Meandering.

WARNING: This post will contain even less structure than usual. Don't read it...seriously.

It's been a big few weeks, and it all caught up with me tonight. Anyone who knows me knows I'm not really all that social, but I do have my moments, and lately I've been making an effort.

To be honest I thought I'd be okay after I worked through the crushing guilt of breaking up with my ex. I felt so responsible and bad and greedy, but I'm now at peace with the fact that you just can't make everything work all the time, and that sometimes two people who are caring and decent and who think the world of each other just need to go their seperate ways, and that's life.

But I was wrong, of course. I'm not okay at all. I miss ten thousand things about this girl, and constantly worry about how she's feeling and if she's happy or not. I've come too far in parting to go back, and I'm proud of my resolve to not do the obvious and break off in stages (if you know what I mean, and you do). I've had to deal with the unexpected heartbreak of seeing her snuggling up to someone else, and force myself to not be a dick about it. Force myself to leave quietly and not do anything about it. Just move on, whatever that is.

But you know what? That's not really it.

Suddenly I'm single again, and I'm not good at being single. I need attention, i honestly do. If I'm in a relationship, then I'm good, but when I'm single, I kinda starve for affection. And I'm utterly starving right now.

It's spring, and pretty much everybody's horny. I have met probably 50 utterly stunning women this weekend alone, and was shocked at just how much I'd forgotten about interacting with the opposite sex, and also about my own personal feelings regarding myself.

Getting laid would not be a problem, but that's not what I want (for a change). I used to pursue sex like it was the antidote for my peculiar malady, that being, insecurity. It was such a stupid thing to do, and I totally regret every instance of it now. i would never go back to that meaninglessness. I used to meet someone new, think I was falling for them, and just run with those feelings. Then, I would begin to find out who it was I was crushing on, and what they were really like, as opposed to what they wanted me to see, and I would end up so put off by the reality of them, i'd just cut them clean out of my life. This usually happened after we had had sex, and the curtain that was tension and desire lifted to reveal the real person beneath (seldom what I wanted). I'm not sure I can actually see through that metaphorical curtain without having sex. It's like, desire/lust/whatever is so powerful, the only way to see past it is to have sex, and then you can get to the meat and potatoes of the personality beneath. So I 'experienced' a staggeringly enormous number of really beautiful looking and internally vacuuous/rude/stupid/disrespectful/mentally unstable women. Maybe it's just me, I don't know.

What I do know is, I'm sick of sex without a real connection first.

I said I'd met "probably 50 utterly stunning women this weekend", and I wasn't kidding. Some of my friends have a real problem meeting women. I'd say i do also, but if i was honest, I know I don't. I met, and talked to more people than I can remember names since Friday night, and I'm just amazed at the breadth of experience that lay waiting in those encounters. Operating under the knowledge that sex with me is a terrible idea, I simply tried to make friends. Holy Crap! making friends is WAY HARDER THAN GETTING LAID! I could bed 20 supermodels in the time it would take me to establish a meaningful connection with one average girl.

I met:

-Girls who talk so much about so little, that after 5 minutes, you're desperately coming up with excuses to leave. And I'm talking about devastatingly hot girls here.

-Girls who want to know what you do and if you're "anybody", before they will continue in conversation. I have found that being an integral icon in the Australian contemporary cultural landscape isn't all it's cracked up to be. I like to tell these types that I clean toilets, and watch them walk away, only to switch into full-on interested mode again if a mutual friend tells them things I have done that would actually appeal to them. Fuck every one of them.

-Girls who are so off their heads and out of control, conversation is futile.

-Girls who are really easy to talk to, and who say "I'm just going to the loo, wait for me here", and never make it back to wherever you are. Then, at the end of the night, when you're going home, who come up to you and say "Where did you go?"

In short, i experienced a lot of games.

I also was amazed to discover how many physically perfect looking women there are out there in Melbourne, who have such crippling (and totally imagined) insecurities, they make me look well adjusted. Women who I would immediately assume would have no interest in me in a million years, only to find they're thinking exactly the same thing I am. I seriously don't know how this works.

I'm starting to realise beautiful people are in plentiful supply here, but the beautiful (inside) people are a lot harder to uncover.

My worst experience of the weekend was meeting...well, let's leave her name out of it, shall we? Just this once.

I met a fashion editor at a houseparty in Collingwood, full of fashion and other creative types. We started talking totally naturally, and after a few minutes, it felt like we were in our own bubble, and no-one else really existed much. We talked about all kinds of things, and I really enjoyed her. She seemed to be feeling the same way, and I was feeling so happy that maybe I had actually found myself an exciting new friend. She had to leave, and she said "I really hope we bump into each other again", and then she just kinda stood there. I thought leaving it to chance wasn't really something I was that at peace with, so I suggested maybe we should swap numbers. She seemed into this, and I was heavily relieved when she said "Make sure you call me please".

Good sign.

I sent her a text message today, just to say "Thanks", and "I had fun", you know. And about 5 hours later I received the most cursory of replies, which left me in no doubt that whatever was happening last night, also stopped happening last night. Time to delete her number, and leave her alone.

So much for doing the right thing, hey?

I shouldn't care, but I do. No doubt I should be a lot thicker skinned about my weekend, but like most things, it really bothers me. If I had wanted to fuck some exotic brunette on the bonnet of a car, i could have. If I wanted to do the same thing, only in a bed, and with someone who i have been extremely attracted to for more than a year now, i had full permission to do so. If I wanted to get jiggy in the toilets of a bar or club, I had 8 offers, in 5 different venues, and one further offer on the dancefloor at Pony. When it rains, it fucking pours. But instead of any of that, i try to make friends, and I can't even do that.

As usual, I havo no clear idea what I'm trying to say here. Or who I'm saying it to. I keep meeting people who read this thing (Hi Dom! Hi Shane!), and as much as I'm glad there are people out there getting something out of it, and wanting to keep coming back, it's so scary, because this is my actual life, and I live it, and it involves real people and places and emotions and experiences, not just abstractions. I can hurt people with this thing if I'm not careful. And i can definitely say too much about my own personal experiences too. But fuck it. I have always been determined to be real, and that's what I'm doing. If people want to tune out and come back when i attempt humour, then that's cool. Maybe someone will read this, and it will make some sense to them, and we can both feel like we're not freaks, but just 2 honest people with the same feeling about something, adrift in a world full of apparent somnambulists. Or maybe I just need to do it for me, and the rest of you can cut me some slack for today, so I can have some "me time".

Also it has come to my attention that because of my previous 'love 'em and leave 'em' ways, I have developed a cult following of scorned women who like to talk to each other about how horrible I am (as if they don't have problems/issues of their own to address), and to try to warn others away from me, as if it actually works like that.

1. If I dumped you and never looked back, it's because I couldn't find anything there to respect. If you're waiting for an apology, you can fuck yourselves. Stop focussing on me, and either get on with your lives, or take a look at yourselves, where half the the problems actually lie.

2. When you gossip about me, it gets back to me. And counter to your intentions, it just gives me this big badass reputation, that women absolutely adore, and need to try to unravel for themselves. You're trying to set it up so no-one will want to talk to me ever again, but all that's happening is you're making me this unfeasibly (and undeservedly) attractive proposition that women cannot resist. You're getting me sex, and I don't even want it anymore. How can you not see this?

Anyway, I started this thing out by talking about how all these experiences have caught up with me, so I should finish with that.

I fully understand that I am an animal that is ruled by my insecurities, and my fears. Anything I have ever achieved was certainly rooted in a fear of not achieving it, or of needing to impress somebody, somewhere.

I am scared of the life choice I have made, of living with no money most of the time, of subsisting, so I have time to be creative. Being creative has got me archived and played on the radio and all sorts of cool shit, but it didn't buy me a house, and it won't provide for me when i start to get old. I'm 34 years old, and I'm flatting with 24 year olds. Personally, i like living how i do, but I am fully aware that in their minds, no matter how great we get on, I'm the "old guy", and that freaks the shit out of me. Good luck if I ever need to find another flat. it's so hard already, and the older I get, the worse it will be. There's no way I'll be able to do it when i hit 40, but I have no other alternative either.

