Ep 1. Crashlines Incorporated – The story of Yassap I. Y’tae (A Serialised Story)

by Anton Martin Smith antonsmithwrites@gmail.com

Hi my name is Cal, short for Calvin. Last name Coolix. Yes my parents gave me a cartoon name – Cal Coolix but it’s been good to me – no one forgets my name. In business & in life that’s a plus. But I’m not here to tell you about me. There’s someone far more interesting than me that’s shown up on my radar.

Yassap I. Y’tae….is a very underrated international businessman…at least I think that’s what he is right now. Not exactly a mystery of a man, not an enigma – but certainly perhaps best described as a riddle-that’s-only-half-written. You have not heard of him yet – no one has.

Mark my works he will change the world. He is not on the internet! He is biding his time, choosing his words carefully, doing his due diligence, crossing his t’s & doting his I’s. Like a cornered Tiger, he is waiting to pounce. Well that’s what I’d tell you if I had to make a pitch about Yassap I. Y’tae right now. You must always sound confidant – even if you have zero intel.

There is slight static on the line. He informs me he will be launching soon. I pressed him what “soon” meant – he chose not to elaborate only saying in his true mysterious fashion: “If I gave you a specific date when the best date possible to launch has not yet materialized, I will only let both of us down – but I will contact you soon, that is my promise”. I said “ok but can I ask…” before I could finish I heard the engaged sound. I felt foolish, as I should have left it at “ok”. It was not my first or last “schoolboy error” & I hung up the phone.

I was overdue for a Cappachino, perhaps that’s the reason I felt a little off my game on that call. “stop beating yourself up Cal, you just need coffee – that’s all it was”. I began my journey to the lobby cafe – short walk through my small rented workspace, I would enter the lift, & go down three floors.

In the lift was Anne, she was also renting some space just like me – but for her own project. We exchanged pleasantries, but no more than that. For these were cold hearted hard business times, & both Anne & I knew it. All anyone cared about right now was business survival.

With so many ventures going to the wall these eighteen months since the crash, just surviving was almost like being a billionaire nowadays. Although my hunch was that Yassap I. Y’tae probably wasn’t in the same boat as me & Anne or anyone like us. I didn’t know anything about him other than his energy was all different. In my half century on this Earth, I’d learnt that what that old 20th Century physicist Nikolai Tesla said was right – energy, namely vibrational energy is everything.

The doors opened with a weird low pitch ‘ting’. As I heard my boots step on the hard polished concrete ground floor, all I could think of was getting caffeinated & figuring out who the hell was Yassap I. Y’tae??……..

(End of Episode 1. . . .the next will be coming soon!)

I have a new domain name for the site! (an update by me)

Hello there all!

Well I finally bit the bullet – I shelled out $42 (NZ) for the basic upgrade to my WordPress site. I had delayed this for too long. I think self-sabotage was at least 50% to blame. I think you really need to watch out for the always pervasive “self-sabotage syndrome”. I think as a Kiwi or an Aussie it is too easy to do this – as we are programmed with that stupid “Tall Poppy Syndrome” – the need to keep your head down at all times, never daring to stick it above the pulpit – for fear of recrimination. So at least I did something to combat ‘the syndrome’ as I will perhaps refer to it as.

I have decided to call the site antonmartinsmith.com, this is a recombination of the former site – with Anton Martin Smith I decided to go with this for my ‘writers name’, just to separate the two worlds I live. 1. aspiring writer & two 2. Day jobber slash hopefully also an entrepreneur (Why do I see an old timey teacher scolding me for daring to dream?). I imagine if this separation between ‘dreamworld’ & ‘real life’ works successfully then next week an interaction like this might happen:

“Hey you there digging that ditch there down in the mud – did I see you write poems on the internet? – Your names Mr X Y isn’t it?”

“No Sir you must be mistaken – my name is Mr Y X – I’ve never written a word in me life! I likes dirt ya see! I come from a long line of dirt diggers & I ain’t changin’ for none!”

