[blank post]
smoke can lie
if not blown equally in each eye
30.12.07
Deeper and deeper in a happy world in the middle of the day
Lying head on the table. I could hear the scratching of a pen on paper, the regular clink and thud of a glass being lifted and put down again. I watched an ant struggle in spilled water. The background chatter of conversation and the occasional clatter of cutlery on china came in broken waves, part drowned out in sine-wave interference. An occasional shouted order behind the counter.
I’d actually been in a good mood when I’d decided to kill myself. It had seemed like a sort of groovy idea at the time. I’d sat there with the hosepipe through the car window and the engine on, singing Beautiful Sunday to myself, humming the bits I couldn’t remember, while the car filled with exhaust fumes.
Then I sneezed violently and a ball of bad thoughts flew out of my nose. I thought ‘Fuck this,’ got out of the car and went to find the closest bar. Then memory sort of fades, but for disturbing and vague dreams and visions: a big toe splits open and peels away revealing an eye which blinks and surveys the room...
Now somewhere, depressed and wretched, head on a restaurant table. But where? I wasn’t interested in finding out.
A hand appeared, hesitated, wiped away the spilt water and the ant with what looked like a wet kitten, disappeared. Uncertain pause. Then a voice, inquiring, perfunctory, unconcerned.
‘Are you alright, sir?’
Carefully now. This is the genius of the madman; like a chessmaster, my mind flicked through all the responses open to me and possible reactions thereto. What was the bare minimum I needed to say to make him leave me alone?
‘Yeah. Fine. Another one, please.’
...
::::::
realgem: the story finally continues, or what?
I’d actually been in a good mood when I’d decided to kill myself. It had seemed like a sort of groovy idea at the time. I’d sat there with the hosepipe through the car window and the engine on, singing Beautiful Sunday to myself, humming the bits I couldn’t remember, while the car filled with exhaust fumes.
Then I sneezed violently and a ball of bad thoughts flew out of my nose. I thought ‘Fuck this,’ got out of the car and went to find the closest bar. Then memory sort of fades, but for disturbing and vague dreams and visions: a big toe splits open and peels away revealing an eye which blinks and surveys the room...
Now somewhere, depressed and wretched, head on a restaurant table. But where? I wasn’t interested in finding out.
A hand appeared, hesitated, wiped away the spilt water and the ant with what looked like a wet kitten, disappeared. Uncertain pause. Then a voice, inquiring, perfunctory, unconcerned.
‘Are you alright, sir?’
Carefully now. This is the genius of the madman; like a chessmaster, my mind flicked through all the responses open to me and possible reactions thereto. What was the bare minimum I needed to say to make him leave me alone?
‘Yeah. Fine. Another one, please.’
...
::::::
realgem: the story finally continues, or what?
Messages from across time
Skinny manic figure in a lab coat rummaging through the clothes outside the charity shop door.
-are you a doctor?
-no, I'm a mad scientist.
-mad scientist? Biochemist or something?
-psychopharmacist.
-here, look at these books… do you want this book?
Take them away from their context and these people become too flat to be visible. (but who knows what mind-blowing dimensions a nondescript someone, a vague irritating presence, could develop in the right context?)
They (all of those people, who take that stuff), they say "we" instead of "I" - like they're speaking for a hive.
(A hive is like a… like ants or bees, social insects all together - they have a hive mind - one ant is stupid but a million together are intelligent , I explain. Yes, just like Brazilians, she says. You put ten together and they look smarter. Together we're really intelligent.)
Oh no, the laptop's on... the ants have been at the internet again, looking up formulas for explosives and manuals on robotics... they're up to something...
[20,000 years down the line humans have evolved, but ants have come a long way too… they have recently been granted limited civil rights, like the legal right for each hive to own currency and work for a living, though no protection against an individual ant being squashed arbitrarily… they buy miniaturised computer gadgets… mad scientists programme pheromonal virtual reality entertainment and the ants rush to buy… the mutation of their culture is incredibly fast… as a virtual and commercial entity, a hive will demonstrate an endearingly eccentric personality
people peeled back, layers of reality peeled away… circuits and a sense of movement beneath…]
-are you a doctor?
-no, I'm a mad scientist.
-mad scientist? Biochemist or something?
-psychopharmacist.
-here, look at these books… do you want this book?
Take them away from their context and these people become too flat to be visible. (but who knows what mind-blowing dimensions a nondescript someone, a vague irritating presence, could develop in the right context?)
