I flick the match away and watch it drown in a gutter. I’m standing next to a streetlight in the pouring rain with a .28 in my pocket. Another tram goes by, making its way down town. Nights like these I could normally be found in Joey’s showing a couple bottles of beer a good time.
Down the street Johnny Friendly comes out of some booth. Didn’t like the look of the heavy with him. Looked like he was stolen from the zoo, shaved and put in a suit three sizes to small. Guys like that needed a lot of shooting before they went down.
I start up the street. Another tram passes by, lighting up the street for a second before disappearing into the darkness. “Hey, Johnny Friendly” I say and they turn round.
“What you want?” He says. Another tram goes past and lights him up, he looks like a little woodchuck. Not a cute woodchuck, an ugly nasty woodchuck.
“I gotta message from the Visconti’s.” I says and pulls out my .28
The heavy’s slow to react, I land two in his belly that knock him back, and another one in his neck to put him down. He goes crashing to the street, I’m sure that guys ten blocks over could hear him fall.
Johnny Friendly starts running across the street, but the roads are slippy and his shoes don’t do so well under pressure. Then- blam. I pop one into his leg. He goes tumbling onto the floor and I run over to him. I aim the little .28 right in between his eyes. He starts laughing at me. Giggling and chuckling like some demented joker.
I then got the joke- I was standing on the tram line and there was one coming. Before I can move- wham- it comes speeding into me and I get dragged underneath it. My guts get spread along the street making a nice photo op for the journos. Just another nobody on 25th street.
Friday 25 April 2008
'Desolation Row'
The idea of giving up being a cop was sown when we pulled the body out of the river. I stood on a muddy bank and watched as the corpse was tugged out of the litter filled water, its body bloated. It had a red Mac on, and high black boots, which gave it the appearance of humanity, before the fish began to nibble it.
The corpse has once been girl by the name of Ashley. She had been on the edge of 21, no previous troubles with the law or with anyone else. It was a shame; from the old photographs she had been beautiful once. She just ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. I went to speak to her mother. She made me swear I would find who did it, knowing it was a promise I couldn’t keep. Ashley was just another statistic.
So for five weeks I walked around with Ashley in my head. I could have walked past her murderer a dozen times and he could have smiled at me and I would have never known.
Not long after I quit, I drove down a road where women, some no more than girls, lined the corners like the sirens luring sailors away. I drove on into the night.
The corpse has once been girl by the name of Ashley. She had been on the edge of 21, no previous troubles with the law or with anyone else. It was a shame; from the old photographs she had been beautiful once. She just ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. I went to speak to her mother. She made me swear I would find who did it, knowing it was a promise I couldn’t keep. Ashley was just another statistic.
So for five weeks I walked around with Ashley in my head. I could have walked past her murderer a dozen times and he could have smiled at me and I would have never known.
Not long after I quit, I drove down a road where women, some no more than girls, lined the corners like the sirens luring sailors away. I drove on into the night.
'In A Chelsea Hotel'
I watched her light up a cigarette on the other side of the room. She looked out of the window, “My limo’s waiting.” She said.
“How do you know it’s yours?”
“Mine’s purple.”
“Purple?”
“Sure.” She took a drag of the cigarette. “It has, like, 13 speakers and a tape box of everything good. You just lose yourself in it, and before you know it you wake up at the airport.”
I sat up on the unmade bed and asked, “Don’t you find it strange riding in a limousine?”
She smiled a little, “Not really. I sit in the front seat.” She let out a small laugh, it was almost like a cackle.
“Isn’t that against the point?”
“I like looking out the window. See what’s going on.” The Southern twang in her voice reared its head every now and again; it was a little rough around the edges. It was already becoming soaked with whiskey and nicotine.
There was a silence for a few minutes in which we said nothing. She sat, looking out of the hotel window, silently working her way through a cigarette. I just observed her from the safe vantage point of the bed. At first I was just musing over what colour her messy hair was, but then I began just watched her. She was looking out of the window, with a sad but wistful look in her eye, as if her mind were a million miles away from the Chelsea Hotel. But there was nowhere she could go, she went where her manager told her to go, like a good girl. She was a robin with her wings clipped, looking out of the window only pretending she can fly. Once her cigarette had finished she turned her head towards me a little, with a grin said, “You going to be reading poetry to old ladies?”
