Hot Lips and seventeen separate brain freezes

It used to be Luigi's, now it's a cocktail bar and cafe called Hot Lips. I dragged The Peachettes there tonight after Spicks and Specks finished and the lounge room started to look boring. I expected Hot Lips to be dire. The kind of terrible experience I do on purpose, like going to the RSL and eating a five dollar bowl of pasta while the Portuguese Elvis impersonator sings Roy Orbison songs and it didn't disappoint.

The cocktails were cheap and awful. The bar has one blender which is rinsed and washed between each cocktail. The process of making three cocktails took about fifteen minutes. The Spatula's cocktail tasted peculiarly of honeydew melon, ice and something a little bit like lemon. Mine tasted like sour cherries that had been mashed, frozen, diluted then frozen again before being blended with something quite like lemon. Grizelda chose the Hot Lips cocktail. It was a chocolate, strawberry and ice cream extravaganza with chillis randomly thrown in to surprise the nonchalant sipper.

I spied some Penguins from Penguins Plays Rough, two people who are always in the supermarket and one ex-waitress from my fourth favourite cafe among the happy patrons. The interior designer was our waiter for the evening. I was tempted to ask if he had purposely created the hippie-goth-strawberry-car-smash aesthetic or if the theme had developed naturally. Part of the ceiling is painted in a pink chequer board pattern, the part that is nearest the front door.

We were presented with a platter of free cold food. I am assuming this because it was the grand opening night. The catch was that some of the food is generally best enjoyed hot. I'm including calamari and battered prawn things in the generally best served hot category. The platter was accompanied by some corn chip and a small bowl of dip that can best be described as aerosol cheez whiz mixed with Tang and thousand island dressing.

It might have been the constant bouts of brain freeze from indelible unmeltable cocktail or the hot lips caused by the chilli I stole from Grizelda's cocktail but I did not want to murder the musicians plying their trade in the corner. The three women singing playing guitars and drumming were at times transcedent and at other times high quality background noise.

Close listening to the singers was made impossible by The Spatula who insists, always, on singing along loudly no matter where she is or how close she is to my head and my small but efficient ears. Locations of The Spatula's insistent close and loud singing includes the lounge whilst watching television, any cafe, restaurant or bar, Hot Lips, The Townie, any privately owned vehicle, walking down the street, my bedroom, the bus, the train, a taxi, an aeroplane, The Peach Deck, The Peach Hallway, concerts, The Peach Library, Grizelda's bedroom, all book shops, supermarkets, department store, hardware shop, The Peach Kitchen and other various locations. It is fortunate that she can carry a tune.

I am terribly pleased at the opening of Hot Lips. This is what I hoped for with the demise of draconian liquor licensing laws and the relaxing of live music regulations. I welcome you small, quirky and independent bar.

Temporarily Foiled

By a severe lack of internet. The Spatula returns tomorrow, this brings me joy as it means I will no longer have to hide under the bushes in the Cowboy's garden in an attempt to find the internet.

In the meantime why not read issue three of Bats Magazine?

I am simple to enchant

I am simple to enchant so when Grizelda told me that she'd jumped the locked gate and gone to the forbidden land of downstairs my head nearly exploded with excitement. You see The Peach looks like an ordinary Federation house from the front, this is not a photo of The Peach, but underneath lurks an entire flat, with undercover bbq area and built-in bbq and a backyard The Peachettes are forbidden from entering. We sometimes join the cat in peering over the edge of The Peach Deck to see what we can see, usually its just some long grass and The Cowboy next door hanging his cowboy jackets on the clothes line. Theoretically the landlord Mr Oddweird resides in the flat beneath The Peach, his plentiful mail is delivered daily to The Peach letterbox, he periodically appears at the locked gate and waves as he disappears down the side of the house but according to Grizelda the downstairs flat is empty, filthy, disused and generally unsuitable for human occupation. My simple enchantment is rapidly running to conspiracy theories.

This afternoon a man knocked at the front door, he said he had a delivery for Mr Oddweird. I pointed to the locked gate, he glanced at it but refused to move. He said that he must personally deliver the package to Mr Oddweird but he wasn't holding any package. Not only did he not have a package but he did not arrive in a van or other vehicle suitable for a courier and was not wearing a uniform. He was not clutching one of those electronic delivery thingies or even a clipboard. I becmae highly suspicious when he demanded that I produce a phone number for Mr Oddweird and questioned me as to whether Mr Oddweird was the owner of The Peach. The non-delivery man eventually went away but the question remains, why is Mr Oddweird pretending to live underneath The Peach?

