James Valentine

2009-09-24T19:30:00.000-07:00

The following has been obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. It was found mildewed and mouldering in the in tray of Jo Tripodi. Careful restoration at the State Library of NSW revealed its inflammatory content. The original restorer met a grizzly death – allegedly pecked to death by ibis in Hyde Park. His assistant has been in a coma since falling off the back of a Rhythm Boat Harbour Cruise.

The Government has been at great pains to keep this document secret.

Is it true? Apart from the style, the lack of cliché, and the actual interest it engenders, it could be something dreamt up by Dan Brown. We will never know the identity of this bold explorer. But if even only some of what he describes is real, it is compelling reading for any resident of what once known as the Premier State.

Oh people of Sydney. I have journeyed far and wide along the Great Silk Road. I have been blown by fair winds and foul to distant corners of the Earth. There I have discovered all manner of marvels but it is this which will cause your mouth to droop in slack jawed wonder; Other cities rule themselves without recourse to discourse with corrupt and vile bodies.

I know it is hard to believe, but in many cities and conurbations the wide world over, men and women gather, take council and make decisions for the greater good.

Yea, scarce can you credit it but no brigand nor ne’er-do-well is present as decisions regarding the public weal are taken.

Here they may decide upon a road to be built and no money changes hands betwixt the People’s Representative and those who wouldst build said road.

There a set of dwellings is to be constructed to house the peasantry and in considering the plan, the welfare and comfort of the peasants is paramount. Not the welfare and comfort of those who wouldst build the dwelling.

I know this sounds most foreign and strange but I assure you this is so and those who live in this manner marvel at us. They suggest that is not necessary for the government to lie abed with footpads and poltroons. They have government which is not interested in its own power and position. It rules for the good of the citizenry.

Did I not say your eyes would start forth from your head, and you would scarce believe what I have seen?

I hesitate to bring you such news from abroad. As I describe such ways of living I must forsooth bring my own credibility into question, yet it is not for my sake that my quill pauses. Rather , I fear that I will raise the hopes of the good people of Sydney too high.

If I suggest that I have seen transport systems which move millions of people throughout cities, arriving and departing actually on time and with but a single ticket required, to what despair will that give rise when next you ponder the whereabouts of the 5.32 to Liverpool?

If I say I have seen rickshaws, tuktuks and taxis compete in lively and joyful bustle for the privelege of carrying you hence, how downcast will you be when next you ponder the whereabouts of the cab you booked a half hour before?

If I say that I have seen cities where decisions are made and kept, where projects are begun and finished, where rulers rule spending not their time a-plotting in dark parlours and Chow Meanieres, then I fear that I begin to reach the limits of your belief and that I may as well be describing cities run by faeries and elves for that all you will credit my report.

Yet it is so, and if you undertook a journey to almost any other city than our own, you would find they function.

Where is our Hercules who will divert a river and cleanse the stables of Macquarie St of the ordure, filth and stench that has sullied it so deep.?

Here the manuscript ends. Over a blurred signature, there is a poignant stain; a tear? A drop of blood.? Was our correspondent weeping for his city? Was he disturbed and might he have written more? You may question his observations – it does seem impossible that men and women could rule themselves in the manner he describes. Perhaps his intent is satirical, perhaps it is the ravings of a lunatic. The writer’s courage however is stark and must bring us all pause

2009-09-17T22:19:00.000-07:00

There Is No Suggestion That You Have An Unhealthy Interest In the Murder of Michael McGurk.

The NSW premier planted a tree today at Rooty Hill Public School. There is no suggestion that the Premier , or the tree or any at Rooty Hill Public School was involved with the McGurk Murder.

There is no suggestion that the nursery that supplied the tree, the tuck shop ladies at Rooty Hill , the Premier’s driver or any of the attendant media had involvement with the murder of Michael McGurk.

And in saying there is no suggestion we mean there is no suggestion. We are not saying that in a snide ironic way in order that you might draw an inference that there is a suggestion of involvement. We know you will try to read between, above and below the lines in order to discern what we know but cannot say but in this particular case, the Premier was simply turning a sod at a local public school. He is wearing a hard hat not as protection against potential assassins but as a normal part of OH&S requirements which have put us all in lime vests and hard hats whatever we may do.

