Posts

Showing posts from 2013

High Probability of Coincidence and the Secret Life of the Story Teller

I wrote my first novel just in time for my 30th birthday. It was one long SOB. Near enough 200,000 words. Too many words for a sane person to remember them all.  That’s how come I fell apart over the book. I couldn’t remember all the stuff that had happened and was happening. I couldn’t juggle it all in mid air in front of my brain.  No matter what I tried my brain couldn’t wrap itself around the story.   I finished it, but it wasn’t really finished. There were some really cool passages, some great little chapters. But the glue that tied everything together became this evil dark force that haunted my days and made me wake up in cold sweats every night of the week.  Then I would smoke a few cigarettes, stare out the window at the traffic lights blinking amber off in the distance and wonder what the hell I had done with my life to think I could  write a novel.  The writing of it had taken me prisoner over Christmas, new years. Then January had trudged by, all steam and sweat an

The Verandah School Of Guitar

I signed up for guitar lessons only the once. The year was 1983 or 1984. I made the call, turned up on the sign-up day, and gathered in a classroom in an old Queenslander house in Holland Park in Brisbane with about two-dozen other hopefuls and waited for the guitar teaching to begin.  I had walked the whole way from my half-house in Yeronga - about 5 km - and was  glad to sit for a while.The teacher certainly looked like she knew her way around the guitar when she first entered the room. She had raven-black hair, a tattoo on the small of her back (much more rare in those days) and wore an alarming number of bracelets up both arms from wrist to elbow.She was sexy as all get up. Trouble was... she couldn't play guitar. First thing she did was ask all of us, all 24, to play a piece on the guitar for the rest of the class to hear. She said it would also give her an idea of our level of development and from this she would decipher what level to start the lessons at. I just thought.

Still More Excerpts from: "Life Tips For The Young"

Neighbours That singular grouping of peoples for whom the distance between claimed knowledge and actual knowledge is greatest of all. Next Door Neighbours Better off left to their own devices. The next door neighbour serves the purpose of letting you know, in small digestible portions, that no matter how bizarre, infantile or selfish the behaviour of y our family members they will never be any match for those utter lunatics next door. Moving House When you move into a new neighbourhood be aware of one thing and one thing only. The neighbour who first goes out of their way to greet you and make you feel welcome in your new surrounds is bound to be the local crackpot on whom everyone else has already given up. The neighbours then introduce themselves to you in reverse order, from the furthermost edge of the lunatic fringe ever inward toward something approaching a calm or at least sedated centre.

More Excerpts from :"Life Tips For The Young"

Guilotine An age-old device used to quickly and cleanly separate elongated objects from their heads. The guillotine employs the unending natural forces of gravity and revolution in concert to deliver its deadly blow. Mice Mice are among a range of pest creatures who live pretty much wherever they like and it’s up to you to convince them not to. Mice may carry disease but at least they carry it cl ose to the ground most of the time. Airborne pests like flies, mosquitoes and birds are able not only to raise to the height of your mouth and nose but to also raise above it, enabling them to, should the urge take them, drop objects on top of your head or in your throat should you be lying down or gazing up at the time. Indeed, the Shit-In-Your-Open-Mouth Bird of Paradise from New Guinea first hovers far above its victims, then makes the sound of a helicopter in trouble to make people look upwards while it hides in the sun’s glare, then shits directly into their open mouths

Delusion Does Not Prove Consciousness

While the modern computer is still not conscious of itself in the true sense it does display certain traits which suggest it is delusional.

Public Shaming By Use Of Common Sense

When you are out walking your dog and you see one of those professional dog-walking people with seventeen dogs on 11 leashes and you notice that you cannot avoid the dog-walker and her/his tangled web of rabid mongrels, do not panic. Dog-walkers can smell panic. As they approach you and your dog, just a little outside striking distance, when all the fur on every dog's neck is standing fully erect and the saliva glands are pumping, simply and casually reach down and pick up your dog. By this action shall you totally disarm the dog-walker and all his dogs, leaving them all therefore somewhat confused and yes, ashamed.

Miles Davis Still Turning Heads

In car, bus, train, truck and plane crash videos Miles Davis is always playing on the radio in the background. Always.

