i was locked out of my head, it was raining, the clouds were low. i was in a cold climate, the birds were being aggressive, flapping wings, making shrieking noises and swooping in far to close for my liking.
a man with a dog came towards me, some small eastern european cars drove passed, the streets were empty otherwise.
the dog stopped and pissed on the side of the street, the man pulled the lead and the dog moved away reluctantly leaving a splash on a wall. 
i let them pass me, blending into the wall as best i could, i don't think the man noticed me but the dog looked at me curiously as he was dragged away.
across the street was a cafe, it was getting dark and i needed to access my memory, get some information why i was here. i bunched the collar of my jacket around me put my head down and walked across the big road. while i walked i searched through my pockets, some coins and notes, i looked to see the currency, it looked like greek writing, vaguely familiar. 
the cafe was tiny and it was packed with people, there was nowhere to stand let alone sit so i just squeezed through the crowd, i seemed to be sucked in and swallowed up, walking deeper into the cafe i realised it was larger than i originally thought, just narrow as i descended deeper inside to it's bowels.
as i walked in the people were all glamorous and beautiful, dressed in elegant clothes and adorned with jewels but the further inside i walked the more the people began to change appearance, their clothes less sophisticated, they wore costumes and some were naked, a dwarf in a ringmasters suit cracked a whip, some girls in heavy make up laughed and blew kisses as i walked by, smoke filled the room making it difficult to see but i figured i would continue down, deeper inside.
i came to a small table, where a lady in a silk gown seemed to be waiting for me, she gestured for me to join her.
someone in a long black suit brought us a tray of drinks, tea.
the tea pot was ornate, perhaps chinese but quite ancient and decorated with jade and emerald. small matching cups were placed in front of us, and two chinese fortune cookies. the lady nodded and then reached outwards to fill my cup. steam rose and carried with a scent of sweet wild spice that relaxed me and made me think of being in a warm bath, in a marble room.
'the tea will replenish your memory' she whispered.
i smiled and sipped it slowly but not before bringing the cup to the tip of my nose and inhaling the fragrance. the smell unlocked my time in the berlin salt bath. west berlin, a long time ago, i was naked and swimming in a big salt water pool with other berliners. i sipped the tea and remembered i lived in kreuzberg on richenberger strasse, in-between the bar and the church. 
i remembered my years there, it flooded back, der jungle night club where i perfected my one and only dance move the jungle stomp. those crazy nights playing indoor cricket drunk of whisky and stoned on hash, the strange bars i used to frequent, remember the one with sand everywhere. oh my how they flooded back, a tap turned on and even trivial things, a shop that sold coat hangers, ka de ve where i bought my organic indian tea, zoo station, nollendorfplatz and the metro. we used to hang with some strange cats back then. i was a vampyre getting up at dusk and heading to bed at dawn, i remember the cold winter and my quest for the heat but now, where are we now?

i skirt the outer limits, the peripheries, the edges, a shadow detective meshed into the occult and dark magicks, not quite there but not quite here. there must be solutions amongst all fringe sciences, philosophy and practices but each one is imperfect, most fakery, some just to dangerous. there is just one that appears born from the vast aeons of pre-creation, it comes to me from the gift of my dreams, the application of an old trick i used once in an incarnation i felt uncomfortable with. it's the reversal of time, to make it flow counter to my own, a uniquely internal alchemical process, a subconscious adjustment. i need certain materials to do this, preparations are required, a ritual to focus and sharpen the concentration. 
i complete my acts in silence, alone, drifting through space, through the unknown, in a void filled with my own self. the deeds are done, all is still.
there's nothing left to do but live, going forwards now. the future travels through us relentlessly, my photosensitive mind captures it all in a single image called now that changes all the time.
i took the train into the superficial city, somewhere in a suburb i gazed out at the streets and saw you, a single poster in the mundane world. it seemed to be misplaced, out of context with everything else. that profile and the stars staring at me as i took that very moment to raise my head from my book and look out the window. my book by the way was berg's 'zohar explained' which seemed slightly significant, but then again...
the city was murky, a mass of people wandering around under grey skies, children dragging parents along everywhere, religious groups out preaching from their book, hellfire and brimstone and cafe's over spilling with elegantly dressed peoples, i myself being discrete and blending in chameleon-like with the greyness, the un noticed. you know they fucked up my hair. no longer long and flowing, now more like some sort of scouring brush you would clean an oven with. i was furious at the stupid teenage hairdresser who pretended to listen to my instructions when i stated their importance. anyway it will grow back and i will manage but for the moment i feel self conscious and vain, there is nothing worse than bad hair.
i picked up a copy of norman mailers book 'moonfire' which i had been wanting to get for a long time. i first saw it about 20 years ago, in large format but today i noticed it reprinted in smaller edition so i picked it up. i'm still reading, 'limit' and halfway through bergs book so i can't start another just yet.
i waled into the chinese area of the city, hive central where my friend and i used to go. it's been spruced up, looks cleaner and there's hub of activities, hordes of people feasting on noodles and lotus cakes. it feels good for a moment to be lost in a crowd. on the train back i must have fallen into a deep sleep, woken as we passed some central coast waterways, i followed the rivers and estuary's, small battered houses, tiny unkept gardens, the occasional boat and then the oyster farms stretching out. the water was still, for a moment the sun came out and it all looked wonderful, like a imminent holiday.
    

