Category Archives: Article

Daily (Or When The Mood Tales Me) Gripe: Has HIV Inc. Run Out of Steam!

Article, Gay Interest, Health Information, HIV/AIDS, Opinion Piece, , , , ,

This year marks, for me, 34 years of living with HIV/AIDS…though now it is just HIV. I consider it a landmark, as back in 1996 I was admitted to Prince Henry hospital with chronic CMV retinitis, chronic candida, chronic anaemia, wasting syndrome (48 kg and going down), 10 CD 4 cells, and no immune system, and was not supposed to leave…at least not under my own steam. That  I did was only due to advances in medications at that particular time, very aggressive treatment, some great doctors and nurses –  and a lot of will power. I don’t give a fuck how negative many HIV+ guys are about life with HIV. For me, this was the great singular event of my life, a pivotal point that resulted in life-altering decisions, a mental overhaul, and the knowledge that there was a hell of a lot more to life THAN HIV. It altered the course of my life, and for better or worse I have never looked back. 

I was a speaker for the Positive Speakers Bureau for 12 years before realising that when you continually tell a story you start doing it by rote. Time to get out before it became totally meaningless. I have also written for “Talkabout” magazine (the flag ship publication of Positive Life NSW – formally PLWHA NSW Inc) for 15 years, both as a features writer and a columnist. As a writer I see my role to be not just to inform people, but to provoke debate, at times to be opinionated, to raise questions, to address abuses and unfairness and to be, when required, controversial. Unfortunately, my time with “Talkabout” taught me that to get published in a HIV publication you need to walk the safe road. To be controversial is to be tolling your own death knell. Mind you, this censorship has nothing to do with the editors who, in my experience, have been nothing but supportive. Community Health and a certain AIDS council provide funding to the magazine, so to poke your nose into sensitive areas will ensure your censure and non-publication. As a HIV+ person writing about HIV issues I have always found my hands tied. I have written two extremely controversial articles on HIV issues over the years. One, on Options Employment Services using HIV clients as a free work force, in the guise of “work experience”, was so watered down by the editor after threats of suing PLWHA, the editor and myself (I truly wish they had) that by the time of publication it was a mere shadow of its original fiery tirade…despite the fact that I had evidence of this going on. The manager of “Options”even took me aside and “suggested” that I quieten down my opinions as they were providing a service to the HIV community. Shortly after this fiasco, they went broke and disappeared. The second article was amongst the best pieces I have ever written, and covered the controversial area of bug-chasing (HIV- guys who deliberately have unprotected sex with HIV+ guys in the hope of contracting HIV). The magazines working group deemed that by writing about bug-chasing I may have been promoting it amongst a certain sector of the community. Considering that the practice is well documented, is acknowledged and exists, I failed to see how being informative about it was in any way promoting it…oh shit! I forgot that community health and certain HIV organisations wanted to keep their heads buried in the sand about such unpleasant issues…and they held the purse-strings. Censorship is alive and well within the HIV community and always has been. Want to tell the truth about what is going on or want to expose something? Not on their watch!

But despite this I continue to write, though I keep it to the more nondescript these days, and publish them on my blog. I have around 100 followers – not bad for an unknown.. I do enjoy being published! When I moved to Brisbane I began phasing out my writing for “Talkabout” (which after 15 years of being published in pretty well every issue, has gone unacknowledged by the organisation itself, though not by the editors), and had started writing for QPP “Alive”, the magazine of Queensland Positive People. Same story, different place as far as funding goes, I’m afraid. Nothing controversial would be coming out of there either. Nor did I get paid anymore – one advantage of “Talkabout”.

34 years ago at the start of the HIV shit fight, people never questioned anything about treatments, definitions, philosophies, or courses-of-action. We were in crisis mode and anything was better than nothing. We let a lot happen that in more sane, accountable times would never have been allowed to happen. This far down the line it is time to start asking questions, time to demand investigations and redefinition into many aspects of treatment, time to look back at some of the historical record and say “we were wrong”, and set the record straight. I no longer allow my doctor, or the HIV establishment, nor the drug companiesi in particular, to dictate my path to positive health outcomes. I follow my own path, which is dictated to by knowledge and experience. 12 years ago I made a decision to halve my daily medications, and dose myself once a day only. Considering the negative impacts of huge amounts of HIV medication on the body I decided to take a risk. Well, this far down the line my health has never been better (though diet and exercise also contribute to that), my viral load has remained at undetectable, and not only has my CD4 count remained stable, it has in fact risen substantially. Considering the recent emphasis on drug regime “compliance”, and considering my own circumstances, I am forced to ask – controversially, naturally – if the compliance issue is being driven by HIV specialists, or by the drug companies who stand to make a fortune out of HIV drugs. In the same way, I question resistance testing. I will leave that question in the air for you to mull over and answer for yourself. This is a personal opinion, and one I am entitled to.

I started “withdrawing” from the HIV community – in a generalised way – a number of years ago. It was starting to irk me, and was bogged down in academia, and a narrow mind-set. As stated earlier, the fact that something comes from the upper echelons of HIV Inc, doesn’t necessarily mean I believe or accept it. You tend to get a reputation for being obstreperous when you adopt this philosophy, and question everything that is thrown your way. There is little doubt that anyone from HIV Inc…or its sycophants (those who blindly follow and agree with every word from the mouth of) who reads this opinion piece will accuse me of negativity, and not being supportive or a believer in the end of HIV. This is not correct. It is a big step from negativity to a position of voicing reality!

I have written on several occasions about my distrust of drug companies…though it is an area that many are now accepting. These multi-billion dollar corporations are as corrupt as – despite much denial from health practitioners, community groups, and the drug companies themselves. As long as there are stakeholders salivating at the stock price, this will never change. That we are over-dosed – a now acknowledged stand – is all to thebenefit  of the drug companies, who are, at the end of the day, just research, manufacturing & distribution companies, with no stakes in public health other than shoveling their massively over-priced medications down our gullible throats. Now that community pharmacies are handling HIV meds, I went to my local, and was probably the first to get my meds through them. They nearly had conniptions when they saw the price of them! Considering how many years some of these drugs gave been on the market for, the price has never come down. HIV was a regular little money spinner for the drug companies!

Our larger HIV community groups have also been very good at wasting money over the years, and still continue to. I have seen so many ineffective campaigns churned out by them over the years that I’ve lost track. Nothing like churning out the same messages year after year, targeting the converted, and the blasé. When you are given advertising targets, you…well…spend it! The community groups themselves will tell you that no campaign is launched without the blessings of a focus group. What they don’t tell you is that it is pretty well a hard core group of people who attend these focys groups and forums, so in actual fact it is the same people – irrespective of the organisation arranging things – castings their blessings on every campaign that is tested. No wonder they all look the same!

And don’t ever think you can rely on the same groups to be able to assist and support you as needs change, despite however much notice is given of situations changing. By the time they catch up with what is happening, hundreds will have fallen through the cracks, and others will have just given up, and end up fighting their own battles. At the time of the introduction of the then-named combination therapies, there were two major issues raised. One was assisting those who were resurrected from a porential death sentence, being cast back into a world ill-prepared for them, or their needs. The second issue was handling the massive volume of drugs being rammed down the throats of basically every HIV+ people at that time. At the height of new treatment regimes, I was shoveling 358 pills per week down my throat – antivirals, prophylactics,  and pills for side-effects. Wasn’t that fun, with the added value of time & dietary restrictions! The only group committed to the problem of compliance was “Caleo”, which had its funding withdrawn after 2 years – just when it was needed. HIV Inc. prioritising, .as usual. Bet there was plenty of money for yet ANOTHER wasted campaign on condom use! While they were throwing yet more money away, many like ne were negotiating unprotected sex with like-minded – usually other HIV+ – guys. Money would have been better spent advusing guys on this at that time, not years down the line…then treating it like it was a great revelation from the powers that be.

Likewise when I worked for the Positively Working Project. Sonia Lawless & myself spent 12 months putting together a needs assessment for guys returning to the workforce after being returned to reasonable health via HAART. Nothing truly innovative was actioned after this very important report was released. Guys were basically given no assistance at all to help in the transition from DSP to a form of “work” that was beneficial to them in the long run. I was a speaker for the “Reconstruction” program for quite some time, and the most obvious negative from these programs was that many guys got recycled from one program into another. How many times can you be shown how to write a resume, or how to approach an intervuew before it becomes a lost cause? Considering the recycle rate, one would have thought that it clicked with someone that the approach was wrong, that maybe the guys were looking for inspiration and support to direct their lives in new directions – one of the key outcomes of the Positively Working report was that guys did not want to return to their old professions, but wanted to go off in new directions. No one listened!

HIV Inc. has a bad habit of being dogmatic, of only expressing the narrow, popularist view! You only have to go to any HIV web site, or forum to see how prolific this attitude is. If you want help and support, then ensure you walk in the safe zone, looking neither left nor right. Don’t problem solve yourself, don’t question the status quo! Over the 23 years I have been on DSP, I have – perhaps to my detriment – never used many of the services and financial assistance available. I hate the victim mentality, and have always liked my independence and financial freedom, and have always managed to get by. If I truly needed the help, I would have gone for it. I always remember my anger at guys who used to attend the Luncheon Club. They would be given cheap meals, and access to cheap food through the Larder – yet after the lunch, you would see them in yhe pub drinking till all hours, and all smoking! Seems they weren’t willing to sacrifice anything at all – the more you gave, the more they took. I always thought it was wrong, that their priorities were skewed. I still think that. Add in bill assistance from BGF, and housing subsidies…and these guys had it a lot better than many pensioners in the general community.

Anyway, times moved on. Now we have PrEP, and “Ending HIV”! According to HIV Inc, implementing the former will create the latter. According to a comment on a recent post placed on a FB HIV group page, during a discussion on PrEP, “if you have raw sex and take PrEP, no more HIV transmission, so no more HIV”. As simple as that! I was so angry at the naivety of it all Inever  returned to the post. The “Ending HIV” campaign is just ANOTHER example of HIV Inc. wasting precious money. There are several big problems here. One is the emphasis on sexual practice, and the assumption that because testing kits, and PrEP are available, that everyone is going to use them…another assumption being that everyone prepares for sex. Yeah, we all know about that! The only realistic fact I’ve read so far is that guys are sick of using condoms – are, in fact, not using them! I could have told them this 20 years ago!  The general discussion seems to be around eradicating HIV in Australia (no man is an island…) but logic decrees that is never going to happen. We have to account for the tyranny of distance often making both kits and PrEP difficult to obtain, people who are heavy drug users, bisexuality, guys who want to remain anonymous, cultural differences, worldwide travel, religious beliefs – these are just some of the obstacles. And as one guy pointed out, why should we be exposing perfectly healthy guys to the toxic effects of HIV drugs! It’s a good point. Most of us who take the drugs regularly are concerned about the long term side effects of same. I wouldn’t be taking them if I didn’t have to! It was also pointed out that new classes and alternate antibiotics are currently geing tested, and that these, along with PrEP will not only eliminate HIV, but STI’s in general. Evidently we are heading towards the perfect world. My immediate thought was…oh, new antibiotics…so, how long until STI’s make us resistant to these as well! Worth thinking about. This seems to be all HIV is about now – at least that’s all I seem to read about, and encounter through HIV groups. There is a lot of philosophising around both issues – good luck with that!

