David J Rodger ¦ Secret Window
| 1999 - The Happy Flat - Sonja January: I was writing short stories alongside Heist / Dante's Fool; sometimes I'd write myself into a stupour, forgetting to eat, and eventually stumble round to Sonja's house where I'd crash out on her sofa whilst she cooked me some food. Meanwhile, things at work took a stressful turn. With over 50 videoconference sites going live, there was a lot of excitement about using them... but the original project had not thought about the booking-service, or above on-site support, or fault resolution. Basically, the guy who dreamt this nightmare up was a fucking idiot. (Initials M.N.) I found myself with about 10 people from each site, every day, clammering to book things, change bookings, demand support for conferences that had been booked but weren't starting because NOBODY had been trained. I was getting hit by 500 calls a day and falling behind in everything I was supposed to be doing. Thankfully, P.T. stepped in and authorised me to recruit a temp to help me out. Enter Carla. She began fielding booking queries whilst I urgently tackled the issue of no site support and no way to electronically check the schedules for all the VC kit around the country. It was a mammoth task, but I found myself loving the challenge of it.
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| 1999 - The Agency - Nic P0t0wski January: Since I'd left the comms team, my former boss, Kaiser B00t, had to bring in a replacement. Enter young Nic... a short, boulder shouldered lad from Wales. The guy was immensley strong and once lifted me clear off the ground with one arm, no effort at all. I'd stopped my whole routine of waking up at 4 A.M. when the mornings started staying dark past 7. Instead I used to get the 6.30 bus from the Happy Flat, get into work for about 7.10 in the morning, and then sit and write until 9, when I'd switch over and start my job for the day. However, Nic would also come in early... and at first he used to try and chat to me... but all I wanted to do was zone out of reality and focus on Heist / Dante's Fool. It took a few weeks of me not responding to his questions when he realised I was trying to achieve something. We got on really well. He used to come back from a supermarket at lunchtime with two roast chickens and demand that I helped him eat them: which was great for us, but one of the women in the office raised an objection to the sight of devoured chicken carcasses every lunchtime. Nic had an extreme personality... he'd sometimes wear these contact lenses to work, which quickly got him into trouble... ...it's around now that I started doing a lot of hill walking in Wales with Kaiser B00t... camping overnight in mountain Bothies. Nic came with us one time. The next morning, Kaiser B00t and I were outside the Bothie, washing dishes in a stream when we heard a muffled THHH-WHOOMP from inside, followed by a shark shriek. Nic staggered out with singed hair and frazzled eyebrows. He'd somehow managed to release a gas valve on a large stove cannister, long enough for a considerable amount of gas to build up in the small confined space of the bothie, when he finally clicked a lighter - VWOOMP. Nic was mortified when I told him the story of why I'd been single since mid-'97, the whole deal with Michelle and the headline DJ with the initial JK. A while later, Nic rang me to say he'd gone to a club in Wales where JK had been playing. Nic described all these groupies hanging around the DJ console... Nic went up to JK, shouting his name out, grinning like the biggest fan in the world and holding out a meaty paw for JK to shake. JK did shake it, but instead of letting go, Nic hauled JK up and right out of that DJ booth, slammed him down on the floor, and before anybody could react... was on top of him and telling him, "This is for shagging Dave Rodgers girlfriend!" So, kind of an instant Karma story...in a scary way. |
| 1999 - The Happy Flat - the Gamers February: from left to right
I still didn't have any furniture in the front room, other than my big green armchair, and one inflatable armchair. So we all sat on the floor. |
| 1999 - The Happy Flat - Djr February: pre-game usually involved a trip to the local shops for supplies. One time, Russell and I were strolling down Sandy Park when we saw the biggest steak in the world in the butchers window. We both stopped, saliva pouring from our mouths. I looked at him, he looked at me. We just walked into the butcher and bought it, brought it back, cooked it and spent an hour eating the damned thing... my jaw muscles were actually aching by the end of it. |
