The Newsroom. Episode 4. The fucking one with that fucking Coldplay song. A review.

Oh man, does this show suck giant hairy balls. The worst part is, I’m totally hooked and I don’t think I’ll be able to restrain myself and I’ll end up watching the rest of the series, hating every goddamn minute of it. I don’t even know where to start, fuck it, I guess here will do. Alright, so in the first episode there’s this one classic Alan Sorkin walk and talk scene where these two people are, yup, walking briskly down a bunch of corridors, their mouths on rapid fire as other people come into the edge of shot and hand one of them a piece of paper and say things like “The Numbers” and then scurry away looking frantic. The two main characters stride confidently along and everyone bows and scrapes to get out of their way, the whole time having such spirited and enthusiastic engagements that they look like they’ve spent the whole afternoon smoking meth. To be honest, to me everyone just looks like they’ve had too much coke and are just grinding furiously away at what’s left of their teeth.  Also, they all look like they’re dying to take a shit which really helps with the whole coke thing. And speaking of full of shit, lets move on to the characters, whom nobody cares about and we all know I’m only half heartedly going to talk about one of them so let's get this charade over with.  

The main one, the guy, Will Whats-his-name, I don’t know, whatever, I could wiki it but do you care? Anyway, so the premise is he’s had this ‘moment of clarity’ and they (the powers that be) decide to build a news show about good honest truth and seriously, just wiki it, anyway, he sort of wants to become this news pariah or good ol’ fashioned journalist and for Christs sake, have you wikied it yet? Anyway, he sucks, he’s just a rich asshole trying to make good in the world but really he’s just another rich asshole doing things that satisfy his own self-serving needs. I can see people really aspiring to be this character because they want to be a journalist, which is pretty scary because it’s almost like wanting to be a hyena instead of a lion because you prefer the taste of carrion to fresh meat.

Anyway, he’s bullshit, his character is bullshit and the rest of the show is bullshit, and just when I thought they couldn’t lay it on any thicker at the end of the fourth episode they play a fucking Coldplay song, you know the one, it goes ‘And I will try to fix you’ in a really wailing voice and every time I hear it I want to simultaneously vomit and punch a puppy in the face, you know that song? Yeah, well they play that song in its ENTRITY over an overtly emotional scene and the only reason I watched it through is I couldn’t decided whether I’d rather slam my computer on my dick and run screaming through streets or to try and carve my initials into one of my own turds, with my own teeth, than endure another episode of this awful awful shit. I would rather peel my hand and then feed it, still attached, to cats than endure another hour long cat shit smoothie that is The Newsroom. I would rather crawl up a whales dick hole and suffocate than hear another ‘fiery exchange between people who both want the same thing but just don’t realise it yet’. I would rather stick a hungry ferret up my arse than watch one more episode of that, you know what I’m going do, I’m going to list all the things I’d rather do.

I’d rather set fire to my feet and then be made to kick a peacock to death in front of my mother, I’d rather let soldier ants nest in my bladder, I’d rather bats flew out of my pants whenever I took them off, I’d rather cum baby spiders everyday for the rest of my life than watch one more episode of that god damn show. I would rather eat breakfast cereal made exclusively out of dogs teeth, I would rather skin a live lamb in front of a primary school, I’d rather drown a clown at a crèche, I’d rather crash tackle a premature baby in an incubator in front of its horrified family than be subjected to another episode of that so called television show, The Newsroom.

The thing that I’ve enjoyed most about this is calling the writer Alan Sorkin because I know that the only people that it will annoy are people that I’d enjoy annoying.

For the record, I did not enjoy this show. No stars. 

Jack Passion.

