A Writer’s Life

I was thinking earlier just how amazing it is that it’s been 10 years since SavageGarden’s first album came out. It really doesn’t feel like that. Their music is still played on the radio all the time, and Darren Hayes’ career is still going well, if not with as much commercial success as when he was part of Savage.

So I listened to SavageGarden again recently (thought I’d rekindle a few memories) and I was surprised at how well the album holds up today. Yes, I Want You and All Around Me couldn’t be more 90s now, but even they are still fun and bring back thoughts of the first time I heard them (and The Matrix for some reason I’ll never understand). But songs like To the Moon & Back, Truly Madly Deeply, Break Me Shake Me haven’t aged much at all. The songwriting is still striking. Now every song you hear is either hip hop or a pop song with a chorus repeated 10 times; something angry and raw like Break Me Shake Me seems to have disappeared from mainstream artists.

Looking back Savage seemed to be one of the first artists to begin the resurgence of prog pop (as the SMH calls it, music which “throws up tunes galore while also presenting material more complex than your standard three-minute radio hit”), which is only now coming more to the fore with Silverchair, Josh Pyke and other artists here in Aus - and they did it 10 years ago. But then Savage won 10 ARIAS for their debut; they had to win them for a reason, right?

It’s still a pity that SavageGarden broke up; I always felt like their best material was still to come (quite something considering how good Affirmation was). But that Daniel Jones in particular showed the initiative to walk away from the success they achieved is even more remarkable, a sign of what really mattered to the group. How many acts could you see doing that now? Not many. Jones has now returned to his roots as a producer, finding fresh talent for his music label Meridien Musik, and Hayes’ third studio album This Delicate Thing We’ve Made is being released later this year.

And for the fans, we still have these two albums, the memories of their music. So congrats to SavageGarden: it’s been 10 years but their music is still just important, just as much a part of the Australian identity, as it’s ever been.

Miranda Devine: Australian prisoners also wait years for day in court
I was reading Miranda Devine’s column in The Sun-Herald recently (see link above) and something struck me about it. I read Devine’s column when I can and though I rarely agree with what she says, I still find it interesting; she makes her points well, usually without personally attacking people for their views.

But apparently that’s something few can do. Devine listed some of the correspondence she’d received over a column about David Hicks and it was atrocious. One email started “Birdbrain Devine”, another “Dear Miranda - vacant brain and political whore!”. Worse was the anti-Semitism beneath many of the emails. One said “when you write such rubbish about Hicks it is a giveaway that you are Jewish. Only the Jews support what the United States does in the Middle East, because the Jews are an awful race that don’t give a damn about anyone but the ‘Chosen People’.”

This kind of response amazes me. What do they think they are going to achieve by attacking Devine’s character? It has absolutely nothing to do with her article or the facts of David Hicks’s detention at Guantánamo Bay, and I don’t see an equivalent in Devine’s column itself; it is simply a personal attack and does not engage anyone on a serious level. And so much of it is happening these days. Here readers were responsible, but they have learnt it from sections of the media, sections who, when they see a person whose message they disagree with, rather than challenge their point of view, slander them so no-one will listen. Just think of what’s happened between Donald Trump and Rosie O’Donnell, and more. It’s become common place to attack the messenger rather than the message and I’m getting sick of it. When someone does that, they’re not engaging anyone; they’re attacking purely on a base level and lose any credibility they might have had.

It’s almost as if the idea of debating an issue has disappeared from the public discourse. But then why should it have ever survived? We live in an age of 24 hour news, where ratings and money determine the content more than whether it is newsworthy. People enjoy conflict and personality in their news sources now, as well as the news itself; pitting opposing ideologies against each other, strong egos telling us what’s happening and what we should think and feel about it. There’s nothing in that environment which is conducive to legitimate debate, or at least a debate beyond a shouting match, so of course it’s a skill we’re losing. But it’s something we were always going to lose, with the age we live in. It was inevitable.

