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Co NTEN TS 4

Black Caviar 6. Hungry Kids of Hungary 10. Music Reviews 14. MANTRA 16. Betting Culture 22. Global Warming 24. Frankie Fresco 28.

36. Spring Racing Fashion 40. Film Reviews 42. Boobs on Screen 46. Thinspiration 48. Carnival Controversy 50. American Psycho 52. Bullseye

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black caviar S

o you’ve heard the name ‘Black Caviar’ and you know that she’s a famous racehorse, but that’s about it right?

Thanks to social media, evidence of Black Caviar’s popularity has accumulated online. She now has over 47,000 likes on Facebook and more than 36,000 followers on Twitter. Quite a lovable creature she is. However, even though she has created an overwhelming stir on and offline, truth be told, all people really know is that she’s simply a racehorse. To be honest, I believe that she deserves a little more credit than that! Did you know that Black Caviar has never won the Melbourne Cup? Do you want to know why? FACT 1: Because she is a sprinter and typically runs races that are up to 1,200 metres. The Melbourne Cup is 3,200 metres, and therefore well outside her range. 6

So then why is there such a fuss about Black Caviar, besides her extremely good looks? FACT 2: Black Caviar is Australia’s most successful racehorse ever. In four years, she has been in 25 races and won them all. She not only holds the record for Australia, but also the entire world. To give you a realistic idea of what this means, the next horse in line to that record sits at only nine winning races. So, where is she from? More importantly, why the name? FACT 3: Black Caviar was born and bred in Victoria on August 18, 2006. Both her parents were Victorian and all three of her jockeys are Victorian. Her trainer is Victorian and the majority of her owners are Victorian. She was bottle fed as a foal. Since then, she has grown up to 16.2 hands and weighs in at 590kgs.

One of her owners, Pam Hawkes, from the Mornington Peninsula, had an acquired taste for caviar. So, she decided to call the horse accordingly. This also explains Black Caviar’s colours, which are black spots (representing caviar) on salmon.

Flemington track, winning her race by five lengths. This was in 2009. Back then, book makers were offering a generous $3. By then, the cutie had established a name around the stables for herself and was known as ‘Nelly’.

RANDOM FACT: She has an egg in her feed everyday.

RANDOM FACT: She loves the beach and swimming.

Black Caviar was already an expensive horse well and truly before her winning days began.

She then went on to her three-year-old season (2010-2011) with more continuous wins of four lengths. Unfortunately, it was at this moment that her career almost came to an end. She had a stumble at the Danehill Stakes, Flemington. She recovered quickly, to then injure her leg, which unfortunately put her out for the rest of the season.

FACT 4: Black Caviar was sold at the 2008 Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale for $210,000 to her current trainer Peter Moody. Moody syndicated her to a group of friends from Sydney and Melbourne, who agreed to buy the filly during their annual houseboat cruise on the Murray River in 2008. As you do! Black Caviar started racing at the very young age of two (2008-2009) and owned it out on the

Her four-year-old season (2010-2011) was the turning point in her career. After bouncing back from her injuries, she finally entered Group One racing. After competing in Group One and beating a favourite ‘Hay List’ by two lengths at > 7

the Brisbane Doomben event, she attracted a crowd of 20,000 people, and then began to create a stir. This pulled her through to the Australian Spring, where she was soon to be voted as horse of the year in front of ‘So You Think’. FACT 5: She won 15 Group One races topping a speed of 72kms per hour, beating the all-time record of ‘Kingston Town’. Her five-year-old season was off to a great start when she won the second Schillaci Stakes by four lengths. With this victory, she equalled Phar Lap’s record of 14 straight wins. From there she was on a winning streak, and became unbeatable. In June 2012, she was sent overseas for the first time for the Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot, in Great Britain. On the 30-hour flight, she wore a specially made compression suit, to keep her blood circulating (it’s worth a Google image search). This race attracted a crowd of 80,000 people and was broadcasted live from Melbourne’s Fed Square. FACT 6: Three jockeys have won on Black Caviar – Luke Nolen (22 wins), Jarrod Noske (2 wins), and Ben Melham. Black Caviar won the day of the Jubilee Cup, with jockey Luke Nolen on her back. However, it was only by a head against ‘Moonlight Cloud’. Moody at the time was disappointed by the win, as he expected her to flourish. After the race, immediate tests were done that resulted in a grade-four tear of the quadriceps and a grade-two tear of the sacroiliac during the race. Nolan said that he could feel a shift in the horse during the race and didn’t want to push her anymore. It was then decided that she would not race Spring Carnival that year. However, she was named ‘European Champion Sprinter’ in November 2012. 8

RANDOM FACT: AFL star Dale Thomas lost a bet with part-owner David Taylor that Black Caviar wouldn’t win 20 straight. He now has an image of the mare tattooed on his backside. In Caviar’s six-year-old season, she stretched her unbeaten run through to 24. On 13 April 2013, Black Caviar won the 2013 TJ Smith Stakes. It was the mare’s 25th consecutive win, breaking the record for winning the most races in Group One. She was ranked number one of thoroughbreds in the world. FACT 7: Her 25 wins were achieved on seven different tracks. After her 25th race and at her peak, she retired. So why did Black Caviar retire at her peak? After winning her 25th race over 1,200 metres, Peter Moody said that she had given her 110%, and although she pulled up with some ‘aches and pains’, as described by Moody, she was at the peak of her powers. Having conquered Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, as well as Royal Ascot, her owners and trainers came to a difficult decision that enough was enough. They felt as though 25 was a good number. RANDOM FACT: Her winning streak stretched for 1,456 days and in that time she earnt $318,253.43 per race, which was $4,758.69 per second! Crazy! So where is Black Caviar now that she has retired? Fortunately, as a mare Black Caviar will head to the breeding barn, to mate with a stallion. As a six-year-old horse, provided that she does not have any fertility problems, she may be able to breed up to 15 foals. There is huge anticipation around this.

With trainer Peter Moody. Photo: Herald Sun

Funnily enough, horse racing is just as much about the breeding side of things as it is on the track. Black Caviar already has a line of talented half-brothers and half-sisters. Her half-brother ‘All Too Hard’ is currently considered one of the finest colts in Australia, while she has a half-sister named ‘Belle Couture’ who is still unraced. So keep an eye out for these names! Black Caviar has been a true highlight to horse racing during recent years and has created some unforgettable moments to all horse racing lovers of the world. > Sarah Long 9

Hungry Kids of Hungary

Indie-pop band Hungry Kids of Hungary are starting to make some solid footprints in the Australian music scene. They have returned in full force, touring the country with their brand new album You’re a Shadow. We managed to score some time to chat.

ungry Kids of Hungary, welcome to the web pages of Blaire, we appreciate the time. How’s the lovely city of Brisvegas?

At the moment it is picturesque. The weather is perfect and it’s really nice to see all of the flowers and trees in bloom. Diggin’ it. You guys have had a big year so far! You released an album, toured, and have been booked for Falls Festival. From what I’ve heard you guys are pretty laid back, how are you all handling the business? It has been a busy year but it hasn’t felt busy strangely enough. It’s different for each band member; we all have varying levels of outside commitments whether it be jobs, mortgages, recording other projects etc. It’s important to keep the music side of things fun and loose. Playing music is a good way to escape the day-to-day grind. One of our favourite things when talking to bands is definitely the tour stories. You guys toured not long ago, do you have any stories to tell? I’d have to say that the most exciting moment of the last tour consisted of Kane managing to walk

on an empty keg for at least 4 seconds while we were playing Big Game Hunter in Ballarat. Your Melbourne show was an absolute knockout, were there any standout venues that you played at? Or did you have any crazy fans try and get up on stage with you? Thanks, Melbourne is always such a treat for us. Newcastle was probably the standout for the previous tour. We played at the Small Ballroom, which happened to be connected to a venue hosting an array of cross-dressing karaoke superstars. No one attempted to raid the stage but there was a blown up condom in the crowd for the majority of the set. It was a very sexually charged evening, it was crazy and the karaoke ladies looked wonderful. All of these things made for a good show. You’re A Shadow was Triple J’s Feature Album the week it was released and it’s already spawned a couple of very well-received singles. The film clip for ‘Do Or Die’ sure does have a shitload of fireworks in it! Was that the most fun night any group of lads can have? Dean almost shot Ryan in the face! It was a lot of fun but it was extremely cold. When we arrived, we saw a surfer dude out in the ocean. We were wearing at least three layers of clothing and there was a guy out there catching waves on one > 11

of the most depressing beaches I’ve ever visited, I couldn’t believe it. Is there anyone that you’re super excited to play with at Falls Festival?

