Sunday, 6 January 2013


First blog post of the year. I'm a bit late to the party, I know, but I have valid excuses. I have been ill. And I'm lazy. And I have nothing nice to say about 2012. It sucked. It sucked hard!

Well, except for seeing Henry Rollins in January. That was a pleasure as always.

Oh, and seeing Frank Turner in November. Probably the best gig I have ever been to! But those two singular events aside, 2012 sucked!

Oh but also filming two short films, one in February and one in August, that was pretty amazing. In fact the August shoot was one of the best experiences of my life. Ever.

But aside from seeing Henry Rollins, a man whom I freakin' adore, and going to the best gig I have ever been to and seeing a script that I wrote come to life before my very eyes... aside from those things, 2012 sucked. Sucked, I tell you!

I could now list all of the shitty things that happened to me in 2012 to prove my point, however, I am not going to. No more Captain Negative! Oh no! From now on I am Mr. Fucking Positivity! With a capital F and a capital P! (I feel the need to include 'Fucking' in the title just to put a slightly nihilistic spin on my positiveness - without it I'd just be a little too positive).

I am not taking any bullshit this year. I am not normally one for declaring big changes or making resolutions just because the fucking calender changes (Same shit, different day, right?) but this year I feel that change is somewhat necessary in my life. So what better time than the New Year to facilitate said change?!?

Enter: The Plan

In order to impliment the aforementioned change I devised 'The Plan'. The Plan was to leave the city I am currently living in and move to a new city where nobody knows me. Where I would be far far away from anyone that does know me and where I could have a fresh start. Meet new people, make new friends, maybe make up an intriguing backstory about myself - like I'm the son of an assassin, or the British nephew of failed US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney. I'd be all "Hey, I'm Todd Romney, sup?" (See what I did there? I made a New Girl reference. Digital high five if you got that! BOOM). It'd be like that episode of Friends when Joey starts working at Chandler's company and creates a new persona called Joseph who has a wife and kids and such (That's right people, a New Girl reference AND a motherfuckin' Friends reference in the same paragraph) ... (Due to one too many random sitcom references I can't really remember the point that I was trying to explain. Balls.)

So yeah, basically that was 'The Plan'. Swapping Brighton for Coventry. To anyone that isn't British and may not understand what that means, think of it in terms of swapping California for Colorado (Except Brighton has less sunshine than California and Coventry has less mountains than Colorado).

Ignoring the whole 'Why would you swap California for Colorado? Are you insane?!?' side of things [nb: no offence intended to anyone from either Coventry or Colorado], I began to have doubts about 'The Plan'. It started on Christmas day with a poem. Although to be honest it probably started way before I saw the poem. The poem simply became what I needed it to become without having to admit to myself why I was so desperately searching for a 'sign' to tell me what I already knew (Wow, that sentence made no fucking sense. Literally none. At all). Basically I was looking for an excuse to opt out of 'The Plan' and the poem was... well, it was poetic.

The fact is that deep down I know that running away won't solve anything. Ironically, as the person whom the memories of I was attempting to run away from (The Ex) warned me: "You can't run away from memories" (Ironic or mind fuck? It's a thin line). Truthfully I was never trying to run away from memories. Far from it. I like the memories. I want to keep them. All of them. Even the bad ones. The thing I was hoping to run away from was the one thing that I can't ever truly escape from... Myself. I came to realise that no matter where I move to, however far away, or whatever joys that place may offer, I'll still be me. For good or ill we're stuck together, myself and I.

"For good or ill we're stuck together, myself and I"... Such cunning wordsmithery! (I apologise if I am making no sense whatsoever today. And I am not even high right now. I promise.)

Enter: The New Plan

In order to implement the aforementioned change but without such drastic measures as put forward in 'The Plan', I devised 'The New Plan'. The New Plan is to stay put by the sea, MAN UP and get the fuck on with my life! I need to learn how to make myself happy without relying on others to do so for me. That sounds easy, but gosh darn it have I struggled to make myself happy for the past seven or eight months! (I reeeeeally want to drop a masturbation joke in regards to 'making myself happy' but that would be very immature of me, so I won't... No, I won't!)

In conclusion, I am not moving to Coventry. I am staying in Brighton. And now when people enquire as to why the change of heart, I shall reply: "Because of a poem". And when I meet new people, hell, I might just pretend to be Todd Romney anyway, just for shits and giggles. I've always wondered what it would be like to be a Moron Mormon.

When I die I will return to seek
The moments I did not live by the sea

- Sophia De Mello Breyner


  1. Good luck on finding happiness! I am sure you'll find it! (No cheesy movie quotes inserted.)

    Plus, don't run away from yourself. You're a pretty cool guy! (After all, this blog with these thoughts are yours, right?)

    Happy new year!

    1. Thank you Sabrina, that means a lot. Happy New Year to you too!

  2. You are lucky that you found that poem. I had to get all the way across the country to learn what you learned from just opening a book. I too felt the need to run away, but quickly discovered that no matter where I went I was still stuck with my own brain. A poem would have really cut down on airfare costs.

    Hope your new plan works out. I enjoy reading your blog, dude. Keep the posts coming.

    1. I was going to reply to this with something completely lame like "I didn't find the poem, the poem found me", but I won't. I was just lucky.

  3. You had me at the New Girl reference. And THEN you had me at the Friends reference. But then you did the whole moron/Mormon thing, and then you REALLY had me. Thank you, sir.

    1. No Cassie, Thank YOU! I'm glad someone appreciated my sitcom references haha

  4. Gosh, I just wanna hug you after reading this post hahaha

  5. I'm glad I set aside special time to read this. You know you and I might feel the same way about the ocean, this is rare among my online compatriots.
    The poem line might get you laid--I hope that it does. But I love running away. Adventuring is what I call it. I've recently come back from the sea and seen my family but I tell you too many ghosts live the sweatpants being carded twice when buying alcohol despite the fact that I clearly don't look under twenty one.
    Every situation is different and surely even as we are alike, we are different--I just see what you've put down here and know I wouldn't be brave enough to see it through.
    All the best for the new year to you.