Syndey - Part Two Point Two - Wake Up! And Such

Wake-Up!...

I had heard about Wake-Up! from a friend of mine, Jessica, who had stayed there during her trip to Sydney about a year ago. Funny enough, she was also the one who had originally made me aware of Cairns, and rekindled my childhood passion to make my way down here in the first place. Formally, I would like to thank her soon, for helping to fertilize the seed of the idea that helped me consider getting the fuck off of my ass, and branching out elsewhere. And, I chuckle a bit now, in considering how the decisions we make in our lives, can do well to inspire or affect others if they allow it.

Remember to thank Jessica.

The Wake-Up! building itself sits cornered at one of Sydney’s busiest intersections, which sits cornered by one of Sydney’s busiest blocks. The block itself houses a collective of three thousand beds in a variety of hostels, making it a popular harbor for armadas of backpackers. All of whom seem to share a similar passion for pleasure and dissimilar languages. It is a modern age Tower of Babel sans divine intervention. And the brick and mortar called for in that blueprinted tower towards elation are composed of chemicals and decibels. There’s a bar at every corner, and a sound system in nearly every room. I fucking love it. Kevin and I could hear the music seeping out through the front doors of Wake-Up! as we made our way towards the steps of the eight story building.

Today, Wake-Up! is among Sydney’s Heritage buildings. Originally constructed as a department store way back in the day, it dons its history well from the outside. The red bricked, gothic architecture does well to take you back to a time when the men were men, the sheep were nervous, and Franz Ferdinand had yet to take a cap to the jugular. The inside however had an entirely different time-lapse effect all on its own...

Kevin and I stepped past the sliding glass doors, smiling like two boners in a brothel.

“Holy shit...”

The lobby was bright white and palatial. And had we not been consistently reminding ourselves of our location, we would have easily considered that we had stepped through a time warp, and into every pubescent fantasy we’d had about our high school and College years. The place was the epitome of every communal joint in Saved By The Bell that you’d hoped would exist in high school or college, but didn’t. A bar down the stairs to our left, equipped with an arcade and barmaids on par with Playmates, lobby decor and furniture straight out of The Max, and an ensemble of super-hot, foreign girls to compliment the contours of said furniture with the utmost perfection, clicking away on their laptops, before donning their make-up and dresses for a night of drunken promiscuity.

Holy shit... I am eighteen again, living back in the most epic of dorms. But this time, I know now, what I didn’t know then. Maybe, I’ll do it better this time?

Not a chance. You still don’t know much. And what you do know, you do fuck all with...

Fair enough...

We checked in and made our way up to our new room. Kevin and I grinned like fat kids in a fudge factory when an array of women’s perfumes soaked our senses upon entry.

Awesome.

This place was better everywhere. The room was huge. A spacious ten bed dorm with a vaulted ceiling and giant gothic windows, we would share with eight other people. Four of whom, would stay long enough for us to get to know, during our two weeks there. One of whom, by simply meeting her, would aid in shaping the path which took me to where I am today. Formally, I would like to thank her soon for being the great friend that she is.

Remember to thank Sharon.

Sharon and Tess were the only two there when we walked in. Dead asleep and hiding from grey midday light like two vampires wrapped in shadows and coffins of comforter, it was a sight we’d soon get used to. We’d quickly learn, that If they weren’t out drinking or shopping, they were in bed. Not that Sharon was lazy, I would later see her hold down two jobs alongside a predisposition to alcoholism like a champ. She just loves the shit out of sleeping. Francesca on the other hand is a different story all together, and one that kind of sucks at that, so we’ll appropriately pass that turd to the tail-end of these introductions... As for Johnny and Greg, they had yet to be met until later that day. As usual, Johnny was at work, and Greg was checking out the sights around town. Either way, we would meet them, and over the majority of the next couple of weeks, we would all share the same room, a few different stories, and a good deal of experiences which marked some of my firsts in a foreign country, with foreign people, a foreign face, my life on my back, and my sights set forward on an unknown road ahead.

Sharon, Greg, Johnny, and Tessa...

Sharon arrived in Australia shortly before Kevin and I had. A thirty year old Irish girl from Belfast, she had become burned out on her government job back in the UK as a parol officer, sworn off dong for a year--a decision I assumed had been birthed from the death of an awful relationship--packed her shit, and headed out to Australia to ‘backpack’. A term that both her and I use loosely to describe her travel, as she came to Australia with three Cadillac-sized suitcases, full of more shit than necessary to clothe an army of cross-dressing eskimos. An exercise of excess that one could see, if they chose, as merely the materialization of her passionate nature. She loves with all of her heart, laughs with all of her lungs, hates with hot blood and a sharp tongue, and packs like she might have owned a fucking department store at some point in her life. She’s a bit posh, a bit republican, a bit OCD, a bit crazy, a lot smart, a lot beautiful, a lot fun, and most of all, as I mentioned before, a lot loving. I consider myself lucky to have met her, and that she still puts up with all of my shit.

Oh, and she farts like a Clydesdale... I kid... But, seriously...

Greg, was a twenty-eight year old Irish kid from Limerick, who had arrived in Australia months before us with his girlfriend, and had driven across the country with her before she had flown back to Ireland and left him to do some more traveling on his own. And, to this day, unless he has murdered a bus full of children since we’ve last spoke, is one of the most genuine and good-hearted people I have ever met. There were six and a half feet, and two hundred and twenty pounds to Greg, all completely void of malice. He’s the kind of guy who would proffer a pint and a cheer on your best day, and a pint and an ear on your worst. Both without even knowing your name. There’s an understanding in his nature that just might bring peace to the world if they understood as he did. It’s an understanding that I adopted long ago, even before it was broadened and reconfirmed in my studies as a cultural anthropology student. I try to remain cognizant of it every day.

“Do, and allow others to do whatever brings happiness in life, as long as it doesn’t endanger, oppress, or physically hurt anybody else.”

It’s considering simple lessons like that, which make me wish they taught basic anthropology to young kids in school. Somewhere amongst learning how to count the similarities we all share as humans instead of just the differences, and that humanity should always transcend nationality, would be swell. But, that’s utopian circle-jerk fodder of mine, fit for another time...

