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.

Siblings.

If you are my age and unless your parents were selfish or awful Catholics, you have siblings. Nowadays spree killers, and only-children, are much more common. It is the age of wiggle-room and one child affords you all the shitty judgement of having a child with none of the baggage of letting your dreams die.

But there was a time when fucking only for children was a thing. It is the reason my father is one of seven and my mother is one of six. I too am one of seven; partly of good Catholicism, partly of boredom, partly of a trigger-happy old man and a bunch out of the bottle. Though shit has recently turned murky, I love each of them dearly and for different reasons.

Obviously We Love Some More Than Others.

Take my sister. The only girl in the group, or woman, gendered and identifying as female. This world got itself into a big damn hurry.

Let's call her Cathy, mainly because she would fucking hate it. Also because I didn't consult her on a mention here and there is a good to fair chance she doesn't know this blog exists.

Of course she has her faults. But I don't know too many people who would do everything they could to help you out a jam. I was in danger of being un-enrolled from my school for neglect of payment. Partly because I didn't have the money, mainly because I spent the money on beers. She sent me the money no questions and, I am very proud to say in this world of I-owe-you-you-owe-me, hasn't mentioned it in two years.

Oi Cunt, You Owe Me Dosh.

Or take my brother, the next one in line after me (boy wise, keeping people anonymous is hefty work). Let's call him Slim, because I know he would like it. He is one of the funniest people on the planet, the definition of down to earth. If we should reach such depths as being down to the last beer of a slab, he will gladly share with you. There is always a spot for you, whether you call a week or an hour ahead and he will do his damnedest to make you comfy.

Take Mine Bro, Just Watch It. Can Fold Up When You Roll Over.

And again take the next brother in line. A vegetarian, a kind soul. A cynical fuck like me, sure, but beyond all that he is someone as pure as the driven snow. My cynicism leads to genuine hatred, his leads to mild annoyance. He was cursed with it from the very beginning, genes and shit.

We will call him LeRoy, and LeRoy is one hell of a fucking human being. I know I am biased and bias has no place in science, but scientifically he is one hell of a fun guy.

Meeting new people is a scientific poll, and there is a damn fine and true reason he polls ahead of the pack.

Googled Sexy Vegetarian, Got A Damn Near Lookalike. 

Lest you think this whole blog is nothing but a love-letter to my own siblings, I should say I am merely expressing gratitude. There was a line in that Sunscreen song "the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young"

Who could know you younger? And who are more impossible to get rid of?

I say, good thing. The friends of childhood can leave you in a minute when they find something better like: working the same bullshit kind of job you have now. Your family cannot. And it goes both ways, I am so glad I could never leave them either, much as I would've sometimes liked too. Blood is thick, water is bullshit.

NP.