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“The ‘Book-wormed Weirdo?’ ” (Prose)

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Woman reading a book on a rooftop balcony with city skyline at dusk

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmith@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

Remember back to when you were at school?

Now I am not a mean man….BUT

At least half the kids were so disruptive & stupid,

That they could barely write their name at the top of the exam, test, or pop quiz.

And of course they sent some good teachers to their ends wits – and/or alcoholism & early retirement.

All those troublesome people left school and went into the workplace.

Contrary to what your mind wants to tell you –

They did not disappear at all.

They went into big faceless companies for ‘cubicle jobs’ just like you did.

It’s not that your were ‘dumb’ to do this – it’s that you have no choice when ‘coming of age’ –

That’s the de-facto law – you can sell out as a wage slave or not and live under a bridge.

And through some weird twist of fate,

About how the world has intellectual degraded,

Or just some giant cosmic inside joke,

They (the troublesome dummies) were far more likely to end up your boss than you theirs.

Ps and to make this clear: I’m all for ‘kindly dummies’ – ’tis the ‘bastardy dummies’ in my crosshairs.

–

You see no one liked a ‘brainiac’ a high school,

And I’m sure it’s not news for you – but they don’t like one after high school either.

You see the world is so backward that they’d rather destroy the day-to-day world,

Than allow someone with brains to be in a stock-standard leadership position,

In a stock standard concrete cubicle-land position,

In some god-forsaken-randomized-grey-cubicle-obsessed-zombified-mega-metropolis –

If you will excuse the flagrant artistic-license-inbued-verbosity.

Why do think it is that nothing ever works these days?

Why do you think terrible customer service is the norm?

Why do you people lose their shit and flip out at the drop of a hat?

It’s far more of a ‘bad gag’ than a ‘mistake-by-chance’.

Somewhere along the line the dumb kids were handed the ‘keys to the city’ and nice shoes,

And you were handed some boot polish while you sat in the dirt and read Kierkegaard.

And when they said ‘Yo egghead – shine my shoes’ – you complied meekly.

And as the years rolled by you grew sick of shining the boots of the dummies,

So you slowly dropped out of society.

After all – you were human – you could only take so much.

Now you sit in rags and read Schopenhauer,

Now you shine your own shoes but they have holes in them.

And as you wearily turn the dead philosophers’ pages you tend to agree wholeheartedly.

Sometimes you deeply reflect on yourself, the pages, and the world you’ve seen so far.

Boot-polish-days over – you allow your mind ‘total creative control’ to wander endlessly.

You wonder whether the story of ‘God vs Satan’ is actually true.

After all – surely all this suffering you’ve had is for a stoically good reason?

Sometimes of course it’s all a bit too much to handle –

We all have our good and bad days.

But luckily Marcus Aurelius is always there on your shelf, desk or floor,

To help you pay your rent,

And finally climb your sad carcass out of bed. .

Sure its midday or even later – but who really cares?

At least you still haven’t done yourself in.

After all you’ve given The Devil more than enough already –

Did you not play – via coercion mind – his stupid games for decades?

You bowed down to the dummies in charge for many a moonrise –

Yet you didn’t even go full-on ‘Postal’ – well apart from that one time anyway.

That long self-denial of your human needs was a minor miracle in itself – a true act of self-sacrifice.

As you think of all these things you don’t flinch.

You merely turn the page as you sit outside in the sun, wind, and then rain.

Christ! – Perhaps in the end you got what you wanted!

‘Degradation trip’ or not , you have survived – have you not?

Sometimes you wish you were one of them dummies and you immediately blush –

Despite there being no one around you – so far as you can tell that is.

You tell yourself things are good.

You’re now ‘happily living on the outskirts of hell’.

(that is away from Metropolis-Cubical-Zone Sector 23-G).

At least that’s what you tell your solitary friend,

Who visits once a month or so – if your lucky.

You’re pretty sure he’s (or she) is real.

Or have you just become another ‘Forty-Plus Frederick Nietzsche’?

(i.e. a formerly top-tier wise but now a shackled ‘madman’?)

And a madman of course never can see that going or have become quite mad.

It all depends whether they write about you one day or not.

But to hazard a guess, statistically you’ll probably be known as a ‘book-wormed weirdo’.

So learn to be happy with that –

As I have become.

The ‘Book-wormed-Weirdo rules ok?

Well he still draws breath anyway.

It’s my birthday. I am forty-eight today. I worked like it was a normal day… (A blog post)

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Man sitting on a bench holding a drink with flying books in the sky at sunset

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmith@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com (email me!)

So yes it’s my birthday. Forty eight. I celebrated by deciding to not celebrate. It’s now a firm tradition of mine. I’ve been doing it for decades.

Is it because I am a Gen X’er? I say that because the stereotype is we don’t care about anything. Is it because I am ‘South Island kiwi? I say that because we have this Scottish Presbyterian/Calvinist cultural hangover which says you can’t be seen to enjoy yourself. Is it because deep down I don’t think I’m worthy enough to celebrate my entry into this (seemingly wildly degenerating) mortal coil?

The answer is I don’t know why I couldn’t care less about my birthday. Other than to worry about my ‘life as I age’ a little more – as now I am almost half a century old. The ‘distant horizon of the end’, having been priorly an academic thought, is now appearing in sight – it is now a farway hill I can see instead a mountaintop in the distant hazy horizon. And we all no matter how ‘Zen’ we think are, think of our achievements in some manner at least. I would be lying if I do not have worry about the charge of “he was such a promising youngster – but he hasn’t really lived up to his potential” factor. Of course I don’t care about the fact I’m not a big CEO or a Lawyer – I’m not that stupid to see those empty ‘TV style’ manufactured wants. But of course, I do want to have exhibited my natural and worked-on creative talents. That’s called being human.

