All Possible Philosophies

I have had the great opportunity of travelling to some suitably spectacular destinations in places ranging from reasonably to ridiculously remote. No matter how far I seem to fall off the map, the moment I say I am an Australian the responses and questions are remarkably similar, (You have not hung your head any lower than I did upon hearing a Sherpa on the way to Mt Everest chant; “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi!”) and in the interest of hopefully elucidating the annoyance caused by them, I will set about myth-busting a few.

“G,Day mate”, Good on ya”, “Avagoodweekend” and “flat out like a lizard drinking!”  are all good old fashioned slang generally found in the outback of Australia. In 1915! We do not talk like that except in 3 specific circumstances; (There are of course variations and exceptions but lets cover the basics.)

1. You find a crusty, aged ‘Digger’, still holding to his ‘Ocker’ mannerisms due to the stubborn belief it somehow makes him a true Australian, instead of just intelligible.

2.You get us drunk enough (This will usually take a large amount of beer) that those with a direct link in heritage to the Anzacs fall into a kind of “Genetic Memory” spell and start spouting nonsensical phrases such as “I’m so hungry I’d eat the ass out of a low flying duck!”, and hurling racial epithets at the “Yanks, or, Seppos” (A rhyming slang for septic tanks, sorry guys) or the “Bloody whingeing poms”, bitching about the cricket whilst in fact sharing a glass with them, and fighting over the better Football; Rugby or Australian Rules.(In my opinion neither has any merit, but I am in a staggering minority) Oh and by the way, we call these people Bogans in general. Sort of our down home version of a Yokel/Hick/Redneck/Scrubber/Hoodrat all rolled into one.

At the moment we tend to be trending towards American slang, which may be equally irritating.

3.It helps us to pull women, or men for that matter. (We are somewhat simple and misunderstood creatures, and seem to elicit a cuddle or control response in other cultures)

We do not throw shrimps on the barbie! As a matter of fact we do not even call prawns shrimps, and our national beer is not a Fosters! We have bloody Paul “Crocodile Dundee” Hogan to thank for that, when he cashed in on instilling the majority of our stereotypes. Which brings me to another necessary point about our “Celebrities”. Russell Crowe is a New Zealander, Mel Gibson was not born here, Guy Pearce, Eric Bana and Sam Worthington we will own up to. Hugh Jackman is Wolverine. Nuff said we love him too. (Even after the film, Australia) Nicole Kidman is a “ranger” (Hard ‘G’ like ‘wrangle’; meaning red head) who has bleached her freckles, straightened her curls and improved her accent remarkably. We have since forgiven her for Tom Cruise.

We were just as perplexed and both morbidly fascinated and equally mortified by Steve”The Crocodile Hunter” Irwin. Here we do not hit our snakes with sticks unless we are stupid or protecting someone. One more “Crikey” I may have beaten the Stingray to it. (Wrong yes, but it’s my blog)

Which brings us to wildlife.

No we do not have pet Kangaroo’s. They are so dangerous they will disembowel you with their back legs if you attempt to pat them or ‘ride’ in their pouch! Koalas are cute and cuddly! As teddy bears. In reality they have claws that will tear a chunk out of you, growl like pit bulls, and smell like urine. Wombats too! They may seem all ‘chubby bubby’ but those things can survive being driven “over” by a car. Tough little buggers. Do not attempt to hug either one, you have been warned! Crocodiles do not just inhabit every stretch of inland water, they are found in specific areas and we do not wrestle them for kicks and giggles. Australia has the top 3 ranked poisonous snakes , including the most poisonous snake in the world. How poisonous is Belchers Sea Snake? A  few milligrams of the venom is strong enough to kill 1000 people! But if that’s scary, remember that the Fierce Snake (Number 2) has a bite that is “the most toxic venom of any land snake in the world. The maximum yield recorded for one bite is 110mg, enough to kill about 100 humans, or 250,000 mice! With an LD/50 of 0.03mg/kg, it is 10 times as venomous as the Mojave Rattlesnake, and 50 times more than the common Cobra.”

So the basic premise is this. Our animals are not squeezable plush pets. In Australia even the cute things will kill you or kick your ass!

So I could probably go on but this would become an epic post, so I will run off a few final salient facts-

We are not down under! On a globe the designation of up or down is strictly cartographic.

