Deep Fried

*

Empty out your pockets, toss the lot upon the floor.
All those treasures, my friend,
you don't need them anymore.
Your days are all through dying,
they gave all their ghosts away,
so kiss close all your wounds and call living life a day.
For the planets gravitate around you,
and the stars shower down around you,
and the angels in heaven adore you,
and the saints all stand and applaud you.
so faraway,
so faraway and yet so close.

Say farewell to the passing of the years,
though all your sweet goodbyes will fall upon deaf ears.
Kiss so softly the mouths of the ones you love,
beneath the September moon and the heavens above.
And the world will turn without you,
and history will soon forget about you,
but the heavens they will reward you,
and the saints will be there to escort you.
So faraway,
so faraway and yet so close.

Do not grieve at the passing of mortality,
for life's but a thing of terrible gravity.
And the planets gravitate around you,
and the stars shall dance about you,
and the angels in heaven adore you,
and the saints all stand and applaud you.
So faraway,
so faraway and yet so close.

Faraway, So Close
Nick Cave

He needed help. But urgent was not the right word. He was, if possible, worse than a Belsen victim; the only thing astonishing that he was still alive. Colin was dying. It had been a long death, and the extended melodrama had wearied many. But this was it. He didn't know, yet, whether he had survived the night. But any death was now a relief. If he was a dog you would have put him down already. Modern medicine kept him alive. Please hasten death. They were shocked, after the long drive to Newcastle, to walk into the hospital room. Mercifully, he had the room to himself. There wasn't any mistaking it this time. There wasn't any chance of leaving this time. The gaps, the aching gaps, filled his heart and left him with a terrible longing. He had been warned that he was confused. Yesterday he had thought he was working at the hospital. Today, he didn't know where he was.

"I don't know why I'm here," he said. And Joyce and he looked at each other. "What have they told you?" he asked. "I don't know," he said. "They haven't told me anything." And later he whispered: "I was doing so well." The stories kept changing. At one time he was living with his father. At another he was going back to Brisbane. At others, he simply couldn't remember where he was living. He rang old friends they had had in common; preparing them, saying, this is your last chance to say goodbye. "Does his family know he's here?" he asked the nurse. "We're not sure," the chubby, happy looking little blonde nurse said. "Is there anything we can do?" he asked her. "Not really," she said. "He's well cared for here. There's nothing else that can be done. He's very confused."

He went back in the room. Joyce was there, a real brick, although at 84 she had her own problems. But lucidity was not one of them. Colin was suffering short term memory loss. But he could remember 30 years ago. By some weird coincidence; the flux of the traffic, changing demands, before they had left Sydney God had led them to the old house where they had lived, celebrated. The little old terrace next door to the Bellevue Hotel. The one Jenny had sold for $30,000 when they were short of money to support their partying ways; and was now worth more than a million. We painted every spike on the iron gate a different colour, he recalled, silver, orange, pink. And every day we were in that pub. He was the only one that went to work, at the time as assistant manager to the Pacific Island Monthly; his shrieking queen the boss taking great delight in bossing around a young university graduate; trying to convince everyone he was a hopeless case.

And Colin was all a part of this. "He was a boy in the 70s," he told the obviously gay nurse Kevin when he was asking if it was a good idea that he made the two plus hour trip from Sydney. "Yes, I can tell," Kevin said, and they laughed that knowing laugh together. While on the other side of the planet Obama fever was reaching fever pitch on inauguration day, and this "transformational figure" attracted the attention of hundreds of millions, billions of people. While Colin died, almost alone.
The parties, those fabulous days, all gone.

Does his family know, does anyone know? he asked. He hasn't had any visitors, the nurses said. A few phone calls. We've been looking around, trying to find numbers of old friends that we could call. We don't know who to call. It would be marvellous if you came. And so he did, seeking and getting the company of Joyce for what would otherwise have been have been an immensely sad, a truly awful day.

Colin was barely conscious, drifting in and out. He sparked up when they entered, but almost immediately drifted back into unconsciousness. His teeth were out, and his gaunt face even more crumbled. Why don't you put your teeth back in now you've got visitors, he suggested. I can't, he said. They won't let me. He let it slide. He had short term memory loss; and couldn't remember the walk he had taken him on around the ocean foreshore only three months ago. He looked vaguely puzzled; and then forgot what he was trying to remember anyway. But he remembered 30 years ago; Hargrave Street, the times they had together. The endless party. The little gang of hyper-talents who were going to change the world.