And so we are very genuinely and strenuously suggesting that no one at this event or anyone reading about this event here in the paper today was involved with the McGurk Murder.

At the moment in the state of NSW and Sydney in particular it’s hard to see where all this starts and finishes. So it’s best to err on the safe side lest we find ourselves in court for years to come.

Which is not a suggestion that any who may or may not have been involved with the murder of Michael McGurk would resort to legal chicanery and procrastination in order to delay or pervert the course of justice. Nor do we in any way imply that respected members of the legal profession would use arcane legal tactics in order to protect their clients who may be quite legitimately addressing an erroneous suggestion that they were in some way involved in the McGurk Murder. Not that we are suggesting that they were.

Or if they were, we would certainly include the word ‘alleged’ as often as possible. We support their right to be judged innocent until proven guilty. Although the amount of space we give to them and the furtive looking pictures of them lunching with people we don’t suggest are involved in the murder of Michael McGurk but simply suggest they seem to have lunch with him quite often may give rise to the impression that we believe them to be guilty but we are in no way suggesting that.

Whatever you think we’re suggesting we’re not.

Neither are we suggesting anything by material we omit.

If you were at a lunch on a such and such a date at, for example, the Tuscany Restaurant in Leichhardt and we haven’t mentioned you or published your photograph this does not suggest that we think you were involved in the murder of Michael McGurk.

If we have referred to someone obliquely or with a nickname or acronym no inference should be drawn that there is a suggestion that are more likely to have been involved in the murder of Michael McGurk. They are no more under suspicion than anyone else.

Not that anyone is under suspicion at this time. They are helping police with their inquiries. Which means just that. Really.

At this point we have nothing further. There is no suggestion that if there is anything further that it will involve a Premier, a tree or Rooty Hill Public School.

2009-09-17T22:17:00.000-07:00

When did Branding become the universal panacea to any problem? From the NRL to Vanilla Coke, it’s not that there’s a problem with the thing itself, there’s a problem with the branding.

In the last few weeks no less than Australia and Christianity has announced that they need to look at their branding.

I’m not sure what to make of a faith that has branding issues. Of a Creator who’s putting pressure on the marketing department. You want to bring the waverers in? I don’t know - lightning bolt? Big voice from the sky? Some water into wine – I’d say branding issues dealt with.

But instead of Upwardly referring the problem, this coalition of twenty Christian churches found through their market research that almost everything about themselves was on the nose; God, Church, Religion, Holy, Faith – all of them with less brand loyalty than Hyundai. The only one who was maintaining a strong market share was Jesus.

Up there with Iphone, apparently.

So the Churches have responded with a series of billboards. The billboards show a picture of a child at the seaside. Slogan, Thank You For the Beaches, Jesus. As powerful as a puppy with a roll of toilet paper.

If only they’d come to me.

You want impactful billboard? There’s only one model. Get big red and yellow signs up along major roads, reading DO YOU WANT A LONGER AFTER LIFE?

In three months replace it with PRAY LONGER. AND HARDER.

With a bit of luck you’d get plenty of attendant controversy, lots of mileage in the news columns, plenty of outraged letters and before you know it, you’re getting more coverage than a condom on the Pope.

And you haven’t even offered to deliver Holy Water via a nasal spray.

Branding’s a cult and a religion in itself. It’s an article of faith now that if there’s a problem then you have to fix the brand.

As irresistible as it is to mix religion and branding - that crucifix was pretty effective logo for a millennia or so wasn’t it? Only surpassed apparently today by the Golden Arches – it’s ludicrous isn’t it?

And I have the same reaction to yet more attempts to brand the Nation.

Simon Crean and Austrade now want to spend twenty million dollars branding Australia. Australia’s been branded more times than a bull in Bonanza. The difference this time is that Austrade is looking for a catch all brand that will cover everything from exporting cochlear implants to importing Indian students; from Akubras to Akira Isigawa., from LPG to AC/DC.

The theory is that it’s really working well for New Zealand and South Africa. New Zealand’s “100% Pure” and South Africa’s “Rainbow Nation” are not just slogans on the end of tourism ads. They represent a whole of nation approach and whether it’s Sauvignon Blanc or the All Blacks, the rest of world gets guzzling on a bottle of Marlborough SB because of an association with the 100% Pure brand. It’s believed that South Africa got the World Cup Soccer because of the power of their Rainbow Nation brand.

