grumpy captain mission has a few days snoozing away catching up on sleep, drained of energy and depleted i lounged around watching some tv shows, i made a paella and baked a batch of healthy savoury muffins. i saw a couple of movies, 'life' and 'ghost in the shell.'

life- i was expecting the usual fare, space station picks up some alien thing and it kills them one by one and that's pretty much what you get. the only difference is the characters and acting are exceptional. i really was on the edge of my seat as the players all were convincing. but what makes this film so much better than the usual is it's ending. 

ghost in the shell - i'm a huge fan of the two anime films so i was interested to know how it would transfer into the film medium. these days you can do anything with special effects and this film proves it, it's beautiful in most parts and scarlett johansen plays the major very well, in fact all the characters are well cast, i didn't have a problem with johansen not being japanese. what made the excellent premise of the movie fail was the last 20 mins which i felt lacked all the intelligence of the previous. it was a classic hollywood ending, predictable, pointless. underwhelming in the lack of imagination. it's a shame as this inconsistency plays a huge impact in the over all reach of the idea, i wish they had not used focus groups and stayed true to some sort of imaginative and intelligent conclusion, i'm pretty certain a japanese director would have done this. 

sensitive information slides through, someone made an error in their firewall and now several agencies are hot on the heels of the master cyber - verifier known as captain mission.
he has used several alies in past activities, captain kaos, captain impossible, captain missionary, captain unnecessary, captain stimulating, captain alternative, captain mainstream, captain elemental, captain voodoo, captain hologram, captain cute, captain less, captain lost, captain extra dimensional and others that slip under the radar, suffice to say, we know he is a slippery character and dangerous. after all anyone who does not follow the twitter feeds, facebook politics and socialist green adgendas must be somewhat slippery. 
we cannot allow people, individuals thinking for themselves, we cannot accept individuals who will not conform to the left political agenda, sanctioned by our beloved united nations.
that's why we have judges and magistrates, local councils and various oblique investigative units cleverly under cover of human rights activists.
cyber crimes seeks out facebookers, twitters and bloggers who may challenge the normative codes of propaganda.
we discovered when someone he knows on his face book page posted a photograph of what was claimed to be millions of muslims marching against isis. the image came up in his feed and we were alerted that he did not repost it as we expect all good citizens to do. instead of unquestionable loyalty to the cause he chose to conduct his own research into the image and discovered the whole story to be fake.
isn't it all.
yes but some are more fake than others as some pigs like to point out.
anyway alerts have been issued, we will catch this captain and make an example of him. 

'i am a stranger loop, it cannot be denied. i wouldn't mislead you about that. however strange you think it is, it's far stranger.' 

'weird?' she asks with the innocence of a parisian whore.

'yeah slightly but let's just keep it at strange for the moment.'

'mmm,  that's interesting.'

'turn and face the strange.' 

'who said that?'

'ch ch  ch changes.'

more

i miss my son, he's far away from me and although we skype and call i wonder if he feels close to me or i'm just some irritating adult in his life. he's become very english whereas i became an alien. his star is on the rise while mine is fading, i guess i'd like to be closer but i can't hack the uk although the last two weeks in sydney... i may as well be in england it's rained so much.
jake is a great guy, but i don't think he has time for me these days. that happens don't it? 
as i try to get closer to my own dad my son is distant from me like some strange family constellation, we are all on our orbits.
and while i try to get closer to my dad my mother repels me away from everything with her strange behaviour and madness. i'm on an strange path now, no conjunctions in sight, quite alone and distant from anyone. i'm in a part of the universe where not much light reaches. deep space baby. i'm in deep space. 

strange conditions dictate my circumstances, i'm no slave but i am trapped by forces i can't control. i sometimes wonder about the idea of freedom, in the true sense of the word. 

just how free am i?

how free are you?

on a sliding scale where do i sit, somewhere in the middle maybe. if i chose to be freer what do i sacrifice what do i gain. is it real? does it have value? how do i measure it?

somedays i feel freer than others, some days i feel like there's no freedom at all.

area's i am not free are money, family, negativity, doubt, fear and anxiety. i am not free of suffering, old age, pain, decay and death.

we trade freedom for responsibility.

in the old days where people were not so free i wonder if they were freer mentally, less stressed. i mean if you are a slave on a plantation i would assume your suffering is more local and focused. you would take joy where you find it, not worry so much about your family relationships,  taxes, getting a new car or the onslaught of old age. i think your main idea of freedom would be to escape the plantation and work on your own terms rather than someone else's.

freedom is a strange concept, none of us are really free are we?

i heard of people rotting away in towers who have mentally become liberated and free. i heard of millionaires who feel trapped and suffocating from the demands their wealth has brought. then there's people in syria or sudan who just want to be able to walk outside without being shot, people who would like to have fresh water and people who would like to just be self determining. 

freedom means a whole bunch of things.

when someone says 'i am free' it's a big statement.

are they.

do they just mean i wish i had less responsibility.

what would they do with it.

me?

if i were free i would want you to be free to. i'd show you how to do it. it's what jesus and krishna did, it's what wise ones do. they show others how. sometimes they get laughed at or burnt. but once they have found freedom, nothing seems to ever trap them again. 

i think i found a way to be freer.

there are a few glitches. i can't escape time as much as i want to.

there best technology is the mind. be in the moment as much as possible. accept the responsibilities you have with gratitude. 

don't place any significance on to much, just acknowledge the experience and explore it and understand it's just an experience and try to love it as best you can. 

sure it may not set you free completely but it may make you freer than when you began reading this.

rapt in awe.

