"I could be the actress you be Tarantino"- XXXO- M.I.A,
"Yes love, love your attitude, because the nigger play pussy that's the nigger that's getting screwed"- Gimme the Loot- The Notorious B.I.G
------------------------
Ugh. Just woke up, and it's like something out of a bad teen movie, beer cans, empty cartons of chicken, no messages, that same old feeling that my life is falling away into middle age and I can't remember what it's like having sex sober. It stopped snowing yesterday, and Magic FM is happily informing me that parts of England are going to be flooded by all the melted slush. Last night I drunkenly watched Aldo Lado's "Night Train Murders", a fairly inventive spin on Wes Craven's "Last House on the Left", which was based on a Bergman film, "Jungfrukallan", which means that sixty or seventy percent of all banned video nasties took their influence from the artiest director Europe ever produced. I don't have toilet paper or tobacco, and on Thursday I had an email from my careworker which read:
Gentle reminder that your injection is due today!
I emailed him a link to my new music video on YouTube and told him to go fuck himself, which was hardly mature, but well. On Friday I went to see "Django Unchained" again, this time in the ghetto Odeon in Bromley, which doesn't have 3D capacity and charges four fifty a ticket. The screens are kind of tatty, the seats are threadbare and they have CCTV cameras in all of the theatres in case a fight kicks off. Me and Raf saw it on opening night in the middle class Beckenham Odeon, which saw a few walkouts and a general uncomfortable atmosphere from an audience that didn't know how to take the word "nigger" repeated almost every other word. American maverick director Spike Lee has publicly refused to watch it, saying it is offensive to his ancestors, which obviously smacks of jealousy. After I tweeted him that his slave movie "Bamboozled" was a toecurlingly bad film and that his intellect spoils most of his movies, he locked his Twitter account, which adds him to the list of celebrities who are blocking me, which includes EL James and Stephen Fry.
A group of black girls were sitting right behind us second time round, and if you know anything about black girls, you know that they are guaranteed to provide a running commentary of whatever movie they are watching, which, in the case of "Django Unchained", meant that by the end they had forgotten that anybody else was in the cinema.
----------
"Sharp scratch," Holly says. The needle tears a hole, that old familiar sting. I'm in the process of getting punked on Pynchon Ward, my two weekly date with a depot injection of Olanzapine straight into my left buttock. It's getting to the point where I don't even mind it anymore.
"I can't believe it's been two weeks," Holly sighs, and then: "Oop, it's bleeding quite a lot, let me get a plaster."
I wince, hoping that it hasn't hit an artery.
"Have you seen Django yet?" I ask, pulling up my jeans.
"I heard it was quite violent," Holly says, disposing of the needle.
I limp out of the medical room, scanning for an easy hit. I see an awkward looking man in his late thirties, smile at him and say:
"Can I buy a cigarette off you?"
"Oh," he says nervously, seeing the fake evil look in my eyes, "oh, oh, you can have one."
He leafs me out a Benson Silver, and I get a flash of what his life has been like to end up here. Shy at school, not much of an academic, some low rent jobs, a steadily increasing drink problem, a slightly too close relationship with his mother.
"Cheers mate," I smile, limping down the corridor to the smoking cage. Some random black zombie (the usual type of mentally ill homeless from the area that collects on the ward on a weekly basis), is following me in. Because I've been jacked up in this cage before (the worst was from a young pikey with an electronic tag who got six shots to my head before I managed to take him out) I gauge this zombie as pretty harmless but smoke in the corner just to be on the safe side. Another guy comes in, a clean shaven white guy with tracksuit bottoms on and the unpleasant scent of Lynx, sex addiction and schizophrenia.
"What's that then?" he asks, pointing at my HMV bag.
"A book," I say. I've brought in the new Misha Glenny crime epic, "Dark Markets: How Hackers Became the New Mafia", since I met an Anonymous hacker (who I will never name) in the Secure Unit last year.
"You read books, then?" he asks, confused and lecherous.
"Sometimes," I smile, putting in my earphones.
"My mum likes books," is the last thing I hear him say before I switch off. I'm listening to Redman's "Muddy Waters", definitely one of the best albums to get high to. I'm hoping they won't piss test me, since I smoked all night before I made my new YouTube video, which has had 82 views in four days which I guess is okay, but it's hardly Rihanna or Justin Bieber, the deities of YouTube. When the weird dude leaves the cage I text my producer to say that Lloyd Kaufman, head of Troma and creator of The Toxic Avenger thought the video was great. I have been tweeting him for a while. Nobody makes movies quite like him. Anybody who smokes weed loves that guy. I wander back to make a decaffeinated, lukewarm coffee, scoping the place for new faces. I recognize most of them. I probably know by sight all of the mentally ill people in the area, and the cogent ones recognize me. Usually if I see a homeless guy I know I'll buy them a couple of cans of Super T. They're all alcoholic or drug addicts, or both. Poor bastards. There but for the grace of God. A young black girl with a few gold teeth is staring at me. I take out my earphones.
"Hello," I smile.
"Are you staff?" she asks.
"Nope," I say.
"What's that?" she says, pointing at my bag.
"A book."
"You can get books in HMV now?"
"Mostly the hip, drug culture classics, or music biographies, or serial killer histories," I explain, stopping when I realize she doesn't understand.
"How long have you been in?" she asks.
"I've just come for an injection," I reply.
"Oh. Are you a heroin addict?"
"No."
"Oh."
I sit down and read my book for three hours. I have to wait this length to ensure the medication doesn't kill me. It's an urban legend that you can die from a depot injection. This time round I'm okay. It's been a calm day on the ward. I eat dinner there, and leave, wandering back to my flat in the freezing sleet. On the bus I watch the streets of the suburbs pass by, remembering nights out, people I used to know, things I used to do. It hits me as a dull epiphany as I watch the rivulets of rain snake down the window. I don't really have any ties left in England. My parents don't even live here. Pynchon Ward is the only home I have.
A.W.M 28/01/2013
Monday, 28 January 2013
Thursday, 10 January 2013
THAT GIRL AND A CHRISTMAS VACATION
"And if there's a wish, pay your visit to Mr. Dickens. For he, like many another literary man, is bound to adore you, fatherless child."- Norman Mailer, Marilyn
"You should marry a librarian," she said, lost in some impulse, her eyes half closed, the computer screen some window to a library somewhere, me, older, wiser, quieter, reading some strange book as my wife carefully annotates a newer stock of antiquated stories. I spooned some sugar into my coffee (decaffeinated) and said:
"Nah, I'm gonna marry Rihanna."
She reacted quickly, shaken back to the secure unit where she, guard and protector of the criminally insane, needed to quickly bring me back to reality. The other female staff, tough, black women with a penchant for the needle and the school of hard knocks, looked horrified.
"That's insane," she said, finally looking frightened.
Some moment in the past (by now I had completely lost track of time, my diary would date days past, strange, coded entries, and I would realize that I could not remember writing them) I had overheard the nurses talking about Fifty Shades of Grey with the same reverence as the King James Bible.
"I'm joking," I sighed, and then: "Can I get a light?" The rules of the secure unit were that clients were allowed to use the staff lighters once every half an hour, and, after midnight, on the hour. She looked up at the clock. It was twenty six minutes past nine.
"Five minutes, Andrew," she said, looking hurt.
"Why a librarian?" I asked.
"Oh," she said, lost in that same impulse. "The way you are with all these books..."
