The Grass IS Greener

Having just kicked back and watched the film ‘The Wrestler’ with the gorgeous Squilla I have to admit that it deserved all of the plaudits it received.  Not wanting to spoil the film for anyone who hasn’t yet seen it I'll just give a brief outline to the plot of the film.

A wrestler whose glory days are twenty years in the past has fallen onto hard times, having been at the top of his game and adored by a huge number of fans he is now working in a supermarket and doing low key wrestling matches at the weekends to try and make ends meet.  It explores his need to be loved and adored by his crowd, how ‘real’ life just doesn’t cut it for him, he needs the infamy he gets from performing  even if it’s for a crowd of four or five at the supermarket counter.  And that’s what set me thinking.  (I think often but try not to pay too much attention to the voices in my head)

Fifteen minutes of fame

Andy Warhol once said: “In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.”  That was in 1968, one statement is hardly enough to hail him as the modern day Nostradamus.  However it seems that he has been proved right.

Shows such as Big Brother, Pop Idle, *insert country*’s Got Talent and even Gordon Ramsey’s Hell’s f*#king Kitchen all subscribe to the fact that if marketed by very clever people you can create fame from nothing.  That is not to say that those who appear or eventually win these shows do not have talent or skill, they do, but would they have been discovered and thrust into the spotlight if these shows had not existed?

For those of us who have little to no talent to appear or contest on these shows we have You Tube, that’s my grasp of my fifteen minutes of fame.  That or pictures photo shopped with some excellence by Gwyn aka the King of Ankh.  For those a little more adventurous there is online porn, you can film yourself doing what most consider the most intimate acts a human can do and share it with the rest of the world.

Does anyone ever question why entrants in Miss World always end their speeches off with “and of course World peace”, yes I also believe if women with the looks of Miss World paraded around all off the time in swimsuits, war and terrorism would be the last thing on my mind.

However I’d like to throw something out there, only some people can be famous.  They don’t have to be perfect people, even Brad Pitt gets spots (not that I have any proof of this).  Ever heard of this woman, Susan Boyle?  She was a runner up in Britain’s Got Talent; she was widely tipped to win but was pipped at the post.  She ended up having a breakdown, she was said to have been “exhausted and suffering anxiety attacks”.  The price of fame?  Lets be generous and say that the average lifespan of a human is eighty years, the six or so months that have taken her from her everyday life and thrown her into a worldwide spotlight, is just a small, tiny fraction of her living years.  I personally don’t believe that anything she has done previously could have prepared her for this.  However on a happy note she seems to have recovered.

Like most professions celebrity is something you must work at, when it is thrust at you like it can be these days I don’t think the human mind is prepared to deal with it.  I couldn’t murder someone in cold blood, but yet when you join the armed forces you may have to kill someone.  They are not the same thing but you can be trained to kill, a process that lets your mind cope with the trauma of taking another persons life.  Instant fame would mess with my mind man, your messing with my mind!

Outlets such as Twitter and Facebook, Myspace and other Blog sites allow us (as I am doing here) to have a somewhat international platform to perform and that’s what we’re doing.  Whether it’s posting pictures of being drunk and out of control, or competing in sporting events, maybe performing in a band, we now have the ability to reach nearly every corner of the planet.  And any alien spaceships that cater for wi-fi.

What’s your favourite drug?

Mine would have to be a toss up between alcohol and caffeine, mornings wouldn’t be possible without the latter but probably wouldn’t need to if not for the former!

Have you ever had the experience of feeling great?  Hitting the gym and getting those endorphins rockin’, having the skill to progress in World of Warcraft (WOW to those in the know I’m told), getting the phone call from the guy/gal you met the other night and really wanted them to call.  It’s a great feeling and bloody addictive, why do people keep going fishing?  The immense pleasure of being able to outwit an animal with a brain smaller than a pea is just fantastic, it means I’m good.  Better than good because in that moment we are Kings of everything.  When you pass a test, get awarded a certificate, or kiss someone for the first time, a real pash of a kiss.  For me that is better than sex, and when you do it for the second, third or four hundredth time and it keeps feeling the same and better, wow.

Now imagine that great feeling, double it, treble it and it probably comes nowhere near when the whole world is saying you’re great.  Why do Dictators make it law to have their portrait, statues and busts on show in every available public space?  Adoration is great, but stalkers are not so cool.  There has to be balance and unfortunately every up has a down.  What happens when you’re forgotten?  We’ve all seen the lengths people go to, hoping to remind the once adoring public that they are still here.  Drastic plastic surgery in the hope that the moment in the spotlight may just keep going for a moment more, a costume malfunction, a fleeting gay relationship,  outright discourteousness to another person.  I think most of us would have felt the bottom dropping out of our worlds when a relationship has ended or a friendship turns out not to be what you believed it was.  We don’t have to be famous to understand this dynamic.

