A short story.

I thought the neuropathologist was being a little too flippant with regards to my father’s magnetoencephalograph results. I found it apt, then, as I personally gift wrapped and served a little piece of my mind. “Listen here, buddy” I said in a voice which I could only describe as cosmic, “I could scarcely believe my ears when they heard the words coming from the mouth of the man whose fingers are responsible for my father’s brain!”

Pallid and gaunt, the shadow of his smock was the only hint of demarcation between his skin and his uniform. He was a timorous man; small in every dimension except time. I couldn’t say that he had been anything but cordial. So you can imagine that it came as some surprise to me when he spun around 360 degrees and exploded in a tirade so laden with expletives that I could have sworn the tinnitus that had almost driven me to madness was acting as a television censorship device. With my fingers, I frantically bivouacked my face to protect me from the incoming sputum which ultimately forded it’s way to the ground, to which our bodies formed the escarpment.

I realised then that he was a palimpsest and I had misjudged him. From the stop – start of his incoherent rancour I could retrieve only that it was a fall as a child from the lap of his mother, a long time multiple sclerosis sufferer, along with physical torture at the hands of henchmen over recent gambling debts that had left him with a speech impediment. The unintended leaps to falsetto by which the past haunts him daily were clumsily interpretted by me as waggishness and so I found myself trying to stifle a chuckle or two even then, during a desperate man’s diatribe to exhonerate himself from my aspersions and cleanse himself of his past. You had to be there, I suppose.

At this point, the lack of oxygen to his brain calmed him slightly. Continuing with the theme of gambling, he went on to tell me that my father was a “3 to 1 shot” to pull through. Incensed, and a little drunk, I insisted that he was a 3 to 1 shot to have his “ass beat down” by me if he refused to alter his diagnosis. Though I immediately realised that in a one-on-one fracas that these odds made him a 2 to 3 favourite, I let on only through a slight hesitation before continuing my verbiage. His eventual rebuke went something along the lines of:

“I simply can’t amend my diagnosis for the sole purpose of appeasing some drunk who doesn’t care for it. Keep pushing the matter, however, and you might need this.” He attempted to hand me the contact details of a facial reconstructive surgeon, but I had stopped listening  and so didn’t even acknowledge a threat which I later decided was quite witty.

And so it was. Suitably chided, I swivelled on my heel and repaired for my car. My peregrinations led me to a door labelled “General Otorhinolaryngology”, to which my musings led me to question how many syllables would be present in a more specific branch of otorhinolaryngology. Mouthing the word to myself, somewhat sensually, I came to the conclusion that the world was like a sketch on some awful late night talk show, to which I was the ever present foil, sitting on the couch looking innocent and oafish to an audience night after night oblivious to my inner pain, indeed even cultivating it for a later harvest upon which they would feast with delight.

“One day, the world will witness my effulgence!” I announced to myself triumphantly as my car skidded into a tree. I slumped out of the wreckage, and attempted to get to my feet. I could see that help was already on it’s way, and it took the form of a homind which I discerned to be female. From the distance her silhouette, gilded by the sun, expanded as it approached with great speed. She was corpulent and in a hurry – never an appetising combination. Her arms, now at right angles to her body, were flagellating with such severity that I had the impression of two sperm fighting over the ovum.

Still, despite her aesthetic unpleasantness, I never let an opportunity to woo a member of the other sex (in this case a girl) pass me by. “Ma’am, I’m touched by your concern.” I intoned in the mellifluous tenor that invariably leads to success. While my countenance portrayed the strength and composure of a man which most women are drawn to, the conspicuous waft of effluvia emanating from my person belied my unaffectedness. I couldn’t help but feel that this alone spoiled an attempted seduction which I would later attribute to concussion. At the time, however, I thought my charm would more than compensate and so I persisted regardless.

I entreated her for a date: “I feel we have a connexion. P’aps we could rendezvous at a public house, and indulge in eachother’s company for the evening.” I said, magnanimously. My tenor was met with a sharp contralto; “That was incredible!” she remarked erroneously. It was then I grasped that the flow of the conversation was not going as I anticipated, and I aborted my attempts to court her. “Lady” I said, “I vouchsafe it myself. And once I’ve vouchsafed something, I assure you, it’s credibility is no longer in doubt.” She failed to pick up on my subtlety in reproofing her idiom, instead she continued with the delivery of not-quite-appropriate adjectives. Among them “indescribable” and announcing herself to be “speechless”. With her charitable nature in mind, I subsisted from further admonitions and, steeling myself, attempted to think of how I would most appropriately inform my mother that her Ford Pinto of 36 years was no more.

