Welcome to Acerbia; population: π
This is the archive of the many and fabulous adventures of . Like a hard-bitten son of Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius taught to write by William S. Burroughs; continually reincarnated, debated over by intellectuals and literati at cocktail parties the author can't get invited to, the target of scorn and ire from women everywhere, frequently mistaken for a former member of the Warsaw pact, named after the Italian explorer Giuseppe Acerbi, slowly rewriting the Book of Cataclysm, this is postmodern fiction at its most playful and creative.
Sex Crime!
My first trip to a Hooters was not what I expected at all, but then I think all the warning signs were there if I'd known to look for them.
Over the past week I've been somewhat taken aback by the distinct lack of sexuality in American media. There just doesn't seem to be any titilation going on or sexual undercurrent. It could just be that this is Florida and therefore sex is a private affair but this place makes London look like a whorehouse in the streets, and they're British; they don't have sex!
Magazines like FHM, Maxim, Playboy and even Sports Illustrated seem to be frowned upon and the four religious channels available to me counteract the one vaguely risqué one that fades out whenever anyone's about to get it on. Swear words were blanked out and watching 8 Mile really confused me because I couldn't remember what was going on.
But back to the tatas, sorry, breasticles, sorry, bazoombas... drat it, I mean Hooters! The place was announced by a huge billboard of a girl in a bikini with a suitibly cheeky slogan, but pull into the parking lot and suddenly I see that there are families eating here? Where did the kids come from? Isn't this place supposed to be boobs and beers?
The beer was weak-assed domestic stuff and the breasts weren't exactly homegrown. In fact the breasts were distinctly sub-par; the only decent racks in the place were composed of spicy chicken wings. I fear for the future of America if violence has been allowed to spread out of control (as evidenced by any channel's nightly fare) but sex has been quashed! I'm all for protecting the children, but at the expense of us adults?
To Split Infinitive and Beyond!
Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Discovery. Her twelve day mission: to return to the International Space Station. To seek out new safety features such as a repair-kit for heat shield tiles and a 50ft-long robotic arm that will inspect the shuttle for damage in space. To boldly go with a faulty fuel gauge against common sense.
From my perch here in Florida I will be able to observe the rescheduled shuttle launch, assuming that something else doesn't go wrong in the meantime as they fill up the fuel tanks with super-cooled liquid explosives. And yet its impossible not to get caught up in the magnitude, the magnificence of a nation that routinely shoots its citizens out into space.
Its all about the right stuff and the original seven, blasting space monkeys out there in the world's greatest validation exercise; we are someone, we exist, come and find us. Of course, when the aliens start to notice us and start blasting historical monuments we can all point at NASA and blame them. Its not a space race anymore, but they haven't told the Americans yet.
A local resident here, Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott, had this to say; "ach its thees dilithium chromatic transponders, they cannae take twintee years of missions withoot drainin' a wee bit. Ah can have her ready fur yeh in three months but don't go given' me any surprises" before being escorted away by Security.
Fingers crossed that fuel gauge wasn't important.
Say It Isn't So, Joe
I'm beginning to understand why an American sporting event is strung out into an all-day affair; there's sod all else to do here but sit in the sun and drink beers. Wait... maybe I'm thinking this through too much, that doesn't sound as bad as I'm making it out to be.
Anyway, I was sternly warned by the TV announcer that I was not permitted to record or reproduce part of the game I was watching or to provide a written account without the express permission of one of the teams involved. The Red Sox meanwhile didn't give a crap and so it would seem that I can recount their part of the game with impunity.
They were doing really well, with bright helmets and funny shaped bats, and every so often one of them would hit the little white things that were being thrown at them with astonishing speed and regularity by the people I'm not permitted to talk about. Every now and again they'd get tired of hitting the white things and either walk back to the small bunker that protected them from the sun or they'd run away towards small sacks of potatoes.
Every so often the Red Sox would swap places with the other team (who shall remain personae incognito) and then the Red Sox would stand in the 100 degree heat and play catch with the white thingies. There were various statistic and numbers associated to each player which I assume was the females in the crowd rating their "rowr"-factor and how good they looked in those tight uniforms or something.
No baseball watching would be complete without beers and snacks, so I spent the whole match with weak-as-water American beers and sugar-explosion filled cookies and salty-as-seawater chips which in turn caused me to drink more of the beer. I can see why Phentermine is such a popular product over here.
