Trivial Writing

It's been a while since my last entry. Although I always intend to write more, distractions, manmade or not, tend to get in the way. 

This is not a rant on my usual subjects, this is more a message to anyone who is unhappy, depressed, or worse. Since my arrival to my home country the rates of suicide have increased tenfold in my small county alone. There are no definitive answers to why, however something is wrong and I feel obliged to write something on the matter.

Know this. Whatever you are feeling right now cannot compare to what you will feel if you take your life. It cannot even come close. I can't tell you what will happen when you die, but I can tell you what will happen to your body when it dies. Your heart will stop beating, blood will not circulate your organs, muscles will contract, every last orifice in your body will purge bodily matter on the area around you. Your skin becomes cold and lifeless. Nothing will survive.

While suicide may seem like a viable choice, you will not have another life to start fresh. Think of those who love you. If no one loves you. Think of those who could love you. This world is immense, there are billions of personalities out there. Some love fighting, some love shagging and some love writing terribly like me, my point is there is someone out there who will love what you love and ultimately love you. Don't let one event ruin a lifetime of happiness. Suicide is not an option.

Think of something you have never done. I bet there's a few. Pick one and go do it tomorrow. Don't waste a day, don't waste an hour, grab the life that you were so fortunate to get and make it one worth living. Haters will always hate, and haters will always exist, don't let a group of people who may have lost their way put you off yours.

I know what its like to feel lost, alone and forgotten. These feelings are overwhelming and often can push people to the edge. All it takes is one moment of sublime happiness to change a life. So those of you who know someone, someone with problems and no one to talk to. Reach out, buy them a coke, coffee or a cinema ticket and take action against suicide.

Life is temporary, death is permanent, don't let negative emotion erase a chance of a fulfilled life.

My direction is not clear to me, a bat, I'm 

blind, yet I can see. The journey of life is 

not straight, but with some strength I 

participate.

Through centuries of hurt and pain, 

people lost and people gained. Like a 

mighty wave on the sea, cities burnt for 

others greed.

I'll take my left to meet his right, we 

transgress to harness life. Take no idol 

and pray no more, the god of truth shall 

stand therefore.

A generation born through tyranny, we 

must look back through the tree. 

Almighty bob I do respect, the roots of 

reggae and neglect.

Some get taken mighty quick, the stem 

of life can make dem sick. But while you 

can, spread the word, we the people 

Decided to draw something random. I haven't drawn anything since GCSE! I really enjoyed myself.

Little tune I discovered while taking a stroll around youtube. I enjoy strolling through all the mainstream chart stuff to find little gems like this. To be fair this version is mainstream, but the original I cant link too isn't really, anyway enjoy this cut down version.

As I write about our time in surfers paradise I really cant remember a fucking thing about our time back there. I am pretty sure we went out as soon as we got back as one last night with A and D from what I recall I drank some cheap shit vodka and was in fucking bits the next day.

So we stayed at a new hostel called Surf n Sun, the room was ten times nicer than that of backpackers in paradise and it was only 4 dollars more a night for a 6 bed room with a tv and shit, even though the toilet had a saloon door, overall it was good craic. We met a german girl lauri who was pretty fit and was 30 which made her more fit for some reason, civil as fuck too. She always slept in wee kinky underwear and was topless which wasn’t bad to come in to at night. Think we all chanced our arm at her and I am adamant I had it nailed down til drunk DJ came back and ruined the atmosphere one night, but ah well.

This other Canadian girl, Hannah I think her name was, stayed in  our room as well, she was pretty hot too and was 19. Proper into the gym and stuff she had beast shoulders and pretty strong muscles all round, we joked regularly that she would destroy us in bed.

So we went with the surf and sun ones a few times, NJ and C went to Brisbane a few days earlier than we did and they got free acom the bastards, it was a bit of a joke to be honest, but ah well we enjoyed ourselves in surf and sun. Ended up me and DJ and ST got these lasagna toppers things out of the shop by the hostel, all I can say is fucking amazing! Like battered lasagna type things, unreal. On the topic of food we also got some amazing steaks from this clock hotel place, oh my christ the rump steak after 5 or 6 in evening was simply divine!

So me and DJ went on the backpackers big night out, I ended up getting with some Icelandic chick called Petra, all I ever talked to her about was Gylfi Sigurdsson which I think annoyed her a bit. DJ tackled one of the american chicks that we went out with, it was a good night although I got kicked out of shooters for being “too aggressive” complete bullshit like.

