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DesDownunder

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Blog Entries posted by DesDownunder

  1. DesDownunder
    It's fast becoming a need of mammoth proportions to stand against religions as antiquated belief systems with no redeeming features.
    Moreover, religious belief is an immature explanation for what science now reveals as fact without superstition, morality without coercion, and love without the need to appeal to, or appease a god.
    How many lives will the religious sacrifice on the altar of their ignorance?
    How many beating hearts will the priests of burden rip from the bodies of the innocent?
    And how many times must we witness insanity destroying reason, intelligence, and truth, before we understand that nurturing the love within ourselves is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the mystery of life?
  2. DesDownunder
    So I'm having a pessimist moment:
    We're living in some kind of culture warp where politicians are intent on reversing all the gains made since The Enlightenment. It's not that we are moving in reverse as much as we have turned our back to the future and are walking (sometimes it seems like we are running) backwards, into a future with no idea that we're going to fall over a cliff grasping at the thin air of cartoon-like superstitions. Then when we hit the road at the base of the cliff we get run over by a medieval body cart returning from delivering our humanity to The Inquisition. Can it get any worse? Yep...Beep-beep.
  3. DesDownunder
    Following my blog post of 10th March 2014
    Sweet, yeah, right.
    I've never seen such aggression in a household cat.
    I can only think that he was taken from his mother too soon. (I had a boyfriend that was taken from his mother too soon, when I was 18, but his problem was that he didn't know that my boyfriends don't entertain the local harlots (female) in the woodshed.)
    Psycho the cat continued on his journey of training for the remake of the Alfred Hitchcock movie of the same name, slashing at our ankles. He even rushed into the shower with fangs and claws striking out at our ankles and lower extremities. He was well named.
    Then he stopped eating. I consulted the vet, again. This time we were well prepared and the vet decided to wear leather gloves and wrapped Psycho in a heavy blanket...a feat in itself.
    After an examination the vet said that he must start drinking some water or he wouldn't survive the weekend. He just snarled and hissed and tried to bite us. She told the cat that he was very lucky as most people wouldn't put up with his tantrums.
    I was horrified at her suggestion that we would abandon him or worse, have him put down. I didn't even try to put down the old boyfriend when he was running rampant in the woodshed. After disappearing for the weekend and leaving us very distraught and worried he (the cat, not the old boyfriend) suddenly reappeared on Monday looking very healthy and smoothed against our legs.
    Anyway, the vet said we should try a product called Feliway which released cat pheromones into the room and might serve to calm him down. Three months later and I'm happy to report that Feliway worked, to a degree. He now sleeps on the bed with us. He begrudgingly will let us give him a cuddle, but in the middle of his very loud purring he will still snap at us and then go back to purring. We finally worked out that his snapping at our ankles is his way to let us know that he wants to be fed.
    We bought him a tree house which he loved until winter arrived and he discovered that the bed was a better choice for keeping warm; a fact that my de facto and I had previously discovered some years ago.
    We've stopped using the Feliway and so far so good. Feliway isn't a complete cure but we think it has helped.
    If I knew where that old boyfriend lived I'd send him a bottle.

