There’s a side lot just past The Manchester Hotel. A scruffy, blotchy bearded man stands next to it with torn off cardboard. Barely legible, “$20 event parking” scrawled in shaky marker. Around the corner of the Music Hall, an auto shop sells off its grounds for $20 a slot. At least, we’re all assuming the man standing with a traffic wand owns the business. Pay the person wearing a safety vest next to the A-sign with “Event Parking $20” and walk over. Who even is Jacob Turner? Either way, a better deal than the muddy slosh patch across the Manchester Music Hall for $25 to shave 30 seconds.

It’s difficult to see through all the vape clouds and popcorn lung if Creeper are wearing fangs, or it’s tricks of the mind from the blood smeared on their chins. Launching into “Mistress of Death”, the beckoning claw opens up the pits. We’re standing at the edge looking into the hellmouth and the soundtrack is pumping fists of blood, eyes pooling with souls leaking out.

As the lead singer of Creeper points into the crowd, a gauntlet expands from the middle. The room breathes out as the floor opens. The circle pants harder and harder as elbows pick up and those inside start jockeying about. One person quickly finds their back to the floor as the roaming torsos throw themselves against the walls. Bodies in the pinball machine and the only blood is fake. “Headstones” lead us back from the belly of the underground. The gothic odyssey nears the light and our aortic vessels ease like the grip of the Sankara stones dropping into the abyss.

From the shadows with a loose jumper, the lead for letlive hits the full bar of energy and arcs back beads of sweat, spit, and water by the second song. The jumper doesn’t last long as we then tear through a singlet right into the bare upper torso. A galvanised rubbish can appears. For a few brief seconds it takes a stomp on the flat, a buckled side, and sits atop Jason Aalon Butler’s head before it rolls off, dejected, to the side. Mics are slaughtered, each one taken to the extremes of the primal scream and summarily drowned in voracious expulsions of spittle. Toward the end of the set, a water bottle is thrown about to create a slip and slide across the stage. Each beat is a pulse away from smashing everything on stage. The only pause to take a breath is between songs to ruminate and parade a flag.

Then, as the set nears its end, Butler is in the throng. A roadie on stage frantically waves fingers across his own neck and shakes the mic cord to signal it running out. “Oh, is that what that sign means?“ Butler asks before teasing out a few more metres to reach the far end of the hall. Now up on a table to pick a guitar off the wall to wail on. Back and through the crowd before letlive say thanks and goodbye.

The crowd shuffles a little. The lights brighten up a fraction for the lull. Up in the rafters, stuck on the string lights, Butler’s torn singlet, dripping with sweat. The minutes drag on with the sound check.

The screamo is in the room 20 years after If Only You Were Lonely, but the sound is distant. You can see the veins popping but the volume is in another room. Respecting each other’s spot, the band is right where you expect them to be. Their cadence and emotion ever present, though hobbled by a contrast gleaming from the groups before. Someone keeps shouting out for Hawthorne Heights to play “Freebird” and doesn’t know when to quit. The kick is still in on “Saying Sorry” with a few bops.

Flailing limbs in the throng are ever present while Hawthorne Heights stand on stage. These crowd surfers barely make it past the first few sets of hands, some do, but many are back down before. And before a few almost tilt too far back where bent necks and wheelchairs will be. They at least have a chance, compared to the earlier sets where the chaotic energy threw shoulders more than float bodies.

The cut for the encore is short, no agonising coy theatrics. It looks like they’ve come back out in different outfits. So we’re in act two to play off the night. The calibration is off on the screen panels so you wouldn’t be able to scan the QR code pointing to “Like a Cardinal” debuting at the end of the set. It hits, and it’s a wave of reserved energy to send the crowd out into the rainy night.

Wafting in the vapid vape clouds with a hint of the hash on 5 March 2026 at the Manchester Music Hall in Lexington, Kentucky. Where you could not guess from the outside who was playing because there were no banners or signage.

Ethan Switch

Reviewed at The Wax Conspiracy.

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Swinging big into the sun and standing atop it all, it's Queensland with nine (9) off their books. The gamut, they ran. With a Kia Cerato on Kia Cerato match-up it would be the older generation passing on. Not a good time for motorcycles as one third of the tally being just the two-wheeled variety. And that's not including the wild speeds that must have been involved on a pedal push into stationary being counted in the total mix.

Tied for second like a chassis around the old gumtree, Victoria and South Australia with seven (7) each.

Operation Roadwise for Victoria while the stats take some time to bake in the extra two bodies. There must be something in the bike chain, here too in the Garden State with a bicyclist against a stationary object, a parked trailer, with the former being the worse for wear. Top it off with a stone wall in the mix down the road.

South Australia might want to double check their numbers if they're counting two 85s. One in Culburra, the other in Suttontown. Both against a tree. Leaving it all on the road there. Like the four cars at Cooke Plains, all in and all to show for it, leaving in bodyshops, not bodybags. SA could have pipped the post.

New South Wales enters the fourth road with six (6) in tow. A slightly adjusted window during Operation Christmas and New Year 2025, being a day or two off. As nice as the beaches are, you still can't count one off Palm Beach because the water isn't road. Here too, beware those riding bikes near trucks around the Pacific Highway in Buladelah.

Over in the backseat in fifth we start to see Western Australia with three (3) for the period. We may not see the results of a helmet in the report, but a tricky e-scooter is no joke, adding one for the state along Brand Highway.

