HEY!

Hey go and show me some love you lazy fucks, hit like and subscribe and help me out with the algae rhythm dammit! You freeloaders have been gobbling up my words like skittles, now get your ass to the good stuff dammit! xox M

I’m Gonna Kick Tomorrow.

Hey Pal, fuck I’m sorry I have been gone so long. Mate! What a couple of months. I don’t even know where to start but what I do know is that, fingers crossed, it will end this week, maybe today even. I woke in tears again at 2am again today. It doesn’t happen as often but those vivid dreams man, when I have them all back and we are all happy and to have to wake back to my shitty life alone…. Man! What a fucken drag, seriously hard work to be calm in that state, so I am up and am going to clean the still and do some work on making medicine for that feeling. Oh, I know it only makes it worse avoiding it but, fuck, how is it any different from buying a sports car, dating younger chicks, getting as much money as you can or smoking pot all day, in bed, with a book? It’s all distraction and if mine was good enough for the “Jims, Mr Belushi, Hendrix, Morrison and Jones, well, it’s good enough for me.

Ok so in the last couple of months that young psychopath next door has increased his attacks on me to the point that I am getting some pretty good muscle tone having to lug my ganja around to hide them before the cops come to help me. I’ve seen more blue uniforms lately than I can remember… and I’ve seen A LOT! It’s one thing to get sucker punched from behind but then to have to do a mild cardio workout afterwards… dude! I asked if I can strike back and they said that if I do that I may be charged too so I just have to eat shit and call those cunts. I must admit some of them have been cool. The little fuck has been telling everyone he can that I am a snitch but “Snitching” is when someone has committed a crime and you tell on them. Reporting that a severely mentally ill neighbor keeps assaulting you? Nah, that’s something else. Entirely. Anyway, he should be gone in the next two days so the end is finally in sight. My beautiful garden is fucked. Overgrown and everything gone to seed because whenever I open my door to do anything he comes out and has a go! Its MENTAL!!! So… Yeah.

Hey I think I met a Girl! I need to have surgery and get my shit together, which will take a few months but I really like her. It has been a while since I felt this feeling. Honestly I didn’t think I ever would again. Oh hey speaking of “Never thought I would”, I am halfway down my Methadone reduction. It has been hard but, dude, I am so looking forward to being off. Finally. Another 6 months and I will be back to base level asshole, instead of hyper sedated asshole. It has done its job, time to travel and stuff without having to be chained to a chemist. Speaking of new things, I have finally found a new band to join. We are going to start rehearsing in the next few weeks. I got stuck on drums, again, but i am ok with that. I guess (Picture me sulking!). We are going to be called “Psycoda” so watch this space. I can always play other instruments on recordings.

Ok. I will write something longer in a few days but for now the act of just typing helped the tears dry up. Fuck I hate waking up from those dreams kind reader. They are so happy and real and to wake up alone and miserable… dude… Anyways I will say adios for now, please like, share and subscribe… (heh, always wanted to say that.)

xxx Mark Plaque

https://www.youtube.com/@MrSomethingElse/videos

The Pros and Cons of Hosting A Radio Show

Chris Fish breathed his last a few days ago. My contemporaries are dropping like flies, except me. I wouldn’t have bet on the odds I am beating! Fuck it, as Bon Scott said… “ride on”, and now I have start brushing my teeth, making my bed and losing some weight! Swings and roundabouts, you should see the size of my grin, the International Space Station reckons that , behind the Great Wall of China and the Aztec Lines, my grin is the third most visible structure from space, it just needs some colgate to take first place! You keep on you hear, hey can you hear that knocking sound? Dum da dum da da da da da….

https://www.youtube.com/@MrSomethingElse/videos

and so….

my cats name is Mr. Aleister Crowley but it’s unsure yet if it’s “crow lee” or “Crowley”? Dude, these things take time but I have found a new friend. It has been a while. I think she has a jet black brother or sister, they are hard to pin down, like all good druggies they refuse to cooperate with authority, and I respect that but I just wish they wouldn’t keep hitting me up for weed…. Pink Floyd helps, heaps….

My Cat smokes weed….

Here is the statement I made to the pigs, they still wont help…..

To begin with I need to state that I struggle with clinical depression and PTSD from childhood trauma and therefore my sense of times and dates are hazy most of the time, I often forget how old I am, kids birthdays or ages etc so please give me some leeway with dates ok? When I first moved in here I had good relationships with most of my neighbours, we had a gang problem here but by the time they had left I’d managed to make peace with them. I would continue to to have good relations with the neighbours and still do. I make home brew and I will take gifts to Davey and lee at christmas and stuff and take maori kai to kenny because he is a christian and doesn’t drink. At some point Sefton offered me meth and around the same time his mate, who had been hanging around did the same. I asked them to leave me alone but over the months they both kept approaching me. It got to the point that, when my cousin Zara was visiting, sefton was standing outside trying to climb through the window and he was outside my door as soon as zara opened it. this type of behaviour has been constant now to the point where I am afraid to leave my house.. My friend steve accidentally left the door unlocked a couple of weeks ago and sefton entered the property, he has done this numerous times. There was one morning that he was pounding on my bedroom window and then my door demanding alcohol but he’d done it to the neighbour before me. I was told that he regularly goes to my neighbours house holding a hammer and asking for booze, weed and food. He spends most of his day slamming doors and bashing on the dividing walls, so much that I am now in trouble with the tenancy people for reporting all of it so often that it is becoming harassing (I’ve ceased emailing them). He has constantly acosted my visitors, family and friends, demanding to know “What they are up to” and being generally threatening. It all has to be on cctv with The Link People. Every time in the last two weeks he has been bailed and, like, when the link people “intervene” he just escalates. They offered me a motel but when I got there I found that the motel had no knowledge of my arrival and turned me away and I had nowhere else to go so I am back here and there is no way I am opening my door to come or go again without an escort. He was in court this morning so he started bashing and smashing as soon as he got home, it sounds quiet now but it won’t take long.There’s probably more like when he just walked in when the front door was open and started demanding stuff, my mate lee was here for that or when my cousin zara opened the curtains to let some air in and he was standing right outside staring at her or the time I had to actually grapple him out of the house… He struck me a couple of weeks ago and I woke up in a puddle of blood a few hours after I’d scurried inside and hid in my bed, trying to be as quiet as possible. I am not accusing him of stabbing me, even though its the only logical conclusion, but I had to call an ambulance and there is still blood all over my house. please hear me. This is not Aotearoa, this young man needs help, not neighbours….He was trying to climb th6rough the window as I was on the phone to the cops! Dude?

Do you think your Wu-Tang sword can defeat me? En garde, I’ll let you try my Wu-Tang style…

GOLD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R34rBuVBkU

Wait But Yeah Nah

You know what, I study ancient esotericism and I distill really fine distillates. I became what I wanted to be aged 14, the first time paul firrhurst told me what an Alchemist was. I can’t say I’m Fulcanelli yet but he’s had more than a centuries head start… Mr Firrhursts name has been has been changed to protect the perpetually smug

A Son Unique

A song about the old dirty bastard. Showing some love for ODB. Might just be the best thing I’ve ever done that was non biological.

A Story, Shortly

I’m 18 years old and the guidance counselor is desperately trying to keep me focused and she asks me about my plans and I say… “I’m gonna move into a driveway full of 50 to 60 year old mental health casualties and victimize them all miss”. She responds “Well what about an income?” and I retort “I’ll just blow it all on meth on pay day, those down days will make me better at being a shithead” The worst part is that she thinks I’m joking. kids man? (Drum Roll)

When I was an early 20 year old my biggest concerns were getting through the work day and learning Stevie Ray Vaughn licks…

Saline Cock

Selinkof once told me he was at the bar with Linda Ronstadt and she she says to him “hey ricky, which one of these guys should I fuck tonight?” and he says “well what about me?” and she says “Richard, I don’t fuck my friends”. My best friends are all dead, cept for Micky, Zara and Ryan I am absolutely alone. I tried to call him “ricky” once and I swear he nearly punched me out…. fuck I miss those mean old bastards

Fantails

A fantail has taken up residence in my kitchen and as I am a fucking celibate I can only assume there are more grand-kids on the way, it’s the only news these wonderful little fuckers bring. Feeling that Māori pride…

What being punched square in the face sounds like

What’s “Alembic” precious?

Ok so I just know a bunch of you prudes will be frowning and shaking your heads, waggling your fingers but today, laddies and Germs, I am going to tell you about my new hobby… Fucking down home moonshining. I am running two pot stills, an alembic and a reflux. They both hold about 25 litres and I tend to run about 50 litres of wash a week. It costs an extra few dollars a day in electricity when they are running and maybe 30-40 bucks in yeast, sugar and any shitty old fruit I can find. I am holding my breath waiting for feijoa season because when that happens I am going to be burning daylight banking just as many of them sugary little fuckers as I can find. Hell, they don’t grow back home down south, the first year I discovered Feijoas I sat in my Aunties tree in south Auckland eating them until I got sick. They grow everywhere here and you’d be a damn fool to not make liquor out of them, not to mention feijoa crumble… I know what you are thinking… Marky is already mental, does he really need an inexhaustible supply of 50% shine? (I make mine hot, you can always dilute it but you can’t make it stronger so I err on the side of awesome.) But it’s the perfect hobby for me, it is labor intensive but it’s all done slowly. Especially running the stills, that takes two whole days to run fifty litres, you run it through the still twice to get it nice and clean and it comes out at 90% booze, then you blend and dilute down to 50% but it all happens in little bits of activity, you have to stand up and check the stills at least every five minutes, it only takes ten minutes of distraction for the water pressure to drop and thing scorch, worst case scenario is an explosion, at the very least you can spoil the whole thing by burning the wash mid stream. On the two occasions I had to learn this the hard way I smelled the burning reek before I saw it, everything gets hot and scary, it’s a fool who forgets he is actually making high octane jet fuel… So, it is an activity that I can manage with my limited mobility and it provides me with pain relief and, hopefully a little pocket money, but I probably should zip my lips on that account… Plus I am learning all the time and it is an art as old as people have been peopling together, I have yet to discover when it all got started but most ancient civilisations had folks distilling beverages and chemicals. It’s part alchemy and part larikan, hooligan and liquid courage that helps you dance with the ladies, or the boys or the in-betweens of your choice and it’s fucking cool fun when you get it right! I won’t bore you with the details of the process but it’s pretty easy to do, I follow a bunch of mad Americans who have a tv show about moonshining in Tennessee and a handful of good YouTube channels. Actually it turns out that pretty much the most widely respected expert in the field is a Kiwi and his channel “Still It” is where I go for advice and fixes for problems. Ew, did you know that the very last part of actual mountain moonshine is that they use a dried raccoons penis bone? A coonpecker! Yeah… I don’t do that part, but the rest is an education worth all the stuff I wasted with student loans in my youth. I have always dabbled with home brew beer and, um, comestibles but this year I’ve really taken it to another level. I would love to turn it into an income however the current market is completely saturated with fucking hipsters who probably spend all their profits on haircuts and beard oil and mustache wax so I’ll simply reap the rewards in satisfaction of a job completed and well done. I ran 50 litres of sugar wash yesterday, I ended up with 10 litres at 50% and I still have another fifty of a kiwifruit, pear and cane sugar wash in the hot water cupboard. That is still bubbling so its a few days away yet. Shoot, the thing is dude, you drink way less piss when you have more than you ever could and I find that an amazing thing. Also, if you want some, stop by, I could use the company and I don’t need all of this, I am only doing it for fun. In the last year the price of spirits and beer has almost doubled and if the government follow through it will absolutely be twice the price it was last year very shortly. My thinking is that, people who used to be able to grab a bottle every couple of weeks no longer can and that’s where I might step in… We shall see.

Ah mate, I tried this week but as always I shoot my shot and it bounces right off the backboard into the devils hands and he dunks on me every time, I tried to be someone better but I failed. I have a couple of amazing memories, one is the day Vadey was born, I love that boy so much it aches being apart from him, the other is walking around the sound splash festival with Dayna and bumping into Mike Love and his drummer and she was as excited as I was, they are both ginormous, topping out at like at least 7feet with their dreads and it was sublime and a few hours later we got to watch them play with awhi, Vader and about 10,000 other kiwis all grooving. Ok ok seeing Supergroove at the bongo in the early 90s was pretty cool, but come on man, meeting your current favourite artist in the flesh, with your granddaughter who also loved him and getting hugs and stuff before seeing them live? Dude…. Fuck things are hard friend. It’s nice just to have some one, well, something to talk to. I’ll catch you a li’l down the road hey? fuck, life is a real cunt some times hey, hang in there, those good moments are like gold in your hands, reach out if you need a mate, I am right here.

The best song. Anywhere. Ever.

If you ain’t hip, you ain’t shit.

full stop.

m

Crazy Week.

This whole week has been mental. Contractors behaving badly plus a psychotic next door neighbor. I wrote a mini album about it all, you can find it here…

… or on my youtube, I think you will like it, but in order for that to happen, you have to listen to it and I am not sure you are up to it, frankly…..

Like you ever could….

Buy my record! Its only going to increase in value if Sefton keeps sucking so well! Think of your children, and your children’s children? This could possibly put them all through school, even the, wink wink, secret ones…. Do yourself a favor and fund my delusions of being an artist… you know you want to.

https://mrsomethingelse.bandcamp.com/album/the-sefton-saga

the new King of Rocks n Rollers

You’re an onion ring, he’s a double whopper….

The name is Mosely, Mr Fucking Mosely… bitches

Chris Cornell felt like a BROTHER. Do we just keep letting people david bowie our Icons? Pharmaceuticals are the new marc chapmans? Fuché Fentanyl…. got any?

Happy fucken Friday.

Tiger Style.

m

The Best Half Hour of Your Puny Life

To be a fly on the wall in the control room for just one of the beats from the Thriller or Bad albums? Get Jeff Goldblum to play me, the fly and Mike… Come On! This slaps as hard as it did when it dropped! “Mama Say Mama Sa Mama Coosa”, sing it to the world, say it out loud!!! haha, MJ, I’m kinda glad we didn’t meet but I appreciated the fan club writing me back sometime around the 80s back when fan clubs were ordinary postal things you used to do with stamps… Back when you, and I, were cool.. I can’t say I love all of you, but I still have love, thank you for teaching me the art of studio musicianship. Your music is a masterclass, they’ll inscribe it on the pyramids at Giza, in formal sheet music, 440hz standard tuning. Or maybe even 432hz to account for that analog tape stretchery…. And don’t get me started on Off The Wall….

https://www.youtube.com/@MrSomethingElse/videos

Nems Remix is my new record store ‘cept all he charges me is patron’age and a thumb up, like a roman emperor my g… You tell me? Am I wrong?

Did you know that only Marc Bolan and Mick Jagger are the exact fit for Princes surviving wardrobe? Much of it was sold at Sothebys but Paisley Park retains a bunch of iconic outfits that weren’t lost to avid collectors. They remain the only two humans that ever could have slipped into those paisley pants… pretty cool….. If you ask me. Ok Ok that’s my story, goodnight sweetheart, it’s definitely time to go. xoxm

Concerning Loss

I lost two of my best friends this year, within a week or so of each other. Whenever I think I am done crying it dawns on me all over again. I guess it means that I really loved them but it still sucks hairy ape balls… Here they are together in the same room, it was always magic… Who will I do Wednesday morning drinking with now huh?

Mahalo

There are two versions of this song, one is angry, the other one more even tempered. Both are about the same thing, being my current next door neighbors behavior. Enjoy…..

Yep, it sucks being this guys neighbor…. Unless you are an absolute guitar monster, in which case you hardly notice him, you’re too busy wading through all that ass to kick…. thigh deep in the shit! Somebody get Carlos Santana on the phone! I’m sure some of these licks are his! amen shalom mahalo kia ora inshallah quebec ohm roadhouse

HEAVY FUCKING METAL!

Everybody! Do The Sefton Dance!

https://mrsomethingelse.bandcamp.com/album/the-sefton-saga

She died, she died under the ice…

Seftons’ Standing Outside in the Driveway, bashing on the fence with a hammer, the fence isn’t broken, he just wants my attention, when a crackhead has no crack he seems to get his fix by annoying me, all I was doing is playing guitar. The sheer joy on his face when he saw me peer out my door to discover what the commotion was must signify some kind of dopamine response, all in his undies in the driveway with a hammer, if it wasn’t terrifying it would be hilarious…. He was pounding away until almost quarter to four in the arvo, on the fence, dividing wall, driveway, trying to get a rise. You ignore childrens bad behaviors, to do otherwise only validates it. Still sucks though… if only he put that crack to better use… I wanna build a pot still, a hammer-hand would’ve come in quite handy for that….

Too Hard Out For you.

You were warned.

If you have no Love in your heart for Dave

Grohl, you are an asshole. Lars, on the other hand, destroyed Napster for no real good reason… I found all my nirvana bootlegs there, it would take a whole day to file transfer an .mp3, metallica too but I always paid for tickets and t shirts and fancy vinyl or box sets, it’s not like we were doing anything more than like when we were making dubs of cassette tapes in the 80s, right? It was cool while it lasted.

READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL, YOU WERE WARNED….

In the summer of 2011/2012 I sat down at a typewriter and macbook pro and attempted to write a book. It was shit and has never seen the light of day. My mate Micky said it was the “longest, boringest suicide note ever”, my friend Tyler said it lacked structure and correct punctuation and my other friend Jody simply cried upon reading it. I am only posting it here for posterity, I do NOT, in any way suggest you read it… read “The Catcher In The Rye”, “The Epic of Gilgamesh” or “The Art of War”, don’t read this fucking drivel… meth has a lot to answer for….

MEMO: From South Pacific Desk.
RE: David Bowie

David Bowie is certainly an interesting phenomena. He both intrigues and repulses me. Perhaps a 90/10 split in favor of the former.  I could sit here for days ranting about all the shit he has pimped over the years, but as I sat down to scrawl this note, I happened upon a copy of him rehearsing “Space Oddity” with Stevie Ray playing guitar. Bowie initially fluffs a few lines and chuckles before launching off into space accompanied by, well, you know….  He is a sailor that has successfully navigated the heaviest seas . Wait. Stop.
Typing on this machine is going to be a very different state of affairs I think. I have changed bowies place in the playlist in favor of the Trailerpark Boys movie.. In fact I kinda think that my initial assessment of old Ziggy Stardust was on the button, but perhaps a little overly kind to him. Ah fuck him.  I took Ollys pick out with me tonight, I didn’t strum a note but I feel the throb of the rhythm of life and I am agog with creative energy. I Plan to ride this mother like every single moment is my last.  

“Fall, Glimmer, Sparkle and Fade”

• A. Alexis
• Everclear.

