The Promise

After year twelve I made a solemn vow. I vowed never to work that hard again. It could be said as as solemn as I've ever made a vow, I've certainly never been more serious in all my life.
In reflection this was naive of me all that 'work' I did in year 12 was not that much in the broad scheme of things. I mean apart from scant patches of intellectual property from particulalry remarkable projects and competition entries which are truly far and few between, students produce very little.
I'm not lobbying for more Nelsonesque funding cuts for education, but all students do is consume resources for those years and the consumption expenditure is theoretically recouped in later years with a more productive labour base.
But I work 9 to 5 and don't believe in overtime at all. Overtime in my book is like bragging that you're incompetent and barely managing your workload, exaserbated if you don't take your annual leave (which pisses employers off because the value of your annual leave appreciates over time). but that already an 1 1/2 more than I used to 'work' at school and I had longer breaks. And I can tell you now with the shoddy concept of 'homework' seriously what kind of fucked up fucking concept is homework. They can't efficiently teach you concepts such as differentiation or the functions of money or grammar in class time they have to load you up with homework to take home weekly on top of assignments. I'm sure it fucking enriches the learning experience, infact I'm sure I'm fucking positive it doesn't since I expended more energy coming up with excuses not to do homework than energy put into doing homework. Home time is Tom time.
Where was I? what the fuck did I bring up homework for. Oh yeah some school in Briton got rid of it, that is a positive step away from unproductive workaholics right there.
But that's not why I raised it what I meant to say is if you added up all the time I spent doing homework in my entire school career it wouldn't average out to shit.
So I'm sitting on 6.5 hours and three times a week I had to go to cross country training until 5 so I'm still sitting pretty when I made my vow. I wonder how much more productive our economy would be if work time built those 4.5 hours of extra curriculae exercise into the Industrial reforms.
Someone should seriously do a study. Most studies already show we work more hours than we can justify even in the limited concept of GNP. My brother had a mate who was an IT PhD developed a theory that the average person works 3 hours of productive time a day so even if he was paid for 8 hours he would dedicate himself to working only 3 hours with complete commitment and then walk out. His employers loved him. I love him even though I've never met him.
I'm not saying I'm lazy. I just think there's things I'd rather be doing than work. Even if my work was painting which I love I'd never dream of spending 8 hours a day doing it. I mean what kind of person can do anything for eight hours with the odd break? What moron came up with this system?

Xual

My bike, I love my bike, is A shogun Metro SE I presume the SE stands for Special addition as really as far as bike models go there's no real recognised model like the 'louden boomer' etc.
But those Japanese in their unassuming way have given a bike that I ride a name that is four letters short of being Metrosexual. This pisses me off. I'm very pro testosterone. In high school I formed a beard union since my private school didn't let us grow manly beards as was our right when we man blossomed above the year 7's with their bad haircuts oversized blazers and dirty sanchez moustaches.
I tried not shaving for lent and got sent home, I walked in after a school holidays and got sent home, I represented the school in a foreign country and awed all with my ability to age 7 years while on Christmas break.
SO riding a bike called the Metro, fucking Metro anything doesn't appeal to me. The japanese don't know better they love beckham and Ian thorpe and regard them as real men. In fact in Japan the more androgenous you are, the more lipstick you wear, the more angle in your fringe and highlights in your hair, the more hardcore.
I don't get it.
Anyway I love my bike. There is no more perfect machine than the bike. A device that inhances our own anatomy more than any other.
The city the last two days has been coating in a hazy cloud of black in an otherwise pristine sky. I wonder as I always do what drivers are thinking as they drive towards it. Those filthy particles in the sky brushing up against all our lovely buildings, coating the inside of the mouth you use to perform oral pleasures.
Word on the street of oil is get fucking use to it.
Furthermore even if oil does miraculously become more available Keynsian economics tells us why would anyone put prices down? We know you can afford it.

Face of an Arsehole

I was reading some passage in my book about gene's being passed down a line of logic so if you look like your father and your father looks like his father and his father resembles his father then you resemble your great grandfather. You see it all the time in cartoons and movies and shit were the same actor plays the ancestor when they travel back in time.
I have been told since I was young that I bear a striking resemblence to my maternal grandfather, I just realised I can't remember his name. Anyway this was great gave me a feeling of connectedness and my grandfather was described as quite the dashing young man in his time.
To me he was a fun, warm, active, wrinkly bald old man with green tattoos from war and a malaria yellow complexion curtesy of WWII.
At some point though the other half of the picture comes out, that he was a drunk irresoponsible arsehole that dished out a few love taps in his time.
I've found this hard to take because it's totally against my values and nature. I was a teato before I found this shit out, had a brief stint at pacifism (provoking more violence amongst my friends than previously) and was stingy with the coin.
I don't like sharing a face with this man. I remember being angry with mum when she told me of the darker side for 'ruining a hero' but he wasn't and I got angry at the wrong person. He was a great grandpa and otherwise a fucking arsehole.
Point of the story I feel sorry for anyone who bears a striking resemblance to Hitler they have bigger issues than me.

There's a party in my Mouth and the KKK is invited

No not hollandaise sauce or carbonara but harissa:

250 g red chillis
1 garlic clove
dry mint
dry cumin
olive oil
lemon juice
salt

chuck in blender and blend up then put in a jar and you have a delicious spread that due to the unique nature of the chilli will speed up my metabolism if I have it on anything.

So here's what I did:

Assume if you are specifying red you mean those baby red chillis and clean out 3 supermarkets trying to get 250g of them (this cost me less than a buck though I was real impressed) 250 g is a lot of those little red chillis. So who can be fucked removing the seeds from like a million tiny little chillis? I cut the stems off and skinned a whole bulb of garlic and threw it all in the blender. Then I squeezed in my lemon juice and then added some olive oil and blended it all into a salmon pink.
Now I'd been told to taste it in order to determine how much spice I needed to add, so I cautiously dipped my pinky into the now stationary blender and dabbed it on my tongue.
The shit stuck to my face like napalm and burned for an hour and a half.
My nostrils burnt just lifting the lid off the blender.
I know you go to restaurants and shit and people tell you wasabi and chilli and shit is real hot shit and you see cartoons where people jump up and down and flames come out and shit. It's not like that but it is the hottest thing I've ever made and the sensation is more like having an ingrown toenail bumping against something wherever the mix touches your flesh whether that be lips, nostril or tear duct.
So follow that recipe except mix in some red capsicum for some of the chilli. Remove the seeds and look after yourself instead of just relying on chilli oil to spead up your metabolism.
If you've ever wondered why thai people always look like they need a feed, yo.

Brisbane & Sydney

Coming from International House, having friends all over the world from every single obscure nation, religion, sexual persuasion etc. I forgot how much culture shock there can be just travelling in Australia.
I headed up to Brisbane to see my best friend, I hadn't seen him in ages and had promised to be his family a couple of years back and more or less done nothing up until then about it.
So feeling guilty, tired and excited, a potent combination even for someone as versatile as gumby I got off the plane and walked into the arrivals lounge. First off what I like about my friends is they are laid back, they are laid back because they are capable of rational thought and use this process to create confidence. I hadn't arranged to be picked up yet Q was there we shook hands, got talking were in the car and chowing down on breakfast in no time.
Brisbane is overwhelmingly green to me. I couldn't get over it. Running around the hilly district of wherever the fuck I was staying, I saw no other runners, plenty of trees and cyclists and it was beautiful. Brisbane was beautiful and wasted on fucking Queenslanders in their Bundy rum paraphenalia and handle bar moustaches. Crows garnished the trees too and they are an unbeautiful bird, waking me up every morning. The trains too had spikes coming out of the ceilings in the doorways so in rush hour the people clusttered in the doorways had a central object to hang on to, which was great because it was an admission of defeat that they can't cater in rush hour.
In melbourne ticket inspectors are an admission of defeat that train tickets don't deliver more value than risking a fine.
Anyway in brisbane 20 minutes out of the city I was in bush, bush plots like some people lived on in ballarat. Decking, Big free form garden, an acre of bush sloping downhill and no sign of your neighbour. It was my dream house. I chowed down on some tasty prawns and tuna just thinking that. I really chilled.
I could relax in Brisbane. The roads made no sense to me. The surroundings were beautiful and compared to melbourne it was quite quaint.
But you know that episode where homer goes to New York and has the worst day of his life trying to get a clamp off his car wheel. This is how I feel in Sydney.
I read a good weekend article about how some minority of yuppies had hijacked Sydney's culture. They had written 'People in SYdney are cool, going to nightclubs, wearing trendy designer clothes and drinking cocktails. They do not engage in anything tribal like football or drink beer.' It was in-fucking-sane.
I am always overwhelmed by how beautiful Sydney is. Again it seems much greener than melbourne, the harbour is beautiful and their architectural triumphs are architectural triumphs.
How can Melbourne have been rated the world's most liveable city? (that really is some fucking title not to be taken for granted) I've had many a friend say they've had a relative visit them in Melbourne and they couldn't do anything there. Two days I spent in Sydney. In two days as a tourist I had to conclude that Sydney has nothing more to offer than views of the harbour and eating seafood.
Like Kyoto in Japan where you get overwhelmed followed by 'templed out' Sydney gets old fast. It's roads are crazy, you need a seperate ticket for every form of transport. I've had it explained to me the ways to get around town in order to tolerate it, but in melbourne even with shitty public transport you'd never be expected to make the same sacrifices.
People don't seem to care about anything either. Most of the people I try to hang around with are big AFL fans, most of the people I end up hanging around with are left wing pinkos who just don't appreciate what a great thing AFL is to our culture. You go to Sydney, people don't care about anything. That was the overwhelming impression I got, just scratching the surface I know but even cruising the harbour most of the audio tour commentry started with 'On your left is one of the most expensive properties in SYdney harbour foreshore...' seriously every minute was another real estate tidbit.
If there is anything that defines the baby boomers it is real estate fever but I don't give a fuck. There was no multicultural vibe in the CBD. No visable graffiti, posters for rock concerts, nothing. Just a beautiful ornamental tourist snap town. Like being stuck in the docklands. I've camped in Sydney, 'worked' at the ABC and stayed at a university college the place still makes my skin crawl.
I'm feeling hostile even now home again.
Brisbane is endearing I could retire there and take it easy and talk to bogans on the train. In Sydney I would be hunted down and put on a cattle truck for going bogan and my skin would crawl from my face into my colon.
Fuck you Sydney and your fucking impolite shabby service and overpriced beer.

