The Wire I Know

Gonzo journalism is mostly about getting really piss-wired drunk and yelling at unsuspecting bystanders. Wire's life, on the other whole, is about something more. But there is a great deal of shouting and getting drunk.

He loves to play in a degenerate secular domain where genetic engineering and technology overruns fashionability, feeds addiction and is the opiate for corporations. The authority brutalises the citizenry with impunity, the gonzo journalist tells me. Once, after a bar brawl at the Red Pelican, he told me why he still wrote - no organisation is big enough for the truth.

As I approach his office building, my heads repeats the sentence.When I found him, the lazy, drunk bastard was hard at work. Writing, he explains with fear clouding the whites of his eyes, is a way to save his ass from a muscle pusher of an Editor eager ensure deadlines. Wire has a soft spot for his iron-fisted head honcho but after a brief exchange with me, we set out.

He will brave the streets of the City once again; only this time without flipping off authority figures and helping the downtrodden in spite of himself.

In Metropolis, Wire walks as if he's in his living room, watching and sometimes exchanging giving the finger with the people on the streets. His actions are crisp, and although sometimes the dialogue means little, the plot is thicker than the smog. You just got to know how he thinks.

"I hate it here," he tells me.

"And so you hate at when people shout at you,cursing and swearing. But you know what? If you really want people to do nothing to you, just ignore it all; relax and sit back and throw blank stares. No need to hit back, no need to feel threatened, no need to give a shit. All you need to do is sit back and do nothing. And soon, things will go quiet again. There'll be no-one to bug you with all these disturbing ideas, and the media won't hype about some shit they made in some obscure lab, no one will disrespect your status quo. And then when things settle down, you'll be the same person you were yesterday. Things still haven't changed that much."

The bastard talks to much. I'd shoot him if I didn't need him. And he knows it's not personal. Like him, I hate everyone.