Category Archives: Better Now

Use for the daily ‘being a better man’ activities

Better at Being Old People

Posted on by
1

Visited Nana, Dad, Mum, Grandpa the other day….  Was sitting at McDonalds and an old couple came in….  I saw an old couple walking down the Mall….  Met my mates Nana, Dad, Mum, Grandpa …..

…. and all the fuck I wanted to do was get away, politely and stop myself from gagging!

Why are you wearing those clothes…  Why do you have food down the front of those clothes….  Why are you telling me about your last operation or visit to the doctor…  Why do you keep saying “when I was young”….  and what the fuck is that smell!!!

Is this deliberate; it must be deliberate – if so you win…  if not, it is just sad and annoying…

Being old is a privilege (let me write another blog post about all my young dead friends and family….) – this privilege entitles you to live in the world with the rest of us… but it does not give you the right to live in the past and annoy me in the present.

… and the past is not coming back, and yes, I know you worked hard and did it hard and in your day this and that and please kill me now if you tell me one more time about how good the good old days were….

Well the ‘good’ days today are of your making:  although you deny it, you made this world and now we have to live in it and you keep telling us about how good your world was and how someone else fucked it up, not you, ….. and somehow we are responsible….  and not only that you wont get out of the way!

I know this is all terribly unkind and disrespectful to the elderly…. but, I would love to hear about how you solved a problem, or overcame adversity, or suffered a loss, or had an adventure, or what your world was really like….. without boring me to death, or whinging, or lecturing me.

I have had many an old mate, some of my best mates were and are 30+ years older than me… and I am old.  Did they bore me, no!  Did they tell me about their scheduled doctors appointment, no!  Did they complain about the world, no!

They revelled in their old age, they embraced the present and shared wisdom and humour… they transcended age and shared the thought that took years in the making… and they shared loyalty, honour, grace that only comes with time and experience.  They told their stories and never lectured, boasted or complained….  they grew old with acceptance and gratitude.

I’m sorry, but, I am not sorry really; if you are old and have nothing good to say about then, now or the future, please remember the hand you dealt us in todays world which is of your making…. you had your chance now please, please, get out of the way…..

…. and especially you old men who wont let go of that small morsel of power you possess…..  Yes, yes, you worked hard for it…  Bullshit, mostly you just waited your turn…. merit wasn’t around remember it was seniority…

I still baulk at people when they tell me they were born in the 70’s, or 80’s… or even the 90’s and they are my doctor!  (Just think about it if you were born this century you are 18 years old this year….  I am telling old people to think about this!!)

Old people…. it is not your world anymore!!!

So you (we, me) are in our 50’s, 60’s, 70’s or even 80’s and are still working, still wanting, dare I say, to be in charge, hang around for that extra $10 of pension….  do us all a favour and retire or die…  you are in the way!   …. and if you can’t because you can’t afford it then look at the good old days and see how you wasted your money as you relied on your government pension which is now being taken away from you by either your peers or your children….  why?  Maybe it was the way they were brought up!

Okay, this is a nasty post….  but sometimes things just have to be said….. and it is now a published reminder that as I age, do so gracefully, with some degree of humility and with a resolve to guide, help, coach, facilitate and support the young of the world…. it is their world now and we have to get out of the way!

PS:  Make sure you remind me of this next time I bitch about those young bucks and their stupid clothes and dumb attitudes….

 

Better at Surviving the Apocalypse

Posted on by
Reply

All the news is bad and I watch too many Zombie apocalypse movies… but, over the last few years a truck just ran through a crowd in France killing people (I was going to say including women and children but aren’t all lives valued the same – probably not?), a car in Melbourne did the same… and man with a knife etc etc etc…..   (Just a little fun fact about a few people dying from terrorists and a few crazies…. anyone remember the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami which killed over 240,000 people in 14 countries…..  can’t stop that one with a taser and a trolly!) 

I don’t think there is a great likelihood of there being a Zombie apocalypse or evil virus designed to wipe out the human race – but, I am sure there is some sort of war going on against us – and I mean all of us.  Plus, danger appears to be everywhere.

I am angry that the world is becoming (or is it just appearing to be…) such an unsafe and dangerous place, for us all to live in.  I write posts, I espouse threats, theories and rhetoric in the pub every chance I get, I like Facebook post that are angry,  and I get angry at the News (even though I have vowed to stop watching the it!)

