SUMMARY

The average tale of an average English Goth, going to San Francisco to have some fun and sort out some things. So it’s speed, sex, Burning Man, bondage, love, South Park, music, guns, obscenity, booze, parties, fetishism, heartbreak, crime, festivals, Hollywood, acid, Internet, concerts, disease, cocaine, X-files, porno, weed, clubs, makeup, sushi, barbecues, burritos, witchcraft, homosexuality, plays, heroin, kleptomania, whores, earthquakes, street fairs, nitrous, violence, concerts, junk food, Goths, road trips, sadomasochism, crystal meth, marriages, death, and the Simpsons.

EXERT

Chapter One : The Journey Begins

Right, it’s spring, ‘98, the weather’s shitty, but when isn’t it. It’s too hot, too cold, too smelly, too grey, but that’s England and the English all over.

I’m leaving this tossy island of my birth and coming back to a different country to find my way. San Francisco is my arena of trial by fire and combat. I feel like I’m Shatner in one of them gladiatorial bits in Trek. Where’s the music they always play for that? Crank it loud because now I’m jumping in the pit with pointy stick and shield and sparkly outfit.

I have too many roads to choose from, too many paths that I cannot gauge the merits of until this trip is over. My entire life has pretty much been a meandering totter from this side to that, making haphazard choices, living against luck and ill fortune. But now some serious shit has dropped on me, and I have to make some hard decisions.

Through this trip I’ll find some sort of guidance, to resolve issues that have been nipping at my heels like rabid Yorkshire terriers on heat for far too long now. By the time its over l will have direction, one way or the other.

I’ve got writing to do as well, a novel to complete that should assist in my writing career. As a struggling author, I’m cracking my skull against brick walls all over the place, seeking to find that one weak brick, the one that’s either sympathetic, insightful, smart or stupid, so I can break through.

Hopefully, the change in scene should stoke some creativity in me, get me cranking out the stuff like I used to. I’ve been stagnating in England for far too long, I need input. If I can just create a new novel, a real blinder, I can step up in publishers and perhaps submit my normal novels and gain a chance at publication. The idea is there, and has been patiently awaiting my attention for many months. I just need to get to this city to run through it, to let a new land pour new life upon it. I had the idea when I was last in the States, and since then I have declined to work on it until I got back.

This journal is more for myself at this point, to catalogue an era in my life that should have greater ramifications than any other. I shall not trouble you with naming or betraying what I write at present, suffice to say that it got me published and has been both a valued source of income, and invaluable experience in this quirky vocation. Besides, I enjoy what I write, and despite having to hide it from my family, its something I find almost relaxing in its familiarity.

After bidding a hesitant farewell to those of England, I set out to carry myself to a new and hopefully more prosperous land. Many things require some shred of resolution during this stay, and I hope everything will be moving swimmingly once I finish it. However, before I even hit the major issues facing me like Goliath with a spiked baseball bat and his three biggest mates, I have more pressing problems. Such as actually getting to the damned place.

The previous night, I phoned to check what terminal I was expected at, only to find that I had not correctly listened to the woman at the airline and was due to depart from Gatwick, not Heathrow as I planned. Well that could have been a good fucking start. I go to the airport and cannot find my flight, later realising that I’m not at the right shitty airport.

Fortunately though, I made this inquiry, and fate paid me well for my oversight. What bothers me, however, is that perhaps this has eaten up a fair portion of any stash of good fortune I have and now my plane will be cancelled or assailed by ninja terrorists intent on flying us into the sun.

Humping my immense kit bag onto my puny little shoulder, I grab my carry on backpack and a smaller red plastic affair laden with items of no small importance for a country devoid of them - chocolate, Jelly Babies, Penguin biscuits, a change of T-shirt and a sponge so rancid that it is almost a malevolent life form in its own right. The concept behind this is simple: if Customs open it, they won’t have the stomach to go for a good rummage for fear of touching a once-white sponge that is now a sort of mottled grey-green with black hair dye splotches and a wild mane of my follicles lodged through its crater-covered outer hide.

It came off a treat last time I went to the States. I put a mouldy green towel on top of my kit bag to dissuade a full search, and it worked wonders. Everyone else got the full inquiry to the base of their belongings and back again, mine was tampered with at the top, then the smell of the towel arose like a spectre from a restless plague pit. Suddenly it was ‘this all looks fine, off you go son,’ which is a rough translation of the mental desire to get me the fuck away from them before I give them cholera, typhoid and purple screaming brain pox.

As usual, no cunt on the train gives you space, and I have to stand and watch over my stuff and put up with the weird stares. I don’t mind attention from the way I dress, it makes me feel I’m sufficiently different to the average goon on the street, and thus above them. But now I’m attired to meet some bullshit dress code for the airline. The complete pain I had trying to sort out an outfit to reach their standards was a nightmare, and it means I’ve got to carry clothes I could easily wear on the plane, and wear a set I’ll not wear once out in the States. And if I do, I hope I die soon after; I don’t think I could handle the shame. Perhaps it is a good indication of my mental health for others to watch for. If I wear the plane outfit, I’ve gone completely bald-arse monkey loon so send for the men with the big butterfly nets and ready a seat at the happy farm. I look a complete goit in my outfit, and I’m being stared at because everyone else is silently agreeing with me. I can almost hear dozens of mental processes churning out the same phrase in one big vicious symphony of critique: ‘Christ on toast, that cunt looks like a complete goit.’

So I stand in black shirt, tailcoat, Farrah trousers, and pointy-toed buckled boots, with a wild mane of ragged black hair, and sunglasses. Thanks, airline bastards. All I can think of is the dress code of unacceptable examples, wondering if I missed something that might save my image. But no, everything I own was erased by it -- T-shirts, any denim, ragged clothing, fishnet, vinyl... Nothing was left, it was like they wised up in advance, snuck into my place and ticked off everything decent I fucking own.

The first hurdle I face is the Gatwick express, where an elderly couple insist on dropping every bit of their litter several times over and then proving unable to bend over and pick it up, leaving me no option but to assist a dozen times or watch this tragic display of senility unfold before me like a repetitive soap opera. The rail trip is fucking expensive, three times more than is needed to get to Heathrow. And spanker that I am, I changed up all my money save that needed to get to Heathrow and back. When I return to England, I’m going to have some real fun finding my way home. But that’s why god created siblings, I guess. Cool, the first call my sister gets from the States is her whining maggot brother trying to ponce a lift back from Gatwick. Where is my ‘I’m a twat’ badge? I think I’ll glue it to my forehead.

The airport looms and in I go. As a standby passenger I’m sure to be treated like crap. I’m supposed to be a guest of the airline, so I’m assured of the same respect as offered to pond life found in your ear after a rather messy break up. But it’s a small price to pay for free travel, so who am I to complain? (Well, a bitter and depressed individual who likes to do little else, but that’s beside the point. I’m a Goth, I’m supposed to be this way or I have to hand my membership badge back.)

The first taste of customs I get is a security prat for the airline, who ushers me over for the questions. I’m instantly appalled. The ‘guard’ looks like Ryan, a friend from a live role playing system, and someone still at school last time I saw him. I am going to be grilled by a fucking school-leaver. Now I really feel old, especially due to the fact that phrases indicative of extreme age are rising, words such as ‘Don’t get lippy with me, boy. I fought in...er..something for you, so treat your elders with respect’. I’m twenty-fucking-six, and I really don’t need this. Plus he’s got to be a casual with his razor short locks, and ‘mundanes’, as they have been referred to, are notoriously ignorant with regard to Goth. If you’re wearing black, you’re a Satanist. If you’re wearing makeup, you’re a poof. While these things may exist in part within Goth culture as they do in all cultures (even amidst the mundanes, and no doubt at the same perentage as amidst us), they are hardly quintessential, and are more often than not abstained from. Metal tends to be more appealing to Satanists; Goth generally flops into token Paganism and other wierd mystic bollocks.

The only thing more annoying than having a school-leaver hold my travel plans in his semen-stained masturbation hand is the interrogation he unleashes. It is of course performed with a wide salesman grin, like he’s my bestist friend in the whole wide world and I can confess my illicit smuggling activities and he won’t rat on me, because after all, we’re mates aren’t we? Can’t fool me boy, and when you are old enough to drink something stronger than Lemonade, you’ll realise that.

I’ve never had the level of questioning forced upon me here. The detail he goes into is absurd and I can’t help but think it’s a publicity protection precaution. After all, they have to make sure that the mad bomber who wasted their passengers wasn’t a guest of the airline travelling for free. That would really make for a good headline: fly our airline, we let terrorists travel for fucking free, have a nice flight and good luck, suckers.

When he asks where I got my bags and how long I’ve had them, I can barely keep a straight face. If only I could tell him the truth.