There was a time about 10 years ago when I thought that a changing of the guard from the older to the younger generation would bring about new thinking and ideas. It may have worked, but the old guard hovered in the background, never really wanting to relinquish their hold. The new guard just became copies of the old guard, and nothing seems to have progressed. There is a certain degree of internalised discrimination towards some sectors of the HIV community, and that hasn’t helped things. Also a certain degreebof self-stigmatisation, and being a victim amongst a group of guys fairly recently converted who will, in all probability, never get ill. A current trend to outing their HIV status to employers – who rarely receive the news gratefully – then leads to a string of posts on what to do. I don’t quite get why there is a need to advertise you status to all and sundry. Even in pre-HIV days, if you contracted an STI, the only people you informed were sexual partners. In my 34 years of living with HIV, I have only ever informed one company of my status – and that was for OH&S reasons. It’s not like the 80s & 90s when people with AIDS looked very obviously ill, and there was no hiding it. That doesn’t happen anymore. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, and don’t believe in making a rod for my own back. I acknowledge that it is their lives to do with as they see fit, but common sense should decree that if you are going to travel that road, you should ask yourself – what can go wrong here! And if the worstcase  scenario presents, are you prepared to deal with the backlash. 

So, right here and now, I’m an ageing HIV+ man. I see a lot of HIV funding been spent on a lot of things – but nothing that is of any use to me! I don’t see the funding assisting with an actual cure, or giving me a place to go should my current pathway be diverted! As someone with a disability brought about by AIDS, no one has ever asked me…what would you really like? What can we do to assist and support you? There was much to-do about a Long-Term Survivors Day earlier this year. I remember thinking at the time – Why? Nothing will come out of it! As usual, we will be left to fight our own battles! It was a nice bit of tokenism, I guess. We like to think that we are thought about occasionally, even as just a passing thought. You see, we are seen as HIV past, not as HIV present. No one really understands us, as few walk in our shoes. It’s a lonely path at times, and frequently alienating. But we have defied the odds, and will probably continue to. HIV Inc. doesn’t have us in their sights any more…but then…

Maybe that’s just how we want it. It’s a no-bullshit world for most of us!

Tim Alderman (C) 2016

PS The following article appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on the 22nd May 2017. It would seem to discount both using PrEP, and Ending HIV! http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/melbourne-man-tests-positive-to-hiv-while-taking-preventative-drug-20170522-gwaavh.html 

Gay History: Bandana Codes

Article, Gay Interest, History, , , , , ,


PIt seems like only a brief minute ago that on any night out in a gay nightclub, you would see all manner of guys there sporting bandanas and keys in their rear pockets, advertising to those in-the-know what they were into. Which pocket I used depended on my mood as I raced out the door at home, but there was no guarantee that that was the side it would stay on if the right guy showed some interest! Same applied to keys.

It was sort of one of those things that we took for granted, without stopping yo think that there was a history behind it. In times where being gay, and trying to attract a sexual partner, could not be done blatantly, so things like earrings, bandanas, keys and language played an important role in advertising what we were looking for.

Research seems to suggest that bandana (or hanky) codes originated in San Francisco after the gold rush. With a shortage of women, men danced with each other at square dances, and used coloured bandanas to denote what role they played – blue for the male, red for the female. Their hair would curl if they knew what they stood for now!

These days, they denote fetishes, or preferences. Wearing a bandana (or keys) in one’s left rear pocket denoted an “active” or “top” position for whatever the colour suggested, whereby the right rear pocket denoted the “passive” or “bottom” partner. Despite what many straight men think, these are NOT male or female roles!

There are some regional differences for some of the lesser practiced fetishes, though colours for the basics, or more common practices, are pretty well universal. The following list contains most of the basic codes, including some I wasn’t aware of.


There is also this alternate list of – in my opinion – bizarre and impractical objects used for some very rare fetishes. How true-to-form this list actually is, I’m not sure. I have seen small teddy bears being displayed by guys who are into cuddling…but as for foil, ziplock bags, chamois, cocktail napkins, enema nozzles or doilies, I’ve never seen it – though perhaps because I wasn’t looking for it!

I would have thought a celery stick denoted into vegetarians, so there you go!

I put in this link to Cowboy Frank for those who want to check out some very comprehensive lists of colours and items. http://cowboyfrank.net/archive/hanky.htm

Apart from the odd occasional leatherman – generally older – I haven’t seen people out and using bandana codes for many a year now. Its heyday was the 80s.

I also was not aware that there was a Raver Code, so obviously the tradition is carried on in other areas.


I believe, according to an article on hanky codes in the Village Voice, a twink bandana code exists, but I’ve not to-date been able to track it down. For nostalgia purposes, I include this list from Image Leather, which would seem to be a leather bar.


Back in the day, bandana codes were useful for knowing what you were getting yourself into when you went home with someone, and prevented those “Oh…I’m sorry…I’m not into that!” moments, as the whips come out.

Purely for both interest, and novelty value, I attach several other lists to peruse, at the end of this article.

Tim Alderman (C) 2016
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Steampunk’d

Article, Gay Interest, General Interest, History, , , , , ,

“Personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term for Powers, Blaylock and myself. Something based on the appropriate technology of the era; like “steampunks”, perhaps…”

-K.W. Jeter[1]

Have you ever liked a particular style of jewellery, fashion, or design only to find, further down the line that not only does it have a name, but that it is a trend or movement? That happened for me with Steampunk.

Just prior to leaving Brisbane in early 2014, I was rummaging through the jewellery in a new gift store that had opened over the road from me, and picked up the following piece,  mainly because it was one of the few masculine pieces there, but also because I love things made out of cogs and gears. Unwittingly, I had entered the world of Steampunk! My final conversion was “Liking” a Facebook page called Steampunk Tendencies – the ephemera shown in their FB promotion was too much for me to ignore – I mean – fountain pens with intricate gold skeleton work wrapped around them! How could I NOT be addicted!


So, you are probably asking the same question I did – what the fuck is Steampunk? According to an article in the Huffington Post Style blog “What the hell is Steampunk?” [2] “So what the hell is steampunk? The term itself comes from science fiction novels. It was allegedly coined by author Kevin Jeter as a way of distinguishing him and fellow tetro-tech sci-fi writers from future-loving “cyberpunks” like William Gibson. But it’s grown into a whole visual style, and even a philosophy. It’s all about mixing old and new: fusing the usability of modern technology with the design aesthetic and philosophy of the Victorian age. Or as US young fiction author Caitlin Kittredge put it: “It’s sort of Victorian-industrial, but with more whimsy and fewer orphans…”

In its glibbest sense, it can be seen as a way of giving your personal technology a goth make-over. Imagine a top of the range computer pimped out to look like an old typewriter, or an iPhone dock that lets you answer your phone using an old brass and wood receiver. But at its deepest, it’s a whole way of looking and living: and a colourful protest against the inexorable advance of technology itself. And it’s a trend that’s sneaking its way into loads of different sectors: from fashion to film, interior design to video games…”

According to an article on Wikipedia “Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction or science fantasy that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Although its literary origins are sometimes associated with the cyberpunk genre, steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the 19th century’s British Victorian era or American “Wild West”, in a post-apocalyptic future during which steam power has maintained mainstream usage, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power. Steampunk may, therefore, be described as neo-Victorian.

Steampunk perhaps most recognisably features anachronistic technologies or retro-futuristic inventions as people in the 19th century might have envisioned them, and is likewise rooted in the era’s perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, and art. Such technology may include fictional machines like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or the modern authors Philip Pullman, Scott Westerfeld, Stephen Hunt and China Miéville. Other examples of steampunk contain alternative history-style presentations of such technology as lighter-than-air airships, analogue computers, or such digital mechanical computers as Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine.
Steampunk may also incorporate additional elements from the genres of fantasy, horror, historical fiction, alternate history, or other branches of speculative fiction, making it often a hybrid genre. The first known appearance of the term steampunk was in 1987, though it now retroactively refers to many works of fiction created even as far back as the 1950s or 1960s.
Steampunk also refers to any of the artistic styles, clothing fashions, or subcultures, that have developed from the aesthetics of steampunk fiction, Victorian-era fiction, art nouveau design, and films from the mid-20th century. Various modern utilitarian objects have been modded by individual artisans into a pseudo-Victorian mechanical “steampunk” style, and a number of visual and musical artists have been described as steampunk.”

The Steampunk movement flourishes through inventive repurposing: old elements find new uses. ‘Nemo’s Steampunk Clock/Electrostatic Voltmeter’ is the time-telling creation of Roger Wood; see more of his designs at http://www.klockwerks.com. Image courtesy Klockwerks
It is an odd – yet…not so odd – mixing of the technology of the now, the technology of the past, particularly Victorian, and the Victorian era itself. It expresses itself through history, gadgets, gizmo’s, literature, fashion, music, magazines, conventions, lifestyle. It is the true expression of a “movement”, a trend-in-the-making. In a recent documentary I watched titled “Vintage Tomorrows” [3], one interviwee mused that if Steampunk was to invent a WMD, it would be the size of a room, and be covered in levers, buttons, bells and flashing lights…most of which would do absolutely nothing. In a way, that describes Steampunk!

Sam Van Olffen has an abundance of examples of Steampunk design featuring the stereotypical gears and brassy look.
There is a very obvious bias towards romanticising the Victorian era, which is one of its more controversial aspects. Re-enacting and harking to this era is, to many – including Steampunk adherents themselves – is to base yourself in an era where the Industrial Era came to full fruition, along with its coal dust, choking air, its noise, its chimney stacks. It was a period of immense poverty, of workers being paid a pittance for long hours of work, child labour, women being denied the vote, slavery, and unconscionable wars and cultural destruction in places such as Egypt, India and Africa. Yes, it was an era of great inventions, ingenuity and forward thinking, but despite this it is not an era that should hold notions of romance, frivolity and purity. One woman in “Vintage Tomorrows”, discussing the wearing of Victorian clothing, noted that she had stopped wearing her pith helmet, as it brought to mind the savagery the British had inflicted upon both India & Africa as Colonial “masters”!

steampunk iPhone dock
It is for similar reasons that I see myself more an admirer and wearer of the Steampunk aesthetic,  more so than a lifestyle adherent. If one can single out the pure ingenuity and inventiveness of the era, as distinct from reliving the era through clothing and settings, then one can approach it with a clear conscience.

