Life and Death

On Monday I encounter baby armadillos, which is a first. They're at the side of the trail, snuffling around in the undergrowth with manic energy, three of them. I've seen armadillos in the wild before, but not often. They're usually adults, and a single hasty move is all it has taken to send them scurrying away. Added up, and excluding those I see squished on the highway with depressing frequency, I've seen a total of three armadillos in the wild, and that figure has just doubled. They are each about the size of a large, well-fed guinea-pig. I walk up to them slowly and carefully, and either they don't see me or they're not bothered. I get within about three feet and stand there for the next ten minutes just watching them.

That evening, we're driving past Catman's house on Sumner. Catman is the local crazy guy who feeds feral cats. We've stopped off at his house before, and he's okay, a nice guy with not an ounce of malice or aggression anywhere in his personality; and most of what he says is lucid, even interesting, but then you get digressions into how he foresaw both the collapse of the twin towers and the death of Lady Diana Spencer - also that he died and encountered angels before being brought back to life on more than one occasion. His testimony can be exhausting, but he has kittens scampering around in his yard.

'Kittens!' I squeal.

Bess steps on the brake and backs up at speed.

We get out and go to see the kittens.

Catman remembers us but not our names. He looks and smells better than he did last time. He had painful scrapes and bruises on his arms and legs, and his hair had been cut by someone who apparently thought they were shearing a sheep. Today he's more like a skinny version of Robert Crumb's Mr. Natural. He tells us about the kittens, and it becomes obvious that the way to talk to him is to keep him on the subject of cats, because that way he makes sense and will even listen. The mother of the kittens was killed by some dog, he tells us.

There are six kittens, same litter but different fathers, black, tabby, and four Siamese - six little scampering fluffballs looking up at us with buggy blue eyes. They climb all over as, mewing away. We watch them clean themselves, even having a pee and covering it over with soil. They're tiny, but apparently just old enough for their mother to have taught them all the important stuff. They'll probably be okay. That all six of them have survived this long in some guy's garden suggests that they're tough and healthy.

Tuesday is similarly grey. The skies have been heavy and overcast of late and I find it oppressive. Coming home from HEB, I see an opossum dead at the side of the road, most likely hit by a car. Worse still, I can see movement. There are babies spilling from her cooling pouch, alive but blind and hairless with ants swarming all around. They're doomed. They won't survive outside their mother or without her warmth. They're too small. It feels like the most horrible fucking thing I think I've seen. I could take them home and they will die. I leave them and they will die. I'm paralysed. Nature can be a  cunt at times, although I suppose on this occasion she was acting through some yahoo-fucknugget in a truck. I tell myself that critters die in the wild all the time and that this is no different.

I phone my wife and she tells me we have an animal rescue organisation in the city, and that it's worth giving them a call because they'll even come out for an injured sparrow. I give her the address of where I saw the opossum and she calls them.

In the evening we go back to see Catman and the kittens. We take a bag of kitten chow and some milk, because it's clear that they can use all the help they can get. Catman's care, through no fault of his own, seems a bit erratic. One of the kittens has gone missing. They're at the age where they want only to be friends with anything that moves, and Catman thinks the missing kitten probably followed the mail guy down the street and got lost. I'm telling myself that anyone decent finding the lost kitten will be unable to resist her fuzzy charm and will either give her a good home, or make the effort to find one for her; because that's what I would do. I don't want to have to think about other possibilities.

We feed the kittens in so much as that Catman sweeps a section of his path and tips out some of the dried chow. He takes an empty tin which once contained cat food from amongst the detritus scattered across his lawn, inspects the inside for crap, then pours out some kitten milk. Flies swarm around as the kittens stuff their faces.

Wednesday begins with the same grey sky, and Bess finds Gary dead in the road outside. Bess and I are devastated. I spend most of the day in either a daze or tears, and then I write this on facebook:

Gary wasn't really our cat, but he ended up living in our yard on a more or less permanent basis because his owner was an arsehole who probably didn't feed him properly, and never really seemed to give a shit about the endless succession of critters she has running around her yard for a couple of months before slouching off to die in traffic. Her name for him was Fat Cat, which probably tells you all you need to know. I renamed him Gary because Fat Cat seemed cruel, and because he reminded me of Gary, my neighbour in London - big, pushy, not very bright, always there hanging around when you open the back door, but essentially lovable. I fed him every day, left dry food out for him and the others, and yet he'd still run into the house at every opportunity, meowing his head off and burying his face in the food bowl. We usually let him eat for a few minutes, then would pick him up to take him back out. He purred like a motorbike as soon as he was picked up. He just liked the attention. The other cats eventually got used to him. He chased a few of them off every once in a while, but fights were few and far between. Once we took him for a day out, to spend time with Bess's grandmother, reasoning that it would do them both good and that he was uncomplicated and outgoing (and that she might even want to keep him), but he spent the entire time under the bed, just waiting for whatever it was to be over. This also put the dampers on a very vague plan we had of driving him up to Tennessee and giving him to my friend Sarah who was at the time looking for a large hairy cat. Anyway, today Bess found him in the road outside, presumably hit by a car. I didn't realise I would be quite so upset, but I guess he lived to a good age and at least his last few years were happy.

I dig a hole at the end of the garden. Bess comes home around lunchtime and we bury Gary. My heart is breaking.

That evening she comes home with Catman's kittens, all five of them bundled up and blinking in her arms as she gets from the car. 'I couldn't stand to think of anything else happening to them.'

'I know,' I say.

'After the one went missing and then Gary, and the opossum you saw - I can't take any more dead critters this week.'

'Me neither. I went past and the opossum was still there. I guess those rescue people didn't think it was worth their effort.'

Bess sighs. 'I had my doubts. I called them a few years ago, that time we had a ringtail in the yard. It took them two hours to turn up.'

The kittens spend most of the day asleep in a little fluffy huddle in an old crib we have under the bed, with occasional bursts of activity and following anything that moves, including the other cats. We already have eight, so we won't be able to keep them, but we can at least give them a decent start in life.

It feels like the storm has broken.

Powwow

It's April so the Powwow season is upon us once again - same place as last time, although when I check I realise that last time was actually 2015. Now that I'm in my fifties, now that I've finally got all my thoughts working in a straight line, the time just rockets past.

It's Saturday morning, which began with a craft fair drive-by in the name of research for when Bess and myself start selling our stuff. This one was open air, on the land just behind the drive-in cinema on the southside. It's held twice a month and pitches are free, which possibly correlates with what we saw as we went by - a row of ten stalls and seemingly no actual punters, although I suppose it was early and the skies were a little grey.

We picked a Mexican diner for lunch, or possibly late breakfast. It's difficult to pick a bad Mexican diner in San Antonio, but not impossible. You can usually tell a good one by the hand painted signage on walls and even windows in emulsions so bright that it hurts to look at them, and also by how many white people can be found amongst your fellow diners. The fewer there are, the better the food will usually be. It's depressing but that's how it works.

I have huevos rancheros and Bess has taquitos and we're set for the rest of the day, so we drive along to Woodlawn Lake. We can already hear the drumming before we've parked, the familiar monotonous beat in 1/1 time - Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom…
 

We talk about Tiana who lives up North somewhere, who came down to meet us in Austin last year. She's mostly Native and a regular face at the Shinnecock Powwows - at least I think they're Shinnecock, one of the tribes I hadn't heard of. Bess has been to Powwows in New Mexico and Arizona, and they're not all the same thing, not by a long way. She tells me she has felt like an intruder at a few of them. Not all are so open or welcoming as the one we're going to, which is possibly something to do with it being part of Fiesta, the local annual holiday which takes over a week or two of April.

As usual we're in a repurposed basketball court, and as we find seats, there's a ceremony already underway, but it's as much to do with Fiesta as anything - the shaking of hands, swapping medals, men in full tribal dress sharing jokes with those declared royal for the duration of Fiesta, some distinguished by the sky blue uniforms of the Order of the Alamo. Eyes cast around the room find no clear line demarcating where Natives begin and the rest of us end, which I guess is similarly true of the local gene pool. I suppose we have extremes represented by the obviously Indian in regalia of feathers and animal bones contrasted with a few of the Alamo Heights set, usually most easily identified by face lifts and the look of having recently starred in an episode of Dynasty; but inclusivity is at least some of the point of this thing. On some level this might be considered an Indian Show, but then we're all having fun, which is probably better than invisibility.

There's a circle of guys at the centre of the hall, gathered around their drums and all in black shirts and Stetsons. The master of ceremonies speaks through a tannoy too distorted for me to really follow what he says, but it seems there will now be a dance. A larger circle forms around the drummers, all facing inwards.

Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom…

So many people are milling around that it's difficult to see who is actually dancing, but the rhythm is accompanied by a traditional chant, albeit with modern words, a chant probably very much like the thing you're imagining, having just read that sentence. It's familiar and yet experienced in the raw it sounds new and more powerful than one might have anticipated. The rhythm may seem rudimentary but the drums are huge and the skins resonate with a power felt in the gut, a deep bass that somehow makes me think of rave music and techno.

'There will be a cakewalk,' the announcer tells us, and that's all I understand, except that we are invited to participate. We are given paper plates with numbers written on the back. We form in a circle, again facing inwards, and place our plates on the ground before us. I'm still not actually sure what I've agreed to do.

Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom…

We dance. It's a shuffling motion whereby we all move sideways, clockwise around the ring of participants.

Fuck it, I say to myself. I'm going for it.

I dance next to a younger representative of the tribe in full dress, huge fans of eagle feathers running down his sleeves and back. I copy his moves and then improvise, hopping from foot to foot, putting a bit of elbow grease into it because it's actually fun - all very immersive. Another minute passes and we stop with the music, all picking paper plates up from the floor in front of us.

The master of ceremonies reads out a succession of numbers, and those with plates bearing the numbers run to the podium to received baked goods, pies, even a box of Little Debbie snack cakes. I suspect this tradition has been a more recent development, say the last couple of years rather than anything handed down from one generation to another. We've combined musical chairs with the tombola and the Mario, a dance famously described in the closing theme to the Super Mario Bros. Super Show.

Do the Mario!
Swing your arms from side to side
Come on, it's time to go!
Do the Mario!
Take one step, and then again,
Let's do the Mario, all together now!
You got it!
It's the Mario!
Do the Mario!

One YouTube commentator pointed out that the Mario is a lot like walking, and so is the cakewalk.

'He's from England,' I can hear Bess explain to some other dancer, but I missed whatever point she was trying to qualify, and I don't really care because we're off again.

Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom Bom bom…

We keep going until they've shifted all the cakes. Neither Bess nor myself won any of the cakes or pies, but then we're still full of huevos rancheros and taquitos so we're not too bothered.

Starving Artists

We're on a fact finding expedition to something called the Starving Artists Show. Bess and myself have been gearing up to hitting the craft fairs in the hope of selling our respective works and generating a bit of wonga, and this constitutes research. I've been painting on canvas, and I need to know what to expect - what the standard is at this kind of event, how much people generally charge and for what? This will be new ground for me because I've previously only sold my paintings intermittently and have always worked in acrylics. Now I'm trying my hand at oils, meaning I'm effectively having to learn all over again.

The Starving Artists Show takes place in la Villita, roughly speaking a nineteenth century village of small limestone buildings at the heart of San Antonio, and which arguably was San Antonio back in the good old days of rickets and slavery. Today it's an artists' community just south of the city centre, meaning it's mostly galleries, stores selling hand crafted nick-nacks - some quite nice, some fucking awful - a couple of eating places, and general artisanal shite. I mostly think of the pieces sold in la Villita as art for people who don't really like art, but who otherwise pride themselves on knowing what they like. If you're after something with the intensity of a Billy Childish woodcut, then la Villita probably isn't where you're going to find it. On the other hand, it's not a bad place to pick up handmade Mexican folk art.

We begin with a visit to one of the stores because Bess is friends with the woman who works there. They talk and I wander around the shop, picking up clay figurines and inspecting them. The world of mass-produced injection-molded souvenir tat in which I grew up is long gone, but I still can't work out how I feel about its replacement. I like that the precious things of the shop were made by a human being, and I suppose they're nice enough in their own way; but they operate within a system of values which I don't understand. There's nothing here I really need to own, and I can't see the point of having anything you can't claim to need by some definition.

We move on, having had the obligatory discussion about our respective cats. The narrow streets of la Villita are lined with temporary tents and awnings, and each is hung with art of one kind or another, and all of it for sale. The standard is better than I'd anticipated. I'd expected lurid Disney characters scrawled by persons with more enthusiasm than talent, and although that stuff is here, it's thankfully in the minority. On the other hand, I'm surprised to realise that my own fledgling works in oil - of which I'm happy with less than half of those painted so far - are probably above average compared to most of these efforts. There isn't actually much I'd be happy to see hung in a gallery, the one exception being the work of an old guy specialising in Western themes, with desert landscapes painted at least to the standard of Frederic Remington. His canvases are large and he's asking hundreds of dollars for them. I too would be asking for hundreds of dollars had I painted them.

