The Madness of a Recluse / Aesthete

I am a very good-looking man

2011-05-29T00:12:00.000-07:00

I prefer to open a banana like a monkey--I pinch the nip at the base. It makes me feel like a pervert, but some things feel right.

She called my creepy. I dismissed the criticism by moaning, Baby that's my style.

I looked across the water. It was filthy and it stank like shit. We gazed deeply into each other's eyes.

"Do ugly people look at each other this way?" she inquired.

"Darling I have no idea what ugly people do."

In the end, I did not eat the banana, though my doctor says I am deficient in every vitamin and mineral. There's a time and place for everything and this was not the time for that.

Training Log: 29 July 2010

2010-07-28T23:21:00.000-07:00

Morale: Desperate
Type of Exercise: Elliptical Trainer

This morning, while "jacking off" in the shower, I felt an intense emptiness that normally I would combat with a mixture of drugs and alcohol. But, as I crushed my morning protein shake and devised a surefire way to score some smack--nude, in the glistening sun--I decided I would fight my heroin urges and hop on the elliptical trainer instead.

I did half an hour of interval training and my bursts were so intense I feared a heart attack but welcomed the prospect of Death as the destroyer of all my personal and administrative problems. Wearing only my finest silk undergarments, my cock danced like a sweaty snake to the Velvet Underground who serenaded me through my lime green Sennheiser MX75 Sport earbuds.

In my final burst, I asked for only death or endorphins, but neither came. Semi-satisfied, I crushed a smoothie in the Astro Lab and tried to contact the planets. I have no plans for the rest of the day.

Training Log: 26 July 2010

2010-07-26T13:13:00.000-07:00

Morale: Low
Type of exercise: Road cycling

Battling violent winds, I rode along the southern coast. I hated every moment. That cock Aolous was angry at me, all because I fucked his mother last night in a dream. I struggled to keep tempo while the wind battered me and I broke down into tears on the side of the road. Afterwards I felt like shit and vomited a little in the shower--one of those pukes where a chunk gets stuck in your sinus and you hack and hack and hack but it won't shake loose until you finally admit defeat and turn on some trashy television and you are rudely reminded that, oh shit, I have thrown up again and fuck the taste is awful I want to die you bitch Nature you bitch you bitch you whore.

Training Log: 24 July 2010

2010-07-24T02:40:00.000-07:00

Morale: Medium
Type of exercise: Run

On Thursday I had a mini-overdose, and when I came out of it, my female doctor advised me to take up exercise. She's short, fat, and very obnoxious with her "knowledge," but I suppose I'll take the bitch's advice.

I have no recollection of the last month. When I arrived home from the hospital, my house was full of cats and sex toys. I ordered Kitty Webb, who continues to live me on a semi-platonic basis, to clean things up. She's been otherwise useless, as there's been a touch of the syph going around.

After a mad night of dehydration and suicidal desire, I went for a lovely, dewy 10 mile run around the perimeter of the estate. The primary aim was speed; the secondary aim was to spiritually transform myself into a gazelle. I hit the first mark, huffing and puffing like a horny teenager having a make-out session with the class slut after a night of rum and reefer, but though I was feverishly horny, it was not the trademark horniness of the gazelle but rather a human hunger to make love to all the beautiful, healthful babes in the world, preferably all at the same time, preferably in a sauna. Damn the disease, but I suppose I'm doing penance. I felt grunty and good.

The sun was newly risen. I was lonely and elite. I howled. When I came home, I wanted nothing to do with that slut Kitty. Her belly is not quite flat. It disgusts me.

To Baby

2010-05-31T22:48:00.000-07:00

Dear Baby,

Are you still mad at me because I called your pregnant clay god a whore? I told you, never worship a woman--a lesson that hit me like a tonne the summer I spent in Cyprus, masturbating compulsively in my monk's cell, never having any visions because I was drunk all the time (or at least 85% of the time). Alcohol for me is a surrogate spirit, but I must admit, it really gets things done on earth. Baby, it's how we met. We were drunk and wild and I’ve almost forgotten the sickness.

The monks and I would put on cosmic soap operas. I was always the hunky asshole/Neptune. After a row that ended with me tearing Myoki's fat Budha belly with a dessert fork, I fled to Canada, citing artistic differences. I knew that Neptune should be into bestiality--mostly cockatoos and parrots because of the tongues--but for some reason the thought disgusted Myoki. Touchy prick.

Canadians found me creepy because I stand too close. Well, yes, the English are a creepy breed. We are, after all, the ones who were afraid to leave.

But Baby, your smooth white English rose of an ass suits me fine. It's OK that you have no character--I just want to feel, taste, smell your fleshy Jupiters and oils. I think they can satisfy me, but, lest we forget, I’ve suckled the milk of paradise—come to think of it, I’ve suckled quite a bit. I'm sorry I told you we are not cats. We are. And I'm sort of into that these days. Let's be English cats and never leave the house. Let’s lie constantly.

We must destroy the pregnant figurine. Let's go into space. It will work out fine.

xoxo

- Tewksbury

The AstroLab

2010-02-20T11:03:00.000-08:00

She was a tall drink of water with a kick and she had legs up to here. Well well well, we've got stars in our eyes tonight. Let's pour a drink and make out in my exotic car--I'm feeling like a tiger. And it's a full moon, or close enough... Or are you sick again? You can't keep out of trouble, can you, pussy cat? You're infected with the chaos of the world--now isn't that a drag? It's not easy on me, either. But I'll jump out of a cake with a blue Speedo if it makes you happy.

Now the universe is my thing--I dig that planetary noise. Like jazz, but good. I've constructed an AstroLab in the attic--old brass telescopes, compasses, and tube electronics. It cost a fortune, but I love getting drunk on Jim Beam while spotting planets and constellations. I love the milky way, but I confess, I spend most of my time looking in parked cars. In general I've learned a lot.

Last night I woke up as Jupiter. Really psychedellic. I was full and warm but my moon was bringing me down. She said she was killing herself. I was so worried that I pissed myself. I tried to convince myself that it was just a moon--I have 62 more--but I was sad to see her go because she was a pretty one. I watched it grow ugly and die.

It's no good being a sensitive planet. I'll change my sheets and learn courage from hard liquor and fast cars. That's my long-term plan.

Tewksbury at the Movies: If...

2009-12-29T09:14:00.000-08:00

The Fantastical Duke of Losers, Part 2

2009-12-14T12:52:00.000-08:00

(continued from Part 1)

The Duke had hired Sammari to play the gig under two conditions:

1) The Duke, Nigel Tewksbury, will be allowed to play one song: a sultry version of "My Funny Valentine." Sammari will mime accompaniment on saxophone.

2) The Duke will be permitted to spend the night with the back-up dancer of his choosing.

Cigarette in hand, a warm clarity overcame the Duke as the motorcycle grew louder. Oh shit, he thought, here comes the visions of the future--those fucking gyres and the Holy Om. And oh shit, he saw the future, and it was the best of all possible worlds. He sat peacefully beside a lake with the Indian girl; they wore fine moccasins and nibbled buffalo meat; she washed his silk pyjamas and caught fish while he told her beautiful stories of pixies and demons (hiddenfolk sat on the rocks and listened, knowing they were safe amongst friends). And oh shit, he saw exactly what he had to do to create this paradise, but oh shit, the freaks were in the way, ruining everything, ruining the Indian girl, possibly for good. No bones about it, thought the Duke, This is shaping up a real tragedy. I'll have to smarten up to even have a shot; I'll have to become a tender-hearted warrior, or some bullshit like that.

An amplified pre-recorded shout echoed in the distance:

We're doing a Sammari Safari!

Dump the tour bus, hop in my Ferrari!

Sammari's entrance was elegant and spectacular. The motorcycle accelerated through the barn--maiming two chickens in the process--and skidded to a halt amid wild pyrotechnics. Out of the smoke emerged the short, muscular body of Sammari, and the freaks went wild with hooting and hollering and popping pills of various colours, completely ignoring the talented stunt driver who quickly dashed backstage to be drunk and unappreciated. The Duke hung his head, thought of his pagan gods, questioned their reality, and cried.

He threw away his canteen and began his calisthenic routine--tears in his eyes--while Sammari went through the verses.

"Thanks everyone. This is your boy Sammari. This next song goes out to my favourite shorty, the Little Indian Girl. Isn't she fine, baby? All right, all right, let's drink some Hennessy on ice!"

In the corner the Duke rehearsed his song. Some things a man must do alone.

Product Review: Marshall Ferret Beret from ferret.com

2009-12-08T09:42:00.001-08:00

Buyer Beware!

I purchased the Marshall Beret for my little ferret friend Daedalus. He has always had an artistic temperament--he would go into a trance whenever he heard Miles Davis and would sulk in the corner for days should a female refuse to mate with him. In September he was intensely melancholic, sometimes refusing to emerge from his Marshall Fleece Leisure Lodge for days on end. He grew emaciated and took to eating cigarette butts. In a last ditch effort to cheer him up, I presented him with the beret.

Immediately he was more active and expressed an interest in painting. I purchased him some watercolours and he began making mad--sometimes pornographic--designs with his paws. Previously it was my habit to drink half a bottle of red wine with breakfast, but since purchasing the beret, I cannot open a bottle without Daedalus sticking his nose in it with the sole aim of intoxication. The beret has changed him entirely. I have created a monster.

He has begun shagging female ferrets without regard to age or appearance, and last week he began experimenting with homosexuality. Though I know full well he is litter-trained, he has taken to defecating and urinating indiscriminately--sometimes he seems to do this to make a statement, though I cannot fathom what it is. His actions have become wild and abstract. I no longer understand him, and I find his bohemian lifestyle rather destructive for a ferret.

Hedgehog in the Fog

2009-12-05T06:23:00.001-08:00

Sunday Morning

2009-11-29T01:42:00.001-08:00

The Sonnet: Then and Now

2009-11-28T06:17:00.000-08:00

The Sonnet
William Mulready (1786-1863)
1839
Oil on Panel

"This was one of the artist's most popular works. A critic observed: 'The youth is fiddling with his shoe-tie, but casting a upwards sly look, to ascertain what effect his lines produce upon the merry maid who reads them...placing her hand before her lips to suppress her laughter'."

Springtime (dip dip a dooby i love ya!)
Corey Feldman (1971-)
2008
Rasp on Awful

The Fantastical Duke of Losers, Part 1

2009-11-23T13:45:00.000-08:00

The carnival was over. The freaks were in the barn having a drug-fueled orgy with the pigs and the cows. It was how they chose to live. The musclemen, each one a homosexual and a bro, chopped the heads off chickens and choreographed the resultant dance moves. Bearded women and rubber men had awkward intercourse in shit-filled troughs. "Baby we're in Xanadu! This barnyard is our pleasure dome!"

The Duke of Losers sat cross-legged with the rats in the dirt beneath the stage. He suckled a canteen of gin, convinced he was a visionary. He could see the course of things quite clearly. He saw the freaks were hopeless but my god they were having a ball and here am I drinking alone!

He worried about the little Indian girl. She once was a sweet tea-drinker but now associated with the freaks and donkeys. She occasionally runs off with Steve, a model citizen, but she always returns to the carnival. What one does in the past, mused the Duke, one will inevitably do in the future--unless there is a shock! And Steve is such a twat. And certainly not a duke. I'm afraid the carnival is in her blood.

He watched the passers-by. What an enormous gaggle of idiots!

Oh Steve... Steve Steve Steve... Living the Canadian Dream, wearing clothes chosen by your girlfriend, so proud of yourself because she tells you they are fashionable--you look like an overgrown child! Please tell me more about your mortgage and your magnificent home improvements! Oh oh oh and what's your favourite food!? Tell me how much you like to eat it!

Inside the barn, the freaks awaited for the arrival of Sammari, a hip-hop singer of lukewarm ability known for singing about women and fast cars and, occasionally, when he felt poetic, women-as-fast-cars. He, too, had his eye on the beautiful Indian girl. He would impress her with his phenomenal ability to party quite seriously.

Though reluctant to admit it, the Duke also liked to party--just never seriously. He had poetry power and a reputation for being a sad sack. No one likes a sad sack, a friend once told him, and that's exactly what you are: a big sack of sad and you stink like socks. The Duke immediately took a shower, quite conscientiously washing his balls, and made an oath never to be sad again.

That's how he became a duke.

In the distance was the squeal of a Japanese motorcycle. Steve noted how motorcycles often sound like their names--What a fucking idiot, thought the Duke. But enough of all that... We are all quite drunk and Sammari will soon be here!

A Good Place

2009-11-18T11:30:00.000-08:00

Darling I'm inventing a world. I've stolen a Scottish Fold and a set of dinosaur bones. We'll read erotica to the crickets and have that twinkle in our eyes. Coffee and potatoes aplenty; an abandoned seaside resort. Give it a few months and we'll be transformed--no longer food for worms but magical lovers digestible only to each other. We'll call the kitten Agamemnon--Aggy-Poo for short--and inspire the jealousy of the world. I'll love you till you're tattered and no longer a simple girl.

Basia Bulat, Gold Rush

2009-11-17T01:32:00.000-08:00

Confession: I am a little in love with you, my darling Basia. Your new track is quite brilliant. I danced all night.

The Recluse

2009-11-14T09:26:00.000-08:00

One lonely Saturday she lured me into her grotto. She fed me dark chocolate and wine. Now I am sad, ruined, and thirsting for Her. I cannot find her home and am afraid she has since withered.

You eight-legged six-eyed bitch. There's no mistaking it, I am your boy.

The Madness of a Recluse

2009-11-12T12:33:00.000-08:00

Coyotes.

Autumn Ritual

2009-11-11T12:13:00.000-08:00

I stumbled in at 4:00 a.m. A week night in mid-October, her house was cold and drafty. It smelled like fumigation. I flicked on her kitchen light, trying not to wake her abruptly, but trying to wake her. I slammed some scotch and put on some Ennio Morricone, quietly. I felt my better spirit inside me--hello, it's been awhile.

And there she stood in the bedroom portal, blue nightgown, breasts right there. She sweats when she sleeps and I could smell it. I whistled a quiet rise-and-fall. Well well well.

"Come here baby," I slurred, and patted out a little spot for her on the couch. I was infatuated with her fleshy curves and strange sticky odour. I put my nose in her ear and we tickled each other.

"That's a good pussy cat," I said. "Now be a dear and fix me a drink then hand me my lute."

Ah, my lovely lute, my best old friend. I mumbled out a song, playing along to the compact disc. I sang noises, not words. I didn't want to use that part of my brain.

You didn't think I would do something as cliche as serenade her, did you?

"It's all theatre, baby," I took another drink and exhaled softly. "I've been out balling and it makes me sick. The drugs, the alcohol, the false feelings that trick you. But what I have here is real." I squeezed her bottom and kissed her till I was bored. I played my lute some more. Ahhhhhhh.

I played to her the prettiest melody I knew. Sort of this folksy little jive in G. Then I tossed the instrument on the floor. Crash!

"Oopsy daisy," I laughed. She was frightened. "But such is love."

I took off her nightgown. "Now let's not be afraid to mess up this fancy-ass couch you've got here."

***

I awoke to her two cats licking my face. This bird beside me was disgusting and smelled like cigarettes.

I whispered in her ear: "You disgust me."

She turned her back on me and made a whimpering sound. Oh this is bloody real all right!

So I busted up my lute, my old friend, and used it as firewood. Watching the flames reminded me of simpler times--youth, poetry, and the caveman. I returned to the bedroom, told her I was a dumb-ass and sick, and asked her to come sit with me by the fire. She refused, but accepted my offer of a smoke. She wasn't so bad, really, just fucked-up like the rest of us.

I put on my sunglasses, afraid of crying, and walked out into the cold. Goodbye, fair instrument. Bloody hell it was early and it was cold. My suit was filthy and the morning joggers made me feel like a rat.

Big City Romance

2009-11-10T04:09:00.000-08:00

We're either weak or wise,
but there is no doubt we're losers.
And this is my compensation
for your mistakes--
blow man blow!--
You've broken up our sweet little egg
and baby I feel scrambled!

The Dewy Grass

2009-11-05T12:15:00.000-08:00

I.
"Come live with me in my sick estate. We'll get well. I'll feed you tea and oranges and we'll make love in the out-of-doors. In the dewy grass, baby. The dewy grass!"

But this gal was closed-off. "Dear Prudence," I said. "You've spent too much time in false paradise. It's really messed you up."

II.
For three weeks I renounced Holy Paganism and saw the world as it is, as a machine, self-interest as its oil. No fun, no playfulness, no little faeries tying Celtic knots in my pubic hair. I was miserable. I'd say I was in Hell but the concept was dead. What I was was in Starbucks, drunk and stinking, staring at an old woman with purple hair. Oh how I long for those weird demons!

I filled my canteen with Oban whisky and sat by the Italian Fountains. "I will kill myself," I laughed, then offered some whisky to a squirrel. His jerky rejection of my finest scotch stung my little heart. Why don't you like me? This is really good stuff.

I had to make a decision. It was either suicide or calisthenics at the gymnasium. I have always wanted abs like Satan's.

III.
Enervated from the workout, I sent a letter to my baby: "If you ever have purple hair, I won't speak to you. Also don't go ugly. I can't stand ugly girls. Not when they do it to themselves."

Public Performance by Nigel Tewksbury: The Aquatic Ape

2009-11-04T11:32:00.000-08:00

Time: Saturday, November 7th, 2:15 pm
Place: Italian Fountains, Kensington Gardens

My cocoon is stuffy. The surrounding air whispers to me: Emerge, you deranged butterfly! Fly you beautiful baboon! Thus I shall make my first public performance in years this Saturday, November 7th, in Kensington Gardens.

I have been training my body and mind. I ask strangers on the street and they all agree: I am incredible.

For six months I have been meditating on The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (from Wikipedia) and have composed an experimental poem on the subject. In my performance I shall debut the piece before stripping naked and swimming in the Italian fountains. Please don't tell the police.

All are encouraged to join the swim and I will enthusiastically share the contents of my magic flask to all in attendance. Come and celebrate Nothing.

My dear, beloved pussycats, I hope to see you there.

Majestically, aquatically, yours,

Nigel Tewksbury

Last Letter to Tanya

2009-11-04T00:36:00.000-08:00

Tanya,

You live on inside me as waves of perfume. In quiet moments you still surround me. It's a shame you became an academic girl and no longer believe in God and music. To discover your beauty is hollow is what drove me to blended scotch and worse. It did not do me much good but filled me with pretensions and false feelings. It made me the the dunce who stands before you; ultimately it made me joyfully mean. I lost my faith in clarity because you poisoned me with Chanel. I've gone to filthy places with hopes to clear my head. That is how stupid I am, my love. A moron who still believes in God and music but cannot bear the disinfection of a church. I remember your embraces too clearly--especially when it's silent--how I would get lost in the sweaty tangles of your hair and how holy it was. So I sit in bed and smell her armpits.

