Note that the song “Unchain My Heart” was written by American songwriter Bobby Sharp and first recorded by Ray Charles in 1961. The classic cover version by Joe Cocker, recorded in 1987 for his album of the same name, is the version readers should have in mind for the little scene below, starting from the up-tempo first verse. Excellentiousness ex•cel•lent•ious•ness noun a virulent disease of sycophancy amongst retail assistants I jumped out of bed at my normal rising time of 4 a.m. and stepped into the kitchen to brew the only liquid that should first touch awakened lips. EEEAAARRRGGGGHHH! I was out of coffee! For some inexplicable reason I had been negligent with the weekly domestic chores. It could have had something to do with the alignment of the planets or sheer pathetic mid-life-crisis laziness. However, it’s damn right to look at the full laundry basket and say No! Not until the planets are perfectly aligned. The same can’t be said for coffee, and the half-a- dozen organic beans lying at the bottom of my clear glass jar were simply not enough. In desperation I could have made a paste for a tantalizing spoon-feeding sensation, but the momentary delight would have been as frustrating as finding the infamous school bully standing in queue at the Pearly Gates—just him, me and my trusty fence paling. Hell would never look so good! So I arrived at the all-night supermarket, which is just the place you would never find organic coffee beans. You know what it’s like! As soon as you pass through the turnstile entrance—that poor imitation sheep dip—you become hypnotized by the mind-numbing elevator muzak and mesmerized by the bright in-your-face colours of a gazillion products. Before you can sing Oh Lord, don’t let there be no rent in Heaven, you’re pushing a trolley filled with all sorts of useless shit that you suddenly can’t live without. Ten new toilet-cleaning brushes that you’ll also use for the muck covering the pots and dishes and swatting the current infestation of muscular cockroaches. What a bargain! Twenty kilos of Brussels sprouts because you hate them and they sound great bouncing off the neighbours’ tin rooves on those nights you can’t sleep. More toothpaste than the local army barracks has because you’ve heard a rumour that wrapping up feet in it overnight will cure skin fungus, as well as foot and mouth disease. Finally, as many boxes of tampons as it would take to plug a humpback whale because they melt better than marshmallows at the local surf lifesaving club’s weekend barbie. And the boys can’t tell the difference. It was still that magic hour before cockcrow and I was well equipped with airport tarmac earmuffs and the blackest of celebrity shades to circumvent the supermarket’s best efforts to turn me into a brain-dead consumer with the singular intention of exceeding my credit card limit. And it was working: I could still focus on the mission—get in and out with just enough coffee beans to do me for the morning. Later on, I’d get my organic supply from my local co-op —God bless dreadlocks and the highlands of New Guinea! But I couldn’t get by without a caffeine hit to kick-start the day. How else am I supposed to have the necessary energy to distil and digest the daily handwringing shock- horror stories of crime and corruption and repetitive doom-and-gloom opinion pieces from Judgment Day celebrity journalists I fixatedly peruse under the prodigious cloak of dawn? That first blush of each day’s insanity. Everything proceeded to plan. I found my way through a maze of aisles filled with a mind-boggling array of you’re-gonna-die-if-you-don’t-take-me products…painfully-and-slowly. Temptation…ha! I could have walked past the Angel of Sin and her stairway to Heaven. Focus on the mission…focus on the mission…in and out…soul food…what the frock! Suddenly, a Diversionary Confusion Analyst appeared in the coffee aisle! You know what a Diversionary Confusion Analyst is, don’t you? That’s the zit-riddled never had sex shelf-filler who always answers product inquiries by sending you in the wrong direction with the obvious intention of keeping you at the mercy of your zombie- compulsion to buy everything you never needed. It was a strange conversation and one I wish never to repeat ever again. It went something like this… ‘Can I help you, Sir?’ ‘No.’ ‘Excellent!’ ‘Really?’ ‘Not a problem!’ ‘I’m an extraterrestrial?’ ‘Too easy!’ ‘Take me to your leader.’ ‘Awesome!’ And that’s when I lost the plot. I call it the excellentiousness disease. Go into any retail outlet anywhere in the world and the greetings and sales talk are uniformly nauseating and peppered with several standard vocal high-five’s. It doesn’t matter what you say. ‘I’ve got your hospital results and you have one week to live.’ ‘Excellent!’ ‘I’m a psychopathic serial killer looking for love.’ ‘Not a problem!’ ‘I’m Father Finnegan and I’m here to perform your exorcism.’ ‘Too easy!’ ‘Your whole family was just destroyed by an exploding mobile telephone.’ ‘Awesome!’ The excellentiousness disease—repetitive, sycophantic claptrap designed to turn every sales assistant into your instant, fashionable best friend. ‘You’ve got genital herpes.’ ‘Excellent!’ ‘If you say not-a-problem I’m going to beat you with my fence paling.’ ‘Not a problem!’ ‘I’ve just hacked into your bank account.’ ‘Too easy!’ ‘You’re going to work here for the rest of your pathetic life.’ ‘Awesome!’ There I was, only steps away from the coffee section and this Diversionary Confusion Analyst was in sonic overdrive. Excellent-not a problem-too easy-awesome! Excellent-not a problem-too easy- awesome! Excellent-not a problem-too easy- awesome! I did what any rational, super-intelligent Homo sapien would in these difficult circumstances. I undid my fly, gripped my Zorbra—#@zit!!!—and started singing Unchain My Heart. Unceremoniously ejected from the supermarket, and being under the influence of caffeine cold turkey, I drove straight to my local co-op. In the soft glow of the reassuring dawn, I adopted a therapeutic cross-legged pose outside the closed front door. Then I ranted on my knees! Extreme torment! I was so pleased at the sound of the door’s lock being released and the near completion of my beleaguered mission that I hardly heard the reply to my effusive gratitude. ‘Excellent!’

Death Threat Valley death•threat noun a strategy of intimidation |adopted by humanity’s uttermost scum in a vicious and cowardly attempt to stop romantic swashbucklers from reaching for the stars “I’m gonna kill you!” This bloke I know screams this peculiar endearment at least 100 times motoring out his driveway to go around the block to the corner shop on a chocoholic binge mission! Add 100 times for the return trip. Does it for anxiety therapy! You know, let it all hang out. “I’m gonna KILL YOU! I’m gonna KILL YOU! I’m gonna KILL- KILL-FUCKING-KILL YOU-OU-OU!!!” Jake repeatedly screamed “I’m gonna kill you!” whenever he was in the mood, which was very often. A mentally challenged teenager living in a home for the mentally challenged. Long, long time ago. But I swear I saw him on TV the other day, amongst the fundamentalists in the Arab world’s war-a-go-go! Christians – KILL-KILL-KILL! Woman with a brain – KILL-KILL-KILL! Anyone with an IQ bigger than an infant’s shoe size – KILL-KILL-KILL! Anyone, any size, anywhere – KILL-KILL-KILL! Flashback: I pulled a letter out of the university post box. “Jim Aubrey is gonna die!” Yeah, really…tell me another fact of life, Professor! And it was signed by the then-serving prime minister! Well, signed by somebody saying they were the PM. A week later, another — “yer gonna die, Aubrey. Gutted like a pig!” — and signed by the then-serving foreign affairs minister, or so it said. A change in government made no difference at all to the mail delivery. “JIM AUBREY – I’M GONNA KILL YOU!” There was an additional description about a particular part of my anatomy, wholly inaccurate, believe me…it won’t fit in my mouth! Well, maybe on a bleak freezing mid-winter morning in Ballarat…next to the iceberg lake! However, I digress… I never told anyone about the death threats…several over the