Rolling the Dice, Man

I don’t know how many people reading this would be familiar with the now-defunct British magazine Loaded. For men of a certain age, it was something of a lifestyle bible, and told you everything you needed to know about, well, life and style.

In a 1999 issue they named an obscure (to me, anyway) American writer by the name of Luke Rhinehart, ‘Novelist of the Century.’ He was awarded this accolade largely due to a book he wrote called The Dice Man, which carried the rather catchy tag (on some editions) ‘Few novels can change your life, this one will.’ Until that point, I’d thought Stephen King was ‘Novelist of the Century.’ Still do, actually. So this was news to me. Loaded were very rarely wrong about such important things, so I went out and found a copy of said book in HMV. Then I stuck it on my ever-expanding book shelf and promptly forgot about it. Fast forward a few years, and I’m a mature student with a lot of free time on my hands. Enter The Dice Man.

In a nutshell, the book tells the story of a psychiatrist called Luke Rhinehart (which makes it kind of a mock autobiography) who, feeling bored and unsatisfied with life, decides to stop making decisions. Instead, he rolls a dice, and lets fate decide which path he should take. As far as I remember, the rule of the ‘game’ is that you give yourself six options, one for each number on the dice. Five reasonably attractive things that you wouldn’t mind doing, and one thing you don’t want to do. But you have to be prepared to do it.

On the surface, its a book about freedom, the search for adventure, and fucking the system. I’m sure many of the deeper psychological concepts and themes were lost on me at the time. You kind of grasp most of them, but not with much clarity. The result is that they linger in your subconscious for years after.

I was so taken with the book that one summer I bought a one-way ticket to Spain and decided to live by the dice for a while. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t let the dice decide anything important. That would be stupid. I just let it dictate the little things like which places I should travel through and in what order (as it tuned out, it was Alicante, Benidorm, Murcia, Granada and Malaga, in that order), and when I got there which tapas bar I should I stop at, which hostel should I stay in, and whether or not I should hit on the cute American tourist with the flower in her hair. Nothing remotely negative happened, apart from the cute American tourist with the flower in her hair saying no. But even that wasn’t a total blow-out. The two of us got talking to a Spanish gypsy girl called Estrella (Star) and I took her home instead.

Playing the dice was a liberating experience, and I spent most of the time strolling through the sunshine wallowing in a carefree attitude sadly missing from my daily life. But at the same time, it was slightly unnerving. I wasn’t in control of my life anymore. Something else was, some higher force. Call it what you want; fate, destiny, the Cosmic Joker, God, whatever. After a while you begin to wonder what path you are on, and why. Is it really all random? Or is there some kind of plan involved? Interesting times, indeed. It’s also kind of dangerous, in the sense that the dice allow you an excuse to be reckless.

Why did you do that stupid thing? 

Because the dice told me to do it.

Ironically, it was Tim Southwell, writer and one-time editor of Loaded, who said:

“A man without responsibility is like Genghis Khan.”

Luke Rhinehart is the pseudonym of George Cockroft, who has written numerous books and essays, including several other ‘Dice’ books. The original, first published in 1971, has attained cult status, and been published in over 60 countries. In 2012 he pranked his own death, the mentalist, but in reality is still going strong at the age of 83. Throw a dice for him. You won’t regret it. Actually, you might. But that’s part of the fun.

Postscript: Many years later, I fulfilled a long-held dream by writing a few features for Loaded. They didn’t pay me and I had to sue them to get my money. I really should have seen that one coming.

The Worst Month Ever

“When is life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, “Why God? Why me?”

And the thundering voice of God answered, “There’s just something about you that pisses me off…”

(From Storm of the Century, original screenplay by Stephen King)

I’m not one to complain. I am usually pretty successful at convincing myself that however bad things get, there’s always someone worse off. But honestly, July 2012 was a bitch. My family wasn’t killed and my farm wasn’t destroyed, but I definitely think I pissed God off.

My run of bad luck started back in China, where I work most of the year.

Firstly, after spending a sleepless night at Shanghai Hongqiao airport, at 6am the next morning I transferred to Pudong International airport on the other side of the city. On arrival I tried to check in for my 9am flight, only to be informed that the flight was overbooked and I had been shunted onto a later flight. I didn’t mind too much. I only had to wait another 3 hours and was paid compensation. Then, after a 10-hour flight I arrived at Heathrow airport and went to get a National Express coach to Cardiff. It was late. As were all the coaches. My 7pm coach finally arrived at around 8.30.

Again, not such a big deal. You expect these things when you travel regularly. But by now circumstances were beginning to mount up, and I began mentally checking my Karma account. Little did I know, things were about to slip into a higher gear…

I have had my Toshiba laptop for just over a year – long enough for the 12-month warranty to expire – and never had a problem with it. Until, of course, the warranty expired. Then I turned it on one morning to find that there was no file association. I had no idea what to do, so I took it to a repair shop where it was held captive for two days before the owner presented me with a large bill. Problem solved, or so I thought.

I live for my laptop. Don’t mess with my laptop. When I am away it is my TV, my stereo, my communication device, and my work station. At approximately the same time the warranty on my laptop expired, so did my virus protection. For a matter of hours, my baby had no protection and was open to attack.

Obviously, she was attacked.

Some cyber turd hacked into my hotmail and Microsoft responded by blocking my email account indefinitely. Cue several long-winded calls to the Customer Care department and another hefty bill, this time for a software engineer, before my computer was declared ‘safe.’

Next, I travelled to London to see Bruce Springsteen at Hard rock Calling. But the gig was cut short when over-zealous council jobsworths pulled out the power cord as punishment for exceeding a curfew by 15 minutes (see earlier post).

The following weekend, I was mugged by three teenagers who stole my phone and money and left me bleeding by the side of the road. I spent a night in casualty and the next several days giving witness statements to the police. The police took my favourite jeans, and my new trainers, for DNA testing. I still haven’t had my clothes back, nor the items that were stolen, and though the police have suspects they are yet to arrest anyone.

Finally, I recently posted a bad review of a book I purchased on Amazon I don’t usually write bad reviews, but this was a bad book!

Somebody (I suspect the author of the book I reviewed) responded to my criticism by writing shocking, fake, 1-star reviews of all my published work for the same site, under several aliases.

To their credit, Amazon investigated and removed the offending reviews for breaching user guidelines, but while they were investigating, the reviews were there for all to see for several days. I can only imagine how it impacted on sales.

They say what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, but after this soul-destroying run, I am left pondering… whatever next?