A million hours ago (or two weeks, or whenever) I had slid all of my books out of the two inch gap in my window, making a composite artwork and protest of controversial books in the gap between the window and the iron webbing that trapped the unit like some giant metal spider. The Cliff Notes for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest lay proudly in front, announcing to the passing police and security staff that there was at least one client in the secure unit who had a bit of imagination left. As a punishment my window was locked (despite it being August) and my pillow was replaced with a hard blanket. But it was that girl's impulse to dream of my future with some mystery librarian that I am thinking of now, sipping a Sailor Jack's and Coke in a small bar in Furengirola on New Year's Eve 2012. Mick Jagger sings "Keys To Your Heart" on a TV showing a Stones stadium gig somewhere in Japan. My brother (who had a tooth extraction this year, and as a result has quit smoking) is saying: "It's called regressing to the mean," explaining to me a concept in some high class book on the nature of thought he's stoically been reading the past three weeks in Spain.
"See, a pilot may pull off, like a great move, a double spin, and execute it perfectly."
"Uh huh," I say, sipping my rum, staring around in the dim neon light of for women under forty, finding nothing. The bar is like a bad impression of a bar, a bar doing an impression of a hip NY rock pub. It has everything but the Wurlitzer.
"But it's a one off. Afterwards, his maneuvers became a bit shaky again. He's regressed to the mean. On average, he will always return to the same standard. And another pilot may make an error in flight, but, in the same way, his level will always rise again, his mean is higher. He regresses upwards."
My brother (who I can't help but always see as the helpless baby who looked so cute when he cried) has a degree in Neuroscience and is in his final year at medical school. He does not have my permission to become a psychiatrist.
"Interesting. Can you apply that to the notion of humanistic progress?"
My brother now has a habit of unhooking the false tooth in his mouth and clicking it up and down, almost unconsciously. Earlier today he told me he had dreams now where all of his teeth would fall out, usually in the presence of beautiful girls.
"Explain," he says, sipping his drink.
"The idea of human progress. Eventually the standard, the average ability of everybody on the planet regresses to the mean. All things may be possible in the universe, but not for humans. Our mean is too genetically low."
He considers this, smiles sadly. I'm drunk.
"What's the time?"
"Five minutes," I say. 2012 has been the year of personal apocalypse. I lost myself in grief after the Dark Knight Rises Massacre. I have sold copies of my school shooting books, Smoking Is Cool and Fear of a Tabloid Planet in the US, and thought I had given James Holmes the idea, which led me to self harm and offer myself as a karmic sacrifice as I tried to incite the nurses on an acute psychiatric ward to kill me. They did force me to eat a cup of Benzodiazepine tablets (a drug family more addictive than heroin) and then shipped me off to a secure unit. I spent a month there during the Olympics. Two weeks after my eventual discharge an ex-girlfriend of mine hung herself in a psychiatric ward. Then floods, fires, hurricanes, and a final dreadful massacre of children in an American nursery school, in which the babies were each shot twice with an automatic rifle designed for military combat, wielded by a baby faced psychopath who first shot his mother who had bought him the gun.
"Happy new year, dude," I smile, feeling tears well in my eyes. We're now sitting outside, and I'm smoking a cigarette, remembering her words: "You're a really good kisser," spoken softly, shyly, like a little girl who has always had a schoolyard crush on her English teacher. I think about asking my brother to take me to a brothel. I need the feel of a woman to take away this guilt and sadness, even if the intimacy is only commercial.
"Love you dude," he says.
-------------------------------
She is sitting across from me on the plane. The takeoff was shaky, and I had gripped my arms in panic, knowing that I had used all the Benzos to help me sleep in Spain. Now we are cruising at altitude, and I am drinking the last of my Euros in miniature bottles of Jack Daniels and cans of lukewarm Pepsi. She is strikingly beautiful, but her eyes betray the evil of her experience. She has taken on many men, and she is young yet, her stamina can take it. Her eyes are pale blue, her skin a china white, lips red like a Greek prostitute who has bled her finger and applied the blood to her mouth. The plane is shaking now, and I am clutching my drink with terror as she opens her mouth. Her teeth are rotten and sharp, one by one they fall from the diseased gums, she will show me this, and then smile a closed lipped smile, opening, closing, opening, closing, and then she says: "Please fasten your seatbelt as we prepare for our descent into London Gatwick..."
I wake with a start. Sitting across from me is a fat, unlovely looking girl, clutching a teddy bear and sobbing. My whisky has leaked onto my trousers like a child's accident and through the earphones in my depressurized eardrums, Marilyn Manson's cover of Carly Simon's poem to Warren Beatty is taunting me with the words: "You walked into the party, like you were walking into a yacht..."
It is 2013 and I am back in London. As soon as the plane lands safely, the girl has packed her teddy bear and is sitting with a soft smile on her face. She has beaten death once more.
"You're so vain... you probably think this song is about you... don't you... don't you..."
A.W.M 10/01/2013
"You should marry a librarian," she said, lost in some impulse, her eyes half closed, the computer screen some window to a library somewhere, me, older, wiser, quieter, reading some strange book as my wife carefully annotates a newer stock of antiquated stories. I spooned some sugar into my coffee (decaffeinated) and said:
"Nah, I'm gonna marry Rihanna."
She reacted quickly, shaken back to the secure unit where she, guard and protector of the criminally insane, needed to quickly bring me back to reality. The other female staff, tough, black women with a penchant for the needle and the school of hard knocks, looked horrified.
"That's insane," she said, finally looking frightened.
Some moment in the past (by now I had completely lost track of time, my diary would date days past, strange, coded entries, and I would realize that I could not remember writing them) I had overheard the nurses talking about Fifty Shades of Grey with the same reverence as the King James Bible.
"I'm joking," I sighed, and then: "Can I get a light?" The rules of the secure unit were that clients were allowed to use the staff lighters once every half an hour, and, after midnight, on the hour. She looked up at the clock. It was twenty six minutes past nine.
"Five minutes, Andrew," she said, looking hurt.
"Why a librarian?" I asked.
"Oh," she said, lost in that same impulse. "The way you are with all these books..."
A million hours ago (or two weeks, or whenever) I had slid all of my books out of the two inch gap in my window, making a composite artwork and protest of controversial books in the gap between the window and the iron webbing that trapped the unit like some giant metal spider. The Cliff Notes for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest lay proudly in front, announcing to the passing police and security staff that there was at least one client in the secure unit who had a bit of imagination left. As a punishment my window was locked (despite it being August) and my pillow was replaced with a hard blanket. But it was that girl's impulse to dream of my future with some mystery librarian that I am thinking of now, sipping a Sailor Jack's and Coke in a small bar in Furengirola on New Year's Eve 2012. Mick Jagger sings "Keys To Your Heart" on a TV showing a Stones stadium gig somewhere in Japan. My brother (who had a tooth extraction this year, and as a result has quit smoking) is saying: "It's called regressing to the mean," explaining to me a concept in some high class book on the nature of thought he's stoically been reading the past three weeks in Spain.
"See, a pilot may pull off, like a great move, a double spin, and execute it perfectly."
"Uh huh," I say, sipping my rum, staring around in the dim neon light of for women under forty, finding nothing. The bar is like a bad impression of a bar, a bar doing an impression of a hip NY rock pub. It has everything but the Wurlitzer.
"But it's a one off. Afterwards, his maneuvers became a bit shaky again. He's regressed to the mean. On average, he will always return to the same standard. And another pilot may make an error in flight, but, in the same way, his level will always rise again, his mean is higher. He regresses upwards."
My brother (who I can't help but always see as the helpless baby who looked so cute when he cried) has a degree in Neuroscience and is in his final year at medical school. He does not have my permission to become a psychiatrist.
"Interesting. Can you apply that to the notion of humanistic progress?"
My brother now has a habit of unhooking the false tooth in his mouth and clicking it up and down, almost unconsciously. Earlier today he told me he had dreams now where all of his teeth would fall out, usually in the presence of beautiful girls.
"Explain," he says, sipping his drink.
