Crumbs in My Chest Hair

Because I’ve been doing more thinking than writing these days, combining the two proves somewhat difficult. I’m sitting in bed, watching Rove and thinking that it’s probably time to just sit and write these thoughts. The aforementioned difficulty may require me to turn the TV off though, which is also difficult because I love this show.

Having a rare moment of solace from work responsibilities whilst on the laptop, I ran through the exhaustive list of blogs that I used to read religiously and now only stop in on once a month. Interesting what’s out there and what some of my favourite people are writing. Many are heartily in favour of the recent US election results and some are not. Despite all of the things I could say about how I feel and how much I support an outcome, I still feel the same way about politics as I always have. That being that the election of a president is essentially a job interview, and I cast my vote for whoever I think will do the best job. I also think it’s the lesser of two evils, and I always will. The job in question isn’t to be my ethical leader and a tower of morality, it’s actually quite a dirty job and I don’t expect the guy that does it to be clean.

The first time I could vote, in ’92 a few months after turning 18, I was excited at the novelty of it, but also because of that feeling you get, the one where you really feel like a part of what changes the world. I knew he was an adulterer and a bit slippery, but I felt he was right for the job. So I voted for him instead of a couple of guys that I really didn’t find that distasteful.

The next time I could vote, I once again found one gent not all that distasteful, but the fella that couldn’t keep his pants on (and did lie about it) was still the right guy for the job. He got my vote again and won again.

After that, an apparent successor was running for the White House and I found that I genuinely liked the new guy. For a politician he was alright, and his wife and daughters were all hot. Didn’t hurt a bit. I figured he’d win over a man who I honestly considered of a lower intellect and therefore not fit for the job as the most powerful person in the Western World. I “threw away” my vote in a fit of rebellion, and possibly residual drunkenness as I’d been out quite late the night before, and wrote in an NHL goalie who’d appeared in a mock presidential ad to boost ticket sales and a friend of mine who was neither 35, a politician, or even born in the US. I thought it was funny, at the time, and giggled when I told the story for days afterward. Unfortunately, in the days following, the votes that were counted really counted, and a man that I thought a bit of an idiot won.

Next time around, I did what I’d always feared I’d have to do as a voter. I voted “against” someone rather than “for” someone. In the national job interview that is the election, I didn’t really want one guy in so much as I simply wanted the idiot out, and I didn’t get my wish. I’m still scratching my head as to how that happened, though deep in my heart I know that, deep in their hearts, most voting Americans are not a small bit selfish and also a bit greedy. When you’re a money worshipper, it influences at least 95% of all your decisions.

Now I live in a different country where I am not able to vote (yet), and enough of my ties to the US have been severed such that I am not eligible to vote there any more. I wish I was. Not because I wanted a different outcome than what happened, but simply so that I could feel more legitimate in my voice. An election ad that we even got to see here in Australia said something along the lines of, “My dad told me that you have to either vote, or shut the hell up.” That’s how I feel about it, and I would’ve liked the opportunity to say something regardless of whether or not things are going my way.

Something did happen though, that didn’t go the way I preferred. A large and very important state voted on the issue of Gay Rights and the people decided that they wanted to take away something that had recently been given. To refer to my feelings on this as disappointment, would be an understatement so monumental that it may actually knock the nearest planets and orbiting heavenly bodies off their natural axis.

I have very little to actually say about this. Intelligent, rational, logical and functional human beings simply don’t operate this way, or at least they shouldn’t. There you go though, my own judgements on how people should act shouldn’t distract from the actual point. To those rational beings, some things just don’t make sense. To call them “wrong” is to state a perspective and judge all other perspectives accordingly. This would never really be my intent.

My intent is to simply call into question things like why anyone should care about who you love and who you marry. Do we need to dissect a culture’s behaviour down to the level of considering whether or not we support a legal union because somebody puts their nether parts on like parts?

I won’t even begin to expand upon the question of why you would need an archaic and eminently questionable book, written by people you don’t know and nobody you know ever knew, to tell you what is “right” and what is “wrong.” Honestly, aren’t these things that we should have a pretty good idea about on our own? Personally, I don’t need an invisible person, whom I’ve never met and nobody I’ve met has ever met, to tell me I should love my neighbour and not kill him because it’s wrong. When faced with decisions and dilemmas, I look into my heart and seek answers there. Hell, even if I did kill him, I’d still know it was wrong.

Again though, I am being judgemental of those that seek answers that aren’t clear in their heart that this book can help clarify. Maybe they need that book to tell them how wrong it would be to kill that neighbour and they need to weigh the options, I am in no position to judge. To each their own.

To each their own... something that others don’t necessarily subscribe to. I’ll leave it at that, lest I judge again.

