In the video, among other things, I point out how I simply do not trust Substack, Persona, or any other Big Tech with such sensitive personal information and highlight just how frequently data leaks occur. Well, it happened; Substack “allowed an unauthorised third party” to access our emails, phone numbers and other meta data (and let’s be honest, who knows what else).

See an email from their Best CEO below.

I’m left wondering WHO this third party is? Was it Persona?

Whomever it was, this just neatly reinforces my issues with Substack willy-nilly collecting sensitive data when they’re not required to. My partner is still locked out of her fledgling Substack due to demands she scan her face, so this is an ongoing issue.

Substack, like other Big Tech, is not our friend and we should use this platform with warranted suspicion.

Here’s the video (on a different Big Tech platform) where I point out all the issues with what Substack, the campaign behind the social media ban, and the Australian government are doing and how Big Tech writ large is out of control and a real risk to the well being of individuals and society at large.

Stay vigilant.

Fargo.

A couple of days before Christmas I attempted to login to my website, this very one you’re reading.

I was met with an age verification paywall.

I was pissed-off. I made a talky video.

Here it is.

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In Australia recently a law went into force where certain social media sites must ensure users are at least 16; Substack is NOT on that list.

That hasn’t stopped them partnering with ‘Persona’ and trying to force Australian adults - who they already know are adults due to paying for substacks subscript…

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Around 18 months ago I posted my first video to my YouTube channel which married editing with some hand drawn animation. The video in question followed a sinister duck who showed up on recordings of various notable events throughout history - see below, but viewer beware…

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I submitted it to a handful of publications without any luck. It was recently once again rejected, so I figured now is as good a time as any to share it here.

Being desperate for money is no joke. I'm not talking about yearning for millions to live the life of some gluttonous slug in a mansion somewhere overlooking the peasants. I'm talking about being desperate for enough money to pay the rent, to put food in your belly. I could drag myself along to one of them food banks but by fuck if anyone who knew me saw me my family would never live it down. I can just hear it now. 'Did ya hear Tom Gildea's son was in the food bank the other day? Must be blowing his money on the drink.' I fucking wish I had the money to blow on the drink. No. I'm just like all the other plebs out there that found themselves out of work in the middle of a global pandemic. There's not more to it than that.

You'd think those bastards we took the time to cast a vote for would make sure we had enough money in our pockets to eat, wouldn't ya? No such luck. Those pigs swilling their expensive wines and scoffing their smelly fucking cheeses are laughing at all of us. More fool us for voting them in over-and-over-and-over-and-over...

Anyway, there's this one fella in the square who sits there with his acoustic guitar singing Oasis and other shite like that and people can't help themselves but give him hard cash. I even saw a mother send her wee girl over to put money in the lad's guitar case. The poor wee girl looked like she was star struck or something. Like a deer in the headlights she walked over all wide-eyed and bent down, never breaking eye-contact with the guitar fella, and dropped a few quid in the case. He did one of those smug, head nods while closing his eyes and rolling his lips together until his beard and moustache merged as one mono fuzz. Christ, how does he make so much money for such dog shite? Anyone could do what he does. Singing fucking Noel Gallagher songs is hardly a fucking feat. Any prick could wing that, you can learn anything on YouTube these days. Maybe people feel sorry for him. Maybe they hope he'll fuck off sooner if he gathers enough coppers. Or maybe they're all just fucking idiots with more money than sense of what real talent is.

I was standing there watching the grift one afternoon. Watching the minstrel flog his melodic snake oil. The scowl on my face wasn't subtle. I didn't care, the hunger pangs in my stomach were pissing me off. He put his guitar down on top of the money inside the case. He pulled out tobacco and rolled himself a cigarette, sparked it and took a drag.

“Hey, fella,” he said looking in my direction.

I didn't respond at first, thinking he couldn't be speaking to me. When he repeated himself, I looked around me and realised I was the only person there. It was like the shoppers had upped and vanished into thin air.

“What?” I said, arms folded.

“Would ya do me a favour and keep an eye on my stool and gear while I run into the shopping centre for a piss?”

“Aye, no worries,” I said without even thinking the proposition through.

