Natasha [Redacted] E-Book

Andrew Dutton

• Herausgeber: Cinnamon Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 302

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Welcome-welcome-welcome-welcome to Being Young! And to the inner life and internet ragepage of Natasha [Redacted]. Her first name is all you're getting: there are too many haters, trolls and stupid adults out there. Iffen you understand me then you've picked up the rhythm of my heartbeat and maybe you're a friend. But that means you're a potential danger too, if you get too close and you know too much—be careful. Original, compelling and moving, Natasha [Redacted] is a coming of age story that charts the costs of trying to survive in the poisonous jungle that is 'growing up'. Family breakdown, friends who turn out to be anything but friends, parents and their love interests who want bland conformity above all else, Internet wars and real-world violence populate Natasha's Internet 'ragepage'. And we see Natasha too though her self-appraising 'sleevenotes', penned some unknown time after the events that she describes. At the end of it all, has she grown up? Will you like the answer anymore than Natasha does? Whatever the answer—if you've ever loved music with a matchless passion, wanted to form a band and play a gig on the Moon, you could be the friend that Natasha is waiting for. Read on…

Leseprobe

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Acknowledgements

More About the Author

Dedicaton

Half Title

Groundrules

Much can be learned

Tune of the Day

Manifesto: Why I Hate The Retro Show

Noise

And as for Love Songs—[encouraging the stupid to hope]

Why Music Needs ME

Natasha [Redacted]

Sleeve notes

Welcome to Being Young

Lonewolfing

Natasha In Exile

Under A Curse

Natasha Restored

Lonewolfing II: Why I’ll Go To Gigs On My Own From Now On

Homeless Shadow

Cold Water

CATO

How Does That Old Song Go?

One Of The True

The Silencers

Swagger

A Positive 1848

Alienated

Refamlying (Gods of Failure)

Constant Attack

The Ebbing

Naked And Screaming

Prospects

The Righteous Knife

The Funeral List

Music Leaves Wounds

Natasha

[Redacted]

Andrew Dutton

Published by Leaf by Leaf an imprint of Cinnamon Press,

Office 49019, PO Box 15113, Birmingham, B2 2NJ

www.cinnamonpress.com

The right of Andrew Dutton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988. © 2023, Andrew Dutton.

Print Edition ISBN 978-1-78864-970-4

Ebook ISBN 978-1-78864-978-0

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A CIP record for this book can be obtained from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publishers. This book may not be lent, hired out, resold or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without the prior consent of the publishers.

Designed and typeset by Cinnamon Press.

Cover design by Adam Craig © Adam Craig.

Cinnamon Press is represented by Inpress.

Acknowledgements

To my brother Nick, for stealing his idea of a gig on the Moon.

For more about Andrew Dutton’s writing please visit: www.andrewduttonwriter.com

For

‘Fact And Fiction’ 1982-3—

the band, the crowd, the time

Natasha

[Redacted]

Groundrules

Everything written about being a teenager is a lie. And the films, too. The films worst of all. 

And most of the music.

Got that?

Iffen you understand, you’ve picked up the rhythm of my heartbeat and maybe you’re a friend. But that means you’re dangerous too: someone can get too close, know too much. Ifya get to know someone too well you put a sharp, sharp weapon in their hands, and nine outta ten they use it. Recheck: nine-point nine.

Much can be learned from a careful study of the life and work of Natasha [Redacted].

It is not only her clear-headed independence or unfailingly perspicacious analyses of the exigencies of her life; it’s her wisdom—unusual in one so young—compassion and foresight. She was undoubtedly a child of her time, but understood the zeitgeist with a multifacetedness that encompassed the child, the adolescent, and indeed the nascent adult—also something more, something timeless.

The recovery of much of her work, believed lost, casts an invaluable light on a turbulent life in a more turbulent context, and gives us a deeper appreciation of the rutilant nature of this private, secretive and yet profound artist and thinker. The spirit of critical appreciation (as distinct from trendily cynical, uniformly destructive ‘criticism’) throws her life and work in the sharpest and most satisfying focus. Bellicose in battle but tender in love, Natasha [Redacted] is poet and muse, inspiring and inspired.