On that note though, I will proudly and happily announce the marriage, the legal and abiding union of my aunt (my own mother’s twin) to her same-sex partner of almost 40 years last week. These two Californians are going to live the exact same way that they’ve lived for these past decades, except now they are protected against certain idiocies of our society. Again, I’m very proud, and not in the flag-waving, wear purple and/or dress-in-drag kind of way. Just a loving nephew who has known nothing but these two women as such an immutable couple that he openly wondered (at the tender age of 5) why, if both had husbands before that filled the same role, weren’t they then considered “married” when they got together. Awwwwwww, cute little guy.

I have nothing more to say on this here.

As I started this missive whilst watching “Rove” and the programs have now shifted, I am subjected to numerous ads for other programs that will happen on this channel later in the week. Two of which are on the same night, one right after another, and both deal with a quirky and/or eccentric male character behaving quirky and eccentrically around what appears to be mildly fucked up (read: normal) people in a normal profession (TV professions, that is). One is House and the other Life, both one-word descriptions of these characters on their respective shows.

Hugh Laurie was apparently a part of a comedy team on British television, back in the day. Something I didn’t know until my brother-in-law fucked up his knee and I made him a flame-coated cane in homage to the popular television version of his dry and sarcastic doctor self. He told me about Laurie’s history upon being presented with the cane and then looked at me like I was an idiot, as he often does, when I expressed surprise that Laurie was British.

Having dealt with the idea that many of the popular characters from Hollywood’s film and television output are, in fact, not originally from America (Aussies’re takin’ over Hollywood), I wasn’t surprised in a negative way. “Good on ‘em” I’ve learned to say, especially when discovering a rock-faced character from The Matrix and Lord of the Rings actually hugely boosted his film career as a flaming drag queen right here in the desert outback. If I remember correctly I was staring at the back of the DVD cover in the middle of Video E-Z and expressing loudly across the aisle, “Hugo WEAVING is Aussie? He’s Agent Smith! He’s Elrond! What’s he doing imitating an flamingo on the top of a bus in full makeup!?!? I knew Wolverine said ‘Crikeyg’day matedingocrocs’ but Hugo WEAVING!?!?”

A long build-up for a continuing surprise that hit me today while watching the ABC (not the same as in the States. Equivalent in the US would be... NPR?) and seeing an ad for some Brit movie. There he was, big as life, Damian Lewis, speaking in a perfect English accent. “Holy crap” I remember thinking, “another pom is leading one of my favourite shows. How did I not hear about this?”

To draw it all together, I’ll leave it at this: While still stepping on their dicks as far as true equality is concerned, America did take a bold and New Millennium step forward and elected a black fella (half-black, I’m told, but like the Aborigines here, in for a penny, in for a pound. If you’ve got a drop, you’re in. Simple as that.). While monumentally important to America’s previous International image as a Powerful Land Run by an Idiot, I’d like to believe that it’s more than just where you’re from and what colour your skin is. My microcosmic community here supports this thought. It also shouldn’t be about who you love, but I guess we’ll keep working toward that one and take what we can get.

Hopefully, it wasn’t really about race. Know what most people talk about here instead of race? That Sarah Palin was potentially the new international whipping idiot and only a minor coronary away from being the Leader of the Free World. That Obama could be talking about Socialism or Nihilism or whateverthefuck else and it doesn’t matter because he does it articulately, sans mispronunciations. That’s really about it. Oh, the economy and the environment and all that shit too.

Know what else? Nobody here mentions that a couple of limey gits are playing Americans on two of our most popular television shows so effortlessly that many of us (me) have failed to noticed they’re foreign.

Over here, we’re all just taking it as it comes. It’s how it should be.

No worries. Live in The Now.

So, where are you right Now? Thinking about your new president? Thinking about your favourite TV shows? Thinking about how the World is bound to change in the coming years? Thinking about that bit of food stuck in your chest hair and wondering if it was from the chips at lunch or the cookie after dinner and deciding “Fuck it” and just picking it out and eating it regardless of it’s origin?

Wherever and whatever, don’t forget a few basic things. One of them is that no matter how revolting it may seem in a social sense, there are a myriad of things you can get away with in your own bedroom. Another is that the World is always changing, is always different, and is always so diversely interesting that you only need to look to see it.

And finally, wherever you happen to be right Now, it’s where you are in your life.

You’ve spent a moderate bit of time to even get to this point in my ramblings… go now, and spend a comparable amount of time taking a look at where your actual life is.

Look at it, learn from it.

And eat those crumbs.

About JuddHole

This blog was the one that changed everything in my life, so it stands to reason that it continue to do so. I hope it starts with my underwear.