But…. the big ‘but’ here is that I can do something about it; the other ‘but’ is I must decide what it is I am going to do – I have to have a plan.  So:

  1. I can decide to make a real difference, which would entail me dedicating my life to righting all these wrongs and really doing something about it.  I can join a lobby, protest and/or militant group to fight back.  I can run for politics and stand up.  I must be dedicated and fight with all I have, I mean everything – all else in my life must become secondary – to not do this just makes me another keyboard or pub warrior not making a difference but just making a noise….or
  2. I can do what I can and try and live my life the best I can.  What is doing what I can.  First of all it is stop talking and start doing, start paying attention to all the things I see in the world that make me crazy and start realising that it doesn’t all really mean anything until it happens to me, in my life, at my doorstep, to my family, to my friends (only close friends mind you!) – and, most of all be prepared (just like a Boy Scout).
  3. I can do nothing.

Interlude:  I got a little excited being a dooms dayer and realise I actually don’t really think this way all that much anymore…. this is one of my ‘draft posts‘ that I started after the truck ran through the crowd in France.  I was angry that anyone would do this…. and I was angry that this truck travelled over a kilometre and was crashing into cars, buildings, posts (and people) and still, people at the 900 metre mark were run over by SURPRISE (!) when the truck came up behind them.  I was angry at them for dying.  I was angry for them dying so badly.  Yeah, the first few hundred metres you can expect that people were  unexpecting….  but hundreds of metres later, with crashing and screaming and dying….  people were still oblivious to a truck smashing down a pedestrian walkway towards them – even if it was from behind….  I actually wonder how many died looking at their phones trying to start their video app so they could capture whatever was happening….   I think they just died badly… and worse…. oblivious and without really putting up a fight!

Interlude II :  I do feel sorry for all the people who have died in these terrible violent incidents we seem to be plagued with in our modern world…. but, just to put all that into perspective we ARE – read the following as a fact; you can research it and find I am right even if the media (the Merchants of Misery) don’t want you to think it….  we ARE living in the SAFEST, MOST PROSPEROUS, HEALTHIEST, period in human history – not just recent times, or centuries, but EVER! (CLICK HERE for a good article about the statistics involved).  So why are we all so afraid and convinced the world in on the brink of apocalypse….?

So where was I before the interlude(s)…..

I was going to attempt to survive the apocalypse, although it is unlikely it will happen, I still would not like to die oblivious and wearing my life jacket when the ship sinks.

Some years ago two of our children were involved in serious ‘survival’ situations that they were lucky to get out of, relatively unscathed…..  I thought, I am the doomsday prepper from way back, yet could not help my children when they needed me the most.  Why?  Because I wasn’t there and I had always planned on talking to them about ‘survival situations’ tomorrow….  well that day came, and guess what?  It caught us all by surprise!

So the next Christmas I gave the all the kids ‘survival packs’ for their cars…  Yes, I know it sounds crazy and paranoid, but they all carry them in their cars – and they love them, and they show their friends.

The packs have first aid, a few space blankets, some tools etc etc – the content is not really as important as the message.  …. and as a matter of fact the packs do contain a message in the form of the “Survival Manifesto”.  This is a short document which is the most important survival ‘tool’ in the pack.  It is a really simple message of staying alive when things go wrong by following the “Four Rules of Survival’:



I have noticed that when I ask people what is the first rule of survival, nobody gets it.

We often think of all those wonderful tips and tricks on the TV about survival, like building a fire, finding shelter, finding water etc etc – most of which most of us can’t really do in real life, in the real bush, in a real survival situation.

The one thing we never think about is not getting in that situation in the first place.

Now of course, this doesn’t help in surviving the apocalypse – because I am sure when it comes, the apocalypse that is, it will be beyond our control…. but most things in our day to day lives, even in those little moments which change the course of our lives, often, all we have to do is take a moment and think…. is this really a good idea?

Both situations involving my children could have been avoided, or at the very least minimised, if the first and perhaps the second rule of survival had been followed….

Also, survival as you can see is not about being able to build a hut from your boot laces and a mars bar wrapper – it is more about what is going on inside your head.

I know one thing.  The giving of the ‘eye rolling’ gift of the survival packs to my children and the highlighting of the above four rules make my kids, and me, and perhaps even you now that you have read this, more likely to survive ‘that situation’ (or perhaps even avoid it) than the vast majority of the world, who not only die, but unfortunately die badly and dumb.

I might write a few more articles about surviving the apocalypse from the ‘manifesto’ – but then again when times get tough, food is scarce and the shit has hit the fan, perhaps if there were less of us it would be easier…..

