A Free Man

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It’s the one holiday that is about gratitude, the one holiday that hasn’t been contaminated with rampant consumerism (although I imagine turkey farmers do pretty well this time of year). It’s all about friends and family and cooking up an indulgent dinner in the gloomy tail of autumn. For the last four years as an expatriate living in countries in which the fourth Thursday in November is just another work day I’ve managed to celebrate Thanksgiving. Usually it involved a group of hastily assembled Brits who were slightly confused as to why we were eating turkey in November.

But this year, I screwed it up. I’m still getting used to the Southern Hemisphere seasonal reversal and as November ticked away the days got longer rather than shorter, sunnier rather than cloudier and warmer rather than colder. I knew that Thanksgiving was coming up, I mean I can read a calendar, but I procrastinated my way into a hole. I didn’t make plans. So, A Free Man’s Thanksgiving will be notably lacking in turkey, stuffing, pumpkin, football and fellowship this year.

But one of the endearing things about Thanksgiving is that it is in large part a state of mind. I’ve got a lot to be thankful for, I’ve got a lot of gratitude. I’ll spend the day being grateful for all the wonderful things in my life rather than flagellating myself for procrastination.

And I’ve got Arlo Guthrie. And I’ve got the masacree in four part harmony. My Dad subjected me and my sister to Guthrie’s twenty minute Thanksgiving epic every year for as long as I can remember. That is a Thanksgiving tradition that I can handle. So, to amend for my laziness, this year I’ll play Boy Z “Alice’s Restaurant”, make up a batch of turkey curry and make a Thanksgiving resolution to get my shit together next year. To my American readers - have a fantastic Thanksgiving. And remember, if you want to end war and stuff you’ve got to sing loud:

You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
Walk right in it’s around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant.

Maybe if you sing it with me in four part harmony and with feeling I’ll be able to hear it from Down Under.

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Image Credits:

Turkey Australia

Arlo Guthrie

Get Arlo Guthrie’s classic album “Alice’s Restaurant” from .

 

 Arlo Guthrie - "Alice's Restaurant": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Damn it. As I got off the bus on the way into work earlier this week, Rundle Mall (the main shopping street in Adelaide) was bedecked with plastic snowmen, Christmas bulbs and chubby Santas - in the first week of November. Nooooooooooooo! Are you seriously expecting me to be festive for two months, for one-sixth of the year?

I have sort of a love/hate relationship with Christmas. Well, that’s not entirely true, it’s more just the latter. In recent years, I’ve learned to tolerate the holiday and with the arrival of Boy Z last year almost relished the season. But not this year. This year, I’m going Grinch.

It’s largely because of the seasonal reversal here in the Southern Hemisphere. Christmas Down Under is in midsummer, but the Australians have maintained most of the traditions of their felonious progenitors (turkey, stuffing and sedition). I just can not get my head around eating a full Christmas dinner when it’s 40C (104F) outside. The Christmas trappings here are the same as they are in cooler climes: Fur draped Santas who must bog down the local ERs with heat stroke complaints during the holidays, spheroid snowmen in a part of the world that hasn’t seen snow since the Mesozoic. Come on Aussies, after 220 years of baking Christmases, couldn’t you have come up with some climate appropriate Christmas icons? A Santa in board shorts driving a surfboard pulled by a team of kangaroos? Eucalyptus trees trimmed with jingle-bell adorned koalas? Willy the White-nosed Wombat? Something?

I think I may have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. But I fear that this is going to be a Joni Mitchell kind of Christmas.

It’s coming on Christmas
They’re cutting down trees
They’re putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
But it don’t snow here
It stays pretty green

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Nothing better to cheer one up, though, than a nice word or two about one’s self. The Noble Savage, a fellow expat blogger, gave me the much coveted I Heart Your Blog award. I blush.

The best thing about the award, well beyond the stroke to my ego, is I get to pass it on to seven writers worthier than myself. I’m always up for working on my blogging karma. I’ve discovered a few new blogs (and have been relishing some old ones) in the past few weeks that I would strongly recommend. I would go so far as to say I heart them:

1. My first two awardees are a couple of ladies with whom I have a lot more in common than just the blogging. Mongolian Girl is a Misery based commie who brags about disrobing in front of presidential candidates among other things. I would describe her site, The Cusp, as gonzo blogging. A must.
2. I found the Indisputable Topcat whilst searching for bloggers to hold down the Auburn end of next week’s Smack Talk. I still don’t know how she came up in a search for “Auburn Tigers” but I’m glad she did. Australian, husky owner and a smashing writer.
3. One of my oldest blogging buddies has said she’s quitting the blogosphere. I hope she changes her mind, but if not, I’d like to give Just Jessie this award posthumously. Maybe if we all go over and beg her to stay she’ll reconsider.
4. Everyone and their Great-Aunt Siobhan blogged about the election, self included. But Matt and April really nailed it with their post-election posts. Fantastic, well thought-out politics at The Bauer Confidential.
5. As we’re into another weekend of college football, I’ve got to direct some hearts in the direction of A Bulldog in Exile. The Dean is a Georgia Bulldog in King Corn’s Court and is doing some fantastic ‘Dawg blogging up among the unwashed Midwesterners.
6. I find it difficult to explain why I like Carrie’s blog Reconstructing Fossils, but I’m well hooked. I think it’s the kind of “Truman Show” quality of it, she doesn’t use a lot of words but I warn you there’s something addictive about her photographic diary.
7. One of my consistently favorite reads is Malfeasance. But Courtney lives up to her blogging pseudonym: she is evil incarnate and, I believe, single handedly caused my beloved alma mater’s humiliation in Jacksonville last weekend. So, rather than rewarding evil doers, I will offer this award to her better half who blogs at The Prettiest Denny’s Waitress. All the writing chops of Malfeasance with 50% less evil.

Have a Christmas free weekend, gentle readers.
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I was too depressed to take my own photo, so had to nick this photo of the Rundle Mall Xmas decorations from here.

If you don’t own Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” then you really should. It is available from and Amazon or your local independent record store.

 

 Joni Mitchell - "River" [4:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 56% [?]

Noon - November 5 - Adelaide

Stowed safely away from high maintenance students. Let’s get down to business. Fox, always the stalwart of responsible journalism, has it Obama 81 - McCain 39. Clearly in the tank. NYT has Obama ahead in Florida 53 - 47. My former home of Columbia County voted 66 - 34 for McCain. I’m surprised Obama got the 34.

12:11 p.m.: MSNBC calls Georgia for Obama without the votes from Atlanta or Savannah. NBC is in the tank for McCain.

12:28 p.m.: The only live stream I can get at Uni is MSNBC, which means I have to listen to Olbermann and Matthews and Scarborough stroke themselves for the rest of the day. Working to sort this out. Early returns from Michigan and Missouri look bad. Virginia looks bad. Why do the “real Americans” count faster than commies?

12:33: Oooooh. Fox News Radio! Now this is good. Fox (in the tank for Obama) has Obama with 180 electoral votes. And they just reminded me that there was a riot in Grant Park during the 1968 Democrat convention. Watch out for rioting Obamaniacs, Chicago.

12:42: OK, commies, here’s the deal. Obama needs Florida, Virginia, North Carolina or Ohio. Here’s the numbers as CNN has them:

Florida: Obama 52 - 48

Ohio: Obama 57 - 42

Virginia: McCain 51 -48

NC: Obama 52 - 48

So, it’s pretty good. Remember, real Americans count faster.

12:49 p.m.: Fox News radio jocks are depressed. Suicide watch. They’ve just called Ohio for Obama and called it “over”. Inexplicably they want to play The Stones’ “Tumbling Dice”

Women think Im tasty, but theyre always tryin to waste me
And make me burn the candle right down,
But baby, baby, I dont need no jewels in my crown.

Why?

1:01 p.m: Fox News Radio is already planning for the coming Marxist regime. President Obama will tax them to death. Fair and balanced.

I’m happy to report that Florida’s Volusia County, where A Free Man cast his absentee ballot, went for Obama 56 -44. MSNBC has New Mexico going for Obama. 200 - 865 Obama. I’m betting that we have a new president within the hour. Florida looks poised to redeem itself.

1:10: Not so fast. 62 - 39 to ban gay marriage, Florida? Really? Are we still doing that? Grow up.

1:27: The New York Times is, ironically, the most conservative about calling these states. They have it at Obama 117, McCain 18. Just for kick, let’s see how the drunken college student vote is going. These are university counties in red states:

Clarke County, Georgia (Go Dawgs!): Obama 58 - 40
Alachua County, Florida (Gators Suck): Obama 62 - 37
Tuscaloosa County, Alabama (Roll Tide): McCain 55 -44
Lee County, Alabama (War Eagle): McCain 55 - 44
Knox County, Tennessee (Vols): McCain 60 - 39

So, I guess the Gators aren’t all bad. But the young ‘un vote in the South maybe not a factor.

1:51: Big news. Despite being down 42 - 56 at the latest count, John McCain is the president…

…of Utah.

2:14: More of the student/pothead vote that may, in fact, matter:

Boone County, Missouri (Mizzou!): 62 - 37 Obama
Forsyth County, NC (Demon Deacons): 55 - 45 Obama
Albemarle County, Virginia (Cavs): 59 -39 Obama

2:28 p.m.: Fox has called Virginia for Obama (so in the tank). That may be premature, but I think the cable news folks are being a bit coy about Florida. I’m calling Florida for Obama. Let’s get Cali in and this is done.

2:31 p.m.: That’s it. MSNBC calls it. CNN calls it. Fox explodes. I’ve got to say, I’m a little teary eyed from the Southern Hemisphere. God bless America.

