The cities where people have no souls

 

“I don’t want to go to Auckland.” People usually say. If I ask them why not, they say people have no souls there, and I’m like “What?”

Just like the Sidney of Australia, it’s just not a nice place to be, or at least that’s what people say.

Everyone hates Sydney, everyone hates Auckland, and those who live there always complain and dream about moving to Wellington or Melbourne, you know the cool places, where all the cool kids go, you know those who smoke weed, wear hoodies and play in a band.

Auckland and Sydney, in the other hand, are where your boring old cousin lives, you know the accountant who works at a bank, watches tv, plans his holidays one year in advance and is always complaining about how he has to wait too long in traffic. The one who hates his life and goes knocking on his neighbor door because their music is too loud. They are trapped in the routine of a mundane 9 to 5 job, secretly jealous of his reckless cousin who lives a relaxed life in Melbourne or Wellington, yet they don’t seem to have to courage to change his life, and would never admit they want to anyway.

For me though, as a foreigner in Australia and New Zealand, I don’t really care much about neither of those cities and if I were a city I’d probably be Perth.

No one really cares much about Perth, its just there. Isolated. Far from everything, not many people get there because it’s just too far and there’s really nothing there.

Perth is like that cousin of yours who moved to other continent decades ago, and no one has heard much about him since.

They know he’s there somewhere, far away, they know he’s alright, minding his own business and without causing much trouble.

They know he is happy living life on his own, in his own world, in his cloud, with his dreams which are totally different from everyone else’s.

He doesn’t want to be an office worker in Sydney but doesn’t care much about those hippies from Melbourne either, he just wants to be left alone.

Not a leader nor a follower. Neither too cool or too boring. Perth is the place to be for those of us who don’t really fit anywhere else.

Perth doesn’t try to look cool, or impress you and doesn’t care about his big brothers.

Perth is just there.

About the bus

 

Let’s take the bus!

Na, I’d rather walk.

Why is that?

I just don’t like the bus.

What, are you too good to use public transport?

No, I’m just too poor to use it. It costs a lot, so as long as I have feet I’ll walk, run or ride the bicycle. If I ever get my legs cut off, I’ll then maybe… take the bus or the train.

But do you know how far is it?

Yes, it takes 4 hours walking from here.

How can you walk so much?

That’s because I don’t see walking as a waste of time like most people do. For me it’s nice. I get time for me. Time to think, it saves me money, I get exercise, I meet people, I find stuff on the way, I discover new parts of the city, what could be better?

With the bus, I have to spend money, which I don’t have and spend so much time sitting, which I don’t like. Sitting is the worse, also as with most other posts, the idea for this post came up while walking alone aimlessly.

Best ideas come when you are walking alone, without music, without distractions, just you and the road.

In the bus there’s always people bothering me, they want to hug me, or take a picture with me.

It’s actually quite tough being famous because sometimes you just don’t want to talk to people and smile and be polite, sometimes you just want to be left alone.

Sometimes you just want to walk, at night, through the park, thinking of rainbow dash, or thinking of a girl you used to know, thinking of what kind of bird it is the one that’s singing that beautiful song you hear in your mind while you’re making spaghetti, that songs that goes something like this “totororototo totorororo

totorororo tororototo tororoto tororoto rotototo tororo tototo”.

That guy

 

What happened to that guy?

Which guy?

You know, “that guy”?

Which one?

You know, that guy who carried a notebook with him on the train, sat across a cute girl and started writing something, when she looked at him, he blushed and shyly looked down, what happened to that guy who was always doing the Naruto hand signs, carrying Pokemon cards everywhere just in case he finds a challenger, that guy who got all the weapons, cards, summons, materias in all the final fantasy games, used to try to transform into super sayan daily and was afraid of talking to strangers, what happened to that guy?

I don’t know he moved on I guess.

oh, alright then.

About pull ups / chin ups

 

Today is a special day, the most special day this year. Today is the day I made it to 25.

25 pull-ups in a row.

That was actually my goal last year but something happened and I made it this year instead.

What’s so special about pull-ups you ask, well nothing really, it’s just my way of feeling better about myself.

As that’s pretty much all I have, not gonna win an Oscar anytime soon, I have no money, no friends, no job, no girlfriend, no house, been sleeping in a tent for over a month now.

I’m technically a failure in every possible way, pull-ups are all I have to feel good about myself. Something I can say I’m good at.

As I’ve never crossed paths with someone who could do 25 pulls ups in a row before, some guys I’ve met could do 10, but that was it.

Everyone you meet is better than you at something, and I want to be better at something also, I want to feel healthy, I want to feel strong, want to feel proud of myself.

Pull-ups are the best because you don’t need to go to the gym, just need to find a tree or some stairs, they are like the squats of the upper body, if you are jogging and stop for pull-ups they will give you that push you need to continue jogging a while longer and if you are cold or lonely and stop for pull-ups you’ll get warm immediately.

Pull-ups are the single best thing for those of us who need to fill their empty and meaningless lives with a false sense of achievement that would help them sleep at night and make it through another day of immeasurable solitude.

From here and from there

 

Where are you from?

I don’t know, from here, I guess. From everywhere.

What do you mean?

Just can’t limit myself to a town or a country or a planet or a solar system, or a galaxy. I’m one with the universe because the atoms in my body originated

in the stars. I’m made of star dust and when I die I’ll go back to the stars. I feel one with every person, with every animal, plant, with every inanimate object, they are me and I am them. Can’t say I’m from here or from there because I’m from everywhere. The countries have been here for very short a time but a part of me has been here for billions of years already. A sense of unity, it’s just beautiful.

