Hiroshima Yeah! issue 35 January 2008 Another day, another week, another year. It all seems so POINTLESS, doesn't it? Thank God for alcoholism, mental illness and other distractions from the shiny world of commerce that keeps us all hypnotised like new-born gazelles. A big thank you to all the good folk out there who keep this zine alive with reviewable contributions (even if it DOES sometimes take us a while to get around to them): May lucky stars always shine on you. A big FUCK YOU to the "government scheme designed to kill your dream" (© Morrissey) who are currently trying to FORCE your fragrant editor into full-time employment, no matter WHAT the cost (and NOT EVEN PAYING HIM HIS FULL DOLE-PITTANCE EITHER, ‘cos they are USELESS CUNTS!) Beware, for they may soon do it to YOU. This issue was written by Mark Ritchie, Gary Simmons and Andrew Willshaw. Cyber-fistings available at www.oocities.org/hiroshimayeah AUNTIE MEG She lived in a drafty house with bare floorboards, peeling wallpaper and an unlit fire. One room was stacked high with yellowing newsprint and the sewing-machine was the only thing allowed life. Her piano was dusty and unloved, much like herself and there’s a photograph of her, one Christmas, wearing a party hat and a fake smile, dragging everyone and everything around her down into her own sad and secret hell. SURVIVAL TACTICS How do you manage to sail through the bleakness without a scratch? Arrows bouncing off your hide like raindrops, hateful words dissolving in the air before reaching your eardrums, razorblades caressing your skin softer than kisses. How wonderful it must feel to be illuminated with docile joy and bright, sober mornings of hot buttered toast and Radio 3 quietly singing somewhere as brave fools ascend vast, terrifying peaks of snow-capped mountains and flocks of wild geese gracefully soar across a disappearing sky. PEOPLE WITH LIVES People with lives, living them, doing things, walking around with mortgages, credit cards, dry darkness. They buy books, they buy 4 x 4s, telephones, cappuccinos, dildos, paddling pools. They run after-school clubs and coffee mornings, attend cheese and wine parties, watch tennis and football, go on winter breaks and discuss art-house films that proffer subtitles and bleak escape. It’s the closest they will ever get to feeling alone. The closest they will ever get to standing in shadow, surrounded by strangers, staring at an emptying glass and wondering just what the FUCK their life is all about. EPITAPH He couldn’t hold down a job, he drank too much, was selfish, self-obsessed, spoilt, greedy, jealous, foolish, worried-sick, a follower not a leader, easy to laugh at, hard to love, he was a refracted image, a fuzzy Xerox, a bad penny forever awaiting meltdown. He gave up. THERE IS A BRIDGE There is a bridge where you can stand and look at the lights, letting the wind blow through you like a ghost, another soul lost to the freezing river, where you can watch planes and seagulls soaring high above the stench of failed dreams, delirious with the horror and beauty of it all. There is a bridge that is well acquainted with the final straw, bones sick with failure, the colours of falling, sun, moon and shadow, well acquainted with this dull, dark earth and all its grey histories, with its silly little humans confusing planes with stars. 13.7 BILLION YEARS OF HELL Selected Dispatches from an Unwilling Player of God’s Little Game By Gary Simmons In Sainsbury’s, some woman said “You don’t need THAT much toilet roll, do you?” I said “You dunno what I’ve been eating!” Then she said “How are you?” and I had not the faintest fuckin’ idea who she was… So I pretended I DID! But she said “You don’t remember me, do you?” I said “OK, no!” Well, she was at the Filthy MacNastys Matlock gig and I sat outside with her and her HORNY-AS-FUCK-A-DUCK daughter, being a right dole scummy DRUNK! SHE don’t drink. I said “I was totally rat-arsed that night”. She said “I know!” Anyway, she’s called Maggi (!!), from Walthamstow (E17!!) and she’s supporting Mate-lock (she has a BAND!!) at the Whitechapel Art Gallery (I’ve exhibited there!! 