My fucken mind is blown. I just spend all day and night inside alone. I stopped drinking whiskey, that’s a good start but it still just leaves me sat here like a freak. The less time I spend with others the more paranoid and detached I get. I have tried hanging out with my friends but I feel like a fucking loser in their midst. They are all really functional and me… well, I am not and I think it’s glaringly obvious to everyone else, not to mention tedious… So I stay home and gnaw on my heart like its so much toffee. The people outside are openly harassing me now. I am having serious trouble coming and going when I need to get supplies or go to the dr/chemist/hospital. The building manager was really sharp with me about three months ago when I challenged his ability to address the situation… “I’ve fixed it” he snapped at me.Fuck I hate this place. Why couldn’t they have put me somewhere where normal people live? Why amongst the meth heads?
In happier News, I have just now, at the ripe old age of 46, discovered Bad Brains. I know, I know, I just never bothered to check them out. I knew they existed, I just didn’t know how god-allah-damned awesome they were. I do now though and I am avidly making up for lost time. You see its not that I don’t do anything. I play music, I watch documentary’s and horror movies and I follow the international news channels, Al Jazera, NBC, BBC etc. I make art and I walk on the treadmill, which is a metaphor in itself. I haven’t started reading again, which is curious. I guess its because for 11 long months a year or two ago I read as many books as I could lay my greedy hands on, maybe I just need to wait for my reading man to re-calibrate after such a concentrated dose of literature. i dunno.
Other than that though, things are shit. I am sure that pleases some of you.
Living here has been a nightmare, kind reader, truly. In a country with a massive housing shortage, a housing emergency, even. How come people who get given the amazing privilege of a state owned home still just want to wallow around in the filth, living more or less the way homeless people do? Why would you jeopardize this amazingly fortunate opportunity? Every day just hussling to get the next hit. Each pay day standing over the vulnerable to feed their habit. “Friends”, heh, who needs enemy’s, right?
So I have been a bastion of solitary no-meth use please. A fucking kitten among tigers. I drew a line in the sand and found I was the only one standing behind it. The managers all cheered me on, filled me with false hope… Get evidence of bad behavior and then we will act! They strung me along like that for months. I made recording after recording and sent them through. They told me a couple of days ago that that was never going to happen and I’m stuck with hours of audio files containing fuckwits acting like… you guessed it! FUCKWITS!. One of them is the sound of a crack whore negotiating the cost of her pussy. “Puffs” she called it, “For a couple of puffs”. To which he exclaims “What about a free one?” , alas… “Nope, puffs for play”. Did you know there are pages on social media where people advertise for “Puff n Play”? Men and women who will engage in sexual activity as long as the other partner brings the “Puff”. The things you learn in Jail huh? hurr hurr hurr…. If this sounds like gibberish, allow me to elaborate… Meth amphetamine can be snorted, injected, swallowed orally, administered anally and I have even heard of an eye dropper solution that you drop into your eyeballs. But the preferred method in New Zealand is to smoke the crystals in a glass pipe. The Glass Bar-Bee- Que! So “Puff” means “Puff” geddit?
I can hear them outside my window. My room is like a goldfish bowl and it sits right in the middle of the area these fuckwits inhabit when they are here. I can hear them now, just endless crackhead chatter in my peripheral hearing, if that’s a thing…. peripheral hearing? Yeah I like it. Having Hyper Vigilance means that I interpret all that chatter in my mind, adding bits of paranoia and assuming they are discussing me. Sometimes it’s paranoia but… dude.
So what I did was contact my member of parliament. I signed an authority giving them access to my files with these “The Link People” who mismanage this place. Now they have closed ranks on me, they are refusing to give me my information and suddenly there are case managers here. I haven’t seen one of them in months, even before the second lock down. Suddenly they are very interested in engaging with everyone except me. Run that through my mental algorithm and you will understand why I am 4 fingers deep into a bottle of Johnnie Walker at 10:45 on a Thursday.
