what do i look like a comedian?

So morley decides to tell me what comedy is all about huh? well he probably should, he's the one betwixt the two of us that gets up there and does it. Infact I couldn't really find much to bring up to argue with the points he made on his site, half way through I thought I'd trump him with the Andy Kaufman arguement, now there was a man who was much less a comedian than an artist, Man on the Moon is such a great fucking film everyone should see it if you don't know who Andy Kaufman is.
Essentially Andy Kaufman was Yoko Ono who got confused for Steve Martin. The really amazing thing about Kaufman is he could economically sustain himself. He did some things that were funny but you couldn't say why, he did other things in his acts that were deliberately boring, offensive and generally designed to fuck with the audiances head. I wouldn't call him a comedian or a comic because essentially at the end of the day it was all to entertain him. It was all about the reaction, you know like agreeing to be a party clown for the bosses kid's party and then just turning up at yourself and informing the kids that Ronald McDonald is dead.
For the record my post which is the second one before this one, wasn't meant to drag out into a big thing on comedy but rather was about the freedom of art. At no point did I suggest it was economically viable. Infact the great thing about the 21st speeches I cited as examples of things I enjoy is that they had a captive audiance.
I've had one experience at Standup when I was 16 and I know when you are starting out a) you ca't pick your audiance, and they don't know you. You may wanna hit them with some political satire but they just want some Rodney Rude pissas.
b) you don't have long, there's simply not the room to fuck with the audiance, you've got an MC deciding to the side of you whether they think you're funny or not and they get paid to cut your act short and rescue the dying crowd.
c) in Australia hamish and andy's idea of 'policies week' has about as much irony and inventiveness as you can get away with in a commercial setting (which is more or less none at all)
I guess the thing that frustrates me most is people I regard as having talent, going pro and ending up with less talent. I got a few friends I've tried to collaborate with over the years in whatever context and been disgusted as they tone themselves down, imitate the proven formulas and manage to take all there potential and everything unique they have to offer and bin it.
By the same token most often the ones that are pushing the boundaries in my experience are the ones that simply cant pull it off because of a distinct lack of talent. These people are easy to recognise by the words used to describe them 'kooky, zany etc.' and always recommended by the friends that press their lips to your arsehole.
I will say this, I watched the insight special on Australian values and they did real in some comics to contribute to the discussion. Now a lot of people contributing cited an Australian value as 'willing to have a laugh at ourselves' or 'take the piss out of ourselves' which is true in the form of the cultural cringe which probably defines the most succesful comedians of recent times the Dave Hughes' and going back to our most successful export Dame Edna Everage.
But anyone who has travelled has probably experienced the very specific conditions we place on 'taking the piss out of ourselves' namely that other contries have views and perceptions of Australia that our own media run propaganda doesn't capture. The most poigniant example being the Simpson's Trip to Australia.
I guess most people were expecting something like the Sydney Olympic opening, portraying our beautiful cities, our unique artists and our diverse culture. But it wasn't the case, Australia was portrayed as a backward paddock nation full of cheap crap and convicts.
The point I would make is that Australian's don't like to have the piss taken out of them at all. Only stuff we aren't insecure about. Ignorant bogan opinions are funny because they give us a sense of superiority. But when Paul Keating says something hilariously insightful like 'Australia is in danger of becoming a bananna republic' we don't find ourselves laughing and infact bottle it up and vote in a bitter vindictive government to fuel the denial.
And that's probably what I really like in comedy. I mean it's hard to stand up in front of an audiance, it makes you feel like you got real small balls. But it's even harder to show everyone you have real small balls. Not many people truly expose it all and in comedy and art brutal honesty is where people take it to the next level. Where there's more going on in your head than the 'that's funny' response. I use to have an idea of taking a photo of my dick and balls and general scrotum area and getting it printed onto the front of some white shorts I could wear around. I hope imagine some would have found that funny, some clever, some disgusting, some stupid. That's art.
If you want to make a living doing comedy, by all means please the crowd by whatever means necessary. When you make a name for yourself. Like Andy Kaufman, people like me can pay to go see you because we have expectations, as opposed to a crowd in some comedy club that don't know you and aren't a captive audiance.
I might be 1 in 100 that would enjoy going to a theatre and there not being a play on and I wish in Oz there where places that did shit like that. There probably are please post if you know of any.
So that's that, is it comedy, is it art?

Vinsanity

Today I got introduced to the new girl in logistics, I was introduced as tohm to her and I forgot her name the moment it was said, something I'm getting better and better at doing. Something I'm getting sick of doing is explaining what I do. The dude from logistics showing the new girl around didn't know what I do, and I had to step in and articulate for him, I do whatever the Sales Manager, Director or Assistant to the Director tell me to do and failing that, whatever I want to do. That's right try having 5 bosses yourself and telling people what you do. You'll never manage. But it's actually how I prefer to work, any given day I can switch betwixt three departments and work autonomously on anything I want. Which would work even bettter if my 5 bosses didn't assume I was busy. This means most of the time they bypass me and get some other shitkicker to do the work I could do in half the time and to a higher standard (on account of me spending half the time on it).
Anyway that being said two things happen in September for me. Work get's busy, it get's really busy. Season hits and I find myself running three sales campaigns whilst having to explain all the random campaigns to the accounts departments and then having to come up with reports to determine if the campaigns actually do anything. It's a roundabout way to work, unfortunately people expect me to do all the busy work I do to fill in the winter months. cept I don't work overtime because I want to live a life that has balance and doesn't revolve around work. As such I foster stuff to do outside of hours. So inexplicably like a wall of flaming fire I find myself busy from go to fucken woe.
I'm not complaining it's good to go to work and look at the clock three times: once at 10 when the reports should update, next time at 12 when I realise I should go to lunch and the last time at 4:55 when I pack up my desk ready to go home.
But tonight is a night off, I just have to repair a slow leak in my bike tyre. I;m determined to do nothing else. And that's unusual for a Tuesday but Zaman gave me Ramadan off our lessons.
So that's it tonight I'm going to do, fucken nothing and I'm gonna love it. Just park on the couch and watch some TV.
fuck yeah.

you are Art

Starting the zine has been a cathartic experience for me. Sure writing scripts is a creative outlet, but it's also fucking work too, I mean with TV scripts there's a shape you have to fit it too. Furthermore if you want your script to see the light of day you have to bring other people in.
A story though. At Bryce's 21st he had arranged for me to speak, and the line up was the delightful spud and then shon-shon and me the bum to cap it off. So we were all huddled in a corner and Spud made a speech that I thought could not be beat, it was basically a list of inside jokes that was three pages long. One could have assumed they were prompting notes of amusing incidents except spud forgot to elaborate on any of them so it ended up having all the impact of a brownlow vote tallying (surely the worlds least captivating night of television) it was all '...Jenny Peters, yes we all remember Jenny Peters...and the Eric Clapton phase, who remembers that...' but nobody did or if they did it would be like 1 in the list of 20 that Spud read out. I thought it was just fucking awesome for a speech. I laughed all through it.
Shona's speech was actually good in the sense that people who would have thought spud's speech was incromprehensible and poorly planned would think Shona's was charismatic, natural and entertaining and I have to agree, it was enjoyed by all. I did much the same only I waffled for about 20 minutes and then sat down.
Then a girl got up and made a speech better thn Spud's infact it was pretty much the best speech ever. It was shamelessly sycophantic and emotional and intense. I think all present were uncomfortable and it was entirely out of left field. There were tears from the speaker who declared Bryce 'my soulmate' and the clarifying statement 'some people say Bryce is an artist, but that's not true Bryce is art'
It was the fucking best.
In theatrical terms it would be called absurdist. These two phenomanally different speeches betwixt which lay two relatively normal speeches.
Now as Bill Cosby would say 'I told you that story so I could tell you this one...et the pudding', Morley got screwed over a couple of weeks back and I was talking to him on messenger yesterday about being a comedian which is pretty much an entreprenuership anyway but I was talking about gig's I would enjoy and one was just to go to a comedy club and see morley talk about his failed relationship* in an outburst so depressing in it's intensity and so fucking emo and out of control it is enjoyed by nobody, I would love to see that. It smacks of performance art something I keep telling people I am at parties.
Another one was to book into a club frequented by African Americans and being white just copy Dave Chappelle's material including gratuitous use of the 'n' word. I mean it would most likely be dangerous to health but I would see the amusing irony in removing the irony from the racially charged humour those guys use. In fact you wouldn't even have to have Afro-americans in the audiance it would just probably be better to be hated for it than have some fucking rednecks in the audiance agreeing with you.
That's the end of the second story that went nowhere and I told yous them because art that I enjoy is usually not enjoyable by the masses, and by masses I mean people whose year sounds like this 'From April to June I watched big brother, then from July to now I've been watching Australian idol' in that I like art where stuff isn't immediately apparant, where the artist likes to fuck with you by telling a long story that doesn't go anywhere.
Like my dream of being invited to be key note speaker at my old highschool one day and telling a joke for 20 minutes then sitting down without delivering anything remotely resembling a punch line.
At ryla a dude called AB apparently on the bus I wasn't on spent a bus trip explaining the rules of a game they were going to play to help pass the bus trip but the explanation of the rules ran for the duration of the bus trip and the game was never played. That's fucking hilarious.
My 'zine aint like that but it's the fact that art is at it's fundamental level undefinable and thus devoid of any rules that makes it so liberating. So I guess you can say that a tv script is and isn't art.
My zine for me though is along the same lines as this blog. It's about not hiding, in a sense it will be one long uncomfortable 21st speech. Except it will make less sense, be full of inside jokes and furthermore it will be illustrated.
I've been doing a lot of research into the drawing aspects of the illustration because for the first time in a long time I'm actually trying to push myself to a higher level. Having said that I found this site called cgfocus looking for pictures of the maxx's Mr.Gone and like youtube wasted an hour jumping from folio to folio. I also noticed on Harvard's site he has all these links to artists and I thought.
That's a whole side I almost never show about myself these days, my artistic influences. Probably because I haven't done anything artistic in So long. I'll revamp the fucken blog soon though. Promise.
Anyway, so there's this Police officer standing on a corner and it's his first day on the job. He's thinking of the instructions given to him: you are on duty for four hours, you can patrol four square blocks from the center of williams st & david street. Every hour you must complete your parol twice and you can stop for coffee if you like. Oh and one more thing don't give any kids any change for the wishing well.
The last instruction had the police man perplexd particularly since he was not told why. Anyway his first walk around the blocks passes without incident and he splits a 5 dollar note at a coffee stand. He walks around the block again for the second time that hour and buys a bagel, he's thinking about whether he will do enough walking to counter all the fat he's putting on in his new post when an old lady asks him to help find her car.
The lady is obviously a little deranged but he walks with her nicely as she inspects every white car to see if it is hers. Eventually the cop get's a call over the radio, apparantly the old ladies husband is looking for her as she wandered off while a kid was asking him for change.
Anyway the old couple are reunited and the policeman sits down by a fountain. He is only sitting there for a minute when a kid says 'excuse me sir, can I have some change to throw in the wishing well?' and the policeman says 'what wishing well?' and the kid says 'this fountain, if you throw coins in and make a wish it might come true, I wanna make a wish but I don't have any coins.'