The Precession of the Equinoxes

the vision the voice
by
the deep fix

i'm the precious secret, the whisper in the air
i'm the ever present deliverer of your torment
the one who does not care
i'm the muse in the making, the sister you never had
i'm the guy that leaves you bleeding
the one with the base ball bat
i'm snug and unconcerned, i couldn't give a fuck
i'm the master of my own destiny and fate 
i forge my own luck
i begin when others finish, end where they start
i'm the inconceivable mayhem 
that tears your soul apart

i'm the vision, i am the voice
let's not forget the vice
i may appear as reasonable but
i'm not really that nice

i'm the manipulating moments, pulling all your strings
i'm the bone crushing defeat
that's waiting in the wings
i'm the perpetrator of your sufferance, draining your supplies
i'm the torturer of the guild baby
you can see it in my eyes
i'm violent revolutionary, an agent of change
burning up your oxygen
replacing it with rage
i make the internet and media, thought control hypnotise
everything you think is true is really
just more lies

i am the vision i am the voice
let's not forget the vice
i may appear as reasonable but
i'm not really that nice

kerry miller thank you very much. bless you for your kind words.

okay i ate some weird asian food, some sort of jelly like seaweed, it tasted of the deep, it could have been anything, it may be radioactive, it could be a creature suspended in some kind of ectoplasm, maybe even just a cake of obscure plankton, i have no idea but whatever it was has laid me low. 
often when i am in an asian supermarket i see products in asian packaging, i have no idea what they are, the wording is korean or vietnamese or it could be tibetan or even from somewhere like exotic butan, it's a wild guess every time. as for the product, a total mystery and sometimes the taste is alien, it's unknown territory an adventure. i know it seems ridiculous really but i like putting myself through these experiences, they are usually harmless.
i tend to go for the weird seaweed stuff, dried or wet, it's all good as i feel my body absorbing the nutrients, defining the taste and flavour into some kind of category, but just this once i have bitten into something that has reacted very badly, something my system cannot define or assimilate. 
the package was translucent with black writing and a picture of what looks like a toadstool or mushroom, there are small little people with big heads pointing at it as they dance beneath it's head. it feels soft and cold as i handle the package and when i opened it i was uncertain wether it should be cooked or eaten raw, it kind of oozed out onto the plate, and then it expanded into a white jelly type shape that took up the whole area of the plate, it did look like a super mushroom, very large covered in some sort of viscous slime. 
i attempted to smell it but nothing registered, and i turned it around suspiciously, looking for any signs of a face, again nothing, it seemed reasonable to assume the blob was a sea vegetable of sorts. 
i couldn't eat it with my hands, it had swollen now and was the size of a watermelon. i'm not sure how they squeezed it into the tube, which was about the same size as a pack of 20 cigarettes.
grabbing a knife and fork i sliced a piece off, the slicing felt easy, like cutting through the inside of a watermelon, only a strange black ink started to leak out. on closer inspection it was blue, a deep cobalt blue.
dipping the flesh into the liquid i brought the slice up to my lips, there was a moment of anxiety, i don't know why i didn't stop then, i should have trusted my instinct but instead i slipped the piece in and suddenly the most strange effect occurred. i found my mouth warming, my lips burning and my tongue began to swell up. This all happened fast, 10-15 seconds, i found myself swooning, the colours seemed to explode, mission control began to expand, i immediately thought of alice entering wonderland, shrinking or was it rapid growth, jesus i could feel my body heating up and then i must have passed out. 
the weight of my body was unfamiliar, as though gravity had shifted, my eyes couldn't function correctly, blurred shapes loomed and then receded. my skin felt so wet, i was drenched in sweat i realised.
i attempted standing but i was already standing, or floating, i was floating, my body still lay upon the floor, i could see it there, laying still on my kitchen floor, only it was no longer my kitchen floor it was the ocean floor, a sea bed. 
i seemed to hover for a while, and then some shapes flashed by, small shadows, slithering in my peripheral vision. but there was the tentacle, it came out from nowhere, unfurling itself, a huge immense thing from the darkness, it swept past me and i could feel the swirl from it's force, i could see the saucer like suckers, the size of dinner plates. there was a lot of turbulence and i could feel the terror creeping through my skin, bile rose from my guts, i was shaking and then suddenly i was laying upon the floor gazing up at the kitchen ceiling.
i calmed myself and wandered into the kitchen. it felt strange to use my legs, i looked at the jelly type thing on the plate, god knows what it is. i wrapped it in plastic and was about to throw it in the bin, but instead i stuck it in the freezer. 
you never know when something like this may come in handy.

vale maime
champagne always flowed, laugher abound, and children always running around us exploring the big house, splashing in that big pool, man, those were happy days. even when i was freshly divorced i always found joy in that pool. she was a matriarch that's for sure, possibly in a family of matriarchs, bigger than life, an abundance of joy and positivity. lot's of love floating around that place, a sanctuary for kids, adults, people in need, and family and friends. 
when i worked with her she was straight up, tough and real. we took in many troubled homeless kids, kids on the gear, kids abused, kids who were no longer kids. we took em down the beach, surfing on boogie broads and we would spend all day in the water, in the sun, just playing. no fucking talking, no fucking deep heavy shit, just play and slowly after three days man, those kids would smile again, their fucking faces would change and they would look like kids again. we were a crisis service and this was our solution to crisis. maime understood that. a good feed and a surf. get these kids back to whom they are not what experience forced them to become. it was a simple and elegant solution and a cure for all crisis. even my own, the surf has all the answers. it's basic.
cancer, fuck cancer right of the planet. 
wherever maime is she will be smiling, glass of champagne in hand and the party will be just kicking off.