Wednesday 22 July 2009

Turn off the TV...



This image is foreign and repulsive. So aesthetically alien in nature that your first reaction should be “Holy-Afro-Jesus!” And yet, my erupting volcanular Subconscious of Probability spews forth, the very instant I lay eyes on it, an aerial view of the fictional McDonalds advertising campaign character "The Hamburgler"; that masked, ground-meat-obsessed convict, albeit now sporting a full hemisphere of visible brain.

I found it immediately very strange that my subconscious should rearrange the beauty of nature into the trans-fat laced carnage that is brought forth by the Devils Own Butcher. How could I possibly fail to miss the minutia of beauty to be found in the evolutionary process, whilst craving the sensation of being served meat by five soulless minimum wage searchers; those who aimed high and fell, and those who never got off the ground at all. My thought processes most definitely flowing in a subliminally-manipulated-since-a-young-age kind of outward ripple...

It takes a while, but I finally reach shore in an almighty tidal wave of realisation.

And that’s why I hate, with a vitriolic fury, McDonalds. And Burger King. And Coke. And Pepsi. And IBM. And Microsoft. And Asda-Wallmart. And Corporate North America. And the Western World generally.

Death to the West.

I’m no bitter Jihadist, nor even mildly acclimatised to the woefully inadequate explanations of organised religion, for my thoughts on this evil empire are based solely on the blatant testicular vice-grip its advertisers keep locked into the population of the so called “Free World” by hungrily encouraging near-rabid levels of consumerism and record-numbers of house repossessions.

The credit system is a cyclical trap, gaining fuel from those it burns by making us feel we need to be hard-working consumers. A viciously rotating hell-fire incinerator first conceived in the twisted wet dream of some degenerate little Nazi. Step in line and wait your turn. Relax. It’s all ok… Then, without even the hint of a warning: WHAMMO! Like an unexpected right-hook straight from the 300 pound animal carcasses strapped to either side of Mike Tyson’s upper torso. You drop to the ground and die of what is later confirmed to be, at the conclusion of a suprisingly brief and definitive autopsy: "instantaneous explosion of the heart". They have you by the balls and you MUST conform. Go directly to jail. Do not pass go, do not collect £200. The advertising cartels have a monopoly on your soul.

The lover of Yoko explained it best when he said: “Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it”

Preach, Johnny Boy, preach!

Turn off the TV, for it is the governmentaly endorsed opiate of our times. Unhook this digital drug from your blackened veins. And remember what it is to think for yourself.

Peash

Tuesday 14 July 2009

Replies to a Lonesome Farm-Hand...




Good evening Sir.

Man, that whole living in the middle of nowhere shit sounds amazing. I would genuinely LOVE to be cut off from pop culture for a while. I'm managing to hide from the Dumbness as well as I usually do, but actually being holed up in some yokels farmyard, milking she-goats, in a hideously inbred slipstream of New South Wales, would take some serious beating. Total Isolation. Absolute clarity; pure and unsullied by Big Bother series fifty-seven and the Doom & Terror double act currently playing the News Channels, like a militant-Islamic version of the Broadway classic “Cats”, for a minimum saturation of 27 hours per day. And if they’re not telling you that terrorists plan to gag and rape you, they’re telling you that you’re still fucked because the economy is dropping to its knees to give birth to a cosmic shit-bomb of universal proportions. My precious economy. Fucked like an Amsterdam whore and left sodden and gaping in the corner of an exclusive members-only backstreet dungeon, where the only sounds are the screams of erotic vigour from fat corporate businessmen and forceful Pimps.

Indeed, the blog was a good idea. It means that I can actually look back on some vintage and ageing splaffs. I found the title picture on an old fashioned trawl, I believe the perverted youth of today call it a "Google Search", or something along those debauched lines. So, after taking a fancy to someone else’s artwork, I scrawled the writing in on a bootleg copy of Photo Shop Pro Version 4.2. Meandering Thoughts On A Night Without Stars; a phrase which I believe could also be used as a metaphor for dreaming. An idiom which, if you ascribe to progressive Jungian psychology as much as I do, is always handy if you’re ever physically or spiritually cornered by someone whom you would sooner feltch your own grandfather than actually talk to for any period of time. In these sorts of deeply terminal instances, simply throw the shards of that Universal Fact at the perpetrator and all but the most criminally insane will immediately and abruptly cease with the pseudo-socialising horse-shit. They will then bolt off, like a prowling Hyena will when it’s faced with a large and hungry pride of lions at the latest Caribou Buffet. And not a second too soon. And all of this infinite and deeply buried beauty is wrapped in the same typewriter font as the Hunter Stockton Thompson tattoo situated on my lower spine. I have been known to enjoy the circularity of such truths. And yes, we're still talking graphic design. It was never this fun in Art Class.

