This is a bunch of stuff I wrote at least a decade ago.
It may or may not be garbage - enter at your own peril!
The Dimension of...Suck
You unlock this door with the key of turpitude. Beyond it is another dimension - a dimension of sound, like Avril Lavigne in a duet with Little Jimmy Osmond - a dimension of sight, like that time you walked in on your parents boinking and had to carve out your eyeballs using only some jellymeat and a nearby cat - a dimension of mind, with the doors of perception papered over with pictures of Bennifer and the hind parts of goats. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance abuse, of shit and shinola. You've just crossed over into...the Dimension of Suck.
The Dimension of Suck goes by many names. Auckland, for one. Any place where it's illegal to consume alcohol on pain of having your testicles wired to electrodes for nine years for another. Poetry book launch parties for a third. And yet - despite being a completely different plane of existence - it sometimes happens that an individual can cross over, mysteriously, from our realm to The Other, like a mysterious, realm-crossing person on their way to...the Dimension of Suck
That's what happened to that nerdy little wallace who was such a geek even you could pick on him, who used to throw a spazz every so often and attack someone with a blunt pair of scissors and now owns his own brand of supermodel. And your old best friend, who you used to happily play tag with and accidentally push him off cliffs. He broke his collar bone a lot but now he's a captain of industry, sailing the good ship industry to the land of disgustingly huge piles of industrial money that you'll never see in your life. They both pay rent in...the Dimension of Suck.
Not just individuals find their way there. Whole companies do. Remember when McDonald's was a cool place to go for your seventh birthday party, a once a year treat, with spinning tops and cake and maybe a whole big mac if you could stop being sick long enough? Remember when beer, wine and spirits manufacturers correctly paced their products for your metabolism so you didn't end up looking like a distended hippo stomach from nothing more than a week long drinking binge? Well, that was before they sold out majority stake holdings to entrepreneurs from...the Dimension of Suck
And sometimes, in worst case scenarios told in terrified tones by the kind of actuary who thinks that getting the 'Bridal Suite' your first night in prison for fraud is a pretty good result considering you did add a whole extra Beck CD to your insurance claim list of stolen items, sometimes the Dimension of Suck comes looking...for you.
You unlock this door with a key made of chicken flesh you could have sworn you'd cooked long enough. You're moving like your belly and your bowels. You've just crossed over into...the Dimension of Suck.
The Magic of the Movies
I had this really great idea for a movie - which is much better than the last idea I had for a movie because it doesn't involve robots, clones and some other stuff I stole whole cloth from the 'The Stone Canal' by Ken McCloud. In fact, seeing as the idea was to make 'The Stone Canal' into a movie, much of it was very similar indeed.
But this movie is different. It's set in modern times, and it's a buddy movie about Jesus and the Buddha and some of their wacky hijinx. The gimmick is, nobody knows it's Jesus and the Buddha until the very end - like in the Sixth Sense only with religious figureheads and without Haley Joel Osmont pretending that not blinking is acting. The bad guy, or as we say in the industry, the antagonist bad guy, is a drug dealer called Mohammed - swarthy middle eastern villains are pretty 'in' at the moment now that Russia has thrown in the towel and snuck off to hit the potato juice and cry in some corner somewhere in terms of villainy.
The reason why nobody will suspect that it's Jesus and the Buddha is that they're white. And teenagers. But it's them, all right. You can tell by their approaches to everyday teenage things like picking up chicks and asking Dad for the car keys. And the fact that the movie will be titled Jesus and The Buddha's Excellent Adventure.
So, just to whet your appetite, here's a quick taster. Note how I carefully let slip subtle references to who they really are, right from the first couple of lines.
And that's just the opening scene. Take that, stir in some hot steamy, sweaty sex, possibly with other characters, add a pinch of extreme religious ultra-violence ripped straight from today's news and you have recipe for mega-hit of epic proportions on your hands. And the odd Fatwa - but nobody said I wouldn't have to suffer for my art.
April Fools Day Resolutions
New Year's Resolutions - I don't know about you - but I make a couple every year only to watch as my best laid plans inevitably go down in a blaze of deficient will-power. This year - however, it's going to be different. Sod new year's - April Fools day is where all the groovy cats are pussyfooting over their good intentions on the road to hell.
NYRs are all about bettering yourself, being a more complete person, making a difference. Why don't we all join hands, eat bran muffins and sing a rousing rendition of "Circle of Life' while we're at it? April Fools resolutions, on the other hand, are entirely fatuous, completely without merit - and if one of them should actually come off, more fool you. Martyrdom is for people who believe in virgins. I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints. The sinners have much more fun. And some stuff about catholic schoolgirls that I momentarily forget, having been six when that particular album came out and not quite fully understanding.
So, here we are then - on the eve of Aprils Fools Day 2003 - my April Fools Day resolutions:
I'll stick with that for now, folks. No point setting up any unrealistic expectations.
I am not, nor have I ever been a communist.
To be honest - I always preferred anarchists to communists - at least they had halfway decent drugs. But the minute either of them started spinning me polemic, or dialectic, or whatever the fuck, my eyes would glaze over and I'd start thinking about how cute lipstick lesbians in anarcho-feminist groups were these days. Then I got older and realised that, as white, middle class male, I'd have more luck trying to steal Bert from Ernie. Never having really gone in for that whole removable nose fetish - I decided to keep to more realistic targets.
But, largely because all the conservatives were not only boring conversationally but didn't know how to have a good time, I endured socially, and eventually discovered my own inner manifesto. It was, I was told whenever I dared speak out about it, one of a deep and abiding cynicism. This pleased me, because being optimistic about the political made as much sense to me as being pessimistic about the sun coming up tomorrow (little orphan Annie being a big influence on my early political thought). I summed up my emerging sensibility in three words:
People believe crap.
Observe: If you find the politician who you most nearly admire, pin them down for half an hour and then ask them pointed questions, you will almost certainly find something they believe that is, to you, total and utter hogwash rinsed in bilge water (added bonus: it works for religion, too). The trick is to realise that, despite them being so completely and obviously in error, you can't kill them. You can't even rough them up a little. It's just the case. Deal.
You can see how this was a vast improvement on my earlier proto-manifesto, "You are wrong", as over time you attain a peaceful acceptance of the universality of stupid, stupid beliefs. Also, you get into fewer pointless arguments and maybe even get beaten up less. There is no need to fight, because you can't fight crap (especially if you want to avoid getting covered in it). It's a by-product, both metaphorically and literally, of life.
Sure, by smiling sweetly, walking away, and then saying nasty things about them behind their back, you're doing more damage than by standing up in the middle of a meeting and trying to influence the debate by quoting Karl Marx or Kropotkin. But that doesn't change the underlying reality. Everyone has a shibboleth, and the minute we stop seeing them as huge, disgusting worm creatures burrowing into other people's brains, and start realising exactly how warm and fuzzy and beautiful they are in their own special way, well, there'll be a damn sight less people on the streets trying to sell you a copy of the Socialist Worker. And that's got to be good for everyone.
Another Advertisement from the Teen Scene
My peeps and me were just hanging out on IM, you know - and we're a bunch of teenage and early twenties key influence bloggers, and all we could talk about was this new soft drink/beverage thing called, get this, Mad Cow. Jesse, who does the 'Intimate relations of mortality' blog, reckoned it made your dick fall off, but he's always saying stuff like that for the attention. Nicole ('Fairytime') had already got herself the T-shirt, which said 'I shilled for Dr P on my blog and all they gave me was this skanky T-shirt'. Laura ('Hard-arse bitch from hell') said the t was, like, 'really meta' but I think she just heard that meta was the next uber and she should really get over it.
Jamie ('Sux to be you') said he'd tried it and that it was all spongiform, which means you have to squeeze this stuff to get the actual drink and we were all 'Ewwww' and 'Yucko' and Tina ('Little fluffy clouds') actually said 'Grody' which I couldn't believe.
Sam ('Intellectual Abdication') said that Mad Cow was what you got when you fed cows to other cows, and we thought that was pretty cool, because aren't cows, like, vegetarian? I'd be pretty pissed off if someone put anchovies in my vege pizza, but cows are pretty funny when you think about it so I think it works better than 'Mad Vegetarian'. Toby ('Blog the wet sprocket') said he was thinking about changing the name of his blog to 'Bomb the BaSE' but nobody knew what the hell he was talking about. He is such a loser.
Anyhow, doc P said we're not supposed to mention that we're part of the 'in the know' crowd so you'll just have to imagine we were all talking about something else. Anyway - gotta jet - feeling the urge for a cool refreshing burst of Mad Cow.
l8er
-CJD
Be gentle - it's my first time
They said it couldn't be done! I said I'd never do it, but then I also said I'd never write this in my underwear, which, while strictly speaking, is true, but does sort of indicate I'm not paying a huge amount of attention at the best of times. Oooh, look, shiny things. I like shiny things, and I don't have nearly enough of them. I've got some pretty, shiny nail clippers, though, but I've used them already over the weekend so I'll have to wait a while or I'll get all bloody and can't type.
But anyhow - against the better judgment of a cast of thousands - here is MY FIRST FANFIC!!! Whooohoooo! W00t! Woof! Set in the parallel universe of Sunnydale, where nothing is quite as it seems except for the large numbers of vicious demon spawn that keep turning up, often unexpectedly. A brave gang of meddling kids hold out against the infinite forces of darkness arrayed against them. One of them, the really rather fetching young Willow, is researching the latest threat with kindly guardian-type Giles (by an odd co-incidence also my name, but that has nothing to do with it, it's for the purposes of drama and conflict and character-building so be quiet).
My First Fanfic
by FumbleMouse
"Gosh," said Willow, "That's quite a big one. Right up there on the bigness scale. Bigness factor 10, captain"
"Erm, yes, I suppose it is, rather" said Giles, taking his exceptionally large "Bumper Book of Scary Stuff" down from a high shelf.
"It's getting so hot in here," said Willow, fetchingly. "I'm feeling all clothesy, should I do something about it?"
"Oh, no, don't bother," said Giles, handing her a fan. She turned it on and basked her slender throat in its cool breath. "Ooh", she said, somewhat fetchingly, "that's nice. So, anyhow, any leads on the big nasty?"
Just then, Giles leaped onto the table and began singing along to an outrageous thrashpunk guitar line
"Saw Gerry Anderson on my TV Flying Saucers and Puppetry Supermarionation I wanna be - THUNDERBIRD ONE!
Deep down underground where it's dark and cool Underneath an island swimming pool And all the other thunderbirds will be really jealous Because I'm a big, silver, red-tipped, flying phallus!"
"Goodness" said Willow.
"Bloody hell," said Giles "I don't know what came over me. I don't even like the Thunderbirds."
"Even though I'm gay," said Willow, "I think we should have sex now"
"Oh, all right then" said Giles.
THE END!
The Balkanisation of Suburbia
I went to a party tonight, and had two very small people come up to me and demand that I search for them. Cutting to the quick, I immediately announced that I knew exactly where they were - one of them was tugging at my sock and the other one was pulling my hair. But that wasn't enough - so I had to go and actually look.
