Category Archives: Better because it’s Funny

Better a World of Punctuation and Pictures

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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 All Tech Marine – Renmark

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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 at “Wishing You Were Dead”

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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.

 

Better at Being a Politically Active Vegan

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If you eat meat and don’t vote for (insert who you vote for here ____________ ) then you are wrong…..

Today I was having two discussions on Facebook about veganism and politics – both of which I care little about… however, the supplying of information, unsolicited, from both camps of course encouraged me to be adversarial, research both topics (in the opposite of course) and bait both ‘information’ providers….  why?

Because as always stated politics and religion (and diet) should not be discussed in polite coffee shop and/or dinner party conversation, as this adage I have paraphrased and bastardised sort of goes.  And why is this so.  Because, for me, I don’t care what you think or eat, just don’t preach it to me.

I rambled of a few quotes this morning which I ‘cherry picked’ from a very calculating series of Google searches, all of which started with “the opposite argument to….” – of course I got 1000’s of hits – as well as a very convincing video of the flat earth theory by the ‘Flat Earth Society’ (it looked pretty creditable actually…..?)

It is also very interesting in these sort of debates …. say that with an accent and it can be pronounced from my perspective as “da-baits” ….. because I can listen all day to the ramblings of a true believer (a skilled learned from being dragged to Church every Sunday morning during my childhood) as it gives me time to think about other things…. until their constant drone appears to be punctuated with one word that wears me down and signifies the true sport of antagonising the true believer is about to begin….  that word is “YOU”.

Okay what do I mean.

Simple.

I believe in God – versus – You should believe in God.

Okay, I can listen to your ramblings and have no problem with your beliefs – you can believe in the God Zot, from the planet Zing which requires that you put on a tin foil hat 3 times a day and pray facing the home world – but don’t try and sell it to me.  It is okay to tell me about it, to tell me about YOUR beliefs, so don’t wreck a good and amusing story, or the continued demonstrated perseverance of childhood conditioning, or peer pressure, or ideological blindness, that has helped you form your belief; but don’t, never, ever, ever, say “You should….”  for that sort of missionary position (sorry had to use that phrase) is the beginning of ‘da-bait’ and you cast it, so lets have some fun – well for me anyway.

All this is a bit cruel – for you and me – mainly me; as it doesn’t make me a better man….

I, yes I, will try and do better.  I will pray to ZOT for guidance.

PS:  Apologies there were no pictures on this post, but I wanted to have a post that didn’t have pictures to see how many would take the time to read to the end and then share this post with others……. hang on, I think I have seen this written somewhere before, I didn’t share it and didn’t receive any good luck (but, I am currently negotiating with a very nice man who through a Government accounting error has received millions of dollars to……but, that is another story for another post) –  I will pray to ZOT, who works in mysterious ways.

Better at Birthdays (10227)

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Well, here we are again – another birthday.

Last year I wrote a post called something similar, except it was 20454 days in the brackets (link to that post here).  That was the number of days I had lived to that point.  The number in the brackets of this post is the days I have left (if I live to be 85).

This is an important number for me.  Yes, I may be obsessed with death – but, after all, it is the one inevitability; you can’t count taxes anymore considering most multinational companies don’t pay any!   Funnily I’ve written so many times about ‘The Merchants of Misery’ and bullshit politicians who make us buy, make us spend and then blame us that paying taxes now is almost like paying for shit entertainment and being unable to get a refund…!!!

Death is a sad and depressing thing to think about on your Birthday – probably, but, it reminds me that the days we do have are limited.  We spend most of our days not thinking it could be our last, or that we only have a few left – we spend most of our days living as if we are going to live forever.  I personally have never met any immortals, or for that matter heard of any existing, so, the grim reaper will eventually come knocking for all of us….

It doesn’t mean that our life is pointless – just like it doesn’t mean our life has to be important to be well lived – actually for most of us our lives are not very important to the big scheme of things other than we are a small grain of sand in an endless beach of sand, which is somehow connected to all the other grains of sand, even if it is just for the briefest of moments.

I can’t wait for tomorrow when my Birthday will be over and I can get on with waiting for the next one….  What the…!!!!   Really.  Is waiting and hoping for tomorrow more important than living this day, this hour, this second.  Then again I don’t want today to end because there is nothing really to look forward to tomorrow, just work and the normal routine, but, I am excited about my holiday later in the year…. What the….!!!!  Anyway, I am glad that I got through yesterday and now I just need a day to get over it and regret just about everything I did, or didn’t do which would have made it better; if there was just a time machine, I would…  What the….. fuck!!!!

Yesterday and/or tomorrow are our obsessions!

