glad to hear people fought back, throwing beer glasses (a common east london sight in most pubs) at their attackers, along with tables and knives and whatever was at hand. a taxi driver attempted to run a killer over with his cab. i wonder if the mayor will mention it's all part of living in a big city in his statement. 
well it is now the new normal, however the new normal shouldn't be accepted by people. it's absurdity. however i do not completely blame the attackers, i blame our stupid politicians and media who have just done nothing for 30 years while this brewed. not only did they do nothing, they stopped people whom wanted to talk about the dangers from speaking about this form of radical islam. they wouldn't even let people speak it's name. well it's heartening to see the general population generally knows the score. 

as far as jc leader of the left in uk politics i'm personally baffled how someone so stupid could become a leader of a party. he will destroy the labour party much like mt has destroyed the liberal party here in oz. 
the only people that vote for these pricks are the cashed up inner city elites, university types and the champagne socialists of twitter.

very happy to read the brilliant clive james piece in the australian  a completely wry and accurate look at the hypocrisy and mindlessness of the global warming alarmists. everyone should read it, even if you don't believe him, it's a marvellous refreshing piece of writing and very brave. 

watched the tv adaptation of childhoods end. the book by arthur c clarke was pretty remarkable, and although the series is somewhat slow moving, disjointed and cumbersome it does work well.  

she looks like a cuddly grandmother, warm slippers cake and tea, she moves slowly and speaks with a slight accent. at first i slipped under her spell, it worked on me like a charm. she was very sweet.
as time progressed i noticed a streak of passive aggressive behaviour. it was subtle, but it worked very effectively and when she thought her tactics were failing she brought out the heavy artillery, tears. yes her ultimate control was to cry and get sympathy. she manipulated everything and everyone. 
the younger ones felt frustrated, every idea or suggestion they had was shot down by her resistance to change and need to control. 
gradually i began to see the truth, it's hidden under the everyday routines and responsibilities but very occasionally it surfaces and is witnessed. she can't help it.  
to begin with i start gentle. she presents as some sort of spiritual being. in my experience they are the most difficult, deep in denial about their own personality defects, it's that ego trap. it's a fixed fortress, difficult to penetrate which is why psychedelics are so useful, however slipping a massive dose of mescaline in her tea is not really practicable. i read her cards, she has requested this from me. it's an accurate reading, she starts crying when i mention her children, one supportive and the other not. she blubbers a bit, and then i speak to her in subtle ways about the need to sometimes just let things go, let other people have a win. resistance is low and she acknowledges something in my words but a flicker of resistance passes over her face. 
later she denies everything, asserting the dominant persona, the one that needs to control. 
one of the younger staff approach me, they are concerned about an issue and i offer my support. when it comes down to it we are opposed by the old lady, she makes a big song and dance. manipulates  people and makes it impossible for us to bring about a change. 
once again i challenge her, suggesting that she need not feel so competitive and assist younger team members to have a win now and then so that they feel valued and part of the team. she gives me a look. it's neither bad or good, it's a look of complete victory.
later when i leave every single member of the team comes to thank me, they all say i managed a difficult situation very well and they enjoyed working with me, except one. 
she wants my position so she tells my boss i have a bad back and cannot work there as manual handling is required. she figured i would never find out who it was that spoke with my boss, a man i actually respect. she was rejected for the position and this is her revenge. 
i'm angry, somewhat dismayed that this is the type of person i have to work with but my strategy has to be to let it go. it's going to be very hard but i have to. however truth has a habit of rising to the surface.
  

not quite sure how i did it, paid off two huge bills, one left although it's going to hurt. however after this i will be in the black again. 
the pressure of debt is awful, i hate it but these days it's the normal. credit cards just eat ya up, bills drown you, tax suffocates, fees for this and fees for that. 
my postman pulls up, i have not seen him for months, he calls out my name and we have a chat about a few things. he's aboriginal so i talk to him about the reconciliation meeting at uluru. he disagrees, he thinks we should have one law, one govt. one culture, australian. he says the dangers are when other cultures start wanting their own arm of government. me, i disagree on the fact the committee didn't ask for a seperate government just an advisory body. 
anyway we have a good chat outside my front garden, the winter sun warms my skin. he tells me about a lee scratch perry gig he saw, we both agree that cat is a cosmic anomaly  tapped into some extra dimensions. i heard him speaking once at a show i saw and i couldn't understand what he was raving on about but i liked him a lot. he was some sort of rambling stream of rastaman consciousness. 
my son rings from overseas, he's packed in his old job and has a couple of weeks off before the new post. he tells me he's nervous about the change. we talk strategy, dealing with change is tricky, you really gotta immerse yourself in the whole thing and stop resistance. it gets harder as you get older as the neural network calcifies. you settle into patterns. when change comes you resist, get stressed and fight it. that's fear. you have to acknowledge it, feel its energy and begin to take control. breath it out, let it go, embrace the unknown.
anyway i offer him some counsel. 
it's getting cold here in sydney, that bite is in the air, at dusk i can smell the fireplaces in the street as people fire up. winter is coming.

