Originally I had intended to outline the origin of some other stuff, stuff that had yet to be outlined and stuff like that, then I thought/mumbled, “Stuff that stuff, let’s give the people something truly unpalatable to chew on…

“Let’s see if their hitherto pristine waters, their previously unadulterated mindsets of fragility, are able to cope with the incomprehensible wasteland that is the inner realms of my brain – let us see if they are willing to ride the mental rollercoaster along its convoluted journey through the most tumultuous of daytime nightmares while being swallowed amid the unassailable quicksand, asphyxiated by the fetid sludge of my cognitive quagmire, then only to reach out in a vain attempt…”

Nup. Lost it.

This kind of occurrence used to befall me with startling frequency. I’d be in the middle of a rant or similarly impassioned tirade, run off on a quick tangent and before I could even do the digression justice I’d have lost the essence of both stories. I did attempt to remedy this issue with the employment of speed-speaking, in the hope that if I fired out the content with enough rapidity I’d reach the end before forgetting whatever the hell it was that I was supposed to be saying.

This either resulted in my stuttering to the point of incoherence, or lack of basic enunciation resulting in a similar level of incoherence; whichever form of unintelligibility came through on the day, it usually caused me to ‘lose it’ even earlier.

I recall during one of the aforementioned rants, circa 2005, I was busy illustrating the frustrations endured in hearing young idiots (I was only 22 myself, mind you) milled around the pub jukebox, talking about how much their favourite music ‘rocks’. The issue I took with this is that their favourite music, which apparently ‘rocked so hard’, was generally, contemporary pop music and worse still, these young scallywags had the audacity to play the damn stuff while crapping on about how much ‘this song rocks’.

Therefore, I was ranting away, under the influence of nothing other than perhaps far too much adrenaline, putting disrespecting piss-ants in their respective places, ranting away, having just returned from my second tangent in as many minutes, mid sentence, still on track, going for gold; then suddenly, it was gone. Just like that. All of it. As though my thoughts had suddenly evaporated or something.

Hell of a feeling, mid sentence, having everything just up and clear out like that; just when the rant was going so well, too. Now everybody’s looking at me, big grins on their faces, gleefully absorbing the misguided testimony of a narrow minded imbecile; with no idea that the mind of the young man standing before them has instantaneously gone from having a great excess of thoughts on a greater excess of topics to being wiped clean in less than half a second. Of course they’re still urging me forth with their drunken affirmation, but I’ve lost it. I’ve lost the words, I’ve lost the topic, I’ve lost the theme, shit I’ve lost the origin of the words of the topic of the theme. Dude, I’ve lost the plot.

So what do I do? I capitulate, that’s what. I concede failure. I glance up. With a stupid little half-grin belying my shame I shake my head and say simply, “Nup. Sorry guys. Lost it.”

More recently, although it’s still a big part of my life, my ranting tends to take a much more structured semblance. It now comprises a beginning, some pith, and an end. Furthermore, it is often based on topics that actually matter.

As for the reaction of my audience all those years ago, here’s the thing, they didn’t care. They’d had a laugh, now it was over. In 2005 those drunken idiots could accept that the sober idiot entertaining them was just four years out of hospital after suffering the brain trauma that almost killed him.

Reckon they were just glad that I was ranting at all.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Randy Nuff

Photography by Lisa Platt