( These guys ) are getting married, and they chose me to act as minister.



Yes, me. The Minister. I need to learn hypnotism real quick.

I found this on a random website. I did not have the foresight to have people take photos so this will have to suffice.



Hefty and I will be appearing at the Wunderbar on 24th March. Come see!

Hey guys, guess what? I've been to ROLLESTON! Go ahead, ask anyone. It's the talk of the town!



I don't think I want to go back there again, ever. Anyway, I'll be on the streets of Christchurch in a week and a half. Our schedule is in the World Buskers Festival programme; look for the weekend locals pitch section. My name isn't on there, but Hefty's is. Be there or I'll soil your carpet.

I've decided to stop figuring out who I am and just concentrate on discovering who other people- strangers, people in my life, people I love, people I despise, people I envy- are. I don't believe there is a fundamental "me" that is unknowable and inaccessible, or at best discoverable only through disciplined meditations, deprivation, long hours spent contemplating a blade of grass when the moon is waxing, eating roots and grasses, etc. I don't believe "I" am who I am- whatever that means- because of everything I have done, experienced, thought, imagined, believed, dreamt, remembered: in short, I am not a collection of memories. I can only remember a tiny fraction of the events of my life, so how can "I" be comprised of something that, as far as I'm concerned, never happened, or might take place in the future (which is really just hope)? I am who I am because of what is happening to me right this very minute; each one of my current situations is enough to constitute who I happen to be at that moment. Feelings, events, memories, experiences, moods, hopes, sense of taste and touch and smell and sight, consciousness and wakefulness and sleeplessness and rest- all of these things change with every passing minute or year or decade; components that, according to conventional wisdom, comprise the whole, fundamental Self. How can something that's fundamental be subject to such fleeting circumstances as forgetfulness and insomnia and loneliness and acutness of sense and consciousness (which depends on all of these and cannot be an entity by itself)? I am who I am because of what is taking place right now; I am perfectly, transparently truthful in being and appearance.

Right now I am sipping a glass of wine and wondering if I feel like having drinks with Sam later on and trying to write something passably articulate whilst smoking a fag right down to that filter. I am content because nothing is troubling me at the moment and I have hope for the future and I feel love. So who are you?

I love hot spring days: the lazy sound of ice cubes tinkling in an cold gin and tonic highball in the sun; the small rivulets of condensation running slowly down the sides of my glass; the fresh slices of lemon complimenting a perfect mixture of gin and...well, I appreciate anything to do with gin and tonics on a nice warm afternoon in the sun, really.

But most of all, what I really love about springtime are all the friendly critters that come out of winter hibernation.

( Especially these guys! )

People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey...stuff. - The Doctor

The question on everybody's mind: so what's Alex been up to? (everybody=Alex) I don't know, people, I think I lost track of time a while back and from my perspective it's been I dunno, sometime in June? for the past I don't know how many weeks. What happened? I have been extremely antisocial (exception Dr. Who night), reading almost constantly in my free time, particularly Borges and now also Barthelme (thanks, donttouchmyhat, he's absolutely brilliant), and, well, not a whole lot else. So basically I've been doing bugger all except for reading, going to work, and watching Dr. Who, yet time flies by much faster than the rate at which I'm able to keep track of its passage.

*

( timey-wimey...stuff and Borges )

( The Garden of Forking Paths )

So somewhere down the line I've completely lost track of time, which, as we've discovered, is meaningless in nature anyway. I mean really, if clock rates vary with height, what does it matter that my own psychological clock is a bit wibbly-wobbly? Anyway, what's happening with you folks?



I may or may not be completely full of shit.

I went to space again, and much to my annoyance I had an idea. But this time it wasn't one of my usual terrible ideas that make me look very very foolish. This, I thought, would be my legacy! The one cunning plan Baldrick was finally able to come up with!



As soon as I returned to earth, I put my plan to action. Behold the glorious results!



...and looking knowledgably into the distance



With a disguise like this, I can go completely unnoticed and unrecognised in any setting, thereby avoiding awkward social situations forever!

But then a terrible alien from a distant planet inhabited by bloodthirsty monsters armed with drawing supplies travelled to earth! There, he's on his way!



When he arrived he drew this horrible cartoon, which, I am unhappy to admit, showcases my plan's central flaw.



The terrible awful alien drew lots of other pictures, but sadly those didn't come out very well because the photographer took the photos in the darkness (another poor idea of Alex's).

To be continued...