Aside from our shared experience with the quagmires that were our ‘careers’ in radio, Greg and I shared a fervency for music, which could easily flag us as nerds. He was a former night-time DJ back in Ireland, and had an expansive knowledge on some of my favorite bands. The first second he mentioned The Hold Steady, was the start of a collective fifteen hours we spent conversing on chords and lyrics, and comparing band boners. We also shared a keenness for comedy and writing, that would further motivate me to pursue my passion, and put this all on paper. Granted, it would take another meeting with Greg at roughly twelve hundred miles away to discover said keenness, but nonetheless, it happened, and I consider myself lucky that it did.

Johnny, unfortunately, I didn’t get to know much about. He was the only one of us with a full-time job making money, while the rest of maintained full-time jobs blowing it. I did, however, come to understand a few things for certain. He was twenty-three, from Newcastle, UK, and maintained a confident cool about him equatable to Clooney in the Ocean’s series. Well-dressed and laid-back, he was a good-looking smooth-talker with a sharp wit, and charm that seemed by itself, potent enough to impregnate any female sitting in earshot. As far as I knew, he was loyal to his girlfriend back in the UK, he never seemed to give out the wrong impression, and women fully aware of his monogamous situation still stood in line for the sold-out spectacle. Whether we were in the bar, or back in the room, there was never let down in his response to anything, nor did he ever seem unpleasantly surprised by anything. He had an aura of ease about him that appeared to calm those in proximity. And regardless if he was bluffing or not, it looked as though he took the hand he was dealt in any situation, and made the game work in his fashion. An approach I applauded at times we all sat shooting the shit in that bar downstairs, and still do to this day. He was just plain, fucking cool. And while I’m sure I don’t need to, I hope that he is doing well.

And now that we’ve appropriately placed that veritable poo in the punchbowl...

Tessa, delightfully, was a twenty-four year old train-wreck from somewhere in the UK, where they might raise their children solely on beatings and boredom. And while I’m sure that she had told me exactly where that was a multitude of times, I’ll chalk up ignorance to the indifference that inevitably appropriated my attention at roughly three minutes into any one of her thirty minute droning disquisitions. Not that I didn’t try, I really did at first, but said disquisitions eventually tended to take to me like anchors, and I suppose detachment seemed like the best way to keep my spirits from sinking. Most of the time, her stories were focused on how ‘bored’ or ‘miserable’ she had become, and were drenched in enough despondency to affect the mouth that affected her speech. When she spoke, listlessness had her lips nearly paralytic. Sentences were mashed up into incomprehensible mumbles, and sometimes just trailed-off into silence halfway through, as if she had exhausted herself just thinking about the melancholic monologue. I think the only time I heard her speak clearly enough to easily comprehend was when she was unloading some snarky slight amidst the jubilant laughter of everybody else. Another missile amongst her munitions of misery with which she could effectively attrit the life, joy, and happiness out of any situation.

It should also be noted, that such munitions had a propensity for sinking blasts into me that resonated with heavy dissonance far beyond the light-hearted ambiance of those situations. Mostly on account of disconcerting introspection, during, and post-bombardment. Perhaps that’s why I seem so impassioned on the topic of her petulant bullshit, and felt so inclined to distance myself in the first place. Well get to that later, though.

Anyway, she left for Australia after she had become bored with her rather comfortable lifestyle back in the UK, would eventually leave for Cairns because she was bored of Sydney, and at the moment, is probably subjecting some sorry sap to another story about how bored she is ‘now’ that the only way he feels he can leave it, is by boring himself with a .45 caliber slug, from chin to skull-cap.

I speak from experience....

But, to be honest, I would be lying to say that none of the time that we spent together in Sydney was tolerable. Ninety percent of the time we shared, she was a menstrual maelstrom that I found myself trying to ignore. She wore a frown like a pale, angry clown, with sunken blue eyes, straight brown hair that struggled to meet her drooping shoulders, and she carried her mood like a fucking pallbearer. The other ten percent of the time we spent together, I didn’t know what to do with. It usually occurred when the both of us somehow found each other at night, blitzed on a mix of bad booze and good music, somewhere in the building where both were readily available. Sometimes, it was simply slamming sauce in the dorm room and trading tunes back and forth while the roommates downed drinks around us. Sometimes it was downstairs in that bar, trading verses back and forth while the music blared, and the entire hostel downed drinks around us. And whether it was the clear liquor and distorted chords that pleasantly clouded my perception--as such combinations seem to do with me--or she genuinely checked her bitch bags at the door and came to life in the party, there was something about her during those times to which I was slightly drawn. Like a withered plant resurrected by heavy rains, she seemed resurrected with heavy waves of wine and sound in a rather miraculous fashion. There was a spark that lit up in her whenever said waves hit, and it seemed to catch and warm her frigid fame. Her eyes brightened, her face would flush to the complexion of a living person, and there was something in the way that she laughed, and looked at the ceiling when she danced that I kind of liked for some reason. The reason of course, I would later on recognize with a snatch of chagrin and a chuckle to boot. Either way, it was this ten percent that would eventually blind my better judgement, as that spark would once be bright enough in my hazy phase to blot out the other ninety percent of her that was a vapid vortex of suck, and subsequently leave me with a situation I had known quite well should be avoided. But that’s over a week away at this point.

Told you, you wouldn’t do it better this time.

Stupid me... Fuck it!

Kevin and I dropped off our gear and immediately hit the streets again, to begin what would seem like our routine for the next week in Sydney. And although the weather had officially developed an enduring routine of it’s own in blanketing the skies, or just plain dumping on us, our dedication maintained resilience. Wake up, hit the city streets, eat some grub, hit the city sights, shower up, head down, drink through city nights, puke, pass out, repeat. A rather rigid regimen shaped and driven by the almost boyish fixation we had with our new environment, and the sense of bewilderment that the abundance of stimulus in this city seemed to provide us with. Even if we had to experience the majority of them soaked and sunless. Most days, we’d spend wet, running around to some of the city’s best attractions, elated at every stop--the Opera House, the Botanic Gardens, the Aquarium, the Wildlife Park, Hyde Park. Most nights, we’d try to spend dry in that bar downstairs, watching some of the city’s best attractions running around, elated at every sip--blondes, brunettes, English, French, Brazilians, Australians. An exchange of environment that Kevin and I considered pleasantly adequate. We would simply move from a flood of precipitation, into a flood of sexed up, stilettoed captivation. We were Bobbie and Whitney in a sea of crack... And that sea seemed faintly familiar in so many aspects. One night, mid-sip, with the brim of my glass over the bridge of my nose, I strove to cook up comparisons as I watched six femme fatales stroll across the dance floor. Hot, neon light bending with their stalking stems that swam like an electric, moving watercolor through the refracting bow of my amber-glazed tumbler.