The house was dank. My father was the one responsible for the upkeep and with him incapacitated there was no one to fulfill those duties. Stepping out of the helpful lady’s car, I noticed immediately that with him gone the putrefaction of a once proud home was complete. Still, he had only been gone one night, and I was a little taken aback by just how dilapidated it had become. Three of the four concrete steps that led to the front door were crumbling; the door itself hung from it’s hinges; the roof had fallen in; the wall paper was peeling from the walls; and where the chandelier once hung, a dead goat now swung in the breeze. I came to the conclusion that it was a representation of my mother’s ruin without my father by her side, and I helped myself to a glass of milk.

My mother was a dolorous woman even in the most spirited of times. I can recall her breaking down in a paroxysm of grief one day when her favourite television program – Magnum PI – was cancelled for a benefit concert to feed and clothe the third world. While I tried to talk her out of it, she assured me that hers would not be the only letter of complaint which that particular broadcast station received that day. So then I can understand wholly how she has reacted over the news of my father. The idea that I would then add to that with news of her car’s destruction left me staggered with trepidation.

The house was filled with sussurous echoes, an indication that she, and possibly some local fauna, were inside the house. The whispers grew in intensity as she neared the kitchen. Sipping my milk, and eating what I told myself were garlic sausages, a shadow augred ill above me. Standing in the door way, I noticed that she had shaved the hair off her head, and I sat there for a moment admiring her marmoreal scalp. Under the lights it carried a kind of nacreous sheen, and it was spellbinding. “Mother” I said, as she looked askance. “Now mother, I’m going to uh, bring something up…” But it was my mother who brought something up: a fist to my lower jaw. With this, she put an abrupt end to any potential badinage.

I divined from the strike that she had seen the strange woman drop me off to the house, and that she disapproved. I had no recourse to such unexpected pugilism, so I continued eating my meal. Though for means of remonstrance, I now chewed censoriously.  I was unable to tell her of today’s happenings, or of my father’s condition due to my now swollen jaw. So I merely excused myself to the ensuite bathroom.

Standing there looking back at my reflection, the realization didn’t just dawn – it was as though, suddenly, I had always known, as an amnesiac who has recovered his memory, that I am nothing but a name. A collection of atoms with a corresponding title; a body comprised almost entirely of nothing. I understood that if I could see things in a sufficiently high resolution that I, and everything around me would appear as though empty and the universe would appear that greater in vastness. I could feel the emptiness. I felt cold, and alone. It wasn’t just an existential malaise, it was a total intrinsic vacuum. I felt completely impotent in the face of a stark and indifferent universe. A universe in which I had always imagined myself to have so much import. It’s not all that complicated. I am an illusion; I am absolute in my nothingness. A nothing that other nothings today recognize as something. All the reasons I ever thought justified this existance became specious. As even the most basic of pleasures unravelled to become exercises in redundancy at best, and baseness at worst. Over time, I formed an understanding that it was the simple pleasures that made life worth living. Going to the beach, enjoying my family, a laugh over a barbecue. But now I could no longer find the simple things to which I have always aspired a joy, but rather a continuation of insipidness; a reminder of all that was worthless. These things became the most painful of all to endure; agony was now immured within all of them. The universe now seemed to me as a white wall onto which the image of my life was projected, an image that now terrified me. This is not worth living. And with that final thought still coursing through my mind, I found my father’s gun, held it abaft, pointed it inwards, and, for the first time in my life, made the right choice.

de riguer

This post is somewhat of a rejoinder to the blog listed later in the piece.

I don’t consider myself in any way a political cognoscenti. In fact, I don’t believe myself a cognoscenti of anything at all. I do, however, maintain an inveterate appreciation of the people who would do well themselves to claim the appelation of cognoscenti.  I’d posit that this appreciation is so deep that I would happily consider myself to be a cognoscenti aficionado.  And in a fashion that posterity should one day deem to be pretty hardcore, at that.

Here is one such cognoscenti. Not to be confused, of course, with this one. Cognizant of the fact that as of the 23rd of March, 2009 this isn’t a real website, no doubt it’s inception is inexorable and as such it behooves me to link to it now.

Having established the fact that I am in no way qualified to have a political opinion, I will henceforth take an even greater pleasure in proceeding to voice it. And in as authoratatively verbose a way as possible!

Obama is a cunt.

