Photo and Feature Photo: jophie!

Melbourne is taking a beating in the local papers lately, with numerous stories of stabbings, bashings, beatings, and brawls. The Herald Sun has a long running series on the issue called “Streets of Fear,” a bit of a marketing ploy, but it reflects the views of many Melburnians. It just isn’t safe to walk the streets of the CBD (Central Business District) late at night anymore.

Photo: Brylan

It’s not new. There has always been the odd news story of street violence, but the coverage has grown exponentially in the past several months, seeming to peak last weekend when one of the victims of a bashing was a police sergeant.

The community is rightly outraged, calling for mandatory jail sentences for assaults on cops, tougher prison terms, a closing of the bars, the banning of glass, and more police on the streets.

Below is a (very) small sample of front page stories regularly found after a weekend of revelry:

12 April Street brawl and vicious “king-hit” in broad daylight captured on video. Watch here.
8 June Man pushed into an elevator and stabbed with a broken beer bottle.
20 June Two hospitalized after 15 person stabbing brawl in Melbourne suburb. 17 year old boy stabbed in the CBD.
20 July 23 year old man kicked repeatedly in the head by two men and hospitalized.
9 August 33 year old Queensland tourist beaten by five youths in a random attack.
23 August Former Aussie Rules Football star jumped at Crown Casino by a gang of thugs. Unprovoked.

What are the Officials Saying?

Photo: jophie!

Predictably, officials are grasping at the lowest hanging fruit: alcohol. Victorian Premier John Brumby says booze is too cheap. The police place a large portion of the blame on nightclubs for not doing enough to stem the problem.

Attention is being turned to the way alcohol is marketed to young people, “alcopops” (sweet, high-acohol content drinks) being the main culprit.

Tried and Failed

For three months last year, a 2 AM lockout rule was enforced in Melbourne as a trial. This meant anyone leaving a bar after 2 AM was not allowed back inside — the intent was to stop bar-hopping as much of the violence occurred between venues.

The result? Ineffective. Reports actually indicate violent crimes went up during the lockout. The government has decided not to pursue this tactic.

Harsher Sentences

With the violence so highly profiled right now, judges are under extreme pressure to hand down harsher sentences. Two recent cases:

Nicholas Keon, who had just polished off an entire bottle of Southern Comfort before moving on to vodka, was sentenced to six years in prison for bashing David Mitchell, a promising football player who can never play contact sports again after suffering brain damage.

Aspiring v8 Supercar driver, Michael Tancredi, was sent to the sin bin for four years after putting his victim in a coma.

With more cases before the courts right now, will judges continue with the tough sentences? Will they get even tougher? More importantly, will they work?

Photo: s2art

Alcohol is not the Problem

My twenties were spent binge drinking on weekends. Same with my older brothers. Our parents’ generation did it too, as well as their parents, and so on. Binge drinking is not new.

What has changed is the availability of alcohol and its targeted marketing to young people. Alcohol is not the cause of the violence, though.

There is something more deeply embedded in these trouble-makers that alcohol enhances. Alcohol is not the root of the problem, but is the great disinhibitor that leads to the violence.

Australia’s Violent Culture

Leading criminologist, Rob White, claims that Australia has a culture of violence. “It’s everywhere. Turn on the TV, it’s there. We go to work and school and confront bullies. And then there’s Parliament and sport. In fact, we love the biff* – and we’re not really that surprised by it,” he says.

He goes on to talk about solutions:

What I am talking about here is mass cultural change: an education program to teach us collectively to engage in non-aggressive resolution of problems. But I don’t think we are that serious about it – we treat the symptoms not the causes.

He also says that, even though violence has been part of Australian culture for so long, the rules of engagement have changed. Where one-on-one fair fights used to be the norm, you now have swarms of men — maybe gathered by text message — beating up on a single person. Knife-weilding attackers are also more likely to target defenceless victims.

And even when the person is down, it doesn’t stop there. Recent deaths and serious injuries have been caused when the victims were stomped on while they lay helpless on the ground. There is no respect.

Are the Kids Alright?

Police Association assistant secretary Bruce McKenzie doesn’t think so:

The baby boomers have over-indulged their kids to the extent where they think they can do whatever they like.

Criminologist Rob White sees it differently though:

If you want to deal with street violence and alcohol, deal with it holistically, and deploy the tactical use of force where appropriate. I think to blame youth is a cop-out. It abrogates responsibility from those who should have it.

A better way? / Photo: rhymeswithsausage

A Balanced Approach

The Australian Institute of Criminology recently held a round table to discuss how to tackle the problem. They identified seven key areas that need to be addressed.

