MINDLESS MUSINGS

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  • POTENTIAL DEATH OR SERIOUS INJURY: True Stories #21

    We were staying in a caravan on the beach down at Coledale. Earlier in the day when we arrived, I had noticed what looked like a cave up one end of the beach. After a night of drinking and debauchery at a pub in Thirroul we had all returned to the caravan. Pot was on the menu at this stage, and I wasn’t particularly interested in the nauseating effects of mixing pot with massive amounts of alcohol. I left the caravan and sat on the beach watching the waves crash in the night.

    Sitting there I suddenly recalled the cave I had scoped out earlier in the day. I leapt to my feet and decided I was going to go exploring caves at 3am drunk as a skunk. From nowhere Mick appeared at my side and upon hearing my mission decided to accompany me. We both headed off up the beach to where our adventure would soon begin.

    We arrived at the rocky edge of the beach and followed the cliff face around to where the cave was meant to be. After a few meters we were met with a rock face that merely bent inwards a little bit and then stopped dead. No cave. No spelunking. No adventure.

    We stood there disappointed for a while and then we turned to face the ocean. We were standing on solid rock, and it stretched out toward the water for about (in my hazy drunken memory) 20 meters. Right at the edge of the rocks and the ocean was a large rock that stood there like a podium.

    I don’t recall us discussing anything, but we both determined to walk over to that podium rock. There was no real wave action as we walked over to the rock formation, and it all seemed quite uneventful.

    Almost at the exact moment that we reached the podium the ocean decided to rip in full force. Waves began crashing all around us. I bent over and gripped the rock as hard as I could. Waves seemed to be pounding us from all directions. I was holding on to the rock; Mick was holding onto me, and we were both being pummelled by an angry ocean.

    I can clearly remember calling out to Mick “hold on tight mate, we don’t want to be on the news. They’ll be saying ‘what the hell were they doing there?’ and ‘their blood alcohol was…’ “Drunken fuckwits!!!”

    I don’t know how long we were stuck there, but eventually the waves backed off, and we made a mad dash for the beach. As we reached the sand, we could see a few figures walking towards us. Some of the guys had noticed us missing and had set off to find us.

    I can’t remember who it was that found us, but they were looking at a couple of drowned rats. We were soaked through to the bone; still dressed in our jeans, collared shirts and leather shoes. What well-dressed corpses we could have made.

    We sheepishly dragged our drenched hides back to the caravan and that is where my memory fades. I don’t recall getting changed into dry clothes or where I slept that night. My recollection drops out with Mick and I being led back to the caravan by some faceless mates.

    Another notch on the belt of lucky escapes; escapes from misadventures that never should have been encountered. Drunken escapades that ended in perilous predicaments that could have been avoided with just a tiny bit of forethought; but forethought is in very short supply when you are hammered.

  • SPOILER ALERT WOULD BE NICE: Movie Musings #11

    ***Here’s Your One***

    The rumour was that this movie had one of the greatest twists ever! Big claim. Unfortunately, I will never know. Despite being a card-carrying film fanatic, I have not ever been very good at picking ‘whodunit’ and any other plot twists. I was not even looking for the real Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects (1995) and still reckon my mate Mick was full of shit when he told us all that he knew it all along. I was just enjoying the film, although I don’t remember any hype about that particular surprise when the movie was released. Even though it would become just as famous as the one in the M. Night Shyamalan film I am lamenting here.

    The Sixth Sense (1999) was marketed on its unpredictable reveal. It was also reviewed as a great thriller, but the shock turn was what people were talking about. I was obviously very excited about this. However, I was spending a substantial amount of my free time in the pub at this age and not going to the cinema as often. Watching movies on video was a nice hangover activity. It was also a fun beer drinking activity, although it could be difficult holding that experience in long term memory.

    Either way, I did not see The Sixth Sense at the cinema and had not been informed of the twist yet. There was usually a lag of something like 6 months before a movie was released on video after its cinema run, so I was keen to catch this one when it first arrived at the stores.

    I was also a raging pisshead. At this point in my drinking career, it was not unusual to get wasted on a Friday after work, go home to crash, and be back up the pub not long after lunch on Saturday (my gut churns at the memory).

    The set-up of this story makes me think there was some kind of event up the pub that day, though I have no clue what it was. However, for some reason I rang Wayne (my mate who lived down the street) before heading up. He told me he would be up a little later because he was watching…you guessed it!

    So, I went up and got myself a beer. As soon as I sat down at the table, Jonno asked me if Wayne would be joining our session. I informed him that Wayne would be up soon and that he was currently watching The Sixth Sense on VHS. Without warning, Jonno’s first response was “when did you figure out he was dead?” …

    You utter bastard!!!

    Do you realise what you have done???

    “I haven’t seen it yet” was my dumbfounded reply.

    Jonno went for a quick recovery and said “I didn’t say WHO was dead”

    You also didn’t say ‘what’ was dead my friend; and that is my cat still in the bag experience of this movie everyone has been raving about. Now I am not saying I would have figured it out, but I missed out on one of the joys of great cinema! That moment! That reveal you didn’t see coming! The ‘Keyser Soze was Verbal Kint all along!!!” moment. It is one of the reasons I fell in love with movies. It has been done clunkily many times, but when it lands, it is awesome! And it can only succeed one way: a great story. Draw us into the plot and the characters, fascinate us. If we’re not loving the story, the misdirection may slip.