Jetsetting

This entry is suspiciously like an actual journal entry letting you know what is going on in my life. I went to brisbane, I will write more about brisbane later. Tomorrow morning I get up and go to sydney.
The jetseetting globe trotting life sucks. It fucking sucks. I have a bag that is too big for these two day trips and a backpack that is too small. Since last time I got a plane they really have become the flying bus. Like the Magic schoolbus except less educational. I can't wait till they have ultra violet lighting and semen stains on the seats.
Anyway I go to Sydney tomorrow, I get up early in the morning to go to Sydney. I really don't want to go to Sydney tomorrow. I wonder what breakfast will be like on the plane. It better be good or else I'm going to attack somebody.
The guys from Broadmeadows I sat next too were real nice though. I didn't even get lice when he put his head real close to mine only to shake his head in disgust that I was listening to Bach.
Bach is the shiznizzel of Music that is pleasing but unexciting. Unless you get a hard on for fruges or however it is fucking spelt.

Optimus Prime

Life is simple for the Transformers, there are good and evil. A cartoon devised in the Reagan years, Optimus is the definitive leader for me. Uncompromising values, a close collaborative team and the ability to transform into a truck with a trailer mysteriously appearing out of nowhere.
I hear there are plans to make a CGI transformers movie which if like the Japanime revival of recent times it will be phenomenally shit, focussing on the powers of heart and friendship blah blah blah. If it’s like the recent Comic revival, epic and moving in it’s storyline and pitched at the generation that grew up with them well it could be something else.
I once told a girl that I would rather have Optimus Prime on my side during Armageddon than Jesus. This still holds true. Jesus performed miracles sure but a walking talking robot warrior that can turn into a truck and shoot lasers, nobody can beat that.

Semantics and God

Semantics tells us that words have no intrinsic meanings, that means a word written must have a meaning associated with it by a person. I.e. nodachi cannot be understood by everyone who sees it, it is only if someone tells you it means field sword (refering to a sword greater than 5 shaku in length) can most people understand what a nodachi is. Likewise you notice shaku is presumably a unit of length (based on the meanings attatched to the words around it) that you can't quite comprehend in terms of it's exact distance and you begin to feel like you need to learn Japanese.
The problem is apparant in translation and in education where kids look at flash cards with words like cat, dog etc matched up to pictures of the objects they represent starting to associate meanings with words after having first learnt to associate sounds with words.
It becomes less apparant in sacred texts however. The Quaran/Koran is reprinted word for word with no deviation tolerated (the only interpretation allowed arises in translations) books of the bible preserve the word less so (changing Pharoah to King etc depending on the target audiance etc) and pretty much every holy book associated with a religion. The assembled words have no meaning whatsoever in themselves and cultural values such as homophobia in Catholacism are based on such words 'flimsy interpretations' I would dub them if I was quoting myself but I'm sure others have said it.
There is no magical inherant value in the particular sequences of words because you couldn't chuck the holy books in the back of a plane and drob them on some previously isolated amazonian tribe and expect them to pick up the gist of it.
When Jesus said 'I shall return' did he mean 'I'll return...with milk, anybody need anything while I'm nipping out' or 'I shall return on the day of armageddon where we will wage war on the forces of evil.' I don't know because 'I will return' is meaningless in and of itself, we choose the meaning we want to attach to it.
Catholics have come out with the Gospel of Judas and more or less said 'at the end of the day we will believe what we want to believe'
My boss's job is interpreting the Head office's boss' philosophy who in turn is interpreting the philosophies of the founding father. The fact that they were written down means the message probably lasts longer with less disparity between interpretation and intent but fundamentally is little better in the long term than an oral tradition.
Would the world be a better place if we could just admit:

If god does exist, his/her/their words are interpreted by man, who in turn speaks on behalf of god, exercises judgement for god and by extension controls god.

Which I think is true of absolutely all religions even if my blog was to become the basis of a religion for as Paul Atredies said 'The moment one accepts godhead one loses control of it' Faust got fucked out of his answer to the meaning of life when Mephisto tells him 'I would explain the answer to you but it is only possible in a language you would never understand'
Isn't anyone else pissed off the pope gets to sit in the Vatican where Dali paintings struggle to get wall space and all he does is attempt to interpret whatever the fuck god is getting at in the fucking Bible?

Pimp my Blog

I remodelled the site when bored, sorry for the lack of potpurri and petunias and shit.

The Sand

For the record, if ever I fucked up and had to admit I'd made expensive, expensive mistakes. Expensive beyond my means or morality - I'd go into the desert to die. You know run away from problems rather than confront them or have to apologise.
Except I wouldn't go to a real desert. I'd go to the dune known to me as 'the dune' in my camping ground. Every year I climb 250m of soft sand heated up to a cool 45C without stopping. I only use my feet not hands and when I reach the top and walk aways until I reach a dead grotto. It kind of reminds me of Lord Byron's 'Ozymandias' which I think was the Greek name for Ramasis or one of them egyptians with the funny hats which is about a broken shattered plinth with some feet on it that was engraved 'I am Ozymandias, look on my and despair' a poem about the mighty falling with the passage of time. I say kind of reminds me of it because I can't remember it except for that last line.
Dimitri Martin said if you have a cactus and it dies that means you are less nurturing than a desert. I think thats why I'd like to sit and think about what I did until my body packs in on top of the dune. Of course if it is winter I would probably die of pnuemonia which just wouldn't be satisfactory way to die in a desert so I'd hope my collapse would come in the summer months if it ever did at all.
I mean really I hope it never comes at all because I'd rather not have to spend time contemplating my stupidity I'd rather succeed to the point where I create my own Authentic Saloon and sit at the bar listening to Robert Johnson woundering what he has the blues over.
But on the other hand as Topol would say I can see the spiritual value of the desert, I understand those fools who wander out to find themselves, I'd be sensible though and wander out to peacefully end myself*

*and hopefully work in some kind of spectacular explosion like the plastic shark in the Adam West Batman Movie. If I just keeled over from a sitting position and then BANG! when I hit the ground, that would be awesome.

Eccentric

This guy at work reckons I'm eccentric. The very word 'eccentric' the mere fact that it exists is an embarassment to the human race. That the fact I wear a headband to hold my hair back and keep it out of my eyes makes me 'eccentric' says there's some pretty structured guidelines on how to live your life out there. That's sad, its more than that its tragic. Pink shirts, shaved heads, long hair, donating money to a charity, wearing odd socks, eating donuts for breakfast, going to bingo, owning a guitar all these things I have heard people use in labelling someone eccentric.
It's fucking ironic 6 years I spent trying hard to avoid the label of try hard, no bleaching my hair, no piercing, no dreadlocks, no surf clothes, no mobile phone, no skateboarding n shit. Then you get called an eccentric for not trying at all just fucking putting a headband in your hair. The amount of time and money wasted trying to be different could probably feed the third world.
If you want to get noticed, ride a bike through a MYER's store. If you want a friend feed any animal. If you want to be eccentric shop at Target.

