If you meet Buddha on the road you must kill him. Excellent, but what if you meet an anti-buddha? And what if he's a pissweak fool of an anti-buddha who only wants to spend the rest of his life eating chocolates and cakes and watching Fox Sport on the TV? Can you kill him? Or is that too harsh? Me, I piked out. Instead I've spent the last four years aiding and abetting this anti-buddha (er... that would be my father) by keeping the fridge full of chocolates and cakes, and perpetually resetting the TV back to Fox Sports when he gets in a tizz and moronically sits there watching the steak knife channel. Ain't life swell.
Be warned, I hereby give the game away. Forget all that stuff about me as self-declared Buddhist railing at the death cult etc. Truth be known I'm a fellow with a heart full of hate who wishes his father was dead. If he carked it tomorrow I'd sing hallelujah. God, that's dreadful. Who the hell says such things? Perhaps I'm a small time death cult member? Or just a mamby-pamby bullshit wannabe? Perhaps I'm the death cult's Walter Mitty? Pocketa-pocketa-pocketa went his slippers as he shambled off to the toilet again and put paid to me wondering if he's dead yet. I tell you what, this dying caper would be so much quicker and easier if one didn't have to keep getting up and going to the toilet all the time. But then, thirty cups of tea a day will do that to you. Here, tea drinking, like going to the toilet, like every goddamn thing, qualifies as pathological.
What does it mean that my answer to the perennial question, 'How is your father?' has become, 'Don't ask me because I don't care. He's still alive it seems, but he's been that way for quite a while now. And shall continue, I expect, until we've all run melancholy mad. Or at least until I have...' Actually, that's the clever me. The real world me says, 'Don't ask me. I wish he was dead.' I apologise for saying it of course - I mean you have to what with the shocked look on the face of whoever's asking me. But really I'm past it now - I've ceased caring. Every second in this place has become perfectly and utterly hateful. I haven't hated a thing this much since my first year in China.
It's the mind games that got to me in the end. It's his idiot pretence that he's doing it all for other people, which is to say me since there's no one else here. Nearly four years of this shit and he's still asking me if I mind if he changes the channel. Which sounds normal until you realise that I've declared in no uncertain terms that I detest Fox Sports, that if it was up to me I'd throw the TV out the goddamn window, and that he should never ask me about changing the channel again. Ever. He's just being polite he says.
There isn't a single question I can ask him about what he'd like to do that isn't answered with, 'Well, what were you having?' I ask him if he wants any more salt and pepper and he says 'Well, what were you having?' Seriously, I'm not making that up. Now I no longer unravel the idiocy of such an answer and instead just shout at him - 'For chrissake, it's a simple question. Did you want more salt and pepper or not?' 'Er, no thank you.' Goddamn! It's like pulling fucking teeth! Every fucking time! Sign me up for the fucking death cult! Jesus!
The perversity is that I'm the author of my own misery. The only reason he's alive is because I keep calling the bloody ambulance. He'd have been dead at least four times over except for me. Trips to the emergency room aside, in between his truly insane consumption of processed sugar and grease, I pointlessly feed him healthy food. He eats half, throws out the rest and then has a piece of cheesecake. His thirty cups of tea a day is made with water I distil for him. Actually, I distil it for me but he drinks it all, about four litres a day. And that's the game we play. His role is to speed his demise and my role is to prolong it. The irony runs rampant what with him not quite wishing to die and me not quite wishing him to live. But as if anything ever made any sense here.
And then there's the retroactive aspect to it all. The nth degree perversity of my life here has cast in stark relief the fact that it was always this way. The only thing that was missing was that last little wafer thin mint to take us to the obvious conclusion. It's clear to me now that he was always a self-obsessed, self-pitying fool. I doubt that there was a man more cuckolded than my father, nor one who deserved it more. With every aspect of my childhood now viewed through this glass darkly, the family snapshots have turned into a series of Ralph Steadman illustrations.
For the last couple of years I've been wondering what I'd say at his funeral and just lately I've decided that I'm not even going to go. Fuck it. The only people who'll be there are my brothers and I've long since ceased caring what they think. Besides which, God spare me having to listen to their mawkish efforts.
Like I said - the world's crummiest Buddhist, me - a man who talks about selflessness all the time, and who goes through the motions, yet all the while his veins run with a fetid black ichor. Compassion? Compassion... I don't even know what it means anymore. Is it compassion to assist an anti-buddha in his delusional self-obsessed spiral into zombiedom? To feed him another spoonful of ashes and him with his mouth already full? The TV sport, the sweety bonbons, the silly mind games, all of it fodder for a hungry ghost who eats and eats, tasting nothing, and never to be sated. What's the point? It's all so purposeless.
Perhaps the right answer is to be possessed of limitless patience and to devote myself to his happiness. But what if the only way to make him happy was to sit and watch Fox Sport with him, be his chocolate buddy, and play the designated role in each of the various mind-game charades he perpetually comes up with? Or to put it another way, join him in his anti-buddhadom? While I'm at it, I'll buy the latest fashions, get a haircut, sign up to facebook, learn how to twitter, and join the Liberal (conservative) Party. God, I'd make his day.
He's everything I want to leave behind and yet here I am shackled to the fucker. Buddha left his wife and kids you know. Easy for him - if I left the old man would be dead in a week. If I stay he could live for years. Hoo-bloody-ray. Would anyone be surprised if I said my hair is falling out and my face is covered in a stress induced eczema? No really, I look like hell.
Oh shit, he's up now. There goes the morning. Ah, Fox Sports news. Fantastic. A fifteen minute bulletin that gets repeated over and over. And within that bulletin is a riff that gets repeated 50? 100 times? Who knows. I'd do the math except I can't think straight. How marvellously loud it is. Sing along - ♫ Dundun dader daderda dundun ♫ Dundun dader daderda dundun ♫ Dundun dader daderda dundun ♫ ad nauseam...
Run Away! Run Away! Down at the library it's time to tie things up - cue the soaring conclusion, the rolling rhythmic build up, and the step-off-the-precipice ending! Or maybe not. Nothing is a lock in and patchiness is the best you can hope for. I gotta tell you, I can barely think straight and it just gets harder and harder. So! Lest anyone wonder what's going on round at nobody's place, it could well be insanity because I've just about fucking had it.
