Good Luck

I carry a penny for good luck. I do not seriously believe that it is anything more than a disc of common metal. It will no more protect me from misfortune than leaving out milk for the fairies will decrease the chance of you getting a cold.

Other common lucky charms are a mutant clover, the cut off and stuffed foot of a rabbit, a piece of blue glass in the shape of an eye, and necklaces with dying Jesuses on them.

The truth is that none of these things will protect you from harm. Nothing of that nature will.

The truth is that the only thing protecting you from the rapists, murderers, thieves and crazy people is the thickness of your clothing and the reliability of your social circles. And the best defense against them is a well soled pair of shoes and a running start.

I do believe that God watches us. But I think it is a cruel thing for me to ask him to protect me when there are so many that pray to him for nothing more than clean water. And let's face it, their prayers aren't always answered.

Luck doesn't exist. A lucky penny won't help me open a really stuck jar. But my Swiss army knife possibly might.

Just a thought.

Location:My Bedroom

Buzz Buzz Buzz

"Buzz buzz buzz.

Sorry?

Buzz buzz pizza buzz.

Yes please."

I ate my pizza tonight. David makes it every Sunday. Then we watch tv and Mr. Holmes complains that we are talking to much. It's pretty good. Of course, I'm not here every Sunday, but when I am that's what happens.

I wish my head wouldn't buzz. It's like thinking through fog. It's like listening through fog. Fog no one else can see. Or hear.

I knew a guy that didn't know how to spell the word "people" once. I explained to him how to do it, (p-e-o-p-l-e) but he just shouted at me. He said, "I can't spell it! I hate that word!"

Well I don't hate the word. But just like old dyslexic Daniel, I understand why some things are, and how they are done. I've even had them step by step explained to me, but I still can't do it.

My leg hurts.

Location:The Spare Room

Being King Is So Great

His death rattle lasted quite a long time. Hisssssss. I remember that. Like a tyre with a hole in it.

Anyway. Dead he was. Most defiantly. Emaciated, yellowed as a butter cup with his dying jaundice. His long white hair had been falling out in clumps for a few weeks now. Eyes as glassy as a toad's.

Everyone was so sad. And the worst part was the way they had thought I would be sad too. He was old, one hundred and seventeen. I hated the bastard. He was always pissed off that my dad and older brother had died before me and him.

Well, I say died. More murdered really. By me of course, not personally obviously, I have people. Jekob, my brother, loved hunting grizzlies. Who knew that he wasn't prepared for every single trusted member of his hunting party to all accidentally mistake him for a bear at once? My family is tough, but twenty seven crossbow bolts to the head kills anybody. Shake that one off Jek. Ah, Good times.

But Pop though, now there was a paranoid guy. They say Prince Donavan used to wear his stab vest while he was sleeping, and that in the ten years following the birth of his first son, he built up a resistance to every single popular royal poison there is in the history books. Had to try a few times with Dad. Fist couple of goes involved booby traps in bed springs and aftershave that melted your face. Sadly unsuccessful, but his screams where hilarious. However, even royalty has to crap. Paid a very resourceful young chap, named Henry I think, to plant a bomb right in his loo. Oh Henry, you knew your tricks. Too bad I knew more. Always be the second person to taste the champagne, pretty much deserved it for forgetting THAT.
Well, with Dad gone, Crowned Prince Dalesko I became. And the only thing between me and that nice shiny hat was maybe four weeks of bromide in his highnesses' tea. Natural causes they still think.

They did the whole "The Old king is dead, long live the blah blah blah" and absolute power was mine. I'm going to have a huge party after the official business is done with. And if the aristocratic babes won't dance with the king, well, watching them scream for mercy is just as fun. More sometimes.

Yep. I could get used to this.

Location: Bedroom

The Personifier Man

The Personifier. He walks from place to place, touching things and animals. Everything he touches becomes a person. That oak tree becomes a wise old man, that ferrari becomes a sassy lady in a red dress. The brown and while cocker spaniel becomes a helpfully cheerful little bald man. The Post box become a vigilant holder of letters, serious expression, firm grip on his cargo. The shopping trolleys are bored and uncooperative old people who carry your shopping, and have to be nudged along. Your loose change you dropped, as it rolls away around the Personifiers feet, are transformed into silly little girls running everywhere that will not do as they are told. The wind blows meanly rather than just coldly when the personifier is around. The sun smiles instead of shines. Sky doesn't rain, it cries.

Hands in the pockets of his humble brown jacket, he strolls around quietly, making everything that bit more alive and human.

The Personification of Personifying.

On The Bus

On the Bus back from Sydney, I frequently encounter people who are strange. Or at least, stranger than me, which means they are putting in effort.

The guy next to me wouldn't stop scratching his balls. It was like he was worried they were going to vanish.

The guy behind me had turrets, or autism or something. He shouted at everyone to take pictures when something even vaguely interesting happened outside. He continually leaned round to see if I wanted to have a drink of water, "You want a drink Mate? Mate, mate? Maaaaate?"And he played with a very irritating piece of velcro for at least 2 hours. I wanted to hurt him.

The woman sitting in front of me was huge. She could have eaten me for breakfast. She was an islander, and was speaking some variant of Indonesian to her friend, very loudly.