"Well, the kit bag was bought for me by an ex-girlfriend who was really into me, and could well be bitter enough to sew something dodgy into it. The backpack is from a lover currently on a different flight, and she gave it to me yesterday befor we started heading back to San Francisco to meet her boyfriend. And the plastic one I stole from changing rooms in a swimming pool a couple of weeks ago. I’ve chucked out the vest, goggles and glasses I found in it, but don’t fret, the kids were making loads of noise in the pool and forced us to leave, so it’s okay. It’s revenge."

Can we say ‘bend over, open wide and say aaah, sir?’ Needless to say, I lie my arse off, turning all of them into treasured heirlooms passed through the generations since Moses lugged the ten commandments down the mountain in these very bags.

So in go the bags, and the preened bitch at the desk tells me that when I change at Dallas, I’ll have to rebook myself in, but my bags will automatically be transferred to the other plane. How very convenient, and as it transpires later, how very much a fat wedge of complete balls.

After waiting for ages to get my seating allocation (I’m last of fucking course), I settle into my row of two seats all to myself and get comfortable. Off come the boots and I kick back to revel in the feast of airline happiness I am about to gain. I’m supposed to tell the stewardesses that I’m non-revenue, but fuck that, they’ll only treat me like a bastard for it, so let them think I’m a normal paying type dude. If someone else educates them, then fine, and if they hassle me for my oversight, I’ll just say that I did, and your airline staff are retards and forgot.

The champagne flows like sparkling wine type stuff, and I kill it like I’m heading into prohibition America. Even just after take off I’m on my way to getting nicely roasted for free.

The clouds are fucking amazing over London, an intricate swirling maze of towering fluffy columns, riddled with caves and tunnels and serene flowing banks. It’s truly beautiful, and I stare at it mesmerised for ages, because it’s either the heavenly vault arrayed before me, or the safety video followed by the fucking golf channel. Are they trying to promote mass suicide? Are they so pissed off with having to fly us to America that they want us all to top ourselves or blow the hatches and take our chances with freefall? In Day of the Triffids there’s that bit where the aircraft crew and passengers are all blind. Was it the meteorite storm? Was it fuck. It was the fucking Golf channel, and the crew caught a glimpse of it as well, and every bastard one of them went blind because of it.
Turbulence strikes without warning and it’s harsh. I love turbulence, it’s like a little fairground ride thrown in for free. Planes can handle it, so fuck it, enjoy the ride. Its the sort of jump and jolt that throws you out of your seat and against the seat belt, actually making them useful for the first time in the history of these pointless safeguards. It lasts for around an hour, and I’m grinning like a bleached skull. I’ve got friends who don’t like flying, and wig out during slight turbulence. This stuff would cause a brain meltdown. I’ve got no fear of flying, in fact, a big fat fireball down the corridor is one of the images I often conjure during flights. The hideous explosion of a wing being ripped apart by the incendiary plume of fuel as I’m staring out of the window. I’m not wishing for it, but it’s a possibility that tickles my imagination. Hmmm, exploded in mid air? Interesting. I’m not a sick fuck, or morbid, just difficult to entertain.

We pass over Ireland, and I’m served what’s supposed to be chicken. It looks like a thigh, and because I’m now on my fifth bottle of champagne, I’m into it like a fly on an open carcass. It has no bones, which means its either some odd chicken clone reared with all its bone genes removed, or pseudo-chicken compressed into a rough thigh shape. Fuck it, I’m hungry, so it’s gone in moments. And now to kick back, spread along the seats, listen to tunes and finally watch the film.

It’s Good Will Hunting. Never seen it, not that bothered about it, but it’s free and convenient. Despite the edits for language which really piss me off because I loathe censorship (and every aspect of other people trying to impose upon my views and choices), it’s got me blubbing in waterfall mode.

It now ranks as the fourth film to make me crumble, slotted amidst the likes of Braveheart, Knight Riders (the film with Ed Harris, not the Hasselhoff toss fest before you laugh too hard), and Leon.

It draws a few too many parallels to my own existence, cutting deep to the bone through comparison. My situation may not be as severe, but the similarities are there and I’m still pretty tender about them. I’m heading out to the states to try and sort them out, so they are like open wounds at present and there’s fuck all I can currently do about it.

The whole plot about pissing his life and talents away in preference to fucking around is strong, and the bit about Robin Williams’ wife eats at my guts with despairing alacrity. Erin-- the girl I’m going out to stay with-- loves me, or is just infatuated with me as part of some phase. Only time will tell which, though optimism has me convinced of the former. Unfortunately for me, it’s the first time I’ve ever really been in love, and it’s fucking me up. Christ, heroin would be an easier addiction than this, at least mainlining skag would be predictable. Still, the whole rota of things Robin felt when with his wife applied just a little too closely and impressed upon me that there was no more fucking denying it. Despite all my wishes to feel differently because it’s too inconvenient to have a girlfriend in a country on the other side of the planet, and the fact that she’s already going out with someone over there -- did I mention that? No? Well, there it is.

It transpires we’ve been pretty much mad about each other since we met back in ’96, but neither of us said anything to the other for fear of it not being mutual and for fear of fucking up a really top friendship. Ain’t life grand. So, I know she is going to settle for the other bloke, for stability and all that crap. Somewhere inside I suspect I’ll just probably end up an anecdote, someone to mention at dinner parties: ‘well, I hung around with a Goth author from Britain way back in the nineties for a few years’.

Dan is a cool enough person, a bit emotionally bankrupt, but that’s not noticed because he makes a fucking fortune in his computer stuff. Whereas I scrape by writing and gathering unemployment, and occasionally doing a little charity collecting on the side (cash in hand, you get a quarter of the pot, and you can rip off a good tenner as well without anyone noticing).

So, from Erin’s perspective, whose the best bet for the future? Don’t take a lot of pondering does it? Also, he does live in the same country, and I am most definitely not just around the corner, not unless you have got really fucking long legs.

First of all, I can’t force a ‘choose between us’ type event, one because its so trite it makes me want to retch. Number two (I said...er...hu..hu), because I am not going to either end up being rejected and thus make the rest of the holiday a feast of uneasiness, or have her ditch Dan and then have me piss off back to Blighty leaving her with no-one. I may be Satan’s third cousin, but ain’t his brother.

I miss her so much at the moment. I’m thinking through everything about us. I’m giving it some philosphy in my brain, latching things together, each unsaid syllable making me more depressed that she’s not here. I can’t speak, I can’t bitch about anyone or talk about irreverant topics, because there’s no-one here to do it with me.

Like a pair of hyenas we’d sit, watching the intrigue of the social scene and keeping our vicious and critical assessments and half-arsed psychological scrutiny to ourselves, locking it within, easing the tension we felt dredged up by the bullshit. The complexities around us, the lies, the two-faced backstabbing, the pandering to the egos and disorders of others making the bile rise in our throat until we couldn’t take it anymore. Our bitching eased this tension, and a wise move it was, for without this little release of my mental steam valve I’m sure a great many of those around us would have either been forsaken or rendered strange smells in the attic.

The importance of this safety net was once irrevocably branded into me during the week where the diverting attention of the attending boyfriend-- Dan-- left me without this lifeline. Within days I felt as though I was aflame within due to the irritation of those around me as their psyches chafed against mine like sandpaper. The inability to ease my resentment through confession had been temporarily lost and was greatly missed, and since this time I have rarely taken it for granted.

Perhaps this is the benefit of confessional. Having never surrendered myself to the attendance of a priest I am scarcely in a position to be a source of great wisdom on this or pretty much anything. But an opinion can be passed that the telling of such petty hates relieves the soul, be the recipient a sworn agent of God, or the closest thing to a friend. Save that I am sure the supplicant to the church’s will does not gain the sort of exchange enjoyed by friends where we can laugh and mock the foibles of those around us, ripping mercilessly into their weaknesses with all the ravenous attention of starved piranha.

We have honed our skills to a razor edge of perception upon our English social circles, and have readily cut through the obscuring layers and veils that try to hide the truth. We have seen the strings operating others, the bonds and connections, we have conducted our own sessions as therapists to the ignorant, save that our conclusions are not designed to help, but to appraise us of the real situation, heedless of the consequences to the patient. The code of confidentiality we operate under not only renders the world ignorant to our rudimentary deductions, but excludes the patient as well, our goal is to selfishly ease our fury, not compound it by inciting anger and resentment in others.

In all likelihood, none know of our little game of analysis, not through suspicion, but because they probably think us unable to master the faculties to cut at their precious shells. Yet in truth, we have gathered a philosophy of contentment and camaraderie that leaves their petty pseudo-intellectual dalliances a pathetic runner-up, wheezing on the start line as we skip blithely into the realms of enjoyment and self-gratification.

