Lighting the trip fantastic…

RIP Don Van Vliet

2010-12-18T16:26:00.000+11:00

The Captain is gone... a true original in an industry full of fakes.

Friday WTF!!?

2010-11-12T11:43:00.001+11:00

He should really form an act with that Russian guy...

I believe this is from Strangers With Candy... I want the boxed set.

Versatile blogger, moi?

2010-09-16T14:30:00.006+10:00

Bernard S. Jansen, who somehow finds the time and energy to have two blogs (that I know of), has given me a kick in the creative bum by handing me this very fine award. Rather than waste time thanking [insert name of deity] and The Academy, I’ll get down to it.

It works like this, apparently:

The Rules for The Versatile Blogger Award:

Thank and link back to the person that gave you the award.
Share seven things about yourself.
Pass the award to fifteen bloggers that you think deserve it.
Lastly, contact all of the bloggers that you’ve picked for the award.

Okay, I’ve thanked Bernard, and linked back to both his blogs.

Here are seven things about me you will be no better off for knowing:

I have no children and three grandchildren.
Like Bernard, I have never broken a bone, or one of anyone else’s (as far as I know).
I spent several years co-writing an Aussie sit-com called Hey, Dad! At the time, it was one of the longest-running TV shows in the world, after eight years on air.
I wrote my first short story at nine. It was set in a doomed submarine, and everyone died. My teacher was quite impressed, but concerned…
I believe in love at first sight. Fortunately it hasn’t happened since I met my wife.
I have two dogs and a cat. Their combined ages are 42.
I was about to delete this blog and start again (maybe). And I don’t Twitter.

Like Bernard, I’m going with ten blogs for the moment – my dwindling attention span makes even thinking up those a Herculean task.

John Walkenbach, the first blogger I ever discovered.
Mick Farren, a genuine rock star.
Brad Green, who blogs even less than I do.
Teresa Cortez, barer of souls.
Alexandra Sokoloff, who enlightens.
Robin Evans, fellow trail boss at Critters Bar.
Gavin Broom, who has morphed into an entertaining movie critic.
Sophie Playle, whose star is on the rise.
ABSOLUTELY*KATE, who has hopefully forgiven me for wandering off again…
Cate Gardner, who doesn’t need this.

Okay, that wasn’t so hard. I know it’ll take days for lazy me to contact all those people, at least one of whom has never heard of me. Still, that’s the internet, isn’t it?

Thanks again, Bernard.

Brett Easton Ellis and Warren Zevon

2010-08-10T11:14:00.001+10:00

I’m listening, right now, to a one-hour informal interview with Brett Easton Ellis (who prefers “Brett Ellis” – he added in his middle name because it sounded more literary…) Anyway, this show asks its subjects, who come from all walks of professional and artistic life, to choose five favourite pieces of music and talk about them. Ellis’ first choice was Desperados Under The Eaves by Warren Zevon. He added that he would probably pick five different pieces on any other day, but after it was played he was glad he’d picked it and would have anyway.

I nearly stood up and applauded when I heard the lines,

And if California slides into the ocean
Like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill

…just like I did the first time I ever heard them.

Take it from one who knew

2010-08-01T11:29:00.001+10:00

"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible
government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul this unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of statesmanship."

(President Theodore Roosevelt)

Foul Language Friday

2010-07-16T13:05:00.000+10:00

Trying to kick-start your blog by posting a YouTube video is pretty pathetic, but posting one that's had over three and a quarter million views is just desperately sad.

Unless it's this one.

Definitely Not Safe For Work, unless you just got sacked, or you're the boss, or you just want to get a message across...

Appholes and iGoons

2010-04-30T09:56:00.001+10:00

I wish I could rant like this...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Appholes

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

Lonely days are gone, I'm a-goin' home...

2010-03-23T10:00:00.001+11:00

Alex Chilton died. Never got a mention in the "mainstream" media, of course.

"High Priest" was my favourite album. I had to listen on my own, my friends couldn't stand it.

And while we're riffing on Alex's memory, spare a thought for Lux Interior of The Cramps, who also passed away recently. A month ago. Maybe I should subscribe to Rolling Stone...

Food for thought...

2010-03-15T20:46:00.001+11:00

Music is the International Language...

2010-03-02T09:19:00.000+11:00

Forgetting the words (or your meds) need be an embarrassment no more...

Found on Some Guy's Blog, and then some. Nearly half a million hits...

If this doesn't make you smile, you're taking things far too seriously.

Apocryphal Hollywood Story About Motivation

2010-02-27T11:22:00.000+11:00

The story goes that, some time in the seventies, when The Method was becoming de rigeur in Hollywood, a Famous Director was encountering some problems with a Famous Method Actor on the set of an action film. The scene takes place on a rooftop. The Famous Method Actor has to run from one side of the roof to the other, as fast as he can. That’s all.

He tries, and falters. This happens over and over. He just can’t get the “urgency” thing happening. He goes to his trailer, meditates, and returns. Still no good. He’s trying his best, he’s almost in tears but he just can’t run “right”. Money and daylight are burning away. Famous Director is getting the shits, big time. Tired of the mucking around, he yells “What is it, what’s the problem?”

“I just can’t find the reason for him to be doing this,” replies the Famous Method Actor across the rooftop. “I mean, what’s my motivation?”

The Famous Director sits down, lights cigarette, looks at the Famous Method Actor for a moment and says…

“I’ll tell you when you get here!”

The least you can do is better than nothing.

2010-02-14T14:33:00.016+11:00

100 Stories For Haiti is available for pre-order now!

You can pre-order a copy of this book here. All proceeds go to the International Red Cross

I’m pleased to be able to say I had a story, "Voice in the Night", accepted for this very special book.

From the new website:

100 Stories for Haiti is a unique collection of stories bound together by paper and glue and massive amounts of hope.

The book is the brainchild of author Greg McQueen. On the morning of January 19, Greg posted a video on his blog saying:

Dear Twitterverse, I can't keep watching this on the news or trending on Twitter without doing something. I woke up this morning with the idea that together we could make a book and donate profits to help relief efforts in Haiti.

Within hours, news spread throughout microblogging website, Twitter, and story submissions began arriving. Nick Harkaway, author of 'The Gone Away World', contributed a short story for the collection and penned the book's introduction. By the submission deadline a week later, the project had received over 400 submissions -- whittled down to one hundred during the following week, and the full 80,000 word manuscript was edited and assembled within two weeks of Greg's first announcement.

This extraordinary anthology is released as an ebook and paperback on March 4th, 2010.

What we need now is for a hell of a lot of people to buy at least one copy. I'm planning to give at least one copy away on the writers' group Critters Bar as a flash prize (you'll have to join to have a winning chance...) So, if any of the six people who sometimes read this blog could spread the word, we might eventually prove just how mighty the pen can be.

100 Stories Needed to Help Haiti

2010-01-24T10:44:00.002+11:00

From The Press Dispensary:

January 20, 2010 - Press Dispensary - Fundraisers are calling for urgent short story submissions to help raise money for disaster-stricken Haiti. Out of the submissions, 100 pieces of fiction will be chosen to appear in an e-book, the proceeds of which will go to the Red Cross.

The Red Cross is just one of a number of charities and humanitarian organisations mobilising a vast aid effort to reach the thousands of injured, hungry and thirsty survivors of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake to hit Haiti on 12 January.