*my councillour said a failed relationship is not the failure of a person.

Simplicity

Last night I was meant to go out on a bachelour's night, not a bachelour party but just to go out and try and pick up women at random bars, sort of like doorknocking. And you know that's like a one off event for me and my social circle rather than every friday night. I was kind of looking forward to it because most of the time I don't see the point to going out and having a good time by spending money in various bars. But if you put a shitty premise on it like a competition (pub crawl) or some faux cultural event (st patricks day) I love it.
Anyway nothing happened so instead I switched on the Fremantle vs Sydney game. Now as a Carlton supporter this year I have kept myself emotionally distant. I can still pump my fist when I see eddie betts sneak a goal that has to be goal of the year but on the whole I locked my heart up from the battering it would recieve and have watched close to no fucking games this year.
So tohmmy-come-lately switches on during the preliminary finals. I was watching the melbourne games because my housemate Liam supports them but now they are gone.
Sydney play so boring though, for that is what I watched last night, they played so boring I fell asleep. I was going for Freo too.
But anyway it occured to me that Friday has become my weekly night off. Every week follows the same reliable pattern. I fill up the first 4 weeknights with stuff so that by the time I hit friday I start watching footy and fall asleep on the couch. Then saturday I go cycling and again head out in the evening and sunday sleep in then go out to play basketball and catch up with someone I didn't manage to last week depriving myself of sleep heading into monday.
The problem is friday is nobody else's night off so I end up feeling excluded.
PS. Callie if you're reading this I will not be pyking on you next friday.
But the whole thing puts me in mind of a Mr.Show sketch I watched yesterday about two guys that get into a fight in a bar in chicago and the bad mouthing goes on so long they end up married, seperated and reconciled, whilst telling eachother constantly to eat shit, go fuck themselves etc. in the end one of them dies and the other goes 'my life'
That's how I feel on a friday 'fuck where did that week go?' it's good to be busy, but I'd rather be busy and have the time passing sloooooowly like summer vacations in primary school. Vacations were something I stopped enjoying post my parents expecting me to use my vacation time to work full time in a factory or a kitchen and if I didn't I'd have to sand and paint picket fences. I guess I'm to blame because you couldn't claim you were having a 'vacation' from school when you did no work in school.
Anyway I just want some time to chase seagulls and shit.

Persistence

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”

Calvin Coolidge 30th president of the US

Convincement by Concussion

Yesterday at 1.30pm I noticed I hadn't woken up yet, and that I'd been 'working' on the same sentance for 10 minutes. I shambled up to my manager Andrew and confessed oddly 'I think I have concussion' the whack so to speak had been from an intricate and clever faint playing basketball on Sunday afternoon. I guy with a clear shot at a layup converted it into a pass that because of the superfluity of the manouvre I wasn't ready for and simply copped a blow directly to the head.
I also broke or didn't break a joint in my right index finger. It doesn't really matter because there's nothing I can do about it.
I'd never been concussed before so I just thought I was tired and had a headache. When I went to the doctor he confirmed I had concussion and my mother suggested I might have hepatitus in the height of her anxious paranoia.
But now I am at home taking sick leave due to my short attention span and waiting to see if my condition improves so hopefully I can get out of a brain scan.
So I clicked onto wikipedia, because it is a news service I actually appreciate. Unlike the constant headline news bar across the bottom of existing news shows of which one can watch up to 5-10 hours of news and investigative journalism. Wikipedia has about four news headlines of newsworthyness that rotate in a new headline once a day on your average news day.
Day mcfucken day I said day a lot in that last sentance.
So I read about yesterdays news which was Pope Benedict, I read the quote of offense which was quoting another one and while flicking between cartoons this morning (something I do to stimulate my mind and avoid the news in the morning) I did pick up the latest islamic reaction to the statement the offending quote was:

Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.

Which a) you could immediately argue is hypocritical given the Spanish empires method of spreading catholicism to South America for instance, the Spanish Inquisition also could get a mention in the good old days of torturing heratics.
b) the lecture was about the relationship between faith and reason. Now if one was going to argue that the Islamic interpretation of god isn't bound by reason one would have to be coming from the perspective of a religion whose God was bound by reason and had to act in a consistent and reasonable way.
But the funny thing is some groups reactions to the blasphemy of the statement is to violently target the pope and his 'western allies' and not stop until all the world bows down to islam. Which isn't a quote and comes from good old reliable old channel 7 but seriously is nothing but a precise example of the criticisms raised.
For every fucking islamic group declaring jihad's and earmarking prominent figurehead s for assasination you will (if you look hard enough) find two things i) prominent red neck westerners proclaiming to 'bomb the shit' out of 'them' and ii) perfectly reasonable muslim's having to defend their religion and identity because of the media portrayel.
And if you think about it 'reasonably' if you were a muslim and sent a letter to Today Tonight outlining your plan's for peaceful dialogue and diplomacy between all nations it probably wouldn't get shown whereas if you sent a letter outlining your plans for jihad and terrorism you can bet it would get on the air even if 100 of the other kind of letters went through.
Why? Because from a marketing perspective you only choose information that agrees with what you already know. Everybody knows that Islam is a violent religion. The news reports it monthly. It is a perceptual cage.
The only way to change peoples mind is to force them to behave in a different way or attach a message to the 'perceptual cage' that is add to what everybody already knows rather than try and change the perception completely. Islam suffers politically from having no single heirarchy or authority. Mohammed's prescriptions for how he and the Koran are to be treated as opposed to Jesus' loose and liberal terms denoted to Paul mean of the two religions Catholicism has been able to run a much tighter political institution.
But enough of that I had to check out Father Bob MacGuires' reaction to the statements so I logged onto his blog for the first time in a long time and didn't find any reaction at all which is probably a good one half the time but I did see
this and it was interesting. It put me in mind of Arundhati Roy's arguement about the 'anti-american' label that was a convenient condition . It touches also on this bullshit suggestion of 'Australian values' that are going to be introduced to gaining Australian citizenship. One Kim Beazley is dumb, Australian values are going to be impossible to define, think about it particularly when we can't acknowledge any wrongdoing in the past we are not going to find any consistent set of values. It would be much easier to define what Australian values aren't but even then still difficult. I guess you could say we don't smile on people who eat their own young, that's definitely not an Australian value, eating our own young. We are quite happy to steal a generation, we don't like entreprenuers, we're pretty cowardly, we like gambling and drinking...the whole suggestion is useless.
It is simply to protect a boring and stale culture that is under threat: anglo culture.
I personally think Brunswick is made more interesting by having stores where every sign and every package just about has arabic text. I work with people who's english is as good as my Japanese and it is a welcome change.
Furthermore it harks back to a dumb fucking arguement about flags I had, Sylvia told me what colours in a flag meant. Which was to say only red white and blue had meanings, yet she seemed to think these values applied to all the flags of the world that's why Brits, Australians and Americans got on so great, whereas I recall China's flag indicated all sacrifice and no wisdom or bravery or some shit.
Values are universal, there is not a place in the world you can go and kill someone's kid and spit in that someone's eye and have them love you for it. Frankly I find the notion of 'being Australian' ridiculous. It's a man made Geographical boundary and nothing more. Well more than that 'Australia' can be disconnected from the land all together and just be a society I was born into and charges me membership fees via tax and has a built in education system. If the new values are just 'act like you were raised here' that would be more acceptable, like Apu when he is trying to fake his American citizenship in the Simpson's episode.
If your at a party and the crowd that turns up isn't quite yours you can shut down in a corner somewhere and talk to the one person you do know (I do this a lot) or you could make the conscious effort to intermix, intermingle (I do this occasionally) and before you know it your narrow social sphere has evolved.
Australia's greatest threat isn't terrorism or a corruption of values, infact a professor from America said the Koran needs to be taught in Australian schools so people can actually understand what it is about, and in my opinion it's the same shitty religious text as held by every other religion on equal footing with the bible just below the Baghvad Gitta and the Buddhist sutras. If you want real incomprehensibility try Zen Koan's.
No Australia's major threat is irrelevance. It is becoming one of those little island nations nobody ever thinks about like well like all them little pacific island nations.
At the moment our glorious political leaders seem to be putting measures into place to turn Australia into one big RSL club and you can imagine what that will do for tourism.
Or we could have a mixed bag of people, new words getting introduced to make up an actual 'Australian English' on microsoft word and maybe even greater consumer choices and styles out there.