Now these 3 lads tracked me down during my first year at university. Trade a love so pure, for a hate so blind? Shit man, this shit blew my socks off. Raw garage energy, live and furious. Tender, but ass kicking. VERY heavy. He was telling MY story. He would later drag my arse through many a tight situation. It, um, well, it seems kinda dumb in hindsight, but it hadn’t occurred to me that there were more than one of us and that those of us with true grit (yarr) were capable of wonderful things. Spreading our stories aboard the vessels and around the campfires of the world. Swabbing the decks with Rock n Roll. The word “Viral” springs to mind. It has come to mean many and varied things to many and varied people. A virus may have planted this document on your hard drive already… Or, you could be feeling a bit “Under the weather” and need a few days of time out to recover. It could come in the form of a cloud, drifting through the city you live in. Or it could just be a particular piece of music inside a particular teenagers head. 
It was a valuable lesson for me. Create, attract and make as much motion, attention and noise as you possibly can, thats my advice on the subject and I’d warn you that you are in for an equal and opposite reaction and things WILL get interesting, but you WILL have some fun on your journey.  So, where too now? I kind of miss the typewriter. I guess I’ll get another ribbon and fix it all up, so I might as well have fun with this ass kicking little MacBook Pro. I whole heartedly endorse this little treasure chest as an inestimable trove of creative awesometivity and recommend you try one sometime. Shit, any old one will do, you will soon be a fiend. I heard a rumor that microsloff own a 40% stake in apples, thats a big bite. Steve Jobs is less than a year into that long dirty nap and apples are falling out of the trees all over the place. People having all sorts of troubles. Max out, windows in, I guess. But don’t get too uptight about it, these babys were made to last and you WILL find them laying about under trees, if you look. Shit, as if they needed more free copy. Ok, fuck that shit, lets get down to business. These italics, for instance, I really enjoyed that, perhaps I was a little hasty, racing back to my typewriter. A hack actor playing the doctor, with his pink and purple typewriter. I could delete that sentence I guess, but I guess it’s a little true. I’m hoping that a lot of the writers I enjoy make an appearance in the style of my writing (sic). Wow, that was cool. Italics are the bomb.
Well, ok. Back  to business. Drugs. Well. Fuck. Um. Here’s the thing, I, personally enjoy the use of narcotics on a regular and recreational basis. I am wary of the heavy hitters and use them sparingly and with caution, if at all.  Would I encourage its application? If you have not used drugs, or are morally opposed to them for any reason, I wink in your direction and sidle up to you in a shady situation whispering “wanna joint?”, giddy with the joy that you know that I am only kidding and totally discourage anyone from starting off down that “Crooked Highway”, as the man says. 
A brief note concerning the switching fox txt msg generators. xxxxxx Its way cooler typing on here, I could edit the last sentence into such crazed punnery that it would only baffle readers and no-body would read this. Heavy. So, I’ll try my best to just flow the way it has been and leave the editing to someone with a little more experience. No cuts, pastes or deletes. Yarr. I do plan on fucking around with the fonts though. Im sure you wont mind? Ok then, brass tacks…
My Dad had this boat. It had a white hull and the top of it was finished in a dusty red topped off with weathered chrome. It was not a luxury item by any stretch of the imagination, but we had some fun with it. We live near a VERY big river and we would blast up and down there like maniacs. There are plenty of lakes nearby and the sea is never more than 40 miles away here in paradise, It was a great time. My younger brother was in the prime of his teens and strutting the planks like a true southern scalliwag and it was a focal point for the three of us to  gather around and be men, together. Wild days, running amok drunk on youth and rock n roll, and booze. Ha haarrr! We sure did have some fun. But I very nearly digress. When you put a boat, some people and an engine in the water, a peculiar thing happens. As the engine pushes the boat faster, the mass of the weight on the boat is pushed down and backwards by the force of gravity, but, the buoyancy of the water overcomes this and gradually the boat begins to “plane” across the water. A common mistake made when piloting a vessel is the instinct to accelerate as much as is possible under the circumstances. This drags us into the realm of deep deep motion theories and a level of physics that Im, to put it kindly, well out of my depths even typing about. My mate Jeff has this theory about planing, he will tell you all about it, of that I have no doubt. But heres my take on what “Jeff” taught me…
On a long enough timeline, anyone accelerating continuously IS going to hit SOMETHING. Jeff reckons it is a fine analogy for chemical use of any kind. When you consume chemicals in order to stimulate a reaction in your body that you enjoy, plane. There is no need to rush, or have at it like keith richards left alone in a pharmacy. Live like a wild animal, freak, junkie, pothead or whatever labels you feel applies but be aware of when to ease of the throttle and let momentum, gravity and joy drive you along for a while. Plane. Now I am down with that shit right there. My friend Jeff is a wise man. We learn from life, sometimes the hard way. HEY! Tyler and I have been fucking around with time travel! Want to try it out? Here goes…

3:03am mid nov 2011
Its another in a line of sleepless nights stretching back over the past three months like a hazy hangover recollection. So, I’ll write. I spent a lot of hard bludged cash on drugs today and it brings me to my knees with despair that even the sweet love of the humble poppy wont even bring sweet morpheus. God, I sound like some kind of teenage poet. Fuck that, emotionally, perhaps I barely posses the skills of a halfwit sodomized 8 year old, but throughout the written word I am, albeit humbly, a true veteran. And we will not tolerate half assed poetry at this giddy hour, no, fuck that shit. Im listening to a raw and jarring mix of eminem and Jefferson Airplane with Grace Slick, if it gets any heavier we’ll soon be digging into Big Brother and the Holding Co. coupled with some DMX or even worse, revert to the melancholy of the late and fantastic Mr Buckley the younger or even Adam Duritz. But we will see. Yes we will. 
Its election time here, theres a lot of bad noise from the television, billboards and radio. Flyers promising bright futures for all and confident smiling state sponsored arseholes peering at me like the last pirates aboard the sinking ship of capitalism as we know it. It brings fear, and to sound a little mimicry, loathing, to watch the last spasms of the American Federal Reserve go un heeded here in paradise lost, as far from Washington DC as it feels possible to be. Ah, yet Soundgarden have reformed and THAT fills me with hope that perhaps Generation X has one last gasp of life in it yet. And that my friend spells doom for the brutal careless fuckers that have wielded power over the western world for centuries. Oh yes, but lets bring the focus back a bit. I think even my dearest friends will agree that my pontifications on global politics are mostly volatile rants based on little more than Zeitgeist and a handful of songs by a handful of artists that seem to have their heads in the general direction of sanity.  
It seems like a very long life, standing here at this point, looking back. Pieces hitherto undiscovered, pop in and out of my mind and the ugly raw truth of my life stares me in the face. Like a coward, today I have retreated to the only love that never let me down. BUT, tomorrow is another day. Back into the fray. But what does the fray hold? It seems to me that the country is in some kind of hallucinogen induced spell cast by the current moron heading our tiny Island nation as if it were a global economic power and I have very real fears that the sheep I call countrymen will gladly follow this sick fool into oblivion come election day. But whats a boy to do? Ive posted my opinion, in the form of song, online and certainly share my ideas to the ragged bunch of malcontents I call friends, but we are few, and the idiot, iphone enamored masses will gladly sell us to the bankers, or send us all to rehab or prison. Now, lets just take a minute to clear up any confusion regarding the iphone. To sink into bland imitation once again. Much like a certain Doctors’ fire engine red IBM selectrix typewriter, I can heartily endorse the humble Apple Macbook Pro. For any creative worthy of the label it is a pandoras box of essential tools of the trade. Ah soundgarden, it shames me to find that amongst the ten or so thousand songs in this machines busy and dependable innards I only have 5 tracks from these men who, along with a 3 piece from Aberdeen WA and Pearl Jam, performed the soundtrack to my adolescence. The iphone, I guess, is the most easily recognizable icon of the disposable culture of decadence we have become as human beings. Were H.G Wells “Time Traveller” to have stopped short and landed HERE and NOW, perhaps his disdain for mankinds evolution would be manifestly greater than his gentle despair over the twin fates of the Eloi and Morlock alike. We CONCIEVE the notion that we cannot keep using resources only to throw them away as soon as the next “innovation” floods the market, and yet, here we are, continuing to behave like a mob of industrial revolutionary pigfuckers, GLOBALLY! Dear Jesus, Allah and Kurt, what is to become of my children? Stomped to death beneath frenzied mobs fighting for the chance to trade vegetables of used car tyres for the newest version of Microsoft windows 27? Just a handlful of corpses littering the road along with discarded Ipads, smartphones and Audis. God no. But again… whats a boy to do? Ah, perhaps the answers lie withing the jangle of the velvet underground. It certainly isn’t in my veins. I begin to question the purity of this product. But alas, its more likely my tolerance. Ah for a trip or two, now that would make the next few days interesting, and perhaps even stave off the fear that creeps towards me as the polls prepare to seal our fates once and for all, I believe. I certainly cannot see any kind of resolution to the impending financial collapse. I cannot see the hoarders of wealth giving up their hard earned power. As we speak, around the world, shyster “Gold Buyers” are setting up in shopping malls and Kindergarten driveways as America gasps its last breath and scrambles to regain the gold standard. There will be war, but then again, it never really ended did it?

10:17am – next morning
Ah, L.a Morph and coffee. Slept a few fitful, noddy dream soaked hours from 5 – 7, watching the clock, it seemed that I was nodding in and out every 15 mins or so, in and out of terrible and horrific dreams that seemed to last forever. The trick with opiate dreams is that they are very prone to “Lucid Dreaming”, in which one, if one is so inclined may direct the course of ones dreams, to a certain extent. Never in the most dire situations though. Sitting here at the bus terminal, folks are wandering the crowd in a last ditch effort to enlist unregistered voters. Each enrollment earns the pollster a few sorry dollars and they target areas where folks who never will vote anyway seem to assemble. Bus depots, pub carparks, markets etc. It poses the IDEA of a functional democracy. But the reality is, as we have established, that the great seething mass of morons remain largely ignorant of GLOBAL politics and our place in them and generally base their vote decisions on the state sponsored media and vague promises on flyers, glossy and bold, honed and sharpened by the finest marketing minds in the world. I guess I intend to keep this lonely, unread vigil throughout this whole sorry week and the ensuing chaos that will inevitably reign should the current thieving bunch of blood thirsty money worshippers retain their chokehold on our lives. I whole heartedly expect some of them to be shot before this is done with. Ah, but onto brighter matters… scoring more gear and tracking down the most indestructible optimus prime action figure. Only these things can guide us safely through an election on the eve of the aztecs doomed year of 2012.

3:00 pm the following wednesday.

Being admitted to hospital. Homocidal. Never been called that before. But if the shoe fits… There are certainly a few fuckers Id like to put a bullet in. Not that Im mentally unstable you understand, just fed up with it all.

8:22am Thurs  1st Dec 2011

Waking up in a mental ward is never a pleasant experience. The tricky part of being in a place like this is gauging personalities. A person you think is ok to befriend can turn on you in a second. A face full of hot coffee, a sucker punch to the face, these things are available for free at any given time. Last time I was here I woke up with a room-mate climbing in bed with me. Now, he was, up until that point, a worthy and affable chap in terms of someone to share a room with. So you see the dilemma. Speaking of bedmates, the human target that has been steering our country towards an unlikely mix of the extremely rich and the extremely poor DID in fact win the election. The morons stayed away from the polls in droves and a minor landslide was had by the butchers of children and now it is time to choose coalition partnerships. The squealing of horny pigs in a frenzy is almost audible here, some 600 ams from the halls of parliament. All presenting their anuses to the king pigfucker to have at. Policies, promises and propaganda are all laid waste and left in ruin as they promise their first born to be a part of the apocalyptic bloodbath that will be 2012. Jesus wept, could I REALLY be Homocidal? I guess even the fact that I have been considering doing harm to the men that hurt me as a child is reason enough to have me here, but fuck me if it isn’t a scary thought. I am here on a voluntary basis, but should I put a table through the door and incapacitate a few burly psyche nurses, running off into society, I’d be hunted down like a rapist and put in a more secure place. Not an option, but it makes for happy daydreams. I can only describe the national spirit as “Drudging” it seems that, unlike the optimism following elections in the past, the folks of the nation are hunkering down on instinct. I cant blame them. We are now spread eagled and bound hands and feet on a bed of fetid american dollars awaiting the long, sharp steel of idiocy to penetrate us from every orifice, sucking the life from us. Im not feeling particularly eloquent. I will shit. 

Wed 7 dec 2011

There is no finer way of disturbing the peace in a mental ward than showering at 6am and screaming along with “Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols”. Its so alien to these middle of the road head cases that i can almost imagine im in london in the 70s. I do not like it here, but, im being a good boy and towing the line, or lack thereof…  2 days ago I was accused and interrogated by a couple of morons for allegedly supply the ward with class A drugs. For fucks sake, I’m here to get off the shit, do they think I would submit to this kind of mental torture otherwise??? Moronic is the standard here, filthy muggles scratching a meagre and increasingly valueless salary, no care, passion or “REASON”, just a gig. For a man who throws his heart and soul into his work, regardless of the rewards, its a bitter pill to swallow, let alone to grin and eat their shit. BUT, time takes time and I need to make the best of it. There are of course exceptions, but their mood swings are as unpredictable as a politicians sex life. But fuck that subject today, Im too jittery.

FRIDAY 16 DEC

WELL, I am functioning ok. I have started a book, it lapses in and out of sanity and some kind of drug induced ranting. But it, thus far, remains cohesive and that fills me with hope. Ive been home 7 days now. The studio gear that WASNT stolen is safely stored at jeffs  but I feel like a multiple amputee, mind the pun jeffarah. Me and judos kids are in town drinkng hot black coffee and hot chocolate, the sun is shining and I feel ok. I feel strong, but I feel fragile. Kim ignores me like her anger issues and I feel very broken. BUT, I am well-er, and ready to face whatever is to come…
Took winny and a gat to town, ended up being asked to come and play at a party. God-dam meth… two big rails, left and right side, bongs blunts bottles and beats. Fuck. I seem to have reverted to some earlier version of myself, but (I hope) with a bit more savvy, a bit more nous’… Im a very good performer. VERY, VERY good. Pretty standard night for me circa 1999 – 2003, but without the fear of waking up locked up or waking in hospital. I hope I can maintain this. I have decided to live as well as I can but with some kind of control. NA and AA both tell me that this is called denial and that I am a fool on a slippery slope to institutions and death. But fuck them,  they can concern themselves with their own bullshit.  Watched the sun rise and kept a close eye on the weird, unconscious interloper that claimed our couch. Running fast and hard on the meth and booze, but with the quiet steady beat of benzos keeping things ticking along. No way was I leaving some stranger in my studio alone. 
I can spot a freak from several miles, its like poker, watching peoples faces to tell which cards are out amongst the sharks, after all, I am one of the grittiest freaks and we spot our own kind with ease. Considering that I’d rifled his pockets, imagine what HE was capable of?

Sat 17 dec

Judy gave me a cellphone. Her sick fuck husbands phn. He wont need it where he is, and he certainly wont need it if he comes face to face with me. Its not my beef, but Tequila deserves what I have to dish out to that viscous fuck.
Bailey and Tequila turned up at about 1am, as I was brewing my first coffee. Bailey and I are at the beach, he’s off doin his thing, Im sipping gisbornes finest apple cider in the sun, listening to dre and snoop as the peroxide does its thing in my hair in preparation for the return of my mohawk. Fuck this. Ive spent a year trying to be something Im not. I did all the things I thought a man should do and it was empty, sad and a very big anticlimax. SO… Im going to do what I do best, and that, my friend, is rock n roll. But Im also going to be a man for the kids. Its very strange, Judys kids are all over me like the brady bunch, but my own kids have no interest in me. I think I need to start actually DOING things that they WANT to do, instead of trying to force my creative kicks on them. I will work harder. I cant be that bad, look at my kids…. they are each and all exceptional and individual creatures of wisdom, pride and fearlessness, so fuck this self pity shit, they’ll be just fine. Im desperate for conversation with a human with an intellect. Im aching to discuss the future of global politics, consumerism and war mongering. Im certainly in the right place, but I just seem to attract idiots, even the occasional american one.  Nate Dogg died? wow. good, he was a fucking dick.  Ive been toying with the idea of blasting up the valium. Jesus, how many times does a man have to walk the same path before he learns to negotiate the terrain with sure-footedness but a wicked pirate swagger. I intend to be the fucking man. The hour is getting late and I have only just hit my stride… Im finding that using my benzo/barbituates nasally is a lot more effective than orally. Having said that, a 2mg under the tongue takes the edge off the heavy tightrope trip that my life is. But I am going to do whatever it takes to keep that bastard depression at bay. The new meeds seem to work. Id like to be in bed, but Im finding it very helpful. I dunno how it works, but Im establishing routines, functioning and being productive, which is better than I can say for the past year or so… The GHOSTS have not paid me and Im beginning to champ at the bit. I want my studio, and it pisses me off that I cannot have it NOW. Ah, Instant Grat.   Bailey is pushing out of jumping the bridge. My skin is burning, but it feels great to be out in the sunshine. LSD, man I’d love a couple of trips and a nice long beach walk. But money is tight and an income is a priority. Fuck selling drugs…. Im gonna make me some music. Its time to “rip this shit up” to quote obsolete future. Ah the alcohol, benzos and caffienne are running strong and I feel like a million dollars. RATM, RHCP TKOL, QOTSA, St. Lucy. Fuck it. If im to have what I want, there is much work to do. The mere act of pushing words into this machine is a therapy far more potent than the cocktail of chemicals I had for breakfast. There are so many beautiful women here, and its only going to get better.  I have told two women that I like them and put it out there. This is new for me, Im very timid when it comes to women, I know that its hard to believe, but its true. I sung to a girl named dina last night. I think she liked it. But I guess I will wait until Kim explains her position to me a little more clearly. I want her, but I want her to want me, as I am.  Not whatever the fuck I have been trying, and failing to be. 
So, what to do today? Paint with the kids I think. Play some music, take some drugs and maybe get laid. God, I miss the taste of a woman, the ease and sweetness of waking up with a woman is a feeling like none other. If kim doesn’t want me, well, fuck, maybe its time to find a new love. Shit. That should hurt, but it doesn’t… maybe we are just not programmed for ONE love? I dunno, shit, Im half hammered and Ive only been up for 2 hours… Don’t expect any wisdom from here buddy. Shit, can it really be THIS close to christs’ mass? Im broke as fuck. BUT my kids are not the greedy christmas pigs that I was. Shit, awhi would be happy with a cuddle. And thats important coz there may be lean times ahead. Not just for bottom dwellers like me, but for all and sundry. Fuck, I am very sunburned… But Its been a year or two of studio tanning and  my body is tired of the state I have been keeping it in. Forcing me on marches up steep raglan hills, drumming until my hands bleed and of course hitting those six strings that have shaped tis life of mine. There is a “zone” and I have it on tap, occasionally, but I figure that the more I work, the heavier the zone will become. Back in the “Temple” days, I could, and did present some of the finest musical performances that those lucky few ever saw… And I am by no means finished with this wild arse ride.

wow. So much for time travel. Its 1:37am. Im going to bed. See you tomorrow maybe. Hey, I think this book just might turn out ok? What do you think?

Chapter 13

Ominous. Sumblime. There is a word that is used a little heavily I think. Iain M. Banks has a notion that to “Sublime” means for a species, or an individual to achieve such wisdom that they decide to sublime, or move on to the next “level”. Something to attain as opposed to being a description of something. Sublime, were. And its a sad tale, but once again, its a familiar one. Brad and the boys came from the Long Beach area of Los Angeles, their contemporaries were folks like Snoop, No Doubt and, well, all the good shit that continues to flow out of L.A. Shit, Hollywood Rose and the L.A Guns, for example. Or Motley Crue. 
I had another bash at fixing up the typewriter today but the ribbon is pretty well fucked. Im not worried too much. The weight of the moon is baring down on me and I instinctually keep alert for any signs of trouble. I have no business being out amongst the revel with such a ponderous and heavy moon about. I am pretty sensitive to that kind of shit and Ive noted that full moons can have a curious effect on me. Equal and opposing pieces of evidence litter the paths I’ve roamed. Fantastic evenings of joy and music, wine women and song. Pitiful whimpering early morning hours in police cells, and worse. I don’t want to see either at the moment, just a nice calm creative jaunt here and there. Children this week. Vader in the morning. Yay. BUT, time for bed. Adieu.
Layed preliminARY TRACKS FOR WALK THE PLANK,  its a great track. The studio is sounding fantastic. Im enoying laying drum tracks, but I wish I could work out how to use the reel to reel again, but this is all gibberish to YOU isn’t it, or maybe not, time will tell. Am in a heady benzo, booze and buds enduced kind of stupor. But I like it. I wear it well. But I have no intention of referencing THAT quote.
What the fuck am I doing? Heavy fucken booze, bud and benzodiazepines. Walk The Plank is in fine shape. But am I? Is this really “Doing the job” or am I just wasting myself, again. Nah, Fuck that. Im ok, I just took a peek at my neighbor, peter, and compared to that fucker, Im a captain worthy of his parrot. Tyler is fizzling with creative energy and it does my soul well to guide him through the treacherous waters of song construction and the true capabilities of a fully operational, studio. We are making music that may well make history, well, someones story…
So we dig into the back pocket for a nice analogy. Me and my Dad hit the road in our Morris Minor Van in the early hours of some morning back in the eighties. We were to see the lighting of the hangi pit upon the morn of the opening of the Marae in BLUFF. Now, there is a town you would do well to visit. It was a great day, but thats all kinda anecdotal. I spent a few minutes alone in the car, fearful of the strangers, the ominous dawn and the heavy excitement my father felt. I pushed the Lighter into its socket. I was surprised to see it pop back out a few moments later and the coil was glowing bright red. So, I had to touch it. The index finger on my left hand still bears the callous from that hasty piece of curiosity. But I learned never to touch hot things… Well, I learned not to touch them unprepared. Lesson learned. Back to the music. I’d like to go see Paul Ubana Jones play tonight. But Im afraid that I will be sadly disappointed. Another washout amidst the horde of musical pirates that are washed up on this shore that I wander. Where are the heavy hitters? How can I get to them and what will I do with their wisdom once I have it? Cut, bleedout and die in my bathroom? or go on to bigger things, to Quote mr mayer. 
It dawned on me as I opened up this machine that it has been a long while since I put “pen to paper”, so to speak, straight. My initial response was to race to roll a joint, take a swig of mr beams finest bourbon whiskey, chop up some lines or drop a pill. But its a sunny day here, I have iced tea and an empty house for a change. I met a couple of young israeli men last night and they have spent the afternoon recording a heavy rock tune in hebrew, I am happy to have met them and they are giddy with original recorded material. But to business.

