Let It Bern

The end is nigh, time to leave this year behind,
For the first time, had to battle for my life, glad to leave it on a high,
Taking it easy for the last day, no FOMO for yours truly,
All due respect to the masses going out to celebrate and party,
Taking the lessons learned for future battles that lie ahead,
Gonna be a long life, hopefully, gotta stay prepared.

27-31/12/2019

The year 2018 was soon down to those final five days of the year, long-considered a limbo of sorts that connected the Christmas Season to the New Year period where it was very easy to lose track of the time and date. For some people these last few days were spent on a much-needed holiday that probably started during the Christmas period. Others might take time to reflect on the year that was and come up with resolutions for the next year. Some might try to mend some fences and get their affairs in order so they can enter the new year on a clean slate. Others might finally start on some long-overdue projects around the house that had been put on hold for longer than the cold war due to the demands of work and home life (and, possibly, also due to lack of motivation to just start). Whichever way they went, one thing was for certain; damn near everyone on the planet would be gearing up for New Year’s Eve, planning the mother of all blowouts that would reach its zenith when the clock struck midnight to leave 2018 behind, guns blazing, and enter 2019 with an almighty bang.

Well, having already done the holiday thing a few weeks ago, for my household it was mostly about cleaning up and fixing things around the home. In addition to repainting the ceiling and tending to the gardens, the wardrobe in my old room in the main house had long been one big disorganized mess, as it is with most wardrobes that last from an individual’s childhood up until the day that they move out. I’d taken my clothes with me but left the other crap stored in there and no one bothered to get rid of them, much to my relief as I wasn’t too keen on disposing of any of those items just yet. But a clean-up was long overdue and so with my mother’s help I finally set about clearing up that cave. My clothes were long gone, now stored in my current wardrobe, but that old space still housed the boxes that contained my old video game consoles, some old toys from childhood that somehow evaded that boxes in the garage, mementos from school and a whole bunch of other random items that could easily have been included in a time capsule for my childhood and adolescent years.

How the hell can such a small space house so much crap!?

As it is with most ‘spring cleaning’ projects I was unenthusiastic in the beginning and it took some effort to rouse my body into action but as my mother and I cleared up the space into something resembling order I warmed up to the task. Digging through those old blasts from the past quickly became a rather fun nostalgia trip as I was quickly reunited with items that I hadn’t seen in more than ten years. Among them was an old pass from a now-defunct amusement park, my old school bus pass, several old wallets that varied in appearance and material depending on which stage of life that I had used them and of course, some of my old, expired school and travel IDs and driver’s licenses, complete with unflattering mug shots. I took one look at them and immediately wondered what the fuck I was thinking in terms of what I was wearing and the way my hair was styled in each picture. It’s quite incredible, the powerful effect of old photos from your adolescence and early adulthood. It can touch your heart and make you yearn, through misty eyes, to relive the good ol’ days once more even just for a while, but on the other hand can also make your skin crawl with shame and regret at some of the trends, fads, styles or whatnot that you bought into. Everyone is guilty of it at some point in their lives and I was no different.

Ugh! Burn that shit!

I also discovered what seemed like a mountain of old birthday and Christmas cards that I had kept in some of my drawers throughout the years, all still in their original envelopes and still in great condition, along with some of the school awards that I had earned back in the day. Those little school award cards (yellow ones for good deeds, blue ones for outstanding deeds) were seen as badges of honor for students back in the day and served as fuel for bragging rights but, in reality, they were just pieces of paper with your name on it that expressed how great you were at kissing the teacher’s ass. I sat there for a while perusing through those greeting cards and awards, taking a brief trip through memory lane before soldiering on with the cleaning. It took roughly two hours to clean up that old closet but it turned out to be two-odd hours well-spent and my old closet looked a hell of a lot better, too, for it.

How ‘bout that….this closet has a floor and walls?

I also started reading an old book that I found in my old room during the clean-up that I had received as a Christmas gift a few years ago titled Events That Changed The World. It was quite a fascinating read and included such events in history as The Athenian Navy’s victory over The Persians in The Battle Of Salamis, The Assassination Of Julius Caesar, The Rise and Fall Of Constantinople, The Fall Of The Bastille, The Storming Of The Winter Palace, both World Wars, The Moon Landing, the invention of the telephone and the 9/11 Attacks. That book certainly helped me pass the time as thirty minutes would easily come and go quicker than I could believe after reading just a few chapters! It would be a stretch to say that I am a history buff but I do find reading about moments and stories from history, particularly the macabre, the twisted and the downright unbelievable and hilarious, a rather soothing and fascinating experience. I’d done plenty of reading during the thick of my recovery, exploring the classic novels that my father collected over the years in addition to the random articles on the Internet that I’d stumbled across (the infamous Bone Wars that uncovered the fossils of some of the most iconic dinosaur species in North America from 1877 until 1892 was a rather amusing and interesting read as well as some of the weird and disturbing ways that some historical figures met their ends) and this book that had been collecting dust in my old bookshelf for years quickly became my constant companion during these last few days of the year 2018.

The next day was spent outside washing the family cars, Christina and Sylvia, under the broiling sun. Although I was drenched from the splash back as a result of rinsing the vehicles with the hose on full blast the sun’s intense heat still damn near killed me and I sweated like a blacksmith standing close to a kiln. Having not cleaned the vehicles for quite some time some of the dirt and grime that had accumulated on them were quite difficult to scrub off and at one point I worked so hard at trying to remove a gnarly stain on Christina’s front bumper, scratching away like a stressed cat, that I was almost certain that I’d take the paint off. Thankfully it was nothing but red after I’d burned my forearms silly rubbing off that piece of grime.
I should be more diligent with this shit.
Cleaning up Sylvia also came with its own challenges. She was not quite as big and burly as Christina but what she lacked in length and width, she made up for with height. Being vertically-challenged, trying to scrub Sylvia’s roof tested the endurance in my toes and calf muscles as I was forced to stand on tippy-toes while scrubbing as much of her roof as I could manage. I might as well have been trying to give LeBron James a head massage without asking him to sit down first.

After a few buckets of water, plenty of scrubbing and several sprays of the hose both cars shone brightly like diamonds under the sun in bright red and silver, respectively, burning holes into both of my eyes whenever I made direct eye contact with them, Christina in particular. Maintaining eye contact with that shiny red for more than a few seconds would have come at the cost of one’s eyesight, like Christina had suddenly become Chernobyl’s infamous Elephant Foot for the eyes.

My sister dropped by on the afternoon of New Years’ Eve and we as a family spent the last day of the year together. Earlier during the day, I took some time to reflect on my run through the twelve-month gauntlet of first-time experiences that I didn’t quite sign up for, which was the best way I could sum up the year that was 2018. I paced around the backyard as I meditated, admiring the various plants that my parents and I tended to every weekend, looking back on how I started the year in great shape and good health before being ambushed by a serious disease that I had no idea even existed and then bouncing back again. It was certainly a year of firsts from a health standpoint, for the first time I’d experienced being a hospital patient, I’d undergone a blood transfusion and colonoscopy and was then forced to play the extended role of a recovering patient on medication.

Quite the odyssey, huh? I might as well change my name to Homer.

I lived my entire life believing that I didn’t need to experience any of that until I was at least middle-aged.
But deep down I knew why I had to go through it.
As the cliché goes, life is full of surprises and challenges and sooner or later we will all be severely tested. When I look at my life I can’t say that I faced any serious hardships. I wasn’t born into extreme poverty, never had to fight for survival on mean streets, I grew up in a stable home and never battled substance abuse or any life-threatening health conditions. Prior to this year my hardest personal battle was putting up with bullies in high school and as downright sucky as that experience was, it was a picnic compared to some of the shit that others go through. It’s not like those jerks left me scarred for life or anything of the sort.
I guess life saw it fit to throw colitis my way to truly test my mettle and in doing so attacked an aspect of my life that I thought I had completely figured out – my health and well-being. Not only were my mental and physical strength tested but this year also forced me to re-evaluate the way I lived, ate, slept and trained, which I walked around for years believing were pretty close to spot-on.

You know, this humble pie tastes really good. Put some crow on it.

But despite being humbled, it was an empowering feeling to know that I had it in me to fight back rather than lay down when life decides to derail the train and that I had passed that fucking test before the year was out with flying colors, staying cool and calm during the heat of battle though there were definitely some bad days.
Not bad, eh?
We had dinner as a family before taking it easy for the rest of the evening, preferring to stay home and eventually tuning in to catch the midnight fireworks on TV. We had gone to watch it live in the city many years ago and while having a ringside seat to the show was an exhilarating experience, dealing with crowds before, during and after was not, especially during the home commute where the train station almost resembled a bomb shelter housing the population of an entire small city while inside the trains, passengers were crammed into carriages like sardines in a tin. Still, it was another tick off the bucket list and we could say that we did it but, yeah, staying home turned out to be a far more appealing option.