So fame or fortune or fame and fortune, they do seem to go hand in hand.  I have often said myself that if I was famous and had the chance to have the earning potential of a famous personality I would retire as soon as I have enough to retire on.  Then why is it that people like Richard Branson, Jack Nicholson, Goldie Hawn and J.K. Rowling keep on producing the goods?  Like I said earlier in the piece, only some people are cut out for fame, even if they keep their private lives just that, private.  It is a state of mind a way of being and some of these people were born just being that way, some trained and became successful at being successful famous people.

But fame is not everything, I’m not sure how I would cope with adoration, stalkers, media loving me and then hating me quicker than a heartbeat.  I don’t court it, neither do I want it but I have dreamed of it, asleep and awake.  As a kid I wanted to be Superman, at the tender age of six I had my on the outside pants, a tea towel tucked into my neck as a cape and polished red welly boots from my auntie Jan (who was not actually my aunty but was always just called aunty Jan).  I wanted to be strong, have X-ray vision (for all the right reasons), save the world and sit back to hear how everyone loved me.  Growing up I wanted to be the best soccer player ever, the next Pele, however I was never more than just average but never in my mind.  Even now I dream of making the pass or scoring the goal that saves the club and confirms my name in the history books.  Today I have a little paunch, a tiny beer belly.  In my head it’s a six pack and not one made of beer cans.  I keep telling myself that the gym is forthcoming and I’ll soon have a body like Edward Norton in American History X, it will happen, damn it will happen!

But one thing I want to share is this:  A while back I joined a club of elite people (only those who stayed were elite and even though this was the case they never thought of themselves this way), some of these guys had joined because they wanted notoriety, some because they thought it macho.  Me I joined because the club met on a Friday night and that meant I wouldn’t start my weekend boozing like a pro.  However I quickly came to enjoy this club, those with any kind of ego quickly fell by the wayside, the higher up members loved and nourished those who were a lower rank.  They felt no ill will to those who gained a higher rank than them, in fact they were nothing more than encouraging.  Occasionally you would meet assholes who were on the fame/ego trip (this was a worldwide club), but they didn’t cut the mustard with the friends I made.  However the thing I wanted to share was this:  When I joined this club I was given a handbook, it gave me all the things I needed to help me progress but in the margins it had quotes and sayings from those who went before and the following was my favourite.

                “To laugh often and much.  To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children.  To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends.  To appreciate beauty.  To find the best in others.  To leave the world a bit better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition.  To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.

This is to have succeeded.”

                So to all you Mothers out there, to all you Fathers, Grandparents, school teachers, ambulance workers, doctors, vets, supermarket staff, barmaids, hairdressers, zoologists, taxi drivers and the multitude of everyone else.  You are great, you are famous if only to your own child.  You are a person to be adored, to be looked up to.  It’s also a great responsibility, lets all wear it well.  Chances are we already do, otherwise the news would  be full off ‘Society is in anarchy!’.  Well done us, well done everyday celebrities of the real world.  We’re the real heros and heroines of the piece, without us the world just wouldn’t work.  So I can’t sing, can’t dance, cook a little maybe, but I can make people smile, I can fix lawnmowers too, I’m a qualified shoulder to cry on and I have a great family.  Peeps, Neil has talent!

I was over at the King of Ankh's blog  and he had written a post about the state of the UK's government, it was something that I was very vocal about when I was still living in the UK and still try to keep up with from Australia.  Having an advantage of seeing politics at work in two countries I can see the same things happening, the same mistakes but also the good stuff, the stuff that actually works.  However I digress, what Gwyn was talking about is the fact that the British Prime Ministers position looks to now be untenable, his cabinet are deserting him in droves, they have lost nearly all of their local council seats in an election and he is facing hard questions about an expenses scandal (that involves all the main political parties).  So if he was to go. . . .

Who would replace him?  Is there a leader in any of the main parties?  Is there a leader for the country at all?  If the UK government was a business it would have failed years ago, so who would want to inherit that mess and try to make something good from it.  It's a big ask and I don't think anybody is up to it but everybody is up to it.

Firstly politics is now a career choice, those in parliament have gone from school, to college to university and then gone straight into politics.  They have no idea of the hardships and challenges of the real world, all of their experience comes from lectures and books.  The other problem career politics causes is that it becomes the same as any other job.  You have to compete with others for the promotions, everybody is after your job making teamwork bloody near impossible.  Is anybody in it for the betterment of the UK, or like the expenses scandal seems to prove, are they in it just to line their own pockets.

