Murdoc Talks About His Number 1 Fan
Ah there, I actually finished writing something.
I'll give you a quick summery here. This fic takes place 50 years later, around 2056. Murdoc being interviewed about his interaction with a terrible mobster known as Al-Quez, but as it just so happens Murdoc gets taken off on a tangent and goes on about Murdoc's Self Proclaimed Number 1 Fan. This interview takes place AFTER the events caused by the Reunion album, so this is Murdoc, at about 90 years, reflecting on his life. Read it like he's telling you the story.
This fic is a bit of a filler story to my bigger epic fanfic, at the moment code named, Gorilaz: 50 Years Later. There aren't really any spoilers to that fiction written in this, and I wrote about one certain event that leads up to where the band is 50 years later. Technically this could be part of a thing called Gorillaz 25 years later...the in between Now and the Future. If you are still confused, please comment and I'll try to explain a bit more but this fic is rather self contained.
This whole fiction is written as Murdoc is talking to you (with a few comments thrown in by the interviewer), and I wrote it as a means to just get this side story out of my head. Also please forgive any spelling errors and odd sentences that you might find, I did proof read but I can't catch everything. Enjoy
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Ah the Al-Quez incidents...2D always goes on about this but he never gets it right. I've tried so many things to make memories disappear all together, but every time I heard 2D's version of these events, I'm surprised how much more I remember then he does...This is 2D we're talking about here, it's a miracle he can remember his name.
What I can't vouch for is the time where Al-Quez kidnapped him to get to me....I don't know what 2D was doing at the time...never told me to be honest. 2D does what 2D does, and it's usually trivial things like driving taxi cabs or mowing lawns. Christ, that's what you pay idiots to do...hmmmm...actually that seems fitting for 2D doesn't it?
Anyway I can't tell you what Al-Quez did to him...there is a scar but that could've been just a shaving accident...it's not as nasty as he makes it out to be, just a flesh wound. The boy has paper skin, you give him a pat on the back for a job well done and he bruises like a ripe banana. He's just hamming up the drama for the attention...
But I want to make clear that I am sorry about 2D getting involved with Al-Quez...that is a man who has connections. A Catholic Iranian, born from a Russian man and an Iranian woman, who owns a large construction company and a collection of terrorists around the world. Large guy too, but I don't know how he got so powerful for being devoted to god. Figure he just busted up kneecaps of a few dons in his youth and that solidified his status as a resident badass...or bought his way into it all.
If you want to know how I got involved I'd have to start...oh what 25 years ago? Russel went into retirement and the rest of the band wouldn't talk to me. I really...and I mean REALLY hit a low cause I didn't want a repeat of that whole Plastic Beach thing again. It's one thing when all your band members go crazy and you need to keep the music going so you can pay the bills, but 3 unanimous “Fuck Off”s was enough to wake me up I say.
I tell this to everybody at least once, but I had a vision one night. I had just mixed up a hearty brew of rum, and anything else that was left in medicine cabinet...I was in Madrid for some odd reason at the time I forgot why. But I swear to you that this was a real vision. Not something I made up and NOT the drugs. I know the difference between the two, and I got proof cause the lovely senorita I picked up earlier that night saw it all to...she was screaming her head off during the whole thing.
(Maybe she was screaming at you? Like you were acting out the vision you saw in your head and she was afraid for her life?)
No...you weren't there were you, and this is my story. So shut up!...She did leave the building but for good reason. It was the mother fuckn ghost of Denis Hopper. No lie...He had come back from the grave to tell me that the reason I've never reached MAXIMUM fame and glory was because I had given up my soul many years ago...and I gave up that true rocker essence. That 'IT' that everyone who's had mega fame seems to have. It's not just about the money, or the notoriety...but to have that THING that really shows that you can make it big AND have the talent to back it up.
He was basically saying I needed to go solo. Forget Gorillaz! It was always about me anyway. I got those dolts together but they just gummed up the project with their dumb artsy visions. A great artist doesn't need other people to back em up. They spit on the ground and their work is cherished as gold...and...if I could get my soul now I could have one last chance...but...well that's getting beyond the original question isn't it?
So this is the point in the story where Murdoc goes soul searching...started out as your dumb typical hippy excursion cause I really wasn't sure if I could get my soul back at this point. I head back to England to tie up loose ends as well as check up on old Kong Studios. Would you believe that the whole building, mountain and landfill and all is all gone now? Nothing left? If their weren't pictures of it on Google maps, you couldn't have found it now. You know what's there now?...A shitty wedding chapel and a day care...shameful...I burned them down...
I was upset mostly because I could've used the entrance to Hell Kong had to go down and relook over my old contract with Beelzebub, seeing if there wasn't some sort of loop hole I could work around. But it was gone, the newspapers said that the mountain erupted with a huge ape, that melting half of Essex with it and it collapsed back into the Earth...They called it the Wrath of Kong...I don't laugh at that anymore...who told that intern they could write?
Hmm...hmm...lets not bore you with details but I did stop back through Stoke to make sure my name had been erased from the public records. I'm not even a ghost there anymore...I've been exorcised from that place...the Nicalls don't call that place home anymore...I did have an apartment out in Brighton that was the oddest thing to stumble across. It was a time capsule, with everything I was into during my time there...dates from 99 to as late as 2004, few things from 06.
And this is why that is important because I have to tell you about Ottoban Merdruf. Good old Otto...self proclaimed number one fan out of the 6 billion Gorillaz fans out there. He had been a long time fan of ours since the beginning, but I can't remember how he found my address. Never sent emails...He'd show up at our concerts randomly from time to time and you'd see his fat white head floating around in the audience... Certainly one of our nicer stalker fans, but he had his issues.
