Desperate Husbands

by Richard Glover

  Show time

  Every town in Australia has its rural show—shows such as the Royal Easter in Sydney, the Ekka in Brisbane and the Royal Melbourne. The only trouble with them is the educational side. Frankly, they are all a bit too educational. For years I’ve been trying to convince myself that steak comes in a packet from the supermarket and has nothing to do with those cute cows you spot in the distance when driving along the Hume Highway. Similarly, I like to pretend that a chicken burger has nothing to do with actual chooks (although, in the case of chicken nuggets, this may be true).

  Then along comes the Show and wrecks everything. Young people ask uncomfortable questions about the next port of call for those sweet little piglets, all our illusions are shattered and everybody ends up in tears.

  Since it’s called a show, can’t they put one on? I’d like to see new displays and exhibitions placing a more acceptable spin on the harsh world of agriculture. Surely a bit of bullshit isn’t too much to expect from our farmers…

  Mr Milko’s Cows’ Collective. At Mr Milko’s we collect milk that has been generously donated from nursing cows keen to maintain their milk supply between calves. Individual cows choose how much to give, and receive certificates which they can later cash in on little luxuries such as molasses and starch. Naturally there is eager competition between cows about how much milk they give, with the winner usually boasting that she’s ‘better than the udder ones’. It’s this sort of happy cow humour that keeps the industry sane—and growing. The milk is then placed in cartons made from recycled newsprint, oxygen-bleached in our factories by disadvantaged youth from struggling country towns.

  The Stampede Meats Hoof and Hook Competition. All the cows employed by Stampede are themselves vegetarians but they understand this is not a choice for everybody. For generations, they’ve given their lives for this industry—but only at the time of their choosing. Our team of exit counsellors, headed by Dr Philip Nitschke, visits each cow in turn to make sure she is ready to go. Naturally some are uncertain and want to talk things over with Dr Nitschke. ‘I haven’t met a cow yet that doesn’t want to chew the cud over the decision,’ says the good doctor, ‘but with my help they usually realise, much like my human patients, that now’s the time to go.’ Certainly, consumers can enjoy a steak or perhaps some sausages safe in the knowledge that a full and ethically sound process has occurred. The meat is packed in outback villages by refugees from oppressive regimes. It is pesticide-free and dolphin-safe.

  Mr Fry-up’s Pig Pen. The movie Babe is responsible for a lot of misconceptions about our industry. Some people, for instance, still believe that pigs are in some way harmed in the manufacture of bacon. Nothing could be further from the truth. Bacon is actually shaved off the animals in a process very similar to shearing. The product is then processed using salts collected on sustainable beaches by nomadic peoples in the Torres Strait Islands. Twenty per cent of all profits go to funding a pig-housing cooperative in the rainforests of Borneo. The product is completely sugar-free and diabetic-safe.

  The Woodchop. Here at The Woodchop we only cut sustainable timbers grown on our own farms and harvested by transgendered stockmen displaced from the cattle industry. We fully accept the role of political debate in determining the future of our industry. That’s why you’ll see a greenie chained to each log in the arena. The axeman—or axewoman—must first approach the greenie and try to explain the sustainable basis of our industry and its role in keeping small towns afloat. Only once he—or she—has convinced the greenie to unchain him- or herself, using the simple force of logic, may the log be cut. This has extended the length of competitions from the old thirty-four seconds to an average three and a half months, but it makes for great suspense at the end. There is no fat or salt in our product. Our employees do not use plastic bags when shopping. Please use wood in moderation.

  Showtime Dagwood Dogs. A vicious whispering campaign has been mounted against the whole dagwood dog industry, suggesting that our product contains meat trimmings swept from the abattoir floor and boiled up in month-old oil. Nothing could be further from the truth. Dagwood dogs are a naturally occurring food, eaten for centuries by the indigenous Conchita tribe in South America. The main part of the dog is an elongated bud from the Porchita tree, which we coat in hand-milled bran fibre. It is then sun-dried by indigenous rainforest tribes and reheated at the Show in our solar-powered ovens. It is GM-free and the stick is high in fibre. Should you wish to regurgitate our product, please do so responsibly.