My legs led me over to the smoking talent vacuum and I stood there while he readied himself. He pulled on his coat, scooped up the paper monies in the case from beneath the guitar - leaving the coins where they were - and pulled the case lid down, latching it closed.

“Cheers, fella, I'll be back in a flash,” he said slapping my shoulder.

Callin' me fuckin' fella, I thought. I didn't say anything. Just watched him, shoulders hunched, make his way towards the shops with the thin trail of smoke tailing him.

When he was out of sight I sat on his wee three-legged wooden stool. Of course it'd be a handmade wooden stool. Wanker.

I eyed the guitar case. It was battered with age and covered in fading stickers of various bands, mostly shite ones. Fuck me, this clown was a cliche. A cliche with food is his belly and money in his case. That thought stuck with me. He had money in his case. I looked around the square. Not a soul in sight. I started picking at the dog-eared corner of one of the stickers absently, thinking about all the shite and bullshit in my life all the while the hunger pangs a background noise. I don't know what overcame me, but I reached for the handle of the case and next thing I knew I was booting the stool as hard as I could sending it soaring into the side of bins with an almighty clatter. I turned and ran as fast as my legs could carry me. I don't know if you've ever tried to run with a bulky guitar case before but let me tell ya, it's a fucking hassle. The handle wasn't rigid but hinged and so the damned thing swung wildly as I ran, almost as though it was trying to escape me. It didn't help that the coins inside the case were pinging around and bouncing off the guitar. The discordant cacophony of notes emanating from the case was sure to draw attention to my ill-conceived heist. I saw people in shop windows looking out at this inelegant figure, all flailing arms and legs, dash down the cobbled side streets away from the square all the while wrestling an uncooperative guitar case. There's no way someone wouldn't put two-and-two together. I just had to hope no one got a good look at me.

I arrived back to my shitty flat five or so minutes later. My lungs were burning, my thigh and knee were sore from the case whacking against them. Hand shaking, I stabbed the key into the lock, swung open the door, threw the case on the ground unleashing an explosion of notes, and I collapsed onto the saggy armchair. My lungs roared and seared with pain. I gasped like a man who needed a ventilator. The ringing of the tossed guitar slowly merging into a harmonic single low, slowly fading note. What the fuck did I just do?

A while later, when I could breathe without pain, I knelt beside the guitar case, the bruised knee complaining, and I opened the latches. I took the guitar and placed it on the floor gently. I had a headache and did not want another round of screaming, uncorralled vibrating strings. I looked inside the case. There was my haul. There must have been around nine quid in there. Hardly a windfall. I picked a shite day to rip off the local busker. I dragged the coins over the cloth lining into a pile and scooped them up and pushed them deep into my pocket.

My head was busting. I put on my hoody, pulled the hood up and out over my forehead and stepped outside. I figured I had to keep a low profile for a while, just in case. I sullenly walked to the pharmacy and bought myself a pack of paracetamol. I treated myself to a coffee from a cart nearby and swallowed down 3 tablets. I found my way back home and spilled what change I had left onto my wee coffee table. A fiver and some shrapnel left. Maybe enough to buy a loaf of bread and some sandwich fillings.

I slumped back into the chair, eyes closed and rubbed at my temples. My head flopped to the side and there it was taunting me, the wanker’s guitar. That'd be worth a few quid, maybe. I got out of the chair and reached for the instrument of that fuck's audio assault. I didn't know much of anything about guitars but I had seen a mate years ago look along the neck to see if one he was buying was warped or not. I did the same. It looked straight enough to me. I turned it around and onto my lap. I gave the strings a strum, one after the other. It didn't sound right, it must have detuned with all the bouncing around. If I could retune it and maybe put an ad online I might be able to get a decent bit of money for it and the case. A package deal.

I put the guitar down and swiftly made my way into the kitchen. I ran warm water into a bowl and grabbed one of those washing-up sponges and went back to the case. I got on my knees and peeled off the stickers as best I could and then started scouring the sticky white remnants off. A lot of cursing and elbow grease later the case just looked like a regular black, heavily worn guitar case. No unique identifiers. I could pull this off. I picked up the guitar and that's when I noticed the signature scrawled across the back of it in permanent marker. This spoofer had signed his own guitar. Fuck me. If I scratched that off I doubt anyone would buy such a damaged looking instrument. I again slumped back into the chair. Just my fucking luck.

