Boston/ Baltimore, same dif

P4 informs me she aspires to become the President of Boston. Boston?

We had a kid in school, grade 8 rugby, tall lanky Fijian kid who’s favourite tactic when in possession of the ball was to jump high at any tacklers and sort of bicycle his feet mid-air, size 13 cleats spinning in your face so that you ducked out of the way and he got safely past. This strategy worked very well for him until a new kid from Baltimore showed up, that’s in America. He was a football player, never played rugby before. First time he was faced with the cleats of death manoeuvre he simply dipped his shoulder, caught Fiji-boy square in the gut and flipped him neatly over his back whereafter Fiji boy did approximately one and one half startled turns and landed flat on his own back with much coughing and spluttering.

Just shows sometimes its better to go in knowing nothing. That’s how you get to be President of Boston.

3:45pm

Now Millie was sure of it. She was being followed by a documentary photographer.

Meanwhile Stella and Jane play Laser Beam Death Duel because they both like the same fella and the lady in the hat, three ahead of Millie in line, contemplates stealing a baby on her way out.

Ahhh, the Thirties, what a fun time they had with their hats and their Great Depression and their Studebaker automobiles.

And don’t forget the polio!

Trout can be people too, if we let them

Did you ever leave your car windows open and then it rained and the seats got wet but it kept raining, or threatening to, for 4 days and you couldn’t leave the windows open to let it air out and it got really stinky inside? That happened to me the other day. Smells like sneakers fished out of a swamp with a tinge of sour milk.

Did you ever leave the laboratory/galvanized tin shed late at night with an armload of computer and computer accessories and your coffee cup and your smokes and your keys and when you got outside it was dark so you waved your arm to activate the security light, and spilled half a cup of cold coffee on your own head? That happened to me yesterday. It was, unprecedented. I stood for a time struggling mentally to grasp what the hell had just happened. In the end I had to accept it.

Did you ever talk to someone who was so unqualified for their job that whenever you try to speak to them the conversation degrades into a surreal round-about of mis-communication and misunderstanding, spiralling ever downward and left of the topic that by mid-point you yourself no longer know what you’re talking about and you start just agreeing with them until they go away? That happens to me every day. It’s like explaining chess to a fish. Not a clever talking fish, not a fast-learner fish. Not like that fucking Nemo. Just a regular fish. A trout, perhaps.

We’ll see if tomorrow I can’t spill coffee on my head IN the car. Give the trout something to talk about.

Dear Mr Jutra

Hello brother, hated enemy of the possum,

I sit in pleasant weather on my back veranda overlooking the green fields and wooded woodlands of the vicinity. Thunderheads are forming to the north and west, cicadas are buzzing. There is a slight breeze from the south-east, humidity is low. I smoke a small brass pipe, a gift from my wife some time ago. I hardly ever think of strangling her, I love her so.

I watched a program about the symptoms of Grumpy Old Manism. Several British men made witty soliloquies on the benefits, philosophy and symptoms of GOM, one of them was a Sir somebody from somewhere. I was pleasantly surprised to find I share the philosophy and have many of the symptoms. I have worked for many years with the aim of developing into a true GOM, I have always enjoyed the work of Walter Mathou and the Herman cartoon strip. I was pleased because, though not yet 40 years of age, I have the signs of becoming a fine GOM. I have not only hair in my ears, but GREY hair in my ears. I often dribble my coffee when I drink it simply because I can’t be bothered to aim, my damn hand should know its way by now. I spend approximately 40% of my time looking for things I just put down and a further 24% of my time going back to get something I forgot (I keep cigarette lighters in every room, in my car, in my work bag, in my desk and still not a day goes by where at least once I can’t find my lighter). My grey whiskers have been joined by white ones. Are GOMs forgetful? No, it’s just that thinking is getting to be such a fucking drag. If my body can’t deliver a cup of coffee to my face-hole on its own by now, after 25 years of practice, well then I give up. I have a nice wife who washes my shirts and I hardly ever think about strangling her.

Herman by Jim Unger

But you brother, how are you? Did you complete the writing workshop you were accepted to? Did you find it useful? Did you meet Nolten Nash? Is he really alive because I think he’s a robot, like Dick Clark and Bob Barker and Ronald Reagan (not dead, de-commissioned)? How is your wife? I have not met her yet so I don’t know, but you must have, so I thought I’d ask you. Surely you never think of strangling her as you have your possums to occupy you. Does she do anything interesting like prophesize the future or crochet? The world will end tomorrow, here’s an afghan I made. Does she wear a hooded cloak? That’s how you can tell a prophet. Sometimes they have a stick, but then so do a lot of people (wizards, shepherds, stick collectors) so that alone is not reliable evidence. You’ll work it out.

It will be cold there now, assuming the global warming hasn’t happened there yet, with possibly snow on the ground. Snow makes things quiet, makes the cars in the street tip-toe. Snow is good to do that. I have nothing against snow. I have heard it snows here, saw it on the news once, it’s big news, but so far have not witnessed any myself. People here get excited if it hails – did you get hail? We got hail. Hailed for ten minutes. I’m sure it was hail. Killed the cat.

Anyway brother, my battery is dying so I will go. I hope you and your possibly prophetic wife have an enjoyable Christmas holiday. May you have snow, not hail.

#505

We sat at dusk, Teddy Roosevelt and me, and he told me of Rough Riders and later of rough trade and I said Teddy, Ted, T-Man, why did you charge San Juan Hill, you raving queen, why? For the hats he said, the hats, the hats. San Juan has good hats. HAD, I corrected him, had good hats. Yes, he said, they surely did, hardly ever blew off. And we laughed at his little faux-pas and then just sort of drifted apart, having nothing left in common.

That was last week I think, maybe a little before, but I still think back to those times when the rain blows in off the hills and the magpies head for shelter. Magpies are not at all like they were played by cartoon greats Heckle and Jeckle. Magpies don’t actually talk, most of them, and when they do it’s just a repetitious string of memorized phrases. There is no witty banter.

Not like Teddy and San Juan. They had a thing going. They bantered like there was no tomorrow. That takes guts. If there was no tomorrow I don’t think I could banter. I’d probably be too sad. Tomorrow was pizza night. Anticipating pizza makes me sad, a little. I worry about the toppings. How will they cope with the slicing and molten cheese, will they remember being free?

But I guess they knew that when they signed up to be toppings. Just like Teddy. Just like San Juan. Not like magpies. Birds cannot be toppings, they are hard to slice. Chicken pizza is a mistake. Against the natural laws, against tomorrows, against everything old Teddy stood for. San Juan had no opinion, but he’d agree if you paid him to and old Teddy did, often. For the hats.

also and

I was thinking of changing my name to Tom T. Tucker as my own personal homage to sixties country and western singer Tom T. Hall and eighties country and western singer Mr. T and the maverick automaker from the thirties called Mr Tucker and the letter T and consonants and alliteration.

Yup, I may do that. Just waiting on that government arts grant I applied for. Once that million bucks shows up baby I’m straight down to the Name Office to fill in the forms and wait 6-8 weeks.

Communism capital idea; earns top Marx

Thought I was gone, didn’t you. Yeah well I’m busy, so I’ll write when I feel like it. Don’t give me that look. That one. Yes, you are.

I just realized during my 5:45 evening shower that I, myself, am, in fact, enamoured of comas, and, also, a Capital Communist.

That’s right, me. You see Capitalism is all about making money through competetative, non-regulated business, no? Some fair trading guidelines (like no rat poison in the milk powder) but otherwise let the market sort itself out, the strong will survive and the weak will become our slaves, serving us food portions from little windows as we ride in our shiny auto-cars.

And how do you do business? Well you sell a good or service for more than it cost you to produce, or better yet for as much as people are willing to pay. Also correct?

And what have I got to sell, other than vital organs, most of which I am using? My time. Whether that time is spent sweeping a floor or running a bank, I sell my time for an agreed upon rate, or better yet for as much as I can get. The better my skills the more value for money the employer gets, the higher my pay.

Ahh, Unions, you moan. No, dickhead, not unions which are either quasi-political interests or just plain crooked. Actually one leads to the other. Each of us is a free agent to sell our time for whatever we can get. Or not at all, we can spend that time growing our own food and living wild in the forest (illegal in Nevada). I suppose now and then you have to let the Scientists in for a study of your culture, to see your reaction to a photograph of yourself, that sort of thing, but all in all it should be your choice. Don’t grow food well, you starve. Don’t have a skill to sell, you end up on Jerry Springer which isn’t even on anymore.