Rubbish.

France doesn’t have a brand, but it did invent food and champagne. The USA is a brand in itself. Like the UK.

Italy doesn’t have a brand, it just got the entire planet to eat its food. Sweden doesn’t have a brand apart from Volvo. Switzerland just holds up a Swiss Army Knife. China will arrest you if you try to brand it. India accompanies everything with a sitar and a head wobble. The Middle East, it could be argued, has some brand perception issues.

Attempts to brand Australia will go the same way as attempts to change the flag.

What’s the brief?

We cannot give a decent brief to a designer or a marketer because we don’t know who we are. We veer between outdated outbackery and anxious world classery. We’re the most suburbanized people in the world, but never want to project that. We’re a Western enclave in Asia. We’re the fifty first state. We’re a vibrant multicultural society. We’ve got dot paintings and didgeridoos and an appalling relationship with actual Aborigines.

National traits include an ability to laugh at ourselves, mateship, fix anything with fencing wire, tearing down of anyone who gets up themselves, play any sport and work hard play hard ethic that makes us the best bloody place in the world.

My problem is none of those traits seem particularly unique to our nation and none of the perceptions of who we are seem true.

Millions will be spent with brand experts and marketing consultants who’ll deliver, “Australia. It’s Great.”

Branding happens because something is what it says it is.

A soft drink, a piece of technology, a religion or a nation they are what they are and that’s the brand.

That’s the whole problem with branding. When you come down to it, it’s gotta be the Real Thing.

2009-09-07T17:35:00.000-07:00

8.09.09 If you would like to do business in Sydney, please answer the following questionnaire…

Have you got a criminal record? Do any of your business partners? Do you know Graeme Richardson? Does your proposed property deal depend on a future ‘rezoning’ ? Is there a liquor licence involved? Do you own brothels? Sex shops? Are you close to rugby league players? Are you on the committee for a nearly defunct bowling club? Do you understand the term branch stacking? Are you friends with Eddie Obeid? Joe Tripodi? Eric Roozendaal? Do you run with the Rebel Motorbike gang? If I wanted a high class hooker, could you get me one? Can you get into the Piano Room? Would the Ibrahims high five you when you did? Have you ever ordered a hit on anyone? Do you know the going rate? Are you an importer/exporter? Is the name by which you are known the name you were given at birth? Do you lease either a current model Mercedes/Audi/Porsche? Do you run with the Nomads? Do you tape your business meetings? How well do you know Jim Byrnes? Have you ever set fire to anything apart from a barbeque? Have you done time? Do you owe money to anyone who has? Have you borrowed money from someone who is not a bank? Do you regard bankruptcy as a part of normal business practice?

How well do you know Graham Richardson?

Has anything you’ve ever done resulted in a broad ranging State Parliament inquiry? Were you mentioned in the Wood Royal Commission into Police Corruption? Do you have links to key Labor figures? Have you stood bail for anyone? Do you know Neville Wran? Do you regularly attend Labor Party fundraisers? How long do you keep your tapes of your business meetings? Does assault figure in your business negotiations?

Do you have more than one business entity? Are any of them listed in the Cayman Islands? Have you paid tax recently?

Have you appeared at ICAC? Do you own a sports team? Would you like to? Have you had your tender approved by state government despite your complete lack of experience in the area? Are you a former bookmaker, stand over man, boxer, Fiji nightclub owner? Do you run with the Comancheros? Do you have Graham Richardson on speed dial? Have you acquired properties from people defaulting on loan payments? Were they devil worshippers?

Are you licenced for firearms? Have you been found guilty of possessing stolen or unlicenced firearms? Are any of your businesses linked to companies or businesses currently under suspicion? Would you say that’s just a coincidence? Is Graham Richardson godparent to any of your children? Did he speak at your fiftieth? Would you say your main business skill is intimidation? Have you or any of your associates ever been described in the press using any or all of the words, ‘colourful’, ‘Sydney’, ‘Racing’, ‘Identity’?

If you answered yes to all of the above, then you are ready to join the exciting world of Sydney business. Whether it’s a league club expansion, a city block or two, or a former industrial site soon to be Sydney’s newest suburb, we know you’re the type that always does business in Sydney and knows how to cut through red tape with a brown bag of cash and deal with any opposition with a midnight phone call.

