Me and Rob on the roof of the Feltex carpet factory.

Finally busted into Feltex, more photos up in the usual place. Didn't get first entry though, this other urbex crew of highschool age kids got there before us. It's good to have some healthy competition in Christchurch, keeps you on your toes.

But, rest assured, our next infiltration will be BIGGER THAN THEIRS :P

Also brought a six foot San Pedro cactus. Good times ahead.

There is no faster way to strip away the surgical gauze and get straight inside the bloody heart of things than deliberately causing trouble. It's been far too long; my dearest friends and enemies, and I feel the pressing need to stretch my jaws and feast. I've been sitting lazy, just twitching my tail in the fat sun and being quiet as a landmine; forgetful, forgotten about.

Feel like calling down lighting, got me this urge for summoning a storm. I want my yellow teeth to be grinning in your dreams.

I feel strangely content and it bothers the fuck outta me. No conflict, no wars fought, or swords drawn, indeed not even any arguments over pretty women or grandiose ideas or pranks pulled or tears shed or punches thrown or the things I might have said in the heat of the moment, nothing. It's wrong is what it is. An unnatural silence, a superstitious calm that portends truly massive, ugly upheavals, destruction on a scale unscored by Richter himself.

I look forward to it. I am casting out my weighted nets and looking for an enemy, we will clash our heads together like antelopes.

Now the direction is clear the only question is how to proceed. A prank, some kind of personal vendetta, misdirection, slight-of-hand, a few quiet words in one ear and then “accidentally” stumbling with a pair of loaded scissors. My intentions are settled, my focus is vague.

I apologise in advance, I really can't help myself. Well, actually, I can, but just... honestly, I'd rather not.

Coffee?

The standard beginning: I carefully strained the poppy tea through an unwashed sock and then slid it out into a whiskey tumbler. It's a little known fact that properly prepared poppy-seeds make an excellent all-round mental tonic and a valuable elixir of general physical health. They even help you lose weight. This batch however was unfortunately weak, and I was forced to drink large volumes of the foul tasting liquid before I began to feel the usual effects.

Everywhere about the muted sounds, the surrounding hum of spider drums echoes hollow from distant rooms and star-flung corridors. I am in my temple. This is where I come to worship. I don't know: the day to day, it's just not enough, maybe perhaps for any of us. All we got for the sacred is the regular drunken circus carnival of friday nights, a free-wheeling carousel of random fragments where anything, hopefully everything could happen.

And I need that. You'd go nuts without it. Need to let go of the reins every once and a while and let the old packhorse follow it's nose. These mad enraged elephants out on the town, crazed in our lunatic honesty, and sometimes things go unpleasantly, because we ourselves are unpleasant. But sometimes things are wonderful.

This is my temple, where I go to tell the truth, or aspects of it. Distortions, exaggerations, hopelessly myopic versions of the truth, but the truth; it is a grand lie and larceny of the facts, stolen and given a fresh coat of paint and sold back to the original owner. It frustrates me when I can't easily get to the core of people. I want to know! More! About you! Because I find you, in the broadest sense, endlessly fascinating. An origami kaleidoscope I could unfold and unfold forever. People rarely illuminate themselves, and catching shadows is hard work. I like getting to know them, appreciating the perfection in their flaws.

Today I met the woman who works in the office one over from me. She's a sub-editor for some magazine, and in her spare time she writes poetry she never shows anyone. Maybe that's her temple.

I feel faintly bored, there's not enough drama in my life. I live, feed off the crash of cymbals.

http://www.fuckingwomenfaq.com/howtotellsheneedsfucked.html gives great advice, personally I follow it religiously

What makes a good human being? By whatever criteria I think I may fall short, I think that I might have flaws as big as butchers knives, or excited shards of glass. Flaws you could herd jello through. Vast, gaping, burning holes. Disastrous deficits of moral character. They say kindness, and certain callous ruthlessness are the two major factors to moral success, and I don't dare disagree one lip quaver, not a single quiver of dissent.

