Musing' From The Shitter

Musings From The Shitter Volume Fourteen 100% Disclaimer: This ain’t some polished story to sip with your morning coffee. It’s raw blood, smoke, and broken teeth — half truth, half fever dream. Light a smoke, hold on tight, and decide what’s real before it’s too late. The Koro Lounge tore down the Foxton Straight, twenty minutes out of Feilding...a rolling cage of smoke, noise, and desperate souls. Shotgun sat the meat pack hustler, king of the soundtrack to impending madness. In the back, the joint roller worked like a bomb defuser...every flick precise, every inch deadly. Abdul sat silent, eyes wide, absorbing the chaos like a ghost drifting through a storm. Then the smoke parted. Clarity hit...sharp, brutal, unforgiving. Life laid bare, raw and bleeding. That’s when you burn. 100% fun. Not safe. Not clean. The wild moments you never saw coming...naked, unfiltered, real. The call came...last-minute gig, easy to refuse, safer to hide. But no is for ghosts. Yes is the bea...

Musings from the Shitter: Volume Thirteen Ichi Go Ichi E I caught up with a friend. The kind of friend I don’t know how I still get to keep. No real reason why they’re still here...just kindness, plain and simple. Most people pass by, nod politely, and disappear. Not this one. Always time. Always space. Every time we talk, I walk away with something I didn’t have before. A little wisdom tucked in my pocket. And maybe, just maybe, I’m not the asshole I wake up thinking I am. We talked about ichi go ichi e . One time. One meeting. This moment’s got a shelf life, and it ain’t long. Those words...they helped me hold onto what I couldn’t before...that the everyday...isn’t bullshit....It’s the whole damn point. We played a friendly on Saturday. No pressure. No scoreboard worth remembering. Just a bunch of broken souls chasing a ball, laughing like idiots. I laughed more than I should have...the kind of laughter that sneaks up on you and knocks the wind out of your chest. Fun. Yeah, that’s wh...

Musings from the Shitter - Volume Twelve  Where  We Leave the Week Football clears my head. Of the week. Of the weeks. Of the goddamn grind. It’s not the game, not really. It’s the battle. The blood and the mud and the silent war inside. A purge. Alone in the thought, but not alone in the fight. Sometimes it comes out as aggression. Ugly, misdirected. I’m no Roy Keane. Christ, I’m not even close. But I get it. I get the snarl in his jaw. The way he needed the scrap to feel alive. Win the battle, win the game. Or at least, win something . Anything. I’ve regretted battles. More than a few. But not all. And if I’m honest, I’d take some of them again. Maybe even hit harder this time. Because football isn't just football. Not for people like us. It’s a goddamn pressure valve. A place to empty out the week. To be someone else for 90 minutes—or no one at all. And I know I’m not the only one. I see it. In the warm-up stares. The short tempers. The quiet nods. We...

  Musings from the Shitter – Volume Eleven Watching the Game So yeah, this week’s musings didn’t come from the shitter. They came from the sideline. From grief and mud and the aching quiet of not playing. From three weeks of nothing...no boots, no bruises, no lungs burning in the cold. Just space. Time. Too much of both. From a Saturday watching my wife play her sport, with something heavy in her chest and still move like hell wouldn't catch her. From netball that doesn’t ask for softness, doesn’t let you hide...and from the sideline, where I saw other footballers like me grasping for a different kind of fix. Maybe we were all out there trying not to miss the game so much we forgot to see the beauty in just being near it. Maybe we were learning how to show up, even if our names weren’t on the team sheet. And from a Sunday, watching Feilding’s women play the kind of football that lights a fire in your gut. Ninety minutes that reminded me the game’s still alive...even if I’m n...