Why should we work for a career, or to retain health? Why squander on making more pleasant the years where vitality and enthusiasm have made way to ones where we are hunched and grey, offensive to the eye and regarded with indifference or annoyance. I don’t seek to burn the candle at both ends, I want to peel of the wax, soak the wick in lighter fuel and ignite the fucker with a flamethrower. Sometimes I can stumble in my quest for this unattainable perfection, just as with any follower of faith, but I hold my motto quietly within and let it justify my actions when others would condemn them.

So after another couple of champagnes that I had stored in my bag for later, devoured because the idiot stewardesses took so long getting to me I had to eat into my reserves, I get a beer and then some vodka just in time for the states to appear beneath us.

I guess we’re passing over Ala-fucking-bama, because it’s one of the weirdest sights I’ve ever seen. The whole landscape is cloud free and visible, a single sheet unto the horizon of jet black. Across this midnight canvas of swamp is thousands of streaks and pockets of silver. The light has turned the ponds, streams, lakes and pools into a glorious mercury alien landscape, making it appear as though the window were a television showing an off world landscape channel. Black and silver, it is nothing less than striking.

Staring at it for ages, I wonder as to the amount of life teeming down there. It looks so desolate from high altitude, but numerous shows have portrayed it differently closer to the mud and mosquitoes. Maybe Deliverance was running down there. I’m gonna make you squeal like a pig. Where’s my telescope?

A warm sandwich arrives and says hello. Filled with moist meat and a plastic composite cheese, it goes down quick but decides it does not want to be digested, so it lingers like a tramp in my gut, begging change from the alcohol I continue to imbibe in a bid to poison it before it gets too stroppy down there.

Finally, touchdown in Dallas. The central city looks just as it did on the series, so much so that I expect to see title credits start and the theme tune blare through the cockpit. But unless they had changed it to a Bauhaus compilation on my Walkman (you don’t think I’m going to listen to that audio bile being pumped through the plane do you?), the network of my mind does not pick up this instalment of the Ewing saga.

The plane made excellent time, a fact that cheers up the rest of the herd, but pisses me off even more, because it means I’ve got an even longer wait for my connecting flight to San Francisco. Hanging around an airport after a long flight, can we say ‘fall asleep and miss your connection did we, sir? Well you really are up shit creek then.’

After the customary rampaging push and shove to get off the plane quickly and get some fresh air after breathing eight hours of cumulative recirculated farts, I wander through the various stages of customs. I run the gauntlet until one officer finally questions why I have no luggage. He then informs me that my luggage has not been transferred, despite my arguments to the contrary, and informs me that I will have to go back and storm the customs barricades again with all my crappy bags under my arm.

Back I trot to collect my shit, cursing with facility under my breath, a glaring burning look clearing my undeviating path as I wait for someone to walk into me or make a smart arse comment so I can tear his ears off.

After getting the solitary collection still riding the belts, I arrive just in time to get the biggest queues as the bottlenecks start to well and fill the corridors with fat tourist pukes. Well, I did wonder how I would kill the extra time, didn’t I. Fate, you are a cunt and I hate you.

Then I have a nice little schoolroom incident where the chick at the desk sends me to the back of the line because my home work was done in pencil. After finding English immigration forms amidst the hundreds of weird languages on offer, I redo my paper and humbly submit it for the teacher’s approval.

The homework is accepted without question, but the explanation of how I gained the flight coupons is both long, confusing and corrupted by the fact that I have been up since six in the morning, and according to my watch, it is now midnight. I feel like puking on the woman, but somehow I have cause to believe this would hamper my chances of successfully negotiating customs.

Erin’s grandmother is the agent responsible, her husband works for the airline as a pilot, and the tickets were issued through the family to help me out. I don’t even know his fucking name so I make one up. His first initial is ‘D’, so Darron sounds good. Please God I hope they don’t check and find out I’m making all this up on the spot. Fortune once more smiles, and my constant rambling text finally exhausts the woman’s limited stash of patience as she stares blankly at me during my near incoherent speech, unable to follow the gibberish that is my professed truth. With a final shrug she shows clemency and sends me on my way and probably commits herself to fucking over the next Brit as compensation for my tedious presence.

After rechecking my luggage, I have to walk the ten thousand miles from gate ten to gate thirty eight. I’m feeling sicker by the second, and I can barely keep awake. I’m supposed to wear my contacts for eight hours at most, and its now been eight-fucking-teen. It feels like I’ve got broken glass floating on my eyes and every time I move them or blink I feel it in all its glorious clarity. I can’t take them out because I’ll never get the bastards back in with all my solutions in my other bag, and I’m having enough problems with the various authorities as it is without facing the fuckers blind and blue.

So I sit, falling asleep, dying from sleep deprivation with toxic bits of crap plastic floating on my bloodshot eyes. I’m going to be asked to re-answer the question on being a drug addict aren’t I? Caricature Americans in cowboy hats join those with ‘Jesus loves your arse to bits’ type T-shirts, and the dense swarms of bold airline crew. How can there be more uniformed pilots and stewards than passengers? That makes a lot of sense. No wonder tickets are so bloody costly.

When the plane finally gets ready, and takes off late, I ignore the promise of dinner and try and find a comfortable position because I no longer have a row to myself and have to make do. And I try and I try and I try. What evil piece of shit created these seats anyway? They’re designed to stop you doing anything other than sitting bolt upright and to attention. They’re like leftovers from the Inquisition, discontinued because even the Inquisitors thought they were a tad out of order. Bastards.

Of course, to further torment me, the spiteful captain gets on the intercom and informs the passengers that even though there is no film scheduled for the flight, the last crew left As Good As It Gets behind. Shit, I wouldn’t mind seeing this, but no, I’m too ill and groggy to even attempt it.

The hours dribble past like little slices of eternity, and I’m wondering if the plane has already crashed and I’m in hell. I can’t sleep, I feel ill, I feel sick, my eyes hurt, and I’m mother uncomfortable. I doze through dinner, ignoring it, my stomach curled into a fist and going on strike because of the incident with the last sandwich it faced in battle.

Mountains appear bellow and start to flow by. From my feeble geographical recollection, this means we are on the home stretch for the coast. But the mountains keep going on and on.

God starts to fuck with me, showing a mountain range and then opening onto long desert like plains, letting me see the desert that leads to San Francisco and blessed sleep and freedom from my contact lenses. But no, the shitwad adds another range, spends ages rolling it along and offers more desert, then more mountains. Each time I see another crappy peak I want to scream aloud in frustration. The bloke next to me starts to look worried and tries not to notice my rapidly eroding sanity. I’m betting he’ll ask for a seat change before I start to foam at the mouth.

The snowy barren peaks are actually scary. The thought of the plane coming apart in the air over warm farmlands such as we left behind ages ago is a pleasant, almost fuzzy notion. But now we are over harsh jagged mountains that reach out beyond every horizon, the repetition almost terrifying because there is nothing down there, just snow and stone. Falling onto that issues pictures of being torn open on pointy teeth of rock, of lying freezing in the snow, my blood staining the pure white and steaming in the chill wind. Crashing conjures the possibilities presented in dozens of disaster flicks, of nightmare cold and isolated location. Somehow the desolate nature below me actually makes me start to get quite anxious. The wings are looking a little frail, and I’m whispering to myself, stating my own private litany to stop them from snapping. Any change in engine noise makes my sense of calamity rise, and the odd kick of turbulence has my fingers squeezing into the seat. It wasn’t like this when I was flying earlier, I guess lack of sleep is fucking with my brain.

My heart leaps like a kangaroo that’s sat on a tazer, and I’m all smiles as the lights of the city start to scroll below us. At fucking last. The descent winds us down through the lofty heights, and I’m wondering again at the amount of stress these wings can take, because they really fucking wobble and bend during the flight, and the rust flecks on some of the flaps are not inspiring a great deal of confidence.

I get my boots on, and I’m clenching my jaw at the thought of more customs. Last time I entered the country I was merry and full of cheer, and still they were complete cunts. What about now, when I’m of sour disposition and incredibly surly and look like I’ve been doing crack since the day I was conceived?

Wandering off, I follow the herd and come out onto a main area, where the friend crew are waiting for me. I check my brain, because I have not passed a single gate or officer yet. But no, the gang is all here. Sarah, Erin, her mother and her boyfriend.

"Sic ‘im, Sarah," utters Erin, and suddenly I have a Sarah clamped about me, crushing my brittle bones and squeezing my innards into my skull cavity. I haven’t seen her for ages, and I know I should be more friendly and ebullient, as is my nature, but I left such characteristics in a long forgotten time zone. Besides, I suck at hellos, almost as much as I do at farewells. I have trouble expressing any sort of magnificent sentiment during such times of greeting or parting, I only really miss or get grateful for peoples’ presence after a few days. It applies to everything around me. A beloved grandparent dies. Can I cry or grieve or feel anything? Can I fuck. I’m Lord Robot throughout, cold and barren, stripped of feeling and emotion. Only weeks later does it start to bloom in the recesses of my mind, and the feeling grows and the bitterness creeps in. The time difference seems to distance it, and I feel all the worse for not having allowed myself to feel it earlier. But its nothing to do with permission. I can’t squeeze it out like the juice of a lemon, or sit on some emotional toilet seat with a good book and wait for nature to take its course. It’s just not part of me.

