Transexual Hugs Wet Man While Strangling Dog

Okay, so the title isn't quite capturing the truth. I just thought I'd try to alter the facts of the story, just a little, to get a few more hits. I mean if it's good enough for the major Australian Newspapers...

What's this post go to do with home-dadding? Just about nothing apart from the fact that I am a home-Dad (or a house husband, or a domestic engineer, or whatever you wanna call me) and that animal related sensationalism is becoming so regular now that I think we can all pass on the fibre-enforced cereal and keep a hop in our step with the exploits of Buckley the Dog's scholarship fund, Sam the stuffed Koala's right to be sat next to Pharlap and now... well, this -

Seems that the guy (Raden) in this picture is a hero. Even without knowing the story you can get the gist from the dramatic photo, can't you? He's just jumped from a pier into the swirling waters of Brighton Beach and risked his own life to save a little doggie from certain death. Sue, the terrified owner is obviously so overcome with gratitude that she falls into Raden's arms for an emotional wet embrace. She must really really love that little dog.

The report that goes with the photo makes us aware that after Bibi was blown off the pier, Sue watched on 'helplessly' as Raden 'dived' into the raging sea to save little Bibi. The 'humble hero' then handed Bibi back to Sue but played down his selfless bravery as all 'humble heroes' do.

Sound like this story should take up Page 3 of a major newspaper? The Herald Sun thought so, with the dramatic headline 'Hello Bibi, I feared you were gone' and the sub headline 'Hero braves stormy weather to rescue pet dog.' It all sounds so stirring and heart-warming and when I see the picture of little Bibi wrapped up in a warm blanket with his fluffy little face and puppy-dog stare I just want to believe everything they're throwing at me.

Bit worrying then to see a few photos on the Herald Sun website that don't quite match the story. One photo shows Raden casually removing his pants and shoes. Another shows that Raden didn't actually 'dive' into the ocean but lowered himself very tentatively into the soup when Bibi was only a meter from his grasp.

Sounds like I'm being a bit picky? I also happened to listen to Fox FM's interview with Raden. Seems like the real hero is the photographer of the dramatic scene. He was there long before Raden, watching widdle Bibi paddling around in the surf. It wasn't the screaming and breast thumping anguish from owner Sue that drew Raden to the resuce but the photographer who suggested Raden hop down and get the dog while he snapped a few photos. Even asked if he was carrying any rope so that he could lower himself down!

Would I have agreed to this? Would I have gone in to get Bibi? I mean he's so cute, the fluffy little bastard, how could I resist? Well, I would resist. Unless of course, there was something in it for me. Maybe if I was an underwear model I might do it because then I could strip down to my Calvin Klein's and do a lot of dancing around in front of a recognised photographer. Pretty good career move.

Hey! What? Turns out Raden is an underwear model. So bingo.

When asked on the Matt and Jo Show if there was a sense of urgency about the ordeal Raden admitted that he wasn't in 'too much of a hurry' and that Bibi had already been 'in there for a while'. And just before he was about to lower himself into the water Sue, displaying her unconditional love for Bibi, turned to Raden and said, 'Don't worry about it.'

Not sounding so dramatic and heroic now.

That didn't stop our Raden though. No, even if Bibi's owner didn't want him saved, the photographer did and urged Raden on! Stirred by the concern the photographer had for the animal, Raden settled himself and uttered these stirring words 'Okay, you just keep taking photos' and committed himself to the welfare of the yapping little shitzu.

So sounds like everyone, except Sue, is a winner. The photographer has sold photos all over the joint, Raden has had his hot wet modelling ass in major newspapers nationally and internationally as well as exposure through radio and television interviews and Bibi had his dip in the ocean cut short by about five minutes, after which time he would have been gently buffeted to shore.

Sue on the other hand seems to have got a dog back that she maybe didn't really want. Didn't want to dip her own hand in the ocean to get the dog, did she? Wasn't even thrilled enough in little Bibi to urge someone else to do it for her. She says 'I wasn't quite sure if I could make it to shore with a struggling dog', and I hear 'Stuff it, I'll just get another dog.' (Also evidenced by the photo which indicates she was so upset she couldn't drown the dog that she was going to do her best to choke it to death.)

Here's a tip, Sue - next time get a heavier dog that's not so likely to get blown of piers. But, seriously, I do understand where you're coming from. We have a few little yap-yap mongrel dogs in our street too.

