Forget, lunch, If you can get any of the relevant decision makers (there are only a handful) to check out this video link: http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_collier_s_new_rules_for_rebuilding_a_broken_nation.html … I will cook you lunch. For a week. wearing nothing but a red scarf and a picture of Dr. Mervyn Silva celo-taped to a part of your choosing.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: aasvogel, bastards, lard, more lard, Nibras Bawa
I’m Sorry. So very sorry. Its just been too hard to resist. When I was a merciless 10 year old without a conscience, the height of fun at my all boys school would be to pick on the ’special’ kid till he threw a wobbler, involving a lot of self directed violence and at least one bodily discharge. What a cruelly delicious treat for a bunch of prepubescent bastards.
It seems we’ve been doing that again, and this time I’ve been at the back of the line not getting any of the action; a fine tag team sport; creeping up behind your victim who invariably has a line of snot running down one side of his chin, kicking him in the pants and running really fast, while the next in line crept up behind ‘hotu bottuwa’ for his turn. Visually it’s quite impressive, its exactly the same way a pack of crows attack if you are 10 years old and have no damn sense and think you can take on the crows of Mount Lavinia Hotel’s Terrace with a stone.
Gladly some things have changed in the last twenty-something years. Mount Lavinia Hotel’s Terrace is now so damned expensive, i haven’t had a chance to see if the crows recognise me still. It’s also been a while since I’ve played ‘tag the bastard’ (local rules), mostly because the shifting sands of boyhood alliances resulted finally in my fellows deciding that for one day I should be ’piggy in the middle’, too.
Waving your arms about manically, making outrageous threats at everyone while bawling your eyes out with twin trails of snot, all the while smelling more and more of shit is truly juvenile. But so is ‘tag the bastard’ as played with any rules, if the result is more or the same.
I suppose it’s not a game I’ve entirely outgrown, either…
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bastards, beginnings, buttocks, Chinthanaya, damned lies, even more fish, fish, identity, lies, more fish, more lies, patriotism, politics, religion, republic, sri lanka
One morning I woke up and found that I was evil. That all I had stood for was twisted and blackened. All I believed in was unclean, contaminated by a germ that had taken hold while I was asleep. No longer could I feel patriotic, share in the simple pride of a waved flag, of a crisp military parade. Words like honour and independence tasted bitter now. Altogether new synonyms had wormed their way into my mind. Unity meant conformism, discipline meant submission, patriotism was now racism. Pride had become hate, democracy a shapeless beast, terrorism an excuse and freedom meant absolutely fucking nothing.
But last night, I was an innocent. I knew but did not fear the “Patriotism” that was Shaw’s “… last refuge of the scoundrel”; for what is society with no shared purpose, with no pride, no symbols to rally around? Would it even endure? So I had sought out that which was clean and honourable and euphoric, what I could stand up tall and salute. There was a simple pleasure of the skybound firework on the day of Independence: its rushed journey heavenwards calling me to the giddy heights of citizenship in this great enterprise of this country. I grew to love the clean detergent smell of wearing my national dress, the raising of a flag so ornate and symbolic that other’s tri-colour flags seemed so stark, dry and childlike. I honoured the pioneers who had not long ago secured our independence from the clenched fist of colonial strength.
Then, last night, delirious fevered dreams flashed vivid technicolour corruptions of what was simple, beautiful and pure. I dreamt of a State that disenfranchised its own citizens with a single act of parliament. Of academics and the educated, who should know better, incite violence against those who had been my brothers before I slept. Of laws to punish a religion growing, of an Oxbridge educated elite spewing Sinhala Only. As the fever took hold, I saw hundreds of citizens horded into buses and driven into empty spaces. There were flashes of children severed by shells that we calculated to be an acceptable cost of political convenience. I mutely screamed at an electoral majority that could not see any other solution but War. And all the time, I saw hate, spilling like bile, mixed with spittle, running down the jowls of the politicians, gathering on the chins of bestial men and women who in their bloodlust cornered and attacked all that was different, alien and ‘para’ –‘other’.
And at that point, my weakest moment, the microbic invader struck, confusing me. In this confounded state it showed me that we had become the Nietzschean evil we set out to destroy, that our souls were tainted and it told me that the articles which I had shaken my head at before were true, we were monsters, the LTTE and I, two sides of the same coin. That morally, this nation and all we tried to preserve was exactly the same as a group of people who strapped bombs to themselves and blew up innocents.
In my shame, reader, I believed this all. I hated myself. I read comments, op-eds, and even the hysterical messages of trolls who painted my red door black. Shrill voices screamed out how we were no better than that which sought to destroy us. As the infection multiplied, as the moral lethargy replaced the will to act and cycles of cynicism and withdrawal lowered my expectations further till all I could do was tiptoe past my bruised conscience and better sense. I almost succumbed that night to the fever that gripped me ever harder, a final mocking image locked in my mind of hundreds of my brothers and sisters lined up for busses with no destination as men with grey faces and grey guns looked on.