I just wanted a nice simple small life kind reader, absolutely monastic and sparse. . No drama, maybe a herb garden and a place to play guitar outside oh shit, I almost forgot the charcoal BBQ! I could sit out there in the long summer nights smoking spliffs, eating burgers and playing slide blues in dropped d…. I don’t bother nobody, nobody bother me.
Nope. None of that can be.
Not here.
ps – when I left prison, the thing at the top of my “Safety Plan” was NO DRINKING SCOTCH, TEQUILA, RUM or VODKA BY THE BOTTLE. It’s ironic that the Police case officer showed up unannounced today, just when I am finally off the rails and breaking my own stupid rules, the people I asked for help in the first place finally show up. Man, the universe plays some cruel tricks sometimes huh? He was here for the annual review and I chased him off. I thought he was “The Link People” showing up unannounced. “you can’t just show up without notice”. he goes “I tried to call”, I am like “nah bro I don’t use a phone, please email me with notice before you come”. I wondered why he looked confused… people don’t normally talk to cops like that, you know? hahaha All the while I am standing there in my pants with no shirt on, shooing him off like he’s selling vacuum cleaners or something. It must have looked funny if anyone had seen it. There was fresh blood coming from the wound on my belly. “You are bleeding, do you know that?”.”Yeah I do, Bye”. Ha h aha Once I got back inside and checked my email I realized the mistake I’d made and me and him are bros again. He’s coming back on Monday and I am hoping he will have some idea of how to deal with the asshole infestation….
I miss my family. In two days my baby boy will be 15. He is tall like his grandad and he is gorgeous like hims dad, shy like his mum and crafty like his sisters. He is a good boy. He is a limb that I lost along the way that aches in my heart like… well, maybe we shouldn’t go down that particular path today. Not with the amber barometer of scotch going down the way it is. I’m just going to give the universe the middle finger for a while.
The “trick”, as far as I can tell, to being a great writer? Is to write. Nothing of any merit ever got written by not writing it down. 4 or 5 thousand years ago they used a stick to carve words into clay. Tablets that bear down the aeons the minutiae of daily Sumerian life. Today wether we tweet or tik tok we still express the desire of the human heart to chronicle what we believe to be of import, humor, horror or happenstance for others to experience. After the fact. These ones and zeros will also pass away….
When I was a child I went with my best mate to visit my Dads work. It may have been a school thing or maybe he just wanted to show me what he did. He worked at Ocean Beach Freezing Works in Bluff, at the very bottom of the South Island of New Zealand and the actual world.
I knew that he worked in the “Boning Room” and that he was a lead hand and the Union delegate. I got to go to pickets and marches and every year there was a massive Christmas party. Management would put on food and grog and hire a race track to fit all the music and cooking and carnival type thing. All the families and extended families would come. Endless MEAT and BEER and yeah it was pretty rad. I liked it because i had a job rolling candy floss and got a twenty dollar note at the end of the day.
So I knew what he did. He chopped up the meat for the chops and roasts that I loved to eat at home. he would often bring fresh Lamb and Beef home. We were spoiled, well, for carnivores… It should have been clear to me that an animal had to die in order for me to get to eat it but I just hadn’t connected the dots and when we got to the room called the “Kill Floor” I was confronted by something I was absolutely not prepared for. The friend I took with me thought it was great. I hated it. It didn’t stop me eating it but it put a dampener on a great day. I think they were both disappointed in my reaction. I still can see that sheep, eyes rolling back and a clear fluid come from its mouth, ears, eyes and nose as the man shocked it with electrodes. It flapped about and they cut its throat, hung it upside down and… oh fuck no, here comes another one!
