Limbo-ing below the dotted line for a week

This is a particularly special blog post for me, as it is one that I was actually requested to write, rather than one that I try to force down people's throats in order to pander to my narcissism. However, unlike normal blogs, this one is not about me - well, okay, it is about me - but it is for the 1.4 billion people in the world who live below the poverty line. This is the line of extreme poverty, not just the Henderson line of poverty, which was created by an economist, whose head was probably so far up his ass that anything less than a golden throne and 2 ply toilet paper is poverty in his ivory tower. The line of extreme poverty however, is an amount so small and a state so desperate, that people literally will be forced to eat rice for two meals a day, and where buying a book or particular medications is not even an option that one entertains.

In Australia the line of extreme poverty is considered $2 a day to live on. This is an adjusted rate, clearly in countries where a gourmet meal can be bought for $2, the amount these people live on is probably something around $0.50c a day. Self righteous, indulgent hippies could probably tell you that they could get by on that amount by eating out of a bin in India easily enough, and most students would be able to live off mi goreng noodles for that much, except weed and goon nor hippie pants or hotpants are included in that equation. In this case, there is no option of splurging when willpower goes astray or running to a soup kitchen or dumpster diving - people live on $2 or less a day everyday of their lives, with no big juicy steak at the end of the tunnel. They do not have parents who will begrudgingly bail them out if all else fails, or the ability to wake up one day and find a nice minimum wage job that will pay them $20 an hour; at $2 a day, living below the extreme poverty line is the darkest form of desperation that one can face.

As a result, thousands of Australians each year challenge themselves to understand the feeling of living on $2 a day for food. For 5 days - which really isn't a great deal compared to a life time - we hide away our wallets, prepare our pantries with our $10 of food and hold on as we feel our stomachs contract, our mouths water and our will to live diminish by the day. To put it into perspective, the McDonalds Dollar Menu, which is as cheap as take away gets, will only provide 10 small fries or 5 cheeseburgers FOR AN ENTIRE WEEK! Since take away is then off the cards, what will $10 buy at the supermarket that will sustain a person for a week:

• 4 packets of Mi Goreng Noodles
• 4 packets of oats and 4 boxes of milk
• 2 loaves of bread, 2 knobs of devon lunch meat, 2 packets of pasta, 2 packets of pasta sauce and 5 sachets of home brand noodle soup.
• 2/3 of the cheapest and nastiest packet of cigarettes
• A jar of instant coffee, a bottle of cordial and 2 kg of sausages

Or basically NOT A WHOLE LOT! Bear in mind also, that any form of spices, flavouring or even salt and pepper have to come into the budget. Stealing them from McDonalds isn't an option either. 1.4 billion people can't sneak into Maccas everyday to grab some sneaky condiments! Even on the most prudent budget, $2 a day simply does not leave a great deal of room for flavour, enjoyment or even proper nourishment.

Since I won't have the funds at my disposal to indulge in Chinese food, McDonalds, pies, chips and ice cream, this could be a week for me to attempt to be healthy (I'm talking healthier than normal here, not organic-quinoa-type-Whole-Foods-wanker healthy!). Perhaps I could do the Beyonce maple syrup, lemon and pepper detox and enjoy a perky Beyonce-esque butt at the end of it all; although this is a challenge designed to raise money and awareness for world poverty, not an excuse for my own self-indulgent look like Beyonce detox regime. After all, I have a full week of uni, working and... living a hard student life of course. Just keeping my ass the size that it is requires quite a few calories, which will be hard to maintain during the week that I live like a bum.

Other than torture people for a week, Live Below the Line aims to raise money to run education programs in places like Papua New Guinea. Why education? The aim is not to indoctrinate children or even try to teach them algebra, but to give them the skills that they can use to go out and make some money and improve their lives. In Australia we are lucky to have been born where we were and into a system that can support us. I'm not praising the Australian system; in fact it is very screwed up and has a very very long way to go until it is halfway decent and helps those who really need it. However we always know that we can go out and find some kind of job (or Centrelink) that will keep us above the poverty line. In some places, where children don't even have the opportunity to go to school, such a dream is just not possible. There is no virtue in being born, and just because we were lucky to be born in Australia does not give us the right to sit on our high horse of self entitlement and spit at the beggars in the street.

