Toot and Come-Inn: Cannabis Seeds and Finnegans Wake, and dogs, you dig?

Toot and Come-Inn: Cannabis Seeds and Finnegans Wake, and dogs, you dig?

By Steve Fly Agaric 23. (Dedicated to Sirius, the dog)


-- Is that answers? -- It am queery! -- The house was Toot and Come-Inn by the bridge called Tiltass, but are you solarly salemly sure, beyond the shatter of the canicular year? Nascitur ordo seculi numfit. -- Siriusly and selenely sure behind the shutter. Securius indicat umbris tellurem.
--James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, pages 512-513.



Back in 2002, when i asked Robert Anton Wilson by email ‘Can you give a list of items for our emergency survival suitcase please?” he replied:
Cannabis seeds, Finnegans Wake, one Rottweiler.”


RAW, like James Joyce and perhaps a rottweiler, rewards those who dig deeper. Do you dig? Beneath the surface lies a labyrinth, with seemingly infinite pathways, like the human mind, and like the cosmos. While processing a kind of special language, and the multiple entanglements at play, these writers help the reader acquire new, and enriched understanding. A fuller picture, contrasting, and with adjustable brightness, of both the work under investigation and the life of the mind of the authors.


This new found appreciation for all things, can be turned toward the self to produce reflections on the coherence patterns, and the incoherence patterns. Both mind-at-large, and the cosmos can be transformed, with luck into a holistic cooperative engine of creation: a fun house. Useful metaphors for this--turning onto a new perception and a perpetually refreshing appreciation for the interconnection of all things--are psychedelic drugs, and some forms of cannabis. Ideogrammic method, Pranayama, great art and stoned perception may share a similar neurological dog pound. It has been said before that Finnegans Wake produces the closest approximation of the LSD experience, in all literature. Once again this generally says to me: an increased perception of the inter-connectivity and entanglement of all things.   


Each of the three items Bob mentioned will be considered here to exhibit useful purposes for the survival of all around the world humanity. I'm taking this six word answer, and digging around through the shell-mound of history. I think that his answer deserves closer scrutiny, to be looked like a joke and a serious practical solution to our predicament. Please excuse my bias. I don’t own a dog, or spend much time with them, however i'm always within a few feet of Finnegans Wake and some cannabis.   




Cannabis Seeds: seedsmanchaps


Cannabis is a versatile plant, no i mean versatile, like over 50’000 uses and counting. Capable of supporting an entire planetary civilization, if we could just figure out the fucking sharing part of the equation. Hemp can be used for building materials (Hempcrete) textiles, food and drinks, essential oils, bio fuels, paper, plastics, the list runs on. The female cannabis sativa plant provides another long list of health benefits for both the body, and for the mind (a hidden bonus of the plant which has been known to humans and used for thousands of years, starting in ancient China around 2500 BCE.)
Seeds are relatively tiny and easy to transport, in a small hip sack, for example, you can carry seeds to sew a farm capable of supporting hundreds of people with both industrial hemp, and cannabis foods, and launching the equivalent of the entire Woodstock festival, into orbit on the buds. You can clone, and cross breed as you wish, and you can get off your botany and make cuttings too, exploiting the natural abundance of nature all around us: ‘the intelligence within the cherry stone’. These rather awesome conditions on planet-world make all the shit grow, and without claiming taxes, or ownership, or patent. I think that RAW is giving us a hint at a critical tool to help humanity get off the grid, by growing a self sustainable future, literally green, really high yielding, and full of fun, just like the books.




Finnegans Wake: [insert placeholder:-]



To start with my own thoughts on FW, i think that Europe, India, Asia, Africa, Indonesia and the Americas would benefit immensely from taking a leaf out of Joyce’s poetic, global congress. To mean, we will do well to practice searching for meaning, with sympathy, in the mega-haystack of over 70 different languages, every day, for the rest of our days on planet world. FW is a dry run for the future, a time-space when/where all your familiar maps and models melt away into the carpet, and all that you have left is metaphor. I think we would all benefit from an extra effort to try and understand the each other better. Consider, for one moment, if you can, what you are not, where you were not born, where you have not been. FW and cannabis seeds, in my experience help this exercise. As does writing itself. You, we, them, us all together on the sub, the spearhead glistening in the other hand of the narrative driver: the author, whoever she or he, or it be. And you, we, them, us, the tribe, we strive to nurture more sympathy, compassion for, other languages globally, and with dialects locally, so that cultures and people may become enriched, contrasting, brighter, nuanced, distinguished with all the stripes and shades of meaning, and all the threads of genetic biological matter and of narrative entangled anti-matter 'ideaspace' that makes up all-around-the-world humanity, and it's DNA code. The mother load.    