Sixth sees Northern Territory with one (1). NT closing out the books of Operation Quinn with a hit-and-run. Not much of a fairplay here, but on the road is on the road, so pay that.

Tasmania and the ACT both scrape the bottom. None for either.

Yet not without some effort on Tasmania's part. With the conclusion of Operation Safe Arrival the state saw some skipping past the breath test, while another straight up took on a bottle-o, walking away for their efforts. We may have to question if a glider counts, and could have pushed Tassie up one, or if a missed tarmac is a missed mark all around.

Slightly down against last year, but not by much during the period count of 00:00 Monday, 22 December 2025 and 23:59 Friday, 2 January 2025. You can't buyback a car running into a wall like you can firearms or public gatherings. You can try, but then who will be left to scrap it all down to start the new year.

Ethan Switch

Written at The Wax Conspiracy.

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Convictions have us at the centre of Getting and Spending, raising the question of where on the moral grey line is a comfortable spot to sit. If there is one. Because the rule of law is going to take its chance at taking its chunk of flesh. Kick, scream, doesn’t matter if the core is rotted by the veneer of looking the other way.

Reticent on the first step, Victoria Phillips (Bailey Patterson) launches upon the chance for self-preservation found inside the walls of the monastery. Not a shy one at all, Phillips shims her foot in the door, brandishing a fierceness of someone desperate to control the narrative and their story, or at least the one they’re willing to share. Her vulnerability is ever calculating, quickly blinded by hubris when the hearts of others are autonomous.

Richard O’Neill (Billy Christopher Maupin) vacillates between the here and the days of glory. Conflict putting sweat on his brow as he touches back into the world he so vehemently left behind. The “what if” of standing at a crossroads sends tremors of happiness in twain before a final look back. Happiness and passion are similar, but cannot substitute for the other in any meaningful way.

From the first aside, Brother Alfred (Brian Herrmann) is a light foot in with an affable charm, cutting the tension in each scene. Whether in robes or a suit found in the discards of the op shop, Brother Alfred always finds the light in the murk, beaming with the presence and revelling in the joy of the here and now. A mirthful contrast to the wringing, pained hands of Charles Humboldt (Seth Hart). Wretchedly in the wings, always waiting, never the one.

An empty chair sits in the chasm of the struggles. Yes, it is mostly blocking and would be a disruption to constantly move it out of each scene. But there it sits still, an unseen witness present at times where the characters are struggling to wade through the ethical and moral void.

As the distant church bells break us into the denouement, with a slightly over-sized suit, O’Neill’s days of the monastery wrestle against the brief exhilarating dip back into the legal morass. The clothes don’t fit with the inner turmoil sowing seeds of doubt. Lost in the fabric, our wardrobe choices often steers our outer-self before the inner can adjust. The hem is hawing.

The facade of altruism undercuts Getting and Spending and sharpens the afternoon air just through the doors onto the street outside. “Everything You Want” by Vertical Horizon tunes in just enough on the intermission and fading out the audience. You can mean nothing and you don’t know why. Nobody owes you their true self if they cannot or will not see it themselves.

Directed by Sommer Schoch, October 2025 inside the Flashback Theater offices. Two hours with an intermission and if you’re going to be late, don’t let your shoes give you away.

Ethan Switch

Reviewed at The Wax Conspiracy.

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Other McDonald’s collaborations and releases are in see-through marine life choking plastic bags, or boxes clearly differentiated displaying what it says on the tin.

Here, perhaps in a game of strife trying to emulate the mad rush of blind boxes and gachapon pulls, is their attempt to feed into this lack of beef tallow. Jung Kook? J-hope? Who’s inside? Only being able to count will reveal that mystery.

If you don’t have a close relationship with your local Maccas outlet, because you hate yourself every time you’re across that threshold, then yes, it’s like any other blind box short term release. You only get whatever TinyTAN the people behind the counter are grabbing in the few seconds they have to meet their metrics and KPIs.

The print is too small for casual staff to read against the ticking of the clock before they disappear into the kitchen, away from the looks of people waiting at the counter who don’t want to use the touchscreen kiosk to order.

If you can count, there is no surprise. The aim isn’t to get people frothing at the mouth demanding the minimum wage worker hustle and swap out the blind box before the fries go limp, cold and grease up the arteries. It’s to make it out as if these same looking boxes provide some kind of mystery or anticipation. Will this be the overpriced, nutrient bereft kid’s meal that tips you into the pre-diabetic and high cholesterol zone or not?

And they forgot the apple slices.

*Contains affiliate links

Ethan Switch

Written at The Wax Conspiracy.

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There are either two lines or five lines but they all merge and mix with nobody sure of who was already keeping place for others and who was just sidling up to cut down their wait. One line is for general admission, another is who knows because nobody does, they just line up and wind around again and again.

Doors open at 18:00 for the 19:00 show and if you start the walk down into the belly of the city block at 17:30 it’s only under an hour to eventually get through the doors. Wallow in the sun, tan a hide or two and get nothing but an elevated body core temp for inside is where it’s warmer still.

The merchants flogging $40 tees constantly bark out that there are four lines to the queue lining up behind one register. It’s a quick enough exchange and it’s not like you needed to pay for groceries anyway. That’s tomorrow’s problem. If you can walk out of here after the severe dehydration.