The game ended when somebody hit something in the top of the ninth, which apparently isn't an octave for eunuchs and somebody caught it and threw it at something so that the person who was running one way as everyone else ran in other directions was tapped by the person with the deformed left hand in a protective glove and they had less points so they lost. I put on at least ten pounds trying to work this game out.
Surplus To Requirements
Two words that really don't have the same meaning across this side of the pond: bulk buying. I don't mean that bulk doesn't mean the same thing over here and that the concept of buying is alien to us Brits; what I mean is that bulk buying is done on an entirely other scale here.
A short drive took me to a white warehouse of corrugated iron that looked like it wouldn't withstand a sneeze, nevermind a hurricane and doors that would easilly have permitted a 737 entry led me into aisles and aisles of goods that stretched out farther than the eye could see. What should have been taken as my awe at the sheer size of the place was instead mistaken for awe of this thing called "shopping". So for the sake of any Americans reading this can I just clear up that yes, we do have stores in the UK and we call them shops and that no, it is not normal to be able to buy cat litter by the quarry-load.
I think what surprised me the most was that there were enough people spread out over the surrounding area to require this level of supply. Unless of course the point is to stockpile and hoarde in case of emergency or disaster... or Commie invasion, but then wouldn't the whole endeavor be better suited in an underground nuke-proof bunker?
From what I can tell not only is there more than enough room for everyone and their dog here but you can even add parking spaces to the doghouse without encroaching on another's land. Because of course if that happens then they can blow you away with the ammunition they bought in bulk without ever having to worry about hearing that dead man's click.
Drugstore Cowboy
Within days of arriving I have been exposed to the infection that brought the native population of this great nation to their knees; American Lurgee. Coughing and sniffling, mewling like a lame kitten I arrived at work all the same and when it became obvious to the assembled masses that I was ill I was suddenly bombarded from all sides with drugs.
I think the scariest of all was the vitamin shaped like Barney Rubble that tasted of chalky raspberry but according to the delightful young woman who proffered it this was one of creation's oldest and greatest (at least in a country with only 500 years of history) creations.
My day was incomplete without a trip to the drugstore, or as one of the locals teased "a pop into the chemist's" to which I wittily retorted "ha ha, you fucking septic" which obviously drew a blank look. But for any criticisms I may have about America and its way of life there is something strangely reassuring to know that there is an easy to swallow cure for everything you can imagine here.
Although at what price?
Just as the Joker's evil plan to cause everyone to die with a smile on their face required them to mix the various ingredients together themselves through beauty products, so too do America's drugs combine to cause wicked side effects and abnormal reactions. The warning labels say not to mix and match but the benefits of a potent and judiciously chosen drug cocktail can be an instant cure to every ailment, it just depends whose recipe you trust.
I, of course being a rookie to all of this, have succumbed to the oldest problem since Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue (which would be the beginning of history as we know it if I were to ask around here) and am now addicted to Tylenol and have grown webbing between my fingers. Also, I'm startin' to talk kinda funny with the slow and measured drawl of drug-induced stupor.
Land Of The Free!
So I recently arrived in the US for a prolonged stay and there was a TV in the headrest of the seat ahead of me on the flight over. There was one on my connecting flight too, although the kid behind me didn't understand the touch part of touchscreen and substituted it with punch.
Do you enjoy breathing Air? I do. If you enjoy breathing Air then try new American Air, with the added taste of freedom. Air is guaranteed to increase your chances of staying alive and is more than 1,000 times more effective than the next leading gaseous pulminary intake. So if you enjoy air, try American Air. See our advertisment in Guns & Ammo magazine.
I decided to bathe in the culture and watch a baseball game from the 25 channels available to me; Yankees versus Red Sox, which was funny because I watched the US remake of Fever Pitch on the trans-Atlantic flight. I didn't do too badly following the game and the rules, thanks mostly to my experience playing softball.
Do you want to feel the full force of a V8 engine? Do you yearn to drive free and roam this great country of ours? Buy the new Chrysalis Drifter now, with our employee discount as standard and $3,500 cash back, for the low-low price of 1 cent. Gas prices going up? Who cares! We'll go liberate another dozen oilfields to make sure you can live in your car and never have to set foot outside. Commercial shows a professional driver on a closed circuit.
