Conservative, rightwing yappy mouthpiece, Alan Jones

Our Opportunistic Prime Minister Is A Scumbag

There really is nothing to which Scott Morrison won't stoop, pretending to be concerned about the pregnant woman from Ballina whose baby, apparently, died due to closed boarders with Queensland, and not being able to get an Ambulance for a considerable amount of time, when previously Scummo has made no secret about wanting Queensland to open its borders. The empathy coach was clearly a waste of money for Scotty.

Sometimes

Sometimes, all we want is someone to look in our direction, nothing more, nothing less.

Just a friendly face, and a little acknowledgment.
Heaven sent.
(If there was a heaven, of course)

Something real,

Sometimes, that is all we want.

Heaven.
(said in the gay way, not the Jesusy way)

Still my favourite protest sign held up by a conservative voter protesting something

Man, You've Got A Big Arse

I'm walking in the park, getting in my hour a day exercise. Some days I ride my bike, some days I walk. Today I walked.

A guy jogs passed me in baggy blue shorts, under which he has active wear tights. He has on a blue long sleeved active wear top. Funny, he seems to be way over dressed, like Joey on Friends when he puts on all of Chandler's clothes.

His shorts are big because he has a huge arse. "Baby you've got a big arse," I say out loud, or I would have said out loud if it hadn't been muffled by the mask I was wearing. I laugh, and got thinking.



Baby Got Big Arse

God, you’ve got a big arse, baby.

What would that feel like spread across my face?

In the saddle like a cowboy, giddyup! Ride ‘em home.

While I get in touch with your inner zone.

I feel you quiver, I feel you squirm

At the thought does your stomach churn?

I laugh, (how brazen am I?) I feel it in my face,

I pick up the pace.

To the end, it is a race.

You and me.


Funny the things that go through your head when you are walking in the sun, in the park, listening to Bowie, watching the joggers’ jog by. The sun shone, the sky was blue. One foot in front of the other, marching forth. I love the energy begetting energy. The rhythm, the swagger, the fresh air, sense of space and grace.

Walking is my thing at the moment. Riding was always my exercise of choice, but walking seems to suit me well, now. It is probably not the best for losing weight, but then people say that is more about diet than it is about moving your arse.

So, it is walking that I am into now, not the least because I am free, to fantasies about you and me. Not the least because I am free to write poems about what who I see. Ha ha. You can’t write much when you are barrelling along on a bike, it is not easy to do that. No sir.

There is a freedom about walking, just me and the elements, no machine bought into service to help me along the way. Just me and my two feet, that is freedom.

I wish I could jog like I used to, but my left knee doesn’t like it, which is the reason I took to bike riding in the first place. Even recently, I gave it a try, thinking that my knee had been really good all through this time of increased exercise, but no, it didn’t like it straight away and was sore for days afterwards. If I walk, it seems to cope just fine, but high impact, no, no, no.

Walking is great, though, don’t knock walking. You can continue to day dream about that guy with the big, beefy butt easily. Or that guy with the tiny little arse and those thighs (holding hands 30 centimetres apart) and those tiny black shorts that only barely kept him nice.

You can go on thinking about the two cute Asian boys who jog with their dog, the granny jogger, who I can walk faster than, but who is still my inspiration for getting out there and doing it, the old man, in the neat matching tracksuit top and bottom, who I reckon has been given walking to do by his doctor, or, the woman who walks the two wolves.

No thinking required, just relax into it, get up your rhythm and get going.

Conspiracy Theorists (is that giving them too grand a title?) or, at least, the people who believe conspiracy theories, are halfwits, and, I guess, it is very easy to say they are halfwits, but why are they? Is it the stupid who believe this stuff? Is it lack of education? Are they just bored? Is the media to blame using fear to sell its product? Is it the duplicity of politicians that feeds this stuff?
What is it? 
I don't know. 
Some of it is just mind boggling, the kind of stuff that bends your brain trying to understand it.
I know one thing, I never, ever believe that the people perpetrating this crap actually believe it is true, they do it for another reason, other than the good of the people on whom they are inflicting their rubbish. They do it for self promotion, they do it for their own gains, they do it because they can, maybe.
It really is evil inflicted on the world.

Wet Sunday

Shower early. Go shopping. Breakfast food needed to be got. Purchased. Procured. I am out of my track pants and explorer socks and hoodie, it almost feels a bit weird to be in jeans and a jumper that doesn’t have any holes in it.

