F8?

I was looking through photos with my family for my dad's funeral last week and came across one photo of my brothers and me on the front step of my Nana's house (dad's mother) and it struck me of the significance of the number on the door (8).
My father was born on the 8th of April and lived in this house, number 8, and dad would later have to bust open that front door to find his mother dead on the floor from a cerebral hemorrhage (she was on the phone to my mother who lived miles away and Nan was complaining she couldn't see and then collapsed while still on the phone) on April the 8th, his birthday.
I always thought it must have been terrible to try and celebrate your birthday on the day your mother also passed.
I always thought about Nan dying on my father's birthday when I would give him his birthday present and wondered if it played on his mind every birthday he had since her passing.
Nana had bought us boys a peddle car to share when we were younger than in this photo above, and it had a numberplate with three 8s.

Hmm. 
Her house has long since gone and been replaced by an office building, but I remember how lucky she was when the Brisbane River flooded its banks in the '74 floods and the muddy water was an inch from coming over those same front steps and destroying her carpet and furniture.
My gym boots in that top photo would have been standing in those flooded '74 river waters lapping at the front door back then.
Of course you can't step into the same river twice, as they say.
But I remember shoveling the stinky mud from her garage and yard with my relatives and thinking how lucky Nan was not getting that river through her upstairs rooms.
I guess it was just f8 -

You Can Never Walk Along the Same River Twice

SPELLing and Root Words :-)

I picked up a very interesting and thought-provoking book in the little town of Bangalow a while back titled 'The Book of Secrets', by Daniel Pineda.
I was reading the chapter titled, 'The Word: Formula of the Spirit' where it is written, "according to the secret tradition, the power of words far surpasses the wildest imaginings of the uninitiated". 

Which got me to thinking about the word "spelling" and how we conjure letters to form words to communicate to one another and even to our iPhones when we sound those words out.

Now we're rooted if these two get together;-)

But then I thought words only have power if the person who you share them with knows exactly what you are trying to say, not just the assumed meaning of the word you are sharing with them.

This was made more apparent when I read the chapter about chakras and saw the words "root chakra".

The word "root" in Australia is considered a rather rude word when used in certain ways in a conversation, as it is a slang word meaning what the word "screw" means as a slang word in other English-speaking countries.

A scene from the Australian hit TV movie
'Molly' using a naughty root word

It's so deeply ingrained in the Australian psyche that when we hear an American say, "I'm rooting for my team", we Aussies can't help but smirk, as we imagine your team must be pimps to make you want to root for them, or that you must get really turned on watching your team play;-) 

... rooted?-)

It got me to thinking just how a slang word like "root" took hold so powerfully in Australia.
Was it in some way connected originally to the root chakra from Yoga because the root chakra was the base chakra more, or less corresponding to the sexual organs in humans, or was this just a coincidence? 
Talk about root words and meanings when it came to language and spelling. 
It made me think of other words that are rude words to Australians, but not to someone in say the United States of America, where a pat on the "fanny" is just a pat on the backside, but in Australia would be a pat on a front bottom, which males do not have one to be able to pat. 
There are lots of other words that come to mind, which could be socially awkward for Australians to hear in a conversation.  
Words Americans should avoid saying to Australasians
Like randy, bugger and bum. 

I'm sure all those words can probably be found in the 'Molly' soundtrack somewhere, as well;-)
Molly: Music, Memories and Memes

Roms for broken phones?!

Whatever turns you on I guess:-)

Anyway, I had a late-night last night and really feel rooted ... not that I got a root though ... and I don't mean that in a Biblical sense either, if you know what I mean?-) 
Time for some coffee, I think ... and screw all of this root word stuff, I think it's time for me to have a spell. 

But before I do here is one more example of words having different meanings to different people.

I was listening to the first song on Bruce Springsteen's album 'The Seeger Sessions' about Old Dan Tucker who was too late to get his supper.

Which being Australian sounded ironic to me that a guy with the name Tucker would miss out on his namesake (food).  
"So, git outa de way for old Dan Tucker,
He's come too late to git his supper.
Supper's over and breakfast cookin',
Old Dan Tucker standin' lookin'"

What is "IT" with These Clowns?

I had written about Jon Kudelka's cartoons in my last post and after I finished writing that post I picked up the paper and saw the story above about clowns terrorizing children in public places, in which the clowns were referred to as "circus freaks" in that newspaper article -
Animism Without the Dog-matism?

The real life Arthur Circus and its playground in Hobart

Jon Kudelka had a cartoon in his book 'Hobart' about historic Arthur Circus with a clown swinging in the playground, and I thought when I saw these two pieces together just how funny IT is how clowns are perceived more as scary creepy creatures more often than jolly fun-loving characters in modern pop culture.

The newspaper article mentions that "legitimate clowns are upset about the sightings following on from several negative depictions dragging down the profession, such as Pennywise from the  
Stephen King novel 'IT'."
Now there is a re-booted 'IT' movie being shot with yet another version of the scary pop cultural clown to bring the clown profession further down (the drain?-).

The new Pennywise

I also wrote a post about David Ury being the guest of a Radio8Ball show and how he was cast as a creepy clown in an upcoming Rob Zombie movie -
The Radio8Ball Show: Season Zero-Episode Three with Sandman & David Ury

"Five carnival workers are kidnapped and held hostage in an abandoned, Hell-like compound where they are forced to participate in a violent game, the goal of which is to survive twelve hours against a gang of sadistic clowns." 
ROB ZOMBIE'S 31 Official Trailer (2016) Horror Movie HD

David Ury is also in a movie named 'Fear Inc.', where "a horror junkie and his friends sign up with a company that brings their customer's greatest fears to life."

No wonder these days in the pop cultural world when children see clowns they think that their number is up.

This clown is really scary to me