Tolerance on Strike

Like a strike force hired to strike fear into those struck with a weird desire to strike out against their oppressors who rose to power when they learned to harness the power of lightening strikes - winter has struck my current home of Sydney Australia. 

It may only technically be autumn, but make no mistake, winter is here, I mean get this, the past couple of days it's been so cold that wearing shorts has been, at best, tolerable!

And as a short wearer who has been forced to tolerate this only tolerable weather I've learned something - tolerating stuff ain't that bad. In fact its very tolerable. 

This is interesting because in the modern world of outrage junkies, PC prisoners, and close minded assholes everywhere we are constantly hearing about people and their utter fury at other people being furious at different  people for having thoughts alternative  to their own, and how this fury is utterly intolerable, especially the middle furious people I think, or maybe it's the original furious people. It's hard to keep up. 

Well normally I stay away from hot button issues, but it occurred to me that if you don't like hot button issues don't hang out in bakeries in the morning, where frankly the hot buttons are delicious, especially with butter, and I like bakeries, and given the brisk crispiness of the air, and my new understanding of tolerance, I'm going to go ahead and tolerate a couple of things I previously found intolerable, to set an example of tolerance. 

I already totally tolerate all the regular things people find intolerable, but here is my new list of things I now tolerate which I think up until now had never known what it felt like to be tolerated by anyone:

- Things glued to things that are traditionally only stapled or paper-clipped together, such as legal papers, film scripts or gay couples. 

- Forms of dance where the dancers are expressing themselves through alternatives to dance, such as ballet, the tango or the war on terrorist insurgents hiding in the hills above communities unaware of the true belief systems of the 'nature scientists' they have welcomed to their town with warm smiles, Tuesday night drink specials at the local tavern and in two cases permission to accompany their daughters to the home coming dance.

- Canadians.

Yep the world just got injected with a huge steaming pile of tolerance people. Next step compassion! Which I'm looking forward to, but frankly first it's going to have to get a lot colder than this. 

What are you waiting for?

Let's face it, you occasionally smell like a bakery, you only catch limos when you go to see ballet, you're often dazed at the thought of hall lined with bows and arrows, you still regularly get zits but only on your left earlobe, you've long lamented the truth that gazebos can be enjoyed by anyone, you wait for bated breath for definitive proof that navy blue was invented by the navy, you're adamant that valor oozes pretentiousness in just the perfect doses, you truly believe that the best street artist of all time was 'Carvin' but you tell everyone you think it was 'Surplus Meet' because you like to keep Carvin just for yourself, you only go to church to light candles and feed your otherwise dormant pyromania, you're adamant that architecture appreciation can't be taught or learned only felt within, you think air-conditioning systems have their own aura, and you've never been to Mongolia but you're open to the possibility of going one day - clearly, clearly you're destined to one day run a small candy store dedicated to foreign, rare and ol'timey candy options. 

So what the fuck are you waiting for, I've got a sweet tooth Goddamn it, and I want a fucking caramel goolah right now!!!

Enthusiastic for the Opportunity

He was enthusiastic about songs with the word 'opportunity' in them. 

'I'm really enthusiastic about songs

with the word "opportunity" in them' you'd hear him say whenever someone asked him why he was acting with so much enthusiasm since a particular song came on the radio 'and this song that's playing now has the word opportunity in it' he would add, not wanting to leave any doubt that this was the reason he was currently acting enthusiastic. 

'Some people might hear me say that I'm enthusiastic about songs with the word opportunity in them' he'd continue if pressed 'and if they didn't know that the song currently playing had the word opportunity in it they could potentially think that this was my base level of mood, devoid of any recognizable enthusiasm, and then a song like "opportunity knocks" by Klimate, or "Never Missed An Opportunity" by Sunny Salvation might come on, and they'll all get all excited and be like "ooohhh ooohhh,  this is one, watch Ben, he's totally going to get enthusiastic" and I'll have to be all like I ALREADY WAS ENTHUSIASTIC YOU MOTHERFUCKER, THE LAST SONG WAS "Oh oh oh opportunity" by Flight Patrol DONT YOU FUCKING KNOW ANYTHING?' 

'Getting mad can dampen your enthusiasm' he'd add, in case you didn't already know that. 

Although Ben wasn't always like this. 

'Yep "Opportunity, Don't say no to me" by Spiral Farm. September 15th 1993 11:29pm'. He'd reply in flash when asked if he'd ever failed to show enthusiasm for a song with opportunity in it. 

