some faithful readers have raised some concern over my apparent alcoholism, so you will be happy to know that i am officially partied out. it seems as if the spring break mentality just kinda stuck, and we seemed to go out more often than we didn

so there’s this fella by the name of jean baudrillard, i hope youve heard of him. if not, he’s the french guy who said, among other things, that the first gulf war didnt exist. not because he’s some glue sniffing french whino, but because the average joe dumbass experienced the gulf war as a simulation, a video game war played out on the propaganda of television news. this is kinda similar to jfk jr’s assassination, some say it is the moment when the postmodern age began. an instantaneous universal media extravaganza, forever shattering the american dream and signalling an era of uncertainty and confusion. im doing a lot of simplification here folks, feel free to fill in the blanks, but the point is: we dont really “experience” things in a ‘Real’ way anymore. which gets me back to 9/11.

i say, september 11 did not happen.

pretend we’re talking about something else for a second, like cats jumping around all nimbly bimbly, got the visual in your head? and then i all of a sudden say “SEPTEMBER 11!”. what enters your mind? you probably think of how unbelievable the whole thing was, and where you were that day. but invariably, you will soon think of the television screen in your head, where news coverage of the plane hitting the building is playing. its probably that one angle where the second plane comes in from the right side of the screen. or maybe you think of that shot where the debris and smoke are filling the streets and people are running frantically towards the camera to get out of its way? weve seen that shot before, and weve seen buildings get blown up before too. september 11 happened in our collective imaginary every weekend at the local cinematorium. every fiery explosion accompanied by a witty catchphrase, every multimillion dollar action sequence using the latest state-of-the-art computer graphics, every movie that we imagined and filmed our very own destruction in, we experienced september 11.

then it happened, the real “manhattan disaster movie”.

but it wasnt real. sure, people died, but we’ve seen that all before. we see people die EVERYDAY on tv. how exactly is this different from the thousands of people that senselessly die every other september day? are we fooling ourselves into thinking this is some earth-shattering history-defining event? are we that self-absorbed and out of touch with reality that we need to collectively pretend that something as minor as september 11 is really THIS big a deal? i mean absolutely no disrespect to those who died, and i do not for a second condone terrorism (god forbid someone talk about september 11 in a less than reverent way, he must be a terrorist-sympathizer! if september 11 is this big a deal, then we should be able to discuss it in a civilized manner, so dont get all huffy about my approach to this unfortunate day). but come on people, 6 million jews dying, thats an event. 1 million rwandans dying, thats an event. what is happening RIGHT NOW in sudan, that is an event. this is two thousand people, what woulda been - shoulda been - a footnote in history. except for the strange reaction that occured as a result of september 11.

mother fuck the war on terror.

start and win a war on cigarettes. how about senseless car accidents. how about fucking homelessness? or FAMINE? or POVERTY? or any of the other real issues that are taking a LOT of peoples’ lives. even if you are concerned with the “security” of your country, how about nuclear weapons proliferation? oh wait, look who the harbourer of weapons is in that much more serious case. not “terrorists”. unless you live in the middle east or chechnya or something, terrorism is not an epidemic. the average person’s succeptibility to propaganda, that is an epidemic. the current state of the average person’s knowledge on politics and the media system’s responsibility for such information. that is a epidemic. how about we stop being scared and starting LIVING our lives as well as CARING about other lives? september 11 is not a big deal, and that is not an outrageous statement. even the way september 11 has been raped and exploited to further corporate america’s agenda to make money, no matter how many fake wars need to be started or innocent people need to be killed; not even that is the outrage. the outrage is that we are COMPLICIT with it. we are the villains in this tragic movie.

and we have absolutely. no. fuckin. idea.

you ever wake up hung over and stumble into your bathroom only to find a large wet canadian flag hanging from your shower? do you then start to piece together a night of the largest drinking game ever assembled? perhaps there were a couple dozen people playing a 7 round best of 7 series of flip-cup? perhaps nearing the end of the game, after going through a few 30 packs of beer, things started to get out of hand? perhaps somehow everyone spontaneously jumped in the pool with all their clothes on? maybe there were a few who didnt wanna go in but were dragged kicking and screaming? maybe the game kept going but with full beers each round? maybe the huge collection of empty beer cans started getting thrown at one another? perhaps dave-o didnt respond to that very well and threw one at your head? or maybe that was because you horked in his cup the previous round? maybe one particular young boy, proudly wearing his canadian flag like a cape, participated in one too many rounds of flip-cup? perhaps he chugs a full beer and then immediately feels a glorious rise within his stomach? did he luckily flip the cup in one swift move and then make his way to the edge of the balcony and projectile puke his chicken fingers, fries, and copious amount of ‘tooheys new’ beer over the side? did some onlookers estimate the distance somewhere between 3 to 4 metres?

