I Dream of Mushroom Clouds

"Sweet dreams of you. Every night I go through. Why can't I forget you and start my life anew? Instead of having sweet dreams about you", sings Patsy Cline as the 7 inch spins on late in to the night. Every night I dream of the bomb. Same thing quarter to 3. The man who's seen a million mushroom clouds. I get high off it. I order them in myself now just to feel the rush of the high pressure wave against my cold cranium. Hand shaking the iron fence. Vapourised to the bone. Terminator 2 shit. Judgement Day. I think it's got something to do with Oppenheimer. Why can't I dream of Barbie dolls instead? Or on second thought, would that be more disturbing?

My subconscious is getting so sick of being the guinea pigs in my nuclear weapon testing that they've started fighting back like those little people in Jesse Plemmons's Star Trekkian world. You know the Black Mirror episode? First they got me with a watch. Presenting me with a complex problem I couldn't resolve. They told me they would give me the greatest watch in the history of man. I told them, "nice try dickheads but I hate watches and have considered them obsolete after the invention of mobile phones". They already knew that. That's why they're going to build me a watch so good even I would like it. Told them, "fine, if you think you could succeed in such a task" Next thing I know, there are watches everywhere. Time, time, see what's become of me. Firstly, in quiet places, like the underside of a bridge and then at night when I put my hand under the pillow and out comes a solid gold watch. A note attached to the side reading, "This is your Watch". Time don't fool me no more. I throw my watch to the floor. Suddenly, millions of them hanging from trees and occupying skyscraper lobbies. Everywhere I go, I hear the tick, tick, tick. Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day. Even when they're not in my line of vision as though the sound has been engrained in my brain. Nobody has ever been this scared of clocks. I go to a meeting. Clockophobia Apparently, it's real. I look over to my left and my right. Who is sat next to me but Captain Hook and Doc Brown. This is fucking embarrassing. I call in the bomb. Wipe everything to a crisp and start agaaaaaaain

It's easier to destroy than to create. Doctor Frankenstein's success in creating life fills the pages of a book but when we think about it, all we really have is Oppenheimer's bomb. The sad truth that we never found a way to create life from scratch but we did find a way to destroy ourselves. A painful realisation we must all come to terms with. This is the future we chose. The minute Oppenheimer began working on that bomb, we were all doomed. It's very existence marks the timer on our own destruction. We don't know how long we have but there is a countdown in motion. He knew this from the outset, begging the question of why would one take on such a mission and the consequences that would have on your own mental stability. Christopher Nolan's latest film seeks to answer this.

Well, I hold my hands up, I honestly didn't think Nolan was capable. He's always been that Hitchcock type that's on the edge of auteur and popular entertainer. Criticised for being a stylist with expert technical knowledge (especially in the field of noir) and his films embodying little meaning or substance. Perhaps, he needed someone or even a particular film to endorse him and make him seen in a different light and change public opinion. Truffaut drew our attention to Hitchcock's perversions and a similar argument could be made for Nolan's continuous fascination with time. Whilst, many have discarded Nolan and consider his occasional observations of time contentious in allowing him auteur status (something he constantly battles for like Oppenheimer's security clearance court cases, probably the reason for their massive part of the story and making for a meta movie), I have always been fine with it because generally he picks projects where he can get away with it. In going to silly pop entertainment, I'm personally able to cut him a bit of slack and admire the craft over the content. I've never lied about considering The Dark Knight the peak of popcorn cinema. It's the Prince or Michael Jackson of cinema. Only elitists would deny this, let them fight amongst each other, I'll be forever cheering on the bat as he battles it out with The Joker for control of Gotham.

Oppenheimer is by far Nolan's biggest challenge to date, departing from fiction to fact. No more dreams. No more comic book worlds. Nothing but the word on the page, as it is, as it was and forever will be. Without a doubt, one of the biggest stories of the 20th century along with my other favourite JFK's assassination. It's the story of the building of the off button, the fucking doomsday machine. Such a monumental moment in this planets history and is it Nolan's story to tell? Had I known the full story before the trailer came out, I'd have said he couldn't be more ill-fitted to such a project. Why is the cold and practical technician dealing with the most harrowing event there has ever been since humans walked the earth? His work lacks the humanity required. This surely could not be a match made in heaven.

Before going in to the screening, I'll lay my cards on to the table, here was my main issue: how could a guy with such (not necessarily unagreeable but undeniably) boring politics and a pop filmmaker deal with such a controversial matter? The beauty of a film like JFK, which it has been compared to, is that it's directed by a coke addled conspiracy theorist war vet still fuming with his government from Vietnam and willing to piss people off. How could Nolan possibly do this? He's far too level headed to get pissed off. How could he tap in to the horror of what this single incident would trigger? Would he have to radically change his approach and re-think his entire strategy?