With a barely-navigable start in life arising from the tragic ineptitude of her parents, she came to rely on her resources and rationed trust, distrusting others’ competence and motivations. As experience honed a natural talent, Natasha [Redacted] created and refined the tools, nay weaponry, of a devastatingly perceptive mind. She was a formidable and unforgiving opponent, using her wit to snare and spancel the haters and lesser intellects, before bringing to bear the deadliest component of her forensic armoury, The Righteous Knife. Few could summon even the feeblest defence, and all fell before that devastating blade. But as a veteran of the ugly world of electronic communication, Natasha [Redacted] did not shy from the lower blows, wielding the lesser, blunter Sarcastic Knife with a clinical artistry that madesomething admirable even of disposable wit, cheaply and effortlessly dispensed.

But in considering Natasha [Redacted] and her world, we must not lose sight of the Promethean imperative, her core mission. The music.

Tune of the Day

Oneday

Music: wow. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I used to think music was done by old geezers with sticks and animals’ guts, or that pukey drivel my mum listens to all day on Soppy FM, so la-la she doesn’t realise the stupid songs are the same. Or worse, my dad’s hippie stuff: what is good, what was ever good, about flowers-in-yer-hair shite? Nursery rhymes are okay when you’re little, then you grow up and leave em behind, but that Sixties stuff is all kiddies’ tunes and nursery rhyme words, plus extra bilge—marmalade skies, astral this-and-that, gnomes and pixies.

The little pink dog

Went yelp and yap

My Karma says

This song is crap!

My dad would think that was profound if it came from one of his favourite longhairs. Kill all hippies! Viva Noise! Viva Grim!

So, music. Funny thing, my head was silent until I was 13—now there’s music all the time. I had never found music that gave me anything, not Dad’s cosmic comedy barf, not Mum’s insipid radio junk—nothing. Dad’s with Talullah now, who tries to behave like she knows what’s what cos she’s so young compared to him. She’s nowhere near. That catgut music never appealed neither, though some of it gets a bit exciting—if screechy. It’s too much of a trial to listen to though; I get the feeling the players have someone standing over them ready to shoot em dead if they miss a beat or bum a note. I can’t see no beauty in it; it terrifies me somehow, like listening to maths. It’s music for people who want to be inferior: everyone from the guy what wrote it to the fikken triangle player who is cleverer than you, so sit and worship their brilliance.

There’s a tune stuck in my head now and it feels great. I used to hate it when tunes stuck in my head cos it’d be some jolly jingle or babytalk bollix—back then, if there’da been something thin and sharp to hand I could’ve stuck into my brain I would’ve. Not now, though: music makes me live—it’s playing for me when some boring teech is talking, blasting in my skull whether or not my pod is on, wherever I am. It props me up, makes me feel; I borrow the confidence of the bands. It helps me cope with the unbearable Dad-Unit, drowns Talullah and her budgie-in-a-cage twittering, and in the deep night, when sleep won’t come, there’s no sheep-counting for me: I play or think music, and that’s better than most sleep anyhow. My dad’s heard some of my favourites and said that they all sound like ‘a sack of weasels being thrown under an oncoming truck.’ He meant it as a killer putdown, obviously; but, now on, that’s gonna be my definition of good music! Grimstar!

And another thing—when there’s a song sticking in my head I’m gonna put it here and call it Tune of the Day. Today’s is Heaven On Fire by The Deadly Meatballs. It’s brilliant.

Twoday

I hate my dad. He’s a cock! An utter cocky cock, the cock of total cocks, and… hahaha, he can’t read this cos I know how to lock him out of my stuff. I can rage on my page and he’ll never know. It weren’t me that called him a cock neither, not first. I got witnesses to his cockdom.