I had a job interview the other day and at one stage the lady interviewing me asked me, with all the sunshine in the world in her voice, 'What would you say you're passionate about?'
I sat stumped for a second then threw out a few givens. 'I like music, literature and film. I write, so...' and I let it trail off as if to mean that I was passionate about writing.
I'm not you know. I would give it up tomorrow if it would help, if I thought it would make a difference. I only do it because it's easy and I can and sometimes if I get stoned or angry enough I can bang away at the keyboard for an hour or two and maybe get results. It used to be more often than not something ok would come out but it seems in the last few years the ratio has changed.
But do I need to be passionate about anything? Do I have to get excited? Things happen, people come and go, life moves on. Is it really necessary that I raise my heart rate above resting just to prove that I am alive, that I am participating in life? Huge Laurie once said that he concluded he had a problem when he realised that seeing two cars collide and explode in front of him caused him to be neither excited nor frightened but instead bored."Boredom," he commented in an interview "is not an appropriate response to exploding cars."
Huge Laurie was talking about depression when he said that, but I don't think its me though. I could watch cars explode all day. I dream about explosions, about gunfire.

You know what I dream about? I dream about war. I dream that I am amongst the rubble watching as rockets arch overhead. I dream that the concussive impact knocks the wind out of me and my skin is stung by building materials turned into dust and pushed out at unimaginable velocities. The percussive thud of artillery punctuated by the sharp cracks of small arms fire fringed with the ting of brass casings hitting the ground, like heavy drumming with tiny bells. Did you know that if you catch a 7.62x39mm before it starts to tumble it will punch a tiny hole in you but won't take anything on its way out? To quote, "In the absence of yaw... the load can pencil through lung tissue with relatively little injury".

Sometimes I feel so safe being white and Australian that it kills me.

Do you ever wonder what it would be like to plunge your hands into a wound as you tried to staunch the flow of blood, watch a man bleed out onto the dirt while you apply pressure in a desperate race to save a life? I do. I wonder what it would be like to look up and see a missile slam in to a building overhead, see sky scrapers buckle and twist and cars on fire in the street. What would you do, do you think, if it all went to shit? Would you loot what you could, would you revel in the apocalypse, would you kill yourself and your family so they 'didn't have to suffer'?

On the other hand, I'm reading a book at the moment that is set in Nazi Germany. I rarely read novels anymore. I don't know how authors commit to that length of a piece. Once I start something I can't wait to stop, just to get to the end and be done with the whole charade. I've never written anything that I have wanted to come back to, much like I have never taken a shit and thought 'I could take that again'. Sometimes I think its because my train of thought is never that long but I'm kidding myself, it's because I'm lazy. Whatever, the point is I read this book on the holocaust and it inspired me to watch a few documentaries including one narrated by Alfred Hitchcock which was on the liberation of Dachau. Watching footage of people drag countless bodies to a giant pit and throw them in made me feel a sickness in my soul that I find difficult to describe. But then you hear things, like how they found all those train carriages crammed with bodies yet amongst all the death they found people living, as well as children and in a few rare cases, babies who had been born in the camps. Here's a thought that I could never comprehend as a man who has never been raped and never suffered persecution, if I were one of the women who gave birth to a baby in a concentration camp, could I love it? A child born out of hate and into misery? Possibly, maybe, love would kindle in the darkness like a tiny flame, a life raft that you could throw yourself on so you did not drown in the horribleness of it all.

As you can see, I'm having a hard time reconciling my lust for violent imagery with my disdain for the abject human suffering that it causes. As much as I want to witness wholesale destruction, I am uncomfortable with the idea of its aftermath. Is this what happens when you're raised by action films? The building is always empty, there is never anyone inside and no one ever has to tell the hench mans mum that he's dead. I'm sorry that I find explosions pretty and I apologise for the fact that one day I'd like to be walking down the street and hear gun shots and screaming, but I think the thing I should be apologising for the most is the fact that I'm not willing to stick around and see the repercussions, I guess what I'm apologising most for is weakness.

Quick to anger but even quicker to boredom.