9.25am. We head off to The Hive (shopping centre) in the rain. The streets are deserted, nobody is around, it is a ghost town outside. Lockdown and heavy winter are taking their toll. It is bleak, grey, the day is colourless. The rain hasn’t stopped since yesterday, since Friday. We mask up before we go, of course, strange times indeed. It is cold, uninviting, and the morning is silver with moisture.

We get a park right out the front. I love it when Jill is with me, you always get a park out the front, she says. It almost seems to be a waste to get a park right out the front if no one is there to appreciate it. Sam doesn’t care, he doesn’t drive, so he doesn’t understand.

We walk around Aldi. Sam is taking his sweet time, I try to hurry him up.

“A quick shop is a good shop,” I say. He doesn’t react.

“Let’s get what we need and go.” He keeps browsing the shelves unhurried.

“I’m going to look at the junk bins in the middle of the shop.” I’m hungry.

Why do some guys look so good in tracksuit pants? I ask you? Tall and blond and athletic, I suppose, has a lot to do with it. Damn, that is a fine piece of mea… er, man.

I take stuff to the car, as Sam goes to Woollies for juice, which Aldi didn’t have. “Aldi doesn’t have juice?” I question. He heads off to Woollies without answering. (I’ve never liked Aldi)

I stand in the centre’s doorway, like I normally would when I have Buddy and Bruno with me and start writing some journal notes in my phone. Some aboriginal girl asks me for money, which I try to ignore, but she is insistent, asking louder and louder until I have to react. “No, sorry,” I say. She doesn’t look underfed, I think. Oh, I’m just cranky, remember, I haven’t had breakfast yet.

Things still hurt, my chest and my back. My feet are still hum, at times. David said the other day he didn’t expect middle age ailments to hit quite so hard, or so early. I shudder at the suggestion. Ah life? What is there to say about it now?

10.15am and still shopping. I sit on the seat at the front of Woollies and wait for Sam, and write some more of my journal. When I see him come into the self-service checkout, I text him. “Look over your right shoulder.” He gazes around like Stevie Wonder until he sees me, then he smiles.

I ferry more bags out to the car, running in the rain. (Going back to check if I locked the car in an OCD fashion in the rain)

We go to Saigon Village and get fruit. Mandarins and bananas for me. My snack food, now I can’t eat sugar. (I guess I must go to the doctor and get my next blood test to see what my sugar levels are, actually, doing?”)

Sam goes to Minh Phat supermarket and wanders about leisurely. I stand out the front and write some more of my journal. I watch the people passing by.

The rain still falls. The rain hasn’t stopped. It is even colder, and wetter, and greyer. Good thing I like the rain.

I’m even hungrier.

I remember the white bowls I want to buy from Minh Phat, some large white bowls, we seem to have had a Greek wedding with ours lately. They, of course, have every size but the size I want. The size I want is just an empty spot on the shelf. Naturally.

Sam is finally done shopping. We run to the car in the rain. We perform hopscotch in the puddles, or maybe that was just me.

We are home by 10.30am, with the milk for the porridge I was going to make us both, the reason for going early in the first place, but we have ginger and sesame ball soup for breakfast instead, which Sam makes. I could eat the crotch out of a low flying whatever by this stage.

10.50am. I light a fire. A fire in the morning warms the room for the day, and because of lockdown where going to be here for a while.

The rain is still falling. I pull on my track pants and my explorer socks.

I put the old yucca, we chopped down from next door last year, on the fire and it burns well, even if it does smell just a touch, still it is better in flames in the fire place than dropping its leaves in my gutters to block them up when it rains.

We put The Grand Tour on. I cuddle up on the couch with Buddy and Bruno.

Midday, the weather clears up a bit, the sun comes out momentarily. Just a touch, just a hint, just a idea of what else it could be.

We watch the Grand Tour all day. Binge watching, that is the sort of weekend that it was, that is the sort of weather we had.

Rainy Saturday

It seems weird to be watching teev at 9.45am, but that's what kind of day it is, wet and cold. Boy is it wet! Has the rain stopped since yesterday? I think not. So, I have pumped up the open fire, munched down my porridge, with banana and peaches and honey, cuddled up to the baby bulldog... and I have a few series of The Grand Tour to watch, to boot. Sam has been buying things online from Amazon, so we have signed up to Amazon Prime again. Yay.


And after one whole season of The Grand Tour, the sun came out, for what would turn out to be, a millisecond and then Sam was keen to take Buddy and Bruno for a walk.

“Really, that is five seconds of blue sky?”

“They need a walk?”

“This is a momentary reprieve from the rain.”

“But what it it’s not?”

“I’m guessing that’s all it is.”

“They need to go for a walk,” said Sam. “They can’t be cooped up inside all day without exercise.”

