DANCING WITH THE BEGGARS IN MY MIND.

Silence update - limited reading

2009-07-21T16:11:00.004+02:00

As my ADD gets worse, I have only been able to read a few chapters of two books in the last year. Both books are well worth reading if you are interested in art.
1. " The $12 Million Stuffed Shark : The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art - Don Thompson.
2. " Seven Days in the Art World " - Sarah Thornton
It's quite pathetic that I haven't even finished them. I have now stopped buying books as I have no time to read and find it easier to focus while reading on a computer screen. The recent bespectacled mode has not induced much desire to read either.

as for further madness Under the Pepper Tree, it is all brewing up within for another toxic chapter which will be released whenever time allows...........

Hari Kunzru on trouble in paradise

2006-12-17T19:52:00.000+01:00

Hari Kunzru writes an informative article on a different side of the Maldives about its political upheavals and "golhaabo" Gayoom. A slice of life away from the... ''re-defined luxury '' where ... ''perma-tanned middle-aged couples and upscale honeymooners, are greeted by neatly-uniformed men who whisk them off in speedboats to islands with $3,000-a-night water villas''... Kunzru has also written 2 books , Transmission and The Impressionist and his articles can be read on his website. I have Transmission gathering dust on my bookshelf along with many other books that I have no fucking time to read .

Under the Pepper Tree - Dr.Julio Jabugo Guijuelo Gordales

2006-10-22T23:19:00.000+02:00

As the sun's first rays shafted the velvet pubescent dawn, El Diablo woke up in a skip outside FICEB. He was encrusted in George's liquid dump, some used condoms, rejected sex paraphanalia and rubble from a nearby building. He slowly stood up, pulled a purple butt-plug out of his arse crack and crawled out of the skip. George the Wild Boar was still unconscious and was brought to his senses abruptly with LD's impatient fist on his temple. With a vicious,pounding headache and an aching kidney, still sore from the 900k volts of the Streetwise stun gun, LD mounted the brimstone steed and headed towards Calle Caspe to meet Slippery Sally Clitsen.... continued at Under the Pepper Tree

Late nite liquid metronome

2006-10-02T01:17:00.000+02:00

Bottles of Beronia 2003 were an unguent liquid metronome for the Canterbury gallop of late nite tales at the Cafe Modesto... stories of Paco L.... aka 'Clammy Hands' , part of the Gador mafia... with a queer son.../... the Redhead's Indian experience of an inquistive Parsi junkie in Calcutta that eventually dies young, overdosed into oblivion in his pharmacological quest... an outdated India guidebook that lead to a non-existent hotel with a landlady long dead ...memories of mulligatawny soup at the 'squatter' Madras Club.../... an era of decades gone by... all washed down in the porcelaneous vulval bowl of life.

Martin Amis - The Age of Horrorism

2006-09-10T12:07:00.000+02:00

A day before the 5th anniversary of 9/11, Martin Amis has written a long-winded, yet important 12,000 word essay entitled '' The Age of Horrorism '' about the rise of extreme Islamism, in the Guardian. Amis's new book , " House of Meetings " will be out on the 28th of September 2006. A list of all his books , some interviews and a biography are at MartinAmisWeb. I am currently reading '' Yellow Dog '', his post 9/11 satire.

Update : October 1st : Guardian Interview : The Amis Papers

Martin Amis + The Age of Horrorism + House of Meetings

Iceberg Slim at Rodalquilar

2006-09-04T01:22:00.000+02:00

Two rug munchers playing paddle ball at the edge of the scuzzy beach in Rodalquilar....one has salt and pepper hair, small dags and a 3'' thick, dense stripe of black bush.... the other with big pendulous east-westerlies that flop about on each paddle stroke and a regular black V... a 'perro de agua' yaps, skitting across the skanky reeds and the detritus on the sticky sand....the massage tent is full and greasy, as a pert bronzed set of puffies stroll by, bearing a tinge of vermillion lycra defining wobbly butt crack....the beach is violent with its jagged, sharp, barnacled rock entry... sea urchins on its floor greedily awaiting a tender footstep, as the last of the summer's wave of jellyfish float on...at the end a beautiful serenity oozes across the bay by dusk , yet by day retching angry mastiff jaws with miles of treacherous shallow depth.

