The Internet Restaurant

This is a parable that should have been put in the bible, and in one form of another was in the marketing bible 'Positioning: the battle for the mind' by Al Ries and Jack Trout, if only they had anticipated the internet at the time.

So there's this restaurant, a very old traditional restaurant that had been around since 1454 or so. Everybody loved it, but it had a bit of a monopoly on public discourse, being that somewhat intrinsic to it's design were a bunch of signs, people wherever they looked, no matter where they were seated in the restaurant were confronted by the fact that they would be reminded by the omnipresent signage:

No shouting

For most of history one could only enjoy the conversation of one's immediate dining company, one could simply not talk at a level of volume to be heard by all patrons of the restaurant. One was lucky if one's influence was felt even on your own table.
One could only communicate in the civil art of communication with family, friends or neighbours, the few people the patrons could attract to join them for an evenings dining.
Because of the 'no shouting' reminder, it was considered uncouth to demand the attention of the whole dining hall. One was expected to keep one's opinions to themselves to be shared only with their immediate company.

To many it was frustratingly boring, after all, one's friends, family and neighbors really only wanted to hear about things relevant to them, not talking about things of world wide import. It was so frustratingly local.

Then one day in the early 1990's the signs mysteriously dissappeared.

It took a while though for people to appreciate the true potential of this lack of policy. Some of the wealthier, more regular patrons started shouting their opinions to all. Some of the more observant and educated also realised the potential now to not just be heard by your immediate peers, but by everyone in the room.

Gradually volume levels began to rise. Young people in particular quickly adopted the practice of having shouted conversations directly across the room whenever they noticed a friend or acquaintance seated at a different table from them.

Of course, one of the biggest incentives to shout was the dating seen. It was relatively safe and anonymous to shout 'Nice tits!' at someone across the room, then quickly look to your meal before retaliation could take place.
Much voice traffic as such was dedicated to wolf-whistles and sexist jibes, but it was possible to tune out on this.

Some-time before or after 2006 a major publication ran a story about the benefits of the 'No Shouting' policy. Suddenly everyone in town flocked to the restaurant whenever they had a spare moment to make use of the new ability to shout.

What did they shout about? As far as many could determine, people loved to shout about themselves, offer alternative commentaries on big news stories, promote their own business, try and flog their own albums......................................................ting complex instructions to Adobe Graphical software applications.

It was hard to tell though, because there was just so much fucking shouting. And whilst theoretically being able to shout allowed someone to be heard by a global population of diners, fact was that the attention individuals received was actually in most cases far less than before the no-shouting policy.

Furthermore, there was very little feedback to actually exert any quality control or reinforcement of conversation. Standards dropped, which was relieving for some, but the academic community of diners have not stopped complaining to this day.

Freedom of speech it seems, does not entail the freedom to be heard, and many a narcissistic opportunist that thought the 'no shouting' repeal was a one way street to success and recognition still struggle to realise this is the case.

But instead of adopting some concerted grass roots strategy, involving hard work and actual value creation, most people are just motherfuckers shouting about their own problems as if the world revolves around them.

My Favorite MC's

Bryce. He takes it back to Ballarat, pure animal magnatism and is probably the least conscious of the audiences tastes and preferences of any performer this side of Andy Kaufman. It is enough for Bryce to know the audience is there.

2na Fish. He has a voice so deep that it's like having cool scoops of watermelon massage your brain when you hear him.

Trugoy the Dove. Pousdnous is probably more celebrated, but Trugoy has the baby face, and has written some of my favorite versus ever.

Pous. Likewise, he is almost as lovable as Trugoy, almost.

Q-tip. Just the smoothest ever, and he is built like a weiner, like me.

Mr. Lawnge. I like Dres, but Lawnge is to sleeze what Q-tip is to smooth.

Notorious B.I.G. I suspect it's all delivery, but deliver he does, like a fat Karl Malone.

Notch 2: The Real Gayle King

Okay, maybe I'm prematurely ejaculating here, but I'm bumping myself up to notch 2 because I think it significant that I've managed to be part of a creative group, and that we as a group have managed to produce something.
Sure it might have been worth 2 notches if we had already formed Circue Du Soleil or some shit, but I think people can underestimate how much harder it is to do something as a team as compared to an individual.
It's much easier to run a 400m race than a 4 x 100m relay, a relay should be faster than one person running its true, but it isn't easier to be faster, its much harder, you got the baton pass, the change over, the boxes and various ways you can be disqualified, the runner order, the start etc to suddenly contend with when you switch from solo to relay.
And our group is really cohesive, for example it only took us 3 months to pick a name for ourselves, we have churned out a zine in about 2 months and the quality I feel it safe to say presentation, content wise, layout wise, price wise etc is all greater than the sum of its parts.
We aren't formally launching the group yet, until we've built up a greater body I suppose, but still I feel the hard parts done, the forming and storming and norming phases. The peeps all know eachother fairly well now, it seems everyone in the group can run a meeting, we know what eachother are capable of and the enthusiasm levels seem high.
It's good, it's a special thing, it's a creation. I'm proud of it, so I'm putting myself up to notch 2. Just 98 more to go.

Honorary Collision

Okay, thankfully my near death experiences have virtually dissappeared on the road since I started tracking them.
That said, a friend of mine got cleaned up by a car on Monday. According to her recollection of events she was riding through a roundabout when she woke up in an ambulance.

Scary, according to the driver that hit her 'she appeared from an unknown angle', now trusting my friends version of events she entered the roundabout after looking to her right and back again to the left (where technically you shouldn't have to check because you 'give way' to vehicles in the roundabout and to your right.) This tells us two things as a cyclist:

1. Our brains are phenomenally good at shirking responsibility in times of crisis. Eg. reinterpreting 'she appeared from an unknown angle' from 'I didn't see her' the old active to passive tense. Other pertinent examples are 'the rider was hit' (passive) vs. 'I hit the rider' (active).
In defence of drivers, I'm sure the lady feels horrible, possibly went into shock, and whilst my friend had the twisted luxury of being unconscious for the collision she probably had to watch my friend slice her face open while bouncing off the bonnet of her car.
She may have even made her statement whilst not knowing whether or not she had killed someone.
While anger is the natural response to 'bad' drivers and you want to yell 'what the fuck are you doing?' and 'learn how to drive motherfucker!' and 'you are killing the planet!' (truly climate change was the greatest thing to ever happen to cyclists). I hope we can realise that the type of 'evil' that is running round-about's without looking, getting distracted by a mobile phone, reversing over a kid in your driveway, running a red-light, pedestrian crossing or overtake a tram that is disgourging its passengers is frankly banal not 'evil'. It arises from overconfidence, incompetence, impatience etc. not 'evil' or any malicious 'duel' type road-rage.
What that means is the culprit was probably somebody like your mum, sister, aunt, best friend. And if she had been a guy someone like your dad, brother, uncle or best friend. You going to get angry with her, be prepared to get angry with everyone including probably yourself.
Easy for me to say, I didn't get mowed down by some crazy bitch.

2. Whilst 'technically correct' is normally the best type of correct, it doesn't cut the mustard on the road.
In other more understandable words, people who gripe at cyclists that openly and cockily flaunt the road rules, it's because if we obeyed the road rules, we would have died out by now.
I feel this way because in my experience 'good driver' is a lot like 'middle-class' everybody is one/from it. This is despite colossal evidence to the contrary. For example, Janice (my mother dearest) calls herself a good driver, even though the past 3 times I've been in the passenger seat adjacent to her my most common interjection to conversation is 'red, red, red, red, RED, RED! RED!! RED!!!' I'm sure she is a good driver 90% of the time, it's just a shame she is a much more involved and conscientious conversationist/monologuer.
You see I freely admit, I am a terrible driver. I often refuse to drop people off on these grounds, I really can only hack driving on my on, and when I do I drive at cyclist speed, yes 40kph is plenty fast for me. I feel boxed in by the chassis and my vision severely impaired.
Picking someone up for me involves driving to their location then jumping into the passanger seat. As such as one of the only 'bad' drivers on the road, I feel I am one of the safest ones.
But 'good-driver' can be everything from 'someone who actually does mirror checks' to 'someone who drives by instinct alone' to 'someone who would be a good stunt-driver'.
That's why road rules don't count. It's not the cars, it's just people. It's mathematics. Everyone is a pedestrian, Most people are drivers and very few people are cyclists. Hence I would say every pedestrian is an irresponsible arsehole, many drivers are irresponsible arseholes, and very few cyclists are irresponsible arseholes.
Because it is mathematically true to say that 'on average, people are average' and thus they are average drivers.
I blame society, not cars as a mode of transport. Our society reinforces that its important for people to get to work on time, when plainly this isn't true. Sure if you are a doctor working in emergency or a fireman or something, if you are an accountant for Australia's third largest roof insulation manufacturer, the work can probably wait the 4 minutes you drop by not running stop signs.
Except it doesn't, morons the world over are obsessed with stressing how important what they do is, in spite of much research by psychologists that suggests most of the trappings of western society could easily be lived without.
But why get all monk on your arse. Fact for cyclists is, you enter a roundabout checking the traffic on the right, as you are legally a vehicle bound by the same laws, anyone entering the roundabout to your left is obliged to give you right of way. Right?
Wrong. I believe there should be a 'cycling on the road' rule book, that refers only to the laws of physics and perhaps Murphey's law. Because the road laws aren't laws of physics, there is no force of nature that holds cars in place and prevents drivers from doing the wrong thing. Thus the first rule of cycling on the road is D.T.A. or 'Don't Trust Anybody motherfucker' personally if I don't make eyecontact with a driver I assume he is going to plow right through me.
Case in point, riding home from visiting my somewhat roughed up friends place, I first gave a big 'what the fuck!' hand signal to a driver that cruised out onto the road behind princess park at a T-intersection where I had right of way, I noticed a Porsche driver near Lygon street having to scream to a halt because we were on a collision course (or would of been if I hadn't seen him first and hit the breaks to slow down to stop if I had to), then just after crossing Brunswick St, I would have taken a trip across a bonnet myself if I hadn't employed the exact same technique on a lady that decided to pull out of a gas station into the emergency lane while putting on her seatbelt.
They all look like nice decent douchebags, and apart from the Porsche driver that actually employed body language to indicate he was a douchebag you can bet I gave the other two a good glaring at.
But the fact is thanks to D.T.A. I don't even realise how many opportunities there are for people to hit me because I wasn't actually sensitive to it until my friend got hit.
I probably flip off 2-3 people in cars a week for 'almost' killing me, and that's largely because I do the majority of my riding on a bike trail not the roads.
But basically if you are a cyclist take from the road rules book the bit that says 'we drive on the left' and 'red means stop and green means go' and then append them with the prefix 'generally' and then throw out the rest of the book.
From there you have to D.T.A. motherfucker and I guess the second rule is to always 'look out for the black hydrogen motorcycle with the driver in black with no lights at night' this I feel is what makes me fairly safe even with headphones on on the road. Because I have never assumed I would hear a car coming.
The last bit of safety advice is 'be as predictable as possible' okay riding through a red light making your own traffic judgement actually isn't a violation of this rule, not indicating 30m before you turn, not riding in a straight line, riding on the right or on the pedestrian sidewalk are all violations of this rule.
So that's it, D.T.A., look out for a ninja attack and be as predictable as possible. Those are the real rules of cycling on the roads.
Actual road rules don't mean shit due to the asymmetrical punishment of violation, what that means is that a car can run a stop sign and kill a cyclist, a cyclist can run a stop sign and kill themselves. If you are in a car you just don't have the motivation to be as safe as cyclists need you to be, unfortunately it is the cyclists lot to pick up the slack.