He thinks he’s big. I mean okay, he is six-five, wide too, loud voice, fat bald head—the git. He’s a stupid bloke, trying like mad to prove how clever he is. My mum left him cos he’s a cock, Talullah’s here cos she allows him to be a cock, and for the same reason I’m out on rocket skis as soon as I legally can. His only advantage is money; I stay cos I get stuff. If I lived with Mum, all I’d get would be excuses, tears and shitty music. But that don’t make my dad better. 

You never know how he’s gonna behave; like several people living in a fat frame. I’ve given them names, but they’re all cocks. When he said the bagful of weasels thing he was Snidey: you also get Too Busy, This Is My House, The Champ of Everything, and many, many more. 

It was Domo who put into words what I knew. Domo’s a mate, a Grim. He came round to listen to good music and talk about forming a band (one day, one day) and ran in to In My Opinion, who gave him ten fikken minutes on how his hair made him look like a cockatoo and our music was catshit. I never thought that IMO (no H, natch) would let up; he was enjoying himself too much. There was a long pause as we waited for him to fuck off wherever he was going.

‘Cheeze, Grimperson, sorry but your D-Unit’s a cock!’ breathed Domo.

‘Gotta Roger that, Grimmo.’

‘He like that all the time?’

‘Worse, mainly.’

‘Ow. Sympatics, Grim.’

‘Taken up. But blanket it, willya? Don’t want everyone to know.’

‘Fair. But all people gotta do is meet im.’

It’s not good to accept sympatics from friends because of your dad, but that’s the sort of thing he brings on me. That’s why I try not to have so much to do with him. I use Grimtalk to confuse and piss him off, hoping he’ll give up on me.

‘Y’alright?’ he said to me one morning, a token recognition.

‘Barely Grim.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Stupid moaning cock. I’d just told him I was okay, if you liked that sort of thing but not great; he was clueless. Good.

Talullah (no, I won’t call you Mum) tries a bit to get on with me, but she’s not good at it either. Talullah’s a paintbox. Yeah, she’s younger than him, but not that young no more; she’s trying to stay in contention and it’s sad. She wants to be cool, but she’ll never do it if she don’t like the Grimsounds, and about them she has no idea—none. She’s okay most of the time. I wouldn’t mind if she climbed into my bed by mistake, but I try not to think about that too much. 

Gotta Q on the Messages about her from yesterday’s mention—What sorta name is Tallulah, anyway? Good one. It’s my D-Unit again, he’s got this thing for women with names that sound like they should be in films a hundred years ago. Not so long ago it was Carlotta: saw her nekkid once, coming out of the bathroom, which got me some kudos with the Grims, but with demerits for not having any tech on me for making pix. Ain’t seen Talullah like that yet. 

TUNE OF THE DAY: Bastard in 4 Dimensions—Silicon Life Forms

Threeday

Gotta coupla Qs come in about Grimtalk, how’s it work and so. Problem. If you can capeesh you’re Grim—if not, then not. But it kills no secrets to tell: Grimness matters, there’s honour in it, and to lose it is the worst. Frinstance, when Domo met my D-Unit, he could’ve said the man was a cock and left it at that—and that would’ve meant he thought I was bad too, tainted. But he called me ‘Grim’—meant he still had respect, that I ain’t outcast.

Some think we got the language off the bands, but no. The musos have an in on our souls in many ways, but they didn’t give us the talk; Pluto’s Horde put out an album, Grimcakes, a while back, but they got that title from us. ‘Grimcakes’ is the sorta word you say with a raised eyebrow and twisted-lip smile. For any more you’ll have ta talk to your brosis if you got one or a Grim pal who knows, don’t want too much stuff out here on the page. Besides, the Qs could be coming not from some kids who wanna learn, but people like the Cock, looking for a sneaky translate. If that’s the case then Grimskarrr! Heh-heh-heh!

TUNE OF THE DAY: Uranus, My Pleasure—Space Is Sex

(Note: Hey, my D–U says that SIS is ‘just filth.’ Like I told you, clueless. But he should know about filth, I just broke into his computer files.)