One of the strange things about the very young is their amazing ability to state the obvious. Here's me going on a hunt in the lounge, when a high-pitched voice calls to me and says "Don't look under the table!" So I vocally looked behind a few pillows and underneath the cat, and when I finally made it to the table and met their eyes - they told me I was an "idiot" because they'd told me not to look there. I mean - hell! Those little bastards! Have they no respect for my feelings of inadequacy - my eternally diminishing self-esteem? Why don't they just cut out my heart and serve it up as an hors-d'oeuvre? So I hung them upside down from some convenient hooks in an out-of-the-way closet and left them there, as I'd just been paged and had to go to work.
The hot water embargo: day 3
So the guy was supposed to come and fix the gas yesterday so we'd have hot water today but apparently there was a big emergency in the gas world - they'd found a new type of gas or something and needed the community to gather round and help out with their macabre experiments because the SPCA was getting all shirty about the canary death count. As a result we still have no hot water, and I, dare I say it, look like a pile of crap. My scalp itches, my beard itches and there's something moving underneath my fingernails.
So I'm about to carry out a daring piece of McGuyverism involving the kettle and a sink - assuming I can find the plug before I lose the nerve. Not having hot water on tap is going against the natural order of things - like sex with alpacas on holy days or Avril Lavigne pretty much whenever. I see she's up for a Grammy award for Least Clue of Musical Identity in the hardcore/teenypop category. I hope she wins, because she's obviously terrifically talented and by the time she learns d7th on the guitar, she'll be an accomplished blues musician, too.
Not many people know this, because I like to keep my light under a bushel (in order to appreciate the pretty-pretty flames of burning bushels) but I play a mean guitar myself. It's mean because even though I'm sure my fingers are in the right place - it sounds wrong. Bastard guitar. It can't even read music. Where George Harrison had a guitar that wept gently, mine swears like two troopers caught up in a gay pride parade in a dry town on St. Pacifist's day. I should trade it in for a hamster and a pair of spoons because you can never have enough spoons and I could call the hamster Avril and make it wear the cutest little tie.
Millionaire
Yesterday I made my first million. I hardly even noticed - but I checked my bank account today expecting to see a grand total of $43.24 to keep me in cheezels until the weekend and I was informed that I was the proud owner of about one million plus some loose change. Or what I now term loose change, but may have previously referred to as a couple of years' salary if I got a pay rise the size of an elephant on top of six other elephants.
I immediately went to the bank to see what was up. I spoke to the teller and asked that she make sure there wasn't some mistake with regard to my account. She gave me that special look reserved by banks for people who hold their trousers up with knotted string and typed in some numbers. Then she looked at me again. It was as if the sun had suddenly broken out from my arse. "Goodness, it's a hot one today" she said as she undid the top button of her blouse. Like the gentleman I am, I immediately ran away.
So it was true. I was rich. I went to the library for some kind of self-help book, an "I'm Ok, you're Ok, but I'm now a millionaire you horrible wee poor person" kind of thing - but despite there being hundreds of financial advice books, there wasn't much in the way of stuff to tell you what do once you'd actually made it (which I think says more about those advice books than they really want you to hear). Even the twenty copies of "Harry Potter and the Unfeasibly Large Advance" were out on inter-library loan. Puckernuts.
So, anyway, I'm at a bit of a loss - which is kind of ironic if you use the word irony inappropriately. But I don't think money will change me. I'll still be pulling on my pants one leg at a time. Or rather Spivins, my valet, will. Poor bastard.
Daughter
I was lying out on the back lawn one night, with my daughter, in one of those moments you see on TV all the time but can never quite manage to engender. Until now. She's only just reached the stage where I consider her a real human being, instead of just one of those automatons that eat and poo your discretionary income away. But the transition has been wonderful - I guess I never got the hang of her humanity previously, but now she is becoming so much of a person, so much more than what she was.
She turned to me and she asked "Dad, are all those stars faraway eyes?".
I was thoughtful for a moment. To be honest, I was dumbstruck. Metaphor in one so young. I fell in love with her all over again. But this wasn't all she had to say.
"Dad, how come you never got married?"
Now there's a can of worms. I contemplated my answer. To be witty? To be wise? To explain that not all life was fairy tales and happy ever after, or to smile and tell her another story about the mad daughter and her beautiful scientist. Spoiled for choice. This made me grin, as impossible situations often do. She picked up on it like a shot.
"Dad," she asked, "If your backyard is a wooden deck, how come we're lying on a lawn? You're just making this up, aren't you? I bet I don't really exist, really."
And you know? She was right. Kids say the darndest things.
Making the world a better place two kittens at a time
Every once in a while, it makes a nice change to do something outside of your conventional routine - like hunting rubber chickens with rubber machetes or knitting yourself a big woolly mammoth - but entertaining though these activities can be, they can't replace the simple joy of two kittens in a beer mug.
There's something innate about two kittens in a beer mug, something that most of humanity can agree on - it's too cute for words. Or it's dinner. But it's usually one of those two - and I think that's something humanity can rally behind in these trying times.
So, if you agree, and wish to strike a telling blow for world co-operation and universal siblinghood - find a postcard of two kittens in a beer mug and write on the back of it words to this effect:
This has been a paid advertisement from Two Kittens in a Beer Mug Publishing Ltd.
Bestiality: the Australia/New Zealand connection
While out strolling through usenet, I often come across the following exchange:
You see, Australians believe that because New Zealand has more sheep per capita than they do, we're all gagging for some mutton lovin'. As an impartial observer, being not born in NZ and having, some might say, a God's eye view of Australia - as I once flew over it at 30,000 feet - I feel it's time to set some of these misconceptions straight, once and for all.
Australia is rightfully known as the lucky country. People are getting lucky with the wildlife over there pretty much all the time. Did Koalas have a syphilis epidemic before the coming of the white man? I think not. They'll have you believe their ancestors are over there for charming crimes like 'Stealing a loaf of bread to feed their family' and 'Being poor in a public place' but if you look at the records, it was predominantly for unlawful sexual congress with a halibut. Crocodile attacks? It's not the crocodiles doing the attacking. The fact that nine out of ten of the worlds most poisonous creatures come from Australia is one of the most convincing arguments for evolutionary adaption yet seen, most species having yet to invent mace or pepper spray.
New Zealand, on the other hand, wasn't populated by criminals, but rather by sturdy adventurous stock, anxious risk their lives sailing halfway round the world to carve out an existence for themselves on a bold new frontier without comfort or privilege. In other words, they were utterly insane. This shows the myth of the NZ sheep shagger. A kiwi would only have relations with a sheep if the sheep spoke to them and said it wouldn't mind, and perhaps it was indeed time for take the relationship to a new level. Clearly this is impossible, but even for an utterly insane mind, it's not the sheep that appear to speak in coherent sentences - it's the Australians. I mean, who else knows what on earth they're on about with their "She's Apples" this and "Flaming Galah" that.
So there you go. I hope this has answered your questions. I should perhaps add that, being of British extraction, I don't much like sheep either, and I was most resentful when the local corner shop owner questioned some of my magazine subscriptions. "Hot Dog" is a quarterly devoted to frankfurter news for sausage aficionados, it's motto being Ich bien ein Frankfurter; "Sleeping with the Fishes" is, of course, a Simpsons fanzine for Troy McClure enthusiasts; and "Naughty Giraffes in Lingerie" I only read for the articles.
Better, stronger, faster
We live in an age where better, stronger, faster is more than just a tag line for a show with Lee Majors, Lindsay Wagner and Max the bionic dog. It's a raison d'etre. Clearly it behooves us to be as up to the minute as we personally possibly can. For this reason we must say 'Get thee behind me" to our inner Luddite, we must say "I want it and I want it now" to our inner accountant, and we must absolutely scream "It's the twenty first frigging century and I want my flying car" to science in general.
This highlights an important caveat - sometimes the tools available are not up to the very important tasks we wish to undertake. I noticed this recently when I launched my friend's late model VW into the stratosphere and could not help but see that it entirely failed to stay aloft in defiance of gravity. The same happened with both his DVD player and his 128Mb 3d accelerator card, to ruinous effect in all three circumstances.
We must therefore temper our enthusiasm for the bright and the shiny with the wisdom that befits the name Homo Sapiens. We must decide what we actually want to do that we can't do already, find the cheapest way to do it for a significant period of time without placing our health at risk (as, for example, DVD players made of cheese do), and then, and only then, shell out. It's said that a fool and his money soon are parted, and nowhere is this more apparent than the high-tech industry. If there is a lesson to be learned from the dot com flameout it's this:
Aeron chairs are just a place to put your bum.
Wgtn
It's been Wellington Anniversary weekend, in which we celebrate the many years of marriage between Wellington and Wellington's wife. So, shine on you crazy diamonds, from Giles. I'm not entirely sure how long they've been together, but they were gumming their cake for each other like young lovebirds at the party, so really, who cares?
Wellington is a fabbo place to live, and I can recommend it to other people who also like living. It's got a bit of wind, but that blows the smog out to sea, so we don't have to worry about breathing it. Apparently there's a stonking great earthquake that's twenty years overdue that will level the entire city, but aside from that, fabbo. It's the capital of New Zealand, so there's a lot of politicians, but seeing as many of them are transsexuals, pot smoking rastafarians, and 27 year olds that still live with their mother (all true), nobody pays them that much attention, and those people who do are largely ignored and never invited out for Friday drinks.
Wellington also has a lot of hills. I live on one, but only at the bottom, so it's not too much of a problem. We frequently get dolphins in the harbour, but they're not liking the hills so much, so they don't often get hit by hill-capable cars despite their appalling ignorance about crossing signals. Our city's slogan was previously 'Absolutely Positively Wellington' but we decided to change it when the nearby Hutt Valley came up with the killer line 'Right up your Hutt Valley'. Now I think we're calling it the 'Creative Capital' or something that sounds suspiciously like what multinational advertising corporations squander in pursuit of profits.
But what's a slogan? My tag line 'Lies, damn lies and statistics. And maybe nibbles afterwards' I'm pretty sure came about as a result of me subconsciously channeling my work at the Wellington City Council a number of years ago, where time wasting and meaningless bureaucracy was always well catered. As I said at my leaving do, paraphrasing the not yet dead, 'The food was great. So long, and thanks for all the money."
Requiem for a Dream
I received a very upsetting email yesterday from a concerned friend. Apparently Alyson Hannigan got engaged this weekend. My friend tried to soften the blow by misspelling Willow in the subject line, but I'd already heard the rumours. This, however, was from someone I knew, not some faceless website filled with factoids about how if Kevin Sorbo's brains were dynamite he couldn't blow his nose, and the reality of it hit home. The dream was over.
After a suitable period of mourning that lasted one beer and some fine musical comedy, I was inspired to do something to commemorate what she'd meant to me. Here, then, is my tribute to that spunky sheila (that's kiwispeak for the totally ridiculous term 'hottie'), Alyson:
2003 already: Where's my flying cars?
One of the best things about doing a blog is the fact that you can take a holiday any damn time you want to. Like yesterday - prime blogging time, first day of the year and all that - but no! Having had far too much wine the night before I didn't intend to even throw up until substantially after midday, and that was only if the bathroom came and got me.
I'm pretty sure I embarrassed myself horribly, but that's becoming a bit of a New Year's Eve tradition, so I'm fairly thick-skinned about it. The cat didn't seem to mind and cab driver home told me a wonderful story about overcoming adversity that I can't remember the first thing about but I'm sure it affected my subconscious very deeply, thus enabling me to change my ways, get the girl, and maybe learn to cook. I'm just hoping he wasn't paraphrasing Ayn Rand or anything.