Just like that, the image flickered and I remembered how the story actually ended that day: A single citizen filing a fundamental rights petition against the forced eviction. I felt the ground tremble as the judiciary like a waking giant, reached swiftly to stop and reverse the executive action, holding it unconstitutional. And there alone, in the calm at the eye of the cyclone, I saw clearly what ideal was left to us, what it is we were fighting for, why were different from the monsters we confronted. It never mattered how stupid, base or corrupt the people and their elected officials were, we are still a Republic, we are a representative democracy, we have institutions, a separation of powers and checks and balances. We have a constitution which is a covenant between every citizen and the state. We are greater than the sum of our parts. No matter how often the law is bent, broken or bought it will always be there, if nothing else but as a sullen reminder, and we will know it is wrong and it cannot be got rid of. No matter how many votes are stolen, coerced or rigged, every so many years every leader must endure the risk of being cast out. It will not matter how many journalists are silenced, the media can only be reined, never retired. A state of emergency that has lasted some of us, our whole lives and successively more brutal governments have not been able to completely do away with the freedoms that is the promise of our noble enterprise. The glass may only be half empty, but, damn it, there is a GLASS. It can always be filled. Are we appalled by a state sunk in debate, argument and compromise? Celebrate this. We talk, because we know the alternatives. We know their price.
There is NO comparison between this Republic which we are equal citizens of and a systemically violent, fascist personality cult. If I need something to hang on to, I will hang onto this. I don’t need to expect the best motivations of the leaders to ensure that my freedoms will survive. It will, battered and bruised, because that’s what it is built to do in a democracy.
I see now that we’ve quite missed the point by celebrating our independence. There is so little to gain recounting our release from an imperial rule, when you consider that the single most significant event that took place that day was the birth of the republic. The beginning of the hard work of building a nation. The metaphorical inking of the eternal contract between the state and all its citizens, even those yet unborn. This day something wonderful was birthed, a people with the mandate and opportunity to create their own destiny, to govern themselves, a prize that so many are denied elsewhere. As much as we’ve squandered it and made ourselves unworthy of it, it still there, silent, resourceful enough to swiftly counter even an act Executive excess and only needing a single citizen to call it into action. And that is what we need to do, we need to USE IT. To build on it. THIS is the ideology worth fighting for, THIS is worth standing up for. This is my pride. I have found myself to be an Idealist and I am NOT ashamed.
The fever is gone. I’m going to put up that flag now.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bastards, belief, buttocks, escaped gorillas, even more fish, fish, god, kuhn, lies, more lies, philosophy, popper, religion
Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα. Δε φ, οβʊμαι τίποτα. Είμαι λεύθερος.
‘I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.’ – Inscription on the tombstone of Nikos Kazantzakis
Prelude
You presumably believe in something. It is possible that we differ in these beliefs. While the particular question of whether you are right or I am wrong is clearly not getting a conclusive or persuasive answer in a hurry, it makes sense to, you know, understand the nature of our differences and perhaps where our conflict if at all, may lie. A highway code if you will. Learning the signs and the basic flow could help us, both, avoid painful collisions and looking like right idiots.
A confession first. As far as I am aware of, atheists are not syndicated. It is likely that this manifesto would only apply to a few of us.
Some of us are agnostic. Boom. Boom.
Guess what, it seems these questions of deities, afterlives, creation, are a little tricky. And we have to put our hands up and go: you know what, I have no clue how to prove there isn’t a god. It looks like this one will go to the judges. But hey, for everyday purposes, I’m going to stick to the premise that there isn’t one. It makes sense to me; and you know, should overwhelming evidence present itself to the contrary, I would be more than glad to re-evaluate my position. Your contribution here is minimal unless you can produce that evidence. And please, please don’t hand me a piece of your scripture or even WORSE, some damned leaflet written by a complete yokel for whom ‘Bible Belt’ is both a home town AND what they keep their trousers tied up with.
Some of us are not un-examined lives.
70 percent of my class inherited daddy’s faith along with the used car business and the mysogeny. Eating chalk between classes, demonstrating sheep-like cognitive functions and an otherwise complete lack of personality kept them off the radar of the more vicious and punitively inventive of our teachers.
A few of us were getting into trouble with Jesuit priests for asking them what existentialism meant. And for arguing the question that was the hairline fracture that lead to the final schism from the beliefs of my fathers: ‘Why is faith needed for redemption? Isn’t my Buddhist friend, who leads a good life as deserving of the embrace of a just God?’
The chief questions that troubled my gangly colleagues at this time was: ‘does it show that I am a compulsive masturbator?’ and ‘how long is it before the blindness/anemia sets in?’