Let's Make A Deal!

2009-08-16T23:08:00.000-07:00

You Know You're Living In A Kindergarchy When..

A colleague introduced me to the notion of a Kindergarchy. This is when the kids rule. A two year old can be very powerful. Terry said he’d put the DVD in the player, turned to his daughter and said, “Alright then?” and she barked back, ‘”Press play!” Terry said he felt like a human remote.
You know you’re in a kindergarchy when….
1. You’ve been driving for half an hour. There are no kids in the car. The Wiggles CD is playing anyway.
2. You’re driving. No kids again. You yell out, “Look at the big truck!”
3. The most intelligent person you speak to all day is yourself.
4. At a dinner party, all of your stories begin, “Emma did the funniest thing the other day…”
5. At a dinner party, you find yourself cutting up another guest’s food.
6. You’re wearing jewelry made of pasta.
7. If asked the time, you respond, “Now, the big hand’s on the three…”
8. When cutting a sandwhich into oblongs instead of triangles is a major catastophe.
9. When you think Thomas The Tank engine is the height of Ringo Starr’s career.
10. When it’s been a while since you’ve showered on your own.
11. The course of your day can be deeply affected by whose presenting Playschool.
12. Your only decent lipstick is used for colouring in.
13. You’re a big bloke and you’re enjoying the daily miniature tea parties.
14. When you know what’s on offer on TV at 5am
15 When you go to a café for morning tea and everyone else is having breakfast
16. When the art of choice is a framed finger painting.
17. When the song you can’t get out of your head is the the theme to Sponge Bob Squarepants… “who lives in a pineapple under the sea.”
18. When you defend SpongeBob Squarepants as decent viewing; “it’s really quite surreal and has a lot of absurdist humour…”
19. When you can form an opinion about the relative quality and merit of the Ice Age movies.
20. When you’re eating chicken nuggets at 5pm and that’s dinner.

This was compiled by listeners and texters to 702 ABC Sydney Afternoons. After hearing all this one suggested, “We need a Kinda Carta.”

2009-08-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

And The Rest of Us See An Ass…

Nick Cave is everywhere this week. He’s got a book out. So of course, he’s on the cover of everything. And his book is wonderful. According to everyone. If Nick farted, it would be well received.

Nick’s fart would get this kind of review…

During lunch Nick let loose with a wondrous fart which was not just wondrous in its tone and delivery but also an ironic comment on farts, a bluesy type smear on the kind of people who think farts are bad taste, an indication of a new direction for Nick, a rectal trumpet blast that was side splittingly funny while still being somehow redolent of eternal mysteries. Nick’s fart filled with air with a whiff of brimstone and a view of heaven, and by the end of lunch it had spawned a legion of imitators, none of whom seem to be able to fart with the kind of credibility only Nick can summon.

I’m not big on Nick.

I fail to see why Nick is so worshipped in the critical and curating community.

Actually I know exactly why Nick is so worshipped.

The kind of person who becomes a rock critic, an art festival director, a magazine editor, is often the kind of person who in their youth loved Nick Cave.

Perhaps they loved Nick for his songs and his band The Birthday Party or the Bad Seeds or did they love Nick because to love Nick was cool?

It was cool because no one else really liked them, but they really liked them and really got it, and loved being considered a bit out there and dangerous by the others who thought it was cool to like Abba or Led Zeppelin.

The Abba/Zeppelin people were cooler in terms of general popularity but you didn’t care, because it seemed even cooler to be in the group that the cool people thought was uncool.

It made you all the cooler.

All you cared about was finding the other people who liked Nick Cave and reassuring each other that you were all so cool.

Nick Cave also thought you were cool and in fact Nick knew that the only thing cooler than liking Nick Cave was being Nick Cave.

And so he spawned a legion of imitators who wished they were Nick Cave but thought they better finish their arts degree and didn’t really like heroin that much so they did the next best thing to being Nick Cave; they wrote about Nick Cave.

And they wrote with passion and fire because it was them against the world. How much better the world would be if everyone stopped listening to Fleetwood Mac and LRB and listened to Nick Cave! Of course, the world is really perfect as it is because it would be very uncool if Nick was suddenly popular. All those cool people would lose their status as the kind of people who were so cool they like Nick Cave.