FW could be RAWs most highly regarded single book, although he might say ‘beware the man of one book’ FW blasts the world of literature to pieces, and lets you put it back together again, and each time differently. An inexhaustible difference engine. A language or ‘natlanguage’ so powerful that it affected everything what came before it, or after. A real page turner. The mother load of performances by example: the the tale of the tribe. Holy sacrament, which the author has wiped his own butt all over. A densely packed hyper connected literary cosmos, providing endless entertainment and induces the sensation of an eternal present, for me, and a really trippy--infinite flux of being nowness. As you can tell, i think it really is a great book. I mean, it has all the best words! And some of the biggest words

The first published article by Dr. Wilson, in 1959 was titled ‘Joyce Tao’ and these two themes meandered through his life’s work, perhaps underpinning his rare skill for resolving opposites with wit and intellect. Taoism and Quantum Mechanics were both major influences on his thinking, today the fields of quantum entanglement, and quantum non-locality are all the rage, and i feel the progression for these fields will be something like the development of a broader, daring discipline, more like Taoism itself, in that it includes the human brain body mind nervous system. A presents new tools with which to navigate these reality labyrinths.  

Rottweiler: Canicula


The study of dogs within the context of the work of Robert Anton Wilson led me to a mongrel, a Mutt and a Jute. Any that read Bob know of his interest in the sirius double-star system a.k.a the Dog star.
Some will recall the chapter in ‘Cosmic Trigger I: Final secret of the Illuminati’ where Bob quotes G.I Gurdjieff on Mr. G's typically cryptic writings about ‘burying the dog deeper’. Bob provides lots of evidence to suggest that the buried dog is 'Sirius’, buried to mean hidden. You dig? He goes on to suggest that the 'Silver star' of the Thelemic tradition may also refer to Sirius. All this comes after his famous July 23rd 1973 ritual, and subsequent contact with something weird, and something very interested in bringing Sirius his attention. Was it his own subconscious, E.T, a 6 foot Irish Rabbit? best read the book and make up your own mind. I think we can agree, with little doubt, that RAW implied that you may require a Rottweiler for personal security in the future, during a tsarist occupation, when you're busy tending to the plants or starseeding the Wake over the fence, to the neighbors.


I work with cannabis seeds, and i recently contributed to the third edition of the Waywords and Meansigns project: Finnegans Wake set to music) I do not own a dog. But i just found out that canicula is latin for ‘puppy’ or ‘canis major’ so the dog star might also be called the puppy star. “Canicula” appears in FW only 5 words away from “Siriusly”. Seriously. Now, i feel stoned.

I would also like to remind the reader of the meteoric impact that Dr Timothy Leary’s ‘Starseed transmissions’ had on RAW, and the line from chapter 69 of The Book Of Lies by Aleister Crowley “The way to succeed, and the way to suck eggs”

—Steve Fly.

Evidence from the good book:


if yet not,
after) is a wake, livit or krikit, and on the bunk of our
breadwinning lies the cropse of our seedfather, a phrase which the
establisher of the world by law might pretinately write across
the chestfront of all manorwombanborn. —58


wherein he had gauged the use of raisin; ads aliments, das doles,
raps rustics, tams turmoil; sas seed enough for a semination but
sues skivvies on the sly; learned to speak from hand to mouth
till he could talk earish with his eyes shut—130


looking backwards to
unearly summers, from Rhoda Dundrums; is above the seedfruit
level and outside the leguminiferous zone; when older links lock
older hearts then he'll resemble she—135


just becups they won the egg and spoon there
so ovally provencial at Balldole. My Eilish assent he seed makes
his admiracion. 144


but without those selfsownseedlings which are a species of proof
that the largest individual can occur at or in an olivetion such as
East Conna Hillock— 160


The oakmulberryeke with
silktrick twomesh from Shop-Sowry, seedsmanchap.—221.


