Sydney-Part Three

Sydney - Part Three

The morning succeeding that sidewalk scrap felt like round two all on it’s own. I was knocked out of sleep once again by that same fucking dream. Panting through liquor lacquered lips and sweating sour booze in a panic. It was all there. The sand, the friends, my father, the gut grinding anxiety. Except this time it took place in that studio.

You’ve got to be kidding me... That place seems to spend more unwanted time in me than I spent unwanted time in it...

I tried to collect consolation in the comforts of my locale as I had done before, but it only came in a fraction of the surplus it had come in earlier. Somewhere between the hangover headache and the bruises, consolation seemed slight. I could barely open my mouth without feeling like my jaw was tearing from it’s joints. My eye had begun to swell shut, and I could have sworn that either one of those gentlemen had left a hatchet buried in my brain, or Kirstie Alley was getting her Lord of The Dance on, in stilettos on my skull. I chewed over the situation with bitterness heavy on my breath.

What the fuck?...

My stiff eyes stretched slowly across the dark room, and I felt a dose of delirium overtake me. I chuckled and felt tender ribs torqued into sharp pains. I chuckled harder until the pain finally wrenched me down, into a fit of hysteric despair. Hopelessness took to the top of my spirits like an anchor, and tore me south, through dreaded introspection. And I don’t think it really had anything to do with thinking about the fight on it’s own, I still found that halfway humorous, and that’s probably what induced the delirium. I think what followed was maybe just the surreality of my surroundings wearing away, and revealing my position to me in quite a clear, ‘realistic’, and disquieting manner.

What the hell am I doing!? I just let go of everything I knew and owned, and now I’m expecting to have a clue about my life when I own nothing and seem to know even less? I came out here to find myself and the words to write a story and I have no idea where I am or how I’d go about doing so?

I attempted to envision a road before me as I had done so before, laying on that bed back in San Diego, staring at the ceiling. A path. A direction. A course to some sort of fecund fruition. But a mental manifestation seemed somehow made impossible. Once again, all I could seem to manifest was the miscarriage of romanticized expectations.

All I could see was a widening chasm. Darkness. Nothing. Failure. It scared the shit out of me. I considered retreat.

This plight is becoming as trite as it is tedious...

No way. No way. Not this time. Try and sleep it off.

I rolled over onto my side, and felt the stings from the pressure of my own weight against those bruises slowly fade away as I slowly faded out once again.

I woke up an hour later--still before anyone else--a bit more calm. I was somewhat grateful to head down for breakfast on my own. I needed the space, and I needed the time. Plus, I figured it was going to take me forty minutes just to chew through good eggs with a bad jaw anyway, and that just makes for a bad breakfast buddy. I took a seat beneath an umbrella just outside of the Wake-up! Cafe, and listened to the rain pound against the pavement. And with the accompaniment of space, time, a hot breakfast, and the drone of downing skies, I was able to re-establish a stance on TWO fronts. I put it all on the table next to those eggs.

One, I was going to trudge though this no matter what. I was going to step forward, even if I couldn’t see what was before me. Even if it was darkness. Even if I was scared. Even if I might step into another ass-beating, in some shape or form. I was fucking tired of running away. I was tired of failing to finish the endeavors I started so eagerly.

And was ‘running away’ an exercise that may have delivered me half a world away in the first place? Possibly, but we’ll get to that later. For now, in such an instance, running away from running away just seemed like an act that would put me on parallel with being Chicken Shit’s chicken shit. It was doubling-down in a game of Dickhead, and I’d be fucked if I was going to let that happen.

The other front seems even more like a much needed wake-up slap in the face as I write this now. And of course, it seems ever so simple in hindsight as well, beyond the entrapment of my intermittent neurosis. But, said slap in the face and aforementioned neuroses have continued contention for years.

Please excuse the tangent...

Ironically, both contenders have always been backed, and kept in check by my Imagination:

The architect of my aspirations, romanticized expectations, mechanisms of self-annihilation, and trepidation...

On the plus side, at least I never get bored.

As kids, most of us are endlessly schooled about the positive power of vivid imagination. And even the negative, as it sometimes becomes the unsolicited sculptor of ‘things that go bump in the night’. As kids, most of us have lots of time to think vividly. We have lots of time to imagine. Either way, we’re mostly encouraged to embrace it, as it’s often the catalyst for constructive creation. Or maybe it’s just a way for adults to keep us occupied without having to constantly stimulate us...

Anyway, as we grow older, some of us trade vivid imagination for conventional reality. Some maintain it, keep it under control with the reigns of reality, and make it work for them; creating outside of the conventional. And some of us, maintain vivid imaginations and let them reign us and our realities.

*Keeping in mind of course that these dispositions are far from mutually exclusive. I think almost everybody dabbles in all three areas at different times and places.

And though I’ve aspired to mostly place myself in the populace of the second option, I’ve been guilty of finding myself amongst the third more often than I’d like. Especially when concerned with constructing catastrophes in my conscience. My brain’s got a knack for masterfully setting up a series of disaster dominoes, and they are all loaded with Potential-Fuck Shit Up-Energy. One awful outcome ready to tip the next into action. A practice, possibly partially developed under years of conditioning from a father who advised to “always expect the worst”. Well, cheers Pops, looks like I’m fucking rad at that. I kid. I’m not pointing fingers, I’m an adult, and it’s a problem I’ve learned to address like one. Besides, it’s far less problematic than it used to be. There were times back in the day when the slightest mishap could send my guts frantically following the path laid down by those disaster dominoes, until I felt ready to heave those dizzy guts and their soured nerves up like a bulimic at a buffet.