What are you wearing?

Filthily, religiously, yours,

Nigel Tewksbury

Atlas Sound - Walkabout

2009-11-03T07:20:00.000-08:00

Pussycats,

It reminds me of when I went clear one summer and embraced the madness of health before doing more harm than good.

I played in the fountain, though I am far from a boy for whom it is normal to play.

It reminds me of crazy adulthood, which I have chosen to embrace. I shall eat a peanut butter sandwich and do a soft shoe routine in the park.

My pussycats, you are invited to watch.

Skinny Dipping

2009-11-03T06:40:00.000-08:00

I awoke, after a long and restless night, to find myself in a situation most mad. I had dreamt of exploding walls and looking through a frosted windshield. The frosted windshield made me cry because it was not real--a memory of another life, where I spent a great deal of energy trying not to die in traffic. The exploding walls filled me with the emptiness of a hero.

After the explosion I felt a general horror. A ghost bid me to get drunk--famously so--but I told him I had sworn a mild oath to Sobriety and that these days hard-living is cliche. He told me to lighten up; I told him he was a disgusting pig. For I have also sworn an oath to Truth.

Also in my dream I exchanged telegrams with a mistress of Heaven. I asked her if she noticed the darkness underlying my cheery tone and whether it was good or bad. She gave me some flaky reply and told me to be patient. That was not much use to me at all. So I asked her to come with me to explore a New Madness. I fear she is afraid and am yet to receive her reply, the goodie-goodie bitch.

All this dreaming left me feeling like a loser, so I jumped into a freezing lake with no clothes on. I felt the water surround me until I became overwhelmed with pleasant thoughts of death. I gasped wide-eyed in an ecstasy. A group of idiots gathered around the lake and watched me flail--half were drunk or on drugs, and half were assholes with high-powered jobs. Somehow, I, a nakedly flailing man, was the most dignified, the most true. When I emerged I was all smiles and laughter. I knew my abdominals looked godly. I kissed the prettiest girl, though she resisted, slightly.

Upon returning to my digs, I felt vital and clear and abandoned my sinister thoughts for a cup of tea. I thought of home, though I've never had one. The hot shower seemed a tropical waterfall.

Fleas, etc.

2009-10-27T06:39:00.000-07:00

Reginald Hardcourt has fleas. He moved to South Korea to meet his gay guru lover and drink snake oil to get clear. He's lost most his teeth. He sent me a picture--he looks like a deranged baby. "Those won't grow back," I texted him. (He thought they would).

I spent my best years in darkness, collecting and stealing, piecing together a starry identity, fetishizing corduroy. But for the occasional predawn drunkenness and experiments in automatic writing, rarely was I lucid. I felt it was a sin--an act of desperation--to join the outside world. So I waited for a knock upon the door, an invitation in the post. I pretended to be someone else and eventually I became him. Then, after a horrific game of tennis and too many anti-anxiety pills, I decided to kill him off only to discover I was no one else.

As a wolf I would go rambling on full-moon nights hoping to recognize a soul but the best I found were the young women joggers in their tights. I cackled at desire. Jack and Coke in my flask, I diddled butterfaces in the park--it was more fulfilling than a glass of wine with the missus. I went skinny-dipping in a puddle. I continued to collect and steal, becoming a private museum dying to be robbed. The animals poked their noses at my deadbolt, but their wet-nosed efforts annoyed me and I told them to shoo. The intellectuals tried their tired psychotherapies with with their strange faith in sanitary big words, too chicken-shit and linear to be effective in tidying up the messy adolescent room of my mind (there are maggots in the closet from when I first lost my appetite!). I told them to fuck off and tried reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead on a Saturday night--a real yawner, that one.

After a night of revelations that would be forgotten in the morning, she entered me like a ghost--insubstantial, not much to her, but somehow beautiful and strange. With her lonely sad kiss she made it past my guard dogs and I showed her my exotic collection of garbage. I showed her how to laugh at the darkness and I showed her my perfect ass. We had some good times and she pissed in the cat's litter box.

"Baby we're a riot now let's set this world on fire!"

She had that strange mixture of sadness and eroticism I so adore in a chick. She was no filthy animal. Quickly I knew I loved her and quickly I told her so. It seemed so simple but she turned it into a big to-do with her trail of ex-loves who had poisoned her brain. It broke my ashy little aesthete's heart. So one morning I sent her out into the rain and locked the door behind her. I went back to my old ways only to find my automatic writing had gone to shit.

That was that, and after that, a few weeks of intense loneliness, the odd bit of salt-water in my eye, etc., etc. Once that was done, I thought, I will live my life as though the world were a series of parties begging for me to crash them. Laughter, birds, running in the street, etc., etc. And in the ballroom at the Ritz I saw my baby--the only girl I've ever sort of loved--drinking gin and flirting with a rich old drunk. It hit me like a brick: he's nothing but a bum and she's nothing but a whore. And here am I, bold and cool, crashing parties and, though generally hated and perhaps a bit of a loser in this game of love, well, hey, I'm having a pretty good time!

Sunday at the Library

2009-06-07T18:15:00.000-07:00

Post binge, I have the intelligence of a toddler, and I can do nothing but take hot baths and forced naps. For a few days, at least, I have sworn to take no poison, and, lately, I've made it a habit to keep these stupid oaths. This one is short-term and easy. In a week or two I will be worse than ever.

I have been researching nature and have come to the conclusion that as animals we are shit. Last night I watched a movie alone in an underground theatre. It ended with the world on fire. When I came home, I pissed in the sink and polished off some gin. The world won't burn tonight, unfortunately, but this is my house, so I have the right to start a little fire. I burned old family photographs out of principle. I didn't expect the sadness.

And then I phoned you up and said: In the morning let's meet in the library and discuss the new renaissance. We can get drunk--no one goes to libraries anymore. I am serious. And isn't there something sexy about the book stacks and the dust and the open space and the girl in the corner with her nose immersed in history? We'll drink warm beer because it tastes like the 12th or 13th century. We will of course resort to violence because I won't be in the mood to read.

What time? When it opens.

I rode my bike not expecting the hangover to hurt me. I went fast; when I arrived I was sweating. The ride, though, was exhilarating, and when I met her at the entrance, my heart was beating on another level. She had to calm me down.

Sweetheart, I said, let's go to the seventh floor. I have something to tell you. Don't be mad, but last night I challenged your husband to a duel. Guns, of course. Why? Because it is the most Zen thing that men can do (it wasn't over you)*. So, of course, we didn't go through with it, because of, you know, the danger and all the practical implications of death and injury. Oh I'll just come out and say it: you really are a magnificent bitch. I would read to you--Byron, probably--but just the other night I realised that books are terribly complicated and I don't understand a word of them.

*because you are a slut who freely mates with both of us.

So let's drink warm beer until we are comfortable being the shitty animals we are. If we were better hunters or had substantial fur, my dear, we wouldn't be in this mess at all. We would stroke each other--possibly well-camouflaged in our cozy little environmental niche--and eat our kill with our bare hands! We wouldn't need books. Wouldn't it be lovely if you were cute, you floozy? But, please, come look, for I am hairy. Woof! Woof! Woof! Oh darling, don't you dare pretend to read. Come, let us forget that we know words. Let us howl on the top floor of this dusty old bibliotheque. Do you know how to get on the roof?

No... Can I tell you a story? When I was young, often I would come home late from school. My mother would ask where I had been and what I had been doing. I always said "nowhere" and "nothing." I never told her about James and his heroin or Geoffrey and his dirty magazines. Isn't that a lovely story? Now let me help you off with that. Or does the girl in the corner make you nervous? It's all right--I'm still tired from the ride, and, anyway, I'm just about ready to croak!

I almost forgot why we came here! If the world does all set fire, what we need are good stories. And of course we'll do away with money. Sweetheart, I know it sounds harsh, but I think we should guillotine the theorists. People now suspect they are full of shit but are too shy to say so, but, in the case of a global disaster, it would be as obvious as your crooked nose. Should we ask the girl in the corner reading Holinshed's Chronicles (yawn!) what she thinks? I feel so rude not offering her a drink. Oh darling, did I mention that on days like this I tend to be a child!?

Typical

2009-05-05T05:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I developed a touch of nerves when I realised all those I considered friends were leeches who wanted to suck me dry. Since renouncing luxury, I've been hopelessly alone and have, on several occasions, relapsed into pretending. On Saturday night I dressed in bright colours--like a paradisaical bird--and danced with a girl who, through the fog of drink and muffle of noise, resembled the love of my life. I asked her to call me The Elektro King; she did. We danced strangely till the world disappeared. When I woke, after a night of forgetting, I was surprised to stumble upon my soiled clothes arranged in a symbol--an admittedly sloppy Helm of Awe--upon my living room floor.

I had to use all my socks

As I made my own tea, I wondered if the man who created this symbol--that damned Elektro King--was pretending or possessed: this seemed to me the fundamental difference between idiot and artist. I thought about it for a moment and wondered in which camp I should place myself before growing enamored with my chocolate-coated biscuits and staring blankly out the window.

Edgar and The Girl

2009-04-29T19:25:00.000-07:00

"Nigel are you awake?" whispered the psychotherapist with whom I had drunk heavily and punched holes in the walls last night. I opened my eyes a tad--the room was sewage green and brown--and I decided I hated both the physical world and this Norwegian buffoon who seemed good fun when we kicked at some woman's door. We pegged her so accurately when we called her a middle-class whore but we never thought about what we are ourselves. "Psst. Nigel. Are you awake?"

"Go to hell, Edgar," I groaned. All that study of the psyche and he can't tell I just want him to fuck off.

Last night we had a good time. Inspired by booze we conquered the city as the perfect team. But now when I looked around his office at the meat-eating plants and American Indian decor I only wanted to fight.

As I stumbled off the couch, I looked hard into his eyes and, without breaking my gaze, polished off a nearby bottle while assuming a wrestling stance. But he looked so frightened and pathetic in his soiled corduroy blazer I couldn't be bothered to pounce. I merely left without paying.

As I passed the door of the middle-class whore I felt proud, disgusted, but, most of all, hungover. I remembered her perfect hair, dress, and teeth; I remembered her calculatedly phony conversation and smile. When she rejected me, I laughed hysterically. Of course she probably didn't think it very funny when we kicked at her door, but, as I thought about it objectively, I decided, yes, it was, objectively, funny.

I spent the remainder of the day in my apartment dim-witted and watching spaghetti westerns.

A bender remembered, the end, Part 1

2009-02-25T21:24:00.000-08:00

The house is empty. Acoustically, it is phenomenal, and the echoes are free making me feel that all my ghosts are purged. Out of the darkness and filth of a lost weekend, many truths were revealed, and what was formerly a confused ball of tangled twine now seems a straight road leading to who-knows-where. I'll close the door behind me and won't look back; it has been my motto since viewing the Pennebaker film.

I slammed--slammed!--a bottle of absinthe before walking to Natahsa's flat. Solemnly I walked through Gibbon's forest, now empty, and remembered the blonde girl I thought would be my new beginning but who I never heard from again. (But I never really loved her; she just reminded me of Julie Christie). I pulled my flask from the secret pocket of my coat and slammed--slammed!--a little more. The moon was yellow and there was three of them. Though elated and internally spitting swears, I knew this was not like other benders. It was much more philosophical.

As I exited the gates I danced like a serpent that had other serpents for arms. When I arrived at the flat, Natasha looked slutty, but not in a gaudy way: she simply dressed unabashedly, refusing to hide the sensual animal lurking beneath.

"Hello sweetheart," I said as I walked in, and I slapped her lovely bottom.

"Nigel! That is no way to treat a lady."

"A lady? Where? All I see is a whore."

I seemed to hit a nerve with that one.

"Nigel," she said. "I thought we could make this work."

"Fuck off," said I. "You're a whore, baby, so let's stop pretending. You're nothing. Come on. You're on the meter you filthy bird. Act like I want you to because you're mine."

She had a tear in her eye but I wiped it away and told her to get serious. We called a taxi and moved on to the dinner party.

One Last Bender, Part 3

2009-02-12T13:58:00.000-08:00

I am preparing for the night by listening to a mixture of Leonard Cohen and The Rolling Stones. I shall pick Natasha up at 10:00. I have spent the last two hours doing shots and resistance training. Resonating through me is a strange combination of swagger and euphoria. As I type these words, I pace like a maniac--it is impossible to sit!--and I perform invigorating air punches. Take that! Bam! Bam! Kaplow!

All my finest clothes, I have given away; all, that is, except my favourite suit. It is a simple but elegant black number I purchased on Savile Row. Two buttons, single-breasted, simple. It is so beautiful on its own, one can forgo a pocket square. To the untrained eye, it looks like nothing, but to those with taste, it is sure to produce a sensual elation.

Every hair, though casually tussled, is exactly in its right place. I shall not let Natasha so much as touch me. Indeed I plan to drop her the first chance I get because I have come to the firm conclusion that she is an enormous bitch.

I am late, but to hell time. At the moment I am slightly drunk--call it Level 3. I feel brilliant and wild--like a lion--both animal and king.

One Last Bender, Part 2

2009-02-12T08:08:00.000-08:00

The sea change makes me nervous so I have taken something to calm me--in fact I've taken two. I have just received a phone call from Natasha--she seemed distant and tried to jack up the price. Some friend! You idiot you did not take your own advice: you must never fall for your whore... My muscles are jelly and I am talking to myself. I have just come home from the park. I cycled along the path and talked to strangers with dogs and abandoned my exquisitely beautiful Merckx racing bike beside the statue of Byron. It was not without sadness and anger that I watched some pimply chav take it, but it was not without a chuckle that I watched him wobble and fall on his face as he left. You idiot it's not a toy; you shan't pop wheelies on that baby. I have not been sleeping well. I shall take a drink and a nap.

Memories of faces keep flashing. I dream of Tanya and she tries to speak to me but I cannot hear her words. She was always rather vacuous, and so was I, but I think a little less than her.

I am in a ridiculous state of mind but I feel today it's necessary. These words seem mad... I have booked the flight and arranged for the animals to be taken to a zoo. Oh yes, and Happy Birthday! Let's have a drink alone! To hell with the nap--I shall stay awake to make the night intenser. Toodaloo for now all ye I have welcomed into my formerly private sphere! I encourage you all, no matter how far away, to have a drink with me now, to share in my euphoria which will inevitably go crashing to the ground.

One Last Bender, Part 1

2009-02-12T04:19:00.000-08:00

Today is my birthday; I have not had one in years. Tonight I will go out and drink. In my house I have several bottles of absinthe and vodka that henceforth will be useless to me. I look forward to absorbing their magic.

This will be my final bender. Attempts at grandiosity typically fall flat, but I cannot help feel there is something in the air, and of course one does not need luck to make a bender grandiose: one simply drinks more. As an experienced user, I know well the stages of drunkenness--there are nine, possibly 10, depending on what follows an accidental suicide. I have no intention of exceeding level 7, but I do want to get there.

I have hired Natasha to accompany me. We have agreed upon a reasonable flat rate. I know her quite well and even consider her a friend. I have selected an intimate party for us to crash.

Looking around, I find the emptiness of my rooms thrilling but can't help feeling like a ghost when I reach for things that are not there. I have sold my Inspiron and purchased a lovely new ultraportable that seems more than a robot friend.

Heightenedly yours, whoever you are,

Nigel Tewksbury

Cleaning Up

2009-02-11T17:31:00.001-08:00

I've been cleaning, selling, and burning all my things. Myoki's broken-English letters turn orange then black then air; my finest clothes, tailored precisely to my sleek form, now move amidst the idiot crowds on the back of parrot poseurs. And, yet, it's all alright.

Yesterday I wore a pair of 501s and a sports shirt--I even tried on a smile--and I looked bloody good and not at all common. I felt natural and there is nothing stranger. I'm sure it's like anything and I'll get used to it in time.

It's an administrative nightmare, but I plan to change my name to match my new style and voice. I am planning one last bender--a big one--but have no plans after that but to move. Come all ye false dandies and follow me into the wild night! Wear your most casual clothes! I dare you! Just know that if you do I'll immediately drop you all like a tonne of bricks.

I am not here, I am not gone, I am not Nigel Tewksbury. Occasionally I hear him still, his measured, melifluous voice calling me and telling me what to do and say--and there is no denying the sheer magnitude of his awesomeness--but it's time for him to die and leave this house behind.

Nasal Irrigation

2009-02-09T08:34:00.000-08:00

It is with great shame that I make this confession: I am an animal. As such, I have certain biological problems, and one of them is the occasionally runny nose. It was under the recommendation of a strange woman friend of mine that I began the practice of nasal irrigation. She informed me that I will reap many rewards, including lowering the incidence of snoticles, a strange phenomenon no doubt familiar to my Nordic readers in which the mucus of the nose freezes and forms an uncomfortable crystalline landscape of the interior--a nasal Narnia, if you will, but without all the magic and creatures. In the mode of a ruggedly handsome shaman, I would like to pass the technique onto you, my dear readers:

You squirt water up your nose.

The supposed benefits of this practice are numerous and include:

- The treatment of Empty Nose Syndrome, which, I have been told, is not as funny as it sounds.
- The treatment of Phantosmia, or, "phantom smells"--indeed, just the other day I thought I smelled a lovely roast, but alas, it was but thin air. I have recorded no such experiences since beginning treatment.
- Providing clearer vision.
- Improving one's sinus-related quality of life (which, for me, is essential in preventing suicide).

I recommend you try it as it is important to keep up with the latest hygienic trends.

Overheard at the Café

2009-02-08T18:23:00.000-08:00

This morning, adorned only in unassuming streetwear, I ventured into town for a coffee. I overheard the following conversation between two society hens:

"Beatrice, what do you know of Nigel Tewksbury?"

"He can be amusing. But I deem it wise to keep your distance."

"And why's that?"

"Well... I've heard he does strange things to cats."

"Oh, I don't think there's any truth to that. It's a rumour started by his rival."

"Patricia I just don't know. There's something about him. Something so peculiar.... And... he's a bit of an alcoholic. To be honest, I'm afraid of him."

"It's true, he can be rather vulgar. He called Sebastian an 'affected piece of shit' when all he did was raise an eyebrow. Vile man. Especially when he's drunk"

"Especially when he's drunk."

