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SUMMER 2022

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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Damien Costas EDITOR Corrine Barraclough DEPUTY EDITOR Amie Wee ART DIRECTOR Gavin Morrison STYLE EDITOR Jeff Lack WRITERS Ian Miles Cheong, Paul Dalgarno, Caroline Di Russo, Matteo Fagotto, David Leyonhjelm, Alexandra Marshall, Damon Miles, Rob Pegley, Ben Pobjie PHOTOGRAPHERS JWC.Image, Sean.jpg, Jean-Philippe Piter, Anthony Trann, Jo Va ARTISTS Josh Spencer, Lara McKenzie COVER Sean.jpg ADVERTISING Anessa Caputo PUBLISHER Penthouse Magazine Tel: 1300 784 516 mail@penthouse.com.au DISTRIBUTORS Ovato Retail Distribution Tel: 1300 650 666 SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES isubscribe.com PENTHOUSE GLOBAL MEDIA INC. Founded March 1965 by BOB GUCCIONE Copyright General Media Communications, Inc., all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise – or stored in any retrieval system without the written permission of the copyright holder and the publishers. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome and must be submitted via email; no typewritten traditional mail submissions will be accepted. Names and addresses must be included with all correspondence. Penthouse does not accept responsibility for lost editorial or photo submissions. All unsolicited submissions remain the property of Penthouse.

FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

VER the past few months, I’ve somewhat enjoyed kicking back with a cup of coffee, watching world leaders repeatedly make arses of themselves. They have excelled themselves. But even I, who loves to mock while I sip on my coffee, was not expecting Joe Biden to literally make such an arse of himself. A coalition of leaders from across the globe gathered in Scotland to discuss what we’re going to do about climate change. And Prince Charles wife, Camilla Parker Bowles, has been entertaining whoever will listen with a story about Joe Biden’s bowels. Ok, not actually, his bowels, but his long, embarrassing fart. Camilla’s been running around telling everyone at the COP26 summit about a length blast of flatulence he emitted while she was having a conversation with him. The UK tabloids, true to form, have been delighting in telling this tale, with mischievous sources emerging to describe the fart as “long” and “loud” and “impossible to ignore”. Now, don’t get me wrong, if anyone in the world deserves to be farted at, it is, in my humble opinion, Camilla Parker Bowles. But would I have put money on it being the leader of the free world to send something “long”, “loud” and “impossible to ignore” in her direction? Probably not. Poor old Biden; if there’s not a gaff coming out of one end, there’s a guff coming out of the other. And this, gents, is the esteemed leader of the United States of America. Every day in 2021 there’s a fresh surprise, a fresh, new unexpected shocker. It seems the only world leaders who have their behaviour under control are those of China and Russia. All I can do is sit back, sip on my coffee and marvel as the world turns to shit. In our Special Report, retired Special Forces Commando Heston Russell, takes a look at Biden’s fucked-up withdrawal from Afghanistan. It’s a fascinating read (page 50). Meanwhile, closer to home, NSW’s new premier on the block Dominic Perrottet was hailed as our saviour for all of five seconds, before announcing that the promised December 1 freedoms for the unvaccinated would be pushed back to December 15. Why? God only knows. This is based on a whim, it’s not based on science or facts, and anyone who believed Perrottet would be any better than Berejiklian was swiftly ordered back home into quarantine to reconsider. In NSW, and all across Australia, hard-working Aussies are losing their jobs left, right and centre. But, what the hell do the political class care? Their jobs are safe, cushy and guaranteed, right? The world makes no sense. Logic is a thing of the past. Thank god for Penthouse bringing you the hottest girls to take your mind of worldly worries. Enjoy the mag!

DAMIEN COSTAS Editor-In-Chief

PENT HO US E

CONTENTS SUMMER 2022

10 / DEBRIEF Your wrap up of what’s gone on in the world

22 / JAI OPETAIA The 26-year-old Australian cruiserweight rising star

32 / GO WITH THE FLOW Art and alchemy with erotic watercolour artist Lara McKenzie

50 / AFGHANISTAN: FINAL PHASE FAILURE Heston Russell shares his thoughts on our chaotic withdrawal from the region

56 / PREPARE FOR THE TALIBAN CRIME RISE Get ready for a rise in international criminal activity now the Taliban are back, writes David Leyonhjelm

60 / INFOCUS Jean-Philippe Piter’s photography is a celebration of women, nature and sexual freedom

74 / HIGHLIFE Summer essentials to make sure you look hot while keeping your cool

96 / ART OF THE NUDE Soaking up the desert sun with model Deisy Leon

108 / UNDERGROUND BATTLE FOR FREEDOM Down in a small Tashkent basement, you’ll find a bastion of hope and liberty

119 / UNHERD Fearless opinions challenging the conventional wisdom of mainstream media

139 / CHECK OUT Check out our marketplace for the best gadgets and boys’ toys for your home

PENT HO US E

P E N THO US E

DEBRIEF SUMMER

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT OUR RUNDOWN OF THE MOST BLAZING, CRAZING AND HAIR-RAISING HEADLINES FROM THE PAST THREE MONTHS

PENT H O US E

DEBRIEF SUMMER

BIDEN’S FAILURE FUELS TALIBAN MISOGYNY SEPTEMBER 4 EVIDENCE completely contradicts claims made by the Taliban, who tried to pretend they would respect women’s rights when they took back Afghanistan. While Taliban spokesmen had made promises to respect women’s rights to education and work, it quickly became clear their misogynistic ideology meant demotion and discrimination. Gunmen ordered bank tellers out of their jobs, women were stripped of their jobs for protesting, and reports emerged of public beatings. Biden’s withdrawl from Afghanistan swiftly proved to be a failure and self-created tragedy. Biden’s failure left the world very clearly in a worse place than it’s been in since 2014.

THE US STARTED LAUNCHING AIR STRIKES AT THE TALIBAN IN BACK IN

COVID BOOSTER JAB BEGINS IN UK SEPTEMBER 14 COVID booster shots are offered to all over-50s as part of a toolbox of measures being wheeled out to control the coronavirus ahead of the UK winter. Data from UK research has suggested that the protection provided by two doses of Pfizer/BioNTech/ AstraZeneca declines after six months. The data shows that, for instance, two shots of the Pfizer vaccine decreases in protection from 88 per cent at one month, to 74 per cent at six months. Concerns grow that protection will fall further during the winter, at the very ti that case numbers are likely to o rise. Daily cases in the UK at this oint were sitting at just under 40, 0 per day.

X MO HHS E

FAILURE LEAVES WORLD IN A WORSE PLACE THAN IT’S BEEN SINCE

BEZOS PLEDGES $1BN TO CONSERVATION SEPTEMBER 21

Jeff Bezos JEFF Bezos, the founder of Amazon, committed $1bn to conservation projects around the world after looking down at the earth on his trip to space in July. The money will go towards the conservation of nature in biodiversity hotspots including the Congo Basin, tropical Andes and the Pacific Ocean. “Looking back at Earth from there, the atmosphere seems thin and the world finite,” Bezos said. “Both beautiful, both fragile.”

ASHES TO ASHES, DUST TO… LIQUID SEPTEMBER 21 UNTIL recently, you had very few options when it came to deciding what happens to your body when you shuffle off this mortal coil. However, thanks to a bizarre invention by a funeral home director, you can now be preserved in liquid form for your loved ones. Pioneered by North Queensland funeral director, Jeff Boyle, ‘The Gentle Way’ is an eco-friendly flameless cremation system that uses alkaline water to literally dissolve the flesh from the bones. Yes, you read that correctly. How it works: the body is placed inside a water-soluble bag before sunk into a stainless-steel chamber, which is then filled with warm water before the alkalinity of the

water is artificially heightened. “The water is sprayed over the body, much like a shower head does, for approximately 10 hours,” Boyle said. After the process is complete, all that’s left of the corpse is liquid and bones. The leftover bones are then processed and stored in an urn with the liquid body matter, before being given to the loved ones of the deceased. Boyle says that as we become more aware of climate change and our environmental footprint, more people are turning more eco-friendly funeral alternatives. “I’m not a greenie, don’t get me wrong, but I believe we need to look after our environment — we’ve all got to do our own little bit,” Boyle said.

ECO-FRIENDLY

BRITNEY’S FATHER SUSPENDED SEPTEMBER 30

SUSPENDED FROM CONSERVATORSHIP THAT CONTROLLED BRITNEY THE PAST

A LOS Angeles judge has suspended Britney Spears father from the conservatorship that’s controlled her life for 13 years. The singer has long objected to the arrangement that has stripped her of independence, the ability to control her own earnings and even her right to make decisions about contraception. At a court hearing, a judge ordered Jamie Spears to be suspended effective immediately, describing the arrangement as “untenable”. The decision came three months after the pop star first publicly pleaded for her father to be removed from the conservatorship, made testimony that enraged the world and a huge ‘Free Britney’ campaign and rallies, which attracted a wave of publicity.

FUNERALS

FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL GRANDMA OCTOBER 9 SQUID GAME PRANK CALLS OCTOBER 6 NETFLIX’S massively successful Squid Game received an edit a week into its release after the use of a real phone number led to a woman being deluged by thousands of phone calls and text messages from prank callers. The Korean thriller, which in October officially became Netflix’s biggest show ever is about players competing for cash (and their lives) by playing a series of demented games based on classic playground games from South Korea, and features several close-ups of a real number printed on the back of the cryptic invitation cards Squid Game participants are given. The South Korean woman that the number belongs to, said she had been “bombarded” with thousands of calls from fans wanting to play the game since the show launched, with the endless calls draining her battery. “After Squid Game aired, I have been receiving calls and texts endlessly, 24/7, to the point that it’s hard for me to go on with daily life,” he said. “This is a number that I’ve been using for more than 10 years, so I’m quite taken aback. There are more than 4,000 numbers that I’ve had to delete from my phone and it’s to the point where due to people reaching out without a sense of day and night due to their curiosity, my phone’s battery is drained and turns off. At first I didn’t know why, but my friend told me that my number came out in Squid Game and that’s when I realised.” She was reportedly offered five million Korean won by the streaming giant (A$5545; US$4178) in compensation but turned it down.

WE generally think of our grandparents as wholesome, but one woman has seen her granny in a new light after finding her deluxe cocaine-snorting kit from the 1970s while cleaning out her grandma’s belongings. The woman included a picture of her find, which people were quick to point out was a vintage Frost-Aid kit, designed for “truly exquisite snorting”. The kit included a slice of polished stone for racking up, a razor blade for chopping up lines, a tube for sniffing, a stash pocket for the illegal powder, and room for a little spoon – which Granny added – housed in a suede pouch. Grandma knew how to party.

A LEG UP ON THE COMPETITION OCTOBER 10 IN what can only be described as a home run for quick-thinking and creativity, a woman has used her prosthetic leg to catch a baseball during a game. In a video shared on TikTok, 27-year-old Shannon Frendreis ripped her right leg off and used it to catch the ball as it fell during a White Sox home game in Chicago. Even more remarkable is that Frendreis says she wasn’t sober when she achieved the feat. “Five beers in, and taking my leg off to catch a ball seemed like a great idea,” the caption read. The video went viral, with many people impressed by Frendreis quick-thinking, with one viewer quipping, “Took an arm and a leg to catch that ball.” PENT H O US E

DEBRIEF SUMMER

HAIR-RAISING STUNT TURNS HEADS OCTOBER 11

A WOMAN in London has swapped follicles for fuel after towing her van down to the nearest petrol station using her hair as a tow rope. Using a specially constructed harness that connected her waist-length hair to her 4000kg van’s front bumper, 34-year-old circus performer, Anastasia Sawicka, turned heads as she hauled her van head-first down the busy central London street in front of alarmed pedestrians. However, this type of hairraising stunt isn’t new for the circus performer and former Britain’s Got Talent finalist, who makes her living as a ‘hair hanging aerialist’.

SIX DECADES OF ELTON OCTOBER 13 ELTON John became the first solo artist with UK Top 10 singles in six different decades. Cold Heart, Elton’s song with Dua Lipa which was remixed by Pnau, mashes his single Sacrifice (number 1 in 1990), Kiss the Bride, Where’s the Shoorah and Rocket Man. His last Top 10 hit was Step Into Christmas, a hit from 1973 that has been the unflushable turd of festive hits, bobbing into the charts over and over again. It was during the 1970s that he achieved the most Top 10 singles, think Your Song, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.

ACHIEVED MOST TOP 10 SINGLES IN THE EARLY UK TOP

70S

SINGLES IN SIX

DIFFERENT DECADES

UK MP AMESS’S KILLING DECLARED TERRORIST ACT OCTOBER 16 JUST five years after the horrific murder of Jo Cox, MP David Amess was stabbed to death during an attack at an open event for his constituents in Essex, UK. The attack renewed fears about the security risks for MPs in an increasingly polarised political era. A 25-year-old man, believed to be a Briton with Somali heritage, was confirmed to be in custody. It was also confirmed he had previously been through the official programme designed for those at risk of radicalisation. The Metropolitan police confirmed the incident as an act of terror, saying potential motivation may be linked to Islamic extremism. 14

P E NT HO US E

David Amess

SHATNER UP IN SPACE OCTOBER 14

William Shatner STAR TREK’S William Shatner is officially the oldest person to have been blasted into space, aboard billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin New Shepard rocket. The 18.3 metre-tall spacecraft shot into space from Texas with four people onboard, including the famous 90-year-old actor. After decades of fictional intergalactic voyages, the nonagenarian finally got to take a suborbital space ride for real. Filled with emotion, Shatner broke down in tears upon touchdown on Earth, describing the almost 11-minute event as a “profound experience”. “I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now. I don’t want to lose it,” Shatner said. “To see the blue colour whip by you, and now you’re staring into blackness … everybody in the world needs to do this. Everybody in the world needs to see this.” Blue Origin is currently taking applications for people who want to take a trip to space, and while Bezos hasn’t confirmed a price, he revealed the company has sold over $100 million in private trips so far.

FAT-SHAMED BY A HOMELESS GUY OCTOBER 17 A MAN in Toronto has been fat-shamed by a homeless man after buying him a meal from McDonald’s. TikTok user Stu, who goes by @janikon_, said in a video on the app that he was just trying to do a good deed when he claims the man told him to ‘lay off the McDonald’s’. In the video, Stu explains how he was at Maccas when he was asked by a homeless man if he could spare some change. After telling the man he had no cash on him, he offered to buy him a meal, to which he said yes. “So, I get my food and his food. I’m handing it to him. I’m like, ‘have a great day’, and he goes ‘just in the future, a word of advice - I would lay off to McDonald’s’. “The worst part is, I was fat-shamed for doing a good deed,” Stu laughs. Well, they do say that no good deed goes unpunished.

MAN SWALLOWS PHONE OCTOBER 18

COINS, batteries, buttons – humans end up in hospital every day for swallowing things they shouldn’t. But one man in Egypt took it a step further after he fronted up to a hospital with severe stomach pains and was found to have a mobile phone in his belly. Doctors at the Aswan University Hospital in South Egypt were shocked to find x-rays revealed a mobile phone wedged in the man’s stomach. The man confessed to the doctors that he had actually swallowed the phone six months earlier but was too embarrassed to tell anyone and hoped he could just pass it naturally. Spoiler: he didn’t.

There’s small batch, and then there’s TINY batch

DEBRIEF SUMMER

IT’S A TURD! IT’S A PLANE! OCTOBER 20 A UK man has found himself in deep shit after human sewage rained down from the skies while he was pottering around his garden. The man, who lives near Windsor Castle, said he was doing a bit of gardening when he was essentially waterboarded with a flood of strangers’ excrement. The man who, unsurprisingly, didn’t want to be named, said there was so much leakage that it not only covered himself, but his entire garden and garden umbrellas in poos and wees. Typically, sewage is stored in tanks and disposed of after the aircraft has landed. However, it has been reported that on rare occasions, excrement does leak from planes but tends to freeze due to the ice-cold temperatures of the sky. Oh well, shit happens.

HORNY SPIDERS OCTOBER 21

S IN THE U

WHERE THE FALSE WIDOW SPIDERS HAVE BEEN SPOTTEDD LOW MEDIUM M HIGH

IT’S spider mating season in the U.K, which is great n ws r arachnids and nightmare fuel for literally everybody else in the country. With autumn marking the start of spider copulation season in the UK, giant sex-crazed spiders, described as being “as big as a hand” with “biting fangs” are expected to begin invading homes across the country in search of a shag. While the female spiders are typically homebodies, happy to chill at home in their web, the horny males tend to be the ones who are frequently wandering, actively seeking out steamy spider sex. Despite being creepy to look at, house spiders are said to generally only attack if they feel under threat, so it’s best to leave the horny beasts to their amorous pursuits in peace.

