Notch another one up on the cell wall of this glorious prison.

If I were Christ, I'd be dead now.

This day, thirty three years ago, I was born, kicking, mewling and covered in amniotic fluid, into this world.

It must have been something like death, nothing into something, a huge intake of breath, all consuming blinding light and then something approximating a baby's limited way of expressing,

"WHAT THE FUCK!??"

Thankfully, that white light, and that expression, have followed me all my days.

Rarely do I wake and take the world around me for granted, and rarely do I rise unaware of how the two of us dance.

As Milton says in Paradise Lost

"The mind is it's own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven"

It is seldom nowadays that I allow it to become Hell, that, after all, is what adolescence is for.

But give me a few years before I have mastered the transformation of every day into Heaven.

Though I have mastered the daily wonder of it all though, for the rest of my days.

Do what thou wilt, shalt be the whole of the Law.

Love is the Law, love under Will

Peace and Hope

FatherCrow.


* any reference to a Judaeo Christian point of view is used as allegory and for metaphorical purposes only, I don't wear this damn Pentacle for nothing you know.

Good Friday Rave.

If you are in Ireland this offical national day of mourning, trapped between closed pubs and open church's then there is really no other option....the second in my series of seasonal party bullitin's.

The infoline for the Good Friday party is: 087-6869435.

Weatherman says there may be some showers but we've got a marquee so
CALM DOWN!

Tír Na gCasta, Dratpak, Muddy Crew DJs and computer set with some
original choons from Zee. Bar, visuals, bonfire, CDs for sale.

Turkish baths, thai massage parlours, lounge, swimming pool,
parachute jumps etc...

http://www.tirnagcasta.org


Peace and Hope

FatherCrow.

When everybody knows your name......

Yes, I think it is the only way.

This is after all the era of PS2 designer multi-angle violence, Reality TV shows that goad their Sweet little Whorehalls into acts of clumsy battery, Grief pornography burning into our retinas again and again, from the twin towers to the tsunami, school shooters and advertisers hawking your own death with a free desert camo suit into the bargain.

It seems that swift meaningless violence with no context will today dress you in that tux and have all the paparazzi flitting round you like flashbulb butterflies. If you don't have any talent, imagination but do have abusive parents, schoolmates that force your skinny carcass through Hell every day and a blog that nobody reads there seems to be only one option.

Random, Sudden, and merciless violence. Every shot will echo across the world, they will of course all be sorry and those girls that laughed at you, well they won't be laughing anymore. Your fame will shimmer across the fibre optic network that we have streched across the skin of the planet, and above there will be talk of you between the stars as the satellites whisper.

Sign that form, the one that states you are over 18 and do not suffer from any form of mental illness.

Or better yet, creep upstairs, open your dads closet door and crack that gunsafe.

Open that black holdall and pile that gun metal blue over gun metal blue. Go to your place of work, or your school and pick your first target, the rest will fall into place, once you squeeeeze.

The gun shouts and kicks, the rag doll falls, look for others whimpering, shivering and wide eyed beneath their desks, every corpse is 10,000 points, 10,000 neilson points.

If you survive you should be feared, respected interviewed and even in jail, get wedding proposals....it worked for Ted Bundy.

If you die, well your blog will get more attention than you ever dreamed, the hit counter will spin so fast it will induce digital orgasm.

Load the Gun.

"Click, Click, Click, Click!"

Listen to that, its the fucking sound of history.

The Virus spreads, another kid who is just like you were, sits sedated in front of the TV news, not hearing the screams of his parents, he watches the cops bring your bagged corpse outside. And now, well, now you've got him thinking.

Now he's next to be consumed by this media virus that kills quicker than Ebola.

Peace and Hope.

FatherCrow

WHAT ARE YOU? HIGH!?!?

I've managed to drag myself away from the bong for a second to write something about developments in the international status of Marijuana.

Not to labour the point, but since the illegalisation of Marijuana by the United States in the 1930's stoner's the world over have been sitting around in their living rooms, passing the spliffs and talking about the insanity of the "demon weed" being illegal.

We have used the early anti-weed propaganda to laugh riotiously to whilst stoned, we have discussed the myriad medical uses for it, from cancer treatment, to AIDS treatment, to plain old mood disorder medication. We have waxed lyrical about saving the rainforests and using the cash crop that is Mary Jane to make everything from paper, to clothing, to lip balm, like we used to do before DuPont introduced its paper making machine in the 30's that would only work with trees.