As it turns out, no, not at all. He plays this beast to his strength by telling the story through style, reaching all its important points via sheer method in a manner reminiscent to arthouse classic The Turin Horse Manipulating images and sound until they lead the narrative, taking from conventional dialogue. It even borrows The Turin Horse's themes of demise and decay. He's bypassed the conventional intellectual route in favour of the epic emotional (his strong suit). Capturing pretty much everything that could be asked of him through pure mood. Oppenheimer is a talky film no doubt but that's just the outer body, it's most revealing in its style. All the answers to unlock the film can be found in its technique.

Look, this is a film of formulas, so think of it like this, how does a noncharacter oriented director achieve one of cinemas greatest character studies in the whole of cinema? Oppenheimer's success can be broken down in to a few simple moves. My Psycho-Schradists will like this one. Paul Schrader's appreciation of Oppenheimer as one of the greatest films of this century is no accident, it heavily borrows from his transcendental style theory. Then it combines this with Sidney Luhmet's themes of Fail Safe and his structure and editing of 12 Angry Men. Once these all meet, all you can do is accept Nolan has somehow against all expectations sidestepped his way into carving a character study every bit as gripping as Citizen Kane, Michael Corleone and Daniel Plainview but in a very different style which is basically a hybrid of horror and documentary.

We'll start with Schrader, I believe I have previously discussed transcendental style to some degree back in Vol. 2 Issue #2, regardless though I will try to define it for those unfamiliar with it. Those who believe that style is inferior to substance should listen closely. I've always hated those people who say that something is "style over substance" in a derogative way without understanding the true nature of what can be achieved through style. Yes, there are some empty stylists out there with no weight behind their brand. Not for one second denying this. Nolan may have been arguably one himself. However, transcendental style and slow cinema definitely represent an area in film where style not only becomes equal to substance but can even surpass it. In some cases style takes on meaning making it work on the same level as substance but also better because there's more of a unique artist's spin on the work. This is what happens with transcendental style.

Schrader's definition of transcendent applies to the use of the word in the sense of evoking something beyond human experience and it can only be achieved through style. Although, Schrader means it in a religious sense, Nolan has always been a keen enthusiast in investigating the mystery of existence (take Interstellar and Inception).

Schrader would even admit that expressing the transcendent is not limited to a specific culture and that any artist can aspire to search the beyond. That was the whole point of his book on the matter, in linking these artists from across the world that use the particular style. It then becomes our job as the viewer to break down how the artist achieves that style and how they express this sense of the beyond. In doing so, the form surpasses the content because the style is both universally recognisable and personally adaptable.

You still with me? Cause this is when it gets super complicated, right at the point it gets easiest. As with any style, it often works best simplified. Smaller is bigger. Repetition of the same works better than highly varied. Less is more. It's easier to say the style you want to have but even harder to use it best then to come transcendent. As Eames says in Inception, "No. It's perfectly possible. It's just bloody difficult", the worst thing you can do is overcomplicate as would be the tendency.

This is where a lot of the limitations and simpleness of Nolan's approach actually work in his advantage. Couldn't we have had more on the horror angle? The repercussions of his actions? I'm afraid it's all communicated through the style. I believe we can now discuss Nolan's incredible compositions, which I'm going to be studying for years to come. The walls shaking. The quick cuts to skin peeling off people. The feet slamming against the floor. Cries of "Oppy! Oppy! Oppy!". The life cycle of stars. Alternative universes. Bombs flooding the skies. Balls of fire. All of these images (and even sounds) are repeated throughout. It's in their repetition that the transcendental is expressed. To show any more than what is presented on screen would be to ruin the effect. Making Oppenheimer a masterpiece in symphonic construction.

There's a genuine sense of rhythm at play here and masterful control of the material to the level that one image held a second too long or too less would fail to deliver the sustained sense of impending doom. It's musical in a sense. It's Wagner. It's the apocalypse! You could go crazy here working out how Nolan's achieved this feat.

Maybe Nolan was actually best fit to the project after all in finding the humanity in the picture through (given all this obsessive attention to technique) what you could call science. A rather fitting form of storytelling given the subject involved. This is the biopic operating at its very best. Too often it is used as easy Oscar bait material as your story is already laid out and your audience is aware of it but when the director merges their style with the subject, that's when you get a new form of filmmaking.