The Nick Worshippers grew up and became rock critics and festival directors and magazine people and anytime they could they got Nick a gig. If Nick brought out a recording it was always five stars. If Nick wrote a film, it was incredible. Would Nick mind if we set a ballet to his music? Could Nick curate something for us, write a forward, make some sculptures? Then we can write about it, and put Nick on the cover of our magazine and show once again how cool we are, because we get Nick Cave.

I get Nick Cave. He’s a writer, a songwriter, a hustler and a self pimper.
He’s fine. He’s out there hacking away trying to pay his mortage and live an interesting life with a book advance and some song royalties. He gets asked to do this that and the other and why should he say no? He’s gotta eat. If people want to put him on the cover of the magazine and they think it will sell, why would Nick complain.

But can I just say – I’ve never heard anything he’s done that I’ve wanted to hear again. His novel was crap. His film The Proposition was OK. I’m yet to read his new book , but I’ve certainly read a lot about it already.

Such a slim body of work for so much reporting and critical comment.

This is because of the very nature of his work and persona. It appeals directly to the kind of person who becomes a rock critic. art commentator, a commissioning editor.

This is because he possess that mysterious quality which was so potent in the mid seventies and eighties; credibility.

Credibility was everything back then. Credibility sought by all and granted only to a few meant that your every utterance had meaning. To be credible had nothing to do with actual ability. One had to wear only black, have only a rudimentary grasp of music and songwriting, and write tunes of great angst.

It helped if you’d experienced great angst but in Nick’s case it was enough to do a good impression of great angst. For true credibility, you had to take drugs. And the bad ones, not just a reggae cigarette in the band room.

These songs, excreable listening to most, were lauded by his followers as the most compelling utterances ever, and of course if you didn’t like them, it was because you were shallow and Nick was too much for you.

So compelling as though that may have been to the door bitches, the writers for the street papers, the JJJ set, the RRR set, I think now as we age we could apply some different criteria.

What’s he actually done?

Not that much.

Is it any good?

Not really.

Nick seems to me to be a one trick pony. He discovered early on that if you shove Jesus and the bible into your work, it makes it sound deep. Just say the word Jesus, or Elijah or Gethsemane and it sets off a whirlpool of meaning for people and you’re work is done. His obscenity is too constant to be anything but adolescent. He has no range, he only brays. In Peter Conrad’s hagiography in the Monthly, it’s all blood, balls and bible onto which Conrad piles more meaning than a record reviewer trying to get a column. Conrad is typical of those infatuated with Nick’s persona. He coyly refers to being with Nick as he drives around Brighton; they’re obviously acquainted. He therefore forgives Nick artistic sins which I’m sure he’d condemn in others. Nick is permitted and praised for ambiguity, obtuseness and verbosity.

Three qualities I’m always on the lookout for in writers.

Nick as eager a self promoter as Paris Hilton. He uses the bad boy reluctance and truculence with the media in the same way she uses her physical charms and LA bratocity. He in fact has become something I believe he would despise. Nick is now merely a celebrity. He’s famous for being Nick Cave.

Nick wishes he could write with the simplicity and emotional directness of Leonard Cohen. He wishes he could summon the noir atmosphere of Tom Waits, with Tom’s growling nonchalance. He wishes he could sing as well as Johnny Cash.

He doesn’t do any of that, so on behalf of those who’ll wait until Nick farts out something listenable or readable before we praise him unto heaven itself, can I just say that enough worshipful analysis already? He’s not even dead.

2009-08-05T19:40:00.001-07:00

The Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator, is not working. It’s reasonable to ask after fifteen years and big pot of money, why? How could this happen? Biggest brains in the world. Lot of enthusiasm for banging some particles together and locating that elusive Higgs Boson particle. I for one rarely get a good night’s sleep pondering just how to explain the difference between the massless photon which mediates electromagnetism and the massive W and Z Bosons which mediate the weak force. CERN was going to provide the answer for us and let us all get some rest.

Why is this giant piece of engineering not working?

Anyone who’s ever renovated knows exactly how this went down.

I’m seeing an electrician tradie pulling up on the border of Switzerland in a black Maloo Holden Ute. Dog in the back. 2Day FM blaring out of the front.