I collect my baggage and I’m listening to the conversation around me, scarcely aware of it. I’m feeling like a ghost, a semi-corporeal entity just on the verge of everyone’s senses. It’s an irony completely lost on me until later, because this is how I’ve come to regard my own people.

Every time I go to San Francisco, the people seem real, full of personality. I don’t mean they’re loud or opinionated, I mean they seem genuine, not some half-concocted facade like in England. Everyone there seems to project an image, craft a false personality to hide everything about them, to protect them, and because they haven’t troubled themselves with putting effort into it, they seem almost two dimensional. The old Fish Called Wanda roll by John Cleese is more true than anyone in this country knows. Go to San Francisco, hang out, clear the stage where you’re feeling like a tourist and stay awhile, avoid tourist traps, see the real city, mingle with the people, you’ll agree. Hey, maybe we can all start a club.

Mercifully my baggage is assisted with, and its off to the car for a drive back into the city. I had forgotten how beautiful San Francisco was, and its like coming home. Its a cinematic city, a place your imagination can mould like clay to create settings for anything you want. A city of adventures, and I am a mercenary in search of a crusade to follow. Once I’ve got some fucking sleep, that is.

The streaky fog is back, a phenomenon I cannot quite understand, but love like a cherished piece of nostalgic keepsake. Unlike the full smothering blanket that drops like lead across English settlements, the fog here moves in weaving streaks, wispy serpents that slink through the blocks like thieves in the night. Looking at the city, I can see three distinct columns drifting across, hiding a trio of channels, unnatural and wonderful.

The massive freeway stretches on either side of us, the huge roads designed to accommodate traffic, serving it perfectly. The grid system presents an ordered, exacting facade to the buildings, keeping everything where you know it will be. No strange eerie back roads and winding alleys that lead nowhere, only a pure architectural grace. What the fuck is it with English cities like London? This place was put together when cars where coming in, so the roads were designed specifically to deal with them. So that means English streets are designed for horses and carts right? Well no, because they’re even wider than cars and wouldn’t even fit in most streets, so that theory is bollocks. Okay then, it’s a pedestrian city? No, wrong again, mate, because the pavement is so fucking twee that even midgets have to walk with one foot in the gutter. Maybe people back then were really small or something. If an Elizabethan time traveller pops up, will he be knee high and utterly shocked ‘Stink! Everything’s big!’ he’ll squeak, and then be squished underfoot.

Natoma Street offers its glorious countenance to my aching eyes, and my flagging will rises somewhat as we turn into it. The road is thin and one way, lined with cars and areas denied parking. Sarah’s car has gained a ticket for her violation of residential space, but Dan has been spared, presumably because his car used to be owned by a meter maid, and thus may well be on a ‘don’t fuck with me’ list.

Ascending back into the studio is more like a homecoming than I thought it would be. The converted warehouse has a sort of attic that has been re-moulded to house their daughter, the lower area being the place of business for her father’s photo business. The walls are open, the sheet rock still unapplied, leaving the insulation and the beams naked and exposed. Windows serve one wall, and a frame work wall yawns with a barren doorway to partially split the room in two. A futon lies in the main area with a stereo, a small walk-in closet, and the single bed in the other room. A few cupboards and drawers and that’s it, no more furniture, all nice and barren, no carpet to clean, to mementoes and pieces of crap to break or lose. It’s perfect, and it’s rent free while her parents maintain the business here and the counter to their retirement continues to tick onwards, the actual date unknown by any save fate or whim.

First thing’s first, I want out of the clothes that have made me want to punch myself since putting them on. Changing quickly into stretch black jeans, combat boots and my faded old Hellraiser T shirt, I feel more comfortable but just as shit. Tiredness wells around me, and Greta, Erin’s mum, makes a Safeway trip to attend me with a Hoagie.

How I had missed such deliciousness. The prices of food and virtually anything in England are a fucking joke compared to this. In England a sandwich or roll has a slice or two of ham if you’re lucky. For the same amount in dollars, and therefore greatly cheaper, you get something twice the size with a good half inch in slices that doesn’t taste like it was fished out of the pig’s sphincter.

A word of warning to fellow Brits. The prices here don’t have tax added into them, so what you see listed still hasn’t had all of the unwelcome additions slotted in yet. When you’re shopping for the odd individual item it can be a pain in the arse because you sort out your money, get to the check out and find it’s gone up. That coupled with the fact that the dime coin does not actually have a numerical value listed on it. Perhaps you’re supposed to guess or something? Maybe it’s a coin they don’t want tourists to use, or have them easily swindled via this enigmatic denomination.

The Hoagie slides down with a perfection that has food coma looming with incredible speed. I undress, remove the plague contact lenses, and am asleep in moments, cuddled up to Erin on the futon. I haven’t seen her for a day and it feels like a week. Unless something resolves itself with Dan, the next three to six months are going to be hell to endure.

Chapter Two : Porcupyne, the early days.

I awake with a feeling of joy, of being in a new city and unleashed to do as I wish. It’s a strange sense of detachment, of schoolgirl glee, of being able to do misbehave and not get caught. The city has a decadent aura that’s infectious.

First there is the chore of unpacking, and the prospect of finding out what I had forgotten to bring with me. Being a fervent believer in sorting everything out at the last minute, the chances were high that one or more important articles had failed to make the crossing.

Well, other than the customs pricks having mashed my kit bag and caused a tube of toothpaste to spit on my boots, all was well. The only thing missing was my new razor, which was a greater pain in the arse than it should have been. Spare double blade razors are fucking expensive, but I found a set of ten for half the normal price, only to discover that they did not fit my brand of razor because they were slide-on ones, not the clip-into variety. So I had to buy a slide razor just to make sure I hadn’t wasted my money on the others. And joy of joys, after shaving with it the morning of leaving, I go and forget the fucker. I pack the shaving foam, oh yeah, I pack that, but for the thing I need to actually shave with, there is no sign. Arse and double arse. But it’s okay, it wasn’t that big a deal. Actually no, fuck that shit, it is a big deal, it means I have to spend valuable dollars on a fucking razor. Shit, shit, shit and fuck. I need one of these. Electric ones are shit. You need a real razor and a nice hot and long bath to get super nuclear close, and that’s the close you need when you’re going out, so you can do your pale foundation and makeup and not have to contend with stubble arising prematurely to spoil the entire effect. In retrospect, this became the outlet for all my flight hassles and personal angst, the razor being the crux of my mental maelstrom.

After calling Helen back in England as she looks after my flat while saving for a house of her own, I tell her to send the razor in the post. She’s got all my writing work on disc and is transferring it from Mac to PC format so I can continue my little tinkerings abroad. She didn’t have time to do it before I left because she skipped work on the build up to Whitby. Ah Whitby, that little seaside town that twice a year becomes chock full of weirdo types in black. A feast of black spiky hair, makeup and macabre influences. The festival is bizarre, in that when you are there, you don’t actually have that great a time, but then, in retrospect, it becomes the greatest event in your life. So you go through the hell of trying to arrange accomodation half a year in advance and go back. It’s good, not great, but okay and you wonder what the fuss was about and the fucking situation repeats. It’s like childbirth or a really painful injury. Time lets the memory melt and you forget, until you let it repeat and then curse yourself for it.

The Goth fest is also pretty clique-riddled. People in charge and their suck up subordinates are snotty and arrogant, and all the recluse Goths appear from nowhere, do their makeup and sit as a scrutinising gauntlet about the dance floor, bitching and picking flaw with everything before going home at the end. The crowd I was always with were fervid dancers, drinkers, drug users and damned fun to be around. Ignoring these preened statues of ego and spite, fun can be had there.

It’s also a Goth fashion riot. All the clans are represented, all the branches of Goth that hate all the other branches. The age differences are just as drastic, ranging from the old time ‘I was there at the beginning in Batcave’, to the ‘My favourite Goth band? Oo, that’s Marilyn Manson of course.’

So in my new found sense of exploration, I scurry upstairs to check the new computer that the Clan Hryciw had acquired and which would be my friend and nemesis for the trip. The level of technology instantly scares me, and overcome with techno fright, I scurry away and hide under a quilt until I think it’s safe to come out again. You can't be too careful with technology, it’s everywhere and it most certainly is not your friend.