Nearly every job ever advertised states experience required/preferred.  How many ministers in recent memory have the experience?  How many of the Defence Ministers have been in the armed forces, being in a hostile foreign country being shot at.  Not having the necessary equipment such as body armour or guns that actually work.

Has the Minister for Health ever worked in a hospital?  Seen the filthy wards that have become breeding grounds for strains of antibiotic resistant bugs, all because someone in power without experience in hospitals thought they could save some money by subcontracting the cleaning out to private companies.  There is a reason why their services are cheaper.

So on and so forth.

Why can't it be compulsory for politicians to have worked in the real world for at least a decade before they go into politics?  At least by that time if the ambitions they had to lead the country are still as strong, they would have more of an idea about how the country they want to lead really works.

I also think that Britain like many other countries is far to obsessed about being one of the worlds’ largest economies.  Of course the economy is important, but more important is balance.  Family life is starting to become nonexistent because both parents need to work just to cover the bills, schools have been asked to provide after school activities for this very reason.  When did we ask our teachers to become surrogate parents?  Being the biggest is often not the same as being the best, sometimes being quick or being able to be the fastest isn’t always the best way.  Surely being happy is way more important.  I look to my grandparents (my gran being the last one still alive), they were never well off, they didn’t have a TV for years and only installed a phone when my granddads health became an issue.  They both worked but also made family their priority, eating together at mealtimes, all chipping in to weed or water the veggie patch etc.  They made time for each other.

I could go on and for sure there are many points I would like to make, but I understand that my points of view are not the same as others and that’s fine.  But in conclusion, I believe the UK needs to undergo a major transformation.  An upheaval that presses the reset button, it needs to become more focused on itself.  Find pride in itself as a nation; start to enjoy all the great things it has to offer.  It needs a strong hand to guide it, even lead it making perhaps the difficult decisions that aren't going to be the popular ones.  It needs to understand that if this is going to be done in a peaceful way (the right way) and not through civil unrest leading to change, it will take time.  People will need to become less selfish, as Kennedy said “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”.  That is the mantra that people and politicians the world over should be singing.

Often it is the big events that score the headlines, but often it is the small things in large numbers that have the best effect.  Make it a mission to do one good thing a day, for yourself, your neighbour, your community.  By doing this you can shape the world around you for the better and for the right reasons, find a new hobby, get involved.  I plan to, just not in politics!

I have a confession, I like DIY.  I love Doing It Yourself, it’s true.  The feeling of satisfaction I get from finishing is great and I love to share it with others, especially Nic.

For those of you with your minds below your belts, I do actually mean decorating!

Part of the reason for coming to Tasmania was to assess the state of Nics house, it was five years since she last saw it before letting it out to tenants.  Of course you have to expect a little wear and tear and so we prepared for this and we were not to be disappointed.  It actually wasn’t bad, just surface work, cosmetics if you like.  It all went well until today, today was meant to be the finishing touch day as the tenant is coming back tomorrow.  Then I created this. . . .

The campest chimney in the world

The worlds campest chimney stack!  Bugger it!

Please let me explain.

As part of the process of DIY we needed to get a new fire installed, most places around here use wood burners and this place is no exception.  The back of the fire place is not bricked in as access may be required, instead it was shut in with some Hardiflex (concrete sheet).  The original was Painted the green you can see to the right of the picture and looked pretty good, however that broke and needed replacing.  The new sheets come in one colour, concrete grey.  We have no green paint and couldn't justify spending yet more dollars of some paint (it has cost us more than we thought so far in materials etc.), so I had a great plan.  A spray can of terracotta paint and some masking tape later. . . . A camp chimney stack, noooooooooooo!

Up until this point I had done so well, first thing tomorrow I turn it around or paint it white.

Live and learn.

Woah, well I'm back to blogging.  Who'd have thought it?

Some of you may remember me from Modblog and efx/efx2.  If not, why not!  Just kidding, okay it feels good to have an outlet once again for all my confessions, protestations and verbal molestations of whatever takes my fancy.

I have some friends already blogging here and I’ll endeavour to track you all down and say “Hi”, what to say, what to say.

Since the last post I stuck up on efx2 just over a year ago lots of things have happened, I had just arrived in Australia from the UK to live with my Australian Girlfriend in Perth, Western Australia.  Since then we have moved from Western Australia to New South Wales and now onto Tasmania.  A lot of moving for one year but much fun has been had and many new friends made and new family ties with Nics (the other half) side of the clan.

Well thats it for now, laters people.

Only the bloody Sydney Opera House