Adrian's Got the Moose

An Open Letter to the how to vote Hobgoblins and their candidates

Gerrit Ballast, Australian Christians: Do you really think someone with tattoos, four piercings, a three day growth of beard on a Saturday morning, and currently hands that look like they were washed in sulfuric acid is going to vote for you? Mentulam caco.

Mario Lionetti, Independent: Yeah, no party would touch this guy, his biggest claim to fame is his videos where he is yelling at his fellow candidates, and how they won’t acknowledge his existence and debate him. If all the other candidates died in a series of unfortunate, unlikely, and darkly amusing events, does anyone actually think he would be capable of transporting himself north of Mount Barker to get to Parliament?

Phillip Arnatt, Legalise Cannabis Party WA: Okay cool, I am in favour of that, but do you have any other policies or opinions?

Lyn Maclaren, The Greens WA: The Greens are routinely derided for being ineffective and at the same time blamed for destroying whole industries when they manage to push through mild changes. Their policies are broadly aligned with my beliefs so they get my vote. I also know it will be a cold day in hell before they are elected in my hick town, but I can still dream.

Rebecca Stephens- WA Labor: Ah, our nominal mainstream left-wing party, that right-wing voters seem to think is as far left as Karl Marx. Recently I have been accused of being a hippie Labor voter, when in reality I’m much further to the left. Current seat holder and still the favourite.

Scott Leary, The Nationals WA: The Nationals were created to represent farmers, but we are supposed to ignore that they are happy to hang those farmers out to dry when mining companies show up with bags of cash. Also, they seem to assume that non-farmers don’t vote.

Synjon Anstee-Brook- Shooters, Fishers, and Farmers Party WA: Well, I am not any of those things. They are trying really hard not to be known as libertarian, which they clearly are. They seem to think every Australian has a dire need to own dozens of guns. They also seem to think the bush is just a place to trash with their Hiluxes.

Quinton Bischoff- One Nation: You guys usually don’t try to hand me a how to vote card, which I always take as a compliment. One Nation is the party for the ignorant, the uneducated, and the bigoted. Actually, now that I think of it they are what the Australian Christians would be with criminal records and less teeth. The fact that Quinton is an immigrant himself (but a white South African, so a good one in their view) is interesting. So many One Nation candidates are ex-cons I am beginning to suspect it’s a preselection prerequisite.

Tom Brough- Liberal Party: Strange how the Libs and his own website neglect to mention his linking the LGBTQIA+ community with pedophilia or his anti-vax and anti-choice views. The Libs party leader considers him to be bizarre but is desperate to have anyone contesting the seat. Many of his election posters have been vandalised, which has been highly entertaining

Due to the tedious nature of this post, please accept this video of bunnies being arseholes.

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The Collected Poetic Works of Adrian

For my sins, and because I didn’t take any leave leading up to the festive season, I was sent to work with the only person in Street Trees still working, a casual, to help out with their watering of the most recently planted verge trees. Thus, I spent two days with my hand out the window, watering plants, talking shit and being a solid passenger princess.

At lunch, the conversion took an unexpected turn; poetry and masculinity. I mentioned the proud tradition of male poets in Iran, as well as our own traditional of bush poetry. Conner, in a display of ego so common in Street Trees workers, declared that he has recently challenged himself to write a poem for his wife every week. Not willing this to go unanswered, I mentioned that I had written a poem from the point of view of The Most Recent Ex, about her love for koalas and my obvious inadequacy compared to them. I also stated that it was a shame that no one else had ever seen it, as I had planned to read it out to the Peel Street Poetry Club in Hong Kong with her next time I visited Hong Kong. Conner said that I should publish the poem somewhere, just on principle. It was the only half way intelligent thing he said all day.

So here is the poem, most likely the only one I will ever write, assuming of course that it could even be considered a poem.

My Australian lover is not as cute as a koala,
But is blessedly free of chlamydia
He doesn’t eat leaves,
He does eat too much beef jerky
He doesn’t live in a tree,
But dreams of living in a tree-house
He is not much smarter than a koala,
But is just smart enough to date me
There is no Wikipedia heading for Adrian Poetry,
But he did buy me a fountain pen
There are no conservation efforts to save Adrian,
But he is involved in conservation efforts
My Australian lover is vastly inferior to a koala,
But he will have to do until I can get an import permit.