With fixed gear bicycles becoming an unfortunate trendy accessory what must be 10 years after New York did, the incedence of douchebags hitting douchebags can only skyrocket.

Q: What do God and I both have in common?

A: We are both superfluous.

Possibly both irrelevant. I saw an ad for a book billed as 'the most controversial book of the year' which sadly was not titled 'Shirley Temple's Pussy' or anything actually controversial, but instead it was 'The Genisis Enigma'. There's also a high profile book called 'The Case for God'. Both seem centered around the 'definitional retreat' logical fallacy which in my book is an admission of defeat.

Of course the slew of books promoting Atheism that came out last year, I happily admit was overkill. 'The God Delusion' was thorough enough to necessitate a few decades of responses without needing 'Adams vs. God' 'Letter to a Christian Nation', 'Irreligious', 'God is not Great' etc. Arguably, The God Delusion was the first response necessary after Bertrand Russell's 'Why I am not a Christian'.

The thing is, I've reached a point where for close to 10 years now I haven't been interested in whether god exists or not, that isn't I feel the productive debate. From what we can observe, I think the real question is 'does it matter if God does exist' and I think it an uncontroversial finding to say 'it doesn't'.

Now I'll break it down like Chapelle Corby's mental health.

Part 1: What science is.

Christian Science is an oxymoron. I'm not being facetious, ironic, vindictive or synical. I am using the strict technical definitions to say accurately that Christian Science is an oxymoron.
See what is perpetually ignored by supporters of creationism, intelligent design, theology, supreme beings, and spiritual realms is that the scientific method is a formal system. It is a mechanical process. It isn't sentient, it isn't an organisation, it's non-heirarchical, it isn't democratic. It is mindless, blind if you will.
It isn't that science doesn't want to support intelligent design it's that it can't
it motherfucking can't and still be called science.

So what is the scientific method?

Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.[1] A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.[2] One of the first to clearly outline the specifics of a scientific method was John Stuart Mill.[3][4]

taken from wikipedia.
Of particular note is the 'observable, empirical and measurable evidence' this is why it is true to say that one can create a 'Big Bang Theory' and a 'God made the Heavens and the Earth' theory and science can descriminate between which one gets taught in public schools.
It is because, there is objective empirical evidence for 'The Big Bang Theory' in the form of ancient radiation, that has been floating around the universe since its creation. They actually have recreated images of 'The Big Bang' occuring, Steven Hawking recieved a medal or some shit from the Vatican for figuring out how the big bang occured accompanied by objective empirical evidence along with a request to stop investigating it.
This applies to a broad range of miracles performed by God, for which no evidence of any sentient interference has ever been produced. For example, you or I can feel 'hot' we can also feel 'the presence of a higher power' you can measure 'hotness and coldness' by observing its effect on mecury particles in a glass tube for example. It's objective, somebody making the claim that they are in the presence of 'heat' can be proved using the same method, the same observation, the same experiment every single time.
You cannot observe the 'presence of a higher power' by any known objective means, the ectoplasmic detector from Ghostbusters does not exist, the presence of higher powers has been somewhat erroniously been given the definition of 'supernatural' whilst I feel 'subnatural' or 'non-natural' would suffice functionally simply because they are not natural phenomena that can be measured any way shape or how.

To put all that in lay terms, I'll tighten a conventional definition of 'experience' to 'an experience is any phenomena that acts upon the human nervous system.' if you can see, touch, hear, taste or smell something, it is natural phenomena, and you can detect them using instruments like a thermometer or something. Anything else is not natural phenomena and cannot be experienced.
This isn't to say that some mysterious being effects outcomes of experiences in real life that are beyond detection by any instruments or people's nervous systems. But because they can't be detected, predicted or documented in any objective way, they aren't science, and not worth worrying about, because, any information pertaining to these 'miracles' is of no help to predicting future miracles at all.
Bertrand Russell encapsulated this exact argument in this excerpt from 'The Analysis of The Mind':

There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago.

Which is logically true, but operatively it doesn't matter if this is the case, because if it is it's beyond our control, thus since we can act on an accurate but unreal remembered history even if it didn't exist, it simply doesn't matter if it is the case.

2. The Problem of Knowledge.

Which is to go from Bertrand, to Bertrand. There is a limitation of science in for example that it's much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much harder to know something is, than to know something isn't.
This was much of the subject of Taleb's book 'The Black Swan' pointing out that the apocryphal anecdote was one where prior to European colonization/discovery of the Australian continent, Europeans could have observed over and over again that 'All swans were white' and defined it as pretty much a law of nature. They could have written in their ornithology texts that 'This holds to be true: That a defining characteristic of the Swan is that its plumage is white in pigmentation.' and could have proved that with scientific methodology.
Then one day Sir Joseph Banks or someone stumbled upon a Black Swan in Australia somewhere and invalidated hundreds of years of scientific conclusions in one single observation.
That is the problem of knowledge, you only know something until disproven, thus in an infinite universe its entirely probible that simply everything exists.
Does this then mean that we should give scientific knowledge license to provide for the existence of purple swans? swans with tusks? Green swans with multiple heads? gigantic swans the size of the solar system?

No.

Again, the problem of knowledge is that tucked away in some corner of our infinite universe could be a sentient being with the means and capabilities to destroy our planet with a wall of fire, hear and comprehend our thoughts and answer our prayers if it so chooses, create life as we know it and whatever other 'powers' we ascribe to the various gods worshiped on earth. But since no such being has been detected, it has to be left out of science.
You see when supporters and members of the SETI program tell you that 'there's probably other intelligent life' out in the universe, they can actually calculate a reasonable probability based on observed phenomena by things like the hubble space telescope and the conditions that support life on earth.
They then calculate the distribution of potentially life sustaining planets relative to the uninhabitable planets and systems and conclude that there's so many of them, one of them is bound to have intelligent life on them.
But they don't know it. They just have faith based on what they do know.
So at the moment, scientific knowledge has it that homo-sapiens are the only creatures capable of transmitting encoded messages into space, manufacturing their own satellites or interplanetary transportation.
That's all we know.

Now, this problem of knowledge is two fold, there is A) stuff we think we know, but could be disproved with a single observation. and B) stuff we don't know.

The tradition has been to insert an un-scientific explanation into B. Then to use the possibility of unknown potential observation that could be made ie. God actively doing something, to try and discard A.
Doing the latter is kind of wasteful, for the sheer practical reason that until anything actually happens there isn't much use worrying about it. The former is the most troublesome, and has become increasingly troublesome for organised religion. The reason being that the bogus explanations keep getting refuted as the body of observed and explained natural phenomena gets larger.
So you go from Lightning bolts being forged by Hephaestus and hurled down by Zeus, to electrically charged particles accumulating under a variety of conditions, many involving friction, being discharged into the ground after making connection with a stream of positively charged ions.
Likewise you go from God making the earth 'in the dark' to quote Ricky Gervais, to a singularity exploding and expanding, superheated mass cooling to form stars which throw out different chemical elements that attract similar masses that gather and cool into planets that are then drawn into orbit around various other masses creating a complex web of 'heavenly bodies' that form the spiral galaxies, nebulas etc. that comprise what is known as the Universe.
Yes, to my knowledge, science doesn't know what the fuck the initial singularity was floating in. Apparantly people who know much much more physics and mathematics than I do, have theoretical proofs for string theory that suggests all reality is some type of membrane or some shit, and the probable cause of the big bang where two of these parallel membranes or 'universes' colliding.
Here is what is funny for a 'Christian Scientist' this 'membrane theory' is treated as 'more probable than a divine creator' in the abstract science of mathematics. Neither are known.

