Andrew Bolt today rhetorically asked his reader(s) if The Age columnists came in any political persuasion other than left-wing.

In unrelated news… This morning regular Age columnist John Roskam, of the right-wing Institute of Public Affairs, wrote an excellent column questioning the Victorian government’s policy of unquestioningly haemorrhaging money for “major events” like the Grand Prix and the swimming championships. Huge sums of cash are thrown at events that continually clock up massive losses but the expenditure is justified by pointing at unmeasurable economic benefits. Roskam provides a couple of interesting hypotheticals:

If the Government decided to devote an additional $80 million to recruiting extra literacy teachers in primary schools, there would be economic benefits. Better educated students will be more productive once they are in the workforce. But if the Government chose to use the money to have the rocks at the bottom of the Yarra painted red, there would also be economic benefits: paint would be purchased, painters employed and tourists would flock to see a river that was red instead of brown. Such a stunt would certainly generate worldwide headlines.

The question for Victoria is not whether there are economic benefits from taxpayer-subsidised major events, because obviously there are. The question is whether there are better alternative uses for the money.

The world swimming championships kick off in a couple of days and Melburnians can’t wait:

With four days before competition begins, organisers have sold 6500 tickets for synchronised swimming sessions, less than 11 per cent of the target of 60,000.

[...]

Overall, 103,000 tickets have been sold to the championships, which begin this Saturday and run until April 1. No finals event in any sport has sold out.

Mr Scott said there were still 2000 tickets left for Saturday’s opening ceremony. Organisers are still 50,000 tickets behind sales at the last world titles, widely considered an economic disaster. In 2005 in Montreal, Canada, there was an overall budget deficit of $C4.8 million ($A5.25 million).

This monumental white elephant of an event will cost over $50 million of taxpayer money, including who-knows-how-much to send a DVD of “lesson plans” to every school teacher in the state. I found mine in the pigeon hole last week and it will never see the light of day in my classroom. No way am I going to deliver a pathetic and underbaked promotional program masquerading as education. Here’s the blurb from inside the DVD cover:

SPLASH! is a resource of curriculum materials that has been developed to support the 12th FINA World Championships. Teachers can use the materials to create innovative and engaging lessons or unit (sic) of work which provide the opportunity to utilise the Championships as an authentic and exciting learning context.

Clearly the events are exciting. Nearly 7,000 people are excited about the synchronised swimming.

But let’s have a look at some of the innovative and engaging lessons on offer:

Penny The Penguin
The mascot for the 12th FINA World Championships is Penny the Penguin… The framework for the activities within the unit is created by key questions such as:
* What is special about Penny the Penguin?
* Why was Penny the Penguin chosen as a mascot? and
* Why are marine national parks and sanctuaries important?

Marvelous Melbourne
As the host of the 12th FINA World Championships, Melbourne offers a wealth of interesting and educational experiences for locals and visitors alike. The unit guides students through a range of activities where they investigate the diversity of attractions, activities and experiences that Melbourne has to offer locals and tourists.

Swimwear Fashion
Swimwear fashion has evolved over the last 100 years. In this task students relate swimwear fashion to social attitudes at various stages in our history. They research links between swimwear fashion and social history. They develop an advertisement which reflects both the swimwear and attitudes of the 1900s.

Cutural Diversity Week
Melbourne is recognised as being a cosmopolitan city which has been enriched by the rich cultural backgrounds of its citizens. During the 2007 12th FINA World Swimming Championships, people from many different countries and cultures will visit Melbourne. The Cultural Diversity Quest 2007 offers schools and their students an opportunity to explore the culturally diverse society in which they live and to see Melbourne through the eyes of its visitors. This activity encourages students to be truly inclusive of people from all different cultures and backgrounds.

What Did They Say?
Explain that [students] are going to write a short conversation between two athletes competing at the 12th FINA World Championships. They could choose the athletes by browsing the newspaper, sports magazines or related internet sites. When we write a piece of text there may be times when we include dialogue between people. In that instance, the speech of each person is identified using talking marks placed at the beginning and end of their speech.