---
But then again, the nature of monkey is irrepressible. No doubt I'll be back in a couple of days with a new peice and no one will ever know that I've secretly been going bonzo zonko. Whew! And let's hope they never find out!
54 comments:
Um... this wasn't a pitch for sympathy, so let's not.
yoroshiku
n
Christ Nobby! - or maybe that should read 'Buddah Nobby!' (doesn't have quite the same ring to it though)
That was seriously educational.
I have an itsy-bit of insight into the mindless consumption of mindless tv output thing - but nothing to compare with that.
I'll lay off the sympathy as instructed. But how about commiserations and condolences?
For what they are worth both are dispatched herewith.
LOL.
Old people are not easy! They become like naughty two year-olds. I've watched the nurses in the hospitals and marveled at how some of them seem to thrive.
- Aangirfan.
Compromise is the best policy.
Get one of those singing bowls and play it all the way through Fox news.
When he asks the silly same old questions, that have been repeated for decades, answer with a koan.
My father is 80yrs old, has suffered strokes, has a terrible short term memory. Yet still repeats the same old tales of his exploits ive heard since being a child.
As much as they bore me, I cherish the moments now, listening every word, as though it may be his last.
"Hell is not punishment,
it's training"-Shunryu Suzuki
"The most important thing is to find out
what is the most important thing"
-Shunryu Suzuki
I have always greatly enjoyed reading your intelligent and humourous blogs.
The situation you describe in this one is one that has gone on for too long and can only get more unbearable.
The choices are very limited.
The current one, possibly by default, is not fair.
You have brothers, so have a meeting, discuss the options. If you can't stand the sight or sound of them do it in writing, legally.
Hey Nobby, a very thought provoking and personal post. My favourite kind from you mate. Allow me to share a conversation I had with my mum.
A close friend of mine looked after her demented mother for a good few years, taking an amazing amount of her time, mental and physical strength. There was no doubt the old lady lived much longer for this fact and had a better quality of life because of it. The toll on my friend was a hard one, not least on her own family as she spent more time with her mum than she did them. Anyway, after she died, peacefully, my mother and I were talking about it and she made the following request. "If I ever get to such a state, put me in a home. I don't want you or your sister to have to go through that". I looked her square in the eye, and said, "really mum? If this is your request, I WILL DO IT". To what extent she was trying to unburden me of the responsibility of caring for her in old age, I'm still not sure. I told her that we'll cross that bridge if and when we come to it.
Nobby mate, between you keeping your dad alive, and me losing mine at age 60 to a heart attack there's a world of difference I'm sure you'll appreciate. I'd give anything for more time with my dad.
Don't beat yourself up old chap, and for fucks sake look after yourself. The world needs people like you, even if you are a bit of a fruitcake.
Ask yourself what WWJD - What Would Jew Do.
Off your dad
Claim the Nazis did it.
Write a million seller about it.
Live in high vegamite the rest of your life !
Seriously, I admire your tenacity.
Very few folks on the web put thought to paper
as good as you do.
Only the best to you
Dave
You should write novels Nobby. This one might be the autobiography and if so I do relate to this particular story. But thats in my recent past.
I've read those monkey's do love to play entertaining tricks.
Had a tea habbit which I've finally kicked save an occasional cuppa when Im really bored and want to party.
Did you hear the XMRV news i.e. (FDA confirmation of XMRV in CFS)
http://www.mmdnewswire.com/xmrv-9040.html
Is it genuine or another Pigs Flying Flu type scenario with the drug companies set to rip u all off and maybe kill some off us off with one stone.
Sally
Dave, that was the best response ever. still laughing...
No sympathy then . . . ok, I wasn't going to give you any in the first place, but fair enough.
A very honest piece that deserves an honest comment. So, brace yourself.
I find your piece full of contradictions in terms of your behaviour, and what you want, and what kind of person you appear to be through your writing. If your heart was truly filled with hate, you wouldn't help out your father or show him any kindness. On the other hand, if your father was really such a useless, mindless prick, you wouldn't have turned out to be a son who could care for your dad the way you say you do. Your characterisation of your father (who cannot defend himself here) seems unfair and cruel, frankly.
I also find your rationalisations for your "mean and selfish thoughts" to be pretty pitiful, and self-serving . . . pitiful, not deserving of pity at all, actually.
Nobody, I really like your writing, and appreciate all the hard research and searching you have done in your travels mate, but really - you are showing yourself to be the one who needs to pull yourself out of a rut.
You are bringing down your father with you, you understand.
If old people become like children in a lot of ways, then you as the caring adult have to buck up, show some goddamn responsibility, and set the course. Lead by example, if you want your dad to be truly healthy. From what I can guess, sleeping in and lazing about then going to the library in the afternoon only to curse at its closing because of your own laziness . . . this is not healthy, and it affects your dad. What's wrong with taking your dad out for a walk? A nature walk? Or trying to get him to tell you old family stories . . . or maybe setting him up with other potential friends? I am sure you have a million reasons why you can't do any of that, sure sure . . . but there is one much better reason to do it.
He is your dad, and you owe it to him. This, is duty.
And if you have a chance to get away for a bit, to have someone look after him or keep an eye on him for a bit (I know, that would require you setting it up, effort and all), then go . . .
. . . walk the earth. And write to us about it.
I hope you take my honesty and unasked for advice not in a defensive posture, but as from a friend who cares.
And kill the tv . . . see where it leads.
Bugger me. It's weird what brings the punters out isn't it? As irrestistible as it was for me to write this piece I somehow assumed it would bore people to tears. This in the face of the old 'please write more funny articles about the holocaust' vibe, if you can dig it.
And Slozo, quite right. I am my own variety of pitiful and self-serving. The Buddha called it dukha and I certainly have it in spades. But you're off in a few of those things. I actually get up at the crack of dawn mate. Often as not it's the only time of day I have to myself. Then it's off to yoga in the morning, back home to see if he's up and make lunch for him if he is, and then back on the bus to go back to the library (which is only 50 metres from the yoga joint). Then I go home to see if he's up and make dinner.
