The US of A 2020 Elections. The >100 day countdown.
Biden selecting his running mate. Covid Virus, Viral Interviews. Far Right Conspiracies. Alt Left Conspiracies.
Who’ll be Mr Trump’s running mate? Ivanka?
In Australia, we’ve an expression for this type of activity.
It’d be called “SH*T BORING”.
So a guy who predicted Mr Trump’s victory, against the polls in 2016, and has an enviable record of historical presidential election predictions over forty years might be worth hearing from. Might save another couple of months of uncertainty.
Tracking down the rabbit hole, eventually I found the source. It’s a thriller.
So without further ado, I present present Allan’s 2020 prediction.
Visitors fill your life with moments of great insight, the chance to understand in an instant, the otherwise opaque.
Our couchsurfing guest shared his recent Hobart experience.
Standing around, relating our days, the Korean guy is chatting about St David’s church, now
all shrouded in metal scaffolding obstructing the gothic revival exterior. [Our pic here is of the church being built in the early 1800’s].
The interior though retained the sacred solemnity he’d come to see. Other Hobartian delights he’d savoured in his recounting of that afternoon before walking to the bus.
He turned on to the main road taking in the far vista of the port mid horizon. Pausing at an intersection a ute, it’d have to be a ute, screeched to a halt then then slowed to round the corner, passenger side windows wound down, passenger arms flailing with fingers gesticulating and flicking skyward. Above the roar of some incoherent slash trash radio, clearly not Beethoven’s Fifth, the Korean guy thought he was being welcomed to Australia. The finger gesture was, when viewed by the ute’s passenger, the sign of victory, made famous by Winston Churchill through the Second World War. A gesture of defiance in the face of doubt, to raise spirits in dark times, then a symbol of ultimate victory.
Appropriated by Asians most everywhere the gesture is now the symbol for taking a photograph in any location, from selfie to landscape. It’s used in a slightly angled form, such that non parallelity between subject and fingers is achieved by cocking the head or fingers jauntily.
Such was not a Churchill’s stance.
However, viewed from the Korean’s position, on the knuckled side of the gesture it read, “Go fuck yourself’.
Our Korean friend had arrived in the United States of America, at age eleven, with Mum, Dad and brother. Dad was on a project from a Korean automaker, bravely taking the challenge uprooting his family to raise in the land of the free and the brave.
Now some thirteen years later, the strength of the cross cultural transplanting was to bear fruit.
The ute passenger, thinking perhaps he’d not been seen, heard, or even understood by this Asian shouted and jeered
“BITCH!”
“Bitch huh” thought our Korean friend, responding,
“Bitch, It’s what I was calling your mother as I fucked her last night.”
I imagine there’s someone out Gagebrook way this evening reflecting on learning more than they ever did in their four years at high school from this exchange.
On waking all I could think of was my favourite brekky food, lettuce tomato and scrummy bacon, on a toasted bun.
Slowly grilling a soft fresh hamburger bun, I waited patiently with the creamy butter scrapped onto the knife ready to slather into the crisp brown toastiness.
Once the butter had melted then oozed into the bun bottom, I sprinkled a little garlic salt and pepper, then heaped on shredded lettuce all over the bun base.
The fatty bacon had just sizzled through in the frypan, the crinkled crispy edges wrinkled enough to let me pick up each piece gingerly and rest it on a rack to fat off.
Once fatted off, I slipped several rashers onto the lettuce ready for the final topping, tomato.
I reached over to the fridge, looked down into the crisper, then onto the racks.
Fuck no tomato! I looked everywhere, not a skerrick to be seen.
All I could see were those drunken little shaped Kewpie bottles, Dijon and seeded mustard.
I reached for the kewpie, flipped the lid and squirted a criss-cross weave of mayo over the bacon before closing off with the top bun.
Self described as an Accidental Occidental Oriental many have been prone to ask, why?
Damn good question!
Briefly, Hobart is a destination, you don’t go anywhere from here. Hobart born kids do, they go away.
Getting a public service job down here was a good pre retirement gig, working for the government an experience.
Hence Accidental.
Great Grandmother was born in 1872 of Scottish stock in rural Victoria. There’s gotta be a story in there somewhere. Maybe something for me to track down! A more intriguing tale tho’ is her marriage in the early 1900’s, to a Chinese laundryman. They produce five kids. I’m one of the kids of their twin girl. How’d they meet blah blah blah. Anyway,
Great Granny was Occidental.
Dad from a Cantonese family of nine marries Mum in 1948, their kids are my brother and me. Guess that makes us quadroons. Meeh,
I’m preferring Oriental.
And so an Accidental, Occidental Oriental
On a listless day the Accidental Occidental Oriental tools around on Google Maps.
You know the listless tooling, seeing your house from the street and measuring distances to the pizza shop or Maccas.
All useful things to know.
Zooming out, a place marker shows up which identifies a bay, not twelve minutes walk south of home, on the eastern shore of Hobart’s Derwent estuary.
The Hobart Chinaman does double take.
WTF!
It’s clearly marked “CHINAMANS BAY”
Is Google pranking me?
Chinamans Bay!
My apologies for the the copy of printed Google Map. I’m not inclined, nor would I, have my app extended.
Mmhh, I was tempted at the library when I saw a Kitty Flanagan title on the recently returned shelves.
Those shelves you go, after tiring of trying to read book spines sideways Chinese fashion, then getting get a crick in the neck.
I toyed with reading “Bridge Burning,” after scanning the back cover.
“Oh well I’ll read a chapter of two to see how it goes, and chuck it if I don’t like it,” I thought.
Kitty is at an edge. An edge she always strives for, hovering like a drop of blood on the edge of a razor. On tv, which is where I seen her most, she’s developed into a performer I now dislike. Some stuff is funny, edgy and obligatorily vaginal.
This book tracks the trajectory she’s been on developing a stand up persona in the tough male dominated Australian comedic scene.
Burning Bridges demonstrates some roots. Punchily written, single jab sentences, not unlike a stand-up routine. A laugh being aimed for at least each two lines. As she arcs back to themes previously developed, a smirk easily forms in the minds eye.
So folk, enjoy the ride.
For those not acquainted with Kitty here’s a sample to a typical video.