As the last few minutes of 2018 ticked by I paced back and forth around the living room while my parents watched the live TV coverage of the New Year’s Eve party on Sydney Harbor, my way of trying to stay awake as drowsiness began to creep up on me. I didn’t need to think long and hard about any New Years’ Resolutions, I simply resolved to continue living healthily, stressing less and of course, to keep the colitis dead and buried forever.  
They will probably be my resolutions for every year from here on out.
Not really resolutions, more like lifestyle choices.
A few minutes later, we bade farewell to the year 2018, warts and all, at the stroke of midnight and for the next fifteen minutes watched the fireworks on TV light up the sky above The Harbor, accompanied by a soundtrack of some of the musical hits from the year that included the song from the Black Panther soundtrack that inspired this particular blog post.

I headed to bed afterwards with a clear mind and looked forward to what 2019 had to offer. I’d like to think that I took the lessons learned from 2018 to heart and was hopeful that 2019 would be a glorious year. A new year meant new opportunities and a clean slate so I was keen to see what it had in store.

I’m ready, let’s go!

The afternoon breeze under the warm sun, enough to calm the hardiest among us,
Presiding over another school day ending, students walk home chattering in excitement,
On the other end of life’s journey, the grown-ups are feeling giddy,
The work day’s almost over, not long before they’re outta there,
Birds flitting in and out of trees dancing in the breeze,
But amongst the tranquility lies a hint of melancholy,
Ain’t rained for some time and now the ground’s barren and dry,
Looked out at the yard, scanning the grass for green parts,
At the flowers and plants standing strong though nourishment is scant,
Like loyal troopers in a beaten army, stoicism masked their suffering,
Lined up two rows separated by a line of grass, their king stood tall at the end of the path,
Standing tall like a tower but not immune to patterns of the weather,
Weakened, too, by the drought like a deposed ruler stripped of majesty and clout,
Listing weakly against the wind, helpless as a sinking ship,
The branches are ashen and cracking, bereft of leaves on its many, many sleeves,
Not even kings are infallible against the fury of Mother Nature,
In the face of her vindictive side they’ll barely get out alive,
But she has a nurturing side, finally the rainy days arrive,
Cascading down and all around, an overdue gift from way up in the clouds,
Cancelled many a child’s outdoor plans, grown-up hangouts flushed down the can,
Heaven-sent for nature’s flora and fauna, that heat had become drunk on its own power,
The hardened soil softened once more, absorbing nutrients just like before,
The rains cease after a week and a half before the repentant sun shines across the land,
All is renewed, the gentle breeze returns with a brand new tune,
Got the plants and trees dancing, clouds above groovin’ as they’re floating,
The King stands rejuvenated, back from the dead like Lazarus,
Having lapped up the elixir of life the body no longer a pasty white,
Armed with lush greenery on all branches looking once more like the sovereign of the garden,
Its loyal army joins the party worthy of a dignitary,
Twenty-one leaf salute for Mother Nature, here’s to renewed health and vigor.

‘Tis the season to be jolly, yours truly feeling giddy,
Still on track to a full-on recovery,
Time to kick back and enjoy the festivities,
Chillin’, watching Christmas Movies, including ‘Love Actually’
Where I’d heard this tune originally by Mariah Carey.

Day 358-60

It has been said that the 1950’s era world heavyweight boxing champion, Rocky Marciano, went for a long run every morning whether he was in training for a fight or not, come rain, hail or shine and even during holidays. His reason? Because he always wanted to be the fitter, stronger, more conditioned man in the ring and he would have been damned if some upstart challenger wrested the title he had bled and sweated for away from him. Clearly, Marciano was from the ‘train while your enemy is sleeping’ school and that’s why he retired undefeated following a rather short but legendary career, is considered to be one of the greatest boxers of all time and, along with a rugged heavyweight journeyman named Chuck Wepner, was one of the inspirations behind the iconic film character, Rocky Balboa. Well, count me in among the members of that get up early and train club. On the morning of Christmas Eve I took a leaf out of Marciano’s playbook and woke up early, washed my face and completed a light workout routine. Don’t get me wrong, I still believed that holidays and breaks should be devoted to relaxation, spending time with loved ones and eating to the heart’s content but in my mind it was still no excuse to completely slack off. I kept my inner drill instructor in his cage and limited the session to light stretches and calisthenics, no equipment or crazy routines that would have made David Goggins smile was required as my aim was to simply get the blood pumping and rouse my tightened joints from their slumber before attacking the rest of the day.

Gotta stay battle ready at all times.

Yes, I repeated the ritual on Christmas Day and Boxing Day – although no actual boxing was during on the latter as it would have been highly rude and insensitive to wake my entire household up with the sounds of gloved fists thudding against the heavy bag.

Anyway, Christmas Eve played out the way it did every year, with Mom preparing and then cooking all the Christmas meals while Pops and I cleaned up around the house and yard as Christmas films played on the TV in the living room; the two Home Alone films, Jingle All The Way, The Santa Clause and Love Actually. The DVD player always got a workout on this special day and it’s great to know that these films can still keep us entertained after all these years. The first Home Alone film was one of the first films that I can recall laughing myself silly at as a child outside of Disney or Looney Tunes cartoons although I’d also wondered at the time how the hell Harry possibly shook off the effects of having the top of his head burned off as though he’d just scraped his knee.
We’d put up the Christmas decorations in late November before we left for the trip so that surprisingly long and, at times, demanding and frustrating chore was well out of the way!

Dad and I gave some of our trees an extreme makeover by cutting off their dead branches and also cut the grass. Despite summer’s full bloom and the relative lack of rain (save for those crazy storms that plagued our area a few days before we left for the trip), the grass grew regularly and so the lawn mower was constantly dragged kicking and screaming from the tool shed to report for duty under that heat. Keeping the grass short had become a must-do after we’d found a snake in the yard a few years prior. You see, the warmer weather gave snakes and other vile vermin the incentive to use peoples’ properties as their hideout and on one particular day, we experienced it first-hand during a time when the grass had been neglected for some time, prompting an urgent call to the closest snake catcher in our area. Ultimately, the creature picked up the vibe and had checked out before the catcher arrived at our place and we never saw it again.
Meanwhile, Mom was in the kitchen whipping up enough food to feed a small army for the next couple of weeks, including turkey, ham, various soups and salads and a few desserts to top it all off. It was a generous and delicious spread and the temptation to refrain from feasting like Jughead Jones and Homer Simpson with the munchies was going to be hard work although Dr. B’s orders to not overwhelm the bowels by shoveling too much food down my pie-hole in one sitting never left my mind. I had absolutely no intention of spoiling my progress so far and so I stayed disciplined.
My sister arrived in the afternoon and stayed with us for the next few days. It was just like old times again.

After a day spent cooking, cleaning, gardening, watching Christmas films and everything in between we enjoyed a family dinner before getting dressed to attend the local church’s midnight service. We passed the five or so hours between after dinner and the beginning of service with conversations and also tuned into some of the rather cheesy Christmas Eve specials that they had on television. Pops also took a one-hour nap before he changed clothes. Me? I gutted it out all the way until after the service. Staying up for that long isn’t always easy but I got used to it over time, especially since I’d adopted a ‘night owl’ phase during a majority of my twenties. My parents used to shake their heads at my weird sleeping habits but truthfully, I did some of my best thinking and reflecting in the hours shortly before, during and after midnight, when I knew that the whole world was in dreamland and so I was guaranteed some uninterrupted time for myself.
Besides, more often than not my hyperactive brain takes quite some time to calm down and drift off, in most cases at least twenty minutes after lights out. On bad days, it can take longer than two hours and I end up lying in the dark, wide awake thinking – and sometimes worrying – about random stupid shit that probably won’t matter in the long run. I guess it’s my brain’s way of purging itself before finally nodding off.