100 Stories for Haiti is the brainchild of author Greg McQueen. On the morning of January 19, Greg posted a video on his blog saying: “Dear Twitterverse, I can't keep watching this on the news or trending on Twitter without doing something. I woke up this morning with the idea that together we could make an e-book and donate all the profits to the Red Cross.”

Within hours, news had spread throughout microblogging website, Twitter, and story submissions began arriving. Nick Harkaway, author of ‘The Gone Away World’, will be editing a story for the book as well as penning the introduction. Lorraine Mace, co-author of the ABC Checklist for Writers, and award-winning environmental journalist, Sarah Lewis-Hammond, are volunteering their time to help with the editorial process.

100 Stories for Haiti needs short story submissions and volunteers.

If you want to send a short story, please follow these guidelines:
• Do not exceed 1,000 words.
• No stories containing graphic violence, death or destruction.
• Send all stories in the body text of an email to 100storiesforhaiti@gmail.com . Stories sent as attachments will not be opened.
• Stories must be received by Monday 25 January, 2010.

---------

Greg McQueen is a UK author living in Aarhus, Denmark with his wife and three year old daughter. He writes mostly for teens and is the son of Geoff McQueen, creator of ‘The Bill’.

Greg's video can be found here http://www.ireallyshouldbewriting.net/100-stories-for-hait/i/

Story submissions and volunteers email: 100storiesforhaiti@gmail.com

The book will be sold on www.smashwords.com. Founder and CEO Mark Coker will be waiving the normal 15% commission.

100 Stories for Haiti will be published in mid-February, 2010.

For further information, please contact:
Greg McQueen, 100 stories for Haiti
Tel: +45 31 71 77 41
Email: gregmcqueen@gmail.com

Angel, Me and the Three Kings of Orient Noir

2009-12-24T14:16:00.004+11:00

First, thanks to Harry for the title pun. Such things are expected and forgiven at this time of year…

Absolutely*Kate, Commander-In-Chief of Harbinger*33 (it’s coming!) has been kind enough to post a story of mine, A Room at the Star, over at the Bijou. What’s more, I’m privileged to be double-featuring with Angel Zapata, who has another Magi-oriented story on the same bill, entitled El Dia De Los Reyes {The Day of the Kings}.

Please read, enjoy and have a safe and serene Christmas, Holiday, Hanukah, Kwanza, etc.

Peace and Love.

Holidays? Humbug! It’s Christmas!

2009-12-10T11:04:00.003+11:00

Nothing like clustering around the warm glow of your monitor to enjoy this clip a few dozen times over the Silly Season…

Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters

While Clyde McPhatter’s groundbreaking contributions as a soul and R&B vocalist have gone generally undernoticed outside of music circles, his fervent voice and passionate delivery influenced such artists as Smokey Robinson, Ben E. King (one of his heirs in the Drifters), Aaron Neville and Jackie Wilson (his successor in the Dominoes).

“He was one of the first guys I ever listened to,” Robinson said shortly after McPhatter’s death in 1972. “When he first came on the scene with Billy Ward and the Dominoes, he was The Man.”

“Anything Clyde sings is a prayer,” Aaron Neville told Goldmine’s Bruce Sylvester. “When I was growing up, I don’t care what else was going on in the world - Jim Crow, all the other stuff - you could put on Clyde McPhatter and it would all disappear.”

Light Fantastic

2009-11-25T15:00:00.013+11:00

I used to consider myself a fair photographer, even learned (and forgot) all the darkroom basics and did a bit of experimentation. I might even dig some out and post them. Hard to remember when I lost interest, but I’m sorry it happened and I recently dug some old rolls of film out of my fridge (that had been there for nearly thirty years!) and got into it again.

These were shot on Ilford FP4. Note the enhancement of the grain (click on the images), caused by long storage and delayed processing. The processor and I were both amazed at the density of the images and the contrast in most. At least there wasn't any fungus growing in the rolls. This film has been in and out of seven or eight fridges since about 1980.

Now for the real deal…

National Geographic's International Photography Contest 2009

Andrew and his friend, a young sperm whale named Scar, were swimming together off the west coast of Dominica. The two of them became "friends" after Andrew saved Scar's life. (Photo and caption by Peter Allinson)

This is from a selection, chosen for an article in The Boston Globe, from National Geographic's International Photography Contest 2009

Be amazed...

A poem for Armistice Day

2009-11-11T10:43:00.005+11:00

Foot Soldier

I have killed with the blade, with the halberd and pike;
with the flintlock, the pistol and spear.
I have marched with my enemy’s head held aloft,
and I’ve crawled and lain screaming in fear
on battlefields bloody and flooded with waste,
where humanity’s bounds were rejected;
I have prayed to a God who could not give a damn,
granted mercy where none was expected.

I have fought in the desert, in jungles and swamps;
I have died in the mountains and plains.
The veldt and the forest surrender my bones,
and the farmers return my remains.
Under cannonade, bombard, mortar and strafe,
on beaches and rivers and streets
I have fought against madness as surely as shell,
to advance as good reason retreats.

I am digger and skirmisher, tommy and grunt,
I am rifleman, dogface and pawn;
I’m the first to go forward, the last to withdraw
the one for whom all mothers mourn.
I’ve learned some sad truths as I marched through time
to the trumpet and snare drum’s rattle,
but only one truth need be carved in our hearts;

All soldiers die on the first day of battle.

© 2006, 2009

Where's my Trumpet?

2009-11-07T10:10:00.012+11:00

Somebody clued me in to Every Day Fiction a while back; an interesting site, where they publish a new story every day (and pay) and where comments on stories are encouraged, though I’ve noticed you're not expected to be too critical, or people can get a bit snarky. I guess having spent years now in critique groups I’ve come to expect criticism, as long as it’s constructive.

Anyway, I subbed a story called Dog People (which started life in a challenge on Critters Bar) and it’s going up on November 16. Yaaayyy! Well, it’s exciting for me, I sub about as often as I get out…

I see that Bob Jacobs and Aaron Polson have stories coming up too, so I know I’m in good company.

A flash of brilliance…

2009-10-23T14:55:00.001+11:00

I’d never heard of flash fiction before I joined an online writing group (the much-missed workshop section of East of the Web, back in 2005). I soon learned that it was the backbone of online publishing, the length and style most sought and, as a result, the hardest to do well. Whatever you believe to be the optimum length and structure, the more one reads the more obvious it becomes that it the best flash pieces rely on luring the reader in, setting up certain expectations and then reversing or twisting the result, all in a few hundred words.

Every now and then one comes along that leaves a lasting impression; you keep going back to it, admiring how well it worked. The unfortunate thing is that, with so many writers contributing to so many blogs and e-zines, even a good one can disappear from view too quickly.

Do yourself a favour and check out Extinguished by Laurita Miller, posted on her Brain Droppings blog a few weeks ago. To me, and the other thirty people who’ve left comments, it has everything: a great voice, setting, mood and a killer ending.

Erin Cole's Countdown to Halloween

2009-10-20T13:06:00.004+11:00

This should be fun! Erin Cole, on her Listen to the Voices blog, is hosting a series of 13 horror stories by different authors from the 19th of October through to Halloween.

