Suggested Audio Jukebox ♬

[1] The Boo Radleys “Wake Up Boo!”

[2] Simple Minds “Alive & Kicking”

 

Who else here wakes for shit every morning? It’s crazy, don’t cha think? I mean, scientists have long since proven, without any reasonable doubt, that the human body replenishes its resources each time we slumber. So how does it make sense that I come to feeling like I’ve been fired from a cannon at 200mph directly into a thicket of brambles? I should be whipping back the bed sheets like a magician each time the cock crows, leaping from my cosy divan akin to the gayest of salmon, skipping down stairs like Pippi Longstocking sporting the very same cheek dimples, and whistling the theme song to The Brady Bunch even though my lung capacity would never hear of me attempting this at such an ungodly hour as 11am. Instead, it’s as though I’ve been bludgeoned with an anvil, molested by Orca, forced to sit through an entire season of The Cleveland Show on slow play, and called every name under the sun and a fair few besides.

In many ways, life itself is remarkably similar as you spend half of it anesthetized and, once you eventually shake free from your paralysis, there’s a considerable amount of feeling like shit before you finally arrive at Wally World. Right now, I’m wide awake. Indeed, I feel positively rejuvenated at this current moment, as though I have just spent the last twenty years in the deepest slumber and my internal alarm bell has finally seen fit to chime. The obligatory morning stretch and yawn combo assist in brushing away any persistent cobwebs and, as I refresh my face in a bowl of cold water and select my daily attire, I feel decidedly more conscious of my surroundings than at any other point in my mortality thus far. There are certain factors that I miss of course, phantasms being one of them. For many, nightmares are something to fear, and result in waking up in the coldest of sweats whereas, to me, they are the hold music of the subconsciousness whilst I grab that pocketful of winks, and no amount of ghastly long-legged beasties could convince me otherwise, no matter how much they flutter their eyelids or flash us the thigh.

So what’s so special about boring old sleep then? Well if it is indeed these rude interruptions of waking life during which my shell heals the most, then perhaps that would explain why my physical shell is in such slip-shod shape right now. That said, I succumb to the Sandman eventually despite my very best efforts to evade his clutches. Every night’s a skirmish and, while I fend this hour snatcher off as best I can, ultimately it is he who has the final chortle. I’ll often still be perched there at dawn, marveling at how I managed to evade his elongated feelers, only for him to sneak up on my blind side and jab me in the spleen with a vile dose of his slumber-puncture. Swine gets me every time, messing up my life balance pie-chart and pilfering my productivity time courtesy of his very best brand of skullduggery. Of course, he does offer a succinct sweetener in the shape of encouraging me not to drop stone cold dead from sheer exhaustion but that’s scant reward for his underhand actions if you ask me. Whatever happened to sleeping when you’re dead anyhoots?

How can we even be sure that we’ve actually woken up each morning new? Is it the shrill alarm chirping in our lobes or brand spanking erection selection spread out like a spam buffet before us that confirms such data? I would argue that it is neither. So surely then it must be the primary whizz of the day or the first few spoonfuls of our morning muesli? Wrong again and mine’s Cheerios. Remember what our old friend The Matrix taught us Grueheads, start thinking along those lines as I can discern the penny already teetering. Daytime television is a wake-up call of sorts, could it simply be that it isn’t until our initial daily fill of home renovation programmes and unscrupulous trailer park talk shows masquerading as chivalrous, that we actually awaken? Or is it simply fucking garbage? No prizes for guessing my thoughts on this particular poser. Perhaps it is the fact that I saw fit to shoehorn in the word “fucking” that gave me away or that injunction that Jeremy Kyle took out on me in 2012.

At any rate, we’ve now skipped brunch as it’s a ridiculous notion and arrived safely at lunchtime. You know, those precious moments when we all huddle around the daily news, with seeded bagel in one hand and precariously situated FM radio balancing over a barrel of water with the other. There’s nothing like a dash or two of sobering current affairs to shake you loose if your morning napalm hasn’t done so already. For me, it is the point when the anchor commences their auto-cue that I realize how awake I truly am. If I were asleep I would likely sit and watch that shit. Being entirely conscious, I fire up Google, enter “what’s going on today dickweeds?” in the search bar, delete it and reenter just “news” as I don’t wish to become googlewhacked, then cherry pick anything which actually holds any weight. Needless to say, it’s a remarkably brief search.

In case you’ve been wondering, I herald from the United Kingdom, a gnat’s blowpipe away from the bustling hub of London and a boulder dash away from where Depeche Mode first learned how to plug in a synthesizer. We Brits are a predominantly benign bunch, bar anyone in any position of power as they’re positively rancid on the whole. Like any other nation we stumble from one day to the next, making all the customary human errors and rubbing each other up the wrong way wherever possible. Think of your meaty vessel wearing a cheese grater as some sort of French tickler and you’ll get an idea of how frequent that chafing occurs. Any pompous pricks situated at the top of the chain are pile-driven by the almighty Sterling pound, feeding it after midnight in a ludicrous attempt at starting some kind of multiplication frenzy. Mind if I run my eye over your list of company expenses prime minister? Curiously enough, the liquor store seems to be popping up rather a lot. Just saying.

