The first is very sad news. Ozzy dog died today. He passed away after a short fiery battle with ill health. I first came to Australia in 1999. It was then my travel buddy Fran Daly took it upon himself to get Ozzy the dog. He was a lovely golden Labrador, the friendliest, cutest dog you have ever seen. He has been in my life for over ten years. We have lived together for many of those, in Ireland and here in OZ. He was loyal and loving and had amazing instincts. I spent many great times walking, running and swimming with him. He will be sorely missed. My thoughts go out to his master and his wife.

I’m not sure what sort of a blog this is going to be.

The second one is trite but true. My golf game is absolutely wretched. I swing the club like a shot putter on ketamine. There is more fluidity in a car crash. The best part of my game is when I hurl the club into the bushes. It is driving me nuts (no pun intended). I have been embarrassing myself the last few times I’ve been out and it just gets worse. It is meant to be a relaxing event, a time of serenity and skill. But alas it is a pile of schuttery dog shite. I am used to improving rapidly when I play games, but with golf there is no justice for brawn and aggression. It is a humbling, merciless mistress and it likes to punish.

If I still drank I would be so drunk right now.

The third thing is flipping poker. It is melting me. I am running so bad that I make the Pakistanis look like a nation of fortunates. I am constantly getting my money into the middle with the best hand and being outdrawn. It is happening over and over again and I just don’t think I can take much more. I think I’m just going to have to give it a rest or I will end up with claret fluid seeping from my ears and a laptop smashed into them little smithereens. Like last night I was playing a tournament and had gotten down to the last 300 or so out of 1200. I had played very, very few hands and every time I was called I had trips or better. I was playing very tight, solid poker and was hitting hands. So when I look down and see AA, in mid position and there is a raiser in first position I think, rerasie him All In and just take it down. But he decides to call my All In with 88 and of course he hits an 8 to give him a set and knocks me out. It was shocking bad play and seems to be that I keep running up against lucky morons. I’m just an unlucky moron.

Interesting ha? Pass me the Jameson.

The final thing I’m gonna vent about is the state of the financial world. Do you realise that the central banks of the world are all privately owned companies that lend money to our governments? They do this and of course charge interest. Most countries on our little planet are being run by the banks, not the governments. Does this not scare people?? We are paying extortionate taxes to give private companies wealth. It is the biggest ruse ever. The common person is the most ignorant fucker out there. The politicians are all in co hoots as they are being paid off. The mainstream media are all owned by off shoots of the same mother companies. WE ARE ALL BEING RIPPED OFF AND CONTROLLED LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. If you do nothing else over the next week or so take a look at the following www.zeitgeistmovie.com and especially www.chrismartenson.com. The world is fucked up and we are pig ignorant of what is going on up above. I mean, did you know that the Federal Reserve Bank of America is actually owned by the Bank of England? It is so absurd and incredible that you may think it all to be untrue. But there is a serious problem in our world today.

Are you ready to be part of the revolution? Part of the solution?

Get me some top shelf brandy. Seriously.

I swear to you that it is taking the utmost not to go on the razz right now. I really feel like drinking straight top shelf spirits. But where would it get me? Crying like a bitch into my drink at six in the morning, remorseful and repentant and vowing to make changes, yet forgetting everything I’d have said. Fuck the gargle, fuck the banks, fuck death.

This is it for me I suppose – a way of being. How I am in the world, how I interact is fastened to the fabric of my past. All I know today is learnt. All I am today is a product of my experience. I see myself willing to change all the time and accept that I can improve and do things more betterer. It is not the science of rockets I’m talking about. We all have our story, just some of us change ours as we get on in the world. It is the same for everybody.

I’ve been harbouring the little devil on the shoulder for the last while. That is part of what I’m experiencing. I am resisting temptation of the boozy kind, for the most part. But I have relapsed. I have been drinking occasional wine. Or should I say wine occasionally. “Occasional” wine seems like the next wanky grape variety to come out of some sommeliers flowery talk hole. I have even gone for a few pints with the lads of a Sunday again – creamy thick headed pints of Guinness.

I suppose I haven’t been in the right head space to be writing anything as the sober paddy. I am slipping into nice, easy warm habits. It’s kind of like putting on your favourite velvet jacket, fitted with smoking pouch and internal heating, on a frosty evening, with the fire crackling and a glass of French Port in hand, just like your father used to (although my own Dad was a complete teetotal and not that I even had a velvet jacket, or a favourite one). Your language changes – you become “oh why yes of course, indeed! Why certainly Old boy” and the like. The landscape takes a different shape.

So I ask myself the simple question – Am I in control? I suppose the answer is yes. But the way I speak is changing – I can hear that myself. I am tolerating moderation. The funny thing is that nobody seems to mind. People treat me the same pretty much. So it is all me and not you. But that feeling of impending explosion is building. It always does. I don’t want to compare myself to a volcano, but I just did. Maybe Mount Etna. Or that one in Co. Antrim. Extinct as a Hi Tech runner boot.

I ask myself one other question – have I learnt enough from my past to know that I am able to recreate a future with the booze in there? Or am I simply weakening and falling back into its seductive tender arms? Am I a bastion of strength and fortitude? Can I assimilate Borg Like and conquer again? Or will she hold me in the morning light, kissing my troubles away, while I whimper?

That turned out to be five questions – and no answers. Gerrup!
I’m going tee total again soon. It’s the only way. I suggest you do whatever you want. To thine own self be true and all that jazz. Nobody knows better, and in the end, who gives a fuck what anyone else thinks. Once you worry about other people’s opinions you are doomed. Stand up and make sure. And above all, make sure you stand up. Stand up and dance….

[M($)+M(:))]-[M(A)+(M1*0)] = F(:):):))+LO

M = Man, M1 = Any other men, F = females, LO = Legs open

Now this week I am going to write about the effect that booze has on your sexual performance. Does it enhance or hinder? Does it make you a Rambo or a Rain man? Does it release the Bull or the Boor?