So after Byron the other lads headed back to surfers while me, NJ and C decided to head to little place up in the hills of NSW called Nimbin. For those that don’t know Nimbin is a little village that seems like its still in the fucking 70's its crazy like. Before I get into it, it took us frigging ages to get near the place and the heat that day was pretty immense.

Once in Nimbin you are instantly offered weed as soon as you step out of your car. Its mad like it has a police station and all but its sort of ok to buy and sell weed, in all honesty I don’t think many people understand the concept of Nimbin, it is a weird place but its quite unique at the same time. So anyway Nimbin is a strange wee place and we were offered weed no less than 10 times for walking about 100 yards.

We bumped into some old weird women stoned off her face, she was bullshitting us telling us stories of how she was from Dublin, ill be honest she went through about 5 different accents in the space of ten minutes. She tried to sell us some cookies but got caught by the barmaid who wasn’t happy! Anyway we moved outside after a beer and some food. I ended up getting cookies off another old woman and she pointed out another old guy who could sell some nice weed. Me and NJ bought 4 grams each and soon after that we took the long journey home. I ate half a cookie on the way home to see if they were any good, there was no effect though which was disappointing.

We arrived in Byron Bay on the Satruday, it was a shitty oul day and was raining quite a bit. Was quite exciting going to meet the boys though, hadn't seen A or D in a long time, they were farming down in NSW for a few months.

So when we arrived it was quite an underwhelming place in my opinion  everyone talks about how awesome Byron was, but I just didn’t see it. It deffinately was a laid back place and you could tell it was a surfer town, loads of long haired surfers wondering about with no shoes on, it was a nice setting I suppose.

Anyway I was busting for a shit so we had to stop at a wee bar and I annihilated the toilet for a good 10 minutes with some horrific scat, it wasn’t pleasant, but was necessary. After that I met the rest of the lads in a pub and we ordered food and waited for A and D to arrive. They arrived and A's beard was simply put: disgusting, it was like you know one of them muslim beards, I am no racist btw, but it’s the best description. Anyway it didn’t look right on him and we bust out laughing and stroked it a few times. Was good to see them and we finished our food then headed on.

We went to the offy got some goon and went back to the cars. We slapped the goon in a wee park by the beach. Sitting round the picnic table drinking away reminded me of old times at home, was  a nice reflection seeing the lads again and we were doing a wee drop of slagging as usual. The cops soon showed up and told us we weren't allowed to drink there, but they didn’t cause a fuss told us we could go to the beach as long as we carried our rubbish back with us.

We went to the beach and kept slapping the goon and started singing old rugby songs like maggy moore and old chicago town.  One funny point was when I was taking a piss on the beach DJ walked clean through my piss and blamed me for it.. Such a tool. We went back to the cars and got changed in the middle of the street, everyone was tipsy, but C was fucking loaded! His drink tolerance has went downhill since he's been in Australia.

We then walked on to Cheeky Monkeys the club in Byron where all the shit went down apparently. C got rejected so me and him and NJ went and got him a change of clothes and drove the car round to the club and tried again. Second time round he got rejected so me and NJ implemented Belfast rules and left him behind.

Since my return from the outback not so long ago I have been on a long and extremely unsuccessful journey to find a job. To put it in perspective I am an extremely hire-able person, clearly my writing isn't one of my strongest assets, but my talent for getting a job is quite impressive.

Australia is a country of which I have became very familiar with over the last year. There are many aspects of her I admire: beauty, vastness, opportunity and diversity. There are however many negatives, much too many for a list but her recruitment agencies are probably at the top right now. Basically if you want a job in IT, hospitality, farming, sales and any other broad area you can think of, you probably will need to go through an agency.

Now lets get real, agencies seem like a good idea on the surface. By outsourcing the recruitment process it climates any possible bias from in house HR at least on the vetting stage. It probably gives more applicants a chance to work in an area they might not have even looked at before. It enables professionals to seem through countless CV's to find the "right" candidate. Now having said all that, the whole process in Australia simply put is bullshit.

Upon arriving in Sydney for the first time, I was desperate for a job, I had hardly any money, maxed overdraft and credit card, times were tough. Having a background in IT and a degree in that area I figured it must be pretty reasonable to get an entry position within some low-mid level company. I contacted an agency NSP. They seemed like charming folk on the phone, polite and quite helpful. I expressed an interest in some roll-out engineer work. To those that don't know this is entry level work, it does require some attention to detail and basic hardware knowledge but for lack of fear of sounding big headed, easy for me to get. So yeah I spoke to the folks at NSP, they informed me my CV would need to be assessed etc and I left the conversation a happy and confident pleb.

