No Rest For The Weird Kid

It's a mystery, really it is.

The last five months have felt like a million years. They've crawled by with mineral stealth. Have I been living each millisecond so fully that time, from my perspective at least, has been stretched almost to breaking point?
It seems so but, then again, I haven't slept or eaten properly for about a month and I've had not any sleep at all for the last three days. I mean it. I haven't slept one wink and that kind of thing can play funny tricks on an otherwise healthy and sane mind.
For instance: This morning the sky scrapers that loom over my hotel seemed to take on a gentle, rubbery, pastel coloured appearance, swaying softly as I lay on my disheveled bed staring at them with my dry bloodshot eyes.
It seemed like there was a world war going on out there. Choppers and construction equipment firing off in a staccato artillery attack. It sounded like "democracy" was coming or the Venusians had arrived in their huge plasma ships, emitting sub-sonic sound waves that would level the city in one final orgasmic pulse.
I was almost ready to dash to the subway and assume an heroic posture, but I took a cold shower and slapped myself in the face a couple of times instead.
God! Was I still really here? Had it only been eleven days? I felt as though I'd been here since the eleventh century or that I'd been smuggled into Kowloon inside an oil drum to be hidden away in this hotel room for collection later.
What was I? Was I on the run? Was I in hiding? Was this a reality TV show or was I a collectors item, a lost relic of some kind?...questions..questions...

And then the Jehovah's witnesses arrived.

I'd gone out you see. The stench of my own sin had gotten too much for me, so I'd staggered down to the Star Ferry Pier to look into the polluted water for signs of intelligent, but soft bodied life.
That's when Gupta appeared with his burgundy tank-top, stay pressed trousers, plaid shirt and black leather satchel.
I knew immediately what was coming. He had those tremulous orange flames of religion flickering in the depths of his zealots eyes.
But when he saw my eager face he backed off slightly. However, I wasn't going to let him get away that easily.
I opened the conversation with: "What do you think happens when we die?"
The roles had been reversed and he was thrown off guard. I could see him reaching into his heavy bag for a bible but I pulled out my notepad first and read him "The Miracle Of The Midnight Child," which he seemed to like...we're all looking for the truth the light and the way, aren't we?
In exchange he gave me some of those thin pamphlets that they hand out. You know the ones. The ones that have those awful, sickly illustrations of paradise, where heaven looks like a golf course in Palm Springs or a safari park. But he went away happy...I think.
About five minutes went by and then the Hare Krishna's turned up, two of them: Praveen and GoptiKantdas.
I like the Krishna's. They don't give a fuck. They just dance around and sing and you don't find them knocking on peoples doors at all hours trying to catch converts. They're party people, a real cymbal jingling caravan of love.
The food is great as well. None of those dry and dreary wafers or that watered down cooking sherry that the Catholics fob you off with. No. It's honest, wholesome soul filling food, served with a smile and a song.
It's not a religion. It's a conga-dance of consciousness..a cluster of karmic clowns.
And God does, after all, have a sense of humour...a wicked one it seems.

Hare Krishna.

Running For My Love

I haven't slept and dawn is coming now, in between the skyscrapers, as the last bright lonely stars blink out, one by one. A high and unbroken stretch of cirrus cloud covers Hong Kong Like a dome of raw silk. The air is chilled and full of the sounds of early morning city life. Car horns are calling to each other as engines rev and choke, filling the sky with invisible vapour - petrol fumes and sulphurous breath.
The city exhales as I drift in and out of insomniac apartment windows, a sleepless phantom that stirs in the soft breeze, like a wisp of chain smoke.
And there, high above us all, soar two eagles, perfect and serenely detached from us as we scurry about our narrow business, like seven million ants.
And my happiness is indescribable. Impossible to put into words. It can only be expressed through actions and deeds, through smiles and looks. Smiles for strangers, smiles to myself. Smiles in the noodle bar and smiles to the sky. Smiles at passers by and smiles in my eyes....the eagles are soaring in my heart and soul...

