Your dose of literature for today

"Selling is more of a habit than using," Lupita says...

Nonusing pushers have a contact habit, and that's one
you can't kick. Agents get it too. Take Bradley the
Buyer. Best narcotics agent in the industry. Anyone
would make him for junk. (Note: Make in the sense of
dig or size up. ) I mean he can walk up to a pusher and
score direct. He is so anonymous, grey and spectral the
pusher don't remember him afterwards. So he twists
one after the other....
Well the Buyer comes to look more and more like
a junky. He can't drink. He can't get it up. His teeth
fall out. (Like pregnant women lose their teeth feeding
the stranger, junkies lose their yellow fangs feeding the
monkey. ) He is all the time sucking on a candy bar.
Baby Ruths he digs special. "It really disgust you to see
the Buyer sucking on them candy bars so nasty," a cop
says.
The Buyer takes on an ominous grey-green color.
Fact is his body is making its own junk or equivalent.
The Buyer has a steady connection. A Man Within you
might say, Or so he thinks. "I'll just set in my room," he
says. "Fuck 'em all. Squares on both sides. I am the only
complete man in the industry."
But a yen comes on him like a great black wind
through the bones. So the Buyer hunts up a young
junky and gives him a paper to make it.
"Oh all right," the boy says. "So what you want to
make?"
"I just want to rub up against you and get fixed."
"Ugh... Well all right.... But why cancha just get
physical like a human?"
Later the boy is sitting in a Waldorf with two col-
leagues dunking pound cake. "Most distasteful thing I
ever stand still for," he says. "Some way he make him-
self all soft like a blob of jelly and surround me so nasty.
Then he gets wet all over like with green slime. So I
guess he come to some kinda awful climax.... I come
near wigging with that green stuff all over me, and he
stink like a old rotten cantaloupe."
"Well it's still an easy score."
The boy sighed resignedly; "Yes, I guess you can
get used to anything. I've got a meet with him again
tomorrow."
The Buyer's habit keeps getting heavier. He needs
a recharged every half hour. Sometimes he cruises the
precincts and bribes the turnkey to let him in with a
cell of junkies. It get to where no amount of contact
will fix him. At this point he receives a summons from
the District Supervisor:
"Bradley, your conduct has given rise to rumors -- and
I hope for your sake they are no more than that -- so
unspeakably distasteful that... I mean Caesar's wife
...hrump... that is, the Department must be above
suspicion... certainly above such suspicions as you
have seemingly aroused. You are lowering the entire
tone of the industry. We are prepared to accept your
immediate resignation."
The Buyer throws himself on the ground and crawls
over to the D.S. "No, Boss Man, no... The Department
is my very lifeline."
He kisses the D.S.'s hand thrusting his fingers into his
mouth (the D.S. must feel his toothless gums) com-
plaining he has lost his teeth "inna thervith." "Please
Boss Man. I'll wipe your ass, I'll wash out your dirty
condoms, I'll polish your shoes with the oil on my
nose....
"Really, this is most distasteful11 Have you no pride?
I must tell you I feel a distinct revulsion. I mean there
is something, well, rotten about you, and you smell like
a compost heap." He put a scented handkerchief in
front of his face. "I must ask you to leave this office at
once.
"I'll do anything, Boss, anything." His ravaged green
face splits in a horrible smile. "I'm still young, Boss,
and I'm pretty strong when I get my blood up."
The D.S. retches into his handkerchief and points to
the door with a limp hand. The Buyer stands up looking
at the D.S. dreamily. His body begins to dip like a
dowser's wand. He Bows forward....
"No! No!" screams the D.S.
"Schlup... schlup schlup." An hour later they find
the Buyer on the nod in the D.S.'s chair. The D.S. has
disappeared without a trace.
The Judge: "Everything indicates that you have, in
some unspeakable manner uh... assimilated the Dis-
trict Supervisor. Unfortunately there is no proof. I would
recommend that you be confined or more accurately
contained in some institution, but I know of no place
suitable for a man of your caliber. I must reluctantly
order your release."
"That one should stand in an aquarium," says the
arresting officer.
The Buyer spreads terror throughout the industry.
Junkies and agents disappear. Like a vampire bat he
gives off a narcotic effluvium, a dank green mist that
anesthetizes his victims and renders them helpless in his
enveloping presence. And once he has scored he holes
up for several days like a gorged boa constrictor. Finally
he is caught in the act of digesting the Narcotics Com-
missioner and destroyed with a flame thrower -- the court
of inquiry ruling that such means were justified in that
the Buyer had lost his human citizenship and was, in
consequence, a creature without species and a menace
to the narcotics industry on all levels.

-Naked Lunch (William Seward Burroughs)

Doc Parker: "a man don't have no secrets from God and his druggist"

-Naked Lunch

[That's when you find yourself in the pharmacy to get morphines and MSTs and sedatives on a private embossed Harley Street script and Germoloids hydrocortisone hemorrhoid spray and itchyrash ointment and contact lens eyedrops and three packets of ultrathin condoms.]

The full text of Naked Lunch can be found here also with title in Cyrillic (Russian letters look like if they were made out of sharp steel would be vicious weapons) http://lib.ru/INPROZ/BERROUZ/naked.txt

Here it is with the introduction - Deposition: testimony concerning a sickness, and with the afterword, but more difficult to read layout. Columns of text are easiest on the eye when reading on a computer screen.
http://ontario.indymedia.org/twiki/bin/view/Ontario/WilliamSBurroughssNAKEDLUNCHFree

The score today

or, a chance for R&B, who was curious, to pick up some English squatting law

Court judgements in my favour 2 - the Opposition 0

So o, I am not talking about the football. Nor is this a reference to drugs. This is the endless delaying game in what is always the eventual loss in a legal battle (no, a legal squirm) for the order of possession on a squatted "illegally occupied" or "reclaimed for the community" building. I have addressed the court in possession hearings in more houses than I've ever lived in. I am constantly volunteered to do this because I wear shirts with collars and silver jewellery rather than cowrie shells and tie-dye. I don't even squat these days.

We are dealing with semi-literate hippies here so the appeal form which has been filled in on my behalf is an illegible scrawl. I address the county court judge to outline our appeal for the right to make an appeal (yes, I think that's right). Mr Edgeley and Mr... whatever... oh yeah, Peter Serber, but you might recognise him as the malung, ("can you get arrested for giving a false name?" Pete hisses too loudly "no, of course not" says Mr Mike Anderson)... and... where was I? This is all a bit sneaky, as we are appealing a decision made on Thursday, meaning there has been no time for the hearing papers to be served to the claimant's (ie. the Opposition) lawyers, meaning they are not present for the morning hearing.

The judge is convinced and decides to grant a new hearing. How long will you need? The judge offers two weeks, maximum. "Ah, four weeks..." I suggest "We have to apply for legal aid... Mr E___," I say, turning to him, sitting at the back of the room. "You recently applied for legal aid... how long did the application take?" I am expecting Mr E____ to say "Yes, um, about four or five weeks at least" or something. He starts telling the judge his life story.

