until further notice

 * * * OFFICIALLY CLOSED FOR THE SEASON * * *

Until further notice.

After ignoring you so dastardly I can hardly bear to type once more yet I must. You see, it is over. Our brief fling. There is no love here, just barren pastures and plains salted with our tears... well my tears - if I cried. And now I'm just babbling mind vomit. Oh well.

You see I have found someone else. But it's not just that. We both knew this was never going to work. I've always had an odd affection for journals and writing and all that whatnot. And blogging is that without the positive hideousness of reviewing strangely cramped scribbles or my well documented battle with that fiend, correct spelling. Yet there was something rum between us from the get go. 

I'm a ranter not a sharer. I can't do this. The commitment, the intimacy. The obligation. It's all to much. Maybe we rushed into things. Who knows. But whatever we had, whatever this was - it's got to stop and it's got to stop now. This isn't healthy for either of us. One day, I hope we can be friends again. Perhaps even learn to get to know each other again. But for now... it's goodbye and good luck.

That is all, there isn't anymore...

panic. don't panic. then panic some more.

This is a call to all ye dispossessed, come out of the cold and join the joy for a feast is to begin. A feast I say! Come, come; can you not see the sharks orbiting in ever decreasing circles? For there is blood in the water. Ah, cryptic, no?


I am speaking (rather haltingly) of the crisis that is upon us!

Tivo as a form of political oppression, numbing our minds into submission?
The Australian government's pathetic excuse of a support program for alternative energy and failure to take meaningful measures to reduce this country's contribution to Climate Change?
Rampant alcoholism, teenage suicide, angry beavers, avian flu or the sudden unprovoked cancellation of Farscape? Perhaps it's the rate of homeless that die in supposed first world countries every day?

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

This is more catastrophic milk-less cookies.
This is a bigger calamity than sold out tickets to a Led Zep Again concert.
This is more heartbreaking than when Elmo left Grouchland.
This is Apocalypse Now, baby... without all the fun shooting.

It is snowing in the desert and Red Square is green but as always the eyes of a nation turn to the most important event in our fair planets current history... And pray what is foremost in the hearts and minds of Australian's this festive season?

The credit crunch. The global stockmarket collapse. The financial meltdown.

Meltdown... meltdown? Where have I heard that word before? Oh yes, climate meltdown. A phrase scientists were 'suggested' not to use when speaking to the public as it might 'cause alarm'. Total planetary systems collapse. That is what we may face.

And why are we unable to do anything about reducing this problem? Oh yes, because the economy might suffer. And the jokes on us because it collapsed anyway. Since my grandmother entered, and later exited, the workforce the economy has collapsed three times. Three.

Guess how many times we can survive the environment collapsing?
I don't really want to know, do you?

I'm tired of the mixed messages capitalists governments send us...

Save. Spend. Save. Spend.

Don't panic. The terrorists could strike anywhere, anytime.

You are fine. Australia's children increasingly overweight. Public hospitals are understaffed and underfunded. Look at all the money we are giving public health care. Waiting lists are endless.

Use public transport. Rail lines require a massive overhaul. Mismanagement. Mistakes. We are confindent in the management of NSW rail system. Minister for Rail and Public Transport replaced today.

Be carbon neutral. The economy is more important. Spending on the evironment means less economic growth. The economy isn't in recession it's just slowing down. 10 BILLION dollars to prevent recession. Just 500 million to alternative energy research. We are focused on climate change. A target of 5% announced today. Pathetic.

Give me a dictatorship anyday. At least then we don't have to pretend they govern in our interests.

it has begun...

And who are we to mock it?

All for the love of Stan

Comrades the time, it is near.

It is a mere matter of days till I reach adulthood (legally) and can take my place amongst my peers with pride, honor and an extremely smug expression.

The 28th is a fine day, my friends, a fine day.

But even I, notoriously reticent where feelings are involved, can not help but shed a tear at the swift passage of time {insert gentle sobbing here}

Okay moment's over.