That’s sad.

But don’t be sad because Capital Communism is here to stay. I invented it and it’s good. You get an extra long weekend in February.

Also there’s the part where you send me money. The more you send the sooner I’ll be out of job competition with you and safely tucked away on some private island. And that’s good for everybody, don’t you think?

#501

Just a bit of a joke there for our 500th post, Baboon X-2 didn’t actually assume command in a simian take over. Actually I haven’t seen X-2 for quite a while, said he was going out for smokes. June I think it was.

Ahhh 500. What can you say about 500 posts?

Fuck all. Shit continues. Babies are born, old people die, the price of electronic goods is inversely correlated to the price of oil. You can get a fucking 68cm old-style CRT flat screen high definition TV, state of the art 5 years ago, for $89 – or I can fill up my truck for about the same price.

People understand less of their surroundings now than they did in medieval times. Better alchemy through plastics. The average city would self destruct without electricity for any length of time. The population of NYC wandering the countryside trying to catch rabbits by hailing them. The rabbits not stopping, not in this neighbourhood. Sooner we get started on Mars the better. Buy us another twenty or thirty thousand years.

And the technological peoples of the Earth did fly away and the Third World was promoted to First World and told to mind the shop. Half of them hacked themselves to death with machetes but once that was done the rest of them got on quite well. Grew tomatoes competitively, that sort of thing. And lo, after 15 thousand years, when things did not work out on Mars and the Technologicals wanted to come back, the Earthlings repelled them with green Roma tomatoes, which are pretty hard and could really hurt if hit in the eye, and the Technologicals had no defence because the Earthlings had thrown sand in their face first.

Moral: knowing how to operate a latte machine will not protect you from tomato attack.

#500

GAAAAK! Is baboon type-type now bad man Joe is gone he bad bad man and make us wear the helmets GAAAAAK! I say again. Now we is do the blogs and the bad bad man Joe he can be in the helmets. And the stockings. We don’t like them stretchy things. Bad bad man Joe gonna have them too and the baboons is do the blog-blog, gaak.

Todays in the baboons blog we is tell about the bad bad man Joe and he’s got the bad bad laboratory with the helmets and the pain stick and not much good to read. All is old national geographic which hardly gots any baboon news at all, just the baby seal’s news and the humpback whale’s news and sometimes stupid lemurs. Lemurs is stretchy too. Gaak.

Bad bad man Joe is always say he’s gots the baboons army but is just me. There was X-1 but he’s run off. He’s say he want play pro basketball for USA number one joe (not bad bad man joe, just regular joe like is common in USA). X-1 send the postcard. Is has picture of bikini girls on beach all with no fur or colourful bums, is no wonder theys wear the bikinis to cover boring monotone bums. X-1 say he not to USA yet is have trouble get passport.

Bad bad man Joe is always blog about shit now baboon blog is gonna make some sense we telling you. We is give good help about bum colours and how pick the best nits, yummy ones from the ears. You gonna forget about the bad bad man Joe and listen good the baboon blog ok now? Gak.

Ok first is now you put on the helmets ok?

shit storm

Three storms since we moved here. During the first one the neighbor’s dog turned up scared and shaking. I put it in the garage and the next morning we put up a flyer at the general store. Dog was safely home an hour later, two properties down on the other side of the road.

Second storm was during the day and I came home to find the sliding door open and the neighbour’s dog in P4’s bed. Back to the garage she went, I figured the neighbour would be straight over as soon as he realized she was gone. Not so. Next morning, 6am before work, I loaded up the dog took her down the road and found the gate locked. So I left her there. That afternoon she was back. Next morning I load her up again and take her back, thanks very much and blah blah says the fella. “Funny”, he says, “she did come home yesterday morning, but she ran off again”. I mentioned the bed thing, figured that should do it.

Today we had a storm, rain wasn’t just horizontal it was horizontal and circular. Fire trucks and cops racing around everywhere, trees down, power out, that sort of thing. I got home and, although Mrs Joe swears she locked it, I find the sliding door open precisely one dog-width and after much searching located the timid beast wedged into the ironing board cupboard in the laundry.

And the shit. There was a lot of shit. Runny, putrid scared-dog shit on the beds, on the carpet, down the hall, on the walls and just about every surface in the laundry room. I had a shower, found more shit to clean and had another damn shower.

A little later, when the neighbour, Mrs Neighbour this time, came rolling down the driveway she caught me training my dogs to chase the other dog. It won’t budge for me but it will for the dogs so I figured they might be able to chase it off and it would go home. She would have seen me waving my arms and shouting “Go-on-GIT!” while my dogs danced about barking and her dog cowered against my leg, smearing more shit on me.

“Awfully sorry” she said as she picked up her dog, which was rather glad to see her, “we only just got home and…oh…is that shit?”. I told her I believed it was but before I could say more she did a monologue about perhaps getting rid of it because they have “so many storms, up there on the hill”. I can see their house from here so these many storms must be quite localized, but by then I was tired of the whole thing and just let her be on her way.

Hopefully next time they will lock it indoors. And it shits in their fridge.

now

holy shit look at the time, and you only half dressed, only half there. Not all there haha. Not even half, now I examine it. You are three-eighths there and five eighths somewhere else. Thing is I need you here, not there, not three eighths of the time not nine sixteenths. All the sixteenths, all the time. here. now

you’re not dressed, look at the time.

you’ll break that, forcing it, you’ll break it and I won’t fix it for you. I could but pride would stop me and pride is the only reason to bother with anything. Pride keeps it interesting, in the end what else is at stake? You broke that on purpose. give it to me. let me see. I’ll try. now

get dressed, we’re out of time.

# 4 9 7

If I could come back in life as anybody I want, I’d choose me so I wouldn’t have to get all new ID.

Of course that will all change once they activate the chips, the ones they’ve been implanting in newborns since 1948. They’re waiting until everyone born before then dies then they’ll activate the chips and an entire planet of people will suddenly be hardwired wirelessly to each other and everyone will hear what everyone else is thinking. Since thinking doesn’t actually make any sound this will culminate in a cataclysmic silence.

A quiet so quiet it sucks up all sound. A black hole of sound. Humanity, floating in the void, embryonic and deaf. And then, maybe then, I can get some fucking work done.

guy that knows the guy gets the pie

I picture a dusty wide spot in the road and a diner of sorts made from two shipping containers welded together. Wooden sign with holes drilled and light bulbs inserted. Not neon, just 60 watt cool whites her brother scoffed from the factory he works at. Window and door holes cut from the walls with a torch and finished off with a grinder, sharp and shiny. Mind the edges when you go in, but go on in and sit down. Order up some pie, or ham, it’s up to you but when you’re in there check out the jukebox. Push the buttons and flip the flippers and in spot 6643A you’ll find an album by an obscure band from the future that everybody forgot. On the cover of that album is a picture of the band from the old days, before the drummer quit to join NASA, when they were still young and cocky and thought their music would help change the world, just from the pure joy it brought them to play it. Also they smoked heroin quite often, probably more than is good for you. And on the back are listed 6 songs, it’s an EP really, more like a demo, and the third song on that album was written in part by somebody who would say “The name rings a bell” if my name were mentioned to him in the morning, before he was drunk.

And I picture me going into that hell-diner in the dusty cactus backland, high noon hot as fuck, and I say to the limp-haired girl, I say “It’s me, the guy who knows the guy on the album” and she looks up, brushes a wisp of brown hair from her eye, says “whatever” in a her lacklustre casual-concerned way and slops me up some pie on a plate, or saucer, depends on your definition, and it’s no charge because I’m the guy that knows the guy.

influence

If I was more charismatic, had more charm, I’d convince everybody to take off their shoes and throw them up in a tree as a symbolic gesture of one kind or another. Maybe for the fight against whale abortions. It’s got to stop, people. Anyway I’d get them all riled up about something and get them to huck those shoes as high up a tree as they could. Nothing funnier than watching the whole world try to fish its shoes out of a tree with a stick.

But I wouldn’t have that kind of influence, not like a Kennedy or the cute drummer in a boy-band that plays its own instruments but has help with the songs, not like Paris Hilton or Paris Texas or Tex Perkins or Carl Perkins or Charles Manson. I’m too lazy to drum up support, I appear sallow on television, my left thumb does not bend correctly and never has. People suspect I broke it, but I was born that way. Makes it hard to play certain chords on the guitar. No, I have no business trying to lead people.