“No, we’ll just get caught in the rain when it starts again.”

“Yes, we have to take them,” said Sam.

“No,” I said.

“Yes,” said Sam.

“No.”

We got 100 metres up the road and the sun disappeared, it clouded over and the wind picked up. We got another 100 metres up the road and a cold wind blew. We got another 100 metres up the road and Buddy effectively bailed on us, heading across the commission flats parkland to the dog park, so Bruno, Sam and I followed. We effectively got another 100 metres along and the rain came down. The dog park squelched under feet, parts of it were under water.

Of course, all the usual faces were in the park, dog people are weird.

“Let’s go,” I said.

We headed for home as the rain got heavier. The far side of the dog park was, pretty much, under water. We tip-toed through, even Bruno who hates to get his paws wet. Buddy doesn’t care, he just walks straight through anything, mud, water, whatever.

100 metres from home we were running to get out of the rain.

Then we were back inside out of the rain. It is moments like this that you really love an open fire.

Conservative politics doesn't care about people, conservative politics only cares about money. 
And so typical of conservative politics to accuse those of which they are guilty themselves. Conservative politics, are the biggest game players, straight out of the conservative politics play book.

You Fat Slag

As I turn off the end of the ramp coming down from Flemington Bridge train station, where I fell off my bike the other day, grazing my knee and tearing skin off the end of my finger, thinking about falling off my bike the other day, a chick on a bike comes riding along the bike path from Flemington Road, just as I am executing my turn and I have to pull up suddenly. Ah! No! The things you resist! Ah! No! Deja vu! Not… again! Nooooo!

“You stupid, fat slag,” I say out loud, (Truthfully, I was sure I saw headphones in her ears) as my brakes make that "errrr" noise, and my balance was undetermined momentarily. (Oh yes, I know, shameful, but I didn't mean to say it out loud, or, at least, I didn't mean for her to hear me say it out loud)

“I can hear you,” says her voice as she rides away.

“Oh, sorry,” I say. I ride off after her, noting how far her arse was hanging off either side of her bike seat. (But, truthfully, us fag boys always think that, it is beyond our control)

“And you wonder why women bang on about misogyny,” she says.

“I’m not misogynistic,” I say.

“It sounded like it to me.”

"You got in my way..."

"And that is your excuse?"

“I’m gay,” I say. “Boy, or girl, you are all stupid, fat slags to me.”

“Oh,” she says. “You rude, filthy faggot.”

“Touché,” I say. "Good for you."

We both laugh, cackling as we ride along the bike path next to one another.

“What are we like?” she says.

“What are we like?” I say.

“Red ruby…”

“Slippers,” I say.

“Great minds…”

“Small minds,” I say.

“Think alike…”

“Seldom differ,” I say.

“I reckon I could like you,” she says.

“Funny the people you meet, hey?” I say, as I ride passed her. “Just a moment in time.”

“Criss cross,” she says.

“From bad, to great,” I say.

"Have a nice life," she says.

"It was lovely to meet you," I call back to her.

"You too," she calls after me.

She was having a leisurely ride with a basket of flowers on the front of her bike, her straw hat tied with a floral ribbon under her chin. I was exercising, so I rode away, my black leather racing gloves gripping my handle grips tight.

The sun came out.

It was a great day after all.

A Large Seed

Toast and vegemite, and coffee, of course, the breakfast of champions, is that what they say? Australian champions, to be sure.

I picked up a large seed from my kitchen bench, which had fallen off my boutique baked, seeded spelt loaf of bread, and popped it in my mouth. You know, as you do as you clean up the bread board and put it away. And it crunched between my teeth, but it wasn't a large seed at all, it was a dead beetle and it was sour tasting like ear wax. Nothing I did got that taste out of my mouth for the longest time.

Beautiful flowers in Gertrude Street

People? Sheesh!

I don't have much of a filter, sometimes it works in my favour, some times it does not. Although, I have to say, rarely does it get me into trouble. Some people love me because of it, and some people like me despite it.

I used to work with a woman who used to say, "I just say it how it is, I am pretty blunt. I don't have a filter, please don't take offence. I can't help it, I was just brought up that way. I can't change, that is just who I am."

"Oh, that's alright," I tell her. "I don't have much of a filter either, I think we'll get along just fine."

She ended up reporting me to HR saying she was offended by things I'd said.



Fucken amateur, I thought.

Of course, I bluffed my way through it with HR, because HR ostensibly does not want to hear about employee's gripes, they want to do lunch and swap baby photos.

I laughed, "She must have misunderstood what I meant." Smile. Quizzical look.

