Shouts From Down Under

Trapped in your own invention, your characters are so...real

So used, so normal looking; it has to be real.

I feel sure that stuff I write in these blog entries isn't big news to anybody. Mostly, I just like to write it as a daily cleaning exercise of my head, and other people's opinions help me to keep my feet firmly on the ground. I'm just a regular bloke.

Situations can appear to be nonsense but be totally kosher. On the backside of this scenario; the appearance of nothing, or nothing wrong, a display of normalcy can also be the biggest scam.

We can also be paranoid, on drugs, influenced by an external mental gravity, mentally away from home (having left the lights activated), or we could just be deliberately obtuse. (adjective 1. not quick or alert in perception, feeling, or intellect; not sensitive or observant; dull. 2. not sharp, acute, or pointed; blunt in form. 3.(of a leaf, petal, etc.) rounded at the extremity. 4.
indistinctly felt or perceived, as pain or sound.

Pictured below is something that is now missing from vehicles in Australia, at least until a possible review of this by politicians and lawmaking officials. The sticker is a registration label, with pertinent details of the vehicle, and a date, so that a quick glance suffices to confirm your car is road legal.
These aren't issued anymore. No one has any way of telling, except for the registration papers, that the car is registered or when it runs out. These papers should be in the glove box (compartment) but sometimes this isn't possible. Sometimes the car belongs to someone else, and the driver is obliged to use it for whatever reason. Sometimes the owners are estranged, and their bills may not be paid, or if paid, the communication may be delayed.

Sometimes, police are just doing their job.



It's now a nothingness that nevertheless hides a situation. You could even call it a scam, if you were all anti law, anti police etc. I'm not sure I'd go that far, although sometimes speed cameras and radar jockeys do seem to be targeting revenue, rather than safety, but perhaps I'm being a rebel for even thinking that.

This next picture (below) looks sort of right. It seems ok at a glance. If it was blue-tacced to a wall in your workplace, particularly in a hazardous environment of an industrial area, no one would think twice about the content, or the fact that it's bogus. It's a scam. It's well crafted, humorous, perhaps somewhat accurate , but nevertheless, it's a lie.



Then, this next article relates to something that divides public opinion, probably has doctors shouting at each other, causes disagreements between many people, families, individuals.

We've argued about this in our own home; I've held to opinionated disagreement against our own daughter. She's pro, I'm sort of pro but not compulsorily so, and a little bit doubtful, and yes, paranoid even.

Everyone wants what's best for their children, and for their fellow human. Ok, most people, surely, want everyone to be well. Seems like the issue involves everyone, even if it only applies to one sector of the community - females - young girls, of the future.

And yet, apparently it has been exposed as a monumental cock-up, a scam of international breadth.

http://www.thedailysheeple.com/lead-developer-of-hpv-vaccines-comes-clean-warns-...

I've long been a sceptic of the sceptics, doubting the shrill cries of the alternative medicine, and their anti traditional $$$$ Doctors and medical association practice, government backed, money granted, paid research, advertising $$$$ funded, approach to people's wellness.
I've experienced both sides of this debacle. Bottles of pills from the Doc. Massage, Bowen, Chiropractic, Reiki, Acupuncture, herbs, and other natural therapies.
I really don't like it when bulk human population is told to do stuff, "trust us, we know best, it's for your own good" etc by those in power who apparently are god like, and are infallible, and could do no wrong, and have the power to silence any insurrection.

When it comes to writing, I've wondered for a long time, how far is far enough, when it comes to creating our novels; basically well crafted scams.

One of our sons once said, about my obsession with realistic and accurate research, that he felt a story can be too real, and "who wants to read a book that's as bad as life?".

I had to agree. Not everyone wants to read a book and see their own sad life brought to life on the pages.
We want to escape.

However, our writing has to ring with authority, surely? We want to have accurate facts. We like to project being "in the know".

I remember reading Ludlum's Bourne series when they were first published, and other books like these, for example, Eagle in the Sky, that are big on informed realism, you-had-to-be-there style information, crib room gossip, CEO and MD level decision making, Top secret

Sometimes, not much has to be said, or inferred, for this atmosphere to come across as real.

http://www.sbs.com.au/movies/video/11847747734/Largo-Winch

I suppose everyone except me has heard of Punk'd?

http://www.mtv.com/shows/punkd/series.jhtml

Scams in bulk, with only a pale imitation of scenarios, actors, backstory glimpses, and yet people are convinced it's real.

Thanks to lizco252 for reminding me of today's EEG scan that I had, and even though it's once again, all about ME!, I feel you should know this too much info segment.



I wrote a scene / chapter, in The Influence Gene, that my experience mirrored, right down to the Doktor's assistant, and my awkward, terrified behaviour.

Ok, it wasn't that bad, but you can picture the scene, very stereotypical, very Frankenstein, very...

I had difficulty finding the ward, in a hospital undergoing major renovations and extensions. It's Saturday morning and "I'd vewy much be appreciate eef you vood comink ez early ez possibil".
So, there were no staff anywhere in reception and the hallways, and corridors were empty. It's a big hospital. I walked here, I walked there and finally, with only a minute to spare, asked this one, asked that one, was directed here, directed there, I'm talking to the furthermost points of the buildings plan.

She'd said there would be signs, but these were tiny, and blended with all the rest in the unfamiliar place.

I found myself at a dead end, with one way leading to a well known clinic for the mentally ill. It was locked and the reception darkened. The other door I tried, finding it too was locked, but a couple of ladies walked out the door past me, and firmly shut it, frowning at me, and they seemed to be thinking, definitely a seedy male of that age. It was a children's clinic. again.

Finally, a weekend cleaner / janitor directed me down a hallway to a nurses station, crowded with people all too busy to notice me, so I walked past, found some wards that looked promising, but of course, that would be too easy.

HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!! WHO? NEVER HEARD OF HER!

To my relief, another nurse had, and I was quickly (firmly) escorted into a ward: "she's been WAITING for you! Lucky you aren't TOO late!"

The scan of my head's contents, for possible epilepsy seizures (seems that most people have these pretty much undetectable absence seizures, so don't feel left out)



You can imagine the scene. Darkened room. Backlit "Azziztent" behind a screen, with beady eyed camera pointed at me, electrodes all over my head, white paste under each pad, one on my heart, bright flashing light in front of my eyes, and the curtains unceremoniously shut so that I could no longer see the lovely greenlife scenery outside.

I was locked in, and was to "keep still, close eyes, get comfortable but don't go to sleep". This went on for a few minute intervals, and then I had to breath rapidly for what seemed like an eternity, until my arms and fingers were numb.

It was a relief when I was given a break to stretch etc before the next onslaught, so I decided, (in the darkness) to lean back on the reclining lounge, only an inch or so behind my head. But the lounge back fell backwards, and so did I, dragging the wires and junction box off the table, crashing onto the floor.
The assistant cried out in anger, and turned on the lights, roused on me, "what did you do that for?" and "only children do zat!" but she laughed then.

I grinned as I left the clinic. How did I become a character in a scene I'd written in a novel? How is this pozzibil? I askink yous?

Sparky