the world goes crazy as i dig myself outta debt, telephone seizure headache making demands all down the line, some tradesman banging on the door, the council want their cut, and all i seem to do these days is pay out. that's life someone says, yeah but it's not living. you gotta wonder what the fuck is going on, i mean when a government  wastes 50 billion to secure a seat in a stupid submarine deal, who picks up the tab, the vampyres have a blood bank of cash in us, the taxpayer. i hate being at their fucking mercy when the chips are down. 
on another note i'm deliriously happy, lots of groovy things happening soon. my fish are growing huge, the pond actually looks good as i get stuck into weeding it and getting the ph levels correct. the birds are sitting around in trees singing, the suns out and i'm actually returning to a good position where i can earn some cash and get out of dept again. just got to keep it all together for a month or two. 

Ali Farka Touré & Ry Cooder - Talking Timbuktu

older and no wiser i drag my strange hulk towards the city at 5am to meet with my dear friend who is visiting from toyko. i am excited as these days i have culled my friendships down to a bare minimum. iggy starseed is in town but we only have one day to catch up. 
he's looking lean and maintains that energy and vitality whereas i am on the decline, sluggish and somewhat jaded from it all.
starseed and i find an inconspicuous place to drink our coffee and catch up, the walls are plastered in mayday posters and symbols of communist russia, later i realize it's the maritime union building, health muscled short sleeved workers doing industrial work in communist shirts and blue and red scarves peer into a future so bright it dazzles us all, maybe it's the light from the plasma tv sets from their future. i feel like i'm back in the 70's when socialism actually had relevance. at least the coffee is good, we both require a lot for that kick start.
iggy is undercover, can't really give much away about his mission, me i'm enjoying his stories and perceptions the only thing we disagree on is trump. i am glad he won the election, he's not a politician, that appeals to me. i understand starseeds point, he's a buffon and idiot, yeah but he is not a politician. that's why i like him. the clintons were fucked, sanders was my man but never the clintons and soon it will come to light just how fucked the democrats were as they fucked over bernie for hillary. wikileaks knows who the leaker was, he's dead now.there are no russinas it was seth rich whom will be in the common arena soon as mainstream media cannot ignore his position and how fundamental he is to the whole current situation. seth the democrat. 
however that's another story.
iggy and i wander to the japanese bookshop, we search for our various interests, it's an excellent place to hang out, later we have laksa and iggy talks about his expeditions to k2. amazing stories. this guys has done it all, lived a fucking life. talk is cheap but iggy starseed is value, he's going to crack australia. we both share a love for christopher hitchens and his razor-like mind, last of the giants, however, iggy has the potential to be a giant, perhaps he already is. 
i had a fantastic day, i'm going to miss that cat.   
    

i often wonder if water has it's own intelligence, a sort of biology that consists of variations of life just as the human body has it's organs and components perhaps whales and seahorses are following some unknown function in a body of ocean that operates in a different type of consciousness than human. it's something that has been played around within science fiction but never considered in philosophy until lately, as the ecology becomes more obvious to our way of life.
water and atmosphere are just components of a vast intelligence, the earth or gaia could indeed be a single organism, an intelligent design. it would be intelligent to follow that model based upon what we understand about our own biology. the issue is science itself is problematic as it is a few laws that only work in this universe but depend upon the observation. if one looks at the atlantic ocean it's just water. if one looks at the atlantic and all it contains it's an environment, if one looks at the atlantic and it's relationship to the land and skies it's an ecology.
ecology has no boundaries which is why i am more of an ecologist than an greenie. the green movement is a dumb version of socialism. i could never be a member of such a dimwitted group. 
one day after a voyage with my fave amazonian plant medicine i returned to the early morning light with some information. i was in the company of some very important people whom held quite significant sway in the environmental movement. i said 'the green movement is dead, it has lost its way and now requires to be superseded by a new political philosophy that embraces a wider perspective, the ecological party. a system that includes industry and resources with democracy as it's foundations. words like sustainability and environmentalism need reclaiming from the dumbed down socialist agenda and incorporated into wholistic functional reality. ecology would never exclude geological evidence from it's climate debate, it would consider solar activity within it's anthropogenic evaluations and it would never use the results as a political scare campaign. 
anyways the people that listened went on to form an ecological organisation. it's a real thing spawned from my brain, given to me from the south american jungles.    