“Oh sorry – my mistake – I’ll employ you next week again then My Y X – just as well as I can’t have a dreamer digging’ my ditches! They’ll stay clogged!”

“No worries my fine laird”

This is why writers need ‘pen names’ or as the French word – ‘non de plumes’….it pays to separate your day-to-day life with the weird world of creativity.

So I hope the 50 odd subscribers like the change, I’ve already made the site look a little better. I guess now I need to look at deleting the “bad stuff” from the “good stuff”. I must be a hoarder – for I don’t like the idea of doing that. I’m afraid to let go. Perhaps I could just create a “B-side section” & rename every poem “B-side 045”, “B-side 046” etc etc. I’m sure this talk is from childhood trauma.

I’m sure that’s why we are all here (on WordPress sites probably) placking away, telling all of our repressed fears & neurosis, out loud but more subtly in the subtext that lies below our words. Otherwise, we’d just be like everyone else at the 9-5 soul destruction labs called ‘office jobs’.

So anyway, I won’t hang around too much. I’ll just hope you notice that I’ve been writing at a fair clip lately. The stuff I’m most proud of lately is my science-based essay (The one about Jungian Synchronicity) and my proto-Novella called “Trafficlight Dystopia” (have a look they are there in the last twenty odd posts).

Cheers to all, have a great night & week! (perhaps I should do these letters more often).

PS I’m currently reading Journey Into the Night by Celine – it’s good so far but there are a tonne of pages..it’s a marathon. I don’t know why Novel’s ever need to be so long (seems like a child-like thing to say, but my theory is that a Novel is just a Novella with unnecessary padding).

Lets all dig the dirt of words my friends.

But let us stay healthy in the widest sense of the word too (It’s very hard, nigh on impossible to avoid that zombifying blue light these days isn’t it?).

Anton Martin Smith

“Yes! We Have No Bananas” ( A thought/Prose)

by Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

The only truly good thing about ‘big time sports’ is the crowd hubbub – for crowd hubbub is a human kind of birdsong.

It is beautiful in its brutality.

The athleticism of the athletes is of second order rank, the contest itself an even more distant third rank.

The score of the game is totally irrelevant, but the outcome isn’t. The score is something like 34-12, but the outcome is not at all the score.

The outcome is one man turning to another & saying –

“Hey Joe what a great game!, it made me forget how me, you & all our kind are modern age forever slave-serfs”.

That casual epitet of the everyman is the true outcome of a ‘big time’ sports event.

Centrally planned contrived escapism for the slave serf so to delay a People’s Revolution.

And it’s worked a treat since the coliseum days, which incidentally never actually ended.

Yes, “The Truth About Us” is depressing, but from Truth does enlightenment flow.

All good philosophers intuitively know this.

All bad politician-authoritarians do as well.

And that we know the truth – our pathway to enlightenment – that ain’t a bad thing at all, at all.

The ‘ignorance is bliss thesis’ is just slave-master propaganda.

So let us enjoy the sports match, but also kick the politician-authoritarian up the arse now & then.

Becasue our serf-slavery won’t end anytime soon,

That is self evident to anyone who reads History.

The point of our enlightenment is this:

Our slave-serf conditions have deteriorated far to much lately & we deserve better.

Let us aim to kick politician-authoritarian arse regularly & non violently.

Like John Lennon said “We’ll do it with humour”.

For he’s right – humour is the only thing the Slave Master is really afraid of.

In Closing:

So Bra –

lets Ha Ha Ha…

to the La-de-dah.

to get thrown a better…

Ba-na-na

“Caviar At The Work Table” (Prose/A Poem)

by Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

The World Waiter will serve you shit sandwiches.

Then tell you it’s caviar.

When you scream:

“Can’t you see that’s shit between bread???”

The World Waiter will say:

“How dare you insult our glorious chef – he cooks for you..you...Workers….

