sexiest woman room

"It's like Pauline Hanson never left," said Bob Brown, leader of the Australian Greens. And he's right of course, but not quite right enough. For those who don't know, Pauline Hanson was the dim-witted fish and chip shop owner (no, really!) who overnight became the voice of all those Australian voters possessed of the vague idea that everything was the fault of abos, wogs, and gooks. Finally racists could come in from the cold! In less time than it took for the soy mochaccino drinking crowd to snork the froth out their nose, she and her One Nation party had magically become the third force in Australian politics.


Truth is, she had no idea what she was doing. Her party was full of losers and crackpots, run by grasping spivs and chancers, and its tiny number of MP's became one, became none, and in no time at all the whole thing descended into a series of undignified, money-grubbing spats and court cases. Yeah, seeya arseholes, have a nice life.

In a big picture discussion of the 'Hanson Phenomenon' there's no point dwelling on 'Hanson' half of the equation - she was an idiot who confused media interest with personal worthiness - better to pay attention to the 'Phenomenon' half of things. This had nothing to do with Hanson per se. I expect if asked, she could tell you what 'phenomenon' meant (well, she'd get close anyway) but I doubt she could spell it. But Rupert Murdoch's hacks certainly could. They can spell, whistle up a racist riot, and chew gum all at the same time. They ain't paid all that money for nothing. And Hanson? She was merely the pea in Rupert Murdoch's racist dog whistle.


Of course, that shit Little Johnny Howard did his part too. Riffing off Hanson, who'd now given voice to 'the concerns of many Australians' (according to the media), he could take a giant leap to the right. Domestically, that is. Abroad we were already the idiot son's deputy sheriff in the Pacific keen to bomb whomever as long as they were Muslim. And amongst such a campaign, God forbid Afghan and Iraqi boat people fleeing the hells which we'd made for them should arrive in Australia and behave like quiet, well-mannered model citizens.

They were terrorists who deserved nothing less than to have their wedding parties blown into strawberry jam - how dare they come here and be Muslim and turn our country into a cratered shit-hole like theirs was? That's why it was only too right that Howard should lock them all up on a blazing Pacific island hell hole to rot under the pitiless gaze of the Wackenhut corporation of America. Muslims must be the enemy and racism must be fostered.

Does it really come as any surprise that new Labor PM Julia Gillard has perfectly replicated that shit Howard's 'Nauru Solution' by substituting East Timor for Nauru? "No No, this is different because it's in East Timor." Brilliant - we all roll our eyes. And so when Bob Brown says, 'It's like Pauline Hanson never left,' really he'd be closer to the mark if he said, "It's like Rupert Murdoch never quit blowing his racist dog whistle." He's a lovely chap, Bob Brown, but what with his captaining of the death cult registered HMAS Global Warming you can only expect so much sense out of him. But otherwise he's on the money. Libs, Labor, who can tell the difference? Not me.


There is only one fact that counts in the boat people debate, and that is - they comprise less than three percent of immigrants coming to this country. They are a drop in the bucket. Our immigration centres are only 'swamped' because no one is interested in emptying them. If we just got on and processed these refugees like we did with every over wave of them (Greeks, Italians, Vietnamese, Mainland Chinese), then where would the immigration debate shitfight be? Nowhere. To paraphrase Paul Keating, It's the shitfight we had to have. And sotto voce, ...because Rupert Murdoch said so.

As for the old coming-over-here-and-taking-our-jobs chestnut, I am the wrong fellow for that discussion. I was in the advertising biz in Sydney and drowning in a sea made up the other 97% of immigrants who aren't boat people, which is to say Poms. If there was a decent paying white collar job in Sydney, one's competitors were bound to be English.


Lovely people, the English, until they come here, ha ha. Then they would inevitably complain about the beer, invent absurd traditions about Christmas on Bondi Beach, and otherwise torture the Australian Queen's English with expressions like, You're trippin'! and I was nana-ed, and That's when it all went pear-shaped. God it was awful. Never mind taking-our-jobs, the flipside of that coin is make-no-effort-to-assimilate-into-Australian-society - I rest my case. Not forgetting Sydney's insane rental market. Go sit in a real estate agent in Sydney's Eastern suburbs (ie. near the ocean) and see if Poms don't comprise 50% of the people making enquiries. No wonder the rents are insane.

As for Afghans - good luck finding any. It seems they've all skived off to regional Australia to work in the abattoirs and consider themselves lucky to do so. Those bastards - taking the jobs that no one else wanted to do! And living in the bush! That's bloody un-Australian!

