One of my friends sent me this through. I thought it was highly inappropriate but it tickled my funny bone. Men’s inability to understand. We’re such simple creatures.
Richard Neville – Opher’s World tribute. OZ and IT for ever!!
Back in the days of the 1960s Underground we were busy living in an alternative universe. It existed next to straight society and it followed completely different rules.
We weren’t in the business of making lots of money.
We were not interested in trashing the planet for profit.
We didn’t think that sex was dirty.
We liked to enjoy ourselves in a hedonistic fashion.
We felt there had to be a greater purpose to life.
We disliked the hypocrisy of the middle classes.
We were egalitarian.
We were opposed to sexism, racism and any other ism you could think of.
We liked loud Rock Music with a message.
We were libertarians who wanted to sweep away the grey lives of our parents and replace it with colour, vibrancy and fun.
We would go down to buy IT and OZ off our local street vendor – a fellow freak – and lap it up. OZ had come over from Australia and was run by Richard Neville. It was one of the Underground Press’ major papers. We read it avidly and it spoke to us – the freaks. We were building a new world. We were going to change everything.
OZ was a frolic of great libertarian writing for the new age. Sex, drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll – ah we were naïve but glorious.
I read Playpower and still have it on my shelf.
Felix Dennis has already gone in 2014. The generation that set out to change the world is fast disappearing. Their story has been purloined by the State, ridiculed and made safe.
Thank you guys for helping make my life more real. I shall miss you!
New/Old Sci-fi book – Zero To Infinity – an extract
Having just completed my Roy Harper book, thanks to some great editing from Andrew Percy, I am back to writing up a Sci-fi novel that I wrote in the 1970s. It exists in the form of two loosely bound typed manuscripts. They each consist of 200 pages. I am currently on page 343 so I am nearing the end with 50 pages to go.
As with all projects they start with great enthusiasm and energy and finish with exhaustion and misery. What you start off thinking was great and revolutionary becomes mundane and pathetic. I am reminded of Paul Simon’s song – ‘All my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity’. It’s a bit like that.
At times like this you have to gird your determination and press on to the end, counting each page, and trying to make each phrase work. You grind your teeth.
One of the most fascinating aspects of this exercise is being able to commune with that optimistic, romantic young naïve kid I used to be. I find so many things still ring true and are still part of my core belief while others have fallen away. It’s nice to visit though.
Back then I was a novice and it’s been quite a task altering this as I go along in order to make it work. I think I like what is coming out. I’m not sure. When I finally finish I will leave it a while, then go back and reread it. I’ll know then whether all these hundreds of hours were worth it.
Here’s what I’ve just written this afternoon:
Chapter 142 – Relaxing
‘You know,’ Makes said thoughtfully, ‘this world has been in one fucking big mess. People have fucked up big time. The whole thing stinks. I mean – just look at it! All the fucking pollution! The place teeming with trillions of people all bored out of their minds. Nature decimated.’ He shook his head. ‘When you look back at the old viddys and see how it used to be it makes your blood boil.’
‘And the fear,’ Ken added. ‘Don’t forget the fear.’
‘Or all the stupid damn wars,’ Chuck volunteered.
‘And the violence, aggression and mindless destruction,’ Coco added for good measure. ‘And don’t forget the fucking brain police!’
‘No, don’t forget the Brain Police,’ Chuck reinforced. ‘Those shits nearly cooked our arses.’
‘I think it’s the leaders’ fault,’ Chrissy opined.
They were sitting back in Make and Chrissy’s room, which was bigger than the others, feeling weary having come of shift, sipping a narcowine to unwind, and staring at the blank grey walls. Their hero status was confirmed. They were all well-known via their regular transmissions updating everyone on the solar situation. Martina had seen their potential as being the bright, young attractive people they were and harnessed that enthusiasm and tight-knit camaraderie in the broadcasting. They had the chemistry. They had moved from arch-enemy number one to part of the government propaganda machine.
Coco sipped his tube of narcowine. There was a lot of hard work that went into produced the daily broadcast. They had to gather information that was not changing much at all and somehow make it interesting. It was testament to their skills that they had been pulling it off. ‘I’m too tired to think,’ he moaned.
Apart from Chrissy they all looked jaded. All the excitement was boosting her up. She was positively sparkling and enjoying every minute.
‘I don’t know why you’re all so knackered and morose,’ she chuckled. ‘Look at you mooching around and carrying on. You wouldn’t think we’d won. Look at the difference it’s made. They are listening. They are building the fleet and everyone is walking around looking alive again. They are even smiling and looking happy on the walkways. People are alive again. Even the four Blocs are working together.’
It was true. People had come back to life.
‘But where’s it going?’ Ken asked.
‘It’ll probably last for a short while and then they’ll go back to kicking the shit out of each other,’ Coco observed.
‘Or somebody will be creaming it all off for profit,’ Chuck said cynically.
‘Or they’ll go sailing out into space,’ Make said angrily, ‘with nowhere to go until they decide to blow each other up in a new outbreak of greed or religious frenzy.’ He poured himself another shot from the servo.
‘Or they’ll find some succulent virgin planet, set up home and begin the process of shitting it up,’ Ken stated.
It seemed they were going through a bad patch. All the pent-up fear and frustration was coming out. They simply did not trust anyone.
‘Makes you wonder why we’re all bothering,’ Coco said.
‘Well that’s sure a change of attitude,’ Chrissy said crossly. ‘We put ourselves out on a limb, nearly get bumped off and you all suddenly decide that humanity is a shit-heap and not worth the effort!’
They all looked at her. It was not often that they saw Chrissy being angry with them.
