The Voice

The Voice ©

By Michael Casey

A vocation is called a calling, a voice talks to us and then we listen, sometimes finally listen, then we embark upon a journey, it can be a spiritual journey, a physical journey, or a literal journey. How many people have a vocation nowadays? How do you know you have a vocation in the first place? You can be pushed or pulled into something, your family may encourage you, or put a gun against your head to force you to have a certain vocation.

The Irish in America became cops, my own cousin is a cop in Boston, being a cop is a good job, a steady job, and the police force is one big family after all, so it IS a good vocation.  What do cops’ kids become, they become cops too, or if they are girls their dads’ may encourage them to be lawyers, its safer and warmer too.

Why do we need this voice to call us? If we are to sacrifice or donate our lives to something we should have a pull towards it, it’s not just a job, it’s not just any job, a calling , a vocation IS our life.  We may all work in a call centre at some stage of our lives but it is not our life, yes I agree for some girls and in the main it is girls call centre work is their life, it suits them. What makes the vocation call out to us? 

In the Bible there is the passage where God calls out to the boy, 3 times God calls out and finally the boy after talking to his master waits and listens and replies to God, “here I am” or words to that effect, you can Google the Bible for yourself. So a vocation is like a magnet it pulls us towards it, and once we are attached, we are glued to it.

A vocation is like a lover or a wife, it’s our passion and it bears fruit, it is everything to us, me I write as you all know. Others may teach music to the choir in church, Betty teaches choir at my daughters’ church, she is 84 and still going strong, her passion for music keeps her alive, she pours music into all whom she teaches, it’s this kind of sharing that answers the call.

Learning to listen for the vocation, for the call,   is important too, life can be so busy they we cannot hear the call. We need to step back, to step away and let the force touch us, whatever we want or should I say whatever we could be will be revealed. Yes I know most of us do a job to feed and clothe us, only the lucky few do what they enjoy. As you know I write because it’s in me and I’ve not made a penny from it,  but I’ll always write because it’s my vocation.

 So after you’ve read this make some quiet time, have a pint of Stella or a mug or Horlicks and just get all mellow, listen to Barry Manilow or whatever gets you in the mood, and let rainbows fill your mind and fill your heart, and listen just listen to the whispers that’ll grow into a roar, for your vocation is calling  you.

 this piece is from a few years ago, you can find my 9 books on amazon, just look for my fat face on most book covers

Where I want to be buried

Where I Want  To Be Buried ©

By Michael Casey

Well I've decided where I want to be buried, though I'm in no hurry to be buried. Last time I was buried was when my brother buried me in the sand on a beach in Wales. By the Sikh temple is an old Christian church, Trinity Road Church, and next to that is the Post Office sorting centre, you look across the dual carriage way and the rail track and the canal then you see the site where my dad used to work in the steel works, Brasshouse Lane Smethwick. At the back of the post office you can see into the distance. There is also the Job Centre. 

Not very romantic but if you go there for yourself you may feel what I feel. The Peace. It may be the power of the prayer from the Trinity Rd church as well as the power of the Sikh Temple combined, or my dad's sweat of 40 years  in the air. But seriously if I were allowed to be buried there, then that's where I could be put. In front of the church looking over towards Rolf Street Train Station. So there you have it. I don't expect to become a famous writer after I die, but the train station and the other transport routes means that plenty of people could come and visit my grave.

Sex Tips for All

August 20th, 2015 21:34

Sex Tips for All

By michaelgcasey

What Makes a Man Sexy to a Woman(C)
By Michael Casey

I have all my albums loaded to the computer so that while I work I can listen to the albums, over 1600 tracks, I let the music role and I didn’t know Michael Bolton was next. So when he popped up I thought HE was a woman’s favourite, but anybody can listen too. I did get me thinking though.

Is it his hairy chest, is he tall dark and handsome, or is it the way he moves, the way he grooves, is it his smouldering eyes? Women as you read this tell me what YOU think.

