Bit of a change from the usual format, I visit my blog less these days of course. I should visit it more now I’ve got rid of my Facebook soapbox, so I don’t have a vessel for my shorthand opinion sharing that would constitute a Facebook post. Not that I’m obliged to share my opinion, I simply like to, because I have an opinion on most things and it’s good to get stuff of your chest. Plus, I’m doing less photography these days for some reason

So, rather than the usual single topic essay, I’m going make a few shorter observations about things I’ve observed and thought about recently. 

PROTESTS IN WELLINGTON.

Firstly, I’m glad the police grew a pair, as the Americans say, and literally hosed the crusties and conspiracists off the grounds of parliament, about bloody time. It annoyed me though, that the worthies who comment about such things on various media outlets kept touting the line that ‘some of the protesters had genuine and legitimate concern’s’. No, they bloody didn’t, none of them did. They were all entirely misinformed fuckwits and troublemakers. An anti-establishment, anti-authority, willfully ignorant rabble. That’s the short version of my opinion. 

When you share a protest platform with far-right extremists who want to hang the Prime Minister and kill all mainstream media journalists. You’re part of that group. You’re taking the side of the worst people there. The idiocy of a screaming group of halfwits accusing the PM of being both Communist and Fascist is unbelievably stupid. These people are allowed to walk the street unsupervised. The fact that they are speaks volumes about how much freedom they have that they don’t appreciate.

FREEDOM

Speaking of Freedom, you know how the Americans are always crapping on about Freedom, because personal freedom is apparently the single most important thing to Americans, that and being in complete abeyance to an imaginary master of the universe? America, land of the free has 18,000 separate and independent law enforcement agencies. Everything from the CIA, FBI, State police, county sheriffs, park police, highway patrol and so on, and on and on. Imagine having that many police enforcement options in a free country? You know what they don’t have? A USA Police force, there’s no such thing. 

Americans have no concept of the greater good, only personal freedom to buy all the guns you can eat. You need all the guns to keep you safe from all the people you’ve alienated by being so bloody rude all the time. Have you ever heard an American say please or thank you? Outside actual dictatorships, the USA is the least free, most divided nation on earth.

You’re either Democrat or Republican, it appears there is no midground at all. There’s no centre, nothing in between. They hate each other and the prominent politicians of those two parties are some of the most intransigent, least reasonable, most obstructive people wielding power in any democracy on earth.

They’ll actually harm their own country just to hurt the other side. The Republicans have seen what a monster Trump is, and they fancy giving him another crack at being President. That’s extraordinary! Hopefully he’ll be in prison by then.

Hopefully Putin will be either dead or deposed. If he isn’t, we’ll be living in caves eating ash, if we’ve survived his clearly desired nuclear conflict. 

The fact that the loudest voices on the American conservative right prefer Putin to Biden should qualify them for a swift removal from power and authority. These are the same people who are frightened of LBGTQI people having any rights. They act as though the LBGTQI thing is a new phenomenon, when in actual fact, it’s just got an acronym now.

I’m simplifying of course, but then people who oppose LBGTQI rights are simple folk. Men dressing up as girls or being gay, is nothing new. Look at the dandy’s of the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The Glam Rockers, New Romantics, Boy George, Dame Edna, Drag Queens, Elton John, Ziggy Stardust, Eddie Izard. This transgender, reassignment craze really caught on after the Kardashians and Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner got famous. What happened was the internet, and the influence of social media giving it traction and normalizing rather than ostracizing. 

CRAFT BEER

I love a beer, a cold refreshing, commercially brewed lager. I hate home brew; it tastes like shit. It’s all got that nasty harsh aftertaste to it, like a really bad version of Steinlager. Craft beer is simply a larger scale home brew operation. It’s home brew, beer made worse and given a silly name with a ridiculous ‘arty’ label and costs 3 times as much as proper beer. It’s shit. It’s worse than that though, it’s pretentious shit.

Why is it that craft beer fans are almost all such fuckwits? 😉 I pulled up at a motel recently and the host offered me a beer. “Would you like a beer?” He asked, which to be is a rhetorical question. “Of course,” I replied.

He then said, “well I’m test driving this little IPA number at the moment, would you….” “Yeah nah, when you start talking about test driving a beer, you’re going to try to offer me that ‘craft beer’ shit ay, thanks but no thanks” I replied. I don’t drink that rubbish, it’s weasels piss” He looked hurt;

I raised my eyebrows at his hurt feelings. “Have you got any proper beer”? Well yes, I’ve got this pilsner….” “No, it’s made by the same people isn’t it? That will be shit as well. Reckon I’ll give the beers a miss ta.”

It’s not a fine wine, it’s homebrew, it tastes awful, costs a fortune and turns you into a pretentious bore when you’ve got one in your hand. Speaking of pretentious bores.

ART AND LITERATURE.

You may be aware I wrote a book recently. I tried to get it published and I was surprised by what happened next. I know some very nice people who write books and sell them, but the publishers…. The book isn’t bad, I’ve read worse stuff in print. It’s not great, it’s just a story. However, I then paid a lot of money for a manuscript assessor to go over it. She said it was definitely worth publishing and was ‘reminiscent of the works of Frank Sargeson’, which was nice, but then everything else she said was abrupt, rude and condescending. I don’t know why she felt the need to be so very rude. I told her she was like my mother who likes to belittle other people to elevate herself. 

I spoke to literary agents; they were all very rude. I spoke to publishers; they were all dismissive and extremely rude. What a bunch of pricks and princesses. They clearly have an extremely high opinion of themselves and their position in the world, which is fine, surely you can be that without being such a dick about it? I would have thought they’d be keen to encourage aspiring authors rather than alienating them? 

Apparently not. Fortunately for me, I’m not an aspiring author, just someone with an ability to string a sentence together and form an opinion. Having had the experience of writing and trying to get a book published, I have now learned that this is not an industry I wish to be any part of. Writing the book was an ordeal I don’t wish to repeat, and I certainly don’t want to ever speak to anyone in the literary industry on the publishing side ever again. In the end, I published it myself on Amazon. 

People who trade in art, work in galleries and present themselves as experts on art are worse though. The height of pretentiousness as though they have some higher calling than mere mortals. I like art, I like painter’s and artists, I know a few, they’re all good sorts who enjoy being creative, they must get the same treatment from galleries and the like as authors do from publishers and literary reviewers. Just stop it. Stop being dicks.

FINALLY.

remember the good old days when Donald Trump, Covid19 and the Climate were the scariest things in the news?

Now we have the world’s most dangerous man, an insane tyrant in charge of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, desperate for an excuse to use it. Vladimir the Putrid is an existential threat to humanity. I’m glad I live in New Zealand.  Mind how you go.