More Excerpts from "Life Tips For The Young"

Day Dreams Day Dreams exist to make you realise that yes indeed you did just doze off for a few minutes at your desk when you should have been working. You might even have snored. Snoring The main purpose of snoring is to alert your loved ones and intimate partners that although they are important to your sense of well being, acceptance and belonging they are not as important as your need to ful ly self-express even while asleep and if they don’t like it they can lump it. In physiological mumbo-jumbo snoring is caused by the inflation of the Snorkus Reticulii Flap which is invisible during the day time or when one is in an upright position but visible at night or while lying horizontally. The SR Flap is believed to have developed over a million years ago to help scare away predatory mammals on the plains of Winnebego. Visions There are two sorts of visions: the cheap ones that have absolutely no monetary value and the dear ones from which a lucrative lecture

Staring at Art

When you stare at a statue or a painting for long enough, like, without blinking, it will appear to move of its own accord. Two to three minutes is usually long enough for beginners. Statues of people will look back at you and expressions will come over their face and you will freak yourself out. Security staff at museums are not well-schooled in the art of statue staring and may try to quickly usher you out of the building so you have to be discreet about it.

She Is Coming

Sweet Mary mother of god we are now gonna get a cat. I told the dogs. I split them up into separate rooms. I did BarnBoy first. "BarnBoy," I said, "I got some bad news and some even worse." He licked his cakehole like, whatever... I said "We are gonna get a cat." It didn't seem to register. Then I figured, he's been living in Germany for four years now.... so I said "We are gonna get a Katze!" and he twisted his head around from his ass so quick it made the blood well up in my ears. His tail went skyward, like a find-me flag on a woolworth's shopping cart. Then he was looking everywhere for the Katze. I said "Hey, big fella, she ain't here yet. She comes next week. And yes, I do mean to say 'She'." She, my mother used to say, is the cat's mother. To which I would always reply "Which cat? What the hell are you talking about?" I went in to the next room where our all-peeing, all-vomi

"The Next Big Thing" the Blog-Chain for authors/writers and Ten Questions

Image
The Next Big Thing is a series of blog posts where authors and other writers talk about their work by responding to ten uniform questions. At the end of the blog we tag other authors who will do the same thing a week (or so) later and so on it goes. So not only do you get to find out more about my book but you also will discover some other interesting writers. Soon to be published author and friend Mary-Lou Stephens  tagged me and here are my answers: 1. What is the working title of your next book? I got a feeling it will be my book of handy and helpful tips for young people titled either "Idiots Guide To Planet Earth" (since I'm pretty sure I won't be able to use "..... for Dummies")  or "How Stuff Really Works In The Bizarre World Of The Adults".  Something like that.  2. Where did the idea come from for the book? From talking to people ever since I could talk and watching their eyes glaze over every  time I started talking about a

More Excerpts from: "Life Tips For The Young (What Stuff Really Means)"

The Elderly: Once they get to a certain age, usually within plain sight of retirement from the job that has held them prisoner for their entire adult life, older people begin to do things differently. They take their time about things. Not because they are slow themselves but because they realise that no matter how fast you try to do things you will never beat time itself. Time marches on. The elderly, finally, know this. That is why they spend an inordinate amount of time in gardens and sipping tea. Gardens consistently provide proof that time is the boss of us all. That is also why the elderly drive their cars as if they were boats. When near elderly people who are driving always give them extra space and time to turn, to park, to do a u-turn, to respond to a signal, to brake. Give them an extra wide berth as you pass them by because who knows what sort of choppy current they are traversing, or whether the tides are coming in or going out. Nobody knows, but the elderl

Excerpts from: "Life Tips For The Young - (What Stuff Really Means)"

Image
Mechanics A breed of mostly men trained to perpetually sabotage your automobile on a kind of falling dominoes system that starts when you first go in for an oil change only to find out, a month later, that you now need a new oil filter. After returning the car to have the oil filter changed you find out a month later that you need new spark plugs, and then another month later, new leads, then a fan belt, then clutch, then brake pads, then battery, water pump, transmission, head gasket and so on and so forth until you finally give up on your car and sell it to your mechanic who is only too happy to do you the favour and take it off your hands for, say, 100 bucks.   The next week you will recognise your old car standing out front of the mechanic shop looking brand new and sporting a big sign that says “One Owner! $17,000!” The trick is to check where the black fingerprints are located every time your car is returned to you after each bogus repair so you’ll know what they’ve