Ha! So what am I? An inverted version of Pauline Hanson? Racist against white people! Truth is I don't give a shit where immigrants come from. As far as I'm concerned the only difference between the current Muslim boat people and all those other immigrants whose kids play with ours (without anyone thinking much of it), is Murdoch's racist rabble-rousing. The immigration 'debate' we've been subject to for the last ten years is no such thing. It's merely a regional variation of the death cult's Sanctity of Banking Campaign™ otherwise known as the War on Muslims Terror.


A true immigration debate, ie. one that doesn't discriminate, is one that I'd be up for. The discussion would pivot on water. Droughts in Oz are really something else. Whilst this has always been the case it would also be true to say, what with the ever climbing population making ever greater demands, that it only ever gets worse. A few years ago the dams of all the major cities were scraping on empty. Any number of bone dry regional towns were trucking in water just to survive.

Add to that the fact that Australia's number one river system, the Murray/Darling, never reaches the ocean. The 'wetlands' at its mouth are arid wastelands. Sure enough, the water is taken by multi-national agricorps to grow the most absurd water-hungry crops imaginable - rice and cotton. Lunacy. The cherry on top of this insanity sundae was KRudd PM's declaration that Australia needed to double its population from 20M to 40M. Huh? Was he mad? Or did he know something we didn't know? That global warming is a con perhaps? And that under the coming global cooling Australia will become lush?

Who the hell knows? With that fucker Murdoch splitting the debate into two nonsensical shitfights: the first an anti-Muslim war for the banks; and the second, fodder for the coming You-Breathe-You-Pay global warming tax regime (with no third conversation possible) there's only one thing to look forward to - the death of Rupert Murdoch. Given that, and apropos the last couple of pieces here, why don't I offer up a prayer?

Dear God,

May I petition you on behalf of your humble servant Rupert Murdoch? What with his tireless work in having us all hate each other (so that we might more enthusiastically fight the death cult's wars of pointless conquest and slaughter), surely he must be very tired by now? He certainly looks haggard, don't you think? I expect his bones are creaky, the blood in his veins as black as tar, and his mind like some nasty, grinding abacus of death.

Just look at him: honestly, Methuselah ain't in it. Not forgetting that he's expended so much of his clapped out jism impregnating his Chinese brood mare (in order to introduce the Sabbatean agenda into China) that he's become a rattling withered husk. It's breaking all our hearts.

And so Lord, I beseech thee, will you not take pity on the man? Why let him continue to suffer in this fashion? Wouldn't it be best for all if you just eased him into the great beyond? We humbly ask that you wheel out the heavenly screens and have the angelic steward do the necessary thing and blow his brains out with a divine double barrelled shotgun. Both barrels - just to be sure.

'Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for Rupert Murdoch'. Was that a prayer before Hemingway pinched it? It sounds about right so I'm sure you won't mind if I use it. How about, 'Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!' That can either be you talking to him and then he carks it. Or him talking to you, in which case you should just kill him on principal. And divine mercy etc. etc. Otherwise may God be with you and blessed be His name, yours truly, amen and best regards, nobody.

I shut my eyes and step off the edge. There is no ill will in this, just questions. God knows how it will end.


But first me. Where to start? Perhaps in my last year of high school. It's religion class with Brother Williams. Believe it or not, there are Catholics who aren't hateful and I was fortunate enough to be educated by some of them for the greater part of secondary school. And what with religion class mostly consisting of philosophy it wasn't as bad as you might think. Hell, a lot of it was fun. But on this particular day I was most definitely staring out the window day-dreaming. Brother Williams is up the front rabbiting on about a particular essay that had been amongst the homework he'd marked and was handing back.

Apparently this one was brilliant, the best thing he'd ever read from a student. And whilst it was too long to read out he wanted the student who'd written it to say something about it. I sit there waiting for the name of the school captain or some other worthy.
"It was written by Nobody - Nobby, do you want to tell us about your essay?" The whole class turns to look at me as I stop staring out the window and suddenly pay attention.
"Um, what? I wrote it?"
"Yes"
"Yes, right, um, sorry Brother Williams but I can't remember what it was about. Can you remind me?" All I could recall was that it was meant to be 2000 words and I'd dashed off 1500 and hoped that I'd get away with it.
"It was about belief."
"Belief. Yes, er... " To be completely honest I don't remember what I said next except that I drew a blank, with Brother Williams somewhat deflated that the kid who'd written the best thing ever was completely unable to remember what it was.

Anyway he took over and told the class why it was great. Apparently what I'd written was a backwards confirmation of a phrase that had been tossed around that term The Answer is in the Question. I think that's what it was called. To be honest it didn't make much impression on me, ha ha.