Beach Weather are already into the middle of their set as the openers. It’s a round bowl for seating with a mid-sized atmosphere as the buzz of melancholy settles in their sway. Jostling from “Tulips” locks in a hypnotic chorus and the sound strangles itself with the smoke machine as “Sex, Drugs, Etc.” close out the first act.

For Sleeping With Sirens it’s all a blur of reverb and feeling the chest become a lump as the insides begin to liquefy. The sound is punk with a tinge of that time when everyone is reeking of body spray to hide the armpits stewing a brew. Your face dripping in eyeliner and mascara as “Leave it All Behind” tears itself into “If You Can’t Hang” and we’re left in a state of agitation and not wanting to do anything much at all.

The air conditioning inside the Nashville Municipal Auditorium seems to only run with a slight breeze for the outer rings of the stadium. For those in line for merch, or those wanting to use the toilets, it’s enough to notice that there’s a difference in the air. Step into the actual arena and it’s time to start slipping on all the pools of sweat, grog and ever present vials of flavoured vape juice. The heat and humidity only climbs. Teasing from the rafters, beams of air ducts looking down and turned off. Someone passes out in the mosh pit.

Curtains billow on stage with album emblems, a whisper into a head fallen off by screaming. It’s a drop and the band is out in force, the tops of the lungs can’t get any higher. Their sound pry the legs from the seated position. Struck with numbness because you can only sit for so long jamming your knees into the back of the seats in front.

Internals are basically goop in the bridge of Pierce The Veil. With all that bass, the reverb never ends. It keeps looping back to shake out the bone marrow. There is no place to hide, and then you hear “Emergency Contact” and it sounds warmly familiar as you tear down that facade. Death becomes us. Look for the one you want holding your corpse as the acoustic slows it down with “She Makes Dirty Words Sound Pretty”. One of the rarer times you can hear as the sound mix mellows out.

Pierce the Veil is on and off with quick breaks for 90 minutes, in two acts, starting at 21:00. The riffs subsume, clawing at walls with “Disasterology” from the shadows of the encore. “King for a Day” closes it with out of pocket energy and with no limits on vocals.

And we’re done for the night. Left there shimmering back into the pale sweaty embrace of wrought angst and amps that won’t let you breathe one full breath.

Somehow here after a cursory listen of The Jaws of Life at the 4 June 2025 leg of the “I Can’t Hear You” Tour at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee.

Ethan Switch

Reviewed at The Wax Conspiracy.

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Out from the rock in first, Victoria scales up with five (5) corpses hung out to dry. In one screech for the karma police, a motorbike from Brunswick East is stolen on the 14th and finds itself and the riders wiped off only six days later. Over in Little Desert a car went up Nhill-Harrow Road and come tumbling down after in bits and pieces.

A trio of the trinity slakes the bitumen canvas with a tie for second place.

Tasmania runs up in the opening days of Operation Safe Arrival with three, resting for the remainder. A motorbike goes around the police, but stops dead with its burnt tracks against a Holden Captiva. In St Leonards three go in, two leave. In the case of a 19-year-old by the side of the road, if a body thuds on the ground and nobody is around to witness the swipe, it’s still likely a hit-and-run.

Queensland asks the question of if a motorbike or e-scooter barrels itself against a car, who is going to clean up the mess? Head on against a bus, flattened under a ute or hitting a subcompact from behind, take them any day to wipe the other out.

Three (3) go on and forever past the coast lines in New South Wales during Operation Easter. The elderly, or at least those pushed past 60 see the bulk with an unknown gone crispy for the weekend.

South Australia only sees one (1) for fifth place during Operation Safe Holidays. Or was it Operation Safe Long Weekend? They run at the same time but like chasing the summer equinox it changes form when it finally emerges from the darkness. At least in the middle of the switch a burning bush takes the form of two trucks into each other, burst into flames.

The Northern Territory rides through with none. Try and clock some flying doors before and after, it won’t count because pre and post season numbers fall outside the region.

Western Australia either doesn’t report any fatalities, or just skips by the period with zero. Who knows. Perhaps Allan Faulkner has the score.

Nothing goes on in the ACT. Even days before the period they shepherded a transplant from Sydney, so even then they were trying to pull from out of time and space.

Counting the chunks and charred between 00:01 Thursday 17 April 2025 and 23:59 Tuesday 22 April 2025. Simmering compared to 2024 with a suppression in line with global sentiments pushing down on numbers across the board.

Ethan Switch

Written at The Wax Conspiracy.

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Thrown over the line like a body through two windshields, New South Wales claws back the top with 10, leaving it all out on the roads. In the seasonally named days of Operation Christmas/New Year 2024 it's a killer buzz to be the buzz kill. And when that cloaked stranger with a rusty blade asks if you'd like to move to another location it's a question on whether or not you're leaving a road for unknown pastures. Seven of the has-been vehicle smears writ with "died at the scene".

Out from the depths of the hot zone, South Australia clinches second spot with eight (8) no longer on the roads. During Operation Safe Holiday the state went up and down the named elevations and points from Mount Crawford and Swan Reach to Wattle Flat and Pewsey Vale. In two separate melting pots it was a clash of station wagons and motorbikes. The station wagon always wins. Though reported on 2 January 2025, a 60-year-old from Tumby Bay scraped in with the tally for 2024.

