Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) 

Firstly let me confess that I’m an old school worker and I have only a vague notion of what this new-fangled job actually entails. In fact I’m probably giving myself away in that being an SEO has probably existed as a career for ten or twenty years. That’s how out of the loop I am.

Lately there have been rumblings across the Strayan political spectrum that it’s about time we stopped working so many hours and maybe cut back to a four day working week. At the same time the employment gurus say, we should also extend the capacity for employees to work from home and actually have to physically attend the work space less often.

Well let me tell ya, as far as the four day week goes, they were talking about this thirty years ago when I first entered the workforce – even tried it on a trial basis. So what happened? Well I don’t know for sure, but there seemed to be some sort of widespread emotional backlash and people ended up working even harder and longer hours. From the 40 hour week to the 60 hour week or more. It was as if our fear of change overcame us. The sheer horror that we might have to spend more time not going to work and actually have to communicate with our loved ones, and I dunno, fill the vast empty void of our lives with learning stuff and reading books perhaps.

Instead we work ourselves even harder and rush home to fill our minds with the banal mind numbing shit of reality shows. Actually that’s a cop out and an ill-considered assumption. I discussed the nature of work with a friend who is under 30 and who actually works as an SEO, and he/she said where the hell have you been? Nobody I know (under 30) works 9 to 5 five days a week any more. We’re all contactors and we mostly work from home. We might show up in an actual office space a couple of times a week, but we can be more productive from a remote location where we can get some peace and quiet.

To my mind I think this is what will become of the public sector in the next decade or so. Most if not all employees will be contractors who bid for certain packages of work, which will take the form of projects and have a deadline, say a month or two. They will negotiate a price, and mostly complete the task online in a remote location (i.e. home), where they can choose their hours of work 24/7, and maybe commute to a physical work location occasionally.

I understand that statistics indicate that employees who work from home are generally more productive than those who are office based, in white collar professions at least. It may also be more economically viable for the employer too. Plenty of stats on this:

https://hbr.org/2014/01/to-raise-productivity-let-more-employees-work-from-home

https://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2016/05/02/are-remote-workers-happier-and-more-productive-new-survey-offers-answers/#73a7b0eb6663

Okay, I’m procrastinating, because I’m working from home (geez it would be great if I got paid for pumping out this stuff). What does an SEO actually do?

Well essentially, getting straight to the point, and without prevaricating, or beating about the bush and obfuscating the issue like Johnny Howard did when we tried to instigate a Republic, but instead providing some clarity and explication… they get paid to encourage people to visit your business website, so these visitors will hopefully buy your product. Simple eh?

How do they do this? Well it involves a lot of complicated algorithms, a lot of levers and pulleys, and the fragmentation of the audience due to alternative forms of entertainment, sideshows, circuses… yes, that was a somewhat obscure Seinfeld reference (Kramer has to fire Rachel Welsh from the Tony Award winning stage production because she doesn’t move her arms when she tap-dances).

How they do it is they write articles on relevant issues that link back to their clients and send these articles to other related entities which they source as potential customers of the client. These articles can take the form of blogposts, facebook posts, facebook ads and other forms of advertorial material. In turn a major player like Google or Yahoo will then see all the ‘hits’ or links an entity or business website is receiving online and will rank that entity high on their search engine list. Ergo, when you or I think, gee I need an architect to design that new extension to the Guggenheim (yes! Another vague Seinfeld reference. Go me. Maybe they should be paying me) we put ‘architect’ into a search engine and bam – that business with all the hits and links comes up top of the list and gets our custom… or something like that.

Imagine that. You’re at a party breaking the ice. So what do you do for a crust, pal? I’m a plumber. Oh yeah, I’m a mechanic, I’m an accountant… I’m a Search Engine Optimizer… What? Gedoutta here!!! Go get a real job ya shmuck. Can’t say that any more, cos the world has changed.

I have no idea what I’m talking about, but I’m in the right ball park. Actually, I feel like that crusty middle aged public servant guy on those tv ads who tries to act trendy and explain new-fangled tech to the audience, before some savvy young punk comes and exposes him for the out of touch bloviater (God I love that word – what do you mean it’s not a word spellcheck? Go read a frigging dictionary you smartarse) he is. Then he usually explodes or gets batted away. That’s exactly how I feel in today’s world.

Can you make me a cup of cocoa and fetch my slippers?

So there you go. SEO. Apparently, sometimes the articles they pen are just made up stuff to attract attention, but you know, that’s a trade secret, so mum’s the word. Actually it sounds a lot like creating fake news, which is basically what the profession of journalism has become now. However, that’s a tale for another day, the list of jobs that have or are becoming obsolete.

 

 

It’s taken me a long time to realise I have a big problem here. I have now accumulated more books than I can ever possibly read in my lifetime, and even now the foremost thing on my mind is the next book I’m going to buy, and the one after that, and the five after that.

Even if I quit my job and stopped writing and dedicated myself to reading, I would still struggle to finish reading every book in my ‘to read’ pile. I’m looking at the piles of books as I type, all neat and orderly and loosely categorised. They sit in six piles ever increasing in size, in front of the wall to wall ceiling to floor bookshelves, which are already filled two columns thick.