The old man usually gets up sometime between 3 and 9 pm has something to eat, gobbles some sleeping tablets, which after years of abuse make him wide awake, and he then sits watching TV until 4 or 5 in the morning. My bedroom is right next to the TV. I wear earplugs pretty much all night, every night.
As for taking him out for a walk etc. you won't mind if I quietly roll my eyes will you? Attempts to have him do healthy useful things were all tried and abandoned in the first few months. The only purpose it served was to give him ammunition for mind games. Oh, look how I'm made to suffer. It's an expression on his face that I know very, very, well. Besides which his hip is a disaster and he's pretty much housebound. Also his cancer has come a long way and he seems to be perpetually exhausted. His monthy trip to the oncologist leaves him completely shattered.
For the record he has multiple myeloma, a thrice rebuilt and now useless hip, a stent for his aorta with a couple of heart attacks either side, a mini-stroke (watching that in real time was intense, like Dave being unplugged in 2001), and Alzheimers. Well I think it's Alzheimers. Or it could just be bloody-mindedness. It's hard to tell, and he refuses to be checked for it.
Sure enough there's a lot missing from this story. I could tell you tales of the last four years that make One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest look like a bunch of actors pretending.
There was a time when chocolate, biscuits, cakes, ice cream, custard, creme caramels, cheesecake, and petit choux comprised over 90% of his caloric intake. Don't try this at home kids because the resultant diarrhoea is just too awful. Insanely he declared that my cooking was at fault. God knows what he told the doctors - no doubt he lied through his teeth and blamed me. Not forgetting that a side effect of his then chemo was supposedly constipation. Ha!
Anyway the doctor wrote him a fistful of scrips for anti-diarrhoea pills which was a bit like throwing tampons into a broken dam. He shat himself stupid for months rather than alter his diet. His bed, the carpet, the walls, the floor, all perpetually spattered in shit. For months. The only thing comparable would be a smack addict. After some truly insane scenes (anyone seen that movie Hurly Burly? Actually don't it's awful, but if you have you'll know what I'm talking about), he cut his consumption of sugar and grease back to about 75% of his caloric intake. He now only goes to the toilet about 10-12 times a day and hasn't shat himself for ages. (ha ha ha, I'd loooooove to tell you about the 'superturds' but really it's just too awful)
Anyway Slozo, you're kind of half right mate. Oh, long comment. Time to hit 'publish'.
Hey Nobody,..Fuck'n great mate! You are a Lej' mayyyte, cooee!
Go troppo Nob' it's your perogative (grin)and good onya'rold man for eating chokkies and cake - this act of civil disobedience is a revolutionary act of defiance. Tell pops that veritas6464 fully supports his sitt'n on 'is arse. I luv it!
Power to the arm-chair revolutionaries!
"Venceremos companeros! Non Pasaran!"
Pee-gee!
Otherwise folks, what absurdly sensible people you all are. I'm constantly amazed. And three cheers to the new people. Lovely to have you. As for me writing a novel/autobiography, I've decided that that's what this blog is. It's my autobiography. Even when I'm writing about something else I'm actually just writing about me.
And yes it's true that this is a wank argument that could be applied to all artifice, but it stands regardless. Anyway, between the front page and the rant in the comments here I look forward to leaving the confessional behind. At least for a while.
Yoroshiku
Hey Nobody,..You think you are going nuckin' futz. How's this for the title of my next attempted Novel "And Satan's Penis Laughed Out Loud" - Who'd publish that fucker, eh? Warburg Secker of New York? Penguin Classics?
When you rename your Blog 'Satan's Penis' I'll accept your self-diagnosis of insanity - until such time you are The Nobody to me - POWER TO THE NOBODY!(grin)
Nameste or 'The Light in me (torch in my mouth, grin) recognises the light in you (the torch in your mouth)'.
D'ya remember doin' that as a kid?...Hehehehheeehhh!
Nameste always makes me smile...
Nameste brother,
PG.
not for publication nobody.
thought i was signing in and put my e mail address on the last comment.
would you be so kind as to remove it.
thanks guv.
Duly Done Su. No worries. I've done precisely that thing myself. Here is Su's comment cut and pasted:
Su said...
ha nobody.
it is 5 in the morning.
snow on all the mountains.
fucking freezing and yet i find myself sitting in front of my computer in the coldest room of the house.
click, click, oil wells, football, click , click.
and then i happen upon this and the most enormous laughter just erupted.
brilliantly honest, completely understandable.
no words of pontification or advise except to echo what nisargadatta answered when someone asked him what the purpose of life was - he said living.
and that is what it is all about.
hopefully consciousness gets tired of that particular expression soon and another reality will unfold, but for now you sure are living.
and sharing.
and i am still laughing.
i could tell you about my mother in law who lives with us - but it could not touch sides with your experiencing.
Oh and PG. I'll have one of whatever you're having mate. Don't you go changing now...
BTW Idiot Savant has pointed me at a very cool article that he found and translated. Wotta guy. It's a Gulf of Mexico oil disaster as a prediction made a hundred years ago. And wait until you see who made it - a proper heavy in the usual suspects crowd.Have a read.
Nobby
Is the Idiot Savant you mention the one from NRT.
Nobes --
Pablo just got back to me. NO. Only boiled spuds, but you can add mustard maybe (plain) or apple cider vinegar. All else, NO.
It's mom. The wife and I, that is. My mom. Drives the wife nuts and me into long spasms of overtime at the requisite Job I Hate. Worse. The wife and I are not Buddhist. Or anything else. We have NO ONE TO KILL. Good thing too. If I were a christian I would have nailed that bugger up again by now, I swear.
Pablo also says go easy on the skins. But otherwise knock yourself out and you will feel the Sun Within in no time. People have achieved satori in three days time, so share this information carefully.
Your life reminds me a lot of mine, nobs, you looser (sic). Except I live in a *sleepy* seaside community with *both* my parents. And my father watches the Holocaust Channel, I mean the Hitler Channel, I mean the WWII Channel, sorry, I mean the *History* Channel, constantly. (He missed out on being shipped off to die in WWII by a matter of months, and has regretted it ever since.) I'm at the delicate stage where if I bail on them now I won't be considered to be a total louse, but unfortunately I've failed to make any plans to abscond, as yet.
