Keep Off The Grass

Keep Off The Grass
Read the following list and see how many names you can tick off the list as knowing. Sir Walter, Tall Fescue, Conquest Couch, Kikuyu and Grand Prix. If you answered yes to even one of these then you are part of the problem instead of the solution. If you don’t recognise any of the names on the list there is a good chance you are guilty by way of ignorance. Now before you get out your Dictionary or start Googling Sir Walter I will help you out. They are all types of your new enemy. Lawn, yes common every day, dare I say it, garden variety, lawn.
So why do we have lawns in the first place? Just what purpose does it serve? You create a patchwork quilt with your lawn and then leave your car parked out on the street so the local kids have something to graffiti on. You don’t need a lawn for the kids to play on either as all the kids these days never go outside due to the fact that they need to be surgically removed from their Playstations and Xbox’s or are poking the living daylights out of each other on Facebook.
People who have a lawn crafted to perfection never let you on it anyway. The type of people who would lay red carpet over their lawn so they don’t have to replace any divots.
So what you need to do is destroy your lawn. Not just cut it back but a total slash and burn. If you have dogs then let them loose as they will turn it into a dustbowl race track and eliminate that pesky grass for you. Whatever you do the grass must go.
Now before the “Save the Planet” sloganeering, bicycle riding, sandal wearing, green menaces start protesting on the land where my lawn use to be and lodging lawsuits against me for the alleged murder of Mother Nature. I am not a total Eco-terrorist and you bastards are trespassing anyway!
So now your backyard looks like an open cut mine it is time to ensure you never have lawn again.
Growing food is a lot more beneficial and productive than having the equivalent of the 18th hole at St Andrews at your back door. Plant spinach instead of Conquest Couch and you have something that looks nice, has larger green surface area to create greater photosynthesis and also good to eat. Unless your family bloodlines include Bovine then you might argue the point that grass is better. But if that is the case you probably have Mad Cow Disease and aren’t thinking straight anyway. Planting a whole vegetable garden has benefits too. Sure is takes some work to maintain but what would you rather do on your day off? Get out in your garden and admire your fresh food growing brilliance or go to the Supermarket to fight for a carpark, push a trolley with crooked wheels, have the urge to yell at other people’s children and queue up for hours only to find half your food isn’t fresh by the time you get home.
It also it eliminates the need to spend your day off mowing. People don’t get to work on a Monday morning and announce they can’t wait for Sunday to come round again so they can get out the ride on mower that now costs more than a Hummer to run and create crop circles in their yard to impress the neighbours who really couldn’t care less.

To finish up what we need less of is all these garden rescue and renovation shows on television. This only encourages people into attempting to achieve the ridiculous. They do not serve any purpose other than making you max out your credit card at the local hardware and nursery. You come home with enough wood to build Noah’s Ark in the hope of a creating a rear decking that the Rolling Stones could hold a concert on in the space where the lemon tree use to be. They convince you a pergola the size of the Colosseum is just what your yard needs as well. Then to top it off they want to decorate it better than any room in your entire house.
I know I have never look at my backyard and thought “Hmmm that’s it !, I need more cushions!”

S.W.M. - Seeks Peace and Quiet.

S.W.M. – Seeks Peace and Quiet.

When you come out of a relationship you usually turn to your friends for emotional and moral support. Whether it be someone to just sit and listen to you complain about the last so many days, months or years of your life or someone to hit the town with, get completely smashed and act in a manner that definitely would not attract a new partner. For the females someone to hold the hair out of your face, while you expel the contents of your stomach after a night of nachos and Tequila. During these tough and uncertain times we all seem to think we can determine who our real friends are. Those who will stick by you through thick and thin, will drag you out of the pits of despair, stop you from getting arrested and take a bullet for you. But you soon find out that all you want is for most of your friends to take a bullet and leave you in peace.

All your friends have utterly ridiculous ideas that they shove down your throat under the banner of “good intentions”. They all have a best friend, a relative, a friend at work or the neighbours mother’s sister in law’s step daughter’s cousin who they think would be a perfect match for you and that you should commence planning a wedding right away. What gives people the idea that the very first thing you want to do after ending a relationship is to immediately start another with someone who sounds too good to be true. Ever noticed that the most suitable people on the planet have never met the right person? That speaks volumes in itself. If they really are that good then why are they still single and why hasn’t your friend started dating them? I will tell you why. It is a sympathy set up. Find two people down on their luck and stick them together in an attempt to make two wrongs equal a right. What is wrong with being single for a while? Enjoy the freedom of being yourself. Doing what you want, when you want, how you want, with who you want. I will tell you what is wrong with it. Your friends hate it. It makes them cringe and lose sleep. This is why they will try and deprive you of it. They are jealous that you can do all the things they can’t. The can’t stay out all night then sleep in until noon, go two days without bathing and have banana and baked bean toasted sandwiches on the living room floor while watching re-runs of COPS on television. I will give you this tip for free; whoever can bottle “no responsibility” will make themselves a fortune.

