Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year

I thought I would  take a break from preparing the Xmas Spurkey for tomorrow's festivities to do some blogging  As you probably already know, a spurkey is a mock turkey fashioned out of turkey flavoured spam that is stuffed with a variety of other flavoured spams, devon, and canned corned beef and which is basked in butter, margarine, lard, and vegemite and lovingingly drizzled with a delightful beer, summer wine, and tomato sauce dressing. Believe it or not the Xmas Spurkey finds it origins in Pre- Christian pagan times. But, unfortunately, because spam had not been invented yet, the pagans had to sustitute a real turkey for its spam simulacrum.

Anyhow, readers, friends, I wish you a safe and merry Christmas and a prosperous and wondrous New Year that's filled with a serendipitous,salubrious and sanguine alacrity that is unsullied by any and all sadness, sorrow, remorse, or regret. May you enjoy an absence of shallow, preposterous popinjays. May you partake of a plethora of pleasures, a cornucopia of kindness, a stupendous stipend of serenity, a sonorous summation of sundry saliences, an epitome of effervescent and exquisite ecstasies. May you have an abundance of ambrosia, may you wine and on Dionysian delights. May a loquacity of gregarious and beatitudanous beauty bestow upon you a paragon of perpetual possibilities and positivities and above all may your new year, all of it, be happy.

Simmer Down

The Skatalites did not disappoint last friday night. They were DYN-O-MITE!. Such a joyous band. The world needs more joy. It needs to simmer down.

How it comes to be that someone stabs a child, let alone children -plural-, to death is beyond my mental and emotional reckoning. Poor children, how terrified they must have been. How painfully must their family and be grieving.

Christmas is a time of joy, family, friends, stress, and remembrance. We remember those loved ones who are no longer with us. The empty spaces at the Christmas dinner table.

When my mum had cancer. The doctor told us that it was terminal but could pinpoint a time frame other than it could be months or years. I remember once when I was visiting her in hospital. She told me that she would prefer that one particular lady did not visit her.

"She's such a misery guts, you'd think I was already dead and that she was at my funeral the way she carries on -she makes feel worse".

So, whenever I visited my mum and when she came home. I did my best to act 'normal' -not too sad and not overly and falsely happy. I cried in private. Life went on.

One day my zia (aunt) Bruna, my mum's twin sister (may she rest in peace) noticed my sadness and took me aside and told me that despite everything that I should go out and have some fun and enjoy myself. And I did. I went to pubs with friends to see bands.I went to clubs. I went to I went to restaurants for celebrations. But always. Always. At some point I would be reminded that I was enjoying myself while my mum was at home, dying. And I would feel guilty.

A couple of nights ago, I was channel surfing and ended up on a show on SBS, 'Sex and Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll - a bio pic movie of the life of Ian Dury. He and his band 'The Blockheads' are favourites of mine. What a great movie. What a life, so filled with hardship and heartbreak but also so full of love and joy and reasons to cheerful.

My reasons to be cheerful and grateful:

1) I live in Australia, a free and democratic country with accessible clean water and where people are outraged when outrageously terrible things happen'

2) My family and friends

3) My mental and physical health

4) My Italian heritage

5) The simple things in life -to walk in the sun, to have a coffee at an outdoor cafe, to read a book, to listen to music and simmer down.

Christ, Asked The Monkey

"Christ, asked the monkey
has the world gone mad"?
As he snips flower gardens
off golden kite blooms.

"Don't schlock your frocks
he says to the cockroaches".
"Are you pleased with the moon"? he asks.

His tummy is sore.
It aches. He ate too much
mulch. Oh, the pleasures of dirt.

"Sweep the floor with your dreams
Turn your mind into the sea
I swim in the sea.
I like to climb trees".

Puppy Attack

As I walked to the gym at the end of the street where I live, I passed a house and two puppies came running out from the front yard. The gate was open. The puppies were tiny, not much bigger than each of my hands. One was a pomeranian. The other one looked like the scampy, scruffy type of puppy that you'd might see in an illustrated children's book.