A quick change of clothes and the hasty disposal of my horrendous travel garb into a dusty and forgotten corner of the walk-in closet and we're off to Cafe Flore to meet Sarah and Dan. It’s a nice place, sort of on the border into the Castro, a winding labyrinth that seems to house the extensive gay community, like a little flaming suburb within the city.

A new addition since last I was here is the titanic flag that now billows a short way up the main road. The humongous rainbow banner is visible from any direction, and like Neil Armstrong the gay community has staked its claim to this area. Christ, in England it would be on fire within a couple of minutes, that is if it was allowed to be put up in the first place, which it wouldn't, so this chain of thought and speculation ends here.

Tolerance is the key to San Francisco, the only thing that isn’t tolerated is intolerance. Rednex beware.

Well, the encounter is pleasant enough. I can’t be my usual effervescent self if that is what I am, because the fangs of jet lag are still firmly embedded in body and brain and ain’t letting go any time soon.

The chat is cordial, the atmosphere a little tense. I want to just cuddle up to her, to talk and chat, laugh and mess about, she’s my best friend, the person I’m safe with, who is everything to me. I’m still nuts about Erin, and really have no idea how to handle the rest of the trip with a boyfriend in tow, whereas in England, we had each other, no problems, no interruptions, actually, not much of anything really. We were hermetic little beings, sealed away in our lofty council-supplied fortress, venturing out occasionally for food and booze, and the odd social revelry where more often than not, we were eager to escape after only a short time. Six months of togetherness, twenty-four hours a day, never parting. We never argued once, never even a cross word, just complete connection.

Well, with the token drinks killed at the Cafe, we sidle en masse down Market street, eager to once more appraise ourselves of San Francisco’s most endearing feature, yes, that’s it, the sex shops and leather stores. Ah, such merriment. A corset shop tantalises Sarah’s obsession for such garments with a plethora of rigid hourglass frames. Corsets are a uniform standard for SF Goths, and pretty heavy on the list of priorities for English ones too. If you aren’t crushing your guts down to one inch in circumference, you just ain’t with it.

Some books of Olivia artwork draw my eye and have me engrossed while the usual questionnaire as to how each corset or waspie belt would look on her continues with verve. Sarah seems a little on edge. Life for her has not been pleasant since we left. She broke up with a long term boyfriend and it really messed her up. We got plenty of audio tapes where she was a complete emotional ruin. She’s playing with several relationships at once now, keeping them on a more physical footing at present. It’s weird to see her like this. Then again, she knows about me and Erin, perhaps this is adding fuel to the uneasiness. She has lunches with Dan on a sort of regular basis. I wonder if he knows something went on?

With an appetite for voyeuristic perversity sated, it’s time to handle another type of hunger, and we march to the corner and a small out of the way Mexican restaurant. From this corner I can see the Safeway, and the image of the first visit to this country comes back. It seems so long ago that we staggered in, still beset by the ravages of free airline champagne in search of Aquanet, the fabled waterproof hairspray that is hideously illegal in England, but which rules at capturing a loony hairstyle and fossilising it. That last three week trip enamoured me with San Francisco, started my obsession with Erin, and terminated my friendships with those I had been travelling with. I’ll return to this later.

Azteca reminds me of a fish and chip shop in England. The layout is identical, save the fare is different. Maybe there’s a standard blueprint that restaurant owners across the cosmos have been secretly sharing since the dawn of time. If so, then they don’t consult on what to charge, that’s for fucking damn mustard certain. The prices are superbly low, and for them you get huge fat burritos. Three dollars?! Gotta be a misprint or something, okay, so tax makes it to four, but its still eerily low. What’s in them to make them that low? Armpit hair and road kill? Who cares if it’s lepers in custard, it tastes superb, a real Mexican dish, not the monstrous diabolic evil of Taco Bell either. God, that stuff stinks. It was like a cowpat in a Taco shell. If it sounds like I’m belittling them, I am, they deserve it, they are trying to kill people with that gunk. Try one out of curiosity, just so you can say ‘I now know what it is like to lick Satan’s armpit’.

When my bulging pillow of chicken, rice, and other stuff is compiled in full, they offer me chips to go with it. Still on English terms I scoff and steadfastly refuse. Chips and the burrito, god damn that would kill me. Starch overload, call the medics. Of course, it means tortilla chips. But fuck it, I don’t want them anyway, it’s doubtful I can handle the burrito and I’m someone who can eat my own body weight in under five minutes.

So then the day starts to get worse. First, there’s the hassle of how to behave. Walk hand in hand with Erin, keep a distance, what? In England our flesh never parted, hand in hand, embracing, sex, we were never separated, now I feel like a sundered Siamese twin, deserted and longing to return to the comfort of my sibling.

Is there a guide to tell me what to do? No, of course not. Fuck cookery books, we need guides to this sort of insane shit, its far more important than how to baste a shitbag turkey. Kidney pains strike like hot needles, and a contact lens decides it’s not comfortable and wants to make itself felt with every movement of my eye. Oh joyful little discs of plastic, how I would stamp on thee if I wasn’t so utterly reliant on you.

Some grand flyers are gained, one for Burning Man, which tells me the price has gone up. Thanks for that you money pinching twats. I’m on a short enough budget as it is, without you lot jacking up prices for everything I want to go to. As it goes, it was setting a trend. Also, there’s a little lovely disclaimer to warm your cockles. It seems they are not taking any responsibility for injury or death as a result of attending the festival. Okay, so its going to be a big fucking blood bath in the desert and no-one wants to get blamed for it. You walk into the giant lawnmower blades of your own free will, we accept no responsibility for you getting shredded. Maybe the whole thing is a set up by the United Serial Killer and Mass Murderer Union to get a big orgy of victims and not get busted for it.

The other was one for Cleo Dubois’ S&M Academy. Sort of a college to study perversity. We all had a good ogle and grin, save for Dan who blushed and devoted his attention to the Burning Man flyer with renewed attention. He’s a net geek, he knows nothing else, which by rights should have him fully acquainted with chainsaw dildos and necro bestiality, but I guess he’s never explored that far.

Stuffed to capacity with indigenous cuisine, it’s back to Mister Studio to lounge and let nature demolish the reservoir of food. Sarah’s toiling on her paper for some women’s health class. She’s quitting drugs at the moment, and is keeping herself occupied with classes and the gym. Ironically enough, its a paper on depression, and well, she’s got decent reference material at present, seeing as she is in such a state, what with the recent break up with her boyfriend. God that was weird. I met him last time I was out, he was cool, but had really tight reigns on his emotions and composure, sort of like Dan in a way. They both had to know everything about everything, but he was socially competent, charming in a way, a real scenester. He was well versed in it, so it must have been like dating Spock. It’s fine to have such traits in a friend, but a boyfriend? Things that make you go hmmm.

So anyway, we got all the story via phone and tape, long distance, where we couldn’t really do anything significant to comfort her save to remind her that we would be back soon. It really puts a dent in your day when you get tapes of a treasured friend weeping uncontrollably, barely able to speak because she is so distraught, and barely able to drive straight because of the rain outside and the tears inside.

It seems that Mister Vulcan went off to visit his parents in the deep desert and came back with the pledge to clean up his affairs in the city and head back there. Intending to save money and re-hit some sort of education, it meant severing ties with Sarah, which didn’t go down well as you can imagine. So then the duration before he departs gets longer and longer, and then he tells her that he does not want to be in a relationship at the moment. This coming just a week or so after they had agreed to try harder to make it work and had spent a really cool time together for this endeavour, thus taking her high before pushing her back into an abyssal trench of a downer.

So he then gets on her about the amount of Meth she’s doing, calling her a ‘sad little tweeker’, which combined with an incident where she turned up to a social function when she was completely straight, and then had everyone asking ‘What’s up? What’s the matter?’ Wondering why she’s not all bubbly and perky and namely the person she turns into on Meth. So she quit. With these revelations and accusations, he then decides to stay after all, adding further salt to the grievous wounds. Is it me, or are relationships the greatest blight on humanity? Fuck cancer in the ear, fuck AIDS in the other ear, it’s relationships, man. Find the cure, or sort them out so they are easier or something.

After some serious slobbing, it’s shopping on the Haight again, where a really awesome plastic lunch box with Bruce Lee on it captivates my desire. But no, must say no, must save money for important things like food and drugs and booze.

The shopping gives way to time for a drink, but then anything can do that-- swimming, laying still, respiring more than once in a day, whatever. We manage to find one of the only pubs in the entire city. It’s called O’Reilleys, and you don’t get any medals for guessing it’s an Irish pub. The decor has portraits of all sorts of famous Irish dudes on the wall, all lounging and having a pint, like they are in the room with you. Its not impressive.

I end up sitting before Oscar Wilde. God he was a fat fuck.