The first story, Michael J. Solender’s Orange Dot, will have you seeing spots in front of your eyes. And your mailbox…

Richard Ridyard & Stolen Words

2009-09-30T09:29:00.005+10:00

What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing, he knew nobody had said it before. ~ Mark Twain

A rather nasty case of repeated, blatant plagiarism has turned up on the net, exposed by prolific (by my standards!) US writer and fellow 6S denizen Angel Zapata. Full details are here, on his blog.

The perpetrator's name, Richard Ridyard, appears to be stolen as well, being the name of the former editor and director of the South Yorkshire Times, who died in 2003 at the age of 88.

Apart from anything else, it’s a good read, beginning with Angel’s preparedness to be understanding:

“Initially, I was taken aback. Could someone have stolen my work? Is it a case of unconscious plagiarism? Maybe the author really liked my work and wanted to do something similar. I was upset and dumbfounded. I decided more research was required.

What I found was frightening.”
And it is…

Not only was this person stealing from his fellow online authors, mostly in the horror genre, but from established writers like Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft.

The accused author's stories are being pulled from online sites with a haste which attests to how seriously publishers are prepared to take this issue. Good on them.

Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes, and she's gone.

2009-09-29T09:25:00.006+10:00

The Beatles' 'Lucy in the sky' dies
September 29, 2009 - 7:24AM

The woman who inspired The Beatles' legendary song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds has died aged 46 from an autoimmune disease, the charity that supported her has announced.

Lucy O'Donnell was at school with John Lennon's son, Julian, when she was three and it was his picture of her in 1966 that inspired the classic song.

According to various biographies of The Beatles and O'Donnell herself, the young Julian took the picture home to his father and explained: "It's Lucy in the sky with diamonds."

The song, which featured on the Fab Four's 1967 album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, caused huge controversy at the time because of its psychedelic theme and supposed reference to the drug LSD though its initials, a charge always denied as pure coincidence by the songwriter Lennon.

Julian Lennon and O'Donnell - who became Lucy Vodden after her marriage - resumed their friendship in recent months after she became ill with lupus, the disease of the immune system that led to her death last Tuesday.

"Everyone at the Louise Coote Lupus Unit was dreadfully shocked by the death of Lucy," said Angie Davidson, campaign director of the St Thomas Lupus Trust that helped Vodden during her illness.

"She was a great supporter of ours and a real fighter. It's so sad that she has finally lost the battle she fought so bravely for so long."

The trust added that Lennon and his mother Cynthia were "shocked and saddened" by Vodden's death. -- AFP

Aaaaarrgghh! &@#$*% Lulu! (Monday vent)

2009-09-28T13:02:00.004+10:00

I haven’t logged onto Lulu for over two years. All I want to do is buy a copy of Shot Glass Stories.

I put in my password. Nothing. Blank page. I asked to be reminded of my “forgotten” password. Eight times. Nothing. No emails.

So I decided to open a new account. After three goes at choosing a “store name” (even though I don’t want to open a store), I’m told that there is already an account with that email address. My email address. Yes, it’s my account, idiot website!!

There is no way you can send them an email enquiry without logging into your account (not that I could find on their site, anyway), which means if you can’t log in, you can’t find out why not. Now I will have to open another one with a different email address.

I feel better now…

Goodbye, and thank you...

2009-09-17T23:27:00.004+10:00

Mary Travers

Ellie Greenwich

Patrick Swayze

Henry Gibson

We Got A Review!

2009-09-17T09:25:00.005+10:00

David Hebblethwaite, on his site Follow The Thread, has given us (the creatures of Critters Bar) a very positive review for Shot Glass Stories and Other Small Indulgences (see previous post). That I now choose to characterise him as clearly discerning, erudite and perceptive has nothing to do with the fact that he cited one of my stories as “quietly powerful”…

Again, thanks to Sophie Playle for putting this little book together. She’s written about the experience on her blog, and is expected to make a full recovery.

Jim Carroll has died, died…

2009-09-14T22:55:00.004+10:00

Actually, he died on September 11, ensuring that those who recall his work will never forget his day of passing. And yes, I know everyone’s using that “People Who Died” joke, but it seems appropriate; the song was about the staggering number of his friends who had suffered early and violent deaths, and now… hopefully he is with his friends. If we could be certain this was to be our fate, Death would hold no terrors.

You’ll find his NY Times Obit here. I never thought of his music as “punk” – I always thought punk’s blank nihilism devalued it too much, and The Jim Carroll Band was anything but blank. Here was a man whose output was so exciting and provocative that Andy Warhol and Keith Richard sought him out. I played those records a lot back then, never could part with them.

I must admit I’m not closely acquainted with his written output; I guess I’ll find my copy of Basketball Diaries when I unpack the twenty or so boxes of books still languishing in the garage after our last move. But I spent a bit of time today checking out some of his poetry and writings on the ‘net, and it was a good way to pass some time. He was hailed as a great by no less than Alan Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and Patti Smith, which makes him an artist’s artist – they are the ones you need to read, so go Google-cruising if you don’t know his work and you may be pleasantly surprised.

And put his music on while you do…

Shot Glass Stories and other Monday stuff.

2009-09-14T10:35:00.006+10:00

Sophie Playle, a fellow denizen of Critters Bar, recently got it into her head that it would be a good idea to publish a selection of 200 word stories culled from the weekly challenge that we have been holding on our little workshop site for a couple of years now. As it turns out, she was right (well, we think so anyway) and the result is Shot Glass Stories, a compendium of short stories told in (or within) two hundred words.

You can get it as a free download here on Lulu, or if you like the old-fashioned feel of a book in your hands and print in front of your eyes, you can buy a copy for a very modest price.

If you’d like to spend a few minutes reading a fine piece of writing that will stay with you, read this wonderful story , by Quin Browne, a capital writer who rarely uses them, and who makes Six Sentences a place I should really get back to more often. That old thing about Time speeding up as your life unspools…? It’s true.

And now, because I’ve had this song stuck in my head for days…

The Scariest Graph You'll Ever See...

2009-08-12T09:59:00.002+10:00

In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. At the time, Ben Bagdikian was called "alarmist" for pointing this out in his book, The Media Monopoly. In his 4th edition, published in 1992, he wrote "in the U.S., fewer than two dozen of these extraordinary creatures own and operate 90% of the mass media" -- controlling almost all of America's newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, books, records, movies, videos, wire services and photo agencies. He predicted then that eventually this number would fall to about half a dozen companies.

This was greeted with skepticism at the time. When the 6th edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 2000, the number had fallen to six. Since then, there have been more mergers and the scope has expanded to include new media like the Internet market. More than 1 in 4 Internet users in the U.S. now log in with AOL Time-Warner, the world's largest media corporation.

In 2004, Bagdikian's revised and expanded book, The New Media Monopoly, shows that only 5 huge corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric's NBC is a close sixth.

--Media Reform Information Center, Links and Resources on Media Reform

(Borrowed from an article on The Existentialist Cowboy's site.)

Writers and Restraints (or, Badinage and Discipline.)

2009-08-09T16:20:00.003+10:00

I often worry a bit that we writers who frequent those odd dens of insecurity called workshops sometimes demand too much adherence to “rules” – fair enough, to learn and know them is important, and to be aware of what certain editors demand is wise, but quite honestly I think we’re making a rod for our own backs (cliché, sorry) if we run every single phrase through the mill of correctness.

No other expressive art form (music, sculpture, visual arts) demands such rigid subservience to a set of rules that are sometimes arbitrary, often archaic and frequently ill-defined.

