A Final Picture of Paul McCartney

When you're an insomniac with depression* late night is the worst time. When lying in bed under the glow of some infomercial - as that's all that's on and you don't deserve good TV anyway - it's hard not to let the darkness in. The thirtieth viewing Chef Tony's Miracle Blade cannot take your mind off your mind. So you think. And think. And you think about maybe not bothering with tomorrow. And you think that, yes, self-balancing accugrip handles are a kitchen revolution. To be left alone with your thoughts, in the dark, is one of the worst experiences you can have.

Then came channel Eleven and with it The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson. A show that at its worst was a distraction and at its best was life-sustaining. I've written a bit about the comforting effect TV has had on this lonely guy from country Australia. Like this thing on Letterman. The difference between those shows is Ferguson's was made for me.

The Late Late Show seemed specifically designed for insomniacs with a weird, dark, off-kilter sense of humour like me. And it had a way of creeping up on you, even on terrible no good days, and pulling laughter from deep inside you. It would ambush you into feeling better.       

And it wasn't a talk show. It was something else. It was a thorough deconstruction of the talk format and terribly unserious about itself. It stands up to repeated viewings; the same can't be said for any of its peers.

It was something special. And now it's gone.

The final Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson will air @ 11:30pm tonight on Eleven 

*I promise I'll think of a new opening line in the new year      
            

            

Xmas Blues

The town squares are all empty
with no children at play
A horrible bad awful thing
happened today

The air was thick with silence
'cept occasional bells ringing
Even The Bryds stopped with
their horrible singing

See all were inside with
their teevees switched on
Mouths slack-jawed open
their smiles were gone

The TV newsman took off his glasses
turned to the camera and said
the terrible news;
Santa was dead

Shocked thoughts of what
soon turned to how
Was he devoured by Rudolph?
Did the sleigh hit a cow?

But when the news spread
it was worse than they feared
A body found in the ocean
smelling of peppermint & wet beard

Twas the melting of sea ice
that did old Nick in
Seems this climate change
is an actual thing

It seemed sudden but
was not sudden at all
those rich scientists had
already writ on the wall

Still it surprised Santa
'though it was partly his fault
distributing coal at Xmas?
What a red-faced dolt!

He knows when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knew he was drowning not
swimming in North Pole lake

So when the calendar flicks over
to this Christmas Day
A solemn moment of
quiet tribute we'll pay

So turn off the clocks
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone
hold on... what's this?
The estate of Auden on the phone

They shout about copyright lawyers
that will chop off my head
Good lord, don't they know?
Santa is dead!

It's The Money

With apologies to Randy Newman

Can't grip with my fingers
Can't stand on my feet
My backbone's all twisted
Can't take care of me
Food or medication?
It's gettin' hard to breathe

It's money that I love
It's money that I love

Got a ruby studded wheelchair
Crutches wrapped in gold leaf
Oxygen tank full of baby's breath
Cognac for pain-relief
Even got a wrist that itches
From its diamond twine stitches

It's money that I love
It's money that I love 

Children call me retard
The papers want me dead
Ditto the politicians
And the chemicals in my head
Whole country gettin' mean
Still gotta chase that green

And I'm dying for the money
I'm dying can't you see
It's the money that I love
The world envies me

Disabled Should Be Seen And Not Heard. And Also Not Seen.

You have a mental illness

You are pushed back into the workforce

You cannot get a job

You get no welfare assistance for six months

You can't afford meds

You have an "episode"

You ________.

This is the uncertain life Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews wants for those with "episodic" disabilities. That is disabilities whose symptoms are unpredictable or symptoms that wax and wane; like Bipolar, CFS, and schizophrenia (among many, many examples). The way Andrews' sees it if you're not in constant agony or totally mental 100% of the time you shouldn't qualify for the DSP. Only crippled 51 weeks a year? How dare you ask for government assistance, you fucking scumbag.

At the moment Andrews is focused on those with episodic mental illness, which just happens to be the group that society is most prejudiced against, the group the government can most easily attack without being seen to be beating up on crips. Mental illness is often seen to be sign of weakness. Depression for example is often derided as whinging or laziness. Mental illness is an invisible disability, episodic mental illness even more so. How can you be disabled if you don't look disabled? This is the government's thinking. And if you don't like it you can complain...
    