In absence of a photo of a koala, or an ex, please accept this Mount Melville.

The Passing of a Prince of a Spaniel

Buddy, my family’s cocker spaniel, is no longer in pain. I stayed, patting his head while the vet gave him the injection. When Buddy breathed his last, I kissed him on the nose and walked out, not bothering to hide my tears from the vet, my mum waiting in the reception, or the nurse.

Buddy came to our family as a young adult from Shenton Park Dog Refuge, he had been given the name Forrest, but no one knew his history. Buddy was an overweight bundle of anxiety. I had always thought that he came from a family who loved him, but due to sickness or circumstances, could not spend much time with him, and attempted to compensate by feeding him more. After the passing of Dasha, who we had from a puppy, I honestly thought I would never bond again with another dog with the same intensity. That idea dissolved as soon as I saw Buddy. he trotted over to me, whimpering softly, demanding love and attention. Buddy soon learned to associate me with walks, Buddy stayed anxious, but soon had everyone he met, including some neighbourhood children, wrapped around his paws. He often crawled up on my dad’s lap to fall asleep, only waking when he knew his dinner was around the corner.

A year ago, Buddy started needing coaxing to go for walks, and his anxiety seemed to be getting worse. A month before the fateful vet visit, I couldn’t get him to go for walks at all. I would lay down on the floor with him, patting him, just to make sure he knew I was there, and cared for him still. When he was not sleeping, he would be walking around the house, looking confused, often bumping into things. In the last week, he gave up eating.

On the last day, I received a call from my brother, and raced straight to the vet after work to meet Mum and Buddy at the vets. Buddy refused the treat the lovely nurse offered him. When we saw the vet, Buddy moved listlessly around the room, looking confused and unsteady. The prognosis was bad, while efforts could be made to extend his life, he was a very old dog, and the end result may just be extending his suffering. The decision was made, as horrible as it was.

I’ll always remember the happier days, my beautiful boy.

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Garrett The Goblin

In my home, there lives a goblin with an appetite for Bolle safety glasses.

Many of the more interesting cultures in the world, past and present, feature household spirits. Spirits, minor deities or fairies, if treated right, offer protection to the household, good fortune, or help with domestic duties. Typically, one placates such creatures by offerings of food and drink, sometimes incense, and sometimes a small, symbolic house for them to live in. Then your household spirit will help you keep a happy home. If you neglect the needs of your spirit, you might suffer from mischief, such as a disloyal spouse, soured milk, or your car keys going missing moments before you leave the house for work. To many, household spirits seem odd, but keeping them happy is considered serious business in Spain, Scotland, much of Asia, and one modest apartment in Albany, WA.

Domovoy, a household deity in Slavic countries, typically represented by statues like this,usually placed near the front door, or the heath. Domovoy. (2024, September 9). In *Wikipedia*. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domovoy

Garrett the Goblin lives between the brick and plasterboard in the wall facing my driveway. He is squat, unbelievably ugly, has bad posture, and smells of Lynx Africa.

Garrett has no interest in the food and drink I leave out, and the smelly candles I burn make him sneeze. Garrett can only be placated by offerings of safety glasses. He is not impressed by my Oakleys or my prescription glasses. The safety glasses from Bunnings barely satisfy him for a few hours, and then he will be making my taps leak and unlocking doors. Only Bolles will do.

The safety glasses are supplied by my work, I wear them for a few days then leave them on my desk. When I next run to the kitchen for a drink I hear him scarper over to the desk, snatch the Bolles, then squeeze himself back into the wall cavity via the hole I have never gotten around to fixing behind the TV.

The gatekeepers of PPE at my work are three ladies. How do I explain to these modern, rational, and sophisticated women that I live with a goblin whose mischief can only be mitigated by safety glasses? Audrey thinks I am touched in the head. Carissa believes I am unhealthily fond of the smell of newly minted plastic. Talia suspects I am selling them on the black market in former Soviet Bloc countries to feed my iced coffee habit, but can prove nothing.

