Dog Days

So I woke up today and I was hungover. Again. Because I went to the Racing Page and then O’Neils. Again. And then I came home and ate haggis. Again. My life is getting strangely repetitive. Or at least strange and repetitive. Except that today was different than yesterday. Because it was a good hangover. Not the kind of hangover when you can barely move for fear of puke. Not the kind where you search the bed continuously for the cold spot to put your head on. Not the kind where you can’t face the prospect of eating, but you know that until you eat you are going to feel more and more fucked. Not the kind where the dread seeps through slowly from your subconscious and you know, you just know that you did something to regret the night before.

It was the kind where you wake up and everything feels beautiful. The kind where you want to get up because you’re happy to be alive and you want to see the world. I mean I still felt sick. And pretty stupid. In fact really fucking stupid. But when I opened my eyes this morning, I kept them open. And not to stop the world from spinning when I closed them. And it was nice. I even walked from my house to my girlfriends, which is something I have never even considered before. I even had a shower before anyone else in my house, which is something I have never bothered to attempt before.

I was confused why I felt this painful joy. But then I remembered (via someone on TV telling me). It’s Chinese New Year. It’s now the year of the Dog. My year. Our year. And it’s going to be fucking great. It’s just a shame I’m more of a cat person.

Sven

I’ve got this swan on my chest which will never go away. It’s made up of three numbers which have many meanings but which mean nothing. I can’t get rid of these things, and nor would I want to, but the way people talk to me about it I have to get rid of its meaning, because people don’t get why I did it.

It’s not for comedy. The reason I give for 256 being my lucky number is funny, but I didn’t get ink in my skin for a funny reason. It’s not because I think it’s a mystical symbol. True, when I thought of the number I was all fucked up and I was like “woah man, what does that mean?!”, but even when I’m fucked out of my skull I don’t really believe the shit that falls out of my mouth. I got it because I’m an idiot.

I don’t mean I’m stupid. Because maybe I am and maybe I’m not, but that’s what not what I mean. I mean that it reminds me that I’m an idiot. It reminds me of the things I’ve done. The really stupid, dangerous, unrepeatable, unforgettable yet forgotten things which make me who I am. And I’m not saying that I’m a stunt man or that my scarred skin is a sign of humility to remember that I’ve been a fool. It’s a mark of stupidity to remind me that I am a fool. That I don’t care about the worlds troubles and rules. That I’m not going to just give in and live an ordinary life. That I’ve chosen to be a fool, because it’s more fun. That I’m not going to go gentle into that good night. Because if I did, then I really would be an idiot, and the worst physical pain I’ve ever felt in my life would have been for nothing.

Teleholic

I wake up and something’s wrong. I feel funny. I open my eyes but my eyelids won’t go all the way up. I’m really fucking hot even though I’m fairly certain it’s really cold outside of my body. I hear the longest weirdest gurgling sound that has ever entered my ears and I look around for the freak that must have made it. The movement hurts my head. Shit I was drunk last night wasn’t I?

But I didn’t even drink that much. Maybe I’m just becoming a lightweight. Wait, think back, what’s the last thing you remember? Picking on some kids wearing stupid outfits because they claim that they’re classical music scholars. And then getting my ass kicked my Gene Simmons. Wait that can’t have really happened. Must have been a dream. Which must mean that I was asleep at some point. Well that explains why I’m in bed. Hangover. Hungover. Can’t think fully, so will have to make do with the brain of a monkey. Check my phone. Ok so I didn’t send any miscellaneous messages, that’s always nice to now. Here comes that gurgling again and this time I’m sure it’s from my belly. And it feels good. Oh yeah. Oh wait it feels like I’m gonna be sick. Ok, so that’s passed. Hmm. Gotta find some water. And a way out of this bed. Fuck it, I’m going back to sleep.

Headache. Can’t sleep. It’s too early to get up though. Maybe I’m still drunk. Maybe I’m still asleep. Maybe I should stop drinking. Nah. Just watch the TV. That can become my reality. Ahh that’s better.

My name is Justin

I was like 14 when I had my first encounter with karma. I didn’t realise it at the time, but in retrospect it was there staring me in the eye, plain as Michael Jacksons face after I’d hit him with a shovel. Tom found £40 on the street, and due to his good nature he handed it into the police. The only times where I got close to finding serious cash had been in conjunction with my brother, so I never got to spend any of that lucky loot. Months after Tom had been given the money back by the police, he found another £40. That jammy bastard. I remember him finding other notes now and then, but those two stuck in my mind, because the second time again he handed them into the police and got them back. No wonder he leads a semi-charmed kinda life.