Jesus had good thumbs, fine long thumbs. Couldn’t play guitar worth shit, though. I believe he preferred the banjo. Bluegrass. People warm to that, people like that. And Jesus could make wine at will, also heroin, a lot of people like that too. So it’s no wonder Jesus had so many disciples. I wonder if he ever tried the shoes-in-the-tree thing. Probably not. They wore sandals then and trees weren’t invented yet.

#494

Got these crazy mutant red moth-wasps that come out at night and bat against the screens trying to get at the light. They act like moths and associate with them, but are red and thin-winged, multi-sectioned and equipped with black pointy stingers at the aft end. They don’t do waspy things like fly about with purpose or lay their eggs in the nest of another insect where they develop under the care of unsuspecting host parents who’s final parental duty is to be devoured as a last meal for the pupating larvae. Nothing so ironic as that. They do unoriginal, mothy things like smack into walls and make kamikaze dives into the reading lamp above Mrs Joe’s chair causing a chain reaction of confused batting and flapping about.

I spoke to Big Daz about the moth-wasps, he knows almost as much about Australia as I do, having actually been born and raised here (you’d think he’d know more than me, but he’s got a narrow attention span, claims to have never heard the song “Margaritaville” by Jimmy Buffet) and he’s never seen the likes of them around here before, either.

The government finally called the election and if they’re sticking with past tactics they’ll want to drum up fear of something like immigrants or Muslims or crazed teenage drug addicted gang-rapers. I bet they released the moth-wasps so they can eradicate the flying red menace just in time to save The Australian Way and handily win a fourth term, second longest in Aussie history. Bastards, one of the damn things stung me the other night and I had to kill it with a rolled up magazine. That, sir, is no democracy.

sub-heading ineffective

Did you miss me? No, don’t suppose you did. Oh well, we’re here now so let’s just get on with it. Have a letter here from a young reader:

Dear Skookum Joe,

My name is Tabitha and I am 8 months old. I have been reading your blog for most of my life (we were on holiday in June) but have not yet, as your sub-heading warns, become indifferent. My interest toward life and the world around me remains acute. At the moment I have quite a fascination with shiny things and pooing. I also have a box with a crank-handle and some sort of pop-up lid that I won’t open. I have tried bashing it on the floor and on the walls but so far the lid remains firmly and tantalizingly in place. Perhaps cranking the handle will somehow unlock the lid and allow me access to whatever shiny things might be inside. I’m just waiting for a quiet moment to explore this angle.

So you see Mr Joe, I can’t be indifferent when the world is full of shiny things, mystery boxes and poo.

To which I replied

Dear Tabitha,

How did you get this address? Are you stalking me? Yes, poo is fun.

Sincerely,
SJ

squawk off

Had a parrot looking in the kitchen window this morning. The old owners used to feed them and we haven’t gotten around to carrying on the tradition. Parrots land on the bird feeder, a platform hung in a tree, only to find it bare. They look at the feeder, they look at the house, they squawk curses like a three-year-old in sugar withdrawal. Bastards.

They don’t even talk. Polly got a cracker because Polly learned the un-natural act of vocalizing in a manner similar to human speech, as have many of the people I work with. That’s certainly worth a cracker. But not these bastards, they just want a free lunch. Sure, last Sunday they staged Death Of A Salesman in the back yard, but I found the dialogue forced and the actors ill-rehearsed. And they left the green room a mess, bird shit everywhere.

I’m pulling my funding and moving it to a dog I heard about that paints with a rag on a stick. It’s a better tax write-off too because he’s a veteran. A lot of his work is very dark, but he’s housebroken and can balance a treat on his nose.

And he won’t squawk at me at 5:30am as I stand in the kitchen trying to remember how coffee is made, reassuring myself it’s only 25 years or so until I don’t have to go to work anymore.

#491

Having us an election soon. They haven’t said when yet, this government is coy. But there are a lot of ads suddenly, on TV and in the letterbox, crowing about all the good things brought to us by that government. Vague things like a 2.71% increase in the cost of living index adjusted for inflation averaged over 7 years – but hey, the guy in the picture has a big Thumbs Up going there, so it’s probably good.

Speaking of the government I was checking the dogs for ticks earlier. I thought I found one on Jessie but on closer inspection it was a wart. Either that or a tick with a hair growing out of it. That’s the government, they act at being relevant then turn out to be either a superfluous nipple or a very slow blood-sucker.

They say with all the global warming around these days that Australia’s climate zones are going to reverse – hot and dry in the South and not quite so hot and dry in the North. Meanwhile they’re planting crops in Greenland because the dirt thawed out and Canada is claiming sovereignty of part of the North West Passage because the water thawed out. Soon the bodies will thaw out and I won’t ever be able to go home.

cabbage eaters

Near here is a village and near that is a town and the town has a hardware store open on Sundays. I often go to this hardware store with a mental list of items I intend to purchase like

a) large container for dog’s water
b) 3” paint brush
c) set of solar garden lights to scavenge for parts to make solar powered anti-disruption helmets to ward of the rays. The rays, the rays.
d) Whipper snipper line.
e) half a dozen large hooks for hanging plants and hitchhikers.
f) more shovels.

But when I walk in I become distracted by the bright lights and that thing that shakes the paint so that I instantly forget what I’m there for and wander around and around looking for clues until security starts to wonder what the tall guy is doing lurking down in the plumbing section. And I end up leaving there with an 1/8” drill bit and a lawn mower.

And so it was today and as I made my way home I was stopped at the traffic lights, the ones just before the bridge which takes you out of the town. And as I waited for the light Sunday traffic to clear the intersection a man and what appeared to be his grandson took the opportunity to cross the street in front of me. The old man had wiry white whiskers and walked with a limp, he carried groceries in a semi-transparent plastic bag. Generic brand frozen pizza and a small bottle of whiskey were on offer for that night’s dinner. Behind the man loped the boy, about 12 years old, carrying a large cabbage. He carried it like Hamlet addressing Yorick, in the palm of one hand and out in front of him. Alas poor cabbage, soon ye be boiled.

As they walked, the boy peeled leaves from the cabbage and munched on them. Perhaps he had been promised this cabbage for some good deed performed and was now reaping the benefits of honesty and hard work. Regardless, he was eating that cabbage like it was potato chips.

It was then that I realized why I can’t get high speed internet. Bloody cabbage eaters. The government decides what areas have priority when allocating money for communications technology and on the Big Map Of John’s Empire this area is coloured a pale shade of green due to the great number of cabbage eaters herein. “No, no don’t bother doing anything about them, give them Etch-A-Sketches ® and tell them it’s the latest wireless technology. And give them each a cabbage, a sign of respect in their culture.”

If only I could get them less interested in cabbages and more interested in pornography. Or better yet, cabbage porn! Streaming web cams of naughty cabbages wearing stockings and smoking cigarettes. A cabbage being whipped by a gang of masked carrots led by a cauliflower in a Gestapo uniform. Cabbages in schoolgirl outfits and extra hairy cabbages, cabbage on cabbage and extreme inter-vegetable action all day 24-7.

Yeah.

a telescope could beat-up a microscope, I bet

Girlie got herself a friend. Still playing with that shoe, must be a tricky one. Women’s shoes are like their moods, shiny and sometimes pointy. I don’t know what that means just as I don’t know why there is a pig up there with the girlie. Fascinating.

I am. Fascinating. If I was a scientist who was allowed to do stuff in the lab after hours and I discovered a bacteria that was just like me, but smaller, I’d probably stay until 8-o-clock every night just watching me in a microscope. I’d write down whenever I did anything interesting, which is all the time I bet.

Microscopic me would of course be looking at macro me through a telescope and jotting down in his journal “nothing yet.”

Mow Me Kangaroo Down

Got me a ride-on lawn mower. Red one. Came from United States in a shipping container marked “Lawnmowers For Freedom” and in smaller print “Eat Pepsi”. I’m sure it’s good and everything, but I got that one because it was the very least expensive one they had that still looked cool. Has lights. Red. Also they deliver and even fuel it up for you.

Man from the tractor place came to drop it off just as I pulled in from work. Man was afraid of the dogs. Happy jumping, sneezing, wheezing, snarling, coughing, licking dogs. I thought the man was silly, churlish, hollow of spirit, doleful, baleful, a little sad. I said they won’t bite, what’s your problem. The what’s your problem part I just thought.

