So, John Leigh’s over helping Zef with the ugly underbelly of my new website, and somehow Bill Murrah’s Ghostbustin’ ass comes up. And I’m like, “Rah, you seen Coffee and Cigarettes? This one bit where the RZA and the GZA meet Bill Murray in a coffe shop.”
They’re like, “No.”
So, I search “Bill Murray” and “RZA” on YouTube, and it’s the fuckin’ second thing.
FUTURE!
YES THIS IS A MOVEMENT!
Clock wise from bottom left: Pixel, Bravecaptain, Jack Nimble, Son Of King Rebel, Marv The Marsh, Mary Turner, A J Nixon Esq, Dego Brown (yeah he’s broke). Photo by Sweary Mary The Incredible.
Next stop - Old Blue Last, London, July 10th. Be there or be a fucking DICK!
It.
Is.
The.
End.
Of.
An.
Era.
(Well noted, Zef.)
Congratulations Wade and Aria, now Waria, since they got married in Atlanta yesterday.
It’s mad. My boy Wade got married. I am now remembering that train journey we shared in Sweden, like, six years ago. When we were small. Now were are less small. I am in Stoke Newington battering my keyboard. And Wade is married.
Argh! I just thought about… MINI WADES!
Mary’s Skygod help us all.
Thinking of Wadebabies makes me think of the England that Wadebabies might grow up in. Today, I read the following in The Times:
“An electronic tracking device of the type used by police to monitor suspected terrorists was recovered from a car belonging to the leader of the London suicide bombers in the days following July 7, a senior security official has claimed.”
WOT?
This is a pisstake. So they were running a terrorist bombing “exercise” in the EXACT SAME STATIONS on the EXACT SAME DAY the bombs went off… and they were tracking the “actual” bombers.
Well, you would want to know they were doing their jobs properly.
Oh, bombists. Remember the description of the bus “suicide” bomber, frantically grabbing at his bag before it went off?
“Why did they buy return train tickets to Luton?” enquired The Daily Mail. “Why did they buy pay & display tickets for cars? Why were there no usual shouts of ‘Allah Akhbar’? Why were bombs in bags and not on their bodies?”
I don’t remember anyone answering. And I can barely remember the old England now.
Here’s the thing - I make up my own reality as I go along. I sussed that. So do you. So do they. Thing is, they know what they’re doing. The world is awash with their magik. I can’t look out of my window without seeing one of their sigils. So I make my own. So should you.
We are many. They are dickheads.
Yo, I want this!
She said, “what’s a wasteman?”
I should of said, “a waste of a man.” I think I said, “a loser, a tool, you know.”
And no, I am not dead at all. Really. I have been occupied, and financial restraints have put a serious dampner on my communicative abilities. That and bad technology. And occupation.
Anyway. I signed a publishing deal with BMG on Thursday and had champagne and a curry, then on Friday I made songs and had a dream. The dream went to Brighton for the weekend, and I went to a nice grown up dinner party and had some dancing in a pub in Shoredicth till 4am with Team Turner and non-goliath Why Lout? section. When we stepped out into the rain and the daylight on Saturday morning some swine had run off with my zoot suit jacket. My mam made that, meanerd. But it is OK. I had it for a year, and it was ace. Yesterday Lana came round with a bodyless hoodie (and some crumble) in the lushest box you ever did see. It is totally summer. Post-goth medieval rudeboy summer. You’ll see!
I met Jamie and Sais at the back of the nightbus. “We had to sit by you, you’re fucking mental,” said Sais. “We thought you were some fucking serial killer or something,” said Jamie. I said, “thanks.”
“I sell drugs,” said Jamie. “I just got out of jail,” said Sais. They gave me a spliff, and told me about kissing rosaries in jail, just in cae, and shouted “Ghana, Ghana!” at the boys who got on shouting “England, England!”
It was raining on me and my vest, when I got off the bus, and met a man who wanted a light. “Are you a bassist?” he asked. I said no, I rap and shit. “I work for Channel 4,” he said. Have you got a MySpace? I wanna put you on a show. I’m not pissed. I do.”
I thought, wow. “Have you got a MySpace”. What of “a website?” I have a MySpace. But they are ugly. And very limited. And regressive. And weird. The first thing a person does when they look at a person’s MySpace is click on the photos. The comments boards are full of people saying they like people’s songs because they got asked by the maker of the song to go on their comments board and say they like their song. Noone ever says, “that song’s shit”. Or even, “that song’s OK”. They’re all “awesome”. I thought it was pretty awesome when I first plugged a mike into the back of a PC and rapped over a Chris de Burgh loop. So one cannot hate. But if one were to go by the comments sections of MySpace, one would be under the impression that we are living in an age of unparalleled creative achievement, when we are in fact living in an age of whiny little bitches. And The Kooks.
A ha! That and Lil Wayne. It’s not all bad.
Zef’s down, you know. We’re switching the vibe up at Don Studios from music to visual. This means a new website and a new animated video. And James Whale. COME ON!