Are you high?

Yes.

About Tommy

 

Tommy, is a aJpanese pop/rock/punk singer I used to be obsessed with some years ago.

Kawase Tomoko, used to be the lead singer of the brilliant green, then went solo, got another band, then went back with the brilliant green. She’s not sooo popular, but most people in Japan would know some of her songs.

First time I heard her songs, I thought they sounded so cute, a new sound, like nothing I had heard before.

I got even more into her after watching some of her concerts, mostly because of her stage presence, she looks just too awkward on stage, like she doesn’t know what she’s doing or like she doesn’t want to be there at all

It’s like she doesn’t care about the audience at all and that’s actually quite awesome, considering most Japanese singers always suck up to their audiences

And some rock singers pretend they don’t care but their body language betrays them and you can tell they actually really care

Tommy has a nice voice but always sings like she’s annoyed and doesn’t really want to sing. It’s strange but that’s also what makes her special. I don’t really know why I like her so much, but I’m am glad I do, because she makes me feel stuff I wouldn’t be able to feel otherwise, endorphin, adrenaline, oxytocin, I don’t know, just that rush you feel when you are in love, makes you invincible

May she be the reason I like older woman? Probably not, as she doesn’t really looks her age and appears to be quite childish and immature.

Or maybe I like her because she looks like she’s got even more issues than me.

Or her attitude, she’s always like “ufff” and i’m like “ufff” and wonder why she’s like “ufff”, then she coughs, sighs and yawns on stage, most times she just looks down and I wonder why she does that.

What is it that’s annoying her so much? Why is she so bored on stage?

Why is she singing if she doesn’t want to sin?

I don’t know but maybe apathy is the new sexy?

Probably not

Some day

Someday I will be the one throwing coins into the fountain instead of

being the one picking them up.

Someday I’ll be the one driving people around instead of asking for a lift.

I’ll be the one providing food instead of asking for it.

I’ll be the one who can look after and mentor other people.

I’ll be the one dumping food instead of dumpster diving.

Ok, no, that’s wrong, I shouldn’t throw food away.

How about this:

Someday I’ll be the one growing food instead of scavenging for it.

That’s better.

Someday I’ll be the one stealing the pot from the fish.

Ok that’s also wrong.

Or maybe not so wrong?

Well, I’m not sure

I know the Chinese fish for example, they just want to gamble.

They don’t care about equity, just want the rush of playing.

So it’s actually not so wrong, as you are giving them what they want.

An experience.

And isn’t that what life’s all about anyway, experiences, enjoying the ride, going all in and having fun.

Why do we have to worry about implied odds, rakeback, bankroll, cheap showdown, collision, etc. The fish doesn’t worry about anything, they just play for fun

They have other sources of income so they can afford to go all in with a low hand.

Some day I’ll be a fish.

Just so that it’s out there

If my memory doesn’t fail me I think I was 14 when I learned that second-hand smoke was actually much more harmful than smoking yourself.

Then I realized my mother had smoked inside the house, next to me for as long as I had memory.

She would bring all her friends home and they will all smoke nonstop next to me while I was in developing age to make sure I wouldn’t grow healthy and that I had respiratory and growth problems.

For the record, we are not talking about 1950’s farmers who just don’t know any better, we are talking about educated people in the big city during the 90’s, people who are very aware of the dangers of smoking for themselves and for others, especially for children.

Yet she just didn’t care and spent almost 20 years smoking in front of me at every chance she had, even though she knew I had asthma, and that was the single worst thing she could do to me.

So of course when I was old enough to understand what was going on around me,

I confronted her and asked her to stop. Not just for me but for herself and everyone around her.

What was her answer? Crying and screaming as if I was a criminal for asking her to quit. Saying that’s not so bad and she didn’t drink alcohol, so she had to smoke.

I’ve always wondered, what kind of logic was that? The fact that one doesn’t drink allows you to ruin other people lives, and be a pain for everyone around you?

It keeps showing up in my nightmares sometimes, her long curly hair, shaking nervously and shouting hysterically while holding a cigarette called “derby”.

Then she would cry and get violent, say she didn’t have money, while everyone told her, maybe if you stopped spending it all on that vice of yours, to what she replied “It’s my only pleasure in life.”

Anyway, the years went by, asked her time and time again to quit, she didn’t listen, sometimes said she would but never did.

When I was old enough, started taking the cigarettes away from her, as if she was a child, she would again cry and try to hide them somewhere so that I couldn’t find them.

Crazy, right? Or maybe I’m crazy for thinking smoking is bad.

Or for asking my mother to do something for me.

Or for trying to take care of her.

Or for trying to do the right thing.

Or for trying to change her.

It’s been more than 10 years since then and till now I haven’t had a single friend who was a smoker.

Met a few people here and there, but always avoided them and stayed away from them.

So if you’re a smoker and you’re reading this

I know you guys are just trying to look cool or something.

Maybe your excuse is that you are addicted or that all your friends smoke.

Maybe your excuse is that you have always smoked or that you don’t drink so you have to smoke.

You probably hate non-smokers and don’t care what I think.

But now it’s out there.

I’ve had to take your smoke for almost 20 years.

I’ve said what I think of you people.

Now all that’s left is asking you to stay away from me.

Take your carcinogenic fumes somewhere else.

Because I’ve had enough of them.

And I’ve had enough of you.