Among them are: business regulation (licenses and staff education), law enforcement (increased numbers at problem spots), education (school programs), technology and media (the role of the media and communications), and community and culture (encouraging local communities to be more involved).

With all the hype surrounding alcohol, it’s promising to see that other causes are also being looked into. As in most cases, it’s a relatively small minority that cause the all the problems and ruin it for everyone else.

It would be a welcome change if those who are able to drink responsibly don’t have their party spoiled too.

*Biff is Australian slang for a fight.

Bash does not have the same connotation in Australia as it does in the U.S. It means a violent attack, but not necessarily fueled by bigotry (e.g. gay-bashing).

Community Connection

Interested in protesting violence? Look for events in support of International Non-violence Day on October 2nd, or start your own.

Do you think replacing alcohol with marijuana would be a viable solution to the problem of alcohol related violence? If so, be sure to check out Juli Huang’s article on how to help the economy by legalizing pot.

Have you ever been in a drunk fight? Or been attacked by drunk hooligans?

What do you think will solve the problem?

Photo: lightmatter, Feature Photo: iversonic

This year, they’re sharing a space with Pandora’s Fix-it Shoppe & Dream Lounge at 6:00 and DNA. They’re also home to the Digital Vagabond and the first batch of Roads Scholars and their graduation ceremony.

Camp Nomadia hosts the Technomadic Lifestyle Workshop on Thursday from 3:00-4:00 in which they share with you “how to live, work and play full time on the road. From picking your ideal mobile arsenal, finding location independent professions to the logistics of handling taxes, mail and more.”

Though Burning Man is about happenstance, coincidence and serendipity, there can be nothing wrong with pushing things in the right direction by deliberately meeting some people to help you put your dreams in motion.

All photos from YouTube video, ITN

According to YouTube:
Gruesome body parts greet customers of a bakery in Ratchaburi, Thailand. Artist and baker Kittiwat Unarrom has sculpted life-like heads, feet and hands from dough in the bakery’s kitchen and exhibits them in glass cabinets in the shop. He says his edible art lures one hundred visitors a day.

Unfortunately the video isn’t subtitled, but according to the blog Shape and Colour,
Unarrom says of the work, “When people see the bread, they don’t want to eat it. But when they taste it, it’s just normal bread. The lesson is: Don’t judge just by outer appearances.”

Unarrom comes from a family of bakers and so the choice of bread as a medium is understandable.

The finished work could be said to demonstrate any number of concepts. The consumption of flesh as a part of culture, the ephemerality of art and life, the knowledge that our bodies will be subsumed by the earth and become fuel for new life – these are just a few that easily come to mind.

Do these special loaves have meaning to you? Do you find them sacrilegious, disgusting, hilarious or especially interesting? Please share your opinion in the comments field below.

Community Connection

Can’t get enough weird foods? Check out Pele Omori’s article 11 Weird Japanese Foods and Nellie Huan’s Dog Meat and Rooster Balls: The 10 Most Exotic Asian Foods.

Feel like whipping up something weird of your own? How about something that requires brains? Check out Tom Gates’ Five Recipes That Require Brains

I moved to Edinburgh for the month of August and couldn’t escape this distinctly orange soda, which Scots seem to down in pints or liters. It’s so pervasive that a past commercial even showed a midwife trying to talk a baby out of its mother’s womb by offering one to the unborn child.

No good has ever come of anything this orange.

What does it taste like? A bit like carbonated bubble gum, so sickeningly sweet that I found it difficult to drink more than three gulps. The drink’s bite is so alarming that it is no surprise to find that Irn-Bru is rumored to have thirty-two flavoring agents in its recipe.

The recipe itself is closely guarded. According to Wikipedia, “The ingredients in Irn-Bru are a secret and known only to Robin Barr, the Chairman, and one unnamed person (who are not allowed to travel on the same plane together). A copy of the recipe is kept in a bank vault in Switzerland. Robin Barr himself mixes the essences of the drink in a sealed room at their headquarters in Cumbernauld once a month.”

Creepy? Creepy.

The Irn-Bru website contains a bevy of information about the soft drink, including past advertisements. The company is quite famous for its button-pushing ads, like the one featuring a gorilla and the tag line “Give Me Irn-Bru Or I’ll Shuffle My Nuts In Front Of Your Mother.”

Perhaps the world’s weirdest drink. If you don’t agree already, just check out the advert below.

You Gonna Drink That?

Fascinated by beverages? Be sure to check out strange discovery in Argentina, as well as some of the world’s other strangest libations.