rain steals my day, it's a beautiful thief, nourishing the environment and depleting my spirits, i can't surf in the rain. i want to throw a tantrum. i sit in my studio and look at it falling, drops exploding upon the palm fronds in morning light. big dark storm clouds black out, far out, it feels like sunday evening on a friday morning, and i feel like i'm dreaming.
later i pace up and down, in one room out the other, can't read as my thoughts are half formed. the 'limit' narrative gets mashed into my own. i float through space towards the sun adrift, isolated, alone, isolar, i think of... 'subterraneans' that magnificent sound, your vocals come out of the music like a ghost, man that was incredible. i see on bowiebook csm that stupid critic from the old nme who slagged you off saying, 'it's the last nail in his coffin' when he reviewed 'heroes' is now singing your praises. what a prick, i feel like writing to him and pointing out to his zillion followers what a wanker he is but you would probably have forgiven him long ago and found it funny, just like you did martin amis. 
'flash in the pan' ha! not many got the reference in blackstar, especially the video but i did, a very funny moment you always were a step ahead. i recall you saying how much you enjoyed 'money' i did to, i liked most of his books except 'yellow dog' which i should try again but 'zone of interest' is probably his best. 
anyway it's still raining here, and everyone says hi.   

i surf the blues away, every morning at the crack of dawn, each wave brings me home, each thought drifts over my head and out into the endless white noise of static. it's a strange feeling all this energy in the air and i fulfil my promise and work it out, work through it, work on it until it just works.
i surf, i think about you, i think about me, i think about death, your's, and mine. that's what it's all about isn't it? 

you went out perfectly man, with grace and style, and dignity and creativity and there's so much love for you, from humanity. 
i have only really played the blackstar cd, not listening to your previous recordings yet as i am still discovering blackstar. i did play 'in the heat of the morning' as i've loved that song for ages, the words particularly and i wanted to hear them again becuase it's a romantic song and i always think of you as a romantic despite some dark social commentary you kept a romantic heart.  
i see you stuck with your buddhism in the end. it's an elegant choice and top of my list although who knows what goes through a mans mind in the circumstances of ones death. actually i do. it's all about letting go, i understand it but nonetheless instinctively we cling to life. because we want to be with our children and family and people we love. because we are scared. just because. i'm so glad you were with your family. 
i played blackstar really loud at sunset, i didn't cry, even at 'dollar days', i like the way you rock out of that one and into 'i can't give everything' the sad songs now sound so strong when i hear them, so full of your strength. 
anyway, i feel this energy around, it may not last but it's there unifying people who celebrate your life. i can't think of many people who have ever done that, facebook is bowie book now and it means something. it means for a moment there is no hate, no division, no bullshit just a genuine feeling of love for you. that's what's happened man, everyone knows you now and everyone loves you.

the surf spits me out and sends me back to mission control where i start to clean up, i have a lot to look forwards to, a lot to do.   