We have ruminated on the fact that the more laws there are, the more criminals there are. We have mourned the locking up of half a million people in the US for the crime of being found in posession of this Medicine, helping to create the worlds largest national percentile of citizens incarcerated. We have stood back amazed at the triumph of common sense as it has been legalized for Medicinal use in several countries, and its effective decriminalisation in Holland, England, Portugal. We have mourned the reactionary post September 11th losses of decriminalisation in Switzerland and Italy.

Of course, since we've been too stoned to leave the house and spread the word, all this has pretty much been preaching to the converted as we giggle and help the economy with millions of euro worth of crisp and chocolate purchases, and pizza, don't forget pizza.

Dubya, of course, being the man he is has steadfastly refused to give an inch on anything in his administration, let alone a revision of the Marijuana policy.

In fact, Dubya has obeyed exactly one international court decision: a WTO (World Trade Organization) ruling that destroyed his protections for American steel. Why did Dubya listen to the WTO if he discarded all other International court decisions? What had he to fear? Well, the WTO are capable of inducing trade sanctions, and it understands the concept of punishment. The sanctions that it would apply would effect US exports. Once that happens, farmers and industry, the lynchpin of the Republican parties financial support start to feel the their belt's tighten, around their necks.

Once these people start hurting, Dubya knows that they are gonna make his party suffer the financial consequences.

But now the WTO has issued a second ruling. They have called the US Marijuana policy "a barrier to trade". The WTO operates under a policy of what they call "National Treatment" and requires that all bans be based on good science (which in itself presents a problem, as even recent government sponsored studies have presented no reason as to why marijuana should be banned).

Now "National Treatment" is the crux here. That particular piece of WTO jargon boils down to this: if you tax Irish Whisky imports but not American domestic product, then it is considered protectionism, which is bad for trade. The comparison to Marijuana is pretty self evident: Local marijuana-growing has a semi-legal status in the United States, however importing of foreign marijuana is totally banned. Within the WTO's frame of reference, that is called illegal discrimination in favor of local producers. It also matters not a jot from a WTO point of view that the growing of Medicinal Marijuana is specific to a few, pardon the term, "rogue states", if it's grown legally and sold in the states, anywhere in the states, for any purpose, then the ruling stands. The estimated gross of the domestic US marijuana industry as stated by the NORML organization is 15 billion dollars, which makes it a hard decision to argue against.

The current White House position on the issue is that Marijuana, even if it makes people "Feel Better" is not a medicine, however the previous administrations 1999 medical study concluded that “the accumulated data suggest a variety of indications, particularly for pain relief, antiemesis, and appetite stimulation.” Such findings cannot help Dubya and Co's argument. The only thing that they have left to fall back on is the usual non scientific hearsay.....Marijuana makes people "bad" and as we all know "bad" people go to prison, well at least it's not "evil" or who knows what measures would be enacted against them.

In order for the WTO to consider the legality of the US anti marijuana laws a complaint would have to be brought against it by another country, so any legalization or decriminalisation will not happen tomorrow. Though I feel there is a certain inevitability to the eventual arrival of this complaint as more and more countries now allow the licensed growing of Marijuana among them, Holland, Canada, Britan and Belgium, and given the voracious nature of today's capitalistic society, today's growers will be tomorrow's exporters. The most likely complainent will be Canada, as there is an historical precident. Canada, during the US prohibition of Spirits was one of the biggest exporter of the liquid dope to America, and with the consumption of green leafy dope in the US, can it be long before the Canadian growers want to boost their domestic pot industry which already reaches 7 billion. The Canadian complaint will most likely begin "Hey Dude, thats not freakin' fair......."

So what about the rest of us? Well in much the same way as Ireland generally follows Englands lead (though several years later) we here in my country may well be on the way to decriminalisation, but time will tell.

For the rest of the world, and this is but rampant speculation, I think that once the US decriminalises, the US that is now at the forefront of not only the "war on terror" but also the "war on drugs" it will have a knock on effect and perhaps all those stoner conversations that I have had behind closed doors will soon be able to be held outside a cafe, coffee in one hand, and a spliff in the other.

Peace and Hope

FatherCrow

They took my brain...

And I had to watch....

They strapped me down, got that cranial claw hammer and applied enough pressure for me to hear that sickening hollow cracking as the roof of my skull was prised open, sucking sounds, and a child giggling.