Third sees Victoria with six (6) cleared off the benches. Throughout Operation Roadwise (itself starting at 13 December) they missed out on more with a ute filled to the brim with kids, but no skids. On a camping theme, one of the toasted was at a campground on Tamboritha Road while the other got roasted in a parked truck.

Queensland saunters in with a burning set of tyres at fourth with five (5) and almost a horse. It was a high time to swap out an old Toyota with most of the scenes clearing out inventory. That is unless a horse gets involved and then it's just a two-wheeler. Who knows if future scores will include e-scooters to beef up the gristle mill.

Western Australia gave way with three (3) to rest in fifth place. Between a rock and a hard place is better than being between a tree and a careening car as the latter did not wake up the next day in two incidents.

Rolling in the dark at equal sixth place, Tasmania and Northern Territory with two (2) each on the rolling carts.

Tasmania ran through Operation Safe Arrival with a 50% flip. A banner ditch effort with both scenes featuring a silver Honda of some type. An Accord in Tonganah and a CRV in Perth, showing what happens when one car challenges a pole and two parked cars.

For the NT they took went a fruit smoothie route with a 74-year-old in Berry Springs and a 60-year-old in Berrimah. Both happening in the 19:00 timeslot, a late hour for hint of a day beverage.

The ACT turned up with one (1), chalking up as eleventh for the territory's year. In a car park duel between a car and a pedestrian the latter walked away. Conspicuously the report notes the driver being a 75-year-old whereas the pedestrian features no age, there into the ether.

Up from last year, soothed the waters will be as the clock runs out from 00:00 Friday 20 December 2024 to 23:59 1 January 2025. A shifted timeline when the middle of the holiday falls inside the week. And in the middle of it all during the Boxing Day yacht race it was an inter state get together as Sydney to Hobart with South Australia and Western Australia throwing some prawns off the bow.

Ethan Switch

Written at The Wax Conspiracy.

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But we’re already in the lull of the intermission. Come upon us with little fanfare, an unusual splash into silence whispered with a pause. The music pipes up just a little louder. Louder than the voices of the actors as they pantomime before us.

The volume starts low, in the middle of the park where the crickets and other insects wait for dusk. They’re quiet, waiting for their turn. Perhaps they’re talking in hushed tones to settle us into the scene, of recounting the steps up to the point of the story. It is not for that. The distant hint of a storm is louder than the conviction of the recorded reading. It is instead a mix of low volume and pushing through the carnival of syllables that leaves the ears wanting for an adjustment.

There is an uneven amount of exasperation in the wordplay. Some read without a strength to their voice, asking for purchase from people unfamiliar (or reeling in the mindscape of high school readings and the morass of essays extracting intent from a long dead author) with the source. Others cast bold, convinced of their words weighing in on the situation.

It’s all standard until the actors play into the pantomime. With broad strokes and swinging flair into the rafters, the absurdity of pairs of twins with the same names running around and around each other takes hold. Then, after finally leaning past the dialogue do we see misunderstandings take back the stage. Behind the masks some fall back asking for the words to convey the meaning. Brian Estes as Dromio is broader in the stroke, enthusiastically pushing the words through the eyelets, gesturing to the point of making full use of the stage, for what else is it there for?

The stork at the crest hints at the shakiness and abandon of the world. Babies tossed onto the cement floor with no concern at all. We witness veggies shaken out of pants and doors creaking ajar as one side demands it open, all while locked. These minor rumblings along with the barbs from the peanut gallery push us into a world where your sanity is superfluous.

We are deep in the slapstick that what we know happens upon circumstance and situation. All that has come before us is only as certain as knowing what will happen after. When we take away the bedrock that is a familiar face we are left reaching into the darkness grabbing on for something that feels like it belongs as much as we think we do.

With a second or two delay between the pre-recorded dialogue and the movements and head-talking from the actors comes a sense of displacement. This step behind, where things just feel a little off-balance, adds to the nature of the farce. Things are not exactly fluid, shifting a little uncomfortably to cast doubt on the situation. It either is or isn’t the person you think is talking.

The Comedy of Errors strides in with confidence as the déjà vu and crossed paths run parallel with a speed that hugs the guardrails. The read picks up and the slinking of shoes back and forth across the stage heightens as false identities are the same as misinterpreted. Identity, and the self, is mostly a concept that relies on the perception from others.

Narrowly avoiding sitting on someone else’s food left on the stoop at the 26 July 2024 performance directed by Amber Frangos for Flashback Theater at the Joe Ford Amphitheatre in Somerset, Kentucky.

Ethan Switch

Reviewed at The Wax Conspiracy.

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On the east, outside of the arena, there is no room to stand that isn’t a queue. For those in the sweltering, it’s a chance to drop a few kilos in sweat. No shade, but plenty of dust with traffic at a constant honk and pace down the street. “Are you in the line for merch?” or “Is this the end of the line?” said and heard over and again with hawkers trying to alleviate that pressure by selling their knock-off Melanie Martinez tour T-shirts. The merch truck is only a few metres away, but the lines snake upon themselves five or more times.

Twenty minutes pass walking and winding around the plaza as the heat continues to suppress. A roadie exits a side door. At least, it’s someone with a crew badge. They answer that there are merch booths inside the arena, six of them. Then why are we still lining up outside? More lines await entry. The shortest queues are for those without bags. The shortest one still is for those who think the line is only for those with some handicap or disability.

