GET WITH THE POGROM BLOGS, PITCHFORKS AND FLAMING TORCHES...

Guacamole Window - A Film.

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0800

Imagine the most amazing film you’ve ever seen. Some big production by a Hollywood director that promises to blow your socks off, redefine your understanding of yourself and the world and to bring you perilously close to seeing the meaning of life itself.
Well this film is like that only shorter and obviously ALOT better.
An odyssey of staggering proportions and infinitesimal metaphysical reach, come to know the miracle and the genius that is David Guard through Guacamole Window.

Click on the image for the full movie. Do it. You won’t be disappointed. I promise.

Advertising Folk = Evil Geniuses.

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:31:01 +0800

So suddenly I'm all about American Apparel. I want to run out right now and buy all the American Apparel garments I can find, go online and risk credit card debt if need be, just as long as I get to buy American Apparel. I'm not even going to check if it's my size, I'm just going to grab aimlessly and rake piles of it into my arms and run screaming out into the streets and towards home throwing my wallet at the clerk over my shoulder as I fly out the door, tripping the alarms as I go, their sonic wail diminishing behind me as I draw closer and closer to my apartment building where American Apparel and I can be together.
That's what this new American Apparel Ad does for me.
And also, I'm kind of…hungry. Not, like, for a meal necessarily, but… You know how you sometimes get hungry for a mint? When you kind of just want something sweet to suck on for a while? Hungry like that.

- Lucifer.

Vulcans are dirty...

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:25:26 +0800

So, it turns out that this particular Vulcan, which I’ll admit bears a striking resemblance to yours truly, has some very disturbing shit to say. Probably because I put those words into his mouth...
Mmm, Convenient.

Vodafone AU + iPhone = No Service.

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:10:39 +0800

Thinking about getting one of those new-fangled iPhones by Apple from big, lovable, friendly Vodafone?

Why bother?? Here’s what you can do that is equally fun, but less irritating and requires a lot less effort on your part.

Take your current mobile phone, take a house brick and smash your current phone to pieces by pelting the absolute shit out of it with the brick.

Fetch the sim card from the debris and tape it to the house brick, a small piece of duct tape should do the trick, and then forcibly stuff the house brick into your pocket or handbag.

You’ve effectively emulated the experience of getting an iPhone through Vodafone!

You excited??

I’m not.

I have had no phone for 47 hours now.

I signed up for the iPhone, it came four days later in the mail. Great so far right? I took it out of the box, I called Vodafone, spoke to a lovely girl who helped me activate the iPhone and take all my details to transfer my prepaid number to a postpay account for the iPhone. All fine.

“Just give it about half an hour for the changes to take effect in your account, and then have fun playing with your phone.”

“I will” I chuckled... What a lovely girl.

I waited half an hour. Turned it on. “No Service” it tells me. Fine. Fair enough, probably just needs more time. Turned it off. Left it for an hour. Tried again.

“No Service.”

Never mind, they’re selling lots of iPhones for the very first time. There’s BOUND to be some delay to get it all done. I left it for another six hours. Turned it on. “No Service”.

So now I’m a little peeved. Never mind, I thought, I’ll just pop my sim card back into my old phone and check to see if I have any messages, if anyone has tried to call me.

HAH! what a farce! I put the SIM card back in my old phone and it says to me:

“Unregistered SIM”

Not only has Vodafone failed to activate my account in the iPhone, it’s now turned my old mobile against me.

I started this nightmare at 11AM Tuesday.

I phoned Vodafone Tuesday night and the assured me that the problem would be sorted out ASAP.

All day Wednesday my iPhone kept telling me “No Service”

No service

NO SERVICE NO SERVICE NO SERVICE

I called again. This time I thought i may have actually passed out from the rage and dreamt the phone call.

“Hi, I’m just calling about my iPhone, it’s still not working.”

“Okay what’s your mobile number?”

I told him. “Okay, and your name sir?”

I told him.

And then... this: “Thats not your name.”

“I beg your pardon?” To say I was incredulous is a gross understatement.

“That’s not your name”

I really couldn’t control myself: “Ah, I think I would KNOW what my own name is!”