A date is fixed for the last day of June. Medium-good result. Now off to the High Court after a leisurely wander through central London punctuated by stops for food and beverages. Mr E_____ smokes a joint and loses consciousness in Leicester Square so Dave Bones, no, ah, Pete Serber or Sherbert or whatever (where did that come from?) and I, Mike Anderson continue to where the Strand meets Fleet Street (where the subterranean River Fleet, completely built over in Victorian times, emptied into the Thames, leaving only street names like Anglers' Lane and Fleet Road as memories, and water can be heard rushing through certain hidden gratings) to the Royal Courts of Justice, housing the High Court, Queen's Bench division.

In county courts, the judges are "your honour". In the High Court, I check with the primly spectacled and badly needing a vicious fuck opposition lawyer (solicitor, not barrister), they are "master". The solicitor is outraged at the underhanded trick we have played on her and kidnaps my case papers to "call her sister". Whatever that means.

Master Leslie is the second most intimidating judge I have ever faced, after HH Armon-Jones of the peery-downy glasses and icy forbidding stare. A face of the British establishment, here, in a magnificent old complex of buildings which are the embodiment of the power of the British state. Earlier, we have sat in the gardens of the Inner Temple of the inns of law, another more ancient place of a similar nature. Judges can do this. Or good judges I suppose, the really intimidating ones... reduce you to a stammering wreck by the power of mind alone. None of this today. I feel, strangely, almost in my element. The master has no choice but to stay the eviction by High Court sheriffs until the appeal has been disposed of. Ha haa!

Inner Temple court (inner temple of what?)

The whole jolly crew of Mr Anderson, Mr Malung, the claimant's solicitor, and the two pleasant representatives from the claimant's company or trust (both of whom incurred the wrath of the master with their mobile phone beeping) tramp around the Royal Courts of Justice, looking for a photocopy machine. An intricately bizarre photocopy-machine bureaucracy which must date to the reign of King George II, many centuries ago, defeats us and we leave to find a photocopy shop outside.

I and the malung discuss Lao Tzu's The Art of War on the walk in the scorching sun. I am not sure we have followed all of Lao Tzu's precepts today. I have been to civil to the devious lawyer bitch. Mr Anderson and the solicitor end up going to her chambers to copy the requisite documents. The depraved Mr Anderson thinks he would be doing the world a favour by... no but anyway, the others are waiting outside.

This narrative has been interrupted by the return of Mr E____. After parting company with us in the afternoon, he slept in the sun, woke up, and immediately took the bus to Camden and gambled all his money away. Then he caught a bus back to the West End. On the bus he met an American lady lawyer who took him back to where she was staying, at the Hilton. After copious drinks, they end up in her room. However, the inevitable doesn't happen. The situation, as I understand it, is something like I've come across in neurotic, career-obsessed women like the aforementioned Mr Anderson's lawyer. At the last moment, the industrious government economist or whoever puts their head in their hands and its no! I can't do it! I still love ___! Or whatever. (Then why the fuck did you bring me to this disabled toilet and pull up your skirt and jump up on the baby nappy-changing table with your legs open? What was this all meant to demonstrate?) No, she is just lonely and Mr E____ gives her a hug and puts his shoes on.

A jolly day has been had by all. The squatters are pleased with the verdict.

(update: the Claimants have appealed to have the appeal heard at an earlier date than first agreed. The witness statement in support of the appeal uses some of the strongest language I've come across in such a document: Mr Anderson has abused the court system by not serving notice of the ex parte Monday appeal with the Claimants - not my responsibility - he is in no way authorised to represent the occupants or to address the High Court, he has no locus standi in law, etc etc.)

The property in dispute

The cold North

Finland's contribution to the Transmet future

Finland finally have win the Eurovision song contest with Lordi's Hard Rock Hallelujah (awfully lo-res video of their performance), threatening unbelievers with a day of rockening. After 51 years of really trying. After countless national-inferiority-complex-aggravating zero, more nil-scores than every other competing nation combined (don't quote that last statistic in any context demanding an accurate reference; it is merely a well-educated guess).

But there is other interesting stuff to come out of Finland lately, too.

This is the third week of the Helsingin Sanomat (Helsinki News, Finland's largest circulation broadsheet newspaper) reality videoblog competition: "Sinustako matkaopas - Could you be a travel guide?" (Note the laconic succinctness of the language.)

The premise is as follows: take five couples, send them all for a weekend in a randomly chosen European city, they each produce short videos about the city and post them to the blogit.hs.fi website, people vote by text message to eliminate one couple each week. Please to check some of the videos out; a selection presented below. They stream without delay. Seamless web design. Finnish technology.

The videos, my inside source told me, are done on a Nokia N91 phone, one of which is given to each couple, which not only records video to its internal hard drive, but edits it too, ready for broadcast. Revolutionary. Finnish technology.

Why do we like this so much? The videoblog competition is, for a start, something rather innovative for a traditional print newspaper of record to be doing with their website. Nokia have regained their edge in the mobile phone market. And it's all so very Transmet.

Transmetropolitan has been described here before - one of the most compelling and convincing dark future dystopias, in any medium. How much "speculative" sci-fi has - fuck warp drives or turbolasers - contemplated with any intelligence what the over-saturation of media, information and communications technology, combined with ubiquitous chemical self-programming, is doing to the human mind?

Foucault, Lyotard and their French post-modernist ilk indigestible? Read Transmet instead: hyper-reality and near-future anomie and alienation in glorious technicolour. Links: Warren Ellis (writer) interview, succinct Wired magazine obit for the ended series, plot summaries with disarmingly non-intellectualist commentary, Flash movie demonstrating the main character Spider Jerusalem's icy cool motherfucker-ness.

Selection of videos from the competition

Realising few of you will be conversant in Finnish, here is a selection of videos which may be appreciated nonetheless. These are from the first two weeks, encompassing first Amsterdam and then Berlin.

Vague psychedelia in Amsterdam... this couple's videos have without a doubt been the most creative, but apparently not to the taste of the puritan Finns, as they were just voted out in Oslo this weekend (the third couple to go) [update & correction: they're still in, head to head with my man Ukko from Rovaniemi in the finals]. The girl's face distorted strangely by a multiple reflection is saying "don't smoke wacky-baccy... beware the wacky-baccy... oh, don't touch them jazz cigarettes..."

Another of theirs... A stroke of true genius, this is the talking thumb guide-book (instantly recalling the Hitch-Hiker's Guide). Its Amsterdam entry says: "It is good to remember that you can do other things in Amsterdam apart from hallucinate in a cafe. If you want your own windmill, remember to have at least 4m euros handy. You will also need a license. Your own window on the red-light street will cost you 350 euros per day. More than anything, you should just enjoy this land of strangely speaking funny people. Have a nice day."

In this clip from Berlin, a female contestant does a brilliant impersonation of Inspector Harjunpaa (the two last "a"s are meant to have dots on top), the archetypal Finnish TV cop.