I must have fallen asleep as the next thing I remember is the rattle of the key in my front door. I bolted upright, still a bit foggy and confused from sleep.

“Alright, Gildea?” said my bastard landlord.

“Just let yourself in, Frank, don't worry about me.”

“Smart mouth for a man who owes me two month's rent.”

“One month, Frank. Only three weeks into this month.”

“Potato, tomato.”

I just stood there eyeing the blood sucking leech.

“Look, Gildea, I'll have to move you on if you don't get on top of the rent situation. This isn't a shelter for bums.”

“I'll have it for you. I'm hoping to start a new job soon.”

“What's the job?”

I hesitated. I hadn't thought this lie through. Then, when did I ever think anything through?

I remembered the evidence of my crime on the floor just behind me and glanced reflexively towards it. The landlord spotted my tell and leant to the side to get a look.

“You play guitar? I didn't know that.”

I shrugged.

“I better not get complaints from the other tenants.”

“You won't.”

“So, what's this job? You in a band now or something?”

“No, I'm going to start giving guitar lessons,” I blurted out.

I had no idea where these words were coming from. I must have been losing my mind.

“Is that right?” he said with a smirk and rising inflection. “Give us a tune then.”

My face flushed with heat.

“I don't do requests, Frank. I'm a professional.”

He laughed at that. Prick.

“Look, Gildea. Don't get cocky. Remember who you're speaking to.”

This attempt at intimidation didn’t really land how he intended it to. He brushed passed the awkward moment.

“I tell you what. My oldest wean wants to learn the guitar. I'll be fucked if I'm gonna cough up cash for some hippy waster to teach her. How about you give her a few lessons until she gets bored of it and moves onto her next notion, and I'll give you another week's grace on that rent? Should give you time to get a few customers for your business.”

He said ‘business’ with finger quotes.

I turned around and looked at the guitar. I had a flash of picking it up and swinging it wildly and bringing it down on my landlord's head, over-and-over-and-over...

“Well!?” said the leech.

I snapped out of the fantasy and thought, how hard could the basics be?

“Aye, dead on, you got a deal.”

“Good man yourself. She can be a wee bollocks, but I expect you to be patient with her.”

“I don't suppose you've got around to booking an electrician for the kitchen lights, or a plumber for the leaky taps?”

“Oh, aye, I'll let you know as soon as I nail them down. They're busy this time of year.”

I didn't have the energy to have this argument again, so I left it.

“I'll bring the wee girl round tomorrow at nine, first thing. I'll be seein' ya, Gildea.”

And before I properly registered an objection the leech let himself out.

#

You can learn anything on YouTube. I read an article online about a man who taught himself to paint from YouTube. He was making a packet now selling his art. I wasn't brave enough to take on fixing my own electrics or plumbing issues, but in principle you could find out all this shite on YouTube too.

I searched "Teach yourself guitar basics". Thousands of videos. Piss easy, I thought. I brought up the first video and watched the full ten minutes of the overly enthusiastic fuck explain what strings were what, what parts of the guitar were called, and it ended with a "simple" blues scale. I tried to emulate what he was doing. I didn't have a pick so I made do and used my fingers. Pushing the strings down with my other hand was fucking painful. I hadn't expected that. Whatever I was doing sounded nothing like the video.

“Fuck sake, tuning,” I said to myself.

I took a break and made myself a cup of tea. I had found a spare pack of the minstrel's tobacco in his case, papers and all, so made myself a smoke to go with the tea. I sat on the floor and searched how to tune a guitar while sipping and smoking. Turns out this was more straight forward than I thought. I downloaded an app and plucked a string and a needle moved around as I turned the tuning key. It was like a computer game. In no time at all the few notes of the blues scales I plucked sounded close enough to the video. Piss easy.