Not far away in the scuzz, I lie reading 'Pimp - Iceberg Slim' - as he opens with being ''Georgied'' having his 3 year old face locked between Maude's thighs. " ... and most vividly I can remember my panic, when in the moment of her climax, she would savagely jerk my head even tighter into the hairy maw....I remember the ache of the strain on my fragile neck muscles, and especially at the root of my tongue ''. Pimp is a strong, violent, raw, ripe and fucking good book. Its brutality is not for the faint-hearted , and is extremely misogynistic. Iceberg has a very descriptive style and takes you deep into the stench and sweat of the 'cat' and his grim Chicago pimp world. a world with a language of its own... with a glossary at the back to guide you through Slim's prolific ghetto jive. It's well written and gripping, almost too well written at times (for a pimp !!??) though Iceberg Slim boasts an I.Q. of 175 ! 'Pimp' is suitably repugnant reading for the beach at Rodalquilar.

Iceberg Slim (aka Robert Beck ) was born as Robert Lee Maupin in 1918. He died in 1992. Slim also written the following books : Trick Baby + Long White Con + The Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim + Airtight Willie and Me + Mama Black Widow + Death Wish + Doom Fox.

Iceberg Slim

Ghosts of Spain

2006-06-28T15:23:00.000+02:00

Late evening... wet... sprawled naked beside the emerald green kidney, the last shards of the Andalucian sun streaking across my scrotum....some solace from the day's searing 40° C ....the agapanthus are in full bloom, large melon-sized globes of white and blue-violet, snaking upwards from their pots against a backdrop of Haliborange hibiscus.....the bougainvillea strangles the hardy Opuntia dillenii as it sways in the fucking madness of the gale force June - July Gador winds, scattering its magenta leaves into the emerald green kidney... the wind lacerating the banana palm leaves into ribbons.... the Lithops is about to pop another stone-like bud and my hard-back copy of ''Ghosts of Spain " has just arrived via The Book Depository ( a great website that does free delivery to most of the civilised world ).

A few days ago, the Redhead was reading out captions from the '' Ghosts of Spain ", Giles Tremlett's new book published earlier this year. She found the Franco references and descriptions of life under him in the Sixties very familiar as she was at school in Andalucia at the time. Giles Tremlett is the Guardian's Madrid correspondent and has lived in Spain for the last 20 years. He talks of the various facets of Spain , the silence of the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War, how they have just forgotten and eradicated certain elements of their past....the book covers brothels, gypsies, flamenco and corruption in the construction industry amongst other aspects of daily Spanish life.

" Why do Spaniards go to plastic surgeons, donate their organs, visit brothels and take cocaine more than any other Europeans ?" More to follow as I plough through it distracted by the fucking discombobulating wind.........

Tags: Ghosts of Spain + Giles Tremlett + The Book Depository

Geraniums and Tourism

2006-04-09T20:08:00.000+02:00

Back in Andalucía after two months of pursuing the ''big deal ", the grey, mundane metallic chatter of its commercialism leaving me vapid. Now the geraniums are in full bloom, barking a Marlboro red, bursting in their ebullient fuchsia...the frangipanis fighting their way into new life after a battering frost. The royal palm sits patiently in its big, black rubber pot, awaiting its entry into the dry,desert womb as a big opaque scorpion scuttles out from beneath it. The emerald kidney is being filtered, beating at 11°C , a testicle shrinking, nipple erecting plunge clears the head as I race through a recently purchased copy of Tourism by Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal. Was it the erect nipple on the cover that drew me to it in the book shop?