Paul Ubana Jones – The Yot Club – Raglan NZ. – Wed 11 Jan 2011

Its been a good ten to fifteen years since I’ve seen paul play. He has aged well, apart from the wonky knee, but thats his story. Paul plays a venerable old martin guitar and between that and a microphone, he creates soundwaves that quite literally can blow your mind if you are into that thing. The usual trip, only 12 people paid the door charge, despite the anticipation in the air before the show.  So, this freak saunters in, walks on stage, tunes up and fires off a salvo of covers and originals of true salty grit. Approaching him between sets, I casually, and rather fearfully mention that I am a big Dylan fan and that if he felt like it… Fuck me if he doesn’t get back on stage and tell his tale of being a young man and in attendance at the fucking albert hall when they boo-ed and jeered Bobs second set. Mouth open, agape, like a moron, I sat through barrage after barrage of perhaps some of the finest music I may ever hear performed up close and personal. I made sure to secure a couple of cds, signed. I am genuinely disgusted at my peers for giving paul the cold shoulder. BUT, I am stoked that we lucky few got to spend an hour or three entranced by a TRUE heavy hitter. As the story of his songs unravelled, it became clear that this guy has not washed up, out or overboard by ANY stretch of the imagination. Not only did he play with Dylan in his later years but has a sackful of experiences that I can only dream of. It was a true honor and treat to have got off my arse and take a chance. I was a fan 20 years ago, and I am am now even more so. But enough about that. I dreamed of a song last night.
These bones inside me will someday rest inside the earth and I will cease. Now, before we go any further, I do harbor a certain kind of suicidally but I am no nihilist. But when the time comes for these weary bones to lay still, I will wear that savage jolly roger grin, secure in the knowledge that I have earned that “Long dirty nap” as tyler put it. So I will try to get this idea into some kind of song shape. A very old friend. Actually, one as accomplished, experienced and salty as Paul, Bob or John for that matter, is coming to visit tomorrow. Its been a long LONG time between jam sessions, maybe 15 years. I come close to tears thinking about pressing my nose against his, smelling the inevitable leather of his mandatory jacket and feeling the warmth of his soul near mine. Ah, I am blessed with truly wonderful friends. I feel very alone sometimes. I guess I forget that the people who love me aren’t really that far away at all. For want of reaching out, I have suffered much. The price of cigarettes has gone up, again. It now costs me in the neighborhood of $70 (us) a week to kill myself. But I am lost without them. Whats a boy to do? 
I remember rolling up tealeaves in toilet paper and smoking them with my brother out behind my grandparents house in Dunedin. It was in dunedin, between the ages of 2 and 5 that I was first sexually abused, raped or whatever you want to call it. A small house on Josephine st. In the long grass of an empty section. Ah fuck. Do we really need to go over this? Im not so sure that its an important thing. Well, it really is a crucial part of my story, but details, names, acts and locations can be omitted. Suffice to say that it was not at the hands of my close family. AND, that it was a thing that happened again and again until I was 16 or 17 and able to defend myself. Its sad yes, but it is a trove of valuable lessons too. So I think I will leave that part of the story alone. But carry it with you, back through these ragged pages, it may connect a few dots and perhaps you will be a little more forgiving. Forewarned, after all, is forearmed….
Pearl Jam. Man, those boys sure did kick some ass. A live band to be sure. The album “Ten” changed my life as much as “Nevermind” had, or “Nevermind the bollocks” would when I discovered the pistols in my early thirties. Man, I wish I had a copy of ten now! Such sonic wash of colour, angst and strength. As delicate and insular as Nirvana, but with so much more fury and direction. Don’t get me wrong, ok? Kurt was on another plane, to coin a phrase of his. Ah such a fucken waste. When history lines up the conspirators against the wall Kurt will be one of the first to bite the bullet, I hope to stand beside him. Yes. 
I am constantly having my very morals and ways of thinking challenged by the young american who has ingratiated himself firmly into our little family. Such youth, vigor and optimism. Well tempered with a heady dose of that darkness that only we few know and recognize in fellow pirates. There is a story there, and Im sure he will get around to telling. But, its HIS story and perhaps if you are fortunate, one day you will sit enraptured as he tells it from a stage with only a guitar and a microphone. It is no mere speculation. This will happen. But will you have the wit to be there? I guess if you have made it this far you are probably ripe for a good mind blowing care of Tyler. 
I haven’t seen much of my children lately. Its holiday school thing. Fuck, THAT was a bad sentence! You get it, they are all over the country, enjoying the summer. I miss them. But, I don’t feel very competent. I guess its more to do with this re-ajustment to “society” that gives me the fear. I tingle with nerves just making a simple trip to town, the bank, grocer etc. PEOPLE, scare the shit out of me. I know I have covered this already, but the straighter I get, the scarier it is. Im listening to a band called “Kora”, the production is sublime. Intimidating. But, I recognize the tales, and I feel a kindredness, whanau is the word. Google it. Google. Now That is an interesting number….

Black Friday 13 Jan 2011

Fishing with Gary and his friend from the foot bridge. One small Kahawai. Drunks, particularly surly ones, provoke a frizzling energy within me. Never turn your back on a dangerous drunk. Even if he is your own brother. We met one such creature on that bridge. He passed by the first time and I casually asked him if he had a spare smoke. He offered to sell me his last smoke for ten dollars, to which I politely declined. The second time he came past, I had my back to him and his friends, staring up at the tip of my rod which was twitching with investigatory nibbles. He had the bad form to tug on the back of my clothing. I spun around and met his drunken gaze with a sharp warning. I do not like violence, but I am no fool. Bruce Lee has a line in “Enter The Dragon”, Im afraid its not verbatim, but the message it conveyed is that the best kind of fight is no fight at all. I adhere to this strictly. But I will heartily bust your head open if me or mine are threatened or attacked. It is a simple philosophy. It is one that we all probably agree with on principal. But listening to the young Israeli man casually talk of his military service brought my very soul to ruin. He was a soldier with the task of Grenade Launcher, s.a.m kind of weapons expert. He spoke of how, because of the very nature of his specialization, the projectile is lobbed (as opposed to fired) so he would never see who it was that he had killed, maimed or shredded. He spoke of how it would be reported back to him, “You killed 40 men”. Wow. But who were these men? And why? Israel has a fantastically interesting history. The word “Jew” is spoken rarely and with caution, even here in the 21st century. But, I cannot judge these young men. Shit, theirs is a war spanning millennia and they are but cogs in a far greater machine. War. U2. Four young men who had to escape the city they lived in to record this album. Bombs, blood, death soaked irelands streets at the very time “WAR” was recorded. No wonder I was so drawn to THAT song on THAT day. Ah shit. Crying. I’ll be back.
The Sex Pistols didn’t reach me until I was long past any chance of catching them live, or so I thought. “The Filth and The Fury” is, perhaps baring Mr Scorses’ “No Direction Home”, the finest film concerning “Music” that I know of. I know a few. It touched me like a fist in the face of a cop. A story of rock n roll glory, fame, descent, death and joy, told by the band themselves. It is for this reason I admire, rejoice and revel in “Punk” and the being one of. Timing, as mr Dylan has shown us, is crucial in the creation of something and the Pistols nailed it. Boys being boys, and girls for that matter, at the exactly inappropriate moment. 
To have sailed on that ship, up the Thames, past the pillars of power and Buckingham Palace, screaming against everything that pisses me off about any kind of “Establishment”. Very heavy trip. No wonder such great music was made… 

Newtons 3rd law in action. Well, taken to the extreme. But we are all ABOUT extreme. Aren’t we?
Messers Cook, Jones, Lydon and Matlock sure did change things. History, as they say, speaks for itself. Mr Viscious, now there is a quandary. A strange hybrid of tragedy that seldom graces the stage with any kind of tact or grace, but stumbles through with a grin and a salty wink. A wise man, upon hearing the news that Malcom had died, said not to speak ill of the dead. And in this case I shed a silent tear for the flowers of romance and move on. For I have been digressing, wallowing in it for far too long.
It was around this time that I really got started as a “Performer”. The Sex Pistols had taught me to fucking shove. And I am very, VERY good at that. But enough about them. We have been in the studio for most of the day. The music that we are producing is baffling, powerful and chock full of Grit. A humble Trumpet dropped in and blew us completely off course. We are in treacherous, dangerous waters, but thats where pirates are at their best, right? I have no doubt that you will find it, um, interesting. Shaking your weary bones like a freak. You are in good company. There is a lot of quotation going on, how about a thought or two of my own observations? Ok, fuck, its my book after all. 

Hmmm.

Um.

Fuck.

Sun 15 January 2012 – 7:10pm (local time)

Ok. I fucking hate it that israeli kids are still lobbing fucking bombs over walls, shouldn’t they have learned something about violence? I don’t give a fuck about who, or whom directed people to pilot commercial airliners into the manhattan skyline, I care about the families of the people that got hurt. I will not start a fight, but I will do my best to finish one. I am not inclined to abide by “Laws”, Im afraid. I take my lumps, but I could never be described as “law abiding”. I love rock n roll, put another fucking DIMEBAG in the duke box baby. Un sprocket de deuch? Baby? Finally, I am particularly vacant, and I do not care.

Yarr. 

PIRATES. Fuck, I’ve been pirating shit since I was seven. I even have a bootlegged Pistols vinyl now that I think about it. Shit. I can download any old shit I want. So why the fuck is the FBI waving a stick at me overtime I watch a movie? I guess it all boils down to Bully-ism. I mean, I live by a CODE. I have boundaries. But I am suspicious of anyone who wants to enforce boundaries upon me that do not make sense. I have a neighbor. He is perhaps the worst example of scum Ive ever come across. Believe me, I gave him every kind of reappraisal, chance and second guess, but in the end he is scum. A particularly calculating and nasty drunk. All day drinker, from dawn till dusk. Gleefully driving around wasted. Now there is an example of anarchy in action. I drove drunk, many many times. I received heavier and heavier penalties until I finally landed my arse in jail. I do not do it anymore. Period. Not because of the “Law”, I am not afraid of punishment, especially when I have been foolish… I do not drive smashed because it has very nearly taken other peoples lives, limbs and children away. The law and its machinations had little to do with this choice. I had to learn, the hard way. I think that this little tirade lends well as an introduction to the next chapter, Until then…

Chapter 14 

The Gallows Pole.

“Save me from the wrath of this man”

• Led Zeppelin

Ive been in and out of trouble with the law, as Ive said, since I was old enough to be charged with anything, and plenty before. My “Rap Sheet” is pretty long and extensive. No violent offences. But it sure is a menagerie of surly stupidity, exclusively under the influence of something. When the hammer finally fell, when I had used up all other sentencing options and finally drove a Judge to imprison me, it came as a shock. I would have held my kids tighter, kissed my girl harder that morning if I had known where my journey was to lead. I was pretty fucking tanked up on heavy opiates, as per my usual court appearance, and had a hefty handful in my pocket, just in case, sewn into the seams of my jeans. So it was on a light fluffy cloud that I was led away, into a holding cell and the company of those other unfortunates destined for prison. I guess I could go into it with more detail, but those men have earned their privacy. Prison, is the ONE time in life that the movies, television and rumor actually turn out to be correct about. It is, give or take, exactly as you have seen it on a screen. Long two tiered wings of cell after cell, guards, violence, drugs, tattoos and, of course, piracy. I guess Ive covered the story, insofar as to my actual “Lag”, I got heavy into the buddha and wrote an album, aptly titled “Azkaban”. But there was a “Before”. The prisons in my country are overfull. As opposed to finding solutions, we just build more. Morons. So I spent a long time being shuffled around small town police station holding cells before a space was available in one of our correctional facilities. Now theres a misnomer!
I formed friendships, alliances and animosities during this time and I learned very VERY quickly how to survive. There is no truer anarchy than that amongst a prison population. You are fucked, so why stop shoving? Ah, the beauty of an inmates final straw and the destruction of a prison guards face. Now, don’t get tangled. There are far more GOOD screws in jail. But the nasty bad ass fuckers (Sometimes literally) have a very heavy impact on the relative peace of prison life. So when one of them pushes a man too far and gets himself or herself hospitalized, I have no sympathy whatsoever. As I have said. I will not strike first, but I will fight tooth and nail when attacked. And I recognize this in my fellow pirates. I would not do that job for all of the cash in a christians bank account. But gleefully pack a select few of them into a small room, alone with me for an hour or so and repay them in kind… Oh. So, bullies. Not just at school, but out here, in real time. Always. Be alert. I have disconnected, mind pun, from the real world. Let my telephone and internet connection lapse and seldom check email. I guess its a withdrawing from “Society” in order to focus on this piece of work and also to record an album of music, free from the distractions of you kind folk and your televisions, microwaves, cell phones, telephones and wifi. Just swabbing the deck I guess. It has also lent me a cleaner perspective on life and how bullies operate, especially in a small, isolated place like this. In fact, we are so small and of mixed race, social strata and economic variety that we have been used as a test market for new technology for decades. If there is a new innovation, you can bet your ass that we will be hooked on it first. Cellular phones, vcrs, cd players you name it, they marketed it all HERE first. I guess it gives us a kind of edge. But largely it just means we are a dumping ground for obsolete (sic) technologies and ideals because as soon as the marketing and testing phase is over, the new model is out… And we just HAVE to have it. It is a subtle example of bully-ism, but an important one for later reference. 
My stepdaughter is sitting across the street from me, doing her best to ignore me. I believe I heard the words “This town isn’t big enough for the both of us” come from her bedroom. Teenagers are fucking viscous. I know, I was. But in a few years, she will chill out and perhaps this shitty little town will have grown some. It still hurts, but fuck. Ive hurt her as well. Parenting is a tricky business. There is, it seems to me, a fine balance between guidance and bullying. I try to encourage and nurture independent thought and creative action in my children plus a healthy dose of freak power. I have a child named Vader, and he truly plays the role to a tee. Im a deadbeat on occasion and selfish. It weighs heavily on me, particularly as I go through this withdrawal process. But I will have time, I hope, to mend fences, bring about forgiveness. Love is NEVER lost. I have reconnected with folks I have burned, bashed and obliterated bridges to, to find that the core of love we shared was alive and well, albeit in poor health.
Wow, have started Ghosts remix. It sounds fucking amazing. Ah, a year in the can and they are well baked. Baked, now theres something I am. Sitting in the sun with my shirt off soaking up that Vitamin D. A “studio tan” is a common affliction amongst pirate folk. But we have the cure…
I guess one of the biggest shockwaves from the late 70s, early 80s, for me, Was Mr Manson. Not charlie, fuck him, and the blonde. They’ll get no copy from here.
Antichrist Superstar.
Whoa. Stop EVERYTHING.
Things had changed, slowly, as they have a habit of, things happened. And we were in the firm gaze of some heavy HEAVY Hitters. Trent Reznor and Dr. Dre had dusted off their gloves and delivered a knockout. Marshall and Marilyn Manson (sic) both came out of Death Row, at pace. I guess I will have to discuss EMINEM at some point. But its not yet. I fucking love Brian. And I’m not talking about dogs on TV shows that brian has cameo’d on… 
Family guys are fun. I digress. Im sailing pretty close to the breeze now. The , well, I was going to say temptation, but its more of an instinct to cut and run is now very near and I feel the tension inside like a very fine gauge high E string. I sat through “It Might Get Loud” again last night. I weep.
“Getting in her face, Getting her Down. Just when I thought things were going alright… I loved her, I hated her”
-Sticky Filth
I have known many women in my life. I humbly ask their understanding and forgiveness and harbor nothing but love for each and every one of them for loving me for a time. I am a lucky man. I shan’t be mentioning any specific names, locations or suggestions and intend to be very VERY vague. I set about this part with nothing but care and respect and hope no-one gets hurt. One for instance, simply taught me how to hang my tee shirts without leaving comedic nipples on them from the pegs. Another divulged that she had been doing this to my T-Shirts for years as a gag. Vague enough? Ok, lets see. Man. Where to even begin. Mum? Fuck. Now who’s weeping. Shit ok. “mother” “mum” “mom” “whaea” . These are very heavy words. Ah mum. I put a gig on for what would turn out to be her last birthday. It was on my birthdate, but our birthdays are close so… I put posters up and told everyone I knew. People brought gifts for her. She was far too sick to come. But I really wanted to play music for her one last time. In fact now that I think about it, I never got to play for her. Until after, in fact I might just make a trip to do it. Anyway, I got roaring drunk and pissed everybody off. As per, their usual. It strikes me as odd that my friends and family have never really seen me live, in good form. I guess I have a lifetime in order to put that in order. Maybe. A line from Jokerman goes “A king among nations, a stranger at home” and it usually transfers well over to the life of a songwriter. Absolute strangers can fall instantly in life long love with my music, whereas my family and friends remain nonchalant. Funny old world. The ones I most wanted to hear the songs, never get to hear them. Heres’ One.

The Year that I was born in, there was Blood On The Tracks, it takes a certain kind of person to measure up to that.
But despite the twists of fate intent on holding me back, I slipped through every single noose and beat of every attack.
Children tend to learn in extraordinary ways, looking back upon my childhood, frankly Im amazed
Diagnosed the trauma, medicated the pain
Knowing that the only other option was the grave
But Like Cause and Effect, there was a price to be met
And I soon got tangled up in the means to forget
But after 30 odd years, a million buckets of tears
I found the man inside to help the little boy face his fears.
The consequences of the defences I designed became the only thing that other people saw in my life
Labeled and defined for stepping out of line, they punished symptom after symptom, never questioning why
In fact sometimes I even went along for the ride, never believing the lies, just too exhausted to fight
Biding my time, towing the line, building up the courage I needed to walk another mile.
So here I am the man I always knew I could be, living the life that I create from simply caring for me,
Widsom joy and love are the treasures I seek, not for myself but just to make the world a better place to be.
Just to make the world a better place to be.
Because theres always gonna be another mountain to climb, But I can face it with the strength that comes from walking the line.
Swaggering along with a heart full of pride singing yo ho ho with a ticket to ride.

Im not too sure what its called yet, but I like it. Ah, fuck man. Its a sorry ass tale, but the good guy actually wins, so I cant complain too much huh?
E Bb A D    – E Bb A G Gb E.
Ah shit. Things are getting heavy. 2012. Eclipses, Planetary alignments and a new war. Iran have stepped out of line and the knives are out. Fuck. Mickey and Cameron dropped in for a foggy couple of days. Fun, I guess. I’m walking a fine line, I tell ya. I cant sleep at night, I am constantly planning my own death. Mickey glibbed off a quip about this book being just a long suicide note. Shit. Could that be true? Fuck. The idea of leaving this life has been with me for as long as I can remember. I mean, I still have nasty rasped scars on my arm from my first suicide attempt at 8 or 9 years old. I forget, I was young, it may have been earlier than that. I remember pulling one of my dads razors apart and taking the sharp slippery steel to my skin. In the bathroom, blood fucking everywhere. No one noticed. I gave up after a few hours, cleaned up the blood and carried on as if nothing had really happened. It amazes me, when I look at children, how very abnormal my childhood was. I guess I could write it all off to “post-trauma” and carry on this rollercoaster, but there MUST be more to it? I think my worst moments were inside that Isolation cell in Tokoroa Central Police station. There is nothing worse than the desire to die, but removed from any kind of means. Im not saying that I wish I was dead. Shit. No. I’m simply trying to express how it feels to live with suicidality as a constant companion. It weighs heavily on me, like a giant sack of shit tied around my neck. If only I could cut the cord… 
I’ve just received, via courier, video footage of my television appearances circa 2002. I lack the VCR and cathode ray to play them, but I am excited about the prospect of taking a look back and seeing where I’ve been. I guess I get a little unsure. Im musically bankrupt at the moment. I have ideas and talent. I lack drive and foresight. Id love to just sell up and run, but I have responsibilities and they hold me fast. The “Motto” on my scottish family crest reads “Stand Sure” and I wear it, with my tartan, on my arm as a reminder. Sometimes I pay it heed. Sometimes, Im not so sure. But I stand yet and while I do, I may as well tell you my tales huh? 
I guess It was in my early 20s that the shit really hit the fan. I didn’t join my first real gigging band until my first year at performing arts school. This was after a couple of failed relationships, the birth of T.A and a bunch of shitty jobs. I had decided to have a go at taking musicianship seriously. One of the tutors, our audio and studio recording guy, asked me, after a class, if I’d like to “jam” that night, and the rest is mostly history mixed with sonic glory. Washing landscapes of sound in which I was free to wander aimlessly for hours, backed by musicians of a caliber that I still consider it to be the finest band Ive ever been a part of. Well, the second finest actually… St. Lucy. Now THAT was a band (sic).

MEMO: South Pacific Desk
RE: Isolation, arguments for and against.

Tyler has gone, if he ever really was here. Perhaps I really have gone over the edge and entered some kind of “Fight Club” delusion brought on by mass exposure to television and film. I watched The Blues Brothers last night. It appalled and enthralled me in equal amounts. Mr Ackroyd and Mr Belushi, fuck. Heavy ass musical cameos, perhaps one of the finest casts ever assembled in terms of musical heavy hitters. But the amount of gasoline and smashed up motor vehicles drew me back to the reality that despite its best intentions, it is just “Hollywood” and the celluloid it was shot on drips with the blood and oil of our current global predicament. Once again. I am perplexed and vexed by this knowledge, yet have no idea what to do with it. I am totally alone. Locked away inside my home hoping that the depression/anxiety/fear, whatever, lifts and I feel strong again. Its a slender thing to grasp to, but its enough to keep me getting up and doing things. So, is this the best way to cope? That is my question. I’ll continue my research.

CHAPTER 15

The End Of Waffling and Digressive Evasion of the FACTS….