1975, 197-something and 1978… I think?!) on December 14th. I said “I might be dead by then but, if I’m not, I’ll BE THERE!!” Can you believe the chance of THIS particular encounter? INCRED. * I think bands like C93, WH, NWW etc DO have a HUGE sense of humour, black or otherwise. That’s why I like ‘em so much. I’m not too into “chin-scratching”. Even Beethoven can be kinda amusing… Watch “A Clockwork Orange”. I believe humanity can joke about ANYTHING; cunt-fellation vamps or concentration camps. It might not be RIGHT, but it sure can be FUNNY. Cook and Moore joked about CANCER as Derek and Clive. All my (ex!) mates enjoy/ed a “sick” joke. So long as the person or PERSONS it’s aimed at don’t get to hear it then what HARM is done? I was at a FILTHY stag night once (complete with strippers who let the guys go down on them!) and the comedian was doing ultra-racist jokes in front of, and even TO, these black blokes in the audience. I spoke to those sambos later and found out that they weren’t the LEAST offended! “It’s all a joke,” said the soots. In those days, I was into the Boy George look, bows in my hair and shit… the comedian made mince-meat out of me. I was far too pissed to care much, though. This was at Mill-fuckin’-Wall football club… there were some HARD fuckers there! An experience, but I wouldn’t wanna do it again, I can ass-your-you. Give me the Vespa Lounge or the Admiral Duncan ANY time!! * Went dump. HAD a dump. Got £5 toop-oop on my mobile. Recycled. Went High Street with Dad and “nicked” more fucking cunting Barclays ball-point pens. Took Dad’s prescription to zoktors. Some 50-something CUNT was lookin’ at me and makin’ gestures to people at the bus stop on the other side of the road. I THINK coz I had my hot pants on. Well, it WAS hot out. I gave him dirty looks. He MAY have been a nut coz it didn’t seem like any fuck at the bus stop was interested in his motioning. Maybe he was really turned on by my hot pant and biker boot combination. I am QUEEN of Wanstead High Street chic!! Fuck ’em, eh? GEROHARRY’S “SHE HELD DIARMID. SHE HELD HIM CLOSE. SHE WHISPERED TENDER WORDS. SHE SAID: “I WILL LOVE YOU TILL— ” AND THEN THERE WAS DARKNESS. THE DARKNESS OF FOREVER.” (WHO NEEDS MEN? - © 1972 BY EDMUND COOPER) PLAYLIST CRASS – PENIS ENVY. LP (My first-bought and all-time-fave Crass album. I always DID prefer Eve Libertine’s vocals over Steve Ignorant’s… it’s a Cosy Fanny thing. Crass Records. 1981) CRASS – CHRIST – THE BOOTLEG. CD (M’s 26th birthday gifty, purchased mail-order via the superb AK Press, this is an aural rendering of Patelin’s “Three Blows of the Cudgel” but over THATCHER’S head, not Pope Julius. Whitehouse for anarcho-sympathisers. “Then the pieman whipped him (Pope Julius, not thrice rupture-ribbed a’Bennett) with an eel-skin, so soundly that his skin would have been worth nothing to make bagpipes with.” © 1534 by FranÇois Rabelais. 23 years latus and nothing’s changed ‘cos “they won’t fucking listen.” Well, WILL they? Active Distribution. 1999) V/A – BULLSHIT DETECTOR. LP (Action Frogs RULE!! Crass Records. 1980) NUCLEAR ASSAULT – SURVIVE. LP (Daddo’s Daihatsu, in-car stereo, FULL volume, FULL throttle… it’s reality DODGEM time!! Death Race 2008, aim for a celeb, kill, then MASTABATE!! Under One Flag. 1988) NUCLEAR ASSAULT – FIGHT TO BE FREE. 12” poster bag… signed!! (As above but this time with canisters of PETROL on-board. Fuck, YEAH! Under One Flag. 1988) NUCLEAR ASSAULT – SOMETHING WICKED. Jap promo CD (You get the picture. IRS. 1993) SEX PISTOLS – FILTHY LUCRE LIVE. CD (OK, it’s a CD-R bootleg “by” Tatsuya Yoshida, of Ruins, sent to me by Juntaro Yamanouchi. Probably the best live R’n’R album EVER. Virgin… or do we say “Zavvi” now? 1996) V/A – UNTITLED. Homo-taped cassette (From long-lost Polish correspondent Krysztof Sadza of Eld Rich Palmer zine. Includes Gunter Scroth’s “Barcode Music” (!), Z’ev, People Like Us and Loren Nevell. 