The Cocktail Calamity

A long time ago, in a drunken state far too close for comfort, I found myself struggling with what I chose to refer to as "The Dark Knight of hangovers":

"It's the hangover I deserve, but not the hangover I need right now".

Today I suffer under what I like to call "The Liam Neeson of hangovers". If it could talk, it would say the following:

"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you stop drinking now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you. I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you".

Accursed, alluring alcohol. Like a siren, it sings to me. Beautiful though the beckoning may be, disaster looms large on the horizon. I know each time I stride to the bar that I will run aground on the very rocks that lie within my glass.

Below is the manner in which I lament when under the power of my own wit.

I, the impotent impresario of vagabond blues, the seasoned demi-god of self-degradation, rendered retarded by fiendish festival frolics (and fondling) and the ever treacherous spectre of spirits. Uncorked bottles release the genie to grant false esteem torn asunder in the sober dawn.

Below is the manner in which I lament when under the power of inebriation.

I....well, wait....you....YOU are the one that.....I am the one that.....I AM THE ONE THAT.....OW! EVERYTHING HURTS! WHY!? qfffwwwweeufhuv

That being said, I cannot even attempt to deny that I will do it again. Inspiration can be found in beauty. Sunsets, birdsong and the laughter of a hundred happy children can bring about the composition of sonnets and sonatas to stand the test of the ages. Love can enamour the artist to put brush to canvas, the sculptor to shape and transform the world around him, and the author to bend the written word to his whim. Beauty begets brilliance.

Bullshit. Beauty begets bullshit.

True art, transfixing and traumatic in equal measure, is brought about not through transcendence, but through torture. The emotion of it, of everything, is sorrow. It is anguish. I'll take your sunset, and raise you a sky on fire. Your birdsong, bettered by a howl of horror, hatred and loathing. One hundred children laughing? Fuck! If there's that many children laughing, we need to run, hide, duck and cover. They're creatures of destruction, and they intend to wreak havoc on a scale unimagined by man. For every act of genius descended from a moment of glorious wonder, there are fifty maudlin men and women, rendered mute by misery, given to voicing themselves through immaculate works. I defy anyone to find a visionary content in life. Suffering is the root of all true creation. Mothers must suffer through tortuous distress to bring children to the world.

I am not a man of art. I will not leave a lasting epitaph. My image will not grace a postage stamp. I am not attempting to suggest that I am fit to fill such a role as set out so far, but fuck me if alcohol isn't the son of a bitch that brings out the worst in me. And only after the darkest of nights can the brightest of days rise in my mind. The demon drink makes me think, and through these thoughts comes my "divine" inspiration.

That said, I do have a visual aid to illustrate the demons evoked and realised through my continued consumption.

Observe, if you will, a man who did not drink (or rather, seldom drank):

Respectable. I would trust that man with my life. And just look at that full head of hair! Sweet and sour Jesus, that is a man I would trust in.

Now, for your nightmares, I present the monster in the parasol:

What has alcohol done to my once stable self? It has murdered the fucker. Sweet intoxication has beaten Good Deebs to death with a shovel and buried that poor bastard at the bottom of the garden. No pouring a drink on the ground to commemorate the passing. Just pour that liquor down this here throat.

Now, if you don't mind, I hear a knocking at the door. Tis not the raven. This will be the hangover come to claim me. And vicious as it shall be, when it is finished with me, it will hunt down and kill not just those I love, but likely every single person I have ever come into contact with. Consider this the blog post equivalent of the video from The Ring. As of the time of completing this sentence, you have one week. I am truly sorry. Good luck.

Love is Blind

I generally like to present a brief introductory paragraph to my posts. This has been that.

I am returned to my seat of judgement over the world, satisfied by an evening spent at an open mic night in one of the many establishments that could yet qualify as my local. I listened through gritted ears (it's a medical condition) to some heinous crimes against music (I'm looking at you, unkempt guy with the 12 string guitar that was 12 levels of tuneless). Yet there were beacons shining amidst the dark clouds.

Karen Bridges, you were excellent. I don't care that, off stage, your name is Karen Ovary. You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, even if those eggs are internal. I don't care that I was not remotely attracted to you physically. Squinting could probably aid me in that degree. The fact remains, I think I love you.

And who am I to critique the appearance of another? A judgemental fool, that's who! One who has experienced a kicking or two from that same shoe when it has found its place upon the other foot.

It's example time!

Ever knocked yourself out in a room on your own? No? Got that covered. Low ceilings are vindictive and wicked souls.

Perchance it was stupidity of that nature that left me with my present condition. Sadly, I must lament that there seems to be no cure for my damage, nothing to lift the burden that has become my cross to bear. I am, you may be heartbroken to learn, stricken by something known as "Shifty Eyed Syndrome".

Previously this had been described to me as my having "the eyes of a serial killer", so you'll understand that I view my more recent diagnosis as far more sympathetic and less likely to engender deep fear and the running of a frightened being into the haunted woodland, while an unsettling score punctuates the eerie silence. Yes, my eyes tend to dart mischievously around a given room. They're doing it now. Trust me when I say that this proves a great hindrance to my typing. It's also made it next to impossible to take up winking. I'm aware that it's not really an affectation that anybody should hope to garner or pursue, yet it's been known to crop up in my character in the course of festival work. I've noted my tendency to develop a different twitch or tick during each outing. Sometimes a bizarre full body spasm-type episode in the course of pointing out a direction, other times an odd introduction of clicking my fingers to punctuate a sentence. Yet a particularly prevalent one seems to be the appearance of winking in my arsenal of body language anomalies. It acts as a particular failing when my general discomfort at engaging in such an optic twitch manifests itself in misapplication. Many's the occasion when an attempted wink has led to an unexpected blink or, yet harder to explain, winking with the wrong eye. That is making that curiously exaggerated head tilt that often accompanies such gestures yet managing to close the eye that is obscured from the recipient's view. It looks as though I've actually aborted a headbutt.

I remember when the winking episodes first flared up, primarily as it led to quite the ego deflation.

Lying in bed with a girl, feeling undeniably suave, verging on debonair, and in the moment. I brushed the hair gently from her face* and looked deep into her eyes.

* In a tentative holding pattern with this same girl, I once casually attempted to flirtatiously brush hair over her ear (there were reasons at the time why this made sense, I assure you), and succeeded only in losing depth perception (shifty eyes strike again) and poking her straight in the ear. A rational soul would have owned the moment and made a joke of it. I froze, stared into the distance and acted as though I did not know anything of any peculiar instances of ear poking in the immediate vicinity.*

The moment hung in the air, heavy with meaning. I allowed a small smile to betray my emotion and creep across my face. She broke eye contact shyly. What did I see?

"You really are beautiful."

Yeah, I know it comes across cheesy in print, but it was true and right at that moment. What was not right at that moment was winking. Winking was the last thing that should have happened. It's as if my face decided that "No, this will not be a touching moment of earnest compliments. This will live on as that time your eye twitched freakishly to spoil the fucking mood". I hate my face for its spiteful choices such as that, and for its reliance on industrial language.

So, I winked. I closed my eye (the correct one too) and opened it again, attempting not to register my own disgust at the action. Still, I had said something quite touching and open, so maybe it would not be spoiled.

She spoke in reply.

"Aw....thank you.... You know, when you wink, your eyes look kind of beady....like a rat."