RIP GEORGE

I used to love George Carlin.  I ONCE belonged to a huge cult following here on FB, so I KNOW I am spitting in the eye of a sacred cow when I say I no longer care for him.

Once upon a time, I used to love his wry, pithy, witty observations about the pettiness, ignorance and cruelty of the human race.  I hated people too, so his jibes suited me.  However, at some point, maybe about a year or two ago, we had a parting of the ways.   I tried to read his collection of books a few weeks ago, & I could not.  An 'Orgy of George' was an ORGY of hatred and vitriole.  And it DID NOT let up.  After about 20 pages, I could no longer stand it.

Either he changed at some point- or I did.  I think it was me.  At some point, George gave up on the human race, & even went as far as to say he loved 'disaster', 'large numbers of people dying in horrible ways' & 'people under pressure'.  Unless he was bullshitting (& he swore up & down he was not ), by his oft stated rationale he would have found Newtown funny.   Not me; I no longer wish harm on anyone.

This is NOT a reformed smoker, telling you to quit the smokes.  It's probably just a question of taste.  When I was a kid, my best friend and I loved Motorhead.  Then one day he inexplicably started hating them, and became a Def Leppard fan.  We change.  Our tastes change.  We evolve, and we move on.  George was undeniably talented and funny; I have simply- moved on.

I think we have a lot to be ashamed of as a species- but we also have an ENORMOUS AMOUNT to be proud of, and commended for.  So...RIP GEORGE.  I will never wish you ill, I will never dance on your grave or laugh at your bones- but I cannot buy into your pessimism any longer.

Every funnyman comes from a place of truth- & your truth is no longer mine.      

MY PRAYER...

Saint Augustine said, "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet."

I know one day i'm going to have to learn to let you guys go, in order to step fully off this mortal coil & into the void without too much trauma.

But NOT YET.

My worst sin? That nagging feeling- a kind of melancholy sadness-that one day, we are going to have to part ways.

Help me to hold you close, dear friends; help m...

e love you...then teach me how best to let you go when the time comes.

Let ALL this go.

& I hope I can do the same for you.

That is my prayer.

ME, ME, ME.

And another thing…

Something else has been nagging at me lately.

All too often, it seems that when I post- I post about myself.

You could argue, isn’t that what FB is all about?

What I’m doing?

What any of us are doing in any given moment?

Possibly.

So what’s the big deal?

What is nagging at me? A tick? A flea? Scabies?

Nope. Worse; the extent to which I talk about myself, & where I may fall short thinking of others.

I know that bothers me at times.

I noticed some people say something like, ‘Good Morning Everybody.’

‘How are you’?

I don’t do that much

Maybe I could. Should.

And yet…it is not really me.

It feels forced.

Like eating my greens; something I should do…

Rather than something I want to do.

Is doing something you SHOULD do (rather than what you might WANT to do) not a good thing?

I mean…I might want to make love to that lady over there.

Do I just go ahead and do it?

No.

I ‘should’ be polite, and keep what I ‘want’ to myself.

What about if I have a pain in my brain, & I hold back from talking about it because I know I SHOULD keep it to myself…even thought I WANT to say something…

& then end up in hospital?

What about that?

It’s a fine line…

a case by case thing.

What we ‘want’ to do…

What we ‘should’ do…

The lines become blurred.

Generally, it makes sense to repress the things you want to do if they hurt others.

But what if that same repression hurts US as well??

I was chatting with someone yesterday, & ‘that person’ (& I speak of ‘this person’ in this impersonal, robotic legalese way because I KNOW she does not like talking about her ills), admitted not wanting to talk about their own ails and woes.

And yet that person seems to love talking about not wanting to talk about her ills.

Whereas me- I moan at the drop of a hat; can’t seem to help myself.

Who is right?

Which of us is healthier?

The better for our own actions?

Well, before we deal with that…let me talk about why I think I talk about what is bothering me, my ills and woes.

I mean, it’s a controversial point, this; there seem to be two opposing forces divided.

Those who talk about their ills…

And those who do not.

Who is right?

I talk about my ills.

Is it just simply to wallow in them?

I’m not so sure; I think there is a little more to it.

Stick with me now; huddle close, stay together, I think there might be something here for all of us.

I used to have an Aunty who would moan and complain about her ills.

It was the first time I heard the word ‘hypochondriac’.

Now…she is someone I consider the definition of the word.

I can’t hear it without thinking of her.

Now; as far as I can recall, she would moan and complain & do nothing.

And make everyone else around her ill with her moaning.

Not very useful.

This, I think, is why I am cautious about doing the same thing myself.

It can become tiresome very quickly.

You might be the same.

But seeing as how I have gone back in my time machine to get to the source of the Nile…

Let’s find out why I crap on about myself- if I know it is something I don’t want to turn me into my miserable Aunty.

Clearly there is a conflict here.

And conflict must be rectified.

While we are on family…

Let’s talk about Dad.

I have become accustomed to resisting ANYTHING my father ever said.

‘Don’t lie to me, son, lie to girls.’

‘Trust nobody’

‘The only language people understand is a smack in the head’.

OK. That kind of thing.

I figure if I ignore that…I’m OK.

One other thing he used to day…

‘Don’t complain, don’t explain, and NEVER apologise’.

Seemed reasonable at the time; I mean, he WAS my father.

What else did I have to go by as a kid?

Now I am an adult; and I make my own choices.

And if they are the exact OPPOSITE of anything he said…

then I should be on safe ground.

So, I seem to COMPLAIN, EXPLAIN, AND APOLOGISE.

A LOT.