The Arguement

I'm really letting April down. I've been distracted since uni went back and being poor. I'm poor enough now to let people take photos of me licking their leprous feet for $1. There's no justice in the world. I know there's people with real issues out there but seriously I'm a girl with expensive tastes I don't like to have to think about money.
Enough of that though. There's one line, in one book that hits the nail on the head 'An armed man will never obey an unarmed man' said by Machiavelli in the perrenial amoral handbook 'The Prince' I also recommend 'The Little Prince' as a worthwhile read.
Arj Barker would say Machiavelli excepts the isness of the buisness. A lot of people hate Machiavelli, a lot of people hate their uncle playing low to the ground well placed shots in back yard cricket. Yet they both exist and frankly better the devil you know.
So anyway why is that line important? Environmentalism. I wrote about my favorite campsite a few posts back and some of you may have got the impression that I love nature. This is true, but unlike someone who believes in getting naked and mingling amongst the trees in the moonlight to abandon oneself to their feral nature and appreciate the ambiance of the environment because my parents were hippies or something, I approached environmentalism from a megalomaniacal angle out of a disturbed youth.
Basically when I see someone spit on the ground I don't think of it as everybodies ground but MY ground. For example close your eyes (and somehow manage to keep reading the instructions isn't it amazing how many times those instructions are written in print) so keep your eyes open for now and just think what I'm writing.
You bake a cake, a delicious cake you ice it and leave it on the cooling rack. Some snotball runs his finger through the icing. Your pissed off, your bigger than your snotball so you wack them with a wooden spoon and when they threaten to call the police you tell them that's fine, they'll send you to a foster home where your new parents will rape you and post pictures on the internet. Alternatively you get down on their level look them in the eye, explain what they've done wrong and sit them on the naughty step. They both work.
So now you're an all powerfull conquering warlord, you invade a cake, it's your cake you take it, but some snotball ran his fingers all through the icing, so you cut his ear off as a warning to future sabotoers (sabotage people) who will ruin things you intend to one day own.
So say the cake is Europe or the Middle East or the world, at some point in the future someone is going to claim rights to that land that is not who has rights to it now whether that be future generations or some world superpower or the Wiggles. They have the power to take that land from another in possession to it.
Like Australia dispossessed all the native inhabitants of the land and went one step further and declared they didn't even exist when clearly they were there. And we freely buy, trade and/or rent this stolen property enjoying full ownership under our legal system, never contemplating anyone would claim a brunswick or werribee dwelling as their birthright and knowig full well any trouble makers would be handily handled by the police.
We all enjoy this. So why can't someone really powerful just make the laws that only they have the power to enforce and others cant stop them?
Seriously if I was as big as I am now and a bunch of preppies formed a committee to say I had to pay a toll to walk on a footpath I would laugh at them and if they pressed the point tossed them aside like teddy bears.
That's the crux of what Machiavelli is saying. When he wrote amorally it wasn't with evil intent. It was amoral which means non-moral as in he wrote extensively on the mechanics of politics and in a time dominated by the church didn't presuppose what one should use political power for.
So the arguement would go something like this (and a belive throughout history it often has) some one sits in a chair and argues rationally, logically, conscicely and passionately about some cause, a moral injustice and positively suggests a remedy that may be counterproductive or merely inconveniant to his opponants position in the debate. He can draw on utilitarianism, economic schools and theories, exciting new Harvard research, new age philosophies. He can reiterate his arguements and provide precedent after precedent for his remedy.
The oppositions arguemen involves breaking his teeth until he can no longer talk. No logic no rational, no rightness or wrongness, he/she does so only in the knowledge that he/she can get away with it because ultimately it is his/her choice, they have afforded themselves a mandate that means they don't have to listen to anyone tell them what to do.
Compelling television I don't know depends who's debating and I guess that's all relative.
But seriously if I ruled the world I wouldn't tolerate PBS commentary on my policy because I wouldn't seek legitimacy through democratic election. I'd seek advice for sure, I'm no expert on fiscal policy, sustainable energy, health & infrastructure etc. I take this stance because I see the US spend several times more than probably 30 of the worlds poorest nations GNP just to get elected.
You can arm yourself pretty well with just a brain, anyone can, and if there's certain things you don't provide no leader can retain power for long, yet effective leaders can emerge in almost any system and be successful simply by understanding how to balance and sustain their power. Power just as a word sounds so totalitarian and testosterone charged that it immediately sounds bad.
I don't think it has too. Polittical parties in Australia fight out benign election campaigns on drab issues with unappealing personalities and far too much coverage in order to retain the power, not to oppress, maim, butcher but instead to decide how to spend the budget and which bigger fish to kiss arse to and the extent of that arse kissing (Do you stick out the tongue or just peck and hope minimal residue gets inhaled when your lips part again?)
Power's useful and nothing goes anywhere unless someone has it. The US mantle as world superpower isn't under threat by terrorism, in this day and age they should be afraid of competence.

Hail the Conscious crush the unconscious

You know what, I was sitting on the train with this Goth girl that had to be 16 or some shit. She had a long nose so her black mascara made her eyes seem really sunken into her head. And sometimes I think I should just say to these people 'Come over to my camp, you'll like it it's pretty cool, we're easy going, just enjoy life.'
Then I remember I don't have a camp, or an estate or anything to support these people. I'm tempted to try and just finance a school in Africa through Oxfam not because I particularly want to help Africans over other people in the world but because I can afford to in Africa, it'd cost me $200 to set up a school there verses $1.7 million here (Capital plus loan money) and then it wouldn't make money unless I taught what the fucking government wanted me to teach I couldn't go unlocking humann potential that way.
When I went to see Joe my Psycholigist it was fortuitous that his office was located in the Brunswick Incubator. Just a small space to allow startups to take place. I thought Paul Rubens woould love this place.
That's what I really want to do. I was talking to Damo on the train last night on the way to Haruka's farewell and commented how nobody was really shocked or surprised at his news that he was going to do a PhD in the US.
He started laying into how a lot of people wouldn't think much of my dream of going to Japan to make lots of money. Which tells me that not many people really know the essence of my dream. I mean that isn't even a dream no more than riding the corkscrew at seaworld is someone's dream.
My dream is to be a finacer or the fancier term I was using in Damo's presence: financier.
I had a lot of good ideas when I was 16. Nobody would back a 16 year old though because a lot of bad ideas come from 16 year olds and a lot of them cant get past the 'let's build a skatepark idea' which was what lead to me getting so frustrated that I quit Ballarat City Youth Council.
I want to be a Medici, I want to bankroll actual human development. I want to have a building with crazy people trying to make there ideas and dreams feasible realities under my roof. Like some kind of umbrella which I don't personally ever use.
An estate a legacy, to build something in my time here and contribute something visable and tangible even if I'm just some name in line three of thankyous that contributed cash that in itself has no inherant value.
Like Lao Tzu's ideal I want to take this and give that. A true sage. I got that ring commisioned, for the same price as a school with textbooks in africa. Was the money ill spent? I don't think so because the ring represents this camp, this building that houses dreams like a rubix cube that I want to sprout out in the frontrunners of humanities search for meaning. I'll build the school aswell as soon as I find out who to give the money to, but I want it to be under the umbrella of that idea sitting there on a finger reminding me of the bigger picture.
A syndicate of dreams.

The Merchant of Florence

The Rennaisance is a funny name for the most culturally productive period in European development. France's Rennaisance man Rene Des Cartes founder of the Cartesian plane and still holder of the most convincing arguement that I exist 'I think therefore I am' is one of the few French contributions to the period, versus Italy's Michaelangelo, Donatello, Leonardi Da Vinci, Botticelli, Nicolo Machiavelli, Frar Angelico, Rafael, Christoforo Columbo (better known as Christopher Columbus) and of course the family that paid for it all and noted humanists the Medici.
I first took a liking to Lorenzo di Medici when I discovered he was popularly known as 'il magnifico' or Lorenzo the magnificent. He was a popular lad too, a tyrant and consumate capitalist he survived wave after wave of plots to overthrow his family as first citizen of the Republic of Florence.
Turns out Lorenzo was more or less incompetent at managing the family banking business driving the most profitable bank in all of Europe just about into the ground and dipping into his nephews trusts to clear himself of debts. But he valued human develpment and that strikes a cord with me. Its the sticking point of any government whether it be capitalist, communist, socialist or totalitarian it really comes down to the values of leadership groups. Corporates are like this, mini countries in effect which is why I'm happy to work for a man. The long standing effective companies have a core set of values and driving philosophies.
The Medici as a family where a departue from the Church dominated mentallities of the Dark Ages, Cosimo de Medici being trained in the humanist philosophies of Plato was one of the first to back a blatent homosexual but brilliant artist such as Donatello for the shared love of human beauty and human potential personified in Donatello's David.
At the same time Cosimo (Who was the real powerhouse of the Medici line despite the larger popularity and fame of Lorenzo) banked for the Vatican and made vast profits from the European Tax House. This was channeled into wealth namely in the sponsorship of talented artists and architects. It was a corrupt tyrannical farce of a Republic but what is the worth of Leonardo's invention of the Technical Drawing (and also anatomical drawings) which underpin all Engineering and most Medical learning still today, or Christopher Columbus' Voyage to the New World, or Michaelangelo's dominance of artistic design or Machiavelli's treatise on statecraft, the foundation of politics (and blatently honest too) We'd still be peasents living in the Shadow of a Cathedral listening to sermons in latin about pretty boring and uninsightful shit.
As for why this period has a French name instead of an Italian one: France was the powerhouse Government of the time being able to call the Vatican to sit, Italy being broken into The Republics of Florence and Venice, Duchy of Milan, several Papal States and the King of Naples ruling below Tuscany. In short it was a shamozle. But the time and place to be alive.

A Corner for Tom

Where I decided I should start this blog was as far from the internet as you can probably get in Australia these days. Thankfully in my upbringing my parents found a camp ground they liked enough to take us back to year after year after year. When they sold the family farm it left us with a point for grounding still, a link back to our childhood.
So penetrating is the sanctuary that any other holiday does not really provide any rest by comparison.
It's beach and river and bush and desert in one place. I've seen sea eagles stalking eels, seals coughing on the beach and jumping waves, I've had red belly black snakes slither over my feet, goannas eat my garbage, bush mice crossing sand dune, sat and sketched the putrid rotting mass of a minkey whale (or whichever wale it was) had a stare out with a lyre bird and walked through more spiderwebs than I can remember.
I've had 12 New Years there. I've stared into a black canvas of stars and spotted crappy russian satellites orbiting the earth. I've grown full on lumberjack beards. I've held my shit in for four days straight for fear of the dreaded pit toilets.
I always reavaluate who I am and do new age shit I'm too ashamed to do in the city like tai chi, yoga, meditation.
Most of my time is spent just pacing up and down my river though (which isn't a euphamism for masturbation) for three hours at a time. And there is one universal conclusion one can come to in a place like this. Property developers are fuckheads and market forces can move against the interests of intellectual snobs like myself that believe a park like this should remain forever at my disposal for $10 a night when someone could build a resort and rent it to Russel Crowe for $1400 a night where he could make it look appealing to fuckhead sydneysiders.
Which is why if I were supreme overlord of existence I would live in the park and correspond with my fascist police force via ninja correspondents saying things like 'slap John Howard clean on the forhead' and 'tell dick cheney to shoot himself through the foot' and 'Cancel Rove Live.' from my secure Eutopia, except not European in any way.
But seriously its a beautiful place, I hope for your sake that maybe one day you'll find it and appreciate it.

What the fuck is a Humorist?

