Selected Works

Death Notice

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The story goes like this: Ernest Hemingway, master of literary economy, is challenged to write a narrative in 10 words or less. Hemingway, of course, comes up with a heartbreaker in six. “For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn.” It’s also been strongly rumoured, however, that Hemingway isn’t the author at all and that the story came from a theatre production about him instead. Whatever the case, the creator of the six-word slayer clearly knew that the entirety of human existence is catalogued in the print classifieds, from the barely contained joys of birth notices to the sunny Sunday horrors of deceased-estate sales.

The print classifieds are certainly a rich reservoir for the banal and the bizarre. In any given issue of the Trading Post’s Queensland edition, you’ll find the usual: cars and computers, fish tanks and barbecues, puppy litters and board games. But there will also be someone’s toilet going for $60 (or nearest offer), a 4.5-cubic-foot front-loader kiln, beef calves of various breeds and used women’s hot pants selling for three dollars each, with emphasis placed on the “USED”. The “Other Pets” section is almost exclusively – inexplicably – occupied by pythons.

Sleepers, Awake

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Twenty years ago, just past midnight, the American tank ship Exxon Valdez was slicing through cold black water, cutting a course through the Gulf of Alaska. Anyone who was an adult in the ’80s knows what happened next: a misjudged turn, a grounding on the reef and 258,000 barrels of crude oil spilling into the ocean.

The National Transportation Safety Board’s post-mortem on the incident makes for riveting reading, packed with figures and costs that leave you light-headed: damage to vessel, US$25 million; clean-up operations, US$1.85 billion. Yet a central concern of the report is sleep. The evening of the spill, the third mate on duty, Gregory Cousins, was documented as having returned to work after only four hours’ rest, following an already “stressful, physically demanding day”. Fatigued and under-slept, Cousins’ judgement was deemed impaired; he may even have fallen asleep at the wheel. All that spilt oil, and over lost sleep.

Facing the Dole with Dignity

Posted on by benjamin

As a young 20-something, I spent a lot of time doing two things: listening to Nina Simone, and staring mournfully at my frighteningly low bank balance. Back then, I’d graduated from university, my youth allowance was kaput, casual jobs weren’t paying much, and my writing career — if you could call it that — was paying me in CDs instead of cash. I’d do sums in my head, and wonder how I was going to break even. “In your pocket’s not one penny,” Nina Simone sang, “and your friends: you haven’t got any.” It was a sadistic soundtrack for a sad state of affairs.

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A Gay Old Time

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If the huddled group of males gathered outside on the kerbside were teenagers, you’d say they were loitering: hanging out after dark; warming their hands in a circle; talking in low, conspiratorial murmurs. But as it happens, all of the men are in their late fifties and sixties, either already in their senior years or about to collide with them. When I approach them, they acknowledge me with polite smiles at first, until I get closer and they see I’m in my twenties. That’s when the jokes start. “You’re a bit young to be here, aren’t you?” they say. When I make a quip about simply using the right moisturiser, they all start hooting in response, mock-scandalised. “Oh stop,” one man drawls, before shaking his head and lighting a cigarette.

What these men have in common are two things: their age, and the fact that they’re all gay. Tonight, they’re also all waiting for the same thing to begin: a seminar called ‘Getting Ready for Retirement: Age Pension and Your Choice’. Tonight’s talk is one in a year-long series of similar sessions arranged by QAHC – the Queensland Association for Healthy Communities – that specifically caters for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people approaching their retirement years. Upcoming seminars have similarly informative-sounding but vaguely sad titles, such as ‘Wills, Advance Health Directives and Enduring Powers of Attorney’ and ‘Elder Abuse and Financial Exploitation’.

But Farting Means I Love You

Posted on by benjamin

Long-term relationships can be such beautiful things. Having been with my boyfriend for a pretty long stretch now, I can safely vouch for the fact that when it’s working, there’s nothing quite like it. There’s warmth and security, comfort and shared history.

Of course, there’s also a trade-off: being in each other’s pockets for so long means any mystery you once held evaporated long ago. Some couples try to stave off the inevitable by establishing ground rules: you must always close the toilet door; you must never look at me when I’m changing; you must never see my anus—that sort of thing. Continue reading →

Family Matters

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When you’re a blind parent, you can’t see if your kids are red in the face and choking, if a scrape is infected or not. When they’re infants and you’re changing their nappies, you’re never entirely convinced you haven’t left poo somewhere on their bottoms, on their faces, on yourself. Eventually, you become so worried and exasperated you resort to stripping off completely and taking them naked and howling into the shower with you.