And HR Karen was happy to drop it as soon as she could, she didn't want to do anything about it, let's face. Light and breezy gets you through any discussions with the HR professionals. Ask her about her kid, or that handsome boyfriend you have no idea how she hooked, she is easily distracted.



We never mentioned it again, me and the fucken amateur. She went on claiming to have no filter and, truthfully, I, effectively, had my filter in place, well, when it came to the amateur, well, kind of. I kept it away from offensive for the one who claimed never to offend, deliberately. I just stopped engaging with her, really. I think she and I knew the truth, though, you know, on some level, that she was a fake, and I was what she always claimed to be, although we never spoke of it.



Do I have to say she was a fucken nightmare, Janine, with her dead peroxide blonde hair, her acne pox marked skin, and her black panda eyes. The way she used to grab the men by the nipples and sing/yodel “Tune in Tokyo.” (I always wondered if she had any clue where that came from?) And that’s not mentioning the dirty stories she used to tell. What was it, her husband used to get all excited watching SBS after midnight. "Tittees galore," she used to say. She was quite a piece.

She, of course, thought she knew everything, and yet she knew nothing. She didn’t like me taking away her mantle of “the one with the most experience,” and I can still picture her standing at the Director of Finance’ desk when she was clearly running me down, because she never had the good sense to stop looking at me, with that expression of a 14 year old dibber dobber.


Then, I got a better job and left. Or, I got itchy feet, or I got bored, or I just wanted something different, and I left. I, of course, slated Janine to HR on my way out, when they told me they didn’t want me to leave and was there anything they could do to make me stay?

“Get rid of Janine, she is one of the reasons I am leaving,” I told them. “I just can’t work with her.”

(Truthfully, it was the dead end promotion structure, and the lack of opportunity to advance, but, hell, why let the truth ruin a good story, I've always said that. I was leaving to get away from Janine too, but she wasn’t the main reason)

I heard later, through the grapevine that she got moved sideways, which was, essentially, a demotion. I kind of hope I had something to do with that.

The Workers

Somewhere along the way, citizens got conned into caring what happens to corporate profits, like they were all important, all the while corporations cut the worker's wages and raise prices any chance they get.

Oh, boohoo, the poor hard done by business sector, what about the Howard-govt-induced twenty year flat wage growth the workers have had to endure, not to mention the casualisation of the work force, and therefore employment insecurity, while corporate profits increased exponentially.

So corporate Australia is doing it tough... la la la la, that's what I hear when they yap on about that... the workers have been doing it tough for two decades. If business hasn't invested some of its record profits over the last two decades back into itself, well, then, oh well, bad luck guys. There will be plenty more businesses to take your place.

Yellow & green... should never be seen...
no, that's blue and green.
Blue and green should never be seen, except with yellow in between

Stirring The Porridge

"You don't have to stir the porridge constantly," says Sam. Apparently, it is the metal spoon scraping on the bottom of the metal pan that annoys him. Who'd have thought?

But, half the fun of making porridge is the stirring, I think. Toil and trouble, boil and bubble. Nobody wants to feel the oats stick to the bottom of the saucepan, nobody wants that.

Feel it get thicker against your stir. Watch it absorb the water, before your eyes. See it turn from a bunch of ingredients, into something in itself. Stirring constantly, that's how it goes.

What is Sam thinking, pffffff. It is all about the stirring, round and around. The challenge is to not let it stick to the base of the pan. That is the game, here. So, the metal spoon may scrape against the metal base, that is just how it goes.

Sultanas cooked in the porridge, are like popping fruit. Then Bananas, honey, strawberries, blueberries and warm milk warmed by the coffee machine, as the time it takes to make the porridge, is the same time is takes to make two coffees, are added one by one.

The warm milk is a warm hug for the oats, as the porridge warms you through like an inner glow. Honey from the bees turns it to a sweet harmony. The bananas are smooth and the strawberries are tart, and the blueberries add colour like nothing else.

It fills me up creamy and smooth, and all the stirring is worth it in the end, despite what some may say.

Flea Face
Street Art China Town

You Know What I Hate?

You know what I hate? When you are standing on one foot and you are putting your other foot through your undies and your toe catches on the leg of your trunks and you can't get it unhooked and you jump around on one foot trying not to fall over. That's what I hate. Why do those sorts of things need to happen?

And you put both feet back on the ground before you topple over altogether and you lean down and you snatch your recalcitrant toe from the hen of your knickers, shaking your head. Pointless things, why do pointless things have to happen, you say to yourself yet again? But that is what life is, after all, I'm guessing when you are at the other end of it. Maybe? I'll be able to tell you when I get there.