If you were lucky he'd then tell the whole story. 

'My parents had kicked me out of home after they discovered it was me who had broken into the house, while they were away for the weekend, and I was supposed to be at my friend Johns place. And I had not just stolen all the valuables, but to make it not look like an inside job I'd also burned all their sentimental stuff, shat in three pairs of shoes, left a deadly snake in my little sisters room which resulted in her spending three months in hospital and also left a porno magazine lying around where I'd photo shopped my moms head onto every asshole, and my dads face onto every penis head, and my school principals head over all the heads. I still have no idea how they found out it was me. There was probably evidence in my room but I'd totally warned if anyone went in there I'd punch them. 

With no where else to go I went to my girlfriends place, and when I looked in the window she was watching TV with her parents, I mean like if she'd known that I'd been kicked out of home this would have totally been incentive and when I screamed at her about it, hardly using any threats, she said "go cool off for a while, then come back and we'll make up and go to bed", seriously, cool off? What a bitch. After I'd been kind enough to sometimes use protection when I cheated on her so I didn't give her anymore STDs. So I of course dumped her on the spot. 

Then, and worst of all, on my way back to my car I nearly tripped on a broken bit of sidewalk, and if someone had have seen it could have been totally been embarrassing. Right then an old man came out of his house. And he didn't mock me at all, but that made me suspicious. So I punched him in the neck. 

So I get back into my car seething. "Why is everyone treating me so bad today?" I thought. Then I turned on my car radio. It was 11:29pm. "Opportunity don't say no to me" popped on. "I DONT HAVE ANY FUCKING ENTHUSIASM FOR THIS SONG RIGHT NOW" I screamed. Then it hit me. That's why everyone was treating me bad today. Cause normally I loved that song. So I declared then and there "I will never not have enthusiasm for this song again!" and then just to be sure I added "make that any song with opportunity in them just to be safe". 

Yep, from then on he always got enthusiastic when a song came on with 'opportunity' in them. The rest of the time he remained an utter piece of shit of a human being. But two and a half minutes every couple of weeks is better than nothing right? 

That's Bold, Super Bold

I've made a bold decision, so bold in fact that if iPhone notes, which l am writing this on, had a bold button I'd totally press it. That's bold man. Because when you're talking fonts there is no misrepresentation involved, the bold button means nothing but BOLD!

Wait there should be. Presenting my new font - misrepresentation - want to show sarcasm with italics? Well we'll underline that shit. Want to highlight a section with bright red so it's not missed? Well we'll underline that shit. In fact we'll underline everything! Except, yeah you know where this is going, stuff you WANT to underline. You've been misrepresented motherfuckers.

Although in a world where everything is underlined the un-underlined becomes the new underlined. That's right people, I don't care how hard you want to misrepresent yourself using my exciting new font misrepresentation, because if there is one thing I know about misrepresentation it's that it's utter flawless, the font that is, but the action? Well that's impossible to pull off no matter how hard you misrepresent.

The point is, I'm ready to be bold. And the way I've decided to do that today is this - if I can't draw it, then I'm not allowed to think it. Boom. Cause no one can accuse you of misrepresentation when using visual arts.

Let's try this - I'm thinking of thinking about a perfectly normal looking man, only he's wearing sunglasses even though it's not clear if it's night or day, it's ambiguous, really really ambiguous ...

Boom I drew it - so I'm allowed to think it.

Let's go again - I'm thinking of thinking about a really, really super giant man punching a very normal, average regular sized flamingo...

Boom, I drew it so I'm allowed to think it. Hell Yeah!

Let's go one more little one, I'm thinking of thinking about the entire world's collective consciousness inhaling a sigh of high and mighty opportunity leaching merriness while unsettled hippopotamus thoughts go all rouge and attack the insulated forgotten cave wars all looking back at us through an open window....

Boom, I drew it so I can think it. Hell motherfucking yeah. I can draw goddamn anything, so I can think anything, maybe even a perfect, misrepresentation free, bow topped conclusion to this blog...









Boom. Nothing ambiguous about that.

An Outrageous Antiquity

I have a New Life Goal: 

Do something outrageous enough to get an entire picnic thrown at me, people and all. 

And then I can throw something at whoever the assholes were who thought it was ok to throw people! People for fucks sake. I mean for shame. Yeah you! 

