Squeeze My Feathers

Trust Watch. Wednesday.

2010-12-15T04:02:00.000-08:00

I don't trust hats in general and I don't trust girls in hats specifically. I feel like with the presence of a hat a girl is trying to convey something quite certain about herself. If she is trying to convey that she is whacky and unique and most definitely has an intriguing personality - she has failed. If she is trying to convey that she is a pair of overalls and a big sunflower away from being Blossom - she has succeeded.

Though I do love a lady in a head scarf. I'm thinking more Grace Kelly head scarf than Higab. As for berets. Well you better be damn cute.

Trust Watch. Tuesday.

2010-12-14T04:19:00.000-08:00

I have always been of the opinion that if you have something of exquisite beauty, you don't hide it, or cover it up purely to protect it from being damaged. This is the reason I have never worn sunglasses to hide my eyes.

I have decreed in the past many times that the iphone case is the modern car bra. For those not aware of the car bra, they were particular popular in the 1990's, designed to protect the front of your car from damage due to flying debris. Apart from looking totally ridiculous and having an even more ridiculous name, you would think that the more expensive the car the more value the car bra would be, and thus be utilised by expensive car owners extensively. However, the car bra tended to only be utilised by Toyota Selica and Ford Capri car owners.

My point is, what is the purpose of having something so beautiful (and I am constantly being told how beautiful peoples iPhones are) that when you actually use it, you don't get to see and experience that beauty. iPhone covers, while protecting the beautiful aesthetics of Apples wondrous design team, actually prevent anyone from seeing the beauty. Yes I know that they help protect the phone from breaking when dropped but surely we could all do with a little risk in our lives, yeah?

Again, I feel like I am the only one that sees this. I'm starting to feel like I am living in a recent Scorsese thriller (Shutter Island or Inception) where I am the only one that has access to the 'real' reality. That was the point of those films, right?

thirty-one

2010-12-07T01:28:00.000-08:00

Due to a hangover, a long drive to my folks, tiredness and eating too much of my mum's cooking, I finished off my birthday laying in front of the television, with my little brother, watching Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams.

It wasn't entirely unpleasant. Me and my bro watched right to the end because we needed to see where it all went and also because my 13 year old brother wanted to know, "what the hell was going on in 1989 where this was an acceptable form of cinematic entertainment."

And we found something out. Neither of us are really huge fans of the baseball-ghost movie genre.

evening.

2010-12-06T03:31:00.000-08:00

Someone described me the other week as a slightly more obnoxious, significantly less successful, mildly less funnier version of Larry David.

And not more than 3 days ago, a different someone said I sounded like an annoying version of Jerry Seinfeld.

And my mum said Ian Thorpe reminds her of me.

Hey 31! What's up. This shit is real.

The Columbines Massacre

2010-12-06T03:28:00.000-08:00

I have been away from the blog. I missed it. All these vague, mediocre thoughts clogging up my mind. I had an operation on my jaw, where I was under general anaesthetic, to fix a cracked tooth. The anaesthetic combined with the pain-killers and antibiotics made me vague and hazy. I thought I should spare the blog.

So I am going to write something every day for the next two weeks. A big commitment I know but I think it is warranted. Now that I am off the Panadine Fort, I am feeling unusually alert. I am feeling COMBOULATED.

A Pascal Chocolate Éclair is about as close to a chocolate éclair as Vegan Not-Dogs are to the hind legs of a farmyard pig. I can't believe we let them get away with this bullshit. If it weren’t for the sweet sounds of the Phil Collins playing Gorilla I would storm the Cadbury officers right now (or maybe later when the weather has cleared up a little).

And this leads me to Chip flavours. It started with sour cream and chives. No, it started with “cheese and onion”, then “sour cream and chives”. And we accepted it because they tasted yummy and, quite frankly, we were all a bit sick of the BIG FOUR flavours: Plain, Salt and Vinegar, Chicken and BBQ.

Then came the Kettle chips with their “Baked Honey Ham”, "Chilli and Sour Cream" and "Herb and Spice". The chips were crunchy and rustic and downright delicious so we let that slide.

Not long after, along came Red Rock and friends trying to impress us with their "Red Wine and Tuscan Herbs", "Chicken, Thyme and Lemon", "Honey Soy Chicken", “Lime and Black Pepper” and, the worst of them all, "Balsamic Vinegar and Sea Salt".

I refuse to be quiet anymore. I refuse to be kept down by the thugs in the (Potato) Scallop industry. While you sit there and stuff your face with saturated fat potato snacks I am going to stand up and shout, ""Balsamic Vinegar and Sea Salt"! It’s the same fucking thing as "Salt and Vinegar". We are being duped and having the wool pulled over our eyes."

The human fried potato palate is an insatiable, however, unsophisticated beast. I contend it can detect three, maybe four, flavours: Sugary, Salty, Spicy and Sour. Every chip flavour is essentially a combination of varying proportions of these four flavours.

So go take your bodied wine, with its bouquet of aromas and your mild-aged-hazelnut Bree cheese and sample all the delicate flavours you like. But when you are eating chips all I ever want to hear is, "Fuck, these chips a salty."

easy as...

2010-06-07T04:21:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed that Australian ABC TV presenters talk to their audience like they are fucking children. Retarded children.

Presenters on most shows, Q&A, Quantum, First Tuesday book club, the hungry beast, message stick, talk to the audience like they are presenting BTN for kids. There is no respect for audience intellect, and any back-story information to a discussion is explained like we are all five year-old children that, when presented with a concept we might not understand, will freak out in a frenzied tantrum and shove crayons up our noses.

The abc is so scared of presenting anything that might go over 'anybodies' head they have forced an intellectual and cultural enema upon themselves.

