Further down the scrimmage line

I got a ride all the way to where I was going and now I am way early for making music and have the place to myself. I am going to plug all my pedals into the delicious amp here and make some music before the people arrive, before I have to be disciplined. I like it. I have made a pot of tea and am sat in my favourite garden smoking todays cigarette and writing love letters to you, kind reader, hoping to alleviate the shame of this mornings poor effort.

There is a mad grapevine here that, every year, fails to ripen fruit because no one prunes it. But I pruned a section of it back in January and there are bunches and bunches of ripe, juicy, plump, purple grapes. Succulent and moreish. Happy. There is a cricket test on today and I expect the people to be busy doing that and hopefully I will have some real quiet time.

How did wine come about? Do you reckon someone spilled something yeasty and sugary into some grapes that then fermented and things got so bad that it became all they had to eat…. next minute its party time… I often marvel at the things humans have come up with and what circumstances led to them. Some theories talk about strangers turning up in places with knowledge that bootstrapped civilisations up a few notches. Like agricultural innovations or irrigation and aqueduct technologies. The South Americans have a story about bearded caucasians in brown robes that show up and clue them into all sorts of new ideas. The Maori have a story about one of the gods ascending to the heavens to come back with baskets full of knowledge. I guess its far easier to have one story about how things came about than it is to ponder endless theoretical scenarios that may have led to discoveries. To think that we are still tinkering with ideas, like the people at C.E.R.N or the space explorers tells me that it’s in our nature and it was probably just good old human ingenuity and curiosity that led us to this peak of civilisation without needing gods, or strangers or aliens. My conceit is that perhaps we have been civilised and technologically sophisticated before and before that, that we have been here for a lot longer than we think. In fact my imagination goes as far to postulate that we ruined Mars before relocating here to start again. There is evidence to support some of this. My friend is an Archaeologist and he will not tolerate any talk of such things. Things are the way they are and that’s final. Me though, I have an open mind. I have nothing invested in being right or wrong. Either outcome being true is not going to affect my daily life. Not so for an academic or archaeologist I guess.

I am really pleased with how this track has come out. I have sent it to my off-sider, Matt, and hope he will put some vocals on it. I do not really understand why I don’t feel inclined to sing lately. I sing backing vocals in the bands, in time, tune and precise but I just do not feel I want to express myself that way in music. I know it sounds like a wanker (Probably because I am) but I let my music speak for me. Ha ha ha It says “I’m depressed” mostly huh? ha ha ha. Sorry. I guess I couldn’t really do more to discourage you from reading this or listening to that. The best art, I reckon, doesn’t give two shits what you or I think. Orson Welles never made movies for me or you, he made them for Orson Welles. I like that.

I didn’t see “Citizen Kane” until I was in my 30s. Popular culture was always throwing little references at me and in the end I capitulated and watched it. Family guy do this bit where Peter goes “Its his sled, it was his sled from when he was a kid, there I just saved you two long Boobless hours”.

It’s a pretty funny bit. It seems to me that if Family Guy do a one liner about you it means they actually love you but if they constantly rag on you like they do with Chris what’s his name from Coldplay… that’s another story.

I really like it, its one of those films like Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas or Casablanca that you can watch over and over and still find twists and details that you may have missed. I am not saying watch it every day or even every year… When I was going mad in Raglan I was watching “Fear And Loathing” over and over, sometimes with the sound off and The Dark Side Of The Moon at full volume. A sure fire way to go batshit mental. But there are some films that you can go back to over the years and Citizen Kane is one of them.

I feel strong and brave. I touch wood when I say that because these feelings, like the scared and weak feelings do also pass and I know that my moods can shift, its what they do. But I think that having a routine, a diet (Maybe with less night cheese) and the tools to work and feel useful all culminate in a happy human. I am still quite ill, my kidney hasn’t been acting up much but I haven’t been very active. I am 124kg now. My belly hangs over my belt and is beginning to have stretch marks. I have never been a big guy. I have thought I was but I never really was.

Man. I had to re-up my mediations last week. I opted to just do an online repeat because my Dr is a fuckwit and every time I see him he fucks shit up and I end up spending days frustrated trying to undo what he’s done. So, I figured that perhaps if I just ask him for the meds and nothing else, well, there’s no way for him to fuck that up. Right? Nah. So throughout the dramas of the last month or two, every time I have had to deal with the Dr or the Nurse at the Drs surgery I have asked them to please make a note not to be giving me months of medication at once, that the safest way for me to be dispensed medication is on a weekly basis. It is not safe for someone like me to have months and months worth of medication just lying around. It just not safe. Now, as I said the other day. Thats not a threat or a guilt trip or anything like that, it’s simply one of the things I want in place for my own safety. As I said before, my feelings and moods are in a state of flux and sometimes they get out of control. My history suggests that in those moments it helps not to have medication stockpiles. I can sit with those feelings. I can. But I have to ride the urges to self harm and sadly one of my self harm behaviours have included overdosing and I am pretty fucking fortunate to be alive today. Luck, whatever you want to call it. I have walked away from more fatalities than good sense would deem prudent and it’s way past time to stop trying my luck.

So. I went to the Dr, paid the bill, collected the script and went back to my chemist. Ten minutes later my chemist hands me a big sack of pills and…. fuck man. In my most patient and humble tone I contact the Dr. “I may not have been clear, perhaps this is my mistake etc… please make a note that I am not to be given entire scripts, that I need weekly dispensing”. Then they got all “Well if you feel that way you need to contact the Crisis Team, go to the hospital, contact mental health urgently we can’t be responsible…” Fucking Bullshit, you know? I guess I just need a Dr who gives a shit. This one doesn’t seem to. Its hard though, I struggle with change. If Change is hard I will put it off. Look at my Drivers Licence. I have been illegal all these years because the test and people caused me anxiety so I procrastinated. I am a great driver, safe, courteous and cautious, I will fly through the test, I should have done it years ago.

I’ve almost drunk a whole pot of earl grey tea to myself! I am going to be useful and clean up. As I said the other day, love is a verb. I have not always been too flash at it but I can do the mundane bits ok. I am going to bail and do stuff. Have a great day, don’t take any guff.

xm

Me Donkey Wan’ Water (Hold ’em Joe)

Another night fitfully spent inside dreams of places I’d rather be. Once I woke and reached for her and spoke her name before realising it was a dream. Tears, what. I really need to lay off the cheese before bedtime huh?

A big day today, going up to the big smoke to make some music. I planned to travel in my car but I haven’t got my licence fixed yet so its the compassion of others. I don’t feel too bad because I use my wheels for others all the time, yin yang, push pull, give take, karma. I was going to stay the night but I didn’t get around organising it very well and am returning this evening. I am hoping to be on double bass today, I need the exercise and I am good at it. We shall see. I am impressed that folks actually went and listened to my new music. Its Dub. I hope. Dub is not for everyone. Its drugs music huh? You guys don’t do anything like that, do you? Shirt and ties all day, aint it?

So I have been faithfully laying off the Trump and Corona Virus news. I spoke to a guy who has been living in Burma and he reckons that if it hits that country they will be fucked, no border controls, not as we think of them, it could ravage the place. BUT it doesn’t seem to be terribly fatal unless you are very old. Unlike some pandemic situations that gobble up the young it doesn’t seem to be very good against healthy immune systems. Its still a terrible drain on an economy and infrastructure but it just doesn’t seem to be particularly aggressive. I hope. This is all gathered from talking to people who know about things like this, as opposed to just believing the talking heads.

I am very late to the chemist and its causing me some discomfort. People often wonder how I live like this but I do. It puts a buffer between me and pain that only seems to buckle in the wee small hours. Its a price to pay but I find it worth it. I know most people would not. Sorry, this post is a little unhinged, that’s what you get for trying to…. actually, hold that thought. I’ll come back later and see what I can do.

m

Back In The Saddle

I know you guys don’t really dig this sort of thing but here’s a new track I finished yesterday. Its atmospheric dubby downbeat guitar music. I’ve taken all the prices off all my music, its all free. I do not pay for the music I download, mostly, so how can I expect others to? I hope that someday people will use this instrumental stuff for their own projects. Little humble dreams these days but dreams nonetheless. I am really pleased with the guitar and bass tone, I am using my Ekadek Neeve-ish Preamps and they sound so warm just straight from the instrument.  My poor neighbours.

peace

xxxm

The Gathering Tantrum

I’ve just finished watching “An Elephant Sitting Still”, a four hour epic from Chinese writer/director Hu Bo. Hu Bo killed himself after finishing the film and, judging from the very very bleak outlook postured in the movie, it is no real big surprise. Pundits state that creative differences with producers may have led to his death but it kinda seems that he was going to do this either way, at some point. Its a shit-arse pity too because the film is a masterpiece and could easily have spelled the beginning of a fine cinematic legacy. Alas, this is all we get, four hours of the most stark and poised dramatic performance I have seen in a long time. The long pauses between dialog and the slow, ponderous movement of both the characters and the action very much reflect the idea in the title.

Everything from the shots, sequences and plot development is measured and moves with stately, patient steps without rushing or sacrifice. Even “There Will Be Blood” only comes in at two and a half hours. Watching it is a significant investment of time and I have had to devour it in three or four courses. But I did keep coming back and my diligence was rewarded.

The soundtrack is by a Chinese “Heavy Metal” band called Hualun and I have been scoping their work on bandcamp. They might be misinterpreting the phrase “Heavy Metal” somewhat or maybe it means something else and the translation is a bit unfit for purpose. To me, its really ethereal ambient downtempo soundscapes. Sparse and as measured as the film itself. Great use of space and some really interesting synth,  Vibraphone(I think….), percussion, what I think are traditional Chinese instruments, piano and stunningly bright and tasteful guitar. I do not know much about them yet but I intend to download a few records and see what else they do.

It’s a cool movie and I think you might do yourself a favour giving it a go. I seem to have morphed into a film critic lately. I guess I just feel like a parched man after such a long drought and I am gulping down water like a mad man.

I also watched a short documentary today about how Sting, that wanker from The Police, fucked over Juice Wrld for using a sample from one of his songs. Stealing around about 10million dollars from a struggling artist only just out of high school. For Shame. Juice died not long after and Sting, well, sting is a cunt. Sorry, I don’t use that word much but… well, fuck’im.

Juice was flying into Chicago. The pilot of the plane must have had his panties in a bunch because he had seen the black folks on the plane with money and drugs and guns and decided, bless him, to call ahead and have the fucking feds waiting for Juice and his entourage at the airport. I am not defending gun violence. However, I don’t live with the daily threat of bullets. Well, actually it seems to actually be becoming a thing here but it aint America, not at all. ODB himself was jailed for wearing a bullet proof vest under laws that forbid convicted felons to wear body armour. Yet ODB faced real threats, as a black celebrity his life was genuinely at risk of harm daily. So to find that a young rapper has guns around him is no real big surprise to me. I wonder if it had been Ted Nugent with all his guns would the pilot have dropped the dime? I say probably, fucking, NOT. Fucking snitch.

Juice panicked and as they were boarding the plane he gobbled down his stash… Oxycodone, Percocet and codeine. Shortly after he began to have seizures, shortly after that he’s dead. He had such a bright future. 21 years old and he already had a cameo on an Eminem record called “Godzilla”. “Lucid Dreams” is the track that Sting refused to clear a sample for and it’s also the song that launched his career. It is well worth your time to listen to it. The genre, if there needs to be one, is called Emo Rap and like a lot of new hip hop artists his influences range a lot further than strictly Rap, RnB and Soul. He cites Black Sabbath and Megadeath among his influences as well as folks like Tupac, Wu Tang and Eminem. I think it lends these new rappers an edge that squarks them right outside of the box and squarks ain even a real word.

It’s dumb. America is dumb.

Thats all I have to say today. I saw my friends last night. One of us is in real trouble and I really do not know how to help them anymore. It’s very hard to be around someone who refuses to acknowledge that there is anything wrong. I’d use the “Elephant in the room” line but both of us are on the, um, husky side, so it might be interpreted as hate speech.

Love and be kind. Thats all. Try not to get shot. Try not to shoot anyone. Do not underestimate the mysterious flux of chemical tolerance, you may think you know your bodies limits…. but you only think that.

xxxxxm

King And Prophet

After the success of “Soul Rebel” and “Duppy Conquerer” Bob Marleys star was rising in Jamaica but he was still to reach the dizzy heights of fiscal independence that he and his family would find in later years. He had no place to live and Lee Scratch Perry took him in as a guest in his house. Lee, humbly, took the spare room at the back of the house and gave Bob the main bedroom at the front. Together they would embark on the most productive and ground breaking period in modern music history. Imagine a world without that moment? Don’t really bear imagining, do it? Artists must support each other. No man is an island and this is particularly true in creative fields. Collaboration, mutual appreciation and critical response are  all crucial elements of music, art and literature. Someone else will always add something that you alone can not provide. When we uplift each other and love unconditionally we not only plant a seed for a happy future but we encourage more art to become. Which is surely the goal in mind. Keereckt? Perhaps not on the ground floor, the actual act of creation can be a very private moment sometimes,  but in the more mundane details; the making of tea, the sharing of a home, the cooking of a meal, the lending of a tenner at the right moment or a slice of encouragement or reproach born of care, caution and concern. Those are the nuts and bolts of it all.