NOTEBOOK FOUND NEAR BRIAN LAUNDRIE’S REMAINS OCTOBER 23 CRIME experts say the notebook found near Brian Laundrie’s body could contain answers regarding the disappearance and violent death of his fiancee Gabby Petito. The FBI confirmed the remains found in Carlton Reserve in North Port belonged to Laundrie, who vanished last month after Petito was reported missing. She was found strangled in a Wyoming national park on September 19. Laundrie had not been charged over Petito’s death but had been named as a person of interest in her murder. “If that notebook contained, for example, information that could have been admissions, it could be projecting blame or rationalisation, all that information could help in the determintion,” said former FBI profiler Jim Clemente. Mr Laundrie’s family insist they don’t know what is in the notebook or any details about Laundrie’s actions. 16

P E N T HO US E

WIN SHOOTS DIRECTOR ER 22

et became a crime en actor and Alec Baldwin shot d his director of raphy with a prop gun lming in New Mexico. tement from the sheriff ’s said Baldwin had fired gun into the camera, lieving it was safe and d with dummy cartridges, lling Halyna Hutchins. agically, Hutchins was a ife and mother of a young sson, who were seen grieving with Baldwin several days later. Claims later emerged that crew members had voiced concerns over safety protocols before the incident.

Alec Baldwin

GABBY PETITO IS FOUND IN WYOMING ONE MONTH NATIONAL LATER... PARK ON OCTOBER

BRIAN LAUNDRIE’S REMAINS ARE FOUND IN NORTH PORT RESERVE

CU URRENT A-LLEAGUE P PLAYER TO O COME O AS OUT GAY

ADELAIDE PLAYER IN A-LEAGUE COMES OUT AS GAY OCTOBER 27 ADELAIDE United midfielder Josh Cavallo became the first current A-League Men n player to publicly announce he’s gay. In a video released by the club he said, “I am proud d to publicly announce that I am gay. It’s been a journey to get to this point in my life,, but I couldn’t be happier with my decision to come out. Adelaide United has made me realise football is more than just a game – it is a family.” In 2019, former Newcastle Jets player p Andy Brennan came out as gay, but that was after his A-League Men career was ovver.

72 TIMES FROM PREIVOUS LEVELS

IT WAS A STENCH MOST FOUL

AND HIS SENTENCED INCREASED TO

IS UP MORE THAN

SOME news headlines just write themselves; and so when Joe Biden reportedly emited some natural gas of his own during high-level talks at the COP 26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland, the only thing that would make it any better was the fact that it was in the presence of Camilla, wife of the future king of England. A source told The Mail on Sunday, “It was long and loud and impossible to ignore”, and we couldn’t be laughing more as we merrily

HE’S served half his sentence for murdering model Reeva Steenkamp, and now it’s reported that the South African Paralympic champion could be up for parole. Sickening? Yep. Pistorius shot his girlfriend dead in the early hours of Valentine’s Day in 2013 when he fired four shots through the door of his bedroom bathroom. He was originally found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to six years, but his conviction was later upgraded to murder and his sentence increased to 13 years. Before the parole process can officially begin and be taken to the board, the department needs to have a dialogue with victim’s family and the offender. So, it’s a fair way from happening but be prepared.

LATER UPGRADED TO MURDER

USAGE OF THE WORD

SHE PULLED MY FINGER

OSCAR PISTORIUS COULD BE OUT ON PPAROLE NOVEMBER 9

MANSLAUGHTER

USAGE of the word “vax” is up at least a million times on three years ago. Ok, actually, it’s up more than 72 times from previous levels. And as society becomes increasingly divided by anti-vaxxers, talk about vax has become water-cooler chit chat. You can take the word vax and add passport, anti, or double, and it all makes sense. So, perhaps it’s not surprising that it’s been chosen as the word of the year by Oxford English Dictionary.

JOE BIDEN RELEASES HIS OWN NATURAL GAS NOVEMBER 8

OFFICIALLY FOUND GUILTY OF

VAX CHOSEN AS WORD OF THE YEAR NOVEMBER 1

PENT H O US E

GET THE PICTURE

UMMER is officially upon us, and every Aussie knows the best way to beat the scorching heat is by taking a dip – au naturel, of course. So if you’re feeling brave, find yourself a nude beach, a private pool or a secluded bit of shoreline, pack the beers, inflate the lilo and join the beautiful Brielle for a sexy summer skinny dip. Don’t forget to slip, slop, slap before you get butt-naked or you might end up a little more than red-faced.

PHOTOGRAPHER: ANTHONY TRAN. MODEL: BRIELLE CHRISTOPHERSON.

P E N THO US E

PE NT H O US E

CRUSH

RACHEL FOLLOW @THE.RMB

VERY Aussie knows that the best way to combat the sizzling summer heat is to surrender to it. So pack the esky with some cold bevvies, slip into your skimpiest swimmers and spend the whole day soaking up the rays beside the waves with Sydney model Rachel. Rachel made such a splash at Penthouse that we had to slip slop slap her on the cover too. PHOTOGRAPHY BY SEAN CONLON FOLLOW@SEAN.ON.FILM

P E NT HO US E

DOWNLOAD

The Cost Of War

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FOLLOWING THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS, A US-LED COALITION LAUNCHED AIR STRIKES ON TALIBAN AND AL QAEDA TARGETS IN AFGHANISTAN ON 7 OCTOBER 2001. BIDEN PULLED THE PIN… AT WHAT COST? BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS

At just short of 20 years, this was America’s longest war (except the Korean War, which was not officially ended).

STATISTICS SOURCE: SPECIAL INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR AFGHAN RECONSTRUCTION (SIGAR), US GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTING OFFICE (GAO).

2,448 American service members killed. A further 20,660 US soldiers injured in action.

UK service troops killed

t of the war to the United States (as of 2020) IN THE TALIBAN’S NEW ARSENAL? 358,530 ASSAULT RIFLES 126,295 PISTOLS 64,363 MACHINE GUNS 9 ARMOURED PERSONNEL CARRIERS ELICOPTERS (33 MI-17, 33 UH-60, 43 MD530) 72,963 TRUCKS 162,043 RADIOS 035 NIGHT-VISION GOGGLES/DEVICES

PENT H O USE

MOTM

JAI OPETAIA BY CORRINE BARRACLOUGH

P E N THO US E

hampered his career for years but now he’s back – and clearly means business. He’s moved to the Gold Coast and says he’s on a mission to become the fittest he’s ever been; taking his training to a whole new level and pushing his body to its limits. The fight is on, and the battle now is to bring it to Australia so that when Obetaia steps into the ring, it will be the first major world title fight held in Australia since Jeff Horn defeated Manny Pacquiao. Remember that fight in front of 51,000 fans? “This is what I’ve been working towards for my whole life, I’m finally going to tick the box,” Opetaia said. “People are excited about getting a world title shot. But I’m going in there to win, not just participate. I’m bringing the belt home. Hopefully that fight can happen in Sydney, with the COVID stuff going on, the

closer to home the better.” His promoter is Dean Lonergan – and if that name sounds familiar it’s because he organised the Horn versus Pacquiao event at Suncorp Stadium in 2017. We all know how that played out, because even those who aren’t sports fans couldn’t escape the mega hype.

it will take patience.” And so, the hype and anticipation has already begun. You know how it goes… To arm you with a little bit of background info, Opetaia represented Australia in the 2012 Olympics as a Heavyweight at the age of 16, making him the youngest ever

“That damn hand injury has hampered his career for years but now he’s back – and clearly means business” “Team Opetaia, myself and Fox Sports all want that fight in Australia as well,” Lonergan said. “We haven’t had a major world title fight in Australia since Jeff Horn versus Manny Pacquiao and then Horn defended his title in Brisbane against Gary Corcoran.” He adds that his experience with the Pacquiao fight was that it “took months and months to get over the line so

Australian Olympic boxer. He also represented Australia in the 2014 Commonwealth Games. And, out of the ring, he’s related to Australian soccer player Tim Cahill and rugby league player Ben Roberts of Parramatta Eels. He has the fight scheduled. He has the fan club. He has the promoter. Now, he just has to win.

CREDIT: CHRIS HYDE

OT familiar with his name? You soon will be. The 26-year-old Samoan Australian professional cruiserweight star has successfully cleared out the local ranks on his way to a 20-0 record with an impressive 16 knockouts. Now, he’s reaped his reward, earning a mandatory shot at the IBF world title early in 2022. The IBF has mandated that Opetaia will fight cruiserweight champion Mairis Briedis by April 14, 2022, but negotiations are already underway which could see the fight being staged sooner. Many have their fingers firmly crossed on that. To Aussie boxing fans’ delight, Opetaia has been rising up the ranks, holding the WBA Oceania cruiserweight title since 2019, although he hasn’t fought since October 2020 due to a hand injury. That damn hand injury has

/penthouseAU

@PenthouseAU

Penthouse_AU

FILM

ON-SCREEN PSYCHOS BY PAUL DALGARNO

P E N T HO US E

film Sundown was described in The Guardian as a ‘wonderfully relaxed sociopath’, and the movie as the ‘funniest’ and ‘nastiest’ at this year’s Venice Film Festival – a classic blend of right-on and revolting. Villanelle (Jodie Comer) in Killing Eve is a ‘living, breathing, shopping, killing psychopath’ – not to mention babe – whose attractiveness to Eva Polastri (Sandra Oh) is perfectly believable; Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) in Dexter is a square-jawed copcome-psycho who kills for, um, good; Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) in American Psycho makes us laugh while cleaving heads; Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) in Misery is a loveable homebody who hobbles writers with a mallet; and Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) in Psycho wears his mum’s clothes – lol. The stylised brutality of the screen sociopath is a salve for society’s chafing manacles –

“If you’re conflicted about having feels for screen psychos, take heart from the fact that you’re not a psycho” unlike us, they’re given free rein to do whatever they want, which usually involves sticking it to the man, literally. If you’re conflicted about having feels for screen psychos, take heart from the fact that you’re not a psycho. Real psychos lack empathy and wouldn’t feel conflicted (or any other emotion) about cheering for the bad guys in A Clockwork Orange. They probably don’t even Netflix and chill because they reportedly have no creativity or inner life. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) in Silence of the Lambs, with his love of art and literature, not to mention his appetite – in a good way – for Jodie Foster’s Clarice? Killer, please! A 2014 Belgian study by

forensic psychiatrists looked at 126 fictional psychopaths and concluded that Anton Chigurgh of the Cohen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men was the most clinically accurate portrayal. Which is to say: if a dude with a terrifying haircut and airpowered bolt gun asks you for a quick game of heads or tails, keep walking. The same study found that – as in real life – there were far fewer female screen psychos than male. The majority of those that exist – just think Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) in Basic Instinct – tend to be sexy killer nymphs, which again is sadly unrealistic, unless you’re a spider. I mean, I say ‘sadly’ but I don’t really mean it. What do you think I am – a psycho?

MOOTH talking, violent and devoid of humanity: who doesn’t love a psycho? Psychos are good for the chills (Fatal Attraction, if nothing else, put a whole generation off rabbit stew) but they’re also lots of fun to be around. It’s hard not to enjoy the babyishly brutal Peter III of Russia as played by Nicholas Hoult in the SBS series The Great. (The fact Hoult’s most memorable performance before that involved him singing Killing Me Softly as a kid without friends in 2002’s About A Boy was a clear warning). It’s equally hard not to cheer for the Joker as he repeatedly tries to end boring-as-batshit Batman. Likewise Moriarty (possible psycho) as he torments goodytwo-shoes coke fiend Sherlock Holmes, and Wile E. Coyote (definite psycho) as he tries to flatten Road Runner. Tim Roth’s character in the new

MUSIC

Making A Comeback BY PAUL DALGARNO

T 43, Apollo Creed has long since lost his heavyweight title when he climbs into the ring against Ivan Drago in the Rocky film franchise. “It’s too bad we have to get old,” he quips to the Italian Stallion in Rocky III, only to be pummelled to death by the 24-year-old Drago in Rocky IV. We all like to think we have another round in us… but do we? Four decades stand between ABBA’s last album, The Visitors (1981), and their latest, Voyage (2021). The closest they’ve come to being knocked out in the interim was in the mid-1980s, when they were seen as sparkly has-beens. But they got back up and started meting out a blistering one-two of loveable kitsch (Murial’s Wedding, 1994) and lucrative nostalgia (the Mamma Mia! stage show in 1999 and the blockbuster film versions

the album was re-recorded from scratch in 2000 and worked on in 15 different studios before appearing nearly a decade later in a blaze of infamy and hype for being the most expensive (US$13 million) rock album ever made. But on the plus side… there was no plus side. The Stooges were torn a new one for The Weirdness (2007), their first album in 34 years, as summed up best by Zeth Lundy in PopMatters, who wrote that it “complicates the Stooges’ oncetidy history just by existing, and yet it is a very poor record, which complicates things even further”. Sonic Boom (2009) by Kiss – their first album in 11 years – was released as a CD/DVD package exclusively at Walmart in North America, which hardly screams God of Thunder. Zeitgeist (2007) by Smashing Pumpkins was dissed by Pitchfork

CREDIT: POLAR / UNIVERSAL

“History has warned us time and again to let sleeping gods lie” in 2008 and 2018). To date they’ve sold 400 million albums and have a collective net worth of US$1.1 billion. In an age of plague and uncertainty, Agneta, Benny, Björn and Anni-Frid are already being hailed as Norse gods returning to bathe the world in harmonising happiness. And yet comebacks are never without risk. Not financially (there’s little risk on that front) but in terms of legacy. Cue – actually, please don’t – Chinese Democracy (2008) by Guns N’ Roses. To call it the “band’s” first album of originals since Use Your Illusion I and II (1991) feels weird given most members had already quit, leaving only Axl Rose and keyboardist Dizzy Reed. Scheduled for release in 1999,

(and others) as a “calculated move for cash or attention or both”. The aptly named A Momentary Lapse in Reason (1987) by Pink Floyd… let’s not even go there. History has warned us time and again to let sleeping gods lie. But it also suggests that it’s not impossible to silence the doubters after seemingly being out for the count. Just take Prince (Musicology, 2004), Mariah Carey (The Emancipation of Mimi, 2005), Red Hot Chili Peppers (Californication, 1999), or Tina Turner (Private Dancer, 1984). The heart is often the last to go, as per Creed’s final words: “I want you to promise me you’re not gonna stop this fight, no matter what. No matter what!” PENT H O USE

SPORT

Can Football Save The World?

HE world’s biggest sport has a global reach, engagement and depth of passion, that cannot help but provoke change if harnessed properly. So what world problems should soccer work on next? Well, when Conservative MPs voted against free school meals in the House of Commons last year, a 22-year-old black lad from Wythenshawe in Manchester helped them to change their minds. Within months they did a U-turn and reinstated meals for some 1.7 million kids below the threshold required. The fact that the lad – Marcus Rashford – played football for Manchester United and England was the biggest factor. Growing up in Wythenshawe, the biggest housing estate in working class Manchester, where gun crime and drugs are common, Rashford had witnessed his single mum struggle to put meals on the table. Marcus has since become a figurehead in the campaign to end child food poverty and he continues to work hard for change. When Rashford was then a victim of online abuse, the community came out in huge numbers to support him. As the European Championship Final between England and Italy went to penalties, Rashford, along with two other black English players Jordan Sancho and Bukayo 26

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Saka missed their kicks to see England lose the final. English players missing crucial penalties in previous tournaments – all of them white, incidentally – had come in for huge abuse afterwards, and so people rightly expected the worst. And it came soon enough, with vitriolic trolling of the players – particularly of Saka, who missed the final penalty – following online. Within a few hours of the final a mural of Rashford in Manchester had been trashed; within a day it had been restored however, and covered in thousands of flowers and notes in a tribute to Rashford. When Saka returned for his first match with his club Arsenal, it was against their biggest rivals Spurs. People held their breath. The Spurs fans gave him a standing ovation rather than a mouthful. Times are changing. One final example of football’s power came earlier this year when 12 major European Clubs proposed a breakaway ‘Super League’. It was all about money and greed and TV coverage, to the detriment of football’s level playing field. A leaked document referred to domestic football fans actually attending games as “legacy fans”. With stadiums shut due to COVID, those legacy fans got out of their armchairs and took to the streets; within days the financial plan was in ruins – dropped in disgrace. Because people LOVE football –

and they love it on a deeper level than most other sports. They love it on a deeper level than just about anything. From the streets of Wythenshawe to the beaches of Rio, no sport matters more – especially to working class males. It can make grown men cry. It can move people to get up early, travel vast distances and spend lots of money just to watch it. For many men in particular, it ranks alongside working, the family, sex and having a drink, as the five most basic important things in their life. That level of passion has to increasingly be leveraged for good.

“Because people LOVE football – and they love it on a deeper level than most other sports” So the question is, from taking a knee – or taking on the media as Raheem Sterling did – in a bid to end racism; or to discussing depression as players are increasingly doing, what is next for football? What world problems can the world game solve? Sustainability is one thing yet to be touched, however, just this month Spurs are set to play the

world’s first net zero carbon football game against rivals Chelsea. Fans will be encouraged to take public transport to the game and eat plant-based foods, while players travel on biofuel coach. There are bigger gestures and changes that can be made in this area, but it’s a start. Equality is coming thick and fast, with the Women’s Premier League growing and gaining coverage on all of the main channels, and female presenters and pundits now the norm. Possibly the final frontier is homophobia. While it’s accepted of pop stars or television personalities, it’s still not considerable that a top-level footballer could be gay. There has never been an openly gay soccer player in the Premier League. Justin Fashanu, football’s first black player to cost one million pounds, came out as gay later in his career, and after hounding by media and public alike, hung himself at the age of 37. Similarly, Germany and Aston Villa player Thomas Hitzelburger came out once he had retired. There are currently over 500 players registered in the Premier League and sheer numbers would suggest that more than one of them is gay. It would be huge if players and fans could be accepting of anyone who came out – and possibly now is the right time.