     

Sigma Librae, Spica, Alpha Virginis, Zeta Centauri, SAA 204 132, and the Beta Sigma Octantis Trianguli Australis all very close to and pointing at Mars. That's a gift from Belgium but I think I speak for all us Earthlings when I say it's from us all. I heard they want to re name Mars itself, but I feel one cant play with mythology like that Mars has it's own place. I think perhaps this new constellation is more appropriate. It's shape is the ZIG ZAG from Aladdin Sane so as I am an avid star gazer I will be able to look up and see your stars man. That makes me happy. 

it's the sad days for a while here at mission control. i'm mourning you. i can't even eat (which may be a good thing) i need a big bag of weed for this one, while i comprehend this loss and this effect upon my very soul.

i know it will pass in some slow time and i know you would not wish me to stay in one place to long. 

i had a beautiful e mail from my father. it said, 'i know you must be heartbroken, he was your hero. god bless him.'

my old man! that's gotta make you laugh, he was always yelling at me to take that wretched ziggy stardust off the turntable so he could play his trini lopez albums ha, i bet that makes you smile. it was simple and heartfelt i guess but it was my mother that really surprised me a few days later when i finally spoke to her, she said, 'he was so much part of your life we feel like we have lost a son.'

my mum said that!

she reminded me how my room was filled with posters of you. i can't remember that, i know i had one massive 'low' poster but then my memory does have a few leaks.

this is a different kind of loss for me because i don't want to let you go just yet, i wanna keep hold of this moment in time and it's influence but a few days ago i wrote some words about light from the sun, and how it is a few minutes old by the time it hits the earth. it's the light from the past that enables us to perceive and motivate in the present and prepare for a future. so while i try to let you go, i'm going to embrace the light you left me and try to look for a better tomorrow. i know that's what you would want me to do so i'll just take this moment... to say... farewell, my hero. 

vale david bowie
strangely i'm about two hundred pages into the huge novel called limit where the main characters are travelling on the maiden voyage of the space elevator and they are about to meet a guest with different coloured eyes who is going to sing for them. the characters name get's mentioned about 10 pages later but by then it's obvious whom frank schatzing is writing about. 
there's a conversation where the inventor of the elevator and bowie are chatting and bowie reveals he's in his 90's only to be told, 'you look remarkably young.'
i read that this morning, and about seven hours later some one text-ed me bowie has died. 
i checked with duncan bowie's feed and it was legit. 

it's impossible for me not to shed tears, i can't even begin to write how much bowie meant to me and about a million other london kids growing up in the 70's. i must have been around 12 when i saw him on TOTP's preforming starman in glitter suit and with a star on his forehead. He leaned into the camera and thus my room, and said, 'i had to phone someone so i picked on you.'
from that moment my life changed.
pin ups, ziggy, aladin sane, i was getting my hands on everything.
i vividly recall getting diamond dogs and playing it in my room over and over until my parents went nuts, the vinyl wore down the needle, i knew the words inside out, candidate, sweet thing, candidate reprise, that whole epic was so amazingly cool, i went out and read 1984 straight away, i read burroughs and it was like education really began for me, my education. not some curriculum the government rams down your neck at the sausage factory, this was me hungry to learn everything i possibly could about this world bowie inhabited. it was my world now. 
bowie wrote our lives, he did. ask any london kid my age. without him in the world it's like our soundtracks just stop. thankfully i have an equal love of kilbey's music so let's hope he keeps knocking out the classics but with bowie i guess he came back, back from the dead. and then he died. it's stumped us all.
he gave us 'the next day' a retrospective mish mash of his past glories completely reborn into brand new songs that sounded fresh and brilliant, only the discerning listener would know what he had done, it was as though he had never gone away. and then blackstar. which now takes on a different light in the knowledge he knew he was going to die whereas we didn't have a clue. the lyrics all begin to take shape, reassembled in light of this dark truth.
i don't know what to say, i love bowie. i dragged my pregnant wife to see him twice over two continents, she wasn't such a fan but i wasn't thinking of her, no child of mine will miss out on the experience of bowie live, the thin layer of skin was exposed to many influences and the developing embryo evolved into a highly intelligent, beautiful member of the human race. 
i saw bowie play many times in many guises, and i saw the final sydney show, right in the front row. amazing. i took jaci my lesbian friend along and we screamed like teenagers and cried when he played fantastic voyage. 
but with his final album i believe he completely redefined himself yet again. not just lyrically and musically but also as a statement on the three most important aspects of humanity. art, life and death. 
i'm really sad, sad for him, his family and my selfish self because i want more yet i'm happy he died at peace and with the people he loved, and i'm happy that he came back one last time and surprised us all. lazarus indeed.
there's never going to be another individual like bowie again.
although i'm deeply emotional about this, i'm also very aware when you die it's not the end, you just transition to a different frequency. so david, i'm tuning in. god bless you.