Papa

I was watching top gear today, and a random thing set off a random chain of thoughts in my head that I thought was worth writing about.
It was triggered by a dune buggy type vehicle the top gear guys were bashing around a paddock having great fun and the chasis bore a resemblance to a plane called the 'mad mouse' I saw at an airshow in ballarat when I was a kid. The plane was an ugly ungainly piece of shit but I remembered the name because it was distinctive. (an early lesson in marketing for those who choose brands that don't mean anything like f14) I remember that because my Nana asked me what planes I saw at the show and what Papa's favorite was and I said it was the 'mad mouse' even though I'm pretty sure he hated that one I just couldn't remember any of the other planes.
Anyway that's what I thought about and when it comes to it. It's one of my only memories of Papa. My dad's father, he died when I was 8 and I didn't know at the time that he had been deaf all my life.
So my father's father drifted out of my life without me ever really knowing who he was. He was the first to go too. When you think about it, my dad's Y chromosome is has to be his and thus also has to be mine. He's literally half of me and I don't know a thing about him (apart from the fact that his name is norman) most of what I do know was read out in his Eulogy by my cousin Suzie.
I can't say I regret not getting to know him better because I was fucking 8 and he was the first person I knew to ever die. Before that I didn't realise anyone I knew ever would.

What becomes of Young Liberals when they grow old

It is very easy to argue something from a nice comfortable distance, like palestine vs isreal. But it may not be wise, this is what I woke up to this morning: '...Menze are you calling me a dole bludger? answer the fucking question? just because I don't earn much and get support I'm a dole bludger.' I was confused to say the least, I thought I was listening to SYN and suspected one of my housemates of retuning my radio during the day though they'd have to be game to step into my room in its current state.
But it was SYN, the great thing of course about SYN is choice, kids push the buttons they can make a show what they want it to be and you'd be surprised how often that doesn't include the shit other stations may push on people. But it has it's downfall when it comes to young liberals that all they want to create with their youthfull energy is some bullshit talkback show during the graveyard shift on SYN.
One group I am not afraid of is the young liberals, a story. I was walking through the melbourne uni campus which is odd because I have never been a student there. I ran into vaggy a friend I have not seen in a long time and at that time had also not seen in a long time. People were gathered around because of the nelson review or some shit. Anyhoo I asked vaggy what he was up to and he replied 'wanna punch a young liberal, what a pack of cocksuckers' or someshit to that effect.
And it's true, I mean at the time of the nelson review we also had the pending iraq invasion and like most educated people at the time you just sat back and watched with powerlessness as the US administration rolled lazely into a war we never had any prospect of winning and no justification whatsoever. Infact Bill Hicks ripped into the first gulf war so insightfully that it really was a case of fucking up twice in the exact same way.
So what makes young liberals fucking tick?
I mean they won't be of any use to anyone in the future because our exorbitant debt driven economic growth and underpinning resource economy is due to fall apart along with the liberals current style of politics designed to retain power on an election by election basis. That's not to say I'm a fan of the Labour party, I would be hard pressed to ever think of a life as a private citizen that wasn't more attractive than public servant so getting politically affiliated has little interest to me.
But young fucking liberals? what the fuck?
The dude who had called himself menzies was just moronic, he offered the angry caller I woke up to a 'way out' which consisted of 'do you really want to start this arguement? because I will rip shreds out of you.' threatening way out. Except a student that contributes nothing productive to the economy and drains his parents disposable income cant really talk about dole bludgers because they concentrate the 'burden' of inaction on a particular family. That is I am assuming if 'menzes' didn't invent some phantasmical patent of such value to society he could now kick back and feel free to judge.
After cutting off the caller and playing a classic song that was the themesong to reagans discrediting of socialism via the tearing down of the berlin wall. (Something David Hasselhoff has possibly recieved more credit for than US foreign policy) menzes proclaimed to be frustrated with the last caller and the 'stupidity of the arguement'
which I read as 'the fact I was scared and my balls shrank up because I don't really argue I just dogmatically recite shit I've heard my wealthy parents say' and in melbourne I've noticed you get a different type of wealth to ballarat. In ballarat the wealthy kids might have got dropped off in slightly better cars and worn oakley's still tools but hey at least they had to intermix with reality. Here you don't get that, you get people that have never met someone who voted for labour.
So when you come up against someone who lives your arguement and feels passionately on the other side and exposes your naive assumptions that 'people should just get a better job' your balls shrink up and you feel impotent and stupid and afraid.
What I find young liberals don't seem to get is that once or twice a year the news show a story of some member of the public getting angry, throwing an egg or booing and jearing a polly.
They don't show the fact that almost every politician wherever they go that's proximate to the public is accompanied by a bevvy of security guards at all times. Because some of the decisions they have to make will be unpopular.
Young liberals are of no use even to the liberal party itself. They have already put themselves in the 'crazy' department amongst their peers, are generally not likeable enough to ever run for a seat and their recitation of dogma means they probably are never in contention to advance enough to get some exposure to policy making and influence public opinion.
So why the fuck do they do it? It's ghetto gang mentality. The simplicity of fucking not having to think, you can simply tow party line. I cunt fucking stand people who don't argue, but just recite shit. it's like thinking you can be a chess champion by memorising a whole bunch of moves. The major chess champions look at the board in general and only think in terms of the next couple of moves.
Chris Rock summed up the gang mentality best 'what kind of person has made up their mind before they've even heard the issue.' which is a young liberal.
I imagine when a Young Liberal grows up less people lisen to them than now. Or they work low class jobs and hate arabs.
Comments?

Police Checks

Nobody really believes in rehabilitation, nobody really trusts you to disclose your past. Furthermore, society is a club we are born members of and only really stand to lose that membership.
I have to get a police check done and you know I have no prior convictions. I even have to simultaneously get a 'Working With Children' check done even though my volunteer is 40 years old. Had I prior convictions I wouldn't be allowed to volunteer my time. I probably wouldn't be able to get my job who knows.
I thought about the old days in a lot of countries you were marked as a criminal, by a tattoo on the forehead or eyelids, a hand cut off etc. Making you instantly an undesirable. If you are a sex offender you have to take out an add in the local papers and introduce yourself to all your neighbours as a sex offender.
There is no possible way you could serve your sentance and rehabilitate and go on to pick up the pieces of your shattered life.
Now a lot of the checks make sense. Like you probably don't want a peadophile to become a day care center worker. And you probably don't want an imbezzler doing the books for you at work.
But if it means taking an intelligent offender and stripping him of all pursuits in life he/she may find challenging and then expecting them not to turn to a more stimulating life of crime the system starts to fall to pieces.
A thief who stole a piece of bread in the old days after having their forehead tattoed may have found their only option was to become a strangler or brigand in the outside. A judicial system that saves money and makes criminals worse rather than better.
I'm not sure where I stand on it. After reading Shantaram I think the Penalisation faced by most criminals may not be the most productive approach. I'm not even sure what punishment achieves. In the ideal world conditioning would be such that felons most likely would request a punishment as part of their rehabilitation process. But mindless imprisonment? I'm not sure what it achieves.
Whatever.

Appreciate yo'self

Tonight I went to FLN's community networker evaluation night. A community networker is a home tutor by the way, except they are called a community networker. It was awesome, except some people were sluggish in the way they articulated. I always get annoyed when people say 'I don't really want to talk about it...' followed by ten minute explanations of what 'it' is and why it's so difficult to talk about it.
But being annoyed is nothing to me, it is like mosquito, nothing! haha!
Anyway it was great to meet up with 3-4 'generations' of community networkers in one place. But a common experience between a lot of them (and I could relate as well) was that even though one of our functions in being involved with refugees is to promote a more positive image and actual experiences which the media is not good at doing. Sometimes we don't like to talk about it because people condescendingly tell you what a good person you are.
i do and I don't get this. Yes I don't percieve the activity to be as much of a personal sacrifice as they percieve it to be. No I find it quite useful that people can have doubts that I'm not a complete arsehole.
But more to the point, you do nobody favours by not graciously accepting admiration, the emphasis is on graciously of course. But seriously, people do seriously admire people for all kinds of things, and saying 'it's nothing' is like saying 'you on the other hand are a really bad person' instead just recommend people to get into it maybe even say they would be really good at it.
One of the volunteers had roped their mother into doing it. thumbs up.
Be nice serve the first slice.

Snakes on a plane

This film does not dissapoint. It delivers exactly what it promises. Samual L Jackson delivers one of the greatest lines ever. One of the most convoluted and ridiculous films I've ever seen it has to also be one of the greatest.
This isn't one of those hyped up films like titanic or blues brothers 2000 or ID4 that is a shit film spending millions to pretend it is good. Snakes on a plane is a film about snakes on a plane. And it's very shit and very good. So go see it. Unless you can't stand gore and violence then it's probably a bad film for you.