Soon after, as my friends embarked on a voyage of self discovery with the opposite sex, their genitals and extra strong beer, some of us weren’t that hot with the ladies. So we read. Of Descartes’ failed attempt to prove the existence of a God in Meditations of First Philosophy; of Heller rail against a God in a world gone mad in Catch-22; of Satre’s protagonist secure an abortion for his mistress… no doubt still smoking Gauloise and looking cool.
We also debated. Entire coffee and tobacco harvests have been laid waste in our earnest late night discussions, musings and dialogues. Were searched for Gods, Justice, Goodness, Values, and mostly Truth. We spoke with the smartest people we could find, with the disinterested and zealous; with the godless and devout; priests and madmen. And now, here, our choices and ideas are not those of the unexamined or unquestioned mind. Nor are we afraid of our ideas being picked apart or questioned. We are the product of our journey and our ideas have developed and changed as a function of it.
So if you want to be the next leg in my explorative journey, do better than a patronizing smile and a ‘why don’t you want to read my leaflet?’. Otherwise, my guess is that you discovered religion late, right after you gave up the compulsive chalk eating; probably though your personal difficulties or the fear of mortality, loss or isolation and think the rest of us are late starters too. If I’m refusing to engage you, it’s because frankly, I think you are going to waste my time. I’m really OK with you calling this arrogance. Which it isn’t; but frankly, your premise that I am a blank book, unexamined and intellectually inert, is.
We don’t think all of you are stupid. Just some.
No. Honestly. We do not think you credulous or stupid by virtue of your beliefs alone. Unless you are a Scientologist or Mormon. There’s really no way I can broaden my definition of beliefto include people who believe what they read in paperback sci-fi. That’s not a belief. That’s a condition. Like the guy who fell on his head and now thinks he’s a tomato.
Nevertheless and notwithstanding, the intelligent and accomplished have had unshakable faith in the divine. It is possible that individuals who commanded respect and awe, or others who thought, said and did the fantastic, would have not evaluated their beliefs; that they would have accepted the faith of their fathers without choice or analysis. But we would find this uncharacteristic and irreconcilable with our idea of them. Your belief is neither offensive nor laughable to me. Really. Here’s me not laughing at Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Science is not God.
Philosophers have a really tough time with the Scientific Method. Thomas Kuhn argued convincingly in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that science was not a linear process of the accumulation of knowledge, rather a set of crises which forced ‘paradigm shifts’. Suddenly, the scientific method was full of dispute and speculation. It wasn’t the simple, incremental, rigorous, unbiased process it was purported to be.
Meanwhile, we had lots of trouble with crows. Karl Popper took induction apart, the logical basis of observation, leaving no logical argument in favor of it but that it works till it doesn’t.Inductive logic, which says that having observed black crows all our lives, we expect the next crow we see to be black is as unjustified as the counterintuitive process saying ‘well the next one must not be black.’
So if you think that you’re on to something by exploiting your perceived difference between a ‘law’ and a ‘theory’ as your masterstroke against Natural Selection, well guess what, ALL OF SCIENCE is THEORY. And none of it, say the philosopher, is truth.
We have beliefs and values.
That bridge I’m about to drive over? Is it going to crumble while I’m on it? Did I know the man who built it? Designed it? Do I trust the physics to hold up? The materials? You know what, the guy in front just made it across. What the hell. Guess I will too. We believe in things, both spiritual and not. Your assumption that my mind is an anarchic wasteland, where I believe in nothing but what I have evidenced, is wrong. We have belief structures. In fact for some, the non existence of a god is a premise we accept without rigorous proof, i.e. a belief.
|
“How important is it for a candidate to have STRONG religious beliefs, regardless of whether those beliefs are the same as yours? Is it very important, somewhat important, not very important, or not at all important?” CBS News Poll. June 26-28, 2007 |
||||||
|
. |
||||||
|
Very |
Somewhat |
Not Very |
Not at All |
Unsure |
||
|
% |
% |
% |
% |
% |
||
|
ALL reg. voters |
27 |
36 |
16 |
20 |
1 |
|
|
Republicans |
43 |
35 |
12 |
7 |
3 |
|
|
Democrats |
23 |
35 |
19 |
23 |
0 |
|
|
Independents |
20 |
36 |
17 |
27 |
0 |
|
In the great Democrat litmus test recently Senators Obama and Clinton showed that both a Woman and Black was conceivable and realistic as a choice of the American people’s Chief Executive. But polling numbers above have ruled out a non-religious President of the United States. It’s not surprising therefore that ‘Shares our Values’ is a consistent and accurate measure of a voter’s personal preference for a candidate.
Despite the popular idea that values must be religious, I ask you, is it hard to imagine that atheists have values and make conscious choices to live by them? That our values should differ, like our belief structures do is expected, but that they stem from choice, experience and commonsense is so hard to imagine?