Sex sells and the Standard Hotel of New York is getting more than its fair share of attention through a now deleted blog post (see it here in cache) titled “Viewer Discretion is Advised!” from July 5th.

Photo: bbaunach, Feature Photo: alan(ator)

What started out as sleazy adult fun meant to titillate and generate a little controversy could have unintended consequences as pervs of all stripes use the hotel’s floor to ceiling windows as a way to expose themselves to people of all ages, some still complying with the mandate that they not come within 100 yards of a school.

New York Magazine, along with the New York Post and various other blogs are reporting that visitors to the nearby High Line Park in the quickly gentrifying Meatpacking District in Manahattan are getting an eyeful as guests to the hotel deliberately create sexy spectacles for anyone to see – including families out for an evening stroll.

According to New York Post, visitors to the park have seen people deliberately putting on a show for them including a nude woman jumping on a trampoline and that, “[d]isgusted neighbors say they’ve seen men masturbating, professional porn films being shot and couples engaging in sex in full view of the stunning High Line park path running alongside.”

Community Connection

More interested in High Line Park than ever? Check out Julie Schwietert’s photo essay from its first days.

What do you think of this latest marketing gimmick? Expose your opinions in the comments field below!

Burning Man sets up for another year. Photo: naturalturn

Over 50,000 people made their way to Burning Man last year. Are you on your way to this year’s event? If so, be sure to connect with the writing foursome from this year’s Roads Scholarship.

These writers have been blogging about their trip across America for the entire summer and will finally converge in Nevada this week. A graduation ceremony is planned for Thursday night, from 7pm to 9pm. All vagabonds and nomads are invited to come meet the class of 2009 and party with the Digital Vagabond tribe.

Instructions are very, um, Burning Man. Track the crew down in Bat Country by looking for the van that reads Digital Vagabonding.com.

Kyle, Joanna, Marina, and Allana will be sharing photos and video from their trips, following a “whimsical ceremony”.

Full details are available at Digital Vagabonding’s site.

Photo of mildly homoerotic hotdog feud and the rest of the photos in this piece courtesy of the author.

Whether you’re a townie (born and raised in the city), a bayman (from the wilds of isolated Newfoundland) or an outsider, George Street has something for you – and I’m not talking about herpes, necessarily.

Early Evening

On the weekends, people begin milling around the street sometime shortly after supper. Business suits take drinks on the ritzy patio of the Martini Bar, while a more casual crowd orders nachos on the Sundance Sundeck.

As the sun sets, vendors shuffle their hot dog carts and french-fry stands onto the street, ready to seduce visitors with promises of greasy goodness and merchandise of questionable nutritional value.

Tip: Do not eat the street meat. Ever.

Mid-Evening

Masterless Men Playing

Starting around 10:00 PM, the party gets started. Pubs such as Greensleeves and the Rob Roy set up for live entertainment which includes local bands cranking out accordion and fiddle music and solo artists.

Regardless of the venue or entertainment, I have never known any band or musician to be acknowledged with anything except loud hollers of happiness, jig stomping, and hip grinding on the dance floor. Grab a beer, and join the party.

Late-Evening

Unlike many places in Canada, the bars in St. John’s stay open until 3:00 AM. If you’re in the mood for dancing and being felt up by the opposite sex, check out Konfusion, where the confusion extends beyond spelling. If being mauled by sweaty college kids isn’t exactly your thing, head over to Dusk Ultra Lounge for sexy lighting and an older, more diverse crowd.

How to Maximize Your Time on the Street

The party does not stop on the weekend. For residents living in downtown St. John’s, hearing loud music and drunken assholes at all hours of a weeknight is a real hassle (unless you’re me, who considers this clamour a lullaby). Most bars and pubs have a specials night, such as Turkey Joe’s which hosts Lady’s Night on Sundays and The Dock which offers 3-4-5 beers (three beers for $5) on Thursdays.

Woman of the Night Taking her Evening Constitutional

When you want to get so hammered that Toothless Tom becomes your best friend and you eventually go home with a stripper, you need to attend a George Street event, when the street is closed down from end-to-end, and party-goers pay a cover fee for the entire street. This means that a $15 charge allows you to wander from bar to bar in a happy, drunken stupor for the entire night.

You can even pour your drinks into a plastic cup and socialize freely between bars. Assemble with the rest of the drunkards in front of the stage situated in the middle of George for some live music. Oh yes, this street has its own stage.