  

obviously people will compare the new bowie album with his past body of work, it's important to apply some frame of reference, so i'll start by saying this fit's somewhere in the earthling / outside spheres but let me state, it's just a frame of reference because the blackstar album is unlike any bowies previous works and i think does a great disservice to apply that kind of comparison without acknowledging this is a unique piece of work. 
the other aspect is to make a big deal of the jazz musicians playing rock. yeah i guess all that's important if you need a genre but bowie is way beyond genre. possibly the only pop musician who deserves that status. there's never been any individual who has imprinted upon the lives of so many and spawned so many styles so lets just for this moment give him some credit and look at the music on blackstar for what it is, a new bowie album.
it's magnificent. there's so much going on in the mix even when you think there's nothing happening, there's layers to his sound that just keep revealing themselves. he's in good hands with visconti who had applied his magick here. bowie is not one man, it's a team of people contributing, the musicians here conjure some dark brooding, sonic tones, simple riffs become complex, drum patters shift and change like water, the sax drones and throbs, blurts and squirts, it's pushing forwards all the time over some incredibly organic bass. there's subtle tonality in here and then suddenly it clobbers you like a very hard massage but never assaults or batters, it's extraordinary.
then there's the voice. completely sweeping through everything, picking you up and taking you away, god, that voice is everything, it harmonises with itself, it shifts over itself like some personality disordered doppelganger, the song 'the girl loves me' is made up of two obscure languages, one being nadsat (from a clockwork orange) the other polari an obscure london slang for gays but bowie sings it with the kind of commitment only he delivers, it's a magnificent song which does remind me slightly of the obscure  'untitled no.1' from the soundtrack album 'buddha of suburbia' just fleetingly. 
the title track is saturated in darkness but suddenly halfway through becomes something else, a ray of light, a different song altogether only to return where it started from. there's talk that this song was written about isis, i think it may well have been, but at the end of the day it don't matter what it is about, it's opaque and could be about anything. it's a beautiful opening song, filled with wonder and mystery. there's drum patterns and loops and percussion textures that shift time signatures, there's saxophones going mental, there's bass lines that are unfathomable and even a space drum that actually sounds cool for once. the saxophone blurts and squawks as the whole song shifts into another phase and bowie does his vocal changes that make you wonder where he's taking you. that dark gloomy sound is now suddenly much lighter until he kicks in again with his backing vocals all dread and creepy. there's some great synth playing on here, just tiny runs that layer the whole song adding richness. i feel that what he may be doing is using free jazz styles but between electronic instruments.  
'tis a pity she's a whore' kicks in building to a cacophony of sax, keys and percussion. bowies voice on this as the song ends is great, he's really kicking back and just cooking along, almost enjoying the groove.
lazarus is my fave at the moment, possibly as it's related to the play bowie wrote and therefore connected to the final days of jerome newton, the alien who fell to earth. i adore it, music and lyric.

just like that bluebird. 
okay i can't write anymore about this album anymore, buy it. it's fucking the best few bucks you ever spent and you can listen to it on repeat and it will always be like hearing it for the first time. it's invaluable to anyone who thinks bowie is the bees knees, or those that wish to know why he is an important artist, it's all in here waiting for you. 

