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“Back of every creation, supporting it like an arch, is faith. Enthusiasm is nothing: it comes and goes. But if one believes, then miracles occur.”

Henry Miller

I opened my little notebook and began to write, the way I always do sitting at the Leme rock, my open air office. I’ve written enough crap sitting there over the years to publish several books.

For some reason, I get my best inspiration sitting by the water, either there, or at one of my other offices at the other end of Copacabana by the old fort, or sometimes over by the big rock of Praia do Diabo, by Arpoador, in Ipanema. I’ve been writing in these places for years and I’ve always felt the presence of some effortless inspiring force there with the waves at my feet. I’ve been told it’s because I’m a Filho de Ogum Beira Mar, a son of Saint George who rides his white steed along the shore by the crashing waves.          

I’ve always felt safe and protected and inspired when sitting by those waves, so I go with it. But since I’ve been running hard and heavy with Narcisa, I mostly do my thing at Leme, since it’s my seaside office closest to home. I like to be able to just get up and go whenever she calls me. Seven minutes by motorcycle to home. Seven minutes to Narcisa.

Seven minutes to Narcisa.

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2008.

NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw. Os personagens mencionados são inteiramente fictícios. Certos eventos, personagens, lugares e relatos, foram baseados em fatos reais, porém qualquer semelhança a qualquer pessoa viva ou morta se trata de pura coincidência. As várias fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.

After sufficiently stuffing her face with everything she ordered, and then eating the shrapnel, Narcisa promptly informed Jonathan and I that we would be taking a field trip to the Parque Lage, the famed place of many of her crimes, such as this one:

“Soon I getting com-for-table inside there, Cigano, I make light up an’ go for take it one big hit an’ then, boo! I look him an’ he sitting right over there at the rock by side of me…”
“Who!?”
“The e’scorpion!”

And this one!

“an’ then it come all for sudden the big e’sploding with the… morcegos, how to say it? The bat. Bat! Hundred the bat Cigano, an’ all come fly fly fly out on the back the cave, hundred the terrible little bat, flipping flipping all over me, squiking like the mouses an’ the rats, attack on to my head, flopping flopping squiking an’ fly fly all over my eye. “

Let’s not forget this one:

“Yes, the monkey, Cigano! They attack-ed to me! An’ they all e’stand-ed ’round me all e’scream on me, an’ they make the throw the thing on to me, the branch an’ the rock, all thing like these.”

She also informed me that she and I were taking a cab and that I was paying.

“Ey! Vamo pra Parque Lage, okey?” She screeched at one of the cab drivers who was at that time enjoying a beer.

The cab ride to the Parque Lage was interesting, not as interesting as the ride HOME, but that is for later. She told me of her childhood in the small town of Penedo, about her siblings and about her love for babies, her hope to one day have one, which was another surprise to me. Narcisa was starting to seem more like a girl than this ghost that I’d always viewed her as.

NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw e Alessandra DeBenedetti. Os personagens mencionados são inteiramente fictícios. Certos eventos, personagens, lugares e relatos, foram baseados em fatos reais, porém qualquer semelhança a qualquer pessoa viva ou morta se trata de pura coincidência. As várias fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.

Jonathan Shaw’s a talented storyteller, a true old-school schemer with a criminal mind and heart who’s really lived what he writes. We’ve shared whorehouse adventures and many laughs all over the world together. Welcome to Hell.

-Steve Bonge, Hells Angels New York City/ Author of Marked for Life and Tattooed with Attitude

Self pity. Self justification. Self obsession. Self destruction. Poor Narcisa.
I think about the crimes and punishments of my parents; My stepfather’s pathetic laments, even as my mother lay dying on a shit-stained matress in the next room from the ravages of a life of
madness and untreated alcoholism. How he stood there and cried like a baby, saying, “I never thought this was how we would spend our lives in the end. All our plans and dreams…”
So much for the fucking American Dream. Death on the installment plan. Shit.
Denial. The belief that the satisfaction of their primary instincts for wealth and power and prestige and material comfort, sex and luxury will somehow open the gates to an artificial garden of eternal
happiness, the childish belief in a man made plastic paradise… The road to insanity and death. Self delusional, egocentric Ignorance of life’s true purpose and value. And intellectual pride. Oh yeh. Pride and fear. That unholy pair has killed more addicts and alcoholics over history than all the liquor and drugs and wars and scourges and plagues and diseases of mankind combined. Shit, I saw it kill my whole family off before I was old enough to know myself, or start my own dark descent into its ugly world of trouble and doom, seeking that same artificial paradise. Shit.
I just remember looking at my stepfather that day with a mixture of
pity and utter contempt.
And now here we are, me and Narcisa, reliving the whole nasty
scenario all over again like a recurring nightmare merry-go-round of
horror you can’t ever get off. Shit.