“Yes, sorry I mean thats not the name we have here....”

“AND!?...”

And then the poor fellow did the only thing he could think of to do. He dumped my call back into the queue. Again, “incensed” fails to illustrate my feelings.

I called again. The Vodafone rep explained to me...nothing really, but said that the order would be put through all over again. Great. That was 23 hours after the nightmare had begun.

As I sit here now, FORTY SEVEN hours after I first called them, Vodafone has failed to do anything to help me out, my iPhone is still as good as a BRICK, as is my previous mobile phone.

Thinking about getting an iPhone through Vodafone? Don’t fucking bother.

***

UPDATE: 60 Hours after activating the iPhone.

My iPhone still reads: NO SERVICE. Vodafone has NOT contacted me. No phone call (that would be hard I suppose, although I did give them my mother's home phone number...) no email. Nothing.

I’ve sent them this email:

MY IPHONE HAS BEEN SAYING "NO SERVICE" NOW FOR FIFTY-ONE HOURS. THAT'S 51 HOURS. 51 HOURS. WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE WITHOUT A PHONE FOR 51 HOURS? I DON'T HAVE A HOME PHONE, YOU TOLD ME I COULD KEEP MY OLD MOBILE NUMBER BECAUSE I WAS ALREADY A VODAFONE CUSTOMER. I HAVE BEEN WITHOUT A PHONE FOR FIFTY. ONE. HOURS. ASK YOURSELF IF YOU WOULD BE HAPPY IF YOUR PHONE COMPANY TOLD YOU IT WOULD TAKE 30 ***MINUTES*** TO TAKE YOUR OLD NUMBER TO YOUR NEW PHONE AND THEN IT ENDED UP TAKING 51 HOURS. 51 HOURS. 51 HOURS. I JUST WOULD LIKE TO HAVE A WORKING PHONE. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK? I'M SENDING AN EMAIL BECAUSE I'VE ALREADY SPOKEN TO FIVE OF YOUR PEOPLE ON THE PHONE FOR A TOTAL OF 80 MINUTES. THANKS FOR NOTHING SO FAR.

Their reply to this provocative, desperate email?

Nothing.

It is now 60 hours since I lost my ability to communicate with my family and friends. I have no phone. Vodafone has not tried to help me one iota. Their call centre staff are unable to tell me what the problem is. They are unable to tell me how long it will take to rectify it. They refuse to let me speak to a technician, those mystical figures who are apparently charged with rectifying the ethereal problem (whatever it might be).

Vodafone are unwilling to contact me regarding my problem. In fact, in the 60 hours since I lost the ability to use my phone, they have contacted me total of zero times. All the communication, all the effort to try and rectify this problem has been mine.

I might be jovial about all this but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take it into account when deciding whether or not to do business with Vodafone, my story is, after all, real and taking place right now.

I’ll keep you updated.

UPDATE: 72 Hours without a phone.

Vodafone has not contacted me. At all. My iPhone still says “No Service”.

UPDATE: 77 Hours without a phone.

Called Vodafone Technical support again. Why not? Any excuse to hear a voice over the phone these days... A helpful guy named Steve tells me that it's a system-wide problem and that I'm not the only one. It's a comment designed to make me feel better but it fails. He tells me this system-wide problem cropped up yesterday afternoon. It's been 77 hours since my ordeal began, I reminded him. Perhaps you were the first, he counters. At any rate all he can really tell me is that "they are working on it". The same thing each tech support before him has said.

77 hours and counting, I think I've caught a case of this.

UPDATE: 85 Hours without a phone.

I still have no phone. This is a fucking joke.

UPDATE: 96 Hours without a phone.

Still NO SERVICE. Still no contact from Vodafone.

UPDATE:

It has been six whole days since I tried to activate the iPhone and lost all ability to use my mobile phone. The last time I contacted Vodafone was two days ago. In the whole 6 days Vodafone have made NO attempt to contact me to either apologise or even to apprise me of the situation.

He’s Dead.