To name a few; Led Zeppelin, Smashing Pumpkins, Stone Temple Pilots, Dirty Projectors, St. Vincent, Pantera, Talking Heads, the Doors, Dr. Dog, The Beach Boys, The Beatles & the Frogs. If you had the chance, name a musical act you would erase from time?

Seeing Violent Femmes for the first time will be a major life-event for me. The Roots will also be a lot of fun. I’m really looking forward to the festivities. I would have to say Murray Head purely because of my extreme hate of ‘One Night in Bangkok.’ Playing music for a living really is a dream job. What’s the best bit about it? If Hungry Kids of Hungary was a fruit, what would it be and why? Just getting out there, playing music with your friends and travelling. Oh, and buying new gear. I think we’d make a good watermelon. I’m saying this purely because I ate watermelon the other day And the worst? when it was boiling hot and it cooled me down. I would like to have that effect on our listeners. For me it’s being a financial burden on my loved ones. It’s hard to make any kind of living from Any advice for budding musicians? music and you need a lot of support. You have to be tough and sometimes it’s a lot to deal with but Stick at it. Keep making music until you make at the end of the day the positives far out way the something good and strive to better your previous negatives. efforts constantly. I tend to find most bands have activities that often become very competitive. Do you guys fire up over something? No not really. Deciding what to listen to in the tour van can sometimes be intense but that’s mainly because we’re all very passionate about our jams and mix tapes.

So what does 2014 hold for you guys? We’re going to focus strongly on writing and recording but we’ll try to see you again soon. Last word from Hungry Kids Of Hungary? Spaghetti.

If you guys could change the world in one way, what would it be? We would bring Dimebag Darrell back from the dead and reunite Pantera. This would then bring about world peace somehow. Is there a band, or a couple of bands that you guys nerd over? 12

> Benny Thompson

Music London Grammar If You Wait London Grammar’s release of their debut album If You Wait sure made everyone extremely happy to have waited. What amazing stuff! Their number one debut single ‘Hey Now’ absolutely knocked my socks off. ‘Hey Now’ Is a true encapsulation of London Grammar’s sound. It begins with frostbitten chords, which are soon joined by guitars. Imagine The XX infused with the soft vocals of Hannah Reid. They have really nailed this one on the head! Don’t get me wrong; her soft vocals also demonstrate an element of power and clarity throughout her tunes as well. The other tracks that I recommend you feast your ears on are ‘Strong’, It is probably the deepest ‘stab you in the heart and eat your soul’ track that I have personally heard. And of course, ‘Wasting my young years’. Get ready for some serious Goosebumps.

The Naked and Famous In Rolling Waves I have always been a fan of The Naked and Famous. Their tunes are happy. And I like happy. It works for me, especially on a sunny afternoon whilst sipping on beverages in your backyard. This is a great summer album to get your little hands around! So, In Rolling Waves is their now second album which has just been launched. The sound is an epic swirl of synth-pop revival and arena-rock hooks that keeps crashing through your speakers until you have completely immersed yourself. I must confess, this sort of 80’s new-post-rock music is pretty damn good. The sound is crisp and is very powerful. This is a BIG call, but I reckon this band might be the best in its genre out there. They’re great on stage and in studio! 14

Chvrches The Bones of What You Believe WOW! Okay so I have never been a listener of their stuff. In fact I actually didn’t know that they even existed until I listened to their debut album The Bones of What You Believe. Initially, Chvches appear to be pedaling precisely the sort of saturated indie-pop that seems to gain so much attraction amongst us kids these days, however if you bother to read the title of the album and take into account the names of the songs, you will actually realise that this album is about the pain of isolation and detachment. The great thing about it though, is that the upbeat indie-pop tunes disguise the true meaning behind a lot of their songs. If you’re a fan of Passion Pit, then you’ll know what I’m talking about. Look out for their first released song off the album ‘The Mother We Share’ along with ‘Recover’ and ‘Night Sky’.

Jungle Giants Learn To Exist Kudos to this aussie band for spending the last two and a half years putting hard work into releasing two EPs, playing countless club shows, and kicking arse on festival stages all around Australia. Now they’ve topped it all off with a clean finish to 2013, by producing their debut album, Learn To Exist. Put your hands together for Jungle Giants. Repp’n Australian music in style. Recorded in their hometown of Brisbane, the album is predominantly written by front man Sam Hales. This is an album the marks the beginning of a new adventure for the band. Feast your ears on ‘Come And Be Alone With Me’. His vocals are incred. And ‘A Pair Of Lovers’, this is when you begin to hear them break into their own mould. > Sarah Long 15

POSITIVE AND PROGRESSIVE HIP-HOP 16

MANTRA With two albums under his belt and a tour underway, you’re an idiot not to keep your eye on Mantra. Benny Thompson had a chance to catch up with the popular rapper at a Melbourne show.

irst off, congrats on the really big accolades, Telling Scenes has debuted at number one on the AIR independent charts, number three on the Australian Album chart, and number one on the Urban chart, you’ve got to be feeling pretty good about that? Yeah dude, we’re totally stoked. I was saying to someone recently I kind of go into these sorts of situations without expectations, you know? The higher your expectations are, the easier it is to be disappointed, and you can often do yourself an injustice that way. I just wanted to give people the best album I could. So yeah, when that response came back and we saw just how good the week had been, we were blown away, and really, really, really happy. Does it feel nice getting so much credit from the music industry, with people like Rolling Stone saying it’s one of the biggest hip hop albums of the year, or do you wait to see the response from the fans and let that be the gauge on how well you’ve done? Yeah, the accolades from the industry are always very much appreciated, and obviously when someone like Rolling Stone vouches for you and says the things that they did there is an enormous sense of pride. Or when artists you admire pick you out as one of their favourites, these are things that definitely feel great, you know? But I think you’ve definitely got to take all those things with a grain of salt and not let them dictate how you feel > 17

about your own music. As you say, it’s the fans that are the most important, because if you’re not reaching those people then you’re kind of missing the purpose. So industry stuff is obviously great, and makes you feel really really good, but for me the real measure is standing on stage and looking down and seeing someone rapping the lyrics to your songs, or when you meet someone after the show and they tell you of an experience with your music that might have helped them out in their life, that immediate impact from the people, listening and connecting with you, that’s the mark right there. That’s awesome man. ‘Break Tradition’ is the single out at the moment, and it’s a bit different from ‘Loudmouth’, the first single. It brings a bit more of a serious vibe, and it’s obviously a track you’ve invested yourself into. I put a lot of thought and care into writing the song, yeah. And it is totally different from ‘Loudmouth’, because there is a much darker tone to it, and a much more serious message. But it’s also very different because ‘Loudmouth’ is speaking directly on behalf of myself, and talking about how I’d grown up, where as in ‘Break Tradition’, I’m kind of talking about other people’s stories. I was a bit apprehensive ‘cause whenever you do something like that, you’ve got to make sure you’re not insensitive to anyone’s situation. And you want to make sure that the message doesn’t come off contrived or preachy or not genuine in any way. So I was careful of that, but the song was inspired by stories I’ve heard from some of the young people I work with. It’s a really common story, that instilled sense of aggression, and that cycle of violent behaviour that never really gets broken. It’s something I’ve wanted to speak about for a long time, and a felt like now was the time to do it. The film clip is amazing as well dude, I really liked the use of dance, which is something I 18