They (all of those people, who take that stuff), they say "we" instead of "I" - like they're speaking for a hive.
(A hive is like a… like ants or bees, social insects all together - they have a hive mind - one ant is stupid but a million together are intelligent , I explain. Yes, just like Brazilians, she says. You put ten together and they look smarter. Together we're really intelligent.)
Oh no, the laptop's on... the ants have been at the internet again, looking up formulas for explosives and manuals on robotics... they're up to something...
[20,000 years down the line humans have evolved, but ants have come a long way too… they have recently been granted limited civil rights, like the legal right for each hive to own currency and work for a living, though no protection against an individual ant being squashed arbitrarily… they buy miniaturised computer gadgets… mad scientists programme pheromonal virtual reality entertainment and the ants rush to buy… the mutation of their culture is incredibly fast… as a virtual and commercial entity, a hive will demonstrate an endearingly eccentric personality
people peeled back, layers of reality peeled away… circuits and a sense of movement beneath…]
A note of appreciation to whoever
Hot cold hot cold hot cold hot cold
I watch the false dawn and then the dawn, windows full of winter sky.
She's soft and warm. Mumbles in a dream and holds on to me tight. I'm soaked in poison sweat of nightmares, my skin crawls, I twitch and shiver and kick. She doesn't mind.
I watch the dawn, window full of sky, her breaths measuring time, reassuring me that it's still passing. Time heals all troubles.
"Sometimes, give also thanks to God..." (Falakzeb the pimp and drug dealer)
I watch the false dawn and then the dawn, windows full of winter sky.
She's soft and warm. Mumbles in a dream and holds on to me tight. I'm soaked in poison sweat of nightmares, my skin crawls, I twitch and shiver and kick. She doesn't mind.
I watch the dawn, window full of sky, her breaths measuring time, reassuring me that it's still passing. Time heals all troubles.
"Sometimes, give also thanks to God..." (Falakzeb the pimp and drug dealer)
25.12.07
Out of context
I'm not meant to be here.
I'm meant to be somewhere where there is some call for my gallows humour and ability to somehow keep smiling in the face of the sickest horror.
Will we see guerilla warfare and total social breakdown on the streets of London in our lifetimes?
It is difficult to imagine, but I ask many people that question, and am surprised at how many intelligent, reasoned and non-apocalyptic people say yes...
We will be quite well-stationed here... bounded on two sides by railway embankments and on one by a row of houses, the outward windows of which can be sandbagged... we would seize the abandoned signal-master's junction
house, one machine gun there... another two in top corner windows to cover the sole access onto the street... the beautiful garden in the middle an oasis of peace and calm and a source of vegetables and food, with maybe a mortar emplacement hidden in the rose bushes...
I'm desperately looking forward to it...
1.12.07
Barry Adamson at the South Bank, reviewed in Big City Redneck: 'Still louche as fuck and the epitome of dark, laid back menace, Adamson’s set, - despite the overtly cultured instrumentation and surroundings- is still lyrically grounded in the shadow realms of hard drugs and hard knocks. “This is a song about gardening,” he states before launching into a swinging tale of crack use.' (Doc Otter, and photos by Lazy)
[ ... ]
time passes
[ ... ]
in some sort of nod to linear narrative: 'I went to a war zone and fell down some stairs'
and then something happened. i was enveloped in warmth and floating for quite a while. and i wake up to find, once again, horrifyingly, what small fortune i've flushed down the toilet of my veins this time.
oh it wasn't meant to happen this way again...
well it was fun while it lasted.
now make a point of experiencing everything very carefully to discover exactly what those things were again, those little pleasures that are meant to make life worth living... observe carefully and pass no judgement... and hold on wherever you find something warm and beautiful... whenever you find a moment where monstrous empty futility or the darkness and horror is unable to touch you...
time passes
[ ... ]
in some sort of nod to linear narrative: 'I went to a war zone and fell down some stairs'
and then something happened. i was enveloped in warmth and floating for quite a while. and i wake up to find, once again, horrifyingly, what small fortune i've flushed down the toilet of my veins this time.
oh it wasn't meant to happen this way again...
well it was fun while it lasted.
now make a point of experiencing everything very carefully to discover exactly what those things were again, those little pleasures that are meant to make life worth living... observe carefully and pass no judgement... and hold on wherever you find something warm and beautiful... whenever you find a moment where monstrous empty futility or the darkness and horror is unable to touch you...