The Nativity

There comes a time in the life of any young boy when the magic of the festive season is reduced to an ill-fitting pair of socks and a Tupperware container of leftovers. It is the childhood moment when the whole Christmas-Santa-Reindeer thing suddenly implodes, crumpling into nothingness like a used party hat. Frosty the Snowman cartoons lose their mystery and the significance of carols becomes questionable when that sniffling fat kid at school tells you that the whole Christmas story is a myth.

The road to adulthood not only brings resentment at the sight of Christmas joy in the face of young children, it unloads the burdensome realisation that the whole celebration is one big cynical sales pitch that starts earlier and earlier with every passing year. Yet, as you elbow your way out of a crowded shopping centre on Christmas Eve, that little wooden nativity scene on the street corner gives some conciliation that, once upon a time, this December day was not about consumerism and credit card debt – it celebrated the birth of a special baby boy.

Sadly, this is just another serving of bullshit mince pies.

Without hesitation, mums and dads tell their children that Santa is real – retrofitting the reindeer courier story with pseudo-scientific explanations to keep up with a barrage of ever-probing questions. The story of Jesus’ birth – known to believers and non-believers alike – was constructed in exactly the same way and is as much of a myth as Rudolf’s sex-toy workshop ever was. But what about the census? The baby in the Bethlehem manger? The three wise men? All baubles I’m afraid.

Mmmm, sacrelicious...

Two of the gospels mention the birth of Jesus, Matthew and Luke. Both of them tell a similar tale, but make enough mistakes to suggest the whole nativity story was conceived to tie up loose ends. Jesus was big on fulfilling prophecies. The Book of Micah foretold the messiah would come from the house of David and be born in Bethlehem. Matthew and Luke went to great lengths to show that Jesus was descended from the Goliath-killing King David; the problem being his name was Jesus of Nazareth, not Bethlehem. An oppressive Roman census was the solution.

After comparing their stories, clearly the two gospel writers relied on Wikipedia as much as your author. Luke asserts that the Roman Governor in Syria, Quirinius, issued the census while Matthew says that Jesus was born during the reign of Jewish king, Herod the Great. Ancient historians like Josephus support Quirinius issuing a census in Syria in 6AD, however Herod died nine years earlier in 4BC. In addition, there is nothing to suggest in Roman records that people had to migrate back to their town of origin during a census or whether client kingdoms, like Judea at the time, were included in censuses at all.

These discoveries are nothing new and, like parents patching up the holes in the Santa Claus story, scholars have attempted to explain away the creative application of history employed by the gospel writers. Like most biblical errors however, centuries of dispute is preferable to admitting that that Jesus of Nazareth might be Jesus of Nazareth. In perspective, this is nothing compared to the Christian takeover of a pagan festival to subdue a recently converted populace. That, my friends, is a slow-boiled pudding best saved for next Christmas.

Witches

Most men are rightfully terrified of women. He that says otherwise has yet to meet that special someone who can read his thoughts, reduce his motor skills to naught and dictate his every action through various hexes. To call such women witches, however, is unfair and inaccurate as most witches are simply females whose subversive powers have been clearly identified. Persecuting the worst of them can provide temporary security from dark forces that men can barely comprehend let alone defeat.

When it comes to witches, it is important to look at the facts. Even though all women have some level of demonic power – seen through their regular bleeding and ability to do more than one thing at a time – not all women are ‘witches’. If history has taught us anything, it is that witchcraft often rides in tandem with independent thought and the inability of women to know their place. Fearing what we do not understand and muffling talkative females is mankind’s best defence against the concubines of Satan.

The fight against witches is a long one, some say eternal. Science may provide us with a reassuring blanket of reason, yet bad things continue to happen and we can be certain that witches are involved. The Egyptians, Babylonians and Romans all knew this and dealt with women responsible for drought, famine and disease in their own fashion. While the Old Testament is specific in its treatment of witches, it took those meddlesome new-age Christians to label witch-hunts as superstitious, with Charlemagne even outlawing the persecution of heathen women in 794.

Sometimes, you have to be cruel to be kind.