Once on the freeway down to San Diego from Temecula a few years back, I took my eyes off of the road to switch the radio from The Doors, “Light My Fire”. I hate that fucking song... A previously unseen motorcyclist sped past me; the sound of his bike alerting me of his existence. And for some reason I couldn’t help but subsequently envision a scenario where I accidentally cut him off during my ocular aversion, and he was forced to redirect himself in front the school bus full of kids behind me. The bus of course was forced to swerve, over-turn and combust, engulfing every child inside--who was, as you would know, on his/her way to do charity work for a local hospital--while onlookers watched in horror. The hillside then caught fire, and the blaze grew to the size of Vermont, devouring lives, households and several Ma & Pa businesses as it grew, completely bypassing three Wal-Marts. As follows, plagued with guilt and anxiety over the tragedy, I began drinking like Hasselhoff, until one day in drunken misery, I hear The Doors “Light My Fire” shuffle onto my iPod, and end up having to Cobain myself with a shotgun, given to me by one of those children’s parents for just such a purpose.

Jesus...

And that’s the abridged version, I left out the whole part about the van full of puppies and Nick Hogan publicly calling me a ‘Careless Twat’. Fucked, right? And it’s one thing to think about that shit. But to then have made myself feel anxious and ill about it for the next six hours is goddamn ridiculous.

Alright, so that’s rather extreme, and possibly a bit embellished, but not too far from the truth. In other scenarios, sans hyperbole, I used to make myself sick for days mulling over imagined outcomes for situations important to me, gone awry. Sometimes to the point where I couldn’t sleep for days. I couldn’t breath right. My whole body would ache from the anxiety. Most of the imagined outcomes beginning and ending with failure in some sense on my behalf.

If I can’t make it work with this girl...(insert series of imagined consequences)..I’ll be alone forever...

If I don’t pass this test, I won’t graduate...(i.s.o.i.c.)...and I’ll be poor and alone forever...

If I don’t write this story...(i.s.o.i.c.)...I’ll never do anything worthwhile...I’ll be alone...

If I don’t make something of myself here in Australia...I’ll never be anything...

Point being, I’ve come to find that the majority of anxiety attacks I’ve had throughout the years seem to all have one thing in common. They all share the problematic propellant of a powerful imagination, out of control. And I suppose that such a thing only becomes problematic when left unchecked as exactly what it is, an imagination. I think far too often, some of us fail to realize how influential an imagination can be. Some of us fail to realize that ‘mind over matter’ tends to be more of a subconscious phenomenon than the maxim seeks to imply.

Consider the mother ‘worried sick’ because her son didn’t call home at the time he said he would. Or the spouse wrought neurotic because his/her partner is at the office late with a coworker he/she doesn’t trust. Or the hypochondriac who actually makes himself ill with anxiety because he thinks the rash on his foot might be something terminal.

And I think that for the most part, it all arises from a fear of the unknown. Some of us would rather create some sick scenario in our skulls--not intentionally of course--than just consider the fact that we don’t know one hundred percent what’s really going on, or what the outcomes may be. That motorcycle might have just switched lanes and avoided any collision. We attempt to rationalize, no matter how irrationally we may go about doing so. Even if the story we structure, builds well beyond the realm of what’s plausibly possible. I heard the ridiculous stories regarding ‘Obama Care’. Even if the story defies physics, biology, and logic. I’ve read the bible.

*I will however to some degree give the worried mothers/fathers a pass. I think that’s just something intrinsic. I assume I might worry the same way someday if the world is ever unfortunate enough to see me procreate.

I started to fabricate my own story of what lay beyond my own plans in that hostel room. Because what was beyond my ‘plans’ was ‘unknown’. I couldn’t see how everything might work out for me the way I wanted to, so I started to expect the worst. At the time I was scared shitless that things might not go to ‘plan’. An idea itself which was a bitter pill to swallow.

I know, right?

A lot of things never really go as planned, you fuck-wit... Figured you would have learned that in San Diego...

And while I write this now, somewhere in southern France, broke, jobless, and momentarily directionless, on a borrowed laptop--after mine was fried from a tray of spilled beers in an internet cafe--and after all the traveling I’ve done, I’m well aware that things don’t always go to plan. Once again, hindsight is 20/20... You can plan a pretty picnic, but you can’t predict the weather.

Should have heeded the words of Andre 3000 years ago...

Granted, it’s been a laborious lesson to learn. I guess it’s been part of my programming. I come from a family whose father used to plan family ‘vacations’ down to every meticulous minute on a time-sheet. Any deviation from the sheet was looked down upon and would garner a guilt-trip for days and years to come. If you don’t stick to the plan, you will most likely end up, face down, living in a van down by the river, giving hand-jobs to the homeless just to put some food in your hobo-phallus, stroking fingers! I made up the last part... The imagination once again hard at work...

I also come from one of those cultures and subcultures which, for the most part, seems to pride itself on planning every detail in every day, and subsequently through months and years. The youth are ‘persuaded’ to follow a path through higher-education, find a mate, purchase a home, procreate, buy a mini-van, and plan their own funeral behind a white picket-fence, blah, blah, blah. Even if their interests find no overlap with the path previously mentioned. Any deviation from the path is usually looked down upon. To the advocates of the path, if success can’t be measured in an exorbitant surplus of dollars, it can be measured in the procurement of the nuclear family--circa Leave It To Beaver--model. Ironically the self-procurement of an exorbitant surplus of dollars will automatically give you a pass from the path, and you can pretty much do whatever the fuck you want sans fear of judgement.

I think if I ever make a few million I’m going to spend two week planning a three week vacation to Alaska with my Pops, and then have us flown to South East Asia for four weeks instead...

