Enlightening Nonsense

Besides Crocodile Dundee, Australia is a place that has produced nothing but a bunch of deadly snakes, spiders and horny kangaroos. But recently they decided to produce something else: a gimmicky “The Best Job In The World” contest, where the winner will be flown to Australia, housed for six months with no real work requirements except exploring the Barrier Reef area and minor promotional work, such as a weekly written and video blog—and he will be given $100,000 to boot. With that kind of loot one could easily avoid the cheap, slutty kangaroos and solely keep company with the classy ones!

I first heard about this contest when I logged into my Yahoo Mail and was surprised that their usual news headline of “See What People Thought Of Angelina Jolie’s Academy Awards Dress” or “Basketball Player Urinates In The Shower” was replaced with “The Best Job In The World.” It explained how the applicant would have to make a one-minute video showing why he is the best candidate for the job.

I’m sure, like when I watch clips on YouTube of some talentless idiot crying after Simon on “American Idol” tells them they suck and to go around the back and kill themselves, there are many who upon seeing the contest deluded themselves into thinking, “I’m perfect for the job!” I was one of those hallucinatory people, only I was three days clean from sniffing paint thinner and drinking rubbing alcohol at the time of my outburst.

They said they were looking for someone who was an adventurer, risk-taker, had a good personality, could speak in front of crowds without wetting themselves and was a good writer for the blog to help promote travel to the Barrier Reef. I was just such a whore. They also wanted someone with a little knowledge of the Barrier Reef and while before reading about this contest I wouldn’t have been able to tell you that it was even Australia, I’m a quick study. Just ask the guys at the porn shop and they’ll tell you that when I first came in I couldn’t tell a dildo from a diaphragm but now I can tell you which male model stuck his willy in wax in order to form the mold for each rubber dong and which rubber vaginas feel just like the real deal and which feel like your fucking a piece of crumpled up sandpaper. And the work is so enjoyable I don’t even want an Socialist Obama hand-out to assist me with my daily purchases of useless crap that I was hypnotized to buy from the brainwashing campaigns by companies that have me going to my doctor asking for a purple pill that I have no idea what it does but after watching the commercial I just knew I had to have.

As far as being an adventurer…I have run through woods to escape cops in Germany. I have had thousands of people see me naked, not from my career in porn but as I toured Europe with the hippie musical “Hair” which contains “the nude scene” (truthfully, my porn career only hit a niche market that was into German scheisser porn.) I have approached wild horses in Hawaii, unsure if they were going to attack or neigh and I have approached a group of homeless who live under a bridge in Frankfurt, unsure if they were going to welcome or sodomize. I’ve jumped off a twenty foot ledge with snowshoes on my feet in Colorado and I’ve jumped onto a spire in Moab, Utah that if I misjudged would have plunged me for thousands of feet and instead of typing this piece with my fingers, I would be sucking on a breathing straw like horse-kryptonited Christopher Reeves and talking through a monotone computer simulator like that brainy freak Stephen Hawking—that is if the world of Wile E. Coyote existed where you can fall off a cliff and still come back the next day and order from the Acme Company without any source of money. Then again, if we live in a world where the laws of physics don’t apply to the World Trade Centers that fell at freefall speed into their own footprints on 9/11…perhaps I would be poking the keyboard with a chopstick dangling from my mouth.

Now I’m not as crazy as the Crocodile Hunter, Aussie Steve Irwin, who each show would turn to us and in a loud stage whisper say, “This is the most deadly snake in the world! One bite and you will be instantly paralyzed like that brainy freak, Stephen Hawking. I am going to attempt to step on his tail and beat his head with this stick.” Somehow that crazy bastard would manage to beat the poisonous snake and then afterwards, from a safe distance, speak to us, always out of breath. “That was a close call. He seemed pretty pissed off!” Poor Steve, a stingray spike to the heart and he was not the only one to have his heart get destroyed, all of us fans suffered a broken heart as well, as Steve was put permanently out of commission—as in dead—and now there was no one to give those deadly snakes a much needed crack to the head.

