Today I write to all those who have ever had a dream that seemed poignant, and yet couldnt make any sense of it at all. I had one of these dreams last night. Allow me to verse it for you.

It starts out like any other dream, which is to say that it never really starts at all. I am late for my shift at the restaurant I used to work at and, of course, everything is different. The people, the layout, the floorplan, even the clientelle. Some faces are familiar and stand out in the background noise of the evolving sphere of my subconcious (perhaps the most interesting part was that all my interactions were with people or energies I dont even know).
So it went that I come in late and the staff are already serving guests. I stand around for a while like a pickled gherkin in a creamy butternut soup  - completely out of place. I don't know what systems they are running nor how or where to begin helping. I find myself in the bar section and pick up a tray, which promptly tips over, and off slides a glass of red tomato juice lookng stuff. Smash! The manager gives me a look of disdain and I am handed another glass with the same stuff. I am now a bit shaken and not feeling confident. So I say, "I think I've forgotten how to be a waiter."

Next I'm on the patio which is well lighted, while the rest of the surrounds is completely blacked out. No night sky, no secondary light source, just blackness all around the patio. I'm standing next to this somewhat-bigger-than-it-should-be bonsai which has no greenery on it. On one of the branches I see a movement and I take a closer look. It is a mushroom growing up side down and twitching into different positions as it has growth spurts. I then catch a glimpse of something far more exuberant. Its a leopard/lynx creature leaping from branch to branch, yet never actually touching the tree itself. The reason I use "creature" is because it's coat is white with purple stripes such as a tiger would have. The stripes themselves are changing colour as I watch it. I am amazed and of course I want others to see this fantastic discovery I have just made. As I call a girl (whom I met briefly last night in reality and didnt even have a conversation with) over to confirm that I am seeing this, the creature begins to fade. As she approaches and looks for what I am excited about, only its head is left, nestled under one of the bigger branches. She looks directly at it as it dissapears,
"What? Theres nothing there."

I look at her in pure astonishment as it dawns on me that I have had a vision. In my unaltered, natural state I have seen one of my totem animals. I embrace this woman and am elated beyond physical joy. I say something like, "I've had my first vision quest!" I look at her and want to smother her in kisses and shower her with appreciation for sharing such a pivotal moment in my life. She senses my wanting to love her and doesnt reciprocate. She sees the fire in my eyes and gives me the knowing look of, "If we are going to do this, we are only doing it once." I leave that space because just once isnt enough for me.

I am now in a hidden room within the restaurant walls and there are two woman, myself and two other men. The men I dont know but represent social familiarity. I know the one woman and she wants me to choose her. The middle of the room is painted into four squares of different colours. As best as I can recall, red and yellow or orange. I am in the red square and the unknown woman faces me in the yellow/orange square. The one man and the woman, who likes me, face each other. The second man is standing outside the squares and he turns on the music. We all start dancing in our squares. The dance turns sexy and I choose the unknown woman by stepping into her yellow/orange square. Being the first to do this, the other two stop dancing and move off the squares. The girl who likes me looks at me with longing and dissapointment, while the man stares at me with jealousy and anger. He must like her, but I dont care, I chose her and he didnt take his opportuntiy. I end up on the floor with the unknown girl and we have very acrobatic sex while the other three watch. She enjoys herself but I can feel she wants to be with the other man, so it doesnt last long.

New situation and everyone is outside, close to the dusty car park. I see the window of the "game" room flashing with dimly lit red lights. We (a number of familiars but none of the previous energies) are chatting outside and having smoke. This is where it all fades and the clarity of situations and images become muddled.

I finish here and now. Part Two will be the insights I have recieved through this dream.

 

This title makes it seem like I'll be writing about beer and bitches. This, however is not true. I like both of those things but these in no way relate to this excerpt. 

