Always Eighteen

July 28th 2010 14:03

What irritated me about the receptionist were her one word answers. I’d walk by her desk and ask her a question and she’d either say “yup” or “nope” and never ask me anything back, which was fine with me. Really.

Jude picked me up one evening and we drove to Gold Coast. We ate at a Teppanyaki restaurant and joked with the chef and attempted to flirt with the waitresses. Jude spun his mobile phone around and took a photo of the both of us.

“Once upon a time I had dreams,” I told him. “Now I work.”

Jude put his phone away. “Shut up, Dean. I want to tell you about this really good deal...” Jude then told me about this really good deal, which, as predicted, was actually a really bad deal. He’d been telling me and texting me about countless business ideas, all of which involved some sort of marketing scam that, through pyramid schemes and tax cuts, would make us both millionaires in a week.

“You’re just desperate. Why don’t you just work? The hell you do all day anyway? Let’s go home.”

“You don’t get it. You don’t know what it’s like to have all this... money.”

I checked the time. “Well aren’t you just lucky.”

“You don’t fucking get it,” Jude said.

“Of course I don't get it. I'm not supposed to get it.”

I told Jude about the receptionist, and then about Abby, and then about the other Abby. Jude then told me about a girl with freckles. We laughed for a little while and then the evening was over.

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MESSED UP EVENING WITH ABBY AFTER WATCHING WORLD CUP

July 11th 2010 14:42

I met Abby in a house party that was crowded because of the World Cup. She said a few things and I said a few things but the loud music (a remix of a remixed song I’d heard once) and the loud crowd had their way so there were only a few segments of our conversation I could clearly make out: “No, I don’t like Jacob – Edward is better,” and “Yes, I do believe vampires once existed,” and “It was about the refugees,” and there were real smiles and fake smiles and there were light hairs on her arm. Her friend – also named Abby – joined our conversation after an hour and the three of us leant into each other and screamed things that really couldn’t be heard. The second Abby was not as pretty as the first Abbey but she was more forward: she leant her hips towards mine and touched my arm whenever she thought I said a joke and once in a while she’d kiss me.

As predicted we ended up in the second Abby’s flat. After seeing each other under the bright light of her kitchen we all realised one thing: people look a lot better in the dark of pubs and clubs. But who cares. We went to her room. There was an acoustic guitar and there was a lot of mess. We deliberately stood around, not saying anything until the first Abby pulled her mobile phone out and grinned. “Take your clothes off,” she demanded. “Nope,” I said. She sighed, put her phone in her pocket and repeated: “Take your clothes off.” I took my shirt off and that was it. She unbuttoned her shirt. The second Abby turned off the light. The first Abby turned it back on. They argued for a while about the light being on or off until I finally said, “Let’s leave it on.”

They let me get away from it all at about seven in the morning. Even up to now I still think about the smells and the sounds and their eyes and how they formed positions like they were in some kind of football team. The second Abby howled. I’d never heard a woman howl until then. Events like that are not meant for me. They’re meant for the movies. The actors are much more attractive. But nonetheless I had a good party story to talk about. I caught a cab home and opened my room door and took my scarf off and jacket off shirt off and went to bed and pulled my blanket up and kept my eyes open for a good while before eventually falling asleep and dreaming of nothing.

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HOW TO GET GIRLS WITH MONEY

June 29th 2010 15:04

Jude, the bastard, has gotten into an art called pickup. Made popular by a book by Neil Strauss called The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, pickup is a technique that helps socially awkward men not only gain more confidence in themselves, but also (in theory), get laid much more often than they normally would if they hadn’t learnt the appropriate “gaming” techniques. There’s a technique called an opener. There’s a technique called a gambit. There’s a technique called the false disqualifier. There’s a term called LMR (Last Minute Resistance). There’s a term called AFC (Average Frustrated Chump). There are techniques on how to instigate threesomes.