I bought fizzy water by mistake, and I have been email cleaning. It is an odd experience - one becomes elated, then quite despondent, within minutes. I never seem to get very far. And I find lovely messages sent ages ago that I somehow failed to notice at the time. Parties and trips missed. MP3s unheard. Autographs unsent. Stories. Rants. Tears. A wealth of information.
There was this:
“I notice you seem to care about yourself a lot more than the world, of late, Alphabet. We were expecting this. Happens to everyone. You start young and incensed by the horrors of the world, then you realise, hell, nothing I can do about it, and get on with dying. Welcome to the real world!
Ben”
There was this:
“Though I cannot comment on the threat level of bird flu or the medical effectiveness of Tamiflu, the personal financial involvement of members of the US administration in the product is fact. The motives behind Bush’s recent decision to urge the Congress to fund $7.1 billion in emergency spending for flu pandemic prepardness are therefore questionable. To prevent this mail & the info it contains to lose substance and be passed as urban legend i think it is important to correct the facts: rumsfeld is *not* the *main* shareholder of Gilead, though he has undoubtedly raked in hefty profits from the sale of Tamiflu. Details here - CNN hardly being the most leftist of media. More on Tamiflu here.
l.bascle”
There was this:
“Akira, i waited a month for th autograph you promised and it never came. Thanks a bunch man. Fuck you.
Brian”
And there was this:
“Dear Adam
I am a person who has email corresponded with you recently and sent you a poem. I have subsequently logged on your personal website and very much enjoyed reading more from & about you. I have felt nervous though at the thought of you perhaps pasting my words onwards into a public domain when that wasnt my intention in offering them - Id let my heart travel outside my ribcage and, as you so accurately observe, if your heart is on your sleeve, people can see where to stick sharp objects in it! At the same time, I guess hearts on sleeves are also visible to other hearts that havent yet dared to risk expanding outside their own (rib)cage and can inspire them to do so. Sometimes its very good to take that risk. Feel free to do as you wish with my words.
When I saw your website, I was also very surprised to read about you managing to keep up correspondences with so many people and managing to juggle so much happening your life. So as an email corresponder I want to say right up front please be released from the sensation that you must write back to me. Must respond. Must react. Must stay in touch. Must manage your in box. Frankly, be released from the sensation that you MUST do anything.
Why do I write again? I want to keep my answer simple so that if you should rest your gaze upon these words, then your eyes and your mind dont have to work too hard. I write because as I logged into your website and drank in your words, thoughts, experiences, poems, pictures, songs and more, I wanted to share with you the sensation I had of being quite o.v.e.r.w.h.e.l.m.e.d. by how much output there is through you. And then a part of me became tenderly concerned about this hard-working outputter; about you. I got this picture in my heart of somebody who is quite chased and harassed by all these emails in his in box, by all the things he is trying to get done, by all these experiences he wants to have, by all these people he wants to connect with, by all the mixtapes he wants to make, by the songs he wants to write and by more and by more and by more. Just writing this, I feel quite breathless!
For even when I picture you in the park, I have this picture of someone carrying a lot of things as opposed to simply going to the park. And then a rescuer in me wants to rescue you by setting you free and say YOU DONT HAVE TO REPLY TO ME OR TO ANYONE. Of course, it is madness to imagine that I can set you free. I do not own you or control you. But thats somehow also precisely what I want to point out; that many people may be demanding something from you; may be wanting another piece of you. But you dont have to give them something or feel that you should give them something (theres a difference).
Of course, this wisdom may already be quite alive in your awareness. But I read your many apologies in your blog for not replying to correspondence and I got this sense that you have a feeling of being chased or harassed by the feeling that you should respond. Be released from that should.
Life might not be a bowl of cherries, but it isn’t a bowl of shit either. I think that it is a bowl. These are your words and there is much wisdom in what you say. It tastes to me like your bowl runneth over and this is one of the things which makes you so attractive and significant to other people - they get a taste of the deliciousness thats in your bowl, of your noise and your freedom and your creativity and your love. But you dont have to keep pouring your deliciousness out for others. Keep some space in your bowl just for you. Space for being you rather than doing you.
Especially in case you do get even more well-known and touch more people and get more emails and more tugs on your heart & energy & life force, then I want you to know that silence can be a very, very good response too. Silence can allow the sender to hear the echo of their own hearts longing. Silence has its own music. Silence embraces deeply. And silence is pax.
You do enough. You give enough. You share enough. You create enough.
You ARE enough.
Right now.
Unconditionally.
Thats what I wanted to write.
I am very touched and moved by you, Adam.
And you dont have to DO anything to deserve that.
Be.
Simply.
