Maybe it won't amount to a hill of beans. But at least future generations will say "They tried."
The first week of any new year always has a despondently hungover vibe. The early days of January seem colourless- a shirt made dingy by multiple washings. Some of that atmosphere- is caused by the booze drank or the weed smoked during those weeks of yuletide abandon. But much of it is from emotional fatigue. Enforced regimented happiness dictated by the expectations of a season defined as one expressly for "joy and happiness is exhausting. There's something North Korean about how the Christian Western world, whether religious or secular, regiments collective happiness as an obligation from December until January 1st.
Cynically, I think much of it is about ensuring profits are lucrative for those who own our consumerist society.
Too much or too little joy during the holidays just past paints our mood in glum colours when the Holiday decorations are put away- for another year.
It's going to make for one long, hard winter for us in the Northern Hemisphere because the cost of living crisis has embedded itself into our society.
For me, December, January and all the months of the calendar have always been throughout my life a series of swings and roundabouts which I've reflected on in journals written at particular moments in my life. Recently, I rediscovered a journal I kept when my dad and I lived in Portugal during the economic crash of 2008-2010. I have not read it for over 10 years. The journal is 30k words in length. It is a document that reflects in real time- about our experiences in Portugal and how Harry's Last Stand began to take shape during the years before its creation.
I've included a small excerpt. It is taken from the beginning of 2009- a dreadful January for many if there ever was one. Personally, it was when my brother Peter was diagnosed with Interstitial Pulmonary Fibrosis and informed my father and me about it. It is a disease similar to the one I now contend with. In February I have a CT scan follow-up for cancer reoccurrence. But it will also mark the progression of my lung disease.
We didn't know then that it would kill him ten months later. However, judging from the journal, I had a feeling- the year would bring much sadness to my family. Anyway, here it is. I hope you enjoy it. John. What amazes me still is from all of that was born my dad's final act as the World's Oldest Rebel. It's a message we in 2024 must heed that to effect change we must not go gently into that good night but take our solidarity into the streets, in our millions. Maybe it won't amount to a hill of beans but at least future generations will say "They tried."
JOURNAL Albufeira.
2009-01-06
New Year's Eve was damp, loud, abrasive and unnerving. The whole night, a cold fog hung around Albufeira. Probably best that last year, the year of the crash was seen off in a fog. At midnight in this city with a growing homeless problem, half a million euros worth of fireworks were shot into a murky blind horizon. Dad stood beside me on the balcony to watch the display. We watched in silence and drank a German sparkling wine.
Thud after thud, after thud. The best all that money could buy was to alter the grey mist hovering in the sky to a milky white nocturnal haze. There was more flash from Dad's cigarette end when he brushed it against the cement wall to extinguish it than from the fireworks. What was left of his smoke, he slipped into his glass case for tomorrow morning's coffee.
When it was all over, there was a smell of fireworks and dad's cigarette smoke. Before the fireworks, I drank half a bottle of wine with him that tasted corked. With the wine, we ate BBQ Angus beef, which I prepared with a Caesar salad.
At 12:15 Dad kissed me goodnight, wished me a good 2009 and went to bed. Still pretty impressive that he does all that he does, considering he will be 86 in February. Still don't know if this move to Portugal was wise. I worry too much about him taking ill when- it's me who is always sick.
Around 2 a.m., I shambled to bed. I was drunk but not pissed. I was no more pleased with this New Year than the last. Never any great surprises there. New Year's is mostly- a rotten emotional ocean liner of hopes not met, wishes ill spent, and time falling carelessly overboard.
I slept poorly for two hours, like the night before. It was because the young from Portugal and Spain, come here to Party in the New Year. They tear apart the town, own it for the week and fill the cash registers of the bars and shops, which have been empty of money since the economic collapse.
For the last 3 days, they've partied endlessly in the villas near our place, while closer to the Strip, the English piss heads make their mayhem.
The constant drunken shrieks wore me down. Dad sleeps right threw it. But I guess if you've slept where he slept in his younger life; this is nothing to him.
 It was a never-ending cacophony of drunken shrieks. There was a woman's voice louder than the others, which grated for 2 nights in a row like fingers against a chalkboard. She drowned out even the music.
It got to me by the early hours of New Year's Day. I couldn't sleep and I was resentful and furious at being cheated of unconsciousness.
I got myself so worked up; that I began to sweat and shiver. I muttered between the sheets why those arseholes couldn’t be quiet. I placed half a tablet of Ativan into my mouth, hoping it would stop the noise.
It did the opposite. My heart began to race, my body trembled and a fire of anxiety was lit in my brain.
 I couldn't quieten my heart. I thought it was thumping right out of my chest. I grew panicky and started to imagine I was having another heart attack like the one I had four years ago.
At 6 A.m., with the birds waking to the early morning light, I woke Dad. I told him I felt unwell. I was shaking and my teeth chattered while we waited outside for the cab to take us to the 24-hour health centre north of us on the road to Guia.