Of course I have come to value the power of sleep and rest and try to get to bed now as early as possible, ideally before 10pm, and looking back those boneheaded aspirations to be a rebellious night owl may have contributed to the colitis. Sleep is a vital part of the body’s recovery and perhaps my stupid immune system panicked and thought that my body was at war with some phantom intruder and sprang into action, only to mistaken my bowels for the enemy like some damn rookie moron in the platoon asking to be court-martialed.
Stupid youthful ignorance.
But fuck it, no point getting hung up on the past. In life we win some and lose some.
Gotta own your failures as much as your victories, Boy. Be accountable for that shit.
Anyway, my family and I sat through that one hour service in the middle of the night, fortunate to find vacant spots to sit as the church was packed to the rafters with families young and old. Shoot, some of the kids below the age of ten in attendance were still full of beans at this hour and I was unsure if they had slept during the day, were buzzing due to the Christmas season or had already ingested one too many candy canes (perhaps all three?) but this would be the one time of the year that they are allowed to stay up long past their bedtime so I guess they’re making the most of the experience.

Christmas Day was celebrated at my aunt and uncle’s home before spending Boxing Day at my sister’s apartment. Both gatherings were rather small compared to my childhood since time brings plenty of change and over the years some relatives have moved interstate or overseas but we kept up traditions as best as we could and found ways to keep up with some of our other family members living further away. In both scenarios the food was plentiful and might as well have unfolded in a full house given the boisterous nature of the conversations and anecdotes. I’m more of a listener rather than a talker when it came to these gatherings but it did feel good to spend time with the family and share stories, laughs, jokes and good food with them during the festive season. Both days also involved a contrast in the type of food served, with the food that my sister, cousins and I grew up eating served up by my mother and aunt while my sister served up something a little more ‘modern’ and not quite as calorie-dense and heavy but nonetheless still delicious and which my devoutly religious aunt joked was her penance after a day of living sinfully, food-wise, the day before.
Numerous photos of the meals that we enjoyed were also taken and sent through social media to other relatives to show them what they were missing out on! We received more than a few hilarious responses for our troubles.
Oh, and true to my word, I enjoyed myself during those feeding frenzies and helped myself to generous servings but I stopped short of stuffing myself until I was more stacked than a teenager’s closet. It was a difficult lesson in willpower but I stopped once I felt that the balloon was about to burst. Ever since the colitis I’d come to loathe the feeling of a sore and heavy stomach. I’d all but completely recovered from this disease but I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t feel somewhat panicked whenever I felt a disturbance of any kind in there.

Boxing Day ended with a quiet dinner at home with my parents before calling it a day at around 10pm. It had been a great few weeks, from the Christmas gathering at the Wing Chun Academy to the one-week holiday in Tasmania, culminating in Christmas celebrations with the family and of course, I was pleased to have been able to reclaim my health in time for these few weeks. There were five days left in the year 2018 and I was feeling good, I couldn’t ask for anything more than that.

I was, for the most part, what one would consider a ‘good boy’ when it came to my conduct during school hours as a kid. I wasn’t exactly a high-achiever but I did knuckle down and study hard and complete assignments to the best of my ability and got decent grades for my efforts. I wasn’t always a saint, though, but I wasn’t the devil either. While there were times where I have been called out by the teacher for not paying attention during class, I was never suspended or expelled, didn’t get into any fights on school grounds and also never skipped class Ferris-Bueller style. As a result I was branded ‘boring’ and a ‘goody goody’ by more than a few of my peers but in my mind, I was merely standing my ground and not giving in to the pressure to ‘look cool’ for those fools.

One of the most vivid memories I have of running afoul of my teacher wasn’t in a formal school environment, but during Sunday school when I was five years old. I was born and raised a Catholic and when my sister and I were very young we went to Sunday school every now and then (every two or three weeks if I recall) while our parents were at mass to learn more about God in a child-focused environment. The classes were held in a small classroom next to the church and its walls were adorned with colorful posters and pictures and a giant chalkboard hung smack bang at the front (do chalkboards even exist anymore????), overlooking a few small rows of seats. Desks and chairs were situated closer to the back door.
For the most part these classes went ahead without incident but every now and then a kid would act up and be punished for their troubles. For the average child school was a sucky but necessary evil and to have to sit in another school-like environment on a Sunday wasn’t exactly their idea of fun and so restlessness could sometimes get the better of them. Punishments usually involved being forced to sit in the corner or just outside the front door for five to ten minutes depending on the severity of their sins.

One day, a friend of mine at the time whose name I have long since forgotten and I joined that club.

I don’t quite remember which part of the bible our teachers had planned the day’s lesson around but it did mention God plenty of times. In the Filipino language the word for ‘God’ is ‘Diyos’ but when said in a thick accent while speaking rather quickly it sounded like the word ‘juice’. My friend and I picked up on it right away and held on tight, laughing ourselves stupid whenever the teacher spoke His name and repeating it over and over again to ourselves like a couple of idiots. Some of our fellow peers got a laugh out of it and, for a while, so did the teacher, but there was a limit to her patience and we quickly reached it.
“Ok, guys, let’s get back to the lesson…..
And so we all regained our composure and continued to listen pensively. That was, until she mentioned His name again.

JUICE!!!!!

More laughter. This time the teacher wasn’t having it.
“Boys, one more time and you’ll be sitting in the corner,” she warned.
Yeah, to a couple of five-year olds that was tantamount to being threatened with death and so we shut right up.
Ok, lesson learned, back to the lesson. No more clowning around.
Yeah right.
It didn’t take long for our limited powers of resistance to temptation to crumble once again. Five-year olds barely have a grasp on the concept of self-control and my fellow knucklehead and I were no different. We tried to keep it together for the sake of avoiding punishment, even when the teacher mentioned His name over and over again, practically holding back tears as we resisted the urge to laugh. But our willpower, only marginally stronger than any semblance of maturity and self-awareness that we might have had in us at the time, got the better of us once again. After one too many mentions of God’s name we couldn’t help ourselves.

JUUUUIIIIIIICCCCCEEEEE!!!!!!

Talk about finally breaking the cap off a soda can that had been shaken aggressively for several minutes. In my defense, it was my friend that shouted out but I was guilty by association for laughing out loud. The whole class was in stitches yet again and there was going to be hell to pay for us.
“Both of you sit in opposite corners in the back of the room, NOW!”
And so my friend and I sheepishly made our way to the back of the room and sat down in our respective corners on the floor, bored as can be and twiddling our thumbs when we were not staring vacantly at the carpet and wondering what was underneath it. Luckily it was only a five minute time-out and we were better behaved once time had been served.

But we continued to laugh and joke after class with our peers while waiting for our parents to come out of church, especially since the class ended with an afternoon supper of biscuits and juice.

Love this one by B.I.G, Ja and Ralph Tresvant, this one was bangin’
The remixed version, though, sounds like good vibes from a tropical island,
Recovered just in time, another holiday for the year,
One week exploring the land and sea, home in time for Christmas Eve,
Still sitting pretty, feeling stoked, the worst is truly behind me,
Gotta stay focused, though, let’s not get cocky.

16 – 23/12/2018

Warning: This post contains over-sharing

My parents and I stood on the upper deck of a cruise ship docked at Sydney Harbor bound for Tasmania. We leaned against the railing and watched the busy scene below play out as people walked up and down the harbor like little ants, soaking up the sunshine and relishing the pending summer break. I assumed that those who were dragging their feet and had a rather glum expression on their faces were the ones who had to work throughout the holiday period. To them, today was just another day.
Other would-be travellers headed towards the ship and I can’t say that the scene resembled the opening minutes of Rose’s flashback from that movie Titanic. People weren’t dressed in fine suits and dresses, accompanied by their equally well-dressed children and speaking in formal British accents. There were no working-class folks being checked for diseases that they might carry onboard and staring with a mixture of scorn and low-key envy at their more affluent counterparts. Heck, there wasn’t even a classic car being loaded onboard the vessel that would soon be christened by a young couple from contrasting social backgrounds. Instead it was couples old and young and families with playful children dressed for the summer merrily stepping aboard following a long gauntlet of security and bag checks.

The sun may have been shining brightly that day but it was a different story atop the ship’s upper deck thanks to some rather intense winds that managed to overpower the sun’s rays. Pity the poor folks wearing hats that were trying to take photos and selfies, finding themselves stuck in a balancing act of trying to hold their phones or cameras steady since the wind was aggressive towards the direction facing the iconic Harbor Bridge and Opera House. Me? I thought I had my cap screwed tight onto my noggin but that damn wind decided to get wise with me and I had a few close calls. Luckily I didn’t become one of the unfortunate few whose hats were blown clean off of their heads, forcing them to chase after their head wear like dog owners that had lost grip of their leash and having to chase after their furry friends as a result.