For street events, check out St. John’s very own Mardi Gras, which takes place at the end of October (Newfoundlanders like to do things differently). The town shows up in a colourful array of Halloween costumes, and prizes are awarded for Best Dressed.

Canada Day is another important event, but the real height of shitfacedness can only be reached during George Street Festival at the end of July: one week of open bars, live bands on the street, a real Newfoundland kitchen party, and hundreds upon hundreds of drunken fools and slutty females.

Like Disneyland, Except for Drunk People

The real magic of George Street is that there is an endless supply of bars and pubs to be discovered. After living in this city for three years, spending nearly every weekend downtown, and actually walking through the street to get to work every day, I still find myself catching a glimpse of a bar I have never seen before in a hidden alleyway, or a club long since forgotten from my early college years.

I’m often puzzled as I walk into quiet, less crowded venues like The Well and Trinity Pub to realize that these pubs have a great deal of personality often overlooked for the popular, more crowded nightclubs.

Everyone in St. John’s has a love-hate relationship with George Street. They hate it because at some point they toppled down the concrete stairs and puked in some girl’s purse; they love it because the street provides an endless opportunity of hook-ups and short skirts.

So when you’re in the middle of the street on a warm summer’s evening, drinking legally in public with hundreds of people all enjoying live bands, an alcohol-infused tear of happiness will slide down your cheek and you will sip your cold beer and say, “Honey, I’m home.”

Perhaps you’re a weekend warrior with a cast iron stomach who prides yourself on your drinking prowess. Maybe you’ve even spent time perfecting and utilizing a beer bong or impressing your friends with your chugging ability. Let me assure you that you’ve got nothing on this Russian stunt drinking team.

You’d have to be sober do do this. Wouldn’t you?

Metallica – “Battery”

This is the mighty Metallica before they pussed out, complete with one of their best and should-be-patented intros. Injury awaits anyone who can bang their head along to one of the best riffs ever put on tape (at about 1:10). This song turns humans into animals.

Metallica – Battery MP3

Judas Priest – “Electric Eye”

A Priest song where Halford isn’t secretly talking about S&M, dudes or…dudes. During the 80’s, about a million kids with oddly shaped Ibanez guitars tried to learn this riff, then cried when they couldn’t make their fingers move fast enough and pinch a harmonic at the same time.

Judas Priest – Electric Eye MP3

Iron Maiden – “The Number Of The Beast”

I was drunk in cab in Buenos Aires when this last came on. The driver eyed me in the mirror as he goosed the volume a bit, testing me. His hands tapped the wheel in time with the opening riff. I mumbled along with the first verse, enough to make his eyes dart into the mirror again and check my phrasing. He completed a few lines lines under his breath, at which point we came to the chorus and both started screaming.

Your mom is so pissed. Photo: cadwallader

You’ve never seen anything like it. Two men in a cab barreling through La Boca, shifting between first and fifth gear (it’s Buenos Aires), windows down, wailing about sixes, beasts and Hell.

Drug dealers ran screaming. Priests genuflected. Mothers scooped up their children, fearful that the demon-car would abduct their spawn and indoctrinate them into this sick cult.

Go ahead. Listen to it. See if it doesn’t do the same to you.

Iron Maiden – The Number Of The Beast (Live) MP3

Pantera – “Primal Concrete Sledge”

How Pantera went from a wimpy hair-metal band to something this sinister, heavy and incredible always puzzled me. Many tracks on Cowboys From Hell haven’t held up over the years (“Cowboys From Hell”…are you scared?) but this one has. Bigtime heaviness and a double-kick combine to blow out your woofers.

Pantera – Primal Concrete Sledge MP3

Black Sabbath – “Paranoid”

This song is 38 years old. No kidding. Recorded in 1970, “Paranoid” was a last-minute track added to Black Sabbath’s second album. It was intended simply as filler, to hold together the album that also contained classics like “War Pigs” and “Iron Man”. Classic.

Black Sabbath – Paranoid MP3

Suicidal Tendencies – Institutionalized

Oh, how we all wanted to say these lyrics as fast as Mike Muir did. And oh, how we all got sent to the same therapist that he did.

It’s a really weird thing, when a catch phrase takes hold of a subculture that hasn’t busted yet. That’s what happened with this song. From skate parks to detention rooms, everyone was offering the same line to their friends, who smiled because they knew where it came from. Anyone who didn’t know was a poseur or a dick. It hardly seems like the rally call for a generation raging against Reagan and teachers and Ritalin, but it was.

“All I want is a Pepsi, and she wouldn’t give it to me. Just a Pepsi.”

