Mormon's visit Granny

I thought that I'd join the debate on 'god-botherers'

IS RICHARD (of RBB) EVIL OR SIMPLY MISGUIDED?

In an earlier post we investigated the possibility that Richard (of RBB) was a MPD sufferer. This may be so or, it may be that he is a very clever manipulator of people. If he was a true MPD sufferer he would be in continual dialogue and conflict with his other personalities or Dicks as we called them. Most of these Dicks have been very quiet recently almost to the point of being extinct. I won’t rule them out entirely however as sometimes these can remain dormant for quite a while awaiting some stressful event to trigger them into coming ‘alive’ again.

What is of concern is a recent exploitive use of an innocent animal to further his needs. This animal, Fluffy, appeared after apparently having been kidnapped from its usual place of residence, encaged and brought to live with Richard (of RBB). This cat was subjected to random acts of cruelty (made to pose in front of cameras, made to defecate indoors, had coffee poured on it etc.) and then, inexplicably disappeared. Richard (of RBB) has demonstrated classic psychopathic behavior by not only showing no remorse for this disappearance but by openly not acknowledging it at all. It is as if the animal had served its usefulness and then was simply disposable.

But I digress. The episode with the cat is recent and, in the scheme of things relatively unimportant. What is significant is the long; slow build up of a ‘family’ of associates who have been drawn into his blogging world. The alter egos may have been a smokescreen to cover this or, they may have served his purpose of creating a friendly, anything goes community that the weak-willed needed to share in. 

The ‘family’ as we will call it has a disturbing number of young women in it and work associates.

The women of course could have been recruited as bait but over time Richard (of RBB) seems to have worked his magic on them. They started out as innocents, tentatively feeling their way through cyberspace in a charmingly naive fashion. They have, over time and under Richard (of RBB)’s prompting, become worldlier to the point of vulgarity, licentiousness and dare I say, madness. 

The workmates are another story. Whilst not strictly innocents they seem to have been recruited to both give credibility to the ‘family’ and possibly to provide cover as well. I suspect that these ‘lieutenants’ will be the fall guys if trouble brews and we may see some unexplained disappearances (remember Fluffy?).

Last but not least Richard (of RBB) is cynically exploiting his real family members. Second (an interesting name suggesting prior subjugation) is kept ‘waiting in the wings’ and being ridiculed and rewarded in turn. This ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine seems to work as Second hangs in there (although through obvious self loathing and disgust regularly deletes his posts).

So. How does he get away with this? He uses a simple but effective mechanism to disguise his insidious plan. He dresses his blog and his community up as a musical blog forum. This is clever as it is seemingly innocuous but his real stroke of brilliance is that he has chosen the double bass as the instrument of choice. Why has he done this? Why didn’t he choose a popular instrument or indeed any other instrument? The reason is simple. If he had chosen any other instrument then this could have brought unwanted investigation by the casual Internet surfer. No, he chose the double bass because of the extreme unlikelihood of anyone ‘Googling’ double bass or, if they did inadvertently stumble across his blog would see at first banal references to this arcane instrument coupled with the most mind numbingly boring pictures of a double bass player. As further ‘cover’ he has chosen to call the blog Richard’s Bass Bag not Richard’s Bass. This is very telling and will benefit from further investigation and analysis in the future.

What lies in the future? I’m not sure but will keep a watchful eye on developments. Alerts will be if Richard (of RBB) was to purchase a VW Kombi van, take up Scientology or begin to play his gramophone recordings backwards.

My cat tries to play the double bass

Maybe when Richard (of RBB) fires his band, or, when they fire him he can recruit Fluffy (of RBB) to help him.

OLDER THAN METHUSELAH

For those of you that don't know, Richard (of RBB) is a very old man. He is, I have been reliably informed, even older than The Twisted Scottish Bastard! I know, I know, the visual evidence suggests otherwise but...breaking news here...Richard (Of RBB) will turn 58 on 20th August.
Let's wish him a very Happy Birthday (say it loudly), and advise against candles on the cake just in case his fire insurance is not sufficient.

Schnoodle Doodle / Musikmesse Frankfurt 2009

FOR RICHARD (of RBB).

IS IT THE IRISH IN ME?

The Old Girl scoffed at my lunch today. I made myself a mashed potato, cheese, tomato and relish toasted sandwich. It didn't look like much but tasted delicious. My liking for potato is much greater than hers. My ancestry is West coast Scottish on my father's side and Irish on my mother's (with a bit of English thrown in). The Old Girl's ancestry is East coast Scottish from Aberdeen.
I suggested that she should eat a salted cod, oats and seagull sandwich (I had to duck).

