http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:OddGonzo&section=today deviantART RSS for by:OddGonzo en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Mon, 07 Dec 2009 07:08:00 PST deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png http://OddGonzo.deviantart.com/journal/22070313/ http://OddGonzo.deviantart.com/journal/22070313/ Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:00:35 PST But I have had the some learning (mostly mouth to mouth).
Now some might call me nasty or hasty but in a certain kind of way.
I've been thinking, waiting, hoping and planning
For and almost sacred sort of day.

A day when the burning
Of bridges and crosses
Is not mere Childs play.

A day when mad men explode
In a most incandescent bloom.
With loveless souls and imperfections
Bared in all their lustrous groom.

So I stand fast like some old mule.
Soothing my contemplations
With burning hole and aching fire.
For my stubbornness is of the living
And cruel anxiety has begun to die.

(Poorly adapted from Charles Mingus's "Freedom")

Set of at 7:30 some morning and made a long and drowsy road towards that charming capital of mine. Stopping only once for a Welch coffee (Welch in the sense that it was very far from Irish) and a piss in a roadside grease spoon somewhere between Wiltshire or Hampshire. Discussing loudly and prophanly about that morning’s edition of the sun. I never would never read the sun on a normal day but my hands were tied between the Daily Star's endless river of detritus and tits, The Daily Sport's bias towards sport, the Daily Mail's terrifying right wing approach to reality with a title that in essence read, "Don't go outside! It's full of Immigrants, Gays and Gypsies and they're all after your job!" and a random selection of partly solved puzzle mags and gossips rags. So picked up the Sun and began complaining about that until my traveling band finished their breakfasts.

At 9:13 am precisely as we cruised up the 303 the rolled under a huge motorway LED sign that read "Don't Drink and Drive, Thank You.” With left me staring out the window wondering who the hell drove under a motorway sign while under the influence up a motorway doing 70 at 9 in the morning? Then realized I would.
So I pondered why I wasn't drunk at 9 in the morning and how I hadn't gotten around to getting my driver's license yet when we jerked hard and over took a Bentley with a custom plate that read "LIWTS" doing 55 in the middle lane. Driven by a curious looking man with cheap reading glasses perched on his nose. Tied with a chain that ran under the collar of his violently tweed jacket. That his very bored wife most likely advised against buying but he did anyway because he's the man of the house and all that brass bollocks nonsense. But a many cars do on this long and dirty trail we grinded into services where I was greeted by Cornel Kentucky. A smiling southern gentleman just like my paw'. I was so moved I bought some gum and moved on down the dusty trail. Eventually we cruised into the city and parked ourselves outside the home of young bachelor with little dog Turner Green of Turnham green. Who said, "Who's a clever boy then girl?" Yes you know who I mean. Because his mongrel laid a cable in the sandpit of the playground of the park where they had been. And with a bit of Kleenex. He wiped her bum'ole clean.

I bought myself a travel card and wandered the streets of black umbrellas with a fag in my face and a song in my heart. Through hordes of preppy Essex girls buying gifts for preppy Essex boys and couples having arguments and families walking arm in arm I felt like the loneliest man in London. So I bought myself some new shoes in Camden Lock because my feet were cold and tried every bass in Harrods because I could and because I can treat a man who is better educated and better paid than I am like discarded gum on my shoe because he has to take it like a bitch. So I went under ground for the last time. Misdirected some tourists and made haste to Covent Garden. Where a cockney pastor and an African woman were shouting at shoppers that the end was nigh and all should return their shoes before the companies went tits up and repent all their sins to their respective gods so they could all go to their separate Valhalla’s. A homeless gentleman sat with me on my pillar foot as I watched them both from the cover of Saint Paul's (church. not cathedral) and asked me for a cigarette. I obliged and we discussed the pastors and enjoyed hot smoke in cold weather. Later I caught up with my crew and we went and had seafood before hitting the hotel. The theatre, the pubs, the clubs, some local rubs and then our beds. Possibly not in that order. Details are hazy at best and it hurts when I think about this. The only details I do recall are trying to have a bath in a tub that was no more than three feet long. And not being able to stretch my legs had very dirty knees and pins and needles that felt like I had eaten my own feet and riding to reception in Schindler's Lift. (I shit you not. The lift was made by a company named Schindler...and they make lifts. Awesome no?)

