On paid blogging/ writing

I began this blog in 2005. There is a massive amount of work in it, and I always thought it should not be done for any other reason than to speak my (weird) mind. Consequently the idea of generating income from it never crossed my thoughts. Besides, when it began, it had zero hits. With the passing of time, this changed. Right now I have hundreds of pageviews for every new entry I upload. Still this translates to absolutely zero income.

I know what you are thinking. Well, if it is art, it should come from the heart. Money has no place there. 

Yeah. Except for the fact this heart resides inside a body, and the body in question needs food, clothes, electricity for the laptop, an internet provider and so on and so forth. After these needs have been covered, then the brain of the body in question can come up with some sort of content for this blog. Never mind what that content is. Since you are here reading this, I guess you are familiar with the fact my entries jump from one bonkers subject to the next like a frog on acid. Unless you are a newcomer, in which case I should warn you: you might not like the content of this blog. If you are racist, homophobic, sexist, narrow-minded etc., then you most certainly won't like it. You may even not be any of these things and still not like it, and that's fine. Just be warned this is one of the weird places on the internet, OK?

With that in mind, let's take a look on the matter of paid writing as expressed by the excellent writer K.J. Charles, with whom I wholeheartedly agree:

http://kjcharleswriter.com/2016/02/18/in-a-huff-why-writing-should-be-paid/ 

I am not lazy; I could have re-written the same things in a slightly different way, but I see no need to alter her crystal clear and very funny argumentation. I will only quote two small portions of her article:

"You know what’s a real challenge for many people? Paying their rent; feeding their families; keeping afloat. You know what makes that harder? Not being paid." 

"Paying authors lets them write. It doesn’t make them less genuine, or less hungry (except in the actual literal sense, obviously), or less heartfelt, or less busy. It just makes them able to live and thus do their job, ie writing." 

I am still unemployed. I have stopped sending CVs to random jobs, because I might get hired only to discover they won't pay me, or won't pay for my social security, or expect me to work overtime for free, or any combination of the three/ all three. This is the reality in Greece nowadays, as described also here and here. If, and this is a BIG if, you get hired, then you might not get paid. Which brings you to the next interesting dilemma. Keep working for free in the hope of getting some of the money they owe you, or stop working and losing the money they owe you for certain? We're also probably the country with the most heavy direct and indirect taxes in whole Europe in relation to our income. We're in the top ten of countries with heavy taxes, and yes, French people might have a higher percentage of tax, but they don't get paid a 500 euro wage per month. They also don't get taxed if their annual income is 8000 euro. Please don't get me started, because this will become a screaming fit in block capitals in a manner of nanoseconds. It won't be pretty. 

So, as I said, I've stopped looking randomly for a job and I am only looking into those jobs that I know from a reliable source will do the three important things: pay you, won't work you to death, and pay for social security. Problem being, I run out of unemployment benefits this month, and next month is going to be, ahem, interesting.

If you read this blog, and especially if you enjoy this blog (cause I know there are some people silently practicing what we call hate-reading for their own bizarre reasons) please consider helping me. There is a donation button at the upper right corner. If you like my content, please consider even for a moment the possibility of buying me a coffee. If this blog is a friendly place for you, if it has helped you, kept you company, or amused you in any way, then give it a thought. It's not compulsory. But the content you have at your disposal is the best I could come up with that given moment, and as honest as it gets. It's a gigantic portion of my time and craft. I don't want to make this blog restricted to members only or add stupid advertisements. I want it to remain public and viewable by everyone. If I get even the smallest income from it, it would be tremendous help. I've never gotten anything from it, except for two coffees bought by two close friends. If I get a bit of income, I'll be motivated to write more and more in depth. If I don't, it will continue being the random thing that it is now, writing when I feel like it because I want to, and also because I have a bit of time to spare after my work. If you want this to change, you can help me towards it. Unfortunately, I can't do it alone.

To change subject, here is a very interesting music video I came across recently. It's slow, dark and haunting. I hope you'll enjoy it. You can find their music here: https://cisfinitum.bandcamp.com/

Diversion

 

I need to post something for two reasons. One, both music and performance are fantastic. Secondly, I can't bear to see the photo of poor Louse every time I open my blog. It hurts me. So I'll post ballet, which is one of my vices, and stop seeing my dead kitten. Sounds like a plan?