Forgive me if I bloviated. I know I am wont to do that occasionally. But how else are my opinions to sound absolute? I should perhaps clarify in slightly more precise terms. Just so you know, I’m as pro-Obama as the next Joe Coffeebreak. And while I don’t particularly care for (nor denounce) his policies and his socialistic-protectionist agenda, it does make me proud (at which point I’ll promptly pop off to confession) to be homo sapiens when I witness our ability to, collectively, get behind a cause and champion it based on the notion of “goodness”. Even if that cause is inherently specious and ill-contrived. “It’s the thought that counts”, to recount a popular platitude.

I continue to marvel at how America has reacted to it’s slow fall from not just hegemony but it’s standing as a cultural icon. A beacon of capitalism and democracy that other countries would see in the distance, and doff their hats toward before shuffling respectably on their way. This notion, fuelled by “our” natural gregarity, that we can all work together to consciously cause a shift in our own paradigms, rather than just be the subject of them, is what I believe to be the true signifcance of the election of Obama. This isn’t just McDonald’s putting healthy eating alternatives on their menus as a cash grab, this is the human race’s (at least a sample of it) collective intellect on display. And what a powerful performance.

I think the fact that since his election, he has not been able to display any level of acumen, nor make any conrete decisions due to having both his arms tugged in different directions by his advisors/party is irrespective of the fact. Whether or not he does change the world, or even contribute to the betterment of the economy, things which I don’t believe he has the political lissomness to achieve, is beside the point. The people of America are already changing that for him. He is just the face that will be applied to the era of change, whether he was instrumental in that era or not.

Why is he a cunt? Well, I don’t actually think that. It was just an unexpected and incongruous punchline. But if you wanted me to expand upon a point that I have completely abnegated, then I suppose I have no other choice.  He’s a cunt because both he and McCain and many others voted for legislation whereby the government exerted even further influence on the banks to lend Sub-Prime mortgages to homebuyers, and then used the ensuing economic eruption as a platform to launch a campaign of greater regulation of the banks. Free markets the problem? Why do we need to regulate something that would be in it’s best interests to learn from past mistakes? He is in effect smothering the very change he so impassionately imports himself to be igniting. But again, that’s incidental and perhaps a topic worthy of it’s own post; to abrogate the effects of the past, one can’t dwell in it – that would be my ultimate codicil.

In effect, Australia went through a similar change on a slightly smaller scale recently. While, personally, I’ve never had cause for anything other than a mild air of stoicism in regards to the people representing us, I was duly impressed by how so many people could corral together to make an, at least ostensible, change to our paradigm while we too fell from a position of hegemony. Even if the real paradigm change eludes us as it runs passively in the background, like so many windows sub-programs; it’s a monumental effort that required our collective consciousness to bring into effect. But then again, it was obvious that Mathew Hayden had to be dropped for Phil Hughes. Symonds and Lee are injured, but they had to go too.

Now our team is back on top.

Hoorah!

a posteriori

For those of you who are unawares as to recent goings-on in Australia over the last few weeks, allow me to allow ”The Australian” to elucidate you. The global financial crisis (referred to in ancient Mexican folklore as “el piniata vacío“) has hit Australia, forcing Pacfic Brands‘ hands’ (hands’ which produce various Australian icons including but not limited to Bonds, not including and not limited to Lamborghini) into culling employees and moving it’s manufacturing lines to China. A move some thought a trifle unnecessary, as simply laying them off would be arguably more humane. Eventually, and only after extensive legal advice citing ”genocide“, the company did acquiesce and spared the lives of 1850 workers. Despite this charitable concession, large demonstrations ensued:

Reference Video 1

Notable quotable: “And here’s a company that has made it’s fortune it’s millions out of the hard work of many of the workers we have here today who have the gaul to make a decision to sack 1850 workers when some of those companies are still profitable and right up until the week before the decision and the announcement last week to make these workers redundant this company has been telling us telling these workers, that they’ve been doing a great job that their businesses were profitable that their productivity were up, was up that their brands were successful and what did they get in repayment for that hard work that built those brands built that reputation made that profit for that company? They get in return a decision to throw them on the unemployment queue.“

Reference Video 2

Notable quotable: “It struck a very blow to the achievments we made over the last 5 years.”

Now I know this is hardly the time or place, but this is a perfect example of why our education system needs to be reworked. Drawing attention to the seemingly interminable run-on sentence from my first notable quotable, these speeches are punctuated with a near complete lack of punctuation! Sorry, but pausing for breath in a monologue is not the same as a comma, or a full-stop. It’s a semi-colon at best, of which I’ve already stated my anathema. Their syntax is questionable even from a “conversational English” point of view, rife with enough solecisms to fill a… really abstract thing.