From Emily with love x “
And then there was this:
“hello sir i have a problem i would like your advice on, if you dont mind sharing your wisdom.the problem is as follows some time back i was dating a bitch named donna. in the beggining everything was going fine. she opened up to me quite a bit, told me many secrets that she never told anyone else. one day she asks me to go to the mall with her. when we get there she runs into the bathroom and when she came out she told me that she runs drugs for a guy named simon, who i know have was friends with at the time. apparently she hides crack and ecstacy in her bra then goes to the ladies room were another girl is waiting with the money.
initially i am fine with this because simon is a friend of mine and im dating donna so i really dont mind going along with her to protect her. i tell her that ‘if you ever want to quit doing this i’ll help you’ so then we go straight from the mall to simon’s house where she tells him she’s quitting, to with he says ‘the hell you are’ i say ‘if she doesnt want to do it she doesnt have to’ just as me and simon are about to fight donna steps in between us and says ‘nevermind ill keep doing it’ which confuses me a little. simon tells me to leave him and donna alone but im not about to leave her alone with him. i and up punching him, he trips me, then i have him pinned down and im choking him but donna beggs me to stop so i get off him. donna asks me to wait outside, which i do because she asked me to. then after five minutes of waiting i bang on the door. simon yells ’stay outside, suck it bitch suck it’. i start walking away but donna asks me to wait a few more minutes, so i do, for her.
when she gets out i asked her if he raped her, she said ‘no, he just punished me for trying to bisobey him’ the next day at school i talk to a friend of mine, he says he can get me a gun. i have every intention of murdering simon. but that night while im talking to donna on the phone she says that if anything happened to simon she would hate me. which is the last thing i wanted because i was totally in love with her for some reason. so the next day i call off the arms deal. that day donna makes a delivery for simon and i go with her because i promised id protect her. on the way home she wanted me to go hang out with simon, so i ditched her. she then turns up at my house with simon, who tries to pimp her to me. saying things like ’suck hs dick’ and ’strip for him’. i dont let her do these things cuz i dont like seeing her be treated like that. the simon leaves and tells donna to come with him and says on the way out ’she’s my hoe’. so i kick his ass cuz simon cant fight for shit(but he still acts tough for some reason). donna throughs herself on him to protect him then i kick them both out.
after a couple of days donna asks me to take her out for icecream, which i do. while we were out she tells me ’simon said he respects you but you shouldnt push it’ i tell her about the arms deal and how i was going to kill simon and that respect didnt mean shit coming from a bitch like him. the next day simon shows up at my house with his crew (donna ratted me out to him) and they kick my ass (but i did kick one of them in the balls really hard). that night donna called me and asks me if i learned my lesson. i said ‘yea, i learned not to trust you’. then i broke up with her. but she said simon told her to keep an eye on me, so we couldnt break up. i avoid her for weeks but she always ends up finding me, and she keeps calling me. she asks me to go to the mall with her infront of a group of our friends, i refuse but they tell me i should and that we make a cute couple. i dont say anything cuz i promised donna i would never reveal the secrets she told me. when we get to the mall simon and his crew are waiting for me (it was a settup). that guy i kicked in the balls says he was gonna make me suckem, so i say id rather cuttem off. donna is on my arm in the sweet a girl will put her arm in her lover’s arms. so when the guy cocks his arm back to hit me i move to defend myself but donna holds me back and i get hit in the head. which is nothing cuz the guy hits like a girl.
i start arguin with donna about why she did that but she doesnt give me an answer. then i ditch her again. but she still calls me and hangs around me all the time. at this point i would like to tell you that i was severely traumatized as a child and had a problem with supressing memories. i have only recently completed recieving therapy for that and have all my memories back. so after a week i forget that any of that ever happened and me and donna go on like nothing happened. most of her friends refer to me as donna’s bitch boyfriend, which confuses the hell out of me cuz i hav no idea why they say that. during this time i never touch her (not even a kiss) and i bassically put her through hell even though im not doing it on purpose, i just had a lot of psychological issues that prevented me from getting close. she tells my friends and i get the reputation of a bad boyfriend. after a while she beggins to think im gay so she brings one of my friends along and when we’re all in a elevator at the mall she tells my friend to put me in a headlock, which he does because he thinks im a pathetic bastard who needs to be told what he likes and because he feels obligated to donna to set me straight(so to speak) because he is one of the people who thinks i mistreated her. i fight them and leave. this happens one more time then i tell donna to go cut her wrists and put everyone out of the misery of knowing her. she gets indignant saying ‘how can you say that, ive done so much for you’ to which i reply ‘fuck you’.
my friend who hel me down in the mall (stuart) asks me if i forgive him, but i had already suppressed that memory, so he just smiles and says forget it because he knows that i have a problem with surpressing memories and so does donna nd a few other people at this point. so now here i am, after two years of therapy i have all my memories back. i dropped out of highschool. donna has become popular and my brother is best friends with simon, he doesnt know what happened and i dont know what he would do if he did. i wish i could say i know he would take my side, but i cant.