Finally I got the essay back and read it again. It all came flooding back to me. Madly, what I'd written was an attack on belief. All I'd done was to sequentially list all the things that humans had once prayed to as gods and which we now knew were no such thing. I'd finished up at the end by declaring that since science was a perpetual catch-up game there'd always be things we didn't understand and that subsequently we'd always believe in supernatural answers to otherwise mundane questions. Simplistic stuff sure, but not bad for a sixteen year old. Oh, and Brother Williams? Lovely chap, but I'm thinking he took my essay as a mirror and saw what he wanted to see.

What next? Perhaps we can jump ten years to me deprogramming my mother and brother from the Catholic church. Me, I'd given the church up as a dead loss somewhere around the time I'd written the essay. As for the two of them, I had no great opinion if they wanted to keep going to church - no skin off my nose. But on this night my idiot brother refused to let the subject drop. He wanted to convince me of the rightness of him believing - as if I cared. It was all rather sordid what with his fits of sobbing etc, but in the end I guess I won since they both stopped going to church. Years later I found all the arguments I'd used that night neatly summarised in Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. He's a curious cove, Richard Dawkins. Best I can make out he's transferred his faith from one religion to another, the latter being called 'science'.


Jump another ten years or so to me taking up Buddhism. Why did I pursue Buddhism? I'm struggling to think. Honestly, I don't know - it appealed, I guess. I read this-book/that-book, none of them quite what I was after, until eventually I arrived at Buddhism Plain And Simple by Steve Hagen. A bombshell in the head of yours truly. Here was a Buddhism that didn't require belief - no karma, no reincarnation, no demi-gods or demons, no heaven or hell, no nothing - just an unadorned philosophy from an ancient Indian who said (I paraphrase), 'Don't believe me or take my word for it. All I know is that this view of the world, and us in it, works for me and it can work for you.' And sure I became slightly untethered for a while (the Buddha will do that to you) but it all worked out in the end with me the pointless mad bastard you see today, ha ha. But never mind, the bird-watching is good and I make sense to myself.

Or did I get ahead of things there? Somewhere along the line, the disbelief that had been reserved for things religious I found could equally be applied to, I don't know... 'every goddamn thing'. Or everything in the media, that is. Once again, it wasn't my fault - all I knew was that they were lying about Iraq, and so badly that even a Time Magazine/Economist reading zombie like me was never going to swallow it. Honestly, Saddam in cahoots with Bin Laden was an insult to my intelligence. Fuck those lying sons of bitches. So! You pull on the thread, and once you start in on that, the whole damn thing unravels until there's very little left. I won't go into the details since there's too many, and besides if you're here reading this you know perfectly well what I'm talking about.

Finally I arrive at Les Visible's Smoking Mirrors. I don't know about anyone else but for me it was significant. If you asked people why they were fans you'd get a thousand different answers. But me, I was there for the writing. Imagine Hunter S Thompson acknowledging 911 - wow. In those terms, Smoking Mirrors was not only an inspiration but it also provided a template as to how a bloke like me might go about doing it himself. It may seem obvious now, but it wasn't then, at least not to me having walked away from the hateful zionist troll infested Indymedia. Long and short - without Les I wouldn't be here ...for what that's worth, ha ha.

The writing is one thing and then there's the old disbelief chestnut. In Les' case I'd previousy kicked it into abeyance. Hunter S Thompson had always had an obsession with the Book of Revelations, and Les' writing was like that, only more so. And that was fine for a while but lately the millenarian vibe over at, well, all of Les' blogs has kicked into some kind of messianic exponential. Who can tell his temporal blog from his spiritual one? Not me. Somewhere along the line Les became his own Book of Revelations. In his latest technicolour armageddon meltdown there was time travel, UFO's, messages from the gods, public nudity, every goddamn thing. It was a grab bag for everyone who ever said I want to believe and The truth is out there.


Now I admit that Les has been good to me. He put me on his blogroll and said some nice things about me. But the catholic church did nice things for me too, and my parents likewise, but that didn't stop me from pulling that thread, you know what I mean? Okay, so that thread is just sitting there, and what's a feller to do?

Back to Les - says he, it's the end of the goddamn world and here is what the gods have told me. Deep breath, ask the question- How is this different to every other end-of-the-world, as described by whomever was in touch with those gods? Gee whiz, I'm back in high school: will I spiel off a list of millenarian cults for us all? There's any number merely amongst Buddhists beating each other with sticks over Maitreya.

That aside, we think these times are bad, yes? I mean really super-double-bad, like no 'bad' that's ever occurred before? For whom? For white people who think that 'bad' means running out of coffee? Do we want another historical list? Perhaps we'd call it, Coloured people who'd roll their eyes at the magnitude of our suffering if only they hadn't all been genocided to complete extinction. It seems the gods slept through all those other genocides but now that the Anglo Saxons are to suffer: Enough's Enough! The Gods Awaken!