Regretting and anticipating are time travellers – in our heads.

Isn’t my counting down the days to my death just a little macarbe and a little sad?  Probably; unless, it is used as a guidepost to the realisation that each of those days can be precious, the best day of my life, the last day… so, therefore I have to make sure I don’t waste it!

Two things about those days:

  1. Time is an illusion created by us with clocks and calendars – in reality there is only NOW.  Yesterday, the last hour, the last second, are gone and can’t be changed; tomorrow is imaginary, an illusion created in our minds about what might happen.
  2. Time, on the other hand is the only commodity that we can’t trade, yet it is the only real commodity that we have.  We get an uncertain amount, and it runs out when we least expect it.

Let’s just change our ‘time commodity’ counting system – I’ll call seconds dollars.  You are given a certain amount of dollars and told to go and shop and buy anything you like.  The trick is you never know when the dollars on your shopping spree are going to run out.  Now some of us are going to grab as much as we can, irrespective of what it is, if we need it, or actually if we really even want it, because we are just grabbing before the money runs out.  Some of us are going to casually walk around the isles, picking the best, experiencing the joy of the shop without the pressure of having to earn what we spend; and then there are the ones that are never really aware of what dollars are but they buy stuff anyway which they didn’t know why they bought it other than it was what they were told to buy to make them happy…. they they die, just like all the rest.

So, most of us complain that we are cash poor, never enough money – we’ll work harder and make more… and the miracle of the corruption of capitalism, is you can….  and you can buy more stuff…. and your stuff will make you happy?

But, not so your ‘time dollars’ – there are only so many and you can’t work harder, refinance or get a loan… or even borrow a few dollars from a mate…

There are only so many and you don’t know how many… and then you die, and the kids fight over your stuff that made you happy.

Happy Birthday – it was now, which was a few days ago…. and that moment will never come again, that day will never come again.  Thanks for all the Facebook messages, I haven’t read them yet, I appreciate that Facebook reminded you (as most of you have never wished me Happy Birthday before Facebook) and you had to press a few keys, on the day of my Birthday – thanks.  But, the phone calls I received, and the two cards that people posted to me kept me busy all day, in the now, in the real world, spending my time dollars wisely – I only have 10221 left.

PS:  On your Birthday, check the mail box – then you will know I spent a dollar for you…

 

 

Better at Catching Up with Friends

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“Mate, I haven’t seen you for ages, how are you!”

Un-expectantly running into a friend can be such a nice surprise – if you take away the guilt/anger you feel because the last time you ran into them about a year ago you/they said you would call next week for lunch…..

And, do you know what, for me anyway, that’s okay – because I got to see you just then, by accident in the street and I am going to be happy for that and not wreck the moment thinking about the year between our last chance meeting…. and of course not blaming you for not fulfilling your promise and not calling me…. but, then again I have a phone right!

I am pretty good at catching up with friends, checking on people, sending a card, even a quick text to say ‘thinking of you’….. but, only just lately I started to realise why am I doing this?

I wrote a few posts ago about writing letters, yes, I still do as some of you will attest to, and a big part of that was about writing the letters for the other person – I don’t expect a reply, I get the joy from thinking of the person and writing the letter… hoping they get joy from reading it (see – Better at Writing Letters).

The thing is with a letter, much like contacting friends, you are not really sure what is going on at the other end.  Nowadays, especially with a lot of my friends still working, when I call they are busy, on the way to meetings, or sometimes you can just hear it is not a good time – and again, that is okay….  I have mates who still answer not matter what and say, “Hey, a bit busy call you back” and I say ‘Yep, thanks” and hang up – often they don’t call back, and that is okay, because they answered and I respected they were busy and now was not a good time – I at least got to think about them, hear their voice and fulfil a little bit of keeping the contact going, even though not what I thought it was going to be.

I don’t play the ‘they could have called me game’, or it is their turn, or they said they were going to arrange it….. because, I always can.  I so often hear of friends just fading away because each is playing the ‘waiting for them to call game’ – what a bullshit game where actually no-body wins.

Of course their are ‘users’ that often only call because they want something – can you help me move, can I borrow this, I need your free professional advice on this….. oh, yeah and sorry to hear your Mum died 5 years ago….. and that is okay to, because I have a magic solution…. I just say no.  I don’t lie, I just say no.

“I can’t help you move because I can’t want to” (my friends don’t ask me anymore – but not helping people move, or build a retaining wall or borrow a tool is another post – which I may have already written?)

 

“I can’t give you that professional advice because that would be unprofessional giving it as a friend.”

 

“I can’t lend you that I am using it.” (I’m using it by protecting my possession of it hanging in my shed where I really want it….)