Still awake? This waste of space was sent to EVERY TEACHER IN THE STATE. I’m no mathematician but my back-of-the-envelope calculations reveal that the design, production and mailout of the DVD cost: heaps. And it’s obviously resulted in a flood of ticket sales.

John Roskam reckons Victorians should wake up and start questioning the ridiculous wastage of their money on subsidising unpopular events. I agree.

As I’ve previously explained Pearl Jam have been a favourite band of mine since the heady days of grade ten in 1993. I’ve seen them five times over three Australian tours and on Tuesday night I added a sixth concert to that list.

But first, how Pearl Jam’s fans have changed. Waiting out the front of Rod Laver Arena for Billybob to arrive J, The and I crowd spotted. We saw business suits, couples with young kids, teenage girls who looked like they’d come to see Nelly Furtado, young adults in the young twenties whose folks had tagged along, and only a couple of grubby yoof dressed in the grunge costume. In fact, looking around the crowd after the support act we noted that there was an overwhelming amount of pastel colour — like an Industrie clothing store showroom — and an almost complete lack of black. Back in the ’90s, we reflected, you’d get beaten up for showing up to a Pearl Jam concert in anything but a pair of ripped jeans, black t-shirt and flannel over-shirt.

However, forgetting the crowd’s fashion choices it was, without a shadow of a doubt, easily the best concert of the six I’ve seen. Last time around in 2003 the band were touring an ordinary album, Eddie Vedder was drunk, forgetful and sloppy, and the band seemed to be lacking spark and killing time until retirement. On Tuesday they were invigorated, musically tight, and a true rock and roll spectacle. Eddie was at the peak of his singing form, Mike McCready let rip with some truly outstanding four minute guitar solos (including Even Flow’s solo from behind his head), Jeff Ament was bouncing across the stage like a teenager, and the band effortlessly punched out the kind of energy and anger that was reminiscent of their early years.

And just take a look at this setlist:

Go, Last Exit, Brain Of J., World Wide Suicide, Given To Fly, Severed Hand, Low Light, Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town, Gone, Do The Evolution, Even Flow, Lukin, Not For You/(Modern Girl), Life Wasted, Better Man, Glorified G, Porch

Encore 1: Thumbing My Way, Last Kiss, Crazy Mary, Alive
Encore 2: Big Wave, Blood, Leash, Baba O’Riley, Indifference

Anybody who follows Pearl Jam setlists and knows a thing or two about their catalogue will nod appreciatively at the first few songs. The boys normally kick off their shows with a quiet tune (eg. Release, Elderly Woman) before launching into a rocker, but they launched this show with the blistering first track from Vs., the blistering first track from Vitalogy, and the blistering first track from Yield. Had they said “goodnight” and walked from the stage right there I would’ve gone home a happy man, still tingling from the opening trio. But they forged onwards into the single from their latest, self-titled, album before playing the only disappointment of the night: Given To Fly. That tune is serviceable on the record but has never really worked for me live. The rest of the main set was outstanding, especially the surprise inclusion of Glorified G which had J, The dancing like a maniac (read: me) in the aisle.

The encores were frantic affairs with house lights on for the most part. Crazy Mary was haunting and Last Kiss was like mass karaoke. Alive saw Eddie and Jeff work the stage like men possessed and the crowd duly went wild. In the second encore Leash was a total surprise and I screamed along like I used to while cruising the mean streets of Brisbane in my Mini with The Wayno in grade twelve. By the time the last chords of Indifference faded away I was spent. Walking zombie-like from the venue we didn’t speak, needing only to exchange knowing looks. J, The and I were sore and tired from dancing. Billybob was sore and tired from maintaining a look of determined concentration. Billybob doesn’t dance in public, you see. I don’t think I even saw him sway or clap along. He says he liked the concert but I knew he was thinking, “They were no Nickelback.”

Until next time around, then. Anybody up for an east coast tour?

In the last ten days there’s been so much to blog about but I’ve been locked in a battle between my final university submission due on Tuesday and the new kitten, Napoleon, who is determined to use my keyboard as his personal highway. Let’s do some GrodsNibbles.

