1
I am a violently enthusiastic taxidermist who works with rare and endangered species as well as creating bespoke creatures from various spare parts and leftovers. I have for example a Polar Bear with seven Marmoset heads and a half goat half motorbike.
Today whilst stuffing a rare lowland bongo (Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus) surrounded by my resplendent menagerie of mute vestiges of lives well lived as the data dense dulcet tones of Mr Outcrop crooned comfortably away in the background I was astonished to note that the vast majority of my stuffed collection had somehow swivelled their heads towards the laptop on my bench as if to peer, it appeared adoringly, towards the Scottish rendering within. Imagine my surprise, doubly so since this was mid morning and I never take mescaline before noon. It's a rule.
I am not embarrassed to admit I am still quite confused. I experimented, as both Curran brothers are also apt to do, with arbitrarily cutting off the volume of the podcast and in fact I noted that while the initial movements had ceased and my creatures were now simply keenly transfixed towards the new source of their seemingly collective fascination.Miraculously it could be observed that while still a certain light in their eyes would wax and wane in response to the volume being available and then withdrawn.
I surmise and suspect this has something to do with charisma and am devising whatever intricate ploy I can wherein I may entice Rocky Outcrop surreptitiously to the closest or largest mausoleum in Edinburgh to chat loudly with me so I may further my thesis that he is uncommonly regenerative.
It is altogether all quite confusing and as Irvine Welsh himself once said.
--That, eh, likesay, seems a bit eh, fucked up like man. Ken?
yours in virtuous servitude etc....
2
The exclamation 'Gazooks!' can only partly portray the immense pride I felt witnessing your rendition of my humble comment towards you in real time on your last podcast and so I will add, 'Jiminy Cricket!'
I noted also the small ejaculations of pleasure evinced towards me from the side chat thingy.
I was quite overcome and had to set aside my rare lowland bongo (Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus) momentarily as I examined myself within.
I am but a simple man who labours under passions and over my own impediments which include verbosity, reanimating animal corpses and what some might call an overfondness for hallucinogens.
Even so I was invigorated by the attention and the smattering of applause and whilst I am wary of it, considering the laughter and attention from others an opiate in it's own right having seen others dragged down to depths such that some would even sell toothpaste on television.
I will continue to pen brief comments in my short darjeeling breaks between rearranging the innards of both predator and prey, of the thoughts and observations that occur, and personal instances too, that I occasion while listening to your podcast.
If for no other reason other that perhaps small doses of absurdity may inoculate us from over-rationalisation in these tumultuous times
and a good subtext is never a bad thing
and as Irvine Welsh once again reminds us, "You don't have to run away. You just meet somebody special and step sideways into a parallel universe.“
yours in virtuous servitude etc....
3
Goodness gracious! and in addition Crikey Dick!
I veered dangerously close to a conniption at my mention live on air again by Rocky Outcrop on his show yester-morn.
Patterns form however I live to be gleefully disappointed so enjoy the moment.
I trust nothing but the dead which is why I'm a taxidermist and also why I have a fetish for Insensible meter maids.
Inevitability intrigues me. Which is why Rocky Outcrop, GME and the collective Curran phenomenon attracts.
For whilst we are all simply motes of dust momentarily illuminated by a shaft of light inside lifes cathedral there does exist certainty.
..and I certainly like Rocky outcrop!
now I must return to my rare lowland bongo
(Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus)
Til tomorrow then
“I held my crotch, closed my eyes and repeated my secret catechism.”
― Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory
yours in virtuous servitude etc....
4
Today I'm handing over the Rare Lowland Bongo
(Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus) to my client.
I am much sort after and can afford to charge fees any reasonable person would find offputting.
I choose my clients with a certain delicacy. Being who I am I strive for consistency.
Thusly I rigorously examine my prospective commissions and hold interviews.
Many might say I am humourless. Professionally I am dour and glacial.
Subterraneanly I do giggle often, you'd never know.
Humour is subjective and so we denote scales by which to particularize ourselves.
In hue my humour could best be described as 'vantablack'.
I have one criteria by which I select clientele based on the wise words a famous clown once told me.
"Whether you are a clown or not your number one priority in life should be to keep yourself entertained."
Subsequently the only people I will entertain in any professional capacity as a taxidermist are clients I've screened thoroughly and deemed
to be dead inside.
I, and apparently my entire menagerie, enjoys Rocky Outcrop immensely because he is the antithesis of this and......
But wait, there's a knock at the door. I must hasten.
“The Man Who Couldn't Stop”
― Chester Brown, Ed the Happy Clown
yours in virtuous servitude etc...
5
Well THAT was interesting.
My client arrived, [my discretion is assured so I will merely extrude the initials KG]
His pallor and expression was startling, it was as close to rictus as rictus could be whilst still containing a heartbeat.