Anyway, Rudd got the bullet today. You don't get too far in this world when you make plans to introduce a new tax on the mining industry, do you?
Peter D
Nobby
Why don't you put a paypal donate button on your site. We need you online. Youv'e posted yet another very important link for us. I.e. The oil spill prophesy ( conspiracy? )
Do you have a computer at home that will connect to the net.
Maybe you need to get out of the house.
Even so I'm sure some of us would like to send you a small donation sometimes for all your trouble. Hey you could get your hair cut if you had a fleeting wish to do so.
I don't think spirituality is about austerity. You do need peace though and too many desires can completely tie you up and prevent you moving forward. I think we all have the challenge of mundane responsibilities and mental noise triggering our learned and natural habitual desires.
To a large extent learning is via mimicry and repetition when we are small. Forming habbit patterns is integrel to a structured life. Being a creature of habbit is a natural normal part of life but like everything is also fraught with imperfections.
Peace and light
Sally
G'day Nobody,
I see that I'm not the only one who found himself in this latest piece. You opened up quite a bit, and I thank you for that.
You seem to be so much more multi-faceted than I first imagined. Very intelligent, articulate and skilled at self-examination. I'm not much into anything religious, but it appears you do well as a human being, walking the Earth and commenting on what you see and your reactions and insights. I'm glad for your presence.
onya,
Nick T. (formerly just Nick)
I myself, am going to refrain from comment except to say.
I found this personal, for personal reasons
It is a difficult to be unwell.
It is hard on the person, it is hard on those around them.
It sucks, and you will do what you must. So will your Dad.
Life is just like that.
big hugz noby...
cj's in toronto, his daddy is slipping... i hav a feeling, it'll get quite ugly b4 it's over...the dementia, especially the kind that is hosp induced and peaking in the dark... can be quite chaos generating and mentally degenerating... sigh..
it's been a month or more since he went up there... i'm glad he was able to go....
jack has had a good life..
i wish he'd just go on.. ya know?
of course you know.........
our neighbors next door, cute old couple.. 80's... the wife just passed... it was was mercifully quick... she has no idea how lucky she was..
just outta the shower.. clean hair, underwear, etc..
boom.. gone...
now weeks later, his grown kids have moved him to an expensive assisted living setup....he's missing an eye to cancer, and is on dialysis.. everybody thought he'd be first... hmmm. death, the trickster...
i'll miss them both.. they've been good neighbors... watched my girls grow up.. easter candy.. halloween.. bday stuff :)
get the hell outta the house man... it'll be there when ya get back.. you need the break.
to slozo...*foreheadsmack!*
we have no fuking idea how much noby has gone thru...
don't you know caregiver burnout when you see it??
Ok, ok . . . I knew I was going out on a limb without going back through potentially years of posts I hadn't ever read before and even then I was guessing at some things . . . and of course, I did guess badly wrong on some counts, Nobody.
For that I do apologise, mate - again, was not meant to be indictful, only as a commentary from how the writing sounded to me.
If anything, it may be an indictment on the way I perceive most people as lazy liars, and you sir, are not one bit a lazy liar. It would have been so easy for you to lay into me quite a bit with your explanation on where I guessed wrong, but instead, you actually showed great calmness and picked out the few things I might have touched on that were sorta close.
Without myself getting into the kind of detail you get into (sorry mate), I have a crazy dad too. One that certainly doesn't require the kind of care that yours does - and besides, he lives with my sister and probably helps her out way more than she does for him - but I have lived with my crazy dad in the past, and I can begin to understand the situation. My dad, already a bit bipolar, had a sever head trauma, see - a guy beat him on the head with a metal bar at work until almost dead - and he's got issues. That, and he has a violent temper for a big guy, and he threatened to kill his son-in-law a while back (but God told him not to, emphasised by myself, who has no great love for this bro-in-law), and he mentally abuses my mom, but she won't leave him, etc etc etc. Every family has issues, is how I describe it.
But my point is, I think I was trying to write to you that, in the end, I realised - after the third time in my life that my dad disowned me for answering him truthfully - that it was my duty to be there for him. No matter what. Yes, I would later suffer (and probably will in the future, no doubt) under numerous retarded things . . . calling myself and my wife a communist and cutting off all contact for a week at a time; making my wife cry by berating her on how she is a liar trying to break up the family; making my mom stay with us for a week or more to get away from him; etc etc. I realised that life is short, and that although my dad whines about how he knows he is going to die cause he saw it in a dream (first and second predictions have come and gone, I anxiously await a third), he might have a few good years left, and darn it, I should try my best to help his journey. I feel that, because I came to realise how much of a positive influence he was in many areas, and thank goodness, because there were a few really bad areas in there too.
We tend to remember the bad, and forget the good, when dealing with the shit at the time . . . but if we two men, you and I, are able right now to have this conversation over the intraweb, with all the maturity and self-introspection (well, you, anyways ;)) shown here, well . . . the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree usually.
And when I get old and crazy (but not TOO crazy, I hope), I sincerely hope my daughter and child to be can handle me with some dignity, some loyalty, and some love . . . as you have written here about your service to your dad.
Keep up the good work, mate.
Actually it did occur to me that what I'm doing here is bitching about a member of my family. Pretty common stuff with very little to recommend it. It also occurred to me that there'd be people out there who could comfortably top my story. I think the reason I wrote it was by way of explanation as to my non-attendance or otherwise erratic behaviour. That month-long stoner's holiday was precisely in response to all that.
Never mind all that, I think I ought to see if I can answer some of these questions / suggestions etc.
Is Idiot Savant from NRT? I don't know. What's NRT? He was in the comments here for a while and since then seems to email me a lot. He's a regular guy, best I can tell.
Spuds with nothing. Ayah! Mind you, I did have a bit of a read about biophotons and best I could make out, cooking kills them. So I'm a bit confused. I'm currently learning how to make a superior baba ghanoush. My hommous is already a winner.
As for Rudd, I don't know that it was the miners wot dunnit. If Gillard repeals the mining tax then we'll know for sure.
