Skydekkerix

Hey everyone. My name’s Dean. I can be really funny, but sometimes I’m not. So with that in mind let’s see how this goes.

This is a small story about me.

I inhale the smoke; it tickles the back of my throat.

“Don’t cough,” I think “otherwise they’ll laugh and call you virgin lips” I know it’s a joke, but it can still completely mess me up. Not because of some deep emotional trauma it causes me, or anything like that; it makes me laugh my ass off. As soon as you start laughing, you usually start coughing… And coughing can hurt… a lot.

I don’t cough, and I feel like a god.

As I exhale I look around the room. All eyes are on me. “Are you gonna marry that thing?” quips Brad. I contain my shit, and slowly pull the rest through.

Brad is busily cutting up more pot, Neville is drinking, Kyle and Nick are playing Forza, and Rondolph is talking. Brad looks over at Ron, completely disgusted. I think this is about time I tune in to what he’s saying.

“There’s nothing wrong with them,” he says reassuringly “they were probably just used for cutting the stitches. I doubt they were actually used to cut up his skin, or anything inside him”

“Are you fucking retarded or something? Why they fuck would you let us use these scissors?!?! I swear to god Ron, only you would do something like this!!!”

Brad is pissed. I don’t think this was a good time to jump back to reality. I snatch up the joint that’s being passed around and get back to nothingness for a while.

Neville starts talking about Achewood for some reason, and everyone has no idea what he’s on about. Nev and I talk about it for a good five minutes before Ron chimes in telling us that nobody cares. He then asks why I’m writing all this stuff down.

I explain to him that I’m writing it down so that I can remember it tomorrow, and that I’m doing a guest blog for a friend.  I thought this would be a funny subject to write about. That, and I have no idea what else I should write about. They don’t completely grasp the concept of a blog, I think.

The conversation immediately changes to the little list of things I’ve written down. Brad starts the conversation with “You know it’s not going to make any sense at all tomorrow when you’re reading it, right?” I’ve thought about this… but as bad as pot-brain is I think I should do a pretty good job of remembering all of this tiny stuff that happens that doesn’t matter at all to anything. Apparently I was right.

Something happens and Neville starts losing his shit. Whenever he does this he usually slaps tables. The problem is, in the caravan he slaps the person beside him on the leg. I’ve been put beside him, and he starts going to town on my leg. I knew this was going to happen, and have prepared with a pillow. He smashes the pillow with a lot of force, and it takes most of the blow. I’m a genius.

Ron then starts talking about the knee slaps, and refers to them as “The Slapocalypse”, and “The Slappening”. I completely lose my shit. Brad states that I’ve lost my shit, and should probably start trying to find it. This makes us all lose our shit even more.

Ron starts trying to explain why nachos are funny, or something retarded like that, when Brad cuts in and starts yelling at him about how unfunny he is. The thing is, he’s explaining it like someone would do calmly… but he’s just yelling his ass off at him. Brad’s a little bit aggressive sometimes.

I start feeling hungry, and bring up the munchy food that was brought over. Everyone starts a heated debate about it, and whether they should get it now, or a little while later.

Kyle links up a few really awesome corners on Forza, and Neville says that it was some really “Sweet shit”. This completely catches us by surprise, as Nev isn’t a drifting fan at all. As soon as the laughter dies off someone brings up the topic of food again.

Nev continues to talk about Forza, and we continue to laugh. Food is brought up again.

Nick starts to try to convince himself, and everyone else, that he’s good to drive up to the servo to get more food. I ask for coke, because that stuff is like black gold to me.

Ron decides the best thing to do when we’re hungry is talk about our favourite foods, and how awesome they would be right now. Brad tells him to “shut the fuck up” because he’s not helping at all.

Nick talks more about food, and driving.

They promise to get me coke, and I realise that I’m in the presence of angels. As they try to leave Brad nearly axes himself on the door. We all lose our shit, of course.

It’s about five minutes since they’ve been gone, and I feel like the group has been torn apart. All that’s left in the caravan is Kyle, Ron, Nev, and I. Ron is threatening to kill Nev over a small piece of chocolate.

Neville brings up Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and everyone is friends again.

Ron tells a joke, and then straight after the punch line he pulls a cone. Nev says “Way to end on a high note! That should go in the book!”

I explain that it’s not a book, and is just a blog. They either don’t quite understand, or don’t really care.

Ron starts talking about his day, going on about how he just got really high, then went and paid some bills. Neville refers to this as a typical day as an unemployed person, quickly followed by “That should go in the book!” He’s doing it intentionally now, and it’s hilarious.

I start to talk about how people are forcing jokes just to try and get me to write them down. The conversation goes for a couple of minutes, and we all agree that a lot has been forced, and that I’m only putting the last two jokes about it going “in the book” in the blog.

They’re back with food, and it’s awesome. We have jumbo chupa-chups with bubblegum in them.