So see we so
as seed we sow. And their prunktqueen kilt her kirtles up and
set out. —250


Rutsch is for rutterman ramping his roe, seed three. Where
the muddies scrimm ball. Bimbim bimbim. And the maidies
scream all. Himhim himhim. —314


I advise you strongly, along quaith a copy of
the Seeds and Weeds Act when you have procured one for
your self—447


I revolucanized by my eructions: the hye and bye wayseeds I
scattered em, in my graben fields sew sowage I gathered em: in
Sheridan's Circle my wits repose, in black pitts of the pestered
Lenfant he is dummed. (Hearts of Oak, may ye root to piece! — 545.


Jeminy, what is the view which now takes up a second
position of discordance, tell it please? Mark! You notice it in that
rereway because the male entail partially eclipses the femecovert.
It is so called for its discord the meseedo.—564


The eversower of the seeds of light to the cowld owld sowls
that are in the domnatory of Defmut after the night of the
carrying of the word of Nuahs and the night of making Mehs to cuddle—4: 15 593


Look what I found! A lintil pea. And look at here!
This cara weeseed. Pretty mites, my sweetthings, was they
poorloves abandoned by wholawidey world? Neighboulotts for
newtown.— 625


Quoted from Finnegans Wake, James Joyce, 1939.


"About dogs I will write elsewhere; here I will say only that no matter how much mechanistic biology I read, no dog who ever lived as a guest in my house ever seemed like a machine to me. They all seemed like four-legged people.Every LSD voyager has his or her own unique reports to offer; here I offer only my own recollections of my own experiences, expressed in my own favorite metaphors.After my first LSD voyage, dogs not only seemed even less like machines than before, but so did bugs and trees and birds and the starry sky itself. After my 100th trip, even I seemed less like a machine.I have not embraced pantheism or even panpsychism as a philosophy; rather, I have given up on philosophies entirely. I live amid wonders, which I file under the law of general semantics which states that no map can ever show "all" the territory. In fact, I think we should ban the word "all" from ordinary speech and restrict it solely to pure mathematics.--Robert Anton Wilson, LSD, Dogs and Me.
Helpful links,i hope. xx
http://www.waywordsandmeansigns.com/




A fake poem by an non entity called Acryllic Figa



A fake poem by an non entity called Acryllic Figa

tsars like russian oligarchs
like white supremacist cop tasers
like bullydon boys in pork 
tie and blazars like a global air born disease 
Severe Global Airborn Rightwing Syndrome

sgars across the planet
tsars and czars and little zazen
little father men
busy character armourin’

in tsars we trust
and i hope you bust
free from such tyranny
of we

to me you see the we
is the tribe of all around the world
humanity, the gene pool fool

we domesticated primates
with a god complexity
all together born of a mother
mates buddies sharing ecstasy
of blood flesh bones and skin
same same where begin
or bigend to mend

breathing together in
a masked conspiracy we blend days
the task: get from out the hell basket
mask and anti-mask it
in art and out art crafted

uplift the message of you to us
to me to them and to all
address the good people with general
assembly with put on a slight texan drawl

ladies and gentleman
i speak to the clique’ clearly upon
the tissue of otherness
that which is not me not mine to wine on
seems foreign to me like

phantom energy to teach me
about we to mean me and the others see
the other ‘me’s’ wrapped in TV series

on wide screen watch me’s
an old set of theories
that stereotype ‘me’s’
mixed up with beery sneer ideology

fictional ‘them’s’ and made up ‘me’s’
by screen writer devils and the
analytica sleaze
ad monster men 

well mark these tears
in coming years better learn
to know yourself dears
and get real cozy with you’re inner ears
me you and them shifting plural gears
and try to understand cuz’ 
it might take yonks

you and me maybe not so different after all
each tense about the other
often a squabble sometimes a brawl

similarity and difference hence me
and you to me to mean you as all humanity
the cosmos and everything
under the sun correspond
without within above below
beside the next beyond