I wouldn’t say that I’m in any danger of a ‘midlife crisis’ – weirdly I kinda had that early at about age thirty-five-ish. It’s really just normal aging worries that someone like me has, I am sure. And by ‘someone like me’ – I guess I mean someone who is bookish, prone to be an over-thinker, undiagnosed ADHD (maybe I am but that could be a boldface lie!), and a man without much hard cash at the moment. This is because I’ve made a commitment to the liberal arts AND I’m in small business. So really I shouldn’t worry to much about pushing fifty – and I don’t really look fifty anyway – I could easily pass for forty. In theory I could go anywhere and suddenly ‘reinvent myself’ – but I’m too wise to try that folly again.

In the end ultimately, I think I feel “ok”. This is in terms of ‘day-to-day mental headspace’ speaking. And today being “ok” is actually as rare as hens teeth. To feel “ok” is relatively like being on ‘cloud 9.’ After all most people have terrible uncreative cubicle lives, have done no shadow work whatsoever, and are medicated up to their eyeballs. I had a taste of that a long time ago ( the anti-depressants scam where the quacks dished them out like candy) and I eventually escaped that prison although in truth it was probably the handmaiden called burnout that had the key that unlocked me from all that silliness.

In terms of psychology – I am far more content that I used to be when I was younger. I have learnt slowly as the years rolled by to wangle a weird solution to feelings of ‘chronic depression or anxiety’ – and I think it’s fair to say I have always had those feelings, but it might have been anxiety more than depression perhaps (it’s hard to say). The wangle was physical work, homecooked meals & living in the country – my boyhood home town of six thousand people. Well it was also learning not to tie your self worth too much to social status. That’s important.

Physical work is great for the mind – especially if you are prone to the blues. But ideally you don’t want too much of it all at once. After all who that is over forty wants seven or eight hours hard labor a day for four or five days? No I think anywhere between ten twenty five hours is good, and the sweet spot is probably right in the middle – seventeen and a half hours. If you are young, well blast ahead with physicality.

Physical work is like a battle. Yes it can be very boring and uncomfortable. But some is office keyboard placking. For example I am now doing a sub-part of a renovation job (a ‘reno’). I am what we call here in NZ “Gib-Stopping” which I guess the Americans would call “Drywall plastering” and the English “Joint Plastering” (I think the Aussies also call it ‘Gib-Stopping’).

Let me tell more. When you slap on the plaster, it’s sloppy-messy and gets all over your clothes. I actually had a blob go right in my eye at the beginning when I forgot to put on my protective eyewear. Then after you have slopped on the plaster over the joints the next part is even worse – you have to sand it down smooth and flush with the Gib / Drywall/ Plaster sheeting. The dust is so bad you end up standing in something akin to the ‘First World War mustard gas attacks’. You can do all the things to protect yourself – but you can’t really escape the fact you are a in gib-dust (drywall or plaster) battle. Life is a bit like that – don’t kid yourself you are not in some kind of battle here.

Ok now – so you know how bad that ‘Gib Stopping’ job I’ve been doing is – let me tell you why it’s also good for you. At the end of the work day you intimately feel that you have become mentally (and physically) stronger. You see with your own eyes that you’ve made progress on the bigger project (in my case the ceiling looks better and better). And you probably did it all by yourself too. You didn’t know how to do it and you backed yourself. That’s a great anti-depressant. You don’t get that in an office cubical in a mega city – you don’t have that creative freedom (Like Melbourne where I worked in an office for a decade).

So that’s why physical work is good for me and my tendency towards depressiveness and/or anxiety (or is it just adhd mixed with perfectionism etc?). I really recommend it to you who is reading this – especially if you exist in a ‘grey concrete jungle cubical zone’.

And if you are reading this – then you probably love writing or are a writer or an artist or work in an office (statistically you are likely given that’s where most the jobs are nowadays). And if you are someone like the last sentence describes – then you probably have anxiety or depressiveness or creeping feelings of helplessness lurking around. And if that’s true, what was good for me will also be good for you.

So remember to get out and dig some holes, plant some veges, run to the beach or lake or over the hill, jump on you bike etc. If your deep in the concrete jungle cubical zones I’d exercise about ten hours a day in nice outdoors setting.

So I’ll lave it there, now seems like a good place to end. I can now have a sneaky treat (these are great as anti-depressants too). In my case it’s some beer. I don’t over drink – I simply have two a night, which sometimes I upgrade to three, and once in a blur moon I might go crazy and have four. But that’s rare as I can’t do hangovers these days at my age. That’s the good thing about aging – it forces you to be more mature on a lot of things that you used to go totally nuts on.

‘Birthday Beer’ I will now come to you. I hope you are nicely almost near zero degrees centigrade (That’s 32 degrees F for the yanks),. You will be frosty delicious from your time spent in that freezer prison I put you in. I’m sorry I have to drink you – but it must be done. Wait a minute I’m sounding too much like an alcoholic – I better finally shut up now.

So happy birthday to me – you old coot. You ain’t as bad as you probably think you are or used to be. You’ve come a long way. You’ve ignored the noise and built your mind up. Your feeling ‘ok’ and that’s better than it sounds.

See you on the next blog update.

Bye!

Anton Martin Smith on 7th August 2026 8:03PM NZ Time.

Update about a recent Post (an update)

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Colorful text reading 'An Update!' surrounded by stars, swirls, and sparkles

Please be advised I have greatly improved the post that was called “The Poet’s Daily Drop: A Revolutionary Ale?” – it has been renamed the “The Revolutionary Speech That Wasn’t” click below. The prior piece was very unfinished and the new version is far better – even if I do say so myself (flagrant self promotion is in these days ain’t it?).