But I’m an intelligent man; there has to be more to it. I refuse to believe I do it just to resist his faulty conditioning.

Or is that ALL it is?

Don’t forget, a LOT of us are raised to ‘keep it to ourselves.’

And I don’t want to place ALL the blame at the feet of my father.

Because I sincerely believe it is NOT all his fault.

There are hundreds, thousands; millions out there just like him.

‘DON’T TELL US YOUR LIFE STORY!’ a Sergeant of mine used to say.

As if what I say, feel, think, and do,

EVER DID…

Was meaningless.

How many of you out there bite your tongue?

Listen; for better or worse, I have created an environment of honesty, and candour here.

Mainly as a means of working on myself.

Working through certain issues, in order to be a BETTER MAN.

It’s not always easy, or palatable, but I do it.

Sure, I wonder if I am pissing people off; but they can always leave.

Because it feels like the RIGHT THING to do.

And in the environment I have created…

I have noticed other people are opening up to me.

Taking the ball and running with it.

And the message I am getting is that for a LOT of my friends…this is the FIRST time many of them have felt comfortable talking about themselves and their issues.

It got me thinking; why is that?

THEIR fathers?

All of our fathers?

ALL OF OUR FATHER FIGURES?

From our BLOOD parents…to our surrogate parents?

Law enforcement agencies, bureaucracy, corporations, government?

Telling us to ‘keep it to yourself’?

‘DON’T COMPLAIN, DON’T EXPLAIN NEVER APOLOGISE’.

Like good little citizens.

Sound familiar?

Got a ring to it?

How many people out there don’t complain because they;

1. Don’t want to bother others.
2. Don’t want to dwell on themselves.
3. Don’t feel worthy of attention.

Listen; I set out to change certain things about myself.

When an issue crops up, you can be pretty sure I will post about it.

Is it just to dwell on ME ME ME?

In my case, I feel more accurately it is a sincere effort to expose things in my thinking and behaviour that are not working for me, bring them out into the light, run them by my friends and peers, and then deal with them as they arise.

Like my issue with the ‘Poms’.

I was annoyed by something, I did not want to run the risk of allowing it to take over my thoughts, and sew the seeds of unhealthy thinking…

So I brought it out into the light.

And the negative thoughts are now gone.

BUT…EVEN if it was just about ME ME ME…

Or even if something you say is about YOU YOU YOU…

Why the hell not?

Do you not deserve to be heard?

I think you do; or you would not be here.

How many of you are holding back?

I see it all the time.

I know one young lady- she tells me she HATES talking about her problems….

And then she proceeds to do so, in great detail.

Sprinkled and punctuated by profuse apology and self-deprecation.

WHY??

Why apologise?

I LOVE to hear from her.

The good…& the bad.

That’s what friends are for.

Why do you hold back???

I mean, that’s a rhetorical question.

Ask yourself; WHY DO I HOLD BACK?

IS IT HELPING ME?

If not…why the FUCK do you do it?

It makes no sense.

Who are you saving it for? Some imagined opportunity to air your grievances in one fell swoop?

Might never happen.

Are you holding it back because some PARENT- blood, or elected- told you to?

IS IT HELPING YOU IN YOUR LIFE?

If not…

WHY DO IT?

If you learn nothing else from me…

I want you to think about…

To consider…

COMING OUT.

The best thing about coming out about my own issues, (and I DO NOT mean dwelling upon them like an electronic hypochondriac, but finding a way to work through them to a better healthier place) is not only that it I have been able to help MYSELF…

But others have felt the impulse to ask themselves some similar questions.

Make some changes.

And that requires NOT ONLY introspection and self-examination…

But the understanding, and the belief that YOU ARE WORTHY of telling your story, and WORTHY of transporting yourself through this self-examination and personal inventory to a better place…a better way of life.

YOU ARE WORTHY.

I AM WORTHY.

Let’s SHRUG off this bullshit notion that we are NOT (wherever the hell we picked it up) because it is not helping us…

And start talking more.

Working through it.

To a better place.

Why not? As long as you’re not STAYING there…building a home on this soggy loam…

As long as it is merely a temporary place to a better world…

WHY NOT??

Who are you really hurting?

Who are you really HELPING?

Perhaps more people than you know.

In time, we all might allow ourselves to do this.

Speak more freely about our ills.

And Heaven knows what healing we may achieve…

Peace.

Consider the Lilies of the Field…

 

 

Consider the Lilies of the Field…

...how they grow: they neither toil nor spin.

For when the sound and fury wanes...& all falls quiet…

 

You can hear the quieter things.

 

You can do that.

When the room is quiet…you can review- with certain clarity- those things that have come to pass in times of war, but have gone unnoticed in the din...

And I have been at war- such a long time.

 

With myself.

Is the war over?

 

Is it too soon to declare an armistice?

Hard to say; only I can answer that.

And I’m not sure I know myself well enough to say with any kind of certainty.

I know only unpredictability.

What I want to be…

Is settled.

'He’s so settled so at peace with himself.'

So sure.

So reliable.

That is what I want.

Not in a boring way…doing nothing, saying nothing, going nowhere...

 

But in a productive way.

When I gave up smoking, drinking, eating dead animal flesh...

 

It was no battle.

I just surrendered to health and wellbeing.

Will it be the same for my past and most persistent addiction?

Hatred and Anger?

I would like to thinks so.

Less a proactive measure- something I am DOING…

More a question of something I am ceasing to do.

Giving up the anger…letting it pass through me, rather than fighting it...

& surrendering to love.

I said before that this is not something we can do alone.

And a conversation with my good friend Danaan reminded me of this.