First time I can remember meeting Otto, I mean really getting to know the guy, cause like I said he'd been stalking us from the start, was during the Plastic Beach tour. He and friends were fallowing us like Dead Heads around the states, in their Volkswagen. I'm not making that up. Every fast food place we stopped at the tour I saw the damn thing and I thought they were hit men fallowing us. I had Cyborg bring them in for hostage but he and his lot where groveling at my feet.
Otto is a Norwegian man who signed up with the German army, just so he could say he'd been in a war. He served in Iraq for a few months, and learned how to make dirty bombs. I really don't remember why he got into Gorillaz but he had a real hard on for me and started wearing Nazi cloths cause I wore em...of all the ways to flatter me, he sure thought that would do it.
I never kept in touch with him after that, other then his dumb fan letters. He said that he married a woman based souly on the fact that I had fucked her...That's actually a sad story. Otto and that woman, I still don't remember her name, raised a daughter together, that turned out to be mine. Otto never knew...or if he did noone knew. But their daughter, blamed me for everything bad Otto went through. At the end of his life, I believe he had cancer, he lost his ability to walk, eyes pecked out by crows, deers chewed apart his shins...list goes on but just terrible unfortunate circumstances.
That girl,...Tia? Right...Tia Merdurf. She loved Otto so much. I was that devil he worshiped that brought him nothing but pain and torment. I met Tai a few times and I remember her cause she was a cute little cock teese who would always say, “It's your fault my father is so ill. Nah nah nah!”...I don't know what that girl did to piss off her mother, or if her mother was PMSing more then usual, but for what ever reason, after Otto died, her mother told Tia that I was her father and Tia killed herself and all her own children...She hated me that much, that she didn't want the Nicalls family line to continue on.
I had no idea I was her father either, she didn't look anything like me. Her mother could've been that much of a bitch and lied to her daughter just to mess with her mind. I only found out about Tia because I thought I was her brother's father. He is Otto's as far as I know, but her mother got around so much, he could be half Navajo...He's working with Noodle right now. Small world huh? They just call him, 'The NORDIC!'...Big, tall, white skinned, blond bass player, doesn't say anything...looks like he'll rape your babies....I wouldn't mind if he was mine, but poor Tia...I don't know what I did wrong, her mother was the slut.
What's the boys name?...I just know him as Otto Jr., but when I saw his interviews after joining Noodle's band I learned about Otto and Tia's death, so I stop by the mother to pay condolences, cause Otto did help me out a bit back then...And all this goes back to that little flat in Brighton 25 years ago, where I see Ottoban's fanletters. I look for the return address and I now have a new place to crash for a while. The apartment in Brighton?...I burned it...what I didn't need, I didn't need to remember I had.
Ottoban was ecstatic to let me be a home wrecker in his home. I helped myself to his food, wine, wife and worldly possessions. Ottoban wasn't a moron so of course anything I pawned I kept on the downlow, and I deathly afraid of that trigger finger he kept telling me about, that he developed during his service. I only saw it once when he took me pheasant hunting, a god awful sport where they catapult dead birds at you so you can pretend like you shot it out of the air. This bird comes flying out of nowhere and he unloads 50 rounds in the thing, leaving nothing but feathers and a beak where a bird should be. The rest of that day though we drove out to the edge of the fields, where we could get close to the highways and shoot out the wheels of the cars passing by. He was fun like that.
(sigh)...I am mad...I do know that to be true...and in someways because I know this, I can say that I am not as crazy as I could be BECAUSE I know I am mad...but it isn't until you meet someone FAR more insane then you, can you call yourself sane...by comparison I guess...
One day we're driving...I don't know where to or where from anymore cause that part of the story?...fuck it! No Otto's having a gay ol time, laughing and laughing and going on and about the things Otto loves...and then he gets a call on his cell phone. He's happy until he looks at the caller ID...and I've seen this face before. I've MADE this face before, but if it was me I would've thrown the damn phone away...He gives it an icy stare, the joy he had? Gone! And he answers the phone.
...I can't remember what all he said on the phone or what he told me was going on...but we end up at a pub and the bartender looks to him and immediately puts out 5 vodka shots. Otto asks if I want anything and IF I had known what was going to conspire soon after I would've ordered more then a rum on the rocks. I was thinking, 'Oh he's just here to talk business with some blokes. He's got 5 shots laid out for him, we're gonna be here a while.'...Otto, quickly, but one at a time, swigs all 5 shots with little but a breath inbetween em.
This is a man who's got a huge task ahead of him, doesn't want to remember, and his little display inspired me. Everytime since that, when I need to do something I'm not proud of, I line up 5 shots and thank Otto......Um...it's hard to remember...cause I don't think much happened in between Otto's binge and the Bomber showing up...OH...I spoiled it for you a bit. Yes...Big Bomber...This man...this THING...walks into the bar...it sounds like a joke but it was a literal Brick of a man. I had only seen one other man as large as this creature and that was Russel. Russel is still the largest man I've ever seen but this creature comes in a close second...
Now at the time, if you were ask me who Al-Quez was, I would've pointed to this man and said, “There's your guy.”...I am wrong but I hadn't even heard of Al-Quez at this time let alone know the mess of trouble I was allowing myself to get into. The Bomber, had no face...or a face that was set on fire five times and they repaired it with silly puddy. His hands here Hams...living swine were attached to his tree trunk arms, and when they finally died their corpses rotted into the shape of workable fingers. His cloths were three suits sewn together and they still didn't fit around him properly, without showing skin or ripping apart at the seams.
The Big Bomber...from what I remember hearing...and I wish I didn't have to talk about him...I think he's still alive. But the Bomber is just one of Al-Quez's many gofers...you know he'd go for this guy and go for that guy. Get this, get that! I shouldn't have to explain it, but you look confused...I don't know what else he did for Al-Quez cause I only saw him three times, and...hm, that's plenty for me.
