Man Abroad Sketchbook Release 1

To celebrate Resurrection Sunday, Man Abroad has released a select series of illustrations from the coveted Man Abroad Sketchbook. Consider yourselves privileged to catch a rare glimpse into the intricate Mindworks of a lone, almost crushed, love-handled, bearded then de-bearded, tight pants wearing, Rainman-like sounding, bus savvy Man Abroad in Latin America. Stupidly, however, I thought it would be nice to photograph the illustrations so they could be colourised on the computer. Therefore I have spent the best part of 30 hours zoomed in at 500% airbrushing shit that you can't see and now I'm pretty sure that pain in my arse is Piles from the backless chair in my room. Enjoy.

If you are one of those idiots looking at the screen thinking, That looks good but I can't make out the details, then click the fucking picture to open it in another window.

Let’s talk about trekking (you pompous arseholes)

The only thing that makes me want to start haphazardly shooting hostages more than a dick-bag talking about trekking whilst smoking his imaginary pipe is a whole herd of the fuckers in a hostel common room rubbing each other down in a thick lather of snoot-laden, toffee-nosed, pious-pious cream. Yes, trekking is nice and a bit of fun but THAT’S IT. I don’t give a Jatz Cracker if you have decided to pad out 12 months latin holidaying only walking up and down hills in your million dollar wanker clothes that say — Rob Me Right Now and Yes, I’m A Gringo And That Is A Money Belt You Can See Hanging Out My Shirt. These retards can’t even order a coffee in Spanish. Seriously. How they even get from one trekking destination to another is a mystery to me (they’d probably try to tell you they trekked between them). Hey, did you know my sleeping bag is graded for minus 5 degrees and recites nursery rhymes? That’s not cold man, I come from northern Europe where it’s REALLY cold, and I trek all the time and I think… (insert wank here). What kind of world do we live in where they can freely assail me with waves of canonised monkey shit but if I was to stab them in the thigh to shut them up I’d get the restraining order?

How about I trek your face into oblivion you pretentious fart sniffing show ponies? Would you like that? That’s one story I’d happily be forced to overhear hand balled around a trash-talking circle of obscene trekking smugness. And they aren’t even listening to each other. You can see it in their twitching faces as they try not to turtle neck in anticipation waiting for a breathing pause to insert their own particular flavour of bullshit that won’t be heard.

If you are going to talk about your boring as fuck trekking adventures then tell me something interesting like how many days you got Dehydrated Food Derived Constipation, how you threw rocks at other peoples tents at night to stop them snoring like drunk beavers with adenoid problems or how you baited the outside of other peoples tents with mixed nuts to draw the mice away from yours (classic move). If you’ve got nothing then make it up. Please.

That being said, my next entry will contain trekking stories. But not these Vomit In The Mouth Tales of Woe, but ones that will make you Shit Your Pants In Wonder at how awesome I am at trekking without even trying, let alone caring. Stay tuned amigos.

On the Road (with Bus Boy)

I have caught more buses than Peter Andre has had chest waxes. Only Brahma himself could count them all on his hands. That must be a lot of onboard movies then, I hear you say? Surely, you presume, I have watched dozens of classic movies in my numerous trans-continental comings and goings? Well you’d be wrong, as well as an idiot. In fact, all buses in Chile and Argentina have televisions and DVD players but only half of the buses decide to use them. Obviously the driver and the Tits On A Bull assistant are too busy up in the front cabin pointing out roadside litter to each other and drinking Mate (a type of tea they go apeshit for here). And when they DO play a movie, they manage to fuck the experience in new and ever more ingenious methods. (A) No sound, with Spanish subtitles half off the screen or too small to read. (B) No sound, no subtitles, but available ear jacks in the seat that don’t work. (3) The bus is driving so fast, or the driver is so spanked out on Mate, that the movie randomly skips scenes giving you no hope whatsoever of following the already emaciated ‘plot’ of cinematic epics like; Dragonball, The Princess Diaries and all Wesley Snipes movies. If you are going to play trash then at least play REAL trash with integrity, like American Ninja, Rambo or anything from the Van Damne Collection.

That’s right, I am currently on a bus on the way to an airport in Punta Arenas (very south in Chile). To my surprise they actually put on a movie. I was excited, and what’s more, it looked like a Robert Downey Jr movie (I want to be RDJ and have his children). It's Sherlock Holmes in fact and subtitles came up in Spanish meaning the movie must be in English. Hell yeah! That’s an unexpected dream come true. Well guess what morons? The Lips On A Duck assistant put the volume on so low (before running back for another Mate and Eye Spy Roadside With My Little Eye Something That Begins With R…) that I could only make out what was being said when a middle aged woman was screaming it.

