Email to America on 1st of December 1997

 I’m going to bug Dave until he lets me borrow the Sundays album. I’m getting into the new Echo and the Bunnymen right now. It’s not quite up to original line up quality, but almost.

I’ve driven too, and admit I’m pretty lousy at it. That’s one reason I don’t any more. Most of my friends drive, but I make them feel guilty about it *laughing*.

Yeah, pedestrians can be crazy, I get people stepping off the pavement right into the path of my bike - especially in central London. I think they look, see no cars, and step out. Somehow I become invisible on my bike. Maybe its a stealth bike, like the stealth bomber? This morning, cycling into work, I was swearing under my breath at some cyclist who was going incredibly slowly, weaving about the road so I couldn’t pass him. Last year I stopped at some lights and got hit in the back by another cyclist who didn’t see the lights. He started shouting at me, “What you stopped for man?”. I pointed out the light, but I don’t think he thought I should have stopped - a lot of cyclists don’t.

You went to Orpington? Why? It’s actually just within the boundaries of London, and I used to live near there. I’ve been to all the places you mention, and took part in an environmental action in Canterbury.

It only took me around three weeks to my first US trip. We really packed it in, the overnight travelling that helped. I really want to go back and see some of the North West of America, Washington state etc, and maybe see some of the wilderness, and small town America. I quite fancy going to Northern California to see the Redwoods and then onto Yosemite

I agree, each state in America is like a separate country. There is such diversity. I hate it when people generalise about America or Americans. I couldn’t believe the difference in climate from Miami, to Grand Canyon and SF. The Grand Canyon was the first desert area I’ve saw. It was astonishing standing on the rim, in piles of snow, looking down to the parched desert  bottom of the Canyon.

The only things I liked at Disney were the roller-coasters. They stopped me from being completely miserable. And there was the Star Wars simulation thing - that was quite good too. The Peter Pan thing was weird, cos we were supposed to be flying over London, which is something I’d done just two weeks earlier, but for real. My friend wanted us to visit Disneyworld in Florida but I put my foot down. We wouldn’t have had time to see America if we spent all our time in theme parks.

Bladerunner is my favourite movie - the directors cut that is. I’ve seen it many many times. And Gary Numan made an album based on it. I’ll put a track on the GN tape I’m going to do for you.

I’m going to do you at least two more tapes - a VU tape - based on my favourites - can I put any Lou Reed solo stuff on it? - and a Gary Numan tape. I like making up tapes, it gives me an excuse to spend quality time with my record collection.

I’ve put a few strange things onto the Bowie tape - hope you like it. Unfortunately my copy of “when the wind blows” doesn’t play, so you’ll have to wait till I get a new one.

I used to be a real big REM fan, but last two/three years have been going off them rapidly. I really don’t like their last three albums. But I’m not really into their earlier stuff much these days either. But I still like Nirvana - but that doesn’t mean I idolise Cobain, cos I don’t. Did you hear about the ‘Kurt cobain was murdered’ allegations? I don’t know much about them, but isn’t that always the way when someone famous dies suddenly? The Michael Hutchence was murdered stuff has already started.

I used to think Paul Weller represented my generation but now he’s turned into a boring old man. Maybe I would accept Billy Bragg as leader - but he’s not really my generation - he’s 10 years older than me. Kurt was almost exactly my age, one reason why his death shocked me so much at the time. Actually as a Green Anarchist I accept no leaders. I am my own leader - no one tells me what to do.

Fugazi. You’ll have to remind me - the name’s familiar.

I thought you’d probably know about Dream Dresser. There’s a similar shop in Hammersmith, London. I’ve thought about looking it up but I’m not sure all that kinky stuff is really my scene. It might be fun to try a few wigs on though - and the shoes.

I’ve got a document from the Internet, written by Noam Chomsky (my hero). It lists all the post-war presidents of the USA, and details the war crimes they’ve committed. Under the terms of the Nuremberg trials after WW2, they’d all have been hung. Good riddance I say. They can hang the British Prime Ministers along side them too. Not that I believe in killing. Actually I wouldn’t hang them - but I would strip them of their powers - and maybe shove them out onto the streets where they’d be at the mercy of the people.