I'm not the smartest or most cultural guy on the planet but i am interested in culture and history and art. What's more, I am interested in what people smarter than me think about culture, history and art. Consider this intriguging but somewhat superficial fact. Now with 3 digital channels, ABC1, ABC2 and ABC3 Kids - programming is drastically skewed for children. Between the hours of 9am to 12pm and 3pm and 6pm on a Monday - between the 3 ABC channels it represents 18 hours of TV programing only TWO hours could actually be described as Adult viewing (and I am using that terminology loosely - it includes Landline). Two hours out of 18. OK, yes, I understand that one of those channels is devoted entirely to kids programming and the times I selected are times skewed towards children - but how many TV viewing options do kids really need.

Intelligent, cultural ABC programing has been slashed. Sunday Arts, Counterpoint, Bill Cooks lecture series. Where have Jonathon Biggins, Peter Craven, Clive James, Meaghan Morris - people who know about art, history and culture, gone. They can't get a gig on the ABC but for the glut of people like,Tony Jones, Jennifer Burns, Marieke Hardy, Andrew Denton and Poh the cook. Anybody that wants a recent example of the interlectually lightweigtness of the ABC these days should watch the most recent episode of First Tuesday book club where Colm Tóibín and Lionel Shriver, made the regular panelist look like retarded children with 'adult" intelligent discussion and insights into books beyond "i liked this book because it mentioned the street i lived on" type discussions. Or consider that Catherine Deveney was consider a cultural critic when she appeared on Q&A.

I know these days, to be a cultural critic all you need to do is find something low-brow and popular, like masterchef or Jake Gyllenhaal, and write an essay saying how they reflect the cultural mores of our time and perhaps mention they are the modern day Clarke Gable or Katherine Hepburn. Or that being an artist requires little more than arranging puppies in cute, satirical positions or drawing cock and balls on revered cutural symbols - but knowing stuff kinda matters. Knowing history. Understanding art. Learning. Matters. Culturally we should posesss slightly more in our intellectual, cultural and artistic arsenal that irony, satire, simplicity and a few fart gags.

ABC was once there to challenge us, provide us with programs not accessible on the other commercial networks. when all you are serving up to us is a slightly more refined reality TV show, or A current Affair but presented by someone in glasses, all you are challenging is our ability to find "adult" programing. We have the other commercial TV stations, we have the internet - ABC talk to us like you at least think we are smart and stop being so scared of alienating some views because a certain discussion will go over there head - don't worry, they will swicth over and watch Hey Hey it's Saturday.

for names sake.

2010-06-03T18:22:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about past relationships lately. Before i delve into anything too in-depth (if I actually do at all) I will leave the blog with this...

I went out with a girl whose last name was Rafter. We were basically married.

Apart from the Tennis nature of both our surnames (Graf and Rafter) there was something else wonderful about them. When we planned on getting married and having kids, to bypass all the tricky issues associated with what names our kids take as their surname, I suggested we create an all new name - GRAFTER.

Total win. Both names combined in their complete form. Genius. We didn't end up getting married.

love never tasted so bad.

2010-05-18T05:38:00.000-07:00

I have probably posted before that I went to a very small Primary School. Lansborough West Primary Scool (LWPS), final year student population: 9. I was the only kid in my grade, and still I never made the honour roll.

Landsborough West isn't a real town. Landsborough proper is barely a real town and certainly doesn't qualify or need any Cardinal divisions. LW was once a town. Which is to say it had a train station, a general store, tennis courts and a town hall. But all that remains now are the tennis courts and the stumps where once the weather-board town hall sat. And LWPS. Until 1990.

LWPS consisted of a portable (the main school room) and an old run down school house, the Barkely Room. This was all situated in quite a large paddock with lots and lots of trees; far more trees than would be acceptable in any current school yard.

We only ever had one teacher at any one time for the entire school. Given that the teacher would have to prepare class work for grades prep to sixs, do administrative and principle duties and, more often than not, watch Days of our Lives, our recess and Lunch times were generally unsupervised.

I like to think of it as my very own Lord of the Flies. Yes, we weren't stranded, there was no wild pig and we didn't hunt for food. We did have a forte, ill-conceived tree houses, and an incinerator that we were allowed to use. And no, we didn't have a conch. But we did have sling-shots, and although we might not have possessed the civilised democratic ambitions of Ralph and Piggy, when someone has a sling-shot aimed at your head, you tend to quiet down and hear them out.

Some crazy shit happened during luch times. We killed snakes, played "show me yours, i'll show you mine", started fires, broke windows, cut down trees, got chased around by poo filled underpants and generally misbehaved. The story I remebered today isn't quite as action packed but, given the circumstances, equally dramatic.

It was the summer of 1989. My friend Aaron and I were sitting in the Barkly room at lunch time listening to music. We finished playing Bon Jovi's slippery when wet so we switched over to the radio. On came a young Eric Weideman, fronting 1927, with If I Could. Now for 9 and 10 year old boys, that song is deep. We sat in silence absorbing the sentiments of the song, both trying to understand what type of love would make you 'want' to do anything, anything at all, for someone. And how could we get that feeling now.

I don't know how it came about but we decided we would both write Love letters. Given at the time our student population was only 10, we were limited in who would be the object of our affection. We both chose the same girl and by that I mean there was only one girl that was suitable within our age range, Lori. We decided we would write her a series of letters, declaring our love, and ultimately ask her to choose one of us to be her boyfriend. Although we were best friends, Aaron and I, nothing could stand in the way of artificial true love and boredom.

We wrote the letters, which must have been relatively unmemorable because I cannot remember them. We delivered the letters to Lori's desk, one of those old two seater wooden ones with the flip-up up lids, and placed the letters inside with some wild flowers we had picked. And we waited.

Later in the day, Lori came and sat next to us both. Lori, also sensing the dramatic gravity of the situation told us that she needed time over the weekend to make her final choice. We all agreed to reconvene on Monday.

Then comes Saturday and on Saturday is tennis. Being a small town, of course, we all play on the same tennis team. During the day, Aaron and I, most likely because we were feeling slightly vulnerable and largely embarrassed by the previous days events, unconsciously decided to gang up and tease Lori. Of course she ends up crying and we think we have won. She then tells us that she is not going to choose either one of us and she is going to show everyone she knows the letters that we sent her. The letters which were in her folder at school. We were fucked.