"Christopher Nolan's epic opus The Dark Knight Rises has been marred by what Hollywood insiders have termed a 'viral gone violent' marketing campaign. Although details at this stage are scant, it is believed that the marketing team behind the publicity for The Dark Knight Rises tried to get on the fan-wagon and in doing so coaxed a member of the public into dressing up as one of the characters of the film and performing what was described as 'explosive performance art'. In a statement released earlier today the marketing team has criticized the shooter, saying that his actions were 'disappointing and did not live up to their expectations, we were hoping for more than 12. His performance was as lackluster as Christian Bales but at least his actions had an air of believability about them, unlike the fore mentioned Mr Bale, whose stilted and emotionless dialogue is not fooling anyone. Yes this is a tragedy, yes innocent people died but look at it from our point of view, every time this story gets mentioned the film gets talked about. That's the sort of brand awareness you just can't buy'."

I spent all day yesterday writing this piece. I woke up in the morning, checked the news, saw the story and then in the shower I had the idea. I made the mistake of not plunging right into it and I spent too much time thinking about it so I by the time I sat down to write it the whole idea was over thought, which is why it's short and not very good. I also made the mistake of reading as much as I could about the incident and in doing so I realised that I no longer found it funny, and the reason I no longer found it funny was I was no longer interested in what happened. Don't get me wrong, I didn't have a moral epiphany or anything like that, I just became bored with it. It's not like I cry when I see it on the news, it's that I change the channel and scratch myself. It's unfortunately an all too familiar scenario. Disenchanted person with social problems takes long standing anger out on strangers. Couple that with easy access to firearms and the results are often in the double figures. But the thing is, people die all the time and many of them are innocent. Look at the drug wars in Mexico. Look at Iraq or Afghanistan. The civilian death tolls are way higher than those of  the combatants. Oh man, now I don't even care about this.

I don't know what I'm trying to say. I'm not trying to say 'We all need peace' because we do but it's a pipe dream. It is human nature to fight. And yeah, sometimes it's human nature to kill. It is also becoming human nature to wig the fuck out and try and take as many with you was you can, apparently. Whatever it is, the one thing it's not is surprising. Let's see if an out of context clip of Walter White can shed some light on it.

One thing that I was impressed with, and I'm not sure if I'm using impressed right but I was impressed with the speed that the trolls came out. Last night I drunkenly followed someone on twitter who had started a James Holmes account which, admittedly, opened with the excellent 'I'm was always more of a Superman guy' but the jokes did not really improve. I un-followed him this morning if that makes you feel any better. The joke is really a one hit wonder, start a twitter account and be a cunt, not much to it really. What I like even less is the barrage of tweets and messages from everybody else. "OMG pray for those in Colorado, my heart goes out to them." Really? Do you really actually care other than the knee jerk human reaction of 'that's terrible?' What exactly did you do besides post a message on some social media site? You thought about it for 20 seconds? That's fantastic. Now go back to MSN chat and spelling words with letters, you seem to care about as much as I do, which is a bit but then you forget about it. I suppose it's better than going on 4chan and making a meme out of the whole situation.

I think what concerns me most if the people who will be checking the news every hour to find out more information for no other reason than to satisfy some inner craving to know all the terrible details. I'm the same with serial killers, and that too concerns me. Why are we so fascinated by extreme acts of violence? Is it because we all secretly wish we could foist our masochistic desires on others or is it something a lot sicker and darker than that. We are now all voyeurs of violence, we hate it when bad things happen but secretly we love it when bad things happen to other people. Is it a form of pornography? To quote Merriam-Webster: "the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction (the pornography of violence)".


Our free thinking and progressive society loves sex and violence. For a while there we really liked them together at the same time but I have this feeling that in the future we will chose violence over sex because to commit an act of violence often involves no emotional content where as most people have some emotional connection to sex. And it's easier to commit random acts of violence against strangers than it is random acts of sex. And that's not a rape joke, it just is. We have fetishised violence, made it something cool and desirable and edgy. In embracing the dark nature of our psyche we have let the animal out of the cage, unaware of how much damage it might do.   

 Coupled with the fact that the media loves misery and you get a perpetual hurt machine. It goes like this; The general public are secretly fascinated with acts of extreme violence and so when they happen everybody tunes in so the media thinks they're onto something so they report it more and like the dogs we are we lap it up, not realising that the whole time we are being desensitised so that when they next random act of violence comes along we will be a little bit more bored of it so it will need to be ultra violent just to get our attention. And so the next 'shocking and depraved' act comes along until soon nothing is too shocking and nothing is too depraved and nothing is too far from our reality. And then what? Where do we go from here?