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:08:10 +0900

I know its old news now but I just wanted to say how much the results of the election pleased me so. I mean more than pleased me. It gave me an unequalled feeling of supreme satisfaction and vindication. Velvet & I were in Florence at the time, just returned from our day trip through Tuscany when we go the news and oh what utter joy. What unbridled ecstasy at the idea of that little bastard John Howard losing not only the Prime Ministership but also his own seat as a member of parliament. The only Prime Minister to lose so spectacularly since Stanley Bruce in 1929. Yes hearing that Little John was boxing up his shit and moving out of Kirribilli House gave me such a feeling that I can hardly articulate all by myself.

Allow me to quote the late, great Bill Hicks:

“It must have been a secret service plot, to keep me out of the country the night he lost. To protect him, you know. To protect his eardrums from shattering when I shrieked with fuckin’ laughter!

AAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

He’s dead! It’s Dead, that Beast is fucking dead! Eleven years of that rampaging fucking elephant beast finally brought to its fucking knees! Yes! You’re dead you fucker, you fuck! You FUCK! You’re DEAD DEAD DEAD!

We HATE YOU! HATE YOU! Now do you know it? Now do you feel it? Feel the fucking hate! feel it.

You lost. Finally.”

Yes. That just about sums up how I felt that night.

Travel Away From Here.

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:06:23 +0900

Leaving the country, which ever country might be ‘the country’ for you, is one of the most important things you will ever do. There's a lot of growing up involved in traveling away from 'here'. I suggest you do it as soon as possible.

This summer gone, I travelled to Singapore, Frankfurt, Paris, Rome, Florence, Siena, San Gimignano, Vienna, Prague, Berlin, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

This trip, my trip, is the most rewarding thing that I’ve done so far in my life, and it will be the most rewarding thing you will ever do as well.

If you can, try and do it with someone you love. We’re not all as lucky as that, and even some of those who are will be scared to try it. But I can’t urge you strongly enough to travel, to go on a journey, with the one you love.

I did, I was lucky enough, and along the way I felt our hearts meet. While we flew, trained and bussed our way through eight different countries, we two were truly in the same place with one another for what felt like the very first time.

To me now, my other, she’s more than just a girlfriend, she’s more than an equal. She is my counterpoint.

She is that which makes me more than I am.

On our journey together I have learned so much of myself and of her that the two are now entangled, sweetly inseparable like honey in milk.

So the only advice that I will ever offer you earnestly in this place is this:

Go now. Dear reader, go.

Plan your odyssey, buy your tickets.

Go and make love in the soft grey light

of a Prague morning.

Kiss in the bright golden light

Of a Paris sunset,

And learn,

learn who you truly are.

Gadget Lust.

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:05:08 +0900

I can feel her in my hands still. How she rested so gentle. Idling, fondling my clammy hand, loving me. It was Gregg’s fault, Gregg with the Apple store name badge and the Apple Store shirt and the Apple Store Standard Issue ( I suspect) spectacles. He looked me in the eye all slutty and solicitous:

“You wanna play with her?”

You filthy bitch.

I squealed like a little girl, something my girlfriend insists that I really need to stop doing.

I held her. She felt so good. She was perfect. The perfect weight, the perfect complexion. Everything about her was sexy. And she acted like she loved to be touched, she danced at the touch of my fingertips, she smiled and winked and stole my heart with her charm.

And then I had to give her back. Give her back to Gregg.

That bastard.

“We can put you on the waiting list if you want.” Gregg says smiling at me, flashing his Apple Store teeth. Knowing what he’s saying, knowing what being on the waiting list means, that bastard knowing that I’ll wait another month before a shipment comes in to Australia, only to be sold out within a day again and then the wait starts all over again for the next shipment. All that time until I can see her again, until I can hold her in my hands, feel her in my grasp all smooth and delicious. Waiting. Thinking of her and no having her. The waiting would kill me. I know it would. For one brief moment I consider grabbing her and running. The two of us disappearing with nothing but each other, a forbidden partnership.

Bu I know his plan is flawed. Oh, she’d come with me of course, that’s in her nature. And she’d look at me like I’d done the right thing by kidnapping her from her Apple Store prison. But it couldn’t work. I’d never get that far. Maybe to the car park, maybe all the way home. But we’d be found. We’d be pried apart, and she’d be taken away from me.