Acclaimed masters of the art of pickup are known to charge thousands of dollars for their courses. They put their students in the “field” (bars, clubs, bookstores and so on) and help them become better gamers by making them approach numerous groups of women, with the idea that practice makes perfect. People who pay will then have exclusive memberships to forums, where they can continue their training by constantly having discussions on how to get that girl.

Jude is wealthy and slightly handsome and has a girlfriend and does not need to learn how to get a girl. He’s studying the art of pickup because there’s money in it. Copying exactly what another friend of ours is doing, Jude is setting up a “dating tips” website not because he wants to help lonely men get laid, but because websites with dating tips can generate hundreds of thousands of visitors quickly. Our friend’s website supposedly makes a thousand or so dollars in advertising revenue per month without having to sell one single product. There’s a lot of money to be made from lonely people. And loneliness is something that will never ever run out.

There’s a way to get a pretty girl and it’s through a formula. The formula is in self help books. The formula is in websites and forums. The formula is in movies. The formula is in music. The formula is in talent. The formula is in watching broken relationships and mended relationships and perfect relationships. The formula is in our mistakes. I wonder how men would feel if women started learning pickup. If they knew the same techniques of manipulation we were learning. If they could use us men as practice so that they may gain the skills to seduce a man who’s even better looking than we are. If they could charm us with one-liners and then move on to their next target. What does this say about our secrets, about commitment, about where our words are leading us?

In the end of the book, Neil gets the pretty girl and they fall in love and he concludes that if he didn’t learn how to pickup in the first place, he would never have met the right woman at the end of the tunnel. The funny part about his story is that they’ve broken up since the book was first published.

My most commonly visited blog post is called Smelly Genitals. My second most commonly visited blog post is called The Perfect Dick.

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ON ADVERTISING WRITING

June 13th 2010 07:34

There are some things I’ve learnt while working as a full time junior copywriter for a few months. One is the fear. You have to appear confident in everything you say and in everything you present, even though deep down you may not believe in what you’ve written. One is that copywriting is an art. There has to be a reason for your salary, there has to be a reason why your position exists at all. You will be working with the advantage and curse of subjectivity. There will be those who’ll criticise your work and think that they can do better. There will be people who will praise your work and you’ll have to believe that they’re being honest. One thing that I have learnt is that you are making money for your company, not for yourself. Another is that no matter how creative your ad may be, the boss or the client will have the last say and that your original idea could be butchered in the end; the opposite is that it won’t be filtered at all, and you will be held completely accountable. I’ve learnt that people can be influenced, manipulated. Easily. Reactions deeply depend on how you create them. I have learnt that a job as an ad man is not as glamorous as you may believe it to be. As an entry level copywriter, you may be writing brochures, sales letters, annual report snippets, generic advertising for metal manufacturers, real estate blurbs; you may be writing the same things again and again. You’ll learn to say, “Now that’s a great idea!” or ask, “What’s the story behind this ad?” One is that your career as an advertising creative will go nowhere if you don’t win a few advertising awards, with the problem being that that award winning work doesn’t always equate to better sales for your company or client; sometimes a cheesy headline with a generic image may actually work much better than a high-brow, “artistically” witty piece that requires an hour or so to decipher. I’ve learnt that you can have fun while working. You’ll make friends, partners. You’ll make enemies and neither of you will admit that you hate each other. You’ll learn from mistakes. Once in a while you’ll wonder that if in the end, karma will get back at you for convincing so many people into buying the wrong product. Once in a while you’ll think that karma may actually reward you in the end for helping strengthen the economy, for making people buyers, for exciting their lives, for making money worthwhile. Lying will become easier. Your writing will become quicker. Sometimes nothing matters. Sometimes you’ll have a day and everything you’ll do won’t matter at all. You’ll have lunch and you’ll check the time and you’ll check your mobile phone and you won’t think about the time that you dreamt about being a doctor or a pilot or a superhero or rock star or JK Rowling. Sometimes you’ll just want to go home and stare at the television and not be reminded that you have debt and that things need fixing. Sometimes you’ll look forward to Friday night, where one photograph you’ll take will have him running off towards the Night Time Shore, screaming something he won’t remember.