In the end, I must admit my personal search for the divine was spurred by my firmness for the very values i am suspected of not having. Having my question above on the necessity of faith for salvation answered in a manner I saw as unjust, I made a decision:
I rather be in a hell with friends I knew to be wonderful, warm, exemplary people than in a heaven in the shadow of an arbitrary and unfair god.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bastards, buttocks, choices, colombo, even more fish, fear, fish, lard, more fish, risk, sri lanka, war
Rajiv joins us a few minutes late for dinner; having come straight from work. He slides into his chair quickly, crisply dressed despite the the humidity that has me sweating into my shirt. In the still night, the long fingered zephyrs turn the occassional flower this way and that, like a parent’s hand as it maneuvers a child’s face checking for dirt. At the table, conversations carry both opportunity and loss. Rajiv speaks of bad business conditions in his quiet voice precisely, without hyperbole, exaggeration or rant. In the same voice he ordered the salmon with. As he put it gently to me, “I don’t eat any meat.”
“So many are leaving,” he tells me; ”I am one of four, no, five from our class who are still in Sri Lanka. There were 48 of us.”
The salmon, exquisite in its coconut milk, served with cous-cous occupies us for a while. Rajiv picks at it unhurriedly and explains: “People leave because of the security situation”
I interrupt him. ”I think it’s more that our savings our worthless; there is no future we can prepare for, with 30% inflation.”
“No. It isn’t the lifestyle, the economic condition, people are now leaving simply out of fear.”
I listen politely.
“My wife used to work; we commuted together in our car. The kids would hear about a bomb in Colombo. They are young and would worry till we would come back home. Eventually we thought about that, how my wife and I would go to work together and come back together. If something happened while on the road, we’d both be there.” He looked at me sadly. “We agreed that at least she should stop work.”
I stare down at my plate; all I hear is the the unconcerned croaking of frogs.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bastards, belief, buddhism, butter, clover, cosmologies, faith, fish, lard, margarine, more lard, religion, sheep
Scene
A kitchen. Sparse, but with all the features of communal student living. It is surprisingly clean and bare, but for two things that catch the eye. A half empty bag of dry spaghetti lies splayed open on the rack next to some empty bottles. A small pot sits on the sink’s draining board. Yesterday’s warmed up baked beans are still in it. The quantity in the pot suggests that nothing has been eaten. Two young men sit at a table near the window. They sip tea from cracked mugs.
Charle-maan: Did he say he was coming?
Aasvogel: He just called and said he wanted to see me. Oh, man. It’s my time. I’ve tried to delay this but I can’t anymore.
C: Time to pay the piper.
A: He must have smelt me. My fear. He must have known I was vulnerable, dammit.
C: Over the phone. Can I wait and watch?
A: You are not leaving, dude. You are going to HELP a brother.
C: Yes! Hahaha!
B walks in. His eyes flash towards C and he stiffens, stops, then jerkily joins both at the table.
Ben: Hi C.
C: Hi!
B: Am I disturbing you, A? I didn’t realize you were busy.
A: Not really, C just swung bye, you know. You don’t mind C being here, right?
B: [Frowns] Not really.
A: So what’s on your mind?
B: A, Have you ever considered where God would fit in your life?
A: A few places suggest themselves.
B: Let me draw this for you; [scribbles on a sheet of paper] first there was God. God made earth. [draws a circle]
C: So you would have us believe.
B: Yes, I would. [adds a stick man] Then God made Man.
A: Why not?
B: Man denied God. [Crosses something out] Man tried to rule creation [Draws a little crown on the
man]. But Creation revolts against man! [crumples up paper]
A: Hang On!
C: Give us the paper!
A: There’s more to that story! Give it back!
B: No! But what if I can prove that Christianity is the One True Religion with three questions?
A: You will… what the fuck?
C: Ha ha bring it on!
B: OK. [Draws a grid on the other side of the paper.] The first question is: ‘is it internally consistent?’ as
in is it free of contradiction? And Christianity is!
C: [Laughs wildly] Oh for fuck’s sake!
A: No wait, I can see where this is going. Carry on, B.
B: [Ticks the first box]The second, is ‘is it externally consistent?’ as in does it match what evidence the world provides?
C: And it does?
B: Of course it does. [Ticks box two]
A: Fine. Keep going.
B: And finally, ‘Is it relevant to man?’ Which of course it is. [Ticks the last and sits back and looks at A and C.]
[Silence.]
A: Give ME the paper, freak. [Takes it] Thanks. Now, I know that technically Buddhism is not a religion, but it’s a belief structure and we’re going to treat it as one for this exercise, OK?
C: So question one: Is it internally consistent?
B: [Wails]I don’t know anything about Buddhism!
A: Shut up.
C: We do.
A: And Buddhism, you cretin, is internally consistent. It doesn’t contradict itself logically.
C: And it is externally consistent.
A: Yes, it matches with what we understand of the world, empirically speaking.
B: But,
C: Shut up. And it’s relevant to humanity. It discusses life, death good, evil and all things relevant to man. Got it?
[More silence.]