PS:  Statistically…..  if it is ‘every man for themselves’ usually 90 to 100% of people die – yet when everyone works together 90 to 100% survive….. can anyone guess what we humans do in 90% of survival situations……?  (I didn’t make this up and if you are interested a great book to read about historical survival situations is: “No Mercy – True Stories of Disaster, Survival and Brutality” by Eleanor Learmonth and Jenny Tabakoff)

 

 

Better a World of Punctuation and Pictures

Posted on by
Reply

i have written a few posts over the last couple of days and read them to my wife this morning and she said they were okay and that is my problem i agreed that they are just okay nothing special and nothing that i was really proud to read out to her they just lacked that the translation of the image i had in my head into words that actually reflected what i was thinking a trying to get across i just didn’t see it in the words and the pictures in my head were fading and confused by the words on the page my wife asked if all my posts had to be perfect to which i replied have you seen the spelling in some of them perfection was not what i was after it was the feeling the quickening of the pulse of a thought the rise of emotion which unfortunately mostly was anger against some injustice or my perception of the world which overall i think is pretty fucked but actually it was that these things were not there there just wasn’t any punctuation or picture to my posts they were just a grey landscape of mediocre thought slowly poured onto the page like a stain not a statement i realised the world in pretty bland without punctuation and pictures we all know the old adage about the use of punctuation regarding helping uncle jack of a horse and the world is also pretty bland without pictures especially the ones we can create in our heads through imagination love laugher and the memories of wonderful or even hard moments so i think i will spend a bit of time punctuating my life with the things that are important and seeing the picture that life creates in beauty and joy and always remember it probably doesnt matter that much what i write here or what i say as it is ultimately about how i make people feel through action or more often than not the restrain of reaction

and a final exclamation mark

i just had my wife read this as it is a post that must be read and can not be read out to you she did not say anything and i said you hate it and she said i was trying to be profound and it did not work so therefore i must post it as that is what men do sometimes just to prove a point and other times for no other reason than we are men and this is what we do i will go back and review on a few of my draft posts i have been working on and see if i can make them as shit as this one i suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder and a picture tells a thousand words my wife told me my posts were too long so at least this one is shorter but more importantly when you wife has the honesty to tell you something you did is shit she is usually right!

Better Brevity….

Posted on by
Reply

I am verbose.  I just can’t help it.  My kids tell me, my wife tells me …. and my mates just walk off or hang up, after saying “I’m bored.”

I read my wife my blogs and she just about always says “Yeah, I like it but….”

If you are a smart man you know the ‘but‘ will always undo any good work you have done!

So, taking advice is one of the hardest things in the world to do – especially if it involves changing something that you like to do – for me one of those things is exposing my knowledge to everyone about everything (asked for or not… e.g. this blog), telling stories (usually as pointed out again by my wife, having only a slight resemblance to actual events), ‘helping’ people by telling them what to do (see above… I hate this as well!) and writing pages of what I believe are profound words never before experienced by my hungry for knowledge and appreciative readers….. (?!)

My wife says these things are all okay, as with all things men do, requiring modification at their wife’s ‘suggestion‘ so that the man she never wanted to change when she married him, changes to the way he will find his life the happiest – I hate ‘happy wife, happy life’ but how true is it!

For me, at the moment that is brevity.

Making the verbose brief.  The profound short.  Stories to the point and unexaggerated – most are good in original form anyway.  ….. and a phrase in any marriage listen to often by the men, but never to be uttered – ‘get to the point!’

It’s happening now – I am being verbose in my brevity.

So, my posts will be shorter.  Like this one.

Better All Tech Marine – Renmark

Posted on by
Reply

Blatant Advertisement!

I hate shit service and most of life when you look at it, involves various degrees of shit service.  (I am writing another post called “Better with Bullshit ” about all the unbelievable things happening in our world – some of which is that ‘service’ in all forms is a thing of the past – yet we all just tolerate it….  I am not publishing that today because I just wanted to write something positive!)

This is a blatant advertisement for a local business here in the Riverland at Renmark because they know about customer service – All Tech Marine Services.

There is a back story to this and that is my little boat ‘el deso’ – I semi inherited this boat from my old mate Des when he shuffled from this mortal coil a few years ago (read about Des in my post “Better with Des Steele, my friend“).  It is not a big boat, or a great boat, or a fast boat or in fact a particularly pretty boat, but it is a boat that Des used to ‘take on holidays’ with our mate Puk (we always said that he took it on holidays because they used to tow it to various locations and decide that each day was better spent filled with ‘a fair component of fuck all’ as opposed to all the trouble of boating and fishing – gotta love that philosophy!).