"The idea of human progress. Eventually the standard, the average ability of everybody on the planet regresses to the mean. All things may be possible in the universe, but not for humans. Our mean is too genetically low."
He considers this, smiles sadly. I'm drunk.
"What's the time?"
"Five minutes," I say. 2012 has been the year of personal apocalypse. I lost myself in grief after the Dark Knight Rises Massacre. I have sold copies of my school shooting books, Smoking Is Cool and Fear of a Tabloid Planet in the US, and thought I had given James Holmes the idea, which led me to self harm and offer myself as a karmic sacrifice as I tried to incite the nurses on an acute psychiatric ward to kill me. They did force me to eat a cup of Benzodiazepine tablets (a drug family more addictive than heroin) and then shipped me off to a secure unit. I spent a month there during the Olympics. Two weeks after my eventual discharge an ex-girlfriend of mine hung herself in a psychiatric ward. Then floods, fires, hurricanes, and a final dreadful massacre of children in an American nursery school, in which the babies were each shot twice with an automatic rifle designed for military combat, wielded by a baby faced psychopath who first shot his mother who had bought him the gun.
"Happy new year, dude," I smile, feeling tears well in my eyes. We're now sitting outside, and I'm smoking a cigarette, remembering her words: "You're a really good kisser," spoken softly, shyly, like a little girl who has always had a schoolyard crush on her English teacher. I think about asking my brother to take me to a brothel. I need the feel of a woman to take away this guilt and sadness, even if the intimacy is only commercial.
"Love you dude," he says.
-------------------------------
She is sitting across from me on the plane. The takeoff was shaky, and I had gripped my arms in panic, knowing that I had used all the Benzos to help me sleep in Spain. Now we are cruising at altitude, and I am drinking the last of my Euros in miniature bottles of Jack Daniels and cans of lukewarm Pepsi. She is strikingly beautiful, but her eyes betray the evil of her experience. She has taken on many men, and she is young yet, her stamina can take it. Her eyes are pale blue, her skin a china white, lips red like a Greek prostitute who has bled her finger and applied the blood to her mouth. The plane is shaking now, and I am clutching my drink with terror as she opens her mouth. Her teeth are rotten and sharp, one by one they fall from the diseased gums, she will show me this, and then smile a closed lipped smile, opening, closing, opening, closing, and then she says: "Please fasten your seatbelt as we prepare for our descent into London Gatwick..."
I wake with a start. Sitting across from me is a fat, unlovely looking girl, clutching a teddy bear and sobbing. My whisky has leaked onto my trousers like a child's accident and through the earphones in my depressurized eardrums, Marilyn Manson's cover of Carly Simon's poem to Warren Beatty is taunting me with the words: "You walked into the party, like you were walking into a yacht..."
It is 2013 and I am back in London. As soon as the plane lands safely, the girl has packed her teddy bear and is sitting with a soft smile on her face. She has beaten death once more.
"You're so vain... you probably think this song is about you... don't you... don't you..."
A.W.M 10/01/2013
Saturday, 8 December 2012
THE SADNESS OF CHRISTOPHER MALONEY
In an age of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary
act- George Orwell
Gravity’s my enemy-
M.I.A
Eminem began life as a nickname. Scrawny, weak, underfed Marshall Mathers III was bullied and abused as a child. Possibly not to the extent he extolled in his wrathful, self-loathing, vicious and messianic music, but psychologically he began as M n M, a little, round, chocolate sweetie.
The game has changed. In fact, it’s not that the game has changed, it’s
that a new level of transparency has burst free into the everyday language of
the post-digital age. Opinions are commodity, your followers are your bank
balance and a RT is worth ten points. A favourite means that you have tweeted
something of (at that instance) serious value to your audience. However, there
is no way of knowing whether or not they are using that favourite (yes, I know
it’s spelt favorite but I’m English) to use your information as commodity
either against you or to create a matrice of tweets to promote some other
scheme. Get it? Good.
I missed therapy today. Overslept by five hours. Last night I was so
doped up on Promethazine (an over the counter Valium derivative) that I was
tripping out nicely and enjoying my mild hallucinations of the fairy lights on
my wall twinkling and undulating like silkworms. I tweeted, I wrote some notes,
I watched YouTube and put on my very own concert of videos on my feed. Adele’s Skyfall should, by rights, win the Oscar
for Best Song. Her critical and street credit could not be higher, and whilst I
don’t particular listen to 21 often (it’s
a little bland) I do respect that she is a great pop musician and I like her.
And that’s enough. Skyfall is her
masterpiece, and I don’t think she’ll ever write a better song about the
devastating break-up that influences her art. All pain is subjective.
I’m not sure too many people are following this blog (and for those who
have purchased this as a book, it began in October 2012 as a way of making
sense of an ex-girlfriend’s suicide, and was continued until I found an ending)
and frankly, that doesn’t matter too much. I will tweet this link once, and
only once, and whilst nobody ever reacts to my writing directly, I hope that if
you are reading this you are not too put off by the navel gazing. I’m currently
high on Promethazine, so I think this is totally awesome and trippy.
On Saturday I went for a walk in the woods with Raf and tried to explain
Bisociation to him. I like walking in the woods. It gives inspiration for the
huge haunted house novel I am outlining.
“Okay,” I said. “Bisociation is the interlinking of two previously
incompatible frames of reference. Like uh,” I avoided a puddle, handed my
tobacco to him so he could roll me a cigarette, “insects and military
intelligence.”
“English, bruv.”
“That is English.”
He grinned. “Please continue.”
“Okay,” I said, pulling up my hood, “What do you call a paranoid wasp?”
“What?”
“KGB.”
Raf smiled, “Hey, that’s pretty good!”
“And that,” I said, taking the cigarette and lighting it, “feeling of
mild euphoria, of epiphany, of revelation, that feeling is Bisociation.”
Raf considered this. “Sometimes you chat so much shit, but that was
pretty good.”
“Both my parents were teachers,” I smile, exhaling.
I booked another ticket for The
Shining: US Extended Edition at the BFI since I auto-suggestively passed
out the last time. All the hip, fashionable “scene” makers were laughing the
whole way through which was too much for my fragile constitution to take. This
time round I had to wait two hours and borrow a smart phone off a couple of
bouncy gay fashionati (the type who think simulating oral sex on each other in
public is just too hip and spend their time writing letters to Europe and
hanging in the coolest bars in Soho) so I could call the fifty year old manic
depressive I was randomly going with. He had had a serious coke habit for
years, and consoled his failures to become a cross between Jack Nicholson and Stanley Kubrick by reading Aleister
Crowley’s poetry and transcribing old mix tapes onto CD. He turned up eventually,
wearing a leather jacket with the word REAL painted onto it, some scarves and a
cowboy hat. We went outside and picked fag butts off the floor, and I
accidentally hit up a joint somebody had tossed. The screening was in NFT1 as
opposed to NFT3. NFT3 is better. It’s the one they use for the premieres since
the front row is far enough back from the screen to see it clearly. We had
front row seats in NFT1, but nicked the seats from two intellectualti before
the lights went down, making it impossible for them to kick us out. I didn’t
auto-suggestively pass out this time. I had watched a documentary about Kubrick
which showed footage of him playing chess against Shelley Duvall and
anticipating her first eight moves. I actually like the Extended Edition more.
It will be a cold day in hell before it comes onto BluRay, so I’ll keep seeing
it every time it reappears after its decade absences. It’s a treat, and I’ve
been dreaming about it every night since, including last night. Marilyn Manson
once said that he believed dreams were “time travel”. I like that idea.