 

But of course this in not everyone – everyone is not everyone.  All my friends who I contact are different.  Some, it may be a year but seems like yesterday – some it may be a year and seems like it was and we take a bit of warming up – some it may be a year and I can’t recognise them…. and guess what if they are my friend I AM interested….

I found the best way to ensure that you catch up with your friends is to catch up with them… sometimes you have to change things, reschedule things, plan for a long phone call and get 3 seconds, write a letter and get a 5 character text in reply…

But, but, but….

If they really are your friends than none of this is a problem – yeah, sometimes it is a little frustrating, but really even that is not true: if they’re your real friends and things keep getting in the way and you are frustrated, surely that is a good thing and tells you that they are a friend that is worth a little frustration…..

I still remember about 30 years ago when my Dad, who has been dead 25 years now, keep putting of visiting one of his mates who had cancer (I can write a 1000 reasons why…) but in the end his mate died and Dad never saw him again – he had cancer for over a year…  I have done this too.

So, one day, or with some people 3 o’clock in the morning after 400 beers, I may think of you and call, or a week later you may receive a card in the post that you can’t read and has red wine spilt on it…. just smile, Im just good at catching up with friends….. in my own way.

Better on the Crazy Train

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I have written a lot about living our lives on autopilot – just going through life watching TV, jumping from shiny thing to shiny thing and then, bang, one day you wake up dead and think how did that happen, I had so much to do!

I think there is another trap in life, especially modern life and that is riding the crazy train with all the other clowns and not knowing it.

There are two major challenges here – firstly getting on the crazy train and then getting off.

The crazy train is also a very different place.  All the people on the crazy train don’t know they are crazy and don’t even know they are dressed as clowns and recruiting other commuters.

We all have to ride the crazy train.  It involves listening to the Merchants of Misery (The Media) and believing them; working at jobs that don’t mean anything or make anything (commonly known as bullshit jobs), doing anything that involves any government agency or Bank, etc etc

But, the crazy train is a means of transport and doesn’t have to be a way of life.

Here is my little example.  You have to get on the crazy train to undertake one of the above  bits of life in modern society.  You press the button and step onto the train with a clear intention of your destination – by the way you don’t have to buy a ticket on the crazy train, it free!

You look around and see that everyone on the train is dressed as a clown.  They are squirting each other in the face with plastic flowers, throwing buckets of confetti over each other, driving up and down the isles in those little cars and generally doing what clowns do – this is the purpose of the crazy train – pointless motion in costume to achieve little results.

You find a seat by the window thinking of your destination.

Suddenly a very nice clown sits next to you and asks why you aren’t dressed properly and points out that you stand out as being different.  You politely tell them you just want to ride the train to your appointment.  His is very understanding and agrees that it’s okay for you to do that…… but, …… suggests that just so that you fit in a little better you might want to just try on, you don’t have to wear it all the way, but just try on, this red nose.

What could be the harm you think – you do feel a little awkward and the nose might help.  After putting on the nose you are introduced to a few other clowns.  Each one suggests something else you might want to wear to fit in a bit more…. what could be the harm you think.

So as your destination is approaching, you are in full clown outfit and juggling at the end of of the carriage when your stop is announced.  You say you have to get off, but you have fitted in so well, it seems a shame to leave now.

Some insist you stay as you are the best juggler they have ever had…..

What, me, juggler clown…?  You yell out “No, I am not like you.” and as you do you catch your reflection in the window of the carriage, in full clown outfit, juggling and smiling through your clown makeup……

You stay on the crazy train.  You can’t remember your original destination but you are now going with everybody else and it seems like the right thing to do.

Suddenly the door opens and a person gets on with street clothes one.  You sit next to them and suggest they try on the spare red nose you have so that they will fit in a bit more.

Better an Alien Invasion

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I was chatting with a friend this morning and we were talking about an old 1938 radio play based on HG Wells “War of the Worlds”.  The play was structured like rolling news broadcasts of an alien invasion.  It created panic as people believed it was true (just toScreen Shot 2017-09-25 at 11.09.16 AM note, even during the news broadcast there were advertisements – which people apparently didn’t think was strange that they were being advised of a new dish washing liquid as the world was coming to an end?!).

We also started chatting about how most science fiction movies show that we are only invaded by completely incompetent aliens who we usually manage to defeat in a week or two!  Always remembering that these aliens have managed to travel across light years of space to invade us, in technology beyond our dreams, yet we manage to defeat them by putting a computer virus into their systems, with a X Box – usually by a 10 year old and his tear-away class mates.

It troubles me that we would consider any invasion by aliens to be by dumb aliens when we look around ou own planet.