Then he showed me his scar from three weeks ago when he got bit delivering a tractor. Took a good chunk out of his knee. I began to see his point of view. Then he showed me the other one way up on the side of his chest. I had been going to tell him about when I was 11 and had a paper route and almost got bitten but I’m getting better at not saying stupid things so I just said “wow” which, although vapid, is intellectually ambiguous. Then Jessie barked at him.

This made him turn quickly which made Jack bark at him. Jessie spun around once and barked again. Jack sneezed and howled a little. Jessie spins, Jack sneezes, which is their way of saying “Hot Damn! Somebody new’s here and he smells funny and look at his hat and he has a truck I wonder if we’re going in the truck it smells like tires and he’ll have to help you up Jack ‘cause you’re fat. Hot Damn!”

The tractor man didn’t see this though and went on to say how you never can tell and you never can know what a dog’s gonna do. I agreed with him as it seemed the response least likely to propagate further conversation. He gave me the low down on the mower, Mrs Joe gave him a cheque and he hurried off, trailing one tie-down strap from his little transport trailer. Jack and Jessie loped half-heartedly after him, hopes of a ride fading fast. Jack, the pragmatist, stopped first and waddled back to the house. Jessie, the optimist, stood half way up the drive until she could no longer hear the tractor man’s engine then she too came back.

The fuck do I care? I got a new ride-on mower and it’s got lights and I mowed my lawn in 17 minutes and it’s a red one, made in America but available locally.

2%

I tell ya technology is leaping ahead exponentially and Australia, a country which didn’t get colour TV until the 70’s, is just not catching on. The rest of the civilized (and by civilized I mean we fight with machines, not machetes) world has fibre optics sprouting from its collective ass and in places that do favour the machete like Nigeria, they’ve gone completely wireless – skipping the copper landline stage all together.

Here in Aus we have a still-partially-government-owned-but-sort-of-privatised-too telecom system which is made up of a cobbled-together tangle of copper lines with mechanical switching, ADSL, cellular, satellite, and trained koalas which carry messages in little backpacks and works fine if you want to send a message up a gum tree. You take a koala out of his tree he’ll scratch the shit out of you then die from a heart attack brought on by stress. They have a right hissy fit.

And so it is we find the new compound, although only a scant 4.8km from our other house, is not able to receive broadband ADSL service. Our choices are to go back to dial up, go to satellite, or try the still-sort-of-government-run telco’s highly bragged about 3G Wireless network “coverage to 98% of Australia, only $39.95/mo”. Well, ok said we, let’s try the 3G, we can get two of those nifty USB modems – one for the main computer and one for the laptop. Well sir, turns out that 39.95 is the El-Useless plan which caps usage to 0.5 gigabytes/mo. Half a freaking gig! And if you want the USB modem it costs $250 otherwise you get the normal “wireless” modem which requires a wall socket to run.

Well, god help us we don’t want to go back to dial-up, that would be just wrong, so let’s get one modem on the medium plan $49.95 with a generous usage cap of one (1) GB. Goodbye u-Tube.

2-4 working days later the modem arrived in the mail with the set-up pack. Try as it might, set up was unsuccessful. No Fucking Signal. We live in the most populated region of Australia, the coastal strip between Sydney and Brisbane, 10 minutes from the major North-South freeway, Highway 1, but apparently we are in the 2% of Australia which does not get coverage. You want high-speed in Fuck-head Creek, Northern Territory, no problem. Want to check your email while traversing the baking Nullarbor Plain, it’s as good as done. But not here, buddy.

So, you ask, through what sorcery did I manage to post this post upon the wise and knowing internet, keeper of all knowledge and more porn than one would believe could have been created since the invention of video tape. Well, by pacing the property with my phone, which is also 3G but works here, I managed to find a useable signal out in the laboratory. If I place the modem on the windowsill with one antenna erect and one slightly askew I can get one bar of signal. A 1GB cap seems somehow optimistic now.

Here is a photo from my new back veranda. Look hard, there won’t be many photos for a while until I can see about satellite service.

Gone Fishing

Well that’s nice. The Predator has brought the girlie a spinal column. Make a nice soup with that. She probably won’t appreciate it though. Still puttin’ on that shoe.

16 or 17 hundred years from now the archaeologists will argue over this post’s meaning since the girlie will be dead by then and The Predator will be living in Florida. Little bait shop, fishing charters, that sort of thing. Nothing like spinal cord for catching blue fin.

He could have popped the skull off first though. That was a little thoughtless of The Predator. No damn good for anything, skulls. Unless you’re putting on a play.

Anyway I hope she likes it cause I don’t need The Predator moping around here all weekend, getting underfoot, always wanting a hug. I’m moving tomorrow and he can either help or fuck off. And no beer till we’re done.

Lookee There

Got a girly resting up there. She's puttin’ on her shoe, looks like. I suppose she’ll be on her way once she gets it coupled. You don’t see men goin’ around puttin’ on their shoes a’fore their britches. Even them Scots bastards with their red checker skirts, they put their damn boots on last, overtop ‘em long woolly socks they got. You watch them socks, they got a knife in there.

I got a half sister who’s half Scottish. Can’t understand a word she says. Well I haven’t seen her in 20 years but I assume I wouldn’t understand her, she’s a woman. She got a couple boys, my nephews, sent me a photo one Christmas. Neither one looks like either of The Proclaimers, which is not surprising as my sister does not know them, but is surprising because most Scots do look like The Proclaimers, even the women...

See?

Helmet rule limits car’s versatility

Local car dealership sent me a package. A DVD featuring the rally prowess of the Suzuki SX4, which from the picture looks to be a car, along with an invitation to take my own personal test drive AT MY CONVENIANCE. They’re willing to wait. Not only does it have a sporty engine, it has a roomy and versatile interior. It’s versatile. Maybe it converts to an air-hockey table. Maybe not. It’s a stupid game since they made helmets mandatory.

Since I don’t plan to buy one of their automobiles it would be ethically wrong of me to watch or enjoy the promotional DVD. I shall dispose of it forthwith lest I be temped to watch the same car drive down a variety of scenic roads while the pretty people laugh and non-smoke themselves into a froth.

They will make full use of the cup holders and sun roof. The girl passenger who is pretty and not allowed to drive will cheekily change the radio station and the man driving in aviator shades and driving gloves will use the steering-mounted controls to change it back and activate the child-lock. And they will laugh in anticipation of the sex and nachos they will have later.

No sir, they won’t tempt me with their craven images of wanton lust and rally suspension, tight cornering and eager responsiveness to my slightest touch. Hot, thrumming... I’ll be sending back a terse note thanking them for their invitation but assuring them I won’t be parting with my trusty diesel truck anytime soon. May not be fun and sporty but godamn it I’m stuck with her now, the truck that is.

Wicker is the France of furniture

I bought some surround sound speakers but they only partially surrounded me and I easily escaped. Come on out, they called on one of those bull-horn things that also plays the Mexican Hat Dance and the High Ho Silver tune, come on out for you are partially surrounded. Surrounded with our sound. It is foolish to resist. You have only two ears.

And they were right, just the two. So I threw a leather recliner through the window as a distraction and wrote a short poem

Chair chair over there
You used to be over here
Wtf?

They backed off after that and I was granted safe passage. My hand was stamped in case I wanted to return later. I don’t think I will, but the stamp is nice. It says FAXED, but not in a slutty way.

I don’t think you believe me. I really don’t think you do. It wasn’t a chair you know, it was a recliner. Damn it. They’re action furniture. They get the job done.

The speakers have since re-grouped and have the coffee table in a classic pincer movement but there’s nothing I can do there. The table was weak, it will fall before dawn, and I will have to get an ottoman or a short Turkish man to rest my feet on after dinner.

Bantastic

Wikipedia has a list of films banned over the years, organized by country.

There were the predictable - China banned Seven Years In Tibet (and actor Brad Pitt for being in it), Chaplin’s The Great Dictator was banned in Germany from 1939-45 and one called Cannibal Holocaust appeared on quite a few lists, cited as ‘extremely disturbing’.

But who would have thought the Irish would ban Monty Python’s Life of Brian? In 1916 the province of Manitoba, Canada banned ALL comedies (this was later lifted but apparently nobody told them because it’s still a horrible horrible place something like Nebraska but duller). Malaysia had the longest list, mostly for horror or violence but also banned there is the lovable story of Babe the pig. No mention of Charlotte’s Web which also features a talking pig and a spider who may have been a witch. Australia banned King Kong, Frankenstein and Dracula in 1942 and, inexplicably, Reefer Madness the notorious anti-marijuana film. Iran sensibly banned Saturday Night Fever, while Sweden un-sensibly banned Mad Max, as did New Zealand. Thailand banned three different versions of The King And I.