“Jesus Christ. This is almost like being back at State...”

I glanced again to see the tall blonde in the back flip tapered waves of her platinum hair over a lightly bronzed, naked shoulder. It caught a beam of ruby light as it flew and bursted like a firework before falling to a halt, behind the back of her black satin dress. The dress itself, struggling not to slip above or below the slender curves of her nearly bare body. She turned her head in our direction, and lit up the distance between us with bright green eyes. I struggled not to let my beer slip above or below my fingers.

“Yeah, bro. Except there’s... Holy shit, those girls are gorgeous. ...No class.”

“Yeah, I saw them... Good point. And it appears this place accommodates accordingly, it’s been a perpetual party pit for the last five nights. ...And I think that tall blonde just turned me ‘tarded. I just spilled beer on myself, like a fucking infant.”

“Yeah. Fucking Side Bar’s got us. ...I can’t stop staring at them.”

“Haha. Good call. Let me rephrase that, ‘this is almost like being on a pseudo classy, college Spring Break.’ ...Yeah, I might need a brain wash, it’s getting filthy up there.”

“I know, man. I feel like I’m in a movie right now. Dude...”

“Rad. Let me know at which point in your script, those girls get all Australian Pie on us.”

“Cheers.”

“To fucking Side Bar...”

And while I write this now, I feel like if I could travel back in time and do it again, said salut would have to be loaded with far more sentiment than either of us had intended the first round. In fact, while writing this, I had almost scrapped the anecdote above in fear of being too tangential. But the reality is, as I think about it, that place and moments in it like that, played a huge role in shaping our collective experience in Sydney. Side Bar had become like our base. A pivot point between consciousness and lack thereof, where I would have as many servings of reality as surreality, and make memories of as many moments as I would forget, blacked-out beneath a strobe light. It was a beacon and a black hole to us, all the same. We’d convince ourselves, after a long day out, that it was a place for us to hang our hats and relax with a cold beer and a hot meal without blowing the bank. But as I mentioned before, the place had a certain setting to it that tended to line us in, via our wide open eyes and ears--and balls for that matter, as long as we’re being honest, because we know what’s running the show most of the time, especially with surroundings like that. The music would start pumping, and our testosterone levels would follow suit as droves of beautiful women descended into that basement from somewhere up above. And as follows, the two or three intended beers would multiply into into twelve or more in a rough two hours time, and the durability of that bank would be heavily tested.

For the most part, however, I don’t think the either of us really gave a shit big enough about that bank to deter us once those tumblers started tilting for those first seven days there. For one, we were just having too much fun. We were amazed by the novelty of our situation, and figured we might as well experience it to the fullest. We were halfway around the world, jobless, young, single, untethered by the burdens of our past (or at least attempting to be in my case), and uncertain of our futures. I think we were just trying to live in the present. Second of all, when it came down to it, we were really just fucking tired of worrying about money. Kevin had been stressing about it for the last year, after being laid off from his job, subsequent to a mere eleven months of service. And I had spent the last few years, busting my balls between two jobs, battling to keep the balance in my account over zero, and stressing over the plausibility of overdrafting with every $1.80 transaction.

A battle, which when lost, would be succeeded by an application of overkill on behalf of the lovely Wells Fargo, that was sure to make you feel not only like you might have just lost next week’s meal money, but that you were also kind of losing at life. A disposition which they had seemed far from reluctant to compound and exploit. Because nothing really says, “Fuck you, poor guy!" quite like tacking a thirty-five dollar fee onto a buck-eighty cup of coffee that was purchased after the morning shift, in order to stay awake for the night shift.

Although, I suppose if you’re a bank that’s going to take in a record three-billion dollars in profit in your first quarter of the year, you need to pull it from whatever pockets you can. And I guess that paycheck to paycheck type of lifestyle was one that I adopted when I decided to punch in for pennies and nickels at that station. Not that I regret it, I don’t. The friends and experience I walked away with from that place are worth far more than any paycheck could have ever amounted to.

And I’m obliged to raise this warm Sapporo to some of them now...

Remember to thank Nate and Jason...

But, I digress. The fact is, being poor totally fucking sucked, and when I stepped onto that outbound plane in San Diego, after selling my Ranger, my computer, and nearly all of the secondhand furniture we had accumulated over the years, I had more money in that account than I had ever had in my life. And Kevin was able to compile enough savings to make his account comparable after shacking back up with the parents, and being bill-free for a few months. And while it really wasn’t much, it was enough to allow us to put our stress at rest, and feel like kings for a short period of time. So, we dined and drank accordingly. At least in juxtaposition to what we were used to. Even the ten dollar steak deal down in Side Bar seemed like a meal beyond our former means.

“Bro, this is ridiculous, we’ve been eating steak for the last four nights.”

“I know. I’m eating better here than I ever did back in the States.”

“Yeah. It beats the shit out of Mac & Cheese without milk every night.”

“The ‘Mac’ has been Pac-man, Paquiao’d.”

“”Nother beer?”

“Several, please.”

And so, the cycle would catch wind again, and we’d rage on like a hurricane, blowing money and braincells out onto anything we saw fit to feed the euphoria fix, without any regrets the next day. Steaks, beers, shots, fifteen dollar cocktails, a sixteen dollar pack of cigarettes, twenty-five dollar breakfasts to settle gurgling guts the morning after. All of it, without hesitation. But like all things, good or bad, they must come to and end. And nearing the end of that week we’d find ourselves subjected to a series of events, and revelations that would rightfully throw us from our thrones, and put the kibosh on our drinking and spending spree. Or, at least attempt to. Let’s stay in it for a while though. Because even after hurricane California had been officially neutralized and subsequently drained by the elements of that Harbour Town, I don’t regret a thing. It was fun as shit. And I suppose now, would be the appropriate time to summarize the rest of the novel experiences with certain things, events, and people, that and who, made it that way. Including, a rather comical clash of character, which later lead to the both of us having shit beat out of us in the middle of a cold, wet street.