don’t say about many film clips. It conveyed the message really well and obviously the director has put a lot of themself in it too. Yeah, Claudia, the director, did an amazing job. She really had the vision and we worked on that story together. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to include, I knew I wanted some abstract elements, contemporary dance or something along those lines, so I came to her with a few basic ideas. She had a few really good ideas herself, and we sat down and just did it. She has a great eye for aesthetics and knew a bunch of the shots she wanted. It is a very aesthetically beautiful film clip. The backdrop of the story is you building this epic, artistic kind of puzzle or sculpture. How much time did you guys put into that? Dude, couldn’t have done that without Claudia and the amazing team that worked on that for ages. That whole thing is meant to represent a Mandala. A Mandala being a traditional artwork which actually represents a mantra. That’s meta as shit dude. Yeah totally! It’s really fitting. But the reason we wanted to do that is it’s like a traditional, repetitious art form, and the point of a Mandala is it’s created by repetition, which is exactly what we’re talking about in the song. And when someone is done creating a Mandala they sort of destroy it and get rid of it. Not in a violent or an aggressive way, but to give themselves a chance to start again. So that was a metaphor for the whole song and breaking that tradition. I know social justice and youth work are both passions of yours, and I know you also like to bring a lot of those topics to your music. What is one of the bigger issues that you think Australian youth face? >

Family abuse and domestic violence is definitely one that I thought was kind of invisible and I know Family abuse and domestic violence is definitely one that I thought was kind of invisible and I know that before I started working with young people it was something I was pretty unaware of. It was a big, eye-opening experience just to see how hard some kids had it. I live in Melbourne and most of the people you see out and about are reasonably well off, everyone’s got what they need, everyone’s paying rent, everyone’s eating, and so it’s really easy to be blind to the people who are struggling and doing it hard. I think there’s lots of issues that are due to be raised, especially with young people, and so I definitely think it is up to artists and individuals to raise issues that they think are important.

Nice man. Alright, a couple of quick-fire questions. If you could have a superpower what would it be?

Sounds like a call to arms! Okay, let’s lighten the tone a little bit. What’s the best bit about doing music for a living?

If you could play with any three musical acts from history who would they be?

I can only speak on behalf of myself, but it’s kind of the only thing I’ve ever really been good at, and secondly, it’s the thing that I enjoy doing most in the whole world, so even though doing it for a living can be tough, and you’ve got to work your arse off every day, and even though most of it has nothing to do with music, I do all that work happily because I know there’s nothing I’d rather be doing. What do you get up to in your spare time man? Shit dude, I don’t even remember what spare time looks like [laughs]. I love movies, I love books, I’ve been trying to read a lot in my spare time, trying to get around to some classics I’ve never read. I’ve been doing lots of other writing recently too, writing stuff outside of music, stories, poems and the like, just for myself, just for fun. And hanging out with my people. Tours and stuff make it hard for you to see people whenever you want, so whenever possible I try to maintain those friendships. 20

Fuck! Shit, I don’t know man. Actually, teleportation. That would be amazing. I agree man. Flying would be cool, but I couldn’t say no to just like ‘click’ and I’m in Barcelona. Or if you forgot your keys, or got busted in a smoke spot, boom, gone. Exactly dude! The list of benefits goes on and on! We’re killing this man! [laughs]

Otis Redding would definitely be number one. Then I reckon Notorious B.I.G, that would be amazing. And I’d have to say Led Zeppelin. Dude, that would be a fucking awesome show to see! Imagine if we formed a super group! Shit, that would be the best! If you could erase a musical act from time, who would it be? That is a brutal question! Absolutely brutal, and it would definitely have to be Michael Buble. Okay dude, before we wrap it up, touring around with dudes like Grey Ghost and Seth Sentry, you must have a couple of pretty good tour stories? One of the more interesting moments was when we played at this venue in Bendigo. They’d just finished refurnishing the place and when we got there they were literally still painting and stocking

the bar and everyone was crazy stressed out there cause they had so much to do. It was this massive band room, but it was sort of divided down the middle by a curtain, and they were running the two sides of the room as two different venues. So there’s us on one side; a show full of rowdy hip-hop heads and on the other side happened to be Bendigo’s biggest gay night. Like a raging hardout gay-club, and it was going off too! Techno club beats, dancing, sweating. And we had to walk through both of these “venues” to get to our dressing room. We walk through our side and we get bombarded by these drunk hip-hop heads wanting to take photos and chat and that would take us a while, and then we’d get on the other side of the curtain and have to wade through this heaving dance floor of dudes just going absolutely mental. But what’s awesome was that there was a balcony smoking area that was for both venues, but it was divided down the middle so you couldn’t just jump between venues, and all the rowdy hiphop heads are on one side, and all the dudes from

the gay night were on the other, and they all just kind of got along really well. They had like mad conversations and were laughing, chatting, smoking cigarettes. I came outside and I was like, ‘this is a beautiful thing!’ So that was one of the more surreal nights of the tour, for sure. Music, always bringing people together! Nice one man! It’s been wicked talking to you dude, we appreciate the time. Before you go, Last word from Mantra? I’ve been thinking about this recently, people often comment negatively on the state of music, especially hip hop and think their reasons for doing so are sometimes quite valid, but I think there’s always enough good music out there to listen to, so please stop complaining about the bad music and go make some good music yourself, or go buy an album of someone worth listening to who needs the money. > Benny Thompson

Fifty Each Way...

Australian betting culture

t wasn’t so long ago that you wouldn’t see or hear of betting options, except around Spring Carnival time. Nowadays, I can’t turn my TV on without having competing websites jostle for my hard-earned. Without a doubt, betting has gone too far in this country. As Australians, we are renowned for having a flutter every now and then. And you would be lying if you deny having used the term, ‘I bet you can’t’. But do I really need to bet on which government will win the next election? Or which word the newly born royal is going to speak first? Thankfully horse racing cannot be scrutinized to this extent. At the end of the day, one horse is going to cross the line first and be proclaimed the winner. Having said that, each website is trying to invent new ways to entice punters to their ‘fantastic deals’. Horses are not my preferred sport to bet on. How can anyone be sure that an animal isn’t going to wake up in the morning and decide this is the day it can’t really be bothered? Horses have no sense of occasion. They can’t grasp what is at stake. They can however be overawed by a screaming crowd and handle the situation with as much grace as Miley Cyrus at an awards show. In how many other sports can a favourite potentially miss the starting line at their equivalent of the grand final? As cynical as I may be, I’m always involved in a sweep of some kind. It does add excitement to a day which I potentially don’t appreciate as much as 22

the next diehard fan. But I think I have more fun on my $5 horse that I pulled out of a hat, than the guy next to me who has studied the form guide since breakfast and is carefully laying out half his weekly wage on a combination of scenarios. Trifectas, quinellas and exactas are just a few of the terms which you are going to need to familiarise yourself with before approaching a betting window. These ones, most of us have down pat. It is when we delve a little bit deeper into the exotics that it takes a little more thought. Stuck on two horses in the same race? Just remove one from the betting field and back the other with a slightly lower return. Think your dead certainty’s odds are too low? Pick its winning margin to the nearest length. Think Tom Waterhouse hasn’t inherited his mother’s knowledge of horses? Bet directly against his pick of the day. Got a headache yet? I wouldn’t blame you. This is a sport which can be decided in under a minute, even less if the horse has already decided when it woke up. The human factor is at its most minimal during those crucial seconds on the track, a jockey can only suggest so much to the horse. So what is the attraction? Naturally, with the unreliable nature of some of these horses, and the conditions they are up against, the odds are considerably higher. Instead of facing a $1.20 favourite against a $3

