Never the Less

Incidentally, for those wondering, I do heartily apologise for the complete absence of indentation. When I began, you see, I had not the know-how to know how, nor even the thought to try, and since then I've utterly failed to rectify this, and only occasionally thought to do so. Now, I fear, it's much too late, even with the will of the world on my side. My only hope is to clench my teeth and power on, praying that mere consistency will cream over this oversight for all but the hyperpedantic, and that my gentle, loyal readers will grant me this small slack, perhaps in return for a raise in standard.

In other news (the world's most overused opening to a second paragraph), the slick mise en scène I've employed here has, for most of you, grown somewhat stale, if your fuming letters are anything to go by, so I've decided that it is time for a drastic, ne'er-to-be-completed overhaul. If you've any suggestions, please mail them to the following upside-down half-triangle:

45 Plywood Dr.
Hurstbridge,
Victoria.
3191
.

Finally, a word for the fellow scrounging around at the bottom of his trough: whatever woe weighed you down, please know that without knowing, advice is awfully hard to dish out, but that a look up every so often, and a thought to what has been achieved & experienced, presumably in the interaction stakes, will work wonders. Also note that the prior construction was ingeniously bookended with an alliterative triplet of the same letter, so if its substance is null, at least grant it the almost admiring shrug it so richly deserves and pick yourself, and your pen, up.

My Life in So Many Words

A pilot, endowed with lunkhead vowels and no chin to speak of (at least not highly), somehow held my attention for a large portion of this day, although I can't yet say whether this was the beginnings of brain debilitation or simply the resigned masochism of a flat tire. I should point out, however, that the pilot's activities were witnessed while I was sitting out the rain, so it wasn't as if I had much opportunity to leap through azaleas and compare clouds anyway. Still, there was plenty to do within, and it wouldn't have required much effort to ruffle up a time-filler or two. I even had a novel in my bag. Yet there I was, aimed at the tapping window for what must have been three hours, simply gazing at an unremarkable man ready a plane for take-off (or whatever he was readying it for).

Perhaps I admired his dedication under duress, or envied his solid, workaday bread-winning. Perhaps I had only the energy to take in, and not put in. Or perhaps I was simply drowning my day. Whatever the reason, it has prompted a stern reappraisal of the self. Is this where I want to be, watching pilots fumble about in the rain for hours on end? It's not a memory I aim to cherish, at any rate. But compared to the rest of my day, which now I can hardly even recall, it was positively spectacular — and that's probably the saddest part.

Honestly, I have no idea why I'm picking over this so obsessively. Maybe this is proof that there is something to it, that it's not simply an incident my mind has landed upon by accident. Was my father a laid-off pilot? Was my mother a veritable encyclopaedia of plane-preparation trivia? No. Heck, I've never even been on more than one plane in my life, and they've never held my attention outside of that. Why, then, should this mundane task imprint itself so forcibly on my mind that it feels like all the secrets of my life and its failings are contained within it?

God, my autobiography's gonna suck.

Sexless (H. Brimage Notwithstanding)

All right, first Harry says, "Hey, chaps, what time we seeing this movie? My credit's running out soon," and we're like, "I think it's around 6.30, though there is a 5.45 session, so I guess it depends on which session would be most convenient," and then he goes, "Maybe the 5.45, as I need to get back by 11," but we're like "No, we think the 6.30's better", so he's all "OK, that's cool. See ya," and we hang up. So I go to the station, right, to catch the 5.29 train, and Tom's already there but he's wearing this black beanie so I thought he was Anh Tu, but when I got close I realised it was Tom because he looked like Daniel Johns from Silverchair, and Tom looks like Daniel Johns from Silverchair, especially that time when he was wearing the same sort of white braces with nothing underneath one time when he answered the door, which is the sort of thing Daniel Johns has been wearing for the publicity shots for the new Silverchair stuff (by the way, I think "Straight Lines" is kinda OK. It's fairly mainstream, but it's nice how he uses off-kilter chords in the chorus while still being accessible).

Anyway, me and Tom get on the train which isn't late for once and we sit down and I say the moon must have eaten a lot today but Tom informs me that he doesn't think it's quite a full moon, and I say it doesn't matter if it's full or sort of full because I just said it'd eaten a lot today and that could mean sort of full. Then we arrive at the station and we go up to the cinema and we see Ben in his usual red monkey outfit wearing headphones. We go up behind him as we're not sure if he's seen us yet but we don't really surprise him and he just takes off his headphones. He tells us he's the only one there and Harry just rang him and told him that he was gonna be five minutes late and Tim isn't there. Then Tom says the big building in front of us has nothing on Ben's penis (which is apparently really, really big, although I've not seen it yet), and he says that Ben should lie down next to it so we can compare it but we don't and just get to talking about something else instead. And then Tim comes and we're still waiting for Harry but the session's sold out so when Harry comes we have to go to another cinema.