| 1999 - Fresco's Cafe Bar/ Bristol - Matthias P February: I was still getting used to Matthias not living downstairs. We now had to meet-up in town for socials. He found this cool new place on Corn Street called Fresco's... where a lovely French woman called Annie would approach you as you entered and say "Thirsteee? Peckeeesh?" in this fabulous accent. I started going there a lot. The coffee was fantastic and the atmosphere divine. I would sit for hours with my tiny PSION... it's around now that I came up with several new short story ideas... I wrote EDEN in one weekend. |
| 1999 - Fresco's Cafe Bar/ Bristol - Matthias P February: Matthias does Bela Lugosi. Actually, he'd been wrestling (again) with trying to give up cigarettes, but, as usual reached Day 3 and then flipped into psycho mode, so he was back onto the dirty smelly things. |
| 1999 - Bristol March: One Saturday afternoon in Fresco's cafe a couple of girls sat down next to me. Art students. We ended up chatting until nightfall... then went back to their student halls, which was an converted office building Maria Mojo used to work in, near Charlotte Square... ended up in a bizarre three-some on a very cramped single bed. Next morning, after a very uncomfortable couple hours of sleep, I saw this scrap paper with an eye painted on it... I loved it, so she gave it to me. |
| 1999 - Clapham / London - Djr, Saira March: I'd had a call from the Jenkins corporation. Kate was throwing a surprise birthday party for her sister, Helen. The plan was to arrive at their apartment before Helen got back home from work, and then don these paper-cut disguises that represented Helen's hair and eye-makeup. It was a total scream, seeing about 50 people standing around with these things on... ...jump back to the earlier in the day. Walking into Helen's pad I spotted a girl walking into the house next door. It was Saira, the girl I'd met in Lakota back in 1996. "Don't tell me you live here?" I asked. Yes, she did, and had done for several months...right next door to Helen. What are the freaky chances of that? It was really great to see her again. |
| 1999 - Camden / London - Raymond Fx March: Whilst in London I hooked up with my campadre from New York... now back in the UK. I invited him to a party, somewhere on the fringes of the city... a girl called Lou, who I'd met some weeks ago at one of the Jenkin's Corporation parties... ... Raymond and I had a blast. No sleep, we caught an early morning tube back to the city... and spent the day drifting around in daze, just like New York... in the evening we met up with Sonja who was in town, and treated ourselves to Black Russians... although they weren't a scratch on what we were used to in Manhattan. By the end of that night we were both a mess. |
| 1999 - London - Lou, Djr |
| 1999 - London - Tim, Djr Another good thing to come out of New York were Tim and his pal, Dan. These were the two London lads who'd had to fly home early because they'd blown all their money on shopping. |
| 1999 - Ashley Road The main occupants of the Ashley Road pad were a long-tem couple, with Matthias living in the basement. The couple were a nice pair of people and hosted several lovely dinners, after which I would recline in a chair in front of a cast iron wood-burning stove...and drink whisky. |
| 1999 - The Happy Flat - x, Djr, Steve Steve was a guy I'd met whilst he worked serving coffee at Fresco's. He and some mates came over one night... this is the night my inflatable armchair exploded. So, we decided to crawl inside the remains. |
| 1999 - Southwold - Djr May: Every year Matthias' father gets together at this place with a bunch of his mates; so this year Matthias decided to bring me, Sonja, Nic, and Zed along. The weekend started wonderfully; I got to ride a Harley from London to Norfolk, the sun was shining, we pitched our tents, ate delicious food, drank Adnums beer....then Whoooossh, an artic gale blows up from nowhere, sleet, ice, freezing how wind and rain; lasting the whole weekend. The tent Matthias and I were in was not good enough to survive a fart never mind this. Woke up every morning wet and freezing. I began to resent the place but looking back on it now I have fond memories: moonlit walk along same beach; clambering up onto a metal jetty that stuck out deep into the ocean, walking along it to the end, seeing massive swells of the sea all around us; discovering that Dunwhich was the next town (very Lovecraft). |
| 1999 - The Happy Flat - Zed May: I forgot to tell Zed about the Shoggoth I'd been growing in the bathroom... it nearly got her for good. We were all playing Game every couple of weeks, it was a great period of game play... I'd modified Masks of Nyarlathotep into a cyberpunk setting. May Lopez and Carmen were the characters of the moment for Zed. It's around now that Zed started singing lessons. She used to come round and practice scales... was kind of cool to listen to. |
