once when i hit rock botton i landed a part time job with burroughs bug exterminator company, a nefarious business indeed.
burroughs was long past his use by date and couldn't leave home due to crippling agoraphobia so he trained me up in his underground basement, which resembled a mad scientists laboratory from a cheesy late fifties movie. burroughs chain smoked tiny joints he rolled with sweet smelling mexican hooch, he repeated the instructions in that strange dying android drawl as i followed them out, 
'move from left to right, right from left, keep the nozzle downwards, about one inch from the ground, you're an exterminator now, bug killing terrorist, gotta spray those fucking bugs mission, cos a bug never forgets.'
'i thought it was an elephant that never forgets.'
'elephants never remember, bugs never forget mission, you got any wits?'
'wit's!'
'on your personage.'
'err...'
'mmm didn't think so boy, now focus your mind.'
occasionally he'd add a little element.
once he was teaching me how to get a nest, he'd set up a balloon and pinned it up from the ceiling and i was to hook onto it, carry it down and smoke the wasps unconscious and then drown them but it was all simulated, there were no wasps. i managed to hook the balloon and was about to bring it in when burroughs threw a dart into my leg.
i screamed, dropping the pole and the balloon.
'what the fuck man!'
i hopped around on one leg, the dart had entered all the way to the hilt, i pulled it out and a jet of blood spurt streamed out.
'wise man take a sting below the belt from a rouge than crack a nest and take the heat from a swarm.'
in some ways it was like the i ching, the more i listened the more i'd discover i had no idea what he was talking about, yet although it was elusive and eluding his words contained some sort of hidden painful truth.
and every time i felt i was getting better at this stupid job he'd teach me i knew nothing.
so onwards i trained, days passed into weeks and then months and we worked our ways from ants, roaches, spiders and hornets and wasps, snakes and reptiles, rats, possums, skunks and finally the exotic beasts burroughs seemed to hold in high regard, centipedes, snails and beetles.
i have to be honest, these things didn't come easy. i'm no killer, even of bugs.
but burroughs, he was hardcore, a lethal ruthless assassin and even though we only learnt theory i knew burroughs was an expert. not just in bug killing, but in everything, he had knowledge of stuff that was ridiculous, he knew who killed jfk, he knew what aliens species the government knew about, he had encyclopaedic knowledge about drugs and derivatives, he also knew a hell of a lot about weapons and late one tuesday afternoon, he showed me his vault.
knives. he picked one up, it was a black dagger, with a ribbed edge, it looked like something from the future. the handle was pure black onyx yet it was light to hold and it fit perfectly into my hands. he gave me a belt to keep it with and a black leather sheath.
'it's a olmenic soul killing dagger mission, mans gotta have something to protect himself with.'
there were guns in there but we never got to look at those. burroughs didn't even show me the rest of the blades, he just gave me this weapon and that was it.
i saw some oriental weapons on the walls, 'what's that?'
it's persian, a war machine, very dangerous for humans.'
'mmm, okay,' i'd lost interest in his weapons and burroughs didn't really seem to enthusiastic now, 'that's your weapon, guns don't stop bugs without a world of collateral damage, plus they are heavy to carry, use the dagger, it's exactly what you need for your first mission mission.'
'what kinda bugs do you kill with a dagger.'
'the large kind mission, the large kind.'
we went back to the basement and i ate some soup while burroughs shot up on some black powder.