OOOH WHAT A DAY THAT WAS

Yesterday we ran our charity race day at Ruakaka races. After 4 months of planning for this event - finding race sponsors, arranging free buses, organising a luncheon, advertising and the million minutiae necessary for an event where a couple of thousand people are going to attend, we were naturally a bit nervous as to the outcome. The previous two days had been rainy and windy so we were crossing our fingers as to the weather outcome (my mother would have put a statue of a saint out in the garden - she used to do this on the eve of weddings and significant outdoor activities - apparently this old saint could control the weather you see).
We needn't have worried. The weather was superb - no wind, warm and sunny. The patrons were generous - we raised a lot of money. Everyone was happy. Ruakaka is about half an hours drive south of Whangarei and an hours drive from where we live. We went by boat though, from a jetty at the end of our street across the harbour to a marina close to the racecourse. It took 10 minutes at a fast speedboat pace - thrilling and a great start and finish to a memorable day.

View from Ruakaka back to where we live

GO FIGURE

A sensible German man in manly trousers.

Surprised Kitty (Original)

I came across this and found it so charming that I had to share it. Its not particularly relevent to anything - its just nice.

We live in a country community. At the end of our street, on the main road is a volunteer fire brigade. This has a siren alert system that sounds when there is an emergency to summon the volunteer force. The sound is (I guess) like a WWII air raid alarm.    There are at least three different alerts (by duration and number of stat-ups) that denote fire, road accident and medical emergency. When this goes of (it can be anytime day or night) it has the effect of sending shivers up your spine. It means, obviously, that someone is suffering in some way. Unfortunately, when the weather is bad like it is tonight, the siren usually indicates that there has been a car crash. The alarm went off not long ago. I hope that no-one has been hurt.

NOW HERE'S A FUNNY THING

A teacher with a phobia of rabbits was allegedly tortured by a pupil who scrawled pictures of bunnies on the blackboard.

But the 60-year-old woman has had her case against the student thrown out of court by a judge in Germany.

The schoolteacher had been seeking an injunction against 16-year-old Kim Pohl to stop her aggravating her phobia by making the drawings. She also sought to prevent the teen from spreading rumours about her paralysing fear of rabbits.

I wonder what dark phobia's the Nuova Lazio schoolteachers have that the students may discover and exploit?

(Phobia for a person scared of cotton wool)

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH

TV3's Target tonight once again 'exposed' tradesmen who, while purportedly coming to your house to fix things, indulged in all sorts of other activities like (gasp) drinking water from your tap, undertaking repairs without turning off the electricity and, turning back on your computer! The thing is with this programme, the advertising it does to drum up viewership and the cult following it is gathering because of its salacious content especially re. underwear drawers (see http://theconfusioncronicles.blogspot.com/ 'keeping your undies safe) to see what I mean.

The overbearing and holier-than-thou commentary in Target is hard to take. In tonight's episode they rabbitted on about earth continuity tests, RCD connections, level outlets and insulation resistance tests - blah, blah, blah when everyone really wanted to know was whether the electrician was going to go straight to the bedroom, find the KY jelly and slick up in it while putting the panties over his head.

Salaciousness sells!. So, what are we really seeing here? An expose of what is really good value from tradesmen? What is good workmanship? Or, has he masturbated yet in the knicker drawer?

I wonder if, instead of the 'honey-trap' actor employed as the house owner we had someone's grandmother playing the part, whether the tradesman would really want to see inside the underwear drawer?


Maybe, if women are so worried about curious tradesmen, they should go the no-panties way.

GOLF - THE ERRATIC GAME

I played 18 holes yesterday with some friends. Conditions were ideal. No wind. Clear sky. A little cool at 8AM but sunny. I played like crap. I don't often play a full round, preferring to go along and play 5 or 6 holes on my own - just practising. I did 56 on the first 9 and 56 on the second to a total of 112. I lost 3 golf balls and had about a dozen penalty shots in the round.

This morning the weather conditions were even better so I went out on my own and played the first 9 holes. I did it in 45 - 11 shots lower than yesterday. The conditions were similar and the course had certainly not changed. Weird.

Mr. W

man flu

PROCRASTINATION...

... has always been my downfall. At school I was a daydreamer, allowing my eyes to go unfocussed and letting the voice of the teacher go all fuzzy and distant so that I could drift away to somewhere much more pleasant. At University (Victoria, Wellington) I used to sit at a window in the library and stare at the beautiful harbour for hours (TSB's photo in his latest post reminded me of this). In my working career I would do the same in board meetings, seminars and conferences. Today I'm creating advertisements for the race meeting the charity I help has coming up on 24th July (all donations gratefully accepted). This involves sourcing logo's and images, writing blurb, positioning within the confines of the designated pages and generally fluffing about on the computer. Boring. All the while outside it is sunny, still, warm and beautiful. I'm going to bugger off and play some golf. The trouble is - the work will still have to be done when I get back. That's what procrastination is - deferment.

BEAUTIFUL DAY

Its a beautiful morning in Paradise up here. I had breakfast on the deck in sunshine. I'd play golf this morning but am holed up in the study doing work for the charity. Hopefully I'll clear away everything I need to do and play some holes this afternoon. Keep warm down South.

WE'RE HERE! (part one)

As promised TC is bringing you an exclusive investigative report on Richard's Bass Bag. We lift the lid on this blog and the disturbing truth behind it. We suspect that Richard aka Dick, the 'mind' behind RBB is a MPD sufferer. 