The hobos here are vibrant and colorful. There's one man who spends his days sitting down with an old blanket draped over his shoulders, rocking back and forth and smiling radiantly at things only he can see. I think he's naked under the blanket, but he might be wearing a flesh-colored loincloth. It's hard to tell because, in much the same manner that you would attempt to spot an SEP (Somebody Else's Problem), one doesn't look at him directly, you only catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of your eye. It's really hard to tell what sort of underwear someone is wearing- or indeed if they're wearing any at all- when you're observing them in this manner. Take that down.

Then there's the one-armed man, who introduced himself to me today. I was walking down the street and couldn't help but notice a very smelly, filthy, repugnant man with a missing limb hollering about how well he spoke English (but not French). Then we made eye contact- a fatal error in hobo-observing protocol- whereupon he kicked me in the shins rather hard and hollered "menage-a-trois!" I walked away from this exchange wearing a smile that just about bisected my head.

I seem to be back on top of the world. Dan and Javier's show is weird and wonderful and witty, and all sorts of other very positive descriptions beginning with 'w'. It's people like this who brighten even the darkest recesses of my mind. Colorful and vibrant, like my favorite hobos of the world.

I just wrote, and subsequently lost, a spiel concerning probability algorithms and Bell's theorem and this idea of space as an undivided whole as it relates to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and other such spooky stuff that baffles the hell out of me. That's what happens when one has a crappy computer and an even crappier dial-up connection and they attempt to use basic editing tools. I'm going to try to rewrite it if I can, but in the meantime I'd like to hear from you folks. So what do you find baffling about this bizarro world we inhabit?

I attended Dylan Moran's standup show last night, and he was so brilliant that my standards for comedic performance have increased at least this much-

<----------------->

He was exactly what I had expected: a disheveled, drinking, agitated, bizarre, and hilariously genius Irishman. He can only be described as Bernard Black [in case any of you actually watch the clip and want context, they're trying to write a children's book]. A decent standup performer will get big laughs every 25 seconds. A really good performer, fifteen seconds. I was laughing every five seconds- the sort of uproarious laughter that becomes painful if kept up for more than a few minutes- throughout the entirety of his two-hour performance.

I left the theatre in unaccustomed high spirits after having been in the presence of such a remarkable human being, but my mood was immediately quashed when I discovered I was once again surrounded by my enemies. The sort of people who come out on Saturday night so they could disgrace the city with their foul presence by engaging in all sorts of odious and obnoxious behavior, such as screaming at each other in the streets and smashing bottles as often as possible before they have to return to their coffins for the night, where they will remain until the following saturday evening. Loud people are the bane of my existence, the scum of the universe. I often have fantasies of cleaning up the city. In these fantasies, I round up every single destructive, belligerent, loud-mouth youth, pack them into cattle wagons, and transport them to Correctional Camps, where, if they survive the wagons, they will be forced to shovel radium into large furnaces until they either prove that they're fit to live amongst human beings or perish from radiation poisoning. Usually they perish, and the survivors are forced to shovel the corpses into the furnaces along with the radium.

I heard of an outdoor mall area here in New Zealand that had a big problem with loud, destructive teenagers, so the council attacked this problem by arranging large speakers about the area and playing Barry Manilow music at all times. I can't decide which solution is more humanitarian.

I've just applied for two jobs. One's in Antarctica, which I'm quite serious about. The other? Paranormal investigator! I'd get to wear one of those special ghost-hunting caps and walk around with one of those fancy rods that make beep beep noises when ghosts are nearby! And that's not all! If I get the paranormal investigator job, I could appear on television all over the country!

Who's got dignity now, baby? Of course, one can say that's already pretty much a fait accompli.



Thank you, edgar, for the heads-up!

Have you guys ever seen the British comedy series Little Britain? One of Matt Lucas's characters is a stage hypnotist who doesn't really hypnotise anything, it's just funny, yeah?

So I'm driving home from Queenstown, about a 7 hour drive, and I'm speeding something fierce. 130 km/hr. I couldn't help it; snow-capped mountains to the left, parched hills to the right, nothing but a long ribbon of empty pitch stretched across the landscape. All of a sudden I hear sirens, I see the flashing lights and the cartoonish orange checkered car behind me.

Are you aware of how fast you were going back there?

Pause.

Look into my eyes, look into my eyes, the eyes, not around the eyes, don't look around my eyes, look into my eyes, you're under. I have not been speeding. I have been going the speed limit the entire time, you pulled me over because you just wanted someone to talk to. Three, two, one... you're back.

And he never ticketed me. Turns out he was also a fan of Little Britain, so we chatted about that for a while and he let me off with a warning.