My psychosis is more about being fascinated by people and situations and being willing to explore just about anything, even the occasional sodomy by the homeless, for a good adventure and story. There is no rock I won’t crawl under for a good–or bad–joke and there is no person or situation that I am not willing to spend some time exploring for understanding…or a good tale.

I saw a bunch of video submissions for the contest and many were really lame, such as the one from the older woman whose shaky-handed arthritic husband was holding the camera on her as she held up different stuffed octopuses, ending with one found only in the Great Barrier Reef. While I was able to muster up seven ejaculations from her video, it was really not quality enough to make it into double-digits.

There were some that were pretty good, with good production value. Mermaid Girl, an avid swimmer and into water sports, included a video of her doing loop-de-loops underwater. After seeing her blow some air rings underwater I considered her blowing me for a minute but then thought it would probably be like the last time I had sex in the fish market where I left smelling like a dirty ‘ho’ from Times Square and spent the next several days picking fish scales out of my ass. The only water sports I would consider participating in with her would be peeing on her tail while hitting her in the head with a stick.

But even most of the better videos lacked something that I have: retardation. And let’s face it, we all love a retard. I mean, when Rain Man stopped in the middle of the street because the “Walk” sign changed to a blinking “Don’t Walk”—who among us didn’t soil ourselves with laughter? While one entree was a guy whose job was even directly INVOLVED with promotion of tourism, the whole point of the contest was to generate a frenzy of attention. But once you have the attention, then what are you going to do with it? That’s where a retard like me comes in.

How many people are going to tune in each week to watch Joe The Boring Tour Promoter give his “greatly structured,” by the book, tourism promotion? “The water here is crystal clear and the sand is like powder.” ZZZZZZzzzzz. What would keep the buzz alive would be if you had someone like me blogging each week with, “The water here is crystal clear, so when you have to pee be mindful that everyone will know it was you,” and “The sand is like powder so when burying your garbage, make sure you dig your hole at least six inches deep to be respectful of the other beach dwellers.” These kind of silly antics would keep people tuning in, just like people did with Mike Tyson long after his boxing skills were replaced by ear-biting ones, for they wouldn’t know what would be coming next. With Joe The Boring you know—pretty waters, nice sand, some wildlife—you’ll be begging for him to smack a poisonous snake on the head with a stick, praying that the snake “Irving’s” him and thus puts us all out of our misery.

But I think it would also be my unique outlook on life, my philosophy, my willingness to not just explore the reefs of Australia but the people and a deeper understanding of Truth as well that would endear me the masses. Who knows, I might have even toned down my “scatological humor” as my mother calls it—the very woman who gives me a birthday card this year with a dog farting and wonders why I’m obsessed with humor involving things going into or coming out of an ass.

“So why, pray tell Swami X, did you not enter the contest?” Oh, I’ll pray tell. But first a little background. Let me first discuss my production team. My friend “Elks” is one of the top editors in the film and T.V. biz. He’s so top that now when I call him an editor, he uses some other name to describe what he does and with his nose in the air says something like, “Editor is like so 90s.” I bumped by some of my initial ideas to him and he assured me he was too busy to help shoot or edit my video but could act like a consultant, although he was going away on vacation so his counsel would be limited. He came back with some decent thoughts on how to tweak what I offered. Later when I sent him a shot-list, he told me it looked good and suggested I get moving on what I could do on my own, knowing a project of this undertaking would be quite time consuming. What he didn’t take into consideration that I am not a snobby, nose-lifted “creative compiler” or whatever the fuck he calls it now. I’m a retard. One take and it’s in the can! [Clarification for my mother: I am not referring to shoving the video up someone’s “can” here, although I’m not altogether against the idea.]