And what of me? Am I sexy? Is it my hairy back and my hairy arms, my bushy eyebrows, does all this make women swoon? Is it my big chest and my even bigger belly. Is it my hazel eyes, Chinese folk have brown eyes, so my eyes are a novelty to them. Is it the British accent, does it sent a shiver down the spines of women. Michael Bolton is singing “back on my feet again” as I talk to you. Do I knock women off their feet. And not because of my smelly feet, which I inherited from my dad, a father of six, and those smelly feet have passed to the next generation, to my Birmingham/Shanghai children.

Is it something in the way I move, something in the way I pucker my lips, is it the way I look into women’s eyes, and men’s too. Do I have charisma like a pop star, or politician, and I a god.

Or is it that when women see me I remind them of Scruffy their first dog, the slobbering fat and drooling puppy who left puddles everywhere, the dog who wagged his tail when they were a mile away, but Scruffy knew their master was on the way, so Scruffy jumped and jumped and scrapped at the back door.

No I’m no sex god, I’m just a hound dog, chewing on blue  suede shoes.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
p.s. yes I am only joking, the only women who want me are morticians, as good bodies are very hard to  find

Disconnected

Disconnected ©

By Michael Casey

There are many kinds of disconnected, from faith, from hope, from love, from reality, from pain. Today I feel nearly all of them, my chest and arthritis pain have decided to come out to play, I’m breathless with pain and it’s hard to think straight. Relax, I’m not going to bore you with all this, the disconnected I’m going to talk about is far more important, disconnected from the Internet.

I can hear you all scream, or your children scream at least, how can kids live without their internet. How can I live without the internet. For kids it’s everything, anybody with kids will tell you that, I have two daughters so I know all about it. Phones are in fact little tiny computers, this connects your daughters with the world, their world and not the real world. Their world is Tumblr and Instagram and Postit or is it Pinterest, anyway it’s a load of stuff most people have never ever heard of. Some 20 something girl on UTube who has millions of followers, which makes her millions, she is pretty vacuous but her bank manager loves her and holds the door to her Bentley open when she comes by.

Homework is forgotten and vids just have to be watched because they are so good. My girls are great students so far but other girls are probably much more addicted to the joys of Mandy or Brandy or Candy explaining everything to her millions of fans. I hope I don’t sound envious, I did make a little video and put it on my writer’s page on Amazon. I have an audio site, www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com but I don’t have millions of fans yet. I’m more Radio than anything else, so how could I possible compete. I’m also a writer www.michaelgcasey,wordpress.com so words are my medium. Perhaps I should make loads of small videos, but that would need the internet to load them to.

Only I don’t have any internet, I’m internet free, I’m back in the Stone Age, well today at any rate. I cannot get my desktop to connect to the Internet, my daughters can connect via their phones, my wife can connect on her tablet, but me and the family computer, I’m frozen out. It’s like being barred from the nudist beach because you have the wrong sandals on. You are so eager to frolic and relax and let it all hang out, and to feel the breeze on your, on your, but you just get a message saying cannot connect. I suppose it really is like a form of contraceptive, a kind of wall, a firewall of sorts, I just cannot get on the internet.

The Internet is great for everybody, you can chat and email and read the Daily Telegraph, especially if you can get past the paywall, and there are ways. It’s a bit like voting in the Labour Leadership Election, everybody wants to do it, just to screw up the Labour party, and a few actually believe in this new Messiah. Though for balance some may say voting Tory has already screwed the country for the next 5 years. Perhaps I should mention Liberals, but they are too few to mention. As for the Scot Nats, I think the canny Scots will have the last word, and that will surprise everybody, especially the Scot Nats. 

Yes I like reading my DT, though I do look at several papers online, or should I say I normally. Today has been a quiet day, well apart from the pain. It feels like a fridge which is empty, I go to the fridge and it is empty, just like Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. Without my internet, without my daily routine, I’m a bit at a loss. I miss deleting all the emails from companies telling me of their sales, the emails I delete without opening. I miss deleting those mad emails from scammers, as if anybody would leave me 2,000,000 in any currency. As if I’m impressed by Dr, or Barrister in the title. In America you are a Dr for 10USD, these emails are just from fakers in Africa and USSR.