Not until the end of the Middle Ages was there a resurgence in the study of witches and for many centuries they had walked free amongst the populace. With the backing of Pope Innocent VIII, the first field guide to witches was published in 1487 by two German monks. Known as Malleus Maleficarum (‘The Hammer of Witches’)*, this beautifully presented book was a true product of the European Renaissance. Packed with handy hints, it was widely used to identify those women who had bedded Beelzebub and described the most effective methods to prosecute them.

The next two hundred years saw a Golden Age in witch-trials across much of Europe and the American colonies. In the midst of constant religious struggles caused by the Reformation, God-fearing folk could cast aside the shackles of political correctness and put witches back in their place. Right-minded people agreed that magic was not superstition and witches could even, at times, do positive things. What people needed protection from were witches who did harm or maleficium. Tell-tale signs included women dancing naked, men’s penises disappearing and orgies which involved eating your own babies.

Historical estimates suggest that 40,000-100,000 women were executed for witchcraft in early modern times – a good start by any reckoning. Sadly, the politically correct pendulum swung back in favour of witches, witchcraft laws were gradually phased out and the last execution in Europe took place in Prussia in 1811.

Despite this, there are encouraging signs of a revival. Many African nations have professional witch-finders and an estimated 200 women are put to death as witches in rural India each year. As recently as 2006, Fawza Falih was sentenced to beheading in Saudi Arabia based on the testimony of a man who accused her of causing his impotence. Unfortunately, she died last year in her prison cell before the sentence could be carried out.

* Known as Die Hexenhammer in German – possibly the coolest book title in history.

Jury Duty

Twelve strangers charged with the justice of the realm gather together at the round table. Sworn to secrecy, bound by honour and cloaked in chivalry, they shall not rest until their mission for the truth is complete. Armed not with swords of bows, these servants of her Majesty twiddle well-forged biros in their fingers and sip from goblets of Styrofoam. Their round table lies not in halls of Camelot, but deep within the bowels of the Downing Centre local court.

A great way to meet people from all walks of life, jury duty brings citizens together in an engaging and constructive manner...whether they like it or not. There are few certainties in life, however sooner or later the day will come when you find a jury summons in your letterbox. For some, jury duty is an inconvenience. For others, it is a much welcomed holiday. Yet for everyone, it is a test of patience as you fight the urge not to throttle the loudmouth troglodyte opposite you who demands an explanation as to why he cannot SMS his toothless, mutant girlfriend while in court.

Forced participation brings out the best in each of us; facial expressions around the room suggest the average person takes jury duty about as seriously as they do elections. The terrible inconvenience of the whole experience is quickly confirmed: “How will the salon cope without me?”; “What about my Zumba class?”; “Does this mean we can’t watch Kerry-Anne?” Depending on the crime, jury duty can be long and tedious; some trials last years with no verdict. Compared to the alternative, however, contributing to this system of justice seems the saner choice.

The people at Chum never saw it coming.

Prior to modern juries gaining popularity, methods of determining guilt could hardly be described as impartial. Medieval courts relied on god to determine the guilt of an individual. This was done by subjecting the accused to a horrible experience – such as retrieving a rock from a pot of boiling water – known as Trial by Ordeal. If the wounds began to heal in a few days, god had intervened. If the wound putrefied, then it’s into the pond with you. There was also Trial by Combat, in which god supported the winner of a holy bar fight – being weak and innocent was not so common.

Henry II – an English king none too fond of the church – created a whole new system of law in the 12^th century that was based on local customs and evened the odds a bit for the everyday man. Known as ‘Common Law’, he revived an old custom which involved using twelve men from each village to identify beefs between the locals when royal judges made their regular visits. Known as juries – from the Norman French juré or ‘sworn’ – these groups did the investigating, gathered evidence and were often directly involved with the crimes committed.

Today, juries have no involvement with investigating crimes, sitting only in judgement - the only ordeal being the week-old sandwiches. Juries are no longer exclusively wealthy landowners; they are snapshots of the community, whose decisions (hopefully) represent the values important to society as a whole. In turn, they illustrate how the biggest mouth in a group of twelve people is generally attached to the thickest skull. Despite the initial frustrations of being forced to compromise and to tolerate your fellow humans, jury duty is a satisfying experience which can enrich citizens as well as inconvenience them.