The Movement also harkens back to the authors of the era – Jules Verne & H.G.Wells, who created fantastical machines, and undertook fantasy journeys.  Books such as “Joyrney to the Centre of the Earth”, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”, “The Time Machine”, “Sleepy Hollow”, “Sherlock Holmes” and “Around the World in 80 Days” are steeped in the Steampunk aesthete. For more modern examples we only have to look to “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”, modern remakes of the Victorian classics, “Faucalt’s Pendulum” by Umberto Ecco, “Blade Runner”, China Meiville etc to see where the Steampunk Movement draws its inspiration from.

Original illustration of Jules Verne’s Nautilus engine room
I am not even going to attempt to cover the whole field of Steampunk in this brief piece, but I will include a list of some of the links that you can use for further research into this old-but-new Movement. It is, in my opinion, and despite controversy, one of the singularly most intriguing Movements to come along for a long, long time. It caters to history freaks, those into fantasy & science fiction, those into costuming, jewellery, the lovers of gizmo’s, reality escapists, and those like me who just idolise it for its eccentricity, and inventiveness. In a word – Steampunk Rocks!

For the fascinated, Steampunk has sub-genres [5] for those into specific areas:

  • Boilerpunk: The blue-collar answer to aristocratic Steampunk, incorporating the experiences and hardships of actually shoveling coal to gring steam to the upper classes. Vive la Revolution! “Ainsley threw the hot coals at his supervisors protective steam powered mask;the man didn’t even flinch, heing accustomed to it from the proletariat.”
  • Clockpunk: Clockwork technologies replace replace or supercede traditional steam power. “Ainsley got his finger caught in the gear and screamed even as he realised his miscue would throw all,of London off schedule.“
  • Dieselpunk: A heresy wherein diesel fuel and nuclear power replace steam power in alternate histories that often have a political component “Ainsley pushed the baroque OFFLINE button, but the diesel fuel continued to feed the reactor, with devastating consequences.”
  •  Gaslight Romance: A mainly British term for the alternative histories that romantisise the Victorian era. Some Brits would argue that all American Steampunk is actually gaslight romance “Ainsley put on his monacle and, bypassing the door leading down into the boiler room and the brutes who worked there, went to the quarterdeck of the airship, there to enjoy a nice cucumber-and-prawn sandwich edged with gold leaf as the servants wiped the floor clean of the blood from the recent encounter with the enemies of the Empire.”
  • Mannerspunk: Fiction that may, or may not, be deemed Steampunk in which elaborate social heirarchies provide the friction, conflict and action of the narrative, usually in the context of endless formal dances. At parties. In Mansions. “Ainsley took the hand of Lady Borregard andswept her across the dance floor, away from that cad Bennington and his steam-powered shoes that never missed a step; ‘Darling’ he said, ‘what rumors do you hear of the Countess Automaton and her piratical sub-siblings in the boiler room; isn’t it scandalous?'”
  • Raygun Gothic: Though not strictly a subgenre, this type of retro-futurism based in part on Art deco and streamlined modern styles has been used for a number of science fiction settings, usually in movies. Coined by William Gibson, the term has become more useful in the context of Steampunk as the fiction has come to feature more and more tinkers and artists. “Ainsley soldered the door to the boiler room shut in an attempt to stall the Revolution a couple of hours more using his ultrachic GSG (Gothic Solder Gun), which he had baroqued-up on the orders of the Queen herself.”
  • Stitchpunk: Fiction influenced by the DIY and crafts element of Steampunk, with a prime example being the animated movie 9, in which cute Frankenstein doll-creatures stitched together by bits of burlap sack try to save the world. In a wider context, Stitchpunk emphasises the role of weavers, tinkers, and darners in Steampunk. “Ainsley was soon accosted by the homeless tinker-weavers living in the shadow if the boiler room. ‘Only through the loom may you ge free, comrade,’ they would say.”

Very shortly, I will have the following two items in my hands. And I don’t think they will be my last!

Steampunk Salvaged Apocalypse Watch
Anatomical Rib Cage Pocket Watch from Steampunk Fans
Tim Alderman (C2016)

The fountain pens that first drew my attention to Steampunk
Steampunk Movement Toad Sunglasses
iRobot Pendant – Jewelled Watch Movement
Steampunk Necklace – Bumble bee pendant with silver watch movement
Steampunk Cufflinks – Steam Designs
Steampunk Gold Filigree Ring Victorian Watch Movement with Clockwork Gears Topaz Blue Swarovski Crystal with Adjustable Band
Steampunk Ying & Yang Pendant
 

ESS Watch Steampunk Skeleton Watch

Further Reading

References
1: Sheidlower, Jesse (March 9, 2005) Science Fiction Citations

2: Huffington Post 17 December 2011

3: July 12 2015 (USA). According to IMdB “Documentary · VINTAGE TOMORROWS examines Steampunk’s origins, explosive growth, and cultural significance. Is the Steampunk movement a homogenized, privileged subculture or a reclamation of technology …”

4: Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk

5: The Steampunk Bible

Men: The “Cloning” Phenomenon! (Does My Cock Look Big In This?)

Article, Gay Interest, General Interest, Opinion Piece, , , ,


Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this article are based on observation, not personal likes, dislikes or desire.

“clone

n.

A person who imitates or copies another.

Source: [1970’s]

The standardized gay male appearance. In the 70’s the look included a mustache, short hair, muscle shirt/flannel shirt and Levi’s, good muscle definition. The late 80’s -90’s included short hair, long sideburns, white t-shirt, shorts/jeans and Doc boots with gray socks.

Source: [1970’s]”

I hate to diss on my own sex – I reckon they get enough unwarranted stick as it is – but what the fuck is going on with men at the moment! Being male myself, I know what battles have been fought over the last three or four decades to break away from the ingrained social and familial stereotyping that constricted and confined us in regards to behaviour, self-expression, language, grooming, dress,  and emotion. We have, up until more liberating times, been automatons, never being ourselves, nor allowing ourselves to be perceived as weak, or dandified. Now, all that has changed – but have we taken it all too far, and created a deadly trap that will be difficult for many of us to get out of?
In the very early 80s, a trend appeared on the gay scene. Gay men were dressing in uber masculine styles – Levi 501s with white, black or navy Bonds tees; flannelette shirts; leather vests; construction gear; cowboy hats; Bonds navy or white singlets; moustaches and buzz-cut hair. The look became known as the “Clone” look, as all the youngish guys were dressing this way. There was a backlash – largely ignored – from the older gays, who had lived much of their gay life at underground parties, dinner parties, saunas and beats. They were not “out” regarding their sexuality, and found it intimidating that others could be so overt. What they failed to see was that the Clone  movement was driven by LGBT people fighting against the oppression and sublimation of gay culture and lifestyle. They were outrightly saying we are not the portrayed limp-wristed fairies, we are not effete, we don’t all speak with lisps, nor are we all window and hair dressers. We are men; we are sexual beings, and we want to rejoice in it, yet at the same time, we are very much like everyone else. This style of radicalism, this uber masculinity, is happening again at the moment, though sexuality isn’t at the forefront.

Bring on the Clones!

The trend – and it is big – is noticeable on several fronts: overly toned, physique obsessed bodies; the proliferation of tattoos and piercings; fashion, and grooming. It is virtually impossible to look at a movie, a television advertisement, a magazine, go to the beach, or to your local gym to see the body obsession. It is now at a very unhealthy level! It is all about weights, and more weights. Slim the waist, pump up the pecs and biceps, work on that 6 or 8 pack stomach, get to the lowest possible body fat percentage – and spend a lot of time checking out other guys…and checking yourself out in every mirror or store eindow that you encounter. Guys are no longer content to just be fit! It is not all that long ago that we decided to tackle the obesity problem that has become a national disgrace. The trend turned towards fitness – losing excess weight, developing a healthy body through exercise and diet, and maintaining an active lifestyle. The message seems to have gotten mangled somewhere along the way. Now, the problem I personally have with slim, heavily muscled guys covered in tatts is that…I like it – at least to look at. But that doesn’t mean I can’t see the bad side of the trend, and acknowledge that there is going to be – if not already – a negative side to it. The obsessive nature of reaching this goal is already having repercussions. In a recent chat with a mate who, by his own admission, had been obsessed with building the “perfect” body – and boy, he did look really hot when he achieved it – showed the dark side of this obsession. He was attending the gym 2-3 times per DAY -which on its own is very dangerous, as the body has no time to rest up, and repair damage. There was the over-use of supplements, including pre-workout, with no regard as to what they may obtain. His personal and family life were affected, with his partner feeling she was powerless to intervene. It was, in his own words, a deadly obsession.

The dream!

The other real problems associated with the body obsession is that if guys feel that photos don’t show them in the light they want to be seen in – hey…photoshop it! Photoshopped images are very obvious due to their “plastic” look – well, to everyone except those doing the tweaking, anyway! The really concerning aspect though, is the young ages of many men following this trend. You now see 15-18yo guys with bodies that just don’t look right – and at that age, you don’t need heavy workouts, as most are already lean, and just need a small amount of muscle work, as building muscle is easy at that age. Body dysmorphia is becoming an ever increasing problem, along with low self-esteem, setting unrealistic goals, dietary problems due to the cutting out of essential food groups, and setting themselves up for a fall. Sustaining these types of bodies is, for most, improbable in the long term. No one is thinking – what’s going to happen if I get ill, or get into a relationship that doesn’t allow time for heavy workouts, or what if I have kids, or change jobs, or move to areas where regular access to a gym is not possible! Workout from home? Yeah sure – judt look at how much home gym equipment is sitting under beds, is on Ebay, or goes out with the next clean-up! What happens is…all that muscle becomes fat. And what about the guys who go above and beyond with supplements, into the world of testosterone injections, HGH, or steroids! The future health implications are very serious, with heart and renal problems that can – at the very worst – kill you. The price is way too high for just looking like a super-human!
All this has further led onto other strange, uniquely 21st century phenomena. Guys have started removing all body hair (I so want to lick their smooth bodies all over!) by laser, cream depilation (Veet has a depilatory cream out just for men) or body shaving. This often includes either severely cropped genital pubic hair – or its total removal. Personally, I hate body hair, and both shave and depilate regularly. My pet loathing is thick course body hair, especially on the back, shoulders and bum. Many love it…but to each their own. Which leads onto – tattooing.