I have been thinking about some high fallutin’ terminology to try and encapsulate this topic. I have been pondering upon the psychology of Eros, the sexual release of the id and the ego, the subtle interaction between the body, the mind and our sexual energies. Add alcohol and you come up with a formula which is difficult to express, let alone express candidly and succinctly.
It boils down to this. Alcohol blurs the edges. It encourages a certain recklessness and adventure. It convinces you to try new things with abandon.
When it comes to sex, some of us are nervous. We are inexperienced, worried about how our bodies look and how we will perform. Booze blankets this in a massive duvet of carelessness.

Most women need some emotional connection and cerebral attraction to a man in order to shag him. Men, on the other hand, would most probably get up on a bundle of wet cushions if they thought it’d feel good and nobody would find out.
To achieve this emotional connection, most people have a few drinks which loosen up the conversation and the levels of tactilicity. In other words, after a few vodkas she’ll have her hand down the front of your pants because she is comfortable that you’re not a rapist or an axe murderer.
The danger with alcohol again is this – when to stop. As the night of a date draws on, one wonders how the progress is going. Will she come back to mine? What’s she like in bed? Did I clean my room? How will I perform? Will she be dirty? Will I have to be in control? Does she think I’m funny enough?

I have found as a general rule of thumb that if I am talking to my cock in the bathroom when I am out on a date with a girl, that I am getting too pissed and should try to seal the deal as soon as possible.
Talking to your willy when having a piss seems like a good idea at the time. Picture Al Pacino in The Whole Nine Yards – “You can do it, believe in yourself, no excuses, tonight is your night to stand up and be counted, blood, sweat and tears (with any luck)”
It is easy to go over the edge when it comes to inebriation and sexual performance. You see there is a thin line between the mindset of “drunk and going home for a shag”, and “drunk and going somewhere for more drink, a kebab and a meat flavoured lurch and snog at some taxi rank to be woken on the couch with your pants around your ankles watching Playboy Bunny TV by your flatmate or worse still, your mother”

I remember when I was about twenty, I went on a football trip with my team in Co. Cork in the south of Ireland. We all had a great night on the piss, heading to the local disco, and most lads managed to get some girls back to the hotel. We bribed the Night Manager with a few quid and we were carrying on playing strip poker and joking around. Drinking of course was continuing unabated, for the necessary course of beating the band.
I had a young lady with me. Let’s call her Mary. She was pretty with wavy blond hair and big green eyes. Her nose hooked a little, but it gave her a weird Grecian look. She was skinny with little fried egg boobies and an ass that was sardine can tight. She played for the local girls GAA team.
I convinced her to sneak up with me to my room for a few minutes. Although she was a little frightened she was obviously safe with me, and felt a little excited by the idea of it all. Upon entering the room I noticed my roommate was already back in his bed so we snuck into the bathroom. We were quick into each other, sliding down onto the floor, fumbling with boxers and bras and t-shirts. With the hungry yearnings of youth she dropped down to gobble my manhood. Alas, my member was there in spirit but not in body. Come fucking on, I urged. Please just go hard. I looked at the back of her head, thought about Cindy Crawford, Gabrielle Sabatini and Natalie Embruglia having a pillow fight in panties in the rain but nothing happened. It must have been like chewing on soggy Liga biscuits through a sausage skin.

Needless to say our liaison ended not too long after amongst recriminations, self analysis and some finger pointing. She fled the scene in a taxi ten minutes after. Upon returning to the lads in the Residents bar I told them of my unfortunate lack of activity. Some of the older lads laughed with that chuckle of experience. Ahhh, brewers droop I was told. It happens. Not to worry about it. It’s the drink that does it. Fuck that I thought to myself as I ordered another pint of Heineken.

Aside from the obvious effects of getting it up, there is the other side of it too – getting it up and not knowing where to put it. This has happened too many times for me to recount them all. I remember meeting a girl when I worked in a bar in Greece for a time. We went out, got drunk and ended up back in mine. We were drinking and carrying on, naked before long and soon up to the natural act of practising procreation. She owwed and ooed a few times before stopping me and telling me that I was investigating the wrong hole. Heated and wild from the drink I turned over and she got on top. I fell asleep with her writhing away on me. Upon waking in the morning I was the true gentleman and dropped her back into the town on the back of my moped. As she dismounted she informed me that my performance the night before was rubbish. I informed her that she looked similar to a semi mashed potato, tooted my horn and sped away.

Nowadays I don’t drink but would believe I am more sexual than ever. If you go to many of the AA recovery blogs on the internet you will find that most ex alcoholics increase their interest in sex as a means of replacing another addiction. Your confidence eventually increases when you stop drinking and so too does your libido. You find that beast inside you and you can release it onto a very beautiful, fortunate woman (or women) or man (or men). The point is that when you are sober you are in control of all your faculties. You realise that sex is nothing to do with being drunk and dirty, but about connecting, trusting, being horny and experimenting.
Sexual performance is directly related to how comfortable you are in yourself and with the person you are with. Alcohol will give you a short term fix of this, but will ultimately need more and more consumption for the same response.
So my advice is this. If you are in a relationship and want to improve your performance, do not go drinking. Clear your schedule for an evening of special bonding. Write down five things each, fantasies if you will, and place them in a hat. Clean the bedroom from clutter, get the candles and low music on. Agree to be completely honest and fulfil the fantasies as best as possible. Enjoy your amazing sexual energies for what they are.

If you are single then I challenge you to go out and pull a member of the opposite sex while not drinking alcohol. Try it. At least get a phone number. Feel the power and control of sobriety when you are out. Release the sexy animal in you. See how women respond to your strength of character and how men are more attracted to the alternate chemicals you exude.
Right, I’m off to the sex shop….

Picture this. You’re in a bar, one of those trendy, wanky places. There are low lights, half moon and full moons. They slowly change colour, every forty five seconds – crimson, light yellow, flouro cerise, to baby blue. There are bean bags, white leather couches scattered round the room. There is a massive dark brown wall to your left. In front of you is a dance floor. On the dance floor at 11.30pm there are between forty and fifty girls dancing – shapes and sizes to suit all tastes. There is the odd man prancing around (emphasis on odd). Young women in short skirts are swaying and heaving. Their asses are head height to where you sit and you are compelled to admire their rhythms, their figures. Music is swamping your head. Heavy bass beats and melody fill your drums. Next to you a friend is mouthing something to you and laughing. You shake your head and motion to the bar behind you some twenty feet away. You up and leave and soon are standing at the bar with your friend, ordering tequilas. You down the shots, have another round, turn back strutting to the dance floor. You pick out a couple of pretty girls and slide up beside them, start doing your best Michael Jackson, spasming like Inspector Gadget on speed. They giggle, start dancing all sexy and are there for the kill. You invite them for some shots at the bar, and away on a hack you are.