I'm devastated that for all the effort and the sleepless nights and the practice and whatever else, that I haven't produced more and better art/music/writing/etc... I feel like such a fraud getting so much attention for basically defacing a street sign and being a graff artist. When I die, I want to leave a couple of albums behind that people generally respect, and that add to the cultural landscape. Not just some rock music that rocks and not much else. I wish I was better.

I am sick of hating myself. I am sick of feeling dirty, even when I have just stepped out of the shower, when I'm near someone beautiful. I'm sick of feeling like so many people are better than me, for no reason i can put my finger on. I'm sick of always being on the outside, even when I'm around friends, because I'm different to everyone I know. I'm sick of people just not gettting me, why I don't drink, why I don't drive cars if I can help it, like it's all so alien and freaky, when it's just sensible. i'm sick of feeling like I am superior to most people every time I leave the house and see how people act and what they do. I'm so insecure, and yet I'm this raving egotist. I'm sick of being baffled and utterly confused by the simplest things. Mainly people. I'm scared I'm getting left behind by culture, and no matter how hip i think I am, I am actually this 80's metal throwback who is only good for novelty value. I'm sick of not understanding the appeal of getting utterly shitfaced and smoking and smashing bottles and being a trashy piece of shit every time you're in public. I'm scared of finding out that I am as ugly and undesirable as I think I am. I'm scared of being left behind. I'm scared I don't matter.

I guess this post was really really for me, I can't imagine anyone enjoying reading it. I stopped writing in my diary about a year ago, and I've felt overdue for an emotional custard fight with myself, so I guess this was it. I guess I needed to confess.

I guess I wanted to say: Hey world, I think you absolutely stink, and you're wrong, and nasty, and self-centred, and counter to anything intelligent or reasonable, and i see it, and I'm disgusted by it, and you know what? I'm just the same. And I'm disgusted by me also.

And I know I don't deserve any real shot at happiness, but I'm praying that whatever runs the Universe will have their hands full, and some will just slip through a crack and get to me. Because I can't keep operating with a heart this heavy, and I don't want to give up right now.

But I also know regardless of what I may want, there is a part of me that takes control after a while of feeling this way, and it says "Enough", and it makes my decisions for me, and one of those decisions is going to be me wiping myself out, and getting off the ride.

I'm not trying to be controversial, and I'm not after sympathy. For that reason I'm going to disable comments, because I'm not asking for reassurance or anything at all from you. I'm just admitting my real feelings.

I'm not just a cartoon character that occasionly drops something funny on a blog. I'm a real person. I'm feeling pain, I'm confused, I'm lonely and sad, I'm angry, dissapointed, scared, you name it. And that's just right at this minute.

I don't know who you are, or where you are, or what you're thinking of any of this. And I guess I never will.

But if there is one thing I could get you to leave my blog with, it's this:

I hope you understand how important respect is. I hope you see that if there was enough respect or consideration in this world, we would all be so much better than we are. If we dropped the fucking masks and dared to be real, life would blow our minds. That's it.

Now excuse me, I'm going to go hug my dog.


This is knifey, from 'the internet'.

Freeze me in Carbonite, Jabba!

Seeing as I'm a notorious multi-poster, please have a look at this if you haven't already, and you like being sexy and rad like I am.

As if this wasn't enough, I received yet another message from a party interested in squirrelling away even more of my life.

This time, it isn't 'art', it's...wait for it...THIS VERY BLOG !!!

And even more crazy, mine is the first blog the National Film and Sound Archive are archiving for their collection...ever! Exclamation marks!!!!

And to think, I was gonna delete this sucker.

Here's the highlights...

_______________________________________________

The National Film and Sound Archive, aims to build a comprehensive
collection representing all aspects of Australia’s film, television,
sound and related industries to ensure that Australians have access to
this part of their cultural heritage now and in the future. The Archive
has traditionally collected items in physical formats, but it is also
committed to preserving electronic publications of lasting cultural
value.

PANDORA, Australia’s Web Archive, was set up by the National Library of
Australia in 1996 to enable the archiving and provision of long-term
access to online Australian publications (including those dealing with
our audio-visual industries). The Archive is one of a number of
partners associated with the National Library in this project.
Additional information about PANDORA can be found on the Library's server
at: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/index.html

We would like to include http://www.knifey-knifeyard.blogspot.com/ in the
PANDORA Archive and I would be grateful if you would let me know whether
you are willing to permit us to do so, that is, grant us a licence under
the Copyright Act 1968, to copy your web site into the Archive and to
provide public online access to it via the Internet. This means that you
would grant the National Film and Sound Archive and National Library
permission to retain your publication in the Archive and to provide
public access to it in perpetuity. We assume that in granting permission
all contributors to your publication are informed and in agreement that
their work will be archived in PANDORA. If you are not the person with
authority to give permission, could you please advise us who is.

[For serials and integrating titles: We would like to re-archive your
publication periodically to record significant additions and changes.]

There are some benefits to you as a publisher in having your web site
archived in this way. If you grant us a copyright licence, The Archive
(through the National Library) will take the necessary preservation
action to keep your publication accessible as hardware and software
changes over time. The National Library will catalogue your publication
onto the National Bibliographic Database (a database of catalogue records
shared by over 1,100 Australian libraries). This will increase awareness
of your site among researchers using either catalogue.

_______________________________________________

Not only am I part of your cultural heritage Australia, I get to be inside Pandora's box!!! (Don't you just adore ancient Greek/technology jokes?)

There's a running joke in my house now, whenever I go to the toilet or throw something in the trash, my housemates say "Wait, I'll just call Canberra to make sure they don't need to archive it".

It's fun being knifey lately...

Seeing as I have totally assed up my formatting on this page, is there anybody out there with some HTML knowledge, who could help me clean it up? It's for the nation, you understand. Very important.


This is knifey, from 'the internet'.

We Are Go !!!

My ride...the Aluminium Falcon.


Our colours...'cept they're black and white.

The bikes are finally on the road, and our membership is swelling, so if you want in on the next big thing, email me , and join up with the Black Phantoms!

Tee shirts and hoodies are available in black and white, so hit us up if you want some of that action also.

We are customising bikes for anyone who wants it, our whole focus is to show V8 loving Australia (and the world) just how mega radnacious you can be while styling around on a pushbike (with a 300-watt sound system).

I am gathering names for a mailing list, so if you want to come along to our meets and waterfront BBQ's etc, you can know when and where. You're welcome even without a ride.

And if you want a custom chopper made up for you, you know who to see.

Come be a chopper pilot, and let's show the world how much fun you can have on 2 wheels!!!

http://www.myspace.com/blackphantoms

http://www.cafepress.com/knifeyland

email: blackphantoms@gmail.com



This is knifey, from 'the internet'.

Eat My Shorts, Mr Burns.

So there I was, thinking about the economy. I don't know anything about the economy, other then the fact that there is not one part of the economy that is visible to the naked eye, that you can point at and say "Look! It's the economy!" It's like this many-tentacled beast that has an appendage in every office/business/home/wallet/you-name-it, and yet no one can see it. It exists, but you have to take it on faith. If you lose faith, it actually runs away, and the stock market crashes, and people get very uptight about all the money they lost, yet had never actually seen either.

And I thought about how companies merge, and become more profitable. And then i realised celebrities also merge and become more profitable, like whenever a celeb has a new movie coming out, they have to be rumoured (by their publicists) to be in a hot romance with the other co-star. It's just another merger, of their brand, and some other brand, for a time, for symbiotic pecuniary gain.

AND THEN I thought, hey...what about if celebrities and product brands merged also? Like, instead of just promoting a product, actually BECOMING the product in a sense...merging with it? Like, Jennifer Garnier. Or Fiona Apple iPod. Or K-MARTin Luther King.

And then I realised I have no idea how this 'life thing' is meant to work...

There was a crazy guy on my tram today, gibbering away to himself for the full half hour. At least, I thought he was, but as I got off, I heard him say "Melbourne girls are crazy, you've got to have a Ferrari before they'll even look at you!" It was then that I realised that man was a genius, and I wished I could have sat at his feet and soaked up some more of his ethanol-fuelled wisdom. He knew how life works. Me though? I have no idea.

I have friends and acquaintances who are quite rich in the financial sense, but they're not very happy. And I have lots of poor friends and acquaintances who are not very happy also. I know all kinds of people from all walks of life, and whether they are Bono from U2, or Vanessa the hot news agency girl in North Melbourne, none of them have "found what they're looking for".