CREDIT: SNOWFLOCK

BY ROB PEGLEY

TECH

Making Virtual Reality Worthwhile BY IAN MILES CHEONG

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disconnection, it’s a chore. When real-life calls, disconnecting from your immersion and reconnecting becomes a wholly unnecessary ritual. By itself, getting VR to work is a hassle and a half – it doesn’t work out of the box. You have to install drivers, make physical space, and have the necessary hardware to even run the damn thing. It’s an expensive hobby with little payoff. Worse still, most VR headsets are not even wireless; those that are offer decreased graphical fidelity and are about as immersive as watching James Cameron’s Avatar in 3D. It sucks. The controllers themselves are unintuitive and require you to fumble around to even perform the simplest of tasks in most games, such as Skyrim VR and Doom VFR, where even moving around requires you to teleport from place to place. While it’s nice that some major developers offer VR experiences, these offerings are few and far between – the VR market isn’t big enough for most publishers to even invest in creating standalone VR titles. It’s a poor investment for both publishers and consumers, and that feeds into the circuitous problem of there not being enough users to make the development worthwhile – and not enough games for most users to justify buying a headset.

The reduction in bulk and wireless freedom are a given. Miniaturisation and wirelessness will come with the march of progress, but there are a number of things VR manufacturers can do to make their products worthwhile. VR’s problems need to be addressed at the roots. Its greatest strength: isolation, is also its greatest weakness. Coupled with the disorientation you experience when you come back to reality, there’s simply no easy way to “tab out”. The VR industry could learn a thing or two from Apple: add a transparency mode.

nothing of how bulky these things are at the moment. The elephant in the room is the fact that there’s no standard for VR headsets. While some applications work on multiple devices, most simply do not. You’re either getting an Oculus, an HTC Vive, or a Samsung. You might go for a Valve Index if you’re feeling extravagant. Platform exclusivity is a factor that limits what you can experience with your investment. Unlike TVs and monitors, the experience is less than uniform, for both developers and users alike – and given that the whole point of

“Virtual reality is an isolating experience. When you put on a headset it disconnects you from the real world” You shouldn’t need to take off your headset to see and hear the world around you or respond to your email. It has to be convenient to be attractive to the wider market. After all, noise-isolating headphones wouldn’t be quite as convenient if you had to take them off to talk to someone. And being able to see your surroundings would eliminate the hassle of removing and putting back on your headset, completely killing the immersion. Having cameras and microphones mounted on the headset is an easy fix – to say

VR is to be immersive, anything less than a solid experience is not only immersion-breaking, it’s headache-inducing. It doesn’t help that VR headsets have intense hardware requirements – the cost of VR doesn’t end with the headset alone. The good news is that the industry understands these problems and is actively working to solve them. It only remains to be seen if the consumer market will have the patience to tolerate VR as a work-in-progress before it finally reaches maturity.

CREDIT: BETHESDA.NET

OR all the promises Virtual Reality makes, it has a long way to go before it sees mass adoption, largely thanks to a number of limiting factors serving as hurdles for casual use. VR has its place in many niches, including first-person shooters, flight and work training simulators, and immersive experiences that can only be conveyed through the medium of three dimensions. One thing all its users have in common is their consumption of pornography, which has become the de facto sales driver. A lack of worthwhile applications and a limited library of games – offering more gimmicks than full-fledged experiences – hampers the medium. In contrast to the number of users who use their headsets to play video games on a regular basis, VR porn dwarfs every other use-case by a long mile. And that’s a problem, not because it’s being used for porn – but because it’s not being used for much else. VR is not achieving its full potential, and the market simply isn’t sold on the medium – at least not yet. Virtual reality is an isolating experience. When you put on a headset it disconnects you from the real world. Maybe that’s a good thing for those who want that experience. But for those who feel discomfort in the

GAMING

TACTIAL ROLE PLAYING IS BACK BY IAN MILES CHEONG

CREDIT: INXILE ENTERTAINMENT

HAT’S old is new again. The tactical role-playing games many of us grew up with in the late 90s and the early 2000s will always have a special place in our hearts – be it Baldur’s Gate, Fallout, or Final Fantasy Tactics. For a while, it seemed video games had moved on from the genre and onto greener pastures. As visuals became more advanced and gameplay more frenetic, there seemed to be no place for slow-paced, story-driven experiences. Outside a handful of select releases by Obsidian Entertainment and Larian Studios, most companies invested in role-playing as a whole preferred to adopt the ‘bigger equals better’ approach of open-world RPGs like Skyrim and Cyberpunk 2077 – titles that blur the line between action game and RPG. It’s hard to tell a story where your choices matter when your only options are to pull the trigger to swing a sword. Telling a story, or at least one that’s reactive to your actions, requires context and character motivation – elements that only an ample amount of dialogue options can offer. Enter the tactical RPG: a genre that rewards patience and calls on players to invest time in creating and subsequently role-playing a character, and doesn’t require much (if anything) in the way of reflexes. It’s no secret that as gamers are aging, so too are their tastes – and there’s few things more accommodating to older gamers who want to sit back and think about their actions than an RPG that doesn’t penalise its players for not being good with a gamepad. There’s nothing new about tactical RPGs – and it’s partly what draws so many gamers to them. Millennials who grew up on the turnbased and “real time with pause” RPGs of Y2K will feel at home with the new generation of titles led by the likes of Wasteland 3, Pathfinder: Path of the Righteous, and Pillars of Eternity 2. Baldur’s Gate 3, made by long-time RPG producer Larian Studios, is also playable and slated for a full release in 2022.

WASTELAND 3

“As visuals got more advanced and gameplay more frenetic, there seemed to be no place for slow-paced, story-driven experiences” Despite the fact that many millennials – at least those who didn’t lose themselves in Counter-Strike – grew up on tactical RPGs says nothing of the fact that the genre has always catered to a more mature crowd. It’s as if these gamers, now of age, are finally old enough to truly appreciate what the genre has to offer. The resurgence of the tactical RPG is largely owed to the fact it can now be experienced by an audience that’s looking for more than the cheap thrill of landing the top spot in an Apex Legends leaderboard – a feat that requires quick reflexes and mastery of the first-person shooter. If you’ve played one tactical RPG, you already have the means to play them all. There’s no learning curve, unless you’re playing one for the first time ever. There’s only one real way to play a shooter: you point and click. That’s it. In a tactical RPG, not only are there different difficulty options, there’s the option to play the game as one of a myriad different classes – spellcaster, a charming bard, a swordslinger, or stealthy rogue – and every

combination in-between. In a well-made RPG, your experience is geared towards your personal preference. One unique feature offered by every tactical RPG is that each playthrough can be tailored to the player’s liking. Prefer to breeze through the combat? Just play on story mode or disable perma-death. Prefer a tactical experience? You can do that, too. While a round of Apex Legends or Call of Duty can give you a quick fix – provided you play well, of course – games like Pathfinder offer a more fulfilling, substantial experience that lingers long after you’ve finished your first playthrough. These storydriven, tactically-minded games require you to invest in your character and the choices you make, which impact the world and the characters around you. The realms in which the stories take place offer a respite from the monotony and grind of the real world, away from cancel culture, crime, and the grind of daily life. It’s easy to get lost in the fantasy worlds of Faerun, Rivellon, or Golarion, settings replete with their own culture and political machinations – all of which you have an active hand in shaping. Here, your choices matter. With the COVID-19 pandemic locking much of the world indoors, there are few better places to explore than the worlds behind the looking glass – and they’re adventures you can experience at the beat of your own drum. PENT H O USE

POLITICS

Pushing Positive Discrimination BY ALEXANDRA MARSHALL

stunning bravery. Triple masked with a fresh set of needles in their online bio, these kids enter the fight against wicked freedom-loving ‘fascists’. Listening to the woke promote discrimination and segregation has to be peak irony for this era in human history. The pointy tip of hypocrisy hides dangerous slopes full of ice and treacherous falls on all sides. Australia arrived at this summit after a long ascent into madness. Marxism is a piece of ideological malware accidentally downloaded over a century ago. Since then it has mutated inside our civilisation, spreading through skim soy lattes and indecipherable social science courses attended by youths wearing dozens of tiny badges protesting consumerism. It is the catalyst most likely to set that midnight bell ringing. Affirmative action. Positive discrimination. Quota systems. Call them whatever you like, at their core they are a vengeful act of discrimination dressed up as virtue. The idea is to stop treating people as individuals based on merit and instead rank them via a system of ‘protected characteristics’. This translates to an employer hiring a less qualified person because they share a skin pigmentation with a previously persecuted group. Mandatory diversity is not based on logic. People of European descent have

been conquered, killed, displaced, erased, culturally abused, enslaved, starved and persecuted. Now, they are being punished for surviving. Social systems evolve over time. Female equality was a positive step. They won the argument and, for a second or two, women entered the workforce under the power of personal merit. Equality of choice does not mean equality of outcome. When women failed to choose ‘the right professions’ activist movements decided to cry ‘sexism!’ instead of filling out job application forms. These political movements weaponised race, gender, and

placing pressure on companies to ‘equalise’ their gender and race statistics. Forget hiring people who suit the job, you’ve got to hire people that ‘look right’ in a painfully shallow reflection of everything that’s gone wrong with society. Once discrimination is accepted as a positive activity,’ it is easy to extend. Barely an eyelash was batted when state premiers came out and declared that segregation of the unvaccinated would become mandatory. They encouraged medical discrimination for the common good and criminalised diversity. Australians have been taught

“Listening to the woke promote discrimination and segregation has to be peak irony for this era in human history” sexual orientation for the purpose of election. “Are you a woman who failed at STEM in university? You must be a victim of the patriarchy. Vote for us and we’ll give you a job, no matter how shit you are.” Infantilising women disgusted those who earned their position. Positive discrimination was adopted by Liberal and Labor, padding their factional games with quotas. Not satisfied with destroying the presumption of merit within their candidates, they mandated discrimination in the Australian workforce by

to view themselves as a range of identities. Protecting the status of the collective at the expense of the individual is exactly how we ended up with witch burning, genocide, and apartheid. History is very clear on one thing: discrimination is never virtuous. Those who engage in it are remembered as the villains, not the heroes of the human story. Remember that the next time you watch someone turned away from a shop or dragged off by police because they didn’t have their papers in order.

CREDIT: OXINOXI

HAVE long been a critic of the Doomsday Clock. For the uninitiated, the Doomsday Clock is the product of paranoid hysteric convinced that civilisation exists on the knife-edge of disaster. In a few seconds, these lazy decades of indulgence will strike ‘midnight’ and instead of drinking and fireworks, humanity is supposed to collapse in on itself. The apocalyptic timepiece began its life at seven minutes to midnight in 1947 with a group of geniuses who survived two world wars and then decided ‘oh now the world is ending’. In reality, humans are pretty good at coasting through natural disasters. If anything is going to ‘get us’, it’ll be a self-inflicted wound. Biology made us exceptional survivors, but our social structures have warranty issues. Leave humanity sitting around without an existential crisis for too long and we’ll create a disaster to break up the boredom of safety. As a species, we crave the drama of calamity. Our literature is an endless worship of heroes and their eternal war against evil. The Wuhan sniffle has given a directionless generation the power to be heroes without leaving the comfort of their bedroom. All that’s required is a quick stab in the arm and suddenly their lacklustre existence is elevated to an act of

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ARTHOUSE

ART AND ALCHEMY WITH EROTIC WATERCOLOUR ARTIST LARA MCKENZIE

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ARA McKenzie is an Australian artist creating erotic watercolour illustrations from a female point of view under the moniker of Wet Strokes Art. Penthouse spoke to the Brisbane artist about how the COVID-19 pandemic kickstarted Wet Strokes Art, where her inspirations come from, and how she is using her artworks to empower other women to harness their sexuality. How did you come to create Wet Strokes Art? I’ve always done something to do with art. I’d say it was innate, it’s always been part of my being. Throughout school I studied fine art and textiles, and after high school I was trying to decide between the two, and I ended up doing a Diploma of Arts in Fashion Design at the National Art School in Sydney. I ran my own fashion label for a while, but I’ve always had my heart in painting, so it didn’t last. Basically, I went back to painting and spent quite a period of time playing with a lot of different styles from hyper realistic oil painting to acrylic abstractions. I was introduced to watercolour about five years ago and it was a real ‘ah ha!’ moment for me. Through oil painting, acrylic and watercolour, I was always painting suggestive flowers, and I was kind of on the periphery of erotic art. I never honed in on erotic art until I created Wet Strokes Art. Now I do that full time. Wet Strokes Art was actually my COVID baby! I was painting but moving between styles and genres. I delved into erotic art around February 2020, and Wet Strokes Art was born. What is it about watercolour that lends itself to erotic art do you think? As far as watercolour goes, I find it quite expressive and free. I quite like the analogy that I’m playing the alchemist with watercolour because you’re mixing water and pigment together and creating different mediums and textures and you never quite know what the outcome is going to be. There’s a bit of the unknown, while at the same time there’s an element of surrender and control with watercolour,

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which I thought was a really good analogy for intimate moments. What draws you to creating art? I find erotic art really exciting. There is so much potential for inspiration. I like creating art that celebrates sensuality, sexuality and passion. Not everyone is comfortable talking about sex and I like that art can be a way of opening that dialogue. Also, I’m quite a private, introverted person, so art is how I best express myself. I also find painting to be quite therapeutic. I’ve had periods of depression and anxiety in the past, and painting has been my therapist to get me through difficult periods. I feel like when I paint, nothing else matters and everything else shuts off. It’s like my meditation and it brings me a lot of personal fulfilment. Your art is very sensual and often puts the focus on female pleasure. Is this part of your intention with Wet Strokes Art? Absolutely. I think it feels natural for me to portray pleasure from a female point of view being a woman myself. I wanted to bring intimacy, connection and emotion into my artwork as well. Instead of a disconnected porn stereotype, I try to portray sensitivity through my erotic paintings. I hope my work empowers women and inspires them to go and explore. I think it’s important to remember that women are sexual creatures too. I think a lot of the time women forget that, shelve it, or prioritise other areas in their lives. I want to empower other women through my art. What inspires you? As far as artists, my all-time favourite artist is Georgia O’Keefe. I’ve loved her work forever. I think she was so ahead of the time. Her paintings were so feminine and suggestive. She was quite revolutionary as an artist, and as a female artist. As a result of her influence on me, that’s how I first got into starting to paint suggestive flowers, and I was teetering around the edges of erotic art. Is your work ever inspired by your own experiences or fantasies? I would definitely say my own experiences and fantasies inspire my work. For me, for a painting to be ‘successful’ and to feel like the

I WOULD DEFINITELY SAY MY OWN EXPERIENCES AND FANTASIES INSPIRE MY WORK

painting has worked, I have to have a sense of connection to it. I need to feel immersed in what I’m creating. The research side of things can be fun too… What’s been the most memorable moment of your career so far? Besides hearing from Penthouse, the most surreal moment has been when a representative contacted me on behalf of a Middle Eastern Sheikh who was interested in my art. They set up a meeting with me and him online and I was expecting to be commissioned for an artwork, but what he actually wanted was to fly me over and become his in-house artist for him at his house. Although I was flattered, I politely declined!

INSTAGRAM: @wetstrokesart WEBSITE: wetstrokesart.com

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Drop into Natures Medicine

www.somamedicinals.com

INTERVIEW

BREAKING

FREE CREDIT: CHESTERTON SMITH PHOTOGRAPHY

AUSSIE ACTOR ANDY RYAN HAS BEEN SOBER FOR TWO AND A HALF YEARS. HE’S LUCKY TO BE ALIVE. HERE, HE TALKS TO CORRINE BARRACLOUGH IN HIS MOST HONEST INTERVIEW EVER ABOUT HOW HE JUGGLED HIS ACTING CAREER WITH AN ADDICTION BATTLE THAT NEARLY KILLED HIM…. BY CORRINE BARRACLOUGH

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INTERVIEW

* THIS ARTICLE DISCUSSES ADDICTION, SUICIDE AND MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES. IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW NEEDS ASSISTANCE, PLEASE CALL LIFELINE ON 13 11 14.

HERE was a time when Andy Ryan was known for his acting skill; he’s a talented performer. But, while he threw his energy into perfecting his craft, off-stage his mental health was crumbling and addiction was gnawing away at his self-esteem. Where did it go wrong? How did he manage to get control of his life again? Penthouse sat down with Andy to talk drugs, drama and dicing with death.