I couldn’t bear to lose her like that, not after I’d held her as my own.

And the stupid bloody waiting list is not an option either. There’s no way I could spend all that time yearning.

So No. No Gregg. Don’t put my name on your goddamned Apple Store waiting list. Don’t bother.

That’s how I ended up here. In the Apple Store. In Singapore.

A simple five hour flight, a short metro trip to Orchard Road and here I am at Epicentre @ Orchard, the licensed Reseller here in balmy Singapore. Where their stocks are filled and there’s no goddamned waiting list.

So here I am holding her again. The iPod Touch, nestled neatly in the palm of my hand. I’d believe it was all too much trouble if only she didn’t feel so good. And she does. Everything about her. The way she looks, her brains. She’s amazing and she’s beautiful and there’s no one out there who even comes close to her.

I Quit.

Thu, 6 Dec 2007 15:30:42 +0900

I quit my job at Centrelink. For those of you unfamiliar with this sterling institution, Centrelink is the face of Australia’s Welfare System. It’s front-of-line service delivery with every welfare recipient in the country as it’s customer base.

Now, generally speaking, discussion in public forums regarding details of previous employment with any Commonwealth Government Agency is forbidden. Whether the topic of conversation is the reigning government’s latest welfare reform strategies or the kind of coffee available in the lunch room, it’s a no-no. The answer to the latter is absolutely none of any sort, if you’re interested, however there’s a punch-line to this particular clause. Your solemn accord not to discuss your illustrious career with Centrelink is based upon the fact that upon employment with any Commonwealth Government Agency you sign a declaration of Confidentiality. Funny thing is, the reason I know that this is a requirement is because as I sit here, no longer employed by the government, I’m holding my Declaration of confidentiality, unsigned and never submitted to the Centrelink Chief Executive Officer.

DON’T ASK ME how the hell I managed to work for the Government for 18 months and never sign a Confidentiality Declaration, but I did it, and now you can reap the splendid and exotic rewards. And when I say ‘rewards’ what I mean of course is this blog entry and, in the far-off future, the publication of my light hearted and racy tell-all book about the perils and pitfalls of working for Little Johnny Howard and his wacky, fly by the seat of his pants Minister for the Welfare System Joe Hockey (No, really, that’s his name...)

I’ll let you know when “Real Time Nazis” is published and available to buy and I’ll leave it to you to figure out when this entry is finished.

Anyhow, all I can say about the situation is THANK CHRIST ALMIGHTY BANANAS! I no longer have to endure that unbelievably stolid, constipated world of abject misery that we call the Public Service any longer. I mean really I don’t know how these people do it. Government call centres are goddamned NUT-HOUSES. I shit you not. Nut-houses filled with whores.

Anyhow, here’s an excerpt of the destined-to-be-finished-one-day novel “Real Time Nazis” as mentioned before:

So here I am being paid to sit in a boardroom every day for two weeks to learn about how to do four things on a government database. Me and my misshapen and smelly colleagues will firstly be Updating Earnings for the customer. That is to say, Miss Mary Breed-a-lot calls up and says “I made one hundred and fifty bucks this fortnight working at Scumland Supermarket.” I access her file and skip past the page that displays her thirteen or fourteen illegitimate cack, all named ridiculous BOGAN names like ‘Brayden’, ‘Blayden’, ‘Aisha’, ‘Leearna’ and ‘Steele’, until I get to her list of employees. I pick one put the earnings amount into the computer, and then... Get this, my favourite part out of everything in the training so far: The computer does absolutely everything else. Ha! Yes! I do absolutely crap all, hit a few buttons on the keyboard and then read out what the computer tells me. “Yes dear, that’s great your next pension payment will be seven hundred bucks in your account this Tuesday. Give my love to your toothless, thieving, dirty offspring won’t you? Ta-ta.” So by this point in the training, you know, it’s all looking a bit strenuous...

Do let me know if you’re interested in reading the rest of my colourful and undoubtedly offensive adventures by dropping me a line. Until then...

Piss be with you, My demented brothers and sisters.

Fatty Fatty Fat Fat.

