The Ballads Of Mister Rhodes

It’s meant to be a minimum of 5 articles a week, but there’s something in the air. Sometimes it's hard to have things expected from you. It’s not like I want to curl up into a ball and disappear. Nothing so indulgent. Just the need to exercise the freedom muscles. To think differently, strikeout, and misbehave by most others’ standards. Then I left my pineapple at the fruit stall, and I’m still debating whether or not I should go and get it. I think some things are meant to be. I’ll get my bromine some other time. I’m not sure how often you notice this. I see the Instagram feeds are doing their best to convince us that it's something else. I just want you all to know that it’s okay to look out at the world and want to hurt it sometimes. It's not okay to do it, but it's perfectly healthy to ride along with a little disdain from time to time. Don’t worry too much if you’re looking dumbfounded while the world reads off its top ten best ways to cope with the world list. It’...

My head is full of cold and I haven’t written anything in a while. That’s usually not a problem, but I can feel myself becoming more ‘bitey’. You know how it is when you’re not in the greatest of places... You start looking around and pinning it on the outside world, but the reality is that you’re just having one of those ‘sorry piece of shit’ moments and its easier to be blasphemous. I just really fucking hate it when my immune system reminds me that I’m not an undiscovered superhuman. My ego doesn’t need that. I like being 36, stronger than I’ve ever been and slowly getting rich doing nothing much. I semi-jest. I do thoroughly enjoy being 36 and being stronger than I’ve ever been, and passive income is my kind of employment. I’m not rich, but nor am I desperately searching the nooks and crannies for half-cut ideas to make a few quid while I’m not allowed to leave the house, but I can leave the house because I’m on an island off Vietnam and not some bum-mungle-strewn city. I don’t nee...

“I am exhausted and you are nearly invisible. What a pair we are.” - Sarah Pinborough -  There just seems to be very little work done on unification. In fact, even those previously associated with collective consciousness seem to have embarked on vitriolic assaults on different ideas and agendas. I was trying to find some collective somewhere that wasn’t currently enraged at the actions or ideas of another collective somewhere else. The Apathetics perhaps, but no one wants anything to do with them.  People who don’t want to wear a mask, scorn the mask wearers as unconscious slaves who have fallen prey to more evil reptilian control who have dedicated their scaly lives to pushing the yardstick of what they can make us do further and further. To wear a mask is to be enslaved by the system, and not only that... it will make you ill. If you wear a mask you begin to recycle your own waste. I mean, if a woman doesn’t wash, and chooses to wear the same clamwrappers every day she’s pr...

“Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth” - Alan Watts I don’t think anything really dies down as such. It's much more to do with the amount of superficial that gets poured into the catalyst before its set alight. If you’re here for opinions to shake your head at or advice on what to do next then I’m afraid this isn’t your piece. It’s mine. I mean, when you actually look back, nothing really happened, no one did anything. The sheer polarity of then and now makes it seem like centuries have passed, but as we battle with goldfish for a place in the attention span race, we would do better to take note that it was a week or so ago. It says a lot for your dedication to a cause. Recollecting the arguments I had with a smile on my face, I am very grateful for where I am now. It is not entirely free of complications, but no life should exclude adversity. What I come to realize is the sheer amount of unnecessary layers we place upon living, and how we often praise ou...

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...