It would be unfair not to reference his use of Luhmet's 12 Angry men and Fail Safe as inspiration. He's combined the two movies to create the best of both worlds. 12 Angry men is best remembered for being a court case thriller, which over the course of the movie proves that a man is innocent, basically The Thin Blue Line but as a work of fiction. For directors, it's essentially a manual for shooting exciting court room scenes within one singular room. Learning how long to hold a shot and when to cut in order to prove the films central argument, that is the opportunity 12 Angry Men presents. It's so visually impressive that the film could still reach its logical conclusion without the aid of dialogue. The shots operate as a blueprint revealing the process or a step by step guide towards the denouement. My criticism of the film has always been the same though. The technique can't be faulted but the case itself not as relevant or impactful as it could be. Nolan has borrowed that technical side and combined it with the far more, let's say, explosive Fail Safe. Improving the material and maintaining the skill. Or in other words, using the form to explore the existential in line with transcendental style.

Only a fool would say Oppenheimer is a perfect exercise in transcendental style. It isn't. It only shares similarities. Let's not forget though, Paul Schrader, who coined the term, has never managed to fully create a film in its true style. As with any theory, it should be something to work towards. Purist views are pointless and eventually restrict creativity.

More importantly, what's interesting with Oppenheimer is that it fails to achieve slow cinema or transcendental style status for the exact same reason as Paul normally does. The protagonist is far too fiery and burning with their own inner conflicts that it sabotages the ice cold pacing and threatens to derail the outer movie world at any point. A common trick with slow cinema is that you hold the shot on something in particular and the idea is that it supposedly makes the viewer more receptive to that object in focus as they wonder why does the filmmaker want me to think about that? It's near impossible to do that when your protagonist is constantly threatening to blow the bloody doors off. However, it's that contrast for me that makes Schrader so intriguing. The world moves at a snail's pace but the protagonist is ready to detonate. They are the bomb.

So then, should we see Oppenheimer as a big budget Paul Schrader movie? Absolutely and cherish it because it's not like they're ever going to give Paul Schrader 100 million. This is as epic as its ever going to get. The connections with Schrader are endless. Oppenheimer is 100% a Schrader character. Whiteboards are his diaries as he scribbles formulas over and over in his descent in to madness as a result of battling with his own soul. As with all Schrader films, you just know it's going nowhere pleasant, it's hurtling towards violence and there's nothing you can do about it. The clock sprig cannot be wound continually tighter. As the Earth moves toward the sun, Oppy moves toward violence.

Even the score and its modern classical influences echoes Philip Glass's work on Mishima. My favourite here being 'Fusion'. As I am amazed by how well Nolan has done here, I am amazed with Ludwig Goransson. Do I believe Hans Zimmer could have done this? Yes, he gave us the Interstellar score with the beyond great Max Richter sounding S.T.A.Y. A score in its own right just an absolutely incredible piece of modern classical with every track working on their own separate to the image. Rare for a score. It's miles better than the film.

Nolan must have the right ways of working with his composers because he's created two of the best scores in recent years. Unsure on whether it was the same with this one but with Interstellar, I believe Zimmer was ordered to make the music before seeing the footage. Hence, why the tracks work isolated to the image because they stick to a theme independent of image. They convey what the image does on its own terms rather than emphasising the image. They don't have to aid the visuals because they are the visuals in musical form. I'm imagining that recording of Lynch and Badalamenti sat at the piano but its Nolan and Zimmer. Anyway, back to the original point, I did not believe Goransson capable of making such wonderful music but it's happened.

This leads me in to the sound design, which is near indistinguishable from the score. I'm sure it would piss Kurosawa off, who famously lobbied against Americans using too much music in their films. Oppenheimer seems like it constantly has music or sound effects in the background or driving the scene. If anything it adds to the whole transcendental style thing because never once in that book of Schrader's do I recall him discussing how music could be used. This is a whole new element that might not have been conceivable back then. Going back to how Oppenheimer feels like the very embodiment of cinema as the music of light, it gave me the same feelings I get from a decent Steve Roach space ambient album casting me off in to the far reaches of the cosmos.

As I said, sound is a huge driving force for the movie, just look at the set piece when they first test the bomb. This is to date one of the wildest scenes I've ever seen in the cinema. I felt like Nolan was single handedly bringing the end of the world. Roll the credits on planet Earth, it's time is done. A whirlwind of emotions rushed over me. The countdown commences. The mirroring of clock and bomb. Fritz Lang's contribution to cinema back in 1929. My brain knows it's witnessing a great evil and desperately wants them to fail. My lizard brain wants to see a fucking bomb go off in the IMAX. This is what happens when Nolan directs the apocalypse.