Thug

I put down the phone after talking to my sis' mum (Madoka so you know that sentance does kind of make sense) and even though pinning down Madoka to talk on an archaic landline is proving more difficult than I had first anticipated the way it's ploughing through the credit on my phone card is such we should be able to have a 15 hour conversation when I finally dp.
I can't help but smile, and chilax after speaking to Madoka's parents. I know it sounds crazy but it really feels like I'm coming home. Again when I finish my zine (sorry my friends that have deserted me to international greener pastures) that may be explained for you. But to give an evasive explanation Japan was the first place I ever went where my family name meant jack shit and I could define who 'tohm' was.
Anyway I'm getting excited about this going to China and Japan. I also ran out of books to read (which is an outright lie) what I meant is light fluffy books to read I will plow through Henry George's Progress and Poverty in my own time but I just need something to space out on the train before work each day as part of my relaxation overhaul.
So what is lighter and fluffier than a history of ninja or samurai? Well a lot really. And furthermore the book I wanted to buy wasn't there but I noticed a book called thug. Now I know from my studies that ninja are theorised as being late descendants of the Thuggee strangling cult. So I decided to buy this book instead. Whilst sitting in the car with Bryce (i didn't have the balls to request he turned his mobile off while we went for a walk on the beach in the spirit of relaxing exercise) I flicked through the book to see what I had actually purchased. And you know what the photo section had images that were practically begging to be shown to white children to scare them off foreigners forever.
There was also a graphic picture of the death sentance by elephant trampling handed down to some thuggies much more graphic than this picture:
Jerry Lewis can say he is funnier than this
So anyway this may be the first book I have ever been scared to read. Expect another post shortly Iffin I be up at 2 am with night terrors of thug stranglers.

Happy Birthday Magical Unicorn

Every year for the past 5 (6?) years I send a birthday card to Japan that is too late for the 6th of September which is of course the birthday of 'my wife' Yoko Kimura. Yoko is not actually my wife in fact I hear from her once every couple of years or so. She's just a girl with beuatiful canine teeth that stick out perpendicular to the others so her lip curls around them and measures in at a massive 146cm tall and says my name 'tooooooMuuuuu' in a shrill but unique way, I cant tell if I'm anoying her or impressing her when she talks to me.
The marriage of course was never consumated, we are really just disfunctional pen pals and in the end I'm not even sure why I send her a card every year except that I've been doing it every year and the thought of stopping kills me, if she even notices at all. I dunno. But I do it,
So happy birthday Yoko my magical unicorn who doesn't exist but does and how many people do you know that have met a unicorn?*

*or a horse with a sword on it's head.

Princess Di

On hearing Steve Irwin's death I was spun out. I actually thought about his kids. And you know to simply have your life taken by an animal. Such an impersonal way to die.
When symbols get destroyed like Steve Irwin or the World Trade Centre it can really befuddle the whole image you have of the world.
I will remember though that I was at work. Working on my resume. My resume is so awesomely interactive now I just want to apply for jobs left right and centre.
I'll have to link it up some time.
I'm just too stupid to learn how.

I hate Malaysians

Another late night, another catch up and tossing the coin between Beijing and East Timor to go to next year and one country that will never be a contender is Malaysia. I was sitting in Omar & Harvards kitchen while they were incisting I should know Vincent from IH without actually describing him apart from being a Malaysian guy.
Omar was pissed at me because COMMON had lured us into another shitty function where people corner the palestinian and treat my athiest views with confusion and open hostility. Omar being such a nice guy though feels bad breaking a commitment.
But fortunately we had the perfect allibi, Harvard wanted to go to Vincent's party but didn't want to go alone because Bob the adulterer was there.
I did my impression of Malaysians 'What you Doingggg lah? In malaysia we eat food at night, we pour the tea from up here lah down into cup lah.' this was what I expectd from the party but not what I really expected because in my head I know Malaysians aren't really dumb animals, they can be pretty cool, like Harvard and Steven but the group dynamic is hard to take, I'll be the first to admit at IH we had big problems with the Australian population too but never so blatent as pulling up a 12th chair to a table of 8 to aviod sitting with Australians.
Anyway I wanted to go to the party so I could call Bob adulterer, since he's a christian fuck. So Omar, Harvard and I headed on down to their buildings function room (wtf). There was a big malaysian flag and Omar and I were I think the only non malaysians which I already know is a lie because Nathan is ABC and and I think from memory there could have been some Singaporeans there.
We ate and it is always cool to meet people who have forgotten my name, it happens amazingly not often to me so I enjoy the novelty.
I recognised Vincent straight away and you know Malaysian parties are something else. The catering is all over the place from Roast lamb to pizza to curry to noodley shit in a bowl. The music is terrible. The women are hot but as a whitey you know there's no chance so there's no point talking to them, ironically I probably earn more than everyone in the room and still not rich enough. but it was cool to actually be the only white dude at the party and I never plucked up the balls to call Bob adulterer or ask about his sex life like I didn't know.
I guess in the end is I didn't care enough but I was left pondering something:
How the fuck do Malaysians resolve personal differences? I just cant see Harvard or Bob playing the manly art of biff they're too impotent and it seems all they can do is pretend that eachother don't exist.
Don't get me wrong I am highly cowardly and will do anything to avoid a confrontation but if cornered I wuld always try to be at least inappropriatly funny about it.
Anyway I had a good time it was a pretty interesting shindig. And once you understand that Malaysian segregation isn't personal, they don't mean to do it it's simply a complete fear of the unknown and unlike Aussie's travelling abroad the motivation is different, Malay's are here to study not experience a new culture due to a racist and inefficient university entrance policy back home. So I got on really well.
But back to me, I'll get all calculassy here and write a post within a post regarding my name and attitude towards it:

{About a year ago I dropped the name I had adopted which is 'tohm' I just stopped using it but I recently put it back into my resume, I have been writing out my zene which I am really excited about but finding myself for the first time ever having to rewrite and edit shit and proof read which I have never ever bothered with before. In it I talk about choosing a name for myself and that's what tohm was, I started writing my name as tΩ in vce to sign my art. I had adopted Ω from physics to be read as ohm but people turned out to be more educated than me and read it as omega my home room teacher called me an artistic wanker when she had to sign off that I'd been using my student diary. So eventually I spelt my name out as I had intended it to be spelt with a superflous 'h' and tohm became my name from then on. I think I even put it on a couple of tax returns which was dumb.
Anyway my intention was to change my name to tohm and drop my last name completely allowing to eventually be called 'the artist formally known as tohm' or tafkat for short but I really liked tohm because, nicknames have never ever ever managed to stick for more than 20 minutes and I always have just been tom so tohm was a good play on that aspect since in effect it wasn't a name change at all. But by the same token you are given a name when you are born and then you become someone, so whilst my actual name tom is pretty meaningless to me, tohm was a name I had become.
The reason I never got around to changing my name legally was A) laziness and 2) whenever I mentioned my plans to Janice she would look at me with these sad puppy dog eyes.
But I have started using it again and it'll probably take another 2 years before people start writing my name tohm again but whatever what the fuck. Once my zine is out you hopefully will get to appreciate the whole craziness of it all}

So you can imagine my excitement when people have never heard my name or forgotten it because I can just slot a name in there. And to these Malay aquantences I had not seen for years all they know me as is tohm. Except i hate to pronounce the superflous 'h' in tohm (it is actually pronounced tom) but whatever a man can dream and at the end of the day they are only Malaysian international students just another resource that can dry up on Australia leaving us an economic cripple*.

*Saw Peter Costello this morning talking about NSW and VIC being on the verge of a recession! Wow! And right after a property boom. When will you fuckers learn**

**I actually don't want to be a fecetious 'I told you so' land tax reformist since most of us will never actually own property or will be ruined by a market correction shortly but seriously how many times do you have to go through a boom bust cycle before you question why the cycle is necessary?

Melbourne is Today it is not my future

What an emotional evening last night was. In fact I didn't cry then but I think I am going to right now, I am as I'm typing this.
Okay that was fucking weiwd. Anyway what happened was I got off the train at Flinders street and Andy & Jerry got up to great me. And Jerry was down. He was all tense and sad and sighed a lot and I assumed it was because he was leaving Australia. But I assumed wrong, it was because he'd learnt his ex had a new guy which was a shock to me because I thought his ex had been a long time gone.
It's a killer to see someone go through the sadness. And real sadness too. He was sighing and struggling not to cry at dinner. Andy and I did all we could do and kept natural. The food by the way was super.
He kept clenching his fists and was stressed out so I suggested we go for a walk into the botanical gardens. There were three girls who'd stripped down to their underwear and were playing in the fountain at 10pm at night and that was a pretty cool thing to see.
We sat in a chair and got away from the noise and the bustle because I remembered that that used to help me be sad in a calm way. It seemed to work.
Jerry plans to write a book called 'Melbourne is Today it is not my future' about his experiences here in Melbourne then study to become a mechanic. (?). I do love Jeremy so it breaks my heart to not just have to say bye to him but see him so sad, particularly when he's been so vital a source of support for me.
Andy on the other hand had asked out some Korean girl in an uncool manner and got rejected. Having recently been rejected myself (what the fuck was I thinking I keep asking myself) my heart went out to him too. He said he felt 'pretty low' and that 'now he was a loser' he used to introduce himself as average joe, but Andy is anything but, andy is hot. Andy is a hot hot man and I don't envy anyone who has to date central asians, you need fucking money man and the rest takes care of itself. Andy asked me if I had any cousins.
This is what me being Jesus McDude said to them: 'All you can be is the best you you can be, and the rest will take care of itself guys. You gotta be happy and sexy being Andy. You gotta be happy being Jerry and don't envy anyone else their girls because if you have to be someone you are not for a girl you love, you can't be happy guys. I'm not going to stop wearing girly knee high socks to improve my chances with girls in general, I want to improve my chances with a girl that's cool with knee high socks.'
Anyway the discussion then turned to my candy stripe knee high socks and who can be sexy wearing them, I could apparently but Jerry could not, Andy could with the right attitude, then we admitted that Jerry could with the right attitude.
Then I bought Andy an ice cream and we strolled into the gardens and just relaxed together.
I'll miss Jerry who calls me his brother. But it's not really the end it's the beginning since soon Jerry and I will control the Pacific.