I rose at 8:00 because there was work t... ]]> ~OddGonzo http://OddGonzo.deviantart.com/journal/18195098/ http://OddGonzo.deviantart.com/journal/18195098/ Tue, 06 May 2008 11:32:19 PDT
The squeeze of fitting the contents from a hundred metre aircraft to that bus was a disgusting experience I do not wish to reapeat. It was steaming hot and crowded; everyone bumped and grunted. In briefs, it was like a Turkish bath house. They made us wait for twenty minutes to get us plenty sweaty and then bumped across the asphalt to the arrivals lounge. I stood next to a stinking pig of a man with trousers so tight I could read the washing instructions on his underwear. Genuine lace, dry clean only. I sat on the static luggage belt wiping someone’s sweat from my face and listening in boredom to a middle aged woman yapping about her friends, relatives and other assorted and irrelevant dribble into the air two metres left of her assumed spouse. He lent on the trolley and answered her blindly with a series of nods and short “hmm”s. praying to some deity that the belt would move soon. Collecting my luggage I wobbled down the street to the bus bound for the Placa de Catlunya, into the underground and a on to Liceu and the Hotel Peninsular.

We killed the remaining daylight scouting for food. We end up at the most Norwegian joint in all Barcelona “Vildsvin”. I was tempted to order the reindeer but it had been a long day I could never eat a whole reindeer; even on a good day. So I waited and hour and a half for two sausages and a dollop of mustard. I was so hungry I lured a waitress to the table and was about to stab her in the neck and eat her bones clean when a Lise’s rough hands and powerful grip arrested me. I dropped the fork and sat down. This is the last time I offered to share my plans or my waitress with her. I made do with some left over mussels in tomato slush until Leidulv made some tasteless comment about them looking like severed vaginas. This killed my appetite and the evening. Vaginas in tomato? Could you consider Ragu an aphrodisiac or even an effective lubricant? I’m not going to endorse the idea. I will not be held responsible for the medical and economic complications of abusing Dolmio sauce. When’s-a your Dolmio day? I left the place twenty euros poorer and in a foul mood. The only upside was discovering a sweet, dark ale called Korza. I must go back for more someday.

The following day we ate fresh bread and cream cheese and took the tube to Gaudi’s cathedral. As outdated and garish as this building had a certain majesty. It looked so out of place that even the surrounding buildings seemed to stare. And there was a sort of violence in its jagged spires. Like it would stab you if you didn’t like it. I went inside and was admiring the trippy stained glass windows when I was caught in a cloud of French tourists. They swept me through the building and then scattered as soon as they were outside. I remained where I lay for a time then sat up straight legged and lit up a lucky laying back bathing in the beating sun. Squinting through my shades at the skyline until Leidulv caught up. After going as slowly as we could through every corner of the museum I sat in the park with my baguette and waited for the group. We then walked with blistered feet within pissing distance of La Rambla before catching the subway to some other corner of town to see Gaudi’s house and garden. Where I ate an entire chorizo before heading home early to get myself cleaned and pressed for a night of heavy drinking.
After meeting the rest of the group and eating diner in a very fine restaurant named Quid. Run by the Finnish mafia in the back alleys by the water front. We wandered through the red light district looking for a drinking hole. After stopping for three drug dealers and two pairs of hookers. We found the London bar. Many beers later a Middle Eastern man with a moustache came up to the table selling roses “for the ladies”. His sales pitch involved kissing three of us, laughing a lot and finally shouting “INDIAN?” repeatedly and loudly at one of our party. Finally he left and after one final beer we crawled home through alleys lined with broken glass, fag butts and dog piss and caught as much sleep as we could for the next morning.

Next morning I took a sudden notion to go down to the ocean I got my sun-tan lotion my flippers and my mask. It was a good solution and with proper execution we could go to that ocean of pollution in which I daren't bask. Some terds were teeny-tiny and some were big and shiny. They tossed in the briney in which I dipped my toe. If you go swimming in that shite you'll get worse than dermatitis from the sea of grey detritus Where the sewage ebbs and flows. And there is no respite From the cess-pit no shelter from its pong. The poor old ocea... ]]> ~OddGonzo