We get to the other one in time and it isn't sold out so we get our tickets and go in and sit down (from left to right, it was Harry, me, Tim, Tom and Ben on the end). Harry asked me if I'd seen the ebay ad before and I tell him no I hadn't but I laugh along with him like I had and knew how weird it was, and then Tim tells me, as he had told Tom earlier, that the Chaser should do a road test of the ad and die. Then we saw an ad for the new Die Hard movie and Harry says it looks over the top (Harry's the dumb one). I ask Tom if he brought his diary and he says no he didn't bring his diary why do I ask and I say so he can mark down Die Hard in his diary, but he says he doesn't need to as he's already written it down in his head. And then we watch the film and we finish watching the film and leave. And we go to the station and there's 23 minutes to our train so we go to a supermarket to eat dinner and I split a four-pack of doughnuts with Tom because I saw some in the movie we watched (I ate the chocolate and pineapple one, he ate the pink and normal one with jam). And we go on the train and Ben says you know how royals are biscuits in [long word I can't remember] but are basically just sugar well this is sugar in [long word] but is basically just air or something, and he says something about those old guys on the Muppet show.

To be continued...

A Million Ways

Today was one of those over-familiar days marked by a noticeable absence of occurrences. Despite it being winter, the mercury was in the slightly-too-hot for most, if not all, of the day, and I was forced to sweat about in little more than a figure-hugging T-shirt and an ambiguous pair of undershorts, an outfit which departed quite drastically from yesterday's chilly wardrobe of German trench and snug Penguin leggings. But gripes with the weather soon proved to be on the extraneous side of the day's events, for early on a thing occurred (let me preserve the mystery for a sentence or two) which was to change my memoirs forever.

I had just finished work on my latest exposé, High Society, about the prevalence of drugs in modern life (I hope no one beat me to that title), when that blasted doorbell (two slugs, last June — I'm surprised it still works) startled me from my chair. Dragging myself to the front door, I was rather bemused to find myself face-to-face with a fellow author. He seemed to be holding an impressive wad of manuscript paper, the visible of which bore the unmistakable stench of laboured prose. Showing the distraught-looking penman in, I asked him the nature of his visit, to which he responded with a resigned glance at the dogged pages in his hand. Knowing all too well what this meant, I plonked him on my comfiest chair and fetched a vile of bitters. Snatching the glass from my grasp, he thanked me kindly, swug it, and passed out. I picked up his manuscript.

Hold on. He had only written two pages, and a rotten two pages at that. This was hardly the point where you go about abusing the hospitality of your contemporaries — that comes when you hit a dead-end at page 175. The nerve of the fellow. And me too tired to seek revenge.

Some minutes later, I climbed into and had a shower. Despite water restrictions, this gave me that lovely feeling that everything was going to turn out all right — provided I significantly re-worked this (the ending in particular) come memoir time.

Bound By Yore

You know, it almost seems shameful. Stubbornly persevering, as evidenced hereon, is not the noblest of pursuits, nor is it worthwhile purely as an exercise in unflappability. In fact it bears a closer resemblance to pop-baiting, as if its continuation is merely a manifestation of vain hope. That being the case (he admits nothing), I'm liable to stoop further into base swipes at base targets, in a bid to appeal most broadly, and most blatantly. This, however, has not expressly occurred as of the yet, and its lack hereof (pardon?) is either a gratifying reassurance (a reassuring gratification, if you like) or the deepest damnation of this undertaking thus far — I can't decide which. But whatever the label, it must be said that the pressures of a stadium are, in that respect, a welcome absence — and horrid either way.

This led to my most controversial stain: a small number of pieces made under slight duress. It is said what's past is past, but they still seem to determine my future, at least in terms of how I'm viewed by the uninitiated. These pieces, however, were not the product of a switch in alliances, and they most certainly were not a temporary batch of propaganda I cooked up to aid my escape. Moreover, they had nothing in them, save for my ignorance, which in any way compromised my loyalty or aligned me with my captors. Though I most definitely regret them, and indeed am ashamed by them [see first sentence, remove "almost seems", replace with "is" — ed.], I do not feel I should be held accountable for my motivations unless stupidity itself has become a punishable offence in my absence. I admit that speaking of unsevere conditions was an unwise act under the circumstances, and revealing my mostly apolitical stance did not help matters. But my err was not malicious in the least, and had I known then the ramifications it would cause, I would not have gone through with it.

