One-millionth

xxxx Okay, okay, so it is true. I am doing worse job than fucking Mikey in keeping realgem real. (Get it?)

Perhaps some of the occasional visitors who still get lost here are wondering what happened to fucking Mikey? Well, he is alive... We must remember the function of the blog also as a method for old friends and family wanting to know the news, like this. Look, here he is: What?!? That webcam has been running all this time? Even when I... That time when...? Jesus God.

In the shadows, we plot our return. The phrase "oleagenous omega male" has stuck in our mind and we wish we could forget it. Other snippets include: Colby Buzzell (God, Americans have funny names) of "My War" milblog fame (there is nothing there now but rave reviews of My War: Killing Time in Iraq) has his book out, and since then, Esquire have sent the lad on assignment here to Londonistan, to write story about graffiti artist Banksy (why Banksy? Someone asked just now whether this stuff (scroll down) was by Banksy - no, that's by Arofish, who have done his stencil art on walls in Baghdad and Gaza strip, being arrested by US Army for anti-Coalition graffiti, as well as the South London tunnel which is his sketchbook), as well as a few pieces on the war itself. His writing style, idiosyncratic like fucking Mikey's, pleases us; and Esquire, in general, is a fine magazine. I wonder how conscious the wish was that the war would make him as a writer? (Because the wish was there - certainly - though how conscious, if at all, we don't know. More on this idea later, using example from fucking Mikey's life.)

I know how this grates on Mikey. He has many times complained about the... about this, how you say? Modern life. How there is nothing, nothing to do which will put him in physical danger, test his wits to their limits, force him to think sharp, force him to deal with people well (psychology, psychology); challenge him on every side. To the point that (I know this because I hear him on telephone speaking about it today) he would like to be spy, like to be special forces, like to be war correspondent, some boyish adventure fantasy like this. Instead, he say, he have no choice but to dull his mind with opiates. And similarly, this purgatory of addiction, and the challenge of maintaining functioning meanwhile, gives him sense of extreme experience with the masses unshared which he crave for.

I am glad to say, though, there are signs of many improvement. He is even considering taking up writing again ("You're a writer? What a limited remit..." I have heard him say, on other hand.) Here is the danger (do not take this lightly) of one who achieves their dreams (humble as they may have been) and then... and then what? What is there to do else? No, I think he is waking up to find new dreams. Paradoxy as that may sound. But he has lost his desire to record all on the flickering page, one confessional among a million; and the story does nothing but repeat itself. Nor will this ever become a collection of links, but some other form it must assume. The experiment in citizen journalism. The experiment.

Other snippets include: Pete Doherty shooting heroin in the tabloids. Oh, he have picked up the needle. Some months ago it was still the foil. Look, Peter, what will happen to your arms (and then your hands, and then your feet, and then your legs). And remember to enjoy while it lasts.


(Funny story apropos this: the former gentleman landlord ask Doc O, after Mikey moved house, "How did he manage to get blood on the ceiling?" Doc O had to explain: after the veins in the forearm collapse, there is method whereby you swing your arm around around (thus spraying blood from any previous missed hits) to force all blood into hands, then pull belt tight around wrist and jab one of the bulging veins.)

And Indigobusiness, though he cannot acquire the taste for Jagermeister, now has blog devoted solely to absinthe. It is a fine drink, but remember to find the one which has high wormwood (I believe thujone? is the psychoactive) content. Indigobusiness is the one who kindly designed the glowing green realgem heading, by the way; I have added a thank-you to that effect at the bottom of the page.