Andy, before we get into the gritty side of your story, can you tell us about some of your favourite work projects? Sure! I’m probably best known for All My Friends Are Leaving Brisbane (2007) and INXS, Love Child (2014-16). Also, Lemon Tree Passage (2013), Tomorrow When The War Began (2010), which was really successful and a TV series called The Jesters (2009-11). You were busy! Yes, my first professional production Les Miserables was when I was 13. You know, being a kid growing up on the Sunshine Coast, who loved dancing and drama, that didn’t make me popular with the football team. So, when I got the Les Mis job, I got a tick of approval. Were you seeking approval? As a child, I just wanted to be like my sister and, unfortunately, she liked doing dance. So I did jazz, tap and ballet. I had three things going against me: I was small and I liked doing dance and drama so it was tough! There was bullying, I had learning difficulties and I always felt I was different to other kids. When did you start drinking? I was 13 when I had my first drink.

Yes, I was 18 or 19. When I got into university I started smoking pot and ecstasy was big at that time. Was that all fun at the time? At the beginning, yes, it was really good. It was a lot of fun. I was really good at it. I was the life of the party. At around 21 or 22, I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art. The industry inside joke is that’s actually a Bachelor of Fuck All; it means nothing. I’d never been to an audition, but it gave me the ability to get one of the best agents in the country. And then you moved to Sydney? I moved to Sydney and my using went to a whole new level. The ability to access drugs increased, it’s that simple. The idea of getting cocaine delivered to your house, it was mental to me. I was just like, ‘Great, let’s do that all the time!’ It didn’t happen back home. It didn’t happen in Brisbane at that time either. Did that all go hand in hand with your industry, do you think? I have to be careful with my words here, but, if you’re prepared to get into bed with the right people, it makes you flip up on the right people’s radar’s in the industry. So, yes, it all went hand in hand.

Do you remember what it was? Yes, it was Bundaberg rum. The best thing about getting Les Mis was getting the job in Les Mis. No one prepared me for life after. The circus leaves town, you know, and you’re not in it. That was half the problem for me. A bottle of Bundaberg rum became my Les Mis; all my fears, jealousies, resentments, all my worries left me.

The acting industry enabled your using? Well, I was almost celebrated for some of my escapades. Getting arrested, bar fights, nudie runs, they were all funny stories. One night I did too much MDMA and went home with a dude. Considering I’m straight, that was a fucking rough hangover. But, they were all just funny stories to tell.

And then you started using drugs in your late teens?

How was that hangover? I woke up with shame, guilt and remorse. I

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remember standing on the train going home thinking, maybe the kids at school were right, maybe I am gay. Did you know you had a problem with alcohol and substances? Yes, I knew. At 26, someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Hey son, I think you’ve got a problem with this’. It’s an industry person who’s in the AA program so I’ll protect their anonymity. And you managed to get sober at that point? I did three and a half years sober. I knew I had a problem with alcohol at that point. I knew, walking into the AA fellowship that I fitted in there. I’d never really related to any group that weren’t artists before. I walked into AA and thought, ‘Oh shit, I relate to you people too much.’ So, you were three and a half years sober and what happened? I had my heart broken. All my formative years I’d been drinking and using, and I didn’t know any other way to cope with my emotions. I was doing service, helping at an AA group and I caught myself one Saturday night putting the chairs away, I was walking home and thought to myself, ‘You know, I’m a 29-year-old male, putting out chairs and stale biscuits at an AA meeting on a Saturday night. Maybe I’ve called this shit too early.’ I thought, I’ll just pick up a drink and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll just go back and start the count again. But it didn’t work out that way? No. What I didn’t realise at that point is that the door to recovery gets so fucking tiny if you pick up. I drank every day for two and a half years. Were you thinking about drinking for a while before you picked up that drink? Probably around six months, I was thinking about it. I was heartbroken and I couldn’t get over that heartbreak. I wasn’t the guy who sat in emotions, I was the guy people called when they’d had a break up and their friends would say, call Andy, he’ll take you out for a fortnight.

T H E I DE A OF GET T I NG C OCA I N E DEL I V ERED T O YOU R HOUSE , I T WA S M E N TA L TO ME

CRDEIT: CHESTERTON SMITH PHOTOGRAPHY

So you picked up? I picked up a bottle of red. I know I’m an actor so I’m prone to being dramatic, but that first sip… I looked at the bottle and thought, ‘We’re going to need at least 10 more of these… and some bags [of cocaine]. It was like a switch that went on and I couldn’t switch it off. I drank for two and half years. Did you go to any AA during that period? No, and any attempt to stop was pretty half arsed. All my friends who were drinkers said they weren’t going to drink with me, because they didn’t want to encourage bad behaviour. And my friends who were non-drinkers didn’t drink, obviously, so it all became very lonely for me at that stage. It then lead to self harm, suicidal thoughts and I lost control. I used to cut myself with a knife and, towards the end, I would slit my wrists. It was all emotional period – grief, loss, issues I hadn’t dealt with through childhood. Those song lyrics are right, I found, the drugs didn’t work anymore. And you didn’t talk to anyone about what was going on? I didn’t know where to start. If you break a

leg and it’s in a cast, someone asks you how you’re going. If you’re going mental in the head, they don’t ask, and even if they did I would have just said I was fine. I wasn’t going to turn around and say, from the age of six I’ve been in emotional pain. How did you cope from day to day? That’s when experimenting with harder drugs like meth came in. I didn’t even care at that point if I died. My drug of choice was cocaine, but if that wasn’t available, it was dealer’s choice. I was working a little, I did Underbelly at that time – a show I can hardly remember. The periods when I was drinking, my career dried up. Then it flourished during my sober points. When I wasn’t drinking, I performed well. But I couldn’t see that because I was in it. That’s why they say alcohol is cunning, baffling and powerful. On paper, only an idiot couldn’t see it. Everyone else could see it, but when you’re in it, you can’t see it and you don’t want to admit it. When was it that film director Stuart Beattie asked Russell Crowe to write you a letter to

try to get you on track? I was 24 when that happened. I was drinking at that point, before my first sober period. I’d missed my call-time, I woke up with two ambulance officers and crew in my room. I actually lost the job. They said there was $30 million behind the production, there were kids lining up to do my role, I had to get my agent to beg for my job back. They said, if you commit to not drinking, we’ll give you a second chance. I’m so grateful for that. I’m so thankful that Stuart Beattie was so nurturing and understanding to my predicament. A lesser man would have told me to fuck off. This was a major production, $30 million behind it, a Paramount international release. It was a big deal. They could have said, you won the Willy Wonka ticket and you tore it up, that’s not our problem. So you managed to finish that job without drinking? I did it for three months – but, I smoked a packet of cigarettes every day and the occasional joint. All with the delusion in my head that I thought I was sober. PENT H O USE

T H AT ’ S W H E N E X PERI M E N T I NG W I T H H A RDER DRUGS L I K E M E T H CA M E I N. I DI DN ’ T E V E N CA RE AT T H AT P OI N T I F I DI ED

you were here because you said you’d do whatever it takes to get sober’. I was just like, ‘Fuck you mate’. But I did write the letter and I cried like a baby reading it to my group.

and do something with it because I suck at it. My family organised my rehab at South Pacific Private rehabilitation and it changed my life.

What was the advice? They said that there would be some people in there who were there to avoid jail, some to keep an employer happy or a partner happy or family and friends. They said there would be a select few who really wanted to get sober. They told me to find the nerds and stick with them for 21 days. I did that. Rehab isn’t the time to sit with the cool kids at the back of the bus.

And then what happened after the production finished? A week after the production finished I got back on it. That’s the only reason I stayed sober until the end of production, I knew I would return to drinking as soon as I could. I was just toughing it out until the end. There’s such a lack of understanding about addiction… Absolutely there is! When you tell people you’re in recovery and they say, ‘All credit to you, I did dry July and that was hard enough’. I’m like, ‘Fuck off mate! You did a month and you’re not an addict. Just fuck off!’ I feel so lucky to have Ben Geurens as such a good friend [he played Toby Mangles in Neighbours]. He’s my best friend and has always been there for me through the drinking and sober times. That says a lot about his character – and I mean, a lot! It was a family intervention in 2018 that got you back on track again? It was two and a half years ago. My selfharm had started to get really intense and I don’t own that many long shirts, you know? My life had become totally unmanageable. What did that look like? I had no job, I had no money, I was back living at my parents at 32. I had no prospects. I was so grateful for the intervention. As I said before, the door to recovery gets smaller and smaller. I was determined not to prove those in AA right. I didn’t want to turn around and admit they were right. But, the truth is, alcoholism is a progressive disease. It does get worse. When my family intervened, I buckled and asked God to take my life 48

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In what way? Firstly, it saved my life. I got the opportunity to learn deeply about grief and unprocessed pain. I learned you have to confront it. I’d been drinking over it. And one of the worst thing that happened was a girl I’d been seeing took her own life. We’d been doing all this bad stuff. She was my yardstick. I kept telling myself, ‘I’m not as bad as her so I’m not an alcoholic. She was a little bit worse than me. I used to love hanging out with her because it was fun, and I got the reassurance I wasn’t as bad as her. The last conversation I had with her was on the phone. I told her I was going to rehab and if I was going, she needed it too. She said to me, “Ain’t no one got time for that, babe”. That was the last thing she said to you? Yes. I had a job at that point and I was flying to shoot. I connected to the Wi-Fi on the plane, my phone lit up with this message from her best friend saying, ‘Hey, I just need to let you know that she took her life.’ I screamed on the plane. The crew came running over and I showed them the message. They told me to sit at the back of the plane; we’d be landing in 20 minutes. That funeral must have been tough? I was in rehab; I couldn’t go to her funeral. I went up to one of the counsellors and said, ‘I’m having a rough day, I can’t go to this girl’s funeral because I’m in rehab. He said I should write a letter to get my emotions out. I said there was no way I was going to do that; the last letter I’d written was the Santa. He replied, ‘that’s funny because I thought

What did that teach you? It taught me that I can go through heartbreak and agonising grief and not pick up a drink. Yes, it’s scary. Yes, it’s depressing. But it was actually the catalyst for me to say, ‘I’ve got a shot here’. I proved to myself that I could do life on life’s terms. Someone gave me some good advice before I went into rehab that time.

Do you feel you’re on the right path now? I’m not perfect – but life is much better than when I was drinking. I still lose my temper, I haven’t turned into Gandi, I have an Only Fans account, I can still be OCD, the addict in me can still come out. I’m still learning. But, what I can say is that I haven’t self-harmed and suicidal thoughts haven’t crept up on me. I have structures and procedures in place, I have red flags to look for and people I can call if I’m struggling. I have a sponsor in AA, I have a home group and I’m working the program. The thing I hate most about AA is that it does work! It’s so simple and straightforward. Do you know, I’m being more honest with you than I’ve ever been before… Honesty is good! It is. I don’t want to pretend that it’s all been rainbows and unicorns for two years. It hasn’t. COVID-19 has fucked up my industry, we’re not even in a conversation about rebuilding yet, the arts always come last. It’s been a really big test, but… I haven’t felt like picking up a drink. And that is progress!”

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A F GH A

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N ISTA N FINAL PHASE FAILURE HAVING SERVED IN THE AUSTRALIAN ARMY FROM 2003 TO 2019, INCLUDING NUMEROUS OPERATIONAL DEPLOYMENTS IN AFGHANISTAN, I WANT TO SHARE SOME THOUGHTS WITH YOU ON OUR CHAOTIC WITHDRAWAL FROM THE REGION. BY HESTON RUSSELL

PASSENGER AIRCRAFT DEPARTING FROM HAMID KARZAI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT IN KABUL, AFGHANISTAN

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THE NEW THREAT One of the biggest disappointments about the withdrawal of Coalition troops from Afghanistan has been the manner in which it was done. There is a genuine discussion to be had about whether our military should have continued in Afghanistan beyond 2014, let alone after the 20 years we were there by 2021. However I’m certain that not many would argue that the manner in which this withdrawal was carried out has been an absolute failure. All the military weapons and equipment armoury left behind; that’s no way to withdraw, especially after such a long campaign. And as a military professional, that’s the part that hurts me the most. When I was in Afghanistan in 2011, 2012 and 2015 I saw the very best of our service men and women, in action and in supporting the Afghan people. Now, back home, so many of us are left to wonder, what now? We have literally left Afghanistan – and that whole region – better armed than when we arrived. And we’re talking about advanced weaponry including armoured vehicles, night fighting equipment, body armour and even drones. This has armed the Taliban with an extraordinary new war chest that will also undoubtedly end up in the hands of others as such items are prized and purchased at a high price by those seeking to bring harm. There’s a very real threat posed now that we must acknowledge and address. As the world opens back up after the COVID pandemic, there are now real world implications from this botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. As the already porous borders of the Middle East lie alongside Europe and many other locations, they will once again be travelled by tourists. I’m not sure many people truly understand what this could mean for the world. Our campaign in Afghanistan has ended, shrouded in extreme disappointment. From the glaring exposure of our failure to understand and implement strategic planning, following through to what’s been happening on the ground to ensuring safe passage out of 52

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the area for those we left behind; ultimately we had a responsibility to those people who’ve been our allies – and we failed them. DON’T BE FOOLED BY ISIS PROMISES Don’t underestimate the power of ISIS ideologues. In 2014-2017 we deployed an Australian Special Operations Task Force into Iraq specifically to take on and destroy the extremist know as ISIS / ISIL or Daesh on the ground. Despite it not being seen in the media, Australian Special Forces once again played a key role in defeating this enemy and winning the war in Iraq. But the extremist threat still remained within the region and other countries close by. Afghanistan now faces the time-honoured tradition of power struggles and strategic competition in the power vacuum that accompanies these events. Al-Qaeda is the group that was founded by Osama Bin Laden and carried out the 9/11 attacks in 2001 in New York. This group follows Wahhabism, an extreme form of Sunni Islam that insists on a literal interpretation of the Koran and seeks to attack those who oppose this ideology through terrorism and violence. The Taliban differs in its origin and focus. Looking to establish itself as the legitimate political authority of Afghanistan, facilitated by its armies of fighters, the Taliban seeks to govern by enforcing strict laws by which citizens must live without compromise. ISIS-K (Khorasan – traditionally capturing areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran) is a less-known group, which came to be in 2014, enabled by the large withdrawal of Coalition Forces, including our Australian Special Operations Task Group, from Afghanistan at the end of 2013. The internal politics between all of these groups is intense and incredibly complicated. I know what we’re up against from the Taliban because I’ve lived it. I’ve seen it first hand, and also alongside those serving in our Coalition forces including the US, UK and many other Nations. These people we now see giving media conferences are

people we were sent to target and kill, if they weren’t hiding in neighbouring countries to avoid our reach. These are people who will heartlessly target women and young children. These are people who don’t care about how they achieve their aims including taking radical action for maximum exposure. Please, don’t be fooled into thinking they care about how they behave away from the cameras and global scrutiny; they will resort to the most devastating methods to achieve their goal. The Taliban are now the most exposed they have been, politically, in many years. As they push hard to establish themselves as a legitimate government, they’re looking to strike deals with other power broking countries and groups, saying they’re

CREDIT: CHRISTOPHE_CERISIER

S SOMEONE who has served and fought in combat for my country, let me say this: there is only one thing worse than being in a crisis situation. That is, watching an avoidable crisis unfold and being powerless to assist. It has been hard speaking to my colleagues in the military over recent weeks for that reason.