what i need help with deciding is: should i rat that bitch out. she made me promise not to tell anyone what she does for simon cuz she is afraid her friends would stop talking to her. on one hand i think that would be creul. on the other i want people to know how much of a bitch she is and i want her friends to leave her. but a promise is a promise, so what should i do? also, i dont know how my brother would react, he doesnt even know i dated donna. and my friends might not believe the things she put me through cuz they dont know i have been getting therapy for my memory, and id rather they didnt know. plus i tink some of them might side with her. i dont know why i think that.
im sorry this email is so long but i wanted to include everything.i know you you have i llot of emails to answer so i dont expect a reply right away. i also expect you might get pissed off at the size of this letter and not reply at all. but please know that you are one of the few people who’s opinion i value and you are the first person i have presented my problem to. i would greatly appreciate any advice you could give me.
seincerely
T
ps- i cant understand how someone could ask you to fight for them then stab you in the back. what kind of person would do that? what kind of people would be friends with someone like that? the evil humans are capable of is stupifying to me. i think the worst part of this is i never stopped caring about her and even blamed myself for some things until i finnished my therapy. now i just hate her.”
So. Ben - you wish. L - thanks. Brian - Resend your address and I’ll send you a beer matt with a picture of Jeres on it. I just found it in my desk drawer and its purdy.
Emily - your message was akin to that intense spirit-cleansing alleviation some clever physical contact brings that, on occasion, I have been lucky to receive… always at the hands of women. I felt all light. And you’re right. About the same time your message was sent I saw an episode of The Sopranos in which Carmela muses on the silly niggly worries of life - silly, in that soon enough, they, and their irritant will be gone. All washed away. And she was right. And you’re right. And they will. And I am forever amazed at the breadth of my contact with humanity, however fleeting. And I don’t want to miss anything, and I don’t want to hurt anybody. And of course I do both. But then I do loads of fucking ace stuff. Maybe I should stop carrying things to the park. Although the park is a beautiful place in which to carry things - it is still The Park - and sometimes I should just enjoy that.
And T - Revenge is as awesome a drug as any. The prospect, and the engagement, at least. But afterwards it is always gross. And you are still the same. Maybe dirtier. Dirt is clingy, and not all dirt washes away. So fuck dirt. You have no need of it. Maybe Simon is likely to cause harm or upset to your brother, in which case letting him in on the nature of his new friend’s old relationship with you and your ex might be of some use. But unless there is any real use in it - forget it. It’s done.
Sometimes I think we repress these memories for a reason. Here’s the thing - I remember, some would say, alarmingly little about my childhood. School, all that. I know full well I didn’t like it. I know full well it was a catalogue of embarrassment and hate and foolishness and pain, and shame. That’s plenty for me. If I had to walk around with crystal clear awareness of all that, would I be able to do a quarter of what I do now?
I have known many, many people to waste themselves. In most cases, they failed to make fruit of their talents, loves, and desires, because their awareness of the life they’d led had led them to the conclusion - what’s the point?
What my brain has left me, after all the repression of memory, is room for a point. Still, even now, with all I have learnt of the nature of the world recently. There is totally a point. Sometimes the exact nature of the point evades me, but it’s blatantly there.
So never mind Simon and Donna anymore, (or Stuart) no matter how much anger there is. You tried. And fuck hate - Simon and Donna are not happy people, they do not have great lives, and more likely than not, sometimes they sob themselves to sleep. I don’t know what led them to become what they did, it is a horrorful shame for them. But it’s awesome for you - you’re a fucking safe person with love in him that recognises humanity, and the impact your actions have on others. The world is yours.
I said I was hot, yes? I am hot. WET HOT!
More photos from the weekend can be found here.
Did you hear the one about Richard Ashcroft going on a bender and running into a school demanding he be allowed to save the children? It was pretty funny at the time.
Here’s some wisdom for you: “Being Welsh means dealing with a massive inferiority complex about everything, and a sense of humour almost entirely based on taking the piss.”
Rodney Dangerfeild said that. He was not lying.
They cut my phone off today and tomorrow I am signing a publishing deal. I think this is funny. The song I wrote last night was about being in New York. It feels like I know, intimately, this whole life over there that doesn’t exist when I’m here. That whole, when a tree falls in the woods does it make a sound thing. I used to be like, duh, yes, when I heard that one. I’m not so sure now. What’s a “tree” anyway?
I don’t tend to remember my dreams, unless they’re nightmares. A little while ago, I was remembering my dreams more than usual, anyway. They were all terrorful. I am currently in a period of not remembering any at all. Like, the last one I have any vague knowledge of seemed to last years. This reminds me of those children’s adventures in Narnia.
Someone, sometime, said that, when we realise that were are nothing but characters in someone else’s dream… then we are self-aware.
I realised that I realised that last night.
Where this leaves me, I am not sure.
“I used to say, ‘Of course I drink and take drugs, I’m in the entertainment industry. It goes with the territory.’ But that was convenient justification for what I was doing. After I got sober, I realised I didn’t take cocaine because I was in the entertainment business but the entertainment business attracts a lot of people who drink and take drugs.”