Other than that - 2003, huh? I think this year is a bit crispier, with maybe a hint of flakiness and a light chewy texture. A delicate bouquet of oranges and sunflower seeds only slightly undercut by the hint of excrement heading fanwards. Sure to be enjoyed with pasta and chicken, but maybe not fish and almost certainly not pigs who will steal your portion from under your snout and then bathe in it.
Not so much a movie review
The best part about seeing Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets was these fantastic new armchair seats they sell at $17 a throw. They were fab. Once I'd figured out how the footrest worked I was in slack bastard heaven. Nothing to do but wriggle my butt around the voluminous expanse every forty-five minutes or so to prevent cheek distress. Now these are seats I would have liked to have had when I saw Tarkovsky's Solaris. Did I ever mention what a completely fucked up date movie that is? Three hours of butt wilting in crappy seats times two people equals zero scorage. Of course, it turned out the girl in question was engaged to someone else at the time, but I didn't know that and she had conveniently neglected to mention it. So definitely go for the $17 dollar seats. They try and fob them off at $25 but all you get for that is a seat in the lounge after the show and free popcorn and fizz. Bugger that.
Anyhow - the movie. I don't know. I think I fell asleep in that big beautiful armchair. Or maybe it just seemed like I did and I had this technicolour dream about flying cars and giant spiders. Who knows? I did wake up at the end to see Harry enter the 'chamber of secrets' (via the girl's toilets, no less) and battle the ginormous phallus of approaching puberty as unwittingly unleashed by a young girl. Sure, they said it was a basilisk, but who are they trying to kid? I've been living with a giant snake that leaves a swathe of destruction in its wake, is never satisfied and only gets to go into action once every 50 years all my life, so I think I know a bit about battling 'basilisks'.
A CGI phoenix that look incredibly like a muppet (riddle me the point of that, Batman) attacks the beast at a handy moment. Now it's not only 'blinded by a fire(lust) bird(female)' but it's a spam penis - able to break through walls and find our hero. Young Harry manages to stab it with a much smaller (pre-pubescent) sword through the upper jaw and out the top of the head - thereby defeating the now 'one-eyed'(owing to the head wound) snake-like beast. Did I mention it initially emerged out of the mouth of a huge, bearded stone face? No? Not surprising, really, because, like, ewww factor nine, Captain.
So Harry resisted the 'peril from below' and everyone was happy and he even got a chaste hug from Hermione and then a big bear hug from this huge older man to whom he pledged eternal love. I had to leave the theatre at this point because it was all starting to be a bit masculinity questioning and that usually makes me feel uncomfortable. Thankfully the movie had finished anyway.
I'd recommend Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to all young whippersnappers who believe that castration is the answer to their dirty little thoughts. Boys will love the prospect of horrible spidery death and girls will flip over the main female character's extensive school uniform wardrobe and her excellent acting in the last third, which she spends petrified by the mere reflection of the gigantic willy. People who probably shouldn't go include psychologists and semioticians, for whom it may all be a bit much.
Sing a Christmas song
One of the best things about the approaching Christmas season has to be the high-rotation of novelty Christmas songs. Here in New Zealand, owing to a peculiar dimensional shift sometime in the 80s, the toppermost of the poppermost is 'Snoopy's Christmas'. Each time I hear that song, well, my heart just fills with pride and feelings of goodwill to man and beagle. Especially beagles, because I think they often get a raw deal, what with being yucky little dogs and eating offal and having names like 'Bertie'. And if I ever hear 'Grandma's been run over by a reindeer' one more time I may bust a gut laughing.
I'm sure you can all think of thousands more. If not, try turning on the radio, and just let the wealth of comedy caroling overtake you. Let it buoy you along on wings of song. It's an art form, ladies and gentlemen and one that's been developing over a couple of thousand years. Let's remember some of the past greats:
And not to forget all the humour and goodwill of the various world wars:
Classics, each and every one. So when some grumpy old bugger tells you how much he finds those songs irritating and unpleasant, remind him of their rich and varied history, and then sing him a few bars of one of your favourites. He may go all humbug on you, but he's smiling on the inside. Guarantee it.
City living
Living in the heart of the city, I get to see a lot of life. Of course, when I say city, I really mean small town on a near deserted rock somewhere in the South Pacific. But it's the capital, so we get to call it a city, just like we get to say 'the houses of parliament' rather than 'a shed'. And when I say life, I really mean the property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth and response to stimuli.
Anyhow, as I live near the center of the city, the trials and dramas of other people's lives are revealed to me constantly. I overhear the arguments of two young things who married in haste and repented at the top of their lungs. I see the slow old gentleman bouncing off the front of the truck. I even see the bittersweetness of two innocent lovers sticking their tongues down each other's throats for the first time and realising that only one of them knows what they're doing. Bartenders cast me in their bar movies (I'm going to be played by Daniel Radcliffe, apparently) and smartly dressed young office workers cadge cigarettes off me. And much as I'd like to say "Please be quiet, I had a hard night and cannot cope" something stops me. Perhaps it's the beat of the city's heart picking me up and driving me forward. Perhaps it's the southerly breeze cooling the sweat from my forehead as I walk along the harbour. Or perhaps it's something so simple and yet undeniable as the overwhelming urge to be violently ill. Yes. I expect that's it. Excuse me.
Me, myself and I
Ah, the sweet joys of spring. You can tell that spring is in full gear by the gale force winds that have left my laundry scattered over the back yard, the chilblains on my feet that mean I have feeling in only two fifths of my toes despite my woollen socks knitted by the powerful elemental force known only as 'grandma', and by the unholy lust that stirs within my blood. Though that could just be oysters - that's always difficult call and also the reason I'm banned from at least three seafood restaurants.
A while back I received intimations that I was engaged in a secret affair with someone - so secret that I wasn't aware of who that person was. I'm beginning to suspect it was with myself. Tell-tale signs exist, like: buying myself presents with scant regard to the money in my account, keeping an apartment in the city so I can meet with myself in secret (my flatmates are pretty discrete about this kind of thing), and, what's probably the biggest give-away of all, getting myself drunk so I can take advantage of me. Mind you, that last one is only a suspicion. I awake with a cloudy head, a mouth like dry dog biscuits, and only the vaguest of recollections of what transpired previously. Plus, I'm half covered in chocolate flavoured massage oil.
It strikes me that having a secret affair with oneself is not really that bad a thing to do. I mean, like the old saw goes, if you want something done properly, you have to do it yourself. And quite frankly, I'm damn good. I'm always free for a romantic little dinner somewhere nice, I don't get all stroppy if I turn up for said dinner having already been to the pub, and, perhaps best of all, I have an almost psychic connection to my innermost feelings. Not for me the interminable guesswork of what's going on in the inscrutable headspace of someone utterly different at the chromosomal level. I can ignore myself for hours without getting in a huff, I can not turn up to arranged events without even a phone call and totally understand the reasons why, and I am fully aware of the level of my physical pleasure at any given time.
Dedicated follower of fashion
Fashion is an important part of Life on Earth. If it wasn't for style doyens telling us how far we are away from the ideal we'd be running round like madmen with crazy amounts of self-esteem, wearing comfortable shoes, and having extra disposable income. I think I speak for us all when I say, "Phew - thank God we don't have to put up with that!"
Now I happen to know a lot about fashion. Never wear a red dress with white sneakers is just the tip of the iceberg (and thus about one tenth) of my voluminous fashion knowledge. But I appreciate that not everybody has the innate style I possess so today I'm going to provide a bit of the old-fashioned fashion advice for people of taste and discernment.
First up, male waxing is out - the rug is back! Joy! I admit I have never bothered with this practice because I have sufficiently few chest hairs to be on a first name basis with most of them and the rest I might chat with briefly at the right sort of parties. But I understand some of our more...Cro-Magnon...brothers have felt forced by recent convention to undergo the unmanly procedure of waxing - little realising that it's only a hop away from moisturising, a skip from exfoliating, and a jump from spending ninety dollars a week on something so unspeakable it can only be referred to generically as 'product'. Well, now you can save that money for an extra bottle of Veuve Clicquot. Or even a new medallion. You go guys.
Back hair, however, is a kind of malignant fungus that grodes the girlies to the max. If you have some, you will never, ever, ever, have sex in your whole misbegotten life. I cannot but say in the strongest terms that back hair is the new leprosy, the new coke and the nude picture of your grandmother all rolled into one. Especially if it's uncombed.
Let's talk midriffs for a moment. If you have the body fat of a marathon runner, you can get away with exposing some midriff. If your belly is bungee jumping from the beltline, don't even think about it. Listen up, girls - It's not that the site of flabby, cellulite-ridden flesh wobbling over too tight containers is a turn off, and it's not that those hipsters are showing your g-string ride up your butt cleavage in the least attractive way imaginable - it's more that when you turn around, your back fat makes it look like you have a whole extra arse. Run, don't walk, away from being the two-arsed girl in the freak show of Life on Earth. Sister - I'm talking to you.
But there's more to fashion than the ostracisation of those who express perfectly natural biological tendencies. Not much more, perhaps, but more nonetheless. Like clothes. It's a well known corruption of a well known saying that 'Clothes maketh the man' and this is certainly true if you're some freaky invisible person - but it's important to realise that Armani, Versace, Gucci and Prada are not going to help you if you've got a face like an ashtray in the first place. Get thee to a plastic surgeon and then we can talk.
For those of you not born on the pointy end of the ugly stick, clothes say a lot about you. For example, they may say 'you are wearing a cheap suit", or worse "You are wearing a cheap suit and have no shoe polish". But it doesn't have to be this way. Clothes can be made to say "You are stylish, confident, and almost certainly a passionate yet sensitive lover so let's get down to some serious rumpy-pumpy, baybee." One way to get them to say this is to wear a top with this printed on it - but, let's face it, the kind of people who would fall for such a ploy still have to sound out each word as they read, and who has time for that in this busy, busy world?
No, far better to get that 'Je ne sais quoi mais je voudrais couchez avec il/elle' reaction by remembering the two axioms of haute couture: Wear clothes that look good and wear clothes that fit. Everything else is negotiable. Especially labels. That's right - it's a slippery slope from 'confident, collected and a great lay' to 'the most shallow label-whore this side of Milan' How do tell which you are? Try this simple test:
If you answered yes to all of these - chances are you're a label-whore. Perhaps you should consider suicide. After all - isn't it up to each of us to make the world a more beautiful place?
Opening Lines
As opening lines go - this has to be one of the greatest ever written. It's the inverse of 'It was a dark and stormy night'. That James Joyce, eh - the crazy freaky dude of English Literature right until the end. Many of his literary descendants could have learned a great deal from him. Tolkein, for example:
Or Aldous Huxley:
Or Virginia Woolf:
Or John Steinbeck:
Or Henry Miller:
Or Robert Persig:
Well - that's one joke run completely into the ground. See you here tomorrow for more fun and games - if I get up in time.
Yesterday in the future
I find it greatly amusing that prognostician such as Nostradamus could have gotten so much about the coming years correct. I mean, he could be writing about anyone here, and I think captures much of the gestalt of these modern times, much as Charlie Chaplin would years later. Who amongst us hasn't been beaten to death for treason - and then been captured? Who hasn't wasted thousands of dollars on counsel, the frivolity of which can only be compared to a car over full of clowns, all getting on each others feet and squirting hoses at one another? Who hasn't had our own "Berich" bite off our noses in fury? I know I have. Possibly JW Bobbit experienced it a bit differently, but he's the exception to prove the rule.