“I don’t Mind stealing bread from the mouths of decadence”

• Hunger Strike
• Temple of the dog

Well, first thing out of bed this morning I skulled back a bunch of coffee and had a quick peruse of this body of work thus far. I’ve been far far off track and for that I am tempted to apologize. I wont, but it crossed my mind. Forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes… Ive just chopped up, powdered my nose, procured some very VERY fine weed (it has streaks of orange throughout the buds and it smells like the gods’ own herb garden) and fetched a 40oz of cubas finest white rum. Now that we are forewarned, forearmed and stocked to the gunnels with stimulants both recreational and medicinal, lets get it on, shall we?
Im a thief. I make no bones of it. If you see me in your store, and if you stock high end bullshit that most people NEED but cant afford, watch me closely. It only takes a fine razor blade, scalpel or knife to open up the security packaging and retrieve the goodies. Only a few seconds more to carve my initials in it and slip it back into my personal effects. Hard drives, fishing rods, drugs, you name it, Ive pilfered it. I draw the line these days, there are situations when I feel no conscience about looting, and then there are times that it weighs heavily upon me. Musical instruments and implements don’t seem to work that well when they are stolen, I will not steal these. Having said that, I will steal strings or leads in an emergency and if say, Keith, left his guitar alone I would “borrow” it, just for a while, just coz I could… Ive been jailed for stealing medicine for my baby, son whose arse was as raw and red as a baboon. He was in a lot of pain and I had no money. Fuck it. Right? But not all of my exploits have been so easy to justify. In fact, mostly, they are callous acts of treachery. Not that I do that sort of thing these days ho ho ho…
Ok, so, let me think here for a second. In the meantime let me tell you about my old car. It was a ford fairmont, candy apple red and chock full of grit. My Dad has just purchased, from the L.A Classic Car Club no less, a chevy bel air, 58 I think, I’ll have to check that. It has all the original gear, but hiding beneath the vintage leather and chrome is the heart of a modern day pimp mobile. I need only sit behind the wheel and I feel the throb of pleasure one only really experiences next to a finely tuned performance motor vehicle, bested only by a nice big 100 watt Marshall jcm 900 head and two 4 x 12” cabinets coupled with a gibson explorer, or flying Vee… I digress. As per… She was a car that I loved, it could fit the whole band and make the run to New Plymouth in 3 hours, oh yes, this was a beast. I think if you google “Pete Fountain” you will find a reference in one of his songs to “sitting in the back of marks car”, it was a beast. The greatest journey it ever made was one of its last. Tanked up on all sorts of crap, I decided to drive to my ex partners house, some 200 kms away, at high HIGH speed. Mind THAT pun. So we, the ford and I tooled up aucklands southern motorway at 220kmph, excessive yes, but I was too fucked on booze and pills to give a shit. Perhaps 2 km up the long straights on the Auckland side of the Bombay hills, some motorist lazily signalled a right turn, indicating a desire to move into the fast lane. Little did they know that there was a lunatic barreling toward the city attempting to break the speed of sound. 
Let me point out at this point that my destination was death. I had planned to overdose once I reached my destination, so safety was not really a factor.
It happened at slow motion, as all M.V.As are prone to. They thought there was plenty of time to come over to my lane… 220kmph-ish… I crossed the distance between us very rapidly, so quickly in fact, that I was alongside this other car just as they crossed the line, sideswiping me. I don’t know what happened for THEM at that moment, but the ford fishtailed out of control. Concrete abutments on one side and the drizzle of slow moving (innocent) traffic on the other. Having brought my beast under control, I indicated to the left, as per the law, so we could swap insurance details. Upon pulling over I waited for them to come to a complete engine stop, then I gunned the engines, disappearing UP an on ramp and into the relative safety of suburbia. I often wonder how I have survived so many of these situations. In fact the fact that I botched the suicide and ended up in a holding cell sort of pales in comparison to the fact that I survived the drive! Ironically, the transmission gave out and died a mere 200 meters from my destination. Hows that for timing. That car and I parted company after that. But my Uncle Robert collected it a week later, fixed the transmission and stored it for me for well over a year. When I finally picked it up there were mushrooms growing in the upholstery. It was a much smother ride after that, it never made a jaunt like that one again, to the best of my knowledge. I ended up selling it to a guy that worked at the rehab I attended as a result of that “Time”. He asked how much and I told him to slip T.A a 50 note when he picked it up. It was kind of cool because we would spend our free time at rehab washing, tuning and polishing that beast. Peter loved that car and that made the gift so much more joyous. I guess the point is that I am,  by nature, a very giving person (sometimes to my detriment) and therefore see no problem with stealing from the mouth of decadence as I am just as likely to give it away… “Give it Away” is a great song and has a message that I sagely nod my head along with. “Realise I don’t wanna be a miser, how come everybody wanna keep it like a kaiser” , indeed. K time for a break. You go do your thing, Im getting a refill and a line or two.
So, I better wrap this up as Im about to smoke this beautiful little joint of sticky orate shit and it might get weird. The hole in my plan was that I emptied 4 sheets of immovane (zopriclone) into a pill bottle before leaving the car. So when the police were inevitably called, they thought I was just drunk and proceeded to lock me up. Im not bitching, but it would have been ironic had I died in the drunk tank. So I lived. The end. Except that it wasn’t, obviously. I walked all the way back from the police station, still very much under the influence of the immovane and cut my arms up, it was all over then, hospital – Detox – rehab, in quick succession. Again.
I have been through so many Rehabs that I lose count. It got to the point that I gave up giving up. Although I am toying with the idea of entering a rehab after “THIS”.
FIRST REHAB
“Im a Meth lab, first Rehab”

• RHCP
  The Thing about Rehab is that it is a safe place. A place to BE without chemicals, amongst other people doing the same thing. Its very easy to be drug free in rehab, especially the first time. I was fortunate enough to have been admitted to, at the time, the worlds most prestigious and acclaimed rehabilitation center.
  Queen Mary hospital in Hanmer Springs was an ex-army hospital, used during the wars for soldiers to recuperate. It sits on prime real estate just 80 odd KMs north of the Cantebury plains. I sat in Auckland airport drinking coffee after coffee, flew south and took the bus to “Hanmer” (pronounced, for some stupid reason “Hamner”). A mix of Kiwi Nationals, there for free on the Govt and clients from all over the world, busting out their visas or mastercards for the experience. It certainly made for an interesting mix of people and not ONE of them has ever truly left my thoughts. Run by an ex American Navy Admiral who, during his service had been given the responsibility of dealing with seamen and marines with drug problems. Hah, Seamen. ANYWAY, he was a pro and I certainly had my life changed in those scant 8 weeks. But not enough obviously. I left there on fire for sobriety and abstinence. Joined AA and got clean. 
  It lasted approximately 2 weeks and ended with a police standoff with myself and my daughter holed up in a motel room. No fun, as Mr. Rotten put it. No fun at all.
  So, after 5 or 6 of these trips, spread out over 20 years, you can see my tendency to avoid another Rehab. But, for some of us, its a clean life or a chaotic one. I guess its all about how you manage things. Right? I think I better light up. You will excuse me?

Ah, the sweat leaf caress of good ganja. I can see why people built a religion around it. Now Im not building shit, but if I had my way I’d force, at gunpoint if necessary, every doctor, police officer, soldier and legislator smoke a fatty and maybe drop a trip, followed up with a nice armful of some kind of poppy fuel. Just so that they will KNOW. I am toying with the idea of asking a friend to just take 2mg of D-Pam for a week, just so they can empathize. Being ON drugs and coming OFF them are two VERY different scenes. Oh dear, we are getting it on now. So I have maybe 2 months worth of benzos, steadily reducing and then they will be gone. Well, gone on a daily basis. I am a Pirate Captain, after all. Perhaps that is where I fit into the whole GONZO thing, as a “genre”. Up to this point, I’ve been trying to wear the Doctors hat. But Im no doctor, no peddler of remedies or even philosophy, I am a Captain and I have earned my post the hard way. Working up the chain of command. I could, I guess, have settled for an Admiralty or even a Command position for that matter. But at sea, out in the deep where the horizon is the only limit, the Captain has complete charge of both the ship and its “mates”, and THAT is where I am most comfortable. You, shipmate, are, and have been for some time, in good and capable hands. 

I seem to have left the word “Alcohol” out of the picture regarding “REHABILITATION” and for good reason. It’s a constant. Its the legal drug of the western world most responsible for both exhilaration and Joy coupled with misery and sadness. It has me stumped. I know a few things for certain however… Continued use, prolonged and stretching out of days, months and slipping into oblivion, leads one on a direct line for death or a locked room. So I treat it with caution, and abandon. But seldomly and only when needed. Shit, maybe I am a fucking Doctor. Every good ship needs one right? “Bones”, of the Starship Enterprise. Now THERE was a Doctor. No fucking star trekking for you though, lets keep our feet firmly rooted in the real. Oh I could waffle for hours about science fiction, citing Wells, Iain M. Banks and Asimov, even drawing Newtons laws into it. But, unfortunately, this is no fantasy. So we might as well take a dip into reality for a while. Set sail for Invercargill somewhere in the vicinity of 1986. (I never said we couldn’t Time Travel, don’t all Doctors come with a Tardis?). 
Fireworks. Ah. Small, user friendly explosive devices. Big fun, especially if you are a young man, or woman for that matter. When I was young we had, for sale, tiny look-alike sticks of dynamite and they sure did make a bang! Wandering home from a session with a “Galaga” machine, I was happily sticking these small bombs in letterboxes, trees, exhaust pipes etc. Merrily blowing up anything that took my fancy. Great fun you say. My main mistake was thinking that all this explosive destruction was harmless. My second mistake was placing one in the exhaust vent of a photographic studio. Modern photography is relatively hands off, digital printing, photoshop, HDMI and digital cameras have made the art of photography a wonderland of possibilities. But in 1986 we are still developing prints with some heavy ass chemicals. Chemicals which ignited with some fury behind me as I strolled along awaiting the small caliber rifle crack of a simple firework. I recall turning to bask in the smoke and scoring my little cracker had produced to be met with a blazing horror. The small vent, perhaps 7″ square, was breathing a blue and yellow flame, extending to the middle of the street. I ran.
I often wonder what happened. I guess now that the cats out of the bag it will not take long before someone informs me. I accept responsibility, but am also aware that at the time I was underage and blissfully protected from the law. But still. At the very least there was a large mess to clean up. I hope no-body was hurt. It plays out in my mind and has since then. I was unwrapping some things of my mums after she died and came across an article written on the newspaper she had used for wrapping. No-one was hurt, but the building was gutted. I was sure to drive by the very next time I was in town and sure as eggs, those folks were not only THERE, but flourishing. Imagine coming across damning evidence of arson, over 20 years after the crime. Heavy. Im getting sunburned out here. Lets take this show inside, I’ll put on some hendrix, you roll up.
Cause and Effect. Karma. Newtonian Law. Call it what you like. Time. The 4th dimension if you agree with Mr Wells (DR. to you buddy). Over a long enough timeline, everything we do comes back to visit, from a simple guitar chord to an act of moronic proportion. Co-incidence is an oxymoron. Usually the Incidence’s are far far apart, but usually have some kind of causal nature. Trust me on this, I am a Captain of Journalism, after all.
For Example: 

MEMO: South Pacific Desk
RE: Tim and Jeffery Buckley (Messers).

Listening through the lyrics of both “Grace” and “Sketches for: ‘My Sweetheart The Drunk'” it appears that Jeff almost KNEW what was going to happen to him, eventually. Hearing him play live at Berkley as sirens wail in the background. Singing to the siren of resting beneath the waves. Eirie, weird, sad and so full of “it” that I wither up and cease for a moment. How? Why? WHAT???? 
Fuck.
Im as befuddled by it all as you. Perhaps there is some truth inside these mens music that was never meant to be? Snuffed out like errant schoolboys for behaving in a loud and unruly manner? I don’t know if I understand, yet, but they were certainly Voodoo Children of a type never meant to last long and I am grateful for the music they left behind them. Jimi is kicking that song out and I smile.
Keep me posted on any kind of offers regarding this filthy rag. Shit, I’d just about settle for anything right now.
Just about….

Capt (Dr. Phil.) M. E. Tupuhi.

Where were we? Ah yes, THIEVES. Well, there have always been thieves. Shit, Ghengis Khan, Hitler, The English Monarchy, The Spaniards, Malcolm MacClaren. History is littered with thievery. BUT wait. The BEST of us, I mean THEM, never get caught, especially in relation to the BIG prizes. Ho ho ho. Jeez I wish I’d stop doing that. Ho ho ho. Ah fuck, call it an affectation, call it an affectation of the “Colonel”, then its an affectation of an affectation of an affectation, right? He he he. Now, THAT feels better. A line to celebrate? Fine. Ahhhhhhhhh HO HO HO. So, I have stolen, destroyed, looted and pillaged my way through life at times I deemed, for whatever reason, to be necessary. I have also done acts of heroism, humility, grace and altruism that leave me serene and kind of “OK” about who and what I am. I guess, to summarize, the good ALWAYS outweighs the bad. And if in doubt, behave selflessly. Charity, now THERE is a word that has had the shit kicked out of it so hard that it leaves a bad taste in many mouths. But fuck it, we who have sucked cock can handle a little bad taste, right? To be Charitable is to give, unselfishly, without any thought of personal gain but also with the knowledge that “What goes around” has a tendency to come around.
Heavy. I dunno about you, but I need a drink.
Concerning “Satans’ Sewing Circle”
Well, this town needs a shakeup. And I have just the thing for them. A Circle implies a closed circuit, which is passably true, but this is going to be an expanding Circle, mostly made up of Pirates. Hmmmm. Am just testing “A Photograph of A Girl” by playing the mix through the radio station. Which, by the way is doing fine. Ive just come out of a session in the studio and the wares that I’m constructing are coming along splendidly, this one in particular. I guess I took Jacks advice and just sat down and wrote about what was happening THAT day, and therein lies the magic. Just a simple song about a photo of a girl standing beside a lake, holding a fishing rod no less. Now the “Sea Shanty”, thats a whole different kettle of fishermen… and women. But snap back to now, Im gonna, as Dre, the good Dr. that he is says… “puffin’ em trees”. Ween sure can rock, Ween sure can roll. An artist, of whoms whereabouts and activities I must check on, by the name of Mr Welsey Willis is an extraordinary case in point. Very VERY Mentally “Unwell”, Mr Willis creates music and visual art that is quite remarkable, coherent and, well, straight to the point. He does NOT mince words. You should try him on. Hit it Brendan.
Ok so I’ve just done preliminary mixes for “Advice, or a Warning”, testing it on the FM band, ha ha ha. I guess I have to concede that Im a fortunate fellow in MANY respects, but then again, none of it was co-incidental, you dig? I set myself up to BE this. I’ve been sitting on my arse for about a month now, its time to get back to work huh? (yes). Ah Mr Durden, such a powerful force of Nature. The alter-ego. “Pink”, “Tyler Durden”, Rotten, Viscious, Batman, Jake Blues, fuck, the list goes on and on, St. Lucy is in there too. Ho h-wait…. he he he.

“Daddys’ Got A New 45”
-Santeria
-Sublime

So now that we are, more or less, back on course, lets trim the sails and coast for a while, aye aye. In the real world I am struggling to keep my head above the horizon of deep dark depression. Winston Churchil called it the “Black Dog” and I believe you will find Led Zep have a passing knowledge of it. I just want to lock the doors and pull the curtains. Its a battle to be present in the real, compounded when you consider the amount of chemicals I have on hand for distraction. But, alas, I can only hide inside the fug of drug muddled inaction for so long. Shit, I’ve run out of movies to watch. I have HUNDREDS, but I only care for a handful. Perhaps I will go and see a friend today. Borrow some of his movies. In fact I think I will. Or not. The desire to stay and hide, volume at ten, stoned, typing gibberish into this machine is strong. Im afraid of the effects of this state. Rent, power, bills, reality. Fuck. Perhaps a publisher or a record company will lift me from this state of constant suicidal yearning. I surprised myself this morning by wallowing in a fantasy that perhaps if I called with enough grit, a vampire might slink out of the aether and draw me into the fold, lifting these mortal cares from my weary shoulders. I even thought that perhaps if I take that overdose, the next world will have better prospects, less pain. I feel old. I feel tired and I feel that I have, in my fury to experience EVERYTHING, used up what living I had in me, and now spend life in a twilight of joyless mundane drudge. Oh the humanity. The Hindenberg disaster footage drills through me and I feel shame at tossing my own mortality about like a bauble. So I will stay here in this life a little longer. Who knows, maybe this will pass and life will bring its spark back in due course. Bob Marley. Ah, such a weighty name, drenched in english, londonian glory and yet defiantly Jamaican, African and RIGHT. Such terrible and awesome powers of expression, a legacy that will stand as long as mankind. Consigned to the glory that surrounds Ludwig, Pablo and Jimi in our collective mind. A friend of mine passed away last year. Literally drank himself to death. I didn’t see him in his last stages, I only ever saw the glory that was him with a piano and an audience. Pure glory. I read recently in an article about him that it had been put to him that “No-body will get this in your lifetime”, to which he responded “as long as they get it”. Heavy. Perhaps that is to be the fate of my art? Fuck, the dreams of revelling in success, fame and fortune wither up inside me and perish. Leaving a blank canvas of the future and a storage room of the past. I am sober and straight, I have a meeting to attend and a recording session later in the day and must have a clear head. I think I will take a walk.

CHAPTER 16 
Death To The Pixies.

“Stupid Fucking Whiteman”
-Nobody
-Dead Man

Maybe Mickey is right, maybe this is just a really long suicide note. I guess if thats the case I’d better make each fucking line count then huh? I have spent three, maybe four days in bed. Deep, dark depression has settled in and I really cannot see any way out, besides the obvious. I did not set about to write a requiem. I came home, to this harbor by the sea full of life and desire and fantastic visions of creative joy. Gone. All of it. Fuck. William Blake, the real William Blake wrote “Some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night” or some shit like that… The Horror, The Horror. I do not know how Napalm smells in the morning, afternoon or night for that matter, but I know the stench of decay and sadness, endless, stretching back to my boyhood. Some are born to it huh? Well fuck that. I guess I should make comment, at this point, regarding the mass quotation festival. I guess I am revisiting what I believe to be some of the JOY I have read, seen and heard. Im too afraid to watch the 3 films that have touched me the most, A Clockwork Orange, The Wall and The Naked Lunch. They scare and enervate me in equal and opposite amounts. The one film, that will come as no surprise to you, that has shaped and moved me over the years, well, since its release, and, consequently, its publication as a book is, of course; Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. Sorry about that, I just wanted to see how many commas I could fit into one sentence. I’ve just polished off my business in this crappy little minded harbor village, begun on a nice juicy bottle of Jose’s’ finest, taken “one toke over the line” and double clicked on THAT particular barrel of dynamite. This should be interesting. NO MORE TALK OF SUICIDAL TENDENCIES! Oh shit, I promised myself not to make anymore bad musical, literary or cinematic puns. Ok, skatepunk. Oh ho ho ho. Buddy, don’t get me started. the city of angels has produced some fine ass shit. I gotta go, grays gonna get his drum on, and my finger ache for a guitar, as opposed to these gentle keys. Fuck, PUNS AHOY! Excuse me, while I kiss, the sky. 

Memo: From The South Pacific Desk.
Re: Karma and its appearance in my letterbox on this, valentines day, 2012.

I received a pouch of fine tobacco in the mail today. Given my recent viewing habits and cinematic fetishism, it came as a pleasant shock to receive this anonymous gift. 
“Have you got any tobacco?”, to which I reply “Fuck yes, wanna drink?”. 
Ah, to live on this razors edge, to balance on a ledge, to be present in the thick of this craziness is too full of gold to bail out now. 
Buy some shares in Jose Cuervo. Bail my ass out of this tight spot and I’ll gladly give you a goldfish. Its in fine shape man. Tanked and equipped with a fine filter and food, of course. Well worth your time.
M.E.T.

Holy shit, this is going to get wild.

A good 48 hours has passed. Um. The Studio, gear and paraphernalia are gone now, into sotrage. But as I gaze through the ruin. I strike gold. It seems that I’ve accidentally assassinated the Prime Minister. Not the “head of state” mind you, but close enough. In the form of a song. The title “JFK HAIRCUT” may have given the crime away in passing, but the connent was the real kicker. Damn. What the fuck can I saw? You sow what you reap? 
I’ve had the fear for days. But, as is its wont, that too had passed and I regain consciousness. I can fight. Shit. Its getting out of hand out there, this world I’ve denied myself of, “Commercial Media”, has impinged on my field of vision. It seems that the entire western economy is melting down before my very eyes. Inflate, recede, depress and finally oppress. Fuck this. Im gonna shoot somebody. Heh hehe hee.
Panic.
Now THERE is a familiar word.

