the red rose

im sitting in Rote Rose. it's late. obviously it's late. i have never been here sooner than 06:00. it's a matter of etiquette, even. i imagine there's a whole different clientele at 19:00 (it's a german clock if you're wondering). no joy in showing yourself jibberish before 4AM. Rote Rose is a kind of rut for social mildew to form in - between the clattering antlers of fallen intellectuals, burnt out hobos, the prowl of perverts hiding hooves and horns, the fables of junkies', hormonal brawlers, home-sick ballers, wayward losers, crazies, bums and other fascinating dregs. we'd been scharni earlier with some scottish school girls that Nicolas and i had met busking in the subway. Robotron were playing so all the punks showed up, limbs flailing and other people's sweat. after the show the scottish girls say to the KvU boys, "eh, u lads look rar like the sex pistols, ya ken?". it's true that ToeB is the spitting image of Sid Vicious, snarling lip and vacant, and Ro-Bean like some forgotten 5th member. fucking fashion punks. then it comes, "u in a band?". of course they are. what else would they be doing if they weren't at a gig, making a mix-tape or spitting on each other? huh-huh-huhr. i feel like i'm in an 80s remake of Ross McLaren's crash 'n' burn. the bar starts to thin. i get drunk and lose at kicker. twice. maybe 3 or 4 times. moli grabs me by my cuff and hem so i figure we're leaving. we are. her brother is DJing some supercool new underground club that no one knows about but everyone is talking about. i'm looking fantastic - all white in half a smashed up computer, a digital sphygmomanometer, kids knee-pads and a pair of moon-boots, but no one even compliments my outfit. for what do we make the effort? jesus - everyone's an asshole. mmm, no attention, no drugs and done with dancing. i start to look for Moli but the club is rammed. i start to get sexually frustrated like all the pussy in the room is staring at me - winking at me - dripping. it gets so bad all the walls start lining with couples grinding and groping - god - they're so hot and annoying. fuck, get me out of here before i sexually implode. i have to get out of here. Oskar saves the day by dropping us some drinks tokens. we cash in and take the booze with us on our way out the club. moli rarely touches alcohol these days so that's a blessing coz i get double drunk, and, after some staggering and jumping around on cars, end up sitting in Rote Rose. moli's here. she's explaining to some low-life that ToeB is on his way, and so, sadly, she cannot marry him. he's saying he's gonna fight him for her coz ToeB could never treat her as good as he would. moli tells him that she finds the sentiment unlikely and that it wouldnt be fair for him to fight her boyfriend coz he's skinny and probably wouldnt fight back. it goes on - the play - like a drunken burlesque afterparty. the guy next to me keeps touching my ass. it's kind of annoying, actually. "if you touch my ass again, dickhead, im going to stick my thumb into the back of your eyesocket" i tell him - and he hears, as if it were a compliment, grinning like a dozy clown. i raise my voice a little and lean over to him, "wenn du nochmal mein arsch kneifst, du scheiss pappnase, dann druck ich meine daumen in deine augen rein". he continues to smile at me, blankly. *sigh* it's at this point i decide to get really drunk. ToeB bummbles in after having sat for over an hour, most confused that we weren't there, in a bar across the street called "Rote Rosa". it's confusing. we throw our change together and get a few more rounds, but the beer keeps changing price so before long all our money is gone. we hear some stories. ToeB says the Modern Pets and KvU boys went back to the scottish girls' hotel and smashed the place up, filled the room with fire extinguisher foam and robbed a load of bloody underwear which now hangs next to the Traffic Light Gang parachute bra on Elias & Veit's wall. eventually it's after long and not only is there no money left, but also no beer. ToeB and i are very drunk. i realise suddenly that it's of the utmost importance to leave immediately and go steal something to eat, but as we fall out of the bar into the street; where the sun is already making our side of the world painfully visible; i see there are only döner shops. what a surprise - i am a mess. again. i stummble through the kebabish door and slump to the counter grunting drunken bad-mornings. "eh! EH! wzzzblorg uh... watt'n dat'n? hRRRf... *snigger-splurt-cough*...". i figure the guy thinks i'm mentally handicapped and so won't suspect my guilty paw as i mummble a not-so-cunning distraction and whip up the nearest edible in the blind spot (it looks lumpy and gooey - some kind of chocolate rice pudding arrangement). i stuff it down my shorts and shuffle out the shop with the bowed-leg swagger of a hip-hop reject who just shat himself. * * * * * * * the rest of the night is mostly evaporated, but the next day moli explains a few things to me - like - why i have a swollen wound on my head, "err... that was me, you asshole" "huh?" "well, you fell asleep on the ring-bahn, probably rode it round about 3 times till you got ticket fucked, then fucking come up here, smashing the door in while im trying to sleep, bouncing on the bed in an attempt to get me to dance with you, like, you would NOT shut the fuck up for at least an hour so eventually i got pissed and threw my boot at you. clocked you full in the face - then you shut up." "shit man, i dont remember" "guess you dont remember being chased by the dönerman for stealing that rice pudding? you were falling all over the place, getting onto the car bonnets of taxis, asking for rides to the bottom of the street, then lying in the middle of kotbusser tor with your dick out trying to masturbate", "serious?" "yeh, but you said it was too cold" "i swear i didn't steal any pudding. i dont remember eating any" "Kai, it didn't even have a lid on it - it's probably still all in your trousers!" "what?" i sat up in bed and my crotch squelched...