I'm going on about the Big Bomber because I don't really remember why I didn't just stay at the pub. IT'S the perfect example of one of those crossroads stories you hear where if you go one way your life would've been a whole lot better. I've said it many times before, “WHY didn't you stay at the pub? It was SAFE there!” and I've said the opposite as well, “WHY did you stay at the Pub, you FOOL! It was ON FIRE!”
So I'm with Otto, and we're fallowing the Bomber's car to where ever we're going...OH, I have to bring this up. I had El Diablo with me...It's not like after I left England I headed strait to Norway, I figured that if I find a better place between that trip I'd settle there. So I was traveling around Europe with just just the essentials. That would be ME, a case filled with anything I needed for the day and El Diablo. When I had a studio I could leave the bass there and it would be safe, surrounded by Zombies or Pirates. But I had no intention at the time to leave it in an apartment or a storage case...I'm surprised that Brighton place hadn't been nicked off...I take that back, someone might've rummaged through that at some point and they only left the loose leaves...It was a mess..
Still it was a nice feeling to know you have everything you ever cared about is on your person. Not sitting in a car with an albino Nazi, at 9:30 at night in Norway, and thinking to yourself, “Shit! Did I leave the oven on?”...All I had to worry about was, is this going to hurt me, and will the Bass still play if I hook it up a week from now? But in that car, at that moment, I was more upset that all the rum was gone...
...mmm....You wouldn't happen to eh?...
(No sorry I don't think...)
Oh...no don't worry about it I guess...I'm a bit parched is all...
(Would you like some water?)
If I wanted water I wouldn't have asked for rum...but if you got it I'll take it.
I'm sorry if I'm stalling but I am having a difficult time remembering it all...it's the details you want...makes a good story if I go on about how the azure blue sky, and the first star of the night blinded my eye. Titmouses in the background fell silent as if foreshadowing my doom. No I can't give you all that useless drivel cause I didn't care enough about them to remember...
...I am trying to remember how I felt...cause I wasn't scared yet, but I knew I didn't like where I was. Otto was driving and I'm watching this man just shake his head violently...like one of those mental people who shake like they have water in their ears or an eye ball isn't lined up in their head right...And as I'm remembering this now, I blame myself for going along with him just because he was the one with the car. Like I couldn't just nick it and leave on my own. No I sat with this mental patient all the way cause I didn't want to drive myself back to his place. Little did I know I was stuck in that car for 10 years going through hell with Guns firing behind me all the way...
...Metaphorically...I mean like we didn't drive for 10 years fallowing the bomber, but the ride my life took after that...well that's getting to far ahead...This was the first stop on the road trip through mobster hell.
When we finally arrived where we were going, it was a...dock or something...warehouse...yes...there were...Three...FIVE people waiting for us. I've been through this before, never make eye contact with any of them, so I couldn't remember them if I saw em in a supermarket. They had three girls dressed in those sherkas, perkas...the things they cover Arab women in, where lined up inside...none of them over 17 I'm sure of it...I can say I got a good look at their faces even covered up like that...I always look over the ladies.
...I think...I think I left the car because the Bomber made sure I fallowed them in, which is a poor thing to do when constructing underground shady deals. Don't invite third wheel in side cause he WILL be afraid of what the sees...and I saw nuclear symbols...That's right, I'm a smart lad and I can put two and two together and I knew my chauffeur Otto was called out there to...hm...I don't think I should talk about this...how thin are these walls? Lets just say I kept my ears shut and my eyes fixed on a bowl of cashews.
The rest of the world around me was a blur...I don't even remember what color the sofa was...I'm not saying it was a sofa...who said it was?...Time passed quickly and slowly, never consistently. It felt like I was waiting their for ages but every time I'd look up from my bowl of cashews to see one of those poor girls being taken into a...box car? I guess that's what those were...I'd look back and the bowl would look emptier...
...I remember...just before the last girl was taken back, Otto comes to me to ask a favor. He hands me a wad of cash and his car keys, saying, “I need something to drink. Get me Vodak!...Lots of it...Buy anything else you want with the rest.” I'm going certainly...but make a grand mistake...as I stand up, I catch the Bomber's eye...and though it was only for a fraction of a second, that was long enough for him to read my mind...I thought I could walk it off and play like I didn't see him look back but to no avail. The box car made his voice echo like the words of god...“Leave the guitar!”
My plan of course was to take the cash and car and never return to Norway again. That country would be nothing but a coffee stain on the map for me after that night...but now, he's got my third leg in his grip and if I want it back I gotta beg for it....But Otto...my dear number one fan, understands the situation and instead of handing over my bass to that brick wall, says to me, “ I'll watch it...You can trust me Murdoc. I won't let anything happen to it.”...What else can I do but trust the guy with my livelihood and take off to get his comfort juice.
And Now! I'm in his car! FUURRIOUS! I'm hitting the wheel, the roof, windshield. The horn couldn't cover up my spits of rage. I tear off his rear view mirror! How the fuck did I get caught up in some nuclear bomb smuggling scandal?! I'm swerving around, trying to hit other cars so I have a good reason not to go back there. I get to the liquor store, fill up with everything he's got, and there was a point where I said, “Fuck it, I'm taking this baby off a bridge!” I spend 30 min driving around trying to find a bridge, and by that time I cool down so I just pull over and have a drink and think about this.
I had a couple options to mull over in my mind. One is to return with his liquor in tow and sit through one more operation, making myself an accomplice to a terrorist plot. Two, I proceed with my original plan, leave the country to never return, with the obvious consequence of never seeing my beloved Diablo again. Chances are that because I've already spent a good while driving around that they've already sent out a search party to blast away my head...and poor Diablo..what would they do to him?...I really didn't even think about Otto.