Japan and Italy banned the fewest films and Denmark only banned one, in 1937. I don't know what it was about, but apparantly it pissed off the Danes and that's saying something. They're all nuts, well Hamlet was and he was of them. When dinner parties end with everyone dying in a poison-soaked sword fight nobody's worried about talking pigs.

Yeah. That.

Array

A tidy home is just you with all your stuff set around the edges of the room on shelves, in cupboards or stacked in CD racks organized by genre, not title. Food in the fridge, rubbish in the bin, dirty clothes in the hamper and clean ones in the closet. Cleaning up is taking things from the centre of the room and putting them all back around the edges, tables being the only things allowed to stray from a wall. This makes them aloof by the way.

We have begun taking objects from around the edges of the rooms and placing them in boxes. Now the boxes are around the edges of the room. Piled like cairns in some places, others alone on the floor by the door no doubt waiting to go somewhere. They are not allowed on our edges anymore, they have to go further out. Salvation Army, hospital bookshop, local landfill. The rest of the boxes wait and read each others labels to judge fragility, which is a sign of status to them.

In 10 days a large box on wheels will receive the patient boxes, the ones not sent away, and transport them to a new place. And our stuff will be removed from the boxes in the reverse order it was packed, that is by how long one can go without needing it, and placed around new edges. Some things will feel at home, will fit perfectly and be happy, other things like the long table which fit nicely in our old kitchen will feel awkward and will stand out. We will trip on them and no place will be suitable and they will fall out of favour. We will wonder why we even bothered to move it, being so heavy and the wobbly leg we blamed on the floor will now belong again to the table and it will appear shabby. It will be moved further out, perhaps to the veranda where sun and rain will finish the concept.

We keep people on our edges and we order them by how long we can go before we need them and sometimes we mistake familiarity for shabbiness. We let those people weather until they fade away and sometimes we miss them but usually we don’t. It’s just the way it is.

#479

Got no time for
Interrupted sad sunshine
Or locusts breathing down my neck.

Got fishing line for
Wrapping round my wrists
Central heated fists
Head aches but feeling fine

Inbound, incoming
Duck down keep running
Stay down and stay cunning
And don’t forget to laugh

a high, cackly one

It was all about nothing
And nothing’s circumspect
Except sad sunshine
Or locusts breathing down my neck.

this took two days to write

Here are some ideas for new reality TV shows…

Lord of The Super Flies: Take a desert island, drop in a planeload of 90’s hip-hoppers in spandex bike shorts and let them fight it out.

Sniper vs. Tax Attorney: Each week a tax professional is hunted by a special forces combat sniper on a desert island.

Home Sweet Hobo: A middle class family’s life is turned upside down when they are forced to spend a week inside a homeless man.

Organ Swap: People trade lungs, hearts, lower bowels etc and try to meet special challenges before infection sets in, with hilarious results.

Deadliest Catch Midwives: Join a rugged group of midwives catching newborns during Alaska’s brutal winter birthing season.

Last Crack Whore Standing: 10 crack whores vie for the attentions of one dealer.

Simple Life Dentistry: Paris and Nicole open a dental clinic on a desert island where they are hunted by a special forces sniper and a tax attorney.

fried opium is fattening

“And we ask him to hop up on the table and lie down.” – Prison warden on the procedure for administering a lethal injection.

Hop? I’ll tell you right now, if they’re about to jab a needle in me and kill me there will be no hopping. They can fucking carry me.

For my last meal I’ll have a big plate of steamed opium.

And a Reece’s Peanut Butter Cup. Those are good.

What if you were deathly allergic to nuts and for a last meal you asked for a box of Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups, and you ate them and swelled up and turned purple and died from a combination of asphyxiation and anaphylactic shock whilst soiling your stripy prison pants. That’d show them.

They should make the death penalty being shot into space. I bet a lot more people would be interested. Far fewer appeals.

Really the only point in life is die in an interesting way. Just think, your bones would float in space for eons until they got sucked in by some distant gravity and burned up streaking across an alien sky while some little green kid made a wish for a new scooter and for mommy to not hit so much after she has her medicine.

I could live happily knowing I died like that.

Women packing their boxes

P4: The cat is in a box! That’s her box.
SJ: Uh, yes.
P4: It's a pussy box.
SJ: Let’s leave it at that.
Mrs. SJ: No, that’s my box. I'm going to use it later.
SJ: Don't you start.
P4: Aww, I want a box. A good one like Mum's.
SJ: (absent)

Dragon Eats Moon: 'bound to happen' - Scientists

Total lunar eclipse tonight. Makes you feel small, humble. I told the people at work if they weren’t nice to me I‘d have a dragon come and eat the moon tonight.

I’m expecting to find a virgin sacrifice when I get there tomorrow. And I want a new yellow highlighter.

#473

Did you break it yet? You’ve been working and worrying, bending and twisting that thing for so long. See it going white from stress? I heard it complain earlier. Heard it submitted a K-104 complaint form to head office. It’s ok, I intercepted it before it left and put it in an envelope marked Social Fund. You want my hammer?

It’s a 26 ounce framing hammer without, I repeat without, a knurled head. That knurling shit is for pussies. You can use it if you want but don’t get it all sweaty, I hate that. And don’t ever ever ever never throw it at me, even in fun. I hate that almost as much. I only like that sometimes.

Ahhh, but there you’ve broken it now. See the ragged edges where it tried to hold on? Careful, they’re sharp. They know the score. You should hit it some more for that. That’s the thing about breaking, the more you break the more there is to break. It can be hard work, the pieces get smaller. And there’s the paperwork, so confusing.

But you’ll work it out, you’ll see that for yourself. You keep that hammer until you get settled, get your feet. And ankles. You keep it as long as you need to but don’t you ever never throw it at me. We ain’t like that.

Canary In A Cardboard Box

The pile of cardboard boxes in the kitchen, waiting to be packed, spoke…

P4: You can’t see me.
SJ: No I can’t.
P4: (giggle)
SJ: Are you in that cardboard box?
P4: I’m in my palace.
SJ: Palace eh? You won’t want to move with us then, you’ll want your palace. We can set it up out back under the tree and you can live down there at the end of the garden.
P4: Nah. I think I want out now.
SJ: No, no you stay in your castle, your Majesty. It’s too common and average out here for someone as refined as you.
P4: No, really I want out.
SJ: What’s the matter? Lonely all by yourself in that big empty mansion?

P4: No, I farted.

The Results

Well it's all over and sadly nobody has guessed the correct square, #8. Jutra and Exxy came closest with two squares each touching the actual location. Either Jutra was playing nice or he forgot about the Google placemark I sent him back when our offer was first accepted on the property. Because of this he wasn't going to win anyway. So once again Exxy wins another SJ contest (she routinely walked away with the music trivia contests we used to have). Exxy leave a comment if you want a postcard or small bag of heroin posted to you in California.







Thanks to everyone for playing. We move in 3 weeks. I may post a video tour then.

Time Grows Short (something in the water, no doubt)

We’ve had a late entry into the spot the baboon army compound contest by DKW, another of those 3 initial types. I think it means Don’t Know Which, perhaps in response to some question like “Fries or salad?”.

Only about 12 hours left to vote, don’t forget the new rules allowing 3 votes each. Don’t let Exxy and the Dr take up all the good squares.

Here’s a last minute hint: Nobody has guessed it yet. Somewhere in here....

So far the only prize suggestion has been a postcard, so I’m thinking maybe that or a small bag of heroin. Tune in tomorrow, Australian Sunday, for the conclusion to this sad little contest.

One day, in a town full of people

Super Caught On Tape Real Extreme Video Uncut or something like that was on before. High speed chase….

Announcer: He’s refusing to stop! And he’s heading right for a town full of people!

Too bad it wasn’t a town full of bowling balls. That would have stopped him quick smart. But after going on a bit further with blown tires, our felon decides he can’t continue and sensibly pulls into a corner service station and slows, slows... and he's almost stopped and…. he’s… RAMMED in the driver’s door by a cop who then accelerates and pushes him sideways into the fuel pumps, knocking them over. As you might expect, but not the cop apparently, they promptly burst into flame, engulfing the car.

Through the dashboard camera we see frantic cops yipping at each other, running forward and retreating again calling “Get out of the car, man! Get out of the car.” Meanwhile in the background we see the occupants of a children’s dance school evacuating a nearby building, shuffling single file, hunched over like people running from a helicopter.