Metaphysical questions surrounding the nature of what life is, and how we fit into it all have bothered us for countless centuries (by "us" of course, I mean ancient Greeks and annoying Philosophy undergrads). And although there are many advertised snake oils to remedy the confusion, there still evades us one unifying, binding, sensible cure for all people, all of the time.

Most of us here on planet Terra have no idea what it is we're looking for anyway. Most of us have no idea this planet is actually called Terra either. Most of us think it's called 'Earth', but it isn't. Just ask anyone who isn't from here.

So I've been thinking through many years, just what is it that will finally make me happy?

I went through all the usual phases, and a few others besides. I even spearheaded/pioneered a couple of phases, which not only shows you my age, but how immensely rad I am also.

In order to address this question, I had to sit down (believe me, this helps), and think of all the times I've been happiest in my life. The results were quite astounding. I realised I have been happy in or on the ocean more times than in any other location, second only to forests and deserts (both arctic and arid). Nightclubs and bars didn't even figure in my equations, although they did rate rather highly when considering places I have been most confused and/or bored. Without exception, my happiest times were when i was alone.

The happiest times were, by and large, the simplest times. When I was close to nature, when I had animals around me, when I could swim or climb or be alone in the wide and distant places of the world. But I also realised that pulling a Grizzly Adams and staying out in the wilderness wasn't going to work as a lasting cure. The reason I like it out in the world so much, is because I'm a city kid, and I live most of my life in very tight spaces in various 'downtowns'. Seeing the stars is like a full-on novelty for me. Yin and yang, just like always.

After many years of post-acid comedown introspection, and listening to Depeche Mode on cassette, I realised the thing that makes me most sad in the world is the possibility of not mattering. You can tell how egotistically wrapped up in my self I am, because I used the word "possibility". Ha ha! What a jerk! Anyway, it's true. I'm terrified (or rather my ego is) of embracing the reality of my (and everyones) existence, namely, that we as individuals, and as a race, and even as an evolutionary scale, are just the faintest prelude to a shadow of an echo of a blip on an immensely big galactic radar, and that in another blip, we, and everything we know, will be gone, and gone forever.

No one will remember us, and there will be no one to do the remembering. Even the pyramids will be gone, and the oceans will be empty, and no number of iPod nano's, or internet porn files can save us from the inevitability of nonexistence.

Picture it with me. Look at something. Anything. Look at it, and imagine that in a hundred or a thousand or a million years, it will not exist any more. It will be dust. Picture that happening before your eyes. Good. Now picture the thing next to it doing the same. Then everything in the room. Then the room, and the house, and your hand, and you, and your pets, and everything in your area. It's a hard thing to do, because this world is all we know. It's why death is so shocking. It's like the grim reaper comes riding up, and pushes your face into a carcass saying "Breathe deep human! It's reality!" We're all toast, and so is everything on earth, when we reach the breaking of the world, when it all gets swallowed up by Sol, our sun.

Even the dust will disappear, and not be.

And no, I don't like it. I don't like the fact that six months after I die, no one's going to be sitting around going "Life sucks without knifey". It hurts my ego. It's what seperates me from the animals (along with opposable thumbs). And so it came to me that the thing that could possibly make me most happy is, wait for it: eternal fame.

I tried academia (and hated it). Apart from the truckloads of sex I managed to hook up in lecture theatres and study halls, it was a total waste of time. I went post grad...honours, masters, doctorate...less and less hot sex the further I went, and at the end of it I have a qualification and a skill set that makes me eminently unemployable in all career fields except teaching English in Japan (which I have done, and plan to do again soon). The one upshot of my 6 years as a student is when I go to the doctors, and the people in the waiting room are looking at me like I'm a filthy gang member from Detroit, and the doctor comes out and says "Hello, Dr Vanderwerff." That part fucking RULES! Yeah, that's right bitches...I'm a motherfucking doctor. Woo-hoo.

What works is when I'm at a gallery opening, and I'm interviewing the artist for whatever European art magazine I'm writing for that week, and the artist turns around and says "Wait...YOU"RE knifey?!" I love it when I'm bowling and the guy from Rolling Stone comes up and talks to me about whatever I wrote here in this blog. I love it when I'm on a tram listening to the two cute girls in the next seat talking about an interview I did, or a poster I made, or...whatever. I know it's considered crude and uncultured, but I love people loving what I do, knowing who I am, considering me a contributing part of the culture at large, and thinking that I matter, because it all means I EXIST, and I'M NOT INVISIBLE, and I'M AS IMPORTANT AS EVERYONE ELSE.

Insecure? ALWAYS!!!

I would like it very much if people came to my funeral (genuinely giving a shit optional). I would like it very much if after I die, people remembered me, and felt I had something to contribute with my life. I would like it very very very much if in five thousand years, knifey was in the history books, and my name was recorded for all human time as part of this world, and worth remembering. "Mummy, who was Ned Kelly?" "Mummy, who were Bourke and Wills?" "Mummy, who was 'knifey from the internet'?"

And that's why this week was so great, and why I am so happy.

Because it's happened. I have entered the history books, and best of all, no one had to get hurt!

I got contacted, and met with two people from Canberra on Friday, who have officially asked me to contribute an art work to the National Archive of Australia. So for as long as there is an 'Australia' on planet Terra, there will also be a 'knifey'. Look Mum, I'm famous!

To the best of my knowledge, I am the only graff artist to have ever been asked, so I'm extra chuffed, both for me, and for the credibility of street artists as a group. At least, that's what I say here. I really only care about me. Me. Me. ME. ME. Me.

I remember when I was thirteen, my art teacher (Mr Burns) sat me down and told me I didn't have an artistic bone in my body, and that I would never amount to anything at all. God bless our teachers. Anyway, my thoughts are with him tonight, as he agonises over the deeper meanings of each new painting he produces, and languishes in bohemian galleries that are so amazing and cool no one ever goes to them, or even knows where they are. And I think "Man, were you wrong! Clearly at least one of my bones is artistic...maybe even more!"

I like this 'being a serious artist' thing...hope no one finds out I'm a total fraud. Now I want at least one piece to be exhibited at The National Gallery of Victoria, and I can just kiss my own ass with pride and satisfaction. Oh, and get a top 10 album in the USA.

God I love dreams!

Anyway, all is not perfect in knifeyland right now. As some of you already know, my beautiful and amazing girl and I have parted the ways (let's call it 'artistic differences') after 8 crazy and intense months, so if anyone wants to throw some chocolate cake my way, you know where to find me. By 'chocolate cake', I actually mean 'chocolate cake'. I take cake very seriously...it is one of the few groupings of words I use that aren't a euphemism for sex. I plan on getting very fat and hairy (like Jim Morrison), and acting like I'm ok and fine and good, when clearly I'm not.

Also, my dog has a major flatulence problem, and it's making me very sad (and ill). She's got a great personality, unfortunately her anus is the embodiment of pure evil, so please include her colon and sphincter areas in your prayers tonight. If we can "bind it in the name of Jesus", I know I'll feel a lot better about sleeping in the same room as her.

Thank you brothers and sisters...


This is knifey, from 'the internet'.

*FAST BREAKING NEWS!*

I am at the public library posting this, as I don't have the interbet at home nowadays...anyway, no more than 2 feet away from me an unusually flatulent old Asian man is letting rip with the loudest most wet sounding pants trumpets I have heard in a long time (worse than my dogs!). Either he's deaf, or he just doesn't give a fuck. Either way he's totally gangsta, and I'm gonna leave him to it...unless it smells.

4 eva.

Deconstructing Knifey.

So there I was, all curled up in my bed, with my dog asleep at my feet, and a gentle shower making the power lines crackle outside my window, and I started to think about all the nasty things people have come along and dropped in my blog from time to time. No doubt these people will be thrilled to think I'm losing sleep over them, but the truth is I have a big doctors appointment first thing in the morning, and I'm a bit too worried about it to sleep until 5 minutes before I have to get up. I'm a bit nervy.

Anyways, I'm not really upset at all that people have issues with me. When you write like me, and when you live like me, enemies are a fact of life. I think my latest round of album reviews for messandnoise magazine will be enough to see me ostracised forever from the Melbourne music scene, and possibly even killed to death by angry bogans. But you know, I'm okay with that. I like to think I'm honest, even when it hurts. I certainly don't mean my reviews in an angry or agressive way, more in a frustrated and educational way. Artists are sensitive people I guess, especially when they suck badly, and haven't been told by anyone else.