But I can’t help myself, I’m addicted. Surely it’s a healthy obsession though? It could be much worse. I could be hooked on heroin, crack, sleeping pills, tobacco, booze, sex with corpses, porn (like that Japanese guy who was crushed by his own six tonne porn collection the other day), compulsive masturbation, any manner of unhealthy and illegal obsessions, but it’s just books, right? Books are good. Books teach you stuff – well except for ones like ‘Ffity Shades…’ and any of the godawful text light tomes ghost penned by wankers off reality shows. Those are garbage obviously.

Sure the first thing I do when I plan a holiday is bookmark all the bookshops, and pinpoint where all the second hand bookshops are, but it’s my hobby. Nothing beats the feeling of finding a rare gem or something you’ve been searching for the old fashioned way (without cheating and using the Internet, but I’ve done that too – Colin Wilson’s complete 7 volume Outsider series). Especially if you find it in a second hand bookshop or an op shop or a street market and get it for a bargain price.

It was this obsession for example, that sent me traipsing all over Chicago, taking the el and walking the last ten blocks in the freezing cold to find the bookshop I had sourced off the Internet had turned into a menswear store. When I showed my printout to the kindly proprietor he gently pointed out the ad was from 2010. It was now 2014, and the bookshop had closed two years previously.

Damn Internet!

Imagine the irony then, as I trained and trudged all the way back to the hotel in the now falling snow, and took a short cut down a side street only to discover right around the corner from my hotel was…

… a two storey second hand bookshop. But it was all worth it cos I found the Irvine Welsh novel missing from my collection. The owner then advised me that Mr Welsh actually lives in Chicago. No I didn’t look him up, I met him in Perth at a promo later and he wrote a really rude comment in one of his books for me, cos I asked him to.

So anyway, the piles of books. Yes they are all categorised. I think that’s part of my problem, I have too many interests. There’s the soccer pile, the wrestling pile, the horror pile, the novels pile, the Colin Wilson pile and the Charles Bukowski pile.

Still my mind races with two new Jack the Ripper books on the market, plus my promise to self to buy and read the new books of several of my colleagues in the Australian Horror Writers Association.

I read on buses, I read on trains, I read on the toilet – Stephen King was my ablution pleasure at uni in between drafting research papers. At one time I even taught myself to walk while I was out walking, so I could combine education and exercise. It worked for a while until I walked into a lake. It was a Costanza like attempt to merge two of your favourite things. His was sex and food, mine was reading and exercise. His was funnier.

So yes, I have too many books, but I don’t care. I want more, and you can’t stop me. Just as Casanova compulsively lusted after the next woman and the next one, so I lust for the smell of ink on faded parchment. You can keep your Kindle, even though I’ve got one for travelling. Nothing beats the smell of real books, the scent of wisdom and knowledge. They’re my loves, my treasures, my precious…

 

Dear mum and dad,

Do you remember that episode of Seinfeld when George Costanza’s parents’ finally disowned him, because they couldn’t take any more of the stupid firings from jobs, or the ridiculous reasons for his ending relationships with women? No, of course you don’t, because you hated Seinfeld.

Never mind. Mum, dad, this isn’t easy, but I need to pull a reverse Frank and Estelle Costanza on you. They disowned their crazy son – now I’m disowning my crazy parents.

Why?

Because I’ve had it, that’s why. I can’t take any more. The constant demand for attention every day. The stubborn refusal to move into the same full care section of the old folks’ home, so you can actually spend all day together without me having to run around transporting you to and from each other.

The endless and unnecessary shopping trips. Ma, you got enough food in your cupboards to survive the zombie apocalypse. The war ended over seventy years ago. You can stop rationing now.

The constant begging to be taken out to lunch, when, god love you, you’re so damn slow and immobile, that I either have to push you along in a chair, or stand around waiting for you to catch up. Besides which, you hate any cuisine that isn’t stodgy and English, a habit you picked up in the 1950s and never grew out of, so dining out with you is an excruciating experience, an endless search for places that serve fish and chips.

The continual near death experiences. The rushing to and from hospitals to find you propped up in bed, laughing it up with the nurses and doctors.

The constant medical appointments, for which I have to take a whole day off work to ferry you around, and the parking is awful in this city.

The constant asking me to come over and loosen the tops of bottles.

Goddamit! Move into full care and they’ll do all that crap for you. They’ll feed you and they’ll medicate you. The rate you’re going they’re gonna have to start medicating me.

I’m done, I can’t do this any more. I have my own life to lead, and I’m not getting any younger. They way you’re going, they’ll be burying me in the plot alongside you.

So I’d like to say, thanks, that’s it for me, see you later… but you know I can’t. Because I remember when I was young, you helped talk me down out of that tree when I got stuck, you walked me all the way to school when I was afraid, you stood up to that kid’s dad when he bullied me, and later, you let me move back into my old room when I broke up with girls for all those stupid illogical reasons. You also came and picked me up all the times I stupidly ran out of fuel, because I was poor and there were only about two petrol stations open late on roster in those days.