Nipple Singh's first book, Tourism, is good... fast-paced, suitably filthy, contemporary,racist and enjoyable as he doesn't mince his words. Perhaps its a bit early to compare him to Houellebecq, as the Guardian interview suggests ''Houellebecq-light "..... "I read Houellebecq and I thought if this nerdy white dude has got the guts to write this stuff, then fucking hell, I should have the bottle as well, you know "....Julie Burchill says," The best debut I have ever read "... I think its the best Punjabi debut I have ever read !

Tag: Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal

No words

2006-03-21T23:45:00.000+01:00

Stultified by the tedious, mundane mechanics of life..... neck deep in its bullshit....no time for the written word = silence... back soon

Under the Pepper Tree - Full Penetration in Barcelona

2006-03-06T12:28:00.000+01:00

The sky was a translucent cerulean tinged with a smattering of vermillion cirrus clouds. El Diablo, Slippery Sally Clitsen and George the Wild Boar (G.W.B.) were tearing down the highway towards Barcelona. LD had decided to stop at FICEB ( Festival Internacional de Cine Erotico de Barcelona ) as they had to drop off Slippery Sally who was a participant in the Barcelona 690. As they entered Barcelona heading for La Farga de L'Hospitalet, G.W.B was nodding his head to the 2 Live Crew song that was blaring out of the brimstone steed's DAB radio. '' ...you said it yourself, you like it like I do, put your lips on my dick and suck my asshole too...",
continue reading at Under the Pepper Tree.

Evaporating Despondency

2006-02-25T01:51:00.000+01:00

he sits naked, ensconced in priapic tension, bearing a lugubrious daze, slowly shaving his head ... revealing a dry, grey scalp hidden from the torrid noon day sun.... shedding the load of a dire, dark week...a drudge watching the numbers on the screen increase and decrease in a soporific stupor... a hollow expanse of time and space filled with morbidity, dread and self-imposed solitude. he can sink very low, reaching into the grim depths of depression's intestine, sitting there paralytic at the edge sipping the valerian solution, with no pistol on the table. as the last tuft of hair falls from his scalp bouncing off the crimson floor, there is finally a pin-prick of light that slowly enlarges, tearing through the recycled paper screen of his despondence . He rises to his feet, stretches out of his sedentary sojourn and steps outside into the glaring sunshine, leaving his saturnine coat behind. the joie de vivre gently seeps in like a cool beatific gimlet....

Cystic Explosion

2006-02-16T03:34:00.000+01:00

He sits in a puddle of sebaceous pus.... a turgid mass of putrid, vile smelling sebum that weeps softly out of a golf ball sized cyst on his inner thigh. Black trouser starts sticking to his leg as the viscid juice oozes south, a cinnabar and yellowish double cream, coating his balls in cystic coagulation.... a smell so indescribably repugnant, acts as an emetic to retch a violent bilious chunderstorm, a lapful of the previous night's sashimi. Peeled layers of concentric necrotic tissue speckled with tiny mouths, the b-roads of the pus highway that finally flood their gates, released from their rotting subterraneous prison. Soothing balm of relief to the now deflated hard-boiled hillock entrapped within, a wrenching agony of taut flesh,tension and stress fuelled by whiskey and Jamón Ibérico, the pleasurable toxins of the fatherland. His bow-legged buggered stance resumes a normal gait as he enters the natatorium and falls into a deep sleep, lulled by the twittering birds of dawn.

Jeremy Clarkson's caustic wit

2006-02-13T10:45:00.000+01:00

"Unfortunately, if you’re middle class you may as well take cocaine and spend Saturday night talking to yourself because there’s bugger all else to do. You can’t go into town because it’s been overrun with drunks and all the police are too busy filling in hazard assessment forms to do anything about it " .
An excerpt from Jeremy Clarkson's funniest column in the Sunday Times this year.

