when I met Coke

He must have been about eleven years old,
playing with his friend in the front of his house, digging up the ground.
When he was even younger he would eat the earth,
Dig up ant hills -
And place brown ants versus black ones, with the soldiers snipping away, stealing the bodies to feed the queen.
Now he was older he still played with toys.
Snake Eyes his favourite from his GI-Joe set.
Him and Giancarlos against each other, building up the jungle war to end all wars
Space ships, transformers, star wars and dinosaurs ..
Both of their bases were pretty much done
all that was left was for the first one to shoot off the gun
--- when --- some men came RUNNING down the street, quick feet successions - convulsed faces with sweat glistening off their cheeks
chased by some others with real shiny guns - shining in the distance
the ones with real guns chased them but were far off
the scared ones, at a step, cut in towards an alley, tossing, at the turn, a plastic brick into the bushes
the boys frozen by the moment had by now given up on the figurines
their hands were covered in muck
the larger men with the guns by now on the verge of arriving, asking the boys where they went, down the alley they said
and then the moment was gone
the boys went straight for the brick
the brick
something white covered in layers of plastic
and into the house to unwrap it Giancarlos says
Giancarlos got a knife from the kitchen and broke through
white dust, white plumes
smelt of something you might use in the garden
"Fertilizer"
"Why the guns? But why were they running away?"
They left on the table, time played on their minds, while their hands nibbled at computer games
"Maybe its worth some money?"
"Maybe its jinxed. We have to get rid of it"
"Why?"
"Why would men be running so scared"
Mother calls
"Quick hide the stuff!"
Mother calls again
the coke they never cleared up
and somehow mother is at the door
"What the fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!"
"Where?!"
"Wha?!"
the questions rolled out with demons and volume
"DRRRRRRUGSSSSS!!!!"
apparently the evil word that killed the uncle
"DRRRUGS!"
made him jump from the top of the building
killed him and made the evil of all human nations
the reason why this country is rotting from its innards and stunted
all these reasons and more
she made them flush it down the toilet

The White Lobster

On a beach in Nicaragua, far away from the capital Managua, Eugenio sits content; he lives the Caribbean dream in a nice white Mansion. Barely literate, he used to be a fisherman. Life has been made easy.

Almost every day sacks of floating cocaine, 35 kilos each, drift in from the sea. Cocaine, tossed onto the open ocean by the smugglers, who fleeing from American helicopters try to eliminate the evidence on board their speedboats. Those bales of cocaine float, and the currents bring them 200 miles west right into the chain of islands, beaches and cays which make up the huge lagoons that surround Bluefields on Nicaragua's Atlantic coast. Bluefields is the midway point on the route taken by drug traffickers to reach to Acapulco in Mexico from Colombia.

The Nicaraguan government calls Bluefields an “autonomous area” as it is completely disconnected from the rest of the country. Unemployment is high at 85%, there is no police and the government never shows up, surprisingly violence is rare. Cocaine has created a paradise, where even the schools and churches are built from the money that comes from the fishermen and their finds.

Shining Again

While Peru is opening up its mass graves as it tries to set aside its past, the Shining path, the sanguinary terrorist group that haunted the country for 20 years, is back again. Meanwhile the president of the time Alberto Fujimori looks probable to rot for 30 years on an island prison that he himself built during his reign of mafia tentacles.

Putis, Ayacucho, South East Peru, forensics are digging up the remains from a clandestine burial ground. They expect to find 120 bodies. On the side are the families of the relatives held missing for 20 years, they hope this time they will find them. On the edge of the excavation the army stands guard holding AK-47s. Yet they are not here to inspect. They are here to protect. This is one of Peru’s prime cocaine routes. But aside from armed drug mules there is a much more sinister prospect lurking in the rainforest.

Maoist terrorist group Sendero Luminoso, The Shining Path has followed in the lines of the Colombian Farc and made a deadly alliance with the Narco-traffickers of the area in order to fund their revival. In the shadows of the rainforest cocaine production is booming. Sendero is quietly reconstituting itself, creating its headquarters here in the country’s main centre for cocaine production, the Apurimac valley. They are ramping up cocaine production and distribution in order to set the stage for a renewed conflict against the Peruvian government. Already in the past six months skirmishes have been reported.

.........

Boris Johnson: Toffs and wombats

Lali: hello Chip......
yesterday i was arguing with an old Brit as to why i hate boris johnson but i didnt have much on him
can u give me 5 reasons other than him being a toff

(TOFF n. Chiefly British Slang - A member of the upper classes, especially one who is elegantly dressed: “champagne, once a raffish drink suitable for toffs and weddings” - synonym NOB)

Chip: hello there
Lali: hello
Chip: erm he's made some pretty rascist comments in the past
Lali: so hes a bigot! I knew it


new mayor of London

Lali: Is it jonston or johnson like you
Chip: i'm afraid it's johnson
same as me
Lali: oh oh
oh oh oh
5 reasons why i hate boris
1.hes family
Chip: and he's made some homophobic comments, like comparing gay marriage to bestiality
Lali: rah.... thats kind of funny but wrong
Chip: he was once a bullingdon boy - in his youth
Lali: means
Chip: hang on i'll try find a pic

Lali: what did he say specifically racist




Chip: they used to get pissed and smash up pubs and say daddy will pay
hang on ont phone