You need to get me those lyrics you’ve been writing in-between hammering nails and hammering your cock in zero-pussy aboriginal outback farm communities. “Bring out the lambs Hector”. “But Donald, they’re no ready yet”! “Keech Hector, I’m a ginger-haired horn-bag and I want to split some live flesh. Bring the little fuckers out”… Sweet Afro-Jesus! That last image I just laid on you was probably as low as it’s humanly possible to go within the heavy limitations of the written word. You’ve not resorted to splitting live meat have you? Anyways, I digress. Let’s get back on the tightrope. Ah yes, I may even write a few things down myself, having seen your lyrics, and we could create some sort of cross-Pacific duet: Thom Yorke, Terrence McKenna, Yo La Tenga, Boards of Canada, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Immortal Technique, The Spirit of Gonzo, Streaming Consciousness, William Melvin Hicks, etc, all wrapped into a tight ball of Scottish Borders folk-emo-sledgehammer-rave. Some may say that’s a very specific genre I'm aiming at, and many brain-dead fuck-mules have already voiced concerns that the niche market simply isn't there. However, I'm confident we could create something to rival an evolved version of The Crankies, or at the bare minimum Dave Benson Phillips, of British terrestrial TV’s “Get Your Own Back”, tripping balls and discovering The Language of Reality on an experienced voyager’s dose of dimethyltryptamine.

In other equally important realms of reality, I'm reading a quality book at the minute. It’s beautiful stuff actually. Entitled "The Alchemist" and penned by a guy called Paulo Coelho. I'd highly recommend you read it, particularly given your current circumstances. Take it all in before you have to once again face day-to-day life, whenever (if ever) that may be, and I guarantee you'll be epically thankful you did. Here, to whet your proverbial whistle, is a pre-read aperitif:

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream...When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision”.

So, jump in the river, Cleatus. Let’s take a swim.

Some half-mad Brazilian fucker wrote it. I've yet to finish the book, but I'm sure my thoughts on it will be even more elaborate and glowing in their positivity by the time I do. A dark veil has been lifted. Like your solitary confinement, this shit is good for the Soul. And the two in sync would be like getting head from an Angel - wet, sticky, and with zero risk of orally transmitted venereal infections. The sort of promiscuous semi-religious encounter you know, deep in your soul, will never be topped, how ever many sleazy Thai bars and low-rent bordello's you visit in the downward spiral of later years. And when young flesh turns to dust, and dust turns to infinite possibility, all you are left with is an indelibly scorched memory, fractal, rose tinted and smelling vaguely of freshly cut grass and innocence of mind.

The square roof of fuck all happened at the recent wedding of the Son of Denny. It was quite a boring affair actually. They had a band who insisted on playing the Dashing White Sergeant on a scarily regular basis. I thought I was listening to Frankie Mallen’s Caledonian step-cousins at one point. Fiddles, a poorly tuned acoustic guitar, and a guy, who looked like he may have recently been added to the Suns list of “Officially Confirmed Paedophiles”, posing as Bez from a Scottish Highlands incarnation of the Happy Mondays. Merely swapping the drugs for a questionable form of "talent". Indeed, it would be fair to say I didn’t quite dig the beats. I suspect big Denny had more than a hand in the bands appointment. He was moving like you used to at the sweat-soaked peak of a swedged breakdown of drums and synths. Total euphoria and with little care for Monday morning. In passing, let me just confirm I'm not suggesting that the father of the groom was on illicit chemicals, but merely announcing the possibility of such a scenario having occurred, taking into account the evidence, all in an impressively French Detective Poirot style of semi-educated bluff. Denny is a long-time crack whore. There we have it. Case closed.

Moving on now, and although the drug-fuelled highland disco was disheartening, the company was splendid. I was able to ignore Peeps on several different occasions before he actually cornered me. It was reassuring to see he still resembles a well-trained fascist mole, and did indeed, as previously implied, flee like an outranked Hyena when the Universal Truth was fired point-blank at his strangely blue-veined temple.

Another apex of the night was when Reidy treated one-and-all to his version of "Unchained Melody", that much-loved classic from those musical deities Robson & Jerome. This is when we left. I didn't even bother finishing my drink. There was no point. I was already on the cusp of a vicious reaction to this 4-foot Gremlin spewing his lungs out on stage, all the while being acoustically backed by a group of men who were either half-Jacobite/half-Road Sweep or slouched drunk and naked across their own instruments.

