i am in collaboration with a friend who wants to write. she is obsessed by crime and like a lot of australian girls seem to read a lot of true crime books. 
i suggest two characters  her and me, the female is a hard drinking, hard fighting, hard talking aggressive alpha female who possesses all the qualities of a male whereas i am the quiet bookish introspective loner. more female. 
the inversion of roles goers against every modern drive in fiction, especially as the female is a husband basher.
my writing partner will write the crime scene. i will add some flourish and conversation to introduce the main characters. 
let's see how we progress.

not quite the soft focus not quite the hard, things slip in and out of some points in time and space, flickering existence, fluttering life. i don't know anymore, i want to let it all go, just exit stage left and take another part in a new play but the script says i have  more lines to speak so i will have to complete the performance.

north korea is shooting missiles across the islands off japan, it is a reckless act of defiance by a mad dictator. with capability to launch anywhere and strike the american heartland i imagine there will be some kind of retaliation, there has to be, it's the right action to so much provocation. japan has no army, no war machine, it is dependant upon it's allies and in many ways it is the front line along with the south who do have a military and capacity to strike back. 
complex games in the sea of japan. butterfly wings ripple cause that may effect australia but will certainly provoke an american move. 
hang on to your self.  

up before the dawn, i slept deeply in a soft night of vermillion dreams. the episodes all fall from my head like strange foam bubbles, filling up the void. when i walk down it's still dark even birds are not awake. 
i drive down to the ocean, watch the sunrise. i sip on a coffee and feel the stillness, the gentle splash of tide, the wind circulates, my heart beating strong. 
life without pan.

the days of night, the september country, the forgotten memory, the ironic state. the mental catastrophe of variations in inertia. spring heeled mission, the limehouse captain, captain tripper, the cockney reject, the prodigal sun.
walking along the beach with my friend who is wrapped in salvation i look out at the water, still and gentle, calmness tranquility waves caress my skin like the warm kisses after sex with an ocean nymph.
the dying winter sunlight on the cusp of spring, crisp surface tension stretches out to the horizon, in the distance a shoreline north. 
we have walked a long way, up the strange place they call skillion, to the lookout where the wrecks of many ships are detailed in stone. sunken treasure, like all good rewards awaiting discovery. 
     

twelve hour flight, a marathon jaunt from the nasty technological security systems where my prized mint sauce was taken by a fucking robot in uniform to kuala lumpur where they steal a tiny tube of tooth paste from me. but it's not 100mg i protest. rules he says. but i already had it approved by the uk customs and you guys when i checked in. rules, he says. i hand him the 100mg and mutter stick the toothpaste and your rules.
the second leg of the flight was empty, i nab four seats and sleep the entire way arriving fresh. e tickets rule, efficient and stress free. my driver waiting for me.
mission control looks lonely. 
in the morning i head dow to the beach for my routine swim and coffee. it's brilliant, clean, fresh and sunny. the birds natter away, colour fills the skies, everything back to paradise. but i miss people, family i hung out with, jakob. it's a strange feeling.
i have a few days before i get back to work. a few days to work out what comes next. 

wandering back from hackney, i see fragments of a london left behind, drunk girls falling out of cars clutching their cans of special brew but letting go of any dignity, shrill broken cries of desperate attention, lost souls almost ghosts. jake and i avoid the drama, we dance on peripheral, he goes off to work while i follow my nose down brick lane to the bagel shop. brick lane, half of it traditionally trendy and cool, the other a dump, derelict weary buildings cold and damp penetrating the fabric of culture, curry houses ad infinitum, dodgy looking taxi companies fronting for the some bangladeshi cult. the massive city looming over my head reminds me london is a saudi city. economics always wins, govts always sell their soul, it's the devils business, politicians sell their soul and then your country. a global problem far to late to unravel.
in rough trade i hear some music played loud, it's got something familiar about it, something interesting. i ask the man who tells me it's an australian compilation of electronica. ironic, can't escape the place. although i consider myself english i cannot vote here, neither can i vote in australia, yet i have now lived over half my life in australia and feel less connected to the uk than ever.
later i find myself in soho, my old haunts, wadour street, brewer street, all cleaned up and looking spiff, nice niche shops, trendy well dressed individualistic types, jazz man, it's like watching jazz sprawling out in three dimensional space, i like it. this tiny area will always be my london. 