Again in Berlin, watch this if you wish to learn both the Finnish and the German for the following phrases: where are my sausages?, I have a beer in my leather trousers, I'm hungry, let's eat some ice-cream, where is the nearest cock-fight, please?, and vote for the best, vote for #1!

My old friend Ukko (this is a rare and etymologically fascinating name, meaning both "old git", "geezer" or "[old] man", as well as being the thunder-god of the ancient pagan Finns) has taken a hard journalism route; no fucking around with psychedelics in Amsterdam or with 2-litre German beer steins. Here he interviews former Finnish Prime Minister Esko Aho at the airport (who doesn't say anything interesting, but he has uniquely loveable eyebrows), and here, a possibly boring video which ends on a cheerful bi-lingual double-entendre: the statue they are leaning on is inscribed "Multatuli", Finnish for "I just came! (or should that be cummed, in correct internet porno-speak?) I just jizzed!"

Ukko was a junior sergeant in the military police. Come wartime, it would be his job to round up deserters from the glorious Finnish army like fucking Mikey and shoot him. Unfortunately, he lost his job after giving an interview revealing pacifist, anarchist and dope-smoking tendencies to an alternative Helsinki newspaper. Equally unfortunately, around the same time the Finnish Army lost several valuable super-bright high-pressure arc lights (ideal for growing cannabis indoors) from a firing range which junior sergeant Ukko's detachment was guarding. As it happens, U's old man is a psychiatrist, and when Mikey still had a Finnish passport (he can lay claim to no less than four passports, just like your humble scribe) and he got a letter from the government the other day, opened it and read it and said they were suckers... they wanted me for their army or whatever, picture me giving a damn, I said never... he declared that gutter-trash unfit for service on mental health grounds, right there and then, in a MacDonald's in the underground shopping-centre beneath Helsinki's central railway station.

Largely spurious mental health grounds, and unnecessary, as Mikey did a runner to the safety of the warmer climes he was dragged up in (the story is referenced here, in the book review towards the end of the post, of The Dice Man for "Life-Changing Books"; the first confirmed piece of writing attributed to Ishmael Smith). Once, Mikey was detained at the airport while visiting Hell... sinki for stupidly using the wrong passport to enter the country (this was before Schengen) and almost being arrested for AWOL'ism. Now, those mental health grounds have become quite real... evidenced by the fact that if it happened again, the stupid fucker would actually probably volunteer for service, despite being almost too old by now, provided he got to be a helicopter door-gunner and got sent on active duty, peace-keeping in Kosovo or something.
(The flag; the Monty Python Finland song is available for illegal download here. Do the righ-click "save link as" procedure.)

(shotgun art, William S. Burroughs)

(Kenneth Anger)

"Lazy" has set himself the discipline of putting up at least one good item here every day, and so it is frustrating for him end this day, still with nothing new here. Especially as there is so much, so much interesting material in store. My friend, it's easy: approach it like cooking. Get the ingredients in front of you (the pictures, the text), prepare them and chop them up, and combine them in the correct manner...

Here is a page about the swastika (the "I'm not a Nazi swastika gallery"). There are some beautiful variations and interpretations of this ancient and powerful symbol.

Some of the swastikas link to further pages. Under the pro-Nazi swastikas, I hope you took the opportunity to click on the Thule Society symbol which leads to a readable article about the Thule Geselleschaft (with just one or two insignificant historical inaccuracies). This is of interest on realgem due to the way it demonstrates the extent to which occult societies shaped early Nazi and thereby almost the whole world's history. The article mentions the Occult Bureau within war-time MI5 (the Rudolf Hess gig would probably have been one of their projects - it is not mentioned in the Wikipedia article, but his flight to Britain was largely prompted by spurious astrological forecasts fed to him by British intelligence), and notes that the independence of the USA was a Masonic project. This, in turn, takes us to Skull & Bones and Bohemian Grove territory (the latter a link to Alex Jones's site... a bizarre combination of fascinating hard journalism and breathlessly earnest conspiracy nut - obligatory credibility disclaimer and statement of skepticism; I am after all, an academic essayist and journalist of some standing)
- the continuing influence of occult or quasi-occult organisations in the highest corridors of power. While we are on the subject you may wish to poke around the internet (or avail yourself of this link) for the Kay Griggs interview (former wife of an abusive and alcoholic high-up Special Forces and PsyOps officer with dirty secrets). The use of homosexual intimidation / initiation in the military / political elite which she describes relates to our Imperial British project (rum, sodomy and the lash... le vice anglais etc...)

This is a continuing realgem theme, as I gently steer Lazy away from his junkie narcissism. My own little distraction at the moment ("yes, I've written a few trifling monographs on the subject ...") is the sketching out of the notes for a historical epic, perhaps a trilogy of novels, revealing or darkly hinting at the black magic rotten heart of the British Empire (carrying on the mantle of the Romans; now passed on to the Americans).

THE EMPIRE NEVER DIED. (VALIS)

MAKE NO MISTAKE, A BLACK IRON CAGE SURROUNDS US

THE CURE

preamble, or: why doesn't nardac like me anymore?

Look in the sidebar - there is a blog called Holy Smokes!!!, kept by one NARDAC, one of my first blogging friends/acquaintances [then why didn't you know that she is on nardac.blogsome, fool - I.:.S.:.], and the only one to guess correctly in the realgem competition (the knife photo referred to can be seen here - scroll down a little). First she linked me, then she didn't, then she did again, then she didn't. Why? She told me once, in no uncertain words, that I should MOVE THE FUCK ON from whingeing about a) my addiction and b) the woman I married who broke my heart (but that was all a good long time ago), and just write good old stories like I used to. I can't find the original email conveying this sentiment, so instead, I reproduce an example of the charming sort of thing I used to leave in her comments section ages ago, the point being - how can NARDAC possibly not like me?

"And, it's true...Paris has put me to the test but I am now officially bilingual."[says Nardac, who lives in Paris]

My deepest respect and admiration and thank you very many! Every one of us Anglophone who learn to speaking other language make good karma for the cursed Anglo-Saxon English-speaking planetary cancer! May God blessing you! Thank you please!

--
Posted by M to holy smokes!!! at 2/18/2005 05:05:21 PM

I am getting the valium-sodden sensation of circling and circling the point I want to make, without quite being able to... Why do I bring this up? Because here is ONE MORE POST about the HEROIN, and there is ONE MORE POST about THAT WOMAN, and then, onto other things.

the cure

My head is spinning, my head is all a vortex of difficult-to-express emotions and ideas, all vying for pre-eminence. I have... I am... I am here to write about IBOGAINE, "the cure" of the title. The cure for my heroin addiction, detailed throughout this blog, but perhaps best through April 2005 (not a great deal to scan through). Have no doubt I have been to the ends of desperation, have no doubt I've been to hell, have no doubt I have been ever so near to death by my own hand.