Tattoos used to be looked down on, but now it seems that they have earned a degree of respectability. But not the simple, single tattoo that I have on my arm – these are full-blown torso, and full sleeve, tattoos! Many of which are quite elaborate, and works of art in the true sense of the word. How guys can afford them is beyond me, let alone find the time to have it done. Guys are even getting their cocks tattooed! It is now very much a case of monkey see, monkey do, as the phenomena is widely spread. Add the proliferation of body piercings, and you have a case of individuality going out the window! I lovetattoos, and find them very erotic, but even I question why so many men are going all-out to cover themselves in body art. Straight men have become the new gay Clones!

The problem is, guys, that if we line you all up…you all look the same!

And what is it with things like top-knots (man-buns) and tiny pony tails! Thankfully, the fashion didn’t last long, but while it did they seemed to be everywhere, including on a lot of men they didn’t suit. Then we had everyone growing beards! It is all just strange!

Double up – beard & man-bun!

Fashion at the  moment is pretty cool, I have to say. Amazing tee-shirts and shirts, great shoe designs, and I love the lean look of slim cut chinos, jeans and shorts. Men have finally got daring with colour and pattern, and are not afraid to show some bare ankle under a roll-cuffed chino. V-neck tees show off defined bodies, and jackets and hoodies have once again become proper fashion accessories. Handbags (I HATE the term “man-bag”) and satchels have given us an excuse to no longer have bulging pockets. And just as you ladies have under garments that “lift this; squeeze that; push that down”, so to has mens underwear moved into narcissism territory! In some cases, as below, it has truly gone overboard! It’s bad enough that there are “fitness” products promoted as taking the work out of exercise, and exercise from the “comfort of your own home” – welcome to the lazy world of those who want to look good, but without the hard yards – but this padding to look like muscles takes it to an even lower level! Add this to the line up of compression tops to pull the fat in, underwear with padded bums, and a host of underwear designed to make your cock look bigger…and you have to wonder if we are living in a world of delusion, one where your true self is made unavailable to other people! Individuality would appear to be well and truly out of fashion. 


I run a Tumblr feed (with 1,200 followers) – yes, like all other men I do look at porn – and the most notable thing about it – apart from all the sucking and fucking photos from blogs I follow – is the obsession with HUGE cocks. I’m sure there is a lot of Photoshopping going on, as some of them are so huge it is actually funny. If their cocks are really that big, I feel sorry for them, as there is nothing you could do with it that could be deemed pleasurable, and it must be very difficult to not only hide, but do anything…including sitting…comfortably! In this boys world, anything over 71/2″-8″ is just wasted. I don’t get the fascination, and frankly I’m bored with it. My blog is very popular, and surprisingly because most of the guys have clothing on – in one form or another. Okay, it is a fetish  blog  for guys into Speedos, aussieBums, jockstraps, tattoos, footy shorts and military, but there is an absence of full on nudity, and little sex. Seems there are a lot of guys bored with basic porn, who like hot guys with clothes on, male couples showing affection, the erotic appeal of swimwear, jockstraps and uniforms. Sometimes, there is a lot to be said for subtlety!  

You would need to be a little bit scared of picking anyone up with this lot on!

So guys, it’s time to reclaim your individuality. Start thinking of working out to get toned and fit, not as a competition against every other guy in the gym. The body you build today will need to be maintained for many, many years to come, so don’t make it a chore. And while you are at it, balance your diet. By all means, get body art, but like your bodybuilding…think to the future. You are not going to have taught skin forever, and will it affect your chances of getting the job of your dreams? And try to follow a theme. Avoid names – divirce happens, you know! As for head & facial hair, don’t look at yourself through rose-coloured glasses. Every fashion that comes along doesn’t necessarily suit everyone! As for bodily enhancements via clothing – just don’t! Be proud of your butt, and your cock. I love ordinary sized cocks, and agree with the adage that it’s not how much length you’ve got, but how you use it! Sex is about pleasure, not a challenge 
False advertising!
 

What happens when you avoid leg day!

Tim Alderman (C 2016)

Dean Koontz’s “Book Of Counted Sorrows”

Article, General Interest, Poetry,

For all those Dean Koontz fans, who always wonder about the snippets of poetry at the beginning of many of his books.

The Book of Counted Sorrows was originally a nonexistent book “quoted” in many of Dean Koontz’s books. Koontz subsequently wrote a book of poetry by the same title.[1]

The Book of Counted Sorrows was originally a nonexistent book “quoted” in many of Dean Koontz’s books. Koontz subsequently wrote a book of poetry by the same title.[1]

Non-existent book 
For many years Koontz fans everywhere searched for this elusive book.[citation needed] Many librarians were frustrated in their attempts to locate it,[1] because it did not exist. This was confirmed by a librarian from Cedar Rapids Public Library who corresponded with Koontz regarding this mysterious book. Koontz himself stated that he received up to 3,000 letters per year inquiring about it.[1]
In a letter dated August 10, 1992,m Koontz stated:
Actually, there is no such book. I made it up. The way you made up footnote sources for fabricated facts in high-school English reports. Oh, come on, yes, you did. Sometimes, when I need a bit of verse to convey some of the underlying themes of a section of a novel, I can’t find anything applicable, so I write my own and attribute it to this imaginary tome. I figured readers would eventually realize THE BOOK OF COUNTED SORROWS was my own invention, and I never expected that one day librarians and booksellers would be writing from all over the country, asking for help in tracking down this rare and mysterious volume![2]
Koontz went on to say that he would publish such a book in a few years, when he had enough verses to fill a volume. He included a history of the poems in the beginning of the book, followed by the poems, some having never been in any of his books.[1] According to Shannon Presley of Harvest Books, “Koontz himself wrote the poems, attributed to a Stephen Crane…you can find the collected poems at http://user.xmission.com/~emailbox/koontz/sorrows.htm#Sole_Survivor”

Second non-existent book 

In the beginning of a very few books (such as Odd Thomas), Koontz quotes from The Book of Counted Joys.

Actual Book

In 2001, The Book of Counted Sorrows was published in an e-book format offered exclusively through Barnes & Noble;[3] It was the first book published in Barnes & Noble’s launch of its first-ever list of books from its newly formed electronic-publishing division, Barnes & Noble Digital, and “quickly became Barnesandnoble.com’s best-selling e-books of the year.”[4] Barnes & Noble Digital’s premier 2001 edition is no longer available.

Later that year, Charnel House published two limited editions of the book: a 1250-copy numbered edition and a 26-copy lettered edition.[5] Both editions quickly sold out from the publisher.[citation needed] In the summer of 2009, Dogged Press issued a 3000-copy hardcover edition.

Sources

Greenberg, Martin H.; Gorman, Ed; Munster, Bill, eds. (1994). The Dean Koontz Companion. New York: Berkeley Books.

References

  1. a b c d Dean Koontz. Podcast Episode 25: Book of Counted Sorrows 1 (Podcast). Retrieved July 9, 2011.
  2.  Bauch, Chelsea (December 10, 2010). “When Real Books Inspire Fake Books”. FlavorWire.com. Retrieved July 2, 2011.
  3. “The Book of Counted Sorrows 1”. Retrieved 1 February 2013.
  4. DSN Retailing Today 40 (21). November 5, 2001. p. 6 http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/795/268/10838164w16/purl=rc1_PRS_0_A79867442&dyn=5!xrn_1_0_A79867442?sw_aep=frlopacplus. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  5.  Stefko, Joe (2001). The Book of Counted Sorrows. Retrieved July 2, 2011. Illustrated by Theresa De Perez
  6. Charnel House Press Ki

From Wikipedia – https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Counted_Sorrows

               In the fields of life, a harvest 

                  sometimes comes far out of season,

                  when we thought the earth was old

                   and could see no earthly reason

                   to rise for work at break of dawn,

                   and put our muscles to the test.

                 With winter here and autumn gone,

                   it just seems best to rest, to rest. 

                    But under winter fields so cold,

                  wait the dormant seeds of seasons

                  unborn, and so the heart does hold

                   hope that heals all bitter lesions.

                    In the fields of life, a harvest.



               Life is a gift that must be given back

               and joy should arise from its possession.

                It’s too damned short, and that’s a fact.

                Hard to accept, this earthly procession

                  to final darkness is a journey done,

                 circle completed, work of art sublime,

                 a sweet melodic rhyme, a battle won.



                  Death is no fearsome mystery.

                   He is well known to thee and me.

                    He had no secrets he can keep

                   to trouble any good man’s sleep.

             
                 Turn not thy face from Death away.

                  Care not he takes our breath away.

                  Fear him not, he’s not thy master,

                     rushing at thee faster, faster.

                    Not thy master but servant to

                   the Maker of thee, what or Who

                     created Death, created thee

                       and is the only mystery                   

                   

                           In the real world

                            as in dreams,

                           nothing is quite

                           what it seems.

           

                         Life without meaning

                          cannot be borne.

                          We find a mission

                        to which we’re sworn

                         – or answer the call

                        of Death’s dark horn.

                         Without a gleaning

                          of purpose in life,

                         we have no vision,

                           we live in strife,

                           or let blood fall

                          on a suicide knife.



                      Nowhere can a secret keep

                    always secret, dark and deep,

                      half so well as in the past,

                      buried deep to last, to last.



                    Keep it in your own dark heart,

                     otherwise the rumors start.



                    After many years have buried

                    secrets over which you worried,

                     no confidant can then detray

                     all the words you didn’t say.



                      Only you can then exhume

                     secrets safe within the tomb

                       of memory, of memory,

                     within the tomb of memory

.
                          In the real world 

                            as in dreams,

                           nothing is quite

                           what it seems.



                         Vibrations in a wire.

                             Ice crystals

                         in a beating heart.

                              Cold fire.



                          A mind’s frigidity:

                            frozen steel,

                        dark rage, morbidity.

                              Cold fire.



                          Defense against 

                             a cruel life

                          death and strife:

                              Cold fire.



                      Living in the modern age,

                     death for virtue is the wage.

                     So it seems in darker hours.

                     Evil wins, kindness cowers.



                      Ruled by violence and vice

                     We all stand upon thin ice.

                     Are we brave or are we mice,

                    here upon such thin, thin ice?



                    Dare we linger, dare we skate?

                     Dare we laugh or celebrate,

                   knowing we may strain the ice?