I fell asleep despite these distractions. My head fell forward, and hit her head rest. She took this as a studied insult. She poked me in the face with a giant finger. The woke me up thoroughly.

When struck by a strong surge of emotion, such as when a giantess is glowering at you over the top of your bus seat, your body tries to make itself look bigger and more threatening by fluffing out it's fur. Unfortunately, this tactic does nothing at all to aid me when the hairs on my body are so finely spaced and small that no amount of fluffing will make me look anything but silly.

Location: The Dining Room

Precious

When my cousin was younger, he would ask me if my possessions were 'precious'. He though that precious meant fragile. Valuable too, but in his mind mostly fragile. Diamonds are a precious stone. There are very few things on this earth harder than diamond.

We are all such fragile creatures. Made of breakable flesh and a mind that dies with it. Only the soul, whatever that is, lives on in the aftermath of our deaths.

You are precious to me. Wholly and completely I care for you without compromise. I fear your loss like I fear that the sun will not rise in the morning. A fine being built of only good intent.

Regardless of my non compromising love for you, I am only made and powered by my hate for my self and all my kind, a bitter shell of a being. My loathing gets me up in the morning, the idea that I will one day be sated, and apologized to. We meet a no point in the lines.

Despite my knowledge of this, I reject the idea that I am without use to the world. I reject the idea that I am without use to you and without positive attributes. Few enough see the world as I do. Perhaps you could one day learn to love this difference.

Until then I am as always disappointed, disillusioned and dissatisfied but content with my lot and the all too brief rays of sun that pierce the thunderheads.

I am always waiting for you, like a statue exposed to the elements I wait. But not in any kind of hope, for that emotion is alien to my nature. Only the wait that one has when walking and watching clouds, waiting to see what shape they shall take.

One day I shall have my satisfaction. You shall not provide it I highly doubt, but on that day as I clutch my still warm and beating prize, my mind shall bring to the fore a picture of you.

All I am precious island, is the writer. You are the words.

Location: My bedroom

Never Hope For That

Love is not hour long phone call
Love is not a shared milkshake
Love is not a dreamy expression
Love is not a pretty gesture
Love is not a hand in hand stroll
Love is not sepia tone photos
And love is definitely not fifteen minutes of sweaty bliss.

Love is dirt and mud and blood.
Love is duty and thankless work.
Love is swearing and hating and callus and tears and fear.

Love is ugly solitude long after you have forgotten what you were waiting for.

Love is the abandonment of dreams.

Love is the loss of who you truly are for another's sake.

Love is sacrifice, not gain.

Never hope to fall in love.

Location: Sydney, the flat

Why Joel, Why?

Couldn't you have just left it alone you moron? Ah shit.

Who You Are Underneath And Why I Don't Care.

Mr Horsefry was a youngish man, not simply running to fat but vaulting, leaping and diving towards obesity. He had acquired at thirty an impressive selection of chins, and now they wobbled with angry pride. It is wrong to judge by appearances. Despite his expression, which was that of a piglet having a bright idea, and his mode of speech, which might put you in mind of a small, breathless, neurotic but ridiculously expensive dog, Mr Horsefry might well have been a kind, generous and pious man. In the same way, the man climbing out of your window in a stripy jumper, a mask and a great hurry might merely be lost on the way to a fancy-dress party, and the man in the wig and robes at the focus of the courtroom might only be a transvestite who wandered in out of the rain. Snap judgements can be so unfair.

- Terry Pratchett, Going Postal.

People are funny things. I frequently tell you that they are stupid and that I hate them. And I do. But right now, I'm thinking about this.

People frequently say things like, "He's a bit grumpy but he's nice underneath". I feel that "underneath" we are all pretty much the same. Animals. Base. I feel that superficiality is one of a person's most important features.

Unless I know you remarkably well, and the number of people I know remarkably well I can count on one hand, the way that I do know you is through my superficial interactions with you.

Take for example, a murderer. He kills people regularly. Underneath, he is a troubled individual, intelligent and discerning, enjoying science, philosophy and art. He is well read, and can speak russian, greek and spanish fluently apart from his native english. He has had a long life of hardship, with many people he loves being tragically taken from him, and recently his wife has killed herself after a long battle with depression. This sent him spinning into irrevocable madness and he is now a serial killer.

He is still a murderer. He is still bad. I don't know him, I don't care about him, he should be put in jail.

And take another man. He works in a charity, looking after orphans. He feeds them, nurtures them, and provides them with an education. All the children consider him their father and love him dearly. Underneath, he is a closet pedophile, nightly he masturbates to child pornography, and he is secretly aroused buy the children he cares for. He never, ever makes advances upon them, but he does none the less perform his duties because he likes to be around little children.

He is in my opinion, a good man. No one, not even his old mum, knows his dark secret. He dutifully and ceaselessly acts out his charity providing many many children with a life, hope, food, shelter, and a stepping stone in the modern world. He should not be put in jail.

We only know of people what we see of them, and I don't know about you, but I quite simply do not have time to get to know deeply and intimately every single person on the planet. I don't care if you are autistic, you're still a jerk. I don't care if your mummy never loved you, you're still a wife-beater. I don't care if you were abused as a child, you are still an asshole. We all have a choice.

To our own perceptions, people are only and always what we think they are. If you learn more about them then what they seem to be changes, and if you don't, it doesn't. Snap judgments are all I have to go on with brief encounters with people.