    Watching The Sixth Sense knowing Bruce Willis is a ghost was like watching half a movie. It was so obvious and yet I could still see the brilliance behind the cinematic deception. It’s always fun to revisit a film that really put one over on you and watch how the ruse was orchestrated. Not so much when you’re sleuthing skills never got tested the first time though.

    For a cinema buff it’s the equivalent of finding out the score of a big game you recorded before you get the chance to watch it. There is a reason they call them ‘spoilers’. Of course, a great film must be more than just a twist. Especially if you want people to re-watch. Be that as it may, the tough fact is an awesome twist can only be experienced once (if your lucky) and it’s enjoyable either way: you are either amazed or feeling proud of your powers of perception.

    One final thought going back to The Usual Suspects. It presents a fascinating storytelling conundrum once the thrill of the reveal subsides. You realise you just watched a movie about a chain of events that never really happened. “Der! That’s what fiction is dumbass” I hear you say. True but this time the characters and situations you experience where the bullshit stories of one of those fictional characters…

    I’ll go into that more at a later date.

  • You Want Answers? We’ve Got ‘Em: RISE OF THE TYCOONS MEETS WE NEED TO DIG A LITTLE BIT DEEPER

    First was nothingness…I can only assume, and then we’re born – Pow! ‘Welcome to the world’. No say in the matter whatsoever – How rude! There I was blissfully unaware of anything at all and now I’m here covered in blood and slime, having to breathe on my own – this is bullshit. Ouch, they just cut me! “Breathing isn’t the only thing you need to do now buddy. Pretty soon you’re gunna get hungry. Trust me, you’ll know it when it happens”.

    Out of oblivion and soon you will become aware that you will eventually return, if it’s even possible to return. Or is return the wrong word? Are there alternate voids? Whatever, you have no clue what, where or if you were before you popped out and you are no wiser as to what will be, or not be, when this body shuts down. That’s all we know for sure; what has been witnessed, from the outside (or are we inside our world and the dead leave?) over the history of our species.

    At some point everybody’s ‘body’ just stops functioning. The lights go out behind the eyes, and all the organs slow to a halt. If you saw this and had no prior knowledge of death, you might consider it a type of trance. Once the decay began you would need to come up with a new theory though. Shit man! After the animals, bugs, worms and bacteria finish their feast, that ‘person’ has literally returned to the Earth. That must inspire some pretty fucken profound ideas!

    This has been the experience of every Homosapien that ever existed. We will never know exactly how this species came about, but you can be sure there was once a time when a shit load of them looked at the lifeless body of a fellow human and wondered what the fuck was going on.

    There is a definite ‘chicken and egg’ riddle in there too. Although, it seems to me that birth and death was taking place long before consciousness arrived. Where did our self-awareness come from? Good luck with that!

    Did an entire group become conscious simultaneously? It’s probably more a case of random primates switching on and eventually noticing a difference between themselves and the rest of the tribe. Many of them wandered off and our earliest ancestors were the ones who linked up. Clunky theory, but it will do.

    As higher cognitive function and communication developed, humans became people and people like to have answers to stuff. Thus, you see the rudimentary rise of philosophy, science and religion, along with a shit load of nonsense!

    Unemployment clerk: Occupation?

    Comicus: Stand-up philosopher.

    Unemployment clerk: What?

    Comicus: Stand-up philosopher. I coalesce the vapour of human experience into a viable and logical comprehension.

    Unemployment clerk: Oh, a BULLSHIT artist!

    History of the World: Part I (1981)

    The large percentage of these groups, while having distinct(ish) personalities, were content to play their part and keep their heads down. I have spent a long time describing the rise of the devious and greedy few, yet these were not the only anomalies. All the following traits (including greed & selfishness) exist in all of us to varying degrees and the ones who possess them in large doses will stand out from the pack: the curious and innovative, the cunning and strategic, the brave and strong, the adventurous and rebellious.

    The arts and sciences are an intrinsic part of our higher consciousness; we can’t help but try and explain existence and try to find solutions to problems. We also have a desire to improve our ways of predicting outcomes. The result would be: storytellers, medicine men, shaman and the like.

    Finding ways to treat wounds and ailments sounds pretty scientific, although I’m certain there would have been plenty of hogwash mixed in. Once a person is given an air wisdom and people defer to them, it can be difficult to admit you are stumped. A bit of highfalutin gibberish and some snake oil can go a long way in a pinch. Trial, error and bluff would’ve been the tools to succeed in this prestigious role.

    ‘Storyteller’ would have been a most important role. The one who holds the history and knowledge of the tribe and their ancestors; not to mention the sheer entertainment of a good yarn. A gifted tale teller wields a tremendous amount of power that goes mostly unnoticed. The ability to influence people’s emotions and sense of righteousness is a potent proficiency indeed and a smart leader would definitely make use of this person’s talent. If unchecked, a treacherous orator could cause untold damage.