A: Screw this. [Walks over to the fridge, opens it, comes back with a tub of Clover – Butter Substitute. Puts it in the middle of the table.] This is our belief, B.
B: What? You’re making fun of this!
A: No, listen up: C and I are Cloverists: our belief structure is made up of a few simple premises. [Holds up the tub of Clover] One: Clover is a Spreadable Butter. Got it, fool?
B: Come on!
A: Which begs the question: ‘Why is Clover spreadable?’ The answer being: ‘Because there are Demons in the butter that make it spreadable.’ See, logical. Of course this prompts the next question: ‘Why cannot we see these Demons?’
C: The answer being, simply: ‘Because these demons are invisible.’ I challenge you to show any logical contradiction to this doctrine. It meets your first criteria, then? [Ticks first box]
A: And of course it is externally consistent, because see, the butter is both spreadable, and no, you CANNOT SEE ANY Demons. Can you?
C: And on the subject of relevance,
A & C: [Now practically shouting in joy] … spreadable butter is of immense relevance to our lives! [tick the rest of the grid and push it back to B]
[More Silence]
B: Please, just put the butter back in the fridge.
End.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: aasvogel, belief, fish, lard, lightning, more fish, religion
As a hopeful deity, I like to keep up with the practices of both my predecessors and contemporaries. Why reinvent the holy hand grenade, when there is an entire arsenal, tried and tested, to pick from the relevant religions of the world? An arsenal with proven results of keeping the flock content and ever so slightly grovelly? So well equipped, we’d practically only need to read off from a list.
So today, my fellow lard-eaters, make sure you’re wearing at the very least, a pair of rubber slippers and join me in the exercise in creating a religion from scratch. I’ve put some ideas down, but only as suggestions:
ü Comprehensive Holy Book with a few words blurred/blanked out to create ambiguity and schisms. I’ve always liked there to be factions fighting over how to worship me better. Competition can only breed efficiencies.
ü Continuity of life after death. Can’t forget this.
ü Universal fairness, preferably delivered after death. A popular classic.
ü Poverty, a VALUE. I want to attract the lower income masses AND give the wealthy something to work towards.
ü Simplicity/ ignorance, a VALUE. You want to enable discussion and dispute within a FIXED space, after all. Can’t have the sheep dispute the damn concept of GRASS, you know?
ü Communal worship. See point on competition above.
ü Compelling Event. Either the world is going to end next week or the Almighty Aasvogel is coming again to kick ass and take names later. Get ready everyone!
ü Terrible alternative. The always important stick with a nail in it. Red hot demonic penises, lake of fire, something classy like that.
ü Add Guilt for flavor and garnish with lots of Symbolic Ritual.
We’re just getting started, you know? What about access to sex, fertility and wealth? Would we have a structured hierarchy? Based on what? Should we have a reformation? An Inquisition? A living embodiment of the deity? I’m thinking more points for creativity AND sustainability/longevity.
In the end, can we even agree that there should be huge fucking conceptual gaps and contradictions that need Belief to piece it together? We can’t do ALL the work, after all, right?
Oh, and do avoid open spaces and tall trees this monsoon.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bastards, construction industry, escaped gorillas, fish, houses, lard, lies
‘It is said, that statistically speaking, an infinite number of monkeys in a room messing about with typewriters would result in one having written Hamlet. What is often overlooked is, that you get one copy of Hamlet AND a room with an infinite quantity of monkey poo.’ – Aasvogel – Masturbations Vol. III.
1. First rule of Fluid Dynamics – NEVER talk about Fluid Dynamics.
2. Second Rule of Fluid Dynamics – Water flows downhill, for fucks sake…
3. Third Rule of Fluid Dynamics – Ignore Rules #1 and #2.
[Reader warning: much invective to follow]
It was a simple enough instruction to Sarath – Baas (Baas-Unnehi: an honorific for skilled workmen/artisan and therefore meaningless in the current context) and his whoop of liberated simians, whom I have mentioned previously, strategically shaved themselves so as to pass as construction workers of the homo sapiens kind. This in order to take on the job of building my pièce de résistance , the natural granite terrace that would effectively double that square area of the house, that was not garden. This was meant to be a long awaited marriage of The Aesthetic and The Practical. Finally after much tears, pressure and glaring silences, someone was to make an honest woman of The Aesthetic. I could talk the angles of approach I had in mind, of how the eye was to be drawn through the house out to the scene behind, of how the living space of the house was to not only be the square area contained within the walls, but that which was around it. My plans would routinely expand for this space. We could eat breakfast on it, jazz bands would throw gigs on it, we could lie on mats and watch shooting stars on it! This damned terrace would be the theatre that I would act MY LIFE on. I was going to notch up as many verbs as I legally could, right here, on the roughly cut granite of POTENTIAL.