Next time Melbourne has gale force winds, I might just take them for a lead-less stroll on a pier.

Reservoir Dad's Question Nightmares

Sometimes after a long 12 – 16 hour day with kids you just want to ship them off to bed as quick as possible so that you can clean and sweep and fold and stuff and crash in front of the TV for some well-deserved Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. (Me and Gordon Ramsay are so alike it’s scary. Sometimes he points at some dull space cadet and says something like ‘You’re a fucking idiot’ and I can’t help but chuckle in amazement at how I was thinking the exact same thing.)

It’s when you’re absolutely knackered and pressured for time like this that you’re less likely to patiently answer a child’s left-field questions in a rational manner. And this may explain my response to Archie’s question ‘how do our eyeballs get inside our heads’ while we were cleaning our teeth last night.

It is a very good question and sits comfortably aside such classics as ‘Why is everything so green?’, ‘Why doesn’t my shoe have teeth?’ and ‘How come Gran is getting smaller?’

All home Dads know that questions like these are much easier to handle after several beers and a six pack of Red Bull but they weren’t within reach and, anyway, Archie’s going to have to wait until he’s sixteen to start experimenting with alcohol and stimulants (okay, okay – fourteen, by today’s standards, but don’t let them listen to the IPod too loud alright, it’ll damage their ears!)

So anyway, Archie asks me how our eyeballs get inside our heads and I tell him that the Porcelain Doctor, who makes little boys, collects the crystallized raindrops that fall from the sky after meteors smash though the clouds. Then he dips one end of each raindrop in either blueberry sauce, chocolate pudding or green stuff and pops them into our skulls.

I thought that might give him something to think about while he got to brushing his teeth but instead he put his toothbrush down, touched the side of his eye and said, ‘I want to take them out’.

I could hear the clock ticking and Gordan Ramsay standing behind me saying, ‘Are you a fucking nitwit, get him to bed for fuck’s sake’ and I turned the toothbrush over and said, ‘You can gouge your eyes out with this, or you can wait until tomorrow and I’ll buy you some marbles.’

Thankfully he chose the marble option and we got off to bed quick-smart so that ‘tomorrow will come quicker’.

Later that night Gordon Ramsay slapped his hand in frustration and said, ‘Fuck me!’

Talk about being on the same wavelength! That man is my Dr Phil. Yeah, and what he said about Tracey Grimshaw was spot on.

Speaking of Stuffed Here Comes The Count

So now the plan is to stuff Sam the Koala and stick him next to Pharlap at the Melbourne Museum.

You know what I reckon? If you’ve had your house burnt down, your habitat destroyed, your extremities cooked and your death ensured by cyst-inspired urogenital chlamydiosis your pretty well stuffed already.

Speaking of stuffed, Reservoir Mum thought she was just about stuffed last week while hanging out at the pool with Archie and Lewis.

She was sitting on a stool, poolside, next to four Muslim women wearing full body Burkahs. One of the women was dressed entirely in black. Lewis exited the pool, stood in front of the women, poked a toddler finger in their direction, said 'Look Mummy!' and started counting -

‘One, two, three… and a black one!”

Reservoir Mum was horrified but lucky enough to see the collection of balloons close by and said, “Yeah, Lewis. Lots of balloons there aren’t there?”

Lewis nodded and said, ‘Ah-ha,’ which sounded so suspiciously like Allah that Reservoir Mum couldn’t stand the possibility of offending any longer and hightailed it into the pool to dish out some backstroke lessons.

Good thinking Reservoir Mum.

Sam the Koala and Mr Tree

I’m a bit hesitant to voice my thoughts on another media-hyped animal story after the email hammering I copped for my thoughts on ‘Buckley the Dog’ but I can’t help but get a bit bemused by the media attention and the outpouring of public sympathy over the death of ‘Sam the Koala’ this week.

For those who don’t know, Sam became famous world wide after he was filmed, singed and sooty, taking a drink from the water bottle of Firefighter David Tree during the Black Saturday fires in Victoria, Australia. She became the ‘symbol of hope’ in the face of the devastating fires.

Putting the ridiculous media attention aside – leading stories in newspapers, television and radio broadcasts, thousands of obituaries from the public and crazy awards from PETA freaks – the biggest dampener of this story has to be the fact that Sam the Koala has become the ‘symbol of hope’ for a disaster she wasn’t really a part of.