As far as my blog goes, I haven't been afraid to name names, and put forward my own opinions. I haven't done it from behind a shield of anonymity, as I have erroneously been accused in the past. If you live in Melbourne, or even in Australia, I'm so easy to find it's stupid. Maybe I should do something about that, i don't know. Point is, what I say on here, I would say to your face.

So with this in mind, I'd like to explore the misconceptions that surround me, because I hate nothing more than ignorance, and we all know my favourite subject is me. At least I can be honesrt about it. We all know it's really easy to open a blogger account, just to anonymously sledge someone you disagree with. It's easy, and people do it, and I really don't mind. That is, if they do it in a logical way, as opposed to just pissing in the pool to ruin the party. When someone comes along just to accuse you and assume things about you, it's terribly frustrating, because those people don't seem to see the only person they are insulting in this manner, is themselves. If they were half as clever and superior as they assert themselves to be, they would say "Hi. I'm bla bla bla, and I think you're wrong, and here's why I think that." Not "You've got no talent and a small dick and everything you do is a joke." When people do this, it's like if I assumed what life would be like on Mars, without being a scientist, or knowing anything about Mars, except the little we pick up in school, and by occasionly catching sight of a newspaper. Assumptions are a very poor basis for insult.

The way to really sting someone, so to hit them where it hurts - in their truth-y bone.

Instead of assuming things, wouldn't it make so much more sense to focus on something you know, as opposed to something you would like to be true, with no evidence whatsoever, and hitting me with that? The problem with this method, is that none of you know anything about me, except what I tell you. And who really knows the truth value of anything I say? I could be making everything up, and not have done or thought anything original ever. My blogger friends who hang out with me would disagree, but let's ignore them for the sake of the argument.

Keep it factual, or you look like a joke.

A popular insult, when it comes to me, is when people accuse me of having "no talent". I really don't understand this at all, mainly because I'm not sure I have any talent either. I know I play guitar like a tornado that's on fire in Hell, but I can't say whether I'm talented because of it, or even if it sounds good. That's up to all of you to decide individually. That's the subjectivism of all things, baby. So many people (who are coincidentally ALWAYS anonymous) assume that just because I say I'm rad, I actually think it.

I like to have fun with life. I usually try to fit these fun days in between the weeks on end I experience of abject misery, lethargy, depression, and, well...self hatred. One of the things that picks me up is when i write something, and it makes me laugh. Maybe it's a horribly egotistical thing that I enjoy the Hell out of myself as much as I do, but it works, and I like it. I'm not sure how someone who laughs at their own jokes, but hates pretty much everything else about themselves can be an egoist, but, hey, I'm open to whatever.

Some people have accused me of being a failed musician, who is bitter, and hates anyone who is succesful, like tall poppy syndrome. This is partially true. I definitely am a failed musician. I certainly never achieved the heights I had worked toward in the music industry, but I can't really complain either, because the heights I did achieve were pretty rewarding and mind-blowing, and to be honest, way higher than 99% of other musicians who had been working toward the same kind of goals. But yes, I never toured the U.S.A. with my band, or any of the other things I dreamed about, so in that sense you're right, I'm a total failure. I'll pay that. And yes, I'm bitter too. I'm bitter like anyone else who gets to look behind the velvet rope and observe first hand just how the music industry really works. No musician likes it, unless they have gone multi-platinum, and somehow beaten the major label contract to actually emerge with some money to live on. I'm not going to go on about how Joe Public thinks everyone who has ever been on TV or the radio is a millionaire, and how less than one one-hundredth of a percent (if that) actually are. I'll just say I'm bitter, and bitter for a reason, that the business of music is so obviously more about business than actual music, and that the public swallows everything it's fed, just like Aldous Huxley promised us they would. If you actually know what's going on, there is a lot to be bitter about.

Here's a good one. I'm a sell-out. I love this insult a lot, because it is basically inferring that I have made some money along the way.

Not so. Every time I have played a song on TV, even if it's one of the ones with millions of viewers, and going out live, I make on average about $200. Now, on my planet, $200 is good money, and I'm not about to go tell Sony to fuck themselves for not giving me enough. I like the money, and I like the opportunities, and I like being on TV, and I like pretty much the whole experience of it all. But let's break it down...

When I do a session for (insert artist here), I first have to learn the song. When you're as incredible as I am, this only takes five minutes, no matter how hard it is, ten minutes with backing vocals/harmonies. So that's cool. But then you have to practice it, so it's perfect, because that's what you're getting paid for. Then you have to get your gear to the studio or wherever the thing is, and that costs petrol or taxi money that you don't get back. And if there's a dress rehearsal the day before (as happens with the big shows), that's twice as much. Maybe $60 for cabs, because I don't do cars. You have to go get your hair done at the hairdressers, because you're meant to come off looking like a rock star, not Charles Manson. There's $80, right there, $140 if they touch up my streaks as well. You have to factor in the fact you can't work your regular job while all this is going on, so you may be losing money there. Then you have to add up all the rehearsal time, and actual performance time, which can run into in some cases two whole nights, and you tell me that $200 is a lot of money.

The point to this whole bit it, if I'm a sell out for playing with (insert artist here), shouldn't I be getting some stratospheric paycheck?

One of my most vivid memories of playing with Anastacia is, hanging out with (insert name of hot model here) til the sun came up, then dragging all my gear 6 kilometres home, because I had no money for a taxi, and having to clean up a pile of dobermann pinscher shit in my hallway, because the poor dog had been locked inside all night. THAT'S rock'n'roll, bitch.

Wait, I'm not done yet.

I have been accused on more than one occasion of thinking that i am better than everyone else, and on this point, you totally have me. That's exactly what i think, and so if you see that point of view as a bad thing, then I guess you have every right to feel inclined to call me names. But in my own defence, let me just say that the majority of people who constitute Australian culture at large act like the worst examples of somnambulist consumer drones you could imagine, and that I see that as pathetic. I'm not saying they aren't nice, or they don't have hearts or big brains, but all the drink/drug drivers and the smokers and the gambling addicts and the abusers and psychopaths and corrupt cops/officials and trendoid scenesters and plastic vaginas and self centred rude commuters and whoever else I see every day don't leave me much to admire or aspire to. So yes, you've got me there. I definitely think I am better than most of you. Respect is something that you earn, and if you're only out for yourself, or out for you're own, you're totally missing the fact that we're all in this life thing together, hurtling through space on the same rock, and if we don't get it together and consider each other more, we're all going to eat a spectacular amount of shit, possibly within our lifetimes.

Some would have you believe, that I live to name drop.

This might be true, I'm not sure. The way I see it, it's easier to say whoever you are referring to within the framework of a story, because if you leave out the name, people invariably ask why you're trying to be all mysterious, and to just spit it out, wanker. Besides, who doesn't want to know what the toilet smells like after Mandy Moore has been in there? I know these things, and I feel it's my responsibility to share it with everyone who hasn't been so lucky. (Just for the record, it smelled like a piano). What do Metallica like to eat on tour? Is Kenny Rogers actually a tough guy, and not the cuddly bear we all thought he was? Which national TV presenter of the Christian persuasion also happens to be a raving nymphomaniac, with standards so low she even tried to bang yours truly? Well, I could tell you, but I WOULD HATE TO NAME DROP, so I won't.

My favourite misconception about me though, is that I hate absolutely everything.