The ship slowly sailed out of the dock and made its way through the Sydney Harbor Bridge and out into the open sea, cueing cheers and a mass photography session from the people around me, the mischievous wind suddenly forgotten. My folks and I took in the sea air for about ten minutes before heading back inside and exploring the ship’s interior, passing by the library where a few weary passengers were taking their mid-day naps with open books on their laps, a few bars and clubs and of course, the ship’s grand atrium with its golden glass elevators, mini rock pool, stairwell and a space at the foot of the steps for a grand piano where a pianist would sometimes entertain guests at night. The area was also surrounded by stores, restaurants and bars and was also where the ship’s team of receptionists and the exits were located.
We headed to a buffet at the upper deck for a rather late lunch, not far from the outdoor pool and cinema where just about half of the ship’s passengers were already enjoying a social drink or two under the sun as children splashed around in the pool.
Talk about getting the party started early. Has Pink arrived yet?
Not having eaten since breakfast I was starving and so after finding a vacant table (an assignment that required the type of eagle-eyed scanning of the premises that was straight out of a sniper’s playbook), my parents and I took turns braving the long lines to put food on our plates with dad, as predicted, having the most loaded plate out of the three of us.

Trust Pops to want to sample everything at once.

Seriously, put him in a buffet and you will see something truly amazing. As for me, I went up for two rounds. My appetite may not have been on the same ballpark as my father’s but let’s just say that when it came to eating it was still a true case of ‘like father like son’. The crowd had begun to die down by the time I’d lined up for the second time as the buffet would be closing in about an hour’s time in order for staff to get dinner ready. They were at least kind enough to allow the current wave of arriving passengers to eat to their hearts’ content.
After lunch my parents and I walked around outside at the ship’s lower deck, watching the land and civilization fading away as the ship sailed further out to sea. It was so calm and peaceful out there, even if the sound of the waves was somewhat stymied by the roar of the ship’s mighty engine. The room assigned to us consisted of two bunk beds and one single, one rather cramped bathroom with a shower that was a tad difficult to figure out and a balcony with a view of the ocean and whichever port the ship was docked at. It was good to know that we had access to the outdoors and the fresh sea air without having to venture out onto the decks, although a naturally restless person like me would still head out to the decks frequently while we were out at sea to keep the body moving and also to let my mind run loose, which we’ll get back to a little later.

The ship sailed from Sydney to Tasmania and after two days out at sea it first took us to Hobart where we checked out the city and a sprawling botanical garden, a haven for those with a love for painting landscape shots. Next up was Port Arthur, the ruins of an old historical prison that served as a ghost of Australia’s past and was rather fun to explore, although one would have to be mindful where they stepped as dogs had turned the grounds into their own personal latrine. Spending some time alone inside the remains of some of those brick wall cells was a rather soothing experience even if these empty, crumbling spaces once housed a crazy assortment of thieves, murderers and other scumbags.
Maybe I’m just a weirdo.
We explored the city and forests in Burnie the next day before making a pit stop in Melbourne. The stop at Melbourne was rather short but we managed to explore the city, including the shopping district where we tried out some macarons from a sweets store that my sister had recommended from during her work travels there. The weather was favorable during all the stops but rained unexpectedly during our stop at Burnie while we were in the middle of exploring a forest. Being huddled up underneath a small bus stop with several people at the same time and then waiting half an hour for that blasted bus to arrive was a trip. 

I didn’t work out in the ship’s gymnasium during that one-week trip as I decided to take a whole week off from training but I did spend plenty of time walking laps around both the upper and lower decks in the afternoon after taking in the sights on land earlier in the day, more so on the lower deck as the winds were less irritating on lower ground. I must have looked like a hamster to my fellow passengers, just walking around in circles on the decks during the same hours every afternoon without fail, earphones plugged in to shut out the rest of the world. Immanuel Kant would have surely been proud of Mr. Routine here. I also was rather strict with the number of times and the hours during which I ate, just as it was at home. I still had my medication schedule to maintain, after all. Those three Imuran tablets at lunch and four Mezavant tablets for dinner didn’t stop just because I was on holiday.

No rest for the recovering.

There were, thankfully, no accidents, near misses, scares or anything of the sort during the trip. Sure, I’d walked around the ship inside and out to ward off boredom between trips and to familiarize myself with the vessel (and so I can also act as a one-man GPS for my parents should they forget where certain places were located!) and noted where all the toilets outside of our room were but I never felt an urge to make a mad dash to the can and all I can say about that is thank the good Lord. My next appointment with Dr. B was scheduled for towards the end of the following month (January) and it was great to know that I would have more good news to brighten his day with. I’d already fulfilled his mission to get me back into the Wing Chun Academy and hopefully, any positive results from this upcoming meeting would lead to a reduction of my dosages.

I let my mind run free as I made my rounds around the deck and thought about how throughout my adult life I was the type that could eat like a horse and never seem to put on weight. It was probably due to a fast metabolism since I was – and still am – an active person but even when I’ve decided to undertake an exercise program geared towards building muscle and ‘making gains’ it took plenty of effort just to add two measly kilograms on my lean frame. Shoot, even if I eschewed training for two or more weeks and lived on a Homer Simpson diet the entire time I’d still lose weight! I didn’t know whether to call it a gift or a curse but I won’t lie, I loved being able to feast like a spoiled child king during the odd ‘cheat day’ and not have to worry about blowing up into a massive beast afterwards, a far cry from my childhood where my waistline boy-titties reflected my eating habits and relative lack of physical activity. As an adult I always returned home at least five kilos lighter every time I went on a holiday, which had long been a source of wonder and exasperation from my friends and family members. They would playfully rip me apart for it every single time;
‘You’re already thin!’ my mother would shriek, ‘why did you lose more weight!?’
‘Your metabolism is something else,’ lamented my father.
‘You lucky prick,’ my sister would joke.
‘It’s probably from all the walking and not eating and training like I normally would,’ I’d shrug

Like I said, it’s a gift and a curse but one that I was happy to possess.
Anyway, upon returning home from this particular trip I weighed myself on a scale shortly before taking a shower, expecting to find out that, once again, I had lost at least five kilos.
The result was quite surprising.
No kilos lost!?
Well……that had to be a first. I did plenty of walking during the trip and didn’t work out once, and I ate more than three meals a day whenever I could yet somehow my body didn’t waste away one bit. Looking back now, I wondered if perhaps this ‘speedy metabolism’ that I had been blessed with was actually that damn colitis in disguise. A frequent need to use the restroom and unexpected weight loss were also symptoms of the disease and in addition to my body’s freakish ability to shed weight rather quickly I was also the type that was sometimes summoned to the bathroom for business number two multiple times in one day, sometimes up to five times if you can believe that. It happened even if there was nothing particularly wrong with me and I was firing on all cylinders health-wise.

Sorry for the over-share. And now that I think about it, my record might have actually been six times!

My mother and sister expressed concern over that during my teen and adult years and I would laugh them off every time and put it down to a high-fibre diet and active lifestyle. In my immature mind I thought I was fucking awesome for being able to eat whatever I wanted without having to worry about the consequences and as I matured that childish cockiness made way for pride over my body’s ability to stay lean and mean no matter what I put in it, even after my age had surpassed the maximum number of days in a given month on a calendar. Besides, I felt fit as a fiddle and strong as an ox so I saw no need to panic. I was completely oblivious to the existence of inflammatory bowel diseases and was convinced that my body was immune from all manner of serious illnesses.
And then my immune system decided to go all Judas on me. Talk about being humbled in a heartbreaking way.
Anyway, the Imuran and Mezavant seem to have done more than heal my wrecked bowels. I no longer dropped weight at the snap of a finger plus my trips to the throne were also reduced to a more manageable once or twice a day max, three if I’d been pigging out for consecutive days.

Wow, so this is what it feels like to have normal bowel movements.

Fortunately, my metabolism remained strong and I retained the ability to eat like a school kid without worrying but given Dr. B’s orders to take good care of my bowels, I continued to eat several small, healthy meals a day while splurging just once a week in addition to working out. Dr. B did speculate that this Ulcerative Colitis could have been an underlying condition that I was born with, if not something I might have unknowingly picked up somewhere along the way. My family was not cursed with any serious bowel diseases and conditions and if it was something I’d come into this world with, then I guess that by some cruel twist of fate I was always destined to go through that circle of hell and back. Talk about a sucky legacy to leave behind on the family tree, but as I’ve said over and over I’ve learned to turn the curse into a blessing and I’d vowed from the moment of my diagnosis to not only emerge triumphant but to keep that bitch in remission for good. 
But for now, it was a great week spent in Tasmania and Christmas was just right around the corner. All was well in the world.

