I'm thinking now about the time Geoff Lemon stayed in The Peach, in the library, before it was properly organised and still housed the old floral stink source of a sofa bed I dragged in off the street. He was fresh back from both overseas and Newcastle and had in his possession only one bag and a tiny laptop computer. It was really minuscule and I wondered how on earth he managed to get anything done on such a tiny screen. But work he did.
He sat there nearly all day and worked on his tiny computer. Today I have been moving from room to room, working variously on paper or in notebooks or my relatively large laptop. I haven't been able to find one good place to sit and work. Every half hour I move again and try once more to settle into the work. Thinking about the solid concentration and work of Geoff that day in The Peach Library I feel a little ashamed and awkwardly unprofessional.
I suppose there is only one thing to be done. I shall go back in time and start this day again.
Showing posts with label Geoff Lemon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Geoff Lemon. Show all posts
Lemon Gold
Geoff Lemon has dropped another one, this time it's about Qantas.
"Of course, those of a certain view will always find a way to blame unions. The unions faked the moon landings. The unions gave me herpes. Union dingoes took my baby. The unions are the reason why my kids hate me and my wife never quite looks me in the eye anymore." - Click here to read the rest on Heathen Scripture
"Of course, those of a certain view will always find a way to blame unions. The unions faked the moon landings. The unions gave me herpes. Union dingoes took my baby. The unions are the reason why my kids hate me and my wife never quite looks me in the eye anymore." - Click here to read the rest on Heathen Scripture
Last night I didn't see anybody going down but I saw a few people swinging
 |
| Geoff Lemon, his vest and A.H. Cayley at PPR |
Spencer turned thirty and thought nothing of it
Spencer turned thirty on Saturday. It was about fucking time. He's been in his twenties the whole time I've known him, first he was twenty-one and then a whole year at every age until thirty. It's been a long ride.
Thirty is one of those reflective birthdays where you sit down and have a little think. The first things I thought about were how much he has annoyed me, which is a lot but probably not quite as much as I have annoyed him. Friendship is sometimes a two-way annoyer-annoyee contract. I was thinking about making some notes about the annoying times but that would be easy and a little glib. Then I thought about the moments of support through sorrow, betrayal or ridiculous romantic muddles with hideously inappropriate men. Spencer was there for all of them but that too would be easy.
What is more difficult are moments of friendship and understanding that drop like a mantle pinning you still for just a second while the world glides on your own gentle axis.
Last Saturday I had to read a short story in front of an audience. I did not want to. I was petrified. I was coerced into going through with the deed by a horde of people, Spencer being one of them. I had friends in the crowd, all of them lovely, but Spencer was the one I knew I would go to if I fucked it up royally, made an irredeemable fool of myself and needed someone to make a fast exit with. I shouldn't have been so afraid, writers do this kind of thing all the time, but I was because before that night I've always said no, let my fear guide my answer and just said no.
The reading went with no major hitches, no one was more surprised than me. My next move should have been the bar, but the crowd seemed impenetrable. They were planted wall-to-wall like cross-legged rocks, jagged and unable to be stepped upon. I gave up on the idea of a drink but Spencer went over the back of the armchair he was holed up on and picked his way to the bar.
He strode back towards me, triumphant over the cross-legged crowd, holding two open bottles of beer. I saw he was heading for some difficulty, climbing simultaneously between the red hanging wall partitions and over the back of a sofa. I stood up to help and fell into a five second ballet. He came up suddenly over the back of the sofa rising gracefully as an eagle, passing a bottle into my open hand then placing his empty hand on the top of my head for balance. While he was up there, tall as a rafter, I looked up at the travelling arc of him and realised we were mirroring the same grin, shining and elongated with one long unlit cigarette out of the corner of each of our mouths. I kept looking and grinning as the flat palm of his hand centred his descent and he came to rest feet first on the ground.
It seemed to me that everything was communicated in that five second arc over the back of an old sofa with full beer bottles and unlit cigarettes and stupid grins. It seemed to me like we'd sat for hours talking, me saying how much I had needed him there, him saying of course he was going to be there and that I did alright. Me saying that for years it was him turning his back and taking three tall steps up and onto a stage and that it seemed important somehow that just this once it was me doing the climbing. Him saying that I did it, and he knew all along that I could.
I don't suppose it sounds like much, five seconds of grinning and balancing in the quest for beer but just in that moment it was everything. To be wordlessly understood as the somersaulting mix of fear and relief left me giddy. To know absolutely that his open palm on the top of my head was guiding him safely back down no less than his presence was safely guiding me.