M.E.T 9:31pm (wellington) Fri 9 March 2012

So I guess that only goes to reinforce my title as “Bullshit Master” but it was a lot of fun and, believe it or not, the child of quite a bit of thought and research. Its completely fictional of course but it references “Catch 22”, a book that I intend to review later on tonight for a local paper and which is my latest literary discovery. My mate The Major told me about Joseph Hellers’ masterwork a few years ago. The Major (not real name) (Nah, it is…) is, or was, my drug and alcohol counsellor and through the marvels of hindsight I can see why this particular book must have come to mind every single time I got started in on one of my rants. Catch 22 is, of course, a “catch-all” to describe situations where the consequences cancel each other out. In this case “Yossarian”, a lead bombardier stationed alongside the eastern european theatre near the end of WWII, is in the unenviable position of being the target of enemy fire and finds himself in the constant struggle to get out of the war altogether. The main gist of the catch is that ANY man deemed insane is ordered to return home from the war. Of course, the catch is that not wanting to fly in a plane being shot at by german anti-aircraft guns proves his sanity and therefore negates the not-so-honorable discharge on the grounds of “Catch 22”. It is the finest work of fiction I have ever read in relation to either of the great wars, perhaps seconded only by the Epic “Birdsong” by Mr. Sebastian Faulks. 
Anyway, the thing is that the characters in the story have the most fantastic and crazed conversations in which they each justify their place in a mad war through, well, madness. Remembering that in a military sense any madness is truly only a reflection of sanity in the face of the madness of war! Ah, I do see why my good friend The Major chuckled away at my mad ranting and persevered with me through thick and thin, or upon fulfillment of his job description (Whichever comes first). 
I’d really like to tell you all about this book but, given that it was published first in 1961, there is no race to the presses for prime space and also Im sure that much has been written about this book over the years by better paid minds than mine (if not better, fullstop). I think it will require a few more reads before I really get my head around it. Few books can get me to laugh out loud in public, but bugger me if, 5 minutes after purchasing it, I wasn’t sitting out the from of a bar on the main street of hamilton (NOT a reading Mecca by any stretch…) chuckling away halfway down the first page! No lie. Crazy, mad, hysterical (in the frantic “Jack Nicholson” in “The Shining” kind of way), fiendish and immensely lovable and loathable characters set against the backdrop of Military Hierachy and its foibles. Greasy, as Bubbles would say.
Anyway, fuck Bubbles. Ive just, a few days ago, finished up watching series 1 through 7 of the Trailer Park Boys again. It had been a few years since I watched the series. The movie is fine, don’t get me wrong here, but its really just a condensed vehicle for the many and various themes that run through the show itself and to be picky, it throws the chronology out a bit, but there were always going to be holes in the plot of anything involving Ricky, Julien and Bubbles anyways so fuck it. I guess its a catch 22. Oh dear, I see how easy it is to point THAT out now, poor fucking Major. Or not, we shall see how kind I am prepared to be to a man I once considered a brother in arms over the course of this burning of the midnight lamp. It’s very easy to drink a lot, take drugs and be grammatically lax on a heavy diet of Trailerpark. I have found over the past few years that, due to the advent of digital video and Piracy, it is much more fun to spend days obsessively watching episode after episode, into series after series of a “Television Show” than it is to be teased along with weekly installments interrupted by garish advertising and human interest news breaks. A friend pointed out to me yesterday that he was discouraged at the ever shrinking gap between “News” and “Entertinment”. But that too is an issue for another day. What we are interested in here is puns, plays on words and piracy. All in the name of creating opportunities for me to point out the ever present Catch 22. It strikes me straight away that Mike Clattenburgs’ self deprecating satirical look at life in a Canadian Trailer Park is something I have been HUGELY influenced by and yet have never paid a cent for. To the best of my knowledge (Proudly, very little) it has never aired on Free TV here in paradise and I for one would certainly be much the poorer for having missed out on it and its subtle infusion of wit, parenting, narcotics and gunplay. Shit, everytime I hear a child ask a “Knock Knock” joke, I can barely resist the urge to pull their t-shirt over their head, push them over and say “Put some pants on and fuck off”. For that ALONE i would pay Mr Clattenburg a handsome fee. Although my behavior upon winning the “Egg and Spoon Race” during the birthday party games of a compadre of my youngest son were, to my disgust, greeted with a solemn disapproval and a visible “backing away” motion by all the other parents present, I felt that it taught a valuable lesson to the kids about winning and losing and it all being part of life. Apparently its not ok to celebrate a fair and total victory by screaming “ha ha ha, I WIN you freaking LOOSERS” at the “runners up” whilst shaken my ass up in the house and brandishing two middle fingers with the technical wizardry often only seen at Olympic level “Synchronised Swimming” events. Shit lady, if your kid’s gonna compete then he better learn to lose with a little more dignity than tears and wet pants, what kind of parent are you? Well, I would’ve said that but I did feel that instant regret only known to those of us who regularly go “too far”. Shit, it was a fun 30 seconds. Fuck em, little bitches. Anyhow, as the days draw into weeks and the drinking and smoking habits of the viewer gradually align accordingly, like a houseful of menstruating women, it becomes sadly apparent that it is satire after all and not to be tried at home. It is well worth the trip, if you have a few days spare and a pile of great weed and hard Liqour. Probably not for non members of the Club though Im afraid. Trying to get away with this shit at home may well cost you your job, marriage and kids before you even get to hear about Patrick Swaze and his locophiliac habits. An interesting distinction at this point is one that the doc drew to my attention just under a week ago that a Pedophile is a person who thinks about sex with kids, a Pederast is a person who takes their desires to a physical level and interferes with actual children. I can say that I have, over the years had some questionable thoughts regarding catholic schoolgirls and infact dated one in my twenties by accident, but cannot understand and fiercely hate anyone who can even consider a child as a sexual being, let alone a potential sexual conquest. Death, following an agonizing and rough castration, preformed by hand (both) (Slowly). Thats my ticket, fortunately for a few I could, and probably will, name its unlikely I will ever be voted into a position to legislate. Having said that, given this well documented descent into madness, I could probably defend a murder case involving a child sex offender pretty well, serving a short lag in a mental institution and suffering the adulation of millions as well as perhaps spawning a rash of copy-cat crimes and vigilante justice. But we’ll save THAT incriminating and premeditative shit for later on in the proceedings. After all, are we here to entertain myself, or do the job? Back to The Major, who’s name I will set about changing later. In fact, lets call him Major. Major Major. That should serve matters well. 
Note to self: Go back and change The Majors name to Major Major. I’m sure that poor bugger has all sorts of privacy laws extended to him on account of his job.
Ok, so I met The Major on a mental ward a few years back. I was actually dwelling on the course of events leading to our introduction recently, trying to put that sad, heavy period into chronological order. I still cant make much sense of it. I had taken well in excess of an overdose. I had this mad old quack that was giving me precisely what I wanted in terms of drugs but a nasty bitch chemist who took it upon herself to call the doctor and harangue him verbally every time I walked into the chemist with a new, fuller and more exciting script. When she couldn’t get him to reconsider my medication she would go further to refuse to fill the fucker and refuse to give it back so that I could take my business elsewhere. It was a reckless and stupid move on her part, but I guess her heart was in the right place. In my mind, having a king bitch like her as a chemist was an added safety measure as she was fastidious and demanded that I only be given small amounts at regular intervals. This has always been the safest course for me, it discouraged binging, overdosing and selling or trading my medication with other dumbfucks. But she went too far on a day that saw me loose my home, relationship and very mind. I Physically took the script from her and took it into the city, where, a complete stranger innocently filled the entire 3 month script for me instantly. 3 months worth of multiple heavy benzodiazepines, Opiates and other sedatives necessary for my wide and extensive group of (so I thought) phony ailments. I cant describe the joy one feels when one stumbles across an unexpected narcotic windfall. I guess it must be how normal people feel when they reach savings goals or get a promotion with tasty perks. USUALLY, a well stocked medicine cabinet brings with it a sense of safety, security and, or course, stimulates a ravenous appetite. But not this day. No. I furtively hid the lot and scurried back to the grubby basement room I had found that very morning and proceeded to empty the lot from their various plastic prisons, downing the entire script with a nice 1992 Montana Cabernet Merlot. I could probably rattle off the milligrams and brandnames of each item, but Im sure you will believe me when I say that to this day Drs are dumbfounded as to how I am still alive. Shit man, Im not glamorizing it or pimping drug overdoses. Fuck that. But as Marshall says “This is my story and cant nobody tell it for me”. I have made notes on this O.D and others, noting the quantities and varieties, but it reads like a case study and only reminds me of what a headcase I am. 
it will come as no further surprise to you that I woke up 24-48 hours after ingesting this load of chemical shite. I recall vividly the immense and overwhelming sense of grief at finding myself awake that crept up me as I became aware of my situation. You don’t save the next days doses when you overdose. They will not be necessary, you dig? So it was with horror that I took a mental stocktake and found that aside from the fact that I was alive, the next few days, hours even, were going to be rough terrain indeed. The psychotic that I had rented the room from actually woke me up, demanding that I vacate ASAP. This was a gag that, it turned out, was her modus operandi and part of her mental illness was that she offer people rooms to let and then threw them out, only once they were moved in and settling. Lucky for me I hadn’t even bothered to unpack. The ensuing 2 days are a blur. I refer you, humbly, to The Doc and his apt and definitive desciption of a man “it the depths of an ether binge”, for it is the only thing that describes the complete and utter narcotic intoxication level that I was under. I stumbled back and forth and in circles on the footpath outside a house where a lady was tending her garden with a small girl of maybe 3 years old. I kept repeating to her that I had lost my cigarettes and thought I might have dropped them on the footpath. Yet the smokes were in my pocket, I knew this and still couldn’t wrench my body and mind from the drunken steps back and forth in search of my smokes. It got to the point that she called the police. 3 hours after waking and being evicted I had made it no more than 7 maybe 8 meters and into what would be the first of many strange, baffling and senseless incidents for police over the next 24 hours. It took me almost one and a half days to make the 3 kilometer or so journey to the emergency room. Despite my attempts to communicate my desperate need for medical attention, somehow the police kept finding me in inexplicable situations and would give me a ride back to my folks house (who were overseas), the address they had on record. This was hugely demoralizing as not only were they making me start right back where I began but despite the fact that I KNEW I needed urgent and prompt medical attention and WAS involved in the bizarre occupation of getting myself to it, I could NOT communicate this to the police officers. I assume they thought I was wasted, Im sure a quick entry of my name into their databases confirmed that this was most likely. I guess the silver lining is that they did not lock me in the drunk tank, letting the possible complications of a truly massive overdose overtake me behind lock and key. 
I slept in the underground carpark of a musical instrument shop, not by design but by accident of fate, meaning “its where I fell” and carried on shambling when I woke. Ah, fashionable and consumer conscious till the end! After 36 odd hours on a VERY short (as the crow flies, but not the cuckoo) but eventful journey, I dragged my sorry ass before a triage nurse, presenting her with the receipt detailing the medication I’d ingested and what little sense I was able to make and was finally seen by a Dr. The first of many healthcare professionals I’d meet that week. 
So, I met The Major. An earnest and caring young man who, for reasons of his own, had chosen to join in the struggle to help people that are often not only UNABLE to be helped but who by their very definition are unlikely to be capable of being helped due to an innate lack of honesty. Ladies and Gentlemen, behold the Drug and Alcohol counsellor!
Ah, after a long career in the meat, painting and decorating and “Labour” industries, my Dad (of whom I am, in turn, Jaw-Droppingly-Amazingly-Proud and Afraid) worked his ass off to educate himself and climbed the ladder of Correctional and Social Service wings of the Government. Its not my story, but its one that I think should be told one day. Anyway after a lot of searching and some pretty testing personal revelations, my Dad took his place in the “Drug and Alcohol” service industry (post trauma). He later moved into “Anger Management” as well and has carved a career that has been often notorious for his personal values not being negotiable by management or committee, heartbreaking to both him and his family but, ultimately, to the incalculable benefit and healing of thousands of lost men and women. My Dad is, at the end of the day, and despite being a poster child for the zodiac sign of taurus (much to our constant struggle), a man who cares for people. Particularly and consistently for people who are in places he has been and with the sole intention of giving them whatever it is that he himself found. Anyway. I guess Im going a little overboard in case he ever reads this and with the intention of tempering his inevitable rejection and condemnation of this rag before finishing more than a couple of my drug rant filled pages. Actually, I guess I can say with all honesty that my Dad would have got maybe 20 pages in and decided to confront me personally and physically with his disgust and complete lack of amusement. hah, fuck dad, chill out. (I told you I was equally afraid of him…)
Anyway, like I said, that stuff is just background. His story would make a great companion read to this I think. Complete opposites. “Neer-Do-Well makes good” to my “Good turns rapidly to shit”. Fuck man, its neither here nor there, the point is this; I had grown up with and around not only Drug and Alcohol counsellors but the entire “Recovery” industry. This leads, when coupled with my second hand education via a partner with whom I lived and loved during the long years it took her to become a clinical psychologist, to a clinicians nightmare. And I EXCELL at being a nightmare. Particularly if I smell fear or bullshit or that worst thing possible in a therapist of any kind; apathy coupled with careerist intent. I am a viscous fucker at the best of times. A savage hybrid of a savant apparent moron and a well read, thoroughly researched layman. Geez, before I go on I’d like to almost apologize to The Major et-al, having read Catch 22 I look back with some shame at my many many conversations with “Counsellors” of any sort and humbly beg leave to “up my game” in light of recent literary suggestions at the hands of Joseph Neller. I could’ve fucked with them WAY harder and probably been a lot crueler to a greater percentage than I deemed to be worthy of my complete contempt. Oh well, live and learn. I understand that it reads as pretty self sabotaging, but bear in mind I have developed a keen perception regarding these few champions and many pig fuckers and when I can see that an individual is on course to be of more harm than good, well it would almost be negligent of me to not spend the time amusing myself… You aren’t my DAD! Ho ho ho.
Suffice to say that by the time The Major got to  me in my early 30s, the Too Much Fun was of sufficient caliber to have knocked a lot of the wits from me, but the road had taught me, in no uncertain terms, that Social, Anger Management, Drug, Alcohol, Sex, Marriage – in fact ANYTHING with “Counsellor” (including those litigious scum of whose profession I refuse to even type) in the title was apt to wreak chaos and pain as often as not and were to be treated on a case by case basis but with extreme prejudice until further notice. Not to say that I haven’t had some of the fondest and most trusting and fruitful relationships (both) spawn from therapy and its minions but I had also been betrayed, discarded and generally fucked by a fairly good cross section of do-gooders, perverts and dollar whores to be wary to the point of self-destruction and of being found belligerently guilty of multiple and spectacular bridge burnings. Despite my face, biting off of nose etc, amen, praise the lord our gays and lesbian friends too. Mahalo. 
The Major was young. Not a handful of years out of University or Techological institute. Actually, I think the poor guy had to do a degree to get, for what most people is, a job they fall into for lack of options as a pension fund from the Too Much Fun Club and subsequent years served with viscous adherence to “The Code”. (of which we WILL speak more). I mean no disrespect or harm by that and as I say The Major has his own reasons for doing what may well be the hardest job in the world and is second only to High School Teachers in “Burnout” statistics. But to me, The Major seemed like all the things I could’ve been if only I’d straightened up and flown right as a fledgeling fart smeller. He reminded me of how it felt to be young and capable of anything and it pissed me off consistently that here was a first class specimen of all the things GOOD about people being thrown to dogs that would savor their meal over decades as they devoured his optimism, energy and, ultimately, integrity. Leaving no semblance of the opportunity and vigor that so struck me initially. Another burned out husk, whipping and degrading his charges when they present no resistance. Becoming all the things I despise about the morally corrupt and idiotic bad apples that dominate an industry that strives to heal people but ultimately serves few but its masters. 
Its ok kids, The Major is a fart smeller of immense character and resource and I have no doubt that he will recognize the warning signs and quietly hang up his boots, gracing our fine secondary schools with another great Guidance Counselor or maybe going private and dispensing wisdom to a select few who can afford it enough to TRULY value it in amounts that leave plenty of grit, right stuff and fire to continue functioning well into old age. Ah, to know the price of everything and the value of nothing!
It warms and hurts me in equal, opposite and very literal amounts to meet ex-clients of my Dads. Given my natural enigmaticicism, these meetings usually take place in extremes. Heights of success (Not a few of New Zealand’s music industry heavy hitters owe their very careers to the wise counsel of my dad, don’t ya know??? wink wink) or in the depths of Too Much Carnage. Be it in Prison or in the Green room before a live television performance. these men and women either glow with fond recollection when they discover my identity or seethe with violent rage at the repugnant specimen I am and what a subsequent blot on such a fine mans resume I have made of myself. Its a moment of utter beauty and mortification, like the well known “Sinking Feeling” or the slowed down time of a car crash. “Oh, hey, you aren’t related to…”, to which my inner sado-masoscist rings a bell loudly and proclaims inwardly “Lets get it on” or “Here we go again, buckle up”. So when I speak of redemption, restraint and resourcefulness in the case of “Counsellors”, I speak from some experience. I have seen my friend “Dad” dragged through pain and embarrassment and elevated to giddy heights of success, true, valuable and intangible success, through the application of lessons learned and the wisdom of the cigarette lighter burn. I see the same spark of moderation and care in The Major. I believe in him and I count him a friend, regardless of his reciprocation on either count. 
But, he put me firmly in the “Too Hard” basket after 3 hard won years of relative (to ANY kind of “AVERAGE”) peace and stability. And for that, I will gleefully savage him in what may turn out to be a spiteful and careless few paragraphs of misconceived, ineffectual and pointless axe grinding. Nah, just kidding, these fuckers LIKE us to critique them, it makes them better robots and serves as a kind of internal self regulating “Righteousness, indignation and desensitizing” machine, at no extra cost to the taxpayer or customer. (Tick appropriate box). I merely needed a disclaimer in case any silly fuck took this as a physical threat to The Major. It is not and I mean him no harm at all. But I am heavily digressing into recriminatory territory here…
You see, I am a drug fiend. As I have set forth, I began this career at a young age and for fairly good reasons in the face of fairly bad odds. Wow, that was a pretty cool sentence. I digress. In light of this you may come close to understanding the duality of desperately wanting change yet desperately NOT wanting change. I fucking Loathe the words addict and alcoholic. Not because of any syntax, grammatic or definitive reasons but because of the slick film of shit that they leave in the mouth immediately upon evacuation. God, to wear a label that society has so succinctly beaten into submission with such ferocity that it can often taint an entire “first nation” village (even SUBSEQUENT, as yet unborn generations!) with cases of guilt by association. I wear imposed labels badly and with befitting style and grace or, more precisely, lack thereof. I understand that the very first step, as stated in the initial tenants of the 12 steps of The Too Much Fun retirement plan (The two largest secret societies in the word… F.Y.I) basically outline that the label will not apply unless we apply it ourselves, honestly. I actually have a very good grounding in the literature, history and theory of the aforementioned society or societies. Fear not, I carry a card. But despite my, at times grudging, membership and complete respect for these things, I still resent being called either an Alcoholic or an Addict and the degenerate, shackling and CALCULATED implications that come with them when applied without permission or background information. 
Anyway, duality and self defeating systems of Catch 22. The Major found himself with a struggle on his hands (albeit one with mostly good manners and capable of stimulating and educated conversation) when he ended up with ME in his caseload. As I was saying, before we got washed away by denial, I am a fiend and whilst the consequences of Too Much Fun had rendered me unwilling to rejoin the social calendar, I was still a plotting, evil minded fool, patiently playing the long game and looking for any sign of instant gratification. You see, for whatever reasons; symptomatic, causal or karmic, I, subconsciously, am capable of undermining even my finest and most worthy of undertakings. Popping out, usually at the worst possible moment, of NOWHERE as soon as an opportunity to have “Too Much Fun” and “One More Time” together in the same sentence presents itself. With this in mind, I have taught myself, over time, to be A: Patient and forgiving with myself and B: Realistic when setting goals or standards that I am to achieve or attain. Unfortunately, this process can be very arbitrary and subject to any number of treacherous pitfalls and self deceptions. BUT, I have found growth. Oh yeah? Well take a quick look in the mirror buddy! To which my response is that I am in the fortunate position to have a mirror to look in and to state that i also have eyes. As you can imagine, growth and maturity can be very slow to come by and are often very lonely. But taken into account with the best and worst case scenarios, Im doing a lot better, although a little worse, than I was as a younger man. Other people do not get hurt with such ferocity or regularity as in the careless and selfish-er days of my youth. 
It has been my task, over the past 3 or 4 years to integrate this simple approach into my life with the support and facilitation of The Major as my main “friend/confidant/advisor/referee” and one that, I might say, has brought me far more success (and resulting stability) in far greater instances than any previous attempt to reign in this terrible coachride on the Swaze Express. Hard to believe, I imagine, after reading my torrid little diatribes, but clear enough an image for me to have at least some hope that during my “two steps forward, five steps sideways, three steps back” journey since last september is but a small part in a greater voyage. Despite the professional “throwing up of hands” I have met in response to my falling from the wagon, I think these fuckers should at least join with me in examining the wreckage for some clues to why I was able to stay in one place for longer than a week and not explode at the drop of a hat. It appears, and now we come to the real crux of the matter, that there exists a “Catch 22” in that I am unwell in a clinical sense, but by displaying this lack of well being I am therefore ineligible for stabile, ongoing and consistent treatment. This flies in complete opposition of the clear and definable evidence of growth over time that would signal the abrupt arrest of continued deflation and markable progress in ANY other field of study. 
Wow, I really am ranting huh? I guess my main beef is that they sold me the soft option. I was groomed and handled for the methadone program. Not because it works, not because of my diagnosis or how I presented, not because I was even much of a junkie (I like to think of myself as a sort of “Opportunistic Connoisseur of All Things Too Much” and have always seen heroin as a clingy “nagging wife” kind of drug that never lets you go out with your other friends) but because it was easy and I was Too hard. Man, I’m always “too” something! 
Methadone was invented, history would have us believe, by Hitlers “eugenics and guns” boys in the lab upon the restriction of his access to the poppy fields of Afghanistan and Turkey. “Pain relief” was needed for the boys at the front and the gestapos chemists were well familiar with at least ONE of those words. Plus I suppose it was another chemical additive for the Joy Division parties, adding a certain seductive and vacant charm to at least half of the party goers…
 “Adolphine” is one in a relatively new family of synthesized opiods used predominantly as an analgesic but also, eternally, in pursuit of Too Much Fun. Its claim to fame is as the “Cure” for heroin addiction, commonly referred to as “Liquid handcuffs” due to the very restrictive nature of its dispensing and the particularly viscous nature of the dependence it rapidly creates in the user. It, definitively, in my humble experience and with the agreement of my peers is much easier to come off a Heroin habit cold turkey (or your closest approximation) than methadone. If some quack ever offers you this cruel (nay, UNAMERICAN!) chemical in exchange for a junk habit thats kicking the shit out of you, kindly decline, leave the room quietly drawing as little attention to yourself as possible and back slowly and cautiously away. You are better off on your own, particularly if the offer is delivered in the form of an only option or ultimatum. You DO have the choice and, if you have survived a junk habit long enough to want to get off, you  also have the intellect, cunning, problem solving skills, means and connections to get yourself into a better situation than The Methadone Program (Dumb-Duhhhhhh) (cue Kubric soundtrack). Of THAT I have no doubt. We don’t get to the Too Much Fun Big Leagues without a certain level of savvy and a keen survival instinct. 
However, given that, if you do find yourself in this situation, you are probably either broke, in legal trouble or (usually worse) ILLEGAL trouble, hiding from various “Goons” and owing money, you are probably almost as stupid as me and gladly say “Free Drugs? Fuck yes, sign me up bubba!” and that will be all we hear from you for quite some time. Indeed, I have known all kinds of scum in my life and the Methadone Client is one of the most visible and easy to identify items of local fauna you will find. This is important as you may need to AVOID these poor bastards from time to time. I recommend it as a sound policy in ANY given situation. Well, unless you want to score methadone. but thats another book, by a less scrupulous man. he he he. I know and have known hundreds of Methadone users. Their varying degrees of “success” is dependent on their very personalities but you will find that they span a wide range of lifestyles from the “Productive Member Of Society” to “ScumFuck”. I make no judgement on them as I certainly have walked amidst their ranks, and may again. The ominous thing is that there are a hell of a lot of them in the cities of this small nation where smack is a scarce and rare commodity and I have never met, nor heard of a single one that has come OFF it other than me… Not a single one. There are forced withdrawals as a result of imprisonment or injury and I am certainly not suggesting that nobody ever comes off it, period. But with clients carrying habits of 30, 40 and (I heard a few weeks ago from my mate “Strat”) 50 years, coupled with the mysterious invisible “Successfully treated” Methadone patient, it makes me feel very suspicious and not a little bit fortunate to have slipped the noose. 
Of course there is also that terrible little fucker caged up in the back rooms of my heart screaming out to be plugged back in with all due haste and dosage, but he will keep. Oh yes. Its a strange and sinister set of circumstances and one that reeks of kickbacks, distraction and population control. It is a drug that constantly pushes up the tolerance of the user, requiring ever increasing and heavily sedating dosages with the end result being that, unless you are one of the lucky few that really break free from the lifestyle and experience a success through the medication, for 80-90% of users,  a state of sustained and heavy drug use is merely maintained in a holding pattern until death, incarceration or in the unlikely event of a reconciliation with Heroin. (which, after a few years you will come to realize was easier to live with and much more pleasant after all…) But its not all darkness and gloom folks, this is drug use after all, there is MONEY to be made!
$130,000 was the price tab, per annum, to keep me on the dose I was at before I came off. I had not even begun to stretch my legs and the glass ceiling was still years away. It seemed, in my first two years that EVERY SINGLE TIME I was sat before a Doctor, he would inevitably dangle the “Hows the dosage feel? Do you think we need to raise it?” carrot. What the fuck was I going to say? No, please don’t give me more state sponsored narcotics Doc, lets not be greedy about this man! Shit. I was sitting on a dose that could, and regularly does (with alarming increased frequency, according to the media) kill folks of no increased tolerance. In fact, if I recall correctly, I believe the equations could fit 3 dead bodies if they split my daily dose of stupid between them equally. I was by no means a heavy user. 
With all this in mind, and considering my reluctance to sully the good name of Too Much Fun, you can imagine my utter disbelief when confronted with the hostile and persistent resistance to my decision to kick the cure by my esteemed medical team. Not a day went by during my withdrawal that a fat, brusque and endlessly ticklable fuck-goose of a doctor didn’t offer me a speedy return to the arms of Hitlers little “Gift that keeps on giving”. I would tear my hair out of my skin, literally, seesawing between begging them for it and advising them that I “Needed to leave the room. For their safety”. The madness and complete hostillity I was subjected to as the symptoms began to grow daily and my mental and physical well being corroded was an intriguing turn of events. Catch 22. Shit Bro. Yes. As a result of the ensuing belligerence and general surly nature of a withdrawing drug addict, I was steadily refused not only dignity and informed advice but even very treatment. I had gone into SUPER Too Hard Basket Overtime! But what is it that these folks expect of a client like me, particularly under duress and lacking the one coping strategy with consistently works? Fuck man, you tell me…
So, it came as a final and defining act of complete disregard for my welfare, particularly after a month or so of the worst drug sickness I have ever known, when the doctors dropped it into the conversation that there was an alternative medication that could withdraw me rapidly, painlessly and without sedation or high cost. 
YOU ARE FUCKING KIDDING ME? 
7 pain free days later I was free of the Methadone program. The drug is called “suboxone”, just in case you are ever in a similar jam. It was like magic and is designed for smack, thus negating the need for methadone at all. Well, its only downside is that it is much MUCH cheaper… Which doesn’t seem to suit somebody. Oh well, so much for that. Catch 22 I guess.
So, whinging bastard or relatively calm and restrained? You tell me pal?
To be dragged unheeded through misery that few are foolish enough to have inflicted upon themselves, to be discounted and ignored to the point where a Cold Turkey withdrawal was the only logical stance I could make and then to be told in the final days of victory that a safer, cheaper more sensible option was available… No, fuck them. I must, at this juncture, explain my reasons for wanting rid of those liquid handcuffs.
I’d been experiencing amazing results, far beyond my wildest hopes. Methadone, after I settled into it, provided me with a sturdy base from which to build a life upon. Free from the constant struggle to source drugs and able to deal with my problems like a nuclear core rod technician, safely handling the potentially lethal subject matter behind the lead apron of methadones cotton wool reinforced buffer. I managed after just under a year to quit drinking and its related symptoms, I was able to have custody of my son, pay the bills and begin work. these things are simple, everyday tasks for most, but for me they have proved insurmountable odds at times. I pushed further and further in my new found life until depression found me 3 years later and began to dismantle the peace I had brought myself, my loved ones and society by my lack of “Fun”. With the depression I began to miss doses. Easy to do. Methadone is very strictly controlled and users must pick up a minimum of once a week in some cases, but more likely on a “non-consecutive” regimen. this means that on a monday you will consume mondays dose and take tuesday mornings home, returning again on wednesday and so on. As I believe I have documented, depression (or whatever the fuck it is labelled) can render a person absolutely incapable of taking care of themselves. I began to miss doses, dragging myself to the chemist after 2 or 3 days of mounting sickness but deeply afraid of leaving the safety of my room. Of course, with this behavior comes increased mood swings as a result of missed dosages, unintentional withdrawal, relief, withdrawal, relief etc. I reached out many times to my support people but was ultimately unheard or was grossly miscommunicating my situation. As the Drs waffled on about reductions and tapering doses they completely ignored the fact that as a result of my growing incapacity to deal with the defects in my own head, the methadone was fast becoming a deadly liability and that I was much safer, for the time being, off it than on a staggered inconsistent dosage depending on how harrowing the thoughts inside my head and heart were. They continued to waffle, as you have read, until the very end. 
You see, it wasn’t that I did not want the drug, in many ways it was working minor miracles, but that I was increasingly unable to cope with the correct maintenance of its administration and suffering as a result. Its a situation that brought me to some pretty hard truths about myself and ultimately alienated me from the only people with a mandate to help. 
Well, its all well documented. I guess they would put me through merry hell in any attempt to get hold of my records, particularly with a mind to publish. But it couldn’t be more revealing than this jaded gobshite and would certainly be more accurate, albeit lacking objectivity, humor and empathy. Shit. maybe I’ll give it a go. Might, at the least, get me out of the house.
On second thoughts, lets just leave those sleeping dogs where they lay huh? It may well be our final year here on earth if the Mayans have anything to say. Bigger fish to fry.