A.W.M 05/12/2012
LOST IN THE EMPIRE
It is when Nana and Joan of Arc exist in the same
flesh, or Boris Karloff and Bing Crosby, that the abysses of insanity are under
the fog at every turn…
…Anyone else, man or woman, who contained such
opposite personalities within his body would be ferociously mad. It is her
transcendence of these opposites into a movie star that is her triumph (even as
the work she does will eventually be our pleasure), but how transcendent must
be her need for a man ready to offer devotion and services to both the angel and the computer.
-Marilyn,
Norman Mailer
I really like Matthew Modine. Kubrick saw his brilliance and tenderness and his performance as Private Joker in Full Metal Jacket is the most human in any of the master’s masterpieces. After I threw up the morning Magic FM told me that there had been a shooting in a cinema in Colorado showing The Dark Knight Rises (in which Modine co-stars), I tweeted him to tell him of my horror and grief. He tweeted back a photo of a victory sign and the words:
It’s all good Andrew #TweetPeace
My Dad was a member of a video club in the early 90’s for a while. It
was half-hearted, but we had a few good ones. Hamburger Hill, Mississippi
Burning, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket. They tended toward
big budget intellectual exercises, and he instilled in me a love for Hollywood
in a time of industry grunge chic. I started watching the Oscars the year Pulp Fiction was released, even though I
was surprised that Jim Carrey wasn’t nominated for The Mask. I genuinely was. I bet fifty pee to a mate of mine, back
when fifty pee was a lot of dough. It was inexplicable. How could Jim Carrey
not get nominated? It was amazing, his performance. Secretly it turned me on.
I unfollowed 1500 people on the 5th of December, and then
slept for 24 hours. I have lost 200 followers because of my actions, people who
were only following me so that I would follow them, the reason I followed them
in the first place.
The vast majority of them were indie, self-pubbed writers. Believe me,
there is nobody duller on Twitter than an indie, self-pubbed writer.
I was back on the ward today for my injection. I didn’t bother bringing
my sunglasses this time, since I understand now that the nurse gets off on the
invasion and I didn’t want her thinking that I respected her. One of the care
workers had helped me tidy the flat before I went, even going so far as to
throw out both my tobacco and my Royal Mail card that I needed in order to pick
up the wheelie suitcase my mum had ordered for me. Huh. Straight after the
horse faced skank had jabbed me up (I forget her name) I bumped into Dr Ghosh
as I awkwardly sauntered to the smoking pod.
“Hey, how’s it going?” I asked.
“You’re looking well, Andrew!”
“Had 402 views of my YouTube video. Me, one take, singing Rockin’ In The Free World.”
“Oh yes,” he smiled, “that’s an easy one to play, isn’t it. Who was it
again, who wrote it?”
“Neil Young.”
“Yes, thirty years ago, right? Yes, it’s just three chords.”
“Difficult to sing, though,” I replied, grinning.
“I’m sure it is! Great to see you looking so well.”
“You too,” I replied, and put my earphones in, feeling used and
worthless in a totally punk rock way.
A friend of the girl who hung herself was smoking a cigarette just
outside the pod, and therefore inside the ward, next to a woman with
Alzheimer’s who has a habit of self-inflicted head injuries. Inside the pod was
a South African murderer that I met in the Secure Unit. He was wearing the
hospital pyjamas, trembling from the medication, his head bowed, moaning about
his mother. I lit up and put on Rape Me
by Nirvana, ignoring his babbling and working out linguistic motifs I could
study for this book. If you ever do get sectioned, then my only word of advice
that actually matters? Don’t talk to the
ones in pyjamas…
There seem to be quite a few conspiracy theories revolving around
YouTube about James Holmes and The Dark
Knight Rises massacre. I tried watching one of them, but they were all so
poorly made. The editing was like something out of an Alan Smithee movie and
whilst I know for a fact the filmmakers felt their efforts to be transcendentally
profound and hip, their utilization of sombre voice over intercut with Hans
Zimmer’s score and sinister photos of Barack Obama made me understand the ache
inherent in their lack of cinematic talent. As for the movie itself? I bought
it today for £15.99 in a BP Garage just by Blue Leaves House, after a dull
three hours on Pynchon Ward. I had the dubious honour of getting the Word
Conundrum, an anagram puzzle they leave on a white board daily. The answer?
CELEBRATE. I thought the movie was pretty good. Wally Pfister’s cinematography
was exquisite, a deep cornucopia of blues and browns. The editing was stately
and mannered, the direction epic and tender by turns. The script had a few
unintentionally gigglesome moments, especially when Morgan Freeman had to
explain the hugely complex plot to the audience, which he does better than any
actor in cinema history. All in all it was a reverent, rich, wonderful failure,
that was as self-adoring as the worst of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and nearly as homoerotic. According to a
recent tweet by Bret Easton Ellis (who was at an Official Academy Screening) it
won’t win. Too self-indulgent and now too scarred with abnormality and horror
for the film to win much of anything. The movie set out to be the most profound
and important movie of 2012. It is, but for all the wrong reasons…
A.W.M 07/12/2012
Saturday, 1 December 2012
MICHAEL CROSSAN AND WHAT'S WRONG WITH BEING PRETENTIOUS?
The ride's over, did you enjoy yourself?- Leech, Incubus
If you can imagine that I have a following outside of Twitter, and presuppose that even though all you have done is click on a siren wailing link that invites you to a blog that has so far seen suicide, psychiatric medical injections, crack, dominatrixes, police stop and searches, rapists, murderers and numerous references to former enfant terrible Bret Easton Ellis, imagine now that I very likely have more enemies than friends. (And I apologize for that sentence by the way, it went on for far too long to be rhythmically acceptable.)
In 2010 a friend of mine told a friend of mine that Bret Easton Ellis was doing a book signing promoting Imperial Bedrooms in London. That friend told me. I had spent the past three years inside a room in a house for psychiatric patients (including a huge, boss eyed, illiterate violent criminal who had been conceived through the forced incest at gunpoint of a brother and sister) living on eighty pounds a week. I was not allowed to drink alcohol, and there were daily spot checks to search my room for contraband. This didn't stop me seguing into a brief spell of heroin addiction with another inmate, but it did result in the police being called (and searching my room for contraband) if I had a friend over past 11pm. Owing to these circumstances, the lack of money, the horrible living conditions, the company of monsters and the nightly supervised medication, eventually I was just left to my isolation. In the four years I spent there, my dad never visited once, and if I traveled to their mansion in Chislehurst I was shouted out if I dared to mention writing. "I don't know any other twenty seven year olds who only talk about their books," my mother would hiss, as if that had won the argument.
Meeting Bret Easton Ellis was suddenly a ray of light in my squalid purgatory. Speaking of which, my window faced out on a wall. I lived four years in that cell. The window didn't open any wider than three inches. My walls were covered in song lyrics and abstract matrices of plots and dialogue for the novel I had been battling with since I was 17 about a school shooting in Orpington in 2001. I had amassed thousands of pages on my computer, and had only written and subsequently self-published my 2009 debut Smoking Is Cool because I had become so obsessive about the other one, I needed perspective. But when Smoking Is Cool suddenly became a literal paperback with an ISBN number and a barcode, I thought I had found a way out of the NHS psychiatric system. I sent review copies to ten magazines (all I could afford), gleefully expecting film rights and thousands upon thousands of pounds for my efforts. Three magazines responded. The New Statesman wished me the best of luck with it. The Literary Review (who are now blocking me on Twitter) wrote that it clearly had a lot going for it. Empire sent it back with a post-it note. And then the NHS forced me to withdraw it from publication. I had used real names of patients, locations and doctors. They wrote me a strange letter which stated that since they controlled my finances, they needed to look out for my best interests by banning the book, since they didn't want me to suffer when they sued me.