What Is MPD?

Multi Personality Disorder (MPD) is a dissociative disorder. It is a disruption of a person’s sense of identity (Id). And, as such is part of the sub-conscious and not part of a person’s normal control.

MPD differs from other memory disorders in that the sufferers are taken over by one or more “alter personalities”. We’ll call these Dicks.  These Dicks, buried in the sub-conscious since childhood can rise to the surface and impose their own memories, thoughts, and behaviors.

The essential feature of MPD is that behavior is controlled by two or more Dicks which operate independently. One Dick may feel threatened as another endangers it or argues with it. The sufferer is said to experience a sense of being made to misbehave, hurt themselves or engage in unsocial activities that an ordinary person would not be involved in. An example is that a high percentage of sufferers that are musicians deliberately choose as their ‘weapon’ of choice the unpopular instruments such as double basses, banjos, mandolins, fiddles and trumpets. 

The image of all this is of terrorists infiltrating a country, an operator taking control of a machine, or a parasite attacking another organism. Studies of MPD sufferers have shown that they say that if they are not careful the Dicks will take over. These Dicks are believed to have many truly remarkable capabilities and qualities. Some have the task of reproducing — of creating new Dicks. Others determine which Dick will take control of the body at any given time. There are Dicks of the opposite sex, of children, historical characters, gods and demons. Dicks of people thousands of years old or from another dimension have been reported by MPD sufferers

MPD proponents assert that all manner of activities — creating a work of art, driving a car, teaching a class, busking, playing in bands, cleaning up old relatives, cooking and even blogging are performed by Dicks.

Dicks are often wily, secretive, and elusive. For instance, guest Dicks have been identified whose role is to deny that the sufferer has MPD, thus obscuring the diagnosis. Dicks are also said to try to trick therapists by hiding and impersonating each other 0r the opposite may occur: during therapy, several Dicks may coalesce into a kind of “Superdick”. 

What Causes MPD?

According to the experts, extraordinary childhood traumas, usually sexual or religious or a combination of both lead to MPD. There is a high incidence of children who have been educated in Catholic schools and who have been taught by Brothers becoming MPD sufferers and becoming Superdicks.

The theory is as follows. Because the child cannot physically escape the pain, its only option is to escape mentally: by dissociating. Dissociation is said to defend against pain by allowing the maltreatment to be experienced as if it were happening to someone else. Eventually these defenses begin to be overused and slowly become “crystallized” until they become personalities. The Dicks are born. 

 There have been many famous studies of MPD and the Dicks that have been created. This investigation looks at a modern, contemporary and potentially very serious case – Richard (of RBB).

Richard demonstrates some of the classic traits of an MPD sufferer. He was educated in Catholic schools. He claims that a Brother ‘put his hands up his trousers’ when he was in primary school. There is no evidence that this actually happened and it beggars belief that anyone would want to put their hands up Richard’s trousers but in cases of MPD it is the sufferers belief that events happened rather than actuality that is important.

Richard also is a musician and has chosen the double bass as his instrument of choice. This is important. Mortification of the flesh is a Catholic institution and is self-flagellation – hurting oneself to atone for misdeeds. Perhaps this explains the choice of an otherwise instrument that should be avoided.

Richard has created many Dicks to both support him, and, fitting with the classic symptoms of MPD, to berate, cajole, argue with and criticize him. Akish, The The, RBB2, RBB3, Dave, Anselm, The  The, The Boring Guy, Beowulf, DTZB, Bin Hire and maybe even Second amongst others are the Dicks that he creates and surrounds himself with. 

(to be continued)

HUFF AND PUFF

We had a big storm last night up here in the 'winterless north'. The wind blew so strong that the house shook. At midnight, whilst trying to get to sleep a series of powerful gusts battered the house. There was an almighty screeching and crashing sound which sounded like something was being thrown down our drive. I went outside with a torch and checked our roof and the roofs of the neighbouring houses on each side of us, the driveway, the road outside and even the beachfront all the while being tossed about by the wind and drenched. I couldn't see anything so went back inside. About 3 minutes later the fire siren went off (we have a community fire station staffed by volunteers and when there is a fire or other emergency a siren kind of like an air raid siren goes off). It turns out that the farmhouse up behind our house lost its roof. The entire roof was gone just leaving the 'bones' of the roof supports. This is an historic house about 120 years old. The roof was brand new having just been installed last year. I checked our roof today and thankfully it is intact. The luck of the draw I guess. It was funny, just before their roof was torn off, because the wind was so strong I was thinking of my two Uncles and Aunts houses which lost their roofs on the same night. It was the night of the Wahine Disaster  April 10th 1968. They had their houses in Kingston, Wellington. In the middle of the night strong winds entirely tore the roof of one of the houses off and tore half of the roof off of the other one. Uncle Noel, in the house that had the roof entirely torn off and which had most of the furnishings sucked out, previously had dark hair. Within days his hair turned grey.

FOR SECOND