dancePROOF+

I know a boy who called his girlfriend’s body a “crime scene.” Dad, my body is a crime scene. My body is lint and gasoline and matchstick. My body is a brush fire. It’s ticking, Dad, a slow alarm. I have rain boots. Lots of them. It isn’t raining anymore. The words are coming back, Dad. The way they fit and jump in the mouth. I want ice cream and long letters. I want to read long love letters but I don’t think he loves me. I think I’m used up. I think I’m the grit under his nails, the girl who looks good in pictures. I don’t think he loves me. I think they broke me, Dad. I think I drink too much and it’s because they broke me. I heard about two girls recently, two women crushed like cherries in a boy’s jaw. It opened me, Dad. My body is melted wax, it is ripe and stink and bent. It is a mistake. I walk like an apology. I don’t hate men, Dad, I don’t. I want a washing machine. I want someone else to do the dishes, someone to walk the dog. I have a hornet in my head, Dad. A hornet. She’s an angry bitch — she hurls herself against my skull. She stings. And stings. I know I don’t make sense, Dad. This is the problem. I’m a sick girl, a crazy wishbone. I have razors under my tongue. I’m sorry I cut you, Dad, I’m so—so sorry. I gave you a card for Father’s Day once, it said you were my hero. You are. Your laugh is a thunderclap, you love like surgery. I think they broke me, Dad. I can’t erase their faces. I want to swim, Dad. Remember when I used to hopscotch? I used to make you laugh. My feet are hot. The bottoms of my feet are scorched sand, August asphalt. My body is a slug, a mob of sticky wet rot. No one touches me anymore because I’m rot. Because my body is a spill no one wants to clean up. They cracked me open, Dad, I know you don’t want to hear about it. You don’t want to hear how they scissored me, how they gnawed me like raw meat. No one wants to hear how they made me drink lemon juice, how they kicked the dog, how they upturned the furniture, no one wants to hear how my skin turned to a dark thick of purple and black and lead. I watch the homeless a lot, Dad. I watched a man with a cup of coins and chips of skin carved out of his face. He had freckles. He needs medicine, Dad. He needs to stop the hornet. My body is a hive. I am red ants and jellyfish. A yellow sickness. My body is a used condom in an alley in Jersey City. I don’t think he loves me, Dad. My body is a fetus in biohazard tank. A Polaroid pinned to a corkboard in Brooklyn. I think I’m hurt, Dad. I think I was the tough girl for too long. My body is a wafer, a thin, soft melt on a choir boy’s tongue.

 

Here's an easy game to play.

Here's an easy thing to say:

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,

And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,

And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,

Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report!

If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,

And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,

And your data is corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash,

then your situation's hopeless, and your system's gonna crash!

You can't say this?

What a shame sir!

We'll find you

Another game sir.

If the label on the cable on the table at your house,

Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,

But your packets want to tunnel on another protocol,

That's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall,

And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss,

So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse,

Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang,

'Cause as sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang!

When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk,

And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary risc,

Then you have to flash your memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM.

Quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your mom!

The End

 

TO ALL THOSE AT MTV,

I WOULD LIKE TO START BY THANKING YOU ALL FOR THE SUPPORT YOU HAVE GIVEN ME OVER RECENT YEARS AND I AM BOTH GRATEFUL AND FLATTERED BY THE NOMINATIONS THAT I HAVE RECEIVED FOR BEST MALE ARTIST. THE AIR PLAY GIVEN TO BOTH THE KYLIE MINOGUE AND P. J. HARVEY DUETS FROM MY LATEST ALBUM MURDER BALLADS HAS NOT GONE UNNOTICED AND HAS BEEN GREATLY APPRECIATED. SO AGAIN MY SINCERE THANKS.

