A Moan

The summer ended abruptly. Hurricane Ernesto rolled into the Gulf of Mexico and has been pushing rain our way ever since. The skies are overcast and so is my mood. The birth of the Wee Yin has been a good distraction from real life for a while but yesterday I spilled a cup of tea on my desk and real life came flooding back.

I feel like I haven't had the time to mourn my Mum. It's been one thing after an other. Now the cat's arse is bunged up again and looks like he is on his 9th-and-a-half life. He makes a horrible groaning noise everytime he lies down, the kind of noise that only a sick animal can make. What a week!

This has all contributed to a feeling of loss and mortality that has kicked in big time. I wonder what is next!

And when you sleep at night
Dreaming of the pretty things
Don't be too surprised
When the telephone rings

I'll be sitting here
Waiting for the other shoe to drop
I'll be sitting here
Waiting for the other shoe to drop

The Eels - "The Other Shoe"

My job feels like a dead end but I've worked in TV production for 12 years now in one form or another and I don't really feel like I know anything else. I go home and turn on CNN and see some news story I helped them get and I feel like I am working for the enemy.

On September 11th I am going back to my eye doctor for my yearly check-up. A convenient date. Let's see what percentage of eyesight I've lost this year! I'm expecting to be in the single figures (last year I could see 13% of what normal people see), if I am above 7% then I'll be happy. I think they changed the font on my favorite music magazine but I am finding it really hard to read unless I sit directly under a lamp.

It breaks my heart that I will never be able to take the baby out on my own - every walk has to be chaperoned as I cannot push a pram and use my cane at the same time. I'd use an over-sholder carrier but I don't trust myself not to walk into something or miss a step and fall, something I do nearly everyday. When my wife goes back to work we are going to be stuck inside. It sucks......

Just in case you misheard!

SAY WHAT?

Q: What did Iraq have to do with that?

A: What did Iraq have to do with what?

Q: The attack on the World Trade Center?

A: Nothing.

-- President Bush, at a recent press conference

Strange Commute

Musician David Byrne has his own blog that is always good for an enlightening read. Recently he wrote about a documentary he saw called Jesus Camp, you can read his thoughts here.

I haven't seen this film but it is likely I will as I love documentaries and I love sideshow freaks and bearded-lacy type carnys so Jesus Camp should be right up my alley!

I got off work at midnight last night and took the train back to Jersey City where I pick up a cab from the PATH Station to my house as it is too late and not safe to walk.

Taking a cab in Jersey City is an experience, I won't say it's a good or bad experience, just an experience. Most of the drivers are Arabic and it's like rocking the casbah as soon as you step up to the taxi rank.

4 guys will run up to you and try to get you to get in their car. Once you agree a price you will likely find yourself sharing the cab with 2 or 3 other people, all with their own prices and destinations. I used to find it stressful but I am used to it now and I know some of the drivers so I tend to ride with the same guys if I can.

Last night I was riding in the cab with a driver I'd riden with a couple of times before. Usually he's okay but last night he insisted on driving and eating pizza at the same time. He was waving all over the road and screaming at people in arabic. 5 minutes into the ride he stops in the middle of the street, opens the drivers door and proceeds to take a pee against the wall 6 feet away from the taxi, in full view of myself and a girl who was sitting in the back seat.

2 minutes later we are again hurtling one-handed down Bergen Avenue when two obese ladies with broomsticks waddle into the middle of the road and shake their brooms at our taxi. I can only assume he peed on their cat or something.

It was a strange ride!

By the way, did you know: A nutrition study conducted by Barry Popkin, of the Department of Nutrition and Economics at the University of North Carolina, has determined that the number of overweight or obese people in the world outnumber the starving, with approximately 800 million starving/near starving and 1.3 billion overweight people.

Horrifying isn't it?

Darwin's Nightmare

No, this not going to be another post with me ranting on and on about the cro-mags in the anti-evolution movement - rather it is a post about a documentary that everybody should be told to sit down and watch if they want to understand a little bit more about the shit that human beings are capable of doing to others.

Darwin's Nightmare starts off as a documentary about Nile perch killing off the native fishes of Lake Victoria in Tanzania. It slowly evolves into a documentary about the injustices of globalization, the horrifying poverty and disease in Africa, and illegal arms smuggling.

There is no narrator in the film, the people who appear tell their own stories. They come across as tragic but at the same time tenacious and brave. It now appears that their bravery may be costing them as the government of Tanzania is harrasing them for appearing in the film.

Please try to see this documentary if you can. You'll never look at your fish fillets in quite the same way ever again.

Lalabambino

This morning the wee yin woke me up with her crying while Mum was in the shower. I picked her up and immediately laid my hand on a wet patch halfway up her back! Somehow she managed to create a jobbie geyser that squirted out the top of her nappy and and reached for the stars!

It's a lovely way to start the day... I don't think. It's funny, but I always thought I'd be completely disgusted by a scenario like this! However for some reason, when it is your own baby you don't mind. I had to laugh and get on with cleaning her up.

We went to a restaurant on Thursday and bambino slept right through the meal, much to our surprise! It was interesting to watch the reactions of other diners in the place, they would sit at a table next to us then when they notice the wee yin, they move away to outside screeching distance. I remember how much I used to hate sitting next to a screaming kid in a restuarant, now I am on the other side of the fence. Oh how life is funny sometimes........