A few days passed, I was concerned NSP didn't get in contact, so I decided to give them a call. Some guy answers and I explain my situation, I applied and was quite confident, whats happening type thing. "Oh" he exclaimed "The interviews are today!, You called just in time". Now explain to me how the fuck I was supposed to know when the interviews were being held? I am not allowed to know the name of the company for fuck sake. So I was pretty pissed, I had to make it to a suburb of Sydney for the afternoon. I had no formal clothes what so ever, no black shoes, trousers, shirt! Time was a concern so I left early and was the first one there.

How embarrassing was it not for me to land in at this interview unprepared, wearing jeans and a shirt I used for clubbing, sweating like fuck due to the fact I desperately needed that job. Turned out I passed with flying colors, got the job and became one of their most trusted engineers. The fact of the matter is, I once again need work, I have contacted over 10 agencies, yes over 10, not one of those useless "recruiters" give me the fucking time of day or put any effort in to get me a job. I apply for around 5 jobs a day by myself, network, linkedin, ring and meet people. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!?

So I have finally got round to writing something down. Ever since I realized my time in Australia thus far has consisted of being intoxicated a substantial amount of the time, I figured I better keep some documentation of the whole process.

Let's begin..

Although I am starting this 11 days into March, we arrived in Brisbane on February 17th quite early in the morning. All I can say about the journey was that it was about 30 hours of uncomfortable tiredness that revolved around a stench of stale  fart and sweat. Yes the trip wasn't the most pleasant, however I have done it once before so knew what to expect.

My travel partners are as follows: NJ, ST and DJ. We are all buddies from school and we share a passion for starting something fresh plus leaving the jobless, narrow-mindedness of N.Ireland is a shared passion. It is true that I have been waiting a long time to leave Ireland. While I still enjoy my Irish roots, I have slowly developed a strong reluctance towards spending the rest of my life there. As this journal progresses it will also become apparent I am an indecisive, spontaneous and unpredictable person so enjoy the read.

Once landed we met WF, he is another mate from home who has been here since August. He's actually known to us as C so that is what I will refer to him as from now on. The first thing you notice when walking outside is the overwhelming heat, it is like a blanket smothering you from all angles. Anyway I will complain about the heat regular so lets move on. We all bailed into C's car which he bought a few weeks ago, it turns out the car is as old as I am, a 1989 Toyota Corolla in a lovely burgundy color  It lacks finesse, however over in Australia if it drives well and isn't too young it will do the job nicely.

We traveled from Brisbane down the Gold Coast to Surfers Paradise where C lived. It is somewhat of a party town, just loads of lovely looking ladies, ripped to fuck surfer dudes and plenty of bars to give you a headache for the following day. I am going to summarize our days in Surfers very briefly as my recollection of events is somewhat blurred and jaded.

Day1: So we arrived, scobed the arse out of the Corolla from the sheer amount of weight of the five of us and luggage  at one stage I thought we were going to break C's car, serious like. We got settled into Backpackers In Paradise, a hostel based very close to town. We stayed in a 14 bed dorm which was basic, but to be honest at 21 dollars a night, you cant complain too much. Once settled we actually went round to C's place and chilled by the pool. Come afternoon we met his flat mates D and B. Nice girls, both from England and were very welcoming to us. We all ended up getting quite loaded that afternoon and late evening. The party then moved to C's pool by his apartment.  We smoked a blunt or two and got pretty bagged. It was a great first day and we managed to stay up beyond 10pm which in our eyes was quite an achievement.

Day2: Ok so for the life of me and the rest of the guys, literally no one remembers day 2 in the slightest. All we can recollect is that we tried to set up an Australian bank account, however the bank was closed hindering our plans. ST thinks that we ended up getting drunk in the hostel and played some pool. Sounds about right to me, all I know is I was stoned and drunk at some point during that day.

Day3: Yet another blank has been drawn here really, I am sure we got up early as at this stage the jet lag was still hanging about and we were sleeping pretty weirdly. I know this was the night we first experienced shooters. I am not 100% sure but I think the group experienced their first bit of flange that day. This Irish doll L met up with us and we all went to shooters with the hostel. Basically to summarize that night: I tried to break up a fight, hit a guy and got kicked out. DJ then walked me half way home, NJ then came running after me because long haired Mike told him I was in a fight and he was going ape because he didn't see what happened. Later that evening myself, NJ and ST ended up getting stoned off our faces and are all 100% certain we witnessed a domestic violence incident in car across the street. DJ shagged L on the beach and C, well I don’t know what happened C.

