Never leave anything unsaid.

There are a few things in our lives that we wish we hadn't done. And there are things that we wish we hadn't said. On the other hand there are things we wish we had done or had said.

It doesn't matter what the deed or speech was or wasn't. What matters is that you can always make up for doing the wrong thing. People will forgive you. They're like that if you approach them with an honest heart and an open hand.

Today I received one of those fill-in-the-blanks-to-the-question E-mails. It was from a friend whose father has recently passed away and one of the questions was along the lines of "Who would you like to go back and talk to." Her answer was her Dad. It nearly broke my heart.

Not only did it almost break my heart but it made me realize that there are things that I have never told people that I am close to. This post is meant to rectify this.

To my Mum,
Hello Mother. It's your boy here. The mad one. I just wanted you to know that never a day has went past when I didn't thank my lucky stars that you were & always will be my Mother. No matter how much of a shitheaded fool I've been at times you have always been there for me unquestioningly. No problem was, or ever will be, too big.

To my Dad,
I once thought that you didn't care about me or how I turned out. Now I know that was because I didn't see you with a mind mature enough to understand what being a father is. Sometimes you have to be hard on people to let them see the love behind your actions. I realize that now.

To my Sister,
Sarah, you are the best Sister anyone could ever have. I would, without any doubt, die for you or any of your kids. I love you more than words can say. You are a shining example of a human being. A blazing star in a room with no light.

To my Brother,
Stuart; you, more than anyone, have been a puzzle to me all my life. Something about you always seemed to me to be unobservable quantity. Like trying to measure quantum particles. (Or whatever the fuck it is that changes when you scientists attempt to observe it. No doubt you know what they're called.) But now I think I know what that thing is. It's the love you have for all of your family. For that I admire you more than you may ever know.

To my brother in law.
I have no doubt that you will love, care for and protect my sister until the sun sets forever. You're more a brother to me than a brother in law. Mi casa, su casa.

To my sister in law.
Julie. You are the woman my brother loves so much it hurts. Ergo so do I. If I can ever do anything for you just ask. No task would be refused.

To Lawry, Daisy, Alexandra, Cameron & Matthew; My Nieces and Nephews,
Hello kids. Uncle Ross is a nutcase. You're young and innocent and full of wonder at this crazy life. Just like I am.

And...

I LOVE YOU ALL. Now and forever...

On a par with geniuses.

I always thought I was on a the same level as the great thinkers in our society. Turns out I was right.

I read to my amazement that Hunter S Thompson, whose parting shot at society was a shot to the head last week, wants his ashes to be fired from a cannon. This was my idea! But not quite. I don't want my ashes fired from a cannon. I want my corpse shot out of one.

If I'm going out, Imma go out in style boy.

It'd be even better if I was allowed to have my corpse shot across the Firth of Forth while wearing a Superman costume. That's gotta look good.

Only with age...

Comes wisdom.

Or so it is said. What's not said at the time, but should be, is that with age also comes senility.
It's a double-edged sword really. You get older and wiser but you can't remember anything for any length of time.

res ipsa loquitor.

I received a piece of praise-mail today. My first one.

Well, Almost my first, if you don't count

"Intense"

from Jason Mulgrew. Who, I am told, is an internet quasi-celebrity. ( Does it matter that internet quasi-celebrity was his own opinion? Fucked if I know. It's one of those things that may never be known. But, anyhoo; I digress...)

Here's the mail I was sent...

Dear Editor,

Re: The web page of Ross Douglas

I write this letter with a mixture of quiet pleasure and also a heavy heart. Having browsed through the above website I have noticed since my last visit a large increase in the number of poems gracing the screen. Some of which are truly beautiful and have touched my soul in such a way that a small but wet tear trickled down my full, freckled cheek. However, I feel I must draw attention to the fact that this Ross Douglas is in fact a sham.

