Issue 82 / October 2017

We’re mixing a choir of our WAVs and AIFFs, we’re
selling homemade merch. We brewed a beer,
made a map of badgers, plan funerals for our first
fallen and talk about always. We do things. This is
the afterlife of a dark age, or perhaps the main deal. Its filling feeds
while you pause on this, which is old money.
There are 2,023 words here, squandered in hope of flyposting
over what you’ve seen. You’ve watched bricks lobbed from out
of range; read dimensions of those bricks, omitting mortar or
plans to construct a whole; you’ve been told where to stand by
people from inside stepping out, becoming conscious and waking.
Inside looking out – inside looking IN – was the normal, sensible,
democratised place to be, and was serious or not as lives. We paid
£100 for a bit-part in [something] and a glimpse of what’ll happen
when we die, which we seem up for. We 400 had become the
band. It trumps that bit, which is just entertainment, where the
singer makes you yell you’re having a good time to obscure the
emptiness, or the paying volunteers sing the hit.
The 400 here had hired themselves to knead 2023: A Trilogy
by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu into a live dough of whatever,
a page each, to be collated into another book. Chapter 8’s page
117 would also become a 23-year revisionist prologue on pink
paper about less than 1/400th of why two guys did that thing that
time – by way of a wave from a lull of repetitive nothing, flashing,
daring, bluffing you to get it as your eyes lurch by. Like a horoscope
or something holy, 117 pooled arbitrary elements you could
rearrange into chaos, convenience or theft. If you find 399 more of
these – variously Situationist, emotive, surrealist, comedic and all/
none of the above – you might have a review.
Chapter 8 pageholders met and made recordings and
recordings of recordings, then splintered – some said for work,
but they didn’t mean dayjobs. That’s for them to tell. 117 joined a
mission to order coffees for Yoko Ono; lost the rest of his chapter;
worked alone; was late back; had regrets. 117 in a nutshell. He
sent a parcel to Marcia Zuckerberg of California. He’d been slow on
the uptake there. He formed a tribute act whose hallmarks were
religious, geographic and just entertainment.
In a week spanning 23rd August 23 years before, Page
117 had learnt out of the blue his mum was terminally ill, and
coincidentally the greatest album of all time was released. He
recalled this not to deal with it, not because anyone needed to
know, but because he knew exactly where he was when two guys,
Bill and Jimmy, were on Jura to do something big, how badly he
thought he needed a million, the sacrifices he hadn’t made, what
his religions were. That week he had also appeared in a video
of a school-era band, claiming behind shades they were “just
entertainment”, which he didn’t believe then and doesn’t believe
now. The opposite of what was felt fell out. It was an age of grief
about belief: Kurt died, Bernard left and Richey left/died, and he
never got over it. If a load of strangers were to spend three hours
debating why he’d not realised this for 23 years, 117’s response
might be: “Whatever.”
This kid approached 4/400 as they developed a conspiracy
theory over lunch. He was 20, about the only of the 400 they
saw under the customary K age of 36+. Page 117 thought he
was a paid moderator or free radical. He’d come alone, with shit
unnervingly together, like you expect to have by K age but don’t.
At his age, 117 had worked cleaning carpets. The plant-hire
guy called him The Kid and paid him extra to get rid of dosh for
some non-art reason, in wads of notes 117 burnt on a synth. 117
drove the machinery on a milk float and dug all this. So, this guy
in 2017, The Kid – who subsisted on McDonald’s and curiously
was allocated a page inciting him to chant “Big Mac with fries”
– knew all the B-sides on guitar (knew all the K-signs on books).
He went on to propose that Bill and Jimmy might, at that night’s
hearing about burning £1 million, hand out 2.5 grand each of a
still-intact million as a kind of end-times return-on-investment or
golden handshake. He and 117 then noticed Page 75, walking
silently alongside, was lugging a red suitcase, and double-took,
for K-symbolic reasons. Instantly, they had mentally allocated their
windfalls: it had them. They were to be had again before these
2,023 words were out.
Days later over a needlessly nice meal, choosing others’
sacrifice from a menu, Someone Who Wasn’t There scoffed
at white men playing with money – like only they are arrogant
enough to say it’s that or their lives. Page 117, claiming bravely not
to give one about money while possessing none, raged to himself
that to price art aligned SWWT with ministers who slash arts
funding, in a utilitarian world you’d call cautionary in… art. Yet 117
was the more discredited, by his conduct recently and 23 years
prior. 117 retired to consider his anger thing.
Page 117 rang his dad, who like Bill had been raised in a
council house and could be better off than a post-millional Bill.
“What’ve you been up to?” Is it worth it… remember The KLF?
“Oh, Tammy Wynette? She drove an ice cream van?” Yeah, got it!
And then [cartoon biog we had all resorted to lately] in a move
garnering mucho notoriety. “What?! Couldn’t they have given it
to [blah]?” No, don’t got it! “Bloody weirdos.” Polite men in their
60s, actually. “[Some shouting.] Any other news?” What – APART
from the death and art and memory and meaning? 117 edited out
his cremation update on the fly, and bade farewell. He recalled
hearing Jimmy utter to Bill some days earlier, “But we need to tell
people what’s happening,” and Bill making something up on the
spot for a dozen ravenous pallbearers and Page 74 and 117. These
“There are 2,023
words here,
squandered in
hope of flyposting
over what
you’ve seen”
60-something dads, whose shit might not be quite together. Who
stuff happened to.