Pokies

The time has come for me to make a confession: I am addicted to the pokies. Some years ago I made a vow never to spend more than $5/week on these machines and have managed to stick to that goal with almost complete success, many weeks I play not at all. How then am I addicted you may ask? Gaming rooms offer me little excitement, but these diabolical dens festooned with bells and whistles provide comfortable access to my real addiction – observing problem gamblers.

What started as innocent curiosity fast became a weekly ritual. After spending a few Friday lunchtimes ushering the weekend with a beer and some football highlights at the bar near work, I noticed the same faces glued to the flashing lights week after week with clockwork regularity. My five dollars never lasts long; it is simply an admission fee that allows me to watch the plague of hopelessness leak from these machines with every spin – a slow, incremental death.

The regulars often acknowledge me with a nod of recognition as I straddle the nearest vinyl stool. The fragile bond between problem gamblers is plain to see; an attempt to mask personal shame and loss with some sort of social interaction. They recognise me as one of their own during my occasional visits, but make no mistake about it – this is one lonely place. There’s the bubbly Filipino lady who is there almost daily and the tradesman who always has his Ute parked out front; yet it’s the two old ladies who wrench my gut the most.

"Free coffee! I'm losing money by not being here."

A large and lovely woman of about seventy, she sits there with a $50 note always at the ready. She generally has at least $100 in the machine, watching it tick away $1.50 at a time – her friend sits beside her doing the same. As her credit drops, she raises her bet to $3.00 each spin, her twitching jaw becomes more noticeable with each push of the button. Finally, her anxiety is quelled with the clattering of chimes and the promise of fifteen free spins. Within seconds she has winnings of over $150. Less than seven minutes later, she needed that extra $50 note…and she only just arrived.

One more individual is worthy of a mention: the barman who services the gaming longue. A young man of gentle demeanour, he treats me with the same tortured courtesy as the rest. The conflict in his eyes is plain to see as he nods politely at small talk about winnings and features from the same chicken battery of people seated at their empty troughs, nursing their soon-to-be empty wallets.

A friend once explained the mathematics of gambling to me after completing a subject on it at university. Poker machines (all casino games) are programmed* in such a way that if you play an infinite amount of times, the result will always be less than zero. In others words, if you keep play forever you are mathematically certain to lose. There is no if, but or whether – poker machines are designed to take your money and no amount of luck can help you.

When I tried to explain this to the dear lady before she put that extra $50 note in, she chuckled telling me not to be bad luck. The young barman hung his head and avoided eye contact. She always strokes her palm as if it she has some irritation – then I realised that she constantly rubs the corner of the machine in some sort of gambler’s ritual. Not only does she put her pension in this machine, she puts her blood into it as well as if it loves her back.

* ‘Designed’ sounded like too nice a word.

Snowboarding

Skiers seem like nice people. They might walk down stairs like Tick Tock from Return to Oz with a crescendo of clonking boots, but they seem friendly and approachable. Sometimes they are frustrated when your snowboard gets caught between their skis on a chairlift, but that’s nothing a warm smile cannot fix. Even when a dandily-dressed family of four stops dead so they can bask in their own mediocrity on the gradual uphill slope at the bottom of a run, for which you desperately need to maintain speed to avoid having to stop and unclip your binding before being glared at by a pretentious matriarch for having the gall to point out such alpine practicalities to her dawdling children and…actually, I hate bloody skiers.

This is not a problem of my own making, but stems from a thirty-year conflict involving only two sides. As fate would have it, by purchasing my own gear yesterday I officially became a snowboarder. It is not a war of set battles and uniforms, but a mercenary skirmish in which combatants supply their own arms and armour. Anybody who has made this financial commitment understands that – apart from being reduced to two-minute noodles for next month – at least another ten snow trips will be required in order to reconcile the cost. Oh well!