Spencer is one hell of a friend. So happy birthday to him.
note:
I actually received an overwhelming amount of encouraging advice and support about mastering my stage fright and reading my story. From a whole bunch of people like Gemnastics, Geoff Lemon, Anushka, Spencer, Vanessa Berry, Thomas G Watts, my mum and especially Tim Sinclair who came to my house and got all Geoffrey Rush on my Colin Firth arse but right now this is about Spencer.
I am grateful to the people who came up to me afterwards and said they liked my story, especially the people who quoted lines of it back to me, that was odd but nice that you remembered some of my words. And to the woman in the red coat at The Duke thank you for coming up to me and saying you liked my story, days and days and days after the fact. That was kind of great.
Oh and erm, thanks Pip Smith and Penguin Plays Rough for making me do it, giving me free drinks and then paying me money. I hid the money in my sock drawer.
Thirty is one of those reflective birthdays where you sit down and have a little think. The first things I thought about were how much he has annoyed me, which is a lot but probably not quite as much as I have annoyed him. Friendship is sometimes a two-way annoyer-annoyee contract. I was thinking about making some notes about the annoying times but that would be easy and a little glib. Then I thought about the moments of support through sorrow, betrayal or ridiculous romantic muddles with hideously inappropriate men. Spencer was there for all of them but that too would be easy.
What is more difficult are moments of friendship and understanding that drop like a mantle pinning you still for just a second while the world glides on your own gentle axis.
Last Saturday I had to read a short story in front of an audience. I did not want to. I was petrified. I was coerced into going through with the deed by a horde of people, Spencer being one of them. I had friends in the crowd, all of them lovely, but Spencer was the one I knew I would go to if I fucked it up royally, made an irredeemable fool of myself and needed someone to make a fast exit with. I shouldn't have been so afraid, writers do this kind of thing all the time, but I was because before that night I've always said no, let my fear guide my answer and just said no.
The reading went with no major hitches, no one was more surprised than me. My next move should have been the bar, but the crowd seemed impenetrable. They were planted wall-to-wall like cross-legged rocks, jagged and unable to be stepped upon. I gave up on the idea of a drink but Spencer went over the back of the armchair he was holed up on and picked his way to the bar.
He strode back towards me, triumphant over the cross-legged crowd, holding two open bottles of beer. I saw he was heading for some difficulty, climbing simultaneously between the red hanging wall partitions and over the back of a sofa. I stood up to help and fell into a five second ballet. He came up suddenly over the back of the sofa rising gracefully as an eagle, passing a bottle into my open hand then placing his empty hand on the top of my head for balance. While he was up there, tall as a rafter, I looked up at the travelling arc of him and realised we were mirroring the same grin, shining and elongated with one long unlit cigarette out of the corner of each of our mouths. I kept looking and grinning as the flat palm of his hand centred his descent and he came to rest feet first on the ground.
It seemed to me that everything was communicated in that five second arc over the back of an old sofa with full beer bottles and unlit cigarettes and stupid grins. It seemed to me like we'd sat for hours talking, me saying how much I had needed him there, him saying of course he was going to be there and that I did alright. Me saying that for years it was him turning his back and taking three tall steps up and onto a stage and that it seemed important somehow that just this once it was me doing the climbing. Him saying that I did it, and he knew all along that I could.
I don't suppose it sounds like much, five seconds of grinning and balancing in the quest for beer but just in that moment it was everything. To be wordlessly understood as the somersaulting mix of fear and relief left me giddy. To know absolutely that his open palm on the top of my head was guiding him safely back down no less than his presence was safely guiding me.
Spencer is one hell of a friend. So happy birthday to him.
note:
I actually received an overwhelming amount of encouraging advice and support about mastering my stage fright and reading my story. From a whole bunch of people like Gemnastics, Geoff Lemon, Anushka, Spencer, Vanessa Berry, Thomas G Watts, my mum and especially Tim Sinclair who came to my house and got all Geoffrey Rush on my Colin Firth arse but right now this is about Spencer.
I am grateful to the people who came up to me afterwards and said they liked my story, especially the people who quoted lines of it back to me, that was odd but nice that you remembered some of my words. And to the woman in the red coat at The Duke thank you for coming up to me and saying you liked my story, days and days and days after the fact. That was kind of great.