...Now here is the moment where I can give you that detail you wanted...it was cold, quiet, and still for a long while I was out there. The wind blew threw the cracks of the doors and a plane roar broke the silence once and then was gone. I remember this because that cold wind goes through me like a needle and thread I get a terrible gut feeling...literally, I am ill. I head out a ways into the fields and drop trow, well, you know, Shit happens...Hah, that cashew bowl was full when I sat down and now I know where they all went...or where they are now.
I'm out there with my ass hanging out, my guts churning like a cement mixer, mobsters out there planning to blast my head off, and I'm saying to myself...which is funny cause I was saying it at least once every year since then, “This is the lowest point I could possibly be in.” The ironic part about that is that every time after that, it would get lower and lower. Looking back on that event now, yes I was in a shit stew, but it was merely just digestion problems in comparison to the other low points in my life...there had been a total of 5 REALLY terrible moments, ultimate lows...this wasn't one of them...not by a long shot...
But after I finished shitting my brains out, it cleared up my mind enough to realize that all things pass in time...and the best path to take is the one where I wait it out. Those bombs have to leave Norway soon to where ever they need to go, Otto was JUST asking me to get him something to drink, if I got back to Otto at all it wouldn't hurt to show up fashionably late then not at all...but that didn't happen...
What was going to be a few hours turned into a few days. I stopped in a hotel to wipe my arse and keep the car's license plate off the road, but by 2am I had finished off five black and tans and passed out to a Godzilla film...of all places only in Norway...I woke up while it was still dark and headed back to the docks...but I got lost....No kidding. I couldn't even find myself back to Otto's house. My fortune would have it was that I never was confronted by anyone who might've seen me at the docks that night.
Now some days go by and I finally run into Tia, who was like 14 or something at the time...maybe older I don't know with kids anymore. I was glad she showed up cause the money Otto had given me was now gone and I didn't want to start selling precipitation meds to Middle School kids...but I was...RIGHT that's why I remember her age...She comes up to me, in that terrible way that all teenagers do when they think they know everything ...(Fuck, Noodle) and she's yelling at me, “You know what they did to my father?! They broke his arm. WAH WAH! You get back to my house right now!”
Precious thing huh?...I was happy to run into her, I was able to find my way back to Diablo. And, Otto was just as happy, the poor fool. He had a cast on, black eye, a new missing tooth, but he waved me inside, gave me a drink. He even apologized for getting me involved and was thankful I kept the car in good shape...I even gave him his Vodka and he laughed.
There was a long talk where I basically tell him I'm heading out after this. I don't know what Otto does for a living but it would be best for him and his family that I just spread my leather wings and...get lost for a while...it's actually a fun experience to be lost sometimes. However, Otto seemed to be hesitant and every time I brought up my bass he'd take a drink...So I ask him strait out, “Where is it Otto. Where's El Diablo.”
Right away I'm thinking, the Bomber took it, but Otto opens his closet and brings out a black leather case, shaped like a coffin with a gold plated inverted crucifix on the bottom. Like an professional, he sets the case on the table and opens it, and there sits El Diablo. Polished up like it was brand new, wrapped up against a stunning pearl colored velvet....he had that case custom built for the bass while I been staying there, said my disappearance was the perfect time to clean up Diablo and give it a grander resting place.
I'm stunned and...honored of course, but...pft, I've set that thing against laundry baskets before. Sure it's the axe of Satan, but...it's still just a guitar. Lucifer just went down to Hanson's and picked it up for 200$ and said, “Here use this! It was carved from the wood of Yggdrasil and painted with the blood of Vlad the Impaler, blah blah blah...” I had to tune it up and put special fixtures on it so it would actually play right....It had to touch my hands before it became anything special.
Otto then tells me his plan, and it hurts to listen to but I let the man talk...he says, “I was thinking that you shouldn't just carry the bass around your shoulder like that...it needs to be protected. You...” sorry I can't do the accent...Ehem...'Cuse me...He's basically telling me that he wants to keep the bass with him. He liked knowing that he had something to fight for. El Diablo, he said, was a machine of power. A relic that even his mortal hands shouldn't have permission to touch...yeah Otto was out there...
He was thinking...right like HE was thinking...he was thinking that if I'm going to be in another situation where, once again, Diablo might be in harms way, I should have a safe place for the bass so that it's never scarified like that again. He knew about my soul searching exposition, and suggested that he hold onto the bass until I found my soul. He built the proper home for it so that even if the house collapsed into hell, the bass would be the only thing left standing.
I of course am intrigued. Otto spoke like a normal man, a sane man, but his loyalty made him mad...bat shit crazy. His family suffered for his sacrifice. His daughter...or my daughter did well on her own, but she ended up loosing her chances of success cause she was devoted to keeping what little her family had left...Otto Jr. obviously is doing rather well for himself and I'm sure Otto Sr. is proud, but the irony is that Jr got good cause of Diablo.
While I was away for those five or so years...it's such a blur about actual time during all of that...Jr would sneak into the closet and practice playing....It's a powerful machine indeed...I never made the connection at the time but NOT having the bass near by me seemed to be sucking pieces of my life away. That boy was plucking away my skills...but it was also slowly killing his own father so it serves him right… Don't play with another man's tools, you're gonna get hurt...
I do thank Otto for his dedication, perseverance,...his ability to...build bombs and not kill people around him doing it. I sure hope that where ever he went in the end that he doesn't get a nasty sunburn. A great ally to the forces of darkness and the head contributor to the Murdoc Nicalls Salvation Project...keep the Murdoc alive!...I'd apologize for fucking your wife AFTER you married...but I think you knew about all those times...and she was a slut, I wasn't the only one doing her...I was with two other guys at the time who can vouch for me … Anyway, Cheers mate!