Still, I guess it could be worse. I could be subject to the same wet, fifteen legged terrors you are.

This law and order thing. Half the world's problems would be solved if everybody just minded their own business. On the other hand I do some things, you do some things, she does some things she's not proud of. Ordinary, forgiveable errors in ethical judgement, a simple statistical blip in the celestial wheel of fortune. Deep down you know this is not the plastic you were pressed out of. You were moulded in the charcoal furnace of the sun, and tempered in the freezing ice of asteroids.

Actually, actually, I think if they boiled you down to a residue they would find enough tar to paint the entire sky a vibrant light pitch black. You: I accuse, and me: I accuse, but I bet we'll shake each others hands, one day, when chalkboards clear and chalk dust settles.

Can-I-not, just: bow out: say: ok: you win: it's over, the trophy case is yours, I really don't care any more. In my will I leave you everything: the house, the car, that damn kid the SPCA were always sending us letters about, all yours. Just let me have some place, no place; nowhere, the middle of, my books, a warm stove and the loneliness of empty peace. To be honest if the horizon were a permanent fixture I think I'd rather see you over it. You could, I wish, disappear. Forever. It won't hurt - I swear to God.

God has not yet struck me down with lightning. I remain as yet an atheist.

I always wonder what other people think of me. It's impossible to tell. I mean: really. On a scale of one to ten I wonder if people think I am a mango, a ripe mango or just a two. This gunpowder makes for an extremely dangerous decongestant. Imagine, for a second, if you knew, knew for certain, what people really said or thought about you.

The results, I think, would be devastating.

Honestly, I wouldn't worry about it.

How are you? Oh I'm just fine like wine thanks, dandy as candy and sweeter than sweet. Sometimes it takes a little something to quell the tongue lashings of the storm inside, a little something extra, over and above a few kind words and cup of hot cocoa. Since they no longer dish out the valiums with every box of cornflakes it now appears it's the poor old gin for me. Oh yes my friends, it's going to be a crier tonight.

This shit always comes in waves, the black walls rear up with a roar and come crashing rising crushing down, but always, thank god, eventually, inevitably crumbling away into a pirouette of insect husks and then receding slowly back into the ocean: I know this. It will pass, it always does, but in the meantime... you gotta cope somehow.

How about you? Are you ok? As for me, I'm okay some days and not others. Loose like a wild dog or a spring wound tightly. There's no equations with any predictive power for this problem-space. They say that science is quietly at work in the back room with a dental drill and a collection of anaesthetics whittling away at the unknown, removing superstition and destroying the mystery, but if you take everything we don't know about anything put it in a bag called spirit, all of psychology and sociology and semiotics and emotion, well then that's a motherfucking heavy bag and hard to lift one handed.

We all got to push our own Sisyphus shit ball, 'cept he had it easy, because for us it's uphill both ways. It ain't that the load on your shoulder ever really gets any lighter, just that some days you are simply stronger than others. And that's the stab and the thrust of it. The quick and the cut.

A question I often roll through my fingers is, are we alone? Or more correctly, am I? So I approach this question from various directions, attacking it like a swarm of magpies and most of time I conclude that no I am not alone, no you are not alone, no one is alone cos between the twin together of the we of us no one can possibly be totally cut off. We got too much in common. And I hug this thought to my chest like a teddybear, But there's quite a steep, you know, conceptual last step between some glorified brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind and then actually feeling it.

Sometimes your at a party or whatever, and everything is going fine, and everybody is your friend, and you are *in* that moment, and you feel connected, loved, hand in hand and mind in mind with the people around you. And sometimes you feel quite the opposite. Like a true intellectual (or some half-assed approximation there-of) immediately I want to attack this problem analytically, bleach it down to the bare white bones of symbols it contains and then solve it with a stroke of calculus.

The march of technology has been so successful in every other area, and for science to be successful it must first abstract away, move from the ordinary, everyday concrete world of things to the purely symbolic and easily manipulated. Buildings are now ultimately mere lines on the architects blueprint. Money lives in the platonic world of numbers.