Fourday 

For me the music started when I heard Hideous Mimsie. I found out later that they’re not the best, not at all, but they were blinding at that time; I was just a kid, a snotter, it was all new. And after all they were first for me, I still play em time to time, figure I’ll be playing em till I’m dead, shit, after—they’ll definitely be played at my funeral, which I got lined up, clear in my head. 

It’s gonna be held in an old church, y’know, one that’s tumbledown and lost all its holies, and all in Grimtalk—nonGrims can come, but they won’t capeesh. I got the music lined up too; most is stuff that’ll turn up as Tune Of The Day on my page. Be a shame I won’t be able to hear.

Anyways, about discovering the music. It was at a party; a thirteenth birthday party, a crappy thirteenth birthday party, but it brought something to me—even in the thick of crappiness. You’ll know the sort I mean: streamers, balloons, disco lights, loud useless music and a finger-buffet where the fat dads have got in first and scarfed the decent stuff. Little kids everywhere, underfoot, in your face, running around, yelling, wailing, shrieking. I remember walking in and thinking, Kill me!

There was an over-miked DJ whose voice was so distorted it went

THUMPBUMPTHAAWUMPTHA no matter what the pranny said, and he liked to say a lot—talked over everything,

WHUMPTHALUMPTHAHAHAHAHA which coulda been real bad and spoiled the music if the tunes hadn’t been such rat shite, disco beats, yeah-yeah-yeah clap your hands happy poo. Crappy, crappy, fuck-off music. I headed away from the lights for a good and dark corner, uninfected by bright colours. 

There were people in that corner, kids but older; they looked as if they belonged in the dark and always had been there: dark hair, all of them; the boys had it tall and wide and spiky, the girls short and shaped to their heads. They had eye makeup, big dark eye makeup, wore dark clothes, baggy dark, and some had capes—long for boys, short for girls. What wasn’t black was grey, and what wasn’t either was red. They were Grims, only I didn’t know. Like me, they took shelter from the musical shitstorm, trying to stay uncontaminated. They didn’t look too happy at me finding them: Grims don’t like a lot of people around.

The Deej was deaf to requests, the Grims kept trying to get him to play something decent but he ploughed on with plastic piss; Grims are determined beasts though, and they scrummed round him till he stopped claiming he’d got none of their music and found one little piece. The lights kept spinning, but the music, and my life, changed. 

POWPOWPOWPOWPOWARRRGCHAKKACHAKWOOSH! went this amazing sound: it was Hid Mims, but we only got about a minute and a chuff of the Hideous before the noise got stopped sudden. UFFSHUFFALUFF! went the Deej, as he put on some insipid fairy-balls instead. WHUFFUFFUFF he boomed as the Grims scrummed him again; he looked scared of em but refused to put the Mims back on. But a minute was all I needed, I’d heard the music, even that bitty bit meant more than anything I’d heard in my life before. 

The Deej tried to pacify the Grims by playing more aggro stuff, but it was still la-la really. As people got more pissed he tried punk rock, to see if that’d do it, but it was still only the old ones who hopped. Punk rock! In the 1970s it was supposed to be well scary, devil music, but Grims weren’t having none of it. 

As the disco went on the Grims retreated to the dark edges and I joined em, got talking, and from that night I was Grim okay. It took a while to get the talk and look, but in my mind I was with them right away. Liberation. 

TUNE OF THE DAY: Spam From A Tap—Hideous Mimsie (for ol’ time sake)

Fiveday

More thoughts about music, it’s pretty much all I’ve thought about all day.

I hate bands that have one good song and then do a load of others that sound like it—faster, slower, but the same fikken song. It’s like a more sophisticated form of pushing repeat. It’s a rip-off. Click in to agree; c’mon, we don’t want boring bands! 

You want the guilty named? Take a bow Bombed Bridges: when I heard The Hills Are Alive I thought it was straight from the gods, it had A-1 lyrics and funny film refs, not to mention a nonstop riff like monsters hittin eachother with mountaintops (Domo’s words, not mine).

