The Winds of Change

The Winds of Change ©

By

Michael Casey

Well I was wondering which way to go with my words, and as I talk to you where we end up is hard to say, only Crowded House are singing “which way to go” so perhaps they’ll tell us both. In my life there are many winds, and I’m not just talking about yesterday’s spicy food either. Over in USA Trump’s blatant corruption carries on, its like slow motion we watch from afar, though over here we have Brexit and that crawls to its end game, through what we really need here is a General Election so that we the people can tell our masters they are all  a load of rubbish, both sides of the Atlantic.

Life is nice, we have the tic and the toc, everything is safe and reassuring, with the Chimes of Life a soother to us all. On Monday we go to work, on Friday we have the weekend, though in my life my shifts spanned 24hours a day 7 days a week, so I’m not ordinary, but you may have spotted that already. However it’s nice to have a routine, a regular life, and the weekend was for fun, sex and alcohol, though not always in that order, and some part missing too.

Sunday was for church, or the Saturday evening church which finally arrived in UK, after USA trailed it. Yes other religions and holy days are available, though nobody believes in anything nowadays, I was the token Christian most of my working life. But, life goes on and you have a pattern, a routine, you even wear a hole in the carpet such is your routine, either walking back and forth or that’s where you and your girl pretend to be carpet fitters each Friday night when you come home from the bingo clutching your kebab, and no that is not a metaphor either.

A routine is nice, its reassuring, like the nipple providing milk for a baby, you are safe, you are warm, you are close. And on life goes, each year you have your holidays to Spain, though nowadays people go all over the place. Will people give up their many far flung holidays, and stop importing far flung produce for their breakfast tables so they can save the planet? I’m cynical, change is good for others, so long as I don’t have to do it, maybe I’m wrong, we shall see, as the winds and storms of Global warming break and communities drown. Plastic is bad etc, bad parenting is bad, it’s like wild dogs, more likely bad owners who should not have a dog in the first place, but you can make your own minds up, but do hurry.

Things are faster now, we are the Twitter the Social Media generation, which means a lot of noise very fast, too fast. People playing Mental Snap, showing off, trying to be the quickest, the wit, the card. What is the result, our minds break, our ignorance shows, disaster beckons, and the result is far from funny. Donald Trump need I say more?

I watch a lot of K-dramas, my wife is from Shanghai hence the Eastern outlook, I’m not just bewitched by Korean girls, but in a K- drama there is magic, and the love slowly unfolds. In Bollywood there is dancing and singing, and things go slowly. If you have to wait it’s better. Nowadays things are too fast, fast food and speed dating leads to indigestion, and premature elation and then defeat. Or a quick divorce that is spread like a disease all over Twitter and social media.

Things are quick and to move too fast, thought no longer exists, that’s if anybody actually thinks. Everybody is led by the nose via social media pundits and influencers, so 10 million people follow some pimple loaded face, because he or she is so funny, with their product placement life, that everybody just has to follow. And we all buy the tat they espouse, and is manufactured somewhere, until we tire of them and their merchandise. Then their tat is binned and sent to landfill while we follow and like the next greatest thing, and buy all the new tat. But at least it keeps the wheels of consumer society rolling, with even a nomadic herder having a Michael Casey doll and calendar and lip gloss and Tshirt with “fat silver haired writer in shades” printed on it with a terrible posed image.

I hope I have got you thinking, maybe my tat are my books on Amazon and here on my website, you’ll have to decide for yourselves. And what is the point of today’s talk, my TED talk, I thought Ted was that cool drunken teddy bear, maybe that’s me, I am a cool drunken teddy bear. Ok, I’m far from cool, though I did win the Clarks shoes Uncool Dad of the Year award in 2015. I’m not drunk either, my alcohol tolerance is far too low, perhaps I’m just a bear, or is it bare as I’m sat naked here in my window talking to you all and frightening  the neighbours, there’s a hairy bear in that house, quick call Dudley Zoo. Or has Amsterdam come to Birmingham, a red light above my head, as I sit naked talking to you.

If you are not afraid then you are smiling, because I have slowed down your life as you sit reading this, listening to my voice. The Winds of Change can be slowed, you just have to stop and think for yourself. Do you really need a blow up Michael Casey doll, Tshirt, calendar, and face cream. Do you really need to follow my every word on Twitter along with 100 million other people. Will you swerve to the Left, to the Right to the Centre, will you be Non Binary, Gay, Straight or any which way. All because you followed me or anybody else on Twitter and social media.

Just be yourself, be happy as you are. Don’t rush home to check your social media. Try talking to your neighbours, yes those horrible people you don’t like because they are this way or that way and because they don’t even have a Michael Casey T shirt, and you can bet your bottom dollar they don’t have a Michael Casey blow up doll or face cream either. By they way when I say blow up doll I mean the sleeping policeman kind of thing, not the one you sleep with, just in case you are getting the wrong idea. There is only one Michael Casey, the real surreal thing.

So switch off your toys and talk to somebody you love, and if you haven’t got somebody to love you may find a friend if you just start by talking. And if you watch enough K-dramas you may even learn Korean, and then you can talk to the Korean girl in the Korean store. And then you can make a career with your Korean girl, no Twitter required, maybe just plenty of nice slow cooked rice.