Surely it's not like the ultrasceptical Life on Earth to sing the praises of fraudulent 16th century seers who milked the rich and famous in exchange for vague glibberies about ten headed dragons wearing kaftans? Well, some co-incidences are just too hard to otherwise explain. Googling "Berich" provides a first link to http://www.mvblaw.com/ - a group of lawyers! Oooooweeeeeeooooohhhhh.
In the interests of making a huge fortune out of gullible plonkers - here are my three predictions for Life on Earth:
Waiting for the telephone to ring
Thursday morning, 7:00am. I wake up to the cheery blur of breakfast radio. Normally its insipid banter would inspire me to arise and turn it off but today I let it play, drifting between dreams and dirty jokes.
The bed is warm and I like being there.
8:00am. I should be out the door and walking down the alley to town - wind in my hair and exhaust in my lungs. Instead, the alarm-driven radio switches off then and I am able to rest undisturbed. The room outside the covers warms gradually, but I prefer the wrapping of the duvet so stay ensconced within it.
8:30am. By now I should be at work, turning on my computer, brewing my first pot of coffee. I turn over.
9:32am. The phone rings and I allow it to. They're looking for me. Inevitable, really. There are things I'm supposed to be doing, information I am obliged to impart and places where my presence is required. I wonder how they expect to find me by looking down a copper wire. I'm not even in that room.
10:16am I get up. Nature calls. Returning from the bathroom I check the phone for messages. Unsurprisingly, there is one. I listen to it, smiling as the polite voice of a co-worker requests speedy intelligence concerning my movements. The message is deleted, I go back to bed.
I think there may be a lot riding on today, for the company. Meetings, a big job ripe for the squeezing – its sheer size requiring boredom survival skills bordering on the legendary. How can you shake someone's hand and sell them the idea of inflicting massive amounts of tedium upon yourself? I couldn't, in all honesty, not with a bed this warm and a duvet this thick. Lying there seems a fine solution, elegant in its simplicity.
10:24am. I wonder if they'll fire me.
11:36am. The phone rings and I allow it to. The half-dream it interrupted appears irretrievable so, just out of curiosity, I check for messages. There's another.
My flatmate appears in the room, coughing. I greet him while putting the phone back on the hook. We sit and chat about potential cups of coffee, my unexpected presence, and the message I haven't quite managed to listen to. Intrigued, he checks it himself, chuckling as someone a little higher up the company ladder informs him that my input is urgently needed.
We each light a cigarette and I tell him about the man who just called, a customer rep who suffers from a debilitating case of cretinism. Can't see the point of getting him to call. He couldn't make a free lunch look attractive. I realise I've missed breakfast but decide not to do anything about it.
11:54am The phone rings and my flatmate answers. He informs the caller that he thought I was at work. Interesting move, sow the seeds of doubt in their minds. The prospect of another phone call becomes almost interesting. Perhaps they're worried…still, a bit too late for second thoughts.
12:30pm. My flatmate disappears to wherever he spends his afternoons. I return to bed, and pick up a big, fat novel. My body heat quickly takes away the chill of an abandoned bed. The novel is filled with interconnecting webs of stories against a background of questionable morality and I notice the hero's initials are J.C. More grist for the overworked mill of allusion, no doubt. The writing seldom inspires, but the chess piece maneuvering of characters against an amorphous, amoral and rapidly spreading enemy appeals.
2:00pm. The book has grown heavy in my hand. Closing my eyes becomes more pleasant than keeping them open. I shut them for a moment and listen to my breath. Nothing magical happens. Nothing spiritual. I am not reminded of the interconnectedness of things. I do not feel closer to myself. I just listen. Warm. Breathing. Losing shape.
The book falls from my fingers.
3:02pm. The phone rings and there is nobody to stop it. It wakes me, though, and, once the details of the situation percolate back into my mind, I make my way to the phone to hear the next recorded instalment in the quest for myself. It's a woman's voice, tinged with either anger or worry. The big boss. If I don't report in the next hour, the emergency number in my personnel profile will be called. I'm not even sure if I can remember who that is, but I suspect that they're about to tell my parents on me. Great. Time for bed.
4:00pm The deadline passes without fanfare. I am absent without leave, a missing person for a day. If a tree falls in the forest when there's no-one around, does it ring in sick?
Sickly
I have to warn you - I'm sick. Not sick as in the sent home from work sick with a cough that just kept on coming until it grew into the size of a wet, slobbering St. Bernard with a barrel at its neck filled with phlegm, nor the Hannibal Lector sick where I lick my lips really fast and tell you I can smell the ravioli you had for dinner last week on your bloomers, but sick as in the other kind of sick. The kind where you send yourself home and promise to do some work while you're there. While being the first kind of sick.
Clearly nobody sentient would ever agree to such a thing. What are the chances of it actually occurring? Of work actually getting done? In researching this, I pretended to ring a prominent occupational therapist in order to discover exactly that. However, he wanted far too much pretend money, and as I only pretended to pay my health insurance, I decided that I wouldn't empty out the bank, as I'd never be able to play monopoly again.
So I did the stinking work. All of it. Well, almost all of it. Some of the stuff I was doing fell completely apart and crashed my machine, twice. Oddly enough, those were the two files that had the most work to do on them. Mm. How very fortuitous. They were also the biggest, toughest, meanest looking files I'd seen since the summer of '98, when two particularly large files mugged me for my pin number outside an ATM. Of course, those weren't computer files, just the normal rasping kind, but they can still be very rough on someone with sensitive skin like mine.
I think I have sensitive skin because it's always getting upset about stuff. It's always being flaky about whether my shampoo is moisturising enough and how long it's been between bouts of psoriasis. I had a 'thing' with a girl with psoriasis once, and, oddly enough, it didn't matter, because I quite liked her anyway. Still, we broke up in the end, some meaningless argument about whose turn it was to sweep out the bed or something.
So, the upshot of all this is, I'm sick. I still had to work. Fuck off.
Friends: circa 1698
[Update: Let's call it 1598 and never mention it again.]
Ross: O, Can it be that not a word is said
in all the words that fill my waking hours
without reminding me of her sweet voice
demanding that I ditch the English whore
Chandler (to Joey): Could that remark e'er be yet more forlorn?
He anguisheth o'er two where I have none
Joey (to Chandler): Seems what you have and what you get are one
Strange days indeed when one doth equal none
Enter Phoebe
Phoebe: Hi Guys
J & C: Hi Phoebes
Phoebe: What sound is it I hear?
Chandler: 'Tis Ross, he weeps so many bitter tears
Phoebe: How queer
Joey (to Chandler): She talks to you
Phoebe: Oh, no, to all
For all have mourn'd the way fate's arrows fall
Not but a week ago I crush'd a bug
And felt so horrified at my folly
I felt its soul escape to Heaven's heights
And now I feel it spit from high on me
Chandler: A spitting bug?
Phoebe: Yes, feel my head, it's wet
Ross: Oh, tears, how do you fall so very far
And yet return to fill my eyes again?
The wails their passing brings unto my tongue
Surpass the present downpour of the rain
I can not bear the aching of my woe
Two loves is much too much for but one man
So while my life is yet in my control
I must end it now by mine own hand (pistol shot)
Chandler: God's heart, he's dead, and yet I must confess
He always was a whinging bloody mess
Joey: Odd, now the whining finally doth end
Yet still have we a bloody mess of Friend
FIN
Cancer
You gotta admit, it's fun being the star sign that shares its name with one of the biggest killers on the face of the planet. Similar social residue to, when asked what star sign you are, saying "Herpes". Apparently there was a move towards redesignating it "moon child", but it never took off, presumably because at least cancer is a bad ass. Moon child makes you sound more new age than discount bin Yani CDs. Cancer, on the other hand, makes it right for you to be smoking cigarettes and getting all testicular about stuff. No, I don't know what 'testicular' means in this context either, but you don't create neologisms by just sitting around contemplating your aldulos - despite the fact that's what it's there for.
It may or may not be garbage - enter at your own peril!
The Dimension of...Suck
You unlock this door with the key of turpitude. Beyond it is another dimension - a dimension of sound, like Avril Lavigne in a duet with Little Jimmy Osmond - a dimension of sight, like that time you walked in on your parents boinking and had to carve out your eyeballs using only some jellymeat and a nearby cat - a dimension of mind, with the doors of perception papered over with pictures of Bennifer and the hind parts of goats. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance abuse, of shit and shinola. You've just crossed over into...the Dimension of Suck.
The Dimension of Suck goes by many names. Auckland, for one. Any place where it's illegal to consume alcohol on pain of having your testicles wired to electrodes for nine years for another. Poetry book launch parties for a third. And yet - despite being a completely different plane of existence - it sometimes happens that an individual can cross over, mysteriously, from our realm to The Other, like a mysterious, realm-crossing person on their way to...the Dimension of Suck
That's what happened to that nerdy little wallace who was such a geek even you could pick on him, who used to throw a spazz every so often and attack someone with a blunt pair of scissors and now owns his own brand of supermodel. And your old best friend, who you used to happily play tag with and accidentally push him off cliffs. He broke his collar bone a lot but now he's a captain of industry, sailing the good ship industry to the land of disgustingly huge piles of industrial money that you'll never see in your life. They both pay rent in...the Dimension of Suck.
Not just individuals find their way there. Whole companies do. Remember when McDonald's was a cool place to go for your seventh birthday party, a once a year treat, with spinning tops and cake and maybe a whole big mac if you could stop being sick long enough? Remember when beer, wine and spirits manufacturers correctly paced their products for your metabolism so you didn't end up looking like a distended hippo stomach from nothing more than a week long drinking binge? Well, that was before they sold out majority stake holdings to entrepreneurs from...the Dimension of Suck
And sometimes, in worst case scenarios told in terrified tones by the kind of actuary who thinks that getting the 'Bridal Suite' your first night in prison for fraud is a pretty good result considering you did add a whole extra Beck CD to your insurance claim list of stolen items, sometimes the Dimension of Suck comes looking...for you.
You unlock this door with a key made of chicken flesh you could have sworn you'd cooked long enough. You're moving like your belly and your bowels. You've just crossed over into...the Dimension of Suck.
The Magic of the Movies
I had this really great idea for a movie - which is much better than the last idea I had for a movie because it doesn't involve robots, clones and some other stuff I stole whole cloth from the 'The Stone Canal' by Ken McCloud. In fact, seeing as the idea was to make 'The Stone Canal' into a movie, much of it was very similar indeed.
But this movie is different. It's set in modern times, and it's a buddy movie about Jesus and the Buddha and some of their wacky hijinx. The gimmick is, nobody knows it's Jesus and the Buddha until the very end - like in the Sixth Sense only with religious figureheads and without Haley Joel Osmont pretending that not blinking is acting. The bad guy, or as we say in the industry, the antagonist bad guy, is a drug dealer called Mohammed - swarthy middle eastern villains are pretty 'in' at the moment now that Russia has thrown in the towel and snuck off to hit the potato juice and cry in some corner somewhere in terms of villainy.