you there in the mirror mask
with my face on it let me ask
where did you get my voice
the imitation games bond
nearly spooked myself

you and me or ‘I’ and ‘we’ for want
of better terms
to flip the coin and the perhaps
open a can or worms
heads or tales tribes or tribe
plural or singular
you get the vibe
plural brings choice and reason
the many the mixed the all in betwixt
unhinged unfixed and the difference again
and so on eventually with
flux the doors flap the cards are dealt

a choice of more than two
non-binary that’ll do
a verb cooks to progress
to accept the new data
broad and wide varied yes mate

the difference engine runs the differdance
evolution standing innovation
ability utility stability and levity
for personal identity
in quantity and quality crisis

divisions categories things in time
the men with little hands wave us
back to the bronze age with slime
little heart small brain big head
the great hoarders

with walls and borders
banks tanks gangs and
midnight marauders
and the tsar in me and the
tsar in you
security comes with maturity
pull down thy vanity

it maybe the anti-tsar in you that
dictates that as true
but who to blame who to same
who whoming who?

how to distinguish the others
by name birth sex age race
the tsar in you like Tony the tiger
brings out a certitude
a truly fictional comic enemy
place

to retribalize to trail blaze unfazed
picking up history of the new tribe daze
walk the maze of history
with a ragbag of poetry
astro black mythology and Yussef’s
happyology

what complex of origins fossils and maps
which gene pool ocean
what train which tracks
to binner bouter-space
I’ll see you there to turn tsars
into stars and space into mental
entanglement

gently astonish
government
we all become one
and outlaw the bomb
my tribe our tribe stop
the punishment
gravity pulls its historical point closer
but this hysterical joint jives
with my flow i will not utter his name
no lets just go

to the PR architects of doom
stunt men and supporters of the balloon
i pour whisky on your forehead
put acid in your salad cream and
jelly in your bassoon
trash machine messages to you
and a note to myself
know thyself know the others
do not be afraid to come out
from under the covers
come out come out
wherever you are
this is a message for banker
king MP tsar
we tsars too so don’t tell us
what to do

word to the wise to the
women to the poor you
are the majority
and you own the authority
to open or close your own backdoor
spectacles testicles
brandy reefer we think perpendicular
to the left/right griefer

to divide with pride in one side
not the other you dig sister
feel me brother
the other is a brother from another mother
stop hating and stop with whatever
be clever

play the game to tame sameness
unearth difference honour presence
being here in another’s shoes
cruise in the walking blues
running back with clues
past me’s and past you’s
in your ear and in your eye

out this coded substitute i try
to split identity with senses sense
up your nose and out your ass
this little rhyme
with no pretence we humans share
same sense organs grinding
the same hardware finding
manufacturing code hatchings
same lab or factory block
perhaps a different road some different rocks

equal and opposite others mode
only the software differs a toad is a toad
we are one family of individuals
so division of biological sameness
begins to slouch toward the heart
and minds of the people

divisive PR operations build on
precisely these divisive data fields
stalking us divisively
the psychological dead-visions
departministry of propaganda goose
lies and deceit

infected by sgars syndrome
cambridge analytica
a weaponized language machine
designed by artists stolen by masked
military industrial endtertainment
anti-media

NEWS SPEAK and DOUBLE SPEAK
a thin line right here—dear reader—i feel ya’
this writing is an open invitation tweet
me a turnfable technician
on a mission to gain a laugh on my feet
a paragraph with rare groove
make it new and make it

move by fluke or chance or crook
or no such luck look me in eye
tell us your tales tell em’ all
fly

once and for all on the wall
in the hall scrawl: in anti-masks
we lie, next to the bar
everyman and everywomen
is a tsar

for Bob.