   

big waves, lot's of beaches closed, i sit on south avalon headland looking down at the hardcore surfers ride. they effortlessly slide down the face of giant forces of nature, make it look so easy. i 'm up there watching about twenty surfers wondering if i could body surf those waves but like clint says, man's gotta know his limit.
i see some old faces, chew the fat with some avalon people. it's nice but it also reminds me why i left. to much talking, sitting around drinking coffee although in those days i had friends, now i feel i don't really need any company. what's there to say that hasn't been said.
i think if i find a girl i wanna stick with she and i will just spend most of the time in silence. a silent girl. is there such a thing?
i leave avalon feeling i got out just in time, the place was a village now it's a town, the place was a community now it's a stage. it was magickal, now it's double bay and triple pay. the magick long gone. 

light from the past illuminates the present, the face of this moment is an explosion. all that we know fit's inside our minds, yet more is unknown outside. light is metaphor, it's not what we think, it's tied to a language we can only navigate with wisdom and knowing, a meditative practice perhaps but it's not simple buddhism or some eastern philosophy, it's the essence of a western tradition we like to reject in our fury and mindlessness. 

here i am bathed in old light, in the garden of an eden, in the temple of this present moment, thinking about nothing in particular. the abyssinian banana plants have such big leaves, they cast a nice shadow where i can sit in my cool spot watching the bees buzz and the big leaves dance over my head. the tiger grass gently configures in its corner as it grows protecting me from the intrusion of some yonder construction.

along i drift, sown streets and alleyways, roads and avenues, shopping malls, churches, farms, winery's, spas and wide empty spaces, sub tropical pockets of bushland and there waiting for me, the waves. 

true detective season 2. mild spoilers ahead but not enough to ruin the show.

despite the negativity surrounding true detective's second season i must confess to really loving it, not just for it's complex story but the characters and the semi mystical sub text, the soundtrack and the cinematography. 

the difficulty is that whereas season 1 was obvious in it's literary references season 2 is somewhat opaque.  

the original western book of the dead was written by a guy called  alfred schmielewski aka yogi narayana whom was also mysteriously murdered under unsolved circumstances.

the book claims that a yogi can leave his / her physical frame when they wish, therefore they have left the body long before it is dead. the body does not die but becomes something else. now things get tricky here as yogi narayana goes on to say, 50% of the population cannot transcend their own selves, they are not capable of understanding consciousness and therefore unable to contribute it. he mentions sufi mystic yazid who also says, ' humanity is asleep, few are awoken.'

at it's heart the characters are 4 completely different personalities one a gangster who are attempting to overcome their own natures and gain insight it what it means to be good while doing things that appear bad against a backdrop of corruption, madness, brutality and what one could be called evil. the world.

in the book of the dead travellers in the afterlife are given spells and enchantments to navigate their way into the afterlife and not the underworld. the underworld being rebirth.

clues are scattered through the narrative but they are not easy to find, it's all there. 

the last episode is particularly powerful, because emotionally we want these characters to make it, we know they deserve it and we know we have been their judges. 

i loved this tv series, such clever writing. so rare for tv.

 

“If then you do not make yourself equal to God, you cannot apprehend God; for like is known by like.

Leap clear of all that is corporeal, and make yourself grown to a like expanse with that greatness which is beyond all measure; rise above all time and become eternal; then you will apprehend God. Think that for you too nothing is impossible; deem that you too are immortal, and that you are able to grasp all things in your thought, to know every craft and science; find your home in the haunts of every living creature; make yourself higher than all heights and lower than all depths; bring together in yourself all opposites of quality, heat and cold, dryness and fluidity; think that you are everywhere at once, on land, at sea, in heaven; think that you are not yet begotten, that you are in the womb, that you are young, that you are old, that you have died, that you are in the world beyond the grave; grasp in your thought all of this at once, all times and places, all substances and qualities and magnitudes together; then you can apprehend God.

But if you shut up your soul in your body, and abase yourself, and say “I know nothing, I can do nothing; I am afraid of earth and sea, I cannot mount to heaven; I know not what I was, nor what I shall be,” then what have you to do with God?”

