Love Note to No One

I open the door to my room which has no lock and barely any need for a latch, either by kicking it mid-stride or flinging my right arm out, fist balled up, to strike it. There was supposed to be a lock put on the door just after I moved in but I can never be bothered stressing Mick, the owner of the pub, to do it. Four months here and still nothing missing, every day fills me with unearned confidence in my neighbours. There's a fire alarm on the roof that beeps intermittently because it is low on battery; it has been doing that since I got here and even though Mick gave me a new battery to put in it so it wouldn't beep, I haven't done shit.

Sometimes the kick or punch I deliver to the door doesn't open it all the way, these times are due to the latch being caught on what is left of it's hole in the door frame. On these days I hip-and-shoulder the door open once I am face-to-face with it, and inevitably I make my way inside. It's night time usually. My shoes are the first to come off after I sit down in the chair I found on the side of the road in Glandore, Adelaide, the suburb where I grew up before leaving in July, 2012. 5037. Taking my shoes off isn't a huge priority, but it always feels nice, and the time it takes usually coincides with the time it takes my computer to turn on or at least come off of sleep mode after I sit down. The chair creaks – I have never had it checked for disease. I wiggle my toes after removing my socks and making a quick calculation concerning whether they are clean enough to wear tomorrow. Yes or no: on any day this is a fifty-fifty decision.

Internet, depending on whether or not I have it at the moment. Sometimes I'm in luck and the router downstairs is turned on so I can sneakily piggyback off of the pub's internet (I'm not supposed to be, but the password is c37636e6 so how could I not?). Often the router is turned off though, and in those cases I either use my phone as a router and stick to text-based websites, or stay off line and play some music. I take my pants off next, and then my shirt, and turn the music up a little as the air settles, the window was probably already open unless it's been raining but it's summer at the moment and it's been summer for months now. If I leave the door open a nice breeze flows through the window and cuts the stillness over my bed which has been drenched in sunlight all day. Over my chair and out, I leave a shoe on the floor to stop the door from slamming shut.

At some point I will lean back on my chair almost far enough so that it will fall over, but not quite, because I have pretty good balance and I trust myself, but when I pop back up I feel all the more tired, and ready for bed. I don't like sleeping with light on, and that includes a computer screen, but I do like having something to listen to that will lull me into my unconscious. I shut the door because I like to sleep naked. Plug my phone in, climb into bed, put my phone on the dresser, set an alarm for the morning – if I don't have work, seven hours from now is a good time to wake up. If my hair is tied up I take it down and put the hair-tie on my table, somewhere easy to find. Look around, one last time, flip my pillows over, flip them again, find two that combine their height to make something like a nice, comfortable head rest. Settle in. Kick the quilt off, pull it back, poke my feet out the end. Yawn. Open eyes close again, open, close, open, droopy. Feel my legs twitch a few times in a state of half awakedness. Awakening? Awa...kened...full... Questions questions... silent thoughts...

and then I think of you.

Open Mic Drive

 I haven't been writing in here every day AT ALL, for the last few weeks. I need to get my motivation levels back up again... as I lay in bed a few hours ago listening to the new Opie and Anthony Podcast – 'The Best of Patrice O'Neal' – on repeat, I found myself wondering at my recent lack of motivation. “Why have I suddenly fallen into this slump?” But then again, I found myself wondering the opposite, in equal measure: “What reason is there to get up in the morning?”

This question needs an answer, but the answer has to come from somewhere, and the best kind of somewhere I know of is me, so here it is.

OPEN MIC DRIVE!

Luka, Blake and I are starting a podcast called 'Open Mic Drive' (it was between that and 'Open Drive Life'; the title being a nod to the well known 'Open Mic Life' starring Doug Gordon and formerly Russell Wigginton, now Dilruk Jayasinha) about... well I don't really know what it's going to be about yet. It's going to be completely different from any other podcast, and I think people are going to love the idea... the basic premise of the actual audio is that the three of us, who share rides home at least a couple nights a week after gigs, will record our post-gig conversations and take the best bits to form an episode every week. If Luka gives someone else a lift home, then they'll be the guest for that week. If we pick up a hitchhiker, they can be a special commentator. We'll listen to music and talk about life and yell at people out the windows and rag on Blake for not having a dad... OH THE POSSIBILITIES!!

I feel though, that when we first announce the podcast, there will be waves and parades of eye-rolling throughout the open mic community – and so there should be. There are so many fucking comedians doing podcasts out there – funny and talented people all – but it's just too much. There's so much information to wade through, with only the faint promise of stumbling across something truly amazing. The next WTF? Unlikely... with every new podcast the herd gets thicker, and harder to traverse.

So what of us? What of 'Open Mic Drive'. What of the hypocrisy of railing against the never-ending tide of podcasts battering our screens and making it harder to find gold, only to join said tide and hope to find some arbitrary point of difference to stand out from the crowd? What of it indeed.