Why is that? “Because available in the entertainment business is one of the most powerful and headiest narcotics on the market - it’s called approval. My accountant does not, when he’s walking down the street, have people come up to him and say, ‘You don’t know me, but I loved your audit.’ When you go out on stage and people clap you, that’s a mood-altering experience. But it doesn’t fix you and you go back for more. Two thousand people might cheer you and love you but it’s not quite enough.”
Chris Langham, talking to The Guardian
See, when i was little, I used to draw all the time. A lot of the time, I’d draw these dudes with massive eyes and shades and big ass trainers and little top halves and… basically, they looked just like that up there.
See, I’ve been thinking a lot about how one creates one’s own reality. A lot of the thought in this area isn’t so literal. But, rah, I am totally literal. I made me.
BAK!
Cheers Baz and Debbie, Martin and Mary, Why Lout?, The Women, and all who helped make Saturday an ace holiday. We rocked that over-boeth tent, and shall show you pictures in a few days I suspect. I got an excellent fake-vest tan too, and we saw GLC, who were ACE, and rolled about in the grass and all sorts.
Swansea is nuts. All the dudes are on steroids, and have exactly the same haircut, a mad gay Shoreditch device they’d have battered you for rocking five years ago. MADNESS IN EXCELSIS! All the girls were wearing pink fluffy yeti boots and fairy wings. And they were all bright orange. People of Swansea! We salute your buff madness!
PAX DONICUS to my peoples in the car crash on the way home, I am over-glad you’re OK. Something somewhere loves you, babies.
Right now I am locked in CHarlotte’s house in Battersea. I have tried numerous escape attempts, and failed on all counts. Luckily my laptop nicked a wireless, and my spirit is free to roam the digital universe. BOSS!
My life is amazing.
Tonight I shared football and booze and barbecue sauce with friends old and, um, older. Last night I shared music and beer and spliffs and glorious home made pie with friends new, and newer.
You know I wanted to know, “whatever happned to Stush”? I know now. I was supposed to make a song with her last night, but her manager double booked her by a mistook. But he told me what happened to her. Sticky stole what they gave her to make an actualisation of herself in noise. So she went to America and made an album, like me. Like me, its been held up by, shall we say, legalites. And, like mine, those leaglities are coming to an end. Her album wll be with us shortly. The very little I heard if it is lush. Look out for something sick on ATD14.
Last night there was half a song, then there was a whole song. We can thank John Leigh and System Error for that. System Error has made an album, and I shall be honoured to be a part of it.
Tommorrow I’m taking The Women to Cardiff, with Why Lout? - we shall reconnect with our lost Woman, dear Martin, and we shall rehearse our set for Saturday. I hope you are coming. They tell me it’s gonna be hot in Swansea.
Now, though, She’s in my head, breathing, breathing in dreams. She sounds like the sea. I’m going there.
I did it again! I saw the rain that fell in the night while you were asleep, and I made you a mixtape. it has more me on it than ever before. There seem to be 13 me songs. That is a lot. You should be aware that I have kept aside a bunch for the next one. Some fucking BANGERS as well.
Anyway. Highlights of this include a topical reworking of R Kelly’s Ignition, the speaker busting Why Lout? reunion that is Trouble, Narstie’s love song, Scratch from The Roots’ mouth-only BANGER, Morty’s verse about not giving people blowjobs because she’s 15, me and Trey’s fucking insane musical collision… Envy in general. Man, it’s all amazing. I got a bunch of Dego Brown production on here AND a Son Of King Rebel guitar solo. And lots of swang. Peep the tracklisting, and go cop that shit.
Akira The Don ft Why Lout? - Trouble
T.I. - Why You Wanna
Lil Wayne - Georgia Bush
Young Jeezy ft Sizzla, Akon, Shabba Ranks & Vibes Cartel - Soul Survivor (Gun Session Remix)
Akira The Don ft Envy & Pixel - Doobeydoo-Baw! (Ride)
Dangerdoom- Corndogs
Akira The Don ft Bashy - Oh!
Envy & Morty - Bak Off!
ATD To The 3rdegree - White Whores
Akira The Don & Envy - I Love You
Ninjah - Mastercard
Akira The Don ft Jack Nimble & Marv The Marsh - Admission (Remix)
RZA ft ODB - Black Widow Pt 2
Akira The Don ft Dego Brown & Morty - Under The Rainbow (Remix)
Adam Green - Nat King Cole
3rd Degree - Back In The Day
Trae ft Fat Pat & Pimp C - Swang (Remix)
Jadakiss ft Lil Wayne - Swangin’v Trae ft HAWK & Fat Pat - Swang (Chopped and Screwed)
DJ Screw & ESG - Swangin And Bangin
Scratch - 15 Layer Freestyle
Scratch, Dego Brown, Morty, Pixel & Akira The Don - Rapping On A 15 Layer Freestyle
Akira The Don - Never Go Out ft. Big Pun & The Smiths
13 & God - Men Of Station
Pixel ft Marv The Marsh & Akira The Don - Keep It Movin
Akira The Don ft Narstie - Wonderwall
Akira The Don - Warlord
Well, I am nearing the completion of this mixtape. Of course, it’ll take a few hours to check over, do the artwork, and upload. So in the meanwhile, I’ve uploaded the first “single”, which is called Trouble, on my MySpace page. It fucking BANGS. You can listen NOW!