They started running and darting about me in a frenzy of barking, yapping, and snarling. I admired their courage and motzie. The way they were fearlessly defending their territory. I could have squashed them two stomps of my feet. Instead, I said "hello"  to them and asked them what was wrong. But they were to have no truck with my attempts at friendliness.
So, I continued on my way. The puppies followed at a distance, barking, for a while -running away every time I turned to face them and then continuing the chase every time I turned and went on walking.

Just before getting to the gym, I passed a house that had chickens running around the front yard. And a rooster. It was a big white rooster with a red crest. I don't know if we have Long Island Red roosters in Australia. But he did remind me of Foghorn Leghorn. The hens were busy were busy scratching about the yard. Looking for worms and bugs, I guess. Foghorn stood still and silent. Silent. I felt in in my waters that he was the loud mouth snook who had been doing all the random crowing that I've mentioned in an earlier post. 

The pool at the gym was too crowded to swim laps.

My Lounge Room

It's 9:31 am.  10/12/14. It's raining. I'm in the Sydney Suburb of Canley Vale. I am  inside. It's a pleasant place. Birds and cars, the garbage truck can be heard. I see my TV, my papers, my clothes, shoes, very messy. I can't smell anything. LM guy knocks and enters - loud and cheerful.

My lounge room isn't very lounge-roomy. It's big white and sparse.with messy messes all over - which aren't so bad because I was up at 7 am or so to tidy it up. I have all my reading and writing pages are in neatish piles in the far right hand corner of the room. There is a great big window. My lounge room has white walls. Hanging on one of them is a Korean mandala. Too be continued (possibly).

The Purpose Porpoise.

What is the purpose of my life? Purpose -that's a funny word. It reminds me of porpoise. Forget the purpose of my life, I want a porpoise in my life. Not as pet, but free in the ocean. I watched a documentary about dolphins and whales in captivity. So cruel. Magnificent,intelligent sea creatures in pool doing tricks.

I always hear about how smart dolphin and whales are. But never about porpoises. I might be wrong but they never seem to be part of shows. Does this mean this them not as smart or smarter than dolphins and whales?

When I was at uni, I Emily Dickinson's poetry. My  lecturer- tutor was a postmodern deconstructionist - so, of course, when he was doing a close reading of  I Cannot Live With You (640) his reading took him to a discussion of octopuses (or octopodes for my more pedantic readers).  Apparently, octopuses are really intelligent -much more than whales and dolphins. They are capable of  vicarious learning. For example, if you put an octopus in clear aquatic skinner box and have another octopus observe the octopus in the box trying to and finally escaping -when the observer octopus is put in the box - it solves the puzzle straight away because it has seen the first octopus solve the problem.

Maybe its the same thing with porpoises. They see the dolphin and whales being captured and they think
"F*ck that for a joke. Let's pretend to be stupid"

Anyway, back to the purpose of my life - maybe like that Gary Larson character, I'll find it at the back of my lounge.

Things Of Interest, Interesting Things.

Charles Dickens wrote Oliver Twist and The Pickwick Papers when he was 24.

He wrote Oliver Twist in the mornings. And the Pickwick Papers in the evenings (or perhaps it was the other way round.)


I saw a young guy at Cabramatta library who had sleeve tattoo that would have been awesome...if it had been done by a better tattoo artist.


When Jacques Derrida went to the Far East, the scholars said to him: "Deconstruction, you say? We've doing that for centuries".


Standing outside Cabramatta Woolworths, a woman who looks to be in her mid to late 60s. The day is hot.
She wears dark blue shorts and singlet. She is covered in old, faded, amateurish looking, 'prison' type tattoos. She looks serene. She would have gotten those tattoos when the world was a different place -during the first wave of feminism. She'd be a great guest for that old TV show 'Front Up'.


I recently hear that it is an African tradition to reject dualism and embrace contradiction.


Back in the '90s, I knew a woman who had an elaborate back tattoo. From shoulder blades to backside. Her friend (a woman) was a talented tattoo artist. She told her friend to "grab your tat gun and doodle whatever you want on my back."  So much confidence. So much trust.

The end result looked like a magnificent doodle done on notepad while the artist was talked on the phone.
I guess her back was a flesh notepad and they (the friends) probably did chat while the tat was being done.


Immanuel Kant was 57 when The Critique of Pure Reason was published.