I'll give you a quick summery here. This fic takes place 50 years later, around 2056. Murdoc being interviewed about his interaction with a terrible mobster known as Al-Quez, but as it just so happens Murdoc gets taken off on a tangent and goes on about Murdoc's Self Proclaimed Number 1 Fan. This interview takes place AFTER the events caused by the Reunion album, so this is Murdoc, at about 90 years, reflecting on his life. Read it like he's telling you the story.
This fic is a bit of a filler story to my bigger epic fanfic, at the moment code named, Gorilaz: 50 Years Later. There aren't really any spoilers to that fiction written in this, and I wrote about one certain event that leads up to where the band is 50 years later. Technically this could be part of a thing called Gorillaz 25 years later...the in between Now and the Future. If you are still confused, please comment and I'll try to explain a bit more but this fic is rather self contained.
This whole fiction is written as Murdoc is talking to you (with a few comments thrown in by the interviewer), and I wrote it as a means to just get this side story out of my head. Also please forgive any spelling errors and odd sentences that you might find, I did proof read but I can't catch everything. Enjoy
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Ah the Al-Quez incidents...2D always goes on about this but he never gets it right. I've tried so many things to make memories disappear all together, but every time I heard 2D's version of these events, I'm surprised how much more I remember then he does...This is 2D we're talking about here, it's a miracle he can remember his name.
What I can't vouch for is the time where Al-Quez kidnapped him to get to me....I don't know what 2D was doing at the time...never told me to be honest. 2D does what 2D does, and it's usually trivial things like driving taxi cabs or mowing lawns. Christ, that's what you pay idiots to do...hmmmm...actually that seems fitting for 2D doesn't it?
Anyway I can't tell you what Al-Quez did to him...there is a scar but that could've been just a shaving accident...it's not as nasty as he makes it out to be, just a flesh wound. The boy has paper skin, you give him a pat on the back for a job well done and he bruises like a ripe banana. He's just hamming up the drama for the attention...
But I want to make clear that I am sorry about 2D getting involved with Al-Quez...that is a man who has connections. A Catholic Iranian, born from a Russian man and an Iranian woman, who owns a large construction company and a collection of terrorists around the world. Large guy too, but I don't know how he got so powerful for being devoted to god. Figure he just busted up kneecaps of a few dons in his youth and that solidified his status as a resident badass...or bought his way into it all.
If you want to know how I got involved I'd have to start...oh what 25 years ago? Russel went into retirement and the rest of the band wouldn't talk to me. I really...and I mean REALLY hit a low cause I didn't want a repeat of that whole Plastic Beach thing again. It's one thing when all your band members go crazy and you need to keep the music going so you can pay the bills, but 3 unanimous “Fuck Off”s was enough to wake me up I say.
I tell this to everybody at least once, but I had a vision one night. I had just mixed up a hearty brew of rum, and anything else that was left in medicine cabinet...I was in Madrid for some odd reason at the time I forgot why. But I swear to you that this was a real vision. Not something I made up and NOT the drugs. I know the difference between the two, and I got proof cause the lovely senorita I picked up earlier that night saw it all to...she was screaming her head off during the whole thing.
(Maybe she was screaming at you? Like you were acting out the vision you saw in your head and she was afraid for her life?)
No...you weren't there were you, and this is my story. So shut up!...She did leave the building but for good reason. It was the mother fuckn ghost of Denis Hopper. No lie...He had come back from the grave to tell me that the reason I've never reached MAXIMUM fame and glory was because I had given up my soul many years ago...and I gave up that true rocker essence. That 'IT' that everyone who's had mega fame seems to have. It's not just about the money, or the notoriety...but to have that THING that really shows that you can make it big AND have the talent to back it up.
He was basically saying I needed to go solo. Forget Gorillaz! It was always about me anyway. I got those dolts together but they just gummed up the project with their dumb artsy visions. A great artist doesn't need other people to back em up. They spit on the ground and their work is cherished as gold...and...if I could get my soul now I could have one last chance...but...well that's getting beyond the original question isn't it?
So this is the point in the story where Murdoc goes soul searching...started out as your dumb typical hippy excursion cause I really wasn't sure if I could get my soul back at this point. I head back to England to tie up loose ends as well as check up on old Kong Studios. Would you believe that the whole building, mountain and landfill and all is all gone now? Nothing left? If their weren't pictures of it on Google maps, you couldn't have found it now. You know what's there now?...A shitty wedding chapel and a day care...shameful...I burned them down...
I was upset mostly because I could've used the entrance to Hell Kong had to go down and relook over my old contract with Beelzebub, seeing if there wasn't some sort of loop hole I could work around. But it was gone, the newspapers said that the mountain erupted with a huge ape, that melting half of Essex with it and it collapsed back into the Earth...They called it the Wrath of Kong...I don't laugh at that anymore...who told that intern they could write?
Hmm...hmm...lets not bore you with details but I did stop back through Stoke to make sure my name had been erased from the public records. I'm not even a ghost there anymore...I've been exorcised from that place...the Nicalls don't call that place home anymore...I did have an apartment out in Brighton that was the oddest thing to stumble across. It was a time capsule, with everything I was into during my time there...dates from 99 to as late as 2004, few things from 06.
And this is why that is important because I have to tell you about Ottoban Merdruf. Good old Otto...self proclaimed number one fan out of the 6 billion Gorillaz fans out there. He had been a long time fan of ours since the beginning, but I can't remember how he found my address. Never sent emails...He'd show up at our concerts randomly from time to time and you'd see his fat white head floating around in the audience... Certainly one of our nicer stalker fans, but he had his issues.