Do you literally believe in the existence of demons? If so what exactly are they in your opinion? I find it a lot easier to believe in them than god. I also believe that if there are demons, then they run all the governments and all the big multi national corporations. Did you ever see a film by John Carpenter, called “They Live”. It’s probably the most subversive Hollywood movie I’ve ever seen. It was set in LA (original). The film starts with a shanty town being evicted by the police and a load of hired thugs. Squatters get beaten up, possessions get trashed etc, a pretty familiar scenario to anyone involved in the British Land Rights movement. There’s this bloke who tries to help the squatters but he gets threatened and moved on. But he comes back. There are these people who are set up in a nearby church, he goes in finds a box of shades and put s one of them on. They seem perfectly normal. But when he goes out onto the street suddenly he notices that some of the people aren’t human. Through the shades they look like aliens. When he takes the shades off - normal - puts them on - aliens. The shades acted as a kind of screen - allowing the wearer to see things as they really are. It turns out that the aliens have infiltrated everywhere, the police, big business, politics. They were treating humans as cattle, forcing us to take crap jobs, exploiting us much like capitalism does. With the shades on, advertising on hoardings and TV said things like “BUY MORE”, “CONSUME”, “HAVE BABIES”, “SPEND MONEY”. There’s a scene where he goes into a middle class area, and all the wealthy people were aliens, and every group of police had an alien in charge. So it becomes a parody of a Schwarzenegger move where he goes into this bank, and shoots aliens. We see it as him shooting the police, and shooting the middle class people. The film then descends into a third rate shoot and chase movie, but the point has been made.

There’s also some stuff I came across, properly referenced, where certain key people in US governments have talked about the real purpose of government. It’s to keep the people passive and dormant, and make sure they keep paying their taxes. When the people rise up and make their concerns known, as during the Vietnam war, they call it “a crisis of democracy”.

In this country when people go out onto the streets to voice their opinions, we get these armed thugs in uniforms coming down on us. These thugs are called the Territorial Support Group, supposedly trained to deal with terrorists, actually get used against unarmed civilians, and I should know! Don’t let anyone tell you the British police don’t carry guns - all you have to do is walk around London for a few hours, and you’ll see plenty of armed police. Especially near the US embassy.

I take an interest in UFOs but wouldn’t go so far as to say I believe that they are aliens. There’s something going on though, even if its just a weird world-wide psychological phenomenon. But what interests me is why is it that our governments keep lying about their interest in the subject. In the US there are mountains of documents about the subject, available through the Freedom of Information Act. Sometimes I wonder if its a conspiracy (that word again!) to keep us occupied and looking in the wrong place. I’ve no doubt that a lot of what we call UFOs are actually secret military vehicles developed by the US, but that can’t account for all of the sightings.

I’ve read this book about companies like Proctor & Gamble. Animal experiments serve no scientific function at all. There are plenty of independent scientists willing to testify to that. But big companies keep up the pretence that animal tests will keep us all safe. If their new product kills a rat, then they test it on a rabbit. If that dies they’ll test it on a monkey and so on. Eventually, say, they test it on a cat and the cat lives. So they’ll write up a report about how the cat can be used as a “model” representing a human being, and that the product passed all the animal tests. Then the product is released and it causes all kinds of health and environment problems. If this ever comes up at court (and lots of these do) the company will turn around and say “well, we did what we were legally obliged to do”. And they get away with it. Animal experiments is all one giant scam, set up by the big drug and chemical factories to rake in piles of money. They are more powerful than most governments, and control a few of them. One thing is for sure - they know how evil and dangerous there products are. That makes them demons in my book. I’m completely against “legal” drugs - they are so dangerous and destructive. And people don’t realise it. I hardly ever go to a doctor, and never ever take drugs that are prescribed to me.

It was so cold riding in this morning  - my hands are frozen, I need gloves! I tell you, I love my new bike, its very different from my old one.