100. The Retirement.

This is the hundredth post and time to hang up the typer. I started this blog in my teens, I am now an old man- in my head and relatively at very least. I will probably start another, hopefully more focused, blog. I like writing, I need writing and a blog with a mild readership of friends is as good a reason as any to write something and flex the muscle in this world of crippling apathy. Or all the reasons I seem to put forward as realistic reasons not to write, the fire hasn’t burned for a while.

In this last post, I want to wax on the number itself. What 100 means in different circumstances and contexts and where the meaning is in all that, if there is any meaning in anything. 100 is a sort of a milestone, not that it should be in this case, which provokes reactions from different audiences and is as fascinating as any other number. 

100 Runs.

A Special Ton, Like A Bunch Of Special Tons.

A ton, as we cricket fans call it. If you are on the card as a batsmen that is what you aspire to. There is nothing better than a ton, except a ton on a special occasion. A boxing day ton, an ashes ton, a ton on debut. That a ton is so celebrated, the minority of Australian non-cricket fans out there might think a double-ton all the more so.

No. It is much easier to make the second 100, in the same way that rich guys say the first million is the toughest.  It is nevertheless an achievement, but a ton is the first bite of the cherry. There is a reason that so many good knocks end on 98 or 99, a bees proverbial shy of being great.

100 Years. 

122 Years Young, I'd Root Her.

To live that long is nothing if not an achievement. It is around 30 years long of the global life expectancy. Take Jeanne Calment, a French woman who is the oldest verified person to ever live. She met, or says she met, Vincent Van Gogh. The artist seems to us to be just a moniker in the vast catalogue of history. 

But to Calment, he was a breathing tower of flesh. Even if she never met him, who can dispute that? History of that era is not definitive and until 1997 you could talk with someone who lived in it. Pretty cool.

100 Percent.

This Is How Much The Blues Needed To Give In Origin.

This Is What They Gave.

This has bigger implications than mathematics. Larry Wilmore had a whole bit about ‘keeping it 100’, sportsmen aim to give ‘100 percent’  and most things are measured that way. To look at an approval rating of a politician we usually thing of perfection as 100, same as a mark on an essay you spent like all night on, same as the interest rate they are charging you just because you wanted to go to Sea World- one time. 

100 Bucks.

I Am Gonna Spend Mine on Moustache Wax.

What can it buy now? How do you work it out? The economy is a fluid and relative beast. To me it is two slabs and two maxibons, but I am kind of fucked up. To the bell of the ball it might be a hair-cut and one  hands worth of manicure. The gambler sees it as the necessary door to the bigger money, the addict sees it as a half a day, a day, a week or a months worth depending on where they are at.

To the rich man, my boss, it is nothing. To the poor man, me, it is everything. There is nothing, I mean nothing, more relative than money.

Goodbye,

NP.

The Hayne Plane: On A Really Dumb Press Coining.

You have heard of this, I know you have. It is all over the news and it should be. It is a remarkable thing, even for someone so talented. A change of codes is no cakewalk, even from the obscurely similar rugby league to rugby union, or vice-versa. But from rugby league to yankee football- while not unheard of, pretty unlikely in this day and age and given the levels that sport across the board is at. Where no longer is the plumber or the baker playing full-back.

My objection, which you all knew I had one, is with the term the press have coined to cover this remarkable story. Thats it, you got it, the ‘Hayne Plane’.  It could be just me, though I doubt it, but I don’t get it.

It is illogical, nonsensical and, really, ‘Plane Dumb’. 

A Successful Athlete, A Failure of a Media Experiment. 

I can only assume the press got tired of using the ‘train’ rhyme with things that do rhyme and resemble that trajectory. In this case though, it is far more sensible. The path Hayne has taken is much more that of the locomotive than the jetliner. He has pushed forward, ever forward, strong, tough, relentless and overcoming things.

A plane, by contrast, and not a powerless machine does not invoke the same imagery. It loops around when a spot on the tarmac is not readily available, it dodges turbulence, it dips and dodges, rises and falls and if you have ever been on one, you know they bullshit you with taxiing and seat-belt signs. A train is slower, sure, but it is more direct.

We all know it is built on the bedrock of the rhyme with the surname. Though I suppose I will now give a couple reasons why I think they chose this title and counter it with why it is stupid. Because hey, it’s what I do.

 He Is Flying High. 

The ‘plane’ image is one that is skipping across gods bearded face. He is up there, way up there, as up there as a plane. And, don’t miss this, his last name is also Hayne. What brilliant luck. I do wonder. If his name was, say, ‘Jaryd Climp’ would he be the ‘Climp Blimp’- evoking images of a gently floating overweight guy who stumbles upon his dream of a reasonably priced fish and chip shop.

He Is Overseas.

As we know a train cannot reasonably traverse the ocean, at least not in time to turn into a tight 75 kilo running back. As such the ‘Hayne Plane’ has kept in plain sight the fact that the man is overseas.  You take a plane to get overseas, right? That’s where he is, Jarryd! If he had gone to play   for an city or eastern suburbs side, would he then be the ‘Hayne shitty green Western Line rattler’, probably not.

I suggest, despite all the points of logic I have raised, there is one severe and significant reason to abandon this moniker for a genuinely remarkable story.

It Is Naturally Hobbled By The Tongue.

We, as a species, are now too dumb or complacent to accept a rhyme headline that alters from the obvious. ‘Hayne Plane’, just sounds weird. It doesn't sit well in the mouth, it jumps back off the tongue and is not at all digestible to the ears. It is spell-check telling you the real spelling even though it discomforts you, it is the friend missing both eyebrows when you could have sworn he just had a haircut and it is the homicidal silence over a large household when the youngest son is on a sleepover.

Basically it is Uncanny in the intellectual sense. Jentsch described the concept as “something one does not know one’s way about in”. In a, perhaps aesthetic sense, this is true of the ‘Hayne Plane’. It is being disoriented. Linguistically there is nothing more disorienting, or uncomfortable, than trying to say as an adult; ‘I have been following the Hayne Plane’. 

NP. 

