"He Died With a Felafel in his Hand" - John Birmingham

I've just finished reading this book again and what a brilliant book it is. For those of you who have not read it it is a loose narrative of John's experiences in various share houses in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. It tells the tales of huge parties, bucket bongs, pissing in fridges, crazy goths and the fact that no one ever wants to wash the frying pan. It's written in this loose flowing form that makes you feel as if you are sitting on the brown couch with John while he tells his tales over a longie and a few bucket bongs. Ferreted through out the book are tales from the people John lived with telling some of their own lurid tales. One the whole it's crass and very Australian. the perfect book for me.

I guess one of the reasons I really love this book is it reminds me of my own share house days. My first house in Armidale where a flat mate fled complaining of stress and heart palpitations, the guy who replaced him, eventually throwing his huge model ship through the front window, thinking it was kind of funny at the time. The time my mate spewed half a case of pale ale on the front step, and everyone stepping over it for days as we refused to clean it until he came back around. Living in Glebe with a responsible junkie (he paid everything except our rent, which we found out one eventful morning) and a full time professional paintballer, who stalked the house with an imaginary gun in his hands making a ticka ticka noise while gunning you down (but this was forgivable as he was a barista and made the most amazing coffee) The house down the road which was slowly been demolished from the inside day by day.

Anyway, i could go on for ever, the thing is, if you haven't read it, read it! And if you have...read it again. take a moment to delight in some of my fav moments......

"He died watching Rage with the sound turned down. One of the hip inner-city cops who turned up to investigate said he probably snuffed it half way through the hot (sic) one hundred. Just like a junkie. There was a night club stamp on his wrist, bruises up and down his arm. The felafel's chilli and yogurt sauce had leaked from the roll and run down his hand in little white rivulets. For a brief, perverse moment it seemed to me that he himself had sprung a leak, a delicate stream of liquid heroin escaping from the seams of his fingers"

"Now don't get me wrong, I'll get into a binge as quickly as the next man, but there is such a thing as dignity. And flaking out under a blanket of old pizza boxes isn't even close"

"He was coming out of a doomed relationship with a bikie chick and was knocking back two or three bottles of overproof rum everyday. There were some dark forces at work inside him, manifesting themselves in the black Special Forces tee shirt, jungle camouflage pants and white running shoes which he never took off. We told people the white running shoes were the last vestiges of his human personality trying to hang on. When they were replaced by army boots it would be random sniper time."

My Household Invaded By Emo Toy or "Those fuckers will do anything to get noticed"

So last weekend me and eliza were on our weekly Saturday morning hang out in town, and we were given a complimentry bag of shit outside woolies (one of the benefits of hanging out with a small child is you get given all that shit, and no longer have to steal it when the people aren't looking). So there were some lollies, and bannana and this stciker album with a packet of Crazy Bones attached. Now these are crazy little figures that you use to play a game similair to jacks/knucklebones, but with cool men instead of nerdy jacks and a bouncy ball.

Well I finally got around to opening them today and was presented with quite a shock!!!

Inside were 3 little dudes to play with. The first man was just your token anime Goku rip off type characrter

The second guy was this industrial/goth guy. The kind of person you run into in those alley clubs in Sydney, where the lead singer of the band breathes into a bag containing a rotten crow in between songs.

Now I pull out the 3rd man, and some prick has gone and slipped a fucking Emo in with these guys. Seriously is there nothing these guys won't do to make us take their /wrists seriously? I can just see this pale, emancipated, over-eyelined freak putting this emo guy into every second packet muttering to himself "Soon they will take us seriously. Soon my post punk, grunge influenced fok rock band will succeed and i can stop /wrists for attention." Fucking Emos!

A BRISK WALK OUTSIDE OF REALITY

I remember walking around Armidale for hours early one morning under the influence of an acid enhanced daze while trying to walk home. The distance I needed to travel was probably half a k, but ended up walking around for at least 3 - 4 hours. For some reason, no matter which way i went, or turned, no matter how sure around the next corner was the house i was looking for, i would find myself once again standing under the blue florescent lights of Nevilles Corner Store (now known to me as not nevilles, as Neville no longer operates it).

It's funny cause a held no fear at this particular situation that i found myself in, as I just convinced myself that I was stuck in some type of time trap. At the time this seemed quite plausible as I had seen it myself many times on The Twilight Zone. All i had to do was change the turn of events and thus escape this strange predicament.

I found myself trying to flag down cars (maybe they needed help or where on the way to some terrible accident that only i could prevent them from been a part in in), attempting to talk to early morning dog walkers, and other such nonsense. Anyway as the sun came up, it seemed as though i was instantly transported and there i was knocking on the door, at the original flop house in Sarah place (interestingly enough the street in which i know reside) which was my intended destination.

The question i ask is this..... If i wasn't brought up on trashy sci-fi type programs, would i have been unable to comprehend what was happening to me and fell into the eternal trap known as a bad trip, thus losing all grip on so called reality(?)