I’ve been very fortunate to know some really really fine human beings. I’ve been blessed with a cornucopia of musicians, artists, writers and weirdos that have found it in their hearts to collaborate with me over the years. I think of it like this… Each artist that we work with is like a piece of cardboard in that moment and they are glued to each other for a little while, making a stronger piece of cardboard and art greater than the sum of its parts. When we separate we leave bits of ourselves stuck to the each other. When I am searching for a style or a riff or a trick  I will sometimes think “What would so and so do?” or even “what wouldn’t so and so do?” You know? Now and then I hear a snippet of commercial radio and I know my friends new music, often before they even start singing. Because, gentle and kind reader, there are bits of ME in that sound.  

I know a handful of really fine artists that I can call on, they always take the call and are prepared to do what they can to further a vision or to respond to a plea for help. It is a two way street though, it becomes very hard to be in a creative relationship that only serves one persons visions consistently with no back and forth. I suppose if you are working for someone like Lady Gaga, then you are going to be focused on her vision all the time. However I am sure that even an artist like her would know the benefit of collaborative partnerships. Theres really good documentary about her too, “Lady Gaga 5 ft. 2”. But, I digress.

 I can’t think of any artist that I admire who might have done it all alone. Oh, maybe Vincent and I suppose there are other exceptions that could be conjured. Mostly though, if you do a little digging, you will find that even the most remote and solo of artists had a little love and help along the way. Mark Everett springs to mind, a man who has remained a solo artist his whole career but even he had “Eels”. Trent Reznor is another or even the great man himself Bob Dylan… the list goes on and on.

Speaking of which, I watched the “Echo In The Canyon” documentary made by Bobs Son, Jakob Dylan. It focuses on the Laurel Canyon scene, specifically the period between 65 and 67. So it misses some of the juicier moments, The Doors, The Monkeys, Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart and Alice Cooper. All that would come a little later. (Even “Duppy Conquerer” was still 3 or four years away from production.) It looks instead at The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, The Beach Boys and The Mamas and The Papas. It draws some amazing lines between the various players, including The Beatles, who also made it a refuge when they were in town. The idea that “Rubber Soul” inspired Brian Wilson to write “Pet Sounds” which inspired The Beatles to write Sgt. Peppers… Pretty heady stuff for a nerd like me.

The premise is based around an album and concert put together to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the songs from that era (so it must’ve taken place in 2017 or thereabouts). It highlights the really pivotal moments in the development of the Folk-Rock sound. A sound which would then morph into psychedelia and finally mainstream rock. (And, it could be argued, back again.).  Hearing about how Roger McGuinn would try out new ideas at folk clubs and be scorned and chastised for mixing Rock and folk. Or when Bob Dylan stopped at a Byrds rehearsal to hear “Mr Tamborine Man” for the first time. How they all said that they could see the gears whirring in his mind and very shortly after that he would get an electric band of his own and shock the crowd at the 1965 New port Folk Festival, forever changing the landscape of popular music, culture, haircuts and spotty shirts. The story of Buffalo Springfield is another tantalising and compelling one, a full blown supergroup that would only last a few years but the mark they left on music echos to this day. I’ll find a copy of “Expecting To Fly” and post it here for your listening pleasure.

It’s a great flick. If you are into that sort of thing. I’ve been a glutton for content lately. I guess it has been a good 18 months nearly since I could watch whatever I wanted. I didn’t really get to use the TV much at my last place and watching movies with headphones on sucks. A couple of the real goodies I have found this week are “Sorry To Bother You”, “Parasite”, “Freaks” (2018), “Gully Boy” and “Rocketman”. I am sure you’ve seen most of these but Gully Boy and Sorry To Bother You are pretty obscure but fantastic films regardless. Gully Boy is an Indian story about a young man who climbs from the slums with Hip Hop. It’s warm and funny and there’s very little “Bollywood”, just enough to make you do that head thing they do… well, when no-one is looking. “Sorry To Bother You”, as I said before, defies describing. Wonderfully twisted. Ive been back twice now, its that good.

Hey I’m almost sorry for yesterdays emotional outburst. Not enough to get all self conscious and delete it but contrite nonetheless. I have loved some wonderful women and they have loved me too. I never really got the hang of letting go very well. I can remember struggling with a breakup way back in my twenties. I was behaving pretty badly and my boss took me aside and asked me what was going on. I told him that I’d separated from my lover and our son and I wasn’t coping very well. He said to me that I should harden up, he said that if his wife left him and took the kids he would still turn up for work the next day and do it with a smile on his face. We never really understood each other. There was some unpleasantness. Years later I saw him at the service station halfway down the southern motorway. He had a new job at a prestigious Boat dealership and was a producer for a popular Fishing show on television, the change in him was amazing, all the stress and care gone. I apologised for my behaviour back in the times and we sat there for an hour or so catching up and reliving old glories. He gave me a hug, I remember that, it felt so good to let all that old shit go.

One thing I do know is that time heals. The trick is, however, kind reader, it takes time. I will get there. Have a great day out there in Maysfield and a crispy topped danger mouse kind of thing.

xxxMark

 

Actual Dirty Laundry

Some of this post is quite revealing. Please send all complaints to “My Ass” P.O. Box 420, Lower Colon St, Upper Ass Crack, New Zealand.

pfft.

 

I don’t know if I ever told you this but in my mid twenties, for about 6 glorious months, I was in a three way relationship with two very beautiful, inspiring women. I can’t really get into details, they both have lives and families now and one of them is a successful politician. In, shall we say, Austria… We had a basement room in an apartment. The kitchen and living area was on the top floor of a building in the city but our room was down in the basement, you had to open a big garage door and get in through the back alleyway. The room was a small alcove inside a massive, industrial basement. Apart from the handful of square meters that we made our own, it was dusty and dank and terribly cool. We had our own access to the roof and would often sit up there on a Friday or Saturday night drinking wine and watching the people. At the time one of us was a barista, one working in design and I was the breakfast DJ on a popular Hamilton radio station. Because one of us worked in hospitality we spent a lot of our time in the bars and nightclubs that the hospo scene tended to hang out. It was a cool scene in hamilton at the very end of last century. Dance music was taking off and the local music scene was alive and thriving. The Datsuns were still here and there was a real sense of community. Almost every night was a party. 

I also rented a sleepout in another flat where I would have my kids but for the rest of the week I was in town. We were mad for each other and there was never any jealousy or bickering. I guess it helped that we were all very passionate about what we did, one was an actor, one a designer and I was making music with Jahna and Schrodingers cat so we were all pretty well balanced in terms of egos and feeling that we brought different strengths whilst not stepping on each others toes. In the end one of us moved to, um, Austria, to follow their career. It wasn’t sad, it was just change and after they left we sort of dissolved. But, it was a beautiful time and I look back on it fondly without any regrets. Ive probably told this story before but I lost my radio job after a while because I found it very hard to get out of bed every morning when it held such fantastic diversions and eventually my boss told me to go fuck myself. I feel fortunate. Not everyone gets to experience such things and I’ve been in two such relationships over the years. 

I was watching a documentary about Laurel Canyon and how the hippies were living and it made me think “Yeah, I know what that’s like”. People seem to be coming to terms with sexuality these days. Transgender is ok, Gay is ok and Sex is ok to express, so long as your sexuality doesn’t harm or infringe on anyone elses’ world without consent. It seems that people are much more tolerant and permissive. The old stereotypes don’t have to apply and folks do not need to hide their sexuality the way they have in parts of the world for a long time. One of the things that struck me about the Elton John film is that it was very important for him to hide his sexuality as it would have harmed his career. For real. It was illegal in NZ for a long time, sodomy was a crime. Can you believe that?

 I spend so much of my time just waiting for things and trying not to hurt too obviously. I miss her so much, faithful reader. I can see her in my minds eye, smiling, brushing her hair out of her eyes, pulling on stockings in the winter or layering up with her fine sense of mismatched clothes. I can smell her breath and taste her mouth. I have photos that I cannot bear to dwell on, that I can’t bear to even see for a second as I am flicking through files looking for a piece of music or a video, memories best left unpacked. I have ferocious waking dreams and terrible images of her (Edited for brevity and self esteem issues) and I have memories of moments in which she has harmed me so so badly yet I still, still. Fuck. I’ve loved before, I know what it is. I have hated her too, lashed out. I hit her once, blacked her eye like the fucking bastard I am. I know what love is. I do not have it today. It hurts so much. After laughter, so the song goes, come tears. You know? I used to think that she read this, I used to write it just for her. She don’t, she gone. Far away from my bullshit.

I dreamed of her last night, we were in a castle at the foot of a massive valley and a gigantic wave came crashing over the mountains and swamped us all. I doubt it means anything. She seemed distracted and I tried to pretend I wasn’t aching for her. Sorry man, I usually keep a lid on this shit. It just hurts, like losing a limb or three. You would think that writing about it might help but it doesn’t, it simply makes the pain sharper in the moments in which I am trying to express it. “If” – what a fucking word.

 Anyway, that’s all. Xm

Doing dirty Laundry

Today has been a mission. There was a simple matter that needed attention. So yesterday I brought that matter to the attention of the people that needed to address it. They told me that it didn’t need addressing, that it would resolve itself. This morning the situation went critical because they simply didn’t act on what I’d pointed out yesterday. It took me 3 hours to do something that should have taken 30 seconds. Not only did they fuck it up the first time but they then told me it had been resolved only to find out that they had not done the correct procedure and then I had to wait another hour on top of all that. Very. Fucking. Stressful. Completely avoidable. No apologies either, despite the fact that I’d been right yesterday and they had been wrong.  Anyway, it’s all sorted now. Just completely unnecessary, you know?

Probably a case of “First World Problems” but a problem nonetheless. I guess that, due to my hyper-vigilance, I tend to be quite quick on my feet in terms of problem solving and I might be guilty of being impatient with folks when I can see an easy solution. Any one of the five or six people I had to deal with today could have very easily circumvented the bullshit and just fixed it… with a bit of number 8 wire and a dab of superglue… Could they? Yes. Would They? No.

Dumb.

I am listening to Lee Scratch Perrys’ new record “Heavy Rain / Rainford”. Its a new studio album with a dub version attached comprising of Dubs of each track and a video for the single “Let It Rain”. In the video he takes aim at all the bullshit, Trump, Royalty, Capitalism, Corruption and Greed. The five horsemen of stupid, the deacons of misery. He is 83 this year and this record is as good as any of his early works. Better for the technology I reckon. Scratch has always been an innovator, I’d love to see how he integrates modern digital gear into his sound. The legend goes that they brought a delay unit from America and lost the instructions. But there was a schematic of the circuitry so he pulled it apart and reassembled it to suit his needs and that is how that reggae, ska and dub “Skank” sound comes about. A real quick, snappy delay that sounds like the guitarist is hitting the chord twice in rapid fire succession. But they aren’t, it’s the delay that gives it the sound. I can so see him pulling an iMac apart and setting it on fire a few times to get that smokey sound. Another legend about him is that he would actually bury the master tapes in the earth for months with crystals and shit like that to give it an earthy sound.

I am a little stressed at the moment. I need to get into Hamilton 3 times this week but I am so wary of driving, I do not wish to ruin my chances of getting my licence back but its unfair to expect others to drive me around. It’s why I wished to stay in Hamilton because my support is there. I am happy where I am though, its just a little far. I ran out of time to find a place. I am working hard not to be resentful. So I won’t.

I took the audio interface into the shop today and its getting fixed this week and I’ll be able to record a little easier when its done. I have some really good music in the pipeline, its interesting and has me working hard. I feel ok. I want things. Now that I have space to cry and be alone, now that I have privacy I am able to have a good look at myself and at what I want from life. Everything I want takes time. However, I have learned the art of patience. I am much better at it these days.

I love you, you know that.

xxxxpreading man

Sorry To Bother You…

Sorry To Bother You is a 2018 film by Rapper, Producer, Screenwriter and Activist Boots Riley. It is his directorial debut and is one of the best finds I’ve managed to stumble upon in a very long time. A surrealist vision of slavery in a dystopian capitalist world only a fraction of a beat removed from current time North America. It challenges the greed of obscene wealth, gender stereotypes, racism and does so with razor sharp wit and mind melting surreal weirdness that rivals Being John Malkovitch, An Adalusian Dog, Eraserhead and Lost Highway for having your brain turn into goop and start pouring out your eyes, nose… all kinds of messed up. It’s got a wicked Hip Hop sensibility, a killer tongue in cheek irreverence and a myriad of weird little Easter Eggs and little details that will have you rewatching it well into your 60s, still finding new things that you hadn’t spotted before.

I am not going to spoil it but if you like your cinema with a little twist of dark humour and a healthy dab of strange, then you have come to the right place. Here’s how the director describes it: “an absurdist dark comedy with aspects of magical realism and science fiction inspired by the world of telemarketing”.

That is all.