| 1999 - Sheppards Bush - Grassy May: I'd been exchanging E-mails with the Air India hostess since I'd got back from New York in November. Her name was Deepa. We finally arranged to meet for a night out in London. Didn't quite go according to plan... it was like she was a different person, I can't explain it but the night was turning into a slow grinding awkward nightmare... eventually I bailed out; hooked up with Alex M for a drink, then called Grassy: she was filming Transglobal Underground gig at Sheppards Bush for Channel 4... I went along and helped out. |
| 1999 - Stoke Newington - Djr May: after filming finished, Grassy and I got utterly hammered... finally ended up back at her pad via a kebab place. |
| 1999 - Stoke Newington - Fat Snoring F@*k May: I crashed the night at Grassy's place, not that getting sleep was easy; one of Floyd's mates was staying the night. At first I thought his loud and obnoxious snoring was just a transient stage of him falling asleep... but no... it went on, and on, and on. I lay there, glaring up at the ceiling. Eventually I decided to have some fun. I shuffled over to him with my camera, stuck my fingers up his nose then tugged hard, snapping his head backwards. As he woke briefly...I took a picture. He snorted, made a kind of pig-like grunting sound and then fell back asleep... and began snoring again. Finally, I resorted to standing behind him and giving him a massive kick up the backside. He went really still and really quiet. |
| 1999 - Stoke Newington - Floyd May: It seems that Floyd had also been out on the lash that night. The next morning we all met up in the kitchen, all of us looking pretty terrible. Floyd was a guy I'd known from Newcastle since 1988 or so. He briefly went out with Sarah L, and was now going out with Grassy. He is the kind of bloke you simply can't help but like. He's lovely. |
| 1999 - The Agency - Kaiser B00t May: This picture was taken in Block 2, in the room that we'd occupied since the start of 1998. B00t had gone from being my ex-boss to becoming a good friend. |
| 1999 - Baristas Cafe - Leigh May: Every moring I took the #1 bus from Brislington, through town and up through Clifton and across the downs to work. I'd been coming in extra early for months, so I could write Heist / Dante's Fool before actually starting work. I used to go past this new cafe that had opened up on the corner of Corn Street... it was called Baristas, and they opened really early. So I started to jump off the bus in the city centre, rather than riding all the way to work, and I'd spend 90 minutes here, before jumping back on the bus to complete the journey to work. Leigh was a guy I'd met when he was serving coffee in Fresco's. He'd moved back to Liverpool to write a film script... he made a brief return to Bristol, when we hooked up, but I never saw him since. |
| 1999 - Baristas Cafe - Dominic M
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| 1999 - Baristas Cafe - Zak May: One of the familiar faces on the Bristol scene, was Zak, a guy who always reminded me of Omar Sheriff. |
| 1999 -Bristol - Steve Stalker May: I'd not seen much of Steve since he'd moved away from Bristol, around 1997. He made a brief re-appearance at Matthias' pad in St Pauls... Super Mashriq was the name of the shop across the road from where Matthias lived. |
| 1999 - Baristas - Djr May: This is where I wrote the short story Blue Boy. The cafe was an excellent place to sit and watch the world go by. |
| 1999 - Bristol - Maria Mojo June: I'd last seen Maria around January 1998, when she'd come down from Manchester... where she had been living for some time... Maria and I got up to our old tricks then. Memory: a concrete staircase overlooking a building site near the NCP on Colston Street. She was now back in Bristol... looking for some fun. |
| 1999 - London - Djr Nic, who was Sonja's longstanding partner, was having an exhib of his amazing artwork at a place in London. We all piled down to give him support. I'd popped outside for a while. Crossing the road to come back, this motorcycle had come screaming round the corner with me right in its path... the rider braked sharply but not fast enough to stop the bike slamming into me. I'd managed to jump up onto the front wheel guard, clinging onto the handlebars as the bike surged forward to a stop. I was looking into the rider's eyes through his visor, and I shouted "Stupid fucking prick!" as the bike slowed enough for me to jump off. The rider swivelled round, eyeballing me, brought the stand down, jumped off, yanked off his helmet and shouted "Wot da fuk did y'say?" I was looking at a square jawed skin-head with a vivid line of scar tissue running down one side of his face. Fuck me it was Kurt Hansen, right out of God Seed. He strode towards me, pissed and ugly. I told him he'd nearly f@*king killed me. Suddenly a little 9 year old cockney kid stepped out onto the street and jeered, "Yeah go on mate, deck 'im one." Egging Kurt Hansen to commit some violence towards me. The situation turned into a stand-off. This photo was taken by Nic, I was writting the short story "PAIN" at the time. |