To most blokes who read this, you will think…yup sounds about right. Sounds good…sounds like some lads out having a good time trying to pick up. There is no harm in it is there? The answer has to be no. I have been thinking deeply about it and I cannot see the harm in what I just described. God knows I did it for twelve years or so. It boils down to the simple fact that when a guy is out on the town, looking for a woman, that he needs confidence to pick one up. He needs confidence to saddle up beside a gorgeous girl and chat her up. He needs confidence to grab a girl on the dance floor, twist her around salsa style, looking all suave and cool, while inside running completely on empty. He needs confidence to tell a girl that she is beautiful, without coming across as a sleaze bucket or some type of smarm bag. He needs confidence to make a woman laugh and think about him in a way that is mysterious and attractive.

Over the long term there is the problem that your drinking for confidence is masking a deeper lacking in self esteem. As the years pass and you continue to abide by these drinking rules, you will compound your internal shortcomings. You will need to stop drinking at some stage and figure out where confidence stems from and how to bring it into your life. There is a great website I found called www.hellosundaymorning.com.au. On this site the challenge is laid out to people to change your drinking habits for various periods of time. The people who take up the challenge blog their experiences and it is very interesting to read and see how some people fare without the booze.

When you drink, you loosen your inhibitions. It’s a simple fact – your tongue loosens, your apprehension diminishes. You forget that sense of self consciousness that hovers over most people most of the time. Alcohol makes you feel like nothing can stop you. You are the sexiest fucker who has ever graced planet earth (aside from the fact you are overweight, greasy and covered in a half beard). How could any woman not desire you? Zeus like creature that you are….

Now, the question I asked at the start is “Are women easier when you’re drunk?”

The real answer to this is no, not in the slightest. When a man is drunk it serves only one purpose – To make him think that he has a chance. It allows you the opportunity to approach women with abandon. It gives you the chance to say funny things and not be hung up on the words – sure aren’t you drunk! At this stage I must also mention the proverbial “beer goggles”. Alcohol gives you a wider range of women whom you would potentially sleep with/date/marry. It lowers your standards and makes you think of the beauty of all women, as opposed to the 5/10% who look like Vogue models. If any of you have seen “A Beautiful Mind” starring Russell Crowe, think of the time when the boys are in the bar and a beautiful chick walks in with her ‘not so pretty’ friends around her. Crowe’s character, genius that he is, figures that if any of them attempt to shag the prettiest, they will fail, and thereby lose face in front of the other women, who would rebuff their advances as they don’t want to be seen as second best. Approach the ones who don’t command as much visual attraction first, and they will feel great about themselves, thus increasing your chances of success. Alcohol removes this carefully engineered thought process. It works out all these permutations for you subconsciously.

The only aspect of alcohol to consider for your chances of getting laid, is whether or not the woman is drunk. A sober woman will know from a quick pan around a room, which bloke she would potentially shag, meet again or fall in love with. They operate on a very instinctual level, and make quick judgements based on appearance, smell, humour and feeling. Once a woman has made her mind up there is very little a man can do to change that. Whether you are drunk or not bears no real importance.

On the other hand, if the woman is drunk, everything changes. Drunken women do not see what they normally do. They are giddy, their perception skewed and find many more things humorous and attractive than they would normally. It’s not rocket science. So the next time you want to pick up, buy her a shot or two, and some strong, sweet cocktails. Make her laugh. Take the piss out of yourself and try to dance no matter how shit you are. Have a drink or three, but don’t end up leery and bleary eyed. No woman likes a drunk.

He has a cold water shave, with the big old razor blades his father recommended him. Razors that glean and gleam. PING! Razors that muscle up and look you in the eye and say “Well, come on faggot, ain’t you gonna have a go?” These razors look like they’d take chunks from your chin as soon as you weren’t looking. Then try to rob your mother’s handbag. He scrapes away his chin hair and sideburns, leaving behind a great big handle bar moustache. Tin can grey. It’s the colour of shopping trolley aluminium. He takes out his little scissors and trims the handles ever so slightly. He takes a dirty dry rag and rubs his face hard and slow. Like a teacher sharing tantric spoils with a virgin. He splashes his mush with “Old Spice – Oil for Men”, the choice of oil for the discerning man in the ages before the metrosexual. He faces himself in the mirror. His eyes shoot blood all through the cornea, iris and under the lid. A dead blue pupil bobs nervously, rolling like a hungry walrus. The lids they sag heavily.

Drooping skin folds like whipped ice cream all round his wrinkled face. His skin is dark and pirate porous. Too many days spent roasting like a legless chicken in the sun. A group of cockroaches regard him from a distance and wonder if the deep fissures that cover his floppy cheeks, were once upon a time rivers that have somehow dried up? Was there a chance of one day inhabiting his head? Should they send parties to investigate? Would there be food inside? Should they attempt landings and perform “reconinsectaissance”? Looking at Jimmy you could see that it wouldn’t be too long before they would have the chance.

Oblivious to the existential quandaries of the growing insect cognoscenti, he takes out his back pocket comb and passes it through the thirty six remaining hairs on his shiny head. Jesus Jimmy Bradshaw, he says out loud, you are one handsome fellah. No metrosexuality here.
He makes his way down the hall to the kitchen. His feet shuffle slowly along the wooden floor, his toes eking their way languorously. No rush for Jimmy. His feet are two hurt and trepidatious lovers. They have been through it all together. They know the sweet vicissitudes of life all too well – the rising and falling, rising and falling, the rising and falling.

