The Birth and Death of the Haggard Bicycle Club; A savage and short lived tale of a fad gone horribly wrong.

For my brother Tyler, may your organs fail before your dreams do.

Fine music on my stereo this cold Sunday morning. The sheer beauty of the blues seems cheapened amongst the hipster culture of today. It's a shame really. They have forgotten how to dance. It's all about being alone yet being 'cool' these days.

But not today. Today there is a different feeling in the sounds. A feeling of relief, of loss, of victory, of glory.

Today is the first of a new age. The Mayans said that 2012 would be the end of an age. Maybe not the end of the world but maybe on a more personal level. Maybe everyone will watch their world fall apart and be forced into something new.
I for one have watched the boy I was turn into the man I am. No more uncontrollable urge to drink myself into a coma. No more personal bests based on the amount of drugs i can take in one night.
All I long for now is the ocean, a dog, my own house with a bath tub and a garden.
Or at least that's what I tell myself.

It all began at the Brick lane markets. My newly arrived comrade Mary and I were were running amok after a night of booze and horse tranquillisers when we got the brilliant idea to buy bikes, black denim jackets, more beers and form an outlaw bicycle gang.
This choice was based on a knowledge of old tattoo shop banter, the gruesome stories told by people with names like Fletch, Stormin Norman, Uncle, Birdy and Mad Dog. It was the sense of "us again them" that runs deep in the veins of the great organisations like the Hell's Angels, the Outlaws and the Finks that attracted us to the idea. But also we wanted to import our own Haggard way of life. The brotherhood and the mess. The two ideals went hand in hand.

Our first would be purchase was promptly stopped by a plain clothed police officer spying on the illegal street sale of some stolen bikes. Damn the do-good bastard. It took me 15 minutes to haggle the thief down to £30.
As the cop issued the fines, Mary and I blended into the crowd to find a legitimate vendor. It didn't take long. Brick lane is the one place in london you can find everything you need and lots of it.

Having bought two barely ridable bikes and two vintage jackets, Haggard Bicycle Club was born. Now all we needed to do was recruit more members.
Asking someone to willingly do something that involves physical activity is like asking a heroin addict to vote. They see the value and good of the action but when it comes to crunch they flake and the ballot goes unfilled.
This was the problem we had with our main prospect Spencer.

This is a kid who wears stained glass leggings as jeans, goes out with more make up on than Mary. He looks like an anorexic Milan model who never made it. His mind is plagued by the delusions that he is a security guard for is student accommodation and that he was once a middle weight boxer which he bores us with tales of whenever he gets the chance. Somehow I doubt his credibility. But who am I to judge?
But we saw past his faults. After all he already owned a bike and beggars can't be choosers right?
His obvious avoidance of commitment to the club went on for about a month. All the while he held our hopes up with false promises like "Yeah man, all i gotta do is go pick up my bike then it will be on! We will rule this town!"

Finally the camel's back broke.

It was a sunny friday morning. Taking acid seemed like a much better option than working for a prick with too much money. So I rang the prick, faked a case of the clap, ate a tab and off I went. In search of love, adventure, friends, laughs and of course more acid.
I called Spencer to aid in my search "Sure why not?" was his response.
Why not indeed?
As soon as I saw his adams apple move in the swallowing motion I looked him straight in the eye and said calmly and very, very seriously "I'm going to shave your head."
This was not well received. Fear. Unbridled fear. This is what took over his mind and his actions. But thankfully I was able to coax him outside for an adventure.
After 3 hours of rooftop melt downs, Spencer's trip shifted gears on him. He retreated from the Saudi Arabian pot pusher's room, that I deemed a suitable place to hide out, back to the safety of his own room. I followed soon after and found him in the fettle position, chanting about his beautiful hair.

And that was were I left him.

We haven't spoken since. "leave that weird fucker alone" I thought. No sense in trying to kiss and make up. He isn't ready and more than likely never will be.
Just another sucker who's life was ruined by heavy metal music and dub step.

So that was were the Haggard B.C ended. In that horrid student's apartment. It was the first of many signs that the this world is not ready for another wave of acid taking, bike riding, whiskey drinking freaks.

Not yet at least. Maybe next year. Maybe in the new age.

Rats With Thumbs: First impressions of the Malaysian Ecosystem.

The trouble first started when I landed in Kuala Lumpur.

“You need visa to pass through customs!”

“To hell with that. I need a cigarette and some sleep.”

After three hours of supervisors and broken English I finally convinced the crack team of custom officials that;

A.      I was Australian and therefore needed no visa to cross the Malaysian border,

B.      I wasn’t leaving the airport before my next flight and

C.      To give me a god damn smoke.

As soon as I was free of that ugly scene I fled the airport terminal.