One gate attendant has a map of merch booths. Three around the floor. There’s a slight relief between the gate before we’re back into the sea of knee-high socks and babydoll costumes. Past the first booth and onto the next where the line wraps around poles, a balcony and along a food stand. At one point it’s two, then three, then half a line. The chaos feeds upon itself with the western entrance funnelling more people, cutting through the line. There is no sense to any of this. Off to another concourse on another floor. The three other booths are on this level. At least in terms of queues this is where sanity and the opening act starts to settle in.

Sofia Isella is half way through the experience, running across the stage guided by echoes. An ethereal warble reverberates as the seats lean in from the rafters. It’s high up and the seats are narrow. Darkness melds with the feeling of your innards seeping out from an incantation down in the belly of the stadium. An expulsion then fades out into the cascade of the artist change.

Beach Bunny rings familiar. It’s that essence of a soundtrack to a coming of age 90s movie at the end of the second act. That laid back slacker rock that heads toward the alternative. As much as they can, over the moss and greenery eating the stage, they bop with a bounce as the lyrics recite some drugs to ease away the notion of keeping up with expectations. Songs fuzz in, gearing into hooks that disappear as soon as they resemble a hint of a memory and mumble of that tune you heard one time. Even if you’ve never seen them before.

Random pulses of screams wave through the crowd. Down below in the levels where the noses aren’t bleeding, flashes of light deceive many into thinking it’s anything in the nothing. And then the lights dim before Melanie Martinez rises up from beneath the stage.

Chained to a safety pole atop building blocks, the energy from the crowd feeds Martinez, but never quite off the platform. We’re in the pupa of the Cry Baby persona with Cry Baby and that involves a detached projection. Something of a safety net between the stage apron and the warm embrace of the nursery that comforts the upstage.

As the sounds merge into the era of K-12, Martinez escapes from the back wall and plays with the stage proper. A carousel, a see-saw and the playground wheel in as the voice graduates into leaving excess behind. An assertive tone hems the edges as it presents this superficial compliance as it undermines you, plotting an escape. There’s a menace as the players strut the stage. Large candy heart props never seem to pause too long. You can read the abrasive messages if they hold still, but do they really want you to?

Costumed bunnies and babydolls move between the concepts, leisurely stringing out the space between sets. It is a hard break visually between the first two albums and the last.

When a four-eyed creature apparates in front of a looming mushroom, “RIP Cry Baby” carved on the stem, the end of the night swings into the Portals era. Whatever Cry Baby was in a previous life, it’s all gone with only a hint of that rock. Now we skew into the sounds of auras. Of thrashing about in the darkness as limbs flail blindly tearing off the walls. A darker adventure. It’s certainly darker in a void as more of the fog machine works with the laser show. Each pass-through scanning faces and imprinting memories of when it used to be daylight and angst.

The Trilogy Tour is two-thirds of birthing into this concept that Portals inhabits. There is a progression from the angst and things set aflame to contorting and controlling the fire now consuming the mind. Wanting to tear open, to peek behind the cosmos and fracture reality.

After a long drive nestled between ear plugs to cut down on the high-pitched screams from the teenagers behind it is comforting to forage in this black seed of an atmosphere that waking up a few times is not at all disorientating. And then it is and it’s still got a few more left in the show.

At night’s end a call to “Free Palestine!” that picks up only half or less of the crowd in echo. And done, like that, with no need for an encore as the stadium is spewed in butterfly confetti.

From the seats of Section 209 on 13 June 2024 at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio

Ethan Switch

Reviewed at The Wax Conspiracy.

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Threading through a bridge still standing, and four ahead of the pack, New South Wales holds aloft the top spot with 8 dead on the roads. A state that mixes the wildlife with off-roading into the action during Operation Easter 2024. Into the sunset goes but one on an ATV, flipping out after dodging a kangaroo. One hop and we’re out of this life but of many.

Second atop the broken eggs, Victoria with, let’s count them at 4. While officially Operation Nexus calls them at three, a Rutherglen woman getting bounced on the first day of comparison is good enough to push them into the silver spot. Though, we may even hint at five since dogs can be people too.

Squeezing through a meat grinder, a four state tie with the Northern Territory, Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia all pushing with 3 to gristle their way into the slippery third gear.

Northern Territory sent three into the flames west of Jabiru on the Arnhem Highway, but away walked one. Nhulunbuy, though, went cleaning up for that trio and down goes a pedestrian in a haze of “will they or won’t they lay it on the booze”.

Two Fords and a Tesla walk into each other in a clash of makers in South Australia. Out of that whole scene of knees, elbows and possible titanium hips, only two never saw the rest of Operation Safe Holidays - Easter edition. The pickup taking down a tree.

Queensland plays it like a dream with an Escape waltzing into a Mirage. And then they count the spinning hubcaps rattling off the loose nuts and bolts, and the car was stolen from a charity in Pialba.

Western Australia scrapes in one for each decade, at least in terms of 30s, 40s and 50s representing a slither on the board and tolls.

Seventh sees Tasmania with 1 during the reach of Operation Safe Arrival. One late in the game is still one on the charts. Five more crashes spin into the ring, but the time is off and they limp away from the flames of Easter falling off for another year.

