What To Do With Dark Corners

Christopher Hitchens and Kim Jong Il both died this week and I've just been pondering the difference in their contributions. Between them, they represent the extremes in our ability to face 'the truth' and illustrate how those differing abilities can have serious consequences.

First to The Hitch. Atheism has found a natural home on the net. It suites us in so many ways from the most trivial to the most serious. Organising a group of people who are naturally suspicious of formalised organisations is best done by a shapeless, organic entity that is hard to pin down. That's the net. There's no gathering under big arches and spires to abase yourself in front of a pitiless god. It allows broad ranging interests to be pursued from any location and it allows it to be done anonymously. Anonymity is very important to atheists in some parts of the world. I don't need to explain why – but again, that's the net.

Remembering Hitchens in A Grey Area will only represent the tiniest percent of the tiniest percent of what has and will be written about him and by much more serious thinkers. But, the fact there is so much activity on the net surrounding his death is interesting. The medium has enabled a growth in a particular philosophy of life that is hard to imagine without the enabling technology. I only get a keyhole view (I am only one person) but my feeling is that non-belief, reason, and the humanist movement has got an enormous lift from the net. The truth will out and it outs much more easily when it's democratic.

Christopher Hitchens faced the most unpleasant truths unflinchingly and with open eyes. He was not a foxhole atheist who converted in the face of his demise. He had worked too hard at uncovering and exposing the hypocrisy of religion and I have nothing but contempt for the religious who either a) prayed for him to get better so that they could shanghai him into the ranks of belief, or b) those that relished his painful death and gloatingly make statements about hell and damnation. A pox on both your idiotic and immature houses.

Hitchens made the world a better place. He might have changed a few minds, he certainly put a few plonkers back in their place and he entertained. Be anything, but don't be boring. He was never that. I'm going to miss him.

Similarly, I don't relish the thought of the demise of Kim Jong Il. Not because he was a blessing to his people, not because he was a blessing to comedy, but because he was the devil we knew. This next fat little porker is entirely unknown and I can only hope that he follows the rule of the third generation in a dynasty that inevitably fails its father and grandfather.

I have been reading for years the horrors that come out of North Korea. The profligate spending on the military while the locals are forced to eat the bark off trees and finally resort to eating each other before burying what remains of an emaciated corpse. I've been astonished at the level of brainwashing that has been maintained in the peninsular. Dear Leader really had most of them fooled and it's to his credit that he did this in the face of the growing news content on the web.

Some years ago, I saw a doco on an ophthalmic surgeon who went over the DMZ and did a few hundred simple eye operations that restored sight to all of the recipients. It was an operation that the North Koreans were unable to perform. The reaction of the patients was chilling.

As the American surgeon pulled the padding from the eyes of the afflicted, they'd look up at the beatific picture of KJI that can be found everywhere and thanked Dear Leader for returning their sight.

To be so literally and figuratively blinded is the work of a religion and I don't think that KJI is being given enough dues when his leadership is simply described as a cult of personality. It sounds a little paltry.

Kim Jong Il closed eyes, Christopher Hitchens opened them. It's about light. It's funny how that word means both not being a burden and illuminating.

You Could Go Farming In Here

I'm driving Emergency Contact's little car. She's in the passenger seat. The following exchange takes place.

Me: The inside of this car is disgusting.

EC: It's not that bad. Stop carrying on.

Me: It is exactly that bad. Look at that. And that. And how in the hell do you get coffee into there?

EC: It's the schoopid boys up the road.

Me: What, they lean in and splash it around?

EC: No, I had my coffee and had to make a few calls and send messages and the traffic was really stop-start and those guys up the road always fill the cup to the absolute top.

Me: I see. Why don't you drink a bit before you set off.

EC: Too hot.

Me: Ask them to put a little bit less in.

EC: It's all I can do to get them to remember, “Soy flat white, one sugar.”

Me: I'll grant you that. They confused my order with the order of a four foot, white haired 90-year-old, Greek lady the other day.

EC: See?

Me: Ok, the coffee I get, no matter if it is visually offensive. But it doesn't explain a whole lot of this other stuff. What's that?

EC: Sunscreen.

Me: How'd it get on the window and why is there soooo much of it?

EC: You know how it is.

Me: No. And is that yoghurt?

EC: Oh, is that what that is? Good one. I'd been wondering. Interesting.

Me: I'm getting a disease just from looking at the dashboard.

EC: Oh stop it. It's really not that bad.

As she's finishing the phrase, “that bad”, I am breaking at a red light. A petrified potato comes rolling out from under the passenger seat and lolls up against the handbag at her feet.

I look at her and raise an eyebrow. She says, “Goddamnit!”

Not At All Dangerous When Cornered

On Saturday, I leaned across to Emergency Contact and hissed, “Remember me telling you stories about that horrible Miss G?”

“Yes”, hissed back EC.

“Well, that’s her. Eat what you can as fast as you can, we’ve got to time our escape.”

EC and I were in a café having breakfast and Miss G was filling the doorway. She’d had to lose weight before even being allowed to have lap band surgery. After the surgery, she made up for the lack of room in her stomach by permanently having a straw attached to a flavoured milk carton hanging out of her head. The surgery procedure was doomed to failure. Filling a doorway was no challenge.