A fellow writer, who I know from several workshop sites, and whose work I like and respect, has become almost fanatical in his loathing of adjectives and adverbs, ruthlessly hunting them down and strongly suggesting their removal. He is in some writing workshop where, apparently, all members are being taught to write “properly” and “expressively” and where, I imagine, they will all end up sounding alike.

Obviously, some adherence to the rules of grammar is advisable in order to avoid confusion and to convey ideas with clarity, and I wouldn’t respect anyone who claims to be a master of their craft while maintaining an almost total ignorance of the tools of their trade, but life is messy and often that’s the most truthful way to write about it. My advice is – write clearly, write honestly and write humanely; everything else is dress rules for the madhouse.

Monday Morning "Look What I Found On YouTube" Segment…

2009-08-03T10:04:00.004+10:00

Okay, so John Scalzi and other people found them, after other people found them, but they helped steel me for the week ahead.

Supernatural Presents Jensen Ackles

(Actually this isn't off YT - they didn't allow embedding)

Meme To Me – The Picture Thing

2009-07-30T11:33:00.007+10:00

As the few wanderers who stray into this blog know, I’m not great at regular blogging, but there’s a meme going around that caught my eye. Literally. Probably because I like using pictures as story prompts.

Catherine Gardner, over at the Poisoned Pen, got it from KV Taylor, who got from… never mind, you can track it if you like.

Here’s the deal:

1) Post ten of any pictures currently on your hard drive that you think are self-expressive.

2) NO CAPTIONS!!! It must be like we’re speaking with images and we have to interpret your visual language just like we have to interpret your words.

3) They must ALREADY be on your hard drive - no googling or flickr! They have to have been saved to your folders sometime in the past. They must be something you’ve saved there because it resonated with you for some reason.

4) You do NOT have to answer any questions about any of your pictures if you don’t want to. You can make them as mysterious as you like. Or you can explain them away as much as you like.

The hardest part was finding just 10 among 1.5 Gigs of images. I'm posting them all in one hit because I'll just forget otherwise. I can explain most of them...

Sarah Palin for President!?

2009-07-05T10:35:00.007+10:00

I know there are many, many souls in the world who actually think this a good idea. The frightening thing is that, if she learns the tricks of the trade, she might just pull it off.

Given the speech she made the other day, she still has a lot to learn about remembering what you were saying at the beginning of the sentence…

I leave the last word to Voltaire (1694 - 1778):

To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.

She might just make it...

A Death Less Obvious

2009-06-28T11:59:00.013+10:00

“Sky has passed over and Ya Ho Wha is waiting for him at the gate. He will soon be home with his Father.”

In amongst the recent departures shocking and stellar (Michael Jackson), prefigured and less stellar (Farrah Fawcett) and purely fictional (Jeff Goldblum) was that of a man who, arguably, had a greater influence on popular culture than all of them but who remained a figure beloved only by the cognoscenti and those who do actually remember the 60s.

I first noticed that Sky Saxon had died while reading Mick Farren’s blog the other day.

From Bruce Weber’s Obit, NYT, June 26, here

“Sky Saxon, the mop-haired bass player and front man for the psychedelic protopunk band the Seeds, whose 1965 song “Pushin’ Too Hard” put a Los Angeles garage-band spin on the bad-boy rocker image personified by the Rolling Stones, died Thursday in Austin, Tex. He was thought to be 71.”

The truly impressive thing is that he played his last gig on Saturday night and was admitted to hospital on Monday. That, surely, is a rock ‘n’ roll death.

I remember hearing The Seeds not long after puberty and the discovery of real rock music coincided in the early 60s. Finding anything that wasn’t commercially-oriented was tricky in those days, especially here in Australia. I disagree with Mr. Weber in that I thought the Seeds, musically, had a more "dangerous" edge than the Stones, but they certainly prefigured punk, and they remain one of the bands that musicians have been name-checking ever since as a major influence. Just wish I’d managed to keep all my records from those days.

Three Years in Prison…

2009-06-27T10:51:00.001+10:00

"Three Years in Prison will be served by Lee Monroe Crider, 40, who pleaded guilty to grand theft when he appeared in a Sacramento court charged with stealing a bike belonging to the Tour de France tour de forcer, Lance Armstrong."

Meanwhile, closer to home…

“A WOMAN who admitted to shooting her husband and chopping up his body might be out of jail by the end of 2011 after pleading guilty to manslaughter.

Joyce Chant, 57, was originally charged with murder, but after a jury was unable to reach a verdict earlier this year she admitted to killing her husband after he produced a gun during an argument in their violent marriage.

Justice Roderick Howie sentenced Chant to a minimum of three years and five months' jail for manslaughter and 10 months for interfering with human remains.”

I know that Justice is ultimately just an artificial construct designed to maintain social order and provide a means of punishing wrongdoers, but if Architects used the same standards of “judgment” there wouldn’t be a building standing.

Goodbye, Grasshopper...

2009-06-05T09:31:00.005+10:00

December 8, 1936 – June 3, 2009

_______________________________

I wrote poems for the late Mrs Jones

2009-05-26T14:35:00.003+10:00

Hmm... A limerick is a really pissy way to kick-start my blog, but it's something at least.

As I rendered the flesh from her bones,
I wrote poems for the late Mrs Jones.
These I read to her head
as we cuddled in bed,
in my most Vincent Price-ian tones.

Short note from a possible future…

2009-01-29T15:07:00.004+11:00

.....................

Homeland

I haven’t written anything by hand for a long time, so pleased forgive this scrawl.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. I used to think I knew what that meant. I used to believe that freedom meant not having to live in fear. I went along with all the Constitutional Modifications because I believed they were a worthwhile idea. For a while, the efforts of the Security Bureau bore fruit – many, many Latent Terrorists and Potential Disrupters were weeded out and dealt with accordingly.

The Latent Terrorists were either executed or deported to their country of origin, if it was still capable of supporting life. As we know, after the War a lot of things changed. It was explained that, for a while, it would be necessary for society to be more closely monitored. That’s what Eternal Vigilance means. Juno, my daughter, was born around that time. Today she will be drafted into the Adolescent Edification College that has been allotted her.

I still keep my online journal, of course. The bots report anyone who does not log on and file a report on their Blog at least once a day, and all text is scanned. But I am finding it harder to do, to keep writing the same things in a different way, to show that I am a good citizen by reporting on the actions of at least six of my neighbours every week; the bots report anyone who uses the same text string more that twice in one week. It is even harder to smile as I go out every day, after filing my Journey Proposal, and to nod at the neighbours, knowing that they also are watching me. But I am now writing this journal on paper, the way we used to, because after Juno told me about the garbage bins, I found it hard not to feel terrified every waking moment.

“Daddy,” she said – she knows she is supposed to call me ‘Father’ or ‘Pa-parent’ – “Daddy, on our street, seven waste receivers are now missing. I just counted them.”

Just that. I grabbed her roughly, for which I am ashamed, and for which I could be reported, and said “Juno, you must never, NEVER been seen counting anything! You know what happens if the cameras see your lips moving in a public place!”

Seven bins. Seven families. I know, I counted them too. I know that I am responsible for one of those missing bins, not placed on the yellow laser scales at eighteen thirty every Tuesday like all the others in the street. I just thought that the Carsons should be a little more circumspect about the music they listened to. It wasn’t on the approved list. They were sent for Re-Edification, which is a good thing, but they should have been back weeks ago. No one returns anymore.

