Monday 5 December 2011

Michael Balboa and Gilles De Charsonville have been charged by the SEC

And Michael Balboa has been arrested in London, charged with fraud and conspiracy. I have no idea who these men are. They are just names to me. Their lives haven't touched mine. And yet I feel compelled to write about them. What is wrong with me? Maybe it's the ibuprofen. 400 mg! No, I'm always writing about strangers. So it can't be the drugs.

Michael Balboa invested in illiquid bonds in Nigeria and Uruguay. This is against the law. Well, it's not. I think inflating their value is. Balboa worked at Millennium Global Investments. Now he's on leave from ARAM Global. / I didn't even know that the SEC could arrest people in London. Maybe he was arrested somewhere else. Or ... I don't know. It's nearly Christmas and I've got a smashed-up shoulder. I can't ... / Gilles De Charsonville (of BCP Securities). That's a nice name, isn't it? Probably too nice.

I don't even feel mystical. I feel cold, detached. / I reckon I'll be back on the guitar soon. I'm not wearing a sling. Everything's going to be okay. This isn't like Rimbaud with his leg. I'm not going to have anything amputated. This isn't the end, beautiful friend. / I'm listening to the new Amy Winehouse album. There's one great original song on it, Between The Cheats. / I'm glad this isn't like Rimbaud with his leg. Thank you, God! I seem to be getting through it. / That skeleton? My skeleton? I don't want to talk about my skeleton. If it were someone else's skeleton - like Rimbaud's - I would make a joke about it. But I'm not going to joke about my own skeleton, for fuck's sake!