open casket

Berlin, winter, 2009/2010 

they gutted the place while it was still alive; ripping it apart from the inside-out; windows sawn out, the gas channels demolished, water pipes severed, electric cables slashed; the immune, respitory, digestive and nervous systems of the house, completely corrupted - anything to make it unlivable. it's only current prupose? to be empty. of us. to rot and fester till further developments somewhere in the distant future. but we still went there. to look around, to remember, to take back what we left behind, what was locked from us. to sleep in on the nights when no one offered us a bed and the freezing street was the only alternative. Nicolas and I stayed there some nights - with the wind blowing into our bed clothes - finding it difficult to leave. even though we weren't getting any decent sleep and the danger of being caught was always a nosy neighbour's phone call away.

for the first time i understood the families who stay in their homes as the bombs rain down, and the refugees who walk back into the warzone to take another look at the shell of what had been the venue of domestic life. for the first time in my life, i understood that home is where the heart is and that you only feel it when it's been taken away. 

RIP B183

wall-mounted-vending-machine-hustle

when you have complete freedom and no responsibilities, life can be a bit daunting, having no routine or institution dictating what you should be doing and when you should be doing it. you can even get the blues just sitting there in complete freedom wondering what the hell you're doing with your life. it helps to have some kind of addiction. to something that, to acquire, requires some, but not too much, effort. like alcohol or pussy for example. just to give yourself some kind of direction, you know?

to maintain a normal addiction, albeit mild, you gotta get money. and it doesn't grow on trees. i don't know why it doesn't - it should, but i'm neither an economist nor an ecologist, so i'm out of my element. most people get their money from jobs, but statistically... 95% of jobs are fucked up, so we prefer to hustle and steal. us rats, sitting around smoking bowls, think up fool-proof calamities.

we are creative, adaptive types, always looking for another crack, loop, hole, cycle, shadow, space, from which to refund ourselves for the damage that capitalism does to society and from which to salvage the wanton waste of a market driven economy and from which to redistribute the wealth of unfairly pocketed profit. we are proud of our actions - proud to rob from the faceless riches of legal persons. to live in leisure at the expense of no-one who deserves any less. proud to brag about our most mischievous endeavours.

the two latvian street urchins, Nico and Janis, were particularly sly. while selling old u-bahn tickets at the airport, and in general raiding the airport of discarded luggage ballast, they had spotted a toothbrush dispenser in the public toilets, loosening at the rivets. they could almost get enough leverage with mere fingers to pry it off the wall, but not wanting to risk a botch job on this potential jack pot, they came back the next day with some ramshackle gear. with the help of a scruffy screwdriver they removed a few more screws and started tugging at the piggy bank. to imagine the situation you can think of a latvian troll that looks like a pretty 14 year old girl, suspended above the floor, both legs pushing against the wall gripping the box with scrawney arms, body perpendicular to the tiles on the wall, muttering "come you fuckrr, come!" while the other keeps a shifty watch on the door for squares and snitches. finally ripping it from the wall, they stuffed the tin chest into a bag of sleep. then, with the pasty pig stuffed awkward under gnomish arms, they walked it through the automatic doors, laughing, past security, who wished them a nice day like a tease. on the street they cracked at it till the treasure was split. €60! what a haul. Nico was in such a tiz, clutching at his splitting sides, laughing and spluttering so hard he literally pissed his pants, and, having no other pair to change into, had to walk around in wet trousers for the rest of the day. he didn't care. he had a €30 share, and spent the the rest of the day, high as a cloud.

badly lit scene

the end of the birmingham sun, set like a heavy gold coin submerging beneath the stretched cleavage of clouds, sideways on the horizon - lying. the sun out of puff and subsistuted by gross, twilight-destroying sheens of yelling low. lights - action. the monotonous burnt shade that bores into you like suburban childhood in the dark. you know what im talking about. the hypnotic street-lamp glow that you used to stare out of your bedroom window at when it was past your bed-time. not the new white clinical, set into the walls and ceilings, but the old green and grey iron, pushing out through the tarmac, swaying such heavy yellow.

if you think it gets any better you can fuck right off

Birmingham is not tall, it is flat. flat like tires and crushed cans. flat like the world. wide and expanding slow liquid over middle-earth. where "multi-story" means 5 floors (including the ground floor n basement) and no one's yet tried to build a sky-scraper coz we don't like to look down on each other. we watch cracks growing in the pavement and know that life doesn't get any better.

railway announcement

if you have children, be sure that they are well supervised and do not stray near the platform edge. this is a security announcement. make sure your baggage is attended to at all times to ensure there are no delays made to your journey. (i like the suggestion that delays happen because of not attending to your baggage at all times...) it is against the law to smoke ANYWHERE in this station if you see any anti-social behavior or an incident that requires police assistance, please call british transport police on 0800 40 50 40 