he passed me a piece of paper, it was wafer thing and rolled up like a toothpick, i uncurled it and saw an address written in his awful scrawl. there was a telephone number under the address.
he threw me the phone.
'independence day mission, go out there, kill some bugs.' he threw me the car key, it was attached to a keychain with a big plastic cockroach.
the car was indeed a black truck, beaten up and somewhat antiquated, i wondered how long it had left before it fell apart. the engine turned over with a crunch and i kicked it into gear. the machine moved awkwardly forwards lurching like some rusty derelict fairground ride and despite my reservations got me to my destination. 
i pulled up outside a huge old federation mansion.
the door was unmarked, it could use a layer of paint, i studied the house, it was falling apart, the best possible thing would be to pull it down and start again. whatever bugs were inside would be entrenched.
it was a young lady that opened the door, she wore an apron and some oven gloves, 'apologies, i was just baking some muffins.'
'no problem, i'm the exterminator. i believe you have a problem with some bugs.'
'ah mr. burroughs must have sent you, i was hoping he would return, i enjoyed his company for an old man he certainly had lots of vitality.'
'well i wouldn't know about that but he did indeed send me, i'm mission, his new assistant, apprentice actually. i'm still learning. he sent me but he didn't provide me with much information about the nature of your problem. i may need to talk with you before i start.'
she smiled, 'sure, why don't you come inside, those muffins will be ready soon. i'm mrs. vandermoon but you can call me shirley.'
the interior was darker than most homes, furniture was from another time but it looked stylish in relation to the interior decor and gradually i could make an impression. 
this was old money, a family home for decades, maybe centuries. the design was timeless, old desks and paintings, rugs and tables, high ceilings with dusty crystal chandeliers, the curtains were heavy and dark, wooden floors covered in dust creaking in the breeze. the staircase was the wide style with that particular curl as you ascend. i looked around taking it all in, first impressions are important in this line of work burroughs said to me once. especially the smell of a place, and it was this strange pungent stink of something ancient and rotting that i could perceive underneath the disguise of fresh muffins. 
we sat in the kitchen at the big work bench shirley pulled out a tray of perfect muffins, steam rose from the lush looking raspberry domes and as she put the kettle on the stove i asked her as few questions.
'so what is the nature of your problem?'
'pardon mr mission?'
'well, do you have an infestation problem?'
'oh no. i wouldn't call it infestation, after all that would imply many. i think the bug we have is just a single one. a lone insect, thankfully.'
'well that makes it simple and hard, how will i locate one single bug in this big house?'
'well i can't know, i'm just a housewife, you are the exterminator.'
'yes, that's true. okay well have you seen it?'
she poured the tea into a china tea cup and offered me it black but pointed to a bowl of sugar. 
'help yourself to sugar mr. mission. yes, i did see it once but it's difficult to speak about, it was quite revolting.' she leaned in, whispering, 'it's huge, as big as i am, blacker than black just horrible. covered in legs like a centipede but fatter and with a head.'
i ate the muffin and sipped the tea. she was insane, deranged, some genetic defect, possibly from the inbreeding in her family line. old money means old karma. i continued with the charade, 'can you tell me where you last saw it.'
'the study.'
'and you want me to exterminate it?'
'obviously mr. mission.'
i bit down into the hot cake, a raspberry and white chocolate heat melting upon my tongue in an erotic moment of pleasure and sensation, 
'these are great muffins mrs vandermoon, lovely.'
'help yourself, really. i can't eat them all.'
'i'll be fine with this one but i will need that bowl of sugar if that's okay.'
'certainly. i'm going to have to pop out for a while anyway and do some shopping so start whenever you wish. can i ask how long this will take?'
'shouldn't be more than an hour providing this insect takes the bait. if i have to use the spray i'll call you. you won't be able to enter the house for at least 2 hours.'
there was an awkward moment then she said, 'i'll just leave you to it.' 
i'd never trained for big bugs, burroughs had suggested they get big on rare occasions but never mentioned them being human sized. i just assumed when he said big bugs he meant, the size of a walnut or something. there must be a mistake, insects are small and very rarely are they lone preferring a swarm, or family. 
i returned to the van and took out my kit, a belt bag i affixed next to my knife. some spray (just in case) and my zap powdered moon gun which was set to a sonic setting at a frequency insects would detect and be repelled.
room by room i swept with sound, methodically and with diligence finding nothing of mention until i came to the study. 
the entry was a big double door which mrs. vandermoon had left unlocked for me. i positioned myself carefully before it and slipped through silently, shutting the door behind.
i checked the settings on my zap gun and raised it to begin my sweep.
'don't please, i am reading.'
the weapon fell from my hand.
the bug was certainly man sized and it spoke in a very educated english. 
a deep silence hung in the book filled room, broken only by a car starting up outside in the distance.
'that would be mrs vandermoon, sweet lady indeed. and i see you have brought me a bowl of sugar, fabulous.'
still frozen i realised i was clutching the plastic bag into which i had poured the sugar intending to use it as bait. 
i was uncertain quite what to say so i placed the bowl down and pushed it towards where it sat.
without batting an eyelid the bug shot out a long tendril like tongue, frog fast it snatched the bowl and drew it towards the it's lap with great precision, not a granule of sugar spilled. it put aside the book and a long slimy snout seemed to emerge from within it's mouth. a secondary mouth, this one had a sucker type tube at it's end and it was into this tube the sugar seemed to disappear. it was not quite snorting, but it was very efficient way of ingesting nutrients.
'please excuse my eating habits, these are quite different from yours. my body is designed to excrete certain acids that dissolve food and digest it externally which i then suck back into my body as nutrient. it must look strange to you?'
'it's repulsive.'
'now, now, it's basic insect biology. no need to be so rude.' after all it's far more efficient than consuming raw product and spending five hours walking around in your skinbag digesting your meals.' 
the thing made a slapping slurping sound and sighed, 'there, all done. now state your business so i can return to my book.'
'i'm the exterminator, i've come to kill you.'
the thing made clicking sounds i assumed was some form of laughter, 'i think you are mistaken, killing me is quite impossible. my defences are very sophisticated and i could dispatch you in a matter of seconds.' 
the beast turned to look at me, it's face was quite distasteful, alien and ugly but it  seemed to smile now, it's strange purple crystalline features displayed some sort of malevolent intelligence. 'my weaponry systems are far superior to your primal ideas of defence and attack.'
smugly i quipped back, 'is that so. you just digested a fast acting chemical poison i laced the sugar with.'
'my chemical digestive systems are intelligent enough to know what's what. they rearrange compositions at a micro level, like nano technology only biological and far more sophisticated. everything about me is much more advanced than your civilization can throw at me. i'm a highly evolved bug and you won't be exterminating me today.'
my hand finds its way towards the knife at my belt, it's instinctive as if i have crossed a threshold and defaulted to stupid violence over reason. but before my hand can grip it a wave of pain hits me, an intense head ache and mind numbing wave of sound like a knife between my ears. i fall to the fall on my knees clutching my skull.
it stops as quickly as it begun. 'now, i don't wish to prove my point to the extreme but you should accept defeat and open a more constructive means of communication to surrender.'
my head clears slowly, my breathing calms down and i wipe away the tears in my eyes. 
what would burroughs do i think, what the hell would he expect me to do.
'what are you reading?'
'ah finally an intelligent line of inquiry. it's the third volume of dr. william reich's 'emotional trouble of mankind' otherwise known as 'people in trouble' are you familiar with it?'
'no, i'm not although i have read 'function of the orgasm' so i know of his work and i like the song orgone accumulator which was by hawkwind.'
'ah yes i do like hawkwind particularly their early stuff. bob calvert was a magnificent writer.'
'yeah i agree, did you ever hear 'amazing sounds amazing music?'
yes, when mrs vandermoon had wifi i was able to stream it, along with various other elements of your culture i find appealing and somewhat addictive.'
i swear the creature winked at me.
'do mean porn?'
'research.' human sexuality is of great interest to me.'
'why?'
'i am here undercover, from my hive. they sent me here amongst you to learn if it were possible to cross pollinate so to speak.' 
'what the fuck, are you kidding?'
'no, mrs vandermoon would make a suitable subject, she has the perfect hips and her organs are ripe for plundering.'
'that's insane. i can't let you do that, that's monstrous.'
'it's to late exterminator. far to late.'
revulsion overwhelmed me, how could this awful thing have impregnated poor mrs vandermoon?'
'how did you do it? how did you convince her?'
the creature stood up, it was tall and quite skinny, standing upon two strange long legs it brought it's claws up towards it's eyes, 'look, look, look mission. don't you know who i am fool?' and with that it ripped apart it's face and tore away the shell exposing burroughs.
'you failed your exams mission, never make a bug exterminator out of you. mush for brains, weak willed, no imagination, no gumption. just another cog in the machine mission.'
'but, but, but did you, how?'
'i fucked her alright, she was grateful for the attention, liked a bit of rough tradesman, ha ha ha! you think i really go around killing my own kind, you dope. you are the bugs. bugs upon this planet, you and your kind, eating it to death, plundering it's resources worse than a plague of locusts, more destructive than any ant colony, more sting in the tail than any wasp, more webs than any bug. people like riech and calvert pop up once in a blue moon to make your species appear worthwhile but what do you do, you lock em in institutions and call them insane. mission face it you are the bugs.'
'but why breed with us if that's how you feel about us.'
'we hold no moral claims over sex, we do what we want. to become stronger, faster, smarter, we push evolutions envelope by being diverse and unbounded by human morality, we are the colour and light in life, we are sound and vision while your human society is just a black hole in the great patterns of existence. you came from the monkey and you behave worse than primates. you develop culture a meaningless pursuit of no value to anyone but yourselves. you mate with one another and continue to produce the same entity. do you not think our agents are not out there attempting procreation with other species, we are everywhere. it's a reproductive war mission, war.'
burroughs marched towards me leaving a strange skin laying in a crumpled heap. he appeared human except i could make out his fingernails were black sharp claws and his eyes were big oval fly eyes, he wore his suit but the closer he got the more his human persona seemed to fall away.
he stood face to face with me, a wide grin upon his face as i was frozen and could not think of any conceivable action that i may take, then suddenly his face just began to throb and pulse, it changed shape slightly and a tear opened up like an over ripe plum. something crawled out from a rip in his head and within seconds the room was filled with thousands of flying creatures, they swarmed around the library like a tornado. i stood in the centre as it swirled around me. a deafening sound of millions of burroughs laughing and talking, then the black cloud seemed to implode, that is the centrifugal force reversed and in one solid whoosh the swarm came together in one solid form, burroughs again. he stood before me.
'you failed mission, you're a lousy apprentice and now it's my turn to exterminate you. let's face it, evolution is for those prepared to engage with it. the universe is indifferent to life's morality, it is only concerned with adaptation, diversity and survival.'
it was my turn to laugh, 'burroughs you crazy bug man, what exactly do you think i failed, a stupid test, an exam in pest control?'
'your whole species have failed, this is a war for the planet. we will destroy the males of your species and breed with the females, it's time for our kind.'
the dagger was in my hands and i threw it up in there air, burroughs watched it and using the distraction i shed my skin.
burroughs recoiled, 'what the fuck!'
exposed my skin gleamed in the soft light, purples and deep shades of blues reflected off my sheen.
'what the fuck is this mission?'
'it's the other side bug man.'
'what side? i don't understand. what are you?'
my tentacles wrapped around his face and body lifting him from the floor, his legs dangling and mouth hanging open as a jet of ink hit him hard in the face sending neurotoxins through his skin pores, paralyzing his body and mind. the thousands of tiny suckers independently gripping onto his body as he instantly succumbed to shock and the realisation he was not the only creature masquerading as a human. my tentacles squashed him to an unrecognisable pulp, black blood and guts shooting out across the room, his eyeballs falling slowly down the walls and a bit of brain hanging from the chandelier. i slid along the wet floor, undistracted by the visceral mess, my tentacles stretching out in all directions, searching for the rest of the muffin mrs. vandermoon had given me. such lovely raspberry and white chocolate, mmm, these humans may be fucked up when it comes to planetary consciousness but they do make exceedingly good cakes.    