    As I mentioned earlier, these positions of responsibility would have had their privileges and the one performing them would likely not want to forfeit such prestige. This being the time before Google, or the internet, or libraries, school, possibly even writing…being the local boffin might be a case of more ass than class is what I’m getting at.

    Be that as it may, it seems to me that taking it that little bit further and speaking to spirits, gods, trees and such wouldn’t be much of a stretch. A storyteller can alter the past, but a shaman can see into the future! Now that’s some serious sway!

    Start off with astrology and mysticism to test the waters; if they take the bait, why not go full on magic and witchcraft on ‘em? No fact checkers or sceptics around here for a long time to come.

    Another one that took on a life of its own. Not even sure what group to put this one in.

    Here endeth the rant.

  • MUSINGS ON THE JOB ABOUT THE JOB: Moving on Up

    Smithers (over loudspeaker): Attention Homer Simpson. You have been promoted. You are now an executive. Take 3 minutes to say goodbye to your former friends and report to room 502 for reassignment…to a better life.

    Simpson and Delilah

    The Simpsons: Season 2, Episode 2

    My experience with workplace hierarchy kind of went in reverse. My first permanent job was in a small factory run by 2 brothers. I was hired for the purpose of learning how to run the warehouse. It was a small business with only two other employees there before me. Two blokes old enough to be my dad and very set in their ways. The bosses’ wives ran the reception and office. One more bloke came on after me and that was it.

    They sent me to TAFE to study supervising and management and somewhere in my 2nd year I slipped into the warehouse manager position. Up till then the older of the veterans (Nick) considered himself in charge and was my first look at two workplace archetypes I would come across all through my working life:

    1. The long-term worker who sees his years of service as a reason to do as little as possible.
    2. The unappointed ‘supervisor’ who sees this position as a reason to do as little as possible. I will never know if he just thought it made him look busy or if he genuinely believed it was important, but he would sit down and peruse the invoices 3 or 4 times a day! Just moving them from one pile to another.

    He wasn’t bossy or rude, just very stubborn. Me and the other guy followed his lead simply because he had been there the longest. I don’t recall any big announcement of me taking charge and I didn’t notice any friction; how would you? The 2 bosses couldn’t get Nick to change his ways, what chance did I have?

    I found the whole experience to be a frustrating and exhausting one! TAFE was interesting and I learned plenty of theory, yet not much of it translated to the real world. Eventually I would quit and move on to zero responsibility and lots of beer guzzling at the happy house of hazards. I was truly happy for a while there too.

    That was around 25 years ago, and I have not taken a leadership role since. I have seen the whole gamut of supervisors, managers and higher ups. Not too high of course, you can see so much from the bottom. I am fascinated by the antics of these individuals and even more intrigued about their motives and expectations regarding taking the job.

    Way too many were variations on Nick from my first job. Being the ‘supervisor’ meant that you didn’t have to do much work. I was about to write ‘physical’ work, but these people don’t seem to exert much mental effort either.

    Singing Whale: Do you know what Headman really does?

    Gecko Lizard: He bosses people around.

    Singing Whale: No. He does what is best for the people.

    Gecko Lizard: By bossing them around.

    Singing Whale: Gecko Lizard! You really are dumb!

    “When the Man Went South” 2014

    I cannot remember the exact list of required duties for a supervisor (first line manager), but it was the first thing we learned at TAFE. Something akin to:

    Plan: Day to day or week to week at the most. The higher you move up the ladder the further ahead your planning will need to be.

    Organise: Putting the plan into action. Setting the schedule and delegating the tasks.

    Communication: Ensuring all our workers know what is expected of them and reporting back to management regarding performance, along with any issues or suggestions from the staff.

    A very simple formula, yet not an easy task. I reckon most people would be lacking in at least one of these aspects in general and when you start going deeper, the flaws will be exposed even more: Problem solving, time management, conflict resolution, decision-making, mentorship, interpersonal skills etc. That’s a lot to ask of someone who just wants to get out of doing manual labour.

    I do not believe that becoming a supervisor in a boring-ass, dead-end job was anyone’s goal as a kid. I’m sure some people take on the role with noble enough intentions; I am also sure that these people are the minority. The majority are either lazy, old, tired and/or carrying an injury, or a self-important wanker. It could be a mix of all these.

    I’ve seen all kinds: The guy who used to tell us all that he had worked for the company for 30 years as if it was a badge of honour and we should defer to him for this reason. When he realised people viewed his lack of upward mobility in that time as a fault, he became a supervisor. He didn’t make it to the next year. He was hopeless in pretty much all the required traits. He knew how to do the job on the floor fine, but that does not automatically translate to being a leader and it’s especially difficult when people openly mock you.

    I think people take moving up the ladder way too lightly; they only see the (very few) good points. You may get a pay rise, but that often comes with a lot of unpaid overtime and/or phone calls out of hours. In a lot of cases, you may escape the grunt work. However, you now are responsible for getting the grunts to be productive. All those different personalities and degrees of work ethic. For some people doing as little as possible is a matter of principle more than just laziness; it was for old Nick.