Sure whatever I did was outrageous. That much I admitted to up top. But I assume whatever it was I did didn't happen at the picnic, because those are places for family fun, and friendship feelgoodness, not outrageous antics. And even in my most outrageous moods I would never disparage that beautiful picnic code. 

So whatever I did was enough to get you to carry an entire picnic set, possibly including things as diverse, cumbersome and heavy as picnic tables, picnic baskets, picnic red and white checkered table clothes, picnic bugs, picnic spilled soda right into the picnic sandwiches which are now picnic gross, picnic weather, the picnic softball game, the picnic one kid who spends too much time in left field picking his nose to pick up the ground-drive to pick off his picnic dad at picnic third base like he deserves for being too picnic competitive for a picnic game, the picnic dip, the picnic pan-flute band, the picnic fear of sunstroke, the picnic spider who won't be seen all day and hitchhike home in an only half eaten container of picnic potato salad, and even picnickers - all the way to wherever it is I did this outrageous thing. And that can't of all been easy to carry. Half eaten potato salad for example sometimes gets an icky residue on the outside. 

So whatever I did it was probably pretty outrageous. But still you're throwing people? For shame. So yeah, I'm throwing something back at you. I've got all sorts of fun, unique and worthy ideas of things I could throw at you in return too, such as: 

- Fruit! 

- Possibly even a fruit known for being juicy! 

- Or a vegetable that sometimes gets confused as being a fruit.

- Fruit Juice. 

- A fruit smoothie. 

- An entire Cannes film festival major studio yacht party including, but not limited to, directors, actors, sponsor provided alcohol, producers (executive and regular), models hoping to bang a producer hoping to get a role, the grip who will pretend to  be a producer and end up banging the models, a script supervisor to point out that I never mentioned what sex these models are, or what sex the grip is, so it can't be sexist, a few topless girls, a bag of Doritos, the boats steering equipment, and fruit for cocktails. 

- A fruit salad.

So yeah, if you're the one who ends up throwing the picnic at me, you better watch out, cause what I'm throwing back is going to be epic, and possibly even partially fruit related. 

PS. Any tips on outrageous antics I could pull? The best thing I've come up with so far is hiding spiders in people's potato salad. 

Window I say

The searing scope of the window knows no bounds. 

Boundless I say. 

Boundless, I say again. Not because I thought you may not have read it the first time. In fact I assume you DID read it, or else why would you have moved onto this paragraph? I mean I get that some people skim read, especially something like a blog, even from a genius blogger, but even if you're skim reading you're not likely to skip over a three word paragraph. So yeah, you read it. And therefore you are welcome to know that I said it again purely for effect. 

For the power of repetition is boundless. 

Boundless I say. 

That time I was was repeating a statement of the boundlessness of repetition, not again repeating the boundlessness of the searing scope of the window, which is of course boundless itself, much like repetition, but even something that is boundless should be used with restraint. 

Or else the thing that makes it boundless will be how lacking in bounds is the ability to be mildly redundant. For mild redundancy is boundless. 

Boundless I say. 

You know how this works by now. We discover something that is boundless, and for effect we repeat it. Because the greatness of discovery is motherfucking boundless. So you know, that the most recent time that I mentioned that powerful line where I mentioned boundlessness and then followed it by saying that this was something I say, that. was there to cement the powerful statement that I had made about redundancy. 

However, this time something different happened. Before the opportunity had come to solidify the knowledge of what exactly I was confirming was boundless we discovered something new that was boundless, being discovery itself. 

So are you ready for a mind blowing discovery? Everything that happened in today's blog beyond mentioning the searing scope of the window was discovered as I sat staring out a window, and therefore the only true boundless thing that there ever was was the searing scope of the window! 

Wow. 

The power of epic mind blowing cocksucking shock is boundless.

Boundless I say. 

Now THAT’s a not stupid idea

I'm sitting in a park near my house as I write eating my lunch. Sure it's past five pm, and that's not typically a lunch type time zone, but I'm not a typical person, and as an atypicaphile I often find that it's my responsibility to notice other atypical behavior and judge it, especially if it's judgment worthy.

For example there is currently a girl in this park doing something really stupid. Now most people see something like this and think 'stupid girl' and do not go any further with their observing and internal commenting.

But this isn't just stupid behavior, this is stupid behavior that is a symptom of a far larger issue, which so far, as far as I have noticed, has failed to ignite the social conscious into social action that could affect important things, and important things sometimes affect people, sometimes even people in societies, societies near AND far!