First time I can remember meeting Otto, I mean really getting to know the guy, cause like I said he'd been stalking us from the start, was during the Plastic Beach tour. He and friends were fallowing us like Dead Heads around the states, in their Volkswagen. I'm not making that up. Every fast food place we stopped at the tour I saw the damn thing and I thought they were hit men fallowing us. I had Cyborg bring them in for hostage but he and his lot where groveling at my feet.
Otto is a Norwegian man who signed up with the German army, just so he could say he'd been in a war. He served in Iraq for a few months, and learned how to make dirty bombs. I really don't remember why he got into Gorillaz but he had a real hard on for me and started wearing Nazi cloths cause I wore em...of all the ways to flatter me, he sure thought that would do it.
I never kept in touch with him after that, other then his dumb fan letters. He said that he married a woman based souly on the fact that I had fucked her...That's actually a sad story. Otto and that woman, I still don't remember her name, raised a daughter together, that turned out to be mine. Otto never knew...or if he did noone knew. But their daughter, blamed me for everything bad Otto went through. At the end of his life, I believe he had cancer, he lost his ability to walk, eyes pecked out by crows, deers chewed apart his shins...list goes on but just terrible unfortunate circumstances.
That girl,...Tia? Right...Tia Merdurf. She loved Otto so much. I was that devil he worshiped that brought him nothing but pain and torment. I met Tai a few times and I remember her cause she was a cute little cock teese who would always say, “It's your fault my father is so ill. Nah nah nah!”...I don't know what that girl did to piss off her mother, or if her mother was PMSing more then usual, but for what ever reason, after Otto died, her mother told Tia that I was her father and Tia killed herself and all her own children...She hated me that much, that she didn't want the Nicalls family line to continue on.
I had no idea I was her father either, she didn't look anything like me. Her mother could've been that much of a bitch and lied to her daughter just to mess with her mind. I only found out about Tia because I thought I was her brother's father. He is Otto's as far as I know, but her mother got around so much, he could be half Navajo...He's working with Noodle right now. Small world huh? They just call him, 'The NORDIC!'...Big, tall, white skinned, blond bass player, doesn't say anything...looks like he'll rape your babies....I wouldn't mind if he was mine, but poor Tia...I don't know what I did wrong, her mother was the slut.
What's the boys name?...I just know him as Otto Jr., but when I saw his interviews after joining Noodle's band I learned about Otto and Tia's death, so I stop by the mother to pay condolences, cause Otto did help me out a bit back then...And all this goes back to that little flat in Brighton 25 years ago, where I see Ottoban's fanletters. I look for the return address and I now have a new place to crash for a while. The apartment in Brighton?...I burned it...what I didn't need, I didn't need to remember I had.
Ottoban was ecstatic to let me be a home wrecker in his home. I helped myself to his food, wine, wife and worldly possessions. Ottoban wasn't a moron so of course anything I pawned I kept on the downlow, and I deathly afraid of that trigger finger he kept telling me about, that he developed during his service. I only saw it once when he took me pheasant hunting, a god awful sport where they catapult dead birds at you so you can pretend like you shot it out of the air. This bird comes flying out of nowhere and he unloads 50 rounds in the thing, leaving nothing but feathers and a beak where a bird should be. The rest of that day though we drove out to the edge of the fields, where we could get close to the highways and shoot out the wheels of the cars passing by. He was fun like that.
(sigh)...I am mad...I do know that to be true...and in someways because I know this, I can say that I am not as crazy as I could be BECAUSE I know I am mad...but it isn't until you meet someone FAR more insane then you, can you call yourself sane...by comparison I guess...
One day we're driving...I don't know where to or where from anymore cause that part of the story?...fuck it! No Otto's having a gay ol time, laughing and laughing and going on and about the things Otto loves...and then he gets a call on his cell phone. He's happy until he looks at the caller ID...and I've seen this face before. I've MADE this face before, but if it was me I would've thrown the damn phone away...He gives it an icy stare, the joy he had? Gone! And he answers the phone.
...I can't remember what all he said on the phone or what he told me was going on...but we end up at a pub and the bartender looks to him and immediately puts out 5 vodka shots. Otto asks if I want anything and IF I had known what was going to conspire soon after I would've ordered more then a rum on the rocks. I was thinking, 'Oh he's just here to talk business with some blokes. He's got 5 shots laid out for him, we're gonna be here a while.'...Otto, quickly, but one at a time, swigs all 5 shots with little but a breath inbetween em.
This is a man who's got a huge task ahead of him, doesn't want to remember, and his little display inspired me. Everytime since that, when I need to do something I'm not proud of, I line up 5 shots and thank Otto......Um...it's hard to remember...cause I don't think much happened in between Otto's binge and the Bomber showing up...OH...I spoiled it for you a bit. Yes...Big Bomber...This man...this THING...walks into the bar...it sounds like a joke but it was a literal Brick of a man. I had only seen one other man as large as this creature and that was Russel. Russel is still the largest man I've ever seen but this creature comes in a close second...
Now at the time, if you were ask me who Al-Quez was, I would've pointed to this man and said, “There's your guy.”...I am wrong but I hadn't even heard of Al-Quez at this time let alone know the mess of trouble I was allowing myself to get into. The Bomber, had no face...or a face that was set on fire five times and they repaired it with silly puddy. His hands here Hams...living swine were attached to his tree trunk arms, and when they finally died their corpses rotted into the shape of workable fingers. His cloths were three suits sewn together and they still didn't fit around him properly, without showing skin or ripping apart at the seams.
The Big Bomber...from what I remember hearing...and I wish I didn't have to talk about him...I think he's still alive. But the Bomber is just one of Al-Quez's many gofers...you know he'd go for this guy and go for that guy. Get this, get that! I shouldn't have to explain it, but you look confused...I don't know what else he did for Al-Quez cause I only saw him three times, and...hm, that's plenty for me.
