belong

I was going through some old pix, & I found this one.


I never liked it; & it finally dawned on me why.


I really don't belong in this setting.

It's like taking some hoodlum out of the Sopranos...& sticking him in an episode of Dora the Explorer.


I should be back in Hoboken...not here, on a cliff overlooking the ocean.

I'll post this...as a prompt, to remind me of something I lost.

I had an idea for a blog, and lost it...my brain is still a bit wooly from the anaesthetic.

I think it was...something about taking disparate elements and putting them together?


Anyway...i'll keep wandering around all the lovely places, until I find...


where I belong.

My Friend 'The End'...

Thank you all!

Most of you know how much I love 'Apocalypse Now', & it figures VERY heavily in my book.

It has also inspired the documentary as well.


The title of this blog...it's kind of a twist on the Doors song, that pompous bullshit about how Apocalyptic everything is.

I mean, I love the song, love the way it is used in the film, but as much as it is- not a nice place to visit- but a very satisfying journey, a peek into the heart of darkness...


you are NOT meant to live there!

As I mention in the book, Pocca was a CAUTIONARY tale; if you got the idea from it, or from the life of Jim Morrison that this kind of place- this 'road to excess' was a decent joint to hang out in...


then you got the wrong end of the stick.


This is a healing journey...not a self indulgent spa bath in the soup of blurred masculinity.

Ronnit & I were talking about this not long ago; the upshot of it was that this stuff is dangerous; people can get the wrong idea from Jim Morrison's life, that it is somehow heroic to get fucked up on drugs and alcohol, then justify it by claiming to be a shaman, 'the road to excess' leading to the 'palace of wisdom' and all that...it's a load of shit.

It gets a lot of very naive people in VERY hot water.

Remember in Manhattan, the Diane Keaton character says,

'Don't you guys see that it is the dignifying of one's own psychological and sexual hang-ups by attaching them to these grandiose philosophical issues?'


Perfect. It's a giant lump of bullshit. It's a bad bad pony, & I won't bet on it.

Robert Bly said, ‘we can understand through Kurtz’s experience in Heart of Darkness that the western longing for the primitive is dangerous to the psyche.  The ego becomes unable to hold its own among the primitive impulses and dissolves in mass movements, vanishes like sugar in water’.

In other words...GET OUTTA THE FUCKIN' BULLSHIT SOUP SAUNA!!

Before you melt!!

I posted this pic of me in hospital because it really felt like the first real step out of the bullshit soup. It is not something to be lamented, but CELEBRATED.

Anyone who has been keeping up with my writing has some idea of where I am at.

Frankly...I would be pretty wrapped if this was everything I blogged about coming to a head.


I have a pretty good feeling...I think it is.

I am equal parts excited, equal parts nervous.


All surgery risky, but life is a risk. All the different physical ailments...it's like they are all coming together to effect some sort of resolution.

Anyway...no one really cares about illness and hospitals.

The most exciting thing of all is...


This could well be the denouement I have been waiting for.

Working on the book and the film, I kept asking myself, 'so, how is this going to end??'

Most writers have the common sense to have an ending worked out, but like I said, this work is different because it is basically autobiographical.


So...it was a question of waiting to see what happened.

& I don't mean sitting around on my fat arsehole waiting for something to rescue me...like waiting for god or something- which would be waiting a long time, as he doesn't exist...


But working steadily, making sure all my writing is in order, and keeping an eye on a satisfactory ending for the documentary. Well...in line with this...


Everything health wise has come to a head; which is actually a GOOD thing.

The nurse said to me, when I took the picture, 'you putting this on FB like everyone else?' & it made me laugh...& I told her the truth...I am documenting my HEALING journey, NOT my death.


Who the hell cares about seeing someone drop off the twig on film?

That IS self indulgent bullshit, & not for me.


Now, my good friend Mark Savage has been working like a trooper on the film dealing with all this.

He knows I have been trying to bring things to a conclusion...but some things are not written.

It's a mixture...equal parts your own work and effort, and chance. Fate. Karma.


I'm hoping this will all go in the documentary- my long awaited ending. Sure, a part of me says, if I'm gonna' check out- then I want the camera on the moments leading up to it- and I would like it to be healthy, mature, and positive. Being thankful, rather than maudline.


But...actually...I have a really good feeling it will be the exact opposite.