He bends over backwards for you…you.. ungratefuls……

Now eat your effing caviar you…you…WORKER YOU!”

And then if you say:

“And what will you do if I refuse to eat this shit sandwich World Waiter sir?”

They will say:

“We will make sure you cannot work yourself to death…er I mean are employed in our work camps….er I mean Work tables…

..We will conspire amongst ourselves to ban you from slavery..er Work.. & you will die in a ditch!…

You’ll get no shit sandwhiches…I mean you’ll get no delicious caviar… you..you…Worker swine! – you’ll starve fool!!!”.

You think for a minute – soaking it all in.

You know those workers who refused to toe the line.

Those ones under the bridges.

Those starving ones.

Those ones wearing threadbare rags.

Those ones all The Workers like you are afraid to one day become.

Those ones who couldn’t play anymore or were kicked off the sick game on offer .

Those ones who saw the shit sandwhiches as shit sandwhiches.

You make a decision & bite down hard on the shit sandwhich, its contents oozing down you chin.

You look up merrily & say to the impatient & now fuming World Waiter:

“My word this caviar is delightful!.. This is the best shit sandwhich.. er I mean caviar, I’ve ever tasted…so juicy! Give my regards to the glorious & bent over chef”.

The World Waiter now placated half smiles & slowly dissapears to the next Worker Table.

You think to yourself.

“I swear this shit sandwhich is starting to taste like caviar”.

You suddenly feel ashamed, for you think you know what’s happening.

Your cowardly thoughts somehow soothe your confortably re-battered soul.

The thought goes on:

“Oh well, at least I’ll be retiring from this Work Table in fifteen years.

It’s not that long – I’ve been here twice that time anyway!…

…and then I’ll be able to have all this shit tasting caviar without even having to sit at a Work Table”.

As you feel less fearful that you’ll end up like “The Others”, you hear the The World Waiter from accross the room.

“How dare you insult our glorious chef – he cooks for you..you..Workers….”.

As you finish your last bite, you feel a twinge on cameraderie wash over you.

“Ah..so this is what it feels like to be truly alive, among colleagues, well fed, with a roof over my head…and sitting at this highly polished Worker Table….Long life the glorious World Waiter & The bent-over Chef!….I am so lucky! Lucky-Lucky-Lucky!”

But then you find yourself in the midst of a sudden involuntary “GULP”.

You know somethings up – but for the life of you,

You can’t quite figure out what it is.

“Are All My Fave Writers Just Chumps?( An Idea/Article/Prose)

by Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

The best art that is thrown up by the system itself,

And described as the best art by the system itself,

Must be of the kind of art that lets out safely the pent up steam in the most discontented heads,

Strongly so but also safely so out of all the true latent Revolutionarys’ minds,

So as to the deflate the risk of a actual Revolution ever happening.

This is a good definition of what is called controlled opposition.

It is the most natural thing to see the following occur:

A Revolutionary Writer or Artist agrees to castrate their ideas & themselves,

Because this is how they can become noticed by the money payers – The Publishers, The Galleries – Society Folk.

The former potential True Revolutionary sighs in giant relief as they grab the long awaited fat cheque.

With cheque -in-hand the former potential Revolutionary knows they have been kept off the street – maybe for life.

No question – It is indeed a big personal payoff.

Of course the creative will keep deluding themselves or lying to others that they are still a potential Revolutionary.

But this has been made impossible by the publishing deal now done & dusted.

For to become known, to become lauded, to become finacially secure –

At some key level the Revolutionary part has to be nixed, neutralised, nullified – signed away with.

And with the artist’s signature now captured in bloody ink, the future Revolution is indefinitely delayed.

The system has won, at least for now.

For the old biblical quote is true:

How can a house stand if it is divided against itself?

The system cannot ever intentianlly promote True Revolutionaries.

This is why by definition all our so called favourite Revolutionary Writers

Orwell, Huxley, Bukowski, P.K. Dick etc etc

Have all been co-opted by the system,

& so used as a Societal-Anti Revolution-Pressure-Release-Device.