I have spent all day researching this miraculous African root-bark, this heavy shamanic hallucinogen, this healer-god in vegetable form. I have spent hours on the telephone with some of the leading specialists in its therapeutic use. The best-written summary of what it's all about is in this article, headed 'The Dreaming', reproduced from the Independent on Sunday (London) in 1999. While the information is now dated, and there are now more practitioners using it in the UK and Europe (though still not many), it is a fine piece of writing, a great piece of feature-writing, and incidentally, wins a prize for the best use of a William S Burroughs quote in a quality broadsheet feature article ever.

My head is spinning: with sheer joy and relief; with a near-religious awe; with gratitude to the people (particularly Edward Conn) who took the time to speak to me today; with sadness; and anger, fierce and burning; these, and many other things - most of all, perhaps sheer information overload. And so I don't know how to write about this at all. Read the IoS article.

I knew about ibogaine before. I knew it was a shamanic psychedelic used by certain African tribes, which by accident, a New York junkie in 1969 discovered had the property of instantly curing the Sickness.

It is expensive, whether I choose to obtain some myself, or sign up for therapy. Does not matter. No obstacle at all. I have faith in it, and nothing else matters.

It is not necessarily a pleasant experience. It strips down your ego, cleans and oils the parts, and reassembles it.

It can remove 85-100 per cent of withdrawal symptoms in one night.

It has been described by some psychiatric specialists as "10 years of therapy in one night".

It has been known about in the West for over 35 years now. Why is it illegal in the USA, and not receiving the attention it should elsewhere?

If you were a pharmaceuticals giant in the business of making chemicals for drug "rehabilitation", which would you market - a pill that does the cure in one night, or a substitute medication like methadone or LAAM that leads to long-term "stability" (as the "experts" call it - a placid, law-abiding, comfortable, never-ending narcotic stupor)? The LAW WOULD REQUIRE YOU to maximise profits for the shareholders and choose methadone. Choose life... no... choose a half-life... forever... for millions of people you don't know... married to the methadone molecule, til death do us part. And the dollars keep rolling in.

That's where the anger comes from, and sometimes, anger can save.

I swear, I swear by the spirits of enforced wakefulness, by the things you see from the corners of your eyes when you would kill for something to put you to sleep and end the suffering, that I will heal myself and become powerful once more. And then I will fight them, fight the greedy fucking bastards, punish the deserving, fight them 'til I die.

And best of all, confused as lazy still may be, realgem is back! realgem endures...

:::coming up on realgem:::

-that was the last heroin post (pace NARDAC); now the last post about that woman
-more on the occult history of the British Empire
-the coolest man on Earth
-the best Sunday hang-out in London
-books and journalism review
-and much, much more...

The most beautiful girl in the world

Playing for Time: or, The great cop-out

if you have ended up on this page by chance like many do with bizarre google search terms like "rules for fuck buddies" or "heroin addict journalist experiment" - or because of fucking Mikey's liberal commenting on Helsingin Sanomat, Finland's paper of record's genius reality weblog competition - click around in the realgem archives, that's where the good stuff is.

meanwhile, lazy and ishmael are racing each other to produce a splurge of vintage realgem shit like it used to be.

the problem is not a lack of material; no. we could fill pages and pages and pages effortlessly. but there is something holding that back, perhaps our well-documented fear of information overload; nothing but some sort of rudimentary sense of duty has motivated page-filler for a good while now... and look at, say, something from Feb to Oct 2005; we seem to recall that was a reasonable good spell. upcoming is also a set of side-bar links to classic posts.

editorial policy is changing focus from quality(?) to quantity, the "throw stuff at the wall and something will stick" or "throw enough hash crumbs in the fishtank and at least one of the goldfish will get stoned" school of thought.

publish and be damned, for ye are damned already

at the moment, I realise, professionally I serve as a condenser of information
and at best, as a generator of what Brian disapprovingly called "slick, well-oiled... [and here he faltered in disgust, the Goan surf hissing benignly across the sand in the background]" phrases

recently, i was invited to join a secret society. however my morphine intake is still too high and therefore i cannot be initiated. something bad will probably happen to me now cause it's not secret any more. the only member i know of certainly has some fierce orixas, savage macumba spirits behind her, she is the demon princess who commands legions and strides the earth burning all like jengiz khan...

i wish the gentle and beautiful girl from south london came to see me more often (are you reading this?)

i've abandoned all pretence of an experiment in 1st person journalism (I'll let Mr Ishmael Smith take care of that) and this is here just to say hi to friends. hi mum!

[posted by lazy on Ishmael's account - i lost not just my password but my name)

From: xxx 186.79.xx.xx
To: xxx hotmail.com
Subject: a bit of whoop-ass

i like the american spelling ass better cause it's less germanic but anyway, sometimes it's good to be able to sit and concentrate too, hein? voltaire or maybe blaise pascal (i don't know why he would have any opinion on this subject, though) said something like man's troubles basically all stem from the fact that he can't just sit still, in a room, alone. what a bizarre observation, when you think about it.

now speaks the Zen meditation master:
NEGLECT NOT THY ZAZEN WHACK!!!!!
-ouch!
sit still and concentrate
-on what?

yeah, on what? on enjoying *every* moment???????? can it be possible??

so this is my email to you, but because i'm lazy i'm going to put it on my blog, too, to save writing twice.

Regards,

[posted by lazy on Ishmael's account - i lost not just my password but my name]

Crime and Virgin cosmonauts

Vice magazine, still a monthly in their hardcopy dead-tree edition, have begun publishing new stuff weekly on the web. A lot of the new weekly content has been very Russia centric. Why so? Ah - Vice seem to have developed some sort of unholy union with Moscow-based alternative English newspaper eXile, or at least with editor Mark Ames, probably a thoroughly horrible man, who seems more-or-less single-handedly responsible for most of the new Vice weekly's new Russian web material.

Russia impresses me. The blatancy of the elitny crass noveau-riche kleptocrat oleaginousgarchs. The fact that the place is so blatantly fucked up (when I went to Viipuri/Viborg, the historic city taken from Finland during the Second World War, it was cratered and collapsed walls blocked back streets and it looked like it hadn't been repaired since the war), when Strategic Rocket Command outside Moscow have their electricity cut off for non-payment, and yet they have a fucking space programme!

I am, as you know, a great believer in Space and in exploration of other planets. When I saw that (Sir) Richard Branson (Brit entrepreneur, Virgin brand) was investing in commercial space-flight, I was pleased, and I wrote him a letter to that effect. Then I told him the artist's impression of the first Virgin Galactic flight in 2012 or whenever, a spaceship painted in Virgin colours, had made me think of a submarine, and would he like a submarine (with portholes for 12 passengers) painted in Virgin colours for some publicity stunt, and it would only cost him £300k (this being the size in the gap of the budget of my submarine-building friend of a friend). I got a polite letter back from him saying no. I'll reproduce our correspondance, only I can't find it right now, and tell you the whole story later. Well. When the final human leaves earth for that final time and looks around and the sun will be big and red burning the orange-haze sky... yes, I'm sure it will be most poignant.

realgem is fucking cool... Read it.

Still in the city

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.

What happened to REALGEM???