There’s relief when they’re older, talking and able to communicate their discomforts, but even then you can’t read their body language or see beyond their angry words to the silent tears rolling down their faces. The sheer act of growing is coupled with its own brand of sadness. It’s around this age, says parent of two Gerrard Gosens, that you start to lose a concept of how your kids look. Continue reading →

Hands Off My Sister

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There’s something repulsively Freudian about the way men worry about their daughters and sisters. Once puberty hits, things start to grow, peers start to leer, and male family members collaborate to ensure their precious lady-folk survive adolescence as white, unsullied flowers of sexual virtue. It’s weird.

On the other hand, my family didn’t have to worry excessively about my sisters. Between the three of them, puberty wasn’t exactly perfume, brooding and breasts. Instead, there were orthodontic braces, underbites, gangly limbs, perms, severe myopia, orthodontic plates, rainbow glasses and thick eyebrows. To seal the deal, Dad insisted they all keep their hair short, to the extent that one of my sisters was once ushered out of female toilets and into the men’s. Adolescence didn’t coincide with a sultry Lolita-esque sexual discovery for them. No, they had scoliosis instead.

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A Day In The Life Of My Mother

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In both the realms of quantum physics and anthropology, it’s often said that you can’t observe something without changing whatever you’re observing. It’s a profound statement—one I probably first heard watching Jurassic Park or something—and it came to mind when I watched my mother pull out a yoga mat she hadn’t used in months, and lay it in front of the television.

You see, usually, when I gently suggest she should exercise more, Mum dismisses me. In her mind, she doesn’t really see the point. “But all your kids have left home now,” I tell her, “so you’ve got the time. You really should be moving that body. It’s good for you, and you’ll sleep better.” So I suggest a few things to her: getting back into yoga, going for walks, learning to swim. Continue reading →

All Talk, No Action

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Drive west out of Brisbane, and the road eventually becomes a single-lane highway. Out here, billboards display Bible verses instead of ads and crows own the bitumen stretch, strutting across the road like they’ve never seen a car before. About an hour from Warwick you’ll find the small town of Inglewood, population less than 1000. Locals say they don’t measure distances by kilometres but by hours: three to Brisbane; nearly one to the nearby town of Texas.

It’s not often that the local school attracts visitors. But today, Inglewood State School is playing host to Straight Talk Australia, a Toowoomba-based Christian organisation here to preach the gospel of delayed gratification. Its founders, Jim and Faye Lyons, married for 35 years, are a friendly couple who advocate a zero-tolerance approach to sex before marriage. They’ve recently been to Victoria to spread the word, often tour capital cities, and speak throughout the Pacific Islands too.

As the Lyons set up their DVD player, projector and pamphlet display, they chat to school staff about a recent incident that demonstrates why they need to be here today. According to Jim, a young boy from a private school was on a bus and showed some girls the condom he carried around in his wallet. The girls were aghast, so were their parents. Jim shakes his head in disbelief; some of Inglewood’s teachers make tutting noises. “These parents: doing the right thing, sending their children to a good Christian school,” Jim says. “And for what? Their daughters to be corrupted on the school bus.”

Students from Years 8 and 9 file in. Boys are told to sit on the left; girls on the right. Ranging from 12 to 14 years old, they’re at the age where school mornings are a hassle, and some students slouch into their seats sleepily. Jim tries rousing them with his standard ice-breaker. “How many of you are planning – as one of your goals in 2008 – to get a sexually transmitted disease or infection?” he asks. “Can I see the hands of those who are planning to get an STD this year?” No one puts up their hand.

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Losing It

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Waiting rooms are tense, silent places. Nervous patients in the reception areas of GPs, physiotherapists and proctologists sit quietly wondering the same thing: whether they’re worse off than the person beside them. Usually it’s hard to tell, but sometimes there are clues. If you’re at the ophthalmologist you can watch how closely someone holds a magazine to their face. At the chiropractor observe how people are slouching.

In the waiting room at hair surgeon Russell Knudsen’s clinic in inner Brisbane Spring Hill, men discreetly judge one another’s scalps in glass reflections and self-consciously run their fingers through their remaining locks. The man in the leather jacket sitting opposite me I notice has broken a golden rule of hair loss: don’t grow it long to compensate for its absence. While we don’t make eye contact, I know he’s surreptitiously examining my head too. Continue reading →