Moving on, the best work seems to be mostly what you could just about call Post-Impressionist, tending towards the representational, and competently so, but with a slightly wild approach to colour. There are plenty of abstract works, if we're going to call them works, but patently produced in the belief of splashes of colour being sufficient in and of themselves. The best abstract painters, in my view, tend to be those who learned to paint like Titian before moving on to non-representational realms of expression. You make a better job of breaking rules when you're at least a little familiar with what they are. I don't think those selling their work today have arrived at the abstract by quite the same route.

I look at the prices. There isn't much under one-hundred dollars, and those which are tend to be tiny nick-nacky canvas squares with a single twee image - a heart or a peace symbol which can't have taken more than a half minute of fingerpainting. I've been thinking of selling my canvases for around sixty dollars, at least those I like, so I guess I won't have to feel guilty about the possibility that I might be overcharging.

We turn the corner into the next street and it seems to be getting worse. More and more I'm seeing Frida fucking Kahlo. I don't have anything specific against Frida Kahlo, beyond that she tended to paint the same tea-towel self-portrait over and over again, but she was never the saviour of modernism - if anyone still remembers what that was.

We reach the lowest circle at the end of this second street - Mexican folk art and Día de los Muertos skulls embellished with the catchphrase Go Spurs Go. The San Antonio Spurs are the local basketball team, none of whom are actually from San Antonio because their success is such as to be able to afford players of ability greater than any of the local hoop-shooting fucknuggets can apparently muster. The Spurs are a big deal if you don't have much else going on. When you see them, you call out Go Spurs Go to show your support and to affirm membership of the tribe. Personally I couldn't give a shit about the Spurs, and Go Spurs Go painted on a flowery skull is possibly the dumbest thing I've seen in my entire life.

Bess and I stand and stare for at least a couple of minutes, trying to imagine what it would be like to be so stupid as to get excited by Go Spurs Go painted on a flowery skull.

We beat a retreat, across South Alamo Street to the Hemisfair Park, which is where they held the World Fair back in 1968. I would have been three, and Bess would not yet have been born. It's been fifty years since the World Fair, so in addition to the Starving Artist Show, we have some manner of celebration marking the anniversary.

We watch Native Americans dancing on a stage for fifteen minutes, chants and drumming amplified through a PA. The theme of the 1968 World Fair was the coming together of cultures. Much like the crafty things of the shop, I'm not sure how I feel about this, about Native Americans reduced to a dab of ethnic colour in the sideshow, but then again, maybe that's preferable to their being rendered invisible. Maybe there isn't a single right answer to the question.

We eat Mediterranean food from a truck - probably khlea - and watch a German choir, many in lederhosen, choiring along to a CD of oompah band music. Then we ogle vintage cars with massive tailfins, vehicles resembling spacecraft of the fifties; then flamenco dancing performed by a troupe with a generation gap seemingly excluding anyone between the ages of about eight and sixty, so it's mostly old women and toddlers. I seem to be the only one confused by this.

Finally we head back to the car. We have the knowledge we need for the craft fair at which we'll be setting up shop in May, and if it all goes tits up, then I can always fall back on Frida Kahlo…

Frida Kahlo as Ariel from Disney's Little Mermaid, and big swirly letters running along the foot of the canvas: Go Spurs Go...

Jersey Shore and the Labyrinth of Fear

Seven or eight young Italian-Americans come into town, and everything changes. By this standard, every story is a Jersey Shore story, as every Jersey Shore story is exactly that - seven or eight young Italian-Americans come into town looking to party, and everything changes.

And so as long as there are stories, there are Jersey Shore stories. When the stars go out and the universe freezes, around the last fire on the last world, there will still be Jersey Shore stories to tell. And when we are done telling them, at long and final last, in the distance will be a strange wheezing, groaning sound as Mike gets out of bed, rubs the sleep from his eyes and thinks about maybe grabbing some breakfast. And out he will presently step into the day - gym, tanning parlour, then laundry...

I believe this. I believe this because to disbelieve this is to disbelieve that stories have power.

To set Jersey Shore and the Labyrinth of Fear before our psychochonographical eye, we might discuss the day when Shakin' Stevens rode high in the Englishland charts with his cover of Green Door, a day upon which President Carter began talks with Giscard d'Estaing over what was to be done regarding the Lithuanian hostages, and when Marvel Comics carried the first advertisement for Hostess Twinkies to be counted as official Marvel Universe canon. We might discuss these things, but we're actually referring to Curtis Phallocrat's amazing novelisation which came out a little later; besides which, Shakin' Stevens is like this totally iconic Englishland singer and you probably haven't heard of him, but I have; and I wouldn't want you to be confused.