I think any alien invasion would only go in a couple of ways:

  1. They would wipe us out from space and land after the dust settles and claim the planet now devoid of life.15afea01c456f2730ac033504404180c--aliens-music
  2. They would fly straight past (like we do when looking for a motel in a small country
    town on our holiday…) commenting – “We’re not staying in that shit hole!”
  3. If they were really benevolent aliens wanting us to join the intergalactic community, they would land, attempt to have a chat with us, and then fly off commenting “What a bunch of fuck heads!”

I can’t see our first contact going too many other ways.  We are basically belligerent children all arguing over toys we don’t need, but just want, so no-one else can have them.

I think it is strange that we, the human race, would think that any intergalactic alien race would want to be our friends…

What have we go to offer as a ‘new friend’.  I would imagine after a few weeks of being the new aliens friends they would be talking to there old galactic mates, behind our backs at the interstellar bar saying things like:

Screen Shot 2017-09-25 at 11.30.18 AMYeah I know, have you been to their house, it’s a shit hole.  They never clean up, there’s always shit everywhere and they just dump their rubbish out the back.

 

I can’t stand it.  They are always fighting, and it’s usually about sharing and who has the most toys.

 

Screen Shot 2017-09-25 at 11.30.18 AM

At parties they always take the biggest bit of cake, and it’s usually the fat ones who do it.

 

Have you had them over.  Mostly they arrive when they are not invited, they never bring anything except a bad attitude;  they start a fight, usually wreck the place and Screen Shot 2017-09-25 at 11.30.18 AMleave us to clean up.

 

Has anyone met their mate Someone, or They?  Apparently these two blokes are the cause of all their troubles and fuck everything up.

I think if I was an alien I wouldn’t want us as a mate.

If it was me, I’d drive on by or nuke the place from space.

PS:  I was thinking that was a pretty negative note to end on so I have reconsidered.  I hope when they arrive they conduct individual job interviews for entry into the galactic community – it would be interesting to see who gets a job and who is left behind?  Seeing Nibiru (the mystery planet) didn’t arrive on the 23rd, and the world didn’t end 5 years ago in 2012, I suppose we all have a little bit of time to build our individual resumes…

 

 

 

 

 

Better at Birthdays (20454 days)

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Today is a funny day!

It is my Birthday which is 56 years ago, or more importantly 20,454 days.

Year One

                          Year One

Those are individual days where I got up (albeit the first few where I was as a helpless baby – because I was!), did stuff and then went to bed again….  that is a lot of 24 hour periods to do stuff.

The funny part is, that everyone of those days is now gone, forever.  They are in the past.  They can not be changed.

I have an App on my phone which counts days;  you can set various ‘count downs’ or ‘count froms’ to figure out the exact number of days to any point in time.  I was sitting there some time ago when I thought “I wonder how long I have left.”  I guesstimated that if I live to 85, I would be pretty happy with that.

So…..

10,765 days left

I have about a third of the days left that I have already lived.  A few years ago when I retired I did some similar maths. I worked out I spent about 14,006 days working (not counting days off and sickies!).

I have decided that Birthdays are great reminders, not of how many days we have spent on this earth, but working out how many days we may have left.  Also, the most important question, how we are going to spend them.  Who knows, I may have only 1 day left.  But, if I do, how will I spend it?

I have decided that I will not spend that ONE DAY worrying about the previous 20,454 – I can’t change them.  However, I can change the one I am living now; or if I am lucky the one I will live tomorrow.

Lots of people sent me Birthday wishes, for which I was really grateful.  It reminded me of all the good people I have known, all the good times I have had, but, most of all it reminded me that they are still here, that we all have at least the rest of today, and if we are lucky tomorrow to enjoy.

Don’t all of us lament the fact that we have wasted a few days, perhaps a few years – but, why should that dictate tomorrow.  The old adage that the best indicator of future behaviour is past behaviour….  that’s just bullshit.  I refuse to have my life dictated by a past that can’t be changed. I will not allow it to dictate my future.  This is not just bullshit, that is complete bullshit!

Now!

I will spend the next 10,765 days doing the things that matter the most in my life.  Hopefully I will have a few more days than that.  It has nothing to do with money or possessions (remember, you never see a trailer on a hearse).  It has to do with knowing that this day, can actually be the best day of my life.

Life is really pretty simple.

Something to love, something worthwhile to do, something to look forward to…..

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Today to me, Happy Tomorrow to me!

Better a Couple of Blokes Pashing…

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I really don’t like getting into debates that I don’t think about much.
Screen Shot 2017-03-19 at 9.28.26 AM Don’t get me wrong, I am continuously up for an argument, but most of the time it is for my own enjoyment.