“PLEASE, DON’T BE FOOLED INTO THI INKING THEY CARE ABOUT HOW THEY BEHAVE AWAY FRO OM THE CAMERAS AND GLOBA AL SCRUTINY”

going to provide stability to the people of Afghanistan so they can secure funding, aid and confidence for commercial dealings. We must never forget the ideology that drives these people – and what their ultimate goal is. Within each of these groups remains those radical jihadists focused on ridding the world of the threat that they perceive Western culture poses to their beliefs. SPECIAL FORCES CAPABILITY Much of the work Special Forces carries out is hidden. This is the work we did for more than a decade in Afghanistan without wide exposure. It’s not in the public highlight reels of political poses and easily understood snapshots. Much of the work is labelled

as ‘clandestine’ or ‘discreet’. Tracking and tracing insurgents and terrorists, sticking them down before they can act against those they plan to bring harm. Men and women on the ground, listening to calls, gathering the intelligence to know that an attack is being planned, establishing lists of who is involved, then finding these people and taking the fight to them. All of this behind-the-scenes work is the real work, and that’s why we’ve maintained a presence in Afghanistan and the region for so many years. So much of what will play out from here, won’t play out in the public eye. We will see internal power plays between competing ideologies, and the likely fragmentation further still as individuals

become disenchanted. The Ideologies will be tested in the face of greater economic and power promises of those in charge, and those who want to be involved. TRIAL BY MEDIA The sudden collapse of Afghanistan and the few weeks after, our TV screens and phones were filled with the images and highlights of human despair. But now that the story is made, sadly we see the media attention move on. Back to the pandemic and even for some, back to their award winning agenda based on glimpses and segments of the war that was fought by our Special Forces, regardless of context or legal process. Sadly, when I see those in our media running an ongoing campaign against the military, I wonder why young Australians would even want to join up these days. When I see the way those who fought, including my own men, are treated; knowing the sacrifices they made within their own lives, only to be discredited, doubted and thoroughly unsupported, I often despair. When I was there on the ground in Afghanistan, we did what we were sent to do, and we did it well. We did so as proud Australians, representing the uniform we wore, the flag on our sleeve, and those we fought alongside. And it was always for those back at home so that not only would they never have to face the threats and terrors we saw, but also so that they may never even actually have to think and worry about their existence. Protecting the hearts and minds of the Australian people is just as important as the physical task. That is why we select, train and deploy our special forces, to do what needs to be done, in the full context of why we want our people to live as one and free. Time and time again, we haven’t gone far enough to support our military personnel, especially those like our Special Forces that may be overly hard to understand. Yes, I chose to put on the uniform – it was my decision to put myself out there. If actions were taken, and decisions made against the law, then they must be addressed, and punished. But the only authorities in our nation that have the ability, and right, to make such decisions are those in our democratic courts, not those in their daily segments or printed columns. Some sections of our media even appear to PENT H O US E

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“I KNOW WHAT WE’RE UP AGAINST FROM THE TALIBAN BECAUSE I’VE LIVED IT” anyone in need. This includes those we might otherwise consider to have shown treason in such actions before. Those of us who were there on the ground know that no Australian died in vain. Each died doing what we chose to do, when we signed up to serve. They died as counted within the number of those they loved, comrades in arms, our brothers and sisters in uniform – forged with bonds that surpassed any labels or discriminations we now bicker about back at home. I know so many young Australians who, through such combat and chaos, have reconnected to our ANZAC spirit. I know our troops didn’t die in vain. I know it was worth it. Even our national broadcaster, the ABC,

has continuously run segments looking to reinforce a narrative that has brought awards and decorations for many of their reporters. Even as members of our SAS were literally deployed to support the evacuation operation in Afghanistan, the ABC chose to try and tarnish the reputation of this unit in an expose that was nothing more than a stitch-up and slander. This from our national broadcaster? Come on – enough is enough. Families of veterans shouldn’t have to come out and defend their loved ones. These media hit jobs, as if all this is being done for political gain, it’s a disgrace. The indisputable truth is: the real threat is the Taliban. While our troops were once again deployed

CREDIT: AHDESIGNCONCEPTS

have an issue with people who have served, simply because they chose to do so. If there’s one thing that’s come out of the Brereton Report, it’s that our government has failed our military, and there must be legislation put in place to ensure it does not happen again. It cannot happen again. We have a national obligation to support our military men and women. While the media is able to freely accuse and attack anyone who has worn a military uniform, our veterans are unable to speak out in their own defence while serving within the Forces, and must chose to do so with full appreciation of the real world risks it may cause us and our families if we chose to do so after leaving. Those commanding our Defence Force and Departments have too often chosen to sit back and provide simple holding statements at arm’s length, or no provide comment at all, as opposed to showing the support we would have received when in contact or under attack with the Taliban. This lack of support is affecting our veterans at home. It’s also affecting our loved ones who are being dragged through these allegations as well. I know this because I have many calling me, calling my organisation and asking for support. I have visited them and seen their despair at being unable to afford the high cost now required to achieve justice, let alone the presumption of innocence in our democratic nation. Politicians will proudly stand to give all Australians a ‘fair go’ and yet we let this happen? Why would our young men and women want to join up when they see the way they’re treated back at home ? When our own media gives a platform to a Taliban spokesman saying our troops died in vain, where’s the public outcry and protest? Let alone the acknowledgment of the indignity this may cause to Australian veteran families watching in lockdown ? The very same media could actually be on the ground helping to shape and save the lives of the people in Afghanistan now at the will of the Taliban and terrorist organisations that roam free – free from accountability unless it’s captured and sent to TV screens around the world. But as we all know, this would never happen for the journalists’ fear of the very real threats that our veterans gladly faced, and would do again to rescue

takes on veterans’ mental health. Over the last year alone I’ve watched a series of events snowball and witnessed the impact it’s having. The impact of the Breton Report, the agenda of some media against our military, and now this botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, all have had a lasting impact on the mental health of our veterans. This is real world stuff.

to make amends for the botched withdrawal, I was talking to a family who was in hiding. Rather than the media – especially the taxpayer funded ABC – running hit jobs on our ADF, they should have been putting their energy into telling these stories and bringing light to those in need. Rather than discrediting our troops, they should have been there pushing for accountability from the Taliban, our actual enemy, or compelling our government to commit and achieve our ‘best efforts’. MENTAL HEALTH We often hear people talk about mental health with regard to our veteran community. Don’t underestimate the impact that this relentless trial by media

TACKLING POLITICS I want to drill home to the public that veterans and their families struggle to have a voice, let alone be heard. Throughout my entire career in Special Forces we weren’t allowed to have social media. We were banned from speaking with the media and took every precaution to protect our identities and those of our families. This is what I mean about many of our military having no voice. It’s been a little over a year since I felt that I had to take myself out of this world to make it a better place. That experience has fuelled my focus to be a voice that cannot be ignored. I don’t care about the money, or profit. My move into politics is driven simply because we need motivation through inspiration. We have had enough of fear. I want to stand up for the values that I went to fight for; and the values that five generations of my family served and fought for. The best part of my life was serving within our armed forces. The best part of my service was taking the fight to those who sought to harm, oppress and bully others. I simply won’t stand by and watch this happen here at home any longer. I didn’t want to join another political party, believe me I’ve been approached by most of them over the last few months. I think there’s power in diversity and uniting in purpose. I will fight alongside those authentic to the mission at hand, and hope to bring about change regardless of holding a position in office, or supporting from within the staff. I don’t want to die wondering what could have happened if I’d pushed through this door. I look at the major parties, and find myself searching for real leadership. We continue to be divided and in crisis

because it’s the complete culture that’s rotten. The Australian people are looking actions, not words, made with common sense and seeking to motivate through inspiration, not fear. Planning and putting that into practice is my speciality. I might not have all the skills right now, but I also have a key strength in bringing people together to create teams strong in purpose and commitment. Selecting and training the right team for any mission, not just the task at hand, is what we need to forward and get our way of life back to being enjoyed by all Australian citizens, respected by our allies, and feared by those who chose us as enemies. I know I can do this, because this is what I’ve been trained my whole life to do; I’ve started making those approaches to find the right people who believe in achieving an outcome for the benefit of others. That’s what’s lacking in politics. Currently, there is no emotional intelligence. There is no acknowledgement that being a leader requires leadership, not the reliance on authority or control. We need people in politics who will focus on a purpose that is higher than any party or policy, that can change the day after an election is decided. We must bring back some purpose to politics if we are to build a stronger, unified Australia together. Where do we start? We start by choosing the right people. We need to call upon people who will make the right decisions when the cameras aren’t on. We need some common sense. We need accountability. Right now, I don’t know any Australian children looking up to politicians and being inspired. That has to change – and there’s no time like now. YOUR SUPPORT PLEASE I want to step up and play my part to make sure we evolve and innovate our nation to achieve its true and excellent potential. Like the Kangaroo and the Emu on our National emblem, it’s time to stop stepping backwards and move forward with a focus beyond simply the next election cycle. If you’d like to join me, you can visit my website and be part of the change. HestonRussell.com PENT H O US E

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OPINION

Prepare For The Taliban Crime Rise GET READY FOR A RISE IN INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL ACTIVITY NOW THE TALIBAN ARE BACK IN POWER BY DAVID LEYONHJELM

ILLUSTRATION BY JOSH SPENCER

HE fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban has substantial implications for great power rivalry. It also has the potential to prompt a major increase in international criminal activity. Understandably, the rest of the world hasn’t rushed to embrace them. Despite assurances it’s changed, the Taliban remains committed to Sharia law; there are already reports of extrajudicial murders, beatings and the return of women to second class status, including restricting or cancelling girls’ education. Given that, international recognition of the right to govern will be largely withheld. This will make it difficult for the Taliban to raise enough money to run the country rather than just its insurgency. There’s little scope to raise taxes, access to international financial markets and funders will be difficult, while international aid, previously the country’s main source of funding, will be scarce. Moreover, many experienced senior managers as well as qualified technical and professional staff have fled the country. The country does have significant mineral deposits; iron, copper, gold and lithium, according to a 2010 Pentagon study. This may attract investment by China, but difficult access and lack of roads will complicate extraction. It’s certainly no short-term solution. The Taliban is therefore likely to ramp up criminal operations. Chief among these is opium production; despite initially opposing drug production 20 years ago, opium production has long flourished in regions under Taliban control. Afghanistan has been the world's largest producer of illegal opium for decades, accounting for 80-90 percent of supply

according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Opium is estimated to have contributed up to 11 percent of Afghanistan’s economy in 2018, with 3.3 million Afghans involved in producing it. UNODC says the Taliban has been supporting farmers growing poppies since 2008, using it as a source of income for the insurgency. Another funding source will be illicit tobacco, a market with which the Taliban is also familiar. As taxes on legal tobacco have increased around the world, the illicit market has expanded to cost governments an estimated US$40-50bn in tax revenue every year.

“The West could try to appease (and bribe) the Taliban to try and limit the incentive to ramp up its criminal activities” According to a 2015 US State Department report, cigarettes are one of the most smuggled ‘legal’ products in the world. A form of transnational organised crime, trafficked through the same routes as drugs, weapons and other illicit forms of trade, it says the illicit trafficking of tobacco fuels organised crime and corruption, robs governments of tax revenue, and helps expand the global illegal economy. Illicit tobacco has also been linked to the financing of terrorist organisations. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) says profits from illicit tobacco account for as much as 20 percent of funding for militant groups such as al-

Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic State and the Taliban. The ICIJ claims illicit cigarette production in the strife-torn tribal belt in Pakistan, a semiautonomous region of Pashtun tribes bordering Afghanistan, accounts for an estimated 22 percent of all consumption in Pakistan, a country with high cigarette taxes. Mohammad Khosa, who heads the anticounterfeiting efforts for British American Tobacco in the region, estimates the region’s factories pump out some 15 billion cigarettes a year, a large portion of which is smuggled to neighbouring Afghanistan. From here they are shipped around the world, now even easier with the Taliban in charge of the airports and borders. With the cost of producing these cigarettes just one or two cents each, it’s obvious why the illicit market exists. The price to consumers of legal cigarettes is many times this in developed markets mostly due to government taxes. The West could try to appease the Taliban to try and limit the incentive to ramp up its criminal activities. It could continue to increase attempts to enforce anti-smuggling and tax evasion laws. What it probably won’t do is make a serious effort to reduce demand, either for illegal or legal cigarettes. Yet both these make more sense. Price increases driven by taxation have created the incentive for illegal tobacco. If smokers had affordable access to nicotine substitutes, particularly vaping, many wouldn’t be interested in tobacco products. Australia has close to the most expensive tobacco products in the world and also restricts nicotine vaping. The Taliban government of Afghanistan would approve. PENT H O USE

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HILE some of us mere mortals spend our days glued to our keyboards, staring into the digital abyss, Jean-Philippe Piter has spent the past 30 years living his best life, photographing a rotating bevy of beauties against a backdrop of white sand beaches and pristine turquoise waters in the balmy Bahamas. Born in Dakar, Senegal, Piter splits his time between St Barth’s and the Bahamas. Renowned for his playful art nudes and creative celebrity portraits, Piter’s work is regularly shown in galleries in New York and Saint Barth, and has been published around the world in publications like: Vanity Fair, Vogue UK, Times magazine, Photo and more. His photos are a celebration of women, nature and sexual freedom.

For Piter, photography was always in his blood. “I am a voyeur, so I guess photography is instinctive for me. My first ever photo was a nude shot I took of my girlfriend at the time.” When it comes to a great photo, Piter says there are three elements that need to be considered. “One: a great subject. Two: the way the photographer captures it with his own vision and the way he adds his own signature to the image. Three: good lighting.” Piter has been shooting professionally for three decades now, and says moving from film to digital cameras was a gamechanger. “Photoshop has made a big difference in my approach to photography and has changed the way I work. It allows me to stress less on a photoshoot. I’m able to focus more on the subject and their energy,

and less on the small details or having a perfect technique.” “Techniques change and your own personal style evolves with it, but in the end, it remains the same: capture the moment, the emotions and tells a story,” he added. His advice for budding nude photographers? “Be yourself. To not try to imitate. I would advise you to develop a rich, diversified artistic and photographic culture. Always treat models with courtesy, manners, and respect. And having a good sense of humour and patience will definitely help.”

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ABOVE: THE ANNEX LINEN SHIRT AND SHORTS RIGHT: MR SIMPLE SHORTS AND SHIRT, G.O.D EYEWEAR

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LEFT: INCA HEARTS PANAMA HAT, BLAZER AND TROUSERS BY ARJE, RINGS AND NECKLACE BY NEVER NEVER JEWELRY VIA ATLAS HOMME. ABOVE: JOHN ELLIOTT WHITE DENIM, SANDALS BY BRADOR

PENT H O USE

ABOVE: INCA HEARTS PANAMA HAT, RINGS AND NECKLACE BY NEVER NEVER JEWELRY VIA ATLAS HOMME RIGHT: POOL LTD SILK LOUNGEWEAR

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GROOMING

SEA, SLICK, SALT MODE

PIRATE

WEBSITE: modernpirate.com.au

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CREDIT: MODERNPIRATE.COM.AU

EN’S cosmetics have come on leaps and bounds over the past decade, filling a gap in the market where there was a genuine requirement. But then the floodgates opened, and suddenly finding the right hair, beard or skincare products became a long and arduous game of trial, and in a lot of cases, error. What if you could just cut to the chase and get your hands on something with a little substance? Something that ticks the boxes and makes you satisfied enough to go back for more? A brand that makes you think about how much time and effort you’ve saved rather than how much money you’ve lost. Serving the rising rate of gentlemen faced with this conundrum in Modern Pirate, an Australian brand inspired by tattoo guns, barbershops and surf culture as opposed to abstract, over the top concepts. They have cleverly married together passion and culture to create a range of products that do the job without mucking about. Now, this doesn’t mean that they are out there to trick men into thinking they are making an effort. Far from it. Their range is purpose made for the modern gent who boldly blurs the lines between ruggedness and pure style. Browse through their stellar range of men’s grooming gems and you’ll notice a few different options when it comes to pomades. This is definitely an area that has had barbers and their customers alike shouting from the rooftops. Whether you’re looking for that no-fuss, no-shine hold (Matte Clay Paste), or something that keeps wavey, harder to control hair in one place (Heavy Hold pomade), they have a little something ready to exceed expectation. But what about those of us who have long locks and like to keep that sun-kissed, salty-bleach look well after a session in the swell? Well, Modern Pirate has created a Sea Salt spray that adds a nice bit of texture, volume and general life to longer lengths. It’s coupled with a Sandlewood scent and is a refreshing, everyday take on the traditional sea salt spray. But what goes on, must come off, we hear you say! Well, Modern Pirate even have you covered here. They have an awesome shampoo and conditioner combo that helps keep your hair healthy, clean and ripe for styling.

FRAGRANCE

BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM

puts his name to, it tends to take off – his David Beckham fragrances being a prime example. The latest scent to come from his cologne brand is Refined Woods, which is being mooted as his most ‘personal fragrance’ yet, which probably means he actually uses it. Made for men, it’s a longlasting, oriental-wood aroma with just the right amount of depth and freshness. It’s inspired by Mr Beckham’s love of exploration and new cultures.

The nostalgic scent borrows familiar notes like cedarwood and cardamom whilst throwing in some lavender and geranium to give it some originality. Yes, it’s masculine, but there is a modernity to this masculinity, much like Beckham himself. If you’re the type that likes to make a scent your own, no matter where you are or what time of year it is, then this Refined Woods offering from a stylistic icon could be just what you are looking for.

CREDIT: BECKHAM-FRAGRANCES.COM

AVID Beckham could have been forgiven for sitting back and taking life easy after the end of his hugely successful football career. He made more money than any other player during his days on the pitch, down to his pure grit and determination (he was never the best soccer player, after all!). These days a whole new generation knows Beckham (and wife Victoria) as more of a style icon. No matter what he

DAVID BECKHAM REFINED WOODS

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DRINK

THREE OF A KIND SESION TEQUILA

CREDIT: SESIONTEQUILA.COM

HILST jaunting around the sun-baked fields of Jalisco in Mexico, Jennifer Hawkins, Jake Wall and Tim Freeburn came to realise their dream of producing a luxury Tequila. They came across one of the oldest distillers in the Tequila region, The Beckmann Family, and Sesion was born. With the tourists’ ideas and the Beckmann’s master distillers, they managed to

create three unique versions of the celebrated spirit. Keen to do things their own way without straying away from the origins of Mexico’s biggest exports, their range has a little something for everyone. For the traditionalists, their Blanco bottle is a light, clear Tequila that most of us are accustomed to drinking. Its citrusy flavour is tinted with elements of spice and mint and it is pleasantly refreshing on the palette. As a complete contrast in

more ways than one, their dark and delightful Mocha bottle offers a lot more depth, with elements of chocolate and coffee coming to the fore followed by a creamy, sweet finish. It’s not surprising that this offering easily lends itself to cocktails, and there’s even a few nice serving suggestions available on the Sesion website. And last but by no means least is the Reposado, which will be of particular interest to those who are fond of a high-

quality margarita. This strong yet smooth-tasting Tequila offers notes of vanilla, orchard fruits and oak, perfect when mixed with some crushed ice and lime juice. It’s evident from the off that Sesion are fast achieving what they set out to do, and that’s provide a unique range of high-quality Tequila that can be enjoyed on its own or creatively in cocktails. It’s a million miles away from many a stereotype associated with the spirit.