But yesterday, yesterday it came back to me. My little business venture is altruistic in spirit, and yesterday I was discussing the finer points of how I would not give that up for any amount of money. And on the way to the ‘meeting’ with one of my ‘business partners’ I found £10. After I had fought my ‘I’m gonna help people’ corner for a few hours, I went home and then found £20. Hot diggity! The first two notes I find, and both on the same day. I was wondering what the third lucky thing would be to happen to me, and then I bumped into Lydia on a road which I imagine bumping into her on every time I walk down it. Luck is one mysterious bitch, just like Lydia, so this all made sense.

Yesterday topped the time I found 20 unopened Marlboro lights and then 18 later in the same day. I don’t remember what I did to deserve that, but it seems clear to me now as old peoples skin, that if you try to do good things, good things will happen to you.

That's when good neighbours become...

Neighbours made me cry this week. I never thought it would happen but it did. When I was younger than I am now, there was always the rumour going around that one day neighbours would end, and that a plane would crash on Ramsay Street and that everyone would die except Helen Daniels. Well that old bitch died years ago, so I thought it was safe to assume that was a crock of shit. That was until this week came along and Paul Robinson chartered an old school plane with all the characters on it and some motherfucker put a bomb on it. I thought it would be cheesy and an anti-climax in the traditional Australian style, but no. It was more epic than a sumo wrestler fighting a bear. And I thought they were all dead. And even when it turned out they weren’t it was so well done that I shed a tear for the pain my fake friends were feeling.

Maybe that’s what happens when you spend enough time on your own in your room. Your fake friends become a bit too important to you. But at least for half an hour everyday I’m not alone. Like I am on this blog. I asked if anyone was reading this to sign. And you didn’t. So now I’m back to screaming into a plastic bag. I don’t mind though, it means I can talk more shit than ever, if my only audience is me. Any old crap holds my attention. That’s why neighbours made me cry this week. I never thought it would happen but it did.

I'm not saying you don't have a brain

Sometimes when I look at people I swear I can see right through their eyes, through their brains and right to the back of their heads. I speak to these people, but somehow my voice just echoes in their head and comes back out their mouth. It freaks me out. I feel like I must be missing something, or else they must be, because how can people actually be like that? Hmm. Is there anybody really out there?

That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing. I can’t be bothered to explain here, but I’m working on an art related magazine. To me, I’ve always found it an amazing thought that all the shit that goes on in my head, the millions of unstoppable thoughts about everything and nothing are replicated in every head on the planet. And there are more than 6 billion of them now. I don’t mean that everyone thinks the same as me (because that really would be weird), but that everyone has there own whole world built into their head, their own worries, their own thoughts, their own point of view. As complicated as I feel life is for me, it is for everyone else too. When I walk down the street, I sometimes just look at all the windows on the top floors of houses, because most of them are bedrooms, and every bedroom implies a whole world. A whole life which is running on the same planet as me, but which I’ll never see. Hey that rhymes.

Anyway, my point is, that I’m doing what I’m doing because as far as I’m concerned art (in all it’s forms) is the only way that you can really be sure that other people really exist. I have no evidence that other people think except that they can express their thoughts, and that I can understand these expressions of thoughts makes me realise that other people see the world in their own way too. Not to be trite, but without art, how the fuck could I really know that the whole world isn’t just a figment of my imagination, and that people are just facets of that?

I once had a dream that I woke up one day and my whole life had been a massive hallucination and that everything I thought was wrong. Maths, physics, philosophy, everything I had just made up. In my dream when I woke up I was eating a dead rabbit and staring at a tree, which had been an ice cream and a tv respectively before I woke up. Does this make sense? No? Well it didn’t at the time either.

I digress. My point is (and this has been a really fucking roundabout way of getting there) that as much as art is the only way in which I can know people really exist, the comments on this thing are the only way I can know that anyone reads it. So please, leave comments, I don’t care in the slightest what they say, because otherwise this is like screaming into a plastic bag – almost like communication, but also quite like suffocation.

I’m gonna try write at least once a week now. I hope that’s enough for you to be bothered to check this thing. Whoever you are.

Religious Intolerance

Did anyone watch that “Root of all evil” show last night? I caught a bit of it, and I have to say I was extremely disappointed. I was intending on not watching it simply because I assumed that it would make the trite point that religious wars are all stupid, but instead it made the stupider point that people should look at the evidence for god then decide whether to be religious.

This was because the presenter was trying to say that science is better than religion as science doesn’t breed hate or intolerance. What he entirely missed, was that science is basically its own religion in that it breeds hate of things that it can’t explain and intolerance of religion and faith in general.