Of course, I’m not saying I’m without blemish when it comes to language. Even if one was inclined to disregard my erstwhile opprobrium, my blog is obviously riddled with amateur mistakes vitiating the sophistication it portends. I’ll even admit my “Complete Guide to English Usage” book is still dog-eared at the “Who/Whom” section. But whom could go past something as blatant as “a very blow“. I don’t even know what that means! but it sure got me pumped. Perhaps if they spent slightly more than the hour it takes me to create my posts, their magnanimous dictum might avoid the inevitable timbre of pusillanimous pule. Forsooth!

But enough of the criticism, time for the constructive. These people who have recently lost their jobs sometime in the future are wasting their time on the streets now, attempting to inveigh Pacific Brands and beseech an ineffective government to come to the rescue. Instead, how about they actually do something to ameliorate their own circumstances? Not just as individuals, but as lots of individuals! Here’s an epiphany that came to my mind tonight while I was sitting on the toilet: start a new business.

Hey, presto-fantastico! Surely I’m not the only one to realize that with factories closing down, an iconic Aussie brand going overseas amidst a whirlwind of press coverage castigating them for their un-Australianness whilst simultaneously promoting the uneducated lower class masses on the verge of redundancy as heroes, that this is an opportune time to release their own brand of 100% Australian owned and manufactured underwear. Pacific Brands, by abdicating their Australian operations are availing a massive market niche to whomever has the gumption to fill it. I’m sure there is someone out there who could be persuaded by such an argument to provide finance for an ostensibly philanthropic endeavour as momentus as this. Perhaps even, Galaxy forbid, the Government could lend a helping hand.

It is especially in times like these in which I find myself pining for a Prime Minister willing to tell the truth rather than continue with this charade of contrived innocuity and ambiguous rhetoric. I would champion and plaudit a leader with a proclivity for derision and a willingness to actually help this country, rather than promote himself as pater famillias shepherding his flock. Someone who can motivate the country, and promote jobs through business incentives..

Perhaps John Howard wasn’t such a bad choice afterall?

Well, except for the motivation thing..

Idee fixe

With the upcoming Queensland State Election looming, and the cancellation of the turbid Ternopil Oblast local election, political agenda is well and truly fixed in everyone’s mind. Seizing this opportunity, I thought I’d burnish my blog by making keen observations on the current global political climate.  I’m sure you would all agree that it’s certainly a sight load more piquant than any other climates going around (viz. meteorological). The world of politics will no longer continue of it’s course lassez-faire; it will answer to me.

Initially, I wanted to inaugurate my epoch of political commentary with a post anent the afore-mentioned 2009 Queensland State Election. However, the first stumbling block was reached upon attempting to research Liberal-National Party leader Lawrence Springborg. This research was, of course, inhibitted by the immense boredom his wikipedia biography illicited within me. At one stage, and let this be clear it was for the nonce, I even found myself ruminating over former premier Rob Borbidge’s wiki page for nuggets of excitment in an attempt to allay my ennui. This endeavour was not fruitful.

The naif that I am, my search ended with encumbent premier Anna Bligh. While only occasioning myself to a cursory perusal, I did unearth something of interest:

“Bligh is married to Greg Withers, a senior public servant, with whom she has two sons.^[1]

In November 2006 the Gold Coast Bulletin used genealogical websites to establish that Anna Bligh is the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of William Bligh, who was the fourth Governor of the colony of New South Wales (which at the time included the area that was to become Queensland). William Bligh is best known internationally as the captain of the Bounty when it was overthrown by mutineers in 1789. When presented with the Bulletin’s evidence, she said that she was “pleasantly surprised”. Additionally the investigation revealed that her great-great-great-grandfather, Richard Bligh, was a barrister who served in the House of Lords.^[2]“

Aside from the obvious – her birthing two children – I found something else incredible. The fact that we still refer to a person’s ancestors six generations removed as “great-great-great-great-grandfather“. This is fine if he was a model citizen, but what if he was an asshole? In instances of such, I’d posit that this is a misnomic soubriquet and should fittingly be replaced by “asshole-asshole-asshole-asshole-blandfather“. Of course, this is just jokes. My chief chagrin is precipitated by the sheer inefficiency of having to repeat the word over and over again. Surely this blatant tautology can be replaced with something of greater ease and increased efficacy. At which point in philology did we resign ourselves to such superfluity? And this is all in writing. Have you ever tried to actually say these things? I have. Once. I was attempting to regale a colleague a tale of one of my ancestors 14 generations removed. I’d entreat you all to envisage my visage as an exasperated and short of breath orator clinging to my colocutors sputum-soaked pantaloons as, failing to maintain required levels of concentration, my inarticulations degenerated to a garbled Daffy Duck-esque expectoration. To exemplify just why that image is so scary; there is nary an “S” to be found in the repeating of the words “great-great-great” 12 times. Such was my befuddlement.