In the end, the disdain is an uncomfortable, but small price to pay. Usually, Garrett’s ugliness is hidden from view, nothing has needed repairing for ages, the cost of living crisis has not forced me to get a housemate, and goblins are excellent deterrents to porch-pirates.

A Watcher in the Dark, a strange example from the Warhammer 40k universe.

Dentists and Duende

There is a line from the movie Fight Club that I have always loved- With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels. Now, with a mouth full of shiny dentistry tools, and two people peering intently into my mouth, I think I should create a similar phrase. With a mouthful of dentist tools, you think only in absolutes? No, bad enough that I’m ripping off Fight Club, I shouldn’t plagiarize one of the more terrible Star Wars movies as well. With a mouth full of dentistry tools, the only valid philosophy is stoicism? Better, but I am not feeling at all stoic. With a mouthful of dentistry tools, you can only think deeply about your credit card debt? Not quite, clearly, I will not be the next Chuck Palahniuk. Fuck it.

Rewind. Sitting in the reception area, waiting for my appointment, reading my paperback (Abroad in Japan by Chris Broad), and trying not to keep glancing up at the flawless receptionist. I’m still recovering from a near-miss at work, where for a few seconds I thought my passengers and I were going to die. I spent an hour after work sitting at home, but relaxing between something like that and a dentist appointment is not feasible for me.

I’ll never take you to the one reserve in town where I know a small colony of Boronia megastigma grows. I would have led you to them blindfolded, asked you to inhale deeply the most amazing smell in nature, and then shown you the unassuming flowers that produce it.

Copyright Fagg, M., as featured on Australian National Herbarium.

Barely out of high school, I went to our local hospital to get two wisdom teeth extracted. I remember waking up post-surgery, a nurse confused as to why another nurse bandaged up both sides of my mouth when only the left side was operated on. Fast forward almost thirty years and the two remaining wisdom teeth need fillings. I should consider myself lucky that after five years of absence from the dentist chair, that’s all I need done. Blame COVID, blame my former dentist for canceling an appointment and then ghosting me. Blame the ongoing financial strain from owning my own home. When I found myself opposite one of my town’s newest dentist clinics, waiting for my coworker to conduct a Dial Before You Dig search, I knew what I had to do.

You will never see me entirely at ease, talking to volunteers at an event, or school kids at a planting day, as comfortable as you were working with children at your work.

Logically I am fine with dentists. Sub-consciously it is a mess. My tongue wants to go wherever the tools are poked (not sure what that says about my kissing ability) and my lips severely object to anything not food or drink-related trying to pass them. This started getting worse when I stopped getting lollypops from the school dentist.

I’ll never bring you an Americano, straight from my machine in my kitchen, in bed and an espresso for myself, so we can wake up together, cuddle, and plan what to do with the day.

The procedure begins with a lot of poking and prodding as if they didn’t decide two weeks ago what was needed. Then the numbing spray, then the needles into each gum. Then the fun begins. The drill comes out to clean out the decay, and what I feel is not so much pain as a deep unpleasant scraping and vibration that feels like it gets right to my skeleton. Next is polishing so the filling material has a nice clean surface to bond to. A plastic divider is shoved into my mouth, then the filling material is sprayed/injected/poured onto my remaining wisdom teeth. Something that looked suspiciously like a microchip is also added. An LED tool is used to quickly set the fillings, which makes my mouth uncomfortably hot for a few seconds, reminding me that not all my mouth has been numbed. Finally, they make me bite down on some paper to check my bite alignment and then fine-tune the fillings, and I’m sent on my way after a rinse, where I pretend not to notice that I can barely spit and mostly dribble water out of my mouth.

You will never ask me why I wave at people doing traffic management when I drive, and I’ll never explain to you the simple, undemanding camaraderie between people working in High-Vis in Australia, reinforced by attending the same training courses, driving similar vehicles, and similar working conditions.

My much-lauded private health insurance covers less than a third of the bill, and I attempt to look nonchalant as the goddess charges the gap to my credit card.

Home/Post Mortem

When the plane turned inland, and I saw amongst the green vegetation the bright orange of the Western Australian Christmas Trees, I sighed contentedly. I was home.