‘Godammit, don’t call me fat you buttfucking son of a bitch’. Because as we all know, Oscar spoke like Cartman. Was he Irish? Who cares. The Irish are weird, more so when they are at home. The media are insane if they think they’ll get peace in Ireland. Too much time spent hating each other man, ain’t going to happen. You can’t wash away an ocean of bad blood with some poncy words and a few crappy cease-fires. Christ, the whole thing’s probably descended from a bar fight. Some drunken Irish yob gets his drink spilled, threatens the spiller, who promises to get all his Catholic mates onto him, and the other says he’ll get his Protestant crew onto him. It makes more sense than the truth. Besides, I can’t trust my judgement on this, I’ve seen the lies perpetrated by the British media about this.

I spent my childhood indoctrinated to think the terrorists were just pissed at nothing in particular and were fucking people up with no apparent justification. Then finally I hear the real story on some obscure buried away documentary and sympathise a bit. Then I see American news via cable, and see just how evil the level of bias is in our own media. Check this, and it’s one hundred percent true. British version of the story - During a parade, the ‘bad guys’ decide to start mushing on the police for no real reason, then there’s the footage of the police fighting back after a number of them have gone down under rocks. Pretty clear cut eh? Wrong pal! Cue American version. Parade. People getting shoved about by the filth who where in full riot gear from the beginning (foreshadowing or what there eh, mister Government?). Then when someone finally shoves back, they’re in with the big sticks and a bad attitude. What is it with you? You just had to get all dressed up in your armour like a Stormtrooper extra from Star Wars and didn’t want to waste it on just escorting the parade?

Finally, when enough parade dudes are on the deck and bleeding, the rest decide to fucking defend themselves before they all get their skulls cracked by these club happy cunts (ex-policemen from Ireland are highly prized in the baby seal fur industry, I wonder why? Wanted: men to work in a cold climate. Age unimportant but must have strong right arm, no conscience, total inability to question any order, and hate just about everything around them no matter how fuzzy or cute. Irish Policeman welcome. Twatting stick and travel provided). Georgey Orwell me old mate, you got it right, save it’s a bit more subtle, which makes it twice as grim.

Stepping from the path of this roll, we had a few drinks of the home brew Guinness substitute (which was surprisingly nice) and it’s home again, home again, jiggidy jig.

Like a stinky turd I’m deserted and am strutting around the flat on my own, staring at the beams and the open walls. There isn’t even a fucking television. I feel like I’m going insane. No beer and no teevee make Bruce something something.

When Erin finally returns from Dan’s she’s upset of course. She’s torn by the decision she feels she has to make. She wants to break it off, but can’t face telling him just a few days after he’s like waited six months for her. Harsh. As the situation often does, its blubbing our way into slumber once more.

Next morning, my old and dogged companion Sir Hay of Fever decides to pay a heavy visit. First time I’ve been afflicted abroad, but then again everything was a lot dryer last time. The wash of rain has everything for miles all green and happy, casually pissing pollen into the air like it was confetti at a wedding. Thanks, El Nino. Stupid storm went and made everything healthy again. Why can’t plants hump like every other creature? Why do they have to spray their spunk in the air? Great, I’ve an allergic reaction to plant jis.

Of course I was up at three in the morning due to my scrambled body clock, wandering around in the studio for a while, searching for food like some wayward racoon, couldn’t find a bean so went back to bed hungry.

At this point, the acquisition of drugs is becoming the focus for all my gnawing anxieties. I need a bus ticket.

This standard euphemism is now used in all our covert discussions about Auntie (auntie-phetamine). Stemming of course from I once saw this movie about this bus that had to speed around the city. And if its speed dropped below fifty, it would explode. I think it was called - the bus that couldn’t slow down. So now we get on the bus, take the bus to clubs and buy bus tickets to get us going.

Speed and all other amphetimine-related substances are very much the core of the Goth scene, especially in England. In rough summary, I mean, there will be plenty of exceptions, but this is the primary source of influence. Mundanes drink tons of beer, metalheads kill Jack Daniels, ravers drop acid and E, yuppies hit coke, punks go for heroin, but for goths, we need something that keeps us graceful and not staggering around like embarassing idiots. Also, we don’t need the visuals and complete vegetation effect of acid, plus I guess all that macabre influences, weird contact lenses, bizarre jewellry, eldritch tattoos and extravagent outfits would be bad for those who were less adept at handling the effects of a tab. Coke just doesn’t last long enough, it’d make a night out far too expensive for your average goth, but there’s enough of them toiling in the computer industry to allow them to permit it, so maybe it’ll be on the increase. Goths work in scene-related stalls and shops (goth, fetish, record places), or in computers, or are unemployed, struggling writers / artists / poets.

Right, so speed is the one for us. It gets us up, we don’t need to keep drinking, it’s cheap, and it makes us full of energy so we can dance and socialise through the night and never get tired. It makes us the children of the night we all profess to be, even though we’ve just done a day of bullshit work.

Anyways, I have absolutely no control over the Erin and Dan situation, or the where the fuck do I want to be and what am I doing with my existence type shit, or the what country I want to be in crap, but the drug thing is tangible, its something I can resolve. I need to get in contact with Aree. I need to score, just so I can go out and boogie, stomp my hassles away on a dancefloor, lose them on a force ten bass line.

The way I’m feeling at the moment, a shitty night out would just about finish me off. I need a great night out, not a good one, a fucking ace one, and for that I need artificial assurances and support. I can do without, sure, it’s just that as most people prefer to go out after a few drinks, I like to have hoovered up some choice amphetamines. It alleviates my self-doubt and paranoia, commodities that the empire of Bruce has massive stockpiled quantities of.

When I’m sober, I’m too self conscious, there’s too many people about, too many critical eyes to focus on the unfortunate. When I’m toasted, I’m all uncoordinated and slurry and thus get paranoid, but when the great white dust is blowing through my veins, everything is grand. Perfect co-ordination, lovely euphoria, and more energy than you can shake a stick at. What’s the downside? Ah yes, the not being able to sleep that night and feeling shit the next day business. Sorry mates, I don’t work anywhere so I can lay in, and the next day, after a few hours token snooze, I am so ready to write it makes me sick. When I’m hungover I couldn’t write if God himself told me his most groovy idea for a book ever, like Bible 2 - The Trinity Strikes Back, or something. But in a crystal or speed aftermath, inspiration is stirred and raging, and whatever I focus on becomes fucking art. People look down on it all to quickly and condemn me as sad for ‘needing it’, like Helen, who is totally agreeable to the utter puffhead addiction of Tex, a mate of hers and an ex from college she still fancies rotten and feels stupidly guilty about dumping. But this idiot Tex is going out with her best female mate-- Lisa the Christian Witch. Oh, that’s a blend that makes fucking sense. Two creeds that spent so long wiping each other out now love each other and get on. What, they signed a peace treaty and are now best buddies despite thinking the faith of the other is blasphemy or tyranny?

Anyway, twenty-four hours a day this dozey boring twat smokes, but that’s not a problem, yet preferring a line before hitting a club now and then is? Also, er, sorry, but what about the fucking cigarettes and booze you kill? They’re fucking worse for you, and they cost, and they generally suck. Plus you sponge speed when you can. You give it all the ‘women are equal’ shit, but you’ll just as happily bat your eyelids and giggle to get free drinks and drugs. Examine your own addictions before hassling me about a preference for stimulant that I do once a week while you fill your lungs with smoke every god damn mother pumping hour.

The contacts are still pissing me off so I stick them in protein remover, hoping to kill whatever beasties are living on them. Maybe my contacts are coming alive, a new lifeform-- Contactus plasticusepticus.

So I’m lumbered with typing over Sarah’s paper because she needs to get it in, is late, and I’m the best typist in the house. Problem is, I hate doing this almost as much as I hate deadlines. I was doing it solidly for weeks when I was doing temporary under the counter work for the Ministry of Defence in Hastings. Nothing major, just typing over surveys on security and stuff for a marine commando base in Devon. It was just physically transferring over shit from paper to computer, and I got to see lots of groovy things that I probably shouldn’t have, like defects in their gates, what doors are unlocked or weak and so on.

In the wake of this, I’m nice and stressed out, especially after being hassled to hurry up and then not even thanked for my efforts. Sarah vanishes with the work, and to calm down, me and Erin take a nice leisurely stroll down to Golden Gate park. Going via Haight, we check some stores, look at all the grooviness we can’t even conceive of being able to afford, and then enter the park. It’s wonderfully sunny, but then it always is in SF. Either foggy as hell or sunny, there’s no in-between, it’s one or the other.

Over some turkey sandwiches we watch the greenery and the sporadic life in the park. Its really peaceful, the ideal place to go if you were tripping badly. We can’t drink openly, because you can’t do that here. Weird, you can’t consume alcohol in public. You can’t walk down the street with a can, you can’t sit outside the pub or bar and sip a beer, or even crack a bottle of wine in a picnic.