Not long after I got home from tennis, all sweaty and tired, I got a phone call. It was Aaron.

"Nat, we are fucked."

"I know."

"well what are we going to do? We are totally fucked. fuck."

"we need those letters dude. I don't care what we have to do but we have to destroy those letters"

We decided we would ride our bike to the school right then, break in, and destroy the letters.

I arrived at the school about 20 minutes later, Aaron, who lived a little further away would take another 10 minutes. I was pacing around the school, nervous, doubting if the letters were even still inside. Aaron turned up and we decided to get started.

Breaking in was no trouble. We had seen it done before. A few times our teacher/principle had lost his keys and locked everyone outside and had to break in. Wire and poorly designed window latches was all that we needed. We scrambled through the window, careful not to knock too many things over on our way in. We were alone in the school.

Aaron walked over to Lori's desk and opened the lid. He pulled out her blue folder. It was here. He brought it over, threw it on the floor and we both dropped to our knees, the blue folder between us. We exchanged a look, I'm not sure what Aaron was thinking but I was thinking, "Are we really going to do this?"

Then, in a blink of an eye we were tearing pages out of her folder, our love letters, grabbing them recklessly with our entire fists and, I don't know if it was me first or if it was Aaron or it was simultaneously, we started to eat them. Both of us, kneeling on our school floor on a Saturday afternoon stuffing love letters in our mouths, furiously eating them, swallowing big chunks of sloppy A4 loose-leaf while trying to work up enough saliva for the remaining pages. The frenzied moment of spontaneous love letter eating soon passed and we were left with a lack of adrenaline and with the chore of eating love letters, both of us all too aware of the absurdity of what we had done. But that paper still took some chewing.

We left the school the way we broke in. We both got on our bikes ready to ride home in opposite directions.

"That was kinda weird, eh Az?"

Silence. Aaron just stared over my shoulder like he was already mentally riding the long, hot journey home.

"Alright, I'll see you Monday, Natio"

corners and other right-angled objects

2010-05-17T01:51:00.000-07:00

The worst thing for a blog is self consciousness. It makes a blog a chore to write and more often makes the content far worse. This is what has happened to me and my blog.

I'm not self conscious about other people reading it. That really doesn't bother me. But what happened was that I started re-reading my past blog posts. Over looking all the grammatical and spelling errors, the content just made me cringe. And when I would go to post something on my blog I would get that shivery, goosebump, cringey feeling that you get when you see someone doing something embarrassing, like when you used to watch Neighbours and Toadie is about to ask some girl, way out of his league, out on a date, and all you want to do is cringe and hide and change the channel but I can't change the channel because this is my life and the batteries in the remote are dead.

So what to do? Kill the blog? Examine why I find it so cringe-worthy? Write better? Hmmm...they all seem to drastic. I think I am just going to write stuff that is a little more closely related to my life rather than my brain (if that at all makes any sense). We will see. (Though ranting on soup and spelling errors will remain intact!)

I'm not patriotic. I'm just very vain.

2009-12-01T01:39:00.000-08:00

When I work at my computer, I like to have a pen and pad next to me. At the end of each day, after much procrastination, chatting on the phone, avoiding serious thinking and just general day dreaming, I have a page full of scribbles and doodles and very little else that could be passed off as serious work.

Amongst the doodles and scribles are quite a few very badly ink-drawn Australian Flags. Yes, AUSTRALIAN FLAGS!

I am not usually one for hating on Australia. Quite frankly, I think you are a bit of a fucking spoiled brat if you whine too much about Australia (you have fucking hit the jackpot if you were lucky enough to be born in a liberal place like Australia and are not one of the 2.7 BILLION people who live on less than $2 per day) but I certainly wouldn't describe myself as patriotic.

So why all the Australian Flags, Natio? Well, it is because I am vain. When I doodle, I tend to write the letter 'N', because "Nat" starts with 'N' and 'N' is an awesome letter. Then, in some form of absent-minded modesty and shame I suppose, I turn the 'N' into a square with a diagonal, then add extra diagonals to create the Union Jack. The Union Jack looks all lost and lonely by itself on the page so I add some stars, and as Jerry Seinfeld said, Britain at night time - you have the Australian Flag.

Trust Watch

2009-11-22T01:49:00.000-08:00

It is scary out there, kids. Like Cat Sevens said, it is a wild world, and he goes further to point out that it can be difficult to make it by just upon a smile. Perhaps you could make it by upon a smile so long as you have regular installments of Trust Watch. Cat Stevens didn't say that last bit, I did. Though he also has a song called, Was Dog a Doughnut, so I really don't know what to believe. Now to the incoherent, nonsensical, arbitrary ranting!

5. Tram tracks. For those lucky enough to live in cities with Trams, we also are unlucky enough to live in cities with tram tracks. The slippery, greasy enemy of cyclist and motorcyclist, tram tracks are responsible for many accidents, and unfortunately, some deaths (hey yo Swanston st buses, you cool?). In the past 3 weeks I have seen three people crash their bicycles due to slipping on the tracks. It is odd, you can be acutely aware of choosing appropriate angles and speeds when you are crossing tracks and yet you can still slip up. Rain, Grease and Steel unsurprisingly doesn't make for superiour traction. So be careful kids.

I have a pant zip that is a little loose and undoes itself with the aid of its friend, gravity. I asked google for a quick, short-term solution to this and the suggestion presented to me was spray it with Hairspray to make the metal teeth on the zipper more sticky. And it works. Which is why I propose they spray all the tram tracks, every week, with hairspray (because it would wear off after a little bit). What's that, how would you undertake this logistical nightmare of spraying the hundreds of kilometers of tram tracks with hairspray once each week? Surely the cost in man-hours alone, Nat, would make this project unfeasible, not to mention the cost of hairspray. Nat you really have lost your marbles and by the way, you need a haircut. All you need to do is rig up some contraption onto the back of each tram, and as they roll up and down the tram tracks, once each week, they could also be automatically applying said hairspray.