2000?) NEW YORK DOLLS – S/T. Omo-alone-oh taped cassette. (Thank you Mark, I missed it ALL! xx 1973) V/A – MYSTERIOUS BIRTHDAY TAPE. OMP-beef-cake-get-wrecked (Just a tiny fraction of my WONDERFUL 48th birthday gifties from Mark. It’s mysterious alright, and I LOVE it!! 2007) MUSIC THE 6THS – WASPS’ NESTS (LONDON) When I came upon this in a charity shop (I was REALLY excited to see it...), I thought, Ooh, is this the one with Bob Mould on it? Well, it ISN’T the one with Bob Mould on it, but still manages to be pretty GREAT despite that. For the uninitiated, The 6ths is one of the many projects of New Yorker Stephin Merritt (NOT Stephen or Steven: STEPHIN) who pens some of the bestest, gayest songs this side of Noel Coward, with great lyrics like “When the city’s so hot, the winos burst into flames” and “She’s spent all of the rent on her decline”. The list of guest vocalists on this album is exceedingly INDIE: Lou Barlow (his Velvets-esque “In the City in the Rain” is LOVELY and, alongside Barbara Manning’s “San Diego Zoo”, the best thing here), Mary Timony, Dean Wareham, Amelia Fletcher (out of Talulah Gosh/Heavenly), etc, which befits the D.I.Y. backdrops Merritt has them sing over. Naturally, he keeps the funniest song all for himself, with its chorus of “I don’t want to see you rot in the home for aging spinsters”. While he went on to write better songs with better production and more “grown-up” instrumentation, this is a charming snapshot of where Stephin Merritt was “at” back in 1995. Where were YOU “at” back in 1995? WHITEHOUSE – LIVE ACTION 34 (SUSAN LAWLY) Played this after a chilly December night of hanging around by the River Clyde, drinking Lambrini “wine” and trying to avoid arrest/buggery. It’s a tape of Whitehouse doing their screamy/ shouty/ eardrum-bothering thing live in front of a rowdy Chicago audience, way back in 1984. Smart-arse heckling non-believer APES shout hilarities like “Louder!” and “You sound like Nina Hagen!” but a  forceful performance and lyrics like “It’s your right to kill, your NATURE” become mantras that are unavoidable, unforgettable. And, I swear by Jodie Marsh’s eternally spunked-on tits, that “Rapemaster” just sounds FUNNY to my “Mighty Boosh”/“Nathan Barley”-obsessed ears. Every time I hear this band, I get a different feeling – and it’s always a strong one. Love or hate, sometimes DISGUST. At one stage, some scum-dick crowd member asks “Where’s my entertainment?” You’ve HAD it, ya CUNT. The tape also contains a very good interview between William Bennett and a sympathetic Yanky DJ. I’d like to see WH in Glasgow sometime, so put me on the guestlist, Mr B. (that’s Mark Ritchie plus one… for my imaginary friend). I used to be on postcard-sending terms with your uncle Alan. ASHTRAY NAVIGATIONS – SINKING SEAGULL (FOXGLOVE) digitalisindustries.com More noise, this time on a limited-to-105-copies CD-R. First track, “The Silent Sinking of the Sea Org” is a wooshing industrial soundscape which makes me want to go and hang out on an oilrig in the North Sea and drink gin from chipped coffee mugs. It’s NICE. “The Reclusive Season” mixes headachey keyboard drone with soft dribbles of percussion, like a nervous nursery school band warming up for their stage debut. Third and final track, the unfortunately-named “Put His Head in the Toilet”, is a chaos of oscillating guitar reminiscent of Flying Saucer Attack. There’s also a second CD-R containing a remix of this track by Phantom Limb, whoever THAT may be. THE BOY WHO STAYED OVER – RAIN (SELF-RELEASED) myspace.com/simonalexanderhook Another CD-R but, oooh, THIS isn’t noise. THIS is Nick Drake-esque acoustic guitar pickery of the highest order! The opening instrumental title track is REALLY pretty, while “Grace” contains some weepy cello and introduces us to Simon Alexander Hook’s vocal talents, for Simon Alexander Hook IS The Boy Who Stayed Over. He even SINGS a bit like old Nicky-poos, a fact which should, if nothing else, see him in demand by advertising execs the length and breadth of the land. “Tell” is more strummy and less yummy while final song, “It’s”, returns to the rich Drakey pickings/whisperings. The cover photo, which is probably supposed to make Simon look all mysterious or in the midst of some ecstatic epiphany, actually just makes him look like someone’s giving him a blowjob in a public loo. I’d like to hear more from this “boy”. GILLIAN WELCH – TIME (THE REVELATOR) (ACONY/WEA) Got up around 9.20am, though I lay around in bed for ages. Saw the two little