You can lead a horse to water…but you cannot make it drink.

That is because horses are more evolved than men.

You usually cannot even lead a man to water.

He will avoid with every fibre of his being…those things that might heal him.

‘A man would go to heaven with half the effort he goes to hell’, as Johnson said.

I have spent a lifetime wandering in the desert, my preference to suffer and die in the sands of hate…than drink from the cool clear waters of love.

I think because we do not trust what we know to be good and right, true and life giving.

Things like home…& family.

The truth is...the trauma of life at home…I never trusted it.

It gave me nightmares. Apocalyptic nightmares.

Home life...father...was a nightmare.

A perpetual horror. 

I never trusted the ‘so called’ love…the tough love of the fist and the belt…

Which left me accursed to wander the wasteland of hate, rather than trust love, family, home and hearth again…which I knew to be poison, stagnant waters...

My conversation with Danan reminded me of my propensity for hate, and anger toward people.

 

The hatred and anger I was weaned upon.

Taken out on others as my father took it out on me.

 

Even people on FB.

Whatever it is that Father carried trapped in his soul..

 

Whatever wrong doing he carried with him...& unable to take action against the true source...

 

He took it out on us.

 

Just as I take it out on those around me, most who do not deserve it.

 

I feel, somehow...I must take it out on someone.

 

SOMEONE must pay for this injustice, trapped inside my soul? 

 

right?

 

& I disguise it with righteous indignation…

But call it what it is.

Hate.

I get angry with a comment perceived as an attack on me; & I fly into battle as if waging some mighty crusade…

When it is merely a war with myself.

And I defriend and block…

And it is only then…in the peace and quiet between battles…

I realise some of these people have shown me who I am.

They are just like me.

No wonder I hate them.

Because I hate me.

As long as I wage war with me…

I will wage war with people just like me.

I need to accept peace…once and for all.

Trust it.

I will need time to trust people…

But as long as I trust myself.

How do I learn to do this?

How can I let myself drink from the waters of my own peace?

By allowing people to help.

Like…Danaan.

She has had MANY opportunities to defriend and block me over the time we have known each other.

My flying off the handle…

Talking to her reminded me of two things.

How the anger…

The mood swings…

Are just like my father's.

One minute he was fine, happy, peaceful…

Next thing he would roar in anger, and beat the living daylights out of us.

Walking on eggshells. That was home.

No wonder I don’t trust it.

And I am just like him.

No wonder I don’t trust me.

But…

She trusts me.

She has been patient with me.

And kind.

She has NEVER judged me.

She has more grace, faith and compassion than anyone I have ever met.

She has not even tried to lead me to the water.

 

No sign of any evangelistic zeal. 

She has simply been here for me, offering gentle encouragement…

This has engendered in me a curiosity.

About her.

And admiration.

‘Wait a second’. I think to myself.

‘She has seen who I am; my anger, my mood swings…even with people she knows.’

‘So had Ken’.

For that matter- so have a lot of my friends here.

Just a couple of examples…unexpected sources of courage and inspiration.

James has always been here for me.

Quietly supportive.

Pinky is a fairly new friend…& I suspected from the start it might be touch and go.

And yet…he has persisted.

His patience…when others have torn me to shreds for my indignation…

Saw something else in me.

He had faith. God knows why.

Actually..I DO know why.

These people…in fact, all my FB friends…

Have had something I WISH/WANT to have a little of.

Patience.

These are people who seem to be quite ordinary…

 

& yet extraordinary. In a quiet, peaceful, unassuming way...

They have more going for them than Ghandi or the Dalai.

They don't have the same PR machine.

 

Quiet achievers.

People with the gift of patience, grace, and kindness.

And humanity.

I often ask…why have they not blocked and defriended me yet?

I am cautious about any club that would have me as a member…

But my curiosity is too much for me.

I have to find out more.

What have they got?

What well do they drink from?

It seems to be good.

Can I get some too??

And slowly, but surely…

I creep gently toward the well.

Will I drink?

 

Maybe.

 

If I can learn, more often to...

 

Consider the lilies of the field.

ON THE BRIDGE...

One thing I have learned over the last few weeks-

HATE has a half-life of Strontium 90.

Love can be a powerful force, sure- if we can be present enough, self-actualised enough to find it within us- but hate is so much more persuasive.

We as human beings simply cannot seem to resist it.

Even on a site called “Don’t Hate Me, But I Don’t Get This Artist …”

the siren call of ‘hate’ was simply too powerful. 

I mean- the instructions were pretty clear; the operative words being ‘Don’t Hate Me’.

It was the condition of membership.

The actual terms of the group changed somewhat, to shift focus from ‘artists’ we don’t get- & even that meaning was satisfied and established over time- to things in general life we do not ‘get’. 

Fair enough; but what remained unchanged was the actual condition of entry reflected in the name of the group; 'don’t hate the contributor’.

No matter what they say.

And I bore the brunt of that hatred- admittedly for my somewhat surreal, ironic expression of my inability to understand what purpose ‘post natal depression’ serves. In an evolutionary sense. 

(& I blame Dawkins and his writings for encouraging me to think in such audacious ways. 

Or rather, I 'attribute', rather than blame.

Because I am not ashamed for thinking outside the box; & I am inspired by intelligent, courageous, creative people who ask the hard questions. 

For it is they, the ones who outrage today, who inspire great social change tomorrow.

I am not afraid of outrage.

Nor should you be.)

My questions, to me, feel like the right ones to ask, in terms of helping people with mental illness,
& saving lives.

For the manner in which I questioned the way we seem to have accepted Post Natal Depression (ie not found a cure)  because it a WOMEN'S illness is the kind of thinking that changes preconceptions.