So, one thing about ‘el deso’ is that it is all about the sentiment.  Which of course makes you vulnerable to spending money out of that sentiment instead of out of any thought of sensibility and practicality….

Now ‘el deso’ is a bit old.  I think around a 1978 Rover hull and until recently the loudest pre-mix 2 stroke Mariner motor on the market – I think about the same vintage, or even older than the hull.  All Tech Marine had managed to salvage the motor once buy actually making a part for the motor when they couldn’t source it anywhere in Australia – and even on that occasion came in under the price they quoted me.

 

So we get to the last few weeks.  The motor again had a ‘few glitches’ and parts were just not available.  I spoke to the guys at All Tech Marine and set a budget and asked if they could source a motor suitable for good old ‘el deso’….  a week or so later (with a few updates per phone during that period) Paul contacted me – almost as excited as me!  …. he had found a motor, had to get it shipped here and managed to do a deal with a mate… etc etc…. it was a long story and involved his personal commitment to getting the job done in budget: actually it was a pretty cool story involving his contacts for my benefit….

New motor, new Bimni (fitted and better and cheaper than all the others I had been looking at on the internet….)…. and the motor, fitted, with new controls and even for the first time a few gauges in the dash which told me what was actually happening back there!

So, why the big deal about getting service that you expect.  Because we always expect it but rarely get it!  The team at All Tech Marine felt like mates doing me a favour!

Yeah, I paid.  But, I paid a fair price and more to the point I was happy as a pig in shit with everything.  I could have been taken advantage of over ‘sentiment’ and they knew this, but actually did the opposite and could understand that sometimes ‘important’ has a different meaning…

So ‘el deso’ hit the water again a few days ago – I even took the wife!  …. we were going to go fishing, take it for a trial burn up and down the river…. and then we decided to spend a moment thinking about my old mate Des, being a bit grateful for a business that ‘gets’ that some boats are a little more than water transport… and filled the majority of the day with ‘a fair component of fuck all….’

 

Better Weathering the Storm

Posted on by
2

I read some time ago that emotions are actually physical reactions, hardwired into us, whether it be genetically or from the reprogramming of our life experience…. I believe this.

Your ‘physical emotion’ then is perceived by your brain and an interpretation made….  this is individual.

If someone is tailgating me – my emotion is anger…. if someone is tailgating my wife – her emotion is nervousness.  Upon our brain interpreting the physical emotion we then create the feedback loop to our body of that interpretation – the body reacts to that, and then we escalate our physical response and the cycle continues.

If you catch your body providing you with an emotion, and you catch your mind making the learned interpretation… maybe it won’t be the same learned interpretation this time.

Maybe that anger at the tailgater can be seen differently…

“Shit, where did he come from.  Is that arsehole close enough.  That prick. I’ll fucking show him…….    Hang on buddy!  A minute ago I was driving to the shops and looking forward to a coffee – what has changed?  The way I am looking at it.  I am not actually angry….  Okay mate, you’re up my arse – for whatever reason, I’m sure its not going to affect my day I was enjoying 1 minute ago.  I’m slowing down, pulling to the side, way you go…. okay, thanks for the finger and mouthing of ‘fuck head’……   now where was I.  Oh, yeah, I think I’ll have a donut with my coffee….”

…. and you beat the body emotion.  It is gone… it is like a magic trick we were never taught and never knew how the rabbit got into the hat and suddenly found out.  It can’t be that easy – but it is.  It is will, and surrender – the will to do it and the surrender of a grievance whether real or imagined.  ….. and like magic I am on my way to a coffee and donut and looking forward to another stamp on my coffee card.

Sometimes we all feel to much – our bodies feel too much about too little and our mind get it wrong.

I wrote a little think to myself the other day about anxiety and depression….

You feel too much…

You appreciate your life too much…

You love too much…

You love the things and people in your life too much….

You actually feel too much about being alive….

It overwhelms you: life.

…. and in doing so;

You become overwhelmed and not overjoyed;

You think you are wrong in it;

Wrong for it;

It is you who is wrong and not worthy of this wonder.

And this, these thoughts,
Stop you from moving past the overwhelming into the joy of it all.

You have to weather this avalanche of emotion,
connection..
concern..
involvement…
and insight…
to peacefulness.

Through to peacefulness,
Through the moment.

How?
Through meditation – but, if that doesn’t come to you,
Through taking each moment in the moment without reaction;  weathering the storm without resistance,
Not tightening the sails against the wind or fighting the rudder – but running with it.

