on last night's friends (etc)

you're spending too much

but you're having fun

you feel energised

in a tired way

you're dipping your toe back in the creative pond, and you like how it feels

you're back talking about things you're passionate about

you may even act on it this time

three of you, on rounds in the stag's head, a few smokes and an intelligent conversation after pushing eleven hours in room1004

higgins, ginsberg, thompson?

ginsberg, thompson, higgins?

thompson, ginsberg, higgins?

you don't want higgins in the middle or thompson at the beginning

it just won't scan

but you listen to the arguments, it's inneressin

it turns you on

it's a choice between a coherent, chronological show, or an emotional kick in the head

you're leaning towards the emotional element, because that's what drives your heart

but there's a pragmatic little fucker driving your head, and he's going for coherency

you don't like how much influence that guy has some times

you can't decide who has the final call on such things, and that's an important question moving forward

if you don't answer it, you may drown in that creative pond

(you wouldn't be the first)

but it was all going so well, last night

you were on the brink of drunkenness, that blissful state when you can still function like a rational being but feel like gravity has been turned down from 9.8 to around 1.67

on the dark side of, of course

you were, as ever, mildly conscious of the fact that all of this might seem silly tomorrow

but for now, this is real

they are of course real, genuine friends

it's just that three of you on rounds tend to express that a little more than you would, say, drinking coffee

but fuck it, you mean this

you're not some drunken schmuck pouring his heart out to a taxi man, believing you've really connected with him and thanking him with every ounce of sincerity your soul can muster for getting you home safely, tipping him excessively

not tonight anyway

tonight, you're yourself, with your friends, and you mean it

but tonight, when you get in the taxi, it all sort of goes horribly wrong

not that anything really happens, it's just that you're on a high and what you're forced to listen to sends you crashing and makes you angry

maybe you're over-sensitive

it starts out with you and the guy that didn't stay in town with his girlfriend cracking jokes about the psychic tarrot reading on the radio

is there someone in your life that needs help?

you're a business man are you? are you thinking of expanding?

all very insightful

the dj working with this visionary was irritating but, so far, nothing too offensive

then comes the one o'clock news

and much hilarity, it seems

the three stories were as follows

risk of riots in russia

armpits are sexy

man transplanted with woman's kidney turns gay

the stories were ridiculed in turn, with russians being "drunk outta der boxes", a brief discussion on women's bodily fluids (culminating in the dj sniffing loudly at the female newsreader's armpits) and a homophobic joke about whether gay men piss sitting down

everyone in the studio, including the producer and newscaster giggled throughout

at this point i asked the taxi driver what station we were listening to

he said 98fm, and something along the lines of tom o'breanagain, 10-1 monday to thursday

my friend turned to me

blog-a-tronic?

abso-fuckin-lutely...

the dj was clearly a prick, but that's to be expected on dublin radio stations

what got me was the lack of respect shown to, a) the stories themselves, though some didn't deserve it, b) the concept of News in general, and more specifically the stories that weren't reported, and c) the listenership, though perhaps they deserve it for tuning in to this bile

what sort of a mind...?

matters deteriorated further when it emerged that the show was to be played out with a performance by the worst dublin-based acoutic singer-songwriter wank you've ever heard

this is weighty statement, when you consider that you've heard enough wank these last few years to tip the balance of constituent parts in the atlantic ocean, where the output to be aimed in that direction

indeed, much of it seems to be

you get out of the taxi and light a cigarette

you didn't tip

your mood has been ruined and now you're starting to feel drunk

you getting to thinking about tomorrow's post

blog-a-troinic

you realise that maybe you won't get to sleep for a while, because any post that matters a shit to you, you thought it through in bed the night before

it's part of that clinical, pragmatic, perfectionist streak you don't like

you think back over the night

did you really hear that?

was it really that bad?

you think then of your friends, and though it makes you feel better at the time, the cold wind and change of ambient mood makes those earlier feelings that tomorrow that will all seem daft come back in augmented form

so you focus on the post

will you remember it?

how much faith do you have in your grey matter?

it's flooded right now, and all these high thoughts might slosh out over the sides

you think maybe you'll write some of this down when you get home

you stop behind a bush to stub out a half-smoked cigarette and light another, just out of sight of your parent's bedroom window

you get to pacing up and down, thinking things through

it's fucking cold

how much will you remember?

you think of that burger you had in ricks, on noticing (for the second time in two weeks) that the poster from casablanca was gone from the wall

you decide that casablanca is your favourite film, that the maltese falcon is both superb and important for its genre-defining qualities, and ultimately come to the conclusion that your favourite bogart movie is still key largo

this seems important at the time

you start to wish your laptop wasn't on a chair under your girlfriend's desk

this could have been so much better

turning to pace back, you see an old man coming

it reminds you of a post you were supposed to write the other day but didn't

mainly because you couldn't think of a title that would work with the "on" format

that little fucker in your head, calling the shots

it was a post about walking towards town and turning on your heel to watch two brand-new black ferrari f430s being transported on an open-backed truck

as you turned you got to facing an old man standing in the doorway of the findlater pub, smoking

from the bar the sound of pulp's common people could be heard

it just got you to thinking is all

different lives etc.

you wanted to call the post something along the lines of on the centre of the universe, but at would clearly have made more sense

so you canned it

back behind the bush you light another last extra final cigarette as the old man passes you by

the image unsettles you and you start to pace again

you're trying hard to write this thing in your head, remember, remember, remember

you get to wondering about the psychological implications of when you use you

if you post this, you realise how relatively exposed you'll be

stubbing out the cigarette, you realise you paced a little further than you intended to, and wonder if you paced in to your home's line of vision

you rummage in your pocket for chewing gum and keys, surprised at the amount of change you find

you should have tipped

you almost catch the old man by the time you reach the end of your street

he's drunk too, walking ahead of you in the same zig-zag fashion that you are

you hope both similie and metaphor end there

you don't like the thought of his mishapen destination

maybe you're being unfair

you stumble to avoid standing on a snail and steady yourself on the wall of the mcK's, the most perfectly heartbroken home on your street

2am and the gates are open, the car's not there

the shame of it all

deep breaths at your doorstep and fumbling for the keys that you for some reason put back in your pocket, you scatter the foil of a dozen packs of cigarettes

it takes a moment to gather them, and yourself

composure regained, in bed, you're grateful that you had the presence of mind to buy a bottle of water

you're writing notes and realising you've forgotten most of it, that this could have been so much better

if you'd written it now, you would have been honest

as it is, you'll write it tomorrow from scrambled notes, with that guy in your head back in full control and worrying about presentation, sentence length, coherency

you need to decide who's gonna call the shots

for everyone's sake

especially

yours