Oh and erm, thanks Pip Smith and Penguin Plays Rough for making me do it, giving me free drinks and then paying me money. I hid the money in my sock drawer.
Geoff Lemon This Should Not Be Your 15 Minutes
Everyone is talking about Geoff Lemon's Carbon Tax article, and I mean everyone. Click that link back there and have a read if you haven't read it yet (been under a rock?). It's a fine piece of Lemonian writing but my point, and I do have one, is that it is not the first fine thing he has written.
I've been reading Lemon written things for years now, ever since I first saw him come down the outside stairs at The Hive holding a bottle of gin and a chicken sandwich. There was a group of us, all writers, sitting under the stars drinking and playing Balderdash like our lives depended on it.
I have followed Lemon's writings, corresponded with him via electronic mail, purchased his poetry, commissioned him to write for PAN, narrowly avoided arrest with him in public park and even put him up in The Peach Library for a couple of days.
The rest of my point is this. Geoff Lemon is a fine writer and I understand why everyone has gone ape shit over his carbon tax article, it has been on everybody's mind, but I hope this isn't Lemon's 15 minutes of fame because he's better than that. He's been writing well for years and he's getting better all the time. Writers, like Geoff Lemon, deserve a respected place in our society that lasts longer than 15 minutes.
I've been reading Lemon written things for years now, ever since I first saw him come down the outside stairs at The Hive holding a bottle of gin and a chicken sandwich. There was a group of us, all writers, sitting under the stars drinking and playing Balderdash like our lives depended on it.
I have followed Lemon's writings, corresponded with him via electronic mail, purchased his poetry, commissioned him to write for PAN, narrowly avoided arrest with him in public park and even put him up in The Peach Library for a couple of days.
The rest of my point is this. Geoff Lemon is a fine writer and I understand why everyone has gone ape shit over his carbon tax article, it has been on everybody's mind, but I hope this isn't Lemon's 15 minutes of fame because he's better than that. He's been writing well for years and he's getting better all the time. Writers, like Geoff Lemon, deserve a respected place in our society that lasts longer than 15 minutes.
I will now chew my vegemite toast vigorously
The taxi driver smelt like penis but he drove me home so my feet could be silent. Earlier this evening I caught the bus to Glebe. I hate Glebe but I went anyway because Geoff Lemon was doing a spoken word gig at the Friend in Hand. I don't hate Geoff Lemon, not yet.
Geoff performed admirably but offstage he was incoherent with jet lag and exhaustion so I wandered over to Spencer's house and yelled about the internal violence of words. Spencer deserves some kind of medal, in fact he proposed that someone should pay him money for being my 'keeping it real person'. I'm not entirely sure what that job would entail, I assume part of the role is to sit with me in a cafe while I yell about things and accidentally knock over water glasses and ashtrays.
Spencer has a habit of keeping large pieces of folded paper about his person. He will produce one from time to time and let me read over whatever he is working on. There is no greater privilege than seeing a song half-written, before even the song itself is sure of what it should sound like. Though perhaps I would like to rifle through another writer's desk. Uncurl the edges of all of those bits of paper and watch the words crawling towards each other, in the way that words on curled bits of paper do.
After the spoken word gig, after giving up on the possibility of having anything within the realms of a normal conversation with the valiant but sagging Geoff. After walking through the backstreets of Glebe where my feet flashed like imaginary fish and I remembered most of yesterday in slow motion. After Spencer came out of his gate and talked with me about the violence of words, and the taxi driver who smelt like penis, I made two pieces of toast. Spring is the best season for the vigorous chewing of toast, it has none of winter's demands for warm cups and the laying on of blankets.
In other news if you search using the words 'age of adz review', my review is the first result. In your face other people without toast. In your toastless face, is what I would say if I was that way inclined but I'm not so forget about it.
Dear Melbourne
Please attend the launch of Sunblind by Geoff Lemon
Thursday 27th November at 7pm
The Dan O'Connell Hotel function room (the old back bar)
Corner of Princess and Canning streets, Carlton.
I have been reading and rereading this book and can't quite make out what I think of it, I'm taking this as a good sign.
Geoff Lemon is a known associate of The Hivesters. Gemma once described him as an 'increasingly attractive man', the more you stare at him the more attractive he becomes. I did intend to test that theory but was distracted by beating him at Balderdash. That's right, I beat Geoff Lemon at Balderdash, I am adding this to my list of triumphs.
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