My hauteur for the practice and all it’s equally inexpedient linguistic cohorts (such as “my father’s father’s father’s father’s father”) is such that I am enjoining all (by fiat) from doing so until the cessation of the upcoming election.

Peter Beattie included.

uhhh… fait accompli pt. 2

I want to preface this post out-of-character so as to capture the deference with which it is delivered. To any that I’ve disappointed by not actually having a serious subject, or (more likely) because I’ve made light of subjects that go beyond the self-effacing, self-aware light-hearted facetiousness of which they were intended, and left teetering on dizzying heights of obtuseness and puerility, I apologize.  And on with the post..

 

It’s official.  On the third of the third oh-nine, my blog received 16 individual visitors, a number this blogger considers to be significant enough to place him on the level of minor celebrity.  And with posts as literate and tasteful as these, it was only a matter of time before my niche of 0.000006238% of the earth’s population wanted to feast their intellects upon it. But along with the fanfaronade of celebrity, there comes responsibility. I’m fully aware of my new obligation to have an opinion. With this new-found sense of duty, my blog’s hitherto over-the-top ribaldry must cease as I enter a phase of renascence. My universe which previously existed irrespective, indeed concomitant, to the actual universe must now merge. I hope you all survive the trip, for my sojourn in the post-modern is over, and there will be casualties as my tremendous ego is imbibed within this linguistically resplendent quasar you call wordpress.  Thus..

Designer babies. A story my local news station tonight raised (though, I believe it was actually a paid advertisement). Announcing the particular scientists as “playing God”, the story went on to describe couples who have paid to choose certain traits of their child. I believe this particular couple optioned for their child to have ginger hair, poor skin pigmentation and an overbite.

Allow me to use my newly created forum to be the first to say, hey! I don’t think all media outlets are as unbiased as they are supposed to be. Where is my news story condemning Channel 10 news presenter Kathryn Robinson for her unquestioning obsequiesness in aiding that particular station’s agenda that by manually altering the DNA of cells before fertilisation that the scientists are “playing God”. Had it been up to me, she’d have been tied to the pillory immediately following the broadcast and still be there now, as I pithily punch buttons promulgating to you all of how she ought have been disciplined by actions already taken against her. But that’s quite a paradox, so it’s probably just as well that I’m in no position to make such decisions. Aside from the obviously pejorative tone with which this insignia can only be ascribed, in addition to the implication that there actually is a God, they’re suggesting that playing God is a bad thing, as though we haven’t been doing just that for centuries. As though the news broadcasters themselves weren’t playing God by utilising and manipulating electricity and electromagnetic forces. In fact, not only electromagnetic forces, but all four forces of nature, electromagnetic, gravity, strong and weak. Why, I saw them all being flouted in one particularly august brush of Rod Young’s moustache earlier this evening. By their standards, isn’t our very existance an affrontation to God and his will? If God created the universe, what gave us the right to actually exist within it? If God created us as naked, what gave us the right to wear clothes, netherlone start fires, create a wheel and satellites? He certainly didn’t intend us to emancipate ourselves from this pebble. But then, if God was omnicient and omnipotent, and he didn’t want us to use our God-given intellect to our advantage, why did he provide us with these loopholes to take advantage of in the first place?  It’s funny that those who believe in a God are usually those less intellectually gifted. No wonder they don’t want humans to use our intellectual advantage. They feel left out.

 

Besides all this, if playing God is such a travesty, what ever gave Him the right to play God to begin with?! Such temerity! Have any of these ethicists and moralists and Christian scientists ever pondered the morality of the Almighty having created us to begin with? I suppose if they’ve ever read the old testament, it was a bit of a no-brainer. I can’t wait (though, begrudgingly I will) until we have the ability to reconstruct true intelligence and indeed a universe and see what they have to say then. Probably not much, as anyone with the ability to utilise this science would have little compunction in breeding them out first.

