Sex Drugs & Six Strings..

Practice makes perfect is what I have lived by for nearly 15 years.

This is not a statement fishing for pity, but a moral I eat sleep and drink and

Occasionally smoke.

Allow me to introduce myself. I am Marc Owens. Before I go any further,

I am not the gay guy from Take That I am a guitarist in a band called ‘Old Rope’

Yep, the unemployable type who most deem useless at pretty much everything, however, I am the guy who creates a world of entertainment for you which is usually free most nights.

I have been playing guitar for 15 years now and each year it seems

like the blue touch is running out and I will be forced to get a suit, wife, Audi, kid and a nice semi detached house in a shitty area that I hate. All this because of my eternal struggle for a life which looks like a dream. I wish for, enough money to keep me warm, fed and the occasional treat. I have learned over the past years that this life is achievable by working 9am till 5pm every day for 60 years and in a life of mundane misery. Is this the only way to achieve some form of stability? I sincerely hope not.

This is not a story of woe and misfortune but my life as it turned out. I will contain some sex, some drugs but there will be a ringing of six steel strings throughout.

Monday morning hit me like a train when my alarm clock roared into action, it has become something I rely on as well as the penetration of my dreams, I will be dreaming in a deep sleep about talking to someone and when they start talking all I hear is BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. It is a sure fire way of knowing your day will suffer for it. I climbed out of my nest and into the shower, I am currently living what most people call life, its winter and the bathroom tiles are turned into ice tiles which bite my feet hard as I wait for the shower to sort itself out and get warm. Today I am working as a data entry gimp that types all day and is paid very little for my efforts. The fat women that sit in my area are constantly bleating on about how much better a Caramac bar is compared to a Milky bar. Excellent. The conversation is usually blocked from my precious ears by whatever I can find on my Ipod. I opted for temporary employment through an agency after hitting rock bottom financially when I was made redundant from a guitar shop. I hate the agency for all their hard work of getting me a job that I hate and charging me every hour I work for the privilege, I worked out myself that they had made almost £3,500 off all my data entry skills, I had taken home a total of £5,400 over my time. It is in these type of jobs where I have no problem with them if I have played my guitar to a packed audience the night before, I have no qualms whatsoever doing any job as I am still on a high from 150 sets of lungs screaming at me and my brothers in the groove, for those of you who draw a blank at that last statement, it means my band, of whom I love as well as hate, cant live with them, cant live without, tough cookies indeed.