I say followed it, I mean for every three minutes of game there was a commercial break, but I don't think that affected my enjoyment of the game. I did find myself getting vaguely frustrated with the constant interruptions but I countered them by flipping channels and finding something to occupy me for those few minutes, then back to the game.
Do your children suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder? Do they find it difficult to concentrate on their schoolwork and chores? Are they ridiculously annoying and time-consuming? Has some strange phenomenon programmed them to always be seeking new inputs and distractions? Drug them up to the eyeballs with new Ritalin ExMax Strength! Not recommended for children with heart complications, diabetes, or limbs. May cause impotence.
Remind me what I was talking about again?
I Am Le Tired
Scene: Outside a drawing room at le château de Versailles where Louis the XVIth is enjoying his favorite pastime of trampling on peasants in mud.
Le Duc Ducon: Mon'sire!
Louis XVI: Le oui?
Le Duc Ducon: Mon'sire zee peasants are revolting!
Louis XVI: Tu crois? Zis one ees particularly filthy. What do you bruge your tees wis? Pigswill? You deezgusting leetle merde. I stamp on your eempovereeshed visage.
Le Duc Ducon: Non, non Mon'sire, zey have taken ze Bastille!
Louis XVI: Well 'ave zem put it back. I need it where eet eez. Where else weel ah get my amusement from, eh?
Le Duc Ducon: Mon'sire, les États généraux 'ave solemly sworn a declaration at ze Jeu de Paumes.
Louis XVI: I declare zey can swear all zey like; I will continue to drink jus d'orange.
Le Duc Ducon: Ze people 'ave gazered togezer.
Louis XVI: Zey what?
Le Duc Ducon: Zey 'ave gazered togezer.
Louis XVI: Non, steel not getting eet.
Le Duc Ducon: Zey 'ave congregated. Togezer. Een wan place. Wiz ze purpose per'aps of zuspending your divine powers!
Louis XVI: 'Ow can zey do zis?!
Le Duc Ducon: By removing your 'ead, mon'sire!
Louis XVI: Quickly! 'Ave my mazter of zeremonies Jean Michelle-Jarre prepare against zis roudy rabble; 'ave eem entrance zem wis ees zatanic techno muzic and zurround ze château wiz a lazer death fenz!
And there we find the origins of the traditional French celebrations on the 14th of July where every single year we are subjected to the Jean Michelle-Jarre Bastille Day Special, otherwise known as A Very Special Royal Beheading Celebration or Yes Virginia, There Is Someone More Annoying Than Moby.
Selling Sanctuary
"Grease?"
"No way"
"Come on, we could put the subtitles on and sing along!"
"Not a fucking chance! Pick something else" I stood my ground
"Gattaca?"
"Only if you want to see me cry" I replied.
"Last Action Hero? You paid money for this?" the Beast looked round at me, his eyes glowing red with disdain and small puffs of smoke sprouting from his flared nostrils. The distaste was tangible across his face and he shuddered perceptibly. The elegant curved horns that adorned the sides of his head knocked a candle from the mantle.
"Oops, sorry, my bad" he said, leaning down to pick the candle up and immediately tore a hole in the wall with the same horn.
"Just leave it, I'll get it. And Last Action Hero was only a fiver. Its got some funny bits in it... Charles Dance especially."
"What, you mean the bit where he says" the Beast suddenly affected a pitch-perfect imitation of Charles Dance's accent "if God were a villain, he'd be me?"
"Yes, now will you hurry up? The popcorn is going cold"
"Oh! Oh! You've got the Romero trilogy! Night, Dawn and Day! We could have a zombie-fest... wait... is this the remake of Night of the Living Dead?" his prancing on the spot stopped and his cloven hooves dug deep into the carpet.
"Yeah, sorry. It's also the remake of Dawn"
"Fuck that. Where are all the good movies? How can you have a thousand DVDs and all of them be shite?"
I didn't fancy exploring the moral and metaphysical implications of revoking my hospitality to Satan so instead I changed tact.
"I'm a sucker for Special Editions. They could bring out Grass Growing in Freshly Painted Rooms and I'd buy it if it had a decent director's commentary and some deleted scenes."
The high lord of filth paused to consider this, scratching at his stubbled chin with one yellow and split talon. In his other hand he held my copy of Shakespeare in Love
"Yeah but what would the commentary be like?" his voice changed to that of Spielberg "and in this scene we tried to highlight the dichotomy of the grass growing only to be cut back down again, personifying nature striving to grow and flourish against man's technology... also if you check the deleted scenes you'll find we did this scene from three different angles because we were getting high on the paint fumes"
Whipping his tail to one side he dropped down onto the couch beside me, causing the popcorn to spill out and over the sides of the bowl into my lap.