LBL cause. You can sponsor me to to it by clicking here. Or just go to livebelowtheline.com and just donate to the cause, whatever. It's time to plan my shop, get my team ready and go for gold.

I think after some high-level harassment, I managed to raise about $200 all up for LBL in the end. Although that paled in comparison to the $10,000+ that other participants raised, and I consistently wondered whether they were just better at hustling than I am, or have more supportive networks of donors. Or maybe I'm just too cynical and this LBL campaign confused people.

BUT as I said, this isn't a competition that's just about me, and I'm sure that $200 did a decent amount for poor people in PNG. In the end, I think the hardest thing about the challenge was not being able to go out, or grab some food on the run. Incidentally my shopping list regularly looked like the one above, but the only difference was that I would usually go out for some drinks or buy food at uni, which was off the table.

The following year my sister Michelle did LBL. I think she actually did a really fantastic job, and even included other challenges like sleeping in a tent, and walking to the river to bathe and get buckets of drinking water. Poverty isn't just about what you eat for one week, but the whole lifestyle, so I was even more proud and impressed by what she did, even more than the keen beans who raised $1000s and went back to their comfortable bed each night.

The only way to celebrate the anniversary of the killing of JC

The time of year has come and gone and has left us all shrivelled-livered, a little broken inside but still buzzing from an amazing week that was. After enjoying such a mind-blowing and amazing Byron Blues Fest 2 years ago, when I last went, this year was always going to be hard to live up to. With such high expectations, I was not at all disappointed, and the amazing highlights included:


Trombone Shorty
This was a band I didn't know before Bluesfest, but I tagged along with my new friend who promised me one incredible hunk of man and I was not disappointed. The performance was funky, jazzy and fun, and we were dancing from start to end. I was amazed at the diversity of the band, with skinny white nerd types playing next to scary looking fat, Cuban gansters. It didn't hurt either that Trombone Shorty himself was one of the most attractive men I have laid eyes on for a while. It's a shame they are headed back to New Orleans and won't be hanging around Australia for a bit longer; they are a very stalkable band that I would love to see again and again and again.

Sublime
At first I was hesitant to see a band which only had 1 of its original members playing, it was practically almost a cover band. The lead singer was fat and white and it had been many years since they had played. But as soon as the band started playing, I was amazed at the fact that they sounded so identical to the old Sublime. And they put on a bangin' show. And Sublime just rock. While it could have gone horribly wrong, Sublime were fantastic.

New Dance Moves
The only thing that is as much fun as dancing up in the front row, is having enough space up the back of the tent to really dance like a crazy. Until Bluesfest, I had always thought that my repertoire of daggy and weird dance moves were up to scratch and that there was little more to learn. Oh, how wrong I was! New friend Nessa, who it seems was the next wackiest person at that festival, pulled out her finest moves. The Christmas tree, the shower and the fire were all fabulous favourites that will be added to my routine next time the opportunity for a dance off presents itself.

John Butler Trio
Like any person who has ever been to a festival in Australia, I have seen John Butler play many a time. Despite that, and the fact that there were no better options at the time, I returned to see JBT and I was blown away. Last time I saw them, I was very underwhelmed by the performance, and I was rather pissed that the entire show was spent flogging their crappy, poppy bullshit album, April Uprising. This time, JBT was back to their original gold, playing really long intros and tunes that were strongly political. Everything that I love about JBT was pulled out this year at BF and it definitely made up for the last mediocre time I saw them.