Back to the expressions of supernature now - Les' gods differ from every other false idol in the history of the world, how, exactly? And what of their alleged omnipotence? Given that nothing happens without them, that is. For them to appear before us and convince us utterly of their existence would surely be the merest blink of their omnipotent eye, no? And yet they never do. It's poor of me, but I have to shake my head. It seems that these supernatural beings never cut to the fucking chase. A click of the fingers is all it would take.


I will admit that spooky preternatural shit does take place. At Fatima in Portugal in 1917, an entity whispered in the ears of three children and then when 70,000 people had gathered, a silver disk flew around the sky. What the hell was that? Beats me, but if it was an omnipotent god keen to impress us all with his unambiguous reality you'd have to call him out as an incompetent, surely? If on the other hand, the whisperer/UFO pilot's job description was that of 'trickster', who could argue? But then, I never heard of anyone keen to tell us that they were visited by tricksters. It's like bragging that you slept with Amy Winehouse. Shudder... best keep that one under your hat. Or declare that it was actually Angelina Jolie - it's not like anyone could prove you wrong.

But forget the tricksters, we're talking about full-tilterama e-ticket gods. But big-timers or no, they seem to be uneasy Gods who feel unfulfilled, or something. Insecurity is their middle name. Wait, do gods have a first name? Or a last name? Whatever. Says these gods, or rather their earthly representatives, it's very important that we acknowledge them, and specifically their omnipotence. And God forbid anyone not do this because it's this acknowledgement by His subjects that will separate the sheep from the goats. And Les is no different. Says he, nothing counts apart from us attempting to commune with the gods. A life spent in selfless giving (er... by better people than me, sure enough) would, were these gods not sought out along the way, count for nothing.

High school again: aren't these yet more in a loooong line of insecure gods who, say the priests, demand that we love them? Actually when I say long line of gods, wouldn't it be more correct to say every god ever posited? Perhaps God is Gloria Swanson from Sunset Boulevard - a hollow shell who needs the adulation of millions to be real. What was her line again? "I'm ready for my close-up Mr De Mille." Ha ha ha - spooky!


What the hell would I know? I'm just wide-eyed high school kid who doesn't know what all the fuss is about. Or I'm a dry-eyed nobody who does - it's one of those two things. If there's a proper god out who thinks I'm worth the effort, I'd be happy to ask him what he wants of me. But that insecure god who demands my love and yet madly refuses to ask for it in person, who otherwise saves his favours for those who could most accurately be described as 'the credulous': I don't know what his problem is, but he can just leave me out of it. I expect that that will piss him off but, gee whiz... he needs to get over it.

---

This is the first part of two. The second part follows immediately below.

Okay be warned. This is where it gets ugly, or as Clint Eastwood so succinctly put it in Gran Torino, Fuckin' Ugly. And we all know how that ended. Yeah well... so be it.


So be it! In a discussion of Millenarian cults, how many do we think are well-meaning efforts led by people who earnestly believe everything they're on about? Perhaps we should put that in the past tense. In all of those end-of-the-world cults that found themselves still extant when the world didn't end, what percentage would we describe as good-hearted and benevolent? I'm not talking about the followers here: our opinion of them would be very low. Instead I'm talking about the charismatic people at the top of each respective pyramid, the ones who'd talked everyone into it. In fact, for any such group or cult that might be described as millenarian/messianic/
apocalyptic, what other words would ordinarily pop into our heads in describing them? Would they be good ones?

Otherwise, who am I describing here: "social outcasts adrift, making no sense of society as it stands, and yet seeking a purpose in life. Having rejected society, and society having rejected them they float hoping for a guru, a teacher who can lead them to rightness, fulfilment, salvation." Am I talking about the losers in the Raelians? Or Scientology? Or Jim Jones' People's Temple? The Children of God perhaps? Or am I talking about us, the hell-bent, truth-seeking extremities of the internet? Ha! As if those other sorry losers are anything like us. They all fell for bullshit CIA mind-control cults and we... well, we're too smart. There's no way we'd fall for some smooth talking spook bullshit artist.


Hell, thanks to Dave McGowan we even have the spotter's profile. He's demo-ed it over and over again - we see keep seeing the same guy always popping up. Run through the checklist with me now: born into a military family; physically abused as a child; joined the military; spent time in psych-wards; spent time in jail; hung out at Laurel Canyon; is musically gifted; met Charlie Manson; took every drug known to man; is super charismatic with true-believers hanging off his every word; talks to the gods with himself as interpreter; demands our belief. Yeah well, if we see that guy we'll know him for sure.