Then they got a desert spoon and scooped out big gloopy portions of my hypothalamus, partially filling a jam jar........

I know this because they set up a monitor for me to watch every special surgical moment on.

Small mercies, they gave me a local..

As a direct result of this invasive surgery I have been lacking in inspiration and motivation for this blog.

Posting will resume as normal when the severed fibres of my brain heal, and the mutilated fragments of my previous personality merge into something new, something horrible, "the other" .

The only thing that keeps me aware that I am still human is the fact I still have an over-riding hatred of Pat Kenny.

Will post when I get around to giving a damn.

Peace and Hope

FatherCrow

Remember! you too can afford to make the Squirrel lamp, if only you could find the money, well send only $5 and I will send you the surgical scalpel that will allow you to find the MONEY IN HAMSTERS

Peace and Hope

FatherCrow

The Bonfire of Mammon is stealing our Air.

Housing developers truly are the scum of the earth, not that this is news to anyone, but sometimes it really hits home.

I live in what those fucks call a "forest park residential developement" which according to the literature is akin to what Asterix readers would be familiar with if they have ever read "The Mansions of the Gods" i.e. a beautiful forest and one or two fields with about three blocks of apartments in the middle.

The Apartments are in that endless stretch of suburban desert named NAME OF TOWN. Endless estate after estate of identikit houses punctuated occasionally by a Spar shop, or if you are exceedingly lucky, an industrial estate. In fact I think the entire complement of trees that are ten years or over in NAME OF TOWN are located just next to my apartment complex which I am sure was responsible for the destruction of the last recognisable forest in the area. The few trees that are left have been marked with little silver tags, which have been attached to the trees by nails driven through their bark to spare them from the construction workers chainsaw.

The place was a T.B. islolation area in the fifties, which is, I am sure, why no one built there until about seven years ago.

The disease kept the trees safe, controlled the virus with shoes.

Now I am a practicing occultist, with an obvious sympatico with nature, due to my upbringing, and so as a regular thing I spend a good deal of time walking though the remaining trees, and upon occassion performing magickal rituals there. It's amazing to me how there can be one little strip of natural forest left here, with what must amount to at least three thousand people living in the area and for the whole three plus years that I have been living in NAME OF APARTMENT COMPLEX I have never encountered one single person walking in those woods. I put it down to a peculiar psychology that must obviously effect individuals who live in apartment complexes..

Thankfully I only work in this area, and spend most of my time either in my girlfriends house in Dublin city center (which surprisingly has more trees) or in Howth, where my family resides, which is as close to undisturbed natural beauty as you can get in the post industrial miracle of Celtic Tiger Dublin.

The Developers have, as I am sure will surprise no one, decided to build yet another block of lego apartments, and of late have been creating huge mounds of dirt, and driving new metal stakes into the ground to mark the beginnings of what I am sure will become a eight foot fence.

None of this I mind.

But this morning after rising and making my way out of the complex, I saw one of the aincent trees on the periphery of this last sad remanent of untended nature felled, rended and dead, corpse like on the side of the road. Tag intact.

The last old trees in NAME OF TOWN may be at risk from these cunts who advertise their nature complemented monstrosities and then destroy the last of the nature that made them all that money in the first place.

I saw no Earthmovers, no JCB's no trucks near the site, but if and when I do, and if and when they leave them there overnight there will be sugar in the petrol tanks.

If they continue, I will send the construction company a note to tell them the trees have been spiked. The practice of "spiking" involves driving a spike of a foot or more into the tree, and then camulflaging the entry point so that anyone who attempts to fell the tree runs the risk of the blade of his chainsaw hitting the spike and spitting back in his face. I will not of course spike the trees, but the threat is a good deterrant.

This will Not Stand.

Peace and Hope

FatherCrow

The Raves have started again, CALL THE COPS...

Oh yes, as the cold spring sun beats down on the distant peaks of the Dublin mountains, and the flowers and hibernating animals wake, you can begin to hear the relentless drumming of distant soundsystems beat again, faint now but slowly, slowly stronger.

We have come out of hibernation with our rare herbs and perscribed chemicals to haunt the countryside again.

This time though, we start in Dublin.

Spring is well and truly here........

I just picked this up off of the subculture info feed. The first of many.

We cannot be stopped.

