The Ballads Of Mister Rhodes

 "The only thing that can ruin a good day  is people." - Hemmingway A little way down the beach you'll encounter something between a fold in time and a public exhibition of why things might go wrong. Like most things, the more crucial patterns of human behaviour are not to be found in freak incidents and news headlines. We don't need to bare witness to young men with machetes or remorseless rape gangs to see which way the slope is facing, although it is unlikely to be completely unrelated. What you need to be, is on the lookout for the small everywhere things. In the last five years of my life I've lived in Phu Quoc, Vietnam. A place where I have witnessed the gap between music and futuristic construction noise grow smaller, but louder, and wider spread. So don't be surprised as you head a little way down the beach if you start hearing such a noise. These events are called 'team building exercises,' and they are put on by larger organisations to inject...

As I walk down the stairs with dogs to leave the appartment building we live in, I hear the toddler that belongs to somewhat at the massage parlour downstairs. I double wrap the dog’s leashes around my right hand and stand and wait. They probably wouldn’t do anything, but it one should always take precautions when they are available. A woman, who I am presuming is the mother, rushes through the door and snatches the toddler off the ground and runs around the corner, pressing them both against the elevator door. The mother’s eyes are wide with panic. My dogs are silent, sat waiting for my go ahead to continue down the stairs.  I feel something like a registered sex offender must feel as parents rush out on to the porch to usher their little ones inside, as they walk down the street to go buy some eggs, and perhaps a newspaper. It is that reminder that you are seen as something you can be, and not as the something you are at that moment. I don’t blame the woman for taking precautions...

 I should write this like a sigh. Not a particularly deep one. Then delete it all, quickly, without self-reproach. There are, after all, parts of us that have not blossomed to be shared.  Songs About The War by Jamie Rhodes My dog is looking at me like I'm expected to do something. Immediately. We were out walking along an unlit dirt track the other evening. Some way out in front of us was the silhouette of a man using his bike as a seat, smoking cigarettes. Both dogs became upright, their ears tall. Low growls from both of them as we got closer. I wrapped their leashes around my right hand, freeing my left. A skinny Eastern European, possibly late for the sunset. As we walked passed him the dogs eased up, and I let one off the leash and continued on, listening for any sound of footsteps behind me. The dogs relaxed, and so did I. As I passed him, I took a short moment to eye what I could. His frame. What he had with him. How he was dressed. His expression. The notes of his voi...

“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...

 The devil is tugging ever so gently on my coattails. I am not particularly interested in whatever it is he might want, so I will just sit here until he tires from lack of recognition. If I hold my breath I can hear their world, so I must keep breathing along with the gentle whirring of the AC. Finding my own rhythm, despite how clearly their electronic bass drums thud from molecule to molecule in the open air. Funny how we call it that: Open air. It has never felt particularly open, or airy. I find the outside world rather prison-like. It is imposing. Much like wandering around a zoo, but flipped on its head. Their captivity is freedom as some of us wander around taking note of what is going on in those metaphorical cages. The more we learn, the more we wonder which side of the cages we are on. Artwork by   Müge Olçum In this moment, I make a promise to myself: To not mention any item from the static list of gripes I have. I refuse to give any of it precise explanation. No mo...

  "If one is to dream, it is no use being too adverse   to nightmares." I’ve been steering clear of blank pages. All that space for more space. An invitation for time spent homing in on aches and pains. Wondering what parts of the body don’t work as they used to. What pieces of information have departed entirely? Names, promises, important dates, the minutes that have passed since I poured oil into the frying pan that grows increasingly angry about my neglect on the stove. More often than not, the bath water is tepid by the time I get around to testing the water temperature with my foot. It’s not that I am particularly busy, I am merely distracted. I am interested in how all of this feels ten or twenty years from now. In my sixties, a relaxing warm sensation reminding me that I was meant to piss. Empty hands at a close friend’s birthday celebration and I have no idea who I’m standing next to or how we got there. Things escape me until they can no longer be escaped.  The...