While Miss G was eating two cakes washed down with litre of Diet Coke (diet, so it’s alright) I threw a handful of cash at the counter and we made our break for the car.

A little later, realising we needed to stop at a supermarket, EC started to reverse-park into a spot right out the front. I started to panic.

“She’s there. Oh Christ she’s there. Fuck. Don’t stop. Don’t park. We’ve got to go.”

EC’s panic reaction was to lapse into helpless giggling and stop dead, halfway through the parking manoeuvre. I had turned my back on the window and was facing into the car so Miss G wouldn’t recognise me. I was terrified and staring wildly at EC who was really starting to laugh.

I couldn’t stand it, “I can see her in your sunglasses. We HAVE to get out of here. Oh god oh Christ oh shit.”

“What’s soooo bad?” Asked EC, finishing the park.

“She liked me,” I explained, adding Puss-in-Boots eyes to the affect.

“Oh,” said EC.

Watching Miss G in EC’s glasses, I timed my exit from the car and went as quickly as I could without running, to the nearest knot of people so I could lose myself in them.

While EC was in the supermarket, I kept an eye on Miss G using reflections and glances. To make it look more natural, I engaged with the small group around me as naturally as I could. They had a card table and some pamphlets and were really interested in me. I gave them two neurons of attention. What was really getting to me was why hadn’t Miss G moved on? She was just hanging around the side of our car. Why wouldn’t she just, bloody, move on? Get a life! Get away from the car!

As I was concluding whatever it was I was doing with the card table mob, EC came out of the supermarket and thankfully, Miss G started to move down the street. We could make it back to the safety of the car and then all would be alright.

In the car, I looked at the envelope, key ring, tax forms and various other bits of paraphernalia I’d collected while I was performing surveillance on the car.

It turned out that I had signed up to give the UNHCR $40 a month for the next year.

And in a couple of ways, I don’t mind. The thought of undernourished people getting dollars from me because I was scared of an over-nourished person, appeals to my sense of universal balance. That, and the fact that it could have been so much worse than saying goodbye to $480.

Scold The Phone

At 5.30 this morning, my “smart” phone won an iPad. I think my smart phone is pretty dumb:

·         It didn’t turn itself onto silent while it was out there entering its number into strange competitions. The answering SMS alerted me to what it was up to

·         It entered into competitions in Great Britain, where it is unable to go and collect the prize

·         It doesn’t have hands, so what is it going to do with an iPad?

Schoopid smart phone.

… and, I’m pretty sure my Blu-Ray Player has been returning movies late to the rental place.

Soup Strainer Strain

I know that some people like Movember. I find it confusing and hard work. Certain workplaces end up looking like seedy gay bars or 1930s RAF officers clubs and that’s confusing. What I find hard work is the threat this month represent to my manners and reputation.

Late in the month, I have to check men’s faces very carefully before I know if I can laugh or not. I have to judge a complex set of inputs such as length-of-bristle-over-lifestyle-commitment before I know if I can giggle. Movember lulls you into a false sense of hairy hilarity and I am never saying to another senior manager, “Dude, the Harley Davidson Memorial Village People Tribute Band called. You’re late for rehearsal.”

It's Not That Hard

I think pilots are a bit smug. It’s the same with priests and doctors. In fact, anyone in a position that commands authority through the use of arcane knowledge seems to have membership to this smug-club.

Non smug-club members couldn’t possibly understand the cleverness of what the Smuggies do. If we did understand, we would join the elite club and wear special robes or uniforms to mark us as better and smugger. These Smugs make sure their clubs are hard to get into by talking in jargon… or Latin. Or in smug tones over the intercom.

Well, I’ve busted the pilot club wide open and I wasn’t even awake at the time. I can now fly a helicopter and it only took me about half an hour to learn.

Last night, without any instruction, I mastered pitch, collective, cyclic, and rudders on an R44 Helicopter (or something that looked like it. My dream state wasn’t too specific about make and model).

I was landing, hovering, sliding and auto-rotating like an advanced beginner inside 20 minutes. By the end of the first part of the dream, I had enough hours in my unconscious log-book for me to convince a guy who owned a general purpose, imaginary, helicopter business to give me a go. He was an astute businessman though. He set me a three month probation period. But, it wasn’t all his way. I was feeling confident and negotiated into the conditions that, “if we could buff it out, it wouldn’t count as a real crash.”

I told Smurfy when I got to work. He said, “What are we still doing here then? Let’s get down to the airport and borrow one of those Black Hawks that are in town for Obama.”

“Oh, Smurfy,” I said, “Silly, unrealistic, Smurfy. I can’t fly anything powered by a jet turbine. Not yet, anyway.”

“Ok, what do you feel confident with then?” he asked.

“I think we’ll be just fine with something made by Bell,” I reasoned.

“That oughta be enough until you log some more hours, then,” he was being supportive, but I could tell that I’d let him down a little. “Why the competency gap with jet-turbine?”

