Day 28 - July 3rd

Day 28 - July 3rd
A few beers with Rouse (Sam)
He is in VERY deep and I told him I'm leaving
First day I've only had a couple
RESTRAINT
LIVE

        When I quit that sales job I decided to take all the money I'd earned – something like $300 – pack all of my shit into two bags, and catch a bus to Melbourne. I wasn't sure how it was going to work, but I knew that whatever happened it would be better than Adelaide.
        Sam had to move out of his place after he got sick from all the NOS, and he moved back in with his dad, back into the room he slept in when he was growing up. The day I quit the sales job I went round there to tell him I was moving to Melbourne. We had a few drinks and took some mushrooms in his room, then he pulled out a bunch of spray cans and paint pens, and started spraying something on the wall of his room. He told me to think of some words to write over the top of his design, then wrapped a shirt around his face and got to work.

        One of my favourite albums ever (EVER!) is 'A Grand Don't Come For Free' by The Streets. The first track is called 'It Was Supposed to be So Easy', and in it, the protagonist Mike sings about losing £1000. It went missing in his living room with all his mates standing around, and over the course of the album he starts to suspect them all because, as the logic goes, it can't have just disappeared by itself. As his paranoia deepens he starts seeing his relationships with friends fall apart, and after singing about how much he loves her in a few songs towards the beginning, his girlfriend leaves him right when he is at his lowest ebb in 'Dry Your Eyes'.
        The last song, 'Empty Cans' depicts an angry, isolated man who continues to push people away out of distrust rather than accept his their well-intentioned help:

        Everyone wanted this to all go wrong from me from the start
        It's fucked up that a man's life can just be attacked
        Watching 'This Morning' with a beer is much better than relying on
        Unknown cunts for mates I was given that don't have my back

        He rejects his friend Scott's offer to come round and fix his TV, and instead, he calls a repair man over, but not before telling his mate to, “fuck right off, chap”. The guy comes round to fix his TV, and they get in a fight when Mike suspects him of being dishonest with the fee. He finally proclaims, “Everyone's a cunt in this life, no one's there for me.”

        But then! Then the track rewinds, the harsh synth disappears and over the same drums, a rising piano creeps in. He starts the story again, and when his mate offers to fix the TV he says, “I felt like just telling him to 'fuck right off, chap' ”
        Only this time he doesn't. He considers that his friend really is trying to help him, and accepts the offer. His mate comes round, and they end up finding his £1000 down the back of the TV. It had been down there the whole time, no one took it, the paranoia all for nothing. The chorus rings:

        It's the end of something I did not want to end
        Beginning of hard times to come
        But something that was not meant to be is done
        And this is the start of what was

        I played the song and explained it to Sam, and then, while he finished painting the dark-green background underneath me, I wrote out the words to the last verse in white, over the top of the purple heart he'd painted on the wall, from ceiling to floor, in the front bedroom of his dad's old house in Richmond:

        About two this afternoon the last of the people left my house
        'Cos they never stop chatting 'til all the racket's gone
        I really feel like things clicked into place at some point,
        Or maybe it's the fact that me and Alison really got on
        Or maybe it's that I realised that it is true,
        No one's really there fighting for you in the last garrison
        No one except yourself that is, no one except you
        You are the one who's got your back 'til the last deed's done
        Scott can't have my back 'til the absolute end
        'Cos he's gotta look out for what's over his horizon
        He's gotta make sure he's not lonely, not broke
        It's enough to worry about keeping his own head above
        I shut the door behind me, huddled up in my coat
        Condensation floating off my best, squinted out the sun
        My jeans felt a bit tight, I think I washed them too high
        I was gonna be late, so I picked up my pace to run

FUCK YEAH DUDE!! That was the end of Part One.
Click here to read the beginning of Part Two - Day 29 - July 15th