I listen to an interview with the Australian poet Les Murray. He spoke of how traditional Australian Aboriginal poetry is part of an oral tradition. And that can't hear most of it unless you've been initiated.


Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s  utopian  novella, 'Herland' was published in 1915 when she was 55.


“Please, sir, I want some more.” 

Shifting Moods

He fills his canoe
with the marshmallows of portentous aplomb.
and rows to the island of impending doom.
He walks to the edge of despair
and sits on the rock of maudlin woe
and eats the marshmallows one by one
until he falls asleep.

He is awoken  by a song
that is a madeleine
 a time machine,
 a therapy session.

He becomes a lizard-turtle.
He dives into the waters
and swims home.

The Sudden Stop

I have a fear-phobia of heights. I fear heights where a fall would see me doing myself a serious injury. I have a phobia of heights where a fall would result in my death. I guess I really have a fear-phobia of falling. Or, more precisely (as the old joke puts it) of the 'sudden stop' at the end of the fall. I have a fear-phobia of seriously harming or killing myself (dying).

Ironically, paradoxically, I also have (when up at a great height) a powerful, almost overwhelming urge to jump. And I have a fear-phobia of that urge to jump because to jump would have the same end result as falling.

I am not consciously suicidal. I have never thought of climbing to a height and jumping. But once I find myself at height I want (and don't want) to jump. I know logically that to jump would mean either great harm or death -but that's not why I want to jump. I don't know why. So, I can't explain why -even to myself. All I know is that I want to jump because I want to jump. I have considered that I may have a subconscious or unconscious desire for self-harm and suicide. It's possible. But I don't think so.

I really should investigate/research this whole fear-phobia of heights, falling, the 'sudden stop', with the urge-desire to jump thing.

Again And Again

Crazy Lucy slits my throat
and drowns me  in a bathtub
that's filled with boiling bubbling  scolding cooking chocolate.
Red. Brown. Blood.
Chocolate. Death.

I come
back
as a red velvet chocolate cake.

A big beautiful burlesque dancer
devours me.

Later, I'm reincarnated
as one of her turds.
Maggots and coprophagous beetles
eat me.

I hate it when that happens.
Every time.

Mother, I Won't Be Back.

I was excited about the prospect of attending meditation classes that were free and within walking distance of my home.

The classes were held at  a local community centre, in a room that was half the size of a school classroom.  At the front of the room was a TV and DVD player. Next to them was an 'altar' -i.e a small wooden table. covered with a white tablecloth, a white candle (lit) and picture of the woman who had founded this particular type of meditation that we would be learning and doing. And there was a whiteboard with a drawing of a body with all the chakras marked out.

The instructor was an eager,enthusiastic, energetic, lively, and likable middle-aged Vietnamese woman who spoke English fluently and eloquently.

This was my first ever meditation class but I had meditated before. I am self taught via books, CDs, the 'net.
But this type of meditation was a bit different. A lot different actually. The instructor had told us about the woman who had founded it. She was a member of an Indian royal family and had no need of money' so, she decided to provide her knowledge and teachings for free. 'All good',  I guessed.

And then the instructor began the first lesson (of which I'm giving a potted account.) Basically, we had to sit in our chairs and put our hands on specific part of our (own) bodies and recite various  affirmations, questions, and requests. For example, place hand on heart: "Mother, am I not my own master"? Place on rib cage: "Mother, I am not guilty". Put hand on back of neck: "Mother, forgive me".

My sister, her partner. and my brother were in the class with  me. My brother is a logical pragmatist, so he pointed out the contradiction between claiming that one is 'not guilty' and asking for 'forgiveness'. To which the sprouted some anti-intellectual mumbo jumbo about not over thinking things -which set off alarm bells for me.

She then put on a DVD of the founder doing the same exercises that we had done in front of a large audience and then discussing the latest phenomena confronting the UK 'punk rock'.

Oh  yeah, after the exercises we had to put our hand above our heads and report whether of not we felt either a cool or warm breeze coming up from the top our skulls. That would indicate that the exercises had opened up are chakras and that out kundalinis  had been awakened.  Nobody experienced it. ONE GUY said that he did. But he later admitted that he had been bullshitting/
"I felt sorry for her, so I said I could feel the breeze". he said.