At this point I coughed loudly to make myself known. I whipped off my sunglasses and capped my flask. Obviously the situation was awkward, but over the years I've learned to embrace awkwardness. One cannot be afraid of social conventions; they do not bite. I knew I had to put on a performance while maintaining my new-found ideals.

I pulled up a chair, sat on it back-to-front like a teenager, and said, "Hello Beatrice, Patricia. How are you?" And I thought, I shall take the high road, although I could easily insult them and make them cry because they are both old--a good ten years past the twilight of their mating age.

"Mr. Tewksbury! How do you do?" said one of the bitches, shrill and flustered.

"Well I feel like I have just been slapped in the face--not to mention a little tight--but that's alright. In fact the latter is quite good."

"Oh... Yes, well..."

"Yes, well, I am an ass whilst drunk. And I do drink quite a bit. But I am not an alcoholic and my love for cats is purely platonic. They are beautiful, mysterious creatures," and I thought, Nothing like you dogs.

"Oh there's no need."

"Yes, there is no need to explain. You are quite right. How's Harold?"

Before Beatrice had a chance to respond, I interrupted her: "Actually, fuck Harold, if he'll take you. Your gabbing disgusts me, you smelly, obsolete old bags."

I smacked the table and left. No doubt they thought it rather rude.

So, perhaps, in the end, I didn't take the high road, but I did tell the truth, which, I think, is the higher ideal. I am also a firm believer that what's good for the gander is good for the goose and that gossipy old bags will go to hell quicker than a chap who likes a few drinks with his coffee. You must understand, I am not a bad man, at least not anymore, but kindness and manners have their limitations and are entirely ineffective if you are trying to teach a lesson to two stupid old women.

Thank you for the comments

2009-02-03T18:28:00.000-08:00

I must confess, my readers are often more eloquent than I. I thank you for your comments on my most recent post. It amazes me and warms my frosty heart to think that my words are read by others, particularly those I have never even met. I think it wonderful, and I wish to show you off now like a new hat, and, perhaps, accidentally, provide you with some answers.

from Kathy:

Where shall you go then, Dear Nigel, to lock away your body and soul? Will it be another building with four bare walls or the damp, deep forest; the ones with the fallen, deciduous tree branches and crisp leaves that you trample underfoot and beckon without fear, your maudlin obtrusion? What will happen to the succinct blogs of the reclusive popinjay that I've come to admire? Will you truly abandon this space here and leave a fellow sojourner all alone to fend for herself? How can abandonment abandon itself? I, for one, am not a dirty leach and I quite like your creative designs.

So where will you go to perish, Dear Nigel?

Reply:

Only time will tell what happens, my darling Kathy, but I think I'll head east. I do not know the answer to most your questions but I know there is a freedom in not knowing. Q: "How can abandonment abandon itself"? A: With a shrug and a hard drink--it is my custom to take four (three for the Trinity and one for the road).

And who said anything about perishing, you morbid little bird? I shall live on, though perhaps under another name and email address.

---

from Arthur Cattersby:

"Dandyism is dead"? Such words coming from the truest dandy of all, I cannot believe it! For God's sake, in the true spirit of dandyism, sell all your belongings and buy newer, and bigger ones.

-An admirer.

Reply:

Arthur, I like your spirit and your shit. I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a part of me that wanted to travel with you and romp with exotic Persian sluts amidst billowing clouds of opium. Of course I want to do that... Again. But I have lived that life already--anything more would be addiction and fear. I pass the torch to you and encourage you, should you ever get the chance, to stab me in the back.

All that Is Here, I Renounce

2009-02-02T17:47:00.000-08:00

Over the years, I have accumulated a great pile of things. Cars, animals, books. It is time to forget them all and find someplace new.

This weekend, as I meditatively, and masterfully, played an amusing word game on Facebook, the spirit of the microcosm welled up inside me, and I realised, I am wasting away. I thought of calling one of my girlfriends, but said to myself, To hell with it, forget them; they are all dirty leaches in love only with my pretensions and liquor. Come, let us channel this vital force in other ways. Let us go outside for a run.

Like a cat I prowl though the cool crisp air not caring the slightest about my wardrobe or the grey in my hair. It is cold but my body keeps me warm--and Society is colder. Here am I, a solitary animal, healthy and happy, rugged as a billy goat, reacting nerves with cocked assurance in control of a graceful steady stride.

Afterward, I tilted back the chair in my favourite car and fell asleep. When I awoke, I felt another spirit--one more gentle than the one before--whisper in my ear. It told me Dandyism is dead; it is time to stop pretending. You look idiotic in those clothes.

Now is the hard part: I must get rid of this heaping pile of Materialism. I shall sell what I can and leave the rest behind, or use it for practical jokes. I renounce all that is here, but shall keep my roguish soul.

Drunk, Profoundly, Drunk

2009-01-28T18:52:00.000-08:00

Come on baby, I'm a drenched rat drowning in a river of gin. You're nothing special--so quit being so uppity--and give me back my beer. The boozer loser blues aren't so bad when you embrace them and shout, To hell with it, I shall wiggle with a fat girl! And that's where you come in. Thank God the world's a blur and none of this is hitting home--I have forgotten my family tree omnipresent in the window and the unborn children between us--they don't understand I am here developing a new Aesthetic--they don't understand understanding's obsolete--I forget them all as I whisper in your ear, "You're enormous as a hippopotamus, graceful as a goat, and I shall throw my dignity out the window for a little piece of your sweaty blubber. But darling let's keep our clothes on."

My absence explained

2009-01-27T07:53:00.000-08:00

I found myself stranded up in the isolated north―I did not know where exactly, but my instincts told me Russia or Canada. My heroic plan to beat the shit out of Myoki had backfired. When I arrived at his cabin in my snow tire shod Alfa Romeo, he challenged me to a drinking contest, and I thought, Yes, this will be a snap, but I had forgotten that his stupidly tranquil face belies a three-bottle-of-Bombay-Saphire-a-day habit. The last thing I clearly remember is rolling up my sleeves and seeing the azure eyes of Helga peeking out from the corner. She looked frightened. I smiled smugly, pounded a triple, and thought, This one's for you baby.

But my smugness cowered and hid when the 5'4", pot-bellied Myoki chugged an entire bottle of Jagermeister and hurled it against the veneer wall of the cabin. He didn't even blink. After the shock of the shattered bottle settled, he looked me in the eyes and throatily whispered, "Go you masked gibbon."

The next two weeks are a haze--I remember mostly snow and airports--but I knew I had lost the battle and there will be no Hollywood ending. I found the following notes scribbled in my ostrich-skin travel journal, now covered in wine stains, which, I think, give it character congruent with the name stitched upon it.

- In my summer car, I angrily do donuts in the snow. I go until I crash.
- Visions of Helga's coquetry torture me in the hospital; I flirt with the nurse in exchange for hard analgesics.
- I am sore after drunkenly lifting weights in a stranger's basement. She sang awful karaoke to me in front of a hideous clock. There were glamour shots on the walls. I ducked out the window when she put her hand down my pants after Karma Chameleon.
- I have joined a committee on Style as a joke. They don't get it. I shall quit tomorrow.
- I escape from the hospital and spend a night in a forest. It is cold and I am frightened. A turtle is my only friend. I think he knows how to talk.

Miraculously and inexplicably, I am now home and attempting to resume normal life, but it is unnatural, like trying to live underwater. I am pretending it was all a dream, but of course, such willed deceit, not to mention talking turtles, can quickly send a man to the bughouse.

Pictures

2009-01-08T20:01:00.001-08:00

I do not want a photograph. My eyes are more powerful than any device. You do not need my words.

When Helga left that morning, she left her picture of the table. In it she posed expressionless before mountains on a rainy day. When I found it, I burned it. There were no digital copies--I do not allow those dome-a-dozen memories.

I cannot forget how she left that night in the freezing rain. I hated her for leaving but adored her rugged beauty. Dressed in her 66 North Laugavegur Women's Down Jacket and Kaldi Arctic Hat, she was a brainwashed innocent. For the first time in my life, I wanted to apologize, but because she was gone, I drank myself stupid and watched shitty daytime chat shows. I cried and decided to grow a beard.

The rain glued to her long blonde hair. I knew she could not keep her face warm.

Now: I am smoking a cigarette in a cheap motel. I have a beard--it hides my rosy cheeks. When I knock upon the door, she'll see the suffering in every grey. But can a hero look like this?

I miss her and the way she put whisky in my coffee and Hennessy in my stew. Without her, drunkenness is empty.

Reunion

2009-01-06T17:34:00.000-08:00

I know exactly how things will go. The reunion with Helga has played in my mind for months. It always ends the same: drunkenness, heartbreak, daemon screams, wild animal posturing. I hope for resolution--tears of love, not fucking tears of rage. A grown-up boy can dream, can't he?

I shan't kill Myoki, but I'll hit him very hard. I'll throw him out and with him the keys to his SUV. Fuck off to the the nearest motel, you Buddhist cock. Leave us alone with our beautiful vices.

My nerves are steady. I’ll take a single drink and gas up the car. I’ll listen to some lonely station as I drive towards the sunrise, towards Switzerland. I already see that crack on the horizon--that little slit of hope. Even if I fail, I'll see some interesting things--those worlds I long to occupy but which never let me in.

Year in Review, Part 3

2009-01-02T17:22:00.000-08:00

Part 3: Summer

I think of what to write as I walk amidst winter's swirling winds, the collar of my topcoat upturned, not to be stylish, but to protect me from frostbite. Occasionally the sun emerges and kisses my face, now hidden beneath a raw, animal beard--then it leaves, and once again there is only me and the frozen world.

I do not talk to strangers--we all just want to go indoors--but I feel a strange connection with them, though I know that most are idiots. But everyone likes hot chocolate and marshmallows--we'll always have that, even if most would prefer American Idol to a book while drinking it.

Come here, old man. Let us walk down memory lane backwards. I will pay you a florin and some peanuts.

Here. This is what I wrote.

"At an unsafe speed, I rumble through the trees--through the fall I fly, the stink of sewage in my nose--and I know there is no happiness that I'd call true...."

Yes, old man, it is with great fondness that I remember composing this rather weak Haibun. 2008 was the year I started cycling with vigourous intensity. Fuck old man I loved it! It is here that I learned not to fear death; rather I swallowed it whole--along with several midges--whilst cycling through the forest green and brown.

I certainly covered a lot of ground. It is well-documented.

Once, while riding in high humidity at dusk, I tumbled hard and awoke in The Banana Kingdom. The weird inhabitants fed me an intoxicating soup and told me three things.

1. Practicality is a shrewish bitch, but she cleans your clothes.
2. Faster cadence, lower gear.
3. For 5 days, eat bananas and bananas only.

Banana People, I will obey.

The banana diet made me weak and gassy, but I saw wonderful colours and heard beautiful songs. I slept like an opium eater and had similar dreams. I was happy and clean. At the end of Day 5, I collapsed on the hillside. I blacked out in blissful exhaustion. I wanted to be a Banana Person but we are genetically quite different.

Old man, I've tried the velodrome, but it's bullshit. Do you understand what I am saying? Of course you don't.

Here's your florin, you drunken asshole. Oh and your peanuts too!

To 2009

2009-01-01T12:56:00.000-08:00

Five years ago I composed a story entitled "To Green." It was to be published in The Paris Review until they asked me to remove the obscenities. I refused. It was a tale of drunkenness and hope and the relationship between the two; namely, how one is only hopeful whilst one is drunk.

Or was it about Academia and leprechauns? I do not recall.

Regardless, 2008 was a shithole. Let us make 2009 an emergence from said shithole. Let us revel in the spirit of adventure but let us not lose our dignity.

Reginald Hardcourt rang in the New Year pissing in a pint glass because the loo was occupied by a vomiting girl. I told him to see a whore because they are professionals. But in his modern greed he opted for an amateur he met on the internet. He thought it free but he left his 15-year-old single-malt when he fled.

To scotch? No! To Green! Intoxicating and expensive. Let us drink our savings and legacies away.

I spent my New Year's Eve high, alone, and listening to my favourite tunes. Multiple women contacted me, but I took comfort being in the eye of the hurricane, thinking, like John Lennon before me (before worrying about censors), Isn't it good, knowing she would? And for free!

A bonus: I awoke without a hangover.

To 2009! Let us emerge and fight the forces of entropy. Let us become something better. I shall make an effort.

Thank-you for reading, Dear Reader. I apologize for being so cerebral lately.

Yours,

Nigel Tewksbury

Year in Review, Part 2

2008-12-31T08:07:00.000-08:00

Interlude

Perched atop a desk chair, Legba sits, with good posture, in his office. His yellow eyes glow; his forked tongue flicks. His ashen face is weary; his red tie, loose. On a quest for evil, I walk through the thick, wooden door. There's fire in my eyes. It is quite warm here in the dry heat of Hell. Legba is sweaty from too many spicy Doritos. He walks to the corner and turns up the fan. It sputters and blows hot--the demon throws down his arms in disbelief (things here are upside-down) and undoes another shirt button. A bell rings and I wonder if it's Judgement. Legba picks up a phone and speaks gibberish in the voice of my whiny accountant.

Part 2: Spring

The winter seemed endless; I tried to cancel my lecture tour on account of laryngitis, but I was contractually obligated to continue. I lived on ginger tea, medicine, and crackers. I met a beautiful actress but could not speak. I discovered my potency is my voice.

From my pagan ancestors I have pale blue eyes, a faithless brain, a love of drunken revelry, and a hatred of consequence. I wear colourful clothes but have a savage soul. I butter my hair.

But since seeing Legba has no dignity, I have had conversion on my mind. Oh to embrace the mysteries of the Church while the idiots text message acronyms and Richard Dawkins is in vogue! I bet he has never licked a poisonous toad.

Eventually the snow began to melt and I got extremely drunk. I vowed to explore hell but with a posh sense of dignity. I tuned my roadsters to Radiohead's "Reckoner," a glass of absinthe in my hand.

Year in Review, Part 1

2008-12-30T09:41:00.000-08:00

I awake with a hangover and a ferret's corpse in the freezer. 2007 seems a failed adventure. Like the delinquents prophesied, I am alone. My gut tells me that 2008 will be a year composed of dead eternities with small disasters interspersed between them.

I could not make it through winter without intoxication. Fever and endless night. It will be months before I commune with my classical gods and hear reverberations of Arcadia marching to the beat of my quickened pulse. When will the river melt, the nymphs return? The world is ice; my only comforts, my imagination and a mystery tea.

In my dreams I imagine Helga returns and gently takes my arm. "Myoki's mysticism is spew," she whispers tearfully in my ear, the smell of mist and vodka on her breath. I kiss her and hear strange tongues, childish and snake-like. We sit by the fire; I tell her I love her vegetables.

In the evening we eat pot pie and do not speak. The kitchen seems bright and beautiful. We smear paint on each other's faces and dance to New Order. I am happy in my dreams.

Tucker & Taz amuse me but play shitty music.

In the depth of winter, an IKEA catalogue arrives at my door. How did they get past the gate? I get drunk, burn it, and hold my hand over the flame until the heat becomes unbearable. LYCKSELE & GRANKULLA YE SHALL NOT DEFEAT ME.

My world is a cave, but nothing like Lascaux.

The shortest days

2008-12-22T21:26:00.000-08:00

End of December, the shortest days; sundown, 3:55. The heating is broken. All summer I danced on the hillside; then the frost came in November. I miss the bonfires and the personal rituals. In August my madness was charming--things happened--flirtatious girls, moonlit howls, echolocation at night. Once, walking home under the influence of drugs, I was almost hit by a car; it was fun, euphoric. I was full of swagger, hunger, emptiness, and stars. Now my housemaid drives me mad and it's -16.

Freya is from Sweden and looks like a dying elf. She'd be interesting if she were in a movie, but instead, she's here, with me, out of context in a world driven by bargains and base aspirations. People tell me she's ugly. I told her she could bring her laptop, but she's hogging all my bandwidth and has a disgusting cough.

I blame Sebastian Horsley, who also has a maid named Freya; he claims that she's a tiger in the sack. I sleep with my Freya for the echoes and drink vodka before seeing her. Sebastian is a cad and a bad influence. I should fire Freya tomorrow.

But she is elf-like and strange... Better than that hot and monotonous American girl. Dear Hillside, I'm suffocating and lonely--you know how I feel, you, all covered in snow. Call it cabin fever... I'll be happier when it's warm because I'll go dancing in your woods.

A Story/A Walk

2008-12-18T09:20:00.000-08:00

Last night, despite the cold, I walked through the seedy part of town. I hoped to find a story. At the very least I found some elements.

- A madman styled as Walt Whitman. He has a cult following but is known more for his simple kindness than for his art. He spewed poetry, but I could not discern the words he spoke through his long, white beard. His voice was thin and unappealing. I didn't pay him much mind. I think I was right.

A prophet poseur who, in this part of town, is only speaking the truth.

- What appeared to be an ogre in trackpants. He was laughing--I can't imagine why he was laughing. Drunk, perhaps? Simple in the head? I have only ever been happy when drunk.

Let's trade lives. I advise you never to learn about mirrors. Word on the street is you hold ogre orgies. I'd have to be proper tight for that.

- A possible doppelganger--for a moment I thought it was my Canadian cousin Harry. He was my height and had a bird on his arm. She was raven-haired and old. He was dressed like Dawson, stuck in the 90s. I thought him a decent bloke. I did not hate him though he needed some updating.

The theme is "Rotting in the dumpy part of town." I'll write it at my estate and hopefully disappear.

Neighbours

2008-12-10T18:33:00.000-08:00

Today the woman next door (I suppose I could call her the girl next door, but she is too withered) invited me to a party at her house. I asked her if it would be swinging or cozy. She replied with the former. Thus, I accepted.

She then asked if I wouldn't mind "helping out" beforehand.

Was this a game of cat and mouse or was it just some wench too cheap to pay for catering? I needed a delving response.

I replied dryly, "Yes. I live to cook and clean." Her resulting enthusiasm and long list of errands left me speechless, like watching a bullet shot into the heart of wit. This bird's all surface and you can't delve into a puddle. Visions of yellow rubber gloves and garbage cans fleeted through my mind. I don't know how to use them.

She'll be expecting me at 5:00? The party is at 8:00? I'll just get drunk. I'll drink rye as an inside joke and I'll toast my freshly dead friend. I'll be loud and make a big mess. That should teach her that friendship is laughter and drunkenness, not entrapment.