I should start from the beginning.

There was a little girl, maybe a year old, climbing some steps near me. In my peripheral vision I saw her fall down a step and smack her forehead on the step below. There are lots of people around as this is a busy small park surrounded by cafes and restaurants, and not everyone saw it, but EVERYONE heard it. People heard it for blocks. A loud crack like a firecracker in a concrete tunnel echoed around the area, causing a wave of shock fueled shudders, abundant swells of wincing, at least four people to say out loud ‘ouch’, and at least three people to move towards her in sprays of aid.

As her mother scooped her up I was sure I would see a head caved in like a bulldozer dropped on a beanbag. To my surprise she was crying sure, but there was no blood, and after some bouncing cuddles, she calmed down and went back to playing.

Now she's chasing pigeons.

Which is stupid.

She’s even giggling while she is doing it, which is often a sign of enjoyment, except when it’s not and is instead a sign of a deep-seated plan to take over the world, but I am pretty sure this is enjoyment.

From chasing pigeons.

Which is stupid.

Because, you know, pigeons.

Clearly, as I have observed, I, well the little girl, has unearthed something truly true! An insight into the human condition even, a clue into the world we live in, and with it an opportunity to improve the world.

Clearly, based on what I have observed - smacking ones head on concrete really hard is the cause of stupidity!

There are lots of other kids in this park and none of the others are chasing pigeons. I don’t spend much time in the company of small children, but I am going to go ahead and guess that this is the first time any child has ever chased a pigeon, possibly any type of bird.

Now is where things get really exciting (if you thought the small child smacking its head was the exciting part then shame on you):

Smacking your head on concrete leads to stupidity. Therefore if we eradicate concrete we can eradicate stupidity!

This is exciting people. I, well the little girl, extracted this truth, so we’ll leave it up to you all to get rid of all the concrete. If you don’t mind, can you sort it out by next month? Also while you do it try not to giggle, or else you’ll give away my secret plan to take over the world! Now THAT’s a not stupid idea.

Nauseous OR Cautious?

Ladies and gentlemen it's time to play yet another exciting game of...

Nauseous OR Cautious? 

The world's foremost, brilliantly regarded and medically accurate game show dedicated to deciphering whether a persons current uneasy physical state is being caused by them feeling...

Nauseous OR Cautious? 

Of all the game shows which take contestants who are feeling a sense precariousness and are unsure exactly what this potentially disequilibrium inducing conundrum is a symptom of, with a sense of casual caution or a rudimentary case of nausea being two of the possibilities, we think best of them all is...

Nauseous OR Cautious? 

Sure Stomach Flu Vs Scaredy Cat wins more awards and has higher ratings, but sometimes during their games it turns out that the people that are revealed to be suffering from stomach flu do not technically embody the symptoms commonly associated with nausea. And, while they may claim it to be true, JUST CAUSE YOU'RE CAUTIOUS DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN YOU'RE SCARED! I mean for fuck's sake, IT'S MERELY COMMON SENSE HALF THE TIME! JUST CAUSE YOU HAVE YOUR MONEY IN A BANK DOESN'T MEAN YOUR SCARED OF BEING MUGGED! I mean you might be, but still, you're also just being sensible damn it. So just because I am too cautious to go on that rollercoaster DOES NOT MAKE ME A PUSSY! You fuckers. Labels are hurtful. And game shows should NEVER be fucking HURTFUL! At least we make sure they never are at... 

Nauseous Or Cautious? 

Are you ready to play? 

Of course you are. Our first contestant is Karl, how are you feeling today Karl? 

Karl: I'm a tad uneasy. A little nervous to be finally playing on my favorite game show. I feel a sense of queasiness. With a hint of fear of barfiness. I am wary of my liverishness, and circumspect about my qualmishness. 

Thanks Karl. And now to our judges...

Genevieve - Nauseous! 

Greg - Cautious! 

And finally, with scores tied right now...

Charlotte - Nauseous! 

The answer is Nauseous!!!! I'm sorry Karl, you lose, and will now be thrown into a volcano. And thanks everyone for joining us, we've just played... 

Nauseous OR Cautious? 

Climbing Poster

They say knowledge is power, and I can see why, because like today at one point I acquired the 'knowledge' that I was bored and then I turned the 'power' on my television and all was briefly ok. 