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In my obsession last week with an impotent hatred of the State of Florida, I missed out on a couple of significant dates in my expatriate journey. As of last week, it’s been four years since we left the U.S. and six months since we arrived in Australia.

A lot of the expat bloggers who I read have written lately of the things that they miss from “home”, of the visceral homesickness that often strikes  fast and dark like a midwestern thunderstorm. I’ve found that the longer I’m away the less I’m affected by that storm - the fewer the things that I miss from the States. Most of the day-to-day bits of life can be replicated abroad. The world is a pretty small and increasingly homogeneous place these days. If I want a Big Mac, I go and get a Big Mac. If I want to watch a bad American TV program, chances are that it, or an Australian replicate, is on Channel 7. There are a few things that are so much a part of me that I think I will always miss, but they are mostly trivial - things like comfort foods and secret places (most of them no longer existent in the form in which I remember them).

And my family. This yearning is getting worse rather than better. Australia is incredibly far away from anything else, moreso than I really understood before I got here. The sense of isolation is tangible here, even the distances between Adelaide and other cities in Australia is daunting. Britain always felt cozy and tight. If worse came to worse I could hop on a flight from Gatwick and be back on the East Coast of the States in six hours or so. The trip back to North America from Adelaide is a journey. Both Dr. O’C and I occasionally question our decision to move here, when we think about how far away family members are.

But it’s the decision we made and the die is cast so to speak. We are in Australia for the long haul. I wouldn’t say I’m never coming back to the States, never say never. But after four years away in two different countries it’s becoming clear to me, at the risk of being labeled one of the G.O.P’s “fake Americans”, that for me the American dream is increasingly more accessible from outside of America. I find it difficult to imagine living in the U.S. now, raising my son there. Right now, Australia is the Land of Opportunity for my family.

Which leads me to that second significant date - six months in Australia. I can not complain about how things have gone for us in a short time in Oz. Let me rephrase, I should not complain about the state of things in Oz. I’m not thrilled with our living situation and in self-pitying times, complain voluminously about it. But with a sane attitude, things have gone incredibly well for us Down Under. Both Dr. O’C and I are employed and making more money than either of us ever have. Despite having two jobs, I’m about to cut down to four days a week and have an extra day free with my son every week. I have a beautiful son and a beautiful partner, both of whom bring a smile to my face when I see them after a day at work. Boy Z is happy and healthy and loves to be outdoors in the balmy Australian sunshine (I’m told it gets a bit less friendly come January and February). We’re on the verge of buying the first new car that either of us have ever owned. A home of our own is not too far out of reach. We’re  a short trip to either the beach or the country while living in a manageable urban area. We’ve made friends easily and reasonably quickly.  Australia is offering me a life that is beyond my wildest dreams.

The homesickness - no that’s the wrong word, my home is here. My home is where I and Dr. O’C and Boy Z are on the day. The inborn tie of blood, the almost painful longing to be in the same room of my family - that is something that I just have to deal with on a daily basis, that I have to accept as a consequence of the lifestyle that is available to me here, one that I firmly believe would not be in Britain or America. Skype and e-mail and phone calls are great, but they always leave you hungry for more, sometimes even makes the longing worse. I guess this just gives us more motivation to save money for those long trips abroad.

I try and focus on the day at hand and to appreciate all the wonder and beauty that surrounds me. It’s springtime in Australia and even though actuarial tables would put me more at midsummer, I feel like it’s the springtime of my life.

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Damien Jurado’s latest record, “Caught In The Trees”, is out on Secretly Canadian. Jurado’s an exceptional artist and one who doesn’t get the attention that he deserves. He makes stunningly crafted Americana with lyrics that just make your jaw draw open with their  Both Jurado and the oustanding Secretly Canadian label are blogger friendly, so if you like this track then buy the album here.

 

 Damien Jurado - "Gillian Was A Horse": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Deep South Smack Talk continues this week as the hated Tennessee Volunteers roll out of the hills of east Tennessee and into an almost certain ass kicking at the hands of my beloved Georgia Bulldogs. Those of you who have been reading A Free Man for a while may remember the humiliation visited upon my entire clan last October by The Vol Abroad. This picture will certainly jog your memory. What started off as a bit of harmless expat trash talking, escalated to a wager and then to a full on feud. You can take the SEC football fans out of the South, etc. It all ended quite badly for Boy Z, Timmins and I.

Well, for the last 370 days I have been plotting my vengeance. But alas, it is not to be. The Vol Abroad, despite being a graduate of the University of Tennessee, is not a fool. She’s demurred on my challenge to repeat last year’s bet, so the world will have to wait to see Buddy in glorious red and black. She has agreed to write up a guest post, attempting to sing the praises of the hapless Tennessee Volunteers who have a date for destruction in Athens this weekend. 

