bedheadchicken

Manko had a birthday this week. Go say hi if you haven't yet. It's Manko's world, damnit. We're just living in it. Or at least we'd all be better off if that was the case.


I got to hang out with Ms. Manko not too long ago. I stopped off in London on my way back from Africa. She took me to some art show. I can't remember what it was called because I got fairly heroically drunk that evening. I do remember it involving lots of music, nudity, and someone dressed as a baby being pushed around in a shopping cart. I met someone who was from my family's home county in Ireland. She first insisted that we may be related and then later suggested that we go home together. I'm not sure how she reconciled those two thoughts.

I forget what time I left. I think it was around 3:30 or so. Manko encouraged me to stay until the tube re-opened at 5:30, but for some reason I was convinced that I'd find my way back to my hotel. I stumbled to a nightbus stop at London Bridge and proceeded to take the bus in exactly the opposite direction from my hotel. Once I realized that error in judgement, I hopped off and made the curious and ill-considered decision to WALK around London for a time. I'm not sure why. I found a tube stop around 4:30 and sat down outside, waiting for it to open. I'm not sure exactly what part of town I was in but I remember being some distance from everywhere I needed to be.


A guy in a uniform was pushing a broom outside a nearby hotel. He looked at me suspiciously as I was sprawled out on a stone bench holding my head in my hands.

Him: You've got a while before that opens, you know.

Me: Well aware. Thank you.

Him: You been drinking a bit, mate?

Me: No more than the usual, thanks.

Him: There's a nightbus that goes to Trafalgar Square. You'll find more company there.

Me: Hmmmmm

So I decided to take him up on his advice. I tool the bus to Trafalgar square and watched the sun come up from the steps of the National Portrait Gallery. I then stumbled over to Piccadilly Circus where a bunch of club kids were waiting for the tube to open. I cursed Burger King for not being open all night and sat on the ground and waited with them.

London REALLY needs a better nighttime transportation system.



The next morning my friends woke me up at 10ish or so and insisted I go do the touristy stuff with them. None of them had been to London before, so I went along with them to Westminster Abbey. I'd been there once before, about 10 years ago or so, and just thought it another boring tourist trap. This time, though, it offended me. Greatly.

I'm offended with the idea of human authority in general. The idea that someone is "in charge" of me is complete bullshit. I believe in the rule of law. I believe that we as a society need to agree on a set of rules. But the idea that a PERSON, not a rule, is what governs me is something that's completely unacceptable to me. That's the most dangerous idea in history. For centuries people have been claiming the divine right to rule over others. Westminster Abbey , then, was the epitome of that idea. Kings, Queens and other royals and notables are buried in a church-a house of God-and displayed to be worshipped themselves. Men and woman who lived in untold wealth and luxury at the expense of their fellow countrymen, and by the blood of the foreign peoples they conquered, were presented to us as being part of a holy tradition. And we, the descendents of those oppressed, of those conquered, were asked to PAY to see their bones. Having just come from Africa and standing in the slave castles where men and woman were tortured, killed, bought and sold under the authority of those same rulers in the church I now stood I wanted nothing more than to burn down the fucker.

Maybe I should have.