‘Here’s your order, Sir,’ bout damn time I’m starvin’,
Duck salad with black rice, it sure looks extra nice,
I hate to sound corny but every mouthful was heavenly,
Could practically hear a choir singing like that verse in Bohemian Rhapsody,
Rather quiet for a Saturday night, there’s still some empty tables,
Here I am, a lone wolf among friends and couples,
Head down, eating, not gonna lie I’m listening,
Entertainment is free when you’re low-key eavesdropping,
The table beside me is vacant but not for long,
A trio walks in, aged late twenties, two guys and a girl with hair dyed a slight blonde.

They take the table next to mine, the waitress takes their order,
Before commencing the chit chat, got lots of ground to cover,
Dude wearing black seems to be the third wheel, other two ain’t seen him in years,
Girl with the blonde locks and guy wearing purple seem thick as thieves,
Are they a couple or just friends? Meh, no one got a clue,
The pair of them interrogate their companion like a P.O.W,
Mr. Purple takes over, eager to be the one in power,
The braggadocious youth within intact, but now so much bigger,
Rhapsodizing about escapades involving the usual bullshit,
Drugs, sex and drink, not sure if all of this is even legit,
I continue feasting, silently chuckling,
This guy’s life is like a stoner film, every cliché was mentioned,
Attention shifts to the Mr. Black once Caligula’s done bragging,
His demeanor shifts from caution to uncomfortable squirming,
The questions fly from all directions, from the mundane to the personal,
Mr. Black taken aback, he didn’t sign up for this attack.

Almost done eating now, still enjoying every mouthful,
Savoring the flavors and the texture, could’ve gone for seconds if I didn’t feel full,
The serving was generous, enough to satisfy the famished and the gluttonous,
Feeling like a spy on a mission by listening to this trio’s conversation,
Mr. Purple and his lady friend now grilling the third wheeler,
Starting with the usual about work, life and family, that usual drivel,
Then moved onto the nitty-gritty, how well was this guy living?
When’s the last time he went out and got wasted, shoot, is he even getting any?
Could’ve cut the tension in the air with a switchblade,
Such was the atmosphere that Mr. Purple had created,
Mr. Black looking like he wants to kick that chump’s head in,
Mr. Purple done crossed the line, maybe Blondie needs to step in,
Meal’s finished, I wipe my mouth with the napkin,
Before settling back on my seat, resting and listening.

The trio’s orders arrive and they start eating,
This interrogation continues, their subject won’t get off easy,
‘You seen that film Crazy Stupid Love?’ asks Mr. Purple, ‘I can fix you up,’
‘No I haven’t,’ Mr. Black responds, looking like he wants to fuck this dude up,
Long-time separated and now this fool wants in on his business?
He won’t stand for that, the audacity is strong in this cat,
Ms. Blonde finally speaks up, sensing that this could get ugly,
Even if Jacob Palmer beside her thinks it’s all fine and dandy.

More food consumed, interview’s temporarily halted,
Much to Mr. Black’s relief Mr. Purple turns it back on himself,
More wild stories and hijinks, some involving too many puffs, pills and drinks,
The other two sit and listen, one cringing ‘cuz she was there,
The other rolls his eyes ‘cuz he just doesn’t care,
‘Was nice to catch up with y’all,’ he thinks, ‘but we’re from different worlds,’
‘I’ll get on with my life, all the best with yours, may y’all realize your dreams and goals’,
I summon the waitress to bring me the bill,
Time to give up my seat, been a while now since I finished that meal.
Gotta leave that trio behind, I’ve overstayed my welcome,
I head out the door into the cold night, adjusting my coat as drunken revelers stumble by.

Loving this tune by the Foo Fighters,
Let’s take a look at early to mid-December,
A friendly catch-up, Christmas gathering, plus some minor vehicular disasters,
All before a week-long holiday, after the year that was feels like I’d earned it,
Last month of the year, let’s see how it unfolds,
A few weeks more before signing off like a boss.

2 – 15/12/2018

I started the online blog in late November, just as I had planned to do so during one of my walks a few weeks earlier. I waited until I had already posted five entries before I flogged it on social media to family and friends as I first wanted to get the ball rolling and shake off whatever blogger’s rust I had accumulated since the last time I’d tried the whole blogging thing. I decided that this blog would be my means of recounting my health battle as brutally-honest as I could, my means of turning a curse into a blessing and to perhaps raise some form of awareness about it my own way. But I also made sure to incorporate some humor in these entries so as not to completely horrify and bum out readers.
I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t feel any shame over some of the symptoms I’d experienced during the worst times of the battle. Ulcerative Colitis came with some rather embarrassing – and disgusting – signs and symptoms and to have to put that shit on blast…….yeah, I definitely cringed many times. But fuck it, I’d decided that I was going to go through with this guns blazing so there was no turning back.

Don’t start what you can’t finish, Kid.

I also used that blog as a vehicle to rant about what was on my mind at a given time and to also recount some humorous stories and anecdotes from my past in order to keep my posts balanced so it didn’t have to be one disturbing story after another concerning bowel movements, blood, cramps and bouts of depression and anxiety.

Let’s keep the genres on the bookshelf varied, shall we? No one wants to read horror stories every day.

I named that blog ‘Musical Memories’, something that, to this day, I still shake my head and chuckle about. Such a name evoked images of grand stage shows with Hugh Jackman or Julie Andrews in the lead role and of actors singing about being sixteen-going-on-seventeen or considering one’s self at home. My blog was definitely on a different wavelength to all of that.
But I had my reasons.
You see, I’m a music buff and would often listen to tunes on the radio, ipod or YouTube whenever I could whether working, resting, studying or working out and that old cliché about music being able to express one’s feelings out loud definitely applied to a rather introverted person such as myself. I don’t really have a favorite artist or song, and in terms of musical genres I tended to gravitate towards hip hop and rap, but I could listen to any genre depending on my mood, although I can’t say that I’m really a fan of most of the new stuff that is out today. Hearing certain songs can trigger memories from my past, especially from childhood, and that’s why the titles of my entries, especially of stories from my past, include the song that inspired the post and why I gave the blog its rather misleading title.

I caught up with a good friend one week after the Creed 2 movie date with Pops. She was one of the few people outside of my family and my friends at the Wing Chun Academy that was aware of my colitis battle, having found out when I had to scrap plans to catch up with her sometime in August shortly after she had returned from holiday as I was still anemic and experiencing the odd bloody episode at the time.
No, I didn’t put it to her that way! I simply told her that I was diagnosed with colitis and was recovering but that I would see her once I had sufficiently recovered. She, too, provided invaluable support during my recovery and so once we were finally able to meet up I made sure to thank her before we parted ways. But first we had dinner at a Thai restaurant in the city and swapped stories about the year that was and also checked out a Japanese-themed festival happening in the park across from the restaurant afterwards. It was early summer by this time and so the sun was still shining bright even after 6pm and the park was still packed with families, groups of teenagers and young adults, girls in kimonos and of course, cosplayers dressed up as their favorite anime characters.
That night was also the first time that I took any of my meds in front of someone other than my family. She didn’t bat an eyelid or make a fuss as I swallowed those four red kidney bean-looking tablets and the catch-up session resumed afterwards, although she did ask whether they were hard or soft.
“Hard as rocks,” I laughed, “but they go down rather easily.”

On the twelfth of December the Wing Chun Academy held their annual Christmas gathering for the instructors, with a second gathering scheduled for the following night that was a tad less formal than this one and would be open for all including students. As part of the proceedings different awards were presented for the best instructor of the year, the best branch of the year, best student attendance of the year and several students that had passed a recent grading also received their certificates and badges. The rest of the night involved doing the rounds and chatting with everyone over some food before heading home.
It would also be the last time that a few of the instructors, myself included, would set foot at that place for the rest of the year before it closed for the Christmas break a few days later so I tried my best to catch up with everyone and wish them a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. After all, these kind folks had checked up on me and kept me sane during my battle like corner men encouraging a professional fighter in between rounds and they continue to do so today.

Happy Holidays, my fam-away-from-home. Much love to you all.

The next morning my father drove the family vehicle, a beautiful red Holdenthat we named ‘Christina’ to the service station. Why is she named Christina, you ask? She was named after Christina Hendricks, one of the stars from that TV show Mad Men, since I had a crush on her around the time that we bought the car.
Anyway, my parents and I were scheduled to go on a week-long holiday to Tasmania in three days’ time (my sister was unable to join us due to work commitments) but for the past few days weird popping and crackling noises had emanated from Christina while out on the road plus it was time for another check-up based on the number of kilometers she had accrued. We decided to get her checked out before sailing off for our holiday.