Tags: Jeremy Clarkson + Sunday Times

Under the Pepper Tree - In Alicunte with Slippery Sally Clitsen

2006-02-09T23:03:00.000+01:00

The sky was a deep viridian, bucketing rain followed by a vicious hailstorm. As hailstones the size of El Diablo's balls pelted down bouncing off George's head, he screamed : Look out ! The brimstone steed was hurtling down the highway at 217 m.p.h. as they hit a transgenic fluorescent pig crossing the road. El Diablo slammed on the brakes, and the steed hit the pig dead centre at 153 m.p.h. LD and George were pitched forwards and flew through the air for 17 seconds till they landed smack in the middle of a pile of green pig manure by the road side. ........ continue reading at Under the Pepper Tree

BRUTE! Magazine

2006-02-05T20:44:00.000+01:00

A few days ago a friend suggested that I should look at BRUTE! Magazine, which he said was popular in the mid 80's and would be right up my street. He was right !! The short stories are ripe and raw, yet tongue-in-cheek, paying homage to the pulp rags of the 30's and 40's, illustrated with powerful, strong woodcuts by Aidan Hughes. A paperback was published by Sphere Books to a sell-out first run, yet still available here.

Here is an extract from one of the short stories called ''TWAT!'' ".......You watch me ! I'll decimate ! Slaughter without quarter ! I'll spare none ! ........ I'm a raging,furious, suicidal cut throat with a lust for carnage ! For ACTION ! I've a thirst for devastation, beer and cunt ! ''

Another extract from "A Town Called Early " '' ......I knew right then that he had blown off his full load, so I sprang up to him and launched a law-flooring poke to Dobber's brains....... The crowd gasped as I clambered up onto the body and, tearing the star from his shirt, shit and pissed in his mouth.... "

I highly recommend reading all the 25 odd stories on the site. An in-depth interview of Aidan Hughes can be read at Trigger Magazine.

Tags: Brute + Aidan Hughes + Pulp Fiction

Books printed on recycled paper

2006-02-01T01:44:00.000+01:00

In an American opinion survey done by the Opinion Research Corp. in Nov. 2005, 80% of people who had bought a book in the past six months said they would be willing to pay more for a book printed on recycled paper. The survey showed that 42% were willing to pay $1 more per book. That's a healthy sign as annual book production chews up a million tons of paper requiring a staggering 20 million trees !!

Over a hundred publishers have adopted paper policies to eliminate the use of fiber from endangered forests and to maximize the use of recycled & FSC Paper. Publishers save one tree with every 90 books printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper. If the book industry's use of recycled fiber increases from 5 to 30 percent, there will be an annual ecological benefit of saving 4.9 million trees, conserving 2 billion gallons of water, preventing the release of 524 million pounds of greenhouse gases and 388,137 pounds of hazardous pollutants, and reducing pressure on rare and threatened forests.

We are buggering the planet's ecosystem on a daily basis, maybe to eventual extinction in time. One small thing you can do to marginally alleviate that is to click on the Rainforest Site. One free click a day saves 11.4 sq.ft (3.47 sq.m) of endangered rainforest which is about 4160 sq.ft or 1266.55 sq.m a year. Or eventually bite the bullet and succumb to an E - book reader ?? !!

For more information on advances in eco-friendly publishing, visit these informative resource sites:

Tags: Recycled paper + Rainforests + Publishing

Under the Pepper Tree - Pukey Pete Greeley's Pharmacy

2006-01-26T15:14:00.000+01:00

Pukey Pete Greeley's Pharmacy stank of cat's piss, a smell quite normal for a methamphetamine lab. As the pervading smell hit George, he snorted loudly and struggled against the iron chain. El Diablo was more concerned by the appearance of Pukey Pete and the Franchi shotgun pointed at him. Pukey Pete had bright white peroxide hair, enormous lips stuffed with about 353 cc of collagen and was wearing a tight pink polka-dotted dress, cut to just above his bollock line. As an immediate reflex LD put his hands up into the air ....... continue reading at Under the Pepper Tree

Hardbacks, paperbacks or E-book Reader ?