| 1999 - London - Djr Alex M was making excellent progress as a commercial photographer. He'd become part of an exhibition called: WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? WHO DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK YOU ARE? He asked me to become one of his subjects. The assignment was this: I had to direct one picture of "how I saw myself". I then had to chose a friend to direct a picture of "how they saw me." I chose Matthias. The above picture is how I saw myself. An observer of people, riding the bleeding edge of technology. The two pictures below are how Matthias P saw me: |
| 1999 - London - Djr These pics were taken at Alex M's pad... in a front room full of clutter that had to be shoved aside to make room for the shoot. As per Matthias' direction, I had to paint half my body black. Alex took his time taking the photos, and I drank red wine. In fact, I was pretty drunk by time we'd finished. I then had to get the black stuff of me... it was acrylic paint, the same stuff Matthias had use on himself that time last year... except it was an absolute nightmare to get off my skin. Worse, Alex's shower was on the blink and there was no hot water... so I had to sit on the edge of a bath with a cold sponge... it took me four hours! |
| 1999 - June - First Non-fiction published When Carla joined my team in January, I soon learned that her partner was a magazine editor. We all got together a few times and over drinks, I told her man about my view of cyberspace, and how the sex-industry was likely to lead the development of immersive technology. He said write an article about it. I went to my PC and dug out the article I'd written back in 1995, on the laptop I'd borrowed whilst temping as a PA at the brewery. I polished it up and sent it in. Next thing I know it's the lead story in the magazine. It gave my confidence a massive boost. |
| 1999 - Bristol - Michael St0rey June: Carla's partner, Michael, said "write me something else." I was working on a couple of short stories and I was deep in Heist / Dante's Fool, so having to come up with a fresh article was going to divert me from my main objectives... but I wanted to do it. So I booked myself off work for two weeks, grabbed a flight to Amsterdam and had an adventure. |
| 1999 - Amsterdam - Mr X July: arriving in Centraal Station I did the familiar walk through the Red Light district and found my old faithful Christian Shelter. I paid cash-up front for 14 nights... costing me a grand total of £84. What a bargain. My first morning I ate home-baked brown bread, cheese, fruit, orange juice and coffee, that was the breakfast that came with the bunk-bed, then grabbed my bag and strode out and through alley-ways lined with glass doors. I made my way to the Greenhaus cafe... as usual it was empty this early in the morning except... except for one man, sitting at my favourite table in the window bay overlooking the road and canal. Damn. So I carried my coffee over to the table and asked, "Do you mind if I share this table with you?" The guy swept a prolonged glance around the rest of the empty tables in the deserted cafe, gave me some kind of analytical look and then said "Sure..." waving at the table before sparking a roll-up. I sat down opposite, pulled out a stack of papers covered in scrawled notes and got on with it. During pauses of concentration to sit upright and sip my coffee I could see the guy watching what I was doing. "Are you studying?", he asked. "Nope, writing a book," I replied. We got chatting. He had a story to tell me, if I was willing to listen. Sure, I was always willing to listen to other people. He started to tell me one hell of story: he was on the run from a man who was trying to kill him / hurt him. Mr X was a lawyer from particular country that used to have an indiginous population, more or less wiped out by white Europeans. Mr X became involved in a high-profile case defending an elderly survivor of this indiginous population against a white-wealthy-arrogant-corrupt landowner. The landowner wanted this man evicted; the event turned into a spectacular fiasco when police wrongly believed the old man to be harbouring a group of armed militants, a seige took place