Melbourne Ska Orchestra
Just the name of this band was enough to make me want to see them, and luckily for me, they did not disappoint. Despite playing the exact same set both times they played, I had so much fun the first time that I had to go back and have another dance fest. Unlike other bands, MSO (so many acronyms!) was the one band that even managed to get the old folk dancing. Sadly, I missed the free show bags that were being tossed into the audience, although skipping away happy, sweaty and exhausted made up for the lack of freebies.

Wedding Goon
About a month ago, my lovely friend Ashley got married. As the overestimated the amount that wedding guests would drink, there was leftover goon. That leftover goon was donated to yours truly and provided many good nights at Bluesfest. Unlike regular goon, wedding goon was of such high quality that, not only was it drinkable, but even enjoyable. Although it was a bitch to carry in a backpack and most likely caused some serious spinal issues, the goon even provided me with a pillow. Not that I really needed one, after the amount of goon I drank each night, I could have passed out on a concrete floor.

Great Volunteer Jobs
Volunteering is the best way to get into a festival for free, and on many occasions has proven to be a lot of fun for me in the past. Volunteer duties can range from horribly dull activities such as traffic control and garbage collection to sitting backstage and doing lines with the artists. Although there was nothing quite that cool in my job description, I was lucky enough to spend the majority of my time on the volunteer platforms as I watched bands playing for 5 hours. Officially the job was "facilitating access to persons with disabilities," although essentially I just did sweet fuck all except sit in a chair and tell abled people to fuck off. The raised platforms provided an amazing view of the stage and I was lucky enough to be on the good stage.

John Fogerty
Before seeing John Fogerty play, all I knew was that he was in Creedence Clearwater Revival and that they played the song have you ever seen the rain. However, as soon as he begun rolling through all of his top hits I realised that I knew him. All of those years of being forced to listen to 4TO FM (Townsville's bogan/old man radio station) had prepared me for that moment, and I found myself almost able to sing along to all of the songs. If you don't know who he is, you probably do. CCRbogan rock, and he brought with him flocks of over 50-somethings who were boogying away like it was 1969. I also happened to be breaking it down amongst them. Yes. I am a dag.

Stranger Danger
There seems to be something about Bluesfest that makes it go hand in hand with amazing people. I thought that 2010 BF would be impossible to beat, however this year came pretty darn close. From volunteer friends to camping neighbours and downright randoms, I found myself spending my days with inspiring, fun, interesting and downright awesome people. Coming back to the campsite every night after the music, sitting around the circle and hitting the wedding goon was probably the single highlight of the festival. The acro-yoga, goon drinking, guitar playing (not me) and bacon and egg morning sessions were experiences that I will not be forgetting any time soon. I even liked my festival friends so much that a few have passed through and slept on the couch here in Brisbane.

Bluesfest is just so freaking amazing that I get excited just ranting about it. 2013 anybody???!!!

This was awesome!! I remember it starting slowly, with nowhere to sleep, limited money and only a tent and a shitload of goon. But by the second night I sneakily found a place to stay, with great people and had the time of my life. It's hard to say if it compared to the first one I went to in 2010, but I still have fond memories of my time.

Sadly 2013 was less enjoyable. Even though having a car and more money should have made it easier, sleeping off the grounds of the festival, a bit of drama, and a rather unpleasant roadtrip companion, made it less enjoyable. That being said, I do have fond memories of drinking goon in the car, the stars from Mullumbimby campgrounds, and general festival festivities.

Oh Queensland, my Queensland.

Only a week ago, Queensland was waking up from its Saturday night hangover only to see their new Premier's shit eater grin plastered all over the their TV and newspaper, and the crushing news that there is effectively no opposition in parliament. Many former ministers, members and very intelligent people were updating their resumes and preparing to head into Centre link/Sarina Russo to find a new job, preferably one interstate, where they wouldn't be forced to witness the shit show that will be Queensland for many years to come.