“Why not?” I said. “As long as they pay me.”
She smiled again and said, “You know something? I normally go for handsome men.”
“Gee, thanks.” I murmured.
“I didn’t mean it like that, just… you know, you have the music. It makes up for it.”
I raised an eyebrow, “The music?”
“Yeah. You’ve got the music. I’ve got the music. Looks don’t matter as long when you have it.”
“But it helps.”
“Yeah to the narrow minded ones it does.” She moved over to the desk with a mirror on the wall. She began pouring herself a drink, the glass reflected the moonlight. There was a brief pause and then she said reflectively “We may be ugly, but we have the music. I mean people who have the music- they’re going to last forever. And the good-looking people… well they just come and go, you know what I’m saying?”
“That we’re immortal.”
“Maybe.” She lifted the glass to her lips, paused and added; “Only time can tell, right?”
“Right.” She gulped down the contents of the glass; I asked her softly, “Do you think you’re going to last forever?”
She looked away from me, avoiding my gaze. “Sure. Maybe… I don’t know.” She looked into her glass, “Guess it’d be nice.”
“What about Kris?”
That struck a nerve, “Of course he will. He’s got the music, man.”
“Oh course- the great Kris Kristoffsen.”
“He’s done some good records.”
I shrugged, “I never brought any of them.”
“You should.” She said. “You guys are kinda like each other.”
“Except he’s taller.”
“Is he?”
I looked confused, “I thought you and he…”
“No.” She paused. “Not yet, anyway.”
Great, I thought, I’m a substitute for a guy she hasn’t even met.
She continued, “His records… they just show he’s got the music, you know?”
“More than me?”
She shrugged, “You’ve both got the music. You’ve got it in your words.”
“He reads poetry to the old ladies too?”
“Not exactly.” She turned away from me and looked into the mirror, the tumbler in one hand and the whiskey bottle in another.
“Was it Kris you were looking for tonight?”
She shrugged, “Does it matter?”
“Well you certainly weren’t trying to find me.”
Her voice darkened, “I could say the same about you.” That was true. I didn’t reply back because we both knew that it was true. What had happened was of no importance. Our brief encounter was not out of passion- it was out of convenience. If I been looking for anyone it would have been Bridgette Bardot, but I’ve yet to find her. “If it’s not for the music, then what’s the point, you know?”
“Sorry?” I said.
“Why we do it- for the music.”
“Yeah. For the music.” I replied, although I believed she meant something else.
“I mean, money… it just comes and goes, doesn’t it, man? All the travelling and meeting people and all that crap… nobody does that because they want to. They do it because they have to. They do it just so they can get to the music.”
“Everything else is irrelevant.”
“Right! That’s right. You can forget all that other stuff, that aint worth anything- it’s the music that counts.”
“Or the words if you read poetry to old ladies.”
She began to pour another drink. “Yeah, but you say what you mean… you feel it. You get inside it. If you don’t… say what you mean, then what’s the point? It’s getting it all out, all those emotions and feelings that, you know, we’re not supposed to talk about in polite conversation, we do it through the music. We talk about this stuff through the music.” She took a gulp from her glass, “If we don’t talk about it then who will?”
“Somebody new and better looking.”
She finished off the contents of the glass of whiskey, “If you kept thinking like that then you’re going to get nowhere.”
“I thought music was about the journey, not the destination?” The question hung around like a stale smell in the atmosphere.
She turned around once again to face me, even in the darkness I could see it was like the light in her eyes had gone. “It gets lonely, though. Doesn’t it?”
“Sometimes.”
“People… people who haven’t got the music, they don’t understand that we put everything into it- we put our hearts into it.” Once again she turned to the desk and poured herself another drink.
I spoke up, “You know that might not be the best idea.”
“What- feelin’ lonely?”
“No the drink.”
“I aint got nothing else to do.” She polished it off in one. “Everybody’s always expectin’ you to be someone, you know.” She held the empty glass began her hands and rolled it around a little. “Like Bob Dylan,” She carried on, “All he wants to do is make music, but all people want for him is to sing protest songs. You know what I mean?”