He marks his arrival into the room with a roaring cough, a fetid lurching heave that threatens to eject his shrunken blackened lungs through his throat. He stops advancing and clutches the back of his chair, doubling over as mounds of phlegm and black saliva fly from his mouth into his empty hand, onto the ground and over his TV – His sixteen inch, black and white, antenna aerialed, round screen TV. No metrosexuality OR mod cons. His scaldy cough slows down slowly, almost like an old car starting up on a cold, frosty day. He sniffles and breathes wheezily and shakes his head. Jesus Jimmy Bradshaw, he says, for a handsome fellah you don’t sound so good.

The doctors agree too. They told him he needs an operation to stop a cancerous lump, but they cannot operate until his blood proves it can thicken quickly enough. To do this he needs to give up the grog. But there’s no chance of this happening. It’s the only friend he has left. Nothing else is there for him. Only Harry the local barman listens to his story. And a few of the locals. But they don’t care, don’t want to change him. They will comfort him as he kills himself. He’ll do it with a smile. All from the comfort of his home

In modern bullshit “real-estate speak” his home would be called “a cosy self-contained studio with amazing potential. Open plan kitchen and dining room with clean lines gives a great feeling of space, with views of Bulligol Creek”……In real words it’s a poxy little cockroach infested room, with a stove and a broken TV. Don’t bring anyone back from ‘The Biggest Loser’ as they will find it impossible to navigate their hulking masses through the narrow midget tunnel hall. There’s no room to swing your elbow not to mind the cat, and to makes matters worse, there’s a ditch running just outside the window that stinks from all the shit that flows into it from the abattoir two miles away. Don’t contemplate bringing any young lady back here as they would consider you dangerous, filthy, poor and slovenly. There’s also a chest of drawers, a chair and a coffee table.

On the chest of drawers are two pictures and two trophies. The first picture is of him and his wife, Margaret, who died sixteen years previous. Jimmy lost it after she departed, whatever “it” is. They are standing behind their son, Barney and their two daughters, Amelia and Jade. His children call once every couple of weeks, but they are too busy making egg and beetroot sandwiches for their ungrateful kids to worry about him. A monthly trip to Jimmy’s local for a few schooners and a pie is all he wants, is given and takes.

It is 1971 in the photo. They are smiling, tanned and stuck together. Jimmy is wearing a wide collared shirt, a big mop of curly hair with his trademark ‘tache loitering with intent beneath his long schnozzle. His muscular arms engulf his son and wife, with his two daughters smiling like novice toothpaste models in the foreground. His wife has a strange look on her face, somewhere between daft curiosity and lazy concern. Her mouth is slightly agape. She has deep dark eyes, high cheekbones and long light hair that curves slowly over her shoulders and covers her ample bosom. Barney has the look of a brooding teen – a youth having a tumultuous affair with the cruel vagaries of angst ridden puberty. Or did all that angst even exist back then at all I wonder. Maybe he just wants to be out smoking rolled cigarettes, kicking stones and chasing tail. He has a big honker. Girls hear what they say about big honkers. Amelia and Jade have big teeth and big hooters. Twins. They were always glad they had big hooters and not big honkers. Two letters makes the world of difference.
The second picture is of him with a group of mates in his kitchen, sitting round an old round table. There are four young men in the picture, all with big rocks glasses full of whiskey. They are smoking big fat cigars, playing some sort of card game. They are turning in outrageous laughter and pointing at the someone who is taking the picture. Both pictures are in black and white. In the corner of the room are a fridge and a table, with a kettle and a stove.

Jimmy shuffles over to the fridge and opens the door. He grunts a little old man grunt. Uuuuuaaaahhhmm. There is a lump of hard cheese, a stubby of VB, two eggs and a litre of lumpy milk. He scratches his head and looks around the room. Everything is as it was the previous night, week, month and year. He mumbles about the need to go and shop sometime. Gotta go do some fackin shopping sometime Jimmy, he says out loud. He takes out the stubby of VB. Victorian Bitter is an Australian beer with sharp and tinny flavour. It has a cool chemical taste, like chewing on citrus metal sorbet. Being relatively cheap it has become the beer of the common man or the beer for those who don’t have the money.

He sits down and twists off the cap, chucks it in the ashtray. They have twist cap beers in Australia. The more adventurous can open them by twisting them against various parts of one’s skin – the forearm or neck for that matter. Depends how drunk, young and hard you are. Jimmy uses the traditional “fingers with a cloth” technique. Kkkkkkkkhhhhhhhsss. He leans back and listens. Empty. It sounds like a vacuum cleaner has just finished – the “after noise” quiet. Not a bean of anything. Not even a late morning cicada. Not a stray car, cat or Caw Caw bird. Quiet as a melting iceberg it is. Not even a tap to drip. He lifts the stubby up to his lips and takes a long thirsty slug. Gugglegluggluggoogooogopoooooppaaaaaaaah. He slowly takes his arm down to the rest position. He sits. Sits and waits. A fly flies down and lands on his knee, sucking the salt from his sweat. It’s running far too quickly for Jimmy to care. He stares out the window at the cloudless sky. Not even a bird to fly by. He takes another long slug. Guggleglooglloopooooopoolaaaaah ahhhh. He smacks his lips together and listens to his breaths. Slow and uneven. Chesty. Suitable to a man his age.

He scratches his neck. He sits. He’s in no rush. No rush for Jimmy Bradshaw. Since Margaret died Jimmy has taken it easy. By taking it easy I mean shown no public grief, developed malignant cancer, drunk his liver rotten and burnt the heads of most his alveoli with cigarette smoke. He can’t see any point in changing. Jimmy has no need for health any more. Assisted suicide it is. Slow, but deliberate. No note necessary, his footsteps and message will be clear for all to see.

Jimmy takes the stubby one last time and guzzles the remainder down. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah he exclaims, that’s better Jimmy, that’s better. He wipes his nose with his hand. Sniffles a little. The fly buzzes around his eye before landing on his left earlobe. He doesn’t care, in fact he’s glad of the company but he doesn’t let on. Blaady flies, he says. He straightens his shorts and stares at the window. All he can see is blue. Still it is still. He contemplates. Will I go to the pub now or not? Will Magic, Doggo or The Hobbit be down there already? Surely they would. It was after eleven.