                     Preserve the ice at any price?



                         Faraway in China,

                      the people sometimes say,

                        life is often bitter and

                         all too seldom gay.

                        Bitter as dragon tears,

                    great cascades of sorrows flood

                         down all the years,

                      drowning our tomorrows.



                         Faraway in China,

                         the people also say,

                       life is sometimes joyous

                         if all too often gray,

                      Although life is seasoned

                       with bitter dragon tears,

                       seasoning is just a spice

                      within our brew Of years.

                       Bad times are only rice,

                      tears are one more flavour,

                      that gives us sustenance,

                       something we can savor.

               Those who would banish the sin of greed

                embrace the sin of envy as their creed.

                Those who seek to banish envy as well,

                only draw elaborate new maps of hell.



               Those with passion to change the world,

                look of themselves as saints, as pearls,

               and by the launching of noble endeavor,

                  flee dreaded introspection forever.



                     Evil is no faceless stranger,

                   living in a distant neighborhood.

                Evil has a wholesome, hometown face,

                  with merry eyes and an open smile.

                 Evil walks among us, wearing a mask

                    which looks like all our faces.



                   Beaches, surfers, California girls.

                 Wind scented with fabulous dreams.

                   Bougainvillea, groves of oranges.

                  Stars are born, everything gleams.



                   A weather change. Shadows fall.

                  New scent upon the wind – decay.

                  Cocaine, Uzis, drive-by shootings.

                  Death is a banker. Everyone pays.



                 Under the winter moon’s pale light,

                   across the cold and starry night,

                 from snowy mountains soaring high

                    to ocean shores echoes the cry.

                 From barren sands to verdant fields,

                   from city streets to lonely wealds,

                   cries the tortured human heart,

                   seeking solace, wisdom, a chart

                   by which to understand its plight

                  under the winter moon’s pale light.

                   Dawn is unable to fade the night.

                    Must we live ‘ever in the blight

                  under the winter moon’s cold light,

                  lost in loneliness, hate, and fright,

                  last night, tonight, tomorrow night

                 under the winter moon’s bleak light?



                Winter that year was strange and gray.

                The damp wind smelled of Apocalypse,

                and morning skies had a peculiar way

                  of slipping cat-quick into the night.



               At the point where hope and reason part,

               lies the spot where madness gets a start.

                 Hope to make world kinder and free –

                  but flowers af hope root in reality.



               No peaceful bed exists for lamb and lion,

               unless on some world out beyond Orion.

              Do not instruct the owls to spare the mice.

                 Owls acting as owls must is not vice

.
               Storms do not respond to heartfelt pleas.

               All the words of men can’t calm the seas.

                Nature – always beneficent and cruel –

                  won’t change for wise man or fool.



              Mankind shares all Nature’s imperfections,

                 clearly visible to casual inspections.

               Resisting betterment is the human trait.

                 The ideal of utopia is our tragic fate.



               Those who would banish the sin of greed

                embrace the sin of envy as their creed.

                Those who seek to banish envy as well,

                only draw elaborate new maps of hell.



               Those with passion to change the world,

                look on themselves as saints, as pearls,

               and by the launching of noble endeavor,

                  flee dreaded introspection forever

.
                      All of us are travelers lost,

                     our tickets arranged at a cost

                   unknown but beyond our means.

                     This odd itinerary of scenes

                    – enigmatic, strange, unreal –

                     leaves us unsure how to feel.

                    No postmortem journey is rife

                     with more mystery than life

.
                     Tremulous skeins of destiny

                         flutter so ethereally

                     around me – but then I feel

                      its embrace is that of steel.



                      On the road that I taken,

                     one day, walking, I awaken,

                  amazed to see where I have come,

                   where I’m going, where I’m from.



                    This is not the path I thought.

                    This is not the place I sought.

                    This is not the dream I bought,

                    just a fever of fate I’ve caught.



                   I’ll change highways in a while,

                   at the crossroads, one more mile.

                    My path is lit by my own fire.

                    I’m going only where I desire.



                    On the road that I have taken,

                     one day, walking, I awaken.

                     One day, walking, I awaken,

                    on the road that I have taken.



                 Hope is the destination that we seek.

                  Love is the road that leads to hope.

                 Courage is the motor that drives us.

                 We travel out of darkness into faith.



                   Holy men tell us life is a mystery.

                 They embrace that concept happily.

                   But some mysteries bite and bark

                   and come to get you in the dark.



                 Darkness devours every shining day.

             Darkness demands and always have its way.

                   Darkness listens, watches, waits.

               Darkness claims the day and celebrates.

                Sometimes in silence darkness comes.

              Sometimes with a gleeful banging of drums.



                 We can embrace love, it’s not to late.

                 Why do we sleep, instead, with hate?

                    Belief requires no suspension

                   to see that Hell is our invention.

                 We make Hell real; we stoke its fires.

                  And in its flames our hope expires.

                  Heaven, too, is merely our creation.

              We can grant ourselves our own salvation.

                  All that’s requires is imagination.



                  Is there some meaning to this life?

                 What purpose lies behind the strife?

              Whence do we come, where are we bound?

                These cold questions echo and resound

                 Through each day, each lonely night.

                  We long to find the splendid light

                   That will cast a revelatory beam

               Upon the meaning of the human dream.



                      Courage, love, friendship,

                      Compassion, and empathy

                    Lift us above the simple beasts

                        And define humanity.



               To know the darkness is to love the light,

           to welcome dawn and fear the coming and night.



                 Night has patterns that can be read

                  less by the living than by the dead.



                      Where eerie figures caper

                       to some midnight music

                       that only they can hear.



                 Every eye sees its own special vision;

                 every ear hears a most different song.

              In each man’s troubled heart, and incision

                would reveal a unique, shameful wrong.



               Stranger fiends hide here in human guise

                   than reside in the valleys of Hell.

                But goodness, kindness and love arise

                 in the heart of the poor beast, as well.



                     Pestilence, disease, and war

                        haunt this sorry place.

                      And nothing lasts forever;

                    that’s a truth we have to face.



                    We spend vast energy and time

                    plotting death for one another.

                    No one, nowhere, is ever safe.

                     Not father, child, or mother.



                  Is the end of the world a-coming?

                 Is that the devil they hear humming?

                 Are those doomsday bells a-ringing?

                  Is that the Devil they hear singing?



                 Or are their dark fears exaggerated?

                  Are these doom-criers addlepated?



                Those who fear the coming of all Hells

              are those who should be feared themselves.



                          There’s no escape

                       From death’s embrace,

                        though you lead it on

                           a merry chase

.
                          The dogs of death

                           enjoy the chase.

                          Just see the smile

                        on each hound’s face.



                         The chase can’t last;

                         the dogs must feed.

                         It will come to pass

                        with terrifying speed.



                       The hounds, the hounds

                      come baying at his heels.

                      The hounds! The hounds!

                     The breath of death he feels.



                      Numberless paths of night

                      wind away from twilight.



                  Something moves within the night

                   that is not good and is not right.



                       The whisper of the dusk

                      is night shedding its husk.



                   Holy men tell us life is a mytery.

                 They embrace that concept happily.

                   But some mysteries bite and bark

                   and come to get you in the dark.



                 A rain of shadows, a storm, a squall!

                 Daylight retreats; night swallows all.

                   If good is bright, if evil is gloom,

                  high evil walls the world entombs.

                Now comes the end, the drear, Darkfall.



                 Darkness devours every shining day.

              Darkness demands and always has its way.

                   Darkness listens, watches, waits.

               Darkness claims the day and celebrates.

                Sometimes in silence darkness comes.

              Sometimes with a gleeful banging of drums.



                We can embrace love; it’s not too late.

                 Why do we sleep, instead, with hate?

                    Belief requires no suspension

                   to see that Hell is our invention.

                 We make Hell real; we stoke its fires.

                  And in its flames our hope expires.

                  Heaven, too, is merely our creation.

              We can grant ourselves out own salvation.

                  All that’s required is imagination.



                   To see what we have never seen,

                    to be what we have never been.

                    To shed the chrysalis and fly,

                    depart the earth, kiss the sky,

                    to be reborn, be someone new:

                     is this a dream or is it true.



                   Can our future be cleanly shorn

                   from a life to which we’re born?

                    Is each of us a creature free – 

                    or trapped at birth by destiny?

                   Pity those who believe the latter.

                  Without freedom, nothing matters.



                          In the real world

                            as in dreams

                           nothing is quite

                           what it seems.

                            

About Losing…Um…You Know…IT!

Article, Gay Interest, General Interest, Humour, , , ,

This article was prompted by a documentary on SBS by a woman who investigated the rather ridiculous over-emphasis we place on virginity. It set me thinking about my own unique journey, which was, in many ways, influenced by concepts of social “norms”.

“I didn’t lose my virginity – I know exactly who has it!”

If I have a singular regret about my life, it would be not having sex before 25! The sex act is not there to make life for shy, gawky guys like me an easy thing to approach. It can, in fact, be quite frightening.

Sex was NEVER discussed in our household, and going to school through the late 50s and 60s meant that no help was forthcoming from that educational institution. The only sex education I got at school was the smutty gossip and imaginings of other pre-pubescent boys! At one sports afternoon, whilst dodging said sport (thus making it an art form for me) I got into a discussion with another 10 or 11 year old, who informed me, in a whispered conversation – and fuck only knows how the subject even came up – that women got pregnant by hoys sticking their pee pees into womans woo woos! I was horrified at the prospect – after all, pee pees were for wee wees, and nothing else – told him, after a flustered “liar liar pants on fire” that it was a big fat fib, clutched my head with my hands, and ran screaming home. I wasn’t silly! I watched enough movies to know that kissing was the culprit (the man and woman in the movie would kiss, then things would fade out, then she’d be telling him she was preggers), though nature only allowed strangers you kissed to get pregnant – you were safe if you kissed family. I thought that boy was disgusting, and an idiot!

I was an early bloomer, and by the age of 9 I had not only started to get pubic hair – diligently pulled out by me, as I thought that seeing as no one else had it, I must have been a bit of a freak – but nightly emissions had started, both natural and induced. The mechanics of wanking off with my hand hadn’t occured to me at this stage, but the friction method on the newly starched sheets worked a treat. My poor mother must have been in quite a quandry as to what to do, as she must have known, being the one doing the laundry. After my nocturnal shenanigans had been going on for some time, I awoke one morning to find that Jesus had visited during the night, and had left me some nice Christian literature on sex and procreation! I read it, but all the biblical language of vaginas, vulvas, uteruses, urethras, penis & testicles – without a practical re-enacting of it – left me confounded, and I ended up none the wiser. So much for my sexual education. Is it any wonder I chose virginity for the next 14 years!