The way I figure it - everyone voted for Rudd because he wasn't Howard (and was palatable because Rupes had declared he appear that way). Then we found out that he no different to Howard at all and that his charm was entirely illusory. Honestly, in the bloke we'd like to have a beer with stakes he was a complete failure. Okay, so he was going to lose the next election and thus he had to go.
And crucially, Gillard is pro-Israel. And if she's prepared to suck up to that blood-stained shithole of a country then the bankers can relax safe in the knowledge that she'll never take them on. A la Latham, that is.
-snip-
-snip-
Paypal? Ayah. We're in some really weird territory here. Fact is, I don't have a bank account. There's several reasons for this, and all of them idiotic. The problem with taking a principled position on a thing (ie. usury and giving my money to usurers) is that you end up disappearing up your own arse.
Okay so there's that, and also the fact that I groove on the concept of a gift economy and giving things away for free. Of course in a gift economy you receive what you need in return, and no such mechanism exists here, but, you know, whatever... Otherwise, money isn't really the problem. The old man gets his army pension and that pays for food and shelter and occasional outlays like this laptop.
Oh I just remembered! I actually qualify for a carer's pension but don't take it. Admittedly I didn't think I'd be here for very long and here I am years later having passed up the opportunity for over $50,000... What an idiot. I did troop around to the welfare office thingy on account of someone telling me that you could get paid retrospectively. A lump sum like that would be really useful when the old man dies and I'm out on my arse. The welfare people instantly sussed me out as a bullshit artist and said if I wanted to jump through a series of hoops I could begin the pension from that day onwards. I thanked them for their time and walked out. "Ha ha, see! He was a bullshit artist!"
Anyway, I appreciate the thought but it's all a bit pearls-before-swinish, if you know what I mean. It'll be a different story when the old man dies but by then it'll be too late, ha ha.
I'm just hell-bent, ain't I?
Oh! And the net needs me? No it doesn't! Ha ha ha ha ha ...the things people say, honestly.
Otherwise thanks to all the good hearts with their kind words.
May I just add that were the old man to read this, he'd be shocked, really quite staggered. Mostly it's a conversation that goes on in my head. When I say I shout at him this is done quite sparingly and only when he's being particularly idiotic. Most of the time I'm perfectly pleasant to him. He has no idea that I am Un hombre en el borde de un ataque de nervios (sorry, little Almovodar joke there).
Mind you, there's a fear in his eyes and it wouldn't surprise me that it pivots on me leaving. I'd say that this acts as a check on him heading into truly nasty territory. That and the citalopram, ha ha. (think prozac).
No, NO. You cannot kill LIGHT.
You release some as you boil them and the rest as you eat them. Sure, if you want LOTS of light, eat them raw. Not even Pablo recomments eating plain potatoes raw, but I suppose that's the purists way to do it. As long as I have potable water anywhere near me, they get boiled.
Terrific with cheap yellow mustard AND apple cider vinegar, BTW. Just smash up the spuds and squirt away. And the dreams...
Go and get the carer's payment, for crying out loud.
You could spend half of it on your own needs ($10 a week on an internet connection - you won't know yourself!), and the other half on your favourite good cause - think of it as an opportunity to spend tax dollars more wisely than the government is capable of doing themselves. Your already saving tax dollars by caring for your father instead of letting it fall to community services to take care of him.
Of course, you'll have to go out and get a bank account as well. Here you go: withdraw all of your money the day it goes into your account each fortnight - that should solve the moral dilemma of being a participant in a corrupt system. Except the're gonna stick you for fees. You should know, they're gonna stick you for fees. Perhaps, throw a brick through their shopfront window once a year to balance the books!?
Oops - the above was me - Peter D
hub'z daddy passed tonite, round 9:30EDT...
he's been a month and more in hosp failing slowly...
it's over now... thank god.
and..
godspeed jack, you're free.
FB
So there I was in the Ardennes having a week of total computer deprivation and in the meantime all this goes up. However the deprivation was only illusory, lying awake in the middle of the night remarking on how free from bronchitis the birds in the trees were in this part of the world and trying to decipher if they were tweeting in a French accent when all of a sudden Mr Nobs popped into my head. It all revolved around my seconding Sabs rather forthright request that you continue with this blog and how that was so un-selfless, lets get into spade calling, it was downright selfish of us. Not only that but you being a self confessed selfless person realising our need for your thought processes to give out mundane lives an uplift should continue with it on our behalf. But then I realised that if we were true disciples of your message then we should lead by way of example and encourage you to shut it down. You, then realising that we were actually saying what we didn’t mean just in order to be nice to you would then continue with it anyway. Excuse me, is this the right room for an argument.
This led me to the conclusion that selflessness and selfishness are like right and left, good and bad, up and down in that one is meaningless without the other. If selfishness does not exist then selflessness has no meaning. This brings me nicely to your present conundrum, as I see it you are well down the road of burning out and you NEED a break before you break but taking positive action will leave you with a guilt trip. There may be a middle way for you at least to consider. The next time the old man sees his oncologist pop in with him and tell the doctor that out of the two of you it is you who needs the citalopram the most but if you take it then it is the doctors responsibility if you suddenly take it into your head to shoot up the local high school. Otherwise can he liaise with the social services to give you a break to get your head back together? Maybe you can arrange for him to go to a happy home of perpetual sunlight and Fox Sport for six weeks then you have him home for six weeks and so on. That will get you off the hook and give you some time to recover without the guilty feelings.
Slozo, you are dead right, every family has a situation to a greater or lesser extent.
Sally, I just thought you should be aware of this.
http://www.paypalsucks.com/
And did it occur to you that Mr N might not have an internet connection because he doesn’t want an IP address?
Hello Anon
Yes it did occur to me that Nobody might want to conceal his IP. Other sites such as Empire Burlesque do have donate buttons so I thought it may be a possibility. I have long given up trying to conceal who I am and am pretty sure I'm under surveillance which seems to step up when I make any attempt to inform the public who for the most part don't care or want to know anyway. The SIS have 6700 kiwis on their books and I'll wager I'm one of them.
I don't have the energy to worry too much about security and may one day pay the price for that. Admittedly that curtails what I allow myself to do.
I just managed to get back online today as my laptop power connection packed a sad.