We sit and waffle, generally reminiscing about old times back in England and stuff. The topic of our choices arises briefly, but there’s little we can do about it, so talking about it just makes it seem less stressful. The operative word here being ‘seems’, because it doesn’t. I have this horrible premonition of spending most of my time here by my fucking solitary self. If it’s going that way, and Erin and Dan sort it out, I’m sooo bloody out of here. I’ll sprint to the airport if I have to in order to evade that, and fucking swim the Atlantic to get back. I can’t stand my friends in England, but they’re a choice above this level of heart dissection.

Well, down Haight Street, the crusty punks are offering me weed, and I’m wondering if its because I look so un-pig like, or if they think I’m a sucker tourist that they can sell the brown from a water-colour palette to. How far removed these unwashed chunks of filth are from our own British Crusties. These are little more than tramps living the lazy hippy lifestyle, being ‘Haight people’ like it makes them hard core or something. They exist for themselves and to be annoying. The English breed are far less lazy, with a reactionary streak that gets results and media attention. These useless fucks just sit here being smelly and mewling about everything without actually ever getting off their spotty unwashed arses.

T-shirts are checked, and the South Park phenomena has mushroomed significantly since last I was here. Last time it was a few bits of rare merchandise, now its a pop culture mainstream full-on everywhere type thing. England is now the one tasting it with a few cult nibbles prior to it going ballistic over there too, it’ll follow the states, I guarantee it.

Back on the world’s most uncomfortable bloody futon, it starts to look like Erin is going to break it off with Dan. I’m still not convinced, my luck isn’t that good. It’s weird to be holding her here in San Francisco. Last time I was here, I had a girlfriend in the UK. I didn’t really love her, or even like her that much, but it was a distraction from my obsession with Erin. When I did my holiday here, I was enraptured, I just couldn’t get her out of my mind. We hung out, talked, partied, it was grand.

Over a nasty teevee dinner, where undesignated purple masses and pulsating globules of veined funk move from one area of the plate to another without any help from me, we follow the same conversation. I get a crash course lesson in how to use emo-mo-mail (sung to the tune of Homer saying ‘sax-a-ma-phone’), and it’s nice to know I can reach people without having to rely on bullshit postal services. How wrong that hideously flawed concept proved to be.

So, plans change, and Erin is heading out to meet Chris. A bestist type friend she knows from her work at the design place - CGI, ADI, FBI, I can’t remember. Stupid initial names. Pick something that makes sense. Something catchy like compu-global-hyper-mega-net.

I did have an invite to attend, but they’ll be talking old school and business, like about Erin getting back into work there, and bitching about Charles, the owner, who apparently has the business sense of a boiled frog.

I’m getting sleepy again, and once more I’m left solely alone. Its one of those times where you brood and keep spiralling your negative thoughts, letting them get stronger and more powerful, just as you continually get more and more unreasonable about the source of such consternation. It’s the sort of period of contemplation that causes people to act rashly and generally in the wrong way. I’m stuck here, alone, everyone’s off doing other shit. I can’t go out because I’m too depressed. I can’t find comfort in the studio because its like a fucking prison cell, and I still don’t have a teevee. I’m crawling the walls and stomping up and down, a little black cloud trailing in my wake, pissing on everything.

I’m semi-asleep when Chris and Erin return, and lo and behold, its work waffle again. So I kick back with my head on her lap, and listen in a sort of somnolent fog, occasionally interjecting into the conversation when a brief tangent carries them off of the subject of employment and design stresses. She’s a spacial designer, and that doesn’t mean she does space shuttle shit for NASA, it means I don’t generally have a rat’s arse clue what she’s on about.

Chapter Three : Spectres of Sextwat

Once more into sleep, and the next day sees me scrutinising the net. Never been on it before, and I’m having a whole herd of a whale of a time flicking through the reams of stuff available, and realising just how utterly computer illiterate I am.

A wry smile of previously predicted affirmation occurs when I see Simon’s site. There used to be a picture of the two of us on it at Whitby. Now I seem to have fallen off the end of the piccy. Hmmm. His net persona is Sexbat, a self-established Goth icon whose fake popularity is constantly professed and never proven. He says the renown is annoying, but then why does he put the fucking stupid Sextwat name on everything he owns? Don’t say it’s so friends recognise you, because net geeks who are your mates would know your fucking name. Last time we were out here, he went into a club toilet, came out and told this little tale of a lie where he was doing his makeup and some local said ‘who does that guy think he is, Sexbat or something?’

Of course, none of us were in there, no-one outside Simon’s little dream world would say that, he didn’t point the dude out, or refute the remark, say anything back (which considering his ego is highly unlikely) or even run into him again. Fucking liar. Net Goths are one of the most pathetic and sad facets to our scene, and it’s terrible to know that their ranks are always swelling because so many Goths are getting into the computer industry for high-paid work.

He got all girly and pissy about my lack of attention to him during the period after me and Erin actually confessed to each as to how we felt. It was after all that time of suppressing the way we felt so as not to ruin an ace friendship. I knew I had three months before we went back and the Dan thing went down. I was also pretty assured that it was going to unfold in his favour. I was still pledged to evading the ‘choose between us’ type fuck fest, because I knew I would lose, big time.

Dan had the stability, he pulls down big digits for his computer work, and I can barely scrape a few pennies together. Also, I had other confirmation in the way she idolises and looks up to her Dad. The security thing again. Dan was of the same ilk, and so I could once more foresee the name to be dropped at some far distant dinner party. There I am, an amusing story to dump with real people with real lives and more importantly, significant salaries. So sliding back onto the point (ouch, it was a sharp point), I had three months to spend with the only person I had ever truly loved. What would you do, reader type person? Spend every precious nanosecond with them? Or forsake such time to keep fake friends happy with regular visits? Answers on a postcard. It was this that caused them to drift off, and why my image vanished from that strange little realm that is the net.

Simon needs attention, feeds on it like some sort of parasite. If you’re not eligible as sustenance, off he jumps and sinks his stupid proboscis in someone else. That’s why he and Helen are such mates, because she feeds on it like a leech, loves to be there for everyone, to be the universal shoulder to cry on. She’s of the religious ilk that makes you a better person the more you do for others and not for yourself. She’s lost cool boyfriends over it. She strenuously reports that they went nuts and got obsessive. No, they just got sick of you being there for every cunt in the cosmos and not them, the one you’re going out with.

Nigel followed her to India when she went there for a month. She looked on it as unreasonable possessiveness. Nope, it’s just that in the deepest rat farm depths of India is the only place he can hang around with you and not have your arse running off to attend any little tragedy your stupid mates come up with. Simon, Lisa, Mike, there are hundreds of these nongs. She surrounds herself with people who turn a minor upset into a drama fest or make one up if they need some attention and off she runs for a new feast on it.

Just to feel like I’m active, it’s wandering the streets and shops time, reacquainting myself with all the old sights and sites. It’s a drag because it’s so wonderful. The city is beautiful, designed to inspire and be used as a setting for anything one might crave. I envy Clint Eastwood for being rasied here, and getting to play Dirty Harry here. Well, I also envy him his cool hats, and outfits.

I would love to settle here and spend my days amidst it, but yet again the uncertainties prohibit it. Of all the places I’ve been, nothing has welcomed me in and felt like home as SF has done. The aura of friendliness, the way you walk in and feel accepted, no matter who or what you are. If aliens reach Earth, please let them land in Golden Gate park, it’d make such a wicked first impression on them. Shit, they land anywhere else, they’ll vaporise the planet afterwards.

A bicyclist is flattened by a sports car, and it’s nice to see that someone else is having a shittier time of life than me. The suffering of strangers, such a glorious diversion from your own problems.

The contacts are really hurting now, whatever is living on them was immune to the remover and disinfectant. Great, the super eyeball bug has just been invented on my fucking left peeper. Of course, actual investigation spots a great big fucking tear in the centre. Joy of joys, I’ve worn them once since buying them, and one of them is knackered already. This is just getting better by the second. So when Erin disappears out to see Dan for the evening, its one of those segments of life where you blame everything on the latest curse to your merriment, and El Contact Lens is now hated with a passion. The suppliers are also the subject of many detailed and disturbed fantasies about all the monstrous mayhem I’m going to visit upon them for this felony. From here on, things just get worse.

With Erin and Sarah’s return, Erin is more sad and torn than before, and we slip out into the city to distract ourselves while I hide my melancholy in the back pocket of my brain and try to remain cheerful.