Prove to me what you are, and I'll accept it. But if you don't, then I have nothing to go on.

N.B: I in no way condone Pedophilia. It's disgusting and terrible.

Brownie.

You know, one day, I will have the kind of day that all others envy. I don't think I've ever been envied in my whole life. I'm just a scrawny strange boy that will soon be a scrawny strange legal adult.

You may have heard this story. You may have even been there. But I'm going to tell it anyway.


I was once having a very bad day at school, when I was still going to trinity. I had been too depressed to eat that vile soggy cheese sandwich but I had a tasty looking brownie in my bag. I was about to get changed so that I could loose at sport. I was walking along with David, and as I raised my brownie to my mouth, I said, "one day Dave, everything will work out for me"

James took that moment to attempt to pass his football to David. It missed David, but neatly knocked my brownie out of my hand and into the dirt. I was less than happy. I recall that I screamed like maniac.

I ate it anyway. It tasted like dirt, grit, grass and faintly of chocolate.

I Do Not Care For You

I'm sick of this crap. I'm just tired, and disappointed and I want it to all stop.

I don't believe in the best kinds of people. So why the hell would I believe in myself? What possible motive do I have for this stupid idea?

I don't care for you and your dumb self serving hypocritical ideals. I would hurt you, but I just don't have it in me for that kind of violence. But if I could be a bastard, I would.

Location: My Bedroom

Music And It's Affect

I really like music. People have listened to and made music for almost as long as there have been people.

It makes us feel good. I have no idea why. Most everything of our nature has a point, we like fatty foods because they were be a commodity in the past. We like action heroes and romance films because they represent things we want or want to be subconsciously. We desire to sleep, make love and gather together in groups all for explicable reasons.

But music in my mind could serve very little practical biological purpose. Perhaps to drive away predators? But humanity has had no natural predators for so many, many generations that I would think that it should be bred out of us.

But no, it seems that it is an intrinsic part of our nature, that for what ever reason, we will make a noise with a rhythm.

Music can have a profound psychological affect on the listener. Just as you are what you eat, you are your taste in music.

Just a thought. Now, to get back to David Bowie.

Location:My bedroom

Would You?

If I were the only one of my kind, would you love me more?

If I were the first, last or only, would you cage me?

Would you put me in chains and have you children laugh at me?

Would you treat me well? Would you care for me?

Would you hate me? Would you fear me?

Would you love me more?

If I were the only one, would you still know me? Would you still trust me?

Or would you kill me? Would you kill the abomination?

Happiness.

They say that money doesn't buy happiness. I thoroughly disagree with that statement.

If I had, say, 12 million dollars, I would be able to sufficiently look after my mother and father, my mum wouldn't have to work, and the quality of her life would be sufficiently increased.

This Would Make Me Extremely Happy.

In addition, with that 12 million dollars, I would be able to buy myself a nice house, paint pretty pictures, write pretty things, drive a car that doesn't break down all the time, and the now and then holiday to a very fine place with a beach, snow, sunset, or ect.

This Would Make Me Extremely Happy.

I am not currently very happy. And it is my strong feeling that a large amount of money would make me happy.

Marvelous Devices.

I recently purchased an iPhone 4. And some peoples reaction to that has been that I am a "Conformist" . Forgive me if I think this, but I would have to say that if there is one thing I am not, it is a conformist. Just this one time, can't I just be like the other people?

Anyway, it got me to thinking. The quote goes:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

The first ever computer filled a whole room, and was able to perform fewer tasks than a common modern pocket calculator. In 1969, the N.A.S.A team that sent Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins to the moon had less power in their entire computer system than in my little handheld device.

The the advancement and power of modern technology is incredible. What is the genuine difference between a magical scrying glass and smart phone with internet access?

A Friend Like Me

I Hate You All, Everyone and Everything

The tittle pretty much encompasses it.

'I love you' is an empty phrase,

boring, short and overdone,

It's used by us all like sugary glaze.

Smooth it all over the stale bun.

The world we made is fake, like plaster,

Chipping off, and degrading ever faster.

You can't taste the earth, you can't smell the air,

You can't see the stars, its a wonder we care.

The truth doesn't give, what you like or don't,

It doesn't cater to our wills, shan'ts and won'ts.

Its doesn't do anything, except be ignored,

By the wealthy, the sloppy, the fat, rich and bored.

The answer to global warming is to issue guns,

Which we will use to kill everyone,

Then the cute fluffy animal torture will cease,

Wouldn't you like that green peace?

Setting Fire To The Discontent

I very rarely find myself with nothing to write about. sometimes I'm so full of thoughts they positively burst out of my brain on the the keyboard in an incredibly graphic and disturbing display of creativity.

uh... anyway.

The point is, tonight I don't have anything on my mind that I want to write about. Bone dry. This must be what its like for dusty old boring people who only think about shopping lists and money to stack up in their bank and do nothing with.

I once told myself that no one person will dictate the contentedness of my life.

But today, or tonight rather, I am discontented. I plan to set fire to it. I shall set fire to my discontent.

Does Anyone Think?

Realistically, there are a great many ideal mates for me in the world. I'm not one of those people who think "I'll never find a soulmate, waa". For one thing, the idea of a soulmate is silly, and second, there are so many people are people in the world, that at the very, very least, there are more than a hundred girls in the world who I would be incredibly compatible with, are my age, and would be generally make an excellent couple with.

