Poems, thoughts, ideas, ponderings, rants, etc.




Today I had to visit the jobcentre in another town 12 miles away, so I rode my bicycle, to avoid using petrol.

Before coming home, I decided to visit the library. I ended up finding a book which utterly fascinated me:

DR RAJ PERSAUD
FROM THE EDGE OF THE COUCH
Bizarre psyciatric cases and what they teach us about ourselves.


I sat down on the extremely comfortable sofa by the window, and became utterly transfixed and entertained. After a while, I actually ended up lying down on the sofa. So anyone in the library at the time would have seen me lying there, totally engrossed in this book, occasionally letting out a chuckle whenever something really tickled me. I think in the end I was lying there for about 2 hours.

I'll give you some examples of some of the cases in it...

(words in bold are the actual titles used in the book, but all the other text is my own summarised version of what the book describes)

The man who feared being transported to another world
This man thought that all mirrors (and eventually, all other reflective surfaces) represented another world, and he had a constant fear that he might end up being transported into this world.

The man who ate his own faeces
This 20-year-old man had been punished for something bad when he was a young boy by his father forcing him to eat his own poo. As he grew up, whenever he had caused anything bad to happen, he had an overwhelming urge to eat his own poo.

The man who had sex with his furniture
This resulted from a stage hypnotism incident where the hypnotist made the suggestion that the participants would feel increasingly sexy whilst sitting in their chair, and that later on they would feel even sexier when their head touched the pillow in bed. During the hypnotism event, he began vigorously thrusting the air, and proceeded to ram the chair from behind, eventually getting his penis stuck. At home, he would completely ignore his wife and thrust against the bed instead.

The man who liked to be crushed
This particular man was only able to become sexually aroused by putting himself in dangerous situations, such as setting fire to himself or diving into the crusher of a rubbish collection lorry. During these dangerous experiences he would become aroused and spontaneously ejaculate.

The man who tried to become the Hollywood movie character, 'The Terminator'
He inserted pieces of metal into his arms in the belief that the metal would strengthen him.

The woman who needed sex to stay alive
29-year-old woman arrested for running naked along a highway. A recent affair had ended, and she began to physically feel like her body was dying. She felt like her breasts we shrinking, and was convinced she was going to die. She was convinced that the only way to stay alive was by having sex, and began begging men to have sex with her.

The man who didn't like the way birds looked at him
74-year old retired businesman, family history of depression, became paranoid. At first this was related to people, but eventually he began thinking that the birds in his garden were looking at him like he was a condemed person.

There's many more in this book. It's nearly 500 pages long. Today I've just been flicking through random bits of it, but I think I might actually start right from the beginning and read the whole thing.





I thought that title might get your attention.

Today my mum told me that someone I knew was recently found in their car at the top of the hill, having committed suicide. She also told me that there is a rumour that someone else I know has gone to prison.

Focussing on the guy who killed himself...

He's not someone I had anything to do with in recent years, so I'm not grieving, just a bit shocked.

He was about 11 years older than me, and an extremely religious born-again Christian. He was also very scientific and probably the most intelligent person I've even known in person. For the perposes of this piece, I'll call him G.

I first got to know him when I was about 17/18 and he volunteered at a youth club I went to for a while. Yes, I know 17/18 seems a bit old to be going to a youth club, but at the time some of my friends were about 16 and they went there (in particular D and H), and it was a good laugh sometimes. It was run by a bunch of adult volunteers from the church, but they never forced religion onto us. It was just a place to go to hang out and chat and play pool and have a bit of a laugh.

D and H got on extremely well with G, but I never really knew quite what to make of him to begin with. I only really got to know G well when late one night H took me round to G's flat, and we stayed up late playing board games. G seemed really welcoming and friendly, and said I could pop round and visit whenever I wanted.

H told me that G was extremely fascinating because he was so intelligent. H said that he often had in-depth conversations with G about extra demensions, really mind-blowing stuff like that. Ignoring the religious side of him, I began to find him fascinating too, and would visit his flat and have deeply complicated conversations with him about dimensions and the universe.