Chapter 23
Mice, Men and Cheese.

“200,000,000 guns are loaded, satan cries ‘take aim'”

• Run Through The Jungle
• Credence Clearwater Revival

Ah the pig fucking swine that my countrymen voted into office during the opening pages of this sordid exposition in mediocrity continue to sell tasty shit sandwiches to the grinning masses at a tidy profit. It weighs heavily on me to be in such a state of inactivity as a handful of c-grade intellects, fortunes and libidos strip the country bare with one hand whilst the other distracts the morons with any puppet show that will play on the current climate of fabricated fear drifting across the entire world. Goddamit! We are not like the other groveling nations of stupid, forged over generations and proven in the furnace of global distraction! This is the fucking final frontier FUCKERS! Beyond here lies antarctica and the very edge of the world! We are the riders on the storm. The one country that has told the US to take its Nukes, put some pants on and FUCK OFF. Yet here we are, being herded by a gaggle of deluded schoolgirls at the fucking “Janitorial” end of the Bildenburg Pay-Roll, dupes one and all. Finally we have attained true “Sheep-hood”, shut the gate, call me “Babe”. Bah-Ram-Fuck-Ewe! Why Lord, why are my countrymen such morons, squabbling at the feet of power sluts over the refuse from the table, keeping their subjects entertained with wars, climate change, mayan doom and a side order of carbon taxes as they bumble around in plain sight of anyone capable of having eyes (I fucking TOLD you they would come in handy…) juggling the balls of power in idiotic tribute to their puppet masters. As if they even have one single idea concerning the identities, goals or very origins of the viscous fucks that really control them. A child Prime Minister driving a tiny Island Nation like its Daddys Merc around in circles in vain attempt to catch the eye of the big dogs. Jesus, don’t draw their attention you fool! Begin a weapons manufacture program, close the borders, sever all international ties and bomb samoa into ruin. Any fool knows that when the bars come down, displays of aggression always keep the bullies in check. I’m pissed off. They continue to legislate themselves a moral carte blanch concerning state owned asset sales, confusing the issue at crucial moments to keep the public worrying themselves to death over inconsequential racial, environmental and foreign policy/terrorist threat baubles, sitting in their homes with fingernails chewed down to the bone stuck in puddles of household level debt sufficient to keep em hungry and lean as their elected officials slide through the sales of their childrens very own and legal property. Safe in the knowledge that the recycling will go out once a week, the natives have had all firearms confiscated from their guerilla training camps and the immigrants are safely stowed away in poverty in another part of town. You people make me sick. Its people like you who instigate the construction of home made incendiary devices, the formation of I.R.A cells and, ultimately, civil wars. If Che Guevara could speak to you from your teenagers inappropriate wardrobe, he would be fucking furious, sending you all off to the southern alps for basic military training. And no, we will not be stopping for the fat, lazy or disinterested, let them die in the mountains of the west coast, survival of the fittest buddy and you may not make the cut. thanks for coming, last one out please lock the doors and burn the fucker to the ground. 
I think my rage mostly stems from that blackhead on the arse of humanity; “Stupid”. Our Proud, independent and fiercely individual country has trodden down this “Hey lets pretend to be broke and sell all the goodies off to our new friends off-shore” road of stupid. But fuck, if everyone else is going along with it… Pussies. The sad part is that these investments and all-important asset sales are truly peanuts to the big boys, nothing but a bone thrown to a handful of grinning shitheads to shore up any chance of insubordination at some crucial moment later on. In effect, we are being fucked by dumbshits who are, in turn, way down on the roster of fuckees in a grand pyramid orgy to end all orgies. Its dumb. Its really dumb. And I am an expert on dumb, oh yes. So why is it that I’m the only guy getting pissy drunk and muttering words unheard in the middle classes here for centuries. War, Revolution, Sedition and Overthrow. The mandate of the current government here has been well eclipsed and we are now, for all intents and purposes, a covert and fluffy approximation of a police state. I have no doubts that these idiots will fulfill each and every one of their ridiculous crimes before its done regardless of public opinion, disapproval or clamor. I believe that comes pretty close to a definition of oppression, yeah? 
There MUST be other people out there that feel this way too. Surely? Fuck Goose buddy, the fucking way of the road, man.
A closer look at the shitstorm Mr Guevara found himself a major part of bears not dissimilar resemblance to our own brewing weather front of shit. Agrarian reform and communism are perhaps not the obvious directions, but direction can be hammered out later on, after the traitors have been dealt with. Ho boy, this kind of craziness is how folks get “disappeared”, but, well, I wasn’t doing much else this year anyways. Fuck it, at least the company would be proportionately less stupid than the current flock of blinkered and yoked plough pullers I currently associate with by default… At least the criminal classes aren’t participating in the stupid. Its not that they are being methodically duped and sold stupid in daily installments with live web updates, they just do not give a fuck. I salute you hombres, the only honest ones amongst us. What a sad indictment on my beautiful country. Oh you viscous, stupid fuckers. The Horror, The Horror. 
Shivers, as don would say, that was a pretty sustained and colorful rant. I never cease to amaze myself with these feats of literary jogging on the spot to no real purpose and for the benefit of none other than the giddy retard behind the wheels inside my traumatized and systematically eroded mind. Ah, take a ride with me as we amuse none but ourselves, working 7 days a week at not getting the job done. Welcome to my world charlie, line up behind the sheep at the rear. I’d best find a point or two to make before even I grow tired of this endless parade of english language rape scenes performed by a bevy of illiterate psyche clients on crack and bad television. 
I’m assuming that the media are responsible for this viscous and flammable turn of mood. I was much happier when i didn’t know a thing. Ignorance, as my friend jody says, is piss. All of his lyrics come slamming home this year as I witness the realization of all the “conspiracy”, “crackpot” and “highly unlikely” scenarios he has been singing about for nearly 2 decades before my very eyes. Ah buddy, no wonder you hopped on a plane in disgust at us. Google him. Go. “Trilli0n Jody Lloyd” Try that, enjoy. Too late, too little and too fucken bad but SOMEONE might as well get to say “Told You So” and secure the moral high-ground in hope of a less stupid generation appearing in the distant future, after the shame has washed out. God, this is challenging but not very productive. Ok, I’ll try posting this and see if I get a bite. B, as they say, RB.
Oh, hey….

MEMO: Tyler
FROM: The South Pacific Desk
RE: Bad ideas and Shifting the blame

So, I was on Facebook last night and Earnslaws name flicked on and then off-line like a beacon of dumb arse ideas shining in the dark. I admit, with some girlish blushing and fidgeting, that the mere whisper of her name still sends me reeling back to adolescence like a pickfull of gear racing up my arm. Oh yeah, see, even through the medium of type I resort to some psychotic desire to show off how fucking stupid I am. No, she doesn’t trigger any kind of fucking drug references for fucks sake, what am I? 10? Speaking of which, what the fuck is up with her fake name? I am truly a retard. 
Quite the contrary is actually true, upon reflection. A lungful of crisp Queenstown air, the sweet taste of freedom and youth and the simple act of holding a pretty girls hand. The smell of wild, central otago sage and rosemary, the taste of cold speights beer and the rush of being in love before kids and bills and jobs and guitars, drugs and police and scumbags, hurt and loss, grief and surrender. Ah shit, and not to forget the thought of my Mum. Shit, I should know better than to go woolgathering in the south island all jumped up on sugar and caffeine.(he he he, look who’s getting cagey now fuckface) I should know a lot of things. I should definitely know not to hurt the feelings of pretty girls and to keep clear of lives that are perfectly fine without my chaotic shit. Fuck. She was not a thing I treated with care. I should at the very least not drag her into this bad craziness. Well, this sure was fun marky, thanks, lets do it again sometime bud. I’ll just go back and change her name to Earnslaw in a last show of respect long overdue and far too little.
Met.

We now return you to your regular scheduled programming. 
Thanks for your patience. 
When I was a kid things were very black and white. Sure my Dad was a political shit stirrer but hey man I marched against apartheid and had a firm grasp of labour struggles. But these things lacked the menacing undertones they would gather as my innocence subsided. Yesterday I watched a documentary, made by the brassy and righteous chairman of gonzo fucking film making Mr. John Answer-the-fucking-question Pilger. He is all of 25 in this piece and sports a daggy “whiteman afro” that he would never again truly realize (Bless him for 5 decades of Tenacity though!) and is, as always, asking uncomfortable and often blatantly provocative or inappropriate questions of the exact right people. Its a piece on the very much out of control infection of low morale and insubordination of the “Grunt” class involved in the Vietnam, um, well, what do we actually call it these days? Surely not a War? Anyway, on par with his other work it is a truly clear looking glass through which to take an uncolored look at one of Americas greatest and longest lasting marketing and francise efforts. Even now, vietnam is big business. Stupid pours into Vietnam daily to fire AK47 Automatic Weapons into the jungle covered in camouflage paint and draped in olive green military fatigues. Shit man, even the most horrific of tragedies turns a tidy profit for these guys! Anyway, the doco prompted me to watch “Apocalypse Now” again and I was surprised to find that, on review and when considered beside Mr Pilgers work on the topic, this is perhaps (within reason) a much more accurate portrayal of Vietnam than the newsreels and American Documentaries portraying the realities of this unfortunate act of impulsive puppet presidents over-extending their allowed “Perceived” Autonomy. The guys back at the Fed and Bildenburg must have gone fucking mental daily during Nixons office! Joy! Bring back Mr Nixon! At the very least lets get Bill back on the news hmmm? No? Its serious now huh bud? yep. No more fuckheads or lunatics in the oval office from here on in. Of THAT you can be sure. Anyway, it came as a shock to find a work of fiction and intended for Entertainment closer to the truth than the ridiculous propaganda that will serve for future Historic record. How deep does this go? Will future generations be better advised to look to Hollywood for the truth about that fucked up sept morning that we are all doing our best to pretend didn’t happen? Has the press been so sucked of journalistic morality that the Entertainment Industry has been shamed out of retirement into service as a keeper of history? And if so, where the fuck does it end? Almost the first things to penetrate my traumatized mind “Post-9/11” was the horror of big budget hollywood action sequences depicting mass destruction in metropolitan areas. Shucks guys, I was holding back thinking it was maybe “Too Soon” but if your doing it… Following this came a rash of “Desert Ops” war films featuring no Nazis, Koreans or Gooks but the new BadGuys! Middle Eastern folks of an “Arabic” Persuation. Now “Apocalypse Now” is amongst the finest Motion Pictures ever made, of that there can be no debate. Ask a film Phd. So its ridiculous to assume that anything produced by the film industry with a desert flavor could be held as an accurate representation of The War On Terror. But thats NOW boob, what about when there are none of us left that watched the live feeds? Will these films, complete with concise disclaimers regarding the purely fictional nature of the work, become the yardsticks by which we negotiate this nest of lies that have almost finally brought about the realization of its major goal, namely; the Invasion and subjugation of Iran. Laugh, but keep your eyes on the middle east buddy. 
Is Hollywood an entirely reliable guardian of truth? Fuck that pal. John Pilger, we need you now more than ever. In fact even filmmakers I had placed faith in during the polarizing years leading up to this clusterfuck of 2012 have begun to seem suspicious and worthy of a more objective re-appraisal in light of their complete failure to effect ANY change in the face of the “New World Order”, “Federal Reserve Banks” and various other conspirators of dubious intent. Oh sure we did manage to either provoke savage beatings at the hands of riot cops or bask in the smug contempt and absolute disregard of local business and government as we rallied together to “OCCUPY”. Well it depended entirely on the disposition of your government and after Sydney and Wall street a general air of “attention will only encourage them” fell like dominoes around the “Occupied” finance districts of the globe. Its a sad thing. The Zeitgeist film really, seriously fucked with the very ideas, beliefs and assumptions upon which I had based, not only my World View but right down to the way I viewed the people I interacted with daily. All gone, like my Innocence of pain and love had toppled in my 20s, so too did any illusion that we were a species of self determination and freedom , in my 30s. Ah, Jody, Ignorance is a warm cup of piss huh? But I swear it tasted like honey, man. Sheesh guys, what the fuck?
A Nation duped by errand boys. Sent by grocers to collect the bill.
Am I gonna be the one to set them straight? Look at me! Wrong! You…

Chapter 24
Regarding Tears.

“If you don’t want to believe, you don’t have to cry”