So, let us instead cast our thoughts back to that fateful day upon which Jersey Shore and the Labyrinth of Fear first appeared in the hallowed halls of WHSmiths. WHSmiths is like this totally iconic book store in Englishland and everybody goes there. It's really amazing. You probably won't have heard of it, but I have.

The Cartoons were riding high in the charts with their cover of David Seville's 1958 novelty hit, Witch Doctor; Freddy Got Fingered entered its third record-breaking week at the box office, cementing its reputation as the best-selling film of all time; and meanwhile Maurice Augières had just broken the land speed record in Dourdan, France. These may seem like unrelated facts, but only to those who understandeth not the magic of psychochronography, which is a means of examining important cultural events in terms of their impact by means of mentioning other stuff which happened at the same time; so if it seems like it's just a review, then you are to be pitied, my unsophisticated friend. We travel in spaces much deeper.

Dourdan is like this totally iconic place in France. You probably haven't heard of it, but I have.

Let's take a look at the novel.

'What is it?' asked the Situation uncertainly.

'Ronnie lost it again,' admitted Snookie sadly, and they both gazed across the dance floor to where Ronnie could be seen yelling red-faced at the unfortunate Sammi. Thankfully the music was loud, so no-one could hear what Ronnie was shouting, but the shape of his lips seemed to be forming rude, insulting words. He looked very angry.

'What's going on?' asked Jwoww as she came back from the bar with her tequila.

Situation pulled a face and pointed to their quarrelling housemates.

'Oh man,' Jwoww exclaimed. 'Again?'

This is a clear homage to the fight scene in Bleak House by Charles Dickens, because the magic of Jersey Shore is that it can be used to tell any kind of story, and here it has been used to tell a story which harks back to the fight scene in A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, as originally serialised in Sounds music paper by none other than Alan Moore. Sounds was published by the British Natural Party which is a racist organisation because Nicky Crane was on the cover of the second Oi! album and he was a famous racist. Alan Moore has since refused to comment upon the time when he was drawing cartoons of Buster Bloodvessel for a Nazi skinhead magazine.

Charles Dickens is like this totally iconic author in Englishland, and we'll just pretend he didn't get his best ideas from watching Jersey Shore for the sake of argument. They all read his books over there in Englishland. They probably haven't heard of Jersey Shore, but we have, which is probably why they don't realise where Charles Dickens has been getting all of his best ideas. You probably won't have heard of Charles Dickens, but I have.

Shame on you, Alan Moore.

Writing on the Wall

We've driven to Austin on the spur of the moment. Bess took the day off for a doctor's appointment and something at the bank additionally requiring my signature, and suddenly we had the whole day free to do with as we chose. So here we are at Austin Graffiti Park because Bess wanted to take a look at the place before they dig it up and move it to some other site out near the airport. It's officially known as the HOPE Outdoor Gallery, with the acronym standing for Helping Other People Everywhere. It was a housing project on the side of a hill, abandoned and ruined leaving only the walls, adopted by local graffiti artists, then made official during some SXSW event or other.

I quite like some graffiti art, although I don't really care whether you call it art or not. I particularly like the stuff I've seen sprayed on the side of Union Pacific railroad carriages which I encounter on an at least weekly basis as I follow the Tobin Trail beneath the bridge at Wetmore. I like what I see sprayed all across the southside of the city, which owes at least as much to the tradition of Mexican muralists as to anything else; and back in 1999 when I first visited Mexico City, I walked into the hotel bar on my very first night and met a couple of guys from the New York based Tats Cru - south of the border for some family wedding - which is probably equivalent to meeting royalty in graffiti terms.

Here in Austin, it's overcast and my enthusiasm probably isn't what it could be. We drove past a guy with a tail and I am now primed to expect idiocy. He looked to be in his late thirties and additionally wore a fedora, which is always a bad sign. His tail was long and bushy, yellow with black stripes, extending down from the seat of his pants almost to the ground. I realise how irrational it may seem to take such a profound dislike to a stranger based solely on their unorthodox appearance, but I'd probably go so far as to say that I actively hate the guy.