    Speaking of that place, I not only had to get my hands dirty, but I had to do extra work because wild horses couldn’t get Nick to move his ass and the bosses would not sack him. So, watch out for that pitfall too.

    I’ve got plenty more to say about this stuff so I will most certainly be coming back this way again soon.

  • WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE: Would You Like a Burger, a Burger, or a Burger

    Growing up as a kid in the 1970s, restaurant and take away food outlets were much less prevalent than our fast-food saturated cities of today. Hamburgers, sandwiches, fish and chips were the usual fair. In my suburb there were two hamburger shops: the famous Cobb & Co. drive in (Cobbo) and Boss’s fish and chip shop (the fish and greasies).

    The Cobbo had the delectable double cheeseburger; anyone who remembers, remembers it very fondly! The footlong hot dog was their signature dish, and for a lot of us they were our first encounter with chicken salt on chips; that glorious flavour we all loved but couldn’t get anywhere else. Their burgers were delicious and had a unique twist we often pondered and joked about. I was sure they used cabbage instead of lettuce, but I have no way of finding out.

    Boss had the classic take away shop. A Greek bloke who made burgers and fish and chips wrapped in the old butcher’s paper. I know newspaper was a big thing, but Boss used the plain white stuff. You would still hold the packet up and tear off the top, holding it under one arm while eating with the other and offering it to your mates. The ‘help yourself’ signal was opening it all the way on the table.

    He also offered the other take away staples: Pies, Chiko Rolls, battered savs (in Sydney), fried dim sims, steak sandwiches and scallops (potato). I’m sure he sold cooked chickens, but I don’t know if they were charcoal cooked or whatever else. It tasted good anyway.

    He had a sandwich counter, but I don’t remember many people buying any. I know I tried and wasn’t impressed with them. I even remember a sandwich shop opening a little further along the highway with nice food. Whenever I went there, I would sneak past Boss’s or walk the other way around. He even confronted me about this betrayal once; that was awkward.

    I’m pretty sure he made milk shakes, but you couldn’t beat Cobbo’s thick shakes. They also sold soft serve ice cream – awesome! Two shops selling very similar tucker, but we all knew the distinctions, and they would always influence our choice.

    “I feel like a Cobbo or a Greasy’s burger”

    “I want the Cobbo chips”

    I can’t recall anyone being so gauche as buying a combination of both.

    We also had a Milk Bar down near the train station. A strange hodge podge store. A very small selection of groceries on a couple of tall shelves squished to one side. Their main clientele was there for frozen ice creams/blocks, soft drinks, chocolates, cigarettes bubble or chewing gum and lollies: packets and the forever adored 1 cent lollies. You would choose from the cornucopia of confectionary in the boxes behind the glass and they would bag them up for you. A 20-cent bag was bloody huge; although there were a few high-end treats: Cobbers were 2 cents and things like giant snakes could go as high as 5 cents! Such opulence! You had to wight things up carefully. I have fond memories of dad walking down there with my sister and I on random evenings; a bag of mixed lollies, an ice cream and a soft drink – sugar rush!!!

    Of course, they also sold milkshakes, although I have few recollections of going in for one. They may or may not have sold sandwiches, but they definitely sold pies and sausage rolls; my mate and I used to buy one before going to soccer training. Our teammates were never impressed with our undisguised lack of enthusiasm.

    Sometime around starting high school a new hamburger shop opened in the next suburb. The big drawcard was “they put beetroot on the burger”; sensational! A third option in the hamburger stakes. The variety was mindboggling!

    McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken (as we knew it) were only accessible by car, requiring a grown up. They were in the city though, which added extra joy to our train trips there; most often to go to the movies. That’s another nostalgic trip we’ll take later.

    Those few shops in our immediate area were our easiest options. There were different offerings if you managed to get an adult to drive or rode your bike, but we never felt starved of choice. For us it was a genuine smorgasbord with clear differences between establishments.

    These places were family run and were not 24-hour businesses. Some were even shut on Sunday! There were very few service stations like today with built in convenience stores; these seem to have replaced the corner shops and/or milk bars.

    Boring? I don’t remember it that way. Getting bored? Of course, now and then. It was all we knew though and we felt spoiled for choice.

  • CORPORATE CONFUSION: The Future Looks Bright, Just Not For Us

    The average worker never seems able to keep up with inflation. Prices go up a lot, while their wages only go up a little, if they’re lucky. The mega-rich are getting giga-rich, and the middle class is slowly vanishing. Who were the ‘middle class’?

    Those people who were well-off but did not consider themselves rich. The working class and poverty stricken thought they were, but they were all still at the whim of the economy. Small business owners, professionals and other white collar type jobs; and of course, those in the right trades and unions. In corporation terms you would have to be a few rungs up the ladder; middle management sounds about right!

    They had their mortgages paid, under-control or were trying their hand at investment property. They didn’t have to worry about basic bills and groceries, had a fair amount of disposable income and were basically comfortable. I’ll get into demographic and status competition in another post. For now, we’ll settle for a large chunk of people in the same boat as the working class, but they were up in the better seats; business and first class.