(what do smoking and anti-social behaviour have to do with each other?)

these well thought out snipets of propaganda blare out offensively from the crackling speaker overhead and reverberate round the tinny walls. a few people wince or cover their ears. samo' shit, i think. is the wank PA, through which no important information can be made out, part of the eternal traditions of british rail or is it there as the station-master's joke? as a form of revenge for having turned out such a wad of gob? is that the game? that despite the advancements in decades worth of audio-technology, our railway announcements still sound like a geordie shouting down a tin-can-telephone? i try to take my ears off it by trying the eyes and looking around, but it's not much good either. i count 50 adverts before the sockets start to ache like i've got the pain of 1000 wombs stuck between my temples. this is 'Mingham. Moor Street Station, precisely, n it looks like it just had some more money thrown at it. there's a fair bit of chrome around to prove it, plus a set of turnstiles and a new CCTV system installed. no grafitti, no busking, no hustle, no life, not even bins. NO LOITERING hangs a large sign on the waiting room wall, in bold, ironic font. what next? a clock that's stuck at midnight? no - but the automatic doors do tell you - with a sure and propper accent - when they're opening and closing. why? coz this is marketting upon us again; trying to lure us with cheap electronic tricks into believing that the hocus pocus of capitalism is leading the world into the modern and cutting edge and that these are things worth caring about, whereas actually people just want the train to run on time and are quite happy when they have enough leg room. i dont need doors that tell me what theyre doing. i know what theyre doing. physics man, physics! they're opening coz i said "open sessame", ennit? this has nothing to do with physics!

blocked drains

(must keep writing, even if it's shit...)

i had woken in the hungover darkness, tongue as dry as a nun's cunt, grunting for hydration like a confused tramp, till i made it to that tapped fountain of gorgeous wetness, and downed myself 3 consecutive pints of diluted syrup, the sloshing sea sickness of which caused me to slop up effortless litres of undigested flotsam and chunky orange junk. 7 times my stomach summoned a lazy lurch, like the stuff was just falling out of me into the sink. i think to myself... how does it all fit in there, seriously? the more came out, the longer it took to drain away and i started to get worried, poking chunks down the tiny slits of the plughole with a chopstick as the pipe gargled n choked like it, itself, were about to chuck up. i didn't blame it, having to swallow someone else's vom. eventually the plughole just wasn't gonna take any more and packed in. with the basin still half full, i started the slow and fetid task of fishing up the scum with a cup. yay. in my body's attempt to free its own gutteral pipework from clogged chips n battered grease, another network of waste was getting plugged with puke like some universal law of conservation. like some kind of sewage karma. unsurprisingly, the next day dad had noticed and begun his usual ritual of sighing and dissaproving huff. however, after a few hours of sweating and heaving with some drain rods and a closet auger, the passage was rid of my internal refuse and the plughole was gulping healthily once more. i thought dad would be even more of a crotchet than usual after what would probably turn out to be his annual heave, but to the contrary, i've never seen him so happy and full of himself: achiever of basic DIY - glowing like he's in an advert for colonic irrigation. PROPS ALL ROUND. so the moral of the tale, if there is to be one: if you glut, you will clog. and if you clog, you will pop.

a reason to get out of bed in the morning

haven't written in weeks.
what's the point of anything?

a forgotten alarm,
is a reason to get up in the morning.

an addiction to coffee,
is a reason to get up in the morning.

a struggling bladder,
holding in a yellow slug of the hydrologic cycle until it's painful,
is a reason to get up in the morning.

today i didn’t get up in the morning at all,
i got up in the evening,
but only coz my bladder hurt.

and as i looked into face of armitage shanks,
i realised that a puddle of piss is metabolic alchemy,
churning all that poison into golden showers.

and later,
after an existential breakfast of coffee and cigarettes,
i realised further,

that hunger is a motivation,
that confusion is an inspiration,
and that suffering is our fuel.

setting an alarm gives us a reason to get up in the morning. that's why we do it. to draw a line and say, "this is the start", in case one day we woke up disorientated and realised we had nothing to live for, and just stayed in bed until something happened to US, rather than US seeking the happening something that might solve all our problems. it's a trick to keep the machine going. you hear the ALARM and you are given a problem that needs solving. boom, you're already in the trap. you get out of bed to stop the alarm and shit it's cold: you're roped into an action of getting dressed that will remedy the cold you got lured into, by which point you probably ought to go for a piss coz, gee, you bustin to go, so on the way to the bathroom you flip the switch on the kettle, hoping there's enough water inside, for this could mean the difference between a good day or a bad day, and before you know it, there's enough little problems in the world to give you and your life some purpose, like, oh, the sugar pot needs refilling or i should get on some washing up coz there's no clean mugs, or maybe i need to go to the shops and buy myself a new kettle - this one keeps blowing the fuse-box and yodels when it boils.