And Now For This...

… Life and Death

Harold pondered that the only thing in life he really had any control over was his death.

People tend to react to suicide as if it were a waste. “Poor thing,” they say, “so young, so much life unlived.” As if it were perfectly good food thrown out, or a girtcard that expires without being spent. Well, Harold had never asked for the gift of life, so why couldn’t he return it without feeling guilty?

No one had yet managed to prove to him that there was a point to his existence, or anyone’s existence for that matter. And if that were true, if we are all just counting the clock until checkout time, why couldn’t he go a little earlier than the rest? Skip all the misery and the suffereing that his parents had deemed too important to miss out, and so had brought him into the world for the experience.

But leave it for the rest, he had seen enough, and he was the only one he had to satisfy. People of course said he was wasting a precious lifetime, but he felt all this living was eating into his after-life experience, which was, really, the longer trip, so why not hurry up and get on with it? Stop putting it off with all this breathing and aging nonsense, and get to the next part.

Unless that part didn’t have a point either, and was just more of the same, but somewhere colder. But no! He refused to think about that possibility.

Harold supposed he could find a girl to love. That would give him something to live for, as the saying goes. Persistent bugger, considering it had already gone so many times before.

People in movies, who are like people outside of movies except with more refined dialogue and better hair, are always telling people they love “I’d die for you”. But what they really mean is “You’re the reason I’m still here, you make all of this quite bearable, and since it’s coming down to a choice between having to endure without you, or death… well, I’ll see you on the other side I guess.” That’s not romantic! It’s a lot of pressure, for one thing, making sure you remain interesting enough to make a person want to keep living, when they’re clearly not fussed on the experience by itself.

No, when you really sat down and thought about it, you’d be able to look up and see that everyone is thinking exactly the same thing. Except some of them might be standing, because there probably aren’t that many chairs in the world.

“Well, there’s the exit!” Harold tried to tell them. “Or that one there, or that one. You’ve got hundreds of choices on how you want to go.”

“Oh, no,” they would reply, hypothetically, since these conversations never really happened anywhere outside of Harold’s mind, “we’re here now. Might as well make the most of it. And how can you begrudge your parents, really? You’d rather miss all the exciting parts of living, even if sometimes it’s a bit crummy?”

“Yes, absolutely!” cried Harold. ” You say feeling happy and seeing beauty is almost worth having to endure the opposite, but if I never existed, then what would I know about emotions, enjoyable or otherwise? I can’t long for things I have no understanding of. In fact, I won’t even regret not taking my chance to exist, because I’m non-existant, and therefore can’t reason!”

Nope, leave me in the nether, please. And if there’s nothing after this brief stint of living, then let me return to it quick smart by my own choice and hand. I felt and thought nothing there, which was perfectly (here he’d make a gesture to mean blank, or nothingness), and couldn’t complain about it.

Let me kin no mourn me, for I only poked my nose in on living. Well, formed a nose first, then poked it in. It’s just a phrase, really, you know what I mean. Let them die soon, too, and join no one in the nothing, and not-exist themselves too.

For all intents and purposes, as far as those in the future are concerned, I don’t exist then, and therefore don’t now, nor did I ever.”

And that was that for Harold.

… Hot Summer Nights

Remember the last time it was this hot?
You were letting me share your bed, because we’d agreed on that before our fight, and you were loyal to the point of stupidity. Or maybe you were giving me a chance to apologise, which I desperately wanted to do.
But it was too hot. Too hot to roll over and hug you, to make sad, sorry love to you. Too hot to even lie on opposite sides of the bed, really, but we did, radiating heat and hate at one another.
I had all night to think on how I had wronged you, whilst I baked in hell for my sins.
Maybe we would’ve turned out differently, if it hadn’t gone the way it did. But that night the weather killed us, finally. Maybe we’d have made love, had we been able to sweat anymore than we were already. Maybe we’d still be together.
But for one hot night in January that kept us apart, in bed and in life thereafter.

… Interview: Gippsland’s Backyard Cinema

A picnic blanket, a warm summer evening, and some great movies on a big screen; it’s a model for a great night out at Melbourne’s outdoor cinema, and now Gippsland girls Sarah Guganovic and Ele Mason-Sakkas aim to bring the big screen to Warragul – but with a lot more heart, community spirit, and creativity.

Read my full interview over at Top Shelf Magazine.

… Interview: Super Magic Hats

The fickle music scene has recently deemed electronica as the in-vogue genre, and one of the musicians at the forefront of the sound is Rob Masterton, better known as Super Magic Hats.

Yet, despite recently being on the bill at the Northcote Social Club with Sydney electro-indie group RUFUS, Masterton says he only managed to briefly meet his contemporaries in the venue’s bathroom, and admits there was a fair amount of “fanboy gushing” on his part. It sums up the pleasantly humble and modest Masterton, who deserves a lot more attention for his art as electronica musician Super Magic Hats, and is bound to get it soon with the impending release of his debut EP Wind.

Read More over at Top Shelf Magazine.

… Les Miserables that is Les Audience

If I were a man who was politely reserved in his opinions, I would suggest that Les Misérables’ nomination for Best Picture Oscar is perplexing.

But in the words of its protagonist Jean Valjean, who am I?

Well, I am an honest and loudly spoken man, and I can therefore say that one of the greatest stage musicals ever has been made into one of the unequivocally worst films of all time. Sadly, it needn’t have gone that way, if only those involved had understood the differences between a filmed musical and a musical film.

Read More over at Top Shelf Magazine.

… I am attracted to broken people

I am attracted to broken people.

I need a companion, and they walk the same paths I do, because their wings are broken, too. They know not just suffering, but how to suffer, and when we swap stories on the long journey, they will not cause me to waste words.

I do not want someone who will drag me to the peaks. I know how to fly, but they do not know how to fall. I do not want to pretend to be whole with them.

It is the darkness that binds me to others, flowing from our open wounds. The darkness that fascinates. It is a familiar unknown, a shared difference. And if we ever climb a mountain together, neither of us will resent the other for taking the view for granted, for we have both walked the earth and felt its cold.

… Digital Downloaded Convenience at The Cost of Quality

For music lovers, iTunes digital downloads have granted us the ability to find albums rarely stocked by retailers, or merely hear a song on the radio and have it playing through our stereos a matter of minutes later. This convenience has allowed our knowledge, and hence appreciation, or music to greatly expand beyond what physical retailers would ever have allowed.

Yet by nonchalantly clicking “I Agree” on the iTunes Terms and Conditions contract, have we unwittingly traded one evil, in having to put on pants and drive to the store, for another?

Read More over at Top Shelf Magazine.