Yes, 117 did have the thought in ’94: if we acquired a million –
and the National Lottery launched that autumn – maybe we’d save
her. 117 bought tickets weekly; the machines rightly determined
no one owed him a damn thing.
Bricks arrived for The 400 to put their ashes in. Page 117 and
The Kid went for a walk to mutter about secreting one. Because
these guys burn stuff, pour paint, incite traffic cone upcycling.
This was what they wanted! Pranked were those paying £99 for
what’s free. The Kid spotted one of his chapter – call him Hooded
Claw, even if that could mean anyone – queuing for his funeral.
Age: 36 if a day. The Kid tabled his motion. HC looked dismayed.
The Kid retired to take advice from senior tribesfolk. He kept his
counsel for a time.
Why did you do that thing yesterday? Why did you have
the world on a string, why did you sabotage our dreams while
all certainties of chance called amnesty, while all gods stepped
aside, while time stood suspended and you alone had all of them
and us and the world on a string?
Off 117 had gone from this week of ’94 to life and the benign
clutches of a professor who taught organisational behaviour and,
naturally, had authored the only book about it. A huge book few
would finish, with no doubt the answer to everything waving
from a lull of repetitive nothing, flashing, daring, bluffing you to
get it as your eyes lurched by. If you weren’t torn out one page
and told to enact it, you were at least supposed to annotate and
not buy it second-hand. It retailed at loads and this was how they
got you.
Plenty of dramatic stuff occurred to or by The 400 that
117 had neither the angle nor need to explain. 117 did ask
Jimmy what he and Bill did with a raffle winner, Page 24, who
they took away in a bed in their ice cream van. He’d seen them
return, minus guy, in a different vehicle. Is that what you get for
winning lotteries? Jimmy told 117. No record of this conversation
survives. No one need spend 117’s £100 any more than the K
Foundation’s £1 million or Hooded Claw’s £99.
It was that mistake of describing bricks – “this happened, that
happened” – that had prompted scorn from SWWT. The debate
about the million was just entertainment, though. The Kid and
117 abstained, pocketing their monetary ballot papers, so judge
them as you must. Pre-verdict, 117 had got lost and found Bill
in a corridor pacing nervously, from which no conclusion was
drawn. Post-verdict, the ‘winner’ of the debate was found to
have published the principal text about the gist of her argument,
so The Kid and 117 felt they were beating the bookmaker – until,
that is, they saw Hooded Claw after graduation. He’d taken ‘his’
brick free. The Kid and 117 felt outmanoeuvred. They reflected
for a time.
Also 23 summers ago, Page 117 plus bezzie decided to
become millionaires. They used that phrase. Stage one: steal
pheasants from woods. Their Illuminatus! was Dahlian. They
discussed Hessian sacks but set off with binliners. The terrain
was not unlike the sleeve of Chill Out. Beasts rumbled in the dark;
they scarpered; million quid gone – get rich or run from cows to
suburban cowardice tryin’. Not worth the sacrifice.
To go through with anything merits respect, not demands
for more or why. The Kid’s been camping on Jura on his own.
He’ll have had his reasons. Page 117 asked Jimmy what they’d
done with The 400’s book of the book. Jimmy said some things.
No record of it exists. Page 117 regretted floating an incinerative
remix. Yet that new book contained contributions that had been
burnt if not made of banknotes. Was the book fair game? Some
sculptures are made of fire; others cost a million to build. Few
would sustain an argument that you shalt not sculpt.
Self-justifications for ‘harmless’ steals proliferated. Posters
inside 23 Roscoe Lane retailed at loads – how they got you.
Page 74 fancied one from the wall outside. 309 and 160 posited
on FaceLife that the lo-res logo and off-black signalled hoaxes.
“Posters by B&J have never had white on black with untrimmed
edges,” 334 stated. “Unless perpetrating a Discordian doublebluff.”
What is a hoax? Hadn’t we experienced Rapture? The Kid
reappeared, detailing plans to return at night and liberate a brick.
We knew The Kid had willpower. Who knows if he’d cut off his
hand, say, for an audience of sloshed record company execs?
The 400 were to rage daily about internet auctions of artefacts
earned or nicked. Someone planned to deface books in shops.
That’s not nice, it was countered. Yet we’d signed a 1/400’s
copies for him to plant on a train and in a bookshop. And was
it nice for Bill and Jimmy to cover in white paint the replica Ford
Timelord brought by Page [no page because removing paint]?
Yes, felt 117. It’s being vandalised by someone you love.
Expect The 400 to exhibit all stages of revolution before
this Kopyright Liberation Front is through. Expect friendships
for life, friendships for death. 117 sank beer with Page 96 some
days after graduation to defragment and grab 74 a poster, but
the 23:19 last train to [St Helens] Central waits for no suburban
coward, so posters went the way of the pheasants. Understand
though: he’s never (not) stolen for real – only for art. And
nobody’s covetous fantasies were acted on, besides inadvertently
double-bluffing Hooded Claw.
In 400 land, Page 72 was gathering cyber intel, 19 was
producing badgercore and 78 announcing plans to sell ice cream.
That, soon, would be old money.
And that’s 2,023 gone. !
Photography: Dan Dares / @dandaresphotography
nooneknowswhatthefuukhappened.org
The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu ‘returned’ in August, drove an Ice Kream Van and generally
baffled an expectant public all over again. But what the fuuk actually happened? One of the
400 offers an internal perspective on the Dark Ages experience. In 2,023 words.
WHAT BECAME
OF THE
DARK AGES?
28