The Ballads Of Mister Rhodes

I just hope I can live up to the title. Funny how the mind draws a blank immediately after the invigorating burst of energy that got me out of bed and sat me down over here. A wooden chair, naked ass, no competition for a duvet. I mentioned a dream last time you were here. In it, I was informed that I was dying. I told you that the person who told me was significant, but I didn’t know who it was. I mean, I knew -deep down- who it was, but I didn’t know who it was. Like when you see someone who you should probably recognise, but you don’t. I am struggling to look backwards. That’s not right. Not entirely. It’s more like the past keeps looking into me and it's making me uncomfortable. I find a little buoyancy in the concept that if you look back and you don’t cringe once or twice then you’re not doing it right. There is no growth if there was not once a less-appealing version of you. Sometimes it really hits me though. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I resent who I’ve bee...

A spiritualist, a dancer, and someone like me all walk into a bar. They take a seat. They indirectly exchange a few uneasy breaths whilst the alcohol and cigarette smoke loosen the cogs of conversation.  The dancer is the first to speak. The dancer has heard that someone like me doesn’t think anyone is special. This is what breaks the silence... We could quite literally be walking on to the fucking end of days. The human race under tension is a not-so-funny thing to watch or to be caught up in. I can feel the nicotine from my last cigarette stretching out over my shoulder blades whilst the fan behind me blows cool air on to the back of my ears creating the short-lived auditory hallucination of being at the top of a mountain gazing out over madness. I quite fancied myself a lie down with a podcast discussing the links between trauma and addiction, but it would appear there are more pressing matters to attend to. Did you know, every time I drive my motorbike around the ...

It’s been a while since something really inspired these cogs into whirring. These days it's just easier to hit the gym for the two hours of each day I set aside to feeling alive. Eat and then nap the whole afternoon away before plugging into some brain-draining episodicals until I feel as if I’ve imbibed enough dribble to either make a good serial killer or be psychologically equipped to catch one. I was becoming one of you! But now this! A welcome reminder of the importance of distance. (A portrait of herd-mentality in 2020) I wasn’t sure how to start, so I’ve decided on the screwdriver inserted right in to the reader’s liver with the angry precision of someone who just realized they had their drink spiked. Something that pitches my tent over here and leaves the rest of the field empty, bar a few begrudgingly discarded tins of beans.   “Black lives matter when a white cop kneels across a black guy’s throat for 9 minutes.”  I thought I’d give that sentence so...

“The paradoxical and tragic situation of man  is that his conscience is weakest  when he needs it most.” E R I C H    F R O M M  ..... Last time on the Ballads of Mister Rhodes (give me one of those ‘to catch a predator’ voiceovers) I took a brief look into the human being’s innate ability to decide -often at least partially blindly- upon certainty in a world of possibilities. Yup, believe it or not, that was in there. It all ties into the fear of freedom , and how the ego thrives for the concrete. I get it. I have a small lump on my right testicle that I never noticed before and the glands in my groin are the size of kidney beans. I think I have a little less energy than usual, but that could just be in my head. I keep getting the sensation that tiny bugs are crawling beneath my skin. I sincerely hope that’s in my head. I get pins and needles in my hands when I lay down for more than ten minutes and last time I checked my blood pressure...

Genuinely, I‘m cringing so much I could conceive my colon creeping right out of my ass crack, right now, and I’ve despised alliteration since my early-twenties. Ever since spoken word artists showered me with their animated and often misunderstood diatribes to love and life. Alphabet raps and misty morning meadows half way into the first stanza of some snotty notebook. But the snot doesn’t belong to the author. No. It belongs to one of their kids and the author is in their mid-twenties and they should know better. Some might also say they should have known better when the question of conception arose, but they were feeling emotionally mature at the time, and who are we to judge. They’d been feeling emotionally mature ever since they started writing poetry back in high school after mum was diagnosed with something or other and their friends started telling them how strong they were. Well, extinguish the camp fire and put those fucking bongos away, I’m about to go off on one. Did y...

“He who is infected with the fear of illness, is already infected with the disease of fear.” - Michel de Montaigne -  Ok. Well. Yes. This is an opinion piece. Not that the WiFi is working. Not that the WiFi will be working anywhere in the world, ever again, by the time I finish writing this. And, even if it was, everyone will have chained themselves and their families to the radiators of their stockpiled maisonettes.  It will be the same stupidity that ate it all up and got them there in the first place, that leaves all the electronic devices over on the couch, out of reach. Who would have thought that Dean fucking Koontz would end up being the next George Orwell? So, this Coronavirus epidemic is really happening. I mean, it’s not really happening. Not like they say it’s happening, but its definitely fucking happening. I even took a job as a freelance writer, hence the slightly new format. ‘Take what they teach you.’ Apparently, I can do things to actually ma...

“One thoughtmurder a day Keeps the psychiatrist away.” - SAUL BELLOW - When was the last time it came together like this? I’d have to turn back, through soiled pages of vellum notepads until the vigorous crossings out of wasted paragraphs came to an end. There would be something somewhere, I’m sure of it -hopeful of it- but my old friend the daiquiri won’t allow it. “Push forwards,” he says to the rhythm of a sturdy Viennese march. In Vietnam I can buy the ingredients to make two litres of the stuff for about $7. We were going to drink them together, but she got annoyed with me about something -probably somethings- and went to sleep upstairs. She likes how I drive the motorbike as much as I like having her sitting behind me telling me how much she likes how I drive the motorbike. Most of the time we just play fight it back in to neutral, but sometimes she just goes to sleep upstairs. I cooked a dinner of fried grouper steaks, sweet potato hash browns and a basic ...