TAKING OVER THE ASYLUM

I’ve just been watching Fight Club again and come to the conclusion that we have to drive into the skid if we ever want to get anywhere. I don’t mean capitulate and fit in with the norm: I think we should run away with the extraordinary. You know the old detective saying, ‘if the only thing left sounds crazy, then that’s probably the truth!’ So, the yellow brick road and the wisdom of the green wizard is the way to go.

Normality has never really existed in my life; I did everything backwards and now I’m coming home to roost, amongst my similar friends – my familiars. One is a witch, one had a sex change including a clitoris on the National Health, and another is a psychic who swallowed Wikipaedia. Walk this way and don’t be afraid.

Fear has no power over me – I swat it like the fly that it is. I made my way to a cemetery 15 years ago, expecting to find a man who had attacked my17yr old son; I was prepared to kill him softly if he wasn’t already dead (from the whack on the head my son had retaliated with) – it was 3am and I was strolling in the moonlight, with the dog while my son (who I’d left behind) babbled his terrible warnings about how dangerous this man was. I told him that Glaswegians run from no-one. The bully had gone; there were a few spots of blood on the pavement. The anti-climax is still with me.

I know I would survive disaster and end up an old warhorse; there would be monuments erected, in time. Quite right too. But I wouldn’t be the one sending soldiers over the top; if anyone had to go I’d be right there with them. Honesty and courage used to be a basic instinct when I was growing up: now it’s missing in action and should be posted MIA all over the bloody place. My son thinks that my kind are mad. When the druggies smashed the windscreen on my car I was out there with a hammer demanding they come out and fight; they thought I was mad too and stayed in their holes.

How are we to live in this increasingly wicked world? By standing up and getting as bold as them; the muggers, rapists, murderers, robbers and violent cowards all have one thing in common – dishonesty; they think they’re hard, but they’re in denial. In Fight Club they’re looking for a way out and start beating themselves to a pulp; there is an energy and honesty there and courage to face pain and the unknown. The scary part is the success of madness, but someone has to push to create change, and often madness is very well disguised.