And is it bad to ponder less than pleasant possibilities? Not at all. I think doing so is what keeps us aware and cautious. It kept my eyes on the road the rest of the way down to San Diego. It keeps us curious and questioning. If you feel inclined, maybe you should ask your spouse if they should be worried about that coworker you don’t trust. Or maybe you should get that pseudo-leprous foot rash checked out before you strap on another pair of bowling shoes. Maybe I should do my best to pass that test. But to let those possibilities devour your days is a double-doozy downer. It’s fucked, and debilitating. Especially in extreme cases, like a few of mine. Either get it figured out, or at least take your mind off of full-throttle. I know, easier said than done...

I also understand you can’t always help what you think of. Don’t think of a Ballpark hotdog... I said DON’T think of a Ballpark hotdog. You just thought about it twice, didn’t you? Oh, maybe just a third time. What you can help, is how you react to those thoughts. You can either inflate the faintest ideas you fear into full-blown hells, or you can just see them as a possibility--or not--and act accordingly from there. I’m slowly learning to do that latter.

I say all of this of course, as someone who constantly has to check himself, when his imagination starts to get the best of him. Letting it get the best of me is a bad practice I’ve been practicing to keep in control. The human imagination is responsible for everything outside of the natural word. It’s powerful as shit. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that. And I’d like to thank Dr. Robert Anthony for making me aware that:

Imaginations conceived cities and sky scraper. They conceived trains and airplanes. They conceived music and art. They conceived heart transplants. They conceived “I Have A Dream” and “Gettysburg Address” speeches. They conceived nuclear energy. They conceived wars, ‘ethnic cleansing’, murder, Mickey Mouse. They conceived non-alcoholic beer, ‘Promise Rings’, and the notion of hell--though I do find those synonymous to a degree--etc.

The imagination is a beautiful thing, but can be just as dangerous. Although I’ve come to find that many of the most beautiful things often are...

Thanks for taking that walk with me. Sorry if it was lengthy. Think I had to get it out of the way. I suppose it’s a reoccurring motif throughout these pages of experiences I’ve stock-piled.

So there’s the neurosis.

That being said, I sat at the table and decided that I wasn’t going to let what I didn’t know drag me down. Maybe I didn’t have an idea as to exactly how everything was going to pan out. Things might not go according to plan, but that didn’t mean it was going to wind down to the worst. I hadn’t even really given it a chance. I couldn’t let wayward worry twist up my guts and send me running for the hills.

And here comes the slap in the face...

Besides, things could be way worse...

Fortunately from a young age, my mother had done her best to bless me with the exercise of exchanging perspective. I suppose it was an accessory of her optimism. Whenever I presented a problem she’d offer a possible scenario in which my dilemma could be compounded in some other awful fashion. And then usually came the time when the disaster dominos tipped the other side of the scale. That imagination of mine seemed to work in my favor.

In reality, I was twenty-six, single, healthy, had enough money to feed myself, and was in one of the most incredible cities in the world. I could easily have been robbed blind the night before, and shanked with en e.coli coated screwdriver. I could have been dragged to the desert Wolf Creek-style, and butt-fucked by a kangaroo. I could have been shanghai’d and left for dead in Fallujah. Or Bakersfield... I could have been that guy I saw on the Discovery Chanel that one time who got his junk torn off with cement-mixer in his back yard.

I could be broke, sick, and dickless in Bakersfield...

I winced with that thought in mind, and gave myself a quick cup-check just to make sure the DNA dev. department was still safe and intact. An air of relief flowed through me, and I was brought to thought of a maxim that often used to make its way between a good roommate and better friend of mine back in the day. It roughly translated to “Stop being such a fucking pussy...”

“Lift your skirt, grab your balls, and go for it.”

I smiled, and took in a deep breath. I was going to ‘go for it’. Maybe the fact that I didn’t know how it all was going to unfold was a good thing. At least it wasn’t boring. Maybe things would turn out better than I could imagine! I figured I had a year, and knew that a whole lot could happen during that time. I might as well try to have as much fun, and experience as possible within it.

Isn’t experience what backs a writer’s arsenal anyway?

The sky was still gray and coming down in sheets, but it had begun to look a good bit brighter. Maybe my stance just brought me a little closer to the sun. Good thing, as that flood didn’t seem fond of finishing for the rest of our time in Sydney. And the waters seemed set on testing that stance...

That One Time, That One Chick, Spilled That One Tray of Beers on My One Laptop...

An Interjection: Part Deuce

Alright, I know these are starting to get a bit tangential, but after garnering a good degree of disquiet about the way that things have panned out, and subsequently deliberating the disquiet with a counterpart, I feel all the more convinced that this rather dirty situation needs to be brought beneath the cleansing light of literary exposure.

Traveling to another part of the world can have a profound effect on your body. On a plane, you’re somewhat rapidly removed from the comfortable and familiar elements that you know at home, and forced to biologically adapt to whatever new elements you expose your body to upon landing. In the example of this essay, food. And I understand that some individuals adapt quite more quickly and efficiently than others. We all have different tastes and different make-ups, mentally and physically. And eating food in different parts of the world exposes you to different kinds of bacteria, that you’re immune system isn’t used to fighting. The locals can eat it and drink it, because they’ve built that immunity. And eventually you will to. It just might take a few waves of watery asshole to build it. You know, often a few bouts of that mucousy, brown/yellow, intestinal phlegm that burns on it’s way through you. It sucks, I know. I once drank the water in Mexico when I was a kid. And I once over-indulged on carne asada and disco dust in college. You can’t help how your body reacts. What you can do however, is help how you react to aforementioned reaction. And sometimes the way you deal with the sick, is far sicker than the sick itself.

My thoughts and condolences go out to the innocent towels tragically tainted near the taint in this fiasco...

And our story begins...