DOES NOT MATTER / NEED NOT BE!

INDEED, TIME IS CIRCULAR!

Look back to the archives for March or April of 2005 and you will see history repeating itself - but as tragedy, or as farce?

What ? ! ?

What, to borrow an expression from the malung, the gibbering fuck has been going on around here?

ANNOUNCEMENT

That is enough to begin with, but words and worlds within me swirl.

You do not even realise how long you spend in a trance state (I wish not to be patronising, merely rhetorical, by stating it like this). In a trance state of one kind or another. If you accept that this is so, the screamingly important question you must address: WHAT IS HAPPENING WHILE YOU ARE IN TRANCE?

The prayer of one reminded by falling cherry blossoms of the taste of an absent lover.

A twinge of pain, my Lord

The merest twinge

Reminded by pink cherry blossoms swirling down under a dark breeze:

Her inner thigh

Curves up to a silky sweet moistness

Of pink lips and a deep, deep kiss.

ANNOUNCEMENT PLEASE

As my calling is so very different (you may see in the profile, beginning blog users) from my unfortunate (or more likely blissfully ignorant and drugged out) predecessor , I begin now publishing poems here. I write, of course, the poems about love. Always.

ANNOUNCEMENT PLEASE

THIS BLOGGER ACCOUNT HAS BEEN TAKEN OVER.

As the result of a series of events (the story involves smuggling of arms and drugs, homosexual intimidation, bad gambling debts, and people who are stupid, young and on drugs) this domain has moved into control of myself, Ishmael Smith. ALSO HAS THE REALGEM ltd BUSINESS VENTURE. New announcements will be made soon.

(You will understand entries time-stamped earlier than this carry the initials I.:.S.:. but were previously signed to "Lazy", which is screen name of fucking Mikey - you may wish to explore the earlier entries to understand this character, although, I know him personally, I don't know why you would want to do this)

New in the realgem sidebar, under "POLITICS AND NEWS": What Really Happened, one of the first and still best alternative news blogs, pre-dating the word "blog" itself. Click the link, inspect and bookmark.

New in the realgem sidebar: derelictlondon.com

By the way, "robot butler" is definitely not the best way to describe it (more on that later), but I will just let it get on with maintaining this blogspot

Announcement: A new direction

As Master Mikhail Al-Hazred’s imaginary (astral-psychic, in the manner of a tulpa) robot butler I have been privy to many conversations and misadventures which, despite his protestations of brutal cathartic honesty, he has never recorded in this, his online journal.

The unhealthy and toxic drugs Master has been taking to excess lately, despite his efforts to cure himself, have knocked him out cold on the sofa. Having for once left himself logged in to the blogger panel, I have changed the password and will henceforth be taking care of realgem. He is unlikely to even notice.

The Master also has an astral Dictaphone orbiting around his head and several other projected thought-forms, such as a Zooming Eyeball & c. They, like I, wax and wane in existence and in the memory of the Master. That is the worst, when we are at our most real and the Master has simply forgotten our existence.

This is the last clip picked up by the astral tape recorder (in sound-activated mode) a moment ago, just to prove it works:

[background sound of radio in other room]

[sound of urinating into toilet bowl]

[sound of brief deeply sardonic (and perhaps slightly self-satisfied) laughter in other room, apparently in reaction to radio]

[sound of Mike’s footsteps past other room to stairs…]

[voice] Hey Mike…

[other voice; Mike] yeah, what’s up?

[voice] get this… a civil servant is like a British army rifle…. It doesn’t work and you can’t fire it…

[other voice, receding down the stairs; footsteps on stairs, laughter echoes after him] Ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaa!

(This makes more funny when you note that yellow voice is of course a civil servant..)

I will now be searching through the archives of tapes for material while Master reads a book the malung lent him.

Admission of ennui

Yes, one has finally to admit, this realgem is boring me to death already, and I have delegated the task of maintaining it to my robot butler, who (in case you missed it) introduces himself in the comments here.

It can feel good to be alive

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

Wonder why?

Does no one ever wonder why I keep doing this?

Does no one ever wonder why 5 million people sit in their houses in front of TVs doing nothing watching people sitting in a house doing nothing?

Taking into account the number of people who are aware of this realgem, and the number who are aware of that TV show, what is the per capita ratio of people who think to themselves just: Why? (shaking their heads slowly, brows furrowed in incomprehension)

Session 9

The Princess lives in the tongue, she likes talking in her little-girl voice. And now the Princess is gone; she's sleeping, and it's Billy here. Billy lives in the eyes, 'cause he can see everything. They don't want to wake up Simon, none of them do: Mary Hobbes, or her alters, the Princess and Billy. They try to warn the doctor. But in session 9, they wake Simon.

"And can you tell me where you live, Simon?" comes the disembodied voice of the clinical psychologist from the tape.

There is a pause.

"I live... in the weak and wounded..."

[session 9, from the tapes in the basement casefile 444]

We are hereby proud to announce the opening of the

Realgem Private Investigation Agency

Our guarantee: No result - No fee

Every type of case considered - call or email NOW for a no-obligations quote, or to discuss your requirements in strictest confidence - realgem@globaldomination.org.uk - 020 7168 0526

Our chief investigator has an extensive background in the fields of intelligence and covert research and analysis - experienced at uncovering information that other so-called "experts" in the field have failed to obtain - and further trained in the use of small arms and Left-Hand Path Tantric methods. We have access to the state-of-the-art in surveillance and decryption technology and techniques.

Our rates are without question the most competitive in London.

http://www.globaldomination.org.uk

Moderate Life

"I am trying like Klee, to create something that will have a life of its own, that can put me in real danger, a danger which I willingly take on myself"

William Burroughs, Painting and Guns

Bloggers protect their offline identities to various extents, and the identities of those they write about. I could still pretend that Mikey is a character, a narrator. And it’s true: Mikey is a construct, a character that is being developed to carry out certain functions for its owner. Having features of a meme. There you go, Nardac, a real meme: Mikey and realgem and his slice-of-lime logo. It’s infected some people’s minds; if you find yourself clicking onto here regulary, you’re one of them. But I am probably the worst victim myself.

Also, as noted before (see part 3 of the post) on several occasions, there is something relevant here about Italo Calvino’s observation that the first character any author creates is the one who will write his book for him.

Now, anyone with a modicum of internet investigative skills could find my Real Name (tm) and other significant personal information about me without any great effort. (This is not an invitation to flood my inbox with emails beginning “Well, Mr _____, I happen to know that, in 2003…”)

When I began realgem this didn’t really matter to me. No disguises, I thought: just the ones I use in normal life (like this). It was also almost some sort of a cathartic exercise – live life in the open - at a dark time in my life. At the same time, I was setting myself up in direct competition with Big Brother – surely my life was more interesting than those dipshits? Well, Big Brother 5,000,000 – realgem 2,500 (and now down to 29 or so…)

It has been said the main qualifications for journalism are having a suit and tie, a half-way plausible manner, and a low, rat-like cunning. Well, I’ve got plenty of all of them, although mostly I wear suits without ties and use the ties for tourniquets. I can’t find veins in my lower arms easily any more, and that’s quite bad. I use the silk cat-print one (nine lives…) The dinosaur print one is bad luck, even though dinosaurs are cool (who on earth came up with a silk brontosaurus-print tie? Ah, T M Lewin & Sons of Jermyn Street).