Visitors get the first shot here, so let’s see what The Vol Abroad has to say in defense of her hillbilly orangemen:

My grandfather was one of the finest men I ever met.  He believed in temperance and civic duty and going to church on Sunday (and Wednesday) and looking a man in the eye.  And he believed in the Tennessee Volunteers.  I’m not so much on the church going or the temperance, but I managed to absorb the love of the Vols. And this is something I’m passing on to my sixteen month old son.

As a third generation graduate of the University of Tennessee on both sides of my family and with both my degrees coming from that hallowed institution, there was never any other place for me to put my fan love.  Cut me, and I do bleed orange.

But my British husband, who’s described on my blog as the Vol-in-Law, is merely a Volunteer by marriage.  He also has a family tradition in higher education.  He’s a third generation graduate of Oxford University.

So Buddy has inherited rival traditions.  Oxford on the one hand, and Tennessee on the other.  But what kind of love can a boy have for Oxford? As far as I know, their only major sporting event is the Oxford-Cambridge boat race. Go Dark Blues? Beat the Light Blues?   Sure, I guess it’s ok to dress up and stroll around the Thames with a Pimms in hand.  But that hardly compares to joining almost 100,000 fellow fans dressed in orange and singing Rocky Top, over and over and over again in a manner guaranteed to raise a migraine in the skull of any opposing fan.

But of course, as an expat, I don’t have the societal reinforcement of SEC football fandom, but I’m doing my best to raise him right. Dressing him in orange, teaching him to say ‘Go Vols’, trying to lull him to sleep with Rocky Top (bad idea), giving him little Smokey toys to play with and ensuring that he gets sufficient doses of Vol Network internet radio coverage.  He may be the only boy in the world whose baby album features a picture of the baby of a Georgia fan dressed in Tennessee Orange because his daddy lost a bet.  Before he attends his first football game at Neyland Stadium, he’ll know every word of Rocky Top, he’ll know about running through the T, and he’ll understand the Volunteer grumble in a bad season.  And he’ll hate, hate, hate Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

Yep, I’m raising my boy right.

-0-

Maybe this isn’t the best year to be laying down the smack talk about football.  My beloved Tennessee Volunteers don’t seem to be having their finest season.   But as our fearless leader said only last week, we’re still a work in progress and I’m sure all the fine recruiting and two-a-days in the Tennessee heat will come to fruition this Saturday when Tennessee thumps Georgia. Again.

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And in reply, speaking for the home team, your underwhelming correspondent:

Like John McCain and the economy, you’ll note that The Vol Abroad doesn’t want to talk much about football this year. Taking her cues from the G.O.P. playbook, she’s trying to turn the discussion to family values. Well that’s just fine, I think we all know what’s going to happen on the football field this Saturday, so let’s talk about family.

My family is a wandering one. I always felt a kinship with gypsies growing up and held on to the dream of dropping out of mainstream society and running away with the gypsies until about the 274th time that some wild-eyed gypsy woman tried to bully me into buying a sickly geranium on the streets of Oxford.

My point is that my family hasn’t spent three generations in the same country, never mind manning the same moonshine still on some mountain side.  So for me, the University of Georgia was a choice that I made with clear eyes and a clear head. I wanted to attend the finest educational institution that the South had to offer, so there was no real decision to be made when I received an acceptance letter with an Athens postmark*.

Now, we’re half a world away from Old Georgia and chances are that Boy Z may not follow in his father’s educational footsteps in the same way that I didn’t follow in hos grandfather’s.  Boy Z may never walk under the Arches as a student, may never study in the shade of the oaks on North Campus, may never sit with his classmates in Sanford Stadium sweating in polyester gowns under the brutal June sun.

But I will guaran-damn-tee you two things. First, he will be the biggest Georgia Bulldogs fan in Australia, at least until he gets old enough to rebel. Even then as long as he doesn’t cheer for Tennessee or Florida, it’ll be OK**. Second, one day he will walk into Sanford Stadium with his Dad and watch the glory of the Georgia Bulldogs between the hedges. He’ll hear the roar of the crowd, the sound of 90,000 plus voices barking a kick-off, he’ll hear the Red Coat Band play “Glory, Glory”.

And on Sunday morning he’ll sit with me as we listen to the Georgia Bulldogs dismantle the Tennessee Volunteers.

Now, let’s talk just a little about the real issue: the game. It’s personal after the beat down that The Vols put on us last year and the humiliation that was visited upon myself, my son and my dog. Fortunately for A Free Man’s honor, it looks like a good year for revenge. Tennessee is 2 - 3 on the year with losses to a hapless UCLA team, a sub-par Auburn team and an overrated Florida team. Their wins have come against UAB and, in a squeaker, Northern Illinois. The Vols offense is ranked 107th out of 119 Division 1 teams. Now, admittedly, Georgia was not impressive against Alabama two weeks ago, but the boys in red and black have had two weeks to stew in their embarassment. Tennessee has taken us apart for the last two years and it’s time for revenge. If the Dawgs can’t get up for this game, then they just can’t get up full stop.