As reported in Media Watch earlier this year, Sam was actually injured in a back-burning operation a week before Black Saturday. This fact was probably glazed over and underreported for more than a few reasons, but here are two I can think of

– the Herald Sun were making a killing (no pun intended) over the story selling copies of the paper and thousands of ‘Sam the Koala’ posters.

– the Koala brings 1.1 billion worth of tourist dollars to Australia (a fact that Deborah Tabart used as an argument against the culling of Koalas at Kangaroo Island - "11% of all tourists said we will never return to your shores if you don’t take care of the koalas.")

I am not species-ist. I don’t like to see animals suffer and believe it or not I was actually moved by the story of Sam the Koala and Mr Tree. But the media are milking the public sympathy now and as the inaccurate reporting of the story proves the main motivation is the $$$moolah.

Lenny the lamb (a nice addition to my dinner plate last night) didn't get any obituaries that I could find. Kevin the Cow wasn't mentioned in the Herald Sun once. And I listened to the radio all day but no word on Castrate the Pig. And here's another quote that puts a bit of persepctive on all this -

"Every year we cull 5 to 6 million of another national icon, the kangaroo."

It just seems a little Freddy the Fishy to me.

Anyway, please send all abusive emails to reservoirdad@gmail.com.

And just to prove I like animals, here is No. 3 in the My Backyard series:

An Ode to My Ducks

Duck, stop your waddling and listen.

I could tear your heads off.

It would be easy.

I am stronger.

I could twist your necks.

I could impale you like Vlad the Impaler.

I could hurt you, for the sake of hurt.

With these hands, with the power I have,

with the way you look at me,

I could draw out a long and satisfying suffering.

Sometimes I consider it.

I watch the way you busy about,

the way you sort through mud,

the way you huddle with the others.

I'm alone here.

You’re alone there, eventually.

And I watch you.

It would be easy.

Zen and Parenting

Despite the title of this post, I don’t actually know much about Zen except that it has something to do with Buddhism, and I’m not going to go clicking my way over to Wikipedia to become a half-arsed expert on it because I’m a time-poor parent and can’t be buggered studying anything…

Oh stuff it then, here it is if you’re interested.

Anyway, the conversation below contains my definition of Zen. It occurred as I pulled out a steaming hot tray of Aldi nuggets for the boys:

Lewis: Daddy, what are those?

Reservoir Dad: They are nuggets.

Lewis: Why?

Reservoir Dad: … (the sound of one hand clapping) …

This is what kids can do. They can pull a question down from outer space and test your logical, methodical mind in such a way that it just shuts down. Bye-bye thoughts. I challenge anyone to answer that question. Here it is. Spend some time with it…

WHY ARE NUGGETS?

Nirvana is the answer. With my mind quiet and my being centered I ran outside to smell a flower.

And I mean to REALLY smell a flower, without social expectation, past experience or intellectual dogma to dilute it. I found the true form of the formless, the subtle dharma gate that does not rest on words or letters but is a special transmission outside of the scriptures. (Okay, I did read Wikipedia. The words above are Buddha’s, not mine. Truth is, the flower smelt just the same as they’ve always smelt – flowery. I’m not really into flowers though, so next time I reach such Nirvanic heights I might try something a little more central to my experience… smell a can of beer perhaps.)

Anyway, my advice for those who are searching for meaning, or enlightenment, or God is to give up the hours of daily meditation and have yourself some kids. They’ll ask you why, why, why over and over until the mind gives in and there is nothing left – No concern for yesterday. No worry for tomorrow. No sleep deprivation. No washing. No dirty house. No dinner time battles. No Geelong Cats injury list. And finally, no Reservoir Dad.

Bet the Dalai Lama has never experienced toddler-inspired Nirvana. Tom Cruise and his scientology crowd would have to "donate" 10 million dollars to even get close to it, and the Mormons… well let’s not discuss those crazy bastards.

Buckled!

Twenty four hours since I posted my thoughts on Buckley the puppy's media storm and the abusive emails continue to ping at my inbox. I have to admit I did expect some fireworks from the usual suspects - Buckley's manager and fanbase, and Jason Baker, director of PETA Asia-Pacific (who recently attacked legend Sam Neill over his brilliant advertisements on the health benefits of eating meat) and for that reason I made sure I kept the doors locked, the car hidden in the garage and the fur coat tucked away in the closet next to my hunting rifle and carving knife, but in all honesty I didn't expect this level of hysteria.

