Problem Yes! Solution No!

I have discovered recently that I am indeed part of the problem and not part of the solution. I am a hater, a proud supporter of the tall poppy syndrome and I only really enjoy art if someone is suffering for it. If I go to a concert and the lead singer throws themselves off the stage into the crowd only to be mauled and then dragged out by security, all the better I say. I want to go to an exhibition where the artist opens a vein on stage and tries to paint a self-portrait before they bleed out, if someone in the crowd hurls, either vomit or abuse, then I am all the more interested. I’m the kind of guy that as soon as the scalpel hit the artery I’d shout “You’re doing it wrong” to elicit a laugh. And I am the kind of awful fuck that will laugh at his own jokes made at other people’s expense.

I like seeing people in worse off positions than me, the homeless alcoholics, the degenerate junkies, cripples, people with mental disabilities. Actually, that last one saddens me. I always wonder if they have the ‘quality of life’ that we have. If they don’t are they better off, you know, dead? Its high time I wrote a will, but one of the things that I’d put in it is that I were ever involved in some sort of accident and were rendered paralyzed or brain damaged that I be euthanized. Just put one in my head or if you haven’t got a pistol, load me up with smack. I don’t ask for much, but the one thing I do ask for is that you have the strength to do what’s right. But I’m getting side tracked here.

I am the sort of person that does not acknowledge the ‘Whatever’s’ people as the traditional owners of this land. I’ve had things stolen from me over the years and do I still consider it mine? No, it’s gone. I admit that I wasn’t man enough to lock that shit down so I have to let it go. Sure it’s a blow to the pride but you know, years of denial has to be worse.

My favorite jokes at the moment are rape jokes. I know so many people who have been raped or assaulted or ‘had a bad experience’ that I really should join some sort of support group. Whenever I have violent fantasies they usually involve me saving someone from being raped. Yet give me the opportunity and I will bust out some of the most offensive things you could imagine. I made my parents watch ‘The Aristocrats’ on DVD once. My mother, at 53, did not find it very funny. But I didn’t stop it. Her being desperately uncomfortable was too amusing to pass up.

Once when I worked in a bookstore I had a lady who was buying her daughter a book about quitting heroin. Because junkies love to sit down and read that shit. Anyway, she was quite naive and obviously from Toorak/Sth Yarra so I convinced her to buy “Junky” by William Burroughs, the book that most glorified heroin for me. I wonder how it all turned out, but seriously, in the spirit of up-selling I really should have tried to sell her a copy of “Train-spotting” and told her it was educational. Then “In my skin” by Kate Holden. Just so she knows what to expect when her daughter becomes a whore.

I once watched an old lady fall down the steps of Flinders St station. The only thing I could do was think, “She looks just like a dead fish sliding down there”. Someone yelled at me “Don’t just stand there!” so I turned around and walked away.

I don’t know why I do this, chronicling all the terrible things that I have done. Its like I am a recovering drug addict and am pacing the 12 steps, only I am not recovered. Maybe I just want you all to hate me as much as I hate myself so that it’s not so disappointing for you next time we meet.

I don’t want your sympathy, all I want is next time I slither out of my hole and curse and spit and try to bite everything around me, all I want is for someone to go “Its ok, we know how you feel”.

Filled with poison, filled with hate.