Meanwhile, our good friends the tabloid media are a particularly noxious glib of bottom-feeders more than worthy of the shaming. These honorless heathens shovel their manure like they really believe it fertile when actually the surplus that oozes from their poisoned pens is destructive and wholly despicable, with a scant few notable exceptions of course. They act as pied pipers when really they’re a cancer; spreading through their readership akin to mobile measles with a side portion of mumps. These mumps are fucking chumps, nay the mere change of chumps. And every day they go into press they ram their rancid bilge-blasters into our accepting cheeks and fill us with their skewed truths until lockjaw commences because we’ve long since been worn down.

Fortunately there appear a few of us Brits who have managed to remain awake. Charlie Brooker, Russell Brand, Stephen Fry – love ’em or loathe ’em, and my estimations would suggest the rascal meat in that three-way sandwich would gather some hating, they do seem to possess genuine insight. All three have points worth making and it acts as a stark reminder that our numbers are dwindling somewhat. Thankfully our proud capital, London, currently has itself a Major so batty that you just want yourself a lock of hair from his bonfire barnett to treasure on those long winter nights. Had I already fathomed how to clone another, then I’d bust out at least a couple of dozen Boris Johnsons and hold one back as my faithful butler. He’s likely an absolute raving nutbag in person, but he’s our absolute raving nutbag bless him.

So where do I sit in all of this kerfuffle? And what’s the point I’m attempting to make anyhoots? Well, let’s take Brand shall we. He’s undoubtedly awake, look in his peepers and you’ll see those cogs turn between each twitch. Like Rowdy Roddy Piper he often dons shades, thus making him privy to the decomposition of society which is far more troubling than any forecast financial fluster. While it’s been eating us from our core outwards for way too long, I’ve decided to stay and take my shit on the pot, alongside young scallywags Brand and Brooker. As for our national treasure, the frightfully distinguished Fry, well this cat has his movements on a white china throne with built-in bidet and who can blame him for crapping at the very apex? He is, after all, Stephen Fry and some logic just isn’t worth arguing with.

We suckers for the cause of the week are prepared to do our business in the presence of all and sundry, relay our fables using the blessed tools at our disposal to carve through the everyday bullshit that plops out onto those radars. This is where the United Kingdom shows its most promise, through those prepared to say what others are barely considering thinking about thinking. Naturally, martyrdom beckons when we choose to speak our minds against the tyranny we see and, should dying for our causes become necessary, then we have the cojones to hoist our muskets high and holler “Wolverines!” which makes us a rather priceless commodity in my book. Not that I’m sucking my own dick or anything, I always wear lipstick for my morning yoga but don’t you go telling my mom dagnabbit or she’ll hide away her cosmetics.

I know one thing, I’d much rather be awake than out cold. Should I have to opt for one or the other then I’d flick sleep both Angry Birds and warble the night away with my deep red shit-kickers very much on. My twenty year stint in limbo was a really long slumber; I twice heard Van Winkle getting up and preparing himself a morning Mochaccino with a twist of praline and didn’t care for the rude awakening. While I had been away, things had gone a little Cheech & Chong, but now that I’m awake it’s time to get my house in order or die trying. After all, in or out has never been anybody else’s choice to make but ours truly, and we wade these abattoirs of our own free choice getting back what we put in. Anyone who believes that life isn’t under our direct jurisdiction has spent too much time listening to the cynics. Granted, there are twists and turns out of our control, but there was also a fifth beatle and you don’t see him getting a solitary whiff of the royalties do you?

The bottom line is this – I’m done with amateurish dramatics, cruel intentions and disrespectful blathering. I can take any verbal ammunition fired my way but Rivers of Grue is far too precious to compromise and I’ll croak long before letting that happen. It flows on with the same purpose, nay more, for any resistance against it as this is just science. It is, after all, a river. I’m not suggesting not being fallible, indeed, I’m little more than an everyday douche making the same regular lousy decisions an everyday douche makes on default setting. If one of my actions befuddles you, and I’m very aware that I am something of a bamboozle artist, then try not to misplace your faith as it’s just the nature of this particular beast. I’d happily forgive the hell out of anybody who lost their faith in me at one time or another, considering they’ve been made privy to the entirety of the clusterfuck mind-field within which I reside. And that’s a triple-truth Ruth!

Try to keep up Grueheads as I have a tendency to go off on the most redonkulous tangents without warning. During these moments, Bonus Brain tends to lurch into overdrive, hits warp speed and goes where no man has ever desired to go before. Yet I’m always awake, armed to the nines with conviction, ever unstoppable in my belief and comfortable with being misunderstood. After all, creative minds are meant to carry this burden because they can. That possibly makes me a shoe-in for Alzheimer’s but then ignorance is bliss I suppose. If you know me then you won’t need reminding that there was nothing flippant about my reference. I simply don’t wear my chastity belt for you lot. Admittedly, this is partially because it makes my balls sweat, but that’s still pretty chivalrous right?

Ultimately what I’m saying is that everything is one big home-baked flan of both hunky and dory, seasoned with dandy no less. Given that I’m wide awake right now as I keep reminding you, I see no peril in steering this vessel and can do so the very best of my ability. Let’s not go slackening those life jackets just yet as I may well send us careering into the rocks to be dashed into a trillion pieces but, should that ever happen, then I have inflated just the correct number of dinghies to make our escapes. See, many think I’m a plum for loving the shit out of Titanic but it has supplied me with unmistakable insight into keeping cool in a crisis. And just like Rose, I’ll never let go. Now have any of you got a whistle that isn’t clogged up with phlegm? Guys? Guys?

Click here to read The Inception of Dreams