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Articles by Warwick McFadyen
Trump, Afghanistan and the songs that tell a different story
Donald Trump should have listened to Australian songwriter Fred Smith before he spoke ignorantly about the sacrifices of soldiers in Afghanistan. Last week, Trump criticised NATO and in so doing said the non-US soldiers stayed “a little off the front lines” in Afghanistan. He offered no evidence, provided no support for his comment, just let it emerge into the light as a truth only he knew.
Palm Beach, Florida: latitude, 26.7 N - Gaza City: latitude, 31.5 N
In Palm Beach, there lives a man who, when not living in the White House, enjoys the balm of temperate climes. He lives in a mansion, extravagant and luxurious. He wants for nothing. Several thousand kilometres away, and roughly the same latitude, there lives a people, who when not living in their houses, are living in tents, in the rubble of their destroyed homes or in displacement camps. If they are not living, then they are dead. Their wants are simple – life.
AFL Grand Final: League boots it out on the full again
Contrasting ideals: Snoop Dogg is a brand name globally; Mike Brady is an icon parochially. Photos: GETTY IMAGES And some of us thought the cultural cringe was dead. We thought we could, as a country of artists and entertainers, hold our place with the rest of the world. And then along comes the AFL, and more particularly the grand final entertainment.
Bendigo writers' festival fiasco
If it weren’t so serious, it would be laughable. A code of conduct for a writers’ festival? Yet that was the requirement asked of authors if they wanted, after having been invited, to take part in one section of the Bendigo Writers Festival. Understandably, many refused and did not attend.
Starvation is the constant companion of children in Gaza
Dear Child, I am the nothingness that will kill you. You do not know it, but you will feel the heaviness of your fate seep into your bones and flesh. It will not be fast, but slow, the days will rise and fall for awhile. I will sleep with you. I will lie awake with you when you are too exhausted to raise your limbs. I will cover your sunken eyes with a mist that blurs the outlines of the world. You cannot see me, you cannot see your mother, your father, your brothers or sisters.
Turn the amps up to 11, Ozzy is gone
Ozzy Osbourne (third from left) out the front of the iconic heavy metal outfit Black Sabbath And so the brass band played as the casket containing the body of Ozzy Osbourne made its way through the streets of his hometown of Birmingham. It wended it way to Black Sabbath Bridge and bench, and paused for fans to say good night sweet prince of darkness and mirth. From there a private funeral service was held.
It’s my birthday. I want a parade!
US President Donald Trump stands and salutes troops during the Army 250th Anniversary Parade. Photo: GETTY IMAGES It’s my birthday next week. I consider it a grand coincidence of the cosmos and history that I share the date with one of greatest essayists and satirists to grace the language in Ambrose Bierce (born in 1842). I also share the date with the conclusion of the Battle of Bannockburn in the Scottish War of Independence whereupon Robert the Bruce was victorious for us Scots.
World beware, cower and tremble, Taco Man is upon us
God’s taco shell waiting to be filled with messianic ambition with a topping of self-righteousness. Image: ESQUIRE MAGAZINE He was on a mission from God. He didn’t keep it to himself. He told the world, sent it spiralling through cyberspace, and to give it due gravitas he appeared in the declaration, dressed in a austere power suit striding down the streets of an important looking city, looking important. It was, of course, Taco Man.
Finally, Warren Zevon gets to reside in hall of fame
Warren Zevon was described as an ‘‘artist’s artist’’, perhaps damning him with faint praise. Photo: GETTY IMAGES We saw another election the week before last, one beyond the frontiers of electoral boundaries or party lines. And it gave long overdue acclaim and recognition to an artist, whose field is music, and thus inhabits that world with no frontiers. Twenty-two years after his death, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has acknowledged singer-songwriter Warren Zevon.
