Friday 18 January 2008

Pratacy on the high seas



I find that I have acquired a raging thirst during my return to Melbourne from the Southern Ocean.

My good friend William Shatner has kicked the bottle in the most spectacular way and refuses to share the same room with anything smelling of alcohol, so getting into the cabin of a hired jet with myself and Pierce Brosnan was almost too much for the poor frayed old bugger. The first thing he made me do was to forcibly eject Sean Penn onto the Tullamarine tarmac. The former Mr Ciccone then proceeded to thoroughly disgrace himself, running alongside the plane, pounding on the fuselage as we trundled along the taxiway until he was forced to stop by a call of nature.

"Just one of the hazards of drink", smirked Shatner as he settled back into his leather armchair, took another hit of snuff from the navel of his lubricious "temporary secretary", and proceeded to entertain us with his San Fernando trailer park memories for the two hour flight south.

The rest of the trip was equally entertaining. The "Steve Irwin" was exactly where Paul "Captain Nemo" Watson had said it would be, steaming ferally north from Antarctica in the wake of the Yusshin Maru No2 - the Japanese-flagged whaler mothership. "Still wrestling crocodiles - young Steve would have loved it", muttered Shatner, with a tear in his eye as we circled the scene. Brosnan was all for getting out the grappling irons and diving gear, plunging 1500 feet into the seething summer southern ocean waters, and rescuing the imprisoned Sea Shepherd seamen from the Japanese by force. But, lacking the extra edge lent by a slug of single malt, and having forgotten to pack his waterwings, he settled instead for dumping the contents of the plane's sanitary holding tank over the Yusshin Maru, all the while inexplicably babbling "Wheech! Wheech!"

That Paul Watson's a piece of work though. Like the product of an unholy union between Judge Dredd and David Suzuki, delivered by John Knox, how could a BFG resist him?

He's a silly bastard, but. Ordering his two cabin boys to board the Yusshin Maru 2 on the high seas to deliver a pathetic plea from the vocalist out of Midnight Oil ("like guys, chill, because this is a whale sanctuary you know?") was like pinning a sign on his arse saying "use me, bitches"! The whaling motherfucker gleefully clapped the guys in irons and took off like a business management consultant catching the scent of money, drawing off the "Steve Irwin" and leaving the other whaling boats to continue to the hunt free of all harassment (save for the bulbous presence of the "Esperanza", loaded to the gunwhales with increasingly green, but eminently peaceful bloggers).

Once Pierce had dumped his disgusting muck we turned the plane back for Melbourne, squabbling over the controls and vowing to do better next time. Some bugger's got to look after the high seas you know, and if governments refuse to get involved - except to bleat "hands off until we get round to making up some laws, er like maybe in 50 years or so" - then it's up to the Sea Shepherds of this world to keep the abusers in check.

Trouble is, Paul Watson's got baggage. He got dogma. He reckons that he's a "biocentrist" - someone who believes that the life of a whale or any other wild animal is of equal value to that of a human. I got no beef with that belief, but why draw the line around whales, sharks, dolphins and seals? What about diatoms, microbes and seaweed? What about yeast for fuck's sake? Do you know how many yeast cells we condemn to die choking on their own waste products in every cask of beer brewed? All life on earth has got some DNA in common, not just cute animals. Me, I draw the line around human beings and will happily gnaw on anything else - why do you think I chose this profile picture? I'd even chow down on a whale. But only if it was not endangered. In the meantime I'll enjoy the excuse for a good pagga even if someone just LOOKS wrong at a whale.


Someone looking the wrong way at a whale, yesterday


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I was feeling UnJained at the time

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