I'm going on about the Big Bomber because I don't really remember why I didn't just stay at the pub. IT'S the perfect example of one of those crossroads stories you hear where if you go one way your life would've been a whole lot better. I've said it many times before, “WHY didn't you stay at the pub? It was SAFE there!” and I've said the opposite as well, “WHY did you stay at the Pub, you FOOL! It was ON FIRE!”
So I'm with Otto, and we're fallowing the Bomber's car to where ever we're going...OH, I have to bring this up. I had El Diablo with me...It's not like after I left England I headed strait to Norway, I figured that if I find a better place between that trip I'd settle there. So I was traveling around Europe with just just the essentials. That would be ME, a case filled with anything I needed for the day and El Diablo. When I had a studio I could leave the bass there and it would be safe, surrounded by Zombies or Pirates. But I had no intention at the time to leave it in an apartment or a storage case...I'm surprised that Brighton place hadn't been nicked off...I take that back, someone might've rummaged through that at some point and they only left the loose leaves...It was a mess..
Still it was a nice feeling to know you have everything you ever cared about is on your person. Not sitting in a car with an albino Nazi, at 9:30 at night in Norway, and thinking to yourself, “Shit! Did I leave the oven on?”...All I had to worry about was, is this going to hurt me, and will the Bass still play if I hook it up a week from now? But in that car, at that moment, I was more upset that all the rum was gone...
...mmm....You wouldn't happen to eh?...
(No sorry I don't think...)
Oh...no don't worry about it I guess...I'm a bit parched is all...
(Would you like some water?)
If I wanted water I wouldn't have asked for rum...but if you got it I'll take it.
I'm sorry if I'm stalling but I am having a difficult time remembering it all...it's the details you want...makes a good story if I go on about how the azure blue sky, and the first star of the night blinded my eye. Titmouses in the background fell silent as if foreshadowing my doom. No I can't give you all that useless drivel cause I didn't care enough about them to remember...
...I am trying to remember how I felt...cause I wasn't scared yet, but I knew I didn't like where I was. Otto was driving and I'm watching this man just shake his head violently...like one of those mental people who shake like they have water in their ears or an eye ball isn't lined up in their head right...And as I'm remembering this now, I blame myself for going along with him just because he was the one with the car. Like I couldn't just nick it and leave on my own. No I sat with this mental patient all the way cause I didn't want to drive myself back to his place. Little did I know I was stuck in that car for 10 years going through hell with Guns firing behind me all the way...
...Metaphorically...I mean like we didn't drive for 10 years fallowing the bomber, but the ride my life took after that...well that's getting to far ahead...This was the first stop on the road trip through mobster hell.
When we finally arrived where we were going, it was a...dock or something...warehouse...yes...there were...Three...FIVE people waiting for us. I've been through this before, never make eye contact with any of them, so I couldn't remember them if I saw em in a supermarket. They had three girls dressed in those sherkas, perkas...the things they cover Arab women in, where lined up inside...none of them over 17 I'm sure of it...I can say I got a good look at their faces even covered up like that...I always look over the ladies.
...I think...I think I left the car because the Bomber made sure I fallowed them in, which is a poor thing to do when constructing underground shady deals. Don't invite third wheel in side cause he WILL be afraid of what the sees...and I saw nuclear symbols...That's right, I'm a smart lad and I can put two and two together and I knew my chauffeur Otto was called out there to...hm...I don't think I should talk about this...how thin are these walls? Lets just say I kept my ears shut and my eyes fixed on a bowl of cashews.
The rest of the world around me was a blur...I don't even remember what color the sofa was...I'm not saying it was a sofa...who said it was?...Time passed quickly and slowly, never consistently. It felt like I was waiting their for ages but every time I'd look up from my bowl of cashews to see one of those poor girls being taken into a...box car? I guess that's what those were...I'd look back and the bowl would look emptier...
...I remember...just before the last girl was taken back, Otto comes to me to ask a favor. He hands me a wad of cash and his car keys, saying, “I need something to drink. Get me Vodak!...Lots of it...Buy anything else you want with the rest.” I'm going certainly...but make a grand mistake...as I stand up, I catch the Bomber's eye...and though it was only for a fraction of a second, that was long enough for him to read my mind...I thought I could walk it off and play like I didn't see him look back but to no avail. The box car made his voice echo like the words of god...“Leave the guitar!”
My plan of course was to take the cash and car and never return to Norway again. That country would be nothing but a coffee stain on the map for me after that night...but now, he's got my third leg in his grip and if I want it back I gotta beg for it....But Otto...my dear number one fan, understands the situation and instead of handing over my bass to that brick wall, says to me, “ I'll watch it...You can trust me Murdoc. I won't let anything happen to it.”...What else can I do but trust the guy with my livelihood and take off to get his comfort juice.
And Now! I'm in his car! FUURRIOUS! I'm hitting the wheel, the roof, windshield. The horn couldn't cover up my spits of rage. I tear off his rear view mirror! How the fuck did I get caught up in some nuclear bomb smuggling scandal?! I'm swerving around, trying to hit other cars so I have a good reason not to go back there. I get to the liquor store, fill up with everything he's got, and there was a point where I said, “Fuck it, I'm taking this baby off a bridge!” I spend 30 min driving around trying to find a bridge, and by that time I cool down so I just pull over and have a drink and think about this.
I had a couple options to mull over in my mind. One is to return with his liquor in tow and sit through one more operation, making myself an accomplice to a terrorist plot. Two, I proceed with my original plan, leave the country to never return, with the obvious consequence of never seeing my beloved Diablo again. Chances are that because I've already spent a good while driving around that they've already sent out a search party to blast away my head...and poor Diablo..what would they do to him?...I really didn't even think about Otto.