I came clean, “Well, it’s not so much the mechanics, it’s the user interface. I know how lots of sorts of engines work, but I’ve never really seen how you start up a Black Hawk. I know how to get Bell helicopters started because of Magnum’s friend. You just reach up and flick all the switches by the left of your head, to the “on” position. It’s exactly the same as starting the Millennium Falcon.”

“That doesn’t work if your cap’s on the right way round though. Magnum’s mate, TC, swings his cap around,” Smurfy added.

“Right. I’ll have to remember that.”

The other people in the room were a little concerned. At this point. Smurfy hadn’t cracked a smile and I was giving it my best WE COULD TOTALLY DO THIS, face.

“And another thing,” I said. “I’ve watched Das Boot a couple of times so I reckon I’ve got diesel powered subs down pat.”

Smurfy, again a little disappointed, “So, no nuclear?”

“No. I don’t know how far to push those uranium rods in. Total guesswork until I’ve had that dream,” I explained. The North Atlantic fleet was safe for the moment.

Then this morning, I came across this: (Space Shuttle Discovery) and now I know how to get into space. There aren’t that many buttons.

Man About The House

There’s a franchise called ‘Hire a Hubby’ and it is remarkably true to its name. They’re a bunch of guys who promise to come round to your house and do odd jobs, or not, as the case may be.

A friend of Emergency Contact’s called them and got one of the Hubbies to come around and give her a quote on putting up some fly-screens. His professional opinion:

“Nah, it’s too hard, love.”

Not being put off, she did get the guy to paint her attic (not a euphemism). He seemed ok with that, and when he was around coating her interior (not a euphemism), she asked him how much it would be to strip back her draws (not a euphemism). His professional opinion:

“Easier to just get some new ones, love.”

For a little extra, they'll sit on your couch and drink your beer for you.

Ute Racing - The Next Step

As we all know, ute racing is the greatest thing to happen to Australian motorsport since that kangaroo bounced across the track at Bathurst and got reduced its composite atoms. Anyone who disagrees with me is wrong and I can back it up with a subtle blend rhetoric and violence. But the organisers of ute racing have not quite thought it through.

In case you didn’t know, ute racing is so good because the guys drive like they stole the vehicle. I have never seen such insouciant disregard for the laws of physics or personal safety. The weight distribution means they’ve got an insane amount of power over a set of wheels that are barely attached to anything. It must be like driving a sperm. I can only assume the drivers are confident they can nick another ute in time for the next race, because the one they’re in isn’t going to make it.

But, why not go all the way? When they prang, I wanna see tools and cement flying out the back. I wanna see guys in hi-viz vests getting pinned by ladders that come spearing off the rooves into the car in front. I wanna see arguments for whose got the job, when two towies arrive at a crash site at the same time.

Oh I Want A Home, Where The Buffalo Are Hunted Down By Apex Predators

The story out of Zanesville, Ohio this week of the animals leaving the zoo and then getting shot en masse by law enforcement has been interesting to me. Not just because I love, “Elephant on the loose, police have released a description” type stories, but also because it has been so instructive about the locals.

First of all, there was a notably nutty gun owner, who had just done time for naughtiness, who had hundreds of animals on his property. And not just puppies and kittens. As of writing the count was 49 animals shot including lions, tigers and bears (it’s frightening and the local sheriff cares, cha cha cha).

The animals getting out has been described as an escape. I don’t think that’s fair. The guy opened the cages. That’s not escaping, that’s accepting an invitation.

Watching Sheriff Matthew Lutz (Donut scoffing local cop from Central Casting) being backed up by Terence Stamp pretending to be a local Emeritus Zoo Official (have a look and see if I’m wrong) I was struck by how much faux sadness there was at having to shoot the animals. I swear those boys have never had so much fun in their lives. They went on a big game safari hunt and didn’t have to spring for an airfare. They’ll be hailed as the good guys at the end of it, as well. What’s the bet there’ll be a few more exotic rugs in front of fireplaces in Zanesville homes soon?

“Wow Grandad Mat, that sure is a fine looking lion rug. Did you hunt that? Was it scary? Is it hot in Africa”

“Sure did son. It was a bit scary, but not hot. I bagged that bad-boy down on Fifteenth and Main.”

Terence Stamp said something illuminating about local attitudes, too, “It’s like Noah’s Ark wrecking right here in Zanesville Ohio.”

Ahuh. That’s an ex-director of a zoo. Someone who you’d hope would have a bit of a grasp of zoology, biology and maybe even evolution. Noah’s ark, hey?

Anyway, also as of writing, there were two monkeys still on the loose. I like to think they’ve gone into hiding in a vacant house and are really making themselves at home. Going through the fridge, watching telly.

Cut to the bathroom. Two chimps are in the bath:

Chimp 1: Oo oo, ah, ah, ah, aaahhhh.

Chimp 2: Well run some more cold water.

Chopper Squad

Talking to a tired mother, KK, this morning, I learnt one of those parental tricks that quite amuse me.