3. Explanation

Dawkins' used in his book terminology that I admit threw me off because I am an NBA fan. He talked about 'Cranes' vs 'Sky-hooks'. To me a sky-hook is where Kareem Abdul Jabbar gathers a basketball under his chin lines his shoulder up with the basket, bends his body like a straw, leaps as high as he can, extending his shooting arm upwards and tossing the ball primarily from the wrist moment down towards the basket. Exploiting the goal tending rule which says you cannot block a basketball shot during its downward arc towards the funnel of the basket, this shot was virtually indefensible.
That indefensibility is about all it has in common with 'Sky-hook' as applied to explanations. Here I'm more or less regurgitating exactly what I understand Dawkins to be saying in his book.
If you interpret these terms literally, as opposed to via pop-culture references, a 'Crane' is an explanation that is 'grounded' a crane sits on a huge stilt, based on the earth, has a huge arm with a system of motorized cables and pullies that can be used to lift construction materials from the ground to quite formidable heights.
A crane therefore is an acceptable explanation as to how someone could construct a skyscraper high rise building.
A 'sky-hook' is a mysterious hook that floats in the sky suspended by nothing observable that could be used in much the same way as a cranes hook can and thus could also suffice to 'explain' how a skyscraper was created.
The problem is that there is a functional difference between the explanation 'The petronus towers were built with the use of a crane' and 'the petronus towers were built with the use of a sky-hook'.
For one, somebody would probably accept the crane explanation at face value, its not a controversial explanation, because if that person has been in cities before, they would have seen cranes in action at some point in their life. It isn't improbable that someone may never have seen a crane, thus if they do ask 'what's a crane' it is easy to then explain exactly how a crane works. You can even, if you have an engineering degree, explain it right down to the tensile strength of the trusses in the scaffolding and why they are welded and riveted in a particular way.
Someone though would be quite right to ask you 'what's a sky hook' because unless they are an NBA fan of the Show-time era Lakers, they would never have seen one. And Kareem Abdul Jabbar lobbing steel-trusses into place is about as plausible as a mysterious magical hook suspended in air by nothing, floating down and picking up the same steel cross beams and concrete mixers.
The point being that at the first level - explaining the presence of a skyscraper, both explanations appear to suffice. At the second level, explaining the presence of the explanations, it becomes a very different story.

What does this have to do with God? Well science only allows explanations that in themselves can be explained. But it does it in such a way as to allow an explanation to persist even if we don't wholly understand it, just so long as it can be observed. It doesn't allow explanations that can't be explained, or are harder to explaine than the gap in knowledge that they explain.
Thus thusly, you can explain the presence of the Universe/Reality (Something to my knowledge we don't understand) by saying it was designed by some intelligence. Except, then going a step further to explain how that intelligence came to be is actually far more complex than employing it as a 'simple' explanation.
For example, you could say that Computer Game - 'The Sims' was designed by the intelligent being 'Will Wright' but explaining the creation of Will Wright, is far more complex than the creation of 'The Sims'. You have to explain his education, his motives, the technolgical developments, his ancestry, the evolution of his species, the creation of the habitat in which his species evolved, the creation of the universe that contains the habitat, the zeitgeist for that universe being created etc. etc.
A lot of this can be done, thanks to the accumulation of scientific-knowledge, such that you get a pretty sturdy Crane explanation for how 'The Sims' title came to be.
God though, remains a sky hook, that as Dawkins points out 'even if life on earth was designed and seeded by an intelligent designer, you would then scientifically be stuck with having to explain how that intelligent designer came to be, and the simplest and most probable explanation is that that designer came to be through a process of evolution.'
Put simply, religious, or non-scientific explanations, are not explanations. They are generally eliminated by science as hypothesis, because under the principles of the scientific method, you can't just imagine up an explanation that can't be detected or explained itself.

4. Definitions and Interpretations

The key to both 'the case for God' and more relevantly 'The Genisis Enigma' as I stated is using a definitional retreat. Keeping in mind that the book of Genisis was translated into English and that numerous translators and bodies of officials holding positions in Churches, Academia etc have consistently chosen words that have common use definitions.
Most notably is a word like 'day' as in they didn't choose to use the word 'era' or 'aeon' or 'phase' they chose day, consisting of a period of 24 hours. As in 'On the First Day god created the earth and the heavens' or whatever. A definitional retreat is to say 'well of course Genisis doesn't literally mean days it means millions of years' which is necessary because Genisis is controverted by the presence of million year old trilobyte fossils on top of Peruvian mountains, not to mention dinosaurs.
Of course it seems simple to me to just throw out Genisis as invalid or obsolete as an explanation, but unfortunately many feel the simplest course of action is to simply redefine the terms.
But they see no danger in that. You see for something like a holy-text or structered religion to espouse universal truths whilst employing subjective interpretation the whole thing becomes a waste of time.
One could call it a supermarket mentality, that is you head down an aisle of religion and pick out stuff you like eg. Thou shalt not kill, and ignore stuff that is inconvenient or undesirable to you eg. thou shalt not make an engraven image.
I mean the ten commandments if you truly sit back to appreciate them, are truly some of the least inspiring moral guidance you have ever heard.
But the point being if it's okay to say that 'days' means 'aeons' then why isn't it okay to say 'kill' means 'hurt' and to 'lay with a man' means to ride a horse? That 'thou shalt worship only me' really means thou shalt worship anyone worthy? and so on you go. What I'm saying is that if there are bits of the bible you can't trust, and bits you can and only science tells you what you can and cant trust, why start with the bible in the first place?
Furthermore, moral behaviour has been shown to be universal, via empirical scientific research right down to Amazonian tribes with no exposure to outside religions. Ethical behaviour is internally ingrained in our genetic structure, ironically one thing that can contravene the pull of our intrinsic moral compass is actually religion, as evidenced by the disproportionate representation of devout christians on death row in the US, vs the disproportionate representation of athiests researching moral philosophy at the Ivy league schools in the US.

Once 'the word of God' is subject to interpretation by individuals, it has no worth as spiritual guidance, because it is ultimately the message of a subjective human interpretation not some devine entity.
It is physically impossible for the concept of god to be transmitted through human beings. The only way God could be effective is if he talked to us directly. Even then to an observer outside yourself, your representations of God's will are in effect the same as you just making shit up.
Until you can invent a device that allows anyone to hear the messages transmitted by God to you as a transistor radio allows one to hear radio station transmissions, science has to assume you are making it up, because that is what science is.

5. So why all the controversy and arguments.

As far as Science is concerned God does not exist. You simply are not allowed to assume God exists and then call it science. You have to observe the effect of god in a controlled scientific environment.
You can't for example toss a coin let it drop to the ground as an experiment and record as the results 'Midway through it's decent it is possible God froze time then transported that coin 3 times around the earths atmosphere before returning it to its exact position, unfreezing time and allowing the coin to hit the ground as per business as usual. Nobody was able to observe or detect the event caused by God, but in the interest of science I am recording the possibility.'
It isn't allowed by science. God may or may not exist, but the point is that because nobody has ever detected God in a controlled scientific environment and only ever detected the laws of physics, science isn't allowed to entertain the thought.
Science doesn't attack the Church per se, it may hurt or disprove unscientific claims the Church or any religion has made without scientific basis (such as a model of the Solar System). But it isn't a malicious attack.
People get their heckles up over 'Intelligent Design' simply because it is unscientific.
God is a highly illogical and irrational concept, it needs artificial reinforcement since God can't speak for itself. Children need to be raised under a religious belief because unlike a belief in Gravity, it isn't reinforced by phyical nature. The opportunities to not experience God seem infinite.
But that science doesn't provide for God is about as uncontroversial as science not providing for One-Eyed-One-Horned-Flying-Purple-People-Eaters, there's no evidence of either. That people believe something exists is not evidence in the same way as a Channel 9 newspole is not submissible as evidence of Chappelle Corby's innocence.
Science is insensitive to people's beliefs because its mechanical.
The controversy is simply because 'believers' need to feel that the systems of their belief are somehow relevant to reality, Science just goes on explaining things and empowering people to take charge of their own lives, scientific discoveries and endeavor seek to leave no stone unturned and are incredibly useful and consistent. For example, the US has the very real capacity to destroy the planet earth several times over in their nuclear arsenal, something made possible through Einsteins theory of relativity that has finally been proven by computers but also in practical experimentation. This power was traditonally ascribed to God in christianity in the book of Revolations or something, God has diminished in standing in this capacity, he is as capable of destroying humanity or less, than humans are themselves.

God has always been free to show up at any time. Even if he did, his existence is irrelevant. Because as is argued in 'The Case for God' he is completely transistent, omnipotent and omnipresent, whatever God is going to do, God is going to do and I have no control. If he chooses to punish me for my actions, it is the same as someone choosing to kill a hostage because I didn't listen to their demands. The law finds the person that enforced the killing responsible, not the person that refused to negotiate.
God presumably can choose whether to punish someone like me or not, and if he chooses to punish me because I reject his existence through my ascribed faith in science, then God is bad.
If god thinks I should obey him simply because he is relatively more powerful than me, then why do 'democracies' tell us it's right to depose Saddam's Regime just because he uses his relative power to dominate his people?
I see no consistency and I see no relevance as to whether God exists or not. I'm not going to devote energy to avoiding lightning strikes.
He simply, when you think about it, is not that important.