Ending 1
He sets off for the pub and makes it in the astonishing time of 26 minutes. Not bad for a hobbling wreck. He meets no one long the way. No cars pass him, no bicycles, no flying furry beatles, no girls. He pays no attention to the flies that land on his neck, nose and legs. He thinks of only one thing – the beer. The sun beats down on him at thirty two and rising. The heat forms a feeling of sheer desire inside him. A deep thirst, unquenchable by any liquid other than his beloved VB. He gets to the pub and swings open the door, relieved at the cool air inside. He nods at Harry who serves him up his beer without asking.
“Heya gaaan mate?” Harry inquires
“aaaaw…Gaan awrih …blaady hot awt there mate”
“Fair dinkum”
Jimmy gets his schooner and hobbles over to the table to sup on his own. Nobody else has arrived yet. He stares out into the day. Nothing moves. Nothing sounds. He eyes the bubbles in his beer and sighs, an tired, old man sigh.

Ending 2
He sets off for the pub which is only 660 footsteps from his door. Along the way he passes no one. The sun beams high. The flies are active, “coming down off drugs active” – fidgety and twitchy. His slow arms loop this way and that, not necessarily scaring them, but at least making them move. He swings his arm again and loses his balance, throwing himself into The Bulligol Creek, landing on his head, snapping his neck and killing himself instantly. He never needed the operation.

My own father was a stoic and authoritative figure and there was a time when he would sit me down, look me in the eye and tell me the secrets of the world. We used to sit in the rickety old porch at the front of our house where a snapping drunken breeze would curl under the door and in through the cracks in windows so thin, we were afraid to look through them in case they shattered. As the night plopped its head down, he would send me out to close the gate, so no more wind would get in. We had a ten year old Nissan Cherry, rusting proudly in the drive way –  I’m sure he saw the lascivious looks other motorists gave it and knew the local thieves had it marked on their list. Dublin in the eighties was a dangerous place, full of “characters” – men who never worked, wore the same tracksuit pants every day, had slouched faces, missing teeth and were always in a hurry to the pub. We would look out at the passing traffic, miserable looking people crowded onto heavily smoking double-decker buses, making their way into town and trudging slowly home again.

I’m not sure if God was bored or angry when he created Ireland, but he could have given us a little sun. It was always the same – Calming shades of various grey clouds would nestle through the sky. Rain would spray down gently at first, just a little smattering of drizzly mist. You might look at the gathering storm clouds of the Apocalypse and think, ha, maybe just a shower. But then a scud-like surge of rackety heaven water would explode, pegging the dust down, causing all animals to scatter for their two or four legged lives. Then a monstrous deluge would erupt, scaring the plum sauce out of the few ducks left braving the elements. This torrent of Biblical proportions would thrash itself against the fragile frame of our house – even the milk bottles would now have found their way back inside.

This is what makes the Irish you meet overseas happy. When it rains in a city like Auckland, it reminds you of your home country and it makes you feel good inside. When it stays sunny for the summertime it reminds you of how good it is not to be constantly feeling wet and miserable and it too makes you feel good inside.

 My Dad would not flinch when the rains came. Instead he would slowly turn to me and his cloudy blue eyes would break when he did. He would stroke his peppered grey beard, put his Esperanto notebook away and when he wanted to emphasize a point his finger would lift and arrow straight for my chest, hovering like a magical dagger

“Son”, he would say, “there are two ways to do things in life, the right way and the wrong way…when you do it the right way you do it with pride and with fire in the belly”.

I would stare at his finger, then back to his head, marvelling at how the brylcream seemed to slick his comb over into one slab of hair, like a long breaking wave, frozen onto his bald scalp. His head would turn ever so slightly, his brow furrowing a tad indicating I needed to respond. I would shift in my seat, the old chair scraping against the broken grey green slate underneath, nodding and saying yes, hoping I could escape before he realised.

My father though, always did realise. He realised the one fact I dreaded him realising more than any other – my hair was long. Too long. To the untrained eye or ear, this may seem an innocuous fact, but let me rest assure you it is not. Now read on.

My father’s eyes would narrow a little more, glaze over again and then before I had the chance to utter a nibble of a syllable of a syllable, the shout would go up

“ELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN”, he would roar down the hall to my mother

My mother would come down and would know by the tone of the shout what was in store for her son.

“I think John needs a haircut, can you get the stuff please”

My gut would drop. The stuff entailed a bag of second hand shirts which were buried in a big plastic bag at the bottom of a musty old cupboard – they were covered with years of hair, never washed and when you put them on your bare skin was akin to scraping nails down the blackboard of your spine, covered in ants and ticks you could never scratch. There was a scissors too, as sharp as a box of soap, which my Dad used to tear bluntly through my hair.

I would sit chattering and crying from the cold and the fear as the scissor’ cold metal goose-bumped me, the wind froze me and the hair tickled my neck and back. Occasionally my father would show some humanity by nicking my ear or neck, drawing some blood and warmth to the area.

When the deed was done, the shout would go up, this time though, it would be my shrill soprano voice

“MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMM…WE’RE FINISHEDDDDDDD”

Down the hall my mother would come again, this time with the vacuum cleaner in tow. The shirt would drop to the ground and I would feel the suction of the hose taking away the pain and torturous discomfort. I would be shivering hard from the adrenalin and mild hypothermia.

My mother would tell us that dinner was nearly ready and when we had cleaned up to come down to the kitchen to eat. The incessant rain would pour. I would slowly stop crying. My Dad would wipe the blades of the scissors clean and we would speak of it no more.

I would stand up and release the brakes on his wheelchair and begin to wheel him backwards, careful not to knock his elbows against the piles of junk and furniture stacked deep either side of the hall.

My Dad was what you’d call as strong man. He was reared in Dublin in the forties and fifties when young lads with nobbled knees and blazers would roam the inner city streets, playing conkers with horse chestnuts, football in parks now reserved for tourists and chasing girls at the dances at the weekend. It was a time of simpler values. Men had nicknames like bruiser and chopper and women were there for their men. The streets of Dublin were free from the traffic, noise and people that pollute it today. There was less money around, yet people seemed to make do. They had a sense of simple happiness which was a continual antidote to the massive wars and troubles which dominated the globe.