   

portrait in flesh LA 1974

outside tour budapest 1977

back in london at my parents home we are preparing for a visit from my grandmother and some aunts and uncles, they are in transit from wimbledon. i am helping my mother prepare some food and my brother is playing with my son who is a baby. it's strange how time works in dreams, it seems to apply to different laws. 
at the back of my mind there's an anxiety eating away at me and while i go through the motions i feel it surge through my blood to a crescendo. i put down my vegetables, the big blade, tae off my apron, wash my hands, grab my car keys and sone and slip away. i gotta do this i whisper to jake who lays in the back seat wondering what;s going on as we head into the evening weaving through traffic. parts of london are day and other areas are night, the suburbs look familiar and yet unfamiliar as through i've been asleep for decades and just woken up, or have i been away. as we progress towards greater london i find myself surrounded by black cabs and police cars. i know i don't want the police to pull me over as i'm smoking a joint so i steer the car through some back streets and around a small roundabout. 
eventually i park and wander through a strange indoor mall. only it's not a mall it's more of a market, people crowd inside, there's so many people, a woman pushing a pram forces her way through the crowds and we follow in her trail, jake staring out at the faces and passing mass of shoppers. i notice some of the shops closing up. it's a mixture of people, black, brown white, asian, different ages and somewhere deep down i remember this is what i liked about london. cockney voices shout out, and i find myself in a baby shop with a bunch of girls who are looking through bargin bins and baby accessories, the shop is huge, i can't find an exit but eventually escape back into the maze where i turn a corner and suddenly reach the courtyard outside where a huge crowd gathers.
a woman speaks. she talks about all the wonderful things he did for the community that no one ever knew about until now. she is sincere and her black face wet with tears. i can hear her but although i am far away her white teeth flash out like a beacon as i move towards her.
i get as close as i can, this is what i came here for. 
it's over fast, the crowds disperse and i walk back to the direction of the car, this time around the outside of the complex. a man, my age grabs my arm, 'what did you think, good speech?'
yes i say, yes it was. i'm glad i came. i just had to be here.
'i didn't cry, but i feel sad,' he says.
tears are falling down my cheeks. i suddenly become aware they have been there for a while, 'it got me, you know, it got me deep.'
but he's gone, lost in the crowd and i have to return. i call my brother and ask if my family are there, he tells me they are pissed off i have left. my grandmother wants to see jake. she's travelled a long way to see both of us. all the family are shocked i just split.
i head home, i'll make it. i'm glad i went. i had to be there. i just had to and so did you i whisper to the sleeping baby, so did you.