 

But enough chiding of God; the poor fellow isn’t here to defend himself.  What of the social implications? Well, what exactly is happening? At the moment, we’re choosing which of the parents’ genes the child will inherit. Creating a slightly more deterministic universe by eliminating some of the random. Is there any problem with this? In reality, it’s merely improving the odds. Ah, but this isn’t the problem. The problem is the fact that it will inexorably and indellibly lead to participant evolution (a term I’m having trouble discerning whether it should be considered an oxymoron or a tautology). Ignoring the fact that by simply being a part of a society that we have all  already been indulging in participant evolution.

To further elucidate the point, I’ll introduce something I like to refer to as a “hypothetical” scenario (next week, I’ll provide a “hyperthetical” and see if anyone can keep up). Let’s say the worst imaginable scenario occurs, in which some people can afford designer children, others never will. Half of society is improved, while the other half is left behind. Prejudice follows. Those who have been designed look down upon those who haven’t been. Those who have been designed have more opportunities than those who haven’t been.

What’s fucking changed?

You know what, when homo sapiens came into nascence, some people decided to move north where it was cold.  These people took foliage and other materials, manipulated them with tools into shapes that nature did not create via it’s natural process of chaos, and created clothes allowing them to live in conditions they were not designed for. These people were engaging in participant evolution. A billion years later, homo sapiens have evolved into homo habilis, and guess what.. Even through the advances of natural evolution those who wear clothes are advantaged in almost every way, while those who don’t wear clothes are just about extinct. Those who wear designer clothes look down on those who don’t. Those who wear designer clothes have more opportunities than those who don’t. The moral?

IF YOU WEAR CLOTHES YOU’RE PLAYING GOD.

IF YOU BUY DOLCE AND GABBANA YOU’RE ADVOCATING APARTHEID.

 

I watched a documentary recently. Entitled “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button“, it left me a ponderin’: imagine a world where people didn’t have to go through this. Imagine a world where we could one day play God. Afterall, isn’t this what we should be aspiring to?

So what actually is the problem with all this? The human, emotional element. This entire society-encompassing discourse is an excourse of ad hominem. Deciding about your future child, anymore than by whom you conceive with (we allow that slight dispensation for participant evolution..) is removing the romanticism of the occasion. An occasion Bill Hicks so succinctly described, without prevaricating, as a “chemical reaction, and nothing more” . But if you want to be romantic, so be it. When the paradigm changes, something else will fill the romantic void, should such a thing ever exist. Hell, perhaps in the future it’ll even impart a higher romanticism unto society. Remove a human’s fundamental biological urge to find a partner of strong genetic tincture and we can all love eachother for what we really are.

Perverts.

 

 

Oh, and allow me please to finish this post with a prayer. Please God, afford someone the strength to change this quote from Wikipedia to something slightly less biased. So long as it was already your will to afford this strength.

“”Gattaca” is a movie about a world where the children born using biometrics get the best jobs, while those conceived by natural means are given the menial tasks. One man who is in-valid (born naturally) takes the place of a valid (those born with the help of geneticists) to achieve his dream. A touching and moving story and a warning of what might happen if designer babies become a reality.”

A poem.

A blogging neophyte, my page is badly in need of content. So I’m going to plagiarize myself (given that there are no cells extant in my body now as were extant several years ago when I wrote this poem, I would argue that I’m a completely different person, and that by using this content, I am indeed guilty of plagiarizing from someone now incapable of consenting and legalling availing the content to me) and post a poem I wrote several years back. Something you should have been able to infer from the text contained within the parentheses. Geez.

 

Without further ado, here it is:

 

Untitled

I keep confusing my ankles for my wrists.

 

Remind me which is your buttocks, and which your tits.

 

That’s a sock, but I thought it a glove.

 

You have a heart, but I see no love.

 

I’m speaking eloquently, but you think I’m rambling.

 

These may be relatives, but I don’t see any family.

 

Are these doors, or are they windows?

 

All I need to remember,

 

Is that these are my knees, and not my elbows.

An instructional guide to becoming the funniest person in your work place.

Not funny enough? Memorise these time-honoured jokes, and you could find yourself up on charges of mirth in the first degree with a second count of grievous bodily hilar for splitting your co-workers’ sides when next you’re a participant of interlocution by the watercooler.

1/ Bawdy plays on words. Very popular, particularly among the proletariat class.

Some prime examples:

· Substituting the word “penut” for “penis” to form the phrase “penis butter”

· Conjugating  the words “vagina” and “vegemite” to form the portmanteau “vaginamite“. [this particular joke endemic to Australia].

