Jim ….. a Character Study (Part 1)

Guest Author Uncategorized

Another tale from Jaycee – and I’m delighted to admit I’ve deferred to his judgment. He thought it should be a two-parter, and so it will be. Meanwhile, sit back and enjoy!

(Image Credit: Your Story)

The story goes that Jim, on visiting the dentist to have his mouth-full of rotten teeth attended to, promptly told the dentist they would all have to come out…

“I’ll be the judge of that!” the dentist hastily replied. Then asked him to open up. “Good lord! They’ll have to come out!” and Jim smiled … not for the fact that he was going to lose all his teeth, but, you see, Jim was right again! He regaled us with this knowledge that same night at “The Cliff”. Jim was a specialist at “regaling” people with his stories, for that’s what they were – fictions of a very fertile imagination. But getting back to his teeth for a moment. It was a good job he attended to them when he did … he was fast losing friends from the mere sight of that “cavern of broken and blackened stalactites” as someone (I forget whom) once said: “It’s enough to put yer off yer finking,” someone else (I forget whom ) remarked (maybe it was Jeff Otto … it sounds like him!).

Jim was of dark-haired medium height, but he looked taller than he was through being rather lanky … he was one of those blokes who could hold their pint of beer and cigarette in the one hand while gesticulating a point with the other. He was always there on the fringe of a discussion, willing to make his contribution whenever he could … not by butting in, but by picking the right moment – for good yarn-spinning demands a damn good sense of timing – it is in using the accoutrements around one as props, like long-drawing on a fag, or pausing to lick the paper when rolling a cigarette, or polishing off the dregs of a beer and calling to Noela for a refill. It gives the listener pause enough to “get ahead”, in their minds, of the story-teller – but the story-teller is really always in control. Jim was a natural.

However, as much as I can make out, Jim’s career as the local bullshit artist began when he was employed with the district council on an unemployment relief scheme. Jim and his mate, Mark, with whom Jim used to board, were both working up near the old golf course, widening the road. A lot of the local riff-raff of the community were employed on these schemes and this project was no exception. There were a few members of the notorious “Barbarians” motorcycle gang working the same stretch of road as Jim and Mark. These “youths” were known to possess a rather cruel streak within their ugly facades of greasy, unwashed grottiness … otherwise, they were rather nice chaps.

One day at smoko, Jim decided to endear himself to the nearest “Barb’” with an example of his fiction. We’ll take up the thread at the ending:

“…Well, there I was – broken down truck, no food, no water, no road out … the middle of the desert … the middle of summer. I knew I was in a fix, so I started walking south … (a drag on his cigarette, slow expelling of smoke). I walked for three days, no food, no water … on the third day I was standing under a gum tree, resting, when suddenly an aborigine appeared before me. I thought I was hallucinating – I don’t know where he came from as there was nothing but desert all around – but there he was, a full-blood, dark as a pint of stout and armed with spears and things … (pause for meaningful reflection and another drag). I couldn’t speak his dialect and he couldn’t speak mine…he gave me a drink and some chewy-meat stuff, then we sat down cross-legged in the red sand and he drew some wriggly lines with his fingers which I took to mean water, and he turned his head to the sunset and pointed. Then he made three strokes in the sand – and sure enough, I walked three days in that direction and came across water.”

All through this extraordinary tale, the gruesome bikie was suitably impressed with Jim’s courage in the face of such odds and his calm demeanour in the retelling of the adventure, so that with every pause , he would punctuate the story with “Yeah!” or ”Really!?” and even a proud “Bloody hell!” so that Jim returned to work a hero in one man’s eyes – that is – until the bikie repeated the yarn (replete with amazed interjections) to Mark.

“Oh, he was just bullshitting to you – he’s never been further north than Wheatland Street !” (the street leading to the Seacliff Hotel).

“Yeah?” the bikie raged,” I’ll kill the bastard!!” It took Mark another half hour to calm the man down. Mark frequently had to follow behind to undo the damage that Jim innocently wrought. For, however outlandish his stories, he never meant any harm by them. They were, as I said, figments of a very fertile imagination.