More gin? More gin. Let's both just agree that I'm a terrible, terribly horrible person and, you know, move on. I had more shit to say re: various subjects but, you know, something came up. All I needed was a little self-respect, just a leetle bit. The tiniest smallest smidgen would have made all the difference, but, uh, then again here we are are. I mean, just look at me: I'm a fucking champ, I am a bright and burning star—the six time undefeated champion of the entire goddamn universe, you know I spit from the hip and shoot rainbows from my mouth. Look, honestly, I'm just glad I provide some point of comparison. Makes me feel useful. At least, you can say to yourself; go on, whisper it; I'm not like that.

Ah man, it's your pity that hurts the worst.

Starting pumping iron again. I'm slowly getting back up to speed, this sedentary lifestyle of reckless excess and pharmaceutically induced delirium has not been particularly (cough) charitable to my body. Ah, the pleasant brokenness of the blissful chemicals. These triptamines sprout wings, yeah sure we'll take you over the rainbow Dorothy.

Every morning I get up and I spit up some kinda crazy black slime that occasionally grows a mouth and spits back at me.

Considering going back on anti-depressants but I'm worried about it affecting my recreational drug use :P On the other hand it'd be nice to have some sex drive back, prozac man, that shit is like some whack combination of spanish fly and viagra for me. Hit you up and down, up and down like an explosive powered jack hammer, then ejaculate concrete. We'll cement ourselves together baby. Lay ourselves some bricks that will eventually hatch into skyscapers.

Whenever I'm lifting again it feels good, takes the edge off the entropy, slow but steady progress. Some small but controllable thing. Eventually I'd like to sand myself down into the biological equivalent of an titanium armoured vehicle instead of a pregnant fuel tanker full to the brim with flammable hydrocarbons.

Where's that cigarette.

grind must be to our own tastes and the bread we bake of it must always be to own distinct flavours. Without this life tends inevitably towards emptiness: disarray, disparity and disillusionment, the crumbling stale bread of dissolution. The falcon does not give a shit about you. Everybody is ultimately on their own.

Being yourself.

Good advice.

(for assholes) In general.

But if it was just that easy everybody would do it. This way, that way, on every side there are much shallower, gentler paths. Honestly, who wants to deal with the fallout? But man, you pause... you realise the thousand anonymous cunts put their shoulder to wheel before you, didn't even think about it, almost didn't have a choice, driven forward by the constant wave of bodies breaking themselves against the throatless rocks until they piled up and up and here you are almost at top, almost at the shoreline.

The history books will not remember us, another grey gravestone, but still...

I got these diamonds on the soles of my shoes. You gotta go with what inspires you. The flour we

Man recently I have witnessed a lot of courage, of unconventional kinds. Another drunken motherfucking post y'all \m/ It's funny cos people say they can't tell the difference, but I always used to write drunk,

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I really value my female friends. I ain't talking about “friends” “friends” like chicks you're kind of sort of well actually yes honestly I am planning on fucking down the road if the opportunity should present itself, nah I'm talking about the type of girls you can hang with, just relax with, go chill down like an icebox.

There's an awful lot of poverty in the world man, but a life without women would be a damn sight poorer by any U.N resolution I guess I kinda feel this way because I'm not that interested in sex right now, bunch of my own shit, you know etc blah blah blah and so on, but damn! solid stoney wall of testicles, too much sometimes, know what I'm spitting?

There has been a lot of discussion, nature or nurture, why women are different, but I say who gives a fuck, because, whatever, their perspective is precious.

Unbalanced forces cause objects to accelerate.

Too much of everything is just about right for me. More wine! More drugs! Tumbling ever downwards into greater and deeper perversions. Like prehistoric beasts we gorge ourselves on the raw meat of pure experience, feeding and feasting on the bloody red flesh of the various smaller animals, the open bar of your body has recently opened for business and all my previous tabs are now considered done and settled.

There's no need to call the cops baby, it won't be like last time, I've grown spiritually since then I promise.

That's the ticket. That's the shit right there.