I know it sucks to grow old. I hate watching to shrivel up and fade away. It’s killing me, just not as quickly as it’s killing you. It sucks that you lose all your autonomy, that age sucks all the joy out of life. They take your car, they take your house, they take your money, they take your freedom. Worst of all, they take your memory, and your flexibility and physical capacity away from you, until you’re just a shadow of what you once were – a God. Now you’re just sitting there in an empty room, surrounded by what’s left of your memories, waiting for the end.

I only hope that there really is something more, that you hurtle from this mortality into a lush green field under a sky of azure, and tumble over and over until you realise you’re not hurt because you’re young again. You come to a stop on your backside and there’s all your friends, restored to their youthful vigour, laughing and pulling you to your feet.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Life spoilers. They all die in the end.

I’ll be round after work.

 

Oh dear! I saw a news item on the ABC recently that revealed what I fear will be the future of work, and will spell the end of institutions like the public service as we know it. Hi tech corporations signing up workers all across the globe to bid for piecemeal pieces of data work, which they complete online from their own home, for a set fee. This will be a boon for greedy employers and a bloody nightmare for unions. The average worker will be competing with millions of workers across the globe, all desperate to undercut each other for a contracted short term job, and the prize will go to the lowest bidder.

On a related tangent, it has come to my attention in recent times that the impact of social media and out ever advancing technologies has witnessed the creation of a large number of new kinds of full time jobs that never existed before the 21^st century

These are the kind of jobs that make old gits (like me) snort with derision and disbelief, and say things like, ‘Oh fuck off, you’re not telling me people actually fucking pay you to do that?’ Too whit, I’m starting a little blog series here called – Get the fuck outta here, that’s your actual fucking job?

So here we go with unbelievable job No. 1.

PROFESSIONAL ONLINE GAMER

Right, so according to an article I read in the Guardian online, there is a video game streaming site called Twitch, on which, people actually pay other people to watch them play video games. Lots of people. I kid you not, and there is big money involved. Here’s a link which is not the Guardian link, this is from The Verge, but nonetheless talks about the same issue:

http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/26/6068993/this-is-why-people-want-to-watch-other-people-play-video-games

So as incredulous as it seems, there are three main reasons why people are prepared to pay to watch other people play video games, and if you think this is a stupid idea, I have only one word for you – Gogglebox.

Anyhow, the reasons are –

To get tips on which new games to buy – makes sense. Online computer games are incredibly popular with almost anyone in the world who isn’t me. I like to spend my spare time writing horror stories and making bugger all money, call me old fashioned. So gamesters, who are mostly but not exclusively young, need to know the best, the coolest and the most cost effective games to purchase.

They like to follow a personality – sure the cult of personality and the notion of celebrity is everything these days. The world is filled with vacuous celebs who don’t actually have any talent or produce anything (cough Kardashians) but at least these guys and gals have got a skill. When you couch it in terms of following a personality to admire and learn from their skills in their chosen profession, it kind of makes sense. It is not at all different from following a sporting personality and admiring their skills at their chosen sport. We all admire what they can do, and we desire to emulate them, and we will pay good money to watch them. I can understand this sentiment.

So people put money into an online account for their preferred gaming personality, or they subscribe to follow that personality. Some of them make a little, but some of them make a fortune. Some of these people have given up their full time jobs to become professional gamers. I also read elsewhere that a lot of young women are getting into it, and that some of them might use their looks to attract fans. Camera set at certain angle, wearing certain outfits (think cleavage), etc. Although I also understand that there is an official code to stop this industry morphing into the sort of web cam action you might find in the porn industry.

Which takes me back to an incident I observed walking through my city from an A League soccer match a year ago. The game drew 10,000 fans into a stadium that holds 20,000. Walking past a major pub, I saw hundreds of Asians in there yelling and cheering. I stuck my head in, and they appeared to be watching an online video game. It occurred to me, Asians mostly love soccer. Why aren’t they up the road at the sports ground rather than in here, cheering on a video game? As I said, it’s not a lot different to following a sport.

Finally, they simply like to watch and learn from the skills of the experts. Again, this is no different to sports. We all want to watch and learn from the best, and we will pay for the privilege. Gamers want to learn new tactics and how to beat certain games at a point they might be stuck on themselves. Gamers can even offer coaching sessions, like pro sportspeople.

So there’s my first episode of – Get the fuck outta here, that’s your actual fucking job? Although in this case I’m not shaking my head like an old timer and getting really annoyed and uptight. I can see how and why this one is a thing. It makes perfect sense to me.

http://mashable.com/2014/08/25/what-is-twich/#D.k6YnZggPqY

 

 

 

 

 

Last week we noticed that Amber, our rather furry cat, had a large growth on her leg, which had started weeping. Assuming it was an abscess caused by a bite, we took her to the vet, only to be informed that it was cancer that had already spread.

Then, just like that, she was gone. We lost her. After lamenting how any just god could allow a disease like cancer to exist, in poor harmless animals, let alone people, it caused me to reflect on all the cats who have passed through my life.

Until middle age I had taken them for granted, accepted that they would come and go. Until as the years went by and I found myself attending more funerals than weddings it dawned on me how fragile and precious life is. So I began to bestow greater love and affection on the cats in my life, my two remaining boys (oh, and on the people too…). I want them to know how much they are loved.