when i wake up i know it's bowie. i can't sleep and wander down to write my report. maybe we all attended some ceremony in our private dream world, some individual temple constructed from fragments of songs, a mixture of his world and ours. maybe that's how we say goodbye.  

seems like everyones in conflict with something these days, friction exists to slow things down but maybe it projects us in leaps like a radiation burst from the sun. maybe friction reaches a critical point of resistance where things stop and something just kicks in to get us moving again. i don't know, maybe there is nothing to resist except the self. 

MOON POWERED ZAP GUN

Knowledge wouldn't save us. I could see how useless my years of scientific and mathematical training had been. All those beautiful equations and vectors. We had pointed ourselves towards a realm of pure mathematics, elegant simple and complete, a unifying theory that allowed us unfettered access to space. 
My now  decades of studies at the Arkadium under the tutelage of professors in realms of science, classical physics and the quantum sphere had proved meaningless in the wake of the anomaly. Sprouting out formula into my navigation systems had only gets me so far but this was hardly any kind of anomaly.

I’d travelled past null space, into a quadrant we call elemental seven. Here a curious incident took place where by my formula began to fail. Until this moment our mathematics were perfect, it had navigated us through many various galaxy, soft nebula and folding envelopes of time, traversing the gaps became incidental but here it found space contained no gap, no dark matter just the...thing, whatever it was. 
Vast and endless, its fabric stretched a galaxy itself but it remained impenetrable to us. 
We were on the outside of an undiscovered universe.

The equations did not compute, they crumbled against the unknown. We hurled the elegance of sub prime trigonometry and perfection within sublime algorithm but each one failed, even in game theory our principle Von Numann f translation engram was defeated by the infernal strangeness of the anomaly. M- brane quadrants seemed to bounce back and the rigorous discipline of foamatics were meaningless, it was truly an  excession to us.

So as I floated in front of the paradox, my ship beating its organic frustration into my furious blood I came to the terrible conclusion, our science has limits.

My body seemed to react by closing down and I found myself sleeping. It was deep and aeons may have passed me by but somewhere in the midst of REM sleep I dreamt of a huge yellow sun burning in the heart of the unknown universe, a spiral galaxy like my own but with it’s nine planetary bodies in prime orbits, I watched the curious ballet as part of my consciousness floated inwards towards the strange  black sun at the centre of the galaxy.  

‘Welcome traveller,’ it whispered,  a soft voice partly seductive.

‘Who are you?’

‘I was a Star Man but now I am a Black Star.’

‘But how can a man be a star.' I protested.

‘Astronauts and Heretics you see nothing but light you can’t believe in.  I was a Man once and now I am the great I am.’

‘It’s not that I don’t believe it is just something that defies all we have known, my culture is based upon science and mathematics, logic and reason.’

‘Know more then, reason more for all things have limits. I will allow you into my universe but you must abandon your logic. You must turn and face the strange.’

I woke up, my eyes burning with the invitation. 
I requested a separation to the ship and got back some resistance, ‘Suicide is not part of the mission.’

‘It’s the only way, it’s the only way to find out, to move forwards.’

‘I can’t let you do it Captain, it’s not right. No one had died in thousands of years.’

‘I’m over-riding the ethics module, it has no place here. If we are to penetrate and understand this it must be done in a way we have not considered. It must be done in a non rational way.’

‘But this is suicide Captain, How can I advocate this?’

‘You can’t, I understand your limits as well as my own. We must think outside the cube.’

I punched the codes and unlocked the device that held me in place, the lack of gravity did the rest as I separated from the pod and floated away. Using the suits vector units I manoeuvred myself in four dimensional space.
I watched the flashing lights on the consoles flicker in panic, I watched them disappear as the ship ran out of options, I watched the lights go out one by one until I found myself drifting along the boundary.

A voice said, ‘That was foolish.’

Helplessly I waited, precious oxygen depleting as I followed the red bar on the V - Screen projected on my helmet. 
The elegance of my solution was based around the binary codes for this universe, zero's and ones. If you followed it to it's natural conclusion it was paradoxical and to enter the anomaly one would have to transcend our own singularity. My computer was correct, I would be the first human to die in hundreds of years, my death would be frowned upon by my professors. I would be dishonoured by everyone. Yet in order to penetrate this boundary and understand what this Star Man Star is certain sacrifices had to be made, the more non rational the more powerful so as my last gasps of oxygen filled my lungs I let go of the fear that kept me tethered and reached out into the boundary. 