This is long and rambling and I've barely made a point let alone had anything interesting to say. If I can leave you with one piece of advice it's this. Don't care. Don't care so much about things that you have no control over. The less time we spend feeding the media the less hungry it will be. Think of it like you're putting it on a diet. Feed it less and it's stomach will shrink and it's appetite won't be so voracious. Hopefully if we do that then the media will take the hint and go back to doing what it does best, being bought out by billionaires and having semi-naked athletes on the cover because the Olympic games are on soon. Retarded as that is, it's better than trying to get photos of mothers holding their dead children.


Authors note: I am aware of the gaping hypocrisies in this piece. But I'm afraid that I just don't care. 

This town needs guns.

Writing when you have nothing to write about is like trying to take a shit when you're really hungry, every time you push you're reminded of that empty feeling that over rides it all. Every strain ends with a gurgle like the last of the dishes water being sucked down the drain and every thing that hits the water feels unsatisfying in size. A good analogy but it does not change the fact that I feel like I have nothing to write about even though the last few months have probably given me more to write about than the last few years. Where to start, whats the most interesting thing.

So I learned to play Super Street Fighter 4 AE and attempted to compete professionally. That was something. A friend and I made a documentary about it. Well, that is to say, I played a lot of SSF4 and smoked a bunch of weed and in between I found the time to do some video diaries which I gave to said friend who then made a documentary about it. To be honest, I didn't really do a lot. I have seen the documentary and it is very good, when I have some sort of link thing or whatever I'll post it.

I got and lost possibly the best job I've ever had. On one hand, I'm super bummed about it but on the other hand it has opened up new avenues and, you know what, that's bullshit. I'm just super bummed about it. I don't even really know what happened. Although a small part of me is glad I managed to escape what was in all honesty, a pretty fucked work environment. I did get to ogle some women so I guess that was nice? Other than that, not a lot of positive things came out of it. I'm glad I bought it up.

Maybe a gun would spice up my life. I've been playing a lot of online games recently and sometimes now I dream about guns. Is that healthy? I was watching some documentary on some war zone the other night and the thing that kept nagging me was I really wanted to know what sort of guns everyone was using. Is there a forum like there is for CoD?

Have you ever had that thing where you're really sick and you've absolutely vomited everything you've ever eaten in your life and all that comes up now is yellow and bitter and sour and heave all you like, the only thing that's coming out is bile? That's what this is like. 

The Dog and Kony Show.

Authors note: This piece is inspired by this article and the events that led up to it. 

Melbourne Comedy Festival Review. 

The Kony Show.

Last night I saw some of the best comedy that I have ever witnessed, in print, in person, on film, ever. Although the crowd was small the message was poignant and most importantly, devastatingly hilarious. There were four main performers, a mother and her two children, Kaylan aged 8, her brother Dylan aged 10 and someone mysteriously referred to as Katheleen. Their lines were delivered deadpan and aside from a few smiles from the kids all the actors took about their task with an enthusiastic seriousness and without a single shred of irony. There were no pratfalls, no crazy antics, no one said the word ‘zany’ and no one got hit in the face with a pie. It was just a group of people going about their business with honesty and integrity with only some t-shirts and posters as props.

I swear, I almost asphyxiated I was laughing that hard. Their delivery was so natural and earnest that I almost forgot that they were performers. They walked that wonderful line that meant that no one knew if they were serious or not and it made the absurd sentences that came out of their mouths all the more amusing. At first the audience was silent, then a few smirks began to play out across the faces as people tuned in to this particular frequency, then the smirks gave way to giggles and before we knew it we were leaning hard on each other trying to breath through the hysteria, struggling to keep our feet.