We find a place to park, then follow the street back along to the HOPE Outdoor Gallery. It's just a ruined pile of concrete junk set into the hillside, but with every surface a chaotic riot of colour. Empty spray cans and trash are strewn all around, and the place swarms with visitors climbing up and down worn slopes to the higher levels. It resembles the sets you always see in post-apocalyptic wasteland films, and I'm feeling a little underwhelmed. Worse still, the guy with the tail was apparently on his way here. He's set up shop with a marginally less irritating friend. They occupy the small central plaza of the site. They seem to be practicing circus skills with musical accompaniment from a smart phone hooked up to a battery-driven amplifier. I assume it's battery-driven, but maybe someone found a way to generate electricity by harnessing the annoyingness particles given off by useless wankers.

'Shouldn't you be working in a fucking bank or something?' I mutter as I watch the man with the tail juggling some kind of semi-circular dingus. He has the tip of his tail held between his teeth so that it doesn't get tangled up in whatever the fuck he's now started doing with a hula hoop, because having a tail can be such a pain  - always getting caught up in things. I can feel my inner Hank Hill beginning to bristle as I prepare a speech about growing up, responsibility and so on.

'This is why people voted for Trump,' I tell Bess.

'I know,' she sighs.

We climb up one of the banks past giant nopal cacti sprayed lurid dayglo shades which nature never managed. This too annoys me, at least a little. It suggests a lack of respect for the natural world, as does the scree of plastic spray can detritus; but, you know, just so long as cunts get to express their precious creativity...

We pass a couple of young women on their way up the slope. One has short blonde hair, ostentatiously large spectacles, and a wide, unpleasant mouth.

'She's an artist and activist,' I growl quietly, in obscure reference to iO, occasional co-host of MTV's Catfish whose name is differently capitalised so as to challenge the phallocratic orthodoxy of having a normal fucking name like everyone else.

The corner of one wall is sprayed with the words TRUMP 4 LYFE in silver.

'See,' I say. 'I told you!'

We climb back down, then along, and then up the other side. Here and there we can see the remains of some lovingly rendered image sinking beneath a sea of hastily sprayed tags and markers.

'Why would you spray your stupid fucking name over that? How does that add to anything?'

'I know. It's dumb.'

Kids pick spray cans from the ground, shaking them to see if there's any paint left, occasionally adding a name to the chaos, or the Beautiful Chaos as one piece would have it; except it's no longer beautiful. It's just chaos.

Later I will learn that permits were once required, ensuring that only persons with either talent or something worth saying could add to the graffiti park, so what I'm presently seeing is what has happened since whoever looks after the place stopped caring.

It will be demolished anyway, so what does it matter?

Find a spray can and express yourself.

Most have expressed themselves as names. There's a shittily drawn eye in a pyramid submitted by someone who probably believes themself to be a bit of a deep thinker, and most depressing of all are the wonky school logos, Central Catholic and the like. I've never really understood people who enjoyed school but I can accept that they exist and probably had their reasons, but proudly spraying the name of your school on a wall seems like the most retarded thing I've ever heard of. Proud to be a drone, it seems to say, proud to be a component! Check out this awesome barcode I just had tattooed on my forehead.

What else can I tell you? I'm a good company man through and through. Ha ha! Guilty as charged.

I'm a tool. Hear me roar in accordance with accepted community standards. Here's my roaring permit if you need to see it.

'So,' I say to Bess, 'they're going to move all of this to some other place?'

'That's what I was told.'

'I can't see the point. Can you?'

'No.'

'It's not like there's anything special here.'

Later I read that they're moving a token lump of wall for the sake of physical continuity, but this crap will otherwise be bulldozed to make way for some new development.

Yet, the longer we hang around, the more we begin to see the place as it was. Here and there, an image emerges from the Jackson Pollock scrawl. There are lost wildstyle tags in jagged letters six foot high, pink, blue and other strange contrasts of colour, names you have to know to be able to read. There are faces and heads, Snoopy and el Chavo - a child played by an old man in a slightly disturbing Mexican kid's show. There are traces of what you could even call art, now drowning in the free expression of JOSH and Central Catholic and some witless Biblical reference needlessly sprayed across the once relatively proud visage of something that was either an armadillo or a futuristic robot. This is what happens when you give people free reign. Despite the best of intentions, they never have anything to say that's worth saying, and next thing you know - oh dang, look who we just voted for!

We pass a young couple. The boy is long-haired, skinny as a rake, over six foot, and he looks about seventeen at most. He wears a psychedelic top and circular rose-tinted Lennon specs. He's either got himself lost on the way to a costume parade or undercover cops are getting younger and younger. There's a third possibility - that he's just some hopeless twat trying too fucking hard like everyone else here - but I'm not thinking about it because I know that if I do it will annoy me.