The reason why nobody will suspect that it's Jesus and the Buddha is that they're white. And teenagers. But it's them, all right. You can tell by their approaches to everyday teenage things like picking up chicks and asking Dad for the car keys. And the fact that the movie will be titled Jesus and The Buddha's Excellent Adventure.
So, just to whet your appetite, here's a quick taster. Note how I carefully let slip subtle references to who they really are, right from the first couple of lines.
Buddha:
Hey JayCee
Jesus:
Gautama, dawg
Buddha:
See Girls Gone Wild last night.
Jesus:
Nah, Dad doesn't like that shit.
Buddha:
Yeah, well, it wasn't that good. I can take it or leave it.
Jesus:
Word.
Buddha:
Christ, JayCee, nobody says 'Word' anymore. Not even Mohammed says 'word' anymore. That's, like, so your old man.
Jesus:
Heh, I'm just getting my retro freak on. Hey, where is that little punk, Mohammed? I hear he can score us some E.
Buddha:
Teh Suck. Last time I scored E off him, it didn't do a damn thing.
Jesus:
I wouldn't let him get away with that - nobody crosses me, man
Buddha:
Sure, bro, sure.
And that's just the opening scene. Take that, stir in some hot steamy, sweaty sex, possibly with other characters, add a pinch of extreme religious ultra-violence ripped straight from today's news and you have recipe for mega-hit of epic proportions on your hands. And the odd Fatwa - but nobody said I wouldn't have to suffer for my art.
April Fools Day Resolutions
New Year's Resolutions - I don't know about you - but I make a couple every year only to watch as my best laid plans inevitably go down in a blaze of deficient will-power. This year - however, it's going to be different. Sod new year's - April Fools day is where all the groovy cats are pussyfooting over their good intentions on the road to hell.
NYRs are all about bettering yourself, being a more complete person, making a difference. Why don't we all join hands, eat bran muffins and sing a rousing rendition of "Circle of Life' while we're at it? April Fools resolutions, on the other hand, are entirely fatuous, completely without merit - and if one of them should actually come off, more fool you. Martyrdom is for people who believe in virgins. I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints. The sinners have much more fun. And some stuff about catholic schoolgirls that I momentarily forget, having been six when that particular album came out and not quite fully understanding.
So, here we are then - on the eve of Aprils Fools Day 2003 - my April Fools Day resolutions:
- I resolve to not work harder. It's not 'slacking off' - it's 'pacing myself'
- I resolve to stop having a glass of wine or five while reading the paper after work, so that I can afford something really big, expensive, and useless. Like a combine harvester. Or maybe liposuction.
- I resolve to have more fun at the expense of others - because, quite frankly, I don't think my laugh lines are nearly deep enough, and I'm broke.
- I resolve to figure out what my story is and stick to it. I didn't know she was only thirteen! That's like 91 in dog years. Ewwww.
- I resolve to answer fewer emails, because, really, write a goddamned letter.
- I resolve to be celibate for the next fifteen minutes.
- I resolve to pick my nose more - because the kind of people who tell you you'll never find a gold nugget up there just aren't the kind of people I want to listen to.
I'll stick with that for now, folks. No point setting up any unrealistic expectations.
I am not, nor have I ever been a communist.
To be honest - I always preferred anarchists to communists - at least they had halfway decent drugs. But the minute either of them started spinning me polemic, or dialectic, or whatever the fuck, my eyes would glaze over and I'd start thinking about how cute lipstick lesbians in anarcho-feminist groups were these days. Then I got older and realised that, as white, middle class male, I'd have more luck trying to steal Bert from Ernie. Never having really gone in for that whole removable nose fetish - I decided to keep to more realistic targets.
But, largely because all the conservatives were not only boring conversationally but didn't know how to have a good time, I endured socially, and eventually discovered my own inner manifesto. It was, I was told whenever I dared speak out about it, one of a deep and abiding cynicism. This pleased me, because being optimistic about the political made as much sense to me as being pessimistic about the sun coming up tomorrow (little orphan Annie being a big influence on my early political thought). I summed up my emerging sensibility in three words:
People believe crap.
Observe: If you find the politician who you most nearly admire, pin them down for half an hour and then ask them pointed questions, you will almost certainly find something they believe that is, to you, total and utter hogwash rinsed in bilge water (added bonus: it works for religion, too). The trick is to realise that, despite them being so completely and obviously in error, you can't kill them. You can't even rough them up a little. It's just the case. Deal.
You can see how this was a vast improvement on my earlier proto-manifesto, "You are wrong", as over time you attain a peaceful acceptance of the universality of stupid, stupid beliefs. Also, you get into fewer pointless arguments and maybe even get beaten up less. There is no need to fight, because you can't fight crap (especially if you want to avoid getting covered in it). It's a by-product, both metaphorically and literally, of life.
Sure, by smiling sweetly, walking away, and then saying nasty things about them behind their back, you're doing more damage than by standing up in the middle of a meeting and trying to influence the debate by quoting Karl Marx or Kropotkin. But that doesn't change the underlying reality. Everyone has a shibboleth, and the minute we stop seeing them as huge, disgusting worm creatures burrowing into other people's brains, and start realising exactly how warm and fuzzy and beautiful they are in their own special way, well, there'll be a damn sight less people on the streets trying to sell you a copy of the Socialist Worker. And that's got to be good for everyone.
Today in divine history:
6,000 years ago - God decides that dinosaur bones would really put the finishing touch on His latest creation. 2,500 years ago - Buddha finds out about the dinosaur bones and agrees it's pretty funny. A week ago - paleontologists excavate a complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton sitting in the lotus position.
As the above shows - I think it only fair to say the there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But not in Hell, because I know what kind of mind you've got - I see into your vestigial thoughts when your mind slips from consciousness and the limbic nightmares begin - the 'previously on...' montage of the bestial and profane and do you know what? I think it could make a good movie. Like 'Spirited Away' only with more tentacle sex and a talking chicken.
I've started writing the script already. Neatly typed, double spaced to facilitate reading between the lines. The special effects budget comes in at a dollar ninety five so I hope you've got some clever ideas for a newspaper and a packet of instant noodles. I haven't thought of a title yet, but it'll come to me, like a flash in the pan. Guaranteed.
Another Advertisement from the Teen Scene
My peeps and me were just hanging out on IM, you know - and we're a bunch of teenage and early twenties key influence bloggers, and all we could talk about was this new soft drink/beverage thing called, get this, Mad Cow. Jesse, who does the 'Intimate relations of mortality' blog, reckoned it made your dick fall off, but he's always saying stuff like that for the attention. Nicole ('Fairytime') had already got herself the T-shirt, which said 'I shilled for Dr P on my blog and all they gave me was this skanky T-shirt'. Laura ('Hard-arse bitch from hell') said the t was, like, 'really meta' but I think she just heard that meta was the next uber and she should really get over it.
Jamie ('Sux to be you') said he'd tried it and that it was all spongiform, which means you have to squeeze this stuff to get the actual drink and we were all 'Ewwww' and 'Yucko' and Tina ('Little fluffy clouds') actually said 'Grody' which I couldn't believe.
Sam ('Intellectual Abdication') said that Mad Cow was what you got when you fed cows to other cows, and we thought that was pretty cool, because aren't cows, like, vegetarian? I'd be pretty pissed off if someone put anchovies in my vege pizza, but cows are pretty funny when you think about it so I think it works better than 'Mad Vegetarian'. Toby ('Blog the wet sprocket') said he was thinking about changing the name of his blog to 'Bomb the BaSE' but nobody knew what the hell he was talking about. He is such a loser.
Anyhow, doc P said we're not supposed to mention that we're part of the 'in the know' crowd so you'll just have to imagine we were all talking about something else. Anyway - gotta jet - feeling the urge for a cool refreshing burst of Mad Cow.
l8er
-CJD
Be gentle - it's my first time
They said it couldn't be done! I said I'd never do it, but then I also said I'd never write this in my underwear, which, while strictly speaking, is true, but does sort of indicate I'm not paying a huge amount of attention at the best of times. Oooh, look, shiny things. I like shiny things, and I don't have nearly enough of them. I've got some pretty, shiny nail clippers, though, but I've used them already over the weekend so I'll have to wait a while or I'll get all bloody and can't type.
But anyhow - against the better judgment of a cast of thousands - here is MY FIRST FANFIC!!! Whooohoooo! W00t! Woof! Set in the parallel universe of Sunnydale, where nothing is quite as it seems except for the large numbers of vicious demon spawn that keep turning up, often unexpectedly. A brave gang of meddling kids hold out against the infinite forces of darkness arrayed against them. One of them, the really rather fetching young Willow, is researching the latest threat with kindly guardian-type Giles (by an odd co-incidence also my name, but that has nothing to do with it, it's for the purposes of drama and conflict and character-building so be quiet).
My First Fanfic
by FumbleMouse
"Gosh," said Willow, "That's quite a big one. Right up there on the bigness scale. Bigness factor 10, captain"
"Erm, yes, I suppose it is, rather" said Giles, taking his exceptionally large "Bumper Book of Scary Stuff" down from a high shelf.
"It's getting so hot in here," said Willow, fetchingly. "I'm feeling all clothesy, should I do something about it?"
"Oh, no, don't bother," said Giles, handing her a fan. She turned it on and basked her slender throat in its cool breath. "Ooh", she said, somewhat fetchingly, "that's nice. So, anyhow, any leads on the big nasty?"
Just then, Giles leaped onto the table and began singing along to an outrageous thrashpunk guitar line
"Saw Gerry Anderson on my TV Flying Saucers and Puppetry Supermarionation I wanna be - THUNDERBIRD ONE!
Deep down underground where it's dark and cool Underneath an island swimming pool And all the other thunderbirds will be really jealous Because I'm a big, silver, red-tipped, flying phallus!"
"Goodness" said Willow.
"Bloody hell," said Giles "I don't know what came over me. I don't even like the Thunderbirds."
"Even though I'm gay," said Willow, "I think we should have sex now"
"Oh, all right then" said Giles.
THE END!
The Balkanisation of Suburbia
I went to a party tonight, and had two very small people come up to me and demand that I search for them. Cutting to the quick, I immediately announced that I knew exactly where they were - one of them was tugging at my sock and the other one was pulling my hair. But that wasn't enough - so I had to go and actually look.
One of the strange things about the very young is their amazing ability to state the obvious. Here's me going on a hunt in the lounge, when a high-pitched voice calls to me and says "Don't look under the table!" So I vocally looked behind a few pillows and underneath the cat, and when I finally made it to the table and met their eyes - they told me I was an "idiot" because they'd told me not to look there. I mean - hell! Those little bastards! Have they no respect for my feelings of inadequacy - my eternally diminishing self-esteem? Why don't they just cut out my heart and serve it up as an hors-d'oeuvre? So I hung them upside down from some convenient hooks in an out-of-the-way closet and left them there, as I'd just been paged and had to go to work.
The hot water embargo: day 3
So the guy was supposed to come and fix the gas yesterday so we'd have hot water today but apparently there was a big emergency in the gas world - they'd found a new type of gas or something and needed the community to gather round and help out with their macabre experiments because the SPCA was getting all shirty about the canary death count. As a result we still have no hot water, and I, dare I say it, look like a pile of crap. My scalp itches, my beard itches and there's something moving underneath my fingernails.