>On Monday in association with Music Soc
> > >
> > >DCU Electronic Music Society Will be holding an on campus FREE PARTY!
> > >
> > >The Electronic Music Society DJs will be driving a 4k rig in a marquee
> > outside
> > >the hub. Many different styles and sounds on show so there'll b something
> > >for everyone, so put the studies on hold cos its not often we get the chance
> > >to do this!!!!
> > >
> > >Should be starting at 12 in the day and ruunin all day and into the nite
> > >and if the weather sucks the bar is available all nite too!!!!
> > >
> > >Any DJ's interested in playin contact me asap!

I probably won't get there, but that is because myself and my crew are invading Cork next weekend for a 48 hour bout of hedonism, and I need to conserve my batteries.

Further announcements about horrendous hedonsitic illegality will of course be made here on the blog.

So let us begin the party, and keep your eyes peeled for the rich man's milita

Peace and Hope

FatherCrow

And I alone returned to tell thee........

So I am back, back in a country that does not see the need to use "W" and "Y" as vowels.

The weekend was, as I am sure everyone who was involved in it would testify, a success.

Friday came, and we drove out to the Irish Ferries section of Dublin port, armed with a booking number given by the company that Wednesday. I had the cheery disposition of everyone who has stayed in Dublin too long, and then gets the chance to remove themselves from its clutches has. It was all sorted, it was all falling into place. Sanity would be given a sanctuary in that most unlikely of places, Wales.

Unfortunatly when we arrived at the desolate terminal that was overshadowed by the vast bulk of the ferry that was to be our conveyance, it was empty. Well empty save one confused employee who unsucessfully tried to hide himself behind the cheap paperback novel that he was reading. It took me three "ehm!"'s and one "EXCUSE ME!" to get his attention. I quoted the booking number at him, just so as to gain the upper hand and put him off balance. Unfortunatly the upper hand was then used to slap me into stunned silence. "Sorry mate, the ferry is not running today". What the Fuck!!!??? the weather was fine. Turned out that our boat had "Technical problems" which either meant that the fucking thing was going to sink if we tried to board it or that they were trying to find the right bulb to fit the Captains desk lamp. Either way, there was no way it was moving today. I asked when this situation had arisen. Monday, the problems started Monday, when some arsehole in Irish Ferries had, that Wednesday been happy to book me a ticket for a non existent ferry.

The whole experience taught me one thing. Irish Ferries are a bunch of unspeakable lying bastards who are not to be trusted and more than that, not to be given any money, under any circumstances whatsoever.

Stena Line, however were most accomodating, and but for a change of location to Dun Laoighre we were on our way by four pm that day.

The catamaran ferry was more like a floating shop, and for the hour and fourty minutes that myself and M were on board we amused ourselves by sending the gross "bloke dressed up as bunny in a dress with menstrual problems" pic to any bluetooth enabled phone on board, no one knew who we were, and so no one could find us to kill us.

Z, fighting any genetic predisposition he may have had to be late, surprisingly arrived on time, sober, with car, and without police. We on the other hand got delayed as we moved through the "nothing to declare" section of customs and found, to our slight unease the door barred. Three minutes passed when I decided to jump up and down in front of the security camera wildly gesturing to those underpaid civil servants that may have been watching the monitor deep down in the bowels of the Hollyhead port that the door was locked. It turned and stared with it's unblinking eye at the barred door. In another five minutes we were set free.

The drive back to Z's was uneventfull save for a long THX1138 like tunnel that made me want to shave my girlfriends head, just to complete that seventies futuristic dystopia feel. We called first to Z's friends and employers and had some tea and tea. I have a video on my phone of a sliver of the evening, which is mostly me begging for food. Eventually Z gave in, and presented us with one mushroom each.

Hysterical laughter followed until bedtime. The mushroom did not have too much nutritional value, but it did work as a substitute for dinner, after an hour we no longer wanted to eat.