So, on moggies passed (with apologies to Proust for the title). Sam 1 and Sam 2. You are my earliest moggy memories. Sam who used to love to lie in puddles on the crooked footpath. I think there were two of you, one replaced the other. You disappeared overnight, maybe both of you. Taken by someone, my parents said. Possibly to cover the fact you were hit by cars. I was too young to reflect much upon it, but I never forgot you (both).

Kinky the big tortoise shell tom cat. You loved me as much as I loved you in my youth. Then on the cusp of me spreading my wings to backpack around Europe, you were hit by a car and crawled home all broken. Faced with the choice of giving you an operation and accepting you would be crippled for the rest of your days, I allowed you to be put down. I never forgave myself for that my friend. I should have cancelled my trip.

Pepper, my little dark angel, was so affectionate and lived a long and happy life. I recall the time we found a large abscess on your face, and being so poor any unable to afford a vet, we administered medication to you ourselves, and you bore the pain and healed, and lived to a ripe old age.

Boot the poor abandoned kitten. You grew up strong and would leap through my open window late at night, and I’d find you asleep next to me in the morning, your head on the pillow like you were a person. When I left that share house, I came back for you on my bicycle, and carried you several blocks inside my jumper, your little head poking out the top. You stayed a night in the new place, but then decided you like the old place better. Fair enough.

Poppy was an irascible mistress who liked to pee on the couch, or anywhere indoors that took your fancy. Chased away by one girlfriend too many, you found a home with my ex’s ex. Like me, he seemed to tolerate your foul temper.

Polly liked to sleep on top of the tallest cupboard. We never really bonded but I loved you anyway. I was sad when you got hit by a bus.

Pokey was a most adorable old girl. A friend for life, who I’m told in her younger days once got lost and missed a house move of some 300km, only to walk all the way home and somehow turn up at the door six months later, all bedraggled and half starved. Lived to a ripe old age of twenty. Still missed today.

There’s probably some I’ve forgotten over the years, but cats have always played a part in my life. So I make sure to cuddle my boys every day, little Milo the stray, and good old Mr Jinx, another waif who showed up at the back door thirteen years ago. Everybody loves Mr Jinx, and Mr Jinx loves everybody.

When Jinx got hit by a car, and then got hit by a car again, my mind went back to Kinky the tom cat, and there was no hesitation in shelling out twice for those two operations that saved his life.

Was it worth it? Every morning when I wake up and see that little furry face – hell yes it was worth every penny.

Not that I would ever suggest in any way that cats or pets are as precious as people, as our families, but they come to us to share their love, so we must reciprocate, because life is fleeting and fragile. So cherish you loved ones, furry and human.

Merry Christmas – or indeed, merry whatever deity or otherwise you like.

 

US Election – on a day not too far away

My fellow Americans, on the eve of the day we head to the polls once again I urge you to consider a vote for Bloz Blogovic, the only real option we have. The man who will make America great again.

‘But he’s a serial killer!’

No, I’ll correct you there. He is a former serial killer, former serial killer. There’s an important distinction there. Yes, Mr Blogovic was formerly a serial killer, a fact he has never tried to back away or hide from. But he served his time…

‘He murdered fifteen people!’

… if I may finish! Mr Blogovic served his time, he paid his dues, and look at him now. Look at how he has turned his life around. A successful businessman and millionaire. Bloz Blogovic represents everything that makes America great. A nation that offers a man a second chance, to atone for his sins. He took that opportunity with both hands and ran with it.

‘Are you serious? All he has offered is a few empty slogans and platitudes. He has no policies of substance whatsoever. He’s a completely self-absorbed narcissist, a sociopath, a racist and a misogynist.’

I’m deadly serious. Look at everything my candidate has achieved since those admittedly dark days. Building his own successful business empire, starting out as a working class man, with a cleaning company.

‘Yes, cleaning up crime scenes.’

Dark and messy work that nobody else would do.

‘Well he had plenty of experience in the area, didn’t he? Given that he created so many crime scenes of his own.’

You see, that sort of attitude right there is exactly what is killing America.

‘I’m killing America? He’s got a head start!’

That sneering leftist establishment attitude, that tries to dictate to the American people, how they should think and feel, when they have been completely disenfranchised, excluded from the democratic process, have no jobs and their lives have been torn apart.

‘He killed people, and ruined people’s lives. You cannot ignore the facts.’

Okay, okay, but let’s examine that in more detail. Nine of those so called “victims” were prostitutes. Another three of them were illegal immigrants. Not one of those people held down a regular job and paid taxes, not one! So I ask you, what contribution were those people making to this great nation?

‘I can’t believe you are telling us this with a straight face. President Trump was bad enough. President Kardashian was even worse, but this, this is beyond the pale. Is there no common decency left in the world? Is this what democracy has sunk to?’

***

Okay, that was just me venting my spleen on the day Donald Trump became President of the USA.  Something is happening across Western democracies, and it isn’t pleasant. Trump, Brexit, the resurgence of One Nation in Australia. There’s a growing surge of economic resentment among the former middle classes who feel disenfranchised by the establishment, which is being successfully exploited by right wing extremists and channelled into a racially divisive response.