* * * *

A few months back, possibly to pay for the appointment of Tim Wilson to the board, George Brandis discontinued the position of Disability Discrimination Commissioner despite roughly 40% of all complaints handled by the commission involved disability. The move was widely criticized. After weeks of uncertainty Brandis this week announced Age discrimination commissioner Susan Ryan would take over the portfolio when the current position ended.

"I also expect that all commissioners, as part of their current responsibilities, will continue to address disability discrimination issues that arise within their own portfolios," he said.

The Coalition's love of one desk solutions doesn't extend to discrimination of the disabled it seems. Moving from a single commissioner to the entire board so no one knows exactly whose purview it falls under. Our one avenue of complaint is now a rat's nest of uncertainty. Slow clap all 'round, guys.

Everyone Knows About The DSP Goddam

Yesterday it was announced that some 30,000 DSP recipients would have their fitness to work reassessed. “The days of easy welfare are over” Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews said in a recent press conference.
When were those days? When were days when the DSP was easy to get? Eligibility requirements were rigorous when I applied for it many moons ago and have since been tightened under Howard and then again under Gillard. It is a difficult process. And it should be. But it’s also a humiliating one - to have to repeatedly demonstrate your inability. And now we’re being told we must submit to this humiliation once more because we may have been lying the first time around. And we must be reassessed by government doctors because our own may be lying criminals. All of this to combat growth which isn’t really happening and a budget crisis that doesn’t exist.
And worse it’s being sold as concern. It’s about supporting people into work they tell us. Because nothing says support like calling people greedy faux-crips and dumping them on NewStart to search for non-existent jobs. If it were about employment why wouldn’t the focus be on making sure employers are actually set up to employ the disabled? Of course it’s not about employment. It’s about money. It’s about taking away money from a group of people that are seen to be lazy (couch potatoes as one rather cunty newspaper would have it). A group that can’t fight back.
$766 (the maximum payment) a fortnight sounds like a luxurious amount of money especially compared to the dole. The reason for the difference between the payments is obvious to all but the most unthinking person: Living with a disability is expensive. It costs more money to have a disability than to not. The fact this even needs to be said is ridiculous. Treatment and equipment and medicine and doctors' visits all cost money. And it’s constant. A $7 co-payment will sure make that easier too btw. And who’s paying for this reassessment? Oh that’s us again good-o. Many, if not most, disabled Australians live on or below the poverty line and moving them onto the dole is not just kicking them when they’re down, it’s kicking them when they’re down and then calling them lazy for being kicked.
Yesterday I tweeted somewhat angrily that I’d refuse to submit to this reassessment but the truth is I will. We all will. The government has found in the disabled a group that will always comply no matter how offensive or humiliatingly we’re treated because we are terrified of the alternative. They have us over a barrel and they know it.
Disability Pension rorters should be stopped but scaring an already scared group is not the way to do it.

When The Levy Breaks

Over the weekend the government failed to rule out introducing a debt levy. Of course this means they’ve all but ruled it in. What is a debt levy anyway? Simply, it’s stupid.
We know tax revenue is pooled together to pay for services (health, education etc etc) and a levy is basically a tax for a specific service or purpose - to pay for Medicare or to help with reconstruction after the recent Queensland floods. Even if we don’t access the services ourselves we know someone, somewhere is. A debt Levy does neither. No service is being rendered and you don’t get something for nothing as Joe Hockey said last week. Paying down government debt should not be responsibility of the taxpayer.
We’re told the proposed levy would only affect high-income earners and I’m all for making the top end of town pay a fairer level of tax. But should they have to bail out - which is what this boils down to - the government’s budget crisis (particularly when said crisis is, at least in part, manufactured)? I don’t see people copping that on the chin.
If they really insist on ‘fixing’ the budget the Coalition should do what it was elected to do: cut spending. We’ve seen much of that. At least not in the media. We’ve had penny-pinching from war orphans which was later abandoned, a bid to reassess DSP recipients which will humiliate people whilst bringing in a whopping nothing to government coffers, a proposed sale of the one government asset that makes money and a retooled NBN that isn’t national, uses decrepit tech and isn’t really any cheaper. We don’t know what's happening with Gonski or health but expect savage cuts.
There are cuts that can be made before insisting people foot the bill. An overly generous and expensive PPL for one. Giving Rio Tinto $100m to build a mine in South America is another. And ALL the other subsidies the mining industry receives. Then there’s the planes, my god, the planes. $12 billion for Joint Strike Fighters and knowing our luck with military procurement the canopy won’t close or one of the cross-beams will go out-of-skew on the treddle or something rendering them shiny paperweights.
‘You gotta spend money to make money’ doesn’t fly (heh) when you have your hands in the pockets of the people.