outsider like most sports, I can start with a $3 favourite and make my way up a $100 plus outsider. Combine this with limitations and multipliers I can refine my selection with and suddenly it’s a handy payout for my $10 wager. To be quite frank, there are very few racing enthusiasts in Australia. More people appreciate the day off, than those who are excited to see the winner of the Melbourne Cup. It’s just the way of sport, you can’t entice everyone. So is it really the race that stops a nation? Which brings us to why we do need betting to keep this race as popular as it has become. At the end of the day, people are going to care more about what is in their own pockets, rather than which international trainer has ‘stolen’ our cup for another year. More bets are placed on hunches, or what people have heard from others than actual research or prior knowledge. Fashion has always played a big role in the Melbourne Cup carnival, but recently the push has become more and more toward what people are wearing and which celebrity is where. All you have to do is watch the coverage on any Saturday afternoon from your couch. When the horses aren’t centre stage, the camera focuses on the commentary team or an interview with a celebrity, who has ducked out of their designated marquee. In recent years, fashion contests have been broadcast as well. How is this relevant? There’s no question that these are all highlights of what

organizers want the carnival to be remembered by. But how many people actually spend their first Tuesday of November walking on carpet and keeping out of the elements? Very few I’d suggest, as the vast majority are either not there, or outside on the grass, becoming more insightful with each beer or champagne they consume. These are the people who keep the Melbourne Cup carnival a success year after year. The Australians who brave the unpredictable Melbourne elements, who enjoy a cold beverage and having a punt on the horses. Luckily this majority spreads word of the fun. They don’t need any fancy broadcast like the fashion seems to. So who is the big winner on the day? Ultimately, the organisers and the state, with the popularity and revenue the day raises. But on the rung below them, I think everyone else finishes in a dead heat. Each aspect of the carnival relies on the other to survive. The majority needs the bookies to bet the bookie needs the high rollers to profit, and the high rollers need a majority to look down on and appreciate the roof above their heads. Has betting gone too far in Australian culture? Probably, but no one is forcing you to take your wallet out. As for me, I’ll be on my couch, with a fistful of horse names, trying to win a few dollars off my family. > Mitchell Pascoe 23

Global Warming

Since the very beginning of time, the human race has had a fascination with how the world is going to end. In recent years, it seems to have developed into an obsession. The dominant end-of-the-world theories originated from unified religious belief. We’ve all heard of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, or that the return of Jesus Christ would result in the end of times. Thanks to Roland Emmerich and John Cusack we’ve been lightly informed on the ancient Mayan prophesy (which was really just the Mayans getting tired of writing out a calendar already 2000 years past their existence) and even Joseph Smith of the Mormon religion predicted an apocalypse in the 1800’s. With the arrival of the new millennium, technology replaced God, and people all over the world were hiding in bunkers for fear that computers wouldn’t know what to do. Plenty are still waiting on that first robot to decide it’s too smart to be pushed around by us organic folk anymore. There are a few less-dominant theories such as the supervolcano exploding at any minute, stray meteors colliding with earth, the next ice age, or scientists getting too cocky with creating their own black holes. And of course, the itchy trigger-finger of a well-stocked world-leader. The list goes on. But it’s easy to joke about this stuff because these are either debunked or outrageous predictions. There is one theory however, that is slow moving, subtle and entirely our fault. It has everyone talking and some of us second-guessing our actions. Scientists call it the rising temperature of Earth’s atmosphere caused by an

increase in greenhouse gas emissions, but most of us prefer its haunting buzzword: global warming. Global warming differs in a few ways from all the other apocalypse theories. For instance, there is no set date for when the world is going to burst into flames and it certainly won’t look like any global disaster movie ever produced. It will be slow and constant, so much so that most of us won’t even know it’s happening for a very long time. But the main difference, and probably the scariest difference about global warming, is that it is already happening. If we continue our meat consuming, petrol-burning, oil-spilling and gasguzzling lifestyles, the planet will continue to heat up. So how is the globe doing at the moment? Well firstly, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently stated there is a 95 percent certainty that humans are responsible for climate change.

Should we still be worried? What we are responsible for is an increase in Carbon Dioxide levels to the highest point in 800,000 years, which heavily affects plant growth. Basically, higher CO2 levels decreases the amount of water that plants can absorb, thus affecting their growth rate. The oceans are getting warmer and rising because when water is heated, it expands. This puts coastal cities such as Venice at a greater risk of flooding and will affect the habitats of many sea creatures and destroy wetlands. As everyone knows, the polar ice-caps are melting. This happens naturally in summer every year, but with the rise in temperatures the ice caps aren’t gaining back what usually would in the winter. This, obviously, contributes to the temperature of the atmosphere and the rising sea levels. These are some of the major consequences of climate change, but to ask a more basic question, why is this

actually happening? Why do carbon emissions cause the planet to heat up? In case you didn’t see An Inconvenient Truth, or need a little refresher on the subject, our globe is warming because greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, water vapour and nitrous oxide for example) are heated up by the sunlight coming through the atmosphere. There is a popular misconception that our atmosphere just isn’t letting enough of these gases escape into space, but the reality is that the emissions are distributed evenly through the atmosphere and rays of sunlight warm the molecules in these emissions, thus heating up the atmosphere, which is then warming our planet overall. The more of these emissions we release into the atmosphere, the faster the atmosphere heats up. A very simple process is causing some complicated problems. Despite all this scientific evidence and research proving that global warming is not just a theory, there are still plenty of naysayers who believe everything is just fine. Interestingly, climate change deniers might now have something to back up their disbelief. That something is simply referred to as a “pause” in global warming. There has been a significant growth in the arctic ice shelf this year instead of a decrease as was predicted. In fact, the arctic ice-sheet grew by 533,000 square miles from 2012 – 2013. Furthermore, temperature rise has slowed > 25

plateaued, some say, since 1998. Suddenly claims are being made about how scientists have been wrong, that their predictions are way off. Does this mean this mean the globe is cooling down? Does it mean we have nothing to worry about? Quite simply, no it does not. As mentioned earlier, there are periods in which the earth cools down, allowing growth of the ice shelf. The recent increase has been partly due to wind temperatures strengthening, pushing ice away from the frozen continent and allowing new ice shelfs to form. Also, a sudden freak-growth in the arctic shelf doesn’t account for the constant shrinkage over hundreds of years. As for the decrease in wind temperatures, this is something still being hotly disputed, but it’s important to note that by focusing on the temperature of the air, a huge amount of the planet’s temperature is being ignored: the ocean. As long as the sea continues to rise as it is, as long as CO2 emissions increase as they are, global warming will continue to happen. But as long as the earth exists, there will be sharp and often

surprising fluctuations in temperature and other natural phenomena. Perhaps a more sociological example can help explain the debate this “pause” has created. When global warming was first heavily being discussed, it was touted as the next apocalypse, as the end of life as we know it. Now, while still being a topic of discussion, panic has generally subsided. It seems that our reactions are as fluctuating as the natural phenomena of our planet. The most important point to take from the global warming issue is that it isn’t really the apocalypse. It’s a bad situation caused by the over-consumption of the human race. It’s going to disrupt natural habitats, bring some animal species closer to extinction and cause natural disasters. But the human race will always learn to adapt, especially if our planet is forcing us to.

> Tom Bensley

> Tom Morphett

Frankie

F r e s c o

Photography; for some it’s an occupation, for others, a means of recollection. For Frankie Fresco, it’s a measure and documentation of the world and it’s ever-inspiring beauty. Armed with a short black coffee, a packet of cigarettes and his Nikon at 2am, there’s no telling what groove the streets will come up with. In just five years Fresco has a built himself quite an impressive portfolio. He has shot in various locations, capturing the cultural essence of countries such as Greece, Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam among others. With works featured in both Vice and Beat magazine, he has also worked with some highprofile musicians and street-wear clothing labels. Fresco is not just photography and film, but a way of life and a vision. www.frankiefresco.com frankie@frankiefresco.com

Spring Racing Fashion Where's your head at? The racing carnival is all about the wonderful fashion moments and the upmost of them all is what your hat looks like. This year is all about the bold headwear choice and trust me, the bolder the better! Go for daring and bright, or an unusual shape. Do not be lured into a flimsy fascinator or pathetic veil they are boring and mind-numbing. Sorry, did I mention boring? You need WOW factor. This is one time of year when the most out there headwear will not make you look absolutely crazy. Don’t waste it.