Sally
The people who hang around here... honestly! You guys knock me for six. (= hit me out of the ballground ~ kind of thing).
Peter D. Thanks mate. I had thought of this but the bit about smashing the window is the icing on the cake. Bravo. You'll be pleased to know that everyone tells me to get the pension. And they're right of course.
The flipside is what FB and Sally are on about. I could try to dazzle everyone with the list of spooks who've visited this site but really it comes under the heading 'big deal'. No one gives a shit about a blog that's scoring a couple hundred hits a day.
Even as is, with no IP and me unregistered with any branch of the government there's tons of clues here to identify me. Just me saying my father is a colonel who has multiple myeloma instantly narrows the list of candidates down to a thousand or so people. Hell, it might be as few as a hundred.
Honestly, if I was a spook who had access to all government databases I could figure me out in a couple of hours. Not forgetting of course that I actually published my first name here once. And once at Pen's. And once at Buffy's. And in numerous emails to people. I'm bloody hopeless, aren't I?
So I expect you're right Sal, and that it's a fool's errand. But I don't know... I never said I wasn't a fool did I? Ha! Ally Oop and there you are.
Speaking of which, FB! Bravo! I find myself utterly stumped in the disappearing-up-his-own-arse stakes. You swine! How can I top that?
Silliness aside, you're actually on to something here. Funnily enough, I've been rolling precisely such thoughts around in my head, attempting to make sense of them for a while now. Complete selflessness is a nonsense concept.
Oh wait! I'm not going to write about it here. I just realised that you've provided me with the conclusion for a piece I've been dicking around with for the last week. It was going nowhere that wasn't mawkish and so I'd consigned it to the scrap heap and started up on the next one. But now I can fish it out and finish it. Yay! I'm really pleased because it's got an excellent photo of one of my favourite people as a lead in. Cool. Back later.
Oh and the piece after that is really fascinating. It's been doing my head in and I can't wait to see what everyone thinks. It's why I wrote it, truth be known.
Yoroshiku
Oh, and Kikz. Sorry to hear about your husband's father. And here I am demeaning the whole thing. Dreadful.
And more fool I - not that I wondered why I'd never read a piece like this before, but had I done so I doubt the thought because it's insensitive would have occurred to me. Apologies if they're needed and I do hope the family are all bearing up. Best.
Oh boy, I could have written that, substitute chocolate for cookies and donuts, butter and toast.
I think you saw my own post on these lines, far shorter, as in "I just don't fucking care anymore".
I've copied and sent this to my sis, since her work won't let her onto your site (government and all).
Anyway, I hear you and as you know can totally relate. Though, I've taken a break, he's in a home for two weeks. I have slept pretty much all weekend and ignored phonecalls made from his 'location'. (Not the important ones as those in the know have another number for me in emergencies).
It's heartwrenching Nobody, I find myself thinking things which frankly shock me, fighting urges which I've never felt before and aren't pretty - at all. Now he is bitching that they won't let him have more salt, or that the dinners there are for the birds... yeah well whatever Dad, at least I'm not having to make it only to hear you whine and bitch - where are my cookies?
Last week he ate a quarter pound of butter on two pieces of white bread - you can imagine what the bathroom looked like after the inevitable explosion. I need a hazmat suit.
Do you have respite in Aus? If so, do it if only for a week, I'm almost feeling somewhat normal now, but this too shall pass.
Oh, and while your hair is falling out, I've discovered my first greys, and yep, my skin is a disaster and the samsonites are getting bigger every day under the old eyeballs.
Oh well - so the band plays on...
Buffy
thanks noby..
no apologies necessary... you demeaned nothing..
you shared honest feeling about an untenable/unbearable situation that is sitting on your head/chest.
i'd mentioned it.. just wanted ta update ya on the situation.
it is resolved, now..
as i hope someday soon, your situation will also be resolved... you and your old man will both be free.
and, in offering unsolicited advice as i'm want to do...
as he is terminal or endstage oncology, if you have power of attorney, you should be able to get a DNR (do not resuscitate) from his dr's that.. and make sure it will be recognized and adhered to by emer med crews (ambulance, fire, etc)...
in canada a hosp can issue, but unless has the blessing/official number frm the provincial gov, responding personnel will fulfill their directive - by whatever means necessary...to resus.
be sure to ask, where it should be kept... i think here in the states, the response crews know to look in the fridge/glass jar.. for such directives...
and y, retro apply for that caregiver's stipend.
don't prolong this anymore out of a sense of duty or obligation.
let him go.
big hugz
k*
Hey Nobody,.. you awake? Whad'ya think of the gillard coup?
PG.
Hey Buff, you can dig it obviously. As for your substitutes, he eats those too. When he makes toast it's a divide-by-four rule. One part toast, one part butter, two parts jam. By weight, or volume, whichever is more. Either way there is three times as much butter and jam as there is toast. One jar of jam usually stetches to about five slices of toast.
And hey Kikz, as for putting him in care - weirdly enough I feel okay now. It seems that things come in waves. For instance, after his mad everything-as-fair-game-to-be-put-in-a-bowl-and-have-water-poured-on-it period he is now broadly compos mentis. And whereas last week he was awake for eighteen hours a day and sleeping for six, now it's reversed and I barely see him. Sure enough, next week will be a whole other story. Otherwise, I'll do it. I'll register for the pension thingy and take myself a break.
And PG I have to be honest and say, I don't know what to make of it all. Given that KRudd did the big kowtow to Rupes and then publicly declared his fealty to the bankers in that election commercial, and also given that he ruled in a dictatorial fashion Howard-style with no one else in the gag, I wondered if he wasn't a corrupt head leading a clueless body. Keeping in mind that that body had previously chosen Latham who was so unpalatable to the PTB that Rupes was forced to assassinate him by media. I have Latham pegged as our last best hope - no surprises Rupes pulled out all the stops to get rid of him.
Okay so the backroom boys who chose Latham, and who were not on board with KRudd, have picked whatsername. Um, okay, so what does it all mean? And she's not on board with KRudd's expansionist 40M population gag? Weirder and weirder. Beats me mate.