My Island Home- Stealing Cultural Children

When you dig up a list of ‘best’ or ‘greatest’ or ‘most successful Australians’ or any other swooning prefix intended, at once, to celebrate great achievement and make you feel awful about the non-greatness of yours- you find a curious thing. Or, at least you would, if authors and publishers weren’t so on guard; protecting against the kind of points this piece will raise.

My mother, in the facetious and snide view and tone her gene pool kissed me with, often mentions- ‘our Rus’, ‘our Mel’, ‘our Dave Dobyn’. Well, yeah, the last one is a known NZ icon. But had he been any less Kiwi or any more Aussie, we’d have had him. 

By that same token what you don’t hear is ‘our Steve’, ‘our Ian’, ‘our Ricky’, ‘our Grant’, ‘our Margeret’, or ‘our Greg’. If you’re searching for surnames on those there people, let me get you there a little faster; Smith, Thorpe, Ponting, Grant, Court and Norman. Those names are immortal. Doubtless we do have ‘our Don Bradman’. But then, ‘even his friends say he isn’t human’.

This is my issue. This is why I, now, feel compelled to the soap-box. For the complexity of the unspoken doctrine of what is and isn’t  ‘Australian’, claiming cultural icons- or successful celebrities, is undoubtedly ‘Australian’. 

I know this is a running ‘feud-joke’ (also the title my upcoming comedy-metal album, check with your retailers) with New Zealand. For example, this knee slapper:

What do you call a successful New Zealander?

An Australian.

Pretty much…

I am not a humourless Australian. In fact I think that we take ourselves with little seriousness, can laugh at ourselves and chew a joke out of everything is; on good days, very charming and on bad days, a saving grace for this steaming pile of country. In what should be an admissible defence in court these days, people who know me will tell you that.

What I care about is the implications. Australia is a bastion of culture and creativity, we just don’t put it on front street. And we should. The emphasis here is on our sporting prowess, not that it shouldn’t be. When the USA has someone good at a sport they didn’t invent they sing it from the rooftops. But they don’t walk around claiming Jim Carrey or William Shatner as their own.

Why do we then? Does it fall under that old tattoo-motivator, Aussie pride? Is it blind nationalism, or really blind nationalism? Is it a defensive move or insecurity that motivates us? Is it that well-worn need to be one of the big boys? Or clinging to the only suburban dream that keeps you smiling, that basic projection that one of ours conquered the world and so we can too?

I, you, us, them will probably never know. But it seems anyone licked by Australia in whatever way becomes a big ingredient in the soup.

Take Collette Dinnigan. I watched her story on Australian Story this evening. She did well, dug her heels in and made the most of it. All quintessential Australian qualities. But is she Australian, the product of a South African and an Irishman, raised in New Zealand who came here and became successful. 

Does that make her an Australian, or just an Australian because of her triumph. Would she remain South African or New Zealander had she not made something of herself. Her friends kept saying things like; ‘for an Aussie girl to come to Paris and do this’. Is she an Aussie girl just because she went to Paris and did that?

I do not mean to call into question how any of these people identify themselves. I do not mean to delegitimise Collette Dinnigans own personal identification.

What I mean to call out is our tendency to latch on to people once they have come through it. We should, both the culture and the government, be providing an easier and more forgiving it through which to come. Not simply hedging our bets until one of ours, or one who could reasonably be considered so by whichever thread, makes it big and thus makes themselves valid to the Australian brain. Validity comes well before a seat at Fallon, Kimmel or Conan’s desk- we just need to know that and, in that quote bred into our bones, back ourselves. 

NP.

P.S.

There is at least one successful New Zealander.

And He Owns My Team.

And at least one successful Australian.

And He Lives 34 Blocks From Me, When He Is Not Being Super Great, The Best, Successful or Famous. 

On Funeral Requests: An Unsavoury and Important Thing.

Death is our future. No matter your attempts to be cool, suave , badass or ‘not all that contemporary’, you will end up shitting your pants in a box like the rest of us. Which does beg the question- how do you want to go?

Not your death, that is out of your hands but probably in those of your long suffering spouse. I mean, how do you want to be sent off?

Maybe you are indifferent, you will be dead- after all. Maybe you care a lot and have a very specific set of instructions for those still breathing- still it hardly matters, fudging the funeral literally means there is no-one to answer to.

Still it’s important, it is your say on your legacy. Here are three ways it could go awry.

-The Music.

Funeral music is super important. I have been to a weirdly large amount of funerals for my age and maybe ten percent have got this one right. It’s not like getting married, you don’t have to do the ‘Here Comes The Bride’ deal. Your funeral is the one and only pure selfish and pure apathy moment you get. It is your one chance to man the iPod with no protest.

Shouldn’t it, then, be something that reflects you. A song that is the sum of your bits. Or, at the very worst, a song you liked.

Too often we get classical nonsense, the usual bog standard. Someday I hope to hear motorhead at a funeral, until then- let’s stick with bog standard.

-The Speakers.

You know and I know that some of the people speaking at funerals only barely knew the deceased. Still, there they are, professing what a great love they and the carcass shared. We all know it is horse-shit. These people need to be the centre of attention and need, so desperately, to feed their ego by pretending the lump of flesh in the box was a dear friend.

You, said lump in box, deserve more. You should be able to designate people to speak for you, since you cannot clearly speak yourself. One of my recurring dream-fears is that everyone I ever hated is speaking at mine. It is some kind of hell.

-The After Party.

If you are from the same kind of people I am from, the after party is of prime concern. Of course, we call it a wake. But, to a certain extent, donning a suit deserves a few drinks. Crying over your lost comrade deserves a few more, shaking hands and sharing hugs earns a few more still.  Basically, what you call a wake, we call a party. Basically any definition of grief, or joy, or memorableness involves us all getting leathered.

Not that I am saying that should be the go-to for everyone. Some will revel in lukewarm cups of tea and cold fish sandwiches. Some will, indeed, revel in beach snap-shots and cold-cut picnic, then some will like to get home and watch a movie that Timothy really loved, like Lassie or Spirit: Stallion of The Cimarron.

Not for me though, when I cark it- drink until you don’t  know why hands exist.

NP.

Change The Fuckin Anthem: It’s Dumb.