Mark

 

Freddie, Prison Art and RUN DMC

 

 

I am still on this weird Queen kick. The Bohemian Rhapsody film has really tweaked my imagination and I have been, um, fact checking, I guess, for want of better words. I have been driving a bit, now that I have my learners ticket. I am hoping to sit the full test this week. I love that feeling of driving on nice clean corners at 100kmph, it’s close to flying and it is a sensation I have missed sorely. I was pretty timid at first and thought “Oh no I am going to be one of those drivers who crawls along at 70kmph in a 100kmph zone!” but, nah, it’s like riding a bike and I soon found my line again.

Todays Blog deals with suicide. Feel free to not read it if you are of a sensitive nature. If you or someone you know is struggling with Suicidality or Crisis please call Lifeline: (In New Zealand) 0800 543 354 or The Suicide Crisis Line 0800 828 865 plus here is a list of helpful people if you need to access help. If you are overseas then please contact the local equivalents. Talking about it is ok, far more ok than acting on it. Like all thoughts and impulses… it passes. However, surviving until the thought has passed? Thats the trick. So talk. Blog, Paint, Write songs, Poetry, spray paint your feelings on the walls of your town, do whatever it takes to get through to the other side.  Hell, drop me a line if you need to. It wouldn’t be the first time and I know what it is like, boy do I.

Man, I sound like some bum-ass preacher.

I discuss my own mental health, not to glamorise or to shock, simply because it is my experience. I live daily with the threat of self harm hanging over me and crisis tends to come swiftly and out of the blue sometimes. I take care of myself and things are not as bad as they have been and, fingers crossed, it will stay that way.

The “Denouement” and “Denouement-er” records on my bandcamp page were written back to back in a very small room in Hillcrest. I was living with a Hooker, pretty much, who was fucking this terrible old racist hateful man because when he dies soon, she will get the property and she has nowhere else to live. She was my dear friend once but things went sour after I got charged and sunk into depression. I had Martins’ Telecaster, my Bass and pedals and for a while I had my drums set up so a lot of the drums and conga on those tracks are live as well. I had a couple of synths and all my little gadgets. The thing is that I was expecting to die shortly and felt that this music would serve as my legacy, my farewell and a statement of who I was. Lame, tragically stupid and drama queen to the fullest, yes, guilt of it all.

After the first overdose failed I settled into a routine of just surviving until I could amass more drugs and this time I intended to double the dose I’d taken the first time. Actually, the first time I closed myself in an airtight space with a couple of cans of a brutal solvent and fell asleep. When that didn’t work I added a full tank of Helium to the mix. When those two methods had failed I set about amassing a collection of drugs that, I am positive, would easily kill most mortal beings… including a few small horses. So, now we are up to the 4th attempt in the space of 4 months or so.

The afternoon I am thinking of was supposed to be my last. I wrote a suicide note and posted it to this blog and I went to sleep. I’d set up an audio file with 6 hours of silence at the start and then Nirvanas “Insesticide” Album would play at seriously high decibels. I didn’t want for my body to sit in that room for two or three days, which is what would’ve happened. No-one visited and the folks I lived with had a “Seen and not heard” approach to me. So I thought that it was fitting, one last noise complaint… you know? It gives me shivers to relive that. Anyway, 6 hours later and the first few bars of “Dive” start playing, loud as all hell. It’s just Krists Bass line for a while so I just managed to flop my arm over and pull the plug out before Kurt ripped a hole in the very fabric of that neighbourhood. I have loud fucking gear when its all set up together. It was 8 in the evening and I was still alive. It’s an experience I’ve had several times now in my life and it is a massive disappointment at the time. Just. Urgh.

I was very sick. I’d taken what I thought would be a lethal dose and then I’d doubled that just to make sure. I couldn’t walk straight, talk or even roll a cigarette or open a drink. I managed to snatch up all the evidence and stumble out to my car with a bottle of Patron and some fags and, somehow, I managed to delete the blog post (That fortunately no-one had read yet) and get the car around to the car park of a sports ground close by. I finished the Tequila and fell asleep. At that time the police were doing random bail checks and if they’d seen me in that state I’d be fucked. If they came when I was out I’d be fucked too but less so I guess. The worst thing about those moments is that you do not save any drugs for later, there isn’t supposed to be a later…. you know? So on top of everything else, I’d be in withdrawals in a few hours. Actually, I kinda stayed pretty smashed for 3 or 4 days but still.

So then I slipped into a routine. I’d wait until the people of the house went to work then Id get up, go to the chemist, go to the liquor store, go to a dealers and then go home. Sometimes I’d go out to buy pot too but I was drinking a lot so I didn’t drive much and I was pretty far out of the way. I was going through $140 worth of beer a week. I would sometimes drink vodka or tequila but it cost too much to buy as much as I felt I needed. My curfew was 7pm til 7am so I would get up at 7, drink a beer, go do all my missions and get back as quick as I could so I could drink until 2 or 3 in the afternoon and then I’d sober up and take sleepers at night. Now and then the police would turn up but they usually waited until 1 or 2am. I can still hear that crazy evil old man abusing the shit out of them. I reckon they came more often just for the show he would put on. Hateful evil dude, remind me to write about him one day…. I didn’t see my friends much except for band practice and I didn’t really tell anyone that I was not coping at all. How could I explain to anyone how I was feeling? It felt like I was racing life itself to the grave, trying to get there before life could hurt me anymore. I’d go home and cook that evenings meal, so I didn’t have to use the kitchen when the people were home and then I’d drink all day or make music or watch movies or whatever… just waiting until I had gathered enough drugs to get it right. You see?

I do not feel this way now.

I haven’t for a long time.

I guess the worst that could happen has happened and now I just pick up the pieces. The music from that period is not depressed or gloomy (Although downbeat by definition is kinda sludgy) and it was one of the few places I was finding any joy so I do not regret making it and there are some real gems in there. Plus two of the Screw-Jack Records got made during this period too.

Anyway, that’s all. I thought about that Nirvana record this morning and it opened up a few memories. Please don’t read too much into it, there’s no subtext or threats, it’s just a time in my life that has now passed.

I am loving these Freddie Mercury interviews, he was so fantastic, glam, bitchy and witty. I was also thinking today about my love of hip hop. This is not a new thing. One of the very first Tapes I bought with my own money was “Tougher Than Leather” by RUN DMC as well as an LL Cool Jay Record, The Fat Boys, Eric B and Rakim and there was also a duo from South Auckland called “Double J and Twice The T”. They were pretty cool and they were Kiwis, rapping. I got into Upper Hutt Posse later and I guess, eventually I had to admit it, I was a born again B-Boy. I remember being very small and seeing it on TV, like it was something new and they were talking about “Rapping To the beat”. Perhaps it was this... I dunno but they were African American kids talking about this new scene they had going and I was mesmerised by it… I have been since.

I was contacted today by a guy I met inside. Imagine me, wandering the yard, walking around and around and around alone and then this guy starts up a conversation with me and he’s going on about A432hz! Can you imagine it? Fuck. It made my whole day. He is an Air Brush artist so I am going to keep an eye on his work and maybe ask him to do some artwork for some of this new music.

I’m laying some vocals today. Quite scary. That I am sitting here wasting time with this shows how much I want to procrastinate until something else occurs. But, no, I will go and face my fears.

I love you. If you can relate to any of this then I salute you as a fellow survivor and if you are still struggling, please talk to someone about it. Please. It passes. It really does. Things never stay shit, they never stay wonderful either. There are so many better parts of my life that I’d rather be living in but good times will come again. Love will come again too, I have to believe that.

xxxM

 

 

 

 

 

Brohemian Rhapsody

Hola and welcome to the show. My name is Mark, I will be your hostess. Please take a seat, put some pants on and get comfortable. You, dearest, Kind reader sure do have an appetite for literarily slumming it and, by golly, do I have the goods for you today…

So I watched Bohemian Rhapsody last night. Unlike the other films I have watched this week, there’s no real way to spoil this one. The cat, as they say, is already out of the bag. Spoiler Alert… He dies, Heroically, of Aids. To our great detriment.

So I learned a lot of things about Mr Freddie Mercury. Like his ethnicity and his real name. Farroukh Bulsara, born in Stone Town, Tanzania to Parsi Indian parents. He was born with 4 extra incisors which accounts for his gaping gob and, according to him, supplied the extra cavity in his mouth, facilitating his impressive vocal range. I had a few misconceptions also that I’d always held about Queen. So here’s a quick run down of the myths that got dispelled for me in watching this film… Not all of Queen, despite their appearances, were gay. Brian May was actually born with that Mullet, 8 pounds 6 Ounces of baby boy plus three pounds of dripping wet mullet. (Ok ok I made that up but it is in the film….).  Well, actually, that was all really. I just kinda assumed they were all gay on account of the reputed “Four Aging Queens” comment that Freddie made in a press conference once.

It is not flattering. I can see why the die hard fans were up in arms over this film. It paints Freddie as a complete diva, selfish, sometimes heartless and arrogant but it also takes into account the ferocious power that he brought to his craft, that they all brought to their craft. Queen are legendary. The first time I came across them I was given a tape that just had QUEEN scrawled on it in biro. It came with three other tapes “Ozzy Osbourne – Bark At The Moon”, “Metalica – Ride The lightening” and a band called “Cinderella” but I can’t remember the name of that album. My friend Jason had an older brother called Carl that we hero worshipped. He had cool clothes, a cool bike and he wore denim with badges and metal patches , he smoked and he showed us how to pierce our ears with a needle and a frozen sausage…. If Carl said it was cool then it was cool. I had no idea who they were other than this amazing band on the tape I had and then “I want to break Free” hit the TV and the grownups were all confused and a bit angry at this man prancing about in women’s clothes… me, I thought it was the bravest thing Id ever seen. A year or so later I got suspended from school for wearing a girls uniform on mufti day… fucking prudes…

A shit load of research must have gone into this film, much of the dialog being supplied by various interviews in which Freddie or the various members of the band and management talk about certain incidents. I have a pretty good stash of music related documentaries, live shows and interviews and I managed to track down much of the source material after watching the flick. Yes, Yes I am a fucking nerd, ok? There are some heartfelt moments that try to portray his very private and vulnerable side and there’s a nice sub plot about how he met and woo-ed his lover Jim Hutton and there’s some really revealing moments regarding his marriage and his “Coming Out” process. For want of better words.

There is a Villain, there is always a Villain and in this case its Paul Prenter, Freddies’ one time personal manager. The man who nearly cost Queen their Live Aid performance. Some of the facts about him don’t quite jibe but the essence is there and there’s a beautifully wretched scene where he tells all of Freddies secrets in an interview for revenge and that filthy lucre… (This actually happened but not quite the way the film suggests). And so it’s here, in the details, where I get a bit worried that perhaps there is a bit more fudging of the truth. It might help the films storyline but renders it a questionable source of real information about a man who truly touched the people of the world. Queen were fucking behemoths. Queens Set at Live Aid is largely lauded as the greatest Rock N Roll performance of all time (Second maybe to the Rooftop gig by those four Liverpool lads) and they returned to Wembley a couple of years later and broke a record for largest paying audience at any event (A record they themselves had for a concert half a decade earlier in Sao Paolo.) These records have long since been eclipsed but, at the time they were unstoppable. So, to have a document that future generations of music lovers can go to and get an inkling of perspective… I just think it’s important to get the facts right. Mostly they are… mostly.

I stayed up to watch pretty much all of Live Aid. Queen are the ones I go back to every time I feel nostalgic for the 80s, Queen at Live Aid or Queen at Wembley in 86… man, it just doesn’t get any better than that.

There are a lot of reasons to not watch this film. At times the acting isn’t quite there and some of the overdubbed scenes with Queens performance played over the theatrical production is a bit naff… I mean why watch ten minutes of Fake Queen at Live Aid when the real thing is a few short key strokes away? You know? Still. I like it and I intend to watch it again today, poring over the details like a sleuth. I recommend it, but with an open mind. It is not Val Kilmers’ “Jim Morrison” level cool but it’s pretty cool nonetheless. Theres a cool story about Sid Vicious mocking Freddie when they were recording in the same building as Queen, a situation which turned sour for old Sidney pretty quick as Freddie not only fronts but throws down a gauntlet which Sid fails to pick up. Sid 0 / Freddie 1. He he he I love that, the idea of the bully being bested by the pansy.

xxxMarky Sparkle.

 

Palliative Care and Refrigeration

I have started laying guitar tracks. It has been almost 18 months since I even had the tools to make music, let alone the time and space. My big, brutish Mac Pro died on me just before I went away and the track I was working on was fantastic… Well, I thought it was. I would get the damn computer to boot up, this would take a couple of hours just to finesse a little life from it, then I would very carefully open the project and try to save my work to a drive. Nah! It would always almost get there and the computer would die. It got to the point where it wouldn’t even boot up and I gave up. I assumed it was just an overheating issue and that would mean a few new parts and it would be fine. The computer was worth about $4,500 so it was worth spending money on it but I was unavailable and asked someone else to please take it to the shop. Two shops later and, miraculously, all the high spec gear inside the fucking thing, like the solid state drives and the acres of ram, had all turned into cheap, broken, generic shit. Even the motherboard had been swapped out. Whats a guy to do? My word against theirs and, well, fuck, I had bigger fish to fry.