We are not all natural swimmers like Ian Thorpe, water birthed and able to outswim a Great White Shark!

The Great White is f$%ing ridiculously scary to us too, but its not at every beach and we have a complete surrounding coastline, so chill, this ain’t Jaws!

We are now the 3rd most obese country  in the world, at 25% fat saturation. The bronzed athletic Aussie is now seemingly a true myth.

The Swagman camping by the Billabong waiting for a Jolly Jumbuck (A-la ‘Waltzing Matilda’, our unofficial anthem) sounds stupid and strange to us as well.

We are not all beer drinking morons, a good deal of us prefers spirits, (I admit to Australia having a drinking culture), and a slightly lesser amount of us are quite intelligent.

This public service announcement has been brought to you by the Non Conformist portion of Australian society, me! There is also a warning that is not myth. Drop bears. Always look up when walking under a tree in the forests and National Parks of this land. Those little blighters will drop on ya and eat ya down to the bone! Hehehe

Several weeks ago I attended one of my best friends wedding. The day had been dialled up and delivered perfect, the groom was sharp and handsome in his charcoal attire, and the bride was outstandingly stunning in her bridal dress. In that my young compatriot has been a prior employee of mine at a previous work site, I have known him since he was 16 years of age, brash, reckless and always in possession of one of the most generous and outgoing personalities imaginable. I could not have been more proud of his decision to wed, nor of his achievements and successes that have been a direct compliment and consequence to his determination to attain any goal he has set for himself. I would not hesitate to say that, as much as I love the big lump, he also brought my missing pieces to striking awareness.

As I write this I am struggling to find what it is that conditions my spirit to retain its characteristics of resilience and continuance. That indistinguishable, indestructible insistence towards forward momentum. In seeing my friends success I was given the brief honor of sharing it with him, of celebrating the new life of conjoined continuum’s he and his lovely new wife will create from that point on, (Ok technically I know it started many years before but the certification of binding has its importance in relevance!) it also awakened or rather reawakened my longing for such simple pleasures in my own life, and why I have on occasion chosen to ignore it in favour of maintaining some sort of parity of emotional sanity.

Am I envious of my friend? No, I could never be so, I am completely and utterly overjoyed of his choices and achievements, I could not feel that way. But this longing…

It may all boil down to the recent memory of what felt like a certainty of a possibility. (Try to work out that one!) It seems not so long ago all those things were in front of me, were viewable and attainable, hell, even feasible. I was in love and it was real, but with no fault to lay at another’s doorstep, I let it slip past; and the loss is always painful when it seems so close. I am not embittered by the ending, in fact I am still rather thankful of its beginning and occurrence, but I am only human. I miss the life I was heading for, without it ever really materializing, only impinging upon my reality for a short time. Its a pity too. It would have been grand.

Fairy Tales without the happy ending.

It would be nice
to be a part of somebodys life;
the part they say is everything,
the metaphor
in someones soul;
the air they breathe,
what slakes their thirst,
or carries their dreams,
their sun and moon
and guiding star;
all the reasons
they are what they are.

It would be nice
to be able to show
a picture in your wallet,
creased and stained
from frequent trips in and out,
and say it needs updating
because you are still
growing old together.
To need a leather pouch
for further additions;
children as much of you
as the other half of an us.

It would be nice
to come to a house
you know to be home,
to see touches of collaboration
and framed photos, straightened
by a loving hand,
of honored occasions.

To have sticky fingerprints
only waist high
from the stretch
for handles and switches,
and report cards and paintings
magnetized to fridges.

To fear and wait
for the day
one or another graduates,
equal parts proud and fearful
of what an uncaring world
may set out to do
to new freedom,
but also equally certain
that little scamp
has become a fine person.

It must be nice
to not sit
and miss those things
you will never have
and write of them in prose
heavy on the sap
from a weeping willow,
because dreams don’t tarnish;
and they remain
even if they never appear.

So a good friend of mine is turning thirty…again.
In fact she may possibly remain doing so until they do find a way to literally
turn back the clock on our cells. In which case, dates will be as pointless a
description of the passage of time in regards to humans, and possibly all
mammals, (cat ladies be aware your little fwuffy kittykins can then be spoilt
for decades to come) except as a reference to the antiquated pre-mating ritual
we all indulge in at some time or another. So knowing that the presaging of
another annually collected assortment of days normally leaves her in a funk of
unrealistically feeling old, it is my duty as a friend, aspiring writer,
hopeful poet, amateur polemicist and somewhat ‘broke ass and unable to purchase
a suitable gift’ all round decent person to illustrate the ways she defies age
and embodies timelessness.