Mental illness is NOT just a woman's illness.

We are not working hard enough to challenge it, eradicate it...

Largely because we are not asking the hard questions.

We fear them.  Just as we fear mental illness.

And things we fear...we tend to hate.

I do not see what purpose hate...or mental illness for that matter...serves.

In Darwinian terms- both uniquely human afflictions seem to serve no other purpose than to wipe us all out.

This could not be more prescient with the suicide of Tony Scott this week.

Inoperable Brain Cancer, we learn today.

But I jumped to the assumption it was mental illness.

It's a persuasive mythos...we are so used to hearing it.

Everyone from Heath Ledger to Brittany Murphy...

Incredible film making talent- taken from us prematurely, like so many others, by an illness which serves no purpose but to wipe us out.

It’s a lot like hate. Well, it is; mental illness is built on the cornerstone of self-loathing.

Why loathe yourself when there are so many others lined up, goose-stepping in jackboots in close order formation to do it for you?

The question of the ages, left particularly when someone hurls themselves off a bridge.

Why?

And why would I make the assumptions I did??

'Was the hate too much for him?'

'In the city of hate…was he trying to escape the brutes?'

I make assumption. And we all know what comes of that.

Nothing good.

Indeed, I speculated in an arrogant way when I suggest he even HAD an illness.

Projection???

At least i had the presence of mind to surmise he 'was simply exercising his right to make an informed decision'.

Which it turned out, he was.

Brain tumour; no hope.

What about 'the hate tumour'? 

The world can be a horrible place.

There are times I have thought of ending it all, when the hatred became too much for me.

Why do I assume it was a mental illness, when it might simply have been enough for him?

When the world becomes too painful...why not check out?

Why prolong the agony?

Of course there will be people who will say I should not say this. 

They assume I advocate...

When all I am doing is ASKING THE QUESTION.

Seeing the issue from all sides.

You would be amazed by how many people hate that.

Especially religious fundamentalists, who are locked hard and fast into one way of thinking.

The thought of considering other possibilities is abhorrent to them.

Like the Scientologists. 

Who suggest, we all need to be 'on the bridge'. 

Perhaps I should follow Tony, & take them literally.

According to the Scientologist's themselves, from their website; 

'Man, in his religious tradition, has long imagined a bridge across the chasm between where one is now and a higher plateau of existence.

Unfortunately, many of those attempting to cross the chasm fell into the abyss.

How many times have I been tempted by that abyss?

Because of idiots like these Scientologists, who puport to peddle the solution to this angst?

By the hate, fear and loathing of those who follow the 'one true way'?

When finally, the only true way- the only way out from the madness...

Is to get on that bridge...& jump??

One day- I would love to satisfy myself once and for all.

I would love to start a website entitled “Don’t Hate Me.”

No, that’s arrogant- & impossible.

& I seem to be easy to hate.

I would call it simply, “Don’t Hate”.

Period.

And see how long it takes for the hate to trickle in, & how powerful that hatred becomes.

The ratio of hate over love, if you will.

I don’t want to second guess the outcome- that would be hateful of me.

And if there is one thing we can say about hatred- it is powerful, it is irresistible for most humans, it does last forever in many cases, & it WILL eventually destroy us before we destroy it…
We do NOT have to be party to it.

That is a choice.

As hard a choice as it can be for many of us…& one we must make- not once- but every single day, every hour, every minute, every second of our lives…

It is the most important choice of all.

To cross over the bridge of hatred…fear, loathing...

Or to jump off it.

The choice, as ever, is ours.

But love always waits for us, patiently, quietly, on the other side…

IN WEIRD WE TRUST...

As you know, I’m not keen on putting people into categories.

But I do believe there are archetypes; Jung lets me get away with that.

And I do not discriminate against any of them- which also lets me off the hook in a moral sense.  

I have always been fascinated by those people in life who seem touched by the hand of God.

They can do no wrong.

At school, my first encounter with such a person was Padraig Hurley.

He looked like just a normal kid- but the girls loved him.

He was good at sports. He was in all the clubs and was a prefect, and won all the awards, etc.

And you wouldn’t know it to look at him…but he was a great fighter.

He even kicked the school bullies arse.

Spring Heeled Jim.

At the other end of the scale, there are people like me.

I never got it right.  Could never seem to.

As anyone who has been exposed to childhood trauma will tell you, it puts a jag on yr brain.

Distorts your life, your world view, your behaviour.

Especially if you have a sensitive, artistic disposition like me.

I used to have apocalyptic nightmares; not sure whether this was prescience in terms of the fate of the planet and the species...

or a natural subconscious reaction to the screaming & thumping coming from Mum & Dad’s room.

I used to wet the bed.

I even pissed my pants occasionally with fear in the world outside my bed. 

Oh, I was a world beater, even at that age. A real mess. 

I never knew where the next violence or abuse was coming from.

So maybe I attracted the priests.

They can smell the weak, the desperate…like a shark to blood.

& I certainly was a weak child.

As I got older...

Well, in ‘A Moveable Feast’, Hemingway spoke of ‘the man who was marked for death’.

That’s how I felt, most of my adult life.

Like i was somehow cursed.

The internet tells me now...I am not alone.

I didn't invent alienation- urban or otherwise.  

But prior to my logging on...

the people i came across in my daily life would never admit to any kind of weakness.

So I felt, for the most part, alone in it.

I guess I still do, occasionally; feel weak, alone, frail...

Like I'm the only one who feels it, or gets it.

Which is absurd.

The only difference is now…

I stand up for myself.

