I always feel desperately embarrassed on the morning after one of these outbursts. Re-reading is the worst bit. My guts bunch up like a pair of panties and I want to melt into the floor and disappear.

Mind you, there have been plenty of other cringeworthy moments along the wayside. I still recall those tragic days when I used to wear a long black trenchcoat and carried a superfluous cane and drank absinthe, oh dear god.... Eventually I had all records expunged from city hall and the photographs incinerated to fine grey ash via the (perhaps) over-enthusiastic mechanism of atomic furnace—but still! the shame! it still lingers; like a peeping tom at the bathroom window.

Or the time I got into the silos of the heathcote maltworks through a small hole in the ventilation system - only to get stuck fast on the way out and therefore thus requiring both the push and the shove assistance of my combined companions to squirm like a bloated tapeworm to freedom. I do believe I ripped my trousers to immodest shreds upon finally making my exit.

Shit man, I dunno. All about me; some are crushed, while others bloom like skyrockets. And there's nobody, absolutely nobody that got the answers in advance, 'cept to say that if you can do it, well, then I guess it's ok.

Someone told me recently that it wasn't worth trading my sanity to be able to write. Yo! Motherfucker! I would trade what remains of my sanity for talent in a second: I mean the Devil's blood wouldn't even be dry on the contract before I mainlined the fountain pen, squiggled my signature on the page and sealed the deal. There's far too much sanity in the world already. What we need a lot more of are the flailing grand gestures of lunatics. Been soul touched by anything ordinary and plain in the recent past? I didn't think so. We have always, always always hitched our little ploughs to the erratic backs of jesters and madmen.

In times as fractured as these it's difficult I know.

But it's about, and always has been: what you can inflict, how hard you are willing to push your shoulder to the millstone of the universe. It's about having a resolution as firm and unwavering as the edges of the earth. If sanity is a consensus then rationality permits nothing really different, at least in any interesting way, and if you want electricity then I reckon you have to be willing to be struck by lightning, or at least willing to stand in the storm.

Motherfuckers! you got nothing on me—except evidence. If there was any justice in the world at all I think I would have been locked away quite some time ago.

But there isn't, so I ain't. But yeah, you're probably right, it would probably be a mistake, I do have a lot of “bad habits”. Personally, well, I like to think of them more as “hobbies” or perhaps “self-destructively cool interests”, but... you know how it is, I say “syntax” and you say “semantics”, all much the same thing really. It's all covered under the unifying insurance of linguistics. Mandated by royal decree, signed and witnessed by certified members-of-parliament.

I am, on occasion, a genuinely evil motherfucker. I mean: just plain malicious and out to cause harm. I think the best tactic is to think of the people you're hurting as totally other and so not worthy of any real empathy or consideration, think of them as the human equivalent of tasty worthless animals, trust me it becomes a lot easier to cope with the remorse.

Then up comes a man with a hook for a hand

Man, I give you everything on a regular basis. I mean: I serve up myself with a scalpel and also cut out all the fat for you and where is my return-on-investment? When are you gonna make good with the feast? I thought you would, at least, make a gift of everything important. I mean: what else is worth giving away?

Actually, I always write drunk.

Always.

Actually, actually i think if failure was a verb: well, i'd like to be it's adjective.