I'm not particularly fused about it. If she wants to find me, (a long haired Australian chap with more brain than muscle and who isn't an arsehole) she may. If she doesn't, equally, I really don't care. She defiantly exists. I could do with her, and I could do without her.

It seems to me that people who complain about this sort of thing haven't really thought about it at all. "I'm fat, no one will ever love me!" Do you know how many blokes get turned on by fatness? A lot. "oh no, how will I ever find someone to love someone who wears glasses?" "oh no, who could ever find a person with large ears attractive?" "oh no, my boobs were burned off in a car accident!" Trust me. If it exists, there is someone who likes it. Just use the damn internet. If you can find someone on the internet that will willingly be killed and eaten by another human being, and there are such people read the news, then you can find someone who wants you, whoever you are.

And after they find you attractive, well, love is just a strong feeling of affection built up over time. The concept of falling in love was pretty much invented by western culture. Anyone can do it. I concentrated really hard one day and fell in love with my computer chair. Its all made up anyway.

Art and Apples and Guns and People and Stuff.

Before I had opinions, I liked making things. I always really liked doing things with my hands, and making things. And that is what my art is. I'm just making something. It is satisfaction. Its the point of me. I make things. Other people make art because they want to say something, or because they want to pump up their ego, or because they want money, or they like the idea of doing it or some other reason. Which I think is fine.It doesn't affect me why you made the art, I only care if it is good.

My art does those things too sometimes but that isn't why I do it. The reason why I make "art" is because that is what I am for. I make things. If it was chairs, I'd make chairs, If it was preindustrial guns (before they had machines to do it, and all the guns were subtly different), I'd make preindustrial guns, If it was houses, I'd make houses, if it was pots, I'd make pots, if it was bullets, I'd make bullets. But because I have a choice, I make sculptures and paintings. It's what I like to make. But if things had been different and I could have creatively made something else, I'd be happy with that.

I'm very tired tonight. Apparently my family has no money. If I remember, I might get a job a woolies or something.

It might seem out of character for me to say that I would be comfortable making guns and bullets. Its true that I don't like them. But for no more reason than that I don't like alcohol or cars, that being that they kill people. I agree that they are useful. Its just that when I think of guns, I just instantly think of people being shot. And I dislike it when people are shot.

I don't know why it is that I dislike the idea of people being shot. I mean, I hate people. Not the individuals, but as a whole. Its kind of silly really. Its like liking particular apples because you eat them, but disliking apples as a whole fruit species. Think of it like that. It's stupid. I've decided to call it "Pragmatic Misanthropy". I hate people as far as it is practical for me to do so.

At least, that's how I feel.

Who Even Are You?

I don't care if my blog is self pitying, self loathing and depressed sometimes. It's my damn blog. I write what ever I like. And if you don't like it, you can either not read it or get lost.

Anyway. I like walruses tonight. Well, I especially like them tonight. I usually like them. Here is a picture of one from google.

Sorry If you don't get the Picture. The mac does that sometimes. Just google 'walrus' if you really want to see pictures of them. That's what I did.

Dragon

I lost a lot of blood that night,

I lost a lot of face.

I lost my mind in the flood that night.

I had no saving grace.

If I had the strength to lift a dozen problems,

And crack them clean in twain,

I'd never again have a facial spasm,

And never an aching brain.

I wonder if you'll read this,

I wonder if you care,

I will soon forget this,

Soon, I'll have grey hair.

Does my honesty offend you?

Does the truth make you sweat?

I'm not sorry if I hurt you,

But its not my aim to cause a fret.

Perhaps one day I'll meet my match,

A person who knows what to say,

But till then the rhymes I'll catch,

And the knight errants I will slay.

The princess will wait in her tower of thought,

As day after day the king's men are fought,

She's like a wax work dummy, unmoving,

Oh once her mere presence was so soothing.

I'll sit right here on my pile of gold,

Until my scales are moldy and old,

Or perhaps until the prince, finally,

Decides to come and put an end to me.

Meh.

Meh: A coloquiall term for not being particularly fussed either way.

Example:

1st person: Hey, do you want that last piece of popcorn?

2nd Person: Meh

I was watching the flooding of Queensland on telivsion, and I was wondering to myself, "Why don't I care more?".

If I picture the face of some starving african child in my mind, I just don't really care. Perhaps that what with all this advertising of disaster and death by the media, I've become desenitized. Perhaps I'm just a prick.

It got me thinking about the things I do care about. And I've got to say, I generally don't. I mean, I love my family and friends, but that word just doesn't really tugg any strings in my heart. People sometimes say things like, "Wow, I'm so pumped for this or that" or "I really love such and such a thing/person" and I say, "Hey yeah, Its pretty good" and don't really think anything. I mean, I like things and people, and I'd be pissed if you took my people or things away, but if they are there and doing what they are supposed to, I'm just sort of 'meh'.

Isn't youth supposed to be passionate about things? I'm just totally apathetic to everything.

Tectonic Is A Great Word.

Have you ever thought about yourself, sitting in the middle of two tectonic plates. Slowly, slowly sliding together. You sit in between them, before they touch. Dead slow they move together, brushing your limbs lightly. Then, you have to squeeze a little to be comfortable. Then, you struggle to breath as they get closer and closer together. Soon, you can't breath at all. You are now dead, but the earth keeps moving, sliding sliding, and your skull pops, your ribcage makes cracking noises. Just red paste after that, being smooshed out of a tiny crack.