The fable of suicidal empathy
SUPPORT RESPECTFUL CONVERSATIONS IN A TIME OF DIVISION We need no reminding of the depth of the division that exists in our Australian community. It's there every time we go online, turn on the TV, open the newspaper. Our politics is focused on point-scoring, personalities, and name-calling across party lines. The media, for the most part, don't help, driven by the 24-hour news cycle and the pursuit of advertising dollars into a frenzy of click-bait and shallow sensationalism.
Power and alienation
The hollow man thought he had power over everything, a snap of the fingers was the sound of a king. I know whats best for you and I know whats best for me, when I speak the two are one, this is the way of royalty. The hollow man thought he had by grace of god been saved from the gun; to make the world in his image was what he craved. With a stroke of my pen, with a word to my aide, the blood will be drawn, the price will be paid.
Pearls and Irritations
The hollow man thought he had power over everything, a snap of the fingers was the sound of a king. I know what’s best for you and I know what’s best for me, when I speak the two are one, this is the way of royalty. The hollow man thought he had by grace of god been saved from the gun; to make the world in his image was what he craved. With a stroke of my pen, with a word to my aide, the blood will be drawn, the price will be paid.
If he be an honest man, so much better
SUPPORT RESPECTFUL CONVERSATIONS IN A TIME OF DIVISION We need no reminding of the depth of the division that exists in our Australian community. It's there every time we go online, turn on the TV, open the newspaper. Our politics is focused on point-scoring, personalities, and name-calling across party lines. The media, for the most part, don't help, driven by the 24-hour news cycle and the pursuit of advertising dollars into a frenzy of click-bait and shallow sensationalism.
Birmingham’s Black Sabbath the pride of the town
Black Sabbath in 1970 (from left): Geezer Butler, Tony Iommi, Bill Ward and Ozzy Osbourne. Recently, in a small part of England, the world turned away from its troubles and the forces of heaviness were brought into the light, and formally acknowledged. And it was a good thing. Black Sabbath were officially recognised for their work.
What the great teachers leave behind
This month marked the 65th anniversary of the death of Albert Camus. He was 46 when he died in a car crash, just two years after receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature. Recently, the letter Camus wrote to his former teacher Louis Germain after winning the award has appeared on social media. It reads: Dear Monsieur Germain, I let the commotion around me these days subside a bit before speaking to you from the bottom of my heart.
Is it really just a short leap from First Fleet to Mars?
Deputy opposition leader Sussan Ley delivers her Australia Day speech at Noreuil Park in Albury. Photo: BORDER MAIL Just when we thought we were emerging from the silly season unscathed, along comes a politician to spoil it. Introducing the deputy opposition leader Sussan Ley. And thanks for nothing. No doubt Ley was trying to communicate a time in history through a modern equivalent, thus rendering it easier to comprehend.
T.S. Eliot and the weight of a world-ending whimper
I ask because recently while sitting at my desk, the state of the world, and its forlorn struggle on the path of progress (a fruitless task, I know) entered my thoughts.
The Trump reality show is back, and wackier than ever
Donald Trump and two of animated comedy South Park’s Canadian favourites, Terrance and Phillip. And so the second series of What Donald Did Next has begun airing. We could recap the main points of the first series, summarise the various plots, subplots, subsubplots, explore the characteristics of the main players and their roles, the cause and effect of their wild and wacky behaviour, those killed off, metaphorically, those who have survived, but let’s not. Life is too short.
Dutton flags his divide and conquer strategy
Peter Dutton says it is ‘‘dividing our country unnecessarily’’ to fly the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags alongside the Australian flag. Photo AAP Peter Dutton demonstrated this week an appalling lack of basic numeracy. I’m sure it wasn’t front of mind. He was, after all, looking at the bigger picture, trying to gauge which way the wind blows. But still it happened. He took away two things from three and declared that the remaining one was bigger than the three.
World going down toilet? There’s a word for that
Enshittification: Noun, colloquial the gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the enshittification of times. Which is what Charles Dickens might have said if he were around now and had seen the Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year.