Brad says something funny, followed by “That should go in the book”. We all completely lose our shit, catch him up on the conversation we just had, and let him know it’s just not funny anymore. He feels like a dick. It doesn’t matter, though, because food is here. Right now food is all that matters.

This guy asked me to write a blog post for him.

I am not qualified for this.

Am I supposed to refer to this guy as ‘Skydekkerix’ even though everyone is probably aware of who this guy is? If you are going to use a pen name, it should not sound like you were seventeen and trying to name an elemental wizard. We have all played Diablo probably, but that does not make us okay people.  If you are going to have a blog then you should have a distinct theme. That way when you ask people to write a guest blog for you, they will have some idea of what they are supposed to do and won’t open by directly criticizing you. I am going to lecture you all on being a writer, because this is what the other guest bloggers wrote about.

I do not know whether this blog is supposed to be about writing or not.

Skydekkerix’s Skydekkerix Blog is about being not very good at almost every kind of thing and trying to be less bad at those things you are not good at. The secondary theme seems to be that all attempts at self-improvement are futile and that life is frustrating and upsetting and sometimes you will witness hell-scapes and water down your alcohol with tears from your face. I wrote that as a run on sentence because I have contempt for both this blog and the craft of writing. I have contempt for you as my reader.

Lesson One: No one cares what you have to say, and you are not even famous.

You are not famous and no one cares what you have to say. You probably want to talk and write about what writing means and pontificate on the craft. You should not do this, because you do not actually know anything and your opinion does not matter because you are not famous and will probably not be famous at any point in your life and least of all for writing a book. If you are writing and intending to change the world or open up readers’ horizons you should stop writing. No one will read what you write except the kind of people who are already enough like you that your opinions will not challenge them or they will dismiss them out of hand. If you were serious about fixing people, you would become a teacher or an abductor of children because adults can only be fixed by being made dead. If you were a cool assassin you would do more good ‘neutralising’ (that is assassin speak for having done a murder to) folks than you could ever do writing a book. Even if Oprah likes your book. Writing a ‘challenging’ work is like literary masturbation. It is essentially harmless and pleasant and is also good for your health but no one really wants to hear about how you made it except for someone who wants to do sex with you. Masturbation is a metaphor in the first instance but sex is just sex in both examples. If you are handsome or pretty enough that people want to do sex to you, you should not even bother talking about writing because your face has done the hard work and it is selfish of you to want more attention.

Tip: Eat bananas.

Bananas are one of the few rich sources of soluble potassium. Potassium prevents ‘shaky hand disorder’ and steady hands are essential for both long-hand and typing. Also, potassium can prevent cramping when you are masturbating. Potassium does nothing for muscle tremors brought on by nerves such as in cases where a lady has taken her top off at you deliberately or when you need to make words in front of judgmental folks in either an informal or academic context.

Lesson Two: Everyone is a writer.

Being a writer is the shittiest kind of being an artist because everyone thinks that they can do what you can do because of climbing literacy rates. People are inherently more impressed by paintings and sculptures than some ink that you put onto a page in an order. This may change when you have published a book but almost certainly not if you are published in a magazine. Or on a blog. Once you have published a book you become more impressive to your hairdresser than most visual artists and actors who aren’t in films. Hairdressers are your enemy and the enemy of self-worth. People will insist on hearing about your novel and you will not want to tell them. This is the correct impulse. Your novel or short story will sound appalling to everyone and destroy your faith in it. If you self-identify as a writer and writing is not your primary income you are a terrible person and should get a job. Everyone can write and it does not even take that much time. Get a job and earn some ka-ching, ka-ching, ba-bling ba-bling.

Tip: Do not get a job as a hairdresser.

Lesson Three: You are a monster who is wearing human skin.

As a writer you are a bad person. You have failed at being a person and are incapable of genuine feeling and experience. This does not mean you are evil, but you are bad in the same way that a hammock is a bad bed. You are a selfish monster that is passing as a person in order to eat their lives. You are a monster because everything is about you. When you go to a wedding or a birthday or a christening you are not genuinely happy for the folks getting wedded or celebrated or named. You are thinking about whether you can make a story out of this. When your friends go through difficult breakups, you are cherry-picking the most telling phone-calls and self-destructive alcohol choices.  If you are not doing this, you are not a writer and might be an okay person. Otherwise, recognize that you are a monster who feeds on suffering, discomfort and conflict. You invent fictional people to suffer in new and interesting ways. You monster.

Tip: Do not date an artist.

You are too selfish to be in a relationship with another person who will make everything about them.  After recognizing yourself as a monster, recognize normal people as your prey. Be kind to them, because they do not understand that you will eat them. If you must be in a relationship with an artist, reconcile yourself to heartless cruelty because you are now David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve and you are going to start stabbing other folks with a tiny ankh. I am a single man.

These are the basic steps by which you can manage your terrible affliction.

Mistakes are forever but when we are dead no one will remember them.

There is no escaping what you are.

I am so terribly sorry.

Samuel Finegan