  Just joking

  At the Museum of Contemporary Art there’s a new exhibition featuring two traditional Greek busts, each sitting atop a plinth. A third bust has fallen from its perch and lies smashed on the floor. That’s the idea of the art piece. It’s called ‘The Third Bust’ and, walking from one gallery to the other, you are supposed to pick your way through the broken pieces.

  There’s a museum guard sitting nearby and instantly I have this great idea. I approach her with the twitching smile of someone about to unleash a particularly good joke and say: ‘Gee, you haven’t been doing a very good job! Look what’s happened!’ With a sweep of my arm, I indicate the shards of broken statue. She looks up with a gaze of unspeakable weariness. Suddenly I realise: she may have heard this joke before. From the look in her eyes, about forty-seven times and it’s not yet lunchtime.

  The union movement spends a lot of time agitating for workplace safety yet there has been no major study of the effect of Repetitive Joke Syndrome (RJS) on employees. Almost every job suffers from at least one Repetitive Joke. In this case I was the perpetrator. I have also been the victim.

  Item: I am twenty-two years old and working as a waiter at the Sydney Hilton function centre. Each night I must serve a platter of fish balls, offering them to each patron in turn. Roughly seventy-three per cent of men and twenty-two per cent of women greet my offer of ‘Would you like a fish ball?’ with the response ‘Pretty big fish’.

  Item: I am twenty-three years old and working at David Jones’ city store during the Christmas rush. I have scored the job operating the old-fashioned lift. Roughly 100 per cent of customers upon getting into the lift look at me and say: ‘Gee, son, this must be a pretty up-and-down sort of job.’

  Item: Psychologically devastated by these two experiences, I get myself a job in radio, whereupon people start greeting me with the phrase: ‘Well, you’ve got a great face for it.’

  When will the union movement face up to the damage that is being done? When will Worksafe Australia step in with some laws? Building sites are forced to display notices warning about safety hats and proper boots. What about a sign in the DJ’s lift, or around the waiter’s neck, saying: ‘Hey, I’ve already heard it.’

  Consider the state’s police officers. Not only do they have to cope with violence and abuse. They have to cope with the Repetitive Joke. Every time they go into a takeaway food shop it’s the same: the two lads behind the counter spot the officers, point to each other and shout: ‘He did it, officer. It was him.’ And every time the police officers pause in the street, someone will say: ‘He went that-a-way.’ People wonder why police are leaving the force. It’s not the wage rates. It’s those bloody jokes.

  Police are not the only victims. There are the people involved in making and selling bras (‘Must be an uplifting sort of job!’); there are the barmaids (‘I’d like two jugs, love, and have you got any beer as well?’); and there are people employed by councils under the title ‘Noxious Weeds Officer’ (‘Oh, go on mate, you’re not that bad!’).

  It’s a social crisis that extends beyond the workplace. There are the people who are particularly tall (‘What’s the temperature up there, mate?’); there are people with odd names (‘Mr Youngman? Well, you better grow up a little!’); and there are the people with lots of kids (‘So have you worked out yet what’s causing them?’).

  You could even list the world’s most predictable witticisms in some sort of order ranked by the sheer compulsion people have
to utter them. Here’s a top ten based on some quick radio polling:

  1. Seeing someone trip: ‘Did you enjoy your trip?’

  2. Seeing your neighbour washing his car or mowing her lawn: ‘You can do mine next.’

  3. Seeing someone in paint-splattered clothes: ‘Did you get any on the walls?’

  4. Meeting someone from a large family: ‘Didn’t your parents have a TV?’

  5. Meeting someone with a name tag saying Pat: ‘Is that a name or an instruction?’

  6. On being asked if you’ve got a hearing problem: ‘Eh?’

  7. On being told someone has just flown in: ‘Gee your arms must be tired!’

  8. Meeting someone with a black eye or arm in a sling: ‘How does the other bloke look?’

  9. Reaching the front of the queue at the bank: ‘Do you give any free samples?’

  10. When a glass breaks at a party or at a pub: ‘Taxi!’

  Why is the psychological effect so great? Why does Repetitive Joke Syndrome reduce the most competent person to a seething wreck of resentment, hostility and misanthropy? The least I can do is to return to the Museum of Contemporary Art. I shall visit the security guard sitting next to ‘The Third Bust’. I shall present myself and explain that I work in radio.