& others.

& I don’t fear death or punishment.

What could be worse than what I’ve been through to date?

Torture?

Gitmo?

Kidnapping & beheading?

I’m not afraid any more.

Of anything; not even being misunderstood.

I know who I am, know how I like to communicate…& people can take it or leave it.

And they do.

Not everything I say is pennies from heaven.

Far from it.

Like the Dalai…take what I say that you like, and leave the rest.

I'm like a weird Lama.

A fucked up one.

But for the left.

So take on board what you will, and leave the rest where it lies.

& I will do the same with you.

We are not always going to agree.

But if yr party line is blatant unashamed racism or hatred…

I will lance you like a boil.

It’s not a fucking crusade; hatred just seems to find me.

Eventually.

Even when it is hidden- it might take time…but the truth will always out, eventually.

I now get very angry at even a whiff of injustice.

I hate any kind of bigotry or discrimination against people.

I hate it. Hate hate, as we have already established.

& I have had plenty of reason.

I was exploited for being weak.

Tough shit; you know I dig Dawkins, and its survival of the fittest.

& I survived.

Not very dignified- I never looked like Rambo, hiding in the forest eating things that made Billy Goats puke…

If you had a camera- it would have looked pathetic.

It was a lot of ducking and diving.

Hiding in caves.

Cold rice and rat meat.

Trying to keep Catholic dicks away from my arse.

Dodging the punches.

Weave. thrust. parry.  

Trying to dodge beatings from all comers.

Of course this is not to be taken literally.

I am trying to tell you how it felt…in an absurdist way.  

The point of the story is, that when you have had a ZAP put on your brain by cruelty- as Willard put it- you come out with a somewhat distorted perception.

From a young age, I was seen as being weird.

My nickname was ‘Oddball’, after the Donald Sutherland character in ‘Kelly’s Heros’.

I have always been drawn to the weird, and the wonderful.

Still am.

I loved reading about Yukio Mishima’s suicide, & my favourite book was the companion to the ‘Killing of America’.  Hardly ‘choose yr own adventure’.

But…maybe I was choosing my own adventure.

Through the madness I saw in the world.

I’m not saying I approved of it all- certainly not- but I felt I understood it.

I understand weirdness.

& I engage in a little myself.

I’m with the surrealists.

My heroes are Bunuel, & Dali.

David Lynch.

Sometimes, I can write within the comparative safety of the strict narrative.

I can tell it like it actually happened.

But sometimes, I am seized with the irresistible urge to drift into the surreal.

Irony.

I noticed in the US- irony is not widely tolerated.

They seem to take you literally. almost without exception.

I’m not sure why that is- whether it is a post 9/11 thing, or an American thing.

But I was thrown out of parties for it.

You really have to pick your audience.

& my brain doesn’t always do that.

When people know me, they know when I drift into it.

After this year, & the business with my fun-lovin’ priest & our very own Summer of 42, I am given to saying…”all we are saying…is FUCK PEACE!!  JUST KEEP THE GODDAMN CATHOLIC PRIESTS AWAY FROM THE GODDAMN CHILDREN.”

This is a somewhat surreal, ironic statement.

In itself, taken at face value, it could be interpreted literally.

It quite clearly screams bigotry against a group of people as if they were all given to the same urges.

Or one could take into account where the statement comes from, my fairly well known agenda & see it for what it is…

An absurdist, ironic statement.

Who could take it literally?

What…there are NO decent hard working clerics who can’t resist poking children?

Of course not.

That’s like saying all Americans love war.

‘KEEP THE GODDAMN CATHOLIC PRIESTS AWAY FROM THE GODDAMN CHILDREN’ is my melting clock.

I enclose an excerpt from my first book containing my childhood recollections of what happened to my brain as a result of the trauma…& Dali does get a mention…

 The pain altered my vision, my perspective, and all of a sudden my little world began to melt, like a Salvador Dali painting.  The clocks began to melt.  The tables grew legs.  The sink developed jaws, and opened wide as if ready to consume all the players in the torture show.  The blood on the cupboards began to bubble and steam.  The paint crackled and peeled, the holes in the walls that my father had punched collapsed and became these vast portals into nothingness.  The wind would whistle from this nothingness, and rush about the house like an angry rhinoceros on heat, looking for something to fuck to death.  The ground beneath me began to give way, until it felt like there was nothing there to support me. 

It seemed as though the atoms supporting me had thrown in the towel, deserted for good, and I was floating on nothing.  I felt as if I would fall at any moment, swallowed up by oblivion.  The pain had metamorphosed into some kind of natural opiate.  It had become a hallucinogenic.  And like some kind of cosmic helicopter swooping down to rescue me from my horrific reality, the hallucinations trammelled me up in their spongy pillow grip and took me away to another world.  A yellow submarine was my saviour.  I had transcended, and become a new being, in a completely new world. 

This is my way…

My attempt to make some kind of sense of the pain of the absurdity of human existence.

My Melting Clock.

And even a melting clock gives the right time occasionally…

THE GAY THING

For my friend Charles...

I have noticed ‘the gay thing’ has been coming up a lot, lately.

When something comes up, I post about it; and there has definitely been a pattern.

In fact, it has been rearing its ‘ugly head’ at least 2-3 times a week.

The most recent being the accusation I have a ‘gay head’.

In case you missed it…

"I was just told I had a 'gay head', & the person was 'sick of the sight of it.' Is that what passes for an insult these days? Why do I not mind the thought of having a 'gay head'? Is it because most of the gay men I know are tres hunkworthy, and it is actually more like a compliment? Reminds me of when my father used to roar at me for 'crying like a girl'. Forget how silly that is for a moment- why would doing anything 'like a girl' be so bad? Most of the women I know are great- & I would love to be like them. I'm a big fan of insults that seem more like compliments."