It being valentines day, makes me think a little about women. Specifically the fact I'm happy being single, a far flung cry from when me and Erin broke up and I was writing stuff like this. Yeah, things went a bit haywire for a while, there were a fair few embarrassing situations and gushing blushes and awkward moments but I feel can look back on everything now with a sense of humour and a rueful grin. Life is pretty full these days, full to the brim with outlandish schemes and unfinished projects and shit that definitely needs doing.

The only thing I miss is the intense emotion, the desperate aching passion of the play. But! There are still many delicacies to be sampled at God's great table, and many tastes untasted. I tell you: subsisting only on oranges will quickly make a man sick to death of marmalade jam. I don't regret one second of any it and I wouldn't swap one spoonful of that rich and pungent sauce for all the sugar in the world. In retrospect, and with the benefit of hindsight and experience I would say that it was all worth it, some truly unusual dishes were brought before the court, and even if more than one turned out to be a “oncer” how many others can say they have eaten quail eggs baked in baby octopus with a side of caramelised camel and gravy?

Yes, I have done my dash with romance, for the moment. There are different, stranger crevasses that I must now plumb and plummet into. The sunken kingdoms of the mind stretch their jaws and beckon.

So sorry Miss Jane, no time for the sex act: I have empires to slay, and entire dragons to conquer.

eight tabs coming up soon. a little nervous. will my mind survive? only one way to find out.

“You should concentrate on us, we suffer more” - black feminist, speaking to a white feminist (actual quote)

Does there exist a metaphysical ruler by which we may measure distress? Perhaps the homeless guys I saw in the park tonight should take their case before the local magistrate, state it plainly: “Actually your honour, it is we who are more wretched by far. I'm lying here out in the open in a fucking sleeping bag, so for chrisskes please turn your attention to us!”. On one hand I grasp the concept that certain groups in society are disadvantaged, sometimes terribly, by the unfavourable laylines and pathways of power, and on the other it strikes me as incongruous to think of pain as occurring to anything other than individuals. Maybe we need a metric to decide where our priorties should lie, some kinda definite quantifiable number: millilitres of tears shed per a capita, adjusted for inflation.

Which is worse: racism or sexism? homelessness or violence? I wonder just how far we should divide things, start giving preferential treatment to the solvent abusers over the regular old alcoholics. Group people by their AIDS status. You can draw as many lines as you want, slice the pie chart into tatters and still find yourself a thousand decimal places away from the reality of THIS person's cancer, THIS person's hunger, THIS persons experience of being lost, cold, abandoned, and alone.

It's not that these things aren't great evils, or that nothing should be done about them. It's that the idea that there exists a hierarchy of victimhood revolts me. There is a natural tendency to myopia in these situations, and there's nothing wrong with that. Of course the issues that affect you personally will seem, from your perspective, more important. But trying to barter this into an objective statement seems cold and unfeeling. It fails to recognize the reality of others or that they may also have problems, problems which will be, at least to them, inevitably far more pressing than those of your own.

Like the battlefield principle of triage, do we let some bleed out on their stretches so that we may attempt to salvage the rest?

You can't feed a family on rhetoric.

I like watching other people fall in love. Especially the burning bonfire of emotion that happens near the start. Even from a distance the reflected heat can be enough to warm your hands by, and if you still have a little soul left in you then you really can't help smiling. Seems to me falling in love is the closest we ever really come in timbre to a sustained note of joy. Generally the tempo of our changes in pitch is rapid, a brief semi-quaver of happiness and then it's back down again into the monotonous drone of the pipe-organ. You can draw out the aching spool of misery practically forever, a sharp thin line of piano wire stretching straight from moment of birth direct to your death, with very little effort required on your part, but a period of intense, almost overwhelming bliss that may last for weeks... months! is rare and too infrequent. Even in times of overall contentment and relative abundance it's more like the quiet simmer of a morning birdsong than a molten hot furnace bursting lava from your chest.