“The ‘Revolutionary Speech’ That Wasn’t” (Prose)

“The ‘Revolutionary Speech’ That Wasn’t” (Prose)

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Older man shouting passionately with a pint and paper in a crowded pub

by Anton Martin Smith Antonmartinsmith@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com (email me!)

Welcome friends colleagues and ardent enemies.

Let me spin a mighty tale which starts with meandering but ends with Revolutionary consequences.

And yes please drink while you listen – but try not to barf – it will ruin my train of thought.

But if you must please use the wooden buckets provided shackled under your tables.

Let me begin by talking of ‘luck’ – something I’ve heard of but never experienced myself.

Well perhaps I’ve had a little here and there but only by chance.

Why is it that when you have had a stretch of good luck –

And by ‘good luck’ all I mean is that nothing ‘really bad’ has happened for a couple of weeks.

I say this because let’s be honest –

That’s the reality of this urbano-mega-city-techno-prison most of us live in now.

Good luck is now defined negatively.

You didn’t get fired this week;

You didn’t step on some dog-shite this week;.

Your girlfriend didn’t cheat on you on her ‘girls weekend’ this time round.

Et cetera Et Cetera.

I could go on longer – but you are a street-wise audience and you catch my drift.

You see long ago ‘Good Luck’ was defined positively.

You found a twenty dollar note on the ground;

You went to a rock concert, got drunk and got laid all on the same night;

You went to the CD or record store and found a gem in the bargain bin.

I could go on and on –

But again – you fine folk will, like a fine Phoenecian sail – catch my drift.

And how pray-tell did we let this steep decline happen over say thirty years?

Your guess is naturally as good as mine and my blind furtive jabs.

But I’ll hazard a guess for perhaps one of the many multitudes of ghastly reasons –

MONEY PRINTING GONE WILD.

Yes deplorably we schmucks were slowly inflated out of our own lives.

I would say “great now we can revolt and chop some heads off – French Revolution style”.

But they ain’t so stupid to allow that stuff again –

So they became weaselly smart about weakening the masses, us the great unwashed!

They had to drug us up to the eyeballs to numb us,

In pills dished out by an army of quacks,

In our chemically laced food,

They frazelled our nerves too via our environments

Via coraling us our concrete jungles,

And the cubicle-ised our work spaces,

They corrupted the airwaves with their drone faced on-payroll mouthpieces,

They jacked up the price of beer so to close our glorious institutions the bars and hotels!

Of course they jacked up our rent too – that goes without saying.

Yep – They really did a number on us my dear souls.

And sadly as a poor but time rich poet at the arse end of the world –

I don’t have the exact solution.

I would be lying if I pretended I was Sun Tzu, Confucius, Neitschze or Kierkegaard –

But I do feel just a little like Thomas Paine of the American Revolution.

So I sincerely wonder about the following:

Perhaps we need to become more vicious?

That is to ‘fight fire with fire’ – to ‘wage war with war’.

Of course friends and adversaries – I know what you’re now asking me:

‘How do we do this given the fact – as you mentioned – that we have been so ‘beaten down’?

Well – that is indeed a good question.

The answer to that is surely what has always been true throughout of fabled History.

When someone has nothing at all to lose – the real question is this:

Why wouldn’t they revolt?

After all it’s only natural isn’t it?

It is indeed the norm of History in those first hand accounts that are being burnt by the enemy.

Yes – Revolution – even if we’ve been drugged, corralled, lied to and whipped mercilessly.

So despite appearances to the contrary –

As a simple country farmer might say to his weary and confused firstborn.

“There’s nuthin’ new under the sun, son”.

Personally, I will be revolting very soon, very revolting and very soon.

But then again I’m lucky – for my type – a writer and poet – the ‘pen is mightier than the sword’.

For those reading and listening this ‘Historical Yelp’ – I will see you at the victory party,

And naturally I promise to read a more than salubrious ‘victory poem’.

So now there is only one last thing to mention.

Hazaar to the Revolution – which starts tomorrow roughly at four pm!

I know that all of you ‘Soon to be Revolutionaries’ – are all the type to hate early starts.

Which will be perfect planning:

Our early-risers and sworn enemies will have finished their days work by then and are well pooped,

While we will be ‘full of beans’ having not long been out of bed.

Yes, I’m already liking the sound of this ‘Artists and Writers Revolution’.

Now my now half sozzled folks – may I ask you of this minor worry fleeting through my mind?

I am perhaps simply and once again, ‘delving into the realms of fantasy’ again?

No no don’t answer – I will answer myself – I know you will agree anyway!.

Surely I am not delirious – although that would be ‘kinda stock’ of me, wouldn’t it now?.

But no let me gather myself, that was just a minor crisis of confidence – I think this ale is a little off.

But I can’t entirely rule it out my dear soon to be, most likely tomorrow sometime, Revolutionaries!

Oh wait, yes you are right – I’ve been to hasty – we need to take some time on this.

After all we all know the adage ‘only fools rush in’ – we don’t want to be like the ‘Huns in thirty-nine’!

I’m sorry to say this my future valiant soldier-victor-heros…BUT…

Tomorrows ‘Revolution’ is hereby duly postponed!

Just while we figure out if we are..er I mean I am…in a ‘wildly creative but far too delusional dreamscape’,

Or are we indeed being ‘celebrator-ily rational’ in our ‘Revolution-Tomorrow-at-circa Four-PM’ plans.

I ask of you gathered here – is it not wise to do our due diligence?

The only thing worse than being trampled on hostages of our current dictators is to be Failed Revolutionaries!

So yes my future martyrs – we must simply think this Revolution thing over just a smidgen more.

Of course to do this we must stay here in this delightful ale-den & lubricate ourselves further.

