A young Chinaman
Was a member of the local Boys Brigade. Not the coolest thing ever, but quite fun for a young lad - football, horse-vaulting, hikes, etc. And I was also quite the metaller, even at the age of eleven. The first album I'd got was "Appetite For Destruction", quickly followed up by some choice Motley Crue, WASP and Poison. Yeah!

So one night, combining these two youthful pleasures, I was cycling home after an evening with the BBs and listening to some metal album on my crappy personal stereo, the kind that all-too-soon played your cassettes all woozily, like a drunkard trying to have sex. I was singing along ("Woh-man!") and thinking how great it would be to live in LA and have a Les Paul Strat and have fast women and drink Jack Daniels and fast cars... yeah!

I was near home, and away to pass some lockup garages where boy racers kept their Novas and XR2s. I took the corner tight, maybe doing a quick spot of air-guitar, filled with a rock-stravaganza of metal adrenaline, and....BAM!

...I came to, some unknown time later, still somehow on my bike, and my first thought was "I can hear someone screaming..." Yup, it was me, howling like a banshee in the night. The door on the nearest garage had been up, and I'd cycyled right into it. I got it right in the nose, bursting it like an overripe tomato. I helplessly yowled and howled, blood spurting out of my nostrils and all over my face.

Goddamn that was sore.
(McChinaman banned, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 6:33, Reply)