HAVING SAID THAT, I FEEL THAT IT’S NECESSARY FOR ME TO REQUEST THAT MY NOMINATION FOR BEST MALE ARTIST BE WITHDRAWN AND FURTHERMORE ANY AWARDS OR NOMINATIONS FOR SUCH AWARDS THAT MAY ARISE IN LATER YEARS BE PRESENTED TO THOSE WHO FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE WITH THE COMPETITIVE NATURE OF THESE AWARD CEREMONIES. I MYSELF, DO NOT. I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN OF THE OPINION THAT MY MUSIC IS UNIQUE AND INDIVIDUAL AND EXISTS BEYOND THE REALMS INHABITED BY THOSE WHO WOULD REDUCE THINGS TO MERE MEASURING. I AM IN COMPETITION WITH NO-ONE.
MY RELATIONSHIP WITH MY MUSE IS A DELICATE ONE AT THE BEST OF TIMES AND I FEEL THAT IT IS MY DUTY TO PROTECT HER FROM INFLUENCES THAT MAY OFFEND HER FRAGILE NATURE.

SHE COMES TO ME WITH THE GIFT OF SONG AND IN RETURN I TREAT HER WITH THE RESPECT I FEEL SHE DESERVES – IN THIS CASE THIS MEANS NOT SUBJECTING HER TO THE INDIGNITIES OF JUDGEMENT AND COMPETITION. MY MUSE IS NOT A HORSE AND I AM IN NO HORSE RACE AND IF INDEED SHE WAS, STILL I WOULD NOT HARNESS HER TO THIS TUMBREL – THIS BLOODY CART OF SEVERED HEADS AND GLITTERING PRIZES. MY MUSE MAY SPOOK! MAY BOLT! MAY ABANDON ME COMPLETELY!
SO ONCE AGAIN, TO THE PEOPLE AT MTV, I APPRECIATE THE ZEAL AND ENERGY THAT WAS PUT BEHIND MY LAST RECORD, I TRULY DO AND SAY THANK YOU AND AGAIN I SAY THANK YOU BUT NO…NO THANK YOU.

 

YOURS SINCERELY, NICK CAVE 21 OCT 96.

 

I was at the movies yesterday and before the movie started they had this long ad where they were trying to say like — you know those ads where it’s like, “Don’t download things illegally, et cetera,” —- and the way they did it was they were like, “You wouldn’t steal a purse, would you? You wouldn’t think of stealing a car.” And I was thinking about it, I was watching it and I was like, “You know what? I would steal a car if it was as easy as touching the car and then thirty seconds later I owned the car. And, like, I would steal a car if by stealing the car, the person who owned the car, they got to keep the car. And um, I would also steal a car if no one I had ever met had ever bought a car before in their whole lives.

 

I am the very model of a modern teenage Cyberpunk

I rent my own apartment and it's full of electronic junk

I own a VAX, a 486, I've even got a PDP

I've finished Myst and Doom but I am stumped by Wing Commander III

I'm very well aquatinted too with matters pornographical

I have a list of image sites, both overseas and national

So if you want to see a picture of that Anna Nichole Smith

I'll fire up my terminal and fetch for you a naughty GIF

I'm totally an anarchist, the government I'd like to wreck,

Though if they were to get blown up, who'd give to me my welfare cheque?

In short if you need answers that concern your electronic junk,

I am the very model of a modern teenage Cyberpunk

I know the ancient myths about RTM, Pengo and Mitnick

I 'hack' into computers and I then perform a credit check

I scare all my non-hacker friends with tales of cracker thievery

and even though I'm spouting crap they'll listen and believe in me

I've learned to spot a troll and I've seen flames about the way I spell,

I've traced badly forged cancels and seen napalm poured on AOL

I've laughed at all the newbies and their flailing cries of "You all Suck!"

I've been flamed by Carasso, with an anvil I have then been struck

I've hung around in alt.tasteless and seen war waged on rec.pets.cats

I've spent my time in talk.bizarre and used those stupid Relay Chats

In short, if you need answers that concern your electronic junk,

I am the very model of a modern teenage Cyberpunk

Well postings like "MAKE.MONEY.FAST", I am now somewhat wary at,

I have been "Global Killfiled" by the Joel Furr Commissariat,

When rosebud posts a lengthy rant 'bout Microsoft she swears is true,

I know that she is just another short lived kook without a clue

When I have learnt what progress has been made upon the Internet,

When I know something more than just a smattering of netiquette,

In short when I can have a world-wide soapbox on which I can stand

I've got no time for other things, like beer and trips to Disneyland

My life outside the Internet is very very sad you see

I cannot get my spots to fade, my social life's a tragedy,

But still if you need answers that concern your electronic junk,

I am the very model of a modern teenage Cyberpunk.