NEWS: The Sunday Hangover With Warren Ellis

CULTURE: The Sunday Hangover With Warren Ellis

THE SUNDAY HANGOVER
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WARREN ELLIS

It was a grim Sunday in Iceland when my hosts drove me out into the interior of the country -- the central area that they close off for six months of the year because if you go there you will just die. The interior of Iceland looks like the moon, only with moss speckling the rocks. Apollo astronauts trained here. The moon probably looks nicer. And in a spacesuit you don't have to inhale the tang of geyser-polluted air that makes much of Iceland smell like an army of sick old men have been farting on it since Noah was a boy. We drove out to a black cave in the middle of nowhere. Just a hump of black rock. The hollow didn't extend back more than thirty metres from the mouth. It was full of language: Icelandic words scratched into almost every inch of the rock. "My neighbour," one of my hosts said, "was one of the last people to be born here. In 1929." I looked around again. All those scratches. The marks of families who'd lived in this cave, generations going back hundreds of years. And empty for less than a century. It wasn't a cave. I was standing in an old house on a stand-in for the moon.

It was then that I realized that they were all grinning weirdly, and backing away towards the cars, and that the nearest settlement was fifty miles away.

I have always hated Sundays.

* * * * *

My name's Warren Ellis. I write books and things. I am not the Warren Ellis who plays violin and works with Nick Cave. He's Australian, for one thing. No relation, unless his great-grandad was some dodgy offshoot of the family who was deported for stealing a pig or something. Years ago, Blixa Bargeld sent me an email, thinking I was the other one. It was a litany of horror, detailing their mutual friends who'd died, gone mad and/or been hospitalized since last they spoke. A woman who works at Mute Records once wrote to tell me that the other Warren Ellis had grown a beard, and that they blamed me for it. I heard from the man himself about a year ago: we're supposed to have a drink at some point. We share a mutual friend in Jim Sclavunos, the unreasonably tall Bad Seeds drummer and Vanity Set frontman. Haven't clapped eyes on him in years -- was supposed to see him in London last year, I think, but I was in the West Country, eating a pig and watching the Medieval Baebes performing ten feet in front of me. The Medieval Baebes are very pale and very thin and do not wear underwear. From a certain angle, with the light falling the right way, you can see what the Medieval Baebes had for dinner. Britain's tv organic farmer Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall -- a posh bloke who slaughters his own livestock with disturbing relish on camera -- was also in attendance. "He only comes for the booze," the staff muttered darkly, as he tottered around the tent with a blunt butter knife looking for a pig to kill. But it was too late: medieval food expert Stuart Peachey had already pickled the bugger around back. The staff came to our bench, as the vinegar pig was served to my daughter. "Why did you bring her?" they said. "She's too young to die."

"Try this," my daughter grinned, offering me some. So I did. My tongue started to bleed and eight of my teeth fell out.

"No she fucking isn't," I said to the staff.

* * * * *

I was having dinner with a visiting American comedian friend in London a couple of years ago -- one of Marco Pierre White's restaurants -- and he and the others convinced me to order the "roast suckling pig" on the menu. There was great anticipation as the dish arrived -- it was fast, we only had time to drink a couple of bottles of wine each. But it was three slices of pork and a sliver of apple. I still pity the other diners who had to put up with the people at the back yelling "Where's my fucking pig? Bring us the pig! Get out there and kill me a fucking pig! We demand a pig with Marco Pierre White in its mouth, right fucking now!"

Marco Pierre White, if you're reading this -- you are a weakling. Furthermore, you owe me a pig.

Patton Oswalt does not yell "Where's the fucking pig?" in RATATOUILLE this weekend.

* * * * *

Hello. Now we are introduced. Through the magic of Suicide Girls, you will be waking up to me every Sunday morning. Isn’t that a comforting thought?

Warren Ellis wants you to buy his bloody book.

Dear Warren....

I've ALREADY bought LOADS of your bloody books!!
.
..
...
So there!!!


