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oh.
yeah.
me.
i was smart.
real smart.
i had the periodic table down by age six and sailed through my chemistry a-level as a treat for my mum on her birthday two years later.
after that i diversified, adding french and german to my meagre collection of languages.(until then i had only ventured as far as the classics and a smattering of tanzanian dialect swahili)
physics came naturally to me, and therefore bored me. i thrived only through challenge and difficulty.
while i still studied the sciences, my main focus through the ages eight til twelve was my music. i passed grades eight, six and three in guitar, piano and tambourine by my tenth birthday, and was able to give my debut concert as part of the festivities. i seem to recall my fugazi covers going down well, whilst strangely my stirring rendition of 'speed bonny boat' was all but ignored.
during this foray into all things melodious, i was teaching myself to drive. the driving was really an issue with my parents. they were dead against it, and much of my training was done in secret. many an hour passed straining my eyes to read car manuals and performance reports under the bed clothes, readying myself for the day i would be legally able to take my test.
actually, thinking back, the driving was actually the first big upset parentally.. it led to my first 'running away from home' episode.
i still have the cutest picture of me, red wellies and a wee black polo neck and little else, carrying my MrT suitcase filled with books and food, smoking a gauloise as i waited for my taxi.
of course, as with most kids,i didnt get very far.
my plane stoped over in barcelona, and a friend of my father's was there to escort me off the plane. to be honest, i was ready to go home.
i think that run taught me more than i then realised, and it certainly cleared the air between mum and myself. the futility of escaping our fundamental natures, and all that.
as you can no doubt tell from my choice of cigarette, i had become entranced by the works of the existentialists since my tenth birthday. my birthday copy of existentialism and humanism actually had to be replaced three times, i read it so often that year.
my burst for freedom was the begining of my shaking off of the shackles of that philosophy, i now see.
it is strange how you become so obsessed by philosophies and ideologies at that age, isnt it?
eleven would be the year of situationism, twelve i was nothing but nihilistic, and by thirteen i had grown out of the european scene and was becoming more intrigued by the works of the east.
then, like an H-bomb of hormonal imbalance, puberty hit.
fom thirteen and a half onward, i was beset by feelings of there being something missing in my life, and i am ashamed to say i ran away a few more times. most embarrasing of these adventures was when i was returned, now a bitter alcoholic, to my mother but by accident.
the circus i had joined as it left our town had a tour of only six major cities, and it returned before i had even had a real hangover. not only had i yet to be made a clown, i had yet to be noticed, hiding in the ape enclosure. i had kept alive on a diet of banans and homemade banana-skin vodka distilled in partnership with a kindred spirit; a friendly young orangutan whom i named rimbaud.
my mother was quite understandably shocked at the appaling promotional opportunities that the circus had offered me, and demanded i clean up my act.
rehab was where i spent most of my later years, off and on.
i was never there for the health aspect, no matter what i told mum and dad. no, i went because i had figured out what i was missing from my life. it took me a while, and meeting a contortionist named lorinda to figure it out, but what i needed was ASS. rehab is a surprisinly good place to get chicks when you are a fourteen year old alcoholic who can get uncut colombian delivered to the dormitory for under thrty a gram. there are women (and men, i was only young and still playing) who will do almost anything for that slice of nice that cocaine will bring. most of them fiound their way to my weekend retreat.
all of which neatly brings us to when the invisibles started...
around the debut of volume two, i bought my first suit and attended my first job interview.
there was something in this tale of free spirits, mystical anarchists and arrogant vigilantes that made me want to be richer. MUCH richer.
after a stint as a freelance consultant with goldman sachs, i am now a partner in the biggest dealer of those hollow points they use for exploding shells. i'm not ashamed to say, i love my product.
it takes the entire back of your head off, and makes it into money!
all of which brings up to the point at which i joined barbelith...
its been downhill since then, really.
stay in school kids. |
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