I spent the first week home getting my unit into some semblance of order. Oddly, three weeks in Hong Kong had left me paradoxically agoraphobic. Luckily I had plenty of things to do in my unit to deal with until this abated. Was I even the same person who called his girlfriend that he thought the skyscrapers were stalking him?

For the most part, things in Albany were the same. But I was different. Two tattoos, a long-distance girlfriend. A few personality traits adjusted, maybe for the better. Perhaps I was suffering from premature enlightenment, but I tried to hold on to some self-improvement regardless.

It’s a common traveller’s conceit that travel changes a person. I am certainly guilty of that as well. Keep your home tidy. Go to the gym every day. Make your lunch every day for work. Cut up your credit card and pay all your bills on time. It’s easy to promise these things to yourself while sipping a beer in Cambodia.

Written in the Field Notes notebook that went with me everywhere.

I gained strength to work on my goals due to the enticement at the end of that list- To see Arum again.

For better or worse, before I could work on that last item my relationship with Arum disintegrated. It was not just the relationship that ended, It was the last aspect of my life that had turned it from good to amazing. I found this to be devastating for the first few weeks, but help from friends, family, hindsight, and Prozac got me back to normal. Now Hong Kong is not an option for my next trip; chances are I will never return there. Too many ghosts. Maybe South America. Maybe China or India. Maybe i’ll wait until I have someone to share the road with, sunsets and potholes.

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Hong Kong and Hot Pot

Something I didn’t pay much attention to on my previous visits to Hong Kong, is the constant noise of the city. Trains moving underground, traffic backed up, the footfalls of a million pairs of feet in a desperate need to be somewhere else. Late at night, when the MTR stops, the traffic abates, and most people are safely in their homes, you can hear the city snoring, as if anything approaching silence is an anathema to the spirit of the city.

The flag of Hong Kong should be a middle-aged man, screaming into a mobile phone

I usually barely wake up when Arum gets up and ready for work. I have no job here, no obligations, nowhere to be. I sleep late, get up, shower, shave and dress, and leave the flat and not return until Arum has finished work. Without her, the flat is a cold, empty place.

The national symbol of Hong Kong should be a Rolex shop, one of three on the same city block, entirely absent of clients.

Word on the street is that due to the interchange of four MTR lines, Admiralty Station is insanely busy and chaotic. Out of sheer bloody-mindedness, I visited at 1645, and found it to be tame and uninteresting. For me, the TST/East TST is far busier and interesting, with the contrast of people moving to and from Chungking and Mirador mansions, and the upscale K11 Art Mall. I stood still for two minutes, the ultimate sin, listening to Apparet’s Goodbye , just letting the tide of humanity move around me.

Hong Kong is full of 7.4 million people who don’t know their left from their right, or know, and don’t care.

The bar is smoky, it’s dimly lit, and that’s doing more for me than the waitress, in the beer-girl dress I have seldom seen outside of Vietnam. Of course, I could not remember what brand of beer the dress was advertising, but I do remember the row of perfect roses tattooed on one perfect leg.

Hong Kong only dreams on a feather bed of late-stage capitalism.

With Arum, I attend two meetings of the Peel Street Poetry Club, high above a street side restaurant in Central. Usually poetry does not appeal to me much, but I find this gritty, raw variety more compelling. On the second meeting Arum reads a poem of her own, to much acclaim, both of the poem and her recital. Now she is one of them, while I am still an outsider, but some of that belonging does rub off on me, as a poet-consort, like Arum’s glitter on my shirt.

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Back to Bangkok

Bangkok at least felt familiar ground after Pattaya. I booked a capsule-style hostel closer to Khao San Road this time. The staff did not look like they were on day release from the nearest prison, and my fellow guests were more social than myself, and didn’t seem to be sizing up my organs for a quick sale on the black market.

On my first night I ended up on Khao San Road, drinking and watching the constant stream of tourists, taxis, and touts. The second night was Halloween, and the Thais never miss an opportunity to party, and to get tourists to party and spend their money.