Mind you, she is a fan of the SLC. And furthermore, most of those mining interests she's looking to back down to are Jewish. XStrata is the Zug-dwelling Marc Rich and Rio Tinto is Rothshild (is that right?). But KRudd was already beholden to Jewish interests... And the backroom boys who rolled him grooved on Latham and seemingly weren't beholden what with being left out of the decision-making process... I shake my head. Sorry mate, too many paradoxes.
Or am I missing something?
PS I got all curious about paypal and checked it all out. Hooly Dooly - arch motherfuckers!
And lo and behold, everyone was Jewish!
Actually there's no need for that last exclamation mark there. It's not as if it's a suprise or anything...
I don't want to brag or anything - I was woefully wrong about it all, after all - but before any of my friends had ever heard of Mark Latham, I was telling them that he'd be the next Labor PM. (This was a few years after I had told them that John Howard would never be PM (what a laughable prospect!), so it was kind of them to be impressed when Latham from nowhere became opposition leader.)
I think the Labor back room boys chose him because he was the only guy at the time with any leadership potential, and the only one with any hope of beating Howard. And Rupert & co. had to work hard to return Howard, because all other things being equal the public would have voted Latham in, given that Howard was a grubby little worm, and Latham was someone who had leadership potential.
For the Americans, Latham would have been Whitlam version 2.0 – wanting to bring the troops home from Iraq, and all - so I can imagine they would have been in there pushing hard for Howard to continue. You mentioned Latham upsetting the bankers, nobody – what specifically was he planning to do that put them offside? I’ve forgotten so much, I can’t believe all this stuff happened only 5 or so years ago.
Back to the present, maybe the thinking was that it’d all turn into a big fucking mess if Costello ever took over, so it was time, reluctantly, to hand over to Labor, and it was agreed between all parties that Rudd would be acceptable given that he’d be compliant on the important issues. But maybe – given that the likes of Latham (and the Labor guys who saw the potential in Latham), if dead, would be rolling in their graves at the mere sight of Rudd at the helm of Labor – the back room boys decided to shaft Rudd NOW rather than have to frig around for years waiting for the next opportunity to transfer over to Gillard. Maybe they figured (Gillard being equally acceptable to the bankers as Rudd) that Gillard was a (first-female-PM!) shoe-in against Abbott, but Rudd had quite a chance of losing to Abbott.
Maybe THAT is why Rudd got the boot? (That and the fact that Rudd didn’t have what it would have taken to bring in the mining tax, so bringing in Gillard now provided Labor with the opportunity to back away from the tax without looking weak and amateurish.)
Peter D
Well Mister Nobody, it finally caught up with me.
I think it was because my mum dressed me funny.
No, it was because I'm a nasty prick and my public had woken up to that fact and the big L wouldn't have won the next election if I’d continued. With Ms G in the seat we will scrape through. Good luck to her.
So, here we are face to face with the rest of our lives before us… !! I'll be right, Theresa can find me a job.
And you get yourself a pension; this is what makes Australia great Mister Nobody.
It's been a pleasure
Your ex Favourite Prime Minister
Kevin M Rudd
PM! I'm so glad you dropped in! No really, there I was thinking, 'He's up to his armpits in the fight of his life, and media engagements, and house moving, and all that stuff, so why hasn't he dropped in to tell us how he's doing?' A perverse thought I know, but that's me for you...
As for working for Theresa (or Therese as the rest of the country calls her - I'm sure you know best), mate, why shoot so low? A loyal servant to the bankers such as your good self should be able to walk into all sorts of brilliant jobs. Think Tony Blair. I haven't the slightest doubt you'll be rolling in dough along with the sundry other delights that amuse the death cult.
Otherwise, surely that's not the last time you'll grace this blog? In this world of endless public reincarnations I've no doubt you can come back as whomever you like. It works for Doctor Who, why not you? The merest flick of the screen writer's wrist, ha ha.
But never mind the future, for now we say bravo and long may you remain a talking bar of soap etc. etc.
yours aye,
n
And Peter D - pretty much yep to all of that. As to anything specific re Latham and the bankers, no I have nothing, but who needs it? Anyone as smart, free-thinking, and beholden-to-none as Latham was had to go. Honestly, the death cult would have seen him as absolute poison.
Otherwise, here's a party trick you can try at home. If the topic turns to 'crazy Mark Latham' ask the assembled punters if they can remember precisely what it was he had to resign over. You can even give them a clue - someone died and Latham (who wasn't PM mind you, merely leader of the opposition) didn't come out quickly enough to give his condolences.
And there you have a classic assassination by media - when it's over no one can even remember what it was all about. The only thing Latham was guilty of was not dancing to the media's tune. And the tunes of course were relentless - a new one every day. If Rupes wants to kill you, it'll be so relentless eventually you'll wish you were dead anyway.
Did anyone notice that Frank Bainimarama in Fiji has just declared foreign owned media illegal and kicked out Rupes' Fiji Times? Hooly dooly! Wotta guy!
Anyway, that's Fiji fucked. What odds are Ladbrokes offering on its invasion, er... sorry, humanitarian intervention? Whatever they are, take 'em! You'll be on a deadset winner.
Hey Nobody,..what a wonderful thread of political commentary; being that I am nuttier than a sixty pound fruit cake, I always discuss politics at dinner parties and birthday parties. I am a dead-set barrel'o'laughs - Latham great bloke and at least two sangas short of a picnic. Rudd, slain because he looks like the Milky Bar Kid and tried to assert himself on an important issue; forgetting all the while that the majority of Australians get their political savvy from murdoch's goon show. Gillard was the inaugural speaker at "The Australia Israel 'Leadership' Forum" last year and had her last meeting as the 'guest' at the AILF speaker two days before the Coup last week! Her pretend boyfriend is camp as a row of pink tents and former Hairdresser that looks like liberace on acid. Christine Wallace labour party apparatchik and Gillard look-a-like is her real partner. Gillard is an 'israhell firster' and was in Tel Aviv as a guest of the Right Wing, Ruling Likud Party during the satanic ritual of murder in Gaza last christmas/new year: In her role as acting PM at the time, while in israhell; she made a statement condemning Hamas for rocket attacks that caused the 'retaliation' by israhell (non- existent rocket attacks; every NGO and everyone with half a brain knows that Hamas did not break the ceasefire) and reiterated her support for israhell's right to defend itself. Australia is now Rothscalia. PERIOD.
