Eat Pray Love – what a dog

I haven’t seen the movie Eat Pray Love but I’ve read the book and it felt like I was eating a roll-your-own polished turd.

Elizabeth Gilbert went on a year long journey overseas to get over her divorce while finding herself and forgetting all her woes. Woes? What woes? She already had a book advance for heaven’s sake. She also had a movie deal from a previous book. Most people who get divorced (the only problem she could actually come up with) are headed for a life of reading books by Stephen Covey and experimenting with Dan Murphy wine. A book-deal funded trip to Italy with the sole purpose of eating and drinking does not come into it. At one point she even complains because she is not on holiday. I mean – seriously.

Then the ashram, which in terms of reading interest was approximately the same as watching Steel Magnolias backwards, but I kept reading because well – something had to happen, right? Wrong. So wong.

In Indonesia she has cups of tea with a medicine man, but dumps all her spiritual practice the moment a Brazilian expat gives her a compliment and then hops into bed with him. So much for the year of celibacy or enlightenment too, for that matter.

I think the government should grant every divorcee a year of travel to find themselves and eat a few nice meals. It should be a right of passage, like acne or getting your car radio stolen. But unlike, Madam Gilbert, most of us live in the real world where book and movie deals don’t feature a lot, so we have to make do with Dan Murphy.

But apparently her ex husband spent a year travelling too after their divorce. He didn’t go to find himself or bonk Brazilian expats, but helped out in the third world. No book deal. No publicity. Just quietly lending a hand. Now there is a movie that will never get made.

Real World Ethics

When you are young, you’re brought up to believe certain truisms. whether at school, sunday school or around the dinner party people bigger than you seem determined to instill certain facts on your subconscious. the trouble is they are all lies. From money doesn’t make you happy to that old chestnut it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s how you play the game, it’s all a lot of crock. Enter adulthood and armed with advice that is wrong, makes no sense and gives you a false sense of how to make it in this world. Let’s take them one by one:

It doesn’t matter if you win or lose it’s how you play the game – oh yeah,  tell that to the Dutch team. winning is everything. it means endorsements, national pride, fame, girls, guys, take your pick and kudos beyond anything that a silver medal can provide. Good sport silver with that inner glow of being a good sport and playing fair? I don’t think so.

Money doesn’t make you happy – not strictly true, but it certainly helps. A lot. Take a look at people dripping with wealth – there’s a self-confidence not seen in Macdonald’s of Wetherill Park. OK, so money may not make you absolutely happy but it makes you less desperate and means you can afford better pizza toppings.

Do what you love and the money will follow. Mmmm try telling that to all the artists, writers, dancers and ahem, bloggers out there. Come on lets bust this myth. If that really was right insurance companies wouldn’t be spilling over with BArts graduates. It’s the other way around – get the money and you will get to do what you love.

If women ran the world think how peaceful it would be – ok, I’m not going to go against the sisterhood here, and women are by no means running the world … yet. the G20 still buttoned down old fogies with bald spots. but they nearly are, and if Julia, Angela, Hillary and an extravagant swathe of estrogen gathering strength but planet earth’s still pretty much in the shit. Because here’s the thing – women are just people, and people in power are just politicians. Enough said.

On the seventh day God created Parramatta Road

The other day I was driving through the Sydney traffic carpark, when I was sandwiched behind a car with the sticker: “Slow Down. Take in God’s Creation”. With the exception of “I’m a locovore and I vote”, this is quite possibly the most moronic sticker on the planet today. 

It got me thinking – WTF? God didn’t create the roads – this is our little creation. You name it, we built it – the M’s, the F’s, Parramatta, Sunnyholt, James Ruse, Silverwater and all the others Vic Laruso rattles off in his sleep every morning as giant parking lots, best avoided.

Ok, so I know what this self-annointed slow laner was trying to say – check out your surroundings. But here’s the thing, God doesn’t particularly care one way or another. The proof? Look at a forest of trees – not one of them has a sign saying, “Actually the rosewood’s not bad – I made this.” Not one set of initials, no I woz here, no pawprint, nada.

Don’t slow down, it’s bad for traffic flow and causes accidents. Let’s keep creationism off the roads instead.