Having never tried skiing, the only reasonable option is to fear and distrust what I do not understand. After just one day of snowboarding, you can utilise plenty of aging stereotypes to label skiers as retarded, help you revive old feuds and to pat yourself on the back for making the right choice. Even though 40% of ski-riders are now snowboarders, you can still class yourself as a struggling minority, thwart with oppression from the conservative bi-pedal alpine elite. Put simply, snowboarding can turn you into a bitter teenager from the nineties overnight.

Origins of the modern snowboard.

There is a certain level of nostalgia employed by snowboarders. When Michigan father, Sherman Poppen, fastened two skis together and attached a rope to the front for his daughter in the mid-sixties, a new sport was born. Thankfully, people thought ‘snurfing’ was a silly name and by 1977 insurance agencies recognised snowboarding as an activity deserving cover. Despite this, only 7% of ski resorts allowed snowboarders in 1985 and it wasn’t until the nineties that they were more common. Arguably, this piste-shredding, grungy, riff-raff helped many US ski resorts stay in business – much to the disgust of the onesie-clad Old Guard.

Like all things rad, mass adoption by bandwagon-jumping thirty year olds with a new found desire to hurt themselves like they used to has confused the term extreme with foolhardy. Combined with the growing desire among skiers to tackle terrain parks and powdery chasms, the line between the two eternal foes of the slopes has all but faded. Thankfully, being a snowboarder still makes you feel like you’re in with the cool kids at primary school, even if it’s because they’re using you for your Mega Drive.

Now, all that is left is the eternal torment waiting for that next snow excursion. Soon you’ll be leaning into your turns while riding the bus and standing sideways with your knees bent going down an escalator; all the while praying for the weekend. Before long, you will be looking completely awesome in your new clothes, bracing yourself as you climb that first mountain and - with utmost dignity - taking out three skiers when you stack it coming off the chairlift.

Heavy Metal

Any young man can recall the phase just after puberty when he enjoys maximum energy with the added benefit of reckless invincibility. This is a confusing and frustrating time as generations of young men at the peak of their handball careers are relocated to schoolyards considered more appropriate for their lunchtime. With fair and foul creatures known as women added to the mix, boys are left with precious few options. They can either take up rugby to release the anxiousness; start pot-smoking early to dissolve it; or do the sensible thing and discover heavy metal.

Even your now shredded author can remember the time when Queen Greatest Hits and the Lion King soundtrack just didn’t cut it anymore. The day came when a friend saw that frustrated, white, middle-class, virgin Catholic boy devouring himself from within and bought him a ticket to Slayer at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. Clearly unprepared for the ‘baptism of fire’, as he called it, I showed up to his house in my never-fail RipCurl shirt and beige cargo pants. Outraged, he forced me to change into a borrowed pair of black jeans faster than you can say hacksaw decapitation.

Those black jeans may well have saved my life that night. Each guitarist had twenty speaker cabinets a piece, the drummer had a kit so large he could hardly be seen and the singer was the kind of guy that you pray your daughter will never bring home. After the gig, we roamed the streets with a legion of leather-cloaked warlocks and penis-pierced skinheads in search of blood flavoured Slurpees and polite conversation with passers-by. This was indeed a baptism, and many a new metalhead is forged in the distorted flames of that first, memorable concert. 

What we love most about metal? Clearly the accessories.

Becoming a metal fan brought on a sense of solidarity foreign to other styles of music. To those consigned to the befouled excrement of commercial radio, metal is a malformed copulation of loud, thrashing garbage. To those with a musical education, metal is a discordant butchering of the beautiful potential of our auditory abilities. For the metal fan (or chef) however, a measured dose of gloom and doom makes the sun shinier and, unlike IT professionals who can wear whatever they like to the office, provides a Superman-esque metamorphosis for the weekend.

Although one cannot spell metalhead without ‘meathead’, studies have shown a good dose of distortion is the brain food of the intelligent. Those who have witnessed a moshpit of death metal fans embracing the dismemberment of infants might question their collective brainpower, but this beast has embraced contradiction for more than thirty years. From the straightforward to the technical, the transcendent to the absurd, heavy metal music is a unique genus that celebrates a wondrous diversity of sub-genres* without abandoning its core principles of being loud, powerful and rightly critical of fucking emos.