Next thing I know  a guy asks me if I know how to make content for a website, Videos, images, gifs and such… I said “Sure but I need a computer to do it on” and, here we are. However, a mutual friend, he seemed to take it as a threat. He makes “content” as well and so suddenly it was this dumb rivalry thing, next thing I know the guy wants the computer back and I never even got to do the gig at all! For a moment there it felt like I was useful. I am going to ask if I can pay it off and keep it. It is a floor model and its a bit glitchy plus it has a minuscule drive in it… a couple of big files and it gets all snitch “You are almost out of memory!”

Anyway, sorry. I have noticed that since I’ve had a place to be, a door that I can close at night and a little room for my musical gear, I have been less inclined to bitch so much. So maybe I’ll just leave that thought where it is and move on to the real reason we are here today…. Have you seen “Parasite?” Oh My Freaking Lord! What a film!

It was suggested to me that the trick with this film is to not know anything about it, don’t watch trailers or listen to gossip, just watch it. Man. It’s a triumph. It’s warm and funny, brutal and honest and raw as fuck. I am not going to tell you anything about it but it made me laugh and shiver and cry at the end. I can totally understand why it has been getting all the slaps. I will be watching it again once the bruising heals up a bit. You will love it. Make sure you get a good copy with subs though. Yify has some good copies. Oh, yeah… did you know? yify is back.

Yify was my favourite bootlegger. I even had a home made YIFY t-shirt. When the feds finally caught up with him and busted this huge international movie pirate it turned out that he was based in Morningside, Auckland, the next suburb in from where I was living, in Sandringham! It blew my mind. I’ve just downloaded the Bohemian Rhapsody film as well. It got fucking slaughtered by the critics but, shoot, I aint a critic, I am a fan. I was talking to someone about art the other day and they mentioned that most “Art Critics” are probably folks who couldn’t art to save themselves. I reckon that is probably true. It is why Musicians make such shitty music reviewers… we are better at doing it than talking about it.

I had a gig reviewing music for NZ Musician back in the times. There was this one album that I fucking loathed and I told them so, in print, as it were. The day the issue came out the artist in question flooded my inbox with abuse and started calling the house with threats and all sorts of vulgar shit. He is a guy who I have admired over the years… I just thought his new record was lame. Was I supposed to just fake it? Then all of my reviews would be in question…. fuck him. you know?

I don’t do that no more.

What I do do though, is cook. Last night I did a New York style base pizza. Making the dough from scratch, giving it plenty of time to rise. I love punching it when it has risen, so satisfying. My friends have helped me to understand Pizza technology lately. In the past I was using too little heat and too much time… 10 minutes in a hot hot oven (250-260 degrees C) that’s all it needs, the base is crispy and a little fluffy and the toppings are all cooked right. So I use Tomato paste, Mozzarella, Tasty cheese, onion, olives, bacon and anchovies, dusted with parmesan and voila! Pizza dagnabbit! I am seriously considering doing it again today.

Anyway, I am going to start my day. I was going to head into town for a jam but I can’t afford it, I blew my wad on a fan and a reading lamp this week plus I need to see my dr next week and get a new script. Money is a little tight. I will leave you with a quote from my third favourite movie this year…

“The Worst Thing About Having A Mental Illness Is People Expect You To Behave As If You Don’t.” – Joker 2019

xxxM

Producing Beats

I have been studying some of the great producers lately. Kanye, The RZA, Dre, Jimmy Iovine and Trent Reznor to name just a few. Of course, Tubby, Scratch and Rick Rubin go without saying. The trick, it seems to me, is to find cuts from records that no-one has plundered yet. Here is a cut that I have heard used a few times in Hip Hop from the 80s til now. See if you can recognise any of the various samples folks have used….. It seems to be the way that great Dub and great Hip Hop happens. I have always thought that to be a great beat maker you needed A: a backpack, to put stuff in. B: a Hooded sweatshirt and C: to spend days and days standing in Vinyl record stores flicking through records and rubbing the scant whiskers of your chin. So I have always felt that I kinda fail because I do not even have a record player, let alone a record. Actually that’s a lie, I own two records. A Copy of BlackStar, Bowies last record and a really rare old sex pistols European bootleg, white label and dust cover with the photocopied liner notes still in it. No idea where it is though.

Last night I was pondering this and I realised that I spend a lot of time with a grumpy old bastard who only really likes Gypsy music and really fucking obscure old Calypso music. It dawns on me that perhaps I need look no further than the “History” page of my browser. He doesn’t use “technology” so when we hang out he uses me as a search engine and we go and find all these weird old tracks from the 1920s and 30s. No shit. We even use books about the early days of Caribbean music to try and track down the very original versions. Each tune he wants to find usually has five or six iterations and he is only interested in finding a very specific cut that he heard once on vinyl. So I tracked down one of the ones we really had to work to find and I have been experimenting with cutting up breaks and samples. Have a listen, its Lord Kitcheners song “Come Back With Me Wifes Nighty”. Pretty funny. But a little digging will prove that there are all kinds of versions, not only people finding it decades later and doing a version but even his contemporaries, like Wilmoth Houdini or Atila The Hun or Lord Invader. This is the same scene that brought us songs like “Rum And CocaCola” and would eventually become things like “Mento”, “Ska” and “Reggae”, eventually morphing into “Dub” and, well, the rest is history.

So, that’s what I am doing today, trawling through this music and hoping to get some fire.

I am feeling better. I feel safe and loved and productive. It’s amazing how powerful music is. I know that this music is never going to really do anything. It is the art of creating it that is where the magic is. I went to performing arts school, Maori Performing Arts School to be precise. The head of music told me once that if you can craft 100 songs, one of them is going to be something really special and I hold to that. Not every piece of music I make is great or even good but they all have my heart and were pawed over for days and days of tweaking details that, cumulatively, make up a whole greater than the sum of its parts. I checked my account at the Royalty Collection, Artists Rights outfit that I belong to. There are 114 songs of mine registered with them. I have easily recorded 100 more since I stopped bothering to register songs. So, there might be 2 or 3 really good tunes in there somewhere. I’ll just keep going, by the time I get to 1000 I should have enough decent tracks for an album! Heh.
Love each other and care for someone else without conditions or requiring reciprocity.

xxxxm

Never Fight A Man With A Perm

Friends, Bro-mans and Countryfolk. It’s with some frustration that I tell you it is a beautiful mid-summer morning here in the South Waikato, North Island, New Zealand, At the bottom of the world. The high water mark, according to my local pundit, of western civilisation. Well, actually that particular place is 20 minutes north but close enough for comfort. Another scorcher without a single cloud on the horizon.

I am settling in here. The people in town and up the road are a bit leery of a fat man with  an odd and confusing set of tattoos. I reckon that if I had clearly defined loyalties expressed in the ink on my body it would not get me so much negative attention. If I had strictly Maori designs, or strictly heavy metal skulls and Motörhead type designs or if I had the new, hipster, Japanese type tattoos things would be easier for folks to digest. But mine are like stickers reflecting moments and ideas in my life that I felt worthy of celebrating. Perhaps one day I will sit down and explain them all to you, gentle reader, then at least there will be a small demographic that are not confused about the whole bloody thing. I wear long sleeves now, when I go into shops. Well, when I remember to give a shit.

Heres a quick run down of my tats. I have, on my head, behind my ears, an apple logo. I make music and Macs have provided me with the best tools for that over the years and consistently do the work I need without all the fucking around associated with P.C. I feel a bit weird having a corporate logo on me but, fuck, it aint the only one I have. I have a Smashing pumpkins love heart and a map of New Zealand also behind my ears and these can easily be hidden by hair. On my Neck is a bad rendition of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers Unity symbol. The tattooist who did it is a guy on the main road into Whangaparaoa, give him a wide berth, he’s fucken shit. I think that’s all I have on my head. The rest are on my arms. I decided that I would just keep going on my arms until I have both sleeves finished. I am over half way.

My left arm has on the front of the forearm “Marceline” from the TV show “Adventure Time” She is heir to the throne of the Nightosphere and plays a bass guitar that is shaped like an Axe. She is a vampire but instead of blood she drinks the colour red. She reminds me of someone wonderful and she is my idea of the perfect woman. On the inside of my left forearm I have the birthdates of my children and their sisters. I have the skull and crossbones that graced the cover of my second full length solo album “The Lost Art Of Self Destruction” and above that I have the Anarchy Symbol/Pentagram artwork for my second solo E.P “Bio-Psycho-Social” (recorded at Jaz Colemans York St Studio). In the crook of my elbow I have a stylised version of the “Deathly Hallows” symbol from the Harry Potter story. In the very centre of it is the best site for getting blood samples and what-not… that fucking what-not…. On the back of my forearm is a Portrait of Darth Vader, that ones pretty obvious. Its huge, extending from my wrist to my elbow. Above those, wrapped around my bicep is my family Tartan, Anderson Tartan and our coat of arms/crest, bordered by some Celtic knotwork.

On my Right arm I have a fat, smiling Buddha holding up a banner with my darling Granddaughters birthday above his head on my inside wrist. Above that is the Thumbs Up man from the I.G.A (Four Square) company. I used him as cover art for my first E.P “Loyal?” and I received a “Cease and desist” notice from the corporation for posters advertising the release gig. I never made it to the gig, I was in hospital. Long story. On the front of my right forearm I have another Smashing Pumpkins love heart and above that is Hunter Thompsons Gonzo, two-thumbed-freak-fist-with-knife design. I consider it to be my press credentials. I always worry that gangsters will think it is a black power fist but most real gangsters I have met are pretty smart guys and can easily spot the differences, some of them even know what it is. On the back of my right forearm is a portrait of Jimi James Hendrix. Jimi has been an artist I have admired since I was a boy. By the time I was 16 I had saved up for and purchased all of the offical records and a handful of bootlegs. I learned how to comp the changes in most of the songs although I never ever even tried to play the solos or complicated bits… In Jimis band I was always strictly Rhythm…. you dig? Big shoes to fill and I aint the guy to try them on. Its a photo from a photoshoot that produced the image that graces his “Greatest Hits” L.P. The cool military jacket… you know the one… The Image I wanted had the top of his hair cropped out so me and the tattooist trawled through the archives of photos of Jimi from that same day and managed to get a nice full head of authentic hair for him. I really like it plus people seem to get the dichotomy, yin yang of Jimi and Darth Vader. Wrapped around my right bicep is my very first tattoo, a Maori design that I based on the concept of the three Kete of knowledge and the schools of the Whare Waananga, focusing to the Whare Whakaari, the one in which I have made myself a home. Underneath that is another Smashing Pumpkins design, this time the ZERO single artwork with the star. I am not a fan of all their music but the first handful of albums had an amazing effect on me as a youth.

Thats all.

I think.

I want more. I want a Bob Marley themed one and I really would like some more cartoon themed ones and maybe a few reflecting my beliefs. The very next one will be a Wu Tang “W”, on my right forearm, above the Gonzo joint. Theres plenty of time though. I wanted to get a “Boob Tattoo”, but the opportunity never arose and that’s probably for the best. I sold a guy a needle I’d scored and some ink one time. The next morning he came out of his  cell with “Fuck You” inked onto his left cheek. BUT he’d done it in the mirror and fucken did it backwards! He didn’t actually even know until others saw it and, man, I felt for him, he deflated like a balloon. Going from heroic to moron in the space of a few beats. Anyway, I didn’t get one and that’s good. I hide my Tats when I am around certain  folks; like at probation or the welfare office. They attract unwholesome types and I am trying to not be that.

When I got my first ink it was mostly just the lower and criminal classes that got Tattooed. Now teachers, cops and bankers have them. Hell, my last probation officer had more tats than I do and she’s this prim and properly pakeha lady for fucks sake! So, you know, on one hand its good that things are shifting but on the other hand its Culture Vulturing kind of shit, isn’t it? Gentle Reader?

I am working on music again today. I am going to help my friend bottle her peach wine tomorrow but Band Practice is cancelled tonight and so today will be a quiet one I think. I was looking forward to jamming tonight but one of us is unwell so we’ll have to wait. Back pain is a bitch and I am glad it aint me.

Rightoh. This morning I have been listening to the “Idles” Album “Joy as an act of Rebellion” and it is fantastic. I downloaded it this morning and am pleased with it. I also grabbed the “Sleaford Mods” discography but after what he has been saying about “IDLES” I feel a bit iffy about them now. Still, undeniable brilliance, particularly the production. Please check “Idles” out, if you like “The Sex Pistols” or “The Fall” or “Joy Division” or “Killing Joke” then you will dig it, hard.