PENT H O US E

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CBD

WELL OILED

CREDIT: FREYEE PHOTOGRAPHY

T SEEMS that every street you walk down these days there’s a shop selling CBD. The product has certainly been getting a lot of attention over the past few years and it’s fair to say that it’s not without its sceptics. This was always going to be the case. CBD, or Cannabidiol as it is better known in medical circles, is made from exactly the same cannabis plant. It can also be extracted from industrial hemp, which has higher levels of CBD and extremely low THC compared to the cannabis plant (which is the opposite). After all, it is still classed as an illegal substance in most countries. But a more detailed inspection under the bonnet reveals a medicine that has some really fascinating benefits, whether you’re digesting, vaping or using topically on your skin. Wondering what all the fuss is about? Well, here we’re going to delve a little deeper. What is CBD and how is it made? CBD is just one of 100 different compounds found in the marijuana (cannabis or hemp) plant. It’s one of the elements that doesn’t actually get you high, meaning it’s free from psychoactive effects. It’s sold in oil form, but to first do this, it needs to be extracted from the famous green plant and mixed with coconut, hemp seed or other oils , which dilutes its natural form. This means that it can be used in a variety of ways, from putting drops under your tongue to vaping. Whatever tickles your fancy. But what are the benefits of CBD? Pain relief, stress relief, reduced muscles spasms and general wellbeing have all been given the scientific thumbs up by medical experts researching the benefits of CBD. There haven’t been enough clinical studies to call this a wonder drug yet, but it is proving to be extremely versatile and effective. Like any type of natural remedy, some

MEDICINAL CBD people will benefit more than others, but the pros are currently far outweighing the cons. What’s the best way to take CBD? A lot of people just squeeze drops from their bottle of CBD under their tongue several times a day; usually two to three times daily with good quality CBD, depending on what you’re using it for. It has a pretty mild earthy taste and the coconut oil sweetens it up. Vaping CBD has also started to take off recently thanks to brands like Soma Medicinals who provide great kits tailored made for vaping CBD. Vaping CBD is actually a quicker route to feeling the effects and has proven a much more efficient way to consume the oil. Why vaping is the way forward For those who find CBD a direct deterrent for anxiety, muscle aches and even those moments when you feel a little blue, vaping really helps put a positive spin on things again. There’s even research that suggests it makes you a little more relaxed in the bedroom, meaning less stress, and more of the good stuff! Brands like Soma Medicinals create glass cartridges specifically designed for vaping CBD with no nasty carrier ingredients, far removed from the nicotine-based versions we’ve become accustomed to seeing. Soma even provides an eco-friendly battery for those who are conscious of their environmental impact. If you fancy checking out a bit of CBD vaping, they currently have a nice Botanical Vape kit that includes a breath controlled ceramic cartridge, and more importantly, a CBD extract that includes other minor cannabinoids with natural terpenes to flavour) that promote better well-being. It’s time to check out what all the fuss is, indeed, about! WEBSITE: somamedicinals.com

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TRUNKS

A MODERN CLASSIC AGA BLUE

CREDIT: MGMOTOR.COM.AU

EFRESHING yet traditional design has always been the best way we describe Pool’s ethos. They love to do the basics well in terms of fit, function and finish. Their minimalist approach will always have a place in the market, and the fact they don’t feel the need to

overcharge for Aussie-made garments adds to their appeal. Take these Pool Shorts in Aga Blue as a prime example. They’re designed for everyday wear, whether you’re having a splash in your garden pool or heading down the beach. Made from Italian engineered fabrics that memorise your form, these shorts actually

become a better fit and more comfortable the more you wear them. They feature two front pockets and one rear for added practicality, along with a white drawcord that contrasts nicely with dark marine hue. They can easily sit under a stylish tee, or even an open short-sleeved shirt, when winding down

poolside or enjoying a postbeach aperitif. Another major tick is that these shorts, along with all of the Pool Ltd garments, are made a stone’s throw away from their Melbourne Studio in Victoria. This is a definite plus for those who are more conscious about how their wardrobe is made and transported.

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FOOD

FUTURE FLIPPED

HILST lockdown has, in immensely large parts, been a chokehold on the lives of just about everyone, there are a few that have found creative ways to keep their passions alive. Bennelong Chef, Anna Moratti had little left to do once the doors of the restaurant were forced shut,

BENNELONG CHEF FLIPS BURGERS IN BONDI so she decided to create a burger pop-up. After speaking with Bennelong’s old Restaurant manager, Sean Royal, she had a bit of a lightbulb moment. Royal had just opened a Bondi Liquor Co, a distillery and bar that had opened just before lockdown and was also forced to close. It had an unused kitchen, and Moratti decided she could make something work

to get the bar open again. With just four burgers in total, the menu might seem a little short. But when you look at what they actually consist of, your mouth starts to water. First up there is the Parmesan and Truffle, which is made up of beef, truffle, tarragon mayo, parmesan, lettuce and tomato. Then there’s the Smokey Beef, with smoked paprika mayo and cheddar.

There’s a classic American cheeseburger and even a delicious Vegan option. The pop-up has been a huge hit with locals as well as a way to keep busy for Moratti and Royal. And, because it is now selling food, they can also sell booze. That means you can get a Smokey Beef and a Dirty Martini at the same time. A perfect way to forget about lockdown if ever there was one!

Anna Mora

CREDIT: BONDI LIQUOR CO

tti

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FASHION

DESIGNER FOCUS BODE NY

CREDIT: BODENEWYORK.COM

E’VE become accustomed to men designing women’s garments for centuries. Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Tom Ford, generations of male designers making their name in women’s clothing. But rarely does it go the other way. Rarely do we see women stepping into men’s design. That’s exactly what Emily Bode did, and she hasn’t really looked back since becoming the first woman to show at New York Fashion Week: Men.

But with such a blurring of the lines between men’s and women’s fashion, the only thing surprising about this achievement is that it has taken so long. Maybe it’s because there has been historically more money in female fashion; maybe it’s because men’s fashion has a lot of creative potential. Either way, what she is creating is stunning. In many circles, she is, alongside the likes of Tom Snyder, seen as the glowing beacon of New York men’s fashion. She has found her voice in taking vintage fabrics, usually bold and colourful, and turning them into something new. Past

and present. Man and woman. Her shirt and knitwear designs are particularly eye-catching, and unmistakably New York, sitting just on the right side of outlandish. In fact, her collections as a whole force you to look that little bit longer, like a fine piece of art or a mesmerising image. What’s even more impressive is that she is only 31 years of age, which means that the evolution of this highly acclaimed designer, and her design house, is only going to get better and better. It’s certainly an exciting time for men’s fashion!

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SUNGLASSES

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

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named G.O.D, an eyewear manufacturer from the US, have created a range that will make you believe in being different. They offer an endearing collection of 60s influenced frames mixed with a bit of modern know-how. Take their hand-crafted FOUR design as a prime example. Inspired by mid20th century French New Wave, they come with slim rectangular lenses and a bold frame, as if taken

straight off the nose of Monsieur Jean Luc Goddard himself. Another design inspired by this era is the SIXTEEN II, a somewhat oversized design that was famous on the other side of the Atlantic during the same era – think Roy Orbison meets Buddy Holly and you’re somewhere near. But it’s not all thick frames and throwback inspirations. G.O.D offer more refined rims too, like their easy to

remember ONE, TWO, and THREE designs. But there is more to G.O.D sunglasses than shape and size. Each frame is fitted with custom hinges from some of the world’s leading manufacturers, whilst their high-density glass lenses are crafted using premium Mazzucchelli acetate. Looking to the heavens for an inspired new summer accessory? Well G.O.D might just have the answer.

CREDIT: ROLEX.COM

ANY of us tend to play it a little safe with our sunnies when the summer draws near. It’s probably the most conservative accessory we have in our wardrobe, but sometimes it’s just good to be a little flamboyant. Why not be as playful with eyewear as you would for anything else you wear? Well, the wonderfully

G.O.D EYEWEAR

SANDALS

SLIP ON STYLE

The former is a name synonymous with warm-season footwear comfort, the latter a designer that blurs the lines between art, interior design and fashion. In fact, it’s the Faye factor that really brings these slip-ons to life. Never happy with being pigeonholed, her designs are made for both men and women, come in a variety of fabrics and colours, and just look amazing! It’s that kind of no rules design that can work with a variety of styles if you have just the slightest bit of wardrobe imagination.

One of the standouts from the collab is these touch-strap sandals that take comfort to whole new levels. They have a 100% Nappa Leather lining with a woollen outer that offers a nice felted effect. These open-toe Birks will leave you feeling light on your feet whatever the occasion without having to sacrifice on style. Another eyecatching design within this collab is the Beachcomber, which features a padded upper in Premium leather, inspired by Birkenstock’s minimalistic Arizona classic.

CREDIT: FARFETCH.COM

UMMER is back, your boots have been pushed to the back of the wardrobe because yes, it’s sandal season. Anyone who is still unsure about sandals clearly hasn’t bought the right pair yet. From lounge to lux, whatever your preferred ensemble, you can always add a pair of decent slip-ons with a bit of know-how. Raising the bar in the footwear stakes this summer is an eyecatching collab between German specialists Birkenstock and London designer Faye Toogood.

BIRKENSTOCK X TOOGOOD

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GADGETS

FIT FOR A KING

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The Hub II is a charcoal BBQ made for semi-industrial sized garden parties. It features a modern design that offers authentic flavour, a rarity in the modern age of hot plates. To give you an idea of this beast’s capabilities, let’s crunch the numbers because they’re impressive. You can cook up to 32 small burgers at once, or 16 medium-sized stakes. For those who love chicken, well you can do them five at a time. What a meat feast!

There’s ample storage so you don’t need to keep running back to the kitchen, a one-touch button ignition so you don’t need to fart about with matches and, on top of that, it’s super easy to pack up and store away. If you love having gatherings with your mates in the garden, or large family gettogethers or even a neighbourhood party, this is the perfect tool for you. The price tag might be on the high side, but it’s definitely worth it.

CREDIT: EVERDUREBYHESTON.COM.AU WATERHAU

INCE lockdown, we’ve all become a lot more familiar with our BBQs. They’ve helped us make the dull days at home a little sweeter and a whole lot easier. On the flip side, if being at home for large periods has made you realise you need something that cooks a bit more than snags and the odd bit of shark bait, the Hub II BBQ from Everdure will have you ready for a house full.

EVERDURE HUB II BARBEQUE

confidence IS POWERFUL

IS CONFIDENCE

ART OF THE NUDE

SOAKING UP THE DESERT SUN PHOTO G R A PH ER JO VA MODEL D E I S Y L E ON

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HOT on a steamy day in the remote and rugged high desert of California’s Joshua Tree, the sight of Deisy Leon, nude and lit up by the sun only adds to the national park’s natural beauty. Penthouse spoke with the 24-year-old fine art nude model from Los Angeles about her Penthouse shoot with Jova, why she’s passionate about nude photography, and where she wants you to take her on a date. How was your shoot for Penthouse? Working with Jova is always a pleasure! We have a great connection when it comes to creating. We have very similar goals and inspirations, and it’s always fun shooting together. What do you enjoy about nude photography? What I enjoy the most about nude photography is capturing the true beauty of the body. It’s liberating

when I’m able to absorb the sun’s warm touch on my bare skin.

listening to the waves and watching the sun set together.

Have you always been comfortable with nudity? Yes, I have always loved my body and I’ve always been super confident in myself. Growing up, I was taught selflove, which has definitely helped.

What do you like to do for fun? I like to ride my penny board, roller skate on the beach and play hockey. I’m a passionate player so I give it my all.

What’s been your craziest photoshoot memory? I once had a photoshoot with a 45kg Albino snake. It was my very first time seeing such a big snake in person! Thankfully it was a very friendly snake and the photoshoot went smoothly.

What’s a motto you live by? Live on your own terms! You have no one but yourself at the end of the day so fuck what anyone says. What’s something you’d love to do but haven’t yet? I would love to travel the whole world at least once in my life. See new places, meet new people and eat new foods.

What type of person are you attracted to? Someone that is genuine, patient, loyal and that knows how to listen. What’s your ideal first date look like? Spending the evening by the beach

INSTAGRAM: @deisy.leonn ONLYFANS: @deisyleon WEBSITE: Deisyleon.com

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SEXY PIN-UP ART... WITH A KINKY TWIST!

AVAILABLE FROM TARUSOV.COM

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IN THE CAPITAL OF AN AUTHORITARIAN CENTRAL ASIAN STATE, DOWN IN A DINGY, DUSTY BASEMENT, YOU’LL FIND A BASTION OF HOPE AND LIBERTY BY MATTEO FAGOTTO. PHOTOS BY MATILDE GATTONI

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ASHKENT (Uzbekistan) – The cosy underground stage is immersed in total darkness; the seats are filled to capacity. The theatre is so tiny that the first row of spectators shares the squeaky, wooden floor with the performers. Suddenly, the spotlights dazzle a couple of young actors, battered and dressed in rags, lying among old barrels and plastic garbage. They impersonate two desperate young addicts from a poor neighbourhood. A side door opens, and a couple of police officers walk menacingly towards them. Tonight’s play is titled Rain Behind The Wall. The drama takes place in an unspecified post-Soviet country plagued by police violence, corruption and lack of perspectives for poor urban classes. Beside the stage, a rock band dressed in Soviet militia uniforms accompanies each scene with a skilful mix of rock pieces and more solemn tracks to mark the shifting atmospheres. The audience follows intently as the play escalates amid police abuses and retaliatory attacks by the neighbourhood inhabitants. At the end of two breathtaking hours, the public erupts in loud applause. A dozen actors bow respectfully to hundreds of clapping hands, then run back to their dressing rooms. The spectators leave the low-ceiling-hall in a matter of minutes, inebriated by yet another masterful performance of the Ilkhom theatre company. “The final applause marks the border between the play and the real world, but actors don’t like this strict separation,” explains 48-year-old Boris Gafurov, the theatre’s artistic director. “We would like the spectators to absorb the atmosphere we created on stage and bring it home with them.” Located in the capital Tashkent, Ilkhom (“inspiration” in the Uzbek language) was created in 1976 by Mark Weil, an incredibly talented and visionary local director of Alsatian-Jewish origins. At that time, Uzbekistan was still part of the Soviet Union, and Ilkhom was the first independent theatre in the whole USSR. Despite its controversial, provocative plays and uncensored approach to reality – and much to the surprise of its own founders and supporters – the theatre managed to survive the fall of Communism and the subsequent iron-fisted dictatorship of Islam Karimov, a former Soviet apparatchik who took over Uzbekistan after the collapse of the Soviet Union and ruled it until his death in 2016. The theatre is hosted in the basement of a semi-abandoned complex in the city centre, in the same former potato warehouse where Weil, who was just 24 at the time, founded it. Despite its dilapidated interiors and worn-down floors, the place exudes a unique atmosphere that permeates anyone entering it. “I call this place the Vatican of Uzbekistan because it has its spirit and rules,” explains 50-year-old Irina Bharat, Ilkhom’s deputy general manager. “We learnt from our founder to be brave and to do whatever we deemed right, no matter the consequences. That’s how we managed to survive for so many years.” 110

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The story of Ilkhom is an incredible tale of how a bastion of freedom could thrive in the harshest of dictatorships. When Weil opened the theatre together with a bunch of theatre students, Soviet authorities barely took notice. Tashkent is geographically far from Moscow, the then-seat of executive power, and the seeds of sedition were unlikely to travel that far. Weil was skilled and brave enough to exploit this unexpected opening: in such a conformist dictatorship, people were hungry for space to express themselves freely. After the success stirred by Ilkhom’s first Moscow tour in 1982, the theatre started attracting the unwanted attention of the central government. Despite continuous friction with the authorities and repeated closure threats, Weil assured the survival of Ilkhom, exploiting the complex and at times strained relationships between Moscow and Tashkent and playing one against the other if necessary. Ilkhom quickly became a cultural point of reference for the whole USSR, where theatre was one of the most important means of artistic communication. “We acted recklessly, working on plays that had not been examined by the censorship. We could have been criminally charged for anti-Soviet activities,” narrates Weil in The Unknown Infamous Ilkhom, a book chronicling the theatre’s creation. “We were not a political theatre. We

just wanted to reproduce unedited life and real people on stage”. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 Ilkhom had become strong enough to withstand the haemorrhage of actors who fled newly-independent Uzbekistan for a better future. The new President, Islam Karimov, installed a brutal and paranoid dictatorship; jailing political opponents, imposing travel bans on its people and sending hundreds of thousands of students and state workers to harvest cotton forcibly every autumn. Uzbekistan became a one-party-country with no independent media, yet Karimov did not dare to touch this little island of freedom. The theatre also served a more subtle political purpose: despite widespread human rights abuses, Uzbekistan was officially a democracy, and the regime could use Ilkhom as proof of it. At times, even Karimov’s daughters came and enjoyed the shows. Ilkhom’s approach has remained the same since its creation: don’t openly criticise authorities, but never surrender your artistic freedom. The topics it touches – be that violence, religious fanaticism, the lust of power or the fear of tomorrow – are universal, but they always find references to local events. “In a place like this, it is very easy to make connections to lots of different stories,” explains Bharat. “People want to find those connections, but it has never been something