Have you ever thought about that? No? Well, neither have I.

I wonder if my life had been different, I would still have grown this way. I wonder if in some other place, I grew to be a real man. If in one of those quantum universes a man survives ground zero of an atomic strike, I'm sure there is one where I could be a real man.

Beast.

"I am a beast with a brain, and fists."

I felt two things about that. And it comes down to,

1) Is that all I am and ever will be?

2) Am I not as frail as I think?

A word is a word and a fact is a fact. But it is the emotion behind it that gives it power at all. Without emotion, without pain, suffering, happiness, contentment and joy, why would things be bad? Why would they be good? I feel that emotions are more than mental, but physical things. A cut finger is the emotion of pain. And a soothing touch is part of the emotion of love.

Immortality Without The Assistance Of God.

In greek mythology, Achilles the great warrior, was offered a choice. He could either go off to troy, fight and become a very, very powerful hero of legend never to be forgotten for all time, and die while still a young man. Or he could stay in his homeland, and live to be and old man, be loved by his wife and children, and in three generations, forgotten.

He chose to be a legend and, in story, he lives on to this day. The achilles tendon in your foot is named after him and his demise. People still use the term, "Achilles heel" for something that has one important weakness.

Achilles lived maybe, and I'm just guessing here, three thousand years ago. Remembered for three thousand years. Solid effort. But what about, say, three thousand more years? Maybe. ten-thousand years? A million years? I guarantee you that in one million years, no one will remember Achilles. Language will have changed, people will have changed, and if the world is still here it will have changed. If and only if people are still alive to remember anything in one million years.

So really, Achilles isn't immortal. He is just very, very, long lived. I conclude this: Man's dream of Immortality without the assistance of God is impossible. Ideas die. They are more stubborn than us fleshy squishy things, but they are mortal just the same. One day, the Mona Lisa will be dust. Fibonacci's Numbers will be but a dream. In the future, no one will know who Yuri Gagarin, Albert Einstein, Joan of Arc or William Shakespeare are.

No-one and nothing lives forever. But that won't ever stop us trying to. People are dumb. And I think that regardless of how far culture advances people always will be dumb.

Angry

Enjoy this angry teen angst poem. I am very proud of the last line. Guess who its about, and you get a shiny prize.

I hate the way you choose to walk,

I hate the way you naturally talk,

I hate the way you bounce your hair,

I hate the way you pretend not to care,

I hate your stupid fashion sense,

I hate your use of present tense,

I have the way you make a scene

I hate your ugly selfish dreams.

I hate you, you dumb, egocentric, ostentatious bastard,

I want to cut off your thumbs and in your eyes smear mustard.

Alone? Together?

"No man is an island."

"True enlightenment can only be achieved through total detachment"

"Co-operation is the only thing that will redeem mankind."

"Nothing great can ever be achieved without listening to the internal whisper alone."

"We are nothing without our fellow man"

"A person is smart, but together people are dangerous and stupid."

"Listen only to your own self, and to yourself be true"

"Listen to the advice of others, they know more than you guess"

Despise? Why?

I Don't Need You For Anything.

Its such a damn chore

That I get up at all anymore,

When I get out of bed,

I shake my dead head.

And I wonder what you would do,

Yes you,

The person I never knew.

Do I want to find you?

Do I want to catch you?

Do I want to feel your touch?

Do I want to see you, hold you, know you?

Yes, I want it all too much.

The world used to be such a happy place.

Even when I felt out of place.

But now its gone quiet,

All strange and silent.

In less than and hour,

My world went sour.

And all I can think of is you.

Just you,

the person I never knew.

Do I want to kiss you?

Do I want to love you?

Do I want to feel your hand on mine?

Do I want to search you, try you, find you?

Yes, and I don't want to waste any time.

The Lady In The Desert.

While I lay dreaming, I stood in a white desert in its night, waves of sand flowed out in all directions like an ocean. The stars were so numerous and bright you could see their refections on the sand. Out of the dunes strode a woman. She was as tall as a tree, she had skin like tar and hair like great black caterpillars flowing out of her scalp. Her clothes were made out of dead animals, and her eyes were made out of contempt and deep dark sadness. And from her great round lips in a deep lady voice she said to me,

"I HOPE YOU KNOWS WHAT YOU'RE DOING BOY.

MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SOUL."

You Let Me Down, I Let You Down.

The greatest thing I ever wrote was this:

"Grow grow grow,

In the summer sun.

Earn your joy,

And steal your fun."

Okay, so maybe "greatest" is an overstatement, but the old Joel who wrote it was onto something.

****

I'm tired of disappointing people, and I'm tired of being disappointed by them. I want to find someone who thinks I'm so damn amazing that I don't need to be anyone else. And I'll find them so amazing that disappointing me is impossible. And we'll go bowling, because I hate bowling. And it won't matter.

I'm so sick of people. I'm so sick of you, who ever you are. I'm so sick of letting you down, I'm so sick of hurting you, I'm so sick of the pain I cause you. And I'm sick of the way you let me down. I'm sick of the way you hurt me. I'm sick of the pain you cause me.