“Sure.”
“I bet people always want you to be sad just because you write sad songs?”
I sighed, “My songs aren‘t sad. They aren’t cynical, either. They’re just hopeless.”
She didn’t respond for a few songs, then nodded and said, “That’s deep, man… anyway, you’d kill yourself if you were sad all the time.”
“Good thing I’m not sad all the time. Just when I sing.” I then added as an afterthought, “Or read poetry to old ladies.”
She looked down and said, “It’s like… I don’t want to be anyone else. I just want to be me. It’s the only thing I’ve got.”
“Apart from the music?”
“The music’s a part of me. Like it’s apart of you too. You can’t get one with out the other.”
I said, “So when you’re 80 and can’t sing in tune you’ll still be making music.”She smiled, “I think so. Unless I find I’m really good at something else. Like… knitting.” She laughed.
I smiled a little, “I can see you at 80, sitting in a big chair next to a fire…. Knitting away…”
“You can really see me like that?”
I shook me head, “Don’t think growing old respectfully would suit you.”
“Don’t think I’d be able to sit still long enough.” She turned away from me and began fixing herself another drink, I guessed that in her head she was trying to dream up what she would be like at 80. I think she would have been a grouchy 80 year old, with big round glasses like magnifying glasses. I could see her bitter at the young ones who waste their youth. She’d not be quiet, that was for certain. She’d probably spit at people too. She turned back to face me and asked, “You at Chelsea often?”
“Not often enough.” I said. I liked this place. It was the sort of place where you could stumble in at 3 in the morning with a crate of beer, 4 women and a dwarf and no one would care. “You?” I said.
“When I’m this neck of the woods.” Then was another of those long pauses where neither of us could decide what to say. She broke it with, “Boy, I’m hungry. You hungry?”
“Not really.”
“Oh.” She licked her lips and said, “There’s a good burger joint across the street. It’s real nice there. They’ve got a good jukebox. Even got some of mine on there”
At this time in the morning I was in no mood for a burger at that early hour in the morning. “Why don’t you go and get one then?”
“You comin’?”
“No. I’m not hungry.”
She laughed, “You want me to sit in there all on my own? No way, man!”
“Isn’t there someone else you could go with?”
“And this hour in the morning? I don’t think so…” She finished off another drink, I had lost count of how many she had had. Either way, it didn‘t seem as if it were affecting her to much. And that was her. The woman whose heart was a legend, sitting across from me in my room in the Chelsea Hotel working her way through a bottle of Southern Comfort. Like everyone else I’d seen her perform- she was magnificent. It was if she exploded on the stage into a tidal wave of emotion and put her heart and soul on show. She was like a flower in the sun- beautiful and delicate to the touch. And very easy to break.
She said,“I’m supposed to be going to… somewhere. I forget. Maybe somewhere nice. With a lake.
“A lake?”
“Yeah. It’s been about 8 years since I last saw a lake.”
“A long time, huh?”
She sighed, “Yeah. Don’t get much chance to do stuff, like seeing lakes.” There was a silence. We paused. We had nothing much of worth to say.
I asked, to make conversation, “Will I be seeing you around?”
“Sure. You got a TV, don’t you?” She lit up another cigarette.
“How do you know it’s yours?”
“Mine’s purple.”
“Purple?”
“Sure.” She took a drag of the cigarette. “It has, like, 13 speakers and a tape box of everything good. You just lose yourself in it, and before you know it you wake up at the airport.”
I sat up on the unmade bed and asked, “Don’t you find it strange riding in a limousine?”
She smiled a little, “Not really. I sit in the front seat.” She let out a small laugh, it was almost like a cackle.
“Isn’t that against the point?”
“I like looking out the window. See what’s going on.” The Southern twang in her voice reared its head every now and again; it was a little rough around the edges. It was already becoming soaked with whiskey and nicotine.