*By the way, if you are reading this on your lunch break you might want to pull a trash can up close to you. And if you’re a bulimic, cheers, you might be able to spare the finger or the other end of the tooth brush on this one. Granted, it’s far from Palahniuk or Tucker Max in a hotel room, but it might be enough to pull your lunch lasagna back from it’s gastric grip.

*In addition, the name has been changed to protect the guilty. The ASSailant will take on a series of monikers throughout this monologue. We’ll start with the Brown Bombardier.

ACT I

The Brown Bombardier finds himself in a situation I’m sure we’ve all found ourselves in before. He hastily hauls his hole to the toilet, knocking down anything in his way. He’s desperate not to make a mess in the public arena. That Pad Thai isn’t sitting well. In fact, it’s trying to run through him faster than he can run to sanctuary. Butt, he makes it there. Unfortunately, the relief is brief. He’s lost his guts and toilet paper is nowhere to be found. Problematic? Yes, but far from disastrous at this point, as he has a couple of options open to him. Option one, the shower directly next to him. A bit dirty indeed, but not a horrible out. Just shower off the shame. Option two, a simple request to the roommate on the other side of the door for more toilet paper from the hotel lobby. Probably the most rational option available, I think I’d go with two. Instead, our Towel Tagger immediately requests permission from said roommate to ‘use’ his towel. The roommate, hip to the poopy hoopla going on in the toilet, emphatically protests in a ‘Brad Pitt-At The End of Seven, “What’s In The Box!?”-esque’ fashion.

“Nah, nah! Not on the towel. What’s on the towel!?”

But, the Mud Marauder follows through, and makes his first bowel towel out of a million little fibers.

He finishes his wipe job, steps out of Browned Zero into the bedroom, and apologizes. A shocking attempt to remedy the situation... Whatever, we’ll let it slide and leave that turd trail where it belongs. Behind us.

ACT II

Now, I suppose I should preface ACT II with an important bit of information. It’s been part of my--and I assume most other’s--inherent code of hygiene conduct, that outside of the realm of extreme circumstances--i.e.> extreme poverty, or the article in question is say, an extremely expensive piece of clothing or sentimental heirloom--like the stuffed Snoopy my brother at age two made a Poopy Snoopy--or you have ebola and can’t physically remove your shit shorts from your body--that any article of cloth shat upon is either immediately thrown away, or into the washer accompanied by a vat of bleach. That being said, you may well guess that such was not the case with our fallen fiber friend...

For roughly two days, I walked in and out of our hotel room multiple times, bypassing, with little scrutiny, the white towel twisted into itself that hung over the railing on the balcony. The railing next to the table and chairs. The table and chairs which we, and other guests to our balcony, occupied during those two days. Little did I know that in that towel, twisted up like a Tootsie Roll wrapper, lay something quite similar... I felt cheated...

At this point, during a solitary stand on those steps just below that balcony, our Caped Poosader, makes the ill-advised motion of gambling on a fart. Hardly a wise move, considering the odds opposed by your already grumbling gut, and your tract record... Shame you weren’t at the craps table... Either way, he loses soft and heavy on those steps. Shattered once again, and with his pants a bit tighter in the back, he stands--now carefully--to do something about the mess he made. There is no one around. He looks to his surroundings, and upon that balcony, limp and shamed, like a rag-doll whipping boy, sorrowfully hangs that towel in the breeze. Something tells me that towel knows what it’s like to date Ann Coulter...

Poocasso steals his canv-ass once again, away to the toilet. To continue his Brown Period. His confreres find it far less aesthetically appealing than his Blue Period, and nearly offensive in juxtaposition to his Rose Period.

My counterpart and I are later informed about the mis-crap. Boo... Shocked and disconcerted at the dark information brought to light, and the fact that the towel was placed back to its railing of shame, we emphatically demand that it be removed. It isn’t... Real fucking uncool...

ACT II.5 Just awful...

Three moons past the first filthy episode, Shitlocke Holmes and I try to sleep in our stuffy hotel room. He’s attempting to unravel the mystery of an obnoxious sound resonating from an undisclosed location. The air-con is exhausting itself to cool the room, and sweating up a storm in it’s efforts. It’s leaking from one end. Steady drip/drops spatter onto the tile floor, and echo throughout the air. I let him rustle about.

“I’m going to fix this. I can’t sleep with that sound.”

“Go for it,” I say lazily.

He’s gets it figured out standing beneath the air-con, and starts to make his way outside. My eyes tear open with a slight understanding as to how he plans to “fix” the problem.

No way he’s going to do that. No way!

Way...

He walks in with the towel in hand. It looks like it may have just had the worst week ever. A soggy remnant of a happy soldier once suited for beaches and fresh showers, now suited for German Shyster films. I jump up in protest.

“No fucking way, Dude! That thing is not coming in here.”

“Dude, don’t be a pussy, it’s just to stop that noise.”

“Well, then go to the lobby and ask for another towel. I’ll be damned if that thing comes back in here! That’s fucking sick, Man. That’s sick!”

“It’s just going to soak up that water that’s leaking”

“Yeah, and whatever colon custard it already soaked up from your mucky mud-cutter is going to disperse all over the place. And we’re going have to wade through your waste water just to get anywhere in the room! You want to do that shit in your own place on your own time, fine. But you keep your butt mustard out of this picnic, sir!”

“Fine...” He concedes. He carries the towel back outside and returns to his bed, unappeased.

I close my eyes once again and try to think of finer things to put me to sleep. Steve Winwood’s to be exact...

No joke, he then farts. And laughs. I wince. I’m almost brought to tears thinking about the possible, explosive out-come in his doing so.

Farting used to be funny...