I also get people from search optimise companies, so I thank them for their email and insert a silly photo and return their email with my Elevator Ad. I also get companies in China advertising their wares, so I reply I have a Shanghai wife and I send them my Elevator Ad as well, but all the best with their marketing.

Today none of this to punctuate my day. I went on my daily walk with no internet to fill me, to amuse me, to set me thinking about what I could use as an idea. All I need is a seed and away I go, I can provide my own water, and with the state of my kidneys I’m a frequent waterer. I suppose I could have used this as a day of prayer, but Oh God take this pain away is today’s only prayer. Yesterday was a good day, today is medium to bad day, it’s like the curves on a woman’s body, beautiful but also very dangerous, it can either be pleasure or pain. I could use a male metaphor for balance but if I described my own body you would all heave, so I’ll not mention pain any more in any metaphor.

So I tried loads of things to get my internet back, but no dice, as the wife was making egg fried rice. So I went and had a nap, with Totoro scratching on my bedroom door, she likes sitting in the windows. When I got up, and this involves going from naked to covered up, as Totoro is a Ninja cat and if she scratched my scars I’d be in agony, when I got up I thought I have one last try at getting my internet back.

Still my internet did not work, but I had another idea, I’d write a story called Disconnected, and explain my pain, the pain caused by lack of internet, and this is what you have been reading.

A Life With Printers

A life with printers ©

By Michael Casey

Our Kodak home printer died today, so I’ve left it outside in the street for street burial, this is like sky burial but the scrap guy comes for it, and not an eagle.  The Kodak really worked hard, though it was a bit noisy. The amount of pages per ribbon, or should I say cartridge was really good. That’s why I bought it in the first place. I had used it to print all my handouts when I was teaching Esol English.

We upgraded to Windows 10 on launch day, a couple of weeks ago, so I had to play with my Kodak software, to make sure everything was ok. It was, but then the Kodak decided to die. I had tried to explain to my teenage daughter how you problem solve printer  problems. Her idea is to replace the ribbons immediately with new ones. This is great if you have lots of money, even though Kodak cartridges are not too expensive. I was trying to teach her what I learnt in computer rooms back in 1978 onwards.

Finally in the end we had to give up the ghost, we could not fix the old Kodak, so it went into the street for sky burial, or street burial. I should add that I call printer cartridges ribbons because in the old day that was what printers used. It was more like a scroll with ink on it.

My first memory was standing in between two barrel printers which had scroll ribbons, I had to try and stack standard continuous special paper. We were printing research forms for contraceptives, our main work was market research into alcohol sales, but we also covered contraceptives. And as people were covering each other and using contraceptives, we did the market research for that too.

I also remember Al saying that Alcopops would not catch on, this was literally when they first appeared on the market. I was scared of Al he was the same build as a troll with matching moustache. In reality he was a very kind man, though I was always scared of him.

I spent years stacking paper in a noisy computer room, we were in the same room as the printers and their dust. Years later we had a separate print room built, we also had self-stacking printers. This was a big big deal, we were very impressed. With all these volumes of paper the morning team in CAD as it was called were more like CID, working out which paper matched which run sheet.

After 21 years with ACNielsen as we had become I went and worked the graveyard shift for city hall in Oldbury, the story was we were built on a former graveyard. I worked till 2.30 and then I went home. I printed the payslips for the council workforce, including my own. The toner was like an artillery shell I seem to remember. It was very old kit that had been bought 2^nd hand. The print room was new as big as a school gym.

Let’s say my time there was eventful, I even got married while I was there. I walked down the street at about 3am and got a taxi home every night. So by the time I went to bed it was 4am. Though one good thing did result, we conceived our first daughter, fertility rates must be high in the wee small hours.