So now I have SEEN Sherlock Holmes but all I can tell you about the movie is Robert Downey Jr is in it, he somehow is an 18th century English Kung Fu Master, Jude Law has a wicked moustache, both got blown up in a factory explosion with not much more than a face scratch each, the English were fucking useless close range shooters a hundred years ago and the token bit part actress was smokingly hot and not even mildly English.

That being the case, I have successfully seen NO entire movies in SEVEN months of continental bus traveling. Does anyone else feel sick here? Now if you’ll excuse me I have to get to the airport to wait 6 hours until 4-fucking-am to catch a 2 hour plane flight where I guarantee you they will not play any movies except short animated ones telling me to remain calm as the plane nose dives into the ocean whilst all the air gets sucked out of the cabin. If you want me to stay composed in that situation then you better taser me in the chest because I promise you I will be screaming like a drowning piglet as I claw to death everyone around me in an airtight performance of text book hysteria.

Isn’t that fucking fantastic — just got to the airport and they don’t have wi-fi. So now I am sitting in an abandoned airport for 6 hours with nothing to do, nowhere to sleep and drinking coffee made by a robot that tastes like micro-waved bin juice. They do, however, have ONE power point I can use, over by a rack of arse punishing chairs that look like they bought them wholesale from Guantanamo Bay. Good times. Good times indeed. There better be some serious snacks on this flight.

Hay Fever: The Devil's Invention

Who else would invent an extremely irritating, non-fatal, seasonal kick in the balls like hay fever other than The Prince Of Darkness himself? Terrorists? Scientologists? Maybe. Like a delicate flower, Man Abroad is cursed with skin as prone to reaction as an Acute Albino Fat Kid With Diabetes Eating A Black Forest Cheese Cake Shirtless In The Sun.

And so that you can send me some Trans-Pacific Bleeding Heart Sympathy Thought Parcels, I’ll just list of a few of the more memorable Farm hay fever Moments for you: Picking raspberries = arm rash for a day and a half. Hand moving bails of hay = two day, burn victim like arm rash with matching chest and stomach rash of a near Dive Under The Tractor Wheel or Spade Me To Death Please Chilean Grandfather like intensity. Bike ride through the hills = 6 hour arm rash, one eye fused shut and 50% of bodily fluids lost through nose. Cow herding in hill property = 4 hour arm rash, closed eye and a throat that feels like a bird got caught in barbed wire, flew into my open mouth (mid sneeze), got snagged and started to panic. Wake up in the morning and walk into the kitchen = begin the random firing of the sneeze gun and non-stop snot hose action whilst hand preparing breakfast for tourists — Occupational Health And Safety Standards? Here? You’ve got to be fucking kidding. If you can, whilst sweeping, stumble across a baby duck carcass chilling under the stove for Van Halen knows how long then there are no problems warming slices of bread between your butt cheeks before serving, or topping up the coffee pot with dirt for that rich coffee colour.

Hay fever IS a disease, and a crippling one at that and should be recognised legitimately like AIDS or Syphilis. I need government assistance to cover medical expenses; up to 300 tissues a day, recompense for the hankies that fell beforehand, the equivalent of a gallon drum full of Pawpaw cream for the mangled face and rashes, band-aids for the skin that gets scratched off, time lost whinging and especially those bullshit hay fever tablets that work when they feel like it. If I ever meet that Rhinocort fella I’m going to shoot him in the knees, chainsaw off his horn and sell it on the Black Market (eBay) at below market value, then shoot him between the eyes as he watches the final successful bid. A bit harsh you say? Especially seeing though he is a ‘Police Officer’ as well as a sell-out African Savannah Rhino-whore? Not when you’ve been through what I’ve been through man.

As the wise old saying goes; You go through life being told there's justice, then you learn the only real justice...is the justice you take – Eric Cartman, philosopher/fat kid.

Better watch your back officer—Man Abroad doesn't care how endangered you are.