Have a great day out there in the cheap seats.

xxxxMr Tupuhi esq. (whatever “esq.” means)

Rain, Cobain and Cocaine

Dude, you have no idea how sweet rain can be when it hasn’t rained for weeks. I was out in the world an hour ago when those first drops began to fall and the sense of relief was palpable among all the people out there. I saw a shop owner just standing out the front of his florist shop just staring up at the sky with his palms held out to catch the drops and a goofy smile on his face.I guess a florist has more to lose in a drought than most. It was like watching a piece of really good steak on a hot grille contract and then get all loose like jelly. People need this. The farmers must be hurting. My tobacco plants will be smiling like mother fuckers. It has been so bad that if one of us forgot to water them, even for just one day, there would be dust in the ground where there was life only 24 hours before. I can’t even imagine what it must be like on market gardens and farms without really good irrigation. People have been hurting and now there is a reprieve. I thought for a second that it was only going to spit and then stop, like a cosmic tease, but it has been getting heavier and heavier and now I can see, out my window, sheets of water marching across the south Waikato skies. Big sky out here, rolling pastures and in the morning the hills do that cool effect where each successive rise has a slightly different shade of blue/grey. I like it. I like it better wet. Something ODB might say…

I have a few new pieces of music to work with. The music is beginning to reflect the steady diet of Hip Hop, Trap Music and Gangster Rap (Wu Tang, NWA, P.E and Sage Francis) but it’s easy enough to write a beat and then twist the tempo down to my level once I have it banging. Even better to slow it down with pitch shifting and let it get all fat and sassy. There won’t be any to listen to for a while. I am hoping that this stuff will grow up to be ScrewJack 4, Matt is in a good space and now that the studio is working and set up… time to work. I’ve done a track with Odees vocals but I am not sure that it’s working yet. I’d give it to his family to approve before I did anything with it though, He was so funny, there are a handful of samples of the two of us just giggling.

Wow it’s really pissing down now! Yay! It is so nice just standing in it. Its that big fat driving rain but there’s an ambient temperature of about 20 degrees so its not unpleasant and you almost dry off as soon as you step out of it. I have been sleeping all through the night only waking once or twice. I wondered if it was my lot now, that I only ever have broken sleep. You have to remember that for the last year and a half I have had to share my bedroom with another human being. A living, breathing, farting, shitting, pissing human being right there… The last 3 nights have been bliss, you have no fucking idea. I am still working my way through the American Saga series. Inspiring. Urban African Americans, the ones in projects and in the real bad ass places live such shitty lives. The hoarders of power use the police like an invading army and subjugate the people, keeping them in their little niche and making sure they don’t infect the populace of, mostly, white amerikkka. That they seem to have cornered the market of culture and art only serves to show how strong and durable they are and I have mad love for them. Xxxtentacion is a good example of someone who, like many, managed to get a piece of the American dream and still fucken died as if he was back in the hood. Shot dead for a Louis Vuitton bag containing $50,000 cash. He is a fine artist and will have a legacy lasting far beyond his years but like Easy E, Jimi Hendrix, Kurdt Cobain and many many other artists it would still be way better if he were here making new art. As far as I can tell, life is pretty cheap and only seems to get cheaper. I read some stats that, yearly, more African Americans are killed on their own soil than there are casualties in all current global conflicts. Not by a small margin either.

Drugs are decimating them. Like how the Chinese were cowed with Opium back in the dark days that they do not like to discuss, African American communities are shackled with Crack Cocaine, Fentanyl, Heroin and a myriad of other nasty, cut rate shitty drugs. Where cannabis has been made available I imagine there have been gains made but mostly between the drugs, the war on them and the brutality amongst rival suppliers…. how the fuck does a community get to heal and thrive? It doesn’t and I suspect that that right there is the whole fucking idea. In countries where drugs have been decriminalised and turned into a health issue rather than a legal one there have been striking statistical shifts away from harm and marginalisation. Give people options and they will make good choices. Give them none and they will still do what the fuck they want. Not once has the illegality of drugs stopped me from using them or even thinking about not using them. I am not today but that is a choice, I have used drugs in the past, all of them, pretty much except for a handful of exotic ones it’s hard to get here. The bad ones have always led me to misery and shame. So… I don’t. If it were legal I think I’d like to smoke a little opium once in a while, drop an E or a trip once a year or so and go dancing and I do like to smoke pot but I am a true lightweight and can easily not smoke it for years without really noticing. Mushrooms I’d like to use as a micro dose to treat anxiety and depression, I know folks who do and who have been able to replace multiple pharmaceutical drugs with nasty side effects successfully. Those bad ones though, meth, hard opiates and benzo diazepines,…. Nah, I can’t fuck with them.

Please remember that this is all speculative. This is not what I do or even what I plan to do. This is what I would do if it were legal and acceptable. Which is a long long way off, probably not in my lifetime but I do hope humanity has a change of heart or at least a change of overlords.

Oh shit, it has stopped raining. That was nowhere near enough for the crops. It will be bone dry out there in half an hour. Fuck. Oh well, it was better than not raining I guess. I hope you are ok. That little rant about religion yesterday, please do not read too much into it. I feel I am basically a Buddhist, if I have to have a label, but it is such a private business and I have no judgements on anyone who has a faith. I watch a bit of Sufi and Kirtan music and those folks are deeply spiritual… they just know how to party as well and I was quite interested in the OSHO movement for a minute. I have an open mind, I guess is what I am saying.  I just resent that sometimes other folks beliefs get applied to me sometimes and it’s just wrong, I do not involve other folks in my beliefs so they could maybe return the favour? Thats all I was trying to say.

Man, sparrows are nasty little bastards aren’t they?

Have a great day.

xxxm

 

religion and beLIEf.

My man had some mean things to say about my dear dear friend Odee Rose after he died. He said that Odee and I were rebelling against the religion of our fathers, that Odee was simply knee jerking. I loved that guy, he never considered that shit, he flicked through the spiritual rolodex and created his own spirituality. It wasn’t for everyone but it was NOT evil or, whatever….. It was his own and he cobbled it together himself through research, trial and error and heart.  My man has accused me of being a satanist and a devil worshipper and worse over the years. I try to let it slide. I put a lot of stock in the book of “Do what thou wilt” but it’s not a religion, it’s a private matter. What religion is he talking about? When I was small he decided he was an Anglican, then a Unionist and then a Pentecostal and then a Maori Spiritualist. He fucken slips and slides between tham as the occasion fits. I mean,  I also remember him worshipping John Lennon and the Anti-Aparthied movement to mention but a few. Which of them does he think I was rebelling against? His religions seemed in a state of flux ever since I met him. He buys Brian Tamakis books for fucks sake… Dude… His religion was just the first of many that society would throw at me that I would analyse and leave behind me. I didn’t buy any of it. Christianity seems to be based on the fear of what might come after this life. I am terrified of what might come after death, what dreams might come to me in that deep sleep. Do I want to hedge my bets? No. Have faced that veil more often than most people? Yes. So fuck speaking ill of the dead. Fuck judging people. We live. We Die. As far as I can tell, that’s all. S

This is why the world is at war. Stupid fucking shit like this.

love

m

Mixtapes For All

https://tupuhi.bandcamp.com

Running On Empty

Jeepers, the equipment has some foibles and needs the tender ministrations of a soldering iron and someone who knows what the fuck they are doing with a soldering iron. Today was a day of tiny triumphs, like the man once said. I loved Crowded House so much. I have made two pilgrimages in homage of New Zealands former first musical export. “Don’t dream it’s over” was so consistently the highest offshore grossing New Zealand song that it became an embarrassment to Neil Finn at Award time. In the end he let all sorts of people even only vaguely connected with the song get up and receive the award. Like; “ladies and Gentlemen, to receive the overseas royalties award for 2001… the guy who cleaned the bathroom at the studio where they recorded the radio ads for the release of the song preceding “Don’t dream it’s over”; Mr. Elvin Husk!”. I first went to Te Awamutu one day on way too many magic mushrooms and still awake from the night befores acid trip. They have a Split End Museum there and I went to try and touch the hem of the garments of greatness. After that I flew to Sydney and busked on the steps of the Opera house, Crowded House songs only, for weeks. I made good money too. It’s all academic because that “Day of Tiny Triumphs” is a Shihad lyric anyway. So, you know, fuck it.

So I now have a Learners Permit and I can now sit my full licence as soon as I feel ready. I am a good driver but it is no fun not having a licence. Every day, in my position, could be my last at large. I love the idea of driving out to some remote beach, lighting a fire, playing guitar and falling asleep on the sand. I can’t do that now. I will be able to soon.

I got my transfer all legit and approved today and I spent the leftover cash from the licence mission on a reading lamp and a fan to cool my jangled nerves. I feel happy and content and safe. Safe is the important bit. I do not know what your experience is, gentle reader, but mine is of constant fear and to feel safe is the daily goal, to have achieved it (with the love and care of the people I consider family) is the best thing I’ve had for so so long.

I am watching the “An American Saga” series again as well as filling up on Lil Wayne and Tyler. I love Hip Hop. I am never going to be a rapper. My music is not Hip Hop, yet it still strikes me as being the most exciting and innovative thing going at the moment. Rock is played out. Straight Corny Ass Shit. I love that I know all the drum machines and samples that the new Hip Hop kids use. I use em too, I guess that’s why. I am working on a song using samples of Odee. It’s turning out really good. I feel happy when I am making music. I realised, last night, that what I make is mixtapes, dub/downbeat mixtapes. Shit that I just bang out day in day out that isn’t really album tracks, just work-a-day music making grind. I often fantasise that one day someone will discover it and want to use it to sing or rap or grime or toast over. It could happen…. right?

I have stopped letting Donald J Trump have any of my time anymore and life is better for it. Fuck him. I just bought one of those bamboo toothbrushes, better for the environment and I like that. Anyway, that’s all for today. I feel happy, well…. not grinning clown rainbows and unicorns happy but happy nonetheless. I feel safe. In my world safe is a win.

I love you.

You know that.

xxxm

Hot Cake Crybaby Tube Screamer

 

Good Morning. I slept in today. I was surprised to find it was 9:30am when I got up, I was thinking maybe 8 at the latest. It’s not something I intend to keep doing, it’s too hot here, we are in a drought and the heat starts in at you from the get go. However it was nice.

I finally worked out how the new “Torrent web” app works and have been downloading new music. Xxxtentacion and Tyler The Creator for a start. ( I just started downloading a certain rabbit movie too). Theres a lot of hip hop that I have missed plus some new indie stuff that I haven’t got copies of yet. Sleaford Mods and Idles. Plus I kinda want to get Kanyes discography. I have changed my tune about him, I like it, I don’t like him much but I can appreciate his art without him fucking that up too much. I only get wifi in a tiny corner of my room. It has forced me to A: be sociable and go into the main house now and then and be with the people and B: work! Not just watch netflix or Youtube. Having said that,  I have been going through my big stash of films and music and am revisiting some of the more inspiring things. “The Defiant Ones” is a docu-series  about Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre. It documents their unique careers and the steps it took to bring them into the position where Dre would eventually become Hip Hops first billionaire. I also have been rewatching the various Wu Tang films I have. I don’t have a copy of the two netflix series but now that I have torrent on the case again, its only a matter of time. I watched them a month or two ago anyway. In among that stuff I have been working on a couple of a432hz tracks. I finished the two commissioned projects I had lined up and the people are happy with the results so now I can settle into making trap beats, downtempo and dub! Wooo!

I watched my youngest daughter play guitar and uke for an hour this morning. I was reluctant to join in because I was mesmerised by how good she is and I didn’t want to mess with her flow. I gave her a handful of pedals and she is going to experiment with them. She’s never used pedals before and I can remember vividly the first time I got to take a pedal home from the shop and find out what the big deal was…. life changing.

My first pedal was a Boss D-1 distortion pedal. After which I got a Zoom multi effects with dual expression pedals. One for volume and the other for various parameter control like wah and chorus depth or phaser intensity etc. I really loved that thing, I had settings saved for all the schrodingers cat songs. In fact, when we reformed a decade later I borrowed the pedal from the lady I sold it to and the bloody settings were all still there so we sounded exactly like we had a decade earlier. Pretty slick. I grew past those horrid plastic things though and settled on a handful of analog pedals that I like to use. A Delay, a crybaby, a hotcake and a tremolo. I also use a flanger and a looper but very rarely. I have had to repurchase these things a few times as, sadly, they fit easily in a pocket to a backpack and are often the first things to get stolen from an unwatched stage. Mics and pedals…. dude. At the moment I also have Mr Fishers stash of old distortions and overdrives. He doesn’t use them anymore and often ridicules me for doing so but, meh, he also don’t listen to trap music so… you know…. His ones are an Ibanez Tube Screamer, the classic warm fuzz tone and a generic Aria brand Overdrive/distorion pedal. Blistering white hot broken glass distortion.

I also have some utility type pedals like a fisherman Aura Acoustic modelling pre-amp. It allows me to plug straight into the P.A with an acoustic and give it a little tone as opposed to just raw, woody straight input sound and an inline passive tuner which I hardly ever use. I tend to use the hotcake for dedicated drive as opposed to using for gaining up into a solo. If I am using it then it is probably staying on for the whole song. I used to have a Prunes n custard pedal made by the same company and it was quite cool to run a hotcake, into a wah and into a prunes n custard. The hot cake gives you control over the tone, the wah lets you shape the frequency and the prunes n custard has to work hard to fight against the frequency shifts as it does its magic. Look it up, its a fucking cool pedal. I’ve probably said all this a million times. Strictly for the new readers I guess.

Um. So. I had heaps to say today but it’s all been washed away. This heat makes me froggy and sluggish.