But as you ask so nicely....

unless your in the UK and then its the afternoon, although for a lot of people they're probably only just waking up

What a wonder way to start my Sundays. It is an honor, Sir.

Good morning! Your column made me very hungry and I am now craving Marco Pierre White and his suckling pig for breakfast.

I've always wanted to go to Iceland. Not too sure if your account of the place has sharpened my desire to visit or killed it stone dead.

quite an introduction; i loved it. welcome to the site. next sunday can't come soon enough. also, can't wait to get my hands on your bloody book.

The perfect way to cap-off a weekend.

*goes off to re-read Nextwave*

Hey, I've already plugged the damn thing, what more do you want?

Seriously, if there's anyone reading this who isn't already familiar with Warren's work, run out right now, right this fucking minute, and start buying some graphic novels. What, you want suggestions? Try...

Fell, Nextwave, Planetary, Transmetropolitan, Ocean, Orbiter, The Authority, Desolation Jones, Global Frequency, Strange Killings or Stormwatch.

All of them are bloody fantastic.

This is a VERY comforting thought.

If I were to stand at an equal distance between Warren Ellis, Brad Warner and Wil Wheaton, I pretty sure I'd be struck with an otherworldly charge that would lift my body at least 10 - 12 inches.

They just keep making it harder to quit this site.

So the whole "Where's my fucking ____?!?!" thing is just an Ellisianism that got brought over into whateveritwasIreadthatonetime. I'm so disillusioned now.

I've woken up on a Sunday, drunk and bleary eyed, next to full-bearded strangers before, so things won't be all that different. And you aren't naked, and you don't look like the sort to want to spoon as I cry in shame, so that will be a nice change of pace.

This is the fifth time iceland has come up since last sunday.

You fucking weirdos.

I find this comforting as well, somehow. Welcome to the sprawl.

I was in a burial mound in Scotland once - it had Viking graffiti carved into the walls. I thought that was creepy becuase no one was around. My mistake. Iceland has always been on my list of places to see before I die.

This makes me happy.

It is both much better and much worse than I suggest.

Don't drink the Brennivin.

Your book comes out on my birthday.

Thank you.

That was very kind.

dear internet jesus, this is the best thing you've written since nextwave...well thaty i've read. ok fine this is the first thing i've read of yours since nextwave ended...other than your blogs.

entertaining as always

YES!!!

i tried to have a hangover all special-like for this first installment, too, but apparently i seem to have kicked Captain Morgan right in his private stock. it was great. i had a hat. leather tricorn. but there was no booty to be had, because i am a sad, sad little man. so i did as i always do: make do with jacking off on unsuspecting passers by from far overhead. the seagulls are out in force this time of year. it makes for a good cover. apparently people (and the courts, too) don't liked receiving the gift of gifts that is my seed. but if a flying, wicked little vermin shits on you because it hates you, it's oh so very funny. i'll never understand people.

i should have had scotch. but scotch is expensive, especially on a baby seal clubber's wages. oh, back in the day, it paid to club baby seals. back then you could skin 'em and sell their supple white-furred hides for people to turn into coats or masturbate with. now, though, thanks to technological progress, they can vat-grow a baby seal cheaper than what it takes to raise a cow. baby seal fur market's bottom fell out, leaving me clubbing the little shits on an assembly line. and not getting paid enough. so next time you bite into one of those delicious ground Seabert Special burgers you love so much, think of me. and how i don't have scotch thanks to you and "progress."

I'm sure Marco Pierre White's establishments would be far more popular if this was a weekly occurence, besides for the ridiculous price the dish undoubtedly costs I'd be downright insulted if I got less than a whole pig with a chef in it's mouth.

a true connoisseur can tell. and faux-seal boxer short ride up something fierce.

It's great to have an author I'm actually familiar with added to the pantheon of excellent SG columnists. Welcome Mr. Ellis, and I look forward to your weekly ramblings.