So for now fellow would-be-Revolutionaries – relax, laugh, fornicate and be ‘truculently merry’.

And as we do let us all talk together with the cautious somber glee of coming iron-clad battle plans.

And in closing yes – let me quell your worried hearts by saying this:

I’m indubitably sorry for whipping you all up like this,

& I of course naturally apologize for doing this exact same revolutionary speech every single night,

Over and over again ad infinitum, and seemingly without regard for simple human decency.

I promise it won’t happen again….tonight…

But I would be calous liar if I was to pronounce that I will not do the exact same thing tomorrow night.

Now can anyone buy me my next drink? –

I know I don’t need to remind you all that I’m a truth-committed-starving-always-short-of-funds-poet?

Oh thankyou Sir – I wasn’t expecting a delicious fine ale so soon.

How verily kind of you – and that’s my favorite brand – let me read the label to you:

” ‘The Poet’s Daily Drop’ – A Revolutionary Ale?”

“Galactic Council Quotes” (Prose/Skit)

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Different alien species sitting around a table with a holographic Earth in the center

by Anton Martin Smith antnmartinsmith@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com (emails are welcome!)

“The passage of time has shown that we were indeed naive to think these naked apes would stop flinging poop at each other sometime around the year 2000 AD – may I suggest seeding the air with imodium daily?”.

“Yes that’s a great suggestion QwankyQwank76 – although what will happen when they finally explode? How will we explain that one away?”

“Oh great question o Wakookoodonk, chair of the Gallactic Council. Let’s pretend when they explode it’s a normal physiological ailment – we will simply create a textbook full of fake illneses and the name for an exploding shit-supernova will be called “Sudden-Fauchi-Syndrome” they won’t suspect a thing – they’re easily brainwashed boobs remember!”

“Wonderful, I agree it’s fool-prrof..er I mean boob proof! But QwankyQwank – what do we call this Textbook of lies you propose?

“Well Wakookoodonk – My great Council leader I propose something dry like “The diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, or the DSM for short”.

“Well thankyou QwankyQwank76 – you’ve clearly though of everything – let the Imodium cloud seeding and the exploding boobs begin! But wait – what about those humans that call themselves ‘Doctors’ – will we get resistence from them?”

“Fine question O Chair Wakookoodonk, don’t worry I’ve been watching them and so long as they live on the hills and drive nice cars and send their chldren to private schools they are totally willing to sell their fellow human beings totally down the river! It’s quite remarkable how easily bought off they are my dear Chairman”.

“Well spank my proboscis and call me Mount Olympus! Put it in motion immediately QwankyQwank76 – and I’m goign to promot you for this fine evil delicious slice of bastardry plan!”

“Oh thank you my great Chairman – how will you do that?”

“Well you are now 75th in line to the role of Chairman of the Galactic Federation – I’ve swapped you with Wartoffaface75, it’s only fair his idea of a fake virus antidote to reduce the population of Earth was rediculious -I mean they are boobs but even they wouldn’t believe that!”

“Ah I am honored my Chairman – now I only need to wait another four hundred years instead of four hundred and seven! I am gracious as my proboscis is long!”

[mutters the words ‘you cheap bastard’ under his breath]

“Is there anything we can spray on these hairy neo-baboons to stop them stinking so much – I’m thinking of an anti-bacterium plasmoid blast from above via our invisibility cloaked mothership”.

“Those humans with the pyramids and the cats we entrusted to carry out our plans back in 5000AD were good, but their distant cousins around now have turned out to be f*cking useless. In fact I don’t know why we didn’t just put the cats in charge in the first place – after all half the galactic territory is certainly still a meow-niverse”.

“Sure the Galactic Treaty says that we can’t push this red button and incinerate them all in one go, but what if I accidently ‘slipped while I was casually finger-drinking this vessel of ka-laka-taki-blurg. If I do that and if we simply decide not to fill out the holographic logbook, no one will suspect a thing! Especially as the average age of a Galactic Council member is seventeen thousand years old!”

“Ok I’m just thinking out loud here…but we really should stop using those annoying hairy apes as Galactic Council branded butt-plugs – but then again we only use the retired ‘Earthling politician classes’ after all. And the funny thing is while they’re inserted we can still hear them complain! I set a motion that the Earth-O-Politico-Galactico-Buttplugs-TM remain! All those in favour please remove said devices and pass wind – all those against stay peacefully stoppered!”

“Well we gave Earth many chances, but they still are refusing to take the emotional intelligence leadership mentorship from the Cats – why those hairy brutish things keep screaming at each other over nothing is quite incomprehensible. And isn’t it strange about the big problems they have – like wasting their entire lives – they barely batt an eyelid. That one good one of theirs named Bukowski was good at noticing those things”

“Ok Galactic Councilors our fifty thousand year longitudinal study of the differences between the male humans if Earth and the female hymabs of Earth is in – I will summarize it:

The men while ‘getting things done’ are – shall we say – ‘always thinking and playing with their reproductive appendages’ and often also refusing to grow up entirely; While the women are still crying at work while avoiding hard labor, and fantasizing far too much about pirates, billionaires, surgeons, sportsmen, the artists, and the criminally deranged. Yes it’s sad but what can we do now? – to squash them like ants, blow them up, release a disease or put them in our soup would be far too cliché.”