I know a lot of people are fond of our national anthem. Like the flag, which so many men with Southern Cross tattoos (or Southies, if you are a certain kind of cool) reject changing because their grandfathers died under it, it is beloved- but super out of date. But, you say, my grandfather killed and died for that anthem. That song of our people, that call to arms, that chorus that is us and belongs to us.

Well, no he didn’t. The anthem was adopted in 1984 and, I say, 31 years is within the window of arseing a bad idea. 

The song though was written in 1878 which means a 106 year disparity between composition and performing. How can we willingly sing a song that dates back to ankle-length skirts, the racial hierarchy and land-owners with the vote.

Let me break it down, to highlight how shit it is:

“Australians all let us rejoice,

For we are young and free;

We've golden soil and wealth for toil,

Our home is girt by sea”

"Girt is...Surrounded? OK, if you say so.

Australia is an ageing country, the ABS stats support that. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/1CD2B1952AFC5E7ACA257298000F2E76?. Hard to say we are old, but suffice to say we are not young.

Though we are certainly free, our prison population is just proud of thirty thousand and, by most standards,per capita, that is free.

We also have wealth for toil, the average Australian miner earns over one hundred grand a year for dangerous toil. To see real toil talk to the KFC employee on fifteen bucks an hour.

“Beneath our radiant southern Cross,

We'll toil with hearts and hands;

To make this Commonwealth of ours

Renowned of all the lands;

For those who've come across the seas

We've boundless plains to share;

With courage let us all combine

To advance Australia fair.

In joyful strains then let us sing

"Advance Australia fair!" “

I have no major issue with this verse. Oh, I do actually. ‘For those who’ve come across the seas, we’ve boundless plains to share’. Apparently we don’t. We do have boundless cash to throw at prisons within which we keep these people. But our ‘boundless plains’, they are all ours baby. And so they fucking should be, what right does anyone have to take the land we took a bunch of time ago?

I do love this country. Or certain things about it. I love the Australian humour and how anything is a joke to us, I love the Australian language half born or creativity most born of laziness and I really love the Australian people one Xenophobic, Racist and Intolerant mass- fucking love that.

NP.

5 Annoying Phrases Used Too Often.

A big part of what characterises us as people is the way we speak. And a big part of the way we speak is our recurring little turns of phrase. We all have things we say on the reg, and ‘on the reg’ is one of mine. The way you speak sets you aside from the crowd, or at very least puts you as a part of a smaller crowd, and that has been a human endeavour since bums looked good in tight dresses.

But there is a danger in this. In saying a cute little expressions too often you become defined, in something that was meant to rid you of definition. Your lingual quest to set yourself apart can set you, in quick form, to being a very annoying little prick indeed.

“Do You Know What I Mean”

I once worked with a man named Tekken. I spell it that way because I love the game and have no idea how it is spelled in it’s traditional Turkish.

He was a good guy, don’t get me wrong, happy-go-lucky and smiling, nothing seemed to bring him down. But he would continually query my understanding of what he had just said. Like:

‘What use is it to my kids to learn Turkish, Do you know what I mean?’

Of course I did. As with anyone who uses this phrase too often it is, in the vast majority of times, following an obvious phrase. That is probably most of the problem. If we didn’t know what you meant, we would check.

“How’s The Weather?”

This is what Martin Amis would call ‘Dead Words’, he might not capitalise but hey, I am kinda a god around this free and little-read blog. We ask about the weather because it is the safe option. If you know  nothing about your conversation partner you can relate on the weather, in a different citty, state, country it works. It is literally universal, not that the weather is the same everywhere just that we all experience weather.

Obviously there is disparity. As an overweight six foot dude I experience mother natures period differently to a anorexic five nothing woman. That is life. Nonetheless I can talk with this woman about the weather and, hey, it might just spark something. That is the point after all, isn’t it?

“That’s Life”

And so is everything. You know, you hear it all the time. It is a consolation prize of a phrase really. You don’t hear it on a yacht, or with  a bunch of high-end hookers or when a Maserati hits a Rolls Royce. No, this is a phrase reserved for the working class, the downtrodden, the shit on rather than the shitters. There is no real point in commenting on life when it is good.

You use this, I use this, we all use this when life is unbearable or shitty or just gets you down. Blaming the all eternal and external force of life is easier than admitting you ate some random shit.

“Wait Until Your Father Gets Home”

You all know it well. You have just rubbed your dick on your sisters toothbrush. Yeah, I know, I know- a super hilarious prank. But then your mother catches you. Your dad is busy at work drinking or whatever it is he does, but the minute he gets home it is time for pain.

Trouble is, everyones dad is a violent alcoholic. Aren’t they? I am sure we have all heard this one time too many. You can threaten the old man all you want, you are just playing the same old game; endlessly repeating yourself.

“I will call the police”

I hear this one all the time. All the damn time. They really won’t shut up about it. You flash your dick and its ‘I will call the police’, you eat a snickers you didn’t pay for and walk out it’s ‘I will call the police’, you drive pissed one time, ONE TIME, for a burger and the window girl will call the police. 

Stop saying it, it is old like  hessian pair of boots. Don’t let your wanting to mention police involvement define you. I mean, I have seen what it has done to the young women in my basement and I can say, they are shadows of themselves. They used to be so vibrant, willing and loving of life, now they just talk about police. Bitter.

NP.

The Danger Of Living Through Sport.

We sports fans, true sports fans, live through the game. It is the only reprieve, setting aside the vast amounts of alcohol and days off that accompany the game, to a week of shitty work. When it is going well, it is going very well. When your team is winning there is really no higher state. It says something about you, your team. Or, more realistically, it becomes a metaphor for the tract of your life.

This is obviously illogic and holds no scientific weight. But a winning streak, a commanding ladder position or a real shot at the flag is something to believe in. Faith in your team is a projected and detached faith in yourself. 

You can, to some extent, brush off your twelve hour days in a dead-end job with a rat-shit boss if your team comes through for you over a couple (or more than a couple) cold ones on a Friday or Saturday night.  It is not going to change your life but it might give you that little shard of solace that keeps you sucking the big money dick for another week.

It's A Cold Economic Climate. 