ACT III

The three of us find ourselves in another hotel room, in another city, same Thai country. My counterpart and I at this point, now removed from the shituation, feel a bit more comfortable, if not obliged to openly confront Colon Towell, about it all. The events that unfold in the fashion that they do, are hardly embellished. This fucking story wrote itself before our eyes, long before I could even take a pen to this paper.

“Alright, Man, what’s with you and mud marking the towels?” I start off.

“Yeah, what the fuck, Bro?” Follows the other half of the prosecution.

“Dude, I got sick!” The defense declares.

“Yeah, Man. We’ve all been sick! But I’ve never puked into an airplane barf bag, and left it sitting on my porch until further use. And what the fuck did that towel ever do to you to deserve that in the first place?” I continue.

“And really, with the whole air-con/balcony thing?” The other half of the prosecution interjects with a laugh. I bend over to pick up a few things from the floor as they carry on. I think cleaning the room was a subconscious effort with ulterior motives.

A sock, throw it on the backpack. A t-shirt, throw it on the other backpack. A towel, throw it on the--”What the Fuck!?”

I can’t fucking believe it. Even in the midst of all the turd talk, a big carmel/chocolate chalk mark stares directly into my face from the towel in my hand, it almost looks as alarmed as I am. It looks like Edvard Munch’s The Scream painting if it were made from...uh, well, shit. I gag on it’s intrusive, spicy breath.

I toss another fallen fiber friend to the ground, and the prosecution goes into an uproar.

“Dude, what is that!? It smells like prison dick in here now!” My eyes begin to water.

“I must have stepped in mud or something...” An alarmed and reluctant reply.

“Mud my nuts! You’re on the fourth floor of a building with no elevator. The only way you’re going to cart that much mud up here, is if you’re packing it like a drug mule!” I retort.

“Are you banned from Bed, Bath, and Beyond?” casually continues the prosecution. I can’t help but laugh.

“You guys are dicks...” argues the defense.

“Yo! Adolf Shitler! You can’t just go through life pooping on every towel that crosses you! This isn’t ‘Nam.”

“You know how many poor Thai, house-keeping ladies are probably vomiting now as they unwrap your poopy presents!? You, Sir, are a dick.”

“You’re like a sick villain who leaves a calling card.”

“Batman would have to fight you with latex gloves and a surgical mask.”

“Fuck you, guys!” The defense shouts as he storms from the room in degradation.

“Dude, we’ll stop giving you shit when you stop giving it to towels! They deserve better!”

And so the prosecution carried on in this fashion for at least half a day. Supposedly, the recommended dose to put a halt to the Towel-ocaust. As far as we knew, no more cotton companions were laid to waste. And we can only hope that it stays that way. Either that, or he just got better at hiding it. Regardless, be wary. For those of you who now this Fiber Fudger, have had him in your house, and openly allow him to make a deposit in The Bank of Brown there, make sure to hire extra security. Hide your daughters, hide your wives, and hide your towels... Or hose down the towels in pepper spray, maybe that lesson will stick.

And to the Brown Bombardier himself, sorry, it had to be told. I still love you. Even though that was totally fucking disgusting...

Sydney - Part Two Point Six - Fight Night... Sort of...

Fight Night 2010--Or More Appropriately Named: The Night I Was Properly Fist-Fucked In The Face...

One evening, in the midst of mayhem down in Side Bar, part of the place went up in flames. Apparently, there was an electrical fire in one of the back rooms or some other ambiguous location. Plausibly one on par with the ones in our bloodstreams. We were lit to shit. And even though the fire department had arrived to kick out the swarm of drunkards and put out the fire downstairs, we weren’t exactly ready to extinguish ours. We stood on the sidewalk amongst the boozy breaths of our displaced comrades and plumes of cigarette smoke, openly deliberating the situation.

“Shit man, I was having so much fun. Goddamnit it!”

“Kevin, the fucking place was on fire. What were you going to do, dance around the flames?”

“No, but there’s got to be something we can do. It’s still early, and this mass of people has got to be going somewhere.”

“You boys know where you’re headed off to?” interjected a soft Sheffield accent from over our shoulders. There was an inflection in the voice that cordially requested a response while simultaneously apologizing, in case it was intruding.

“Ha. Hey, Rob. Not too sure yet, you?

Rob was plain awesome. And while I type this, humbled and chuckling in reflection in this library, I must once again apologize to him for the fate that would meet his face later in the night on accord of involving himself with us.

Sorry Rob...

He was young. In fact, when he told Kevin and I that he was born in 1990, we instantly exchanged ‘O fuck’ faces. But he had a big heart and a curious constitution that I regarded as a relief. I’ve come to realize, that in my later years, the youthful curiosity that allowed the world to seem so much bigger and magnificent back when we were kids is far too easily relinquished by both me, and some of my peers these days. And whether it’s because we got lazy, or jaded, or both, it’s really kind of sad. Too often, we don’t ask questions anymore. We’re convinced that we know the answer to everything, or simply don’t care, and in the process, we end up robbing ourselves of some possibly enlightening information or experiences.

Rob was always asking questions. While so many other’s wrote us off as Americans who they figured they understood on a personal level--because of what they had seen on our TV shows, or the way the US, en masse, had been portrayed on their news--Rob was asking questions, to really find out.

Was he naive? To the bone. But the difference between naivety and ignorance is the willingness to learn. And I’ll take the extended company of a naive, know-nothing, determined to learn something, over the company of an ignorant, know-it-all who’s convinced there is nothing left to learn. And I say ‘extended company,’ because I’d be foolish to say that there isn’t something that I could learn from the know-it-all. And I’d even be foolish to say that I’m void of naivety myself. Sure, at this point I may know a few things about anthropological theory, or making my way through a city, or about the finer art of making a wicked peanut butter & jelly sandwich, but given the ever-expanding spectrum of human knowledge, or spectrum of the human experience, I don’t know shit.