it's tricky, being back here a city i never really liked or thought of as home. certainly not much to keep me here, and in my final week i actually look forwards to returning to sydney.  
the uk is pretty much the same as it was when i left, class structures more intact than ever, the peasants lorded over by their masters. people here respect doctors, lawyers, people who own four wheel drives, it's a city ruled by old gods, dark ones, their impulses radiate through the bones and nervous system of anyone unable to defend against these entities. magick is strong here but it's corrupted, it's violent and stupid, manipulative and weighted by history and it's possessive ego.
I've exhausted it, it bores me. i have picked up various books i needed, done my duty as a son and felt somewhat done with it all.
family life here is different, i am grateful to have spent some time with my father, he's grasping for reason in an unreasonable world, he's open to the other world and invites it in but dogma makes a sabotaging guardian at the gates.
for an old man he's sharp, not agile or mobile as i would have liked but his mind is lubricated with good stuff.
still ever apocalyptic dad watches the news, wondering if he will witness the inevitable come to pass.

No News from Nowhere

Nothing happened between the days, just the family circumstances of old age parents going through their dramas and filling their days with tea, food and supermarkets. Banal conversation about things I no longer cared about, strange neurotic babbling and reversions, routines and fear.

Everyone seemed trapped in their time space co ordinates, it was not liberating and that was obviously why I stood out from every part of the experience. It started in an argument when I arrived.

For some strange reason my legs from knee down had turned bright crimson, in a pattern that was similar to a giraffe. My mother came with me to the Doctor who referred me to emergency at the local hospital.

They quarantined me. I sat outside a doorway while the Doctor put his tight elastic surgical gloves on. He had left the door slightly ajar and I couldn’t help but notice the disapproving look he gave me when he saw us. I guess he was not used to wild unkempt hair with feathers dangling down. He was not used to seeing people in psychedelic tee shirts with the sleeves cut off and reading a book called ‘cryptonomicon.’

He invited me inside and my mother joined me. He asked me a list of questions which my mother answered. I interrupted and said to my mother I was capable of answering questions about my health history better than she would as she had no knowledge of me from after age 16.

The Dr. Continued with his questions.

He requested I lay down and started inspecting my legs. He seemed baffled and asked if it hurt. I shook my head, ‘No, not at all.’

Then he nodded and asked if I took drugs.

Now I do smoke a lot off weed but I was never going to confess so I said, ‘No.’

He asked me later if I took hard drugs. I repeated my answer and wondered if he was serious.

After taking a few basic tests he informed me that I was on drugs. I corrected him that he was wrong, and I do not take drugs. He said he had never seen anything like the marks on my legs and that I should take antibiotics. He wrote the script and charged me.

As I walked out my mother said to me, in all seriousness, ‘You look like you take drugs, everyone thinks you do.’

Now I should have let this pass but my mother is an impossible woman to deal with, her irrational mouth often emits the most bizarre and ridiculous comments.

‘Everyone looks at you when we walk down the street and thinks you are on drugs. You dress like you are on drugs, your hair is like a drug addicts and you talk like one.’

The barriers are broken and it floods out from my mouth a barrage of self defence against anti logic, I should have known better.

Later at home mum and dad break out their medication box and show me the horde of prescription drugs they have, literally hundreds of blister packs, tubes, and foils. Lotions, creams and tinctures. They even have the antibiotics I have been prescribed.

And I am the drug addict!

complex constellations require a slightly better perspective, navigate a path where the complexity becomes elegant. it's a neurological magick. 
i've not always been a yellow magickian but lately i find myself floating towards this concept. i have no interest other than selfish when it comes to the black skools, for they are only interested scepticism of the white skool.
the white skool itself aspires to revere god, or whatever that intelligence is, but the yellow is detached, it keeps it's understanding internalised and examines them as he goes, which is the way of the scientist i imagine, no conclusions, only observation of the observer. 
i have learnt, never react to changes. always respond in a considered way, over a period of time. time in an ingredient magicians often forget to include in their will because one should never focus on a result, but it needs to be taken into account because the expectation of a fast result will disappoint. 