4. Men eating ice cream cones. You don't see a single guy in a business suit walking down the street eating a double scoop chocolate ice cream cone very often, eh? I did the other day and I haven't been able to shake it from my mind. I'm all for it, it just seems a bit, I don't know, indulgent. No there is definitely something a little creepy about it. "You know what, I just thought I should treat myself. I said Kevin, when was the last time you did something just for you. So I did it. I splurged out and got myself an ice cream And i am not even going to think about the calories."

3. Brothers. I reminiscing with myself the other day (which is really good because every memory I bring up I always seem to remember) and I was thinking about all the ways in which my brother hurt me. He split my cheek open trying to teach me how to box (he was 12, I was 6). He threw a dart into my leg. Shot me with a slug gun. Knocked out my front tooth with a barbell weight. Smashed numerous tennis balls, cricket balls, footballs into my face/eye/groin. And there was this one time where we were going on a footy trip, no parents, so my brother had to look out for me because I was only seven at the time. We jumped on the bus and walked down the aisle, right down to the back where all the cool kids sat. My brother slip into a seat and I naturally followed him into the same seat. He quickly pushed me off and told me to sit somewhere else because I was "cramping his style". The pain. The emotional Pain!

2. Soup. Because it seems very difficult to just order a decent bowl of soup. Just ask this guy.

1. Avocado. The other day, I was having breakfast at A minor place with my friend, Min. Now Min and I both hate avocado because it is foul, disgusting and overrated. It is the Russell Brand of fruits. On the menu at A Minor Place is a BALT (bacon, avocado, lettuce, tomato) and no BLT. So when the waitress came to take our order I said, Can I have a BLT, you only have a BLAT on the menu, so a BLAT without avocado. Avocado is evil." In a classic inner city, politically correct, stuff-white-people-like kinda way, the waitress, with utmost sincerity and concern, asked, "Evil? what's wrong with it, is it bad for the environment or something?" Poor thing.

There have also been reports, thanks to the investigative work of Min, of Avocado smoothies and milkshakes. Now come on. VOMIT!

Leanne, Dave and Felix the cat.

2009-08-11T05:07:00.000-07:00

The story you are about to hear is true. The names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Dave, a friend of mine, was telling me a story about his girlfriends cat and how it came to be cremated. Dave and his missus, Leanne, lived together in a ground floor apartment in inner-city Melbourne. Leanne came to the relationship with a cat that a previous boyfriend had bought her for an earlier birthday. Lets call the cat Felix. Leanne, Dave and Felix the cat had lived a happy and peaceful life together in this inner-city flat for the past couple of years.

Leanne's family reside overseas. So once each she, she heads off to China and visits her relatives and friends for about 2 months. On the last occasion that Leanne was away, Dave woke one morning, made himself coffee and walked out to the courtyard. It was here that he found Felix. Dead. Lying. Flat. Stiff. And definately dead.

Dave attempted to get into contact with Leanne but learnt from her relatives that she was going to be out of reach for the next few days. So Dave was left to ponder the decision of what to do with the corpse. Being a paved courtyard, there was nowhere for Dave to dig up and therefore no place for Felix to be burried. Dave contemplated the nature strip outside his appartment block but thought this would need to be done under the cover of night and perhaps was not such a great idea givin' that he would have to tell Leanne where Felix was buried.

While he pondered this problem further, Dave placed Felix the cat in a shoebox and spoke to his mum. She suggested he call the local Vet.

Dave called the Vet and the Vet presented him with two options. One, the Vet could dispose of the cat for a fat fee of $45. Two, the Vet could have Felix cremated for $320, plus the additional cost of the Urn.

Knowing that Leanne would prefer the creamted option, Dave found himself facing a dilema. Why should he have to fork out cash for a dead cat that he didn't even buy? Yes he cared for the cat but $320!

Now some people would decide between those two options accepting the pitfalls of each one but ultimately living with the consequences. Dave is not like most people. Dave isn't really like people at all.

Dave took the cat to the vet to dispose for the low cost of $45. Dave then visited the local Salvos and bought a ceramic urn-like container for $3. He then went home, burnt some paper and twigs, placing them in the ceramic urn and presented it to Leanne upon her return as Felix's cremated remains.

I do not condone this behaviour. Not at all. But THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY DOLLARS?

meh

2009-08-04T06:20:00.000-07:00

The usual story. I can't be arsed putting any of my writing up here at the moment. Not really that busy, just not in the mood.

I bought my brother The Chocolate War and Beyond the Chocolate War by Robert Cormier for his 12th birthday. Apparently it has some sex scenes, alludes to a rape and one of the characters suicides (yes, not commits suicide, let's just say suicides, OK). He liked it. A good change from Harry Potter and Atticus Fowl.

Ways in which me and Michael J Fox are similar.

(I have always love MJF since I was little. Something about Alex P Keating appealed to me. It is that arrogant protagonist with a heart that suck people in all the time (Josh Lyneman anyone?). Then Back to the Future etc. When I was 20 they started showing repeats of Family Ties at 4:30pm weekdays. I would skip classes 3 days a week to ride home and watch it. I became a little obsessed. I dreamt about him when I slept. I once had a dream I was him in my very own Being Michael J Fox moment).

I studied Economics. Alex P Keating studied Economics.

I had two sisters and one brother. Alex P Keating had 2 sisters and one brother.

Nathan J Graf has 11 letters. Michael J Fox has 11 letters. And the same middle initial.

My other middle initial is P as in John Paul.

If you keep the J constant and move one letter backwards for N J G, the N become M and the G becomes an F, you get MJF.

At the time I wore woolen vests like Alex P Keating and owned a sleeveless parker like in Back to The Future.

I am sure there are more…

This is perhaps the funniest thing I have seen all year. And on Mitchell and Webb, more people should be watching Peep Show. I put it up there with Curb, Office, Arrested. At the moment perhaps a little higher.