So, after much confusion in a surprisingly dark field, I made for the Sporty, or the more contemporarily entitled “Gee-Twae”, where I was greeted at the entrance by Semzie. He requested the entry charge like a battle hardened Troll guarding the only bridge to the middle island of some sleazy little shooting-gallery. And yes, the Sporty is exactly how I remembered it. Gillian Herringshaw perched on the first booth to the left, the same confused die-hards propping up the bar, sweat on the walls, vomit on the floor, and the sickly scent of terminal failure fresh in the air. No hope, no future, and no decent lager on tap. I was back in the place I had known so well throughout the near-constant masturbatory state of my youth, and it had gone to shit quicker than a Hiroshima Dog Pound circa 8:15am, August 6th, 1945. It was a sad state of affairs, but the Enola Gay had long ago passed over this barren wasteland of local uglies and drunks… I’m going to submit that last bit to the Southern Reporter as a review of the local Kelso nightlife. Can you imagine if they actually printed that filth? Ha! What a fucking hoot Thursday’s would be if we had a local press willing to rip at the very fabric of reality with such inherently true and dangerously vivid social assessments.

Having taken as much Britney Spears and watered-down no-brand tequila as I could emotionally handle, we left somewhat promptly, where we made our way to the Guthries abode in order to greet the returning voyagers. Hours were spent necking pints of J.D. and being regaled with stories of Thai mushroom use and the best places to get fucked up on grade-A Peruvian Snow... All in a days work, I thought, as I caressed a fine collection of porcelain figurines Mrs Guthrie must’ve collected over her years as a librarian in a governmentally funded educational establishment. Christ, three long-ish words and I’ve seemingly turned my local high school into an Orwellian nightmare. Doe Or Die...

I ended the night, after a cursory hour or so of mild sleep (not yet in full tonic R.E.M., but tempting Michael Stipe in with a few honey coated Nytol pills), by vomiting at 6am, dead-straight into the family homes newly installed vitreous china Armitage Shanks close-coupled W/C. An appropriate way to end such a night, I'm sure you will agree.

Anyway man, I gotta split, I think there may be a terrorist or a banker at the door and I can't remember which one I'm meant to be scared of the most, so I'll take my chances and fire at both.

Wish Me Luck

Peash


P.S. Mind that fucking book...

Wednesday 1 July 2009

Nescesarry meanderings for an age-old acquaintance....



Dearest Wud,

A midweek holiday has allowed me to be both stupidly drunk and beautifully high, simultaneously, at this point in the ambient early evening period of what was meant to be just another grimy Wednesday working for The Man. Thus, it came as quite a shock to be given the day off, fully paid and at very late notice, in order that the office be fumigated after a seeming infestation of wild guinea fowl. Game birds, nonetheless, and worth a tidy fortune if caught live and hand delivered to the nearest high-class butchery. However, the mere thought of stomping down Sauchiehall Street with a screaming black bag trailing behind me, a terrified family of wild birds thrashing around on the wet tarmac, fills me with the grating fear that someone may actually notice this attempted manoeuvre, mid-heist, before challenging me verbally. Of course, it would take someone with a keen sense of concentration and an uncommonly good knowledge of the sounds and noises most closley associated with guinea fowl in order to make such a devestating connection, but these bastards DO exist. Believe me.

Anyway, I’m shooting off on tangents here about things I hadn’t previously even considered putting to paper, so I will try to get straight to the point. Ah, the point. The glistening apex at the very tip of a custom-made steel lance, forged from fresh Hawaii magma flows and the cool blood of rare Marine Iguanas. Jesus. Wild and unnatural skewed tangents. Get it together. Is it possible to overdose on Afghani hasish and Red Bull? Christ. Composure is the key here. Walk the line. Deep breaths....

Ah, back on track. I today received your correspondence, and have listened to the enclosed compiltion album; the reminiscently entitled “Destroying the Lizard - Revisited”. I would like to suggest, at this point, that the very first time you hear a song you love, a shudder reverberates along ones spinal cord and it feels as if you’ve known it all your life - because music is so deeply entrenched in the soul, and the soul, as any experienced voyager will recollect, is eternal.... And there are a number of such infinite-sounds on this album. I don't think that such heady levels of praise are conjured up all too often in the world we now find ourselves in, even from this natural born optimist, so accept it like a hungry merekat would a fat young ant larvae.

I’m genuinely struggling to focus on the screen now and my neck seems to spasming gently, almost hypnotically in its convulsions, like the blurred on-set of a mild and pleasurable stroke. This may be serious.

On that potentially brutal note, I’ll leave you with the following short passage which successfully portrays my general thoughts toward the album in six words:

Jefferson Airplane. Today. Blew my mind.

And below, laid-out with almost military precision, a fine selection of phrases which convey more of a story, in six well placed words, than most world-class novelists could manage in a War & Peace-esque epic:

- Yesterday always comes too soon
- For sale: baby shoes, never worn *

Adios for now Scud-Rug,

Peash


* Hemmingway said the one about the shoes. I don’t want to take undeserved credit, and I always feel referencing ones work does wonders for the academic glue of the piece as a whole. By the way, I don’t think the baby died. I prefer to think the parents merely made a fuck-up in their shoe size expectations. Nothing darker than a simple miscalculation.