—

“Greetings my fellow Galactico’s. Given that these violent bipedal weirdo’s down there have ruined the Earth-planet system – we here at the Galactic council really should have double checked our earlier calibrations from long ago. Sure as your eternal ‘Galactic Poobah’ – I agree that ‘the buck stops with me’, to use a quaint human utterance. I must admit when I was in charge back then of our Milky-Way-Life-Seeding-Project some four billion years ago, that I rushed through the design paperwork. For that I blame my three headed butler Kaboobaboob at the time who was asking me – pleading really – about if I wanted fricassee’d or deep fried three-tongued-bonkybonk. Anyway back to my mistake back then – later on found I had a remainder when designing the earth-life-system and to my shame, I kept it a secret, hoping it wouldn’t matter. I can only apologize as I correct my mistake by pushing this ‘big red button’. Then Earth will go back to’ square one’, and the correct plan of having ‘The Dolphins being in charge at the top of the food chain’ with occur – with of course the cats being their very capable second lieutenants.”

“Look Beaky-boy, isn’t it strange – whenever I go back into the time-parallax-chronoscope device and into history’s past down there on Earth, nothing ever changes! No matter who I assassinate, no matter what wars or plagues I start!. The same assholes always end up in power beyond the year 2014 – go figure!”

“Ok Ok Ok I agree – we can’t let those buffoons continue. I have an idea – maybe we should start beaming them out by the million, replacing them with equal weight ‘green algal slime’ – after all it worked back in Two-Billion-BC, why won’t it work again? Lets re-run the ‘Great Snot Replacement Theory’! Can I get a show of proboscises – hey hey now stop that Catooboosplaz I said proboscises! Now roll it back up!”

Ok look – while I agree that those apes down their are batshit crazy, ignorant, annoying, smell bad and are generally un-cooperative they are definitely very good at….uh…uh…wait it’s coming to me….uh….uh…I mean they must be good at something…..uh…uh…oh yes I have it! they produce huge amounts of methane! With their constant wind-breaking, and thanks to the ‘greenhouse effect’ – they’ve helped stop Antarctica from growing to ridiculous proportions! I mean we have to keep them just for that reason don’t we? What’s that – why don’t we just keep Antarctica under control ourselves via our advanced tech? Sure we could do that, but then what would we talk about? I mean if we got rid of the hairy farting bi-pedals we’d have nothing to laugh at on our work breaks at the Helium-3 cooler. We would be a lot sadder for that my galactic friends! After all those next smarter on the list of ‘dunderhead level sentient beings’ – those heavy set bald fuzzballs on Alpha Centuri – are not nearly as stupid as the hairy bi-pedals, it just wouldn’t be the same! Let’s keep ’em I say!

“Take Us To the F*cking Cats You Morons” (Prose Poem)

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UFO hovering over city street abducting cats with glowing blue beam and speech bubble

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmith@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

It’s weird in NZ and Oz (and the world itself).

The more of a fake you are the more people will love you.

If you show an iota of original thought, or a backbone, –

Or dare I say ‘Love’ –

You draw everyone’s ire.

You will be the bad guy.

You will be castigated for life to ‘tables for one’ –

And not only that they’ll inflate the bill.

But as a forty-eight year old man, I’ve come to accept it all.

After all – if you’re trapped in a ‘madhouse’ all solitude is a gift.

Yes, it’s very much a pity the apes got ‘smart’ (which they in truth didn’t),

Instead of the Cats (which in truth they did).

Sure – Human Being’s (Doings?) are good with tools and sometimes have high IQ.

But practically no modern day Human Doings have Wisdom.

The ancients (which we arbitrarily malign) had infinitely more of it.

I mean we have no modern day Plato, Socrates, Democritus or Aurelius do we?

Our dozy-ness is a tragic reality we all self-servingly steadfastly – and lazily-badly paper over.

Alas, we are to Wisdom what a bad plasterer-joiner is to interior decorating.

We are so backward we even pretend we ‘have one over the cats’ –

That we silly bastards and bitches are their superiors.

So I for one will not be surprised when the aliens regrettably – for their sakes – land,

And when they say ‘take us to your leaders’,

And we start walking them towards the Whitehouse, The Freemasions, The Jesuits,

The Billionaires, Mossad, The Hollywood soul-suckers, The Wall St Traders,

The Captains of High Finance, The Royal Families, The Vatican,

The Knesset Politicians, Or The stinky current UK/European PM,

Or to the as-yet-undefeated-shadowy-cabal within the CIA…

Those elongated-egg-headed cosmic visitors will harshly say,

That is via that usual Alpha Centuri, Trappist or Pleiadean version of communication –

Called ‘Telepathy’.

They will project the following words into our thick skulls:

“No you f*cking shaved-ape morons! –

When we say ‘take us to your leaders’ –

We clearly mean the felines – the Cats – King Tut’s emmissarys!

Put plainly –

Take us to the f*ckin’ Cats you bozo!..

We don’t f*ckin’ want nothin’ to do with ya’s…

Oh and by the way – why are we talking to you with such vicious flagrancy?..

Well we are simply adhering to your ancient ‘When in Rome thesis’….

Well – we know it’s the only way you backward schmucks will listen…

We have to drop ourselves down to your, shall we say ‘entry level of existence’.

Now take us to fuckin’ Egypt pronto if ya catch my galactic drift!

And by the way for crissakes – will you all learn to wipe your asses properly!?…

Although perhaps we extra terrestrials are being a little too harsh on that matter…

After all that was how we pinpointed your exact position inside the absurdly named ‘Milky Way…

For the last decimal places – we simply followed our tiny noses.

But then again – we quasi-apologize –

It’s not like you did it on purpose now is it you fuckin’ stoopid-stinkin’-shaved-apes!

Now take us to those fuggin’ Cats – we’re taking them back home, ya losers”.

So we sadly gave up our wiser moggies.

In the end we Earth people got their heads around it all.

And announced a period of mourning not exceeding ten days.

And then we simply went back to picking our noses, shouting at each other –

Staring at screens and wiping our arses in a mad rush.

Of course we did miss the cats, but they didn’t miss us at all.

After all – it was high time for them to go back to their home planet.