When I came out of a long-term relationship last year I thought I would try and beat my friends to the punch and made a general address to the Nation. I said
“I want to be single for the next year. I am not on the market. I am not available. I do not wish to know about any perfect matches, be set up or to go on blind dates. I do not want to be sent links to internet dating sites nor have friends make a profile on one for me in my best interest. I want to go surfing. I want go out and have a good time with friends. I want to sit around in my boxer shorts, drinking beer and watching Clint Eastwood Westerns”

I thought this was pretty clear but it seems to have been interpreted as “I am desperate and single please tell all your friends and do your best to introduce me to them in the most difficult and uncomfortable circumstances.”

Often when you are conned into a blind date or you are invited along to make up the numbers the only thing you have in common with your new future partner is the fact you both think that your friends are ignorant imbeciles for believing this obvious set up would work in the first place. You get told the day after about how they saw you laughing and enjoying yourself with their friend they set you up with. It slays them when you tell them you were both laughing at the short comings and inadequacies of the very people who thought you would be a match.

Your friends always know what’s best for you. The only comfort you have is knowing that when they end up single you will be as painful as they have been. This will all be under the good intentions banner of “returning the favour”.
There is no escape from this behaviour. Your viewpoint and actions all depend on your current relationship status. You think you will be different when your time arrives to help, but you won’t. It is all part of our desire to help and the idea that we know exactly what other people want and that we know best.

There has to be something in all of this though. We seem to have longer lasting friendships than relationships no matter how much our friends push our sanity.

With friends like these who needs enemas?

Coffee - It's Not An Artform

Coffee – It’s not an art form.

I just want a coffee. A nice steaming, hot, comforting mug of black coffee is all I want. Is that too much to ask? We apparently so! Try ordering one next time you are in a café and see what happens. You will spend more time answering questions in relation to how different you would like your coffee from the way in which you have ordered it. It is easier to choose a program from 200 channels of cable television than it is to order a coffee. Does anyone really know what a Grande double shot non-fat extra caffeinated vanilla soy latte is anyway?


We need coffee to wake up in the morning. It is all part of the process, part of the way the earth keeps turning and part of the socially acceptable addiction we enjoy. So the last thing we need is to recite the equivalent of Pythagoras Theorem at 6am to someone who is one of those insanely happy “morning people”. But I am sure if you went into a cafe stated your order as “In a right angled triangle the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides” then the machine and it’s overly excitable operator would spring into life and they would whip up a caffeinated concoction, that even N.A.S.A. scientists would have a difficult time deciphering, then smilingly charge you five bucks for it. There is just too much choice which mean can only mean there is no longer a focus on the standard black coffee thus reducing its quality.


Once you have finally worked out the way your coffee is to be made the next bone of contention is what you will drink it out of. Firstly I think is it an absolute insult to charge you for a coffee then put it into a Styrofoam or cardboard cup. This is a crime against humanity the same way serving beer in plastic cups is. It should be an indictable offence with a minimum penalty of being savaged by wild dogs. You wouldn’t buy a crystal vase and package it in barbed wire so why make a quality coffee and treat it with such contempt. Now when I am having my coffee inside an establishment I want a mug with a handle. A big mug with a big handle. I don’t want my coffee in a glass that ends up hot enough to fuse my fingers to the side of it. I don’t want a cup that is about as deep as a saucer with a handle so small you can’t even put your smallest finger through it. Remember we are attempting to drink these while still half asleep so the required dexterity isn’t always quite with us.
While we are at it don’t get fooled into these so-called large coffees they sell these days. They charge you an extra buck or two and all they do is add more water. It is a “larger” coffee not a “stronger” one. So in effect you have just paid extra for a weaker coffee. Include robbed while asleep to the list of charges.


So let’s keep it simple when it comes to our coffee. Coffee doesn’t need to be confusing. Confusion is the very thing we create from consuming too much coffee.
So how do we solve all this hassle without becoming one of the boring, socially inept and often deluded tea consumers that try to convince you tea is good for you? Simply buy some good quality coffee, a big mug, a $60 percolator and make your own at home. Don’t be fooled into believing that making coffee is an art form.
Wake up and smell the coffee people! Or as in most cases, drink the coffee and wake up while smelling that sweet and powerful Arabica bean scent of victory!