I know that there are people who think Dave McGowan is bullshit. Like m_astera! Which is interesting, very interesting. I wrote about m_astera before. Now I'll happily admit that I know nothing about the guy apart from what he asserts about himself in Les' various comments sections (and lately most of that unread). I'll also admit that what I wrote in that demolition piece could be off the mark. All I know for sure is that there's something wrong with that picture - something off-kilter, something photoshopped out, an unlikely element lit from the wrong direction. Or perhaps it's just a smell? Hard to say, either way he makes the hairs stand up on the back on my neck. I note with interest that I'm not the only one to have violent reactions to him. Honestly, he's that kind of guy.


Anyway he's come a long way now but still lives in the shadow of others I notice. Which is to say, Les's. But still, within that shadow he's achieving great things. Seems he's become Les' own personal co-pilot: astral travelling and seated at Les' right elbow as the two bravely fly into weirder and weirder territory. With an image of him as joystick-clutching aviator may I dub him m_aster_vator? He's got a hide like a rhinoceros, so why not? And hide or no, underneath it all he's a man for all seasons: arch sycophant, platitude spouting sage, and charmless and unforgiving foe of all who doubt him. Like I said - something wrong with that picture, man. And Dave McGowan is bullshit he says. Yeah right, where's Mandy Rice-Davies when you need her? In Israel? Whatever...

Second fiddle bullshit artists aside, in wondering at curiosities it always pays to come at things from the opposite direction. Given that the CIA/mind-control/satanist/paedophile crowd has never given up on the religion/cult gag, and given that every medium that exists is considered fair game, does anyone really imagine that the internet would get a pass? Between - 'Gosh, that's a bit a head scratcher. Let's skip it' and 'How do we make this work for us' one of them is an inevitability, a 100% lock in. Okay dandy, the question now is: What would that internet version of a charismatic cult leader look like? And don't worry about differences between the versions that came in other times and other places. There's no cookie cutter here. It's whatever works.


What other clues are there? Where does Les stand in this blink/blink twin pillar world of duelling entities? In this world there's only ever one bad guy, and in spite of idiotic overlaps you have to choose your camp and then point your finger in the same direction as everybody else. EITHER - It's Mike Rivero (et al) declaring It's all the Jews, and if you listen to the pin drop silence you can almost hear the hypnosis-tape refrain Satanists? What satanists? Repeat after me, there's no such thing. OR - It's Jeff Wells (et al) certain that It's all the Satanists. And the Jews? No Jews here says he, apart from the utterly marvellous and endlessly quotable Robert Zimmerman and Leonard Cohen, bless their souls.

Les, with his perpetual spot at WRH, is definitely amongst the former of these two. But with his background he could hardly be the other, could he? I'll admit that McGowan, mind-control, and paedophilia have copped mentions at Smoking Mirrors but I think the word 'cursory' would be appropriate. What meagre mentions they do get are as likely to be condemnatory as anything else. Perhaps 'short shrift' would be the right expression. Ever eager tag-team partner m_aster_vator clearly knows which way the wind blows.

Finally there's that old chestnut, money. People have to make a living you know. Does no one ever wonder how some people seem perpetually able to devote themselves full time to the internet with no visible means of support? (yeah yeah, pun). Oh alright, I admit it, I live at 'home', I don't work, and I bludge off the old man's pension. But I'm happy to point to my spotty output. If you want an example of a blogger who makes sense in this regard, you need only to look to Craig Murray. A drib here, a drab there. Who's got time for more? Not me that's for sure. I'll admit that there are people out there who are driven, who tirelessly work and work and have an output that shames everybody else. Still, where does the money come from? How do they pay the bills? Really I'd like to know because after my gig here with the old man is over, I'm out on my arse. And me, I couldn't think of anything nicer than to write all day and not have to work for a living - like a dream come true...


Well, there's everyone's daily dose of bad ugliness. I recommend you all go rinse your mouth out to get rid of the taste of shit. I told you it'd be fuckin' ugly. Which is to say, I would be ...balls out without a stitch of common decency. And that's the problem when you pull on a thread - the whole thing unravels and you're standing there stark bollock naked. Yeah well, I came into the world that way and I ain't got nothin' to hide otherwise, so... what the hell.

Oh, is that the bell? Thank God. Class dismissed. Or is it me ringing at the door? It's hard to know... regardless there won't be any Hail Mary's...

If you meet Buddha on the road you must kill him. Excellent, but what if you meet an anti-buddha? And what if he's a pissweak fool of an anti-buddha who only wants to spend the rest of his life eating chocolates and cakes and watching Fox Sport on the TV? Can you kill him? Or is that too harsh? Me, I piked out. Instead I've spent the last four years aiding and abetting this anti-buddha (er... that would be my father) by keeping the fridge full of chocolates and cakes, and perpetually resetting the TV back to Fox Sports when he gets in a tizz and moronically sits there watching the steak knife channel. Ain't life swell.