These kinds of authers are all true geniuses & will have known this fact to be true.

For them it’s a hard intellectual fact to swallow –

But they wanted to be successful writers not True Revolutionaries.

It’s not an easy fact for us fans to swallow either –

We like to delude ourselves romantically that they were/are True Bona-fide Revoltionaries.

It’s a kind of shared fantasy that us fans self-police amongst ourselves.

Our mainstream success anti heroes are real dammit, if only more people read them the system would change! Let’s drink to the True Revolutionaries!

I’m not telling anyone to stop reading Orwell, Huxley, Bukowski, P.K. Dick et al,

I’m just busting the myth we all happily go along with –

That they are indeed True Revolutionary Writers.

In summary I contend that the adage The pen is mightier than the sword,

Is actually there so the existing power structure stays in power, & is not overthrown.

The True Revolutionary says the sword is mightier than the pen & would never say the reverse.

And incidentily, all the worst (best?) Dictators all had an intuitive knowledge of this.

Despite all their talent for storytelling & warnings Orwell, Huxley, Bukowski, P.K. Dick et al,

Will first & foremost be Anti-Revolution pressure valves – & so also controlled opposition.

Don’t worry – as a massive fan of them – I don’t want to believe it either!

But this doesn’t stop it from being true.

I’ll also keep reading them all with glee –

despite the fact they are all Societal-Anti Revolution – Pressure-Release-Devices or controlled opposition.

All this is why it’s so hard for anyone to be a True Revolutionary.

You can’t just reach for the cheque.

This article is owned by Martin Smith Creations ltd (NZ). If you are a person or a small non-profit please read or reproduce freely. Commercial Users or NGO’s: If you want to purchase for reprint of this work for a commercial project to reach a wider audience – then contact me via martinantonsmith@gmail.com to gain written legal permission.

“Leaves falling in a bored mans head” ( Prose/A Thought)

By Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

Right now it is Autumn – or as the yanks say – “fall”.

The other day I looked at a giant pile of wind curated leaves on my front yard.

The thought appeared –

Each leaf has come from a particular tree, from a particular branch, & from a certain sub-branch,

But as I look at the big seemingly homogenous leaf pile – that information is not available to me personally.

The Physics man tells us in that theory you could somehow still “ID” any one of those leaves.

For the total information content of the universe is always preserved.

I thought that it’s pretty cool that there are trillions of seemingly indistinguishable leaves out there but the universe still knows exactly where they came from.

I also was kinda miffed that I’d never be able to find that info – or so I thought.

A couple of days later, most the leaves had fallen – so there were only a couple of hundred of leaves on each tree.

I watched one of them waggle on the tree, & I could even watch it waggle off from its precise location.

That meant when that leaf hit the big pile of its friends below,

I could know exactly where it used to live – which tree which branch which sub-branch it fell from.

A lot of artists say that science ruins the ‘magic’ of the world – I disagree –

I think both of these ‘where did the leaf live’ situations were interesting in their own right.

The real problem these artists who say science ruins ‘the magic of the world’ is they don’t know any science at all.

If they knew just a little about it, they’d see some of the magic in science too.

But I won’t labour the point –

I mean it’s not my place to once again throw the second law of infodynamics into another artists face.

I’ve been doing that far too much lately & I really must cut down on it.

And in closing If you ask someone be they a leaf, an artist, or a man of science

They will all agree that…

….I’ve got to fucking get out more….

But then again….

Is there really anything wrong with leaves falling in a bored man’s head?...

“She, The Red Shed, & Me” (Spoken Word/A Poem)

by Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

I had been ignoring things.

As my non-fitted sheet was falling off the bed far too easily,

& as it had been doing so for six months –

It was time to go to the Red Shed to get a ‘fitted sheet’.

But I was hungry , so I stopped to get a pie & a coffee for lunch first.