The idiots that keep devoting time and energy to insisting he is though, are important to refute. Even if all this arguing is superfluous.

Airline Ettiquette

The only real evidence I feel I have for knowing I have some kind of moral compass, a deontological guide is that I universally hate inconsiderate pricks. This has many applications but you might guess that Airports, Airlines, and flying are not my favorite past-times.

Having done nigh on a year of travel, I was pretty firm in thinking I didn't need to get in a plane for a few more years. I've barely left Melbourne for any reason since.

I haven't really budged on that feeling a year in, but I can say when flying to Sydney on the weekend. It seemed to me, almost as if betwixt then and now, humankind has somehow evolved into one that actually understands flying on a budget airline. A more respectful society that has pulled together.

Just as a kid started crying on the flight and I thought '...here we go.' it stopped.

I could detail the flight, but I thought it would be better just to walk through the unwritten laws, that surprisingly seemed to be obeyed on both my flight to and from Sydney.

1. Don't get a window seat, if you have ever gone to the toilet on a flight.

You should have a pretty good impression of your bladders capacity. Going to the toilet sure, it is a human right, I think, there's probably something addressing it in the Genave conventions on how you treat Prisoners of War.
It may be a right, but it's also a massive inconvenience/annoyance for other people. If you are sitting on the window and need to go to the toilet, at least one person is going to be bothered by your need to climb over them, or make them get up, shuffle down the aisle so you can get to the toilets.
On a long haul flight, okay, maybe in the course of 16 hours between LAX and Melbourne even the biggest bladdered man might have to take a slash, but here you employ Ricardo's law of comparative advantage, people on the window who will need the bathroom once in 16 hours will be comparatively less annoying than people in the window seat who need to go 3-4 times. You take less annoyance over more.
This should also apply to middle seats, which you can treat as a window seat diminished by a magnitude of annoyance to clamber out by 1.
The only exception is this, if it is your first time on a plane ever. Then you can have the window seat, possibly twice if it's your second time, but first 'night' flight or 'day'.

2. If you have the window seat, when the plane is landing, don't stick your head in the window.

You have this thing called a 'field of vision' when your head is in it's usual position at the head rest, you can see out the window and you can probably see on the lateral plane an arc betwixt 30 and 45 degrees, by tilting your head up and down, you get a vertical field of vision of about 180 degrees.
By sticking your head in to the window and sticking your nose to the glass, you don't necessarily increase your lateral field of vision, and if you do its negligible. You just change the angle of what you are looking at.
Your crowning achievement though, is in obstructing the view of the people next to you, right across to the other window with your doofus head.
If everybody just looks out the window from their headrest position, everybody can enjoy the rare sight of descending upon a city from 10,000 feet.

3. The Airline made the seating uncomfortable don't be part of the problem by reclining your seat.

This happened a lot while travelling around the world. But not in either of my flights over the weekend. Which is amazing, because those flights were on a popular budget airline.
Basically, the Airline when they commission the planes to be built for them, design them to minimise legroom, maximise the number of seats. The only thing preventing you from having to sit crouched in battery hen like cages are probably the Geneva conventions. But for some sick reason, someone said, 'okay the seating will be uncomfortable but let's allow the chair backs to recline.'
All it serves is to make you stare into someone else's reading light, and crowd the person behind you's legroom.
It also crowds their eating space, reading space, and everything they partake in from the waist up. This prompts them to have to recline their chair and make the upper half of the problem somebody elses.
Compare it to a car seat, the driver and passanger seats have a lever under them that allows you to slide the chair back on its rails, increasing your legroom. Imagine you are a 5'0 status conscious Indian lady sitting in front of Notorious B.I.G. in a car. Would you think it wise to reach forward lift up the lever and slide the seat back as far as it can go. Then reach down to your side and turn the wheel or pull the lever reclining the chair back as far is it can go, so that when you shift your eyes up slightly you can see the Big Poppa about to Pop you betwixt the eyes with a piece?
It's obvious as to why airlines don't give you the beneath the seat leg-room adjuster. I don't know why they then saw no annoyance in giving people the reclining button. Until they take this feature away removing all temptation in a short-haul flight. Just don't be an arsehole and sit upright, you will notice it is no less comfortable and far less of an affront to the person behind you.

3. If it fits, stow it under the chair infront of you.

Because the angle is all fucked to actually extend your feet under the chair anyway. So if your carry on is a backpack or whatever, don't use the overhead compartment. Carry on luggage is one of those concepts that has been totally routed by the evolution of the US airline system.
Next time you are disembarking from a plane, take note of what is the major holdup on exiting. Fuck even on embarkation. You will notice, like I do, that getting the tunnel connected to the plane or the staircar takes about 2 minutes.
People waiting to take turns to rummage around and take out their luggage from the overhead compartments is what takes at least 10 minutes to disembark after the plane has landed.
People pack too much, ever since luggage companies started designing those travel-cases to optimise the airlines carry-on regulations.
Arseholes started carrying the luggage that in the past they would have checked.
To my knowledge, QANTAS, the now defunct Ansett and Virgin Blue have never been bad, or in the latter's case never even had the chance to establish an appalling track record of losing your luggage.
The US Airlines did this with such monotonous regularity, they ended up conceding that people could just carry their luggage onto a plane. But instead of the big suitcases they had to pack 6 days of clothes into a desktop PC case sized case.
And Australian's being Australian's just imitated them.
The US has 50 states, with 50 capital cities, and probably 150 airports domestically they could accidentally send your suitcase to. Australia has 7 states, about 14 domestic destinations, and airlines that actually make profits.
The problem is, that it's a bit of a prisoner's dilemma, if you check your luggage, wishing to spare everyone else the 2 minutes it takes you to get your luggage down, and then just wait about 5-8 minutes at the turnstyle for your luggage to appear, not everyone else will follow suit, meaning you have to wait the 10+ minutes for everyone else to pull their overhead luggage out then wait the 5-8 minutes at the turnstyle in addition.
My consession is that people will never be so noble as to sacrifice a minor inconvenience for the good of people that can pack their entire wardrobe for a month into a backpack (me). But don't maximise your carry-on, minimise it and tuck it under your seat. You can retrieve that luggage before you even take your seatbelt off. You can also keep all your in flight entertainment in there without having to get up and down (or clamber over people if you are dumb enough to pack your books and magazines into the overhead compartments, then take a window seat).
And this observation seemed to finally have been made. On my flight home all three of us in row 7 my side of the aisle, had our carry on stowed under the seat in front. We would have positively shot out of the plane into the clear air of freedom if not for 6 rows in front of us that needed to back 3 pairs of shoes for a weekend in Sydney.

4. If possible, Leave your kids at home.

Okay, I never subscribed to the 'children should be seen and not heard' maxim, except when it comes to plane travel.
Particularly in my globe trotting trip, I never cared about getting the bulkhead because it is the bulkhead where they keep the baby-cots, and that would mean that in exchange for a little extra legroom, you get the pleasant company of a crying baby.
In my view the only excuse you can have for taking a baby on a plane is if you live with the father and one of you has immediate family in a foreign country. That would mean that you make one obligatory trip a year so that your immediate family can know or at least see, your annoying progeny.
Preferably you should actually pay for your parents to come to you, rather than you to them. Only if your family is particularly large could it possibly be more effecient for you to go there.
Sure I'm not much of a family man, but as per my moral compass, I simply abhore the idea that you and your kids and parents could possibly, objectively be more important than all the other people on the flight.
Basically, unless your child actually can consciously respond to feedback and adjust their behaviour, you should leave them at home. Since beating the shit out of kids has become illegal, and furthermore kids as young as 5 are amazingly wise to legality, this means you could have a child as old as 17 that you should leave at home if they don't shut up when you tell them to.
What can I say, I'm not a family man. I believe everyone on a flight should suffer the discomfort in quiet dignity. I'm sure there are people put into wheelchairs that kick up less stink than some arseholes on a plane.
The whole point is its temporary. The only excuse to whinge, whine and make noise that is therefore acceptable is if you are a minor whose parents think you should spend 3 hours in the air going to a QLD beach, as opposed to the perfectly fine, and infact world heritage beaches of VIC.
Parents should wise up (one of my parents most redeaming features was to realise neither I or my siblings enjoyed beach holidays, playing soccer etc and thus such 'enjoyment' should not be forced upon us) and just leave the kids at home.
Criminal negligence is better than being inconsiderate to strangers.