I'm so disappointed, I'm so disappointing.

Let me be alone.

****

I can't dance very well. I have rhythm. But I move awkwardly, not out of time, just in the wrong place. I'm not a dancer. I'm more of a painter, a writer, a sculptor.

No has ever,

wanted me to stay,

No one has ever,

wanted to help me,

shape my clay.

They all want to dance,

they all want to...

...Shudder... Romance.

I don't want it that way,

But any day,

Oh any day,

I'd have someone help me sculpt my clay.

****

Oh gentle reader,

Oh fiery feeder.

I'm sorry you are you,

And I'm me.

I know its not,

How you want it to be.

I'm sorry I'm not,

A big man,

A strong man,

A brave man,

A bold man.

I'm sorry I can't

Help you.

Or,

save you.

Or,

Free you,

Or,

Make you,

anew,

A better you.

A true self. To stand on a mountain,

For all time,

Till the end,

Of the rhyme,

Till the end,

Of this silly mockery.

Imagine a being,

Of this perfect beauty.

Imagine seeing.

So perfect a form,

With garish clothing,

Unadorned,

Naked before the fire that will end all things.

The true power. True knowing.

And after the last great swallow...

Only to sit and think. To pour thought after thought into the void.

To unravel the knot. To solve the unsolvable problem.

And say,

"Yes."

And smile.

Andy Warhol.

This man was a great man, but was he a good man? Was he evil? Or was he not? I question myself, I question him, my hero.

I wish I could ask him this and receive a straight answer. I wish I knew.

Its important to know if your hero was evil. Unless you're a Neo-Nazi.

The Fact Remains.

The truth is only the truth, the emotion you choose to feel when you experience it is a totally different thing. I could tell you that the number of children dying of starvation right now is so huge that when estimating the total an error of a million here or there can be easily excused. And you can feel what you like, but the fact remains.

I admire people. The quality that I usually choose to focus on when I admire someone is intelligence. But I feel that the greatest quality that someone can possess is kindness.

There is no drawback, or evil side or cruel motive to kindness without condition.

The Things We Are.

When you think about yourself, or when you tell someone about yourself, you usually focus on the "big things" or the things that you feel define you. Your introduction sentence.

For example, if I were to tell you about myself, I'd probably say that I am a seventeen year old writer and artist who has a few 'nervous ticks' as it were, believes in Jesus, wears black all the time and is terrible at sorting out numbers.

But that isn't who I am. And people who do things that they don't like, (some of my friends smoke, and wish they didn't. In fact, all of the friends that I have that smoke wish they didn't) make a little sentence like I just did, about themselves, that is highly negative. Likewise, people that are egotistical may form a false image of themselves in that manner that can be harmful.

The truth is, we a complicated things. Far more complicated than can be summed up in a sentence or a resume.

I often say that we are a product of our genetics, and we are. But people take that to mean you are your parents. We are not only our father and mother. We are our father, mother, two grandmothers, two grandfathers, four great grandfathers, four great grandmothers, sixteen great great grandmothers, sixteen great grand fathers, and after that I start to get a mathematics headache. I know, poor show Joel, but I am terrible at sorting out numbers.

The point is that you are not the product of the union of two people. You are a vast pyramid of ancestors, stretching back millions of years, that all have a tiny contribution to you, the individual that is here.

You, human, are an incredibly complicated being. You are here because your ancestors had something that kept them alive in that hellhole that was the past, and got them breeding. You are the product of and incredibly lengthy, arduous, painful and incredible journey of all kinds people.

That alone makes you vastly more complicated then your introduction sentence, but there is more.

You have things. All sorts of things.

(unless your the kind of person that has no possessions, which David will end up doing no doubt.)

You probably carry objects, I'm guessing here, but a purse or wallet is likely, a phone maybe, possibly an Mp3 player or a watch, jewelry, anything. What ever it is that you have, take it out for a moment. Look at it. You may not consider it, but it is a tiny part of you. If you have had it for any length of time, you have made your make on it. A scratch perhaps, or a bend, or something. If it is an electronic device that you've had for a little while, it is full of numbers, or songs or something.

And just as you have made your mark on it, it has made its mark on you.You cannot go through the world without it having an effect on you. You have a thousand tiny little imperfections, caused by daily life. These tiny things add up after a while and become a significant part of you. Things you have, that people say to you, that you do, that you eat. Places where you sleep, where you live, a thousand little things. They are important things when put together.

No matter who you are, you are complex. A lot of effort, time, emotion and difficultly went in to making even the most simplistic of you. And you aren't restrained by what you think of yourself, or what others think of you, or the things you habitually do. You are restrained only by the limits of you physical world. So be what ever it is you want to be. Change your introduction sentence.

The Way I'd Have The World Be

I'm always complaining about how I hate people, and what they do. It is easy to complain about the state of something, but much harder to try and change the world, or imagine a better one.

The truth is, I would have the world be a better place, the kind of place where humanity lives for something, a place where the truth is known and a place where kindness is more valuable than money and stocks. A place where it doesn't matter if the rules are bent, because the people are good, and so don't need them.

But I don't imagine such a place, for if I did, I know deep down that I could never be part of it. I am not suited for a place like that. I am a bent little cog suited just fine for a big bent world. I deserve all the cruelty that is given to me, for I am a giver of cruelty. I am I fallen being. And so are you.