Like myself, when the bomb goes off he gives in to pure lizard brain but after the smoke clears that's when you see the confusion and contradictions. Everyone's celebrating whilst he's left to think about his creation as it slowly drives away from him. The baby has been put up for adoption and is off to its new home. A sad moment for its father. Typical Yanks celebrating the invention of a bomb. Surely, you couldn't do that even if you believed in this whole justification of its existence as a 'deterrent'? On a smaller level, it be like voting Keir Starmer and coming out the polling station like you just fucked Marilyn Monroe. I imagine it be more of a look of teeth clenched grimace having abandoned all your principles just to pick the lesser of two evils. But not the US, they love their weapons of death. They're built differently.

Naturally, the US government goes off and uses it first chance they get to show off their new toy like a kid in the playground. It stopped the war they say! I'm pretty sure the war would have been over in a few days anyway and the Japanese would have surrendered regardless. You were just looking for any opportunity to use it weren't you, war pigs? The US government packaging it up and putting it in the Indiana Jones store room with the ark and aliens was just never going to happen, was it? It couldn't just exist in a room like that quietly with people knowing about it and so being 'deterred'. Such an act wouldn't be in keeping with their culture. It would not be America's style. In true US fashion, they had to use that bomb. They had to show the world they were and always will be the big bully on the block. This world is theirs and we are at their mercy.

As the truck drives off with his bomb or his baby, this image is cast in your minds. A very bizarre scene. It's as though you can feel the soul of Oppenheimer visibly leaving his body with the truck. A pandoras box being opened. A piece of himself lost forever that he will never get back. The devil has come to collect what he is owed.

I see Oppenheimer as this Jack Torrance figure. From the moment he first agrees to make the tool of our own extinction, he has confined and confirmed his place as earth's caretaker leading it to its own demise. Yet, he has rendered himself completely ineffectual, despite being the face of operations, roaming the halls of the Overlook night after night as his prison sentence, a victim of a bigger evil at large.

In a hilarious scene, he confronts evil President Truman (played with real menace by Gary Oldman) about the blood on his hands and he's immediately kicked out of the oval office for being a "Cry-baby". If Oppenheimer, didn't know it before, he knew it then, he was a pawn drawn in to the conflicts of the world and it would carry on with or without him. They've abducted his baby and will do with it what they please. Thank you for service, we shall take it from here. That final image of him staring at the rain drops falling on the water, closing his eyes to disconnect from it all and envisioning the end of the world is the equivalent of The Shining's final photo of Jack anachronistically at the 1921 ball. Committing an act so horrible that your name escapes the bounds of time and can be linked with all the worst atrocities committed by the dark forces in this world.

We're dealing with a man who has created this Donnie Darko like alternative course of history, an unstable tangent universe, that he can only sit back and watch it eat itself. The tragedy lies in that there is no ensurance trap and our living receiver cannot bring the artifact back through time, consequently in this case both tangent and primary universe will be erased. It's a world filled with paradoxes, as though condemned to walking the Penrose steps for all eternity. Climbing and climbing forever never getting any higher. I'm surprised there isn't a scene where Oppenheimer looks in the mirror and repeats the famous solipsistic Robert A. Henlein line, "I know where I came from but where did all you zombies come from" He is the snake that eats its own tail.

Oppenheimer has the perfect ending for this loop loving maniac. You realise he knew what he was getting in to all along and here's the proof. Hiding those words with Einstein was an incredible hook, you needed to know what was said there. The two great minds who know all along. Oppenheimer didn’t make his deal with the devil in New Mexico that was just the place where the devil collected. There was never any ignorance on his part, making Strauss's comments on Oppenheimer even more interesting when he mentions that Oppenheimer was always going to build the bomb as he wanted to put his name out there above everything.

Strauss says some real funny things in this film, like when he goes full Limmy and says, "he's turning the scientists against me!". But when he judged Oppenheimer's character that one could have been right. Was that Nolan's hook for making Oppenheimer? Coming at this like Andrei Rublev with artist as world historic figure but in this case, the scientist as artist. The idea of how far an artist would go to prove their brilliance? Challenging the very notion of putting art out in to the world being an unselfish act.

When it comes to the question of how far an artist can go this was always going to be a potential problem for Mr Nolan, since he's always been a traditionally safe pair of hands. The ideal blockbuster maker trusted with the mega budgets. There will be questions asked of him in his 'downplaying' of certain areas of the story. He suggests that Oppenheimer is driven by some kind of revenge mission for Hitler's antisemitism. However, this is only hinted at and some will say it's because he doesn't want to bring 'Jewishness' too much in to it. As though he was scared of doing so. This may have been true but it didn't bother me so much that in a film with such a beautiful mystery as this the motives should be hidden slightly. To be too revealing would be to kill it as an existential triumph.