A Conversation

2008-12-06T07:09:00.000-08:00

Cathy and I are in bed:

"I don't mean to be rude, but lately I've been coughing up some awful shit. I try to ignore the simple fact, but I must come to terms with it: I am a man in decline. Perhaps my illness is a mere cocoon and in time I will emerge as something greater, either in this life or another; or perhaps the celestial chefs are preparing me for a party of worms. I see it. The waiter is a black dog--he cannot help but drool--and I'm the lunchtime special. 'Woof! He comes marinated in sweat with a delicious sauce of mucus. He is not high-born but he was good at pretending. Woof! Woof!'

"But of course the worms don't care, the slimy idiots."

"Oh," she whispers in my ear. "Nigel must you always talk like that? Must you be so dreary and strange?"

"Cathy I'm only being honest and, perhaps, trying out a new method of seduction. I confess that shit about the dog was obviously pre-written. Punish me." She sighs and turns over. "Now don't wreck my evening. Please go to sleep while I cool off in the garage with my cars." I slap the bedside table and storm outside as though I were young.

I am afraid to flick on any light more bright than dim. I suppose Cathy's right. I am a nuisance.

I am loopy on meds

2008-11-27T17:48:00.000-08:00

and cannot stop the phantasmagoria playing upon my eyelids. Myoki in meditation, Helga and her glacial skin. My old friend Cerberus weasel dying in my impractical car. My youth. Pouring wine down my throat at PetsMart with Reginald Hardcourt. The visions, the hangovers. The insane project of Gibbon Forest and the battle that ensued. My life is ridiculous and my heart is dead.

When I die, write this upon my stone, as it is my legacy and philosophy: Don't listen to the naysaying cocks. Lalalalalala. Tewksbury died an angsty teen.

Leave him here to rot.

Overcooked and wild, I am a daemon spawn born out of place. I am a raving lunatic. Fellows heed my bellows then pour another drink and pray to your new pagan gods. They are less than the old ones, but there's no controlling fashion.

Disorder

2008-11-26T18:42:00.000-08:00

This afternoon I received a surprise visit from Maggie, a former lover. When I was 22 and Maggie was 18, we spent days on end drunk and making love in her cluttered loft apartment. We slept all day and never went outside. Eventually, of course, we grew to hate each other, but we always remembered those early animal days, those days before we became trapped and entangled in the personal. She had heard of my illness and wanted to see me. She said she did not phone because she preferred to arrive unannounced like the wind. I told her not to be so fucking twee and that she could only enter if we were both naked. Like the wind. I warned her I would not be pretty.

I removed my robe and she took off her clothes. We are not what we used to be. But wrinkles become palatable with wine, so I brought out what I could find. Soon we were happy and laughing and feeling fine. I even felt comfortable enough to show her my red patches.

She asked me if was bipolar back then in the loft. Of course not, I said, merely drunk or hungover. But what's the difference, really?

I dug around and found my old copy of "Unknown Pleasures" and put it on the turntable. We danced to "Disorder" and didn't speak a word until the album's end. She broke the silence and ruined the moment by asking me if my bipolarism is killing me. I told her no fuck off oh cry baby cry.

The Rabbit and The Greyhound

2008-11-21T17:06:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I fell ill. Today I visited the doctor. He says my condition is serious. For now I am bedridden. I am grey. I would say I'm not taking visitors, but no one wants to visit a dying recluse.

In my condition, time passes painfully, slowly. There is little to mention besides the disgusting symptoms and the dreams. Last night I dreamt I chased an electric rabbit around Jupiter's orbit. Perhaps that's the sort of shit that happens when you die. Shit that's pointless, strange. Or perhaps it was the fever and the drugs. Either way, pointless, strange.

I do not feel a fondness for the world beyond my bed. It is all lies and madness. We make promises and break them. We pretend to connect but it is all acting and affectation. I hope one day in this world of corruption there is born an honest man. Someone who is better, but still has a bit of swagger.

I cannot forget it, but I cannot remember it, either, how the rabbit runs, an emerald light flashing on its back. Focused and exhausted, I chase it through space. At first it is excruciating--painful--but I grow faster and begin to understand the game we play. I know I will never catch the cosmic bunny, but I'm happy to run the course.

And then I wake in a pool of sweat. Oh hell.

On the Occasion of a Full Moon

2008-11-13T20:50:00.000-08:00

Every morning I think
I hate going downstairs
But for the drunken birds

Morning & Day

2008-11-10T19:17:00.000-08:00

4:35-6:06 - I wake to celebrate darkness. I pour scotch and work on poetry from the old days. I have forgotten what it means:

I try to halt the dawn
That fuels the moving world
By dreaming of the morning star
Singing a quiet sound...

6:06-10:24 - Drunk and red, I pass out in bed. I dream of trains and America before waking with a headache.

10:24-11:04 - I eat chocolate, drink coffee, and read Halldór Laxness's "Independent People" with the window open and the wind gusting. Hello November.

11:04-11:30 - I melt in the hot tub.

11:30-11:39 - I smoke a cigarette in the nude and think about the rich bitch who broke my heart. Damn it I'd give anything to forget her for a day.

11:39-1:45 - I have bagel and lox and dick around on the Internet. Utter waste of time.

1:45-3:35 - I take a walk and look at the animals. I find a dying, emaciated deer on my property. I drink some brandy and dig it a little grave. I am sorry my friend. I put on my sunglasses and shed a tear.

3:35-4:21 - I fuck about with the computer and listen to The Small Faces.

4:21-4:23 - I receive a rare phone call from an old mate named Elborne. He asks me if I would like to play piano on a track he is recording. He says it will be a slow, atmospheric blues tune with some jazz variations thrown in--right up my alley. I tell him I'm a little rough around the edges. He says that's why he asked me. I agree.

4:24-5:20 - Full of nervous excitement, I don collegiate garb and warm up the Elan. I listen to Dizzy Gallespie's "The Champ" and Bob Dylan's "Positively Fourth Street" loudly and repeatedly before trading them for the sweet purr of my engine. I have almost forgotten the bitch and the deer.

A Reply

2008-11-08T09:48:00.000-08:00

Reginald,

Thank-you for waking me before sunrise. I had just fallen asleep when you forced your note beneath my door. Sarah was beside me and we had just entered the sleeping phase--you know I have trouble sleeping when there is a bird in my bed. I tried to suggest she go home, but she preferred to nuzzle. In other words, I am sleepless and it is largely your fault.

Blah blah blah, I went to Ireland with a half-naked girl. Well done. Quit your bragging--do you know I felt-up her cowgirl friend? And for the last time, that hip-hop bullshit is not poetry despite its wild, African syncopation. It is ignorant verbal spewing. I am on a steady diet of Schubert and The Rolling Stones. I suggest you follow my lead.

I confess you made a hell of a Greenleaf. I admit my Poirot was half-assed, but that is because I could not decide between the Ustinov and Finney incarnations. Anyhow, to hell with costumes. I have decided next year I shall just go out with my patchwork cap and deep blueberry sweater and look like a Fine Piece of Ass.

Was Rodney drunk while flying this time? I swear I will never take your private jet again. Your pilot is a drunkard and your gold accents are tacky.

I am sending this message by falcon with a command to peck out your eyes. Please don't take it personally. Mordecai knows not what he does.

Yours,

Nigel Tewksbury

A Message from Hardcourt

2008-11-08T09:17:00.001-08:00

I received the following message beneath my door this morning. The slide woke me up. I am constructing my reply, which hopefully shall be less winded than the original.

Nigel,

I am recuperating as I dictate this epistle, which Edwina's sure hand will transcribe. To begin, I must say I thought you rather a stick-in-the-mud last week when you turned down my invitation to jet to Ireland for All Hallows'. (In fact, I still think you looked and acted like a fuddy-duddy in your Hercule Poirot costume.) For what better place is there to celebrate Celtic New Year in true pagan fashion? I suppose we had just had that row about the abacus and were both rather tight. The last thing I recall is marching down the street in Westminster. I had a lingerie-angel on my back who was chanting her siren's hymn:

"Patron' on ice
And we can pop bottles all night
Baby you could have whatever you like
I said you could have whatever you like
Late night sex so wet you're so tight
I'll gas up the jet for you tonight
Baby you could go where ever you like"

Next thing I knew I was aboard my jet to Ireland with Rodney at the helm. I had lost one Poirot, but gained one shiner and one lingerie-angel. She grew infuriated after I ejaculated over the Irish Sea and started teasing her about her costume: "Pardon me, are you dressed as a trollop?", "Ugh, excuse me madam, are you dressed as a harlot?", "Ma'am, I daresay, are you costumed as a whore?". I did some laudanum on the plane. I cannot recall the slut's name or her departure, but she was not there when I sprinted through downtown Cork in search of the party.

I came across a Samhain Night celebration. Never before has the division between the world of the living and the Otherworld been so blurred. I danced with a goblin and drank with the green faerie. To stave off corruption I endeavored to speak only in Spenserian stanza. This proved difficult, so I tried to speaking with my wild eyes only. Dressed as Dickie Greenleaf, I appeared quite daft. I started singing "My Funny Valentine" and jabbing at those that tried to lure me into the pagan dance ritual. I felt they were trying steal my corrupted soul.

One chap was dressed as a banana. He prodded me as his ghoul friends danced around in a circle laughing. I felt the key was to peel him thereby revealing his true spirit to stave off the Netherworld. He became enraged as I tried to bite the bottom of his peel. Then I knew evil had triumphed and it was time to escape. I found a rotten Ronnie's and gathered all the salt I could before their service people drove me out. I sprinkled the salt in my hair to ward off the otherworldly creatures and ran into the forest.

It was darker than the circles under a Bangkok streetwalker's eyes that night. The witching hour had struck. I took off my dazzling blue top-hat and attached it to a tree as an indicator. There was snow and I became frightened of the tracks I was leaving. After running serpentine figure eights I decided the best course was to hang from a tree limb and make my footprints smaller before they dissipated to nothing. That would throw the spirits off course. I swung from tree to tree in this dense thicket using branchiation techniques I had learned in an earlier incarnation. I curled up in the groin of a sturdy oak.

My blue satin vest looked exquisite as a makeshift sheet, but did little to shield me from the howling wind. I did my last dose of laudanum before passing off into a deep slumber. Queen Mab haunted my dreams. I dreamt I was the King of Majorca in 1341. Jude Law was my jester.

When I awoke my throat was dry. My teeth chattered intensely. I was lying sideways in a snowdrift and my tailored Greenleaf costume pants were torn in many places. (How had the fall from the tree not woken me? Had Queen Mab enchanted me there?) The underworld had been defeated and I was alive in the mid-morning Irish sun!

When I surveyed my surroundings I noticed I was only a few hundred metres from McDonald's. My hat was spiked through a sapling and totally ruined. Further, "Regin" had been peed into the snow and there were faeces nearby. Footprints were everywhere. My back ached like the devil. I did not feel ashamed as I hitched a lorry back to the airport (my money clip was not about my person). I felt I had truly safeguarded mankind from some terrible fate.

Faithful Rodney was on the tarmac waiting and whisked me off to the Isle of Mann. I have been nursed back to health for the most part, but my mind still turns like the triskelion. I have been medicating with absinthe to quell my overwrought nerves. You certainly missed a hell of a struggle old chap. I shan't soon forget your abandonment but fear you may have made a pact with the Otherworld to save yourself. It is probably all for the best.

Yours,

Reginald Hardcourt

A Common Cold

2008-11-07T06:06:00.000-08:00

This week I have been suffering from a cold, and, despite the ailment's common status, it has really been fucking with my body and mind. Further, the meds I popped often left me covered in a thin membrane of sweat. Earlier this week I attempted an autumn bicycle ride, but after labouring through the first sector, I unzipped myself from my sleek neoprene uniform and discovered I was coated in the disgusting, mucusy interstitial fluid that made me feel like some sort of science-fiction pod-person. It was heartbreaking and then made worse upon vomiting blood in my neighbour's garden. I had hoped to put in a solid 40K time-trial and then a few heats at the velodrome. But I barely made it past the front gates.

But O Happy Day! This morning I awoke feeling vigourous as a devil. After performing a few powerful air-punches, my first thought was to celebrate by hitting the liquor cabinet, but I quickly decided to restrain myself. At least, that is, until nightfall. And then I shall howl.

Anyone up for a night on the town?

Hobos and Aesthetes

2008-11-03T18:25:00.000-08:00

During the utter idiocy of my adolescence, I was fascinated by that most rugged of American creatures, the train-hoppin' hobo. I loved their wild and pithy rants against rules and responsibility; I loved their drunken form of Communism and simple secret codes; and, possibly above all, I loved the worn looks of their hats and satchels.

Often upon coming home from school, I would run to my bedroom, tussle up my uniform and hair, and smoke cigarettes whilst dreaming of riding the rails across the unimaginably gigantic country that is the United States of America. I decided I would call myself "Opium Jack" and I would have the reputation of being the most suave and nonchalant hobo in this here land. "Ain't nobody more suave than Opium Jack, ya hear?" would be the malformed interrogative spoken by all the ramblers and tramps who made my acquaintance. I imagined fucking dirty, toothless girls who had run away from home because damn it we are all so misunderstood. And it would never be awkward because we would get drunk at the first sign of guilt and the cycle would eternally repeat and we would never, ever be sad or bored.

But, as I say, back then I was an idiot. Of course the life of the hobo would not be the Romantic ideal I have in my mind. Once the money and Jack Daniel's ran out, I would often be sad and bored and possibly shitting my pants and vomiting simultaneously. My teeth would rot and I would be ugly. Flipping the bird at responsibility certainly has its drawbacks.

And yet, there is something to it. Perhaps I should not reject my teen angst outright. It is difficult to throw our lives away and ride the rails, and yes, it would be a hard and lonely life. But so is the life of an Aesthete. Indeed, upon inspection, Aesthetes and hobos aren't so terribly different. We have in common the altered states, the neglect of responsibility, the love of the unorthodox. Despite the flashy cars and lovely clothes, this dandy still has a hobo soul. So what would Fishgill Jones or Syphilitic Pete think of Nigel Tewksbury? Would they welcome him as a brother or deride him as a sissy? What form of code would they chalk upon his antique door?

Dear S.

2008-10-28T18:45:00.000-07:00

Dear S.,

Do you remember the time we went back to your alabaster chamber with two birds we met outside the bar? I imagine not, as you were quite drunk, but their names were Emily and Diana. You called Emily your little falcon (the room was spinning) and threw her aggressively on the bed and offered to pet her feathers. I remember you smelled like shit. I remember you stripping and revealing to us your withered old-man's body, grey hair on your chest and balls. Are you not ashamed? Or are you not aware of how ugly you've become? I was worried you would cut the poor girl with your sequin undergarments. In the morning there was blood all over the bed. I thought you'd gone too far.

I played the good Samaritan and told Diana to run away. "Things will only get worse," I whispered to her in a serious breath. She had to work in the morning. I don't suppose she had a very productive day. Had you worked a day in your life, you would know it is hell to do with a hangover. Or so I've heard.

In the end, what is to blame for this mess we keep making? The heroin? The rum? The man? The feeling of flesh and hair? The sound of a moaning girl?

We really must do it again. I hate that I let Diana get away.

Your greatest challenger,

Nigel Tewksbury

Roadsters and Elves

2008-10-26T11:48:00.000-07:00

In my garage are housed several exquisite automobiles, none of which has any practical value, and often in my predawn boredom I will go out and look at them and even caress them. Unshaven and with a green faerie in my hand, I dress in my vintage racing overalls and my favourite Tag Heuer chronograph and marvel at the beautiful engineering of my gasoline chariots whilst dreaming of being a playboy racer circa 1966. I am not exaggerating when I say that many of my cars excite me sexually; most notable of these are my roadsters. My faithful readers are likely aware of a grayscale photograph in which I am leaning against a charming little pocket rocket, cigarette in hand, but I must say I trashed that car earlier this year going too fast down Snake Hill, and it was no great loss. It was a mere Japanese plaything used mostly on the (not infrequent) occasions when I was too drunk to drive the good ones. My real babies are my Lotuses and Alfas. For day-to-day driving, I have a '63 Elan (yellow), and for the days I hope to seduce Mrs. Robinson (or any other unsatisfied, married woman, for that matter), I have a red '67 Alfa Spider. I also have a lovely blue Lotus 7 that I won in a duel (or perhaps I stole it--I honestly don't remember that night particularly well).

At 4:00 this morning I decided to take the 7 for a spin. I drove out along a winding country road to a spot where legend says the Hidden Folk play and whore until the sun rises. Though objectively not particularly fast, the car sounds, feels, and handles as though it were a fucking Type 35 Bugatti. Upon arriving at the supposedly magical cave, I parked and turned off my roadster's lights and suckled upon my flask of Johnnie Walker Black while watching the sun rise over the hills. I turned on the radio and listened to some strange music played only for the sad and lonely (perhaps the elves had a little FM transmitter in their cave?). It was too late for spotting elves, but I didn't care. I was enveloped in beauty and oblivion. All my thoughts were dead.

Tropic of Ping

2008-10-22T08:22:00.000-07:00

I would write more today, but I cannot stop thinking of food and Henry Miller playing ping pong with a naked girl. A wrinkled old man, he could not help being the innocent but lascivious Don Juan-in-a-vest. What was going through his batty, cosmic mind as he raced this nymph to 11? Did he play to win or did he play to make her prance? He was a master of nonsense and the match-point forehand. I imagine there was a poetry and comedic grace to the rapid pock-pock-pocking of his wooden paddle against the plastic sphere. Come Dear, let us bat about an ovum.

I, too, have a table and some skill, but they are both in the basement, collecting a layer of dust. I used to play with Myoki and Helga. Inevitably our matches would erupt into either argument or orgy. Now that they are gone, the sound of pinging balls plays in my mind as an absurd lament. I hear it in hailstorms and at night.

Goodbye for now. My noodles are cooked.

Electronic Missive

2008-10-19T18:21:00.000-07:00

Tanya,

Tonight I am lightheaded and brokenhearted. I have struggled to become a better man--you know how in college I grew an American heart--but it has all been destroyed by my pride and my illusions. In the jigsaw puzzle of the world, I do not fit, no matter how hard I try to force myself in place. So over me, you chose the common man, my friend, my brother, your Mr. Potato Head. We grew up together--shared desires and fed each other poison--but in time our paths forked. He went to the office and I to the forest. He brings home the bacon and doesn't question the system. I find pigs filthy and live off berries and seeds. Tanya I do not blame you. But Tanya I am sad and lousy.