“Nussy” is someone that if I believed in the fake diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder I would believe he had it and could easily be the poster boy for the drug companies. “Nussy was a total space cadet before Ritalin and now he can sit in one place and respond to every third question you ask him and doesn’t even seem to mind his inability to get an erection.” He is also a comedic genius as well as one of my oldest friends. I still look back fondly to 5th grade when our teacher left the classroom and I was chasing “Nussy” down the hallway with a round cushion trying to return his, “Do you like pie?” smash to my face—as we ran by our teacher! Because of his ADD-like ways and the fact that he is riding on trust fund money from his $10 million dollar a year earning father, he tends to lack motivation to pursue anything other than sending emails with YouTube clips of The Predator vs. Alien that he found while taking a break from Japanese puke porn at three in the morning.

Because the arthritic old husband of the octopus woman was not available, I recruited “Nussy” for my project. The day “Nussy” was going to come to the city for our first shoot, my videocamera’s battery died out and the charger didn’t work.  So “Nussy” brought his still camera that shot pretty good video as well.

Our first shoot was at Times Square, where despite sub-arctic winter temperatures, I took off my shirt and wore a leopard-patterned cloth around my waist and spewed off facts about the Great Barrier Reef that we just looked up on Wikipedia using his Crack-i-Phone. I thought I might be nervous but once we got rolling it was fun and even gave a few Japanese tourists something to watch and photograph now that “Oh Calcutta” has closed down.

Our next location was Central Park. I wanted to do some stuff with me playing with my dog, you know, to get the ladies out there whining, “Oh, he’s so sensitive!” I figured if I didn’t get chosen to pee in the clear waters of Australia, at least I could get laid out of all this. Truthfully, she is the most important thing in my life, despite the fact that I just got her to get laid and all I’ve gotten out of her is a higher food bill and chewed up plug-in adapters.

We pretty much got what we needed. As we walked past an area where there is a music system blasting and rollerskaters and others gather and dance, I said, “Nussy, just film me dancing here for a bit.”  I started dancing and within two seconds a rollerskater rolled up, grabbed my hands and we were dancing and whirling the night fantastic. Reviewing the dailies (okay, I got a little movie-term crazy there) it looked totally planned, but it wasn’t. I did write this entree into my journal: Note to self: take some dance classes or never dance in public again. My Elaine Bennis dancing [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xi4O1yi6b0], as well as the fact that the video submission could only be one-minute long, resulted in this bit hitting the cutting room floor (I’m film lingo-ing again!)

We were done for the day. Walking back home, my dog started doing her Whirling Dervish, I-gotta-take-a-shit dance and Pete filmed that. I thought I could find a spot for this in my video, if for no other reason than to embarrass my Mom as I revealed to millions that she was, indeed, the mother of a scatological liar. “Nussy” and I went to dinner and discussed our hour’s work, probably the hardest both of us have worked in years.

I wanted to capture me teaching some yoga and my philosophy that if you keep yoga in the classroom it is pointless crap. I was going to see if I could get five minutes in a yoga studio where I’ve held some workshops and discussions and if I could get about three people to be my 5-minute students. Realizing the need to simplify, I said, “Nussy, change of plans—just me doing some yoga outside, how about Wall Street.” I started seeing that my video was having a “New York” feel and wanted to go with it. We were guerilla filmmakers and didn’t have the time (or resources) for little girlie “studios” and “extras.” 

So we drove downtown to the Financial District, me dressed in my maroon robes, mala beads, hair tied on top of my head in a samurai knot that would make any self-respecting samurai commit hara-kiri in disgrace, and boots. “Nussy” was dressed in a Little Bo Peep outfit for no particular reason. “Nussy” had the idea to film by the “Charging Bull,” this metal bull down there and so, after typing in for location and then using the GPS on his Crack-i-Phone, we found ourselves face to face with the biggest pile of bull I had seen since the owner of the last yoga studio I worked for fired me by email and wouldn’t pay me money she owed me, despite BOTH her and I having documentation that I wasn’t paid for certain days I worked.