One of the ladies working at the hostel made an excellent Wednesday

I promised our Wednesday that I would show up for the hostel’s rooftop party. I dutifully showed up, chatted to a few people, but declined Beer-pong. My heart was not really in it, and I slipped away.

Later I was drinking alone on Khao San Road, and things were in full swing, with both locals and Thais dressing up. Also there was a stage set up and some kind of presentation and awards, but I could not understand the broken English.

This would have been scarier if I was partaking in magic mushrooms.

On my last day in Bangkok, I took a walk to Wat Saket, ie the Golden Mount- An ancient temple based on and around Bangkok’s only hill, which is as good a reason as any to build a temple. I walked around the winding path up the hill, which gives some incredible views of the cityscape.

At the summit, there is a golden stupa, which I found fiendishly difficult to photograph.

As with most Buddhist sites, you can pay to make merit, here by buying sheets of gold leaf that you could write prayers on, and attach nearby. If I had some more money I would have considered doing the same, but in any case, I could not think of a decent prayer.

I made my way down, admiring the view, and the lotus flowers.

Continuing down, I observed a sign for Buddha’s Footprint and the Vultures of Wat Saket, which I followed. The building housing the Buddha’s footprint was unremarkable and unguarded, but the vultures proved more interesting to me.

Between 1820 and 1840, a Cholera outbreak occurred in Bangkok, and the crematorium at the wat could not keep up with the flood of bodies, leading to further outbreaks of disease, and attracted many vultures to the wat. At some point, the statues were displayed, a grim reminder of this grisly aspect of the past.

It was time to leave Bangkok. It had become impossible for me to sit down and enjoy a beer without being asked to pay up half way through, or have staff try to hurry me away, as if there was not dozens of empty tables. In addition, I had a date in Hong Kong with a South African and pancakes.

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Pattaya and the Plague

Due to my unhealthy addiction to Youtube, during the planning stage of my trip I discovered a number of channels by expats living in Pattaya, a city that I had only ever heard of in reference to the sex trade. In contrast to stereotypes, these often charismatic men were unabashed and proud of the place they had made their homes.

I would love to have a beer with this guy.

I made up my mind, I would go to Pattaya, let it wash over me, maybe sample some delights as my somewhat untrustworthy ethics would allow, then leave before I learned to love or hate the place.

By the time I got off the bus in Pattaya, three things made this plan unmanageable. First, I was in a meaningful, exclusive relationship, not the bored and horny single man I was when I was still at home. Second, the Aussie dollar was taking a massive battering against all other currencies, in addition to inflation, which meant I was on a stricter budget than I was used to, and a night’s drinking at inflated Go-Go bar prices was not an option unless I was willing to sleep under bridges until next pay-day. Thirdly, in Kanchanaburi I had gained some kind of horrible flu, and all I wanted to do was sleep with my back against a wall. None of this boded well for any kind of Gonzo journalism, but with bloody-mindedness typical of me, I went anyway.

I booked a three night stay in a hotel just back from the beach road in Jomtien, a satellite city of Pattaya. Of course my room was in a low-rent wing of an otherwise fancy hotel, that seemed to be exclusively inhabited by local workers. I didn’t mind that, but I did mind the slices of tomato that stayed in the hallway for two days, and the shared bathroom that looked like it had been transplanted from a maximum security prison. For the first two nights I only left the hotel for food, medication and runs to the nearest Seven-Eleven.

My first impressions of Jomtien from my short trips was of incredible normalness. For every single guy I saw, there were three or four couples, some with kids in tow. Surely they all cannot be here out of morbid curiosity? The beach was long, straight, and made up of yellow-grey course sand, not at all inviting to me even if I was not feeling like a brisk walk would kill me.

There seemed to be a lot of businesses run by Russians, for Russians, which I soon learned to avoid.

By the last night I started to feel vaguely human, so I took a baht bus from the beach towards Central Pattaya, and then walked up to the Big Buddha Temple.

Further evidence of my unwillingness to spend time with my back to the door of that bathroom.

I continued walking towards the infamous Walking Street. I passed Seven-Elevens, I passed squash courts underneath freeway overpasses, I passed more weed dispensaries that I thought were sustainable. When I started passing an alarming number of Indian restaurants and massage parlours, I figured I was getting close.