Cunt reunion

2009-07-21T05:20:00.000-07:00

Almost two years ago I had the pleasure of helping organise my High School 10-year reunion. Granted there was probably only one other person less likely to organise the reunion, a guy who published a hit list of girls in our year he wished would die, I took on the task with enthusiasm and a mild sense of satisfactory irony. But that is irrelevant to the story.

At the reunion, I got to talking to one of the local lads we grew up with, and although he was a couple years older than us, he was part of our 'group of friends'. I never really liked this guy much and I never really trusted him. Deep down though, I guess you could say, he was a CUNT.

If you could see a picture of this guy you would instantly know what I mean. He has that "fuck off" reserved smirk and you just know, given the chance, if you died, he would anally rape your corpse and cum on your decomposing face.

Now I am a guy that is has a relative high level of trust in mechanics and automated design. I don't expect planes to just fall out of the sky, I trust most cars will stop at a red traffic light and my vibrating anal butt plug won't explode in my arse at point of climax.

This guy, the CUNT, told me where he worked. He works as a rail-works technician in Northcote. When I am riding across the train tracks now, even if there is no hint of the boom gates going down or the red flashing lights and the annoying dinging noise, I have to check twice, sometimes three times, just to make sure there hasn't been some mechanical malfunction where the boom gates haven't dropped for an oncoming train, due to the CUNT not doing his job because he was too busy trying to submit his girlfriends naked photos to Zoo Magazines Booty Bank* without her knowing, and I am going to get splattered by the train, die and I won't get to return my library books. I really hate late fines.

Sometimes, I guess, it’s best not to know who the people are that are doing the jobs that could potentially save our lives.

*The booty bank was a real section of Zoo magazine. Zoo magazine currently have a competition where you can “win a boob job for your girlfriend.”

**I re-read this post briefly, and yes, it does appear to be more sexual than other posts. I put this down to the fact I have been listening to the Dan Savage Podcast which is the gayest thing I have had in my ears since my school mate, Steven, tried to give me a wet willy with his penis when I was seven years old. Wocka Wocka Wocka!

Thinning out the population

2009-07-08T01:49:00.000-07:00

I’ve been thinking about death a little bit lately. Not in a particularly morbid way or with any depth of emotion of course, I’ve just been thinking of its place in life, society and popular culture. And I gotta say, I’m for it. Euthanasia, abortion, death penalty, let’s do it. And things that lead to quickened death; smoking, obesity, extreme sports, religion, I am down. I'm basically down for any activity that thins out the population and makes it easier for me to get a table at Dench for breakfast on Saturday mornings.

Euthanasia

Despite writing a terrifically insightful essay* in year 12 about how Euthanasia should not be legalized do to the impracticality of implementing a policy that would not be inherently racist and class-ist, for which my then English teacher, John Duke, called me a “fucking little cunt” with all the repressed anger a 40 year old man living in Stawell can muster, I am totally down with Euthanasia. My only caveat, people need to get a permit to commit euthanasia and the method of death has to be totally original. You could slip on the bathroom tiles, electrocute yourself watering the Christmas tree or create some domino, Honda TV ad contraption with a series of marbles, knives and syringes of morphine.

*insightful into the mind of a contrary 17 year old boy not the euthanasia issue.

Abortion

I once slept with a Christian who considered herself pro-life and had a crucifixion tattoo on her inner thigh. Let me just clarify. It wasn’t just a Christian cross; it was Jesus dying on the cross. And it was near her vagina, on the inner-thigh, kind of where you would expect a “slippery when wet” tattoo would reside. Let me just say I definitely used protection. For multiple reasons.

Not only do I think less of these fetuses should be born, I’m in favour of retroactive abortions, Ex post facto abortions if you want to get all legal, where we abort people who are currently alive but that should have been aborted. For instance, anyone who has a vanity number plate, or listens to Kelly Clarkson or whose name is The Jonas Brothers could be retroactively aborted. Unfortunately their already lived existence cannot be.

The Death Penalty.

I once thought the death penalty was an inhumane way of dealing with societies ‘problems’ stemming from some archaic beliefs rooted in the middle-ages. That was until I started watching reality television.

The problem with the death penalty and why it fell out of favour, as I see it, comes down to 2 factors. Firstly, we just applied the death penalty to narrowly in regards to the amount of crimes it could be used for. Murder. That was it. How boring. Throw in some random ones. Make things interesting; really make people watch their P’s and Q’s. The penalty for being convicted for littering: Death!

Secondly, it all went a bit south for the death penalty when we stopped having public executions. Bring that shit back. Turn it into TV. Have a reality TV show around it, So you think you can Death Row. The victim can choose his own form of execution. Make it the half-time show at the football. Give them a chance to survive, if the can do the rubik’s cube in under 2 minutes you get to live. Judge Judy can give stay of executions. Let’s make it less about justice and more about entertainment. Heck, we can even kill the odd celebrity here and there (Darrell Summers anyone?). I tell you, people would skip church to watch that shit on TV.

You are what you watch.

2009-07-08T00:20:00.000-07:00

A little while ago I was re-watching one of my all time favourite TV shows, The Sopranos. Such compelling characters, intricate relationships and a truly sustaining storyline. It wasn't until later in the week of my Sopranos marathon did I realise how significantly it had affected me and how dangerous television can really be.

I was browsing in my local secondhand bookstore, minding my own business, as all unblameworthy characters ever are. So guy comes up to me, leaving his kid behind to browse the picture books and he asks, "Hi, where would I find the text books?" As quick as you could say The Stugots, I said, "how the fuck should I know?"

Two days later, walking home from the milkbar down the road, a beggar asks me for some change. Now I normally don't give change to panhandlers but I will make an exception when they do it in my hood. I'm very community mind, of course. Into his open palm I put one dollar and thirty cents in change and he just stands there with his palm still open, looks at his palm, then looks up at me, then looks back down to his open palm, which now is $1.30 richer.