But there was method to Jim’s madness. He would mostly relate these Munchausenish adventures to someone of influence …and as Jim spent a good deal of time in the clutches of poverty – and the front bar of the Seacliff Hotel – that “influence” usually centered around the financial capacity to purchase more beer, or as in the case just mentioned, a toke on a joint or two of “Barbarian” weed!

To keep up his supply of stories, Jim would clip out articles from newspapers to file away in this little notepad he kept he kept in a top pocket. Occasionally, he would be seen to write something in this pad, but never was he known to show anybody its contents. I suspect there was little to show, but was “played upon” to increase the mystery surrounding his person … there was a rumour (no doubt started by himself) that he was in Sth Aust as a kind of modern-day remittance man from a wealthy family back in Sydney. Jim would draw upon those clippings and notes with suitable embellishments to concoct another outlandish tale with himself as hero to impress whoever had the generosity to maintain supply …

An Example …

You may have read in the papers many years ago about the discovery, in the sea north of Darwin, a sunken Japanese submarine from the Second World War that contained a fortune in mercury. However, the Japanese government pressed for the wreck to be left alone as a war grave – which, eventually, it was. Well … a couple of evenings after that story broke in the papers, Jim had buttonholed some unfortunate, and was relating to him the details (between draughts of the old amber), of how he, Jim, and some others had dived for and retrieved canisters of mercury from a Japanese sub sunken out in St Vincent’s Gulf. “… if you follow that sunbeam on the water there straight out ‘bout five mile …” and sold it for a fortune which was used to buy arms for gun-running to Timor … oh!, pardon my slip, I forgot to tell you that Timor was at that time in conflict with Indonesia, which also made the dailies, and Jim’s notepad.

Most of these tales were good entertainment and people didn’t mind paying the price of a beer or two for such. However, Bruce (The Pinball Wizard) made the mistake of believing one of Jim’s creations and he never lived it down!

(Image Credit: Australian Traveller)

239 thoughts on “Jim ….. a Character Study (Part 1)”

  3. aj,

    Kambah Mick’s excellent post about the IPA just received another “endorsement”. As if it needed any!

  5. Ducky (& Gigilene),

    Gigilene beat me to it: at least as a massive leek Snot might serve some beneficial purpose.

    Apart from the laxative effect, there is always:

    one of my all-time favourite soups.

  8. Tonight was peppered prawns with leeks.

    One leek cut in 2cm slices and “peeled” and microwaved (sorry about that!) for 4 minutes. Prawns peeled and deveined done in a pan with olive oil and crushed garlic. Just before done add a tablespoon of fish sauce, a tsp of brown sugar and a a tsp of pepper. Serve prawns on leek and pour sauce over.

    A strange combination but it works a treat.

  9. On why they’re kicking out Graham “Cheese and whiskers” Richardson now rather than earlier, they might have a stronger case to do so after a catastrophic election loss that was arguably caused by people like him.

    Hopefully Mar’n closely follows, although after going over so many terrible election results in Victoria and Queensland in the 1950’s-70’s, kicking out too many entrenched people just ends up giving the other monsters a free run with a split opposition.

  10. Pood and Dud (pat pend) are facing their doomed-to-fails in different ways:

    The education minister, Christopher Pyne, has conceded the government will have to make changes to its higher education reforms or face Senate defeat, a day after Tony Abbott dropped contentious amendments to race laws.

    But in a different budget stalemate, the health minister, Peter Dutton, denied his proposed new GP co-payment was doomed in the upper house, pointing to Clive Palmer’s decision to allow the Coalition’s financial advice changes through despite earlier opposition.

    Both ministers played down the lack of an electoral mandate for the controversial measures. Pyne insisted he had not broken his promise not to raise fees because the universities would be the ones setting tuition prices after deregulation. Dutton said the Coalition was elected “to clean up Labor’s mess”.

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/06/christopher-pyne-realistic-about-doing-deals-to-get-university-reforms-passed

  14. Sarah just interviewed a Perth journo about new info about Farrell. The WA bloke was excellent. He had “gruesome” details of Farrell’s convictions but would not detail them. About time someone took ethics seriously.