IRINA BHARAT, THE DEPUTY GENERAL MANAGER OF ILKHOM

BELOW: A MUSICIAN WEARING A SOVIET MILITIA UNIFORM STANDS BEFORE THE THEATRE ENTRANCE. THE STRONG CORRELATION BETWEEN MUSIC AND ACTING HAS BECOME ONE OF ILKHOM’S MOST FAMOUS TRADEMARKS

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BORIS GAFUROV (LEFT), IS ONE OF THE THEATRE’S LEADING ACTORS AND ILKHOM’S ARTISTIC DIRECTOR. HE WAS APPOINTED IMMEDIATELY AFTER MARC WEIL’S ASSASSINATION IN 2007

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that we tried to do, not consciously at least.” Ilkhom’s plays can be extremely provocative or derisory. In Airport, which premiered one week after the death of Karimov in 2016, several speeches of the defunct President were collaged and read backwards to create a monologue that made no sense. “State theatres cannot produce anything without the previous approval of state censorship, but it doesn’t happen here”, continues Bharat. When an unofficial ban on rock music was imposed in 2011, Ilkhom was the only place in town where rock bands kept on playing. Ilkhom is nowadays Uzbekistan’s main complex for independent culture. It hosts a drama school, music festivals, art exhibitions and innovative laboratories combining theatre with music and poetry. The performances attract spectators from Central Asia, Russia, Europe and the US – and its theatre company has taken part in countless festivals and shows worldwide. The company still follows Weil’s guidelines and unique approach. Plays are not based on the execution of a rigid script but instead developed from small pieces born out of the performers’ creativity and imagination. These are then slowly refined and put together into a coherent ensemble to create a play. “It takes much longer to prepare a show this way, but the result is well worth it. Everyone who participated put a little piece of himself into the project and the amount of pride you take from it is priceless,” explains Durin Cazac, a 38-year-old American actor who moved from Seattle to Tashkent in 2006 to join Ilkhom. “The play isn’t fixed but keeps on developing performance after performance. That’s what organic theatre is about.” The theatre prefers to work with raw talents rather than with established artists, whose basics are much harder to change. The same happened to Gafurov – one of the theatre’s most experienced actors nowadays – when he joined Ilkhom in 1991. “I didn’t understand anything about theatre at that time, but I felt the energy of this place. It felt like hypnosis, and it just started to rock and roll me,” he recounts. “I didn’t get what the shows were about, but I felt the mystery of this energy.” This special force everyone at Ilkhom refers to is palpable. As soon as you enter the theatre, you feel projected into a parallel dimension with a different concept of time and space. The lack of physical barriers between the stage and the public make

spectators feel part of the play. Shows are incredibly captivating, a perfect balance of closely intertwined acting, live music and innovative scenography. Most of them are in Russian – Tashkent’s lingua franca – but the layers of physical and behavioural communication performers use render them accessible to everyone. Ilkhom’s versatile repertoire includes classic tragedies, modern pieces and plays based on Uzbek, Russian or European poems and novels, making it a unique bridge between Eastern and Western culture. In September 2007 Ilkhom was to pay the ultimate price for the fearless and uncompromising attitude of its founder. Weil was stabbed to death in front of his apartment by a group of disgruntled young Muslims, who had reportedly been offended by the way the director had portrayed Prophet Mohammed in one of his plays. The murderers received harsh sentences, but for many at Ilkhom, the government was the real mastermind behind the attack. “They couldn’t do anything to us officially, so they killed Mark,” explains Bharat. “They thought that, once the founder was murdered, the theatre company would die.” The killing occurred one day before the start of Ilkhom’s new season. Few hours before the attack – and perhaps sensing the imminent danger – Weil had made clear that he wanted the opening to go on as planned, no matter what. The following night, in a surreal atmosphere, the season was inaugurated with Oresteia, the Greek trilogy by Aeschylus. “I’ll never forget that performance. I remember having goosebumps for three hours straight,” recounts Cazac, who was a student at the Ilkhom school of drama at that time. “Everyone was exhausted at the end, but just seeing that first round of ‘ok, we are still doing this’, was incredibly inspiring. We had taken a first step. From then on, it was a little bit easier to keep going.” In the aftermath of the killing Gafurov was chosen as the new artistic director. “My first instinct was to run away as far as possible,” he recounts laughing. “I still feel it sometimes. I still struggle with my fears.” The period after Weil’s death was one of the most difficult ones in the history of the theatre. Some actors left, and the quality of shows dropped dramatically for a few years. Then, in 2010, Ilkhom premiered Seven Moons, a parable chronicling the rise and dramatic fall of the Shah of Persia PEN T HO US E

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based on a poem by XV-century Turkic poet Alisher Navoi, Uzbekistan’s national author. It was Ilkhom’s first masterpiece since Weil’s death: the synthesis between drama, music and choreography was spectacular and earned huge praises. “It was a groundbreaking point,” remembers Gafurov. “From then on we started to believe in ourselves again, and we got off a new start.” The seeds that Weil had sown had finally sprouted, and Ilkhom was ready to walk on its legs. “After Mark’s death, even our most staunch supporters thought we would not survive more than two years. It has been 14 so far,” points out Gafurov with undisguised pride. Despite its recovered quality Ilkhom keeps on struggling as it has done since its creation: tickets and school tuitions are not enough to cover the roughly $200,000 of annual costs, so the theatre has to rely on grants and donations to stay afloat. The company’s 15 main actors are paid a meagre monthly salary of $60 to $150. All of them work second jobs to make ends meet. “No-one serves at Ilkhom for money,” is the mantra continually resonating within the theatre, but the frustration of the management at not being able to grant actors a decent living is evident. “At a certain point in their lives actors realise they want a family, a car and an apartment, so they quit,” explains Gafurov. “It’s a big problem that slows down our creative process. When an actor is gone, we need to replace him, so we end up spending a lot of time to save old shows instead of working on new ones.” Despite all its difficulties, the theatre’s heart keeps on beating and churning out new talents. The youngest one is Gimal Gafiyatullin, a 22-year-old man with a penetrating gaze and a contagious smile who joined the company two years ago. Gafiyatullin was discovered while working as a waiter in an art café, where he would occasionally perform on a small indoor stage. He enrolled at Ilkhom’s school of drama and was later invited to join the company. “I don’t consider myself as an actor yet. I still have a lot to learn,” he says modestly. Gafiyatullin already takes part in six of the theatre’s plays. While he was on stage a few weeks ago, for the first time in his career, he had the distinct sensation of having embodied his character. “It only lasted a few seconds, but it was an incredibly intense sensation. When I went back to the dressing room I just sat down and cried,” he remembers emotionally. “My 114

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teachers say that we do this profession for those few precious seconds.” Uzbekistan has finally started to breathe since the death of Karimov. The new President, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, has freed political and religious prisoners and scrapped some of his predecessor’s most odious rules. This change of attitude is having some positive effects on the theatre as well. “In Karimov time, authorities tried to hide our existence. They never invited us to festivals or included us in guidebooks,” explains 33-yearold Nikita Makarenko, a prominent local journalist and the organiser of Ikhom’s rock festival. “Now they put our names on subway signs, feature us on TV and even review our plays in the official press!” Yet the future of Ilkhom is far from granted. Uzbekistan’s new spring has brought economic opportunities, but also unrestrained capitalism. Entire neighbourhoods in Tashkent are being razed to make space for high-rise luxury apartments, and developers and investors covet the central area where the theatre is located. Ilkhom rents the basement from a nearby hotel for free, but nobody knows what will happen in the future. “The hotel managers change often, and Ilkhom doesn’t mean something to all of them,” explains Bharat. “We don’t bring any profit, and for some people, this is just a commercial space in the middle of town.” In 2020, the theatre faced eviction, and only a vibrant press campaign allowed Ilkhom to reach an unwritten, last-minute-agreement with the hotel owners for a permanent free lease. But without official papers guaranteeing its future, the theatre is currently in a legal limbo. To relocate is not an option. Ilkhom doesn’t have the resources to build a new structure, and the magic of this theatre seems inextricable from its basement. “This place is so spiritual to us because it’s the place Mark chose,” explains Makarenko passionately. “He died for this, and we owe him for that.” Two giant pictures of Weil still dominate the marble stairs leading down the stage. His piercing eyes seem to scrutinise you, as if he wanted to connect with your soul. His unique artistic genius is alive more than ever and still wanders within Ilkhom’s narrow corridors, graffitied walls and smoky changing rooms. His energy inspires his disciples and imbues them with the unflinching belief that tyranny, conformism and repression will never silence the human spirit.

GIMAL GAFIYATULLIN

ABOVE: ACTORS RECEIVING APPLAUSES AFTER PERFORMING WHITE WHITE BLACK STORK RIGHT: A SCENE FROM THE TIN DRUM, AN ADAPTATION OF GÜNTER GRASS’S FAMOUS NOVEL AND ONE OF ILKHOM’S NEWEST PLAYS

A SCENE FROM RAIN BEHIND THE WALL, A PLAY DEPICTING THE HARSH STREET LIFE OF A GROUP OF OUTCASTS SET IN A DYSTOPIAN WORLD

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EAR IT IS

WEIRD HISTORY

The War That Started Over An Ear

IT LASTED FOR YEARS, 35,000 PEOPLE WERE KILLED, AND IT ALL STARTED OVER AN EAR BY BEN POBJIE

ARS have, of course, played a large part in the history of warfare. The Anzacs at Gallipoli used their ears to tell whether the Turkish guns had stopped firing or not. George Washington, in commanding the revolutionary forces in the American War of Independence, famously had two ears and regularly used them both. Being able to hear is, generally speaking, an asset in battle. But, though ears have been a constant on battlefields for centuries, very few wars have actually been caused by ears. The one notable exception being, of course, the War of Jenkins’ Ear, in which Great Britain and Spain came to blows over the titular appendage. The whole affair began in the 1730s, during the historical Age of European Nations Constantly Fighting Wars Over Basically Nothing. At the time, South and Central America were mostly owned by Spain, which had acquired them by sailing there and saying, ‘This is ours now’. Britain was allowed to trade with Spanish America, but by the same token, Spain was allowed to stop British ships and search them for contraband. Such was the fate of the HMS Rebecca, commanded by the plucky Welshman Robert Jenkins, which was sailing home from the West Indies in April 1731 when the Spanish ship La Isabela stopped

it on suspicion of smuggling. Jenkins was deeply offended by the accusation, but he was even more deeply offended when the Spanish captain, Juan de Leon Fandino (a bit of a show-off) had him tied to a mast and cut his ear off with a sword. ‘Go and tell your King that I will do the same, if he will do the same,’ said Fandino, not realising that it was pretty unlikely the King of England would personally sail to the Caribbean to smuggle contraband. In any case, cutting off the king’s ear would’ve been extremely unwise: that’s the kind of thing that really riles kings up. Of course, as it happened, just cutting off some random Welshman’s ear turned out to be a bit of a faux pas itself. Not immediately, mind you: at the time, losing an ear while trading with the West Indies was seen as simply the cost of doing business, and Jenkins seen as a bit of a sook for complaining about it. But as the 1730s went on, the situation changed. Great Britain started getting itchy feet. Spain, it decided, was really annoying, what with all its ship-searching and general bossiness. What’s more, Spain had been cosying up to France as a preferred trading partner, and being friendly to France was seen by the British as basically equivalent to getting into bed with Sauron. For its part, Spain was kind of pissed off too, as Britain had just founded

JENKINS SHOWS HIS SEVERED EAR TO PRIME MINISTER WALPOLE

“In any case, cutting off the king’s ear would’ve been extremely unwise: that’s the kind of thing that really riles kings up” the colony of Georgia. History might suggest that this in itself was an extremely offensive move, but the Spanish complaint was that Georgia was a bit too close to Florida (in the 21st century this is also Florida’s complaint) and might be a threat to Spanish control of the hot swampy bit down the bottom of North America. So things were set to explode, when in 1738 the British government realised that it had been nine whole years since it had a war with Spain, so no wonder it had been feeling so tense and moody. But you couldn’t just declare war on a major European power: you needed some piffling little bit of nonsense to use as a pretend excuse. And that’s where Jenkins’ Ear reared its ugly head. Someone in the government remembered the heinous act of aural severance seven years previous, and called up Robert Jenkins to parliament, where he

informed those present that yes, indeed, the Spanish had whacked his ear off, and yes, indeed, it had hurt like a bastard. With many a huff and a puff, the assembled members decided that, in light of this outrage, Britain had no choice but to use military force to enforce dominance of trade in the New World, and so it came to be. The War of Jenkins’ Ear, as it came to be known, lasted from 1739 to 1748, although the major hostilities had mostly fizzled out by 1742, when it was absorbed for purposes of efficiency into the larger War of Austrian Succession, a huge conflict in which everyone in Europe lost their minds and started caring about who succeeded in Austria. Jenkins’ Ear was quickly forgotten and the war relegated to the minor leagues of wars, although 35,000 people managed to get killed in it, which isn’t at all a bad haul – for a war that was started over an ear. PEN T HO US E

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Will We Look Back In Anger? WHEN WE LOOK BACK AT 2020/2021 HOW ARE WE GOING TO FEEL ABOUT OUR POLITICAL CLASS, OUR SUBJUGATION AND OUR SUBMISSIVENESS? CAROLINE DI RUSSO PONDERS

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shutdown, I went along with it like most people – I didn’t want Australia to end up like Italy. But it soon became apparent that we were not, in fact, all in this together but rather there was ‘one rule for me and one rule for thee’. We have seen restrictions binned or bent for sports people and celebrities and yet everyday Australians have been separated from their families and denied spending final moments with loved ones. It’s as though COVID-19 could not be transmitted to or by the elites, rather it was a disease of the socially unconnected. It has been surreal to watch the gradual incursion on our rights, the blooming of hypocrisy, and the rabid distain directed at those desperate to earn a living. It’s as though we’ve either been in collective denial or felt it was futile to speak out. Many are still enjoying the warm insidious embrace of their taxpayerfunded Stockholm Syndrome. Others, like me, have been raging against the machine for some time. I suppose we will all arrive in our own time, and some, not at all. I worry that, as a country, we will struggle to look the next generation in the eye. How can we justify selling out their education and mental health due to a virus we had a 99%

A scared population is a malleable one. I mean, who wants to die, right? chance of surviving because we wanted to work from home in our jarmies? How do we tell them that we were the generation that let hard-fought freedoms be incinerated by government overreach because we didn’t want to take a position that would see us excluded from dinner parties? And how do we justify saddling them with billions of dollars of debt because we didn’t save for a rainy day? We look weak. We look dependent. And we look irrationally selfish. While we are partly to blame, the remainder of the responsibility rests with the total failure of government transparency around health advice and the proficient use of the politics of fear. I wonder if 2021 would’ve been different if the NT and Qld electorates

hadn’t rewarded their respective governments back in 2020 for their harsh COVID-19 responses. Were those election results a political carte blanche to state governments to ratchet up overreach under the guise of keeping us safe? A scared population is a malleable one. I mean, who wants to die, right? This brings me to my final question: does the fun-loving larrikin Australian psyche every recover from this? Or are be permanently altered? I actually don’t know the answer. At this stage, I’m just looking forward to returning to the good ol’ days of not knowing the names of the state chief health officers. I long for these people to return to political irrelevance. I will revisit this last question in a year or so.