WARNING: LOGIC AHEAD

WARNING: LOGIC AHEAD
Warning, Caution, Beware, Look Up, Look Down, Mind Your Step, Do Not Cross, Very Hot, Very Cold, Slippery When Wet, Danger, Slow Down, Stop.
Warning Signs, they are everywhere. I recommend we do away with the lot of them before the human race begins a descent into complacent stupidity. Replace the Warning Signs with a few standard signs like "Think" or "What is your common sense telling you right now Captain Obvious?"
Better yet have no signs at all
Our daily lives have been taken over with signs telling us what not to do and to be careful to the point of not doing anything. This is eroding our built in survival instinct. One of the very few things, besides opposable thumbs, that keep us at the top of the food chain.
Sure if there are no signs the stupid people of the world might injure, maim and kill themselves, but if they are daft enough to stick their head out of a moving train then I don’t think there's really much hope for them anyway. Say this out loud and tell me if you disagree. "I am happy to leave my small children in the care of someone who sticks their head out of a moving train" Ok, so we all agree, no big loss to the species.
One warning sign I did see was on a standard queens size bed electric blanket. The warning was about number seven in a list of ten things not to do with the blanket, including getting the blanket wet. If you still piss the bed you shouldn’t be lying on anything with the word "electric" in the title.
The instructions on how to use the blanket correctly were shorter than the list of warnings. The warning stated in bold font "DO NOT STICK PINS INTO BLANKET". Now I have slept in quite a few different beds of my own and in various places both here and overseas. From the expensive, hand folded down corners, with a mint chocolate on the pillow type of beds to the cheap as chips, is lucky if you don’t get scabies backpacker bunks. At no time I have ever come across a need to stick pins into the bed. So why is this warning required? It is required because some mental midget in a moment of what they thought was exceptional brilliance has stuck pins into the blanket and electrocuted himself or herself. The Company now has to place such a warning tag to prevent any further lawsuits against them. I think that person should have been grateful, as had they not been electrocuted they would have been stuck with pins during their sleep with no one to blame but themselves and more than likely pissed the bed as well.

Takeaway coffee is another one that has warnings that are just astounding to the average caffeine consumer. The lids now have either "CAUTION: HOT CONTENTS" or "CAUTION: CONTENTS MAY BE HOT" embossed on top. Now lets take a moment here. You have just stood in line at a crappy, little, trying to be oh so different café near your work because you were too lazy to make yourself a cup of coffee at home before you left. You have ordered a coffee so you would expect the contents to be hot. I will say repeat that just in case is was too simple a statement. You have ordered a coffee so you would expect the contents to be hot. You would be pissed off if it were cold. I fail to see the need for a warning. If you order a coffee and spill it on yourself resulting in scolds and burns then that will certainly serve as a reminder for next time, more so than any embossed warning message.


Another device with a warning tag that beggared belief was a Heat Gun I was using to strip paint off the side of a house. It is a hand held electric device that you plug into the 240volt socket and switch it on. (Numpties take note: there is that word "electric" again)
It heats up and blows excessively hot air in a measured flow. You hold this near the paint and as the paint bubbles you slide the paint scraper along and the paint comes off in one easy motion.
It has a warning tag "DO NOT USE AS A HAIR DRYER". This gadget melts bloody paint so why on earth would you stick it near you head? The person that did stick it in the direction of their cranium deserves the third degree burns and what small brains they had to be seeping out of their skull. They should maybe stick to collecting stamps and leave the house renovations to the Boy Scouts who probably have a patch advising that they are competent with said device.
So in summary we should remove all the Warning Signs and those of us who don’t have to buy a clue can get on with making this species great and those who can’t keep pace will fall by the wayside in a generation or two.
In 1859 Charles Darwin gave us his Theory of Natural Selection. Imagine how far ahead we could be if we didn’t stunt our growth with warning signs.