Fragrant Harbour Musings

Hong Kong is coming. I'm flying into a thunder storm, once again, and somewhere beneath the majestic flash belly clouds are the myriad lights of the fragrant harbour.
I check the weather and I'm on top of it. The lightning, like the electric daggers of a raw and primal god, rips the sky and threatens to burn out all the circuitry on this tube of flying tin...and all I can think about is someone I may never see again.
Flashing forward in time, unravelling events as yet un-happened, I imagine myself searching the crowded streets of Hong Kong, trying to catch a glimpse of gold in a mountain of coal.
How did I fuck up so badly? Was I cursed at birth to be frail and fail in love? Nobody really knows the answers to these questions, least of all me. But if I keep looking, who knows?
Like most searching in life I may only end up coming face to face with myself, which could be good and it could be bad...I'm flying into thunder. I was made for nights like this. Only a true believer and romantic optimist like me, with his pockets full of air, could ever be up to the job. Those richer and wiser would walk away from all this unnecessary stress and ask, wearily;
"What's the point?".
But not me. I know full well what the point is, but I cant go into that. You either know what the point is or you don't. It's either in your blood and bones or it's not...

Do I thrive on these emotions? I'm not sure. It's a bit like walking through fire - you just can't stop to think about it for too long or you'll burn, so you have to keep going. Suddenly you find your calling, your mission. The world takes on a fable like quality and meanings and reasons appear everywhere where once there were none. That's when you realise you have a destiny and flying half way around the world to buy Jasmine tea for someone who appears to detest you seems like the most important and valuable thing you could do. 

The whole thing is a folly, a mad endeavour - doomed to failure on so many levels, that only a prime idiot would even attempt it, which made it all the more appealing to me because...because..well. And if just by attempting the impossible I could find some way through the hidden veils of this illusion we call life then it would all be worth it. And, of course, if I didn't try there would be a whole shit-train of regret to cope with.

The impossible is improbable until it becomes inevitable.

At last! A cigarette. In fact I'm smoking two; a tailor made and a hand rolled. All I need now is a cool pastis and I'll be able to think seriously for a moment.

(There was an eerie mist over the airport. Visibility was down to zero as we made our approach. I felt sure that we would crash into the sea. Some people actually cheered with relief as we landed.)

In the midst of Kowloon I feel as bright as the neon lights that cascade in abundance from the tower blocks like the electric foliage of a fluorescent hanging garden and over a bowl of shrimp and noodle soup, I reflect on the strange twist and detours that life has taken me along in the last few months.
I seem to have gone from being simply happy, living in the south of France to being extraordinarily, ecstatically happy and in love, returning to England and plans, followed by setbacks then disaster and heartbreak and then to Dim Sum in Hong Kong.

Melting pot doesn't accurately describe Hong Kong. It's more like the place is on a rolling boil. 

Life comes bubbling to the surface in the form of Pakistani tailors dishing out business cards and handmade suits along with hashish, opium and fake Rolex watches. It's like an electric aquarium in which we all swim about avoiding the sharks whilst looking for bargains on which to feed.
You get the impression that traders are almost ab-sailing down to the street from the high and dishevelled towers of light to sell you "anything you could want sir".

Ouch! Last night I got pirate drunk and tore around central with my fair-weather, one day friend, James, form Oz.
Everywhere we went was crawling with Phillipina whores and chubby drunken city boys in sweaty suits.
The Phillipinas picked through my cigarettes as I told them about my purity. They didn't care or even understand. They just wanted money and soon drifted away when the realised I didn't have any.
James danced around to the music of the "HongKongJovi" tribute band as they wearily bleated out the hits of the 80's. Tequila after Tequila arrived at our table as peanut husks gradually formed a crunchy carpet around and under our feet.
"Why don't you just forget her mate?" Said James as he crashed into a mirrored wall, leaving a steamy streak behind him.
"Christ! None of them are really worth it are they?" he said, drunkenly gesturing around him.
I tried to focus on him but my brain was swimming around in my head like and ice cube in a shot glass.

I came-to in the back of a rusting red cab that was speeding it's way to Kowloon, a hundred dollar bill sticking out of my shirt pocket. (Thanks James)
I started to tell the driver about my love and my life. He listened carefully and wisely told me that there are plenty more shrimp in the harbour but I knew this wasn't true. Pollution has killed them all. There are only strange mutant ones left now and who would want one of those?
He had a wife, he told me, they'd been together for thirty-seven years but she'd recently had an enormous stroke that had left her almost totally paralysed and completely dependant on him. He had to do everything for her. He also told me that he had a 'fancy woman' but that was just about sex. It was his wife that he really loved and she meant everything to him. I wondered if he meant it.
As we pulled up to 'Mirador Mansions' I broke down and openly wept, putting the taxi fare into his hand as streams of 40% proof tears rolled down my hollow cheeks.
I'd seen some of the seedy side of Hong Kong, one full of sad-eyed hookers and callous, moneyed thugs. Where was the love? Out there somewhere? Oh where, oh where...

