Monthly Archives: December 2013

Tim Walker’s New Beginning

Gosh, how terribly unlike me.

It’s the first day of 2014 and already I’ve managed to antagonise myself.

Agreed, that doesn’t sound at all unlike me. Even so, there are two things about that heading which just don’t sit quite right…

Firstly, I seem to have foregone my pseudonym – removing the mirror so Mit Reklaw reads Tim Walker again. Secondly, and this display of pedantry will prove to any disbelievers that despite the name reversion it is still me and yes I do still teeter on that deranged precipice; secondly it’s the fact that I have yet to encounter any form of Beginning, which is not a New Beginning, thus ‘Tim Walker’s New Beginning’..? Yes, indeed, it is suitably apt; and hence thus so therefore…

Right. I should explain myself. It was really only my desire not to be recognised as an affiliate of Facebook which inspired such an uninspired nom de plume – uninspired in that I could just as easily have referred to myself as Mega Buttload or something cool like that…

Thing is though, my late grandfather and his brother once raced a greyhound they called, Reklaw’s Pride. I learned that piece of history a little over a decade ago. It was the first time I had realised that Walker backwards was Reklaw. Seriously, it rocked my world. Therefore, when I joined Facebook only days before my 30th birthday, Mit Reklaw seemed the logical way for Tim Walker to maintain his furtive presence…

Yeah. Although I obviously didn’t think so at the time I can now appreciate that a middle aged man inverting his name for the purpose of anonymity, does seem pretty juvenile. Also lame.

So that’s my story. As for ‘New Beginnings’, despite my earlier show of deprecation I now see that I was in fact justified in using such a tired idiom: today is the 1st of January 2014, thus a New year is upon us; that heading, the title you will have read at the start, was the Beginning, of this. Also, I am Tim Walker.

Not wishing to take away from the brilliance of my readers, I best let you lot piece that one together.

Additionally, it’s not just the year that’s new. Many things will be beginning today. For instance, a great many resolutions will have been undertaken last night – only to be shattered in the days to come…

That’s where I’m a little different. I made the pledge to relinquish my beloved tar babies way back in November so while everybody else is buckling under the strain of ‘six hours without a cigarette’, I’m already over a month into it – at the risk of sounding a little smug…

Ha.

Alright. That’s me. To all you delightful little word-smiths out there, Merry Cliché and a Hackneyed New Year.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Mit Reklaw

 

Mit Reklaw’s Unentitled

Reckon I’m about done with lucky number 2013.

Week out from Christmas, a handful of weeks out from the end of the year and I feel as though I’ve already left the building…

On the topic of all things nonsensical, I do have to wonder what’s up with that heading – did I mean un-entitled, as in, “You jumped up little skid mark, you’re not entitled to that…”, or did I mean simply untitled, as in, “This particular piece of crap is not entitled anything because I couldn’t be arsed thinking of a title…” – because you do realise that ‘unentitled’ is not a real word, don’t you? I can see it now, looking all garish, embellished with its red underlining so I know that I’ve messed up…

I don’t have kids. Those who do might have experienced the astonishment, the horror; the outright disbelief of youthful entitlement – the grasping nature of children who believe that Christmas is a day put in place primarily to shower them with gifts.

I’m an atheist. Possibly there was a carpenter born today with flowing hair, tattered loin cloth and sandals, but I don’t worship him. Presumably neither do the kids tearing into their neatly wrapped presents with so much anticipative glee and a sense that they deserve everything that they receive on that fine December 25th

Shit. I don’t know if there was ever really a point to be made here and if there was, well, I seem to have failed to make it.

This is quite short because I didn’t make it quite long.

It didn’t really say anything because I didn’t really have anything to say.

 

 

Article by Mit Reklaw

Edited by Sash Rullidge

Photography by Bliss Feemy

Mit Reklaw’s Sympathy For The Devil

Not the Devil, not really, although this presence is equally hellish…

Shark attacks have become a way of life for beach-going folk of Western Australia. Some are saying that these prehistoric behemoths ought to be culled: ‘Beaches are no place for Great White Sharks’, they say…

Beaches are the exact place for fish, I say, and if you want to get all territorial on it, I would be tempted to also say, ‘Fish go in the ocean, people go on the land’.