Come pick these bugs out of my hair and sail upon my drunken ship. Or do you not listen to the commands of losers? It is probably for the best. I should forget about you and find a filthy forest lover. If I medicate myself, I will not care. Come monkey, come, my filthy girl, and stick this needle in my arm. I'll grow grey and decompose, and who knows, Tanya, if, after all that, I am still bitter about it, I'll haunt you till you cry.

You compared our cocks. I guess mine lost. Now my estate has gone to hell. It's seven Mondays and then another week. Every morning, before reality starts ringing its cacophonous bell, I am writing my book and dedicating it to you. I hope it stings you when you read it, but I'm sure you've given up reading, now that you are married. You were never good at feeling the words anyhow--you were always looking for the symbolism--at least after you went to college. I kept telling you that there was nothing there.

Off to bed,

Nigel Tewksbury

My New Addiction: Tucker & Taz in the Morning

2008-10-06T17:43:00.000-07:00

In my miserable life, I have been addicted to many things: opium, dueling, drunken driving, to name a few. But my latest addiction seems a relatively harmless one. It is Tucker & Taz in the Morning, a Canadian radio program on FM96, a station which boldly claims to be "London's Best Rock" (indeed, there is a London in Ontario, Canada--a real shit-hole from most reports). I do not know if the slogan is true as I find the pig-squeal vocals of AC/DC--a band which the jovial duo play interminably--laughably awful (although I greatly enjoyed Tucker's impression a few days back), but damn it if Tucker and Taz aren't "London's Most Lovable Losers." Though from all reports these pair of pudgy, balding DJs are not terribly special, I cannot help but put them on a pedestal when I hear them talk to the common idiot hicks on riot-fests like "Mr Know-It-All" and "The Question." However Tucker & Taz, I have a question for you: which one of you is the leader?

You see, my friend Reginald Hardcourt has also become a frequent listener of your show (twice a week we set up my Dell and listen to your webcast whilst playing chess and drinking cocaine-laced South African rooibos in the sun room of my estate) and we invariably argue over which of you is the leader. Reginald says it's Tucker, for no tangible reason, whereas I say it is Taz (which one of you hosts Taz-Mania again? Ah, yes... Oh, but what about Taz of All Trades? Ah... Yes... Taz again). Indeed I often wonder whether Tucker is drunk due to his fumbling work with the controls--not that there's anything wrong with that. But I am afraid our little disagreement is no longer friendly because last week Reginald turned his revolver on me for saying Tucker would be nothing without Taz (not coincidentally, I had just taken his Queen's bishop, thus destroying his beloved fianchetto). In a bold move of self-defense, I forcefully grabbed Reginald by the arm and put my ivory letter opener to his throat. I then forced him to push a pawn and lose the game in an embarrassing oversight.

Perhaps this addiction is more dangerous than I fear... Regardless, I look forward to waking up tomorrow. It is a non-Reginald day.

The Hunter

2008-10-01T08:46:00.000-07:00

The other day I was conversing with a bastard towards whom I am socially obligated to be respectful. We were at a dull but elegant restaurant and I became rather bored with his inane ramblings about business and the sad state of the economy. I offered him some hashish, and after his eyes had returned to a normal size (I take it he was rather enamoured by my drugs--I told him it was the good shit because, of course, it was), we went outside and had a little smoke. It hit me hard and I began again to see the point of the world. The sun was setting and I was looking forward to getting nocturnal. It had been awhile.

Upon returning to the table, I reflected on the duck that was now inside me and told my companion that I would eat almost any bird. "Even a penguin?" he asked. "Especially a penguin," I replied. "I imagine they are best done on a rotisserie. Just imagine it there, in your backyard, rotating like a big, tuxedoed sausage, roasting in its own succulent penguin juices." He chuckled uncontrollably at the thought and wondered if it would taste more like fish or chicken. But it was not a joke.

And why must we always compare beasts? It was here I lost respect for him entirely and, like an angsty teen, stopped speaking.

It is odd that we humans are animals though I see the beast in me each and every day. And I know that I am supposed to reject this beast and dress him up in fine, tailored clothing. It is the necessity of living in this artificial world, I suppose. To hell with it. Let's get drunk.

When I'm drunk I am a rogue and I treasure my roguish soul more than I treasure my modified Lotus Elan. While most people spend their lives looking for comfort and money, I spend my life looking for entertainment and experience because I believe these are the only worthwhile things in our artificial world. So I dress myself up in fine, tailored clothing because I want to be the good shit and not the ugly shit or the shit that doesn't know any better. Those in baseball caps and printed blazers are swine; they are scavengers. But me, I am a large, exotic cat--come stroke me if you dare--and I prowl on penguins and drive real fast. The power to weight ratio of my car will knock the cap off your common, greasy head.

We are endangered. Our habitat is nearly destroyed. Where is the wildness? Where is the tall grass in which I can crouch before pouncing on my prey? It is gone and I am supposed to find my dinner at the grocery store. How convenient. How safe. How utterly boring.

Oh hell, I am still sitting here at this table, staring at my glass, starting to come down. He's still high as a kite--I told him it was potent, but he insisted on smoking gluttonously. I'll just feign a full bladder and then hop in my roadster and take off into the night. I need his business less than I need my precious night on the prowl. I'll follow that busty redhead in the tight black dress. She must be wild.

"Let's go hunting," I said to her. "At the grocery store."

She laughed uncomfortably and walked briskly to her car. To hell with her. In this city of garbage, would someone kindly tell me where hide the nymphs and pixies?

Fuck it. Let's get drunk and go to Tesco. I walked into the first pub I found and did three shots of Chartreuse for the Holy Trinity (and then I did another for the road). I then stomped off to Tesco and pushed a blue-hair out of the way to get a good cart. "I am the hunter!" I shouted while I kicked at the automatic doors. I grabbed all the 12-grain bagels I saw--expiration date be damned!--and a tub of chunky peanut butter. I topped up the cart with dark chocolate, cheese, and nuts. I laughed uncontrollably when I saw that Penguin biscuits were on sale and I took the whole stock. I would have a feast tonight.

In my periphery I sensed a security guard's stare. It was time to blow this place. With a snarl and a growl, I took my cart and charged at the door. No one dared get in my way. But in the parking lot I noticed a wobbly wheel on what I thought was my faithful cart--I suppose it was not built for such extreme speeds--and I heard the guards charging behind me. I gave a primal yell, but it was of no use. I knew that damn wheel would be my end and I was forced to abandon my kill and take off into the night. I grabbed two packs of Penguins and shoved them in my pockets. In a wild flourish, I threw my favourite yellow pocket square behind me.

Once out of the artificial lights, I stopped in an alley and took a good, long piss. I cracked open some biscuits and shoved them in my mouth. They tasted very, very good.

Upon returning home, my euphoria quickly wore off. I was sweating and frightened at what I had done. I tried to regain some sanity by watching a marathon of Britain's Next Top Model. What a topsy-turvy world! I was unsure how I could go on knowing that in my heart there was this caged and rabid beast. I do not know... It is in times like these that I reach for my laudanum and hope to feel fresh-as-a-daisy upon waking.

A Bike Ride of High Intensity

2008-09-21T15:04:00.000-07:00

At an unsafe speed, I rumble through the trees--through the fall I fly, the stink of sewage in my nose--and I know there is no happiness that I'd call true. For happiness is fleeting and false, like this dandy-on-wheels, and I wish I were foolish enough to buy into the buying and the house and the dog and the car--though they appear all innocent, at heart they are all evil, except my roadster, of course, which I enjoy because it's fast (and perhaps a little evil). Now, Nigel, focus, and watch out for the retard with rotting teeth but nick the oblivious teen as a wake-up call from reality--ring your bell like a coked-up Pavlov and hope the dogs respond and make way for Master Tewksbury, he's faster than you; and I storm along the riverside--upshift! upshift! upshift!--with a death wish, perhaps, yes, certainly with a death wish, because I am an exotic bird of paradise that does not wish to propagate--propagation's for the common and the plain--I wish to go out in a colourful explosion of feathers, dancing my strange, exotic dance not understood by the populous who prefer the ignorant impregnators, the bacon and the burgers--now I'm on the ragged edge, dipping down and up, huffing and puffing and growing younger--ringing my bell, again, like a coked-up Pavlov to signal my mercurial pace through the sewage stink and cultural garbage--hark! my message is chaos with precision--whoever made this bike path had great aesthetic sense--I salute your work--I'm sorry no one notices, but we are all basically stupid. Ah! This is happiness, this is false, this is fleeting, but fuck it feels grand and fuck I feel superior and fuck it would be a good time to die, now, by smashing my head upon the road and being eaten alive by ducks--I just hope it cracks easier than a coconut and I taste alright without sauce--I wish to die--I'd like to be a cutter, that is, a cutter of corners, up upon my bicycle, my silent steed; but with sadness this ride must end. It is a shame. But I feel a little better now. I must remember this as a cure for my occasional bouts with malaise.

quickly beating heart
trees, sewage, water, and will
hidden underground

Planetary Plagues, etc.

2008-09-09T09:30:00.000-07:00

Reginald stopped by for an unscheduled visit and brought with him his magic pouch. As he rang my bell, I awoke from a drunken slumber and inquired, "What time is it?"

He replied with slurred enunciation: "It is pre-plague Renaissance. I know it is your favourite."

It is... He opened his magic pouch and indeed there was no time at all but those times that are our favourites--and in times like these one must really be outside! And then we were in an empty battlefield with no one but our ghosts. Like teenagers we traveled there by bicycle. We waited for the fight but there was no one there to fight us. Ah, it's just a field, then. So we rode on but not before losing our accents.

"What happened to your accent, Reg?" I asked.

"What happened to yours!?"

"I'm not sure... I do not know my voice at all... But to think of my accent frightens me."

"Let's bike on."

We rode to the university where wild Tropicália music crackled and pulsed and wasps buzzed about unemptied rubbish bins and I grew fearful of the plague while Reginald munched a bagel and played kitten with his cock. What was this plague I feared? I looked around and saw people who were advertisements and whose teeth were like dentures because they were so white and so straight. Is this style without substance or substance without style? Or is it neither and none? Ah, listen to their voices... Their accents are strong and false... As was mine--but now it's gone and I am left with a rubble of phonemes with which I must build my new Babel. But let's not build Babel again--it always falls down--let's come up with something simpler, something sturdier, something a little more like Lascaux.

In the distance I gazed at a girl with wild, red hair. I know her. I danced with her once in a Dublin bar. She is better than most but that's not much. I quickly realized she wasn't my Nicevenn when she professed to be a follower of Acca Dacca. I shan't strike up a conversation. Our orbits have briefly crossed and sentimentality is known to kill a planet and turn it to a moon.

We must leave this place before we die--Franny was right--there is no knowledge here--only horny professors with patches on their sleeves. There you are, my bicycle, my steed. We shall go home now in total darkness. Though there are no lights in the park we can get by with echolocation and a little bit of luck. It's all we need. Who cares if we die because this is a good way to go--speeding down a hill, towards a set of headlights, drawing me in like gravity.

Towards a New Aesthetic (the half-assed, blogger version)

2008-08-30T05:41:00.000-07:00

As a seedling Aesthete, I was fascinated by libraries. Often I wondered, In the world, is there one that holds all the knowledge of all? The answer is, of course, no, not in this post-Alexandrian age. But things have changed and libraries are now as obsolete as Reginald Hardcourt's piece-of-shit '01 Dell. Now knowledge lives in Google's servers (which Hardcourt's computer can occasionally access if one is extremely patient and not working during peak hours) and my boyhood vision of a complete realm of information, I believe, is a reality, albeit a superficial one. Where I once thrilled in hunting down a book or article in the labyrinths of a real cracking library, I now apathetically find the same thing by inputting a few keywords into Google, all while dressed in my white cotton underwear and munching on a really proper sausage.

There was a time when I lived my life bouncing between the inspiring but tiring poles of bibliotheque and discotheque. Now I live my life between Google and Facebook. I have saved a lot of time but I have lost the thrill of the chase (and the amusement of a rhyme). Today, knowledge is an easy destination, and there is no longer a meaningful journey. Indeed it is meaning that has been lost, and I wonder if it can ever be found in this hypertextual rat-race world.

Of course all this meandering has a point--are you bored enough to stay with me? The point is this: We must create an art that does not rely on bookish knowledge but rather requires us to search the libraries of our souls (Yes, I sound like that Texan Twat Dr. Phil here, but fuck it, I have a soul, and I will take it back from the pseudoscientists by any means necessary--if you have any of his books, please do your part and burn them). I hoped here, in this dime-a-dozen blog, to proclaim Intertextuality dead, but of course, not being real, it cannot die; however, it can be proclaimed a concept, a word, and it is exactly that. Let's take the focus off it. Let us not rely on facts and references but rather on the journey and the experience. Knowledge is mostly just showy bullshit anyway. Let's not be so deluded as to think it means anything on its own.

Out of the open and into the cracks

2008-08-28T05:30:00.000-07:00

Like Persian cats named Pumpkin, they creep in silently, these end-of-summer days. Dressed in my finest pilgrim's garb, the breeze blows past me and imparts memories of youth and school (can you hear the children call? Can you smell the aging books?). I almost forget that I am old. On the weekend I will do a bicycle tour across Quebec. Alone. It is to remind me of the importance of the journey and to develop the skills of the cat. Silently I will pulse down carless veins until I reach my parents' house and am greeted by their ghosts. Then I will eat my little granola bar, grab a little nap, and push on, without purpose, into these end-of-summer days.

An excerpt (from Chapter 5 of my memoirs)

2008-08-20T07:29:00.000-07:00

I have been waking early every morning and spewing my life onto the page. It has been painful and enlightening. Why do we do such things?

It is a first draft. I apologize for the formatting--it is difficult to adapt a novel for Blogger.

***

The next day I received a phone call. It was Reginald.

"Let's do some trespassing," he said, dispensing with the standard greeting.

"Of course."

"Don't worry Nigel, we shall be forgiven in the end."

"Well Reginald that all depends."

"Are you high right now?"

"No."

"You should be."

"No."

We planned to meet at the railroad tracks. I wanted to feel the thrill of trespassing but I was too afraid to do it alone. I had begun to hate Reginald but I was not ready to strike out alone. I still did not have the courage of a true rogue and Reginald is as roguish as they come. As I say, I hate him, but, I must admit, I have learned and stolen a great deal from him. I have stolen from many people and it has made me what I am. I am not original; I am a thief of influence.

We drove to a quiet portion of the tracks. Rocks, grass, wood, silence. It was all land and no people. We wore only earth tones and as a ritual we smeared dirt on our faces imagining it was primordial ooze. Reginald climbed the wire fence and I followed him over. Initially I worried about tearing my clothes, and then I realized, These are the things that hold me back, so I sucked up the courage and tore my lovely shirt so it would be done and out of mind. Once we were over, we realized we had stumbled on the flotsam of the world: pants, shirts, and bras all caked in mud. I wondered, Why put these here? This is not a place for lovers. Are these the clothes of the underground people? Of the hobos and of the homeless? Is this what I would become if I stayed on this trajectory of drugs and trespassing? I have a feeling that having a hobo bride is not as Romantic as it seems.

"This is fucking brilliant," said Reginald, wearing an Old Navy baseball cap and acting like a cad. He puffed out his chest and spat at a squirrel.

I laughed, out of shock, not out of humour. I knew I would follow.

"Incredible Reg." I kicked at the objects and wondered to whom they once belonged. Why not just bung them in the closet? Or you could give them to Oxfam, I suppose. Fuck we are all so lazy.

"Let's follow the tracks and see where they go."

Reginald here opened his khaki rucksack and pulled out his Spanish wineskin and poured a stream of deep red liquid into his mouth. He looked like a maniac as it ran down his cheeks and chin.

"Have some blood my friend, my brother."

Was it? It is hard to tell with Reg. I drank it sheepishly. Reginald watched me with wide eyes. It was wine.

"Bloody good, eh?"

"Let's get drunk in hobo village," I said, suddenly infused.

"Yes!"

We drank the wine, all of it. It's brilliant how being drunk changes everything and how the world shifts from prison to carnival. We were in the hobo village and imagined what it would be like to sleep here and wait for the next train to hop. I imagined all the hobos making love here out of boredom. Hiding in the rubbish I saw the grubby faeries that must guide the misguided transient—dirty hair and dressed in torn brown rags—beautiful in a way—the outcasts of the faerie world. Like us, they were drunk, oblivious to responsibility and to consequence. Was this the way to live? To live clean is to live a lie. I wanted to be dirty forever but to have a good heart.

A Basement, 2001

2008-08-16T16:28:00.000-07:00

In the forest I see the blinking eyes of my ancestors. The trees are alive and naked. In the moonlight, they are evil; in the sun, good. The red red berries, from what I hear, will get you gloriously high, but will, unfortunately, kill you, too. It's written in a Bowie song--one he never recorded. Let's get off the berries now... What a thin and funky junky... Ah yes in the trees are howling monkeys. And sound waves. Notes fall and crash and make all the noise hypothesized by Gurdjeff. I met him once in a cafe beneath a darkening sky. He was quiet.

Once I knew a jazzer by the name of Don Trebblehorn. He was full of shit and beauty but always pissed at the London Jazz Society. He was good to smoke a joint with but I can't imagine him sober. He would be a frightened cat and spray everywhere. Where's your holy music now? Are you afraid because you dreamed your life away? Oh yes, it's gone, you shriveled up piece of beef jerky.

Let's have a dinner party with Baudelaire and Shakespeare. We'll allow only artists, but we'll let in the shit with the others because if we only allowed the good ones it would be dull and not a party. We'll tell them how Google has made us stoopid but told us everything. We'll toast wikipedia but not think about it too deeply. Then we'll do a hippie drum circle and some cock with a keyboard on his tie will twitter on a flute. Oh, come one and all! It will be farcical and bleak!

Let's. For fun. We'll forget about the dark monkeys in the trees. We'll forget about the noise...

... Good morning, love. I don't know how you got here but you're here and so am I. Let's go drink absinthe and sunbathe on the balcony. Let's develop a grand Aesthetic and start an artistic revolution. But, don't worry, we'll probably just get drunk. Maybe if we're lucky and ask them nicely the gods will mute the colours and make it look like an old movie. I'll be James Dean and you can be Brigitte Bardot. Burn me, Apollo, but not so much that I cook, just so much that I sizzle for a bit and then shut up for once.

Let's. For fun. Then we'll fall asleep and forget all about it. There's shopping to be done.