I picked Dad up from the service station with the second family vehicle, a smaller Holden that we named ‘Sylvia’ for her silver coloring, after he had dropped Christina off.
“How long will it take with Christina?” I inquired.
“They said we’ll get her back around early afternoon”, he replied.
“Ok, cool.”
It didn’t quite work out that way.
We hadn’t heard back from the mechanic during the afternoon and so my father called to find out what was happening with Christina. Apparently, something in her motor needed replacement and while an order was placed it wouldn’t arrive at their shop until the next day and so they would have to keep Christina overnight. It wasn’t exactly the response that we were hoping for but it was for one night only so we were ok with it.
It began to storm rather hard later that night and while it seemed a tad uncomfortable at times, it also offered some respite from the increasing summer heat and humidity. But it might as well have been a bad omen for what was to come for poor old Christina.

The storm calmed down to a more manageable rain the next day when I got a call from the service station during mid-day. I was hopeful that he came bearing good news but alas, after exchanging pleasantries his first words were ‘unfortunately……’
Oh boy…….what the hell happened?
Apparently, the morons responsible for that replacement part had accidentally sent them the wrong fucking model and so they would have to hold Christina for another night while they waited for the proper model to come in the next day. The dude on the other end of the line had an apologetic and disappointed tone on his voice while I was exasperated but maintained my calm. This wasn’t his fault and throwing a tantrum wasn’t going to solve anything.
“I see. Ok, thanks for your call I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“We’re very sorry about this, mate.”
“All good. Have a great afternoon.”
“You too. Cheers.”
And that was the end of that. I continued to pack for the upcoming trip while also trying to figure out the most painless way to tell my parents the reason behind Christina’s absence in the driveway that night two days before we were due to leave for our trip.

Well, third time turned out to be a charm – almost. The mechanic called us in the early afternoon of the fifteenth, the day before we were to leave for the trip, and gave us the ok to pick Christina up. But once my father and I got to the shop he had some not-so-good news waiting for us.
“You can have the car back before you guys go for your holiday,” he said, “but we’ll need to take a look at her again sometime after your return.”
He proceeded to explain that while they were able to fix up Christina’s motor it came at the cost of completing the tune-up as it was a time-consuming job and as it was a Saturday, they were not going to be open all day. And if I remember correctly, he revealed that they had also found another problem within her and while it wasn’t serious for the time being, it could escalate into something much worse if it was ignored for too long. It wasn’t exactly all good news but it was still a relief to be able to drive Christina home just in time for the trip.

Damn, looks like the family’s noble steed is showing her age now.

At the time, Christina was seven years old going on eight. That’s almost retirement age for most cars.

It stormed again once we arrived home, much worse than it did two days prior. I guess the storm had backed off the previous day for a breather before it returned rejuvenated and juiced to the gills with mayhem on its mind. The sound of the rain cascading against roof created a feeling of living inside a waterfall and the roads outside were washed out with massive puddles and almost resembled the canals in Venice due to flooded sidewalk drains. Watching cars and buses passing through and kicking up whitewash in their wake was a strangely hypnotic experience and sometime in the afternoon I joined the party and drove – or should I say sailed – to a nearby home / massage clinic to pick up my mother, who had booked a massage an hour earlier. Dad had drove her there before the storm unleashed its wrath and now yours truly had to get out there and guide Sylvia through the deluge, although in Dad’s defense he was busy packing his bags.
I arrived seven minutes early and so I parked the car in the driveway, sitting on the driver’s seat and experiencing the full force of the storm’s wicked orchestra. The rain’s hard drumming against Sylvia’s roof sounded like the machine gun fire from the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan and the world outside was barely visible.  Staring at that total white-out almost put me in a hypnotic trance but my peace was shattered by the sight of my mother on the side mirrors running like mad towards the car, covering her head with her bag. I quickly opened the door for her and she practically jumped in like Dennis Rodman attempting to grab a rebound, huffing and puffing from that short sprint but also still relaxed from the massage.

Talk about feeling both ends of the scale at once!

Upon arriving home we switched on the living room lights though it was only 4:30pm as the sun had been overpowered by the rainclouds. Water had also seeped through the roof of the extension outside the back of the house and so we scrambled to place rags and buckets beneath the leaks. Thank goodness that the power wasn’t cut off, such was this storm’s fury.
A part of me began to feel nervous about the trip tomorrow. Sailing on a cruise ship was to be a part of it and I really didn’t fancy living out The Poseidon Adventure for real. Oh yeah, for the record, a running joke among my family is that it seems to rain or storm during the days leading up to any holiday that we have planned and this one certainly didn’t disappoint. But I didn’t get hung up on it for too long as I still had some packing to do. I had already packed up my clothes earlier during the week so now it was down to sorting out shoes, toiletries and other accessories

That included my damn medication.

My first trip as a dude on meds. Let’s see how this goes……

I packed the required number of Imuran and Mezavant tablets for the trip, even going so far as to count them again up to five times in one hour – a ritual that I’d repeat again the following morning before finally locking my bag and heading out the door. Call me paranoid and neurotic all you want but when Dr. B warns you that the colitis could return with a vengeance should I ever slack off on my dosage it sends an unpleasant feeling through the system, that combination of a cold chill down the spine, feeling nauseous, an urge to run away and feeling faint all at the same time.
I wonder if they have a medical term for that shit
But that being said I’d recovered to the point where I no longer felt anxious about any unplanned ‘attacks’ that my damn bowels might have in store for me, enough positive results had passed to place me back into a better state of mind. But I couldn’t get too cocky, I had to continue to be mindful about my medication, meal times and even what I ate as I would be away from the safe confines of a familiar environment. Not that it was a total inconvenience but it was still a minor pain in the ass, no pun intended.

You’re still on three Imuran tablets and four Mezavant tablets, Buddy. Don’t get reckless!

My parents and I finished packing in the late afternoon before having dinner. I went to bed at around 9:30 laying in the dark for a while and meditating before drifting off to sleep to the soothing yet somewhat haunting sound of the rain drumming against the roof, the storm having thankfully calmed down for good. Hopefully all this rain would clear out by the following morning.

Crowded train on a Friday afternoon, finished another day of workin’,
Seven and a half hours, it’s a killer, just to bring home the bacon,
The evening’s barely started, revelers aren’t ready yet,
Still a while before they paint the city red,
‘Til then let’s take a look at some of these commuters,
Sitting or standing just minding their own business,
Up the front a group of young’uns are yapping,
Talking rap sheets and petty crime, they ain’t shy about bragging,
Poor misguided youths, how’s that worth celebrating?
Ain’t no honor in that shit, quit fronting and flexing,
They locked y’all up for acting like fools, not good for the reputation,
Won’t earn you admiration, just scorn and derision,
Y’all could end up six feet under if you keep that up,
If not in jail where some mass monsters’ll tear your asses up,
Sympathies if y’all had hard lives but it’s no excuse,
Get out or be a victim, it’s up to you,
Enough scumbags on this earth, don’t add to the statistic,
Fuck your circumstances, rise above that shit.

Train stops at another station, reels in more passengers,
A wave of humanity rushes in, don’t wanna be left standing,
It’s like a mosh pit near the doors, carriage now packed end-to-end,
Among the lucky ones seated, a young lady on the phone with a friend,
Her boisterous attitude a contrast to her formal work wear,
Mixing expletives and colloquialisms with copious amounts of laughter,
Recounting the last few days to her friend, never mind the eavesdroppers,
Gotta love her, she’s living the life, her stories’ll make your stomach hurt,
Of workplace anecdotes and escapades during weekends past,
Plans for future hang-outs, too, long-awaited catch-up can happen at last, 
Still upbeat after a long work day, gonna join the mister for a dinner date,
Enjoy the rest of your evening, Miss, say hi to your boyfriend, hope your dog’s ok.

All around the train, more than a few folks staring at their phones,
Sitting or standing, trapped in the cyber world, pain in their neck gonna be so dope,
More stations come and go, hope these zombies don’t miss their stops,
The train pulls up, eases the congestion before taking in a few more,
Among them a lady, eyes teary, looking broken and forlorn,
Took a seat near the front, wipes her eyes but the tears keep fallin’,
Hope she knows this too shall pass, tomorrow is a new day,
Whatever it is keep your chin up, hope you’ll soon be ok.
Also climbed onboard, a rough customer living on the streets,
Carrying plastic bags full of possessions, the few he was able to keep,
The city was once his playground, he was living the high life,
Fell victim to vices and his own hype, now he’s Viva La Vida come to life,
No more entourage and hangers-on, the vultures and leeches are gone,
Carcass picked clean, so much for loyalty, can’t buy real friends with money,
Fancy hotels and the high-rise a distant memory, now the sidewalks are home,
When he ain’t train-hopping or camping at stations, shelters or bus zones,
Traveling through carriages searching for solitude, away from pitying stares,
Mission impossible during peak-time, there’s no escaping the whispers.