In the end, even my fiercest critic has to admit they were no more ill-willed than any schoolyard prank. Indeed the writings themselves, composed with a friend of mine by way of a mishandled dictionary, were intended to be realised as such. Neither of us entertained the thought of them maintaining their illusion for more than a day or so. Certainly we wanted to expose what we perceived to be a growing trend of undiscernibility among the editors that be, who were then beginning to swoon for anything that merely sounded like it could mean something, even if the thing in question was so inscrutable that there was no way of knowing. But we did not, let it be said, aim to discredit one target in particular. We simply intended to undermine that line of thinking as a whole. Thus our grotesque creations, as composite and vulgar as Frankenstein's, made no concession to meaning whatsoever, and were consequently adored by the above. Our point was proved to an extent far beyond our expectations, and by the trial we were beginning to realise that perhaps it had got out of hand. But surely by now it should no longer be relevant. All reverberations faded long ago, and only in dwelling does the event still exist in memory. The past doth not make the man. If my future is sealed, at least grant me a happy now.

A Muff is a Muff

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The Law of the Low

I was watching television the other day — one of us was perched atop my wardrobe, reaching metallically for a two-pronged reception — and I noticed, for what I deemed the first time in recent memory, a distinct lack of soul-searchers. I was thusly unable to identify with any of the preening cut-outs on offer, whose only concerns, it seemed, involved either violence or romance, and often both. Where are all the black-skivvy boohoos vainly scouring the heavens for impossible answers to impossible questions? Where are the open-mike coffee bars emitting badly articulated howls of existential contemplation? This sorry evidence led me to the conclusion that we, the What Is Life? moguls, are a dying breed.

From the carnal crux of my spiritually uncloined lap, my ever-bouncing four-eyed lass agreed, saying that she too had observed the lack of televised kindred spirits. Her explanation, however, differed from mine in that its articulation was at a higher, more feminine pitch and featured shorter, more feminine words, although in essence it was as close to mine as atheism to nihilism. Later, when my mortal coil was being twisted and her rude rhymes censored, we traded brass-knuckle blows (a profoundly humbling experience, I'll tell you) and gave the issue another thorough spray. This time we concluded that if there existed mediated role-models of our ilk, our lifestyles would be stacked and weighed against these creations, and our prided sense of individuality would be compromised. Thus, we reasoned, television's narrow-minded approach was a disguised blessing for us blessed.

Following that night and its comfortable reassurance, we engaged in a morning meeting at Twee Heads, a small but faithful town in the hills where crime has been completely eradicated. Disrobing, we quickly illuminated the circle of fellows in orbit around us, who were similarly pleased to hear about the sneaky blessing, and set about making ourselves appealing targets. Having acquired both the texture and the taste, this is something I'd recommend to all couples looking to cement their relationship. Case in point: Team Randall, winner of both 2006's Love Of The Year award and the Shower Of Power award, not to mention his recent Indirectly Lowering The Tone victory. And he's a sole-searcher to boot. We may not have TV, but we'll always have this. I mean, the innernet.

Randall & Co. (Defunct)

It has come to my attention that that likely ladder of ours — cast your eyes south-east and scroll — is a matter of some contention, particularly in regards to justification and rank. One in particularly has wondered, aloud, about it, and my prompted reasoning was as far from adequate as such things can be. But, with the benefit of chewing time, I think I can explain, if not entirely justify, the process. Contrary to popular opinion, I do not slave over a hot oven, pen in hand, muttering to myself, and decide who has enhanced popular culture the most, then carefully delineate the remainders until I have an accurate assessment of the individuals' fingers. No — in actual reality (combine the two if you must), the process is far more superficial. Thus:

The easiest way to ascend is simply to be one of those rare creatures who actually devotes portions of their day — or week, as the case may be — to adding chunks of useless text to their page. Heck, at this point I'd take month — even year. If that fails (as it currently is), I am forced to resort to what I bravely refer to as Nostalgia. Hence the most notable intertextual relationship with the here and now is represented at the top of the pile, which in this case fulfils the previous criteria as well. The immediately following is more nostalgia-wallowing — a scant amount, to be sure, but its creation is synonymous with mine, so I'm due. Actually, if this logic had legs, Phan Phan Phan would be higher. Nevertheless, I'm 'ere to talk of the current Copper (fuck you, posterity), whose interrogation spawned this. His efforts show care, and the most recent shows cum. If it weren't for nigglings of the yes-but-I-doubt-he'll-update-again and compared-to-the-others-he-has-barely-written-anything ilk, maybe he'd be top dwag.