For those of you who don't care about ballet, may I suggest looking at the arms of the female dancer? Just observe the grace and beauty of their movement and don't look at anything else if you don't want. Those fluid, seemingly effortless movements are the result of a few thousand hours of excruciatingly difficult practice. Just try the ballet posture for a minute and then tell me. Shoulders down and back, neck and body straight, tuck in your tummy, don't sag, don't stick your butt out. Keep breathing. Wow, that hurts, doesn't it? And you're not even moving! That's the basic posture, not practice. Ha! You simply have to keep that unnatural posture (which, by the way,  is actually the healthy posture your body should have, but due to smartphones and office jobs and what have you, no-one stands that way) and try simple exercises for beginners. Oh joy! Suddenly those effortless, graceful movements in the video reveal themselves for what they really are: torture methods for a particularly nasty elite in hell. I'd sure as fuck make politicians learn classical ballet after death. I'd love to see Hitler or Trump in a pair of pointe shoes. I'd probably use a whip for encouragement. 

Hm, I got carried away, didn't I? Well, I hope you'll enjoy the video. I found it less stiff and stylised than the average ballet performance. Beautiful acting too. And the damn French, oh the damn French, they should either be eradicated from existence, or placed in a harem and made to serve me exclusively. Evil, evil beings, beautiful and talented and expressive and... yes, God dammit, I am jealous. That's my excuse.
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The unexpected visitor of Sadness

 

A few days ago, my kitten Louse got sick. It was a respiratory infection that goes around lately; causes fever, lack of appetite. Another of my cats also got sick with it and got over it. But poor Louse simply could not make it. I saved her life twice in the past, this time it was over in less than three days. 

I knew this cat would not live for long. She wanted to live and clung to life with a ferocity I've rarely seen. She was not growing up properly, she had a heart or lung condition and yet she ran around the house like no other kitten. She played constantly and pulled tricks on the other cats, driving them insane. She was the smartest cat I've come across, and she only lived for less than six months. I had come to accept the possibility of her passing away ever since the vet told us about her heart condition. So when she died, I did not cry. But today that I opened a folder in my PC and came across that photo of hers, I cried my eyes out. She looks healthy in that photo. Healthy, happy and inquiring as to what this stupid human (me) wanted from her.

I only wanted you to live for as long as you could, my sweet darling. And I am happy I offered you those six months. I wish I could have done more, but my hands were tied.

Please neuter and spay your cats. Louse was found on the street and I did the best I could for her. Most kittens born on the streets live in appalling conditions for as long as they live and die terrible deaths. There is too much misery in this world already. Don't add to it.

I hope you are happy wherever you are now, and run around, perfectly healthy and feisty and smart as a whip. Good bye, my darling; till we meet again.

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Fun time with demons

I have been re-reading my past diaries. I do that from time to time. I recently came across a dream I had seen in 2016. I had forgotten about it. Ha! It scores a veritable nine out of ten in the Shitting Bricks scale, so I thought I'd share with you. Ready or not, here I come.

I am in a place with other people. Everyone is sleeping. I meet a friend's mother in law. She is smoking like a chimney, and I tell her that she has a demon in her throat. If she exorcises that demon, she will quit smoking. I also tell her that someone has seen spots in her aura, which means she is in imminent danger of developing cancer if she doesn't quit. She tells me she doesn't want to. 

I notice that there is a metallic object flying in the room. It is a decorative object, but it is flying in the manner of an insect. I grab it, throw it on the floor and step on it, destroying it. There is an orange substance like dough inside. The left hand I used to catch it with is smeared with that orange substance. I know there is a demon inside that thing, so I keep stomping on it while yelling, "Fire! Bring me fire to burn it!" No-one pays attention to my yelling. 

The scenery changes and I am back in my house. The demon has followed me there. My (dead) grandmother appears in my dream. She was my father's mother, and her name was Elizabeth. She takes the demon inside her willingly to protect the rest of the family. Suddenly I find myself in another place, where two friends live, and they, too, are under possession and they keep attacking me together with their demon, who's a man. I can barely keep them in check. 

I find myself back in my house, in my room. My possessed grandmother is in my room with me. I step out. My mother gives me a candle to put it inside my grandmother's mouth. I open the door, put the candle inside my grandmother's mouth, and close the door again. An explosion takes place, and when I open my door again, my grandmother has transformed into a candle that burns slowly. My mother seizes that candle and tells me, "Now I am going to call another demon to take her soul and bring me wealth." She is holding the candle in her right hand as she tells me "Look! Do you feel that wind? It means he has arrived. He is already here." 

I look around and there is indeed an abnormal wind blowing that terrifies me, because there is a thing like tendrils of black smog inside it. "I am going to stop you," I tell her. "In the name of Christ," I say, and raise my hand. I am holding a big metallic knife in my right hand. I draw a banishing pentagram in the air and her invocation is cut short.

"What did you do?!" she screams at me. I realise her left eye is completely black, as if it is a stone and not a human eye. "A rich man would have come in my life, and he'd have taken care of me!" 

"It's best for you to be free," I tell her, and I wake up. I am panting. I look at the clock. It is 05:43 a.m.