Be warned, I hereby give the game away. Forget all that stuff about me as self-declared Buddhist railing at the death cult etc. Truth be known I'm a fellow with a heart full of hate who wishes his father was dead. If he carked it tomorrow I'd sing hallelujah. God, that's dreadful. Who the hell says such things? Perhaps I'm a small time death cult member? Or just a mamby-pamby bullshit wannabe? Perhaps I'm the death cult's Walter Mitty? Pocketa-pocketa-pocketa went his slippers as he shambled off to the toilet again and put paid to me wondering if he's dead yet. I tell you what, this dying caper would be so much quicker and easier if one didn't have to keep getting up and going to the toilet all the time. But then, thirty cups of tea a day will do that to you. Here, tea drinking, like going to the toilet, like every goddamn thing, qualifies as pathological.

What does it mean that my answer to the perennial question, 'How is your father?' has become, 'Don't ask me because I don't care. He's still alive it seems, but he's been that way for quite a while now. And shall continue, I expect, until we've all run melancholy mad. Or at least until I have...' Actually, that's the clever me. The real world me says, 'Don't ask me. I wish he was dead.' I apologise for saying it of course - I mean you have to what with the shocked look on the face of whoever's asking me. But really I'm past it now - I've ceased caring. Every second in this place has become perfectly and utterly hateful. I haven't hated a thing this much since my first year in China.


It's the mind games that got to me in the end. It's his idiot pretence that he's doing it all for other people, which is to say me since there's no one else here. Nearly four years of this shit and he's still asking me if I mind if he changes the channel. Which sounds normal until you realise that I've declared in no uncertain terms that I detest Fox Sports, that if it was up to me I'd throw the TV out the goddamn window, and that he should never ask me about changing the channel again. Ever. He's just being polite he says.

There isn't a single question I can ask him about what he'd like to do that isn't answered with, 'Well, what were you having?' I ask him if he wants any more salt and pepper and he says 'Well, what were you having?' Seriously, I'm not making that up. Now I no longer unravel the idiocy of such an answer and instead just shout at him - 'For chrissake, it's a simple question. Did you want more salt and pepper or not?' 'Er, no thank you.' Goddamn! It's like pulling fucking teeth! Every fucking time! Sign me up for the fucking death cult! Jesus!

The perversity is that I'm the author of my own misery. The only reason he's alive is because I keep calling the bloody ambulance. He'd have been dead at least four times over except for me. Trips to the emergency room aside, in between his truly insane consumption of processed sugar and grease, I pointlessly feed him healthy food. He eats half, throws out the rest and then has a piece of cheesecake. His thirty cups of tea a day is made with water I distil for him. Actually, I distil it for me but he drinks it all, about four litres a day. And that's the game we play. His role is to speed his demise and my role is to prolong it. The irony runs rampant what with him not quite wishing to die and me not quite wishing him to live. But as if anything ever made any sense here.


And then there's the retroactive aspect to it all. The nth degree perversity of my life here has cast in stark relief the fact that it was always this way. The only thing that was missing was that last little wafer thin mint to take us to the obvious conclusion. It's clear to me now that he was always a self-obsessed, self-pitying fool. I doubt that there was a man more cuckolded than my father, nor one who deserved it more. With every aspect of my childhood now viewed through this glass darkly, the family snapshots have turned into a series of Ralph Steadman illustrations.

For the last couple of years I've been wondering what I'd say at his funeral and just lately I've decided that I'm not even going to go. Fuck it. The only people who'll be there are my brothers and I've long since ceased caring what they think. Besides which, God spare me having to listen to their mawkish efforts.

Like I said - the world's crummiest Buddhist, me - a man who talks about selflessness all the time, and who goes through the motions, yet all the while his veins run with a fetid black ichor. Compassion? Compassion... I don't even know what it means anymore. Is it compassion to assist an anti-buddha in his delusional self-obsessed spiral into zombiedom? To feed him another spoonful of ashes and him with his mouth already full? The TV sport, the sweety bonbons, the silly mind games, all of it fodder for a hungry ghost who eats and eats, tasting nothing, and never to be sated. What's the point? It's all so purposeless.


Perhaps the right answer is to be possessed of limitless patience and to devote myself to his happiness. But what if the only way to make him happy was to sit and watch Fox Sport with him, be his chocolate buddy, and play the designated role in each of the various mind-game charades he perpetually comes up with? Or to put it another way, join him in his anti-buddhadom? While I'm at it, I'll buy the latest fashions, get a haircut, sign up to facebook, learn how to twitter, and join the Liberal (conservative) Party. God, I'd make his day.

He's everything I want to leave behind and yet here I am shackled to the fucker. Buddha left his wife and kids you know. Easy for him - if I left the old man would be dead in a week. If I stay he could live for years. Hoo-bloody-ray. Would anyone be surprised if I said my hair is falling out and my face is covered in a stress induced eczema? No really, I look like hell.