Haven't you been paying attention?!! What about guitars and choppers and Italian/Spanish/Turkish/Greek/Brazillian girls and food that has cheese in it and Royal Crown Cola and sunshine and rain and dogs and good books and artists and bands and macrame and the amazing and totally unknowable world of deep sea creatures and technology and summer showers and travel and escapism through cinema and correct spelling and humorous spelling mistakes and GTA3 and friends and Jay Mohr with Illeanna Douglas in 'Action' and the way Sebastian Bach from Skid Row still makes me cry like a baby whenever I hear 'I Remember You' and typography and eco friendly electric cars and Beltons and horses running through the water and the French language (but don't tell them I said so) and genuine people and thinking and the ocean and swimming in it and philosophy and farts and the way pets dream and porn and flowers and the way Horatio Kane from CSI Miami talks and hiragana/katakana and Buddhist monks and Kung Fu and those times when you're playing guitar so fast your fingers become totally invisible to the naked eye and snowflakes and The World Cup Soccer Finals and the memory of all my dead homeys and Mesa Triple Rectifiers and tattoos on women and women with no tattoos and those rare days when my own reflection is appealing and Blink 182 videos and the mad genius of Schoenberg and my old University Professors and the love of my Mother and Aunts and Aqua Teen Hunger Force and orgasms and forests and exploring the Sahara on a camel and good honest bleeding and breaking down and crying and feeling refreshed and forgiven and laughter and AC/DC and standing on mountains and the feeling you get maybe once in a lifetime where you whisper to yourself "this is it!" and you feel something that can only be described as glee and consideration and manners and old ladies who strike up conversations with you outside the post office and good customer service and the suburb of North Melbourne and a girl called Mary, wherever it is she is flying to next and...

...this world is a crazy and beautiful and dangerous and rare and fleeting and precious place and moment in time.

And I am an idiosyncratic, insecure, highly educated loser with questionable intelligence and deep seated emotional issues, who is perpetually confused by the simplest things, and who can't ever see a way in which to rejoin the human race and belong.

You don't need to make me upset, I can do that myself. But if you have something to say, why not take the time to get your point across in a thought out and logical way? If I'm not worth the effort, I can hardly be worth the comment, n'est-ce pas? Because if you genuinely want to get a reaction from me, it pays to make sure I have paid what you have written a sliver of attention. Because if I see one more comment like

this,

it's going straight in the trash can, no attention given.


This is knifey, from 'the internet'.

Hey! Who Likes Cool Stuff?!

So, my friends have all been asking me where I've been all this time, and what I've been doing, and the answer is this -

I've also been raising me little chocolate brown baby Greyhound, but I'm not going to post pics of her coz that's just silly. It's not like she's a chopper or anything!

In breaking news, it looks like I'm in the midst of another blogwar. Check out what shitheadexposer has to say, and see if you can make any sense of it (I couldn't).

And for those who like to wade through endless paragraphs of me rambling (and let's face it, who doesn't?), go here and see for yourself all the words and sentences that have been clogging up my synapses of late.

Hope you're all good out there, I miss some of you a lot.


This is knifey, from 'the internet'.

Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting...Or Is It?

One of the most frustrating things about knowing a thing, as opposed to believing in a thing, is that you are often tempted to grab those who are ignorant of the thing you know, and shake them forcefully.

Thing is, if you know anything about violence, you'll know that doing anything that involves force will only lead to further problems.

So today, we're going to talk all about kicking ass, and why it's almost never a good idea.

Probably the greatest known thinker-slash-doer when it comes to theories of nonviolence (apart from Jesus of Nazareth) was Mahatma Ghandi. I say "was", because he got so involved in the doing part, he's dead. Clearly he believed what he was putting forward to such an extent, he felt dying was a small price to pay. I'm not so sure about that, but I can't fault him on his knowledge on how to run a media based campaign of action.

He put forward a few notions I do agree with, however, not least being that all violence stems from a fear of something. I take it he was making a distinction between violence and hunting, unless you want to boil hunting down to a fear of starving to death, which I guess is fair enough. I don't think he was, because he was a vegetarian, but who knows. I would make a further distinction, that being that mental illness is in a category of its own, the rules do not apply. Psychopathic killers tend to be deluded and not that connected to reality. A by-product of this is that they generally aren't scared of anything, not because they are especially hard, but rather because they simply don't know how, any more than you know about how to be a psychopathic killer. I'm taking it on faith that my readers are relatively sane here.

Example time.

The theory goes that if you want to hurt something, the reason is because it instills within you a sense of fear, therefore, anger. Anger is seen as a by-product of fear. This fear need not be conscious, which is why tough guys who bully other people and think it makes them macho, are foolish and wrong. They're just scared, and too stupid to see it. Now let's be clear here - you don't have to be directly scared of the thing you are intending to hurt, but it should instill in you, either directly or otherwise, a sense of fear. Some scholars have put forward that the reason jews in Hitlers control were so badly treated was because they had existed behind closed shutters for so long, they were essentially unknown to the community. Combine this with strange and alien ceremonies, and their persistent usage of their own peculiar language, the net result was a sense of mistrust and fear among the rest of the citizenry who were weak-minded (as so many humans are) enough to fall for it. When it comes to monster hunts and mob mentality, it doesn't take much to get a bonfire going. Logic not necessary.

A contemporary parallel is the view that all Muslims are women-raping, goat eating Jihadists, just waiting for an excuse to break cover and detonate their hidden I.E.D.'s outside the nearest school. It doesn't help when our news is saturated with Islamic gang rapists from Sydney's inner-West who claim Aussie girls deserve it, and that they are sanctioned by God to do what they do, or Muftis dropping Fatwas on anything that moves, or terrorist cells in the suburbs numbering potentially in their thousands, but it still doesn't make it right to assume that Islam = death to all westerners.

People get scared of groups, and therefore of anyone who looks like they may belong to a group, right or wrong. Commies, niggers, kikes, gooks, faggots, crackers, whoever. If you're not "one of us", you're the enemy. Or, as George W Bush put forward "If you're not with us, you're against us". What a monumental dick.

In the space of 30 or 40 years, we've collectively overcome our fears of being converted by the reds, murdered by blacks or asians, catching A.I.D.S. from the toilet seat, or whatever Australians were shitting themselves over in the days of yesteryear. In short, we're not scared any more. And all it took was some information, of the correct and logical kind. As this info was shared, and time passed, tolerance grew. Gay bashing is not a common occurence any more. But it still happens unfortunately, and when it does, it's all down to ignorance of the facts, and fear of, in most cases, being considered gay by peers, or of having to confront one's own latent homosexuality and feelings of confusion and desire.

Here's one we've all heard before- 'what goes around, comes around'.

In the case of human emotional responses, it is 100% correct, only not in any karmic and numinous sense. As Pavlovian as it sounds, emotionally speaking, people are just big stimulus/response engines. In comes the stimulus, and out comes a response. That's what we do, it's the basis behind all of our concepts of civilisation and being gregarious (or not).

So when you attack someone, physically or verbally, that energy is transferred from you, and over to them. And that's where choice comes in. You can either fire back, which results in an escalation of the confrontation (until one of you ends up like Ghandi), or you can choose to let the energy go in a positive way. Like exercise, or laughing off the insult. There are families in Eastern Europe who have been killing each other in retributive vendettas for more than a thousand years now. It really pays to let it go, or deal with it legally.

Here's where I differ on traditional theories of nonviolence - if you are in physical danger, I think it's fine to protect yourself. I don't think going down to prove a point is clever at all, even if in Ghandi's case it helped to focus International attention to his plight. If you are physically assaulted, you should seek escape, but if cornered, you should do what any animal would do and protect your ass.

But fighting for religion is a bunch of ass, and anyone with half a brain knows it. Fighting for revenge is just as stupid. I agree with the death penalty, in that it is a way of society defending itself (albeit belatedly) against threats to the citizenry. I disagree with our selected method of proving the facts, but I see what they're trying to do. Human threats should be destroyed, just like viral ones. I just hope for proof beyond any doubt whatsoever in these cases, as opposed to merely reasonable doubt.

When you watch the news, does it ever strike you as incredible how many people are caught in the crossfire of religious, sectarian, political, racist, or military violence? Does anyone remember what we used to talk about in current affairs programs before 9/11? Who were the bogeymen back then? Have we as a race actually evolved mentally in the years since the Industrial Revolution, or have we just shifted focus onto a new set of stimuli to respond to? I do know that personal responsibilty has dropped off to an almost nonexistent level (even in the legal system), so maybe we're all collectively just passing the buck more nowadays. It does frighten me how many people out there in society have serious undiagnosed mental illnesses. What was the stat Clem, one in five Australians? They're my bogeymen, right there.

But the one thing I do know is that acting (as opposed to reacting) violently is unforgiveable behaviour for the year 2005, we should have grown up by now. Those who are violent need to be educated or diagnosed for treatment of some kind, there is no excuse any more.