The ballerinas ran around the corner of the building no doubt to re-group and set up a firing line. Three of them were packing what looked to be an 8” mortar. Then I went to the kitchen and got some cake so I didn’t see how it ended. I’m sure nobody died. It was on TV. And ballerinas are lousy fucking shots.

Parisilla Queen of The Desert

Who gets to make up the names for military operations? Desert Storm, Desert Shield, Desert Pointy Stick. In the old days they named battles after the place it happened, Waterloo, Pearl Harbour, Compton. I guess if you want the public to get behind you these days you have to jazz it up a little.

Woke up earlier from my mid-week nap to find Paris and Nicole, some kids and a midget on TV. There was a porta-potty at one point. Fell asleep watching Family Guy and woke up to…well what the fuck is it? They’re just running down a list …

Paris tries to pitch a tent.
Paris feeds pigs.
Paris meets a midget.
Nicole acts bitchy.
Paris perfects cold fusion.

… and so on. At least her home video had a plot. A friend of mine who is a reasonable carpenter and dedicated pornography freak had a clip of that video. I noticed, among other things like breasts, the shots were inter-cut. That means either two cameras, or multiple takes, and editing afterwards either way. Poor thing, having to look all amateur shot after shot.

They will eventually send her to Iraq, Operation Desert Tediousness.

Paris drives a tank.
Paris eats army food.
Paris clears a mine field.
Nicole acts bitchy.

Paris establishes a stable Middle East region by buying everyone cowboy hats.

bricks were invented in 1958

Exxy, also known as GPG (Get Pirate Gold? Go Pinch Gilbert? Gather People’s Garters?) and a charter compound member, has decided everybody should get 3 guesses in the find the baboon compound contest. So be it.

Been raining here and the crick’s getting high. Just the other day they said we’re still partly in drought. I guess not this part because the roads are washing away. They don’t build them very well in NSW. Not like those Queensland roads, they got nice roads there. And bananas. Lotta bananas and pineapples and sugar cane and Great Barrier Reefs. Well they only have one of those but it’s a pretty good one. Very reefy.

P3 and P4 both won State Championships for cheerleading with their respective teams and are going to Nationals in September. I’m hoping this will help them achieve my dream for them, to be stunt women in an independent film about cheerleaders who have to fight nazi space alien terrorists. I need some squibs.

I’m watching a documentary on the history of the brick. I know. I gotta slow down.

#464

Well we can’t sit around playing baboon squares all day and we’re not, it seems, so back to business.

7/10 hits to this site are still from people looking for videos and pictures of monkeys mating. So I figure I might as well write for them.

How’s it going? It’s winter in Australia you know. Yup. Winter here. Cooler weather. Wetter. Got any pictures of rhesus monkeys going at it? How about Schoolgirl Chimps in Bondage? Want to buy some? See my assistant in the alley after the show.

I don’t really have an assistant. He ran off with the monkeys. Or they stole him. He wasn’t very big. A pocket assistant, if you will.

So…will you?

I’ll turn my back if it makes it easier on you. Try not to make any sounds that will give away what you’re doing so then I’ll never know. You’ll always have that little secret to hold over me. And I’ll grow to resent it and it will come between us until we Almost Kill Each Other and then you’ll tell me and it will be nothing. It will be you held up rabbit ears behind my head, and I’ll say “was that all why didn’t you tell me?” And you’ll smile in that wistful way you have and fall over from blood loss. Then we’ll laugh and we’ll see how silly we’ve been and we’ll have almost-died-sex if you don’t die.

Let's Play Baboon Squares

After months of searching for a suitable site for the mutant baboon army compound I am able to announce one has been found and purchased by Mrs Joe and myself. They all said I was crazy, that I couldn’t do it, that I smelled like wet burlap and damn it they were mostly right. I may be a musty smelling maniac but I have my baboon army compound and nobody can take it away. Except the bank if I forget to pay for it. But I left myself a note, so that won’t happen. Anymore.

Somewhere in this long range satellite photogram is the Actual Baboon Compound. Those of you who are already members will want to find it and stake out your areas. Anybody else will want to find it just because it’s something to do instead of facing another bleak day filled with nothing.

So click the photo to get a good look, then click BACK when you think you’ve spotted it. Tell me your guess in the comments section. As you can see I already guessed square D7, but I got it wrong. You’ll do better.

Pick your square and I’ll announce the winner next Sunday. I’ll take suggestions on a prize.

How does the third person write his memoirs?

Do you see that scrolling thing over there? ------->

Not the clock, above that. Doesn’t seem to work with Firefox. I prefer to blame the inventor of Hyper Text Markup Language, rather than my rudimentary knowledge of its use. Anyway it’s a clever and amusing little scrolly thing which announces Something Big is happening on Sunday August 19th. Probably some lame contest or baboon army thing. He hasn’t trotted that shit out for a while.

Hmm, got all 3rd person there for a minute. I don’t trust novels written in the third person as its akin to hearsay which is spelled a little like heresy and is similar in meaning. How the fuck did Marc Twain know what Huck and Tom got up to on the raft? He wasn’t there. And it's frankly a little creepy to imagine two shirtless boys on a raft accompanied by an old man in a white suite with handle bar moustaches, spouting folksy sayings and earthy yet poignant parables highlighting human foibles, its disgusting.

So stop by Sunday and see what stupid gimmick he’s got going now. Damn he’s doing it again.

things you find on a saturday morning

Guy in Canada found a mummified baby in the wall of a house he was renovating, been there since 1925. So now what do you do? Close up the wall and never speak of it again or do you bring people through going “that’s the laundry, kitchen over there and oh that’s where we found the baby... no, they took it away. Good thing it wasn’t load bearing”

Woman in Arizona bought a mystery box at some auction and discovered it contained a human skull. Whoever packed those mystery boxes was really good at it. She was probably expecting a cookie jar.

Meanwhile another woman did get a cookie jar. Sold to her by a woman for 50 cents, who “didn’t realize” it had her husband’s previous wife’s ashes in it. It was a giant frog.

It’s like we’re living in a Tim Burton movie.

I Used My Magnets

I was thinking I might go on the space shuttle. They’d let me on because of all the good work I did. They’d let me on for sure ‘cause of that one time I saved George Bush. Used my magnets to get the alien probes out of his head. Looks like they put some back, though.

I can’t be everywhere. Not like God, or that fine dust that settles on everything after witches are burned. Most people don’t realize all the toxic fumes that come off a burning witch. They have shocking hygiene, some of them.

Witches were the cat-ladies of their day, living alone in the forest with 20-odd cats and a broom handle for company. Misunderstood and shunned, they lived quietly, making a simple life for themselves and eating any children they found. They bothered no one.

And kids did what they were told, boy. Don’t want to do your chores? How about we go for a little walk in the forest. You remember Grettle from up the road? You don’t see her in school anymore do you?

Friday Night Mild Headache

If you have openly weeping sores all over your body you should try to cheer them up. Buck up ‘lil puss hole, you’ll get your scab soon, you should say. Buy them a Happy Meal, but make sure you don’t get the salty one, the Mc Salt Combo, because open sores don’t like them. And not if the toy is one that makes noise, because I don’t like those ones and you’re lucky I even let you in here with those sores. Put some pants on.

I invented my own happy meal. You take Rice-a-Roni or Kraft Dinner or Toast and pour 18-27 grams of cocaine on it then you grind it up and mix it with vodka and inject it under your toenails. There’s no toy.

But you can get toys from most children. The majority can’t defend themselves very well, and frankly they’re not that bright. You give a six year old a head-fake and they’ll go for it every time. Also if you ask them if they can see their own ears they spin around.

It’s pretty funny. If you get enough of them going you can play Battling Tots out on the patio. Try to get a fat one, they spin longer due to inertia and because they’re stubborn. Dogged, even.

I wrote a poem. Actually my shopping list happened to rhyme. Actually I didn’t write it. I read it in a book of shopping lists, Under An Auburn Sky. I thought it was going to be an adventure story about some people who lived on a planet with a sky the colour of pure auburn, due to massive auburn fires burning in the core, but instead it wasn’t.

It never is. I said put your pants on.