Asian boys who are living illegally in Room 2 with their dad (and, I assume, their mum too. FUCK knows.) Went out around 11.15 and walked into town. Had a coffee in a busy-as-it-was-lunchtime Henglers. Looked around shops. Bought some jam doughnuts. Had a browse in Missing and got this Gillian Welch CD, which I’d had on tape for years, for £4. It contains just SO many “repeat”-able songs, not least the GORGEOUS title track and meandering 14 minutes 40 seconds of “I Dream a Highway”. Decided to have a rest from all the EXCITEMENT, so I went for a pint in the Old Printworks and read a “Metro”. The opticians phoned about picking up my new specs. Then I went to the Auctioneers for a couple pints of Velvet and an ogle of all the tasty patrons. The football was coming on, though, so it started to get busy and that’s when I left. Said hello to Art Gallery Alan. Had a £1.29 Abbot ale in the Society Room next. Some promo chick was leaving free Vodaphone CDs on all the tables. Then I went to the Brunswick and had a couple pints of Arthur (Miller), standing in my fave dark corner, avoiding the gaze of all the students and listening to foxy jukeboxy music. For some reason, I went to the quite-expensive O’Neills next. Maybe to see if Sam was there? It was pretty quiet, actually. I sat by the window, scribbled things on bits of paper and drank two pints of Carling then walked along Woodlands Road and went into the Halt for another pint. Everyone was watching the football so I sat and fiddled with my phone, feeling quite self-conscious because I was sitting underneath one of the TV screens. Bought chips and was back at 8.50pm. Drank cider and watched a doc about Pink Floyd that was on BBC1. My stomach woke me up in the middle of the night, which isn’t surprising, really. ANTHONY REYNOLDS – BRITISH BALLADS (HUNGRY HILL) This guy used to be in a band called Jack, who were a bit what Suede could have sounded like if they’d delivered on the promise of their early singles rather than becoming really shit REALLY fast (too much champagne/cocaine will do that to you. Jack sounded like they were into red wine and downers. A MUCH healthier combination.) I hold this opinion even though I’ve only ever heard a single Jack track, “Nico’s Children”, which was on a free-with-a-1998-magazine CD, but its blend of London lit-pop, strings, brusque guitars and overwrought melodrama (opening lyric: “Baby, I’ve been waiting for you in the housing-benefit queue/Yeah, I’ve been waiting for the light that’s set to end us all”) really struck a chord with my overwrought, melodramatic soul. Unfortunately, not being LOADED, I can’t afford to check out each and every band that I hear one good track by, so… nearly ten years on, here I find myself reviewing the singer out of Jack’s debut solo release. Apparently he’s Welsh but he sings more like a South of England posh boy, which is a tad off-putting at times but forgivable nonetheless (what ISN’T forgivable are crappy lyrics like “The last bar on lonely street is to death what James Brown is to funk”. Yuk! Though, thankfully, THAT kind of SHIT is the exception rather than the rule here), especially when he’s crooning over tinkling pianos, gentle trumpets and cosy cellos. Ancient folkster Vashti Bunyan pops up for some whispery “spoken word” on the “Nature Boy” rip-off “Country Girl” and shares vocals on the lovely “Just So You Know”. Also, bizarrely, the drums were played by a certain Paul Cook. Surely not the Sex Pistols’ drummer? Well, the album WAS recorded in his East London “manor” so you never know! However, these songs are all about the RETREAT from urban hell. “Buses and cafés and people’s dead faces/No, no thanks,” Reynolds coos in “A Quiet Life”, before going on to diss “dog shit and children and rude shop assistants”. Think you’ll find that ALL of those things are also READILY available in the country, ACTUALLY, Mr. R. As someone who was brought up in a village, I can honestly say that country living is NOT all it’s cracked up to be by rosy-eyed city types who wank over copies of “Horse and Hound” and spend occasional weekends tending the vegetable patch in their million quid “bolt-holes”. ANYWAY, there are some