"What?" I ask.

"More?"

"More? You want me to take it back? Now get the fuck outta here!"

Trust Watch

2009-06-30T05:04:00.000-07:00

I have noticed some crazy things going on in the world recently. The election and subsequent protest in Iran, the death of Michael Jackson and the Ute-gate political non-scandal. I can only put this down to one thing; it’s been months since the last edition of Trust Watch.

5. Small Vegetables.

Look, I don’t, as a general rule, trust small things. Insects, genitals, people – when they are small they are not to be trusted. Vegetables are no different!

The main culprit – Broccolini. Where the fuck was this vegetable 10 years ago? And now it’s all the rage. Broccolini this, Broccolini that. Let’s all have a fucking Broccolini party! It combines people’s irrational love for broccoli with peoples desire for small, dainty cute things and saying ‘ini’ at the end of words. And don’t get me started on baby corn. Come on!

4. Books

I bought a book the other day. A secondhand book from the shop down the road from my house. I started to read it – I know, I know – that was my first mistake. I got to page 56, went to go to the next page (the astute reader will know that that would normally be page 57) and it goes straight to page 77). Bastards. Without all those pages it was like a “lose your own adventure” (see what I did there?).

Now who would tear out these pages? I am reminded of when I was 14 and I had a friend in High School, Richie Dunn. When we had class in the library he would roam the bookshelves, knock books off, hide books in air conditioning vents, tear out pages and, as his Pièce de résistance, would hock a giant loogie right in the middle of some book of young-adult fiction. Although he was a good student, it was like his “fuck you” to learning and a big “fuck you” to any kid stupid and lame enough to want to read a John Marsden novel.

3. People. In. Cafes.

I like sitting in a café, reading the paper and just enjoying a coffee on my lonesome. But I can never help listening in on other people’s conversations. I can’t help it. I know it will make me angry but I just need to know how much I hate this guy pontificating about how he thinks Stockard Channing is an overrated actress and that Al Pacino is the greatest actor in the last 50 years of cinema. Fuck you, dude. And now I have this other jerkoff crapping on about why the inner city art deco architecture of Melbourne is inferior to that of Sydney. This guy is definitely a contributing writer to Modern Jackass Monthly – a “fictional” magazine a friend alerted me to that is a great way to describe people talking knowledgeable about something of which the have very little knowledge. Hey, I might just be the editor-in-chief.

2. Soup.

Coming in only at number two this week is Soup. Look, I have been hard on you in the past, Soup. It’s winter; it is your time to shine, so I will let you off lightly this week. But can I ask you just one thing, what is with combining the most ordinary ingredients altogether in one fuck-off soup. Pumpkin, asparagus and lentil. Pumpkin bad. Asparagus bad. Lentils bad. Soup bad. Spinach, potato and leek. Come on. Can we put one interesting ingredient in there? Something to eat towards, something to save until last. A chunk of chicken? A Matzah ball? Come on!

1. The Ocean.

I like the water, I like the beach and I like girls in bikinis, so I am reluctant to come out so strong against the ocean. But holy fuck, the ocean is some crazy shit. Firstly, it is huge. It’s literally an ocean of water. And there is so much shit going on down there we don’t know about. Sure there are cute Nemo fish, dolphins, coral reefs and mermaids but that is just to distract us from all the other weird shit going on. We have translucent-head fish, giant squid, dolphins gang-raping each other and Prime Minister kidnapping Chinese submarines.And then we have this...

Things that make you go hum...

2009-06-23T06:07:00.000-07:00

I like humming noises. More specifically, I like the right humming noise when I am trying to sleep. The whirring sound of a heater or fan. The muffled sound of a vacuum cleaner. A television with volume audible yet so low all voices and sounds blend together to form one continuous murmur. And the very best, a hair dryer... ooh, sleep orgasm. They all make me feel snug and relaxed and take my mind off thinking.

I am sure it has some deep pyschological root to sleep as a baby or some womb related hum connection. All I know is that, even in winter, I will sometimes turn on the fan, aim it away from me, and tuck myself under the donna. The only thing i know is that I have liked these sleep-assisting hums for as long as I remember. I got my mum to send me this photo

- that is me, aged ~3, sleeping against a heater.

There was also a photo where I am sleeping while mum is doing the vacuuming but instead she sent me this photo.

She thought it was funnier. Thanks mumma.

And just for good measure, she threw in a photo taken just before attending my first day of Kinder.

What a handsom, gay little man.

The Reserved Table.

2009-06-16T03:40:00.000-07:00

Something I Kind of finished over Christmas. It's a little long for here but whatevs...

My game-winning backhand cross-court replayed itself endlessly in the private imaginings of my mind. It was a perfect shot too. I slide into the ball as my opponent stormed the net in an attempt to pressure and intimidate me, striking the ball well in front, feeling the perfect spin as the ball came off my strings, followed by the perfect "ping" I knew it was an unbeatable shot. It was going to be hard not to want to talk about this all night.

The problem was, I was staying at my Grandparents. It was dinner time. Dinner time at the meal table. The Meal table at my grand parents isn't always the best place to make such announcements. The meal table is not round for conferences or conversations; it's oblong for eating and chewing. It is oblong so that there is a head of the table, Pa. Oblong so someone can sit next to him and next to the door to the kitchen, to get up and down easily and endlessly to serve the meal. It's oblong so eaters and chewers can sit where they are told. The eaters and chewers, my brother and me respectively, have to leave their conversation outside the dining room, together with their noise and exuberance.

Manners! They are the only things that is permitted to bring into the dining room. In fact, it's mandatory to do so. They are the only thing to survive at the oblong table. Everything else dies. The food certainly dies, either on the plate or on the palate. The up and down person, Dede, my Grandma, is not a particularly good cook. Not very good food can survive in a dining room if it is well disguised in lively conversation - or tomato sauce. The former of the disguises never occurs in the dinning room, and as for the tomato sauce, well like I said, we were at the oblong table. Tomato Sauce does not have very good manners. It usually blurts out of its bottle in an unrestrained manner, either coming out in great streams and blobs or not at all no matter how many times you hit the bottle, and more often than not, in the hands of a 14 year old boy, disguises the table cloth rather than the food.