Just along the road from the Mirador were three Africans, sitting on the pavement. So I walked over and sat down next to them in the now deserted street.
One was a Somali, the other two were Nigerians, all were Muslims who had strayed from the path and each was drinking a beer trying to forget their fall.
"God is everywhere", I said. "Even in this beer, even in this cigarette".
We got along fine and spent about an hour and a half just talking and watching the world go by. Talking about God and Love. God and Love. Two hard concepts to explain.
Another lady of the night appeared. A Mary Magdalene in scuffed red leatherette stilettos and a frayed black mini-dress. She was beautiful actually. There was something incredibly kind and tragic about her dark, almost black gaze but only my heart went out to her as she offered me her body for the night. I just wanted to put my arms around her and protect her from all the shame and evil of the world.
"You good man" she said in a voice as soft as a breeze.
I took her back to my hotel room and fetched some money from my bag and then walked with her back out onto the street, the sun now rising gently through a haze of smog. She seemed confused as I gave her the money and kissed her lightly on the cheek, telling her I wanted nothing form her but a smile. I turned away and walked back to the Mirador, another weary, early morning tear welling in my eye...

Seven New Wonders Of The World

1. The Atomic Bomb.
A hell flower, a demonic bloom of poison air and burning isotopes. The fingers of it's deadly hand grasping long after the body of flame has died. Half-life into half-life, turning and twisting the very substance of existence into diabolic mutations.

2. The Concentration Camp.
The bodies heaped high, testament to cruelty and sadism, combined with the full and efficient might of industrialised nations. A conveyor belt of death. The knock kneed, toothless, hankering raw materials charred into grisly relics of moral defeat and hollow victory.

3. The Kennedy Assassination.
Beguiling, mystifying. The most famous snuff movie ever made. The sound of a crashing granite tombstone. The lid sealed tightly on the coffin of American democratic dreams. The iron fist grows bullet teeth and laughs as a nation tunes in to mourn it's own destruction.

4. AIDS.
Eternal love. A flame in the blood and a clock in the brain. A love that grows to devour. The wasting of the heart. Wheelchair nuptials and life support vows.
Corpora lente augescent cito extinguuntur.

5. The Internet.
Billboard Information superhighway. The archive buried beneath Nazis, Pedophilia, Anal Sex and the Illuminati. The lost thread in the labyrinth. Self publicising, self promoting, self inflicting. A haystack of needles.

6. 9/11
What television was made for. A day without adverts. The Birth of a landmark and a new century. History locked with the key to the bottomless pit and an endless war. The flag waving flames and the beat of drums stretched with human skins. A cannibal god dancing in the ashes. A tinderbox for the idiot son of a hyena.

7. The Iraq war
The blood prize hung like an ox heart. Bleeding sand horror show. Oil slick oblivion death ride. Hard hat incendiaries tread the slack children. Desert coliseum slaughter house rules. A media cats cradle woven in a prism within a hall of cracked mirrors.

sympathy for the devil

“America needs wisdom, not force. It had used force, along with the West, to its extreme extent, only to find out later that it did not achieve what they wanted.”
Saddam Hussein.
"If you want to execute me, I'll bring my own filthy rope."
Saddam Hussein.

And so, at last he has gone....Hung from his own gallows at 6:07am on December 30th 2006. Watching the final moments of Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was an uncomfortable and almost surreal thing. He reminded me of a visiting foreign dignitary being shown around a public facility of some kind, attentive and serious. Here's the rope and here's the trapdoor. But he had the look of a brave and dignified man. Those around him, hooded and hungry for his death, taunting him from below and waving their mobile phone cameras, seemed more like criminals, murderers, terrorists or even pornographers, than Saddam Hussein did. There was an eerie calm about the 'Butcher of Baghdad' as he faced his imminent death in one of the abattoirs of his own making.
"I began my life as a militant and a rebel." He said. "And I have no fear of death!"
Could we picture any of our present world leaders accepting their fate with the same resolve and sense of political theatre? I doubt it. Putin, perhaps. Chirac, maybe. But Blair and Bush would never refuse the blindfold and judging by their foreign policy decisions they probably wouldn't need one anyway. They would piss themselves with fear and grovel all the way to the noose. But for a main player like Saddam Hussein, who had immersed himself in violence and terror from the very beginning, it was like visiting an old friend and ally. He was dressed for dinner and looked almost handsome or wise and utterly remorseless, haranguing his executioners, proud and unrepentant until the bitter end.