Damo Gone

For those of you that missed it Damo is gone today :( or possibly :) it all really depends on how you feel about the man that would bring peace to the world:

To America

All these people leaving man, it sucks. But you know from time to time you get some back like Callie yay.

Head Fuck

So today I got my invite to my highschool reunion. It's going to be weird seeing all those freaks again. Real weird. Like seeing all the dudes who I would trust 100% still just by virtue of I knew them early enough and went through enough shit together to relax around them. You seem to meet less and less once you hit uni.
And girls I never slept with, or even kissed. I picked up one girl from my highschool and she left like 6 weeks later.
I high school reunion. And I have hair like MC Hammer now. (I wish) but at any rate I'm not actually going to tidy it up by the time October rolls around.
Another head fuck is Damo leaves tomorrow. I never react well to my home environment being changed, you may have noticed my posts have slowed down. This is because I have decided to write my alternate biography in the form of a zeen. I hope to time it's release in time with the time that I leave the country and go zazenning and possibly hanging with the Wu-han clan. What's that, yes, travel plans. Lucid travel plans.
More of a headfuck is today when logging into my email I thought about Andy and Jerry (who are my password) and I thought about it for the first time in ages and there I was looking at an email about Jerry's impending departure.
I can't FUCKING believe it. Where does the time go.
Anyway the next headfuck is I got tickets to Eric Clapton, now some or most of you may not find Eric Clapton cool but please Appreciate that to me it's like. It's like someone you know who is Christian has a ticket to go see Jesus.
Now all I gotta do is hope he doesn't die between now and the concert.

Take it Easy

So I set foot in the fucking doctors and lay it all out I say 'I think I'm suffering from Hypocondria' I hit him with all the symptoms. He explains to me using his best bedside manner that these are all non-specific symptoms.
They are symptoms in me because I never get fucking tired, my eyes focus fine normally, I don't know shit about hair shedding because that's always been the case when my hair is long, chest pains are new too. So he checks me up and finds me in perfect health.
'Wanting to sleep is the bodies way of explaining that you are tired.' he explains to me, and I walk out of the doctors feeling better. Yesterday I start writing a zeen and my anxiety is replaced with boredom. Boredom. I don't feel like doing shit. Even blogging, and I realise for almost 12 months now I've filled every hour of every day with something to do. I am fucking busy.
This pisses me off because I don't feel busy. I feel bored.

Another Day another Glorious Letter

There is some dude paid (I assume) to read Carmen's emails to me, so when she writes stuff from East Timor it comes through with the tag (SEC= Unclassified) I wonder what kind of shit goes through the military email. Still it is wonderful to be connected to a country that has such different living standards to mine own.
So here's the plan, when I told bryce I was tired yesterday (which took some effort because Bryce is actually fucking busy what the fuck do I get exhausted from blogging?) he said 'you are not well' and took my Vanilla Ice head into his bosom and rocked me back and forth. It was comforting.
But after bryce ruled out holidaying in Yass, because it's too far away. Even if it does have a bakery. I went back to Plan A: The expensive Plan. Go stay here I think being a zen monk for a couple of weeks might be just the contrast I need. I met the abbot of this zen dera last time I was there and he was super cool mcschool. I would be drinking tea and he would say 'please be careful that cup is 900 years old' just to shit me. When I asked him who was paying for the restoration of a hanging scroll he said 'me'.
I've seen the hall for sitting/kneeling and meditating all day. I don't even mind if I have to go begging alms.
While digging for the brochure though (zen temples have brochures in Japan) I found Brenton's letter that I would like to relate to you now:

What's going on? Why were you late?
Shigeno said last night that I had to go to her home room so I did and as usual she did her best to embarass the fuck out of me. First she informed the class about everything I've done and will be doing who gives a fuck? Then she made me stand in front of the class and in Japanese, explain what I did on new years and over the holidays. I said I didn't want to but she like pulled the chair back so I had to get up. Then I decided fuck this! and I made absolutely no attempt to speak any sentences in I Japanese I said stuff like PTO...
...like one word -> netta (sleep) bideo o mitta (watched video) and didn't smile once. I must have looked so DARK. and I was. Then when Shigeno realised I wasn't going to be any fun, she let me sit down and I whispered/mouthed kira!!!i (I hate her) to Yuka & one of her friends & the smiled & nodded.

I HATE SHIGENO!!!!!!
How was last night?

And so ends the exchange. Shigeno is a prize curiousity of nature, and really bad with the exotic in not making them feel like a freakshow. I came to love Shigeno when I started thinking of her as an animal and not a human being. Yuka was stacked.

Tired

It's hard for me to admit, but I am so fucking tired. I even booked in to see a GP, and I fucking hate doctors. I was watching the documentary citizen king about the life of Martin Luther King Jr. that man, what a fucking life. They made a point about how every moment of every day someone was calling him, asking him to do something, go here, say this, speak to these people. He died age 39 but the autopsy showed up the heart of a 60 year old. A powerful orator, one of his last speaches he dropped the remark 'I don't care about longevity' and within a week he was dead. But that speach even when he was so exhausted he's pretty much puffing as he speaks, still manages to be rousing and moving.
At the quakers, where I went because I fucking needed to go and unwind and relax, I was thrilled and I mean fucking thrilled when the guy right next to me stood up to share and he shared two things, one his thoughts on the life of Martin Luthor King and two a lengthy analogy of life and rivers, I fucking love rivers and have tried to make my life analogous to a river.
His story was that still water has depth. In teaching statistics you can say a 'river has 15cm as it's average depth can you drown?' the answer is of course, the average conceals the depth and where the water is shallowest, the rapid moving water that can be where 90% of our lives are spent. But water needs to be still to reflect and reflection requires depth.
I like it I took a lot out of it.
I like to entertain the fantasy that I don't stress but since Roberto said of my 20k stuff up 'well that's neither here nor there' and my job security came flooding back, something snapped in me and I realised how highly strung I'd been. I'm going to make an effort to unwind. I'm even thinking about spending my annual leave in a monastary in Japan in Zen meditation. A real cleanser. I've been running on overdrive for too long now. I'll see what the fucking doctor says.
Burnout doesn't hit you till it hits you.
And at the unrespectable hour of 8:50 I'm going to bed.
that's relaxation