    Psycho the cat, contemplating his next attack.
  4. DesDownunder
    The Doctor
    So, I haven't been making many comments in this here Blogging thingy, mainly because of all the issues we had organising our finances and preparing for our dementia which will hopefully be delayed by all the supplements and vitamins I take.
    I showed the doctor all my pills and powders, and gave him the print outs of all the websites that proclaim longevity if you take this and don't eat that. He perused the documents with what I suspect was related to Pecman's speed reading faculty.
    The doctor looked up and told me that he had no idea so much research was being done on alternative treatment to keep people alive. His experience was confined to merely getting his patients in contact with big pharma which he doesn't trust much more than I do, but sometimes pharmaceuticals offer the best answer to maintaining a quality of life when quantity of life is teetering on being compromised.
    I told the doctor that if you didn't take the medicine you die in two weeks, but if you did take the medicine you would die in a fortnight. He grinned and said I sounded like his old med school professor.
    I was relieved to know that all my test results were in normal range and I could expect to survive somewhat longer than my hypochondria predicted.
    The Taxi Drivers
    I had to travel to and from the doctor in a taxi because the beloved one is using the car to go work. The taxi driver going to the doctor was a serious Middle Eastern gentleman. It seems like the Muslim invasion in Australia is starting with taking over our taxi fleets.
    The taxi driver on the way home was, I suspect, of Mediterranean origin. He was friendly and courteous.
    When we pulled up at my house he announced that he was going home to his family as he had had enough for the day.
    I told him I was going to make some coffee and go on the Internet.
    He asked, "Does your wife complain?"
    "I don't have a wife," I replied.
    "What about a girlfriend?" he inquired.
    "I don't have a girlfriend...I have a boyfriend."
    He eyes widened and he turned in his seat to look at me.
    O, this is interesting, I thought to myself.
    He stuttered and finally managed to say, "Oh so you are one of th..er, one that comes from that side."
    Then he quickly followed with, "Do you enjoy that? Does your boyfriend?"
    "Well, we've been doing it for over 40 years, so I guess we enjoy it."
    "Forty years, together?"
    "Yes," I said. (Did he think we did it in separate rooms?)
    He was getting excited as he told me that he and his wife were married for 40 years. He then held up his closed fist and I knew that Harvey Milk was right, you just have to let people know who you are and they will bump fists with you, which we did, celebrating our common pursuit of marital happiness. He smiled as I exited the cab and then he drove away.
    I wondered if I would have told the first taxi driver...somehow I don't think so, but then again, the opportunity never arose.
  6. DesDownunder
    My de facto partner, (that's how the Australian Government regards my relationship with my boyfriend of over 40 years) and I have been lucky enough to share our home with a number of cats. All have lived happily with us for 16 - 20 years without any real traumas, until they died. I won't go into the heart-wrenching details of the death of our beloved cats except to say that I doubt they could have been happier, whilst they lived.
    I digress for a moment to describe how we recently overcame our financial problems which threatened to see the bank foreclose on our mortgage and force us out on to the street. The best we could hope for was a nice tree in one of Adelaide's park-lands with a broadband connection.
    Anyway, to cut short the story of a year long effort of challenges with the local council and the real estate agent, the bank, thank the deity of your choice, granted us a bridging loan to subdivide our property and sell it. We were able to reduce our mortgage to a very small amount which the dear bank would allow us to repay over 18 years. We were able to keep our home on the now smaller block of land which doesn't worry us.
    As an aside to this digression, I should tell you that the Real estate agent presented us with a quote for overseeing the subdivision which I refused and organised myself saving over $7,000 in the process. Of course it meant that I had to physically go all butch and build the council's demanded carport for our car, as well as organise the concrete, fencing, tree clearance, etc.
    Our clever accountant made sure we didn't have a capital gains tax problem.
    My friends, such as they are, were all very helpful telling me, whist I am up on the carport roof (at the age of 69) to "Be careful." I was beginning to feel like one of my characters from my Doors Of Love stories.
    Finally we overcame all the council objections and the real estate agent found us a buyer for the newly created block of land.
    We took out a small extra loan so we could paint and carpet the rooms. Then the gas cooktop blew up in the kitchen, and we replaced that. The electric stove stopped working and it was cheaper to replace it than repair. I still have some tiling to do in the laundry.
    The keyboard on the computer lost the plot and I replaced that. I now have a wonderful mechanical action keyboard...I love it, no more tysop.
    So that left us with a vacancy for a cat.
    We decided that rather than get a kitten we would adopt an adult cat and thereby rescue it from the dreaded death by lethal injection. I always wonder about death by non-lethal injections.
    We searched the local used cats site, and found a lovely 4 year old black male (neutered). The owner was a girl who just graduated her engineering degree and was moving to a job in another city where her accommodation didn't allow pets.
    So we get the cat home. It had a name we didn't like, but decided that we would wait for it to show its character and that would give us a clue as to its new name. Little did we know.
    First it wouldn't come out of its cat carrier cage. It hissed, snarled and growled in no particular order. It bared its fangs and snapped at our fingers. Okay, so I patiently offered it food and sat with it, making silly cat noises of soothing and welcoming sounds. Nine hours later it exited the cage and rubbed itself against my hand and leg.
    It then proceeded to vomit on the floor.
    An anxiety attack if ever I saw one. I knew about anxiety attacks as the de facto boyfriend had one when it looked like we were going to be destitute, but thankfully he made it to the bathroom and didn't vomit on the floor.
    The next day pussycat ate and threw up, ate and threw up quite consistently, so I made an appointment with our local Vet.
    I looked at the previous owners' Vet documents and saw that the cat had been vaccinated, but no other examination had been done because of, "extreme temperament problems."
    So when the de factoed one got home I told him we were going to the vet. He told me he felt okay. He had just manage to land a full time job. We had some extra income. Lucky us, the Vet must have known and charged us $89.
    Calmly we arrived at the Vet and the cat had sat quietly in his carrier cage. Once the door was opened he sprang at the Vet sunk his claws into her and clawed the now shocked and horrified de facto one.
    The Vet decided a hairball might be part of the vomiting problem as the cat was very active and not at all underweight.
    We returned home with some cat laxative. I was already having the shits with this animal. My poor lover's hand was looking quite lacerated.
    Four weeks later, the cat is loving and sookie, and then for no reason attacks our ankles, and bites and scratches exposed skin. We are not going commando until we sort this cat out.
    We watched the videos at My Cat From Hell site (recommended) where cat behaviourist Jackson Galaxy, advises on how to handle difficult cats.
    We've done everything he suggests and the cat still summons the demons from the underworld right in the middle of his loving us. He's mental...So we have called him Psycho.
    We'll post further bulletins, if we survive.
  7. DesDownunder
    My second year high school physics teacher was a popular young man of around 23 years old. He enjoyed a joke or two and made the lessons memorable, if not fun.
    When a teacher was called to an away mission, usually a phone call, it was, in those days, customary for the class cabal to appoint one of their members to keep watch at the door for the teachers return. This permitted the rest of the class the freedom to enjoy a chalk fight, or as often happened, a competition to see who could engineer the best paper glider capable of achieving escape velocity from the classroom, if not the Earth.
    I remember one particular day, when the keeper of the watch, spied the teacher swiftly making his way back down the hallway toward the classroom which was in an uproar over the latest unmanned glider test flight. Suddenly the appointed stake out officer announced quite loudly, "Here it comes." The class rapidly resumed the quiet demeanour of angels in contemplation of the value of intelligent desire.
    Dear teacher made his entrance with a fury and flurry not seen since the last emergency fire drill. All was quiet as he surveyed the remains of a dozen or so, test flights scattered around the test pad, also known as the floor. Then he spoke,
    "Boys," he exclaimed, "Your teachers, including me, are well aware that you have nicknames for us. Indeed those of us in my profession who are not disabled by having our heads up our backsides are even amused by some of your more inventive names for us, but we really are not amused by phrases proclaiming our approach as, "Here it comes." In future, you would be best advised to reserve that phrase for your personal activities in the privacy of your bedrooms. I can assure you all that I am not an it."
    The cheers emanating from the collective young test pilots were very encouraging and the teacher laughed with the rest of us.
  8. DesDownunder