Jesus and the Spiders from Mars

I've become quite obsessed with the idea that if Jesus comes back he will look like Ziggy Stardust (as mentioned in a previous post). We put so much emphasis on appearance and the way people look that I wonder what the reactions of the Christian hordes would be if the messiah had red spiky hair and wore a glitter suit with silver platform shoes. I doubt they'd like it.

The Apostles could be The Spiders from Mars. Jammin Good with John and Peter!

There is no reason for this post I just think it is a funny idea....

The "Greatest Generation"

We have two cats and they have definitely been feeling the effects of suddenly being relegated to the 2nd division in attention now that the baby is here. One of the cats has reacted by following me everywhere and jumping on me at every opportunity. The other cat has unfortunately reacted by getting really constipated and that resulted in me taking him to the vet for a kitty enema. No I am not joking....

Four enemas later and an overnight stay and nothing is coming out. This morning I had to go over to the vets office and approve an anastestia as they are going to remove the jobbies by hand. Again, I wish I was joking but I'm not.

Unfortunately this has made me think of my Grandad who may well have been the prototype for Mike Myers Scottish Dad in "So I Married an Axe Murderer". Grandad would stand outside the toilet door, you'd see his outline through the frosted glass, and shout: "Dae ye want a corkscrew in there?".

He was also prone to using rhyming slang for toilet visits that I still use to this day.

"I'm off for a Lillin Gish", meaning "I'm off for a pish!" (a pee). He'd also alternatly go for a "Pearl White", a shite (shit). What the connection between bowel movements and stars of the silent screen is I am not sure. Another thing he'd say is "Ah'm aff to see a man aboot a dug!", which indicated that he was off to the toilet.

I guess in a weird way I am keeping these phrases alive even though my Mum hated them. If I teach them to my kid then they are safe for at least another generation!!!!


Another guy I've been thinking about lately is my Dad, he will be 25 years dead next week! 25 years, I can hardly believe it!

I had a sudden flash of him last week as I was reading a book called "Docherty" by William McIllvanney. There is a scene is the book where the Son and the Father are squaring up to each other and you think the Father is going to strike the Son but instead he leans over and tears off a strip of paper off of the newspaper the son is reading and uses it to light his pipe from the coal fire.

This is something my Dad used to let me do. He smoked cigars and he would have me tear off a corner of the newspaper and roll it up. I would then light it on an electric bar fire and light his cigar for him! An open flame on electric bar fire!!!!! Jesus, that cannot have been safe! The bottom of the fire was covered in little bits of burnt newspaper. I'm amazed we didn't burn the house down!

M.A.N What Idiots!

Well the world is on the brink of disaster and still there are people out there who think that we owe our decline, not to neo-conservative politics, but to NOISY-ROCK'N ROLL MUSIC.

Mothers Against Noise believe that noisy music promotes:

1. Rebellion
2. Violence
3. Nihilism (belief in nothing)
4. Escapism
5. Drugs / Alcoholism
6. Sexual Perversion, Self-Mutilation
7. Dissonant / Offensive Sound
8. The Occult
9. Anti-God / Anti-Authority
10. Cult-like Organization, Terrorism

Anyway, all I have to say is I agree. It does promote all of the above and hell, that's great! With the world being run by people who care more about making money than saving lives, and a religious armageddon being planned by nutty folks in DC, I think escapisim should be our #1 concern right now!

All those people who watch "Fear Factor" and "America's Got Talent" instead of watching civilians being blown to bits on the news, should be taken out and shot!

Damn those Escapists and Nihilists! Thanks to you the fabric of our society is coming apart at the seams! Don't you know the price we are all paying for your pathetic existence!! Thanks Mothers Against Noise! Without you I'd still be braindead and enjoying my life instead of being actively involved in the creation of a new silent utopia!!!!

Oh God...

If you need and excuse to get angrier than you are already about the indiscriminate slaughter in the Middle East, you need look no further than the American evangelical movement.

It seems that the deaths of women and children are bringing us one step closer to the return of Jesus (this time to be played by David Hasslehoff). The end times are here folks, don't bother stocking up on the food or hiding in the cellar - it won't do you any good!

Take your protien pills and put your helmet on, the (C)rapture is upon us and all the Christians (except Mel Gibson who I predict will convert to Judaism shortly before his next movie "Mad Mav") will float off to heaven like a blow-up doll caught in an upsurge of hot air.

In order for the rapture to happen, from what I can gather, we need Israel and Hezbollah to blow the crap out of civilians in order for the Iranians to get seriously involved. Once they are involved, the USA and Israel will start blowing the crap out of Iran but the Iranians will be saved by a one-world army led by Russia and the European Union.

At this point a European Anti-Christ will rule the world for 3 and a half years before Jesus decides enough is enough and returns to Earth in a puff of smoke like Ziggy Stardust. He'll then save all the Christians and a few Jews who are given the chance to convert. The rest of us are up chocolate creek without a popsicle stick!

He also opens a Starbucks in Miami and makes a dirty video with Paris Hilton but that comes later.

No I am not making this up, well okay, he doesn't shag Paris Hilton, but people really do believe the other shite, you can read about it here.

If the loss of innocent lives wasn't so tragic and if the President of the country with all the bombs wasn't one of these armageddon-fixated freaks, then we could all have a good laugh! Unfortunately this is not the case.

George Bush sent his support to a recent conference of Christian-Zionists who gathered in Washington to support Israel with the expressed belief that they are helping us all towards paradise. Oh God....