I am worried. I thought it was our place – the people - to be vigilant, in order to guard our freedom. But it seems the guards turned their vigilance inward for too long. I am beginning to wonder if the price of that vigilance is eternal slavery.

This is as much as I can write – it’s far too dangerous to continue. I believe the new street cameras can detect the sound of pen on paper (writing in private is disapproved), as well as monitoring for Undue Motion after twenty-one hours.

I hope that whoever finds this note understands and explains to my daughter, if she still lives, that my subsequent actions were not those of a terrorist, that I was a freedom fighter despite what the history blogs may dictate.

Goodbye.

Read by Matt Ward…

This is getting serious...

2009-01-26T14:05:00.005+11:00

Details here and here.

The 2009 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, and some baaaad writin’!

2009-01-15T12:19:00.005+11:00

You must remember this...

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

--Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

Apart from its lasting and affectionate link with Snoopy’s literary efforts, (and the bit after "torrents" where it sounds like a weather forecast), that infamous opening sentence has come to be associated with an annual literary fun-fest known as The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, in which entrants are expected to submit the worst self-penned examples of an opening sentence that they can come up with.

I entered last year and failed miserably. This should feel like a good thing, but the competition to produce wretched grammar, mangled syntax, crap metaphors and just plain shithouse writing is possibly even fiercer than that found in “quality” arenas. It is claimed that over 10,000 entries were received last year.

The 2009 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is underway – if you enjoy the occasional lapse into truly bad writing, especially when it comes to an opening sentence, here’s your chance to shine. Or just have some fun. Details are at the bottom of the page and “The official deadline is April 15 (a date that Americans associate with painful submissions and making up bad stories). The actual deadline may be as late as May 30 (the 2009 results will be released by mid-June).”

Somewhere on the lengthy page is a link to an even larger collection of truly awful writing submitted by followers of the Bulwer-Lyttons, as the contest has become known. It’s here, and contains some extraordinary passages (all of them published and presumably paid for), including this mind-boggling description of sexual congress:

"And then he was fully socketed to her, like a pipe wrench in a crock of warm chili."

Read and enjoy, and start working on your worst opening sentences, because the first prize is US$250.00.

The Fine Art of the Insult

2009-01-11T16:33:00.004+11:00

Dick Cavett, in his NYT blog, begins “I haven’t ever found any great writing on that wonderful and often unappreciated art form, the insult.”

Cavett points out the value of the witty insult over the prosaic with this example:

There are two kinds of insult. “I was bored by your book” is one kind. “Your book? Once I put it down, I couldn’t pick it up,” is the other.

He goes on to cite several choice examples from writers he has known (and remember, this man wrote for Groucho Marx).

This prompted me to dig out an old Reader’s Digest I’d kept since 1979, which contains excerpts from Nancy McPhee’s “The Book of Insults” (the sole reason for keeping it…) There are few things more enjoyable and satisfying than a clever insult. Wit and savagery combined produce some of the most quotable chunks of language available. There are now several such books available, as well as a massive online resource.

A good insult can be direct and pointed…

I don't think you are a fool, but what's my opinion compared to that of thousands of others.

He does the work of three men: Larry, Curly & Moe.

He always finds himself lost in thought - it's an unfamiliar territory.

It can be direct, pointed and lengthy…

A hack writer who would not have been considered a fourth rate in Europe, who tricked out a few of the old proven 'sure-fire' literary skeletons with sufficient local colour to intrigue the superficial and the lazy. ~ William Faulkner on Mark Twain

Coleridge was a muddle-headed metaphysician who by some strange streak of fortune turned out a few poems amongst the dreary flood of inanity that was his wont. ~ William Morris on Samuel Taylor Coleridge

He was ignored till he began to smash the parlour furniture, throw bombs and hitch together ten pianolas, all playing different tunes, whereupon everyone began to talk about him. ~ Henry T. Fink, American music critic, on Arnold Schoenberg

…or it can be convoluted, even obscure:

... a gap-toothed and hoary ape, who now in his dotage spits and chatters from a dirtier perch of his own finding, and fouling; coryphaeus or choragus of his Bulgarian tribe of autocoprophagaus baboons. ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne on Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Theatre has a fine tradition of insults:

We used to have actresses trying to become stars; now we have stars trying to become actresses. ~ Sir Laurence Olivier

I always said that I'd like (John) Barrymore's acting till the cows came home. Well, ladies and gentleman, last night the cows came home. ~ George Nathan

As does Art:

I've heard that he dreams his paintings -- little wonder that he complains he can't sleep.

It resembles a tortoiseshell cat having a fit in a plate of tomatoes. ~ Mark Twain on J. M. W. Turner's ‘The Slave Ship’

This is not amusing, it is dismaying and disheartening. The other day, someone attributed to me the statement that 'the human race was nearing insanity'. I never said that but if anyone is trying to convince me that this is 'modern art', and that it is representative of our time, I would be obliged to think that statement is true. ~ Kenyon Cox, American critic, in Harper's Weekly (1913) on Henri Matisse's painting The Red Studio'

The famous poster artist, James Pryde, was invited to attend the unveiling of the statue of the Great War heroine, nurse Edith Cavell. When the covering was pulled off, the crowd stood in stunned silence. “My God,” said Pryde. “They've shot the wrong person.”

And, of course, Literature, which one would expect to contain the most finely-crafted examples:

Groucho Marx: (Groucho? Oh well…) From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.

Samuel Johnson did not say: "Your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good." But he would probably have liked to.

This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with great force. ~ Dorothy Parker

This poem will not reach its destination ~ Voltaire, on Jean Baptiste Rousseau's ode 'To Posterity'

Ah! Meredith! Who can define him? His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning. As a writer he has mastered everything except language: as a novelist he can do anything, except tell a story: as an artist he is everything, except articulate. ~ Oscar Wilde

Wilde alone generated enough of these less than bon-mots to fill several books.

Of course, this is far from a lost art. To finish up, here’s a couple at the expense of soon-to-be Ex President G.W. Bush:

This is a guy who could not find oil in Texas. ~ Al Franken

What is his accomplishment? That he's no longer an obnoxious drunk? ~ Ron Reagan Jr.

Keep this form of expression alive – go out and insult someone today! Leave one here if you like… just make it clever and funny, please.

A Feline Limerick

2009-01-02T10:30:00.001+11:00

Existentially, cats are a riddle –
Opinions divide down the middle;
Can a creature with class
stick its tongue in it arse
yet be fussy about where it might piddle?

(Oh, and Happy New Year! All the best for 09 and beyond...)

Thank you, Mister Utzon

2008-12-30T09:58:00.010+11:00

Just before Christmas, my wife Kate and I went to a Christmas matinee concert in the Sydney Opera House. As it happened, the architect who designed this still-amazing structure, Jørn Utzon, had passed away a month before, having never returned to Australia to see his masterwork completed. The acrimonious relationship he had with the governments of the day is well documented and led to him leaving Australia in 1966, before the building was anywhere near completion.

Although subsequent governments have done their best to defile the foreshores near the Opera House with some of the ugliest monstrosities ever erected in this city, the House remains aloof from them, perched on its own headland and as much a part of the harbourscape as the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Its forecourt and the concourses leading to it are a favourite meeting place for tourists and Sydneysiders alike…

okay, I’m starting to sound like a travel brochure.