    Blown Away

    By DesDownunder,

    G'day,
    Forecasts for Adelaide include gale force winds of 100 kph (64 mph) or more, and continuing intermittently for the next week.
    It's not unusual for this time of the year but I thought I should warn y'all in case you thought we were enjoying the blow job.
  9. DesDownunder
    In time I may get around to describing how we have overcome the horrors of the last 4 years. Suffice it to say, for now, that my lover and I have been able to reduce our mortgage repayments to next to nothing by subdividing the land on which our house stands. We keep our house and have a smaller mortgage and back yard to look after. Hooray!
    If I said that we had to survive on the smell of an oily rag with no surplus for the niceties of life, let alone the occasional treat, I would not be lying. Somehow we managed to feed ourselves and meet our financial obligations, albeit watching our debt increase as unexpected expenses intruded on our hopes and dreams.
    My time for reading and writing has been severely limited, but I am hopeful I will gain more free time in the near future for being creative.
    The stress and tension we have suffered caused us both much depression and only the thought and knowledge that no matter how bad things got, there were many others on the planet who were much worse off than us. Many years ago I had asked myself how I could justify living in Australia with all its advantages and luxuries. I thought that if I devoted myself to doing my job and living as best I could for the enrichment of human experience, then perhaps I would offset, for future generations, those who suffered in the lands of misery where I could not even go.
    Some might think that was just a rationalisation so I could do whatever I wanted. Perhaps at times it was, but I have never given up hope of doing something worthwhile; of providing whatever goodness I could for the human condition. So, to find myself facing the bleakness of poverty in old age limiting even being able to smile or crack a joke, has been a sobering experience. It seems that desperation and despair are never degrees of the horror that can befall any of us; when you lose everything you are left only two things, hope and the intangible possibility of finding love, making love. It's not until you are faced with desolation that you finally realise that love is something you get by giving it away to someone else. Therefore, we can't hope for love, we create love. Our hope is for a life that goes on long enough to create love with, and for each other, wherever you may live.
    To those who gave us their love and help during these years of turmoil, and you know who you are, we could say thank you, but we will simply love you for as long as we live.
    Now where did I put that folder of notes for stories, and will I be able to make sense of them?
  10. DesDownunder
    Do I need to tell you what I am going to do with this, even though it means I will become destitute...again?
    Y ‘Management’?
    What exactly is the problem with the current generation of management? They go out of their way to call in experienced staff and then seemingly setting them up to belittle them, and their experience. Having now lived with this new management style in a number of different situations, I am absolutely fed up with management's incompetence and disrespect.
    It seems like managers are always too busy to listen to the advice that they ask for, and then demand that the task, whatever it happens to be, be done their way, despite the advice proffered. When it is pointed out that there are inherent dangers in the task being performed in the way demanded, they then play the old game of overriding the staff’s advice with, "I'm the manager, and you must do as I say."
    If that isn’t bad enough, some time later, when the manager returns to find the staff complying, and performing the task as he demanded, he insists that it is dangerous, and that they are not to do that again. He has completely ignored his own responsibility for the situation, and leaves the staff in a state of disbelief.
    This creates stress, anxiety and tension in the staff, to such a degree that only three outcomes are possible.
    1. The staff attempts to continue working; an accident occurs, with endangerment to the staff or the equipment, or both.
    2. The staff leaves, because they believe their resignation is what the manager is trying to engineer by the above tactics.
    3. The staff leaves because they do not want to become a casualty, or work under what they feel are intimidating conditions.
    It is this last one that often leaves the management in a perplexed state of mind. Modern managers feel that they have done nothing wrong, when in reality, they understand neither the nature of the human relationships involved, including the employees’ relationship to their environment, nor the limitations of the equipment.
    They justify their demands for the sake of a client, or an outcome, without seeing that the way they relate to the staff actually increases the risk of catastrophe to personnel, equipment or that all important, outcome. Of course, when even minor infractions of work place events cause problems, it is believed to be the fault of the staff. Such managers rarely realise that their own inability to relate to the warnings from the staff is the root cause of the resulting problems; even seemingly unrelated problems, due to stress. In addition, when the manager thinks he knows better than experienced qualified staff and physically interferes in the work place, any resulting disaster is considered to be due to the staff’s incompetence, or failure to understand what the manager wanted. In fact, any disaster is very often because the management does not allow for the experienced methodology of the staff; the very same staff who were chosen for their experience. At best, non-existent or confusing communication can be traced back as the underlying problem.
    How have this generation of managers reached their positions of power with so little understanding of effectively managing their employees? Much of the problem is due to generation ‘Y’ managers having only an administration degree that included instruction in regarding ‘human resources’ as being ‘things’ to be used, instead of them being people with whom to collaborate. This is much the same as the much older school of management, which was taught to regard the staff as the enemy; as employees never giving worthwhile service unless they "came to work with fear in their bellies."
    Good managers do not need to know every detail of the workplace environment if they have a relationship of trust with their employees, and on whom they can rely to furnish relevant advice on the operation and maintenance of the equipment. Previously, older managers had generally acquired their business knowledge and human relationship skills on the job, over many years of workplace experience.
    Sadly, this management expertise is no longer being passed down from older managers to younger ones, resulting in people's livelihoods, and lives, being endangered because of the mentoring legacy having been largely abandoned.
    This places further tension on management, and also stresses the staff, who cannot help but believe that, when their advice is ignored, or they are told that an instruction was given when it clearly was not, they (the employees) are being given a less than subtle 'hint' to resign.
    ‘Hands-on’ management is seriously compromising when it does not recognise the areas of skill and knowledge that should be left for the employees to provide. The result of this management style can only be less satisfactory than it should be, with much unhappiness for all involved.
    However, when the situation has reached the impasse of confrontation between manipulation and defence, the outcome is usually defeat for both parties, ending in replacement of personnel.
    It really doesn’t matter whether the more experienced staff cannot handle the new managerial methods, or the new managers can’t relate to skilled workers, the effect is the same; management is frustrated, and employees feel dehumanised, and disconnected from their work.
    The employees will always find themselves disadvantaged in any appeal to higher authorities, controlling or affecting the organisation, who have a vested interest in supporting the managers they have hired. But the actual events which lead to that appeal usually have repercussions for the managers as well, unless the employees decide to step aside gracefully in an effort to not harm the welfare of the organisation...for which they may still have an affection.
    And that is something these managers just do not understand. Worse, are the mental contortions that they enlist to dismiss even the best-intended help, such as contained in this essay.
  13. DesDownunder
    I was reading about some of the horrors that are happening around the world...always a lovely way to pass the hours ...when it occurred to me that the religious right and their conservative cohorts are not all that friendly to LGBTQ people. But it doesn't stop with them. Various regimes are imposing anti-gay legislation in many different forms, all around the world.
    The familiar suspects, who deny the rights of LGBTQ people, can be thought of as waging a war against more than LGBTQ people. They are in fact waging a war on reason, and their arsenal is full of weapons of mass hysteria; fear, ignorance, oppression and hypocrisy, which, when accompanied, as it usually is, with myth and superstition, all in the cause of greed, avarice and dominance over all who resist, makes it, in my opinion, nothing less than a Holy War, complete with human sacrifices.
    So my wrath against organised religion raised its hand, and wrote an article.