The hills are alive

They breathe and have eyes

They got guns and knives

They lust for your lives

You can’t run an’ hide

You’ll never survive

Real terror stuff plus funny, which is greatgreatgreat—but when their next was called Never Survive and did the same things only slower I sussed the problem. And when that was a hit they just switched the production line on and fikked off for a beer; they’ve done nothing worth shit since. Hills has been running in my head all day but it’s not getting TOD, just to punish em. 

But even a letdown is better than being musicless; click in to agree. Some people exist without music, with nothing sweetie–pie noises like my mum, or just no music. Hell.

Q for the musicless: how do you live? Why is music dead for you? It’s dead for my M-Unit, what killed it for her? The Cock? I’d like to blame him, but something tells me no; it was something earlier, but it’s not the sort of thing I can ask. Message if you’ve ideas.

I’m glad I’m not musicless. Without music there’d be nothing for me, nothing.

TUNE OF THE DAY: Stixanstonze—Titanium Expose

Sixday

Did some sleepthinking last night. Music always helps with sleepthinking but there’s a dagger—if you’re thinking low music can catch the mood and hand you down lower. I was listening to Who’s My Friend by Head of the Dead and it got me going.

Who’s my friend who’s my real friend

Who’ll be there when I need them

Who’s my friend who’s my real friend

Who’ll be there when it all ends?

Dunno if there’s anyone who would fit that song, not for me. Not someone who’ll be with me till it all ends. Have you ever had that thought, who’s my real friend,and come up blank? It’s bad. 

There’s Domo, he fits it best, but there’s a problem, a cold-space between us as he’s two and a quarter-years older, and a guy and I’m not. The distance is put there by me rather than him, but it’s there; I try not to spend too much time with him in case people say stuff. That’s why it was such a risk asking him over to suffer the Cock because of what the D-Unit might think. Boyfriend-boyfriend-boyfriend, that’s one reason the Cock was so nasty to Domo, not that he wouldn’t have been anyway. 

Domo’s brilliant and I wanna form a Grim band with him, but I dunno about boyfriends, dunno what I want, I dunno who I want. I’m not sure, like that song says, Do you like girls or boys? I dunno. I’m thinking maybe both. What will people think of that? It scares me. But that’s another sort of sleepthinking—I’m trying to work out if I have real friends, people who wouldn’t hate me for what I’ve just said, frinstance.

Now, while Head of the Dead’s song is questioning, there’s one by Junk Electronica that catches my mood more—faster, more urgent, demanding, desperate even:

How Do I R8 How Do I R8

Communic8 M8 

Communic8 M8

How Do I R8 How Do I R8

Communic8 M8 

Communic8 M8 

Over and over. Good song.

I first heard that with a bunch of Grims and one, a fuckbastard who hates me, leaned over and whispered, ‘That’s a question you ought to ask yerself.’ I didn’t know what she meant, but the thought got into my ear and burnt into my brain and now I can’t stop sleepthinking it. 

And it has to be a question you can only ask yourself or that the musos can ask in a song, you can’t really ask your mates an mukkaz, what would happen if you got the wrong answer? It’d do your head in. It’d do mine in. You can’t ask some questions, not at all—questions like: 

are you really my dad?

do you fancy me?

are my mates 4 Real and 4Eva?

No, you can never ask. 

Message in, anyone, who feels the same.

TUNE OF THE DAY: How Do I R8—Junk Electronica (had to be)

Sevenday

Grims unite; we’re under attack! C’mon, serious, we all need to get together and fight the enemy, and that includes the pussies who messaged in and called my last pagelog ‘mindwank;’ I’ll trash you later skegs, but there’s work to be done first. 

If your Units are anything like the Cock, they’ll have been reading the scandal-rags. Bit of a shock the Cock can read. One Scrag has published an ‘expose’ of modern music and ‘its terrifying effects upon our confused and vulnerable youth.’ Get ready for this. Click on the linkline to read the full thing.