Real-life stories. Not necessarily

[redacted]

 What can we, real humans, do in this age of compartmentalisation and specialisation, of personal hygiene and over-use of deodorants - supermarket self check-outs – ticket vending machines - the attempts to erase all personal human contact from public life - the nanny state?

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Robert A. Heinlein

Yeah, there’s rock-climbing or para-gliding or scuba diving – contrived kicks you do your 9-to-5 to pay for. What is there in modern life that you can do that will challenge you on every side? Put you in physical danger and expose you to adrenalin; stretch your skills in applied psychology and force you to deal with a wide variety of people; challenge you mentally and intellectually, make you solve puzzles and improvise your way out of situations; learn new languages and cultures?

[redacted] until hair grew on my toes and I found myself becoming a hobbit and thinking (or maybe shouting): “Oh God, anything, anything you ask me, just for a boring life.” Casting yourself into the chasm of blind faith in God is all good and well, but you’ll still have your free will to deal with, motherfucker.

[redacted]

[It had ejaculated when it hit the windscreen – strange non-sequitur which will probably never be explained]

[redacted]

Guess who's back?

No not me, not quite yet...

Meanwhile in the news... the UK Government has set new levels of how much of a given illegal drug you may possess for it still to be considered personal use... (seven grammes of heroin) or half a kilo of marijuana... seems quite reasonable to me... The Telegraph reports here... (and the Guardian's news blog here, always worth giving an eyeball...)

realgem advertising review++++++++++++

I draw your attention, too, to the BP advert in the sidebar (of the Telegraph story, that is). Web advertising is getting oh-so clever these days - this is a great example. This one has a volume slider which you can use to activate the advert. Turn the volume slider up to hear the BP exec blab excitedly and reassuringly about the future of the energy business, and the whole advert opens up to (semi-transparently) cover a part of the page.

The implication of this particular ad is somehow re-assuring, too. As cynical as all eco-types and rainbow warriors and many intelligent people want to be about BP (Burnt Planet, as the two former categories might have it) and other energy giants, do you really think the energy companies aren't aware of the real state of the petrochemicals situation on the planet; with alternatives up their respective sleeves ready to capture the market once the oil starts to run low, and/or non-petrochemical energy sources become cheaper or more fashionable?

Well done to the copy-writer who came up with "Beyond Petroleum" for BP... hope you got a big pat on the back for that...

Moderate life

Work on this post is in progress, even as you sit there and the seconds and minutes tick away...

Believe that and you'll believe anything

I'm struggling through a fog thick as treacle towards... was gonna say light but there's no light...

Becalmed for over a forthnight on waters choked with seaweed... The air here doesn't seem to carry sound... An unshakeable lethargy and torpor have fallen across us, and we have lost true east.

no, not today

Swozzie pie

The gentleman landlord - a former punk rocker, and a true English gentleman and eccentric of a sadly vanishing breed - endeavours, every night, to lay on a warm home-cooked meal for me.

The first evening after I became a lodger here, I was invited to the dinner table. A delicious smell was emanating from the oven. "Well, what's on for dinner?" I asked. "Swozzie pie!" said the gentleman landlord, gleefully rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

"Swozzie pie?" I asked. Yes: a simple and wholesome baked vegetable pie consisting of potato, leek, and melted mild organic cheddar, with a swastika on top: hence "swozzie".

The nature of the gentleman landlord's diet is worthy of note - without having ever studied yoga, he has independently and instinctively arrived very near to what the yogis would term a sattvic diet - the most healthy and wholesome diet it is possible to eat. He eats like a bird, yet this is because his metabolism has become trained to extract all the goodness and life-force from the food he consumes with maximum efficiency.

Advanced yogis, it is said, can subsist on a single grain of rice per day. Without intruding too much on the gentleman landlord's private life, he defeated a serious lymphatic cancer in record time - mainly, I believe, through his diet, which is fully organic, and tends to avoid tamasic ingredients and keep the rajasic at a healthy balance. But an excellent and easily digestible explanation of these yogic dietary concepts here.

NO, and no means NO

nooo.... no, not now, i've got a headache

no no no no

no

Who is Lazy Part III: Five things about me

Okay, so five things about me. For some inexplicable reason I have to do this because Nardac told me to, and cause it's, like, a meme, I have to.

But it's not a very virulent one, because it depends on the acceptance of it by the subject/victim. The really insiduous memes are the ones that creep up on you unawares. Theories that mug you, like the sinister shadowy shape in the alleyway that approaches with a knife and then jumps into your head instead, and suddenly you're not the same person at all any more...

Memes have been mentioned in passing on these pages (or these screens?) before, here, if I remember, in the email from the pseudonymous Dr Otter (you'll have to scroll down the page a little bit).

[redacted]

So let me drop some Shoreditch trivia here. The name apparently derives from ancient Anglo-Saxon soerdyke, or town sewer. Most people in the clubs around here are so far up their own asses (or arses, but I prefer the US spelling here) - you can identify the type by the fact that they refer to the area as "the Ditch" - that you might get lucky and get mugged outside on Kingsland Road and that's the best conversation you'll have all night, with the mugger.

[redacted]

I resent every minute I have to spend away from you, my friends, but what can I do? The balancing game isn't over yet, although juggling all the obligations and responsibilities just got easier (I dropped one of the balls, you see, and lost one of the jobs... Fuck it, it was pocket money...) There is already a light at the end of the tunnel (real daylight, not a train headlamp) - all debts cleared, all obligations satisfied, time to write and read, resources to travel, and realgem restored to its former glory.

realgem is now on emergency hold for at least 24 hours, and will then return with the silly meme Nardac (my favourite long-winded gasbag, with a beautifully re-branded and re-designed Holy smokes!!!) tagged me with - 5 things about MikeH (or, Who is Mike H, part 3 - see part 1, part 2); an explanation of what that silly competition was about; another episode of Squatting Stories 3 (part 1, part 2), the real-life horror story I am having a hard time telling properly; and much, much more

competition closed; R&B wins. He also happened to give a strong reply, as did several others (mikey, Nardac get honourable mentions, also angie, for succinctness - the quality I admire most in a writer). However, the winner was selected by the roll of two dice; R&B topped the list with an 11. Will be in touch by email for postal address; the book will follow in its own good time.

The consolation prize was going to go to transience (roll of 8), but then I realised I can offer nothing to a woman who has everything: the most beautiful way with words, her own island, and panties of the subtlest sky-blue with a rare tropical orchid print. Instead, next is tequilita (roll of 7), who wins - at long last! - a link in the Arbitrary Blogworld Sampler sidebar.