Run with the wind,
Surf down the face of the waves,
Breach the breaks,
and appreciate the troughs.

Why?
Because the storm will pass.
You will forget the storm.
The storm will never have happened except within yourself.
It was a dream you created…
… and when the calm comes;
… when the peacefulness engulfs you.

The anxiety never was; the depression imaginary.

Better at Achieving

Posted on by
Reply

What do you want to be when you grow up?

What a stupid question to ask a 13 year old in their first year of high school – what a stupid question to ask a 17 year old just before they decide what University course they will take to shape the rest of their life.

I think I have spoke before about a question I ask my friends – all around my age (50s) – when I say if money wasn’t a problem and you couldn’t fail “What would you do?”  (I always say I would like to be an astronaut;  but, if I want to be realistic in this unrealistic question I discount that one – I choose my passion….)….  do you know the vast majority of my friends say “I don’t know?”   …… how sad.

Surely we all want to achieve and go about each day doing that – the problem is that we don’t know what it is that we want to achieve.

I suppose that’s why I think most of you are shit.  That’s why I think politicians, the Merchants of Misery (the Media), the retailers, the wholesalers, the farmers, the importers and exporters are all working towards stopping me from achieving what I want to do, what I want to be…. they are just all trying to fuck me up and are just getting in my way.

Then, not long ago actually (and possibly 45 years too late…)  I realised that I was the one that was shit – no-one was making me feel shit, I was choosing to feel shit.  No-one was getting in my way – I was the only one getting in my way.

I wasn’t achieving because I wasn’t, I just wasn’t;  I was to busy blaming everyone else for all the things I wasn’t doing.  The thing is that achieving is not getting a better job, a promotion, a new car, TV or house – all those things are transient, they all get old, they all break down or the new one comes out and we can’t afford that one either.

Just to let you know, you will never be happy with anything you own because something bigger and better will always come out tomorrow… you are chasing a happiness that will forever elude you into the future.

You also won’t be able to find happiness because like the new car, the newer car, and the car that hasn’t bee invented yet…. happiness is an infinite goal.

How do most people answer the question “If you could have anything, what would it be?”   Most people will answer “To be happy.”  It is the answer without meaning.  It has no meaning like all Miss Universe contestants wanting world peace.  Because when you are happy, which is an undefinable state of being, surely you would only then want to be happier, or more happy, or the happiest!  What is the limit on happiness.  Happiness is a futuristic myth.  Happiness is already here – just like achievement you just aren’t doing it.

But, if you are trying to achieve things while everybody is stopping you, with the ultimate goal of being happy – isn’t that just an impossible hope.

Wow, how pessimistic – the best part is in the end, you die!

But, what if it is not about stuff, or getting ahead, or getting that car, house… and following the dream of ultimately being happier.  What if being happy is a lot like love.  Most of us have been (some still are!) in love.  Can you identify the moment you fell in love – not the first time you said it, but the moment that, even discounting that initial ‘love at first sight’ myth (it’s called lust!), or that 1 week after meeting, or that 1 year after being in a relationship, when being together and liking that person a lot, changed for you into love?  No?  That is because being in love, falling in love, is not what is being sold to by the media.

Love is a series of small moments that change your world;  a look, a kind gesture, a word, a touch – not at 3 am after 15 shooters, but over time.  It is the culmination of connection, the putting of someone before yourself, kindness, understanding, listening and ….. and all the stuff you can’t identify that are really the little things….

Achievement is like that… the little things.  It is ‘eating the elephant’ – how do you do it? One mouthful at a time.  Achievement is what happiness is.  Achievement is not success, or fame or glory, or even recognition.  Achievement is the doing, the act of movement towards realistic goals, tasks, jobs or even completing the mundane with awareness.

I didn’t mow the lawn because I got up late, had a slow breakfast and then it was time to watch the footy….  I got up, enjoyed my breakfast and walked outside and mowed the lawn and then sat down a loved watching the footy – I had achieved and enjoyed.

Achievement is not about doing it all today but, about doing something.  It is about having some goal, some aim, something to do towards making ‘things’ better – it can even be a phone call (especially the one you have been putting off)…  achievement may actually be about not doing things that don’t achieve in the traditional sense;  those beers every night after work, the junk food instead of making a meal, having a smoke break, having an argument about something that doesn’t matter….  achievement is everywhere; you just have to notice… and actually do it.

And what does all this achievement bring? Happiness.  Happiness is achievement – it is doing things that are good for you and even more so for others.