Bret Easton Ellis is the most well connected writer in Hollywood. After I met him (I was first in line after waiting five hours, but let two groupies go first after my wild monologue to two bankers in the queue started to piss them off) I went off with my signed copy of Lunar Park to a nearby coffee shop to observe my prize. I had him sign it on the front because I didn't want him to see what I had written on the inside cover, which I will now transcribe:
Dear Dad, as you can tell from its battered, much read appearance, this is my personal copy. The best American novel of the 21st century so far. But don't take my word for it... Lots of love, Merry Xmas, Andrew xxx
I was going to write something about a hotshot middle aged writer who is inexplicably blocking me on Twitter despite having had no contact with me, but he's too busy lost in his schizophrenia and I don't want to upset him. Michael something. I dunno. I'm sure he'll win a Booker Prize one of these days, LOL!
If you can imagine that I have a following outside of Twitter, and presuppose that even though all you have done is click on a siren wailing link that invites you to a blog that has so far seen suicide, psychiatric medical injections, crack, dominatrixes, police stop and searches, rapists, murderers and numerous references to former enfant terrible Bret Easton Ellis, imagine now that I very likely have more enemies than friends. (And I apologize for that sentence by the way, it went on for far too long to be rhythmically acceptable.)
In 2010 a friend of mine told a friend of mine that Bret Easton Ellis was doing a book signing promoting Imperial Bedrooms in London. That friend told me. I had spent the past three years inside a room in a house for psychiatric patients (including a huge, boss eyed, illiterate violent criminal who had been conceived through the forced incest at gunpoint of a brother and sister) living on eighty pounds a week. I was not allowed to drink alcohol, and there were daily spot checks to search my room for contraband. This didn't stop me seguing into a brief spell of heroin addiction with another inmate, but it did result in the police being called (and searching my room for contraband) if I had a friend over past 11pm. Owing to these circumstances, the lack of money, the horrible living conditions, the company of monsters and the nightly supervised medication, eventually I was just left to my isolation. In the four years I spent there, my dad never visited once, and if I traveled to their mansion in Chislehurst I was shouted out if I dared to mention writing. "I don't know any other twenty seven year olds who only talk about their books," my mother would hiss, as if that had won the argument.
Meeting Bret Easton Ellis was suddenly a ray of light in my squalid purgatory. Speaking of which, my window faced out on a wall. I lived four years in that cell. The window didn't open any wider than three inches. My walls were covered in song lyrics and abstract matrices of plots and dialogue for the novel I had been battling with since I was 17 about a school shooting in Orpington in 2001. I had amassed thousands of pages on my computer, and had only written and subsequently self-published my 2009 debut Smoking Is Cool because I had become so obsessive about the other one, I needed perspective. But when Smoking Is Cool suddenly became a literal paperback with an ISBN number and a barcode, I thought I had found a way out of the NHS psychiatric system. I sent review copies to ten magazines (all I could afford), gleefully expecting film rights and thousands upon thousands of pounds for my efforts. Three magazines responded. The New Statesman wished me the best of luck with it. The Literary Review (who are now blocking me on Twitter) wrote that it clearly had a lot going for it. Empire sent it back with a post-it note. And then the NHS forced me to withdraw it from publication. I had used real names of patients, locations and doctors. They wrote me a strange letter which stated that since they controlled my finances, they needed to look out for my best interests by banning the book, since they didn't want me to suffer when they sued me.
Bret Easton Ellis is the most well connected writer in Hollywood. After I met him (I was first in line after waiting five hours, but let two groupies go first after my wild monologue to two bankers in the queue started to piss them off) I went off with my signed copy of Lunar Park to a nearby coffee shop to observe my prize. I had him sign it on the front because I didn't want him to see what I had written on the inside cover, which I will now transcribe:
Dear Dad, as you can tell from its battered, much read appearance, this is my personal copy. The best American novel of the 21st century so far. But don't take my word for it... Lots of love, Merry Xmas, Andrew xxx
I was going to write something about a hotshot middle aged writer who is inexplicably blocking me on Twitter despite having had no contact with me, but he's too busy lost in his schizophrenia and I don't want to upset him. Michael something. I dunno. I'm sure he'll win a Booker Prize one of these days, LOL!
Wednesday, 28 November 2012
SEX AND THE DARK KNIGHT RISES MASSACRE
Psychiatric Wards are filled with people who dabbled in the Occult...- THE EXORCIST, WILLIAM PETER BLATTY
Ready or not/Here I come- READY OR NOT, THE DELFONICS
---------------------
My mind has been a bit muddled since I auto-suggestively passed out during the US Extended Cut of Kubrick's "The Shining" at the BFI a couple of weeks ago. I'm currently writing this on a battered A5 pad that is covered in words that may have meant something to me when I wrote them, but now seem like the ramblings of a schizoid split personality. I'm on the train to Beckenham Junction to give a tenner to Dr Ian Carstairs, who, like me, sees themselves as a professional psychiatric patient. Like me, he doesn't own a credit card, and since he's already booked his ticket for "The Shining" at the BFI on Sunday he's heading up to Embankment later to score me a seat. If something frightens me, I do it until I no longer feel that fear. I'm letting Kubrick into my head once again. Sitting opposite me, trying to ignore my thoughtful gaze (hey, I'm writing and I could be writing about him, which I am) is a twenty something professional wearing state of the art Dr Dre headphones and reading a copy of The Guardian dressed in a cheap but fashionable suit. Earlier today I was at a mate's house, who used to sell his body for alcohol. He detoxes for a month or two then gets back on it. Last night he interviewed me on camera, and then I passed out, and he made a drunken video of himself asking himself questions he would never dare to do were he in company and/or sober. I've been trying to hype up David Cronenberg's "Cosmopolis" to whoever I can, but my mate found it boring. I guess it's that rare beast, the sort of major studio release that can only appeal to people who read for pleasure. Above my seat is an NSPCC advert warning that 75,000 children will be on the streets this Christmas.
-------------------
"Is that your therapist face then?" I asked my therapist, feeling uneasy since she'd just asked me about my father and I had told her that when his mother died of cancer the day before my seventh birthday I still went out for a party at FunWorld and he told mum that he didn't think I cared.
"I was seven," I told my therapist. "I didn't know anything. Seven year olds don't understand anything."
"Are you comfortable talking about this?" That face again.
"Do you have something you want to tell me? A theory?"
She put on her therapist face again. I looked up at the clock. Forty minutes left. I started to imagine what she would look like naked.
----------------
Being totally transparent (Post-Empire is the fashionable phrase) then being on an acute psychiatric ward is like being on acid. They never get any more ordered, and they never, ever make any sense of any kind. You can act as normal, sane and ordered as you want, but you don't matter in there, and the only way out is to blag it to the psychiatrist, who holds all of the cards. Admitting bisexuality is a good one, or admitting some dark sexual abuse in your past, bullying at school, some delicious little trauma that you spin to satiate their innate and vicious optimism. I've just been told I can't fire my care worker. By my care worker. Who has just turned up on my doorstep to drive me to Blue Leaves House to receive my depot injection of Olanzapine, which slows down my thinking and helps me ingratiate easier into the wide and wonderful world.
"So I can't fire you?"
"No."
I'm struggling here. "So, are you a Reichian? Probably not. A Jungian? Or are you a Freud man?"
My care worker smiles. "Freud, Andrew. Freud."
I sigh. "Did you know that the word 'Columbine' is on phone predictive text?"
---------------------------
I'm wearing a red and brown striped top with two hundred pound Osiris sunglasses on talking to a psychiatric nurse called Fulden ("pronounced Ful-Dan") who is a pretty young thing from Turkey with a streak of pure malice that she manages to disguise from her family, I'm assuming, since she obviously feels some kind of horror at her status in this world, like they all do.