It's time to PARTY amigo, party like life's worth living... I can vote, drink, marry a total stranger without my parents consent, sign myself out of or in to anything, go to a paintball park to be pelted with painful balls of congealed paint, and did I mention vote!!

Yes, that's right I, stock teenager number three, can cast my opinion on something more important that the endless mindconsuming euthanasia of the formal, the prowess of the predominant sporting team (football, cricket, for me it's soccer), or which fading TV celebrity can do the cha-cha better. Something relevant, something real.

Politics run's your life. Every detail of trivial minutia impacted upon by decisions we are not privy to, can not change or discuss. The one thing we can do is vote for which group of people are making those decisions. We get to choose who sits in the power chair, it will never be us, but we can make sure it's not the group who openly want to screw us for all we've got.

[enough rant, deep breath, moving on]

On the slightly less wonderful side I can now also enjoy the freedom to pay for the overpriced gas, rent, phone bills, water usage, food, etc. which is just dandy. Plus I have to buy a whole heap of things like pans, plates, coffee machine, cups, bowls, iron, ironing board, ironing board cover, new bed since my old one is just a mattress on a bunch of upside down milk crates roped together... and being a poor, penny-pinching student I guess I'll have to buy all these things with my invisible gold coins Pippy Longstocking lent to me...

But seriously folks, things are looking up. Independence. Has a nice ring to it, huh?

Or indi-pen-dance as my three year old cuz likes to say. I've always wondered how exactly would an indi pen dance? Some thing to mull over on a rainy day... like When is Jebus coming back? He just left one day to buy some redemption and never came back... or Why would any one agree to be the drummer in Spinal Tap? and Who invented tooth picks?

October Revolution, this is your captain speaking.

'And yeah, the revolution starts now/
In your own backyard, in your own hometown'

The October Revolution

Amigo, my name is mud.

I am a writer; a most precarious form of employment. I spend my day's reading, drinking ridiculously bad (yet reasonably priced) black coffee and occationally gesturing wildly with my pen whilst melodramatically posturing about something historical.

I am, amongst other things, also a student. So the reading, bad coffee and posturing all goes on rather endlessly until one of two things happens: either I slowly sink into the foetal position, rocking backwards and forwards to the beat of my friends yelling 'Shanti! Shanti!' or I begin to find lemons (all citrus really) immeasurably amusing and can't stop laughing till the tears arrive. If you find this hard to relate to, don't worry... so do I.

By nights Mighty Mouse and I fight felony and minor misdemeanours on the upper east side.
Think Sonny and Cher (the early years), Bonnie and Clyde, Rumple and Stiltskin...

I answer to Harvey, hey you, Est Cashew and on more than one occasion to the charming endearment of 'bill-face'. That is: a face that would suit the addition of a bill; specifically that of a platypus. Other epitaphs that I've collected over the years include tiny giant-brain head, book-whore and you cunning demented space monkey... don't you just love having friends.

I've started this blog to commemorate that turning point in my life. The moment where I stand up as a fellow carbon-based lifeform and declare, 'This is who I am, you deal'. And now I have this blog if that moment ever does come along I shall be ready to celebrate it fully...

I live on Spaceship Earth in the mindlessly similiar ghetto of Nowheresville (10 minutes from If-I-had-to-live-here-I-would-turn-to-hard-liquor), where even the suburbs have suburbs and political apathy is not minding what's on the idiot box...

Yet beyond a deep desire for coffee (tall, dark and handsome) there actually are few things I am truly passionate about. I love the land I live on (like a hamster loves the wheel) but the itch to travel consumes me. I have a rather distressing confession to make: I love politics, and naive little child that I am I believe that I can make a difference. Nietzsche's ubermensch I am not, but I do wish to reshape just a little of the universe to my will... I love to read, to learn, to be inspired by the writen word and to imagine worlds that have been, could never be, and might one day come to past. Most of all I love not just the escape but the return to reality with clear eyes.