Amongst my meds I get 50mg of quetiapine a day to use if I need to. It’s called P.R.N and I think that stands for “Pro Re Nata” latin for “As needed”. I haven’t touched those for a couple of days. Man, I have been using them for a bout 3 weeks like lollies. Just trying to cope. I hate them too, they are not pleasant drugs but they do turn the volume down and they have been very Pro Re Nata, if you know what I mean. I am going to maybe tell my G.P not to worry about re-upping them for a while. If I am not using them then they will just stockpile and, as we all know, that’s not a good scene for me.

I feel safe. I feel a bit awkward, moving into a new situation is always quite stressful for me. Its one of the reasons I struggle to get somewhere to live. Looking for flats that need flatmates is just way too much anxiety and fear and so I avoid it. I can’t rent a small place because my credit and history suck and I can’t get emergency accomodation because I am on probation and I can’t find a flat because I am terrified of strangers… My dad said to me a few months ago when I expressed that I’d had a panic attack “Whats this anxiety thing about?” in a tone that suggested it was an affectation or something new. This man has known me my whole life and is just now starting to begin to think about it. I can’t explain it. My case workers, cads nurse and G.P understand it but if you asked me to put it into words…. well…. shit…. I mean Ive been typing on here for years and still haven’t felt that I have adequately expressed how I feel. Anxiety is a very private and embarrassing condition. I work very very hard to not appear so. I am hyper hyper vigilant, always watching for people, places and things that might represent a threat and I prefer to simply be very still and not present a target to the world. Panic happens when things get beyond that and I am in a situation in which I do not feel safe. My mind races and the fight or flight thing comes up. It’s not always dramatic and you probably wouldn’t even know it is happening if you were next to me. I shake, that’s one of the things that physically happens, I get short of breath and have trouble speaking. But, as I said, if I stay very still and isolate myself then no-one really gets to see this.

I haven’t really expressed a lot of this before. People who know me would probably not even know. However I am sure that they will clearly remember times when I have behaved erratically or have had emotional responses that are completely out of step with the situation, you know?  Either going way overboard or seeming to not respond at all. Theres a word for this but it alludes me and I will remember it tomorrow morning at half past 3 but for now I think you get the picture. The only really good drug to treat anxiety is any given member or the bento diazepine family but they do not like giving those drugs to people like me because they are “Habit Forming”, as if somehow that is going to be a problem at this late stage in the game. Plus, consider the amount of folks around the world who are walking into a Doctors office right now asking for Benzes or barbiturates or Opiods to treat “Anxiety” and then consider that only a fraction of them are telling the truth…. so, yeah, it’s hard, as the man said, to get good help.

The times now that I probably feel like I need those pills are in the night when I am alone and my mind is playing movies of her with someone else. It feels unbearable in that moment and I am sure you have all been there. The human condition huh? Fuck I work hard to stop thinking like that because it only ends in tears and despondency and sadness. It does pass. The way I cope is by remembering that if I really do love her then I want her to be happy, after which I try to think about something else. I do not feel very sexual anyway, I doubt I’d be a very good lover at the moment, a few years out of practice. I didn’t masturbate in jail, its not really a place for that. I know some men do. Theres nothing fucking worse than hearing another mans breathing get heavy and… fuck man. Prison.

It changes people, that place. It broke me I think. I am a shadow of the man I was before. I am quiet and private and timid. The people I love understand and have been really cool. I thought I had a safe place to be but it was a lie and it was heartbreaking to wake up in my car again at the homeless car club spot after the whole journey of surviving prison. I was hurt badly in there and each time it happened I retreated a little more into my head, callousing up my heart and solidifying the walls I had to build between myself and the living hell I was sharing with a few men and a horde of monsters. It’s lunchtime in Jail. The guys in 14Charlie F Pod are all locked down and waiting for the workers to bring lunch around. The menu has changed now and the sandwiches are like deli sandwiches now, not fucking a few hunks of stale white bread with some creamed corn or a tiny smudge of peanut butter on them. It only made trading more interesting though. Me, I never shared mine, specially not on corned beef day. Fuck that. I think about those guys now and then. Not as much as they deserve. I can’t really engage with them, its like drinking/drugging/fucking with people from rehab, it never ends well. Theres a reason why those people needed to go to rehab, because they fuck shit up when they drink/drug/fuck and so when you find, after a bottle of scotch that the person you thought of as family is now holding a knife to your throat demanding that you retract the joke you just made…. Maintaining relationships beyond the walls of prison is fraught, like that. My last Cellmate I will try to help but he actually is family, whanau, from the way way back and I have love for him but otherwise… I just can’t. Oh, I made a friend at Rolleston but his release condition is “No Internet” so I can’t stay in touch with him and I would never approach his family. I’ll see him again. No sweat.

Anyway, that’s enough. I’ve finished this album. xxxtentacions’ self titled 2018 album. Check it out, listen to the intro and follow the instructions, you’ll be fine. As you may have noticed, I am making a point of not discussing where Ive been this past couple of weeks. Folks can’t help (unless they want to) how they act in crisis and I am certainly not a judge of anyone.

I hope that I’ll be able to spend more time doing this, clearing my mind of all its clutter before I start making music each day. Thank you, kind reader, for giving me an outlet. I really do marvel that people actually read this. I am grateful

Love and Hot Cakes.

Mark The Tupuhi

Blasphemy and Handkercheifs

It’s been a while since we really got it on, you and I, and sat down for a decent natter about stuff that isn’t quite so god awful depressing and horrid as things have been lately. So, let me go grab some of capitalisms finest medicine, the black doctor, Coca Cola, and settle into some heavy old school Jamaican dub and see what we can figure out between us, gentle, kind and patient reader of raggedy blogs.

So I am listening to the Lee Perry “Arkologogy” series. A 3 album collection of some of the highlights from the Black Ark period. Alongside folks like King Tubby, The Scientist and Prince Jammy, these weird Jamaican genres were poised to take over the world of popular music. Ending up with, consequently, very little of what you hear on the radio or tv or YouTube that cannot trace its roots back to this period and these people. I finally have my Focal Alpha 80 studio monitors out of storage. I’ll post a pic below but this has been one of the really big things on my “To Do” list, to get my studio out of storage and start working on music again. Obviously it hasn’t happened quite the way I would have chosen but I am sitting here with my tools all plugged in and ready to go. Here’s a pic. It doesn’t look like much but the Ekadek Preamp (The Silver thing that the Lappy is on top of) and the Monitors are as good as anything in most studios around the world. The Ekadek Preamp is modelled on the Neeve preamp strips that have been in places like The BBC, Electric Lady Studios and even Mr Perrys Black Ark. So, you know? It aint much but its fine fine equipment. I have a couple of good Mics and almost all the pedals I like to use. I have lost my “Carbon Copy” delay pedal through unwise lending and so I need to get my hands on a delay, it sucks a bit because just any old delay won’t really live up to the analog glory of the carbon copy. Oh well, you can’t win em all.

 

I have a few things to do that other folks have requested. A mate wants me to create the soundscape for his Pecha Kucha spot coming up. He intents to not speak, just to play really evocative music. Heres a link to the source material. If you grew up in the commonwealth between the late sixties and the early 80s then you may find that this soundtrack kickstarts some pretty primal memories. I do not remember much of this stuff, I calculate that I was probably about 4 when it aired in NZ but I certainly remember the little blue plasticine guy and the music echos in my early memories like a nice long spring reverb. I also have a tune I am constructing to use as a dub track to feature some of the spoken word recordings I have of my friend Odee. I also have a couple of bits to produce for Screwjack and then I can potter around with my own stuff.

I have a room with family, it is up in a kind of loft in the garage and it looks out on the rolling south Waikato hills. It is hot and sweaty but it is my own little space and I felt an amazing sense of relief last night to have my own space to sleep. I’d been camping out in my car this week and that is never very nice. This whole week has been so hard. I broke down yesterday with my Drug and Alcohol case worker and just blubbered for a while. The stress of living with someone who’s mental health was petrifying by the minute, Odee dying like that without even checking out and then the stress of being homeless again…. fuck…. I think I did a good job of coping. Being homeless, for someone like me, with PTSD and anxiety, panic and depression is really hard because it subjects me to all the things I fear. Being homeless is the very opposite of feeling safe, there is no time in the day that you are not exposed to strangers or the public and you have to kind of negotiate your way through the world in a constant state of panic. It means that I kind of stop functioning on the conscious level and revert to a primal kind of fight or flight, always trying to feel safe. It’s a drag and I wouldn’t put it on my worst enemy if I could help it.

Anyway, that is over now. For now anyway.

Last night was very hard. Waking from that dream was so so so hard. I wept for 10 minutes or so. I have lost so much. I have had all the things I ever wanted and I let it all slip through my fingers. Not only that but I made sure it was put beyond my reach. When it gets on top of me it is really hard to cope with. I have such huge sadness inside me. I miss my family. I miss my lover. I miss having hope for a future. My life today is about coping, getting from one day to the next without harming anyone or myself and with as little exposure to hurt as I can manage. I am timid and a shadow of my old self. Probably for the best.

I  had this cool French paratroopers satchel and I lost it. It had my wallet, vape, keys, cards and a piece of Pounamu (greenstone) that I have had since I was a kid. I never expected to see it again and then yesterday when I went to unpack my gear from my Dads I found it just sitting on the top of the pile. Very strange because I cannot fathom how it might have got there. I hadn’t seen it since the world ended and I assumed it was lost forever. Maybe it’s a metaphor for how maybe things I thought were beyond retrieval might not be so impossible after all. A fucking dangerous thought though. Hope scares the beans out of me today.

So I have bought a little bottle of low strength nicotine juice and am going to stop buying cigs until my plants come in. I haven’t been going hard. twenty bucks or so a week when I can but still it isn’t something I can really justify or maintain so it’s reappearance has been fortuitous as well as surprising. Heh, Fortunately (Or unfortunately, as you see fit) the quarter ounce of ganja that was in the bag last time I saw it has not reappeared. It would’ve been all dusty and dry by now I guess.

Speaking of which, my country is just starting to sweat that this drought might carry on getting worse. Some big numbers this summer, some low 30s and some days it’s almost unbearable. The farmers will be hurting. There is a swimming pool here but I feel a bit shy, I might jump in when no-one is at home coz I can only imagine that I look a bit like an albino walrus at the moment. Now that I have my own space I can see that I will be a bit more active though so maybe I’ll lose some of this weight.

So I am going to kind of just hide out for a while. My dear friend Jane is going to help me get in to band practice and I am going to try commit to the other band once a week but other than that I think I will be happy just making dub, napping, going for walks and just keeping my head down. I feel proud of myself for getting through this last little bit. I am going to try and stop talking about it but fuck it has been so hard. Not having the access to social services and then briefly having an advocate before having everything pulled out from under me in the blink of an eye…. mate. I feel so fucking happy to be away from there, fucken prick. heh. Sorry.

One of the YouTube channels I like have just posted a new video. Its about the many “beefs” of Tekashi69 and so I am going to get some food and soak my brain in hip hop for a few hours, these guys are all busy with lives and jobs and stuff and I am happy just being the old troll that lives in the attic and they are happy for me to just be. I love my family. I am very lucky, without love Id be fucked. I guess that’s what I have that my friend doesn’t. No-one really loves him. He has friends but he is constantly buying their affections and I have never had to do that. I think that if you do not have empathy or the ability to consider others without prompting then you cannot really receive love either, I think it is a two way street. Love, as the man said, is a verb.

So there you go, gentle reader, a little chitchat like the old days, a bit more hopeful and optimistic. I am kinda dreading band practice. I just know that he is going to be horrid to me but I can be the bigger man, I know I can. It’s not fair to let him destroy the band for the other guys just because he’s mental and I am going to do my best to help hold things together.

I hope wherever you are that you are happy and well and taking care of yourself. I guess there are two kinds of mental health sufferers, the ones who take care of themselves and try to cope without letting their illness harm themselves or others and then there are those of us who just roll the dice and let shit slide. I know that I am capable of both but I also know that when I let things get bad I get suicidal and miserable and that it can be so hard to get back to well from there that I try to work hard to not let it get there. It’s not always easy though and I must cut folks slack because sometimes there isn’t really a choice after things get past a certain point. The trick though, gentle reader, is to not go there. Take your meds, get sleep, exercise and eat good. Not real hard.

Chin up, it can’t get any worse.

xxxm

Tears and hopeless regret

It was valentines day today. I didn’t dare even think about it. I woke just now from a dream that I had my family back but she still felt the same as she feels now and was seeing someone new still. At least now I can cry without having to worry about anyone else seeing me or walking in and turning the ficking lights on. I have lost everything and it hurts so much.

2:11am.

fuck.

Good Times, Bad Times

In the days of my youth I was told that I was no good, that I was useless and defective. I spent the rest of my time trying to protect myself from those feelings and to try and nab a little happiness where I could along the way. It has been really hard. I think the frequency and viciousness of the attempts upon my own life over the years reflects well the idea that I have not had much fun along the way. Certainly a happy, satisfied man doesn’t probably harbour such hatred and violence for himself. Well, thats what I imagine, I wouldn’t know.