It has become clear that this is not a man torn apart by a lack of love from females or indeed a lack of sexual gratification from the female kind but is in fact a gigolo, a cad and a lover who runs a close parallel to valentino himself. The reason I have made this conclusion is that many of the aforementioned poems are related entirely to a succession of lovers. Yes, I am aware that this will include unrequited love, love as seen from a distance but never acted upon and the odd bitch who has no doubt shagged him, promised him the world and dumped him in a cruel calculating manner as only a woman can. But this does not take from the fact that Ross Douglas appears in fact to have been "in love" on numerous occasions.

His many odes to the ladies that have graced his life surely back up my theory. The man is indeed a fraudster who not only knows what true love is but is a master of it's art. Indeed strange as it seems this man is probably the one of the world's geniuses who uses love's bittersweet and tragic side to lure women to him before proceeding to reel them in and placing them under his spell with magical words of love and romance.

I would go as far as to stake my reputation (which means nothing) on saying that this man is indeed the greatest lover this universe has ever seen. He plays with women's emotions, relays tales of lonesome masturbation and despair, implies the emptiness of his life and his admiration for the female form with such sweet phrases that women all over the globe are drawn to him. This man, this Ross Douglas is a man to be approached with caution, indeed should come with a warning. Let us not be fooled by his deep, thoughtful, isolated appearance and let us see the true nature of his genius with women and his manipulative ways. The evidence is their for us all to see, hundreds of broken hearted women who have tasted his love and been cast aside, unable to allow another man near them in the same way as they are tainted and spoiled from the loving of this man.

I am pleased I have gotten this off my (small but perfectly formed) chest. One more thing before I leave you Mr Editor - Any idea how I get his phone number??

Yours

Jenny Shaw.

How I laughed when I'd read it and saw that it was an old friend that had written it. Thanks Jenny, With friends like you I'll stay nuttier than squirell shit 'til the day I shuffle off this mortal coil.

Insert glib & witty remark here.

A while ago, as posted here, I took steps towards learning how to lucid dream.

I've been using the techniques I found, through research & testimonials, since last November. In that time I have certainly been more aware of when I am in a dream and have, at times, been able to take a certain amount of control over my dreamworld.

Last night as I slept I dreamt that I was conversing with someone in German. Now, I don't actually speak German so I couldn't be 100% certain that it was German at all. It may have been just my subconscious projection of what German sounds like. Or perhaps it is a subconscious memory of German words heard throughout my life. Whatever it was if I had heard someone speaking that language in that way I'd place money on it being German.

DVD days.

I've spent the last few days watching DVD's in a permanent drunk/drugged haze. Every minute of the day some chemical or another has been altering my mindstate.

I've been coming home from work, getting into bed, kicking on the TV and staring blankly at the screen while it flickers, pulses, pops and crackles. All the while my mind is filled with one question...

"Why would Hunter S Thompson kill himself?"

Whatever the reason I wish his soul good times ahead.

DVD's watched...

1. Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.
2. Back to the future I
3. Back to the future II
4. Back to the future III
5. Series 7. The Contenders.
6. Pitch black.
7. Chewin' the fat. (series 1-4)
8. From Hell.
9. Sleepy Hollow.
10. Dark Side of OZ
    
11. Bill Hicks. Relentless.

Strange vibes and menacing undertones.

I've spent the last 3 days in deep thought mode. There is snow on the ground and all sound is muted. No music plays. A hole in my spirit needs filling.

Overtures of doubt and disbelief crowd my mind. Hunter Is dead. Not just rumored to be. Actually is. There will be no message on the gonzo wire informing us all that the good doctor has fled his compound and is heading towards ascuncion where he plans on raising wild boar, drinking wild turkey and polishing his tools for a wild and crazed look at just how fucked this world is, At this moment in time.

This trip is now a different one. Who will rip the throats of the weasles and swine that rule over us now? Gone is the voice that steadied the legs. Never again will the voice of reason shine through the shit and show us mortals what is going on behind the smoke and mirrors.

His bold, visceral poetry will live on. Of that you can be certain.

Blood Brothers.

This is my brothers blog.

Drop by and tell him I said hi.

Gonzo Gone.

The Good Doctor is gone. Long live King Gonzo.

I'm off to drink heavily. It's what the good doctor would have wanted.

I often wonder...

If anyone actually reads this blog. I personally get the feeling that I am ranting into the void.