Saturday Sinning

Saturday Sinning
Most Saturday afternoons when I was a teenager meant having to make your own fun. Where I use to live there was two thirds of fuck all to do. There was a skate ramp/half pipe at the local oval but the council in their infinite wisdom soon moved that to an area that was pretty much inaccessible for people without cars. They may as well have just pulled the ramp down as none of us could get to it.
One Saturday afternoon a couple of mates that lived close by and myself decided to go and kick the footy at the park at the end of the street. We had done this many times before and used the park as a short cut to get to each other’s houses.
We were attempting to be football heroes as best we could when striding across the grass toward us came the Priest from the local church and school that back onto the park.
Now I thought Priests were supposed to be nice people. But after the waving of arms, finger pointing and crap about private property and trespassing I thought this guy was a total prick. It is not like there were any fences or signs.
So a game of cat and mouse ensued. We would walk off and he would walk in the opposite direction. Just as he almost at the church we would walk back on the grass, kick the footy, get chased off and so on.
I was pretty pissed off with this Priest and over the coming weeks we would skate through the Catholic school on our skateboards. With the money they had it was the smoothest concrete surface in the neighbourhood. It was actually more like a race than a cruisey skate. The slowest skater usually had to put up with the Fire and Brimstone lecture from the Priest while the rest of us laughed from a distance.
A friend of mine went to the school there and the Priest told his mother that he was one of the culprits. Upon hearing this, his mother grounded him. It would have been funnier if he actually did it. His mother wouldn’t believe all he did was skate past the school not through it. He wouldn’t skate through it. He was scared of the Priest.
Boredom and anger lead to thoughts of revenge.
A week later we were on our bikes circling the church and school with no apparent plot just a desire to stick it to the man. I don’t know where the idea came from but soon as I heard it I thought ‘shit yeah!"
Three of us broke away from the rest of the group and road into the school grounds. We saw our destiny before us. The side door to the church was open. I was the second through and was pumped on adrenalin and quite possibly a few swigs of Southern Comfort. We rode across the front aisle up onto the platform where the alter is. Then jumped the bikes off there and between the first row of pews and the altar. Turning down the main aisle my mate in front had to hit the brakes. This caused the gleaming red carpet to bunch up and the rest of us to slow down. The laughing and wolf howls began but stopped as quickly as they started. The Priest had come in through the other side door and he didn’t look like he was ready to "spread the good word". We took off as fast as our feet could peddle us towards the main entrance. I heard my mate close behind me yelling "Go, go, go" just as I was riding out the main door I heard him yell "Protestants one, Catholics nil!"
After a non stop power ride back to a safe house with the rest of the crew demanding to know what happened and what the rush to get out of there was. We collapsed in a puffing heap and told them of our close encounter with the Devil in God’s cloth.
We were on roll, we had to maintain the rage. Full of teen angst, bravado and more Southern Comfort we made a commando raid under the cover of darkness.
I wonder what went through the Priests mind that evening as he returned from his outing? His head lights came across the front yard as he pulled into his driveway to see three mysterious figures putting his three meter Cross in the ground…upside down!!
Thank God I am an atheist.

Yesterdays Heroes

Yesterdays Heroes

Playing the drums has always been a passion of mine. I started playing when I was about twelve or thirteen years old. There were plenty of other kids at school into music so getting a band together should have been easy. In my case it was made easier by the fact that there was only myself and one other drummer in the entire school. The advantage I had over the other drummer was that I learnt to read drum scores. Of course every guitarist wanted to be the cock rockin lead guitarist in any band that would have them. Usually the least talented guitarist would be relegated to playing bass and no one had the guts to sing.
In the last year I was at high school the music class from each year level would perform a song at the end of year school concert. These songs were always fucking painful. Dire Straits, Robert Palmer, Cindy Lauper and other parent friendly crap my memory has graciously deleted.
The music teacher, Mr. C, was a pretty cool bloke. Better then most teachers I had come across. He treated you as an equal not as a subordinate. Coming near the end of the school year he got a group of individuals from different year levels together for a chat.
"Look guys" he said "these end of year concerts really need a lift. All you guys have talent and don’t listen to mainstream music. I want you to use the rehearsal room every lunch time and come up with a cover song to end the night with a bang"
So the pressure was on. What song to do? Who will sing? We made the choice of vocalist pretty easy. "We aren’t playing any song with fucking keyboards in it" stated Leon. "Alright, fuck it, I will sing" announced Angus realizing that with no keyboards he had no place in the band. Now that’s band democracy at work. It turns out Angus had a top notch voice when it comes to screaming ! We were told by Mr. C that songs with explicit language wouldn’t be acceptable. Considering 90% of this make shift band were punks and metal-heads this left us pretty stumped for choices.
Seven lunchtimes later and a shitload of noise we still hadn’t progressed anywhere. Then the song fell right into our laps while playing a few tapes. "Fuck yeah" was the general consensus. We ran the song by Mr. C for censorship approval. OK the punk ethic says fuck censorship but to us it also meant fuck wasting time on a song we won’t get to finish playing anyway. With a sly grin that made him look craftier than a shithouse rat with a gold tooth, Mr. C said "Perfect guys, practice the hell out of it, nail it and I will put you on last"
So practice we did. We lived and breathed that song. As the two guitarists couldn’t decided who was going to play the lead solo we made the solo twice as long so they could each play it once. Now that’s cock rock !
The night of the concert was upon us. We managed to keep what we were doing a secret. Mr. C didn’t tell the principal anymore than "A surprise finish" The school assembly hall was filled with Mr. and Mrs. Average who had come to watch Son and Daughter Average butcher songs like never before then give a rousing applause at the end as convention dictates. I believe they were clapping the fact that the pain and humiliation was over. I was watching the audience from back stage. So many parents with fingers in their ears. Finally the sensory deprivation Music Classes ended and the curtains closed.
As we started setting up you could hear the murmurs and mumbles get curiously louder as the Marshall Amps and distortion pedals were plugged in and switched on.
Ready ! The curtain flies up. The twin guitars crank out the intro riff, the bass and drums thump in together as to the wall of school musical heresy begins. The hall filled with the blasting noise that is Black Sabbaths "Paranoid".
Parents were holding there children in fear of their safety. Angus was up front belting out the lyrics with veins in his neck and head about to burst, pointing an angry fist at the most vulnerable adults in the audience. We had created chaos, nothing was stopping us. We drove that song like there was no tomorrow. The guitars squealed through the solo’s and set chunky rhythms during the versus. Ending with a huge crash and bash open "E" full noise roar backed up with drum rolls. Kids yelling their heads off and parents looking around for a higher being to save them.
At the end of the song the Principal was virtually speechless at the microphone center stage. Mr. C was standing up behind the mixing desk with that big crafty smile giving us the two thumbs up sign. He came up to us while parents were still trying to regain their senses and control of their children and said "It sounded great, they might hate you but you will be the most remembered band of the night"
I went home that night feeling on top of the word. We had fucked the system and that’s what playing music should be all about.