His eyes, usually unwavering and unusually dry, were darting hither and thither seemingly seeking purchase like an overpowered luxury SUV departing an exclusive ski-lodge at speed.
For reasons of my own I had prearranged my menagerie facing away from the door so he was faced by a succession of various buttholes.
I pride myself on my attention to detail.
The only exception being the Rare Lowland Bongo (Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus)
That took pride of place framed side-on in the middle of my studio.
He carried a small attache [a case not a dwarf diplomat]
I presumed the final exorbitant downpayment for services rendered were contained within.
He scuttled to my fastidious bench and opened it, briefly dabbing at the sweat on his brow I noted, and withdrew a manila envelope stuffed with cash and additionally a small pouch, made of some synthetic material and containing himself as best he could he informed me of a change in plans.
It interested me to note that unlike our previous encounters wherein I was merely a provider of a service and he, a titan indulging in whimsy, a dedicated folly. I now seemed strangely to be the new centre of gravity in our arrangement.
He explained the pouch was a small faraday cage and the contents some data he wished to be placed inside the Rare Lowland Bongo (Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus) for safekeeping and that additionally he would provide a destination for it's delivery upon completion at some later date. And with that and some brittle alacrity he turned on his heel and departed.
I pondered as the door swung closed...What an infantile strategic bungle.
I'm sure Mr Outcrop you have your own life to lead, containing as it does measured altruism, stoicism and a certain choreographic grace.
But don't you find all this a bit strange?
anyway it's past noon, time for my medicine.
“He is as crazy as bedamned, an incontestable character and a man of ungovernable inexactitudes.”
― Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman
yours in virtuous servitude etc....
6
I have previously elucidated a description of myself as violently enthusiastic.
It would be remiss of me not to admit in the past the inverse was formally true.
For as a state employee at the highest levels a proclivity towards enthusiastic violence was once as they say 'My Jam.'
For better or worse back in the day a cornerstone of my character gravitated towards a good bash.
One pearl within my ex-profession is that if you cannot be overestimated you cannot be killed.
I was almost tediously aware that as the only pawn aside from the king aware of the hiding place of what could easily be surmised to contain KG's cold crypto wallets containing vast amounts of liquidity within the Rare Lowland Bongo (Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus)
I was a node where insecurity could be seen to fester.
So shortly after reopening the Bongo and installing the pouch deep within its chest and withdrawing with stealth and almost microscopic stitching I considered precisely my options while and after activating various concentric defences .
Rocky Outcrop in the background soothed me with his reiterated certainty. My mind temporarily drifted, perhaps one day I would visit....Gift him my contemplative Ocelot, another favourite, my bald alopecia-ic chimp with the transposed yakuza tattoos I'd stolen from that museum in Tokyo. Or the ultimate gift, nothing at all. I carefully set aside my mind satchel and returned to the matter at hand.
My client had appeared to be in a weakened state, his every move scrutinised from tens of thousands of angles. All reports suggested he'd awakened a digital eye of mordor, perhaps the most keenly perused person on the planet..in it's history.
I had an idea, the solution so simple and elegant while primitive that I doubted myself briefly for having thunk it.
My clock, an arrangement of moving parts and a dead Rainbow Owl, struck 12.
Owls in many cultures are harbingers of death, their hearing so acute they can hear your heart stop it's said.
I took a pill, what the hell, I took two.
“It is nearly an insoluble pancake, a conundrum of inscrutable potentialities, a snorter.”
Flann O'Brien , The Third Policeman
yours in virtuous servitude etc....
7
My hands gripped the antlers of my Nubian Ibex-electric motorbike hybrid.
I was speeding stealthily aiming my goats head adroitly through sparse traffic in the hour of the wolf
"The hour between night and dawn. The hour when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are most real. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their deepest fears, when ghost and demons are most powerful."
I was tripping Balls.
I feel a large wave building, within and without. Apprehension and exhilaration, usually insoluble, have melded into an entirely new emotion.
Novel, like a deaf person introduced to scratch and sniff movies.
I wore a Swedish leather tank helmet, not for protection but for je ne sais quoi.
Which if you were to think about deeply, [and I'd advise you not to]
Is its own armament.
I was running cold, I'd scanned my goat for anything transmittable and carried no communication devices of my own.
I locked the back wheel, sent the flank of my vehicle sideways, countersteered, then applied wheelspinning torque to whip myself around a corner and into an alley and up to a large industrial rollup doorway as my old motor sergeant whispered defeated obscenities in the background.
I'd arrived...at the end of my transitional interlude..
“You can only do what you can no matter how you try.”
― Kōbō Abe, The Box Man
yours in virtuous servitude etc....