Seriously why would you ever call yourself that? Your the kid who loved drama and always tried to get involved in theatre sports teams, where described as 'zany' 'kooky' 'silly' but never actually funny. I pick up street mags, sunday mags and occasionally read those melbourne times and Mx features written by a 'Humorist' not a comedian someone who writes from a half arsed silly perspective that never actually makes me laugh.
Only the most sheltered cotton wool insulated individual could laugh and snort at these articles. Where did society discover a space for this demographic the 'Billy Connelly I don't like him one bit he uses foul language.' or 'Eddie Murphy delirious is just not my thing, give me the Cosby show and I can enjoy negro humour yes sir.' that's all I can imagine.
Is this what happens to you when you grow old and have kids. I don't want to live in this parralal society, this family friendly zone were gone are comedians in are humorists. Life is no longer a joke just depressingly humorous. And watching shows like deadwood and rome in the living room, are they gone when I have children because of their gratuitous use of the word 'cocksucker' because I know fouler language, and I was spraying this foul language around at age 6 when I hurt my wrist playing backyard cricket with my dad. My kids won't get a backhand for swearing just disrespecting, I hope to send them to a school where they meet a diverse enough range of kids that they might have a friend called Shayne (yes phoenetically spelt) who has a rats tail has tried smoking by twelve and in the schoolyard opens his sentences with 'fucking c#n$s blah blah' whether it be about the injustice of society or the weather he is talking about. If my kids going to try to be funny I'd like him to actually be funny, someone that people might come and see because their funny but because their topical might hear an opinion that wasn't already theire's like fans of Chris Rock and his 'black people vs. niggers' race war.
I don't want my kid to regurgitate mainstay opinions in an age sunday magazine that are slightly humorous and entirely unprovocative.
If my kid is a loser humorist I will just creep into their room and gently push a big soft pillow down on their face*.

*I'm kidding I'd just divorce them, change my name and get a restraining order taken out on them, and write as often as possible to media watch reporting their humorous comments as defametory accusations in legitimate journalism.

Ninjas and the Magical Land of Should

Ask a man why he bought a Porsche and he will say 'Superior performance, to enjoy the beauty of an engineering artwork that just eats up the road...' ask a man why his friend buys a porsche and he will say 'So that when he drives past things in short skirts will flick their hair in his direction.' Its the same in politics 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' instead of 'Personal Vendetta and profitable oil (possibly we just plain don't get arabs).'
When I'd exhausted all the Eastern Martial Arts philosophical texts like Sun Tzu and Musashi Miyamoto I started buying any old shit including a book called street ninja for its pure psychopath appeal. Ninjutsu is a vague and ambiguous are and certainly superfluous. 'Ninjas tend to roll when a few steps are all thats necessary, or to throw a gas bomb when you just need to ask the waiter for the bill.'
And this book certainly felt that people had to be prepared to negotiate their way through the urban battlefield endorsing unreasonable force to permanantly disable or kill an assailant. Which was bullshit but in my desire to learn more about ninja I bought another book called 'Mind Manipulation' that when I cracked the cover and read a quote from the author of 'Street Ninja' I was bitterly dissapointed.
But I persisted and it paid dividends. It was essentially a marketing test with different psychographic segmentation that dated from 'the east' but also looked at diverse references to lies and brainwashing too. And the key to manipulation is: personal consistency.
They sighted an example of a cop and good christian who's daughters at bible camp had been encouraged to come forward about the practice of Satanistic molestation. The girls made up pure bullshit but because the father refused to accept that his girls weren't good honest christians and trusted his colleagues that were questioning him he actually pleaded guilty to molestation and satanic practices and actually created his own false memories. He was sentenced to 8 years jail and couldn't be released (I don't know why) even after an expert established what had actually happened.
I don't know why but people like to appear consistent even when fundamentally we aren't. Vegetarians who wear leather, Sensitive New Age Guys that watch pornos.
Ultimately attempting to be consistent is a noble goal and a source of stress, simply because there's so many exceptions to the rules out there. I've got a core set of values and I value human life but when natural disasters like the tsunami and hurricanes and cyclones of the past year occur I can't really stand back and say they shouldn't have happened. Because it's the fucking weather and even if the global warming is the result of the human's interference with nature here I sit with a zillion consumer goods I can enjoy because of exactly how we have treated the earth.
My housemates can sit and watch PBS Newshour with Jim Learer because 'They go to pains to remain objective and unbiased in their newsreports' then watch SBS world news and then watch media watch and lateline and the 7.30 report until they may aswell get 'reality' injected directly into their veins.
Whis is a great personal battle but whenever I suggest we watch Today Tonight or A Current Affair - aka pure propaganda, they will leave the room and read a book about morality or some shit. This personal consistency got exploited by an ex housemate of mine by betting $50 the George W would be realected, one of my housemates insisted he knew what was really going on because he watched Newshour and took the bet. But what was really going on didn't mean shit because Newshour accounts for very little ratings wise amongst the people with the power to elect and Fox News counted for a lot. George Bush would never get elected in the magical land of should only in the regular land of is.
Personal consistency when it drives you to refuse to acknowledge that things like Today Tonight exist, drink drivers exist, people who cut in lines exist, wealthy people that employ friends ove more deserving candidates exist, fraud exists, exploitation of labor exists, vested interest exist becomes a very dangerous thing.
Things don't happen because they should, people make them happen. It's fine to watch and enjoy programs that already agree with your own world view whether it be Newshour or programs about 'Aussie Jobs going overseas' but don't sit there and think the world should agree with you, because it probably doesn't, Abe Lincoln the abolitionist said 'You can't please all the people all the time' there's just too many worldviews out their the difference is some people do something about making theirs happen, other people become philosophers and try and come up with the correct world view then don't use marketing to promote it whatever it is.
Morale of the story personal consistency means a lot of moral people refuse to use 'immoral marketing' to promote their cause whereas marketing is in fact 'impartial' look at Oxfam and the comedy gala! thumbs up to Hamish for becoming Marketing manager of No Sweat Shoes.

Life is Pain

My brother is a world of warcraft fan. Even though he points out all its shortfalls whenever I'm around I know he isn't cool. But he also showed me Pure Pwnage the adventures of the pwnerer (pronounced ownerer) documented on film. Jeremy sure gives the gamers stick and what a rich field of comic material gaming is. The problem is to laugh at gamer culture you have to admit some affinity with it.
Well yeah I've played RPG's, once I got up and someone was in the shower already so I sat down to play Prince of Persia the Sands of Time and my housemate gabby came in and opened the blinds revealing the dusk outside and also revealing the sad act to me that I'd gotten up at 8 and sat till 6.30 at night without eating and without moving from the couch. Just played Xbox all day.
RPG's are dangerous as when you level u your character you can gain just as much satisfaction from at as you can from real achievements. When people talk about 'online communities' where people supposedly meet, earn, get married and have virtual children, saltwater wells in my eye.
Because your not achieving shit, jack all. You just sit there and consume electricity in vast quantities that we produce by burning brown coal.
And your friends aren't real, just real losers.
I took pleasure in signing up my brother to the Fatal1ty newsletter. Fatility is meant to be the Babe Ruth sporting hero of Lan gaming even though he's world champion in 5 games nobody's ever heard of.
How did society get so disjointed? whats wrong with society? Well society understands perfectly well aware of these trends. Thats why theres money to be made, money to be made by people like me and you, nerds willing to turn on each other and cannibalise your own young.
Pure Ownage dealt with the MySpace phenomenon in its latest episode. The very issue of most concern to me in having a blog: Becoming some whining, whinging little dick who talks about why life is so hard etc.
Life isn't hard, its easy to forget being a caucasian male descended from the British Isles that I am a member of the most brutal, merciless, selfish race ever to populate the earth. And as such really have to learn to enjoy the fact that relative to other places and 'races' you can be born into I really want for very little.
Just by having access to the internet I have to be in the wealthiest minority of people alive.
Considering half the people that have ever lived are still alive today that's a pretty good headstart.
Life is pain and suffering for people who aren't me. I certainly know pain and suffering but in a whole different ball game that is much easier to deal with due to the resources I have at my disposal.
Life is sweet. The world is funny, and fun to be a part of. So I apologise if I've been to rightiously indignant on my blog. There's a lot of things that tick me off and get me angry, but it comes from a very condescending place in my heart.
Eat Popcorn, Drink Coke.