Even with the aid of chemicals, even with the various artificial sweeteners now provided by modern organic chemistry even then such feelings are fleeting, fast of foot and wary of capture, and afterwards you do pay, you pay very dearly for a trophy that ultimately turns to mist and memories in the space of just a few hours.

Whenever I'm feeling isolated and alone seeing lovers strike their sparks together always seems to rekindle my flickering spirits. If your pockets are full of nothing but your hands sometimes seeing a rich man strut and preen about the town in his freshly pressed tails and immaculate top-hat will just make you feel that much horribly poorer. In comparing ourselves with other people we tend to turn up the contrast knob on the television of perception, and are inevitably left to wonder what accident of fate left our greys bland pink, whilst all their colours, amplified a thousand times, now glint and glisten like Indian emeralds. It isn't that way with love, at least, it isn't for me.

Perhaps it's because we manage to mask so many other of the basic building blocks of human experience, we can attempt to hide our sadness, or our anger, or shame, when it suits us to do so, but love, being truly wild, love, that fine featured beast, love wants us to climb the tallest spire of the brightest star in heaven and sing out our romance to the entire world at once. You can definitely recognise the signs when you see it—doesn't need to be a full-blown case either—maybe someone just on the cusp, the beginnings of smitten. Normally we only talk about empathy when something bad happens: you say your cat died yesterday, and I of course will empathise sincerely, but how much better it is to feel empathy for someone else's joy! I remember how sweet the juice from those grapes taste, and I once felt as you now feel, and all things being equal I will one day drink that wine again.

Now I don't know about you, but I am generally so ripe with my own thoughts that I fill the whole earth with them, they walk around and talk like men I am that completely and totally absorbed in my own pitiable self-consumption, but shit like this shakes my tree a little and makes golden apples roll to ground. Working backwards from that strong and wonderful emotion we quickly find that everyone grazes identical animals on the village commons of the heart. Your loneliness is our loneliness, your disgust and laughter and rage and compassion are ours also to share in.

We all dip our cups in the same deep well and drink from the same clear water. There are certain things that, while perhaps not fixed rigidly in the sky like the constellations of the zodiac, remain, nevertheless, resolutely universal.

I always regret taking BZP after the fact. Have been awake for nearly 48 hours.

I (the unfortunate) stepped and slid, slipped out like a cocktail dress into the congealed sickness of the city night. Like many other extremely arid desert environments, Christchurch still contains some small few pockets of precarious life, but you have to look quite hard to find it, and in some quite unlikely places.

We cling to this world like rocks to a barnacle. I don't want to pretend I did something, I want to love everyone—but I am swept away, tides and currents, and you are blown in odd directions by invisible winds. If, in the wash and the wave of it, our hands can touch, well, that's rare. That's rare kid, and to be valued.

What I really want to do is find some smart chick to take E with and talk. Just talk. Talk and talk and pour out the ocean of ourselves into little boats and set them sail on the sea. A little flash of humanity on the horizon, the tiniest teeny spark of pure honest-to-god real genuine human connection and warm soft skin.. Much of this shit we do strikes me with the cold and hollow chime of empty pencil cases, there's not much writing to be done with an inkless fountain pen.. You can't really buy beauty, you can pay to see it but you can't pay to make it, happens incidental, a happy accident aimed at other things.

I wish I was beautiful. But I am an ugly motherfucker full of mean spirits and the desire to do you harm. Much of this shit we do strikes me: like a match, like a backhanded slap across the face, the screeching wail of a warning siren. The only proper response is mischief, live wires and electro-convulsive theory, cold water to shock me out of sleep. Through the creation of deliberate personal disaster and mindless self-sabotage the senses become as sharp as glares and sunshine, there is no one is so acutely aware of distance as the man one malfunctioning parachute away from total free-fall.

Take E with me, we'll talk. I'm kind of lonely and I'm tired of falling into the usual shallow graves of conversation and I've exhausted the probabilities that throwing dice and flipping coins have to offer. I bet, I bet big, you got something to say that you generally can't, and don't, that perhaps your throat chokes on.

We'll talk.