Now and then, tomato sauce slips discretely into the dining room unnoticed. The up and down person tries to give the sauce manners in the kitchen, prearranging it neatly on the plates amongst the food. When it is prearranged it looks quite lifeless really - a deep red, sunken mould shape hardening at the edges. However, its colour does add distinction and contrast to an otherwise pallid and overcooked plate. This is what manners are all about after all.

The oblong table was reserved from precisely six-thirty in the evening. Jigsaws, board games, books and non-dinner plates had better be cleared beforehand and the table set by the eaters and chewers otherwise they may just go without.

When not head of the table, conversation with Pa and Dede was loud, vigorous and often. PA was always forthcoming with stories of growing up in Holland, how he came to Australia and could talk for ages about politics and sports. We would spend hours arguing who our favourite Prime Minister was and why, mine - Bob Hawke, his - Gough Whitlam, the greatest athlete of all time or which Secret society had the most influence over world politics (Skull and Bones or the Masons). The fact that an 80-year-old man, with an intellect that would make Einstein look like a lightweight, would spend time indulging my arguments is testament to his good will and patience. Though, this was when he wasn't the head of the table.

Although the table was reserved, certain words are permitted to quietly pass the lips of the eaters and chewers, (provided there is no food behind those lips and provided those works cannot be constructed as conversation). Things like, "Pass the salt please. Thank you." Certain words also pass the lips of the head of the table that have nothing to do with conversation, like,

"Close your mouth when you're chewing."

"Stop that noise. This table is for eating not talking", or,

"You might as well eat up now because you're going to stay here until you do."

This last statement was usually said to the slow chewer, me, long after the other eaters have said, "Please, may I leave the table?" and have done so. Long after the head of the table has re-read The Age newspaper and perhaps done the crossword, and sometimes, after the unmannered tomato sauce bottle makes its cameo performance.

On some occasions, or to be more honest, most, time frustrates the manners associated with the tomato sauce and permits its entry into the dining room, still blurtingly bottled and labeled. It is a desperate effort to speed up slow consumption.

The disguise of the tomato sauce, awkward though it is, usually enables the slow chewer to down his meat and his potatoes. Peas are not so easily fooled!

Push, push, stab, fiddle.

"Don't play with your food. Eat it!"

Push, Fiddle.

"can I get a glass of water please?"

"Not 'can I', May I."

Push, fiddle.

"May I get a glass of water please?"

Pause, stare.

"Alright. But come straight back. You're not leaving the table 'til you've cleaned your plate."

The slow chewer, now with glass of water clasped in hand beside his plate, pushes and fiddles; selects a pea; raises it on his fork to wince between his lips; places it there as to deny the taste buds; then with a rush, gulps from the glass to wash it out of existence. Five peas remain. The up and down person believes less is faster for me.

The repeat process of those remaining peas is too excruciating and tedious to describe. The short story is, after much pushing and fiddling, wincing and gulping, inhaling and exhaling, it finally ends. In a strange way I have conquered the peas yet still feel defeated.

A faintly foreign language hovers about the reserved table. Only the head of the table and the up and down person speak and understand it but it might be described as pig-dutch-english. It has lots of rolling R's and sounds you clear your throat with. The imagination makes it sound worse and makes you feel paranoid the chatter is about you because it can't comprehend what is being said. Incomprehensible foreign languages always sound angry and abusive.

The head of the table can also say things that aren't even conversation, without using words at all. It is sort of an extreme body language that only he can speak but we all seem to understand which hits you over the head and you know he is silently saying, "Don't reach across the table!"

I replayed my winning shot again in my mind. With each replay it became better, harder, more daring and more impressive. Someone else needed to know about this. Such a feat should not remain silent until after dinner. People needed to know, and I was sure the needed to know now, at the reserved table. The only thing stopping my blurting it out to my brother and Pa was the food in my mouth, which had to be chewed and swallowed first.

Right at my swallowing moment, milliseconds before my great tennis feats would be know to the world, a surprising yet familiar force snatched at my wrist, swiftly raising it high, then smashing my elbow down on the edge of the oblong table - where it had been resting and shouldn't have. The head of the table blurts out,

"Elerbochkha vrrrohmm der tarple!"

This was always funny when it happened to someone else’s elbow. As it was mine, I withered and whined and tried to hide my watering eyes from my brother.

While waiting for the pain to dissipate, I replayed my backhand once again. It somehow seemed less glorious, less heroic, less victorious than before. In fact, I'm not even sure if it was this backhand that won me the match or a double fault from my opponent. It's probably best I don't tell everyone just yet. I'll just take another mouthful and keep chewing.

These are the people in your neighbourhood.

2009-06-12T03:07:00.000-07:00

Are we calling Vets "doctor"?

Are they doctors anyway? If I don't call them "doctor" it feels like I am dissing them. I don't even think I call my doctor "doctor" or "Doc".

And what about dentists? Do I call them by their offical title, "money-grubbing whore", or will just plain "cunt face" suffice?

Previously on Nat...

2009-06-11T05:39:00.000-07:00

Oh, I forgot I had a blog.

You know with television series like The Shield, 24, or Weeds, how before each episode starts, they run a "Previously on The Shield..." clip, which gives some well-edited clips of the shows previous storylines. The clip reminds the viewer of the back-stories and context that are most relevant to the story developments in the coming episodes.

I think this would be handy for people.

Imagine you are having a conversation with a cute girl. You say something about midgets, something along the lines of how midgets are magical and if you kick them in the balls they turn into 100 gold coins - something that could be interpreted as prejudiced by a person that doesn't know you that well.

Just as you noticed the first facial signs of bemusement, confusion and possibly disgust starting to register on their face, you whip out your iPhone and show them the "Previously on Nat..." clip. Five minutes later, they totally understand where you are coming from and you will never be misunderstood again!