"Daaarrling!!!!!!!" she shriekd. She had always shrieked, everything had always been fabulous. "Not well dear, not well." Remember Russel; of course. Remember Lyn. Remember Howard. Remember Ian. Remember Jenny. Remember.... But as he went through the roll call of old friends, he quickly realised that almost all of them were dead. Al of the lovers. All of the party chums. And Aids, which had destroyed so many of the city's talented artistic clique, was ready to take another toll.

Colin was more unconscious than conscious. He wasn't sure he would even remember that they had been. But they had done the honourable thing, in visiting the dying. In alerting those who should have known but didn't that all this was going on. After an hour of sitting there; watching this terrible visage who had once been a handsome, dynamic, immensely funny man, after enduring a toilet accident which required the nurses to clean up the bathroom, when they could hear the splattering and the pain coming from behind the bathroom door, they knew it was time to leave. Nothing they did, nothing they said, could make any difference now.

At times, as they sat there, Colin reached out his skinny hand and they held hands, unashamed.

Goodbye honey, he said, as they stood up to go. He reached again; clearly desperate for affection. And he said it again: "Goodbye Colin, goodbye." And he held his skeletal frame; and hugged him. And as they reached the door he turned around and went back; and gave him one last hug. "Goodbye mate, goodbye."

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-01-19-voa37.cfm

Excitement is building in Washington in anticipation of Tuesday's inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States. An estimated one- to two million people are expected to witness Mr. Obama take the oath of office as the nation's first African-American president.

People gather on the National Mall during the 'We Are One: Opening Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial' in Washington, 18 Jan 2009
People gather on the National Mall during the 'We Are One: Opening Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial' in Washington, 18 Jan 2009
Hundreds of thousands of visitors are descending on Washington, hoping to witness a bit of history on Tuesday.

"It is a monumental historical event. There was no question of being here. It was just how we were going to get here and when," said one woman.

"We really wanted to come here and be a part of this because this is so exciting, and just being here is a real experience," said a young man, who is with a group of middle-school students from Iowa.

On the eve of his inauguration, President-elect Obama visited wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington.

Mr. Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden also paid tribute to the late civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior. Monday is a national holiday in honor of the Reverend King's birthday. The incoming president and vice president joined volunteers working on a community renovation project during what is described as a day of national service.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5549140.ece

Barack Obama will tomorrow be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States and then urge his country to unite in a common resolve for "renewing America's promise".

He is expected to temper hope with a recognition of tough times ahead - and balance the historic charge surrounding the inauguration of the first black president with a message that what binds America together matters more than that which for so long drove it apart.

President Bush, his bags packed, will travel the short distance down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol with his successor this morning. There, shortly after noon, Mr Obama will raise his right hand to take the oath of office.

Even as he delivers one of the most eagerly-anticipated inaugural addresses of modern times, vans will be ready to take some of Mr Obama's senior aides to the White House while a team of 60 household staff race to move the new First Family's personal possessions into their living quarters.

Although the real work will begin in earnest on Wednesday after inaugural celebrations have been completed, Mr Obama's team promise they will "hit the ground running" with a flurry of executive orders and foreign policy initiatives expected in the first week.

Today Mr Obama spent his final hours as President-elect marking Martin Luther King's birthday by volunteering in some of Washington's run-down black neighbourhoods.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24936470-643,00.html

KEVIN Rudd has reconvened the cabinet committee that masterminded last year's $10.4 billion economic rescue plan and last night began publicly selling the need for a second stimulus package.
The Government has put tax reform and fresh infrastructure investment back on the table as it faces a new threat to the economy, in the form of deflation.

Mr Rudd spent his first day back at work yesterday behind closed doors with senior ministers and public servants in the Strategic Priorities and Budget Committee, which signed off on last year's tripling of the first-home buyers grants and handouts to pensioners and families.

At an Australia Day reception at Kirribilli House last night, he delivered the first in a series of speeches on the global economic crisis and the Government's "framework for responding".

"I am doing this because I intend to be absolutely straight with Australians about the impact of the crisis, and what we intend to do about it," he said.

"The impact will be big. But so will our response."