Clearly none of this will come as news to my regular readers, seeing as they're all hot women and not thugs or morons, but who knows who might stop by? I've definitely made a change in my own life, and that's saying something, as I was always ready for an old fashioned smackdown, good reason seldom necessary. But now I am ashamed of any action that has bought harm to someone else, verbal or physical.

Unless they really deserved it. (Just kidding!)

Let's all try being nice humans for a change...because I'm telling you the truth when I say, the person who gets hurt the most when you lash out, is actually you.


This is knifey, from 'the internet'.

El Continuuoso.

I got an email from someone I love yesterday (purr), and in it they asked me if I believe in reincarnation, they do and I don't.

My best friend in New Zealand does too. She's a former model/radio personality/general superstar who turned her back on the world at large in favour of finding out just how "this life thing" really works. She has a bunch of odd friends, some of whom you may consider rather unsavoury (let's include me in this sub-group), and from us all, she garners her wisdom. She is so impossibly beautiful I would try to describe it to you, but there's no point, because it's impossible. But I will say that she looks at everything she sees with the most incredible and empathetic look in her eyes. Like she sees everything for what it is, and she's soooo sorry, but it will be okay, just you wait and see. Even when she's smiling, she looks so sad and remote and perfect, just like the antipodes of New Zealand themselves.

My Mother also, is a big fan of reincarnation. My Mother, for those of you who don't know her, is what you would call a "no shit kinda gal". She's an ex model also, and a radio personality too, now that I think of it. She doesn't give any shit, and she doesn't take any shit, because she used to hang out with the Bee Gees and The Easybeats, and you didn't. She used to work on the second-biggest cattle station in Australia, which might not sound like much, until you consider the fact it is bigger than Sweden and the former Czech Republic combined, so big, you need a helicopter with a jet engine just to go fetch the newspaper from the front gate. She used to do a lot of things. A lot of no shit kinds of things. She knows all about the world, and the people in it, and let's face it, she raised me, and I turned out to be completely normal. (For the uninitiated, turn on your sarcasm-o-meters now.)

But I still just don't get down with reincarnation.

And so, after reading 'The Dharma Bums' by Jack Kerouac, and being so inspired by his enthusiasm and simple devotion, and being overtired to the point of hallucination, I kinda zoned out and thought about...

...how everything in this Universe is made of not much. How, on an atomic/molecular level, every solid object you have ever experienced is pretty much just empty space, with little electrons and neutrons and molecules and atoms all whirring around in their own little orbits, relating to each other, and locking together to form bigger things like bottle tops, and iPods, and foreskins.

How, if you knock on the surface of a guitar, like you would on a door, your sense perception is that that object, is solid. We even call it solid. But it isn't. Our eyes, which we trust way more than we ever should, tell us it looks solid, our touch tells us it is hard and solid, our ears tell us through knocking that it sounds solid, but it isn't solid. It isn't solid the way the bones that make up your skeleton, or the International Space Station, or an Yngwie Malmsteen CD is solid, or the way you think they are. It's just the same empty space, with a different set of elements from the periodic table dancing around to spice it up. Just like Sperm whales, full cream milk, or your brothers haircut do. Nothing is solid, it just perceives that way.

If we could shrink ourselves down small enough, and we took a trip, we could see all that empty space, that makes up Mount Rushmore, and the hard boiled egg I'm eating. We could fly right through the middle of a bacteria, the slide it's on, the microscope that surrounds it. We could fly right through the lab assistant, and the doors, and the walls, and out into space right through the sun, and for all we knew, we had been in space all along, because all we could see was the space that makes up all things. And we would see that there are no spaces between anything, because everything is space. That there are no spaces between us, because we are all space, and therefore, we are all one person. One person, made up of billions, of small people. But that one person is also made up of ant colonies, and wolf packs, and shopping malls, and uranium mines, and submarines, and newspaper columns. That buddhism was right after all, and that everything is connected, and one, and all at once an illusion, and nothing at all.

Why, if you could shrink yourself small enough, do you know what? We'd look like God. A God made of everything, even cancer, and a thousand smeary fluids we shall not name.

And maybe that's it. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe there is a God, and it is the full amalgamation of everything in the Universe, all together at once. Which really would make us all of God, and he greater than all of us combined, and far too much to comprehend with just the one segment of mind. That his will is far too complex and great for you or I to ever understand, because his will is made up of every thought process, natural occurrence and complex system in the Universe, all physics, and Geometry, and Logic, and bowel movement, and river rushing, and ice crystal forming, all at once, so it would take every mind in existence to house every thought that makes up the mental component of his will, and no less. And reincarnation could be, it could be the dying of some people, and their rhythms and smells and ideas, and the new birth of others, giving the whole continuity through time/space, while ending the singularities of particular individuals having an instance in that self same time/space. Like blips on the radar, it's still the same plane from blip to blip, even though it's new, and in a different place, at a later time. Together with all the bugs and cars, we ARE God, and if humanity succumbs to some as-yet unknown disease, and we all die, then the bugs would be God, and the cars too, until the bugs all died, and then the cars would be God. And the Coupland-esque superhighways with vines growing across them and the sun shining down on them would lie silent for a hundred thousand years, while God rusts himself into airbourne particles, spaces drifting off into space. The Holy Spirit, and the rapture, and judgement for all of us and our pets and real estate and computer porn and parking fines and good deeds and the Swiss Army knife you dropped under the front stairs of your Grandfathers house when you were eight, and you never found, until you died and decomposed, and it rusted, and you both drifted together in the epicentre of a North Sea Hurricane, with a Tyrannasaurs eye, and the first atom of matter that ever existed in the Universe, all swirling and dancing together at the end of human time, after cars and insects had their turn at being Gods, and the Earth danced right into the warm embrace of Sol, our sun.

Or maybe I'm just overtired, and radically miss Melissa in New England, Jennifer in Auckland City, and Mom up in her trailer park in Queensland.

'Night all...and God bless, whatever that means.


Broadcasting live and direct from The North Melbourne Public Library, this is knifey, from 'the internet'.

I have never met Cameron Diaz, or Johnny Knoxville...

I have never met Cameron Diaz, or Johnny Knoxville.

I have rubbed shoulders with them however, quite literally, and most accidentally.

"So what?" I hear you say. "Who gives a crap about who you know or don't know?" And to you, I say "exactly". Exactly, because, if this world was anything remotely close to resembling the way it should be, no-one would care, least of all me. And let me be clear about this- I don't care either. But there are a lot of people who do, and in the last week, I have experienced quite a few of them.

Last night I came out of a movie at the new Hoyts complex in Melbourne Central, to find I didn't have a snowballs chance in Hell of getting out of the building, as every exit and escalator was blocked by 65-bazillion fans of who I did not yet know. Then I got shoved out of the way by a highly trained crack team of security gorillas, and there's Cameron Diaz all of a sudden, standing right in front of me. I wish someone had told me, I would have caught a different session. Last week at onesixone I was quite rudely stampeded aside as Mr Johnny Knoxville entered the room, by a herd of apparently post-pubescent and excrutiatingly excitable young fillies. And by fillies, clearly I mean girls. This was amazing in two ways.

1. How can people have so little shame, and so much adoration for someone they know nothing about, to actually shriek and stampede toward the nearest movie star? I was standing next to Toni Collette on an escalator in Prahran a while back. I like her in interviews, and I like her work. She comes off as a no shit kind of person, and I dig that. But I didn't say hi because she has idiotic strangers saying hi to her all day, and I figured she could use a break. To be honest, if you don't have your head up your ass, you will see movie stars and rock stars all the time. It's a city, they go shopping. Before you think I'm trying to be cooler-then-thou, allow me to hit you with this- I get excited by seeing movie stars too. It's weird and fun to see someone who has made you feel so many strange and complex emotions in the past, right there in front of you like that. I saw Kerry Armstrong taking her kids to see a movie a couple of weeks ago, and my first instinct was to rush over and profess my eternal and undying love for her (character in Lantana). My god she's beautiful. Luckily I seldom act on first emotions. When I was working at the Logie awards last year, I had a great time (not) drinking and flirting with every hot girl I have ever seen on Australian tv. But come on, have some pride in yourself. Don't shit your pants, just enjoy it for what it is.

2. The Knoxville incident was interesting also, in that I was standing right next to my man Buck Wild when it happened. Don't you ignorant bitches know he's a star? Your loss I guess.