Next, I decided I better learn at least a part of a song to start teaching the wee girl something. Maybe if I made it interesting enough she would want to keep the lessons going and it'd buy me more time for the rent. I only had to stay a lesson or two ahead of her on YouTube for the grift to work. Who knows, maybe I would get good and make money out of teaching.

I had no clue what kind of music she listened to. Probably some shite off TikTok or whatever. I started with a Radiohead song. I spent what I thought was a good hour trying to copy the chords on the video tutorial. It was fucking agony on my fingertips pushing the strings down. I couldn't understand why I was being so slow between chord changes either. The fingers on my strumming hand were starting to feel a bit raw too. I looked at the time on my mobile. Fuck me, it was nearly midnight already. I was fucked. No way I was pulling this off.

My hands were starting to go all numb from the cold. No central heating in my shithole flat. I made myself a coffee and another cigarette. I moved the ancient electric heater in front of me and the guitar and flicked it on. I was going to pull an all-nighter, like I used to as a student. I could do this.

At around 3am I gave up on the Radiohead song, it was too fucking hard. I searched for an Oasis song. Four chords. Now we were talking. I strummed and strummed the night through. The tenants above me were drinking and partying hard so I got no complaints. By around 8am I thought I was starting to get the hang of it. My chord changes were still far too slow but I could pretend I was slowing it down for the wee girl so she could keep up. Didn't want to overwhelm her and all that.

My fucking fingertips were near raw from pushing into the strings, they looked swollen too. The fucker had metal strings. Why the fuck would you do that? It was like pushing as hard as you can into cheese wire. The videos I watched all said beginners can start with nylon. I wish I'd stolen a guitar from a beginner.

It was 8:30am and I was wired. Too much coffee and nicotine. I was starting to melt with the heat too. I'd forgotten to turn off the rusty heater. Fucking electric bill was gonna be massive. Sweat was dripping from my head, my t-shirt and jeans sticking to me. I pulled off my top and bottoms, knocked off the heater, cracked a window, and sat back on the floor in my jocks. I'd cool down soon enough and ready myself for the arrival of my pupil. One or two more run-throughs of the tutorial video and I'd be grand. It'd be enough to bluff it for the first lesson.

The pressure must have been propelling me on. I pushed through the pain and held down the cheese wire and between slow chord changes strummed the guitar with more enthusiasm than any Oasis song warranted. I started getting lost in the moment. I was starting to feel the music. Starting to 'get' it. It was as if it was becoming an extension of my being. I closed my eyes and drifted, becoming enveloped by the notes. I could feel the sweat splash around me as I thrashed at the strings, but I didn't care. I was making music. Mid strum I heard a scream. I jumped out of my skin and sent the guitar skidding across the floor into the cooling heater. Through the ringing notes of the abused instrument, I saw the landlord's daughter standing with her hands over her mouth, keys dangling from her grasp.

“Oh, shite,” I said and grabbed my t-shirt to cover my bare legs and jocks.

The landlord was a couple of steps behind his daughter.

“What in under fuck!” he shouted.

There was horror in his eyes.

“Sorry, I didn't hear her come in. You really shouldn't let yourself in, for fuck sake.”

They were both standing there speechless. The landlord pushed his daughter out the door.

“Gildea, what the fuck? What the fuck!”

He just stood there staring at me, his eyes bulging out of their sockets, looking me up and down.

“Actually, I don't want to know. Clean this mess up and be out by the end of the week.”

He turned and left before I had time to react. Fuck me, I knew I was pale as fuck but I can't have been that hideous in my jocks.

I was delirious with lack of sleep, utterly confused at the over-reaction. I reached for the cigarette balanced on a tin and then I saw it. There was blood all over my hand. It was streaming from two of my fingers and dripping onto the carpet. I looked down at the guitar. It was smeared with my blood like it had been used in some sacrificial ceremony. My torso too was Jackson Pollocked with red. I raced to the full-length mirror in my bedroom. My face, my white jocks, my hair, all sullied with my insides. I looked like a butcher who’d had a mental-break mid-butchering.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” I said and slouched my way to the bath and climbed in and turned on the shower, sitting down humming that Oasis song to myself as the water rained down onto my head.