I felt myself passing through an invisible skin, an unfolding presence as my body shifted and entered through into new laws. The sun was vast, not unlike our smaller suns back home, although we were blessed with three. One sun would make things strange, here the seasons would be shorter, even keeled, more predictable. The planets would struggle for life, there would be less diversity I imagined. The Star Man couldn’t sustain much in the way of life with only one sun but it was hard to understand it's purpose without engagement with it's lifeforms. I looked around me, everything was profoundly beautiful.
The Star Man spoke again, I could never be certain if it was outside my own mind or inside but it was certainly intelligent and welcomed me warmly.

'The 3rd planet from my sun seems to be the sustainer of all life in this system, I've prepared the way for you but it will be difficult. You will feel pain, suffer and the rigours of an emotional life but you will understand as you age, the meaning of of it all.'
'I just want to know who you are, what you are?'
'You call me Black Star, yet I was a man, I think. Sometimes I don't know who or what I am. In the end, the only thing that matters is who are you.'
'What do I call you?'
'I seem to have many names depending on the point of entry you manifest, but I think I'm Jones.'
'But what do you call yourself?'
'That is something you can tell me in time. We are nearly there, look upon the blue planet, it's quite beautiful.'
And indeed it was. Technically I was dead, but everything was the same as before. I had my body, my mind, my emotions. I had memory and a hunger to know more. 
'The blue planet was striking, a radiant pearl in an ocean. I could see land mass and it's water, geographical features of topography. It had everything, oceans, mountains, wilderness, population densities and technology. Intelligence.
'This is where I came from,' the voice said, 'it was my home, it will be yours now.'
'Would I ever be able to return to my own home?'
'I think we all return home in time. But in this universe we have our limits. This is a place where logic and reason and science are not as advanced as your home but intuition, non rationale thought, creativity and magick functions and in order for you to understand us you must walk amongst us. Be open to the experience and embrace a new life.'
'I feel sadness, loss, my stomach hurts and my chest feels so empty. I think I  miss everyone, I have a family, children.'
'Yes, you are beginning to be human. That pain is what we call suffering. Humans suffer, for us life is suffering we must transcend.'
'Will you show me how. Teach me.'
'I have lived to do that. You must find your own way. Now, I must leave you. I have to take away your loss and give you the purity humans are born into. Of course here the wheels of karma operate, you will probably learn about this as you grow into your new body.'
'New body?'
'Goodbye Captain Mission.'
Goodbye Star Man. Thank you.'

Then I saw the explosion of light, and heard the strange sound of my new voice cry out. I came into the world crying. 

the highly irregular life i lead becomes somewhat unstable, moments like flowers crushed in a fable, dragons and unicorns slaughtered for medicine, people are chances in a game they are trapped in. exits sometimes lead to the way in, and sometimes the end becomes the beginning, ambassadors from far away embassy's, rituals and protocols i fail to value as i seek a source code. 
one's trajectory is half true will and half destiny, it can only lead to neverwhere so i return to what i know. 
the waves are massive after a full moon in march, summers dying light casts an ancient beauty upon the place where shore meets sea. waters bath warm, surf has volume and force and my sessions last several hours. everything else obliterates, nothing exists except the surf. it's almost similar to the floating sessions where time suddenly ceases and you enter a void. similar but the void is not the ocean. the ocean is in time, the float tank experience are outside. if you want to live forever float tanks are the way to go, but that's not really living is it?
the surf is my pathway, it's inside my blood, i apply it to everything. some people have football, others fishing, some folk sail and others cook. 
philosophy sometimes finds you instead of having to go look for it. 

curses, it appears we may have to wait a few months before the judge hands down his verdict. i would have liked a swift resolution as this whole thing has been going on for two years. two years of bullshit and now it's going to last a little longer. it's beyond my control so i just have to wait, see what happens. 

everything but the girl, temperamental the album. it reminds me of london although i lived in sydney when it first came out, travelling around the city at 3am with agent stone. a strange ghostly vampyre in the company of the elf queen. we were moon powered with an upbeat soundtrack, disco biscuits and my never ending spliff. somehow through the faces and oxford street, kings cross vista all i recall is the moon following us. 

the work environment gets dumber each day, the staff are ridiculously stupid, i've never worked with a more pathetic group of people apart from the new girl whom i've struck an allegiance with. she is very perceptive. i'm very impressed at her observations. she's got it. 

stupid people are programable, i've worked out how to do this although i feel uncomfortable doing it. but i guess the obvious thing to do with such an unpleasant personality is to teach it a lesson. not that i want to teach it anything but it follows me around and irritates me. it pumps me for information, then goes running to the management presenting it as his own. i'm used to this from people but not quite to the extent this person does it. because when ever he has an audience he will degrade me. it's a futile pursuit as i always flip his desired outcome. 

that's the other thing about stupid people, they never learn.

anyway's i'll play with him for a while until i get bored, which won't be long.

from their perspective i am like a virus unleashed within their system. a sleeper with my occult background and expertise. i'm very highly trained and keep it under my hat.
there have been spikes in my time amongst them, moments where they see i am different, an anomaly. moments when they have had to move me somewhere else for fear. i've even been told i get on to well with the clients. yes, i don't care where they place me, for i know my purpose and destiny and it does not scare me.
i work amongst the fear, the dept. of fear, secrecy is how they get away with it, a massive strata of middle management covering up mistakes and leaks. pages of policy and procedures banks of gibberish posing as data. the dept. work on the economic rationalistic principles which is code for abolish the customer / client. so if you have a disabled son / daughter in a state run facility be warned, they don't have the clients interests at heart. 
sure it looks like they do, through smoke and mirrors. which is why in the paper today i read that there is an epidemic of abuse in care. this is not news to me. it's what my job is, to expose abuse. so as a virus in a closed system i have to hide myself well, concealed for years i observe, make assessments and collect information. as a virus i am evolving, each time i strike the host it adapts, either moves me somewhere else, degrades or humiliates me or changes my working conditions, specifically my roster.
or the system reenforces itself with the usual bureaucratic ostrification. it's a dumb system so it can't out manoeuvre me, it's run by stupid people who can't help but do stupid things. only stupid people rise within it.
so here i am, a virus. i have struck hard and now infection control races around me in panic. 
the clock is ticking and i'm yet to see them make a good move, one i can respect.     