Just a thought I had this morning, not sure why. I emailed my pops today just to let him know how I got on at the hospital this morning. I am back there tomorrow for another painful and undignified procedure. Today’s adventure was an hours worth of electric shocks. I guess maybe that’s why I thought of that delicious sheep… I am seeing another Dr tomorrow about pain and mental health medication. I am not coping. I drank a 40 ounce of whiskey the other day. Something I have strictly avoided since leaving prison but I needed relief. I have stopped now but it scared me. I crossed a line and I don’t want that life again. This place is wrecking all the work I have done.
The shit that happens directly outside my window sounds exactly like the violence I experienced as a small child. Maraes and partys… every fucking time dude, they descend into madness. The advent of meth means the madness is all the time instead of only late at night, when the beer is running out or when the whiskey is flowing.
I went fishing out at Ruapuke. I have to gobble half a sheet of tramadol but I made it out to the point at the end of the main beach. It was painful getting there and back but I had a ball. I am going to do more stuff like that. It makes me feel good and it gets me out of here. Anyway, I am going to play some guitar. I will catch you on the flip flop.
M
ps – writing without proofreading is like wearing pants without undies….
BUY MY NEW MUSIC YOU BASTARDS! MY CAR NEED A REGO AND WARRANT!
So I was at the Hospital the other day. It’s quite weird up there under covid. Very serious and stern. Everyone just a little more guarded and quiet than usual. No chit chat in the elevators. No kids running around. More frowns than smiles. Not that I am suggesting that its normally a fair ground atmosphere up there, its just different. The exercise I have been doing is paying off, once my blood pressure is down just a little more they are happy to operate. I am trying not to think about it. I don’t want to go under the knife again. I don”t trust them. One of the few comforting thoughts is that there is a chance I will die on the table. Then all this loneliness, hurt and sadness will finally be over.
I have been stuck in my room for what feels like weeks. I have no gas to go anywhere and up until Wednesday I didn’t really have anywhere in particular to go. It’s crazy here. The mental 20 year old stalks me for attention. I was too generous with him when I moved in, I was trying to be a good neighbor and start out on a positive note but I fear that he thinks I am a mark (mind the pun), that he can get anything he wants from me. It sucks, like, how many times do I have to tell him “no”? i have recorded every time they come to my door. It started out being funny, now it’s just sad. Another good reason to check out on the operating table. I really can’t see a way out of this mess.
I am going to probably sleep in the car tonight. Last night was crazy here, the police were in the driveway at one point and I am really getting frazzled. I wear headphones up really loud and that helps but it’s not really a solution, its a bandaid, on a crack, on the Manapouri Dam. At least in th ecar I feel safe.
Manapouri was actually built to satisfy the electricity demands of Tiwai Point Aluminum Smelter in Bluff. Well, in Tiwai, actually. It’s across the harbor from Bluff and has it’s own Port and associated dockside industry. Both Tiwai and Manapouri and staggering feats of massive proportions. Here are some pics…
To get to the power station itself you have to drive deep into Fjordland and cross the mighty lake to the opposite shore where you find the most incongruous collision of the natural world and mankind’s inventiveness. The sheer scale of it boggles the mind. Not to even mention the 10 km tail race tunnel that empties into deep cove and the hundreds of kilometers of pylons and cable connecting the power station and the smelter.
Growing up in Invercargill, every kid gets an education about the Power Station and the Smelter. it’s a huge part of Southlands economy (well, it was) and it’s just such a mind blowing feat that it demands to be known about. When I was about 13 there was an explosion or something at the Smelter. All the kids with a parent that worked there were all gathered in the school hall to wait to find out if their last name was among the deceased. I guess that gives you an idea of just how embedded in our community the Smelter was. None of my Uncles or Aunties were killed in that one but we periodically lost people to accidents out there. It became a thing for a while and people didn’t want to work there anymore much after that. We were taken up there as kids, I remember the molten red hot aluminum being poured into molds from a crucible that would have made a good sized bowl for a giant! We also got to go to Manapouri, all through the station and we stayed nearby for a few days on camp. I hear they still take Invercargill kids up to Deep Cove for their form two (year 7) school camp. My best memory is of being in the big hall pictured above where the big turbines spin. Just how the fuck did they manage to handle such giant machines? How did they even make them, let alone drag them into the middle of the most hostile and uninhabitable wilderness? Dude… People are pretty cool sometimes.