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 15:45:46 +0800

Why do people feel the need to tell me how fat I am? Why?

Is it some biological imperative where they believe on some cellular primal level that they themselves will catch this fattening disease if they don’t point it out in me first? Do they think it makes me feel good?

Do these impotent retards sit at home and think Gee, Better tell Luke that he’s getting rather TUBBY cause he looks like he needs a pick me up. Is there any logic in that Good Lord, ANY??

Apparently not.

I don’t like fake people, those saccharine sweet “OH how do you do? Oh yes I know, Don't you look fabulous??” bullshit artists. And then this new rash of brutal honesty isn’t really at all to my taste either. I mean does anyone enjoy being told that they’re a fat shit?

I mean lets not dilly dally round the old mulberry bush. I’m not a slight man. I am by no measure lithe. However, I don’t feel that I’m in the John Candy focus group of fatness yet either. So what is it that compels people to say to me things like:

“Oh hey Luke, you’ve put on a bit of weight since I saw you last.”

REALLY? I had a case of Hemorrhoids too, lets talk about that shall we?? Maybe you’d like to comment on whether or not you think my hair makes me look like a homeless person also...?

I just fail to understand how this is acceptable conversation. I mean wasn’t it always “Hi how you doin’? How are the kids/partner/school/work/dog/grandmama? Oh lovely I’m just on my way to the shops to buy beer/vegetables/tampons/apples/bog-roll, I’ll catch you later.” ?

I mean I don’t go up to people and say “Hey Lucy, Jeez your ugly.” or “Hey David, your complexion is a lot more blemishy since I saw you last.”

There are only a few explanations that I can really come up with:

A. People hate me. Therefore, telling me I’m fat is explained, but why they continue chatting is a bit of a mystery...

B. The rules of society suddenly changed over night without my knowledge and it is now perfectly all right to tell people that they are fat in passing conversation...

C. ...Well, I can’t really think of another reason...

Perhaps I have the opposite of Anorexia? Perhaps I am actually a rather obese individual but when I look in the mirror I see a fairly normal sized person. Whatever the reason it is becoming very disconcerting. I’m wondering if I should develop a case of bulimia to start trimming down the waist line...? I mean if you ignore the acid-ravaged teeth, the increased risk of falling over DEAD from heart attack or stroke... Bulimia is kind of an attractive option. All right, maybe not.

I suppose it’s up to me to start the defense, and they say that the best defense is a good offense right? So the next time I run into a casual acquaintance, I think I might start with :

“Hey! Whoa! Wait a minute... Are you piling on the pounds? Gee willickers fatty, you’re really porkin’ up huh?

Anyway, how’s your study going?”

Sounds like a good opener to me.

Symposium.

Wed, 1 Aug 2007 16:02:18 +0800

Three men sat in the cabin of the industrial van. Four, if you count the monkey. There was Jimmy at the wheel who held a dildo and grinned a maniacal grin as he waved it around, touching the other two men with it and exclaiming :

“I’m just kidding! It’s not real!”

Next to Jimmy sat Carlos. Carlos had a swastika carved into his forehead in the Charles Manson position. It eerily juxtaposed the manicured mustache and goatee he wore. A long cigarette holder was perched between his lips and he sucked hard to inhale the smoke of his clove cigarette. He chuckled briefly before staring at Jimmy with a fierce glare.

“Stop cutting me with your tiny pie cutter!” He screamed.

“I like pie.” offered Jimmy.

Next to Carlos sat Dodgy Ricky with the gorilla neck. He was the oldest and wore his hair and mustache like Adolf Hitler. The only discrepancy between this man and the aforementioned German Dictator of yore, cosmetically at least, was the fact that where his hair was combed over neatly and weighted down with old hair gel, it had been let to grow long and almost touched his shoulder. Mojo the monkey sat on this shoulder, amid a curtain of slick hair and chirped, scratching at his own cheek. Dodgy Ricky with the gorilla neck sat silently with an impotent expression of contemplation on is old face.

What the fuck am I doing here? He thought. And why are my pants damp?

The Boy Bought Me Gin and That’s All Right.

