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Tue 15th Jan So here's the story of how I ended up in a Barcelona hospital last weekend, and a few theories about how I'm alive & relatively well given the circumstances, sitting here like a pudd'n for days on end waiting for my body to fix itself & bleed out all the wonk. Also, please forgive my ill-focused writing style on this occasion, I'm on quite heavy painkillers & some other pills, and my thinking is somewhat ovaloid. I'll revise my tale of the first day in Barcelona, as what wasn't relevant at the time has become a part of the story in retrospect. Having seen the Arc De Triumph & formed a load of silly opinions about that, I planted myself on the beach for a spell and walked through the parks in the sunshine. I found a hostel, put my bag in a locker & secured a bed for later, should I require one. I told the owner and his cousin I was going to find an adventure, and hit the streets. Within minutes I met a girl called Susana who took me to a local bar. We got on really well and she said she'd like to show me the gothic part of the city. I said I had some adventuring to do the next day but we agreed that the following afternoon we would meet. The next morning I did indeed adventure to some extreme perhaps, at one point being followed by an american couple spending their last evening in Barcelona together. They approached me with a strange request: Would I join them both for a threesome, as a way for them as a couple to try something new and mark their final night in Europe together? I know mate, thats weird even in my book right. I laughed and said we should have a drink together first and talk about it, so we found a bar and, amongst other topics, discussed the rules of our tryst - what we were comfortable with, any lines that should be drawn in advance, things like that. The girl, bless her, was up for anything, it was more me and the guy trying to avoid taking it in the ass that guided much of the debate. Before long I was just going along with the discussion for my own drunken amusement, saying things like "hey, why don't we both just fuck her separately?" which was met with responses of "that sounds good to me" from the girl and "hold on hold on, we found you here, we call the shots" from the guy, and somewhere along the line I ended up kissing the girl while he looked away, then we all exchanged details and they both left the bar in good spirits. Goodness only knows how long we'd all been drinking together for by that point. So, alone again, I downed my beer and went off looking for cool stuff, and this is where time passes by without my slightest recollection. I have only one further snippet of memory from before regaining consciousness in the hospital, six hours or so later, with a suspected fractured eye socket, a stab wound in my hand and bruises all down my shoulder & back. All I have to go on is this: I enter a room, expecting to see something there & immediately realise I've been tricked. I turn around and there are four men behind me, I say "I have to go now" and they laugh to each other in Spanish, then one turns to me, shaking his head, and says something like "You cannot leave here." I remember realising exactly what danger I was in, and furious with myself for letting myself fall into such a trap, I looked around for a way out at all costs. To my right was a window, and not knowing how many floors up I was, I decided that my only chance was to try to break through the window & jump down to the street below. And with this thought, my memory goes blank. I woke up in a hospital bed, fully clothed, with dark pains throughout my entire body, and a male doctor hitting me unceremoniously in the face to wake me up, and he was laughing about it too. My first words were "You are hitting me" and he walked off, laughing about it - what an absolute cunt that guy is. In safe, caring hands I clearly was not. I checked my pockets and still had everything that I'd left the hostel with: my passport, my camera phone, my wallet even had a 5 Euro note in it. I kept thinking that I must have got away somehow - surely if they'd knocked me unconscious in the apartment they would have taken my wallet at least? Then a thought struck me, maybe it wasn't the money they were after. With a lot of physical discomfort, I checked my body over, half expecting my penis to be missing or to find some damage to my bumhole, but oddly enough these areas were the only parts of me that felt entirely normal & untouched. So I was sexually unviolated, and I still had my belongings, so how the fuck did I escape four guys in a room the size of a small apartment? I have no idea, either I'm the luckiest man alive or I'm fucking hardcore mate. Personally I'm going with the the first option, which is further backed up by what happened next. Discharged from the hospital with a CDR full of x-rays of my head, hand & shoulder, I