Like Silent Birds of Prey

Selected Observations from Adelaide - 18-22 June, 2010.

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Letting the right one in is like a process of lying to the brain so one can salve a bleeding heart. More mechanically, its like abstraction from the point of entry and acting blissfully unaware of its process. Lips taste sweet without any flavor. The sun pierces through the blades of my eyelids without mercy. The cold rattles the bones within my fingers as smoke billows to the top of the room, hazing the glow of yet more horrible television.

At the end of the longest night comes day. With the rising of the sun, laments for miseries past and cheers for enjoyment yet to come can be heard. If we cannot compromise with time, we remain its enemy. We put up arms but we are always overcome.

If there's one thing I've learned during my travels here and elsewhere, its that people are as unknowable to me as they are to themselves. Probing, demolishing and intimating - all general theories; conjectures just itching to be refuted at some later point. Maps are never territories and are in constant need of rewriting. I cannot watch and report for you - the feelings I encounter flow deep within are everpresent like the lightness of our being. A process of my own assisted design from Mother Nature. Nevertheless, I do care in my own way. All ways and none; unique in their expression. For what it's worth, at the end of the world, it's a small step in the right direction.

Into Hell?

I've figured that American TV reminds me of Twitter. Twitter, as most people that are half-way web savvy would be familiar with is the name of a micro-blogging service that some people regard as useless, has too much content to digest at any one time and seldom carries any meaningful discourse across its spontaneously fabricated space and time.*

Watching American TV, as a whole entity in its environment, doesn't seem to want to inform or even entertain as a passive medium or metaphor, but to act as a constant conversation with its audience, the language of which can be picked up by virtually anyone; even a "foreigner" such as myself.

Insofar that television shows are like Twitter, shows - be it sitcom, reality or drama - are like short bursts of narrative broken up by advertising, much like Twitter (if you've ever followed bots or marketing "gurus" you'll know what I mean.) Shows are sometimes also forced to extend the conversation to other mediums, such as the internet - the show itself does not wish to cease talking; however it cannot talk to its audience in a vacuum, obviously. Much like a ubiquitous bit.ly link, more conversation can be elicited elsewhere, at the discretion of the viewer. Having "special guests" from other TV programs, films, popular culture or music, etc. can be likened to the original "RT" or "follow friday"; promoting oneself vicariously through the pull-factor of a more popular trend or conversation.

Of course, the more popular a show/tweeter is, the likelihood of your participation in the conversation decreases dramatically. Having that said, the relationship doesn't have to be reciprocal; it just has to exist. When Television was first encountered by publics at large, it was handily branded as vacuous or useless. Now we cannot imagine living without it. Perhaps Facebook et. al. shall become just as indispensable as time wears on?


*Look for reference to "thanksgiving dinner"

Calling America (Awesome)

I've only spent about three days in the States so far, but it feels like weeks. Its like being at home almost but the food tastes about ten times better (yet about 100 times worse for you) and things, at least on the surface, appear to be awesome. Take Wal-Mart for instance. Its analogous to a massive amalgamation of a Big W, Safeway and Dick Smith Electronics under one roof, and every product sold seems to be about 60% of what I would pay back home. All perfectly well and good, except Elyse is telling me its completely evil.

But what isn't evil is the wide spaces in the car parks. Seriously Australia. Get your fucking act together in the parking spaces department. Opening a door 10cm to get out is not fucking acceptable!!!

Once I get my fucking luggage back (if it ever comes back) its possible my rage will have subsided enough to update with something substantial. Oh, and pictures of me and Rich Ward at the Aerosmith/ZZ Top concert. Who seriously, is the most awesome, nicest guy on the face of the Earth. They should put that in his Wikipedia page. Because it's god damn true. I love you, Rich Ward. Seriously. Please be my new BFF.

In Error

Well, what exactly have I been doing? Looking up websites. It's what I do. Oh, and try to transmit myself across the internet to the girl I'm totally in love with. So far it hasn't been working. I'll have to buy that plane ticket after all. Damn it all to hell!

Which is kind of daunting, to say the least. Arriving in Seppoland and getting all my necessary paperwork in order might just drive me batty. I'll be set up there in no time at all, I just don't have much fundamentals here, scarcely less than over there (but still more, damn you!). I'm sort of stuck, scrambling for ideas on how to pass myself off as a journalist when next to no-one believes that's what I (have been) do(ing) since I was in high school, essentially. Except for those 20 readers a day. I love YOU guys heaps.

I've got interviews set up with all kinds of interesting people; but I can't for the life of me figure out who wants to read about them. In a world that thrives on hearsay, uninterested as hapless facts look on in disillusion, what exactly do I do?

One of those times

It's one of those days where everyone's using words I understand but are talking in a completely different language to me. I'll say one thing and the response will just be gibberish, cryptic or something I didn't even ask to know. Usually, when my thoughts are cluttered, I liken it to someone pressing a whole lot of typewriter keys down all at once, with only a garbled, incomplete mess striking the page.

It could be a result of my mind going soft because my Summers leave me too much time to think to have any fun, but my only goal right now is to save up enough money to get the hell away from here. Where would I go? To the one place where I know I'm understood, of course. It really is time to start anew.