To think like this is to hope you are always winning. If you are not it’s just the next thing on the pile of shit that is your life. I know, I know, dramatic. But it’s truth, if you feel the way I do.  The difference between a Saint and a War Criminal is a boundary, wicket, try, goal or point.

If you have been keeping up with the international sports, you know what I am talking about. Australia are about to return the urn to those Pommy Bastards. Yesterdays innings was the shortest of all time, all out for 60- fucking pitiful.

I was able to comfort myself with the thought that Souths might win tonight. Just over an hour ago we went down by twenty points. Now I am down and that’ll be a long road back, typically you only get OK with it on the night of the next match- a chance for the ruin of the following week.

Thinking this way is obviously too extreme, but really it is worth it for the elation of a win. A win can change everything and keep you in good stead for a week or a year. I don’t pretend for a minute my life wasn’t a whole lot better when we won the premiership last year, and it’s only just carried me to today- where it all goes to shit again. 

4 Totally Usual Things, That Should SCARE you SHITLESS- or do Scare Me.

Fear is a normal thing, an evolutionary trait that is a useful thing in keeping you alive. Daredevil, the so called ‘Man Without Fear’ could only be that because he had cool radar blind-guy stuff in place of fear that kept him alive.

Though fear is also a crippling hurdle. It is why I no longer talk to women, why I can’t pre-game drinks before the pub, why I don’t go to the pub, also why I dress up when I don’t go to the pub.

Fear is with us people and mostly it is normal. Sometimes its stupid and hair-triggered. But there is a pretty large grey area, a DMZ of rational and irrational fear that hides in the folds of each and every day.

Using The Phone As A Phone.

I am no real fan of the phone.  Thats not really true. A phone nowadays, in twerking country, is very different to what a phone once was though.  Nick Offerman, in his Netflix special ‘American Ham’, said the phone used to be something you could hang up. Now, obviously, it is something you can carry with you and look at all the time. I do that and I am for that. I have some nostalgia for the good old days of unresolved arguments about nothing, but I do like the digital ability to find anything out RIGHT NOW.

Though the unbridled convenience the digital age has afforded us, largely on the phone, is all the more why I dread answering the fucking thing. I am too old a new-dog to do practical old tricks. Talking on the telephone is hard 90s.

The Real Hard 90s.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not when friends call- then I usually answer. And it goes without my saying it anyway, the better the friend the more likely I am to swipe whichever way will get their voice piping down the electric magic that is modern tech. But see, my friends don’t call that much because there are a million other avenues of communication in these rapidly changing times.

When an unknown number calls though, it is sheer terror. ‘Who are they?’,’What do they want?’, ‘Why are they calling now?’ and so on. If you live a loose life you wonder if the call is about money, it mostly always is.

Worse is calling others. I did a feature article for Uni on bowls clubs, as I have spoken of, and any reasonable person will tell you that a dozen emails ending in ‘bigpond.com’ aren’t likely to yield a response, still I persevered. Praying that there was one slightly tech-davy golden oldie in the mix. Why, because I hate calling people.

Even factoring in the worst thing is a ‘fuck you I hope you die’ and figuring that not so bad, I am a thin skinned man. 

And as a result I don’t go to the phone, except to look at Facebook and pictures of nude arses every few minutes.

Answering The Door.

If people calling was a dinosaur move steeped in dread for me, imagine the door-bell ringing. No friend would ring the door bell. True friends come through the back door.

A Silk-Sheet Test Determined This Was True.

But a ring out front? Terror. As a renter, or tenant, or whatever I always assume it is the land-lord, a charity collector my weak will won’t let me say no to, someone selling something I will buy or a pissed off neighbour.

Any way you slice it it works out bad. All of those people hold the power and most of them don’t even know it, like a kid with a flame-thrower. I get my brother to answer the door most times, I ignore the knock the rest of the time.

I do have one older friend who does the polite thing, but usually he has texted before coming by so I keep an eagle eye out for him. Otherwise, just show up, don’t keep my waiting for the bullet.

Smelling Bad.

I work a manual job and I smoke. In some sense, I am a double-threat. Though really the only double-threat is to my heart, lungs, pancreas and all the other little packets of meat that are keeping me a citizen.

The Only Double-Threat Worth Paying For.

But my odour is always on my mind, like, always- to the point of breathing insanity. See, my boss is a staunch non-smoker and not close to the heavy-sweater I am. I try not to stink for him. Then, I deliver heavy furniture upstairs a fair part of the time or deliver heavy furniture to overheated offices all the time.

I am bound to stink, at least some of the time. That is life, we huff it, we move on and we all have a merry Christmas. But I worry ceaselessly about it, smelling like smoke and man on getting a signing for a delivery because someone- and I shan't name names- decided to keep their office at a crisp 35 degrees to cater for the one forty-kilogram Asian chick who works there. Work-place bureaucracy gone mad. 

As a result, I douse my clothing with a good dose of women spray in the morning, slather my underarms and neck and smoking fingers with a hard shot of roll-on before work and take a pull on the no-name toothpaste I keep in my bag three to four times a day. The things you gotta do to stay employed.

The Land-Lord and The Real Estate

As a renter, or tenant, or whatever you might as well be getting arse-fucked every day. They have all the power and you have none. I have had my bond sheared from me more times than I’d like to remember and it is all because they dress in suits and abuse themselves with perfume and cologne and seem like they will win, so they do. And so, bond is free money.

As a result whenever there is an inspection, there is not a Noel Pride. I walk the dog, hide in a park, go to work or get lunch at 10 A.M, or late breakfast. I cannot deal with their criticisms. Though one thing remains constant- the text to my brother. 

Are We Fucked?

Wherever I am it is the same thing, ‘Go OK?’. My brother is an optimist, and clearly more of an adult than I could hope to be. Though you have to sacrifice your first-born to get a house and they want everything from you. They complained about my curtains being tied up.

We have had our heater out since we moved in. Not a problem until winter hit, the coldest in some time. We called the real-estate when it got too much, they send the land-lord. 

He brought a ‘plumber’, which I can only assume means ‘friend familiar with pipes’ in Mandarin. Any who, he couldn’t fix it and told my brother and his girl-friend ’10-20 Days’ then, moments later, told me ’20-30’ days. That has to have been a month ago. We live in blanket and hot-water-bottle town.

