Morrison - Blowing My Own Trumpet

Introduction

You wouldnt worry so much about what people thought of you, if you realized how seldom they do.

Rather than writing in the accepted chronological fashion that dooms many biographies to pages of filler as the reader waits for the author to get to the next good bit, Ive written a collection of storieshopefully just the interesting stuff. These are grouped as much as possible by topic rather than by when they happened. Having said that, there has been an attempt to create an overall sense of chronology, so that reading the book from left to right (I recommend this but its not absolutely necessary), you do travel through my lifes adventures in a somewhat orderly fashionprobably much more orderly than the way I lived them.

Many characters are identified by their first name only. This is not to protect anybody, as all the crimes described herein were committed by the author (including writing this tome) and all the imbecilic acts depicted were also undertaken by the author or people who really deserve to be ridiculed in print. However, if you dont personally know the people, their names are of little interest. Anyone you would know (the famous and sometimes infamous) is fully identified to give the stories added authenticity. Actually, that last sentence is rubbishits so you can be impressed by the number of famous people I know.

In addition, as this is a collection of stories and musings rather than a chronological day-by-day account, many people who have been a big part of my life havent been mentioned. I dont think for a minute that any of those people will be terribly offended (or even notice) but I feel compelled to say something about itperhaps for the sake of the reader who wonders, Why didnt he mention [insert name]?

If a name fails to appear here, it can only be for one of three reasons:

1. In all my dealings with said person everything went as planned, there were no calamities, near-death experiences or escapes from the forces of evil, and nothing happened that made me (or them) look stupid enough to entertain you. Or
2. Whatever it is that did happen cant be put into print due to fear of litigation, the long arm of the law, the Russian mafia, the musicians union, the government, somebodys wife, somebodys husband, the CIA, ATO, DMR, RTA, or the Trombone Appreciation Society of Slovenia. Or
3. What happened makes me look so stupid that even I wont put it in a book. (Thats fairly frightening considering what is in this book.)

I guess if youre a person who knows me and believes you should be in this chronicle, youll have to choose which of the above applies to you. Those who are in category one will be feeling smug that theyve never been part of a serious screw-up, those who fall into category two will be relieved that I didnt tell and those who were part of something in category three will have to write their own books if they want me to appear that inept.

All facts and figures have been checked rigorously and found to be at least as true as the fact that 87 per cent of all statistics are made up on the spot.

If you find anything in this work offensive, I apologize; but this is a book describing my life, a life that must have offended at least somebody. Before we go any further, Id like to assure you that my sources are impeccable. Allow me to elaborate

Imagine you are at a party and someone hands you a toilet roll, not with the paper on, just the cardboard tube from the middle. You are asked to hold it to one eye and close the other, like a kid looking through a pretend telescope. If you could only look through the tube at the party, what would you see? Or more importantly, what wouldnt you see?

With your limited field of vision you would see only a fraction of what was going on at any one time. While you were looking at the table with the peanuts, chips and dips on it, there could be a murder happeningor a marriage proposaljust out of view. As far as youd be concerned, these things didnt happen at all, because you didnt see them. Of course if you were looking at the murder, you might tell people that it wasnt much of a partythere wasnt even any dip.

It gets even more interesting when you add another person with his or her own toilet roll; they see the same party but from a different perspective. While they are looking at the guy dancing as though he has a serious bowel infection, you are looking at his dance partner and thinking shes beautiful. Even when someone stands right beside you the view is still slightly different. And in my experience, not many people will stand right beside you at a party if you are looking through a toilet roll. (Those that will always turn out to have very low standards.)

Lifes like that. Most of the time we only see whats right in front of us. The things that occur out of our view didnt happen and the stuff we do see looks different to us than to anybody else.

Some of you reading this book will have been there when these events took place; you might even be the main character in parts of this adventure. If you remember things differently, please realize that this is just how I saw it and, after all, this book is my toilet roll. If, on the other hand, you think I could have told the story better, let me know. Perhaps your changes could be incorporated in a reprint!

Its customary to write an autobiography when ones major lifes work is complete. This is not the case hereI feel that thus far Ive only scratched the surface of what is possible. But, in light of the fact that Im already finding it hard to recall all the combobulations of life, I thought it best to put this book down now. Which is exactly what youll be doing soon if I dont end this drivel and let you get on with the story.

Early Days

I am, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the laziest person youll ever meet. The only reason this book got written at all was that I saw the chance to sit down for long periods while being able to claim I was working.

One of my earliest memories is of when I was about three years old and riding my tricycle along our driveway on a hot, dusty afternoon in country New South Wales. There was a long way to go, as the drive stretched about 50 metres. I sighed; I should have brought water. As I rode I felt a pleasant sensation on my forehead, a gentle tickling just like when someone teases you with a feather (this hadnt happened to me yet). Pedalling relentlessly toward the front gate I mused how a simple thing like a tickling forehead could turn a hard ride into quite a nice way to spend half a day.

Then it happened: my vision was obscured in one eye and the darkness quickly began to spread to the other. I was going blind! Panic set in slowly, as I wasnt yet old enough to think this was some sort of punishment for crimes that wouldnt be committed until I was a teenager. The growing darkness was definitely related to the tickling, because as my left eye became useless, it also tickled. In a feat of close-up focusing that only a three-year-old could pull off, I finally saw what was happening a large spider was crawling across my face! Apparently it had been happily sunning itself in my hair (yes, I had hair then) before heading across my face to probably fall down my shirt.

The main thought running through my mind was: how do you scream with your mouth shut? I absolutely had to scream but, if I did, the attacking monster would surely go straight into my mouth. While I was trying to come up with an answer to this conundrum my hand took matters into its own hands (so to speak) and swatted the arachnid from hell halfway across the street. As my hand did this without consulting my brain, its aim was none too careful and my nose nearly ended up following the spider. With tears now streaming down my face and possibly a broken nose, the only thing left to do was fall off my tricycle, which I promptly did, landing on the hard driveway and adding gravel rash to my list of injuries.