The world’s gone bananas! Let’s call it art
Sotheby’s auction off the famous banana duct-taped to a wall. Picture: AP Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are sitting on a park bench. Guildenstern is polishing an apple. Rosencrantz has bananas on his mind. Rosencrantz: Do you know Guildenstern, I hadn’t quite realised this to now, but there’s a real art to how you polish an apple. Guildenstern: Why thank you. I hadn’t even thought about it. It’s just natural to me. Rosencrantz: It’s as if you have a method to it.
A guitar that sings to the universe
There is no colour in the photograph. Indeed, there is no colour, front, back or inside. It is all black and white. Black on white, white on black. Gilmour on the back is depicted from neck up only, looking slightly down to one side. His face is studied, bewhiskered, the lines of age clear. It is classicism come to the present. It could be the face of a Roman or Greek philosopher or player of music of the spheres. Gilmour is 78. He has been a musician for nigh-on 60 years.
A wordsmith of progrock universe has left this earth
Peter Sinfield (left) and Robert Fripp in a recording studio for King Crimson in 1969. Photo: GETTY IMAGES Pete Sinfield has died. The death should not go without passing comment. Sinfield was there at the start of prog-rock. Some may say this is good enough reason to not remark on his death. But the prog-pros outweigh the pro-cons.
After Trump win, time to put on the surrealism glasses
US president-elect Donald Trump has made vaccine sceptic Robert F. Kennedy junior secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Photo: GETTY IMAGES Well, that didn’t take long. The kindest way to describe one of Donald Trump’s appointments is to see it as a slice of surrealism. Really, Trump is an aficionado of Salvador Dali, Andre Breton or Rene Magritte? Who would have thought, and really should one be kind about this?
With stars in their eyes, the Dems lost sight of America
The problem with speeches by the losers is, without pointing too fine a point on it, they’re all a bit after the fact, a bit previous. Obviously. The problem with Harris’s words is that it’s all stars, stars in the night sky, stars on the campaign rally stages, stars in their eyes. It’s a common saying that in politics oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them. And surely the Democrats lost this US election, badly. So much for the polling putting it a neck-and-neck contest.
US election 2024: American Dream turned nightmare
US President-elect Donald Trump after claiming victory in the 2024 US election. Photo: AP You’d like to say the dustbin of history awaits Donald Trump. But how could you be so unkind to the bin? Thousands upon thousands of words, including by myself, have been expended on Trump, his actions, his thoughts, his character and his influence.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead worried
Home Vol 34 No 21 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead worried 31 October 2024 Guildenstern: Friend, what is the matter? Your hands can’t seem to stop moving over each other. It can’t be warmth; the sun is lovely. Rosencrantz: I’m sorry Guildenstern, my mind is all over the place and my fingers are equally restless. Guildenstern: By what? The day is beautiful, and calming.
Come November, whose song will America be singing?
Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift have been strong supporters of Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign. It says something of the theatre that is an American election campaign that unlike any other election in the world, musicians, and to a lesser extent actors, feel the need to proclaim which side they are on and exhort the world to follow their vote.
When poetry became war reporting
The book carries the reader across several fronts – the disparate journeys that led these men to the killing fields of Europe, the blood-soaked chrysalis from which their words arose, the impact and legacy of their work and the profound sadness and despair wrought from cataclysmic destruction on people and societies. But Muse of Fire is also rooted in the personal. Korda has, as he writes, lived in the shadow of the First World War. Both sides of his family served in it.
Power and alienation
SUPPORT RESPECTFUL CONVERSATIONS IN A TIME OF DIVISION We need no reminding of the depth of the division that exists in our Australian community. It's there every time we go online, turn on the TV, open the newspaper. Our politics is focused on point-scoring, personalities, and name-calling across party lines. The media, for the most part, don't help, driven by the 24-hour news cycle and the pursuit of advertising dollars into a frenzy of click-bait and shallow sensationalism.