"So," she says. "What's your name?"
"You haven't heard of me? I'm famous on Pynchon Ward."
"Well," she says, "not that famous, I've never heard of you."
"So is this a problem with your training then?" I smile, adjusting my sunglasses. She can't help but feel exposed, and shoots me an awkward smile straight out of "Misery" that explains her position: You don't understand what pain is, Mister Man...
"Andrew!" I turn, and see Holly smiling at me with a look of sheer delight.
"I was just asking Fulden if she could define irony, Holly," I say, standing up.
"The injection is ready and waiting for you, I'm so glad you're being mature about all this."
I wish I had a gun. Although my debut novel "Smoking Is Cool", which was totally misread by everybody who read it, was written quickly in order that I would never have to murder a psychiatric nurse. I stand up, and Fulden looks orgasmic since she knows they're about to inject me. They live for this, these skanky farm girls who seek male weakness like a shark seeks human blood. The injection is administered into the buttock of your choice. It always hurts, but what's worse is the knowledge that everybody but you finds it utterly hilarious. I'm led into the medical room. Sarah, the head matron of Pynchon Ward has the injection laid out.
"Do you want to watch my YouTube video?" I ask.
"Andrew," Holly says, and I can almost see her salivate. The internet is filled with hidden sites that advertise the needle fetish of these lost souls.
"So, which side, Andrew?" Sarah asks, closing the door. Sarah is tall and plain, with greasy skin and bad dress sense. They would be lesbians if they didn't enjoy dominating men so much. I adjust my sunglasses, feeling the sheer pointlessness of any words.
"You're killing me with kindness," I sigh, "right side." I undo my belt, slide my trousers down.
"Sharp scratch!" The needle catches a nerve and they take longer than usual to withdraw the needle. Anybody can get sectioned. For anything. At any time.
"Fuckit," I grimace, and Holly pats my arse and says:
"Don't swear, Andrew," she chides, and I turn round, in a brief moment of excruciating pain.
"You don't know why you enjoy this, do you Holly?"
"I'm helping you, Andrew. You're so talented!"
I do up my belt, feeling worn and used.
"It's a sex thing, Holly," I say, taking off my sunglasses. "That's all this is. It's a sex thing for you."
A.W.M 28/11/2012
Ready or not/Here I come- READY OR NOT, THE DELFONICS
---------------------
My mind has been a bit muddled since I auto-suggestively passed out during the US Extended Cut of Kubrick's "The Shining" at the BFI a couple of weeks ago. I'm currently writing this on a battered A5 pad that is covered in words that may have meant something to me when I wrote them, but now seem like the ramblings of a schizoid split personality. I'm on the train to Beckenham Junction to give a tenner to Dr Ian Carstairs, who, like me, sees themselves as a professional psychiatric patient. Like me, he doesn't own a credit card, and since he's already booked his ticket for "The Shining" at the BFI on Sunday he's heading up to Embankment later to score me a seat. If something frightens me, I do it until I no longer feel that fear. I'm letting Kubrick into my head once again. Sitting opposite me, trying to ignore my thoughtful gaze (hey, I'm writing and I could be writing about him, which I am) is a twenty something professional wearing state of the art Dr Dre headphones and reading a copy of The Guardian dressed in a cheap but fashionable suit. Earlier today I was at a mate's house, who used to sell his body for alcohol. He detoxes for a month or two then gets back on it. Last night he interviewed me on camera, and then I passed out, and he made a drunken video of himself asking himself questions he would never dare to do were he in company and/or sober. I've been trying to hype up David Cronenberg's "Cosmopolis" to whoever I can, but my mate found it boring. I guess it's that rare beast, the sort of major studio release that can only appeal to people who read for pleasure. Above my seat is an NSPCC advert warning that 75,000 children will be on the streets this Christmas.
-------------------
"Is that your therapist face then?" I asked my therapist, feeling uneasy since she'd just asked me about my father and I had told her that when his mother died of cancer the day before my seventh birthday I still went out for a party at FunWorld and he told mum that he didn't think I cared.
"I was seven," I told my therapist. "I didn't know anything. Seven year olds don't understand anything."
"Are you comfortable talking about this?" That face again.
"Do you have something you want to tell me? A theory?"
She put on her therapist face again. I looked up at the clock. Forty minutes left. I started to imagine what she would look like naked.
----------------
Being totally transparent (Post-Empire is the fashionable phrase) then being on an acute psychiatric ward is like being on acid. They never get any more ordered, and they never, ever make any sense of any kind. You can act as normal, sane and ordered as you want, but you don't matter in there, and the only way out is to blag it to the psychiatrist, who holds all of the cards. Admitting bisexuality is a good one, or admitting some dark sexual abuse in your past, bullying at school, some delicious little trauma that you spin to satiate their innate and vicious optimism. I've just been told I can't fire my care worker. By my care worker. Who has just turned up on my doorstep to drive me to Blue Leaves House to receive my depot injection of Olanzapine, which slows down my thinking and helps me ingratiate easier into the wide and wonderful world.
"So I can't fire you?"
"No."
I'm struggling here. "So, are you a Reichian? Probably not. A Jungian? Or are you a Freud man?"
My care worker smiles. "Freud, Andrew. Freud."
I sigh. "Did you know that the word 'Columbine' is on phone predictive text?"
---------------------------
I'm wearing a red and brown striped top with two hundred pound Osiris sunglasses on talking to a psychiatric nurse called Fulden ("pronounced Ful-Dan") who is a pretty young thing from Turkey with a streak of pure malice that she manages to disguise from her family, I'm assuming, since she obviously feels some kind of horror at her status in this world, like they all do.
"So," she says. "What's your name?"
"You haven't heard of me? I'm famous on Pynchon Ward."
"Well," she says, "not that famous, I've never heard of you."
"So is this a problem with your training then?" I smile, adjusting my sunglasses. She can't help but feel exposed, and shoots me an awkward smile straight out of "Misery" that explains her position: You don't understand what pain is, Mister Man...
"Andrew!" I turn, and see Holly smiling at me with a look of sheer delight.
"I was just asking Fulden if she could define irony, Holly," I say, standing up.
"The injection is ready and waiting for you, I'm so glad you're being mature about all this."
I wish I had a gun. Although my debut novel "Smoking Is Cool", which was totally misread by everybody who read it, was written quickly in order that I would never have to murder a psychiatric nurse. I stand up, and Fulden looks orgasmic since she knows they're about to inject me. They live for this, these skanky farm girls who seek male weakness like a shark seeks human blood. The injection is administered into the buttock of your choice. It always hurts, but what's worse is the knowledge that everybody but you finds it utterly hilarious. I'm led into the medical room. Sarah, the head matron of Pynchon Ward has the injection laid out.
"Do you want to watch my YouTube video?" I ask.
"Andrew," Holly says, and I can almost see her salivate. The internet is filled with hidden sites that advertise the needle fetish of these lost souls.
"So, which side, Andrew?" Sarah asks, closing the door. Sarah is tall and plain, with greasy skin and bad dress sense. They would be lesbians if they didn't enjoy dominating men so much. I adjust my sunglasses, feeling the sheer pointlessness of any words.
"You're killing me with kindness," I sigh, "right side." I undo my belt, slide my trousers down.
"Sharp scratch!" The needle catches a nerve and they take longer than usual to withdraw the needle. Anybody can get sectioned. For anything. At any time.
"Fuckit," I grimace, and Holly pats my arse and says:
"Don't swear, Andrew," she chides, and I turn round, in a brief moment of excruciating pain.
"You don't know why you enjoy this, do you Holly?"
"I'm helping you, Andrew. You're so talented!"
I do up my belt, feeling worn and used.
"It's a sex thing, Holly," I say, taking off my sunglasses. "That's all this is. It's a sex thing for you."