—Steve Fly
Amsterdam
05/02/2017

Day Off - T4QS

A Note on Christmas and being 2016 by Steve Fly



So, i really do sincerely hope each and every one of you out there, reading and not-reading this, find whatever meaning you are looking for this holiday. Today, i thought for a moment on the tram...'man...i must be a Christian after all, no matter what i call myself (model agnostic) by the amount of good thoughts and strong memories i have of Christmas, almost every one since being about 4 years old. The highlight of the year for so many many years, the presents, family, food, laughs, drinks, friends. Plus, i feel compelled to address everybody, like a speech at a massive dinner table. And keep up the good cheer. Putting the stark reality outside the front doorstep aside for a day, homelessness, refugee crisis, war, lies. No, today is a slightly bland merry old time, a day when we count our blessings (you see i can’t help but invoke religious terms today) and give thanks to whatever it is we each feel we wish to pay our respect. Jesus and/or Santa i rekon, if you think about it. But not many say so explicitly.  

We celebrate the birth of Jesus, like it or not, who went on to become the Jesus Christ, a popular figure in western cultures and who seems largely misunderstood to this day, due to interfering belief-systems and the inability to comprehend metaphor in religious and mythical texts and scriptures. So merry Christmas everybody, to mean, wake up to the birth of your own new saviour and muse, the birth of a new inner compass, a loving caring force inside which simply encourages you to be nice and helpful and to share. The birthing is like a filling up with stuff, including the chaos of what comes forth. I hope you quickly get over any difficulty in the beginning of making it new. Happy new year.

I have probably said and written some awful things about Christianity, sometimes with a similar fury to the likes of Christopher Hitchens, yet without his clarity and forceful fact based assault. (sorely missed in commentary today) I have said and written less about Islam and Judaism, but hold them in similar contempt as Christianity, very broadly speaking.
The abrahamic religions, as echoed by Timothy Leary, have been responsible for some of the worst trips this planet has ever known. Yet, having tasted the magic and mysticism connected to some other spiritual practices, strains of Buddhism, Taoism and Thelema, i feel that there are some parts to all religions that can be illuminating and informative, if your open to try new things, like simply new thoughts. It seems to me that to claim to BE an atheist rejects consciousness BEING itself…yourself. Theism can be fun and some gods can be exciting and helpful guides, at least, for me. Just because the large majority of theists may seem like zombie followers of some foreign doctrine or other, does not mean others are not progressive, intelligent and rational humans.      

To refine the idea further, belief itself, weather it be in the form of religious fundamentalism or materialist fundamentalism, leads to similar bad trips. However, i think parallel thinking about these prickly subjects can help bring about a peace for all man kind. You know, like the lyric from the Christmas carol, peace on earth, good will to all man and womenkind. As Bob used to say ‘if you can’t achieve tolerance at least attempt courtesy’ This Christmas, why not try to make a big effort to understand things you might not believe in. Suspend your disbelief, and present it like a fairy on a tree top.

Only the most ignorant and deluded hermit could not see that the coming years will be challenging for all around the world humanity, and closer to home for the disunited kingdom and disunited states of America, and of Europe. To remind yourself every day of all the trouble in the world can be damaging and unnecessarily, the world is not your problem. The animal and human torture, the terrorism, bombings, invasions and drone strikes, the beating and rapes, killings and daylight robbery are not your problem. Keeping a level head while others may loose it around you will be a daily challenge in a hyper-connected world. I sincerely wish you good luck with that, and i hope you can remember to remember. Violence is psychically self-defeating. Being nice to others is psychically self-affirming. What is there to understand? Just do it. 

This is the nice part of the Santa Claus story, the surprise and free gifts delivered, good behaviour and being nice to others is rewarded with presents and surprise prizes. So best wishes, all-around-the-world-humanity, and have a good day.

x
--Steve Fly


  



           


    

Skyswimmer & KFC - Two Stories For Sam and George Harris

Skyswimmer




Knock Knock
—Who's there?
Kenny
—Kenny who?
Kenny hear you.
Knock Knock Knock….

Kenny dashed out the school gate like a race horse, bolting home to begin the other race. The big race, maybe the biggest race ever. Today was race day, it was the skyswimmers final.

Kenny knocked on the door with a loud thump, he pushed the door open with his shoes already in hand, dodged under his mums legs and scampered up the stairs like a dog.
"Kenny! Kenny, how about you say hi before playing games. And what about dinner, it will be ready at 5.45 and you need to be showered as auntie eve is coming over to visit. Don't be late" Kenny's mum shouted up the stairs.