~ Hermes Trismegistus

more rain than a planet could possibly imagine, water world, the endless heavy downpour makes my night driving more adventurous as shriekback and i navigate our way through treacherous roads. it's incredible, like being underwater, even the wipers can't wipe fast enough. when i reach mission control i make a dash for the post box and see there's a parcel waiting for me. great, i can pick it up in the morning,
i hope it's the new bowie cd. i already got the lithographs. it could be anything, items come here all the time, from all around the planet. 
i just finished reading 'after the crash' by michel bussi a bestseller in france and as this now confirms that french culture is officially dead. usually i always find something positive to say about a book, i appreciate it's usually one mans single vision and hard work but this was just nuts. 
anyway i picked up a copy of limit by frank schatzing, it's a massive 1500 page brick of a book but it's already got me hooked. 
i'd read schatzings previous epic novel the swarm and enjoyed that so i can't wait until this kicks off. i'm enjoying all the information he includes, the science in science fiction. i mean who knew konstantin tsiolkovsky thought up the idea of a space elevator! according to wikipedia he seemed strange and bizarre to his fellow townsfolk, already making him very likeable in my book. konstantin is not really in 'limit' but his elevator is.

ah the big wet has arrived, treachery on the roads as cars upon the freeway scatter and slide, collide and spiral out. me i'm okay in my all wheel drive pleadeian vessel, the finest cosmic ingredients designed to withstand any planetary atmospheres, i just gaze out at the chaos before me and glide on by. 
insanity on the streets as the crashing force of water sweeps people away, out here in australia we are prone to extreme elemental forces. it's a terrible thing to have control wrenched from your hands by such simple things like fire and water. water here happens fast, floods in an instant, places get cut off, me i have to drive over water wheel deep where overflowing rivers spill out into the suburbs. many cars don't make it. i'm lucky.
the road home is treacherous, partly flooded, it's gone midnight and there are no street lights. the car is in lockdown, it's just me and shreikback. my headlights cast a circle of light into the strange foreboding bushland around me. it's tropical nature at night and in torrential rain not so friendly, the sinister plants  swaying wildly in the wind rejoicing in water, dancing with joy and thirst quenching madness.
the rain here is crazy, it's harsh and falls in a density i have not seen outside monsoon countries, raincoats are no protection and umbrellas are just silly. may as well wave a matchstick at the sky.
my street when i get there is covered in frogs, they hop around in my headlights as though on a stage. it's weird to watch and i slow down so i don't squish any. hundred of them hopping and jumping everywhere. 
eventually i reach the sanctuary of mission control.
i sit in the studio and watch the rain in my garden, the palms and ferns all alive and in undeniable ecstasy. i smoke a joint and watch them grow. 

dangerous moment, the speaker arrives, his words chosen are carefully... i don't fear the new world. what a mind blowing idea in an age of conformity, he speaks of national security and his aversion to google, he speaks of control and power but not in a deranged fearful way, he's curious like a cat, he knows we cannot go back. society can't hang on to an age that has passed, it's a new era coming and it's the conditions that need questioning. new forms of control can be new forms of freedoms. no nostalgia. he's a glass half full guy whereas i'm the water in that half empty cup has been replaced by poison. however i like his perspective, it makes sense. 
einstein says we can go forwards in time and offers two ways to do so, one in a spaceship leaving the earth and getting close to light speed and returning to earth. the other is a spaceship that hovers close to a black hole and then returns but his mathematics says we cannot travel backwards, those are the laws of this universe.

it's good to see val and olga on new years eve, we walk along terrible beach in the twilight amongst all the people, men in shirts, women in summer dresses, boys on skateboards and girls in skimpy revealing outfits. yeah that's blipped on my radar, the girls, all drunk dressed in hardly anything, the sex urge running hot. notice me, notice me, they are like beautiful coloured birds, dancing and cavorting for attention. it's incredible, i'm somewhat disturbed and aroused at the same time. the ocean looks good from here, fading light, beautiful surf, calling me to it's gentle peace and oblivion. instead we head for a small restaurant, with an unfortunate name. i like it, very simple style but very well done. simple menu, simple drinks, just right. the music is good, dub, groove, soft piano beats, i relax and settle into an easy evening with my friends. later we decide to walk, walk along the headland up to the lookout. the stars shine for us, i can see orion and the belt, follow it along outside of it's cluster by several million light years...to pleiades.
val and olga are telling me tales of strange things they have seen in the skies, we wander back to the town and hunt down butterscotch dessert for val but end up where we started at the little restaurant as new years approaches. 
as i get older i value mornings more, so it's early to bed for me, way before midnight. i fall into a soft sleeping state, where morning comes with it's solar power and kicks down the doors with a surge. i am reminded of the chariot from the tarot.