I am really struggling. The thing about anxiety and depression is that things become very hard quickly and the impulse is to just ignore stuff and go to ground, hide somewhere and just try not to freak out. I have an appointment in an hour and then I am leaving Hamilton. I really wanted to stay close to my support network and my few friends but that has all been destroyed now and I am slinking away. I would normally sit in a beautiful garden, under a sprawling Totara tree, smoking a cigarette and drinking tea as I type this but even that scene has been annexed and I am afraid to go there because of who I might meet. Its pretty fucked. 3. nights in the car now and I am hoping to sleep in a bed tonight for the first time since… well… you know….

I do not have the energy for what I need to do and its scaring me to think that I could possibly just not do anything and stay in the car. Fuck I am mental. Ok, I’ll let you know how I get on later. I almost, almost had a place to sleep last night. A place with a toilet and shower and a safe spot to sleep without anyone waking me up every half hour or so, it seemed pretty sweet. Not to be though and today I feel exhausted. I haven’t been smashing the bottle though. Living in your vehicle means you can’t so its been a kind of blessing. I would dearly love to see how far down a bottle of tequila or rum I could get before things went south. But no. no. no.

Anyway, kind and probably mystified reader. That will do, see ya tomorrow.

xxxm

Good Morning Doncaster

Hiya. Feeling a bit better today. Living in close proximity to mental health issues tends to be contagious and I may have picked up a few ticks but I am shaking them out of my system. All going well, this time on Saturday I will have a bedroom and people around me who love me just for me, not for how many cigarette butts I have found this morning or what sort of things I brought back from the shops. Creative and caring people who are busy working on their own dreams and don’t need to drag everyone else in to the mix to seek approval or gratification, people who will allow me to create and be creative without it being seen as a threat and people who know how to share things like cooking and cleaning and stuff like that. I feel excited that now I can start making music and art again because I will have a space in which to do it and that, gentle reader, makes me feel happy.

It has taken a lot of stress, tears and fits of rage but I am here now. I really did want to find a place in Hamilton close to my people but it seems that I am being portrayed as the villain and so it means that “Less is more” might be the correct approach. It took sooooo looooong to get my benefit sorted that I kind of lost sight of where I was going. Plus being homeless and sleeping on a couch is not good for anyones mental health.

I will have more to say later I expect but carry on, as you were, keep being the shiny golden stars that you are… I mean, you must have fantastic taste… or you wouldn’t be here.

xxxm

Tobacco and Rock Steady

Listen man. I try to treat folks kindly and with compassion. Don’t get it frazzled though, I have been a real bastard in my life. My kids and the women I have tried to love can attest that I am not always a kind and compassionate man. I was told to fuck off yesterday from where I have been living. It was only temporary after I got out of jail however it took me until last week to even get on a benefit. Until then I haven’t been able to access even the most basic of emergency housing. I have an appt. this Friday, finally to get a place or at least to get a temporary place. In the beginning he was saying stuff like “This is working out really good, so much better than the last dickhead I had here, it’s actually helping me” (because he is on a benefit and once I was paying for all the groceries he could spend his money on smokes). Then we all got organised to find a flat between the four of us (Me , him and two other guys like us) we thought we could all get along and it would be cheaper for all of us, so I was also waiting on him to move on that. Our other friend Martin Piscadore and I are both really struggling to get accomodation and it would have been great to share a house. Poor credit, low income and shitty histories conspire to throw us both in the too hard basket. And THEN he has been saying lately how “great it is working out“.

As you know, gentle and kind and understanding reader, I haven’t felt like it was working out, not at all. But I have been trying to be a good house guest and a kind friend nonetheless. All in the face of mounting mania, selfishness and a lack of empathy that, frankly, staggers the mind and purifies the soul of all compassion with fire. Beggars can’t be choosers and I just tried to take up as little of his space as I could. You know?

The space itself was disgusting. Nothing had been cleaned in five years. There were maggots living in places you wouldn’t think maggots could survive and the bathroom… fuck. So, a couple of weeks ago my friend Martin and I waited until the “landlord” was out and did the spring clean from hell. It was a decent 6 or 7 hours of really hard work and I did it because I love my friend and I hated to see him living like that. His favourite thing is music and watching movies and YouTube and stuff so I took it upon myself to disconnect all of his electrical things, wash them (Everything, EVERYTHING was coated in a film of grime…. hot water and bleach/sugarsoap), clean all the surfaces and then plug it all back in again nicely. It was done out of care and concern.

It wasn’t appreciated though and I spent a good $150 on the mission plus I’d spent about the same on groceries that week. The most response I got was that he pissed all over the floor one night when he was drinking, giggling all the while. Stuff like that was happening more and more and he’d begun drinking first thing in the morning.

So, you know, I am not sad to be leaving, just sad that he had to do it without any warning and in true belligerent style. Just sort of turfing me out on the spot. Crying and angry I packed my things and packed my car. I did have to go back and apologise once I’d calmed down because I had said some angry things to him and his friend. When he goes mad there is this guy who used to be his brother in law who starts to hang around him and so his presence is a good sign that things must be getting towards crisis point now. So I lashed out, verbally, because I was angry and so I needed to apologise. Capiche? It wouldn’t surprise me at all if his mad brother in law reads this stupid blog. Anyway, I am not the judge or boss of anyone else. I am not perfect, but I was raised to consider other folks and I have done an Herculean job of being tolerant. I suffer from panic and anxiety, among other things. So I mostly try to keep out of folks way, I watch movies, I make dub music that no-one likes and I blog. I used to be an avid reader too but I haven’t been very good at it lately due to the painkillers I have been on make my eyesight really bad. I am mindful of others and I try to just live and let live, you know? You know!

When you rent a space to someone you share it. I know that, you know that, some folks just do not know it. 3 times in my life I have shared small flats or houses with friends in need. Two of the times I simply moved my living space into my bedroom and let them have the living room space as their room, the other time I moved my bed into the living space and let Tyler have the bedroom. It’s just what I do, I can’t really understand the pakeha way of doing things like that. Tatau Tatau is the phrase and it has served me well. I know how to apply it and it makes me feel great to help someone else. It is one of the few things I am really good at. So, you know, to remain kind and compassionate in the face of appalling opposites… I’ll expect a medal in the mail.

So, that’s my story. He said to me that he had been hinting at me to leave for ages but only two days ago he’d been swanning around saying how great it was working out and a few weeks before that he’d been looking at properties online to apply for (in concert with the other guys), so, you know? I missed the hint.

Its ok, I have a few days to compose myself and then I am moving out of town. I really wanted to stay in hamilton because my support network is here but, well, beggars can’t be choosers and at least I will have space to set up my studio, sleep without some mad cunt trying to get my attention every couple of hours and be able to buy good things for myself and not have to buy three times as much so that I get enough for me. Or have someone pounce on anything good I bring back to the house. He fucking tried to clean the oven the other night, while I slept a meter or two away, with fucking oven cleaner????? How can someone be so horrid? Grrrrr.

In other news… actually, nope, that’s the only other news. Sorry, slow news day I guess. I am sorry for my part in it. If he had said “Hey this isn’t working out, could you please move on?” I would have, in a heartbeat. I remember saying to him that it didn’t have to be like this, he didn’t have to do it quite so viciously and with so little friendship left to salvage? Shaking like a leaf and caught between a mind racing, confused, frustrated and white heat blind rage… You know? Fuck my mental health has been bad. Panic and Anxiety and depression have been massive. He was just starting to bring random folks into his life and it’s so so so good that I am getting out of there. I was living on the couch. I thought I was sharing a flat. I wasn’t. Thats ok. So long, I guess.

He got some kind of inheritance yesterday so it feels a bit like he was waiting till he didn’t need me anymore. Very very nasty long game, innit?

I will come back later with something more positive. I feel strong. I have been in contact with probation and my C.A.D.S worker and they are helping me and I feel really proud of how well I have coped with an appalling situation. My impulse to lash out is huge and I am so glad I didn’t cold beat the shit out of both of them yesterday.

I love you guys, thanks for giving a shit. It doesn’t take much to give a shit, aye?

xxx Markle The Sparkle, Hops n Gravy.

Here is a song about consideration for other people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To Be Honest (One Time)

It just occurred to me that Odee’s passing has been the first time I haven’t felt I could trade on my grief. In the past, when folks have died, I have used it as an excuse to behave badly, to mooch, to gain sympathy or to get absolutely fucking smashed. I haven’t done any of those things, in fact they never even really occurred to me. At one point during the ceremony I thought “oooooh I wonder if they will ask me to speak?” but it was fleeting and easily dismissed. It wasn’t about me. It dawns on me, sadly, that I have often used occasions. like this to try and get my own needs met… when it’s not fucking about me! God I have been a douchebag in this life… I am bound to be a dung Beatle next time I take this ride. However, it suggests I am maturing and that is a good sign.

A Thought for today.

xxxm

 

Her Daddy Was A Bank Robber

Hello Blog fans. My heart hasn’t really been in this lately. My interest in Hip Hop History and Netflix has kind of taken over. I live in a world supplied with sound by headphones and in front of a screen. Dystopian as all fuckery. No different from a caveman with a bit of chalky stone and a wall to draw on, A Pirate with his Scrimshaw, A Cowboy with his guitar or a Slave with his field songs… Just the current zeitgeist and, sadly, I am nowhere near alone. Maybe even you can relate.

I have been restricting how much time I donate to Donald J Trump and it’s paying off in spades. I still check his twitter feed for laughs but I don’t watch all the shit YouTube throws at me and, gradually, they have stopped bothering me with it. I still watch Ras Kitchen and a new Channel called “Trap Lore Ross“. It’s this white hip hop head from a place called Bognor Regis in merry old England (Which he savagely reps quite often as if its a place in Brooklyn or Compton, much like Ali G and the “West Stains Massive” gag.) who seems to know almost Nardwuarian levels of stuff about Hip Hop and I am finding it illuminating. I am fascinated with it all, Hip Hop is the new Blues, the new Dub and the new Rock n Roll. Well, that’s my opinion. I know at the very least Kanye agrees.

(Heres Nardwuar, in case you don’t know… If you don’t know, now you know…)

The numbers coming through this blog are now such that it has to be way more than just my Ex’s, Disgruntled Family members, Hayden the fucken asshat, my Aots case worker and my probation officer and that gives me cause for hope. Hope that maybe I make at least a little sense.  Hope that I am delivering something interesting and delivering an angle that might not easily or readily occur to you in your life, wherever and whatever that is. I’ve always maintained that I’ve lived a life that not everyone gets to experience and so maybe its a bit like watching a car crash victim claw the air from inside a burning car or like viewing portholes in the ovens of Aushwitz. I just hope that it’s interesting, that’s is all, kind and ill-treated reader, you brave few facing the regular bareknuckle literary fist fight that is this filthy drivel. You are doing great, you are strong, keep it up.

My friendly neighbourhood nutcase has been ramping up further. He is managing to make it seem like he is doing ok from the outside but it’s only a matter of time really and the cracks are now gaping. It’s so sad, I fucking hate having to watch it happen over and over. Perhaps its payment for some sin in a past life that I have to experience what it’s like to watch someone self destruct and do nothing to stop it for themselves. Heh, it doesn’t even have to be from a past life… It’s still very scary to be around, I have a few mental health problems of my own and being in a confined space with someone dangerous certainly counts as a “Trigger” for good old PTSD to raise its motley head.

I am thawing a chicken today, then I am going to wander around the corner and pick fresh herbs for stuffing and spend a couple of hours cooking. I love cooking, it’s the real ground zero in terms of caring for others. The Hare Krishnas are really good at it and I’ve often dragged my arse to a Hare Krishna kitchen after a long night or two of dancing and drugs and they have revived me with kindness and nourishment. I used to love cooking for my family. Its one of the things I am really good at. There aren’t many things I really master but cooking is one. Making music is pretty easy for me too and I really really like reading. While the chook cooks Im going to visit a friend and then watch Netflix (Malcolm X series, the new one) and pass out.

Life isn’t too bad some days. I had a great band practice last night and I think I have been accepted into a new band as bass/guitar and backing vocals. Sometimes a bit of electric and some use as well. I have been playing a Kala U-Bass and its amazing. This tiny little machine makes the sound of a double bass without all the athleticism (Which I sorely lack presently). We played “My Baby Just Cares For Me” last night and the bass run in that song is delicious. Neat.

I need to find a home this week and there have been some real big obstacles placed in my way. If you pray, pray for me would ya? If you don’t, send me some positive vibes, I’ll catch em. It’s a full moon after all.

Heres some Fela Kuti for your lazy Sunday music…

I love you, you know that

xxxxM

p.s – its a full moon out there in this part of the Southern Hemisphere. I went out to visit friends just now and get some fresh herbs and bits to make a feast. I saw 4 different examples of loud, aggressive conflict. One of them ended in violence. I was only out there for an hour or two… Be kind to each other and cut folks slack, things get wiggy sometimes, especially in this heat. When I got home the neighbours are kicking off too! Jeepers, no-one has more fun than people…. except for horses, but they’re mental.

Cabbage and Country Values

It’s easy to be generous in abundance…. Throwing cash around like you are minting paper love is all well and good when you have heaps of it. Its the giving that hurts, that takes food out of your mouth but you do it anyway, that’s the stuff.