"Yeah mum" he said. His friends were all giggling into their microphone headsets. Both skyswimmer champions were being grilled by their parents at the same time, both had family things to do tonight, and the winner would probably the one who could deal with parents, as much as deal with the opponent.

"Take your marks, get set, BANG" said the high pitched American voice of the ref, and the race started.

Wearing his sky swimmer socks and his skyswimmer gloves, and his sky swimmer goggles Kenny dived in, a huge crowd whistling and screaming along the pool side. Lying on his bed, Kenny kicked his legs and rotated his arms and moved his head, he was off to a good start. Kenny kicked and at the end of the pool, instead of a wall there was no wall. The pool flowed out into the clouds. This was sky swimming.

Kenny felt his stomach turn over as he flew over the edge, the rushing of blue and white colours from the bottom of the pool turning to sky blue and cloud-white, all with a hint of yellow from the sun. Kenny kicked and paddled through the clouds, all the time neck and neck with his opponent. Two of the greatest sky swimmers in the world.

The race course had been designed especially for this final, and nobody, not even the referee had ever seen it all-at-once before, only a small part of it. Thomas and his opponent John were tested in their skills by this course, and they both followed a natural instinct to compete, pushing each other forwards, faster and faster.

The duo soared through 1000 foot high hoops made of orange foam, and flew under golden bridges and between the tallest building you could image. They kicked and paddled and bounced around the fun course, and there was only a teeny-weeny cats-whisker between them. It was a close race, and there were only three more levels to complete, and one of them involved landing back on the ground.
Kenny concentrated and then quickly dived down toward a big green field beneath him, a sound was drawing him closer. The two sky-swimmers noticed hundreds of children gathered to greet them, cheering and very surprised to see them. They landed gracefully together, like ducks on a lake, and they listened closely to their ear buds for further instructions, this was the last part of the race, the final challenge, the highest level, the last hurdle…the final minute of play.

The challenges were created, and voted on by the virtual audience who were tuned in using their phones and computers. Friends, and friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends made up some very silly things to do. The words came through Kenny’s headset, ask the kids for food, you must cook for them all, then you will be the champion sky-swimmer.
“Cook, cook, cook, cook…” voices chanted and cheered inside his headphones.

After the cook off, and the children had not died of food poisoning, Kenny and John ran out to the filed and leap into the air, kicking and paddling. And into the wide forrest they flew, spinning and diving like falcons, scraping the tree tops and skimming the waters, lake to forrest the falcons flew, in and out of huge cloud rings, between massive luminous poles. They zoomed up and up through the clouds and back toward the pool where they started.

John nudged Kenny with his shoulder, what he called the zombie body check, where you push all your weight into somebody else, but Joh didi it wrong, and ended up slowing himself down slightly. Kenny nudged ahead, reached for the poolside and just about pipped John at the post. Wow. He won by 0.25 of a second, wow, that’s less than a finger snap. Snap!

Kenny pulled off his goggles and jumped from his bed onto the bedroom floor. He bounced up and down like a football player celebrating a cup winning goal, his hands clasped. “yes, yes, yes, i won” he said to himself. “Yiiiiii whooooooo’.

“Kenny, keep the noise down, and stop playing plants versus zombie-ding-dongs, and come down. You’ve homework to finish for school”           

KFC.




Knock Knock
—Who's there?
Thomas,
—Thomas who?
Thomas’t have knocked before
It was the day after Thomas celebrated his 5th birthday that he thought up a really good magic trick. He said:

"I want to open my own place” he said to his parents. 
"we’ll have fish-fingers, chips and lots of cake, erm, and some milk"
"Oh Thomas, haha, you’re funny" his dad said, 
"Dad. I’m serious. My friends want to as well. We call it Kids Food Club" Thomas said confidently, while bouncing up and down on the couch.
"Let's talk about it tomorrow Thomas, now it's time for ‘beddy’ boys. Up you go, monkey”

And so Thomas bounced across the floor and up the stairs, brushed his teeth, washed his hands and face, and put on his cloud-patterned pyjamas. Pidge-jah-mass, pi-dja-mass, pyja-mas, he said to himself staring up at the shinning stars on his bedroom ceiling. What kind of a word is that…

Thomas had a dream in which his parents and brother, and his relations were all fruits and vegetables. Yeah, it was funny. His mum was an apple, his grandad a carrot, his brother was a strange potato, and his dad a banana. His grandma was a strawberry. And they all jumped around on the front garden like small goats, squeaking. Thomas smiled and rolled over to begin another dream of goal keeping for England, but instead of a ball it was a planet he had to save. He made the most unbelievable, gymnastic moves to catch the world. He saved it over and over again. 