Believing in something itself isn’t a bad thing. To be a scientist you have to believe in many things, such as that without proof, something can’t be true. Believing in any god isn’t neccesaily a bad thing. What I think is a bad thing is believing in people.

The bible is 2000 years old roughly and people see it as the gospel truth. I believe in god, but I don’t believe in the bible. One reason why is that at the beginning of the 2000 years, most people couldn’t read, and so the bible would be told to them. If only a few people knew what it said, then what would stop them from changing it? I mean, even if it were the word of God to start with, if along the way someone or some people decided to use it for their own gain then what is to say that didn’t happen? The Romans, the Spanish inquisition, the Vatican, and many other powerful forces have had the Bible as their focus point for loyalty throughout this time, so as much I think believing in God is fair enough, believing in the people who claim to work for God is not.

This is of course not only true for Christianity. What about Mohammed? He went to Allah and asked for men to be able to pray less times a day as it was interfering with daily life. What if he was just a guy who didn’t want to pray so many times a day? I’m not saying he wasn’t holy, but no-one is perfect.

And what bothers me most about all religions, is the fact that most people believe in a stupid god. They say that god is omnipotent and all knowing and everywhere and in everything. Well if that was true, what would make Him angry? If He knew every side of the story, then why would anything we ever did bother Him? Why would He ever think violence was the answer, because if He is all powerful and He wanted one of us dead then He could make it happen in a million different ways.

One last thing. Science is a religion. It is religion for people who won’t admit to having faith. But there is no reason to believe that science and God are mutually exclusive. If I was God, and I wanted to make the universe and everything, I wouldn’t create things one by one, I’d just do one thing which started everything off. Just one. If He knows everything, then he knows the results of everything, so just one tiny event would be enough to make everything happen. Because if you knew everything, then wouldn’t everything be boring to you? So it wouldn’t be the doing of things which you would find interesting, it would be watching the action unfold.

Evolution! The most exciting and long running TV show ever invented.

If I had a point I'd be dangerous

Do you think if you lived forever that eventually everything you owned would be a Christmas present? Looking around my room now, there is a high proportion of regular items which have been replaced with novelty counterparts by people short of present ideas. Maybe it’s just the people who buy me presents, but my room is starting to look a bit like Robin Williams sisters room in Toys. If only I had his smoking jacket.

Not that I’m complaining of course (I would never complain about anything!), but drinking tea out of Darth Vaders head, or tapping off into an antique bed pan are not everyday events. Or at least not in most people’s lives. But I am blessed by randomness. Variety is of course the spice of life, and luckily I like it spicy. Despite being addicted to sleep.

That’s a nice way of putting it hey. Addicted to sleep. Instead of being tired, I get withdrawal symptoms. When I’m yawning, I’m craving a fix. When I sleep too much, I’m overdosing. When I dream, I’m tripping. Sleep really is the best drug, as it’s never killed anyone. Except maybe that guy in Se7en, but I’m fairly sure that Morgan Freeman was responsible for that due to his shoddy detective work.

I feel like this blog entry has no point at all. But then when do they ever? Hmm. So I guess I’ll quit while I ahead. Actually nah fuck it, I’ll say one more thing…. swearing is the poetry of the illiterate. So fuck you.

Dancing? No Fucking Way?!

So new years was fun hey. Motherfucking fun. Or so I hear. To be honest I can remember pretty much fuck all about it. I have been told that I was very happy and amusing most of the night and ended it with dancing, pretending to be sick and abusing strangers on the train while sitting on the floor. Sounds like me when I’m drunk. But you know what sounds more like me when I’m drunk? The recordings I made on my Dictaphone (a Christmas present for my beezneez) throughout the evening.

That’s right, New Years Eve, live and in audio effect. So if you are interested in me asking everyone the same question over and over again, or maybe hearing increasingly drunken philosophical debates with dave, or perhaps even my lame attempt at tricking Marta into admitting she’s a lesbian then I’ve got it all digitally recorded. If you are interested in anything that makes sense however, I’m really not your man.

I mean there is a recording of me singing happy birthday to the new year. And discussing how many puppies I had bought the preceding years. What the fuck happened? I have no memory of these events or many others. So if anyone out there can tell me what the fuck happened that evening, I would be grateful.

If I offended anyone, I am very sorry. If I was overly nice to anyone, then I’m not quite so sorry. But honestly, if anyone knows what I did the whole evening, then tell me. The black spots in my memories aren’t that funny anymore, just frightening little patches of *shit what the fuck did I do* stuck in my head.

But anyway, all in all it was a good night. I woke up with maraca’s (is that what they’re called?) in my pocket and a smile on my face. So I assume all’s well that ends well. Happy new year. 2006 is gonna kick ass. Hell yeah.