Another area that will be scrutinised will be Hiroshima. A more insane and risky director would have put more of the devastation on screen, leading people to argue whether such material was necessary and a step too far. Are they exploiting tragedy and using it as misery porn or are they genuinely wanting to depict the horror of what happened?

My King Thomas Pynchon wrote potentially the best novel of all time with his bomb book Gravity's Rainbow and what did he get? It was selected for the Pulitzer prize in 1974 but the board was too offended by its obscenity to give Pynchon the award. Since there was clearly nothing better to give the award to they just didn't give one that year. Sometimes when the material calls for it, not winning an award is more prestigious. At least in my eyes anyway.

If it were in my hands, I'd decide midway through that I was actually making the Godzilla prequel and would probably be cancelled. These are questions you wouldn't ask with Nolan at the helm. About his most questionable thing is turning the building of the bomb in to an IMAX spectacle but even that's like the lightest crime in the book. Therefore, some viewers may switch off because the film doesn't contain this conflict. I thought this would bother me more than it did but I couldn't avoid the fact that even though the film doesn't often verbally express guilt you can't deny feeling it in mood. Only an idiot would say the atmosphere isn't that of reflection and regret. Once again coming back to my point about this being an unconventional masterpiece in achieving all this through style and technique. It's the delicate assortment of images and sound design that gets the point across over dialogue. So rare these days for a director to be thinking visually and aurally how to tell the story.

I can't even remember the last film that gave me nightmares like this one. Nolan's vision is too gargantuan to ignore. His end of the world too operatic. Unexpectedly, what freaked me out was just how much this film had affected me without realising just from the trailer. I felt like more and more about it was revealing itself to me in dreams. My two favourite pieces for Funeralopolis have been the Chicago Mob Story and the B29 Crash site, both of which the more I think about it were trying to work out my feelings towards Oppenheimer and to engage with the material without having seen it. Possibly, like the titular scientist, I knew what I was doing all along. Regardless, the similarities remain striking. The Chicago Mob Story had the eye closing and The B29 Crash Site had the looping.

Focusing on the eye closing, Oppenheimer's ending reminded me of early Nolan banger, Memento. It's the same action in the two films but the context differs greatly. In Memento, he shuts his windows to the soul and in the narration, says, "I have to believe that when my eyes are closed the world is still there". Leonard was a man who came to believe his actions had little consequence in the world. That if he couldn't remember what he'd done, noone would. So the eye closing is his way of imagining the world continuing on without him but in his departure hoping his actions would have some influence and meaning. His ideas survive even if his body doesn't. 10 years have gone behind him. No-one told him when to run and he missed the starting gun.

At the end of Oppenheimer, our scientist does the very same thing with the eye closing but he pictures something very different. He didn't miss the starting gun, he was the one firing it. Instead of the world continuing, he sees the world ending. His assertion and actions having too big a consequence on the world. It's an inverse in every way but still using a stylistic trademark, I salute that. Don't think I didn't notice what Oppenheimer is doing during his conversation with Einstein. He watches the raindrops falling on the water. What does water do? It flows. It's a continuum. What a poetic way of showing the neat consequence of action. A chain reaction. To me then, the eye closing represents this desire for a man to escape his time and situation. To remove himself and the domino effect of his contributions from existence. Considering he's then plagued with visions of the end of the world, it's safe to say... he fails.

Ah the old Nolan obsession with time, as clear as day. Here he's made the ultimate Christopher Nolan movie. But where does a filmmaker concerned with time go after making this epic musing on the end of the world? I want to say back to the beginning but he's already made Memento. Where he goes next is anybody's guess. All I will say is I never had Nolan creating one of the best films of all time.

Did you know before Scorsese made The Aviator, a film about another controversial but talented American figure tasked with building the country's war machines, Nolan already had a script for it he was going to make? Well, I had Killers of the Flower Moon down as being the movie of the year. Scorsese's got some real fucking competition this time. He may be the best American director of all time but even I don't think he'll be able to beat Oppenheimer. Not a sentence I thought I'd ever say. Nolans getting his long awaited revenge.