We’re doing all we can for the Dawgs from half a world away. As you can see in that photo above, Boy Z and I went out and made a sacrifice to Nemesis, the Greek goddess of revenge. That kangaroo was the closest thing we could find to a fleabitten, mangy coon hound. And if you listen carefully on Saturday afternoon, you’ll hear us singing:

Glory, glory to old Georgia!
Glory, glory to old Georgia!
Glory, glory to old Georgia!
G-E-O-R-G-I-A.

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Tennessee at Georgia kicks off at 3:30 p.m. Eastern (6:00 a.m. Sunday Adelaide or 8:30 p.m. London). It’s televised on CBS in the States. CBS offers the game for free online but ONLY IN THE U.S. Damn you, CBS! The Vol Abroad was working on a hack, perhaps she’ll let us know if she sorted it out. Otherwise, it’s internet radio for the expat fans.

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Ryan Adams’ “Demolition” is available from .

Vol fan in horror borrowed from Hey Jenny Slater (excellent Dawg site).

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* For sticklers for the truth, this is actually a longer story and thus not strictly true. The whole, longwinded tale can be found here.

** If he ever cheers for Tennessee or Florida or becomes a vegan, I’m kicking his ass out.

 

 Ryan Adams - "Tennessee Sucks" [2:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Do you guys ever get the idea that you’re being ruled by a gang of not very bright, petulant children? One of the advantages of being an expatriated American is that I can typically watch the goings on back home with an air of detached bemusement. But sometimes devastatingly dumb decisions made stateside can spiral out and smack me about on the other side of the world. For example, when the Congress of Megalomaniac Brats fails to try and save the world’s biggest (not much longer) economy because one of them called some of them names. That’s why I still stay actively up to date with American politics. That’s why I sent my absentee ballot to the Volusia County Supervisor of Elections today.

Maybe now that I’ve voted I can ignore the rest of this train wreck of an election.

Yeah, probably not.

All this mess, Nathan’s comment the other day and this post by We Be Toys reminded me of the last uncontrollable force that I had to try and control. My Siberian Husky, Timmins, is now the very model of a well behaved pooch. Hold on, I’ve just got my tongue stuck here in my cheek. At any rate, he’s certainly an easier animal to deal with than when we were still living in the States. When he was a younger dog, Timmins was virtually impossible to keep contained. With a running start, the dog could clear a six foot fence with not too much trouble. He used to sit by the front door just waiting for a failure in vigilance and then bolt. Once loose, you got the dog back when he wanted to come back. No matter how accomplished a dog tackler you were, Timmins would leave you cursing in a cloud of dust.

Part of dog ownership for Dr. O’C and I was chasing our dog around the streets of Columbia, Missouri as he terrorized cats or whatever other small mammals he could find, chasing him around as he occasionally glanced back at his pursuers with a look of brazen disobedience. We never held a party in which part of the festivities didn’t involve some of the guests wandering around our neighborhood trying to catch our wayward dog. We tried everything to keep the damn dog in the yard and nothing worked.

Somewhere along the way, and I really don’t recall whose idea this was, it seemed like a good idea to try to electrify the fence around out backyard. “It seemed like a good idea at the time” was kind of a theme of the first thirty or so years of my life, so one spring afternoon I came home from work early with some contraband fencing and a few curiously willing work colleagues. We spent the remainder of the day drinking beer and wiring my backyard for electricity. For a house near the center of town, we had a remarkably big yard and so the details are pretty hazy but I do remember Nathan, who actually grew up on a farm, was particularly helpful. What I can’t remember for the life of me is who tested the fence. I do recall one of my work colleagues, who in hindsight I suspect of sadism, trying to convince me to force the dog onto the fence to show him what it was.

I couldn’t cope with watching my dog hit the fence for the first time, so I went inside and waited. I didn’t have to wait long for a shrieking yelp followed by a long, low mournful and angry cry. I hurried out the back and Timmins was in the exact center of the yard looking as if he had just come face to face with his maker. He didn’t move from the center of the yard for hours and that was only to come in to the house to go to bed.

Lest you feel too much sympathy for the dog or are inclined to judge me harshly, that fence only kept the dog in for about a month before he figured out how to avoid a shock and still escape.

I never hit that fence, so I couldn’t tell you what it felt like. Dr. O’C did, at least once, despite knowing it was there. She wasn’t the only one as various people, again at parties, would forget it was there and rub up against it to their surprise. There may have been a time or two that I neglected to tell people that we had an electric fence, just because they annoyed me.