The bull was a bit of a tourist attraction, so we had to work in me doing a little yoga posing between people standing and having their significant other take a photo of them and smiling as if they would ever really look at that lame picture more than once in their entire lives ever again. We went around to the back of the bull where I sat in fake meditation under the bulls ass and huge nut-sack. This was pretty funny. I even did a take where with my eyes closed I started to sniff, as if being distracted by a bad odor. I opened my eyes, looked above me and saw the bull’s ass and was like, “AAAH!” and bolted. It was pretty funny, despite the obvious logical fallacy of how I got to be sitting under a bull’s ass without knowing it in the first place. We had a wrap party (more film lingo, I’m hooked!) in Chinatown and now it was time for me to edit what we had.

Originally, “Elks” told me that while his high-profile ass was too busy to help me edit my film, perhaps he could find an associate to donate his time in exchange for a handjob. I have whored myself all around the world and one more jerk-off wasn’t going to hurt my non-existent chances of getting into made-up Heaven. But I knew the likelihood of “Elks” taking the time out of his busy vacationing schedule to contact an editing associate and connect him with me were about as big as the chance that Jaoquin Phoenix’s rap career will be anything more than a sad joke. I believed I had more chance of being the one out of 50,000 people to be chosen for this fantasy job than that occurring and so I did what any self-respecting guerilla filmmaker would do—-I went to my Mac and iMovie.

I played around with it and learned iMovie in a night, adding voice-over, music and fancy-dancy cuts and fades. And it came out pretty good for my first time, kind of like a guy lasting for over 10-seconds during his first sexual experience. In case you’re wondering, three. And then the nightmare began.

I tried to submit it to the contest’s webpage and got a message saying, “30,000 submissions received. Applications closed.” What the fu–? This was totally not in the rules and as far as I was concerned was total bullshit, more so than the 6’1” heap in the form of a swami that was sitting under the metal bull that very day.

Now they had submissions from all over the world and probably didn’t do the preparatory work to enable their website to handle all the bandwidth that was going to be devoured like a donut in Homer Simpson’s hand. While incompetent, that is not illegal. But randomly making a closing number of admissions is a violation and perhaps lawsuitable if someone had no life and wanted to pursue it (“I’m perfect for the job!”) The webpage also had a listing of number of days left in the upper-right hand corner which said, “00″, despite the deadline being two days away, which wasn’t too friggin’ encouraging either.

I called “Nussy” in a panic and he said, “I’m a little busy. You caught me in the middle of watching a Predator rap on YouTube here,” but he gave me the advice to try a different browser. I closed down Safari and went to Firefox and the upper-right hand corner said “Number of Days Remaining: 02.” This was a good sign!

Long story just three seconds shorter, I couldn’t get it to work. On the last day of submissions, “Nussy” gave me advice on how to change the video name from “mv4” to “mp4” and FINALLY it seemed like maybe the wheels were in motion, as I was getting a little spinning circle attached to my pointer on their website, which seemed to be that maybe it was processing. This went on for hours and I started to lose faith.

I called up my friend, “Shitbe,” whose very much the business, get-er-done type of guy and he was pissed, not because I had called him and interrupted his once-a-month marriage sex but because I had sent him the video I put together and he told me he definitely thought I’d make it to the finals. He ended up calling Australia and talking to someone from corporate office there. She was pretty cold to him and was like, “It’s due today. Your friend has 45-minutes left.” “Yeah, but he can’t seem to get the submission in.” “Not our problem. He shouldn’t have waited until the last day.” “Is there any way—“ “No.” “What if…” “No.” “Is there anything—“ “No. He now has 42-minutes left.”

This makes me think of a situation where a teacher tells the class, “Your papers are due on March 1st,” and then when I hand in my paper on February 28th she gives me a fuckin’ attitude about how “Everyone else turned their papers in two weeks ago.” “Bitch, did I turn it in before the deadline?” “Yes, I’m just saying–” “How ’bout instead you try shutting the fuck up for a change?”

We put in a good fight but there’s a time, like an aging boxer, when it’s time to hang up the gloves and see if you can whore yourself doing some type of product endorsements. “Remember me? I have been beaten in the head more times than that poisonous snake on The Crocodile Hunter.”