‘There are lots of good things that have come out of human culture,’ she chastised them. ‘It is not all lowest common denominator stuff, not all greedy, gross and cruel. A lot of people have higher aspirations. They want love, beauty and fulfilment. That should give us hope for the future. Maybe we can settle a new world and not make the same mistakes?’
‘We always seem to appoint the same psychopathic leaders,’ Ken reminded them.
‘And if they dump a trillion of us anywhere it’ll soon be a shit-heap,’ Coco added.
Chrissy shook her head. She was disappointed with them. She had thought they would have been pleased with what had happened. Instead it seemed to have opened up a whole box of misgivings. She now felt confused and didn’t know quite what to think.
‘You see Chrissy,’ Make said, ‘You’ve got to understand that we’re all glad that it’s being taken seriously.’ He gestured round at the others. ‘It’s just that we’ve got these worries about the future; will we just be exporting the same disease to another place? It is as if getting over this first hurdle has alerted us to all the others that lie ahead. I guess we’ve all got visions of other beautiful planets getting fucked up by a human fungus that crawls out of the sewer to make a shit-heap out of paradise.’
It made her sad to look at him. They had been so happy, united and alive and now they were so down and pessimistic.
‘Don’t you have any optimism left?’ she chided them. ‘Don’t you believe in anyone anymore? Is everyone in the whole universe just greedy, power-mad and violent? Isn’t there a single person who gives you a dash of hope?’ She looked round at them with such a beseeching expression that they had to look away, abashed. ‘Surely it is not inevitable that we will simply sink back into the same mess that we’ve just crawled out of? Surely we can learn from our mistakes?’ She found Make’s eyes and appealed to him directly. ‘Isn’t it possible that the fantastic feeling that is going round the planet at the moment might just stick around?’
They locked eyes. Then Make looked away. ‘No,’ he admitted, ‘I don’t think it will.’ He seemed almost embarrassed by his admission. ‘The truth is that I don’t believe in human nature changing. Not that everyone is bad. There are good people around, but they are brought down by the others. All the ones with higher ideals, who are capable of making things beautiful are ridiculed, belittled and destroyed by the others.’ He met her eyes again. He thought he could see the beginnings of tears. ‘The same cynical leaders will rise to the top. I really don’t see any hope. I think this euphoria is transitory.’
Chrissy looked away, at a loss for words. She was breathing hard and fighting with herself. Finally she looked up and glared defiantly round at them.
‘What’s life then?’ She spat. ‘Just a waste of time? Isn’t it worth trying?’
‘I don’t know?’ Make replied with a shrug.
‘You’ve got to know!’ she shouted, with the tears now rolling down her cheeks. ‘You’ve got to believe in someone! We are the good guys! We’ve got to make it work!’
IRAQ: #Daesh ban the ‘ Full Faced Burka ‘ for women entering their security centres in Mosul after a number of their top commanders were #killed by veiled women – @AceNewsServices
Trump’s history of corruption is mind-boggling. So why is Clinton supposedly the corrupt one? – The Washington Post
Anthropocene Apocalypse – the Megafauna
The animals we have now are midgets compared to animals in the past. There used to be giant versions of nearly every animal – from tigers to beavers, mammoths to bears, deer to sloths. They have all gone.
The megafauna have not become extinct due to natural causes. They were systematically hunted to death by man.
I was listening to a radio programme last week in which a palaeontologist was commenting that there was little fossil evidence for the arrival of man into the area. The first indications were the complete disappearance of all the megafauna.
We’ve already been responsible for the mass extinction of many of the world’s most incredible beasts. We are now busily working our way through what is left.
Unless governments act in unison and enforce the laws we will completely destroy the whole environment.
Is that the sort of world we want to live in?
Comedy Relief
Too Young For War
My new – old Sci-fi novel – Zero to Infinity
It is quite strange for me right now. I am taking a little break from refining my Roy Harper book. I realise I cannot hit my deadline and am waiting for Roy to write an introduction. That won’t happen until after his round of concerts.
In the meantime I am typing up an old Sci-fi novel I wrote back in the early seventies. It is my second book. It only exists as a typed document so I have been rewriting it on to my computer. It’s part of a programme I have to type up all of my books. I still have about ten that only exist as typed manuscripts and are in need of typing and revision.
I have no memory of this one – or at least on vague memory. It is interesting for me to visit with my younger self – an enthusiastic madman in his twenties who believed that anything was possible. It is fun to see the philosophies and ideas I was playing with forty years ago.
This is the extract I have just typed up.
PART 9
Chapter 106 – The flux
In the dark seas of many planets life develops along patterns set by the flow of the universe. It was the minds of sentient beings in the matter of the cosmos that moulds and directs the evolution of life. Nothing is by chance. Life proceeds through all its subtle changes as it evolves through the generations.
Energy patterns mingle with the dimension of mind and the organisms produced are the results of these interactions. There is no god – only the flux.
The flux is the building block from which everything that exists is made. There is nothing to worship or pray to, only the flux in the void and the mind it spawned that resides in all of us.
Matter was formed in the realms of nothing by movement alone. It twinned with mind in glorious union.
Man has always grappled with the eternal paradox that reality is absolute and man, with his limitations, is only partial. But somehow that part must become the all, in oneness, for there is no paradox in pure mind – mind is one with the flux.
The flux is what we swim in and are part of. It is all that exists.
It is not strange that life in all its forms should possess the same pattern no matter which star system it should arise.
Our planet, Terra, has been nurtured in a delicate balance with the entire universe to produce an environment in which conditions are optimum for life to evolve. Not only for it to develop but also for it to experience what is necessary to learn. As life radiates in a range of complexity the planet provides the challenge.