or is that just me?

hi-oh.

another eventful week on the beautiful gold coast to try and piece together thru the haze of free beer. last thursday we hit up a new venue, the sugar shack, which has dollar beers, not quite as good as free, but there were free daiquiris and champagne at the next bar. then it was off to “howl at the moon”, another fantastic bar that rivals the corona and sunset good times of “fishos”. howl is this money piano bar, with a really good house band that plays good music to dance to. as you know, i despise dancing, but really thats just stupid club dancing. this is good ol fashioned wholesome dancing, with spins and dips and falling over (maybe thats just me). the bartenders do crazy tricks with the bottles and whatnot, there is a killer patio overlooking surfers, and apparently paris hilton is a regular when she’s in town, haha. at this point im kinda confused if that was thursday nite or not. one night we didnt have enough cab money to get home and got stranded somewhere in southport, tried to walk home but it was way too far, and the 3 of us nearly passed out on some random street corner but nick came to the rescue in a cab. but maybe that was the nite that we lost pat, only for him to walk in the next morning after being arrested and put in the drunk tank for the nite. on sunday we went to fishos again, another sunset and another bucket of coronas. i really need to write in this blog more often, cause i cant for the life of me remember what else happened this week. i know dave also got arrested this week and put in the drunk tank, i think that was this past thursday. it was carl’s birthday and i had to keep track of him and pat and nick which was quite the mission after all the yagger bombs and tequila shots. i vaguely remember being ass-drunk and hitting on girls with nick at shooters and getting shot down by about 20 girls in as many minutes. last nite was another barcrawl, which we somehow got into for free, my yank friends know some people who know some people who rob some people. its now saturday and our place is a fuckin disaster zone. it looks like something exploded in here, or died. we really need to stop throwing shit into our fan when we’re drunk. and eating pasta cause theres way too much tomato sauce on the floor.

somehow i can live a ridiculously drunken lifestyle such as this yet still manage a 93 average. i love school, too bad classes get in the way.

and now time for the links part of the show:
Chomsky Blog - noam chomsky has a blog! i think everybody should have a blog… go to blogger.com and start your own…
what barry says - this is a REALLY well done animation about corporate militarism, go watch now.
Sarah McLachlan - im not a huge fan, but this is a really smart music video, definitely worth checking out.
“From Baghdad” - an article from a wall street journal reporter which was an email to his friends explaining how bad it is in iraq, so it doesnt have the ‘big media’ spin.
Pearl Jam - doing dylan’s masters of war on letterman, gotta love it.
Naomi Klein - last but certainly not least, ive been wondering what my darling naomi has been up to, and apparently its getting into the documentary business with her husband, with a film about argentina and globalization, thats my girl.

oh, and in the new year im going to the big day out, australia’s huge music festival, with the beastie boys, the chemical brothers, the streets, system of a down etc etc.

its a rough life…

this is gonna be big, prepare yourself…

fraser island

after a few hours drive up to hervey bay, our 18 person posse split up into 2 groups and each piled into our huge 4wheeler, and we headed over to fraser island on the ferry. here’s my group:

fraser island is the biggest sand island in the world, its a few hours to drive the whole length of it, and the beach is the highway for 4wheelers and planes. its a tad dangerous cause the surrounding coast is full of tiger sharks, so no one swims, and it has wild dingos, which mauled some kid to death last year. it also has sand rainforests, which is pretty rare, and some beautiful fresh water lakes, which was our first stop. lake mackenzie is one of the top rated beaches in the world, and you can tell why from this pic.

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its just this perfect little lake hidden in the rainforest, its unreal. after that, we went and set up camp just off the beach. is this not the coolest campsite ever?

there are designated areas, but you can pretty much camp wherever you want, totally secluded, its money. we’d been drinking all day at the lake and in the 4wheelers, but once the sun went down, the real boozefest started. we consumed an unholy amount of beer, wine, bundaberg rum, and jack daniels on this trip. i wish we could of tallied it all up, it woulda been crazy. the next day we checked out the maheno shipwreck:

and we went up to indian head, but i didnt have my camera on me. i’ll get some pics from other people eventually. there were probably a dozen people with digi cams so i’ll post more pics once i get other peoples’ pics. we got a huge game of stickball goin that afternoon which was a lot of fun.

then we set up another wicked campsite for that night, complete with a firepit we dug stadium seating for.