my last day with the guy in the wheelchiar, i have been called in to run a meeting with his parents. an australian mother and a german father. instantly we connect as i talk about my days in west berlin, kraftwork and some german philosophers. 
they are quite political and i can respect their take upon the future f their son. i explain how to access the funding the ndis plan has suggested and how to deal with bureaucracy that obfuscates access which they seem appreciative about. later they are disappointed a staff member has called in sick which means they can't take their son to the therapeutic swimming pool. old captain mission throws down his pile of things to do, stands up and reveals his superhero costume by offering to help.
i drive down with the man and his mother, we get to the pool and i assist as best i can from the sidelines. it's amazing to watch this all happening and gain a little insight into how these parents work with their son. severe epilepsy has disfigured the man, his limbs are tightly contracted and in the pool the parents stretch them and attempt to reduce their rigidity.  
i'm not used to this level of disability, it's way out of my comfort zone however i am here. have to immerse myself in the whole thing and experience the situation.
i like this guy, i like the parents and despite my initial confrontation things have worked out very well. 

Legendary Stardust Cowboy and Bowie- I Took A Trip ( On A Gemini Spaceship)

the pull of the blood moon it's vast topography stained red in the early evening sky, i catch it again in the morning as it sets, unbelievably large and luminous. 
as i turn into my street it is there, almost ablaze in the night sky, i can feel it's influence upon my own body but intuit that power as its agency has dominion upon all living things. pulled, moved, swayed, attracted, repelled, spawned, driven. whatever it may be it works upon this world in myriad ways.
i gasp from its sensual pleasure, such energy at work as i transport myself through the stars and using some weaker magick invoke the powers and realms of gods. 

later i see alien covenant. 

spoiler alert!

lets be clear i liked prometheus, i thought it was good science fiction except for the stupid bits, the bits where the geologist decided to become all psychopathic was cliche and there was an unnecessary amount of gore but generally the idea that the alien is a biological weapon created by  the mysterious engineers seemed smart amongst the more philosophical questions of who we are as humans. 
covenant takes place after prometheus as a crew of partnered up colonisers are woken up en route to a new home by the android copy of 'david' from prometheus who has found a transmission way out in the middle of nowhere. the plot is basically a revamp of alien, the first movie but it does incorporate into it what happened with elizabeth and david whom escaped in an engineer space ship at the end of prometheus. 
the movie is clever, there are not the clunky sentences from prometheus's script but there are some strange interchanges when the new android meets the old one and explore their differences.
the ending is smart, but the movie 'life' beat them to it thus dampening the effect.
i can see how ridley scott must have needed to cover a lot of bases, pleasing fans and hollywood, he diluted the philosophical element for repetitive large action and while the aliens look amazing and horrific i rather focus on the quest for answers. i heard there is another being made so i hope it returns to the philosophical story rather than repeats itself over as do so many sequels. 
    

Reality - Bowie

oh, finally a day off.

i can bury my dog.

i have bought some pansies for his plot. 

just need to get out into the garden and dig a few holes but somethings stops me, a weariness, a creeping lethargy tinged with a sadness i guess.

pan was probably the best friend i ever had.

he was loved by all. he was almost like the buddha but more like lao tzu. 

i have my transcendence, some esoteric unit of measurement that's unknowable. i meet a strange man in a wheelchair, he has no ability to communicate with me as he is a quadriplegic but i can read him well. 

it's my new unit where i work for one month dealing with staffing dramas and sometimes interact with the clients. i never worked with people so damaged and it's confronting, you really never want to ride a motorbike ever, or do anything high risk. maybe unsafe sex is my limit but never ride without a helmet. i don't know, it's spooked me. this guy needs a hoist to get out of bed in the morning, it's operated by two people. i just need coffee. 

everything requires two people with this man, i watch people working with him and i'm impressed by their level of care. i don't know if i have that. i push myself. i can work with wild out of control people fucked up on alcohol and drugs people wielding knifes but here i am challenged by a man who has no ability over his body.