It’s time the monarchy left these shores, forever
“We are but a Realm in the King’s eye. And you cannot be a realm without being subservient to the throne,” writes Warwick McFadyen. King Charles III and his wife the Queen Camilla arrive in Australia on Friday. Three cheers for the king! It is the first time Charles has been to our shores since he became monarch, and it is more than a decade since we have been blessed with a visit by the British monarch.
On the anniversary of a poet's birth, a universal message to nations
SUPPORT RESPECTFUL CONVERSATIONS IN A TIME OF DIVISION We need no reminding of the depth of the division that exists in our Australian community. It's there every time we go online, turn on the TV, open the newspaper. Our politics is focused on point-scoring, personalities, and name-calling across party lines. The media, for the most part, don't help, driven by the 24-hour news cycle and the pursuit of advertising dollars into a frenzy of click-bait and shallow sensationalism.
To give sorrow words
A few days ago, my wife Pip and I were sitting on the back steps of the house, soaking up the rays of the spring sun. The warmth was settling into our bones, but we both knew and felt what the presage of this seasonal greeting meant. It’s become intuitive this knowing, like an osmosis of love and loss into what the other is feeling at this time of year. Soon, it will be October. Some days, we say, we wake up and think that he is not dead.
The Taliban's war on women
Recently, new laws came into force, approved by supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, banning women’s voices and faces in public. The ministry for ‘virtue and anti-vice’, set up after the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in 2021, revealed its latest edicts in a wide-ranging hammering of the rights practically everyone in the world takes for granted.
Campaign 2024: from assassins to eaten animals
“In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats.” Image: TARQUIN/X The political cycle in the United States is running so fast in the run-up to the election, it’s as if farce follows fiasco follows almost tragedy in a three-carriage rollercoaster race. Only days after the debate that saw Donald Trump widely ridiculed for his performance, he appears to have been the target of another assassination attempt.
Seasons move and the Earth is reborn
This is the rising that brings joy and warmth to the soul. It’s a co-dependency. But yet it is a faith that runs only one way. Ours to it. The flower does not see, the bud does not hear, but we do and we drink in life’s affirmations in such times. In their new beginning is the rendering of our hope. Call it a gift of nature. There are a few colours of this rising but the predominant one is yellow. Daffodils and jonquils be their names.
The past is prologue: Lewis Lapham’s enduring editorial vision
Home Vol 34 No 15 The past is prologue: Lewis Lapham’s enduring editorial vision 30 July 2024 The magazine in its homage to Lapham this week stated that his columns and essays ‘compared to the work of Michel de Montaigne, Mark Twain, and H. L. Mencken.
Donald Trump: 'I had God on my side'
Trump’s God is very selective in when and how they choose to act. A spectator at the rally, Corey Comperatore, died from a bullet, and two others, David Dutch and James Copenhaver were critically injured. Trump praised the actions of Comperatore, who died protecting his family. ‘He lost his life selflessly acting as a human shield to protect them from flying bullets. He went right over the top of them and was hit.
JD Vance: The man who converted to Trumpism
JD Vance with Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, last Saturday. Photo: AP The running mate of a candidate, be it presidential or prime ministerial, generally doesn’t carry much weight with the public. The deputy, in the public’s mind, is the person on the interchange bench who comes on to the political field when the leader is otherwise engaged, on holidays, sick or overseas. It’s important, of course, to have one, but in the perceptions of the masses, not that important.
An American crisis
The assassination attempt was worldwide news, as it should be. Politicians, including the US President were quick to condemn the shooting, all saying it had no place in American society or democracy. Tell that to children killed by gunfire. Every day, guns take young lives in the US. A national health crisis was recently declared in the country. The crisis has claimed thousands of lives, devastated families and communities. A face mask does not prevent its spread, nor does washing your hands.
Is America in the shadow of twilight’s last gleaming?