I'll know more after the surgery...but the point was...what was my point? Sorry...still a bit groggy. Oh yeah...let's face it, no one is really interested in illness and hospitals...even people who work in that field i'm sure don't get overly orgasmic about it.


The thing was...what is interesting is extra sensory stuff. deep down, we all love that shit.

& I SAW this happening. Exactly. now...did i wish it on myself? or was it simple prescience? I reckon the latter, because i am committed to the healing journey. If I was simply ready to die...then that would be a different thing. I realised...this is part of the healing process, and I needed to go through this, in order to bring things to a head. Unification.


Like in physics, ANTI entropy, where you bring all the disparate elements all together into one unified theory, so you can make sense of it all.

I think this is finally it; after a lifetime being all over the place like a madman's shit...finally, through my diligent writing and filming and my commitment to healing, growing and evolving, things are beginning to...

Make sense.


I made a commitment to change- & I think my mind, and my body have all finally agreed to come to the party too!


Thanks for taking an interest...but I wouldn't even bother posting this pic unless it was a positive thing, rather than a negative.


It's all good, is the saying, & I always hated it.


But now...


it IS all good.

And that includes the bad...!!!



<3

Do Androids Type???

Just a brief note to Sci Fi film makers...

Don't have an android typing on a computer in your movie.

I watched a movie last night- 'Robot Stories'- where they actually had this.  It's a bit like me hammering a hammer with a hammer.

You haven't thought your story through, people; this is a film maker who was clearly thinking about something else when they made the film.

Probably the visuals;  it looked pretty good, bad sadly lacked plausibility.

I know it's a bag of cats and dogs trying to shoot a film, but if you are not up to handling the basics of storyline...then go and write a book.

It is laziness, doing something like this, and it assumes the viewer will be just as lazy in not spotting it.  We ARE paying attention- in fact, movies might be one of the few things most humans pay any attention to...

So don't insult us.


We might not be androids, dreaming of electric sheep...

Some of us are wide awake...& we care about story.

  

King Oath

This one’s a little on the dark side, but don’t worry; once I have gotten the dark stuff out of the road, then I will proceed pretty briskly toward the light. 

And there is always a bright side; pretending there isn’t is not only crap- it is no way to keep friends. 

Who wants to hear about the dark bits all the time?

So…I have been blindsided by some bleeding from places one doesn’t ordinarily bleed.  It can tend to freak you out, so I went to see a surgeon, and they put me on the urgent list. 

So what; who cares.  Illness is dull. 

The main point of the story is that on my way into the surgery, I stopped and took another one of those photos in front of the oath to women. As I had the pic taken…a couple of ladies stopped to wait for me to do it.  Then, when I had finished, they looked at me as though I were mad.  They were half right. 

I’m half mad. 

The mad bit thinks things like this;

It’s almost as if…bleeding from the back passage…it’s like a kind of delayed reaction to being raped as a youngster. 

I mean, I reckon I’ve been bleeding psychologically for ages over it…but it’s like…the childhood trauma finally caught up with me mentally AND physically, almost forcing me to finally deal with it properly, instead of trimming around the edges. 

Does that make sense?

So…the mad bit in my head then thinks, well, at least I understand something about the way a woman feels when she has been raped & traumatised. 

I remember seeing a doco with this little Timorese lad- he can’t have been ten yet, about the same age as me when I was introduced to the ways of the lord- recounting having been raped by the militia when they came by his little village.  

He said, ‘they used me like a woman’.

I cried a little bit, I admit. 

I can deny it all I like…we all can, we victims, but at some point…I think you have to deal with it.  Properly.  Get in there, and lance that boil. 

I need to be able to say once & for all, ‘they used me like a woman’, deal with it, finish the book, finish the film, & move on.  Do my charity stuff for abused kids, take up needlepoint, juggle cats or watch bullfights on acid- whatever. 

Anything but dwelling on it.  That’s what caused the body to rebel.  & that’s what all this is leading up to.

We are here to heal, fellow humans…heal, grow, love…

Learn…

I think I have learned.  Why I am the way I am, why I have lived- or not lived- the way I have, I have seen things almost unimaginable in the minds of most people. 

I have seen great horror- but also undeniable joy.

The highs and the lows. 

You might have done the same yourself.  You might know something about it.  Kinship with other humans, sharing stories, healing, growing, etc…

That’s what it’s all about.   