I know this sounds like blatant own-horn-tootery, but have faith, our podcast will be different. I can't tell you why yet, but I'm excited, friends. This is now my reason to get up in the morning... well, one morning a week, anyway. I'm excited right now. Yes. Yes. Open Mic Drive Yes.

Peace, Taco.

Election-Related Injuries a Real Headache for the Left

A massive surge in head injuries thought to be the result of exasperated left-wing voters attempting to vent their frustrations against masonry has sent emergency wards across the country into a panic this weekend. These election-related injuries have been mostly concentrated in the inner-city suburbs of capital cities and have caused several Fitzroy coffee shops to designate certain walls as 'Non-Essential Government Resistance Outlet' or 'NEGRO Walls' in a bid to ensure structural integrity.

Conservative commentators and Liberal voters alike have condemned the leftists' actions, with some going as far as to suggest that the number of self-inflicted head injuries over the one weekend constitutes a coordinated effort to overload the cities' hospitals and manufacture a panic about the state of the health system. Others claim the behaviour is simply the result of the easy inner-city hipster lifestyle, and that this “faggy tantrum” will soon play itself out.

“Maybe if he stop readin' all them fuckin' books and did a bit o' work mate!” contented Dave, from Ceduna. Dave's son is currently in a critical condition in St Vincent's Hospital in Fitzroy, Melbourne, after being found next to a lamp post on Saturday, with his phone screen displaying a text from his father that read, “BLOODY0BOAT0PEOPLE!” [SIC]

Right-wing pundits are urging all voters who are disappointed with the election result to take their frustrations out in a more traditional manner, for example in competitive sports, or organized street-fights, while medical experts are suggesting that if the left is adamant that it will continue to beat its head against the wall, it at least wear a bike helmet.

From Richmond.

Peace, Taco.

The Best Pun

The cream came on the market during a time of fear. “VinceCream™, be your own best friend.” There were rumours that the original development team had formulated the prototype with the goal of permanent transformation, but marketing had watered it down for mass-production. No point in selling a once-off, better to make it temporary and keep the money rolling in. Vince Melling was a God: the fastest, the smartest, the most well-groomed, wives on every continent. Nobody could resist.

The day they brought it out doors were rammed down in every department store across the developed world. China, Japan, South Korea, Great Britain, The European Continent, Australia, North America, Brazil. Also in developing countries: Indonesia, South Africa, Mexico, New Zealand. The wave of homogeneity spread out from each source as people rubbed VinceCream™ on themselves and their faces and bodies, even voices, changed to resemble the one true Vince Melling. Everyone's change was different – no one looked exactly the same as Melling or each other after the three hour transformation period, but “the product's effectiveness was assured across all races and body types”, they said, “to within three standard deviations from True Vince.”

Within three months the first customers started coming back after their little plastic tubs started to run dry... the elderly, the infirm, those who needed more VinceCream™ daily to maintain their new state (for the wonder-drug also cured sickness and disability, as Vince Melling, it was widely known, had never been sick in his life). VinceCream Lite™ was a smash hit with twenty-something women. VinceCream Starburst™ with pre-teens. Mothers bought their children VinceCream™ for their third birthday. Sex bars stocked glow in the dark VinceCream™ to use as lubricant in late-night orgies. Vince's sexual prowess was renowned.


The years wore on and VinceCream™ remained the number one selling product of any kind world wide, children were born in hospitals full of look-alike nurses and doctors and parents with smiling faces chiselled from the same stone as their charismatic god. Vince Melling, he walked Earth's every corner, every day, his clones in billions of places, all at the same time. No one could object, and it started to be that even those who had no particular fondness for the man initially had started using his product – social pressures. Don't be left out. Don't be left behind. Racism ended, gender inequality too, and the world was divided into Vinces, and the steadily diminishing ranks of those who continued to hold out. The fringes of society: outlaws, rednecks, idiots, followers of the old religions in the strangest parts of creation where the sun, it was assumed, no longer cared to shine.


Tolerance is not an easy game, and so these corners were slowly wiped out... eventually by force, though never were the hold-outs long in their protest. One week of VinceCream™ can turn anyone, and once the world has been rearranged by a new set of eyes belonging to the immortal himself, like faces in a cloud, it is hard to ever see the chaos again.

*****

Vince Melling sat in his mansion, surrounded by beauties – himself. Walking mirrors, talking and moving in a way almost identical to his own, he spat upon them. They fell directly at his feet.

In the bathroom he locked the door, and drawing his face up close to the mirror and carefully with his hand, trembling with fear and anticipation, he rubbed the VinceCream™ into his own face, then sat silently, waiting for something to happen.

At noon the next day, the world seemed empty. A godless, barren wasteland, filled with living bodies wandering; images of a ghost. Even Vince Melling, because no one is un-Vinceable.