"It's Australian version of 'The People want an end to the regime'," said photographer and Alcoholic's Guide to Modern Life Melbourne correspondent Conehead the Barbituate of this banner at the Melbourne March in March rally against Tony Abbott's Reign of Terror.
Tens of thousands marched around the country over the weekend in many cities against the racist, anti-poor, anti-worker, planet-hating, corporate giant loving misogynist prick who rules this godforsaken fucking land. You can read a national round up of it all here, filled with like videos and shit, and see a fucking shitload of photos here.
FUCK YOU ABBOTT -- these large and widespread actions are true testimony to the power of hate.
Well, after Conehead the Barbituate's first report, which deconstucted the signficance of airports in the degeneration of late monopoly capitailsm (I think that was his point), the international man of mystery logged his latest observations in the comment section of that post.
I feel it is only proper to post the comments in full here, if only because it gives my blog content without me having to do any of the hard fucking work of writing (which I find a fucking annoying distraction from beer).
Surprisingly, Conehead confirms the rumour he has been in Western Sahara. Which, for the record, has been occupied by Morocco since 1975, despite a 1991 UN deal for a referendum on self-determination. Not that stops Australian capitalists from buying phosphate stolen from the Saharawi people.
(Kids, don't ever say this blog is not fucking educational. Carlo Sands is a regular fucking encyclopedia.)
Conehead returns to his favourite theme of airports and, bizarrely, accuses Carlo Sands of making things up.
I post his comments below:
I'm pleased to report that I've found an airport where you can smoke cigarettes after you've gone through security: Tindouf, in one of the more remote parts of Algeria, in the middle of the Sahara Desert in fact.
I was happy to see not only were plenty of people lighting up inside the terminal buildings but many of them were uniformed officials. So I happily smoked the last of my fake Marlboros.
All in all, quite an atypical airport. Looks very old-world, kind of expected to see Humphrey Bogart wandering past (with a cigarette in his mouth of course.)
Going through the first security my carry-on bag was taken apart. At first I couldn't work out what they were looking for, but they then they asked "Do you have any rocks?"
And when they said "rocks" they meant rocks — this was not a code-word for drugs or anything like that — they meant stones, pebbles, boulders, that sort of thing.
They were also looking for sand.
Two things occurred to me. One was why the fuck would anyone want to put rocks in their luggage, the other was why would anyone care.
Weirdly enough, however, the dilligent security officers seemed to uncover all sorts of rocks, pebbles, stones, and sand in the bags of marathon runners, which were duly confiscated (the stones and sand not the bags).
The motivation for this attempted crime I think can be understood by the mentality of marathon runners.
They like challenges. These are the sort of people who think running 42km is not enough of a challenge so they run 42km in the Sahara Desert. They're planning one in the Arctic next year.
So obviously lugging lots of bags and suitcases around remote airports is way too unchallenging, so they fill any space in their bags with rocks and sand to make them heavier.
Why the authorities try to stop them is harder to explain.
Someone said something about them wanting to protect their natural resources, but I didn't observe any shortage of stones. And sand seemed quite plentiful: I don't think they are in much danger of running out even if they let every visiting marathon runner take as much as they want.
In case anyone is wondering what I was doing at a provincial Algerian airport with a planeload of marathon runners, the answer is pretending to be a journalist. I didn't manage to convince many people, however, except for Algerian immigrations authorities (who seem a bit unwelcoming towards journalists, not that I blame them).
It goes without saying that all the rumours Carlo posted about me are … FUCK! THERE'S A WORD LIMIT FOR POSTS!
Yes, Google can be fucking pricks. Conehead returned to his tale in a fresh comment:
It goes without saying that all the rumours Carlo posted about me are untrue, but I am interested if anyone knows of any NGOs who would be willing to sponsor some Parisian beggars to go to Australia to give workshops on entrepreneurial skills to our local beggars.
The truth is I acquired some money through entirely legitimate but thoroughly dishonorable means (inheritance) so there was nothing to do but give up my lumpen lifestyle, buy a suit, and travel the world prentending to be various things that I'm not.
To get on the plane to Tindouf, journalist seemed a better option than marathon runner. I don't think I would have even convinced the Algerian airport officials of that — for one thing they didn't find any rocks or sand in my luggage.