Sydney - Part Two Point One

Jesus... And it seems I had just sunk into it. The dead awaken again in such a familiar way.

I’m torn up and out of sleep, gasping. My respiratory tract on fire with the friction of breath forced rapidly through constricting airways. Asphyxiating on churning surges of hot, stale air and anxiety. My eyes fly across the room, desperate to make sense of shapes and shadows. My pen and an open notebook cling to the heat on my bare chest.

It’s okay. You’re still here.

I purge the panic in one heavy and heaving exhalation, and crack a slight smile. Something I usually haven’t been able to do so easily before in such episodes. There is solace garnered in the aforementioned thought. The tension drains from my shoulders, my elbows fold, and my head falls back to be joined with my sweaty pillow once again. I wipe the sticky away from my eyes.

These Fuckers followed me down here?

I think about the dream.

Fuck that noise...

It’s 1475 Hornblend. I’m back inside those four walls that saw the majority of my last four years outside of that goddamned studio. I miss them a bit now as I write this. They were tall and painted Swiss Coffee, though they tended to wear shades of their own that did well to mirror the moods. On days and nights the door in that room saw pleasant traffic, those walls were brightly lacquered with laughter and love. On days and nights it didn’t, they tended to suit themselves in shades of silver and gray. And in all of them combined, those walls harbored an abundance of my happiest and most horrific hours. Triumphant build-ups, brutal breakdowns, nights of endless laughter with friends like family, streams of tears, bottles and beers, profuse drug abuse, far too many sleepless nights, far too many nightmares, far too many dreams unmet with fruition, a lot of beautiful songs, and a few beautiful women.

But I digress...

How considerate of some of them to come and join me here.

I sit angled to the left in a red chair against the wall by my computer. A pivot point in a circle of family and friends. Nate. Wolfe. Natalie. Georgia and Jordan sit on my bed. Andy stands in the background with a nail gun and roofing, constructing what looks like a house. My father sits in a chair to the left of me, my brother to the right. Their presence commands my attention. My mouth is a broken sieve, spilling a muddle of syllables saturated with exuberance. I’m emphatically trying to describe in detail every inch of this magnificent place, and how happy I am, but the task is baffling. The ideas are fluid, and the words follow suit as they merely spill out and onto the floor. It’s okay though, they understand. They can see the joviality I wear just above my jawline. Until spontaneously, I make sense of syntax.

“Shane, you would fucking love it here! We’ve got to check out the bridge when we get back to Sydney tomorrow.”

It’s then that something clicks, and I realize where I am again. My brother’s face goes stone cold, my father shakes his head slowly, and the room darkens.

Oh my god... I’m not going back, I fucked it up and I’m home already... Oh, fuck!

At my revelation, the circle begins to stand, and make a line for the door. Jordan is the first to her feet. A rictus of disgust raked across her face. Her eyes, hollow, black holes, crushing space behind my ribs. She exits without a word.

Shit.

Georgia stands with the waterworks welling in her eyes.

“I’m so sorry”, she whispers. Her hand slides softly beneath the contour of my jaw, slightly lifting my face to meet her descending eyes.

She begins to walk out. The rest in the back are gathering the last of their things and making their way to oblivion.

“Fuck! Wait!”

Are the last two words I construct with competence. I jump up and try to plead, but what were once words flowing out of my mouth have become sand, and it’s trapped my tongue. It’s coming faster and faster and dumping at my feet. I bite down to try and stop it, but my teeth crunch and crumble as they come down. The pouring sand becomes streaked with blood as it begins to shred gums and nerves that once held teeth, and bury the floor beneath me. It chews the tools I’d use to sound desperate screams as it passes, and leaves me choking. I look to my father and brother, the last two who remain sitting while the others exit. My brother speaks first, with the cadence of a character whose expectations were well met. He smiles a bit and shrugs.

“It’s okay, man. You fuck up.”

He stands, steps around the mound of strawberry now engulfing my knees, and makes for oblivion.

Fuck...

The door slams as he leaves, and I see those still grey walls shatter into never ending cascades of sand. They are rushing downwards, and beginning to swallow the room from the outside, in. It’s collecting at my guts now. Tentacles take shape from rising plumes of dust to whip about my face and sting my eyes.

You’ve got to be shitting me...

I raise my eyes to my father once again. He sits calmly in his chair. His left foot draped over his right knee. Elbows on the armrests, boney bases of a tower pinnacled at five points by ten fingers pressed firmly together. His eyes fixed on the fiasco that is my circumstance. He seems to be the only thing held together at this point, while all the rest comes tumbling down. A deluge of disappointment damming behind his concrete visage, merely calculating a point at which to open up, and further flood this joint with utmost effectiveness. A disposition to which he seems well accustomed.

How familiar. A fucking commandant of confidence amongst the chaos, ready to eloquently offer a swift and serrated opinion on my plight...

My efforts only drop and dissipate into dust on their way to his ears.

A disposition to which I am well accustomed.

I try to rally, and brace myself for those flood gates to open.

Stop being such a pussy, you sand sacked, sad sack... Lift ‘em and grab em. Let’s fucking hear it...

But it doesn’t come. No deluge of disappointment. No lecture on letdown. No fucking, trite address on my much needed reform. And it’s what comes instead, I think, which terrifies the most.

Still sitting, he leans forward. Elbows relocate to his knees, and his hands fold. The damming deluge is swallowed, and the concrete visage softens. He gives me a look with concerned eyes.

The commandant of confidence has now become a conduit of compassion, ready to convey sincerity, sympathetic to my plight? For fuck’s sake...

I anticipate debasement, regardless.

“Preston, I’m really sorry, but you really fucked this one up... Some people just don’t have it.”

His eyes begin to dampen, and he’s holding back tears. Something I have never seen before in my life, and it scares the shit out of me. A wave of horror flushes through my veins, and it scrapes like scissors against nerve endings in its wake. It’s lit my limbs on fire inside.

Are you fucking serious!? What the fuck is that!?