She’d had a “Tooth-fairy Incident”. Her kid had woken up in the middle of the night and found that the fairy had not yet delivered. He’d gone into KK’s room to complain and was guided back to bed. Seeing that she was in for a long night of waiting for him to get back to sleep before she could pull the tooth-money-switcheroo, KK said,

“Your room’s quite messy, I’m going to take the tooth out to the kitchen so the tooth fairy doesn’t fall and twist an ankle. You can go and look for your money in the morning.”

“Nice work, KK,” I said, admiring the elegance of the deception. It also threw in an implicit criticism of the child’s housekeeping.

“So, I was able to get it done instantly, get back to bed, and he got his three dollars, ‘cause the tooth was in good shape.”

“Well, all’s well that… wait. There’s a price differential based on the condition of the chopper?”

“Yeah!  Ones that can be ‘re-used’ get a better price. Makes ‘em clean their teeth.”

The logic is irrefutable, but the bit that confirms for me that kids are idiots, is the re-use clause.  

The iQuit

Scene: Obscenely lavish private hospital room. Steve Jobs lies, almost in state, among life support  machinery. A private aide enters.

Steve: Is it done?

Aide: Well sort of…

Steve: Whaddya mean “sort of”?

Aide: Well, we released something.

Steve: Something doesn’t sound like what I was expecting. I’ve been hanging on for the iPhone 5. Where’s the iPhone 5?

Aide: It’s still on the backburner. We want to release something that actually makes and takes phone calls. We’ve released the iPhone 4S.

Steve: Ah, that fuckin’ does it!

Steve tears the drips and support gear out of his nose and arm. The beeping turns to a unbroken tone.

End scene.

Couch Potato Field

Emergency Contact relaxes on the new couch.

After lounge camping for far too long, Emergency Contact and I took delivery of our new couch… and it’s freakin’ huge. Warehouse tastes on apartment acreage. There’s the couch and the telly and that’s all, now. No cooking, no washing and certainly no dancing. I have to come in through the second story balcony window because I can’t get the front door open. EC has given up trying to get out and works from home now. The Eastern plateau of cushion area 18, just near the fuzzy summit of the North Face is casting shade over the bathroom. The cushion nearest the front door started broadcasting on Sunday night a message that read: ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.

Comfortable, but.

Hope I Don't Get "Chosen"

Ricky Gervais’ stand-up, Politics was on telly the other night. It features a bit on Hitler misinterpreting Neitzsche. I wouldn’t recommend it to sensitive Jews but by the standards of people who think like me, it’s funny. Don’t get me wrong, genocide is bad. Let me just be plain about that: Genocide - Bad. Also, I don’t have time for racial supremacists. I’ve never wanted to join one of those clubs. But, it did get me thinking.

For a religious Jew, the Holocaust would have to be considered a miracle. If their god is the all seeing, omnipotent being that they claim He is, then something as big as the Holocaust would have to have come to His attention.

In fact, He would have had a hand in it if He is an omniscient hyper-being in charge of daily affairs. Further, He would have to have been quite convinced of His plan. If we consider that this is a super-being that can have his mind changed by chanting and praying, I think it would be safe to say that a lot of Jews at the time would have been appealing to Him to stop the slaughter, but He persisted. Surely this is a miracle. Not a good one, which is usually nuance we see put on miracles, but it’s an event that rivals a natural cataclysm so strays into that category.

This, I think, leaves the Jews in a nasty position as far as being the chosen people. Chosen for what?

It points to another thing that annoys me about religious thinking. You always see people thanking gods for saving their children, landing the plane safely, sparing their houses from the flood and on and on. Not only is it insulting to hardworking surf lifesavers, pilots and emergency service workers, it’s not apportioning blame properly.

I’ll give five bucks to the next person on a news report who says, “Thank God all the rooves in this neighbourhood were ripped off during the storm and that bit of tin flew across the road and decapitated Mrs Wilson. I hated her.”

Sit Up Straight. Elbows Off The Remote. Chew Your Telly Properly

The signs of old age are legion. It’s not just the obvious ones like needing to take your pants off as soon as you get home or preferring a night in, to a night out. There are the really unlikely ones.

Emergency Contact and I recently bought a new couch. This couch has quite a “lead time” before delivery. This is salesperson speak for, “It’ll take fucking ages to be made and delivered.”

We were getting antsy about where it was, so EC rang the shop and asked. We were told, “This week.”

That was last week.

That wouldn’t have mattered so much in the grand scheme of things if I hadn’t immediately given the old couch, armchair and Ottoman to a mate. We’ve been indoor camping for a week now and it’s not nearly as fun as it sounds.

I’ve discovered I would rather spend an entire evening watching TV sitting on an unpadded dining chair, than get down and slum it on a single mattress. There’s something hopelessly old-age and conservative about preferring to watch Breaking Bad in a straight backed chair. I feel like someone presiding over proceedings rather than lying back, being reassured.

I'll Fix Your Vampire Problem - I'd Stake My Reputation On It

I’ve been watching a new current affairs program from the deep south of America. It's called True Blood and it's been keeping me abreast of some horrifying social developments in that neck of the woods.

Being a solutions kind of guy, I have made some observations and I think I can help Louisiana, and therefore America, with its problems.