My father promised that if I believed in myself and pushed myself that I could do anything I wanted. He would tell me the ways of the world, stories about his halcyon days, how to talk to people in business and what it takes to be a success in anything.

He told me about how when diagnosed with MS in his late twenties, his world collapsed. He was given fifteen years to live. His world fell apart, but not for long. He adapted and thought long and hard about how to live the life he wanted. He made sacrifices to give himself every chance to succeed. He found an amazing woman to spend it with and created a home for five loved children. He gave us every opportunity we ever wanted and believed in us like a father should. He did it all from the confines of a wheelchair. He outlived the doctor’s predictions by forty years. How he did this is a story for another day.

Never once did I hear him complain, begrudge or lament. He accepted his fate and created a destiny in his own image. He taught me though example that sacrifice, hard work and positivity are the way to beat anything. You can do anything if you put your mind to it. When I think of those haircuts now I know there were many things happening I didn’t realise at the time. The lasting image is I have is this – A man triumphing over all odds to cut his son’s hair in the porch of his own house. Someday I hope to do the same myself…..

I had arrived in LA three nights previously from Sydney. I had been living in Australia for two and a half years, primarily on a diet of parties, sun and sessions. There had been copious indulgence. There had been uppers, downers and all arounders. There had been severe bouts of chemically induced insomnia. Life had been a constant whirl, where ranting, dancing and laughter were the muesli of the day. I had overstayed my visa and booked a return flight home to Ireland via LA and Miami where I would visit my brother and Aunt respectively. I had a mission and jumped on board.

The flight to LA had been a shuddery one. I was coming down after a three day bender and struggling badly. I had concocted a grand scale story for Australian immigration which they bought and they allowed me to leave the country in peace. I made it through  US customs and to the arrivals hall where I met my brother after nearly four years absence. We hugged and clapped hands and it was a great moment. Blood brothers. Our manically different worlds were re-colliding. We went to his office where he had a few things to tie up before making our way out to the suburbs to meet his new family. He was living with a African American girl named Angela with her three kids. We watched a movie and headed to bed early. I was shattered and they were tired too. We had plans to head for Vegas and  I fell soundly asleep.

We headed off in the early afternoon in his turbo charged white Trans-Am Pontiac. I sat in the back and dozed as we sped along Route N 110 to Vegas. We arrived as the sun was setting. In the distance you could see the electricity rising through the air, vast, incalculable storms of energy casting a serene glow through the desert. I was excited by the prospects unfolding themselves that weekend. I started singing Viva Las Vegas at the top of my lungs. We were all laughing and in great form. We arrived and checked into the Luxor hotel, a magnificent pyramid shaped building. My self and James, my brother, made our way to the black jack table and began to play. The waitresses brought us over double Chivas Regal’s on the rocks. We looked at each other, raised our glasses and said, this is the life. And it was.

We went for our dinner in a local steakhouse, where we drank fine wine, fine whiskey and ate great steaks. The food was made for beings who were bigger boned than an overweight Russian shot putter. This is the American way though – supersized, gargantuan, biggerer and badderer. We made our way afterwards to the tables again, playing some blackjack, roulette and crabs. We won a little and lost a little and under the bright lights of Vegas felt invincible and full of great energy. We took a walk through the bustling streets. People and cash everywhere. Money changing hands quicker than the neck whip of a paedophile driving past a school yard. We went for a ride on the roller coaster round the hotels and screamed our guts up with delight and wild shriekery.

More drinks were consumed before we returned to our hotel where we went to see a live musical show being performed in the foyer. I was pretty drunk by this time and we plonked ourselves right up next to the stage. The singer was some mid forties woman who barrelled out all the oldies, covers of the greats by Patsy Cline and Frank Sinatra and others. I was whooping and shouting, really buzzing from her renditions, and she singled me out with winks and mentions. I was fired up and she was sweating gasoline. The Vegas magic was coursing through my veins. The show ended and we headed on for another bout of gambling. James and Angela called it a night and headed back to the room. I called for another whiskey and carried on playing against the house. I can’t remember if I won or lost, but after a while I headed out for some fresh air and off to a local strip joint.

In the strip joint I was met by a charming, semi-naked host, who showed me to the bar and gave me some dollars to tip the girls with. I was like the proverbial in the proverbial.  I watched the girls like a ravenous dog eyeing a lump of mutton sliding down a tree covered in sheep blood. I was boorish and charming, as only an Irish drunk can be. I had a private dance with a young girl from Kansas City called Crystal. She spoke with an Eastern European accent. For $50 she brought me to a little room and gave me a grinding strip tease for the duration of three songs. She started off with a teasing flirty spin, waggling her ass at me like a naughty little girl. She bent down, touched her toes and looked around at me. She came up to me and rubbed her tits into my face. They were big and soft, like a pair of well used, plasticated double cotton hill walking socks. She took off her skimpy dress and eventually her g-string, all the time waggling to pop music. I got extremely aroused and by the end of the third song she was naked and my cock was peeping out over the top of my jeans. She seemed to love this little surprise and turned around to grind me even more. Just as the music stopped she pushed back hard into me one last time and my waters broke and I showered myself in man juice. I laughed and she giggled and as I got up to hobble out of the joint.

I returned at some ungodly hour to the hotel room and crept into bed and tried for some shut eye. We woke on the Saturday and headed down to the pool in the hotel. The sun rose high in the early afternoon sky and we were suitably in great spirits. We ordered some tropical cocktails and settled into some sun baking. In a show of pomp and splendour I pulled out a couple of Cuban cigars I had brought from Oz and handed one to my brother. I took a dollar bill from my pocket and lit it, handing it to James to light his then back to mine to light mine. We laughed hard and well and again the moments were savoured. We settled into the evening with some showers and food then headed to the tables again to see what we could lose. The night was passing well and I remember winning a few dollars before we decided to head to a nightclub in the hotel. We got inside and started drinking and dancing. James and Angela proceeded to bump and grind each other like two 1970’s disco junkies listening to slowed down jazz, incongruous to the music being played. I took the opportunity to go on a wander and spied a couple of pretty girls who looked like they needed to talk to me.