The fact that she expected our chakras and kundalinis to be opening up after only one lesson was another alarm bell. Don't Buddhist monks have to meditate for years before stuff like that happens to them?

The biggest alarm bell, red flag was all the 'Mother' stuff. At first I thought it may have been referring to 'Mother Nature' but more and more it became apparent that the founder was 'mother' -i.e a human being escalated to a deity. Nope. Not for me thank you.

But I decided to give it one one more go and came back the next week. I was the first one there. During the course of our chat, the instructor asked me if I had any ailments. I said that I had some mouth ulcers. She told me to get a photo of 'mother' and place a 1 litre bottle of water next to it over night and that mother's positive energies would purify the water and if I drank it the next morning, my mouth ulcers would be cured.

"That sounds great"! I said ( "Mother, I won't be back!" I thought")

So I  stopped going. I did feel a bit sorry for instructor. She was a likable lady. But t said I really didn't like the way the 'founder' was being held up as some sort of divine spirit.

I Need To Write A Poem About A Gnome

A gnome that roams
around his home
and picks roses and petunias
from his flower garden
and onions and tomatoes
from his vegetable garden.

'F*ck that silly she-gnome", he thinks.
"Of course, a plum in an icebox
can be seen as either
one or two images"!

But he had agreed
to keep the peace,
to avoid conflict.

And now he's taking it out on the veggies and flowers.

Silly gnome!

5.41AM

The sun shines soft and white through my kitchen window. It bounces around the things on my the table: pc, printer, papers, coffee cups. Its warm rays feel good on my neck, legs, and arms as I type. It's comfortable, comforting, and enlightening. Not only does it come through the window, it breaks through my writer's block.
And I become a cat who eats raw meat, a feline that feasts on fish and flesh.

I Regret

I regret taking up smoking. I wish I could give it up. The best I can do at the moment is cut down. I regret not learning to surf. I sometimes regret not learning to drive.  I regret not taking more chances, and some of the chances I did take. I regret what I've done and what I've failed to do. I have regrets but I don't regret my regrets. Regrets like hardships give one character.

Rocks

A rock falls on your head.
It hurts.
It really hurts.
You look up to the sky
 and another rock
hits you in the eye.

Charles And Simone

Charles Loft is 23 years old. White. Australian. An engineer. Skinny. Angry. Lives in Sydney. He lives insides his mind. He is alone. It's cold.

Simone Debrief  is 35 years old. Black. Indian. A lawyer. Medium build. Serene. Lives in Adelaide. She's an outsider. She's rich (because of her family). She's alone. It's cold/

Simone comes to Sydney. They know each other. Simone had been engaged to Charles' older brother's mate. Who is now dead -the mate, not the brother. They are 'related' through the departed friend. Something that belonged to the friend is a significant object which is important to the both of them. Sight is the sense that predominates. Long tension is the overall mood.

Charles Loft meets Simone Debrief. She has flown in from Adelaide. They meet at Mascot airport. They get in Charles' car and drive away.

Charles drives fast. Trees and telegraph poles, the city-suburban landscapes fly by.

He drives her to his flat in Fairfield  There are some pleasantries exchanged and they make love, love, love.

"Wow that was a pleasant surprise" she said. although it wasn't really a surprise, but it was pleasant enough.\

"I think you'll like Sydney"

"I've been here before. Do you miss Adelaide"?

"I do, actually, I miss the churches".

'"Would you like to go the casino tonight"?

"I can't. I'm a compulsive gambler".

"For real"?

"Yeah"

"Wow, baby that makes me feel so ..." a car drives by.