First, to some facts as I have understood them:

The vampire virus has some very specific behavioural outcomes. One of them is that the afflicted have to be invited over the threshold to enter the dwelling of another. At first I thought that was silly, but I have noticed with some of my human colleagues that the merest hint of the common-cold virus makes it impossible for them to enter the workplace.

If you un-invite a vampire already in your house, they are dragged out the door like there’s an invisible bouncer holding their collar. Always the door. It’s very specific that way.

As far as the vampire virus is concerned, the ownership of the house is entirely a legal matter. In one article I saw a vampire, called Mr Northman, buy a house that he had previously been un-invited from and after he had taken possession, he no longer needed permission to enter. With a stroke of the pen down at the conveyer’s office, the virus relaxed and was not concerned that the previous occupant’s family had lived there for generations.

The virus also makes vampires susceptible to extreme physical damage from silver.

Now, America, let’s use these facts to your advantage.

Every fly-wire door should have a few strands of silver woven through the mesh. You have a vamp in your house who looks a bit hungry or keeps changing the channel on the TV to something you don’t like, un-invite them. There’ll be a scraping noise as they’re dragged towards the door, a splorchy noise as they are forced through a silver wire mesh and then all you have to do is hose the vampire gazpachio off the veranda in the morning.

But let’s, as they say, kick this up a notch. If the notion of un-invitation from legally owned territory is enough to push a vampire out the door, I would suggest that we only need to speak to five people and the whole shootin’ match is over.

A majority decision from the US Supreme Court (5 from 9) that the borders of the US are the legal homeland of the US citizenry, followed by an un-invitation from America to the undead, and I would say you’ve only got two more things to consider; whether to do it in the day time or night time.  

(Maybe some spinning, silver blades at all immigration points for entertainment’s sake and an apology letter to Canada and Mexico for the mess, but that’s it.)

Now, I’m obviously going to have to make a speech at my inauguration and the conferral of the Public Health Distinguished Service Medal and that’s where I will outline my ideas for housetraining werewolves with electrified flea-collars.

Creative Impulse

I have decided what my new art project should be. I can’t afford it though, so I’m just going to have to describe it to you. That’s so post-modern…

I want to do art installations that look like unlikely or impossible accidents with hybrid machines.

My first work – the news will report that a crash site has been found in a farmer’s field, where apparently a jet powered, flying washing machine has come down, killing all socks on board. Chillingly, only left socks were found, it appears that the right socks may have bailed out.

Second work – freight train wrapped around, as if stopped dead from high speed, a spherical bubblegum dispenser of the type seen outside shops in the 1960s.

Third work – Four wheel drive printing press, bogged in the La Brea Tar Pits. The final few pages seen coming off the printing press have the headline, “Four Wheel Drive Printing Press Bogged in Tar Pit.”

Fourth work – Churches reported to be outraged as paparazzi snap pictures of a PC, giving sacrament to a Mac

I'm Not Buying Your Thing. I Don't Understand You

Making up words and describing things in exciting ways is how the impotent make themselves feel better. You don’t just "start" a computer application. What you are doing is so important it rivals moonshots and maiden voyages, you "launch" it. You don’t "fix" a laptop. What you are doing is so butch and hardcore, you "flatten" and rebuild it. One of the most useless additions to the English language from this brigade of macho-mercenary-gangstas, is "functionality". Function does fine. Stop pretending you’re clever by using the stupid word. You just reveal yourself as a tool.

I expect this kind of crap from men trying to impress themselves but today, the self-important, word-mangling, chump-of-the-day-award goes to a woman.

In describing a medical breakthrough that took a couple of teams working together, she said, “This kind of cooperativity is blah blah blah…” I write, blah blah blah there because I was unable to remember what the rest of the message was, I was so busy wrestling with what cooperativity has over plain old cooperation.

She totally undervalued her opportunity to maximise and leverage her information delivery with the consumer/participants using a benchmarked methodology that guarantees enhanced synergy in the multi-media ecosystem.

The Spore Score

In Sydney, as in other parts of the world, the weather has stopped being the weather and has become non-stop-acts-of-a-petulant-god.

It rained a bit recently. When I say a bit, I mean the Malaysian I know is starting to feel at home. If Malaysians don’t have concussive rain fall on their heads on a semi-regular basis they dry out and crack… true story, anyway, it rained so much it broke my car.

My car had a sly leak that I fixed using nothing but neglect. For the first couple of years, whenever it rained, I’d get a pool of water in the left or right foot-well. I couldn’t find what was causing it so I did what any good Australian male would do and ignored it. Well, not totally ignore, I’d chuck an old t-shirt into the puddle, let it soak it up and then wedge the shirt into the tray cover to dry out on the way home. My non-existent car washing regimen then came into play. It turns out that if you let enough leaves and compost collect in the nooks and crannies of your car, they will seal up leaks. This was all undone by Sydney’s recent deluge, though. It rained enough that it cleaned my car. Now it leaks again.

It rained so much that Emergency Contact and I are going to die like Brittany Murphy. Mould has appeared in places that mould shouldn’t be, like inside.

