Being Josh Aviñante

Omnia Vincit Amor, meaning “Love Conquers All”. Virgil. Ironically, love could lead to disaster and end yourself up dancing with the devil under the pale moonlight, wreaking havoc on other people’s lives and yours too, until you find someone who will turn your world upside down. And when that happens, a place so sinister and foreign suddenly feels like home. And if that relationship fails, you reset to the beginning, the cycle repeats and you end up dancing with more devils. And as the kwentong bartender from Big Sky Mind goes, “Carry on compadre!” My cool and wicked brother has asked me about drinking in Australia so let the story begin. Well, people drink for many reasons and besides that of seeing and being seen under the pretense of chilling out, you have to admit that it is actually to prey on something exciting to happen. For me, I had no choice. I’m back to dancing the devil although this time under the protection of the Almighty. I know now why he had to suffer which i...

Once upon a time there lived a sea lion who had lost the sea. He lived in a country known as the barren lands. High on a plateau, far from any coast, it was a place so dry and dusty that it could only be called a desert. A kind of coarse grass grew in patches here and there while a few trees were scattered across the horizon. But mostly, it was dusty and sometimes wind, which together make one very thirsty. Of course, it must seem strange to you that such a beautiful creature should wind up in a desert at all. He was, mind you, a sea lion. But things like this do happen. How the sea lion came to the barren lands, no one could remember. It all seemed so very long ago. So long, in fact, it appeared as though he had always been there. Not that he belonged in such an arid place. How could that be? He was, after all, a sea lion. But as you know, once you have lived so long in a certain spot, no matter how odd, you come to think of it as home. There was a time, many years back, ...