“G’day, mate, I’m here to quote on the Hadron. Gotta see Gustav? Oh , G’d day Gustav, yeah I’m your sparkie. Sorry I’m a bit late, surf was up. Anyway, what are you lookin’ for here?

Right, you want the place wired up? What’s your budget?

Fifteen billion? Yeah, I dunno if we can do for that. Anyway, let’s have a look, and hope the chippies haven’t stuffed it up and we can still get you some voltage in here.”

Gustav then would have walked around with Steve the electrician and pointed out where he would like the power points in order to provide electricity so two particles can bang into one another and prove the existence of the Boson particle. Bit like banging Malcolm Turnbull into Godwin Gretch and hoping that a real email might fall out.

Steve would have nodded, and said reassuringly, “No worries, mate. Sweet. She’ll be right. Yep. Too easy. It’s all good.”

When Steve returned later to put the wiring in, he glanced at the plans, patted his dog and bunged in some power points wherever it seemed like a good idea.

Later when they switched on the collider and didn’t work, Gustav would have rung Steve and steve would have replied apologetically, “Shit, mate. Not working? That’s no good. Jeez, I dunno what that would be. You wanted seven trillion volts in the place? Yeah, well, that’s a bit more than you need to run your toaster that’s for sure. Look, I’ll swing round when I can, and take a look. Probably not this week. Maybe after the long weekend? Sweet. See ya.”

I’m not really that down on the tradies. You should see how much I forget and stuff up in any one day. What I love is that in such a massive project, in something that would have involved so much sophisticated thinking, a bit of simple human error has crept in.

The suggestion at the moment is that the magnets that are meant to pump up the voltage were left outside for too long before being installed and so lost their strength.

It’s the same on any building site anywhere in the world.

“Oh, mate, can’t get them in this week. See, the plumbers have got to get their stuff in, then we’ll lay the concrete and then that’s gotta dry …”

I find it reassuring. From my bathroom to the world’s most hi tech tunnel – give me a stuff up every time.

2009-08-05T19:28:00.001-07:00

Australians make the worst husbands according to a British study. Apparently it’s because we don’t do the housework.

Scandinavia – of course, and the USA and Britian, all better.

Better husbands because they’ll do the housework.
Well, I say Australia is the last bastion of a true male. A true bloke who can live in squalor and never notice it. A bloke who can sleep in sheets until they change themselves. A bloke who says why empty the kitchen bin, you can always stuff more in it. A bloke who says clean the shower recess? It gets cleaned and washed down every time I have a shower, doesn’t it?

As for doing the housework, I’m proud to say that Australia is a land where if you chuck a cricket ball up the main street, chances are you’ll hit a bloke who’ll declare; if you have to do the housework after you get married , why the bloody hell would you get married?

Go on, then darling, marry Sven then, see how like it. Oh, the kitchen will gleam, and you could serve soup in your bidet, but you’ll never know the joy of a bloke who’s happy with the one pair of underpants for the week – why add to the laundry pile? All Aussie blokes all you need to do to clean a shirt is leave it on the bedroom floor for a couple of days. See, we may not do housework, but we have many strategies for reducing it.

Barbequeing is popular in Australia because you never need to clean a barbeque. Oh, I’m sure divine husband Nigel ruining a pork sausage on his Weber on his allotment in Norwhich cleans his, and I know that Chuck incinerating a weiner on his eight burner monster connected directly to a Texan oil derrick also cleans his, but any Aussie bloke knows that a barbeque is cleaned simply by turning it on. The flames consume remaining pieces of barramundi or crocodile that were stuck on the grill and any further remnants are removed by cooking the kid’s sausages first. We then cook the adult’s meal; often Fillet of Shark, wrestled that morning from the bay while surfing, or perhaps Kangaroo Fillets, cut from a beast felled with a boomerang from the mobs common in our city streets.

Why wouldn’t you want an Australian bloke? Bugger the housework, Australian men – it’s well known – play beautiful tennis, can round up cattle on horseback, have narrow hips and rarely speak except to deliver a devasting laconic aside.

But you go right ahead, darling. If you’d rather walk up the aisle with chip butty Nigel, or hamburger arse Chuck or herring head Sven because they’ll keep the linen cupboard well ordered, you’re missing out on a bloke who can drink beer with one hand, choke a taipan with the other and as long as you keep the beer cold for him, couldn’t give a dead dingo’s donger if you keep the place clean.