"It's this" he held up Dirty Dancing, "or this" at whichpoint he held up You've Got Mail
Damned either way.
"How come you can't watch any of your DVDs?" I enquired.
"I got the best tunes, he got the movie collection"
CSI: Wimbledon
I was recently arrested for carrying an illegal weapon. Those of you who know me will suspect that this was some large hunting knife or perhaps a ground-to-air missile launcher; perfect for clearing the seats at a world tennis championship. Those of you who don't know me, really don't know me and you will never, never, ever know me. It was a small Leatherman multitool; more a glorified pair of pliers than anything else, however it did have a folding blade.
The British Lawn Tennis Association (bastards) had gone on the cheap this year and instead of using the local police force to police the event (the clue is in the name you morons!) they had brought in El Cheapo Securicorpse to do the security and the police as back-up. Now, I'm not the criminal mastermind some would believe me to be and I did not go along to Wimbledon with the express intention of stabbing anyone other than Mary Pierce for being such a snooty little diva, nor did the Securicorpse bag searcher uncover a secret compartment within my bag with an ounce of diamonds and purest cocaine. No, I handed the weapon over.
Let me just make sure you all understood that; I HANDED IT OVER! Immediately. Upon stepping forwards to have my bag searched. I handed over the tool, blade folded away and declared that I had it with me and that I knew they would need to dispose of it. I've been through airports since 9/11 with scissors or box cutters and handed them over, apologising for having them with me. The lady asked me to wait, went away and then came back with a cop, who promptly arrested me for being honest.
What made the item illegal was not the length of the blade, which was less than 5 inches, but that the blade locked into place. How stupid is this? How many people have knives that wobble around on the handles? What use would that be? You'd end up cutting your own fingers off.
Now, the British Lawn Tennis Association (bunchacunts) had decided that because of a previous incident involving a stalker/knife/stabbing that anyone found to be in possession of such an item would not simply have the item confiscated, but that the person would also be arrested. The police took care of that part after the world's greatest rent-a-detective had outfoxed me in a keen battle of wits; ie: taking the proferred item from my outstretched hand. Oh that cunning little minx!
I was arrested without the need for cuffs (this is middle-class England, that simply wouldn't be cricket!) and taken to the nearby meatwagon and back to the large white tents we'd stood queuing beside several hours previously. The arresting officer was a charming gentleman, community-minded, formerly a hotelier, disliked chavs in hoodies, advocated the fascist police-state philosophy... no seriously, for about an hour he tried to convince us that mandatory ID cards were the way forwards.
I was printed, DNA sampled, catalogued, barcoded, named and numbered. Then they drove me back to the front gates where a ticket had been reserved for me ("sorry for the inconvenience, sir") and I got into the grounds having only missed the first set of the first match of the day. And you know what the moral of this story is? If you're stupid enough to be honest then you get what you deserve.
As a footnote I should point out that by that point in the morning I was the eleventh person to be arrested for the same offense and that all eleven of us to that point were mid-twenty white men without prior offenses to our names. Elsewhere in the UK on the same day all the real criminals were taking drugs and beating each other up at Glastonbury.
Evil Genius: Aftermath
My doorbell went and although I don't usually answer it, because in the majority of cases its bad news rather than good, this time I did.
"Good afternoon sir, would you be interested in buying some double-glazing..."
"Dr. Roxburgh! THE Dr. Roxburgh?!" I exclaimed, my mouth agape and my finger pointing straight at the gentleman in question.
There in my doorway stood a short man of about five feet and three inches, hunched slightly forwards in a grey woolen suit. Over his right eye was a thick black eyepatch and in his left hand he was carrying a legal briefcase.
"Er..."
"It is you! I thought I recognised you. What on earth are you doing selling double-glazing man?! Shouldn't you be trying to take over the world?"
"The World Court has a TRO against me coming within a mile of any secret underground lairs. I'm forced to rebuild my family fortune by selling windows"
I shook my head slowly in pity, here was one of the world's last great megalomaniacs. More dastardly than Saddam, more flamboyant than Milosovich, more murderously twisted than Stalin, reduced to this. I leaned forwards, checking the hallway for anyone else and whispered conspiratorially;
"If you need any henchmen, let me know" and winked. He winked back.