You've Got Balls

To the untrained eye the novels I digested this week could be noted for their distinct lack of balls. Lewis Carol's drug trip masterpiece 'Alice In Wonderland' and Sabine Dardenne's real life acount of being abducted by Marc Dutroux one Belgium's (gee Belgium is a funny name) most heinous paedophiles according to the blurb called 'I Choose to Live'.
Both heroine's have balls. (if Sabine can be called a heroine, she gave some poor guy who asked for her Autograph a roasting) Alice is trapped in a nonsense world and confronted by the Queen of Hearts and other more benign characters and she doesn't take any shit from them. I was always familiar with line's like 'there's plenty of room!' and other stuff but it wasn't till I re-read Alice in Wonderland that I saw how down to earth and in control Alice is with the whole universe. Ultimately she finds Wonderland fascinating and Fun but she sticks to the sensibilities of her upbringing through thick and then rendering her completely insane in Wonderland. The little madam enforces her reasoning on the world around her. Even if she is eating magic mushrooms, drinking absinth and smoking hookah the whole time.
She keeps her feet on the ground even with the simplest and most childlike objectives.
I hear Lewis Carole used to like photograph young girls in the raw, so I'm not sure how much he should be admired.
'I Choose to Live' I guess is just a horrific book. I read it in two days. I have to say I just can't imagine it suffice to say her description of the hidey hole in the cellar where the peadophile kept her in between 'his paces' that was the same rathole in which two girls had starved to death comes pretty much as close to a DIY incarnation of hell as I can imagine, like something out of Edgar Allen Poe's novels, you know the one where the guy chains up his friend and buries him alive behind a wall.
Sabine has reprints of letters she wrote to her family down the hole but omits the details of the rape she suffered (probably thankfully) as I don't think I could actually take reading it. It was something she endured for 80 days its a quick read and an important one I think, she's a year younger than me, that's fucking crazy.
She survived by standing up to 'the creep' shaming him, challenging him and repetatively demanding 'priveledges' like tooth brushes, clothes, coffee etc until he gave in.
She refers to herself as a stroppy madam. I don't really refer to the quality of having balls as a masculine quality as such. I like it because Selma Hayek who fills me with painful longings when asked by her mother when she was going to marry replied 'When I find a man with more balls than I do.' I use it in that mythical south american cajones sense as in "You got 'uge cajones padre"
I have male friends that I have derided with 'You have small, small balls.' and female friends that I offer really what amounts to my highest praise 'You've got balls' I try and use it independant of gender, just these mythical, metaphysical pair of testicles that are embodied in someones soul.
But take note! There was a book a bought a friend called 'You've Gotta Have Balls' that I bought a friend of mine (I think I already wrote about this in "Go Womyn") that she said wasn't any good and mostly about menopause. But I maintain that it was a best seller and the blurb had the following punch tastic punchy points:
Men Don't have arguements and hang up on the phone and not speak to each other for months
Men don't try and destroy eachother's career prospects in the workplace (which isn't true but they do tend to form blokey clubs and only compete when the advancement opportunities narrow down)
And several others of which I can't remember.
So what appealed to me? Admittedly masculine values in women have long been acknowledged in the term tom-boy and vice versa with the sensitive new age guy and the now all pervasive Metrosexual. The metrosexual that put us at risk of being overthrown by the subterranean crab people.
Admittedly testosterone in the media gets a shot in the arm every time a war brakes out and the obligatory coverage of redneck's telling us how cool their new 'anti-arab' (I probably shouldn't put that in quotation marks since I'm not quoting anyone) technology is.
But fact is there are 'manly' traits that should be shared between the genders and encouraged in general. It's hard to be clear about this, sexism really starts when you shove a useless My Little Pony in your daughters hands and a too cool transformer in your sons. The 'roles' that don't really exist but are merely reinforced by culture could be broken down. It would require a popular movement though as every boy who was into My Little Pony's turned out to be some kind of sexual miscreant, this can't be a stream of drops turning a bolder into a pebble over time kind of thing.
It needs to be enforced by Chairman Mao or something.
Anyway I like balls, there's nothing more attractive in a girl than metaphysical hairy boys, call it spunk if you like, or chutzpah, or integrity. I call it balls.
I mean they say you need balls to stand up to someone but nobody stands on testicles. They stand on feet which everyone has.
I think 8 in ten men (or 4 in 5 good work tom) would take a tomboy over a princess yet our society still produces girls that cry over broken nails, involuntarily sneer when taken to a shitty pub and generally of no use to anyone but stores trying to offload over priced shit. These princess' are portrayed as uppity bitches in every single teen movie and every other bit of western pop culture. Do girls just aspire to be this stereotype or does most of their energy get channeled into lying to themselves.
Anyway to demonstrate the disparity in the ideals I thought I'd include these lyrics from Lovage (featuring Mike Patton) the bold text is the female part but it identifies the simplicity of the male sexual ideal verses the many many roles projected on girls (I think to be honest this would have a cowboy and a pirate, possibly even a firemen but girls seem to have less choice in the sexual fantasy realm):
Sex (i'm a)

Dan, I need you now
Ok Mikey, come
Feel the fire
Feel my love inside you so bright

There's a sound and the smell of love on my mind
I'm a toy
Come and play with me, say work now
Wrap your legs
Around me ride me tonight
Sex, sex, sex

I'm a man
I'm a goddess
I'm a man
I'm a virgin
I'm a man
I'm a blue movie
I'm a man
I'm a bitch
I'm a man
I'm a geisha
I'm a man
I'm a little girl
I'm a man
And we'll make love together

Why does man go to hooker
First of all because
He quite often is not all that happy and sexual satisfied at home
His wife won't perform all the activities he has in mind
And most of all, oral sex is a taboo
The woman would say 'what do you think I am, a whore
I don't want to do that

Slip and slide when you're wet you like to feel the blood flow
Not to fast
Don't be slow my love's in your hands

I'm a man
I'm a boy
I'm a man
I'm you're mother
I'm a man
I'm a one night stand
I'm a man
I am a bi
I'm a man
I'm your slave
I'm a man
I'm a little girl
I'm a man
And we'll make love together

Most of them come to a hooker and say
My wife oh my wife is she dead in bed
She's frigid, cold as a starfish
They take off the pants
And their underpants
There's nothing more ridiculous than a guy with his party socks on
He dives into the bedroom
He says "Do me!", suck it !

Skin to skin
Honey hold tight
Come inside it's a passion play just for you
Let's get lost in the magic place alone now
Drink your fill from a fountain of love wet your lips

I'm a man
I'm a teaser
I'm a man
I'm a virgin
I'm man
I'm a one night stand
I'm a man
I'm a drug
I'm a man
I'm your slave
I'm a man
I'm a dream to find
I'm a man
And we'll make love together

I'm a man
I'm a goddess
I'm a man
I'm a hooker
I'm a man
I'm a blue movie
I'm a man
I'm a slut
I'm a man
Well i'm your babe
I'm a man
I'm a dream to find
I'm a man
And we'll make love together

We'll make love together
We'll make love together
We'll make love together
We'll make love together

Fuckin piece of shit
One little two little three little indians
Suck it firehose

Ghenghis Shmengis

Ghenghis Kahn makes me laugh. Documentaries like the one on SBS I saw last night make me angry and want to cry. More to the point they make me want to go to Texas, Ghengis style and conquer them and revel in giving lectures in Churches about how I am god's punishment sent to them for being so sinful.
Which is what Ghenghis used to do. He and his Golden Horde swept across Europe and south through China and India and the nomadic Khanate ended up becoming the worlds largest empire conquering most of the known world.
The pope in rome had always assumed Christianity ruled everywhere so he sent emissaries to Asia to have a chat with Prestor John, the Catholic Prestor they assumed ruled Asia.
People take so much for granted that I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where in one generation your culture can be brought to the knees of an entirely foreign culture.
A world where biggoted homophobic views might be crushed painfully under a bigger bully like Ghenghis Kahn, and the thing about Ghenghis was that he wasn't a bigger bully, mongolia didn't have and never has had the population to occupy and sustain an occupation of even China.
Most nations were simply subdued because the creativity and tactics of the Mongols where just far far superior.
Ghenghis set up an empire with true multiculturalism and his stance on religious practices wasn't tolerant it didn't have any qualms with any religion thus there were none it really had to tolerate.
The mongolian stance was 'There is but one god and many ways to worship Him' I don't think they were particularly PC.
Last night on this infuriating and disheartening documentary set in Luddon, Texas or some such backwater, a girl and a youth committee of some kind were trying to get proper sexual education brought in instead of the scaremongering pastor that ran a course called: 'Sexual Purity' about how abstinance was the only safe method of practicing sex and as such kids shouldn't even be taught about condoms, birthcontrol etc.
This pastor that ran the program and got all the kids to pledge they would maintain their sexual purity to their parents, god & their future wife or husband that they hadn't even met yet.
The arguements were weak and the program wasn't working given the statistical occurances of STD/STI and teen pregnancies and all that. Which doesn't surprise me at all.
The stats they were mouthing on 'the dangers of homosexual lifestyle...all cons no pros to homosexuality...most homosexuals die by the age of 40.' they probably do in Texas because they get murdered by members of God hates Faggots.
But this fucktard was talking about how Christianity and Liberal go together like oil and water, how christianity was the least tolerant religion in the world. Where do they get off mouthing pig ignorant shit like this.
The biblical references to homosexuality are flimsy at best, homophobia is a new phenomena that came in at some point past the prestige of homosexuality in some of the more successful empires and civilizations than current day, the greeks, the romans, the mongolians etc. homophobia has been introduced into Japan since the Meiji restoration. Samurai warrior code, Shintoism and Buddhism had nothing to do with it.
Furthermore Jesus' message was love and tolerance. The most awesome thing ever said by a priest was 'I can't believe that God would make a love that wasn't beautiful.' I don't believe in God at all, but tolerance (and it shouldn't even be tolerance, but out and out love) is a central Christian virtue isn't it.
All these priests and influential conservatives were argueing that condoms were only 87% effective (which is bullshit) and thus shouldn't be taught. But driving is dangerous and they weren't arguing to abstain from driving. They weren't arguing that fossil fuel usage could drastically shorten the life span of the entire human race.
I'm just sick of these offensive people existing. To discourage seiges Ghenghis Kahn used to cut off the ear of every vanquished citizen that put them under siege, whereas towns that submitted without resistence were alowed to continue on as ever so long as they now paid their taxes to the mongolian empire.
Christianity needs to show some appreciation to all the people in history who have allowed them to exist when they could have been crushed because they tolerated diverse opinions on religion, It is easy to forget that Christianity was a small struggling community on the verge of collapse until Emperor Constantine required every member of the Roman empire to be Christian by law.
Organisations like 'God hates faggots' should not be allowed to exist Jesus fucking Christ if that isn't using the lords name in vane.
Ghenghis Kahn was brutal, ruthless and the creator of biological warfare by catapulting plague infested corpses into cty walls (the black plague killed 1 in 3 Europeans). But he was funny too, in the smart arse sense, he imposed his rule on more people than ever has been but not his views and lifestyle choices. He is apparantly our most common ancestor, the definitive alpha male and sustained a unified empire (one that could have easily been overthrown in mass revolt) by allowing autonomy over religious beliefs, production and culture. All he asked was to eat off of plates made of pure gold and to have more wealth than was ever necessary.
Before he died Ghengis consulted a Shaman to see if there was any known means by which he could live forever, when the Shaman said it was a no go he resolved himself to drinking and being merry and let his faithful Batu go on conquering Europe.
The catholic church was on it's knees and france, germany, spainand britain were sure to fall, But Batu and forces had to withdraw due to the untimely death of Ghenghis. Could we possibly have missed out?
(I mean we obviously missed out on Communism thank god).

