GONE BERSERK: 2) FIRST, MADNESS IN LONDON
From 22 Years Ago: Reflection, Rumination & Rhetoric From the Road
January 2002
The artist and I settled on the long weekend of 24-28 January, when the Full Wolf Moon would conjunct with Jupiter—and everyone else would be at home suffering post-holiday depression and credit card hangover.
Prior to departure, I’d zapped an email to the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik asking if the cultural attaché might attach himself to a couple of culturally curious Americans desiring to explore Iceland’s berserk culture.
Their curt reply brushed me off: The attaché will be out of town that weekend.
“They’re all do-nothing bums,” I tell Van Stein. “Trust me, I used to live in that chicken-shit swamp they call Washington. If you saw the people who supposedly run this country hanging out at their usual Starbucks it would scare the bejeesus out of you.”
“Must you bring religion into this?” Shocked, Van Stein dispatches his own e-mail to the Reykjavik embassy, using language like, I think of myself as an ambassador of goodwill when I travel abroad.
They ignored him completely.
Off We Go
We fly the big bird from LA to London for a spot of bedlam before tackling berserk; an opportunity to fall into rhythm with a time zone eight hours ahead before dealing with darkness and whatever else awaits us in the northern latitudes.
Van Stein is first to spot our driver after hiking through Heathrow Airport. He’d only seen a hazy photograph of Alpha 26, but it was enough to recognize this Rasputin lookalike at 50 yards.
Alpha 26 prances toward us on the balls of his feet, tugging on his beard, in temporary mute mode, a symptom known by psychiatrists as elective mutism. He leads us to the parking lot, prances off then minutes later screeches to a halt mere inches from where we stand.
Alpha 26’s minivan reeks of cow pasture. I explain to Van Stein that this is because he subsists on nothing but bananas and freshly squeezed milk from a farm he visits daily.
He finally speaks, after exercising a ritual of running his hand from his mouth to the end of his long beard three times. “A human can survive on six bananas a day and water,” he says by introduction. “It results in white stool.”
Van Stein looks at me from the backseat, through rear-view mirror, like, what planet is this? He rummages his bag for a cassette recorder, determined not to miss a single nuance while Alpha 26 waxes eloquent about ancient negativity and the devil.
“We’re going to Iceland,” I offer, fitting a few words in edgewise. “We think that’s where the devil is hiding—in a cold place, beneath the ice, where you’d least expect him.”
Alpha 26 scoffs contemptuously. “The devil is not a he or a she. The devil is an it. Go ahead and look if you want. Amuse yourselves.” He slaps Led Zeppelin into the cassette player at high volume, to match his high speed. “Remember,” he calls out after us when we reach our destination, “it’s not about the donut, it’s the whole!”
We dump our bags at Lowndes Hotel in Belgravia and hustle out for cappuccino and breakfast. A server in Knightsbridge Café tells us breakfast is over, we must settle for lunch.
“These English sure have strange accents,” says Van Stein.
“No, she’s Australian,” I say. “One thing you need to understand about London: there are lots of Poles, Romanians, Russians, Aussies, Americans, Chinese and Arabs, but very few English people.”
“But Alpha 26 is English,” says Van Stein.
“Yup, and that’s because he doesn’t pay insurance premiums, traffic tickets, road tax or conform to any authority that demands money, so he is one of the few Englishmen who can actually afford to reside in their kingdom’s capital.”
“How can he get away with that?”
“Whenever he is asked to explain himself in court, Alpha 26 insists on starting at the beginning, when he was born. After about two hours, the judge throws him out.”
Come evening, we reconnect with my eccentric cabbie. “To the River Thames,” I instruct. “We’re looking for inspiration.”
“Given a choice between the long way and the short way,” says Alpha 26, “always take the long way.”
