Alone

Had been out two nights in a row. Not for too long, and almost sober, felt like embracing the bed and disappearing into infinity immediately afterwards. Succeeded yesterday, not much tonight.

Hadn't called anybody. I only realised this once I started writing these words. Meaning I really didn't feel like being with somebody (highly unusual). Ran through myriads of microscopic raindrops to the movies. Scared the shits out of a poor girl on a corner.

Enjoyed a movie, a first one in three weeks.

Alone at the movies. Can't recall when was the last time that happened. Probably almost twenty years ago. Or? Doesn't matter.

Enjoyed myself.

Ordem e Progresso

Everything I keep denying... Order & Progress. Another Brazilian night. Last second decision to join. Eye candy too sweet to resist. Service sucks. No fucking lemon, mate? No lime? Tequila's pointless. No fucking orange juice means no vodka either. Far out. A real reason to whinge.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce to you, from the deepest hell — Mr Jim Beam and Mr Johnnie Walker. It's to be their night and their night only!

Trying my best to have fun, giving up only when band starts playing Bob Marley. It's been too much. I have to make progress, for god's sake.

"A party that is not extraordinary is unworthy of being a party at all" — someone hints with a grinning apology to Oscar Wilde, and I humbly tend to agree. Checking two more joints in a quick succession, both packed with Lebs and wankers. No avail.

This night is doomed. Won't pick up even Madeleine Albright's uglier sister. Won't get anywhere. Time to head home.

Saturday's too hot for anything but staying in bed. Reading, watching videos, catching up on sleep.

Finally time for order and progress.

Movies - February 2007

Again, a reference list. I had to flick through a calendar to get it right, as I can't recall all. Only a handful of them, but I haven't seen anything since mid-month. Still, not bad (or too bad?), considering February is the shortest of them all.

1. Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man (2005) (charming)
2. Blood Diamond (2006) (strong)
3. Triumph des Willens (1935) (astonishing)
4. Hotel Rwanda (2004) (sad)
5. Babel (2006) (depressing, yet awesome)
6. Little Miss Sunshine (2006) (bitter-sweet)
7. Children of Men (2006) (pretty hard to dig)

Saw almost all Oscar-nominated movies what generally means I had too much time on my hands and instead of enjoying myself down on the beach I was stuck in dark pits staring at moving pictures like an idiot.

Update 08/03/2007: Good month, wasn't it?

Friendly afternoon chat

– Did you ram that chick, bro?
– Yeah, did.
– Any good?
– Kinda.
– How's her kitty?
– Not even a runway left, mate, like a seven-year-old.
– Holy shit. You boned a fucking lolita, you son of a bitch.
– So what.
– Fucking lucky loser.
– Go fuck yourself, you pathetic fag.
– Fuck you.
– Fuck you, too.

I can't get no satisfaction

This is a strange summer. And I am in a strange state of mind. Doing so much, yet yielding so little. Basically nothing. Emptiness. That's how I qualify it. Doing nothing important (for self, of course, gave up saving the world at the age of twelve), getting nowhere.

Priorities are unclear. I wonder if I even have some. Maybe to settle, I guess. It is a great idea, really. One of very few that crossed my mind lately.

The issue is that I don't know where to settle as I love planes & cars too much (I hope somebody will notice a slight touch of sarcasm in that statement). Plus, what is even worse, I have no clue who to settle with. That really sucks.

And on top of that, I am facing a question of how ready I am to be with someone. How ready I am to give up that emptiness I am flying in.

It's as crazy as it's sad.

I can lock myself in, or go out and browse through awesome laid-back beauty of Woollahra and Paddington lanes, can go to and/or throw multiple parties with hectolitres of fire water poured through my throat, go to picturesque Bondi & just breathe the air, or go to a bar anywhere around, pick up a chick and give it to her. That always makes me shut up for a while.

How cool. How appropriate.

Only not satisfying.

What the fuck should I do?

Eric Clapton Live, Sydney 30 January 2007

Couldn't really name all Clapton's songs as I could with U2 or Waters. Obviously haven't listened to him enough. I'm lost when it comes to new stuff (and some old stuff, too). Had to wait for the setlist to be posted here, so I could copy it for a reference.

I took few videos, this is the first of them. The other ones are Nobody knows you when you're down and out, Layla, Cocaine and Crossroads (the last two were the only encores).

Main set: Tell The Truth * Key To The Highway * Got to Get Better in A Little While * Little Wing * Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad? * * Driftin' Blues (EC Solo) * Outside Woman Blues * Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out * Running On Faith * * Motherless Children * Little Queen of Spades * Further On Up The Road * Wonderful Tonight * Layla

Encore: Cocaine * Crossroads

Enjoy.

