Synchromysticism

" Synchromysticism:
The art of realizing meaningful coincidence in the seemingly mundane with mystical or esoteric significance."

- Jake Kotze

February 3, 2013

Bundaberg and Bears

As many readers of this blog would know, cyclone Oswald hit Australia over the Australia Day Weekend reeking havoc with Queensland (where I live)

but the town that really copped it the most was Bundaberg
home of Australia's most famous rum.
Bundaberg Rum
Bundaberg got hit hard,while the most that happened at my place was a lot of wind and rain and a power outage that lasted a day and a half. 
With no computer and having to pull out the gas BBQ to cook the meals, I saw a book I had bought about a year ago laying in the
"To Read" pile with the back cover facing me like so-
with a BBQ fork and matches, and with the appealing title of 
"101 Things Everyman Should Know How To Do".
I thought that was a bit of a sync, since we might be cooking on the BBQ for a few nights, and I'm no BBQ chef, so I might get some tips here.
I decided that I would read the chapters in the order that they were written and the first chapter was -
 "Fight A Bear"!???
 I thought were the heck would I come across a bear in Australia?
Then the book mentioned the worst bear to fight would be a Polar Bear.
I thought there's no polar bears in Australia that I know of, 
and then I heard on the radio 
(I had a battery powered one, luckily) 
that Bundaberg was going to be flooded worse than two years ago.
And what's the most famous symbol of Bundaberg?
The Bundaberg Rum bottle with it's Polar Bear on the label, of course.
In the book it says fighting a bear would insure immortality at your local watering-hole.
And don't be fooled by pop culture's softening of the bear persona as they are not cute and fluffy stuffed animals; they are natural born killing machines.
The cute Bundy Bear
WARNING: THESE GUYS ARE SPEAKING THE NATIONAL LANGUAGE OF NEW ZEALAND, WHICH SOUNDS SIMILAR TO ENGLISH, BUT IS UNRECOGNIZABLE BY OTHER ENGLISH SPEAKING MEMBERS OF THE PLANET;-)
Last time the town got hit by floods Bundaberg Rum brought out a rum called "Watermark"
Unfortunately the town got hit worse than in the above clip this time.
Floodwaters near the Bundaberg Rum Distillery,
Bundaberg East,
January 27, 2012
Houses washed away as receding floodwaters
 reveal
Bundaberg devastation
It also says in the book that before doing battle you need to get drunk.
There is no sense in fighting a bear sober, you might lose your nerve.
Think of Whiskey (Rum?) as the lazy man's steroids.
If possible, it couldn't hurt to get the bear drunk too.
The book also ranks difficulty of fighting different kinds of bears,
such as Brown, Black, Sloth Bear, Panda and Sun Bear.
Which reminds me of 
Werner Herzog's movie "Grizzly Man".
Weird, at the end of the above trailer in says 
in cinemas Feb 3 ... which is today's date.
The next chapter in the book is titled "Be A Superhero"
which seems to be what Tim Tredwell was doing 
in the "Grizzly Man" movie.
But wait, there's more -
The book says that if animals aren't your thing, another possibility is to base your theme on a type of natural disaster, like hurricanes, earthquakes, or twisters.
It even suggests using "Hurricane Force Z" as a name!??
The guy that made "Attack Force Z" also made "Eliza Fraser",
as mentioned in my post about Dingoes and Fraser Island -
Dingo - The Trickster 
Then it says that if you are Croc Man consider genuine crocodile skin and Kevlar.
And if you are an Aussie Wonder wielding a boomerang that completes the image.
Finally it gives advice to conceal your identity, but oddly enough for those who know me this page above gives mine away;-)
What I don't like about this book though, and without the personal synchronicties I experienced while reading it, that I would hate even more, was how it would just give a title for a chapter without writing anything else, even in a tongue in cheek way about the subject.
I think that tactic is really low
as you bought the book probably thinking you would get 101 chapters to read.
You'd be lucky to get 50 real chapters, as this goes on right throughout the book.
Which to me is unbearable;-)

8 comments:

  1. Talking of rum... http://www.thepurveyor.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/SailorJerryLabel.jpg
    The damage looks pretty bad Daz. You guys seems to be go through year after year of it...

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  2. The only chance I'd have is fighting with teddy bears, or with a glass of that rum - never heard of it before. Looks like the town took quite a battering.

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  3. Yep - I can't seem to words string two together. And I haven't had a glass of rum yet either :-(

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  4. @KU
    I thought that you were quoting lines from the Bundaberg Rum Kiwi Pub commercial in the above post.-)
    And
    I think Sailor Jerry rum would sell better using that picture but changing the words from "Navy Rum" to
    "Naval Rum".-)

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  5. @Mike
    This rum is probably only second to beer and wine as a popular drink over here...I guess that makes it third though.-)
    I rarely drink rum,but looking back to a dark day in my youth I can see that I owe my life to a bottle of this stuff.
    A story I won't go into here and I only just remembered the roll it played in literally saving my life.
    A bit of a turn around as drinks like this are usually attributed to ending people's lives.
    I guess there can be a good and bad side to most things in life?

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  6. I had a polar bear synchronicity in reading this post: Just today I saw George Takei's Facebook page photo of two Polar Bears 'together' and the caption says, "It's not what you think, I'm bi-polar"

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  7. Re: I guess there can be a good and bad side to most things in life?

    True, I have a very sad story about alcohol, but not up to telling it at the moment. Not me or Karin, but someone in my family.

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  8. I understand what you are saying Mike.
    As a teenager I witnessed a man trapped in a car that was hit by a drunk driver,who walked away from the accident,while the man had to be cut out of the wreck and later died.
    I have a cousin-in-law that hit and killed an old lady out walking with her daughters.He was drunk and driving without a license,because he was caught for drunk driving before.
    I've never had much to do with him.
    He got two years in jail!?
    And if you see the
    "Climb Every Mountain" post of mine,my mate Pete's (grey hair and beard) wife and son got burned to death when their car was hit,although I don't know if the driver was drunk,or not.I don't ask.

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