The left and the humanists (not always one and the same) have been caught napping, and they need to fucking wake up and start mobilising and activating now. Start winning back the middle ground.

Otherwise, I have no doubt whatsoever that people will elect a Kardashian as the President of the United States. Australians would elect Shane Warne as Prime Minister in a heartbeat. He ticks all the boxes:

Sporting legend – Reality television star – Frightfully ignorant bogan (i.e. anti-establishment).

This is our future, unless we act now.

 

Bogans are fascinating creatures. Sort of like a throwback to an earlier incarnation of humanity, one completely lacking in self-awareness and emotional maturity. Unfortunately we are surrounded by them in Straya, and especially in Westralia, where, secluded in both physical (geographical) and intellectual isolation, they tend to breed like rabbits and spread their fear and loathing amidst their copious young, and in their narrowly defined social groups.

Indeed, as some critics have previously noted (see Things Bogans Like) bogans fail to see the irony in their FOWF opinion that Australia is too full to take any more foreigners, yet they don’t mind rampantly filling the country with the seed of their own loins. Given that most bogans are too selfish and immature to ever become responsible parents, you think they would spare us the next generation of Jaxxxons and Chardonays clogging up our courts and Centrelink offices. I’m also perplexed by the irony of the bogan concept that Australia is too full to take in any more refugees, specifically brown ones. It’s an interesting contrast that when the country was only populated by indigenes it was somehow ‘empty’, but now there are 20 odd million whiteys clinging to the coastlines around the vast empty interior it is magically ‘full.’

As an aside, here in the glorious nation of Westralia, we recently celebrated Book Week. That is, a week where we celebrate and encourage our offspring to develop a love of literature, by encouraging them to dress up as their favourite literary character. So what did several bogans dress their kids up as – footy players. One in particular made the news for dressing their kid up in blackface to portray a black footy player. Mmm both racist and illiterate. Well done. I was more offended by the literary insult than the complete ignorance of the history of blackface, and why it is insensitive for white people to do it. Never mind that, hey bogans, its fucking BOOK week, not footy week.

Which makes me think, the Westralian mining boom must have been some sort of personal Nirvana for bogans – getting paid a shitload of money for doing unskilled menial tasks while being allowed to hoon around with huge powerful machinery. All topped off with regular FIFO leave and plenty of cash to spend on McMansions, V8 utes, 4Wheel drives, giant flat screen televisions, jet skis, tatts, drugs, booze and whores.

But sadly, the end of the mining boom has witnessed vast numbers of otherwise unemployable bogans released back into normal civilisation. What are we going to do with all these bogans? Other than race riots and letting them loose in Aldi, I’ve put together a (very very short) list of jobs bogans should never be allowed to do.

1 Driving instructor – You’d be learning in a V8 ute for starters.

‘Roight. The lights just turned orange. Fucken gun it!!”

‘But it’s seventy metres away.’

‘Ya failed, ya c*nt!’

 

‘Roight, merging. What is the rule?’

‘errrr… give way to the vehicle in front?’

‘I’ll fucken glass yew, c*nt! Even if the other c*nt is a hundred metres in front of ya, it’s a fucken death blow to your masculinity if that poofdah gets there first, so fucken gun it!!!”

‘But that’s not only dangerous and emotionally immature, it’s also illegal.’

‘Ya failed, ya c*nt!’

 

‘Roight, that c*nt in the pissy Volvo just cut ya off. How do you respond?’

‘I give him a toot on my horn and let it go.’

(Mimics poofy voice) ‘I give him a toot on my horn…NO! Fucken tailgate the prick and push him off the road. Then jump out of the car and smash the c*nt. If he refuses to get out and face ya, loike a man, ya kick his wing mirrors orff, jump up and down in apoplectic rage, then do a massive burnout and fuck off.’

‘I’m not sure exhibiting road rage is an acceptable response to stressful situations.’

‘Ya failed, ya c*nt!’

 

‘Right, so what am I doing for my driving test, emergency stops, three points turns…’

‘Naaah, softcock. Oi want ya ta pull into the bottleo and pick up some piss, then swing by the ex’s so oi c’n drop off me Centrelink fer young Aryan’s child support, and give the missus a hiding, then rock into the Maccas drive thru for me lunch… and oi wanna see a quality burnout in the Maccas carpark, otherwise…’

‘I know, I know… ya failed, ya c*nt!’

 

 

 

Many years ago before the golden age of the Internet, I bought the Deep Purple album, ‘The House of Blue Light’, upon which there was a tune called ‘The Spanish Archer’. Much like their earlier comeback album, ‘Perfect Strangers’, the follow up LP was a minor metal classic, proving that the band had lost none of their swagger in the intervening years, when they went their separate ways due to internal disagreements.

‘The Spanish Archer’ was my favourite of many great tunes on the album. I would often stroll around singing it quietly to myself, and pondering as to the meaning of its lyrics. Now keep in mind, this was before the Internet gave us the ability to walk around with access to every piece of historical information, and every scrap of folklore, apocryphal tale and rumour that ever happened across the entire globe, literally in the palm of our hands. It’s hard to imagine a world like that now, but it really happened.