As we left, there was a very good jazz combo playing outside the Opera Bar on the concourse, so we stopped to have a drink and admire the view, as we do on the rare occasions we get into the city together.

This was the view, recorded on my cheapo mobile, and gives you an idea of what a crystal summer’s day by Sydney Harbour is like. If you’re ever here, give me a call and I’ll meet you there - we’ll drink a toast to a man who imagined something unbuildable and forced men without imagination to build it.

Thank you, Mister Utzon.

Another limerick...

2008-12-11T10:58:00.001+11:00

A scholar who liked to wear satin
ate pizzas whilst studying Latin.
But endless Supremes
were too much for the seams
of the satin he sat and got fat in.

The Critters Bar Anthology 2009

2008-12-10T11:07:00.004+11:00

Thanks and kudos to Matt Ward, publisher of Skive Magazine and founder of the brand new imprint Mary Celeste Press. In the space of a week or so, Matt, a fellow inmate of Critters Bar, put together an anthology of stories chosen and submitted by its members and the very handsome result is now for sale at cost on Lulu.

As fellow Critter Rich Sampson puts it, “If you read this and don't come from Critters Bar (unlikely, I know) then you can get a free PDF…” - as a free download here or at Lulu.

The Anthology will soon be for sale at Amazon and CreateSpace. What’s impressive is that the stories chosen by the authors aren’t second-rate, “nobody-else-will-publish-this” pieces (even mine!), but tales that would enhance any publication.

So, buy one if you’re flush, or download a free copy with our best wishes for a Happy Christmas, Holiday, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, New Year, Festival of Dionysius or whatever you might be celebrating.

How do you write?

2008-12-04T10:22:00.018+11:00

I borrowed this from Bibliorgy (I hope they don’t mind…)

How Writers Write

J.G. Ballard writes in longhand, then types everything up on an electric typewriter.

Christy Brown wrote with his left foot.

Richard Burton, while in India, sometimes wrote under a table draped in wet cloths, to keep cool.

Lawrence Durrell usually used a typewriter, but started writing Justine in longhand so as not to wake his sleeping daughter in the early mornings.

William Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying on an upturned wheelbarrow while on duty as a postal worker.

Ernest Hemingway, in Cuba, wrote while standing. He wrote longhand in pencil, or on a typewriter when dialogue was flowing.

Kazuo Ishiguro writes in pen in notebooks. He writes his books fairly quickly, after a year or two of research and trying out voices.

Jack Kerouac typed On the Road on a 120-foot scroll of taped-together tracing paper over a fortnight. Contrary to legend, his writing spree was fueled only by coffee.

Ursula K. Le Guin uses an old word processor.

C.S. Lewis wrote on huge sheets of paper (each Narnia book took up only thirty sheets or so), while standing.

Cormac McCarthy writes on an Olympus typewriter.

Vladimir Nabokov wrote on index cards, sometimes in cars.

Marcel Proust wrote in a cork-lined bedroom.

Philip Roth writes at a lectern in a sparely furnished room.

Leo Tolstoy's wife transcribed everything he wrote.

Anthony Trollope wrote with a watch beside him, turning out a page every fifteen minutes.

Robert Walser, in mid-career, started writing so small that scholars at first thought his texts were in code. One later novel filled just 24 octavo sheets.

(Stone-Age Laptop!)

In primary school I wrote with a steel-nibbed pen, dipped in an inkwell. High school saw the advent of ball point pens. At home I typed my angst-ridden teenage poetry on a huge, cast iron Demountable typewriter which weighed as much as a VW engine block. I was then given a small Remington portable, which I still have.

My first script was written longhand in notepads – the pages were then sliced up and taped together in the right order and typed up on a purloined IBM Selectric II, the best electric typewriter ever made. (This took two days, fuelled by gallons of coffee. I didn’t sleep right for a week.)

As a demi-semi-professional script assessor, I still prefer to write notes as I read – the only problem is that my handwriting is so abysmal that I sometimes have trouble deciphering my own notes.

Now, like most people, I sit at a computer and… often, nothing happens. I’ve found that the best way to put a story together is to go for a long walk and talk to myself, working out the story structure and characters by way of acting it out. Yes, I get some strange looks, especially from dogs. When I get home I sit down and try to get it all down before the aging brain loses its grip and everything fades away.

Ballooney Tunes

2008-11-30T13:31:00.002+11:00

Another limerick... and fart jokes are still the best.

The balloon-racer’s victory design
Was foiled by the breeze's decline.
Cried the balloonist “No worry!
I’ll just swallow this curry -
We'll be jet-propelled over the line!”

Until something better comes along...

2008-11-20T16:50:00.002+11:00

I am reduced to posting limericks. Oh well, at least they're my own...

In China in ages gone by
a mandarin named Pi sought to fly.
He sat in a socket
on an oversized rocket
and became the first Pi in the sky.

The Secret of Good Comedy...

2008-11-08T17:34:00.002+11:00

...is timing. Gerard Hoffnung understood that, as evidenced by this section of his address to the Oxford Union in 1958.

Please enjoy The Bricklayer's Lament .

Naomi Watts - I knew her when...

2008-10-15T14:57:00.004+11:00

Well, not really. But I was the co-writer on this episode of the Aussie sitcom "Hey, Dad!" in which she appeared and I recall that she was very professional, had great timing and, yes, she had a certain something...

Chatting With Frank

2008-10-10T11:21:00.005+11:00

Some sort of parable...

I’d been down into these tunnels before, under the city, for reasons of my own. I thought I knew my way around, but I had never been this deep before. The air was becoming fetid, and my torch was dimming. I was beginning to think I’d been tricked, when I saw a faint glow ahead.

A man in dirty overalls sat at a battered oak desk, reading a skanky copy of ‘Hustler’ by the light of a crystal candelabrum. He looked at me, rolling a stogie from one side of his mouth to the other.

“Got a ticket?”

I handed him the small laminated card. He looked at it, scratched his stubbled jaw and nodded.

“Where’d you get this?”

“I bought it on eBay. It was listed as a joke. You know, 'Ticket To See God – Good for one visit'. Couldn’t resist. I, ah, just followed the directions.”

“Fuck me, no respect at all. Not like the old days…” He took out a set of clippers and punched the ticket.

“Um, are you… God?”

“Do I fucking look like a Deity?” he snapped. “Straight ahead, you’ll know when you get there. And don’t touch anything!”

I walked in near-darkness for another half hour or so, when I emerged without warning into a lush, well-tended garden. It was peaceful, serene, filled with the sound of birdsong and the smell of horseshit. A large, pale blue unicorn grazed by a pond, near a long oak bench. Occasionally it scratched its rump with its horn. I approached, thinking perhaps it was God, but it ignored me. Everything glowed as if lit by the midday sun, yet there were no shadows cast and the sky was black and starless.

“Nice, isn’t it?” asked a slightly croaky voice behind me. I turned, to see a large orang-utan sitting on the bench, eating a Chupa-Chup.

I looked around. I couldn’t see anyone else.

The ape waved at me. “Here, dumbass, on the bench! Welcome to Eden.”

I walked over to him.

“Are you… are you God?”

He stood up, bent one leg and spread his arms.

“Ta-da!”

He looked like Al Jolson in a fur coat.

“No offense, but you’re an ape.”

He sat again, licking his Chupa-Chup cheekily.