Outside the shop a beautiful young-ish woman walked by.

Of course I noticed her.

Fifteen years ago, I would have been actively plotting to meet her perhaps.

When I was younger, slimmer & could still be temporarily confused for a ‘success’.

On dating matters I was more courageous back then –

I had the raw instinct that hormones allow, & smartphones hadn’t had enough time-on-earth to ruin yet.

Now I’m a jaded 47-year-old, although I probably hide it well –

Due to physical work, having all my hair, & not being too fat or wrinkly.

But like all those who have been around the block – I am of course battle-scarred.

So she flittered past & I finished my pie & coffee.

I went to the Red Shed for a fitted sheet.

I’m looking through the packs, deciding on what pattern looks ok.

Then, there she is – the beautiful pie & coffee girl, doing the same thing as me.

I say ‘girl’ because I’d say she’s under thirty-two.

It was then a few emotions took over.

I felt scared.

Like I had to run away.

It was then I realised,

Just how much a big deal even the thought of dating is,

Let alone a relationship,

For a battle-scarred 47-year-old.

With those pangs of emotions hitting hard, I realised acutely & viscerally,

I was still nursing very old wounds from more than a decade ago.

I snatched the fitted sheet pack & disappeared off.

As I was walking to the checkout, I thought:

This is a very sad state of affairs

I hadn’t until then realised quite how twice shy I really was.

Sometimes reality hits you square right between in the eyes,

And tells you your exact emotional status on the spot.

As I walked to my car, I felt partly ashamed, somewhat enlightened, and tinged with anger.

For I knew that to contibue to indulge those emotions would not bode well for my future heart.

For surely there must be some nasty ephemeral force that wants many of us to stay lonely for life.

It wants us to hunker down in fear & embrace it as a prime motivator, & worship as a guru.

It wants us to fall in love with it in true Stockholm Syndrome fashion.

At least I’ve been around the block enough to know that giving in to such evil is a waste.

Intellectually I know that – don’t we all?

I wonder if I’ll run into that beautiful woman again?

After all – I did forget to buy a pillow….

Perhaps she did too?

Oh there’s one thing I forgot to say.

Between high tailing it away from the fitted sheet rack to the cash register,

I looked at some bogan black jeans on a rack – for nowadays they are not just for bogans.

She walked past & we made eye contact.

I played it cool, & that prior emotion at the fitted sheet rack had dissipated nicely.

And now that I have long left the store & sit here writing in my messy studio,

I am thinking this:

Will I have the balls to say hello If I see her again?

Or will I succumb to being like all the others –

Like every jaded long term single forty plus-er? –

And so say not a peep & desperately avoid eye contact?

That is to allow myself to be typically Mid-Mid-21 Century Socially & Romantically Risk Adverse?

I’d like to think I can next time show some testicular fortitude at the, shall we say red shed pillow aisle.

One thing I do know is this: It can feel nice but It’s never wise to follow the crowd.

Fifteen years ago, I would have felt more confidant this situation.

But then again – I was also a total fool fifteen years ago.

This dear audience, was my ode to being single at 40 plus.

And so, of it all – I dare not talk of solutions.

I’m mostly just happy to just know what’s going on –

For I didn’t have a clue back then, fifteen years ago, when I was thirty-two.

As a battle hardened (or perhaps battle defeated) youngish-old-coot,

I know that to be true.

I guess I better go back to the Red Shed to buy that pillow I forgot about.

After all, I’ll need it anyway.

Honesty & ‘Kings Honours’ awards: Will you get a ‘Certificate’ or a ‘Carrot’ (Up the Jacksie)? (A Blog Post)

By Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

In NZ because we are not yet a Republic – we have Knighthoods & Orders of Merit etc etc which have the stamp of approval from the head of state i.e in this case the King of England.

Quite often total assholes get awards. But since the world is run by assholes, this should not surprise anyone.