David Jones

PLAYING TO WIN Technically, the racing carnival is a sporting pursuit. Which I’m all for if it means getting dressed up, having a day of drinking champagne and checking out cute boys in suits. You can still enjoy all of that, however, this year is all about embracing your sporty side, and I’m not talking about the horses. The sporty luxe trend has been massive this year and it is perfect for race day. Choose a dress with clean lines, asymmetrical tailoring and razor-sharp edges. Show off your shoulders with a racer-back top and that toned bod with cut out details. The key is to choose luxurious fabrics so you don’t look like you’re headed to the gym. And just in case you were wondering, skins are not appropriate. Camilla and Marc 36

Josh Goot

controversy There is nothing wrong with causing your own little controversy. All in the name of fashion of course! If you dare to be different, then opting for pants is 100% the way to go. The amount of choice is ridiculous; palazzo, harem, skinny, cropped, patterned, bold colour or textured. For a real adventure, team with a matching jacket to complete the look. You will stand out (in a good way) and be comfortable. What could be better than that?

Thurley

Camilla Frank

somewhere over the rainbow I’m going to keep this short and sweet. Wear bright colours. It’s that simple.

David Jones

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Only black and white at Derby Day Rule Guide Cup Day = modern and edgy Oaks Day is all about girly prints Easy and effortless at Stakes Day Dress like you’re off to a Rihanna concert with your grandma (ie. Ladylike and cool)

> Tory Price 37

he Spring Racing Carnival. To some men, it’s an excuse to have a certain day off of work in early November and sit in the shed. Some see it as their big break to make some guaranteed cash money down at the local TAB due to a hot tip. Either way it’s a good excuse to wear your Sunday best and have an enjoyable day off and get in the racing spirit!

Your everyday business attire won’t cut it when mingling in the race-day crowds if you want to stand out, so best to open up the wallet and splurge a bit, because nobody likes pinstripes. Try and stand out from the rest of the crowd. Most of us guys will tend to stick with what we know in the suit game; blacks and dark blues, but the man who stands out could take home the day’s big prize. A well-fitting brown or beige suit could work wonders for the man who’s willing to try, or even light navy-blues.

Moving onto possibly the 2nd most essential part of the outfit; the tie. Firsly, the tie is a necessity, and it also a necessity that it compliments the colours of your entire outfit. No Homer Simpson or keyboard specials here bros. Presuming you are going with a white shirt, which is what I’ll be doing, I would recommend a fine thread-count silk-tie of block colour, or small polka dots, which always compliments the jacket and shirt well.

Spring Racing Fashion Wearing separate colours is a worthwhile risk in my opinion, and looks great when paired properly. Navy jackets with cream pants, and grey jackets with black pants are a solid choice, and topped off with a nice tie, they always stand out while still looking very dapper.

Next up: accessories. Socks, cufflinks, tie clips, watches, sunglasses, pocket square/feather/ whatever you want to put in there, are all important; explorer socks don’t cut it. There are plenty of good colour and pattern schemed socks out there these days, so splash a bit more then the usual $5 and buy some nice ones that will compliment the shoes and pants well. Tie clips aren’t a necessity, but if inclined do so – go forth and prosper! Same goes for cufflinks.

And finally coming down to shoes, just make sure they’re clean and polished, no grog stains from a mates wild engagement party or anything. Just nice and simple, and you should be well on your way to securing the prized philly of the day!

> Dave Meadows 39

Riddick Stranded on an unknown hostile planet full of alien terrors and greedy mercenaries, Vin Diesel picks up the Riddick moniker on a second sequel that’s more reboot/remake than actual sequel, as a sort of apology for 2004’s Chronicles of Riddick. Acting much like its cult classic original Pitch Black, and foregoing much of the lore (aside from a cameo of Karl Urban reprising his role from Chronicles), Vin Diesel seems determined to sell Riddick as a true gritty sci-fi return to form, with the first third of this film dedicated to Riddick surviving alone on a hostile planet, in a near half hour without dialogue, which is easily the highlight. Aside from the terrible script, all too brief third-act, and some surprisingly blatant misogyny, Riddick is a damn entertaining film, with a surprising amount of depth into the alien world and its creatures.

Elysium As a follow-up to the absolutely stellar District 9, Neil Blomkamp knew it was impossible to meet the expectations. Elysium tells the story of Matt Damon representing the 99% as he attempts to infiltrate Elysium, a luxurious space station for the rich, in order to cure his cancer, armed with an exoskeleton which is pretty much a license to kick arse. Unfortunately, Elysium isn’t nearly as good as District 9, and in general, is a hugely disappointing film altogether. While some of Blomkamp’s direction and imaginative mind shines in some areas, it falls flat in other places, like the script and the action scenes. The action scenes are generally awful to watch due to Blomkamp’s use of an unbearable amount of shaky-cam. Fortunately, Sharlto Copley manages to rescue the film by pulling off a magnificent performance as the antagonist Kruger, armed with heavy weaponry, homicidal tendencies and a delightful South African accent. If anything, he makes the film salvageable. 40

Gravity On a narrative front, Alfonso Cuaron’s anticipated follow up to Children of Men is somewhat predictable and straightforward. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney play two astronauts stranded in space in a desperate attempt to come home after a catastrophic incident. However, on a technical level Gravity is absolutely astounding. A rollicking adventure that starts off with a magnificent 15-minute intro done entirely in one shot, the entire film is shot beautifully, acted amazingly, and is a huge achievement to the film industry. After Children of Men, Cuaron was clear that he wanted to explore experimental film techniques, and he does so with near perfection. Expect Gravity to sweep the Oscars on the cinematography front. The audio also has to be applauded for not only creating an accurate representation of sound of space (hint: there is none) but for an amazing score that terrifies and astounds, sometimes at the same time. Cuaron has created not only 2013’s best film, but the greatest space adventure since 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Film

The Lords of Salem Rob Zombie creates another divisive film that surprisingly shows an abundance of well-executed technique and respect for the horror genre. Unfortunately, he fails on nearly every other angle. Wife and collaborator Sheri Moon Zombie plays a disc jockey that becomes haunted by a coven of ancient witches in Salem when she plays a mysterious album. Zombie’s insistence on using his wife as the main character is the first fatal flaw: as Sheri Moon just doesn’t have the acting chops to pull it off. While the premise is original and intriguing, nothing comes of it, resulting in a climax that’s more laughable than scary. And lack of scares is Zombie’s next fatal flaw; it’s simply not scary at all. While containing some suspenseful scenes and horrific displays of demonology and violence, it’s more yawn-inducing than terrifying.

