Culturazi

Postmark 27th January, 1970

218807 PTE Jamieson
1ARU 1PL
AFPO4
GPO Sydney 2890

Monday 26th

My Dearest Sandra,

Well Darling I got the photoes to-day and they are lovely. You look really great in them dear, and the boys too, they come out well, I love you darling. This will only be short to-night as there is an exam on tomorrow and I have been studying all night and it’s just about time for lights out. I also got your letter to-day saying you have to have more tests, be sure and let me know the results of them. I guess to-day is a holiday back home, but not for us here, they just about keep us going all the time, not much time to our selfs. Darling I am missing you something afull, I love you and always will, I only wish I could be home with you while you are sick, not that I could do much, but at least I would be with you, how I wish I were with you Sandra. Shall always be thinking of you my love.

I guess things are rather quite (Sandra my love) now that the other kids have gone home. But I suppose if you are still sick then our boys would be enough to try out your nerves. Sandra I am sorry that I cannot write anymore but the lights are just about to go out. Darling I am always thinking of you and always will my love. Good night darling and may God bless you my love. I love you more than anything in this world dear and will do anything to make you happy. Sandra I shall love you forever.

All my love,

Jock. xxxxx.

Tell the boys I love them too, but not as much as you my love.

JJ.

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Tags: Vietnam Letters by Mr Jones
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Wake up people!  The Global Financial Crisis is nothing compared to what’s coming!  This crazy, peak-oil  economy will soon come crashing down, possibly not until shortly after we’ve well and truly fucked the planet for future generations.  Here’s a list of things you won’t have at Christmas after we’ve been hit by the wave of social change that will follow swiftly upon this event, as surely as Rome declines after it runs out of cheap Greek slaves.

You will not have new clothes for going out to the various Christmas parties you won’t be attending.

Nor store-bought Christmas presents.

Nor stores.

Nor hams, turkey and enormous chickens.  Feasting will be generally discouraged.

There will be no travelling around the country to visit your relatives.   Send them a card instead.  A homemade one.

There will be no Christmas holidays, as the only work available will be scratching out a subsistence life with whatever poor tools are available, and that’s a full-time job.

But don’t let me bring you down!  Go ahead, enjoy the last fading glories of this unnatural, oil-based opulence, and have yourself a Merry little Christmas.

Tags: Gertrude by Gertrude
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Including a review of a performance in the famous speigeltent.

His sister is late to pick us up to go to the airport and I get a bit worked up about it.  Put the nagging lever into gear and hit the overdrive button.  Most men merely look long-suffering when I do this, but he’s a highly strung creature and he jumps straight onboard into a full-blown anxiety attack.  I’m going to write a sign to stick to his back:  “If found, please return to the musical director of The Spiegeltent, Arts Centre Forecourt, Southbank, Melbourne.  Warning:  Volatile when startled.”

Eventually we decline to wait for his sister, and drive around the corner to a friend’s place and collect one of their visitors to drive us to the airport, which as it turns out has been conveniently located in the middle of an enormous construction site.  Never mind, we locate the Tiger Airways check-in.  The cheaper-than-chips budget flight is rather like catching a bus, but with better views and thankfully much shorter duration.  The seats are very close together indeed, and ours, on the second to last row, is just across the aisle from a screaming 2 year old.  I really need that sign now:  I think he’s going to leap the seats and run hysterically to the front of the plane.

But the child calms eventually and so do we and it’s no time at all before we’re landing at Tullamarine.  In keeping with the airline’s ability to pack people in like flesh covered parcels, their terminal has been located in the freight area, but even so it’s only a six minute walk through a partly covered walkway, affording us an opportunity to enjoy the gale force winds and driving rain.  I wait at the baggage carousel while my companion takes himself off for a cigarette.  Our bags are the last items off the baggage cart, but all is peaceful and happy while we wander off to find the SkyBus.

rr;]

Tags: Gertrude by Gertrude
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Postmark 24th January, 1970