i have infiltrated the structure, it's weakness is it's strength and its strength is its weakness. one would imagine that this type of tolerance rate would create some equilibrium but in a universe where  matter is on a trajectory with entropy we have to investigate the weakness.
the stronger the structure the stronger it's integrity. this applies to non physical things as well as matter. an idea must have integrity, which means it must translate from imagination into some tangible form. there are no political forms that will survive, democracy is broken and slips further towards some other collective agenda, socialism, fascism, technocracy. 
the religious beliefs are equally volatile, built on lies, half truths and misconceptions. 
they fight for control, control itself is explosively unstable. enter a struggle for control and you may find yourself loosing it just by taking a side.
there are a handful of techniques that have survived time, and human pollution.
the basis of art is shamanism, from which techniques analogue to magick have grown, these last because they are unconscious castings, often thrown out into the world without much intellectual consideration. dreams come true.
modern magick attempts to rationalise and formulate the process but there is little point, for in the magickal universe time has no place. the event you cast may happen at any time, it may even of happened at some other place in someone else's life. it may never happen. however all unconscious wish fulfillments end up in someones future. 
calibrating this technique is the science of magick.

i've always found yuri bezmenov one of the great political minds and strategists. here he is. listen hard.

 

london. the headlines are splashed across the streets, the mad crowds, a horde of multi ethno tribes all being polite yet seething under the surface, it's a j b ballard story bursting at the edges, supressed tensions spilt the infinite possibilities into one chaotic resolution.
now, the new fashion amongst the young are the savage acid attacks that seem to result in the theft of a few mobile phones and scooters, mopeds and cycles. yes, a gang will approach a target who is just minding their own business and throw acid into their face while stealing whatever they can. i see faces burnt up like scarred war veterans under agent orange, it's just business as usual in the city, a spent police force can't offer solutions despite the millions of surveillance cameras. the perpetrators are all young men, not even reached puberty in some cases. it's a system in decay, something is seriously wrong with the host if these types of virus run rampant.
 
i walk along the dark streets, i have found walking at night less traumatic than day time where i am exposed for all to see, like some circus freak with a day pass into the community. my skin deep plasmic red, violently radiating it's strange aura.
the dark clouds forecast rain ahead but for the moment there's a reasonable yet unusual humidity in the air. i like these nights, a scattering of people wandering around, the traffic moves through the arterial roads and the pulse of london throbs with it's vital life signs.
i think i am on a side road, quite close to my parents home, i am looking for stars but london's ambient light kills the natural sky, smog and pollution keep the universe at bay. 
i can smell the danger first, a strange overwhelming flood of pheromone activity, assaults me with some brutal force. my spine tingles and the strange patterns on my skin begin to glow. 
out from several directions they came, shadows, hooded and lithe but it's the glimmer of blades that reveal their intent. 
knowledge, understanding, action, it all comes inherently within my new skin, a movement behind me, the elements are disturbed, i spin around and catch the mans arm as it swoops down dagger in hand.
the truth is instinctive, i surrender to my strange new skin, let it do the work. there are movements, swift and gracefully i spin around and face three more of them. they look shocked at the fall of their comrade but are not unenthusiastically seeking revenge. the glimmer in their eye is fear but also madness, and then horror as they see my face.
i've already won this battle, my skin takes care of them, it's over instantaneously as i find myself standing over their broken bones and blood. it's impossible not to be overwhelmed by this stigmata, this strange new power. i gaze at my arms and hands, the pulse seems to fade and the bright glow begins to dim.


 
           

i have a strange affliction, a terrible skin condition, a giraffe pattern of bright coral like maroon overnight appeared upon my body. highly noticeable for it's vibrant sheen and gossamer like finish as it reflects the summer light in my home city as i stand upon my parents balcony looking downwards at the train station and the disembarking passengers at the end of the jubilee line. it was not unexpected, i have always reacted to returning to london in strange psychosomatic expression.
once i couldn't even walk, pain searing through my legs every time i attempted to take a step or even stand upright but this time i am mobile and move with unusual grace and stealth. however in public i am the freak, like the tattooed man, or the monster, the alien being who magnetises attention of all. even children in their prams gawk at me and then burst out crying in terror at the hideous creature they see before them.
yes, i disguise myself as much as possible, i even wear long pants instead of my board shorts, i wear a neck scarf despite the warm evenings and i attempt to cover my face in sunglasses and a low brimmed hat, however up close you cannot fail to see me, in all my awful naked truth, a creature in the shape of a man.