  14. DesDownunder
    I wonder how much of what we write is truly original?
    I read a poem by bi_janus today, just now in fact, and I allowed my mind to go blank. This is not a difficult feat for me, unless I think with my feet.
    Anyway back to bi_janus' poem, which you can read here, Original Face Instruction Manual for Worrywarts
    I confess the title seemed to not do the poem justice, but it works if you think about your original face. The poem gave me pause for thought, and I was put into the frame of mind that usually only meditation brings; that quiet moment, seemingly endless, yet always too short.
    My thoughts turned Zenish and then it happened; I started to type, and this is what I wrote,
    "The silence between the notes is still music."
    I looked at it. Could I have possibly come up with that?
    Is it original? Surely someone must have said that before me.
    I must be old and forgetful, and I thought, of course someone would have said that before me.
    But it doesn't matter does it? I like it and added it to my signature.
    If someone has seen it before do, please, let me know. I'm curious.
  15. DesDownunder
    Parents - Three of Each
    A humorous introspection
    by Desmond Rutherford © 2012
    I’ve been asked for a short version of little Dessie's early years of parental influences.
    It all seemed to me, even back then, to be rather ordinary really, but in reality my early years were a minefield of historical precedents setting our cultural taboos and traps.
    How's that for an opening sentence? Okay, don't get excited, here are the details.
    Most of the time my mother and her sister suffered from the malady known as 'choosing the wrong husband'. Basically, they would marry any man that addressed them as “My Lady.” Their domineering mother, my grandmother, (duh) had better luck with my grandfather, but irregardless, he died at the early age of 57, leaving me stranded, at eleven years old, without a biological father figure. How did that happen?
    My father was one of those men who never grew up. At 16 he joined the crew of the last windjammer to sail to England via the Cape of Good Hope where the ship encountered a storm, and in his words, "a dry bed was just a wet dream," which was how he wrote it to my mother in the letter describing his travelling conditions. They fell madly in love with each other, and when they were both 24 they married and he took to making the bed wet with her, but not before I was conceived. Or was that why I was conceived? Anyway, he was very good at making the bed a wet dream, but not with my mother. She divorced him when she discovered him practising his, 'get a wench pregnant' skills with another woman.
    But you wanted the short version...I'm sorry, I get carried away. Let's just say that step-daddy number one was a real 'good guy', until he revealed that he really was The Step-Father From Hell, as we soon discovered after grandfather (remember him?) died. For some reason, known only to the Psycho Step-Fathers' Guild, my step-father decided to beat my mother up every night after grandfather died. It was probably some kind of escape clause in his Step-Fathers' Guild contract, should he ever discover he was totally unsuited to marriage.
    After a couple of years of being beaten nightly, my mother became weary of his futile desire to prove himself a man, and divorced him. He then ran off with one of my godfathers; a detail I would not learn until I was in my late twenties. He was one of those guys who try to prove that he is something he isn't. No, I'm not making this up. Luckily, he didn't molest me. My cousin has to accept responsibility for that, when he taught me to play 'doctors' with him, but then I was so naïve at 9 years old, that I thought he just wanted me to examine his body as any good doctor would. Goodness knows what I was touching, as he never did take off his clothes, and later he married. I wonder if that lasted. No traumas for me from that encounter.
    I remember the trauma I did have, when I discovered my sexuality. It was a school boy thing. The school doctor, who looked like he could have been someone's father, tested my testicular travelling tendencies and I decided I wanted to improve my range. Once it became apparent that I was only interested in touring the same destinations with same minded teenage males, I knew that my family, such as it was, was not going to cope well with my self realisation of my sexuality. In a moment of insanity at age fifteen, I checked with the local Baptist Church as to what God said about homosexuality. The priest (who should have been a father figure) told me it was better to be homosexual than to molest little girls. What incense was he smoking? It turned out that he was later arrested for, you guessed it, molesting little girls. He obviously didn't take his own advice, but I felt freed from the restrictions of Scripture. Atheism was added to my repertoire and I cancelled my covenant with my childhood religious fantasies. Feel free to do the same. You have nothing to lose but your insanity. But I digress, again.
    Step-father number two was much more docile; he was in fact somewhat boring but loved my mother. He was a butcher, and at age fourteen, I told my mother that she married him for his meat. She told me, “Not really, dear,” and then we both burst out laughing. He was not a large man.
    In the meantime, my mother's sister (that makes her my aunt) was busy sorting out her 'husband number two'. I think the first one died when I was infant, and much later, when I was in my teens, so did number two. She had better luck with husband number three as she died before he did but then he was sixteen years younger than her. She didn't have any children, though I'm certain she managed to get her consorts to have wet dreams. Needless to say she hovered around her only nephew (me) like any good mother-figure would.
    In between all these comings and goings, my biological father, who had joined the merchant navy, visited me whenever his ship was in the local port. He was evidently successful in making beds wet whenever his ships berthed, and indeed found a number of women who were only too happy to give birth to his children. We still, to this day, have never found all my half-siblings and I only met one of my ex-step-mothers, who was really nice.
