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Saturday, June 02, 2007

fast food international

after having an incredibly eye-opening and somewhat confronting day, i watched and even more incredible eye-opening and very confronting movie, Fast Food Nation.

This morning our extremely aggressive and obtusely macho landlord called to say he would take possession of all our household belongings if we weren't out by 2pm (that gives us three hours to call, book and have removalists come and transport the collections of clothes cds, books, photos, pots and pans and everything else that sums up our lives in physical form)

i might add here that a week ago all of our flatmates literaly packed up and ran, after he and two thugs with crowbars stormed into the house to switch off the electricity over a dispute of an alleged missing $2000.

my boyfriend dan and i, thinking that surely if we were reasonable with the landlord, he in return would treat us with respect. we had continued to pay our rent until we packed a suitcase and moved to his dad's temporarily while we wait for our new house to be available. we left our boxes at the warehouse, locked in our rooms with a very polite note asking the landlord to call us if he needed our stuff out earlier than our departure date, the 8th june

and so we got the call this morning, with a generous three hours to get out, or they would take our stuff as theirs.

after speaking with him i reasoned a 24 hour extension.

and so we went to the studio to pack our remaining stuff. i the dark, no electricity you see. our playstation had been taken (perhaps a present for the landlords niece) and there he was with his two thugs, treating them with as much aggression and derision as he did us.

now this landlord, was not actually the owner! he was apparently a middle man, a heavy, hired by the owner to act as boss and do all the dirty work, and i tell you, this guy was one piece of dirty work. the other two were somewhat odd, but were sympathetic to our situation, though i must say, these scavengers were straight out of a Dickensian novel, i could see them scouring around the tip in 'Our Mutual Friend' taking gold teeth out of dead bodies found in the Themes (great book by the way!)


these poor tip rats were being screwed over by him too. he was getting them to remove and dispose of all the leftovers in the house, from kitchen cabinets to 80s romance novels to pot plants, and in return they could sell it. honestly, put together, the rubbish that everyone left behind would have summed up to maybe $30? the amount of work these two men would have to do would be at least 2 days worth, no, 3 seeing as they seemed to be quite intoxicated.

and so, here i come to my point. after watching Fast Food Nation tonight, the heavy feeling i have in the pit of my stomach has just got a whole lot heavier.

what we experienced today, the helplessness, powerlessness and abuse is a microscopic model of daily life all over the world. and whats worse, is that this abuse and misuse, and lying and cheating is what keeps this world clock ticking, its what keeps the pay cheques keeping on coming, the cheap clothes and cars and holidays and computers cheaper, and extra large beef burgers ever larger.

i cant help but feel that we are at the parallel to the fall of the Roman Empire. The orgies and gluttony are suffocating us, and starving the rest of the world. And i know you could say that its really the US who in this case are the Romans, so really they are going to fall, but, sorry to say, the whole damn world is pretty much a part of this empire, watch the dominoes fall.


sorry to be so bleak, its just everyday i (and most other people) carry on happy in my little life, but every now and then you cant help and just say SHIT!



ps. i think i may just have to go back to vegetarianism. (minus chorizo, thats not really meat is it?)
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