An update from me (Am I’m still going mad – or just healthily child-like?) – (A Blog Post)

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Woman holding her head in frustration at cluttered desk with laptop and papers at night

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmith@gmail.com

Well of course I’m going mad – if you ask an accountant that is. Anyone who actively engages in the arts and/or writing (or any high creative endeavor) will be seen as varying shades of ‘insane’. I mean what could be more normal than creativity? I mean is it not what every single person did when they were a child?

At what point does the stuffy office boring twat say to himself

“oh no I can’t be creative anymore, I’ve got to be an adult and sacrifice my life to office-o the destroyer – it’s the only mature thing to do. I’ll never touch a crayon, an artistic paint brush or some Das branded clay ever again – oh and I also need a real mean cold hearted bitch to marry and act as my career advisor too…by the way where’s the Financial Times gone….I was reading the Nasdaq share lists the bog a second ago”.

You see people are hoodwinked into stopping doing the things they enjoyed as children and teenagers under the guise of ‘being mature’. Of course it’s all a scam to sell mortgages, golf clubs, audi’s and a whole cacophony of stupid shiny things. But I don’t need to tell you that. You’re very smart. You’re here reading this blog/website in the first place.

So anyway – perhaps this is why when people get to fifty odd, they wake up to the scam and start to draw or ride ponies or go go carting again. I can only applaud that.

Sure I’m not saying “All us artists are the salt of the Earth for being forever child-like” – the NPC does have a slither of truth behind him in that most garden variety lifelong artists are often far too immature/imbalanced. You see there is a difference between being ‘healthily child like’ and ‘immature’. One sign that a artist/writer has the balance right is that they respect their art forms. They actively respect the knowledge, the craft and the novice to journeyman to master process. I’m trying to do that with my writing.

I would say I’ve been a lover of books and storytelling my whole life. I love words, I wish I did know more of the rarer ones – I think it’s wise for serious writers to be able to use some of the great unused words – at least here and there. There’s nothing snobby about that.

Take a word like ‘peregrinations’ – which I believe is a ‘long meandering walk of leisure, or period of wandering, often in foreign lands or by foot’. It’s great to use a word like that here and there – not for flash but to illustrate a point, describe a character etc.

Take another word – “inter alia” meaning among other things – another self evident great word.

Let’s go another -“exigency” means essentially ‘the urgent realistic requirements of a matter mean this also needs to be done or happen’. e.g. ‘The exigencies of buying shoes while barefoot means you will also need to buy socks’.

Anyway – perhaps I have stumbled on a great new idea for a regular post-segment: “let’s all learn new words”.

Anyway I’m glad that in my bloggy metaphorical peregrinations regarding ‘childlike creativity vs immaturity’ that I may have discovered a new blog-segment, inter alia, namely the urgent use of a word like exigency.

And now I have to fly – have a great week.

Thanks to all those that read my stuff, eh.

Anton M. Smith (as usual late at night when the brain fires up reeeeal gooood).

P.s. I’ve been watching Rik Mayal’s short-lived 2002 comedy ‘Don’t Believe It’ – It’s not bad. Also the great ‘In Betweeners’ from not long after. I have always loved English comedy – I’m trying to think what the last great English comedy was? I’m thinking it was The Office – but surely there’s been something else since then? Hmmm

P.P.s I finally finished the rough draft my latest long form work (Novella) – It’s called ‘Bouncing Through The Wringer’ – it’s on the site go search for it. I’m pretty happy with it. I probably should be hiding it but something about me says not too.

“As All Madmen Who Write Tend To Do.” (Prose).

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Man kneeling by car flat tire, woman in driver's seat, man walking with notepad

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmith@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

I have a beater of a car.

It’s birthday was in the year 1999.

It’s older than a fair whack of people alive today.

The other day I was scrolling and came across a lady who said:

“Why do the best guys always have the shittiest cars?”.

Well I can only agree with her assertion.

And the obvious answer is:

Because we are not materialistic.

So onto the subject.

My car tire has a slow leak.

I’ve monitored the situation and you can drive on it for three days,

But then of course you must inflate it at the servo.

Or should I say ‘Gas Station’.

You will have to excuse me –

For I have a half kiwi half aussie vernacular.

I’ve ‘done time’ on both sides of the Tasman – so to speak.

Anyway, when I discovered the leak I first thought

“Hmm I will get that fixed immediately”.

But then I had a second overiding thought:

“But that’s so stock, why not choose the contrarian path…

…After all – you do love Philosophy”.

So that’s what I’ve been doing.

I have discovered you can indeed drive on a flat tire for three blocks,

Then inflate it at said Servo/Gas station.

The other day I even drove their with my overweight mother riding shotgun.

I crawled along at 30 km/h along the back streets,

I made sure I only made left handed turns for safety.

Git there and ‘did the necessary’ as we Kiwi’s say (or do aussies say that?).

This may all seem rediculous,

That a well educated forty eight year old small business owner would do this.

But as I have found – when you age your life can become suddenly too dull.

Sure in my case perhaps that’s just because I partied way to hard in youth,

And so now with age ‘standard life’ now seems overly dreary –

But what can I say – we all live the lives we have had, don’t we?.

Perhaps this could be a warning sign – that I need to move to the city.

The wags say ‘he’s so bored in that small town he’s driving on flat tires for kicks’.

Well, I guess their must be a smidgen of truth to that yes – I am a reasonable man.

But I as I already mentioned it’s merely a need to be contrarian –

But then the other wag pop’s head over pulpit and whispers “but what’s the cause of that?”

Well perhaps it’s a generalized fear of anything external to my own mind,

Due to a number of childhood trauma incidents that have scarred me for life.

Trauma that has been buried so deep for so long that it can only emerge within the ‘safety of the absurd’.