Condescend Me Mofo

Distinct above all others there is one subject matter of which I have absolutely no authority: drugs. I'd be a pussy to claim that caffeine and alcohol really make me an 'out there dude' as Hillsong would probably call it.
Fact of the matter is I haven't touched weed, e, speed or any of the other readily available shit available to teenagers and readily available to private school students. I'd never go speak to children about why they shouldn't take drugs or any of that shit. My own reasons for not taking them are that I got a schizophrenic blood relative and three of four of my friends using benign marijuana have managed to trip some kind of unbenign mental illness.
No what gets my nuts all choked up is when I'm at a party having to listen to someone talk down at me because I don't use fucking drugs. What a fucked up phenomena, I've never ever wanted to get any older or maturer and if I had my way I'd still be playing transformers in the park cept my friends all grew up. But seriously these people puffing out urine flavoured smoke at me smirking at me with their red bloodshot eyes because I'm so ignorant and a slave to the man just tick me off.
They tick me off because its just plain not impressive. Its not impressive, I don't mean that in a 'you're destroying your life' sense, fact is if somebody smoked a joint or popped a pill then picked up a paint pallet and did some out there Surrealist/Dadaist painting on a sharehouse wall, I'd be impressed. But thats not what happens, never, it never ever happens.
What happens is somebody asks me what I do:
'I'm a sales analyst.'
'What's that involve?'
'Forecasting, budgeting, customer satisfaction indexes.'
'Why do you do that?'
'I get paid to do it.'
'Do you find it interesting?'
'Yeah, it's a game like any other.'
'So you do it because you earn money?'
'Of course.'
'What is money? Why would you measure your life in terms of $?' (this is where they think they are going to blow my mind but aren't)
'Money has no inherant value in and of itself but can be used to obtain the benifits from the things that it buys.'
'So you think that you can buy happiness?'
'No I think I can spend some money on things I appreciate, I make me happy.'
'Do you know what it is to be poor?'
'Yes.'
'No you don't.'
'Yes I do.'
'Have you ever tried it?'
'Have you ever tried being dead?'
And so on and so fucking on. Fact is like a goth post 1997 it just isn't impressive. It just aint shocking. I did marketing and economics of course I've thought about all this shit. Most people do. I try to be as conscious as possible, you think you have extra insight because you work just enough shifts at KFC to support your drug habit and have read/talked to some other guy that has read a book on Zen Buddhism/Yoga/You fucking name it.
I just feel condescended too. I'm sure if we achieved mutual understanding I come across as a self righteous arsehole because I haven't used drugs, but the way I feel is that your parents must be major fucking squares if you think you are liberated by using drugs. I mean they universally impare brain functionality, your focus has to be narrowed not broadened. Of course I can't speak with authority because I've never tried a single drugs.
Sad fact is I know far less people who haven't tried drugs than people who have. You're not in the mind blowing minority, your in the majority. So don't look down on me for not seeking inspiration via perspective altering chemicals.
The only sensation I can compare it to is working in a call centre, after three days you lose all sympathy and love for old people and start picturing yourself dancing on a huge mass grave of them. Just like the sweet sensation of selling some stoners pawned guitar to an innocent third party even though you know they were going to buy it back that afternoon.
So there gauntlet thrown, blow my mind with a drug insight, blow my fucking mind!

The Greatest Blog Ever

I first met morley long after I first saw morley. When I first saw morley my first impression was 'He is an unfortunate looking guy' I went to International House and Morley was a white Australian from Brighton. Not exotic enough to waste my time on.
So it probably took me around several months before we wound up in a theatre sports team together, a theatre sports team the likes of which IH or in fact the entire college crescent ever saw again.
We were so good in rehersals we got word at a time story to work well on two seperate occasions. Morley has three or four facial expressions most of which he captures on his website which I have a fancy new link for on the left.
Morleys just one of those unrelenting arseholes. Someone I'd trust with money over my 'ethical' friends, possibly even a company although he did a joke degree called an entreprenuership (who cares how you spell it) and I've never heard a good business idea from him. He wanted to cash in on the boost juice phenomena by bottling juice and selling it in a supermarket. He spent an hour at lunch explaining the idea to me most of it involving a gesture with his fists that put me in mind of that 'one potato, two potato, three potato, four!' song.
Morleys the only person I know that has done a shit on an employers bathroom floor that I respect. I mean Morley was simply making a statement about the governments obstructionist stance on access to youth allowance and the mismanagement of the economy and devaluation of full time work that has lead to underemployment pressuring university aged students to take jobs in dingy call centres to support themselves on substandard wages. A comment summarised most poigniantly by shitting on his employers floor and if you don't see that there's something wrong with your brain.
When we lived together he would get drunk and bring home things like a tree from the park and stick it in a beer keg and throw some christmass lights on it and plug in my hallucinogenic Jesus and we'd have christmass cheer as it dropped leaves all over the living room of our share house.
He cooked rancid shit and put it in tupperware to decay for months on end.
He was the kind of guy people love from a safe distant. ONe that would expose a lefty socialist philosophers homophobia in front of people he was trying to impress with benevolance.
I say was but he still is. Still the same old arsehole. Yet like Chairman Mao many people love him. And here's why: Morley is a peoples champion. He took on Stupidity. Stupidity taking many forms but mainly house administration.
I remember fondly staying over night at my girlfriends at the time to avoid a 6am fire drill which was one of the two days a year you bothered signing out and I wrote the benign 'staying with a friend' which they couldn't refute or question it was the ultimate alibi to avoid an arbitrary $50 fine.
When I signed in the next day I noticed they'd highlighted morleys excuse 'gone to circus' those dumb skinbags would have been tearing their hair and having a crisis meeting to try and figure out how to fine him.
And they fined him often for expressing opinions and undermining their relationship with University of Melbourne.
He set up 'the globe' which rather than being a theatre was a paper that actually allowed people to write shit about races at IH they disliked, house policy and gossip and to pay out ping pong players and lan gamers.
And IH admin hated him for it all, in fact I couldn't possibly summarise what a personal Jesus morley is to me. Except for the fact that I constantly look down on him. But it's mutual he reads this blog and says my parents either didn't hug me enough or beat me enough.
He's dead on the inside, but I still love him.

Square Fucking One

So I had the remnants of a self saucing pudding for breakfast and wondered what kind of metaphor it could be for my life. But it was just a shitty too sweet pudding that I couldn't be bothered reheating properly.
I'm at a loss at the moment, you've gotta be hooked on someone I believe and right now I'm in limbo land. I feel all this energy wasting that should be dedicated to the pursuit of woman, like when you turn on the heater and the airconditioner at the same time.
I am buying/recieving a drumkit. I want to sign up for swing dancing lessons, I'm still teaching a refugee english and doing my bike group thing and I'm back at Uni. I am plenty busy. Busy enough to make a half arsed effort at everything. I am fucking glad not to be at work today although at the time of writing this I'd probably be looking forward to getting home. Cept I have uni on a monday night and I've got that off also.
My ex is gone, gone from the country and out of my glorious hair. I've left enough hints around the blog now that you can probably figure out who she is. Mixed feelings, I'd be lying if to say there wasn't some sense of relief insofar as its always hard to hang around someone you've seen naked and don't get to anymore. We ought to Hi-5 though as I think we managed to make a silk purse out of a sack of shit there. We always were better than other couples at everything we did even breaking up in messy circumstances.
Brunswick does feel empty though and in three days my diet has gone to shit I probably gained like 7 kilos this weekend.
I gave up on the last girl I was pursuing too all in the space of a week so I've got all this energy. All this energy and no drumkit. Fucking Allens was closed as well fucking public holidays, can't get strings for my bass guitar. I don't fucking get 9-5 what an archaic concept. Most people work 9-5, banks and retail stores open 9-5 while most people are at work. Internet banking is a godsend and I realise banks do more business with businesses in dollar values than people that's okay. But retail? You guys fucking know you do most of your business on a weekend. Why not just open till 7.30. Rock up at 11 fuck. How many musicians are going to walk into a store at 9AM fucking 0! thats how many. Maybe a mum to buy some cello music for her little shit.
Mind you bass guitarists and drummers are stretching the whole 'musician' title anyway. They generally sneak past as a 'muso'. Drummer jokes are shit and always have been.
So I feel like I've been dumped but I've done it alone. What is this headspace that I can only describe as 'space'? Generally when there's something lacking in my life I fill it with muffins. No muffins for this though.
Its been a magical 8 month journey through dumpseville and I feel I emerged triumphant because I make absolutely everything into a contest. A winner relative to other people I know. Getting dumped is hard guys but you got a two-three month window where people will be sympathetic then you gotta grow some balls and move on or you go from 'Poor John' or 'Poor Trisha' to 'Creepy John' and 'Headcase Trisha' when my brother entered year two of his grieving his one and only girlfriend he had managed to alienate and drive nuts all his closest friends because he was still analysing a whole 'girl hes just not that into you' dumping he recieved and I put on my best whine and said to him 'my house burnt down. What happened to it? It was such a great house? Do you think its coming back? Maybe I can build something out of the ashes? What happened? It burnt down?...' and went on like that for about half an hour in a circle he took the hint. I forget how he pulled himself out of that rut but he reckons he found a girl for me, so he's a good brother.
Balls are everyones best friend though.
So I feel I should go out on a big self improvement trip. It is always consistent with my path of heiho. And play the waiting game I guess. I actually bought Hungry Hungry Hippoes because of that simpson's line and poor naive me thought I was simply playing the waiting game. Worst $35 I ever spent but it gave me a whole new appreciation of how funny that simpsons line is. Hungry hungry hippoes is entertaining for about 32 seconds.