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2008. All Rights Reserved.
NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw. Os personagens mencionados são inteiramente fictícios. Certos eventos, personagens, lugares e relatos, foram baseados em fatos reais, porém qualquer semelhança a qualquer pessoa viva ou morta se trata de pura coincidência. As várias fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.

“Jonathan Shaw. There are many words different people may use to describe him. What some may see as only a shallow, brash and impetuous incendiary; actually is a true philosophical, transcendent soul. With layers of insight waiting to be peeled away.” - By Lizzy Garcia

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

Posted on LACityzine’s blog, and on Johnny-Depp.org, the article’s a pretty extensive and deep interview with JS regarding his tattoo career and his writing career. [click either link to read the article]

Narcisa: Our Lady of Ashes has been reviewed by the fine people of Playboy.

For the full review, Click here. 

               Journal entry - 12 June 2005

               Narcisa. She’s a living mass of contradictions.

               The sweetest most open-minded curious savagely authentic courageous generous vibrant and uncompromisingly principled and idealistic girl I’ve ever known. Spontaneous ironic questioning poetic mind. Intelligent confusing brilliant crazed exuberant eccentric beyond measure.

              Damaged beyond repair…

              And with all that, over these last couple of years I’ve known her, especially the last month we’ve been running close again, she’s managed to alternately manifest an equally hateful violent vicious wild animal nature, a perverse mean streak way beyond any reasonable human social constraints. Untamed. Untamable. Selfish, intolerant, hyperactive, impatient, closed-minded and petty as a spoiled autistic brat crossed with an angry, bitter old lady. Spiteful, superstitious, suspicious, destructive. Then suddenly equally charming and charismatic in that indefinable way only children and wild animals can be. And maybe Lucifer.

              Lucifer. He who carries the Light.

              Savage Grace.

              She finally told me what she’d meant that first night we met, when she said, “Do it whatever you wan’ doing to me, Gypsy only don’ to hurt my little brothers, they the innocent one.”

             Turns out later she’d been tripping on Acid and she thought I was the Devil, the Dark Angel she’d long ago made a pact with, finally arrived to take his due.

              Lucifer, that’s me.

             I don’t know if I was insulted or flattered.

               Narcisa.

              Narcisa’s an insane passionate warrior spirit who talks to the Dead, walking her daily tightrope between life and death, enlightenment and madness, pure unconditional love and raving, bone-crushing rage.

              A tightrope artist without a Circus.

              A seeker without a Path…

              Bouncing back and forth between an almost Saintly, martyr-like humility and a dark pathological arrogance and cowardly stupidity that baffles me blind from one moment to the next in a constant dizzy roller coaster ride of emotional freefall and doomsday adrenaline.

             When Narcisa is high on drugs, she’s generally creepy and more or less criminally insane.

             When she isn’t high though, she’s worse.

              Often much worse.

              And she knows it. That’s the real sting. Knowing you’re mad as a hatter and not having the least bit of power to control it.   

              Shit.

              Any prolonged period of abstinence forces her into a terrible state of unrelenting agony where she teeters dangerously between fits of homicidal fury and suicidal depression.

             Or both.

              Shit.

             Arghhh but she’s sealed her fate now, living out her pact with the Dark Forces she’s aligned herself with at last. And she’s gonna have to ride that angry ride till the wheels fall off. Nothing I can do to help her out now. Nothing.

           This is where I get off.

           Tonight she ran off again. With another teenaged floozy, headed for the hills. Abandoned me like a dead man’s sneaker. 

           Again.

           Last straw.

           I had to let her go. Again. At least for now. She’ll be back. But it doesn’t matter, there’s no way we can keep going at this pace anymore anyway. No no no. Too frantic, too violent…

           Hopeless.

           I’m gonna miss her though. My sweet and bitter darling. Maybe someday.

           Maybe.

           What an amazing, terrible creature. Totality of excruciating experience, passion, hunger, lust.

           Savage Grace.

           God protect her.

           God help us all.

           Good Night.

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2008. All Rights Reserved.

NOTIFIÇAO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção - registrados na Biblioteca Nacional como ficção com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor, Jonathan Shaw. Os personagens mencionados são interamente ficticios. Certos eventos, personagens, lugares e relatos foram baseados em fatos reais, porém qualquer semelhança a qualquer pessoa viva ou morta se trata de pura coincidência.As vários fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.