There have been a few emails of support. Most notably this one –

"The dog's a bloody wus. A couple of chopped ears and he's gone all poodle. Come and talk to me when he gets stabbed in the pancreas." - Chopper Reid

But most have been along these lines –

“Ears are how dogs hear and tails are how they are happy. This sick man knew what he was doing and aimed to take away Buckley's ability to communicate. How can you stick up for him?”

“I hope your animals get their ears cut off. Then you’ll see how it feels.” (This really threw me for a while. I rushed into my backyard in a panic expecting to find that someone had hurt my chickens. Several moments passed before I remembered the specifics of chicken anatomy and stopped searching the pen for their ears.)

The most hurtful response comes from my father-in-law (a known dog lover and vegan sympathiser). A while ago I posed for a photo that appeared in a Physiotherapy campaign focussing on back pain. He obviously stumbled across it and decided to teach me a lesson. This is the email and accompanying photo –

Re: Buckley. How Would You Like It?!


For the safety of myself and my family I retract my previous post and will donate $20 to Buckley’s scholarship fund. My only hope is that we don’t lose someone of Buckley’s obvious talent to more prestigious international career opportunities.

I am going to try to put this all behind me and refocus on My Backyard – The Series…

My Backyard 2 – Back from the City

In my backyard there are animals.
None of them are running.
The have large pens
but they waddle or hop
at a slow to medium pace.
Nothing hurries them.
Nothing scares them into a sprint.
Their hides are their own –
they’ve been born beyond the point of being eaten.
Some may say they’re miles from home.
But I say they’re right there,
they’re right here.
My ducks for instance –
they’re both girls.
They eat and sleep and sort through mud.
They quack and clean and sometimes mount each other,
all at a slow waddle,
all, it seems, without the slightest hint of interference.

Compare this to the millions
crying to be heard in the city.

Quack is simple –
quack means sit and wait,
quack means stay at home, the days have settled.
Quack is pre-defeat –
and means
it’s late, the race is over.

My Backyard (The Series) and Buckley (The Injured Dog)

Buckley the dog has been all over the media for the past week. For those that haven't heard (anyone out there?) Buckley had his ears and tail lopped off by a very disturbed and cruel individual. It's horrible, pointless suffering and it sucks. But I have to say that I'm a bit disturbed myself by the incredible amount of attention this story has received. Just look at this one report.

There have been thousands of calls, "grown men crying", money being donated etc etc. And yesterday I received an email asking me to donate to Buckley's scholarship fund...

A fricken scholarship!!

Human compassion is a good thing but, come on. Make sure the dog's injuries heal properly. Give it to a nice family so that it's fed once a day, wormed, knackered and walked regularly but let's not get carried away. I worked as a youth support worker for ten years and there were kids who suffered worse than Buckley who were shuttled from one shelter to another without ever receiving this sort of attention. Take the money away from a dog that needs little more than food and a pat and put it towards something a little more important - like a human.

That's what I reckon but I am not an animalist and just to prove it I am going to test the loyalty of my audience (Hi Mum, Hi Dr Forsythe) by posting a series of animal related writings titled "My Backyard" over the next few weeks. They have absolutely nothing to do with parenting or children (or do they Dr Forsythe?) and may lead to half of my audience bailing out on me (seeya Mum) but hey, I love ducks and chickens and I think other animals may be useful as well.

Some important information before you embark on this backyard journey with me:

• We had rabbits. One was eaten by a dog, two escaped into foxland.
• We had two ducks. I loved them but broke my leg when I chased them and slipped on some of their shit. So we moved them to a nice public pond. We thought it would be great for them. A week later they were captured and culled with dozens of other other similar looking ducks.
• We still have chickens. Four of them. They give us lots of eggs.

My Backyard 1 – Us

You’d call me middle class.
You may even call me

a white middle class c*nt.
I can accept this only because
I can accept its irrelevance.

Out there, in the world,

I am a person among billions of others.
Here, in my backyard, I am a pink thing –
I have wiggly bits that lead to wigglier bits.
At the top of me is a misshapen head.
I am unusual and inappropriate.
If you don’t believe me
you only have to ask the rabbit,
the four chickens
and these ducks.