I kept only one magazine from October 2006 -- the month I quit drinking -- and this was it

MRM to retire

Musings, Ramblings, Mumbings today goes to Bloggy Heaven.

Conceptually, the blog never worked. This is a medium that, at its best, provides instanenous and authentic insight, news and opinion in ways that the mainstream press is unable (see dailykos.com as an example of what I mean). At their worst, blogs are just vanity projects, inane, self-important and flatulent. MRM Central decidedly fell in the latter category, for all that it contained the occasionally well-formed sentence.

For that reason, I bid my small and never-expanding readership a fond farewell. Since I know most of you by name, and am related by blood to a large proportion of you, it is hardly Sayonara.

Sickness Irks

Back when I was a chain-smoking alchoholic for whom the closest thing to exercise was occasional and half-hearted masturbation, I couldn't really get angry about getting sick. Flimsy as it may have been at the time, my self-knowledge was sufficient that I understood that a cold or flu was the least I could expect given my death-defying lifestyle.

Now that I am a non-smoking, non-drinking, daily working-out, just-lost-12kg paragon of human health, then getting a humdinger of a flu a'la RIGHT NOW is very, very annoying. It is Jana Pittman annoying.

Nick Lyon's Powerhouse Retort to My Retirement Musings

Check this out from an old friend in reponse to my Bangkok Fever Post where I pondered hanging up my keyboard:

Phil

You’ve been in New York! New York! Crumbs man! Bill’s was growing horns while Hillary was hocking the family Halliburton stock to stay the game, Obama ‘The Hope’ was out now and appears to be heading for The Office, National Sorry Day unfolds with theatrics on a plate[PQ - this was a big miss], cats started kissing dogs, and where’s Musings? The silence was unbearable. Where? Swanning about in the eye of it all, having a crisis of confidence about whether or not to blog!

Whilst Musing’s occasional disappearing acts are definitely part of both its charm and a great source of material upon your return, the timing on this one hasn’t suited me, or I suspect, other Musings devotees at all. Whilst the race for Presidency unfolded, we discover after weeks of (una)Musing silence, that you’ve been phaffing about taking wheelchair rides in Bangkok twirling thumbs over whom to flog your next recovery piece to [PQ - my 'next recovery piece'? - you make me sound like an industry! I have published a total of ONE piece on recovery]. Musers have been adrift, adrift I tell you, doggy-paddling furiously in the high-seas of recent events without the smug intellectual boutique confidence afforded by our Musing’s water-wings [smug intellectual boutique finally gives the genre a name - well done].

So here’s some feedback.

In 2008 Musings is not only published in real-time, but also recycled. Your readers shamelessly flog your daily opinions as their own around water-coolers, hopelessly chic Sydney restaurant tables and (with highly-affected poise) from the darker corners of their Notting Hill members bars [great sentence]. The problem is that now there’s an expectation that Musers will ALWAYS be IMMEDIATELY armed with perspicacious insight and witticism regarding the events-du-jour. So whilst you’re sucking down Shirley Temples on unscheduled leave in the Big Apple [ha ha], LOYAL Musers, stark naked for an opinion when it's most expected from them, are avoiding their water coolers, excusing themselves from their restaurant tables and retreating into the dark corners of their members bars, only to be spotted as stressed faces lit pale blue by the glow from their Blackberrys nervously thumbing for a new Musing posting. In short, passing your material off as our own has raised an expectation amongst our contemporaries; disappear for 3 weeks and you hang us out to dry.

Personally I can think of few peoples opinions of New York I’d rather read than yours. As Musers we subscribe and visit your blog because we SEEK your opinions on whatever is crossing your bows. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t visit, so where’s your risk of inflicting anything unwanted? Your pieces possess the rarest cache of qualities; wit, alacrity, elegance and an enviable (Quin-esce) brevity-of-phase that seems to arrive online with a speed that’s suggests you find this level of quality effortless. More importantly, if PQ’s words cease to be written they’re most likely to be replaced by someone of a poorer quality. You’re heading t’ward the top of your game, get on with it man.