To try and tie this meandering post together, I’d like to give you my best Sarah Palin impression:

Well Katie, to fix this economic crisis, such as, I would suggest putting all of the Congresses together in a pen with a, you know, electric fence and ok, I mean, obviously out there for God and everyone to judge. Then there will be reform, such as with mavericks and lipstick. And we’ll say thanks but no thanks to that bridge to nowhere. Katie. Obviously.  They’re not waiting to see what Barack Obama is going to do. Is he going to do this and see what way the political wind’s blowing? I’ll try to find an electric fence and I’ll bring it to you.

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The New Pornographers’ “Electric Version” is available from .

 

 The New Pornographers - "The Electric Version" [2:53m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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(For those of you who, inexplicably, couldn’t give a toss about college football, scroll down for some non-sports related fun and public humiliation. )

Lot of controversy on A Free Man lately, so I’ve decided to ease into something we can all agree as the weekend nears - the supremacy of my almae matres’ football teams*. Both the Universities of Georgia and Missouri are in action again this weekend, so the Free household will spend an Australian Sunday morning hunched over the computer keeping up with what’s happening on the gridiron half a world away.

Missouri’s got another easy one this weekend, hosting MAC powerhouse Buffalo. The way that the Tigers’ offense is clicking right now, however, I’m pretty sure that they could beat the Buffalo Bills, nevermind the Bulls. I’m looking forward to seeing what Mizzou can do in a couple of weeks time when they go over to Lincoln for a big game with the Cornholers. This one will be a walk in the park: Missouri 66, Buffalo 13.

Now, Georgia. The Dawgs failed to whelm on Saturday against the Gamecocks of South Carolina. They ground out a win in Columbia but have to travel across the country this week for a rare appearance out west against the Arizona State Sun Devils. Arizona State looked a lot scarier last week before they completely laid an egg against a lesser opponent, but it’s still a dicey game for the Dawgs. Three keys for a Bulldog win in Tempe:

1.  The offensive line has got to figure it out. We have one of the best backfields in the country, but if they keep getting crushed because their line falls apart there’s not much they can do.
2. Special teams. If you regularly give the opposition the ball on the 40, they’re going to be able to score regardless of how good your D is.
3. D backs. Come on guys, S.C. got 271 yards in the air and they aren’t particularly good. ASU’s Rudy Carpenter is 5th in the country in passing. The secondary absolutely must get it together.

It’s a late kickoff on Saturday, which means that I get to sleep in on Sunday for a change. Internet radio only, kickoff at 9:30 a.m. Sunday Adelaide time. I think Arizona State will make this a game, but the Dawgs pull it out on the road: Georgia 24, Arizona State 17.

Finally, two of my least favorite teams are head to head this week as the Marsh Skinks creep out of Gainesville up into the Smokies to face the Hillbillies of Tennessee. If only it were possible for both of these teams to lose…

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Speaking of karma, it’s about time for some more link love. Here are five bloggers who have been on their game lately:

1. One of my old timey blogging buddies, Not Afraid To Use It has taken things to a new level lately with a serial set of posts about  a cancer scare and the medical and personal repurcussions thereof. Her writing is just raw emotion. Fantastic. Start here and follow the story along.
2. Music blogging is a tough gig. I’m not the best at it, which is one of the reasons that you just see an occasional music post from me. It’s just not very rewarding as you don’t get a ton of comments. You’ve got to be something special to get your readers involved. Well, from the wilds of inner city Glasgow comes an amphibian to show us all the way . Toad of Song, by Toad is a master of getting feedback from a notoriously reticent audience. See this post about Neds and this one on Calexico as an example of Toad at his best.
3. Everyone and their bloggin’ grannies posted about 9/11 on 9/11 and fair enough, it’s a big day if your an American. I tend to be suspicious of this day, because I think that the Right has been using it for political gain since it happened. But three bloggers really got to me, got past the cynicism that’s built up in me about this day in the seven years since. You may not want to think about it again, but I’ve got to give People in the Sun, Nitro Vista and Formerly Fun kudos for very different, yet very powerful 9/11 posts that didn’t make me want to click away as soon as I saw that it was a 9/11 post.
4. New discovery of the week: a fellow Floridian, a fellow expat, a fellow dweller Down Under - check out Florida Girl in Sydney. I’m still going through her archives, but am enjoying what I’m reading.
5. I hesitate to point you here because I’m cringing in anticipation of what is no doubt going to be a hefty dose of public humiliation. Maggie, damn her, gave my name to Brian as a potentially willing victim for his Fug Mug Friday this week. For some reason, I agreed to participate and sent Brian two photos that really shouldn’t see the light of day. I’m not sure which he chose, so I’ll be as surprised as you. Check Brian’s site and see if you can figure out which Fugly is your underwhelming correspondent.

Have a great weekend!

Hurray, hurrah! Mizzou! Mizzou!

Go Dawgs ! Sic ‘em!

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Wilco’s Being There, perhaps their finest, is available from .