There was a silence for a few minutes in which we said nothing. She sat, looking out of the hotel window, silently working her way through a cigarette. I just observed her from the safe vantage point of the bed. At first I was just musing over what colour her messy hair was, but then I began just watched her. She was looking out of the window, with a sad but wistful look in her eye, as if her mind were a million miles away from the Chelsea Hotel. But there was nowhere she could go, she went where her manager told her to go, like a good girl. She was a robin with her wings clipped, looking out of the window only pretending she can fly. Once her cigarette had finished she turned her head towards me a little, with a grin said, “You going to be reading poetry to old ladies?”
“Why not?” I said. “As long as they pay me.”
She smiled again and said, “You know something? I normally go for handsome men.”
“Gee, thanks.” I murmured.
“I didn’t mean it like that, just… you know, you have the music. It makes up for it.”
I raised an eyebrow, “The music?”
“Yeah. You’ve got the music. I’ve got the music. Looks don’t matter as long when you have it.”
“But it helps.”
“Yeah to the narrow minded ones it does.” She moved over to the desk with a mirror on the wall. She began pouring herself a drink, the glass reflected the moonlight. There was a brief pause and then she said reflectively “We may be ugly, but we have the music. I mean people who have the music- they’re going to last forever. And the good-looking people… well they just come and go, you know what I’m saying?”
“That we’re immortal.”
“Maybe.” She lifted the glass to her lips, paused and added; “Only time can tell, right?”
“Right.” She gulped down the contents of the glass; I asked her softly, “Do you think you’re going to last forever?”
She looked away from me, avoiding my gaze. “Sure. Maybe… I don’t know.” She looked into her glass, “Guess it’d be nice.”
“What about Kris?”
That struck a nerve, “Of course he will. He’s got the music, man.”
“Oh course- the great Kris Kristoffsen.”
“He’s done some good records.”
I shrugged, “I never brought any of them.”
“You should.” She said. “You guys are kinda like each other.”
“Except he’s taller.”
“Is he?”
I looked confused, “I thought you and he…”“No.” She paused. “Not yet, anyway.”
Great, I thought, I’m a substitute for a guy she hasn’t even met.
She continued, “His records… they just show he’s got the music, you know?”
“More than me?”
She shrugged, “You’ve both got the music. You’ve got it in your words.”
“He reads poetry to the old ladies too?”
“Not exactly.” She turned away from me and looked into the mirror, the tumbler in one hand and the whiskey bottle in another.
“Was it Kris you were looking for tonight?”
She shrugged, “Does it matter?”
“Well you certainly weren’t trying to find me.”
Her voice darkened, “I could say the same about you.” That was true. I didn’t reply back because we both knew that it was true. What had happened was of no importance. Our brief encounter was not out of passion- it was out of convenience. If I been looking for anyone it would have been Bridgette Bardot, but I’ve yet to find her. “If it’s not for the music, then what’s the point, you know?”
“Sorry?” I said.
“Why we do it- for the music.”
“Yeah. For the music.” I replied, although I believed she meant something else.
“I mean, money… it just comes and goes, doesn’t it, man? All the travelling and meeting people and all that crap… nobody does that because they want to. They do it because they have to. They do it just so they can get to the music.”
“Everything else is irrelevant.”
“Right! That’s right. You can forget all that other stuff, that aint worth anything- it’s the music that counts.”
“Or the words if you read poetry to old ladies.”
She began to pour another drink. “Yeah, but you say what you mean… you feel it. You get inside it. If you don’t… say what you mean, then what’s the point? It’s getting it all out, all those emotions and feelings that, you know, we’re not supposed to talk about in polite conversation, we do it through the music. We talk about this stuff through the music.” She took a gulp from her glass, “If we don’t talk about it then who will?”
“Somebody new and better looking.”
She finished off the contents of the glass of whiskey, “If you kept thinking like that then you’re going to get nowhere.”
“I thought music was about the journey, not the destination?” The question hung around like a stale smell in the atmosphere.
She turned around once again to face me, even in the darkness I could see it was like the light in her eyes had gone. “It gets lonely, though. Doesn’t it?”
“Sometimes.”
“People… people who haven’t got the music, they don’t understand that we put everything into it- we put our hearts into it.” Once again she turned to the desk and poured herself another drink.