1) Lachlan Connor, Independent
We successfully shot six more episodes of LCI: Preston (as Billybob has started to call it) last Saturday, managing to rope in Greeny and a very hesitant mate of J,The’s to fill new roles. J,The’s mate was concerned that he had never acted before and would look a fool. We simply showed him the first six episodes and he felt much better. Because of this uni work the new episodes won’t be edited until next Wednesday (with a massive hangover, I’d wager) so episode seven, due Tuesday, will be delayed a day or two. Tony T. of After Grog Blog will be well pleased with episode seven. Head over and peruse his blog to find out why.

2) Climate change and Howard’s hot air
It’s been interesting to watch the Howard Government desperately scrambling to change their line on global warming over the last couple of weeks. Times like these are a reminder that maybe John Howard’s not such the smooth political operator he’s often painted to be, caught once again in a half-snooze somewhere between public opinion, his personal, outdated ideology, and secret dreams of quiet afternoons at the retirement home in front of the telly with a blankey and a warm malted milk. Unfortunately, I despair that the overwhelming majority of Australians who say they are in favour of moving to renewable energy sources will have a sudden change of heart when threatened with higher energy prices.

3) Victoria Decides ‘07
God, I hate it when the media calls elections “[insert region] Decides ‘[insert year]“. Anyway, the Victorian election is shaping up to be an absolute fizzer in the lower house with the only real question being what minor change will be made to Bracksy’s majority. Ted Baillieu is about as interesting and engaging as… well… something that is really, really uninteresting and unengaging. There was a brilliant story, I think in the paper the other day, where Ted jumped on a train to get to a policy announcement and apologised to some passengers for the media intrusion. A lady said to him, “That’s okay, we’re just trying to figure out who you are.”

Priceless.

The upper house will be interesting to watch with a wide open race for the minor parties and control. I fiercely desire any outcome except for anything to do with Family First. If Steve Fielding’s band of sneaky, duplicitous morons take balance of power I’m moving to Adelaide. At least I can vote for Kate Ellis there.

I love elections and usually get nerdlingerly excited about them but this one mostly makes me want to go back to writing my honours for the 12th hour in a row.

4) $90 million for school chaplains
Attention: Kim Beazley. Your job is to provide voters with an alternative to the government. There is so much wrong with this policy that I thought even a bumbling fool such as yourself couldn’t screw it up. At least you could’ve waited a couple of minutes after Howard announced it to give it your unconditional support. Extra big Christmas card from John and Janette this year, Kimbo.

It’s a bit sad really. It’s a lot sad really. Sad that I get so worked up and excited every time David McCormack comes to town either with his band the Polaroids or solo. Tonight I’m going to see DMac and a couple of the Polaroids at The Espy and I’ll probably go to his gig at The Evelyn tomorrow. For a man who in his old age (late 20s) hates the way that music is played way too loud now and that you come home smelling like an ashtray, this is a big weekend of pub rock.

It all started (here we go) in 1995 in grade 12. Custard were big and I liked ‘em. However, I didn’t really love them until I woke up on the last day of grade 12 to Apartment by Custard on the alarm radio. After a couple of live gigs here and there around BrisVegas I was a confirmed Custard stalker.

Although the band were really cool, it was their frontman who had The Cool. In his Vinnies suits and bed hair, nonchalantly strumming and drawling away, Dave McCormack was everything the pathetic and single late teens/ early 20s Ed wanted to be. If only I could be more like Dave, I thought, maybe I could pick up more (any) chicks.

Many, many gigs later in my new base of Sydney it was 1999 and Custard broke up. A sad, but inevitable, day. The Custard boys just didn’t seem to have that old X factor any more. But Dave moved on to solo work, a brief stint with The Titanics and finally his current Polaroids setup. I was overseas for most of this bar a couple of Titanics gigs but kept up to date with airmail CD orders and the internets.

I’ve been in Melbourne now for four years and have seen Dave about a dozen times since the first fortuitously scheduled event at The Evelyn only days after I arrived. At my side the whole time has been DMac recruit Billybob whose attitude has developed from polite bemusement to almost sincere fanhood.

See you at The Espy tonight. Billybob and I will be the guys in jeans with pints of Guinness.