So, without having communications with anyone in the know, I had no way of accessing an explanation as to what Ian Gillan was singing about. I knew it was something about your girl (or boy) doing the dirty on you, for which reason this mythical Spanish archer was going to take her down. To my younger mind, the best metaphor I could come up with was that the Spanish Archer was perhaps some rare form of venereal disease, and she had passed it on to the protagonist. Most of all I was keen to learn of the history of this mythical Spanish Archer. Some sort of god of retribution for the jilted, or so I imagined.

So, just recently for no reason the song came back into my head, and lo and behold I had an iPhone in my hand. So I Googled – What do the lyrics of Deep Purple’s Spanish Archer mean?

And I pressed the button, and waited.

And then, twenty-nine years after I first posed that rhetorical question, the answer came to me in thirty seconds.

Spanish Archer – Urban Dictionary – dumping your boy/girlfriend as in the Spanish Archer, giving them the el-bow.

El bow. Get it?

Twenty-nine years Deep Purple, just to find out it was all a cheap bit of Cockney rhyming slang!

Well pardon me but I can’t help feeling a little bit let down by this, Purple. You came back to us in 1984 and gave us two great albums, proving you hadn’t lost it, and then, while we were still basking in the musical beatitude of having you back in our lives, you started fighting amongst yourselves (again) and buggered off.

I dunno, Gillan had such a great voice and you were all such consummate musos and ‘Perfect Strangers’ and ‘The House of Blue Light’ are two great albums, and this is such a great song about… a cheap bit of Cockney rhyming slang. I feel like a piece of my youth just died.

Then you came back again just a couple of years ago to do a retirement tour, but Jon Lord was dead, and there was some old bald guy singing… and it was Ian Gillan, without that lovely long mane of hair.

And… somehow that was the worst thing of all, Purple, because rock gods aren’t supposed to grow old and die. Because if you get old, it means that I’m getting old too.

Heavy rock gods in particular are not supposed to get old. Even bloody Lemmy died. Who would have thought that thirty years of heavy smoking, copious amounts of booze and drugs, and shagging thousands of sketchy metal chicks could be bad for your health? Lucky bastard!

All the rock legends are popping off – Prince, Bowie, and if they’re not dying, they’re just sagging, balding, greying reduced versions of the beautiful objects they once were. Rob Halford no longer looks like a gay Tim Brooke Taylor, but rather a fat old man. Christ, and when did Glen Danzig morph into the Predator???

But saddest of all, The Spanish Archer – the El-bow. Ian Gillan, I forgave you for Black Sabbath’s ‘Born Again’, but I can’t forgive you for growing old and giving me the el-bow.

 

 

         

I was wandering through the city the other day and I passed one of those people sitting cross legged in the street with a cup sitting in front of them and a cardboard sign. Nothing out of the ordinary in our rampant capitalist society. There will always be people who fall between the cracks and put out a hand for help, for various reasons.

However, it was what was written on this guy’s sign that drew my attention. It said:

‘I’m saving to go travelling around Europe.’

I stopped dead in my tracks and thought, what? You’re saving to go travelling… you’re not poor, you’re not homeless, you haven’t been kicked out of your accommodation, you haven’t been abused, you’re not busking, not offering anything in return… you’re basically just a middle class bloke in his mid-twenties who wants other people to pay for you to piss off on a jaunt around the globe.

THIS ISN’T IN THE TRUE SPIRIT OF BEGGING!

WTF is going on? When did good old traditional begging become usurped by the 21^st century consumer culture? You want us to fund your overseas holiday? Fuck off you cheeky shit! What happened to your traditional downtrodden homeless bloke, wearing the same suit he was turfed out of his rental accommodation in, stained with sweat, smelling like a refuse site, and soaked in his own piss and shit, with a mouthful or rotting teeth and hair plastered to his skull with oil and vermin? Good honest down to earth deserving beggars. Are even their diminished roles no longer safe in this world?

You see this sort of thing on Facebook too in the GoFundMe and KickStarter campaigns that have sprung up everywhere. A lot of them are just upper middle class tossers with steady incomes trying to con money out of people. It probably bloody works too. I bet stupid twats actually give these people money.

I’ve given this some thought, because I’ve always found it unfair that I should have to pay my own way in life and particularly my own mortgage, when gormless twats on the Internet could be paying it for me.

So why not? Why not me? I think I deserve a free ride too.

So here’s the deal, people. Stop usurping the role of honest decent down and out beggars, or I will start begging for cash that I don’t deserve.

Don’t push me, I will fucking do it. I will sit out there in the city mall with a cardboard sign, saying, ‘Please pay my mortgage for me. You know you want to.’

I will set up a Go Fund Me campaign. Come on, you selfish bastards. Pay my mortgage. It’ll be good for your heart. You’ll feel good about it. I’ll feel fucking great about it. It’s a win/win situation, for me especially.