I wandered over and sat beside them introducing myself and making them laugh at some obscurity I noticed about American culture. They were from New York and over for a good time and I thought I might enjoy myself with them. At that, two guys who had been standing close by came and sat between the girls and me and in big drawly New York accents told me

“Hey Buddy, you’re makin du gurls feel uncom’table”

“Not at all “ I replied “ I’m just saying hello to them”

This time they emphasised a certain potential for violence if I didn’t understand

“We said, you’re makin’ du Gurls feel uncom’table, awrite, now back off…”

“Nah man I’m not, I’m just sayin hello to them, relax will yis”

This time they asked

“Hey where yu fwom?”

“I’m Irish”

“Yu wIris, well, why didn yu say sow? It’s col he’s Iris…don worry aboud ih”

And with that they accepted me into their group as one of their own. God bless being a paddy, no one ever feels threatened by you. We got to talking about drugs and they informed me they had some “X” as the yanks like to call it. I went to find my brother to get some cash from him to purchase said drugs, which he gave me reluctantly, warning me etc etc, as thought this was my first time to pop a pill. I went and popped the pill and headed off into the Vegas night with my new found best buddies.

Now just to clarify one simple fact before I recount the rest of this tale. Prior to heading to Vegas I had agreed with James to borrow as much cash as I needed which I would repay when I returned to the Emerald Isle, as I had funds which couldn’t be accessed overseas.

The night passed on into the early morning and I found myself at a blackjack table with one of the girls from their party. We were having fun and there was an easy sexual tension between us which was growing and growing as the minutes passed. I ran out of money and seeing as we were in the hotel I was staying in decided to head back to the room to hit my brother up for some more cash. Stay here I told her, I’ll be back in ten minutes and we’ll have some fun. She smiled and we kissed quickly before I launched myself up to the room

I opened the door to the room and woke James.

“Hey man, give us a hundred bucks, I’ve run out and have a little honey waiting down stairs for me.”

“John, it’s nine o’clock in the morning, don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

“Come on man, it’s cool, just give me the cash and I’ll see you in a couple of hours”

“No man, call it a day…”

Well, I wasn’t too impressed. I sat on my bed and started singing a low tune, questioning his birth rights, sexual tendencies and abilities as a man. Amanda stirred in the bed beside him and asked me to stop, to quiet, to relent. Alas I did not. I continued to provoke him, needling him, trying to insult him into giving me the money he had promised. James is a third dan black belt in Kempo karate, well built yet naturally a pacifist. He exhibits control and zen like abilities more often than not. This morning was one time when he lost it. He jumped out of the bed and we squared up, shouting at each other, face to face, eyeball to bloodshot eyeball.

“Go on you poofter, hit me” I riled him, safe in the knowledge that he would never hurt his little brother – like Robocop’s inability to override his prime directive – protect humans.

Angela jumped out of bed and was screaming and crying. James stormed into the bathroom and warned me to leave or he would make a mess of me. I stood back and quietened a little. I had almost forgotten about the little honey who was waiting for me. James returned from the toilet and seething like a grilling alligator, leapt back into bed beside his woman.

“Come on man, just give us a few dollars and I’ll be gone” I tried one last time

James simply looked up and shook his head, his eyes filled with venom and rage. As I broke his stare I noticed a $100 chip on his bedside locker. He noticed me noticing it a split second too late and before he could get his shaking hands out from under the nice hotel sheets, I had whipped it into my hands and was running from the room, laughing insanely.

I returned to where I had left the honey, alas she had departed. I had no idea if I had been gone for half and hour or longer, but she was nowhere to be seen. I sat at a blackjack table, ordered a drink and blew the hundred dollars quicker than the drink could get delivered. When the drink did arrive I took it to an outdoor area and in the morning sun, smoked and sipped as slowly as I could, and lapsed into a mournful melancholy, lamenting my brothers inability to provide or consider my point of view.

I dawdled for as long as humanly possible before, sloping back to the hotel room where my James and Angela were in the process of packing their things.

It wasn’t too long before we were arguing again, our respective camps at loggerheads and unable to see the other’s point of view. Angela, it has to be said, was a poor mediator, handling the warring factions with all the skill of a Jihad suicide bomber. We argued and ranted and in a instant I said

“Well fuck you too, see if I give a fuck”

To which James retorted

“Get fucked you little bollix”

And so I stormed out of the room, the foyer, the hotel and Vegas.

It was approaching midday now and I headed out a motorway towards LA. I had my sunnies on, my bandana, but little else – no money, water, sleep, phone or contact details. I was still wired from the pill and severely dehydrated. As I  walked I stopped into a lonely looking diner and asked for some water and directions. As I drank from their glass the counterhands told me I was heading in the wrong direction and the LA freeway was two miles in the opposite direction. I headed out, cursing my stupidity but refusing to answer my internal dialogue demanding I return to the hotel find my brother. After almost an hour or so, I found myself at the beginning of the freeway, holding out my thumb, feeling very dazed and slightly confused. Nobody was interested in stopping for a single man, thumbing his way to nowhere in particular- I actually wondered why. After about half an hour or so I was getting pretty despondent, when a pick up truck pulled in past me with an old guy and someone who must have been his grandson in the passenger seat.

“Where you goin’ stranger” He inquired in a soft Southern drawl, chewing on a cud of tobacco

“Headin to LA man, any chance of a lift?”

“Well, I’m headin about thirty miles down the road, hop on  the back and I’ll take you as far as I’m goin.”

With that I jumped up onto the back of the pickup and settled in. The truck slowly trundled away and I began to relax. In front of me Vegas was disappearing just as it had appeared two days ago. I was semi hallucinating and it shimmered and moved in the desert heat as we moved into the distance. A strange serenity settled into my mind. I was completely free and at the mercy of the capricious Gods. My ego had battered itself for years and years to this moment where I released myself in drugged up drunken pre destined passivity. I was happy in the knowledge that I knew not where I was going and was no longer in control.

