I cleared my throat, though it did not need it, and began.

“Thank you. I accept your applause and adoration. You’re greedy to escape your prisons, and you think that by making you rich, I set you free. I haven’t; I have only let you out of your cell, into the corridor. The prison still exists, your prison that you don’t know you love so much. All right. Let’s talk about me in relation to the tall-poppy syndrome. It’s best to address this tricky issue right off the bat. Look, don’t cut my head off, you shits. You love me now, but you’ll hate me tomorrow. You know how you are- actually, you don’t. That’s why I’d like to suggest an unusual exercise for the nation, and the exercise is to love me in perpetuity. OK? In this spirit, I have an announcement to make. My God, my entire life has led up to this moment. Of course five minutes ago I went to the toilet and my entire life led up to that moment too. But here it is. I am running for Senate. That’s right, Australia, I give you my wasted gifts! My squandered potential! I’ve always led a degraded existence, and now I offer it to you. I would like to be a part of our horrendous Parliament, our collective hoax! I want to put myself among the swine, and why shouldn’t I? I am unemployed, after all, and senator is a job as good or bad as any other, isn’t it? Just so you know, I’m not tied to any party. I will be running as an independent. And I’ll be honest with you. I think politicians are weeping sores. And when I look at our politicians in our country, I can’t believe that all of these unendurable people were actually chosen. So what can we say about democracy, except that it’s not a good enough system to hold people accountable for their lies? Supporters of this inadequate system say, well, punish them at the polls, then! But how can we when most likely the single opponent at the polls is another in a long line of unelectable gormless bandits, and so we wind up voting the liars in again, voting with our teeth clenched? Of course, the most disagreeable thing about being an atheist is that according to my nonbeliefs, I know that all these sons of bitches have no retribution coming to them in the hereafter- that everyone gets away with everything. It’s very distressing; what goes around doesn’t come around but stays where it went when it first went around.

“Are you all following me? We puzzlingly overestimate our elected representatives. Don’t overestimate me! I’ll make blunder after stupid blunder! But it is necessary for you to know where I stand on certain contentious issues so you’ll know what kind of blunders I’ll be making. Well, I am certainly not on the right. I don’t care if gays get married or get divorced. Not that I’m not for gay rights specifically, I’m just against the phrase ‘family values.’ In fact, when someone says the phrase ‘family values,’ I feel like I’ve been slapped in the face with a condom from 1953. Well, then, am I on the left? Sure, they’re the first to sign petitions and in international affairs will always support the perceived underdog, even if the underdog is a bunch of cannibals- as long as they have less money and fewer resources- and these deeply caring individuals on the left will do anything for the betterment of the disenfranchised except make a personal sacrifice. So you see? I’m neither left nor right. I’m just an ordinary person who goes to sleep feeling guilty every night. Why shouldn’t I? Eight hundred million people went to bed hungry today. All right, I’ll admit for a while our roles as massively wasteful consumers seemed to be doing us a world of good- we were slimming down, a good half of us had breast implants; frankly, we were looking good- but now we’re all fatter and more cancerous than ever, so what’s the point of it? The world is getting hotter, the ice caps are melting, because man keeps saying to nature, Hey, our whole idea of a cozy future is to have jobs. That’s all we’ve got planned. What’s more, we will pursue this aim at any cost, even, paradoxically, if it means the eventual destruction of our workplace. Man says, Sacrifice industry and economy and jobs? For what? Future generations? I don’t even know those guys! I’ll tell you something for free- it makes me ashamed that our species, which is so finely ennobled by its sacrifices, winds up sacrificing it all for the wrong things and comes off just looking like a race of people who like to use the hair dryer while taking a bath. I’m only sorry I was born three-quarters through this self-inflicted tragedy and not at the very beginning or at the very end. I’m fucking sick of watching this tragedy in slow motion. The other planets aren’t, though- they’re on the edge of their suns. The reason we’ve never had visitors from outer space isn’t that they don’t exist but that they don’t want to know us. We’re the village idiots of all the teeming galaxies. On a quiet night you can hear their crackled laughter. And what are they laughing at? Let me put it this way: humanity is the guy who shits in his own pants and then walks around saying, ‘So, do you like my new shirt?’ What’s my point? To let you know I am an environmentalist insofar as I wouldn’t like to live in a caldron of boiling piss. Believe me, there’s no politics in staying alive. That’s why I’m an apolitical person entering the world of politics. But I’m not perfect. Tell me, why have we been infected by that American disease of wanting our politicians to be pure as monks? Society went through the sexual revolution decades ago, but for some reason we judge the people who manage our economy by Victorian standards, and this doesn’t seem strange to us. Let me get this out of the way- if I see a chance of having an illicit affair with an intern or a colleague’s wife, I will jump at it with both feet. As far as I’m concerned, ‘getting away with it’ has nothing to do with no one finding out and everything to do with no one falling pregnant. OK? I deny nothing. I admit everything. And let me say this to you too: I will not pretend that I’m not attracted to certain high school girls. Some of them are seventeen, for Chrissakes. They’re not children! They’re sexy, blossoming young women, most of whom lost their virginity at fourteen! There’s a difference between inappropriate sex with a minor and pedophilia. It’s stupid and dangerous to bundle them up in the same sack.

“What else? OK. I want to put this on the record, right from the outset: if I can give my son advantages- a book of cab charges, for instance, or free vacations- then I will. And why shouldn’t I? If you are a mechanic and your son has a car, won’t you fix it for him, won’t you give him the advantage of having a father who is a mechanic? Or if you’re a plumber, are you going to leave your son elbow deep in shit because you want him to do it on his own?

“What’s my point? I render all smear campaigns redundant. Why throw dirt at a man caked in mud? For the record, I have been to prostitutes, fathered an illegitimate child- stand up, Jasper, and take a bow. I have lost control of my mind and my bladder. I have broken laws. I have built a labyrinth. I have loved my brother’s girlfriend. I believe not in war but in the horrors of war! I believe not in an eye for an eye but in a large cash settlement for an eye! I believe in sexual humiliation education in schools! I believe that counterterrorism experts should be allowed to look up anyone’s skirt they like! I believe in standing quietly, thanking our Aboriginal hosts, and every one of us migrating to another country! I believe that inequality is not the product of capitalism but the product of the fact that in a group of two men and one woman, one of the men will be taller and will have straighter teeth than the other, and he’ll get the woman. Thus I believe that economics isn’t the basis of inequality, straight teeth are!

“When democracy works, the government does what the people want. The problem with that is that people want shitty things! People are scared and greedy and self-centered and only concerned about their financial security! Yes, the truth of the matter is THERE HAS YET TO BE A GREAT DEMOCRATIC NATION BECAUSE THERE HAS YET TO BE A GREAT BUNCH OF PEOPLE!