Sometimes comedy is just comedy, and then sometimes, rarely, it breaks out of its zenith and throws itself out of our sphere of reference to become something else, something almost indefinable. It is sociopolitical, moral-ethic comedy. Because we can relate to what’s happening it makes us question our own lives and circumstances, because we identify with the comedian we can also identify with the subject matter of his jokes. We were laughing not only at the act but at ourselves, laughing at our wretched pathetic loneliness and the ways we try and combat it. Clicktavism, and Social networking, our need to grab on to a cause no matter how far removed or how relevant it is because of our need to feel validated in a digital realm.

The laughter we were laughing was the cathartic. It was laugh therapy at its finest. I’ll probably never get cancer now, no matter how hard I try. The audience became one, strangers were turning to each other and exclaiming, ‘I can’t believe it, how do they keep it up?’ whilst wiping the tears from their eyes. We knew we were part of something special, we knew we were witnessing the birth of something big, the next huge movement that would pick the world up and carry it to a better place. And we were there at its inception.

Later I got to catch up with the actors and they were as funny off stage as they were on. I asked the kids how they felt being involved in the show and they said that they couldn’t be happier, that it was good for children to experience adult situations because it gives them an opportunity to see what exciting adventures awaited them in their adult-hood. I told her that I, for one, can’t wait to see them either. I asked her how she was enjoying her run at the comedy festival and she said “It's bit sad more people didn't turn up, but I feel like I am doing the right thing.” I told her that indeed she was and that I would try and encourage my friends to see what all the fuss was about. “I'm hoping a lot of people see Kony, it is really important,” she said, and I told her that I couldn’t agree more.

Missed conections.

Once again I got an email from, oh I don't know, some fuck face. My spam filter on my email is pretty shit so I get a fair few people trying to phish me. I decided to write back to this one because she sent a photo and "knew" my real name. Tricky.

From: Avrora
To: *************
Sent: Monday, 2 April 2012 2:09 PM
Subject: waiting for your reply!

Hello or G'day to you, **** *****!

In your message you asked only to send you my picture to your personal
email address. Ok, I send it. I hope you like :)

I have some questions. Besides your name, I would like to know in what
city you live. Would you like to meet me as a friend? And of course, I
will be very glad if you send me your picture!

Some info about me:

My name is Avrora (yes, it's my real name).I am 27 y. o. I am a widow.
I don't have kids. I live in the country Ukraine, city Odessa.

I am looking for friendship. I am coming to Australia in 3 weeks. I
would like to find a friend to meet in real.

N.B. I am not interested in virtual sex. I don't need any naked pics
exchange. I don't discuss any sex topics, i.e. sexual fantasies,
preferences in sex, etc. I hope you are not disappointed :)

I will be waiting for your reply. You can write me and send me your
picture to my personal email address

Best regards,
Avrora.

("her picture")




So this is how I replied:


Anal Fissure, how nice of you to write, only, the thing is, I have no idea who the fuck you are or why you're sending me pictures of yourself. You look like a whore or a Russian gangsters wife. Same difference really. You wanna know what city I live in? I live in a midgets cunt and I eat corpse fingers for breakfast. One time I got constipated from all the undigested knuckles. When I finally prized open my asshole and removed the offending matter it looked so much like salami that I cut it up and made it into a sandwich. In doing so I had both a shit and knuckle sandwich all at the same time. It was pretty amazing. If we ever meet I can promise that I will make you one.

Areola, I searched for you on facebook but couldn't find any results. It's cool though, I'll keep looking. I have no reason to stop, currently I am unemployed and besides masturbating, well, there is no besides. I literally have nothing else to do. My fucking arms are like Popeyes'. You know Popeye? You will.

Have you ever been fisted? You look like the kind of Eastern European woman who smells faintly of shit and lube where ever she goes. Like nerds smell like sweat and old cum. One time I laid a fart in my pants that hung around of DAYS but then I realized I had shit myself. Has that ever happened to you?

Have you ever fucked an old guy? I hear that's popular past time in Odessa. That and being sold into slavery. Also, I hear that the percentage of women with fake tits is higher than the percentage of women without them. What the fuck is up with that? Also, whats the deal with all the sexual re-assignment surgery that happens there? I'm pretty free and liberal thinking but I think there may be more to it than that. Perhaps there is something culturally wrong. Have you considered suicide?