wow, there surf was amazing yesterday thank you neptune, thank you, what a glorious day. best birthday present i could have, good waves. i did get a lovely gift from tez and jean, a moonstone. it's quite magnificent and comes with a pouch. i keep it near my bed but i'd love to wear it around my neck, although it's big and heavy. 

it has an intriguing strike, a diagonal band through it, i'm going to activate it next full moon. it's feminine and it's element is water so maybe a night swim ritual on the 16th of this month. 

speaking about moonstones it's time i re read wilkie collins classic. i had to read it for skool and although i enjoyed it i can't recall much about the story and lately everywhere i go i se the book. it's said to be the first detective novel ever written. come to think about it, i don't think the moonstone had a moonstone in it, it was just the name of an unusual diamond. 

it's my birthday, i forgot, my dad reminds me. fuck, i think, i can't be that old. mum talks about my birth, we both very nearly died, i was in an incubator for 6 months. it's strange listening to them talk about my birth, mum has the better memory, dad seemed a little vague, he did say i looked like a rat. mum talks about how i was rubbed in olive oil as soon as i was born by her parents. 'as long as you didn't drop me into the frying pan,' i joke.
when i am not working i surf, my time is very limited now as this stupid court case looms and i must prepare. i feel my appeal to top management has made some impact, these people will hate me for it but they have always hated me and to be honest i like it when they hate me. it means i am doing my job well.
it's been the best few weeks weather wise, i like the heat, the sun makes me active and productive. jean and tez have been to the reef and rainforest in queensland, they say they have had their life changed. that's always a good thing and i imagine that if the rainforest and the reef don't change your life then you have not really experienced them. i know my time in far north queensland changed me. i loved the place except the crocs and the fact there are no good surfing beaches that are safe. 
well it is my birthday, usually i do nothing. today i will surf away the day maybe read a little. 
i've just finished saul blacks book 'the killing lessons' which was excellent but saul should have published it under his real name glen duncan whom i have admired as a novelist for many years, even 30 years ago after reading his first novel 'hope' i knew he was going to make it.
i then read 'the whites' by richard price which was an excellent american police novel. after reading all that scandinavian noir a good american novel was refreshing, especially the dialogue parts. 
next up the sexy 'butterfly skin' by serge kuzneteov, if i take a train to work i may be able to finish it sooner than later. sure beats reading affidavits.

i've always loved the detective show luther and for some strange inexplicable reason realised my work life is similar to his. no i don't solve serial killer murders but i do work within a dept that views me as the outsider and my methodology is the same as luther's. i don't have the red headed psychopathic brilliant and sexy stalker that bails me out but i guess i walk the same line. 
luther is a loner, he's driven and both defeated and champion, lost causes and the ignoble compromise. he's got nothing to loose, nothing to gain but that spark inside will never diminish even if it means self destruction. luther walks into the fire and comes out burnt. i like him, always have. he shambles along, his mind is precision, he knows there are limits and he pushes them. 
i like that he has a wisdom, a quietness, a self confidence that disintegrates under the weight of system abuse. in my own dept. there are villains, mostly operating on an unconscious level because they have no insight into the clarity of their own effect upon the clients whom have mental health issues. to me the staff are the ones with mental health problems, ego driven, vanity, competition, jealousy, a refusal to evolve or change, a power and control issue that they will never address, they justify the grossest acts of negligence and spin it. they hate me, it drips of them like saliva would from a hungry vampire at the foot of a virgins bed. i'm the enemy, my standards are to high, they undermine and sabotage every single step forward i make. a paranoid schizophrenic i spent 5 years building up a relationship with is told by the manager, not to trust me. for weeks i had to deal with the confliction of this individual whom was wrestling with what he knows and what he is told. he hated me but couldn't reconcile it, manifesting in the most random outbursts of pain and suffering. from where i see it, it's torture but for them it's work. 
there's a lot more to this story that i will write about later as i process it all, it's vast, a dostoyevsky like novel. 
humans even when they are trying to be good are bad. we are corrupt and failures at humanity itself, for in these so called care places i've seen no care, only the brutality of bureaucracy and indifference to individual needs and concerns. some one at work said to me, ' you wouldn't want your child living in one of these homes?'
to which i replied, 'not if you worked in it.'
i said that to a man whom self confesses he has no ability to empathise with anyone, let alone clients he is caring for. i've had to make several notifications, saved a life and exposed some unimaginable stuff all to be humiliated and punished. i'm told i'm a drone and should not step out of my role. i guess it's lucky that i am no drone, i guess it's really lucky that i have a brain that can think for itself, that can be independent and not unquestionably follow orders, i'm lucky because if i were not and acted like a drone i would be like the rest of them. 
what a disgusting dept. the government should be ashamed. all it does is spend its resources covering up it's mistakes. middle management living the luxury life, while clients are lucky if they get fed a decent meal. fuck em all.
me. i'm going out in a swan song when i appear in court, those beans will be spilt baby. i'm going to stick a massive tube up the rectum of this dept and give it the enema it deserves.       