Everyone could just put together a little five-minute montage of key moments in their life that have had a shaping influence on their personality. It would just save all that small talk, chit-chat, getting to know you bullshit. Lets just cut to the chase, put it all out there with some slick editing, creative cutaways and a killer soundtrack.

I probably shouldn't even be telling you this...

2009-05-28T05:50:00.000-07:00

Clear the Cache - the act boys perform prior to their girlfriends coming to visit, just in case she uses his internet.

Clearing the Cache or "Deleting Internet History" is something all boys do to avoid awkward conversations trying to explain video links to "Plump Asian Butt Fuckers" or "Strap-on Bukkake Party"

Any woman that wants to check that her man has "Cleared the Cache" can check the internet history of his primary web browser.* If there is no or very little history of anything, he's just Cleaned the Cache.

*Boys will often direct people using their computer to use Internet Explorer or some other secondary web browser as this browser is not the browser they use to access their internet porn.

Dominant Ball - Guys have a dominant testicle. I didn't know if you realised this or not but I thought you should know. One ball hangs lower than the other, the dominant ball, which for the majority of men is slightly larger and usually the left testie.

The two balls often jostle for prime scrotum position especially amongst men who wear jocks or tight pants which, however gallant the less dominant ball is, will inevitable result in the dominant ball, or quall, victorious.

Oh, and the whole ball licking thing, it's totally not necessary but we appreciate it. We understand how gross our scrotum is, and given the actual marginal physical pleasure it gives us fellas (it's OK but nothing to write home about), big props to you ladies.

peace out. jkl.

today.

2009-05-21T06:08:00.000-07:00

Today I didn't go into work. Instead I slept late, got up and went for a long walk and a skim milk latte. On my walk I saw 4 cats and petted two of them.

I got my coffee to go. It was a good coffee, which was a relief, as the world seems to have been playing a game of coffee lottery with me lately at ghastly unfavorable odds. Coffee can only be good or bad. If it is not good, it cannot be ok; the rules of coffee stipulate that anything that doesn't taste good taste shit. I get sick of people telling me how great a particular cafes’ coffee is. Tell me that it is not shit and I'm on board.

I grab my coffee and continue to walk. I start to cross the road. A red 4WD is waiting to turn left, slowly inching forward, waiting for me to get out of the way. It has a vanity license plate. FIDDLR.

I walk past a sign in a shop that reads, "Fancy Yourself Fiddling". I stop and stare at it perhaps for a little too long because the shopkeeper comes out and asks me if I need any help. I do. But she couldn't.

I was strolling now. I had dropped the pace and come to the bottom of my coffee. I walked past a park where a man in a suit was sitting on a bench, unwrapping the cling-wrap from his sandwich. His sandwich was balanced on his lap and he was trying to fish something out of his backpack that was placed beside him. While his attention was not on his sandwich a gust of wind blew the top slice of white bread right off of the rest of the sandwich and onto the ground. Should have used more butter.

He quickly grabbed for the slice of bread and picked it off the ground. Then, in a manner of trying to look like he wasn't checking for witnesses, he cocks his head around to see if there was any witnesses that saw him retrieve the bread of the ground. I looked away. Satisfied with the cleanliness of his bread and satisfied that there were no onlookers he proceeded to eat his lunch.

It was time I went home and did some work. I was glad I went for a walk.

A lull in proceedings.

2009-05-06T05:17:00.000-07:00

Sass. Lull. Suss? what else? A friend and I, the other day, were discusiing words that are almost entirely all the same letter. Apart from single letter words we were questioning what the highest percentage of a word can be of one letter. Seventy-five percent seems to be the correct figure.

Three letter words, they have to be of the form 2:1 (otherwise, 1:1:1, or all the same letter), like bob or pop. but this only gets us to 66.66% or 2/3. Five letter words, to be above 75% would have to have 4 letters all the same to reach 80%. I don't know of any such word.

So 4 letter words, such as lull, are it. LULL. It is really just one letter substitution away from being all L's. LLLL. That seems too dangerous if you ask me. What if something happened to the 'u'? What if it gets lost? What happens when you type 'lull and miss the 'u'? 'lll'. Do we really need the extra L? Couldn't we just do with LUL and save on a letter. LUL isn't a word is it? I like to think that it originally was lul but as a word, 'lul' wasn't very popular. Its PR people, in an attempt to boost its popularity and improve value, released an all new 'lul', now with 50% more L for your Lulling pleasure.

Fuck you. What exciting things were you doing on Sunday morning, jackass?

Nats say the darnedest things

2009-04-27T04:32:00.000-07:00

I'm lame. I know it. You know it. But some people are not fully aware of my lameness which is why I feel obliged to rectify their ignorance with saying things that will leave no doubt in anyone's mind. The following is a collection of things I tend to repeat given the appropriate circumstances and conversational prompts.

Whenever I here someone say "Rad", in my head I will say, "Nip into Nat's Rad" - you know, like the ads. Sometimes I say it out loud.

When driving, riding or walking over Ruckers Hill in Northcote with a companion I will always say, "bar the Dandenong ranges, Ruckers Hill is the highest geological point in Melbourne." I doubt that it is true.

After giving my opinion on medical matters, if my opinion has been well received, I will say, "you know it's strange, but my formal training is in pediatrics.

When meeting someone called Mat, for some reason I always blurt out, "Nat. Mat. Hey we rhyme. You gotta like that." Generally met with the look someone has after shaking the hands of a mentally retarded 10 year old.

I will always tell people that Dandenong is the geographical or population centre of Melbourne. I have no idea if this is true or not.

Upon meeting girls called Nat, again without any control or restraint, I will say, "Two Nats. How do you like that? You know, we could never have kids. They would end up being retarded?"

If ever asked how physiotherapy went, I will say, "Great. My hamstrings made great progress today. Apparently they repressed some childhood memories of being sodomized by my glutes."

Yeah, well you suck too.