Friday 18 September 2009

Records for sale

contact johnberkavitch@yahoo.co.uk for orders or questions

Tuesday 8 September 2009

Smuggler's Cove

So you
may or may not know
this but I turn 30 in February next year.
In preparation I've been compiling a list of things to do
before I hit the big 3 zero. In essence it's kind of like that bit in
300 where the 8 year old Leonidas is sent out into the wild and he can not
return till he's killed a wolf and become a man. Except in this case the list of
tasks takes the place of a wolf and my own 29 year old body takes the place of a
Spartan child. 1 of the things on my list is to smuggle drugs across international
borders, And as luck... would have it I was in Ireland .. this week for the Electric
Picnic Festival........................and last year I...................... really struggled to
get any weed................................when I was ....................... there so I figured
2 birds one...............................stone. Down............................with struggling
up...with ................................. smuggling. ................................. Now I was
going by ................................... plain and ....................................as far as any
self respecting............................. drugs mule .................................is concerned
the only way................................. to smuggle...............................anything on a
plain is inside yu! ......................Ok so I'd decided ....................I was going to take
a block of resin to............Ireland hiden up natures pocket. .......But how bigger block?
It had to be enough to last the duration and justify the invasion of Pirates bay but not
so big that it felt uncomfortable or tickled the old prostate. In the end I settled on half
an oz of squidgy black. My mate .....Dom had ........give me the low down on
how to get it in, 1, mold object.. into egg-.....shaped bullet. 2, wrap in
airtight plastic bag and smear with Vaseline, 3, wrap in cling film and smear in
Vaseline. 4, repeat stage 3 several times. The Vaseline makes it airtight and that's
important. So it's the morning of my outbound flight and I've just got one more
thing to do...... before I leave... the house. At first ....I started out fairly
gently but ....years of training.. my arse not to have... things shoved up
it provided ....too stronger natural...... clench reflex ......and I was unable
to crown. .....Times a waisting, .....only one thing for..... it. More vigour.


And so in...... the style of a .........busy commuter.... rushing
to top up ......an oyster card....... from a self ..service ticket
machine I... pushed that egg ......in the slot.... like a licked
pound coin. What I did notice as I did this is that
there's a certain point when yu back passage stops
trying to push foreign objects out and instead starts
pulling them in. I call this point Limbo. Now I
reckon whenever you find yourself traveling
internationally with contraband booty
in yu hold yu pretty much always
aware of it.

As my ...........................................................................................................journey
started I was........................................................................................ a bit worried
about it coming..................................................................... out when it needed
to stay in but towards............................................................ the end I was more worried
about it. staying in when............................................. it needed to come out. Either way
it was obvious limbo ...............................was only a temporary
home for this dirty............. little package. So to
cut a long short,..... I'm sat in the toilet
cubical at Dublin station wearing
one disposable glove and drinking extra
shot Costa coffee trying..... to lay what now feels
like a breach-birth dinosaur ....... baby. A bit of ugly grunting
and several sighs of ............................... .... relief later I've unwrapped
and discarded the........................ ............... ............................ soiled shell and
transferred the .................. ................................................................. prize to a new
container. All in ...................................... ............... ....... ..........................all a pretty
successful mission....................................... ............ .................................. Right now to
wash my.................. .................. ............................ .................. .................. hands.

3 in one.

So the van I'd been driving failed it's M.O.T a few weeks ago.
In fact if I ever gave you a lift anywhere in that car then right now you should probably have a little moment of silence for the old MF GhostWhip.

Done that?
Good.

Right not having a car wouldn't really be that much of an issue except for the other weekend was Reading and Leeds Festival.
Again not normally a problem but this year out of the blue they'd gone and booked me and our kid
(Andy Craven-Griffiths,) to perform on the alternative stage.

I think it probably came about
via a recommendation from Luke Wright
so big up to him for that.




Andy was also playing both festivals with his band Middleman.
Stage times for the band meant Andy would be at the wrong site on the Friday making the Leeds slot a Berko solo show.




Oh yeah and of course I was also doing every night at Shambala in the wandering words yurt thanks to the holistic hardman hippy Pete Hogg.



So that's about 700 miles and probably 4 or 5 shows at 3 festival.
Fortunately I had an accomplice;
Ladies and Gentlemen
one more time for Kate Tempest.
Kate was booked for the same festivals some with band some on her own.



The PeteBox was also performing at Leeds and Reading and even though we've been facebook friends and rotated in the same Nottingham social circles for years, we'd never actually met.
So that was exciting.