  ‘Well, you’ve got the face for it,’ she’ll say instinctively, and at least we’ll be even.

  Flaunt It

  Teenage boys are becoming anxious about their appearance, much like teenage girls. About eighty per cent of the boys in a new survey described themselves as unhappy with how they looked. At fifteen, they are spending $60 a month on hair and skin products. A quarter of them would like to have cosmetic surgery.

  All this, I think, is a great shame. There are plenty of things that men can learn from women. How to pop a toilet roll onto the toilet-roll holder is just one example. But body image obsession is not one of them. Let me whisper to young men the secret of the tribe; the secret that has been passed from one generation of men to the next: we’re just gorgeous, each and every one of us.

  Next time you’re at the beach have a good look around. There will be some gnarled old bloke striding along, massive beer gut held proudly in front of him, rather like the bow of a majestic sailing ship, his bald head pitted with skin cancers, his spindly legs buckling under his massive weight, his pair of budgie-smugglers sagging limply around his tiny and frozen member. And yet something about his gait reveals what he’s thinking: ‘My God, I’m a fine figure of a man.’

  Yes, he’s insane. But he’s happy.

  Meanwhile, coming the other way, will be the most beautiful woman, conventionally perfect in every way, but thinking to herself: ‘I bet everyone’s staring at my puffy ankles. How did they get so huge?’

  She, too, is insane—unhappily so.

  Why the difference? Why, when men get old and weatherbeaten, do they get called ‘distinguished’, while when women get old and weatherbeaten they get called ‘old and weatherbeaten’? Why do men do year-long courses in Buddhism in an attempt to dissolve their ego, while women can achieve the same result in a three-minute tussle with a size ten dress in the change room at Target?

  And why at the gym do the eyes of the men flick to their own best bit, staring lovingly at the one or two muscles they’ve managed to build, while the eyes of the women flick impulsively towards their one supposed imperfection?

  Consider the matter of baldness. Who but a man would come up with the explanation that baldness is a sign of virility? ‘Oh yes,’ he’ll say, running a hand through thinning hair, ‘I’ve just got too much testosterone coursing through my system. I guess I’ve got more sex drive than other men.’ As unlikely as this explanation seems, balding men have managed to convince the world it is a ridgy-didge scientific orthodoxy. Put the words ‘bald’ and ‘sexy’ into Google and you’ll get 840,000 matches, kicking off with a website offering testimonials from women on the allure of bald men, ‘Men of Perfection’ T-shirts and a flashing message: ‘I’m too sexy for my hair.’

  If women commonly went bald, would they claim it as a good thing, offering it as proof of excess oestrogen? Would they start up websites and testimonial logs, and purchase ‘Woman of Perfection’ T-shirts?

  Take the example of varicose veins. If women behaved like balding men, they’d claim varicose veins as a symbol of fertility. ‘Oh, yes,’ the woman would say, ‘you get them in the later stages of pregnancy.’ Here she would delicately unfold her legs and trace the throbbing purple lines with an outstretched finger. She would pause and flutter her eyelids: ‘And, as you can see, I’ve fallen pregnant quite a few times.’

  Again the point is not to mock the bald-headed men: they’re the ones with the good attitude; they are the example we should all be following.

  Certainly, it’s difficult to imagine how these young men are spending $60 a month on grooming products. When I was their age, things were different—even when preparing for a night on the town. In terms of skin care, I’d get a handful of sugar, add it to some soapy foam and create my own abrasive face scrub. A firm hand would simply sandpaper away those troublesome pimples, leaving a bleeding and red-raw surface that singled me out in any crowd.

  As for hair care, one rarely needed to purchase product. Far better to simply not wash one’s hair for a given period. A week of not washing in order to achieve the David Bowie spiky look; a month and a half for the full-Elvis quiff.