stumbled back to my hostel where I finally lay in my bed, passed out, and would certainly have stayed that way long after my flight to London had left were it not for Susana (remember Susana?) who, concerned that I hadn't replied to her message about meeting for our stroll though the gothic region, turned up at my bedside & found me in that horrible state. She checked me out, took me home, and nursed me through the night, collecting my medication by taking the prescription (in Catalan) to a chemist, and then she drove me to the airport, blind as I was, and made sure I got on the right plane to London. I am the luckiest man alive. I got back to Ruislip, lived some time in a daze, accepted friend requests from the couple who wanted to fuck me, and honestly couldn't decide for sure that I'd survived the incident in Barcelona after all. Feeling very, very disconnected from reality indeed. |
Sun 13th Jan A pretty intense & grim tale to tell of my last few days in Europe I'm afraid. I'm in pretty poor shape so might be a few days before I can manage to write properly, but here are a few words on the matter. Somehow I woke up in a hospital in Barcelona with the still alive bonus, but I have no idea how I managed to keep hold of it given the flashes of memory intact from before losing consciousness. Here we are, however, in the present, and today I can move around a little more easily, back in Ruislip, and it looks as though I can make a full recovery sometime soon. So much to be thankful for, and lord knows I am. In the next few days I'll try to tell the story, or as much of it as I myself can recall, and then we'll move away from this week onto something beautiful & new. Like this amazing band I discovered in Pisa: |
Thu 10th Jan Yeah well yesterday was a total write off, was wondering around drinking beer all day (just found out that's illegal in Spain when I bounded into the hostel just now downing a bottle of Campo Viejo) and ended up god knows where, this is the kind of place I could fall in love, hence the extra precautions today and the re-introduction of the travel wine. If I fall in love I intend to be drunk enough to forget all about it. No screw-tops here, had to find a place that would open it old school style in the shop. My dad died one year ago, yesterday. I didn't want to mention it at the time, but now that a year has passed, it's just a date in my personal calendar and not a reason for this form of catharsis. Just another fact without context, like all these others I write, with some eye to communicate. But can you feel me through a third of the facts, and a smattering of the presiding passions? There's a cathedral here with live geese in it. No doubt some of you skim-read this, looking for something in particular, but whether you find it or not please accept my love as consolation accidentally discovered, perhaps even accidentally offered. Is love ever more than a catastrophic accident? |
Wed 9th Jan Just asked some dude to point me in the rough direction of north, and he was like "Well the sea is over there, which is east, so that must be north", wherupon I all but jizzed in my shoes & yelped "The SEA?! Can I walk to the sea from here" and he was like "Sea? Si, si" or maybe "Si si, sea" (It's hard to tell) and so I set off east, skipped past Santa Claus on a skateboard (come on man, it's January now) and eventually found a harbour with (no exaggeration) a billion boats anchored there. And now I'm sitting on a sandy beach, toes in the water, and it's hot as slut-holes today, shine on Skychief. If you exchanged the sand for glitter, and the sea with beer, this place would be like a Berlin of the West. |
Wed 9th Jan Sitting beneath the Arc De Triumph in Barcelona. Having seen the Roman model of this structure, I'm starting to wonder why they are always named in French, did Napoleon or some other French leader build all these things when they invaded other lands, and if so, why don't the Spanish now call it Arc De Conquered? People don't celebrate defeat enough, there should be a plaque here: "Si Si" - hold on I'll translate the imaginary plaque for you: "Yes yes we got battered by the French big time, mate, was a bleak year for us truth be told, and they caught us off our guard, nevermind though eh, we got our land back in the end (somehow) and the French fucked off back up North where they belong innit, fuckin' French frog fucks." Probably the history is quite different from that, in fairness. A lot of nutters round here talking to themselves, I've always wondered why mentalists don't more often hook up & have a conversation with each other. Babies interact, even if they're just pulling each other's ears around, but whackos avoid other whackos like nobody's business. Some golden conversations wasted there. Maybe they just make art instead, but even that must be a two-way conversation to be truly effective. |