My taxi driver died of alcoholism as well, and we both could have died as we were nearly totalled by a huge lorry delivering to the supermarkets in the wee small hours. It’s all very strange in the predawn hours, I should add I have done over 14 years of night shifts.

I was offered a 2^nd one year contract, but I decided not to, as my daughter was due and I wanted a normal life, no more night shifts. So I ended up working for a 4 star deluxe business hotel, CPNEC, no printers involved but plenty of carrying.  My chest size went up two inches and my neck size went up one inch, and as the hotel food was so good my belly went up 2 inches too. It was the best 3 years of my life.

I did get back to printers when I ended up as a life insurance underwriter non-medical, this involved printing loads of forms and posting them out to potential clients. What diseases do you have, what dangerous sports do you enjoy, if enjoy is the correct word. Which recreational drugs do you use, and so on. I hated this job as I was sat down all day in front of a PC apart from when I printed a very intrusive questionnaire. At the hotel I was walking around all day, maybe 5miles every day, just to get to the train station was 2 miles every day, 1 mile each way.

I promised myself I would leave that job once we came back from our Florida holiday to meet my wife’s uncle, the patriarch of the family. So I came back and left. The job was not for me, it was not for many people as the staff turnover was very high and they had 5 trainers constantly training.

I ended up at a law firm, they were a great company to work for, I was in the print room, back with my printers again. These were industrial size photo copier. Five beasts which were as long as a  sideboard. They had hoppers for  1000s of pages of paper, and stackers for thousands more. We never sat down in the print room, we just kind of perched, it could reach 30 degrees once all the printers/copiers were all fired up. Our room, the print room was next door to the law library, it so quiet and us so noisy, so I hid a copy of my comic novel The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker  in amongst the law books.

The best thing about the print room was the scrap paper, as if the paper got creased in any way it could not be used in the machines so it was recycled. I asked and was allowed to take some scrap paper home, and that is why my daughters are such good artists, because of the kindness of the law firm, and all the scrap paper.

I am a writer so that involves paper too, though I just want people to buy paper, books that have my words on. Nine books on Amazon now. Our cat Totoro like paper too, if you scrunch up paper she comes running because she can play football with the paper. If you scrunch up a banknote she will come running too, a writer’s cat loves paper. I just hope one day I sell my stories, so that the cat can come running to the sound of banknotes.

Dear David a Fairy Tale

Dear David a fairy Tale

Posted by michaelgcasey on 12 Aug 2015 20:51

I love to see you jogging though the streets with your XXXXXL minder right beside you. YOU love wearing blue, even when they MRS tries to hide it from you, you are a blue man trough and through, just like a stick of Westminister rock. Speaking of rock, does your noisy neighbour in No.11 keep you up all night with his drumming practice, the rat a tat tat of his drums, does Ringo visit him often. What about little Norman from the BBC, does he come in for a cocoa in the evening, he's soaking wet stood outstide all day. Then Laura is back, the girl done good Political Editor no doubt. Norman will have to make space at the kitchen table to let her squeeze in. What about the bedtime stories do the journalists take turns to tell tales to your kids, like vampire stories and the like, how the Labour party came back from the dead under JC, Jeremy Corbin. Though even your kids would not believe that. Then at Xmas they'll be the football match in Downing Street, police v journalists just like in WWI, only the *******s will be the politicians watching from the windows. Well thats how police and journalists speak of our leaders. And on it goes, I'm waiting for Rupert Murdoch to give me a spot in his press, his trouser press, my clothes are so crumpled after all. I'll stop here as my candle nas reached its end, and Bob Cratchit is nowhere to be seen.

2011 Samples.pdf

All Wired Up

All Wired Up ©

By Michael Casey

I was all wired up for a day, no nothing to do with 50 Shades of Michael or any other colour, I mean wired up for an ambulatory cardiac monitor. Its 6 months since I had my unplanned triple bypass, and it turns out that it was 4 grafts, so it was an unplanned quadruple. Anyway thanks to City and QE hospitals here in Birmingham. Now what does ambulatory mean you are all asking. I remember 1^st year Latin, ambulo, ambulas, ambulat  and we all know the word ambulance, so ambulatory means walking.