A Monkey On A Rock

A few months after my older brothers had moved out I finally got to have the good bedroom. While the room itself was actually smaller, it was at the back of the house, away from the main part of the house. The new digs afforded relatively more privacy and, more importantly, it had an antenna socket meaning I could have a television. And for my birthday that year, my fifteenth, I asked for and got one.
It was a dinky little twelve-inch affair that sat high on my dresser and watched down on me as slept. At last, I could watch what I wanted, when I wanted. Mostly. The good bedroom shared a wall with my parents' bedroom so late night viewing needed to be covert lest I wake them. The TV’s volume control didn’t have numbers it had notches and when secretly watching TV late at night the difference between notches seemed like a million decibels. Three notches was audible enough to hear and not be yelled at. Unfortunately late night free-to-air TV was/is mostly a wasteland and in Australia, in the late 90s consisted of infomercials, SBS and The Late Show With David Letterman. He would eventually become one of my comedy heroes.
As a talk show The Late show is ok. Monologue in the front, guests in the back. Of course there were stand-outs - episodes with Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Bill Murray or Martin Short - essentially an hour or so of light entertainment to fall asleep to. You’d be forgiven for thinking that’s all The Late Show is.
Where Letterman excels however is when he pushes outside the format. A perfect example being “Is This Anything” - a talent contest segment where performers would do their act flanked by a hula girl, and a woman using angle grinder on herself. After 30 seconds the curtain would come down and Dave and Paul (his long term offsider/band leader) would decide if what they just saw was in fact anything. It never was. It was this kind off-kilter pythonesque humour mixed into the aging talk show format (it was already well established when Carson came to it in the 60’s and had become stale by the time he left) that made the Letterman show special.
Unobvious fake guests, rambling surreal phone bits without punchlines, the frustrated neighbour that lives in an apartment next to the studio, Mike Singletary, Alan Kalter getting beaten up and Top Ten lists where the top entry is always the least funny all had a profound impact on my teenage sense of humour. Up til that point I had been bought up on the comedy of Britain - Python, Rowan Atkinson, and The Goodies. Dave, along with The Simpsons, was my first real gateway into the American comedy scene. Fifteen years later and both shows remain part of my routine, watching Homer at dinner time and seeing Dave before bedtime. And now that’s coming to an end.
Last Thursday Dave announced his retirement and while part of me knows it’s time another part wonders if I’ll ever be able to fall asleep without him.
Thanks Dave.

We Could Be So Good Together

If only they just spoke up.

If only they had just talked to someone.

If they just got help.

Just.

Whenever there is a mental health related death there's an explosion of opining and comment on seeking help. From the naive if well-meaning fall and we'll catch you columns to the half-hearted 'call lifeline' at the end of new stories. We tell people who may be struggling to get help. Maybe we helpfully mention a phone number or URL. But as much as we'd like to think so, telling someone to seek help is not help.

One of the things about depression is you think you deserve it. That you, horrible you, deserve every single atom of pain and sad and lonely you can fit under your ugly skin. And then some. Your brain and your soul and your bones all speak the same refrain: You are not worth the effort to help. This is where that stupid "broken leg" analogy falls flat on its face. A broken leg doesn’t leak into your brain and tell you "You deserve this. You deserve to have this shard of bone bursting through your leg-flesh and by the way hairy legs much, Mr Tumnus?". You don't tell yourself people won't believe your mangled leg story. Society doesn't tell you broken bones are a sign of weakness. That you should just think positively (at least, no non-quack will tell you that). There's no fear with a broken leg. Depression is the antithesis of that. It's a constant fear that if you snatch help from its plinth a giant boulder will chase you out of the cave. Asking for help - particularly in Australia and particularly for men - is fuckin' hard.

To put the responsibility of seeking help solely at the feet of those most likely not to is at best ignorant and at worst, well, fatal. Yes, a prerequisite of treatment is a want to get better but want occasionally needs a push. What's good about the RUOK campaign is it shifts focus from seeking help to seeking to give help. It goes some way to taking the pressure of those who for various reasons cannot speak up. A proactive approach is not without issues. The most prominent being how. If someone says they aren't ok, how do we respond? We damn well better come up with an answer. And it can't just be call here/browse here/make an appointment here. Maybe it's let's call here together. Let's browse here together. Let's do this together.