Day4: Pretty sure we went to the beach this day, started to do a wee drop of tanning on our pastey irish bods! L started hanging with us and we were slagging the shite out of DJ because he now had a woman following him like a fly round shite. We debated going out on the town again but it ended up DJ went out with L while the rest of us went to C's place. We ended up drinking again and once again smoking a blunt. Funniest shit though, me, NJ and B smoked this reefer of a thing and started getting all messed up on the balcony. Now the funny thing is I thought B was hitting on NJ, yet he thought she was hitting on me. So we had a moment of hilarity when she left for a minute and I was like "Get in there son" yet he was like "What? Are you not trying?" So I was adamant that he should give her a go so I made up a great wingman excuse that I needed a shite and had to go home. So I brought ST back with me and we crashed. DJ shagged L again I think, although he was annoyed cause she got him kicked out of shooters. Fuck shooters.

Day5: Right cant remember much again from this day, we met G or as we like to refer to her as Gm. She was out with DJ and L and she was a dead on cuddy so we all went to the beach. Was a shitty old day with rain and clouds yet I still managed to sweat like a priest in a playground. So I am pretty sure we went out that night and ended up once again in the shithole that is shooters, maybe we didn't though I cant really remember. Oh I forgot to mention though we met some other cool dudes like Tinsel, or Titzey or something along those lines. He was like Japanese and was a really cool dude. Found him passed out outside the dorm one night it was funny stuff. So yeah DJ tackled your doll Gm and that was that. Pretty sure he banged her on the beach, quite fond of the oul beach is DJ, as well as making the wee boy sick

Day6: Pretty sure L left us on that day, she was an all right cuddy too, just a bit weird like. So DJ had now a new woman to slurp round, yet again the jokes continued. To be fair though, she had big old boobies. I cant remember a fucking thing of what we did. At some stage we played volleyball in the pool, me and DJ ripped up and NJ hit the ball out all the time, was annoying as fuck. Ok cant remember much else if I am honest, it is getting late and I really cant be fucked trying to remember more shit that happened like 2 weeks ago. Oh actually funny story from that night.

Ok so I went out right with DJ and Gm the other 2 were being fannies and stayed in, nevertheless I ended up drinking with a kiwi dude all night called Calum I think. He was a civil oul scud, and we ended up chatting dung for a long time that night. Apparently Dj and Gm thought I was gona tackle him at one stage. Anyway moving on, we ended up going to vanity. It fucking stank of feet as soon as we walked in it was rotten. So all was good, loads of hot wimen about and I was thinking it was time to bag a wee lady. So went on the prowl a few times, did a few laps nothing much was biting. Gm decided to be my wing women and brought me to the dancefloor. It was quite funny, she pointed out a group of about 3 women and 1 guy, he was obviously chatting them up, so I thought I better show him how its done.

I bailed in and practically shouted in this girls ear that my name was B and did she want a drink! It worked anyway she came to the bar, we tried to communicate but I swear to christ we couldn't hear a word the other was saying. I went in for a wee snog and we were eating the face off each other. The bar maid actually told us to move away from the bar the spoil sport. Anyway I dropped a line on her to get her back for some fun: "Were do you live?", her response "Down around south port", my kicker: "Do you want to see where I live?" Her answer: "yes!" with a cheeky smile too!

So this lovely american doll and me headed back. To this day I don’t know why brought a girl back to a fucking 14 bed dorm, which was fucking full by the way. We ended up getting down and nasty on my bed, yeah it was a top bunk btw. So we were going at it, all was good and apparently I shouted down to the english girl below us. "You all right down there?!" she went fucking mental started saying "I don’t wana see it, smell it, be around it or hear it whenever your done fuck off!". So I bust out laughing! We finished off and the american doll thought she better leave, I didn’t argue, so she tried to leave out the fucking fire escape and set off the bloody alarm.. So now the whole dorm is awake and pissed off at me and the alarm is blaring on the fire escape. Was a great night!

Yeah, fun times.

On a daily basis my mind wonders into it's own little sub universe and lets me know of some ideas it thinks I should consider. Tonight while strolling through the inter-webs I found myself getting very excited by the prospect of having my own radio station/show. My knowledge of music in terms of genres, artists, labels etc is not of a standard that would be recognized by any large company in the industry. However I feel this is irrelevant in starting a radio station and here's why.

The majority of our radio stations today are ran by these business folk. Now these folk are really good at what they do, and what they do is make money, lots of it. I can't be bothered bringing you figures, graphs and slandering the names of people I hate without knowing, what i can do is give you a scenario. 