(Strangely enough, within a few minutes in the conscious world, I knew exactly what ‘it’ is. But here, my imagination is met by my emotion, and they work at speeds unmet by my logic... A logic that I’m just learning to become cognizant of in the conscious world. We’ll touch on it briefly below, and even more so when we get to Cairns).

He stands, and with heavy steps, makes his way to oblivion. The door shuts, and the room shatters into shadow. A single spotlight emerges into existence in front of me, and it’s staring right into my face. I try to scream, but am still choking on a cataract of sand, stained crimson.

I might as well be coughing up chainsaws.

Sand is now caving-in against my chest, and I’m desperate for air to fill my lungs. My muscles tangle and tear in fruitless attempts to thrash about. I can’t move. This is hell. It’s now dumping against my face, and the coarseness is consuming me inside and out as it’s carried. My guts are being served on a slide of sand. The taste of blood and dust is thick in the back of my throat. And as I struggle for my last few breaths, I finally come to understand that as the last one has left, it’s me, who has become ‘oblivion’...

And I’m torn up and out of sleep, gasping.

It’s okay. You’re still here.

I laid in that bed for the next ten minutes, thinking about the shit grenade that had just detonated inside my dome, before I decided to suspend my dissection of it for another time. Partially on account of the occupancy of other thoughts involving this new place. Mostly on account of not being ready to rehash another shit show with the skeletons in that cluster-fuck of a closet, just yet. In that ten minutes, however, I had come upon three consecutive conclusions. I’ll summarize them quickly for the time being:

One - While even in my dream I tried to feign ignorance regarding my father’s condemnation turned compassion, deep down, I knew exactly what ‘it’ was, and ‘it’ terrified me nonetheless. As far as everybody close in that circle, sans Jordan, they were the amalgamation of eyes and ears that had heard and seen me sad and stupid, over and over again for years on end, and I think they just wanted to see me happy out here. They had faith in me, and I was miserable to let them down again. ‘It’, however, was the faith that had been put into me by ‘him’, as I embarked on this endeavor, and was reluctant to acknowledge in the face of failure. A faith that he had placed in me only once outside of graduating college, and it was fucking unfounded anguish to let him down. It was a faith that I saw he had in me when I stepped out and onto that tarmac.

Fuck...

Two - I’m a twenty-six year old man, and I’m doing this for me. Why should I care about what anybody else thinks? I’m incredibly lucky to have the support that I do, but, the only expectations I need to live up to are my own.

Like the ones that you’ve been ‘meaning’ to live up to for years?

Double Fuck... It’s got nothing to do with them, it’s got to do with me...

Three - I just might have come off of that plane with a bit more baggage than I had expected...

Figured those skeletons could have packed light...

I glanced around the room once again at my ten minute mark. Kevin, out cold in the bunk to my left. Our german girl above him in the same fashion. Johnny Rotten Balls’s bellowing snores reverberating through the foam and web of wire above me. A barrage of backpacks and clothing lit pale by the faint street light permeating the air via a window that’s gained a thickness at its base on accord of viscosity and time. I had made sense of those shapes and shadows. And in doing so, garnered enough comfort and confidence in the moment to put that dream on the back burner.

Fuck it! I’m in Australia...

Besides, it was the day that we finally got to vacate such a shit hole. And aside from that, I had a feeling I’d have plenty of more chances to work out my differences with those skeletons... Little did I know, it would take me until Cairns to do so...

I fell back asleep for another couple of hours, and woke up around 8:00 AM. Kevin was stretching off a night of solid slumber to the best of his ability in the confines of his bunk. We looked at each other and smiled with caked eyes and dry mouths.

“Let’s do this.”

“Fuckin‘ A...”

I didn’t say a word to Kevin about the dream. I still haven’t. I figured there was no point if I wanted to keep it on the back burner. Besides, silence was essential to a method I had subconsciously assembled in the past for dealing with such issues, and minimizing them. “The less people I tell, the less of a reality it becomes.”

Beautifully, this worked the other way as well, when I wanted to speak something into its own grander existence. “The more people I tell, the more of a reality it becomes.” I had constructed an army of irrational fears, relationships, and dispositions by such methods throughout the years. Like I had done on nights in the past, when I might have sat behind a bottle, dousing some unfortunate pair of ears in an overdose of self-disclosure in an attempt to not only solidify some sad, manufactured disposition of mine into a greater reality, but to also confirm it as acceptable.

“I’ve done nothing with my life. Of course she’s not going to waste her time with me.”

“I’m not going to make it. It’s fucking pointless to even try.”

“I am nothing...”

I knew by this time of course, that such silly states were merely the results of my perceptions playing the tricks I had taught them to. My perceptions paving down paths I had unknowingly asked them to, after my sub-conscience had manufactured them in the first place to serve some crooked agenda of mine. More often than not, it was an agenda focused on facilitating acquiescence to discomfort brought about by deliberation on aspirations left unmet. An agenda to keep me thinking that just maybe those wants are too far out of reach--be they a job, a fucking date, or a new beginning--so I’ll crack another beer in a comfortable chair and drown said deliberation. An agenda to keep me from trying to meet those aspirations. Because easier than trying and failing, was not trying at all.

Eventually, at some point in the recent past, I came to realize that my perceptions didn’t transcend truth, whether they sought to ignore truth completely, or bend it to my benefit. I knew that making a conscious decision to keep my mouth shut to Kevin didn’t change the fact there was still a problem manifesting itself in my sleep that needed to be dealt with. But, understanding the method also allowed me to use it while keeping an eye on the potential dangers of getting lost in it. I only had to be careful, that’s all. And, no, I’m not justifying it, but on the bright side, it also forced me to take on the problem on my own, which I felt would need to be done at some moment in the future.

We hurried to pack our bags amongst the pigsty, as quietly as we could in consideration of our company. Although our German friend had taken off at some point when I had fallen back asleep, (probably to go jew hunting), Filthy McFunkySack was still sound asleep in his bunk, and god forbid our much anticipated egress be Hallmarked with halitosis. We strapped on our boots, strapped on our bags, threw the keys to the front desk, and stepped out into the Sydney morning air. An air I might add, that had grown a bit chilly for the first time since our arrival beneath the shade of a grey sky. But that was no matter, the day to us remained as bright as our spirits, as the both of us marched on, high on the hike ahead to our new place of residence, Wake-Up!