Oh shit, he's up now. There goes the morning. Ah, Fox Sports news. Fantastic. A fifteen minute bulletin that gets repeated over and over. And within that bulletin is a riff that gets repeated 50? 100 times? Who knows. I'd do the math except I can't think straight. How marvellously loud it is. Sing along - ♫ Dundun dader daderda dundun ♫ Dundun dader daderda dundun ♫ Dundun dader daderda dundun ♫ ad nauseam...


Run Away! Run Away! Down at the library it's time to tie things up - cue the soaring conclusion, the rolling rhythmic build up, and the step-off-the-precipice ending! Or maybe not. Nothing is a lock in and patchiness is the best you can hope for. I gotta tell you, I can barely think straight and it just gets harder and harder. So! Lest anyone wonder what's going on round at nobody's place, it could well be insanity because I've just about fucking had it.

---

But then again, the nature of monkey is irrepressible. No doubt I'll be back in a couple of days with a new peice and no one will ever know that I've secretly been going bonzo zonko. Whew! And let's hope they never find out!

I am not spiritual. The thoughts that flow through my head would more accurately be described as mundane. It's an interesting word that, mundane. It's meaning of dull or tedious is actually brand-spanking new, dating from the 19th century. Prior to that it was a precise antonym for spiritual. Sure enough, it derives from the Latin mundus meaning world. Put it all together and I think it describes me nicely: I am worldly, without spirituality, and dull. Don't argue - you should see my dreams when I have them. They are tedious beyond all imagining.

The thought of spirituality appeals of course - I recall watching a Buddhist nun on the television describing her life of complete ascetic isolation and thinking, bravo that sounds fantastic, but mundane fellow that I am, I couldn't get past the question: how did she do it? Where did her food come from? If I wanted to do the same thing, how would I go about it? She provided no answers but I expect it's actually quite simple. She was part of an order and probably lived a couple hundred metres up the mountain at the back of the temple. Or something like that. I expect there was a person tasked with taking food to her a couple of times a day.


Anyway, whatever we call that journey, I'm doing it, albeit in a mundane fashion. For me there is no magic, there is no feel-good. I simply do without things and see if I crash and burn. So far, so good. I now drink nothing but water (and fresh fruit juice occasionally). I've pretty much ditched processed food and anything with sugar in it. And just lately I've made a rather large step and done away with bread. My stomach has been a disaster since forever and rather than try and figure out if I had coeliac disease, or irritable bowel syndrome, or wheat allergy (or any of those grab-bags of symptoms in search of a name) I just thought fuck it, I'll take the lot. Thus I no longer eat wheat or bread or gluten or yeast or any of that stuff. It's do-able and I've done it and it's fine. I haven't wigged out and nor do I sit around pining for anything. By the same token, there is no pay-off. I do it and that's all there is to it.

Is that selflessness? Perhaps we could call it training for selflessness? All I know is I can wander past shops and cafes and feel no desire. And there's no magic to this. I did it just by doing it. It's my mundane best at attempting to emulate the Buddha. Or it's just a diet, ha ha - The man who mistook his diet for spirituality.

Food is one thing, and everything else is another (Phwooar! I kick the arse of truth!). And in amongst all that, I've dispensed with an entire field of human endeavour - nightlife. Or is that social life? For many it's the same thing. Whatever it's called, I no longer have the clothes for it. Speaking of which - whilst I'd prefer not to look like shit, I've utterly ceased attempting to impress. Fashion is a thousand years ago. Now I just wear thongs (which Americans call flip-flops, and yes, I understand that this is hysterically funny but... only for you), where was I? Oh yes, thongs, Thai fisherman's pants, and whatever logo-less t-shirts I find at the charity shop (easier said than done in this bullshit corporate world). And my hair is long, not because I like long hair - I don't - but because anything else would necessitate me choosing a style and maintaining it every month.


Sure enough, in this bullshit tourist town with its beach esplanade that distinguishes itself from every other beach esplanade in no way at all, I am the fellow that isn't meant to be there. The spruikers don't even bother with me now. As I walk back from the supermarket with my granny trolley full of groceries, somehow they just know that I'm not going to come into their restaurant, or buy a time-share unit, or contribute to the fat-cat surf life saving club. I am the wrong guy and obvious with it.

It's all about sex, you know. Looks, that is. Charles Darwin, the serene and impassive avatar of life and death (as I imagine him) was right - for any entity that self-perpetuates, everything is subservient to the sex drive. He doesn't declare that to be bad - it just is. And it's this understanding that has driven a great deal of what I write here, particularly in regards to the death cult. But back to today's topic - for anyone wishing to shed desire, sex is the biggie to end all biggies. This topic too I approach in a mundane fashion.