    A small percentage of those premium people managed to rise into the private jet elite, but most of them have found themselves squished back in economy with the rest of the plebs. Fighting for scraps of what the elites deem suitable to be tossed down. Watch ‘The Platform’ (2019) for a scathing allegory on this.

    The corporatisation of the world is slowly eroding the comfortable centre section of the income spectrum, and we all need to accept that this is the new norm for the foreseeable future. The way most of us earn a living is a fast changing (and getting faster) landscape, and it is getting harder and harder to predict what types of skills will be sellable in the future.

    Here’s a clunky idea: you know how energy cannot vanish (or something like that)? The same number of atoms always exist. Blow something up and they just disperse; they don’t cease to be. You may die but those subatomic particles that made up you never leave. Where was I? Oh yeah, money. The money (or numbers on the screen) is always there. It gets shifted around and never seems to be spread equally, but it is always there. It’s not a perfect fit as far as similes go, but it’ll have to do.

    Nowadays it seems that the top 1% have finally gotten their hooks into the flow of those cherished numbers. They have almost completely fixed the plumbing on that damn trickle-down economics bullshit.  Us working stiffs can only dream of those few drops that manage to get past the damn. Chances of getting on the soggy side are slim to none. Best we can do is prevent destitution – cheery stuff ay?

    Climbing the corporate ladder high enough to get yourself a good enough nest egg for if/when the rug gets pulled out from under you. Making it in showbiz somehow, although that seems to be providing ever more diminishing returns for the actual artists than ever before. Most of us already know our chances at sporting glory are long gone, if they ever were at all. Those tradies will still be in demand for a while yet, but the haven of the strong union jobs for slobs are drying up fast. That’s about all the options for an honest pleb. The days are numbered for the unskilled workers and which ‘skills’ will be replaced by computers and machines is getting harder to predict.

    The other positive outcomes are mere fantasies: win the lottery, some rich person leaves you a shit load, go viral on the internet AND figure out how to capitalize on it before it fades. Buy a dusty old record in an op shop and learn it’s worth a motza! Slip on a trail in the Blue Mountains and dislodge a large rock to reveal a nugget bigger than The Welcome Stranger! Stumble on a shootout in the middle of nowhere and everyone is dead; millions in cash and drugs sitting around in leather bags…Not happening.

    The concept of ‘clocking on’ and getting paid by the hour to do stuff is eroding relentlessly. AI may not be literally intelligent at present, but it can already replicate many of the basic decisions needed to run a profitable business. The more it learns, and it learns at incredible speed, the more it will be able to factor in the complicated variables and contingencies required for the more specialised professions.

    AI has already infiltrated into the other wonder of our consciousness and higher reasoning – art. It can create images and videos of startling complexity. It can write passable letters and stories; if you can convince the reader that you have poor grammar skills your AI stuff may very well be accepted. This will of course improve exponentially and there will eventually be no need to pay someone for this crucial piece of our humanity.

    Shit! Once the machines figure out how to replicate the opposable thumb, humans may be truly obsolete in the world of business. The elite may choose to pay a human orchestra to play something AI can already do perfectly, just for the novelty of having flesh and blood musicians perform. Fucken hell! Holograms and a digital maestro would be able to infuse different ‘emotion’ into any chosen performance.

    Let’s avoid the computers wiping us out scenario for now. Instead, we’ll go with universal basic income and a world of comfort and ease: Everyone has a clean and safe place to live, enough to eat and nothing but spare time. Your limitless entertainment is all provided and free; all created by AI of course.

    I suppose art would still exist as a hobby and I can’t imagine people would not still want to compete in sport and games. Gardening would be a niche past time in the same vein as having an aquarium – purely for display.

    Yet again I have tumbled down a warren I was not planning on. I wonder if AI will have such whimsical tendencies. Either way I can’t dispel the sinister feeling that this utopian life of leisure would be spirit crushing.

  • POTENTIAL DEATH OR SERIOUS INJURY: True Stories #20

    Plenty of alcohol and pot had been consumed that night. Danny, Tommy, Neil, Susan, Lindy and I where all out in Neil’s granny flat getting wasted on a Saturday evening. I don’t know where the trips (LSD) had come from but we had all popped one and they where well and truly messing with our brains by this point.

    We were all laughing and goofing off; just enjoying the mind bending effects of the acid. I don’t know exactly how it started, but I can recall Danny standing in front of me as I sat on the couch. I think we were exchanging friendly insults and Danny decided to get physical. He shoved me and I fell back into the chair. I then watched as Neil, who was seated on the other couch behind Danny, leaned over and grabbed Danny by the ankles. In one swift movement he pulled Danny’s legs out from under him. Danny fell forward onto me and a wrestling match then ensued.

    Tommy decided to join in and he began grappling with Neil. It seemed to be unofficially Neil and me versus Danny and Tommy. I remember that we were all laughing our heads off as this was taking place. The alcohol, pot and acid had combined to make this whole scenario seem totally surreal. There was no malice in our actions we were genuinely enjoying ourselves.