the ocean follows me as i take my visitors upon a central coast surfing safari. the water is warm, the sky burns, the sandy exploration of coastlines, roads that lead off the beaten track. there's a peaceful joy in the presence of tez and jean being here, i see through their eyes. they seem in awe of the whole place, which i guess is a natural response when you grow up on the streets of london's east end. i remember my own awe when i arrived in such a paradise but it's refreshing to experience it in someone else. i'm somewhat jaded nowadays, a washed up old surfie i guess. 

i show them my routines, the morning surfing, the papers, coffee, the chill out sessions at mission control, the soft candle lit evenings. they seem okay about it, tez teaches me a little guitar technique, oh my poor brain struggles but i get it although my hands struggle and are lazy things.
the time passes, my lazy days with them come to a close at newtown where we drink and be merry. i'll catch them again before they leave but i must get back to work now and focus on my burdens. 
i arrive back to work with the usual sabotage and backstabbing, the fucked up little games of impotent powerless morons drowning in some sort of professional jealousy. the idiots and deceivers who think they can get away with it behind my back. they use clients like people use cards in a poker game. it disgusts me and powers me onwards to fight. sick little human games of zombies. soon the day will come when i can expose everything and these worms will know what it feels like to not only lose their poker game but i will remind them they lost their souls a long time ago.   

i'm coming for you like a dark night
descending in your dream
i'm rising through the stars and space
things are never what they really seem
im sucking down your plasma 
drinking my fill of energy
i watch your eyes roll back
our kind of feeling kinda sexy
it's romantic notions like these
it's the bats and the bees
it's a bell at midnight tolling
it's the great un folding
we going to rise again
while the world is sleeping
there was some truth in shadow land
but not what you believe in

i'm the the answer to your prayer
slipping through your doorways
i'm the darkest knight in the pack
fallen angel from the strangest cabaret
i'm on fire with single sight
since you showed up on my radar
it's not the love that consummates
when blood and flesh and spirit mates
it's the candles burning black
it's the storm a raging
it's the desire that cannot be quenched 
it's the great reclaiming
we will rise again
while the world is burning
there are no promises to unmake
but eternity beckoning

always remember a witch is just a rebel in physics

punk caught my attention in 77 because it had a political edge i could relate to, it had a healthy distrust of everything in authority, it had an interesting allegiance with reggae music and it was energetically charged for changing everything, for the first time london was exciting, exploding with creative energy and vital. it didn't last and like the clash say, it was not long before someone turned rebellion into money but by then the cat was out the bag and the idea was seeded in many a young punks mind. bands formed with cheap electric guitars that were never tuned correctly, garages were filled with adolescent dreams, the record companies had no idea anymore. what was good. what would be a hit? what bands should they sign up? bands became random, many died an honourable indie death and some went on to become awesome, the stranglers, the clash, the psychedelic furs, the sound, alternative tv, magazine, the only ones, the au pairs, buzzcocks, slits, the pop group, x ray specs and the banshees. many bands just fell to the wayside but some became very interesting and really bloomed in the post punk years. i enjoyed the music of the post punk period but the energy had changed as thatchers influence strangled us all. 

in london everything was charged with an angry energy of youth, it was our time and we were not interested in hippie feel good words of peace and love as they became the very thing they protested about,   the establishment. we wanted to tear everything down and start again. destroy every column that it stood upon and lets take it from there. kinda stupid when you think about it as an older man but at the time it was easy to get disillusioned with thatchers plans. back then the left meant something, the left wing cared about people no matter who they were, the left wing was against censorship and supported the arts and also supported equality and fairness, workers rights and all that jazz. (nowadays the left are the fucking right with their overwhelming love of bureaucracy and controlling everything we think)

was it destructive, yes, it was. the punk movement said we don't need a fucking corporation distributing our records, printing our news, dictating our fashion, telling us what to be, we can do that all ourselves. we can just be ourselves. punk was about intent. 

it spawned magazine's newspapers, ideas, new forms of writing, photography and design, fashion, tv shows, hair cuts, politics, self identification, philosophy and music. seeing xtc with barry andrews at st albans club was no ordinary concert experience, it was like being in the centre of the atom watching it explode. seeing the clash play was a inspirational moment of what could be done with three chords and the truth, seeing the ruts break into a reggae song halfway through their set showed what rebel music really was. it was a great time to be in london. 

but while all that was going on bowie was in berlin recording with iggy. it was low that was released first. the idiot and low were embraced by the punk movement, bowie had a free pass which he had worked hard for and amongst my peers was respected and valued as beyond the industry of pop music, he was a serious artist and punk loved him. iggy was also embraced by the punk movement, many call him the godfather of punk but i didn't, i just saw him as a rocker from detroit who worked with bowie on raw power and now they had influenced one another through berlin, working on the idiot and low together with similar musicians and tony visconti as producer. despite the bones being worked on in switzerland and france these albums reeked of a west berlin influence where the seed was germinated. i'd always loved bowie and iggy's presence together and their influence created something quite different. a third current of creativity which felt origional. 
when i heard these two albums i was convinced this was the future. punk came and went very fast, it was dead in london by the time it hit america. punk was never a single sound or statement, it was an art movement, a do it yourself attitude. artists don't need masses of money or record companies or big publishers, you could do it in a garage, put it out on cassette, zerox machine your book or just dye your hair purple and make a statement. there was no intellectual philosophy, no wanking on about anything, it was classless and multidisciplinary, made by the people for the people with brains and the people of this age, they all loved bowie. 
back in new york there was talking heads, the ramonnes, television and patti smith whom embodied punk and though they extended influence to the uk in london punk was now dead.