that finally resulted in several thousand rounds of ammunition being fired. Mr X brought made the government of this particular country very uncomfortable. Mr X found his house broken into. Mr X was attacked by the same man on several occaisions. Mr X decided to get the 'fcuk out of Dodge' and go into hiding. I have to admit that at first I was silently dubious about such an extraordinary story, so I checked out the facts on the Internet and found it was all true; even had Mr X's picture in court. We met there several mornings in a row. His trust in me building, and my enjoyment of his company growing. One day he invited me back to his canal boat because he had four women flying in from Germany and thought I might enjoy thier company. |
| 1999 - Amsterdam - Djr, Louise July: I went shopping with Mr X, bought in supplies for a grand feast. We got to his boat and it was massive. A floating palace. The girls arrived. They were English... but studying in Germany. I never quite found out why they were staying with Mr X. I got to enjoy the company of Louise for the few days they spent there. |
| 1999 - Amsterdam - Louise, Mr X July: Mr X was such a cool character. Highly educated, articulate and able to just relax and go with the flow of things. |
| 1999 - Amsterdam - Louise |
| 1999 - Amsterdam - Nice Guy Tony, Matthias P July: I had been in Amsterdam for 10 days, when I was joined by Matthias and Nice Guy Tony. Matthias and Tony were not so enthralled by the cheap accomodation I had found. A woman had recently been murdered there , but the shelter installed security cameras in all the public rooms and hallways. Despite this it was great to see them there - on "my turf" so-to-speak. I can remember standing outside Centraal Station watching the throngs of passengers flooding out, and then spotting two familiar faces amongst the crowd. |
| 1999 - Amsterdam - Matthias P July: A fab memory of the trip was when this huge fairground opened up in the middle of the city; there was one ride (thing that hurled you up and round at high speed) that I loved and managed to persuade Matthias to try... ...he really wasn't sure, but I begged and pleaded and told him it was fantastic, which I genuinely thought it was. Matthias clambered on with me, the ride started up, and then I began hearing this awful high-pitch shrieking...like a bunny rabbit being fed into a blender ears first... I looked round and saw it was Matthias... at first I thought he was joking but then I saw he was truly terrified. Seriously. So...erm... so I took a photograph. The blurred smear of background is the ground... and the people and stalls down there... as Matthias and I were being hurtled upwards at stomach collapsing speed. |
| 1999 - Amsterdam - Nice Guy Tony July: I then persuaded Tony to have a go. |
| 1999 - Amsterdam - Djr July: taken at Rosaro's place. |
| 1999 - Amsterdam - Djr, Mr X July: the girls had gone. Mr X and I hung out. He talked about his book "Mickey Takes a Head Shot". He took me to an Internet cafe and showed me a chat room. I'd never used a chat room before in my life. Up to know I'd been using the Internet for research on characters and places; for E-mail, and tweaking the template for my site provided by fortunecity.com Now I was looking into a virtual room (text-based) occupied by people with curious made-up names, and they were all chatting. Mr X dived in. So I had a go... and became instantly hooked. |
| 1999 - The Happy Flat - Jules Ms Scarlet August: I got back from Amsterdam riding a positive wave. I'd written another article for the magazine, which got published; I was getting near to the end of Heist / Dante's Fool; and I'd discovered the limitless world of real-time chat in cyberspace. Jules and I picked up our friendship a pace and became partners-in-crime in a number of SPANK-inspired parties. The code word was "butterfly". Every night after finishing work, I'd stay behind and log onto one of the stand-alone Internet PC's... there was now one in my office at Block 2, another one down in Test & Integration, and of course the original back in Block 1 by the vending machines. The Agency still didn't provide Internet access from the desktop, there wasn't even external E-mail. I'd stay there til 10 P.M. some nights... building on-line friendships with the regulars in the chatroom Mr X had introduced me to. Sometimes Nice Guy Tony would drive to the complex to give me a lift home, but would often end up sitting at a PC himself, logging in and chatting. |
| 1999 - Toronto (photo from) - Jessica Starry Eyes August: I was still in contact with Jessica, the girl I'd met almost two years earlier in Lakota. This is her sitting on the edge of a lake near her home. Canada started becoming a big destination in my mind, but so was New Zealand... after meeting Mel (kiwi) from the Arnolfini and seeing a programme that showed this incredible landscape. |