But, this morning I read OUR, yes our, immigration minister Peter Dutton  warned CEO’s to “stick to their knitting”, and said the Turnbull government “would not be bullied” into changing its stance on gay marriage.

Now normally if people ask me what I think of gay marriage, I say, I don’t.

What the fuck has it got to do with me.  Everyone I meet I immediately bring sexuality into the conversation so that I can disclose that I am heterosexual, plus, I find the debate… well…. distasteful.

Not because I think a couple of blokes pashing at the alter is distasteful, but, because if society is more worried about two of its’ members loving each other and wanting to spend their lives together than:

  • Our soldiers dying fighting wars over…. fuck knows what they are over.
  • Aboriginal communities living worse than 3rd world countries.
  • Hunger and kids dying in 3rd world countries.
  • Politicians salaries and honesty.
  • The debate on climate change.
  • The road toll.
  • Domestic violence.
  • etc etc etc etc

… if they are more worried about gay marriage than the list above (which is twice as long as this, no, make that 10 times longer than this) then we are all doomed.

I just don’t get it!  We are allowing, even legislating in favour of things that hurt our society – often hurt our souls unretrievable; yet, we won’t let a couple of people do something that I can’t see hurting anyone.

I’m not going to discuss divorce here – because most times everyone gets hurt some way or another in divorce – but, in a divorce (other than the disgrace of domestic violence) it is usually a civil (both figuratively and legally!) situation with the biggest argument is who gets the house and who gets to turn the kids against the other one.

But, gay marriage – what the fuck!  How can that hurt anyone.

I was chatting to a mate the other day (a bloody Catholic, so I pointed out he was a member of the worlds largest criminal organisation – in jest of course – please don’t sue me Pope Francis!) who I thought was a pretty open and accepting thinker.  He said he believed in gay marriage but (I love the ‘but’ at this point – and not in a gay way!) it should be a civil thing and have nothing to do with the church.  I thought a couple of things at this point:

  • Gay marriage in his view was okay, legally, just don’t tell God about it.
  • Who said he spoke for God, because he was.
  • It was nice that he didn’t take the normal church view of all gays go to hell – or maybe he did and the marriage thing was all a clever ploy so that at the Pearly Gates St Peter already had the documentation to send you straight to hell.
  • It was one of the lesbians we were drinking with turn to shout in the round and her and her partner (wife – well not yet – they had only been together 17 years – which is longer than any of my marriages!) they had wandered over to a booth and were now grinding each other in a mild pawn scene when alI wanted was a beer and to stop trying to convince a Catholic he was wrong.

It all became too much so I started talking about the footy.  Immediately the AFL Womens’ League was brought up so I went for a piss and never came back.

I write what I think here, I write what I want (it’s my blog!), I also try to write what I feel.

I feel, we should stop giving such a fuck, and endlessly debating, stuff that doesn’t hurt the world (your soul is another matter – and completely and rightfully a matter for yourself!) and is so unimportant in comparison to some of the stuff that is going on – but, our lives are drowning is trivial and bullshit.

Please don’t be offended GLTGBDXSH groups (I didn’t know the acronym.  I knew it started with Gay and Lesbian so I randomly pressed keys for the others as I don’t care enough about the acronym for me to even pop of this page and Google it) – it’s not that I don’t care about you, its that I don’t care enough about you in comparison to other things that could kill me tomorrow, or economically destroy me and our country, save a childs’ life, stop another domestic violence death, save a kid from dying in a gutter from drugs or being molested (probably by a Catholic)…..

Come on world, come on straight people, come on gay people (and all the other acronym people), come on Catholics (I withdraw that one – they’re not listening…) come on politicians – more important, come on community and Business leaders….. fucking concentrate, just for a moment on the things that matter.

I hope one day I can go to a proper gay wedding.  I have been to a few ‘pretend’ ones as the law says they are not real – but, do we need the law to say our love and commitment is not pretend – maybe, who knows, I know I don’t.  I know one thing, oppose gay marriage or march down the street in support, either way it doesn’t save one kids from starvation.

I do hope in the future I can go to a legal gay wedding; after all I’m a heterosexual male Australian and I’ll go anywhere for free beer.

PS:  I left the ‘stick to their knitting’ phrase alone in Dutton’s comments as it was just too much to tackle before my first beer of the day – anyone know where there’s a wedding today!

PPS:  This blog may contain a few typos and grammatical errors, but I just couldn’t care enough to proof read this more than once – I’d get my wife to do it, but she’s knitting me a jumper and i don’t want to interrupt her before she cooks my dinner.