Know what I’m doing?
ATD13.
Know what those Imperialist swine that run the US have called the suicide of three Gitmo inmates this weekend?
“A PR exercise”
BARK! BARK! CRAZY! CRAZY!
Like, WOT?
According to the Independent, “Rear-Admiral Harry Harris of the US Navy, the prison commander, claimed the men were ” committed jihadists” who died in acts, not of desperation, but of ” asymmetrical warfare against us”.
“The methods of hanging themselves were similar,” he said. “I believe this was a co-ordinated attempt.” The US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, Colleen Graffy, described the suicides as a “good PR move to draw attention”.
Again.
Wot?
DICKHEADS!
Me, I’m a tough little cookie. But I’d prolly have been trying to kill myself after a month in there. Are you mad? OK, consider this - one of those dudes was seventeen when he went into that place. He’s been there 5 years. He knows full well, that, even if he ever does get to leave, which probably seems rather unlikely, he will be a bost-up shadow of a man, brain fried from torture and chemicals, trailed for the rest of his life by CIA spooks, feared as a snitch by his “own” people, too fucked in the brain to carry out any kind of normal relationship. Those dudes are all dead anyway. Worse than dead - they’ve been condemned to an actual, physical limbo. Hell isn’t underground, or above. It’s here. And so is limbo. All those nasty things Dante wrote about in his Inferno, we’ve got them all on Earth. That’s how fucking clever we are.
TI, I can tell you, is a fellow skinny little dude. Me and Dego, another skinny mofuck, went to meet him in Kensigton at his hotel yesterday. We got a nice drop for ATD13, and smoked in the park by the Royal Garden Hotel. It was nice. After we went back to mine and Morty came round and we listened to noises and smoked. Lazy like. Morty rules. I’ve given her some music to make into two whole songs.
The night before Charlotte and I saw TI play Neighbourhood. We’d been in a posh bar with some bankists, celebrating the launch of a finance related tome written by my boy Gwil’s brother in law. I finally met Gwil’s sister Claire, a lady of some legend, who a long time ago, when we were all small in North Wales, broke out and made her fortune in LA doing pop videos and such. I think in a small way she was somehow inspirational to me, although I didn’t know her.
And TI was good, despite hanging about onstage for 15 minutes before actually playing with about 12 of his boys, just, sort of standing around. They bought me down a bit. TI’s rapping his little ass off, and all these dudes are rooted to the stage. How are you supposed to get into that? If you’re onstage with me, you better fucking feel it, and that includes you Mary, my demure, co-singing dear. Next Saturday we’re playing the escape festival in Swansea, and if there isn’t 100% hardcore hype banging off of that stage I sack us all.
The football today was shit. It was depressing. Even more so was a trip to the newsagent afterwards, where I aspied the newspapers. In the country in which I live, my people, the most important thing in the world is the World Cup.
Meanwhile in Canada, the swine have been deciding our fates.
They realise not that I am to be a warlord.
A ah ha.
Oh, oh, I am too tired to write the letter I want to write to you. I couldn’t sleep last night - after far too many hours rolling around my bed and my brain the sun made itself too apparent, so I rose and made two songs, then spent a happy hour in my park with the Independent, surrounded by gangs of mothers and their docile babies, smiling smugly on as one lady failed to stop her own infants screams, until their spawn joined in, and the park became a cacophony of stilted, shrill expression.
After that I helped Jeres and Soraya move house - to the pretty Superjew end of old Stokey - which filled my body with cuts and veins and blood and joy, and then I jogged home to meet Miss OddKidd, she armed with a bottle of that strange redwhite wine and a lot of good food (and a pretty amazing strawberry dress), and we finshed her mixtape, which is really fucking good. Poor OddKidd got sick. I got delirious, so now I will fall into the murky freakscape of my unconscious, and I will dream, I will only dream.
“I glimpsed the Albert Bridge,
It stretched to perspective’s end.
I sat and dwelt; contemplated,
How I fit.
And you fit,
And each bit,
Binds to the next bit.
At the heart of it’s
How it all fits.”
And I said hold it right there, as the children lobbed water balloons outside my window, bursting like babies heads as the fire in the sky went out. What, you never knew of a babies’ head to burst? Fucking bougie!
Never mind that. Apparently that episode of CSI that my song was in was just on the telly in UK. I was alerted by a barrage of phonecalls, texts, emails, and MySpace messages. And you know what? I still aint been paid for that. Wastemen! Never mind though, a 1.5 litre bottle of Aroma mineral water is only 49p in my Turkish corner shop.