another boozefest erupted that nite, with dave turning into his drunken alterego dave-o, then turning into his REALLY drunken alter-ego gary. we tried to bury him while he was passed out, but he kept waking up. gary did trip and fall down a huge hill though, which was priceless. he also christened my new nickname. i told him to shutup or i’d bury him, so he said “you shutup anrew,” then after realizing he was too drunk to say my name right, he said “thats right! i’ll bury the d! ANREW!” only gary could come up with that… dave/gary is the one in the middle moaning:

it was later revealed that gary was a result of funneling straight rum, not a good idea. a few of the gang slept on the beach, which was apparently a bad idea cause they were woken up by a dingo licking sophie’s feet. lucky he wasnt hungry i suppose. the next morning we had to be back at the ferry by noon but we managed to stop by lake wabby, which is another breath taking lake. its a huge sand dune, surrounded by rainforest, with a lake at the bottom, its just amazing.

after an exhausting 3 days of camping and hiking and drinking, you’d think we’d take the off-night to relax and get some rest right? oh no, not with these crazy yanks. within an hour or two of getting back, a wicked tailgate party has started in the parking lot of our hostel, with them blasting and dancing to country music. hervey bay is a shitty little town, which is only good for getting to fraser island, so it came as no surprise that the bar we went to was completely empty. no worries though, we just started our own dance party. picture a bunch of crazy tourists, all dancing on tables, just given er all nite. i try to only dance on a bi-annual basis, but i was rockin out that nite. the double shot of whitesnake and bon jovi i requested was money. i wish i had a picture of that nite, it was just random craziness.

whitsunday islands

the next day we drove the 12 hours or so up to airlie beach, and stayed at reefos, the evil evil hostel that gave me bed bugs (i think). the next day was a day to bum around airlie beach, so we tried going to coral beach, but ended up hiking to swamp bay instead, oops. that was my fault actually, but swamp bay was actually pretty nice. here’s some of us showing where the gun show is:

and here’s me and stefan with some of the ladies. i love how stefan is totally staring at kelly’s boobs:

another boozefest that nite, then we got on our kick-ass cataraman the next morning.

i dont know how we got such a good deal on this boat, but it was this brand new cataraman with hot tub, dvd player, sound system, and a 3 man crew to feed us awesome food and take us around the 74 magnificent whitsunday islands. it was incredible. when we came to get on, they were shocked by how much booze we brought (the plastic bottles are full of bundy and jack)…

and that we were already drunk. the beer bong had made an appearance while we were waiting…

here i am before i get on board. apparently to some i look like an excited little boy, which is true, but keep in mind im pretty drunk for 11am.

after sobering up (apparently you cant get in the water drunk, who knew?), we headed to a reef for snorkelling and scuba diving (for the really sober ones, ie not me). snorkelling was really good though, it was a really colourful, packed reef. back on the boat, we toasted to this beautiful sunset with a few (dozen) cocktails…

the next day was easily the best day of the trip, and probably in running for one of the best days of my life. i slept on the main deck by this huge window, so i woke up around 5ish to the sun rising over one of the islands, which was just awesome. after a good little breakfast, me, coop, dave, and gordon took our intro scuba dive, which was a lot of fun. they had a digital camera, which they could take underwater, so they got some great pics of us, and played a slideshow each nite with the days pics.

me and coop did another dive afterwards, where we got to go a lot deeper and longer, and saw this cool “nemo nest”

after the scuba in the morning, we went to whitehaven beach, which is also one of the world’s top rated beaches. definately one of those times where a photo doesnt do it justice:

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i love how pete (on the far left) is just absolutely rockin it

dont worry, i just borrowed the hat, i dont walk around like this…

the beach is so huge, and its so shallow so the tide makes it look different throughout the day. we came at the perfect time, with the tide about to go out, so the sand and water swirl together. the sand is pure white scillica sand, apparently they used 3 tonnes of it to make the hubble space telescope, thats how pure it is. the nite was capped off with another boozefest (a pattern is starting to develop), where me and dave performed the song we wrote about spring break. and by “wrote”, i mean take a dashboard song, change the lyrics of “so long sweet summer” into “so long sweet break”, and add a few lines making fun of people. clever eh? we got it all on tape, its pretty funny. the next day we headed back, but not before me, carter, and dave attempted to finish up the beer at about 9am while still on the boat. if i learned one thing on this trip (and i didnt), its that shotgunning a beer on a boat is a bad idea. it makes carter puke over the side of the boat, and makes me look like this:

actually, i think its either bed bugs from one of the hostels we stayed at, or some sort of miscellaneous bug that attacked me while camping on the beach. either way, i got a rash something fierce on my back, arms, and legs. i look like a freakin burn victim. they warned us of the spiders, snakes, and dingos, but not this. i also have one sunburnt eyelid, whats up with that? but none of that matters, cause i had the single best week of my life. i’ll try to convey how incredible it was soon, but the sun is rising, which means ive been up for 24 hours, 12 of which was spent driving, so im gonna go sleep for 3 days. until then…