We swing by a photo shop to visit Danielle, who’s this photographer chick what worked with Eric Kroll, the big fetish dude. It’s nice to meet some new people and for a brief moment I got a spike of happiness. The option of going to hers and kicking back with beers and watching television was heartily welcomed by me, and then shot down in flames when the others decreed it too far away. Delving into my pocket, I remove my saturnine qualities and put them back on like well-fitting trousers.

Since my earlier spell of blackness I had resolved to try and distance myself from the problem. One of my hassles was the way in which to act. I did not want to cause jealousy or anger. I didn’t want to force a confrontation, so the best way was to drop back a few notches on the affection ladder. If I could avoid such obstreperous clues such as hugging, holding hands and kissing in private, I would get into the habit and evade them in public as well. A fine plan, but one that has too many flaws in its intrinsic nature to actually stand any chance of success. Love sucks big sweaty cocks and no mistake.

We go to Sarah’s because she has a video and a teevee. She lives up on Twin Peaks, and has a room in a house there. The living room has a wall sized window that has a wicked view of the city, the apartment situated well up on the hillside. She’s had hassles from the other occupants who moan at how little time she spends there because she’s always clubbing now.

Watching tapes of the Simpsons with vodka a-plenty, it’s a slow descent into sleep for me while Sarah and Erin talk and talk, taking out their hearts, peeking in them, shaking them up and trading bits. The feeling of separation and exclusion is so thick now I can feel it burning in my nostrils. A killing spree of berserker fury and a hail of bullets as a reward is starting to seem like a pretty good idea.

Chapter Four : Day of the Vortex

The next morning is Helen’s birthday, and there is an old and wise legend about evading her birthday, because it is a time of unprecedented disaster. Nostradamus wrote with unusual clarity on a page he later lost at the pub: ‘And hellfire and big old catastrophe shall mightily fuck all of God’s creatures on the dawning anniversary of Helen’s emergence into this world,’ and man, he knew what he was talking about.

I sorted her out a card before I left, one with a caricature of her as the Borg queen, with me and Erin as Drones. I also got her some socks that play on her collecting obsessions with the slogan ‘you can never have enough shoes.’ In retrospect, I shouldn’t even have bothered.

When I open my heavy peepers (one of which is purple, and one of which is light blue because of having to mix coloured and normal contacts due to inept cunt manufacturers), it’s to see Erin and Sarah slinking down stairs like buxom buddies to look at the sunrise and continue their soul exchange rota. I actually feel my temperature rise and blood boil in fury at this. I’ve had enough, and two hours spent lounging on her bed watching a shit picture Manga, with adverts every ten seconds does little to soothe me. Finally it’s too much, its bloody miles back to the studio, but I’m not getting a lift anytime soon, and I’m not hovering around in here any longer waiting for them to finish up and finally get round to noticing me again.

Up and out, I keep things quiet, because if I try to explain, the rickety dam will break and the whole incoherent raging torrent will descend.

Well, of course, it starts to piss down with rain as I’m on the home stretch for the Castro. Still, at least now I feel as shitty on the outside as I do internally, and the water is evaporating nicely as I burn with the internal volcano of my choler. There’s something about stomping around in the rain when you’re fucked off, its so excellently tragic and gloomy. Maybe it’s one too many movies, but it does actually help. If man can ever control the weather, people will call down little personal storms for themselves to stamp around in when they’re down, mark these words, it’ll happen.

Upon my return, I break out a game for the computer and blow things up for a while, taking out impotent fury on pixels and bytes. The fictitious conflict of the game has now become a personal vendetta of hatred that I must win, and if I lose, the computer is going through the fucking wall.

There is a party we have the option of attending, and although I feel like shit, I’m eager to go. I drink at parties, that’s my galactic standard, and with the drug situation still lingering in the annoyingly unresolved, it’s a good second best. Meet people, have some laughs, amusement, brush off the darkness in my head.

Trouble is, Erin isn’t up to it, and Sarah bails because she finds out at the last minute that Craig is going to be there, and she’s still not recovered enough to face him socially just yet. The news also brings the Craig issue back up, brushes off the dust and gets it all nice and fresh for her.

There’s also the option of a party at Dan’s, one to celebrate Erin’s return to the states. She bails. It’s probably wise, but it does not exactly send the subtlest of messages across when she chooses to hang out with me rather than attend a party in her honour.

Sarah heads off down the coast to do her usual illegal under the counter work in Half Moon Bay. Its a coffee place that used to be named after the owner - Liz ‘McCoffee’. Problem is, the fat tossers of McDonalds took exception to the little ‘c’. So even though it’s the owner’s bloody name, they decided to slam her into court and rag on the justice system about her plagiarising the bullshit little trademark. Prime cut wankers or what?

The owner had to settle of course. How the fuck can you stand up to that level of corporate monstrosity with that much money to slam into bullshit lawsuits? It’s disturbing to think that there are operatives out there, just wandering around like hit men with briefcases of law instead of guns, checking phone books, looking for small businesses to butt fuck.

It’s a coffee house in a small coastal town, get a life, stupid McPricks. There was absolutely no fucking resemblance, the store looked like a little coffee shop, it was white, with flowers and local pictures, no cunt head golden arches, no dildo red and gold, no pissy service. Get a grip and sort it out. Power corrupts, and truly McDonalds is now the spokesman and lobby for the antichrist. So even though everyone still calls it McCoffee, legally its ‘M. Coffee’. At this point I start decide that I shall install my second principal in life, so I now have two actual moral principles, the most I’ve ever had.

Number one is never fly British Airways because of that dirty campaign they pulled on Richard Branson of Virgin. They were paying off Virgin customers as they arrived at the airport to catch their flight, offering them stupid money so they’d fly with them instead, the reason being to catch all his business, put him out of the market and return to their normal high prices.

The other is now never to eat at McDonalds, because how can I bitch about a corporation then eat there? I wonder what everyone would think if they knew that a percentage of every pound or dollar they give these cunts, they use to fuck over someone like Liz? They had a funeral for the name and everything after it happened, the town showing up in black for a party. Small town life must rule so much.

Of course, I have to pause before starting this principle, because when you shop at Safeway at the moment, on the back of the receipt is a voucher for one free Big Mac when you buy one. Once the offer ends in a few weeks, I’ll do it then, and won’t go back, no matter what offers come up.

Erin and her sister Heather worked there too, and it seems it funds every local kid’s passage to other countries or to college. Paying for college man, that’s fucked up right there. But then again so’s paying for the doctor, treatment, even a stinking ambulance. Man, if I were charged for all the injuries I’d sustained in life, like my busted arms, appendix and tonsils, I would be in deep debt for the rest of my life, and several other incarnations as well.

With time on our hands and nowhere real to go, me and Erin resort to a bar to pass our time. It’s a wise idea. Round the corner, in an area predominantly club related is the Twenty Tank Brewery. It’s an archetypal, almost cliché scene. Sitting on stools at the bar, watching the television screens, the barman tossing bottles and bestowing his own home brand of irreverent banter to any who requested it by listening to him.

The marked differences were that it only had twenty ales, which range via shade from darkest to lightest. Also, the televisions are playing Earth : Final Conflict, a decent enough sci-fi show that I had never really watched, but which had special significance now, because we fell in love with the theme tune last time we were on acid in England (Christ, the tabs had Teletubbies picures on it. Now that was scary). The background music that joins and merges with the teevee has a cool eighties density to it that more than makes up for the iffy ale. It’s good ale, but I ain’t really into ale. Ah fuck it, the ambience is wicked, so here I plant myself and here I booze.

When we return, it is to intoxicating play of a more substantial vein with our old friend vodka, of course. And soon after, the Sarah returns out of the blue after having been kicked out of work. The tale behind this baffled and bewildered no end.

At yonder coffee joint, there works a chick called Donna. This new age creation of white arcane arts, tarot and other incredulous flights of occult fancy is equal to Sarah in stature at the place, not even eclipsing her in rank. Well, Sarah had sunk back into a depression about Craig, largely no doubt because of the reminder prompted by the party. Thus she wasn’t in a great mood, but then, who is when they’re at work? She was then informed by said hippy bitch that her unleashed energies were creating a vortex, and because Donna did not have any shields up, it was causing her back pain, and that if she did not get said energies under control in the next twenty minutes, she might as well go home.

Jumping Jesus spotted dog Christ on a pogo stick, how in the name of bloody buggery does someone cause physical distress with their fucking ‘aura’? This sort of neo-hippy twaddle drives me fucking nuts. What? So this is now a precedent? You can make a complete pants of a job interview because you have holes in your aura? Can you be arrested by the pigs for bodily harm because of your negative waves? Newspaper headline-- man arrested for twelve counts of causing back pain with a malevolent vortex. Deary me.

So Sarah departed, largely because she was actually willing, and used this presented and laughable excuse to leave rather than contest it. She announced with derision that she was going to ‘swirl around in her vortex’ and left to join us where we finished our task of boozing.