Whichever way you look, this ladder is a rare insight into what it means to be human. And what, you ask, does that mean? It means breath, it means lungs, it means Why The F— Am I Here? But most of all it means washing your clothes and using the toilet.

Bradwriaeth Am Byth

Though I am yet to be dubbed a boob, I certainly felt one yesterday. Dig: I was in the smoke, scratching away the guilty tingles down my back, when the expository creature — a lady, no less — approached and set in motion the series of events I'm now in the process of articulating. She was the first. Her ears, ninety percent covered by black Welsh hair, were worth each and every attempt to engage them (Freud would have muttered "engorged", no doubt). Her mouth, undoctored and pink, was worth tenfold, for it was where those compelling Welsh vowels escaped. Viewed from afar, I think it is, for a lass, the accent you bang on churches for.

She asked for directions.
"I think that's — oh — there-ish." But the accompanying finger's scope rendered this next to useless.
"Oh. Thanks."
"It's about forty steps down that street," interjected Ben, my companion for the occasion. "Hard to miss, really."
"Oh, thanks very much," she said, turning to the gangly, nerveless créme-hunk
"Yes, it's just there," I added limply. But her gaze was gone.
"Perhaps you could show me," she said — to Ben.
"I'm sorry, I don't accept propositions from attractive Welsh strangers," replied Ben, just as I was hoping he wouldn't say anything with wit in it.
She laughed (heaven knows why) and said: "What do you know about Wales and its strangers?"
"I know Mr. Gruffudd's one, and I know Wales is England's New Zealand, as Canada is America's Wales."
"And elephants are the ground's Wales."
They turned and gaped at my addition. I turned away, liking the New Zealand accent too.

A minute later, they were the sung heroes of the White Album's fifteenth track. No one loud enough objected. In a rare moment of malice, I damn near prayed for a semi to flatten that lewd display. Worst of all, I found myself with a pitched waist after craftily obscuring the Ben half with my left hand. It was hard to go home to a bad fridge after that. I mean, Ben knew I had a thing for Welsh women. That was my only avenue of conversation whenever we spoke. The agreement was that I'd take Wales and he'd take everywhere else. That's fucking fair.

Guided By Vices

Being merely superficial, the too-defined stain on his jumbo briefs was perhaps the least disheartening element in a ferociously contested field. The winner, by a king's margin, was the slyly composite Looks + Leers, which would quake even the sturdiest of timbers and give foul Chinaski a run for his whisky. But let us not underestimate gallant silver: a minuscule profile dwarfing a minuscule talent. Nor, for that matter, the unmistakable overhang of rotting attentions — attentions, mind you, that poetic justice failed to abort long ago.

And so I burnt those ugly homemade gatefolds, wiped melody from memory and detoxined the motherfucker in a long, frigid shower. If a certain lumberer had similar lackings, maybe he would have the same fate. But one hopes that one learns. Still, when pedestals prove to be a trick of the light, it's easy to overlook the cardboard that made it so, especially when the message takes a particularly grandiose guise. They are flesh and guts, after all; they dread a cold toilet seat as much as a warm one.

Yet despite my best efforts (detailed above — ed.), the image of that Is He Retarded Or What? teacher engaged in unwedlocked consolidation with the world's vilest is still firmly imprinted upon my brain. Hm —: That taller-than-the-other-tall-fellow fellow once told me that asexuality must lend a certain grace to one's life. I thought that rather boring of him.

Alone in the Master Class

Angered and a little ragged, I had thrown the pile of manuscripts, acetates and watercolours at Professor X-Cow — my way of dealing with the too-discerning — and stormed off to my room, deadlineless but conflicted. At that point, I would have been content to have entered an unexitable sensory-deprivation chamber and be childishly spared of the judgement. But I persevered. Scouring the hall for a nervous minute or two, I found him and apologised. As I turned to leave, a metaphorical breeze (or something) blew open a page of my now-legendary Closed Book, and I turned back. With that nervous beating the self-censor does its best to avoid, I attempted to explain myself.
"It's my heart, poured, distilled and honed. If your life and smarts leave it lurched, where does that leave me?"
I failed.
"It's my shoes," he said, and walked off in them.
Actually, that made a whole lot of sense — and I hated him for it.