It is time to concede that the US is not the light on the hill of what democracy should be? Photo: GETTY IMAGES No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice. Once, this would have been a comforting thought. No matter how inept, foolish, cold-blooded in empathy, self-interested or just plain evil, a president was, one could steel oneself, or resign oneself, in the knowledge that when said leader’s time was up, they were gone. They could not return. Dust in the wind.
What does it mean to be complicit?
Complicit is the child of conflict, the shadow in the night time of the soul. For surely, the word is never seen or heard in bright sunshine, in times of serenity and peace. Thus we arrive at 2024. And the question that lives within the word complicity: which side are you on? A simple internet search of the word complicit, for just one week brings up waves upon waves of responses.
Morello rages against the dying of the right to justice
Tom Morello: “History, like music, is not something that ‘happens’. It’s something you make”. During a concert several years back, Bruce Springsteen introduced his guitarists Steve Van Zant and Nils Lofgren from his E Street Band at the start of the song “The Ghost of Tom Joad”, as “great” players. He then introduced a guest guitarist, “one of the greatest guitarists in rock and roll and a great voice, Rage Against the Machine and The Nightwatchman, Mr Tom Morello”.
Autumn's parting prayer
‘May you never lay your head down Without a hand to hold May you never make your bed out in the cold.’ The words belong to the late great songwriter John Martyn. And obviously, autumn, you are not a person, but one of four siblings. In your colours of the day, however, in the soft light of early morning and dusk, you have the human touch.
Introducing Commander in Chief, the convicted felon?
Donald Trump addresses a press conference, the day after a guilty verdict in his criminal trial. Photo: REUTERS Can an entire country disappear through the looking glass? Come November, we shall know. Convicted felon Donald Trump is running for president of the United States. One of the grave responsibilities of the job is to be commander in chief of the country’s armed forces. Enter the looking glass. A convicted felon is barred from enlisting in any military service.
Hey hey, my my, taking a dive into Neil Young
Being the constant companion as a Neil Young fan is a Herculean task, says Warwick McFadyen. Photo: GETTY IMAGES A few days ago a friend texted me: “If you had to pick the best Neil Young song of all time, what would you pick? It depends a little on mood I guess, but right here, right now, what would it be?” Straight away I sat on it for a while. It took me a couple of days to think about it, which of course destroys the whole point of the exercise.
Tangled up in Prussian Blue
And in this rebirth, there rises memories like mist on the lake for myself. It was 1973 and I was a teenager just awakening to music. It was not quite like the scene in Almost Famous when William Miller’s sister Anita bequeaths her albums to him when she leaves home. But for a young Newcastle lad there were mysteries within the record sleeves, more mysteries in a gatefold, of course and a triple album? Good lord. And there was wonder.
Thoughts and prayers
It’s easy to say yes, and lamentably, quite understandable. For after the saying, what is left? The universe moves on. And having moved on, leaves a wake of fading echoes. Until next time, and the next time after that, and the next time after that. Our thoughts and prayers are with you. My thoughts and prayers are with you. Of course, the phrase is the sole domain of the survivor/s and those affected by whichever catastrophe, disaster or crime has befallen someone or some group of people.
Normalising war is the road to hell
Once he took them hand in hand, too, to march. For that was what the commemoration meant to him, the sacrifice of war was for the kids, to hopefully allow them a better and brighter future. My father died just over a decade ago. The ranks of those who have fought in war for this country must of time’s necessity, dwindle. The veterans of the two world wars now have gone.
Jesus, Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln … and Trump
Former US President Donald Trump fronts his “hush money” trial in Manhattan. Photo: GETTY IMAGES At times you think life’s too short, I can’t possibly spend any more time writing about Donald Trump. Go for a walk McFadyen. Marvel at the clouds and the flight of birds in the sky. Have a laugh with friends. And then there he is, looming like a giant orange nuclear explosion. Each week something arises on the cultural and political landscape that has been a detonation from Donald Trump.
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