Whether your poison is Black, Glam, Death, Thrash, Doom, Stoner, Metalcore, Prog-Tech or Viking Symphonic – metal maintains to reinvent itself out of the cesspool of ever-homogenous pop music.** Metal can unite the skinny, the fat and the marginalised under a single banner of destruction; it allows men to feel comfortable in tight leather and spikes without being branded homosexual; it provides an opportunity to beat the living crud out of your fellow man in a controlled, good-humoured setting; it proves that the sweat and body odour of five hundred people can be concentrated within a single t-shirt; and, above all, metal demonstrates the delicate fusion of rock and roll, classical, blues, hearing loss, whiplash and unnecessary piercings.

* While I promised not to single out any bands in this article, thankfully there is no genre appropriate for My Chemical Romance.

** Please refer to this wonderful online resource to navigate the realm of metal genres in true Lord of the Rings style.

England

Faced with the choice between identifying with an empire on the verge of collapse that takes itself too seriously or an extinct empire that managed to gain a sense of humour in the process, I choose the latter. The chip on our colonial shoulder, England echoes through much of Australian life, despite the amount of air time dedicated to The Big Bang Theory. Behind the nostalgic title of Great Britain lies a nation that once controlled a quarter of the world and is today the feature of DDW’s Complete Generalisations About Other Cultures.

In order to continue, the difference between English and British must be emphasised; something best illustrated by Hollywood casting. While Irish, Welsh and Scottish accents are either masked or employed for their sonorous qualities, the middle class English accent is immediately associated with either an old-fashioned sort ripe for ridicule, or an all-purpose villain that evokes the revolutionary struggles with the British Empire when set against an American-speaking protagonist.* The Imperial Officers in Star Wars or the Romans in Spartacus are but two examples.

Why does this not bother the English? As suggested earlier, the Poms know how to take the piss, as one look at a London tabloid or ‘healthy’ pub menu would confirm. Along with a drink-drank-drunk attitude to booze, the ability to mock ourselves is a quality brought to Australia on the First Fleet. The emergence of England as an industrial powerhouse, its brutal expansion on a world scale followed by the gradual decline of the past century shows the much-needed development of this thick skin.

What do you mean you're not hungry?

The English people – at least the wealthier ones – managed to bargain a pretty good deal with whomever it was that ruled them over the centuries. Apart from the odd invasion, language change and genocide from Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Norman French, peasants lived quite decent lives on fertile English soils, makings their lords rich and keeping the power of the king limited and representative.** For most of its history, England was not much bigger than the British Isles and its lands in France. As long as the cider supply remained intact, pastoral villagers cared little for the petty squabbling of their nobles.

Cut to the time of Queen Elizabeth I and we see a different England emerging. The year is 1588; the English reformation has overthrown the power of the Catholic Church; the English language is now spoken by rulers and peasants alike; and the invading Spanish Armada has been defeated. With God on their side and a spanking new navy, England saw the commercial benefit of making war with tribes armed with sharpened mangoes rather than their old European foes. Over the next two hundred years, England (joined with Scotland to make Great Britain in 1707) controlled the east coast of North America, most of the Caribbean, India, Pakistan, countless Pacific Islands and Australia – making the Roman Empire look like Tasmania.

Britain lost America in 1776, but the industrial revolution had kicked in and with the defeat of Napoleon a few years later, the English were made practically invincible. As the English language and Earl Grey Tea spread around the world, so did the prim and proper stereotypes in which we bask today. Much to their surprise, the world eventually grew tired of having baked beans and chips with every meal and by the 1947, even India wanted out.

To their credit, English have taken their defeat gracefully; their ale may be warm, but our coins still bear the Queen’s face. Although most Poms do not dwell on their history, the world has a free pass to remind them of their past horrors with a playful chuckle rather than the don’t-mention-the-war issues with other European ex-empires. Next time you meet an Englishman, remind him of the treatment of various indigenous peoples and you will receive the adorable and frustratingly courteous response: “Oh right, we did that too? Sorry about that.”

* An entire industry is based on English accent lessons. Some are better than others.
** Just because the old-country makes me blubby, doesn't mean we still need kings.