"This is what I worry about," I pined to weary Harry. "This is my book."
Harry scratched his chin, clearly not in the moment.
"All right," he said, somewhat despicably.
"All right? Is that all you can say?"
"Well, what'd you want me to say?"
"I dunno — something more articulate. I mean, I finally spill my guts to you after you've been nagging me for so long and all you can say is 'All right'."
"I haven't been nagging you. That was the real Harry."
I made an about face.
"Oh yes — so it was," I murmured. "Um—"
"Don't worry about it. It happens once in a while."
"I'm sorry. But listen, what do you think of old X-Cow?"
He laughed and shook his head.
"The smartest guy I know but for his manner," he said.
"I'm not sure if that makes sense."
"It doesn't. It's his job, not his pleasure. He may be the most qualified, but I doubt he gets the most enjoyment out of it. Heck, he doesn't pay for it — why should he?" Harry's eyes went parental. "He's a cultural superialist despite his preference for non-statement statements."
"Cultural superialism doesn't even mean anything — that's not even a word," I said.
"I know."
"Will you stop that? These arguments don't make sense."
"Undoubtedly, but at least remember King Kurt."
"Yech, no thanks."
"No, not them. The singular one."
"Oh."

Me on my top bunk, him on his bottom, the lights vanished. Not asleep, I grabbed my guitar.
"I wrote a new song, Harry."
"Mmm?"
"It goes like this: 'Fuck you, X-Cow. Fuck you, X-Cow. Fuck you, X-Cow'."
"A love song, then?"
"Yep."

I Love You, England

Dear diary: I have aired you for public consumption on account of your irrepressible profundity, without which the world would be the worse. By nature, your highly personal chronicling of the dailies are written without concession to clarity, due, in most, to a then-foreseen lack of audience, but that does not make them any less worth a while in public annals than the countless minutiae-mongers already clogging the drains. Nor does it mean the obliqueness should be scrambled into shape. What it does mean, however, is that your deeply penetrating insights into this condition of ours — you know to what I refer, brothers & sisters: this condition of the human! — is becoming obscured by a sea of gunky prosé, poured daily by giddy globules outstaying their entitled fifteen minutes (already too generous for most, I say!).

But diary — my dear diary —, I'm not simply here to defend your need-not-defending position. I'm here to encoil, for good, around your sickly moist form, your slightly incorrect sentence construction, your two-thirds there grammatical ability, your strict divide between meaning and sound, your profoundly unilluminating points, your inverted ugliness. I'm here to slip, forcefully but peacefully, into your spur-of-a-bored-moment cavity, cavort, as low-res has taught me, for brief, and wile away. Then, dear, I propose (I will) a more official union — with Ben's blessing, of course. I can see it now: us, barely able to control our buttock-seeking appendages, a windy, beautiful, bleak hill, Ben clad to the nines, carefully enunciating Do You Takes — we'll be horizontal before he can even leap one foot to safety!

Oh, my dear diary. If I must share you with the world, at least it is from the inside.

Asterix in Athens

Semi-returned from an unwanted brink, I've a true (I assure) tale to weave, one witnessed first-handedly. This time the setting is a palace.
"Sire?" (Here's where I caught wind of the situation, the speaker a small, bell-clad jester.)
"Ah, there you are," said a king of sorts. "Tell me, what is the nature of your relationship with Lord Yansen?"
"My relationship with Lord Yansen, sire?"
"Yourrelationshipwithlordyansensire."
"Well, he's my mentor, sire."
"Your mentor?"
"Yes, sire."
"And what exactly does that entail?"
"Well, sire, it entails him teaching me things what I don't already know."
"I see. And what things are these?"
"Usually, he starts by teaching me how to use the piano, sire."
"And after that?"
"After that he teaches me about acting."
"Pardon?"
"—Sire."
"I see. And is there more after that?"
"Um—"
"Um?"
"Yes, sire."
"Well, go on."
"Yes, sire. After that, he— He—"
"He what?"
"He—"
"He what!"
"...Handles me, sire."
"A fine piece of music, but I don't see what that has to do with Lord Yansen."

Well, you can imagine how this went down with the tour group. I mean, what are the chances? Heck, if I wasn't there myself I'd never believe it. But I was. And I do. And if I lie, may God strike me down.