Maybe I 'm lucky, in that I have met so many of my idols. Maybe that's why I see other peoples reactions as so embarassing, while they are too busy being euphoric to ever notice. Maybe if I grew up in the Western suburbs of Melbourne and had never met anyone, and then I ran into whoever is hot right now, I would have acted like more of a tard. Maybe I'm the one with the problem, being too uptight to feel and express myself naturally. I definitely think too much about insignificant things. Things like how I equate this star worship with anthropomorphism, how we have to look up to something/someone at all times, how we have to have something higher to focus on, something better than us. But I think if you asked Cameron Diaz if she thinks she's better than the rest of us, she'd tell you in no uncertain terms you're talking utter shit. I wonder if she goes funny at the knees and idolizes the hell out of someone else? Somehow i doubt it, she seems way too grounded for that. Having said that, like i said before, i don't know her. Star worship, and organised religion and overt materialism are all flipsides to the same coin. People just don't seem able to confront the fact that everything has to die, and will rust, rot, fade, evaporate, congeal, or fall to pieces. And that that's ok. Why does everything have to be permanent? And I don't mean in the 'having evolved from hunter-gatherers and settled into fixed communities' thing. It's like our collective ego is hardwired into a pattern of dealing only in absolutes, like forever or never. Buddhism came so close, in that they know life is never permanent, and that all things must pass. But they still deal in a higher consciousness to attain, and a Godhead to guide you there. Hinduism knows all about birth/death/rebirth. But there's the thing- rebirth. That's where it loses me. There's nothing wrong with death and decay. It just is, like a banana. There's nothing romantic about it either, it just is, like a glass of water. So why do we hide from the knowledge like we do? I don't make a habit of hiding from bananas and glasses of water. Brussels sprouts maybe, but that's different. Clearly they're of Satan.

What about a religion that has no higher consciousness higher than us ourselves, and where death is the absolute end of all consciousness and use?

What about that? So we can use the one life I believe we all have (I believe in it because I'm living it right now, or so I think), to do some good, to learn some lessons once and for all, not just for us but for our children, and their children? Not just so we can build a strong house to hide in, and to make our bodies look like something we were not born as. So we as a species can undergo a second major evolution, where this time we climb up out of the oceans of our collective ignorance, and stop endlessly and unnecesarily repeating the same pointless exercises in futility. You know what I'm talking about. The first evolution we crawled out of primordial ooze, and onto dry land. This second one we should shake ourselves free of the funk of post-industrial-post-post-modernist-slightly pre-apocalyptic modern living, and climb onto the pure shores of living in the here and now with all the relevant information. The majority of us don't need to be unhappy, but the majority of us don't stand much of a chance of escaping our unhappiness, because it's kinda foisted upon us. And because some of us chase after it a lot of the time. We don't understand that people were never meant to live like a lot of us do, crammed into cities, chasing after careers that have no meaning, because they are directly connected to nonexistent entities like 'the economy', and now even 'the internet'. Things that don't really exist, even though we feel them rudely pressing up against us in the elevator every now and then, or crushing us in some cases. A lot of people will be reading this thinking I'm speaking metaphorically/allegorically, and they're totally lost. Not lost to death, but rather to a life without life. Careers are meaningless, unless they bring something meaningful into life. And while I'm not trying to diss you or say you're dumb/stupid because you are a financial analyst for Sportsgirl, surely you must see that any deeper meaning (other then the satisfaction of seeing a task through and doing a good job at it) simply does not exist. So what's wrong with that? Well, nothing really. Jobs/careers don't need to be meaningful in and of themselves to be worthwhile. Except that in order to be a financial analyst for Sportsgirl, you're going to spend all of your time driving to/from work, being at work, or drinking yourself stupid after work to convince yourself that you have a social life, crammed in there amongst all that work and driving. And there's your life, right there. Having some meaning would be great, don't you think? We could learn a lot from Kerouac, and go for a trip up the Matterhorn, even if we don't make it all the way. He knew enough to know that it was the journey that mattered, the wisdom attained, the self knowledge. Not standing on the top and conquering it. Conquering is for Spaniards, Dutch, and British. Oh, and Mongolians.

"So what do you want me to do, doctor knoweverything?"

Good question, wish I knew. I'm good at seeing problems, but I'm not so good at unravelling those problems, namely because I can't for the life of me see how we as a species let ourselves get so tangled up in the first place. The majority of people in this world are unconscious. I know it because I used to be as well. It's not evil or anything. But it's a waste. It's a waste when there is so much more that it could be, and that getting there is free and available to most people (in the west anyway). It starts in your mind, and it radiates outward. And it attracts like minds, into loose social groups that have the capabilty to grow so big they actually stand half a chance of making quantifiable difference in culture as we know it. Make a nice dent in your Coke commercial. It starts, believe it or not, with a tv set. It starts with looking at it. But instead of anaesthetising yourself with it, you have to turn it on, you have to sit in front of it, and...

...YOU HAVE TO FIGHT IT.

You have to watch the news, and Today Tonight, and A Current Affair, and every ad you can, and you have to battle them. You have to debunk them, you have to tell Naomi Robson that she's lying to your face, and that you know she is. (She knows she is too. She does it because it's her job, and she justifies it to herself by getting paid a lot, and by telling herself anyone with half a brain will see through it for themselves.) You have to translate ads and look for the fine print. You have to find the catch. You have to look past all the cute animals in the Optus commercials, and see the massive Ving Rhames looking motherfucker in the leather behind them, waiting to fuck your asshole right off your body, by conning you into a binding plan that offers you 5% of what they could easily offer you for the price you're paying, effectively nailing your feet to the floor, while telling you you're so lucky to be in on this limited offer, because you get this rad free iPod with the battery that will run out a week after your warranty expires, and will make Apple computers a nice profit when you and every other sucker that got in on the deal has to send them back to the States for a replacement battery, and pay for the priveledge, when consumers in the USA get it all for free thanks to a massive class action lawsuit that showed Apple what they were doing was wrong. But it's ok to con Australian consumers with the same deal, because our laws haven't caught up yet. You have to tell Hugh Jackman to fuck off with his offer for Foxtel, becauyse as much as it is paying for his sons education, it isn't doing anything for the rest of us.

Take a breath... We're surrounded by this mess, it's easier to opt out and join the mass populace, than to have to (heaven forbid) think, right?

Not really, no.

You see, these big companies rely on your money to remain viable. They need you. Sure, they act like they don't by making you wait 50 minutes when you call them to dispute the bill they sent you, that overcharges you by 25%. They act like they don't in all sorts of nifty ways. But they're only acting. Used to be a time when customer service was the best way to run a business. But business woke up one day, and realised that if you treat your customers like utter shit, they would feel small and powerless, and then you could take better advantage of them. You could bully them, and they would fold. And you could use the law to send them into a spiral of debt whenever you wanted, even if they didn't owe you anything. You could blacklist their credit rating.

So they did all that, and so much more, and eventually people took on the same mentality they took on with the Government 2 party system. If we don't sign with Telstra, we'll have to sign with Optus. Or AATP, or whoever. They are all the same.

Well, they are all the same, but you as a consumer don't need to sign with any of them. Do you want free calls, local and international? Get broadband, and use an application called Skype. "But you need a phone line to have broadband." No you don't. Wireless broadband is freely available all over the place right now, and even better- soon you won't even need that. You can get it down your power lines. If everyone did this, Telstra would be crippled, and they wouldn't be so cavalier and "fuck you, public!" about everything, would they? And once tech companies get a whiff of the public demand, we will have wireless internet protocols retrofitted to mobile phones, so all calls will be made over the internet, wirelessly, from a pda instead of a cellphone. Then Telstra will be dead.

Sounds great, right? Shame it will never happen.

Because all of the somnambulist hoi polloi out there in Australia will keep Telstra up and running, buying the latest mobiles with features they don't need (seriously people- a 1.5 mega pixel camera in your phone is just a cheap gimmick. Can't you see that?) on the latest plans, so they can take throwaway pictures of all their shitfaced friends at work drinks on Friday night. They'll do it in the same way they consume alcohol in such needless and destructive volumes, driving V8's and SUV's, smoking, and buying Kelly Clarkson and Tamara Jaber records. It's fun partying, isn't it? The ship's been sinking for 100 years, but it's ok- the radio is still on.