For example, this year they gave an old Politician (let’s just call her ‘Ruth RRRichardson’) an award. She in 1991 cut benefits to the poor.

She did it with a smile.

I was one of the poor children affected by this many years ago.

She literally took a day’s food out of me & my two sibling’s mouths – well also from my mothers too.

So, I don’t mind saying a giant FU to her, even now 34 years since she did the dirty on the poor kids & their single mother parents……now you know the context, let me get into the meat of this sandwich…. I’ve came up with an “Alternate history of Ruth Richardson’s Kings honor award” …here it is

Why don’t they just be honest when handing out Kings Honours Awards?

e.g. The revamped ceremony that now favours honesty might go like this (imagine an aging society fuddy duddy giving a ‘weird chemistry teacher look-a-like’ female politician getting the award) :

“Ruth RRRichardson – you get a Kings Honour for the following chicanery category”:

“For the holding down of the poor & the ‘great unwashed’ and for distracting them from the fact they are slaves slash chattel of the state; & For the picking of their pockets over the period of X decades in under the guise of helping them out – your unrivaled dastardry & pig-headed lack of empathy has surprised & enamoured you to us – the most withered of joyless souls who exist at the highest ranks of this very rancid & farty smelling room”.

& then they say this

“Now bend over & receive the giant golden carrot, which once removed & cleaned can be redeemable for 100% cold pressed kiwi-slave juice”

“I’ve been waiting decades for this carrot” She said as she smiled for the camera – although the “smile” was not really a smile as the ends of her lips remained fully below the horizontal plane.

And what did I have to do with this new Kings Honours ceremony? I was so happy that I was made the convener for “The distributing the Kings Honors Physical Awards to each winner” This means I was able to push through this diktat while no one was looking:

13-b section 2: The Mean ones can get the oversize carrot up the jacksie, & the nice ones can get a certificate.

Through some twist of fate, the quality control staff didn’t delete my diktat & this came to be. The only thing that annoys me?

The bad ones liked the carrot.

That was not the plan.

“Corporatitus” ( A Poem)

by Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

The longer you have divorced yourself from the banal “Corporate World” the more you recognise it as a disease.

If you are good you can literally see it emanating off those who still suffer from…

Let’s call it “Corporatitus”.

Although we shouldn’t hate these people.

We should feel sorry for them as they are merely victims of the ubiquitous focused brainwashing.

We should quietly, compassionately, & creatively help to bring them to the light.

So that one day in the hopefully-near-distant-future,

They will realise they have become poorly paid supporting actors,

In a very bad movie,

That they didn’t write.

Then they at least have a chance,

To slip out the back studio door & once again feel real-life sunlight on their face.

“The Party’s Over” (A Poem)

by Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

I think men age better than women,

But women want to party more as they age.

But by age 50 men & women are in the same place on that matter –

Neither of them wants to leave the couch.

That’s when the old party animals all marry each other,

Always in the now traditional ‘Western De-facto way’ of course,

With both the man & the woman finally both admitting total military defeat.

And while they have both agreed to unconditional surrender,

They can still argue peace terms until one of them dies.

So they can now pick away at each other equally, like cohabitating pigeons.

Sometimes pecking softly, other times the pecks reign down like the falling Sword of Damocles.

And all is good.

This one-part misery, one-part part heaven, is after all what they’ve been training for all their lives.

This all keeps both of them mentally agile,

Helping both parties stave away ‘early onset dementia’.

And all this sillyness is the correct amount of punishment for all that ‘wanting to be free’ for so long.

All in all,

I’d sum it up it like this:

All’s well that ends well.

Or as my old dusty old Chemistry Professor said:

“Like dissolves like”.

For it is true, isn’t it?

The world’s problems & most divorces for that matter,

Are surely mostly caused because people insist on trying to mix oil & water.

Can’t you see it’ll never work baby?

Even those old shabby co-habituating party animals can see that!

Let us always remember,

Wisdom comes in many guises,

And it often ain’t so pretty.