What I look like

I thought I'd try out the good old descriptive exercise, you know for posterity. I don't have a digital camera and have access to very little recent photo's of me. I'm sure what I think I look like differs greatly from what I actually look like to other people. Sorry if this blog sounds like an RSVP personal.
I'm 5'9" or roughly 179cm but I don't look it if I'm standing next to a short person or a tall person. I got a pretty elongated face with thick lips and a big nose, thick eyebrows and alcoholic red cheeks. I got brown hair and red facial hair and grey, greenish blueish eyes that are full of holes in the iris if you look real close. my hair is just touching my shoulders now. I have a lip goatee (or cl$# tickler colloquially)that I have had from the begginning of facial hair and through my various stylings have never ever shaved off.
I got poxy upper arms and hairy fore arms. Round my neck I wear a curtain cord from my year 11 econimics classroom held together with a lttle pink rubber hairtie. I got chest hair with some acne scars from when it first blossomed. I have man boobs (very small cup size) and my nipples are outies. I got a bit of a gut too and a snail trail.
In 2001 I took a job with a sales team and had a conversation with the crew about trimming pubes and shaving them off. Chris said 'What's good for the goose is good for the gander.' and full of adolescent curiosity I trimmed all my pubes off that night and have hacked them away ever since. I got standard male genitals.
My feet have been described as perfect hobbit feet. I'm a 9&1/2 which means stores always have my shoesize in store.
I have pretty meaty legs from running and cycling. My arse is my best asset. My hands are small I have two of those charity rubber wrist bands that you pay $2 for 5c worth of rubber making a $1.95 donation but with the advantage of letting everyone know you did (and I guess the charity gets advertising space). My left hand the good one has a massive callous just below the little finger from cycling. I wear a slave bracelet that sits over the stretched blue plastic from inside a coke bottle lid. The coke bracelet was given to me by a sweet girl called Haley who was in year 9 when I was in year 12, it's gone clear and bits have broken off but it stays on my wrist.
I wear a thumbring that's a little oversize silver like the slave bracelet and engraved 'fors jurat andentes' you gotta have balls. I trim all my nails back so theres never any white bits and I have some scars from where my first dog bit me.
I generally wear the t-shirt shorts combination round the house and shirt tie and pants to work. I try to shave every day. I leave it about two days a week.
So there you go. Uninformative disclosure.

A World Without Subtlety or Tact

He entered the room, brushing his ratty locks out of his eyes. As he surveyed the inhabitants of the room there eyes met. He made his way across the grey floor closing to a comfortable right angle. ‘Hey.’ He says. ‘Hey.’ He says back. In fact ‘Hey’ is the only thing anyone says on the Utopia that is planet guy.
Planet guy was not a homosexual dig but an asexual planet that existed on the cover of my Year 11 note book. I’d figured out the whole eco-system. Biodiversity was out. There were guys all looking like me with a scraggy mop of hair, goatee and white shirt black shorts. They reproduced like bacteria, asexually. They only said hey and lacking any motivation to impress anyone wandered around the plains of Planet Guy eating food and saying ‘Hey’
This is where I need to be at. I’ve been single almost 7 months now. I have no idea how the whole dating scene works. None. All these signals and hints I’m meant to pick up. I spent 5 months rebuilding my esteem from scratch and now when a girl diddles her hair in a certain way or mentions something about something and that means your in but then you get kicked in the head and have to find a new social circle. I just don’t get it. I need to rub myself in meat and just hope the carnel instincts take over.

The Perfect Stranger Myth

Safety pins are not so safe, my satin boxers lost the button on the fly a long long time ago. A safety pin would appear to fix everything but with my tossing and turning at night more than likely stab me in the genitals, and that would hurt.
A random thought but an appropriate analogy.
My hair has hit that shitful zone were it's just too short to tie back too long to look good prettied up. I mean I can tie it up but it's like a painful tumor at the top of my skull once I tuck all the skanky bits in.
So I was looking for all the elastics my sister brought back from Japan for me just before I spontaneously cut all my hair off last time. Problem is I have a million little Japanese gift bags cramed into every crack of my room filled with origami phalluses, beads, old old japanese candy, bookmarks, letters in broken english and not a fucking one with a hairtie elastics in it.
But I found something so much better! My wife, that is to say the answer to all my problems. I am of course kidding, but that is to say I wasn't thrilled to find a little slip of 4 x 2 print club stickers of me squating down on the brink of falling over next to the...(i think the difference in height was 27 cm from memory) 142 cm/4'7" japanese beauty Yoko Kimura, my perfect stranger.
I met Yoko in 2000-2001 summer which was winter at Seijoh High School. I don't know how it happened I really can't recall but I ended up alking to this girl with canine teeth that stuck out at right angles to her other teeth so her upper lip curled over them. She had eyes like a cat and otherwise was pretty much a run of the mill asian, you know silky black hair and olive complexion almond eyes blah blah blah smelt like rice and fish. (I'm kidding yoko)
A comment like that would solicit a severe beating which entailed the most hesitant slap you ever saw in your life that landed on my forearm with all the severity of a butterfly with food poisoning enduced dehydrated giddiness.
She could do no wrong and I knew not a fucking thing about her. She was yet another stomper and she wore these cute plastic green slippers that many of my associates would recognise from my wanderings around IH often accompanying my fluffy bogan raver shorts.
I still more often than not refer to her as my wife as I used to write home to mum and pop to say I'd knocked up this Japanese girl and now was getting married, which would have been funnier if it had actually happened.
So what this is pretty self indulgent Tom, you fuck, pretty boring to read. It was just a fixation a projection of my fantasy that I could cut my ties and shirk my responsibilities to the people who'd made me to live in fantasy land (japan is not fantasy land). Yoko has played a tremendously important role in my life and an entirely fictitious one. She gets me high, every time over the past 5 years I recieved a scrap of correspondance I'd be pretty giddy for days. When I was having a shit time of things I'd email her or write to ask her advice.
She was lovely too, she'd write such sweet things and such overprotective condescending (but genuinely innocent) advice to me that whether by the time I recieved it was of any use to me at all it was still touching and helped me keep perspective (ironically) on the bigger picture.
I read that infidelity often arises from a partner getting bored with their own life and creating a perfect stranger out of a perfect stranger setting themselves up for dissapointment (as you don't deal with your actual problems) and it truly is a situation where everyone gets hurt. Yoko is my perfect stranger even though every time I've seen her I've been heinously single AND I've never managed to get any action out of that due to my complete stupidity/lack of confidence in reading the signs (more on that later) and further more because I've often thought the key to my struggle for personal integrity is that I don't trust myself and I actually find Yoko as an unobtainable fantasy is more useful to me than pursuing an unrealistic relationship with no common language and no common interests (she wants to be an interior designer) smokes and likes shitty psuedo R&B music.
Yet when she drives me around town on her yellow booster cushion to help her see over the dashboard my face burns hot. I have an undeniable chemical response that if you read the white masai (don't) would be romantic if I decided to quit my job, my family, my country and move in with her.
But chemicals are just that. I was sitting in a park with my best friend a couple of weeks back and he put it beautifully 'You have emotional relationships and sexual relationships' but between us it was one of those half full half empty situations. He was saying you start a new relationship and its sexual, which I agree with and then over time the sexual side diminishes and it becomes emotional, which I also agree with, and then you still need the sexual side so you should then pursue a new sexual relationship. Which I agree with also but its a tradeoff and a bad one. And you have fucking choices too.
There is no surer path to misery than BLINDLY following your emotions, and we had civilised arguements over the likely hood of people actually being okay with being cuckholded and the true value of an emotional relationship. I can tell you that love and sex are complimentary but two different things. I like to have sex all the time, my rule and maybe it's a loser one is that I wouldn't have sex though if the act of sex was more important to me than the person it was with.
Yoko makes my face burn yes, she can give me three day giddies with a simple letter about what she's been up to. But we have nothing in common, we can't support eachother in any meaningful way and we don't think in the same language nor do I appreciate what she really believes in (tinkerbell and interior design [well actually I do appreciate it]) it's fun but its shallow.
I'd rather have a mate that was a mate in the true sense of the word (or maybe in the colloquial sense) who I can share a laugh and just chill with rather than magical feelings for no reason.
But still I found this little set of photo stickers and it made me pretty happy. Its really just a good luck charm that happens to be a walking talking human being. I lost touch with her over the last year I always send her a birthday card. But last time I was in Japan she had just finished year 12 (and I was in 2nd year uni but she's a month older than me I don't get it) and was waiting to hear her results to see if she got into interior design. I went to a shinto shrine on one of my morning runs, I have a lot of time for shinto, like native american beliefs everything in the natural world has gaurdian spirits whom you can pray to, Japan itself is holy land and you can go to shrines, clap your hands and throw some coins in a box. I ran into this shrine, I had no money so I promised I'd spend 3 months in service to a shrine if she got into her course. A deal with the kami I intend to fulfill but I never heard if she did or not. If anyone knows I'll get round to it I promised after all.

Flip flop yo!