2006-01-22T02:36:00.000+01:00

Hardbacks: I have always had a preference for hardbacks when it comes to buying books and often buy 1st editions from Abebooks. There is a certain solidity and permanence in a hardback that's missing in a paperback and generally bigger print as well. The Redhead says that they are too heavy to read in the bath !

Paperbacks : Paperbacks seem to have a sense of disposability, yet are convenient to travel with as they are lighter, but don't have the same reading satisfaction and pleasure as a hardback. Often due to the heat on a beach they fall apart and you spend your holiday fumbling with loose pages, coming home with a missing page.

E-Reader : The Sony Reader was displayed at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. Apparently a marked improvement on previous e-readers with a capacity of about 80 E-books, portability being the size of a paperback and a battery life of 7500 page turns. This already indicates a move towards digitization and is like an i-Pod for books. There is a long post at the Guardian predicting the future of the printed book and the eventual move towards e-books. It will be a sad day when a piece of fucking plastic and a bunch of pixels replace the standard paper book.

So what do you prefer, hardbacks, paperbacks or moving towards the idea of being an e-book reader ? Please leave a comment with your views.

Tags: Sony Reader + Hardbacks + Paperbacks + Books

Under the Pepper Tree - Slimy Sol's Sodom Bar

2006-01-16T15:46:00.000+01:00

El Diablo zoomed along at 183 m.p.h. much to George's chagrin. George was getting tired of being strussed up by an iron chain in an awkard uncomfortable position. He hadn't slept or eaten for two days and was fed up of LD's 27.4 cm hoist up his rectum, continually pummeling his large intestine. He was being driven mad by the wind and the orange bugs splattering on his snout as the brimstone steed tore down the highway at full pelt ...... read more at Under the Pepper Tree.

Authors Interviews

2006-01-12T16:44:00.000+01:00

There are over a 100 interviews of various authors available to read online at Powells providing some very interesting reading. They include Bill Bryson, Peter Carey, Deepak Chopra, Philip Pullman, Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Brett Easton Ellis , Zadie Smith, and Carl Hiaasen amongst several others.

Spike Magazine has a fascinating, long interview with Ralph Steadman about the death of Hunter S. Thompson and himself. 3:AM Magzine has a whole host of interviews including Dan Fante, Irving Welsh, and Toby Litt. J.G. Ballard talks to Salon about William S. Burroughs and ELF(Ecletic Literary Forum) talks to Allen Ginsburg a year before he slid into the box. More interview sites will be added as I come across them.

UPDATE : 30th Jan. Podcast interview of Stephen Fry talking about his new book at Slam Idol

There are over 300 interviews at the Paris Review on Nelson Algren, Truman Capote , Lawrence Durrell and many others.

Tags: Author Interviews + Bill Bryson + Peter Carey + Deepak Chopra + Brett Easton Ellis

Under the Pepper Tree - Jesus Flymo's Porcine Flagellation Station

2006-01-06T16:21:00.000+01:00

A few Neo-Geo dogs were standing by the bar, and they swung around at the smell of the boar as LD entered. The boar growled at the dogs and a couple of them pissed themselves resulting in a viscous day-glo green frothy puddle on the floor. Sister Morphine was playing loud via an iPod behind the bar. JesusFlymo’s Porcine Flagellation Station was bathed in ultra-violet light .......... continued at Under the Pepper Tree .

