October 7, 1999: MEET CANCER BOY!

During the past 10 days, this has happened:
1. I made a pretty fair cabbage kimchi for the first time.
2. I deejayed at a gig where my pals in C-men played.
3. I was diagnosed with a mild form of cancer, totally harmless, but cancer nevertheless.
4. I was cured by said cancer by 3 physicists and one doctor.

1. Kimchi: well, it's fairly easy to do. There is a huge recipe collection at www.kimchi.or.kr, but the one I used is from a Swedish book. The recipe I used was actually a bit more advanced than the Korean ones... The result was fair, but i wish it had been a little more acidic. I like fermented sour things, don'cha know.

2. C-Men & I: I used to run a film club, Haunted House, with the C-Men's singer Honk and the lead guitarist, Buck Hogwash, and some other friends: Werner, Empe & Björne. I've been meaning to make a memorial HH site for ages, but I have still some work to do. During the years we ran the club, we must of screened close to 200 movies. Maybe more if you count the shorties.
But C-men, then. They rock pretty hard, and I guess I must have seen them about ten times now. The drummer, Rolle, used to play with Honk in a bizarre fucking band called The Gang of Nogoods (Nogoods, for short). Then it was drunken punkrock bashes with great visuals. Now, it's plain fucking r&r punk rock.
This was the best C-Men gig I ever saw. As per usual, there wasn't much of an audience, and mainstay visitor Lille-Jens had already fallen asleep. As per fucking usual. I haven't seen Honk in such an entertaining shape on stage since No-Goods did their last gig. He gabbed. He pulled down his pants. He posed. He spanked his butt. He did that punk version of Glen Danzig he does oh-so-well. Meanwhile, the other members indulged in on-stage mayhem: undressing, beer drinking, tea drinking, frenching and whatnot.
Before and after, I deejayed, sometimes assisted by Jenny, who played hard rock for her boyfriend (and others;). I stuck with raunch, rock, country and punk rock. The gospel according to Reverend Horton Heat, so to speak. Supersuckers. Thee Headcoates. Makers. Supersuckers. George Jones. Cramps.
I noticed that a gal that I had never seen before was taking pictures of the gig. I asked Buck and he said that she had a homepage and wrote for a fanzine. Today he mailed the URL to me and Lo & behold! She has put up the pictures together with a review already. Way way more alert than my sorry ass. Apparently, she goes by the moniker Lisa Darling. Her sites are the first Swedish of the kind that I've ever seen. Mucho kudos, missy!

3. Cure for Cancer: I have written here earlier about some kinda rash-like mother-of-all-hickies that I've had for quite some years & suddenly decided I wanted to get rid of. So this is what happens:
Step A: I go to the doctors'. They think it's some kinda fungal rash, so I get a prescription for a Hydrocortison/fungicidal ointment. It works a bit, but not really.
Step B: Two weeks later, I come back to the doctors' as appointed. I get a slight anaesthetic and then they get 2 tissue samples, stitching me up afterwards. My first stitched scars! Huzza!
Step C: Three days later, I get a call from the "skin department" at the big hospital. They want to check me out. They immediately tell me that it's a very mild cancer, totally harmless. Still, the word has quite some menacing ring to it, hmm? Plus 3 of my grandparents died in cancer: prostate, skeletal and ovary. But as I said, this variant was totally benign. It was just an eyesore. And it would have kept on growing.
So a couple hours later, I get a call on my cellular. I can get an appointment with a doctor the day after, but it will take the entire day. The method used will be some kind of prototype.
Step D: When I get there the day after, I'm greeted by the doctor, who tells me that this method, the photodynamic method, will be performed with the help of three nuclear physicists, PhD material, specializing in lasers.
So there I am in a tiny room, cramped with machinery, gadgets, minitowers and laptops. One of the physicists tells me that the method of photodynamics has been used since ancient Egypt. The basis of the method is that a salve, or an ointment, is activated by light. So the salve works in synergy with light. These days, of course, the sun is not used, but instead an array of lasers are used.
Since this is a pilot project - the method is tested, but the salve was a new hybrid of a tested one - most of the day was filled with measuring.
One of the PhD candidates measured my bloodvessels in the sick area with a doppler laser, one used a fiberoptic laser to measure the flourescense in the skin, and the third used a gaffer taped, prototype-looking, 100K$-plus device from Bang&Olufsen, which was suposed to measure the spreading of light in the area.
All was pretty cool, and I felt some SF-vibes. Hightech sometimes gives me that kinda buzz. Finally, after almost 12 hours of tests, the salve was to be activated by higher energy laser. The big spot was supposed to get "laserd" by a 6 centimetre wide, 1.5 watt beam for 1337 seconds. A smaller one was gonna get raygunned by a 0.5 watt laser for about 4 minutes. Wow! Motherfucker, it hurt at first. Maybe it wasn't pain as much as a weird tingling, fireworms grafting under my skin. One of the assistants said "Look! It looks like it's boiling under the skin". Then it was over. The final measurments showed that the salve had been used up by the laser. The photosensitivity of the cells was back to normal. Most probably, 100% of the carcinoma cells had died.

Now, it's been 8 days since it happened. I have a crust of dried blud and whatnot over the wound. My laser wound. But it's healing pretty fast now. No more blood on my shirts:) All in all, an interesting experience. What it cost me? GOD FUCKING BLESS SWEDEN! I payed 100 + 100 + 200 Swedish crowns all in all. 400 Swedish crowns is about 50 USD. Nice to have a good social/medical security system, huh? Still, it was much much better 10-15 years ago.

What else is new: wuh-ell...

5. I got some t-shirts in the mail.
6. I got another r'n'r deejay gig to-day.
7. I wrote a very very short article about an upcoming Melt Banana gig.

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...and that'll have to be "it" for now. I was inspired by a lot, obviously. Perhaps most of all by Garth Ennis and Grant Morrison + reading some old porn that I printed out years ago an a matrix printer, and which surfaced when looking thru old binders last week + seeing Dead Man Walkin again + getting eXistenZ on VCD. + playing air guitar listening to Stooges + eating cheap falafel with lotsa parsley and pickled cucumber + drinking a lot of caïpirinhas & other good shit + eating duck + drinking goood espressos + visiting my pal Frans' studio + talking to my bro + talking to brother Iván + singing "Hog's Jaw" + DMX Krew + Evil Superstars + Nation of Ulysses + Monks + Tarwater + Stereolab + Barbabatch + your daughter, sir.