Anyway. That’s all for today. Here’s some Slayer for you!
Hi Friend. It has been a really hard week. Some weeks I just cant make things last. Scarcity and poverty are ok man, they are good for the soul I guess. That’s a cop out for the rich though I suppose. “oh well, tightening the belt is good for you, salt of the earth peasants” hur hur hur, gnawing on a lobster tail, holding a glass of Piper and a Cuban cigar. Fuck it must be nice to not run out of food or petrol or medicine, to not have to wear clothes until they fall apart, to have shoes with no holes in them and to be able to comfortably carry your addictions/proclivities and general recreations. To be able to go out for coffee if suggested, or a movie or to be able to, at the drop of a hat, buy the to scale lego R2D2.
Anyway. I am making music. I have been active for the last three days. I have been dosing on gummies and it is the same as with the cbd oil. They don’t help that much with the pain but they make it easier to push through it and stay positive. THAT, ladies and germs, is the hard part. I have had that dreadful thought of suicide again this past week and it scared me. It’s such a helpless feeling. And lonely. So I pulled my finger and am making some changes. I have started using a treadmill. Once I have my fitness up enough I am going to start walking more. The sun is coming back and I would like to go about the place planting tobacco seedlings in places like railway tracks and places that don’t see regular gardening or foot traffic. Sure someone might see them but could you spot a tobacco plant? They have beautiful pink trumpet flowers, like tiny pink datura trumpets.
I am doing my best to ignore the assholes. Its going ok. I think I was letting myself be bullied and it has stopped now because I am refusing to bend. Fuck them. I can’t find somewhere to live dearest reader, my credit and rental history prevents me from finding a place and market rents are such that the quality of life I would have living in a commercial rental would be even worse than this. This is a government house, run by contractors but still under the “Kainga Ora” umbrella. Which means you only pay a small percentage of your income, hang on I will find it… nah its complicated but look, if you live overseas here’s how it works. The NZ government has, since 1937, run a program called “State Housing” which provides affordable housing for New Zealanders. It is available for anyone to apply but in recent years, as societies wealth gap has widened and social problems such as Meth use, obesity and unemployment and mental health problems (not to mention systemic wide institutional racism baked into our whole nation) have ravaged us priority is given to the Elderly, refugees, the infirm and the impoverished in that order. There might be a quota that goes to Māori service providers, I dunno. So I am living in one of those. Your rent is dependent on your income. I don’t know the exact figure, less than 30% more than 15% it’s designed to allow you a certain quality of life as well as a stable place to live. This place? It’s new and modern and clean but it’s infested with mongrels and the people getting paid to provide support for these retards are absolutely absent.
They are outside my window right now, having a little gathering… during a level 3 covid lockdown… fucken dicks. ANYWAy. I’m waiting for the doctor to call. Amongst the various things on my plate at the moment I have two surgeries coming up and one minor one. The minor one is the one I am dreading. A circumcision. Fuck. I used to joke that Jewish people made those little Yurmulkes out of foreskins…. well the boots on the other shoe now isn’t it? Fuck. I was trying to con them into giving me a general anesthetic, I don’t want to be around for that. Alas.
Now I am sure that there are a few people here that think that I probably could use a little genital mutilation. I used to watch me old mate Simon Hymen push surgical steel pins through the head of his cock and then hang things off it. I once saw him whip it out at the bar and run a shish kebab skewer through it. I could never do anything like that. I am not looking forward to this. It’s the least of my problems though. Well, down near the bottom. I wish I hadn’t eaten those gummies before the doctors phone call.
marktupuhiblog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.