Reading List 2006

2006-01-03T00:09:00.000+01:00

Despite suffering quite badly from ADD, which makes reading and more so writing, fucking difficult due to an inability to retain a somewhat consistent focus, this is a list of books I bought recently and plan to read this year. (not in the order listed below, red text = read. )

Deliberate prose: Selected Essays 1952-1995 - Allen Ginsberg
The possibility of an Island - Michel Houellebecq
Fear and Loathing in America - Hunter S. Thompson
The Beat Hotel - Barry Miles
Pimp - Iceberg Slim
The Burroughs File - William S. Burroughs
Memories of My Melancholy Whores - Gabriel García Márquez
The Hot Jazz Trio - William Kotzwinkle
Tourism - Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal
One Hundred Strokes of the Brush before Bed - Melissa P.
Helen and Desire - Alexander Trocchi
Girls - Nic Helman
Without Blood - Alessandro Baricco
Gabriela, clove and cinnamon - Jorge Amado
The Magus - John Fowles
Yellow Dog - Martin Amis
Tarantula - Thierry Jonquet
Stone Junction - Jim Dodge
Bad Chili - Joe R.Lansdale
The Colossus of Maroussi - Henry Miller
An American Dream - Norman Mailer
The Man with the Golden Arm - Nelson Algren
Not Fade Away - Jim Dodge
The Ebony Tower - John Fowles
Ghosts of Spain - Giles Tremlett
The Dedalus Book of Absinthe - Phil Baker
Theft - Peter Carey
Dopefiend - Donald Goines

Tags : Allen Ginsberg + Michel Houellebecq + Hunter S.Thompson
Alessandro Baricco + William S. Burroughs + Gabriel García Márquez
William Kotzwinkle + John Fowles + Henry Miller + Martin Amis + Thierry Jonquet

Under the Pepper Tree and Other Stories - a new blog

2005-12-29T19:09:00.000+01:00

A new blog has been constructed for the story ''Under the Pepper Tree " at Under the Pepper Tree and other Stories where it can be read from the beginning to the most recent post in a continuous sequence. A new update in the story will be coming very soon and in time there will be other stories posted there. Rundaas wishes all who read here a very Happy and Successful 2006.

Under the Pepper Tree - bulbous baculum dysfunction

2005-12-23T03:05:00.000+01:00

Continued from the previous post Under the Pepper Tree - the Wild Boar

In his haze he had forgotten his bulbous baculum dysfunction (he had an occasional case of his dick swelling up resulting in getting stuck for hours, like two dogs fucking). He realized after a short while of pumping the boar and screamed loudly as it happened again. More....

Under the Pepper Tree - the wild Boar

2005-12-09T03:52:00.000+01:00

Continued from the previous post Under the Pepper Tree

El Diablo (LD) woke up with a start, sweating profusely. It was dark with a sliver of a new moon peaking through the clouds. Rubbing his head, he adjusted one of his horns that bent in the fall. His head felt like a small chain-saw was buzzing through it and he slowly staggered towards his brimstone steed. Reaching into the saddle bag, he pulled out a large bottle of 80% proof Oaxacan Mescal and took a long swig, drinking half the bottle. He belched loudly and spat on the ground. Fumbling in his pockets, he pulled out a pack of filterless Cabronas and lit one up, scratching his arse as the Mescal fired through him.

He spotted some reed canary grass growing nearby and went towards it to pick some. Stuffing fistfuls of it down his throat, he smiled to himself while ingesting the grass which he knew had a high DMT (dimethyltryptamine) content. He swallowed a handful of harmal seeds (a monoamine oxidase inhibitor) , needed to retain the full effects of the DMT, and washed it all down with more Mescal. LD heard a rustling in the bushes and his infra-red sensors picked up the presence of a wild boar. Despite his fucked up state, he charged into the long grass and in a second had the boar in his grasp.

Tying him to a tree, he sat down and smoked another Cabrona . He thought about what he would do tonight and his thoughts drifted back to the previous night’s sex. As the DMT took its toll, twisting his neurons, swelling his pineal gland , the Mescal sloshed around his rancid guts, and he jumped to his feet. He ran towards the boar, grabbed it by the head, pulling his swollen baculum out of his black leather trousers, and stuffed all 274 mm. of it up the boar’s rectum. As the boar squealed in pain being hot-rodded, El Diablo roared with delight thrusting back and forth.

To be continued....