Migrant Testing

Once a month I try and catch up on current events outside what is offered by the Daily Mail. It’s not that I’ve found a saturation point of tits and ass, it’s that I sometimes become upbeat, almost optimistic, about life. The only way to curb that is to review mainstream media and in particular what they believe I should be indignant about. Invariably they will take a topic out of context, pick a villain and then attempt to put into a few short, fact-lacking paragraphs exactly what I should be feeling about this. Then I track down my indignation pants and begin blowing steam.

So I know in theory the articles about Australia’s new English tests for migrants don’t offer much in the way of thoughtful analysis. The difficulty I am having is that I’m a little unsure which particular group I’m meant to be indignant about. The government? The southern-cross-tattoo-wielding bogans? The migrants? Fuck knows. We already have an indigenous race to Australia and every time some white person tells a migrant that unless they toe some arbitrary line they should get out of the country, all I can do is visualise the original Australians rebutting to everyone with: you first.

To fix everything, I contend that everyone should take these tests; native, migrant and established European settlors alike. Anyone who fails them should be immediately sent to New Zealand. Then we do the same tests with maths, science and health care. In one swoop, we collect the people lacking writing skills, an ability to do simple maths, the anti-vaccers, all religions and as important, the people who don’t eat gluten when they haven’t been diagnosed with anything. Put them all on a boat and make them New Zealand’s problem.

As with all my suggestions, an ulterior motive exists. I am fully aware I would fail these tests so to me this will be a free overseas trip to where Lord of the Rings was made. I never look ahead to future consequences, so I have that going for me as well.

Getting back to my readings which aren’t from the Daily Mail, these are two questions an article said were a part of the new migrant testing. I’ll reiterate again, they probably aren’t, and I would imagine only vague parallels exists between the topic, the evidence and the conclusion. But it wasn’t from Daily Mail so in the interest of living in the shoes of migrants, and without really putting myself out too much, I’m answering the questions and submitting to the Government.

Dear Sir or Madam

I live in room 2-22 and share the room with Kevin McAllister. Initially our relationship was excellent however over time it has deteriorated and my work, study and personal life has been effected. I cannot focus or concentrate, have trouble sleeping and I am concerned that my grades will soon begin to slip.

The problems stem from Kevin’s continual need to masturbate, like all the time. Initially I got it, we all enjoy a healthy night out with Mrs Palmer. But at some point, it became clear to me that Kevin’s habit was an obsession. I offer these examples where Kevin’s need to bash the bishop crossed the line:

• Kevin sprained his wrist, he said from tennis but he doesn’t play any sports, and one night he was eating a burger with his sole useful hand while watching porn on his computer. He noticed I was studying and asked me to ‘help out a brother’, nodding towards his exposed genitals and then further insisting it wouldn’t get weird.
• I was showing my mother around the college and then came back to the room to find Kevin, naked and covered head to toe in a thick layer of lard or grease of some kind. He had dressed his pillow up as a horse it seemed and was ‘jousting’ against another pillow-horse using his, well, you can appreciate what he was using as his joust. He stared at us for a while and then asked my mother for her number. Right in front of me.
• Just last Tuesday I asked him to be out of the room for a few hours because I was studying with my girlfriend. He touched his nose and gave me gun-fingers so I thought he had agreed and was fully aware what studying was code for. It was only a fair way into our session that we noticed Kevin sitting on the edge of his bed, watching us and beating the meat. We stopped and just stared at him, he noticed and stopped as well, then pantomimed throwing something on the ground before shouting ‘smokebomb’. He didn’t move though and then after a few seconds continued his five knuckled shuffle even more vigorously. It was as disturbing as it was hypnotic. I am now single.

This is but a drop in the figurative ocean of ejaculate I could provide in the way of examples.

I can’t study without him being there, playing tug of war with cyclops, and my performance at work is terrible because I can’t focus knowing what I am coming home to. Every time I close my eyes, all I can see is the strange facial expression that he uses before climaxing. All day I continually hear in the background a soft, insistent and repetitive thwacking and I can only sleep with loud music. I fear silence. God help me, I fear silence.

Move him, or move me, I need a single room, you must help me. But do it soon, because he lied.

It got weird.

 

Initially I was a little confused with the word ‘often’ as it implied there were options involved. This was a surprise as I thought there was some age where you just become old and were forcibly removed from society. Kind of like that old movie where people had the light in their palm that designated their lifespan, I’m going to say Running Man, but I don’t think it was called that because Running Man was an Arnie action flick. In any case, the fact old people have choices literally blew my mind.

However, I then read the rest of the question and realised that I wasn’t even being asked whether old people should be able to make decisions. This is a little disappointing as during my planned response I had determined a kick ass answer and also designed a software proto-type for old people dating, a geriatric-tinder if you will. Patent pending.