Yep knowledge definitely is power. 

But knowledge is also definitely not power. 

Because imagination is WAY more important than knowledge, like - check this out: 

Middle range tree climbing poster children for bongo drumming salacious mountain intended joviality. 

You can't knowledge that. 

Definitely Not?

There’s an old saying that I believe was coined around 18BC, which is especially cool seeing as coins hadn’t been invented yet, and this saying was on my mind all day today, even though my mind isn’t old, unless you are comparing it to a day spa, which obviously hasn’t been there very long at all, you know cause so many of them open I assume the old ones go away:

‘You can train someone to build trains, but you can’t build someone to train builds’.

I have always loved this quote. Not just because it proves the ancient Babylonians predicted the invention of the train. Nor because it proves that the ancient Babylonians knew that when trains were eventually invented people could be trained to build them. Which is in itself an amazing insight. But what makes me really love this quote is that it proves that the Ancient Babylonians also accurately predicted the lack of invention of builds. That’s incredible.

I mean think about it. Anyone can predict stuff that will one day definitely be invented, watch I’ll do it now:

-       Flying submarines.

-       Swimming airplanes.

-       Marineplane Flys.

That’s easy.

But try coming up with something that will definitely never be invented, it’s tough, watch I’ll do it now:

-       Humans made out of abandoned carnivals.

-       Really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, salty snot.

-       Stanauption.

Will those all definitely never ever be invented? Who the hell knows? I don’t know what future humans will be made of? But I’m sure we’ll run out of skin, blood, bones and pig hearts eventually. I don’t know how much salt people are snorting these days? But I am sure however much people are doing the salt is really, really salty. And what even is stanauption? It could be anything. It could even be an alternative to day spas, which will really make most of them younger than my mind older than them.

Yep, ancient Babylonians, they sure knew what they were doing.

Ps. if stanauption ends up being an alternative to coins, I totally want a cut.

Expressions of one's feelings

I'm cold. Yes. Right now. This is crazy. There's all sorts of horrible truths involved here. Such as:

- I may have to get off my fat ass and put on some long pants. 

- Or possibly even some form of top half of the body covering. 

- Or possibly even both! 

- And/ or potentially have to close my balcony door. 

Obviously those are all tragic ordeals the likes of which I haven't had to face since forever, like as far back as yesterday. Truly horrific. But shockingly I'm not even at this stories worst part. Here's where things get overwhelmingly abhorrent: 

All the popular sayings commonly used to announce an expression of ones feelings about the current temperature being at a lower number than one would personally like it to be in relation to comfort and warmth as expressed with some form of metaphor totally fucking suck!! 

I'm freezing my balls off? 

Colder than a witches tit? 

So cold I'd eat you grandmothers dick if it had Tabasco on it? 

All hugely popular sayings. All hugely inadequate if you ask me? Particularly the rude bits, language like 'had', 'off' 'than', it just fucks me off. 

But fear not, as your hero I will of course solve this problem, presenting now new, safe, fun, awesome, flawless, brilliant, better than a red moon hiding behind a playground that's full of candy, but not in a creepy way at all, I mean focus more on the red moon, that's the important thing here, rudeless, happy, creative sayings you can use to let people know how you feel about the current temperatures being colder than you'd like it them to be, should you ever find yourself in such a situation: 

- 'It's colder in here than a bag of coins that have just been removed from a vending machine! A vending machine for drinks. So it was refrigerated. Including the area immediately adjacent to where the coins were kept'. 

Boom, that one is awesome. Just reading it back is giving me goosebumps. Let's do another. 

- 'I'm colder than a room that has just experienced a really awkward moment, like super awkward, such as someone has just said something like 'the catering here is really good but not great' and like a waiter totally overheard. A waiter who works for the caterer. Like painfully awkward like that'.

Wow. That's freezing cold. And we're just warming up. And these are already getting hot. And when we're in a zone this paradoxically awesome then you know we're having fun. Let's do one more. 

- It's colder than an icicle and those are cold AND cool. 

Yep. You're welcome.  

The Mysterious Case of The Roo And The Bone

I was sent by the Travel Channel to make a travel show documenting my road trip from Adelaide to Sydney. It went great!

I'd like to quickly thank everyone who worked on this. The camera men and women, editors, writers, location scouts, special effects team, animal wranglers and everyone else. Without all your work we would not have an end result that so beautifully pulled off everything we hoped to achieve. Thankyou.