    Then mum died, and even though I was 21, my aunt and my grandmother decided I needed to be looked after. I escaped to Melbourne and found true love, for six months.
    All in all, I have to say I was lucky I was gay, or I might have been tempted to shoot myself had I thought life for me would hold only the possibility of heterosexual relationships like those paraded by my parental units. What was that about a man and a woman, a mother and a father, being the best environment for a child? Obviously, whoever claims that, never met my family. Did I mention they were all alcoholics? Setting all their faults aside, I did grow up feeling loved by my parents, all of them.
    Even though there was an additional male role model in my life, in the form of a mentor, I do not talk about him directly, though you may find his creative and loving influence in nearly all of my stories. I would have been a very different person without him.
    So, this mostly happened over fifty years ago, in a time when gay relations were a crime that could lead to a social disaster, with no chance of redemption. Somehow, I never felt tempted to contemplate suicide. I was always far too interested in discovering how things would turn out. Even the daily beatings and bullying I suffered during my school years, until my mid-teens, never made me question the worth of being alive. As I have said before, I was lucky. I was determined to live. As I approach my sixty-eighth birthday I can tell you now, with no uncertainty, that seventy years of life is not enough, despite all the trials and tribulations we encounter. Indeed, I am wondering if they are what makes life worth living, if we can just accept the beauty that surrounds us, giving us the opportunity to love each other.
    Will my partner and I marry? Will we have children? I can tell you we actively support equal human rights for marriage, but we might not enter into marriage ourselves. We never had children despite trying nearly every noon and night for these past forty years, but, like my dad, having made our bed wet, we dream in it.
  16. DesDownunder
    I found a site that I am worried about called When I Came Out.
    This site is a place inviting people to submit their story, in five sentences or less, which describes their coming out.
    Sounds good? Don't get excited. The site conditions state that they reserve the right to refuse posting a story. Okay that's fair enough.
    However they also state they will edit the story for length or grammar. It's only five sentences, how short do they want it to be?
    What really annoys me is that they claim that the stories will become their property. DAMN that, it's the story of MY coming out and if anyone is going to gain from its publication, it will be me, not them. So I am posting my five sentences in my blog, here at AwesomeDude:
    My Coming Out © 2012 by Desmond Rutherford
    When I came out, it 1960, I was 16, and the only people I came out to were my sexual partners. You see, homosexual acts were a criminal offence subject to the often imposed penalty of 2 years hard labour. We lived under threat of blackmail and discrimination in housing, and employment. I lived as two people, one for my sexuality, and one as whoever I needed to be in order to survive. Decriminalised here, in Adelaide in 1973, it still took us a lot of protesting until, in the 1980s, we were protected enough by anti-discrimination laws to come out publicly, and now there are people who (needlessly) fear, homosexuality will be made compulsory, as we head towards recognising freedom of sexual expression for everyone.
  17. DesDownunder
    For 50 years my working life has been involved with motion pictures...on film.
    It is therefore not without some sense of nostalgia that I saw the headlines about Kodak filing for bankruptcy.
    I knew when I came out of retirement late last year that the cinema I am working at would succumb to the deadline, in about 18 months, when all new movies will only be available for digital projection - no more movies on film. From what I can see all cinemas including large screen format theatres will be digital within a year or so.
    To my eye digital projection is at about the same stage as the Compact Disc was when it was first released; not as good as the analogue in some areas, but better in others and with more convenience. Undoubtedly, further development will render further improvements for digital projection in cinemas and for home.
    I was lucky, very lucky. My experience in the industry spanned the era from the early 1950's through to the present. Most notable were the large screen presenttions in Cinerama, CinemaScope, TODDAO, and the other 70mm large screen procesess including IMAX.
    From a performance art point of view there was nothing like seeing 1-2 thousand people sitting in a theatre waiting for that magic moment when the lights dimmed and the curtains parted to reveal a spectacle that would transport the audience to another world, time, space, or all three.
    Sadly most of the cinemas of today have no sense of showmanship, being forced to survive commercially by selling foul popcorn and ice cream at exorbitant prices. My current cinema is a real joy, as it has one of the largest Wurlitzer organs in the Southern hemisphere.
    It's great fun to watch the organ rise out of its concealed pit with the organist playing away for all he or she is worth, whilst I dim the lights to set the mood.
    Last Friday night, at midnight, we screened Rocky Horror Picture Show to 400 screaming fans. The manager, organist and I decided to do a presentation at the start with me playing Riff Raff. I really didn't need any makeup, but I decided to gild the Lily anyway.
    Here is an atmospheric photo of your trusty orang-utan made up to look like an aging Riff Raff. I think I look more like a zombie. And yes, that is my own hair, I didn't need the Riff Raff wig.