I sail

It rains. The chimney catches air like a phantasm or a ship. I have this idea of weighing anchor and steaming south through wind and rain. I will drop anchor in the vacant block of land next door to The Hive. I am sure they have built something terrible on it by now but when I last walked out of Gemma's front door and crossed the road in search of cake there was nothing but a hole in the ground, three workers sitting on eskys and poorly erected cyclone fencing.

There is room there for The Peach, her deck, a garden and all who sail in her. Spencer will carry his things in boxes and sail onboard The Peach wearing his hat and a guitar. He will then establish himself in a flat in The Hive. My brother will lash ropes round his townhouse and be towed as Ron & Rita row down from the mountains. The Cowboy has attached twin diesel engines to his flat. Robert's house shimmers and slips coordinates with grace at warp speed. Superman will know where to come, he sees all from the Fortress of Solitude.

We are all here. A great fleet pushing south through haunted rain. I am standing on the bow of The Peach, eyes closed against the fierce salt spray.

Big heavy stuff(ed) sofa

The urge overtook me suddenly. I woke from a dream straight into a level ten urge for home improvement. I measured things then set out for the hardware shop but I didn't get far. Outside The Peach was a sofa, its old, faded and overstuffed and precisely the kind of thing I have been dreaming of. I knocked on The Cowboy's door and asked if he had a moment to help me carry it inside. I was worse than useless at handling the logistics of the operation so in the end Grizelda and The Cowboy were the ones cursing, puffing and sweating their way down the hall and into the library.

The Cowboy said he was playing at The Annandale tonight and ordinarily I would have gone but I'm resting my bruised and stupid self this evening on my new sofa in the library. I think its best if I stay in for the foreseeable future. I've decided I can't be trusted outside, in the real world, except for hardware shops, they seem to be ok.


Yeah that photo is a bit shit but do I look like I care?

Thursday's man popped his collar by accident

The Cowboy's band Grand Banks were rather charming like a bumbling Englishman transferred into Canadian Cowboy format. The Cowboy himself stood centre stage with a guitar and microphone wearing his usual clothes and standing in his usual way. I think it was his complete lack of pretentious stage presence that I found most charming watching him up there singing and dancing artlessly with his bum stuck out like a chicken.

The Cowboy appeared to remember feeling comfortable on stage but then he would forget again. I stood near the back of the crowd leaning on a tall table sipping at a pink lemonade. Loene Carmen walked in like a shining god and stood at the bar smiling benevolently in her orange lycra cowgirl dress and tall boots. Grizelda said "Who's that!" while I smiled at Loene and she smiled back. Loene's daughter Holiday Carmen looks like a marble figure carved from the memory of her mother.

The Cowboy's music is cowboy music. He seemed absent from the first few songs like if I squinted I'd see the ghost shape of him standing behind himself clutching worry beads but then in a sudden rush the music became inhabited and was good like an open road and a sure destination.

Loene Carmen played next. Sam, the bass player, was absent because he was traveling back from his Damo Suzuki gig in Melbourne. He was missed. Loene needs Sam and The Mess Hall boys driving her glow out and over the audience with an assured force but still she captivates me.

The Cowboy accidentally popped his collar during a guitar change, then apologised, after discovering his collar was popped, for singing the last song with a popped collar. He's the charming opposite of that pretentious stage twat Tex Perkins. I'll be going to the next gig carrying a hope of hearing him inhabit his music.

Home, home on The Dale (which is what some people call The Annandale Hotel)

The Cowboy left an inventive invitation to hear his band in my letterbox some time last night. He signed the note J---- "Cowboy" B----.

Definitive

Special request. A definitions list for the cast of characters in Slammatown. Easy. This I can do. Much simpler than trying to define just how exactly that snorkeling makes me happy or why today when I sat on the edge of this continent with the lemon light behind me and nothing, oh nothing but that ocean, that I felt stitches pull tighter and empty places pop and vanish. I used to be scared of the edge of this land.

Not in any order.

Foto: Superman's friend. I like him, he lives near me, he seems kind and the verge of something, I'm not sure what but I'll stick around to find out.

Gemma:
Author of Gempires, owner of Cooper the small poodle. Gemma lives in Melbourne and visits Sydney occasionally. Gemma is super in all possible ways. Gemma is an honourary Peachette.

The Peachettes:
The Peachettes are residents or ex-residents of The Peach (my house).

The Spatula:
My friend for almost twenty years and a current Peachette. She is small. We met on the first day of high school. The Spatula sings, paints, massages and designs my zine "Ocarina". The Spatula is a necessary part of my context.

Leurf:
Cousin to The Spatula Leurf abandoned The Peach (she is still a Peachette) to pursue her studies in Perth which is a fucking long way away. Leurf is unpredictable, fantastic and stunning inside and out.

Grizelda:
Younger sister (8 years younger) of The Spatula and a current Peachette. Grizelda is an excellent chef but does not like to have hobbies. Grizelda is rapidly becoming a good friend.