Bending Space, Time and the Truth

Actors standing around in white coats telling us if pain persists, insult your doctor. Institutes conjured out of nowhere to give the illusion that it’s more than just shampoo. Charts with no values on the X and Y axis and CG to convince us it really can drive out toxins while enhancing elasticity.

I truly dislike pseudo-science in marketing. My hatred is reinforced by a mate who has a similar dislike so we get to bolster each other’s righteous rage. His bete noir is made up chemical names in cosmetics.

The snake-oil salesmen down at L’Oreal have lathered so much foundation on the acne-scarred face of truth that, glancing at their advertisement on the back of a magazine this morning, I spat my sachet porridge* out in laughter.

On the back of a monthly glossy, I saw an ad for a product called New Lash Architect 4D.

“Be magnetic with the power of lash sculpting fibres! The false lash effect steps into 4D!”

Holy 1.21 gigawatts – four freakin’ D!

Like L’Oreal suggests, let’s step into this. We can arrange the Ds in any order, even the fourth when you really get your head around it, because it is literally, all relative.

The space-time continuum.

First dimension: Width.

Second dimension: Height.

Third dimension: Depth.

Fourth dimension: Time.

The geniuses (not overusing the word here, obviously) at the L’Oreal labs, the one where they spell Paris PARiS, have moved women’s eyelashes out of the constraints of everyday, physical laws and have somehow introduced quantum effects into a bottle of mascara. I bet the guys over at the Large Hadron Collider are pretty embarrassed?

It’s all totally backed up and legit though, because Milla Jovovich puts her name to it and I’ve seen a documentary where she saved the planet armed with nothing more than a multi-pass and orange dreadlocks. Because she’s worth it.

The boffins at the CERN facilities (Division L’Oreal) haven’t finished with their comedy stylings just yet, though. There’s a small-print disclaimer. “Photographed with lash inserts for consistency.”

In other words, our Hawkings-Neutrino Mascara is terrific, but here’s a photo of Milla with falsies on.

Milla opines, “My eyes stand out from any angle! Captivating…” but when someone says their eyes can stand out at any angle, I think of snails or cubism… but back to the photo of Milla. The more I look at it, the more it could be anyone. The photo is so shopped it’s as meaningless as the rest of the bullshit on the page.

This ad is not in itself important. I don’t think they test make-up by forcing it into the eyes of bunnies anymore and it helps people to be good looking and I find good looking people intrinsically entertaining. If I ignore the amount of money that leaves the household budget to buy it, I am not anti-make-up. But these ads are an excellent example of how the rot sets in.

We are currently in the middle of a relentless public brawl about climate change. There are dodgy claims being made in every direction you care to look, from Abbott saying that carbon is weightless; so how could we measure it, to the unfair amount of media time those on the fringes of the debate get, compared to the vast majority of considered scientific research. The appearance the argument is balanced is wrong.

We don’t help ourselves though, by inuring ourselves to credible science and reasonable argument by allowing the type of dross that L’Oreal peddles to surround us.

In case you were wondering, according to L’Oreal the fourth dimension is, and I quote, “Curl”.

Strangely enough – that could turn out to be true when the real scientists get down to it, but it won’t be because of the ground breaking research done at the Ponds Institute.

*Sachet porridge. Nearly a third of its weight in sugar, but according to the man who slows down time in the TV ad, it helps you get your kids to school punctually because you are too busy to cook real oats.

Red: The Colour Of Danger

I hate red undies and I am forced to wear them 20% of the time.
  
They always put a red pair into those packets of five. I’ve never seen a packet without red in it and I’m not going to throw them away because of some long held dislike, that’s madness. But, I do wish that it was possible to find a set that didn’t have the ghastly colour.

I blame Australian world champion Formula 1 driver, Alan Jones for my red undies hatred. He was rising to prominence as a motor sport legend when I was a kid and he had one of those disproportionately formative effects. He was being interviewed before an important race and when asked what rituals he went through beforehand, he answered he would be wearing his lucky, red undies.

That was quite simply one of the rudest, crudest, most scandalous things I had ever heard on telly and put me dead off. The unease lasts to this day.

Zombies

Emergency Contact and I recently watched a film that was pretending to be a zombie movie and while 28 Weeks Later is a total stinker, it did lead to a revelation. I suddenly understood why we love zombie movies. They’re actually revenge stories.

Vampire movies are aspirational. You’re lying to yourself if you don’t want to be a vampire. Immortality, great wardrobe, no Monday mornings on public transport, finally being able to take advantage of bank interest rates by waiting, waiting, waiting. Bitey bitey slurpy slurpy. What’s not to like? But, it’s fantasy. You know you’re never going to get bit by the right gang-fanga who just wants to look after you in the lap of decrepit luxury.

Superheros are a bust. Their stories are too easily dismissed. Superman in particular is as boring as Batman’s poop. Quite frankly, I’ve never understood the attraction to fighting crime the minute you can levitate. Sure, the meek might inherit the earth, but in the meantime the strong are going to have pretty nice time of it. Again, it’s not going to happen. You are not suddenly going to wake up being able to leap small ponies in a single bound and being invincible to anything but Samsonite.