It was around this time that my brothe Kevin and I discovered that girls had different bits. Even at this tender age, I already knew that mens bits were much more interesting to me than girls bits, but I decided that the differences warranted further investigation, if nothing else. Diane Cliffe lived two doors up, and wasn’t adverse to a game of Doctors and Nurses, though we could have done without her telling her mother about it. It didn’t go down well, and Diane was banned from visiting (just as we were planning an appendectomy!), though, to give them their due, my parents just viewed it as kids indulging in kids natural curiosity. The subject was never raised, and I knew nothing of the outrage until many years later.

I do remember my first orgasm -which progressed to the nocturnal emissions stage (see above) – as it happened so unexpectedly during a 5th class lesson period. I don’t actually know what I was doing to bring it on, but I was gazing out the window when this wonderful feeling overcame me, and despite not knowing what it was, I knew it felt really good, if not a little messy. I was on my way! From 1967-1969 I was at a Catholic boarding school, and a life of guilt-ridden wanking continued (confession was an easy way to alleviate the gult – “I touched myself, Father”; “How many times, my son”; “A lot, Father!”; “For your penance 10 Our Fathers and 10 Hail Mary’s”, and we were ready for our next run of sinful pleasure). All the boys in the dorm must have been as frantically pulling-the-pud as I was, but I can’t recollect catching out one single person in my three years there. I did get groped in the pool on one occasion, and never let on about it – I sort of think I enjoyed it – as probably did the boy who grabbed it! Unfortunately, there were no circle jerks or sly assignations! My education was at a stand-still! However, it did encourage my fetish for Speedos – the swimwear of chouce in that period.

Things really didn’t improve a lot after I left school at the end of ’69, and started work.The only thing I knew for sure was that I was gay (a poof, to use the vernacular of the times), but this wasn’t a good period for coming out, which was an unlikely thing for me to do anyway considering my upbringing and naive innocence. I’m pretty sure many suspected, but no one tackled me about it. In hindsight, having a couple of the Grace Brothers rather non-discreet, effeminate window dressers in our social group, who were totally accepted,  should have hinted to me that nobody would probably have raised an eyebrow if I had outed myself. So, I put up a front, and dated girls. I never was good at the dating game, which probably explains why they never went past the first date. I felt awkward on dates, was never sure of what was expected of me, so it was a pretty well hands-off situation, and if the girls expected to get to first or second base with me…it never happened. I didn’t have a car, so all dating was done via public transport and cabs, which  probably didn’t help. But it wasn’t a one way street – I was a fairly good looking boy, and a fashionable dresser, so I had my fair share of girls pursuing me, but I managed to avoid most advances, and they usually gave up eventually. I did have girls as friends, and despite two awkward situations – Lynne Broome professed undying love for me, and Jo Conway…who was to out herself as a lesbian a couple of years later…tried to seduce me in my apartment after I left home, and was the first to see through my facade – I enjoyed their company, and I think that in many respects, they enjoyed a male interaction that was – pethaps oddly – non-sexual.

Jo and I often went out together – my father thought we were dating – and she introduced me…passively…to the sin and temptation of Oxford Street, Darlinghurst. I had at that time (the mid-70s) little idea of just what a huge part of my life was to be played out on this strip in years to come. She was someone I felt safe with, and I have often regretted how our lives grew apart.

By this time, I was living on my own in Allowah. Now, if you think that my apartment was a hot bed of sin and debauchery, with neverending sex parties and orgies, let me assure you – it wasn’t! The only person having sex there was me – with me! I hung out with a large group of straight people- at least, to my knowledge they were – and it had to have been obvious to them that I wasn’t quite on the same wave length as they were. I never turned up at any parties or restaurant meals with a girl/girlfriend in tow, nor did I join in any of the slap and tickle conversations amongst the boys. It was a life of quiet desperation!

There was one notable event around 1972…I would have been 18. It could have been a turning point, but if anything, it slammed the closet door tightly closed. It was a very daring act for me, and I gyess what should have been an eye-opener for me in being accepted for who I am, and that my work colleagues at E.L.Downes at aRoselands didn’t judge, but encouraged the action, so it wasn’t as though it was unacceptable. A much older man – though quite handsome – called Leigh worked downstairs in the Clarke Rubber store. We always smiled and waved to each other whenever I walked past the store, we’d chat, and usually caught the same bus to Kogarah after work. He was obviously gay. During one of our chats, he invited me out for dinner, and I accepred. I thought later that it may have been a rash decision on my part, a spur-of-the-moment thing that I may live to regret, but I went ahead with it anyway. On the night of the date, we got a cab into Kings Cross, and he took me to a very exclusive restaurant called Mrs Beeton’s Tent. My expectation was that I may have to put out, but part of the expectation was that he’d take me home for whatever dalliances were expected as payment. On the cab ride back to Kogarah he held my hand – the first time I had ever had an intimate touch with another man. But arriving back at Kogarah, we got out at a local park, where he informed me that he lived with his mother. The expectation on his part was – sex in the public toilet in the park. I was horrified! I mumbled something about my father expecting me home, and fled! For some reason, he never spoke to me again. Ah, lost opportunities! I may have become  a beat queen…

And so it went on until 1978. By this time, it was starting to cross my mind that perhaps – just perhaps – I was destined to never have sex with anyone…of any sex! My habitual reticence and almost obsessive shyness were personality traits that were proving my own worst enemy. By the time 1978 rolled around, I was living in a share house in Granville with friends. I knew Bede from the group I hung out with, and through him I met Sue. She in turn introduced me to Ronnie (Veronica) who was to have a more profound influence on my life than she could have ever believed possible. She was an attractive woman, well dressed, and a single mother. Her daughter Ann was just gorgeous, so it is perhaps not surprising that we hit it off. This was a bad period for me, as I was pretty sure I was gay, but had no idea what to do about it. It was doing my head in! And I was battling it on my own, with no one I could discuss it with, or get advice in regards to my options. So, I dated Ronnie, though only for two dates. I took her out for dinner one night, and getting back home some heavy petting ensued. She was the first person to give me a head job, but sex had to wait, as she wasn’t on the pill. As she was leaving, she asked me if I was a virgin! Fuck…is it stamped across my forehead! I admitted as much – like DUR – and pretty well screamed at her CAN I JUST GET RID OF IT!

I’d worked my way through “The Joy of Sex”, so knew all the mechanics of sex, all the ins and outs, all the do’s and don’t do’s. So, a week later, I went in with eyes open. I can’t recollect being all that nervous, and to my benefit I think I put on a pretty confident and impressive show. It was no Karma Sutra performance, but there was foreplay, I went down on her – which I don’t think she was expecting – and it was a substantial fuck session before I blew. But there was one very big problem, and that problem was to direct the way my life was to play out from that point! To achieve an orgasm with Ronnie…I had to fantasise that I was having sex with a man! If I had been unsure before, by the time she left that night I knew that I was definitely gay. I am still a bit ashamed of myself how I avoided her after the popping-the-cherry night, but there was no way I could have explained to her what was going on without her feeling used and demeaned, so I took the easy way out via avoidance!

In 1978, my father committed suicide, which on its own was a providential event. I was sent to Melbourne by my company in late 1979 to troubleshoot their retail businesses there. No further instances of sexual dalliances had occured over that time, but I went to Melbourne knowing that my path was set. It was just a matter of time, and circumstances. I am not going into my coming out here, as there is an article about it here on my blog, but suffice it to say that with my father dead, in a strange city, away from the prying eyes of family and friends, I was presented with the perfect opportunity to come out, and my desire to do something about it was set in stone. Within 6-months of hitting that city, I finally made my move. Now to lose my gay virginity!

But even that intention proved to be a very bumpy road! Naturally – well, to me, antway – my follow-on reading from “The Joy of Sex” was “The Joy of Gay Sex”, so once again I went into the arena fully prepared…and totally clueless! As noted in my coming out story, I joined Acceptance Melbourne, a group for gay Catholics, as a catalyst to smooth my way into the gay community, That I was no longer a practising Catholic didn’t come into the equation. Any port in a storm, you might say! So, I met Frank at a social, at the University Club (a gay venue on Friday & Saturday nights, in Swanson Street) after a First Friday Mass. He made the move on me, which was perhaps not surprising, being new to the group. He was older than me, and not my choice as far as looks went, buy hey…I was a virgin on several fronts, not the least being that ability to say thanks-but-no-thanks to people you don’t fancy trying to pick you up! It was a lesson I learnt quickly.

So, the end of the night found me in Frank’s car – much to the consternation of a couple of younger members of the group who thought they may have had a crack at me – being driven to some far-flung…literally…suburb of Melbourne. Frank had my cock out of my fly before we even got out of the car park, and proceeded to give me head at every set of lights – many – along the way! Being my first sexual encounter with a man, I think I would have been excited under any circumstances. And I should point out – no one knew I wasn’t a sexually experienced gay man! This was sort of stupid, as it came with the expectation that I knew what I was doing. Nothing was further from the truth! So the blow jobs on the way to Franks were to be pretyy well the highlight of the night. It was all down hill from there! Being a newcomer to the scene I wasn’t familiar with the concepts of a “top” (the active partner, or fucker), and “bottom” (the passive partner, or fuckee), and Frank evidently ex pected me to be the top. For my part, I expected him to guide the proceedings, but it didn’t pan out that way. The night finished with a mutual wank session, before he shuffled me onto the train back to Melbourne city. My first encounter with gay sex left me very disillusioned! Was this all it was about!

My subsequent next encounter with Fred wasn’t a hell of a lot more successful, but it taught me the necessity of taking opposing sexualities into account when interacting with other men on a sexual level. Fred was into light S & M…fuck, I was battling to lose my virginity, let alone take on a fetish…and was heavily into the beat scene. Our relationship was destined not to last. I starred hanging out at “Mandate” nightclub in St Kilda, and that started opening doors for me. I had my first encounter with public sex when I was given a blow job on the edge of the dance floor – yes, the guy was attractive – and I did start picking guys up. I adopted the clone look, and being relatively good looking I had no trouble getting regular sex. My sexual expertise improved, but I was always the one going top! However, all that changed at a First Friday Mass at my flat in West Brunswick. Kevin, a close friend of mine, bought a friend, Barry, with him…a very attractive friend! I was smitten! He stayed to help clean up…then right royally fucked me! I was so turned on by having such a hot guy topping me for the first time that I put on a performance that any porn actor would have been proud of. And it converted me from top…to bottom. My cherry was well and truly popped! I took to it like a duck to water.  From that point, I never looked back.