ILLUSTRATION BY GAVIN MORRISON

E ARE finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s a dim, flickering, light but it’s there. I know that’s cold comfort for those currently hanging for a beer or a haircut, but a cold brew and a trim are, relatively speaking, just around the corner. And for those home schooling their kids – the cavalry is on its way. Fingers crossed, by the time this piece is published, we would’ve returned to some semblance of normal. Melbourne should’ve shrugged off their evening curfew and Sydneysiders may even be soaking up some sun in Fiji. Unfortunately for WA and Qld, substantive change remains unlikely. But, I wonder, once we are on the other side, how we will look back at the shitshow, which has been the last 18 months. How will we view government overreach, the much-vaunted health experts, and the subjugation of our rights? Are we going to be comfortable with the sweeping and oppressive government restrictions, which were ushered in without so much as a squeal, the sidelining of compassion, and the politicisation of our police forces? For the initial months of the

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Strangers, Facebook And Defamation AUSTRALIAN DEFAMATION LAWS TURN INNOCUOUS STATEMENTS INTO MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION BY INFLATED LEGAL BATTLES WRITES DAMON MILES

ILLUSTRATION BY GAVIN MORRISON

F you thought the state of online discourse was bad in the US, you’re clearly unfamiliar with Australian defamation lawsuits. In Australia, one innocuous statement posted online could lead to $60,000 in legal fees. And a recent High Court decision to hold websites liable for user-generated comments is only going to make matters worse. Australians can kiss free speech goodbye. Defamation laws in Australia are already abysmal. The cost of defamation cases are routinely blown out of proportion compared to the damages a court may award. An NSW bill noted that for $10,000 in damages, a person should budget $80-90,000 in legal costs. And the bar to action a lawsuit is far from high. As long as the accuser can prove that someone has actually said something about them, they can sue. From that point onwards the burden is on the accused to prove what they said was true or within the public interest. The accuser bears no burden at all to prove the statements were false or that they dealt significant damaged their reputation. Under the new ruling, the high costs, the low threshold for litigation, and the lopsided burden of proof all fall to

websites and page owners. The effect of this will be that Australians have to be constantly vigilant for any statements made on their posts to protect themselves from defamation lawsuits. The High Court’s ruling described social media pages as buildings in a public square: Anyone can post anything they want on them, but to permit someone to post defamatory content on your building meant you were aiding and enabling the content to be published. The question is, where does the liability for these building owners end? The limits of this newly established liability are unknown in the context of social media. The historical point of law was used as an analogy served a realistic purpose. With tighter communities and public gathers at squares, to post defamatory content on a building in the public square would have a real impact on the community with real connections between people. Forget about the building analogy. The reality is: anyone can comment on any post from any period of time on any public account. The burden of moderation for any page or poster on social media now has increased to an impossible level – and worse yet, barely anyone knows this principle has even

The burden of moderation for any page or poster on social media now has increased to an impossible level come into effect across Australia. We have no idea how media companies and social media sites will handle this new burden. It’s likely the cost of defamation lawsuits will far outweigh any social benefit of allowing speech on their platform. Social media users in Australia can wave goodbye to free speech. Unfortunately, this is a natural progression for defamation law. With the area of law growing throughout 20th and 21st century, it’s not surprising the court has taken the action this way. High level cases have only strengthened the ability to silence people engaging in free speech not only through the law, but through the exorbitant cost that drives individuals into bankruptcy. With the decision being made in the High Court, it’s now solidified throughout Australia.

The only way to reverse this decision going forward is to implement law through parliament – which may be the silver lining needed. There have already been discussions and legislation proposed to require serious harm before suing defamation to reduce the bankruptcy rate and excessive suing. This is a drop in the ocean for the amount of reform needed. It’s up to both the voters and politicians to ensure this inequitable law is left with a small legacy.

Damon Miles is a Business Law graduate from Curtin University and Mannkal Economic Education Foundation Alumni. He is currently completing his Juris Doctorate at the University of Western Australia. PENTHOUSE

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UNHERD

Liberals Long Drift From Menzies THE LIBERAL PARTY’S GONE FROM BAD TO WORSE SINCE JOHN HOWARD. NO WONDER MENZIES NAME IS NOW INVOKED AS IF SUMMONING A GOD, WRITES ALEXANDRA MARSHALL

ILLUSTRATION BY GAVIN MORRISON

OLITICAL movements need a figurehead. Sir Robert Menzies is the wooden sculpture lashed to the bow of the Liberal Party vessel, breasts crashing against the waves. Conservatism and classical liberalism are more difficult to define than Labor’s trade unionism. Hence, it’s typical for a Liberal leader to pad out election campaigns with past achievements. Spreadsheets work for the Canberra bureaucracy, but politics requires a sense of theatre to win elections. Look at the rise of Trump and success of Farage who unchained Britain from the European Union. There are very few in history whose memory has elevated beyond the sum of their actions. Menzies is not only the longestserving prime minister, he’s the ideological template of the Liberal party. When struggling for relevance, Liberal MPs dredge up Menzies’ words hoping to profit from their echo. His name is invoked as if summoning a god. The problem is: words can be worn as camouflage. Too many seat-warmers and careerists have infiltrated the party. Their existence is protected by the unshakeable dominance of the party. Australia’s extended period of peace has eaten away at the Liberal soul. The electorate pay little attention to those in power, voting

for parties – not candidates. John Howard, arguably the last true Menzian, was also the architect of the party’s destruction. His mistake was an act of desperation, not malicious intent. While Howard cleaned up the economic cataclysm left by Keating, his party room bickered over factional power. A few gangrenous lefties shuffled mates into safe seats until real conservatives were sidelined in favour of Labor-lite MPs. Howard was forced to accept this factional shift. By the time the Liberal Party elected Turnbull, there wasn’t much to salvage. Liberal-in-nameonly MPs were knifing each other long before China sneezed and Australia caught communism. To be fair, our defences were down; two decades of neo-Marxism made it the perfect incubator. Menzies fought communism, attempting to have it outlawed – momentarily betraying his love of liberty in the face of a threat he considered mortally dangerous to Australia. A Liberal Party that understood its role on the political spectrum would have held firm against demands of unelected, international bureaucracies cowering under China’s will. Under no circumstance would Menzies be herded into a twotiered caste system of segregation, discrimination and bullying. He stared up from the depths of global

Spreadsheets work for the Canberra bureaucracy, but politics requires a sense of theatre to win elections war and fought against his own party’s desire to curtail freedom in the name of safety. He noted with horror the only true limit of political control over the people of Australia was the ethics of the prime minister. Scott Morrison is not a man of ethics. His position on fundamental principles flips about like a clickbeetle. When the law tells him ‘no’, his first instinct is to bend the law to his will. The net result is a Liberal Party crowding Labor’s territory. Liberals demonising innocent workers as a solution to selfinflicted pandemic strife are discriminating against Menzies’ forgotten people. Minor parties have rushed to scoop up voters bleeding out of the Liberals on all sides, creating an unofficial conservative alliance. These aren’t stragglers; they’re the beating heart of blue ribbon

Liberals, carrying the passion lacking in Morrison. The United Australia Party’s Craig Kelly, swelling ranks of the Liberal Democrats, and the enduring counter-force of One Nation act as tide markers, exposing how far the Liberals have receded from their values. They are the Menzian Renaissance; tearing the Liberals to shreds. Menzies made citizens believe in themselves. His enduring message was one of government empowering people through liberty. Morrison’s legacy will be fear mongering, political desperation, and a population divided in a betrayal of the Australian spirit. Menzies made some bad calls. As with most legends, the details of the man are not important – only the idealised vision he left behind. This leaves us with a question; is Menzies dead? PEN T HO US E

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Superman Is Now Bisexual. And No One Cares. FORGET FOR A MOMENT THAT HE’S NOT REAL, SUPERMAN IS NOW BISEXUAL AND IT’S ALMOST AS IF NO ONE GIVES A FUCK, WRITES CORRINE BARRACLOUGH

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of real, substantial, horrific evil and corruption. Switch on the news, it’s everywhere. Superman is supposed to be the most powerful superhero in any comic. How thoroughly depressing that he is more concerned with his sexuality than tackling any of the genuine issues facing society. Seriously, can we not put him to better use? Is there nothing bigger we can find for him to focus his energy on? Can we not find a more challenging job for him than, shock horror, daring to kiss his male friend? Series writer Tom Taylor has claimed this coming out extravaganza would have been difficult 10 years, even five years ago. May I suggest that 10 years ago, even five, we didn’t care or fixate on sexuality to the ludicrous extent that identity politics obsession means we do today? In August, DC Comics published an issue in which Tim Drake, aka Robin, Batman’s loyal sidekick, also came out as bisexual. So, Superman is not even original these days, he’s just a copycat? If I were trapped in a burning

Superman: I simply don’t care who you’re kissing, I don’t care what positions you like in bed, or what your safe word is building, I would want someone strong and brave to come and rescue me. I wouldn’t care what gender that person was, who they were kissing, shagging, or what pronouns they used in their social media bio. If they could fly, it may well prove to be a bonus. And, funnily enough, if I had a few moments to speak with them and thank them for saving my life, it would not cross my mind to ask them what they liked to do in bed. Superman: I simply don’t care who you’re kissing, I don’t care what positions you like in bed, or what your safe word is. Now, because social critiques are so entirely predictable these days, it’s been claimed, “right-wing fan boys have been clutching their pearls over the announcement”. Well, I have news for you. I’m

neither right wing, nor a fan boy, neither do I own any pearls, but I’ll tell you this is an absolute nonsense. If it’s brave for Superman to come out as bisexual (not even gay FFS), what hope does the Average Joe – who doesn’t have a magic cape and can’t fly – have? Surely, you don’t normalise something by claiming you need to be a superhero to do it? What’s also weird is that Jon Kent’s Superman will find comfort in Jay’s arms after he’s totally wrung out from trying to save the world. So, it’s a man who comes to Superman’s rescue rather than a woman? So, even consoling a tired man is now a man’s job? Yeah, I’m thoroughly unconvinced that’s a good thing. Did anyone think this through? As ideas go, I’m pretty sure this is a fizzer.

ILLUSTRATION BY GAVIN MORRISON

HEN Superman first appeared in 1938, it was the first comic book ever devoted to a single character; Batman made his debut sometime later. During World War II, Superman was censored by the US government as any mention of nuclear weapons drew the government’s ire, so Lex Luther was in trouble. Eighty-three years later, the most important thing about Superman is, apparently, his sexual orientation. As a species, we really are in trouble if we call this progress. Of course there was predictable applause from the woke, virtue signalling, nodding head PC crowd when DC Comics announced that the new Superman, Jon Kent, son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, will come out as bisexual in an upcoming issue of the superhero’s 21st century story. In November, he was pictured in a same-sex relationship with his friend, reporter Jay Nakamura. The PC mob claimed it to be a “bold” and “brave” move. There is another word beginning with the letter “b” that sums up this ridiculousness, and it ends in “ollocks”. In today’s world there is plenty

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Chloe

Anastasia

Ayshia

Maddy

How would you describe beaches on the west coast? Incredibly blue water and white sand. We have hidden beaches around every corner and you can always find that peaceful spot to sit and watch the day go by. What’s your favourite? Being from down south, I love Greens Pool and Elephant Rock in Denmark, WA. I also can’t get enough of snorkelling around Rottnest Island. When you’re at the beach, where can we find you? At sunset with my umbrella, takeaway, and sitting with my friends, partner and my dog Rhemy!

Are there any hidden West Coast gems we should know about? It’s so hard to pick just one, but I adore the north west coast, especially Ningaloo reef. I love snorkelling there and seeing the diverse marine life. What do you love about the beaches in WA? Nothing beats watching the sun go down over the water. When you’re at the beach, where are we most likely to find you? While I love being in the water, I probably spend most of my time on the sand soaking up as much sun as possible.

What’s your favourite spot on the west coast? My favourite beach would definitely have to be a secluded and untouched beach I was lucky enough to visit up North of Perth in the Port Hedland area on a private station called Mundabullangana. Do you prefer the sand or the water? When I’m at the beach you will definitely find me in the water looking for shells, or just enjoying the feeling of the waves and salt water. I have always been a water baby and absolutely love the feeling of swimming through the ocean.

What’s the best thing about the beaches in WA? The sunsets are to die for. I’ve never seen anything like it. What’s your favourite beach on the West Coast? I love Point Perron down in Rockingham. The beach is absolutely stunning and there are many coves and little nooks that are perfect for picnics and photoshoots. It’s always peaceful and hardly anyone ever goes there so it’s always a tranquil experience. What’s something you always pack in your beach bag? A picnic blanket and some tanning oil for sun baking.

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SSAM Leather Deck Chair THIS wood and tan leather deck chair needs to go on your shopping list this summer simply because style is a 24/7 commitment. With this, you’ll be the envy of everyone on the beach. MrPorter.com | $2,627

Buccellati Tahiti Sterling Silver Bar Set INSPIRED by the artist Gaugin, who lived on the island of Tahiti, this is a pretty, polished cutlery collection set. The gly natural, carved bamboo handles will become increasingly om | $4,159 unique over as they weather. MrPorter.com $

Patagonia Roll-Top Backpack WHEN you need to get yourself organised for a trip, this Patagonia Roll-Top backpack is a great go-to when you’re looking for performance gear. Features small outer pockets and an internal padded sleeve that can hold a 15” laptop. Patagonia.com.au | $219.95

PEN T HO US E

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BEDROOM CHECKLIST THE PENTHOUSE GUIDE TO ALL LUST-HAVE PRODUCTS

Lucifers Limit EMBRACE your inner demons and show them a hell of a good time with this devilish sculpture from Australian artist and alchemist Colin Burn. Formed from pure 999 silver, with rich red garnets for eyes, Lucifers Limit might have been inspired by hell, but we’ve heard it feels like heaven. Treasuretheerotic.com | $1599

The Double Entendre KEEP sex fun, simple and satisfying with The Double Entendre dual pleasure vibrator from Frenchie. This luxe ergonomically-designed vibrator features a powerful motor in each end and a bendable shaft as flexible as your own sexual needs. This versatile toy offers double the pleasure as it can be used for both internal and external stimulation. Getfrenchie.com | $90

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Lascivious THIS showstopping bodysuit by Lascivious is a lingerie lover’s dream. Composed of racy sheer mesh with delicate tulle accents, the hooks and eyelets can be removed to separate the bodysuit into to wearable pieces, or to simply create different accents on the wearer. Slip into the Annie Bespoke Bodysuit from LASCIVIOUS at Lascvs. Lascvs.com | $780

E XPERIENCE

THE EXPERIENCE

THEMIDNIGHTCONCIERGE.COM

OPEN LETTER

Dear feminists, On and on… and on. Ohh, and, what a surprise, you’re still going on. You’re whinging about the gender pay gap (which has been repeatedly debunked). Screeching about imaginary sexism. Banging on about implementing more women’s taskforces. Complaining about supposedly offensive un-PC language. Harping on about the number of women on boards. This is not inspiring; you’re tiresome. And while you’re pushing for yet more government funding, to further line extremely deep pockets, all in the name of “equality”, there are women who are truly suffering. How do you lie straight in bed at night with consciences twisted with such warped self-indulgence? Where’s your sense of priorities? If you step out of your walk-in closet, jam-packed with Julie Bishop-eque red stilettoes and Hillary Clinton-inspired pantsuits for two seconds, you will see women in Afghanistan are struggling. We’ve hardly heard a peep out of feminists, who make a mint out of jabbering their loud mouths on behalf of an entire gender. Yet, right now when real and true oppression is in full swing? Crickets. We had one blast of news when the Taliban regained control in Afghanistan about how bad things could get for women and girls. Since then? Silence. Dear feminists, please re-tune your oppression radars. While you’ve been sitting pretty in your perfectly air-conditioned boardrooms, giving whizzy presentations to ask for triple the funding, your sisters over in Afghanistan have lost even the right to protest. Rallies have been broken up with gunfire. Brave gatherings of women have ended in beatings. Civilised requests for the respect of civil freedoms have been met with violent responses. Last time the Taliban were running the horror show, women were only allowed to leave their homes only when accompanied by a male relative. Last time these morons were in charge, they banned women from work and stopped girls from attending school. Last time this nightmare played out, women were forced to hide under burquas. All that – and what was the response from egotistical, elitist, self-centred feminists here in Australia? The response was to insist that Islam is the “most feminist religion”. Women were whipped in the streets by Islamic militants who have self-appointed their own egos to Chiefs of Moral Police, for fucks sake. Now, the Women’s Ministry in Kabul has been closed. After initially insisting, like an abusive partner pleading for one more chance because, ‘it will be different this time, it will be better, I promise’, the reality is the Taliban haven’t changed. Believe their crap? You’re a first-class fool. While feminist groups in Australia harp on about fairy-tale gender quotas and mythical oppression, maybe they should spare a thought for women who will now only be allowed to work in only a small, very limited number of approved jobs? While they busy themselves with yet another petition to raise awareness about the imaginary patriarchy stomping around Australian cities, the Taliban have made a list of all women involved in protests and will conduct house searches for them. Newsflash: these house calls are not to deliver gifts. You want to talk about oppression? You want to screech about the horrors of male dominance? Hello…? While your Afghan sisters retreat into silence in fear of their very lives, forgive us if we decline to fall for your latest calls of “oppression” in this country. It’s bullshit. And we see it. We see it because there is are two worlds existing in parallel right now, before our very eyes. There’s the absolute equality and luxury of the Australian, first-world females, contrasting with the blood-soaked trembling bodies attempting to survive in Afghanistan. Sit down and rethink your strategy because sensible men and women in this country have had enough of your virtue signalling hype. Stand up for your sisters – you know, the ones who are actually in real trouble, right now, in real time. Yours sincerely, Penthouse Magazine

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When life gives you lemons.

Penthouse Australia - 12-2021

Articles inside

UNDERGROUND BATTLE FOR FREEDOM

JAI OPETAIA

GO WITH THE FLOW

INFOCUS

PREPARE FOR THE TALIBAN CRIME RISE

AFGHANISTAN: FINAL PHASE FAILURE

ART OF THE NUDE

UNHERD