Seems pretty clear to me, and whenever a person does choose to enter the ocean – the fish’s domain – that person must understand that there is a notable amount if peril attached to that decision.

Around 400 million years ago – long before Neanderthal man first skulked across the landscape – the first White Shark could be seen swimming through the ocean with tremendous speed and breathtaking agility, swiping a succulent Cretoxyrhina from the passing shoal, tearing into it with its razor sharp teeth then gulping down the morsel, still more or less whole.

White Sharks are awesome. These beasts have been around for a lot longer than you or I, therefore who the hell are you or I to say that these kings of the ocean should do anything other than go on living their lives as they please?

Word is, sharks don’t fancy the flavour of people anyway and while I can’t imagine that wrapping the aforementioned vertebrate in a wetsuit makes it any more palatable, here’s the thing: sharks are predators. Predators survive by preying on other living entities. Typical of predators or in fact carnivores of any kind, when they are not eating their prey, they probably like to play with their prey and this I believe is the essence of most shark attacks…

So you see, they’re likely only playing – just a pity a bite from a Great White isn’t a little more fun.

White Sharks are an endangered species. This means it is technically illegal to kill them. Since being labelled ‘endangered’ their numbers have burgeoned. A great many Western Australians, having seen the devastation that these sharks can cause, are lobbying to have them removed – by which I am sure they mean ‘killed off’.

That’s the arrogance of people. We think that if something is preventing us from maintaining our desired lifestyle, we should simply get rid of it.

White Sharks are the kings of the ocean. Their obvious land based equivalent is the lion. What would happen if lions became extinct? Zebras and deer would gambol through the trees without a care in the world; grass and plant life on the forest floor would grow unabated; insect life would exponentially multiply; now instead of the threat of being eaten by a lion, equine mammals of the forest should be more concerned with having their blood drained by swarms of mosquitoes.

Same applies in the ocean. Kill off the greatest aquatic predator ever in existence and suddenly tuna are living longer hence breeding more; with more tuna requiring food kingfish numbers take a big hit; fewer kingfish means mackerel numbers rise uncontrollably; won’t be long before so many mackerel have exhausted their food source…

I’ve often wondered if like us sharks possess the ability to think, or if like invertebrates they function purely on instinct – running the basic survive to procreate programme..?

Turns out they do have functional brains. A shark’s brain is purported to be highly visual, yet they are thought to be colour-blind. Australian scientists have used this knowledge to design a wetsuit which camouflages a diver in the water, thereby making him invisible to sharks. Another group of creative Aussie boffins have developed a way of effectively fencing off sections of beaches by implementing ‘bubble curtains’. These are essentially lengths of perforated hose placed on the sea floor and charged with a continuous supply of air, producing a wall of bubbles which confuses sharks’ senses, causing them to retreat.

That sounds much more sensible. It’s short sighted to think that we can rectify a problem through extermination. It’s our eco-system and it is imperative that it is kept in balance.

The reason that Great White Sharks are still in existence is because they are necessary to further existence.

 

 

Article by Mit Reklaw

Edited by Shaq Attack

Photography by W A Ocher

Mit Reklaw’s Christmas

I know. I can’t believe it either. What a bloody sell out, right?

Not really, it was either this or poetry and no one likes reading poetry. Trust me, they don’t – I’m talking about the good stuff too, proper poetry, rhyming poetry.

I always thought that a poem without rhyme was just a story without pith..?

Good segue. If there is one form of poetry detested above the rest, it is Christmas Carols. Admittedly, there are people out there who love nothing more than a good hearty carolling; I just have yet to meet them. In fact most everyone I know, even those who claim to embrace everything about the festive season, despise Christmas Carols.

Certainly there is a time and a place for Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer to be hurtling through the Silent Night while Snoopy dreams of a White Christmas and yes, the place is probably wherever there is the mass of Christ – alas, the time is not the 21st century. These songs were written mid 1900s and at the time, they were massive…

Nowadays, not so much.