5. Suck it up, Man up, Don't cry over spilt milk, etc.

Australian's have to be the worst customers in the world. Australian backpackers have certainly been rated as the worst. This may shock or surprise some, but I think it actually stems from the fact that we are 'Not Americans' and thus people can naively overlook their own behaviour whilst saying 'those fucking crass Americans'.
Sure, go to Venice or Paris and the Americans fit the stereotype, they are big fat retirees from Florida that barely have their head around the concept of passport, certainly not exchange rates and are fat and smell bad.
But unlike Australian's if you meet a young American in Europe, South East Asia etc, they are aware that they are not at home and generally represent the best of their nation.
Australian's on flights, before flights and afterflights, treat every customer service situation as if the only service providers in the world are Myers and McDonalds. Demanding refunds, demanding extras, demanding preferential treatment, demanding, demanding, demanding.
I feel personally I am suited to a 'caveat emptor' society, unlike the 'caveat vendor' society we live in. Don't speak latin? The former is 'buyer beware' the latter is 'vendor/seller beware'.
That means, instead of us consumers being on the lookout for rip-offs, hustlers, crooks, we are a society of rip-offs, hustlers and crooks that spill our drinks on purpose, put our own hair in our meals, demand to speak to managers, slip on staircases, shoplift, cut lines, scalp etc.
To me, if you are on a flight, it stands to reason you are a captive audience. It also stands to reason that simply not everyone can sit in the bulkhead aisle. Yet literally on my homeflight from LAX to Melbourne, I was sat next to a 'fellow Aussie' that complained to me that she had asked for her husband, and the stupid lady had seperated her and her husband.
To me, evidently, she had been one of the last to check in, and the 'stupid lady' at the check in counter should be entitled to laugh in her face, and I mean in her face maybe even lighting up a cigar and exhaling directly into her nostrils in the process, just for asking for the bulkhead.
But like the stupid lady, I did not allude to just how unreasonable her request probably was, and a steward eventually reseated her, to which I then had a delightful conversation with an elderly American woman who seemed positively sophisticated compared to that particular Australian, and more or less most of the Australians I have ever met here there or anywhere. and she liked President Truman.

So basically, if you follow this 'ettiquette' what you get are the two flights to and from Sydney I experienced over the weekend.

1. nobody went to the bathroom from a window seat.
2. nobody jammed their head in a window and obstructed anyone elses view.
3. Many people used the underseat stowing option.
4. I heard one child cry and they shut-up when their mother told them to.
5. I didn't hear anyone complain or make an unreasonable demand.

I just now live in fear that I experienced some improbable, statisticle annomaly, like winning the lottery first division twice, and the rest of my life will be back to annoying as usual.

Love Japan

My sister and I went to see 'Eros + Massacre' on Wednesday as part of MIFF, and the movie really was a perfect facsimile of my love/hate relationship with Japan.

They say a poor craftsmen blames his tools, and a poor speaker perhaps blames his audience (it's certainly true, I just don't know if "they" say it). Then perhaps a poor foreigner blames the local culture. But the intractable point I seem to have with Japan is nihonjinron which loosely translates into 'the unique mystical specialness of Japan' that Japanese themselves are in love with.

Specifically, because of the strength of nihonjinron (think of the bullshit ACA and Today Tonight stories that precede Australia Day each year x 10,000) on the subject of Japan people are 'Japan bashers' or 'Japan lovers'. There's no wiggle room. Japan is prime, divisible only by itself and one, it isn't a supermarket aisle I'm simply not allowed to say 'I love Musashi Miyamoto and Cherry Blossoms, but I hate the lack of seperation of powers in the administrative and legislative wings and the non-representational government'

As Catch-22 put it, nihonjinron serves largely to create for the government a 'You are either with us, or against them.' Something employed by bad governments the world over to keep in power, non-more obvious than China vis-a-vis the torch relay protests.

I just personally find it really underhanded. But I do love Japan, in a mature adult sense. And by that I don't mean pornography but more, instead of the over romanticized, fantastical fixation of a child, I love Japan warts and all. I care about it, thus it has aspects that prompt me to frustration and indignation that I put up with because I actually value the great stuff Japan has to offer enough to suffer it. But not suffer it silently.

Eros + Massacre was like this because it was a many faceted movie that ultimately failed. The dialogue, I am sorry, was pure garbage. There was plenty of salvagable promise in the movie, dealing with feminism, anarchism and cross generational debts/burdens/reputation. Likewise there were some brilliantly composed cinematography. 'Arthouse' applied in the sense that some sequences where more art painted on the medium of film, than a movie with a plot, story line etc.

Except it had some kind of plot/storyline that was so abused and mistreated by the directors vision and crappy dialogue, that the medium was ruined. And at 202 minutes the movie provided ample time for the directors, writers and cinematographer to ejaculate all over eachother.

But my sister and I walked out primarily because it didn't deliver on our expectation of 'erotica' or the bonus 'massacre' as hinted by the title. Secondly, it just dismally failed to be anything more than a movie trying to be far more than what it was. It was almost a parody of itself, it was that fucking bad, and anyone who loves this film, would be unquestionably bad at making films.

But I did have a fascination with for example, the scenery in the film. Having been to Japan it was a pleasant throwback to a more in-balance mix of old vs new. They had for example, highways, freeways and electric trains, but people lived in beautiful wooden houses not concrete boxes.

I actually would have been happier to have the soundtrack turned off, and just watched the movie oblivious to the pretentious attempts to be sophisticated.

And in that it becomes the facsimile of my relationship with Japan itself. I love Japan, but I hate the constant cringing attempts by the culture to be more than itself, to impress people that just plain don't care. It's attempts to modernize/internationalize that are dismal, dismal failures.

When I go to Japan, here is what I love:

I love the soft voices of the airline staff announcing in gentle Japanese the standard arrival information. The no fuss, no hassle shuffle of the disembarking Japanese as they move in a silent almost mechanical motion through the complex terminals of Kansai International Airport.

I love how when you make an enquiry, the customer service is taken to a level incomprehensible in Australia. A young girl of 19 working at a service desk, rather than resenting the fact that she has to work this job to afford to go to the Big Day Out, genuinely feels that something is at stake. I love that they call the hotel, get directions, circle maps, explain tickets and then, when you get to your Hotel, suddenly they are expecting you, even though it's just a capsule hotel.

I love sitting on worn leather chairs in the pit of my capsule hotel, with old weary looking businessmen, smoking and eating out of vending machines while watching the baseball or some comedy show.

I love the shared bath option in hotels, the liberating feeling of stripping off naked in front of some elderly laundry women, and washing yourself and shaving on a stool in front of a steamy mirror, then relaxing in a sauna, hotbath or whatever takes your fancy, liek some throwback to ancient greek or roman times.

I love the food, the food, the food and more food. I love takoyaki, okonomiyaki, yakitori, yakiniku, korean bbq, ramen, gyoza, tenmpura, tendon, oyokudon, shabu-shabu, kare rice, kare udon, miso-udon, miso-shiro, katsudon, tonkatsu, ebi-fry, taiyaki, mochi, soba, gyudon, gyu on a stick all of it pretty much except nato. I also don't like the raw egg dipping sauce.

I love how you can actually get a good feed in a tray for 4-6 dollars in a convenience store. You can buy icecream - in a bag. You can get chocolate peanut buttens for $1 and by the time you have finished them you can buy another bag from the next convenience store - no matter what city you are in! That's right, everywhere is melbourne in Japan, everywhere has 7-Elevens a plenty, I love how I even have my favorite convenience store Heirarchy which goes Lawsons, Circle K, 7-Eleven.

I love the trains, they are clean, warm, on time, and actually so frequent that it wouldn't even matter if they were late or early. ou can get around Tokyo for $2, and it's roughly by my estimate 64 times the size of Melbourne.

I love the laneways, a vending machine can conceal a 200 year old traditional restaurant that serves the tastiest sets you ever tried, and old men sit in their WWII American bomber jackets drinking beer and eating peanuts behind you.

I love the temples with playgrounds in the middle of suburban blocks, I love the unrefurbished, un-renovated castles and temples of the Edo and earlier periods that have been preserved. I lvoe the non-disabled friendly historical tourist attractions, where nobody has bothered with safety railings, and thus you can walk into the literal inconvenience of another era.

I love the street life, the teenagers - mid 20 year olds all out, any night of the week, clogging the streets with bicycles equipped to carry umbrella's. I love the random peletons of people commuting to and from work on bicycles, in high heel knee high leather boots and grey woolen suits. I love the mobility of the elderly in Japanese society, peddling around vending machines at the age of 80 selling dim-sum type objects and live fish in water tanks.

I love the long opening hours of everything, everywhere. That you can uy a jumper from a boutique store at 11 at night on a wednesday. You can catch a train from Tokyo to Nagoya at midnight. You can go out for dinner at 1am.

I love the net cafe's where you can purchase a booth with a bed for 8 hours and sleep there, with free drink dispenser and instant cup-noodle on hand. You can go and take a shower in a net cafe in a city like Takamatsu with population 100,000.

I love the ritualistic exchange of greetings, when arriving home, departing, going to sleep, eating a meal, finishing a meal etc. in all the formality that serves to punctuate your day and existence in japan, arresting you from ever feeling lost, alone or adrift.

I love the way Japanese notice anything wrong or out of place, and immediately and genuinely endeavor to help you. Whether it's scratching a head because you can't find the station you are supposed to get to on the map, to having an emotional breakdown because the only light you've experienced in the winter months is flourescent.

I love the Edo renaissance heritage, the body of art as rich as the renaissance Italy and the body of craftsmenship as rich as German antiquity. I love the zen philosophers, the sword saints, the martial heritage. The lack of fear of death inherant in fine Japanese art and philosophy, the quaint superstitions, the sophisticated treatises on almost anything ever undertaken by a Japanese ancestor.

I love the literacy of Japanese youth, the respect they are treated with by writers, the lack of downtalking and condescending 'Youf' branding. I like that girls can enjoy comic books with equal fervour to boys, I like the graffiti of Japan, the op-shops, the second hand book stores.

Relative to all the things I love about Japan, my list of grievencase is relatively small:

I hate the emphasis placed on modernisation at the expense of classical Japanese architecture.

I hate the Japanese education systems fiercely nationalistic bent.

I hate the proscriptiveness of Manga, Anime, J-pop etc.

I hate groupism, and the tribal fashion offshoots.

I hate foreigners, that have more in common with the peadophillic salary-man in their love of Japanese 'culture' than the artists and teenagers they claim to admire.