For an unattractive fellow it's surprising how many women dig me (or dug me, at any rate). With almost no effort on my part women who fancied me seemed to keep turning up. It was never A Hard Day's Night (in spite of what I said in that Arundhati Roy thing), but it was okay. Yet sadly whatever appeal I might possess deserts me the moment the tables are turned and I attempt to pursue someone. It's a special knack I have. Thus the world of nobody's romantic entanglements divides into two groups: those who fancy me; and those I fancy - and never the twain shall meet.

Besides which, without any intent of cruelty I've broken too many hearts. It doesn't take much - honesty is all you need. They ask me if I love them and I answer no. Keeping in mind that for any number of women (and don't tell them this but...) I only went to bed with them out of politeness, ie. I didn't wish to make them unhappy by saying no. But whatever the intent, one way or another unhappiness would be the end result. And if there's one thing that kills me dead it's a woman weeping and all on account of me. As for the other way around, I don't mind getting dumped. It's nothing special.


Honestly, how many decades do you have to be crap at something before you give it up as a dead loss? Weirdly enough, in spite of my head being filled with the standard general-issue lust, I don't really miss it. I just file it in the same box as x-ray specs. Remember them? As a kid I'd see the ads for x-ray specs in the Spider-Man comics and be mesmerised - Gosh! Imagine being able to see ladies' bosoms! - but they were from some place far far away and never to be mine and that was fine. It really wasn't worth expending time or energy on, so I'd just 'file it'. In terms of dealing with desire, perhaps this is cheating? But does it matter?

Hmm... it just occurred to me that all this is the polar opposite to The Secret™. Remember that? It was huge on Oprah apparently. In the wee clip I saw, the boy who wanted a bicycle was instructed to obsess over it - cut out the ad, draw pictures of it, plaster your room in pix of the bike, and obsess, obsess, obsess. And magically you'll get the bike! God spare us - a primer for anti-buddhas. The corporations give three cheers. Was The Secret™ a psy-op? Sure, why not?

Never mind all that. For a mundane fellow, I'm doing pretty well. No spirituality, but the check-list of desires crossed off is really getting somewhere. Does it matter that the means by which I do so are so dull, so antithetical to everything in every ad ever? As the Buddha said, everything is here and now. And me paraphrasing: there's no heaven or hell. Nor gods, nor devils. The Buddha is dead and Maitreya ever in the future.


Others say otherwise of course, but people say lots of things. I'd love it if all that stuff were true, but who wouldn't? It occurs to me that a desire for magic says more about desire than it does about magic. Who am I calling? What do I want with them? What would they want with me? Besides, if one was seeking selflessness, how would that be granted? Ting! You are now selfless! Me - Yay, that's great! Just what I always wanted! Never mind the contradiction - somehow I don't think so. Somehow I think that a sheer dull slog is all that there is.

And you know what, perhaps there's not any spirituality to be arrived at, and me, I'll never find it - doomed to spend the rest of my life as a mundane toiler striving for some kind of DIY whatever. But whatever! If there's nothing in it for me and none are harmed, what's the problem?* (*Oprah Winfrey, the owners of the little ™ that comes at the end of The Secret™, along with other assorted corporate motherfuckers and death cult members are excused from answering.)

And so I continue. One foot goes in front of the other and all as unmagical as can be.

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God I love this picture. Hats off to the legends who put it together. And thanks also to AP at Twelfth Bough for pointing me at it. (Post Scriptum: The original pic is an animated gif. Best I can tell animated gifs don't play on blogger. Or maybe it's just here, who knows. Regardless I've broken it into four jpegs. You can still see the original at the first link there).





For those confused, the ticket here is to keep your eyes on the disappearing ship's name. Which is to say, the colour plate is the MV Mavi Marmara and the overlays of B&W Israeli footage is of another vessel, in all likelihood the MS TDI Karadeniz, the Mavi Marmara's sister vessel. Fingers crossed somebody tracks that down to see where it's been and who's been using it.

Otherwise I have nothing much to add apart from the fact that all the Israelis had in their defence against charges of murder was that grainy B&W footage. And even that's fake. Hmm, thinks... not only has whatever excuse they had evaporated, but their 'excuse' now spins 180° and turns their 'botched' effort into an obvious, elaborate, premeditated bloodbath.

God I love this. I feel like Col. Kilgore on the beach. "I love the smell of Israelis shitting their pants in red-faced embarassment. It smells like humiliation...
One day this shitty little country is going to end..."




PPS. Ah yes, such wishful thinking... please see the next piece in which I rethink the likelihood of all this and come to a slightly different conclusion. Yoroshiku, n.