A.W.M 28/11/2012
Wednesday, 21 November 2012
JAMES DEEN AND THE MYSTICAL, MAGICAL STRUCTURE
I fight the ones that fight me- M.I.A
----------------------
I used to have a recurring dream where I died and went to hell. I went there so many times that I learnt that its geography, whilst consistent, was as abstract and illogical as the Overlook Hotel.
Last Friday me and Raf went up town to see the US Extended Edition of Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" at the BFI. By the time we made it to Clockhouse (made semi-famous by Mike Skinner in a photo in his first Streets album) I'd been awake for twenty five hours. Dressed in the height of grunge hoody chic, I didn't spot the policeman who followed us down to the London train. We'd both bought coffees, wandering far down the platform, and I was expounding on the circular narrative of the movie and how it gets scarier the more times you watch it, when the PC smiled and walked over to us.
"Alright fellas," he said, "how's things?"
Raf looked uneasy.
"Yeah, not bad, not bad," I grinned.
"I like to see who's out and about," the PC said. I noted his thick Irish accent. "Y'know, make sure everybody's okay."
"You're Irish," I said.
"Oh yeah, oh yeah, I am." He had a strange smile on his face.
"Have you been to County Wicklow?" I asked. "I have family there. You know Bray Head? The hill with the cross?"
"Oh yeah, beautiful down there. In the south." There was a hint of menace in his emphasis. "Lovely people. In the south. So, I think.... do I know you from somewhere? You seem awfully familiar! You haven't been doing anything you shouldn't? Come on fellas," he sighed, "let's get out of the rain so I can take your details. Just to be on the safe side..."
He took down our names and addresses and told us he'd be in touch. On the train to Waterloo East we were subdued. We both felt a little dirty.
--------------
"I recorded a video," I tell Holly. Holly is the girl who works at Blue Leaves House, she's popped into the outreach centre and I'm passing the ten minutes before therapy with a little bit of shameless self-promotion. Holly is the girl who administers my depot injection. It's difficult outwardly flirting with somebody who asks you to undo your belt, slide down your trousers giggles and says, "sharp scratch!" just before the needle catches a nerve. It always hurts. Afterwards she usually pats my arse before I have to wait three hours on the ward to ensure that I don't have a heart attack. It's romantic in an awkward kinda way.
"It's had 130 hits in six days," I say. There is a nervous looking hoody seated opposite. I clock him for mother issues. It's the old classic.
"You should be due for your injection soon," she replies, blushing a little. My therapist pops out of the door.
"Thanks for waiting, are you ready Andrew?"
"I'll be down today," I say to Holly, standing up.
"Brilliant," Holly says, adjusting her glasses as I smile and follow my therapist into room 13.
"Back once again for the renegade master," I sigh, taking a seat, assuming the position. Legs open but crossed at the ankle, hands behind my head, eyes open but with no contact.
"I recorded a video," I tell her.
"Wow. Of what?"
"Me singing. One take. Live recording of Rockin' In The Free World. It's up on YouTube. It's had 130 hits."
"Impressive."
"I also seem to wake up earlier nowadays. My sleep pattern is reconfiguring."
"Which is a good thing. We talked last week about...self harm."
I slide up my hoody. The scars are healing.
"Looks sore," she says.
"They're superficial. Cut to bring blood. Ritualistic. They'll fade before Spain."
"So you're going? I thought you were undecided."
"I've sent off for my passport. I do need a holiday."
"Yes, it's been quite a year for you."
I make the briefest of eye contact.
"In the secure unit the rules are different than in prison. I've never been to prison so I have no real frame of reference in literal terms. Only from the prison memoirs I've read and serious films. Like Scum, or Animal Factory, Chopper, Bronson, the good ones. We talked a lot about Chopper and Bronson in the secure unit."
"What were the conclusions?"
I look above her head to the bookshelves of psychiatric textbooks.
"Some kid in there wanted to start a riot after we watched Chopper. Somebody else told me that Bronson was pure evil and should never be released. Yet another thought that Bronson and Chopper brought it on themselves. The head loonie referred to himself as a Jewish Nazi and always wore a top hat and cloak. He used to trick people into drinking his piss."
"No!"
"He tricked me too."
"God," my therapist says.
"I thanked him," I continue, making eye contact. "It was a useful lesson. The day before they discharged him I told him that I did everything with my family in the back of my mind. I couldn't allow myself to lose my battles because I thought it would hurt them. Do you want to know what he said?"
"Go on..."
I smile. "You'll win."
-------------
After a coffee in our local West End Costa's, me and Raf were walking to the BFI to queue up for standby tickets to "The Shining".
"That was weird," I said. The Christmas lights were up. Smart dressed girls in mink coats and pretty hats.
"The stop and search. Yeah. He did it in a really horrible way. It's how they do it."
"I mean," I said, lighting a cigarette, "I've only been arrested once. But I was strip searched. It wasn't registered on my file."
Suddenly Raf stopped a tall, slightly grungy guy with Dr Dre headphones in.
"Mate, Shipwrecked! I know you!"
The guy removed his earphones, looking nervous.
"Excuse me?"
"You were in Shipwrecked! Wow!"
"Umm," the guy said.
"Nah, what's your name?"
"Laurence Fox?"
"Yeah! I seen you in something! Wicked, yeah, Laurence Fox!"
Laurence Fox shook his hand and walked away quickly.
"Who was that? What's Shipwrecked?"
Raf looked pleased with himself. "Shipwrecked is like T.O.W.I.E for rich people."
"Was he on it?"
"Nah, he's an actor. Downton Abbey I think. Or that one... Minder is it?"
"Starfucker," I sighed, exhaling.
---------------
"I saw The Shining on Friday," I tell my therapist. "At the BFI."
"Ooh, I love The Shining!"
"Yeah but get this," I grin, "it was the US extended version. There was like half an hour extra footage. Freaked the hell out of me. And all the audience were fashionati, people who only do as others do in order to fit into a transgender scene. They were laughing..."
"Oh dear."
"I don't think I've ever been more unsettled in a cinema. And I kept nodding off and hallucinating that Jack Nicholson was wearing glasses. In all the new footage... dunno. It was like Stanley Kubrick had planned this release posthumously just to fuck with me. There's this weird bit at the end with skeletons and cobwebs. And people were laughing... I mean the key theme," I adjust my glasses, "is the loss of a sense of time. They keep hitting you with random TUESDAYS, and THURSDAYS, and MONDAYS, and it's just done to inspire to you the idea that time isn't real. I swear it was auto-suggestive-hypnosis. I've been obsessed with that film for nearly twenty years."
------------
I was standing in the BFI standby ticket queue with M.I.A pumping in my earphones, trying to ignore the clerks making snide comments about me with his boyfriend. The night before I had released my YouTube video, and an Occult Publisher who've been toying with me for years now wanted me to record a music video naked.
I think it would be great for you, Andrew...
-------------
When I was nine (and I remember it vividly, it was a TUESDAY or a THURSDAY I think) I saw a spider fighting with a worm. The spider was lashing out at a trapped worm in the dirt under the climbing frame in my best mate's house.
------------
"Time's up," my therapist says. "And I'm not sure you should."
"Record a music video naked?" I ask.
"I don't know if it would be a good...idea."
I smile. "It seems to be what people want, nowadays. And there I was thinking I was a serious novelist."
"Can you do Wednesday next week? No, Thursday. Actually no, Tuesday is better."
-------------
On screen two little girls were staring at Danny.
"Come and play with us, Danny. Forever...and ever... and ever..."
All I could hear was laughter as I drifted into sleep, returning to the recurrent nightmares that take me on occasion... I woke up. Laughter. Applause. We wander out of the cinema, past a bar full of men dressed as women.
