unfailing) Big Brother surveillance system as well as sworn testimony of at least three reliable eyewitnesses. Water tight.

Ahhh. The slashing of cop tyres. Nothing really goes down as smooth. Just keep that bottle o’ Ballantynes and your Johnny Black aged a dozen years back on the shelf thanks - I’m gunna head out n’ slash me some black pig rubber. The only nightcap in my book.


Dumpy and Vesticles walked back to their divvy van and conversed amongst their brethren. I stood at the centre of everything, this bizarre scene. I smiled wryly at the lone female cop standing on the footpath, half believing that I had indeed run amok along Flinders Lane with a broad, sharpened knife. She smiled back. I sensed her knowledge that they had come all this way for the wrong guy.

Minutes passed, and finally Dumpy returned. But for a brief, though rather telling, sideglance Dumpy and I locked eyeballs as he reeled off his man talk. The pus of his ego bubbled and dripped; Vesticles had finished his cigarette and drilled me once again about how ‘letting down police car tyres is not on, and highly dangerous’. Thank God for his pep talk. Six years of private school education, seven years since, and somehow this fundamental tenet of life knowledge had slid past my otherwise solid elementary morality. Thankyou Vesticles. For the love of God, thankyou for this life lesson.
Vesticles, you truly are a mammoth douche.

Dumpy Moe concluded the evening’s proceedings with a stiff diatribe regarding the pressing of charges, should the evidence conclude that I was indeed the alleged criminal protagonist. No doubt the description filed went something like ‘Male, not short, kinda hairy…average at taxi conversation’. Dumpy’s diatribe was the verbal equivalent of a man whipping his regrettably tiny appendage about in a victorious, circular motion; unable to concede any ground; nor the notion that such disproportionate resources had been wrongly dispatched in order to sting and intercept an innocent, drunken renegade. You could smell the justice; potent and thick, like a cab driver’s armpit.

So, people, that’s why I’m layin’ low. The fuzzy muff are on my tail and I can’t afford to take any chances. I’m shacking up in this little room and planning my next move. At least now I’m armed with some fresh material to throw at the next cab driver. And if that doesn't go smoothly, i'll probably just slash his tires.