I knew where I was going about thirty minutes later when the pick up truck Grandad took a right  off the highway and let me off.

“This is the end of the line for us son, good luck”

“Thanks a lot man”

I headed back up to the freeway and put out my thumb to try and get another hitch.

Nothing. Not even a beep. I was swimming in crazy thoughts now, my lack of sleep and overheating body beginning to cause convulsions in my stomach. After about twenty minutes of hopeless thumbing, I went under the freeway, to an off road underpass,  to cool down for a little. The concrete felt so smooth and cold and pacifying. I lay there for some time, shimmering in and out of consciousness, the odd car passing by underneath, the traffic relentless above. My heart rate was thumping and my mouth drier than a camel eating crackers. I sat up to gather my thoughts and began to dry retch, bile and mucous sporadically ejecting themselves over my legs, the concrete and the road below. I was to coin a term, fucked.

As another half hour or so I convinced myself to get back into the murderous sun and try to get to LA, to go to God knows where. I persuaded myself that this was the exact type of adventure I had set myself up for and was what I needed. Suitably self hypnotised and assured, I wandered back to the freeway like some beaten up rent boy, lurching from the shadows. I held out my thumb with a despairing quality that I’m sure the drivers could smell, from inside a moving capsule, travelling at 150kms. I was beginning to dry retch and wobble unconvincingly on the side of the road. I was struggling badly.

With that a car pulled sharply from the speed lane to the middle lane about 200 metres away. It dodged and weaved and almost slammed into a juggernaut right in front of my eyes. It pulled through to the right, to the slow lane and managed to screech to a halt some 200 metres ahead of me on the edge of the freeway. It was my brothers Transam Pontiac. Echoes of a childhood song came flooding back to my ears and mind…From “Two Little Boys”

“Did you think I would leave you dying

When there’s room on my horse for two

Climb up here, we’ll soon be flying

Back to the ranks so blue”

The door opened and my brother jumped out

“Get in the fucking car “ He seethed

“Get fucked “ I quickly informed him and carried on thumbing for a different lift.

He turned and got back into the car. Angela then came out and pleaded with me

“Please John, we’ve been so worried, we’ve been looking for you for four hours in every gaming room in all the casinos, beside every swimming pool, in every pub. Please get into the car. You really don’t look so good”

I accepted some sort of defeat and convinced myself that I should go with them. I got into the car and guzzled some water, while my body rejoiced at the air con that soothed every pore of my being. We drove in tacit silence for a long hour, eventually stopping at a roadside diner and getting some refreshments. It was our father’s birthday and we called him from a payphone there, lying through our teeth about where we were and what was going on. I’m sure he was happy we rang, but I could tell by his tone that he didn’t believe a word. When the respective calls were over I’m sure I saw a little smile creep into my brother’s face, although it could have been him squinting in the sun. We got back into the car, and sped on our way, together as brothers no matter what the cost.

We found neglected farm yards and forests and rivers to gallivant in and imagination allowed us the freedom to live a thousand lives. When time came we would head home for tea and sit with our Granny. She would be nodding off by the fire and would wake with a little start when we came bounding in. The smell of fresh peat burning would fill your lungs and coupled with the smell of cured Irish ham roasting in the oven, you would be in olfactory heaven. We would tell her of our conquests and near death escapes of the days encountering and she would smile serenely and egg us on to tell her more, scolding us if we crossed the line, laughing when we made her laugh. Our granddad would come in with fresh turf from the shed and poke the fire a little, stoking the flames and fixing the heat. He would chat to us about the local men, telling us stories of yore when young men performed great feats for their country and their loves. He taught us of their virtues and their good habits. We listened glued, too young to take it all in, too scared to look away. They were simple times when the world stood still.

Now read on….

I have the good fortune of working in a humble modern day tavern in sunny Australia. It is here where I hear the ramblings of the people, the tales of the past and the promise of the future. Thirsty tuneful tongues guzzle the glorious gargle we purvey.  Elbows prop the heads of the men and women who unify and scour their collective consciousness for tales of transgressions, folly and bravery. Old folk and young alike prick their ears for the story new or old, cocked like tomcat prowling down an alleyway late at night.

It is only now, as the antipodean summer launches that legends begin to emerge. The egg shaped rugby and AFL ball have been stored away, and it is hurting the common man. They have been left with the gormless parade which is cricket and the alien game of soccer to entertain them. But entertained they are not. And so they regress. They shut down slowly and revert back to a distant, childhood way. They begin to recount stories and listen to them. Their imaginations shake awake like a penguin dunking itself in the frozen Antarctic waters. They tell of being in school with now international stars. They tell of how they would have made it too if it hadn’t been for the gangrene in their right leg they contracted one year or for their natural proficiency in the arts, which sent them on a different path. They tell of how one so called star once called in for tea after an U/17 school match. They tell of how they met the All Blacks once on a training camp in The Gold Coast, how they were humble and gregarious. They get to listening. I listen too, marvelling at the intricacies of their stories. The truth never gets in the way of a good story. We hear accounts of men with arms big as redwoods, legs thick as two cars and chests you could run a small music festival on. We hear about them pounding through sand dunes at times when even the early bird is resting his eyes and wings. We hear of their conquests with women so beautiful they could break your heart by even considering casting you a second glance. We hear that they devour beer by the keg yet ne’er be too drunk. The tales get told and believed, and their magic lives on until….

Until the next season begins…. Until the first ball is thrown up and kicked and the sweat, blood and tears of the hibernating months injects itself with the vitality of the modern coliseum and the gladiators wage war again. I will pour the beer again and the men and women will drink. There will be little to say as they savour the battle of the present, assimilating statistics and thrills. They will imagine themselves to be with their hero’s in spirit, that their screaming at an inanimate object in the corner of pub two thousand miles from where the game ensues makes a difference. Of course it does. I know. It’s part of the synchronicity of things. It’s like how my grandparents’ house is now lived in by my Aunty, who is now the Granny and by my Uncle, who is now the Grandad. The grandchildren still come over and run helter skelter till they tire by the fire and are told stories of distant relations and long past local hero’s. They too will listen in quiet awe. Too young to look away, too scared not to believe. And so the story goes….