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 15:58:17 +0800

How strange is it to say good bye to someone?

I thought that I'd had my fair share of saying good bye. I thought that I was pretty well versed at it. My father died when I was eleven and my grandfathers both died shortly after that. I had the saying good bye thing covered. I also got pretty good at being a pall bearer.

But the thing is I'd never said good bye to a friend. And don’t panic now… no one’s died. But I’ve had friends go away recently, go on holidays and trips and exciting adventures and I’ve had to say good bye to them for a little while, or for a long while or maybe for ever.

And I’d never done that before. Ever. And it broke my heart.

Bridget and Dave went way. And though I know, eventually, one day they will be back for some time at least, it doesn’t change the sorrow I had at saying good bye to them both and their beautiful little boy. And it only makes it worse that I was happy for them. Excited for them to be living such a fantastic adventure and at the same time my heart anticipated their absence, that they would leave and they would be gone. That part of my heart will have no reflection, it will mirror nothing because my friends will be gone.

Dave and Bridget, Adam and Hannah, Lou and Ross, all these people who I’d grown to love all going away recently for one reason or another and more saying good bye than I thought I could handle. It’s strange, and an indictment of the human ability to express love, that my feelings for them had not felt so strong as when I had to say good bye to them. But they will be back one day. We will see them again and we will laugh with each other and annoy each other and chat and argue and discuss and sermonize.

Saying good bye for a little time or a long time has both an honest and a selfish pain to it. An honest yearning for that connection not to be lost and a selfish need for that someone to remain, if only to keep your own inner compass properly aligned.

Carl has gone away too, gone to the other side of the country to go to Drama School. And though I started out disliking him intensely, I discovered that I had come to very much enjoy his company. We took him out for dinner and drank with him and laughed. Said good bye.

But the boy bought me a bottle of Bombay Sapphire after dinner and that’s all right. I drank a few glasses and remembered that my beautiful partner and I will leave too soon, for our own exciting adventure. We will make new friends and re-meet old ones. Our own lives will go through an exciting and tumultuous odyssey.

See? Gin fixes everything.

Carnival Dream.

Mon, 9 Jul 2007 15:56:32 +0800

We sip sweet, cold coffee in the showground, behind a row of dirty canvas tents. Old fraying ropes kick out like dog-legs, brown, rusted tent pegs buried in the earth. Daylight is fading and the afternoon air is full of dust and shafts of angled light. You and I sit on an old bench, layers of paint like years on it’s surface and tufts of long grass around its legs. There is sugar on the air and the warble of an old and ailing calliope that skips notes and hiccups along the tune. The ground breathes, warm and grassy around our ankles. A small elephant walks by, led by a clown whose wig is stuffed under his arm, he smokes a clove cigarette and his brown skin peeks through the flaking white paint. A blonde, ruddy-faced little boy chokes by a great, old fig tree and people stop to gather around. His mother, bundled up and lugging bags and packs and balls of candy floss, screams. A man in a dark green groundskeepers uniform, shorts and soiled shirt, with big, blackened hands smacks the trembling boy on the back. A wet and unchewed chunk of hotdog flies free and tumbles along the ground, collecting a layer of sand, coming to a rest against the trunk of the old fig tree. The boy gasps a ragged breath in through his tiny mouth.
You look away and up at the sky, and as you tilt your head back, the ends of your hair, like golden flames, tumble further down the bumpy path of your spine, and meet the band of flesh between your cotton shirt and your dark blue jeans. You close your eyes and breathe in the carnival air.
A chilly breeze snakes around us in he dusk and paints a picture of the showground that makes me close my eyes with you. We take great syrupy lungfuls of air through our noses, there is sugar, popcorn, dirt, cinnamon, coffee and hot-dogs, turf and horse shit, sulphur from the fireworks and the warm, close smell of human bodies.
A man pushing a cart full of hay stops by our bench. He has one green eye, the other is white and dull like a tumbled stone. Above this eye, an old scar divides his forehead and below it his cheek is puckered. He looks at you side-on, his green-eye side. He places a paper cup full of yellow, showground flowers at your feet. He gives me a little nod and pushes the cart along the dirt path, around a canvas tent and out of sight.