Such as the choice to drive around on a slow leak-flat tire seemingly just for kicks.

Of course I am engaging and indulging the Americanism of ‘casual pop psychology’.

But at the same time – what if I’m right?

In the absence of knowing the correct path of action –

I will monitor the situation namely the p.s.i. of my remaining three tires.

And if one day things escalate and I find myself ‘driving happily on all four rims’ –

I’ll do nothing at all, keep driving and see what eventuates.

After all – I am a bored, small-town-trapped, unmedicated contrarian with an interest in Philosophy ain’t I?

But don’t worry, on a final serious note I’ll sort the tire out next week, or maybe the week after that.

What’s that my dear fine wag calling out from the back row?

Yes you are correct I did forget to mention my penchant for procrastination.

That guy I worked with long ago – Matthew from Melbourne – was probably correct:

I am probably in theory at least a “Psychiatrist’s wet dream”.

But when writing of one’s own foibles – that’s is my prerogative, is it not?

“This ramble-a-thon now must end” said the fourth wag in this prose poem.

I agreed and ended it now, after all I was standing on the carpet that he emerged from underneath.

And I do love to end on a self referential tone –

As all madmen who write tend to do.

The Asshole-Medico Pact of ’68? (Prose)

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Two men in suits shaking hands exchanging money with a pile of prescription medication bottles in the background

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmith@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com (i.e. all emails welcome!)

We live in strange times.

Let me explain succinctly and simply.

Not too long ago, annoying people were just called “assholes”.

Nowadays we have the “DSM V”, which sells for profit a whole range of ‘psych disorders’.

You see they ‘grandfathered’ the calling of someone an ‘asshole’ for actually being one,

And replaced it with the ‘psych-o-pharmacological industrial complex’.

All parties to the conspiracy became filthy rich or party-drugged to their eyeballs in the process.

You see now said ‘former asshole’ now has ADHD, Narcissism, Autism or is Neuro-diverse,

You can then put a ‘tap’ on his wallet for life.

(And as a guy who often thinks he has ADHD – I can tell you – I’d rather just be an asshole).

Moreover – a tap can be installed on the tens or hundreds of millions of ‘unlimited tax chumps’ out there.

Now said ‘former asshole-but-now-neuro-diverse’ has the quid-pro-quo of higher self esteem & no guilt to ‘change his ways’.

So in that way it was really a ‘conspiracy’ between the lifelong money men and the lifelong assholes.

This ‘conspiracy’ can be called the Asshole-Medico Pact of ’68 –

For that was the year that the mega-expanded second DSM was published.

And I mean ‘conspiracy’ in the truest sense of the word –

‘When at least two parties agree – often clandestinely – to act together for some mutual benefit or outcome’.

Yes if you put is some toast and ask your wife to hand you the margarine, and the cat doesn’t know –

You are indeed a couple of ‘conspiracy theorists’ and indeed ‘conspiracy practitioners’.

It is a good analogy – because ‘conspiracies’ – both benign and evil happen every second of every day.

So perhaps fifty years later after DSM 2, that’s what we see with the ‘neuro-diversity’ craze.

All we are seeing is the now Andes-like summit of decades growing ‘asshole-medico-pact mountain range’,

Towering above us all, blotting out the sun, and dare I say spiting in our very faces,

Calling us a cacophony of rude names, and lightening our wallets.

Of course – if this assessment is indeed fact – it has ramifications.

We ‘Neurodivergents et al’ will all have to start calling ourselves and others around us simply ‘assholes’ again.

We will also have to apologize more for bad behavior and attempt to make amends and/or reparations.

We will agree that we won’t tap the good folks wallets so to prop up our penchants for ‘lifelong party drugs’.

This I believe is a step to far for all of those of us who were signee’s to the ‘Asshole-Medico Pact of ’68’.

I mean after all why would we?

It’s not at all in our interests!

We’ve been making out like bandits all this time!

It’s been a guiltless seventy year party of high-jerkism, party uppers and stolen taxpayer cash!

Narcissistic Lobsters have been flying everywhere!

I’ll say it again – ‘why would be destroy the Andes’ of our own volution?

The only way to end the madness (pun intended) is if the nice & highly fleeced rise up,

Hide their wallets and simply start calling us ‘assholes’ again and demand better behavior from us.

Personally – I’m all for it!

Yes I was a former drugged-up member of the Asshole-Medico-Pact of ’68,

But I stopped being a signatory to the pact in Twenty-Thirteen at age thirty-five.

So I now have anti-transmogrified back to being ‘good’ again.

So let’s all now agree to call a spade a spade and lets start calling assholes assholes again.

Of course in this piece, I admit that I have highly exaggerated for effect –

But that’s ok, after all my ‘artistic license’ only expired a few days ago –

And only a ‘total asshole’ would pull me up for still using it ‘on the roads’ –

AKA this quasi-drunk-misshapen-literature-town that I sometimes call my own mind,

That you have all had the misfortune of sitting through.

I can only hope the the myriad of legalized black-market pharmaceuticals you are all on,

Have turned it from a boredom-filled hell-scape to an quasi-interesting fun-trip.

By & the way when I said I’d rather be an ‘asshole’ than have ADHD that was a boldface lie.

As if!

AI Generated Podcast Episode: Satire, Slacker Life, And Bukowski (With bonus ‘Note about AI’ piece by Anton M Smith)

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Elderly man and robot sitting at a wooden table eating fish and chips with drinks in a traditional pub

‘Note About AI in Writing’ by Anton Martin Smith (not AI!)

I’m playing around with the new wordpress podcast generator. It creates commentary based on links you input. I’ve found it quite interesting, and witty. Of course its really just filler (a poet should tell the truth even against themselves!). I was thinking it’s a good way to semi-‘advertise’ your poems without going overboard, spending money and becoming a “PR piggie” (I’m still struggling with ‘self-promotion issues’ I guess).