    During the screening, I wandered around the theatre and sat alongside members of the audience as they threw rice and toast etc., at each other. Some of the expressions on their faces were priceless. We had a great fun night and the evening raised a huge amount of money, so we are going to do it again on the next Friday 13th with some different antics.
    I should add that the theatre is a non-profit organisation run by volunteers of the Theatre Organ Society who owns the theatre, with the projectionist and manager being the only paid employees. Naturally I didn't charge them for my performance as Riff Raff. (I wasn't projectionist for the show that night.)
    I managed to tell the audience about one of our currently screening movies, The Iron Lady starring Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher who was just a jump to the Right.
  18. DesDownunder
    Like old people tend to do, I was recently aware of reminiscing about my early teenage years; in particular about my school days, and specifically, my high school nickname, 'De-link'.
    Now you might actually think you can work out how I was given this name, but I'm willing to bet you'd never get it right.
    As fate (and my poor study habits) would have it, I had to repeat my second of year high school. I was pissed, to say the least; another year of being bullied and tormented by both teachers and students. Here's what happened.
    I walked into the class room, late, because as a repeat student I had to be reassigned to a specific class and it took time for the school dictators to work out where I would go, or perhaps which teacher would put up with me. After all, who would want to deal with a snivelling, red-headed sports-hating boy who was only good for being ridiculed, bashed and intimidated?
    So I walked into my new classroom, and the teacher told me to choose a seat. I sat down at the nearest desk, which was right next to the older, bigger, hirsute boy who, unbeknownst to me, was regarded by every student in the class as the most terrifying yeti on the planet.
    I didn't know any better, so ever the polite nerd, I greeted him, "Hi, I'm Des."
    He looked at me with astonishment, through eyes that hid behind a tangled fringe of black hair that wanted to curl, and told me his name was Barrad. I later learned he was referred to as 'The Barbarian'.
    The teacher muttered something along the lines of, "Oh, that's just great, the outcasts sitting together."
    I immediately lost it. I'd had enough. I stood up, swallowed my rage, and calmly told the teacher that we were not outcasts unless he treated us like outcasts. If it had been 1975 instead of 1958, I feel certain someone in the class would have proclaimed, "The Force is strong in this one." The truth was, I'd had it with being a victim. Besides which, I was going through puberty and didn't need this 'outcast' crap to think about, along with trying to work out why some boys looked better to me than others.
    The teacher just looked at me with a severe expression on his face and told me, "Don't be impudent; I'll have no delinquents in this class."
    And for the next two years I was known as 'The Delinquent.' It was quickly shortened to 'Delinkie' and then to just, 'De-link'. I loved it. It was a term of respect and friendship. It changed my life. Looking back on it now, I wonder what would have happened if I had rejected the well meant intent of the friendly nickname. It's so difficult to sort out the slings and arrows of torment from the terms of teasing endearment.
    The Barbarian seemed to become quite upset, over time, as I think he felt he was 'the missing link', and 'De-link' should have been his nickname. Luckily, he had his own friends in another class so I didn't need to worry about him.
    Thus began the first time in my life in which I could relate to my class-mates without fear. It didn't hurt that I was nearly a year older than them. In hindsight, we had developed that link of trust so often missing amongst young teenagers, who are ever anxious about being hurt by each other.
    For the next two years I lived without fear of being bullied or intimidated. I had made four great friendships which continued into my early twenties, when they all found girls to marry, and when I went out of my way to get laid as often as possible...until I became happily entangled in the bonds of love for these past forty years. And no, those high school friends were not gay, but we admitted to loving each other as we shared growing up together; teasing each other, exchanging our discoveries and wondering anew about life. I know some will think we were lucky, and I guess we were, but so often, it seems to me, we need to jump that chasm between fear and trust, the unknown and the known, instinct and intelligence, or our sophistication of thought becomes a missing link forever.
    With that link to reality no longer missing, we have the means to recognise the real perils of our existence. We then can realise the rewards of sharing our lives in friendship and love, and we discover that living...well, it does get better...and I remember that even that teacher's attitude improved.
  19. DesDownunder