i don't want to think about quality of life. i mean this guy gets well looked after and the people helping him really love him, but me, i'm thinking if i end up like that i want the million dollar baby ending. 
each day i get to know the guy better, sometimes i speak to him like he was an ordinary guy, he likes that. his face seems to respond. i talk to him about girls, he's a sexual being, he must dig girls. 
his face lights up so i figure that's a good thing. occasionally i feed him, he eats squished up food, mush. no solids. to eat his food his wheelchair has to be tilted back at 45 degrees, he eats slowly and his head involuntary turns from side to side so the act of getting a spoon of food in his mouth is an art in itself. 
i don't know what to make of the situation, i'm really not set up to deal with this level of care. i work with mental illness mostly, never have to deal with personal care like this. it's not really my thing but i figure what the hell, this guy is surrounded by women all day, a strange freak like me may be entertaining for him. 
i play him various songs, he loves the church. i take that as a sign of vast intelligence and think i may stick around this guy a bit longer, see if he holds the secret to the universe.
i am sitting there all calm contemplating this when suddenly my man has a seizure, for on top of all his conditions he is saddled with this. i go into epilepsy management, timing the length of the seizure as i protect his head, three and a half minutes, which is short. if where longer than 10 i would have to administer medication. after the seizure i try to calm the man down, he's disoriented and his equilibrium all out of whack. 
i'm calm, cool and collected but i am out of my depth. it all passes and we are back to spoon feeding mush, talking about girls. what was all that about?

catching bullets with your teeth
by
captain mission

old man mission never died off the cancer that crept up his ass into his guts and spread to his brain, he was an old carny from way back so when they put him in the ground with his treasured things, he would chew on that bacco, and spit it at his headstone or whatever dumb inscription the charitable wrote upon it. stupid words, sentiment don't measure a man in words he thought as he fell to the ground in that long strange last moment.
it was an old party trick that killed him, an old carny act he used to preform and charge top dollar to the city folk to witness. once he made a thousand bucks in one night and filled a tent full of gawking spectators and drop jawed slackers, and many times his spirit was lifted by their rapturous applause, but not this time, not now, not ever again.
it was a trick from the olden times, a place long dead like he would soon be, a forgotten country. he never had accomplished much he thought in that fleeting space where lifetimes flicker by the echo chamber in the head. 
i perfected one skill and it's god dammed killed me. 
i never saw the sea, i never fell in love, i never baked alaska, i never ever took the locomotive cross the west like i dreamed. i had my chances but i was always practising and perfecting my trick. the trick that kills me.
people say you should die for your art but what if your art kills you. is that the same thing. tell me now.
my heads just exploding, it's all so beautiful, the way the blood just spurts out in some act of violent expression and my head recoils forwards nearly ripped from the neck, fragments of skull spinning through the air, precious shrapnel in front of me. its far to much violence where there should have been grace, such finality where once there was cause for rejoice and wonder. my legs inelegantly fail, at least my bowels are composed as gravity acts with it's unopposed precision. i'm not sure what's happening but my teeth have shattered like in pychadelica slow motion and those chunks of brain matter splatter like inedible jelly, my body twists around in a determined final gaze. do my eyes close or stay open, the sky falls over as the chimpanzee dressed in the cowboy hat comes running over to assess the damage, his pistol still smoking. i can almost see the look of anxiety upon his face, his mouth and lips puckering up. people said i was crazy using a chimp in the act, but training him was easy, keeping him off the coke and booze was a different story. 
his big bloodshot eyes are looking down at me, his left hand makes for my waistcoat and pulls out my wallet extracting a roll of bills he nods his head in approval as he plonks himself down upon my motionless chest and lights up a cigar.
'end of the road mission. end of the mission mission.'
i'm rising now, passing from the brutal body, i'm looking down at the absurd scene, my shattered face a rosarch test, the pesky chimpanzee holsters his pistol and perches upon my old body oblivious to the other dimension. he looks serene and at peace. 
it was our last trick, a performance we had perfected and we had rehearsed until it became second nature. i once had a beautiful assistant but she died of plague back in the bad days, i knew i would follow her shortly after but somehow i had an extended life till the cancer struck. then you know time is up. 
all i wanted was a nostalgic trip back to what i do best, after all it was my life's work. i'd perfected the art but there's not much control i could have over an unreliable accomplice. after all he held the gun. he had the power. i just had the power to stop the bullet but i didn't have eyes at the back of my head and murder is murder, even when it's committed by a malevolent chimp on a dead man walking.

