Let's Be Frank

Do those covers look similar to you?-)

In an odd case of synchronicity, I was gathering some screen shots from the movie 'Sausage Party' for a post I was writing titled -
The 'A Confederacy of Dunces' Curse
and I happened to be reading Paul Carter's book, 'Smoking Monkeys, Drilling Rigs, Bio-Diesel Bikes and Other Stories', which I wrote about why in this post linked below -
Dance Like a Monkey, But Don't Smoke One
When I had finished with the 'Sausage Party' DVD I threw it onto my desk, and it landed next to Paul's book, and I couldn't help giggling at how similar the covers were with yellow and red being the predominate colours on both covers and how the "sausage" (Frank) seemed to have the same expression and haircut as Paul's on the cover of his book.

The thing is in this post though, is that the theme of 'Sausage Party' is that the groceries are being lied to, and in the above video, where Paul is being interviewed by a breakfast TV show, he lies about a story in his book about an Orangutan that works on a ship as a bartender serving drinks to the crew.
In the interview Paul tells the story as if he was personally thrown off a stool by the orangutan, as if he himself had been served by her, but in the book he says she worked as a bartender long before he ever started working on the ship and that the only time he met her was at the Singapore Zoo, where she was living at the time Paul was working on the ship.

Paul at the Singapore Zoo

So, the words he speaks in the interview are lies by what Paul writes in his book, so now I'm reading his book wondering how much of what he writes is true and how much is BS.

Paul's political opinions about oil,
greed and the environment

'Smoking Monkeys...' has still been an interesting read, but after watching his interview above and with two thirds of his book still left to read I feel I can't trust anything he writes now, except the epilogue he writes in his book how we are all supporters of the oil industry in one way, or another and it's a very good point that Paul makes in the epilogue to 'Don't Tell Mum...'.

"...a genetically engineered 3 storey hamster
in a f#ckin' huge wheel-I don't know"

Oblivious Oblivion?

Paul also told the tale (tail?-) of a scorpion he witnessed stinging itself to death with its own tail when put on a metal lid and placed over a fire.

I was impressed by a creature smart enough to know when to pull the plug on its own life rather than suffer a horrible fate and having a bottle of tequila with a scorpion in it above my fridge for years.

I thought this story was a great metaphor from nature itself about hanging on to life needlessly when it's about to get a whole lot rougher to the point of no return. 

This is the worst tequila I've ever tasted BTW

If you can't tell, I'm a fan of the right to die movement, I don't believe you should have to suffer at the hands of a modern medical industry that milks the last bit of life out of you, no matter how painful and humiliating it is for the patient.

Turns out though that the scorpion story is just more BS after looking around the internet to confirm Paul's observation.

While they do appear to sting themselves when in a stressful life-threatening situation, they aren't actually killing themselves.
Scorpion facts and fallacies

What I think Paul witnessed was a native guy pulling a trick on a bunch of drunk guys around a campfire who wagered money against this event happening when what really happened was this native guy slowly cooked the scorpion to death while it just looked like it was killing itself.

So, while Paul is a good storyteller, I have to keep my saltshaker with me while reading his book and remind myself to take it with a grain of salt at times;-)

And Paul's book is still a great read if you ever wondered what life is like working in a rigged world on a rig:-)

And looking towards the future horizon it looks like we are all in deep-water with the oil companies calling the shots for this planet.