Poison Oak vs. Syphilis

2008-08-11T09:17:00.000-07:00

I am in love with the notion of wildness. To me there is the wildness of nature and the wildness of the city. Often I wonder what the relationship between them is. Reginald Hardcourt once told me, "There is only music and noise," and I think of these words often, and for all of Reginad's esoteric bullshit babbling in Latin and birdsong, I think these words will always be his best because they are so simple. And I wonder how wildness is related to music, and I wonder how wildness is related to noise. The untuned mind would likely conclude that wildness is noise, but I do not think it is so simple. I remember the time I rolled with Beauty beside a stream, our soft, naked bodies merging in intercourse yet bearing the brunt of the prickly landscape. We emerged happy and satisfied yet blotchy from poison oak. Now I say that I remember fucking Beauty by the stream but I am not sure it was real for I had poppy resin lingering in my veins--those great channels of the human body--but to call this wildness vulgar--to call it noise rather than music--is to call yourself out as a tone-deaf, beer-swilling cockmuncher. It was wild, and it was music, both to my ears, and to my other senses, too.

I have had similar experiences with whores though I'd take poison oak and an imaginary woman over lice and the syph anyday. Wildness is intoxicating regardless and I would not trade it for all the gift certificates and creature comforts in the world.

But my liaison with Beauty happened only once and it is now firmly in the vanishing past. It is one of my fondest memories, but I wish I could forget it and move westward into adulthood. The fact that I may have been delusional at the time makes me question the value of all that I believe. Perhaps I am just an opium addict who is forever blotchy with poison oak: I will not heal. Yet the music remains and I wish the taxmen and politicians could hear it.

Reyka Vodka and My Mind

2008-07-31T15:42:00.000-07:00

Reyka vodka, thou art the elixir of my soul. How could something elevate such a vagabond aesthete to such heights sublime? Ah! Reyka vodka, you quench my thirst. You are pure. You are a wonder. Reyka vodka, thou art my glacial lover.

It is off to Iceland; let's go by boat rocking drunkenly. Reyka vodka shall make us adventurous rogues, the heroes of the world, and we shall shall sail past the arctic circle but feel flames within our hearts. There can be no other country. Sweden is too plain; Russia is too large. Iceland is a country that makes you a man. Let's drink Reyka vodka and go berserkergang.

How can one not love the feeling of being tight? On Reyka being tight. When I am drunk, I am a buffoon; when sober, I am a bore. But when I am tight, ah! Reyka vodka true, I am a wonder to behold. Gone are the inhibitions. I am an animal inspired. I am unstoppable. I am one hell of a piece of ass and don't mind if you stare.

Come back and we shall go nude beneath the moonlight. I still have half a bottle by the salt lamp by the door. Dear Reyka vodka, please meet our new lover. Her name is unspoken. Let's keep it that way. Have a sip of my sensual landscape. My body is volcanic; come explore my lake Mývatn. Pet my devil duck and explore my darkened heart.

It all boils down to this

2008-07-23T05:19:00.000-07:00

Woke at 6:00, said "Fuck this life," booked a flight to Iceland, ran a hard, brisk 5.25K.

Meditated on the balcony, dewy body glistening in the dawn. I shall spend the day with a bottle of Reyka because it gets me drunk but does not give me a headache.

Some words to fill a void

2008-07-04T10:45:00.000-07:00

Since returning from the forest, my life has been clean. My head is clear. It is good and bad.

It is good because the nightmares have stopped. In my daily life, the things I experience are real rather than a mad amalgamation of fantasy and reality. But it is bad because the truth of my life is, often, frightening. I live in a ridiculous house; I drive a ridiculous car; I wear ridiculous clothes. I cannot help but feel I am a ridiculous man--a "pretentious asshat," as one reader has called me.

Like a teenager, tonight, I am vulnerable. I walk down the street with my head hung low. The jabs of your stares sting my pitiful heart. I am swimming in a sea of vague malaise with no sight of land.

If ever I make it back, perhaps I will go to "The Gap" and buy a hooded sweatshirt and a decent pair of jeans and wear them like the rest of the world. Or perhaps I will write my memoirs and put down in words the vague philosophy that drives me--a mixture of Plato, Thoreau, and Hemingway, spotted with misconceptions and strange delusions from origins unknown.

Or perhaps I just need a good night's rest. Or some friends--the kind that money can't buy.

Let's start tomorrow after wasting away the day with music, smoke, tears, and laughter.

The Hump

2008-06-20T06:45:00.000-07:00

I hope to add more partially digested ruminations from my wilderness experience in the future, but I must confess, I am still grappling with what happened. At the moment, my recollections and scrawls are fragmentary at best and terrifying at worst (for example, I am reluctant to write it here, dear, dead Henry Miller, thou who taught me that self-censorship is a killer of art, but according to my log (oh pun scatological!), I, at one desperate point in my wilderness wildness, attempted the trick of coprophagia in imitation of the hyrax, cur, and gimmicky whore). Oh YHWH, oh Yoda, Thou who gives me life, let these dark memories be more fantasy than reality, and, like my carefully crafted personalty, lie more within the realm of the mythological than the physical.

Ah! But like the life of that bitch Elizabeth Taylor, I digress. You see the reason I write today, Dear Fanatics and Admirers (not to mention the more common, more pidily, Naysayers), is to tell you the story of my Wednesday, of my Woden's Day.

Hwæt! Now listen to my tale.

I was visiting a prestigious university (I shall not name it here) for the purpose of seducing a slut who frequents the campus café. Her eyes like emeralds, her skin like milk, her tits magnificent, I approached her like a tiger on the prowl. Wearing my blue and white seersucker suit and carrying my vintage WWII Triumph motorcycle helmet, I slipped down beside her and said,

"I would like to fuck you, when you are through with that coffee drink."

I then rubbed my snake-like hand up her inner thigh and inquired, "Vanilla?"

It was indeed vanilla, and with that she threw her bullshit drink on the floor and we headed to the campus bar to get tight. But as it was only 10:30 in the morning, we had to wait a half hour before alcohol was served, so we had a glorious make out session in the grass beside the bicycle rack and dumpster. Things worked out wonderfully because by 11:00 I was sufficiently bored with my exploration of her body and quite ready to get extraordinarily drunk.

For a bar the place was rather bright, and the light served only to accentuate the horror inside: a multitude of fat, balding graduate students getting drunk in their nerdy little sanctuary, the campus Grad Pub. Ah! It was awful to see all these cases of arrested development in one crowded place. Their socks and sandals! Their backpacks! (Reginald always said: "To avoid looking a fool, one must never wear a backpack past the age of 25"). On my way to the communal washroom I glanced at a paper being written by one particularly egregious member of the species (I turned a little pink with anger and embarrassment to see he had the same model of Dell as I) and was shocked by the terrible prose. Long, ambiguous sentences; sentences never using anything but a simple structure (please don't point out my fragments, Naysayers, I am quite aware of them). Such sentences would only pass as high prose to one unable to focus due to severe astigmatism, and yet, everything about these people was an attempt at screaming, "HELLO! I AM SMART! LOOK AT ME!"

GAH! Damned fakers!

Oh YHWH, oh Yoda, I ask you on my knees in prayer, in supplication: What ever happened to Dignity? Are these the modern Intelligentsia? Say it ain't so!

And yet the females were rather, well, hot with their glasses and their books. But I decided not to speak to any of them fearing my lofty illusions of studious seductresses--girls who would explore my gonads as though they were metaphorical meteorites and then calculate the optimal angle of trajectory with which to direct their cattish tongues--would only be destroyed. I returned to my slut and my alcohol, but my slut was gone. I do have such rotten luck.

I sat there and drank. Alone. And I mused. There certainly seems to be a hump that one hits around the age of 25. Now that growing up is done, what does one do to progress? Damn these cases of arrested development. But am I really so different? I still have a childish heart.

These are the thoughts that are dissolved in a bottle of gin. Fear not change; fear not darkness. This drink shall be my last.

Ah Nigel, you are a fucking riot.

Wilderness Journal

2008-06-10T11:20:00.000-07:00

Notes for Day 1:

- I am extraordinarily drunk on the comically-named "Balantine's Finest." I have six bottles in my rations. The bottles have doubled as toilets--I still find the notion of pissing in the bushes rather vulgar. Frankly at this point I am unsure which is scotch and which is excrement.
- Yesterday I attempted to build a cabin out of twigs. It was rather small and immediately reminded me of my deceased ferret as only he could fit into it. I am an aesthete, not a contortionist. I then remembered that ferrets do not live in huts but rather burrow into foliage. I shall do the same.
- I burrowed my lithe, hairless body into the brush. At first the prickling was unpleasant--unbearable even--but then I realized it was a form of corporal mortification. For a moment I thought I felt the wind of the Holy Spirit pass over me in my suffering. I look forward to telling my Emo friends on MySpace.
- There is no MySpace in the forest. My feelings are ambiguous.
- I began reading Inferno in the original tongue. I then realized I do not speak Italian but have been lying about it all my life.
- I am growing bored. I will drink more scotch or excrement and pass out. The forest is more tiresome than Avery Mann's house. No, that is not true... Here there are foxes and deer, though they are neither as social nor as beautiful as I imagined. Indeed they are quite filthy.
- Grass does not taste very good at all though reindeer moss is not half bad.
- I cried.

A Dream

I am lost in a forest. A silver stream runs along a beaten path. I look into the darkness of the trees--the unexplored world. Eyes twinkle like stars. I find a clay cup beside the water--I am not the first traveler to awaken here. I look in the river expecting to see my reflection. I see no one.

I do not miss the whores and the drugs. My mask has been removed. Once again I am a child, though I am a little old and wrinkled... Why is it that we look forward to the weekends but fear the future?

No matter... I will trudge on despite the sprouting grey hairs... I will metamorphose. I will become something new. I am the wily Odysseus--fate be damned. Poseidon do your best.

I am back

2008-06-04T08:30:00.000-07:00

I am back from the wilderness. After a series of green-tinged dreams I ran away to live in the forest. I realized that all my life the forest had been calling me but I did not have the ears to hear its wind-whispered words. So in the middle of the night, four and twenty days ago, I undressed and hopped in my roadster but not before removing all the maps from the glove box and putting them in the fiery furnace of my Westinghouse stove. I put it in self-cleaning mode and watched the roads of Great Britain crumble to ashes, all while cautiously keeping my distance from the hellish heat so that my dangling genitalia would not get burned.

Let me describe to you my dream, Dear Reader, Dear Daniel of the Blogsphere. I awoke in a petrified forest but in the distance was a burning flame housed within a ghoulish cave. I crept nearer and nearer the strange and humming glow, and my body grew more and more feverish, my glorious cock more and more erect, as I stepped ever closer. The hum grew more intense, like Mariah Carey exploring her upper range, and I had to cover my pulsating ears. Eventually my senses were overwhelmed with heat and noise and I collapsed on the ground, but not before I saw a wraith signaling me with a slow and flexing finger. I nodded my head in profound obedience and the world turned an absinthe green. It was then I knew I was to escape to the forest.

With neither maps nor my custom GPS I hopped into my roadster and let it purr. I revved the engine and felt the beast beneath the hood. Using the customized paddle shifters and Momo steering wheel, we wound down the treacherous corners of Snake Hill, hitting the apex of every corner with microscopic precision. Ah, how I will miss thee, rubber on road, growl of engine, but it is the forest that calls your master. I left her on the side of the road for a lucky thief, but not before urinating on each of the leather buckets.

It was then that I got drunk. Instinctively I knew that drunkenness would be an integral part of living in the forest as I would need to abandon my fears and inhibitions (and there are many). I wanted never to see sobriety again, not even at sunrise.

I lived for three weeks in the woods. Like Nebuchadnezzar and Timothy Treadwell before me, I ate nothing but grass and berries. Currently I am coming to terms with my experiences. I hope to blog about them soon.

Yours,

Nigel Supertramp

Dear Blog

2008-05-15T19:00:00.000-07:00

Dear Blog,

I wanted to write tonight but cannot. I am bloated on turkey and have been drinking heavily as of late. I became afraid of the tap-water after some slut flushed poison down my toilet in an attempt to get it into my pipe-system (I admit, my knowledge of plumbing is rudimentary at best). I have been drinking Double Diamond beer as a replacement. I am looking a little bit tubby, I'm afraid. There are mice droppings in my bed. And yet I shall sleep there tonight.

I shall sleep there tonight, most likely under the influence of an opium tincture. I am growing more and more withdrawn each day. I cannot come to terms with the world outside me. And the world inside me is no longer my own.

Oh Blog, you are nothing like my boyhood diary. You are a cheap gimcrack whereas my diary was a hidden flower pollinated by my private thoughts and words. You are a tabloid, and I, your perverted publisher.

We shall go to sleep angry at each other tonight.

Yours,

Nigel Tewksbury

Pig in the City

2008-05-10T21:36:00.000-07:00

Fluently through the dark foliage of the city night, I walk; I walk and I stalk with a profound nonchalance, a panther on the prowl, looking for a mate, or possibly for food. I have not eaten in days; I am growing weak and tired; my insides burn. Perhaps I will stop at a fast food place, a drunken dandy hungry for grease; or perhaps I will simply press on with the faith that I will not die from hunger when I have gold coins jangling like reindeer's bells in my pocket. Jingle jangle. Jingle jangle. Jingle jangle jeroo.

I stumble around a corner and see the flash of an urchin's eyes. The protein of her eyes is white and shining in stark contrast to the grimy rags she calls clothing. She is begging for coinery. I toss her a big one and tell her she would be beautiful were she not so filthy, but upon further reflection I think it is because she is filthy that she has the potential for beauty. I feel that if she showered and dressed she would be just a common slut--one of those whores in this city who give it away for free. Often it is best that the veil of Maya be not lifted.

I turn around and toss her another coin before laughing at the absurdity of it all.

What is this city in which I live? It is built on dreams, true, but they are the dreams of Capitalists, not of Dreamers. If only poets had the background in construction and engineering necessary to build! Ah, what a sight it would be to behold, the city of poets, golden and true. Nymphs and prophets would emigrate from Arcadia (but we would keep the satyrs out).

I walk with a funky swagger straight into a McDonald's restaurant. I gobble four cheeseburgers and a chocolate milkshake--I have never felt dirtier in my life! And oh the salty fries! I remove my belt and whip the table. I paint my face with ketchup and mustard--I am out of my fucking mind and loving every moment--my monkey heart pounds and I hope I die like this, a complete and utter failure, a complete and utter fool.

I hear the river calling me and run out into the night. I run down a hill and push through the trees. I am alone and it is quiet... I am out of the city. The river flows on and on. I cannot believe what I am. I was a child once... Mother I am sorry. I have strayed further than any man in history.

I watch the ripples and the ducks. They flow on, always forward. "Oh hell," I mutter. Oh hell. I suppose I should go home. Or return to my damn house.

The complications of being human

2008-04-26T08:29:00.000-07:00

Finally it is fragrant spring--sensual spring--and happy is my heart that the snow has long-last melted; no longer does my soul feel captive and tortured; no longer does my heart feel as though it is slowly freezing deep into a mechanical stasis--what a scientist might term Death--from which it shall never wake. I incant: Spin vortex spin! Impregnate me with inspiration and dreams that transcend my robot-like physiology! And I lament: If only my beloved ferret were still alive--not a victim to the frozen world but a hero in the verdant one--if only he were bounding through the open fields, squeaking in strange, primordial rhythms, bristled fur wrinkling down his tube-like body like salty ocean waves. And I wonder: Would he, like me, feel the strange and frustrating ambiguity of April memory and April desire? Would he, like me, feel slightly disappointed after the high expectations of winter? Or are ferrets utterly blind to feeling, as popular Biology professes?

Through sheer power of will, I quiet my pestering thoughts and remove my clothes to roll through the fragrant fields of chamomile flowers. I roll sensually towards a pretty rill located at the bottom of a bumpy slope, and I weep, and I wonder: Are these tears of rage or are they tears of joy? Or am I so utterly pedestrian that they are the standard tears of sadness like those felt by an adolescent over the synchronicity of an unrequited love and a fresh batch of pimples? I know not, for I know nothing... I know only that they are tears--real ones at that--and that my knowledge is not true. No, I am not satisfied, no... No... I am not content to merely roll--instinctively merged--man and terra firma--beautiful but without the satisfaction of an Epistemology that resonates and rings throughout the entire core and being.

I roll... I roll... Growing older as I go...

Alice in Emoland

2008-04-20T05:57:00.000-07:00

It was the rumoured propensity for suffering that initially drew me towards the dark flame of the Emo world. A little bird once told me these bastards like to bleed, and oft on my Sunday hashish stroll through the park, I would encounter the sullen-faced, floppy-haired creatures naval-gazing and weeping for the oily garbage on the ground (or perhaps it was for the oily garbage in their brains... or perhaps it was for the adolescent oil in their hair... or perhaps it was, devil-be-damned, for no reason at all). I asked a park whore what these creatures be and she replied, "They are Emos--it is short for Emotionals." Ah, they do seem a touch sensitive, I thought, and it was then that I resolved to go home and conduct some Internet research for I had a strange inclination that there was a little corner in my soul that resonated with the spirit of Emo.

I almost jumped out of my body when I looked up and saw Lord Byron looking down on me. "Childe Harold!" I ejaculated, before realizing it was just a statue.

***

Once back at the estate, I brought my new notebook computer out to Gibbon Forest. I had recently invested in a wireless network that would allow me to surf the Internet whilst basking beneath Apollo's sweet springtime rays--today I would test it for the first time, and I must admit, I had my doubts. As I logged on, I mused, "Dear Apollo, god of wisdom, god of beauty, god of poesy true, let this connection be secure from fiends and let my signal soar past the highest peak of Mount Parnassus."

Miraculously, before I incanted the final phrase, a popup told me I was, indeed, connected.

"Off to Wikipedia!" I said aloud as I began the revered ceremony of Absinthe preparation. Ah, how the faerie danced in the sunlight as the particles of sugar dripped through the pores of the specialized spoon one by one.

Dance my lady, dance filthily for me; dance, dance, dance, around the maypole primordial.

In the distance, the gibbons howled.

***

It is not yet Walpurgisnacht, yet the line between fantasy and reality was narrow to the extreme. What follows is more a curiosity than a blog entry. Indeed, I have no recollection of the Internet session in Gibbon Forest, but upon awakening I found a strange note typed haphazardly in Wingdings font in Microsoft Word. Upon converting the font to Times New Roman, it read as follows:

The Emo is black and impotent with vision obscured by an asymmetrical haircut. Pain-obsessed and pimply, he cuts out of boredom and lack of art supplies. Two hours ago I thought perhaps I was an Emo, but I am not. I am an Aesthete, not an Emo, though not an Aesthete proper... I am no one, not even myself, thank God...