    Rewards of Despair

    By DesDownunder,

    Okay there are several threads where I might post this op-ed with some degree of being relevant and not off topic, but Ive decided that here might be as good as anywhere. Just be warned I'm in a philosophical mood. As always, feel free to comment.
    Rewards of Despair
    © 2011
    by Desmond Rutherford
    The circumstances of one's life are often overlooked as being a significant contributing factor for creative work, and yet adverse conditions might be used to dismiss the opportunity to create. Trying to write, compose, or even live, whilst constrained by one catastrophe after another is, obviously, challenging. The uncertainty of not knowing if the bed you got out of this morning will still be yours tonight is not something that provides the most stable environment conducive to creativity. It seems that we can recognise the emptiness of our own personal apocalypse, simply through our life's circumstances.
    Sometimes it seems that no matter what we do, life goes from bad to worse, to virtually impossible. Anxiety, fear, and terror may be the consequence of real dangers or they may be anticipations, the sequels of irrational conjecture, but the effect is the same. Sadly, they give rise to anxiety that we know will lead too many people into seeking a solution that is tragic for all of us. But there is also a less desolate aspect to threatening situations, that can permit us to learn from the experience, even though it nearly incapacitates us. Suffering does give us an insight into the human condition, with all its foibles and its hopes. And it does take courage and bravery to live through anxieties, and we are brave and courageous if we dare to look horror in the eye and scream, "I want to live," as loudly as we can. Just screaming that you aren't going to take it anymore, is not enough; you must demand to live. I know it can seem impossible...I've felt despair too. I've seen the horrors in the faces of others, reflected in and lurking behind their eyes, in the dungeons of their minds. And I am humbled when I have little, and they have nothing...but their determination to go on living.
    Despair can lead to depression, and depression is restrictive, immobilising to paralysis, and yet courage can be born of desperation, inspiring us to find its truth, reality, depth and recognise that horror does not last forever, even though we may be affected for the rest of our lives, from having experienced the despair and depression. If we have ever asked why life is so full of such experiences, then we are on the brink of realising that life is those experiences, and it is our place to observe them, embrace them, use them, and make an art form of them, one that is as unique as we are; each of us.
    To live through horror, persecution and deprivation is not unknown to many peoples; indeed, LGBTQ people seem to be rather adept at learning how to survive in a hostile world. And it's not merely a matter of what we survive making us stronger, it's a matter of daring to live and love in the face of adversity; daring to shout, “Yes!” to life and living it. And then, with that innate human desire to express ourselves artistically, we feel impelled to take our discoveries, our thoughts and stories, and scratch them into the face of the Earth, so others may see them, share them, feel comforted, informed, inspired, entertained, or just so someone else knows that wonder exists, and that we can tell each other about it.
    Compassion comes in many guises, but it must be true at its core, real truth without superstitions, and the truth of reality is not always easy to handle, but is its own reward, because it demands we live life fully, in the here and now, searching for the only sane and satisfactory reason for existence...Love.
    "The job of the artist is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.” - Gertrude Stein from the 2011 movie, Midnight in Paris.
  20. DesDownunder
    My dysfunctional family would have been difficult to come out to. They all died before the modern era of liberation, but the real problem would have been, when to tell them. Let's say I chose a celebration like Christmas dinner. (We don't have thanksgiving here in Australia, but we have 'turkeys' in every family)
    Anyway getting back to when to tell my family. First I would have to wait until I could get them altogether. Dad would have had to be in town which wasn't all that often, so step-father would have to substitute, if he could stop looking at himself in the mirror.
    Grandmother, mother and her sister with her second husband would all have to be in the same room which would be in the kitchen, pouring the Christmas wine.
    The big decision would be whether to tell them before they got drunk, during the meal, or before they passed out after the meal which they didn't eat because they were too busy drinking, shouting and swearing.
    At least I wouldn't have to wait until someone said grace. Maybe I could have done it after they all wished each other, "Merry Christmas."
    I'm sure they would have accepted me until they sobered up the next day. It probably wouldn't have mattered, they would never have remembered I told them.
  21. DesDownunder
    Where have I been?
    Friends, despite rumours to the contrary, I haven't been ill, dead, or ignoring you all.
    Our video store has been in decline for several months and that has left us with many troubles which have demanded most of my time.
    We finally closed the store at the end of February. Renting DVDs has become too difficult in a small town like ours, especially when you consider that 70% of discs are returned with scratches, dried pizza and greasy etchings from fingers. I suspect some people have used the shiny silver platters to serve the Hors d'?uvres. So we have stopped renting DVDs and decided to go online to only sell DVDs. Our website should be up and running shortly.
    The local cinema (run by friends of ours) has also given us an area where we sell new and ex-rental stock. That has been doing quite well too.
    At present we are trying to keep our heads above financial poverty with other projects, and hopefully we will realise some rewards which will permit some free time to write some stories again. I managed to sell my old car for more than it was worth, and got $180 for it. we eat this week.
    Of course I would like to blame our dire state of affairs on the right wing politicians, but it seems the left is almost equally to blame. Thankfully we didn't vote for either of them. We voted for the Australian sex Party. And no, I am not joking, they actually exist. LOL
    So just as soon as I get some free moments I will attempt to write a story or three, but it may take a little longer before I am able to do so.
    Cheers.

  22. DesDownunder

    Why Dildo?

    By DesDownunder,

    Timmy at, 'A Place Of Safety' recently posted this ad for making a dildo of yourself, and then asked why?
    So I replied thus:
    I can think of four reasons, Timmy.
    1. It allows the individual to experience what others experience when he is topping them.
    2. It would make a nice conversation piece on the coffee table. At least it would alert the overnight guest as to what he is in for, as well as letting your visiting parents know how much you have matured.
    3. As a parting gift to one's ex boyfriend. (Also as a bequeathed item in one's last will and testament. If copies are made, everyone could have one, and they could be 'handled' around at the funeral service.)
    4. Because most people like to oblige others, the newly made dildo from your own member will assist you to fulfil the direction sometimes made by others to, "Go F**k yourself."
    I am also interested in testing a pet theory of mine that the individual's rectum is probably the inverse shape of one's own penis. If this is true then the dildo should be a very snug and satisfying fit.
    Of course it might be better to find one's body twin, er...sorry I mean, soul mate.
    No doubt y'all will have some alternative reasons.
  23. DesDownunder
    Should I use my blog to tell you of something I am proud?
    (inner Voice:) No, no, that would seem like bragging.
    (other inner voice:) Do it, do it, yes tell everyone what you did.
    Perhaps it would be wrong of me, but damn it, it's my blog and I'll brag if I want to.
    (inner voice:) don't say 'brag.'
    What should I say then?
    (other inner voice:) tell them you want to ....pst, pst whisper whisper
    Okay so I want to share the following little story with you all.
    In effort to be in the face of all who need me to be out and in their faces, I recently made a post on YouTube in the comments section of a posting of Rachmaninoff's 2nd piano concerto. Here is the finale.