Wonderful Tonight

A short one about wanting

The more I want, the less I have. That is probably something that works universally. It also works the other way around. The less I want, the more I have. Until something breaks and then I don't have anything. Not that something broke or that I want something. I'm not expecting anything, thus I'm not missing anything, so I can see my Buddha slash Seneca companions kindly waving at me from their perspective heavens.

What did I want? Oh yeah, I don't want anything.

Sure, dream on, my alter ego.

Movies - January 2007

As usually, before I forget, there is a list; not quite complete, there were three more movies that I won't mention as they were probably seen by an extremely limited number of people... but the others are:

1. Black Dahlia (below average)
2. Scoop (below average, though everybody loves Scarlett)
3. La Doublure (funny, but pointless)
4. Apocalypto (below expectations)
5. Déjà Vu (crappy premise)
6. El Laberinto del Fauno (due on Wednesday, hopefully the best of all listed)

I gave a nonchalant miss to Perfume on the plane (though I flicked through it few times, just to double-check it's crap).

Can't recall anything else, but it looks that this wasn't a successful month. Hope there are some better ones waiting for me next month.

Roger Waters & The Dark Side Of The Moon, Sydney 25 January 2007

Set one: In the Flesh * Mother * Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun * Shine On You Crazy Diamond * Have a Cigar * Wish You Were Here * Southampton Dock * The Fletcher Memorial Home * Perfect Sense, Parts 1 and 2 * Leaving Beirut * Sheep

Set two (Dark Side of the Moon): Speak to Me * Breathe * On the Run * Time * Breathe (Reprise) * The Great Gig in the Sky * Money * Us and Them * Any Colour You Like * Brain Damage * Eclipse

Encore: Another Brick in the Wall, Part II * Vera * Bring the Boys Back Home * Comfortably Numb

Loose mind

Eating Japanese salmon, sipping green tea that is so far from a green tea I know. It ain't sweet, she complains. Shouldn't be. I'd laugh, but I don't feel like laughing, she's almost gone and I am gone, too, 'cos I can't handle living in three countries and four, no, sorry, five places. It sucks.

Don't feel like going down to Bondi tonight. Feel like watching stars. What a wonderful screensaver.

Three o'clock in the morning, sober. TV's on, it's a must. Another sleepy day to come.

G'day sunshine.

Nausea

Didn't stop for last few days, so thanks God for Xmas. The longest night is just about to come.

Went to see The Queen tonight, went to a Brazilian Xmas party, too. Unusually sober. Drumming sounded almost tribal, yet it wasn't complete. You can't relocate Copacabana spirit to Bondi, especially if Brazilians are holding back. Or are they?

Spent about an hour in cabs, talked to a Turkish cabbie about life. So typical. Another Beşiktaş fan. I always ask these Turkish the same question: Fenerbahçe or Galatasaray? And they always answer Beşiktaş. Makes me laugh.

Got my first Xmas present; Sartre's Nausea.

Stunningly appropriate.

Another lazy one

There's no much one can do while detoxing. Watching movies. How cool is that? Seen Pedro's Volver that was great, nevertheless a bit of a chick flick. And an old one with Robin Williams, Good Morning, Vietnam. That one looked like a weather forecast next to a multi Oscar box office smasher, though I could feel mojo in the distance (wouldn't it be for Williams, I'd had probably given up on it).

Six days to Christmas, just realized now, though haven't started shopping yet. Typical.

Afternoon

Went down to Bondi for the first time since starting detox. Still a place of tranquillity for me, can't help it. Avoided bars, just walked along and looked the other way.

Great to see all surfers, backpackers, gypsies and wanderers going their way and enjoying summer. Bondi is still hippie, Poms are not worried to roll a joint on the steps of their provisional homes and buff away while chatting about expensive rent.

Slept on the grass, listened to Miles. Sun was forgiving.

Enjoyed the day.

Movies

Just for a reference (before I forget); stayed in Oz for three weeks so far, made it to the movies five times (plus saw one on a DVD).

Borat was obscene but fun, The Prestige took me about twenty seconds to digest, The Departed was quite predictable but acting was fabulous (for a moment I thought it could pass for Pulp Fiction of the 21st century), Casino Royale was the best Bond movie I've ever seen (as it was the very first one too) and Pedro's Volver is only due tomorrow, but tickets have been ordered already.

The Bonus, Walk the Line 'bout Johny was cool, too, but I drank during the flick as much as he did so can't recollect the details very clearly...

All good.