Enter my construction workers and the MASONS from HELL. They confidently assure me that what I am desperately trying to explain the significance of, is a rather simple job which they have already done successfully for a recently satisfied client. So I should calm down. I am not swayed by their confidence on my project. I point out, that, philosophically speaking, Beauty, like Truth, lends existential purpose to itself, and my terrace would only serve its purpose by looking fabulous. That Nature abhors an ugly terrace; that there are circles of hell Dante carefully omitted to describe; where builders of such monstrosities would be forever rebuilding the same damn terrace over and over again while demons prod them with their fiery penises. And laugh at the tiny genitals of their charges. Genitals which stare out from the inside of small glass jars on tacky IKEA pinewood racks.
I walk them though the angles of the house pointing out that I want the stones laid in straight lines so that, see here, someone entering has their eye lead by the stones, which must be laid straight, OK? I go on to tell him of the man in Kandy, who in exchange for a small fortune is having has family gnaw the edges of the very stones we will be laying, till they are perfectly straight. Got it?
I move on with the requirements for proposal: Leave a slope away from the house when you build it, I said. Let it slope 4-6 inches across the 8 feet of it. Let the rain flow away from my house rather than collect in pools in it. This terrace is important. Every stone costs me money I haven’t even started earning yet and the peace of mind I have become accustomed to living without.
The lead Gorilla nods. Explains to me with the maximum of his newly evolved condescension, that I am clearly in need of something to take the edge of my OCD; that the project is not only possible, but it is simple. Work can start tomorrow. Apparently his band of banana rustling miscreants are back from the latest of a series of relatives’ funerals and are ready to take my money. Now would I go away please so he can get back to picking lice from his mate’s fur?
[Skip to the present day. Now that the damned slopes are built all wrong, I pace my hall like a madman on rainy nights waiting for that One Rain that is going to flood my hall, destroy all my yet unpaid for wooden doors, leaving me a gibbering mess. I must admit I am filled with a little historical skepticism. It was once taught to the young Aasvogel that the feats of his Sinhalese ancestors 1200 years ago was so impressive that they built a gigantic irrigation tank 5km long that has a constant slope of a couple of inches per kilometer. With a monotonous voice and the ever present threat of violence, the young Aasvogel was advised that this cannot be done today with existing technology, which has perplexed archeologists and engineers alike. Bollocks. Now, I don’t doubt that the agricultural civilization in the north a millennia ago possessed technology capable of such precision. After all this was before daytime reality TV, and people probably had more free time to figure out an elegant solution. I would like to assert that the only way the furry ancestors of Sarath-Baas and his rag-tag band of poo slingers would have built a 5 kilometer long artificial tank is by accident; the original request having been to build a fucking terrace. ]
I returned the next day. But of course, work has not started. I learn that when Gorillas say tomorrow, it turns out that there are CAVEATS. It reads like this: ‘We start work tomorrow, provided that
1. my workmen return from the binge-fest that their distant cousin’s mate’s funeral turned into;
2. Anything else I decide to prioritise instead;
3. I can still be bothered.’
But of course he expects to start tomorrow. For sure. I smile. Say a bad word to myself and get back into the car.
Days pass. Eventually even dead relatives are forgotten and the now sober and broke workers return. We are off! I come a few hours into the first day’s work. The primates appear to be UN-laying stones. Scraping off the cement and putting them back in the big pile in the corner. Naturally I am curious. Curious enough to launch the next Mass Cat Suicide. I ask a silly sounding question. Eventually, Gorilla #2 aka, ‘Surly’ responds. It seems they started laying the stones only to find that their imaginary line which was straight… WASN’T. Now I’ve seen lots of masonry sites in my career as a complete bloody civilian to civil engineering; and consistently I’ve noticed that the prevalent technology of the time is The Long Bit of Twine. I’ve heard that they even use it to build the straight bits of PARTICLE ACCELERATORS FOR FUCKS SAKE. So why don’t I see it used on my site? I take charge, call over Surly and instruct him to build with twine the grid that has been wanting. I leave, musing as I push the car into reverse, of what red hot metal rods could do to Gorilla behinds.
Success. The grid has worked. Stones are being placed in a pattern that excites the Aasvogel! Now, the concrete grout must go around the sides of my precious stones. I watch the first few being done. I see that the concrete is being smeared all over the stone face as my team clumsily work out their recently acquired opposable thumbs. I raise a small red flag: “That grout stuff on face: can you clean it off? It’ll ruin the stones.”
“Don’t worry, it’ll come off like a flakey prayer. We’ll sweep it off in fact, gratis. Ook.”
“Are you sure? I mean it’s cement, right? Same stuff that holds my walls together too, If I’m not mistaken.”
“Nah, it’ll come off.” This from the Aasvogel’s own father, a man who built hotels for a living not too long ago. Now, I like to take the advice of specialists, after all, what is the modern economy but about specialization? Today we’re long after the era when people used to complain about The Information Overload. That was when Megabytes was the standard, for crying out loud. Today, who can be the generalist?