25 Blacket St
Downer
ACT, 2602

My Darling Jock,

How are you Darling? Well I hope. I have been feeling much better lately. I went back to the Dr. yesterday and the results of the urine test showed that the infection has cleared up but there were some other wogs in the urine straight from the bladder, so I had to go into Civic this afternoon to Dr. Moran’s surgery to have that done. They had a little plastic bag with a tube on the end of it and they put the tube inside my bladder and filled the plastic bag. They said that Dr. Harris would have the results in about 3 days, but as today is Friday and there is a long weekend this weekend it could probably about Thursday before he could have the results. [Read more →]

Tags: Vietnam Letters by Mr Jones
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Sorry to those of you who were planning to attend, and those who were going to play, but we have decided to cancel tonight’s Backanalia due to persistent gusty wind and the threat of rain. It was a tough decision but the good news is all the infrastructure is in place for a show and we may well just do the same line-up next Saturday, 20th Dec, depending on everyone’s availability of course.

Tags: Backyard Backanalia by loadedog
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Postmark 20th January, 1970

25 Blacket St
Downer
ACT, 2602

(Mon) 19-1-70

To the most Handsome and Wonderful Man in all the world,

My Darling Jock,

I received two of your letters to-day Darling, and apparently you mustn’t have received the letter I wrote telling you what was wrong with me. Well I have got an infection in the bladder. I have been feeling a little bit better since Mum and Dad have been home, as I have been able to get some more rest. [Read more →]

Tags: Vietnam Letters by Mr Jones
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I enjoy the view from my third floor window, looking out over the bustling corner of University Avenue and Marcus Clarke Street.  I like watching the passing parade of people, especially if I have some outstanding account reconciliations to handle, or a particularly tedious pile of filing to get through.

My window looks directly across the road into a dentist’s surgery in the Colonial Mutual building.  The patients cannot be identified from that distance, but I enjoy watching the dentist and his assistant moving around the room, and sometimes a patient in distress will wave their hands around in a frantic manner.  I swear I can almost hear the drill.

Then there is the pedestrian who I spy every few months making his way up Marcus Clarke Street.  For the block approaching the corner he appears to be normal, but then as soon as he reaches University Avenue he faces west towards the ANU and begins screaming abuse at the top of this voice.  I’m not sure whether his beef is with all academia or just one particular part of it, but I can amuse myself for whole minutes trying to pick out some words.  I imagine he received a bad grade in his undergraduate years and has nursed his resentment ever since.  I suspect he is a frustrated philosopher; they tend to be quite vehement in their opinions, especially if they’ve failed to embrace the full beauty of Derridean desconstruction.

re →]

Tags: Gertrude by Gertrude
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Postmark 16th January, 1970

25 Blacket St
Downer
ACT, 2602

(Thurs) 16-1-70

My Darling Jock,

I received the film and the medical benefits cheques that you sent to-day Dear. I also received a letter from Mum and Dad, who seem to be having a good time in Tasmania, and they will be back on Saturday night, their plane is due in at 8.10PM. Apparently the plane was two hours late in leaving when they left here last Saturday morning. [Read more →]

Tags: Vietnam Letters by Mr Jones
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Tags: Art by loadedog
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Tags: Art by loadedog
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Tags: Art by loadedog
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Present: Jim Boots, John Griffiths, Sharkie, Grace

Our guests are Cameron and Gianni of The Bridge Between who are about to celebrate their twentieth anniversary as friends. Their ‘day job’ is playing covers (under numerous aliases) but they occasionally enter the rarified atmosphere (and paltry financial rewards) of the local original scene. They’re also funny bastards.

Click Play Audio to play podcast. Click here to download

If you’d like to download the podcast, tap this URL: http://the-riotact.com/~john/insban/pod100.mp3 into iTunes or your media player or whatever.

And, finally (sorry Jess), there is a facebook fan page for people to marvel at here.

This link is for people who have podcasting software which you can find here.

Recorded on Monday 24th Nov, 2008. More pics after the jump

[Read more →]

Tags: Insatiable Banalities by loadedog
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