I once knew a girl who's breath smelled worse than her ass and once when I was sitting beside her I could smell her vagina. I am actually not kidding about this. It was like old fish on a hot day. But with out that sexy sexy side. I mean, I'd fuck a fish quicker than you could say 'That crooked government official raped me and my sister and will escape punishment because our systems are so corrupt' but I don't live near the ocean so the only thing that I can do is buy a whole bunch of fillet'o'fish from Mcdonalds and pretend. I hate it when the cheese burns my dick though. Then I have to dunk it in cold water. And I hate cold water. It too burns my dick.

You said you didn't want to talk about sex or sexual positions or fantasies or naked pics or sex topics, which is fine, because it's actually one of my fetishes, to not talk about sex topis or preferences. Man, just now when we're not talking about sex my, well, we can't talk about it but let's just say that there was quite a clean up involved. I sure am glad I bought that dog, he comes in handy ;) I mean he eats cum. Which is good, because I masturbate. A Lot.

So I included a picture which I think is a good likeness. I hope you enjoy it. Just so you know, I can fit a whole bunch of shit in my dick. I don't carry a wallet for that exact reason. If we were to meet when we'd walk down the street I'd insist you held my foreskin because I find it much more intimate than holding my hand. Also, that way I could use my hands to signal for help because if I'm walking down the street with you then I've been kidnapped by a Ukranian transsexual and she's here to eat me and absorb my soul.

Do you know where I can find a good witch doctor?

(the picture I sent back)

Pissing in the wind.

At my parents house there are rainwater tanks and there is a hose that’s directly connected to them and the water that comes out of that hose is the sweetest water that I have ever drunk.

I recently quite my job, left after five and a half years in a mixture of shame and disgust, shame at myself not being as good at my job as I thought I was, disgust at the company I worked for, the reasons too numerous and petty to name. I received a pay out of my annual leave and with no real plans or discernable directions in the future, I set off. I didn’t go anywhere, I haven’t travelled, I’ve made a few plans and spent some quality time with friends and I’ve woken up every morning wracked with anxiety over being unemployed.

On the other hand, I’m on a wonderful holiday. I have spent a week at my parents house, seeing parts of my family that I haven’t seen in ages, visiting the places of my childhood and walking down roads that I haven’t walked for nearly 20 years. I pick fresh fruit from trees as I walk past them and blackberries from the mountainous bushes that grow everywhere. They are not quite in season yet, but they are getting there.

Everyday that I spend in the country makes it harder for me to want to return to the city. I keep thinking about the concrete and then I look out the window and all I can see is green. If I wanted to I could lean out and pick one of the plums off the tree, right now the tendrils of a fern are hanging over the screen of my laptop. There is life everywhere here, you can hear it singing in the trees and scurrying through the undergrowth. Last night I went outside and looked up at the night sky and saw the stars as they deserve to be seen. Other people have described it better than me, and they were right. It was beautiful.

Unemployment is a funny one, I have almost started to relax but not quite fully. I think everyday about what it is that I want to do with my life, with my career. I have been trying to help my parents around the house, doing all those little jobs that they have been meaning to do. Everything I try my hand at I consider as an occupation. I was painting a wall and I caught myself thinking, ‘I could be a painter’. I went to lunch with my mother and one of her clients, my mother is a community carer and I had never really seen what that entails. We sat there and had lunch and I listened to a lady with dementia and tried to follow her as she switched subjects mid sentence, and I thought to myself, ‘I could be a carer.’

Sorry, I just had to take a break to pick some salad from the veggie garden. I pulled carrots from the earth and ate them. The day is beginning to cool and I looked around at the trees swaying in the breeze. I thought about the water in the tank, even though it had sat in the sun all day it was still deliciously cool. It was as cold as a running stream, I thought about the rivers in the area, about the top end of Australia and how when I was a kid there was still such things as swaggies. I thought about rainbow trout and clear fresh water streams and I thought to myself ‘I could catch a fish’.