> Kevin He

Boobs on Screen: the desensitisation of nudity

here was a time when seeing nudity on our TV screens was completely out of the norm – never did we think we’d get the slightest peek at the nips of our fave TVshow crushes, let alone get to see them in all their full-frontal-tits-ass-bush-and-schlong glory. It was a thing that simply never really happened in mainstream television. The ratings system that we have on films and TV restrict and control who can and can’t see certain materials. For example, the employees of cinema chains and DVD stores enforce the guidelines to make it so that children can’t buy a ticket or a DVD copy of a film featuring content they shouldn’t see: violence, bad language, adult themes and nudity. Given that a feature film’s audience can be controlled, to an extent, the amount of them featuring sex scenes is enormous. In fact, the first film (a silent one) to feature a naked lead star was released in 1915 and the first mainstream actress to do a ‘nude scene’ was Jayne Mansfield in 1963 in the film Promises! Promises! So, since nudity has been such a big part of film for quite a long time, it’s never really been a huge shock seeing actresses like Charlize Theron, Angelina Jolie or Anne Hathaway showing their breasts off on the screen. The thing with television is that, to put it simply, it’s an open source – anyone with a remote, but without a valid ID card, can flick on the TV and get a peak at the goods of television’s finest – part of the reason why nudity in mainstream television was never really a common thing. However, in recent years, we’ve become more and more accustomed to seeing nudity on television. American cable TV stations like HBO and Show time are independent bodies and don’t have to abide by the traditional content and classification laws set by the FCC that apply to films and free-to-air TV. Shows such as The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, The Tudors, True Blood and Mad Men are some of the biggest shows in modern times and they’re not only known for their brilliant writing and filmmaking, but are just as well known for their full-frontal nudity and

extremely steamy sex-scenes where some of the sexiest stars on television have no qualms about getting their kit off on screen. The only platform we’ve never really been used to seeing nudity in is the music video clip. Sure, gratuitously sexy film clips for songs are a part of the norm – Madonna has done them forever, and in more recent times, artists like Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, Nikki Minaj, Pink and Rhianna have been known to produce stimulating clips which leave little to the imagination. But how often can you recall seeing one of your favourite artists in the buff? Just as it happened in television, it now seems that a new sexual revolution is beginning to emerge in the most family-friendly film type of all, with video clips to some of the most popular mainstream songs featuring uncensored nakedness. If I had to pick the clip that started the revolution, I’d put all my money on Robin Thicke’s alternate / explicit video to his song, Blurred Lines. Plenty has been written about this clip, and I’m sure by now you’re more familiar with the uncensored clip than you are with it’s clean version, so I’m not going to go into detail about the prancing chicks, bouncy boobs and absolute vulgarity of the clip itself. I remember the first time I saw the clip – my uncle showed it to me on his iPhone while we were out to dinner for my birthday – the less said about the Lee family, the better. My first reaction (after, ‘holy crap that chick’s boobs are amazing’) was, ‘holy crap… nudity in a mainstream clip?’ I was honestly shocked. I had a conversation with a friend soon after the video clip came out – she hated it and almost ripped my head off when I said I thought seeing a little nudity in video clips was a pretty cool move for the music industry (providing it wasn’t taken too far). One thing we did agree on though was, for better or worse, this was only the beginning. I said to her, ‘mark my words, as history has shown, with television and film, we’re going to begin seeing a lot more nudity in mainstream clips.’ > 43

It didn’t take long for the next naughty clips to come along after I predicted this shift in >music videos. Miley Cyrus’s We Can’t Stop clip was followed by a director’s cut, which was slightly more explicit than it’s safe-for-TV version. Although we never actually saw any real nudity (just a bunch of girls, including the once clean cut Miley, grinding their crotches on each other and slapping each other’s asses) she followed it up with her, now infamous, Wrecking Ball clip, where she sits, swinging on an industrial wrecking ball with absolutely no clothes on at all. Okay, so we don’t actually see her nipples or her vagina, but we see enough of those perky breasts to get a good idea of what’s hiding under those carefully placed arms of hers and we see enough crotch and thigh to know just what’s hiding behind that wrecking ball chain. Rhianna’s latest clip, for her song Pour it Up, is probably the dirtiest we’ve ever seen the Barbadian queen get on film. For a majority of it, she sits in a throne wearing barely anything but a fur jacket, some jewelry and a studded bra (if you could even call it a bra) that barely covers her nipples. For the remainder of the clip, Rhianna preaches to us that the only things that matter in life are ‘strip clubs and dollar bills’ as she acts like a stripper; pole dancing, rubbing her hands along her crotch,

spreading her legs and rubbing her vag against the back of the chair and dry humping the floor in nothing but a g-string that shows her booty bouncing up and down in extreme slow motion. This video clip borders on soft-core porn... hell, this video practically is soft-core porn. I think I know what young teenage boys without access to actual porn will be doing with this one. The one clip that has really shocked me though is the one for Ricki-Lee Coulter’s Come and Get in Trouble with Me, in which, in a bizzare career move, she sheds her innocent Aussie popstar image almost instantaneously by appearing topless (and at one point fully nude atop a horse). And this time, yes, we actually do see some nipple. Well, she’s covered in gold paint throughout, but it has to be said that even though she’s all coloured in, you’d have to be blind to not see those huge nips of hers – I mean, those things look like they could cut through a steel pipe. The point I’m trying to make is; even if we like it or not, and no matter what kind of messages it’s sending to the kiddies out there (I’m not going to get into that argument now), we’re becoming slowly desensitised to nudity in music video clips – and at a rapid pace. You may hate it, you may love it, you may not even give a shit, but it’s happening

and with each coming clip more and more things are becoming ‘appropriate.’ Blurred Lines, in my opinion, has given artists an excuse to get a little more sexual than usual. We can already see the artists getting more and more naughty, trying to out-do each other, breaking new barriers and doing things we never thought we’d see them doing. The unfortunate fact is that sex sells. Extremely talented artists, like Miley and Rhianna – both of whom, I think have two of the most amazing voices around – are selling their bodies by flaunting their breasts and bums instead of selling their music by flaunting their obvious talent. Although I am all for women feeling comfortable in their own skin and see a real beauty in a confident woman, and of course, have the utmost respect for the gorgeous naked female form, there’s a right way and reason and a wrong way and reason to show off what you’ve got. I’ll let you make up your own mind as to what’s right and what’s wrong, but I’m pretty sure we’ve all got the same idea. Who knows where sex in music videos will end up. Maybe it will stall, or maybe it will continue to get more and more shocking. I truly wouldn’t be surprised to, in the near future, see our favourite pop stars lying back, spread-eagled, grinding,

twirking, touching, playing and showing off everything they have to show, without the obstruction of arms or chains, just to prove that they’re ‘original’ and ‘groundbreaking’ and ‘controversial’ simply because they can. As Rhianna proves, this might not be as far off as we think.

> Dave Lee

#thinspiration

Are social media movements such as these damaging w

here was a girl at my primary school who suffered from some condition where she had trouble putting on weight. She was a tall, lanky girl and we all used to make jokes about using her as a skipping rope. For now, let’s just call her Lanky. When we got older, and began growing into all sorts of sizes and shapes, she stayed beanpole thin, but continued to shoot upwards. No matter how much she ate, she would always stay the same shape, complaining to us all that her only wish in world was to have boobs and a bum. Cry me a river, right? Fast-forward a decade. I’m lying in bed, completing my night ritual of incessant stalking of others on Facebook. Funnily enough, I stumbled across Lanky’s account. She had over 3,000 followers and thousands of likes on her photos. Despite being slightly jealous at her ability to accrue followers, I began to investigate just how Lanky had so many followers. Opening up a shot of her in 2XU leggings and a puffy jacket that makes her look like the hot sister of the Michelin Man, I found the hashtags: #thinspiration, #fitspiration. This skinny, stupid and obviously social-media savvy woman was promoting to the world that she owed her telephone-pole appearance to healthy eating and being fit. And even though I knew her whole message was bullshit, odds are that her 3,000 followers are under the firm belief that she is the epitome of 46

health and fitness. She was telling the world that they should focus on looking like her, and if they achieved her body, they would achieve perfection. How can this be a good thing for us? In an age of racing technology and social media continuously slapping us in the face, we are constantly bombarded with images of others and the message: this is perfection. Eating disorders have the highest rate of mortality out of any other mental illnesses, with estimates of only 40% of victims ever fully recovering. The fashion industry has never been more influential on our lives, and models and celebrities have never been so thin. Twitter and Instagram seem to break down the barriers between celebrities and the every individual, creating a hazy reality of perfection and expectations. We are living in a society that continuously pressures women to look a certain way, to change who they are in favour of who society says they should be. No wonder us women have such fucked-up thoughts about our bodies. To me, this thinspo phenomenon sends out the same old message: lose weight, be happy and get a hell of a lot of followers. Sure it is logical to say that these messages are beneficial for females. After all, obesity is one of the leading causes of preventable deaths globally, and who doesn’t want to eat clean food and lead a long and prosperous life? Eating food that is good

women’s health?

for your body and getting a little exercise is obviously the best way to lose weight and maintain health. It’s only natural to want a healthy body and mind. What’s not natural is starving, purging, over-exercising and over-criticising oneself because you don’t resemble a Victoria’s Secret Angel. Word of advice ladies: it’s those model’s jobs to look that way. They weren’t born short and overweight and by sheer will-power and healthy eating eventually achieved banging bods. As Lady Gaga would probably say, they were born this way. It may seem like petty advice, but to those reading this, don’t be sucked in by the thinspiration hashtag. I would bet my bottom dollar that the image you’re looking at isn’t all it seems. It might be a photo-shopped body, they might have taken thousands of shots before they found one flattering enough. Or worse, you might just be admiring and pining after a body like Lanky’s. Just remember, social media isn’t reality. If it’s unhealthy, don’t do it. Simple.