Turns out I’m full of shit on that one too. Now my stones need acid etching. And not just vinegar. I have been directed to get my hands on nothing less than concentrated sulphuric acid, the scariest shit I’ve heard of, stuff which my chemistry teachers always hid from me. We’ve synthesized Nitro-Toluene (That one ‘Tri’ short of TNT, folks.) in the lab but they never ever let us have fun with the concentrated sulphuric Acid. The same stuff which I can buy over the counter in Pettah. I have to get the gorillas gloves, goggles, masks and also some clothes to cover their entire body. All it takes is a drop of their sweat to fall into the concentrated sulphuric acid and it will splatter everywhere maiming, blinding and killing. They only need to breathe the fumes to burn their respiratory system. I have to supervise every single movement they make. Now, on the few days I sleep, I have nightmares where I look away for a second, turn back to find one of them giving action to the thought: ‘maybe this would all go faster if I just splashed this everywhere’. I am grimly resolved, that if any die, I will simply dissolve what’s left of him in the vat of the acid. I’m not fucking explaining THIS one to the police.
As I try to piece together whatever shattered fragments of my sanity I can find, I realise what has transpired. My father, much like his idiotic son, likes to rely on specialists too. After all, that is how hotels get built you know, he relies on his subject matter experts for their recommendations. His specialization being, to carefully manage the many pieces of the complex project to completion.
Only today, on the matter of the sticky-to-stone-ness of concrete, he got his specialist advice from the same bloody gorilla.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: buttocks, debt, fish, hicks, house, lard, villagers, yokels
Originally uploaded by harean
Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, your average Aasvogel is not a completely socially backward bird. While Finches are gregarious and Bulbuls vain, the Aasvogel is often spotted wearing shorts so obviously synthetic, so hideously floral, that the original flowers depicted could possibly not occur in nature. Unless Mother Nature has to throw up now and then. Even bees, insects so depraved that they fiddle with plant genitals all day must have STANDARDS.
In my defence I can only offer this argument: I love the shorts in question. I am irreversibly, unconditionally and unabashedly besotted by this luminescent blue-green pair shorts. Our love is special. These shorts have been with me through it all, from snorkeling off Unawatuna to watching a young Alan Strang have lots of horsey related orgasms in the recent production of Equus. (Divert. Equus. Rocked. Muchly.) It has successfully contained my ass despite my recently widening proportions, and if it’s going to keep the faith, I’d sooner go naked than be one to give up on it.
On some matters however, the Aasvogel is more discerning. Sophisticated like. Like when I decided to sacrifice the lion’s share of my projected earning capacity for the NEXT DECADE to build a house. Much has to be said about this house. How it was transformed from something the previous owners ran away from barely resisting the urge to set fire to their sandals as they dusted it at the gate to something I that I now retreat to with joy in my self inflicted poverty.
But that which should be said about the building of the same house would at some stage involve a lengthy inquisition into the maternal pedigree of the whoop of gorillas who escaped from Zimbabwe to pose as my builders. Of how I cheerfully paid these charlatans large amounts of money I will not earn in the future, to cause me material harm and mental anguish. Of how my bankers have decided that since now that I am their bitch after all, they can make crank phone calls to me. To tell me that my last payment didn’t go through, and how they would be send someone to chop off my goolies, throw it into my house and set fire to it all, if it wasn’t against the BASEL II banking reform regulations. Refer the debt/liquidity chart above for more details. I also added to my vocabulary the more technically challenging sweary words I have not used hitherto. Swearing, it turns out, is like fucking. Motivation is nothing. Technique is everything.
But house was built, builders were strategically shaved and no one could hardly tell the difference in the end. After the poo was washed off the walls, that is. Which left me to manage the last hurdle as it were. That I now lived in what could only be charitably called: the provinces. The first sign was that my address is both unpronounceable as well as mildly embarrassing. It doesn’t trip off the tongue lightly as much it tries to knot it with your tonsils. Then came the time I met someone while swimming off Galle and introduced myself with my still new address. The response was not what I expected. “Ah I’m from Angoda too!” one chirped while his friend sniggered. SNIGGERED, THE BASTARD. Oh God, I wasn’t even living there yet.
My neighbourhood is a… village. It may be a village 20 minutes from Borella with all the modern day conveniences and vices, but it’s got fully grown men lounging about the local tea shop at 11am on a Monday morning, people who keep their freaking doors open all the damn time and the local criminal dogsbody currently in the payroll of a failed Provincial Council politician’s son down the road. The casual fearlessness of people you meet on the road, who’ll look you in the eye and kill you if you speak funny. And that’s just the women.
As with every rural setting there are a number of roles that I was thrilled to find filled. I’ve noted Local Harmless Addict #1. I’ve never met #2. Leading me to the conclusion that the local economy can only support one drug addict. I’ve been approached by Useless Male Proto-Patriarch who’s been delegated minor gossiping and the spreading of small rumours. Then we have The Neighbour Who Keeps Asking for Stuff. I was glad to know they existed long before I even moved in. But something niggled at me for a while, a shoe, perhaps a rural bathroom slipper so to speak, that had not dropped. I was waiting for something. Heaven knew what.
