Can't help it

That last one sorta sucked. That’s what I get for stealing a joke. Actually on the radio they had a comedian and people could call in with jokes they’d written and somebody called in and mentioned that whistles are not actually clean, as part of a longer list of the did-you-ever-notice-? variety. There was no joke, just the concept of whistles not really being clean. I wrote the joke. I should not have written the joke. Jerry Seinfeld should have written the joke.

Jerry Seinfeld hardly ever jokes about lesbians. Americans are not allowed to. I, however, can’t help it. They are very interesting. Also I am afraid of them for they are awesome to behold with great and terrible wrath. Like Vikings. Vikings dressed like flannel-clad homeboys, or possibly in a nice white shirt with bolero string tie. I wonder if they sell special boob-strapping tape…

I’m doing it again.

P4: Hey dad dinner’s ready and I made it.
SJ: No way! You have to be at least 10 years old to make dinner.
P4: Uh, I am 10, remember?
SJ: No way man. You’re 8. When you were three we told you you were five. We wanted to start you in school early, ‘cause you’re so clever, so we lied. You are definitely 8.
P4: Then how come I’m tallest girl in my class?
SJ: Wait I got that wrong, you’re 11. You were dumb so we started you a year late. Yeah, that’s right.
P4: I’ve seen my birth certificate.
SJ: Which one?
P4: uh…
SJ: How old are you?
P4: Eight. Grrr, TEN!
SJ: Ten? You should have made dinner.
P4: I already told... I am 10. I made dinner. Ten. Dinner. Made.
SJ: Right, let's go then.

and it was very very good.

Give a little whistle

What does clean as a whistle mean? Coated in spit and pocket lint? Moldy old coagulated spit, festering forth germs like a North Korean breeder reactor within the dark dank bowels of the common whistle. A whistle kept in the sweat-crusted front pocket of an ex-jock PE teacher or hung between the non-descript breasts of a lesbian women’s volleyball coach.

Clean like that?

Ha ha remember that lesbian women’s volleyball coach in Porky’s? She had a whistle. You could go right ahead and dunk that sucker in a cup of hot water, make yourself a nice cup-a-spit. If you could get it off her that is, and if I remember my history that requires cunning, speed, timing and sticking your dick through a hole in a wall.

Not really the best bait for a lesbian. Just makes them angrier.

I’d let her keep the whistle, if I were you. Or at least offer to clean it for her.

worse, not better

What’s an unruly mob? A mob with irregular edges? Mob is bomb spelled backward incorrectly, that’s spooky. Unruly spelled backwards makes no sense whatsoever, like a Brittany life-choice or doing calculus on peyote.

Actually you probably could do calculus on peyote as long as nobody interrupted you by existing. You should NOT host a world-wide satellite link-up for Peace In Our Time with Bob Geldof, the Foo Fighters, special guest stars Dick Clark and P. Diddy, the Foo Fighters, Little Richard and the Foo Fighters on peyote.

The Foo Fighters suck.

In WWII American Navy pilots reported seeing little Dave Groels flying around over the Pacific and they called them Foo Fighters, which is Navy lingo for lame.

I Think.

Dave Groel was a drummer before he was lame. So was Dave Clark and he’s probably dead by now. David Lee Roth is not a drummer and is not dead though he sometimes threatens to be lame.

It’s confusing, I know. Worse on Peyote.

crack could beat up heroin, but heroin wouldn't care

7pm on a Thursday and it isn’t the first time. 7pm Thursday was invented over ONE HUNDERED years ago. Nobody knows who invented it, though some suspect monks or clock-makers. Maybe mildly retarded children, bless them.

That’s all I have to say about it. I may do a pantomime later if there’s time.

Life is a pantomime (with talking) and nobody knows the moves. Freestyle pantomime. Word.

Maybe if crack addicts put their crack in a tin can with a label that said “SPINICH – product of Honduras” and they whipped it out and cracked-on just in time to save their skinny crack girlfriend from certain train-running-over (!) by tearing up the tracks in a crack-fuelled frenzy maybe then people would be more understanding because they saved a precious life with crack and only wrecked one train. You can’t do that with heroin. Not cracky enough.

Cracky is not a word, apparently. Got a red squiggly line under it. There is no poetic license setting. Curse you cold and sterile future-world with your micro-chips and plastic tables!

I was thinking those people with that genetic mutation that makes them be covered in long silky hair from head to toe will do pretty good if there is suddenly an ice age. They don’t panic easily. Also they are hairy. Duh.

"Crabs got me where I am today" - Alaskan fisherman declared America's Next Top Model

All that guff back in 2000, everything was New Millennium this and New Millennium that. Try our new New Millennium french fries, exactly like the old ones except we’re selling them in the New fucking Millennium. Y2K was a complete disappointment, nothing important crashed, telecommunications ticked along, air travel continued unabated, toilet paper continued to come in regular or scented. Some people had to get new cheques issued that didn’t have “19__” in the date section but with teams of printers working round the clock this was soon rectified and old ladies were once again free to hold up check-out lines as they stubbornly continued to assert their right not to use an ATM card. 2000 was a complete non-event.

And here we are most way to 2010 already, ploughing headlong into a brave new world, one with iPods. A world where everybody gets a turn to be on TV, movie stars, hotel heiresses, Alaskan crab fishermen, George Bush, they let anybody on these days. The next pop-star/ model/ crab fisherman/ president of the united states is only a vote away, call now, only fifty cents. Hell, even Fiddy Cent is on TV and from what I can see he’s got all the charisma of dog turd with a bow on it. When you have nothing else, look stolid. Or guest-host Saturday Night Live, that’s still on. And still crap. That’s why.

But I put this injector cleaner stuff in my truck and it’s running really good now, so there’s that. Here’s to butoxyethanol!

Happy New Year.

SJ

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.