The worst part of the dream wasn't that. The worst bit was after waking up. I called upon Michael because I was terrified and still heaving. I looked at the ceiling and saw tendrils of black smog. I raised my right hand to block it and spoke out loud the name of Michael three times. At the same time, a dog started howling somewhere in the neighbourhood, while the sirens of two ambulances echoed in the distance. 

Don't ask me how I slept again that night. I did. It wasn't easy, but I am rather used to these things happening to me. 

Points of interest:

• Sleeping people= unaware of the supernatural?
• Addictions are actually 'demons'. 
• Spots in aura are a sign that a sickness is about to appear in the physical body, if it hasn't already.
• Fire can indeed be used to fight demons.
• Selling the soul of a person who sacrificed themselves to protect others in order to gain wealth is one of the most abominable deeds I can think of.
• Drawing a banishing pentagram in the air can be used to ward off evil whether one is asleep or awake. 
• The knife I saw in my dream does exist. After the dream, I took it and placed it on my altar. 
• Michael and Christ are excellent choices to keep evil at bay. Don't forget Michael's element is fire, and Christ... Well, I don't need to elaborate.
• Howling dogs, eh, not good. Animals can sense when something is wrong. Ambulances, obviously not good. Numbers in descending order, not good either. 

Here is a picture of an invoking and a banishing pentagram. Use the second to kick some demon ass. And don't forget, the worst demons are the ones we create by addiction and obsession. They begin as thought-forms and slowly evolve into separate, autonomous entities. So regulate your bad habits if you don't want unhealthy roommates in your body and mind. :) And if you enjoy my content, please consider supporting what I do. Thank you.

Phoenix

"Hi ho, nobody home, love nor hope nor honour have I none, yet I will be merry..."

The song of the dispossessed is buried with them, piles of rotting flesh in nameless graves. Then the crows, eaters of flesh, take it back to the Mother who's Unfathomable, Unnamed, Sacred, Absent from this hellhole of a world.

"You know, Lilith has had as much bad press as Lucifer, if not more. It's the same with Kali and Hecate. Kali kills the parts of the self that not only don't serve a purpose anymore, but turn into fully-fledged demons if left unchecked. Hecate was the goddess of witchcraft, but also of justice, eloquence, a protectress of pregnant women and children and the one who in her mercy gathered the souls of the mad and the suicides from the crossroads."

And Lilith?

Luminous shadow of Creation

the left hand of God/dess

Black Moon to Her Black Sun

The Ancient One who walked in the gardens of Babylon

The Second Born and first to give birth

Exalted, revered, sacred

The ones scared of Her power 

called Her mother of abominations

the One who gave birth to Death

As if life itself isn't the first step towards

the embrace of Death...

And you?

I weave. Silently, incessantly, I weave. I write and pray and light candles and kiss my cats and eat and walk and talk and weave. In my sleep I sing the song of the dispossessed and wake up with my cheeks wet with tears. In my waking hours I see the heart of the tiniest phoenix in the flaming center of a flower and go back to bed with my cheeks wet with tears. Cause no-one else sees it, and when I tell them about it, they give me that half-smile we give to children and mentally challenged people. 

If you have money, you are eccentric. If you don't, you're just weird.

I can live with it. 

Dead Can Dance

"Song Of The Dispossessed"

The river is deep and the road is long

Daylight comes and I want to go home

Awoke this morning

To find my people's tongues were tied

And in my dreams

They were given books to poison their minds

The river is deep and the mountain high

How long before the other side?

We are their mortar

Their building bricks and their clay

Their gold teeth mirror

Both our joys and our pain

The river is deep and the ocean wide

Who will show us how to read the signs?

The earth is our mother

She taught us to embrace the light

Now the lord is master

She suffers an eternal night

You blocked up my ears

You plucked out my eyes

You cut out my tongue

You fed me with lies

Oh lord

Oh lord

Oh lord

Oh lord

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Ta daaah!

I know who my enemies are. They are the Grey Black Reptilian Jewish Gay Freemasons, who also happen to be Communists, because their answer to everything I try is "NO". I knew it! I fucking knew it. I could tell by the way the postman is giving me the evil eye. The fact I sometimes order books that weigh half a tonne and he's developed multiple hernias the size of a witch's hut is irrelevant.

Because the stars are right and my lower back hurts (again) and there's been a string of incidents of unmitigated entropy, I declare war on seriousness. I demand to fondle boobs and butts on a daily basis times three, or else. Money would also be nice.

If my demands are not met promptly and in a satisfactory manner, I shall eat a barrel of beans and proceed to fart the sweet Bejeesus and Infernal Chorus in vapour, which will in turn kick the living daylights out of your detestable species homo cretinus. I shall continue until the entire country is lost in a bubbling green-brown cloud that is a hair away from developing self-awareness and buying an iPhone. DO YOU HEAR ME?!?