Wed 9th Jan They're playing No Surprises as I board the plane & take my seat, I'm expecting Lucky & The Tourist next, just what I need right now. Had a little giggle about it & tried to explain to the middle aged asian girl sitting next to me but no surprises there, she thinks I'm a maniac. She's probably right. And now they're playing Sampson by Regina Spektor during take-off, "We couldn't bring the columns down, we couldn't destroy a single one", Lordy if this is the last song I ever hear then please pull me out of the aircrash. |
Mon 7th Jan As you who know me well well know, I don't go in for sightseeing so much. I arrive at a central station, grab a travel beer, and the landmarks tend to find me one way or another as I skip, weave, saunter, mope & giggle my way through parks, streets & crumbling pillars of dust. I just stumbled upon the colloseum & sat to watch the sun set behind it, it's kinda nice here but I'm lonely today and the girls walking by don't even have the common courtesy to pass the she'd get it test. When in Berlin I keep my head down these days, lest I fall in love, but I feel no danger of that happening here. Which raises a question: What am I looking for out in the world? I really don't know, but I'm popping over to Barcelona in a minute to see if I might find any of that thing I'm not looking for over there. |
Sun 6th Jan Purple skies to the west, as I plunge into the Tuscan south towards Rome. Darkness falls firstly behind the mist, then in front, and the intermediate stage is, like all perfect transients, indescribable. Nature becomes the ghost, and I the haunted living. Jonathan Richman sings me into a wide eyed fairytale where sleep-tinted topography tastes sweet, supine, but saturnine, and the screaming child becomes my internal lullaby to lazy love. Unconsumated curiosity, mixed in various degrees with native madness in the blood over a lifetime, produces some intoxicating surprises. I've been told that under this spell I have once or twice mumbled the word 'pussy' repeatedly in my sleep, I do hope that's not the reason why I was greeted with much caution upon waking in the hostel dorm room in Florence this morning. Night falls absolute in the all too early evening, and sleep throws his thin black undercoat over the lense, fringing the tripod on all three stilts, cheek to cheek with the dust on two & hitched at the knee on the third. And here is Rome, come forth to greet me, her legs ablaze with silver & stone. |
Sat 5th Jan Ended up in Pisa again for some reason, fate & train routes conspiring to return me to this same spot on a daily basis. Genova has left a pretty little imprint on my soul, but I'm still not writing anything of value, despite having stumbled upon Christopher Columbus' house, the only hostel open this time of year, and a few friendly faces to chat love & sexual politics with. And I saw the band I followed from Pisa, of course, and they were enchanting. Will be sharing that with you very soon. |
Fri 4th Jan Might have been an idea to bring a map of Italy with me on this trip, on reflection. All over the shop without a basket. Is all this mincing around prodctive at all? Gazing at mountains to the sound of screaming children? They're fucking everywhere. I take a flight, there's some cunt kid crying his pants off, I take my first meditative sip of an afternoon coffee & in walks young master shoutyboots & his wan, flat-footed feeder punching predictable text messages into her phone to another hapless mother who's most probably pissing off patrons on the other side of town, which is me only ten mins in the future. Some of these little hamlets in the hills are terribly beautiful though. Is that not something? |
Fri 4th Jan Although it can't be denied that the banana had it's moments in yesterday's revelries, I think it's fair to surmise that the Becks & his multitudinous followers had a larger impact, predictably, on events as they formed & developed. The principal circumstance for me, however, and the reason I've got a ticket to Genova in my pocket when I don't have a clue where Genova is, was born entirely out of chance. Chance, helped along by my insistance of visiting every single bar in a three mile radius until I found a place that felt right. I can usually tell if I'm not in the place I'm supposed to be. I was already pretty drunk when I found the magical space, and so I started on the red wines to evoke a classier aspect of pissed-upness, and started reading my book. Almost immediately, so it seemed, and out of nowhere, I heard, directly behind me, the plucked plonking sounds of a double-bass, and a weird alternative pop jazz trio started playing the most beautiful version of Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want by The Smiths.Somewhere between Radiohead, Broadcast & Tom Waits, they played for about an hour & totally blew my socks right off, and now I gotta dash to catch this train to Genova to see them play a full band set with drummer.. just checked, Genova is on the coast, fuckin' miles away, ok wish me luck! |