space of a year. Several more the following year, and the year after that. A time when I was up to my eyebrows in no blood for oil and so forth and lobbying in London and Washington DC and being a proverbial pain in the arse for Canberra’s resourceful international relations constabulary. Easy way to apply pressure – identify possible complications, like “murder”…my murder! So, one day in 1998 I was in the turf warrens in Canberra Central and the PM happened to pass by and I casually said: “Johnny…mate, would yer mind telling Alex Lapdog the death threats are a waste of time. Be much simpler to meet me in the underground carpark’s darkest corner for a kiss- and-cuddle.” He started with that manic head thing…random compulsive wobbling while spreading hands in a preconfigured talkback gesture applied to every sentence of speech across his entire godforsaken life. “If I can’t stop him cross dressing, how do you expect me to succeed with a degenerate —” One of half-a-dozen advisors surrounding the PM coughed loudly and, even though my hearing is not the best, it really sounded like the PM had ended his head-banging convulsion with — “… fuck- schmuck like you?” In entirety: “… how do you expect me to succeed with a degenerate fuck- schmuck like you?” It kept echoing in my brain the whole afternoon “fuck-schmuck like you” “fuck- schmuck like you” “fuck-schmuck like you”. Last weekend an aggro dog, one of the danger breeds, was loose in the street. Unaware that also loose in the same street was Maori Man with an Axe, a normally calm, meditative chamomile tea fella with an apparent short fuse for idiot neighbours with roaming danger-breed dogs. “I’ll fuckin’ kill it next time you let it lose! You fuckin’ hear!” Maori Man with an Axe 1, Idiot Neighbour & Danger Dog 0. Type of sensitive diplomacy I could have used for my reply to the WTF PM: “I’ll fuckin’ kill that sicko bastard next time you let him lose! You fuckin’ hear! Sharpening me fuckin’ axe now! And I’ll fuck- schmuck you! And that Jack Russell you rode in on!” Five-year-old Tiny the Tomato from the neighbourhood centre is the local drug dealer’s son. Specializes in newly fashionable iICE for schoolies. Note: don’t call him Tiny the Tomato in front of Dad — reaction: “I’ll fuckin’ kill you, kill yer mother, kill yer brother, kill yer fuckin’ sisters, kill yer fuckin’ cats and dogs!!!!” “Can I have another kilo of iICE, mate?” “Oh sure, mate…all sweet, this’ll kill yer anyways! And if I get collared, I’ll play the system, you know, abused as a little fella, buggered by several brooding uncles every Christmas and birthday etc- etc-etc!” “Whoa, way too heavy. Stressing me out, mate.” “Yeah, stress … picked up disability for stress, mate…selling drugs is very fuckin’ stressful! The fuckin’ clientele…fuckin’ lowlife…can’t trust a single fuckin’ one of ‘em, except you, mate! You’re okay, but I’m still gonna fuckin’ kill yer!!!” Very easy for some cultures and some people to kill. Too easy. Says everything about them. Other cultures, other people…nah, mate, go right ahead, kill off the hopes and dreams of our entire youth with drugs and alcohol and spiralling unaffordable housing and accommodation. We’ll even put yer on a nice little disability pension for doing it, matey (just a tad different to lifetime super for politicians). While we’re at it, we’ll kill off whatever’s left of our natural environment with new bigger-than-Sydney- Harbour coal mines and we’ll overpopulate the urban jungle just to show we can achieve major fuck-ups like anybody else. After all, this is the driest continent on planet earth! Whatever we haven’t fucked we’ll frack! Whatever we haven’t fracked we’ll fuck! And for collective anxiety therapy — especially in the middle of my next yoga class — you guessed it: “I’m gonna KILL YOU! I’m gonna KILL YOU! I’m gonna KILL-KILL-FUCKING- KILL YOU-OU-OU!!!”

x&x “Cut Snake” alter-ego fiction requires a seat belt, a mouth guard and half a dozen lucky charms. The following stories are not suitable for children. • Death Threat Valley 2018 • Excellentiousness 2004