So. Our incredible power ballad, which didn’t exist this time yesterday, is flinging itself about the interweb as we speak. Kate in Larmaie, Wyoming, writes,
“Dear Don
Thank you so much for your gift of song to the world, with which you are so generous, and for refusing to keep still. Your voice is beautiful, please keep brining us your soul and sounds, can’t wait for the album!”
Which is a nice thing to say. I can’t wait for the album either. Soon it will be so long since I made it that I can actually listen to it without just hearing my brain. But, despite the mailsack of love for my bad falsetto, you cannot please all of the people, ever:
“akira man i kinda regret to say this but uve gone soft on me
what happened to the old don from atd 10 and before back when u were fast and obnoxious
hope u bring back the old don soon and get out of this new revalation u came upon within the last few months atleast for atd 13
Automatic Schmuck”
Jeez! Now I know how Mobb Deep feel! Dude, don’t stress! It’s 07:13am over here in Blighty, I haven’t slept again because my brain won’t stop doing things, and i just recorded a song that is 236BPM! But I reserve the right to make power ballads! Always!
Yeah.
Ur, so, yeah. Radio 1 have played Boom! every day this week you know. Some people think it should be a single. If it becomes a single, that means it’ll have to have a video, and the bass’ll have to come up, and we’ll have to do swanging remixes and things. If you have opinions on this matter, you can leave them on my BastardSpace thing, as I have too many emails as it is. Not that I’m telling you not to email me. Just don’t expect a reply, like, this year.
Serious! I am backed up like Interscope’s record release roster! I am losing all my friends! I need a clone! Argh!
OK, I’m gonna make me some breakfast, as I’m up and all. You go read this amusing little interview with my boy Marv The Marsh (stealing my jokes!), and I’ll rewind that poem I so rudely interrupted. Forsooth:
I glimpsed the Albert Bridge,
It stretched to perspective’s end.
I sat and dwelt; contemplated,
An interest shared with a friend.
How I fit.
And you fit,
And each bit,
Binds to the next bit.
At the heart of it’s
How it all fits.
How we swing it.
Because we’re in it.
And I wished I could say;
‘Hey – Bartender..’
‘Cause my drink was finished
And I wanted another.
Brought to my table,
Coins down please.
Is that to much to ask for?
Down on my knees?!
No!
I just have to go to the bar,
And it’s really not that far.
I don’t need a car,
Just the desire for a jar.
Barmaid’ll treat me pretty,
They do in this city.
And it is to be
So it will
Be.
And that’s just dope,
I think you’ll agree.
Charlotte Whewell
I think you said, “you get to shave lines in your eyebrows.”
Which is true. I take most things for granted, and maybe you do too, secretly. But I was sat in Clisold Park, bad back L shaped against some slender bark or other, reading Yellow Dog, bathing in the dayglo, photosynthesising. She was in my periphery for a while before I noticed she was a person, and not one of those shadows, those streaks of night that the explosion of tree behind which the sun temporarily hid flung in my reading direction. Once I noticed her, she was upon me quite suddenly, Casper white flesh in the first shootings of Summer, shrink wrapped in purple and smiling self-assuredly with a tiny red mouth.
She said, “Borderline is very pretty.”
I didn’t know what she meant, so I said, “yeah?”
She said, “you should work on that falsetto,” and then I knew what she meant, but I still said,
“Cheers!”
“That’s a really horrible book, you know,” she gestured from above me, I cross legged, grinding my spine into the bark.
I said, “all his books are really horrible,” and a bug bit me in the right armpit and I sneezed.
“You’d better take an anti histamine,” she noted with a sudden and troublesome poker face, swiveled on a shampoo-green flip flop, and strode off into the shadow, back t’ward the explosion of tree. Soon she was small, and then she was gone, and I’d lost my page. To my right a group of men played one-touch football and swore, creatively, and to my left a cluster of lesbarians stroked and pecked at each other. Somwhere up front, between explosion of tree’s streaks of night a couple lay oblivious to the small fire they’d started for a whole gang of minutes, before leaping to their feet and stamping on the thing, flinging their arms about like fourties cartoons, and at the same time a bee dropped in my lap and I made an involuntary noise. If I were to write it phonetically, it would go, “nyih!”
I adore the summer, and I adore the fluorescent yellow marker-ed overline of balance summer insists on, like everything else in the so-called universe. In return for sweet photosynthesis, the tree sperm insists on invading my person, sneaking in via nose and eye, burrowing hungrily like fast rust bugs. Have you ever had boy sperm in your eye? I haven’t, but I am told it burrows, so it is probably a similar sensation. That and the tickly nose and the weird need to tongue the roof of one’s mouth, knowing full well it will only lead to disaster. I still try and rub the tree sperm out , even though I know it will set my face on fire, and I still scratch at bug bites, even though I know they will, at best, hurt, and worst, scar. I am as stupid as the day I was born, and I still believe in magic. Sometimes in life you are face to face with eyes that beam, so wet you could drown in them, and you don’t realise until much later that it is the closest you will come to being something other than just yourself.
