The Ballads Of Mister Rhodes

“The problem with computers Is that there is not enough Africa in them.” - Brian Eno   I don’t have long. I’m running a bath. It’s the first time in about three months I’ve had hot water, and I’m sick. Nothing to concern yourselves with, just my body over-reacting to a shift in the weather. I also said that I’d be away for some time, but we need to talk.  Now, I imagine most of you will have absolutely no idea what I’m about to waffle on about, and less of you will care, but bear with me, the anecdote fares well here. Grimes is a well-known celebrity. I’m sure she’d implore that I use terms such as ‘musician’ or ‘sonic engineer,’ but quite frankly she can get fucked. Grimes is a well-known celebrity amidst a world of well-known celebrities playing musician. Well, Grimes decided she was going to be a DJ. It’s a common thing for people who like music to decide. I, myself, did it back in my 20s.  See, there I am right there all the way back in 2007, being a DJ. It’s cool to ...

 How to begin? By explaining the lapse of time between these two sentences? What a bore. Or perhaps, how beautiful the sky looks tonight. An imperfect kind of charm. Warts and all. The sky looks as if it has been painted there. By a young woman, top of her art class. She painted it from the words given to her by Van Gough as he described a sky that had once been described to him by a middle-aged woman with a severe learning disability, and a big heart. That sky up there... It is something special this evening, and I have no interest in what goes on below it. Everything down here is the same, on repeat. Insipid and unmoving. The second hand of a dying clock fighting against gravity between forty and forty-one seconds. Outside, the dismembered parts of chicken rotate on the spit, from raw to well-done, their own culinary metaphor for the passers by. There are birds in cages hanging from trees, but you cannot hear birdsong, not now the portable speakers have been wheeled into the cour...