    The girls on the other hand were not happy and they were calling for us to stop. There was no way that was going to happen in the near future; we were having too much fun.

    At one stage I ended up behind Danny and I applied a Full Nelson hold. This meant I had his arms wrapped up behind his head. This move is very difficult to escape from using strength alone. Danny was in no mood to surrender so he planted his feet and pushed off backwards. We both fell fast onto one of the couches and my head slammed into the wall.

    The Full Nelson had been broken and Danny climbed off of me. We were both laughing heartily at this point. As Danny turned to look at me he quickly stopped laughing. Neil and Tommy ceased their tussle and both stood staring at me with mouths agape. Susan and Lindy quickly joined the gawking group.

    I was lying back on the couch still giggling my head off. As the shock in everyone’s faces began to sink in my laughter stopped. I realised they were looking just a little behind me rather than directly at me. I felt as if I was in real danger, so I moved very slowly. I cautiously got up off the couch and turned to look at what was holding everyone’s focus.

    There was a small hole in the wall where my head had slammed into the Gyprock. That wasn’t the shocking part. Just millimetres above the hole, a power socket jutted out of the wall; a rectangular cube protruding out of the wall ready to split any melon that slammed into it. My head had smashed into the wall missing the corner of that power socket by the width of a bee’s dick! My head would have been cracked right open had I landed that tiny bit more up or to the left.

    I don’t know how long we stared at the evidence of miraculous luck, but it seemed like a while. Acid has a way of distorting time along with your other senses.

    This is another time where my memory seems to freeze. I don’t remember what happened after that moment. It is as if the video tape goes black after the incident is played out. I do remember that later in the night Danny Tommy, Susan and Lindy went out to the Cross. Neil and I didn’t have any IDs and we were too young looking (I was 17 and Neil was 15) to attempt getting into a club without one.

    So it seems that we eventually recovered from our shock and continued on our merry way of brain cell destruction for a few hours more.

    Thinking back I still feel immensely fortunate to have missed the skull smashing power socket. It is humbling to think how lives can be changed by the matter of a mere millimetre or two.

  • SOMEONE NEEDS TO SHOOT THIS GUN HAPPY PSYCHO: Movie Musings #10

    ***Spoiler Alert***

    Wow! What a brain twister! The mental gymnastics in this one are fantastic! Yet through brilliant storytelling sleight of hand, I think it holds, by the skin of its teeth, but it holds.

    Dirty Harry is back with his trusty .44 Magnum: ready and willing to put large calibre holes into anyone foolish enough to draw on him. Remember that detail because it is important.

    This time Harry has to track down a psychopathic vigilante who is gunning down bad guys in cold blood. Don’t laugh! This lunatic has elected themselves judge, jury and executioner. It’s not funny! You can’t just go around shooting known murderers because you reckon the world would be better off without them. Stop fucken laughing!

    I see what has you so amused. Yes, Harry has been known to kill more than his fair share of villains. The difference is, if you watch the movie closely, Harry only ever mows down in self-defence or to save an innocent civilian. It’s a (paper) thin line, but he never crosses it. Not on camera anyway. He also never kills or maims any bystanders for that matter. It’s truly uncanny!

    Harry believes in the system. He’s a cop and a cop’s job is to capture the bad guys and gather evidence. After that it’s in the hands of the justice system. It’s only a coincidence that Harry always seems to arrive while a violent crime is in progress. What else can a good cop do other than charge in? Once he’s involved it’s not Harry’s fault if a gun wielding suspect draws on him or one of his colleagues or a civilian – Blam, Blam, Blam! Problem solved.

    Saves a lot of time and expense on incarceration and court proceedings. It’s just dumb luck that Harry doesn’t need to waste time going to court and all that bullshit. Harry gets to avoid the bitter frustration of someone he caught walking free. Not in this movie anyway. In this story he is much more pragmatic regarding the loopholes and flaws in the legal process.

    The assassin not only kills unarmed evildoers, but they also don’t have a problem with making Swiss cheese out of anyone unfortunate enough to be hanging out with the target. An entire fucken pool party in one instance! Talk about overkill.

    Harry meets a tight knit group of rookie traffic cops who take their firearms training very seriously and he is most impressed. The force needs guys who can put bullets into vital areas on hoodlums. That’s what good policing is all about.

    However, soon Harry begins to surmise that these gung-ho motorcycle cops are getting a little ahead of themselves when it comes to administering the law.

    There’s a great scene where the undefeated SFPD shooting competition champion Harry ends up in a tie breaker with the rookie crew’s best guy. Harry chooses ‘combat’ which involves one of those layouts with the façade buildings like a film set. Targets randomly pop out; some are armed thugs, some are civilians and some are cops. The young buck gets a perfect score. Harry is on the same track, but loses when he shoots the final target by mistake – a cop. See what they did there?

    Anyway, Harry gets his proof and even uncovers some higher ups that are involved in this death squad setup. Of course, he won’t have to prove anything in a court of law because the baddies all make the fatal mistake of trying to take him out. Problem solved.