Open your mind at Melbourne Uni Open Day

I was riding past Melbourne Uni, cutting down Swanston St as I often do on a Sunday on my way to REW to pick up the latest hopeful basketballers and got ticked off because I realised that it was Melbourne Uni's open day. Meaning there'd probably be some bouncy castle on the basketball court to ensure that Melbourne Uni got the best possible applicants from Australia and beyond*.
A sick part of me likes to laugh at the students turning up to open days, those young dreaming hopeful kids who's parents have told them they can do anything and to dream big and all that. It's true what their parents say. But shelling out for private schooling is a lot cheaper than full fee University places and for a lot of them open day is like thinking you're being hit on but it turns out the person is just being plain friendly**.
Yeah because Melbourne Uni for a lot of people is the first place where the buck suddenly stops and you can't get in, even if you're parents said you could. But I mean of course you can you may have to do the hard yards in another institution and transfer and shit. Because for every person that worked hard and deserved to get into a good university theres three smart arses that didn't work at all and went to a good university because they could and get kicked out after first year or possibly never turn up.
The best part of Melbourne University Open day by far (and by far the biggest cock tease) is the tour de residential colleges. Or the Collage de College. Which way to go let's start at Mary's, you walk into Mary's, Mary's is the kind of place that has balloons you walk around and inspect the facilities then you go to the common room for some scones and everyone hugs you and tells you you're great and then you hold hands in a circle and sing some songs. Feeling good you cruise next door, or across the lawn to Newman.
At Newman's you cruise the facilities and wonder why anyone would go here at all. You ask someone and they scratch their head trying to come up with an answer. They don't but you can see a loyal family relative nodding their head with approval. To this day I still haven't heard of Newman doing anything, achieving anything or really anything about Newman at all. Feeling Confused you head the long way next door to Queens.
At Queens you take a tour and get to see the small rooms, the dark rooms and the small and dark rooms. The dining hall is impressive though and you have some scones which taste like chicken. The people are ugly but have gel in their hair so they are making an effort. It's not too friendly like St Mary's and it's not too arrogant like Newman and the building is beautiful. You head next door to Hilda's.
You initially gag at the ugliest building ever crafted by the hands of man but head in anyway it is a shame this 70's monstrosity is wedged between Ormond and Queens and not between Kath & Kim. One advantage of the 70's design is that the rooms when you see them are actually quite accomodating and well lit and comfortable. There are no scones though at Hilda's just a free tinny and the option of fucking a bush pig or being fucked by a bush pig. You try to pass but end up taking option B. The advantage of Hilda's is that it at least has the decency to not dress up as lamb like Queens it is unashamed mutton. The dudes are ugly but have grease in their hair and the girls aren't complaining because if they do they get harassed till they leave. I'm all for self determination but the advantages of a student run college are... well maybe someday a Saturday Night Live sketch will be made about it.
Looking for some cleansing scones you head into Ormond. If you can find your way through the beautiful Garden. There is a clock tower that goes off all the time when you ask about it on the tour they say 'only third years can go there' at Ormond you see the two full size billiard tables and the gym which is pretty impressive. You can have some scones but the students in the dining hall look down on you for taking charity.
You head to JCR, you write your birthdate YYYYMMDD instead of DDMMYYYY on the tour form an they expel you even though you are the descendant of the current president and the founding father and won your local rowing regatta after three crewmates passed out, you never find out what the scones are like.
Which brings you to trinity. Everyone is wearing academic gowns. Everyone is a fuckhead. You try to be friendly and joke on the tour this confuses them. You see rooms that make Queen's look luxurious. Social rooms you discover have membership fees to get access to some of the exclusive facilities like Television. After a quick calculation you discover it costs $450 extra dollars just to walk down a corridor in Trinity. There is a trust that buys and sells paintings at Trinity that is of no use to you. At trinity they look down on you when you eat a scone for both accepting charity and using the wrong cream fork and scone separating knife.
Now if you are fucking superhuman and have a head screwed onto your shoulders you head to the non-crescent colleges, by now you've probably spent 12 hours taking tours and trying to figure out where the $11k goes a year.
UC I can't tell you about, I never saw it I never seen it and hardly ever met anyone from there. Those I did seemed pretty cool and I hear the crescent colleges don't put as much effort into ignoring you if you go to UC.
Next is IH at IH there are no scones, there is some weird shit to eat. As in IH insider I know one of two things will happen to you a) you will be off put by the creepy, dorky asian students talking and laughing at the entrance but reassured that there is a decent Aussie bloke, girl opposite them at the entrance. or b) you are offput by the loud ungainly drunken Australian barbarian but reassured by the studious and conformist christian Malaysians opposite them at the entrance. As a result you spend the tour trying to figure out how your tour guide endures the cultural melting pot. I also as an insider know that the former Deputy Head payed the Open day volunteers simultaneously making sure you met the least charismatic and affable representatives of the college, she also allowed an oversupply of tour guides making sure simultaneously that not only do you tour with someone unnattractive or a dork you will also be outnumbered by them when you do.
The rooms are good though, everything is spacious and the grounds are well laid out. You may even have an asian fetish, or know you don't have the personality to get into a crescent college.
At anyrate you leave worrying about what you ate and confused and head to Whitley! aka 'the donut' and what do those crazy clowns have? donuts not scones! hilarious. You take a tour of the campus because you are curious. Everyone there reminds you of back home which is either reassuring or offputting. You don't love it you don't hate it.
So to save you time here is the residential college list I would recommend it's on a scale that almost inversely correlates with prestige, the objective of my rating is to measure how 'liveable' the colleges are and the likelihood you'll grow as a person rather than degenerate:
1. St Mary's it's just plain friendly, and yes does allow foreigners too computer science students. It's on the crescent so you don't have to feel insecure either.
2. UC/Whitley not my personal preference but if you can't hack the international thing it would be remiss of me to recommend IH before these two.
3. International House people who advocate crescent colleges talk about networks and shit, but they always forget the entire Australian economy is traded on a daily basis, all you need to do is make one good friend with an international student who's parants own a power plant or hospital in China and you can throw that arguement out. This is the next best thing to living in a bunch of different countries even if it does include Singapore.
4. Queens, you have to hand it to them their grounds are better than trinity and somehow they don't manage to be disgustingly arrogant, and if somebody shits on your floor, rubs their genitals in your face at night, throws out your clothes and sends you an envolope glued shut with their come there's half a chance they'll be expelled from Queens.
5. Ormond, in the largest college there's gotta be some that aren't dicks right? close to Queens, closer to Trinity.
6. St Hilda's, Queens without the polish and if somebody shits on your floor, rubs their genitals in your face at night, throws out your clothes and sends you an envolope glued shut with their come there's no chance in hell they'll be expelled from Hilda's infact they'll probably be the next president. I recommend Hilda's to anybody who wants to develope a drug dependancy, try sexual harassment on and recieve recognition but at least Hilda's is something which...
7. Newman ....is not. It's not anything so why bother. I have no idea what would cause anybody to put Newman down as a preference, it's the fucking 7up of the college world but what it is we may not know at least it isn't...
8. ...Trinity, if you end up here don't panic, just calmly place a plastic bag over your head and go to bed, when you wake up in the morning the world will have one less problem.

I realise of course that maybe that last statement is a little harsh, I have met decent citizens from trinity who generally agree there's something just wrong in the bricks of that place. Incedently I applied to Hilda's for first preference as I'd figured I'd be going to RMIT and that the sexual harassment cases would make Hilda's unpopular, I was wrong and ended up at IH which possibly saved my life on many many levels.

*South East Asia
**It's not of course you, it's your attitude. You will have a good time wherever you go you're parents have probably just given you the false impression it does matter and that the best go to Melbourne Uni. The problem is really those that do get in because they go on thinking this for the rest of their lives. Employers really don't care.

People who sell people to people who need people

Went to see a double feature last night in support of LIFE which is a Refugee Camp Literacy program that started up in recent times. It's good stuff.
Double feature was Chappelle's block party and Rize. Both really positive stories, both really touching, my homie Amrish was digging it and singing along often. Chappelle did say 'if you want to get out of the Ghetto you gotta knuckle down and rap or play basketball or some shit.' But you got dudes like Haitian Wyclef Jean who taught himself english in a public library.
When FLN is closed Zaman and I hit the Fitzroy library and they are great fucking places. Me I want to curl up and read childrens books because they have all the awesome pictures, the very hungry caterpillar, avocado baby, where's wally these are the exotic reading experiences a library promises me but you know there's a whole huge section of ESL books and adult study aids that yeah Wyclef is right you can get yourself into a library and study and dream and make it happen for you. There's so many great public services that aren't utilised.
But that's off track. Reparations! Fucking the black slaves contribution to the US Economy by working 'for free' on plantations is when adjusted for inflation a STUPENDOUS amount of money, monies the african american people are entitled to but just isn't there. So the interim solution is to not pay it.
Now I envision anarchy should trillions of dollars be handed suddenly into the economy to a demographic that has been denied equal opportunity for most of their existence in the country. SO by no means would I suggest it is really possible to just pay out reparations but at least, at least create the elite schools, offer the scholarships and I mean to some extent these have been done already but it ain't good enough the African Americans need 'advantage' it is only right and just that they be given a boost into becoming the players and decision makers of tomorrow.
That being said when I have friends talking about the 'squandering' of welfare by the aboriginals they need to think about how fucking stupid that equation is...
Our entire economy is built on the land and resources European settlers misappropriated by simply declaring the aboriginal people don't legally fucking exist. Their fucking religion is reduced to mythology as well, we put chains and poles in Uluru (yes I climbed it the conquoring white person couldn't resist) demolished national parks so we could run one of the laziest and unsustainable economies of the world and desire more stuff.
So here's what I propose, tax reform to land tax, if you don't know why I'm a land tax fiend click on the earthsharing link, anyway put tax on the land and instead of all this 'we recognise the traditional owners' bullshit, I mean what does being a traditional owner entitle you to. Anyway have like a 2-3% tax go as reparations to the indiginous communities. That's a lot of fucking welfare, maybe even substantial enough to actually have an effect on the poverty stricken indigenous communities. But I say communities what I mean is having that money channeled through a seperate government, no more squandering money on 'administration' flying consultants out to remote communities in national parks for fishing trips, but some self determining body that can sit down and say, what services do we need to give us the advantages, do we need to advertise to combat the stereotypes?
I mean Chappelle's block party made me jealous, it was a party the white's could never throw and never have, the meaning and the spirit isn't there. And it's all positive, yet in Australia you don't have wabbo's white people imitating aboriginals, infact in the city most aboriginals you know are probably claiming to be Phillipino or Indonesian.
I know you can look at ATSIC disbanding but I mean any organisation that isn't given proper funding and support, that doesn't have leaders representitive of the communities and has to go with the begging bowl everytime it wants to fix a problem identified it's fucked from square one. I'm saying deliver the cash and resources, s constitution and get some competence into tackling the issues one at a time. Be generous enough to achieve compromise and not have outrageous demands as convenient kindling for divisive fire.
More over who cares if they wast the money buying fubu wear for the community or other such folly, they are fucking entitled to a share in the wealth we Europeans just took from them.
My brother has a cake he hasn't eaten yet. So it's right for me to eat it and when he get's angry offer him .07% of it as welfare.
Ya basta.

Rising Star/Fading Star

For all those that have missed me as a blooming starlet since the heady days of Race Around the Corner, I make my long awaited return to the limelight on Saturday Night on the Dating Show More Amore show goes to air @ 9.30 on Channel 31. I can't recall a single thing I said on the show but my housemate thought I was funny, and Dave the director gave me the stunning review 'good, I'm hungry where's the pizza' If you know me extra well come over to my place and watch on our black box recorder to artificially boost the ratings of the show. My contact details will not be provided.

The Material World

I apologise, I have painted myself as something I am not. I obsess over my image and probably do so more than anyone else I know. So I'm sorry if I gave you the impression I was otherwise. Fact is I need to be beautiful, all the time.
That being said I know that Money does not equal happiness but due to a typo this week I cost the company $20k in revenue over the course of a month. I pushed a 7 instead of a 9 when updating a price list and it all cascaded from there.
That being done while I may not care for the material world and have more spiritual and philosophical goals that guide my life I can appreciate that a lot of people do care about the material world so I feel incredibly bad about losing that money.
The best part by far though is having to wait 4 days for my manager to get back to the office to reprimand me.
Fuck man, shit.