really nice songs here, especially the stirring/swelling “Those Kind of Songs” and the lonely, waterlogged ache of “The Disappointed”. RUDIMENTARY PENI – THE EPs OF RP/DEATH CHURCH (OUTER HIMALAYAN) A nice reader sent me SEVEN CDs by this band simply ‘cos I mentioned a couple of issues ago that I wouldn’t mind hearing what they sounded like (I’d also quite like to experience how it feels to be a MILLIONAIRE, if anyone wants to oblige? Nah, thought not). Of course, seven CDs of spunky punk stuff is just a LITTLE bit much for a man of generally more sedate tastes, so I’ve decided to take things slowly with this lot. These two early-1980s albums are supposed to be “essential” if you’re into the whole Crass/anarcho thing and I can see WHY. “The EPs of RP” contains 23 short, sharp songs (played by people who can ACTUALLY play), some impassioned singing/shouting and lyrics about, y’know, REAL LIFE and shit and how, like, religion is REALLY BAD, yeah? The lyrics are well-intentioned but fairly standard sixth-form kind of stuff, to be honest, but it’s still a damn fine way of blasting away the festive cobwebs. “Death Church” seems a far more considered affair, with diversely textured songs berating sell-out punk stars (“Rotten to the Core”) nestling easily alongside the usual animal rights/anti-state fare (“Pig in a Blanket”/Slimy Member”). Sonically, there’s a big change too, with Magazine-style vocals/guitars creeping in over slabs of (early) Joy Division bass. Also, the CD artwork is impressively nightmarish and should appeal to any acid casualty goths out there. ESPERS – ESPERS II (DRAG CITY) Ooh, this is nice. Seven long tracks of female/male voiced floaty, dancing-in-a-woodland-grove-with-fairies kind of stuff with mysterious lyrics and titles like “Children of Stone” and “Moon Occults the Sun”. Light a few candles and incense sticks, load up your peace pipe with “meditation materials” and drift off into a world where everyone wears headbands and long, flowing dresses. Naboo from “The Mighty Boosh” would LOVE this kinda thing and so do I. It’s GROOVY, maaaan. WHITEHOUSE – RACKET (SUSAN LAWLY) “Racket”! Ha ha ha ha HA! No one can accuse Britain’s favourite, fun-loving noise pioneers of having no sense of humour. Ironically, though, this is perhaps the LEAST “rackety” Whitehouse album to date. Opening instrumental “Fairground Muscle Twitcher” takes you on a wheezy tour through the freaky sideshows of William Bennett’s mind. In the CD booklet, he calls himself an “animal response technician” and looks a bit like a praying mantis. It’s easy to see why he lives in Edinburgh – all those haunted graveyards and spooky, narrow alleyways with names like Fleshmarket Close. “Mouthy Battery Beast” is one of the ‘House’s sweary/shouty pieces of lyrical greatness (“The Alice pill you snatch from the blind evolutionary drift of your common and ugly unsaved self”, etc), only THIS time around the backing track isn’t harsh and ugly noise, but African drums, gongs and bells, a common theme throughout the seven tracks that make up “Racket”. “Dumping More Fucking Rubbish” is a new recording of an older track, which actually leads the listener somewhere POSITIVE with the call to “Rise up, rise up now/Pull yourself together and kill this fucking nightmare that is inside you/NOW”. Following on from this is “The Avalanche” - a floaty, chiming, Zen-calm instrumental that is the LOVELIEST thing WH have ever done - then “Bahnhof”, bearer of yet MORE excellent lyrics, some of which wouldn’t sound out of place in a James Ellroy novel (“You do dumpster dick for stepdad dollars?”) The mangled beats of “Dyad” reminds me of WH tracks of old, in that the words are spat out so quickly, you don’t have time to take in their meaning – a bit like subliminal learning (or brain-washing!) – even when you’re looking at the lyric booklet. Last track, “Bia Mintatu”, is another instrumental, this time more blackly industrial in tone. This is easily my favourite Whitehouse album EVER. BOOKS reviewed by Andrew Willshaw ADRIAN HOUSE – FRANCIS OF ASSISI (PIMLICO) This was one of those books that jump out from the shelves and you leave the shop not really knowing why you got it. I