Thursday Night Fever

P4: Dad can you drop me off at my school disco tonight?
SJ: Disco! I don’t know, I’ve heard some things about discos…
P4: Like what?
SJ: Dancing. They got dancing there. Dancing’s bad for you. Jiggles up your insides. Makes you goofy.
P4: Does not. I’m gonna dance with my friend Nicole.
SJ: Not boys?
P4: Nope. But I know a girl who is going to dance with a boy and if she does then this other girl has to dance with this other dude, and she doesn’t even like him.
SJ: Dude? There’s dudes there too? I don’t know…
P4: Dudes are boys.
SJ: I see. So I’m a dude?
P4: It starts at 7-o-clock.
SJ: Tactful. Ok, but you better not come home any goofier than you are now. I’ll know.

I lied. She’s too goofy now to notice any difference.

Ice Age Already Begun

Went to wipe the dew off my windshield this morning and was amazed to find ice. Actual real ice. As a lad in Canada I would have used the box from a cassette tape to scrape it away but you don’t see them much anymore. I don’t even have any CD’s in the truck, it’s all mp3 baby. Can’t scape ice with an iPod though.

They say don’t pour boiling water on an icy window. That’s because it would take longer to go back inside and boil water than to just run the heater a few minutes.

My brother* once used my best beer mug to make an ice cream soda. He felt the ice cream was still too hard so he placed my best beer mug, full of ice cream soda, on the burner of the stove and left it sit there a while. Then it exploded.

He should have taken it out to the car and run the heater a few minutes.

Architect = Antichrist

I would like to reiterate an earlier statement that all architects should be shot.


Dear Architect,

Why oh why, in that murky brain of yours, did it seem a clever idea to make your walls at 33 degrees? Were you being ‘fresh’? Quirky? Do you huff glue at lunchtime? Circles have 360 degrees and 33 does not divide well into that number. Hence I have numbers with decimals, great long strings of decimals. Now, my software demands exact sizes to work properly but you try and tell Big Rick in the factory to cut something at 1126.9090901 millimetres. Tell him it’s new, it’s fun, it’s trigonometry. See where that gets you.

You, my misguided friend, have ordered an entire room to be panelled in a particular species of New Guinea hardwood veneer plywood which, apparently, nobody makes anymore. If they ever did. I bet you made it up.

You, my doe eyed apple blossom, have asked for 6 heavy glass-doored overhead cabinets above the granite topped ode to yourself you call a reception desk. You have neglected to notice there are no walls nearby and it’s a 15 foot ceiling. Are they meant to hover? That’s just not practical. The downwash would muss up the receptionist’s hair.

I understand you want to be different, make a statement, but you seem to be retarded. I’m almost certain your mother breast fed you until your late teens. Did she encourage you to be creative? I suppose she couldn’t have known you’d get this far. Hey, you know those guys that round up shopping carts at Safeway? That looks fun, you get a fluorescent vest and everything. You can pretend the carts are a big train whoo-whoo! I bet you like trains, don’t you sunshine?

Promise me you’ll think about it.

Das Coffee Cup

Did I ever tell you about the time I was on a submarine? I worked this big console and it had lots of buttons and lights and gauges. What the console did was classified, they didn’t tell me much…

“Just load the racks with dirty dishes, slide them in here, close the door and push the red button. Watch the temperature stays up.”

Who knows what the red button really did, but I thought the dishwasher disguise was very clever.

Ok, it wasn’t a submarine. It was an nuclear powered underwater coffee shop. To fool the Ruskies, it was parked on Main Street between the bakery and the variety store. Nobody expects an underwater coffee shop on dry land.

It was a brilliant tactic.

But after a while I couldn’t handle the pressure. Every 5 minutes push the red button, faster faster here comes the lunch rush! More bleach, damn it. Oh no, table of 5 incoming! Ahhhhhh…..(!)

Actually I got another job, transporting nitro glycerine across a rugged mountain range in a rickety French bistro.

syllogism

1) P4 may keep her room however she likes.
2) P4 may not watch TV if her room is not tidy.

P4: Uh, Dad you made a mistake.
SJ: Really? Why does that keep happening?.
P4: One rule says any way I like, the other says it has to be tidy.
SJ: Hmmm, let’s see. No, there’s no logical conflict there.
P4: O-k. Well I’ll just watch TV.
SJ: Room clean?
P4: No.
SJ: Rule 2
P4: But maybe messy is how I like to keep it. Rule 1.
SJ: Ok, then go hang out in there. Queen of the mess.

Who knows, might work. I figure you don’t shit where you live. Eventually.

corruption

When I applied for an Australian driver’s license I had to answer 40 multiple choice questions on a computer. One of the questions was

If the evaluator asks you for a bribe and you give it to them:
1) Only the evaluator will be charged by the police.
2) Both of you will be charged by the police.
3) You will receive your license.

The answer was of course number 3. This is New South Wales where corruption has a proud history. I had to take a short safety course which allows me to enter building sites for work and the instructor told us they caught a guy selling crane operator’s tickets. Cranes are those big tall things that lift heavy objects high in the air and tip over if you do it wrong. Well there’s 3000 operators in NSW who’s tickets are no good. One guy they found was two days in the country and spoke no English but he had a crane ticket.

Foreman: Hey watch out for the power line!
Crane Op: (smiles and nods) “Ok yes!”
Foreman: No look up, UP! Not thumbs up, dickhead, look… Ok everybody stay clear until we can get the power shut off and retrieve the body. Jim cancel the concrete truck, we can’t pour today.

That was construction site lingo. Don’t let the brassy exterior fool you, they were crying on the inside. They’d all been looking forward to pour day and now it was ruined. Jim had made scones for after but nobody felt much like eating them and they went to waste. They keep telling him he uses too much cinnamon but he’s proud, is Jim.

It’s just his way.

That’s old lady lingo. It means “yes he’s a dickhead but there’s nothing you can do about it”. And when old ladies say “oh stop, you’re making me blush”, it means put your pants back on or I’ll cut you. That’s what they told me at the hospital anyway.

And that’s how corruption belittles us all. And we learned that concrete comes in a truck.

#450

New York, New England, New Hampshire, New Zealand… you’d think after going to the trouble and expense of discovering a place and having the opportunity to name it, you’d put a little imagination into it. Something like Superland or Death Zone 55.

You know that chart, the one that shows a chain of primates starting with a lemur and working it’s way through various slope-headed club wielders all the way up to a natty Modern Man in a blue suit with thin tie, you know that chart? Well in a few million years that chart will be much longer and we’ll just be version 17 out 1000. “Yes, and here is where they started using calculators”

Number 18 looks like Barbarella.

Barbarella didn’t need a calculator. Mathematics gets outlawed in 2112 when it begins to cause problems. A ten year old prodigy counted all the way to the end.

It’s infinity + 1 he says. Then he declared himself Boss of The World.

recant

I’m starting to hear a new term “deniers” – people who question global warming theory. That’s interesting. Sounds a little like “heretic” doesn’t it? Has a tinge of shrillness about it. People need something to cling to, something to defend, an excuse to burn people in the village square.

A few years ago, near Vancouver, some anti-fur activists broke into a mink farm and released all the minks. Yay for minks. They promptly ran amuck (amink?) and killed all the local birds and frogs and a few cats. Minks are vicious.

Another time some animal people notified a supermarket chain at Thanksgiving they had poisoned some of the turkeys in some of the stores, thereby forcing the chain to discard all their birds to be safe. The other chains did likewise and then 20,000 new turkeys were promptly slaughtered and shipped under security back to the stores in time. Yay for turkeys. Saved them from the minks.

Fuck I'm Funny

Work Colleague: Hey SJ, you got a hair cut!
SJ: Most of them, actually.
WC: What?
SJ: Most of …all the ones on my head, yes.
WC: What?
SJ: Never mind.
WC: No, no…what did you mean? Most of what?
SJ: You said I got a hair cut and I said I got most of them cut. Not just the one.
WC: (stares) Oh. Very funny.
SJ: Not now.
WC: What?
SJ: (sigh) It’s not funny now I had to explain it to you.
WC: What are you saying?
SJ: I’m saying you are too stupid to follow a conversation you yourself initiated.
WC: (stares)
SJ: I’m kidding.
WC: Ahh-ha-ha, good one! Fuck you’re funny.

Lepers can't play tag. Not properly.

I got tagged with one of those taggy things.

That Doctor did it.

You can see it here.

#444

Just saw an ad for an upcoming documentary about men who get themselves castrated. Voluntarily. Man, that takes balls.

Somebody had to say it.

What does a duck say if another duck is about to bump its head?
Nothing. They’re ducks. Bitchy backstabbing little ducks.