EGO sum an Aesthete, non an Emo, sententia non an Aesthete verus.

To green... To green... To green...

"Nigel?"

"Hello!"

"I have created a MySpace account... MySpace, I discovered, is the Jerusalem of the Emo.

"Shalom and sorrow."

"Yes... Well I must tell you, bodily Nigel (for I am not real), I messaged the hottest one I could find and invited her over for supper and discussion of her kind. It is a sexual ploy, of course. She is due at sundown."

"Cage the gibbons!"

"Yes..."

***

The sun will soon be sinking. I am sober and feeling foolish. I often terrify myself when I indulge... I am a mixture--a demon and a god--and I worry of schizophrenia. I do not know what I will do if and when the doorbell rings, but I confess there is a succulent duck roasting slowly in the oven.

An odyssey mundane

2008-03-23T06:17:00.000-07:00

It has been approximately one lunar cycle since I landed in the horrid town of London, Ontario. How is it that I came here? I know not precisely for I was heavily sedated at the time, but I recall meeting a beautiful milk-white maid and following her into the roaring belly of a strange, mechanical bird that seemed to exude the sound of the Holy "Om." But upon awakening, she was gone and my pants were wet. Alone I was in a miniature airport. I was lost and sweating profusely.

On some level I knew I was now free from the many chains that have shackled my lithe, hairless body for so long--I was distant from the Baron of the Trees, my bottomless stash of drugs and alcohol, the letters from Helga and Myoki--and yet I have never felt so stifled. Years of seclusion have hampered my ability to adapt to new cultures, particularly modern ones. Had I awoken in Illyria or Fairyland, I would have been perfectly at home, but alas, I have come to the crushing realization that such lands exist only in the mind, and perhaps even there they are nearly dead (I have not been able to escape into literary worlds since arriving in the drab city).

Sunny it was on my first day. My first acquaintance was a chap named, believe it or not, "Mitch." He had a gaudy Canadian accent made worse by a horrendous rasp that instantly reminded one of the death rattle. Barely five foot tall, we must have looked an odd pair making chit-chat on the street. The conversation was awkward as he only talked of hockey and getting drunk--and he made the solemn ceremony of intoxication sound utterly vulgar and base. Clearly he had not studied the drunken state at all, so I suggested he read some Baudelaire before the weekend came. He said he would, but I was certain he would not.

The air was frigid. It has not changed. I long for coastal climates and despise this flatness. Flatness of landscape and flatness of heart. Few benefits do I see in this land other than the safety of boredom and the reasonable cost of property.

A dream, a prophesy

2008-03-11T07:45:00.000-07:00

I walked to the courtroom. It was a lovely spring day--the streets were body-temperate and the fields smelled of chamomile and poppy. Hidden in the bushes were gnomes and hobos. I spat on a hobo but he didn't seem to mind--perhaps he even found a little nourishment there. For the first time since my lonely but joyful adolescence, I whistled as I walked. "Sebastian Horsley Dies Today," read the front page of the Times.

"How can he not believe in ghosts"? I thought as I tossed a piece of caramel corn into my mouth (or was it caramel maize? I purchased it from an aboriginal vendor who muttered words I did not understand). How can one not believe in ghosts when time--damn time--surrounds us always.

There is no escape.

I could not stop eating my sticky treat. My jaw ached and my teeth were sticking as though glued. My whistling became internalized like the rules of my mother and the dictates of Aestheticism. I walked over the moat and into the courtroom.

"Surprise!" they yelled as I crossed the threshold into the geometric world of the legal architects--how utterly false, how utterly hideous! There were balloons and confections and the Jack of Hearts pissed beer in abundance. From the rafters hung a banner that read, "Welcome Nigel Tewksbury, Aesthete/Recluse."

"What day is this?" I muttered. Surely it is not my birthday.

"March 15th" said a newsboy with a Caesar haircut.

"Beware," whispered the wind, or my conscience, or Time, I'm not sure which.

Oh... Fuck.

"All rise," commanded a pasty bailiff, and in walked Sebastian Horsley wearing nothing but a black sock.

"Welcome to your execution," he said. "It is my latest stunt. Please, help yourself to some beer before we chop you up and hide your limbs in brothels."

Out of the corner of my eyes I saw a grinning gibbon flash and then fade into the brickwork bit by bit.

"Yes," I said. "I believe I will have to get rather drunk for this."

Basia Bulat sings the lunar eclipse while I sip upon a mystery tea

2008-02-20T18:19:00.000-08:00

It is the magical predawn, but I cannot sleep. And yet I have never been so tired. I am beyond tired, beyond fullness; beyond emptiness, too. I linger by my frost-sheered window and watch the moon go into hiding--I would howl at the damn thing were the night not so peaceful and serene. But instead I struggle to silence my mind and brew a cup of tea.

The kettle's on. I search the cupboard for some chamomile for I feel like the convalescent Peter Rabbit, but I do not find the leaves I seek. Rather I stumble upon a stray teabag of unknown origin. I sniff it but it remains mysterious. I drop it in the cup and pour the boiling water.

Ah, what a horrid, horrid day, I think, as I leave the tea to steep. I languish on the couch, robe hanging open, my weary eyes gazing at the diminishing moon. My affairs are not in order... I cannot think straight anymore--my thoughts don't just wander--they fall into the pit of mundanity and are drugged by the candy of spiritual starvation. There is little I can do... The modern world is, sadly, stronger than my soul's tide.

But at least I can drink this mystery tea. And, I chuckle to myself, I've noticed that the simple pleasures are intensified by the still predawn hours. The tea smells of nothing but warmth and tastes the same. I do not remember buying this?

Let us put on some music... Something befitting of the predawn, of the lunar eclipse, of the mystery tea. Ah, yes, Basia Bulat--the modern equivalent of a woodland nymph. Her voice warbles and echoes throughout my den as I take another sip. What is this brew? It tastes of nothing, perhaps nothing with a hint of hazelnut.

I think of Julian of Norwich and how she saw the world inside a hazelnut. Perhaps we were not so different, she and I.

Except for the whores and the drugs... Oh Julian, I'm sorry, my dear... I am weak and have given up trying to change. Come out of your little cell tonight, just for me. It is a night for ghosts.

I almost drop...

Ah yes, the moon! It is nearly gone... There is no eye watching me tonight, seeing if I'm on my best behaviour. For a moment I cease to exist. A perfect night to die in the cold...

Yes, now I know... Now I remember. I have had this tea before. It is the kind that gives me mad dreams and madder erections. The night will be lovely but the day will be dreadful. So be it.

With legs like lead, I stumble off to bed.

Freeform ramblings, metempsychosis, etc.

2008-02-18T14:45:00.000-08:00

I have not left my little opium loft for nearly a week. I am cabin feverish and am frequented by terrifying hallucinations. Why just yesterday I imagined myself sitting atop a stone bench in ancient Athens while listening to Pythagoras expound upon metempsychosis, when all of a sudden he began squeaking wildly. I watched in astonishment as his philosopher's beard turned into ratty old fur and he peeled off his mask to reveal, well, a mask. Before I knew it he had turned into my dear, dead pet, Cerberus Weasel, and at that moment I both understood and was stupefied by the soul's transmigration. What ever will become of me? Will I turn into a graceful swan or a filthy swine? Or will I be destined to eternally recur as Nigel Tewksbury, Aesthete / Recluse? As an undergraduate I grew convinced that Nietzschean recurrence was the only possibility--for how else could I act if I had not acted that way an infinite many times before? I am not one of those idiots who believe in free will, you see, at least not in a simple version (I admit, it does make some sense if one presupposes there are 7 dimensions of existence--but I am yet to witness numbers 6 and 7 so remain a little skeptical). At the time, eternal recurrence of the same was a dreadful thought to me, but I eventually grew to see the humour in it, no small part as a result of watching the Bill Murray film, "Groundhog Day." If you have not seen it, I highly recommend it.

My visions have become quite regular. On Sunday morning I could not get out of bed. I know not if I was dreaming or sleeping, but I lay beneath the covers in a state of paralysis while seeing myself rolling through verdant grass on a hilltop. I rolled and I rolled and I then noticed my manlihood grow full and turgid. It was marvelous! The paralysis then lifted and I opened my eyes, descended to the kitchen, and brewed some Kopi Luwak. I cannot remember who said it (was it you Reginald?), but, "it is much easier to rise from bed if one first experiences a rise in the pants."

Hallucinatory Squeaks

2008-02-03T18:58:00.000-08:00

I am cabin feverish.

It is the dead of winter. I could not be unhappier. This is no season for an Aesthete--I spend my days suffering in silk pyjamas while my soul is crushed beneath the dead weight of this most sterile season. I would die for a season in Hell... But even drunkenness has lost its charms... Oh to be a frozen ferret--both immune from the suffering of the world and yet immaculately preserved!

Is died ut annus eram prognatus.

Cerberus is home from the taxidermist. He sits atop my mantelpiece, twisted just so, eternally trapped in his marvelous dance. Oft his squeaks haunt my drug-addled brain, as though trying to communicate to me what exists on the other side.

Squeaks of warning or squeaks of welcome? I know not the ferret's tongue.

A Conversation with Solitude

2008-01-30T13:43:00.000-08:00

Sweet solitude, I wish to conquer thee,
For oft I fill my heart with sin when thou
Art near.
Your silence makes me nervous; I fail
To comprehend your wordless ways...
But it is
Not you I fear...
I've lost my maid--a sweet
Reflection of l'essentiel Féminin.
(Now I spend my days in a television trance--a mere
vegetable life).
And yet I eat no veggies--
My diet is deficient... Oh god oh god
Oh god I fear I've lost my mind--a sweet
Reflection of Beauty's form is now perverted
By sloth and masturbation...

Sweet solitude, it is not you I fear...
For you are welcoming and calm. For you
I should not pour my poppy tea and drop
My trousers but rather welcome thee inside
For some Darjeeling, biscuits, and a book.

A new maid

2008-01-27T06:48:00.000-08:00

Dear Helga, I have hired a new maid. I hesitate to say that you have been replaced because it would be blasphemous to use such a term on such a singular creature. Oh, my ice-white Helga, I long, once again, to explore your smooth curves in our nocturnal rituals. Your landscape, explosive yet tender, I long to twine and explore... Your rivers, your hills, your valleys. Your words, your smells. Ah! I must stop because it is making me lovesick and lusty to write this. I fear I will spend the day--perhaps my life--in bed if I think of you anymore. I should never have laughed when you told me of your Elvish heritage because now I know it is true. I cannot believe I was such a skeptical ass--your magic will torture me the rest of my mortal days as punishment. And it is just... It is just...

And oh, you did know how to wield a sponge. The estate never shined in that gaudy manner you see on the television; rather, it was cleanliness on the verge of shattering--natural, yet unnatural. Ah! The new maid has caused my kitchen to sparkle and shine and it makes me feel filthy. It seems Lysol dissolves both germs and the stuff of beauty. I never appreciated the way you made the house mirror my soul. I fear I will never be home again.

But like a wild bird I must fly on. It is with a tinge of shame that I admit I have hired an American to clean my house. She is, as they say, "hot"--but not beautiful--and her gaze is full of vacuity, which makes things easier, I suppose, because there is nothing to corrupt. She was eager to please and had a crude charm--I knew it was a mistake but surrendered because I knew if I waited any longer I would need to hire a botanist, not a maid, for there is a taxonomy of organisms living in my toilet.

Her name is Carol. She performs her duties adequately but lacks inspiration. I fear my muse has left and that I will pass the remainder of my days in a sea of banality, the only beauty being memories that flit away from me like small, exotic fishes.

To All the Suicides (on Blue Monday)

2008-01-21T17:12:00.000-08:00

I awoke this morning with methods of suicide dancing in my brain. Initially I was concerned for the health of my psyche, but then it dawned on me: Ah, of course, it is Blue Monday--the most depressing day of the year as indicated by the number of suicides (though I'm sure a few blessed souls killed themselves out of sheer joy). I pranced downstairs wondering "razorblades or pills?" but just then I was struck by a wind of ennui that made me languish in utter suicidal impotence. I spent the day rubbing myself against the bearskin rug while watching "The View" and "Oprah."

I do not feel good about myself. I am quite used to filthiness, but not the smiling, self-help kind. It was not like a drug I could just puke out into the mirroring water of my toilet--indeed, I want to watch more episodes tomorrow...

(Perhaps I am the vomit and the television is the toilet in which I twirl. Or perhaps I am just a failed poet looking for connections in a disconnected world...)

(I want to smash Clay Aiken's skull with a bone, but yet I want to see his performance, too. These are sick, perverted times. And yet not sick and perverted in a good way--what ever happened to simple animal-evil? Now we have this vacuous evil that society sees as a virtue, necessary for success).

I am full of digressions because I am lacking in proper thought. There is a death-chill in the air. I am dying for a walk in the woods culminating with a primal scream atop a lookout point. But nature has trapped me inside and I do not even have a gas oven in which to stick my head.

I am full of hot air with no room to expand.

It is a failure of a Blue Monday... Suicides: you are more motivated than I.

Requiescat in pace.

An open love letter

2008-01-18T05:06:00.000-08:00

Dear Ms. X.,

Though I am wealthy and clean, I am infatuated with dirt and squalor.

I wish to make love to you, jubilantly, beneath a yellow moon, amidst a pile of rats, dirt, and bones. Meet me in the graveyard and wear your finest clothes. I will sing to you a lullaby--a dark lullaby, one where sleep is the facsimile of death. I will sing to you in whispers so my voice does not drown out my breath.

The next day we will be precious. We will sip upon tea and munch upon cucumber sandwiches. We will pretend we are not beasts. Ms. X, shall we speak of our erotic graveyard life or shall we leave it unperverted by words, untainted by the sun? Often I have asked this question and I have decided that, like most questions, the answer does not matter.

Fly falcon fly! Search out those souls who are both filthy and pure. Fetch for me the plain and complicated truth and a woman landscaped with curves. Let her have the smile of an angel in mid-fall.

I haven't had a drink in days. I feel like the Overman--powerful and suffering. Am I happy in this state, or have I, in fact, transcended happiness and entered the world of ambiguous beauty? Well, clearly I am unhappy, but clearly am I fool? Not to me. Haha!

I have spent too much time alone--meet me beneath the moon, where words are like witches' spells. Diagnose my madness with your touch--it is not the kind you'll find in books.*

Lasciviously yours,

The Orphic Man

*Search high and low, you will not find me in your DSM IV.

I will not cease from mental fight...

2008-01-12T21:02:00.000-08:00

There exists great political turmoil in my brain. It has become worrisome. In the general populous of my mind there exists a growing faction that desires a "common" psychical world. They are led my Avery Mann, and they argue for domestic bliss. He is unassuming but powerful; he is funded by Ikea; he is not as affable as he appears.

I fear if he were in power, the self would die and beauty would wither. In 10 years they would be viewed as mental perversions; in 20, they would be forgotten.

Constant spending
Brings joy and
Asphyxiation--
A rotting of the brain.

In my interior territories, the Aesthetes have been in power for 20 years now. They are led by the magnificent Joseph Whitelilly--an Ahab-like monomaniac, driven by beauty. He is growing old (though remains quite dapper). He has created spectacular monuments and has written all our laws in verse. He puts poppy oil in the water instead of fluoride. His reign has built grand monuments of the imagination--paintings and architecturally arranged words--but I fear he has underestimated the power of the common man and this magical paper he calls "money."

Also, the trains never run on time and the stupid are put to death. I confess: The regime is imperfect.

Avery Mann hides in the bushes: an affable proxy for a bloodthirsty beast.

I dream of growls and snarls... But I also dream of acceptance... Perhaps I should just fall into the domestic sleep and perish gradually and imperceptibly. I'll laugh the stupid laugh. I imagine being an idiot could be a lot of fun.

If only it were possible... But I cannot forget my dreams--I am forever an opium puffer, a servant of Beauty. And now I find myself sounding like Milton's Satan--fighting for a lost cause--but there is a difference: I would be surrendering to a vacuity rather than an Absolute.

Dear Satan, hear my words: Mee miserabler! King of the Underworld, I am King of the Beautiful Fools.

I am a recluse in darkness,
The only light my computer screen.
My mind hums and drones
An electronic "Om"
(or is it Ω)
And I pray that death accompanies
My next and final binge.

He-hem... Excuse me. There is someone at the door (Mephistopheles as a poodle, perhaps?). Stiff upper lip and all that. Please, Dear Reader, don't tell the world that I feel and am perhaps a little fragile.

A Reclusive New Year

2008-01-08T17:19:00.000-08:00

For the Recluse, the holidays are complex and ambiguous. He views them with a heart that brims with fear and excitement. He is fearful because, oh hell, he must emerge from his warm cocoon. And yet he is excited because, oh hell, he must emerge from his warm cocoon that is so stifling.

Throughout the year he has accumulated new artifacts in the museum of his mind--up till now he has horded them for himself--he has shined and restored his magnificent discoveries and knows, were he to unveil them to the public, it would respond most viscerally--the morons would be repulsed while the appreciators of beauty (roughly 1/1728th of the population according to my esoteric friend) would experience profound epiphanies that give meaning to their lives.

On the Solstice my cocoon felt awfully stuffy; thus, I accepted an invitation to a New Year's Eve party. The stage was set for my grand reveal. I remembered my new theory of beauty and how it could be proven with calculus--sure to be a hit amongst scientists and artists alike--perhaps it would even reconcile their ideological differences.

I would hire a whore to accompany me--a fantastic one at that, Scandinavian if possible. I would wear my finest blue blazer and show the world that sprezzatura is not dead. I would even give up my favourite vices in the days leading up to the party and exercise 16 times a day. And I did, I did! Everything was perfect. I was ready to emerge a magnificent butterfly.

Relaxed and enervated from all the masturbation, I went to pick up my whore at her house. Cerberus Weasel came along. Indeed I was not disappointed--she was a buxom Swedish beauty and I wanted to lap up her milk-white skin with my freshly detoxified tongue. Cerberus also took a liking to her and they played a delightful wrestling game with his squeeky toy--it touched my heart to see her--a whore--so jubilant and pure. The whore and I shared a bottle of claret and then decided to pop into an opium den before going to the party. We took the roadster, Schubert on the radio, wind in our hair, ferret in the backseat.