You know, I've never understood the obsession with Interstellar. Always thought its scientific exploration is marred by sentimentalism. Nolan part way through decides he's Kubrick and spends like 20 minutes trying to get a ship to dock. I mean visually its fine but when Kubrick was doing it, wasn't it about different stages of human evolution and manipulating the limitations of film as a medium to show that? When Nolan did it, it was just a ship docking and some silly family melodrama. Hans Zimmer's score carries the movie. The only thing worth watching it for. Maybe I'm just fuming because instead of a planet of apes, there's just a planet of water. Yeah, it's time again I guess but it's not nearly as poetic as Oppenheimer's use of water. Put simply, when Nolan made his 2001? who fucking cares? When Nolan gave us his Dr Strangelove? Oh my fucking God, what a banger! What do you have up your sleeve next, Nolan? In the words of Vera Lynn, 'We'll Meet Again'. As I'm writing this, I hear Paul Schrader has been offered a JFK assassination film. Does this more big budget transcendental style? Catch me doing donuts around Albert Dock and singing to myself, "keep smiling through, just like you always do, 'til the blue skies chase those dark clouds far away!"

On that joyous note, time for this week's Kelly adventure. Nothing but storms all afternoon. Someone had upset the Gods. I see I have a message from Ricardo Carvalho, he's in the pub downstairs with Electric Six. Whoever decided to stack flats on top of a boozer, give them a medal, it's perfect. I tell him to order me a drink. I'll be down once Werewolves on Wheels and this last bottle of Peroni are finished.

That's the Werewolves on Wheels Electric Wizard re-edit on YouTube. Always makes for a good pre-drink entertainment to get in to the mood if you know what I mean. The credits roll and I abseil down to the boozer below to grab my next pint. We agree to pick up a few crates and head Electric Six's. I hear a few notes of Deftones My Own Summer and I instantly demand to be fed all and any Sonny Cheeba on the premises.

By 10pm, we are vibing hard. The Boy Harsher is on. Their latest catchy banger Autonomy. I'm giving it the old Kelly stomp like it's 2015. Once they get in motion these fuckers can't be stopped. High knees, side steps, cross overs you name it. They're in control now. Suddenly, I remember we're meant to be at some gig seeing our mates band. I slap my legs, have a serious word with them and demand they stop moving. Having regained control of my legs, we sprint over to the venue to see Van Royale. Some Radiohead meets Led Zeppelin project, if the two can meet. Mr Steely Dan is already there in the crowd and motions us over. In front of him is a smiling, dashing young female we encountered the other week when out on the town. No way, that means my man's successfully coerced her in to a date this evening. We live in a post-Magic Mike XXL world and we love when our boys are doing good. Although, noticing him engulfing her like a fucking enzyme from behind, you'd never have thought this was a first date. Only Leatherface himself pulls out the old hug from behind on the first date. It's outrageous. It's Mr Steely Dan.

There's a break in between the songs and the silence forces me to morph in to my gig persona of Tim Heckler, as I let out an unusual request of, "play me something I can fuck your Dad to!". Did I really just say that? The Sonny Cheeba must be getting to my melon. Put down the drink and go home immediately. No chance. Must go on. After Van Royale's final song, we head next door to The Jack. The Jack tends to play some alright stuff, mainly garage, punk and that woeful 2000s indie revival rubbish I wish they wouldn't. So really you've got like a 2 in 3 chance of hearing something tolerable, which by all means is not a bad odds.

A round of shots are handed out across the bar. Not my favourite way to consume a beverage but a definite senses sharpener that was fully needed under the current circumstances. I'm barely given time to get the taste of tequila out my mouth when I'm hurled down the stairs by Mr Steely Dan. I wasn't even aware The Jack had a basement, so this was new to me. We were off the map and dangerous things happen when you go off the map. It was my round and so it was time to pay the bar man a quick visit. Standing only a few feet away from me at the bar was a fine dame waiting to be served. Where did she come from? Where was she going? What was her story? Who knew. She glances over in my direction. "Alright?", I throw across casually. Bonkers by Dizzee Rascal begins pumping out the speakers. As though suddenly activated, this woman, who I shall refer to as Doctor Zira, grabs me and launches me in to the nearest wall. Luckily, my reactions are quick enough to get my fingers round the freshly poured point standing tall on top of the bar just in time.

I'm launched in to every wall of the Jack basement like we're auditioning for the next John Wick movie if you know what I mean and I think you do. She bites my head off like it's Jennifer's Body and I'm poor old Seyfried. I never stood a chance. Catching my breath, I hit her with the question. She nods and adds, "let's get out of here". On our way up the stairs, Doctor Zira informs she needs to go to the toilet for a quick one. I follow her on up to the women's and wait outside like an honourable gentlemen. That's when she realises I never came in with her. Her head pops round the door and she shouts, "come on!". I know exactly what that means. One look left, one look right. The coast is clear. "Fuck it", I mutter and let her lead me astray in to the first empty cubicle.

She locks the door behind her, points to the toilet and yells, "sit". You best believe that like your Mum's little Jack Russell, I went and sat on that toilet like a good little boy. Some things are just too rude to say no to. The Fraulein rides me silly and all the time I'm expecting security to burst through the door and expose me for the horny bastard I am. So horny, we couldn't even make it back to the flat around the corner. When you gotta go, you gotta go.

