I

Yes folk, he was once that young.
Girls would kiss him with their tongue.
A woman once grabbed him on the dick.
Whispered she knew a special trick.
Ends up it was a bloke.

Whattaya reckon?

Live and learn.


II

Reading is good for you she
said lovingly cramming the last of the echidna
up my wandering nostril.

Now from the top of the page
and
this time...

enunciate.


III

The day it rained frogs, my
French uncle was in
Cairo.

Talk about pissed off!

Feel For Real

At a time when the world seems to be spinning, totally out of control, we still feel sorry for things.

That’s a good thing.

And whether the feeling makes sense, is a positive move or can help someone or something achieve more than they ever thought possible…well, that don’t matter.

Having something to feel sorry for makes our life a bit easier to bear the shitter it gets.

That’s not a bad thing. But it can become an addiction.

Once you start to bemoan the plight of this poor schmuck, or that poor rain forest people, at this point of political correctness, are to polite to tell you to shut up. So you can speak and speak, slowly getting hooked on the rush that holding the attention of others brings. The sweet sensation talking out loud but saying little gives you.

But here me children…the day is not far off when ‘Blow it out yur ass’ will trumpet loud and long throughout the valley of Bagel.

Believing that and knowing the carnage which accompanies the truth, I wish to bear my soul.

I feel so, so sorry: to the point of tears, to the ends of anger, to the collapse and devastation of heartbreak, I feel so, so sorry for you, the people who must attend meetings.

The meeting has been with us since we crawled out of the biblical swamp. What made it work for centuries was they didn’t call it a meeting. There were other names.

Not once, in any western film, have we seen an Indian warrior walk into his tent and say, ’Whoa. These full days of Pow-Wow’s are gonna kill me.’

Not once in any Star Wars film that has Samuel L. Jackson in it, do we hear one of the High Council say, ‘Is it me, or is all we do in these movies is meet?’

To be called in to meet with the superiors was once a high honour and as good as a promotion. You were chosen because you were a person of decision. Confident. Strong.

Now a meeting does no work and all the criticizing. Meetings become a platform for those who never listened to anyone or were never listened to, to finally have the floor.

The most dangerous position that could ever come out of a meeting is the belief: we got it right.

And that is why my heart belongs to those who attend these chambers of verbal torture.

What horror it must be to sit through meeting after meeting with a fart that could move an ocean building and building within you and you are trying not to be noticed as you slyly shift your buttocks first one way and then, with absolutely no concern for the woman pouring tea behind you, slowly the other way to attempt even the most minute release of gas and a brief yet heavenly second of comfort.

To be so hungry at lunch due to a swag of morning meetings that offered no sustenance, you over eat and the afternoon meetings become an attempt to prevent your neck from collapsing under the enormous weight of your head.

And woe to thee that snore. Say what you like about snoring the truth is, you have no control. Fear might keep you awake while the CEO is speaking but once the 2IC or someone else who thinks they’re important starts droning, mercy, sounds like hogs running free at a church picnic.

Meetings were going on during the writing of this. Meetings are going on as you are reading this. Meetings are happening as we sleep.

For a dollar there’s a guy on the corner of Parramatta Road who will assure you meetings occur more often than sex in todays world.

For 2 dollars he won’t try to root ya.

I am not big on causes and the such but I want you to know, dear woman and men of the world who attend meetings to assure my life, every day in every way gets a little shittier …I feel sorry for ya.

Friday's Cross Today

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

John Howard and the Good Book

Everyday on the campaign trail a man is called to face demons.

The demons may be his own. They may belong to the party. They may be created and cast by a media force hoping the candidate will crash and burn.

The demons, which sat at John Howard’s breakfast table the day after the APEC conference, were big ugly bastards wearing Ozzie Osborne t-shirts, and spreading the stench of stale promises.

Big John recognized them immediately. These fiends represented a downward slide in the polls.

With a myriad of appointments swirling before him there was no time to hesitate. John boy snatched up the phone and began to dial the number of someone who's advice he savoured. The type of advice only a good mate could give in times of trouble.

The phone in the oval office rang with authority.

'G'day, George. This is John Howard.'

'Why didn't anyone tell me this red phone could take incoming calls?'

'George. George. It's John from Australia.'

'How they hangin', Jerome? How's everything down-wherever?'

'Yeah. Fine thanks. Listen, George, I've set a date for an election and I've called to ask your advice on a few things.'

'Ya' know, Josh, I envy you. Being able to call an election any time you want! How good is that! If it was me I'd have these bastards voting every couple of months. I'd add numbers to the end of my name like George the 3rd or George the 6th to give the illusion of change. That would confuse the hell outa those gay, commie, feminist, fun run pooper-scoopers. Am I right or am I right? Damn straight.

'George, I'm slipping in the polls and the blooding media are starting to claim I wasn't totally honest on a few issues. Frankly mate, I'm getting a bit worried.'

'That's your first mistake, Jerry. Don't worry. Lie. Deny. Rephrase. Oh, and yell, 'Terrorist' at every opportunity. How else will the electorate know how safe you're keeping Austria?

'Are you sure? I don't have much time .'

'Of course I'm sure, Jesse. I didn't get to where I am worrying about how people are going to vote. So be of good faith and when things get a bit too heavy reach for the good book I gave ya. You still have it don't cha?'

'Of course I do, George.'

'Good. Read from it before you go to sleep and know that the big W is in your corner and...I need a sandwich and a nap. You take care, Jimmy. And good luck with the...umm...subject of this...call.'

'Thanks, George, I feel... (Click) reassured.'