An elderly couple takes a seat up front, where those young punks sat previously,
Married more than thirty years, going out on Friday night like they’re still mid-teens,
Still riding life’s rollercoaster, must be an epic love story,
Married at early twenties, had a few kids, now some grandkids and enjoying life’s little pleasantries,
Bemused at all these young ones with eyes glued to their phones,
They share a loving gaze and laugh, their love still solid as pure gold,
Opposite them sits two nine- to-five warriors, each with opposite demeanors,
One locked in battle with fatigue, can’t fall asleep, don’t wanna call no Uber,
Slumped against his seat, his suit rumpled, it sure was a long day,
Thank God for the weekend, how did life end up this way?
The man beside him feeling hyped for the evening, hair and suit still crisp
Left the workplace a hero, that presentation was fire, now time for some fun with the mistress,
Modern-day Don Draper, like that homeless dude once was,
Living the fast life, to hell with the repercussions,
Better keep this from the missus or she’ll put a boot up his ass,
Gotta stay sharp, fools like that tend to wind up drunk sans pants and cash.

The first of many revelers sits towards the middle, admiring herself on camera phone,
Make-up’s on point with a red dress on, hugs her in the right places, damn she lookin’ toned!
The daydreamer, fresh outta high school, sits in front of her, staring out the window,
Made her workplace debut, now deep in thought, but for real looking like she stoned,
Began the day with enthusiasm and pep, eight hours later feeling like death,
‘I didn’t sign up for this shit,’ says she, Kid you ain’t seen nothing yet,
Looked forward to Friday night with the girls but will probably change her mind,
Curling up in bed never sounded so sweet, let the rest have a good time,
A stranger sits beside her, head down and reading,
One of those modern motivational books, profanities and real talk replaced the affirmations,
Face cringing as the pages turn, this shit’s real deep,
Gonna ask questions tonight before he goes to sleep, what a way to end the working week

Then there’s the dude up back, checking his phone for a message he won’t receive,
From her, the one that he could never keep,
Mutually called it quits, they were traveling on different lanes,
Wasn’t a nasty split but still came with its own brand of pain,
After three years the co-pilots hit turbulence,
Survived the storm but couldn’t overcome their differences,
Such is life, not everything is permanent and that includes the people currently in it,
Let ‘em play their part, see who stays and who leaves,
Can’t stop ‘em on their way out, it’s pointless to beg and plead,
Cut your losses, dude, time heals all wounds,
Stay ready ‘cuz there’s someone else out there for you,
Smile at the memories y’all made together, don’t let this experience make you bitter,
Grieve if you must but don’t take it out on others.

There you have it, a few characters among the commute,
During peak-hour on a Friday afternoon to boot,
Young and old, workers and students and everyone in between,
Doing their own thing, if only some looked up from their screens,
Among the optimists and the excited, there also lie the cynics and the wounded,
Another day conquered, a victory in itself if only they knew it,
Be kind to one another, y’all, don’t know what somebody’s been through,
Listen to their stories, what lies within just may surprise and amaze you.

Old school tune by 50 Cent from when he was coming up,
Supposedly got him shot, he sure was heavy with the name-drops,
Still, the beat is tight, lyrics paint a picture of the hood,
Told through the eyes of a small-time dealer made good,
Listened to this on high rotation the day I fulfilled a deal with pops,
Conjured up when my trip to hell and back had just begun.

1/12/2019

Warning: This post contains movie spoilers

When the first of the two Creed films was released back in 2015 there were mixed feelings from fans of the Rocky series as it was marketed as a spin-off film, focusing on the trials and tribulations of the long-lost biological son of Rocky Balboa’s late, great rival-turned-best friend, Apollo Creed. The plot itself was intriguing, in which Adonis Creed (with a father whose name was Apollo Creed you knew that the kid would have a name that sounded mythical) seeks out Rocky Balboa to help turn him into a boxing champion. As interesting as this film sounded there remained an air of cynicism regarding how well such a storyline would manifest itself on film without spoiling the Rocky legacy. As a fan of the Rocky films my expectations were huge and I hoped that this film wouldn’t be a train wreck.
As we now know it turned out to be a pretty good film and Michael B Jordan and Sylvester Stallone were praised for their performances as Adonis Creed and Rocky Balboa, respectively, and three years later whispers of a sequel began to circulate, culminating in a teaser trailer making the rounds on social media in late June of 2018. It was a little over two minutes long but I watched it and instantly couldn’t wait to see the rest of the movie.

Whoah! This is gonna be a good one!

The film’s release date was tentatively scheduled for December of 2018 but in my mind, the countdown had begun. Again, the film’s plot was promising, in which Adonis Creed must defend his heavyweight title against Viktor Drago, the son of the man that had killed his father in the boxing ring in Rocky 4, Ivan Drago. Yes, it was going to be a deeply personal rivalry and if that teaser trailer was anything to go by, this film appeared to be a much darker story than its predecessor.

Not going to lie, though, while I was excited to see this film a part of me, once again, felt a tad cynical. While it would finally bring closure to the still-raw rivalry between Ivan Drago and Rocky Balboa and also give Adonis Creed a chance to get even on his father’s behalf while carving out his own legacy, in my mind there was also the potential for this to head into cheesy and clichéd territory. Lord knows some of the Rocky sequels, while still worthwhile viewing, were let-downs compared to the original film that not only spawned a franchise and an iconic cinematic hero, but also ended up a success story during the 1977 Academy Awards.  And I sure as hell was hoping that the film wouldn’t include a rematch between the old versions of Rocky and Ivan. Hey, an elderly Rocky returned to the ring in Rocky Balboa for a crack at the heavyweight champion and Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren both are still in great shape despite their ages so it was a possibility. Shoot, as I write this blog Stallone is on the cusp of returning to the big screen as an elderly John Rambo preparing to once again go to war. But thank the good Lord that such a rematch wasn’t included.

I had my blood transfusion not long after the release of that teaser trailer and on that night, as my father and I sat in the hospital room waiting for that one pint of blood to make its way into my system (it still amazes me how that one little pint took four hours) I told my father about the film and that I wanted to watch it with him once I had recovered. He agreed and we fist bumped on that deal.
“Whatever it is inside of me, let’s beat it. Then we can watch Creed 2,” I told him.
Dad grinned. “Sounds like a plan, let’s do it.”

Fast-forward to the first day of December and the moment had arrived. While Mom was scheduled to catch up with some old work buddies Dad and I headed to the movies. There was already a healthy number of spectators by the time my father and I took our seats in the middle aisle of a rather spacious theatre, mostly young couples, a few fathers and their sons and of course, groups of young guys that were no strangers to the gym themselves. The theatre wasn’t exactly packed to the rafters but the turn-out was decent.
As for me, I was totally hyped as I had waited six months and gone to hell and back for this. After a ten-minute wait the theatre darkened, the screened broadened and the commercials and previews began to roll out.

It’s show time!

Over the next hour and fifty minutes I sat on my seat, transfixed at what was playing out on the screen before me, most notably the fight scenes which, in my personal opinion, were the most intense in all of the previous Rocky films and certainly more so than in the first Creed film. While the fight scenes from the firstfilmwas geared more towards the technical side of the sport, Creed 2’s fight scenes showed the sweet science at its most brutal. Adonis Creed and Viktor Drago would engage in two vicious fights in this film and the script called for the first fight to be a near-disaster for Adonis as he takes a sickening beating from his much bigger and stronger challenger in three one-sided rounds that culminates in him being knocked unconscious by a cheap shot landed by Viktor while he was already on the canvas, therefore allowing him to keep his title via disqualification but also sending him to the hospital with horrible injuries. The second fight was a more balanced back and forth war in which both fighters took turns punishing one another until Adonis finds another gear to eventually overcome Viktor. Every punch landed by both men in both fights, made doubly persuasive by the sound system in the theatre, had the audience cringing in their seats.

Damn, even jabs sound like shotgun blasts! Compliments to the fight choreographers and sound effects folks.

I think the fight scenes in this film had the potential to make any aspiring fighter sit down and reconsider their chosen paths.

Fight scenes aside I was also impressed with the character of Viktor Drago and the performance from the man-mountain that portrayed him, an amateur boxer and fitness model named Florian Munteanu. Looking back on the previous Rocky films, every opponent that Rocky – and Adonis – faced in the ring were charming and charismatic (or in the case of Rocky 4’s Ivan Drago, straight-up intimidating) but also unlikeable enough to compel the audience to root for the heroes while hoping that the villain would be sensationally humiliated, win or lose, in the obligatory climactic fight scene towards the end of the films.
Not so Viktor Drago. In fact, if you read the comments under any YouTube video related to him or Florian Munteanu you’ll find that the character has many supporters, with many going so far as to say that they found themselves rooting for him in the end, which surely has to be a first for any antagonist from the Rocky franchise. You won’t find many stating that they were glad he ultimately had his ass handed to him by Adonis.