Although G did mention religion at various times, only once did he make a serious attempt to convert me, in his own utterly bizarre way of using many sheets of paper to try to explain it and make out that it all made perfect sense. I listened intently and let him say his entire piece, and even engaged with him, but in the end I inwardly laughed it off as total and utter nonsense.

G was a very contradictory person, because he was extremely intelligent and very scientific in nature, yet was also extremely religious. I could never understand how he managed to join those two sides of himself together. To be honest, I don't think he ever did, and that was probably the problem in the end.

But despite fundamentally thinking he had it all wrong with regards to religion, for a while I did visit him quite a lot, because in all honesty I found him utterly fascinating, and also just because he was friendly to me during a time when I was on the verge of going through bad problems in my own life.

Gradually though, over time, I began to feel he was less friendly towards me. I began to find him impossible to argue with. He was always so clever at always thinking up something to come back at you with, and I've never really been any good at that. I need time alone to think up clever things to say, and in an arguement that doesn't work. Once, during the one time I was at his flat whilst he was drunk, he really insulted me and then grabbed my watch and threw it across the room, braking it. I eventually drifted away from him. I also eventually drifted away from D and H too.

A few years passed, and I did my own thing. I spent a couple more years at college, got really into making music, and began to find life confusing and problematic. I won't bother going into all that. Everyone's lives have problems and twists and turns and confusions and frustrations, and I really can't bothered to explain it all now.

But a few years later, in 2002 I think, I briefly got back in touch with H. I was going through a particularly bad time around then, and so was H, and I think we briefly provided some kind of comfort to each other. H told me that G had run away, abandoned everything. He had e-mailed all his friends (not me, because I wasn't in touch with him by then) saying basically sorry but I'm finding life too much right now. H said something about G having had a crisis of faith, probably due to him being so intelligent he finally had to confront the probability that's all that religious stuff is utter rubbish.

Soon me and H drifted away from each other again. I see him occasionally in town, and say hi. I'm not particularly friends with him, just purely because we're such different people these days, we have nothing in common. But I'm still pleasant if I see him. I have nothing against him.

Back in the spring, I saw G for the first time in a VERY long time. I was 30 and he must have been 41 by then. We stood in the street and we chatted, and he seemed fine, he seemed quite cheerful in fact. Then a woman came out of the shop and stood next to him, and they both made body language like they wanted to get going, so we said our pleasant goodbyes and that was that.

And now he's dead. Found in a car up on the hill. And that's all I know.

But it seems like the older I get, the more REAL life becomes, in terms of what happens to people I know. Like last year, one of my neighbours died from bowel cancer, and now I see her husband every day all by himself, because my bedroom window directly overlooks his bungalow. But also, on the positive side, recently my cousin gave birth to a lovely baby girl.

When you're younger, life is like some kind of fairytale that's going to happen in the future. But as you get older, real things start happening to real people you know. And it's not all good. Because life just isn't like that. Life isn't always great, but it's not always bad either. And there are things you can do to try and make your life better. There's a lot you can do.

But sometimes, shit happens. And that's just the way it is.

But I'm alive, and I'm healthy, and I'm really, really glad.

Do you know what my mum told me recently? She said she'd spoken to my brother on the phone, and he was looking after his 3-year-old son (let's call him B). B removed all his clothes, put his underpants on his head, and then started running around shouting "Daddy, I'm going to drive you crazy!" I laughed my head right off my shoulders and said to my mum, "That's amazing!..."



THE WAR OF ALL WARS

I've decided, it's time to wage a war on war. I will be assembling a team of Anti-War Warriors, and we shall set off tomorrow in search of the inventor of war. And if we can't find him (or her), we shall go after one of their relatives instead, or maybe just one of their friends...or anyone who has ever heard of them and anyone who has ever thought that war might be a good idea. We will then execute these people, and everyone they know, and by doing so destroy all war. All war will be destroyed. With force. Then the world will be great again like it once was in some magical time long-ago in the past when dancing pixies and unicorns ruled the Earth, and everyone greeted each other with smiles and hugs and then sat in fields with flowers in; as it was always meant to be, and as it would be now if it wasn't for all the bad things that stop it being so.