By now it was raining, and just on six PM, I suspected it would be a few more hours before things got interesting, but I was already feeling tired and a little unimpressed with myself when I got to Walking Street. Out of instinct to get off the street while I had no real purpose, I found a restaurant and ordered a decent chicken rice dish and two only slightly overpriced beers.

When I paid up and continued walking, things did look a little busier but still hardly pumping. I noticed a Korean tour group being led through the streets, never a good sign when you want any kind of authentic experience. And like most tour groups, they seemed to be going through the motions rather than any kind of meaningful experience or education. At least I didn’t have to follow a bored man waving a flag. I observed a few clubs, but no one trying to drag people in like I was warned about, and the prospect of entering felt like a Rubicon that I was not willing to cross.

Of course, there were a number of weed shops, and a handful of stalls selling butterfly knives, nunchucks and other things only being sold because they were illegal back home. Further down the road there was a number of businesses advertising Russian girls. I know for a long time women from former Soviet Bloc countries having been selling their services, sometimes in conditions that would be described as slavery, in South East Asia for years, but I suspect recent events have made this even more prevalent.

If they were Russian Salty Girls I would have been straight in.

By now, I was feeling tired, bored, and mildly sexually frustrated. I got to the end of Walking Street, got a Pocari Sweat from Seven-Eleven, and then a Grab back to my hotel. It was nine o’clock.

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Kanchanaburi, Kittens and Kindness

Kanchanaburi is a town west of Bangkok, made somewhat famous by its proximity to the Thai-Burma Railway. The Thai-Burma Railway was built by POW labour and indentured workers, victims of the Japenese’s need to join up their empire by rail during World War 2. An estimated fifty thousand POWs, and one hundred and eighty thousand South East Asian workers were forced to work on the railway, where brutal conditions and the brutal treatment by Japanese soldiers competed for the men’s lives. It has been said that every railway sleeper laid cost a man’s life. Half of the men who toiled on the Death Railway died during its construction. If not for the 1957 movie Bridge over the River Kwai, few people outside the Commonwealth would know about the atrocity.

By “Copyright © 1958 Columbia Pictures Corporation.” – Scan via Heritage Auctions. Cropped from original image., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=86238561

The first stop in my pilgrimage was the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, a short walk in the blistering heat from my hostel. The cemetery contains the remains of six thousand, nine hundred and eighty-two Australian, Dutch, and British POWs, and is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and works are conducted by local workers, to a high standard in my opinion.

Over the road was the second stop in my pilgrimage, the Australian-run Thailand-Burma Railway Centre, a museum displaying many artifacts from the railway.

That DE Razor looks like it could be cleaned up and put to use.

The centre puts the terrible conditions in context, including the small box car many POWs were transported in like sardines, with no ventilation and toilet facilities.

I spent a few hours chilling in my hostel before I decided to walk to the actual bridge over the River Kwai, which was exhausting.

By then it was late afternoon, and I was too worn out to spend much time walking around, I got a coffee and a nearby coffee shop, and then got a Grab back to my hostel.

The lovely, grandmotherly lady who owned the hostel fed me that night with local dishes cooked in her own kitchen, including Tom Yum soup, bamboo shoots and pickles, rice, and two varieties of chilli paste, as it is an article of faith amongst Thais that no dish cannot be improved by a little more bite. In return before dinner I headed over to Seven-Eleven to buy iced coffees for the two hosts. The next night my host fed me leftover papaya salad. No wonder I choose to book another night before braving Bangkok again.

Hostel cat, which was not allowed to stay in the hostel overnight due to an unfortunate shitting incident.

The last night in Kanchanaburi I was showered, shaved and in bed by eleven. I promptly started coughing up a lung, and most likely part of my spleen as well. At midnight I dressed and left the hostel and braved crossing the four lanes of traffic to the Seven-Eleven for supplies. Back in the ground floor of the hostel, I sculled half a bottle of cough syrup, some alarmingly-labeled Chinese medicine, and paracetamol tablets, washed down with iced tea. Feeling slightly improved, I returned to the dorm, where I could only hope that my absence allowed my room-mates a chance to sleep.

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