So the selfish gift of a blog is ostensibly
for the overriding purpose of permanent posterity. Somewhere for all recordable
digital history there will be an account within the ether, that diaphanous ‘data
cloud’ that mists between reality and that of the virtual, of the many virtues
and secular blessings she bestows upon us from her existence. (Too much?)

I owe this young lady much for her supportive ways. It was indeed her that first made me feel that I could actually show evidence of the things I write, and continues to do so until this day.

This is a small (But indelible) testament to her, so enough about me.

Bree. Knowing her as a male is to have a little crush on her. Apart from the obvious physical allurements (she is a hottie generally speaking), she possesses something infectious to the spirit, a grand sense of inimitable and engagingly unavoidable merriment. Wherever the party is, that is undoubtedly where you will find her presiding over. I have
worked with her and for her on several occasions, and I was consistently amazed
at her ability to fit as much happiness into her day as possible, even when
nursing a hangover or lamenting unfavorable circumstance and current events.
People respond to that! If she was on twitter, her followers would be legion. The
compassion for people and animals and the environment are so embedded into her self;
it may well be an extra chromosome in her genetics. Yet those alone are not
what make her as special as she is. There are more intrinsically entwined
personal traits that are endearingly characteristic to her and her alone.

She tells stories magnificently yes, but more impressively, she makes stories! Her nights are the stuff myth was created from, a legend in her lifetime. Her empathy is so attuned and developed she knows when people require something they themselves are unaware of. For a person so ubiquitously connected, she cannot stop losing her phone. (Phone
stores are listed among her greatest admirers!) She treats people with the
sameness of a person who cannot diminish their capacity for love, it simply is
abundant. She would possibly make the most perfect specimen to motherhood and
will improve the gene pool in generationally logistically advantageous ways.
She would rather tell you how much she dislikes you then to be disingenuous or
ambivalent towards her feelings. She remains true to herself.

So Happy Birthday Bree. Years are only marks for those keeping track of how long we have been so lucky that you are among us.

Writing a blog that nobody reads is a bit like talking to yourself, except with better self editing and greater forethought to the words you use. If anybody has been reading my sporadic blog, perhaps unwillingly sent here whilst looking for porn or something far more interesting, you may know that I have been having an issue with the too numerous to understand or relate to applications of my new smart phone.
However…
My phone and I have become closer in the past few days, moving on from our rather rocky beginnings of doubt and mistrust. I sat down and had a very ‘hands on’ talk with it nutting out problems and configuring personal dispositions and preferences. Where before I saw a myriad of options that confused and frightened my fragile ego as an intelligent individual, I now propose to use the phone as it truly stands to be; a tremendously useful (If at times frustrating) tool for greater management of my day to day responsibilities.
Perhaps the tide was turned the moment I giddily downloaded my first app. In securing a swing analyzer for my golfing attempts, I fused both the functionality of mobile computing, and the immediate gratification supplied by its immense usability. After duffing my way through a glorious day but far less so round, I felt sneakily content I had decided to persevere with technology. The Amish are really missing out here. Although I doubt there is a wagon mending app or animal husbandry widget, and network coverage amongst those high loft barns is a bitch I bet.
The other particularly satisfying and fortuitous circumstance that led me to our new found amicable pairing is that I found a word app on my settings pages. In the past if I did think of something clever, erudite or (let’s call a spade a spade) invigoratingly better than average, I would repeat it in my head until more often than not I ended up with a sort of Solitaire Chinese Whispers, with the end product barely resembling the little golden nugget of wit it began as, or, I wrote it upon reams of scrap paper I invariably lost. (I do believe it possible that the cure to the common cold has been so misplaced amongst the minds of so many great scientists this way.) Now I simply secret myself into a corner for a moment, type my thoughts in a still for now awkward tapping apoplexy, and save or send to my email. Ahhh technology.
I know that people (if they do exist out there reading this. I do feel like a cyberspace “Omega Man” or “I am Legend” character) will be saying “errr yeah its nothing new!”, but I have until lately, avoided the call of constant contact , so it’s all wondrously shiny and awe inspiring, drawing enthusiastic exclamations and unrestrained delight from my discovery of such features.
But possibly the real and valid reason to smooth over the edges of my touch screen connective, communicative, computational companion is simply because Stephen Fry, a self admitted technophile, was in Australia as part of a QI tour, and being rather clueless towards current events, I missed out on securing a seat front and center (or even up high and left and slightly obscured by lighting rigging) and so missed out on seeing one of my personal ‘heroes’ perform live. If I had indeed been tethered by wireless umbilical to the social womb of the still mewling newborn twitter, I would have been forewarned, and forewarned is fourth row.
So here is to all those who are with me on the information super highway, fellow commuters to community connectivity and yes, social civilian trend governance. So if I do work out how to PM, or Tweet, give me a beep if you see me on the road. I am the one still childishly waving and yanking my arm at the big rigs deliriously happy to just hopefully get the recognition and the honk of technologies air horn of useful capabilities.