Why does this particular form of discrimination come out of the closet so often?

Why? No other ‘cultural minority’ comes up with such alarming frequency.

Or am I simply more inclined to notice it?

Then I had a long talk with my friend Charles.

He reminded me at one time, being gay was an offence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17u01_sWjRE&feature=share&fb_source=message

In a way…it still is.

Clearly…if having a ‘gay head’ is the worst insult a person can muster...

If having a 'gay head'- or indeed being gay flies in the face of all that is decent to civilised people- enough to use it as a curse upon my name & countenance...

Then it is clearly still a crime.

The way some people regard being a woman as a crime against humanity.

Like my father hatefully telling me as a child to ‘stop crying like a girl’.

I mean, why? Why would he consider doing something like a girl to be such a bad thing?

Especially given how much he loved women.

He loved them so much, he told me ‘you don’t have to have slept with every woman in the world…but you must have tried’. If that’s not love for women…then I don’t know what is.

Why else would he give Mum a black eye?

A mark of his love.

Or territoriality.

Or latent hatred for women.

Or himself.

What was going on it that weird broth in his head?

What on earth was he trying to repress?

What are any of us trying to repress…when we regard being gay with such animosity?

We will not even allow them to marry in so many countries?

Why does sexuality raise such ire in certain circles…to such a degree, we try to imprison it, kick the
shit out of it, legislate against it…even kill it?

Oscar Wilde; imprisoned for his homosexuality.

He died for it.

Or rather, they killed him for it.

What is it we are trying to hide...?

Even going so far as to murder it?

Are we deep down, scared of something?

Is there something inside us lurking, we do not want to admit?

Like David Bowie as Jack Celliers said in ‘Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence’, in response to the brutality against him by the conflicted Captain Yonoi masking some latent attraction,

‘if he’s got something on his mind…why doesn’t he just come out with it’??

Good question.

Later in the evening, after being told I had a gay head, I treated that head to a screening of the documentary the ‘Importance of Being Morrissey.’

Was this because homosexuality kept coming up?

Or am I somehow subconsciously attracted to the topic? And attracting comment- negative and positive?

Wait a second; Morrissey is neither openly gay, nor straight.

It is a mystery.

Just as he is confounded by speculation on the topic of his sexuality. Why is it such a big deal?

Is it the complexity of the issue?

Or do we- like just about everything else in human existence- simply make it complex??

What is the fascination?

Mine...& theirs??

In the doco, Will self said, “Young heterosexual men, & now older heterosexual men respond to that (the Morrissey persona) at a homoerotic level. I think it speaks to the homosexual component of a LOT of heterosexual men.”

Is our homo eroticism something we need to come to terms with?

Morrissey himself asked the question; ‘what does that even mean? There is no such thing as hetero-eroticism’.

And yet Will Self brings it up.

Is this because hetero-eroticism is meaningless without this portion of homoeroticism?

Perhaps there is no hetero and no homo…

Simply eroticism?

Or even better…simply being a person.

Human.

Is this cornucopia of feelings, inclinations, this glorious diversity of our persona merely something men need to come to terms with?

I remember reading about the Japanese Samurai tradition, wherein a warrior could be quite comfortably heterosexual, and yet a part of his warrior code allowed him to sleep with a man occasionally, as well. They were two different things.

Two very important, mutually dependent inextricable inclinations.

And they were clearly nothing to be ashamed of. Had they been, so sensitive to shame were the Japanese Warrior breed - I’m certain they would have fallen on their swords, had it been any kind of real disgrace. They would cut their guts out at the drop of a Kabuto. 

Leaving aside, perhaps the occasional suicide as a result of the inability to come to terms with the power, the intensity of love- very much a part of the Japanese cultural tradition of death being a natural stage in some very profound, intense expressions of love, as personified in the work of Nagisa Oshima,  or Masahiro Shinoda's admittedly heterosexual, but no less powerful for it "Double Suicide"...

There was no shame being gay- or engaging in an homosexual relatiosnhip with another man for the Japanese Samurai.

Tell that to one of the 'warrior caste' today...& you will likely get a fat lip.

Bashed to death; rather than look inside, face any kind of hidden truths.

Is it possible we cannot be a whole person without coming fully to terms with our inherent ‘gayness’, as Will Self suggests?

Is our loathing for this part of our personality, literally killing us…

And others?

Having said all this…

If there is something we need to do…

something I need to do…?

What do I do about it?

Or am I doing all I need by simply asking the questions?

The hard questions many men would prefer to beat to death than confront and see through?

Or do I, finally, simply need to suck a dick and get it over with?

How, then do I deal with the issue of the lack of desire to suck dick?

Or is it something I need to learn to do??

Like eating my greens??

Christian Slater said in ‘True Romance’, if I had to fuck a guy…absolutely positively had to fuck a guy…I’d fuck Elvis.

Well…I’d fuck Morrissey.

Only Morrissey.

I have even said as much. I feel secure enough in my heterosexuality to be able to tell women this.

Is this gay part of me something that needs to come out?

Is it even 'gay'? 

Or simply the natural allure of a very famous, very enigmatic, & therefore very powerful and attactive person?

Or is it the tip of a very large, very submerged iceberg that needs to be explored?  

Is it something I developed as a result of my molestation?

Or was it always in there?  Would it have been there anyway?

Is it normal and healthy?

Does it keep ‘coming out’ because a man needs to fully come to terms with it in order to move on?