Nowadays the majority do what they can to avoid being subjected to these gay little jingles but here’s the thing, they’re bloody everywhere. Fortunately my chosen radio station administers an equal dosage of Christmas Carol as it does Justin Bieber, which is to say, less than zero milligrams; still, one cannot expect to drown out the audio of the outside world all day every day, one must enter public arenas at some time, and the instant one does…

Ah crap. Like I said, they’re bloody everywhere.

Believe it or don’t, this piece of writing was not intended – not primarily anyway – as disparagement towards Christmas Carols. It is supposed to be outlining, illustrating and celebrating the joy of family, the delight of gift giving, the awesomeness of Backyard Cricket, the freedom of cracking your first beer by 10am, the immeasurable happiness then later turgid regret of overeating; then doing the very same thing next mealtime.

That’s what it was supposed to be, because those things are important to me and I imagine, this is a sentiment embraced by most New Zealanders.

It is my belief that Christmas is a time when all grudges should be dropped, all ill feeling should be forgotten and any other shit between any other shitheads ought to be relinquished as well. It is no time for tension.

It’s Christmas and whether you perceive it in the Christian sense or otherwise, it’s a time for family.

Be there for yours.

 

 

Article by Mit Reklaw

Edited by Chris Mist

Photography by Honey Carr

Mit Reklaw’s Retrospect

Often it’s those not directly involved in the failure of a task, who claim to have been able to foresee its downfall all along.

Problem is, this wisdom is only ever offered after the aforementioned debacle.

Must be one of life’s most enduring queries: why is it that the world’s supervisors, spectators; onlookers and overseers generally appear more qualified and at a broader range of tasks, than the supposed professionals?

As a woodsman fells a tree which drops the wrong way, the teacher in a nearby building can see what he did wrong; as a snowboarder lands a jump but sprains his knee, a congregation of skiers could have told him that was going to happen; as a truck driver’s load shifts on a bend causing his rig to roll over, the driver of the proceeding car sees exactly what the truck driver did wrong…

For you see we are that good – that clever, that insightful; that perspicacious.

Evidently New Zealand comprises a highly skilled, vastly knowledgeable; yet somewhat bashful population.

Skilled and knowledgeable in that we invariably know why things didn’t go right; then once they’ve gone wrong we are awesome enough to be able to point out that we knew that was going to happen. Bashful in the sense that we don’t ever seem to have the gumption to step up, put into practice our superior perspicacity and stop those things going wrong in the first place…

Wait. Is it lack of gumption – a startling deficit in the fortitude of man – or is it that as members of such an exclusive population we are basically a pretentious breed of people; who are inherently full of shit?

Well. As a NZ male, believe me, I know. Oh yeah, I know it all. A great many of us are indeed, full of shit. Some of us will make out like we know how to do stuff even though we don’t. Some of us act as if we don’t need any help with anything at all even though we do. Some of us preach about the best way to do stuff as if we know the best way even though we don’t. Some of us like to throw around a lot of big words and clichés in an attempt to make ourselves appear learned even though we’re not…

Some of us – these are the worst ones – like to elevate ourselves by not participating but waiting, then taking the retrospective high ground.

These pompous dickwads like to stand back and watch development unfolding while ever so helpfully pointing out imaginary problems; then once the task is complete and if a genuine issue is noticed, these pillocks come down from their lofty perches, hurry to board the bandwagon then kindly, retrospectively, start advising people on how it should have been done.

Man, these people are awesome. They are the complete package: skilled, knowledgeable, bash…

In my experience, those who elect to wait it out from the safety of the retrospective high ground rather than actually assisting in a process, are generally those who have no ability anyway. They will likely act as though they do but rest assured, they don’t. The only thing at which these people excel, is taking away from the glory of achievement.

Of course people who are genuinely awesome do exist but they’ll be hard to find – they don’t go around making a big deal of it.

 

 

Article by Mit Reklaw

Edited by A R Swipe

Photography by Pauline Ura Head