The great nesting process was relatively painless although physically draining. Got. My. Shit. Barely. Together. Success! I had achieved a crappy milestone in middle class mediocrity; I had more debt than I had cash generating assets. Who cares? I lit candles, mopped the cut cement floor. Waited for the friends of the Aasvogel.
Much later, as we allowed a single well toned guitar and the acoustics of the front terrace to transport us, I heard it. As did all my guests. Down the road, a slurred commentary was offered at high decibels asserting that a certain lady was of ill repute. And that he doing the asserting would show she with the reputation, a thing or two, if he could only manage the complex motor skills involved. And profanity, sweet profanity breaking the now otherwise silent night. Even the crickets were listening for the juicier words. I leaned back, relieved. I had found my Local Drunk and Abusive Husband.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fish, lard, my cult, spirituality, that mitchell and webb
Cant… watch… Again. Sides… Split.
So I got into thinking. Of how to write the perfect last chapter for the holy book that would deliver me hordes of pliant wide-eyed followers offering me their bank -account numbers and naked, nubile female bodies in exchange for the insta-mix cup-a-soup spirituality that they crave. Turns out it’s harder than I originally estimated.
After all aren’t the last books the all important set up? The necessary set change between the antics of your Deity along with his sun-burnt Chosen People and the Act where you, my sweaty pilgrim, are supposed to come in? Would’t you expect a modicum of inspiration? Even instruction? Perhaps a little reaching out, welcoming future bleating flocks to CALL THE TOLL FREE NUMBER and PAY FOR MY TOUPEE, PRAISE Y’ALL.
Maybe even that last chance to insert the suppository of reality lest the discerning notice certain things? Like how so very conveniently, while we weren’t around, the divine seems to have been in town walking on water and ordering all the expensive drinks at the bars, having renaissance artists paint elaborate and beautiful portraits of their nights out. Only now, just when the insolent atheists aren’t allowing themselves to be burnt any longer, there isn’t even an autographed beer-mat to throw at them.
I have been getting a lot of inspiration from Zoroastrianism. Clearly this is where all the spiritual oomph is at. If religions were bread, where the Church of England would be, say, Cucumber Sandwiches with the crusts neatly cut off, Zoroastrianism would be Mystical Superbread who’s recipe has been LOST UNTO MAN IN THE EDDIES OF TIME. In Capitals. It’s one of those old untamed religions that takes it’s metaphors seriously. A fire that has been kept alive for 3000 years, their dead left on mountainsides above deep chasms. And if that wasn’t enough imagery and weirdness, apparently crows pecking out the eyeballs of the dead signify a positive outcome in the afterlife. Perhaps the Afterlife is ugly.
Their sacred text the ‘Gathas’ (which turns out to be a set of devotional hymns, giving our own equivalent word an Ancient Iranian birth) has the prophet Zoroaster exploring ideas of Truth, Goodness and devotion to his God: Ahura Mazda in his stanzas. Wholesome, if somewhat formulaic. The final verses? They end with Zoroaster at his daughter’s wedding, gloating how he was right in his faith after all. As religious texts go, I approve muchly. When I am the Omnipotent Omniscient Big Kahuna, my sacred text would have a last chapter that would read:
“When the crowed asked the ascending Aasvogel (May his lightness shine on us) what he bade to the rest of humanity, He spake thus: “HAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHA HA HAH AH AHAHAH….[cut to last verse]…. AHAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHAHA HAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHA, the rest of you, BURN!”
The Christian Bible itself is a pretty impressive text. Lots of naughty sex, racial violence and a great chariot chase scene. But mostly it’s chock full of fantastic warning and moving lyricism. Orwell gives this extract from Ecclesiastes as an example of good writing in his Politics and the English Language:
“I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”
BADAAAAAAM! Bang! Home Run! Oncore! Now that’s how you write.
And the Bible just flings it all away at the end. Beasts with seven heads coming out of the water? Wtf? DID MAN, THERE AND THEN JUST DISCOVER CRACK? HAD ALL THE GREAT WRITERS BEEN LURED AWAY TO WRITE SCRIPTS FOR CSI?
In the end I put it down to performance anxiety. I can see the intended writer of Revelations being handed a sheaf of battered yellow parchments (the Sum Total of Thought, Debate and Philosophical Inquiry of the entire Judaeo-Christian movement from the dawn of Language itself) by the dying penultimate author and been told “Son you have the greatest job of us all, you get to write the big finish….gak.” SO NO PRESSURE.
Weeks later, having just put down the crack pipe (Patent Pending), the new author will go “Seven headed water beasts!” And it will seem like a good idea at the time.