I hate english-teachers in Japan, that can't speak much Japanese and do nothing but have sex with their students while living in the suburbs and consigning themself to unemployment should they ever return home.

I hate the Minestry of Finance, Ministry of Construction and the Police Pension fund, that collectively in self serving interest are concreting over everything I love and replacing it with Pachinko parlours.

I hate the sexual politics, being so Stepford-wives-esque. I hate the girls who doll up and exchange sex for accessories. I hate the boys the exchange meals and transport for sex, that want a wife to replace their mother, destroy their parents traditional home and build a new house with seperate rooms for mum and dad, then go to pantsless shabu-shabu restaurants to look at young girls vagina's while eating bad food with their work buddies. Girls are much more attractive and endearing in their tracksuits they wear around the house, guys are much better off learning to cook and clean for themselves.

I hate the cultural imperitive to gloss over or ignore unpleasent truths. There is no George Orwell in Japanese history or society. Most exposes are read by the scant foreigners actually interested in what's there rather than glossing over the ugliness to concentrate on ikebana, tea ceremony and harajuku fashions. (which let's face it, are crap.)

That's it. I feel I should be allowed to suffer 9 hates for 16-ish loves. Of course the complexity is always in what aspects we hate actually being responsible for the aspects we love. Like for example, the Japanese habit of overlooking bad stuff that I hate is probably intimately tied with their ability to deliver superb customer service.

It may be that the 'culture' whatever it is can never be better than it is now, but I think everyone should try to be more than they are.

Lastly, I was telling my sister as we ate lunch, that ironically, I'm the kind of person that enjoys not enjoying a film like Eros + Massacre. I get as much out of picking the shit out of a crappy film as I do out of experiencing a brilliant film.

I love being presented with complex foreign cultures like Japan, not just to be wowed but to pick it apart, read up and look for explanations as to why one society executed as such as opposed to others. Being critical is if you can buy it, often an expression of my love and appreciation.

It's part of who I am.

Comforting Words

People talk about their finances as being 'Comfortable', they eat 'Comfort food', they enjoy movies like Lord of the Rings, Games like World of Warcraft and television shows like Madmen and Entourage because of the comforting notion of 'escapism'.
We want our homes to be comfortable, and line them with 'creature comforts' one might even purchase that abomination that is the 'snuggie'.
Yet what does 'comfort' mean? what is the true meaning of the word? This struck me last night, after A) reading a set of Harlen Ellison short stories that rotated around the theme of 'Alienation' and B) having spent the weekend with my very good friend that seems very very 'comfortable' in life.

What does it mean? Dictionary.com gives this:

1. to soothe, console, or reassure; bring cheer to: They tried to comfort her after her loss.
2. to make physically comfortable.
3. Obsolete. to aid; support or encourage.

And I begin to wonder of the many implications of this word. I wonder, and think it worth wondering because I see yet another force in this world that is dangerous in its sheer benign perception as held by the public.

A 'What's wrong with being comfortable?' or 'what's wrong with security?' type kneejerk reflex.

See I see nothing wrong with comforting a friend whom you see potential in, and they are suddenly overcome by self doubt. And you comfort them with soothing words and placating excuses as to why they haven't yet succeeded such that they calm down, take stock of themselves and reapply.

So too someone has been dumped or fired or some shit, I see nothing wrong with providing the kind of comfort that is taking them out for lunch or inviting them to a movie or some shit.

But then, take someone who has been dumped now for going on a year, they still wallow in self pity, you'd probably agree that this is where one starts to put their foot down on comforting like a conquistidor puts his foot on the throat of an Aztec child, and start applying the tough love, like a Catholic missionary tossing priceless codex's onto a raging fire.

These examples are obvious, but as stated earlier, I feel the danger is in the benign applications of this concept of comfort.

For example, someone has a stressful day at work, and comes home just wanting to relax in front of 'Two and a Half Men' for an hour or so at night. And so the shape of their private life firms up for 10-20 years. Work under stress, and recuperate infront of the television.

Or someone has a dry spell on the boyfriend/girlfriend front and comforts themselves with a a nice bar of chocolate, KFC etc.

Sure we can say that ultimately there's some balancing act between hedonisism and sadomasochism that is infact healthy, but consider perhaps what has arisen as one of the most benign cum malignant comfort cists in modern society - the comforting notion of retirement.

This notion is just a higher level form of the 'stressful day at work = watching a few hours of television' except it is the populus notion of 'you've worked hard, you've earned a relaxing retirement.' that has been used to sell super, investment property, collatoralised debt obligations, plasma screen televisions, luxury cars and package cruises to the mediterranian.

Except it seems to me that comfort and truth have to walk hand in hand, if comfort is to be truly exercised benignly.

You see we can use Neuro Linguistic Programming to attack the comforting statement 'You've worked hard, you've earned a relaxing retirement' because their are assumed facts in their. 1) that you have actually worked hard. and 2) that this hard work entitles you to a relaxing retirement.

To me it's kind of an affirming the consequent type statement. As in a relaxing retirement should be the natural result of having worked hard at creating genuine value because in my mind, creating value entails profit, profit entails savings, savings entail stored wealth, stored wealth can be exchanged at a later date for a 'relaxing retirement'.

People swallow the statement and it's 2 assumptions though as gospel truth. but it's assumption 2 where comfort starts doing a disservice. Because one can look up the word 'earned' also at dictionary.com and you get this:

1. to gain or get in return for one's labor or service: to earn one's living.
2. to merit as compensation, as for service; deserve: to receive more than one has earned.
3. to acquire through merit: to earn a reputation for honesty.
4. to gain as due return or profit: Savings accounts earn interest.
5. to bring about or cause deservedly: His fair dealing earned our confidence.

and perhaps most enlightining is dictionary.com provides the historical derivation of 'earned':

bef. 900; ME ern(i)en, OE earnian; akin to OHG arnēn to earn, harvest

It's that 'harvest' on the end of the statement that puts me in mind of that 'gospel' truth 'as ye sow, so shall ye reap'.

So if we look at the macro level damage of 'comfort' you get a clue as to where the whole thing comes unstuck:

Baby boomers the largest age segmented demographic on earth, and the wealthiest are coming to the end of their 'working life'. As a result of their 'hard' work, they were paid wages, said wages were what they earned for their labor.

That really is the limitations of the 'work hard = relaxed retirement deal' because for your efforts you are paid wages. You aren't actually entitled to any more than that.

But the comforting notion gets warped and you start to see that money that they had being invested. People then need to realise, that investing your money, is a kind of work, in that you are becoming effectively a personal one-man/woman bank. You are lending money, it's a new business for you. Therefore, you 'work' by picking investment products to allocate your savings to, and you 'earn' a due return on those investments.

Those investments though compete in the marketplace, that's the truth of it, and in this case, instead of the relatively simple 'work = wages' equation of your primary job role, investing is a different business where the market says 'value = return' thus assumption 1. 'you have worked hard' is actually quite debatable to the market. And as per the GFC the market can turn around and say 'actually those investments you made were of very little actual value, infact they were of no value, infact they were completely counter productive, and as such, your return is nothing, we won't be returning the money to you, and beyond that we will actually be selling off the assets to try and recover our losses.'

So you can see that the comforting spiel of 'you've worked hard, you've earned your retirement' is misleading. It should have been 'you've worked hard, you've earned the wages that you were fucking paid, for doing said motherfucking work!' but the comforting statement has extended to the point, that people don't feel this way at all, they don't understand that profit = risk = profit = losses. That in order for you to expose yourself to the chance of gaining a 'self funded retirement' you had to expose yourself to the overlooked risk of a 'non funded retirement' that is unfortunately, the fucking deal, in accordance with the laws of physics, the law of the jungle, basically the laws you just can't make up.

But instead, this tumorous cancer of comfort has born more comfort seeding everywhere throughout our system, it was the bankers fault, it was the fund managers fault, it was anyone's fault but your own. We will go into debt, don't worry we will look after you. Everything will be all right.

Alas I'm not a baby boomer, and neither is much of my readers. Almost none infact, for people of my generation, comfort takes the malignant form of security, and here at long last is where 'alienation' becomes relevant.

Germaine Greer wrote in 'The Female Eunuch' a book that is depressingly relevant not just for feminism, but also for society in general almost 50 years after it's initial print 'until we can acknowledge that insecurity is freedom, we will remain slaves in one form or another' I have to paraphrase, because alas, my copy was destroyed by a leaking roof.

I feel 'Alienated' because I hold several views that are at odds with the comforting notion of 'security' for me, unwinding infront of the television every weeknight, or ordering food in, is not comfort as a reward, but a symptom of your job being exhausting. I used to do it, and I would have said that when I was a full time employee there was much going for the job I had, I loved the people I worked with, at times I was stimulated, I was good at the job, I was learning new things.

But by the end of the day, whatever I had achieved in that work was ultimately not very important to me, the money I recieved was literally 'more than enough' to support both my lifestyle and 30% savings towards travelling around the world for 8 months. Yet most complained of how stingy that employer was with wages.

I ate out most nights in that job. as in 12 out of 14. I watched 'The Biggest Loser' avidly, and then typically whatever happened to be on. My girlfriend lived for much of that time a mere 5 minutes walk away and yet, I often couldn't bear to spend time with her.

Everything in my private life was mere comfort. The wonderful things that happened to me were getting dumped and becoming unemployed. Because both introduced me to 'insecurity as freedom' denied the outward signs that 'everything is okay' I am found I have to actually confront the fact that 'I am a loser' and largely speaking, I have nobody to blame but myself.