I spoke up, “You know that might not be the best idea.”
“What- feelin’ lonely?”
“No the drink.”
“I aint got nothing else to do.” She polished it off in one. “Everybody’s always expectin’ you to be someone, you know.” She held the empty glass began her hands and rolled it around a little. “Like Bob Dylan,” She carried on, “All he wants to do is make music, but all people want for him is to sing protest songs. You know what I mean?”
“Sure.”
“I bet people always want you to be sad just because you write sad songs?”
I sighed, “My songs aren‘t sad. They aren’t cynical, either. They’re just hopeless.”
She didn’t respond for a few songs, then nodded and said, “That’s deep, man… anyway, you’d kill yourself if you were sad all the time.”
“Good thing I’m not sad all the time. Just when I sing.” I then added as an afterthought, “Or read poetry to old ladies.”
She looked down and said, “It’s like… I don’t want to be anyone else. I just want to be me. It’s the only thing I’ve got.”
“Apart from the music?”
“The music’s a part of me. Like it’s apart of you too. You can’t get one with out the other.”
I said, “So when you’re 80 and can’t sing in tune you’ll still be making music.”She smiled, “I think so. Unless I find I’m really good at something else. Like… knitting.” She laughed.
I smiled a little, “I can see you at 80, sitting in a big chair next to a fire…. Knitting away…”
“You can really see me like that?”
I shook me head, “Don’t think growing old respectfully would suit you.”
“Don’t think I’d be able to sit still long enough.” She turned away from me and began fixing herself another drink, I guessed that in her head she was trying to dream up what she would be like at 80. I think she would have been a grouchy 80 year old, with big round glasses like magnifying glasses. I could see her bitter at the young ones who waste their youth. She’d not be quiet, that was for certain. She’d probably spit at people too. She turned back to face me and asked, “You at Chelsea often?”
“Not often enough.” I said. I liked this place. It was the sort of place where you could stumble in at 3 in the morning with a crate of beer, 4 women and a dwarf and no one would care. “You?” I said.
“When I’m this neck of the woods.” Then was another of those long pauses where neither of us could decide what to say. She broke it with, “Boy, I’m hungry. You hungry?”
“Not really.”
“Oh.” She licked her lips and said, “There’s a good burger joint across the street. It’s real nice there. They’ve got a good jukebox. Even got some of mine on there”
At this time in the morning I was in no mood for a burger at that early hour in the morning. “Why don’t you go and get one then?”
“You comin’?”
“No. I’m not hungry.”
She laughed, “You want me to sit in there all on my own? No way, man!”
“Isn’t there someone else you could go with?”
“And this hour in the morning? I don’t think so…” She finished off another drink, I had lost count of how many she had had. Either way, it didn‘t seem as if it were affecting her to much. And that was her. The woman whose heart was a legend, sitting across from me in my room in the Chelsea Hotel working her way through a bottle of Southern Comfort. Like everyone else I’d seen her perform- she was magnificent. It was if she exploded on the stage into a tidal wave of emotion and put her heart and soul on show. She was like a flower in the sun- beautiful and delicate to the touch. And very easy to break.
She said,“I’m supposed to be going to… somewhere. I forget. Maybe somewhere nice. With a lake.
“A lake?”
“Yeah. It’s been about 8 years since I last saw a lake.”
“A long time, huh?”
She sighed, “Yeah. Don’t get much chance to do stuff, like seeing lakes.” There was a silence. We paused. We had nothing much of worth to say.
I asked, to make conversation, “Will I be seeing you around?”
“Sure. You got a TV, don’t you?” She lit up another cigarette.
Thursday 17 April 2008
And Now For Something Completely Different...
A piece of work from a friend of mine by the name of Charlie F. Kane. I kinda like it.
I Am Reminded Of You…
I am reminded of you by certain songs,
I recall you once told me you liked them,
Back when we were still talking to each other.
I try to listen to other music now.
I am reminded of you by strange, silly things,
Because I recall the time we talked for an hour
And our conversation was about ducks.
It made me laugh back then.
I suppose I am reminded of you so much
Because a part of me still wants you
Even though you never wanted me.