It's a good thing he never bothered to inspect my license, because then I woulda had to hypnotise him all over again.

Hey palz, I'm employed! As of Wednesday I will be getting paid a healthy sum to ride a bicycle!

( Yeehaw! )

Glubwobble (adj.)

Descriptive of the feeling you experience when you get out of bed early in the morning before the hangover wakes up after a night of heavy drinking, and just when you're beginning to enjoy your cup of coffee and start making optimistic plans for the day, the hangover bursts cheerfully out of the bedroom and exclaims, "Hello! Remember me? How are you feeling? Shitty? GREAT!"

Just returned from the North Island.



That's my clever disguise/driving glasses. I'll leave you with that to ponder while I go have a cup of coffee or four.

( HI )

I need to take a break for a moment from the usual collection of silliness, non sequitors, and folderol that is my journal and give a big wave and a boisterous 'hello' to Leapin' Louie Lichtenstein the Jewish Lithuanian Cowboy! Also, welcome to my little online travesty, Dave from AZ! Drag up a rock and prepare to be appalled!

Oh man, I love unexpected visitors.

ETA: Dave, I'm blown away by your Routeburn Track photos! Everything looks so different when it's not raining/snowing/blizzarding there. I did that track last April, and it looked more like this.

( click to see Routeburn photos )

I was sipping on my treatment (=gin) this afternoon at the Dux, and overheard some rich suburban American slobs complaining about the city. At first I was aggressively uninterested, but when I heard the words "mullet" and "chainsaw" I snapped my book shut and began the eavesdropping. After a few moments I realised they were whinging about our local buskers, and how they ruin the city with their noise pollution. I couldn't hear everything, but I'm positive they were exchanging some choice words about the Motleys and Chris Devious in between greedy mouthfuls of $95 chateaubriand. On the one hand, I can't stand people like this. They probably make $600 a second scamming people out of their life savings and insurance for a living so they could travel around the world, eat exotic food, and disparage the people and cities they disgrace with their presence. But on the other hand, they're so much fun to take the piss out of.



I was not very discreet about drawing their portrait. At one point they looked at me as though I had no manners. Well, I looked right back at them as though I did.

ps- I finally ate fire the other day. All that anxiety over nothing! Piece-a cake.

I should not be doing this so soon after an injury. I am an idiot.

Today I've been thinking about things I don't like because a lot of things I don't like have been happening to me lately, such as having a sword swallowing accident involving a very long sword in the stomach and a very energetic dog, losing important personal items in the streets, and having to go to the post office. One thing I really don't like is people staring up into my flat from the street. I could understand if I lived in a New York-style ground floor flat that you can't help but peer into because it's right there, practically in the middle of the street, but I live up on the second story, behind bushes and trees. Last thing I want when I'm bending over looking for something edible in the fridge is for some lunkhead to peer into the window just as my housepants fall down around my ankles while I'm reaching for the jar of pickles.

Know what else I don't like? Meth labs. The police closed down my street the other day because a couple of dodgy knuckleheads two houses down had their own meth lab, and it very nearly exploded, as meth labs do. Everyone was worried about explosions and evacuation, but I was worried about more important things, like taking pictures of all the excitement. Everyone's all, "oh my god, the house might explode! I could lose everything!" and suddenly they hear me shout "oh, cool!" as I brusquely push them aside and start snapping pictures.



I didn't get any photos of the criminals being hosed down by firemen because apparently the police have no sense of humor, but I did get a shot of this really severe-looking dude. He kept making rude gestures at me for some reason.



The next day I was delighted to see that they set up some sort of contamination camp, and everyone had to wear a white suit like this. Even that guy wearing black in the previous picture had to wear one. He sure wasn't pleased to see me again. I could tell by the way he gave me the finger and turned aside as I snapped his photo.



I guess you could say I'm a hero. I haven't sorted out why, but I certainly wouldn't object if any of you wanted to call me Alex the Savior of Salisbury St. and Enemy of Meth Labs Everywhere from now on. Or even just once, I'm not fussy.

Matt and I are officially New Zealand residents as of yesterday. I've been wanting this more than anything else for three years. No more losing sleep and worrying about obstacles and red tape whilst duplicitous immigration agents fleece us of all of our cash. No more sitting on the floor agonizing over deadlines and bank statements and delays and impending rejection, hunched over and shielding my eyes from the harsh glare of natural sunlight that makes it through the gaps in the curtains and casts light over the squalid assortment of furniture littered with documents and folders and letters and half-filled out forms and water-stained papers and dust. I can breathe. Hell, I might even celebrate a little.