MASCARA SUICIDE CULT

And that’s us they’re talking about, Grimstas. That ain’t what Grim is, but I reck I just got a cool name for a band. 

Seems some kiddo got talking about death on her page and then she got in to some private Qs with someone else and next thing they’ve set up a meet and thrown themselves offava bridge. Grim’s got the blame, but I’ve seen their pix and they weren’t Grim no way. Anyhow, there’s a fuss, check around to see how bad. It don’t help that the Scrag has found that Monster The Millions just released Suicide Pack,so the reporters are chasing em. They’ve also spotted Shelfarm and the little clevers have nudged the letters round to get ‘self harm,’ so now they say Grim’s encouraging kids to cut and nix themselves. 

Worse, some Rupert of a politician has taken time off from lookin for his chin and he’s lookin for the Cock Vote instead, trashing our music and stinkmouthing us. We’re being used, Grimmoes; it’s just an excuse to shut us up and stop us enjoyin anything. They don’t understand us, the D-Units, M-Units and certainly not this votehungry Rupert (he’s got kids he sez, that’s why he cares he sez, bollix I sez). They know nothing about the musicks, cept how to press Mute. 

Grims, stand up and stop em! Go get some Grim music and if you ain’t paid legit for it then get and pay proper, support the bands, make Grimsales go through the roof! And get your revenge—peel off the PARENTAL ADVISORY stickers from our CDs and stick em on the sickly love ones and the hippie ones and the blandrock and the dadrock, the real obscene stuff on the shelves! Fight the Parental-Units, the Scrags, smash the Ruperts who try to get on by smashing us and our stuff! Message in, send Qs, I’m angry and you should be too! 

TUNE OF THE DAY: Whatthafuxxamiddalate?—The Noise Peonies 

Eightday

Big Thumb to those who messaged in to support Grim, fight on! Big Thumb to those who messaged to say they understand why I ain’t sure if I like girls, boys or both. Big Finger to the skegs who sent in calling me pervert and weirdo—koffandie, y’all.

Flipside of what I said about adults and our music came up today: they make us read the solid papers in school sometimes, ‘Not everything’s virtual, my little netheads’ said one teech—anyway, I fell over a real killer piece in one of the toff papers in reply to the Rupert:

For their bizarre—let’s face it, downright ludicrous—appearances, their coloured hair, garish makeup and the pins and needles projecting through such an inventive range of body parts it would make the old punk rockers faint dead away, today’s music makers are at heart offering the same message as the troubadours of old: they are saying ‘I love you’. They are just saying it differently. 

Now ain’t that serious funny? I like ‘troubadour’ though, gonna use it. Oh, but this reporter type is con-fyooosed. Musta been listening to Mum’s type of music, certainly ain’t heard no Grim, except possibly I Love You Dead by Staggersaur, can’t think of no others. Praps I should message this journo and send down some play-files of the best stuff then see what the next article is like. ‘I Love You’. Yeh, sure!

Funny, though, how adults judge our stuff and us. Why can’t they just keep out? Face it, Grimzoids, even the ones who wanna be friendly have N-O C-L-U-E. 

Got Qs on how come I got so personal about family and such and ain’t I fraid people will recognise themselves from the page. I ain’t; I use no names, just replacements that mean something—Domo’s not Domo, Talullah ain’t Talullah and so forth, but the rest of the page is no lie. Some comments in that I’m being rough on my D-Unit in my pagerage. DellaD sez she ain’t got no dad cos he died, wants him back and can’t imagine any dad being like mine. Sympatics to DellaD and others with no D, but what I’ve told y’all is kidstuff—there’s worse if you wanna. As much as you want a dad, you wouldn’t want mine. 