• Soundgarden
• Superunknown

I shaved my head this morning. I once loved a girl who would hack her beautiful hair off in fits of anguish. It is a common thing and it makes a sense that I totally get, but could not express in words. I feel backed up with sadness, like one of those truly massive hydro dams that we have in the south. My eyes well up at the slightest provocation. I found one of my sons tiny T-Shirts amongst my meagre wardrobe today. I have been choking back any true kind of weeping for so many years that I am very afraid now to let go in case I’m washed away beneath the sheer enormity of backed up grief. My Mum hasn’t been far from my thoughts these past few days and she is a box in my heart that I quickly snap closed whenever I buck up the courage to peek inside. Nobody has ever been able to see right through me without judgement or scorn but still find the words that will reach me without crippling. I think, after yesterdays little venting session, that I have touched on a nerve. I think that perhaps I am finally reckoning with myself after a long and bloody campaign of self delusion and sheer bloody mindedness. The illusions and smoke screens I have maintained in the name of survival are falling and I find the frail, naked man within wanting and pathetic. You have to start somewhere right? I will only move forward from here with small and sure steps. Any attempt to bypass this process by retreating to my old self deceptions will be disastrous as I have really reached the end of the resources to fuel that kind of shit. I guess I have run as far as I can and if I intend to survive, it is from here that I make a stand. Heavy.
I guess I have been a fool in my deep faith in myself. I truly have believed that I was special and of hidden worth. A rough diamond that would shine in time if I just held on no matter what. The usefulness of this has long since perished. I think this is not necessarily because I an NOT special or worthy, but because I gave up on the gifts that proved this assessment gradually and am now faced with the task of rebuilding from scratch and in the face of a fading youth. The more I paid lip service to productivity, the less evidence of my capability arose. Cause and effect, not irreversible, certainly not. But I now question the method and am pretty staggered under the weight of evidence that I have collected to the futility of it. Like running headlong into a rock face, over and over and over and over. Insanity. Yup.
An unexpected result of my acceptance and surrender to these simple introspections is the return of inspiration and, more importantly, creative action. I guess I feel more like a simple craftsman than an undiscovered pop star. Simple truths. Easy, soft food for the palette of an emotional and mental infant. I feel very vulnerable and exposed, but I have the very basic needs to proceed. Horizons are shrinking, but that is a very welcome sight. I hope to set some small goals this week, baby steps on my new, long overdue, journey into adulthood. Fuck it, if God is out there, I could really use a hand. Hah. Crying again. Ha ha ha, can you really imagine me whipping about face and roaring off on a jesus tangent? It would certainly not come as any surprise to me. Nothing would at the moment.
So, it sort of puts my ranting and raging at corrupt systems in a new light. I guess my main frustration is rooted in the catch 22 that arises from the conflict between the intellectual and moral outrage I experience when presented with these wrongs and my malnourished and ineffective qualities that could effect change. Im no politician, soldier or protester. I think the word Im looking for is unsuitable. I mean, I am possessed of perhaps the most unlikely mixture of the least endearing human qualities, I guess I will have to figure out how to regain my integrity before too long, huh? So, from where I sit, I feel pretty small in the face of wider events, a ragged, mentally unstable, drug using, criminal. I feel outnumbered and vastly outgunned. But this too is not irreversible either. We watch, we wait. Just to see what if, Just to see what is…
The one thing in my favor is that I am right and they are wrong. I know that much is the truth. Not to mention my presumption that there are more of us than them. (knock on wood)
Speaking of wood…
Several days have passed now, maybe even weeks, the endless drudgery of depression has sunk its claws in deep and I cant seem to shake it off. I’ve knocked the drugs and booze on the head due to the hammering that my mind has been taking. To suffer from a come down is one thing but to antagonize an already mortally perilous situation is just plain stupid. Despite my claims to the contrary I am no-where near as stupid as I appear. Oh no. I think that may be half of my problem. I’ve moved out of the isolated farm house and into my folks home in Hamilton. I haven’t found any respite from the blues but I feel a lot safer. Im in a constant state of panic and despair. I pace around the house in silence between the bed and the tv. But I’ve been to see a doctor and am going back next week. Its crippling but its getting close to the wire now. I bought a tank of helium and planned to run the hose into a plastic bag taped around my head last week. Heavy. So shit or get off the pot. Again. Its a rough ride and one that I haven’t experienced quite as brutally as I am this time. My girl wont talk to me and I am completely cut off from any kind of human interaction bar the necessities and niceties of daily life. I stay inside the house weeping, frantic or doing my best to escape into television. There are 100 channels of digital tv here but I have narrowed it down to 4 channels and sink into it with gusto. I have been misrepresenting the poor old aztecs throughout this dirty rip of words. It wasn’t them but the Mayans who made the death threats to humanity in accordance to their 5200 year epochal system due to end on Dec 21 2012. I apologize halfheartedly and with reserve. I mean, who’s to say that the Aztecs didn’t participate in this foolishness?
So I find myself looking for something to grasp hold of. I’m very afraid of just about everything. I sleep no more than one or two hours a day in 30 minute, hard won stretches only to wake in a panic and drenched in sweat. But I am whiteknuckling it until I feel more human. Chest and stomach pains have been occurring more frequently as my body begins to reject the high pressure stress of living like this. Perhaps I have pushed it too far? I wrote a new song last week called “No Fate but what we make”. Its about how I have noticed that I find myself in situations that I have, more often than not, planned years or decades in advance. I guess I mean that we create our own reality. Perhaps I will get the death that I thought I wanted whether I like it or not. I hope not. I am remembering simple happiness and I am thinking that I’d like to feel it again. I have lost everything. I am, as they say, discovering new rock bottoms everyday. I am not pleased.
Saint Patricks day. Ho ho ho you say. And yes, of course, I have a bunch of Irelands finest ale and a brand new guitar. I’ve decided that the best cure for the blues is Rancid and the White Stripes at volume coupled with Irish drinking habits. Sure as hell cant get any worse. The city is very quiet and although its barely 11am I sense that the populace has little energy or money to spare for the one day a year that they get to drink like fish. Its a sad indictment on the state of things that Kiwis cant be fucked getting pissed. Ah Rancid. I once spent a lonely 6 months on poppy seed tea. It was during this time that I discovered “And Out Come The Wolves”. Its certainly a testament to a very long lasting band that they can record the masterpiece of a lifetime and carry on despite it. They never seem to fail at putting on a smile, even in the most grim situations life can throw and for that I am very glad of them. Im in a lot of discomfort. A result of an overdose last week that I seem to have managed to avoid mentioning. My stomach is all fucked up. I think I burned a nice big hole in it with too many pills. Jeepers. There isn’t much that I really feel like doing. In fact, sitting here jamming words into this machine is about all I can really manage at the moment. I think I will spend a few hours with YouTube today and brush up on my music trivia. I really love the way I can watch old footage of just about anyone I could want and just follow the links after that. I never know what I will find on youtube. My head looks like a pumpkin. This madness is both a solace and a cause of disillusionment. Its the futility that gets me I think. No-One will ever read this rabid scrawl and I wonder why I bother. But posterity is a beautiful thing and I figure I might as well carry on. Ive started reading Mr Kerouacs little roadtrip again and I think it makes a lot more sense this time around. A little Maturity (VERY Little) lends a more cynical perspective to a book that excels in “cynical” and I think to myself as I discover more and more “Yes, He gets Time that gone fool”. But I also recognize the yearning for a time of more freedom. I feel like Dean Moriarty must have felt as he pondered the crumbling freedoms imposed upon a society in the process of becoming a police state. I have often ached to live in the days of over the counter morphine and benzedrine. Looking back at the 60s and 70s, I cant help but feel a little jealous of those few who shook off their chains and ran amok. Just as my kids might well look back on the 90s and pine for the excesses of my own youth. Maybe every generation goes through something similar as the noose has slowly tightened around the necks of the masses. Did you know that one of the goals of the globalists is to reduce human population by 80%? Such arrogance, to play god. Its a frightening thought and yet one that they have not kept a secret. Despite the blatant and reckless machinations of these pigs, we still gladly hand them the reins and encourage them to whip the horses eyes. Weird fuckers. Callous, brutal whoremasters. Death to them all. I note that the SWIFT banking hub has revoked all of Irans’ international banking codes, rendering them isolated and cut off from world finance this week. The first strike in what I believe will be a furious and defining war. All for the love of Oil and greed. Or is the oil a distraction? Who can tell? I can tell you this though, There WILL be Blood. Of that you can be sure. 
Ah beer. A famous myth surrounding Guinness is that a pint constitutes a complete meal. I wonder what 16 pints constitutes? We shall see. Its not quite warm enough for my taste but Im sure I can persevere. I think Im going to watch “It Might Get Loud” again. I cant seem to shake this one Jack White riff. I have much more desire to play other peoples music than my own at the moment. This is an unexpected twist of taste and one that I hope will not last long. Listening to Rancid and The Beatles. It strikes me jarringly, the very opposing production approaches between the fab four and post-millennial Rancid. Bright shiny new bass strings and gated reverb snare drums in stark (mind pun) contrast to the seemingly lackadaisical soundscapes of the Beatles. I find that I can appreciate and integrate both schools well but Im noticing lately how little attention I really pay to the orchestration of popular music. I think I prefer to wind up the volume and let the emotion carry me away. I am not a particularly discriminating recreational listener, which brings me a cold comfort in a time when comfort is hard to find. Im also pretty amused by how very little I took away from Kerouac when I read it for the first time. After reading it 7 years ago, I packed up my life into a pack and headed out the door. A more superstitious man might allude to a “7 Year Itch”. But I’ve recognized and noted far too many cyclic phenomena in my life for me to be surprised at this change in fortune. Wow. My dads stereo is really cool. The sub has a little engine powered cooling unit in it and at THIS volume it whirs like a methlab moth after each song. 
So, where were we? Oh yes, grief. Tears. Well I’ve let myself go a few times in the last few days, sobbing those huge gulps of pain that sound like a woman. I choke up at the merest mention of love lost or children. A fishing boat went down in Bluff this week taking 8 souls to Davy jones including a small boy. I come close to anguish just thinking of it. But those waters are, as we have noted, particularly treacherous and each head on that boat knew well the risks of taking to sea. Things like this generate such sadness that it is a matter of bloody minded will to stop the tears from choking out in great deluges. Not an exception, but a rule. I guess it shows a slow progress that I am able to listen to music again after quite a while of living in fear of the responses it might provoke in me. I’m in love with meg white and her bare bones drumming. Hard and minimal. Ah Meg, marry me. Time for another bullshit rationalized beer in the name of some alcoholic Irish Saint. Beerb. 
I mourn my devastated alcohol tolerance. I really enjoy the first 3 or 5 drinks and the pleasant buzz that they bring. Thats all gone and now I find myself in a trench warfare situation of forcing drinks down my throat in a bid for that “freedom” that booze brings. Its a real arse-fuck because its one of the last certainties to which I cling. No matter what happens, there will always be booze. Well, so much for that. Its good. I mean, its a messy drug that leads to misery and pain and I do not miss the anguish that I’ve tormented myself with over the years. 
Anyway. Not one man has lead more people to more tears than Mr John Lennon. Marc Chapman continues to flunk his parole hearings in a bid to stay safe and yet I think it would do Johns memory a huge disservice if we were to exact revenge on this twisted man. He refuses freedom at his own cost. Well, ok, perhaps more tears have been shed at the hands of tyranny but John and the guys had a way of drawing tears without direct trauma. Perhaps a smarter man would let these tears come at the hands of John as opposed to the gut wrenching stabs of my own sadness. But Im not. Damn.   
I’ve been giving some thought to the direction of this rag in general. It seems to be a sort of critique of popular culture, literature, film and music in particular. But it also carries a gonzo manifesto in regards to what can happen if you take all of that stuff too seriously and adapt too many of the negative aspects too soon in life. Too much fun. It begs the chicken/egg question; Was my flawed mental health a pre-existing condition that led me to sex, drugs and rock n roll, or was it “too much fun” that degraded my mind to the level of intellectual, spiritual and emotional idiocy? Thoughts of suicide have receded and I think it has to do with starting on a course of Lithium and stopping my intake of hard drugs. I have had a few drinks. On one occasion I struggled all day, pounding back drink after drink without any measurable effect, on another day I rapidly found myself in the city, blind drunk and stoned, with that sickly knowledge that it will only take the slightest misjudgment and I will wake up in a cell or a padded room. Very sobering. Ha ha ha. So I’m a bit wary of alcohol as well. I mean, I certainly made enough stupid choices that day, destruction of property, public drug use, burning bridges (both personal and  professional) and fist fighting in the sleepy midweek streets of the city that I spent the ensuing days in a state of fear that only the alcoholic really knows. Remorse, resentment and a scramble for excuses and quick fixes. So. We began this sort of “section” in an isolated rural farmstead living on methamphetamine and booze, blown away with grief and a desire for death that, at the time, seemed my only solution. And now we are here, somewhere safe and close to humans. Im certainly not “well” but Im closer to it than I have been since November. I still feel an immense grief and sorrow wells up in me like blood to a knife wound at the slightest provocation. At any rate, I’d expect things might be a little more coherent, for a while at least. Sayonara fuck face.

CHAPTER 25

Rock n Roll Redemption 

“The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.”

• Oscar Wilde
• Preface to The Picture Of Dorian Gray

Ha ha ha, outside the good doctors dismissive and hilarious efforts, this is my favorite example of the “Preface”. The wonderful Mr Wilde effectively shames any critic into good behavior whilst calling them to greatness before the book has even begun! Wonderful. Its a great book too if you have a mind for that sort of thing. Opium, murder and social mechanics. Beautiful. The point is, Ive imbibed a lot of written and recorded material in the past week and I assume that this will come out “on paper”, as it were. But first things first, lets talk about drugs. I have been pretty gun-shy of marijuana lately, but I went out looking for it last week. I stumbled across a legal substitute and decided to give it a try. If you have ever had a truly debilitating dose of t.h.c you will be familiar with what we call the “Body Stone”. This is basically a state of intoxication that locks the body into a kind of paralysis while the mind wanders out beyond the stars. This was the effect of this nasty little package of legal weed. Its called “spice” amongst other genera and I found myself shocked by its effect. Granted, as my friends will testify, I have a habit of rolling novelty oversize ridiculous joints and saw no point in trying something new if it wasn’t going to turn my dials. Fuck me, this is available at the local store, very cheaply and in any quantity you can afford. Now when it comes to Ganja, Im all for decriminalization or legalization. Anything that will stop innocent folks going to jail and take the drug trade from the viscous fuckers who control it. (like those pig fuckers who burgled my studio last year.) I feel this way whether I am currently a smoker or not. You may disagree but I urge you to at least get the facts. Its such a beautiful plant. Shit, sounding like a hippy, fuck that. Anyway, in light of that it may seem a little strange that Im outraged to find a strong narcotic for sale at the local store. I was locked into paralysis for a good 20 minutes (fuck, I THINK) and when it finally released its hold on me everything I’d eaten came thumping out of me at once. The buzz was intense and fearful, very very strong. Im no fucking prude buddy but I don’t think acid should be legal or heroin for that matter. The drug community has its own weird and baffling checks and balances and for all the seeming damage done by drugs, people are a lot better off for the relative unavailability of hard drugs. Why the fuck cant I grow a cannabis plant but the fuckhead at the store can sell narcotics with impunity? An Anti-Drug crusade, me, ho ho ho, no thanks, but its food for thought.
I really want a beer now. Its strange, I guess talking about it gives me a thirst. I saw pearl jam in 1996 on the back of their Vitology album. Pearl Jam have always confused me a little bit. TEN was a very life changing experience and is an album that was stood, for me, the test of time. Vs, the follow up is very close in terms of style and direction but after that they left behind any kind of mould and have continued to change shape and sound according to their own whims. I guess the first two albums are so similar because of the relationship to Mother Love Bone and after that they became something else. Certainly Eddie Vedders growing confidence had a lot to do with it. Anyway, I think Ive wanked off about P.J before so I’ll leave them alone. I’ve been developing a new hobby/sport. Due to the advent of facebook and the recent growth in “who has most friends” amongst musical groups, Ive been able to add myself to pages of people belonging to particularly nasty genres or scenes. This enables me to scrawl random and viscous notes on their “walls” and because they value their virtual fans so much they seldomly respond with any kind of wit or charm. The nasty snapback is the goal here, but it is an elusive beast. It is faulty, corrupt and not charming at all, but its fun, not too much, just enough. Another sport that is currently in development is called “Cannibal Duck”. It was born from my twisted sense of weirdness at feeding ducks fried chicken meat as they arrive en-masse at my picnic spot. However, it lacked savvy and purpose. I mean, who knows? Maybe Ducks are Chickens natural predators in the wild? So I’ve decided to feed them Duck instead. A sort of highbrow version of burning ants with a magnifying glass or pulling wings off flies. Both of which Ive never done by the way. 
I’ve decided to get a new tattoo, a portrait of Mr Jimi. I wanted one of hunter, but I already sport a gonzo tattoo, so fuck him. I’m really digging on RHCP lately. Not the Navaro stuff, he was better in Janes Addiction. And not exclusively NOT the Navaro stuff, but I kinda prefer John Fruciante on guitar. I watched the “Funky Monks” doco and it just kinda highlighted how much those crazy fuckers have shaped my life. Anyway, this digression shit is way too full of referencing and games that will ultimately only ever be frowned upon, back to business…
So my friend Pete and I were a band called “Jahna”. In my second year of Performing arts school I decided to begin making money from music. I figured that the easiest way to do this was to form an acoustic duo. Nice harmonies and proficient guitarists playing accessible music in intimate settings. Its a format that has stood the test of time. Look at simon and garfunkel, sublime acoustic or Nirvana unplugged. I was already in a rock band playing our own weird and heavy beautiful waves of sonic wizardry called “Schrodingers Cat”, but it didn’t pay the bills. Not that Jahna ever made millions. In fact almost instantly we veered away from playing popular tunes for mass consumption. But I’m getting ahead of myself. 
I put an advertisement on the local student radio, Contact 89fm (who would play a HUGE part in my life down the track) and only a handful of people replied. Peter, it turned out, lived one or two blocks away, maybe 300meters as the crow flies and had a daughter the same age as mine. He also was a graduate of the Commercial Music Degree at the same institute at which I was studying. You know how sometimes shit just gels? Synchronicity is the word. Very quickly Peter had me learning his compositions and writing my own. Schrodingers Cat was the brainchild of Mr Deadly, whose name shall remain a mystery. He was the audio engineering (recording) tutor and had asked me, after the second class, to join him and Bo-Batty, the drummer for a “Jam”. Hah, I’d never been asked THAT before, strange but true. Now we wrote songs together, either blossoming fresh from hours of Jamming, or fleshing out Deadlys ideas and stamping our own indie brand on it. Wonderful music and also a tonic for when I feel like a failure. Schrodingers Cats music remains some of the finest recordings of my career. BUT, that was due to having the finest producer of music in the country at the helm. Jahna was different. We made it up as we went. I hadn’t written songs from scratch, apart from a handful of tunes written in my teens and a song I’d labored over for weeks, rehearsing with a band and presenting to one of the lecturers at Performing arts school. Her response was “shit”. Bitch. So Peter taught me that I COULD write my own songs and it wasn’t long before we were playing our stuff live. I think our first show was at one of Hamiltons bigger venues called “the meteor” and was an affirmation of all we had worked towards. People related to the stories because they were real (it will come as no surprise that I pull no punches lyrically. Laid bare, as it were) and because the format was simple; 2 guitars and 2 voices, so the lyrics were easy to hear and interpret instantly as opposed to the repetition needed for a rock bands lyrics to be deciphered. Our second gig was a daytime slot at some kind of street carnival. We attracted the attention of B-Man, who instantly fell in love with what we were doing and became our bass player. I nabbed the drummer from an earnest but dead-end covers band I’d been wasting time with (sorry guys, but its true) and the line-up was complete. what followed was a good five years of some of the best acoustic music that this shitty cow town has produced. Pete told me today that he felt that he had taught me some measure of restraint, be it musically, lyrically or chemically and that I had taught him rock n roll, how to let go sometimes and I tend to agree. In fact just 5 minutes ago his daughter and my daughter were taking the piss out of us and I responded that he is the Ying to my Yang. The end came for Jahna because we were both pouring such energy into our solo endeavors that I think we needed Jahna to work so badly that we killed it. St. Lucy went on to win stuff and gain a notoriety that only I can manage and Pete is now on his Third solo album with music videos in rotation on tv. 
For a long time, especially when Lucy seemed to falter, I felt a lot of resentment. But time heals all wounds, not by forgetting but through forgiveness and perspective. I could list all the reasons that we never followed through, but they are trite and no longer relevant. In fact I’d rather tell you about the triumphs. Peter and I are like Paul and John. Peter is the confident, carefully presented and ever mindful of how he comes across, I am a blazing inferno of impetuous passion, a lose cannon and a straight shooter. Together the only thing that has ever stopped us, is us. Being on a stage, with great sound, an audience (ANY fucking Audience) and Peter on my left is perhaps the safest and most serene I am likely to feel in life. We talked today about what a big part comedy played in our shows and it got me thinking about scripting stuff for use on stage. I have been watching a lot of Mr Russell Brand you see and it has prompted me to draw conversations into traps of my own design, delivering punchlines of my own with wit and timing. But we kinda talked ourselves around to the fact that just fucking around naturally was what made our between song antics work. Im spoiling the story now. 
So we have begun work on a new Jahna album and are united in a common cause. We haven’t fleshed it out yet, the actual “outcome” that we desire, but for now producing and packaging an album are the first steps in the journey. I cant explain to you how very happy, relieved and grateful I am to have my friend back. I guess, if you have read this far, you can imagine what a glorious thing it is to have a friend. Like Hollis Brown, its all I have wanted. The music sounds fantastic. We nailed the first song in about 3 hours, arranged, played and mixed. He has quit his job as he is working on a solo project at a friends studio so he has plenty of time to work and, shucks ma’am, its not like Im rushed off my feet.
I have had some wicked scary news this week and it very nearly took my life. Im so walking that razors edge, but I have now something to hold onto and for that I am glad. Also, one of my nearest friends is back in my life and communicating daily via text. She has read this and knows that Im dangling by a thread but she has not judged me or tried to influence me either way. A couple of months ago I told a Doctor that I can count my friends, REAL friends, on one hand, not counting the thumb. Well, I have 2 of them close to me, and that, fucko, is a BIG deal.
Peter and I spoke the other day about what I believe was our last gig together as “Jahna”. We were locked into some terrible brawl about royalties and songwriting credits and stuff and we were both really headed in very different directions, the sets were ok, I think I made good use of the bar tab, Pete reckons I was a sickly shade of pale green by the end of it, I reckon that was all the weed I’d smoked. At the very end of the gig he got up and just started playing and singing how he was feeling, off the cuff. I joined him on stage and replied in kind building this kind of musical conversation. I wish I’d been less wasted or had the foresight to record our shows because I believe that creativity can truly take the conduit, artist or hopeless fool into states of being that drugs, religion or meditation ever can and THAT night we found that sacred place, absolute artistic surrender and transparency. Some guy came up afterwards and said that the last song was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen. Now I myself have approached folks after seeing them do amazing shit on stage and said similar things, can you imagine what he thought when we told him we’d just made it up on the spot? Ha ha ha, I doubt he believed me. After that I got drunker, if that is even a word, and became the absolute bastard that I can be and Jahna was no more. 
Until now. 
Colour me excited.
Ho Ho Ho, etc.
I met a young man tonight who went on a rampage up George St. in Dundedin smashing those gigantic plate glass windows that banks and department stores like to use. He expressed not only remorse but also a deep and earnest sense of sadness at having damaged something that he held very sacred. George st., for some, is a sort of symbol for all that is Dunedin. It is the axis of the hallowed octagon, the home of new zealand indie punk and a hallowed ground for junkies. Some might even suggest that its the home of “Homebake”. A mecca for junkies the world over. I understood his position. I once tore apart a nightclub in an inexplicable rage. It was owned and managed by a gang and I was so out of control that THEY called the police. Weird shit happens. I was oblivious. So oblivious in fact that the only reason I know what happened was the court summons I found in my pocket the next day and then the charges as they were read out in court. It was all fucking News to me. Too Much Fun. I dunno if Im repeating myself or not so I’ll carry on. I once got tanked up on booze, pills and LOTS of very heady weed, then sat myself down on the railway tracks at the south end of Taurangas “Stand”, throwing the chunky rocks that railway tracks sit upon at the parked cars. I wasted at least a dozen cars before I was apprehended. Not that I tried to run. In my mind it was a perfectly cromulent thing for a gent to be occupied with. Fuck knows what was going on in this little mind of mine. Fortunately I had a pocket full of weed so they had a chance to really stick it to me in court. God, I do not miss being inside the system. I’ve instructed my Doctor, his name is Gary (not his real name), to refer me to a psychologist now that Im a little more stable that, say, two chapters ago. I have spent the past few years under the care of the community mental health team, which is basically populated with fucking burnouts, corporate climbers and folks who just don’t work right so need to be surrounded by fucking head cases so they feel better. Oh wait, don’t forget the control freaks. So I am unwilling to continue our professional relationship and look forward to starting therapy. I am afraid I am going to have to be honest, it wont work otherwise, and that scares me silly, but I need to put this shit behind me and get on with whatever it is that comes next. As you have seen, dear reader, if I carry on like this I will die. And as well as I argued against hanging around earlier, and may again, there is joy to be had and smiles to be shared. Shit maybe even love again. I’d be a fool to skip out on another shot at love. 
Schrodingers’ Cat was, as I have said, a very different thing from Jahna. I started with a fender strat and a small marshall 50watt valvestate combo but quickly grew into a Gibson Flying Vee, Gibson Explorer and a great big marshall 100watt Valve stack. We were so loud that at our first E.P release we handed out earplugs to the full house audience. They initially thought we were joking! After the first song those plugs came out, ha ha ha. So much fun. We had a state of the art studio as our rehearsal space and, as I have mentioned, the finest musical ears in the country as frontman/engineer. We played on my inner city apartment balcony to the rising sun of the new millennium. Man, we were the kind of band that you get in the same room and its like no time has passed at all. Perhaps by writing this down I will initiate some kind of circumstance that will facilitate a reunion. Who knows? 
Anyway, heres the point, Rock N Roll is going to pull me through this. I have the tools, I certainly have the talent and I have my friends. The news that has so rocked my world this week I cannot bring myself to mention, but suffice to say that it is perhaps my worst nightmare come true and it spells the death of my love. There is no way back into her arms ever again. But THAT is small compared to what has happened. So if I can live for 7 days with knowledge of such magnitude, then I reckon I can face anything. Grim comfort, but comfort nonetheless. Fuck it, I’ll miss her. 
Im gonna do some proof reading, you sit back, have a coffee, drink some beer, do a line, smoke a fat one, make a cup of tea. I’ll be right back. Well, I hope.
I guess thats all I have to say about that. A sort of post-script to this chapter is my boredom and inability to finish reading “Hells Angels”. Ive read it before so maybe its just a case of it being ground Ive already covered. Plus it was his first book, except for the rum diary, maybe its just not that good? Ye Gods! Did I really type that? Seems I did. Shit. Pedestals were made for diving from, right? You sure are a nice reader.