Sprung Mofo

Today I slept in till 8.21 what a Sunday sleep in. I normally don't like sleeping past 7, but that's only because on a Monday I get up at 7. If I don't have a productive weekend I feel like I've thrown away a whole weekend.
But that's crazy, when you work 9-5 (and I am considered eccentric for actually going home at 5) in winter work can give the impression that it is your life, for many people this is true. So when Spring comes through it is like my life fucking doubles. Not waking up in the dark. Not going home in the dark.
By leaving work at 5 (4.30 on tuesdays to go teach and learn with Zaman) I still got at least three hours day to do other shit that's important to me like going to dinner with friends, basketball with foreigners, 'working' on scripts 'n shit.
Yet the weekend is all about rest. I shouldn't put myself under pressure to try and live on a weekend because kicking back and chizmolakin is what living should be all about.
I'm living in topsy turvy land. At work I sit around with not much to do even when I have 8 or 10 projects on the go. I don't regard myself as lazy it's just nothing takes enough time to do to warrant working a whole 8 hours a day. I have even become a PA to a marketing colleague of sorts and I don't know how she keeps so fucking busy.
The most she ever manages to offload to me is 20 minutes work a day. leaving me with 3 or 4 hours. So I get most of my rest at work. Then I go home and do shit for all the other orgnisations I'm involved in and I don't have enough hours in the day as well as getting in some chizmolakin time and 8 hours of sleep.
I have recently started living more selfishly - ie trying to make life easier for me and you know there's nothing wrong with that gotta look after yourself before you can help out anyone else safely.
But yeah I've hit a problem. I already earn more money than I need (justified by how much money I waste every year) and my savings are good. My work is too easy my personal life well I was saying yesterday 'When I get good at Capoeira I don't know how I'll contain my explosiveness' because my life is pretty exciting. I hardly get to watch TV. Yet it's not exciting enough to not have a blog obviously.
The solution to my dilemma is easy though. Just get a mortgage, that way I can be a wage slave for 30-40 years and stop complaining unless I get a car too. Then I can complain about petrol and big brother.

It's hard to find a word that rhymes with Capoeira

Lima, Sabrina, North Carolina? Jimmy Pop have cured me of the asiatic desire to be a black man. His master crafted lyrics always remind me of exactly what I am, a juvenile, bored, wealthy, white male. Combine that with the double whammy of 'who cares' FNM film clip DVD and black is the old black if you know what I'm saying.
Which is as unintelligible as true G-money gangsta talk cuz. That's because in any period of self discovery one emerges a new and beautiful butterfly and thats just it. Here I am and I am beautiful.
So I went to my first lesson of the Afro Brazillian dance/martial art capoeira tonight having only previously read about it from books. Who the fuck reads books? pussy's. Yeah. And I am a pussy. And pussy is beautiful. A beautiful butterfly pussy that walked into Capoeira and loved it.
Admittedly I shredded the soles* off my feet, got dizzy and wore out my shoulders in a class that was loosely interpreted as 'beginner' but I relished being thrown in the deep end. Paul Ruben's quote of the moment 'If you're gonna walk on thin ice you may as well dance' So I pushed myself through as much as I could and it was good to finally use my upper body for something.
So certainly I am now a kelis fan. Play basketball and have signed up for more Capoeira but I am soon to undergo an image makeover that celebrates my whiteness and early 90's grunge heratage.
Eat shit.

*Daud asks rio 'How do you say this in english' to Rio in indonesian, Rio tells him, Daud walks up to me one basketball match and says 'My nipple hurts' indicating the sole of his foot.

The best email ever

Hi all I received this email from Randy Andy today, and it made it. It has to be the best email I ever recieved but maybe you gotta know andy:

haha, jerry was excellent, he passed his translating courses, he's busy
applying permanent residence visa, jerry and i are gonna sit the fucking
ielts test this saturday. so, we have to prepare this bullshit test.anyway,
we are gonna make a time to catch you bitch up. how's ur job?

cheers,
andy

Word to your Mother

Quakers vs The Lakers

Okay it has nothing to do with the Lakers. On Sunday I went to the local Quakers Meeting. It's been a long, long, looooooooong time coming.
We arrived late. But that was okay because Bill was there to greet us at the door with a group of late comers who would all go in together so as not to disrupt the meeting.
The Quakers are not talked about anywhere near enough. I assume it is because they are a Western Religion and so lack the Mystic appeal of Hinduism and Buddhism. They sprunged out of Christianity but the way they practice is what interests me. I still have complete faith that there is no god.
There's no quaker trinkets to sell. No beaded necklaces, no quaker bling. No crazy old quaker appearing alongside John Safran on a comedy show to draw people to the service. The Christian Society of Friends is small because like most inherently good practices the belief that they will stand without marketing and sales efforts is wrong.
That being said I don't want to draw the line in the sand to say get on board quakers. Two things are worth pointing out: Ghandi at a stage of self discovery decided to check out christianity, the welcomers at the church service he was at turned him away because he was obviously not Christian in appearance. Christianity possibly lost one of the greatest humanitarians to have walked the earth since Jesus and they didn't lose him by accident.
The other was when Damo raised his concern that his interest was 'disengenuous' (what a fag) the girl said 'I've been coming for three years nobodies ever asked me what I believe'.
There is no creed to the Quaker way infact there is no real Quaker way. The Quakers have been able to do something that almost no other religion has managed. Reflect on itself and evolve.
What did the meeting involve. Sitting in dead silence for about an hour. Not meditation, not anything. But communal silence. I didn't find it weird, I was glad to get a social context where there was no compulsion to fill the void with noise.
Then afterwards we all held hands and that was it.
I could feel the physiological benifits of it and I can honestly say it was a lot more relevant and interesting than a lot of church services I've reluctantly agreed to sit through.
Most importantly it comes back to my fundamental beef with most religions: all texts require interpretation, all lessons need to be interpreted and spirituality is highly personal, yet most religions expect you to seed this role to an authority.
Most of them really empty the practice of the religion of any spirituality at all and engage you in more self validating politics.
Buddhism is good, but the practice of zen is the better part of it to me. There's still rules and laws layed down in buddhism about drinking wine and touching women and having same sex relationships. The Quaker meeting style emerged from a Christian off shoot but the way they conduct there meetings and how anyone of any standing can contribute is what impresses me. There is a culture that is a reflecition to me of John Lennon's imagine: 'no heaven, no hell, no countries yadda yadda yadda' but that is entirely possible. The devil could turn up to a Quaker meeting and decide he'd wasted his life.
The Quakers I can see being something else entirely in a hundred years time rather than obsolete. Whilst they are sparse in Australia and a small community I don't see them at risk of the same irrelevance faced by larger pushier institutions.
Ultimately to me it is about self determination. And that is cool, I could turn up to Quaker meeting week after week and if asked what I believe could say 'I believe women are beautiful*'

* speaking of beautiful I grabbed the pamphlet that described the quaker's stance on homosexuality and lesbianism and it filled my heart with hug puppies such was it's beauty.

The Third Potential

I'd like to cryptically share with you one of El Sup's master piece extracts of writing directed at children:

There were once three children, one was good, one was bad, and the other was the Sup. Arriving from different directions they came to a house and went in. Inside the house there was only a table. On that table was a plastic jar, one of those they use for ice cream or snow cones. Inside each white plastic jar (note: no trademark or logo) there were two chocolate bunnies and a piece of paper. The paper said:
"Instruction for the use of the two chocolate bunnies"

"After 24 hours, this pair of chocolate bunnies will reproduce themselves and will have a new pair of bunnies. Every 24 hours, the pairs of chocolate bunnies inside this white plastic jar will multiply into another pair. That way the owner will always have in this magic plastic jar (Those used for ice cream or snow cones) chocolate bunnies to eat. The only condition is that at all times there must be a pair of chocolate bunnies inside this plastic jar, the same one used for ice cream or snow cones."

Each child took his white plastic jar , those used for ice cream or snow cones.

The bad child could not wait for 24 hours and ate his two chocolate bunnies. He enjoyed the moment, but he had no more chocolate bunnies. Now he has nothing to eat, but the memory and nostalgia for the chocolate bunnies remain.

The good child waited for 24 hours and was rewarded with 4 chocolate bunnies. After another 24 hours he had 8 chocolate bunnies. As the months passed, the good child opened a chain of stores of chocolate bunnies. After a year he had branches in all the country, he associated with foreign capital and began to export. He was eventually named "The Man of the Year" and became immensely rich and powerful. He sold the chocolate bunny industry to foreign investors, and became an executive of the company. He never tasted the chocolate bunnies, in order not to diminish his profits. He no longer owns the magic white plastic jar. He doesn't know the taste of chocolate bunnies.

The Sup child, instead of chocolate bunnies, placed ice cream with nuts in the white plastic jar, like those used to hold ice cream or snow cones. He changed the whole basis of the story, packed half a liter of nut ice cream between his chest and back, and ruined the moral of the story of the chocolate bunnies, deducing that all final options are a trap.

Neo-moral: The ice cream with nuts has dangerous implications against neoliberalism.

Questions for reading appreciation:

Which of these children will become president of the republic?
Which of these children will belong to an opposition party?
Which of these children should be killed for violating the law for dialogue, reconciliation and a peace with dignity in Chiapas?
If you are a woman, would you like to give birth to one of these children?
Send your answers to "Huapac Leaf #69" with copies to the Interior Ministry and the Cocopa.

Tan-tan and The End.

Over the years people have bandied about opinions of the third way, the third potential often refers to inaction when trapped between two choices. Fact, and by fact I mean it is not a fact at all, is that having to choose between two paths often will create 'post purchase negative or positive disconfirmation anxiety' in marketing speak or prompt us to get creative and go for something else.
I apply this at restaurants, where I find myself stuck with 'do I go with my favorite? or choose something new' anxious pangs and get around this by getting somebody else to order for me. Good old Sonam always picks my favorite dish anyway Pan Fried Chicken with Lemongrass and I get the thrill of 'taking a risk' by giving responsibilty to Sonam.
Which is a convenient way out, but most often the third potential may be choosing something you didn't even consider an option before. Try it out next time you have food picking dilemmas.
I'm real hungry now.