> Perrie Kapernaros 47

Carnival

controversy Behind the scenes of Melbourne’s Racing Carnival

pring Carnival! We Melbournians love a good racing festival. Nothing thrills us more than an excuse to drink champagne for breakfast, put on a frock and pretend we have class as we stumble around for the rest of the day with alcohol pulsing through our veins. Do you remember where you were last year? Or how much money you spent? Me either, but it doesn’t matter because we looked fancy as fuck! Good times. Unless you’re a 500kg chestnut thoroughbred named ‘Nature’s Child’, in which case you probably had a less than satisfactory time. As the rest of us were organising our outfits and over-indulging on spray tan, the 12 year-old ex-racehorse started her morning cornered into a tiny box with a rifle aimed at her head. This set the precedent for the rest of the day. After surviving a shot to the head she was dragged across a 48

slaughter room floor by a tractor, still alive and thrashing in pain. It doesn’t take long for her day to be rendered a complete write off when some prick with a knife cuts off her tail and slices her throat. Happy Spring Carnival, Horsie friend! Thanks for the day off! The inhumane death of Nature’s Child is not an isolated incident. Footage captured at Laverton Knackery by welfare group Animals Australia late last year illustrates the extent of how poorly trained the staff are. Sure, knackeries are a just a cog in the Racing Industry machine, but where’s the problem with ensuring these horses are euthanized in accordance to national legislation? Why aren’t these workers trained to do their jobs properly? Ethical treatment is not an optional extra for animals destined for the doggers, it’s the fucking law.

It takes a special kind of sicko to exhibit such a blatant disregard for the suffering of animals. You have one fucking job, morons. Ensure the horse has actually died prior to removing appendages. It’s not fucking rocket science. Ex-racehorses from all over the country meet a similar end not because they are sick or injured, but because they are victims of an industry which functions as a revolving door of oversupply and waste. There are thousands of thoroughbreds born, raced or retired every year by people who dedicate their lives to the so-called Sport of Kings. The sticky mess of horse wastage in the racing industry is complicated and despite the agony of Nature’s Child’s suffering at Laverton, there exists an unfortunate truth; for some off-the-track thoroughbreds there are fates worse than death. While the racing industry continues to practise over-breeding, owners and trainers are faced with a grim conundrum. Risk selling your horse at market into a life of uncertainty, or skip the potential for prolonged suffering and send the horse straight to the knackeries. Off-the-track racehorses sold at market can fetch as little as $70 and often end up victims of buyers with neither the means nor knowledge to look after them. Horse welfare advocate Nicola Fanning cites the ex-racehorse thoroughbred as the breed who suffers most from neglect. ‘They are often sold ungelded, bought by non-horsey people and treated more like a dog than a horse, kept in chook yards… and the owners have no idea how to correctly handle or care for them.’ ‘Skytell’, the half-brother of 1996 Melbourne Cup winner ‘Saintly’ is one such horse. After winning over $100k for his owners he was sold into a life of neglect. Malnourished and riddled with festering sores all over his body, he was surrendered in 2002 to Project Hope Horse Welfare Victoria. Now 19 and in a loving and responsible home, he is one of the lucky ones. Due to the extent of their physical and psychological injuries, many neglected ex-racehorses are not suitable for rehabilitation and end their sorry lives as just another statistic.

Perhaps the owners of Nature’s Child thought they were doing her favour, perhaps they wanted to avoid the years of neglect suffered by Skytell and others like him. Very recently Racing Victoria have attempted to address the issue through their Off The Track initiative, designed to provide education regarding thoroughbreds and their suitability for careers beyond the track. ‘Equine welfare is an area of great importance to Racing Victoria and one that we are investing considerable resources into,’ says Shaun Kelly from Racing Victoria. It’s a long-overdue life-line for the thousands of animals discarded by the industry that breeds them. The brutal and undignified fate of Nature’s Child at the hands of Laverton Knackery is not unique, so why is it important? It’s because her story is one drop in the ocean of our throwaway society. Our wastefulness is not limited to the treatment of animals, we’ll marginalise anyone who appears to serve no immediate monetary purpose. Our attitude is reflected in how we dehumanise our elderly citizens, the refugees seeking asylum from persecution, disadvantaged children and their poverty-stricken families. We are a nation of self-important jerks who would sooner bury our heads in the sand than confront reality. We don’t give a shit because we care more about our own personal freedoms than the basic rights of others. Wake the fuck up Australia. This runs deeper than poor work practises at knackeries and the racing industry. Every single one of us has a responsibility to leave this world in a better state than we found it, and the more abuses we allow to go unchecked, the further backward we slide as a society. By all means, enjoy the races, wear your heels and throw your money down the drain, but keep in mind the immense price many of these horses will pay for your day of self-serving over-indulgence. Happy fucking Spring Carnival, Melbourne. > Gemma Davies 49

American psycho

he defining moment of Australia’s gun history is arguably the Port Arthur Massacre. On the 28th of April 1996, Martin Bryant went on a killing spree murdering 35 people and wounding 23 others at the Port Arthur Prison Colony, a popular tourist location. Sadly, the list of defining moments in the gun history of the US continues to grow: Columbine High School massacre, Virginia Tech massacre, Aurora Cinema shooting, Sandy Hook Elementary shooting… and these are just the ones that I could name off the top of my head. Tragically, a quick Google search will bring up an even longer list. For those of us outside the US, the amount of mass shootings there is extremely alarming. So why does it keep happening?

available throughout the United States. Australia doesn’t share the same kind of gun culture, maybe because we are a younger country and developed quite quickly without the need for the same kind of protection. We can see the biggest difference in the gun culture between Australia and the US when we look out their response to mass shooting incidents. The Australian public responded to the Port Arthur massacre with shock, horror and disgust. In response to the public, the government quickly introduced new gun-restriction laws. The government also initiated a gun buy-back program which spend $350 million to purchase and destroy more than 631,000 guns. In the decade that followed gun crime in Australia decreased and as a by-product of these laws, so did the rate of suicides by guns. In that same decade we saw the public’s opinion on America has a long gun-history dating back 1791, gun control shift as well. The initial outrage that where it was written in the Second Amendment echoed the US faded more and more – nowadays that ‘protects the right of the people to keep and you would be pressed to find many people who bear arms’ along with the rest of the United States would question the change in the laws. Bill of Rights. This law reflected the US at the The response of the US government in time; Americans had just fought and won the War reaction to other mass mass shootings has not of Independence against Great Britain and their been as successful. In his first term as president, country was still largely undiscovered and danBill Clinton introduced bans on assault weapons. gerous. As time passed and cities developed, the Following the Columbine High Shooting in 1999, Bill of Rights still continued to represent America’s Clinton tried to introduce further gun-law reforms freedom, something that they will aggressively but was blocked by the Republican Party. fight for. America became ‘the land of the free’ Columbine was the biggest mass-shooting (13 and as time went on, the Second Amendment was people were murdered and 21 others were fused into the American psyche, despite how dated injured). It shocked not only the US but the world it may have become. Guns continued to evolve at large, and despite this the government failed to with technology and today they are still readily make any major changes. 50