Though it was nice to see the ashtrays emerge when the guy and his ‘plumber’ were gone. 

NP. 

The Relentless Bitch That Is Self-Reflection.

The Day After. 

The sun kicks you in both eyeballs, at once and almost angry about something, your mouth is dry, your head aches and struggles to snag a sentient thought of a shrub as you slide down a endless mountain, your stomach rolls like all of your senses are strapped to the north spoke of a rapidly rolling wagon-wheel.

And then you think, ‘why would you do this to yourself?’

I mean, it made sense at the time, didn’t it? It was a whole lot of fun at the time. You have made that ‘never drinking again’ pledge so many times you know it is just the red hot poker penetrating the rice paper; a small glimpse of how it could be if you were one of those pure folks. You aren’t though and tonight when all is settled, you know there is still ten beers sitting by the fridge and begin for round two.

The Mirror. 

Everyone you know seems hell bent on mentioning your weight gain. You don’t notice it, you never have. It is best not to look at old photos, lest you invite the autoimmune leech to your front door. Though you catch yourself pre and post shower in the mirror now and then.

It is likely you will never be in ‘sitting and hunched’ good shape, but this. Jesus, everyone was right. Your a fat-fuck, your old man didn’t bust his arse for you to have man tits. But here you are, with a rack to rival that of many an ex-girlfriend. 

Sure, you got a brain on you and can think critically and hold your own in conversations. But who is shitting who? If you think that burger girl with the nice legs is hanging out for a flash-fiction enthusiast or a keen Ken Burns fan it is probably time to re-examine your doctrine on burger girls.

 The Civil War Within You.

You don’t really have friends, not proper friends. In a different city they can all feel like well-wishers. In the shows you watch friends are doing things like sleeping in the same bed, you yearn for something so close. Maybe you had it once or twice, but you are forever the dunce of any relationship you enter. 

It is probably because you are kind of a cock-hole. You could’ve been better and you let that infinite question loop over you. You could still be better than you are but you wonder what kind of scene is yours, unequivocally ‘yours’?

You try to find your place and no damned place seems it. You have an almost Freudian revelation that you are not OK in your own skin and boy does shit go down the pipe from there. 

You occasionally have happy dreams of dying at work. 

Then, all that is really left, is to roll another, crack another and wait. The day after is always tomorrow, the mirror is your soul-mate and the civil-war will never reach ceasefire. 

NP.  

On Billy Joel: The Badass Is Present- An Analysis In Three Numbers.

People have mixed feelings on Billy Joel. Well, really, my family has mixed feelings on Billy Joel. Most either love him or hate him. Though if his shows, which continue to sell out to this day are anything to go by, the man is damned loveable.

My brother thinks he is an arrogant and unrepentant alcoholic who has shat on everyone on his way to the top. He holds himself in the most esteem and fuck everyone else, right? Though I agree, that is also what i love about him.

It is hard to find anyone in mainstream jukebox-staple music from that era that isn’t all about love, friendship or meeting for a movie.

In a very real sense, Billy Joel is a renegade. He is the rear tires of the DeLorean, scorching flames up a slick highway. He is Mr. Fahrenheit, travelling at the speed of light. He is the jet you see before you hear the thunderclap. 

Arsehole: Yet, Thunderclap. 

But don’t take those words of mine for it, take these words of mine for it.

Big Shot.

They Don't Make Shots Much Bigger. 

I still don’t really know if this is Billy scolding himself for a boozy night where he played up or him cursing a woman for getting under his gills in a similar boozy night. Let me check wikipedia…which says:

“The song is superficially about the protagonist mocking a woman with a severe hangover about her intoxicated escapades around town”

Does that nonetheless make him an arsehole for calling a drunk woman on all her shit? I mean, we all been there no? Does it make him a bitter misogynist? Does it make him a sour grapes type? Or does it make him a hero of music for including such a savage engagement in one of his bigger hits of the late 70s?

I would say time will tell, but time had told; hero of music.

My Life.

It's His Life, you guys. 

Here, my hommes William is talking about all the people on his arse about his bad habits. He is sticking to that credo of ‘to each his own’ and Billy-Bob is taking his own, and then some. The real question he is raising though is, when is being a sentient and adult human enough?

Yes, there is worry for this troubadour come pop-god, but really is it any of your business? You can take every burger on the gut, let the meth come with euphoria and leave with your teeth, you can change your name to Eugene and farm foreign corn, you can put all your money on the underdog and do it week after week. Who should care enough to talk to you about it?

Well, your family and friends obviously. No-one wants to see their beloved fall down a hole that will kill them or take years to crawl out of. But no matter what you think you can change, you can’t. We will fall into our own holes and create our own destiny and all you can try to do is haul us out when we do.

Bill said it best ‘keep it to yourself it’s my life’

You May Be Right.

You Probably Are Right. 

Again my boy Billy is under the thumb of an oppressive woman (something of a theme). Basically this particular ditty concerns the nameless woman and Billy shacking up with her despite the fact he is very reckless. In the song he drunkenly crashes a party, drives drunk and milks the pity udder by walking alone. I’ll admit it is not looking good for this legend of songwriting. 

But he did make it ‘home alive’ and also said sorry. This is the repentant drunk my brother has been yearning for.

There is not much more of a case to be made for this song, or for Billy-Boy.

Yes he is a scathing figure, yes he grates on the very soul of responsibility and yes he is very very happy that way. But that is his genius. A peek into the dark-side that will eventually swallow us all, though set to upbeat piano melodies. 

Tony Orlando and His Apparent Crippling Relationship-Confirmation Insecurities.

You may not know Tony Orlando, who sounds way more like a safari-suited ‘scaffolding contractor’ than a pop singer. Though it is fair to say you probably know his songs. His two most famous; ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree’ and ‘Knock Three Times’ are a part of the musical lexicon, to the point that you probably know the songs but not the man. There isn’t much to know about the man, really, except to say that he liked chicks to give him weird scavenger-hunt like clues on whether they were into him and was Selleck, Geraldo , Liberace and Rip Taylor before some of them were a thing.

My Man Tony. 

But to the songs. 

Hang A Purple Sock From The Nearest Stop-Sign, Equidistant From Your Home and Place Of Work. Indigo means you hate me. 