 

 Wilco - "Hotel Arizona" [3:38m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Just a warning in advance, I am in a bad mood today. Not in any kind of mood to mince words…

Strange Scottish Girl, who has a snazzy new site by the way, asked me the other day for a political post. I’ve not written one in a while, largely because the whole Sarah Palin nomination/ Republican circus has just depressed me. I’m depressed at the cynicism of the McCain campaign thinking that disaffected Clinton voters will flock to Palin just because of the number of X chromosomes that she bears. I’m depressed that the Republicans are falling back on extreme social conservativism to engorge their base. Again. I’m depressed that the oldest presidential candidate in history has selected a viciously pro-life, creationist, anti-science, book banning neo-fascist to be a malignant melanoma away from the reins of my homeland.

Mostly I’m depressed that it seems to be working. The most recent Real Clear Politics aggregate polls have McCain up three points on Obama, the first time he’s led since he became the presumptive Republican nominee back in the Spring. This isn’t because of McCain’s slightly histrionic and more than slightly disingenuous speech last week, it’s because of Palin.

I don’t even want to post about Palin, I just can’t drum up the words. She represents everything that I think is wrong with the Republican Party and American politics as it stands today. I was really pretty optimistic about things because it looked like things were changing - even the G.O.P. had weeded out the wing nuts and nominated a socially moderate candidate, but then Palin.

But this isn’t about Sarah Palin, it’s about book banning. Sarah Palin likes the idea of banning books by most accounts. Sarah Palin asked the librarian in the town she ran how she would feel if Palin asked her to remove some books from the local library. The librarian said she would never do anything of the sort. The librarian was “asked to resign” a few days later. The McCain campaign has tried to quiet this story by saying that Palin’s request was speculative and that the librarian wasn’t fired because she said no to Palin, but for other reasons. Whatever.

I know book banners and I know what they look like and sound like. I grew up in a small town on the steaming pine flats of north Florida. This particular town was famous for two things. One, Ted Bundy killed his last victim there. Two, they banned Chaucer from the schools. When I was a Freshman in High School, my county school board banned a humanities text book that contained excerpts from Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata” and Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”. That’s right, 5^th century B.C. Greek drama and 13^th century English frame tales were too dirty for our developing minds. A local preacher’s wife was helping her daughter with her homework one day and came across the mere mention of the existence of sex in Lysistrata and the “The Miller’s Tale” – a farcical story in verse that includes medieval fart jokes – and went all histrionic. She got her husband on to the case, who used his own little bully pulpit to get a rise out of his Southern Baptist congregation. As these things do in small towns, in a matter of weeks there was fury from the community about their precious innocents being forced to read such smut. Smut that 99% of them hadn’t bothered to read. Smut that the vast majority of them couldn’t pronounce, never mind spell.

The irony, of course, is that in the late 80’s most of these delicate flowers were having more sex than Aristophanes could ever conceive of and the jokes I heard in the halls of my school would have caused Chaucer to blush. But logic and reality tend to be irrelevant when a community is stricken with a righteous fury and the school board, with a cowardly unanimous vote, caved under the pressure and banned both the humanities book and the original text.

At the time, I didn’t know Greek comedy from situation comedy and  I didn’t know that Chaucer was the father of English literature and laid the path for seven centuries of words to come. I was 15 and had bigger issues to deal with and I just didn’t really care about the ban.  I was young and still labored under the illusion that elected officials knew best and had my best interests at heart. I’ve always been a little bit ashamed that I wasn’t angry at the time, that I didn’t get angry until I went away to college and read “Lysistrata” and “The Canterbury Tales”. It was at that point that I realized what had been done to me by the preachers and the school board.

I have no problem with anyone’s religious beliefs, none whatsoever. Largely because what  anyone else believes is absolutely none of my business. If you don’t want to watch a movie or read a book or listen to a song because it flies in the face of your religious beliefs, that’s fine. If you don’t want your child to read a book or listen to a song because it flies in the face of your religious beliefs, that’s fine, though you probably ultimately do your child a disservice. Nonetheless, none of my business. But the Christianists that banned Chaucer and Aristophanes went a step too far, they didn’t want anyone to read, watch or listen to something that offended their faith. This is where I have a problem. This is where your religion offends me. This is where your beliefs tread on not only my beliefs, but my freedom to practice them. This is where it becomes my business.

I learned that in my first year of a private Christian college in South Carolina. I learned that I should be angry about what had been done in my hometown. I learned about book banning. It didn’t just happen in that small town in north Florida. It had happened throughout history when zealots with a modicum of power and more than their fair share of influence convinced an ill informed population that a book threatened their morality. And I got angry. And I wrote an essay for a literature class about book banning and book banners. My professor encouraged me to send that essay to my local newspaper and they published it as a guest editorial.