The only small win was that buying a gun for a minor was made a criminal offence, a small solution for a major issue. In 2004, only a few years after columbine, Clinton’s gun reforms expired and were overturned, taking the fight for gun control further backwards. More of the same has followed in the last few years. In 2007 the Virginia Tech massacre saw 32 people and 23 others injured. No changes were made. The NRA (National Rifle Association) argued that if Virginia Tech University had not been in a gun-free zone there would have a quicker and greater response to the incident – apparently putting guns in more hands will prevent the incidents of gun crimes. In 2012, James Eagan Holmes murdered 12 people and

injured dozens more in a mass shooting at the local cinema of Aurora, Colorado, during a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises. Again gun-control laws failed to change, coincidentally Holmes used a gun that would have been banned under the laws that Clinton introduced. Gun sales in the week following Aurora also increased in the state of Colorado by 43%. One of the most shocking incidents that occurred was the mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school where 26 teachers and students were murdered, most of whom were only six or seven years-old. The shock tragedy of shooting children saw the biggest move by the government for stricter gun-control. Within a month of the shooting, President Obama had set up a task force

For those of us outside the US, the amount of mass shootings there is extremely alarming. So why does it keep happening?

to investigate the cause of violent gun crime and drafted a new bill banning assault weapons, putting greater restrictions on gun licenses and limiting the amount of ammunition that can be bought and used. Sadly, the bill failed to pass – the agenda of gun control was now back to square one. Gun culture in Australia is far more subdued than that in US, but the effects of guns have still managed to reach our shores. Australian Christopher Lane was on a baseball scholarship at East Central University in Oklahoma when he was shot dead in the street while out for a run. While the democrats and republicans squabble about gun control, Australia lost a promising athlete in senseless crime that could have so easily been prevented if there had been tighter restrictions on gun control. The NRA and other gun-rights advo-

cates stand behind the phrase ‘guns don’t kill people, people kill people,’ but the simple truth is that if fewer people have access to guns, fewer people will be killed by them – proven by Australia’s response to it’s worst gun tragedy. A gun has no purpose other than to kill, and there are few arguments for why guns should exist in the hands of everyday people in modern society. So whether Australian or American we need to remember that guns aren’t designed to save lives – they’re designed to take them and therefore need to be restricted and controlled in order to save us from the shock and grief of another gun tragedy.

> Spencer Hadlow 51

Cheeky Chapters

Bullseye W

arning: Disturbing imagery.

both subtly hinted that we were going to be rendezvousing later on that evening, before If I could have described him in parting ways. As the night went on, people a few words before we met (in were dropping like flies, passing out everythe bedroom), it would have been ‘bachelor where. I waited until he and I were the last of the year.’ He was tall, tanned and hand- men standing before I made it quite some. Now? He’s labelled as poo-particle obvious that I was keen on him. boy. He asked me where I was sleeping We met through a bunch of mutual that night, then proceeded to tell me that if friends over summer last year and boy did I wasn’t interested in sharing a couch with he take my breath away. He was funny, his mate who had just passed out in his interesting and really switched on! From own vomit, that he had a comfortable bed his body language, I knew that he was a bit downstairs with my name on it. And with of a ladies man, so I thought I would have a an offer like that, who could honestly resist. bit of fun and play to the beat of his drum. We snuck downstairs, into his room and We were down at the event Pier to shut the door. From that point on, I Pub in Lorne, on a hot summer’s night seriously had wished that the rest of the when I noticed him over the other side night were history. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. chatting with some pals. I grabbed my girlfriend and told her to watch his reaction As we hopped into bed, he jumped on top as we walked past. He stopped mid convo, of me. We were making out and that was stared and then continued sinking down fine, he had his top off and that was also his beer. TICK! Cheeky hook-ups for the fine. Especially because he had amazingly win! defined abs. Then, off his pants went and at the click of his fingers, I was also laying That night, we all conveniently ended up at there naked with him. Being a hot night, the same house party, pumping tunes and our bodies were overheating, as we were dancing on tabletops. The highlight was pressed up against each other. At every probably when all the boys came to my chance I could get, I would grab the glass rescue, after falling off shoulders into a of water and guzzle it, before going back in ceiling fan. I sliced the side of my face! It for some more kissing action. It was sexy. didn’t even hurt… jokes. There was some Some cheeky foreplay was involved blood. before he began to head down south; I So anyway, I momentarily got pulled his head back up and said ‘none of chatting with the bachelor outside. We that tonight.’ For crying out loud, we had

been partying all day and night. Gross. And I was so hoping he wasn’t expecting the same in return. He looked at me with a confused and offended face, crawled up next to my ear and whispered, ‘Can I lick your bum hole?’ I choked. ‘Well, can I lick it?’ he questioned. ‘What the fuck?’ I replied, whilst wrapping the sheets tightly around my (now vulnerable) region. He then asked again, with no shame at all. ‘Well, why not?’ ‘Ah because I don’t want you to lick it,’ I firmly responded. As he rolled away from me in discontentment, I continued to wrap myself up into the sheets like a cocoon. I needed to protect my bits from violation. This shit was hectic. ‘Fine. Can you lick mine then?’ He asked, at one last shot before going to sleep. I did not respond.

I ran into my friend’s bedroom, where her boyfriend was conveniently on walkabouts and blurted, ‘babes, is it normal for a guy to ask to lick your bum hole?’ She laughed and said, ‘what? No, not that I know of.’ I couldn’t work out whether I was the weird one who hadn’t yet experienced the world of bum hole licking, or if this guy was legitimately a freak. She asked me what happened and midway through telling my story, he walked in on me pretending to lick a butt hole in mid air. Awks. My friend and I quickly diverted the conversation to a, ‘how good was last night?’ as he jumped into bed next to her. We continued chatting and he began eyeballing me. I think it was his attempt at saying ‘if you say anything, I’ll kill you.’ It was too late. I had already told my mate, who thrived off these sorts of stories. He was done for. She left the room to go and find her boyfriend and poo-particle boy goes, ‘why weren’t you keen It was 8am, I was lying on my stomach and I last night?’ had finally nodded off. Apparently someone else ‘Ah because, like I don’t know. It’s a bit hadn’t… a furry-headed friend, who had spread weird’. I replied. He started laughing. my legs and was aiming for the bullseye, rudely ‘It’s not weird. It’s normal. As if you’ve never awaked me. I sat up grazing my vagina on the back been asked that!’ of his neck, and then fell on top of his face. He then walked out of the bedroom, looked back, ‘Can you get off my face?’ he asked. stuck his tongue out and rotated it, then winked. ‘Can you leave my bum hole alone?’ I replied. He legit thought that I was playing hard to We have not spoken since and I have confirmed get and went for second rounds. since (with other boys), that this was not normal As I kicked him off me, he went to say something behaviour. I’m not sure at what stage it has become but was interrupted by a loud thud in the room socially acceptable for guys to entertain the idea of next door. His mate had rolled out of bed onto the bum-hole licking during a one-night stand, or floorboards. He landed on his stomach, which in general for that matter. compressed and he passed some seriously loud However, for any guy who is reading this, wind. I fell into hysterics. there are rules of etiquette when getting freaky Whoever the legend was in the next room, between the sheets. Never assume it’s okay to lick had seriously saved my bum hole from being bum hole. Please keep that weird shit to yourself, abused in very weird ways. I got changed and unless the girl requests it. made an escape for the exit. Before poo-particle boy could even ask where I was going, I was Thanks. pacing it up the stairs. > Sarah Long 53

blaire seven

EDITORIAL Emily Eaton Editor Sarah Long Creative Director Dave Lee Blog Manager Jordan Ellis Advertising/Marketing CONTRIBUTORS Dave Lee Entertainment Spencer Hadlow Life Gemma Davies Life Tom Bensley Entertainment Perrie Kapernaros Life Benny Thompson Music Tory Price Fashion David Meadows Fashion Kevin He Entertainment Mitchell Pascoe Sport Photography Frankie Fresco

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