Smoking out on the exhaust pipe, ACT nets zero, even in the face of double demerits, none took up the offer. At this point you can’t get anyone to stick around long enough in the nation’s capital to want to veer off chasing bilbies and melted chocolate.

Counting the remains between 00:01 Thursday 28 March 2024 and 23:59 Monday 1 April 2024. With a considerable bump of malignant ooze, it’s well up against 2023, a return to form in a way. And we haven’t even switched back the clocks.

Ethan Switch

Written at The Wax Conspiracy.

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From nowhere to top of the pops, Western Australia clocked out eight (8) bodies. Not a good time to head into the sunset with half their numbers bound for the heat of the west, never to look back. From hitting a tree to an intersection, off a roundabout and waiting at the servo in Denmark, it was a cardinal bias to render them obsolete.

From third place last year to equal second this round, Victoria shares the road no more with eight (8) off the greens into black and char. Out of the books they clocked in half "run off a straight road", whatever orientation that means. And let's not put down their attempts at going all the way to the top. During Operation Roadwise one can was packed to the gills where,

Police found the front-seat passenger had someone sitting on their lap, while the three back seat passengers had two others sitting on their laps as well, all without seatbelts

You can't always cash-in on stupid.

Pipping up a spot, South Australia mangled six (6) for the period to claim third on the smouldering ashes. Operation Safe Holiday was not entirely road-bound. In a gamble between the immoveable mass of a freight train and a road train, it was the latter to walk away. Off the land, closer to the waters, a shark attack was noted, but doesn't qualify as much as a train does.

Falling down to fourth, New South Wales with five (5) during the matter-of-fact Operation Christmas/New Year 2023. You have to work the numbers, one at a time. One car a day, until you end up with a bloom and go gang-busters with a five-vehicle crash in Wallerawang on the Great Western Highway. But we can't always throw it in big as that clash and wreckage only took two away from the table.

Equal fourth, down from first place last year, Queensland also netted five (5) during the period. In basically all of their write-ups each report kicks off with "left the road(way)" during Operation Mistletoe. Maybe it's being in the middle of the pack, but the age distribution looks like they were going for extra credit only to get graded on a curve where the drivers could not keep on track. From an 18-year-old Toolooa man up to a 27-year-old in a motorbike crash in Ashgrove to a 70-year-old Trebonne man back down to a 52-year-old Tannum Sands motorbiker rounding the base with a 20-year-old Bony Mountain woman.

In sixth place, Tasmania has two (2) to show. It ain't all smørrebrød and oysters combing tabloids of Princess-to-be-Queen Mary during Operation Safe Arrival. Not if you're on a motorbike. Or perhaps, if you are, make sure you're the pillion as both scenes with headlights dangling off by a burnt wire saw the rider bear the brunt of the burnt.

Down two from last year, the Northern Territory sneaks under the bar with one (1) for the festivities. Of all the knocks, a hit and run still counts. Even if no one sticks around to see what the commotion is all about.

They all left and what's left is the ACT, none on their tanks. Floating by with a chance at something, but nothing. Steady as they go, still holding on warm to the bottom of the plate. Not like they didn't try a little too early.

The embers die down like the languages and dialects we run away from. Fade away into the night from the scorched roads between 00:00 Friday 22 December 2023 and 23:59 Monday 1 January 2024. You can never stop smelling the melt on the bitumen, not when the solipsistic careen in those three seconds between fatigue and doomscrolling.

Ethan Switch

Written at The Wax Conspiracy.

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Que se termine con los carnavales y los lugares comunes. Que exclamen: Dios mío, tiene que haber una explicación para poder entender cuáles exones quedaron y cuáles no.

"Nunca muestres tu oro a un gallego." Que sea ésta la regla de oro. Que lo haya aprendido bien. Que me haya llenado cada poro de mi ser poroso.

Déjame ir tranquilamente a esa buena noche, con una sonrisa desconcertante y una risa torcida. Déjame transmitir botones tiernos. Déjame degradarme como ondas de radio. Déjame atenuarme de una vez por todas. Por favor.

y ahora adiós. todo hecho.

Belvedere Jehosophat

Written at The Wax Conspiracy.

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Belvedere Jehosophat

Written at The Wax Conspiracy.

[advertisement] If you shop Amazon.com and would like to help support us, start your browsing via our affiliate link.

Existential crisis? Clearly, as are most forms of self-reflection through a mirror of society. A reckoning of wondering where we fit in the world. We see others plainly for their careers or trajectories that they must have a clear path. An illusion of the outer-self that they both unknowingly and meticulously present. One we are only superficially allowed, and within we are ever lost.

Barbie weaves in and out of its own lore. Cutting deep on its production history, lines of dolls and figures, even the tax evasion. The Narrator (Helen Mirren) and other characters quickly drop notes on the nods and references letting the story continue apace, bringing the rest of us up to speed. For those that need some time to warm up their joints on the first parts of the end credits there is a catalogue review of the obscure, discontinued and odd dolls roaming Barbieland.

The dolls that inhabit the pink-scape are all real. A recurring statement that ties back into its meta-narrative. These are not just characters traipsing stiff-legged in a fantasy world. They are proxies and avatars for the greater unknown hands wielding their fates and fortunes. The superego with full resources, tied only by the guiding thoughts that dream for them.