That night, after an exhausting day of campaigning, the Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon. John Howard, snuggled up in bed with the good book his mate, the leader of the free world, gave him and let the words wash his fears away as he began to read:

'My pet goat...'

Waiter's Lament

I worked on my lover’s birthday
And on the day our son was born
I had to work on Christmas day
Served New Year’s cheer till the crack of dawn.

I held a tray the very day
We were awarded the Olympics then
Cleaned up the Premiers mates.
My arm went numb waiting for Tom and Nicole
Who arrived 2 hours late.

I served the P.M. dinner
And survived 13 Easter Shows.
Tended bar at private parties
Shared the client’s top-shelf blow.

Labour Day and Anzac Day
I leave the family behind,
To smile and nod at strangers
Who’ll drink until their blind.

Yes, the agency will find you work
On days you’d rather be home
And then for the rest of the bloody year
They won’t even bother to phone.

The True AFL Issue

Football, Football, Football! Will we ever be satisfied with your lot.

The game is to slow; the game is too violent; the game is too drug addled; drink is destroying great potential; violent behaviour of players so long banned on field are manifesting themselves in casinos, girlfriends apartments and car parks.. Off field dramas. With betting on football at an all time high, will the AFL experience the same behaviour from the umps as the NBA has with their referees? These points sell papers but we can't seriously think that is were the real problems lie?

In the commercial caused rush demanding creative/commercially sponsored alternatives to make the game faster and more exciting than ever, are we failing to recognize the one off field location responsible for most of the violence, trash talk and behaviour so extremely unacceptable it would bring a Klu Klux Klan burning into disrepute? I bet my fuzzy bum that you know of which I speak, kind reader. Correct! The commentary box.

Men shouting at each other, at callers with valid points about the game, at piss heads that call after the game and especially yelling at no one in particular, just yelling, may have had its day when most of the players wore facial but, mate, it is the 21st century and this is the footy. We expect beef flowing through the microphones at the games each week, not cocktail franks.

Rather than complain (And Christ knows after a puff I do go on) I humbly offer these few suggestions for the men who call the footy on weekends and then spend the rest of the week wandering through the slum of ignorance.

First: Let's get the work FRICK-IN worked into the patter of a game. For example: 'That Frickin' umpy is having a shocker. 'He kicked the Frickin' bladder out of the frickin' ball for what must be the frickin' goal of the frickin' day! 'Tell me (add name of commentator here), have you been frickin' drinking on a empty head or are you just frickin' blind?' It works beautifully on a word beginning with the letter F. If you deny ever using the word fuck as a powerful, insistant adjective, well, fuck you. We use the word and inject it like an orphaned adjective into every corner of our speech. But we do that for we are all musical and the meter of the sound makes our conversations sing.


The rain in Spain... stays mainly on the plain.

The ball landed right... in the frickin players hands.


The used of this simple little word could turn the mugs behind the mikes into the Mozart's of commentary.

Secondly: If nothing else, let's be honest. A player does not get hit in the groin region, the abdomen or has his meat and two veg slide off the platter. It's called his BALLS people; the player was struck soundly in the NUTS. Is it so hard to say? Have we been so desensitised by the carnage shown hourly on TV that our point of distress is no longer visual but verbal? To paraphrase MY FAIR LADY, 'We don't care what others do actually, as long as they pronounce it correctly'. To be fair, balls, nuts, testes, and other colourful descriptions of the sweet meat may not flow easily off the lips of many. Therefore I suggest we use one phrase and one phrase only: whacked in the knackers. An Australian phrase, leaving no doubt what we are describing and yet soft and funny enough to avoid offending (almost) anyone. We all know why we laugh when a man gets whacked in the knackers...it's because it's not our knackers that are getting whacked. Thus life remains balanced.

The last suggestion is one that could have an enormous effect on future generations. Every culture, every society within a culture bemoans the loss of aspects that are unique to that specific group. These include dress, food, even areas such as respect and how respect is to be offered. The one great loss of any cultural group is its language. The identity and history of any group is kept alive by oral tradition. Think how many terms from your childhood have disappeared. (What did happen to the word 'Strewth!'?) How many more terms are slowly fading into a history no one will record?

Therefore I suggest footy commentators become the keepers of the phrases. That those who are employed as football commentators keep all Australian verbal idioms alive. Think of it; the AFL would become a cultural bank in which we can withdraw near forgotten pieces of what made this country unique. Of what keeps us Australian. Of course there would need to be a change in thinking as to whom is the best qualified as a football commentator/keeper of the cultural flame of language. A change of personal is required and perhaps that would be for the best of all concerned.

A story to illustrate how to make the game better.


A booking agent for many of the bigger clubs in Sydney died. The church was packed. However, conspicuous by his absence was the dead man's competition, the other big-club-booking agent. Noticing this, one of the acts both men hired went over to see the agent still alive and tell him about the day.


He was gruffly met at the door.

'Suppose ya been to the funeral, heh?'

'Yeah, I was.'

'Church packed?"

'They were spilling out the doors.'

'Yeah. I always told the bastard, "Give em' what they want and everyone will show up!"

What we want, really, is footy. Give us that and every bastard will turn up!

To the Beach

TO THE BEACH

A young woman
who cared
for me as
I was happily
losing my
battle with the booze
attempted
to show me
an
alternative to
sitting at the bar.
On a perfect
Sunday to drink
she walked me
to the top of
a cliff overlooking
the sure is pretty Pacific
and showed me
as the devil once
did for Jesus
all the glory that could
be mine
while removing her top
and lying back
breast perfect.
Yeah
that’ll help.

W.M. SPECHA 10/07/07