Half a Brain & An Ounce of Etiquette.

Mon, 9 Jul 2007 15:32:00 +0800

Don’t get me wrong, I love having people over to visit. I love having people in my home, it’s a good half of the reason that I’ll ever clean it or try to make it look pretty.

HOWEVER, you and I both know that some assholes will just snake their way into your house and start nosing around like an old incontinent Labrador, won’t they?

So this punk, and I use the term ‘punk’ with all the old-fogie bitterness that is associated therewith, rocks up to our house the other night and makes what I’m sure he thought was an absolute sterling gent of himself. The sad truth being that I was praying to God every second that he was in my house that he would just GET OUT. It wasn’t bad enough that this guy came over on some flimsy pretense of being this guy’s cousin who had dropped in to see my partner and to get back a hip flask that he had lent me once, but his cousin was a special kind of all-at-once offensive. His hair, his voice, his hideously offensive mustache and his tired and pathetic I-used-to-be-in-a-really-good-band-once spiel.

Now, if I have a rather expensive and shit-hot collection of Absinthe (and I’m talking about genuine, distilled, just how they used to drink it in France, Absinthe here, not some half-cocked mouth-wash distant cousin to absinthe that so often comes without the ‘e’ and essentially means a bottle of flouro green lighter fluid sold to you by some toothless hobo in Prague) then the reason I will put said collection on display is NOT so you can stumble into my abode, unwashed, unintroduced to me and half cut and start picking up and waving around bottles of alcohol that cost more than everything you’re wearing...

Mustache wearin’ freak: “Hey have you tried Cannabis Absinthe, buddy? It’s real smooth and it kinda glows.”

Me: “No.” Can I stab you in the face? Lots?

It’s these kinds of exchanges that I suppose make it all the more special to have a complete stranger and moron as a house guest. Needless to say I decided very quickly that I needed to take some drastic action before he started drinking my alcohol or looking at my CD collection (it’s a funny mode of collecting music that folks from the nineties will remember...). So there was only one option and I went for it with all the gusto of a public servant trying to avoid work:

“Well it’s lovely to see you guys, but Velvet & I were just on our way out.” I pick up my keys, I start turning off lights...

“Cool, we’ll come for a stroll”

The headache that is my life never fails to challenge me in new and painful ways every day. So Velvet and I make for the nearest club, The Norfolk Basement, in the hopes of losing the house guests from Hades.

I guess the most important thing to remember is this: Don’t let people you don’t know into your house. And in the case of most of the people I know, even then... think twice before opening the door. You’ve heard all of this before I’m sure, but at least not all of the experience was bad... About twenty minutes after we got to the club, they decided to go their own way and we could do nothing but cry a little and thank God for releasing us from the burden of their company.

To learn more about Absinthe, go here.

To learn more about getting rid of obnoxious house guests, join a gun club... Or a nudist colony... Or both.

Preferably both.

Chicken Heads on the Poop Deck.

Sun, 1 Jul 2007 15:52:39 +0800

Remy had kicked the man from the bank off the pier and into the dirty harbour water. He cast off while the suit was still flailing about in the muck, clinging to his black leather briefcase for dear life. As Remy’s boat pulled out of the quay he spat at the bank guy.

“I think I hit the fucker too, but he was floppin’ around like a kidney on a stick though... Hard to tell.”

Remy’s friend Paco just nodded and handed him a Bloody Mary.

“Goddammit Paco, you shit eating savage, what do I want this for?” He pulled the stick of celery out of the highball and through it over his shoulder where it bounced off the deck and plopped elegantly into the ocean.

Remy took a cautionary glance beyond the mast at the shrinking Harbour.

What swine. He thought. To talk about money in a Yacht club? Are they unscrupulous whores?

He held a mild condolence for the most recent Bank-man he’d had a meeting with though. Remy threw a handful of cash at him, pissed on his desk as the suit just sat there agape, urine cascading off his gilded blotter and filling up his lap, and then promptly set fire to his office door on his way out. Remy honestly felt that, even though he may have had a brief and passing moment where his decorum was compromised, the suit had got what he deserved . And so that was that.