The problem is that my days, weeks & months are nothing more than a live-action version of groundhog day. Each day I wake up and know from the outset that everything that will happen will bore me to the point of tedium.

There are things you never get told.

One of these things is that if you eat 1lb of pistachio nuts your shit turns a strange shade of yellowish-green. Or mine does anyway; perhaps you are different.

See no Evil.

The beauty of our Planet showed it's head today and I once again wished I had a camera that took decent pictures. Or a memory I could download onto a PC.

I was walking towards work at 3:45pm & looked up at the sky to see what wonderous picture the gods had painted in the sky & I was rewarded with sunlight streaming between storm clouds. Shafts of light, like stairways for angels, illuminated the earth.

I stopped in the middle of the park and turned to take in the whole of the skyline & gasped when I turned around and saw the half Moon through cirrus clouds that looked like candy floss.

It made me realise that wonderful beauty shows itself every day. You just have to look.

All quiet on the western front.

Nothing very much to write about tonight...

I have a new haircut. It's a flat-top. I look like a retarded bouncer. I'm not joking you. It's awful. Though I'm sure it'll grow back, So, no major worries there.

I think I may need a new monitor. This beast of a thing that I have at the moment is playing silly buggers with me and isn't keeping it's horizontal hold for longer than five minutes. The only way I've found to get it to keep a straight page is to whack the right hand side mercilessly until it pops back into normality. Because of the fact that I do a lot of my writing between the hours of midnight and four am knocking the shit out of my monitor is not much of an option. Not if I don't want an angry neighbor at my door.

I got a reply to my mail from my old school friend and have just replied to it. I may post some more of them if I feel that what one of us has written is worthy of space. Or if I run out of shit to chew the breeze about. Whatever comes first.

Friends Re-ignited. Part 2.

Following up on This post.

I got a reply. Rather surprising really. For me anyhoo.

Friends Re-ignited.

As I posted a couple of days ago I have joined Friends reunited for a year and as i'm scottish I'm gonna make sure I get my £7.50's worth. It's a stereotype but It's true.

I spent a couple of hours last night skimming through the pupils that left at roughly the same time as I did and found in a fellow pupils profile this...

I love Ross Douglas' entry - he was so fu--in quiet at school (I thought), but he went on for hours about his life! It's true what they say - the quiet ones are the worst!

Would love to hear from any of you (especially Ross if he remembers me!)

I just had to send off a little note...

It's a dark, stormy, night tonight. And what better way to spend it than relaxing in front of a log fire, sipping a glass of the finest cognac, smoking a cuban cigar and putting your feet up. Sounds good huh?
Sounds great to me as well. It's just a damn shame that I Don't have a log fire, can't stand cognac, can't afford a cuban cigar and am unable to relax after a visit to the dentists today.

First off I'd like to say thanks for the compliment about my posting. It always makes me smile knowing that something I wrote made someone laugh.

It feels strange sitting here writing to someone I grew up with. In my minds eye, & I'm pretty sure yours too, I see you as you were many moons ago. I cast my mind back into the fog of years gone by and am amazed that I remember you. Weird thing memory. I can't remember a day when it rained when I as a kid, or the name of the family that lived on the top floor of my stair but I remember you.

(I gotta warn you that when I write I tend to get a bit OTT. No doubt you noticed that. I remember you being a very perceptive person.)

I'll cut this message off here as I could rant on and on and probably bore you, scare you or freak you out if I did rant on.

Drop a line if you should feel so inclined.

Ross Douglas.

I wonder if I'll get a reply. What thinks you?

Good old fashioned scottish values.

It's so sad to see that Scottish Ministers have their heads up their collectives...

The tragic side of Scottish religion.

...And so good to see that artists from all over scotland can give their time to raise funds to help others.

Art in action.

Diana Princess of Wales... Just a shagbag.

In the news today it has been announced that Prince Chuckie and Camilla Parker-RangeRover are to be married. A bittersweet pill for Diana's boys Hans and Villiam to swallow... Like eating puke on a plate with added sugar.