The Barbies and Kens to an extent know they are being manipulated by the unseen force in a parallel dimension. They understand a place that belongs inside this realm of rules that go only so far, and snap back without a hint of there being more than this. They are a mirror in a sense that a reflection can also be a reverse, or inverse, of the actual state. The patriarchy that exists is flipped and decorated in pink by the matriarchy. Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) is the oracle, a Morpheus if you will. One that understands the architecture of the matrix of Barbie and real worlds and the bridge between.

The avatars seem to have no issues sitting, or bending limbs, so they must all be the alternative moulds that include knees and elbows. Otherwise it’s all long on the deck chairs with straight lines from hip to ankle. Then again, toward the third act, when Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) feels the weight of it all collapse upon her, the doll physics come back to truth. Flopping on the astroturf with stiff, limited range of articulation.

Stereotypical Barbie stands in for everyone who wakes up and wonders, “When does this all end?” The other question, really, is where does it all end?

There is a “shining” connection between a Barbie and their real-world anchor that suggests a one-to-one relationship. A psychic bond that while there, we don’t explore much beyond (or we are kept out of that spiral) of what happens to the Barbie or Ken that is no longer attached. Does their “soul” transfer to the next play-host? Or perhaps they are untethered, left to walk the lands of Barbie unburdened by the loss of self. Their sense of meaning and purpose no longer bound to the wishes and hopes of their counterpart.

Before we step into enlightenment, or the next plane of existence, we must discard ourselves. Leave behind saṃsāra and crash into the beach with a newfound sense of self. One distinct and discrete of the binding ties, those endless cycles of passing through the hands of generations. We never actually explore what happens when a doll passes hands, or when a person severs a connection otherwise. They explore that topic as much as the mother-daughter relationship looking for repair. Thoughts of death are one thing. Picking up after the scattered shards weathers us through the next coming of age.

The epic battle of the Kens breaks tension and sees Ken (Ryan Gosling) and Ken (Simu Liu) ride into battle not against each other, but more for each other. They are dying on the shores of Malibu Beach assailed by and amongst endless amounts of accessories. A note that they too, lost in this sea of ribbon and hobby-horses, are themselves accessories to the main. You don’t have “Ken”, you have “and Ken” and that’s not enough to sustain a sense of being until you walk away from it all and embrace being lost for a while. Lost enough to realise that you were already there.

Barbie does not ask us to walk blindly with rose-coloured glasses into a world of pink. Flipping things on their head to a world of extremes is not always the answer. It is an answer, but then we are right back where we started. Scrawling in the margins, waiting for the day when we leave it as dust.

Barbie, through the lens of Greta Gerwig, is a commercial deep to its core. This one attempts to sell us on the idea that we can be more than ourselves.

Ethan Switch

Reviewed at The Wax Conspiracy.

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Belvedere Jehosophat

Written at The Wax Conspiracy.

[advertisement] If you shop Amazon.com and would like to help support us, start your browsing via our affiliate link.

Belvedere Jehosophat

Written at The Wax Conspiracy.

[advertisement] If you shop Amazon.com and would like to help support us, start your browsing via our affiliate link.

y sin embargo sin embargo sin embargo, ¡todavía abundaban los desacuerdos! Cargados de arte y ligeros de ideas, se vieron atrapados entre dos bandos: los que exigían: "¡Basta ya!" y los que insistían, “¡Ya Basta!” Una guerra de poder se desató en las calles del centro de la ciudad, donde los equipos callejeros pegaron carteles en los postes, que comenzaron a verse embarazados cuando se recortaban a la luz de la noche. Las cosas finalmente se asentaron en el paralelo 38, donde una especie de tierra de nadie dividía cuidadosamente la tienda de pollo al carbón y la estación de bomberos abandonada.

Mientras tanto, la crisis había alcanzado un punto álgido: la gente vivía en tiendas de campaña, contenedores, automóviles. Una camioneta era majestuosa, lo que permitía que mamá, papá y los más pequeños se estiraran cómodamente. ¡Pero! mientras que era majestuoso los paneles de madera invitaran al escrutinio. Estas jerarquías no eran nuevas: los machos alfa dominaban la tropa mientras los subordinados se alineaban, jerárquicos entre varios pájaros y jerarquías de dominio entre manadas de lobos. Incluso los insectos como las abejas y las termitas tenían sus propios sistemas de clasificación social.

De todos modos, que el cartel diga "¡Basta!" Es más elegante de esa manera.

Belvedere Jehosophat

Written at The Wax Conspiracy.

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New South Wales cleared off all the bases and streams right into the lead with seven (7) on the books. Operation Easter 2023 ran the gamut. In one scene alone it was a game of generations with a battle of 50s and 20s both losing out.

Then comes the bloat in the mid-riff feasting on the chococalte egg droppings and hot cross buns. Each of the middle of the pack shelving two (2) each.

Queensland goes off with Operation Victor Easter with a long headstart. They officially ran numbers from 1 April, but we're not counting for extra credit. They did at least usher one unknown into the abyss of the sunshine.

Which follows suit with Victoria during their Operation Nexus. On the shelf they mark for two. On the books though it's a count for one male and then who knows. It's a zero on the female and a zero on the unknown. The gender breakdown can or cannot be more vague with the inclusion of an "unknown" category being zero while the official count says there has to be something there.

South Australia went on for a mirror match during Operation Safe Holidays Easter. Right off the start at Mawson Lakes one from One Tree Hill loses a match with a tree. A few days later at Lake Plains, another attempt at a tree's life goes off. It's dangerous hitting a tree near a lake.