I have a biological sister who is very dear to me. But by far the most precious person to enter my life from afar was my adoptive sister Madoka. In year 12 I was single, horny and studying Japanese VCE 3/4 I'd been to Japan and liked what I saw and was looking forward to hosting a Japanese girl for two months. Our entire class eagerly awaited the day when we got our student profiles with pictures.
I walked into school said morning to find my good mate Brenton standing there with a grin on his face and papers in his hand. He handed me over my student profile and I stared dumbly at the coke bottle glasses and overbite on this person called madoka. The photo was extra unflattering because it had been photo copied and then faxed over making the complexion look pock marked with black welts.
I thought some trickery was afoot, maybe Brenton had given me his student and was trying to pull a fasty on me. He showed me his which he described as 'not much better' and he was right. It seemed the savy Liz had decided to give Brenton and I the two girls that we were least likely to deflour in the hay being Balifornian self serving arseholes.
For the record I'd like to complain once again that I'm tired of the black sheep reputation I aquired because I talk the talk of being a prize arsehole. Maybe I am to blame for talking the talk but at the time I didn't drink at all, I still haven't touched a cigarette, I never pushed myself on any girls, I didn't vandalise, shoplift or hang out with kids from Damascus, I ran five times a week was captain of a house and to all external appereances concentraiting on my studies. So why had Liz felt this extra measure of chastity was necessary? Why liz why? Brenton and I were actually amongst the most chivalrous pussies in our year level. Did it have something to do with the fact we drew penises on every unattended piece of property in the common room, library or staff room? I guess I'll never know.
Liz crashed and burned on Brentons because Shizuka turned out to be the most stunning in the flesh, but Madoka still had glasses and buck teeth. Being over competitive the angle I'd decided to take was 'fuck them, fuck those fuckers, Im the coolest person in the Japanese class, one of the coolest persons in the school, everyone else is going to be jealous of Madoka and I nip or whitey it won't matter, we're going to have the best time and prove we are the coolest.' it was kind of like she's all that except no makeover.
I went in hard and introduced myself and stuck out my hand which she shrank back from and yelled out 'Kowai, kowai!' which means 'ahhg scary.' she had forgotten we white people also spoke Japanese. We had a relatively silent ride home. Then I took her round my house introduced her to bess my dog, showed her my studio art paintings, played some bass guitar for her and let her settle into her room. The whole GT she just clapped her hands and said 'kakoii kakoii!' which means 'cool, cool' which was a positive sign. We walked to school together every day. I made her lunch occais\ionally and drew her pictures all the time. I taught her Aussie slang that was pure bullshit, including the ultra cool greeting 'flip flop yo!' (see diagram below) that transformed us from regular shitty host brother/sister relationship into ultra cool club. I also told her the cool way to say goodbye was 'catch.' just catch no 'catch you' just catch.
My friends remarked at how much I was abusing her cultural ignorance. But that wasn't the case. Plain simple fact was, Madoka was the coolest. The easiest to get along with, she was outgoing once she warmed up, smoked cigarrettes was into punk rock, would sleep through classes, skip classes to go to 7-eleven. Liked to gossip, was intelligent and observant. She was sensitive. And by ganging up on Shizuka and Keiko we both grew in self esteem. I remember when Shizuka and Keiko (who were incredibly hot) asked me who I liked better out of the two of them and I refused to back down on saying Madoka was by far my favorite they were so pissed off it was sweet.
She also had those adorable triggers I love so much to exploit, like I could get her angry and she'd stomp her foot and shake her fists it was so sweet. I tried to get her angry every day using my old circular talk techniques. And of course I have a gift, my gift is guess who, I win 9 times out of ten even though its meant to be one of those games that everyone can enjoy. I dominate, I crushinate. I can stare directly into someones soul and know exactly who they have. I have never found a way to transfer these amazing abilities of mine into a useful context but Madoka was as competitive as I was and got so angry when ever she had figured out who I had and even if I still had ten or twelve options left would come from behind and guess hers straight out. She even sniggered once before I'd asked my first question so I knew she had picked Tom who is balled with glasses and I won the game before she even got to ask one question.
I went to stay with Madoka at her house and met her family. Ironically a year after the graduated Madoka ended up the hottest out of the exchange group by virtue of not being a bitch, not dying her hair an unwholesome orange colour, not smoking twenty cigarettes in 20 minutes, having huge acryllic nails and being rake thin.
She actually hadn't changed much at all. She had on display the $2 target thongs I wrote my farewell messages on and the pictures I drew her. She still knew all the slang I taught her and would rattle it off to me. Her family was awesome too. She was just as bad a morning person as she'd ever been my cheery greatings were still met with a dark glare from behind dishevelled glasses. But I got to see just how awesome Madoka was, I got to go to school with her.
She had had a falling out with her best friend because she'd cut her lunch. When I explained the morality and rules of lunch cutting to her she almost wept and threatened to commit ritual suicide. When I saw her best friend though I realised this girl had laid a territorial claim so unrealistic it would have been to the poor guys detriment if madoka hadn't cut her lunch.
She also took me to her volunteer work at an old peoples home for war veterans and the like and it remains my best Japanese experience because they kept calling me 'white shit' or something which Madoka kept apologising for but I just found highly amusing. It was the first time I'd met anybody who wasn't religious (like me) that actually helped out in the community.
Her dad was awesome too, he would keep taking days off work to drive me to all these places around the country and we'd rock out in the car to Cream, Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix. He was such a cool guy and I may have triggered a midlife crisis in him. I fucken hate j-pop and this guy had the same music taste as my dad.
It was truly a home away from home.
The first time Madoka left I called brenton because I was so phenomonally depressed. I think it was the first time I had set my judgemental nature aside and actively tried to build someones self esteem. And it worked on me too. I think Madoka is still probably the single best thing I've done in my life. I am so proud of everything she's achieved to date. coolness.

Geomancy

Maths is far more exciting than how it is taught. I always thought math teachers liked it because it was definite and therefore simple unlike the arts which is subjective and obscure therefore difficult. As such I found it interesting that maths teachers were always so proud of how undeviating their minds were.
Lewis Carol writer of Alice’s adventures in wonderland was a deviant and a mathematician though known for his work on matrices. Yet it never gets mentioned in all the studies of mathematics I was forced to endure throughout my highschool years. In fact in maths the marketer came out in me where I had to determine probabilities of receiving Pamala Anderson and Kurt Kobain trading cards and I failed a section by suggesting that they were targeting mutually exclusive demographics this far after the event s of 1994 and that demand would plummet anyway skewing the probabilities (which is wrong anyway) and you should never slap down a maths teacher who is trying to be cool.
Later on I concluded I struggled in maths because it was boring. So I went to the library and looked for some reading on it. There was just about none and most of it was very dry but I thought the greek mathematicians ought to be interesting. Pythagoras is the biggest nut of all time. Apart from being particularly spectacular at triangles and trigonometry he was leader of a cult at odds with Jesus Christs movement. He had forebade beans eating, sleeping on sheets and masturbation. The used the pentagram as their symbol as it naturally forms the golden ratio (this was sacred knowledge contained for the cults benefit and became a heretic symbol now worn by loser Goths at flinders st station).
Des Cartes namesake of the Cartesian plane came up with the metaphysical proof ‘I think therefore I am’ which remains the closest evidence produced by anyone that reality exists. He also argued that the properties of god similar to the mathematical properties of a triangle meant that if he can conceive of a triangle it exists, and he can conceive but not envision a chilliagon though he knows it exists then by extension god must exist which remains as flimsy a proof as it was then.
I’ve been trying to read Goedel, Escher, Bach an eternal Golden Brain to show my housemate I am interested in whatever it is he does. It’s interesting although there isn’t enough sex and violence in the narrative to really draw me in just a toirtoise and Achilles who simmer with unwholesome sexual tension and manage to talk down at me. But still they show as most evident in Bach and Eschers work what cool shit can be done by mathematics. Yet we study logs, parabolas, exponentials and derivatives. Goedel probably isn’t tought because he proved that under any formal number system their will be equations that can’t be proven or solved such as root 2 which caused Archimedes to pull his own head off. Or the elusive but tasty pi.
I heard someone say that philosophy in it’s purest form is mathematics, but I’m always wary of people who talk about purity, they’re either dumb naïve fucks who drink bottle water at 800% mark up full of ‘purefying chemicals’ that destroy natural springs thinking that Melbourne water is bad like Mexico Cities water. Or they are the type of guy that stalks girls and then get psychotically distressed when they go on a date compromising their ‘purity’ but then go home and watch german porn over the internet every night.
So Again maths could be interesting because some really strange people have looked at really strange concepts over the years. Geomancy is the belief in the magical properties of mathematics its kind of like feng shui but reserved for complete wankers.

Creativity?

For a couple of days I’ve been lacking inspiration. I’m back at uni that’s reassuring but dull. Phenomonouly dull and I don’t want to just rehash my lectures you know like a free education or something. So lacking inspiration I thought I’d do something incredibly dull and talk about creativity.
I don’t think I’m terribly creative as in inspiration doesn’t come to me magically from outer space and pops into my head and I create a paperclip that can hold together a phone book etc.
I just sit around and watch a lot of tv, dvds and read a lot of books then borrow other peoples ideas and putting them together in a way that is hopefully not recognisable to anyone in the audience who then calls me a hack.
Even with the painting there’s Freudian symbols and geometry that you can through together to create an ‘inspired’ composition. Clocks, sun + moon, trains, giraffes, musical instruments, waterfalls, cacti, seagulls, circles, triangles, parralalograms, rombusus etc. they’re all good just chuck them in a desert or some kind of landscape and viola you have a surrealist composition.
So if inspiration isn’t Devine where’s it fucking come from? My marketing lecturer said that it can be taught and as far as I can discern he’s right. It tends to be something that is either encouraged or discouraged and that has more to do with the way parent’s dress than a childs actual ability in pursuits creative.
The fundamental origin of all creative pursuits are ‘why?’ the question, I love Yoko Ono even though most people don’t because they blame her for something to do with the beatles being ugly I guess, anyway I love the story of how she walked into a room one time and tried to sit in every possible way you could on a chair whether it was lying between the legs or on her stomach across the seat or sitting on the back until she finally conceded that sitting on the seat of the chair facing forwards was the most comfortable way to sit on a chair. I mean it would have been a miracle if she discovered we all could be much more comfortable.
Mercedes invented their world class suspension by having an engineer ask why a circle was used as the basic shape and not a square. The answer is obvious really you’d get a really bumby ride so the engineer then created a suspension system that countered this and they started using it on all their cars.
Why is democracy good? Why do men have short hair and women have long hair? Why do women give birth lying on their back? Why are people with high pitched voices so annoying?
It does work it’s the difference between the kid that colours the sky in blue because the sky is blue and the kid that draws the sky purple because they ask ‘why is the sky blue? What would it be like if it was purple?’ like Billy Madison’s explanation ‘I drew a blue duck because, I’ve never seen a blue duck and I wanted to see a blue duck.’ If only you did need to make that revelation to pass the second grade but yet we encourage the belief that some people are creative and others aren't.
Left handed people are liars and worthy of distrust.