Midlife

Midlife

I have been thinking seriously about having a midlife crisis.
Now I am talking about a ‘crisis’ here not a ‘breakdown’. A crisis where attempt to recapture your youth in a bizarre display of purchasing items you can’t afford to impress people you don’t like and sticking a middle finger up at mainstream society. As opposed to a breakdown where you flip out and decide that a loaded firearm is just what you need to get your point across to those ignorant work colleagues on a Monday morning.
It seems that it is mainly married men who have a midlife crisis so that is one box I don’t get to tick on my application. Will it affect my chances of having a successful crisis? Only time will tell.
Married guys usually send out early signals that they are on their way to midlife ridicule. They stand there with a Cascade Premium Light beer in hand, keep a straight face and tell you why going up to their eyeballs in debt to buy a two door European sports convertible was a good idea. That fact they have a wife, three kids and a Golden Retriever to be ferried around all becomes null and void once they are cruising with the roof down feeling the wind in their ever-thinning hair.
So being single I shouldn’t have any problems with thing like an immediate family getting in the way of my intended rebellion. I don’t want to do the sports car thing as my crisis may be mistaken for me just turning into a pretentious wanker. I have thought about the Kombi Van and surfboard combination but the last thing the general beach going public needs is seeing my blubber squeezed into a rubber suit and rolling around in the shallows like a clubbed seal. I don’t see taking up golf as having a crisis either. That is more a statement that your life is completely over and you are just waiting to die. I believe the word "Golf’ is Latin for "Dead Man Walking". Taking up cycling has been mentioned to me as an option but once again it doesn’t scream "up yours world, I am out of here". Sure it is your thing if you like shaving your legs, squeezing your lolly bag into some Lycra shorts, hanging around a café and swapping chaffing stories with your other delusional friends. But that’s just being pathetic not having a crisis.
My crisis needs a motto like "Born to Lose and Still Lose". I need to quit my job, buy a Harley Davidson Fat Boy, grow a pony tail and get a girlfriend half my age. But just as I think my days of being a loose cannon are about to come rushing back I hit a few hurdles. If I quit my job I won’t be able to afford the repayments on the Harley and the important fact I can’t ride a motorbike really puts the brakes on that idea. I have shaved my head ever since I was 16 so I don’t think I will be getting a pony tail anytime soon and let’s face it guys with long hair are, well, quite frankly, a little fruity. As for the girlfriend half my age, well that’s just ten kinds of creepy.
So where to now? I can’t even pull off a midlife crisis so what hope is there for me. I may not be able to ride a motorbike but I am more than capable around all types of semi and fully automatic firearms. Perhaps I am more suited to a breakdown? Monday at work is looking better already!