I finish up and we're in such postintercourse euphoria (or maybe it was the Sonny Cheeba) that we somehow get lost in The Jack and can't find the way out. We end up out the back entrance in to the alley. Locked doors line the way. Neither side has the exit route, no Link on the Nokia 8110 slider to get us out of this one, we are trapped. "Should we go back the way we came?", I ask, giving in. We take one more look at each other and the horniness over takes us again.

I splinter me hands twisting her in to all sorts of contortions on the disregarded wooden structures left in the back alley. All war wounds were worth it. Blood, sweat and tears when it comes to this shit. Eventually, I find the best position is to hit that from behind as she leans against the wall for support. Suddenly, the wall begins to move. That is no ordinary wall, I think to myself. Walls don't move. It isn't a wall, it's a door. Some unfortunate minimum wage Jack staff member given the sorry task of taking the bins out that night witnesses a horrifying sight. My reactions are too slow to catch Doctor Zira. She goes down screaming in a heap. The Jack staff member also lets out a scream in shock. I'm standing there caught red handed in the act. Since my rod is just fully exposed to the world, I pull up my pants and zip up in rapid motion. "You can't be doing that here", says the Jack worker. "Sorry", I say with a smile on my face. I was not.

At this point, yep, we were definitely kicked out The Jack. I don't think you're supposed to get your fuck on in the boozer so I fairly accept my dismissal and walk on out. On the way past Mr Steely Dan, I ask him nicely, "please take this woman off my hands, she's crazy". He just looks in to my eyes and taps me on the shoulder. A look as if to say, "you're in control of your actions, you know how to end this but you're not going to, are you?". Fuck, he was right. Doctor Zira and I make it back to the rendezvous point: Kelly's apartment. But before we make it there, this woman demands feeding so we visit the corner shop for some Doritos.

Something I thoroughly regret doing because I found half the packet under the sheets the next day and crumbs for the next week. Had her mouth stopped working? Or was it that I launched them across the room when she was still munching them when I was trying to sleep? Could be the latter. I get The Swamp Rats noisy cover of Louie Louie on and we move on to round three.

Mid-way through the fornicating, she reveals to me her Daddy issues. They all crack in the end. "Tell me more", I say and proceed to go town on her holiest of holiest like Junior Soprano in a cheap motel in Boca Raton. There's no point in fighting it. If this is where they want to go, let them. Use it. Use it like it's your year 9 drama piece. Jacob Kelly does not kink shame. We finish up our meetings of genitalia for the second to last time and I put on a movie not even bothering to inquire as to what she would like to watch. "What's this?", she asks. "Planet of the Apes 2. Beneath the Planet of the Apes", I answer. "There's more than 1 Planet of the Apes film?", she questions further. Such a question rattles me and I snap with, "Where the fuck have you been since 1968?". She apologises for not knowing the entire history of the Planet of the Apes.

I inform her that she has a lot of catching up to do, "I'd say about 9 movies and 2 TV shows". She shakes her head not having any of it. This does nothing to deter me as I state, "there's a whole fucking Marxist rebellion about 4 films in that you don't know about". This leaves her absolutely baffled and unable to say anything other than, "what?". "The apes get organised. The apes get fucking organised, alright? That's all I'm saying", I double down. Completely unsure as to whether she's listening at all here because she then asks, "so what is like the concept of the Planet of the Apes?". Opting not to give her a cheeky Tim Henman back hander across the face for her ignorance, as was my first instinct, I proceed to explain the concept of the Planet of the Apes.

I take her through it all, including the time I saw a copy Tim Burton's dreadful remake lying on a shelf at a house party and ended up getting so wound up by its presence that I vollied it about the gaff, elbow dropped it in just about every room and then tossed it in to the fire outside. Throughout my intricate retelling of the Planet of the Apes saga, she keeps interrupting me with more on the subject of her Daddy issues. By the end all I can say is, "it's a role reversal exercise, Zira. And something tells me a horny little freak like yourself might appreciate that".

In the early hours of the morning, I go to the toilet and when I return this lady is sprawled across the edge of the bed like a dog. "You can get under the sheets, you know?", I make her aware. Upon receiving this information she gets under as though she had to hear these words from me first. The go ahead. The all clear. Must be the Daddy issues. No point dwelling on it. We finally call it a night around 6am. At 7am, I am the first to stir and with a killer hangover all I can think is get the TV on and distract myself immediately. About 20 minutes later, Zira raises a head, closely inspects the television, laughs to herself and says, "why are you watching David Attenborough?". Barely able to speak and pointing at the lion spread out across an empty field enjoying his quiet time, I add, "because this is all my brain can compute right now!". Can't believe I was being bullied for watching David Attenborough.