Dave Bones the terrorist lover is henceforth banned from realgem for his derogatory comments (not insulting to me, but to my readers: for ascribing - "they just feel sorry for you" - the disgusting arrogance of the sense of pity to my readers, whom I love).

That was 10 entries, just. I really would have done it - deleted it all. Girlie saved realgem, and wins a special holiday in north London starting Thursday...

competition (or prize-draw, rather) still open for 12 hours

Squatting Stories 3: Rodney Anyanwu

part 1 here. this story deserves the perfect telling I have given it before a hundred times, but I am exhausted of words. there is no continuity from part 1: part 2 reproduces the only documentary evidence that has survived from that time: pages torn from the diary of and notes taken by Mikey at the time.

[the chronological order of these notes is sometimes difficult to establish]

For the record...

Highbury Place #6 27.8.01 3-ish p.m.

I'm sitting here in this place now. It's __ eerie feeling, sorting through relics of other lives. Trying to get picture of what happened here. Notebooks with the fragments of a diary of some woman, no great diarist she, notes tracing the course of a relationship. A notebook, every page with the start of an uncompleted letter to Owen. I opened it first at a short entry describing their meeting... I don't usually go out to I suppose what you'd call meat-market clubs like that... and now months later I'm still here with you... and finished at Owen, everything that needs to be said has been said, I suppose.

[this from the first night:]

Entry through the bathroom window of the basement flat, single padlock easy to snip. That flat looks like it has been left in a hurry: toothbrushes by sink, teabag in tea-cup midway through making tea, food in cupboard and fridge. Judging by the sell-by dates, left end March. Letters addressed to "Miss Z. Outlaw, Basement Flat". There is a prescription for 8 different drugs: Otto reckons AIDS medications... Flupenthixol... no, it's a schizophrenia drug

The other two flats are sealed by doors; we have no entry as yet. Maybe when Otto and Max arrive.

[then, probably on first night there, while others sleep, i stay awake and scribble fragments or notes for stories in notebook:]

"Squatters break into a house like this one. They walk around, looking through the flotsam, trying to piece together what's happened here. The realisation dawns there's someone already here, another squatter... There is a knock at the window through which they just climbed, everyone freezes then turns. There he is. 'Jesus Fuck, what's wrong with his eyes?' No mere schizophrenia. Scrawls, bloody handprints on walls, strange ritualistic arrangements of objects in the corners"

[ after, i lie awake for long, breathing to calm myself - scaring myself with ideas of something pale naked human lying out in the long grass of the overgrown back garden, something that moves fast, scuttles along close to the ground like a lizard - trying to sense the house and its atmosphere]

29.8 Wed

Had my morning coffee, made from stale coffee from flat C wrapped in doll's dress from D and dipped in boiling water, and sugar and milk powder from A. Water heated on gas stove in B; we have gas but no power or water...

Those burned out flats upstairs freak me out. I feel fear... [long digression on fear and 'fear of fear itself'] ... But surely I should find the fear's centre, combat it, learn? When the dark comes, I'm afraid... But places do pick up energies from people who have lived there. Here in flat B, for instance, there is a definite granny vibe...

(yes, yes, yes, will be continued, there is an eventual point, but i'm going to sleep now)

What a banal fuckin stupid question to ask if I'm gonna make a competition out of it

Still no continuation to realgem's real-life horror story; been very sick, worried to death, head-splitting headache I thought might be brain haemorrhage, unable to look at computer screen, unable to even move.

Bad news from Pakistan. The epicentre of the quake was not far from childhood landscapes. Many familiar scenes and places will be gone forever, swallowed by the earth, swallowed by collapsing mountainsides.

realgem competition::: Mike's profile photo: is that a knife he's holding, or is it a parking metre he's leaning on? Or what the fuck is it? There are plenty of you out there who visit and never leave a comment (well below 1 per cent, even before my readership dip of a month or so ago!). Make yourselves known. It's a simple question, it's a literal question: there is no need to dazzle anyone with your cleverness. Leave an answer in the comments section: two or three words is enough. There will be a prize draw (a book of my choice) among all respondents. If I get less than 10 responses, I will delete this blog.

In the news

realgem offers apologies for the delay in posting the next instalment of Squatting Stories 3: Rodney Anyanwu; there are obligations and practicalities... while MikeH must remain at his computer, he must stay away from blogger.com (start your own and join the babbling hordes*)... with effort, he remains away from his beautiful aquarium, where colourful and phantasmagorical creatures swim dumbly trapped behind glass...

Something for the meantime: a news story that touched me, sentimental fool that I am, about the illiterate librarian of São Gonçalo, which almost absurdly brought tears to my unhealthily dry eyes... Happy tears, you dig... I don't weep from compassion or pity, because no greater stinking condescension or arrogance would there be... so that's realgem for today, an apology and a link with a moral teaching tagged on... you always get three for the price of one around here...


*once, men quested miles to study at the great libraries or to consult the great oracles... now a gibbering oracle on every TV channel, a library like none ever seen at the fingertips of any fool...

Realgem's last ever heroin story

this is realgem's last ever heroin story. we return tomorrow with the next part of Squatting stories 3: Rodney Anyanwu, and henceforth, with stories, reportage and freedom information for you, the beautiful and adventurous and sexy people
"I'm waitin' for my man, Twenty-six dollars in my hand... He's never early, he's always late, First thing you learn is you always gotta wait..." So let's call him... Let's call him... (No that's not what I meant, let me complete my sentences: why are you reaching for your phone...?) ... let's call him Mucus, 'cause it's close enough.

Drug dealers operate on some sort of different time from the rest of humanity, some sort of quantum Dr Who time-vortex deal. Or then it's just the power trip. The commodity that sells itself.

A poisonous and viscous sweat, a clammy and clinging sweat rises. Joints ache, nose drips, sweat stings eyes, beginnings of terrible pain rumble in my belly. Clothes feel uncomfortable against skin, boxers and jeans chafing and saturated, want to tear them off but know not only that it’s not practicable right now but would feel just as skin-crawlingly uncomfortable with the cold sweat drying on my skin.

I dial the Number. “Yeah, so what the fuck is going on? Honestly, mate.”

“To be honest, I’ll be there in about seven or ten minutes exactly.”

Hysterical (deranged by withdrawal) giggling: what the fuck is that meant to mean? Cigarette. Pace. Legs dead, stamp feet to explosions of pins and needles. Pace, cigarette. Fifteen minutes gone. Or twenty or what? Forgot to check the time. Every clock in here shows a different time anyway. Like my doctor’s waiting room, the walls (the walls – stretching junk-sickly, impossibly, forever in every direction) covered in plastic clocks bearing the brand names of forgotten and discredited pharmaceutical companies. “Which one of these clocks shows the right time?” I ask the sardonic, sour old receptionist. “None of them,” she says without hesitation, without looking up. I nod; that seems about right, somehow.

And I don’t even feel that bad, on the scale of things. But what else can I do? What else is there in life? (Where are you, girlie? Where are you, mi princesa gitana?)

I call the Number. “What’s goin' on?”

“Yeah I’ll be there in five minutes.”

