Silent Noises

You can call in sick for flu,for migraines,for broken bones.

But not for an argument
between your coffee and your colon.

So you sit,and you sweat,and you bargain with the gods

Hours later,friends debate.

Whether Claude is a more caring companion,
whether ordinary lives, might truely be extraordinary.

The body recovers,the conversation does not.

We are three men.
We own no barrows.
But we are the Barrow Boys.

Services include:

Moving large volumes of material, slowlyProviding inconsistent motivationOffering unsolicited life advice mid-taskOccasional concrete work (results may vary)Barrow not included.

Somewhere between reviewing a year of “self-improvement” and admitting we mostly just noticed our own bullshit more clearly, things unravel.
We talk habits, lies, growth, doomscrolling, leadership, running, not running, reading, not reading, and the strange realization that paying attention to your life is both the solution and the problem.

Client Feedback:
“Work was completed eventually.
Morale was confusingly high.
Would not hire again, but would have a beer with them.”

Bring on 2026.
The Barrow Boys are ready.
(Still no barrow.)

A man stands in a forest car park,He came here for peace.
He brought mindfulness, a towel he forgot, and a brain that will not shut up.

The pool is closed. The towel is missing.
The togs are imagined, a bird sings.
Somewhere a grown man screams into the steering wheel of a station wagon.

Ancient philosophers spoke of the cup overflowing.
These ones speak of the chest gently folding over itself like a wise and patient croissant.

Because depth, is not measured in silence, meditation, or perfect routines.

Depth is measured in small collapses. In failed self-care days.
In forgetting the towel. In sitting in a car park asking and eventually realising:

A man is not defined by the absence of folds.

A man is only as deep as his titty roll.

Three men plan a bank heist in full drag.
One brings hot dogs.
One brings yak musk.
None bring a plan.

Colossal testicles, transgender butter, and a four-day no-wipe streak, a hotel fire alarm goes off.
Thirteen floors.
Bare feet on Auckland pavement.
No hot water.
No dignity.

A man whittles a stool he may or may not have made.
Another meditates mid-defecation.
Someone suggests butthole print scanning technology.
We all agree potatoes are not a complete solution.

This is about carving meaning out of nonsense.
About shaping chaos into something small enough to hold.
About rollerblading away from your own incompetence in a Beyoncé mask.

American Bonsai.
Carefully trimmed.
Deeply unnecessary.
Beautiful.

Toothbrush slander, cinnamon-on-toast propaganda, and a few catastrophic poo stories quickly unravels into a full buffet of chaos. There’s talk of cringe moments that still haunt us, and a multi-layered debate on fiber intake that would make any dietician resign on the spot. We debut a new segment, The Motion Has Been Passed and pitch a totally unhinged business idea: a late-night food truck called The Savaloy Wagon.

Eventually things settle into habits, laziness, fasting, Greek yogurt, resilience, reading, boredom, and an unwanted Facebook Marketplace feud. There’s a weight-loss challenge, a creativity challenge, and more anatomical oversharing than anyone asked for. It’s deranged, warm and occasionally useful. Just a classic week with the Savaloy Boys.

First-root confessions reveal a fishing village fiasco involving a tarp and a tea towel which slowly unravel into something uncomfortably human. It’s the full emotional arc: filth, laughter, and more tangents than anyone asked for. There the usual chat of heavy sets, budding bosoms, sleepless nights, and magnesium, before the conversation turns toward fathers, forgiveness, and the gravity of having kids.

By the end, things get raw. The jokes run out, the beers go quiet, and the Beef himself sheds a tiny, heroic tear.

It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s long, and it’s one of our best.

Buckle up.

A pub table near the toilets. Bad choices are made immediately, and defended passionately. There’s talk of zombies, furries, screen addictions, heavy nuts, gratitude, and fathers who didn’t quite show up. The tone shifts like a drunk jukebox — earnest, dumb, briefly profound, then dumb again.

Someone almost redeems themselves with a quote about facing death; someone else ruins it with the phrase “tattooable quote.” A small mercy is found somewhere between honesty and idiocy, and for now, that’s enough.

Somewhere between karaoke, introspection, and shaving small rodents, the lads accidentally stumble into a metaphor for modern life. From being “guinea pigs” in a punishing workshop to exploring the existential terror of actual guinea pigs, the conversation spirals through vulnerability, karaoke bar rules, and the occasional unsolicited dressing-down.

By the time they reach fasting, meditation, and Ronald Redford’s thoughts on failure, things start to make alarming sense. It’s a loose-limbed mix of friendship, philosophy, and faint regret — proof that enlightenment can sometimes arrive disguised as a trembling rodent with a well-maintained arse.

It starts as a round of forced compliments quickly spirals into open-eyed kissing techniques, vomit bombs out car windows, and an unnecesary comment regarding a boot and a trunk. We detour through homemade shoehorns, underwear pouches, Donald Ducking, and the mash-up nobody asked for: Meatloaf meets Beethoven, a.k.a. Meathoven.

From bodybuilding bronzer mishaps to the fine art of shitting before a marathon, the episode drifts between habits, heavy nuts(lies), Metamucil confessions, and the occasional attempt at Stoic wisdom. It’s heartfelt in places, ridiculous in most, and the kind of conversation that leaves you both dumber and strangely motivated.

One of us gets absolutely steamrolled by the flu and possibly karma, while the other relives a childhood prank so cowardly it still haunts him. There’s a decent amount of diarrhea talk—don’t worry, it’s metaphorical (mostly)—plus real attempts to make sense of those fragile moments when everything feels pointless, worthless, or just plain gross.

We wrestle with identity, resilience, the mental load of parenting, and the existential weirdness of being someone’s child and someone’s dad at the same time. Also: bad poetry, good Stoics, and a few unhinged thoughts about toothpaste. It's a mess. But a hopeful one.

And if you’ve ever tried to power through a mental health spiral using nothing but willpower and a hot water bottle—this one’s for you.

https://substack.com/@nickbeefman⁠

⁠https://medium.com/@nickbeefman