I Am Reminded Of You…
I am reminded of you by certain songs,
I recall you once told me you liked them,
Back when we were still talking to each other.
I try to listen to other music now.
I am reminded of you by strange, silly things,
Because I recall the time we talked for an hour
And our conversation was about ducks.
It made me laugh back then.
I suppose I am reminded of you so much
Because a part of me still wants you
Even though you never wanted me.
Sunday 13 April 2008
Amateur Philosophy
Let's talk about ethics, you and I. No doubt that if you were in the lecture on Friday you surely heard me voice my opinions on the philosophy of the so-called 'dice life'. What made me angry is that the core maxim of the philosophy is flawed, and if your foundations are flawed then you'll have a very shaky house. It started that following the dice gives you freedom. That's rubbish. By following the dice you are NOT getting anymore freedom, you're just following another set of rules- YOU choose six options and then the dices picks for you. That's not freedom, that's just asking something else to choose for you, you still have to choose the options.
At least it seemed that the dice idea was a bit of a satire, but it seemed the guy in the video actually believe in it which befuddles me. If you chose to follow the 'dice' path then you really are shutting yourself off from other people, forsaking them. That to me is only a step away from narcissism, egotism and solipsism (in which you believe you are the only mind in existence). If you cut people out of your philosophy then I believe your screwed. Why? Because everything you do will ALWAYS have an effect on other people. Think about it, can you honestly name one act that really has no effect on anybody else? My philosophy is a combination of two theories, the fist is utilitarianism which works on the maxim- the greatest good for the greatest number. And what is 'good? Quite simply- happiness. If you look inside yourself can you find anything better than the feeling of happiness? If you think this sounds like a selfish theory, then you're wrong- it's the opposite. If a good utilitarian had to sacrifice his happiness so that, say, three other people could be happy then they would do it.
Now, other course there are problems with this theory which I'm sure you can see, so in order to fill the gaps as it were I bring in this theory- libertarianism. And the maxim for this- people can do whatever they want as long as they don't hurt or harm anybody else. For me, those two theories really go hand in hand, helping each other out when there's a problem. I try and live my life by these rules because they make sense to me. Everybody should have some kind of a principle they try and live by. With the 'dice life' there is no principle other than letting the dice decide, and by my philosophies it seems that alienating other people while making yourself happy, will cause harm to other people and that's not good.
Any comments?
Wednesday 2 April 2008
Confessions of a Jelly Tot Junkie
Hello. My name is Dan… and I’m addicted to Jelly Tots. I am caught in their sugary (and now 25% real fruit juicy) grasp. I often say that when I write, I write with a glass of coke and a bag of Jelly Tots by my side and this is true. I am never without a bag of them in my jacket pocket. I am an addict. A Jelly Tot Junkie, if you will. I can’t quite remember when such a simple sweet became an addiction for me. I think it started whilst I was in college, on a day when passing through Woolworths. I noticed that harmless looking yellow bag sitting on a shelf. It brought back memories of childhood- the days when children were rewarded with sweets and MacDonald’s. It was my Godmother who brought me Jelly Tots when I was young. I haven’t seen her in, well, more years than I dare count. But as soon as I saw the Jelly Tot packet it brought back parts of childhood to me. I remember very little of my childhood; if I sit and think for long and hard enough I do begin to recall certain events and places and faces- some hidden files recovered from a cobweb covered filing cabinet. I am still uncertain as to whether or not my childhood was a happy one because by the time I was old enough to realize things weren’t right we’d gone through all we could go through, and with a child’s blindness to the adult world I missed it all. So when I think back to childhood, I remember the upsetting things, the bad stuff, and worse the things I missed with a child’s eyes but with older eyes see all too clearly the meaning. But when I connect childhood to Jelly Tots- I am happy. I am reminded of the freedom of childhood, the simple pleasure derived from a simple, sugar soaked sweet. So now I cannot imagine myself without Jelly Tots, they have become a part of my character. I do not believe I could wean myself off them even if I choose too. I have heard people say that it’s the addict who chooses their addiction, and I’m glad to say mine are Jelly Tots. It’s healthier and cheaper than a heroin addiction.
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