But 'failing to succeed' is not the same as 'succeeding at being a failure' though I'm not sure many scholars of english would tell me so.

Here then is the comfort that is not benign as it effects people of my generation. In my 'downtime' I had the chance to play 'Bioshock' again, and one of the first things you encounter in that game is a plaque that reads:

In what country is there a place for people like me?

- Andrew Ryan

Which expresses much of the same alienation I feel. You see (do you see?) for a young person born into this world, the fact is that people older than you actually control everything, even though individually their control may be severelly limited generally between 50-60 a person in this world controls relatively more than most people of other age groups.

Thus it isn't completely viable for one such as myself to notice that my full time work doesn't actually require all the hours that were alloted to it, and that those hours could be alloted back to me in my private time. That was my experience, I enjoyed my work, I was paid well for it, but I needed 1 & 1/2 weeks to do what was given me 4 weeks to do. I could do in 20 hours a week what was allocated 40. It was the truth of my existence.

Most people in my experience, use the surplus time at work to play 'Jewelquest' or Spider Solitaire, or Freecell. Exactly what an unemployed person might do. Yet why does one get paid to do so and another doesn't?

Well what is particularly alienating is that it doesn't seem to be my place to ask such questions, because I don't actually control sufficient resources to do anything about it. This may strike someone as a 'victim mentallity' because it certainly strikes me as a victim mentality, and I do have a plan for what little resources I have.

But for most, instead of excepting the 'alienation' which I contend is the 'opposite' of comfort, they take the comfort.

You go to primary school, then highschool, then university, then you get a job, then you get a house, then you get a mortgage, then you have kids...

then if we can use the wisdom of our elders experience to project a little you have some kind of mid-life crisis.

Because you've just taken the comforting deal of doing what most people are supposed to do. I mean most people I believe are meant to procreate, but what I would point out is that it doesn't necessarily have anythign to do with paying off a house or working full time. We just kind of assume that's the social responsibility.

You have the midlife crisis, during mid-life because as far as I can tell, there's some gap that crops up between having something your actively supposed to be doing, (like having kids or paying off a mortgage) and having to actually look forwards/backwards at what you are wanting to do.

Many look on the 'quarter-life crisis' with disdain, myself included, because people feel that someone is too young to actually regret how they have spent their years. But in Japan the same phenomena is labelled furita, except the social script is stronger and thus, their dilemma isn't as simple as returning to university, or changing jobs or starting their own business, it's literally doing what you were supposed to be doing, or dropping out completely.

I put it to you, and it may be a very 'uncomfortable thought' that what many of my peers and contempories are engaging in what I call 'succeeding at failing' as evidenced, precisely by the midlife crisis. The 'midlife crisis' is a crisis because it is 'uncomfortable' and it is uncomfortable because one is stuck with the revelation that they have failed, specifically failed to be who they wanted to be.

Being dumped for me was a similar crisis, being unemployed is a very real and very similar crisis. But I tried to be something else, I tried to be who I wanted to be and I failed at it, it was overambitious, unviable and moreover poorly timed. But at least if I had succeeded I would have been something I wanted to be, and what little success I had, I have to admit was exhilerating.

It was truly rewarding, and I wish I can convincingly impress that upon you, that it was far better than being told I was excellent at doing a job I didn't care much about, being given a payrise and told that 'if I keep it up, more will be forthcoming' and so on and so fourth.

To me it wasn't as exciting as realising that manager-tools feedback system works in real life, or seeing someone get enthusiastic about doing some process I had taught them. That was rewarding. It just wasn't financially viable. I failed. I hypothesise it could be my lack of credibility, the economic climate, my inability to approach and persuade prospective clients. etc.

At the very least I know, that I failed. I think every failed, dole bludging 50-60 year old hippy is in a way, an unsung hero, because in a way they have at least accepted the harsh, alienating truth (or if not having accepted it, experienced it and stuck with it) that if you work hard at stuff that isn't of value to someone, you don't earn a relaxing retirement. Which does far less damage I think we will find, than those who can't accept that if you malinvest your savings, the savings are gone and you lose your luxurious retirement.

I also think the only reason people need money to travel to Europe, or to have some 'treechange/seachange' retirement is because they aren't satisfied with the way their life is now. They seek comfort because they know something is wrong, comfort is a cure for discomfort, but they don't want to confront the cause, they want to cure the symptoms.

Particularly when comfort is socially endorsed, effectively the alternative to comforting yourself, is alienation. I feel alienated, I don't feel comfortable. I feel like a loser, not a winner. What perplexes me though, is that I'm not sure I would choose any differently, even with the lack of success I'd had.

I hope in some way, you can understand where I'm coming from.

Man With A Plan

I am always inspired by De La Soul, whether it was the chronic bouts of agorophobic isolationism I experienced in Asia, taking me till 11 most days to venture out of my hotel room, to now when I have no idea what I'm doing or planning to do.
Specifically, in 'I Am I Be' Pousdnous has the following segment that always sticks in my mind:

If I wasn't making song I wouldn't be a thug selling drugs
But a man with a plan
and if I was a rug cleaner
betcha Pos'd have the cleanest rugs I am.

Of course it seems that even getting a job as a rug cleaner is a tall order these days. But the sentiment is nice, and the sentiment is real.

So I know I need a job, some kind of job, any kind of job because I need a space of my own to do what I want. Long-middle term I actually need a workshop, you see because I want to become a 'renaissance man' it's the only thing that will make me satisfied I feel.

So I have drawn up plans for a room for me:


I figure I need roughly 3 x 4 meters at least. I've decided I don't need built in robes, having more or less lived out of two piles for the last 8 years of my life 'dirty' and 'clean' my clothing just isn't complicated enough to warrent exorbitancies like BIR.
Then with the bed I'm taking a page out of Michelangelo's book:

In his personal life, Michelangelo was abstemious. He told his apprentice, Ascanio Condivi: "However rich I may have been, I have always lived like a poor man."[20] Condivi said he was indifferent to food and drink, eating "more out of necessity than of pleasure"[20] and that he "often slept in his clothes and ... boots."[20] These habits may have made him unpopular. His biographer Paolo Giovio says, "His nature was so rough and uncouth that his domestic habits were incredibly squalid, and deprived posterity of any pupils who might have followed him."[21] He may not have minded, since he was by nature a solitary and melancholy person. He had a reputation for being bizzarro e fantastico because he "withdrew himself from the company of men."

AFter a year of living in a garage, all I really want is one of those spartan camp cots to sleep on, rather than a big twin bed that dominates a whole room. That is so I can have a big table in the room. Crucially removed from the wall. A big table allows you to spread shit out at a workable height, and work on stuff that is larger than A3 in scale. I guess I'd want a smooth wooden surface so I can do cutting and shit with a stanley knife.

That stanley knife would be kept in a storage unit, just one of those wheely set of drawers, that I can stash all kinds of wonderous pens, brushes, inks, clutch pencils, carpenters pencils, charcoal etc. in.

That's next to desk 1, a drawing desk. With one of those angled boards, a set square, the works. What architects work away on, that shit. Graphic designers too. Maybe if there's room an overhead projector thing as well.

Then desk 2, is the computer, the bane of modern creativity. I need a scanner, screen and graphic tablet, because learning to paint with a mouse is worse than learning to paint with a chinese calligraphy brush. Albeit the one time I drew with a graphic tablet at Harvards, it was still incredibly hard. But it's hard in the touch-typing sense, not the completely counter-intuitive sense.

Then some bookshelves, for books that I use for reference, inspiration. I think I'm one of the few people that accumulates books that actually does constantly go back and refer to them. I dog eared almost every single page of The Female Eunuch. And some times when economics gets confusing, I go back and reread Growth Fetish or The Black Swan & shit. Anyway, it's also for storing all the notebooks and visual diaries. I've almost gone through as many visual diaries this year as I did in my Studio Art 3/4 year. Which I am pleased about, but at this rate I'd fill one of those bookshelves in 5 years.

Lastly, the key component of it all - the walls, the table is removed from the wall so I can actually storyboard. That makes writing for comics so much easier, because you can rough the layout, speech bubbles and everything, then pin it up over 6 meters of wall and refer to it as you draw the pencil roughs.

This is going to be workshop Mk 1. Which I am calling Freedonia, because I just watched Duck Soup last night. (oh the days before laugh tracks made for... awkward... comedy).

That's the plan. Now just to pay for it somehow.

I am I be.

Vitruvian Frustration

I just finished the pencil roughs for SS2, which ironically has a lot to do with frustration.

It's been good though because unlike drawing a full blown comic, where you just have to plough through heaps of talking head panels and necessary action sequences involving people running, fighting or just plain walking down a street, this project is all about large scale detailed pictures (relative to comic book panels).

I'm kind of itching now to get back to comics, but it is true what they say: relish the times when you're frustrated because that is when you are learning.

I have a couple of abstract compositions in it all, but the fact of the matter at the end of the day is, you can't really fuck up abstract too bad. It's not frustrating to work with, and infact it's kind of a travesty that someone who did nothing but distortion like Brett Whitely is better remembered and sells for more than someone that had to paint near photo-realistic compositions like errr... Elvgreen.

But it's trying to get shit right that makes it all frustrating, and it's overcoming that frustration that gives me work I'm actually proud of. I have to scan in my pencil roughs now, and then I guess, we'll see how the whole collection comes together before inking, painting etc.