My small salvo in the war against book banning got me my first job as a writer. The surprisingly progressive publisher of our local paper gave me a summer job as an intern reporter. I spent two summers reporting on the local politicians . It was during those two summers that I became a liberal, that I began to question authority, that I learned the dirty truth about small town politics. During those two summers I got to know Sarah Palin. I got to know small minded people that are so convinced that their personal morality is right that they are willing to force it on everyone else by any means necessary. I learned that if people wouldn’t listen and change, the Sarah Palins of the world will litigate their world view. There are lots of Sarah Palins on school boards and county commissions and, yes, in mayors offices in small towns around the country, particularly in the South. I know her, I’ve worked for her and I’ve worked against her and I have had enough of her.

Now most of the time, these people don’t get far in politics. But every now and again one of them is clever enough, glib enough or charismatic enough to climn the political ladder. Sometimes they get elected to the State legislature, sometimes they might be elected to the House of Representatives. Occasionally one of them becomes governor or even a Senator. Increasingly, these small-minded proto fascists are making a dent on the national stage. Recently they’ve made their way on to the U.S. Supreme Court and into the White House itself.

I had high hopes that this year was going to be different. But then came Sarah Palin, with her snide, sarcastic speech and her fundamentalist agenda and I realized that it was just the same old shit from the G.O.P. So, I don’t want to hear from Sarah Palin. I don’t want to be polite about this election anymore. I don’t want to try and balance the two parties and try to be fair. I’m angry and I’m tired of these people and I want them to go away. I want their mandate taken away.   I want them beaten and beaten soundly. Am I a member of the “Angry Left”? You’re damn right I am.

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Image credits:

Chains

Freadom

Columbia County Courthouse

Eye chart

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Belle and Sebastian’s “Dear Catastrophe Waitress” is available from eMusic.

 

 Belle & Sebastian - "Wrapped Up In Books" [3:34m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Dr. O’C is the latest member of A Free Man’s household to crack the job market. After what will be nearly a year in the purgatory of stay-at-home motherhood (she would quite possibly use a different word), Dr. O’C will re-join the ranks of the gainfully employed next month. This is the latest in a string of successes in our new Antipodean home and reflects one of the reasons that we came down here. And looking at things as a whole, and knocking exuberantly on wood, things are going pretty good in our new home.

A fellow American in Adelaide who stumbled onto my site wrote a post the other day that got me thinking about immigration. Her point is that most expats (and other people for that matter) relish and toss around the word ‘expatriate’ but ‘cringe’ at the word immigrant. ‘Expatriate’ carries with it images of glamour, worldliness, champagne on the Seine and first class round the world flights. ’Immigrant’ conjures images of huddled masses in steerage, midnight dashes over the Rio Grande and closed doors.

I prefer the word ‘expatriate’ myself but the Australian government, probably rightly, would use the word ’immigrant’ to describe me. Maybe it’s time I started to use that word as well. Both Dr. O’C and I come from a long line of immigrants and maybe it was natural that we followed in their footsteps. Dr. O’C’s family emigrated from Ireland to Australia when she and her sister were quite young in the hopes of making a better life for their family. My great-grandparents emigrated from Europe to Canada in the early part of the 20th century to escape a continent that seemed to be in a state of endless war. My parents moved from Canada to the U.S. in the late 60’s to ride the tail end of the post-war boom. And I emigrated from the U.S. through Europe to Australia in the early part of the 21st century in search of a life that I didn’t think was available to me in the U.S.

I suspect that all of the immigrants in our bloodlines had the same goal when they picked up and left their  home - a better life for our families. All of them achieved that goal - they succeeded beyond what they thought possible in the Old Country. Now, with the unemployment rate in the Free Man household reaching 0%* we’re well on the way to that better life that brought us Down Under.

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* We’re going to give Baby Z a few years before including him in employment statistics. 12 or 13 maybe?

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Led Zeppelin’s III is available from .

 

 Led Zeppelin - "Immigrant Song": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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We’re here. It’s been a couple of days of physically painful, bleary-eyed jetlag. I don’t even know if I can do it justice. The trip was, well the trip is over. Let’s just say that I am not traveling back to the States or Europe until the trip here is somehow erased from my memory.

I’m currently scavenging someone’s free wireless from a shopping mall somewhere south of the Adelaide city center, so no music or photos. If I’m being honest, I’m not yet enamored. But, I’m open minded, with the full recognition that the more sleep I get, the better things will look.

Impressions so far - bone dry, lots of birds (including wild cockatoos), more American than British.

Z and Dr. O’C are slowly coming into Australian time. We get Timmins back on Friday - I think things will start looking a lot better by then. Hopefully we’ll have our internet sorted by next week and your underwhelming correspondent will be back like cooked crack.  Until then, I’ll be trying to keep me kangaroo tied down.

Oh, and I’m pretty sure that I saw some kind of exotic Australian marsupial crossing the road last night but everyone is trying to tell me it was a cat.

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