“None taken. Remember, I created you guys in my own image. And I don’t really like that name, a bit generic. Call me Frank, if you like. Buddha does. So, anyway, what do think of the Garden?”

“It’s not very big.”

“It was only built for two people.”

“Who? Adam and Eve?”

He nodded. “Had to start somewhere…”

“Are you saying Adam and Eve were real? I thought all that Old Testament stuff was, you know, metaphorical?”

He rolled his eyes back in his head – right back, so that for a second they were peeking out of his ears.

“Allegorical, actually. You humans, you’re so gullible. You’ll believe anything. A Universe in seven days, rain floods the whole planet… hey, like the unicorn? I got that idea from the Simpsons.”

“He’s nice, looks really placid. You ride him?”

“I tried, but he gave me a rash. Think I’m allergic or something. Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. Adam and Eve were a couple of protozoa – you know, alphabet noodles in the ol’ primordial soup. Bit o’ hydrogen, bit o’ carbon, couple of lightning bolts and Whammo! Evolution. What a doozy! From ooze to Uzis. Protoplasm to plasma screens. I just fired up the old cellular mitosis thingy, and away it went. Pretty clever, doncha think? ” He was jumping around on the bench, acting out Creation as if it was a dance craze.

“But God… I mean Frank, I thought Evolution was against everything you stand for. I thought you created everything. Don’t you mark the sparrow’s fall, and all that stuff?”

“Oh, suuure I do… like I’ve got the time and inclination to sit around making blades of grass, feathers, skin, putting little beasties together one by one. It’s a labour saving device. You’ve got food processors, I’ve got Evolution. I thought it was one of my better creations, personally.”

“The religious right don’t. They’d like to hang Evolutionists. They’re very powerful at the moment.”

“Fucking fundamentalists,” Frank snorted, scratching his anus and grimacing with distaste. “They think they know everything. Think they know me. They’re like those other self-appointed zealots, over in Camel Country. They have no doubt about anything, that’s what makes them so dangerous. Fuckers!”

He smacked his fist into his palm. The Earth shook, just a bit. I thought I’d better change the subject.

“Is there, you know, a meaning of life, a Great Awful Truth?”

“Is there a Great Awful Truth? Well, of course there is! You want to know it? The Great Awful truth is… that there is no Great Awful Truth. Everything just is. Time is a curved continuum, which is impossible, and infinity has an ending.”

“Hubble’s Radius,” I added smugly. Frank looked at me for a long moment.

“That was the Universe, not Infinity. Never mind. Hubble was a smart bastard, no doubt, but his maths was way out. Einstein, now he was onto something, he was one clever dude, just couldn’t see the whole picture. The Universe isn’t expanding, and it isn’t contracting either. It’s more like… well, imagine a slinky boinging around inside a hamster wheel. It’s more like that.”

“Boinging?”

“You got a better word?”

I didn’t, and I began to realise that for someone with a Ticket To See God – Good for one visit, I was being a bit of a prick.

Frank, being omniscient, read my mind. “Yeah, but don’t worry, all humans are dickheads. Goes with the ‘self-awareness’ thing. Always striving for perfection… Like those arrogant doobs who leave ‘deliberate errors’ in carpets and things, to show that they’re not really capable of perfection, as if they were. Wankers!”

“But, you’re… you know, God. Aren’t you perfect?”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“Do you know anyone who is?”

I shook my head. I didn’t even know anyone who was sane.

“Then how can I be? How can I be perfect if I created imperfection?” He sat back, grinning, and rolled the Chupa-Chup down his tongue.

He had me there. I guess people just had to believe in the idea of perfection, otherwise how could they believe in God? The funny thing was, I had never actually believed in God, or Frank, until a few minutes ago. For all I knew, I might in reality be laying on some sweat sodden dance floor, hallucinating wildly. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time. Perhaps I would wake up in the Recovery Ward again, and this would all be a fading memory. Frank leaned over and pinched my arm with long, apey fingers.

“Ow! Shit, that hurt, Frank!”

“Pain is the only true sign of life. One of Buddha’s, only he says it better.”

“I thought Buddha was only a man?”

He chuckled. “He thought so too. He was my favourite, you know, out of all the prophets. Didn’t go around starting cults and pointing the finger at others.”

“I thought Jesus was your favourite. Wasn’t he your only son?”

“See, there you go with that parochial doctrinal thing. Can’t seem to get that out of your systems. They were all my sons, all my daughters… all my children.”

He gazed off for a moment, looking at the unicorn. There was a tear in his eye.

“You know, don’t you, that you really are alone? In the whole universe, the whole shebang, there is no other intelligent life. You can go on looking, and good on you for trying, but there ain’t nothing out there but bugs, slime and a few creepy things you don’t want to know about. You’re an accident. Your brain, it wasn’t supposed to happen. My bad, I guess. But even I can’t turn back time. I do love you, you know, but I can’t live your lives for you. I don’t answer prayers, or forgive sins. It doesn’t work like that. I just wish you’d learn to love each other, it’s the only way forward.”

I had to ask him. “John Lennon… was he one of yours?”

He turned to me, shaking his head slowly. “He was… one of yours. Wanna know who ordered the hit?”

He told me. I wasn’t surprised. The music industry was full of people like that. He offered me his Chupa-chup. Was I going to pass up a chance to suck on God’s own lollipop, just because it had ape-spit all over it? I took it and put it in my mouth. Mmm, cola.

He brightened up a bit, gave me a friendly slap on the knee.

“Look, I’m happy to talk cosmic shit with you all night,” he said, “But you must have some burning questions, some mysteries you’d like cleared up. Where do you want to start?”

I thought for a moment. So many questions…

“Well, there is something. What’s the deal with pubic hair?”

He smiled, and tapped the side of his flat, apey nose. Then he slowly pushed his index finger into his left nostril, right up to the second knuckle. He withdrew it and contemplated the outcome.

“Sorry, sport. There are some things which must remain a secret.”

Believe No Stone

2008-10-07T23:55:00.001+11:00

The deadliest weapon on earth is a firmly held belief.

In times of stress or crisis, many people will (usually unconsciously) perform some sort of ritual, often one learned in childhood - from picking their nose to throwing a full-blown tantrum, or something a little more sophisticated - "laughing it off", getting a headache, taking the fifth amendment, or just shifting the blame.

There is probably not a human on earth that does not have a repertoire of small but important rituals - the way you brush your teeth, tie your shoes, comb your yak, load your rifle, oh no, they can't take that away from you. Not even those who experience the apparent freedom of extreme madness can escape the domination of ritual - they are, poor bastards, often enslaved to it even more fully, as they count their freckles, endlessly align their pencils, dance clockwise to unheard music and mumble mindless mantras at the back doors of midnight.

Some seem not to have even this support system - the ones who either stay completely cool or crack up suddenly and spectacularly. No religion, no loyalties other than self, respect of the need for law but not for its substance, or custodians, and a painful self-awareness and consequent avoidance of risk-taking. An inability to make decisions.

Decision making requires a belief system.

Animals in the wild do not require beliefs, since important choices are instinctive, or mass decisions made by or in favour of the collective.

Pets, however, develop belief systems. Owner equals food, affection, shelter. Look into your dog’s eyes, and know how a monarch feels. Lay down with men and you get up with flea collars.