Achievement is like love – you will do a task, reach a goal, help someone, do the hardest task on your list – and at the end of the day, when you have achieved (or at least broke the back of a job) what you set out to do, take a moment… you are a bit tired perhaps, good tired from doing hard things… take a moment and you may find that happiness has crept up on you and you weren’t even looking for it when you where cleaning out the gutters.

Better at Being Confused

Posted on by
Reply

I spend most days confused – some of this confusion is no doubt due to the inordinate amount of beer I drink and believe I can dance and sing better than you (and I am willing to prove it!) – but, mostly it is because I don’t understand most things going on in the world.

I once heard a defendant answer a question put to them by a Judge during a trial where the defendant was pointlessly giving evidence in a trial he was destined to lose, when asked could he explain why several witnesses, one who knew him personally had identified him as the perpetrator – to which he replied:     “It’s a mystery to me Your Honour?”

The world is becoming a mystery to me.  Some time ago I was advised by my wife that watching the news on TV was not good for my (and her) peaceful co-existance; as yelling at the TV and saying everything was bullshit was not considered constructive criticism or polite debate – I would eventually yell, this is fucking bullshit, they are this, they are that, etc etc, and storm out and go and drink beer in the shed.

Suddenly it all made sense to me when I hear Denzel Washington being interviewed where he said:

“If you don’t read the newspaper you’re uninformed.  If you do read it, you’re misinformed…. What is the long-term effect of too much information?  One of the effects is the need to be first, not even tell the truth anymore.”

I agree!

So, I made the decision to be uniformed.  Guess what it didn’t change my life one little bit. I started watching Family Feud instead of the news which in addition to stopping me yelling at the TV gave me the realisation that on the big scale of things my family is pretty normal – and also to never trust a survey when you only have 100 people (also never go on the show as they make you dance like a fuckwit in the sound proof booth before your turn in the final round!)

Today I am uninformed. When ever someone tells me something terrible is happening in the world, or this or that politician (or more likely this celebrity) is doing something, or failed to do something or got another payrise to make their annual salary $17 million instead of the poulty $15 million they were getting before being cut from the Mets (whoever the fuck they are?)….  I turn to them with glazed eyes and say “What?”…  they often repeat the diatribe of useless information to which I reply “Want another beer?” and they always say yes and we have a better conversation about surviving the apocalypse, or building a better mouse trap or laugh a fat people playing sport/dancing or just drink our beer and reminisce about our youth when we went through that fantastic ‘purple patch’ from 1988 to 1995 inclusive.

Today I made the mistake of ‘scanning’ the news headlines on a daily email I get from the ABC – I usually delete it after reading the first headline which is about a politician or catholic priest or celebrity or ISIS or the overwhelming crime wave we are currently experiencing…. (I have to ask myself why I don’t just unsubscribe from the email list?)…

This mistake of actually reading all the headlines and then the ultimate cardinal sin (a different one to ex-Archbishop Phil Wilson I might add!) of actually reading a few of the articles – I might add yelling at your phone is not quite the same as yeling at the TV.  So, what did I learn in just todays headlines:

  • The largest criminal organisation on the planet (the Catholic Church) ‘gracefully’ accepted the resignation of a convicted child abuse concealer….  really?!
  • My speedo in my car may not be accurate if I put on different tyres… a headline… really?!
  • Two people who exposed our Government illegally taping another Government over trade deals may face charges – 14 years after it happened…. really and why?!
  • Saving for a house is a ridiculous dream for young Australian…  that’s it, kick ’em when they are down and not only tell them that we fucked the planet but they can’t afford to live on it… our generation has no conscience?!
  • A 16 year old reports on the drought… what are the rest of the Media doing about NSW QLD drought?!
  • Aviation fighters had 20 times normal PFAS in their blood….  I dont even know what that means and didnt read the article as I had 4 times the legal limit of alcohol in my blood from the previous evening session in the shed!
  • Logging kills gliders intensively – intensively; oh look which journalist got a thesaurus for their birthday!
  • Time is running out for people to have babies – and this is new?
  • Hernia mesh patient says….. oh, fuck another modern miricle in medicine becomes a class action (this article also talked about vaginal mesh – I just thought there would be pictures….)….  thank you Dr for saving 10,000 lives but unfortunately we have a class action because…. wait for it, the obese, cigarette smoking patient got an infection… I would hesitate to guess not the first one (see above re vaginal mesh!)
  • ‘Mum Guilt’ as the NZ Prime Minister goes back to work…. I think she is fantastic… but let’s just not talk about that, stereotype her into a ‘multitasking working Mum’ not a leader of a nation – Oh, you have a kid, how nice what about our 10 billion dollar trade deal!
  • Stray dog given participation medal in half-marathon – so, all kids get participation medals for coming eighth at sports day?
  • Koalas starving to death…. not the babies as they eat their own mothers shit; fun fact, just thought I’d share that one!
  • Health service providers have most data breaches – oh, God most people share more on Facebook than are in their medical records – more to the point who the fuck keeps these statistics and why?
  • Why doesn’t the tropical north produce more agriculture – good question which I have never thought about in my life and care less about now than before I read the article – there was hoever a nice picture of a cowboy, I mean cow-person…
  • Trump says….. didn’t read the rest (also applies to any article mentioning a politician)
  • MH370 victim families to continue to fight for answers….  am I the only one who thinks it strange that we accept a commercial airliner disappears and all 239 people on it (of which six are Australians) are presumed dead, somewhere; and we have a report to say we don’t know why it happened and we have stopped looking for it….  Really?
  • ‘Selfie Police’ called to stop… sorry didnt read the rest, had to take a picture of my breakfast.
  • Feel like you’re financially treading water? ….that’s because most of us are – this article was base on a survey by “Melbourne Institute’s study of Household Income and Labour Dynamics” – I stopped reading, surely that’s a joke organisation…. like “Premature Ejaculators Anonymous – PEA” of which I was a member but when I went to my first meeting no-one else was there – I was apparently a day early….
  • Zimbabwe begins counting votes… stopped reading, if you can’t have a straight election in the USA what hope does Zimbabwe have?
  • Man found dead in storage shed wheelie bin went missing in 2001 – couldn’t read it, I had too many jokes, I wheelie did, how long he bin there, he was only found as they put the wrong bin out on recycling day, etc etc
  • Then there were 9 article under the heading ‘Opinion’ – so this is not even news but just what someone thinks about stuff – get a blog!

So, that was my experience with the News today – do I feel misinformed; was I better off uninformed?

I am just confused as I know I actually feel dumber and wasted this time when I could have been watching YouTube videos (my normal breakfast entertainment) about building a rock sieve out of an old tumble dryer ….

 

 

 

 

 

 

My confusion stems from a number of facts – yes, facts:

  1. We live in the most prosperous, safest, healthiest time in ALL human history yet we fear everything…. (this is a statistic fact – look it up!)
  2. We live on a planet where we are all the same species (humans that is…) and are at the top of the food chain, but care more about a new plasma TV than… well just about more than everything else….
  3. We don’t know who to trust or what to believe (I am still reviewing my recent research on the flat Earth Society page – this is very convincing stuff, you should have a read – don’t get me started on the existence of giants!!!!)

So, the upshot is, I like being confused.  Because in being confused I constantly question.

Most of the time the people I question as they expose the ‘facts’ are the ones with the biggest opinion, the biggest bank account and the biggest arse – and they often say I saw it on the News (except the last one as they usually say “No, I’m big boned” as they inhale another pie!)

And, also I wrote this article a couple of days ago and the News headlines have changed – or have they?  I have to sign off now as I am currently stirring up a shit storm on Facebook about the Queensland Drought and people are coming out of the woodwork with their expert opinions – none so far live in Queensland, or are farmers… maybe they just watched the News.

 

Better at Doing Things Tomorrow

Posted on by
Reply

I  Was Going to

 

I was going to do it yesterday

And then today came

And now it is tomorrow, and I am old

 

I checked the list again

And it is still there

I was going to do it yesterday

It’s today and I don’t want to

 

I talk about doing it and my friends agree

We will do it tomorrow

And nobody shows up and we put it off to tomorrow

And we walk, and we talk and we wait for tomorrow

And it comes and we talk and we walk

And we say we will do it tomorrow

 

I was going to start today but nobody came and it didn’t look like it needed doing

I can do it tomorrow

I planned for it yesterday and we decided it wasn’t urgent and there was plenty of time

We walked and we talked and now we planned and we decided to do it tomorrow

 

It didn’t matter in the end

Nobody wanted it done, except me

I am old

And it isn’t done

And my friends are gone

 

And I wish I had done it yesterday.

Better at “Wishing You Were Dead”

Posted on by
Reply

I actually have a pre-occupation with death – because it is the one inevitability, yet we fill our lives worrying about shit – and buying shit….

I actually wish you were all dead.

Yes, really dead…. and then by some miracle you got to come back.

Would it be at this point that you realised that prior to your death, your temporary death, that just because you lived as if you were immortal, you were not and death was real – the end – no more…. well, would you then do things differently.  Fuck I would.