I told him to stay in the villa. But he said,
"No. I should go with you."
The cab dumped us out at the Centre De Saude. British passport in hand, we entered the medical clinic. Once in, I was overwhelmed by a New Year's Eve war zone. Bodies were heaped on cots, stretchers, and mats on the floor. Young women in dresses stained with puke or smeared in blood swore and wept. I was fascinated by how the sparkles dusted on their hair for New Year’s Eve shimmered in the harsh fluorescent light.
 Shirtless men screamed in anger and in pain. Shoeless revellers limped past me. The air was thick with the smell of vomit, shit and disinfectant. Dad stands beside me, quiet, calm, a rock that is firm while torrents of fucked up people cascade past him. .
At the front desk, shielded in plexiglass, I pushed my passport through an opening to the receptionist.
She slowly typed my name into the computer J..........O......H..........N.
" You must pay 38 Euros to see a doctor"
"Fine, fine I know."
I gave her 40 euros, but she had to ask another attendant for my change
I stepped outside to find Dad smoking. More cabs arrived like it's 1914s Paris ferrying troops to the front in the Great War. Whatever my problems, I must wait my turn with the rest injured from too much or too little New Year's.
This Christmas holiday was too much for me. It was a daily fight to find normal, in all this absurdity residing in this city that drinks itself to death like it was Malcom Lowry.
We couldn't get any quiet on Christmas Eve despite being in the old town which was deserted. Ate in the cellar restaurant because at least it had a wood stove to keep us warm. Every other restaurant has no heat to save money. But we were too far away from the fire to feel its warmth. There at 10 while sipping on port with Dad, a mentally ill person barged onto our table. She claimed to be a Dutch medical student being pursued by assassins. She said that was why she lived homeless to keep the killers off her trail. Didn't know what to say or do. My cup feels overfull right now. Peter telling me before Christmas he has Pulmonary Fibrosis was a gut punch. I thought we were all past the shit for a few more years.
Over the phone, he panted out of breath as if he ran to tell me the news. But he didn't. His lungs are just in such bad shape. After, he told me, I searched the internet for his disease.
It generally kills those with it in three to five years. How the fuck did he get that? He already has had to slug it out with schizophrenia, for Christ's sake. He's only 49.
On the phone with Pete, I asked him if he wanted us to come back.
"What for? I'll be fine and then added maybe you could come back in spring for a visit."
"Sure."
I think it will be longer than a visit. Don't know what to do. I can't tell Dad how I fear for Peter's longevity. No more death, no more sickness, for a while longer, please.
Dad came back inside the medical centre with me, and we found somewhere to sit. He closed his eyes as if he is on a bus.
Everywhere, there is screaming from the hurt demanding to be attended to first. It creates more anxiety in me all this commotion.
 Nurses and GNR police wearing boots with fucking spurs yelled back that we must all wait our turn.
Party girls cried and said they have been here since 3 in the morning. A door to the medical ward swung open, and a man emerged in a wheelchair. He pushed its tires like he was FDR strung out on Ketamine at a Rave.
He ranted, "Sons of a bitches, whores, bastards." Then he crumpled up his discharge papers and threw them across the room. He lifted himself up from the wheelchair shirtless, wearing torn shorts and standing in enormous platform boots.
He looked at me with a violent glare but my first impression was mistaken. He lisped the word, "cigaro," through chipped teeth.
Now, knowing what he wanted, I told Dad. "Give the man one of your cigarettes." When Dad handed him a cigarette and lit it; the man calmed down. He inhaled and then blew a solid stream of Balkan Sobranje smoke out.
"Thank you, my friend." He left us with an attendant in pursuit, screaming in Portuguese that smoking was forbidden.
The door swung out with him and in swung paramedics who carried a teen on a stretcher. He was immobilised in a neck board. I heard him cry out for his mother, next for Jesus, followed by a wail of fear that he was paralysed.
A nurse asked him his name, and he shouted, "Rui."
Apparently, after midnight when the fireworks stopped thudding and turning the night into a paler shade of dark. The pissed young and dumb Rui at the urging of his friends jumped from balcony to balcony in the apartment complex, where they partied. To cheers from his mates, Rui climbed those balconies like Spiderman. Then he lost his footing and dropped onto something Portugal has- an abundance of which is well-made cement.
Thank you for reading my subtack. Your help is needed because the cost of living crisis has become a merciless grind. During these past 24 months, I have posted 257 essays, as well as excerpts from the unpublished works of Harry Leslie Smith - along with chapter samples from my book about him. My newsletter has grown from a handful of subscribers to 1400 in that period. Around 10% of you are paid members. I appreciate all of you but ask if you can switch to a paid subscription because your help is NEEDED to keep me housed and Harry Leslie Smith's legacy relevant. But if you can't all is good too because we are sharing the same boat. Â Take care, John.