there's a haze in the morning, sweeping down the freeway, blurry lights and epidrome. not many but the rugged few can deal with these early morning starts, the sun sluggish to rise, the last star burns bright. i weave in and out finding space to save time. the radio blurts out useless information and i can't get the satisfaction of speed.
with my drive through coffee i flash past the sleepy seaside village in it's hidden cove, quirky population still snoozing in their zombie sleep dreaming about cotton wool clouds and soft suburban landings. i drive past the big rock as the burst of light hits my rear screen, photons smash into texture, that blood red dawn is hot on my heels, chasing me down the sexy curve of the no speed zone, where only the brave dare to break all laws of man, i face the future.
technique takes me across the lanes in an elegant tangent i turn off the freeway and cruise to my destination.
i stick in some music for the last leg, some thing dark and funky slips out the speakers like a snake slithering. i want to smoke my emergency spliff but i have to stay un-stoned all day, file my reports, attend my meetings and do my work. i sit outside and focus my breathing, lots to do, lots to accomplish, focus focus focus hocus pocus focus focus. 
the world seeps in, my voodoo can't stop it, defences slip as it permeates my protection, i'm part of the world now, it's eating me alive. 
i play the game, the citizens play, some are in far to deep , they are asleep but others, a certain few are wide awake. we know the truth of it all. don't need no magick glasses to know they live. they live in abstract structures, cities and streets, buildings that  suck life with anti energetic lighting and strange food made from plastics. everything is a shade of shut down, bad television and news bombards recreational time, sports is the opium for the masses, facebook sucks their souls dry, like a fake satanic demon. 
the march of the man, from sleep to death is just slow death without art or a creative act. this is what i believe. slow death is the life we settle for, compromised. 
souled out.

i meet an old girlfriend for lunch.
she and i have history, she has not seen me in a long long time. she asks me what i am like and if i still have a hectic life. i tell her i never go out much and am basically a workaholic, doing long hours and hardly ever socialising. we have a nice lunch and it's very pleasant to see her again.
the next evening i am in the city with my friend val and olga. we have not seen one another in a long time either, these are my close friends and part of the small group of people i connect with. they are about to go overseas and i know i will miss them. we have just finished a meal and i go to pay the bill but the restaurant does not take credit cards and suggests i walk to an atm machine which i do. 
i step out onto king street the hash cookie kicked in and all i see is a flow of people moving up river in the early darkness of winter time. but there crossing right in front of the doorway is my old friend whom i had lunch with the day before. 
i walk up the street with her attempting to explain that i really was telling the truth when i said i hardly ever go out, and i am very reclusive. she don't buy it.

the man comes fixes the leak, it's a big job, it's expensive so i head away to see my accountant and have lunch with an ex girlfriend. my accounts are fucking desperate, things slide from bad to worse but i spin some numbers and do some fiscal juggling, throw chance to the wind and see what happens. it could be my ruin but i feel it may be a salvation of sorts.
lunch is nice vietnamese vegetables, some green tea. i enjoy the company to be honest, it's been a long time since i saw this girl and she's still kooky and smart. we should never have had a relationship, we were to alike, and it was nuts. like really nuts but wow, we created so many dramas and left so much damage in our wake. now, older wiser we are battle worn and jaded. i should have never had a relationship but we should have gone into business, we worked very well together.
i show her some picture of jake and tell her about my brain injury. she laughs i laugh and i guess we just laugh.
'are you happy,' i ask.
'no.'
'good. i couldn't bear to be unhappy on my own.'
it's a strange old life.

the trees have roots, they penetrate some pipes that carry water, the pipes are copper and cannot defend themselves against nature. water bursts out from the surface, my tropical garden swamped with a new wet look, mosquitos, snakes and crocodiles, slip through all defences  quickly environments transform and i see prehistoric conditions at my front door. 
i have to call a plumber, he says 2pm but comes at 5pm. he charges me for the pleasure of telling me they have to dig up the whole front, maybe pull out trees and adjust my water pressure. 
i sign the line. it's costing a small fortune, a big one to me, but it has to be done. 

endings.
over the last few months i was having liaisons with a new agent, she was in training and doing very well on her assignments. i liked her, despite the poor communication and unpredictable moods and what appeared to be a wobbly domestic situation. the situation between us was good, it seemed to suit us but she decided to end it as she had the chance for a relationship. 
i will call her agent L for want of a better name, we never developed far enough to formalise the arrangement but she was progressing well and i often looked forwards to our adventures. agent L amused me in a strange way, i would have liked to have kept her but her needs for a saviour were not quite in line with my need to save. i just don't save. sometimes i wish i could but that's not my role in this life. 
anyway it's been about a month since she started her 'relationship' and i hope it's working out for her but there is a little void in me that requires filling. i am a poor slave of my own appetites.