Other points of interest include: 

• my Schrödinger mustache, which both exists and doesn't depending on who's looking (I can see it just fine, yet others say it's my idea) 
• the fact one of my cats mews like a horse accidentally inhaled a canary and then a cat accidentally swallowed the horse and now all three are having a conversation
• mosquitoes in February buzzing over my head and sounding like a hoover is sucking air through a fan, but in slow playback
• bending time and space by living on money I have not received yet and won't receive until three months later
• there is. No chocolate. In the house. No chocolate. In the godsbumped. Whorefucked. Sunfried. Pimplejuiced. Asstapping. House. None. Whatsover. Arghh! L'eeeengh! Weghjanitor, bepantholldopel visavickslkanjig xkajax lgjwalrusswl! Yggdrasil!

I started speaking in tongues, it's a sign that heralds the oncoming beanapocalypse. You can still stop it. Send me money. Lots of money. I need it for the vet. And chocolate. Digsbums a la creme! Motherstacking infidels of borderfine generalities! Shub Niggurath wearing nipple clamps! Ai, ai, my lower back hurts! Fhtagn!

I don't know what I am doing wrong, but I suspect something is not done right. xD
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Last exit for the Lost

That last exit for me is music. Writing presupposes some kind of coherent thinking, music needs less thinking. Screaming, for that matter, needs no thinking whatsoever. But since it is next to impossible to start screaming in a flat without drawing the wrong kind of attention, music and writing it is.

2018 is here and thankfully I am here too. I have an impressive frostbite on my right index finger, good music in my possession, a wound inside my mouth, lungs full of mucus and a half-insane mother because one of our cats is probably not going to make it. I am resigned. She is not, and she is making me crazy too because she needs company. Oh well.

First blog entry of the year and I set off on the wrong foot. Someone once told me that this blog is always complaining about something. He made me feel I should apologise for feeling the way I did. Then I remembered my friend Virve, the one who died. In one of her very last messages, she told me to keep writing regardless of who loved my writing and who hated it. She said that neither category had anything to do with my writing per se, but the person themselves. The reason this blog was created in the first place was to be an online diary. I won't censor myself. I guess no matter what you write about, someone will be displeased. Then again, there is always the option of not reading what makes you upset.

So I was talking about sadness. Sadness is not acceptable by society. Mourning is not trendy or productive. Being constantly positive is the latest fashionable prerequisite. Everything happens for a reason. Everything is a valuable lesson. Whatever does not kill you makes you stronger. And so on and so forth. Right?

Not everything happens for a reason. Most bad events happen because we are the most pig-headed and close-minded race of sentient beings I have ever had the unfortunate 'privilege' of coming across. There are less than five people I can talk with and not need to explain or be wary of their intentions. I survive by keeping a low profile and feigning ignorance. I survive by listening to music, reading, writing, and minimising the time I spend socialising. Which reminds me...

 

I've done a lot of socialising for my standards since October. Turns out the maximum amount of exposure to a large crowd (30+ people) I can handle is once every two weeks. I refuse to repeat it in a smaller amount of time. I simply get sick. Sore throat, cold, you name it. The funniest thing is that everyone who mets me regards me as super social and friendly. Low profile, remember? And to be honest, I do care about people. I am not friendly and kind towards them because I want to manipulate them.

Music is what makes our souls soar above the mud of existence. Man-made vibrations that express a multitude of feelings. Love is what makes our souls merge with something bigger, leaving behind us every smidgen of pretense and appropriateness. And to quote one of my most beloved heroes, "You don't choose the ones you love. What you do choose is the way you'll treat them".  

If I extend my hands left and right in this small room, crammed with books and CDs and personal items, and with a cat sleeping on my bed, I am alone. Right?

No. Because they open the door of my heart and out they come, one after the other, the ones I love, my characters and creations. The ones I brought here and gave them flesh and blood and other people who love them and hate them and want to see them dead. And together with them my books and my comics and my CDs and my old drawings secretly open too, and countless stories pour out, colourful strings of every conceivable hue. Everyone I've ever loved and hated is here with me, and what I need to do is close my eyes and will them out. Every story humanity has ever come up with, or at least one variation of it is here with me, together with every note and colour and tear ever shed. How can I be alone? I am not. I am never alone. Even in the most desolate, tiniest cell of the whole world I would not be alone. There is a richness inside beyond anything. It merges with me and makes me ecstatic, makes my eyes so full of beauty and wonder that this world will forever pale in comparison. And that is why I am sad. Because my eyes and mind and heart perceive the fullest potential in a world that has gone to the dogs. And the gatekeepers of this world hate my guts for it.

Should I really apologise for that? I don't think so.

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