I opened a YouTube account and posted it there under “YogaTerrorist.” You can search “Swami X,” which will come up with my video and two videos from an old yoga hippie (I’m a youngish yoga hippie!) or you lazy bastards can hit this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYe3eXKtFOk

As my Fantasy Island scenario grew in my head, it contained me being on Oprah and her asking me, “So, are you bringing anyone with you?” and me responding, “Oprah, I was actually going to ask you if you were free but was afraid you might be in one of your feeding frenzy stages and would eat me out of house and home. So I was going to have a contest to see who wants to come with me. Any hot vegan girls that put out can email me with pictures and why I should bring you with me.” I would start my own friggin’ contest–much better than their gay one, and maybe find a girlfriend in the process . Lucky for me “I have a big head,” as I have been told and it was more than adequate to house all my fantasies, including the one about the French maid and the rubber ducky.

I even thought about how I was going to handle my “swan song” from Australia. I was going to offer my millions of loyal followers $10,000 of the money they paid me just to sit around and beat deadly snakes with sticks to anyone who can show the law that requires the average Citizen to pay an Income Tax. Sometimes I just want to fade into the shadows but at other times I’d like to use celebrity to take a big shit on the New World Order Scum. I would consider upping the prize to the full $100,000, as there is no law that requires the average Citizen to pay an Income Tax, but since I would have already spent most of it on bedding hot kangas, I thought this unethical.

I learned a lot in the process and, really, that is all I can ask from the Universe, besides the occasional pretty kangaroo to “pouch up” with. I learned how to use iMovie for starters, which may be the start of a long and fruitful mindless movie career. I opened an account on YouTube where I posted the video I made, which may be the start of a long and fruitful posting place where I can receive such intelligent and helpful comments from the community, such as “Fag!” I also was reminded of the love and support my close friends offered me in my times of need. Damn, “Shitbe” even called Australia! When so often I have people not get back to me on something time-sensitive because they got lost in reading about the latest Brittney Spears head-shaving, or countless people who give me their word that they’ll be in attendance at one of my workshops or discussions and then no-show, these guys really came through and gave whatever support they could. Maybe that’s the love and support that comes with knowing someone for over three decades, although I still think my sister’s a bitch.

I think the biggest thing I learned is that besides Crocodile Dundee and the Crocodile Hunter, everything about Australia is worthless and not worth visiting or talking about. I would even consider offering an anti-promotion for Australia: that anyone who makes it a point to NOT go to or read anything about Australia, I will give $1000 on their deathbed (in a check that only they can cash) if I didn’t have a budding guerilla film career ahead of me.

Seriously, the biggest thing I learned is that while we all can fall prey to the fantasy of “winning the lottery” or being chosen from the crowd of extras to be the co-star of the latest Robert DeNiro film, the only real way for us to be successful—and by “successful” I don’t mean “making money” or “in others eyes”—is to live authentically each day and for us to CREATE and PURSUE our own dreams and not wait for fantasies to carry us along. Because when you’re done wacking-off to the 1957 Playboy Magazine, you’re still not Casanova, you’re only a dirty little pervert taking a break from watching Predator videos on YouTube.

 

REFLECTION:

What are your dreams? What is it you need to do to pursue your dreams? As my friend “Crazy John” said one hike when we were discussing all of my brilliant ideas that never come to fruition because of my lack of follow-through, “If you’re not pursuing your ideas, it means you don’t believe in them.” Let’s take a slight variation on that statement: “If you’re not pursuing your DREAMS, it means you don’t believe in them.”

MEDITATION:

Imagine yourself living your dream life. What would that entail? Go through all the details—the work, the travel, the relationships, the house, the possessions. FEEL what that would be like. After you open your eyes, reflect on what you need to do TODAY to start the process of turning your imagination into reality. On one teleconference I once was plugged into, the business leader said, “What can you do today that would make your business potentially more successful?” Well, I ask you the same question with a slight twist: What can you do TODAY that would make things just a little more fulfilling for you and start you on creating the LIFE you came here to live? It’s time to get up from under the bull’s ass, leave all the bullshit behind you and take some action!