I refer to the addiction of drinking and being back on the wagon in utero because I feel that writing is one of my major addictions. Just like alcohol once was. I could list my addictions, alphabetize, categorize and post them to everyone I know. But that would be silly and mostly redundant as not a lot of people really care what someone else is addicted to. They want to know WHY they are addicted to these things. 

So why am I addicted to writing? I should probably go for past life regression therapy or get a hypnotist to send me back to one of my past lives, only to find that I was closely related to William Shakespeare. Of course, at that time, I was insanely jealous of him and subsequently had him drawn and quartered. In my dreams.

To answer the question and finish off this bit, I love writing because it flows in and out of me like water through gills. Sometimes I can harness it and hold onto and other times I rant like a cabbage on stilts. Ever seen a cabbage on stilts? Its not their natural environment. Stuff gets awkward.

This is where I stop for the moment, just to let you know that I may be climbing the rungless ladder of grammar again.

Firstly I’d like to expand on the theory that there are little people 
running around each of our little heads screaming profanities, wisdom
and mistruths. Once I get that out the way, I may be able to convince
(manipulate) you of (with) the theories to follow. Please hold.

But not for long.

As you can now tell. Each little person has little people of their own
running around in their heads, and each of those people has little
people running around in their heads. It’s the whole mirror to mirror
endless reflection bit. Only in your head.

Take one of the little people I have already mentioned, Profanity. Now
Profanity can be fun, in the right environment, or it (I shall refrain
from gender reference for now) can be deceiving, in the right
environment. Profanity can be the gremlin brandished with shining
golden armour and a bronze toothpick, or it can be the fertile snake
hiding in the long in need of a cut grass. It is the conversation
starter or the conversation Hitler. I claim the existence of only two
sides of Profanity because it’s easier.

Now take Profanitys’ two sides (people). The first comes out as
possibly derisively awkward and smiling. It has a happy feel even
though it may seem ugly to some who listen to the actual words as
opposed to the tone (volition) of what is being said. Meet your
valiant and honourable gremlin Profanity. The second comes out slowly,
meekly. But the more pressure it gets the more it will bring filth to
the floor until those around feel the uncomfortable tension of words
unrightly spoken. Meet your irritating and unyielding snake Profanity.
The gremlin, as I interpret (plus there’s no one else here to
interpret), is a little person inside Profanity’s head called
Ecstatic. It jumps and frolics around words with such enthusiasm that
some of the foulest statements can not be held as truly foul e.g.
“What’s the worst thing you can do to a blind man?” “Sprinkle sand on
his Braille board.” This somewhat caustic joke of Ecstatic will be
taken much more lightly when said with a smile, shining eyes and
inward flamboyance. Take the same scenario with your snake, who we’ll
name… Resent. Resent bashes the words, takes the life out of them and
brings them to the level of brooding anger. And usually gets those all
mumbled. This joke of Resent will turn faces sour when said with
unmoving lips, questioning eyes and hidden contempt.

One must note the point I’m trying to relay in simpler (more
confusing) terms by using definite and set examples. The example of
Profanity has an innumerable number of possible denominations. As does
your head. In different situations the character who is you, will
react differently. Some, with laborious training, get used to set
situations while some, with Spontaneous’ help, can’t get enough of new
situations.

It boils down to emotion and the way we portray ourselves in our
everyday lives. We as humans do ignorant things which make us blush
and we do caring things which make us smile. These bits are in a
constant spiraling whirlwind until one hits the bottom of our heads
and shoots out our mouth. Hey, sometimes it is thought out and the
chaos is calmed, but never for long. And sometimes it’s not thought
out and flows through the chaos, not needing calm. Now think of all
the little people that are spiraling in your head, and all of their
little people spiraling in their heads, etc. and take it as far as you
can go.

A massively unending vortex of thoughts, beliefs and ideas all
interconnected makes you one messed up little character.

But don’t worry about it, my heads a mess too. 

