RANDOMS 2025 #12

IS BLOGGING A WASTE OF TIME?

 

I've been wasting my time blogging for years now. I started in 1998 and as recently as 2017 it was still an exciting and developing hobby, I was improving my writing, earning money, interacting online, & getting thousands of hits. 

By comparison it sometimes seems a bit lame now, because these days I'm grey-listed online, I have very little audience, the entire internet appears to be mainly AI, and all the blockchain platforms (Steemit, Hive, Flote, Blurt etc), are dead or dying, so realistically I had two choices, continue posting essentially just for myself without caring too much about hits, (because let's face it, I 'm not getting many), or quit altogether.

But I like blogging and I think it helps me to get my ideas in order, improves my writing, and posting online works like having a muse, so it potentially makes me more creative. So I'm continuing to blog but with a new approach. 

I'm using Blogger rather than WordPress because it's quick and simple, I'm posing a mixture of both short new content and updated re-posts of my old content, with very few new long posts. And I'm aiming to have fun and get my thoughts in order rather than to change the world.

To see some content that might change the world I highly recommend the websites of Joachim Bartoll or Jason Christoff

 

 

 

DO DRUGS GO WITH THAT BICYCLE?

In Cuba Street, Wellington, back in the 90’s, they probably did

 

When a friend said she remembered Cuba Street as being “bohemian” in 97, I laughed and said that by 97 it had already become a safe space for office dwellers to visit and pretend they were living dangerously.

Later I dug out my “Cuba Street 92” calendar from my treasure trove – all of these photos are from that calendar and were taken in 91. When we opened our bike shop “Cycle Services” in 1991, Cuba Street was not just where you went for a grunty coffee or some second hand stuff, it was also the first place to go to for drugs and prostitutes.

Now I’ll go on about drugs a bit here. I was new to all this scene, and to me “drugs” basically meant smoking some pot or maybe spotting some oil.

As a cyclist I was pretty familiar with ephedrine which was actually still legal in NZ in 91 and was very popular, used as a sort of everyday speed. When it was outlawed it just went underground like all the other drugs.

Most people use coffee for the same purpose now. And coffee in Cuba St was said to be some of the strongest in the world.

The first time I walked in on a drug deal my eyes nearly popped out of my head. A respectable looking man in a suit, with a large brief case, had it open and was discussing bulk pricing with a couple of our bike shop customers on the huge range of drugs that he had samples of.

Apart from pot, the popular one in Wellington in those days was acid. But you could buy anything you wanted really, including heroin. I was told the cocaine was a rip off in NZ, and that was why nobody here was much into it.

What Wellington was infamous for in 91 was glue sniffers. And sometimes Cuba St was like zombie dawn of the dead. Deranged glue sniffers everywhere, staggering about, holding their plastic bags and drooling.

Some of the people on the street were fairly tough, and just up the road was the BP’s (Black Power) who ran a tinny house ($20 foil wrapped servings of pretty average pot). But you didn’t take photos of the BP’s, you casually crossed the road when you saw them coming, so there are no photos of them here!

This was in the days before digital cameras, and mobile phones had only just come out. They cost $3000 and were the size of a brick. This next photo was taken in front of the second hand book shop next door to us (note our Cycles Peloton sign in the top left). And the poor guy in the photo was stabbed to death a few months later…

Our neighbours on the other side were Midnight Espresso, the legendary coffee shop, and this is a young Geoff Marsland (Havana Coffee Works) in our doorway

Although I did have a camera, I didn’t take many photos because buying film and developing it was expensive. Part of why I started taking thousands of photos when I got my first digital camera a decade later is because I knew just what I had missed getting photos of back in the early 90’s. And some of them would have been quite something.

I guess this is all looks like a window back to an old forgotten time now, but as a young and impressionable munter, this was the environment that shaped me. And even now I’m partly still a guy from old time Cuba St, rather than an over the hill computer addict.

When I hear millennials getting offended by lame bullshit I wish I could push a button and transplant them to Cuba Street in 91. It was an amazing place, but some of them might just have gotten their whingeing faggy heads smacked in…

Those were awesome times back in the days before computers.

And getting “offended” wasn’t that viable an option

All photos taken by Barry Thomas

THE GENIUS OF THE PIXIES

The Pixies have been one of my favourite bands since 1989. In the early days with Kim Deal perfectly offsetting Frank Black they pretty much defined the 90's. But they did that back in the 80's!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_aBmrYChfQ

 Their anger and energy live was awesome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i6jtsCpImo

But then Frank Black with his massive ego sacked Kim Deal

Decades later they achieved that brilliance once again with the hypnotic Paz Lenchantin replacing Kim Deal on bass

"Amazing live performance! They have Joy Division level intensity"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiUNDeuBbi8

 

But then Frank Black sacked Paz too, and these days Pixies are no longer as great. They were awesome once though!

THE NEXT PSYOP HAS JUST BEEN ANNOUNCED

Just in case it isn't obvious enough what controlled puppet Trump is up to, his owners have just announced their next evil plan. As they always do. No surprises here, a US recession, and very soon. 

 "US recession would be a big catalyst for Bitcoin: BlackRock"

One of the first signs of a psyop are repetition of a news story across all the controlled media outlets using a specific key phrase

Yes, I think this signals two things:

1. The US economy is about to crash. (The illuminati always announce their evil plans)

2. Bitcoin (and other cryptos) are about to have a price surge. Buy cryptos now!