Sydney - Part One

I have become the most contented zombie alive. I can’t tell you exactly when this metamorphosis took place, but that seems far from important now. I am Kafka with a happy ending, and no, I don’t give a fuck how pissed he’d be to hear that. Maybe it’s this city... Traversing foreign concrete on feet that lost a great deal of their feeling long ago, I am hellbent on satisfying this newly adopted Dionysian diet. You think it’d be easy here. This place is a smorgasbord of sensory satiation, but I’ve garnered a glutton’s appetite, beset with unquestionable tenacity. I’m still hungry. And it’s that newborn perpetual hunger that has kept my heart and mind metabolizing in double-time, everything in sight and sound, while my body shut down around what I believe to be about a day and a half ago. I’ve slept seven hours in the last seventy. My feet are elevated now as I write this--one on top of the other--swollen, red, and dead, like suicidal lobsters with a penchant for Shakespearean melodrama. And all I can think of doing is strapping them up once again, and having them carry me back into this city.

Our plane touched down at seven in the morning in Sydney. Finally... Please don’t take this the wrong way, the plane itself was brimmed with comfort from corner to corner, and just about everything you could think of to keep your mind off of the fact that it was your mobile prison for the duration of fifteen hours--good food, good drinks, and an entire ‘Hollywood Hits’ list to keep your brain busy, right at your fingertips--I just think small seats for that amount of time were tough situations for two kids with big ambition. The gentleman next to us had made the flight regularly for business to and from The States, and his calm beside our antsy exuberance amazed me. I thank him for his patience. I imagine it nerve-racking to see me jostle about the confines of seat 60A like a half jacked-off dog in a winged cage.

Regardless, we made it, and met our driver at the airport doors. Dave, our driver, greeted us with morning-after booze breath and the red you get in your eyes after a black-out night on white lightening. Kevin and I looked at each other and chuckled as we both noticed. There was comfort in the fact that although we weren’t sure if we were in good hands, at least we were in familiar ones. We made it to the van and started off towards the hostel. My eyes ran rampant behind the van’s windows, swallowing in everything in sight. It was eight in the morning is Sydney, Australia, and the sun sitting over the ocean soaked itself through the sky, saturating everything in crystalline brilliance--buildings, trees, and grass alike--the greens themselves, lustered with neon lemon light.

Wow...

We arrived at the G’day hostel a short fifteen minutes later in Wooloomoolloo, about a block away from King’s Cross, which equates itself to The Red Light District of Amsterdam. Booze, brothels, and chicks with dicks sized well enough to put mine to shame are found by the handfuls, or so says Dave... He instructed us to give a cup check if we made our way into a bordello or two, with a wink and a snicker. A snicker intentionally sounded in a manner to let us know he’s laden with secrets and stories on the matter, should our curiosity and his BAC reach requisites for disclosure on them. And from the stumble in his steps towards the hostel, I’m fairly sure we were about three-quarters of the way there. My curiosity constructed comical scenes in my head, and I chuckled to myself as I was brought to thought of tricky trips to TJ pioneered by my better than good friend Nick Colla.

We dropped our bags off at the front desk of the hostel with hesitance. Not that we didn’t trust Dave, who also worked there, I think we were just taken aback a bit by the fact that the place reminded me of a PBS special I once saw on Bosnia circa ’94. But we’ll get that in a second. We headed out to grab some grub and some coffee at an old fashioned Italian cafe called Bill & Toni’s around the corner, and were first introduced to the art that is coffee making in Sydney. Maybe we’ve just been lucky, but it seems that everywhere we’ve gone here, the coffee has been some of the best we’ve ever had. Australians in Sydney make the shit out of some delicious coffee.

So, back to the hostel. I’ll be as candid as I always am. It totally fucking sucks... The people seem friendly enough, it just seems that the joint dons a dereliction you’d find in a Golden Hills halfway home. Our room seems to maintain a thick miasma of dook, and for some strange reason all I can think of is an Indian dude dropping a curry-cut deuce into a chunk of garbage-salvaged Tupperware and giving it a slow sweat in the microwave. Kevin and I are convinced it might be our UK roommate on the bunk above me. He spends all day in bed sweating into dirty clothes and reading sci-fi novels through coke bottle-lensed glasses. The last thing I could think of doing in a city this beautiful. Different strokes for different blokes, I suppose.

Maybe he’s just done everything to do already...

Either way, I wasn’t going to ask. It’s not my place. Additionally, Kevin and I had earlier made the mistake of eliciting a bit of chatter from him, and were nearly laid to waste by a breath that made you wonder if he’s started every day for the last fifteen years of his life by chomping down on a heaping bowl of shit.

Our German roommate is super mellow, and she shares our thoughts on the dilapidated dormitory. But enough about that, we’ve barely wasted much time there anyways... The city beckons us.

We spent our entire first day walking up and down the streets. We trekked from our hostel, to the Sydney Opera House, to the Harbour Bridge, back and forth. The sun lacquered the glass and concrete from street to rooftop with a vibrant golden glaze. Seeing the Opera House left me lifted. Please excuse the triteness of the statement, but something about it just took me off of my feet. I’ve rarely been star-struck, but at the moment, it seems like the most applicable analogy available. You’ve seen it on screen, and you’ve heard all about it, but the time between aspiring to see it and actually seeing it does nothing to prepare you. It is some of my favorite heroes as architecture. Close up, the arching white rooftops, built in the semblance of sails, cut across the sky like giant canines chomping at the brilliant blue above and behind it. We are midgets beneath it. Glinting expanses of cobalt-colored water surrounded us on both sides. The Sydney Harbour is an open mouth to the Pacific Ocean, rowed with rocky teeth that are its many peninsulas. You can glance from one landmark on the far edge of peninsula, across a stretch of water, and right onto another one. We decided to grab a seat at the bar, a stone’s throw outside of the Opera House and found a bench just a few feet away from where the white and blue waves licked the the sea wall below us. We sat in the warm, slow breeze, drinking in more with our eyes than we did with our throats. The Harbour Bridge sprawled across a massive chunk of skyline to the north east of us. The sun sat just behind it blasting rays of light through every opening between its steel beams. It hovered above the water hauntingly, like the skeleton of some massive mythical feline that used to rome this land.