The next morning Thomas and his friends gathered at school to talk about Kids Food Club. They talked and talked about the menu, and new words for the food they would make, instead of cake they would make fake, instead of chips they would make ships, instead of fishfingers they would make ishfingers. That was Tim's suggestion, and he had just lost a front tooth in a hover board accident, so couldn't say his 'S' words properly. So he said "ishfingers" and everybody laughed, so ishfingers it is.

By the end of the day, the first menu for the Kids Food Club looked like this: Ships (Potato Chips), Qs (Peas), Fake (Cake), Ishfingers (fishfingers), Cow Juice (milk), Council Pop (water), Nuffin' (Low fat cake), Navy (Blueberry Sauce), Salladinns (Salad Sauce), Leg-Go (Lego brick breakfast cereals), Council Stew (Don't ask), Gangham (Ham and cheese Sandwich), Cows in bandages (Bacon wrapped burger) and Zomburger (Again, please don't ask)

That evening, after spelling homework, and maths homework, plus drawing homework, Thomas waited for a good time, usually after dinner, because thats when mum had done the cooking and cleaning, and dad was home and reading through Facebook on his phone. A good time, he thought.  

“The kid food club had our meeting today"
"oh, um, Thomas, thats great, so, how did it go..?" his mum asked
"good, we made a new menu, and i made up three things"
"Three. And your going to cook these three things? wow”
"Yes, we will ask Miss Baker tomorrow if she can help us.”
"Which things are you making Thomas?" His Dad asked, picking him up and twirling around the living room"
"Heee, Cows in bandages" Thomas squealed.
"What?"
"Cows in bandages"
"Its like pigs in blankets, but cows, and instead of blankets…erm, bandages!”

Both parents looked at each other, and laughed so hard they both fell off the couch, rolling around on the floor like dogs rolling in dry summer grass. 
"My other food is ham and cheese sandwiches…Gangham Sandwiches" and with that, Thomas moonwalks across the carpet, smoothly moving into a crazy dance.

At this point Thomas and his parents and his brother were all laughing, howling like wolves, yelping like monkeys, gasping for breath, and lay out on the floor in a huddle like drunks.

The next morning Thomas got up earlier than usual, went down stairs and started filling his rucksack with ingredients. He stuffed the bag right up to the top with potatoes, flour, sugar, butter, chocolate, ham, milk, cheese, fish-fingers and peas. 

Thomas staggered out the house and put his bag in the car. “I’m ready” he shouted to his mum. She was very surprised to hear this from Thomas, who was usually leaping around in the lounge at this time of the morning, or watching Gigglebiz on the gogglebox.

At the school gate Thomas made a distraction by pointing out that the drainpipe on the side of the school was loose, and could fall and hurt somebody. So Thomas’s mum quickly led him to his class, without noticing his heavy bag, and she walked to the school office to warn them of the broken drainpipe. Thomas’s mum was very kind.

Thomas entered the cooking class with his huge heavy bag, and dropped it onto the table with a heavy thud. The class turned and looked with amazement at the wide variety of ingredients Thomas had carried. “It’s ishfingers time” Thomas said, and the class laughed. Miss Baker had to calm down the class.
“Right then Thomas, what have you got for us today?”
“Well….i…..”  bililililililing bililililililing billililililing

The school fire alarm sounded. All the children and teachers followers the fire-drill they had learn’t. Calmly making single file line, and then walking to the nearest exit, finally all gathering in the sports-field for the register, to check that everybody was present and safe. 