I guess that is why we are here…to learn?

& keep learning…

Perhaps facing my own mortality in this way will help me live better.  So I can KEEP healing, growing, loving, learning…  

Until EVERYTHING finally catches up with me, and I return to the dust; from whence I came…

And that’s just fine by me.

Peace and respect.

A Moveable Peace...

I guess it's a bit of a Moveable Feast.


Like I have said before, I don't know it all.

I'm not sure I know anything.


I don't agree with Trump voters; trouble is, you can't just write then off if they happen to be your friends...some of them are lovely people.

Forget that crap about 'if I delete them, defriend them, then I am no better than them, and the terrorists win, etc etc'...it's not that simple.

We are trying to find some common ground here, and lumping people into camps like this won't help. It's about...trying to understand.  & that can be a lifelong thing.

Especially with some people, like those who voted for Trump.


I put it down to some kind of specific insanity.

It's like christians; most reasonable intelligent people know that to believe in imaginary men in the sky is childish, or mad.  The madhouses are full of people who have been raped by priests and now think they are Jesus, as if somehow believing in the one thing that betrayed them will set them free from their cage of madness.  Hair of the black dog?


My point is...some of these Christians are actually really lovely people, despite their insane beliefs. They don't hammer you with it, or go on with a lot of zombie crap from the good book...

they let you do your thing.

They are kind, compassionate, and understanding.

I get angry about religion and how much it has hurt so many people- not just me.

But they listen patiently, & don't judge.

Remember...some of these religious freaks shun unbelievers like you are the devils' fuck buddy.  I don't believe in the devil either- he's just another imaginary dude- except apparently he's underground.  Far as I'm concerned, there is no devil worse than man at HIS worst.

But some Christians freak out if they think you are playing for Satans first eleven, and they drop to their knees and pray for you, or they pour scorn on you.


Some of them will stand outside abortion clinics and shoot you.

    
Some fundamentalist will bomb other humans for their god.

It's madder than mad.
  

But some Christians?   They are infuriatingly decent.


No matter how I feel about God and Jesus and whatnot...


there is no denying some of these people who are perpetually, endlessly irrevocably and inexorably kind and decent.  No matter how mad their belief system.



It's tricky; it's a real challenge keeping friendships with people who believe impossible things before breakfast, but some of them are really worth it.


I guess...I have to put it down to the fact that no one really knows.

Trump got in...so I guess other equally mad things might be true,.


There might be a giant bearded dude in the sky who likes watching us suffer.

Not my kind of god...but I guess in the end, you keep hanging in there with these people, in the hope that you can ignore their madness, and focus on their strengths and gifts.

Some people are very hard to quit.


I know people have been very patient with me...so not to give a little of the same back seems a bit selfish and disingenuous.


If they become toxic, and they start making you sick...


then you have to cut them loose.


But just short of that?


I guess some things are worth holding onto.


It's a kind of peace...

 


 

Zut Allure...

It's funny...there are some things...in fact a lot of things...that can ONLY be satisfactorily expressed in French.  

I love 'De Rigeur', for example, and I have looked for another word in English to match the feeling of what I am trying to say, but only the actual French language can nail it.  

I don't know if the French are nice people or not- I have never been there; I guess there are good and bad all over, and I try not to buy into that generalisation going round that French are rude people.  

It's a bad penny, & I want no part of it.  

I know the French speaking people in Montreal were lovely. And if you love the language, then Montreal is certainly the place to go if you can't get to France. 

I took this pic near my accommodation in St Catherine, on the good side of Saint Lawrence River. (you better like saints if you want to stay in Montreal- they are everywhere!)  

I don't know what it says, I haven't looked it up. I'm not sure I want to. 

I just think it's beautiful.

& sometimes...


part of the Zut Allure is not knowing...  

Supernovae

This bastard is very hard to like.  

He's hardly what you'd call heroic; but bear with me a moment.

We are all built differently. Horses for courses. Charlie belongs to the Hunter Thompson school; “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!”  

Not exactly my way, sure, and these guys were never in line for a Nobel prize- 

I'm not sure they wanted one.  

Speaking personally, I aim for a lifestyle a little less selfish and self serving lifestyle. 


But these guys are certainly fun to watch as they burn out like a supernova...

Thank you for your service.

I want to thank the teachers, educators, & health care workers the world over.  