So, should the British government pay for old people to be put in a home? I’m siding with yes, because for one, and I’ll expand on this a little more, fuck the British government and for two, why wouldn’t we make what is a large and complicated problem for Australia, the large and complicated problem for another country entirely.

Firstly, when I was 10 years old we had very little to watch on TV. I remember one day it was raining and my sister was watching EastEnders for some reason. I wanted to watch the movie Ice Pirates but no, lets watch a British soap Opera (that last bit was sarcasm). I had to sit through the entire fucking thing and right after, another fucking episode. Some 10 years later, when email was invented, I recounted the event to the British government and asked for a review and compensation. I received no response to the first seven emails but on the fourteenth, some lady named Caroline told me to stop and further confirmed she had neither the power to order a bunch of redcoats to flog the entire cast of EastEnders or to arrange for an Ice Pirates remake. So, fuck the British government.

Secondly, imagine going to pay for a beer. You have the cash ready but someone offers to pay for it for you. At no point should the answer be anything but yes – this is because pride is a terrible sin. There are so many old people wandering around that of course we need to put them all in a communal home. Preferably one with big walls. But should we pay for it ourselves? Of course we could, but if the British government is offering to round them up and take them back to Britain, all on their dollar, well I say let them. I’ve never studied economics, but I believe this is referred to as the marginal propensity to save beer money and is both prudent and rational Keynesian fundamentals.

I'm sensing awe from this guy.

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Winter Sponsorships & Commentary

This is now week two into a planned few months I have called ‘Not Drinking on a School Night (but Sunday doesn’t count)’ or ‘Winter’ for short because I lack an ability to create marketable names when plagiarism is so much easier. I have a few sponsors, but could always do with a few more. Your contributions wouldn’t be going to charity though, they would be entirely to a Friday night rollout. I’m more than happy to provide an audited ledger but I’m not sure what you would be looking for - I’m spending it all on alcohol and maybe BBQ wings and I’m open about that. Full and complete transparency where 100% of your contributions go directly towards that objective (take that, Red Cross).

Ostensibly this is a nod to good health and is what I televised it as, however the real motivation is slightly different. Friday afternoon work conversation revolves around discussion about plans for the night, and because we live in a pretty fucked up culture (be honest, we are just the worst), it mostly involves alcohol. However, when someone told me they were going out for a few quiet drinks I just couldn’t relate anymore – I had done that each night for the past forever. I just couldn’t draw any excitement or to say it in another way, the weekend was becoming just another few days of obligation.

No, Jason. This is

who you are.

INTERLUDE: It should be noted that I have no idea what personalities the people at work have, I’ve artificially created different personalities for each of them and even given them all back stories. This is probably why most work conversations irritate me – they are all acting out of character and talking about wives or husbands that in my version they don’t even have. So rather than becoming annoyed when Jason from accounts denies his sexual preference, I have taken to inventing conversations in my head and we all coexist peacefully because they play their parts perfectly. In future when I discuss a conversation at work, it may have happened or it may be something that only took place in my head. That line is blurring now, but is something I will worry about at a later point.

So this whole ‘Winter’ is my attempt to reclaim the joy of the weekend and the joy of picking up a freshly pulled beer and finding that “Aaagh, God, fuck yeh, that is good” moment. This has been a week of sobriety and towards tonight there is already a mounting sense of excitement. It appears that ‘Winter’ may prove to be as successful as it will be lucrative (Especially if Kickstarter accepts my proposal).

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

I don’t normally watch sports, however I was sitting there watching the soccer last night. In the main I was just keeping away from a domestic dispute going on with the wife and the girl over a missing dancing shoe that was needed for a dancing thing that was happening the next morning. There was no way I was going near them until they had settled down, firstly because anything to do with her dancing causes me pain and secondly, I know better than to poke the bear. In any case I was watching the game and they had a moment of silence for the Manchester attack. The Australian team bowed their heads and the Saudi Arabian team did not, instead just kept their normal game preparation. I noted it, but didn’t think more of it. My story above of the family unrest becomes relevant now (I forgive you for thinking I was waffling). It is important that I thought more of smouldering wife-rage than a soccer team not responding a custom of an entirely different culture to their own.

Remember what? Mum's

birthday? Tell me!

However, I should have known better. On the way to work the event was mentioned on the radio and then someone mentioned it at work. I understand that the terrorist attacks are pretty fucked up. Really fucked up. People are looking for something to cling to, to make sense of something you really can’t make sense of. But there is no easy answer to this so we turn to anger and anger needs an outlet. The Saudi team, rightly or wrongly, just gave an outlet to that uncertainty and anger. Unlike me, the Media has no hesitation in poking the bear and there are people out there who are always ready to turn to anger because they are racist, bigoted, howler monkeys. Then average Joe & Jill will fall into line as well because with the media manipulation and the need to vent, it is a sad logical path given the circumstances. The news outlets are demanding we find a scapegoat but burning a witch at the stake only fuels the media need for sensationalization.