Station A:  The multi-national ragehead mental like Jesus H Christ on DMT which has a following of over 200 Million listeners. What music will that station play for those listeners? Will it play the little random track they found on the interwebs, will they reach out to those artists who haven't got a label? Would you go to these efforts of giving someone a chance in the spotlight, when you could play a track that Label A wants you to play, because if you do there's some lovely green stuff involved in the process and I ain't talking about our sister mary!

Station B: Lets call it Reddit Radio. It has its own little sub-reddit on a large community driven and moderated website. Millions of people scroll through the subs everyday looking for something different, something worthwhile, possibly something that simply isn't from mainstream media? What if that community doesn't care for profit, doesn't relate to money, maybe they want to make a difference. Well I know if I had an opportunity to make a radio station to appeal to people who just wanted to listen to well produced, deep, meaningful music then those are people I could relate too.

Let's be realistic it would take a big effort from a lot of people to make it something that is worth listening too. We could start this thing tomorrow with a microphone, editing software and an upload, but it wouldn't be good enough. We need various shows starting off with a show ever week or two maybe even more. Get some interesting topics, various genres on each show or genre specific shows. Talk shows that relate to reddit material. The opportunities are endless and I am sure someone has probably thought of this before, hell it might even exist. The fact of the matter is, the reddit radio I have in my head: A community driven, great content, well produced station isn't available yet.

Since my last post of my beloved Jack. Life has been one hell of a bitch. If it isn't for being on a monumental high after learning true life skills, achieving a true sense of happiness, having it all ripped out from under your skin like your organs are simply driftwood caught in an ocean of poison and sharp objects. Yes, life was good, but we got a rude awakening once again.

Young me was fascinated by animals, wildlife and all of natures grandeur. Current me is also fascinated by these things and finally got an opportunity to follow at least a small path into the wilderness which I so often admire. I can't fill you in on all my escapades due to the overwhelming hatred for life right now, but I will give you a quick summary.

Basically the perfect opportunity arose. I was given tools, many tools, welders, grinders, plasma cutters, oxy torches and many more. I cut, welded, burned and hammered until my heart was content. Learnt many new skills, became what we all recognize as a true man. Life was good, but it was even better when I met Bundy.

My time farming was hard, long and generally unpaid. I worked hard, as did my friend, our boss was one of those people you felt like grabbing viciously by his throat, grabbing a blunt object in your other hand and slowly beating him to death, but yeah he was alright. I am writing to let you know of one memory which sticks in mind, one which is like a splinter stuck beneath the very surface of my skin, constantly poking me, reminding me of its presence.  That splinter in this instance, is the one, they named Bundy.

Bundy is like no other bitch or dog I have ever seen, beautiful pigmentation on her nose, eyes and feet. Perfect body, filled with strong muscle yet unfathomable elegance. She and I had such a beautiful relationship, it brings a tear to my eye even thinking of being without her. We shared an epic journey together starting from the farmyard in Jerrys Plains, to the caravan park in Dirranbandi, but my most vivid memory is the one of the dam.

Bundy didn't like swimming much, she would ponder and patter around the edges of the banks as Jeda would swim flawlessly in the water, Jeda loved swimming, much to her mates dismay. However, on our final evening together before my return to Sydney, I thought it best I went for a swim with the two girls, in my heart I knew I may not see them again.

Pacing slowly towards the water, Jeda leaped like a roo into the depths and began paddling in the deep. Bundy was anxious at this point, she was not happy her master and her mate were in the water without her. It was not until I clawed slowly in the water with my back to her, once at a point were I could not stand, I turned to her. She stood still and stared at me, her eyes beating upon my person, begging me to come back to her. "Come here Bundy!" I beckoned her. Never before have I seen her so distraught, she sprung on her hind legs and almost reached me with her first pounce. She didn't quite make it, but it didn't stop her she pumped forward and when she reached me, we embraced like a father does a daughter or son, I clung on to her like she was my child. The emotions I felt, I cannot describe in simple words. My heart felt complete for those moments we shared together. A moment I will never forget.

The bond I felt with Bundy, I have never experienced it before. I'm ashamed to say it, I have never felt it with an animal of my own, or even a fellow human. She means more to me than I could possibly describe. She loved me more than anyone or anything ever will. I cared for her everyday, every night for almost 3 months. I watched her grow from a playful pup to a biting working kelpie. I miss her everyday and the thoughts of the dam are in my mind like a cancer. If anyone could share for one moment, that memory I have of Bundy, I think they would die a happy being.