Ad made (not by me) for Wonderbra's double D range.

Award winning ad made (not by me) for Epuron:

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MONSTERS UNDER OUR BEDS

May 30th 2010 08:16

It was only with Vail leaving me that I started picturing monsters coming out in the middle of the night and messing everything up. I’d wake up and a monster would be looking at me and it would scream, “Boo!” and I’d scream, “Ah!” And it’d take me quite some time before I could sleep again.

With my experience in breakups I didn’t react as badly as I should’ve. Sometimes I’d turn up to work three hours late. Sometimes I’d turn up to work three hours early. My director had a long talk with me about my performance, but in the end decided not to fire me.

“Do you at least want to lower my pay?”

“Why the hell would I want to do that? Go home and be happy, Dean.”

I decided to take up boxing classes but changed my mind. I decided to sign up to the gym but changed my mind. I decided to take up yoga with a friend who is really into yoga but changed my mind. I’d scroll to Vail’s number on my phone and click on it and then change my mind. I’d go to her number again and think about sending her an angry text message. I’d think about calling her and telling her that what she was doing was cruel. I’d think about writing her an apology. I’d think about buying a thousand bouquets of flowers or driving over to her large and expensive house and standing there in front of her large and expensive front door and doing something sappy, something that could possibly work. I’d think about melting away, exploding, dying, drinking and drinking and vomiting, running a building over, punching a wall, sobbing while driving, meeting a brand new, much prettier girl and escaping and forgetting. Some people have war. Some people have persecution. Some people have poverty. I had heartbreak and that was all.

“I thought I had it right this time.”

“You did, Dean. Lately I just feel like you’ve held me back. I just want to be free, okay?”

I drove to Mount Coot-tha and aimed to walk towards the lookout but when I reached the parking lot I realised that the entire place was full of kids and families and groups of friends and tourists. I drove off and parked in a suburb somewhere and sat down by a sidewalk and smoked and looked at a tree and thought about nothing that important. They all knew that after the rough patch, I’d be okay. The thoughts about her would diminish, and, maybe after a few weeks or a month or two, I’d realise that what she did was absolutely, perfectly necessary.

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MY HOUSEMATE AND HIS WOMEN

May 22nd 2010 18:26

Before I continue with anything else I want to talk about an ex-housemate of mine who moved out last week. He’s a forty something year old guy who’s shorter than I am; he has short, firm, curly hair; he always raises his chin higher than he should and his eyes are always wide and his eyebrows are always raised, judging everything. He’s overweight and there’s a large scar on the left side of his body.

The reason why we disliked him is because of the women. He had multiple girlfriends and one supposed wife and had kids with all of them. The women were nice, but once in a while they made life awkward, so my housemate and Vail and I would quarrel with the woman or the women or the guy or even the women and the guy all at the same time. Sometimes they’d be normal quarrels. Sometimes they wouldn’t be normal quarrels.

Once, he and my other housemate threatened to kill each other. “I’LL STAB YOU. YOU COME OVER HERE AND I’LL STAB YOU, YOU CUNT!”

My housemate picked up a chair and threw it straight at him; he dodged it and swung his knife around even though he was about three metres away from all of us.

Last month he called us all for a “household meeting.” He told us all that he’d found a cheaper place to rent and that he’d be moving out in the next month. He told us that he was going to give up women for a change, that he wanted a fresh start.

He then invited me for a beer, and so we had about seven each. He didn’t say much, except after the fifth beer, where he concentrated hard before pointing at me. “You, you, you text me if a letter for me comes here, okay? I’ve contacted all the banks and all that but you never know, a letter for me still might come here, so you text me, okay? You have my number, right?” I told the bastard, “Sure,” before we both stood up and he patted my shoulder and I went to the bathroom and then to my bedroom.