If it’s in you…they say…it has to come out.

‘Come out’.

There it is again.

Questions.

I raise more questions than answers here.  But at least I am doing the asking.

Rather than avoiding it, and putting it in the 'too hard' basket.

So these repressed sensations come out in some other, more violent, possibly homicidal way. 

These are just questions.

Questions I am SURE my father never asked himself.

Maybe he should have.

He might have been a much nicer person.

NB: he also hated gays. He used to give me shit because I loved the movie "Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence". 

You know the bit where Celliers is buried up to his neck in sand, & left to die? 

Dad used to say...'I would love to kick that head.'

That GAY head??    

What's that all about?

Hate?

Or repressed love????

Questions.

I fully expect one day, all these questions will be answered for me.

And the answers will come on my death bed…when it is too late to do anything about them.

Questions. On the way to the grave...

HATE CRIMES

I dedicate this blog to Amanda.

And to Jemma, Kirsten, & all who rage against the hatred…

‘My religion is kindness’, says the Dali Lama.

How many times have I tried to remember this?

Take it to heart, and practice it? 

And how many times have I failed? 

I seem to be built to HATE hatred.

I cannot stand it. 

I seem to be a BIGOT myself, in that I have a deep seated hatred for BIGOTS.

Is this not a contradiction? 

Where can this go?

Hating hatred?

And I also seem to be waging a perpetual war against STUPIDITY.

OPERATION ENDURING COMMON SENSE.

Where on earth can such seeming duality- contradictory forces- possibly go?

Will it not implode?

Or is there another way?

I wanted to see.

I have had time to review these matters this week.

Perhaps it is the intersection of a number of affairs; the Priest I was molested by as a child comes up for sentencing this week, & this will- hopefully put to rest- a lifetime of struggle.

An open sore, finally able to heal.

But what of the righteous indignation that the abused flesh seems heir to...?

that driving force within is that wants to 'put things right'?

This hunger, this yen for justice, in a world that is becoming increasingly unjust?

For this week, I came face to face with the gun toting red neck fundamentalist religious right in America. 

I had seen it in movies- but never seen any direct evidence of it. 

Frankly...I found it hard to believe anything so STUPID could possibly exist.

But it does.

Fascism and bigotry, discrimination against others on the basis of nationality, race, colour, creed, expression, accent,  is alive and well.

And living right here.

Am I wrong because I cannot bring myself to forgive it?

Because I find it impossible to ignore the crypto-fascist tendencies of the far right in America?

I was on the verge of saying 'we don't have anything quite like it in Australia'...

But of course, we do.

I refer to the hate crimes and incendiary verbiage of the Aboriginal Memes Group, inciting hatred and violence against the Indigenous Community.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/333438993413349/#!/pages/Aboriginal-memes/159797174156990

It claims to be a comedy site.

But what it is, according to mail received behind the scenes from the perpetrators...is a considered, concerted effort to wage war against the indigenous community.

I- like my friends in a special effort to shut this poison down...

https://www.facebook.com/groups/333438993413349/#!/groups/333438993413349/

...simply cannot seem to ignore them or forgive them in the same way the Dalai seems to have forgiven the Chinese Army for hijacking his country, slaughtering his people, and driving him into exile.

We are all built differently…

but I simply cannot ignore the hate mongering war machine.

In all it's forms.

And, unlike the Chinese who make no bones about their oppressive agenda…

These movements are insidious.

Just as Aboriginal Memes claims to be comedy...

Just as the American War machine in it's concerted effort to spread it's economic, cultural imperial hegemony around the globe claims it does so in the name of 'freedom loving people everywhere...

Democracy...

And we are all complicit in it's march of progress...

It is all part of the same lie.

The same insidious hate agenda.

And it seems to speak to a popular view.

An all too familiar popular tendency.

A few things made sense to me this week.

I have been watching a lot of documentaries this week on US foreign policy over the years.

Trying to understand what it is about the American people that allowed an illegal action against Iraq to go ahead.  Has allowed so many illegal, immoral and hateful crimes to be carried out in its name in so many countries.

And this week, I found out first hand…it is the popular view.

The vast majority of the country seem to concur.

The enthusiasm & lust for warfare, animosity  and hatred against people even slightly different…is palpable.

As an Australian person- a foreigner with a different way of perceiving the world- I saw this anger and hatred first hand.

And it chilled me to the core.

And it caused me to despair.

Made me feel hopeless.

I would love to ignore it, go off and meditate…

But I cannot rest when I know there is injustice in the world.

Which means I will never rest.

‘You take life too seriously’, people tell me. 

What can I say…

It comes so naturally to me…

Whether life is actually serious or not, does not seem to matter to me.

Even if this is all just an elaborate joke on the world- & I have a sneaking suspicion it probably is- I simply cannot seem to resist my natural inclination to take it seriously.

I let it play merry hell with my blood pressure.

Try as I might- I simply cannot seem to sit back and relax, while the stupidity horror parade marches through my world like a Bozo Blitzkrieg…led by the mind numb fundamentalist right wing in America.

Examining footage over again of the Oklahoma bombing, and listening to the interviews with members of the extreme right wing fanatical religious groups sworn to take down society…

I realised that hate is alive and well and living everywhere.

And as much as it would serve me better to let it slide…

Let it all fall away and ‘mind my own business’ like Crocodile Dundee when asked about his position on No Nukes…

I cannot seem to.

It is so hard to ignore.

The hatred.

It seems there are people out there under every rock and boulder, waiting to spring forth like insects once exposed to do their damage.

Even here on FB…in the unlikeliest of places, there lurketh hatred unlike anything I have ever encountered in my life.