Then, from that moment on, no wars will ever happen again, unless of course they are truly noble wars, for example maybe a War On Unhappiness (force everyone at gunpoint to be happy, or they get shot dead, and so do all their family and friends, just in case the unhappiness spreads like a violent disease), the War On...oh, wait! Hang on a minute...

No, in fact, let's rearrange these plans. We must fight all these other noble wars before we fight the War On War, because the War On War must be final; the war to end all wars.

So, before we fight the War On War, we must give ourselves time for...

The War On Drugs - ban all drugs in the world, especially the drugs which make people think that drugs are a good idea. Drugs that will remain allowed will be drugs which cause people to think that drugs are a bad idea apart from the drugs which cause people to think that drugs are a bad idea. Exceptions to this rule will be any drug which has ludicrous side effects, such as Floating or Really Big Leg (as has been reported in a few cases with the drug Oxyploxymoxymorphinoxyplaurine) or Uncontrollable Dancing Syndrome (as has happened with Magical Wood Bark, or to give it its scientific name, Rupertthebearjuice).

The War On Religious Intolerance - kill all people who don't respect everyone else’s religion. Hook everyone up to a lie detector test (make one out of metal this time – the plastic one we used last time was unreliable!), and ask them what they think about another religion. If they say something like "Well, each to their own and all that," but then there's a big spike on the graph, they immediately get shot in the head. Religious intolerance will not be tolerated! The message we want to get across is: anyone is free to worship clouds or Saturn, but nobody is free to think logically. Anyone caught yelling "loony" at anyone claiming that Planet Earth was built by a swarm of wasps will be...locked in a room full of wasps.

The War On Anyone Who Thinks These Wars Are A Bad Idea - just in case anyone disagrees with what we are doing. We can't have that. Oh no.

The War On Lies - Everyone knows that lying is bad, and those who say they think lying is good are lying (these people will automatically be shot*)

*white lies will involve bullets made of cheese, to avoid Death or Screaming Because Of Painful Bleeding Leg

The War On Conspiracy Theories - all conspiracy theories must be destroyed, apart from any conspiracy theories suggesting that all conspiracy theories were invented by the Government(s) just to confuse everyone. Confused? I certainly am!*

The War On Bad Weather – all bad weather will be destroyed - With nuclear weapons! At once! Do it now! PRESS THE BIG RED BUTTON!

The War On Silliness, Nonsense and Absurd Humour - anyone found guilty of acting daft or silly will be punished by being flung by a giant catapult into a giant bowl of custard. Everyone will laugh at them, and they will feel very foolish. For anyone whom this punishment doesn't have the satisfactory result upon*, they will be forced to shabber wobby dibby doo ploppy doppy moo moo moo wagga wagga pattong-splosh! And that's my final answer!

*I really struggled with that sentence. Can you tell?

The War On American Versions of Word Spellings – Anyone found writing “color” instead of “colour”, “humor” instead of “humour”, or “jelly” instead of “jam” will be penalised (with an “s”).

The War On Swearing - anyone who disagrees with this one can just FUCK OFF!

The War On Political Incorrectness - anyone who thinks this war is a bad idea is clearly stupid. Sorry, let me rephrase that. Not stupid as such, that would unfair. Just err...cognitively developmentally…err…on their own schedule. Not quite playing with a full deck - but that's okay! That's what makes you so special! Your mummy* loves you! And so does Jesus! Or any other religious figure you choose to err...imagine, no not imagine...err...No, wait, hang on, I'm getting two different wars confused here...

*I'm not American

The War On All Other Bad Things Apart From War (must keep war itself separate from this because the War On War must be the final war, otherwise none of this will make any sense, do you understand?*). This war will be one last final war before the real final war to end all wars. Any bad things left after all the previous wars will automatically be destroyed, including moldy food, grumpy shop workers, vaginal thrush, bowel incontinence, eczema, bad hair days, and many other things...