There was a choke and a sputter and the water started spitting out brown gunk. I moved to the end of the bath and watched the shower head fit and jerk. Maybe I could fix it myself. You can learn anything on YouTube these days.

END

#

citations:

tube: https://au.pinterest.com/pin/693554411348534752/

room: https://pixabay.com/photos/lost-places-abandoned-room-old-597166/

stool: https://pixabay.com/photos/stool-beanbag-furniture-wood-old-7697244/

#

Here’s something you can learn on YouTube about the fabled algorithm:

Greetings, my fellow vagabonds.

Today I thought I’d share an early WIP song I’ve been working on this week.

It’s early days, and I’ll be meeting with my muso pal, David, at some point to hash out some ideas I have for it.

In the mean time, as has become customary, I’ll share a phone recording demo of the song as it currently …

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Greetings, my fellow vagabonds.

As previously mentioned, I recently made a pretty substantial move from my old home in Newtown to over an hour away via train. This meant leaving a lot of friends and haunts (…

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Today I’ll be talking about the images I made for various animations, songs, story posts, and shitposts over the past few months.

I’ll endeavour to, next week, post some new original music demos I’ve recorded on my phone; some for projects, and some written and recorded just for the craic.

On to today’s post.

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Today I thought I’d share an old newspaper clipping from The Donegal Tribune (based in my home county of Donegal in Ireland) I happened upon recently. It was printed in 1963 and tells the tragic tale of Cranfodonagh FC’s mascot, Brass Neck. See below*.

*I have also transcribed the article due to not all text being shown in the image, and for anyone who cannot read the image easily.

Transcription:

The Donegal Tribune

95th Year, No 355 ——————-— Monday, September 16, 1963

Storm Hits Donegal i[… rest of headline cropped out]

Giraffe Struck by Lightning

Local giraffe and Cranfodonagh FC mascot, Brass Neck, was tragically struck by lightning during the Sunday league tie between Cranfodonagh FC and Milbridge Celtic. According to witnesses, the local, and oft controversial, mascot was standing on the sideline tethered to the Cranfodonagh dugout, after just eating some of the overgrown grass at the pitch edge, when there was a blinding flash and deafening clap of thunder.

When players and fans recovered from the fright a wave of rumbles and shouts moved through those assembled.

"Ah, Jaysus, it was terrible," said local man Kevin McElwee. "The poor aul b*stard was just standin' there like a statue, with smoke coming off him like a chimney. Never stood a chance. We were just lucky there was no one in the dugout."

"It would have been a massacre," added local Garda, Sgt Mickey Beag.

According to Sgt Beag, the rope used to tie Brass Neck to the dugout acted as conduit for the lightning and would have electrocuted anyone present.

Fortuitously, on the day in question, there had been a few no shows for Cranfodonagh resulting in no substitutes being present.

"I was never as glad to be dying from the drink as I was that morning," said Noel "Scrote" Kelly, one of the absent Cranfodonagh players.

Brass Neck had first joined Cranfondonagh as their mascot after wandering onto the sideline where he stuck his neck over the line to nibble at the netting by the right side of the crossbar. A wild Cranfodonagh shot from range struck the head of the unexpecting giraffe and ricocheted into the back of the opponent's net. The referee controversially allowed the goal to stand which resulted in a brawl on the pitch and the game being abandoned. All three points went to Cranfondonagh.

"It was the best header ever scored at the park," said Father Callaghan, a self-described Cranfondonagh superfan.

Brass Neck went on to accompany Cranfodonagh to every game thereafter, heralding a run of unprecedented success.

"It didn't hurt the big lad usually aggravated the opposition," said a fan who wished to remain anonymous. "He had a habit of spittin' at people he didn't know. It was very funny, altogether. We'll miss the wee divil."

According to Sunday league officials, there had been an ongoing investigation into the conduct of Brass Neck after a joint complaint by 12 clubs was lodged. Officials said that there were no official rules against giraffes being used as mascots in the Sunday league guidelines and therefore an investigation had to be concluded before any possible decision about removal could be made. Sunday league officials said, in the light of the tragic incident on Sunday, the investigation would proceed no further.

