humans

Farewell old friend / rogue

~ monkeywithgun ~ Leave a comment

It’s not what I expected. I knew you had to go and go for good, but I hadn’t grasped how I would feel. It’s bitter sweet, like losing an arm, but realizing you’ve still got two perfectly good legs.

Old rogues. They’re the most fun and engaging. All my good friends are ‘rogues’ in one sense or another and that’s why we got on. So when it comes time to cut one from your life it sucks but you know it’s for the best.

Friends come and go. Our friendship dates back over 20 years. There were good times, bad times and times when we didn’t see each other for a year or two.

In those 20 years I’ve moved countries several times, lost a parent, been married twice and now have two wonderful daughters. My second wife has never really liked you. She’s felt threatened. Has felt that you changed me. Did not want you over when the kids were awake, and I got that. She spent a couple of nights with us, but it was always strained.

So now you’re gone, and let’s be clear I didn’t really have a choice, It was you or them, and I love them and they’re what I live for, so it had to happen. I know that, but what I didn’t know was that I would suddenly feel alone. You see, nobody to pick me up when I’d been kicked down, shouted down, argued with. Nobody to hang with on sunny afternoons when the family were away. Nobody to listen to music and chat harmlessly to women with. I’m going to miss all of that. Each time I argue with the ‘other half’ and storm out of the house, which doesn’t happen all that often, I’ll expect to find you waiting. Whenever there’re are old friends in town they’ll want to know where you are…and ‘what? Fuck off, what d’you mean you don’t know him anymore.’ And each of these times is going to be hard, but I hope, I really sincerely hope that we don’t meet again. I need to get on with my life and to do that we can’t be friends. That said there will always be a dull gap which you used to fill that is going to remain…dull for awhile at least.

It’s all just ‘stuff

~ monkeywithgun ~ Leave a comment

It was 4pm and the flames had just started to lick the top of the mountain behind the house. They’d spent the previous 2 days marching through the hills and valleys unseen from Hout Bay. All we had seen was smoke and a faint red glow in the night sky, but now it became real. By 5pm the mountain had a mane of fire along its crest…a solid wall of menacing red. By 7pm the line of fire had descended a 100 meters or so from the summit and the smoke pumped hard and furious towards the bay. Tension and nervous excitement zinged above the crowds pulled out of their houses and it was hot. The hottest day in recorded history. Summer of Sam played through my mind.

By 11pm we could hear the crack of the flames and breathing was becoming painful. We shut up the house and tried to sleep. I woke up and went to the window at 5am expecting the cliff face that had been below the flames to have starved them of the vegetation they needed and to see only a few whisps of telltale smoke. The flames were in full force, still in formation, none breaking rank…steadily marching down the mountainside, snatching at anything green and living. At 7am the helicopters resumed their water bombing, which seemed both valiant and useless at the same time.

With news that the wind was to pick up and gust it came time to think about what we should pack in case we needed to evacuate…and this is where it hit me. It’s all just ‘stuff’. Standing in front of my cupboards with an empty gym bag, I had no idea where to start. 20 minutes later I’m still standing there and all that’s in the bag  are a couple of t-shirts, a pair of boardies and some boxer shorts. There was simply too much ‘stuff’ make a decision. Separately in her cupboard my wife had the same experience (notice she was in her cupboard and I was in-front of mine)…too much ‘stuff’. It was in this ridiculous situation, forced on us by the largest fires the Cape had experienced in 15 years, that we had our simultaneous moments of clarity. Pure clarity of the fact that all the stuff we’d been buying, hoarding, treasuring and using to make us feel better about ourselves was just ‘stuff’…simple. It was a massive relief and an embarrassing expose at the same time.

So what happened…nothing. The fires raged for another 2 days. It got quite hairy and harrowing at times, but then the flames died. The smoke gradually cleared. It’s been a month now and ash is still falling. Life has continued and all our ‘stuff’ is still in the house but its hold on us is weakened, and it feels great.

Watching death rain down…from your sofa.

~ monkeywithgun ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been toying with this post, trying not to take sides and wondering if I should even publish. It feels raw and unpolished but it’s a dirty topic…so have hit the button regardless

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This is not about politics. This is not about history. This is not about religion. This is about is ‘how do humans get to the point where they will drag and set up furniture outside at vantage points to watch death rain down on their neighbours?’ Forget ‘neighbours’, substitute this with ‘other humans’, or even ‘enemies’…at what point do you get to thinking that this is OK?

The Romans used to do it in the name of sport. Get a few slaves and throw them to the gladiators and / or lions, and that ladies and gentlemen was entertainment and it was nearly 2,000 years ago. Surely nearly 20 centuries worth of civilisation should have bred that blood lust out of us? I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think in either of the World Wars that people at any point took it upon themselves to seek out front row seats to watch massacres unfold. It wasn’t done. And keep in mind we are discussing civilians here and not active soldiers. No matter how much you might have been told that the Germans / Brits / Americans / Japanese were the devil coming for you, there was still the understanding that there were German / British / American / Japanese soldiers and that yes they were sent to kill your soldiers, and that as civilians you might very well end up dying. But was it only inconvenient geography that prevented groups of English pulling their sofas out, getting tea and scones served whilst they watched bombs drop on German civilians, in the hope that some soldiers would die too? I might be wrong, but it seems improbable. 

The recent pictures beamed round the world of Israelis chatting, laughing, cheering and kicking back watching missiles pummel Gaza shocked and disgusted the world. They shocked and disgusted me…but then it got me thinking, the only real difference between what the Israelis have been doing and what the world at large did when the Americans went in and bombed the shit out of Bagdad, is that they don’t have a screen between them and the action. With Gaza being a stone’s throw away maybe they figured a TV wasn’t required.

You could argue that watching it on the news at least kept you informed…but it only gave you a single view and hand on heart would you have listened to it if there weren’t any pictures?

When the campaign kicked off and Bagdad lit up like some ‘goddamn 4th of July show’ we were all glued to our screens. We all watched 1,000s of innocent Iraqis get blown apart (collateral damage) in the shock and awe blitz. We weren’t outside on a hill, we were in the warmth of our lounges and we watched and watched and watched until it got a little boring. Some morons probably cheered, got a little rowdy and felt a swell of pride…who knows, but what’s the difference? Is there one? I don’t know. Does dragging yourself out into the action vs having the action beamed into your environment change anything?

There’s no judgement here on race or religion, all I’m pointing out is that as human beings we’re in a pretty sorry place right now. Tit-for-tat wars all over the planet, generally to do with defending one improbable god over another, or this bit of dirt from those people over there on that bit of dirt. We seem to be regressing on all fronts. If we spent a 1/10th of the time and effort and money on trying to feed the world, rather than trying to wipe each other out the world would be a very different place, but I don’t think that it is in our nature to do so. Or it could be in our personal nature but that counts for little when it’s governments and corporations calling the shots.