choices are limited, i could have flown straight to london but i would have arrived a mess, drooling and dribbling like a jet lagged clown in a sarong balancing suitcases through the rush hour commuter chaos, instead i thought five days in bali would alleviate my stress and the anxiety i have accumulated in my physical form.
it worked to a point. i took myself out of the balanese tourist areas and into the more remote areas, in the jungle, tiny beaches, remote villages and no connectivity with anything remotely civilized, nothing much to do except watch the sun rise and set, get massaged and eat papaya.
my balinese experience was amazing, scooting around on moped, surfing in warm water and generally finding myself loosen up again, as balanese hands released the knots and tensions trapped within my flesh, using hot rock technique, bamboo and lots of oils, certain pressure points setting free traumas and negative experiences. it was very much like returning to my original self. i can recommend to all people seeking some sort of healing, bali is cheap, it is effective, it is real and it is a memory to treasure. i fully understand why bowie asked for his ashes to be scattered there, i would want that to, bali culture is easy to love, rich with friendly islander hinduism, the locals are beautiful and friendly. it's a simple place but deeply traditional, deeply joyous. 
yes indonesia presence is there, casting a shadow upon everything but that's all the more reason to visit and support the natives.
when i did return to town connectivity ruined my bliss.


sadness.

i move to malaysia, eat a hot laska and jump on-board a aircraft bound for london. i catch the train and alight at my parents. i feel okay, still relaxed and healthy, my body feels vital and motivated. the next day i set off to meet jake in the city but get misdirected and end up having to walk for hours (thanks google maps) when eventually i see jake i am exhausted.
we eat dinner out at a turkish place, there's some kerfuffle over pizza and pide, the waiter has an attitude problem, something i notice here more and more is the way people like to stick their nose in other peoples business and have their say. it's quite unsettling, people making assumptions, telling you what they think about something you are doing, or saying. an example is at the supermarket i buy a pair of pants and after paying ask if i can have a plastic bag. i'm surprised when they say i'd have to pay for it, and the woman in the queue says, 'you ought to know that you pay for bags.'
'well lady, i don't live in the uk so forgive me if i don't know that'.


the next day i notice my legs are infected with some sort of strange red colouring upon the skins surface, it's not itchy or scratching but it is bizarre. a criss crossing of strange shapes bright blood red have formed like giraffe patterns all over my lower legs. everyone tells me i need to go to hospital. 
the intake officer quarantines me.
the doctor repeatedly asks if i am on drugs, he asks me the question over and over again, he asks me if i drink and won't believe me when i say i don't.
i get in a huge fight with my mother who seems to side with the doctor.
the upshot is i am on antibiotics and some other medication.  the doctor had no idea what was wrong but suggested the antibiotics to fill his quota so he can have a free holiday paid for by the pharmaceutical company. he also says my blood pressure is high, mmm, i think, yours would be if you had a stupid doctor repeatedly asking if you were a drug addict. i felt like telling him there was only one dealer of drugs in this room and it was not me. 
so i'm in recovery mode, trying to relax, resting my legs, and reading my book.        

countdown the days, the final program as heat is sucked from bones, birds struggle with flight and fish are in a state of deep freeze. my pond life is a solid state, my home life is a state solid. nothing can move in the permafrost of winter. even time is frozen. decay defeated in the snap freeze of the moment.

all we wanted was that frozen now, the naked breakfast, on a spork bending with natures psychokinesis. ever thought about that fraction of deep freeze. 
adversity is opportunity, as an old friend told me just before he died. he was incorrect, it's a chance at opportunity and if your well trained in some buddhist or magickal techniques a choice. 
my mind flies free. it weaves through time and space, it seeks and finds, but is never trapped, it is free from all these equations of physics and philosophy. through the needles eye we all pass, once in a lifetimes transmigrations. passing on with full consciousness, it's improbable but not impossible.    