“How far is it to Fiji from here Paco?” He yelled back over his shoulder. He sat on a banana chair at the nose of the boat deck and sipped his Bloody Mary.

Paco kicked chicken heads off the poop deck where Remy and the Yacht Club caretaker, a little Swedish man named Yen, had been doing some recreational shooting the night before, liqoured up on rum and smoking fat cigars that had left ash streaked all over the boat’s shiny white shell.

The yacht bumped and swayed slightly as the giant sails dragged it out into the blue, glassy eye of the ocean and every now and then Paco would hurriedly tighten a rope or let one of the sails loose to catch the razor-blade breeze. Paco looked up at the nose of the boat where Remy had risen to piss off the side of the boat. He looked at the Bloody Mary beside the deck chair and stooped down the ladder into the cabin to fix Remy a G&T chaser.

Remy dropped himself back into the banana chair and closed his eyes for a second. He sat up slightly, reached down and pulled a tan Gladstone bag out from underneath the deck chair and unlatched the top. The bag popped open like the mouth of a giant mutant carp. Inside was a sheet of acid, a bottle of Swedish absinthe, a bag of mescaline and a coffee can full of DMT. Tucked into the inner pocket was a bowie knife and a Luger PO-8 pistol.

Bah. It’s a girl’s gun but it’ll do. He thought. After all I may have to get rid of that chowderhead Paco. He asks too many fucking questions.

The Ghost of Christmas Past.

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 15:49:04 +0800

What biological imperative is it that refuses to let us forget our ex-partners? Is it the mere presence of unfortunate long-term memory cells? Probably, little bastards. Would we not rather forget these people? Erase these fuckers from our minds so that they don’t have the opportunity to pop up into it again, amid some otherwise pleasant recollection?

I’m not saying that we should have to revert to the people we were before we met them, after all there a plenty of lessons that I have learned that I am grateful for but which are the direct result of a failed relationship. Like for example: Don't date sluts. Or... Don’t go out with cheating whores.

See? Valuable lessons that I would otherwise not have learned. Although in retrospect I should have at least had a vague knowledge of these lessons already, but hey...

The seasons are changing here and the air is getting warmer, particularly at night and something about warm nights reminds me of Christmas. Anyone in the northern hemisphere will have absolutely shit-all idea what I’m talking about but trust me, when the air starts to heat up and you can sit outside under the stars and listen to the crickets... I just start craving that Yuletide joy. So one night I’m sitting outside thinking about Christmas, as we’ve already established I am wont to do, and an Ex pops into my head. Something about Christmas and the Ex. I don’t know exactly what it was, hell I don’t care but what I want to know is why? Why would my mind try to punish me so?

Remember her? What a crack-whore huh? And YOU dated her! HA - HAH!

I mean really? My mind shouldn’t be able to just randomly go sadistic for recreational reasons should it? Maybe I hate myself in some Freudian sense and I actually did it on purpose?

Or may the reason we retain the memories of sluts and crack-whores, bitches and slags, is to make these moments in life more precious. Maybe our mind shows us what it used to be like in order to make us appreciate more what we have right now. If this is the case, I can only hope that my SENTIMENTAL SONOFABITCH MEDDLING MIND GOES TO HELL AND DESTROYS ITSELF IN A FESTERING MALIGNANT PILE OF DEMENTIA...

Because really I have no need for comparison. Velvet, my beautiful girlfriend, is without a doubt the most interesting, funny, loving, inspiring, gorgeous woman I’ve ever met. And I knew the moment that I fell in love with her that I was discovering what love was for the first time. Which means that there a couple of sluts in the recesses of my mind TAKING UP VALUABLE BRAIN SPACE. So here’s hoping they invent some kind of brain surgery that gives you back that valuable brain space that is currently being taken up with useless birth dates and pointless fucking songs that you don’t really like. Things that were once important but which now, in the light of the most important woman in your whole life, pale feebly in comparison.

If you find yourself victim to a random recurrence of a nasty ex-partner memory I suggest cursing that ex-partner with some vicious form of Voodoo or Satanic Magic.

Happy hexing boys & girls...