South London Gangster in Colombia
SUMMARY: This story of John Rowley, a British conman / gangster and old friend of The Mick, includes famous heists, jaw-dropping excess and drug abuse, prison, and an early death.
Alternate Title: Old Prison Pal of The Mick Lives Fast, Dies Young
The Mick first heard of John Rowley in his days as a heroin-addicted thief on the streets of London. Both worked among the criminal underworld of petty crime and bank robberies. The Mick had heard of an established gunman named John Rowley but didn’t meet him until their paths crossed in Colombia.
In The Mick’s words, John Rowley was a conman and playboy who’d charm anybody he met while relieving them of value, then would turn around and spend everything he stole with anybody around him on amazing excess. This story of John Rowley is entirely based on what he told The Mick and what The Mick saw with his own eyes. … Read more
A Little Background on The Mick
SUMMARY: Some character development on The Mick is in order. This post has a slew of shorts about his past, his alcoholism, his taste in women, his slang, etc.
The Mick and I have been hanging out almost every day in planning a new business. I’m getting to know him pretty well. It’s strange, but I already consider him a good friend. I want to see him stay off the booze and out of trouble. I want to make a ton of money together. And I’d like to be able to send him back to Ireland someday. Maybe I’ll go too.
One reason we get along is that we have so much in common. It’s uncanny sometimes. If you could somehow tweak my personality wiring to de-emphasize education and ambition while strengthening alcoholism and drug abuse, then The Mick would be a spitting image of me in 20 years. … Read more
The Mick’s Prison Murder
SUMMARY: The Mick participated in murdering a fellow inmate during the first year of his 4-year sentence in Colombian prison. This is the story.
WARNING: There’s graphic violence in this story. Women, children, parents, nuns, clergy – you’ve been warned. If you don’t want to read grisly prison violence, then do NOT click:
Yaje / Ayahuasca in Colombia
SUMMARY: I took yaje, a spiritual hallucinogen also known as ayahuasca, with Dennis The Mick last Saturday. This post features info on ayahuasca and the story of my experience.
Yaje, also known as ayahuasca, is a hallucinogenic brew made by mixing a few specific plants from the Amazon jungle. It’s most closely associated with Peru but also taken among indigenous populations in Ecuador, Colombia, and Brazil. Beatnik writers William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg made ayahuasca famous after writing The Yage Letters.
Ayahuasca has the chemical compounds of DMT, the drug that fried one of Ken Kesey’s Merry Prankster groupie’s brains out in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. However, that was a super-concentrated pill form made in some 1960s experimental lab.
In practice, Ayahuasca is a spiritual exercise run by shamans. … Read more
The Mick and The Addicts
SUMMARY: This post is a preview of upcoming content. A new feature to the blog will be stories from three new friends: Dennis The Mick and my two addict buddies, Winston and Alejandro. Dennis from ‘Dublin Docks’ moved to Colombia in the 80s intending to move cocaine. He did four years in prison, where he learned Spanish, and stayed in Colombia ever since. My two addict buddies were bazuceros in the 90s. They went sober about 8 years ago, so their fascinating tales from the trenches of Bogota’s drug scene survived.
The Mick
I was walking through Plaza Lourdes one day when some old man spoke to me in English. He asked about my St. Patrick’s Day t-shirt. Assuming he was a panhandler, I played tough and tried to brush him off, but he managed to slow me down and introduce himself. Dennis from Dublin, Ireland, has lived in Bogota for over 20 years and hadn’t met a gringo in a while. He invited me to coffee. I agreed.
We sat down in a cafe and Dennis ordered two teas. I got his story.
He came to Colombia in the 80s; his original intent was to bring large quantities of cocaine back to Ireland. … Read more
