he used to crank up the TV for the Big Brother theme
and would bang out the stars & stripes every morning
when he learnt he was going to work in New York
i got him back for repeatedly getting his little sister
to wake me up by yelling "MORRISSEY!" in my face
by sticking selected cut-outs of the ex smiths vocalist's face
over various family photos, pictures and portraits
kerrang posters & even the flipside of the toilet lid
once he claimed he could switch off streetlights with his mind
and that he once made it rain
when he didn't want anybody to go for a skate
obviously we were skeptical of his talk
but it was always amusing
deliberately confusing the gullible & naive
he had a logical theory to explain everyone's godhood
called himself an observer looking in from the outward
he claimed he would be famous
and one day everyone would know his name
during one of our regular lights-out conversations
whilst he was secretly taping over
an arguement with an ex that went too far
that i'd video'd for banter
but got too alcohol fuelled after an overplaying
of an irritating magic roundabout ringtone
i still see his tag on the walk up to ben's road
called himself satanico a goth in pink ben sherman
and if it wasn't for him then i never would have heard of
at the drive in or got into cradle of filth or drum n'bass
he took me to my first rave in a sorting office in kingston
that for some reason
had a huge advert for goldeneye N64 painted up on the wall
we saw mansun on their last tour twice
our favourite band at the time
(although their third album was somewhat underwhelming...
we forgave them for making our then-favourite album ever
- six, it's distinctly prog rock esque predecessor)
he would never forget an
obscure fact about an even more obscure band
like myself his brain overflowed with crazy trivia
we wrote gonzo journals and compared notes on
adventures we called 'fear & loathings'
and as my attorney he found my bag when i lost it in subversion
wearing pete scathe masks we ridiculed our whole scene
with Karlos Mandrake founding the HCE
which tongue firmly in cheek stood for the hardcore elite
our half hearted graffiti still adorns this city
some of which was copied by people we didn't even know
much to our astonishment at what we had created.

(the irony is we used to spray HCE on peoples houses
and i always wondered if i was a hypocrite
and would get annoyed if the same thing
happened to me but recently it has
and i can say with all honesty i didn't.)

i took the photo that later appeared in the news
with you giving a thumbs-up
sitting in the stocks on the isle of wight
in a digital hardcore t-shirt
on another carefully planned hiking day
on which ben left his fags at the station
and the unwrapped trip blew away off a cliff
from my first hovercraft ride ever
to watching arachnophobia with sascha
nothing went to plan at all as usual of course....