Anyway here's the process as a list of actions.
Sleep is for the weak.

Friday.
6am wake up
7.30am Ferry form Sound of Rum drives us all to Leeds.
11.30am arrive at Leeds Festival
12pm perform @ Leeds alternative stage.
1pm Berko drives to Shambala
6.30pm arrive at Shambala Festival
7pm Perform @ Shambala
Saturday
4am sleep
7am wake up
7.30am Berko drives him and Kate to Reading. (Andy is meeting us there)
11.30am arrive at Reading Festival
12pm perform @ Reading alternative stage.
1pm Berko drives to Shambala
6.30pm arrive at Shambala Festival
7.30pm Perform @ Shambala

Yu get the gist eh.
Just a weekend of driving, introducing my self to audiences, saying "production?" to security guards and constantly repeating myself. (Avoided writing the last sentence again as some sort of really cheep joke, but to be honest I'm better than that)

Thursday 3 September 2009

blog 101

Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to blog 101.

yes imagine, 101 blogs, now that's dedicated. 1st thing it means is that I actually managed to scratch enough "spare-time" out of the literal racing rat fight that is my day to day existence in order to do that, but not only that, see it also means that in some minute little tiny way, I've demonstrated that perhaps, and only perhaps, I might actually be able to commit to something.
Provided that,
a, the something I'm committed to is basically just me ranting about my own sense of self importance.
And b, that by committed we mean I'll do it every now and again.
Anyway I digress.
So this is blog 101 and I figured I'd do it in the style of Room 101

Fans of Reading will know
Room 101 is a room in the ministry of Love in Orson Wells 1984 and is used by The Party to torture folk.

"You asked me once, what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world."

Fans of T.V will know
Room 101 is a TV show where Paul Merton gets "Celebrities" to talk about things they don't like before putting a physical representation of that thing into the fictional room.

"There you go then Keith, just pull the lever and that's council tax going to join the Welsh and inappropriate erections in room 101, so have you had fun?"

Anyway it's basically a list of things don't like,
so here yu go. blog 101.

First one I tell yu what i hate, for a little wile not long ago all the weed I was buying seemed to have been treated with some kind of plasticy sylicone spray that meant it didn't burn properly.

ah it drove me fucking mental.
The rumor I'd heard was that apparently
"a whole load of vietnamese have moved in and taken over from the old Persian growers and aparently they're spraying the weed with this shit so as it didn't lose weight as it's drying. Now cos none of these fuckers smoke them selves, it meant that they never realised it didn't burn,"

that's genuinly a story told to me by a guy who at the time was selling me this same treated non-burning weed.
Here's the thing see firstly I'm not sure if the people I get my shit from are or are not living there lives in season 4 of the wire, and I don't know about vietnamese grow houses and sylicone sprays or whatever but what I do know is that this fella right here who's selling me the weed, he knows it's no good, he knew that when he bought it, and he confirmed it when he skinned it up and the shit didn't burn, yeah he knows it's no good but that motherfucker's still trying to sell that shit to me.

So I'm putting him and that plastic-tang, hard budded, non-burning, chemical-spray weed that he's trying to shot to me in room 101.

Right next one, People who turn an act of kindness into something degrading.

simple really,
yu ever done this,

as you walk towards the door of a public building you see someone coming from the other side and as you open the door you step to one side and guesture them through,

now physically this is only a small thing you are doing for this person but in terms of social etiquet you have performed a great polite and noble deed and at the very least they could do in fact all they could do in return would be to be courtious enough to just say thankyou.

Instead they look at you with some kind of contempt like you work for them and they can't sack you because you're there wife's nephew and you don't give a shit about there crappy little box making business and you got pissed and told them all to fuck off so they fucking hate you.
yu know what I mean. I hate them people.


Also people who say Pacifically when they mean specifically, learn the fucking language you lazy fuck-twats.



right Male pornstars who can't fucking give it and female pornstars who don't fucking take it/bring it.

Tell yu what ain't nothing worse than lackluster porn. It's like can I really be bothered to wank to this shit? Please God let me maintain this erection while I find something worth evacuating it to.

Although saying that, I seen one the other day with this ginger fella who had vitiligo at the base of his awkwardly bent penis and I tell yu what it made his cock look like a shaven guinea-pig,
so that was a bit distracting.

Other peoples opinions.
FUCK OFF Yeah. stuck up twats thinking yu know it all.

There yu go that'll do for now. more to come I'm sure.