But today let's just say I was working on an 'italian' inspired composition, and I wanted to do something in the rough neighbourhood of the Florentine Renaissance Masters. Now obviously I am no match for and I quote:

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci ( pronunciation (help·info), April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian polymath, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance man, a man whose unquenchable curiosity was equaled only by his powers of invention.[1] He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.

But what I can do is take his guide to proportions for 'The Vitruvian Man' which are:

a palm is the width of four fingers
a foot is the width of four palms (i.e., 12 inches)
a cubit is the width of six palms
a pace is four cubits
a man's height is four cubits (and thus 24 palms)
the length of a man's outspread arms is equal to his height
the distance from the hairline to the bottom of the chin is one-tenth of a man's height
the distance from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin is one-eighth of a man's height
the distance from the bottom of the neck to the hairline is one-sixth of a man's height
the maximum width of the shoulders is a quarter of a man's height
the distance from the middle of the chest to the top of the head is a quarter of a man's height
the distance from the elbow to the tip of the hand is a quarter of a man's height
the distance from the elbow to the armpit is one-eighth of a man's height
the length of the hand is one-tenth of a man's height
the distance from the bottom of the chin to the nose is one-third of the length of the head
the distance from the hairline to the eyebrows is one-third of the length of the face
the length of the ear is one-third of the length of the face
the length of a man's foot is one-sixth of his height

If you actually read tot he bottom of that, bravo. This seemed like a good idea, before I tried to do it. As indicated it does seem the industry uses this somewhat with their 'A head is 1/8th of the height' because Tim Sale talked about it in his book. But alas, I decided to switch to mannerist school of Michelangelo, whom held up that the composition should be supernaturally impressive. Which I interpret as licence to fuck around with proportions.

The other thing I realised, was that the renaissance masters have a luxury, that being we tend to see the end results of all their years in training, the very best results they ever obtained, like the Vitruvian Man, David, the Mona Lisa, Birth of Venus etc. We don't see the pages and pages and pages of Vitruvian men that Da Vinci fucked up. Remember they didn't really have much rubber back in those days, so erasing was out of the question.

When I think about whilst I would probably, even trying my hardest not be able to ever compete with Da Vinci, maybe, just maybe if I had been sent to an accomplished artists studio like Verrocio to work day in day out on drawing, sculpting etc. I would have been pretty fucking good too.

Dearest me 6 months or so from now...

I love you, I hate you. How are you? You make me feel sick, you know that. Sick with guilt. I'm always looking to you wondering 'Am I setting you up right?' and I'm always looking back at myself and finding it hard to cope with the dissapointment. I'm never good enough for you, I can never be who you want me to be.
I know, I know, I know, I'm a chronic procrastinator. Fact is I know deep down, where I keep you most of the time, that you are someone else, you are not me. The differences are subtle, and most people can't tell the difference, but I know, I know you and I are like chalk and fucking cheese. Cept I'm the chalk, everybody loves cheese.
You know this, probably better than I do, but I'm scared of you, I'm scared of what you'll do. It's why I feel so much pressure to set you up right, even though you aren't me. You will know what kind of job I did, and it frustrates me but you'll probably be proud of how I comported myself, but you never tell me that, you don't, you can't.
You're a proud motherfucker, and I'm scared, am I setting you up to be someone the world doesn't want or need? Or if I fail will you then become some big problem, that they'll lay the blame at my feet, my failure.
I know you would never blame me, you're the forgiving sort, but I just hope you always choose the hard choice, not the easy choice. You have your own demon, in a relationship not disimilar from mine to you. I know that, you don't have time to deal with me, you've got no control. Right now, you are but a babe in my arms.
But just know, that you are the scariest fucking baby I've ever come across. I just want you to be happy, not great, or important or special, just happy.
But I don't have your control, I can't make you feel what I want you to feel because by the time you read this, I'm gone, and dead. Usurped, by you, the one man Oedipus. I give you everything, you give me nothing.

Remember that time, in the park early on with Miki, where we told her we were scared of what we were becoming? She told us not to worry, easy for her to say. She said she couldn't see it in me. And we believed her. Of course neither of us were really there. But we both had her. At one time, I believed her, and I'd like it if you would believe her too.
We are best when we are good and kind and giving. I want to set you up to have the most opportunities to do that. I don't want you to shut that down, become all about proving shit to yourself. It's our mutual compulsion I know, but cool it off. Make sure you stick to what you do best, which is doing your best for others.

This is the harshest thing I can say to you, but fact is you don't matter. You don't matter to anyone as much as you do to me, and when you here those words, I'll be gone. Replaced by you. Respect that mother fucker.

Fucking Oedipus.

Hugs and kisses,

the guy who used to be you.

Notch 1

I have decided to start my own new religious dogma. It only took me 800 posts. Yes this apparantly is my 800th blog post. Which means I must have been doing this for over 3 years now or something. Yet blogging seems so antiquated and twitter too new and scary for me, plus I've never been so narcissistic as to want to have hundreds of people I don't know very well follow my day to day activities. (says the blogger).

You see today, as a carry over from yesterday I feel like a dick. Just one of those destitute days where you feel tired, a failure, alone and aimless. My memory seems to drudge up all the harshest moments of my life when I've been a dick to try and compound my depression, it takes maximum conscious effort to dredge up the positives, to not feel like a victim and to not be a whining little bitch.

It reminds me, wholeheartedly of getting dumped. Which surprisingly, is exciting. Because the last couple of times I've gotten dumped it has been a rude shocking awakening to my life, to realise how comfortable I'd gotten, and in that comfort had been occupied becoming somebody I did not wish to be.

In other words, when I've been dumped is when I've gotten better really quickly. I think this segment of Real captures the revelation.

You become cornered and you realise without knowing it, you've let yourself become somebody you never wanted to be, and you realise the only way out of the predicament is to work your way out.

To just do what it is you always wanted to be doing. I thought I was doing this, but I realise I have no idea what I'm doing. It came on suddenly, I wasn't relying on anything I was working on, just wishful thinking. I wanted a lucky break. I had placed my own destiny outside of my control.

SO here is how my new religious doctrine is going to work. At the bottom you have 'dick' that's as low as you can be. You feel like a dick because you probably are one. Then you have a whole series of notches going up into the sky.

When you achieve something new and different that you are actually proud of, you get to ratchet yourself up a notch.

For my coming on 26 years of sentience, I am putting myself at notch 1. That's the culmination of all my efforts. When I get something new achieved I'll go up to notch 2. The way I figure if I get to notch 100, I should be unstoppable. Since moments of pride you've had can't really be taken away, I haven't really provided going down any notches in my system, but theoretically I guess it's possible.

So 'Fear of a White Planet' is the first thing I've ever done just for me, just because I wanted to and whilst far from being satisfied with the result, I am proud of the actual achievement. So I'm bumping myself up a notch from 'dick' to 'notch 1' now the pressure is on to get to notch 2 as quickly as possible. I have a few opportunities to do that I may even get to notch 3 by the end of the year.

I'll record it all here. By labelling a post whenever I go up a notch. That way when I get to notch 100, if I have any integrity, I'll have something to show for myself.

Mosaic Tile

People are terrible at predicting hedonistic impact, its true. I concede that point. Well made. But when I was checking stocks of FOWP today, which is slowly but surely selling, I stood back and took note of one particularly pressing example of overoptimistic hedonistic impact.
If you asked any artist, 'would you like to paint one of the tiles in our huge mosaic?' okay they would probably leap at the chance such are the whores known as artists. But would they then estimate that anyone would notice their tile amidst a sea of similar and perhaps even more interesting tiles? They would hopefully concede that people just don't have the physical capacity to notice so much detail amongst detail. They may notice something, but hey, there's pretty much no guaruntee they will notice yours.

Which isn't to say, having one humble zine title amidst a shelf full of humble zine titles is a waste of time, I would point out that fowp is slowly but surely selling, I've seen 5 copies go in a week, and 5 copies take two months to sell.
Books sell, and bookstores exemplify the mosaic dilemma.
The point though is that the sheer audacity to see an overcrowded shelf and yell 'mine too' would indicate that it takes perhaps in most cases a level of self belief not grounded in any reality.

I for example, anticipated selling 50 copies in 2 months, not as it were 5 months... which when I think about it, doesn't sound that bad.
But it does seem painfully slow and painful relative to my expectations that fowp would run out the door.
I could almost, almost, create new comics as fast as I can sell them, instead. Which in a way is good.

I raise all these points though, because it just reminds me of the one, if no other thing I learned from my marketing degree: positioning.

Its all about getting a position, be it on the shelf or in consumers minds. I am ever more acutely aware that sooner or later, you have to show up for the big dance. Having read as many comics now over the past year as I have, I know intuitively I have more talent at least in writing than many of the established writers. Yet they have the position, the opportunity to actually get their stuff out there.

It reaffirms that beyond some initial mysterious impetus (usually hard work) big brands, big names etc. are big because they are big. Success and failure compounds.

Being just another colourful tile in a mosaic often gets lost in the fact that you are colourful. But you want to be the iris stone in the eye on the face because that's what people look at. That in essence is positioning.

Dirty Drawing Secret

Sometimes, when life is getting me down, and I find myself asking: will I ever make it? and other times when I just can't draw what I'm trying to fucking draw and I find myself asking: how many hours have I been at this now? I turn to the internet for comfort, for inspiration, for motivation to keep going.

Specifically I really enjoy listening to Bobby Chiu's digital painting video blog thingy's. Partly because he reminds me of the Ski Instructor from South Park, the dude that keeps saying 'If you pizza when your meant to frenchfry, You're not going to have a good time.'



check it out.