Once I got to the hotel district I was greeted almost immediately by the overwhelming stench of a country gone horribly wrong and about 30 pimps/ dealers. Some of them as young as 12 years old.

I pushed my way through the crowd of hookers, dazed tourists, crooked rent-a-cops and poultry into the nearest McDonalds.

Good god! I thought. The beggars have taken over the golden arches!

The place had a line back out the door with confused customers while what looked like the endeavour foundation dashed around with their arms outstretched like a zombie film in fast forward behind the counter. They were colliding with each other in benny hill fashion. No order. True chaos.

I left hungry.

Walking through the lobby of a hotel I noticed a similar style of behaviour. The room was full of men in suits almost climbing over one another to retrieve a discarded newspaper or have a conversation with an old friend from college sitting 20 seats down.

It was as if the sewer rats had gone out, bought 3 piece evening wear, grown thumbs and hijacked the business sector. Now they were swarming for higher ground as the flood waters of a royally fucked economy began to rise.

In my room I showered and washed the pollution from my skin then laid down for the first rest in 34 hours. Finally. I thought. Some shut-eye after 2 days of airports, trains and frantic last minute fucks.

Damn that alarm clock and its persistent attitude. Screaming at me from its shelf. Needless to say that hotel is down on alarm clock. After deciding to skip the lunch time violence I dressed and caught a cab back to the airport. The toothless bastard of a cab driver didn’t speak a word of English. What is it with these people and their aversion to the most spoken language in the world? I thought. 20 minutes of charades later and we were off. Hurtling down the freeway, hitting break neck speeds of 40 and 50 km/h. the cab itself was a reflection of its owner; confusing, disfigured and old. It looked like something the Taliban would use against the infidels.

Once we got to the terminal I emptied my wallet onto his seat. He seemed satisfied so I sucked down my last Marlboro Red for the next 13 hours and lined up for customs.

“Anything to declare?”

“Don’t go to Malaysia.”

Origins and Ideals

Someone once said “The best way to start a journey is at the beginning.” I don’t know who that was.

I took too much acid to pay attention to details. But hell, why not?

I hail from a small place in Australia approximately 38km from the sun. a cess pit of crime, corruption, incest, swine, violence and general bad vibes. Our sanctuary away from the street was known only as the Haggard house. It was a home to all the lost souls of the current scene. All the broke, addicted, angry and depressed mother fuckers that

a       A. Didn't belong anywhere else or

b       B.  Didn’t have anywhere else to go.

It was a place where anyone was welcome, providing they supplied the alcohol and drugs, to come and waste days on end.

The house itself was owned by the founding father Mathew Perkins, who bought the property in the hope it would become a family home with a long since gone girlfriend. This plan failed. The masses of tattooed alcoholics found out about it and learned the address and collectively decided to test the waters. To see exactly how much we could get away with before someone flipped out. It’s been almost 3 years and we still haven’t found the limit.

Those scarred walls have witnessed every depraved act and low breed antic one can imagine. For an age that has only recently ended the building was damn near bull dozer worthy. Tear it down and cut the losses in the hope something new will grow. A beautiful new life out of the ashes of a horrific, deeply disturbing and downright disgusting way of life. Hell even Nazi Germany became an ok place to spend the weekend after Berlin fell. But there is still the stench of a sinister past in the air. Something evil is there in the earth that will never be gotten rid of. As is the same with Haggard. It will always be the 6^th Reich.

But not to condemn it entirely.

For the span of the Haggard Dynasty there has been the distinct sense of family. Much like that described in the age old tales of battalions in trench warfare or the 3 musketeers. No one is ever left behind. One for all, all for one. Any problems amongst the patrons were resolved in a quick exchange of heated words and promptly followed by a hand shake and a hug. We couldn’t afford to lose one of ours numbers. Besides, we were brothers. We always will be.

It’s what I imagine the 60’s to have been like. A raw motley crew of societies rejects banding together for a common cause. No one was ever sure what that was but there was never any doubt that we were winning. In every sense of the word. Winning the fight. Winning the girl. Winning the respect. Winning the game. And that I think was the handle. We never needed a reason to be together. To drink. To laugh. To cry. We made it through a hardcore and radical time. A time where nothing made sense and the entire pop culture screamed the single word ‘SUICIDE’ over and over and over again. We made it up for air while everything and everyone else sank and thanks only to that house, that place in time and the family that was created there.

The original members are all gone now. Scattered across the globe. I myself am currently sweating out a 30 hour stopover in Kuala Lumpur. God only knows where the others are. But we all know that if need be we can knock on the front door of 34 Eaglemount rd, Mackay, QLD, AUS and come home. Back into the arms of the people who love us eternally. That’s just the handle.