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BENEATH THE VALLEY

May 11th 2010 01:29

After I slapped my workmate I decided not to go to work the next day, so instead I woke up to a song by Bob Marley or maybe a song by someone who sounded like Bob Marley and Vail shaking me with pity on her eyes, asking, Are you okay? Are you okay? at ten in the morning and we were both still slightly drunk from the night before, and our hair was sticking up and after I showered my hair was still sticking up and we both spent the next half an hour laughing about it, until Vail said, frowning, “Why is your hair up, but your penis down?” No one said anything for a while after that. The day was a blur but the evening was even blurrier. We met a bunch of people all dressed in flannel at around eleven in the evening at some flat in Mango up north and spent an awful three hours consuming all sorts of nonsense so by the time we reached the Valley everything was in black and white and one of the guys in the flannel shirts ran around with his pants down and got beaten up by a big bald guy and a bunch of other twisted looking people. After all the drama people started asking us questions so we snuck away and entered Common People and then left that and bought a pizza. I kept asking, “This is it? This is the Valley? This is it? This is the Valley?” We met two prostitutes but one of them looked like she was lying. I met a guy with an arm tattoo who always posed in a way so that everyone would see his arm tattoo. I met an ex basketball player. I met an ex Australian Idol contestant. I met an ex wife. I was happy and unhappy. All the people were in bars. All the people were in clubs. All the people were lining up for something. All the people were thinking of a next move. All the people were thinking about a drink. All the people were thinking about smiling with their friends. The crowds were small but they were swarming. I found myself having to push through a lot of people to find Vail; she was in the distance and I could see her holding a reddish drink and smiling and I could hear her yelling something; somewhere, somehow, for some unrealistic reason, I was dancing and believing that I was the best dancer in the room. A White Demon Love Song, by the Killers, was on, and upwards, towards the sky or the ceiling, was indeed a white demon looking down at me and I screamed in absolute terror. I suddenly realised: I haven’t seen Jude in weeks. I found myself outside somewhere with Vail and a bunch other friends and she was crying, and one of them was holding the both of us back from each other, and she screamed, “I’m leaving you, Dean! I’m leaving you, Dean! You fuck! You cunt fuck!” and I kept yelling, “But I don’t understand! But I don’t understand!” and when I came to my senses much much later, days later, I concluded that significant moments and significant words and significant actions are snobbish and arrogant and elitist and will only ever apply to certain people, and at certain hours, at most. I came back to work and nobody mentioned the fact that I slapped a colleague. After work I came home and for the first time in months, Vail decided not to sleep over.

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THE RECEPTIONIST

April 28th 2010 02:08

Work had become life. Starting the day at nine in the morning and ending it at eight in the evening, I quickly realised that I only had a few hours left in the day to either drink or write or hang out with Vail or stare upwards and do nothing.

There was one stressful afternoon during campaign period when my director was out of office and I couldn’t take my workmate’s face anymore. “You idiot!” I yelled at him. “You fucking idiot!” My workmate pushed me against the wall. For some reason this made me slap him. Although it was a hard slap, it was still a damn slap. There was an embarrassing, one minute silence. Everyone in the office was staring at us. For a brief moment my workmate didn’t look angry. He looked confused, he looked amazed. But he quickly shifted his expression back to how it was and pushed me again. He called me an arrogant tool, stormed to his cubicle, ruffled a few things around while swearing at people and muttering angrily to himself, and then grunted out of the room.