And perhaps the most incredible part about Rob was the fact that his naivety was only outweighed by his benevolence, and his optimism. He had every right to become a bit jaded, or angry with us after what he experienced, but he didn’t. He woke up the next morning, looked at himself in the mirror, laughed it off with us, and continued about his jovial interrogation of our lives, and life around him. I don’t know. Maybe he was just convinced that we were way cooler then we actually were. Either way, he had stuck with us days before his minor curbside surgery, and would continue to do so, until the day we left Sydney. I’m glad that he did.

“Well I think there are a couple of pubs just up the street if you boys would care to make the journey.” He replied.

“I’m down.”

“Yeah, me too. Let’s do it.”

We headed up to a corner pub called the Carlton. It was a bit of a dive, and they were hesitant to serve us based on our apparent impairment, but they did anyway. Probably far too much. Rob had become fascinated with the phenomenon that is chugging beer, and we finished about six jugs in thirty minutes before they asked us to leave. Somehow I remained the most sober out of anyone. Rob could barely find the exit even with a 250 pound bouncer physically pointing him in the door’s direction. And Kevin had started to sway like a six foot buoy in choppy water. Apropos, as sizable raindrops had begun bombarding every surface outside, while we drank inside.

We stepped out of the pub, into pouring rain and started walking downhill back towards the hostel. Rob and I had gotten roughly a half a block ahead of Kevin, as our feet carried us more efficiently. We passed two hooded figures beneath an awning on the way without any extended regard, and kept walking. I turned to see if Kevin was still coherent, and saw him from a distance, traversing his way slowly but surely in our direction.

He’ll be fine.

About a half a block later, I glanced back to check on Kevin again.

Oh shit...

He had engaged in conversation with the two hooded figures, and although I couldn’t hear exactly what was being said, it was obvious that it was escalating into an altercation. Two seconds later, one of them stepped forward, and I saw Kevin pivot and book it as fast as his liquid legs could carry him down that rain-soaked sidewalk. The two hoods trailing him like tails. Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that he was wearing sandals. We all were. As it goes, Kevin ate shit and rode that sidewalk like a concrete slip and slide. Not far though. And as soon as his one hundred-eighty pound, booze-infused frame slid to a halt, his tails had begun wailing on him.

“Fuck!” I turned to Rob, “Stay here.”

I gunned it towards Kevin as fast as I could. And the shorter the distance quickly became between us, I noticed how insanely short his assailants were. They were tiny. They looked like they belonged to a Rodney King LEGO set. Now, I know that I’m not huge, but I’m not exactly pint-sized either. I’m about six-foot-three and one hundred-ninety pounds. And I’m no Ferrigno, and I’m no Jet Li, but I’ve spent enough time in the gym and in a kick-boxing ring, to the point where I should have felt confident enough to defend myself and Kevin against those fucking jawas and their hooligan haymakers. And while I should have spent that time running, considering which one I was going to level first, a series of other thoughts went through my head, that prevented me from taking such direct action.

What if they have a weapon? If Kevin gets gutted, where the fuck do I take him? I’m in a strange city, and I don’t know what these guys want. Jesus Christ, Kevin can barely even stand he so drunk. If one of us gets hurt, this trip is over. We need to get the fuck out of here.

I’ll be open. Those ‘ifs’ and ‘ands’ had me frightened. In retrospect, perhaps far too much. Either way, I did my best to try and just get us out of there. I pushed both of them back as soon as I reached the mess, and pulled Kevin off the ground. I turned to push them away again, and was just as soon turned inward by a barrage of fists and feet that cracked about my face and ribs.

Jesus Christ!

I struggled to shield myself behind bent elbows. Kevin, now standing, took a swing I swore he could have stolen from Super Macho Man on Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out. His whole body went windmill. And it most likely would have been rather effective, if he wasn’t four feet away from his targets. Instead, he spun himself a circle and a half, and ate it again into the pavement.

Shit.

And that cycle continued for about another thirty seconds. Kevin would lose the big battle with balance, and I’d take a beating trying to pull him back up and push him away from the tiny war. The whole time, with those fuck-wits unloading their bullshit.

“You’re not from around heyaeh, ah yah, beetch!”

“Thees eez how we do it in New Zealand, muthah fuckah!”

“It seems like a lovely place.” I couldn’t help myself, even beneath the battering of boney knuckles.

Around the fifth time or so of trying to pick Kevin up, I took a boot beneath an eye that took a second of sight out of both. I felt the dizzy of impending consciousness collapse in that momentary black-out, and realized this had to end before I did. I suppose I had neglected the fact that even though their small stature seemed to make the majority of their hits knock-out incapable, enough of them might do the trick. I stood up and grabbed the next foot en route to my jaw. I held it high into the air and attempted to reason, while its owner hopped on the other one he still had control of.

“Listen, we’re heading out. Just fuck off and let us go.”

A moment later, I took a hard right hook to the left side of my face from the other assailant that connected like a lead pipe. I dropped the foot, stumbled back, and tried to comprehend what had just happened with a quick look around. Kevin had finally heeded my efforts and retreated, leaving both to concentrate on me.

“Fucking really!?” I barked at them, in a manner that suggested that our promised retreat, and my unwillingness to fight back rendered their double-teaming front a bit excessive.

It seemed to sink in a little. At that point, content with the slugs they had gotten in, their advancement had ceased. Which subsequently led to that mutual and cautious backwards-stepping stare-down, that seems to follow some fights, until both parties are at a safe enough distance from each other to turn and walk away. It was over, and I was glad.

I eventually spun around to find Kevin holding himself up against a wall about a half a block down. Spitting out the blood and rain he sucked from between his teeth.