Despite coming out late in life, I’ve had a very interesting and diverse sex life. Despite jokingly calling myself a slut, I have slept with nowhere near the number of men most others I know have. Not being into beats, backrooms (I’ve done that 2-3 times), or saunas (I’ve done that once) my pick-up life has always relied on the pubs and nightclubs, which keeps it a bit under control. You learn to pick that fine line whereby a potential root has had enough to drink to get him interested, but not so much that they pass out. I’ve made a fool of myself a few times, had a lot of laughs, and a lot of great – and memorable – sex. Some of this time has been tinged with sadness, and there have been several “fireworks” encounters. I was flattered to find out that I was considered a good root. I’ve had five serious relationships – one of which lasted for 16 years. I’ve had 3 really beautiful fuck buddies; Paul – who I’ve always been in love with, but careers got in our way – for 10 years; Graham, who I met through a threesome (and who was in an abusive relationship) for 5 years; and Gregg – a married guy with two kids from Forbes, for 3 years. I’m comfortable with my fetishes – jockstraps, Y-fronts, and Speedo’s – and have met nothing but nutters through the sex apps. If this is the future of sex, it’s very sad!

In a way, I’m back to square one. I’ve even gone back to being a top.Except for the good old-fashioned hand jobs, I haven’t had sex with another guy for about 2 years. Being 63 and single, I’m really not expecting them to line up at the door. And if I have to be honest, I don’t really care. I like it that I do things just for myself now. If I slip into a jockstrap, it’s for my own pleasure; when I go to the gym, it’s done to impress me; I no longer have to ply myself with alcohol in a bar to get the Dutch courage to pick someone up; and I can sit in a cafe on my own and not feel lonely. It may have taken me a long time to finally lose my virginity, and there may have been some odd diversions along the way, but it’s been a great, fun journey. And though I may wish that I had started the fucking journey a lot earlier, it may not have been as interesting if I had. I look back on the abstinence years with humour now.

“We live in a world where losing your phone is more dramatic than losing your virginity!”

And that is as it should be!

Tim Alderman (C 2016)

Comment: Don Dale Disgrace

Article, General Interest, Opinion Piece, , ,

Don Dale Disgrace
The actions of correctional officers at Don Dale Correctional Facility in Darwin, as reported on the Four Corners program, Tuesday 25/7/2016 has – rightfully – shocked the nation. A greater travesty in the history of juvenile justice in this country (apart from sexual abuse) would be hard to find!
Watching the footage of what went on there was – for anyone with a conscience – ethereal, brutal, and traumatising! It raises many questions about institutional juvenile abuse, its length, breadth and depth. The PM has made the decent call for a Royal Commission into the Don Dale abuses, as this is the only way the true horror of this abuse of power can be exposed! I’m willing to bet that it has been ongoing for a very long time, and is endemic. 

These juveniles – many in their early teens, and primarily Indigenous – were locked in claustrophobic isolation cells – referred to as the Behavioral Management Unit or BMU – for 23 hours a day for up to 2 weeks. They were deprived of natural light, fresh air, accessto fresh   water, and left in totally squalid conditions. Malhandling, bashings, and unusual and unnecessary force were used to “control” these juveniles, and the litany of abuses is long…and disgusting. If this is how we “correct” our youth in these facilities, then we need to seriously rethink how we go about this. That the majority of the abuses – which includes tear gassing – was committed on Indigenous youth (already dissdvantaged as it is) makes it even worse. How are these kids ever to be given a chance! This sort of treatment just breeds – apart from the psychological damage – hatred, a lack of any respect for authority, a pure disdain of the “justice” system, a belittling, and cynicism of their worth as individuals, not to mention the total deprivation of basic human rights. Not even Alcatraz could have been this bad!

I would like to know how the powers-that-be at Don Dale allowed these abuses to occur! How easy is it to turn a blind eye to the actions instigated by your officers, under your watch? And at what point did this no longer matter! It would have been bad enough if this had happened to adult inmates – that the abuses were to teenage children defies belief! If these abuses had occured under any other circumstances, these juveniles would have been placed in protective custody. The images of that young boy venting his frustration after getting out of his (supposedly left “accidently” unlocked) cell; the tear-gassing; and that kid being hurled across a room, and that young boy shackled to a chair and hooded, are now  forever etched in my brain!

That these juveniles were guilty of crimes – many petty – no one is denying, but any semblance of “correction” or rehabilitation goes out the window after the onslaught of the footage from Don Dale. These kids just aren’t getting a break at all, are they! As an Australian I am appalled, disgusted and ashamed that children in custody could ever be treated this way. Nothing short of a complete expose of the practices at Don Dale, and severe disciplinary action against both perpetrators and authorities is acceptable! Perhaps locking the responsible officers in the solitary cells at the old Don Dale facility  would be a good and fitting start. Give them a taste of their own medicine!

Tim Alderman (C 2016)

“Correcting” juveniles at Don Dale Correctional Facility

Daily (Or When The Mood Takes Me) Gripe: Over-Reporting 

Article, General Interest, Opinion Piece, , , , , ,

You know what the biggest problem with the 24/7 news cycle is? That it is 24/7, that’s what! 

Once upon a time – yeah, back in fairytale days – you received your news (at least on television) at 6.00pm every night, whether it was a big thing like a terrorist attack, or something as trivial as political scandals. Now, you get the headlines at 6.00, then again at 6.15, again at 6.30, again at 6.45 ad nauseam –  including “updates” that are…well…often not updates because there is nothing else to tell! Often any empathy or sympathy you have for any single situation is destroyed within hours of the event happening. 

This isn’t to say I’m downplaying situations like Charlie Hebdo, the Paris massacres, Nice, the destruction of  Christchurch by earthquake, or the tsunami that hit Japan. These are all – singularly and collectively – dreadful, hope shattering situations, and your heart goes out to those affecred by these events – until the media decide to jam it down our throats as often as possible over the next two days, anyway! Scheduled shows are canceled, news reports are extended, special coverages are organised until we – the viewers – find ourselves reaching for the remote everytime the situation is revisited…which seems to be often, with no added information! 

The terrible events in Nice is a current example of media coverage going overboard. Not only were we inundated with the news reports, and seeing the same footage again…and again…and again, we were then subjected to endless intervuews by witnesses, who all had the same story to tell, just in different words. In many instances, the interviews just became lame as the reporters tried to extract some crumb of information that hadn’t already been given.24 hours after the Nice tragedy, I turned on the morning news programs to find that Karl Stefanovic had suddenly appeared there, still trudging over what was by then old ground. He had nothing to add, no “update”, no new insights!

And it would seem there is no accountability for how the media reports, often creating an overblown sense of fear, anxiety and often placing blame on assumed presumptions. We are all looking for terrorists under the bed these days, something outside the ordinary to attach blame to. We couldn’t just have a guy with no terrorist affiliations, but with some mental problems, who was undergoing a messy divorce and had just cracked, and was taking his frustrations out on anyone within reach (which would have been the conclusion in the past), but no, these days it has to be attached to terrorism, and the media go out of their way to find the links! This isn’t helped by a terrorist organisation – Islamic State – seemingly laying claim to any unclaimed events as a way of promoting their cause, and making themselves more powerful and far-reaching than they actually are! And don’t think this isn’t the case – it is! 

The nedia have a way of creating anti-heroes, and taking simple information and creating a mythos around it, often making what isn’t scary…scary! We live in a world of catch-phrases, and despite google being just a mouse-click away, there is often little, if any, research done into words that are currently being used to instill fear into an often misinformed, and scared-of-the-unknown public. I mean, just look at the words currently being used to create a sense of fear in many peoples minds – Muslim; Islam; terrorist; halal; burqa; sharia law; extremist et al – seems to be a common thread, doesn’t there! If we are looking for contemporary scapegoats – then this seems to be where we are concentrating. You want to know something – several centuries ago, it would have been the Catholic church copping this attention as they performed the same “terrorist” attacks on anyone who didn’t think the way they thought!

As individuals who can think and reason for ourselves, we owe it to ourselves not to get caught up in this endless stream of nedia beat-ups, distortions, and laying blame as an easy way to explain what are often horrific events. Religious nuts exist – and always have! After all, what else could the Crusaders, and the Inquistion be called! People cracking up and going berserk has always happened – and always will! Let’s ask the Cathars, and the Jews, about being scapegoats for the ills of the world! The media are trying to make us scared because it gives them stories to fill their 24/7 cycle. The humdrum of everyday life isn’t enough to feed this voracious animal! 

And we keep looking in the wrong places for the people who can give us “hope” in these scary times! The Pauline Hansons and Jacqui Lambies of this world don’t have the answers – they just add coals to the fires of fear! They are, in a way, media pigs who at the best are being given attention they don’t deserve, and at their worst are misinformed, and in turn are misinforming others. I have always admired the unsubtle hypocrisy of people like Hanson, who in a single breath can be a ranting racist – while asuring everyone she us nit a racist! Nothing like a thick hide to cover your true intentions!

We owe it to ourselves to return balance to our lives. We are allowing the media to bring fear into our lives, to make us all feel that we can’t go about our everyday business without constantly looking over our shoulder, that we need to shift blame, to point fingers. 

There is, in fact, a very simple way to break the 24/7 news cycle, to return balance, common sense and fairness to our lives ; 

Change channels!

Tim Alderman (C 2016)

Daily (Or When The Mood Takes Me) Gripe: Drugs in Sport

Article, General Interest, Health Information, Opinion Piece, , , , , , , ,

“A very cynical attitude is taken by sponsors like Nike. They pay for records to be broken, then when athletes test positive, instead of canceling their contracts, they carry on paying them! It’s as if the executives at Nike always knew what Marion Jones, Justin Gatlin and Marta Dominguez where up to! Nike sponsored them even after they tested positive! It gives you  some idea of Nike’s take on the doping problem”

I am watching this weeks “Four Corners” program on drug doping in sports, especially professional athletics. It really is endemic, and quite frightening in its length, breadth & depth! That drug doping of athletes was not only sponsored but encouraged in countries like Russia, and resulted in the banning of 4,000 Russian athletes after 2 whistleblowers – now exiled to Berlin due to being considered “traitors” – says way too much about how drug doping is rapidly taking over sports. That so few athletes were banned as a result of doping in the London Olympics is more a result of corruption in the Russian drug testing agency than actual lack of drug-influenced athletes. It is not just a disgrace, but very disillusioning and wortying. That the thinking surrounding drug doping is that of “well,everyone else is doing it, so why shiuldn’t I” shows a clear lack of personal pride and self-challenging in sports.