    I’ve seen this movie many times since I was a kid and this latest viewing was the first time I really noticed the paradox. I find it fascinating that we all (as far as I know) accepted that Harry had the moral high ground simply because he didn’t fuck up and kill the wrong person. It would be a very different movie indeed if Harry took out a few passengers on that plane for example:

    Harry walks onto a plane during an armed hostage situation and after a little subterfuge, he beats the shit out of one terrorist and uses that guys gun to shoot the other one; through a wall, mind you. Harry demonstrates his concern for bystander safety by barking “sit down!” to the annoying passengers who are panicking and not behaving properly. That seems to be the minimum duty of care for having gunfights in public places.

    In this particular cinematic universe Harry’s halo holds. He saved the day and punished the wrongdoers. If the movie had Harry arrest the terrorists and then flash forward to them mocking him as they walk free from court, things obviously change. If Harry tracks them down and shoots them dead while they are eating McDonalds, we have might have a problem.

    In Harry’s world though, the terrorists would undoubtably see him coming and draw their guns, maybe even take a hostage for extra tension. We are so easily duped by good storytelling.

    I love movies and I love stories in general, but when you immerse yourself in any artform you cannot avoid seeing the man behind the curtain pulling the strings now and then. Funnily, it doesn’t take away from the enjoyment, in some ways it deepens my awe. It also has the added benefit of giving the next generation of storytellers a cliché that can be used as misdirection. Awesome!

  • BARBARIANS AT THE GATE: Rise of the Tycoons #17

    Conquering nearby tribes was not always a means of expansion alone. Sometimes it was necessary to eliminate hostile neighbours. Those boorish savages could be rather nasty sometimes. They might attack any unwary citizen who stumbles into their region, and they would most certainly be stealing shit from the wealthy empire every chance they got.

    Stealth would be the ideal method to prevent being caught and crushed. Of course, if you’re clever you would raid villages that had a few tribes between them and yours. Either way it’s a dangerous and foolish game, but all that surplus was just irresistible! Plus, those imperial fuckers will eventually be coming for us anyway, so screw ‘em! Part opportunism, part bravado and defiance.

    Now if you keep on the move…You know? A hunter/gatherer/stealer type tribe. Just another form of gathering really. I wonder if anyone who got caught tried using that excuse. A gang of thieves or a fair dinkum H&G tribe that sends out raiders when the opportunity arises; it could work. Life expectancy wasn’t that great anyway really, so the life of a guerilla thief at least kept things interesting.

    In the end, unless your tribe relocated a good distance, there was one of two outcomes: You got swallowed up, or you were fortunate enough to see the collapse of an empire and maybe get to lay a few boots in for good measure and go rummaging through the ruins for booty. You may get to live through an empire free decade or more. Eventually another will take its place of course.

    Another alternative might be the barbarians themselves mobbing up and becoming a force to be reckoned with. A group of nomads like the Huns who kicked ass and conquered. They weren’t your run of the mill raid and run barbarians. They fucken steamrolled and smashed anyone in their path. They scared the shit out of Europe and created an empire of their own, although not a long lived one in relative terms. They burned bright and burned out.

    Eventually we come to those infamous Scandinavians; or more specifically the groups that decided to make raiding their forte. A combination of seafaring mastery and ruthless violence led to these guys being the bane of anyone they decided to visit. While they did have ‘trader’ on their resume, their specialty was first and foremost pillaging.

    The Vikings were a formidable plundering force! They could travel great distances by water and strike with such ferocity that most of their victims could scarcely mount any kind of defence. They would then make a hasty escape with the booty, off beyond the horizon.

    Few mariners had the skill or guts to follow and the few that did would not have been in a hurry to catch up with a longship filled with bloodthirsty nutters. The idea of landing on a Viking shore and attempting a retaliatory strike would be even less appealing, I’m sure.

    These lunatics believed they wouldn’t get into Valhalla unless they died in battle. Fucking hell! I often used to ponder the fine print of this dogma. Must it be a ‘glorious’ death?

    What if you slipped and fell off a cliff?

    What if you were getting old and tired and decided to do death by foe?

    What if you panicked and got killed while you were running away?

    Is falling overboard during the voyage covered?

    What about getting killed during training or a fight in your own village?

    Or just getting outright murdered out of the blue?

    I suspect the stern answer to these would be no, tough shit! I’m not sure if the alternative was hellfire or nothingness, but I reckon it would get a little freaky spending eternity with a bunch of people who spent their lives trying to get killed, who are now immortal.

    The Viking scourge was a unique entity and maybe not an empire per se. However, they would fade like all the rest. They seem to have gone the way of an aging corporation that became a shadow of its former self. They were once savage competitors who never took a backward step; always hustling and striving; disapproving comfort and resting on laurels.

    Eventually the spoils of conquest would spoil the younger generation and they would go soft. The blood and guts old guard would complain about ‘the youth of today’ and how rampant attack had simmered down to defence. They start to settle down. Farming and family begin to dominate the culture, and the trade of Viking becomes an illustrious bunch of stories. Christianity would replace Norse mythology and help speed up the tenderisation process. They would evolve and re-conquer the world (markets) with plastic building blocks and affordable home furnishings.