With a complete whitewash of Queensland parliament, the former government now has 7 out of 89 seats, while the LNP, who until about 1-2 years ago were the biggest joke in Queensland politics, are now the big dogs in town. And while the smug, weasel-like Premier of Queensland is feeling like he is the king of the hill, there are no doubt even intelligent LNP members who are wondering dafuq just happened. In such a brutal defeat, one must concede that Queensland did not want Labor in government again. Whatever. Fair enough. However, when candidates, such as a 23 year old Woolworths employee living with his parents (outside of the electorate he ran in) wins a seat in parliament, it raises serious questions about the capacity of voters. Also, a candidate who was nominated 2 weeks out from the election to replace the previous LNP candidate due to whatever sinister scandal had made him unelectable. Not only were the LNPs finest and brightest (ha!) elected, but the hacks who threw their name down on the ballot paper for nothing more than shits and giggles.

This of course, most obviously brings me to the intelligence of the average Queensland voter. Compulsory voting came into Queensland long before anywhere else. Sadly, for many voters, rocking up to a voting booth on a Saturday is seen as more of a tedious chore than a chance to 'have a say.' As a result, the average voter doesn't have much of an idea what is going on. The average Queensland voter gets most of their political information from the Channel 7 news, or the more savvy ones may watch Channel 9 as well, so that they can really be in the know about what is going on in Queensland. Of course, when you consider who controls Australian TV stations (except ABC and SBS of course) and you consider the interests that the owners represent, even the most 'objective' and 'unbiased' reporting (of SUCH high quality) becomes rather suspicious.

However, it's not only the Today Tonights of the world that affect how people in Queensland vote, there is also the issue of the people of Queensland (and generally Australia) themselves. In a country where, for most people, the quality of life, working conditions and general comfort is relatively high, and where politics isn't full of complete yahoos like Khadafi and George Bush, people tend not to give too much of a crap about politics. As long as it doesn't affect them, the average Queenslander doesn't care too much about most of the issues; thus breeding a culture of apathy and ignorance. For most, many problems are simply too far removed from their daily lives, that it is simply not their problem, and they assume that the political machine is running smoothly. In the case, however, that shit hits the fan and people find that their lives will be impacted, people will rant and scream and write letters left right and centre. The media will then pick up on this and use it to some advantage, particularly around election time. When a number of issues arise, and the public can take fire on the government, and then a movement begins and change is on every one's lips. Queensland people love to whinge, whether it be about their neighbour's fence, bats or the prices of electricity. The next task is to find a scapegoat, and while boat people, immigrants and the unemployed are all up there in the scapegoat stakes, the easiest target is always the government, regardless of whether or not it is a conservative or progressive one at the time. Public stupidity works both ways in Australian politics. So as it was seen last weekend, the state's dumb were sent to the polling booths, and as a result, 78 of Queensland's 89 seats are LNP.

Unfortunately, not only did the Queensland people send in a lame-duck parliament who ran things from day to day and never deviated far from the centre, but they sent in Campbell Newman Inc. In his first week in parliament, the honourable premier of Queensland has already stuck his finger into the public service, kicking out long standing employees to replace with his mob of lackeys. If his first week in power is a glimpse into the next 3 years, one can only dread the kind of government that will be running the show. All eyes will be on Campbell in the next month to see whether or not he fulfills his promise of renouncing his financial interests, now that he is Premier. LOL

Although Labor was never expected to win this one, thanks to the idiocy of the masses, the clowns who were voted in now have free reign. Adios progressive Queensland. I can't wait to say I told you so.

Gross! Written like a true Labor Party hack. Even after the LNP government have come and gone, I still feel generally the same way about them as I originally did, I think I hate them for different reasons. 

The people of Queensland are still pretty basic, but in an endearing way - like the way we like our drunk uncle when he starts ranting and dancing, or the friend who brings a packet of chips to a BBQ, which is a stingy and lazy move, but at least they're your favourite flavour, and they go great after smoking a joint and getting drunk.

These days Labor is back in and are just as incompetent, just in their own special way. The only thing that has changed is that I don't have faith in any politics anymore, and everyone is equally useless. The cynicism is strong in this one.