If that one works, I’ve got a bunch more in reserve that the unwitting and cashed up can also pay for:

I want to go to Mars Kickstarter

I want to fly to Hollywood and shag Scarlett Johansen GoFundMe

Send me to Vegas to gamble a shitload of money GoFundMe

I want to go to Wrestlemania (again) Kickstarter

I want to speculate on a bunch of blue chip shares with your money GoFundMe

Seriously, some of the things strangers on the Internet expect you to pay for. The following are all genuine Internet fund campaigns – please help me remove an unwanted tattoo/get a tattoo – help me stay at home for a year to raise my kids – buy me a plane ticket to save my relationship – help me buy protection after I launched a racist rally – pay for my abortion – pay for my drug habit – pay State taxes in Alabama (even though you don’t live there) – fund me to make up for not winning the lottery (I actually like this one, its got balls) – By me a car so I can bring you this cock, ladies (I kid you not this is real) – send me to Vegas cos I just spent my money on a house (Hey, that one is mine, bitch!)

You get it. In the case of all these people, and especially the well fed chump in my local mall who wants us to pay for his overseas holiday, it’s less of the GoFundMe and more of the

GoFuckYourself!

 

But seriously, if you really would like to contribute to paying my mortgage, please do get in touch.

Okay I’ll admit I’ve entertained a long held fascination with serial killers. I don’t admire them, don’t want to marry one, but I’ve always been intrigued by that notion of the twisted genius who is just wired wrong. The psycho who breaks the moral code, exceeds the boundaries and pushes the envelope out beyond the societal limits of morality. To me, they are twisted artists, and the mutilated bodies they leave behind for the authorities to discover are their canvas. It’s their way of screaming out to the world ‘I exist’. I get a forbidden thrill reading about their awful crimes and have done since the first time I came across the writings of the late great Colin Wilson. Just as I enjoy hearing of their cat and mouse game and the clues they leave behind until their eventual undoing by the authorities.

I’m the kind of guy that when they had that segment on the television show ’Spics n Specs’ – musician or serial killer, I not only guessed the serial killer every time, but could also tell you their name, their pseudonym, and the period they operated in.

With that in mind, it occurred to me to draw up a list of the best or most interesting serial killer songs. Music to kill by, if you like. However, in doing so, I wanted to eschew the obvious. No eulogies by death metal bands, of which I’m sure there are many. No these have to be thoughtful and artfully penned tunes. The sick little numbers that quietly burrow under your skin and fester like a pustule, suddenly erupting and weeping as you realise just what the artist is actually singing about.

Some caveats before I begin. No spree killers (sorry Foster the People and Pumped Up Kicks) or solitary victim obsessives (as much as I love Warren Zevon and his Excitable Boy). No song titles that name drop serial killers but are actually about something else (Nick Cave’s Jack the Ripper).

So without further ado, let us begin, all killer, no filler, in no particular order, like a disorganised serial killer (shout out to John Douglas, Robert Ressler and the FBI). I’m not posting links to these songs. You can seek them out and listen at your leisure. Listed by song title then artist.

Object – Ween

Oh man I love this song. Dean and Gene Ween, for a long time I thought those were their real names. This is from the 2007 album, La Cucaracha. They penned some beautifully strange tunes and they knocked it out of the park with this one. Really cold, and that last refrain is killer – ‘I feel a little better, they found your sweater… you’re just an object to me.’ Perfect example of a serial killer tune that just creeps up on you and sinks its hooks into your flesh. This one gives me chills. Somehow he manages to convey total sociopathy in his tone, and totally captures that classic serial killer internal dilemma of the urge being so tangibly painful that it can only be temporarily assuaged by acting out the impulse, until the pressure starts to build again.

Lotion – Greenskeepers

Dang! I always thought these guys were Australian for some reason, but they’re from Chicago. Don’t know much about them, except for this song, which got a lot of airplay on JJJ radio about twelve years ago. Incredibly joyful and catchy backbeat on this tune, which makes you laugh at how wrong the lyrics are. Nothing deep and meaningful in the lyrics, they are repetitive, and an obvious almost word for word tribute to the fictional serial killer Buffalo Bill in the 1991 film, Silence of the Lambs. Put the lotion in the fucking basket, bitch…

Midnight Rambler – Rolling Stones

One of my favourite Stones songs of all time, along with Sympathy for the Devil. Just a killer blues number, regardless of the lyrics and subject matter. Great harmonica work. It eulogises Albert De Salvo, who may or indeed may not have been the infamous Boston Strangler. It’s rather a violent song, and it came out in 1969 at a time of social upheaval, with the Vietnam War in full swing and Charlie Manson prowling around in the background spreading his muse over everything. Then there’s that break in the middle when you think it’s done, but it rolls back in again in waves, building up to a crescendo. Definitely one of their best.

Psycho Killer – Talking Heads

Great song from a great band who excelled across so many genres of music. This one was their first hit, circa 1977. Best summed up as the random inner thought processes of a serial killer. Doesn’t reference any particular killer. The band came out of New York, so they had a few to choose from. It did however, gain release at the exact same time that the Son of Sam was terrorizing New York City.

