the maple maul chronicles
clowning around with an axe and dead batteries
I tried to social media last night.
I wanted to record myself chopping wood using my go pro.
I pulled it out. The battery was dead.
The first three batteries I tried were dead.
Was there a fourth?
There was.
And last night?
I danced as a clown with a splitting maul would whilst attempting to break up a big ugly green piece of solid maple.
The round was impetratable.
My maul merly bounced with each swing.
I swung at it some hundred and fifty times before I stopped counting.
It was glorious.
For a bit of satisfaction I subbed in a few smaller frozen bombs that went off like childrens toys over the Donbas trenches.
Unexpected and incredibly powerful I felt after each blow.
With my trophies tidied, I’d return to my nemesis that unpenetrable round.
I’m will burn you, you motherfucker!
Bounce.
Bounce.
Bounce.
Bounce went my axe well into the night.
It’s all on camera.
Next is the edit.
The film you’ve all been waiting for: “Clown Dances With Axe1 will only be possible because I dug deep and tried the fourth battery.
Oh boy look what you did, you found a fucking battery. HERO.
(You really do dwell in the trivial sir.)
Yes. I do this.
I do this because those small trivial everyday things?
They matter.
They take up grey matter
But you know what matters even more?
The active noodle made it more complicated than it had to be.
I didn’t have to find a battery at all.
I wasn’t cascading down a mountain.
I was at home.
I could have run a cord to the camera and plugged it into the house.
Keep on trucking through the trivial barriers you make for yourself and go dance with an axe.
(because you’re going to find excuses not to do that creative thing stupid ones like I needed to charge my batteries or something else really stupid)
So go do it. Dance with your axe.
And if you get it on camera?
That’s ok too.
Starring me pretending to be Kevin Costner, pretending he’s not desperate for an Oscar.