So I'm about to carry out a daring piece of McGuyverism involving the kettle and a sink - assuming I can find the plug before I lose the nerve. Not having hot water on tap is going against the natural order of things - like sex with alpacas on holy days or Avril Lavigne pretty much whenever. I see she's up for a Grammy award for Least Clue of Musical Identity in the hardcore/teenypop category. I hope she wins, because she's obviously terrifically talented and by the time she learns d7th on the guitar, she'll be an accomplished blues musician, too.
Not many people know this, because I like to keep my light under a bushel (in order to appreciate the pretty-pretty flames of burning bushels) but I play a mean guitar myself. It's mean because even though I'm sure my fingers are in the right place - it sounds wrong. Bastard guitar. It can't even read music. Where George Harrison had a guitar that wept gently, mine swears like two troopers caught up in a gay pride parade in a dry town on St. Pacifist's day. I should trade it in for a hamster and a pair of spoons because you can never have enough spoons and I could call the hamster Avril and make it wear the cutest little tie.
Millionaire
Yesterday I made my first million. I hardly even noticed - but I checked my bank account today expecting to see a grand total of $43.24 to keep me in cheezels until the weekend and I was informed that I was the proud owner of about one million plus some loose change. Or what I now term loose change, but may have previously referred to as a couple of years' salary if I got a pay rise the size of an elephant on top of six other elephants.
I immediately went to the bank to see what was up. I spoke to the teller and asked that she make sure there wasn't some mistake with regard to my account. She gave me that special look reserved by banks for people who hold their trousers up with knotted string and typed in some numbers. Then she looked at me again. It was as if the sun had suddenly broken out from my arse. "Goodness, it's a hot one today" she said as she undid the top button of her blouse. Like the gentleman I am, I immediately ran away.
So it was true. I was rich. I went to the library for some kind of self-help book, an "I'm Ok, you're Ok, but I'm now a millionaire you horrible wee poor person" kind of thing - but despite there being hundreds of financial advice books, there wasn't much in the way of stuff to tell you what do once you'd actually made it (which I think says more about those advice books than they really want you to hear). Even the twenty copies of "Harry Potter and the Unfeasibly Large Advance" were out on inter-library loan. Puckernuts.
So, anyway, I'm at a bit of a loss - which is kind of ironic if you use the word irony inappropriately. But I don't think money will change me. I'll still be pulling on my pants one leg at a time. Or rather Spivins, my valet, will. Poor bastard.
Daughter
I was lying out on the back lawn one night, with my daughter, in one of those moments you see on TV all the time but can never quite manage to engender. Until now. She's only just reached the stage where I consider her a real human being, instead of just one of those automatons that eat and poo your discretionary income away. But the transition has been wonderful - I guess I never got the hang of her humanity previously, but now she is becoming so much of a person, so much more than what she was.
She turned to me and she asked "Dad, are all those stars faraway eyes?".
I was thoughtful for a moment. To be honest, I was dumbstruck. Metaphor in one so young. I fell in love with her all over again. But this wasn't all she had to say.
"Dad, how come you never got married?"
Now there's a can of worms. I contemplated my answer. To be witty? To be wise? To explain that not all life was fairy tales and happy ever after, or to smile and tell her another story about the mad daughter and her beautiful scientist. Spoiled for choice. This made me grin, as impossible situations often do. She picked up on it like a shot.
"Dad," she asked, "If your backyard is a wooden deck, how come we're lying on a lawn? You're just making this up, aren't you? I bet I don't really exist, really."
And you know? She was right. Kids say the darndest things.
Making the world a better place two kittens at a time
Every once in a while, it makes a nice change to do something outside of your conventional routine - like hunting rubber chickens with rubber machetes or knitting yourself a big woolly mammoth - but entertaining though these activities can be, they can't replace the simple joy of two kittens in a beer mug.
There's something innate about two kittens in a beer mug, something that most of humanity can agree on - it's too cute for words. Or it's dinner. But it's usually one of those two - and I think that's something humanity can rally behind in these trying times.
So, if you agree, and wish to strike a telling blow for world co-operation and universal siblinghood - find a postcard of two kittens in a beer mug and write on the back of it words to this effect:
Dear National Leader
Surely we can all just get along - like two kittens in a beer mug. If one kitten is us, and the other kitten is our enemies and the beer mug is the world then can't you see how cute/appetising (use culturally appropriate term) we all are together? Perhaps we could all learn a lesson from these two kittens, a lesson about respect, sharing and tenderness.
Yours,
J. Concerned Citizen
This has been a paid advertisement from Two Kittens in a Beer Mug Publishing Ltd.
Bestiality: the Australia/New Zealand connection
While out strolling through usenet, I often come across the following exchange:
>jokester@demon.co.uk wrote:
>There was this aussie showing his mate round
>his farm and they came across a sheep stuck
>in the fence so the aussie dropped his daks
>and shagged it. He turned to his mate and
>said 'want a go?' and so his mate sticks
>his head in the fence
hey jokester,
dint u no its NuZealandiz who shag sheep, LOL
-realaussiebloke
You see, Australians believe that because New Zealand has more sheep per capita than they do, we're all gagging for some mutton lovin'. As an impartial observer, being not born in NZ and having, some might say, a God's eye view of Australia - as I once flew over it at 30,000 feet - I feel it's time to set some of these misconceptions straight, once and for all.
Australia is rightfully known as the lucky country. People are getting lucky with the wildlife over there pretty much all the time. Did Koalas have a syphilis epidemic before the coming of the white man? I think not. They'll have you believe their ancestors are over there for charming crimes like 'Stealing a loaf of bread to feed their family' and 'Being poor in a public place' but if you look at the records, it was predominantly for unlawful sexual congress with a halibut. Crocodile attacks? It's not the crocodiles doing the attacking. The fact that nine out of ten of the worlds most poisonous creatures come from Australia is one of the most convincing arguments for evolutionary adaption yet seen, most species having yet to invent mace or pepper spray.
New Zealand, on the other hand, wasn't populated by criminals, but rather by sturdy adventurous stock, anxious risk their lives sailing halfway round the world to carve out an existence for themselves on a bold new frontier without comfort or privilege. In other words, they were utterly insane. This shows the myth of the NZ sheep shagger. A kiwi would only have relations with a sheep if the sheep spoke to them and said it wouldn't mind, and perhaps it was indeed time for take the relationship to a new level. Clearly this is impossible, but even for an utterly insane mind, it's not the sheep that appear to speak in coherent sentences - it's the Australians. I mean, who else knows what on earth they're on about with their "She's Apples" this and "Flaming Galah" that.
So there you go. I hope this has answered your questions. I should perhaps add that, being of British extraction, I don't much like sheep either, and I was most resentful when the local corner shop owner questioned some of my magazine subscriptions. "Hot Dog" is a quarterly devoted to frankfurter news for sausage aficionados, it's motto being Ich bien ein Frankfurter; "Sleeping with the Fishes" is, of course, a Simpsons fanzine for Troy McClure enthusiasts; and "Naughty Giraffes in Lingerie" I only read for the articles.
Better, stronger, faster
We live in an age where better, stronger, faster is more than just a tag line for a show with Lee Majors, Lindsay Wagner and Max the bionic dog. It's a raison d'etre. Clearly it behooves us to be as up to the minute as we personally possibly can. For this reason we must say 'Get thee behind me" to our inner Luddite, we must say "I want it and I want it now" to our inner accountant, and we must absolutely scream "It's the twenty first frigging century and I want my flying car" to science in general.
This highlights an important caveat - sometimes the tools available are not up to the very important tasks we wish to undertake. I noticed this recently when I launched my friend's late model VW into the stratosphere and could not help but see that it entirely failed to stay aloft in defiance of gravity. The same happened with both his DVD player and his 128Mb 3d accelerator card, to ruinous effect in all three circumstances.
We must therefore temper our enthusiasm for the bright and the shiny with the wisdom that befits the name Homo Sapiens. We must decide what we actually want to do that we can't do already, find the cheapest way to do it for a significant period of time without placing our health at risk (as, for example, DVD players made of cheese do), and then, and only then, shell out. It's said that a fool and his money soon are parted, and nowhere is this more apparent than the high-tech industry. If there is a lesson to be learned from the dot com flameout it's this:
Aeron chairs are just a place to put your bum.
Wgtn
It's been Wellington Anniversary weekend, in which we celebrate the many years of marriage between Wellington and Wellington's wife. So, shine on you crazy diamonds, from Giles. I'm not entirely sure how long they've been together, but they were gumming their cake for each other like young lovebirds at the party, so really, who cares?
Wellington is a fabbo place to live, and I can recommend it to other people who also like living. It's got a bit of wind, but that blows the smog out to sea, so we don't have to worry about breathing it. Apparently there's a stonking great earthquake that's twenty years overdue that will level the entire city, but aside from that, fabbo. It's the capital of New Zealand, so there's a lot of politicians, but seeing as many of them are transsexuals, pot smoking rastafarians, and 27 year olds that still live with their mother (all true), nobody pays them that much attention, and those people who do are largely ignored and never invited out for Friday drinks.
Wellington also has a lot of hills. I live on one, but only at the bottom, so it's not too much of a problem. We frequently get dolphins in the harbour, but they're not liking the hills so much, so they don't often get hit by hill-capable cars despite their appalling ignorance about crossing signals. Our city's slogan was previously 'Absolutely Positively Wellington' but we decided to change it when the nearby Hutt Valley came up with the killer line 'Right up your Hutt Valley'. Now I think we're calling it the 'Creative Capital' or something that sounds suspiciously like what multinational advertising corporations squander in pursuit of profits.
But what's a slogan? My tag line 'Lies, damn lies and statistics. And maybe nibbles afterwards' I'm pretty sure came about as a result of me subconsciously channeling my work at the Wellington City Council a number of years ago, where time wasting and meaningless bureaucracy was always well catered. As I said at my leaving do, paraphrasing the not yet dead, 'The food was great. So long, and thanks for all the money."
Requiem for a Dream
I received a very upsetting email yesterday from a concerned friend. Apparently Alyson Hannigan got engaged this weekend. My friend tried to soften the blow by misspelling Willow in the subject line, but I'd already heard the rumours. This, however, was from someone I knew, not some faceless website filled with factoids about how if Kevin Sorbo's brains were dynamite he couldn't blow his nose, and the reality of it hit home. The dream was over.
After a suitable period of mourning that lasted one beer and some fine musical comedy, I was inspired to do something to commemorate what she'd meant to me. Here, then, is my tribute to that spunky sheila (that's kiwispeak for the totally ridiculous term 'hottie'), Alyson:
Oh, Alyson Hannigan
I guess it's over before it even began
Now you're engaged to that old guy, you must be feeling naughty
Because by the time you're thirty two you know he's going to be forty
And even though I'd only be thirty five
I will survive, I will survive
Oh, Alyson, I've never met you, but I'm sure that we can still be friends
And if I ever meet that bitch, Julie Benz
Who was, like, back in season one, so mean to you
As you said in that online interview
Well, you can be sure that I will rush to the attack
By saying nasty things about her behind her back
Like how I heard she wasn't that good in the sack
Not like you probably are
You famous TV star
Goodbye, Alyson, it's sad but it's over between us
Before you even had a chance to check out my blog
2003 already: Where's my flying cars?
One of the best things about doing a blog is the fact that you can take a holiday any damn time you want to. Like yesterday - prime blogging time, first day of the year and all that - but no! Having had far too much wine the night before I didn't intend to even throw up until substantially after midday, and that was only if the bathroom came and got me.