“I can’t believe we’re here,” became our staple phrase for the next two days, and tumbled out of our mouths at least a dozen times while we sat beside that water.

The air here seems cleansing. Just inhaling amidst the our new found surroundings arouses elation, and has done well to perpetuate the production of adrenaline that courses through our systems. This city seems void of that brown collective of combustion you find looming over some of Southern California’s cities. The giant shit-clouds, so to speak. Other than that, the weather here feels a lot like Coastal Southern California so far. It’s autumn and we’ve been walking comfortably in shorts and t-shirts. There’s a pleasant wind along the water that lifts your spirits as it lifts your nose. In fact, between the coastal breeze and scattered palm trees, we’re reminded a lot of San Diego. Fucking awesome... We both love that.

We started making our way back through the busy streets and back to the hostel late in the afternoon. We stopped along the way for a quick beer, and were introduced to two middle-aged couples from Townsville. The next largest town just south of Cairns. Hearing them talk and hearing them describe it--somewhere between the homegrown pride, and the indirect skin-color prejudice--I was automatically reminded of a lot of the time I spent in Temecula. And no, fuckers, not all of Temecula, believe it or not, I do have a bit of a place in my heart for Ol‘ T-mec, it’s just that a large portion of its population happens to harbor an abundance of that small-town-bred racism that I find slightly amusing on behalf of the absolutely nil amount of critical thought or rationality that was exercised in its conception. I suppose most sentiments of the like are birthed in such fashion. C’est la vie. I think the next bit of information garnered, however, was what really sealed the deal. A minute and a half later, I asked them what brought them to Sydney.

“Travis Pastrana.”

No fucking way... Small world.

Apparently there was a giant motocross race the night before featuring Mr. Pastrana himself. A spectacle to which I was first introduced during my days in T-mec.

They taught us a good deal, and comically made it a point for us to watch ourselves amongst the “pooftas” of King’s Cross, although since they didn’t know much about us, we might enjoy a poofta or two. A bit of contemplation led me to discern that they were indirectly making us out to be a good old fashion pair of homosexuals. A familiar accusation that made me feel right at home in a place so far away. A few drinks and a few laughs later, we had made some friends and made our way back.

A twenty minute walk seemed more like two minute swim, treading beneath the city lights with my head bent back and a substantial BAC. Either way, we made it back to the Dook Dorm and decided that the best way to avoid the stench would be to keep our noses submerged in cups of whiskey we bought at the duty free joint in the airport. We made it through three cups and passed out like a pair of pooftas. It was 9:30 in the evening.

The both of us were up the next day at 6:35 AM. We had our shoes on, teeth brushed, and were out the door by 6:40. We were thrown off a bit. The sun here sits at angles that make an early Sydney morning feel like a late San Diego afternoon. I think what we see now, juxtaposed with what we’ve seen most of our lives, has our brains in a bit of a stewy time warp.

We headed up the street towards Hyde Park to find a mass of people decked out in distance running attire, congregating in a swarm on the streets and grass. As we got closer, a pasty Prefontaine or two would blast past us to meet the slow growing marathoner amoeba before it soon purged itself onto the city streets. Kevin and I exchanged expressions of exuberance once again.

Awesome...

I’ve never once given a shit about seeing a marathon, but the fact that I was to now witness my first, throughout Sydney, I was strangely ecstatic. It was the Sydney Morning Herald Half Marathon. The race started off with a roar of cheers and applause, and Kevin and I grabbed coffees, and followed the thunder of footsteps about the asphalt. We crossed intersections, cheered and chewed the fat with skinny sideline supporters, played a bit of Marathon Frogger, and made our way to the stairs of the Harbour Bridge. Holy shit, the whole city was alive and thriving at seven o’clock on Sunday morning. And that thought itself seemed even more so apropos as we climbed the stairs to the bridge and were laid witness to the Harbour awakening below us. A giant beneath our feet, living and breathing, as it’s done for so many eons on end.

Now, I know I’d be doing the whole turd recycle thing once again to delve into some seemingly pretentious, and void of novelty diatribe, on how our obsessions to immerse ourselves in high speed connections from day to day, do well to rob us of making witness to the mind exploding display that is the natural world we are already immersed in. I understand. I find myself drowning in the race all of the time and missing out on life’s finer gifts that surround me, (It’s especially easy for those who spend the majority of their time beneath towers of shadows and concrete in a busy cities). That disquieting feeling garnered in reflecting on the “miss out” is a part of what launched these legs onto this adventure in the first place. The race totally fucking sucks. Hurry up and Facebook. Hurry up and text. Hurry up and meet with clients. Hurry up that BWM into that big garage. Hurry up and tie that knot. Penetrate. Impregnate. Separate. Load that 401K. Hurry up and freak the fuck out. Hurry up and die. The decadence of everything but self-assigned precedence. Blah, blah, blah. I know, you’ve heard it before. I’m not carving out any new niche. Every Coffee Shop Jock with a pack of American Spirits and a Macbook Pro is blogging about the same shit in one poetic fashion or another. “You totally don’t even understand what it all means until you’ve smoked Sour Diesel and spent a day at Scripps...” says Captain Cookie Cut while sipping a 32 oz. Coke, post-tirade on atrocities birthed in the wake of corporate imperialism. And I could easily cop-out, follow suite, and conclude this with an excerpt some hoard of hipsters has already lifted from Lao Tzu, plastered on a bumper sticker, and turned into some misunderstood cum-dumpster of a quote, but I’d rather not. Either way, my sentiments are completely honest... The Coffee Shop Jocks who really mean and understand it, are totally right on this one. It really is a bit of a discomforting thought to think of how many nights I’ve gone to bed in San Diego without taking a minute or two to appreciate how fucking beautiful it really is. The sun, the beaches, the trees, the canyons, Balboa Fucking Park! And it’s not just in San Diego, it’s all over the world. Sometimes it takes something like standing on the Harbour Bridge to watch the sun rise higher into the sky, to really knock me back into that frame of mind. Our selfish, ephemeral agendas can seem so trifling in juxtaposition to this big world. This big, natural world that was here long before we were. I had a feeling there were many more sights to come to keep such cognition consistent...