Firstly, I would delete every arsehole from my life – for some of you that may be me!  Secondly, I would sell everything I owned that I worked ‘all my life’ to get, as there is no point – no trailers on a hearse!  Thirdly, I would spend every minute with the ones I love, telling them that I love them – if they wouldn’t stop to talk, or catch up for a coffee or have a drink – as they were too busy, I would write them a letter, send them a card; something they could hold and feel.  Fourthly, I would go and look at stuff that was interesting, beautiful, spiritual… and travel, chat with people about their lives, share a meal, fuck I’d buy it for them, I sold all my worthless shit, I am rich for a while!  Plus, I’d send post cards back to all the people I love – post cards were good, now we just post shit on ShitBook and get likes from people that don’t like that we are travelling and they are working to buy shit for when they die.

Then if that took a day, a year or the rest of my life, which it would – then on that last day, when I spend that last dollar of my allocated time – I could say it wasn’t a waste, it was worthwhile, it was meaningful – and everyone would have good post cards to remember me by.

So, how come I write this … and I reassure you I haven’t been dead and come back to life … well, why write this?

I think it is because only a very few of us actually do…. not die and come back, but do what we really want – what is good in life… the reason is that the rest of us don’t really think we are going to die, until we do.  Then of course it is too late.

The funny part about this is when it is someone else who dies, we are also a bit surprised, sometimes.  And we think how much we miss them, and all the things we should have said, or apologised for, or all the times we almost caught up and cancelled for an urgent and unexpected work emergency…  then we just go on living and are glad we are still alive and live tomorrow just like yesterday.   Fuck we are all gutless.

If you are really into ‘self help’ you probably recently read ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck’ – I have spoken to a few people who have and they all seem to have forgotten a major point of the book is not about not giving a fuck but about giving a fuck about the right things.  A great example of this is Henry Bukowski; in the book he is put up as a hero / anti-hero and as you can see from his tombstone, he really didn’t give a fuck – which is not really what the book is about.

The point?

Old Henry really did what he wanted to – if you want a moment in the surreal, read a few of Henry’s poems or stories – he was one fucked up dude who didn’t give a fuck, and was proud of it.

I’m not saying I want to be Henry, but shit I admire him (much like most of the Australian population admire Ned Kelly and he was a thieving, horse stealing cop murderer who deserved to hang!) – but although Henry was a drunken prick at least he was funny right to the end.  (I have included one of my favourite poems at the of this post….).

Henry, thought about death a lot and realised his life was a big pile of shit, so treated it with the contempt that it, and he deserved…..  most of our lives are not like that – and there are a whole lot of people in the world who are much, much worse off than most of us – and even if you are one of them, you appear happier than most of us.

I know it will be a surprise when I die, because I wont think it will be that day; fuck it wasn’t even in my diary.  I used to have a mate who used to say (in jest, as he is still here annoying me…)  “My life is shit…. I’m going to kill myself… Oh fuck, I just don’t have the time….!”   Maybe, we all don’t have the time to actually live. let alone die.

So, that is my depressing (for you maybe, but, I am quite proud of myself…) post for today.

So, why?

Well, because today I saw a man who was looking the grim reaper in the eye, and he was shit scared – bet he never woke up this morning expecting that…..

           Death of an idiot – by Henry Bukowski

he spoke to mice and sparrows
and his hair was white at the age of 16.
his father beat him every day and his mother
lit candles in the church.
his grandmother came while the boy slept
and prayed for the devil to let loose his hold upon
him
while his mother listened and cried over the
bible.

 

he didn’t seem to notice young girls
he didn’t seem to notice the games boys played
there wasn’t much he seemed to notice
he just didn’t seem interested.

he had a very large, ugly mouth and the teeth
stuck out
and his eyes were small and lusterless.
his shoulders were slumped and his back was bent
like an old man’s.

 

he lived in our neighborhood.
we talked about him when we got bored and then
went on to more interesting things.
he seldom left his house. we would have liked to
torture him
but his father
who was a huge and terrible man
tortured him for
us.

 

one day the boy died. at 17 he was still a
boy. a death in a small neighborhood is noted with
alacrity, and then forgotten 3 or 4 days
later.

but the death of this boy seemed to stay with us
all. we kept talking about it
in our boy-men’s voices
at 6 p.m. just before dark
just before dinner.

and whenever I drive through that neighborhood now
decades later

I still think of his death
while having forgotten all the other deaths
and everything else that happened
then.