Standing in the middle of the filed, Thomas looked up into the sky and saw something strange zooming across the sky, zig-zagging in and out of the clouds. He squinted his eyes, and put his hand up in front of his face to shield the sun. He starred and starred, his mouth wide open in amazement.
“Look at that everybody, wow, a skyswimmer, it’s a sky swimmer”

Hundreds of eyes looked up at what Thomas had spotted. High above them two things were swimming through the sky, darting like red arrows, and spiralling through the clouds in odd formations.
“They are going to land here, look, look” a boy called James shouted.

The two figures swooped down and landed next to the group of teachers gathered on the field. They paused for a moment, as if they could hear voices in the distance.
“Hello, erm, we would like to eat, can we eat, please take us to your kitchen”
“What….what?” Mr Foggerty, the headteacher said. “You want to eat? erm…okay, this way please.”
Mr Foggerty led the two boys into the cooking area, and there on the table were the ingredients Thomas had left there earlier.
“Fishfingers” my favourite, Lenny said.
“ishfingers!” Thomas shouted, and everybody laughed.

And so the skyswimmers cooked up the strangest feast you could ever imagine, and told each other knock knock jokes. They made fake navy muffins and Council Stew washed down with wowow juice. Yum. Lenny and Don ran back out to the field and kicked off into the sky together, like migrating birds they disappeared into the clouds. The children cheered, and Miss Baker shed a tear. Thomas shrugged his shoulders, put his hands in his pockets and turned his face towards the bright sun. He started to think about what to cook up tomorrow for the Kids Food Club,  umm, maybe bald swimmers in sewage, he thought. That would be, pea-soup. Brilliant. Zompea Sirwoop.

Knock Knock
—Who's there?
Danny
—Danny who?
Danny hear you knocking mate.

Knock Knock
—Who's there?
Figs

—Figs who?
Figs the intercom will ya’

FLY BY NIGHT 186

Fly By Night: Beatnik Youth
Steve The Fly is spotlighting the new vinyl release of John Sinclair’s Beatnik Youth album from IronMan Records in England, produced by Youth and featuring the late great Howard Marks on the opening cut, plus sides by Sonny Rollins, Sun Ra, the Miles Davis Sextet, Eddie Jefferson, Selah Ragab, and Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson, and a closing cut from Sinclair’s Mohawk album in honor of the late great Lee Bridges—The Cannabis Poet.
The John Sinclair Foundation Presents
BEATNIK YOUTH
FLY BY NIGHT 186
Steve The Fly, Sarwar Studios, Cross Keys, Wales, November 20, 2016 [SFBN-0186]
[01] John Sinclair & Beatnik Youth: War On Drugs featuring Howard Marks
[02] Sonny Rollins: Til There Was You
[03] Sun Ra: The Other Side Of Time
[04] John Sinclair & Beatnik Youth: Sitarrtha
[05] Miles Davis: Blue In Green
[06] John Sinclair & Beatnik Youth: Do It
[07] Eddie Jefferson: Come Along With Me
[08] John Sinclair & Beatnik Youth: Brilliant Corners
[09] Selah Ragab: Naveen
[10] Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson: Gangster of Love
[11] John Sinclair: relaxin’ with lee
A JOINT PRODUCTION
Produced by Steve “The Fly” Pratt for Radio Free Amsterdam
Post-production, editing & annotation by John Sinclair
Executive Producer: Sidney Daniels
Sponsored by Ceres Seeds & The Hempshopper, Amsterdam
Special thanks to Sarwar and to Mark Sampson for the Beatnik Youth vinyl
© 2016 Steve Pratt. Used with permission.

http://www.radiofreeamsterdam.com/fly-by-night-beatnik-youth/

Fake News & Made Up Truth.



“Keep it unreal”—Mr. Scruff.
“Literature is news that stays news.”—Ez.

Silent But Dudley: Black Country Blues 
by Mr Steven James Pratt 

A trip up mount Snowdon



This photo montage and trip report is dedicated to my loving parents and their spirit for adventure. Both in their 70s now, this journey to the summit of mount Snowdon just yesterday was in celebration of 49 years of happy marriage. 49 years! a testament to love and understanding, so rare these days in relationships. Congratulations. Love, steve.



























Launching The John Sinclair Foundation