| 1999 - The Happy Flat - Kelvin W August: there was still a huge number of sessions taking place on a regular basis, Russell (when he wasn't too pissed or hungover to turn up), Kelvin W, Dominic, Nice Guy Tony and Zed. These are the days of Dunwhich... and them exploring all the Lovecraft country. |
| 1999 - Image From Cyberspace - Ramona (Radar) August: I'd finally got Internet at home. A dial-up account on a 56k modem. My use of the chatroom continued. I got talking to somebody with the handle Radar. We talked about the book "memoirs of a Geisha". A really strong connection became obvious... we shared personal details... she sent me a photograph. I can remember opening up the attachment and going all light-headed and smiley. She was gorgeous. Her name was Ramona, she lived in Brooklyn, worked in Manhattan, she was an Italian / Puerto Riccan mix. So I started to look forward to meeting her in there. It was a wonderful feeling. |
| 1999 - London - Simon P, Jules Ms Scarlet August: Jules and I took a trip to London to see our long-time friend Simon P. I'd not seen much of him since those dark days in mid-1997, and almost not at all after he moved to London. In fact, I realised I was harbouring a painful wound... ever since his cutting rant about my irresponsibility in life... when all I needed was the support of a friend when I'd just been dumped and was so financially broke I was looking at having to leav Bristol... it wasn't my fault that the job I'd been promised never materialised, although that was a great personal lesson. Simon had now become very corporate. |
| 1999 - London - Jane, Alex M August: I brought Alex along to the get together with Simon & Jules; Alex brought his new partner. |
| 1999 - London - Kate August: Another reason for being in London was to see the exhib Alex M had been working on. I walked out of Old Street tube station and realised I didn't have a clue where this place was supposed to be. I started trying to stop people to ask them where this building was but each and every person flinched thier shoulders or raised their hands and kept walking. Did I look like I had the plague or something? Then I approach this girl walking towards me and start to ask "Where..." and suddenly both our faces light up with recognition. It was Kate! I first met Kate through Matthias about four years earlier. Talk about a chance in a million. We grabbed a couple of drinks then she came to see the exhibition with me. |
| 1999 - The Happy Flat - Maria Mojo September: Maria needed a place to stay for a couple days...over a weekend. I gave her a key to my flat and left her to it. I didn't see her for dust. Then one night I heard her come back in, some time waaaay past midnight; I was already in bed, paralysed by sleep... but I could hear her moving around the flat. Then I heard the front door go again, and she was gone. The next morning I got up, went to work, and then I got a phone call from her. She was back in the flat, and said, "Nice photographs you have on the wall (of her)... I think I'll take some of those back." I hung up. Grabbed the company pool car. Blasted back to Brislington. Got inside to find she'd made a little heap of things she was planning on "taking back". I got my key back, I shoved her out the flat onto the street... she couldn't believe I was doing this to her, she walked forward, I slammed the door in her face. It took a few minutes to put my things back in order. Jesus... what was she thinking? What was I thinking for that matter. |
| 1999 - The Happy Flat - Amy September: one of the tasks I had to accompish at work was deliver training on using videoconference equipment, to all of the business services staff at nearly 60 Agency sites across the country. I decided to use the videoconference equipment to run the training, which raised a lot of eyebrows... I think people just expected me to take 4 months out to drive around the country, staying in hotels and claiming a second income on car mileage. I met Amy through one of these training sessions... based in Wales she made the trip over. |
| 1999 - Boston Tea Party - Djr September: after more than two years, I finally finished Heist... what later came to be called Dante's Fool. I was immensely pleased with it. I still hadn't found a publisher for God Seed, so Heist/Dante's Fool joined the merry-go-round. As for my agent, Emily Bx, I got a phone message from her not long after I'd returned from Amsterdam saying she was in Bali, and probably staying there for the foreseable future... ...so it was all down to me again. |