but this new music had come now, it was impressionistic, hard almost industrial sounding, and the drums sounded weird. 
lyrically i think bowie borrowed from iggy stylistically at least, short phrases often made up on the spot. both albums were incredible. 
i was working in london, in a punk shop on covent garden. boy george owned a shop next door and i'd see him often ordering his tea. he was always wearing a big white gown and had make up on his face. one day he dropped all his lyrics and i helped him pick them up. around this time carnaby street was filled with characters, i'd have to stand outside the shop amongst all the clothes spilling over onto the pavement and watch all these people walking by. around lunch time i'd notice this orange headed geezer strutting down the street just like the little red rooster but he was skinny and had a ziggy haircut he wore chelsea boots and a tight leather jacket. his face would stand out from everyone else's and one day he came in and started talking to me about the rolling stones.
'yeah but i don't really listen to them much, i like david bowie.'
'oh yeah me to, you ever heard any of his bootlegs?'
'no just his albums.'
'i have a great one where he sings waiting for the man.'
'oh wow, i'd love to hear that,' i said in an awesome and sincere way.
'yeah my band are trying to learn it, it's not a difficult one and we do the bowie version.'
'you in a band?'
'yeah we are called the blue meanies.'
'oh wow, i always wanted to be in a band but i don't play anything.'
'do you sing?'
'i guess i could, never really tried.'
'we need a singer. why don't you come for a jam.'
a few days later i crossed over into south london and was met by martin at pekham station, where i was introduced to chris the piano player and his crazy old red vw beetle. i don't know how that car managed to sustain us, i still can vividly recall the way it turned corners, almost frictionlessly like a loony tunes car where the wheels stretch.
i can't quite recall whose house we jammed in but there were a few people in a room all making a racket, they did a stones song which i couldn't sing at all, then a bowie one, i think it was 'man whom sold the world.' that i could manage. 
i must have sounded okay as they invited me back, but i knew i marched to a different rhythm even then, my inner beat does not match the outer one, yet sometimes this seems to work, i dunno the dynamics of it but i do know for me, i just had to feel the love for the song, music and words and the bowie ones and lou reed songs were definitely inside my bones whereas mick and keef were martins musical influence. eventually there was an amalgamation of bands, we joined up with two brothers, a guitar player called tez and his brother tone. these guys changed our sound into something very dynamic, it was sounding more powerful as they made a great rhythm section. now these two lived in a big old house somewhere in south london and we rehearsed in their attic eventually getting gigs. the brothers were influenced by rhythm and blues so our songs were mostly old blues songs which i was crap at singing, but the few bowie tunes we did or lou songs i found myself feeling confident and managed to sing reasonably. it was not until we met terry and tony that we realised all instruments had to be in the same key so those two contributed a massive learning curve to our musical lives. i dunno, i was still a teenager the idea of being in a band was a pipe dream and even back then despite my enthusiasm in reality i knew i was their weakest man. my own ability was unique, i couldn't conform but those guys seemed to believe in me, martin was amazing, a very encouraging guy who on the sly was making plans to relocate to west berlin.
we had a few adventures in london, martin, chris and i, my memories fuzzy but they always involved soaking up some invisible bowie trail. we started to frequent the three tuns pub where he played and hanging out in bromley at the art collage. stupid stuff i know but what did i really know back then? i thought you could pick up a trail of some one and it would kinda lead you to them. i still think in those magickal thinking terms, it's very strong and often works. it leads me to interesting places, it led me to west berlin.
      

late night antics, cross the city electromagnetic forces ripple in invisible networks, i see the matrix on empty highways, super information everywhere, transmissions connect everything together in a sheet of white noise. short, medium and long the atmosphere is a web of energetic pulses. invisible tron. have to fly under the sound waves of man, the chaos sphere, they strip everything into a cricket chorus of informational overload. it comes and goes.  
out this late in my mirror suit, chameleon, predator alien skin, man i am picking you up on my radar. my moon flowers are standing tall, once a month they bloom into female princesses from some cosmic fairy tale. i weave past them on my balcony, under the palm trees and out under stars that shine. it's so bright moonlight washes over everything, the sky is alight with strange energy. invisible me, i sneak along past the fairy lands past the elves fixing broken things, past the sleeping pan. i am. 

well i'm in the thick off it, laid my cards down on the table, let's see how the other side play their hand. ah, wait a second. i know exactly what they will do, they shoot the messenger. they will support their friends and keep the status quo because it reflects badly upon them. they will do whatever they can to put me in my place and keep me quiet, they will manifest a strange job description with fixed boundaries, they will minimise the abuse i expose while maximising my anti authoritarian position. they will stop me moving forwards, giving evidence and exposing their failure as a dept. to deal with the situation. however fate aligns with me, i am supremely confident that i have a good hand and i played it well strategically. the wheels are in motion, the game afoot and i will bring a light upon the shadow world of corruption and abuse. it's far to late to stop and far to dangerous to ignore. soon, perhaps in a month i will be able to talk about this. it's an incredible situation to be in. yet, it is perfectly serendipitous that i with all my experience the responsibility fell at my feet.

my dear friend ed sent me this and it's perfect for olde captains blog, so turn on, tune in and drop out.  

BOWIE - rehearsals for outside tour LONDON

this really is brilliant.

more surf, from dawn to dusk, the waves are warm monsters that come every so often sweeping along in rippled sensual pulse. the fin is attuned now, it knows what to do as it operates my body, it knows it's purpose is to transcend itself, it's time to name it. it's known as pod or fin but it now needs christening since it has become sentient. think i'll call it neptune after my mentor. 
so we surf, healing away all fractures, sealing auric leaks and fissures in energy fields. negative ions bounce around my skin, i watch them construct iconic symbols, i fill my centre with them, build up my internal reservoir. 
in between waves i frolic with the mermaid and dolphins, they leap around me in a ballet of joy, the sky brilliant blue and the sunshine of the moment spreads across all horizons. a perfect day.