You know it's true.

Miss Tench.

People are invariably more complicated than we see them as being. If the world were made the way humans would have it be, with lightening tossed by a man in the sky, and the earth as a flat thing, and with us all at the center of everything, what would that do to the world?

The truth is that not many people think about things the way I do, but this girlie here in the picture does indeed do so. She considers things and thinks about words and the way we use them, and wonders why it is that questions are asked and rules are followed.

Though it is the tragedy that thinkers and question askers rarely receive answers, whereas people who don't are satisfied with the answers presented to them, it still feels good to know that someone else is trying to untie the impossible universal knot too.

So thanks Miss Tench, and here is your mention.

I'm So Clever.

I'm so clever that they should make a giant white marble statue of me looking profound and put a little brass plaque underneath that says:

That's a three by the way, it just looks like an eight because the font is stupid.

We'll Meet Again, Don't Know Where, Don't Know When

Complications.

Ever since I was a little boy I've always wondered why it is that people do things the way they do. Sometimes I think just about what must be going on in other peoples heads, just wondering why they are doing what ever it is they are doing.

I sometimes I feel like I haven't made any progress at all since then, that I'm still just a little boy in a too big woolen jumper who really just doesn't get what is going on at all.

That's what I like about my blog. I understand it. It might not be very much, but in this tiny little corner of the world, everything makes sense. No one is saying things I don't understand, nothing has to be done in a particular way, no one is telling me I'm wrong, or bad, or that I shouldn't be doing anything. Its just my blog. It is the way it is, and of it, I am Lord and Master.

The world is so strange. Murderers who aren't murderers because of technicalities. Giant corporations selling their giant products and all the grey people just going out and buying them. People who are evil because they wear different clothes. Soldiers shooting people because they were told to. People disliking me for no reason other than that they choose to, weird things being weird.

I've never been very strong. I can't lift heavy things, I can't stand much pain, I can't deal with tough situations. When I was little, I used to wonder why that was, and try to make it different. As I get older, I've just sort of accepted it, and realized there is nearly nothing I can do about it. So I carry my little knife, and I solve all the problems that my form will allow me to.

Perhaps its just a part of being human, knowing that compared to the world you aren't really much.

Romans 3:23

"For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."

Plastic Is Not The Devil

"It was your desire to be the master of the world and so you have. Breath in the stink of slavery, for you have enslaved the Earth."

Some types of humans, for what ever reason, do not live in harmony with the earth. Not all humans do this, some had until relatively recently in humanities history lived like other animals do, taking only enough to survive, plundering only enough to maintain their territories. They lived peaceful lives, free from war, free from injustice and free from pollution.

But some kinds of humans expand. They take all they can to feed the fire of industry, look out into the whole world to conquer it. They create astonishing machines and astonishing ways of using the earth. They take everything they can and despoil what they cannot. They invent ways to pierce the heavens, they send probes to distant planets. They map the trajectory of the stars and learn how to synthesize materials. They do impossible things.

Industrial humans know that they have defiled their earth. So they buy "organic" and "nature friendly" products.

In fact, it seems that stating that your product is "100% natural" is nearly as good as it having been blessed by the pope. Not all things, as I have said before, that are unnatural are un-good. What of morphine, hospitals and computers? Of antiviruses and vaccinations? None of these are natural, and none of them bad.

Why is it that we feel that the world can only be two things? That we can be only see the universe if we burn the forests? But thats what we've always done, seen the world as either black or white, good or evil.

How ironic is it that we build spaceships to send to mars, and probes to scout the infinite blackness, yet the industry that has made this possible produces the smoke that blocks the stars. In our biggest cities you can't see the stars at all.

Blindonians And Earthlings

I believe that the universe is far more complicated than can be observed by simply looking at it with our mere five senses.

Imagine a planet, let us call it... "Blind". It is surrounded by a permanent dust cloud, or maybe its sun is a black hole, or maybe it has a very thick atmosphere. Heat reaches it, but no light penetrates the planet's surface. The creatures that live there have no eyes because they have no purpose for them. They still hear, smell/taste, feel, and think as we do, but they simply have no vision. Instead, they evolved a sense of magnetic perception, similar to that of sharks, by which the mammals of the planet can find their prey and recognize their peers.

By happenstance, Human Earthlings and The Blindonians send radio signals to each other. The two species decide to meet on a planet that can be considered no man's land.

They both breath oxygen, and are able, even, to hear sounds that are the same. Thus communication is possible. The steel spaceships of the Earthlings are easily felt by the Blindonians' magnetic sense, and the strange coloured hulls of the ceramic craft of the Blindonians are a point of notice to the Earthlings. Yet try as they might, the Earthlings cannot convey colour to the Blindonians, and the Blindonians cannot make the Earthlings understand magnetic resonance distinction.

The point of my story is that, there are many complicated ways of looking at our universe. Who knows what other forces we are blind to?

Assuming that things only exist if we can see them is a foolish thing to do. But trying to find things that are impossible for us to comprehend could be said to be foolish too.

The Illusion of Time, Timekeeping devices and The Change of Times

Another year. Another blog post.

What? Alright, I know it's corny but I had to say it. I just had to.