...Now here is the moment where I can give you that detail you wanted...it was cold, quiet, and still for a long while I was out there. The wind blew threw the cracks of the doors and a plane roar broke the silence once and then was gone. I remember this because that cold wind goes through me like a needle and thread I get a terrible gut feeling...literally, I am ill. I head out a ways into the fields and drop trow, well, you know, Shit happens...Hah, that cashew bowl was full when I sat down and now I know where they all went...or where they are now.
I'm out there with my ass hanging out, my guts churning like a cement mixer, mobsters out there planning to blast my head off, and I'm saying to myself...which is funny cause I was saying it at least once every year since then, “This is the lowest point I could possibly be in.” The ironic part about that is that every time after that, it would get lower and lower. Looking back on that event now, yes I was in a shit stew, but it was merely just digestion problems in comparison to the other low points in my life...there had been a total of 5 REALLY terrible moments, ultimate lows...this wasn't one of them...not by a long shot...
But after I finished shitting my brains out, it cleared up my mind enough to realize that all things pass in time...and the best path to take is the one where I wait it out. Those bombs have to leave Norway soon to where ever they need to go, Otto was JUST asking me to get him something to drink, if I got back to Otto at all it wouldn't hurt to show up fashionably late then not at all...but that didn't happen...
What was going to be a few hours turned into a few days. I stopped in a hotel to wipe my arse and keep the car's license plate off the road, but by 2am I had finished off five black and tans and passed out to a Godzilla film...of all places only in Norway...I woke up while it was still dark and headed back to the docks...but I got lost....No kidding. I couldn't even find myself back to Otto's house. My fortune would have it was that I never was confronted by anyone who might've seen me at the docks that night.
Now some days go by and I finally run into Tia, who was like 14 or something at the time...maybe older I don't know with kids anymore. I was glad she showed up cause the money Otto had given me was now gone and I didn't want to start selling precipitation meds to Middle School kids...but I was...RIGHT that's why I remember her age...She comes up to me, in that terrible way that all teenagers do when they think they know everything ...(Fuck, Noodle) and she's yelling at me, “You know what they did to my father?! They broke his arm. WAH WAH! You get back to my house right now!”
Precious thing huh?...I was happy to run into her, I was able to find my way back to Diablo. And, Otto was just as happy, the poor fool. He had a cast on, black eye, a new missing tooth, but he waved me inside, gave me a drink. He even apologized for getting me involved and was thankful I kept the car in good shape...I even gave him his Vodka and he laughed.
There was a long talk where I basically tell him I'm heading out after this. I don't know what Otto does for a living but it would be best for him and his family that I just spread my leather wings and...get lost for a while...it's actually a fun experience to be lost sometimes. However, Otto seemed to be hesitant and every time I brought up my bass he'd take a drink...So I ask him strait out, “Where is it Otto. Where's El Diablo.”
Right away I'm thinking, the Bomber took it, but Otto opens his closet and brings out a black leather case, shaped like a coffin with a gold plated inverted crucifix on the bottom. Like an professional, he sets the case on the table and opens it, and there sits El Diablo. Polished up like it was brand new, wrapped up against a stunning pearl colored velvet....he had that case custom built for the bass while I been staying there, said my disappearance was the perfect time to clean up Diablo and give it a grander resting place.
I'm stunned and...honored of course, but...pft, I've set that thing against laundry baskets before. Sure it's the axe of Satan, but...it's still just a guitar. Lucifer just went down to Hanson's and picked it up for 200$ and said, “Here use this! It was carved from the wood of Yggdrasil and painted with the blood of Vlad the Impaler, blah blah blah...” I had to tune it up and put special fixtures on it so it would actually play right....It had to touch my hands before it became anything special.
Otto then tells me his plan, and it hurts to listen to but I let the man talk...he says, “I was thinking that you shouldn't just carry the bass around your shoulder like that...it needs to be protected. You...” sorry I can't do the accent...Ehem...'Cuse me...He's basically telling me that he wants to keep the bass with him. He liked knowing that he had something to fight for. El Diablo, he said, was a machine of power. A relic that even his mortal hands shouldn't have permission to touch...yeah Otto was out there...
He was thinking...right like HE was thinking...he was thinking that if I'm going to be in another situation where, once again, Diablo might be in harms way, I should have a safe place for the bass so that it's never scarified like that again. He knew about my soul searching exposition, and suggested that he hold onto the bass until I found my soul. He built the proper home for it so that even if the house collapsed into hell, the bass would be the only thing left standing.
I of course am intrigued. Otto spoke like a normal man, a sane man, but his loyalty made him mad...bat shit crazy. His family suffered for his sacrifice. His daughter...or my daughter did well on her own, but she ended up loosing her chances of success cause she was devoted to keeping what little her family had left...Otto Jr. obviously is doing rather well for himself and I'm sure Otto Sr. is proud, but the irony is that Jr got good cause of Diablo.
While I was away for those five or so years...it's such a blur about actual time during all of that...Jr would sneak into the closet and practice playing....It's a powerful machine indeed...I never made the connection at the time but NOT having the bass near by me seemed to be sucking pieces of my life away. That boy was plucking away my skills...but it was also slowly killing his own father so it serves him right… Don't play with another man's tools, you're gonna get hurt...
I do thank Otto for his dedication, perseverance,...his ability to...build bombs and not kill people around him doing it. I sure hope that where ever he went in the end that he doesn't get a nasty sunburn. A great ally to the forces of darkness and the head contributor to the Murdoc Nicalls Salvation Project...keep the Murdoc alive!...I'd apologize for fucking your wife AFTER you married...but I think you knew about all those times...and she was a slut, I wasn't the only one doing her...I was with two other guys at the time who can vouch for me … Anyway, Cheers mate!