While I may not have made a convincing journalist I did find out about the nightlife in the local Saharawi refugee camps. Drinking tea is the most important recreational activity.
But this is not your dunk a tea-bag in boiling water sort of tea, but an elaborately made brew whose preparation involves boiling tea-leaves on a little open fire and pouring the contents from glass to glass from a great hight for hours.
The result if you wait (& its extremely impolite not to wait) is very sweet and very strong. Among Bedouin people the most impolite thing you can do is refuse anything.
Which is good news if you like very strong, sweet tea, camel meat or rare done goat's liver. The latter is given to guests at baby-namings & refusal would be particularly offensive.
Baby-namings are a popular recreational pasttime whereby new-born babies are named by lottery — potential names being represented by necklaces pulled out of a bowl of camel's milk.
Rather cool culture if you ask me. I know you're not meant to put on weight in a refugee camp but I didn't want to offend anybody.
Like anywhere, of course, there is juvenile delinquacy, and it was explained to me in one of my interviews that there was a problem with young people sitting around all day drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. This problem is being proactively dealt with through organising youth to be more socially engaged, readers will be pleased to hear.
And it should be said that smoking cigarettes in these parts certainly qualifies as substance abuse.
The only readily available cigarettes in the camps is a brand called "American Legend" which says on the packet "real American flavour".
This is a lie. The flavour, similar to glue, unmistakenly points to Chinese origin. I should know, I used to live in Footscray.
You can get a higher class of Chinese counterfeit cigarette, fake Marlboro's, if you are willing to spend a lot more money. These cost 200 dinars ($2.75 in Australian money).
Ok, thank you Conehead. You can stop being so interesting and witty now. This is Carlo Sands' blog and I don't like the competition.
Loyal readers of this blog will remember Conehead the Barbituate as a dedicated, if irregular, commentator on the posts of Carlo Sands. Conehead was also very kind to share with all of my fans his own personal cake recipe.
What my huge fan base may not realise is Conehead has come into some money through means I am really not at liberty to discuss in such a public forum (and one that is monitored so closely by 60 Minutes.)
No one quite knows where Conehead is or has been. In fact, no one really knows how the fuck he managed to catch his flight out of Sydney.
But the rumours are flying think and fast. The more reliable of them put Conehead first in Paris being chased onto a train out of there by Roma beggars who cleaned him out then tried to hit him up again after he went to an ATM — but not before Conehead was able to be infuriated by the arrogance of the French.
One story goes that even the lumpen elements in Paris have their standards and when one tried to scab a cigarette off Conehead at the Gare du Nord and Conehead offered him one of those weird black Gitane cigaettes that he couldn't wait to smoke in Paris, the guy said, “Gitanes? non!” and stomped off.
Further unconfirmed rumours put Conehead in Bonn, to his dismay and fury at being stuck in a place he is said by some to have described as the “Canberra of Europe, only more sterile”.
One of the stranger, less believable rumours suggested Conehead was flying into Western Sahara with a team of marathon runners, which would without a doubt provide for the quickest game of “spot the odd one out” in human history.
This is hard to believe, though it could be one of those prank TV shows where the presenter says “What Conehead doesn’t realise is there is no flight out of Western Sahara and he is going to have to run the marathon... Our hidden cameras will capture his effort and you can join our online poll about whether he will make the 500 metre mark before collapsing.”
I post here Conehead’s observant little sketch of airports, a masterpiece of social commentary and story-telling that begins by paraphrasing the best fucking poem ever fucking written by fucking anyone (also known as John Cooper Clarke’s “Chicken town”):
“The fucking plane is fucking late You fucking wait & fucking wait”
I post the rest below. It is important for the story to understand that there is more than one type of substance Conehead likes to chain smoke...
* * *
The worst thing is having already gone through passport control I CAN’T HAVE A FUCKING CIGARETTE
To tell the truth, I’m not really down with this passport control shit.
That's my impression of travelling. Like its fun & all that, except for the fucking passport control. And all that security shit where you have to put all your stuff like keys & money in trays and it goes through an x-ray & then because something goes beep they make you go somewhere else to get felt up or your bag rifled or whatever & you think I might need that money & keys & shit that are sitting over there in a fucking tray where any fucker could grab it.