“What does it want from me? Why me?” my mind rattled on as I struggled to keep my eyes open. The allure of unconsciousness sang sincerely in my ears, a far away ringing that I had to bring closer to stay alive. My mind fired back to reality and my eyes shot open as it fastened its grip on my skull and pulled me up by my head. I screamed as a long needle moved past the top vertebrae of my spine toward my brain.

The day did start a little differently. Not very differently. Just a little. My body was tired and didn’t want to move, my fruit was almost off but still edible and, of course, the bloody birds were singing as loudly as they could. Bastards. I hated living in this village. Yes, I call it a village because it’s not worthy of the word town. I had taken up the position of writer/editor/producer of the newspaper because the pay was ridiculously high and I felt a bit of a getaway might be needed. A getaway indeed. The place was so in the middle of nowhere that its nearest living neighbour was the pack of jackals in the mountain. Since only one bus passed through every three months, I was stuck. 
So, why was today marginally different? When I stepped outside, the entire population was standing in my dust pile of a garden. The margin of abnormality about this was that all of them were there. I usually had fifteen to twenty of them each morning, wanting to know the news before it was printed. At first I tried to tell them to wait until I had printed it, but they persisted to be at my door at four every morning until I finally caught on to the fact that almost all thirty seven of them couldn’t read. This didn’t strike me as odd, after all it was a tiny place with no schooling or library facilities. The centre of “town” had four buildings: a grocery store with essentials from the different farms, a liquor store (well needed) with most of everything outdated, a church that doubled as a town hall and a cramped printing office with which I was burdened.

There I stood, at my front door, looking out onto a puddle of expectant faces. I took a deep breath and asked them, 
“Is there any real reason for me to even print a paper today?”
Again, expectant faces, although some did turn to outright bewilderment. Then William, the leader, excuse me, elected official (the only one ever elected) plucked up some courage and said in a dead serious tone with a no nonsense face,
“There won’t be need for the news today, George.”
“I’m sorry?”
“No need for the news.”
The crowd nodded solemnly. That’s when I realized that those faces weren’t expectant at all. They were anxious. Some were even tense.
“What do you mean no need for the news? I’ve spent every morning of the last three months reciting it to half of you as well as printing it to be ready before seven, and today you just don’t need it? What the hell is that?!” I was not happy with the whole situation. William was looking at the ground now,
“George… I… We jus’ want you to know that we really appreciate what you done for the town an’ all an’ you are one of our favourites. But don’t hate us for it. We’s grown up with it ya see an’ –“
“Will! Shut yer trap! He don’ need ta be hearin none a that!” screamed Mary from the back. The crowd jostled apart slightly as she moved to the front. She was a large woman in her thirties and she broke through the mass in a fluster,
“Now what ol’ Will was wantin’ ta say is that it be best if ya come with us ta the church.”
“What are you talking about? Im not going anywhere until you tell me whats going on,” I crossed my arms and stared straight into her eyes, looking for some sort of clue.
“’Fraid I can’t do that George, we jus’ gotta show ya,” she moved closer, not for a second taking her eyes off me.
Will walked up to me and gently put his hand on my forearm, 
“Come on na’ George.”
“NO!” I pulled his hand from my arm and he looked up at me with tears in his eyes,
“Don’t make us force ya now George.”
I looked behind him and saw that everyone had their eyes fixed on me and some were shuffling their feet in the dust. It was a choice between resist, get the crap beaten out of me and get dragged to the church or use my brain and take it one step at a time. Option two. The church was only a kilometer away and I walked there as slowly as the mob behind me allowed. I needed time to figure out just what the hell was going on. A thousand questions streaked through my mind (questions I previously neglected to), ‘Why did a town that didn’t read, need a newspaper? How much news could there be in such a small town that everyone wouldn’t hear about anyway? Why was my pay so high, when everyone else clearly struggled? And the church… They had never used it as a town hall or for worship the entire time I had been there. How could I have been so naïve? So unobservant, so –‘