So, last night Jeres cleverly dragged me down the gym, and afterwards he and the lovely Raya took me for nice Italian food, and it dawned on me that I needed to mark Evil Day (today is evil day, is it not?) properly (and not just by playing Slayer loud). So my peoples and I retired to Don Studios, and we made you a song. It is called Borderline. You can download it here.
We didn’t write it. I produced it, Jeres played most of it, Soraya helped me sing, and it is ace. Now I am going to go and play. It is summer here you know./
Love.
Today I woke up far too late, panicked, had an accident with my desktop computer, failed to mix a song I was supposed to mix last night, answered 6 pages of MySpace messages, about a hundred emails, failed to eat or drink anything, wished I’d got up at 8 and gone to the gym. Wail, I don’t know what to do, boo hoo.
I got lots of invites to things I shall perhaps be unable to attend to day, none weirder, however, than Gwilym’s invite to a book launch - “the place will be populated with bankers etc… but I think there’s free cocktails and maybe you could have some stimulating chats about the world’s economy before getting pissed and getting into a fight with one of them?”
That is exactly the sort of thing I used to relish, oddly. I am not as into confrontation these days. Unless I am drunk. Or right. Hmmm.
Actually, perhaps odder was a letter from an anonymous Swedish girl (she signed the thing “love, a Swedish Girl”), sent weeks ago, only just read, in which I was invited to join the author on a 5 day holiday in Spain. The holiday would have ended yesterday, I hope you found someone to take, and more importantly, had fun, Swedish Girl.
Meanwhile, Uncle Sam is having fun swarming around those Iranian borders.
“There is already one carrier task force there in the Gulf, two are steaming toward it at the last report I have at least - they will all be there in another week or so,” said Former CIA analyst and Presidential advisor Ray McGovern in an interview yesterday. “The propaganda has been laid, the aircraft carriers are in place, it doesn’t take much to fly the bombers out of British and US bases - cruse missiles are at the ready, Israel is egging us on.”
Whoo!
No I am not dead! IT TURNED INTO A SUMMER! I have been doing stuff. And They stopped outgoing calls/texts/ansafone on my telephone, and when I put the cash into the bank to pay the bill it got eaten by something else! Pah!
Still, I got to do epic dusk and outdoors and spliffs and loads of other good stuff and X3 which was a bit rubbish although I suppose we weren’t paying much attention and YOU weren’t wining and dining tonight, unless you were, in which case word.
Word up non diners also. We do not discriminate.
Man, this mixtape is ass. Aint nobody can diss anymore. ‘Specially “Killa” Cam, who doth suck heavy, and got made to look silly by one of Jay’s loosest verses in time (look, I think it’s ace, ’specially the “fucking BAWS” bit, but it is blatantly loose). Going at Jay right now is pointless - he is a popular president. People need to wait a while, really. Young Jeezy, Rick Ross and Ghost are all doing lovely. And Mef, you mad old fonkist, what you doing talking about sandals being feminine on that ass new joint of yours? Zee is your BAWS, boss! You will get MURKED, boardroom style, like Styles P (yet another dude waiting on the Interscope bench), Won’t catch me going out like that. I make moves all day. Hold tight for some relatively major news regarding the Don. I will talk in the third person all I like, shut up.
Hey, I kept a food drink and smoke diary last week. Check it out:
Weds: Buttered baguette, three eggs (scrambled), corned beef sandwich, bottle of Aroma natural spring water, can of tropical Rio.
Thurs: French stick with peanut butter, butter and corned beef. Small bottle of Evian. Can of Ribena.
Fri: Two baguette sandwitches with butter, cheese and salami. Shared a packet of Pringles, 10 bag of weed, bottle of Aroma natural spring water, Cadbury’s Whole Nut, Pepsi.
Saturday: Whisky and Coke (they didn’t have no ginger) X 2. French toast, bacon (x 2), sausage, 2 eggs, hash brown, small bottle of Minton pure spring water. Couple of spliffs. Can of Kronembourgh.
Sunday: Baguette with butter, cheese, salami. Bottle of V8 vegetable juice. Third of a Mars Bar, 5 bag of weed, bottle of Aroma, can Pepsi.
Monday: Baguette with butter, 3 scrambled eggs, bowl of Honeynut Cheeryos cereal, sandwitch, two bags of popcorn (shared), Pringles (shared), can of Ribena, bottle of Aroma.
Tuesday: Baguette with butter, peanut butter, corned beef. Whiskey and ginger, third of a bottle of Jack with Pepsi, bottle of Aroma, Honeynut Cheeryos, bottle V8 vegetable juice.
See! shut up! I ain’t SO bad. I mean, that was a pretty domestic week. And I probably missed some major food groups there. Sh-eeet.
Yo, I really, really, really want this.