We only took a few puffs and then rang for a taxi to take us to the party. I think the party was a good one, but I must admit I was so focussed on my whore that I did not notice the surroundings. We began to get drunk on straight vodka--it was nearly midnight and I was partially blind--I had forgotten all about my theory and the revealing. Indeed my mind was preoccupied with what was beneath that red dress and when I looked at my watch I realized I had missed the big moment--it was already quarter past twelve--and yet I remembered a fleeting kiss.

But when I went to ask her if it was all an opium dream, she was gone. I searched for her madly and even poked my head into an occupied loo. Eventually she found me, but my marvelous erection instantly disappeared when she said to me, "Nigel. You look tired. You should go home."

I laughed and said I was fine, but inside, I was heartbroken and decided to give the bitch what she asked for. I grabbed my coat and wandered to the opium den to fetch my roadster and ferret. The walk seemed like an eternity. I had a premonition that 2008 would be a year composed of these awful eternities with little disasters interspersed between them.

As I walked alone, a band of ruffians yelled at me from across the street: "You're alone you faggot!"

Still a worm, I longed for my warm cocoon.

And, of course, when I found the car, Cerberus had frozen to death. It was a cold night.

***

I spent New Year's Day with a bottle of Absinthe while poking girls on Facebook. I was a drunk as a skunk when I heard the slide of a letter beneath my door. It was from the whore, Natasha.

It read:

Nigel,

I apologize for disappearing on you last night. You see Sebastian Horsley was there and I do adore him. It was though he cast a spell on me and I was all his. I am sorry. I have had a rough time at the brothel lately and Sebastian seemed a good temporary solution.

I did not mean to hurt you. As I said, the brothel has been chaos.

Natasha

***

January 8th, 2008

I am alone at my estate, back where I started. I am drunk again. Dear Reader, never fall for your whore.

The holidays are always such a disaster. Next year I will simply smoke hashish and listen to music. I will not emerge. The world is not ready for my museum, and my museum is not ready for it. Damn you Sebastian Horsley, you prim piece of affected shit.

Urgent: A note to all my Facebook friends

2008-01-05T09:46:00.000-08:00

Dearest Friends,

I regret to inform you that I have been exiled from the Facebook community. It seems the administrators have deemed that I violated their "Code of Conduct." Perhaps it is so... But I would like to take this opportunity to explain myself to my friends, for you are, indeed, my friends, even though I only know a few of you in this fleshly world.

First, I would like to say that the medium of Facebook allowed me to communicate with several wonderful people, and, in some ways, it gave me a new hope in this world. It is so rare to meet others who share my interests, and I confess, I messaged and "poked" several individuals simply because we shared a favourite author or composer. And is that really so wrong? Part of the beauty of Cyperspace is that it tears down the walls that separate--whether they be geographic or social in nature--and I was overjoyed when people with common interests replied to my little electronic missives... Indeed, it reminded me of the pen-pals of my youth (one of whom, I must say, confronted me one dark Guy Fawkes Night with a pistol, but was thankfully too intoxicated to aim... We remain friends).

But, I admit, there was a more sinister side to my Facebook escapades. It is with a slight blush that I confess to occasionally writing sexually suggestive messages to those whose pictures sent blood rushing to my nether regions. Now, these messages were never vulgar in nature and were always complimentary and never ever degrading. If anything, I am being punished for my honesty, and it saddens me that declaring my desire to make love to a few beautiful creatures is seen as violating some sort of "Code of Conduct." Indeed, this code is one an animal such as I cannot live by--it is suited for automatons, not men.

But, I believe, it was not the suggestive messages that made me hear that fearful word, "banished"; rather, it was my exceeding "the poking limit." Perhaps it is fitting that, like Oscar Wilde, I am being punished for poking one too many.

I live my days in constant fear of being thrown in gaol.

Regarding my messages, I never once received an angry response... All in all, I felt quite loved on Facebook, and I must say my banishment pains my bastard heart to a fierce degree. Shall I return? Well, it is hard to say, but for now, like Dante, I am eating bread salted by tears.

Dear Isabelle, I loved discussing Bjork with you (please think of me when you play Vespertine), and Dear Elizabeth, it saddens me that we are forced to play our game of Scrabulous covertly. Ray, you are a dandy to the core--I shall think of you whenever I don a bowtie. You are all my friends and please do not hesitate to email a poor exile for he has nothing in this world but his Dell.

Yours truly,

Nigel Tewksbury

An Empty Christmas Parcel

2008-01-01T11:14:00.000-08:00

Happy Holida... Oh, let's just skip the trivial phrases... Although, for me, the phrase is not quite so meaningless because it rings in my ears like the mockery of a grammar school ruffian. My holidays were far from happy... but, in hindsight, I see that they contained a grain of truth similar to that found in a well-crafted parable.

It was Christmas Eve and I was on my way to see my favourite whore when I ran into a friend of a friend outside of Marks & Spencer. His name is Avery Mann and he is the singular model citizen of the modern world--he lives an unspeckled workaday life and worships, above all, the holy notion of Family. Needless to say I despise the chap and would stab him if I knew I could get away with it. But, my goodness, the man is a master of persuasion and somehow coaxed me to his house to eat a Christmas goose with his family. I'm not quite sure how he did it--I think I was so taken aback by his constant chatter and positive demeanor that I simply could not turn him down.

Now, Dear Reader, the conventions of the season would lead you to believe that I am going to tell you a heartwarming story of family and "love" because we communally ate a roasted fucking bird. But I assure you, if this was true in the Victorian Age (and who's to say it is), time has altered the truth to the point that it is as trivial as saying "Happy Holidays" to the miserable automatons of the world who are incapable of experiencing emotion.

First off, the bird was dry and the wine was like cat's piss. Second off, the family had nothing interesting to say--the teenaged son spoke of nothing but explosions in awful Hollywood films and Avery spoke only of his job as an accountant and his superficial love for his wife (who, I believe, might be made of plastic). Still, despite the awful wine, I got extremely drunk and the wife demanded I give her the keys to my roadster. I, conversely, demanded she lay with me in her husband's bed. She never responded and the rest of the evening is a bit of a blur (though I vaguely remember a game of Scrabble--Trivial Pursuit would be more apt).

Oh how I wish I had woken face-down and shivering in a pile of snow! But I was not so lucky... Rather, I awoke in a twin sized bed in a room that smelled of potpourri and Lysol. Thankfully I found my way to the washroom where I found some children's Gravol and a bulk bottle of NyQuil to help ease the pain and sorrow. Oh, it was absurd to drink four doses of NyQuil in the sterile hell of the guest room while exploring the upper registers of cable TV, but at least the absurdity combined with the intoxication of the cold syrup put a smile on my face--though it was a devil's grin.

Upon awakening in the early evening I found a note on the floor in my own handwriting. It said, "I am an old-fashioned devil in a new-fashioned hell. How I long for the good old days."

The Turning Point of the Still World

2007-12-20T06:25:00.000-08:00

Yesterday afternoon at tea-time I watched Cerberus Weasel dance about the dining room; with bewitching movement, he twined and twirled his way through tapestries and tables like a truncated serpent with the power and versatility of four little legs. In a mild trance, I poured another cup of Darjeeling and offered my cohabitant a square of cheese as recompense to the joy he brought me--but to my amazement, the furry devil ignored my offer and continued whirling his little dervish. And with that simple action, all I held true regarding animal-human relations was shattered. Oh Cerberus, what makes you dance without reward?

Cerberus Weasel, what causes you to dance your dance, for I hear no music? Are you dancing to the eternal rhythm of life, to the ethereal harmony of the spheres? Do you hear frequencies beyond the reach of the human brain or is it just that I have not yet castrated you? Ah Cerberus, is it all one and the same and do you think me a fool for always thinking and never dancing? Perhaps it is all a lesson... Oh, if only I could turn your squeaks to words!

I watched him shoot aimlessly about the room, which at this point is his entire world, and I had an epiphany. Tewksbury, I thought, you must dance about the world like Cerberus dances about this room--pay no mind to reward and punishment--the dancing is the thing. I got up, stripped off my clothes, and spun and neighed like a faun.

Oh how my world crashed when I remembered how dreary the world is this time of year! It is difficult to dance in the cold and the police would likely throw me in the bughouse and whip me. Damn this complicated world... How I long to be a ferret, dancing to nothing but the weird vibrations of my soul.

Purchasing ferrets

2007-12-17T05:46:00.001-08:00

It was on a drunken whim that Reginald and I decided to purchase a pair of common ferrets. Initially we planned on capturing a couple wild ones using our albino peregrines, but just as we were discussing it--just as I was relaying some rather esoteric falconry tips to Reginald--we walked past a PetsMart and Reginald said to me:

"Nigel, let's give in to the conveniences of modernity just this once. I do so desire a ferret."

Oh when he looked into my eyes that day! I felt as though I were traveling backwards on a Japanese bullet train, back through a tunnel of time, back to when Reginald was a lonely young poet dying for some furry affection. He has always lamented that he has cat allergies and considers dogs to be "slobbery oafs." Oh, when he looked into my eyes, it was almost enough to make my snowy heart melt. I say "almost" because he then threatened to twist off my balls should I refuse to comply.

My goodness, when we walked in, I almost vomited from the hideous decor! Reginald then called a storeman over and said to the carbuncular youth:

"We would like two ferrets with ketchup and extra processed cheese. Hold the fries."

Indeed I almost fell upon the floor in a fit of laughter! I then giggled to the youth:

"And I would like to see the part of the chicken from which one obtains the McNuggets."

Reginald then pulled out his Spanish wineskin and we poured a stream of Beaujolais into each other's mouths and told the storeman it was elephant's blood and that if he did not immediately retrieve us his two finest ferrets we would squeeze out the contents of the guinea pigs into the wineskin and force it down his throat (Reginald added that he would twist off his balls--I have come to believe this is an idle threat but do not wish to test it).

The youth acted as we desired and brought us two scrawny specimens, but drunk as I was, I thought they seemed marvelous beasts. Because I was seeing triple at the time, I christened mine Cerberus Weasel. Reginald named his Pythagoras on account of its strikingly triangular ears.

I am sick, playing host to a virus

2007-12-07T06:32:00.000-08:00

In the air are rumours of snow--the shopping mall heralds Christmas cheer and annihilation of the soul. What else is there to do but get drunk on eggnog--hold the egg--and pretend to be homeless? For homeless I am, in a sense--I am a vagabond of the brain--and I can't print out my pornographic Christmas cards till my printer be fixed.

On Monday morn I swore I heard the electric ring of the doorbell--I thought it was the milkman begging for his pay--but when I cracked open the threshold, I was left facing a vortex of swirling white cold. Oh Hello Hell, Come no further. And I shut the door before I got sucked in or out, I'm not sure which.

But it was of no use--that vortex held a villain--and now I find myself playing unwilling host to a virus worse than death. I have been sleeping in the bathroom to save some energy; my daybook's filled by vomiting and diarrhea, and sometimes they show up disastrously early for their appointments, creating soiled laundry for a housewoman who's in another continent. Damn incontinence! Oh damn... and how the flushing of the toilet only reminds me of the sinister vortex peddler at the door.

Last night while I lay in a primordial ooze of sweat and germs, I remembered my favourite vomit--the one where I spat out my soul. And I wonder if that was birth or death or something different completely. In a mad sick fever I jotted down the following words on a piece of toilet paper that had missed the mark:

Regurgitation is creation, as I puke into the void.

I then took the toilet paper and swallowed it and pranced about like an Arcadian faun while wondering from which end it would emerge.

A ghost in the form of an old letter

2007-12-02T16:58:00.000-08:00

I was tearing up my bedroom this afternoon in search of a little morphine to kill my anxieties, and I stumbled upon the following unmailed letter, browned by time. I had written it upon having "Wasted Arcadia" rejected by "The Paris Review." I appeared to disagree with the editor (who, it so happens, turned out to be one Reginald Hardcourt).

***

Dear Sir!

Thank-you for your unkind comments--and yes, I realize my pentameter occasionally slips, but the same can be said of your wife's fidelity. I have included a new poem for you to read entitled "Vomiting Narcissus." Please do not consider it a submission to your publication; rather, consider it an assault on your bourgeois sensibilities. I trust you will hate it--and no it is not a coincidence that the sewer rat's name (you know, the one Narcissus impales and eats like a Shish Kabob before spreading the plague through Paris via his next bowel movement) is an anagram of your own. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy it to the point that you lose sleep over the imagery. It is not easy to write nightmares, you know.

I read the orgy scene to your adolescent daughter yesterday. She seemed to like it. May I here interject with some poetic theory? You see I am of the opinion that one can only find beauty by exploring the ugliness. Gone are the days when songbirds and moonlight had any aesthetic impact. Just the other night I spat on a whore, but my spittle had the effect of cleaning her breast, which was tender in its own way. But I do not expect your middle-brow mind to comprehend such things... Go back to your copy of "Lyrical Ballades." I trust you enjoy them with tea and crumpets (and maybe some cucumber sandwiches?). Sorry if I seem to be preoccupied with food--I can't seem to keep much down these days... food is often on my mind and rarely in my body.

Excuse me, for I feel like a swimmer with a rock tied to his ankle and am about to collapse...

(an unknown period of time passes and I awake in an ocean of sweat).

You commented that you thought "Wasted Arcadia" was "the work of some pretentious 18 year old still untouched by reality." Well, I am now 19.

Have I made any progress?

Sincerely,

Some Idiot

***

Ah! I was so full of passion back then--it makes me wonder where it all went because I did not notice its leaving. I suppose I imagined disillusionment would happen with some grand, cathartic event. Now it appears it is a slow and slippery process one does not even notice.

I never did get "Wasted Arcadia" published, nor did I find the morphine. Perhaps it is for the best.

Try a little tenderness, you magniloquent bastard

2007-11-25T17:05:00.000-08:00

It is Sunday evening; I am not the same man I was Friday night. For it was in the witching hours of Freya's honoured day that Nigel Tewksbury as you know him died in a Soho brothel. I had spent the day smoking hashish and reading Le Petit Prince while languishing semi-nude (no bottoms) beside a secluded rill. The drugs had almost tricked me into believing I was inhabiting some kind of earthly paradise, but then, all of a sudden, there was a windy chill that awoke me to the weird horrors of reality. I suddenly remembered it was garbage day and that it was my responsibility to take the rubish to the curb (as Helga is in Las Vegas or God-knows-where).

And thus Harmony was destroyed by Noise (it is certainly one of history's sad trends, wouldn't you say?). Anyhow, I was so upset at being awoken to Facts that I decided, To Hell with it, Nigel, let's go to the brothel--and let us make love to the most deformed prostitute available. Life is a freak show--let's bring the carnival into the bedroom.

(Forgive me for using the royal "We," but I was feeling rather bombastic at the time).

Her name was Chastity--can you believe it?!--and she was barely four foot tall and had no teeth. She was one of those whores who liked to talk afterwards--I normally despise the kind--but for some reason I listened to her because I was so full of boredom and insomnia that I couldn't even be bothered to ignore the bitch. She informed me that she was married to some fat dullard and that she had a teen-aged son. She said she prostituted to buy her son a computer as he was technologically-inclined. And I responded by saying, "Where can I reach him? He can have a go at fixing my printer."

And the worst thing happened here. I actually cared! I could afford the best fucking technician on the continent but instead I hired the son of a freakish whore! And as I let Chastity go down on me a second time--more out of charity than desire--I thought to myself, "Try a little tenderness, you magniloquent bastard." And at that moment, I experienced a profound jouissance--damn it, it was terrifying. I fell asleep wanting to be a better man, and I realized I can be a real asshole sometimes--for God's sake, I decapitated a gibbon not too long ago! And that night I dreampt I reassembled old Harold and he went swinging through the trees like he was new. His smiling gibbon's face will haunt me forever, the damn ghost!

And as I left in the morning, I gave the sleeping Chastity a kiss on the cheek that may have even been sincere.

Dear Abby, I am full of confusion.

Getting to know me

2007-11-13T05:38:00.000-08:00

Dear Reader, do you think you know me, Nigel Tewksbury, Recluse/Aesthete? Are you so bold? Have you read all my mad ramblings? Still, I dare say, you know me not. It is not all opium and absinthe, you know--I put my bespoke trousers on one leg at a time like the rest of you. But just for fun let us here put down a virtual interview for I am feeling rather madcap. Perhaps the questions will sound familiar. They were originally used by Bernard Pivot who semi-derived them from that memory-obsessed man Marcel Proust. I have heard that some fat American has adapted them for a television show in which he interviews celebrities--how positively dreary! Let us for a moment pretend that Americans don't pervert everything good and true and get on with the questions, shall we?

(To make this even more fun, let us imagine that the interviewer is Shakespeare's puck, Robin Goodfellow).

RG: What is your favorite word?
NT: Juvenillia. Always I have wanted to be a great author with a tenured position at Cambridge. At the end of the day, I would say to my students, "Now go home and work on your juvenillia, while I work on my masterpiece."
RG: Hahaha. You are quite the wit!

RG: What is your least favorite word?
NT: Syphilis.

RG: What is your favorite drug?
NT: Oh, that is like asking me my favourite child... And the answer to both is, Opium.
RG: Oh my!

RG: What sound or noise do you love?
NT: Moaning.

RG: What sound or noise do you hate?
NT: It is a tie between the chewing of gum and the death rattle. Both are awful, yet oddly if a gum-chewer were to suddenly switch to a death rattle, I could not help but smile. Puck where did you go?
RG: I'm over here... (throws voice). Over here! ( throws voice). Over here!
NT: Gasp!

RG: What is your favorite curse word?
NT: Oh, you're back. The answer is "shit." I love the toilet and how it perns in a gyre.
RG: Ah, a Yeats fan?
NT: Indeed. He wrote some cracking verse. I'll often read him in the loo.

RG: Who would you like to see on a new banknote?
NT: I despise the idea of money as art, so no one I respect. Oh, what the hell, let's use Spongebob, for he is as nonsensical and beloved as money to both lowbrows and middlebrows.

RG: What profession other than your own would you not like to attempt?
NT: Profession!? Perish the thought. All of them are so... vacuous!
RG: Tell me about it! Oberon and Titania won't let me rest.
NT: Hahaha. Oh, Robin, you are an imp.

RG: If you were reincarnated as some other plant or animal, what would it be?
NT: Titania's animal lover, of course.

RG: If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
NT: "Tewksbury, you make for a fucking gorgeous corpse." And I would say, "But I'm a damn ugly ghost, I'm afraid."
RG: Oh Nigel, you don't even give God the best lines!
NT: Yes, well wit was never really His thing. I have Him pegged as a bit of a moralizer.