I’m in Greece this weekend with the deathrockers here, learning greek swear words and drinking greek liquor and its really damn strong! Raki and Tsipouro, a very anise flavoured spirit that turns cloudy if you temper it with water, but is fine if you drink it straight. I just got here yesterday, but its really nice, theres the strip in the center of Thessaloniki thats what remains of the old roman wall where people hang out drinking all night before and after going to the clubs. On a thursday night theres at least a dozen bars open, two or three that cater to alternative music, “Bate Skilee” and “Submarine” being the last two we went to until 5 in the morning. It was too late to get some gyros on the way home, but i had a peice of bread with the spiciest olives I’ve ever eaten.

Among the racks of Mogwai’s and future predicting video camera’s in Paris’ Olympiades massive Chinese Supermarket, we found an entire display of a mystery substance called ‘Gui Ling Gao’. Baffled and intrigued, even after meeting the most famous cashier in the European-asian community, we bought some to try it out.

I’ve been on a lot of adventures to places thouroughly saturated with culture, in search partly of the icons from my past. But sometimes no matter what the intention, I’ll discover a new muse completely by accident. In London, it was John Heartfield from a temporary exhibition at the Tate Modern when in fact I’d gone to see the Gothic Horrors exhibition, which though nonetheless amazing, these classics didn’t hit so hard as a firsthand run-in with Dada-ism.

In Florence, it was most certainly and unsuspectingly, Pinocchio (warning: wikipedia is never really trustworthy! read the book!), where at the top floor of the Gallery Uffizi there was a full exhibition of Collodi’s manuscripts, original drawings, dozens of pressings and re-interpretations from other countries including the dulled down Disney version and a Japanese adaptation, among others. Of course I’d been familiar with the character since a child and seen the movie, but the original story is far more perilous, darker, and earthy than a naughty boy getting a slap on the wrist from his fairy godmother. He’s in fact hung by the neck by assassins, and nearly carried off on a funeral bier by the black rabbits of death. And the fox and the cat are far more surly. Here’s a character I could identify with. Always on the move, looking for nothing but pleasure in life and learning nothing from the dire consequences.

From my readings about Paris, one character stands out in the seedy city streets of medieval Paris. A student, a drinker, a vagabond, a thief and a murderer; a brilliant writer. François Villon definitely requires further reading. His real-life escapades stabbing priests, robbing churches (after all no one was more corrupt or rich in the middle-ages as the Catholic church), and writing down his tales to impress his drinking buddies in filthy student taverns around the Sorbonne through streets of Paris that in the 1400s bore names like ‘Rue du Petit et du Gros-Cul’, ‘Rue Gratte-Cul’ (’Big and little Cunt Street’ and ‘Scratchy Cunt street’, respectively). They have since been renamed or obliterated, however ‘Rue Marie-Stuart’ where I stayed was known many centuries ago as ‘Rue Tire-Boudin’ (Sausage-Puller Street).