So, Odees funeral was today. It was pretty weird. I had a cry and I got to see Bx and ‘keiha, Rowan and Bregiz so it was worth it but it was trippy to see how many people came out of the mix. It was nice. I saw T.A and Dayna and lance too. I did not push my luck, hugs and a kiss and a few sentences expressing love and then try not to be anything other than respectful.

It’s really bad here. My friend is really losing his mind and I am scared. I get easily frightened, anxiety and panic are huge things to cope with without someone crazy in your space expecting you to cope with their mental health as well. I was hopeful, last week, that I could address this but, quite frankly, I think I am going to end up in a showdown with the world because I end up living in my car again and probation will not like that. I was engaging with a mental health outfit but they now say that my initial initiation wasn’t correct and I now have to front up to the boss. There is the highest probability that this is a lie and that she just wants to make sure I know where my place is. I don’t want to hang out there, I just want to access advocacy. So I don’t feel up to doing what it takes any more. I am so tired, it should not be this hard.

xxxxm

Smile Jamaica/WhiteOnlyDay2020

Happy Birthday Big Pal, you are missed.

xxxm

Lil Wayne and The Proximity Effect.

I noticed last night that my friends are starting to worry about me, I’m slipping a bit, not in terms of bad behaviour or anything like that, simply that my mind is becoming a bit floppy. I am trying to take good care of myself but its hard. If I express vulnerability, try to request that perhaps I could use a little consideration (At least enough to match the consideration that I try to afford others) or if I express a need then I end up regretting it instantly.  The problem, gentle, kind and considerate reader, is that sometimes expressing vulnerability or a weakness merely serves to paint a target on yourself. Fuck man, I have been in enough mental relationships to know how this game works! The only difference is that in this relationship I don’t get to make love now and then…. Instead I just get  fucked.

I started a new blog the other day, I was trying to have a place where I could blog about what’s happening for me at “Home” without having to be worried that someone might read what I am writing and take it wrong. Listen, I am not the boss of anyone. I do not get to judge or place expectations on anyone. I do not feel like I am any better, or worse, than anyone else. Ok? Let’s get that straight. But, when someones mind is starting to slip and their behaviour starts scaring me and affecting me then I feel like its ok for me to express that but even then I still feel that anonymity is called for. I do not want to gossip or snitch, I just want to document what I am feeling at the moment and how I am feeling at the moment is afraid and stressed and not really sure how to help someone who refuses to admit that things are starting to get dangerous for them, mentally.

I gave up on the anonymous blog. It seemed like a futile attempt at a compromise that no-body would ever appreciate or register.

Odees funeral tomorrow. My belt broke yesterday as I was in town. I had to waddle about holding my pants up until I got back to the car. So I need a belt and maybe a tidy black shirt. I think I was unkind to my friend Martin last night. I got a bit frustrated and sort of snapped at him. We watched NZ beat India and it has been quite cool in the last week or two to join in the sports watching that the other guys do. I wasn’t intentionally mean to him, it was more that I was frustrated trying to express something that I didn’t feel was being heard and I was probably more sarcastic than mean. He is such a kind man. Being horrid to Martin James Fisher is like kicking a puppy and I am an asshole for it. I’ll buy him a jar of anchovies and take him fishing on the weekend. That should do the trick.

I love doing nice and thoughtful things for people. My strong suit is in the kitchen but I am also a good helper when things need to be lifted or cleaned or whatever. In the face of massive selfishness and thoughtlessness I try to just keep giving. The more they take take take, the more I will give. Fuck it, if I let myself become the kind of thoughtless, greedy, selfish bastard that some folks seem to be then the baddies have won. I will just keep trying to be kind and thoughtful, You have no idea how bad it is. Anything I ….. fuck it. Enough.

Sorry, today seems a bit snitch and grouchy. I’ll come back later and try find something a bit more uplifting to say.

Man! I am loving anchovies. They are a bit pricey, at $4.50 for a few oily slithers they are not like just nabbing a can of tuna or sardines but man they go a long way and they make everything taste great. Ive even heard of anchovy ice cream!

See… it is a simple matter of changing tune.

Love and ex’s, Markle Sparkle

Otis (Odee Rose) Williams

Odee died this morning at 2am. He will be buried at 10am at omahu cemetery on Friday 7th Feb.

I imagine his “Give A Little” page is still up and the kids could probably use any help you can give to cover the costs… I just can’t see Odee having funeral insurance… doesn’t seem his style.

It sounds like he was not in very good shape and had to be sedated so it’s that old “Well he’s not suffering anymore” thing I suppose.

Still….

Damn.

xm

p.s – I found his YouTube stash, fuck there’s a lot of content!

pps – I notice a lot of people come to this page. Perhaps it comes up if you search for Odee. I loved that man unconditionally. He was a hard man to love sometimes but he was loyal and reliable and when you balance the scales it all adds up in his favor. I wish I could explain him in a way that someone who never met him could see him clearly. He invoked the spirits of just about every artist I can think of. Like all artists he went through phases. I’m not sure if he did any hip hop or EDM but he covered pretty much all the other genres you can think of, he even did a little classical. He was a monster  as a musician, a man that could play anything and make you think he’d been doing it for years. He was my friend and I miss him. I think of him often and there’s always that one little beat in between thinking of him and remembering he is gone. If I have one regret it is that I didn’t stop on the way to his burial and get some rose petals and confetti, I think he would have liked that. I’d like to tell you stories about him but I think they are here, somewhere, I’ve written some of them down and if you care to look you will find them. He was so much fun to be around. My kids still remember the flutes he taught us to make from MacDonalds straws. We even went through the drive-through just to get straws. That gave everyone a big kick, it felt like being naughty. Then, with a quick snip (You cut a little V shape into one end of the straw and then blow it like a reed. Give it a try. You want the end of your straw to look like a ducks bill, not too much, not too little…. you will get it) the straws become flutes and you can play them like a tin whistle. We called them “Kaloon Flutes” pronounced KAH LOON and still, to this day, its a fond memory. I’m pretty sure he just made that name on the spot too. He was so good at that. “Kauka Kaoara” was his fake Māori name, it was a transliteration of Coca Cola. I am guessing that when he went Vegan he stopped sipping the Black Doctor, The Devils Dew, but for a long time the big 2.25l. were never far from him. Living with him was so much fun, every day was an adventure. We made music and art from the time we woke until we stumbled home in the small hours. Our Noise Abatement notices were legendary. He used to say “Xie xie” when you gave him a cigarette or bought him a beer. Chinese for thank you but when he said it it was also “Share Share” and if you were wise enough and attentive enough you saw that he meant it and shared with you in return. Property and stuff just weren’t real big deals to him. I know he hurt people, particularly lovers. But who of us is guiltless? I miss my friend. I think of him often. I want you to know what a shining bright star he was and how wonderful it was to be around him. They are few and far between, men like him.

xm

My Friend Is a Rock God, is yours?

I was at both these shows. Soundproof was a bar in The Tron back in um, well, back in the times when you could wear a bra on stage and no-one called you a faggot, not without a little skirmish anyway. These were really great shows, RPAC (Rose Petals And Confetti) had a following and for a brief shiny moment I thought that I might really get to watch someone I knew blow up. Hamilton music is full of stories like this. I know of so many great artists who are now landscape designers, Painters and Decorators and one who is a high powered real estate agent that sells appartments in Auckland to the beautiful people. I have all the recordings from these shows, if you would like a copy just email me.

It won’t let me upload music on this cheap seats plan but I might do a little YouTube mission today.

 

The Wyrms…

Odee Rose loved music. He was fond of Barbershop and was a member of the Hamilton Barbershop Choir for a long time. When I won the York St Acid Test I received $20,000 or so worth of recording time at Jaz Colemans York St Studios. I used Odees wife Bx for backing vocals and recorded a song called “Driving To Mary”. Odee later made a barbershop album of covers and called the imaginary band The Wyrms. On that record he did a Version of “Driving To Mary” which I ended up putting on my “Bio_Psycho-Social” record. Here’s the Barbershop Version..

You can hear what a fine singer he is and you can also see how he used that year at Wintec to do some amazing work. Here is the original, well a version anyway, remixed by Zed. (“Brookes” as opposed to the avatars of NZs formidable trans-gendered rock scene…)

I have a copy of the Wyrms record but I can’t seem to find it online. I’ll keep looking.

I hope your day is going great, kind reader. Might be quite busy here for a while, coping with a lot all at once.

xm

 

The Wretched

So I heard this morning that Odee isn’t expected to last the day. He’s heavily medicated and pretty much gone. It sounds like the end. Dude, I would trade with him in a heartbeat. Isn’t it a bastard that the folks who never wanted to be here enjoy such robust health and the ones who shine like a blazing noon day central Otago sun get snuffed? I had a little cry this morning but my living situation is still such that I do not really have privacy. I woke last night to find my friend entertaining a lady…. I’m on the couch, just wearing undies and he’s having a little party, sort of with my sleeping form between him and some random like the worlds fattest coffee table. Theres not even the illusion of privacy and then yesterday he hit me up to pay more rent! MORE RENT! I am paying almost half his rent, all of his food and comestibles and I just dropped over a hundy on a cleaning mission that would’ve had Nigera Lawson on her hands and knees, covered in vomit, weeping for it to end. Disgusting shit…. The toilet had to be doused, 3 times in oven cleaner before I’d even go in there. fuck me, more rent, this guy….

Anyway. Odee. He was pretty polarising in his youth. He sort of matured in his late 30s and 40s but still he is one of the most committed and accidentally perfect freaks I know.  He went vegan in the last 5 years. Not the cool kind of vegan either, the kind that are just quietly vegan and don’t fuck with anyone else… nope, not that kind, he went the “5 social media posts per hour militant YOU ARE ALL EVIL MEAT EATING BASTARDS” kind of vegan. Thats Odee, no half measures.

Schrodingers Cat was my first band that actually managed a following. It became “Wonderbug” later and we did a national tour back in 2002. True to form the bass player quit the band the very night before the tour started so I called Odee to fill in for the tour. He was living with Bx and their two daughters in Mahana. Theres a nice YouTube clip about Mahana on YouTube, look for the pic of the old guy with a tattooed face and that’s the one… hang on. Here you go.

Anyway so I think I must’ve couriered him a cd and he learned all the songs on the bus ride over. He played the first show of the tour with no rehearsal and its indicative of what a fine musician he is. All he brought with him for the whole 3 weeks was a bass, a CD player (Diskman variety), a kilt and an iron maiden t-shirt. He’d come from Mahana man, you know? Hippies… So we set off down the country with a band called Tweeter and another Band called Rumpus Room. It was a great time. I can still see Bea, the lighting tech racing up the beach between Picton and Kaikoura. She was a north Island Maori, she’d never seen Sea Lions before and there was a mama sea lion with her pups sunning themselves on the beach. It must’ve been windy or something because we all screamed at her to stop but she kept running down there… all happy that she’s gonna see some nature n shit. As this is happening Mama sea lion has gotten pretty upset about it all and she gets up on her flippers and starts charging this crazy thing running towards her pups. We managed to get her attention and I think she got the message. Nothing says “Stay Back” like 3 or 4 hundred kgs of angry Sea Lion.

It was a really cool trip. Zed got pretty angry at Odee a couple of times. Because he only had a kilt he would often sun himself on the passenger seat, au natural as it were, and Zed took offence at having to use a seat that Odees balls had been sweating on for 4 or 5 hours. I can remember the two of us giggling when I was driving. We would pass trucks and beep at the driver when we were alongside the truck and the Truck Driver would get a nice big eyeful of Odees sunny balls! Pretty fucken funny. He didn’t bring any cash or cards or anything and would devise ways to pay for road food donations. It was the best time. Every night was a gig and we had a blast. Things were really simple then.

I am going to have a go at editing the Radio show Odee and I did. It’s a bit rank at times  but there are some wonderfully candid moments from him. You can hear that dry mouth “Snick snack snick” sound of methamphetamine in the mic and I wonder if he could tell I was fried? Anyway, there are some really good bits and I thought maybe I could cut some of it up into some nice fat old tasty Dub.

The first band we were in was called” The Fifth Element” and it was horrible. We did fucking “BackStreets Back” among other travesties and Odee and I were just happy to have a paying gig. We shared the cost of travel to rehearsals and gigs and became friends almost instantly. We did that for about a year. One day we went to the band managers house to get our pay from the night before. The guy goes “Hang on, I’ve invested it but I’ll have it back in ten minutes’ He turned the TV back on to the racing channel and we both quit that day, fucking stupid cunts. After that we joined a Reggae band and that was pretty cool and then He and Bx went to Wellington and Jazz school and I didn’t see him for a year or two apart from quick visits. He came back from there and did a year of the “Commercial Music Degree” at Hamiltons WINTEC. He freely admits that it was just a way to get Student Loans to pay for him to have a year of free studio time and in that year he recorded the Rose Petals and Confetti records and then formed a band to perform them. There were also some really cool four track recordings, like “Hina” that he did up in Mahana. Man, gentle reader, I’d give anything to be able to disappear into Mahana right now.

\Thats all. Its too fucking sad.

More later.

xxxxm