So you go to the hospital and a nurse shaves your chest, it seems every nurse wants to shave my chest. Then they attach 3  jump leads, they are not jump leads, but they do look like them, they are sensors. You are have a little machine with it, as big as an alarm clock, you put that in your pocket and then you go home. They also give you a piece of paper so you can write a  diary of your activities.

I was tempted to write rock climbing, and base jumping, followed by horse riding and marathon running. It would make it more interesting for consultant when he views the results. Michael Casey must be an Olympic athlete he would say. When I worked at CPNEC ten years ago we had an Olympic athlete staying, so every time we had a guest enter the gym I’d say as used by Olympic athletes.

Instead on the diary you write, having a pooh ten mins of training or straining, but that’s Olympic athletes again. You write went  to the corner shop, 10 mins.  Went to Aldi half an hour.Reading 2 hours, I do read a lot on the computer, Daily Telegraph and a smattering of Daily Mail and the Daily Express, and a look at the Sun and the Mirror, even the Guardian too. If any of these people have a corner on their websites I’d be more than happy to fill it. Though the editors might say I’d be like a cat, leaving mess in the corner. People can be so cruel, until you are popular and then they wish they’d stroked that cat and have it purr for them.

Being all wired up is no problem at all, that is until it’s time to go to bed. I sleep in the nude, ever since I left home many years ago. Pause, take a deep breath and have a stiff drink if the thought offends you. So where do I put the electronic box of tricks, I need something with a pocket and I want keep the wires under control. So the answer is to wear pyjamas in bed. My sister bought me some 6 months ago when I was in hospital, they are nearly worn out in the ar(***    as I toss and turn in my sleep.

My bedroom is like an oven as the way our central heating works the radiator in the room always gets some heat even if you are only heating hot water. Being South Facing adds to the heat, so if you are then wearing pyjamas and you are a nudist like me it all feels like a sauna. In a sauna I’d be naked, but as I’m wearing a cardiac monitor I’m just a pig sweating. A good looking pig, but a pig none the less. Ok, you can decide for yourselves what I look like, metaphor away, be my guest.

So the night passes and I awake every 2 hours. I used to sleep on my belly and then move about like a chicken on a rotisserie, but as I have a 12 inch scar on my belly from my heart operation I cannot sleep in my preferred position. I tend to sleep on my right side, they say sleep on your back but I’ve never been good in that position.

I got up for a drink and I wondered should I write that down in the diary, does your heart beat change when you go downstairs to the fridge and  back upstairs again? I didn’t put that down, maybe I should have. I did have a few minor twinges so I put them down. Sometimes I scream in the night but that’s from my scars on my legs where veins were harvested. Or if I’m stupid and brush the sheet again my left chest, then I scream and the neighbours can hear it. Mind you they may think it’s the local Sadomasochism Club. Though sometimes I have had a day of pain, or several days of pain, it’s the chest healing where it was cut in half.

In the morning it’s time to remove the sensors which are stuck to my chest, remember just how sensitive it is. Gingerly I remove them, and then I write down the time I got out of bed and removed them. Now I can have a wash, did I tell you, you cannot wash for 24 hours. So you have a 2 day shower before breakfast and going back to the hospital and handing in the cardiac monitor.

The moral of the story, eat your greens and have a balanced diet. I was walking 20 miles a week before this suddenly can upon me. I am now walking 10 to 15 miles a week. I have given up meat and frozen food since I came out of hospital in January 2015. I live on chicken and salmon and eggs, I have lost maybe 10kilos.I never smoked in my life and was almost teetotal, all our lodgers were alcoholics, hence alcohol never interested me. However you can still get coronary heart disease through other factors.

I have extra time now, so I don’t want to waste it, so if any opportunities come along I will grab them, but being able to see my daughters grow up IS the greatest gift. The gift of life itself.