Zombies though – that can happen, brain owner. We’re all just one useless penicillin shot away from world-wide, dawdling apocalypse and we always imagine ourselves as one of the few remaining survivors. Here’s what dawned-of-the-dead on me the other night.

It’s a chance to kill your neighbours.

Guilt free.

Admit it.

The instant the first syllable of Braaai… is halfway of the mouth of the selfish son-of-a-bitch who always parks across two car spaces, he’s getting his moronic head caved in.

The second that fucker across the landing, the one who always screams at the football late at night, lifts two arms up in front of herself, she’s getting two of Remington’s best in the face.

The tiniest hint of a shambling walk from that idiot in the post office and we’re finally going to see how sharp that axe really… what… he only had a hip injury? He wasn’t really a zombie?

Let’s just chalk that one up to a mercy killing. But you know what I mean. Come the zombie apocalypse, all bets are off and some of those painful bastards who make the world a worse place are finally going to get what’s coming to them without all the hand-wringing that goes with assisted suicide.

Ducks

After sitting quietly behind the wheel for some hours recently and pondering the nature of things, I have arrived at the following conclusion. Ducks are the funniest birds.

They are funnier than other birds for a number of reasons. They are a very birdy sort of bird. They are an archetype. They play it straight, which makes them excellent for jokes of all sorts.

 “But AGA,” I hear you say, “there are so many other stand-out funny birds. Why ducks?” Well, let’s look at this scientifically. 

Penguins are bunging it on. They are comical but overcook the act - you look at a penguin and you start thinking of little men in tuxedos. There’s also that thing they do with the useless wings, the walk, and all the physical comedy of bouncing off rocks and falling over on the ice. They yell, “look at me”. Overkill.

Pelicans are arguably very funny, with their little, punk back-of-the-heads and serious expression. However they are a caricature, and that’s a distraction in a joke. You are forever expecting something to happen with the beak. The penguin is also a large animal which, unless you are presenting a gag in the vein of elephant jokes, is no good. It’s not typical.

Vultures are not good because there’s no cuteness. A certain amount of likeability is important in your comic bird. Vultures are only liked by Texas Rangers looking for a lost body in the desert.

Chickens are a close contender because there’s something so hopeless about them. Pathos plus bird-feed equals comedy. But chickens don’t fly, don’t have nice round heads and their eyes are a bit psycho. There’s also that creepy weirdness with the combs and fleshy bits above and below the beaks. I also feel that lice are part of the bargain with a chicken. Ducks are clean. Look at the amount of time they spend on the water.

I could invoke a Daffy and Donald versus Foghorn Leghorn logic here, but that’s not really where I’m coming from. I want there to be a purity to this; none of that fictional stuff.

Ducks aren’t all straight-men. They are able to bring an element of the surreal to the party. They quack. That can be funny, and it can have a mysterious quality. One of the great modern myths is that a duck’s quack doesn’t echo. Ducks can also survive being shot with arrows - there are numerous cases on record. They have lived that classic comedy: arrow-through-the-head.

Duck. The word is good to say, which helps. Duck. It’s sharp, it rhymes with things that make it good for punning, and where would you be without the bit on the front of their heads? Whenever a duck walks into a chemist and asks for chap-stick, you know it’s going on his bill.

They must occupy a special place in the hearts of us all. Think about when they are used in language. Water off their backs, taking to things like one of them to water, being lame when your presidency is timing out, and of course, not getting down off an elephant. You get down off a duck.

So there you have it. Ducks win. The mighty duck. I like a good duck.

On The Road Again

A Grey Area hit the road again recently and racked up over 3,500 clicks in a week. That’s not bad going for someone with attention deficit look over there! As usual though, such trips raise issues and questions that need addressing.

First, the planking craze has reached our wildlife. We saw hundreds of different animals planking on the side, sometimes even in the middle, of the road. When will the madness end?

Second, when are lambs supposed to appear? We saw thousands of little lambs and it doesn’t feel like spring to me. Has someone been telling me porkies about when lambs spontaneously generate? Is it like that horse’s birthday thing where someone just nominated a date but it’s not actually the day that all horses were born?

And talking of horses, third, how do you know when to put a jacket on a horse? I saw some horses that were fairly formally dressed with coats on, and others that were just standing around in their all-together.  What was the difference? Are these the horse latitudes I‘ve heard so much about? And what are ponies for? We saw quite a few ponies and I can’t work out what you would do with them other than maybe put a few of them on a skewer and make pony-kebab.

We saw quite a few llamas. One of them looked like he was wearing shorts. He was all white except for black hind-quarters and a bit down his back legs. Brilliant. The llama led to a conversation where nature helpfully pitched in with props to illustrate my point.

I mentioned that I’d read somewhere that llamas make good watch-animals for sheep. Apparently they’re inquisitive, territorial and not particularly afraid of stuff. Emergency Contact said, “But wouldn’t a fox just jump on a llama’s back and bite its head off?”

“They’re not wolves, they’re only that big,” I answered, as a fox ran across the road in front of us. It was the first fox I’d seen that wasn’t flat out planking and his timing was immaculate. Thank you, Mr Fox. Buon appetito.