“You alright?”

“What the fuck, bro!?”

“I don’t know, man.” I gave a quick survey of our surroundings, and felt my stomach drop. “Where’s Rob?”

Instantly, the street answered as it carried his buoyant babble down the sidewalk, to my battered ears. Straight from the spot we had just fled from. Straight towards the figures we had just fled from.

What the fuck!? How did he get past me? This won’t end well...

And like watching all of the chaotic components that make a car wreck come together from a distance, and knowing that there is nothing that can be done to prevent the impending collision, I swallowed the moment with equal amounts of distaste and acceptance. I knew there was no way I’d make it in time. I gunned for it anyway, back up that hill for the second time. Sliding about the entire sidewalk through the entire sprint.

Fuck these sandals.

By the time I had met ten yards from Rob, he had met the assailants and lured their attention to his courageous query. His voice was as shaky as his stance.

“Why don’t you boys just leave Kevin and Preston alone?”

My heart sank.

Maybe I can make it in time...

*Pop!

Guess not... Fuck!

With little hesitation. One of those outstanding gentleman answered Rob with a swift punch to the center of the face. His head snapped back, and the rest of him followed suit until the wet concrete caught him. I pushed the pace and arrived in the moment his head hit the ground to shove Twat-waffle A and Twat-waffle B back with an unrestrained charge. And whether they had grown cautious of the visible rage that had fired up within me upon seeing Rob take one to the face, or they realized they were late to an important Dickhead meeting, they hurriedly exited the scene without a word said.

I glanced down at Rob. Laid out like a horizontal Jesus. Thick ribbons of red rapidly unfurling from his nostrils. His eyes rolling about in his skull.

“Rob?” I began to pull him to his feet.

God, I feel like such an asshole. Why did he go back?

“I think those gentlemen just hit me.”

“Nah man, you just attacked that guy’s fist with your face.”

“Oh my god! Am I bleeding!?” He touched his cheek and then stared at stained fingers.

The bottom half of his grill had been completely Picasso’d. His nose flattened. I couldn’t believe how much blood their was. He donned giant, crimson stage curtains, opened just to expose his mouth. And the rain had started to steal the red from them and carry it down to his shirt like water color.

“A little bit.”

Jesus. Looks like a fucking murder scene...

I pointed towards Kevin, attempting to direct his attention elsewhere, and he started to shuffle down the hill, while blabbering to himself in disbelief. And I began to consider either how sad, or humorous this entire situation had become. Confused, I was somewhere between rage and hysteria. This poor fucking kid’s face looked like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But in hindsight, the ludicrous nature of this whole fiasco might just end up hilarious.

Did all of this just happen? Holy shit...

Kevin greeted us upon arrival in a manner that let us know everything was alright on his end.

“Holy shit, Rob. Did your face just get it’s period?”

And though Rob was still in shock, and I later felt somewhat sorry for being less than sympathetic, Kevin’s commentary compounded with my previous thoughts, busted my belly up into an uproar. It tipped the scales unto hysteria. I bursted out laughing so hard it hurt my lungs. I couldn’t help it. And it might have been on account of the drunk, but a deluge of delirium had washed over me and away any anxiety. It cleansed the confusion and clearly revealed the situation for what it was. We had just flown eight thousand miles around the world to get the shit beat out of us by two hobbits from the Shire. And all in all, I could either laugh about it or bitch about it. And bitching wouldn’t change a thing. So I laughed. Both Kevin and I did. Because honestly, sans injury, it was pretty fucking hilarious.

“Oh my god! Why are you laughing?” Rob frantically questioned.

“Sorry man, I can’t help it.”

“Does it look that bad!?”

“Jesus, Bro. Did that guy hit you with a fist or a shovel?”

“Oh no! Is my nose broken?” He was starting to panic.

“Probably.” I had to be honest. “But we’ll get it fixed, man. There’s not much we can do right now.” In empathy, my sentences were rejoined by some sincerity.

And I think as soon as he heard it, his unease started to subside. And I couldn’t help but commence once again.

“Dude, if you had a cowboy hat on, you’d look like Yosemite Sam.”

“Yeah, sweet mustache, Bro.”

“Oh god!” He gasped.

At that point, Kevin started rolling, and so did I. And there seemed to be enough momentum to move Rob along. He began to chuckle a bit too.

Thank god...

Eventually, exhaustion brought the three of us down to the curb on that sidewalk. We sat with our swollen mugs, buried in our knees. Shooting the shit amongst busted faces, blood and rain, about the entire situation. It’s become one of my most valued moments.

Sometimes you’ve just got to fly halfway around the world to get your ass kicked.

There’s a lot that you don’t plan on. There’s a lot that you don’t expect. Sometimes expectations bail, while fate comes back with a fight. Either way, you deal with it, and learn to roll with the punches. Literally. However unpleasant they may be. You learn all you can from the moment. Whether it’s learning not to talk to strange figures in an alleyway, or not to wear sandals in the rain while pissed off of your face. You learn who your friends are. You learn who your friends will continue to be. You learn that maybe next time you should swing instead of pushing. And kick instead of talking. Either way, I wouldn’t trade all of what happened for anything. Even amidst the battered bones and egos.

A few minutes later, I had to retire. I was wiped from the night. I bid adieu to Kevin and Rob on that curb, and headed off to pass out at Wake Up! And as if the sisters of fortune decided to toss my conscience a cookie after the whole ordeal, we would later discover--via the cops that later met Kevin and Rob at that curb--that those assaulting Ass-Tulips were immediately arrested after fleeing the scene. The whole thing was caught on CCTV, and the cops were in the area after dealing with an incident on the other side of the block. The incident being a stabbing.

Could have been a whole lot worse for us... May have dodged that one...