“We here George,” Williams’ voice was soft behind me.  
The heavy teak doors stood before me like two black gargoyles, poised and ready to strike. Two of the younger men opened one door each and took a step back. The whole thing felt like a ceremony. As they walked me through the doors and toward the altar, I looked for a way out besides the front entrance. Nothing. I stood in front of the heavily engraved altar. The symbols on it were like none I had seen before, strange patterns that seemed somehow interlinked… The touch of cold steel snapped me out of thoughts. They were handcuffing me. Someone started tying my ankles with rope. My eyes began to tear,
“Please. Please don’t do this. I’ll give you anything.” They had all moved behind me,
“George,” it was Will, “we gonna leave you now. We all real sorry it had to be this way. We don’ like it none more than you. G’bye.”
They all started backing out the church saying good bye to me. I turned and fell into a row of benches. The dust plumed around me and I screamed, wishing them dead, pleading for my life, offering everything and anything. The hall darkened as the heavy doors closed. The sound of the bolt locking echoed across the empty seats.

Another needle pierced the skin of my neck. I could feel it moving toward the first needle. I felt it puncture my esophagus and I screamed in pain. The excruciation heightened my senses and I suddenly felt the intentions of this creature. It wanted my knowledge. It wanted to feed on my brain and become greater. It wasn’t complete. It needed more information before breaking out into the world. It was using Will, using Mary, using all of them as pawns to bring in fresh meat every few months. These innocent people. Good people, living honest lives. It was abusing them. Making them murderers…

“You stupid fool,” he stood slowly and went to the group huddling around the creature. The same young men who had opened the gargoyle doors stood over me with sledgehammers raised. 

Aah, sandwich spreads. I won’t talk about peanut butter, jam, syrup, honey, cream cheese or chocolate spreads. They are, I’m inclined to believe, far too complicated. My choice is the tar-like substance which was created over one hundred years ago. On hot toast, it has the acrid smell of heated soy sauce on fresh fish, with maybe a dash of balsamic vinegar. If you haven’t got an idea of what I’m talking about, refer to the next paragraph.

Marmite. Marketed nowadays by the name itself (the word marmite refers to the picture you see on the bottle – in French, it means a large covered earthenware or metal cooking pot). People who haven’t heard of it are no doubt Asian rice farmers or Eskimos, sorry, Inuit. Born in Britain in the year 1902 when some crack pot individual decided that the used yeast from beer breweries could be mushed together and turned into a paste. You would have to spend a lot of time at a brewery to come up with that. Well done. 
It started as a spread for bread. People soon saw the use for it in daily cooking too. It can be a thickener, a stock base, even a sauce. The cool bit is that for about two decades, it actually came in little earthenware pots. This, for a spread, was unheard of and caused many gunfights and bomb droppings all over the world. No, wait. Sorry, that was the First World War. It didn’t start a war. In fact, because of that war, it became world renowned. In 1919, New Zealand began manufacturing Marmite, adding caramel and sugar to soothe the taste a little. Shortly after the war in 1922, a bleeding Australian (he died after a good few years) invented Vegemite. The great thing about Vegemite is that the name was picked out of a hat by the inventors’ daughter. Fun! However I think I’d be spreading it a bit thick to call it an invention, it’s more of a rights infringement. That year, or some other year starting with 192_, Marmite was squeezed into the glass bottle-pots that we recognize and lust after (or despise) today. Pre World War Two, in 1931, the Swiss “came up” with Cenovis, which was not as blatantly copied - it came in a tube. And still does today.