I'm pretty sure I embarrassed myself horribly, but that's becoming a bit of a New Year's Eve tradition, so I'm fairly thick-skinned about it. The cat didn't seem to mind and cab driver home told me a wonderful story about overcoming adversity that I can't remember the first thing about but I'm sure it affected my subconscious very deeply, thus enabling me to change my ways, get the girl, and maybe learn to cook. I'm just hoping he wasn't paraphrasing Ayn Rand or anything.
Other than that - 2003, huh? I think this year is a bit crispier, with maybe a hint of flakiness and a light chewy texture. A delicate bouquet of oranges and sunflower seeds only slightly undercut by the hint of excrement heading fanwards. Sure to be enjoyed with pasta and chicken, but maybe not fish and almost certainly not pigs who will steal your portion from under your snout and then bathe in it.
Not so much a movie review
The best part about seeing Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets was these fantastic new armchair seats they sell at $17 a throw. They were fab. Once I'd figured out how the footrest worked I was in slack bastard heaven. Nothing to do but wriggle my butt around the voluminous expanse every forty-five minutes or so to prevent cheek distress. Now these are seats I would have liked to have had when I saw Tarkovsky's Solaris. Did I ever mention what a completely fucked up date movie that is? Three hours of butt wilting in crappy seats times two people equals zero scorage. Of course, it turned out the girl in question was engaged to someone else at the time, but I didn't know that and she had conveniently neglected to mention it. So definitely go for the $17 dollar seats. They try and fob them off at $25 but all you get for that is a seat in the lounge after the show and free popcorn and fizz. Bugger that.
Anyhow - the movie. I don't know. I think I fell asleep in that big beautiful armchair. Or maybe it just seemed like I did and I had this technicolour dream about flying cars and giant spiders. Who knows? I did wake up at the end to see Harry enter the 'chamber of secrets' (via the girl's toilets, no less) and battle the ginormous phallus of approaching puberty as unwittingly unleashed by a young girl. Sure, they said it was a basilisk, but who are they trying to kid? I've been living with a giant snake that leaves a swathe of destruction in its wake, is never satisfied and only gets to go into action once every 50 years all my life, so I think I know a bit about battling 'basilisks'.
A CGI phoenix that look incredibly like a muppet (riddle me the point of that, Batman) attacks the beast at a handy moment. Now it's not only 'blinded by a fire(lust) bird(female)' but it's a spam penis - able to break through walls and find our hero. Young Harry manages to stab it with a much smaller (pre-pubescent) sword through the upper jaw and out the top of the head - thereby defeating the now 'one-eyed'(owing to the head wound) snake-like beast. Did I mention it initially emerged out of the mouth of a huge, bearded stone face? No? Not surprising, really, because, like, ewww factor nine, Captain.
So Harry resisted the 'peril from below' and everyone was happy and he even got a chaste hug from Hermione and then a big bear hug from this huge older man to whom he pledged eternal love. I had to leave the theatre at this point because it was all starting to be a bit masculinity questioning and that usually makes me feel uncomfortable. Thankfully the movie had finished anyway.
I'd recommend Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to all young whippersnappers who believe that castration is the answer to their dirty little thoughts. Boys will love the prospect of horrible spidery death and girls will flip over the main female character's extensive school uniform wardrobe and her excellent acting in the last third, which she spends petrified by the mere reflection of the gigantic willy. People who probably shouldn't go include psychologists and semioticians, for whom it may all be a bit much.
Sing a Christmas song
One of the best things about the approaching Christmas season has to be the high-rotation of novelty Christmas songs. Here in New Zealand, owing to a peculiar dimensional shift sometime in the 80s, the toppermost of the poppermost is 'Snoopy's Christmas'. Each time I hear that song, well, my heart just fills with pride and feelings of goodwill to man and beagle. Especially beagles, because I think they often get a raw deal, what with being yucky little dogs and eating offal and having names like 'Bertie'. And if I ever hear 'Grandma's been run over by a reindeer' one more time I may bust a gut laughing.
I'm sure you can all think of thousands more. If not, try turning on the radio, and just let the wealth of comedy caroling overtake you. Let it buoy you along on wings of song. It's an art form, ladies and gentlemen and one that's been developing over a couple of thousand years. Let's remember some of the past greats:
- Jesus got run over by a reindeer - circa 100AD
- Lets all kick shit out of the Infidel - circa 600AD
- All I want for Christmas is the black death - circa 1350
- C'mon baby, do the Torquemada - circa 1500
- Dance around the sun like a heretic - circa 1600
- I saw mummy showing a bit of ankle to Santa Claus - circa 1850
And not to forget all the humour and goodwill of the various world wars:
- Daddy's coming home in a box for Christmas
- Two little boys are dead
- Hitler got a big woolly jumper
- Barry the bouncing Christmas bomb
Classics, each and every one. So when some grumpy old bugger tells you how much he finds those songs irritating and unpleasant, remind him of their rich and varied history, and then sing him a few bars of one of your favourites. He may go all humbug on you, but he's smiling on the inside. Guarantee it.
City living
Living in the heart of the city, I get to see a lot of life. Of course, when I say city, I really mean small town on a near deserted rock somewhere in the South Pacific. But it's the capital, so we get to call it a city, just like we get to say 'the houses of parliament' rather than 'a shed'. And when I say life, I really mean the property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth and response to stimuli.
Anyhow, as I live near the center of the city, the trials and dramas of other people's lives are revealed to me constantly. I overhear the arguments of two young things who married in haste and repented at the top of their lungs. I see the slow old gentleman bouncing off the front of the truck. I even see the bittersweetness of two innocent lovers sticking their tongues down each other's throats for the first time and realising that only one of them knows what they're doing. Bartenders cast me in their bar movies (I'm going to be played by Daniel Radcliffe, apparently) and smartly dressed young office workers cadge cigarettes off me. And much as I'd like to say "Please be quiet, I had a hard night and cannot cope" something stops me. Perhaps it's the beat of the city's heart picking me up and driving me forward. Perhaps it's the southerly breeze cooling the sweat from my forehead as I walk along the harbour. Or perhaps it's something so simple and yet undeniable as the overwhelming urge to be violently ill. Yes. I expect that's it. Excuse me.
Me, myself and I
Ah, the sweet joys of spring. You can tell that spring is in full gear by the gale force winds that have left my laundry scattered over the back yard, the chilblains on my feet that mean I have feeling in only two fifths of my toes despite my woollen socks knitted by the powerful elemental force known only as 'grandma', and by the unholy lust that stirs within my blood. Though that could just be oysters - that's always difficult call and also the reason I'm banned from at least three seafood restaurants.
A while back I received intimations that I was engaged in a secret affair with someone - so secret that I wasn't aware of who that person was. I'm beginning to suspect it was with myself. Tell-tale signs exist, like: buying myself presents with scant regard to the money in my account, keeping an apartment in the city so I can meet with myself in secret (my flatmates are pretty discrete about this kind of thing), and, what's probably the biggest give-away of all, getting myself drunk so I can take advantage of me. Mind you, that last one is only a suspicion. I awake with a cloudy head, a mouth like dry dog biscuits, and only the vaguest of recollections of what transpired previously. Plus, I'm half covered in chocolate flavoured massage oil.
It strikes me that having a secret affair with oneself is not really that bad a thing to do. I mean, like the old saw goes, if you want something done properly, you have to do it yourself. And quite frankly, I'm damn good. I'm always free for a romantic little dinner somewhere nice, I don't get all stroppy if I turn up for said dinner having already been to the pub, and, perhaps best of all, I have an almost psychic connection to my innermost feelings. Not for me the interminable guesswork of what's going on in the inscrutable headspace of someone utterly different at the chromosomal level. I can ignore myself for hours without getting in a huff, I can not turn up to arranged events without even a phone call and totally understand the reasons why, and I am fully aware of the level of my physical pleasure at any given time.
Dedicated follower of fashion
Fashion is an important part of Life on Earth. If it wasn't for style doyens telling us how far we are away from the ideal we'd be running round like madmen with crazy amounts of self-esteem, wearing comfortable shoes, and having extra disposable income. I think I speak for us all when I say, "Phew - thank God we don't have to put up with that!"
Now I happen to know a lot about fashion. Never wear a red dress with white sneakers is just the tip of the iceberg (and thus about one tenth) of my voluminous fashion knowledge. But I appreciate that not everybody has the innate style I possess so today I'm going to provide a bit of the old-fashioned fashion advice for people of taste and discernment.
First up, male waxing is out - the rug is back! Joy! I admit I have never bothered with this practice because I have sufficiently few chest hairs to be on a first name basis with most of them and the rest I might chat with briefly at the right sort of parties. But I understand some of our more...Cro-Magnon...brothers have felt forced by recent convention to undergo the unmanly procedure of waxing - little realising that it's only a hop away from moisturising, a skip from exfoliating, and a jump from spending ninety dollars a week on something so unspeakable it can only be referred to generically as 'product'. Well, now you can save that money for an extra bottle of Veuve Clicquot. Or even a new medallion. You go guys.
Back hair, however, is a kind of malignant fungus that grodes the girlies to the max. If you have some, you will never, ever, ever, have sex in your whole misbegotten life. I cannot but say in the strongest terms that back hair is the new leprosy, the new coke and the nude picture of your grandmother all rolled into one. Especially if it's uncombed.
Let's talk midriffs for a moment. If you have the body fat of a marathon runner, you can get away with exposing some midriff. If your belly is bungee jumping from the beltline, don't even think about it. Listen up, girls - It's not that the site of flabby, cellulite-ridden flesh wobbling over too tight containers is a turn off, and it's not that those hipsters are showing your g-string ride up your butt cleavage in the least attractive way imaginable - it's more that when you turn around, your back fat makes it look like you have a whole extra arse. Run, don't walk, away from being the two-arsed girl in the freak show of Life on Earth. Sister - I'm talking to you.
But there's more to fashion than the ostracisation of those who express perfectly natural biological tendencies. Not much more, perhaps, but more nonetheless. Like clothes. It's a well known corruption of a well known saying that 'Clothes maketh the man' and this is certainly true if you're some freaky invisible person - but it's important to realise that Armani, Versace, Gucci and Prada are not going to help you if you've got a face like an ashtray in the first place. Get thee to a plastic surgeon and then we can talk.
For those of you not born on the pointy end of the ugly stick, clothes say a lot about you. For example, they may say 'you are wearing a cheap suit", or worse "You are wearing a cheap suit and have no shoe polish". But it doesn't have to be this way. Clothes can be made to say "You are stylish, confident, and almost certainly a passionate yet sensitive lover so let's get down to some serious rumpy-pumpy, baybee." One way to get them to say this is to wear a top with this printed on it - but, let's face it, the kind of people who would fall for such a ploy still have to sound out each word as they read, and who has time for that in this busy, busy world?
No, far better to get that 'Je ne sais quoi mais je voudrais couchez avec il/elle' reaction by remembering the two axioms of haute couture: Wear clothes that look good and wear clothes that fit. Everything else is negotiable. Especially labels. That's right - it's a slippery slope from 'confident, collected and a great lay' to 'the most shallow label-whore this side of Milan' How do tell which you are? Try this simple test:
- Do you inject heroin in order to fit your favourite labels?
- Can you tell the difference between a knock off and an original by smell alone?