Chapter 26

Bad Weirdness 

“who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism”

• HOWL
• Allen Ginsberg

Reading back over the last few chapters I think I may have given the false impression that I intend to “straighten up and fly right”. Rest assured this is not the case. Moderation in Moderation is to be the approach. There is half a bag of meth and a tab of acid in my wallet and they will not go to waste. I guess the best way to put it is that I intend to self medicate but choosing my moments according to the circumstances. Its a common story, as we’ve noted, amongst returnees to Alcoholics (or Narcotics) Anonymous that they “Thought They Could Manage It”. I harbor no such delusions. But I have come to terms with the fact that abstinence is, for me, a road strewn with wreckage. Much better to say “Yes” tentatively, than just say “No” without intent or conviction. Hah! Im sitting at the same table that I sat at when I started this craziness. Out of it, as we say. I had a great night on Absinthe, weed and speed last week. Was with some crazy fucking people, music and oil paints. Im the kind of person who just NEEDS to fucking cut loose sometimes. I don’t know why, YOU don’t know why and no-body else seems to be able to tell me. But I believe it does more harm to stand in front of a speeding truck than it does to just give way to any oncoming traffic and travel on roads seldom used. I guess, to continue with this unexpected automotive analogy, that comparatively Ive been standing on highways at peak time and now Im content to wander country roads. Its 3:41am. I just had the longest conversation with my Dad that I’ve ever had. It turns out that we have much more in common than I guessed. Now we’ve talked about my Dad before so we wont go too far into background but for much of our relationship we have been opponents. Me the teenage angst ridden rebellious fuckhead and him the angry frustrated authoritarian. Not as a rule of course, I mean, we’ve had more good times than bad and he has never once turned his back on me but I guess I always assumed that we were always going to be morally, spiritually and politically opposed. Wow, “Under The Bridge”, yumminess and just right. Anyway, it came as a shock for him and I to find ourselves in the back garden at 2am discussing politics. It came as a further earth shattering blow when he seemed to take a deep breath, buck up some courage and proceed to warn me that there are “Terrible Things Ahead” and go on to tell me about the globalists, concentration camps currently being constructed across america and the skullduggery inside the american financial institutions. 
STOP THE FUCKING PRESS.
It’s one thing for the ragged bunch of misfits I associate with to echo my fears regarding these “Conspiracies”, its a very different kettle of Carp for my Dad to be concerned about these things. This guy is a part of Local and National body government. Sure, he dresses to the left and was certainly a trade unionist in the 70s, but he is no conspiracy theorist. If my Dad is aware of things like this then its coming from sources closer to the action than any of the ragged alternative press exponents that give me MY information. Wow. I was going to drop that tab and spend a furious 12 hours getting weird and exercising creative license. Now I’m just scared. Its really happening isn’t it? Fuck. In the back of my mind I have harbored a hope that it really was all just “Theory” and that no-one could REALLY be as evil as the globalists have been portrayed. That it would all turn out to be a crock of shite. I think I need more information. 
It would be easy enough for you to dismiss this… “Oh sure, your Dad said it, it must be true, ho ho ho”. But for me, this is huge. Him denouncing christ at this point would have less effect on me. Im scared. Fear and Loathing springs to mind. I guess I could come up with my own two words that sum it up but they would just be an attempt to find another way of saying Fear and Loathing. Now is not the time to be twisted up on acid and meth. Now is the time to rise to this fucking shitstorm and make a difference. Even if that difference is merely fueling discussion. Of course there will be time for tripping but Im too jangled for that now. Bill Gates, Ted Turner and the Bush family crawling from the walls in some “Nightmare On Elm Street” pastiche, grasping handfuls of dead african children in their taloned claws is not my idea of fun. Some research is needed. And some actual journalism. I think I need to hit the streets. When it was just random wasters saying the same things to me it was uncanny but easy to swallow. Who else is thinking about these things? Ok, lets recap on the 5 “W”s.
WHO: The Globalists and Various Wealth and Power Hoarders
WHAT: A One World Governance 
WHY: Greed
WHEN: NOW
WHERE: Everywhere
Goddamit, I really wanted that acid! Ok, I’ll drop a valium and try to get my head around this. I do not know enough about the situation, any academic could rip this rag to shreds in terms of my political statements, but does it really matter? The fact of the matter is that no-one really knows what these folks are really up to. Did it start with the Yale rich kids? Did it start at some german hotel? Does it stretch right back to the original Masons? The Catholic church? The Pyramids? I mean, it could all be speculation? Ok, we’ll start with a simple set of questions and I will (on behalf of both of us) present these to folks over the next few days and see just how many other fucking people are getting itchy. I cant convey just how afraid I have become. My fucking DAD is solid, serious and not given to idle gossip. 
It reinforces my need to wrap this work up and share it. Do you think the drug taking, suicidal behavior and incriminating information will detract from my credibility? Good, the last thing we want is cred, anyone spouting this kind of shit with credibility will be silenced. No sir, I’m just a deluded mentally ill drug user with a nasty case of “Typing”. Yes sir, that’ll fuck em. So ok, some questions.
Gauging public fear questionnaire, first draft:
Please say the first sentence that springs to mind when I say the following…
1 – New World Order
2 – American Federal Reserve
3 – Globalist
4 – Population Control
5 – War On Terror
6 – Global Warming
7 – September 11
Ok, I think that will do it. I’ll cold call a bunch of strangers in the morning and see what we see, just to see what if, just to see what is. Thats a Radiohead Quote by the way. Ah, listening to Jimi now. Ah man, where are you when we need you Jimi? You know what? I’m starting to feel positively lively. My mate, who’s named after Jimis home town set the studio up down in the garage last night. Its a plethora of fancy toys all housed with that fucking beautiful Chevy Belair, good company buddy. Im looking forward to getting down there as soon as the clock spins round to an appropriate hour to make music. Im still not convinced that this is a readable piece of literature. But I persist because I figure that even if it turns out to be a piece of crap, I will be in fine shape for whatever I decide to write next.
So, for now, lets leave the power whores alone for a while and get into that weirdness I mentioned earlier. Im really happy to have paints and somewhere to paint. I think I will be spending a lot of time in that garage over the next few months. I actually plan to go back to University next semester and either finish my English Literature degree or start a journalism degree. Music has been fun but I feel much more inclined to write. Obviously I need a few skills sharpened and a few bad fucking habits discarded, but I hope you will agree that Im not a “bad” writer per-se, just a little undisciplined. Perhaps a story, before the acid kicks in and it gets a bit fruity?
I used to have this great gig in Thames. It was at a bar called “Nectar” and I was managing to pull it off once every couple of months. A very small bar, 20 people and it was packed. They paid cash and I sold cds so it was certainly worth the trip. I used to hitch-hike so travel costs were nonexistent and I’d stay at a hotel that only charged $30 for a room. Plus there was a groovy street market on the sunday morning following the previous nights show so it was a double whammy. One weekend I did really well and drifted off into a bender. It was somewhere around christmas but we’ll get into that later. I don’t know how I got there but I ended up sitting at a museum kind of railway station with vodka and my guitar, just vibing and getting drunk. I really enjoy those moments, alone with a guitar and that alcohol buzz.
It turned out that that particular spot was where the local street people went to drink. Trust me to stumble across it. I was soon joined by the most unlikely collection of fellow freaks and because I’d done very well I paid for drinks all round and we soon had a deadbeat party going on. It struck them as odd that I’d given cash to some random to go and get some more booze and weed. “He wont come back, mate” was the general consensus and to be honest, I could’ve cared less. But there he came, an hour later, booze and buds. In fact I think he even brought the change back, which I told him to keep. All sorts of folks. One guy was all decked out in leathers and facial tattoos with his woman, they talked for hours about street life, institutions, straight folks. At one point about 5 of us got into a rowdy conversation listing all of the correctional and mental facilities we had been in. Shit, we had the whole country covered! One guy in particular stood out from the rest. I mean they all had fucking sob stories, cop outs and various reasons why it was other peoples fault that they lived the lives they lived but this guy chose his path and was quite content with it. We got to smoking and drinking and I said to him “Well, fuck this, come home with me for christmas man, theres room and plenty of food, lets go!”. We said goodbye to the others and wandered far into the valleys behind the township of Thames to where his tent was, shot up some gear he had and then dismantled his campsite. 
He took me further into the valley to a cave that is NOT on any tourist map and I may have changed the townships name to protect it. Inside this cave lay the remains of a Moa. A Moa is a native bird to new zealand, a lot like an Emu or an ostrich except for the extinct part. The skin and feathers are still on this bird in places yet it has to be hundreds of years old. Just leathery plastic on brown bones. I climbed on in there and played my guitar for half an hour. It must be how organists feel playing in an empty cathedral. 
After that we wandered back into town with the intention of hitching home to the mount, ha ha, to surprise my then partner with our christmas guest. But things got fuzzy. First of all there was the vodka, then there was the dog. He hadn’t told me about the dog and dogs make hitching very difficult. I eventually gave up and ditched him, the sun was going down and there was no way we were getting out of town.
I just kinda wandered. I found the noisiest house in thames and just walked in. Hah. A guitar case in hand is sometimes its own invitation. It was a family home and they were very drunk. The lady instantly took some kind of maternal liking to me and I shared an hour of drinking and singing with them. The husbands only words were “You are a fucking dick”, which he repeated often, but the woman was definitely in charge. I probably could’ve hung around there all week but the house next door was rocking more and more as evening became night and once again the guitar case worked its magic.
The house next door was the exact opposite of where I’d been, single guys from 30-50 all sitting around the kitchen table literally gagging for a guitar. After an hour or two I’d been schooled in all the workings of this sleepy town, been offered a bed and even a room to rent if I wanted. Crazy shit, drinking vodka all day, weed and now this… Stumbling into, probably, the only two houses that one COULDVE just stumbled into!
The lady from next door came after a couple of hours, she was wondering where I was and dragged me out. Those bad drunks aren’t the sort I should be around. So it was back to “You are a fucking dick”, whilst her and her daughter tried to get me into bed behind his back. Happy weirdness but I had a girl at home. So I crept back next door and flopped on the couch.
The next morning we hit the liquor store and began the day with beer for breakfast as I made plans to get home. I ended up catching the bus, I was too fucked to be inflicted upon strangers, I made it back to Tauranga to find myself the hapless victim of a liquor ban, as we have already discussed. It was a wild few days. Theres no moral, point or even ending. It just was. Make of it what you will. Shake off your chains and go drinking with the homeless. I fucking DARE you, call it homework.

MEMO From The South Pacific Desk
To: Mr Durden
Re: Resumption Of Activities

Tyler,
I await your return with anticipation. Its funny, these stupid readers think that I’ve cooked you up from watching fight club and have probably wandered into some kind of deluded, schizophrenic mania. No doubt brought on by drugs and mental frailty. But we know better. Oh yes. Please be sure to get some duty free rum to celebrate your return and some tobacco. I’ll send money for it if you need. I hope this finds you well and safely ensconced between the firm, tanned thighs of some gorgeous surfer chick. Eat more peanuts. If theres one thing thats good for you its peanuts.
xxx Lucy 

I think I will watch Citizen Kane again. I still don’t fucking get who “Rosebud” is. Maybe that penny will drop. This is certainly going to be an interesting day. Hey, Tyler is coming back soon. Im afraid because Tyler is going to call me to greatness, I am joyful because Tyler is going to call me to greatness. No pressure there bud.

Cyndi Lauper Was Right

So this week not only my Nation but, on a smaller scale, a member of my close circle have really showed their true selves, masks and devices of distraction all dropped and their hearts laid bare and it is fucking UGLY. Right wing extremism is a real worry. I couldn’t tell you the name of a single current New Zealand Politician, not a single one… well, ok Winston, but other than him I have no clue. All I know for a fact is that the bad guys won, the money focused rich white kids with inheritances, inter-generational wealth and fucked up ideas about punishing the poor, minorities and the vulnerable in our society. I fucking loathe election years. My neighbors always seem to be pitted against me. Bring back hippies! Fuckers.

100 Songs

I studied Māori Performing Arts as a youngster, earning a two year diploma. One of the big lessons I took away was from the music lecturer. She stated that if you write, really craft 100 songs, at least one of them is going to be a really special piece of music. I mean, if you are really good maybe twenty or thirty will be great and if you are Prince then all damn hundred of them are going to be smash hits. I think I probably topped a hundy a decade ago but this week I think I finally wrote that one really really good one… you tell me?

Distance from the monster

I think this song, and the E.P it comes from are some of my best work in terms of filtering my hurt and the harm I have caused through the fabric of music.

here’s the whole record…. if you are into that sort of thing….

https://mrsomethingelse.bandcamp.com/album/distance-from-the-monster

Reach Out!

Hi.

Making music today. I am going to do some gardening this weekend, I have some seedy potatoes, a big sack of potting mix and a variety of seeds. Tobacco, Poppys, Chillis, Tomatoes, Potatoes, Beans and Catsickups plus I have some cool rocks to place around the flower beds and stuff and I’m going to get a bunch of bark to put on top once the seedlings go into the ground. I am thinking if I get some sunflowers I wont have to look at that monstrosity on the hill. I am going to have some help. Oh hey I am going to have a go at corn and hops too, for the obvious reasons. I wonder if sugar cane would grow here? I used parsley from my garden on my bolgnase last night, it’s so rewarding! Patience and care and more patience. I can learn! Last week I put some native flaxes around the front and back, in a year or two they will be huge and the Tui will come closer, I just hope this bastard cat doesn’t eat them! It’s fat and sassy now, really good condition. It still won’t let me get near it which kind of confirms that it was a stray. It’s only a fiver a week to feed, so, fuck…

You know it’s interesting that this pissy tiny little blog can so consistently push someones buttons so hard when it’s really just the musings of a moron. Look man, here’s the thing, kind reader (no! not you.), when you find that you can’t change the past, all you can do is try to change the future. It is truly the only thing that you can do about it. Well, unless you are Donald Trump… when he can’t change the past he just throws money, lawyers and lies at it and pokes his head back in the sand with his big lumpy white butt hanging out for all to see, and smell… imagine stink lines and flies and shit, literal shite…

I think that the true measure of a human is whether or not they can confront, accept and attempt to wrestle with their demons. All that vitriol because I was dumb enough to mention seeing the most beautiful girl in the world at the supermarket the other day. A fleeting glimpse even, she looked amused at how fucking fat I got, we didn’t speak, it was a solitary second, no longer and yet, like clockwork, I get hate mail. Dude I am doing my very best kind reader. I am not the waster I was in my youth. I had to hurt people and learn lessons the hard way and that’s why I try really hard to keep all my worst behaviors on a super tight leash. I am 50 next year and I still have no clue how people work. I hurt a bunch of people I was supposed to protect. Not a day goes by that I am not mindful of the harm I caused, not one. All the millions of scenarios where I could have made better decisions in crucial moments plague my nights, sleep eludes me often.

Fuck.

Sigh.

m

Have A Reservoir

Whats up Chaps? I just watched a propaganda piece advocating for so called clean energy. Developing electrical solutions for fossil fuel problems. Is simply raping the environment for another resource really the solution to climate change? Have you ever seen a lithium mine? They are misery factories and they scar the earth easily as much as an open cast coal mine or a ruptured deep sea mining operation. When those big car or house batteries burn they really do a lot of damage to the atmosphere too… Hows about we just exercise some restraint? Lay off planned obsolescence, rabid consumerism and maybe take a bus or a train, ride a bike or walk once in a fucking while? How about not allowing the big chemical companies to act like Augustus Gloop in a candy store?

It pisses me off because it seems to me that the only people who will bear the brunt of this whole mess are the little people. What do you reckon Amazons carbon footprint looks like compared to mine? And guess which one of us is making an effort? (I’ll give you a clue, it ain’t Amazon…).

So that’s my thoughts this beautiful crisp spring morning in New Zealand. I’ve been really unwell, the last week has been really hard and I am only just starting to come right. “Right” in the sense that I’m back to my baseline level of misery but at least I am not fretting that I might need an ambulance every 6 hours. Apparently the night that it was really bad turned out to be a real bad one at the local hospital and there were 4 hour waits for ambulance and another 4 hours waiting in the E.D plus when I went to start my car yesterday the battery was flat so I wouldn’t have even been able to drive myself and it was like 3am, so, yeah….

I’ve had fuck all sleep, partly because I am in such discomfort that I can’t and when I do fall asleep the little fuckwit next door bashes on the wall, slams his door or makes fucking animal grunting noises. Gee I wonder how he managed to do it continually from Monday night until , well, about a minute ago actually with the door slamming and grunts at 11am on Wednesday? Maybe he’s just not sleepy? heh. Fuck him, I called the cops, what he doesn’t know is that they are investigating the cctv and I am pressing harassment charges as well as tampering with a package as well if I want to. The ball is in his court. Either he leaves me alone or goes to court, I’m happy with either one gentle friend, enough is enough.

Oh shoot, I saw a really beautiful woman yesterday, a face I ain’t seen in a minute, still makes me fizz on sight. Sigh, hangs head in shame.

I have loads of new music…. Some of it is actually good.

https://www.youtube.com/@MrSomethingElse/videos

Plus the radio stream is still up… wall to wall Htown music….

This One Here gives you track details too, if you are into that sort of thing.

Alrighty that’ll do, hey I have my pre-op in under a week now, excited and terrified in equal amounts, cautiously hopeful. xxxm

Nightmare Neighbors and true crime.

Hi friend. I had the worst nightmare last night, I think I should lay off the true crime a bit. I met this lady, we ended up making love but at some point I started stabbing her and didn’t stop until she was dead. I put her in the foot well of my car and, inexplicably, drove to a family event, choosing to park my car inside. Eventually people started complaining about a smell and my mum traced the stench back to my car. I was like “don’t open that!”, but, she did. The next part of the dream was terrible, I could see no way out and the dream went on like that for ages, there were other scenarios but that’s the, mind the pun, guts of it… It took me a few terrifying moments to realise it was just a dream after I woke. Man, I don’t tend to have nightmares but that one was a doozy!

The twenty year old, schizophrenic meth head next door is harassing me. I have been complaining but so far the best I have got is “We cant control what people do” and I feel helpless. I am constantly on edge, I now have to sleep in my lounge because he spends all day and night thumping on the dividing wall. He offered me meth and I asked him to stay away from me, he took it badly and now what was a really great home sucks.

Sometimes I am very certain I have cursed myself with my antics….

m

Don’t you dare!

NEVER listen to the music that I made today, peasants…

… or its counterpart. Wayne and Garth were not worthy and you trolls ain’t either… remember that, bottom feeders…

Good Evening. M

Science is still baffled

How come I could be the best, soberest, doting parent when the kids were infants but became an absolute abomination of a father when they got to be able to read and wipe their own asses? Burping, nappies, stewed apples, custard, sterilizing bottles, car seats and soothing? I was a literal God at those things, but once they grew I got selfish and fucking abandoned them… Terry cloth onezies and socks on hands to stop them from scratching their faces up with their brand new claws… The miles I put in pushing prams is an herculean staggering number, rain or shine, day or night! The fuck is wrong with me? They are all the best people I’ve ever met too. I guess I just have to take solace in the fact that they are all healthy and happy critters now, things could always have been… wait… fuck…. ps – I love you Dad, you fostered that love of music in me, just gentle nudges but you helped me find my thing and, dude, i love you for it. I hope I didn’t forget to tell you how much I love you. Ranting be confusing…..

Vaders Papers

This record was the only damn hell ass thing that would cool the burning furnace inside young Vaders baby chest. Incubus and the gentle rocking of a hammock swing were the only tools the neighborhood held to quiet the beast. Once he was asleep peace reigned.

That’s how I knew he was a Jedi.

xxxm