    Many more empires would rise and fall. The Mongols would rise to raise hell centuries later. These barbarian hordes eerily resemble the cliché of the little guy battling the big guys – winning – and then becoming the new big guys – and then dissipate, or more appropriate become assimilated into the new cultural organism.

    We can all trace our ancestry back to one empire or another. All except for the ones whose forebears managed to get oceans between themselves and the human swarm. These people would remain blissfully unaware of the plague of progress until the rise of maritime mastery and competition. The new empires were no longer land locked and expansion could continue around the globe. The age of colonisation was about to begin.

  • WE NEED TO DIG A LITTLE DEEPER: A Believer, A Non-Believer and A Fence-Sitter Walk into a Bar.

    In terms of the way we behave and interact with each other, religion cannot be ruled out. It plays a role in almost everyone’s life whether they consider themselves religious or not. In its simplest form it appears to be a three-way split: Religious, Atheist or agnostic, so I suppose I’ll attempt to break it down that way. Starting with religion I’ll have to narrow it down a little more; this looks like it will be an ongoing thread.

    So, why does it even matter?

    I did touch on it briefly a while back, but that was just an entrée… maybe just an hors d’oeuvre. Keeping it non-specific for the time being, I will expand on that concept: How a person makes sense of the world has a huge impact on how they behave and treat others. We do not need to get into specific religions just yet to explain how influential a person’s ingrained beliefs are on them.

    You may say you are not religious, but it is almost certain you were raised to believe in something: a certain religious denomination, pure science, some ancient or new wave spirituality practice, one of the ‘isms’ or the Jedi. It doesn’t matter what it was, the stuff the grown-ups implant when you’re a kid has an effect on your mind. Accept it, reject it or really examine it and choose the bits that work for you; either way it is deep in your psyche.

    Santa Clause as most of us are taught is a mythological character who embodies generosity and kindness. The Boogey Man is the bad things that will get you if you go wandering off alone at night. We all swear we don’t ‘believe’ in that shit, but I am betting that if you grew up with it you can vividly remember the feelings: the joy and excitement of Christmas; the fear of things that go bump in the night.

    If you grew up with Santa, you certainly feel differently towards the 25th of December; Jesus or not this is meant to be a time of happiness and giving. You may hate it for that very reason, but it does influence you some way.

    It is not the same detached feeling an Anglo might feel during Ramadan or Diwali. If you live in a major city, you will at the very least know it is going on. Most will know people who are observing these acts of worship. You may be interested; you may participate as a guest, but you will never ‘feel’ it the way a person who grew up with it does.

    Once again, this person may refuse to participate and tell you they do not believe in that shit, but they cannot be disconnected in the way an outsider is.

    Are you religious?

    Yeah, I’m Catholic.

    Are you a practicing Catholic?

    Sort of, I don’t eat meat on Good Friday.

    When was the last time you went to church?

    My cousins’ wedding.

    I’m seeing a pattern here. When was the last time you gave a confessional and partook of the holy bread and wine.

    No idea.

    So that’s a no. Hardly a true believer here.

    Almost all religions have non-practicing types. Almost all these people still adhere to all sorts of dogma without even thinking about it. Others suddenly become pious when the shit hits the fan. Many simply comfort themselves with their faith to absolve themselves of a wrongdoing. “That guy wasn’t Christian or Muslim or whatever faith WE are, so it doesn’t count.”

    Your victim is of the same faith? No problem. They’re probably of a different denomination or branch. Shit man, if things keep lining up, just point out the differing nationality or something. “All I’m trying to say is that I would never do such a thing to myself or my loved ones (maybe).”

    The whole “our religion will take over the world” concept seems utterly absurd to me. Christianity is split three-ways and then a thousand:

    Catholic or Orthodox or God only knows how many Protestant denominations there are. Google Christian religions to see just how many variations on the theme there are. The protestant movement kicked off as a rebellion (or ‘protest’) of the Catholic church’s interpretation and monetisation of the Bible and exploded into innumerable unique versions regarding the ‘real’ message in the Good Book. Especially in the US where individualism really took off!

    As an outsider it seems that Islam has less ‘protestant’ type branches outside of Sunni and Shi’a. Probably has something to do with the violent consequences of dissent I would guess. I have no doubt there are still countless disagreements regarding the ‘Truth’ among the faithful.

    Add to these discrepancies the fierce ethnic enmity in the Middle East and it is hard to imagine a harmonious amalgamation. That’s before you even start with the African and other Asian Muslims, along with the people who converted from other faiths. Don’t try and tell me there won’t be a pecking order after this world domination is achieved.

    Even when we follow the same Holy Text we cannot agree. I suspect that it is a human quirk to tweak all rulesets when it suits our needs. It is also human to deny such a frailty.

    I seem to have gone off track again. Sometimes that’s where you find the treasure. Maybe not this time ay?. I’ll certainly be coming back around these parts again soon. I’ll leave with what I was thinking when I started this post, but never got around to mentioning:

    Rather than finding out ‘what’ religion a person follows, we may understand more by finding out ‘how religious’ that person is. “How strictly do you adhere to your creed?” There’s another post in the making right there!