· Suggestively using the word “sausage” in a sentence to allude to your penis. As in; “You don’t know what to have for lunch, huh? Perhaps you could try a bit of my sausage. [The American analogue of "sausage" being "weiner"]

· Sometimes, you can blandish them into interpolating the play on words for you. Jeffy: I really need a new clock. Tony: You really need a new what? Jeffry: A ne…. ohhhhhhhhh *Jeff literally explodes with laughter*

· If unsure, fall back on this safety net. I find it works particularly well when you’re not directly participating in the discourse, allowing you to inject an hilarious cameo comment: When a person makes an entendre follow it up with the rejoinder; “That’s not what I heard.“

2/ Topical jokes about celebrities. Very popular amongst the very best stand-up comedians that a vagina has ever produced. Just watch the local news broadcast, or Entertainment Tonight and glean some names to be dropped. These jokes are so funny, you can quote them ver batim:

· “Wow, can you believe that [insert celebrity name]? I mean, come on, could he be any more of a homo?

· “Are you serious? I heard that [insert celebrity name] was suing for so much, she could afford to get a proper stylist. Seriously, that frock she wore to the [insert award ceremony] looked like it was designed by Ray Charles.

· “[insert celebrity name] is back in rehab. Oh-no, honey. You should be visiting talent school first.

· “Plastic surgery? Hah, I reckon that if [insert celebrity name] should be visitting any doctor, it should be a proctologist because he’s an asshole.

3/ Make references to particularly risible moments in previous conversations, or earlier within the current discourse. Be careful, you may need a mop near-by to soak up everyone’s urine; these jokes will remedy anyone’s tenesmus - one way or another!

· George: I went and had lunch, and when I came back, Steve was in a really truculent mood. Steve: That’s funny, when I saw Steve, he was fine. But then again, I skipped lunch.

· Susan: Did you hear? Mel had an abortion after she found out the child was going to have down syndrome. [...] Susan: What do you want for lunch, Douglas? Doug: Hmm.. a sandwich could be nice, but I think I’ll have an aborted retard foetus.

· [after having previously intimated to Jeremy that she had been the victim of child abuse at the hand of her grandfather] Penny: Hey there, Jeremy. Have you seen the battery from my wheelchair? Jeremy: I think I saw it on the ground under the fridge over there, Pen. [Penny crawls out of her wheelchair and lies prostrate in front of the refrigerator looking for the battery which Jeremy had surreptitiously thrown out the window, unbeknownst to Penny, Jeremy dons some of her grandfather's clothes which he filched from the old man's grave last night and rapes her.]

4/ When a female colleague walks by, wait until she is out of earshot and make an outrageously licentious comment to your male co-workers and sub-alterns.

· “Man, I’d love to stuff my cock and balls so far down her throat, that I’d be able to suck on my own dick when it bursts out of her asshole.”

5/ Use the catchword “FAIL!” when someone blunders. Particularly contemporary, your fellow employees will revere you for being so internet literate.

· Trudy: Want me to staple your documents together for you, Willy? Willy: Sure, Trudes. [Trudy attempts to use her stapler, but to no avail. She is out of staples] Willy: Hahaha, FAIL!

· Tobey: Hey, Stuart. Did you want a chocolate treat from the vending machine? [After years of neglecting doctors' advice for him to increase his daily calcium intake, his now completely ossified legs break apart like chalk, his bloody femur protruding from his right leg which is now visibly expunging marrow as he falls to the floor screaming in agony, lying supine in his own blood, clutching desperately at the air hoping someone will help him] Stuart: FAIL!

6/ Changing the lyrics to songs on the radio is always a good way to show people you’re not too serious about yourself, and that you can be quite witty, too. Some good examples:

• “Walk like an Egyption”, to “Walk with an erection”.
• “I’m going to rock down to Electric Avenue”, to “I’m going to squat down here and take a sloppy poo.”
• “In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep”, to “In the middle of the night, you’re grandfather is a dirty old paedophile”

7/ Make references to late-night television commercials. Good enough for amature comedians/comediennes, good enough for you!

• Isn’t that Ped-Egg the most disgusting thing you’ve ever seen?

8/ During a friend’s anecdote, ask completely redundant questions. An old comedian’s trick, now being adopted by comic tyros! Heh, I just made a joke myself based on the vagueness of the English language, but shhh! that’s in the advanced course. ;-]

• Vivian: So, I was walking down the street the other day just eating an ice-cream, and a car ran over a small dog, and then sped off! Bryan: Oh, yeah, what flavour ice-cream was it?