 We’ve finally made the big time now, me and Narcisa.
 Now we’ve got a stalker.
 What makes such a dark, cowardly, bottom-feeding creature operate?
 How can such a pathetic, vampiric entity exist?
 These are some of the issues and questions I want to contemplate and explore here today.
 The Japanese have an old saying that seems to perfectly reflect the slavish beehive mentality of the reptilian brain, an integral aspect of the human psyche which seems to manifest itself more and more in modern society as the forces of darkness turn up the volume on our species as a whole, in what seems to be a concerted underhanded effort to convert the human race into little more than some new breed of powerless, mind-controlled zombie cattle.
 Here’s what the Jappos say:
 ”Don’t be the nail that stands out, or you will be the first one to get hit.”
 Narcisa and have comitted the crime of standing out.
 Now we are starting to get hit.

A bit of free advice- we have been known to hit back.

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2008. All Rights Reserved.

NOTIFIÇAO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção - registrados na Biblioteca Nacional como ficção com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor, Jonathan Shaw. Os personagens mencionados são interamente ficticios. Certos eventos, personagens, lugares e relatos foram baseados em fatos reais, porém qualquer semelhança a qualquer pessoa viva ou morta se trata de pura coincidência.As vários fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.

She’s reading aloud from the dictionary as if she were reciting the most soulful beautiful poetry, with such expressive tone and cadence and fire! For the previous two hours she spoke in so many brilliant discourses that I got absolutely lost. She took a big hit a couple of hours ago, then she lay on the floor on her back and started talking:

“I am only a doll, a toy, a homeless defenseless young girl out in
the world, on the street, the rubber doll to play with. Toy to burn
out and use up, exploit, destroy, throw away. Plastic. Disposable. The
little toy for the men on the streets for play with and throw away. I
am a toy. Disposable. Cheap. Plastic and rubber. To play with and
break and throw it out when is used up and no fun for play with no
more…”

Then she just shifted. She started talking with this happy, playful little girl voice with the sweetest little smile, giggling mischievously, and I knew it was on: spirit possession. There’s this entity that takes over sometimes, a little girl. She likes to sing and play and tell me childish little stories. It’s a benevolent, playful spirit, like a sprite or nymph or something like that. It doesn’t come around too often, usually only when she’s been up for more than a couple of days. But it’s quite charming when it does possess her. And it likes sex, it likes to get fucked, long and hard. And it excites me to no end. I think of it as the ‘Lolita spirit’. More than anything else, that’s part of what always keeps life with Narcisa constantly exciting and compelling. Multiple personalities. She’s many many women and girls with many faces, all wrapped up in one dizzying paranormal totality of experience. People say she’s crazy. And what if she is. I guess that would make me crazy too, since she’s the only girl in the world I feel compelled to want to experience as every
lesson and teaching and challenge for the evolution and edification of my soul, my very life itself.

Hours later, it’s all shifting, changing, morphing, never stable or predictable and now Narcisa is gone, really gone, left her physical and spiritual body open to OTHER beings. I guess this is what it means for a person to be ‘unbalanced’. Completely disconnected from themself.

The drug has taken her over completely now. And the various entities that accompany her are weighing down her entire being. Nothing I can do to pull her off this vicious cycle merry-go-round that is running off its tracks and spinning wildly, digging a hole down down down into the deepest regions of Hell.

What to do? I know she can’t step off this infernal machine. I gotta get off. But how? When? Were trapped together on this dirty little journey.

She’s reading some book she found on the street today, reading it as if it contained the secrets to the universe. Whatever. Insanity. Paranoia. Disease. Dysfunction. Reading out-loud, fast, crazy, driven, spouting out words and theories like a sidewalk preacher babbling bible phrases. Now she’s reduced to this futile cocaine-driven babbling, beating her lips compulsively and furiously like a demented wind up toy, a plastic doll, burning out, running out of energy and soon she’ll need more of the drug cuz she can’t stop and she goes goes goes. Nonsense. Nothing. Breaking through dimensions into another alien reality and this is her way, her only path to enlightenment, and I must respect it beyond all the well-intentioned common wisdom and theoretical knowledge and information available in this current, albeit pathetically limited reality-view. This shit looks to me like pure, indominable psychosis, the hamster wheel, and it goes round and round and round and she can’t get off and I can’t get off and this, my little friends, is Hell.

Just for today. As, momentarily I abandon all hope again and again and again…

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2008. All Rights Reserved.

NOTIFIÇAO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção - registrados na Biblioteca Nacional como ficção com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor, Jonathan Shaw. Os personagens mencionados são interamente ficticios. Certos eventos, personagens, lugares e relatos foram baseados em fatos reais, porém qualquer semelhança a qualquer pessoa viva ou morta se trata de pura coincidência.As vários fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.