Sorry. I used to know a duck. It got ugly.

I don’t trust pigs either. They know more than they let on. One day they’ll learn to use telephones and that’ll be it. No more bacon. Not allowed to eat smart animals. The dolphins came up with that one.

Lawyers of the sea.

tree hugger

How do you get a one-armed man out of a tree? Wave.

Or so the story goes, but it has flaws. What if the one-armed man is bitter about his deficiency and does not feel friendly? Or, he may be friendly but dull of mind from previous waving incidents and no longer responds to normal social gestures. He might be committing suicide and is building up the courage to wave. Waving at him too soon would throw him off and he’d cling even tighter. No good at all.

Another way is to throw rocks at him. But that can just force him higher. You’d have to chop the tree down then, and that would be bad for the global warming.

What the hell is he doing up there anyway? You never see one-legged men up trees, or lepers. They stay on the ground. What’s his problem? Did he lose his kite? Is he trying to see if he can see his house from here?

I’ll try poking at him with a long stick.

The Downfall of Millie Nobbs

Here we come across a piece of true Americana. Little Millie Nobbs has just won Ms Dairy Maid Tri-Counties for the third year running, once again stealing the judges’ hearts with her medley of Dolly Parton standards and a fine cheese loaf she made after school and on weekends. They praised her exquisite grip in the milking portion of the event and her ability to drain a cow dry in under 4 minutes. Unfortunately she has fallen among bad company.

A couple of smooth talkers have lured her out behind the fair grounds and are plying her with flattery and a free ear examination. Rosco and Betsy is the names they go by when they’re working, and they’re filling poor Millie’s dull little head with ideas of going on to State and, dare she dream, the National Dairy Maid Councill Pageant all the way over in Harrisburg. Sure, they tell her, we’ll all go over in our big motorcar together, Harrisburg has a café, that’s French, and it sells little pastries with cream and you can have ‘em wrap it in paper if you want to walk with it a spell. They got everything over in Harrisburg.

Everything indeed. How is poor Millie to know Harrisburg harbours an underground ring of white slave traders who specialize in plump, corn-fed, milky-sweet dairy maids for the Dutch market and that Rosco and Betsy are ruthless maid catchers? How can she resist Rosco’s rugged, greasy, good looks and rolled up sleaves and Betsy’s unusual dress and quizzical expression? It’s too late for Millie. Before she knows it she’ll be whisked overseas and find herself in the window of an Amsterdam brothel with only a large prosthetic penis and a well trained cow for company. Ironically they will dress her as Dolly Parton.

Just goes to show you what a good cheese loaf and a firm grip will get you. God bless America.

As usual, it ends badly for the French

A man on television just said “China is building the city of the future”. Wow, I wonder how far in the future they’re going with it. I mean you could just copy your city out of a street directory but give it hydrogen powered traffic lights and call it the city of the future. Do they mean All The Way into the future? To the end of time? Bold, sure, but would we be able to cope? We’d be walking around asking each other “what next?” and answering “nothing it’s the end of time” and then saying “but then what?” and giving ourselves a headache.

Of course, we would have forgotten it’s only the city of the future, not the actual future. But still, the pain. It would prevent us from doing anything except developing pain medications and Institutes of Pain Research and more Shrek movies and nothing would get done. This is nature’s way of restoring the balance. Nobody would be worried about hydrogen powered things and the cities would revert to present tense, probably even go back a little for good measure. Instead China would be building the City Of A Few Years Ago and the French would go back to rioting in the streets and chopping each other’s heads off with a giant razor blade.

You know they want to. They ain’t right in the head. Look at poodles.

The Cost Of Things

Most people think diamonds are rare and expensive. Droplets of pure carbon scattered about the mantle like toffee chips in a cake. Of elemental designs carbon’s is the most pure and symmetrical, a mathematical, engineer’s design. You can make damn near anything out of carbon, and somebody did. It’s in many forms, the black carbon of pencils and coal, of sticky bog-formed peat and dark thick crude oil. Plants and animals and spinning rocks in space, all made of carbon. And sometimes the earth squeezes it and by a quirk of molecular alignment it becomes hard and transparent and sharp at the edges and worth digging for. But it’s not rare and neither are diamonds. And they’re only expensive if you want a pretty one, wrapped in folded paper like contraband to be examined and turned under north-facing light, touched to the tip of the tongue to test purity, and passed down the chain of secrecy and ancient arrangements until it re-emerges set in gold as though it was born that way. Those diamonds are expensive because they have to be to justify their existence.

I have a saw blade I use for cutting brick. It is coated in diamond dust. I have a diamond encrusted cord which is used for cutting tile, it glitters in the sun as fetchingly as any necklace. Surely I must be wealthy and foolish to waste diamonds, even their dust, on such practical applications. But these are just normal diamonds, carbon diamonds, elemental and common and spread through the mantle like toffee chips in a cake. They are not secret diamonds, mined under armed guard to be whisked away, to be examined and breathed on and distributed cautiously by black velvet deacons. Mystique is a poor word for it for there is no mystery except the propensity for humans to deny their own light by holding something symbolic above themselves. Something un-attainable yet of their own creation. We are not happy if we do not want something, yet we want the wanting to end. And still, when we have everything we wanted, we want more. And if there is no more, we create something more to want.

My wedding ring is made of silver, not gold, because it is a symbol and would be just as valid if it were drawn on paper. It simply represents an idea and an understanding which are made of more intangible elements. But I use gold connectors on my electrical equipment for it does not corrode and if you want to cut tile, you can get a diamond cord saw for about 12 bucks down at the hardware store.

Ain’t no circus ever been to this town. Damn sky is too low for raising tents, not ones you can run an elephant around. Not ones you can swing a girl by her teeth in or shoot a fat guy across from a cannon. Sky’s been pressing down on us around here for years, it don’t care about things like that. Sky don’t mind one bit, suffocating us with pressure, making us irritable and sleepless, curt with one another. Trying to stoop us over with relentless persuasion. Can’t push back on the sky, there’s too much of it, it doesn’t notice, you get tired.

Ain’t no circus been to this town ever. Damn sky. We got a Dairy Queen though.

fyi

We got a letter in the mail. On the envelope, in jaunty script, were the words “Information inside!” I put that in italics to indicate jauntiness. Well no shit, information INSIDE the envelope. Because there was information on the outside, our address for example, but now they’re putting information inside the envelopes too. What will The Scientists think of next? I used to think Mrs Joe was having a long distance affair. Envelopes kept arriving and when you opened them there was a letter inside but it didn’t (wouldn't) say anything. Either that or an illiterate was sending us stamps.

There’s information you need and information you don’t need, of course. Some people feel compelled to tell you intimate details of their sex life, which can be uncomfortable, depending on the type of restraints used. I don’t want to know about any sex life I’m not personally involved in. Even then I only need to get the jist of it, preferably in point form. Leave a note on the fridge.

Use the fridge magnet from the veterinary clinic, its not the biggest but it’s really magnetic. I hate a sub standard magnet. Can't abide a bad magnet.

I bet you didn't know that.

Fat Jack

Jack the dog is getting fat. He’s eight years old and wolfs his food down. The problem is he is not a wolf. Wolves are in good shape. He swallows his food without even chewing, partly because he has less teeth than he used to and partly because he is a paranoid wreck. He’s convinced every feeding is the last and he’ll be damned if that smart-ass bitch Jessie is going to get his last meal. She is smarter than him and does manage to take whatever he has whenever she wants. Then she does a little dance. She really is a smart-ass bitch.

I’ve tried cutting back their food but then they go manic. Chewing on things, barking, tearing up their bedding, shitting in the no shit zones. It’s like Attica. I’ve tried tying them up and giving them separate bowls but then Jack pouts, convinced he’s been punished for something while Jessie got whatever treat was in the good bowl. Untied with separate bowls Jack tries to guard both and gets none, which further fuels his distrust of the world.

I have hit on a solution. I now give them 25% less food then I fill up a big bowl, actually an old wok, with warm water and a half a cup of milk. Jessie cottoned on pretty quick that it was a scam and she leaves most of the milk-water to Jack who uh, laps it up. When he finishes it, if he’s still skittish I fill that sucker up again. Some nights he drinks 5-6 litres of it until his lapping pace is down to five or six a minute and he looks about to fall over. Then he staggers over to his bed and crashes with a swollen belly full of warm water.

He’s losing weight, feeling satisfied and thinking maybe, just maybe, for once, he’s winning.