  ‘Ego,’ as the band Skyhooks put it at about this time, ‘is not a dirty word.’ Today’s generation of young men would be wise to remember it. And, hopefully, one day the girls will follow their wise lead.

  I know I’m gorgeous. But so, you know, are you.

  You must remember this

  I remember the panic I’d feel when I was fifteen or sixteen: I’d walk into a party, spotting the mix of strangers and school friends. It was a sort of nameless dread, a mix of apprehension, shame, fear and desperate hope. Now, thirty years on, I walk into a party and still suffer nameless dread, but now it is literally so. This time round I can’t remember anyone’s name. Jocasta hovers by my side, like an old man’s nurse, topping up my supplies as we go. ‘That young guy is your son’s soccer coach,’ she whispers out of the side of her mouth. ‘That woman in the corner is our dentist. That older lady coming towards us with her arms outspread, that’s your mother.’

  It’s all very helpful. Within minutes my nameless dread starts to lift.

  Then there’s someone even Jocasta doesn’t recognise. I smile and try to act friendly. I seem to know her really well, which may mean she was my girlfriend for all the years between sixteen and twenty-one or that she’s the local vet. Do I kiss her on the cheek or shake her hand? Luckily, I’ve become expert at asking open-ended questions.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine. I hope your dog’s recovered.’

  I thank my lucky stars I didn’t go for the kiss and quick grope. Quite acceptable with the ex, but enough to get you arrested with the local vet.

  Of course, it’s worse when you are meeting someone new. My problem is that I want to act friendly, remembering to smile, shake their hand politely and really look them in the eyes. Being vaguely human in this manner is clearly a big challenge, requiring 100 per cent of my concentration, since I inevitably walk away with no memory of their name. It could be Rumpelstiltskin for all I know.

  Again I’m forced to employ certain stratagems.

  ‘I might just grab your phone number. First, how do you spell your surname?’

  ‘What? Smith?’

  ‘Sorry, I meant your first name. I was having trouble with it.’

  ‘What? Simon?’

  By this time they think you are a little dim in the spelling department but perfectly friendly. A sort of jolly idiot.

  Once you’ve captured their name, it’s important to commit it to memory. A salesman I knew—sorry, I can’t quite recall his name—favoured the technique of immediately repeating the name back to the person who’s just supplied it.<
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  ‘Well, Simon, I guess that’s right, Simon, I can see what you mean, Simon.’ This is fine, as long as their name is not Auberon, Tristan or Kimberly-Sue, in which case they might think you’re taking the mick.

  Far better to develop a mental note. The guy with blond hair is John, so we repeat the sequence until it’s locked in: ‘blond’ equals ‘surfer’ equals ‘John’. Thus: ‘Surfer John, Surfer John, Surfer John’. Depending on the identifying characteristic you choose, this method can deliver instant name recognition and solve all your social problems—or cause you to stride towards acquaintances with a welcoming smile, saying, ‘Well, if it’s not old Fatty Steve.’

  But if I’m bad with names, I’m worse with numbers. I feel I’ve been asked to remember one PIN too many, as a result of which, I now cannot remember any at all.

  It started with bank PINs some time in the early eighties. We were all given a four-digit number. Having used mine for twenty years, I now find myself—on the odd occasion—able to remember it. But these days it has competition. I have a four-digit PIN to play back my voicemail, and another one to make interstate phone calls. The valuables at work are stored in a cupboard with a three-digit code. Both my local video stores want a password. And the office computer wants a mix of letters and numbers, which it forces me to change every month. At the same time, there’s a car park near work with six floors, each colour coded.

  I begin each day mumbling as I walk, trying to commit it all to memory. I’m parked on Green 4. My phone PIN is 7338. My voicemail is 1803. The speed dial prefix is 82. And the names of my children will come to me if you just give me a minute.

  There are other numbers. The car rego. My date of birth. The question of whether my younger boy is in Year 7 or 8. you must remember this I’m also keen to stay in touch with the fact that the Eureka Stockade occurred in 1854. It’s the single fact I remember from six years of secondary schooling and so we have a sentimental attachment.