Sleeper
Our first indication that things were not as they should be was when an announcement at Edgware Road said that all services through Baker Street apart from the Bakerloo line were suspended due to a power surge. I was late already and this seemed heavensent to me, I could stroll in at half nine and say that the Tube had delayed me. I mused on whether or not to get cereal on the way in and decided to by hopping off the train at Regent's Park, giving my girlfriend a kiss and a wave.
It wasn't the first time this sort of delay had happened and the last time I had walked from Baker Street to work it had been over fifteen scorching minutes in the summer sunshine. This time it was grey and drizzle saturated the air. I couldn't tell if there were more people on the streets than usual or not, I was more concerned with what cereal would be available.
Sauntering into the office though there were Internet radio connections discussing power surges on the Tube and reports of an explosion at Liverpool Street, the previous location of our offices. The morning simply got worse from then on.
Not an hour later the windows of our boardroom shook as an explosion a block away tore a bus to pieces and everyone was called to the breakout room for a reassuring damage control conversation. The rumors were extolled and common sense prevailed. We all went back to our desks but nobody could focus on work. Those who were fortunate enough to connect to Sky news or the BBC News 24 streaming video site would find themselves surrounded by crowds of coworkers.
A flurry of text messages to my girlfriend told her to sod the new haircut she was considering getting and to stay off the buses. Pictures were now available of the gutted chasis, the orange upright bars for steadying the passengers like the ribs of a cracked open chest cavity of some red beheamoth. Other texts from my sister and stepfather reassured them that all was well.
By early afternoon America woke up and another stream of texts, instant messenger conversations and e-mails were dealt with similar aplomb, except for the mail from my father. Unsure what to say or how to respond I simply told him I was okay, not wishing to open any dialogue.
Rumor-control and panic mongering across the various channels, sites, sources, conversations. "I heard three buses exploded", "I heard snipers took out suicide bombers", "Canary Wharf ferries were targeted" gave way to the facts, "2 confirmed dead in Tavistock Square bus explosion", "Al Quaeda cell claims responsability" and the day was drawing to a close, the sheer magnitude of what had happened finally sinking in.
We left the office in a group, heading north to a pub; the last refuge of sanity for the British. We stopped at the corner of Euston station, looking down towards Tavistock square. With the binoculars I constantly carry we all looked down towards the cracked shell of the bus, devoid of any activity now. nearby a stunned deshevilled man kept repeating "I was on the bus, I was on the bus" to nobody in particular. No paramedic, no trauma councillor, just him and his bags. If he had been on the bus he must have been sat there for nearly seven hours murmuring to himself.
After a torturously long and frustrating bus journey, punctuated by stop after stop as the gridlocked traffic crawled out of the city center my day came to an end with the comforting hug of a loved one and the reassurance that everything will return to normal eventually. They may break our bodies but they need not dominate our minds.
Conspiracy of None
"You got my message then." It wasn't so much a question as a statement.
"Uh, yes, I got it, you stuck it with gum to the underside of my fridge and told me the cat was trapped under there. When I knocked the whole thing to one side it said 'Usual time, usual place' and I've spent the past two days visiting everywhere I've ever seen you before. We don't have a usual time or usual place." I scratched at my head in puzzlement.
"Inconsequential, you're here now. Are you ready to fulfil your part?"
"My part in what?"
"I like it... hear no evil, speak no evil. All very hush-hush. Yes, I agree... I have no idea what it is that we're about to attempt. Wink, wink." He winked repeatedly at me.
"Do you have something in your eye?"
"No, no... no optical implants here. Okay, you've memorised the floorplan?"
"The floorplan?"
"And the circuit boards for the alarm."
"The alarm?"
"I'm still concerned about the potential presence of moles within the organisation." He looked around shiftily.
"Moles?!"
"Ah, so you're concerned too." His eyes widened with surprise.
"What do moles have to do with anything?"
"That will be my very first question when we finally meet the enemy."
"Are we talking about the little furry things with snuffly snouts and sharp claws, very bad eyesight, those fellows?"
"Obfuscation. I can see that you're a master at this. Maybe one day I'll be taking my orders from you."
"I really haven't the first clue what you're on about."
"As it should be. As it should be... until next time Resistance Brother. England shall prevail!"
"Yes, um, indeed, prevailing, very good."