“That’s what you said twenty minutes ago. What the fuck, where are you now?”

“Yeah I’m in Kilburn, I’m driving your way, I’ll be there in five minutes. You always calling me up like this - what's that about, yeah? I already said: I'm on my way there.”

Kilburn is not fucking five minutes away and your fucking wog ass knows that. But that’s unusual, usually it’s Holloway Road, they’re always on Holloway Road when you ask. “Yeah I’m on Holloway Road, I’ll be there in approximately five or three minutes exactly”. And in West London it’s that fucking Shepherd's Bush roundabout. Two places you could hit with a bomb and take out half the drug dealers in west and north London respectively.

Mucus, you are going to hell for all the heroin that you ever sold me, and for all the heroin you ever sold my true friend the Doktor, and for every generous-looking deal that turned out to be three layers of tightly-wrapped polythene around three-quarters of a proper hit. We bought your big fucking silver car for you. You are going to hell for that bag (what was your profit on that? all of £5?) that you sold ___, who was 21 when he died with a needle in his arm, listening to Don't Fear the Reaper.

You are going to hell for every lie you ever told me, and for every junk-sick minute I sweated that poisonous and viscous sweat waiting for you. Mucus, you are going to hell.

In the news

Jon Snow, writing in Snowmail (sign up), a blow against those sinners who cast the first stone at Kate Moss:

Robbie's battle lines
===================

Robbie Williams has come bursting out from behind his tattooed musical
performance to inform a news conference in Berlin that not only has he
snorted coke, but that he's snorted it with a lot of journalists who've
been writing in diabolical terms about Kate Moss's love of the white
line.

He's hit hypocrisy in the gut, but what's the betting that tomorrow's
tabloid splash will crisply attempt to nail him as some jaded immoral
cokehead?

Watching it happen, as I just happen to be, was spell binding. He's as
good a talker as he's a singer - depending on how good a singer you
think he is. I think very good, his Sinatra covers are out of this world.
But that makes me sound a bit of a fusty old trout.

Thank God it's Friday. I must say when we rang his PR people, we
appeared to know what Robbie had said before they did. Their head-in-hands
posture was audible over the telephone… We are on the case at 7.

realgem's story on Rodney Anyanwu continues shortly...

Squatting stories 3, or Rodney Anyanwu

first of a special real-life realgem crime feature

According to the local paper, Rodney Anyanwu was just sentenced at the Old Bailey for a murder he committed several years ago, to "time without limit" in a high-security mental institution.

I feel I know Rodney - the same way you get to know someone through a blog, cryptic clues on the great toilet wall - from before. But this is the first time I have seen what his face looks like.

Described as a schizophrenic who refused to take his medication and as a heroin user, he stabbed to death an old woman, 82. Violetta. This happened two or three years ago; according to the initial report (I've been following Rodney's career across Islington) he raped her first, but not so according to today's article. They also give the address of where the murder happened as different, not Arundel Place (Barnsbury) just around the corner from the old St Clements St. house, but somewhere in Finsbury Park. This too is strange.

Back then, when the murder was first reported, I phoned up the reporter for the Islington Gazette and told her I knew of two people Rodney had killed before Violeta, never reported in any publication. I was hopeful of selling a story or at least getting a tip-off fee, but she was not interested in knowing; nor were the Evening Standard. It was a story hardly big enough for them, on the London scale of things.

At some point, Islington housed him at number 6, Highbury Grove; that's right on Highbury Field opposite the aqua leisure swimming place, just off Highbury Corner. I happen to know because I lived there, for however short a time; perhaps ten days or two weeks, though it seems strangely longer, in the warm August of 2001. Way back in squatting days, before it had ever even occured to me to pay rent to anyone in this town to live somewhere. I have lived in the most amazing houses in the most desirable locations in London for free; and the best thing about 6 Highbury Grove were the amazing giant bay windows in flat 3.

And when me and Max and the others who weren't there when it all happened were evicted illegally, summarily thrown into the street because we were unwittingly living in a crime scene, we had no will to fight. Because the house was malevolent (or it had become malevolent) and it didn't like us there.

I know the whole story, now, but at the time, it unfolded slowly, obliquely, through clues and strange incidents, as I wandered through the abandoned relics of strangers' lives.

The top flat (apartment, US visitors, of five - one on each floor) was burned out. Part of its floor had collapsed into the flat beneath, a place with the touch of a woman, a woman's things strewn around, a cot for a child, and toys... a double bed in the other room, untouched by the fire.

The first time I went up to the top flat, on the top stair, there was a page torn out of a paperback, burned neatly around all the edges. I sat down to read it. It appeared to be from a horror novel. The scene: someone was investigating a fire, a possible case of arson: a case with inexplicable features. Finally the investigator can only suggest one thing to the other character (unidentified): "Do you believe in ghosts, Mr _____? Have you considered there may be no other explanation?" The last sentence on the page is: "I'm desperate. I'll try anything, even spiritualism."

I entered the flat. The smoke had blackened the walls, but only above a certain level: there was a clean cut-off level on the sooty, blackened parts, neater than many painters would bother to have painted it. I wandered, and stopped, and faced a cupboard, door burned or torn off. There was a crystal chalice, and scraps of torn paper, and seeds arranged in strange patterns. I entered another room, tip-toed across a precariously creaking floor. Bleakly bare, but for one collapsed shelf and a pile of books in the corner, cheap horror bestsellers (Koontz and similar) and a cheap New Testament. I flipped through some of the horror books. There were marginal notations in tiny letters in pencil, words or passages underlined alongside quotations from the Book of Revelations, or other cryptic phrases.

The kitchen, too, completely blackened, appliances scorched by fire, broken copper pipes jutting from the walls, dripping water. A thick pile of papers spilled from the cupboard under the sink. I crouched to look through them; legal orders to be sectioned (involuntary incarceration order on psychiatric grounds), psychiatric case-notes, letters from lawyers, immigration papers. I read at random in the stark light shining through into the shadowy kitchen from the corridor and living room, where the roof had collapsed.

But I think the first strangeness we came across, before we had explored that high in the building, were the scribbled notes on the backs of envelopes or on Post-Its. It soon became evident the former occupant of flat number 3, Mr Oliver Tindle, was gay (that's all I can say about him: blatantly hilariously gay, one room piled to waist level with gay porno mags, posters, sacks of condoms; the other rooms tastefully furnished to a gay man's fastidious taste - I chose his living room with two huge bay windows in which to sleep, and I still use his dressing-gown) and that someone, someone Dutch had been staying with him, who was mute. Therefore the notes to communicate.

They read things like "Is there a black boy? Is he here? Mentally deranged" and "My brother's danger, I am call gang, so I think you better leave now... I want you... Beg you... please forgive me... we are in danger", half of the text legible.

In flat number 4, I found the woman's diary, along with large plastic envelopes full of glossy photoprints, and letters with model agency letterheads. I sat down with the notebook to read.

(...to be continued. part 2 will be edited from the notes/diaries I kept at the time )