Finally Prince Chuckie gets to fulfill his life ambition of recreating scenes out of the godfather in Buck Palace. From now on he gets to wake up next to a horses head.

This episode fits my theory... Diana was merely a good looking Sloan-square-shagbag who happened to be from a sufficiently aristocratic family that they wouldn't kick up too much of a stink if a family member just happened to attain martyrdom for the Royal cause.

When, If ever, are the public in the UK going to realize that royalty is THE biggest waste of taxpayers money. Wake up and smell the shit that they're shoveling.

Memories, Of the way we were.

I got a surprise from my past at 6am this morning when I dragged my ass out of bed & went to check my e-mail.

Imagine how I felt when I saw a mail from the Friendsreunited website.

Picture in your mind the horror of having someone from your past dropping by your house and announcing that they intend on staying with you for a week. That's the kind of fright I got. Not quite on the same level you may think but it seems that way to me. Deleting the message would be easy but if someone has taken the time to write to me the least I can do is fire off a reply.

So I answered it. Well, first I paid £7.50 to join the site for a year, then I answered it.
I have had no reply yet. But that's not a worry. Not everyone is able to spend as much time on the internet as me, Ahhh, the life of a single barman. It's all so real.

And now as time approaches 15:35 I have to go and get ready for work.

Pale face rides again...

I just returned from another trip to the dentists. My face is still numb and I'm not allowed to smoke or drink again. I hate my dentist.

On a brighter note you may now point your mouse here to buy the original renegade-thinker t-shirt. Unlike my goods with my web address these products are worn by me. I'm that insane.

I'm now going to lie down and try to sleep through the pain in my jaw.

God only knows...

I can't think of a rational explanation why anyone would want to buy anything with my web address on it. I wouldn't buy one and it's my web address.

Should you for some reason feel so inclined please click Wakeup.to/ross gear & Cnut.blogspot.com gear.

Profit for me on these products is $1.00

Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It's off to work I go...

It's 4:05pm and I have work in less than an hour. Which is a damn shame as I have a strong desire to sit here and rant. I have Bill Hicks' "Filling up the hump" playing on my media player and there's a strong joint in the ashtray. And what do I have to do? I have to go and sell alcohol to pensioners. It's not right.

Not only do I have to sell alcohol to pensioners, I'm forced to listen to music that would make any sane person throw grenades. Fortunately I'm not sane, and I have no grenades. Yet... It kills me. The problem is that the music played on a typical saturday night is the type that gets played on an accordian by someone that, by law, must be bearded, cardigan wearing, a pipe smoker and be overweight by at least 100lbs.

The worst thing is that I have caught myself joining in with the songs on occasion. The type of songs that only ever get played in scotland. Songs of lost loves, riversides and roads of differing altitude that lead to a place I'm already in.

As I have worked there for almost six years I know everyone in the place. Including the musicians. One of the musicians that plays at the club is a guy named Duncan McBain who plays tunes that are so old that he has to pay Moses royalties for the privellige. I once, in a moment of insanity, walked past the stage and shouted out "Stairway to heaven man, go for it!" and walked away laughing. I laughed for hours.

I wasn't laughing a fortnight later when I walked over the dance floor and he began to play "Stairway". It almost snapped my mind. Stairway to heaven should NEVER be played on an accordian. The look of sheer fright on my face was amplified when I noticed that the oldies were getting off their seats to dance to it. I'm not ashamed to say I ran away like a little girl.

It must be a joke...

One of my friends asked me yesterday how my headlines were doing on the spoof.com, a site I haven't posted on for a couple of months, and having just checked the stats I am surprised to see that I have had 7841 veiws on my spoof headlines.

If I had recieved £1 from each of those veiws I would have covered my wages for six months. That's a fucking joke.

Bush Doctor.

I've been considering trying to become a major hashish smuggler as a way to earn a living.
Why not? In my opinion the benefits outweigh the risks. Plus, it's illegal, so...

I was approached today by a teenage friend and was surprised to hear him ask me if I could get him some hash. I told him to step outside and I'd be there in a minute.