Deep Red Bells – Niko Case

I had never heard this one before. Recommended by a colleague. From her 2002 album Blacklisted, it references Tacoma serial killer Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer. Case grew up in the Washington area where this series of murders occurred between 1982 and 2001. She has a great voice, and this is a mournful tune. Ridgway is arguably the most prolific serial killer in US history with 48 confirmed murders and possibly double that number according to his unconfirmed confessions. Victims were mostly prostitutes or runaways, always vulnerable women. Not a nice man. She has captured the essence of the vulnerability of the victims in the lyrics – ‘tastes like being poor and small’ – ‘does your soul cast about like an old paper bag, past empty lots and early graves?’ Quite moving. She speaks on behalf of the powerless victims and restores their humanity. Somebody cared about each of them, even if the authorities didn’t care enough about them to stop this guy.

In Germany before the War – Randy Newman

This one is a hidden classic. I know Randy Newman has been around for ever and is known to be a bit eccentric, but I knew little about his work until a Canadian friend lent me an old cassette tape a few years back, and I stuck it on while driving my car. This tune came on and I suddenly thought with a jolt – mein gott! Is he singing about the Dusseldorf Ripper, Peter Kurten? Turns out he was indeed. I was quite proud of picking up on this. From the 1977 album, Little Criminals, Newman was reflecting on the 1931 Fritz Lang film, M, which was based on Kurten career as a rapist and killer of women and children. Kurten was an archetypal sex killer, he achieved orgasm while killing his victims and was turned on by the sight of blood.

John Wayne Gacy Jnr – Sufjan Stevens

Another gentle mourning eulogy, from Stevens’ 2006 album, Come on feel the Illinoise. This one reflects on the man who gave clowns an even badder name, John Wayne Gacy Jnr. The song fact check’s Gacy’s stereotypical incipient serial killer history (violent abusive father, traumatic head injury, convictions for sexual assault) and alludes to how he kept his victims’ bodies in the crawlspace under his house. Gacy sexually assaulted and murdered at least 33 teenage boys between 1972 and 1978. He is famous for his post-incarceration serial killer artwork, which fetches a lot of money among collectors. Executed by lethal injection in 1994, he was sometimes referred to as the killer clown. In fact anyone who doesn’t suffer from coulrophobia need only look at a picture of Gacy’s alter ego, Pogo the Clown, to pick up a lifelong fear of clowns pretty quickly.

Mack the Knife – Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht

Here’s an unusual entry, and one I certainly wouldn’t have considered myself, until a colleague pointed it out. It’s a cruisy old crooner song, its most famous iteration by Frank Sinatra (1958). Listening to the lyrics, I’m reminded of Jack the Ripper, but of course its association with Franky conjures up images of the mob. Other famous versions of this were done by Bobby Darin (1959) and Louis Armstrong (1956). Robbie Williams had a crack in 2001. Originally composed by Weill and Brecht for their Berlin based stage drama, The Threepenny Opera in 1928. In its original form it is a murder ballad performed by minstrels about a character called Mackie Messer, in turn based on the highwayman Macheath in Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728), in turn based on a historical thief called Jack Sheppard (phew, thanks Wikipedia). It’s old anyway, goes way back.

Red Right Hand – Nick Cave

You can’t have a serial killer album without Nick Cave, or so I thought. Nick should be a shoe in with his career long obsession with all matters love, sex and death, yet he remains elusive. Not even on Murder Ballads can you find more than a tenuous link. I’ll return to this album. So I include this tune from 1994’s Let Love In. Who is this demonic figure in the long black coat with the red right hand that may be dipped in blood? Like the archetypal sex killer he is the embodiment of all of our darkest fears and desires. On the opening tune of Murder Ballads, Song of Joy, a man finds his family murdered at the hands of a serial killer who writes ‘Red right hand’ on the walls in their blood. The phrase itself is taken from John Milton’s Paradise Lost – the avenging hand of God. So many serial killers once caught claim to be acting on behalf of God.

Far from any Road – The Handsome Family

I only discovered this little gem recently when I purchased and watched the first season of True Detective. This tune was one of the things that drew me in, along with the great performances of the two leads. It’s from the 2003 album Singing Bones. It’s a country song, even though it’s far too good to be a country song. While the song literally references the danger presented by certain flora and fauna in the desert, its association with the series, which concerns the long term hunt for a serial killer known as the Yellow King, brings it into the zone. The layout with its duelling male and female voices and its theme of death can only lead one to associate it with sex murder – well it does for me anyway.

That’s it and boy did I have fun compiling this playlist (hitlist, slaylist). But wait, there’s more! I’ve almost got enough tracks in reserve for a follow up album – serial killer music volume II. Let’s leave that for another time.

Shout outs to some Australian Horror Writers Association members who made helpful suggestions in compiling this list – Pia Ravenari, Anthony Stevens (my doppelganger), Lyn and Lee Battersby, and Dan Russell.

Have I missed any? Have I missed one of your favourites? Let me know. Here’s the complete track listing:

1 Object – Ween

2 Lotion – Greenskeepers

3 Midnight Rambler – Rolling Stones

4 Psycho Killer – Talking Heads

5 Deep Red Bells – Neko Case

6 In Germany Before the War – Randy Newman

7 John Wayne Gacy Jnr – Sufjan Stevens

8 Mack the Knife – Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht

9 Red Right Hand – Nick Cave

10 Far from any Road – The Handsome Family