Man developed belief systems when he first needed to make decisions, store knowledge and account for the unaccountable. He also found it a great way to forgive himself for undertaking the disposal of other men and their beliefs. Society needs beliefs to survive. Holy Books are survival manuals, encompassing all the rituals of diet, cleanliness, mating and behaviours needed for the collective to survive. They usually provide a schedule of membership fees as well.

Why do people join the belief collectives? Because the purpose of every collective, church, congregation, club or chapter is to anticipate and survive the Apocalypse.

If you believe in that sort of thing.

Summer is a-comin' in...

2008-10-05T10:14:00.005+11:00

Say hello to my little friend. I thought the buzzing was in my ears at first, then I saw this little guy behind the blinds in my office.

I found him on the floor later. He climbed into my hand and I took him out into the yard. (Nice to know my dinky little camera's macro works, too.)

Wisdom and humour...

2008-10-04T14:27:00.009+10:00

A Bit of Fry and Laurie...Tricky Linguistics

If you can't see this properly, here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFD01r6ersw

------

Why A Writer? (I sit and stare...)

2008-10-04T11:11:00.001+10:00

I sit and stare. This empty screen can be the most daunting thing there is. I mean, it’s not just like turning on a tap, it’s not like going into babble mode and hoping it makes sense. The brain must choose which finger to place on which key, and do it several thousand times, and at some point it all has to make sense.

I sit and stare, and feel alone. I feel like the time they chose up teams, remember that? The first of a lifetime of embarrassing rituals to which we were subjected. Cricket in the park had always been fun, but school team choosing was a process of humiliation and degradation based on oily, shifting peer groups that moved sideways even as the picking took place. When it’s down to just you, the geek with taped-up glasses and the fat kid with shit-stained pants, better get some new friends, or pick a different sport. It’s an old story.

I sit and stare. Like the time that Jenny said “Look, I really want to be your friend, but that’s all… With him, it’s different, you know? Didn’t he tell you? He should have.” Yes, I know. No, he didn’t. Yes, he should have, he was supposed to be my best friend. When it’s just you, sitting in your car with that slapped-face look, watching them walk to his house and shut the door, better get some new friends, or cast your net wider. It’s an old story.

So, I sit and stare at what I’ve written, wondering why those words, why now? What little twists of memory combined with the minute synaptic twitches that formed these actions, pounding plastic keys with these two clumsy fingers, forming hieroglyphs that you will read, or not. When it’s just you, sitting at that keyboard, just remember that, at that moment, all those others out there are your friends. Looking into their own personal stores of hurt, of dreams and triumphs, wins and losses, they try to form and order their own lives into something that makes sense, something that justifies the pain.

At last, you don’t need new friends, just new stories.

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Breakfast With A Champion

2008-10-03T11:28:00.009+10:00

Breakfast With A Champion (Farting Around On a Day Like No Other) - A Vonnegut Feeling.

25 September, 08

This isn’t a book review. Even if I knew how to write one (I don’t) I couldn’t because I haven’t finished the book yet.

Normally when I get up in the morning, I turn the computer on, make a cup of tea, let Small Dog out of the kitchen and feed her. Then I sit in front of the screen, reading, conversing and doing a crossword. Then, Big Dog is let out of the laundry, we have breakfast together (he’s blind, but he likes to sit and sniff loudly and suggestively in the direction of my plate as I eat) and then whatever needs to be done gets done, or gets put off until later.

I have the radio on most of the time. Classical music mostly and, now, a new show which combines music with readings from all fields of literature. On the first day, they played a music and dialogue track from the Zefferelli film of Romeo and Juliet, which nearly had me in tears. The other day I sat and listened in awe as Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was read, as quietly and humbly as I imagine it was written. Again, the passage about the consecration of the battlefield had me shaking my head at the ability of mere words (hah!) to move us so very deeply. These are days like any other.

Some days are, of course, not so. Some days are unique. Sometimes it’s something big. A death, a funeral, a birth. Or lunch with an old friend. Sometimes it’s something small. This morning I had to have a blood sample taken for my new doctor. A novel experience as I don’t visit doctors very often. I last had a medical when the Olympic Games came to Sydney and I worked briefly as a driver for NBC TV. So, as fasting was a requirement for the test, I decided I’d go down to the “village” and have breakfast there after I’d been to the pathology centre.

I’ve never given a blood sample before, other than the minor finger-prick type. Having a needle inserted in the elbow and watching three test tubes fill up in a few seconds was a new experience. We bleed fast and, as the nurse agreed, we nearly always crave a coffee afterwards, especially at eight in the morning.

So, blood drawn, I hoofed it around to this little Chinese bonsai nursery and café which I walk past often, went to only once but still remembered liking. They have fountains, lots of greenery and the owner chalks up pithy sayings of Confucius which change daily. I ordered an omelet and coffee and rang my wife (who gets up at four every morning to go to work) to tell her where I was. I’m still not mad about my new mobile phone, I don’t like them much anyway, but it has its uses and makes a great standby camera.

Then – and I think this was the real reason for going there - I pulled out my brand-new, bargain-bin copy of A Man Without A Country and began to read while I waited for my omelet, which was delicious but arrived way too soon. If I hadn’t been so hungry by then I may have let it get cold rather than put my book aside.

I’ve always liked Kurt Vonnegut’s writing. He has a plain-spoken, deceptively folksy style and simple, unadorned truth seems to shine out from his words. Not great, blazing Truth, blinding with Sun-like intensity and screaming out to be printed in quotes on the dust jacket – his truths are more like the distant stars, small points of light in the darkness that we can navigate by if we recognise them. His truths aren’t revelations that leap out and confront you and make you question your worldview. His truths tap you on the shoulder and say “Hey, remember me? Back when you were young and thought your ideals were cast in steel, you used to feel like this.”

(An aside: What I like most about co-incidence is that it never fails to give that frisson of synchronicity, that hint that some instrument of fate might be trying to show us something greater at work than a mere concurrence of events. Not far into the book I found myself reading a short essay about Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and, sure enough, there as an illustration of its greatness, and an exemplar of purely fine writing, was the same passage on the consecration of the battlefield.)

Though this is a book that may be read easily, it is not a book to be taken lightly. It is a book about the meaning of life, the end of the world and the point of no return. For the record, the first is “just farting around”, the second is closer than we think and the third is long past. It isn’t a biography, or even a series of essays, scholarly or otherwise. It isn’t easy to describe. Here is no more or less than a direct and privileged look into the mind of arguably one of the greatest humanists of our time. He may not have been one of a kind (though many would say he was) but he was quite possibly the last of his kind.

This book reminds me of good Japanese food. It looks light and insubstantial but, if properly prepared by a master, it is as filling as steak and dumplings. I put it down after a while, though I could have read all day. Probably not, though – it is a thin book, sparsely typeset and punctuated by resonant, full-page chapter headings. I imagine it could be read in two hours if the reader was lucky enough not to be interrupted. But this is not that kind of book. Like a good bottle of whisky, part of the joy is sipping it slowly and savoring the effect rather than throwing away the cork and bolting the lot. There will be no more once this is finished. It was his last book and possibly his best.

You don’t have to read this book. But you should.

*

PS. I finished the book a day or so later. Took me an hour. In it Vonnegut more-or-less predicts the current economic crash and the whole bail-out notion, which seems to be rewarding the guilty and punishing the helpless and blameless, with his usual acerbic accuracy. I finished it in one gulp, as it were.

At least I don’t do that with whisky anymore (thankfully - I’d be long dead otherwise!)

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