Suicidal Tendencies – Institutionalized MP3

Dio – Rainbow In The Dark

Look, it’s a great song. But this is really just a fantastic opportunity to point out that Dio is a complete mental patient.

Ronnie James Dio is the original JK Rowling, seemingly able to sing only about dragons, witches, mysticism and anything…mwah-ha-ha. The man regularly dresses in medieval garb, speaks with a Shakespearean accent and performs with so many erratic hand gestures that it could easily be assumed he has Parkinson’s Disease. Just watch the video.

Which is exactly why we love him.

Dio – Rainbow In the Dark MP3

Motorhead – “Ace Of Spades”

It’s one of those songs that everybody should have. Just broke up with your girlfriend? “Ace Of Spades”. Hate your father? “Ace of Spades”. Feel like doing meth for the first time? “Ace of Spades”. It’s a catch-all for the moments in life when you simply need to throw and break things.

Motorhead – Ace of Spades MP3

Motorhead’s Lemmy turned 63 this year. Photo: bundabergtim

Megadeth – “Peace Sells”

Anyone over 30 will remember the bass riff from this song, which doubled as the theme for MTV News. The track features Dave Mustaine at his snarly-est, bitching and growling his way through every word. It harkens back to a time when Megadeth had something to prove, constantly trying to sneak out of the shadow of Mustaine’s former band.

Megadeth – Peace Sells MP3

Slayer – “Angel Of Death”

This band was just plain scary when they started releasing music. I spent the better part of my first Slayer concert pinned under a soundboard at L’Amour in Brooklyn, trying to make my way out from underneath 500 pairs of Doc Martins, all of which seemed to be intent on kicking me in the face. The only thing I could see through feet were the two flashing upside-down crosses on stage.

“Angel Of Death” chronicles the life of Josef Mangele, the infamous Nazi doctor who conducted grizzly experiments on humans during WWII. As controversial as the song was, bear in mind it was also used in Gremlins 2.

Slayer – Angel Of Death MP3

Say What Now?

Looking for more metal? Be sure to check out our article about the Black Metal scene that’s coming out of developing countries, as well as our tips for surviving your first European metal festival.

The group Meow performs in NYC. All photos by Francisco Collazo

The autumnal equinox falls on September 22 this year.

Though the Bryant Park Film Festival, SummerStage, and Celebrate Brooklyn all ended this week, outdoor entertainment isn’t over just yet.

1. Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival

Lincoln Center’s annual outdoors summer festival has been going on for a couple weeks and ends this Sunday, but a handful of big names from dance and music will be performing between now and then.

Out of Doors Festival

First up is the Urban Bush Women dance troupe on Thursday night, followed by Brazilian singer-songwriter Siba on the 21, Lizz Wright and Allen Toussaint on the 22 and the Arturo O’Farrill Afro-Cuban Sextet on the 23.

Around the world in four days? Not too bad.

2. Governor’s Island

We’ve already highlighted Governor’s Island in an article on Matador Trips this week, but we like it so much, we want to mention it again.

It’s no longer the well-kept secret it was a couple years ago, but the island is still plenty large for stretching out and finding your own patch of grass suitable for a picnic or an afternoon spent taking photos (best views in the city of the Statue of Liberty and lower Manhattan). Events—art installations, concerts, lectures, and more—are scheduled through the end of September and into the first two weeks of October.

3. Central Park Film Festival

Bryant Park’s screen came down; Central Park’s went up. The festival opened on August 18 with a showing of “Sex and the City,” and continues through this Saturday with “Shaft,” “Ocean’s 11,” “Twilight,” and “Men in Black.” The films are free– all you need is a blanket. You can find the schedule and details here.

4. Socrates Sculpture Park and LIC Community Boathouse

Socrates Sculpture Park

In addition to hosting a live outdoor performance of “Romeo and Juliet” on the 22 and performance art on the 29 and 30, this waterfront art park in Long Island City, Queens is located within shouting distance of the LIC Community Boathouse, which offers paddling through the end of September and into early October. Try your luck winning the lottery for the Friday Night’s sunset hour “Chill Paddle.”

5. Starlight Music Series, Top of the Rock, Rockefeller Center

Starting on September 9 and running through October 7, Rockefeller Center’s Top of the Rock (the Empire State Building’s closest competitor for sky-high views) will be hosting a Starlight Music Series each Wednesday, complete with music, wine, and summer sunsets. It’ll cost you though; at $20 per person, this entertainment doesn’t come cheap.

Community Connection:

Trying to get some time on the water in before the summer ends? Check out Paul Brady’s “7 Ways to Get on the Water in New York City.”