Maybe it’s because he is the son of arguably the most lethal antagonist from the Rocky series but the dude was written to be a fearsome brute like daddy dearest and also as a sympathetic figure. He has inherited his father’s strong, silent approach and does his best talking through his fists but also through his eyes, facial expressions and body language. His eyes widen with terror and shame whenever his father berates him, they furrow with rage and determination during fight scenes and every punch he throws during fights and in training are punctuated by loud grunts and growls, as though his punches are delivered with every ounce of his strength and the anger and trauma within him behind them. He also wears a look of contempt on his face later during the film when he is addressed to by some Russian aristocrats that had jumped onto the bandwagon once his career took off (the same types of people that he believes betrayed his father, hence his anger) and he recoils in sheer horror and disgust in the same scene when he is reunited with the mother that abandoned him and his father many years prior, after which his stoic façade finally breaks and he expresses his true feelings out loud during a heated discussion with his father in the very next scene about the nature of fickle, disloyal fans and runaway family members.
For someone making his film debut, Munteanu did a great job communicating with a minimal use of words although as a real life fighter he wouldn’t have needed much help with the fight scenes and was likely told to just be himself in that ring.

Man, I feel sorry for anyone that has to face this monster in the ring for real.

Unlike previous Rocky villains Viktor does not fight for championship belts, fame and fortune. Rather, he fights for the one thing that has sustained him throughout his life – the desire to one day feel his father’s love and respect. You see, following the events of Rocky 4 Ivan Drago was branded a national disgrace in his native Russia after losing to Rocky Balboa and was subsequently banished from his country. At the beginning of Creed 2 Ivan is a bitter old ex-fighter living in a run-down apartment in a rough section of Kiev in Ukraine with Viktor, whom he has raised entirely on his own following a divorce from his wife, who the audience later learns has remarried and lives a life of luxury in Moscow.
Ivan, still seething with rage after all these years at the way his life had turned out, is left to raise his son the only way he knew how – to groom him to be every bit the brutal wrecking machine that he was during his own boxing career and to use him as a means to regain his lost honor and prestige while also subjecting him to his own brand of ‘tough love’ that involves emotional and, at times, physical abuse.

Put simply, Viktor was ‘raised in hate’ as Rocky would tell Adonis at one point during the film.

Ivan often scolds and belittles his son during workouts and even between rounds during fights. During the first fight against Adonis for example, he chastises Viktor for failing to knock Adonis out in the very first round and after the second round of that fight comes and goes, during which Viktor again brutalizes Adonis but fails once again to finish him off and even absorbs a hard counter punch from the defiant champion shortly before the bell ends the round, Ivan angrily calls his son an embarrassment and even goes so far as to blame him for his wife’s departure from their lives.
Man that has got to hurt. A rabbit punch followed by a low blow that one was.
And Ivan’s preferred method of waking Viktor up every morning to train is to punch him in the stomach – and not with a friendly love tap, either. We’re talking about a hard jab to the bread basket that jolts his sleeping son awake.

Despite all this, Viktor harbors no ill will towards his father and looks to him as the only person in his life that he can trust. Having been on the wrong end of his father’s wrath his entire life and having been abandoned by his mother at an early age, it is clear that there is a wounded, insecure soul within the gruff exterior yearning to feel loved, even just for a short time.
Geez, Ivan, wake the fuck up and love your son, dude.
The climactic rematch between Adonis and Viktor rolls underway in Moscow towards the end of the film in front of Russia’s social elite, with Viktor’s mother and her husband in attendance. This fight is make-or-break for the Dragos, for Ivan it is a chance to reclaim what he had lost while Viktor senses it as an opportunity to finally earn his father’s respect. Viktor jumps to an early lead but a determined Adonis, fuelled by a desire to gain a measure of revenge for the death of his father at Ivan’s hands and to also put his previous encounter with Viktor behind him, refuses to yield and gradually turns the tide. He eventually outlasts the bigger challenger and in the end, Viktor finds himself fatigued, bloodied and discouraged, compounded by his mother and her husband eventually storming out of the arena when it becomes clear that Viktor’s chances of winning had evaporated.
Abandoned by his mother twice. Damn.
Adonis eventually traps a weary and demoralized Viktor on the ropes and unloads on him, forcing Ivan, who had finally realized that Viktor was right about his ex-wife and the fickle, disloyal people that he had sought to impress, to throw in the towel to save his son from further punishment – the first time we see Ivan perform an act of love towards the son he was hostile towards throughout the film.  

As Adonis celebrates his victory with his family and friends, Viktor stands in his corner with his head bowed in shame and he shoves Ivan away as Ivan approaches him, believing that he is about to be disowned for his failure. But Ivan instead pulls his son into an embrace and tells him, “it’s ok, Son. It’s ok,” and from there Viktor finally allows years of pent-up emotions to run wild as he sobs in his dad’s arms like a wounded pit bull being comforted by its master. He finally feels his father’s love, earning a victory of sorts in defeat.
A sports drama film that included redemption for both the hero AND the villain, provided closure for one of the most memorable characters in the Rocky series and some father and son love thrown in for good measure? Man, what a film! My father was certainly impressed, his first words to me once we had walked out of the cinema was, “that was the best film I’ve seen in a long time.”

Nicely done, Sly. Nicely done.

My father and I had a rather late lunch at the mall afterwards before heading home to do some work in the backyard, planting seeds, pruning trees and watering the plants. Even as the clock nudged 4:30pm, the sun shone as brightly as it did during the morning. Summer had well and truly arrived and it was all good vibes from here.

Life was good!

The icy blast of winter air served as a wake-up call,
Winter’s fury persisted even as the sun gave its all,
The fields resembled a Siberian wasteland, the grass and trees similarly frosted,
People young and old began their day layered from top to bottom,
The cold was miserable, but I didn’t mind,
This day had finally arrived, been impatiently waiting for some time,
It’s the last school day before the two-week winter break,
Students and staff united in good cheer, we’d all longed for this date.

Soon it was lunctime, the day’s almost over,
Just two more classes afterwards before we ride off into the desert,
Some teacher left a classroom unlocked, did someone spike their water!?
An empty classroom full of rowdy teenagers, could be a recipe for disaster,
One of the oldest, too, on campus, rather cramped with a faded teal carpet,
White walls, slightly scuffed, the air stale and probably polluted,
Fooling about in here between classes would be on par with crossing No Man’s Land,
Levels below vandalizing the school, but still the punishment would be rad,
Add to that a stereo and a CD full of rap tunes and you have yourself a party,
We turned the volume way up, it was time to go crazy!

I wanted no parts of this shit, but my buddies were all-in,
It was the last day of school for two weeks, might as well join in,
Sat in the corner of the room as those fools went on a rampage,
It was the year 2000, wrestling and breaking was all the rage,
Wrestling was up first, practically everyone jumped in,
It was like a royal rumble, or whatever they called it back then,
Heavy metal blasted from the speakers as those chumps recreated moves from TV,
They were smart enough not to jump off tables, let alone use them as weapons, the consequences would’ve been nasty,
Channeled their inner Stone-Cold and Dwayne Johnson, before he became an actor,
A few accidental punches and slaps but no one was injured,
The ‘crowd’ went wild, egging on those wannabe alpha males,
Like a scene from Gladiator, but this crowd was surely entertained,
Someone changed the music, it was time for break-dancing, spilled out into the hallway,
That little classroom was quite short on space.

I’d ceased to be neutral, the energy’s contagious, the whole scene was just ridiculous,
Excitement over the pending school break sent the student body delirious,
Coupled by raging hormones and soaring egoes the dancers put on quite a show,
Handstands, steps, tricks, spins and then some, others were unsuccessful with headspins but it was all fun,
We caused quite a racket, surprisingly no one dared to complain about it,
With the stereo on full blast the party went on unabated,
Looked like a scene from Saved By The Bell or maybe a street party in Compton,
Or perhaps in an abandoned building in the rough side of Brooklyn,
We felt like outlaws having a good time but then reality came calling,
The damn bell rang, lunchtime’s over, time to get packing,
Headed back to that classroom, arranged the furniture back in order before bolting, it’s like there was nobody there,
Looks like we got away with murder, that was one lunch break to remember.