I don't get choked up about the military- so YOUR service is your own affair & of no interest to me. If you want to put on a uniform and bomb poor brown people in faraway countries to keep fat white pricks rich, that's your business.  

But to those who actually teach, lead, heal and nurture their fellow human beings...you have my respect and admiration.


THANK YOU.

Fracking Hell.

Now...where else did we hear people blaming economic hardship for the surrender of their basic human decency?

Oh yeah; it was in central Europe, and the by the time that little adventure played itself out, there were oven's built to cook people by their millions.

Get over it, please; we all have bills to pay. Not all of us drop trou and bend over all spread cheeky for the loudest redneck in the room.


Children blame...adults take responsibility for their actions.


End of story...or not.


First a giant wall along the border to keep poor brown people out...


then a giant oven.



will we never learn?

Mr Jones

It's like cold turkey, trying not to keep talking about it. 


I can give up any time I like...jibber jibber, shiver shiver...

jonesing like a mother fucker ovah here...where's my piss bucket...brrrr....i'm cold.....


I just can't shake it; it's like a bad case of chigger bites. 

Can't stop scratching. 


I mean, I can understand a man voting for a woman hater...but a woman? 

Sheesh...what is wrong with people????


Damn. 

 

This is gonna' be harder than I thought...


 

Hoffman's Grave

I think it’s time to wrap it up; there’s no point bitching about it. It feels like preaching to the choir, when I know most of you realize what a fucking mess this all is. 

No point whipping each other into a fenzy when we know what's what- & there is not much we can do about it. 

& I am NOT wrapping it up because the odd smattering of Americans have been dissing me- an Aussie- for sticking my nose in your affairs…because, well...OK, forget that stuff about this is OUR planet, we are all on it, we are all connected, etc...

Try taking a look at your faulty memory.  

One or two of you seem to have forgotten how you stuck your nose in the affairs of the middle east…& so many other foreign territories… for more than a century.  So back off.

 

Being the leader of the free world, you lead by example, so I will have my say, regardless. 

Seeing as how you are so in love with free speech. 

I say, we must respect US due process.  You are a democracy, and the majority has voted. 

You voted for one of the most racist, sexist, bigoted leaders in recent memory. Those who voted that women hating wetback loathing retard fearing facist in...well, you wanted this kind of leader...

You got him. 


I can only think…someone like Mussolini. 

Trump did not insinuate anything…he CAME RIGHT OUT WITH IT.

I guess we should give him points for being a straight shooter.  


So I will do the same kind of straight shooting and spade calling as he did in wrapping it up.

I guess I am angry.  Angry that a presidential candidate would come out & say how much he hates wetbacks, retards, whores, niggers, kikes, spics, wops, etc etc. 

Not only that…the MAJORITY of Americans wanted a man like that for their president. 

Well, all I can say is that profound mental illness it tricky; people with views such as this very difficult to talk to; they are are frequently uncommunicative, vexacious, will not listen, and quite often do not know their actions are completely insane. 


So...either way...whether we are hugging one another in our grief, or chastising people with profound mental, psychological or emotional disorders...it's all just a lot of hot air.


Like watching a crack addict who has just raped a young girl, got into a car, driven off down the highway and crashed it into a big tree...we just have to accept that it has happened, and move on. 


The driver decamped, and not only that...he got off on a technicality; the hysterical blindness of the majority of the American people.  


Hopefully...he will do something else to get himself locked up. 


Impeached. Whatever.


Although, it would seem most Americans are immune to outrage.  

I still keep thinking of him mocking that disabled journalist; so...the majority of the American people not only saw that behaviour, but LIKED it.  

So...he may well get away with murder.  


Let's face it...he's a Watergate waiting to happen...

& it might not matter worth a damn. 


Speaking of Watergate, Vietnam, etc...


I feel sorry for the hippies. 

All the protesting they did, to try to create a better world...

It would appear it was all for naught. 


Abbie Hoffman would be turning in his grave right now...
  

It’s like being back in the schoolroom. 

One of my American friends said how much she was ashamed of her country, & asked if she could come and live in the antipodes.  She was told in no uncertain terms, ‘NO!  You have to stay there and think about what you’ve done!!’

Perfect.

Well, on this occasion, the majority of the class has been ‘naughty’; and because the responsible ones weren’t able to reign the naughty ones in…

They have taken over the classroom.

But the last bell hasn’t rung yet…