had walked over to the religious section with all intents and purposes to get “Paul” by A.N. Wilson, but ended up with this instead. Fuck knows why? I suppose I gravitated towards it because he’s seen as a “friend of the animals”, but as I was to find, he extended that love much further. At the end of his life he would compose a poem calling the elements, the sun, moon and even death, his siblings. Something I found quite striking, almost pagan. This book is basically a biography of the guy, from his playboy 24-7 party days to his later life where he showed extreme devotion to God. Some of the parts I found most interesting were when the author went off on a tangent talking about other people (like William Blake) and mysticism in general (in all religions and beyond). I think I’ve always been attracted to the more mystical aspects of religions, investigating methods of finding a direct union with the divine, rather than just being part of some grim institution. And throughout this book you get a feeling of what a grim and bureaucratic an institution the Catholic Church was or is. There seem a total contrast between the self-degrading poverty and disease stricken friars and the pope’s army, who, for the most part, seem to spend the majority of the book killing and raping Muslims or Cathar heretics with total abandon. How an institution could okay this amount of death and torture as well as the work of Francis seems strange. But then Francis often deferred to Rome, accepting their power. But perhaps there is no contradiction; perhaps renouncing the world could be seen as just another way of keeping the masses in check, while the heads of the church sat in palaces? Conspiracy? Who knows? What it feels like sometimes though is through Francis’ contact with the pope and noblemen, he is actively condoning such barbaric behaviour. Perhaps? Who cares these days, full of cynicism and apathy? If you look outside all the rules and bureaucracy (which weighs the book down near the end, which I found hard going) you begin to see glimmers of something else, something perhaps inhuman or transcendent. We have Francis bartering with wolves, preaching to birds, befriending crows, saving worms, and even controlling the weather. A kind of revolution happened due to his example, and hundreds of men and women gave away all their possessions to live in poverty, with little or no self-regard, helping the sick and the needy. This purification of self seemed to lead Francis to take on some of the attributes of Jesus, suffering the stigmata near the end of his life (the first recorded case in European history). I could never do what Francis did, as his denial of self led to a denial of those who loved him; his family and friends (something I just couldn’t do). I understand it as a technique of feeling more part of the whole (what a paradox), but I live in hope that when my time is up on this planet, when I have no option, that I, myself will be reunited with that all encompassing force some people call God. KATHLEEN POWERS ERICKSON – AT ETERNITY’S GATE (EERDMANS) Somewhere or other there is a book that holds the key. Or is it that the key is in bits and can be found in any number of books? And not just in one specific copy, but in 1000s of the same one printed together, because it’s not the book as an individual that is important but what it says. In other words it is the book’s soul or essence. Amidst the unimportant waffle and passing places there are parts of a million books that if they were cut out and pasted together they would speak the whole truth or something like that (though we should know by now in this post-bullshit world that there is no truth and we are all full of shit). However we delude ourselves perhaps, that things are still worth striving for, that words are still worth remembering, underlining, quoting and memorising. Although it didn’t seem so for most of the book, “At Eternity’s Gate” seemed to hold some answers or a fraction on fairy dust to collect and store in a kit bag. Because it was from the library, Diego had scribbled bits from it onto some folded print paper, which doubled up for a bookmark. He hoped that he could remember