The man was undoubtedly a monster but by no stretch of the imagination can we believe that any moral high ground has been gained for the new Iraqi regime or for the Bush/Blair axis by carrying out this execution. The video footage of the moments before his hanging had the look and feel of a rape movie.
The response from the British government, who are opposed to capital punishment, was rather muted. They called the hanging an example of democracy at work in Iraq and generously gave all the credit to the Iraqi legal system. Even George Bush, who had effectively handed his father the bleeding and still beating heart of Saddam Hussein as Christmas present, was business like and sedate in his response. Three years ago there would have been fireworks over the White House but, despite the news flashes on American television, the President wasn't even woken to be told the news as he slept at his Texas ranch. Later that day, in a pre-prepared statement, he said that the execution was a 'milestone' on the road towards Iraqi democracy but also conceded that this execution changes nothing in Iraq for the majority of people who live there. Democracy in Iraq, it seems, is the right to kill, execute and murder.

Saddam is dead but there is still no security in Iraq. Rumours of death squads still persist but these are the new death squads of the democratically elected government. Prisoners are still tortured in Abu ghraib and at the headquarters of Iraqi police. Corpses, shot to death and mutilated are found hooded and dumped on the streets of Iraq every day. Car bombs and suicide attacks kill scores of innocent civilians every week...but the oil keeps pumping....MISSION ACCOMPLISHED...Compare the number of deaths in Iraq under Saddam Hussein with the number of men, women and children in that country who were squeezed to death by the siege of ten years of sanctions imposed by the western powers. Compare the victims of Saddam Hussein with the uncounted millions bombed and Napalmed and starved to death by the United States and her allies since the end of the second world war.
The US has persistently supported, trained and equipped brutal dictatorships around the world for decades. Saddam Hussein's Iraq was just one of them but there were many, many more. Augusto Pinochet, who really did deserve hanging, for example. Put into power by a CIA backed coup on September 11th 1973 that murdered Salvador Allande, the democratically elected leader of Chile, and supported by both the United States and the United Kingdom for 17 years. Surharto, Marcos, Ceausescu, the list goes on.

Henry Kissinger, who used to described himself as a 'swinger' and personally organised and sanctioned the coup in Chile, has been responsible, directly and indirectly, for more deaths and wholesale destruction than we could ever hold Saddam Hussein accountable for and for that he recieved the Nobel Peace prize. This is the hypocrisy that passes for foreign policy amongst the most powerful nations on earth.

Let's not forget that Saddam Hussein was once an ally of the west. Our Dictator. He was supported and equipped by the United States and Great Britain throughout the ten year Iran-Iraq war during which he used poison gas, that had been supplied by western laboratories, against the Iranians and the Kurds. Yet it was only when he attacked oil rich Kuwait, apparently with the permission of the United States, that he became a top ten enemy.

Throughout his twenty four years rule in Iraq he managed to unify a deeply divided country. He built roads and schools and began a series of state welfare and modernisation programs that brought electricity and fresh water to even the remotest rural communities. His government also introduced free education for all Iraqis and addressed the huge problem of Iraqi illiteracy with great success. He created one of the most modernised public health systems in the Middle East which earned him an award from the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
His regime was one of the very few secular and modern regimes in the entire region. His Pan-Arabic brand of Ba'thist socialism was a sworn enemy of the religious fundamentalism that had taken root in most other Arabian countries.
Politics is always about expediency and Saddam Hussein, who had been such useful asset for the west for so long, had just ceased to serve any useful purpose. He became an obstacle standing between Iraqi oil and it's expropriation by western oil interests. He didn't fit into the new geopolitical world view of the Washington Neocons and their Project for the New American Century.

In death Saddam Hussein has become an online phenomenon. Footage of his execution is widely available on the web and is drawing more and more hits as each day passes. There seems to be a prevalent attitude that because it's Saddam Hussein being executed it's somehow okay to watch but if it was video footage of even an unnamed dog being hung there would be a public outcry. Perhaps we should have no sympathy for him at all but, regardless of what he represented and the terrible things he did or ordered to be done, he was still a human being and as such he deserves at least a little dignity in death, otherwise we have become as heartless and ruthless as our so called 'enemies' and our fight becomes even more pointless than perhaps it already is...