Chip: hey
yeah, he's said some pretty ignorant things throwaway type comments like 'oh i love black people and their watermelon
smiles..'
a bit gollywogish comments, but alot harsher things i think
but should really check out exactly cos i can't remember before we go misquoting



Lali: watermelon smiles! thats actually quite funny! erm perhaps thats wrong
Chip: he's just so removed from life
especially london life
he doesn't really have a clue
i dunno - i think he has to watch it now and can't fuckup because there's been so much shit on him
it was west london that voted for him
south east and east voted for ken
all the rich areas voted for boris



Lali: of course
but i do believe red ken was currupt also, he isnt all blue ray and sunshine, he's a load of claptrap too
i need to find more quotes to bring down this guy in case this ex-pat comes along again
can u believe he then, as a comeback said to me, well you and i will be seen as toffs by most brits - he got me!
speechless i was aswell
i said na mate - im a chamelion! from Landan
don't know abat your bruf
Chip: oh dear
Chip: well lal you did go to private school
di'nt ya
Lali: yes yes
good schooling sir
But if anything youre just as toff as i am Chip
Chip: who's this guy anyway?
Lali: what is this toffness abat?
its like some sort of internal inward racism
Chip: er some people may say i'm posh because of the way i talk, but a toff to me a tory
someone completely out of touch with normal life
Lali: quite right, down with toff tories


Dickhead Toff Numero Uno

Chip: we are not toffs
Lali: Here Here!
we're middle class


dickhead

Chip: :D

The guy with big tits. Blue balloons infact. He walks around calling guys, 'Uy Corazoncito..Papasito...mi lobito del mar' and shakes his ass, where he has hidden two more balloons. For some reason there is this culture of beggars dressing up as Divas. I'll have to do more research as to how that came about. He lives to it to the point he lives by his female persona every day. I gave him 2 soles for the pictures. A moment where he was acting just anybody else, doing crosswords.

PALM OIL FUELLING FEAR

can you guess who it ees yet?

Cut & Paste

Cada día entran, a través de nuestras retinas, miles de señales invasivas contaminando nuestros pensamientos. El sujeto, mejor dicho el transmisor, usa una variedad de simbolos, ilustraciones, palabras e imágenes para reemplazar o imponer una estructura de valores. Decodificamos los mensajes de los transmitores como parte de nuestra contidianidad. Somos sin querer partidaros pasivos, los receptores que al recibir este acoso no podemos responder. Solo lo vemos.

Quien va saber cómo esas imágenes, modifican nuestro comportamiento, no solamente en determinar nuestras elecciones, sino también al influir en el tratamiento hacía otras personas dejando ciertas distorciones en el pensamiento.

De tal forma estas torres de colores podrian ser vistas como las columnas de la desigualdad. Crean en si un comportamiento de menosprecio hacia la persona de bajos recursos. Siguiendo la filosofia capitalista del que paga mas manda mas.

Sugeremos intervenir estos espacios. Pero en vez de utilizar nuevas herramientas vamos a reciclar y trabajar sobre lo ya existente para poder expresar algo "más real". Algo donde los valores esten abiertos y de ciertos modos sensibles, sin ser una forma de autopromocion.



Cut & paste es un método, en donde se cortan en cuadraditos la vallas publicitarias para luego pegarlos y crear otra imagen. De cierto modo el proceso mismo es bastante tedioso dado que cada cuadradito tiene que ser escaneado individualmente. Cada cuadradito forma parte de la paleta para hacer la nueva imagen.

El tema de la selección de la nueva imagen es sin duda no muy fácil, ¿cómo elegir una imagen que comunique sin imponer una estructura similar a la anterior privando al espectador de una interpretación libre?

Al pensarlo es casi inevitable, en solo elegir una imagen supuestamente "más real”, estamos aplicando nuestra subjetividad. Aún así pensamos que debemos representar la pobreza que se vive en esta ciudad, abriendo la posibilidad de diálogo hacía algo mejor. Y en el proceso dar un rostro a los sin voces e invisibles.



Esperemos que podamos ser fieles a la gente que se encuentra viviiendo en situaciones precarias.

Este proyecto será realizado a comienzos de agosto, con el apoyo de UN TECHO PARA MI PAIS. El que quiera apoyar por favor pásame un mail, se requiere más manos de obra con ganas de hacer un cambio - gracias
lali23@hotmail.com

Coca Leaf Grower

And then to the poor mutha fucker who grows coca leaf to get by
cos he says its the only thing that will sustain his family
that coca leaf was always there even in the times of his grandfather
while the hills get deforested

The better paid easier market comes to your door and builds you a house

Coca Leaf Eradicators

for every coca leaf eradicator that gets blown up by a mine
250 of them quit
thus goes the strategy used by the FARC and Drug Lords so that business runs smoothly

JUNGLAS - COLOMBIA

they land quickly, from out of the shadows of the sky

Plan Colombia, the States funded junta; black hawks, rocket propelled grenade fire and other US made weapons
more money for more gains against a war that will never be won as long as the crops yield for the nostril hairs screaming for fat lines

Narcoterrorism; the FARC sold their soul so they could reach their now watered down blood-spilled goal
and the blades keep rotating
dollars spent, dollars made
with little change
for every lab blown up another is erected



















the guy with the balaclava is the informant. It was a bad day that day, he couldnt find the base lab. There was an eeiry silence around the area we were searching.



















officer hanging out next to coca leaf

The kid was smashing it. Surrounded by older chaps, they all expected him to win. Youth fire versus the old sage dripping off his own stale wings.