Then you go through, the plane’s delayed, so you have to wait WITHOUT A FUCKING CIGARETTE!
Which leads to another question: as you, Carlo, observed in your gritty realist Western Sydney drama the thing you do if a bus or train is late & you want to make it come, what do you do? YOU LIGHT A FUCKING CIGARETTE!
So how can I make the plane not be any later when I can’t light cigarette because I’ve been through fucking passport control.
Whoever made up this airport procedure thing obviously hadn’t thought things through. The stupid fucker.
PS. wonder what all those comments in Chinese mean. Like why did 莊雅和莊雅和莊雅和 say practice what you preach?
* * *
Conehead then sent a second message through not long after that read:
“AHHHHHHHH! Now they've started making announcements ‘Passengers are reminded that smoking is not allowed!’
“Like they just want to rub it in! I DON’T WANT TO BE REMINDED!”
I believe Conehead eventually got his flight, presumably without too much innocent blood being shed.
I have written on Conehead the Barbituate’s woes in his ongoing struggle to kill the pain of late monopoly capitalism with the help of an illicit plant.
Well, Conehead’s troubles have worsened, he tells me, due to a somewhat uptight neighbour complaining about the smell of the smoke from his bedroom window.
If you *must* make this recipe, Carlo Sands advises you to use the non-THC variety of of the demon weed to avoid the pitfalls of a terrible addiction.
* * *
conehead the barbiturate said:
Cooking with Conehead
Ingrediants: ½kg self raising flour 125g cocoa ¾kg sugar ½kg butter ½oz Indian hemp [important for flavour] 3 cups water 4 eggs
Method: 1. mix flour, sugar & cocoa 2. chop up hemp 3. melt butter 4. cook hemp in butter on low heat till butter goes green 5. mix hemp and butter with flour, sugar & cocoa [HINT: do not strain hemp out of butter. to do so detracts from the subtle flavour.] 6. add eggs 7. mix some more 8. stick in greased baking tin and put in oven at 180°C for an hour. 9. use bamboo skewer to see if its ready. if nothing sticks to skewer take out of oven. 10. if stuff does stick to skewer, take it out of oven anyway because you can’t be fucked waiting to see how its turned out. 11. panic when liquiddy uncooked stuff in the middle starts pouring out everywhere. Try and get all the uncooked stuff back in baking tin and stick it back in oven. 12. In the process of following step 11, eat lots more than you were planning to as you stop bits of it falling on the floor. 13. get really shitfaced because you've eaten half the cake, forget how much you've eaten so you think its really strong, give small bits to your friends telling them they'll get really shitfaced [HINT: if you don't have any friends, anyone around will do]. 14. wonder why the people you've given bits to aren't as trashed as you are & seem a bit disappointed.
In my last post I highlighted my good friend Conehead the Barbiturate’s serious drug problem. Which, as Conehead has always maintained, is his dealer.
Well, it seems his experience is not unique.
The following, from Cracked.com entitled “My dealer — my anti-drug”, is so perfect an account of Conehead’s Man as to raise serious questions about the possibility Yankee potheads spying on innocent Sydneysiders.
“Darryl, if I come over and give you money for weed, are you gonna shot at my car?”. It is possible all drug dealers in the world are in fact cleverly placed state narcotics agents working quietly at the grassroots to disprove the commonly-held belief that the “war on drugs” has been a total failure.
Well, it’s tough all over that’s for sure. Those of us who seek intoxication as a means of coping with the horrors of late monopoly capitalism are not having an easy time of it.
This blog has gone out of its way to highlight and expose the crypto-prohitionist policies being pushed against drinkers.
It keeps getting worse. A recent article in the Rupert Murdoch-owned Australian proved just how difficult it is getting for drinkers. The article was entitled “Drinking at work over, bar shouting”.
Reporting on a truly shocking violation of workers’ rights, at and after work, the article begins: “A shoutafter work may be on the way out, as health authorities try to recruit big-brother bosses to curtail staff drinking habits.”