Nameste brother Nobody,
Keep up that good work ol'mate.
PeeG é
FB
Hi Sally, the only SIS that I know is the Schengen Information Service who are charged with the responsibility of nosey parkering into what us Europeans are up to. Maybe there are 6700 Kiwi’s in Europe. Did you mean this or a more general Secret Intelligence Service? Sometimes jargon is helpful but sometimes it is confusing. That is why for instance the film Green Card was such a lousy title because in Europe a green card is a document which allows you to drive your car in a country other than the one in which it was insured. I am not having a pop at you by the way, I am just seeing if you actually meant Schengen.
Fiji doesn't seem to be making the news. They mustn't be able to get any further into the shithouse than they currently are.
Gotta share some great quotes.
From Malcolm Turnbull's Rudd obituary in The Age:
"And what are we left with? The excitement of Julia Gillard, which Labor hopes will last long enough to get it to polling day, and a dark uneasy feeling Australia is not run by the people we elect, but by union heavies coldly calculating the fate of leaders around the lazy Susan of a Vietnamese restaurant."
From another article in The Age today:
"AUSTRALIA'S bid to install John Howard as world cricket chief has ended in humiliation for the former prime minister and bitterly split the game along national lines.
Opposition to Mr Howard was so strong among the nations from the subcontinent and Africa that the move to make him president of the International Cricket Council did not even go to a vote."
Both hilarious.
PD
Also Nobody, did you hear about Brendan O'Connell appearing on A Current Affair a few weeks ago, frothing at the mouth about "Jews being behind 9/11"? He was in court on a racial vilification charge (guess which race?!) and afterwards he went off at the camera crew waiting innocently ouside the court.
I don't know what to make of it. He looked like a mad man, but there he was, on prime time tele, saying "a US colonal has said so: Israel did 9/11! Google it: Colonal Alan Sabrosky s-a-b-r-o-s-k-y!".
Then, last night on ACA there's a story about Jews in Sydney wanting to run a rope areound the entire suburb of St. Ives to make it officially kosher. Literally like a yellow optus cable from pole to pole, so the young mums can push their own prams on Saturdays. Never heard of it, but apparently Bondi has already got one.
And the goy residents are a bit upset about this. Story ends with smarmy young rabbi insinuating that perhaps it is nothing other than anti-semitism which would make people insist on objecting to it.
Again, I don't know what to make of it. Which side is ACA on, showing these stories?
PD
gear chg...
er.. sidebar.. whatever
thought this might interest you noby..?:)
http://www.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/06/29/china.rent.white.people/index.html
Thanx Kikz, what a laugh!
Fair warning boys and girls - whilst I ran out of time today, I'll post early tomorrow and I guarantee a shit storm. Bring a helmet, duck for cover, it's going to be ugly. Or as Clint Eastwood says, Fuckin' Ugly.
this is the best thing I read in awhile. what you decided to show from your reality in this piece reflected such strength, that you managed to make the description of that reality an uplifting experience for the reader.
not going to flood more, just here to ask what's with the nature of monkey?
Hey P, how are you?
As for Monkey, it was initially one of the four great Chinese novels Journey to the West. 13th century? It is to the Chinese, Korean and Japanese people what King Arthur is to English speakers. Kind of.
It details the adventures of a Buddhist priest Tripitaka on his journey to the West to retrieve ancient Buddhist scrolls from India. He's accompanied the Monkey King, an ill-mannered immortal who is being punished by the Gods for having behaved poorly in heaven. He represents all of man's base desires. Along for the ride are a fish spirit and a pig spirit. As they journey they have all manner of adventures, mostly involving fighting with demons. And whilst there's lots of chop-socky and the kids love it, all of it is actually a metaphor set in Buddhist terms and mostly about desire.
Anyway, I'm mostly familiar with it by way of a shlocky Japanese action series that was called 'Monkey' but later renamed (for some reason) 'Monkey Magic'. The beauty of this series (and there've been many, many - In China alone there'd be fifty adaptations of it) was the truly wonderful writing and dubbing into English. I don't know who's responsible for it be he was a genius of subtle comedy.
Anyway the whole thing has lots of catch phrases and I liberally help myself to them. One is - the nature of monkey is irrepressible which is discussion about innate natures always coming through. The other one I like is great sage and equal of heaven which is what monkey constantly refers to himself as. He's not of course, he's just a jumped up monkey. Like me, ha ha.
Anyway mate, lovely to have you pop in. Oh wait! That's weird. This article was me bitching about my father wasn't it? Yes, well... he died on Sunday. Sure enough I didn't sing hallelujah since the reality overwhelms such trite nonsense. And my declaration that I wouldn't go to his funeral was a bunch of hooey too. I'll have to go. Mind you, I'm not going to say anything - after all, if you haven't got anything nice to say best to say nothing at all. Anyway I'm in amongst cremation, death certificates, cleaning the apartment etc. and off I go. Ciao Ciao, n.
I am happy for you and happy for your father, too.
in sardegna I heard a proverb, common at least among certain kind of people, stating that a junkie can be recognized for having a monkey on his shoulder. the idea behind it is that it is the monkey who is driving the person to his destructive indulgence.
the monkey king appears to have a similar faith as did lucifer, or whoever of them fallen from the kingdom of heaven so often depicted in numerous mythologies.
"The other one I like is great sage and equal of heaven which is what monkey constantly refers to himself as."
luciferian, indeed.
for mayans: "Monkey is known to the Maya as the Weaver or the Weaver of Time. Monkey takes ideas as threads or vines and weaves them into the fabric of our reality."
I've always found the fallen ones as archetypes worthy to identify myself with. last time I checked through whatever internet methods, in the mayan horosope I was a monkey, too.
so I guess you and me share a metaphorical acquaintance while dabbling, respectfully, with our lines of duty. writing is about re-creating reality, so I guess there is this monkey kinda drive to mold the "fabric of reality" or whatever behind the will to go on and give one's own imprint on the image of reality.
the biggest strength in writing is that one can turn even the worst scenes provided by life into something uplifting. I enjoy very much reading back to your past entries because you have done just that so consistently.
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