Thu 3rd Jan Having a lovely time sitting underneath the famous tower in Pisa, gotta say though, seen wonkier buildings in Uxbridge, my first impression was that perhaps they've fixed it. The ground slopes downward at a sharper angle than the tower tilts. If they think that's wonk round here, what's this town gonna make of me after a Becks & a banana. Got no place to sleep; tonight's gonna be well wonk. Right now, though, reading the New York Trilogy under the leaning tower of Pisa feels natural enough, I don't intend to start asking alcohol for answers just yet. I'll start with the banana. |
Wed 2nd Jan 2013 Alright alright, nuff o'that crap, parole soltanto parole, New Year, same old frontier, let's get back to it. Poncing about in Grosseto, a small town situated someplace between Florence & Rome, where old legend warns 'Bird that flies there loses the feather.' Let's hope that monkey who swing by here doesn't lose banana. Had a good old goosey at fair Verona, where I stumbled upon the balcony said to have inspired the famous Juliet scenes, and Bologna reinforced my previous discovery that nothing productive ever happens there, within my sphere at least. It would appear that Bologna & I are fundamentally mismatched in the scheme of things, I can never squeeze a droplet of life from the place. Went to Pisa but couldn't find the tower. Florence was still Florence, the divine Duomo glowing otherworldly, it's seraphic marble rebuking me 'for being more stone than it.' |
Mon 31st Dec After the flood, God sends a rainbow to mankind. The requisite conditions for a rainbow; water & sunlight, are also those required for life, so we can perhaps say that where there is a rainbow, there is blood. Or vice versa. Light & colour are our inheritance from pre-lizard celestia, and our mortality is tied up with such vivid signals from nature's songbook. As I crossed the alps on a beautiful Sunny morning yesterday, and looked down upon huge snow-engulfed, un-peopled plains & solitary provinces between achromatic mountain static & the forever reaching, forever hesitating crests, never prowled upon by man or like-limbed beast, a relationship between the monochrome & the madness of creation struck me like a final chord in the chapter of light; yet another closure, an aperture overture, a freeze-frame, one barely tangible reflective surface among a vast collection of water droplets suspended deep in the sky, descending. |
Sat 29th Dec Off to Italy now, will release Bleach The Chameleon soon as I get back.. whenever that happens. In the meantime, as a sampler, here's the unmastered first track with lyrics: Hello dearest how was work, what did they make you do? Take a shower, change your shirt, I'll make some tea for two. I know you need it more than most & it's long overdue, There was a time I could be something to somebody like you. I took a walk down memory lane with a bottle of wine & a heart of dark, Got so drunk that I missed my train so now I'm sleeping in memory park, You talked about this place a lot, you said the grass was black & the trees were blue, I can't tell if that's true or not, face down on a plaque to the tired & true. Hello darlin' how was work, do you shine on the menu? Take a shower, are you hurt? I'll fix us both a brew, I know you needed more than most what I couldn't give anew, There was a time when I meant something to somebody like you. I met a girl with something to say We exchanged kisses, made promises but stayed unsold, I'd been back in the smoke for a night & a day And lost sight of the fire at the turn of the world. A cuppa for a comma, fullstop for a tear And a dash of Ghost-slapping whilst crossing the Thames, Feet up on the underground, hiding a beer Yeah, you bleached a chameleon, he's reaching for pens. |
Wed 26th Dec I love this time of year, on the silver cusp of a foil-fresh start with bookfulls of empty pages & a big bold pen. Lived in Berlin for most months of the past 5 years, but looks like 2013 will break that pattern. So, from the brink of Italy, with your handstands in my heart, Alexanderplatz auf Wiedersehen.. |
Mon 24th Dec There seemed to run gleams and shadows from the vast spaces of Russia, the yellow light seemed to struggle through the great Alp-knot of Italy, magical Italy, while the north, from the massive lands of Germany, and from far-off Scandinavia one could feel a whiteness, a northern, sub-arctic whiteness. Many magical lands, many magical peoples, all magnetic and strange, unite to form the vast patchwork of Europe. For the first time he saw England from the outside: tiny she seemed, and tight, and so partial. Such a little bit among all the vast rest. Whereas till now she had seemed all-in-all in herself. Now he knew it was not so.. And he became unEnglished. From Mr. Noon by D.H. Lawrence |