Only this week, I have seen bigotry the like of which I have never seen- not even as a cop.

It is insidious, because it was so well hidden.

No jackboots and swastikas and skinheads here; under the surface of cheesy FB groups, otherwise seemingly innocuous, there beats the true heart of hatred and loathing.

I should have known better when some of the members seemed to be right wing gun nuts champing at the bit to flaunt their wares.   

Scratch the surface…and the true colours come scuttling out.

Hatred, anger, of the evangelistic type…the destructive type that cannot be reasoned with.

That will not listen.

The type that has taken us to war in Iraq over bullshit.

It is the kind of hatred that abhors a different perspective on live.

It seems to have an objection to basic humanitarianism.

And it loves viciousness.

And it is absolutely correct.

It doesn’t care about the UN, legality, or morality.

And it seems to want to destroy anything slightly different.

Bomb the shit out of it.

So what? 

Hatred is out there. So I found it.

What did I expect? Not to find so much of it.

And it loves company.

When you realise how much there actually is- a lot of it possibly lurking beneath the innocent exterior of friends in the midst…

It is very hard to remember that kindness is your region.

Because it makes you so angry.

Stupidity makes me angry.

And yet- how can you fight against bigotry, racism, anger and malevolent rage?

We know the US has become so desperate in its paranoia & choked by the reflux of its own hypocritical- and probably confusing- foreign policy…

It is bombing anything and everything that moves.

This too is how the general populace are behaving.

They have quite simply gone mad with paranoia.

And like the Monsters Due on Maple Street- they are retaliating in their droves.

Retaliating against what they perceive to be the threat.

With scant regard for what was actually said or done.

 & they are conditioned to think they are in the RIGHTS…no matter what.

Might is right.

Like a Terminator- it will not be argued with, reasoned with…

Negotiated with, or stopped.

It flies into action, bombing anything different.

It does not wait for UN ratification.

And it is dangerous.

Worse still…I have seen up close how popular it is, how much it loves company…

How it clusters together.

The maniacal glee with which it views its views its manifest destiny.

It becomes…feverish.

Positively jingoistic.

So possessed of its correctness.

Screaming ‘BANZAI’ as it dives its plane into the target.

Taking everything with it.    

The show goes on.

As far back as I can remember, from my own fondling men of the frock, abusive fathers & corrupt cops to the broader ghastly destructive weirdness of 9/11 and beyond…

It all seems part of the same weirdness.

The great conspiracy of hate and mistrust that attacks anything resembling anything different; different race, different colour, different belief, language, ways of seeing the world…

And it bombs the hell out of it.

Because it cannot think things through to a better conclusion.

Like peace. And love.

It is a sad fact…I have come face to face with it…& it spells the death knell for the human race.

It will kill us, eventually.

ALL of us.

Because in its vehemence…it pulls out all the stops…& will die for its martyrdom of hate.

It would rather burn in a fireball taking everything decent with it…

Than allow anything different to exist in the world.

The basic view of the white supremacist.

I should simply accept that there is no reasoning with hatred.

BUT…it all seems like a huge slap in my face.

I cannot seem to NOT take it personally.

I perceive it to all be a personal affront against me.  And in my righteous indignation- I take it on daily, like Quixote wilting at tind-mills.

I simply cannot resist taking it seriously.

Even though by now…

I am beginning to look foolish.

Especially to me.

Believing in a better world.

The impossible dream of justice.

Something in me tells me if I do not go gently into that good night of madness- if I continue to rage against it- either it will make a difference to that madness…

Or to me.

One or the other…something has to give.

So how can I lie back and think of happy thoughts…

When all this craziness is going on?

I have a full head of steam at the moment- what with the saga of the Molesting Priests coming to a conclusion with the pending sentencing of Brother Mamo this week.

I feel like I am on a roll, and might as well take on all comers.

Everything from online fascists to the 9/11 conspirators, and the NOW.

I want to take on all of it.

Or die trying.

Why?

Because I got a taste.

By freak of nature…when the molesting priest pled guilty to all charges earlier this year…

I thought anything was possible.

Even if I am wrong- even if this as just a strange and unusual twist of faith…

I cannot sit still.

I am pushing the envelope- on the off chance I might be able to get away with something else.

What if one can have a streak of luck against injustice?

What if not only we brought the molesting priests to justice…

But I was able rising on the wave of this success…

To push a few other things to their conclusion?

Bring a racist to justice?

Nail a hacker?

An anti-semite?

Solve 9/11, and bring the perpetrators to justice?

Call China to account for it’s human rights anomalies?

Hardly likely.

But what if?

Even if this is just an impossible dream…

What if?

I have no time for kindness.

What kindness?

What do I do if I don’t feel very kind?

What is this is no time for kindness?

What if a sustained edge in our voice is called for?

To give- if not the evildoers their comeuppance…

To give us hope?

Even if it is all in our head?

As a postscript- there was one thing from the whirlwind of hate that gave me hope.

As I stood in the furnace…one lone voice send me a PM.

A man I had never met before…someone I assumed was part of the right wingers, but his voice seemed…different.

He came to me, clarifying what I meant.

He asked me questions.

Seemingly in a spirit of reconciliation.

He sounded…

Like the Dalai Lama.

He said…’I care about people’.

One good thing came from all the hate.

That lone voice of peace, love and compassion.

Why do I even bother persisting with the human race when it is so hateful?

This lone voice in the wilderness.

Looking for peace.

Might is indeed right, and hate will no doubt win in the end.

But I liked that peaceful voice, in the melee.

It gave me…

Hope to carry on.