9/ Take the joke a little bit too far. In every office, there’s the “funny person” who makes jokes on the borderline of taste. If you want to be funnier, you have to be willing to be that little bit more ribald. For example:

• Allen: So, I went on a date the other day, but I decided I wouldn’t see her again because there was too much of an age difference. We didn’t have the same motivations, and, uhh.. she made me write her a note to get out of class. Haha [Allen licks his finger and indicates a point {crowd appreciates the humour}] Evellyn: So you didn’t get any action that night then, Allen? [also licks finger {crowd again acknowledges the humour}] Patrick: OH YEAH, I LOVE FUCKING LITTLE GIRLS IN THEIR PLUMP PUCKERED LITTLE ASSHOLES [Patricks pumps both fists into the air as though he's shooting cannons]

10/ Make references to popular culture, and you’re on your way to becoming a late-night talk-show host:

• Terrence: Peter just told me that his girlfriend broke up with him. Stephanie: Wow, I heard she was now going out with his father. Terrence: That’s right, he developed an addiction to meth amphetamines to keep his personality in check after he was possessed by the devil. Lawrence: Woah, woah. This sounds more like an episode of Bold and the Beautiful.
• Jennifer: Did you see that Stacey had the same shoes as me. Ginger: Ucgh! That is so like her. They look better on you, anyway. Jennifer: Tell me about it, her legs are too short. Morris: Woah. Girls. If bitching was an event at the olympics you two would set the long-distance record!

I shouldn’t have to say anymore. If you follow this 10-step program, then you’re already the funniest guy in your office. Order one copy of the program today for just $9.95, and you’ll also receive a perfect facsimile of the first, only for free.

fait accompli

All great works of literature require a heady first line.  Something which really captures the essence of the entire vignette, yet is terse enough to leave you in want of more; invariably, it will be memorable. Personally, however, I’ve always placed more importance on the second line of any given work; slightly less concise, yet with no less acuity, it has the ability to expand upon and illuminate the inaugural sentence with a mere comma and meretricious semi-colon; don’t be fooled by their unassuming shape, their ability to extend a sentence, hitherto considered complete, into perpetuity without necessarily being a direct continuation of said sentence cannot be under-estimated. The third sentence, if not carefully managed can often deteriorate into a convoluted, bifurcating and capricious mess as the author struggles to get a handle on his froward thoughts; directly precipitating a hasty conclusion of the paragraph with the fourth sentence as the realization dawns that the entire construct was doomed ab ovo.

This is why I don’t read. Too much thinking. Not only does it require you to keep track of letters, numbers, punctuation, circumflexes, cedillas, “words”, phrases, sentences, syntax, grammar, multiple languages, “erors” [sic], irony, quotes, soliloquies, monologues, dialogues, dodecahedralogues, prefixes, suffixes, neologism, autobicircumdidactificationism, analogy, simile, metaphor, euphemism, allegory, motivation, pretext, context, text, italicism, and boldface, there’s the pictures, too.

All this, combined with the author’s (usually feeble) attempts to connote meaning irrespective of the narrative, reflective of the “real world” and the fact that I don’t know the meaning of at least 85% of the words being ejaculated forth by some pretentious academic with a book open listing a large number of the most obscure and recondite words in the English language in an attempt to promote an image of him or herself as erudite when in reality they probably never lernt how to spell properly netherlone self-edit as they get lost on tangents so incongruous that by the time the comma presents itself at the end of the tangent the reader has forgotten what the hell he or she was reading about in the first place, completely obviates my suspension of disbelief.  Something I have a hard enough time maintaining in reality.

How can I be expected to be absorbed into a vignette describing thus; “On an exceptionally hot evening early in July ” or a “Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead” or that  ”Trudy was sitting on the floor by the bar stroking her slit” when I’m sitting here, in the dark; the wan glow of my computer screen illuminating my unshaven face, a face bespeckled with my own excrement moments after gormandizing my morning (so indicates the “AM” written next to the clock in the bottom right corner of my screen) deposit from the crudely wrapped cloth receptacle within which it was formerly contained, intermittently performing auto-fellatio and rehydrating from the only source of fluid availed of me, as over the past few months I’ve inexorably morphed into some kind of deranged, biological, quasi-perpetual energy machine with a severe case of amoebiasis because I can’t maintain a belief in meaning and existance?

 

No, sir. I’ll stick to writing.