And that is why I say- "Go fuck yourselves Australia."

Actually, Frank Zappa kinda said it first, but you know what i mean. So forgive me if I don't play along and go apeshit when I see Johnny Knoxville, who is nothing more than a paid model with dialogue, in protracted product placement spots we call motion pictures. He's getting paid to sell you , and you're waiting in line to go down on him for the priveledge? Oh my God people! If someone doesn't have a 20-million dollar video and is singing about how horny they are, you don't want to dance to it any more. There are independent movie makers and actors and musicians and artists and poets and dancers out there who do nothing all day but think, plan, practice, and perfect their art. And you (generally) will never know about them, unless they turn into George Lucas or Spielberg (Like Lucas and Spielberg did). And if you do know about them, you won't care because Kyle Sandilands from Austereo didn't tell you they rock. And that's the bit that makes me laugh the most. If Kyle Sandilands tried to tell me anything at all, I'd punch him dead in the face. Who died and made that total nonentity a voice of the nation? His taste in music reads like a who's who of no talent in the top 40 charts, and yet he is the arbiter of style for our current selection of popular culture? He's got about as much soul as a Telstra exec. Not surprising really, seeing as they are both in the biz of moving units, and not of art at all.

If you're in Melbourne, go to Gertrude Street before 5, and check out the Artholes gallery, then go a few doors down to the Intruder gallery. Seriously, go look at some art. Some really fresh shit, today, before it turns up in a commercial for sneakers (and it so will). And listen to PBS or any other radio station that might introduce you to a band like The Shags, or Diamanda Galas, or The Drones, or Dr Dooom for fucks sake. Have you heard of Dead Frenchmen yet? Why not? The Melbourne Fringe Festival is on, you can't avoid theatre right now, but 95% of this city will cunningly find a way. Go to Russel Street in the city and buy some transexual porn DVD's for $10 each without the covers. Do anything, but make it different from usual. If you've got the balls to do it, and break out of your comfy little mold, you will never stop thanking me. You'll laugh more, you'll cry more, you'll confront yourself in ways you never knew existed, because real art is like that.

Get down with the bones in the meat, I dare you. Be your own star. There's a hot catchphrase for you. Drop $20 on the street and walk away. Spend a night in jail for punching Kyle Sandilands in the face, or better still, get his girlfriend utterly shitfaced and fuck her in his car. Then ring up the Salvation Army and see if there's any way you can help them out one Saturday a month, feeding people who are starving or something. Think about your own body rotting and full of maggots, and then think about if you still really love your job. Walk somewhere. Push a 12 gauge needle right through the head of your penis. No, seriously...do it. It's just meat, it's gonna rot off one day anyway. Besides, if you clean it, in a week you'll never know you did it in the first place. And if you jerk off the same day you did it, you will come harder than you ever imagined possible. That's the power of contrast people, it's what happens when you take the road less travelled, stop being such a pussy, and give your body/mind/whatever something to marinate in. It's what happens when you're alive, and you're not so concerned with controlling everything. You have to struggle to be happy, did you even know that? Yin and yang, the jedi vs.sith, contrast contrast contrast.

Stop lining up to see movie stars and go make a movie. Because I would sincerely love to see it, and so would Cameron Diaz.

-this is knifey, from 'the internet'.

Poetry. is kool.

i have to confess -

EVERY SECOND, of every day, and especially of every night, i am waiting. i am waiting for this thing i believe, but i have never known for real. i have felt the total absence of it in your breath as it passes, the vacuum it leaves. i have seen it in others, i have seen others see it. they have moved through it like snakes in a fire, like bearings through oil, like her fingers as she smears you, so she can wear you to school. slowly, with their eyes closed, and with total purpose carved into every line of their faces, every atom of their auras. everything they are. i wait by my open window, and hold my breath at every sound, every voice. my heart pounds, my ears ring. my breath catches. i do it so often i can see in the dark. i hide like a pervert, raping every passer with my eyes. this whole city like a dirty tv screen. and sometimes i explore, i climb in, i go to look. to investigate. my ears pulling my eyes back into slits, so keen and ready for the moment. the moment when you pass through some invisible membrane, clear, but you can feel it. your skin tightens and relaxes, and suddenly you sweat and your eyes are wide, as your arm shoots out to grab at anything that will keep you balanced, as your knees weaken and your voice fails, like the first time you ever came, shocked that so much of you just came out of you, relieved to be free of the poison of your load that leaves you drained and exhalted all at once. and the air is dancing across your face, and you can feel every particle of each element of air, as it kisses you and twists away, looking over its shoulder at you like all of your best loves. like summer romance, like a prelude to murder. yeah, they dance through it. some people seem to live their whole lives in it. never waking up in the afternoon, and having to lie extremely still as you try to reconcile and remember who and where you are, and wishing you could squeeze back into the dream you just fell out of, whatever it was. the moment is when your ears pick up the faint boom boom boom like a heartbeat, that explodes when you pass, waves of bass slamming right through you, bringing news of the outside world to the most remote areas of your internal geography. and you know, for the first time in your whole entire life that this is what life is meant to be, the missing ingredient of your every breath so far, where you're proud and naked and shining like fireflies in an ice cave. and the air smells sweet but not too sweet, because the greatest things in this universe exist only in the faintest of traces. and gravity takes its hands from off your shoulders, and you breathe in more than you ever knew you could, and hold it in case you suddenly wake up. you see the moment every day. in an ad. or a movie, in a song. artists and actors holding it up like a flag on the peak of a mountain. showing you the shiny plastic phantom dildo that fucks you without ever really being there, like the economy, or a holy inquisition. like the metaphor of a metaphor. i caught a trace of a moment once in a while. girls in cars. the beginning of a road trip. a million dollars. but it never lasts, never stays. moments are evaporative, alcohol on hot stones. snowballs in hell. sperm in the sauna. not very nice after all. this is why you never want to find a second hand moment. living vicariously is a sad compromise to the hunt of your own fresh moment, even if you never actually find one. dream your own dreams. don't settle for licking up some ad execs old ones.



cats don't have a moment. they are sour and sleepy. they have no need for greatness, just the blood of small animals, the cries of mice. they ignore moments, because cats are evil, and human moments irrelevant. dogs, however, know. they don't have moments of their own, but they see them everywhere, and strain at the leash, to drag you closer to see.




i just bought a brand new apple G5, with a flat panel monitor, and a bunch of other nifty shit.
i slowly unwrapped it, sitting in total silence, the tearing of plastic and my curses as i tried to unlock the boxes the only sound.
i did it because i wanted to see if it really would make me feel better.
i did it to see if all that shiny aluminium and white plastic could induce in me some kind of relevatory and numinous experience.
my afternnon life as the side of a bus.
as the life giving energy of an ad for a machine.
i plugged it all together...slowly and evenly...like it was holy.
and when i turned it on, i waited with baited breath for the door to blow right off its hinges in a shower of splinters, and the whole world to suddenly come shuddering into my room and ears and eyes, choking me and pinning me down with all of its force and majesty and complicated molecules and gases.
making me its bitch, taking me without a trace of tenderness or love. making me want more.
making me need it.
beg for it.
maybe i expected too much, i don't know.
i hoped it would fill me with inspiration, and i would break the seal off my writers block, and the colours and forms and shapes would flow faster and faster into a an orgiastic melange of all that i am. i hoped it would eat the scab, right in front of me.
and i would sweat and breathe harder and bite my lip til it bleeds, frantically typing and clicking and scrolling the canvas bigger and bigger suddenly standing and throwing the keyboard through the air with both hands and swinging it punching random keys as art manifested itself despite me, using me like i was its willing one night stand, giving my flesh and my fluids for the greater good of art and liberty and pure expression and magnificence.
knowing i would never amount to anything, giving up my bones so the art could feed.
peeling me back and exposing me.
reading my diary.
because true honesty has to hurt.
it has to it has.
but as beautiful as it looks, its corporate logo luminescing just like the bible says it did in eden,
i wasn't transported miraculously into the private club where rich consumers go to die.
still on the outer fenceline, looking at pare nirvana from across the highway.
from across the mini-put and the shopping mall.
from the dumpster behind avis and 7-11.
from the abandoned hatchback on the edge of the spiritual ghetto.
too far away to even smell.
cut the juice.


This is knifey, from 'the internet'.