"The probability of a giraffe being struck by lightning is thirty times greater than a human," said the James Murray, the local primary school headmaster. "Sadly, that probability, at least in Donegal, has now dropped to zero."

Cranfodonagh FC plan to hold a memorial match for the deceased mascot in the coming weeks.

Norman finished his open sandwich. It was the first he'd ever eaten. He was a little disappointed with the experience and considered the possibility that open sandwiches were simply a way of charging the price of a sandwich with half the bread.

Norman…

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Norman saw himself push his chair back from his desk. He stood face-to-face with his superior. His anger was palpable.

'Don't you dare speak to me like that,' he said through gritted teeth.

His superior looked shocked and confused.

No…

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Description: a flash fiction first posted to the r/LifeOfNorman subreddit. Note: this was written well before the developers of No Man's Sky turned it all around and continued to improve the game making it the borderline masterpiece it is today.

Norman was nervous. The delivery of his package was due any moment. He'd taken the…

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Norman never did have the stomach for politics. He sometimes tuned in on his television and watched the all singing, all dancing posturing bullshit of elected representatives and their foes play out in the news. It always left him fee…

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Greetings, my fellow vagabonds.

It’s been a minute since I last posted a song WIP.

What follows is a song I started tinkering with last week and finished a draft of last night in the AM. I recorded the draft version some time after 2AM on my mobile phone and figured it was decent enough to share.

My muso pal, David Park, collaborated on this one. I’ll get into that collaborative creative process later in the post.

But for now, here is the song 21st Century Freak Show followed by the lyrics:

21st Century Freak Show - lyrics by Fargo DuBois

Roll-up, roll-up
To the freak show
Feed your curiosity

Roll-up, roll-up
To the freak show
There's things you cannot unsee

Witness god's
Stranger things
Bear witness
To the pain and suffering

And their
Woe
And their
Woe

For your entertainment
Here's the latest atrocity
Mustn't turn your eyes away
From this monstrosity

Witness these
Unholy things
Bear witness
To the souls' withering

Your soul
Your soul

Is a blackened husk
Is dust

Roll-up, roll-up
To the freak show
Feed your curiosity

Roll-up, roll-up
To the freak show
There's things you cannot unsee

And they will haunt you
They will haunt you
They will haunt you
They will haunt you

I don’t think it will take a huge leap of the imagination to interpret the lyrics as intended, but, death of the author and all that.

Is there a millennial whoop in the melody? I’ll leave that determination to someone who actually knows what they’re talking about.

As an aside, the wee soul I’m speaking to at the beginning of the recording is my friend’s cat whom Nadine and I are looking after for a wee while. He was up and slinking about in the AM spying on me in the kitchen.

David helped enormously by helping us find that lovely wee dissonant note (I think that’s what it’s called) section that accompanies the sliding notes. Below is a wee insight into that collaborative creative process.

I sent David this short voice message on Friday (it highlights nicely my limit when it comes to musical knowledge):

A minor point here is that I had a capo on the 3rd fret, so the open high E wasn’t technically high E.

David popped round later in the morning and we sat with a tea as I watched him play around with the notes and finally settle on the version you hear in the phone demo. It’s by far my favourite part of the song.

We’re still at it, of course. Here’s a wee exchange we had this morning.

Fargo:

David:

What a lovely soothing voice David has, and what talent.

So, it’s still very much a work in progress, but as has always been the case with this space (try and say that ten times in a row as fast as possible), I’ll continue to share parts of that process.

Cheers,

Fargo.

#### BROADCAST RECEIVED FROM MCRS

#### BROADCAST RECEIVED FROM MCRS

#### BROADCAST RECEIVED FROM MCRS

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This is an oldy that was relatively widely read at the time of first publishing.

The ancient Celts celebrated Samhain on the 1st of November. It m…

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First off, please don’t tell Adobe I refer to doctoring of images as “photoshopping” because of, well, this:

No really, you can read it for yourself here. What a world we inhabit.

Okay, with that out of the way, let’s get on with the photoshopping round-up for May 2024.

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