On the job
In particular the bastards are worried about drinking “on the job” and how it may be cutting into profit margins. “The bill for lost productivity through hangovers and sickies, staff turnover and early retirement due to alcohol use is calculated at $5.6 billion a year.”
This is despite the fact, I am pretty sure although I may have to look up the relevant sections, that “getting pissed at work” is recognised as a fundamental right in the International Labour Organisation’s conventions.
Even if it is not formally codified in ILO conventions, it is a fundamental aspect of the culture of Australian working people.
And attempting to deny a peoples their culture is, according many sources, a form of genocide.
In defending our right to drink and work, we are resisting genocide.
But what do the bosses care? Profits before people, yet again.
The article notes: “The report suggests that alcohol-related issues be incorporated in industrial awards, and in occupational health and safety laws.”
Yes! Damn right. It should be incorporated. But not in the way this right-wing corporate-owned paper, with its mind only at the profit margin whatever the social cost, no doubt means.
The right to drink, indeed the responsibility of the employer to provide an adequate supply of alcohol at all times, should be incorporated into industrial awards and occupational health and safety laws.
I can tell you, in my experience, sobriety is a very serious occupational health risk. You do all kinds of crazy shit sober — to say nothing of dangerous.
And the statistics are extremely worrying. The article reports that only “44 per cent of the Australian workforce drinks above the safe level recommended by the National Health and Research Council, ‘at least occasionally’.”
Only 44%! No wonder this country is in such a fucking mess.
There needs to be combination of appropriate legislation to ensure access to alcohol is available at workplaces, at the expense of the employers, and an educational campaign aimed at changing the disturbing culture of sobriety that exists.
It is about defending a way of life. Don’t let previous generations have sacrificed their livers in vain! Fight for your rights to be drunk at, and after, work!
Demon weed
But it has been brought to my attention that it is not just drinkers. In fact, it is sometimes worth remembering that we liver-abusers have it comparatively easy.
My good friend Conehead the Barbiturate made a comment on my painful post on the betrayal by Ben Cousins a couple of weeks back about the horrors of seeking pot in Sydney.
My main concern is the undeniable link between what many believe to be an innocent partaking in a relatively “soft” drug and the serious problems associated with that blight on society: swimming addiction.
Having said that, it is not automatic. Some people manage to smoke pot at a quite high rate for a relatively long period of time and never ever even enter a pool.
Certainly, I can say in all honesty that I have never seen Conehead swimming, or anywhere near a pool, or indeed — and this is the crucial question — in a pair of speedos.
So, who am I to judge?
I try and not be judgmental in these matters. Unless you refuse all intoxicants, in which case there is something quite seriously wrong with you.
As a matter of principle, I refuse to trust any individual who finds it capable of navigating the barbarism that is modern life completely and totally straight.
So I hereby highlight Conehead’s sad and frightening story of seeking access to marijuana in Sydney. A warning to all of us not to take the crypto-prohibitionist booze push too lightly!
Conehead writes:
*** If Ben Cousins is a drug addict, it’s because he doesn’t live in Sydney.
Seriously, a little bit of weed shouldn’t be too hard to find but its impossible to get in this fucking city! Most so-called dealers are in desperate need of the basic principles of the market economy.
The only people showing any entrepreneurship are the kids selling little bags of grass on dark street corners which, when examined in the light, turn out to be just that: grass.
And while I admire this spirit of commercial creativety, I wouldn’t mind exchanging my money for something that actually gets me stoned.
Contact a so-called dealer in this place and the response is generally to meet them in the middle of the night, where if you're lucky they’ll have a single, very overpriced, deal.
If they had the slightest understanding of capitalism, they’d at least be willing to sell you as many of these small, overpriced deals as you’re willing to buy.
But no, its fucking RATIONED!
Yours totally not in drug abuse
Conehead ***
My heart breaks reading this, it really does. I know just how long Conehead has to wait in seedy inner-city pubs before his Man will show up with these small over-priced deals. Out of a sense of personal sacrifice, I will often wait with him, with nothing but beer after beer for comfort.
The first thing Conehead learned was that he always had to wait. To help Conehead the Barbiturate out, email Carlo at sands.carlo@gmail.com.