As for why Devine’s article sparked such a fierce reaction, that didn’t surprise me. The feeling over Hicks’s detention is powerful, and if you add the current flavour of anti-Americanism to it, and anti-Semitism, and the feelings that Australians have towards anti-authority figures, then it’s easy to see how Hicks could appear as a hero. The thing is, he’s not. Don’t get me wrong: I do not like Guantánamo Bay and I think that Hicks was not charged for 5 years is atrocious; but he was in Afghanistan and aided the Taliban, for whatever reasons. He should have been given a fair go and put on trial years ago, but Hicks is not a hero in this. The bigger issue for me is that the Australian government allowed the treatment of one of its citizens to continue when it could have done more, and that’s something we should all remember.

Another fives list for you; some of the movie villains I love to hate. But with lines like these, how could you not?

5) Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving)
The Matrix Trilogy
“Mr. Anderson. Welcome back. We missed you.”

4) Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates)
Misery
“I am your number one fan. There is nothing to worry about. You are going to be just fine. I am your number one fan.”

3) Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson)
The Shining
“Here’s Johnny.”

2) Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins)
Psycho
“A boy’s best friend is his mother.”

1) Darth Vader (David Prowse/James Earl Jones)
Star Wars Trilogy
“No. I am your father.”

Saturday saw the first Earth Hour here in Sydney, a campaign encouraging Sydneysiders to turn off their lights from 7.30 to 8.30 pm to raise awareness for Global Warming. According to The Sun-Herald more than 65,000 homes and 2000 businesses and government departments turned off their lights. And it was quite a sight, I have to say… the skyline, Bridge and Opera House, all much darker, the stars shining clearly. We love our lights in Sydney (just think of the NYE fireworks), so it was strange to see our city in near-darkness. Quite nice, actually.

Organisers are hoping Earth Hour will spread across Australia next year, and to other Asian cities like Hong Kong and Tokyo… but I’m not sure how much of a success it was here, to be honest. The idea of Earth Hour is good, to raise awareness for Global Warming and to get Sydney to lower it’s carbon emissions by 5% throughout 2007. But there are 4 million people in Sydney; that’s roughly 1 million homes, and maybe 420,000 thousand around the Eastern Suburbs where Earth Hour was targeted - I don’t call 65,000 homes a “resounding” success, just a good start. But worse, people were treating it like a party. I suppose that’s no great surprise; we’ll take any excuse to get wasted, after all. But then the media (or Sky News anyway) started calling it a “celebration”, encouraging people to have “name the food” games and other activities. Maybe I missed something but wasn’t the idea not to have a celebration, but to take time to think about the issue? We’re observing an event and demeaning it at the same time.

That’s what annoys me so much about the GW issue. It feels like it is being treated as a “hot topic”, not something which is so serious. Maybe I sound cynical, but I’m not; I’m angry. Scientists have been telling us about the dangers of climate change for more than twenty years, and it’s only now that we decide to listen? Why have scientists and specialists at all if we simply decide to ignore them when we need their advice? And many politicians are only listening now because it’s in our minds, in an election year; they see it as an opportunity to highlight the differences between themselves and their opposition. I’m sure people like Peter Garrett and Kevin Rudd are earnest in their concerns, but they’re still scoring political points off of it. Still, at least Labor cares. Howard and Turnbull have been abysmal on this. They want nuclear power. Yeah, great; go and create more targets for al-Qaeda. Thanks, John.

So Earth Hour was an interesting, if not an entirely resounding, success. Hopefully what it has done is to raise more awareness, inspired people to learn more about it and what they can do to help. In the end Saturday night was about sending a statement, and I think it did that, even if the media coverage made it feel a bit more like a publicity stunt. The important thing is, I think, to make people understand that, whatever you feel about GW, it’s not an issue to sweep under the rug; talk about it, whether you agree or disagree. Because I fear that what will happen is what occurred with Live8; people wanted immediate change and when it didn’t happen, they lost interest. We can’t let that happen again with Global Warming, whether we agree or disagree with what’s being said… but I’ll guess we’ll just have to wait and see if that happens.