Sydney - Part Two Point Five - Dick Von Disco

The Birth of Dick Von Disco...

The low-lying atmosphere of that city is densely trafficked with sounds and music. The streets, alleyways, and commercial buildings are congested with various tunes piping in from every direction. I love it. Kevin loved it more.

Ever since I’ve known the kid, I’ve been aware, and wary of his propensity for letting himself become too absorbed in a moment or activity that he finds fun. Sometimes to the point where the consequences seem far from worth the fun in the first place. They usually are worth it though, especially in hindsight as they provide for a decent story. At least to everyone else. Like all the times that he drank too much back home, and pissed himself, and whatever bed, couch, or lucky lady that he passed out on. Not too big of a deal if you got to throw some newspapers beneath him before he nodded off on one of those things. And it worked doubly well if the lady was homeless, and the newspapers were already there.

And I’ve been one to empathize to a degree from time to time, because for the most part, I’m the same way. I get a taste of euphoria, and I’ll spend the rest of the night or day chasing it, until I crash and burn. I’ve done it plenty of times. Even to the point where I’ve lost control of my bodily functions. Even to the point where my moral hangover was worse than my physical one. But we’ll get too that later.

This time with Kevin however, his submersion in the moment wasn’t as consequential--at least, at this point--as it was downright fucking hilarious. He had begun to sincerely feel music that surrounded him, and had also felt the need to express himself through the art of emphatic dance. And ‘feel the music,’ might not do it justice, it might be better exclaim, he felt the shit out of that music! Now the beauty was, that the music was everywhere, all of the time. And it was usually electro-pop, techno, or other genre possessing some pulsing pattern of the like. Or, La Roux’s, Bulletproof. Sydney seemed to have that song on repeat, and I’ll admit that Kevin and I both were admirers. Anyway, suffice it to say, Kevin had begun a dance marathon, and the lengths for which he dedicated himself to that dance made you believe that nothing was going to stop him. He made fatigue his bitch, and consistently turned it away with the turn of his torso.

During the day, the solo rhythmic rodeo was rather restrained. There were still a few twists and shimmies, but they were carried out in a careful manner as to keep from alerting all eyes. They still did though. From afar, he looked like a two hundred pound infant doing the pee pee dance in public. Anywhere from the grocery store, to the city streets, he was moving. I remember the first time I saw his subtle movements progress into the early onset of his footloose fever. We were standing in line at the cell phone store awaiting further service as our attendant had run to get something from the stock room. It began with a tapping foot, until he stepped back to start stealthily cutting up the air with dance karate.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“I don’t know, bro. I can’t stop dancing.”

“You look like you’re having a seizure.”

“I know, it’s awesome.”

At night in the bars, the ‘awesome’ went twelve-fold. It usually took anywhere from three to four drinks to elicit a character to the likes of which those venues might have never seen, and will never see again. A character with presence enough to set the ambiance of the entire place. Kevin’s, pretty much harmless, Mr. Hyde. Dick Von Disco...

Dick Von Disco was a middle-aged immigrant from Eastern Europe. He had grown up rough in the streets of his war-torn homeland, and had little to occupy himself as a poor child, with the exception of his factory-working father’s fairly limited 1980s, VHS collection. For hours every afternoon, Dick Havel--he was ‘Havel’ before he was ‘Von Disco’--would sit and watch movies like, Flashdance, Footloose, Dirty Dancing, and Scarface, and dream about making a name for himself, passionately love pumping chicks like Jennifer Grey--even before the nose job--and doing tons of really good cocaine. But he knew that before he was going to walk that red carpet, he’d first need to learn how to cut up the rug. So as Beals, Swayze, and Bacon tempered his skills atop the fires of his passion, Dick Von Disco was born unto your world, and his dance floor. But as far as you knew, he was a fucking dance juggernaut from the Dance Galaxy in outer space, and unless you wanted to tussle with his tango, you best step back.

He dons an orange polo shirt brighter than any light in that bar--apparently Kevin’s only going-out shirt--and his dark shoulder length hair is greased back in a way that says, not only is he setting the standard for style, he’s also setting it for aerodynamics. He’s got an air about him that tells you he might wear a banana hammock to your little sister’s pool party, and bang your mom behind the toolshed with his aviators on when you’re not looking. And aside from an occasional head nod, or stare that says, “you vant to play vis dis fire, don’t you?” he doesn’t say much to the ladies. He doesn’t need to. They can barely understand him through his accent anyway. He knows that they’ll soon enough be mesmerized and drawn in by his art. He knows what ladies love. They love dance movies, and he’s a one man theater performance of Step Up. If Step Up actually took place in 1987. And even if he is the only one on the dance floor, and there are only nine people including the bartender in that joint, he is Dick Von Disco, the coolest mother fucker in that venue, and he will trip and flog the shit out of the light fantastic, straight into your goddamned heart.

Until of course, he passed out after drinking too much, and we’d wait another eighteen hours or so, before he’d return.

In all honesty though, D Von D was one of my favorite parts about Sydney. And an inspiring one at that. Aside from super sweet moves like ‘the shower,’ and ‘the landscaper,’ that Von Disco stole our attention with, Kevin was unknowingly, yet earnestly able to remind me that sometimes you really do have to dance like no one is watching. Because in all reality, who gives a shit if they are. It’s your short life, and as long as you’re not hurting anyone, don’t be afraid to have fun. Sometimes we end up spending so much time worrying about what we look like, or stressing about coming off as cool, that we forget to just let go and enjoy the time that we have.

I was further inspired by the fact that Dick Von Disco’s commitment to his art was unhindered, after being subjected to a substantial ass-beating. Although comparatively, my face would speak to the fact that I took the brunt of that beating.