Lance Armstrong is a classic example, and one where one has to ask the question – was it a deliberate choice not just to take ut, but to admit to it? After all, as a professional cyclist, he earned $300,000 a year. He now has earnings of around $23,000,000. In reality, being banned from the sport has paid well! The World Ant-Doping Agency (WADA), after a year of investigations in Russia, delivered a slamming report at a recent conference “We have found cover-ups, we found destruction of samples in the laboratories, we found payments of money in order to conceal doping tests, among others. It’s worse than we thought. All this could not have happened, and continues to happen, without the actual or implied consent of the state authorities. So, their lab is gone, their national anti-doping organisation is gone. We have recommended that the Russian Athletics Federation be suspended, gone!”. State sanctioned sports doping…wow! That’s mindblowing. 

Personally, I don’t get it! I can’t comprehend how you can fill yourself with performance enhancing drugs, win a race, break a record…and feel you have done it by giving yoyr best, challenging and pushing yourself in a natural, physical sense! I would feel that I had cheated myself, and in many respects let myself down. One of the German athletes who had come clean about her doping experiences as a world record breaking runner stated that, on being brought into the Olymouc team for her country, she found herself in a culture of very average athletes, in many respects under-achievers. They didn’t have to have abilities or even ambition, as the drugs brought on those traits. To me, achieving anything in a sporting or athletic field is pushing yourself beyond your limits, challenging yourself at every step along the way, and when you win, it’s because of your own abilities, and doing it through hard work, training and the sheer will to win. If drugs were involved, I would actually feel like a cheat. That everyone else might be doing it is no excuse for indulging, and robbing yourself of the sheer satisfaction of having done it under your own steam. I can see the thinking – if everyone else is using drugs, then everyone is still on an equal footing. But are they? As drugs come and go, what’s to ssy they aren’t taking  something that you don’t as yet know about! Doesn’t that open all sorts of cans of worms! If everyone is going to be on an equal footing…why not a drug-free one? If athletes feel the need – or want – to deliberately cheat, doesn’t one have to question their motive, but more so their self-worth? And just as drugs change and become more sophisticated, so does the testing. Blood and urine samples are kept for 10 years, so in actual fact – due to future testing that can detect drugs that can’t currently be detected – we will not know the actual medal winners from the 2016 Olympics until 2026! Suely the ultimate humiliation as a medal winner would be to have it taken off you in 10 years time! Chez embarrassing!

Remember when our elite swimmers were wearing their specially designed suits? Okay, it’s not doping, but the principal is the same. It’s an enhanced way of winning that has no regard for the personal challenge. I remember saying to my partner that it just wasn’t right, and as record, after record, after record fell…that fact was just enhanced. Where was the challenge if a record eas that easy to break? Surely the swimmers themselves must have felt cheated, that despite having won, and broken a record – they really hadn’t. I was ecstatic when the suits were banned, as it put the challenge – and the interest – back into swimming. If you won or lost, it was always a fair win, whereby the time and work you had put in was on show for all to see. The personal satisfaction was obvious on their faces. I won because I deserved to, not because I had my abilities enhanced by technology. 

As a regular gym goer, I know that a percentage of the muscle-bound bodies around me are not necessarily naturally produced. Steroid use amongst body builders has always been a problem. At 62, for me it’s as much about fitness as building myself up, though I’m not adverse to developing some musculature. But I’m in no rush, and if it takes me months to start to work my way up through the weights, that’s fine. It is a challenge I set for myself, and there is no rush to get there. A chat with a mate recently – who looked really hot at the peak of his performances – revealed an insidious world of two to three trips to the gym daily, enhanced by pre-workout supplements, and other things. In his own words, it was an unhealthy obsession that made him a not nice person. If you are going to build your body up, you have to be able to maintain it with a minimum of work. These guys who build up huge bodies don’t stop to think of the factors that cause you to stop working out, or taking dangeroys substances to achieve your size – things like relationships, having children, illness, changed work curcumstances, or not living in close proximity to a gym. All that muscle suddenly becomes – fat! I don’t  get why, if you are in your 20s, there would be this great need to rush to build yourself up – after all, you have a lot more time than me!

But the steroid/performance-enhancing drug scenarios present what should be a light-bulb moment for all imbibers – the long term side effects of pumping this shit into your body. Liver, kidney, heart and skeletal problems will probably plague you for the remainder of your life – may, in fact, cut it short. 

We need to curb this insidious practice at a world-wide level. We need to create an environment where everyone is respectful of the exhilaration of winning something due to your natural abilities and talent – the setting of a personal goal…and achueving it! Yes, use technology, but use it to enhance your abilities, not to be the sole cause of you winning, or breaking a record. We need to re-establish personal pride in sport, that knowledge thathaving  won a nedal, you are going to keep it!

Tim Alderman (2016)

Family Historians – Don’t Copy! Research!

Article, Family History, General Interest, History, , , ,

I have just spent a whole day sorting out a family mess. It’s not that what little information I had added to my tree was wrong – it is that the information that everybody else had copied, then incorrectly added to, then put on their tree, was wrong – compounded by everybody copying everyone else without checking the facts.

In a roundabout kind of way, Ancestry have promoted a system that actually encourages the spread of inaccurate family information. By promoting themselves, and making tracing your family tree sound simple and exotic “just enter a name and all will be revealed”, they have inadvertently unleashed a monster. People are inherently lazy, and for the majority of these new “genealogists”, if there is an easy way out, such as just taking your information from someone elses tree, that’s the road they’ll take. It’s not that collating information from other trees is wrong – it’s just that you need to double check it. In other words, there is no shortcut! You still need to research. This is how todays fiasco played out.

I have a family member on my paternal grandmothers tree named Thomas Saville. Someone related to the Saville family had contacted me regarding him, and asked meto contact   her father, who was researching the same family. The initial information I had on this individual had been entered years ago, and was just sitting there waiting for me to get around to researching his family. I thought, to make matters easier, that before making the phone call, I would do some more research on him to see what I could find. My first port of call was the public family trees in Ancestry. The Saville family is large, and I found many trees with Thomas in them. The one thing they all had in common was that Ann Milligan was his wife. Okay, thinks I – I’ll check for a marriage record on one of the trees. Should be easy! Of the 20 trees I checked, NOT ONE had a document proving the marriage between Thomas and Ann Milligan. Further more, there was a discrepency with the number of children, and one tree included a second marriage. We know from records that he and his wife – and two children – arrived in Australia in 1842, and they both died here. However, a number of trees had children spanning from the early 1830s, then a huge gap of 20 years…and suddenly another batch of children appear in the 1850s!

Now, I don’t know about you, but that would have raised alarm bells with me – in fact did! I mean – children attributed to them in England at a time when they were living here? Clang! Clang! Clang goes the bell! What is wrong here? With so many trees having dodgy information, the obvious reason that it was all so over-the-shop, with inaccurate entries, and with all missing required documentation was that – they were copying each other! 20 trees with inaccurate information is frightening – because others are going to copy them as well, so we literally have a “pyramid scheme” of inaccurate information spreading like anoxious  weed through peoples family histories. 

So, off to research marriages for Thomas Saville and Ann. The marriage record was there – right at the top of the search results. A marriage for Ann Milligan and…Thomas SAVEL! Okay, inaccurate spelling of surname, but clerical errors are common, especially in a time where clerks often didn’t want to display their ignorance, and instead of asking for the spelling of a name, they used phonetic spellings. So, the document for the marriage was there, and a search of census records revealed that the only census they had appeared in was the 1841. However, the marriage records also revealed a union between a Thomas Saville and an Ann Ingham. There was no connection between the two marriages, and if people had checked the census records for Thomas & Ann Saville AFTER 1941, they should have noted a Joseph Ingham Saville listed amongst the children. Considering that children were often given their mothers family names as middle names, it should have raised a flag, and sent them researching further. However, they weren’t researching, so all the children were added to Thomas Saville and Ann Milligans line, and in some cases giving Thomas a second marriage to Ann Ingham. Some future researchers are going to be very confused about their lineage!

 The question one has to ask is – is Ancestry giving everyone a bum ride, by making family research sound a lot easier than it is? How many people are just looking at hints, and if the name is on their tree, they are just blithely adding the record! I did make the requested phone  call, and we both verified our information. Scott’s wife is a Saville, and he is researching her line. He informed me that he even encountered people researching this branch of the family in America, thanks to some Ancestry hints that had misdirected them! I still maintain – and have seen it for myself – that if people sren’t happy with their family the way it is, but want to spice it up with some convicts, or peers of the realm, or royalty…they will go out of their way to find the usually inaccurate records to prove it! I don’t get it…but there you go. Considering that to get records without paying a fortune for them you need to subscribe to Ancestry, it’s obvious who the people making money out of this – to the detriment of accurate family trees – is Ancestry! Even watching shows on genealogy like “Who Do You Think You Are?” gives a false impression on how easy it is to gather information on ones family. People watching don’t stop to consider that there is a host of professional genealogists working behind the scenes, who have probably spent months gathering information, before the show was recorded. However, having said that, it can also be excitingly revealing. In the episode with Jacqui Weaver, she was talking about her grandfathers family, whose surname was Onions. It is a very unusual name, and I knew I had some in my tree. I recorded the show, then traced the information they had against what was in my tree. Sure enough – I am distantly related, through marriage, to Jacqui Weaver. My flatmate loves to joke now, that whenever he sees her in a show he yells out “There’s your aunt!”…a bit of an exaggeration, but funny anyway.

But the message from this is – if you take your family history seriously, and not as a trend as many do, then do your leg work. There is no short-cuts, no easy way out. With the amount of inaccurate information out there on family trees (and with many losing interest after finding it is not so easy, and deserting trees), it is very easy to gather incorrect information, and take your family to places they have never been. If you are going to retrieve information from public trees, check the accuracy, and look for documentation. If in doubt, comment or contact tree owners for more information. I had someone contact me this week regarding my relationship to their family, as I had their photos on my tree (which had appeared through Ancestry hints). As it was, it is again my paternal grandmothers tree, and the person in question was my 1st cousin x 2 removed. I noted that there was no follow-on.

We owe it to our families to ensure that information is accurate, or at least as accurate as we can get it. It is better to leave a line dangling than to enter dubious information. If you are unsure of a records accuracy, hit the “Maybe” button, and research it at a later date. The one thing that I do know is that I like my family, both close and far distant. They have created me, here and now, and I owe them the respect they deserve by accurately recording their story, warts and all!

Tim Alderman (C) 2016

http://rootsrevealed.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/many-family-trees-are-wrong-as-two-left.html