I Wonder WhatThe World Would Look Like If

I wonder what the world would look like if there were no feathers and the seas were made of marshmallows.  Who would scrape the skyscrapers? Dice fall from the sky. Tenses! An old man yells out "Hello"!  Couples kiss in the park. Berries grow on a bush. A baby boy  lies on a beach towel. You run barefoot through a lush, plush carpet. An owl hoots. Charlie drinks his sarsaparilla. A gorilla tends to her young. Takes nits and fleas from their noggins. Grass grows. Paint dries. A wind blows. A tumbleweed tumbles down the street like a stumbling angel. Death visits the valley. Charlie eats a meat pie. The sky turns to jelly. Your belly is growing. A snake slithers in the grass. The church choir sings 'Hallelujah'!
Peter, Paul, and Mary sing 'Morningtown' . Simon sees a snake in the grass. Marina is dying. Don't walk on the grass (Sign).  Don't smoke it either. Burp the baby.Give him his little laugh and the world laughs with you. . The ice skater is graceful. My beloved was disgraceful. Simone sits on Santa's lap. The Greyhound  eats the food.""Meow!" says the cat."Moo"! says the cow as she saunters along the paddock. Alien crabs from  distant galaxies come and take over the cities  We live in fear of their punishments

Does Stoogification Precede Stoogincity?

A woman and two boys were taking out books at Fairfield  Library. I guessed that the woman was the boys' mother. They were about 10 years old. One of them had had a 'Moe' Stooge hair cut. It was an exact replica. It was as if he were playing the part of  Moses  'Moe' Howard as a child in a Three Stooges bio pic. He even looked a bit like Moe and had a similar demeanour - being mean and surly to his brother and giving him the business (physically and verbally) Stooges style. The brother was giving it back as good as he was getting it  - and found it all so amusing. Much to young Moe's ire. The angrier that little Moe got the funnier his brother found it and so on- it was a Stoogicious circle.

I got to thinking, this kid didn't give himself a Moe haircut. How did he come to get it?  I reckoned that it was his parent's decision. Maybe they saw that he looked and acted like Moe and decided 

"What the f*ck, let's give him a Moe cut and be done with it".

Or maybe his dad (or perhaps his grand dad) was a Stooges fan and decided to give the him a Stooge cut as a tribute and he became more and more Stoogish as a result. Sort of like Existence preceding Essence, The Existential preceding the Essential, Stoogification preceding Stoogincity.. Or does it?

Please Stab Me With Your Steely Knife.

Twilight at Canley Vale, I had stepped out to my backyard to have a cigarette. As I smoke, I listen to the neighbour at the back practise the organ.

She plays pop-rock muzak. Hotel California, Ebony & Ivory, Three Times A Lady.  She has that dancey rhythmny drum machine thingy on.

I finish my cig and put it out in a makeshift ashtray. I close my eyes and listen to the music. It conjures up an image of a wedding in an elevator.

I open my eyes and see my neighbour's slightly demented fat ginger cat sitting on the fence and looking at me with contempt and suspicion .

Yeep Yep, Yep,Yep

I'm feeling flat. Emotionless. Not happy, not sad. A bit sore from the gym. A bit lazy. I have things to do. I need to pull my finger out. I have a job to find, a house to clean, laps to swim, a novel, poetry and other things to write.

The novel is coming along slowly, slowly, slowly. I've been telling people that I'm writing it which puts self-imposed pressure on me to actually write it -and it's a gruelling task at the moment.

Also, at the moment, I don't know if  I need to get more sleep or do some more exercise. Maybe sleepwalking is the answer.

Morning Pages, Mourning Pages.

Who'd like to interpret a dream? I dreamed that I was swimming in an Olympic pool that was covered in bacon strips. They were floating hot and steaming, on the water. I could smell them. And then (whilst still dreaming) I remember telling someone about the bacon-pool dream and then I was along a medieval country road with a cast of thousands. Ken Russell was remaking his firm, The Devils. His assistant gave me a script. It was handwritten-like a doctor- I couldn't read what it said. I started to feel apprehensive and then I woke up.

I need to clean my house. Have you ever seen a rainbow? I have. A double one - like a double scoop of ice-cream. What does it all matter? I am not a doctor of love. Do you know what love is? Percy Sledge and Earth, Wind, and Fire. Crash. Bang. Pow. Shhh! Be very, very quiet. I don't know what conundrum means. I am a zebra crossing. I am seriously familiar. I think. I'm awaiting you. I think. You're a knock, knock joke without an answer. You're not there Carlos Santana. Parrots walk the streets of ice-cream and bananas.