    I have chosen a different version (from the one I commented on,) for this post, but the experience is the same except for the pianist's hair. Following are the comments between myself and two people who replied. All was well until I wanted to let people know I was gay in an open YouTube comment section.
    Should I have done that? Well I consulted the inner voices and they actually agreed I should do it, so I did.
    Here are the comments:


    Desdownunda:
    I was 16 when I first heard this concerto. I still love it today at 66. It is one of those pieces of music that makes you realise that life without music would be intolerable, that death is suspended whenever it is played. How can such beauty be so fleeting? Just like life itself.
    As long as someone plays it, and someone hears it, adores it, then our love, lives forever.
    missiheartballet:
    @Desdownunda - beautifully said.
    MrAkihiros:
    @Desdownunda That's beautifully said. Are you by any chance a poet? Your prose sings, just like rachmaninoff.
    Desdownunda:
    @MrAkihiros Thanks, I am flattered by your words. I am gay, so yes, I write poetry. My poetry and short stories are at CodeysWorld, please Google for it.
    Look for DesDownunder's stories under Authors. So far I have not received any further comments. Maybe the shock that they wrote to a gay man was too much for them.
    I'll keep y'all advised.
    (inner voice:) should I ring 911?
    (other inner voice:) no, call a defence lawyer.
  24. DesDownunder

    Time and Sex

    By DesDownunder,

    How long does it take to achieve orgasm? This was discussed at Joe My God, and I thought I should share my answer with you here in my blog.
    Under 25: From slack to spit in 60 seconds.
    After 40: Use it or lose it. Make sure you have at least 3 orgasms a week. (with or without a partner.) If you do this then you should be able to have an orgasm once or twice a week after 60. Chinese herbs can assist the elderly and are safer than Viagra in my opinion. (You don't need them when you are younger.)
    However at any age, 17 -30 minutes for the entire act (including foreplay) was considered the norm around 1970. Of course that doesn't include emergency sex in tea rooms, cottages, or a quick flip in the park, where the act was finished much faster than the investigation of making sure the other person actually wanted to attempt a world record for having a climax.
    Much of the myth of the male orgasm being only possible once or twice a day is related to puritan attitudes and the imposition of guilt about pleasure.
    Why religions are obsessed with restricting sex is an obscenity in itself and is a crime against individual freedom.
    After orgasm number one, anal penetration can provide the stimulation for orgasm number 2, in less than a minute or two. Of course it is more fun to wait and engage in more fore-play, or if you want to be more accurate, "in-between-play." The important thing is to listen to your body if it wants to rest then wait, but don't fall for the restrictions placed on us that once, is all that is possible. There is nothing "sinful" about having an orgasm or three, (or more.) Even so, you don't need to do it just because you can, unless you want to. Sometimes saving it is pleasurable too.
    Of course people differ, both in capacity as well as volume, but the greatest aphrodisiac is "wanting it."
    As for time, well, timing a simultaneous orgasm is more exciting and fulfilling than measuring the time it all takes with a stop-watch.
    A straight friend who bemoaned the fact the he and his wife never wanted sex at the same time, once had a moment of enlightenment when he commented, "Oh wow, I get it, two men do it when they both want it, and that is all the time."
    How long it takes varies from day to day, partner to partner, place to place and of course the urgency of the moment...and then there is the romance of it all to consider, which can use time to achieve new levels of extended, heightened experience, but that is called being in love and knows no boundaries but being with the one you love, and that is when time no longer exists as we play among the stars with each other.
  25. DesDownunder
    Creation: a movie review by DesDownunder
    Creation, directed by Jon Amiel and starring Paul Bettany as Charles Darwin, with cinematography by Jesse Hall, is an outstanding movie made with great attention to detail, both in the personal life of Darwin and his family, as well as insight into the times in which they lived.
    The past limitations of writing, medicine and belief, the remains of which are for some of us, barely a lifetime ago, are carefully, brutally but honestly, and sensitively visited in a way that allows us to see the potential renaissance of our own existence, and be thankful we no longer need to use quill pens and ink, or take cold showers.
    Truly, one cannot help but feel the struggle of liberation for human awareness from previous captivities, for liberation also evolves, and does so in each of us if we will but allow it to occur.
    The film does not shy away from the nature of its own premise, or the impact that Darwin's work will have on the faith systems of his time (and thus ours,) but it does so in observation rather than be argumentative . The torment is in Darwin's mind and as such we can perhaps see it more clearly because we have had the benefit of Freud's work. (I cannot guess what the reception for this film is like in cultures restricted to doctrinal education, or where text books are censored.)
    The movie is a vision in itself, complete with human relationships, and also an objectivity befitting the subject and a cinematography of great beauty, both of which are, in effect a homage to Stanley Kubrick, at least it is for me, and as such, is its own interwoven revelation of grandeur and wonder of life.
    Anti-Darwinists, and those who oppose evolution, may not find their view being expounded in Creation, but they are surely in need of being encouraged to see it, if only to discover the sheer beauty to be found in this intelligent Creation.

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