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.”