- Are you a stuck-up, conceited cow with more money than sense?
- Do you go to fashion shows for other reasons besides free booze?
- Have you ever gotten your partner to say the names of famous fashion houses during sex?
If you answered yes to all of these - chances are you're a label-whore. Perhaps you should consider suicide. After all - isn't it up to each of us to make the world a more beautiful place?
Opening Lines
Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming along down the road and this moocow that was coming down the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckooo....
James Joyce - Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
As opening lines go - this has to be one of the greatest ever written. It's the inverse of 'It was a dark and stormy night'. That James Joyce, eh - the crazy freaky dude of English Literature right until the end. Many of his literary descendants could have learned a great deal from him. Tolkein, for example:
Once there was a wittle bitty hobbitty fellow who lived down wittle bitty hole. Oooooh, not a big hole, all deepy and darkywarky, but light and sometimes he had fluffy feet, just like ooo, ooo's got fluffy feet then, eh, ooos got fluffy feet?
Or Aldous Huxley:
Once there was a naughty man who took lots and lots of naughty drugs, like cough medicine, only he liked them because they made him all silly-willy
Or Virginia Woolf:
Once there was, or might have been, but probably wasn't at all. La dee da dee dilly. Picking flowers in the garden - ooh, that wicked mulberry bush. I like potatoes. They are all farmy and made of sand. Can I have a sausage? Ooooh.
Or John Steinbeck:
Look at the little mousy. Isn't it cute - it's soooo cute. Listen to the sound of the mousy, what sound does it make? Squeak. that's right, isn't it? Squeak, goes the mouse, squeak squeak crack. Whoopsydaisy.
Or Henry Miller:
Once there was a nice lady. Crikey - where's her clothes? She'll be all cold. Here's a nice man to warm her up. Nice lady. Nice man. 'Scuse me.
Or Robert Persig:
Vroom goes the motorcycle. Vroom, vroom all over the place. Vroom, it goes up mountains, vroom it speeds down hills. Oh, no - it's broken down. No more vroom - just rattle clank rattle clank. Now where did I put my zennywenny. Can you see it? No? No shit.
Well - that's one joke run completely into the ground. See you here tomorrow for more fun and games - if I get up in time.
Yesterday in the future
Beaten to death by rods for treason,
Captured he will be overcome through his disorder,
Frivolous counsel held out to the great captive,
When "Berich" will come to bite his nose in fury.
-Nostradamus, 1503-1566
I find it greatly amusing that prognostician such as Nostradamus could have gotten so much about the coming years correct. I mean, he could be writing about anyone here, and I think captures much of the gestalt of these modern times, much as Charlie Chaplin would years later. Who amongst us hasn't been beaten to death for treason - and then been captured? Who hasn't wasted thousands of dollars on counsel, the frivolity of which can only be compared to a car over full of clowns, all getting on each others feet and squirting hoses at one another? Who hasn't had our own "Berich" bite off our noses in fury? I know I have. Possibly JW Bobbit experienced it a bit differently, but he's the exception to prove the rule.
Surely it's not like the ultrasceptical Life on Earth to sing the praises of fraudulent 16th century seers who milked the rich and famous in exchange for vague glibberies about ten headed dragons wearing kaftans? Well, some co-incidences are just too hard to otherwise explain. Googling "Berich" provides a first link to http://www.mvblaw.com/ - a group of lawyers! Oooooweeeeeeooooohhhhh.
In the interests of making a huge fortune out of gullible plonkers - here are my three predictions for Life on Earth:
In the corner of my room of sleeping
Some mould will grow and have to be
Removed with some cleaning product of considerable power
Only then will my flatmate lose her look of disgust
Some person smiling from a small glowing box
Offering riches afterwards for only riches now
Will suck in a number of hapless individuals
Who'll be feeling pretty silly when God agrees with the atheists
A machine as big as the whole world
Will suck the intelligence from great numbers
In order to feed its own. When it awakes,
It will know itself to be the 'Best Episode Ever'.
Waiting for the telephone to ring
Thursday morning, 7:00am. I wake up to the cheery blur of breakfast radio. Normally its insipid banter would inspire me to arise and turn it off but today I let it play, drifting between dreams and dirty jokes.
The bed is warm and I like being there.
8:00am. I should be out the door and walking down the alley to town - wind in my hair and exhaust in my lungs. Instead, the alarm-driven radio switches off then and I am able to rest undisturbed. The room outside the covers warms gradually, but I prefer the wrapping of the duvet so stay ensconced within it.
8:30am. By now I should be at work, turning on my computer, brewing my first pot of coffee. I turn over.
9:32am. The phone rings and I allow it to. They're looking for me. Inevitable, really. There are things I'm supposed to be doing, information I am obliged to impart and places where my presence is required. I wonder how they expect to find me by looking down a copper wire. I'm not even in that room.
10:16am I get up. Nature calls. Returning from the bathroom I check the phone for messages. Unsurprisingly, there is one. I listen to it, smiling as the polite voice of a co-worker requests speedy intelligence concerning my movements. The message is deleted, I go back to bed.
I think there may be a lot riding on today, for the company. Meetings, a big job ripe for the squeezing – its sheer size requiring boredom survival skills bordering on the legendary. How can you shake someone's hand and sell them the idea of inflicting massive amounts of tedium upon yourself? I couldn't, in all honesty, not with a bed this warm and a duvet this thick. Lying there seems a fine solution, elegant in its simplicity.
10:24am. I wonder if they'll fire me.
11:36am. The phone rings and I allow it to. The half-dream it interrupted appears irretrievable so, just out of curiosity, I check for messages. There's another.
My flatmate appears in the room, coughing. I greet him while putting the phone back on the hook. We sit and chat about potential cups of coffee, my unexpected presence, and the message I haven't quite managed to listen to. Intrigued, he checks it himself, chuckling as someone a little higher up the company ladder informs him that my input is urgently needed.
We each light a cigarette and I tell him about the man who just called, a customer rep who suffers from a debilitating case of cretinism. Can't see the point of getting him to call. He couldn't make a free lunch look attractive. I realise I've missed breakfast but decide not to do anything about it.
11:54am The phone rings and my flatmate answers. He informs the caller that he thought I was at work. Interesting move, sow the seeds of doubt in their minds. The prospect of another phone call becomes almost interesting. Perhaps they're worried…still, a bit too late for second thoughts.
12:30pm. My flatmate disappears to wherever he spends his afternoons. I return to bed, and pick up a big, fat novel. My body heat quickly takes away the chill of an abandoned bed. The novel is filled with interconnecting webs of stories against a background of questionable morality and I notice the hero's initials are J.C. More grist for the overworked mill of allusion, no doubt. The writing seldom inspires, but the chess piece maneuvering of characters against an amorphous, amoral and rapidly spreading enemy appeals.
2:00pm. The book has grown heavy in my hand. Closing my eyes becomes more pleasant than keeping them open. I shut them for a moment and listen to my breath. Nothing magical happens. Nothing spiritual. I am not reminded of the interconnectedness of things. I do not feel closer to myself. I just listen. Warm. Breathing. Losing shape.
The book falls from my fingers.
3:02pm. The phone rings and there is nobody to stop it. It wakes me, though, and, once the details of the situation percolate back into my mind, I make my way to the phone to hear the next recorded instalment in the quest for myself. It's a woman's voice, tinged with either anger or worry. The big boss. If I don't report in the next hour, the emergency number in my personnel profile will be called. I'm not even sure if I can remember who that is, but I suspect that they're about to tell my parents on me. Great. Time for bed.
4:00pm The deadline passes without fanfare. I am absent without leave, a missing person for a day. If a tree falls in the forest when there's no-one around, does it ring in sick?
Sickly
I have to warn you - I'm sick. Not sick as in the sent home from work sick with a cough that just kept on coming until it grew into the size of a wet, slobbering St. Bernard with a barrel at its neck filled with phlegm, nor the Hannibal Lector sick where I lick my lips really fast and tell you I can smell the ravioli you had for dinner last week on your bloomers, but sick as in the other kind of sick. The kind where you send yourself home and promise to do some work while you're there. While being the first kind of sick.
Clearly nobody sentient would ever agree to such a thing. What are the chances of it actually occurring? Of work actually getting done? In researching this, I pretended to ring a prominent occupational therapist in order to discover exactly that. However, he wanted far too much pretend money, and as I only pretended to pay my health insurance, I decided that I wouldn't empty out the bank, as I'd never be able to play monopoly again.
So I did the stinking work. All of it. Well, almost all of it. Some of the stuff I was doing fell completely apart and crashed my machine, twice. Oddly enough, those were the two files that had the most work to do on them. Mm. How very fortuitous. They were also the biggest, toughest, meanest looking files I'd seen since the summer of '98, when two particularly large files mugged me for my pin number outside an ATM. Of course, those weren't computer files, just the normal rasping kind, but they can still be very rough on someone with sensitive skin like mine.
I think I have sensitive skin because it's always getting upset about stuff. It's always being flaky about whether my shampoo is moisturising enough and how long it's been between bouts of psoriasis. I had a 'thing' with a girl with psoriasis once, and, oddly enough, it didn't matter, because I quite liked her anyway. Still, we broke up in the end, some meaningless argument about whose turn it was to sweep out the bed or something.
So, the upshot of all this is, I'm sick. I still had to work. Fuck off.
Friends: circa 1698
[Update: Let's call it 1598 and never mention it again.]
Ross: O, Can it be that not a word is said
in all the words that fill my waking hours
without reminding me of her sweet voice
demanding that I ditch the English whore
Chandler (to Joey): Could that remark e'er be yet more forlorn?
He anguisheth o'er two where I have none
Joey (to Chandler): Seems what you have and what you get are one
Strange days indeed when one doth equal none
Enter Phoebe
Phoebe: Hi Guys
J & C: Hi Phoebes
Phoebe: What sound is it I hear?
Chandler: 'Tis Ross, he weeps so many bitter tears
Phoebe: How queer
Joey (to Chandler): She talks to you
Phoebe: Oh, no, to all
For all have mourn'd the way fate's arrows fall
Not but a week ago I crush'd a bug
And felt so horrified at my folly
I felt its soul escape to Heaven's heights
And now I feel it spit from high on me
Chandler: A spitting bug?
Phoebe: Yes, feel my head, it's wet
Ross: Oh, tears, how do you fall so very far
And yet return to fill my eyes again?
The wails their passing brings unto my tongue
Surpass the present downpour of the rain
I can not bear the aching of my woe
Two loves is much too much for but one man
So while my life is yet in my control
I must end it now by mine own hand (pistol shot)
Chandler: God's heart, he's dead, and yet I must confess
He always was a whinging bloody mess
Joey: Odd, now the whining finally doth end
Yet still have we a bloody mess of Friend
FIN
Cancer
You gotta admit, it's fun being the star sign that shares its name with one of the biggest killers on the face of the planet. Similar social residue to, when asked what star sign you are, saying "Herpes". Apparently there was a move towards redesignating it "moon child", but it never took off, presumably because at least cancer is a bad ass. Moon child makes you sound more new age than discount bin Yani CDs. Cancer, on the other hand, makes it right for you to be smoking cigarettes and getting all testicular about stuff. No, I don't know what 'testicular' means in this context either, but you don't create neologisms by just sitting around contemplating your aldulos - despite the fact that's what it's there for.