The Cock stomps and slams worse than me. He’s been demanding I show him my arms—looking for needle marks and razor slashes. Says I should stop listening to the music. Says he’ll take my stuff. Says he’ll block my tech access, though I know that’s mouth-farts—he don’t know how. We yell at each other from different rooms. Cock says I can go live with my mum for all he cares and when he drops me off for a visit tomorrow he’s gonna bring along my stuff and dump it on her doorstep. Tosser. Cock. 

TUNE OF THE DAY: Revolution or Death—You Pray For Me, I Prey On You

Nineday

No page for a coupla days, like I said I hadta spend a weekend with Mum. And what is that like? Smiley and pink and gooey: so, sad on a stick. She tries too hard—like Talullah, but different, way worse. At Mum’s it’s always music, but sha-la-la, noo-noo-noo and ooh-ooh-ooh. Worse, far worse than silence, it attacks the tunes in my head and tries to kill them with saccharine gas. Happy music is bollix. Even more bollix is the slow treacly stuff Mum listens to. She’s got a record (yeah, a ‘record’—hold it, Grims, there’s more, she plays it on a ‘record player’ or ‘gramophone’—use your dictionary look-ups under ‘dead old words’) called Remember My Love by some guy who was ancient when he made it so he must be wormfood. The cover shows him looking with big soppy eyes at a far-off cloud in a sky so blue it must’ve been washed out with bog cleaner. 

The songs! We Were Happy In Those Days, Yesteryear I Need You Now, Time Means Nothin’ To A Man In Love, Forever Ain’t So Long, Bein’ Sentimental Ain’t a Crime (yes it fikken is) and on and on and on.My M-Unit cries, and I mean cries, when she listens to this mush: I feel like crying too. There’s another one, Quest for Lost Love, with a picture of a girl looking soft-focus wistful out of a window with such sadness you just wanna go hold her till she’s better. Sums up Mum. But I reck it’s not her marriage that’s the lost love. I haven’t any ideas on what’s really in her mind. Closest I can get is it’s the fact that this lost love will never be found again; that is the turn-on for Mum. That worries me, serious. 

A visual on the M-Unit milieu: it int that the house is made of jelly an cookies an cream or the air is pure candyfloss, but damn, it’s close. By her fave chair is a pic of wormfood guy, and if you move it shifts; one way he’s full-face cheesy grin, the other he’s side-on, lovelorn, longing look: naff as it is, it hooks your eyeline and you sway though you don’t wanna. Shift: cheesy, shift: lovelorn, and you must tear away from this shifty hypno-trap before you boke your breakfast. Welcome to the lower colon of sugarcandy mountain. I only survive these visits cos of my portable box; Mum’s got no tech; it sucks there.

Gotta reply to more stupid interference on the messages—Grim is Donkeyshit—Go Kloakdagga!—yeh yeh, sure. Get this: Kloakdagga is for KIDS, so get back in your prams, babies. And as for GRIMS—No Guts, No Go, No Girlfriend—well that barely rates a finger-up. End of thread, no replies—Final. 

TUNE OF THE DAY: Grim As Christmas—Explode Me

Tenday

Been working on my poems. One day they’ll be songs, but someone else’ll have to lay music on em. Maybe Domo’ll do it when he’s learned geetar and we’ve formed that band, yeah. Got one now, it’ll open with a few fast notes on geet and crash into a big riff with non-stop six-string and a duh-dah-dah-duh-dah-dah beat, and it’ll go

Down the dark road as you’re walking along

Listening to dark voice of dread in your head

Saying DON’T GO, d’you know the way 

And it’ll be fast paced and frantic like someone’s running then a slow bit but only so it can lull you in to false security before belting off again into a major guitar solo and even faster next bit.

And there’s another one, that I want calling Black Dark King though things Domo has said lately make me think you can’t use words like Black and Dark to mean bad stuff; he says that hurts people and the Cock uses stuff like that so I guess Domo is right. The poem goes like this, with a real heavy sound behind it, loud-Grim rather than the thinner stuff:

Here comes the reign

Here comes the Black Dark King

He wades in evil, 

He’s burning everything

Sired by Chaos

Under Destruction’s wing

Here comes the reign

Here comes the Black Dark King

And there would be other verses saying what stuff the BDK does, with guitar bass and drums. It would sound great. No keyboards. Not on this.