U2 live in Sydney 13 November 2006

Main Set: City Of Blinding Lights * Vertigo * Elevation * I Will Follow * New Year's Day * Beautiful Day (Snippets: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band/Blackbird/Michelle) * I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For * Angel Of Harlem * Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own * Love And Peace Or Else * Sunday Bloody Sunday (Snippet: Coexist) * Bullet The Blue Sky * These Are The Hands That Built America * Miss Sarajevo * Pride (In The Name Of Love) * Where The Streets Have No Name * One

Encore: Until The End Of The World * Mysterious Ways * With Or Without You * The Saints Are Coming * Party Girl (Snippet: I Should Be So Lucky) * Kite

Celebrity (looking for the next reel)

I finally saw Allen's Celebrity. It only took me seven and a half years since I left the movies and ran into fresh rainy night during what turned out to be the last date with my teenage darling. Now, I came full circle.

The movie ain't a bad one, fellas.

(I'll get back to this subject as soon as I'm ready. Hopefully within another seven and a half years.)

Weekend whinge

OK. Let me tell you what happened. I went to a bbq down in Bronte and I met her there. I was still a bit smashed, courtesy of the previous night, but it didn't stop me from kissing each pussy I saw. Hey, she told me her name - Ai! I never had a girl with such name. And I was interested. Watched her from distance, she was sexy, funny, cool. And single.

I met her twice or thrice in parties later the following week and I knew what I was to do. Ask her out. It took me a week to get her to go for a dinner with me. Did I dream of getting her home and fucking her? Hardly. Still, she probably thought "what a weird idiot, I'll get a free dinner and I'll see how I go".

I saw how she went, too. I paid for the dinner, took her to world's second best beach (after Copacabana, my friends) and nothing happened. Obviously. I had that strange feeling since very beginning, yet I didn't want to spoil the night.

"We can catch up again, for a friendly chat", she messaged me the next day. Fuck me dead, bitch.

Next night, my pot pal, nicknamed Potboy, ain't behind the house at usual time. What the? Isn't it ironic that he went out with her a day after me - without telling me anything? Not that I'd have said anything to him, either.

Then she's messaging me at the middle of the night few days later. Friday night. I'm drinking with my managerial friends down in Cross, enjoying free Barramundi diner, courtesy of our wealthy customer, drinking seventh Corona, and then - "We're in O'Meally, come over". I'm not into crappy Irish pubs too much (I've only been to Tea once since Doctor left), but I'm there in fifteen minutes, with two mates by my side.

Potboy and two chicks are comfortably numb sitting in an Irish pub and slowly dying. They don't fit there, they're bored and totally out of place. Ai needs some company so she took her girlfriend with her. And Potboy is probably dry as an eighty year old cunt, so there's not much they can talk about. Plus, you can't hear anything in a pub packed with Irish backpackers anyway.

I'm having a quick beer with my mates, gently ignoring the rest of the company. Then a joint in a back lane (Potboy had one ready). Once we come back, chicks are to leave. After some twenty minutes! Does that make sense to anybody?

Potboy leaves soon after. We're having another beer, then changing pubs few more times until we drop dead.

Early in the morning... Barefoot, trying to find my way home around the bay. It's cul-de-sac everywhere and I'm trapped. Finally a cab.

Here I am. Smashed again, but a bit smarter. Don't fucking dare to buy her a dinner until she sleeps with you. I might have known better.

Yeah, and did I tell you about that blonde? Maybe next time.

Denial

Once one has almost everything life can bring (within reasonable boundaries, of course), there's no much excitement left. Ironically, the excitement might come through denial. You're not allowed to do this or that, you couldn't get on a plane, you couldn't get the girl you were longing for, etc.

It's pretty hard to catch the plane once it's lifted off so one can be angry (or just excited) but there's not much that can be done about it. On the other hand, being denied/refused/turned down by a chick brings more creative ideas how to get her, thus pushing excitement further. Until she gives in, or, alternatively, an average asshole grows bored/frustrated that his chances are slimmer than being ran over by an F1 car in Sahara desert. And gives in.

However whatever happens in the end is unimportant - the initial joy of denial for a numb been-everywhere-done-everything-seen-it-all bastard is rejuvenating.

Unless the denial comes too often, in which case the poor bastard should start pushing his boundaries further. Or just get used to whores instead.

Anesthetics doesn't help

I'm fourteen. Ready to chase chicks, ready for a first failure, ready to look forward and - due to unexplainable enigmatic reasons - to look back as well. Feel strong, feel masculine, macho, yet vulnerable and depressed at times, too.

Fast forward to 2006. Not much changed. Thousands of dollars wasted on anesthetics and nothing helped. How many were there and how many more will it take?

Oh, I better drop it, for fuck's sake. It's just one of these days.

Intro

Wherever you go, whatever you see, there is always something to whinge about. I guess most Aussies recon Poms are the ultimate whingers of our time, yet most Aussies probably do not know me. Until now, 'course. Now, they're getting a chance to get to know a superwhinger from the other (dark) side of the Earth.

Myself, ladies and gentlemen, obviously.