The Shape of Tits to Come

H.G. Wells, damn his Nostradamus-like vision, got it horrifyingly right. The future not only is bleak and controlled by gay looking robots, but it’s fat. With a crazy Chilean Grandma that forced a dozen meals down my throat everyday I developed an out of control eating disorder that pushed my body from Dream Boat to Dream Tug Boat in only three months. The Farm Phase is now over—I loved it and could easily have stayed longer, but within another three months the full transition to Arse Bagged Gringo would have been complete and irreversible. Now that I am On The Road, I plan on getting back to The Body with nature’s greatest eating regulator: Beer, and pints of it. All this Fat business was totally unexpected, I had imagined that after three months on the farm I would be a Ripped One Man Army, only let down by an expected, vomit-in-the-mouth-like farmers tan. But I was wrong, horribly, horribly wrong.


This horrendous image would have been reality in three more months — I fed the facts into my Future Reading Mac Widget and this open handed hit to the face is what I got. I had plans to do push-ups everyday during my Farm Period when I woke up or just before going to bed. I swore to myself (quite strongly) that I would do it and to not do it would make me a massive pussy. I even swore on more powerful things to ensure I did it. I knew that swearing to God or his tradie son would be as fruitless as swearing to that toothless old ‘human crease’ peasant in the next town or his bitch-titted, cross-eyed grandson. So I made the foolish mistake of swearing on my Killer Six Pack that if, after three months of Farm Life, I hadn’t achieved the predicted Fat Guns And Sweet-As Chest Pack Combo Set then I could kiss the sixer goodbye. And guess what fucking happened? But dammit man, there were just too many hurdles to overcome:

ONE: I couldn’t do push-ups before I went to bed because I usually had only just finished gorging myself and simply bending over forced open that little throat valve thing letting a little semi-digested, burny sopaipilla back into the mouth.

TWO: Exercise in the morning? Let’s be serious, when I wake up in the morning I’d rather make out with one of the dirty farm piglets. I barely have enough energy to knock out a slash let alone chesties.

THREE: I could have done them outside whenever I liked, yes, that is true. But to get caught by my Chilean Grandfather lying face down behind the chicken shed panting would have required an explanation I don’t think I could construct in Spanish, resulting in an admission-of-guilt-like shrug and even more embarrassing dinner table silences.

FOUR: Why not do them in the safety of your room then, I hear you ask? Well, smart arse, this house is made from wood that is at most 2cm thick meaning that if a spider farts in a cupboard on the other side of the house, not only can you hear and feel it, but you can smell it too. If I was to knock out my former Glory Number of 80 push-ups (and I’m talking straight back, nose to the floor type to any of you dick-bags that think you can do way more of your Fairy Taebo Push-ups), upstairs in my room, with the door shut, the odd mixture of squeaking floorboards and heavy breathing would have upset my Catholic Chilean Grandparents no end.

See what I mean? My hands were tied! As a result I found myself foiled by myself with the devastating outcome of Farm Fed Love Handles and some sort of Skin Blanket obscuring my once Mega Six Pack (that was well on it’s way to an Advance Level Eight Pack).


Men's Health: The Man Abroad Body. 
THIS was what was supposed to happen after three months working like a bitch on the farm (except that gunshot wound of a belly button — it’s like a fucking walk-in pantry!). The plan was to roll into Buenos Aires with a six pack you could wash clothes on and a pair of Man Plates than you could herd cattle with and reap the plethora of rewards (free drinks, random high-fives in the street, beating off chicks with my Farm Fashioned Fighting Sticks and more).


But have a look at this for God’s sake — I noted a normal Tuesday intake. Sure it was an exceptional day and I did a tough-as three hour bike ride but Bitch Please. Back then I could have eaten Oprah under the table. If you can't read it, click it for largeness moron, and prepare to be amazed.


I was staring down the Barrel of Fatness with no hope of escape. The future looked big and bleak. What would I have done after the Farm Phase? Taking my fat arse to Buenos Aires was not an option. I even considered moving to Hollywood to capitalise on my forthcoming obesity, earning millions as an the on-screen subject of ridicule. If you're going to be a fat fucker, you may as well be rich. But would they see my remarkable inner talent or just use me for my entertaining Man Breasts and Kodiak Bear Breadbasket? I can almost see it now with my amazing powers of foreskin; The League of Extraordinarily Fat Gentlemen — myself and various other untalented Obesitians (that's what fatties are called right?) driving around in a (reinforced) truck solving crime in between butter-loaded meals.

But fortunately, with the Man Abroad South American Odyssey Part II behind me, and with glorious farm bread out of reach, I am already returning to my former Splendor (aided by the substantial bundle I dropped during the earthquake).