*If you don’t, that’s okay, just pretend you do and keep reading anyway**.

**Why do I keep writing all these footnote-style comments?***

***I don’t know****

****This is getting messy with all these asterisks*****

*****Yes it is!******

******Who said that?*******

*******I’ve no idea, I thought it was just the two of us in here.


Anyway…

Then will come…the final war...

The War On War!
This will be the war to end all wars, quite literally (yes, the clue is in the title). EVERYTHING and EVERYONE war-related will be destroyed with force and big guns, and then those items of force will be destroyed so that no more war can ever happen ever again. We're not yet sure how we will destroy these instruments of destruction, but we will surely think of something. And then, once that's done, we have one final trick up our sleeves...

The Erasure of All Bad Memories
(Don't confuse this with the band Erasure - it's just a word, okay?*)
Strictly speaking, this isn't a war, so it is allowed to happen after all war has been destroyed. What we will do is travel the whole planet injecting people’s brains with a drug which deletes all memories of all bad things.

*Okay**

**Shut up! Look, this is my piece! Go away!


Once this has happened, we will reach The Final State, also known as...

BLISS UTOPIA HAPPINESS CONTENTMENT LOVE HAPPINESS TYPE THING

This will be a Planet Earth filled with everyone skipping gaily through fields of long grass, always holding hands and hugging each other and saying things like, "Oh Margaret, you look so pretty in that dress!" and nobody will ever need to lie in order to say these things, no, because everyone will automatically be beautiful and everyone will automatically be happy and delighted to see everyone else, because all bad things will have been previously destroyed, including ugly people, bad moods, excessive farting, and body odor.

Every day will be sunny, everyone will be happy, nobody will be overweight or ill or underweight or get HIV. Nobody will ever get ill, and nobody will ever die, and everyone will live forever and be happy the whole time. Sex will disappear, because it will no longer be needed as no new people will need to be born because all the existing people will be living forever (and remain looking 21 forever). However, it must be noted that sex will still exist for a short while, in order to repopulate the planet after destroying all the bad people. But once this goal has been achieved (a figure is yet to be decided upon), sex will fade out and instead people will begin to feel a constant ongoing orgasm that fills their entire body and radiates out into the whole universe, subsequently turning Space a pleasant shade of purple.

This is the ultimate goal of the human race, and it can only be achieved with bombs and tanks and machine guns and (if necessary) karate.

Random Bits That Aren’t Actually Relevant To This Piece But I Put Here Anyway

Hey, imagine if space was purple. Go one imagine it.

Do your favourite dance, in a field, to a crowd of 6 people all forced to sit on 50-foot high chairs. Cover yourself in custard, and then get hosed down by a man in a chicken costume. Why? Why not? Why do you wake up in the morning and breathe? Exactly. I think I’ve made my point.

There’s no more here for you to read. Go away.

Listen, I told you to go away, alright?!
The next bit isn’t meant to be read.

Bah bah black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags somewhere in the barn, I’ll just go get them.

Smelly cat, smelly cat,
What are they feeding you?
Marmite.

Ooh, Mr Yellow Face
Give me your banana!
Give me your banana!
Give me your banana!

Ooh, Mr Yellow Face
Give me your banana!
Give me your banana!
Give me your banana!

Squiggle, piggle, diggle, miggle, shpliggle, tiggle.

Blah blah wah yaa mad cat fat chav bum trousers.

There is a man and he is running from the law.

Big tower in the woods and man dressed as a nonsense factory worker who speaks like a daydream “I do feel grey buildings grey old builds lost in some other time something feel like I don't know woods and forests and nobody ever speaks these days. Seems like a long way to make a difference…”

Wasted land behind the houses.

“I don’t want to feel.”

“Maybe there is an attic.”

“I feel like plastic.”



 
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My Other Blog: Sun-kissed

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  • I'm Marcus
  • From Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
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Contact Me: mejc@mejc.demon.co.uk

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