"It's not for me Ross, it's for a friend of mine." He said, his eyes giving away the fact that he was lying.
"Sure Rusty; Whatever." I said with a tone of voice that fully communicated disbelief.
"He can get it from a guy he knows, but he thinks he's getting ripped off so I said I'd ask you. You being the man who can." He continued.
"The man who can?" I interrupted, "Where do you get that from?"
"It's your nickname in the young team" He said.
"Young team?"
"Yeah man, the bowlers between the ages of 15 and 30, when we need to find out what's going on in the club or need something we ask "the man who can" and that's you mate." He told me, smiling.
"Sure mate let me know what he pays and for how much and I'll try to beat the price and weight." I said.
"Great man, really great." He said grinning like the cat who got the cream. "Great man, Great. I'll let you know ASAP. Brilliant. Great."
"You can kiss my arse later man, stop groveling. It's a favor. Just remember the code." I said.
"The code?" He asked with a puzzled look on his face.
"The code of the friend. I do you a favor because you are my friend. When I ask you, as a friend, to do me a favor you must do it. Not because you owe me a favor but because I am your friend and I am asking you to do me a favor. If you break the code of the friend the wronged friend has rights to payback." I said as I put on a menacing tone and fixed him with the Thousand-yard stare.
He laughed and said "Sure man. Whatever."
I half smiled and narrowed my eyes to look menacing; "Fuck with me and I'll break into your house while you sleep, tie you to your bed and beat the shit out of you with a baseball bat."
His eyes flashed fear and I knew I'd got to him.
He raised his hands and said, "No problem Ross, no offense meant. I thought you were joking."
"I was. Moron." I said and walked back into the clubhouse.

Is it a wonderful dream or a horrible nightmare?

Every once in a while I dream of my first love. There's probably nothing behind it but it really disturbs me and throws my Karmic centre off kilter.

What should probably scare me more is that every time I do dream about her I always go to my PC and try in vain to find a way to contact her. I'm not quite sure whether doing so is a good thing or a bad thing.

I did exactly that yesterday morning after waking up. I got out my bed, switched on my PC and started to search for her. God only knows why I even tried to find her using my PC. I have trouble finding google at the best of times. Ohh how I hate my computing abilities. But I digress...

Is the act of dreaming about her a sign from my subconcious... Telling me I have ties that can never be severed completely? That I have unresolved issues? Is my inner child alone on a sea of doubt? Or is it just a recurring dream that serves me to keep looking for that elusive thing called love? Fucked if I know.

I know, that there is a part of me that tugs upon out-of-tune heartstrings. I wonder if she has that same feeling? Can I ever possibly find out the answer to that, or any other, question? God knows. And God aint tellin jack shit. That's not His department. He's too busy being the supreme being, He's got shit to do. Solar systems to create and destroy, Suns to supernova, Galaxies to create, Cable TV to watch; Whatever.

For all I now she may have once had a dream of me and kicked her PC to life and done a search for me. If she has then chances are higher that she'll find me. So K if you are reading this...

Drop a line.

Not only... But also...

As I mentioned in my previous posting I am suffering from two abscesses. I've just discovered that I'm also shiting through the eye of a needle.

Just as I hit the post button on my last post I felt my stomach shift like Mount St Helens and had to run to the khazi, john, head, bog, loo, WC, toilet... whatever, to let my system purge whatever biological bastard has got into my guts.

I kid you not, what I just shat out had me worried for a second. It had the consistency of wet plaster-of-paris, the colour of mississippi flood water and the looks of cattle shit. Not a pretty picture I'm sure you'll agree.


(For the record; I was about to end this posting on a poorly constructed joke about how Sean Connery would describe my bowel movement as being "A shight for shore eyesh" But I decided against it... Or did I?)

Phantom of the opera.

For the last five days I've not stepped foot out of my house.
In fact I haven't been out of my bed for the last five days.

I know you're probably sitting there wondering why I've just spent five whole days in bed. Well the reason is that after my dentists visit on wednesday of last week I developed not one, but two, abscesses. (One of which is a dry root abscess, whatever the fuck that is. Go ask a dentist.)

So for that reason I have very little to write about at the moment.