i wake up pretty early, it's still dark as i drive into the sunrise at terrible. it's intense colour, these winters days have a certain clarity, a sharpness about them. the definition of things becomes much clearer in winter light, less distractions. 
on the beach the sun shines across the water, each drop a crystallised future, quantum foam, no surf. a few swimmers out there pushing through the temperature, not me, i'm wrapped up in layers of warmth. the sun now eats through me, so good for my bones, my skin slightly burning, on days like these i feel alive. 
that's a good thing, as i take my breathes seriously. you never know when it's your last.

memory from yesteryear- outside i'm walking along one of those quaint english roads, where the houses are far to close to one another, where the width of the road is slim and narrow, where the some sort of strange soft blizzard falls, the trees have no leaves, just black frozen nerve endings meeting a dull grey sky today, the transmissions of a cities synaptic messages are dead ones, decay. nature suffers in the extremes, it's far to cold for polar bears and penguins, the city has it's own wildlife, the wild londoners, the gangs off ethnic tribes, the wailing police sirens, the old people in their rented rooms smothered in blankets as they fight winter in spring, old bones clasping a mug of tea that only has one direction to travel, colder. 
the fashionistas, the young good looking europian set, the glamorous, it's all here frozen in my moment as i walk through the scenery.
later i'm helping my mum shop, driving a small car around for her, the traffic is chaotic but we end up in some sort of massive supermarket, a hypermarket, my mother pushes a trolley around it talking to anyone who listens, and if they don't, to herself. i am attempting to help but my back injury makes movement impossible. 
i notice these shops are filled with unfamiliar products, and the familiar ones are very cheap, mangoes, here sell for much less than they do in australia (but they taste crap). how does that work? fish costs less?
there's a good range of products for vegetarians and vegans, there's a very good range of organic products and it's all really good quality, and cheap. australia we are being fucked over, free trade agreements, no competition and dumb politics has meant the customer looses out. i buy a book, and some dark chocolate from south america. the strange sleet gets heavier, falls harder, i drive back, i make garlic bread for my folks and swallow some painkillers.     

pull out my travelling bags, it's a mystery what i take, some reading matter. some swimming stuff, a few clothes. always travel light, never know what you will pick up in strange lands, amongst the natives. i was once given a big black stick in a village where a masai helped me. he said it would be good to carry in the city and as i wandered nairobi late at night it did indeed offer me protection, and a sort of profound confidence. no one dared approach me without respect. it was like i carried thor's hammer. i still have that black stick, along with several other strange things i have picked up on my journeys. 
mostly i return with books. as i get older my adventures become less intense and provocative. 
i notice the sun is up, no clouds or rain and the warmth nutrition feeds my bones. i wander down to my cafe and read the paper, it all seems so silly, like i am detached from it all now. watching absurdist theatre, acrobats and mesmerists. 
at least my coffee tastes good. 

hello winter my old enemy fighting from outside, penetration is your strategy. i got you figured out after years of australian resistance, a cultural anomaly, i need a russian girl to survive this year, nothing else would do but i would settle for a canadian  i need fur and whiskey, a fire burns. that's the long of short of it. i need some heat from a soft body that knows how to generate it. 
may have to escape from this and seek refuge someplace groovy.

i often wonder what happened to the realians? remember them?

the last of the new age cults. 

i met a few realians at some palm beach parties, they were all very foxy older women, i was in my thirties but they must have been 40 or something, really successful switched on, actually come to think of it, very bourgeois. anyway they explained it all to me and although not as cerebral as scientology it did have the science fiction landscape of a great novel. 

i am always interested in the origins of these ideas, i would have enjoyed hanging out with crowley, heinlein, jack parsons and those guys. it was crowley who gave l. ron scientology, it was crowley's idea shared over a long lunch, he also gave that hack buckland a heads up for his witchcraft movement but discuss that with any witch and they deny it. 

raelism is different group, softer, liberated, hippy type stuff with a science fiction edge, cloning, extraterrestrials, the transference of consciousness mixed with a liberal dose of free love, positive vibrations, they kinda were really all waiting for the alien. whereas scientology was more of a process, healing etc but then at the higher levels again becomes science fiction. harder sci fi, technically a space opera, that bit is hubbards contribution being a science fiction writer. i would have focused more on the mystical, less science more fiction. just like organised religion but with an edge, i probably would have thrown in more sex. a religion based upon sex. now there's a novelty.