The lion sees some prey in the distance, roars and goes hunting. This stirs something in me and we go on to round 4. Come to about 8am, we're slightly more sober and functioning. Zira realises she's lost almost all her belongings other than the clothes on my floor. Brilliant. I hand over all my devices and say, "log in to your social medias or whatever". None of this works in this day and age because of all the 2 step verification processes. Gotta love Google security. In the end, I have to walk her down to Central and get her train ticket to her destination. She's with God from there. She was fun though.

I dunno, might call her again. You're talking to a guy who thinks Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and Badlands are the two greatest rom-coms of all time. We hit the country, we fight a lot, we fuck a lot, the bodies pile up, we get in a high speed pursuit with the cops and then we go our separate ways cursing each other's name for eternity. This is Jacob Kelly's ideal romance. If this is your idea of a good time, you know where I am. My final words to the doctor are, "if you ever want to get crazy again and fuck around in the Jack toilets, call me". Au revoir, Zira.

Heading back up to Bold Street, the next thing I saw was this. A loose vagina blocked out the sky. It's sweaty lips parted revealing a black hole stretching far beyond this world. Four men on horse-back came riding out to meet me. The first horse was white as Shadowfax and its owner proudly showed off his shiny Gold crown. Nobody would dream of snatching at the booty on his head because in his arms he held a bow. A bow aimed right me. Such a primitive tool as this didn't have laser sights like in Predator but I felt it locked and loaded on me. My every move was being watched. I needed to think on my options carefully. Too late, the second rider closes in. His horse redder than the devil's dick, he waves his sword high above his head. I held my hands up in defence, a bright light blinds my eyes and when I open them I am somehow not sliced in half.

Barely able to see, I blink rapidly in some drastic attempt to regain my vision. A third horse, this time black, lunges towards me. His weapon? A scale. Not a clue how he plans on using that. He seems to know because he's not slowing down. Maybe he's going to throw it at me. I brace myself. Surely he's not a body shamer in 2023? Our fourth guest looks the hardest of the lot, ready to attack with a fucking scythe. I couldn't even tell you what colour his horse was because I was too busy looking at my man's scythe. You don't see too many of them nowadays. He meant business.

A roaring siren deafens me. In a heap, I collapse to the ground. Hand over ears, screaming, "Where's that sound coming from?". In comes a preacher as humanity's final representative. Here to decipher the end of the world as it comes. He's dressed in a shirt and tie, his scruffy hair blows in the wind. "And so it came to be the four angels were let loose!", cries the preacher. I begin to wonder whether he can hear the sirens thundering. My answer comes when he cups one hand round his ear and raises the other to the sky, pointing far above as he screams, "can you hear the music, children? His heavenly trumpet ringing for all to dance and welcome him. The one true God is on his way. On his way to rapture his faith and send this evil world straight to the fiery pits of hell".

Finding any strength within me, I defy my preacher, demanding he, "stop that. No more fire. No more torment. Turn the siren off now! Put an end to this while you still can". The preacher can only laugh as he mutters, "It's too late. Dark is the hour and death is the place. There's nothing you can do. It's coming". Still feeling the ear piercing hum, I look around for the source of the siren and ask, "what does that sound mean? What does it mean?". No answer comes my way. Only more laughter over and over from our uncaring preacher. I embrace the foetal position, closing my eyes bracing for impact as shown in all the '50s public information films. Through thin slithers between my fingers, I see a red cloud in the distance. Another dream perhaps? Or had I been preparing for the real thing? Seeing the end a little bit more every night? Is this to be the final mushroom cloud? One More Red Nightmare.

As the red cloud rises, my heart sinks. This is it. I memorise every detail, the blast will soon be upon me, vaporisation imminent. You know the words as they have been given to us. Prophesised in Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Say it with me now, "in one of the countless billions of galaxies in the universe, lies a medium-sized star, and one of its satellites, a green and insignificant planet is now dead".

Dying sun fades in our sky. The time has come to say goodbye. It's happening. My angel has heard me. The prayer had been answered. A reprieve had been granted. The dream was now broken. Broken by a string. This was no mushroom cloud. This was some kids red birthday balloons. He'd set them free at the break of dawn. Til one by one they were all gone. "Hast du etwas zeit für mich?", asks the child. "Fuck off", I replied, getting a dirty look from his mother. When I came to my senses, I was sprawled across the bombed out church steps. Maybe lay off the Sonny Cheeba, yeah?