The Second World War (the Third has only just begun – Vegan Protestants versus Rest of The World) was a boost for not only baby-making, but Marmite and its’ family of followers too. Cenovis was being punted to Swiss troops, Vegemite to Australian kids (especially during wartime) and Marmite to anyone else. 
That’s the one bit about Marmite; its ad campaign is flawless and eternal, “Love it or hate it, it’s Marmite.” (something to that effect) They’re basically telling you that if you don’t like it, you can fuck right off because we’ve got enough people who love it. Subtly subversive and enigmatically intriguing i.e. “I’ve tried it and I’m not too fond of it, but then why do so many other people love it and why is it sold almost worldwide? Am I missing out on something? Should I buy another bottle and try it out again? It has been a while…” And so on and so forth. 
Vegemite, on the other slice, has had its glory days in advertising and fairly recently too. From the band Men at work in their song Land Down Under (1981), it is mentioned and I’m pretty certain that anyone who has heard that song can recite the few lines holding the brand name. Australia also came up with a jingle for Vegemite targeted, as jingles mostly are, at kids. 
As for Cenovis, it’s a relatively unheard of product, by worldly standards, and falls horribly by the wayside. But I’m sure the Swiss love it.
Back to the first point of this paragraph. All of the above mentioned spreads were marketed excellently through the wars of great proportion. This portrays corporations as evil bastards who will grab any opportunity to make money. It also, however, reflects a good light on the people within those corporations. Marmite, Vegemite and Cenovis are all health foods. One hundred percent vegetarian and vegan packed with loads of vitamin B’s and natural antioxidants, they are the products that gave a wholesome flavour to the men who fought and rarely experienced anything good in those wars. Food is the way to mans’ heart. I’m pretty sure when someone yelled that they just got a batch of Marmite in, most men lit up, even just a little.

The final, and most controversial (for my part at least), is the enemy. Born in the 1870’s, of course due to the desperation of war, was liquidized beef. I speak of Bovril. The foundation of this rushed spread was thought of a by a Scotsman (don’t know why people can’t call them a Scot) drafted to send a whole bunch of canned beef to the French through Britain. Being Britain, there wasn’t much beef to put into cans. Practically speaking, it was genius. He boiled the beef down into a gelatinous paste and packaged it in little glass bottles. The French had cow in a jar.
In 1889, the Bovril Company was formed, although the paste itself had snuck itself on to the market over the past four years. I’m assuming that its many uses had become well known and hence grown in popularity. It can be diluted with warm water as a meaty drink or even with milk… Ugh. It can also be used for cooking, probably more than its counterpart. 
The interesting part of the Bovril story is that without its formulation, Marmite (and its brothers and sisters) would never have come to be. Clearly the man behind slushing used yeast (and a couple of other things) to make a tasty, nutritious spread got the idea from Bovril. Also the facts clearly state that the Bovril Company was founded in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire. The exact place where Marmite was first produced in 1902. Conspiracy theorists go wild.

In closing, I thank the men who, in times of struggle still found time to come up with some damn good sandwich spreads.

The modern dating world is hard to get a hold on. There are so many ways to get a date or, for some, to try get a date. It can range from mindful, droning internet chat to dark dingy bar conversations. I have heard tell of some generally charismatic men who simply don’t have the balls to go up to a girl and start talking. In fact, I can often be one of them. Occasionally, I see someone I like and start talking to them. They start to become unsettled and quickly make a dash for their friends with their body language screaming, “Save me!” What their mouths are saying is probably just that. My friends opened me up to why they keep running into the darkness yelling for the police. It’s not because I have black teeth and dried prune skin (I don’t). It’s not even because I forgot to zip up and my wang is saying hello in a very determined manner. But it might as well be. I stare at them like a rapist. And I don’t use that word mildly. These are the accounts from close friends of mine: My eyes get a bit too wide, go over all glazed and I look at my intended prey with such ferocity that you might as well hang a neon sign around my neck saying, “I’m dead horny and will fuck you so hard you scream with pain and only pain.” I think they said I also lean in a bit too close and get this soft, sneaky touch thing going, but that would be secondary to the ocular raping bit.
 I observed this within myself (as I believe any good writer should observe their inner workings) and found that yes it was my eyes sending out the ‘duck and run’ sexual signpost. I use ‘signpost’ for a reason – it hasn’t fully gone away. Sometimes, all I want to do is go to a club, have a few beers, say hello to a girl and then charmingly ask if I can come in her mouth a bit later. It’s crude, detestable and immoral. Doesn’t make me want it any less. Most of the girls I have met, while successfully keeping the 100-come stare in its questionable pocket, have been scared off soon after this with my texts or phone calls. I very rarely make it to a second encounter. After not getting laid on the first meeting, I almost immediately slip into this emotional torrent of whether or not I actually like her and if I do, do I want to wait a little longer to call her or should I do it the next day, or maybe I should find out where she lives and get her some flowers and then disappear for a week or two thereby creating an air of mystery – chicks dig mystery – but then a week of not being in contact with her could send mixed signals and what if she was drunker than I was and just gave me her number because she felt bad or wanted to go home, then again I could just play it cool and let her do the contacting like some woman of the modern world want today (was she a modern woman?) or maybe I’ll just drop the whole thing because now I’ve got a headache. So the truth of the matter is that I over think everything to an exasperation degree of seventeen (exasperometer only goes to fifteen) and, beyond better judgment, make an attempt to call or text, leading me to fumble and reintroduce myself as, “Basil, the guy who wants you for sex and maybe something else.”