My smart phone makes me feel rather stupid.

Seriously, for someone to make the most out of the computing power of these advanced technological wonders, would require a background in networking, programming and a social conscience or prescience bordering on preternatural. So while I am now able to smarm a sly grin when my phone plays Thunderstruck to signal a particular friend is calling, and I can sleazily slide a lazy finger across a slick screen to answer with a sense of equality (if not downright superiority) that I too have become a part in the worldwide mobile web; I admit confusion and uncertainty to all the uses in for what amounts to a personal computer the size of a notebook! (The paper one, not the other less impressively tiny yet still diminutively designed tech of the same name variety.)                                                                                                                                                     In the space of my palm I can post, comment, google, blog, surf, dowload, upload,IM,skype,tweet, follow, play,pay,bet, vote, direct, navigate, message, call and organise my life away. As long as I have the right plan and ready access to a power source (The batteries are notoriously short lived) I believe that I could take over the world. So long as I knew enough peoples passwords and possibly purchased the correct app. (I am currently searching the stores for the Surgical Nuclear Strike App, but it may be slaved to Apple and I have a Samsung.) However I think I shall downgrade to Angry Birds in the spirit of world peace.

So anyway, after the initial 3 hours of playing with the gyroscopic levelling (Is there any other reason to have a lightsaber sound effect? Other thanof course because of its inherent , if rather short lived, coolness?) and the substantially salubrious offerings of ringtones certain to showcase or establish my true inner self, (nothing says me like a klaxon horn and a rude message proclaiming my phone is in fact ringing!) I attempted to utilise the camera (rather simple in use, and quite good too!) to send an mms to a friend.

So apparently I have to create an account. Now I have to sign up for notifications and updates. Ok so the wifi is not able to connect without a wap? (Ahh random nostalgia…I remember when a “WAP!” was a written sound effect on “Batman” with Adam West, followed by “Sock” and “Kapow”!) I don’t have the wap or the password for a secured wifi hotspot. Do I want to keep roaming? Do I physically have to do so as well to find other hot spots? Will my phone play “colder\warmer” with me until I find a possible connection? Can I actually be bothered going through this annoyance when I still own a laptop?

All good questions I think. Yet unless I have access to the net can I answer them? See what I mean? I recall a far simpler time, before even full stereo capabilities, when we took years to come to “Polyphonic”. I entered my first ring tone using the keypad on a phone that seemed to weigh as much as my desktop computer tower and and could only fit into a backpack not my back pocket. I remember the game “Snake”, a rather Atari-esque” pixelated line spiraling towards the centre “Fruit” ( Square block) whilst avoiding hitting the walls (Hollow square block) and being chased by an equally simplistically rendered adversary. (Yet another thin line of blocks) The options were limited, the functionality lay in  its simple relative mobility (They were originally the size of a freakin-brick!) to distinguish it from the house phone. Now the computing power I clench somewhat apprehensively makes my last 2 Pentiums seem sadly dated. Technology leaps ahead in bounds so distant, we will need the inbuilt GPS to see where the next generation will land.