"Great party," one of them says.
A.W.M 21/11/2012
www.twitter.com/pynchonward
----------------------
I used to have a recurring dream where I died and went to hell. I went there so many times that I learnt that its geography, whilst consistent, was as abstract and illogical as the Overlook Hotel.
Last Friday me and Raf went up town to see the US Extended Edition of Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" at the BFI. By the time we made it to Clockhouse (made semi-famous by Mike Skinner in a photo in his first Streets album) I'd been awake for twenty five hours. Dressed in the height of grunge hoody chic, I didn't spot the policeman who followed us down to the London train. We'd both bought coffees, wandering far down the platform, and I was expounding on the circular narrative of the movie and how it gets scarier the more times you watch it, when the PC smiled and walked over to us.
"Alright fellas," he said, "how's things?"
Raf looked uneasy.
"Yeah, not bad, not bad," I grinned.
"I like to see who's out and about," the PC said. I noted his thick Irish accent. "Y'know, make sure everybody's okay."
"You're Irish," I said.
"Oh yeah, oh yeah, I am." He had a strange smile on his face.
"Have you been to County Wicklow?" I asked. "I have family there. You know Bray Head? The hill with the cross?"
"Oh yeah, beautiful down there. In the south." There was a hint of menace in his emphasis. "Lovely people. In the south. So, I think.... do I know you from somewhere? You seem awfully familiar! You haven't been doing anything you shouldn't? Come on fellas," he sighed, "let's get out of the rain so I can take your details. Just to be on the safe side..."
He took down our names and addresses and told us he'd be in touch. On the train to Waterloo East we were subdued. We both felt a little dirty.
--------------
"I recorded a video," I tell Holly. Holly is the girl who works at Blue Leaves House, she's popped into the outreach centre and I'm passing the ten minutes before therapy with a little bit of shameless self-promotion. Holly is the girl who administers my depot injection. It's difficult outwardly flirting with somebody who asks you to undo your belt, slide down your trousers giggles and says, "sharp scratch!" just before the needle catches a nerve. It always hurts. Afterwards she usually pats my arse before I have to wait three hours on the ward to ensure that I don't have a heart attack. It's romantic in an awkward kinda way.
"It's had 130 hits in six days," I say. There is a nervous looking hoody seated opposite. I clock him for mother issues. It's the old classic.
"You should be due for your injection soon," she replies, blushing a little. My therapist pops out of the door.
"Thanks for waiting, are you ready Andrew?"
"I'll be down today," I say to Holly, standing up.
"Brilliant," Holly says, adjusting her glasses as I smile and follow my therapist into room 13.
"Back once again for the renegade master," I sigh, taking a seat, assuming the position. Legs open but crossed at the ankle, hands behind my head, eyes open but with no contact.
"I recorded a video," I tell her.
"Wow. Of what?"
"Me singing. One take. Live recording of Rockin' In The Free World. It's up on YouTube. It's had 130 hits."
"Impressive."
"I also seem to wake up earlier nowadays. My sleep pattern is reconfiguring."
"Which is a good thing. We talked last week about...self harm."
I slide up my hoody. The scars are healing.
"Looks sore," she says.
"They're superficial. Cut to bring blood. Ritualistic. They'll fade before Spain."
"So you're going? I thought you were undecided."
"I've sent off for my passport. I do need a holiday."
"Yes, it's been quite a year for you."
I make the briefest of eye contact.
"In the secure unit the rules are different than in prison. I've never been to prison so I have no real frame of reference in literal terms. Only from the prison memoirs I've read and serious films. Like Scum, or Animal Factory, Chopper, Bronson, the good ones. We talked a lot about Chopper and Bronson in the secure unit."
"What were the conclusions?"
I look above her head to the bookshelves of psychiatric textbooks.
"Some kid in there wanted to start a riot after we watched Chopper. Somebody else told me that Bronson was pure evil and should never be released. Yet another thought that Bronson and Chopper brought it on themselves. The head loonie referred to himself as a Jewish Nazi and always wore a top hat and cloak. He used to trick people into drinking his piss."
"No!"
"He tricked me too."
"God," my therapist says.
"I thanked him," I continue, making eye contact. "It was a useful lesson. The day before they discharged him I told him that I did everything with my family in the back of my mind. I couldn't allow myself to lose my battles because I thought it would hurt them. Do you want to know what he said?"
"Go on..."
I smile. "You'll win."
-------------
After a coffee in our local West End Costa's, me and Raf were walking to the BFI to queue up for standby tickets to "The Shining".
"That was weird," I said. The Christmas lights were up. Smart dressed girls in mink coats and pretty hats.
"The stop and search. Yeah. He did it in a really horrible way. It's how they do it."
"I mean," I said, lighting a cigarette, "I've only been arrested once. But I was strip searched. It wasn't registered on my file."
Suddenly Raf stopped a tall, slightly grungy guy with Dr Dre headphones in.
"Mate, Shipwrecked! I know you!"
The guy removed his earphones, looking nervous.
"Excuse me?"
"You were in Shipwrecked! Wow!"
"Umm," the guy said.
"Nah, what's your name?"
"Laurence Fox?"
"Yeah! I seen you in something! Wicked, yeah, Laurence Fox!"
Laurence Fox shook his hand and walked away quickly.
"Who was that? What's Shipwrecked?"
Raf looked pleased with himself. "Shipwrecked is like T.O.W.I.E for rich people."
"Was he on it?"
"Nah, he's an actor. Downton Abbey I think. Or that one... Minder is it?"
"Starfucker," I sighed, exhaling.
---------------
"I saw The Shining on Friday," I tell my therapist. "At the BFI."
"Ooh, I love The Shining!"
"Yeah but get this," I grin, "it was the US extended version. There was like half an hour extra footage. Freaked the hell out of me. And all the audience were fashionati, people who only do as others do in order to fit into a transgender scene. They were laughing..."
"Oh dear."
"I don't think I've ever been more unsettled in a cinema. And I kept nodding off and hallucinating that Jack Nicholson was wearing glasses. In all the new footage... dunno. It was like Stanley Kubrick had planned this release posthumously just to fuck with me. There's this weird bit at the end with skeletons and cobwebs. And people were laughing... I mean the key theme," I adjust my glasses, "is the loss of a sense of time. They keep hitting you with random TUESDAYS, and THURSDAYS, and MONDAYS, and it's just done to inspire to you the idea that time isn't real. I swear it was auto-suggestive-hypnosis. I've been obsessed with that film for nearly twenty years."
------------
I was standing in the BFI standby ticket queue with M.I.A pumping in my earphones, trying to ignore the clerks making snide comments about me with his boyfriend. The night before I had released my YouTube video, and an Occult Publisher who've been toying with me for years now wanted me to record a music video naked.
I think it would be great for you, Andrew...
-------------
When I was nine (and I remember it vividly, it was a TUESDAY or a THURSDAY I think) I saw a spider fighting with a worm. The spider was lashing out at a trapped worm in the dirt under the climbing frame in my best mate's house.
------------
"Time's up," my therapist says. "And I'm not sure you should."
"Record a music video naked?" I ask.
"I don't know if it would be a good...idea."
I smile. "It seems to be what people want, nowadays. And there I was thinking I was a serious novelist."
"Can you do Wednesday next week? No, Thursday. Actually no, Tuesday is better."
-------------
On screen two little girls were staring at Danny.
"Come and play with us, Danny. Forever...and ever... and ever..."
All I could hear was laughter as I drifted into sleep, returning to the recurrent nightmares that take me on occasion... I woke up. Laughter. Applause. We wander out of the cinema, past a bar full of men dressed as women.
"Great party," one of them says.
A.W.M 21/11/2012
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