Blog R

I remember in the seventies, the Eagles' songline 'there are no more new frontiers, we have got to make it here', and last night I had my garden shredder at my friend's place trying to dispose of a huge heap of old prunings, which regrettably were too dry to get through the razor sharp blades in my machine. His neighbour came over, asked what I was doing, he replied that in Slovenia 'we burn everything' and I explained that Slovenia had just had €200,000,000 damage from unprecedented rainfall, floods and disasters, and I was trying to make a start to stop that. He started rationalising the electricity I was using against the benefits of just burning, and I explained that burning was the same as driving his car a thousand kilometers, and he then got on the subject of cars, and when I said I liked old ones he described how none of the extensive features on his VW Golf worked any more and he was happy to have five gears and a motor, and I explained how we can't buy a car that simple anymore, and we're flat out making bullshit, and paying too much for crap we don't need, and he asked me to come and drink his new wine, and I stayed with a beer at my friend's kitchen, and went home with the feeling I'd just gotten nowhere again. My friend has his house here as a retreat from crazy life in Britain, but he was pretty flattened by the fact that every time he requested something to be done, it was either ignored, done poorly, or not followed through. Reality is that not many people identify what an opportunity is; few people can see beyond the little shell they are huddled in, and the big picture that there are so many opportunities to create positive pathways through this quagmire of indifference is left to those few people with the constitutional fortitude to win against all odds. My friend actually has the identical experience in Britain, at grossly inflated amounts of pounds sterling, and he's spent his life not acquiring the 'do it yourself' mentality that has been my principal motivation in getting something decent for myself. You see, I REVERSE every bit of publicity I hear; transparent government is the opposite, open learning just doesn't happen, surround sound does not provide the accoustic experience that good old stereo does (Yamaha have gotten it down to one speaker...) flat screen TV is generally not a patch on a decent old fashioned cathode ray tube, that tube of 'soft and natural' contains engine degreaser, the box of orange juice 'with added Vitamin C' had zero vitamin C in the first place, and the nutritive value of coloured water, you try it; take any story on any publicity and inspect it objectively; the people being coddled in business class in the big jet are HATING to fly yet again across the Atlantic, the babe by the swimming pool with the iced tea is anorexic, the happy family have just had their mortgage renewed at increased interest rates by a bank poised to sweep their world out from under them, and would you really want to dance because your toilet is whiter than ever before? How about your toilet paper? Soft Dream Floral Bouquet to wipe shit with? (How about Finger Proof!?) and, really, you have to laugh, because the flashest Ferraris out there are being driven by the biggest winners at pulling the wool over your myopic eyes, instead of you, who should have siezed the opportunity with a future attached to it. Just REVERSE it all. Reverse, do the world a favour. Nuff said.