A year, isn't really 365 days. It is 365 and one quarter days. that's why every four years we shove an extra day on February, so that the seasons don't get mucked up. But really, the years of our lives that we have are an illusion. The 'year' is based on one rotation of the Earth around the Sun. and the day around one rotation of the Earth on its axis. But in a day and age when we have electric lights, and watches rather than sunlight to tell the time, what is a year? A vestige of a bygone time, that's what. But it works, so we keep it.

My phone has the wrong time, but my watch is always correct. They say (and I'll tell you now that "they" aren't very popular in my books) that much of my generation doesn't wear watches as they only do one thing, that we expect our technological devices to do more than just tell the time. I first saw that little sliver of information in an internet video disparaging youth, saying we are lazy and useless, that we play too many video games, look at too much porn and all those other things.

I'll be honest with you, I carry both an iPod and a phone, so wearing my watch, I suppose, is a bit of an inefficient thing to do. Sometimes, I forget to charge my iPod, sometimes my phone runs out of credit (alright, often my phone runs out of credit) But everyday, without fail, my watch will still be ticking away. I have to get a new battery for my watch at about christmas time every year, but the point still stands.

Even a very good iPod is only supposed to last a few years, then you get a new one. But a good watch, and my watch is good, lasts decades.

If my friends choose not to wear a watch for whatever reason, it is nothing to me.

But I feel the reason that the folk of the older generation choose to dislike my friends choice in time pieces is because they tend to find their old fingers fumbling over this new and annoying thing. To see a mere child use it so expertly when they cannot master its most simplistic functions, such as telling the time, must infuriate them no end. So take out your frustration on someone else, we didn't do anything. We're just moving with the times, and in the end, history shows that The Times tend to move in only one direction.

For some reason, my blog is on American time. I'll repost this in 2011 when its done being annoying. Re: First posted January first AST.

A Midsummer Night's Dream.

I had a dream the other night.

I was standing on the front lawn of a white house. The old kind, with pillars on the porch. on the lawn were plastic pink flamingoes, and garden gnomes. I walked up to the front door, which has one of those signs on it that say "bless this mess" and have daisies on them.

I push the button on the door bell, and a funny little tune comes out. I wait a couple of minutes and then an old lady comes to the door. She apologizes for the wait, but says that she was doing her yoga, which would explain why it is that she is wearing a pink tracksuit and white runners. Her hair was white, and she seems like the kind of lady that you wish your grandmother was.

Anyway, she invites me in and asks if I would like a glass of lemonade. I thought for a bit then said, "sure". she pours herself and me a tall glass of lemonade. I take a sip, and its nice and pretty unremarkable. She asks if I like it, and I say I do. She tells me that the lemons come form the back garden, and that she and her two sisters sell them sometimes.

She then says to me, "well dear, I know why you are here, and you've probably got important things to do, can't just stand here talking to a silly old lady all day can you?" So we go upstairs past the bedrooms and she directs me to walk up a wooden ladder into the manhole. I ask if I can take my lemonade with me, and she replies that it is fine, so long as I don't spill it on the carpet. we both ascend through the manhole into the ceiling.

In the attic there is a small round table, covered in a red satin table cloth, and lit by a few candles in the corners of the room. On the little table is a crystal ball. She directs me to a seat.

"I'll need something that belongs to you dear" she says. I ask if I'll get it back, which she respond that I will, so I take out my swiss army knife and hand it to her. She has wrinkly old fingers, and she holds my knife in her clasped hands. The old woman sighs and nods, and the crystal ball glows faintly. She hands me back my knife, which I put back in my pocket.

She looks into the crystal, her brows knot and she frowns as colours spin in the ball like ribbons. I say nothing, only watch and sip my lemonade.

Suddenly, the crystal turns dark purple, the woman, her face changing from concentrating to fearful, panics and tries to turn away, and the purpleness flows out of the top of the globe lie smoke, and into her mouth, nostrils and eyes. She straightens up, looks me in the face, her eyes have changed, and says to me that "My future is as black as my cynical heart".

She leaps across the table at me and I smash my lemonade on her head, I scream for help, and as she leaps to attack me again, I see that her teeth have become pointed like that of a shark.

Her animal jump misses me, and I drop down the manhole, and run down towards the stairs. She follows me, and at the top of the staircase, throws me against the wall, and claws at my shirt, ripping at it and scratching my chest. Flailing hands go to my pocket and I pull out my knife, with one hand and my teeth, I open it.

I manage to push her off me for a moment. And as she snarls at me, I stab her in the chest over and over and over with my knife, I'm up to my wrist in hot red, it covers the walls and carpet and it burns my skin like hot water.

I stand up and look at what I've done, and, choking and drowning in her own blood, she laughs quietly, struggles for a moment to breathe before her eyes pop very slightly as if in shock. She twitches a tiny bit, then she lies still.

I stand there doing nothing, still holding my knife, when police officers kick in the door, and spot me, I look at them, and I try to stutter that she went crazy or something stupid like that, when a dark haired police woman interrupts me with "Please sir, just put down the knife" I do nothing. I don't even move as she pulls out her baton and hits me in the head.

I'm in a cell now, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, with my hands cuffed. There is a television just outside the door displaying a news story about an adolescent boy who stabbed an elderly woman to death in her own home. Apparently more news will be available as it happens.

I woke up after that. I don't recall what I did in response, but it was pretty late, so probably went back to sleep.