The Joy of Laughter

I love catching up with Parky. One time we were at Chocolate Buddha or one of those chocolate shops, he was drinking the hot chocolate where you drop chocolate buttons into milk stir it up over a candle then drink and I said 'don't laugh' while he was drinking and he sprayed some girl with chocolate milk out of his nose. It was real messy and it took me like 2 days to get over it.
Last night Harvard was cooking and Chen and I were talking about which specialisation of medicine she would go into. I recommended proctology as 90% of the work is removing 'suspiscious' objects from peoples rectums and listening to their excuses.
'How did you get a vegimite jar stuck up your arse?'
'I fell on it in the shower'
'And what was the vegemite doing in the shower?'
Chen started asking questions about Jam jars and why people would stick them up their arse, I don't have the answer the above anecdote was actually one of vaggy's. I could only explain that vegemite jars come in a smaller size as you don't use as much as Jam, Jam jars are not for amatuers I concluded.
While to you and me this was a completely rational stream of consciousness the malaysians found this 'hilarious' Chen almost choking and none of us moving to help her out because she was the "doctor" in the room. Our explanation didn't help the choking fit though.
She eventually had to move to the couch because her back hurt.
It's been a while since I've made people laugh to that extent, it's a really good feeling even if nothing came out of Parky's nose this time.

Reduce Re-use Recycle

Okay Rag Curls attempt one didn't work out. The ringlets where there sure except for the haphazard way I set up the curls:
ghetto
These were then destroyed by my constant need to run my hands through my hair. I'll try wrapping my hair around the rags rather than vice versa next time. But on the upside I have a new midriff top to wear on weekends:
what the fuck was I thinking

Procrastination hath a new name

Wednesday, hump day and tonight I am humpless. Stuck in my room alone, trying to take the opportunity to work on a script, the same script and work I did do putting out another four pages. But in my finest distraction seeking effort to date I decided to look up how to rag curl.
Now 'sections' of my hair are wrapped in strips of a former t-shirt. I wasn't coordinated enough to do it properly and have ended up with possibly the reverse. I don't know we'll see how it turns out in the morning. But I seriously spent an hour cutting strips and another hour wrapping strands of my hair.
Then I sat down and did some more writing and even got some key scenes into it. But writing has become full blown pain now and Bryce is talking about more episodes. I think I'm beginning to understand those crappy artists what they refer to when they're talking about 'work' oh for another project. Will post a picture of the rag curls when I do them right on a non weeknight.
Stay beautiful.

Marketing is Evil

I got home late and it was too late to play music in my room so I thought I might sit down and blog because it might be a while before I can again once I start capoeira anticipating I dislocate my fucken shoulders and I gotta get onto the whole find a housemate biusiness.
But when I sat down I forgot what I was going to write about so I decided just to go to bed then when I went to get my book I realised what I wanted to write about.
And here I fucken am except my fatty head from eating dinner with my sis is so clouded I'm not sure I can do it justice.
I have argued before that Marketing isn't evil, malicious, insidious of itself but is a symptom of incorrect economic assumptions that cause it to most frequently utilised by the wrong organisations for shallow and unproductive ends.
I maintain marketing is a symptom of the priorities society has given itself however I must concede that the Marketing industry as it stands today is a waste of everybodies time and resources.
In 2nd year I watched a documentary called 'Cool hunters' that featured a section on Bionicles or one of those shitty toys. They got schools to identify all the coolest kids in some chicago primary schools and brought them in to a central location where the kids where given shirts and hats and told they were 'secret agents' they were given the product before the release date and chalk and proceeded to graffiti sidewalks with the brand name for the company.
When the stores opened to sell them families were lined up round the block to buy them. And you know as well as I do that the products were never cool, didn't make the loser kids cool and are not cool now.
To quote Afluenza marketing blurs the distinction between wants and needs, as soon as you have something you wanted you want something else. All these wants are directed at consumer goods.
Like a ninja the 5 weaknesses can be employed to push anyone towards one product or another. The sad fact is most of society isn't conscious. Most people when told what to do will do it.
Friday was casual day at work, one of my many managers was asking me why I dressed the way I did and wanted me to walk through another department to get a reaction, assuming that I dress the way I do to get a reaction. Which is true, I want to get a reaction from my friends which is generally acceptance. I don't give a shit about what work thinks of what I wear on casual day or any other.
But I told him I can walk down the streets in Brunswick and not get a reaction at all, I would go to a party and nobody would comment.
For those that saw me on Friday they'd probably be hard pressed to describe anything about my attire that was unusual.
I guess I've been to leniant on the industry I studied, because I understand it and am relatively immune. If I buy a porsche I know that marketers I know know that I bought it because I have a small penis, low sense of esteem and want a trophy bride to impress people I hate for hating me.
That's what underpins the 'innocence of marketing' per se, I am more willing to do some damage because I know I wouldn't fall for it. A bank manager is unlikely to use a credit card because he knows it isn't worth it.
But life's hard, I forget that. Nobody wants to be nobody. To not have an impact which does some good, to be a bad lover, to have kids that grow up to sell insulation. People want to be stars, to be exceptional, to have a beautiful house, to be artists, sportspeople all that shit. But you graduate from university and get a job instead.
You've got a job and because you want to be great you work hard at it and you work overtime. Then your other dreams slip wayside because you can work on whats there. But whats the point of earning all this money if you don't spend it on shit?
And that question deserves to be answered. Marketing blocks it though.
The underpinning economic assumption that fucks all of society is that growth is the answer, that increasing incomes and consumption = a better quality of life.
Marketing is what essentially allows this assumption to be sustained.
The saving grace of this assumption is that most marketers are just plain bad at what they do, occasionally getting lucky by intuitively hitting on something that looks good.
But enough do well enough to feed the cycle. Enough know exactly who you are, who you want to be and what you are most afraid of. They can twist and turn it any which way no matter what party you are associated with and what lifestyle you lead.
They can convince women they have the right to withdraw sexually if your man doesn't shave.
That a non diamond engagement ring is an insult or sub standard.
That your daughter is safer if she has a mobile phone.
That your mortgage will destroy you if you vote for this other guy.
4WD vehicles are the case in point, cigarettes are another. Repeated studies have shown time and time again that 4WD's are more dangerous for people both inside and outside the vehicle. They are resource intensive, fuel inefficient pieces of shit. But they've been a boom category for cars manufacturers. Smoking nobody has to harp on about, there is no incentive, benifits or gain from smoking. It's an expensive way to undo every other anxious measure you take to protect yourself whether that's drinking bottled water, going to the gym or scrubbing your toilet.
Most people do this but you gotta wonder why smokers bother?
Neither of these products or many others exist for any rational purpose. Marketing allows them to survive when otherwise they wouldn't.
That being said, marketing cannot be stopped. It's just communication, intuitively I suspect is how most of the most insidious tactics came about, association and anxiety tactics are the worst. Some products do inspire us when they are aligned with aspirations that are not self centred.
My ring with a dog on it has reminded me often not to be an arsehole to people. I slip up left right and center but it is nonetheless an affirmation it tells me how I want to love people.
But I designed it, I didn't see it on anyone. It wasn't bling. This is contrary to Carole's kid who needs shit bought for him so he doesn't feel humiliated or ostrichsized, I am ostrichsized because I wear where only supposedly married couples are supposed to, like married fucking couples own MY left ring finger. I got it for my ring finger out of ignorance I keep it there out of obstinance although it probably reduces the chicks who talk to me at a party.
But you can't bridge the gap between who you are and who you want to be by buying shit. I can buy VInce Carter's shoes but I'll never be able to dunk like him if I don't put the time and the work in.
I may never be able to anyway. being a 5'9" white dude and all. You can't buy your kid anything to make you a great parent. You can't where a shirt that will land you the CEO position. Who you are is a culmination of the people you meet and inspire you, the learning and reflecting you do, the work you put into achieving your goals.
If someone shoved a glass bottle into my face tomorrow, would I give up on any of my dreams in light of my disfigurement? that noone would love me? That I couldn't succeed in my career? That I couldn't run to the horizon? I don't know maybe.
The fact is marketing feeds everyone's demise, it sets the bar higher on the material things we feel define us, then we make sacrifices to pursue it, which gives us less time to ponder and build defences to the trap. Then the material things need to justify the way we've lived our lives. We try harder and harder to profit and it get's further and further away. Which would be fine if we could dig shit out of the ground forever. You could call it progress, but as 4WD owners are finding out things like oil can get scarce, desires in significant countries across the sea can push prices up. And so you start marketing the least safe vehicle on the road for it's safety because the petrol aint a selling point.
It all boils down to trying harder as a strategy to win. Buy more, own more and you'll be happpy. You can buy and buy and get no closer so it just must be that you haven't bought enough.
Buddha would have you sit down and appreciate what you got.
Imagine if you got paid more as you worked less, you bought less as you were paid more and actually had time and money to invest into your world, your friends, your passions. It should work that way and would. But instead the opposite happens. SUrplus isn't created only debt, more sacrifice is required as your desire for a lifestyle you never could afford increases.
The moral: Marketing is evil because it confuses wants and needs and distracts more people from living than anything else out there. Think it's not illegal yet.

Seriously fucking think. Sit down and fucking think. I am talking to you. Just do it fucking think. If you are still reading this understand I am serious, think about your life. Think now.

Probably the most ironic marketing at the moment is Jobs.com they got the add where a fat couple are embracing for a kiss, and they do a 'turn this into this' and it changes into a hot couple kissing in the rain. But nothings changed because they were in love before and are in love now, why they fuck do they need to look better?
Why has switching jobs become such big business anyway?