Look over the world. Florida. I have no idea what I'm writing about. It's just flowing out of my pen. So many sentences fragments. I do know what conundrum means. Scream. Watch out for alligators. See you later alligator. Bill Haley and The Comets. Haley's comet. Commas, the Oxford Comma, slowly dying, perhaps dead, dead, dead, dead-The Dead -James Joyce- the Dubliners. Sometimes these morning pages are mourning pages. Without fruit, without a suit. This is the end of the page right now.

The Banal, The Mundane, and Humphrey

I am an old(er) fellow and it has been said that I'm funny (funny ha, ha and funny strange) but that's where that's where the similarities between  Humphrey.B. Bear and me  end. While I occasionally enjoy honey it's not my favourite fare and don't lead a very exciting life.

It can be difficult to write a blog-journal when your life's mundane. There is the urge to dramatize, over dramatize the banal as they do on reality TV shows.

SFX: dramatic music
Shot of reality show contestant dropping a plate.
RSC (in tears): I dropped my plate and I was devastated.
SFX: sad music
Other RSC:: I saw his plate falling and there was nothing I could do. My heart broke for him.

A coupe of good things about writing a journal are that it makes you see and appreciate the banal and the mundane. (A good writer can make making a peanut butter sandwich seem interesting, intriguing, and wonderful - a great writer make it  transcendent) and it (writing a journal) is an incentive for you to get off your arse and ,out of the house, go live life, and do stuff that's worth writing about.

The Good And The Bad

Two pieces of good news. I got email telling me that I am being considered for an IT position that I applied for. And I had a phone interview for another IT position I applied for.

Ir can be disheartening being unemployed and looking for work. A lot of the time, if you don't get an automatic response to your application, you don't get a response at all. If you're an older worker you face age discrimination; if you're a younger worker you have to battle the Catch-22 of  'can't get a job unless you have experience and you can't experience until you get. And yet both old and young workers get jobs all the time. It had to me in both instances. I have jobs in the past and I will again. It's  just a matter of keep on keeping on.

I was saddened that because of  other commitments I couldn't attend the memorial service for great Gough Whitlam in either the city or at Cabramatta. He was great man. May he rest in peace.

What Is One Thing You Don't Like About Yourself.

There are many things that I don't like about myself. But my propensity to procrastinate is the first thing that popped into my mind, so I'll write about that.

I'm a procrastinator. I even procrastinate over things I enjoy doing. For example going to the gym. I love exercising at the gym. I love the endorphin rush. I love having made the effort to go. And I feel fantastic at the end of a gym session. But I always argue with myself before I go. And whenever I lose the argument and I don't go -I miss that day and then another, then, a week, a month, a couple of months.

And then my clothes don't fit. My shirts become so tight that they feel like tattoos and I struggle to get into my trousers and think that I should start going back to the gym again and I do and I enjoy it -but soon enough the arguments and procrastination starts up again.

My therapist put forward the idea to me that I might be the sort of person that needs inner resistance to get things done. Something to consider.

Rooster and Chickens

A rotten neighbourhood rooster's been crowing all the time. Morning, noon, and night. Except at sunrise. It doesn't crow at sinrise. It's probably too tired from all that superfluos crowing it does.

And for segueway from roosters to chickens. I can't believe that 'chicken spread  in a can; (or whatever it's called) is still being sold. I think it's chicken spread. I'm talking about chicken that is being sold in small for  'lunch/sandwich'  type cans.

I laughed when it was first advertised on tv a few years back. Ridiculous!  No way anyone's going to buy that. But people do buy them.  Some people have the strangest tastes!

Now, I'm off to have a Spam Burger.

Muahahaha!

The older I get, the harder I find it to lose weight. I diet and exercise and lose a kilo. I have a passing thought about a plain cinnamon doughnut and I put on three kilos. There's nothing for it but to stop trying to lose weight and become a super fat, super villain *.

I've pretty much got my evil laugh down but I'm undecided as to it's tenor: 'creepy, gruff, and guttural', 'shrill and  maniacal' or 'crazed or insane'?

I'll probably specialise  in being a brain/mind transplant type of villain  rather than the type who wants to blow up the world.

Anyhow, I'm off to have some chocolate-dipped, bacon-wrapped deep-fried chicken.

(Note. I am fat and have many fat friends and acquaintances. All of whom are good, industrious people.)

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