The first, ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree’ is a tale of Tony singing to a woman and asking her to tie said ribbon around said tree if she likes him or if there is any future in whatever they have been doing. 

Why he needs that exact signal remains a mystery. What if, like bananas a few years ago, there was a shortage of yellow ribbon? What if the unnamed woman lived in a pine forrest? What if Tony lived near no oaks or, worse, near many?  Would he check every oak? More likely, they shared an oak, a special place as couples have.

This place was developed between them to be special, but did it avoid conversation and happen of circumstance? Are Tony Orlando and this mystery woman the star-crossed lovers of our time? Tonyo and Juliet….Their parents didn’t approve but love will always find a way. That way is, apparently, a mixed signal at best.

Was he testing her devotion? Hauling her out to Spotlight to get enough ribbon to sling around the trunk of an admitted ‘Ole’ oak tree, thick and all.

Moreover, is he so willing to give up on something potentially great because the ribbon is not there? 

She has a kid and a full-time job and has to haul out early to tie something around a tree to appease Tony, who now sounds like a bit of a cunt.

Knock Three Times.

Knock Forty-Eight and One Half Times If I Am Being Over-Pedantic.

In similar fashion he is asking the, again, unnamed woman to engage in some sort of National Treasure shit. 

‘Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me’

The three times makes sense. You want at least two knocks to make sure the first wasn’t a wayward screen door catching the top-step. You want the second to make sure it wasn’t the door swinging back. But three, its a nice number and no ‘bump in the night’ occurs with such frequency.

But proximity must be raised here. On the ceiling, really guy? If you are in the apartment above can’t you haggle some sort of face-to-face. Even if your hard-ass parents are Catholic (which it seems) and the girl in the apartment below is a backward Jew, surely you can arrange a short conversation.

And if you can’t, surely you can slip one of these under the door, like any civil 15 year old masturbation machine.

Not Included: Will You Ruin My Life by Living Yours?

But no, it has to be some sort of complicated concentration-camp escape code. The medium of delivery is crucial to Tony Orlando and has been since he heard that first fart hooked to a takeaway coffee cup hooked to a long piece of twine with a coffee cup on the other end. And his rejection has its own rules too…

‘Twice on the pipes, if the answer is no’

 Like I say, I understood the three knocks, wood is all around us,. But the pipes? Surely once would suffice, or why not thrice on the pipes? Probably because it isn’t as solid lyrically.

If he wasn’t an old man I would issue a public warning against Tony Orlando for women. If not for his incredibly suspect name then for his neediness. Keep in mind this is the courtship phase, this is puppy-love, when shit should be as easy as it will ever be. And with Tony it will still be easy, so long as you submit to his paranoid code of letting him know you are into it.

NP. 

How Old You Really Feel, The Ball In The Distance is Relative.

Even now there is retrospect. Even now there are things I would have done differently. Even now there is a constant placing of my own life against that most honest yard-stick of time. I didn’t really feel old until Steve Smith made his ton at the MCG in the boxing day test last year.

He was 25 and so was I.  It was his 25th test match for Australia, he was the test captain (the second highest office in the land) and in the middle of Australia’s finest sporting ground at Australia’s most prestigious event. I was fishing through my wallet for the funds for another slab after the first one evaporated like water on a pool pavement in summer. Somewhere our stories had taken different prongs on that old fork in the road.

Chose To Be An Australian Legend.

Chose To Be A Nacho Cheese Enthusiast, Both Valid.

You don’t really start to feel like an underachiever until those your age start to achieve. Then, you may as well shrink back into your skin, because you are a million miles from where they are. Taylor Swift is my age and she is worth many millions of dollars. The problem may well be calculating your worth in dollars and cents.

You Mean Those Pieces of Metal I Give My Gardener, Who Is Worth That?!

When I was 13 I wanted nothing more than to be a gymnast. I tried super hard, did the presentation to the judges and studied technique. I thought about hitting the olympics, how it would impress everyone who ever shat on me, what I would be on those bars and rings. My teacher was a realist, and as I have since discovered a very possible alleged drug-dealer and steroid abuser, and told me how much I was shitting myself in no uncertain terms. 

‘You’ll never be a gymnast, you are too old to start’

‘We’ll I’ll just train harder’ I protested.

‘No, these kids..’

He trailed off for a long moment, the way an early and just-discovering-females teen does at the sight of a nice round arse.

‘These kids are doing, they’re doing some stuff’

Then my dreams were sha…they were cracked. I never really wanted to be a gymnast. Like many of my goals I simply thought it would be cool. It took a while to surrender to writing, but that was a good first taste of where your age, or your lack of lack of it could take you. The adage ‘never too old’ fell pretty hard on it’s face.

But the fuel that drove the brief gymnastic fire still burns within me. No-one worth their salt has written a decent, or better yet, great, novel at 20. Most hit the writing stride closer to 30, it is the opposite bit of society. If an athlete is praised for their youth and stamina a writer benefits more from age and experience. 

Luckily for me I never wanted to be a pop star or an athlete (gymnasts aren’t athletes, you guys, they are glorified dancers and nothing much more). I never wanted to be in movies or on television. Most novelists who wrote anything worth a damn were 30 or older when they did. And I only know that because I have read obsessively on the subject due to my crippling age-achievement complex. Also because I am insanely jealous.

The Dude Who Only Has Friend Readers Hates Me!? Does he at least like Nacho Cheese? 

I am getting happier as I get older. I am getting more fulfilled with the writing I do and feel like I have finally written the bullshit out. Still, as I sit here justifying my own complex lack of achievement and pump my ego up, the television flickers, and Steve Smith (three and a half weeks older than me) has passed 200 for the first time. 

NP. 

Gettin' Through Some Shit (Or To Those Now Getting Through It) 'Gtn thru sum shit'.

I just read about a 15 year old Filipino actress named Julia Buencamino

who hung herself. One of my pleasant little activities is to read through the Wikipedia kicked-it list periodically. Probably says a lot about what a bitter little black-hole I am. Regardless, to this specific story.

It makes you wonder why, of course it does, why would a 15 year old kill herself? Why would an actress of all people who, you must assume, is doing better at life than her kin punch herself out so early?