I walked to my own stupid cubicle and sat there for a moment, randomly clicking my mouse. I slapped someone. At work. In front of a bunch of people. I spotted someone about to approach me so I quickly stood up and left the office, through the back exit. I sat down on something. How was I supposed to feel at a time like this? I’m over twenty, I’m now a man. I fantasise about vampires, about colliding trees, about ex-girlfriends, about becoming famous, about leaping; I find no value in staring at the stars above and at midnight I’m drunk or asleep or wondering and in the mornings as I pass the intersection in front of work I’m not curious about how people look or who they are or who they want to be, I keep to myself and I wonder and I wonder and I wonder; I have Vail, I have a full time job, things I used to recognise, things I were once fond of – they’re far behind me and nothing is missing. I live in a cubicle. I looked up and the receptionist was there, smoking. She noticed me looking at her.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi.”

“Why do you look pissed?”

“I’m not pissed,” I said.

We didn’t say anything for a while. She flicked the rest of her cigarette onto the ground. “I like your shirt,” she smiled. “Checkers. Like mine.”

“That’s true.” There was more silence. I wanted her to walk back inside, but she didn’t. I caught her attention again. “So how long have you worked for this company?”

“Two years. So why are you pissed?”

“I told you I’m not pissed.”

“Fine, don’t tell me.”

“Why the hell would I tell you anything?” I said.

“Why the hell wouldn’t you?”

We looked at each other for a bit longer. She shrugged. “Fine.”

“Fine.”

We both hung around for a while longer, saying nothing.

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FOR A MOMENT WE WERE CLOSER

April 4th 2010 02:25

I wanted to celebrate completing my first week of work by drinking to the point of absolute disappearance but Vail decided otherwise. She brought me to this restaurant named Garuva, a fusion type of restaurant where each table was shut off from the rest and made intimate by curtains.

“You know you’re paying for this,” she said.

“Bullshit. I haven’t even been paid yet.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she giggled.

She didn’t have much makeup on and wasn’t wearing her typical short skirt: she had a headband with a giant ribbon protruding from it on her head and her shoes were awkwardly purple and pointed and her dress was dots and patterns and about two belts and strange things that I will never be able to define. She leant forward and said something and smiled because of what she was talking about. I smiled too. Her eyes were watching all of my words. I only had three glasses of wine. I liked her five freckles.

“Has the world changed? Why is this week, sort of... happy?” I said. I couldn’t believe what just came out of my mouth. My blog has a black background and has the word “cry” written in it often. I’m not recognised for talking about the good times.

She shrugged, looked upwards, thought about something, leant forward again. “When I was a kid, my father used to take me out to look for coins in the backyard,” she said, smiling just a little. “We’d walk around and he’d always tell me one day I’ll find a shitload of gold.”

“And the moral of the story?”

She giggled. “There doesn’t need to be a moral to every story.”

“I could very well get used to tonight.”

We finished our food and headed out to the quiet streets of the Valley. We walked until we found the Brisbane River, and I took her hand, and for that night we were closer.

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FIRST DAY AT WORK

March 21st 2010 03:07

I finally got a job as an in-house advertising copywriter. What I enjoyed about it was the lunch I had on my first day. I had it with this bald guy who wanted me to call him Gandhi because he looked like Gandhi and actually dressed as Gandhi in a costume party once. “This job ain’t good,” he said. “Quit.” Then he went on a rant about the marketing director and the marketing manager.

“That’s nice,” I said.

The marketing director is the woman who hired me. She’s in her fifties and has blonde highlights and wears designer clothing and would’ve once been very attractive. She drives a black E-Class. She looked at my portfolio, scowled, and asked me how much I wanted to get paid.

“You’re supposed to ask those things in an interview?” I asked.

I made up some disappointingly low figure and she instantly hired me. She shook my hands, brought me to HR to sign about fifteen thousand forms, and told me that I could start on Monday.

My first day, Tuesday, was meeting people from various departments. It was watching the IT guy install my monitor. It was looking at my cubicle and thinking, “I’m looking at my cubicle.” It was pretending to look proactive. It was checking the time, it was sending off emails on my new work email. It was awkward conversations with Gandhi. It was pretty much doing nothing. As I smiled at the pretty receptionist on my way out of the office at the end of the day, I wondered about nothing much at all.

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