The wind hit us immediately as we made it out onto the platform of the Bridge from the steps. Our tired feet were tangled a bit as it carried us wayward. We gained our footing and turned, and it pushed against our backs to aid our flight across. We floated halfway, and stopped at a break in the mesh to take it all in.

“Holy shit...”

“Yeah, fucking incredible...”

The sun hovered slightly above our horizontal line of sight, looking a bit down on us. A suspended beacon in the distance, like a Cheshire Cat laughing and lighting this place to life with his bright whites. It hung over the Harbour, slavering vibrance onto the water below. Light pooled onto the surface until the surface itself donned a diamond luster that then bled into the Pacific. The whole thing was ablaze. It seemed you could stand on that sheen, and follow those flames to Mexico. The greens did the same. The browns, the grays, the blues, blacks, reds, and oranges. The sun torched them all to life. The sun torched everything to life. It was all on fire. The Harbour and its inhabitants, the trees, the birds, the insects, the fish, the plankton, Kevin, me... This whole place was alive. It was long before I came to be that way, and will be long after I’m gone. My cell phone doesn’t mean shit here. My high speed hankering doesn’t mean shit here. There is so much more than us. And for the first time in so long, since reading Daniel Quinn’s, “Providence,” I felt a bit more familiar with what he referenced as the “fire of life”. And while I’m not going to sit here and try and tell you what I think god is (I hate using that term to describe it, and I don’t really know what it is for sure), I was cathartically reminded of where, what I call god, was. That fire of life that lives and breathes inside of everything that lives and breathes. If you look right, you can see it in the eyes of others. I’m reminded of days I spent with my nephew.

We stood on that bridge for a twenty minutes that felt like a life time. A steel beam beneath my chin, and the air across my face, I could have stayed and stared until the sun torched my eyes out. We turned and made our way back to the streets. They were still rumbling beneath the stampede. A few more games of Marathon Frogger and we crashed into our rust-ravaged beds at the hostel.

We didn’t last long there, neither of us could sleep. We mostly just tossed back and forth in our beds. A concerto of old, metal creaks and squeaks, that only exacerbated the discomfort of the room itself, and our antsy dispositions.

“Jesus Christ my sheets smell...”

“Yeah, mine too... The tiny dinosaurs on my sheets smell like something they shouldn’t”

“My fucking mattress too...”

*held out dino sheet*

“Gross...”

*sniff*

“Oh my god! Dude, I bet that trio of Scandinavians downstairs probably totally slimed your little dinoes in ropey Swede Sauce post-gang bang, earlier.”

“Bro...”

“Look dude, that little stegosaurus totally just became a meat-eater over the weekend. I think he just winked at you.”

“Dude, fuck you.”

“You should play him some techno. Sven! Take me to Disco! I lovez your locks!”

“Okay!”

“Seriously though, you’re bed smells like a dubbed version of Debbie Does Dallas...”

“...”

“Except Debbie’s a swedish dude with twelve pound balls and a mustache on his cock.”

“Fuck it, I’m drinking.”

“Sweet, make it two. I’m going to hop in the shower.”

A quick shower to soap the scum off my sack, and we were just about ready to head back out a few minutes later. Just about... The bad news, was that exhaustion had begun to set in heavily, cramping around joints and nerves. The good news, was that we had enough booze to force forgetting what joints and nerves were even for, or if we should even care. Three hours and an entire bottle of Jack Daniel’s later, our brains and bodies were well lubed in libations. We stumbled out of the Hostile Hostel (a term for it that would later come in handy), and marched forward, with waves of whiskey washing against the insides of our guts and a determination on par with retard-strength. We’ll soon learn something important about said retard-strength. The sun was just beginning to set.

We made it about nine blocks before we staggered into a hotel for a bite and a beer. My body gunned for the table next to the massive support beam. My mind, running a step and a half behind, would later process that it would be something to lean against while I sat. We picked the first things to catch our eyes on the menu, and were almost immediately introduced to ten dollar burgers that couldn’t have come sooner than me, that one awful, awful time in Vegas... That my friends, however, is another story for another time.

Now, the beauty of dropping a three pound gut-bomb of burger and fries into my system after a half bottle of whiskey, is that I’m less prone to drinking more and putting myself in an objectionable, yet familiar situation, in a strange country. The drawback comes in concocting a Hypnos Elixir that seemed to do me just as well as downing an entire bottle of NyQuil, Greg Frank style, circa 2002, would. Crash.

I’m fried...

“I think this whiskey has me heavy.”

“Huh?”

It was an eyes-glazed, mind-dazed “huh?” that set to question not only the statement that preceded it, but also the entire situation that surrounded us. Delirium had taken a seat beside us. Both of our heads began to hang and sway about our necks. My eyelids were heavy shudders, sliding slowly over globs of glue. I started to see shit. Like those crows from Disney’s Dumbo sitting at the table next to us; cigars and all. You know, the ones saturated with that signature Disney racism, far too adorable for children to dissect? They didn’t want to be bothered.

What the fuck?

I suppose retard-strength isn’t renowned for its longevity. Name one job Corky had after Life Goes On. Awww... Bad taste right? Fuck that noise, he’s the one that got greedy with the chromosomes. I kid...

We finished our meals, and made it about halfway around the city once more. Dragging our feet along sidewalks soaked in Warhol-esque arrangements of neon, via business window lights, they still felt as if the were dragging through the remains of the Titanic at this point. I chuckled at that thought. My head on the other hand, was still halfway to Sirius. Elated. Kevin threw on his MP3 player and blasted “Eye of The Tiger” for the majority of the way back, sporadically fist pumping like an epileptic at a disco. I joined in for a verse or two; my eyes still swimming through a sea of city lights. The colossal, electric Coke sign hanging just ahead at the King’s Cross entrance intersection, beckoned and mesmerized. We stopped a block short of the rabbit hole and turned in towards our hostel.

Up the stairs.

Brush the teeth.

Try to sleep.

Better luck next time. Fuck you, Hypnos... I open my notebook and begin to write. It feels good to stare at that page. This is what I wanted. So much to say. So much I want to do. Where the fuck do I start?

I have become the most contented zombie alive...