A good, well I will say 'good' he may read and disagree, friend of mine once wrote some very astute words on tragedy and sadness. He was speaking of Philip Seymour Hoffman and had trouble chewing his death down as a tragedy. If I may misquote, 'a millionaire fucking around with heroin is not a tragedy'.

Then what is this. Is it enough to call it a tragedy? Is it too much? Part of the suicide quandary, or at least any suicide worth talking about, is the potential that is snuffed out with the body. And for a 15 year old actress, a 15 year old body of any persuasion, it is hard to say that lost potential is not a tragedy- to whatever degree.

This is lost potential, gone potential, spoken words.

To whatever degree you consider this 'sad' or 'tragic', to most of us it is surely confusing. That same question, that shitty little one that will roll around forever only hopping off the wheel to drown you in sadness and ever-more unanswerable questions, why would a 15 year old do this?

And then you imagine yourself at 15 and grit swims out of your eyeballs. In that little snapshot, that constantly degenerating picture of yourself in your time of suffering you see the motive. You remember that time when you were at the end of your rope, very nearly and almost literally. The coat hook broke for me, and thank god...kinda.

Hormones and teenager stuff is real. For the way 'teen angst' is bandied about in the lexicon as something that passes and is overblown and all that, the true shitiness is pretty well buried.

I am not saying that teen problems aren't ridiculous, I am not saying emo culture has a legitimate or logical foothold and I am definitely not saying we need more teen suicides.

What I am saying is, it doesn't get any easier. Being an adult is a perpetual exercise in swallowing shit, avoiding shit and making noises to get out of chairs.

As a teenager you have hormones waging war on you, as an adult it is paying for the shit that keeps you alive and usually working a dead-shit job to get that done. One is a war from within, one a war from with...out? Both valid.

I Worked Through Teen Years To Lift This Shit Upstairs

Adults are nothing more than those who learned or were able to get through a phase of bullshit to live a life of it. And continue to live in the hope that they can hoist themselves out of it. But largely you can't; you work your day to jack-off at the end of it, you work your week for the money to get drunk at the end of it.

The world keeps turning and as it does, you put a little money away, then comes the electric bill for winter. Mouth on the tail-pipe once again.

NP.

1000 Words. Fiction. The Beginning.

‘The fuckin’ thing won’t go’.

The stink had only worn off the morning and already Alby was having a day he would class a ride-off. The hereditary pinch on his brain stem had its grip as tight as it ever would, the path of last nights tornado still lay across most of the floor as it seemed sure his subconscious self was hell-bent on knocking all his treasures off their pedestals of ‘as new’ and the soup of too much loneliness, those clammy skins of depressants and stimulants, still furnished the place better than he ever could.

He torched another and tried to turn the bastard over again. Just the endless click of the ignitions electric tongue, taunting and frustrating, the  agony of a little girl waiting for an in to skip rope.  Waiting for the wave of stunted perpetual motion that was the internal-combustion engine, the miracle of our time apparently. Why couldn’t the motherfucker conk on a work day?, he thought, smoking the butt like it was a straw out of an ant hill. 

Though for once he was glad for some usual rough-luck. The perforations in his windshield and the ice-licked air, as there was nothing worse than climbing into the fog cage in the blazing heat. The cold bit on you just nice and gave the satisfaction of a deodorant or breath-mint commercial. Though catching his knuckles, themselves having caught a wall or refrigerator in the bedlam that were now his nights, it stung like bleach. 

Stubbing the butt and firing another he slumped back into the tattered drivers seat.  From the outset his options were frighteningly limited; he’d broken one neighbour’s jaw and broken the others will, he’d shorn enough wing-mirrors off friends cars that he wouldn’t get a loner no matter how deep in crisis he was and anyone with enough old-world wisdom knew to leave their cars but not their keys around Alby. 

Under the stress, under it all, Alby felt the rattle within him. He took the rattle and could only accept it under the bandied around promise that he would stay sober on the weekdays the following week, or the week after excepting nights with football. Football and beer were too good a match to abandon. One was never quite as good without the other. But it was these kind of promises, whether honoured or not, that kept him from turning into a real drunk.

He slammed the wheel with his palms and the reverberation sat with him. Amongst it he fished the second last from the pack and torched it. He tried to think of another way, but couldn’t. He tried harder to think of a reason why not, but finding that was harder still. There was almost nothing in that crowd but reasons why.

Turning to the overweight grey-haired woman sitting patiently in the corner of his eye she just said ‘have one, have ONE’

And to the bespectacled man on the bridge of his nose  he just said ‘whatever makes it easier’

Then a child with blonde hair blanketing her small head huddled in his biggest pore ‘you are a bad man when you drink, maybe you are just a bad man’.

The consensus was clear. Alby fondled a warm beer from the half-drained slab. He thought more on the crowd and then cracked it. He took a long pull from it and felt it stretch his skin, many small hands pushing it out to how it looked in his twenties. His brain bit on him, he knew it wouldn’t help him start the car but it would make him more OK with the car not starting. 

He took another pull and felt that feeling that had got him started in the first place. That his lungs had just started pulling in nourishment, that all that sleep had replenished him, that his heart was pumping around pure sunshine. It was the feeling that all the drunks on struggle streets around the country had and not a one had learned the trick to living in that little pocket.

On the third pull he felt the warmth and sat the can on the ridges of the sink. Alby thought about pouring it down the plug hole, but knew more than most that this was not how one acted in a liquid economy. He slid into the bathroom and took a shot of toothpaste and then went next door. 

His neighbour, who’s jaw had met with his fist, seemed the more reasonable option. He was cut from old cloth, like Alby. Physicality didn’t bother men like that, of guts and gristle, grudges were not held. Alby actually admired him as one of a dying generation and wished it had never come to what it had, though it probably made a lot more sense when he was leathered. 

He brought a busted fist to the door for a gentle knock that stung with the cold. Those doors opened by enemies or loathers took a solar age to swing open and were typically not that pleasant when they did. But to Alby- the career drunk, the perpetual apology machine, the decadent derelict who could only snub regrets by birthing more, there were harder rows to ho. 