I guess I tilt at ‘Windows’ when I lament and glorify the analogue aspects of the past, and I know these attributes will be a great help to my social life as soon as I acquire one, (Hmm there must be an app for that somewhere) but I also cannot help but feel one small step away from giving the keys to the kingdom to our oppressive future overlords, the computers. I suppose this is why we have touch screens, to embed ourselves to our soon to be masters, enslaved as we are to ubiquitous connectivity, we shall inevitably become the living batteries and servants for a completely ordered and functional society, upgraded monthly and always immediately obsolete as soon as made available for inspection and utilisation. (Like a technological Justin Bieber song, or digital Jennifer Aniston boyfriend)

I look at the graphics on my phone and realise that in some years we will really be able to do the holograms that we were touting in science fiction serials. I should be excited, I should be impressed, and in many ways I am, but all I see in my future is the disastrous pocket dialling incidents, where we not only get to hear our friends, loved ones and parents doing things we can never unlearn, but then also witness what we can never un-see! I hope the worst that can happen to me is a ghost dial where I am singing along to the radio and scratching myself inappropriately, but don’t say you have not been warned!

I occasionally post poems upon a site called poem of quotes.(Which I must admit I find rather an awkward name) A few years ago I decided to write some poems in a period of miserable miasma that seemed pemanent. I would like to go back and delete the beginnings of my continuum of poetry, but I feel it serves as a progression plotter for my current state of ability.(Which rather arrogantly I believe is of a far greater quality)

What initially had drawn me to the site was a group of contemporary poets who made me see the veracity of new forms and the utilisation of modern travails. I can not post them here, I would not break copyright nor take their words from them in any way to gratify my own site,  but I shall mention their names and you can go and read those offerings.

SilentWords, PrettyOdd, Monkeyboy, Grunty, Dayani, BreeBree, xJeskaDolls and a host of others. If you go to a post from one you should be able to see the rest whom I regard as real poets by the comments that are in themselves witty and erudite. Poem of Quotes- check it out

But for now (until I produce something new) here are a few of my previously posted poems.

Inequitable Intelligence

The topicality of those left behind,
will not abide circumspect references
the ignorant no longer imbibe,
it just has no cocktail onion or olive,
not even an umbrella to distract
us from that bitter sweet cumulative effect
of years to understand its stellar clarity
and improbably impeccable character
of consistent relation to intelligence quotients
as opposed to the social acceptability
of binge trending and smart phones
a chimp could use.
(Planet of the apes indeed)

If the world was wound
to the unraveling of our expansion,
our consciousness would seem to shrink
in comparison,
we would welcome the application
of subtext to scripture
to our every waking hour
(simply so we could maintain our bliss)
before we found the words
to leave witness on our deathbed,
screen-written years prior
and decades in the making,
and most certainly not a certainty
in any product of proof.
(But hey, faith has its uses right?)

All possible philosophies
are perspectives of truth
as opposed to the word and the way
that promises life that never ends,
and yet does not begin at birth
(no we are born with sin to atone for in this “life”)
but when our self-shell perishes
in the growth of decay
and the passing of its energy
back to the universe
we were minted from.

Life after death after life.

Heaven seems selfish to me,
I would rather it be
that I merely borrowed form
and gave it back to the stars,
or that rose that needs a thorn,
or that egg that will spread wings soon enough
and soar on waves of atoms.

I am just hoping to create something wonderful.

Cut Flowers

Freshly picked flowers are,
by occasion,
only hours clear of life.

Once they grew
for the pleasure of all,
now in death
they serve one,
thrill another,
and draw envy
from those who wish
for their own apportion
of expressive dead things.

Every moment is but
a stalled suspension of belief,
in a vase of preservative.

Why So Sad?

Venice is sinking.

No more will a gondola
ferry lovers huddled
below the gunnels,
trolling through the city
of romantic attachment

Where Casanova
plied his trade
most capably,
not just with words,
but with other acts
of lips and tongues

The millennia
of competent bridges
will allow passage
of liquid roads
above not below

Canals sluicing
in grand manner
across doorways
unwelcome, yet
accustomed to egress

Cobblestones
will spout green algae
unseen in murky
rising tides

A city reclaimed
by its element
of elegant decay,
and longtime lagoon dwellers
of architecture and artistry
will simply float away,
unanchored to
the wooden moorings
of home.

Today is a year
since last she left,
perhaps
it crossed my mind…
but,
Venice is sinking.