Tasmania goes mining during Operation Safe Arrival. They weren't going for gold, but perhaps knew they would be saddled in for equal second placing. On the podium there with a Silver Camry and a Silver Mitsubishi going in strong for the tier.

Western Australia slips into sixth place with one (1) off the roads forevermore. It was a group effort from three vehicles with only one chalk outline as the result. It was close to the end for last drinks there being on the Monday of the long weekend, but they managed to mark a dent.

Equally in sixth sees the Northern Territory with one (1) from another type of group effort. All packed into a single can with a lone man left at the scene.

The ACT rounds up the end. Nothing on their road radar though. Quiet there as they focus more on the air travel as who wouldn't want to be out of Canberra by any means necessary.

There must be some truth to fatigue and being thrown about from Daylight Saving Time, as it was an uptick compared to last year. These then are the numbers classed on the clock from 00:01 6 April 2023 to 23:59 10 April 2023. Maybe next time rest a little more before heading out.

Ethan Switch

Written at The Wax Conspiracy.

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Había una simetría antinatural en juego y algunas asunciónes muy católicas sustentaban todo el asunto. Sobre la supuesta adhesión al Catecismo de la Iglesia Católica. Sobre linajes. Sobre hímenes intactos y otras cosas groseras.

La dote pasó de uno a otro en un sobre negro ónice. Estaba tan absorto en el asunto que casi pedí ver el interior. Pero un pensamiento se retorció a través de las circunvoluciones y los surcos de mi cerebro. Mis sinapsis chispearon cuando el pensamiento salió de una trinchera donde la lubina se retorcía en océanos lechosos translúcidos. “Que los hombres a quienes debemos respuestas deben respuestas propias.”

Estacione mi coche a un lado de la carretera. Es una cosita pequeña, plateada. Estoy abrumado abrumado abrumado.

Belvedere Jehosophat

Written at The Wax Conspiracy.

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Pushing away from the middle of the bloody pack of last year, Queensland takes it all in stride as 11 notch the tally. From Banana to Bonogin it was all a case of silver linings on the morgue trays. Then, then comes the question of if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there to be impacted by it, did the bones make a sound? Perhaps not if there’s all that metal to drown it out.

The Forensic Crash Unit is investigating a fatal crash at Glass House Mountains after a tree fell onto a car. Initial investigations indicate at 12:20pm a black hatch was driving south on Old Gympie Road when a large tree fell on top of the car. The driver, a 20-year-old Little Mountain woman and her passenger, an 80-year-old Glass House Mountains woman, both died at the scene.

Nodding into second, New South Wales with nine (9) over the 11-day spread of Operation Christmas/New Year. Almost enough to double the points from last year, but just so shy. It’s not without trying, as a snap at the end of a year from a multi-car scene shepherds one forever into the night, and nine others manage to amble and just go about the rest of their days.

Careening into third spot with seven (7) on their blocks, Victoria and the washing down of the roads at night. There be the Garden State, just on the branch but the days close up with a week’s worth to count. Only a few more hours into the next period and they could have sidled higher with four gone in a single crash. Alas, time is the enemy of both the living and dead.

South Australia rankles about and loses with nature at six (6) in fourth place. They played the numbers game and rolled a double on the year previous. Answering that call from nature, they respond with the lives of three against a tree and say yes, if a tree doesn’t fall on you first you can still fall life first into a trunk.

Fifth position sees the Northern Territory rack up an appearance with one (1) flying through the air. They call it an ejection when there isn’t even a proper seat on the back of a ute, “The boy was an occupant of a 4WD utility and was reportedly riding in the tray of the vehicle at the time of the incident. He is reported to have been ejected from the tray.”

Down under hauling in the black lungs of coal, Tasmania and the ACT both with zero. The patch of thatch with nothing to show for it on their Operation Safe Arrival. ACT giving it a none despite quite a few speedsters.

And after all that maybe we are finally there yet. Until the nationals from another country fly in with a new strain of COVID-19 and we wonder why and when it really ends. Or do we just fade away as footnotes like those on the roads between 00:01 Friday 23 December 2022 to 23:59 Monday 2 January 2023. If they open up the roads they’ll open up the air and our lungs can shut down all the same.

Ethan Switch

Written at The Wax Conspiracy.

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Dogs are boys. Cats are girls. The domesticated animal kingdom has rules no more clearly defined than that by children and the true facts they heard from a friend from a cousin of a friend at a park one time in the suburb across the creek.

And nothing will stand between Purina Beneful and any assertion against that fact. Big dog food has got a hoof in the game and it’s leaning clear to gendered factions.

It’s one thing to demarcate the basics of pet husbandry in hushed giggles between recess and lunch. Another to print those words and stake gender-exclusion on meals proper.

The line in the sand has been drawn. Dogs that identify as female in terms of genitals and headspace need not attempt to wander down this part of the pet food aisle with Beneful on their gender-bent minds. They’re serving the female dog slop over in the next aisle, behind the dumpster, caked in the weeks-long crystals of urine crunching underfoot.

It’s another step and toehold in the Right’s direction. After all, if we can’t agree on entrenching stereotypes from the base domesticated animals, what are we even doing as a society of exclusionists?

Ethan Switch

Written at The Wax Conspiracy.

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