What could he do to protect what was left of his teeth? Figuring, with some precedent, that a fist would fall through the threshold before a syllable. What was he even doing here? He hated all those cunts who knocked on his door when they needed something but didn’t want to know him when the sea was calm. He was one of them now but it was of a deeper desperation than had never fired in him before, he didn’t have anywhere to go, but somewhere to be. 

The robust and quickening thuds of a big mans footsteps were briefly interrupted by the penny-arcade revelry of an animated fire-truck and was quickly extinguished by a slide to the wall. The footsteps, frustrated and staggered, moved on. 

Alby held his jaw ajar with his lips sealed, hoping there was enough horizontal play to let it absorb the frying pan fist. He reconsidered and tightened every muscle, his teeth tight together. He reconsidered again.

The door swung open. 

The Sheer Balls (Or Living Off The Grid) It Takes To Admit You Like Nickelback.

You know the band, you hate the band, you hasten even for a moment to call them a ‘band’ because it puts them in too good of company with Limp Bizkit and Creed and U2.  You know, real bands. 

Humanity has come to the very concise and accurate conclusion that Nickelback suck a lot. Quite enough has been said on that. They routinely make the list of most hated bands, Urban Dictionary defines them as “the act of willingly allowing ones ears to bleed” and there is this video that pretty much says it all.

Cunts!

Why do we hate this so unique brew of Canadian nu-metal so much? Maybe because their music is boring and uninspiring. Maybe because they are too formulaic. Probably because it is bland and generic, trying very hard and failing even harder to be what rock music once was; agressive and individual. 

Sure the singer man sings in a gravelled voice, the guitars are loud and the drums thumping, but the raw ingredients does not a cake make. 

Also, as a comedian I once saw once said, the singer looks like the Paddle-Pop Lion.

Buff Legend.

Lookalike Cunt.

But, unfortunately, it must be addressed. For anything to be so widely hated it must, at a certain point, be widely loved. If Nickelback were plain shit they would have never gained a high enough profile to be hated by so many people. Not unlike fellow Canadian piece of human garbage, Justin Bieber. 

Though it is fairly clear who Justin Bieber fans are, teenage girls.  Though who, really, likes Nickelback? Who are the army of loyal souls who have raised them to this point that they can be so visibly loathed by the masses?

Conventional wisdom might suggest that amidst the torrent of hatred, most would be unwilling to admit to their fandom of this monstrosity. This is probably largely why you don’t run in to too many fans in your day to day. Though this kind of hatred exists in fair-share on the internet. Without it, in this day and age, you are free to like what you want and cop the torrent of criticism face to face that comes with liking what you want, or not. Take my sister and brother in law. 

It was last Christmas. The holiest and, I am well informed, jolliest time of the year. The scene was the usual one; beers sunk in half-secret, aunties obsessing over chairs, awkward hugs, fishing through presents for money and, typically, me on my anti-Nickelback rant. 

Christmas and me shitting on Nickelback really have become something of a tradition. Like my uncle carving the meat or my aunty moaning about the dietary suicide that is gluten.  If one crumb of gluten causes you to be violently ill for days afterward, maybe you didn’t make the team Darwin would have fielded. Also I don’t now and will never give a shit how much your Aspergers-bowel bread costs, shut  the fuck up about it. 

It's Like, 3 Bucks More, You Guys!

But during my prudent argument on why Nickelback is worse than penis cancer, something surprising happened. My brother in law came out as a fan and my sister quickly followed. Cathy is known to follow Linus in musical taste, but this seemed like ‘if he jumped off a bridge…’

And then it was awkward. I found myself backtracking, trying not to offend the very real bag of flesh in front of me. I still thought the band sucked but floated the possibility that he ‘got into their early stuff’. I was trying to reconcile my clear view with his very clear and very contradictory view.

Though why did our families Brangelina love them so much? And more to the point why would they admit it? 

Because they are not internet savvy. They have no idea of the hatred of Nickelback and so can admit their enjoyment of this audio dog shit freely. And best of all when they do they get what I gave them, pure back-tracking and support.

It is much harder to tear someone down for their  shitty-taste in person. There is something to be said about being off the network and something freer still about liking a shitty band when you are.

NP. 

2 A.M The Changing Perception of an Unsung Hour.

Everything seems so big when you are small. I remember thinking the year six pupils looked eight feet tall when I was in kindergarten. Cars used to be something you could get lost in, not something you get stuck in. Women used to be gross. So did coffee, booze and fish.

Nightmare Fuel

Then time runs its clammy and wandering hand over each inch of you and everything changes. Coffee and booze roll into volatile crutches that keep you smiling at the boss you are making rich, women become a psychopathic preoccupation, fish are still kinda nasty.

The world is only your perception of it, your reality. And 2 A.M is another one of those little bitches that went from one to the other.

Then.

This is Also A New Kids On The Block Song. 

The Song Of A Goddamned Generation

You are eight years old. You lay awake in your Pjs, thinking and wondering if Jason can come to Pizza Hut on Saturday. It is all you can eat and he promised he would sneak some out for you. 

You remember seeing ten o'clock and what a glorious moment it was. But this is different, this is a real moment. This is world-shaping, this is life-changing, this is it. This is the Berlin wall being torn to ribbons, this is man planting his Air-Jordan on the moon, this is Elvis shaking his hips to a camera. This is you, present and sentient in a time you never have been. This is the only time this hour has existed and it may never exist again.

You see he hand tick over, with only one eye hanging out into the hall. You are now an adult and everything is different. You put crayon to paper and make a plan for your whole life.

Now.

Just a Worker Bee, Working on Being Rat-Shit Tomorrow. 

You are on beer number, is it fifteen? Shit. Jeesus. You look out of one eye at Facebook, devoid of worthy opponents. You start the great Wikipedia trawl of misery. How old where your favourite authors, ah, erhh, I mean, accountants when they hit the big-time. Mostly depressingly young.

You don't look at the clock any more, time vanishes because you aren't sentient enough to appreciate it. That is, excepting your wake up time of seven fucking thirty when you can cram yourself into ill-fitting clothing and go and lift stuff upstairs all day to a thankless cunt of a clientele.

You put fingers to keyboard and make a plan for the next month.

NP.