But Alpha 26’s reason for taking the long way is less about seeing sights than to provide himself ample time to deliver a discourse on his particular world view:
“Charles was screwing Camilla before Diana came along, right? And the Freemasons have plans for a New World Order, once they have culled the world’s population to one billion with zero growth rate. When Christ was taken down after the first day they reckon he was still alive. He was smuggled away, revived, had a family with Mary Magdalen, and they’ve closely guarded the descendants for 2000 years. When they bring in their New World Order with One World Government, one monetary system, one religion—that’s why they’re having a go against Islam now—there’s going to be an aspect of Christianity that allows for the existence of Satan, because God and the devil are the same entity. They’re going to introduce their new religion, which everybody is going to have to follow, which allows for the devil to exist. They’re going to have one spiritual leader for their culled population of one billion; they’re going to prove that it’s a direct descendant of Christ. That’s why Diana was chosen, because her blood, contrary to the Greek and kraut crap in the Windsors, was sacrificed. Charles was told, just give her an heir to the throne, then you can go back to your tart. So Charles goes back to Cruella, and Diana says, ‘Hang on, what’s happening?’ It was hoped she was just going to fade into nothing, but she became too prominent, too well-liked. And, as you know, Harry is James Hewitt’s boy. The Establishment treated her really badly. She loved kids, and she did the same as Rabin and Kennedy, she started doing good things for peace. She wants to make the world safe for the kids. The arms’ dealing is where they—the New World Order—get their money from. She was also between six weeks and three months preggers with an Islamic baby—Dodi’s. She would have converted to Islam, hundreds of thousands of people would have done the same. So she had to be stopped. A certain time, a certain place, a certain way. The Pont d’Alma, a bridge nearest that little underpass near the Seine. When you sacrifice people according to Freemason ritual it has to be done by the rules. Kennedy—the same thing happened to him—a certain way, certain place, certain time. Diana, it had to happen there. The security cameras either end, controlled by the police, 20 minutes before the accident, 20 minutes after, switched off. An ambulance took an hour-and-a-half to take her to the third nearest hospital. Because they’d been briefed, when she arrived, if she was conscious she was to be anesthetized, if she was unconscious or if her heart stopped, open-heart surgery, make sure the fetus is dead. Henri Paul not only worked for French Intelligence, he was working for British Intelligence. No one could account for his whereabouts between seven and ten that evening. When he left the Ritz Hotel he went straight to the Seine. No one had a safety belt on. The bodyguard said, ‘Where are you going, Henri?’ He did what he was controlled to do. I know everyone thinks I’m mad. Except for one thing. I’m consistent in my madness. That’s disturbing. I know they know I know, they just don’t want to know.”
“Look at these old buildings,” says Van Stein, twisting this way and that. “London’s a plein air museum.”
“Shut up, shut up,” Alpha mumbles to himself, mocking the indifference of others to his monologue. “Change the subject.”
The Wolf moon, near full, struggles to break through cloud and, though tired, Van Stein prepares to do the one thing everybody should strive for in life: in-the-zone pure focus.
We climb out of Alpha 26’s van on the south side of Vauxhall Bridge. The artist is looking for inspiration, the right angle, maybe a left angle—he’ll know it when he sees it. He shakes his head, we climb back into the vehicle. “Up there,” I instruct. “Near Lambeth Palace.”
We bail further up the Albert Embankment. Van Stein gallops with easel and oil paints until he finds his image: Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, a view Claude Monet painted from the same spot a century ago. Soon he’s slathering a board purple—and I leave him to paint in peace.
“Back to the Lowndes,” I instruct Alpha 26.
Richard Dadd
Crossing Lambeth Bridge, very quiet at this hour, Alpha 26 says, “See those obelisks on both sides? They’re meant to be pricks. Designed by Freemasons in homage to the Greek God Osiris.”
I’m tired and lagged but I perk up. “Osiris? That’s the God who drove Dadd mad.”
“Your dad?”
“No, Richard Dadd. He was a visionary artist and the most famous patient at Bethlem Royal Hospital, the world’s oldest mental hospital, which became known, through cockney slang, as Bedlam. Dadd always claimed that Osiris drove him to stab his dad to death. He was committed to Royal Bethlem, where he painted his masterpiece, Fairy Feller’s Masterstroke, about a colony of little people in his head.”
Inside the hotel’s cosy bar I cuddle up with my jet lag remedy: a snifter of X.O. Armagnac and a Cuban Monte Cristo No. 5.