Defence Of Planks

A couple of weeks ago, my colleague Smurfy said to me, “I heard that someone died from planking. I was really worried until I realised I’d misheard the radio report.” We both chortled like the witty raconteurs that we are and then went on to list words that rhyme with wee-wee.

After the death of that guy in Queensland, the standard position on planking (other than lying rigid on something unlikely) was that it was bad and stupid and only bad and stupid people did it. This was reinforced a couple of days later by a woman who, when talking about the Queensland death at a dinner party, ended up in hospital after an unsuccessful dining chair demonstration to her perplexed mates.

Emergency Contact came home one day to report that a mate of hers had asked, “So, let me get this right. It’s people pretending to be wood?” Which to me, is a perfectly incorrect although amusing explanation and exactly why I’m not anti-planking.

Planking is funny. It’s anti-art but occupies exactly the same space. It is something that exists for no other reason than itself.

It requires skill. Not everybody can do it, as evidenced by the deaths and injuries. I’m not being flip about that.

Planking, when done properly, is anonymous. A really good plank is done with the face away from the camera, which for some reason amuses me even more. Animate objects pretending to be inanimate - in odd places. It amuses for the same reasons we find faces in inanimate objects amusing. For the same reason that the ‘lampshade on the head’ is still referenced to describe certain absurd party moves, planking relies on the absurd, the surreal and quite often the most picturesque and high places. The implied back-story is always, "How the hell did they get there?" and even better, they're not mugging for the camera, they’re pretending to be a lost bit of wood. There’s nothing in that sentence that I don’t find amusing for a couple of seconds and let’s face it, it’s the net. It’s an ephemeral source of entertainment.

I don’t think we should get all disdainful about people trying some danger-art for grins, and certainly don’t think we should get all upset when it occasionally goes wrong. Think of how much more famous Stelarc would be if he plummetted to his death with a bunch of tear marks in his back. That’d be good for no-one.

That's Going On The Bill, Too

"A good pre-soak, Darlin', and that should come right out."

I once said that I was all vampired out. I might have been a bit hasty ‘cause on the whole, I’m enjoying the third season of True Blood. The show does worry me on two counts, though.

The first one is a minor quibble. Vambars (say it like Bill Compton. It’s more fun that way.) are very tough on clothes and Manchester. Mein Gott they get that blood everywhere! And they don’t clean up nearly quickly enough. They munch down on some innocent and leave the goo all over their faces and clothes for hours. Don’t get me started on what they do to the bed linen. While all that biting and humping and strangling and gargling and chewing and burping might be fun, there’s absolutely no thought for the poor maid who’s going to have to clean that up. How many sheets do they have, anyway? I can’t see a lot of those stains coming out and it’s not just the bodily juices. There are lumps!

But that’s a problem for the props department and can be relegated to the realms of disbelief suspension. My second concern is far more pressing.

I saw my first ugly person in the cast.

Yep. Well. Not actually ugly, but not as over the top gorgeous as everybody else. I mean, there is the odd realistic looking human in the cast list; there’s that dumb cop, and somebody’s mother isn’t absolutely smoking, but by and large they’re a pretty drop-dead bunch of undead and this girl stands out like a severed thumb.

My only consolation is that I can’t see her lasting long. She’s fallen for the wrong guy so we’ll probably see her body in a ditch soon enough so I shouldn’t get all sooky about it. (Yep. Say it like Bill. Much more fun that way.)

Shower Scene From Monsters Inc

Yesterday in the shower, an animal fell out of my navel, danced around for a bit, and then made its escape down the plughole.

Well, that’s what it looked like anyway. What it actually was, was a really good sized bit of navel lint that fell out, then got hit by individual droplets of water that made it move around like a small animal dodging a predator, and then inevitably got washed away.

I’m glad I’m not going to be surprised by this again, because it’s fuzzy sheet weather here in Sydney and the navel lint production ramps up to a whole new level at this time.

How Tweet It Is

A Grey Area has joined/started/been assimilated by Twitter (whatever it is you kids-of-today do with it). This happened for business reasons and I won’t go into it other than to say that I’m there now and it rankles with me a little.

For old people like me, Twitter represents everything that is wrong with the world, so I’ve been trying to think of ways to subvert it a little, without actually tweeting about it.

Idea number One

• Convert a black and white picture into 140 ‘pixels’ per line.
• Each pixel is given an “O” for black, or a space for white
• Tweet it line by line over two years
• Only someone with the patience to collect all the lines in the right order, print them out in poster format and stand back and squint, gets to see the “art”
• The picture will be of something really good, like a Chihuahua in a toupee
• First reader to identify the contents of the image, wins a really good prize, like a slightly used toupee

Idea number Two

• Tweet jokes backwards
• Someone reading in order gets a series of intriguing non sequiturs
• Someone reading down a timeline gets a joke
• I get to clean out some unused material

Idea number Three

• Start an epic poem that begins with “We all remember when Ashton Kutcher died”
• Add a line daily until
• It actually happens

Idea number Four

• Take the last three tweets from someone famous
• Start an imaginary dialogue... wait, I gotta go, I have to know what Elizabeth Hurley's having for breakfast