the good parts because he had lost the paper after reading it, in amongst the rest of his junk. Maybe these words would stay with him and help him develop somehow, if their power was strong enough…however if they had been only superficial they might be scrapped away too easily. Who knew? This book and one on Saint Francis pushed him onwards, led him to cast out some more of his belongings and thus help kill some more of him. He felt almost dead without certain possessions. How could the loss of a book or DVD have such a violent affect on him? It just made Diego think that maybe there was more to what he owned than met the eye. And he wondered if this type of death (‘cos it felt like death) might make him feel lonelier (or out of touch)? Van Gogh had given away everything when he became a preacher in a small mining town in Belgium. He lived in poverty alongside the miners, caring for the sick and others in need. He was loved and respected by the townsfolk, but was hated by the church, that he was eventually turfed out of, as a bad example of a clergyman. But all Vincent was doing was trying to emulate Christ, so of course this was a threat to more conventional Christians. The church to Jesus was like Green Day is to Minor Threat. There’s just no link between the two. For his emulation of Christ, Van Gogh was chucked out of the church. He fell out with his preacher father and uncle, and began to view the church in a very negative way. His faith and beliefs stuck with him though, and can be seen in his paintings that he produced in the later part of his life. In the natural world he constantly saw signs and symbols that were mentioned in the biblical parables or Christian folklore. The olive trees, the sunflowers and the sun itself became Jesus, while the wheat fields and the lilies represented the faithful, the humble or the worthy. Unfortunately Vincent was stricken with a form of epilepsy, making him black out or prone to fits of mania, that would lead him to self-harm and finally shoot himself. As he lay dying the French police paid him a visit, shouting at him on his deathbed, calling him a trouble causer, a weirdo, outsider. When he died, his friends came to his house and hung his sunflower paintings (once painted for his estranged friend, Gauguin) along the walls surrounding his corpse. Van Gogh had gone, released from this world of pain. Diego puts the book down. Tears roll down his cheeks. He's not sure why he's crying- maybe it's because he hates the way people view Vincent...as a madman or a fool...famous much less for his work than the fucking ear story. A story heard so often that people are desensitised to it, to the pain and suffering he actually felt. Ordinary fucking people laughing at a great man's pain. He mutilated himself- he cut off a bit of his fucking ear. How is that laughable? Diego thinks about people he knows who've cut themselves, tried to channel the pain somewhere else, from the mental to the more physical, like alchemists. Ground it, tie it down, have some kind of control. He remembers Matty ringing him at 2 o'clock in the morning, drunkenly asking for plasters, waking up the rest of Diego's house. Diego threw on his clothes and went over. He found Matty sat on the floor, his back against the couch, a huge gash in his arm. "Look it's talking to me," Matty said. Diego rang a taxi and took him to A&E. Matty came away with staples all the way up his arm. Diego's housemates were less than happy with him, like the French police stood around Vincent's bed calling him fucking names. ZINE ESCAPADES issues 1-3 (Contact: rex.escapades@gmail.com) Sometimes, things that you see/hear unexpectedly can reaffirm your faith in the world and human nature in general. Take this zine, for instance. It was sent to me out of the blue and I found myself really enjoying it. It’s a bit like the anarcho/vegan/punk zines I used to read a lot back in the mid-to-late ‘80s/early ‘90s and THANK GOD people are still doing this sort of thing. Papery zines can still be a powerful medium, especially when they contain the kind of anti-mainstream views which you NEVER EVER get to hear about in the corporate-cock-sucking rags like The