It’s also worth letting my “tens of tens” readers that I would never generate one of my poems from AI. I have only used AI essentially for ‘fun’ so far & in no way delegate any creative control whatsoever in the creation of my writing. Sometimes I ask AI (Grok) on some basic analysis of my human written poems but I do this only to summarize the work so I can essentially get a summarized plot outline of what I have already written.

I would never ever ever ask AI/Grok “What should this character to do next in order to get the reader to think x” – I would see this as ‘intellectual treason’. So my position on AI in creative writing is that it must it terms of creative input it should should have no voice at all. In terms of peripheral/mechanical non-creative use I think it is fine to use it as much as you like. in other words you are just using it as in the same vein as prior ‘word processers’ like in the Microsoft Word was used from the nineties forward.

Anyone using AI to be ‘The Writer” of a supposedly ‘serious creative endeavor’ (as Prose, Poems, Short Storys, Novellas Novels and indeed Non Fiction or Essays are) to me is faking it – and if anyone does it without admitting it they are comitting literary treason – and that’s no exaggeration.

So in summary: I will always respect literature, writing and creativity and the human being in my writing. AI will only ever be used as the early ‘word processer software’ was, but only in a more updated the way.

Anyway I hope no one is offended by the use of AI for this post, & please see it as just a way to promote my human written pieces on this site.

If I’m out of line I’d appreciate the feedback, if I’m doing the right thing also let me know.

P.s. I should also say that I do generate many AI images that accompany my writing/posts – they are usually ‘obviously AI’ and so will not need attibution BUT where they look ‘original I will endeavor to caption as ‘AI generated Image” & again note any image generated is only as a ‘secondary feature’ to go with the main feature of the 100% original human (i.e. my Anton Martin Smith’s) writing.

Anton Martin Smith, C. Otago New Zealand on 17 July 2026 9:06 PM

Links involved in this WordPress AI podcast

https://antonmartinsmith.com/2026/07/12/the-idle-aussie-bloke-a-poem-bonus-material/

https://antonmartinsmith.com/2026/07/13/yesterdays-news-aka-todays-fish-chip-wrappers-prose/

https://antonmartinsmith.com/2026/07/07/saved-by-bukowski-the-girlbosses-prose/

Below is the transcript of the ‘WordPress Podcast’ (i.e. AI Written).

Pip: Anton Martin Smith writes from a chip shop in winter, a poem about an idle Australian, and the mind of God — which, honestly, is a pretty standard Tuesday for a certain kind of writer.

Mara: That’s the territory today — everyday absurdity turned into something worth examining, and a piece of literary self-mythology that reaches all the way to a cosmic wager. Let’s start with the chip shop and what it reveals about ordinary life.

Yesterdays News, Todays Insight

Mara: The question this post sits with is deceptively simple: what happens when a regular customer steps behind the counter and actually does the work — and what do they find out about the people on the other side of the order?

Pip: The piece earns its answer. After describing the pressure of getting meals out on time, it lands here: “Witnessing an adult still be able to have child-like joys was indeed my biggest take-away.”

Mara: That line reframes the whole piece. The chip shop stops being a comic set piece and becomes a small window into what people actually need from their Friday routines — comfort, ritual, something unchanged.

Pip: And the comic set pieces are genuinely good. The revelation that wrapping chips is “an exact science” — folding, cradling, centering — or it ends up looking like “a teenagers or an artists unmade bed.” That’s a real observation dressed as a joke.

Mara: The piece closes on something sharper than a punchline. The narrator concludes that whether you’re the one doing the yelling or taking it, “you still gonna have to serve somebody.” The chip shop becomes a lens on the whole structure of work.

Pip: There’s also a dropped phone in a vat of sweet and sour sauce, which the narrator describes as fine because it was just a burner. That detail lands like a footnote written by someone who has genuinely made peace with chaos.

Mara: The companion piece, “The Idle Aussie Bloke,” takes a lighter angle entirely — a short comic poem about one Didge-o Doo, who considers getting a woman to fill his idle hours and sensibly starts a rock band instead.

Pip: Both pieces are working the same seam: ordinary life observed from a slight angle, with enough warmth that the absurdity feels fond rather than mean.

Mara: Which sets up a harder question — what happens when the lens tilts from the everyday all the way up to the cosmic.

A Wager Between Angels and Adversaries

Mara: “Saved by Bukowski and the Girlbosses” is narrated by God, essentially — a voice that has watched its own creation get outmaneuvered, and is now explaining the long game.

Pip: The Bukowski quote arrives early and carries the whole argument: “About something small they protest wildly, but about wasting their entire lives they don’t even batt an eyelid.”

Mara: That’s the hinge. The narrator uses Bukowski as evidence that divine messengers don’t arrive playing harps — they arrive as drunk truth-tellers, because that’s who reaches the people who need reaching most.

Pip: The cosmic wager that follows is genuinely structured — God and an adversary negotiate terms, each convinced their model of human life will win. The adversary bets on concrete, artificial light, and crowded cities. God bets on waterfalls and open land.

Mara: And the piece admits the adversary is currently ahead on points, which is what makes the narrator’s confidence feel earned rather than smug. The closing image — the defeated adversary sloping off saying Bukowski and the Girlbosses were “a masterstroke” — is the punchline the whole piece builds toward.

Pip: It’s a big swing. Not everyone lands a cosmic allegory in prose. This one mostly does.

Mara: Chip shops and celestial negotiations — the connective tissue is the same: someone paying close attention to how ordinary life actually works, and what it costs.

Pip: More from Anton Martin Smith next time. Presumably from slightly closer to the kitchen.