  15. Sarah just pissed on the Poodle. Until the last minute he thought it was a warm shower of rain. Then he twigged. Priceless!

  20. Ugh. Uhlmann so soon? Well, he’ll have to adjust pretty quickly. He can’t give Liberals foot massages as easily on TV as it is to do on radio.

  22. http://tenplay.com.au/news/sydney/2014/8/6/corruption-bombshell

    http://www.news.com.au/national/health-minister-peter-dutton-says-government-will-not-back-down-on-proposed-7-medicare-copayment/story-fncynjr2-1227015690805‘

    http://www.skynews.com.au/video/program_agenda/2014/08/06/agenda-security-laws-may-collect-metadata.html

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11015027/Alex-Salmond-loses-first-independence-TV-debate.html

    http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28645502

  23. ” For any abc 7.30 watchers, you will have the pleasure of Toolman until Sales returns. Enjoy.”…..OMG !….vomit!

  25. BK,

    I guess you will have seen it by now but Sarah asked about his “policies” about Uni fees. Pyne: “That’s your opinion.”
    Sarah: “No, that’s the opinion of the Uni VCs

  26. Thanks duck. I didn’t watch it but thau exchange you mentioned is priceless! I supposed he looked like a stunned mullet after that.

  27. Mine to Their ABC:

    For the last many months Sarah Ferguson has been an excellent interviewer on 7.5.

    We are now to be subjected to the reactionary enthusiast (I can give you evidence) that is Uhlmann.

    I want an explanation why you are doing this to me.

    I am very familiar with your #5 excuse. It is time you owned up.

  30. BK,

    He went: we got rid of the carbon price and we stopped the boats. There was one other.

    Hysteresis loop.

  32. For a brief shining moment there the L/NP had a topic of conversation other than Carbon Tax and Boats. Then people lost interest in the plane. So I think their plan from here to 2016 is to talk about Carbon Tax and Boats. Two subjects left where they’re not bleeding from all sides. And even they they have to avoid various aspects of both; the stupidity of Direct Action and the volume of carbon emissions on the one hand, and international law-breaking and the fact that they’re not actually stopping boats but hiding them on the other.

    How they must be yearning for those pre-election days when they had the freedom to lie about all the policies they had ready to go, and how the government weren’t doing anything. It was so easy then. They could all swan about like Jaymes Diaz and substitute vague generalities for actual policy positions.

    I’m assuming their plan was to have the various RCs swamping the ALP while everything they did in government went unnoticed. Hasn’t quite worked out that way, huh?

  33. kk,

    Are you suggesting that The George may get something through?
    I have no idea whether the Noalition thought they would get control of the Senate.

    It is obvious that they had no Plan B. It is equally obvious that they are making Negotiations with all and sundry there would make a shoal of sardines laugh their heads off.

    As many here have said, they are doing their “best” and being with, at best, FU.

  34. In many quarters, they still have the freedom to lie and not being called out.

    The Grand Question is: How much kit do they have that WILL convince the electorate come 2016..

    There is no way there will be a DD before that

  35. Oh dear! I just saw the Brandis Sky News interview. Probably the most inept ministerial performace I have EVER seen. The dill’s gotta go.

  37. BB
    At CW’s mini-wake we did say that it would be good if Bushfire Bill would grace SA with his presence sometime.

    I could think of nothing finer.

    When the boat comes in, BK.

  38. With the “adults” now firmly in charge of Australia we check on the kids in Norway.

    This exhausting time-lapse video shows what happened when a young mother dared to try and change the bedtime routine of her twin boys in the middle of the Norwegian summer.

    Henriette Jonassen, 21, had grown tired of two-year-old toddlers Leon and Nathaniel waking each other up in the night and both ending up in her bed.

    Ms Jonassen decided to experiment with having the boys sleep in separate, adjacent rooms. But she also set up a time-lapse camera outside – sensing that things might not quite go according to plan

  39. Bushfire Bill,

    Hitch down to Melbourne, and you and I can drive over together …

    Meanwhile,

    NEW THREAD

    Comments here will close soon … very soon … I wanna go to bed.

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