The following day, rising at the surprisingly early time of ten am, we gathered our tea, and set forth for "The Village" of Portmerrion. We had a map, but in a country that uses, as I said before the letters "Y" and "W" as vowels we were as lost as complete illiterates. Z who has been exploring many towns and villages of North Wales in the last six months commented that when he returned to work and talked to his friends, he was unable at any point, after any trip to tell ANYONE where he had been, such is the nature of the Welsh language, so suffice to say we thought we were fucked and would be found dead and thawing in some Welsh valley come the Spring. However, we knew it was a coastal village, and so we set our compass and sextent for the coast and roared up into the snow topped peaks of the Welsh mountains. To any who say that all the Welsh have are hills, I hex you with the threat of Snowdon dropping on your pet's head. The country side was that of myth. The rolling mountains dragged us up into the sky, and as we moved the trees, rivers and lakes of North Wales moved below escorting us on our journey to The Village. I remember in the series of the "Prisoner" one of the main questions that remained unanswered was "where is the village?" there were various clues, it could have been in Spain, or even the Balkans as it was inferred at one point. To me though, the village was right where it was meant to be, as you had to drive through mountains, and forests to get to the remote seaside town. If you actually lived in Portmerrion, and had no transport, it would be even more difficult to leave than Number Six had found it.

Portmerrion itself, was almost unchanged since the 1966/67 filming of The Prisoner, all the familiar landmarks were there. The tower, the Town Hall, Number Six's house, the boat that went nowhere, none of it has changed. I moved through it, after paying my entrance fee of Five Pounds half expecting the spooky shape of "Rover" to try and herd me back to the square if I tried to get too far down the beach. If you are a fan of the series, or even of odd follies made by eccentric Lords to enhance areas of natural beauty, portmerrion should be the first spot you visit should you ever enter into the Hills and Valleys of Wales.

So after getting the first meal since we arrived in the country, and picking up one or two Prisoner related pieces of merchandise we decided Lucy was not to be taken out. She would take up too much time and we would not be in a fit state to drive back across the mountains, though if we did take her out, we would probably try, and that was not really a risk that we were prepared to take. In any event, Portmerrion was as surreal as it was going to get, plus the fact I could not figure out if it was bad or good Ju Ju to follow that path, so in the end we abandoned it.

On the way back through the mountains, because L had wondered if we were going to come across a snowman in Wales we drove to the highest peak, and there fashioned a snow drift into something resembeling a human being. The weather at that height was horrifying, all sleet and biting wind that turned the skin blue. The snowman, whom we never though of a name for was pretty hard to build, seeing as M had lost her gloves, and I had lost one glove, misery, pain and misery, it's amazing what one is willing to put oneself through for children. Though it was not all for naught, as we have photographs of the pityfull Snowman. L was pleased enough.

That evening was spend in Z's house stealing cars and doing unspeakably brutal things to the guardians of the law, though the technological miracle of GTA "Vice City", at one point I was arrested after stealing a swat van and running down what must have been half a precinct. My one excuse is that I had "drink taken" we had to stop after a while, for M regained conciousness and threatened to do to us what we had done to the computerized cops if we did not turn off the damn game. Fair enough, and then to bed.

Sunday (and I realise that I am not writing all I should be, for I am tired and the words at this point do not come easy) we woke at one pm, late, but early enough for us to take a shower and then drive like speed freak fugitives across the border, to England, Manchester and my longest friend R.

We actually made it this time from the directions we were given over the phone (answer yourself this question, how many times have you found your way with no difficutly to where you were going when the destination was in a different country than the one you were in, and you only had directions that were given over the phone? - nuff said). R and N (her wonderfull and pleasent girlfriend) met us in a pub called, and I joke not, the "Spread Eagle" which was much like a pub in some British kitchen sink drama about a bunch of mental patients that had been released from the bin, and eventually found their way to a local. I was able to keep my mind on the conversation that R and myself were having, despite the "chas and dave without the beard" lookalike that was trying to dance with women he did not know behind us. This I think is what was for me, the highlight of the trip, not only did I get to meet my longest friend again, and her beautiful and charming girlfriend, but I was asked to give her away at her wedding to said beautiful and charming girlfriend in place of her father, who is of the sort of traditional stock who would resist coming to such an occassion, homosexuality being, as we all know the stock in trade of the devil. To be honest, I have such love and affection for R, and I have known her so long, that this request brought tears to my eyes, would I like to give her away? would I like to continue breathing, it's the same equation to me.

Z had to make it home that night, as he, poor soul, had work in the morning, and so we had to make our apologies and head back to the Kingdom of North Wales, where we talked long into the night, about sheep, y's and w's and all thouse other things that concern it's citizens.

I miss R and Z already.

Z if you read this blog, you were a wonderful host, and a most amusing and incorrigible companion, I will recommend you to all my most beautifull, single and sexually open female friends.

R, I cannot wait.

and to the rest of you, you should have been there.

Peace and Hope

FatherCrow