Been workin on my funeral, too. Gotta clear idea now. Domo and the rest of the band will play, then there’ll be my best tunes while everyone does what they want—best Grimdances, I hope. I want my coffin burnt, not buried, and on a proper funeral pyre; they say bodies sit up with the heat. Maybe they should burn the whole old church down to finish.

Meanwhile, more musical agony at home. The D-Unit has 86’d the elves and fairies, but, impossible as it sounds, found something more fikken worthless and embarrassing. He’s listening to stuff about motor bikes; I wanna bike, I’d use it, but he ain’t got no bike, never had, and as a predict I reck I won’t have to choke on, he won’t get no bike. He just drives in his silly plastic brum-brum and shouts to heavy sounds goin on about the open highway roarin on two wheels and laydeez on the highway who’re lookin good. He even does the accent—sheer cringe. How crap is this, I’m stuck in the back of that car, no leg room, no ass room, and he’s got that kak on full pelt hollering about ‘Throbbin’ between my legs’ and giving Talullah wet looks and teenyboy smiles while she smirks. Kill me. Now. It’s the sounds of oldness. 

TUNE OF THE DAY: Strangle Satan—Chartreuse Flamethrower

(Note—The Cock saw the title of this tune and he’s so stupid he sez ‘Who’s this Stan?’ He oughtta be on TV)

Lastday

Gotta break off and run, Grimkind, and I mean that straight, the page has gotta close, and I gotta go. I reck’d there was trouble when the Cock started playing one of his dangerous games, I’m Coming For You, where he’s a P.I. grabbing evidence to make an arrest real soon, but wants you to sweat first. He’s been swaggering like he knows something and dropping hints—bitsa Grimtalk, stuff about the bands and tunes, specially the TODs. Looks like he’s found the page, knows it’s by me, and if so, it int safe here no more. He musta had help tracking where it come from—Talullah must be cleverer than I’d thought. I’ll get in shit for things I’ve said about her too. 

So where do I go? It’s too soon to live solo; I know that, I’m not stupid. Ditto getting a band together and hitting the road. Got no proper songs neither, just the poems. Can’t think of anyone who’d help me without contacting the D-Unit and saying where I am—cept Mum. Shit, what a choice, but she won’t let the Cock near me no matter, and won’t believe him if he tells her what the page said about her neither. So it’s hello tech-free pinkyness; I dunno how long. 

The page will be back, I swear, and swear it Grim! Time between, keep faith, keep the music, fight the Rupert, Big Finger to Kloakdagga and all the other Doubters and Haters—keep the Grimbonds, you who are true. 

TUNE OF THE DAY: Farva I Hv Sind—Helium Suckers

Manifesto: Why I Hate The Retro Show

Natasha; fourteen; Grim. That’s all the ID I’m giving, I got my reasons. Besides, I gotta beef and not much time, so on with it.

Iffen you don’t know what Grim is, get some ears. If you know and you’re a hater, get a brain. Grim is music: Grim is Music. Nothing from before compares. My mum’s a hater, says it sounds like the tortured souls of hell. But that don’t just please me, it gives me an idea for a name for my band; I am so gonna form a band—got so many names I may have to form four or five. My band’s gonna be real, it’s gonna rip the fikken place up, reach all the kids who feel like I do. And one day I’ll get to play a gig on the Moon. 

I gotta bass guitar, no proper stuff to plug into though. I’m trying Grim noises mixed with deepest echoey dub; that’s how I’ll take the world. Blew up Mum’s wussy ‘hi-fi’ speakers with my total power; she plays music so rare now she hasn’t noticed, but I s’pose there’ll be a reckoning. Point is, she just doesn’t come to music anymore; she’s got no feel for it. But I see what happens when a certain kind of music comes to her—and shit, it gives me big fear.