This leads me to a vital part of fishing for sex. The second (and, I believe, most important) phase: Trying to put your catch into a bucket. The difficulty here is once they’re out of the water they become slippery and use every ounce of strength to get away. The second meeting is quite often a nervous one. What happens when a person is nervous? They are tensed and unintentionally on guard. For fisherman it’s easy. Take a knife and stab it somewhere vital or bash its head on some hard surface till it stops moving. Human beings (girls in particular) are not the same in that they would run if you pulled a knife or protest rather loudly if you had to start bashing their heads. The knife can be substituted with strong drink or, for the illegally dependant, a Rohephnyl slipped into her lemonade. Don’t bring weed to the second meeting unless you know for certain she’s a stoner. 
Strange how I related personal experiences and indecencies in the first paragraph and now I’m dispensing barely acceptable advice in the second. I’d better not write a third.
The usual formalities and niceties are of course exchanged before the first intoxicant arrives. The first bits are the most important because when you ask what she does for a living or if she’s studying, she’ll expect you to remember these pointless intricacies. I never remember those things. I forget the moment they tell me and ask within the hour, “What did you say you were studying?” Smile. A lot. It shows that you are happy. More importantly it shows that you are happy to be there with her. A happy girl will not be interested in a guy who isn’t happy. Unless she’s into that, in which case tell her you’ve got black leather whips and a gimp suit at home. Wink, wink. If you’re not me, whom I know for a fact you are not, you will probably have gotten through the first drink and are halfway through your second, have gotten through the idle talk and have maybe already dived in with a few a family questions. To keep with the comparison, you have successfully unhooked the fish and now have it firmly in both hands. The final stage is drawing near, the dreaded fish-to-bucket placement. You are now laughing along with her (no longer inwardly at her) and eye contact is good, not vicious, not dreamy and not too lengthy. At this point conversation may range from religion to future plans. Tread lightly here. You have the fish at the rim of your bucket. One wrong move and it could slip from your grasp and back to the unnavigable underwater currents. You ask the first questions so you have an idea of what she is sensitive about, then steer the fuck clear from those particulars. Chatting should now progress to informal meanderings and witty remarks. At this stage I would be at home, watching porn. The entire meeting can be measured as three or four drinks and about two hours with necessary smoke or piss breaks. 
If everything went swimmingly, she should be in your bucket before you even think about getting up to leave. If she’s not in by that time, then she won’t be in the near future.

A side note: This excerpt from my mind was meant for the enjoyment of male readers, as I’m sure a lot of women (being the sensitive catfish they are) would be quite upset about a lot of the things I have said. Truth is, I adore women and their bits and life without them would be an eternal bore.