Thanks for the last year’ s blogging… wonderful, wonderful work old friend.

Nick Lyon

P.S. Involuntarily blew snot all over my keyboard in fierce spasm of laughter when reading the ‘You’re a Looney’ post.

Touché, touché and touché again.

No, You Weren't Mistaken - that was the voice of the fat lady singing

Very quick note on the US Presidential race for those readers who rely somewhat on MRM to keep abreast.

Hillary is finished. Obama will be the Democratic candidate for President. The media is serving its own lust for a competitive contest narrative by pretending Hillary has a chance, but she doesn't. Here's why.

The Democratic candidate is elected by a combination of two kinds of delegates that attend the nominating convention: pledged delegates (two-thirds) and super-delegates (one-thirds). Pledged delegates are elected in the fifty primary and caucus elections that we have been witnessing in recent weeks. Super delegates are not elected at all; they are party officials, elected representatives, governors, Senators, etc. They are the party "big-wigs" who act as insurance in the event that the democratic process is indecisive or throws up an untenable outcome.

Hillary cannot overtake Obama on pledged delegates - his lead is around 150 and to claw that back, she would need to win every upcoming contest by 20 plus points. There is a candidate in the race consistently winning by those margins, but it isn't Hillary. She may win Ohio next Tuesday and may even scrape through in Texas (although Obama is finishing very strongly there), but the idea that she is going to rack up huge net delegate gains belongs in the realm of fantasy. Obama will remain ahead by roughly the same margin.

The only strategy left standing is for Hillary to rely on the unelected super-delegates to usurp the will of the people and swing their votes behind her. If this were to occur, I wouldn't be a shopfront in Chicago for all the tea in China. If a flatulent concoction of cigar-chomping apparatchiks wielded their numbers to snuff out an Obama candidacy, riots and party disintegration would follow as night does day. The fact is that super-delegates are politicians in their own right and, whomever their first preference, are not likely to compromise their own standing by becoming party to anti-democratic manoeuvring. The super-delegates will follow the votes of rank and file Democrats and elect Obama.

There is one other wrinkle that needs mentioning, and it relates to Michigan and Florida. Both these states timed their primary contests to occur earlier in the process than the Democratic Party found acceptable. As a result, all candidates agreed to boycott the states (i.e. not campaign there) and to the principle the delegates elected would have no vote at the Convention. In the case of Michigan, only Hillary had her name printed on the ballot. This seems fairly straight-forward -- but Hillary's people now need the Michigan/Florida votes and have obscenely contorted themselves to make the case for their inclusion. It is a despicable and desperate act of doublespeak that, thankfully, is being treated as such by pretty much anyone who isn't on Hillary's payroll.

So, my fellow non-Americans, forget the hoopla about Ohio and Texas. Obama has this thing won.

Airport Wheelchair Action

My magical New York adventure is over. Sadly, I developed a fever on the last day and the flight back so far has been a complete nightmare. I was met in Bangkok (I am flying Thai Airways) by a wheelchair attendant who took me to the airport medical centre where they gave me drugs in rock star quantities. I feel somewhat better, although the final leg remains daunting.

I didn't post in NYC because I felt it would be the cyber-equivalent of forcing your neighbours to watch your holiday slide show. A friend of mine also made the point in passing about the fundamental narcissism of blogging, something that gave me pause. "How funny," she said, "that people think their opinions about stuff deserve publication" - words not directed at me, mind you, but pertinent nonetheless. This negativity could be the fever talking.

I plan to work on an essay entitled "The Unexpected Pleasures of Sober Travel" over the coming days - I guess the Canberra Times again? Any other ideas for publishing vehicles would be gratefully recieved.

Prediction

I think disappointment beckons for us Obamaniacs. He didn't have enough time to ride the South Carolina wave into 22 states in a week. Momentum was his - and the Kennedy stuff was magic - but the obstables he confronted are too great -- white women, Hispanics, southern men, to name a few. He will fall short of expectations on Super Tuesday and Clinton will move into presumptive frontrunner status, a perch from which its hard to fall.

And my heart - and millions of similar hearts - will be broken.