Sun, The Star, The Daily Mail, etc. The people who write for these rags have AGENDAS and bosses to keep happy, so there’s NO WAY they’ll ever rock the boat and actually tell you the TRUTH. “Escapades” contains a whole FEAST of good stuff, including articles about graffiti, squatting, “Being Idle” (RIGHT ON!) and pasting 250 pictures of Barry Chuckle Brother onto a friends’ bedroom wall (!) as well as comic strips, collage art and, oh, just EMAIL THEM and get the zine for YOURSELF. HY! also has a few copies going spare, if anyone cares to ask. And you really SHOULD care, you know. NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS AS USUAL Ian sipped his pint and looked out of the pub window at the people below. They all looked so DULL. Dull clothes, dull expressions, dull lives. Wastes of space. But, still, he envied them. Envied their ability to carry on existing with the minimum of fuss or drama. Why couldn’t HE be more like that, part of the seamless flow of things? Why did he have to FIGHT everything? Why couldn’t he accept the reality of the nine-to-five world where hard CASH was the only reward for a lifetime of toil and conformity? It was getting dark and people were winding down their working day but Ian was on his third pint of 5% ale, in a soulless city-centre pub overlooking a derelict bus station. Occasionally, he would go outside and stand in the pub’s doorway, smoke a roll-up and breathe in the exhaust fumes and damp winter air. Just after 5pm, Marisa walked in, shaking her umbrella. “How did the job interview go?” he asked. “Get me a drink first, will you? I’m DYING!” He bought her a rum and Coke and she told him about her day. “It was a NIGHTMARE. Took me ages to even FIND the place, then the lift got stuck and I started panicking. You know what I’m like in confined spaces. Anyway, there were meant to be four people doing the interview but there were only three, as it turned out. Not that three wasn’t intimidating ENOUGH.” She paused to sip her drink. Ian was halfway down his pint and shot a sideways glance at the bar. “They asked all the USUAL shit,” Marisa continued. “You know, things like, ‘What qualities do you think you’d be able to bring to this position?’ Stuff like that. Well, I told them about my dad working in that kind of job and THAT seemed to impress them, so then they started asking me stuff about my dad.” “So, do you think it went okay, then?” Ian asked, desperate to change the subject and, more importantly, get himself another pint. “Oh, I don’t know. I can never tell. They said they’d let me know within a week or two. Seemed a bit vague about it, actually. Do you know how many people they were interviewing?” “No,” Ian sighed. “Two HUNDRED! I couldn’t BELIEVE it!” “Yeah, that’s crazy. Look, are you ready for another?” “Oh, sorry, am I BORING you?” “God, of course not. I just want another pint, that’s all. Do you want one?” “Did your dole money come in?” “Yeah.” “Did you pay the gas bill?” “Yeah.” “Get me another double, then. And some crisps.” When he returned from the bar, Marisa was rummaging through her handbag. “You lost something?” “I was talking to the security guard at that place today and he said there’s a job going in his brother’s shop. He gave me the number. I thought you could give it a ring.” “Marisa, how many times have I got to tell you, I don’t WANT to do that kind of shit anymore?” “You don’t want to do ANYTHING anymore. What the hell’s WRONG with you? All you do is drink, watch TV and play on that stupid Playstation all night long.” “I’m just sick of following other people’s rules, that’s all. I want a bit of time to MYSELF for a change.” “But it’s been MONTHS since you last had a job. Do you want to go on like this FOREVER?” Ian didn’t answer her. He just stared out of the window at the dwindling crowds of passers-by. Marisa sighed, snapped shut her handbag and said she was going outside for a cigarette. The pub felt nice and cosy now, Ian thought. A good place to sit and contemplate things. He watched a group of noisy young men in suits who were downing shots. “Work hard, play hard,” one of them shouted, dribbling green liquid down the front of his designer label shirt.