This is a pot on the boil. And not boiling with something delicious either. Maybe fish heads. And urine.

I don’t know how to fix it, I wouldn’t even know where to start, what I do know is that around 6pm tonight I’m going to have a beer and wings then raise my glass to the Australian team, the Saudi team and to every fucking person in the world who has ever felt helpless and uncertain.

It can’t hurt.

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Voting System

Whether I like it or not, the election is upon me.

I’m not a swinging voter or a rabid support of a single party – I simply don’t care either way. Realistically you have a whole bunch of underpaid accountants, writers, lawyers and economists who do all the work and the person you are voting for is irrelevant. While this is a gross simplification, the process is entirely pointless as a result. Any group in power is going to end up as a useless committee where the final flow onto me is watered down by left/right consensus and compromise.

But this isn’t about political parties or the current system. It’s about how I get irrationally furious about mild inconveniences.

Waving from the side of the road

For the last month or so we have had the joy of placard carrying political party members waving at me from the side of the road as I make the awesome commute to and from work. I made the mistake yesterday of making eye-contact with one at a set of lights. They proceeded to commence even more frantic placard waving while I proceeded to find something interesting up my nose. I wasn’t making a political comment, there was really something up there.

What I want to know is why I need to be judged by every sign carrying nutjob on the side of the road merely for picking my nose and just because an election is coming up? While prostitutes along the road may still judge me, at least they serve a useful purpose. What purpose do the roadside political advocates serve? Seriously, I want to know and that wasn’t rhetorical.

There must be some study somewhere that shows the average driver’s political views can be shifted by catching partial glimpses of some schmuck holding a coloured sign. There must be, otherwise they are fucking morons. I can’t help but feel they are attributing the entire process to the basic advertising tenant of seeing something x times will convert y people. Which is bullshit.

For anyone ever swayed by the political road-side-show I wouldn’t just question their right to vote - I would question their ability to breath without prompting.

Radio & TV advertisements

Let’s make this clear: nobody should run a campaign based on the premise that the other side is terrible. Unfortunately, that is the system we have. One side makes necessary decisions and the other side exploits the fact that shit happens by harping on about it.

I want a candidate standing up on the television and just admitting that they made some decisions that didn’t work out. Hell, they could put up their hands and ‘my bad, I fucked up’ their way out of any situation. It would work too, because we are reasonable people who accept that people are fallible. However, we have to sit through months and months of monotonous television and radio advertisements of either side bitching about the other. And that is all it is, bitching or in a schoolyard sense, tattling.

That same candidate doesn’t need to go on about their policies either. As I mentioned already, I don’t care. The reasonable people behind you will make appropriate decisions and then proceed to wipe your face, tie your shoes and then point you in the right direction when you need to walk. Individually you are nothing more than a talking monkey.

Just like the zoo, I like my monkeys happy and not flinging shit everywhere so stop with the bitching advertisements. Bad fucking monkey.

The voting booth gauntlet

I have a weird personality trait in that I intensely dislike people who intrusively invade my personal space and time. My dislike of the person carries over into whatever product or notion they are spruiking. Someone stops me at a shopping centre and I now hate Dove face wash, Greenpeace calls and no I will not give you money and in fact I will make it my personal fucking mission to go out and stab a whale. I’m funny that way.

The people handing out how to vote cards are viewed exactly the same. There are only so many polite ways I can say that I don’t want your card without it turning violent and suddenly I am the bad one. I don’t want to be here and these clowns are making it worse for me because having to stare at you for 10 minutes without blinking makes me as uncomfortable as you.

I will make it clear for you people: I will vote for whichever party doesn’t make me feel uncomfortable. Now to someone social inept as myself that equates to you talking to me, looking at me, hell even seeing you in your coloured shirt. If I walk in to a school and see a sign (and nothing else) reading “Vote Labor pls. No pressure, all good, brah” I will hate you for the content but love you for the message. If the sign is over a table with a bowl of Cheetos you get an extra vote. You see they have made an effort to understand me and my people.

Anyway, the whole notion of voting at schools is outdated so I have a better idea: have it at Bunnings. I can get myself a sausage and probably something hardwareish and if any prick tries to hand me any sort of voting paraphernalia some Bunnings goon wearing a green apron will punch them in the stomach.

As a final summary, political parties aren't doing the right thing to secure my vote. I don’t like pointless endeavours. I don’t like tattlers and I don’t like being made to feel uncomfortable. Anyone who campaigns under the theory of anonymity and works under the assumption that meeting my needs is the greatest thing they can to do is ticking my boxes. Make poor policy decisions? No problems and probably not your fault. Photographed snorting coke from a hooker’s chest? We've all been there. I’m voting for your crazy ass.

Mostly because I want everything to burn.

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