Ron:
I like Ron, he's pretty tops.

My brother:
No explanation necessary. He is tall plays trombone professionally and has an unnatural love for all things flamingo.

Spencer:
Spencer is the walking talking home of rock. He fronts the band The Holy Soul. He sometimes wears a cowboy hat. Spencer went to university with my brother and Boli. His main squeeze is Madam Squeeze.

Madam Squeeze:
Madam Squeeze can often be found busking with her accordion on King St. She is a source of light.

Robert:
He is a poet. He often eats toast during the day, he has a plant on his desk called Sylvester the Abject Plant. He is quite excellent.

Boli:
I shared a house with Boli at university. He is a music therapist. He plays all the instruments to an excellent standard. He likes hats is recently married and is the man I phone to ask if I am being a spaz or not. He always tells me if I am being a spaz.

Mr X:
A friend of Elliot's. I don't see him very often. Sometimes I see him on King St, he does not appear to like me very much.

The Cowboy:
Lives next door. He sometimes sits out the back in a cowboy hat playing cowboy songs on his guitar.

Creamboy:
Author of More Boring Rants from Anonymous Eccentrics. Creamboy is Superman's brother.

Superman:
This is what I used to think about Superman: I high three Superman, he is excellent. He has a way of not letting me panic, the best way to describe is that he makes me stand on a platform which is higher than where I normally stand and I can see more, further forward, further back and with some clarity. He is immensely silly and quite possibly the most stubborn person I have ever met. When he makes a decision you can hear the clang of an iron gate dropping somewhere in the distance. We wrote a song. Superman is Creamboy's brother.

Now I don't think about Superman at all, I do sometimes think about Superman movies but that is not the same thing.

Elliot:
I once thought I loved Elliot. I fucked him more than once with little sexual success. He used to be an excellent friend. I haven't heard from him since I told him I wouldn't see him if he's drunk. He's back in rehab.

Artboy:
The ex. After seven odd years of living together he developed a major mental illness. He had a manic episode and literally went screaming out into the night. He did not come back. This is how our relationship ended. This is how my heart fractured. I sank to the floor and it took me a while to stand back up.

Benito Di Fonzo:
A man that I can not talk to because every time I see him my head empties of all words and I stand there like a fucktard. Once I went to a party with him and set my hair on fire in the bathroom. This was not on purpose. Benito is the author of Benito Di Fonzo Jr & The Loneliness of the Long Distance Writer.

Slammas:
My family.
Mum, her partner (I don't have a name for her on this blog), my brother, Dad, his wife (I don't have a name for her on this blog). Various relatives occasionally pop up, very occasionally.

Sylvia:
Gemma reminded me that I have not written a definition for her. Initially I did not use the cat's name in order to protect her privacy however I have since realised that this is ridiculous. The cat does not have any friends with the internet. Sylvia is a Norwegian Forest Cat, she is four years old.

Zissou:
I met him at a party, at my house on new year's eve, he stayed the night. We met for drinks, he stayed the night. He said "are we going to do this again?" I said "call me sometime" he said "I will". He called, we met another two times. He is a good man. He moved interstate for work, this made me sad.

The Beautiful Boys:
A bunch of beautiful boys of a literary bent. I admire them greatly for their verve, intellect, joy and youth.

Failed Ant Farmers:
Members are Superman, Spencer and Madam Squeeze and me.

There is more but really today I cannot be bothered.

I think this is all. I should make links but oh I am lazy, so lazy. I am tired from swimming in Clovelly Bay for hours on end. The ocean is battering this continent so a sheltered beach was necessary but still, it was the edge of things.

I went to a marvelous party, I should have bought red lipstick years ago, are there two 'l's in marvellous or one?

I ran into The Cowboy at The Hopetoun standing against the bar listening to Spencer's band. Andy Depressant was gumshoe dancing out all of my emotions with his rubber limbs and solo abandon while Spencer prowled on stage in his knitted tie and big black hat. The Hopetoun was a cauldron tonight and if it wasn't for the ringing of the excellent 'You're Never Too Tired To Rock Dale" show tune that three doctors improvised on Creamboy's front lawn earlier this afternoon I would have laid my head down on the cold tiles of the toilet floor and dreamed of a life aquatic.

This morning my mother phoned as I was zipping up my 50's style jungle print party dress to say that she would pick me up in an hour. "For what?" I said. It seems I had double booked myself, I had a moment of doubt where I thought I would ditch Creamboy's bbq for a family Christmas gathering but then I thought better of it and I donned my big hat and red shoes and packed my bag for West.

I had a filthy hangover so I downed two glasses of water and applied red lipstick and ran out the door. Driving on the highway I could feel the lack of fuel in body, I inadvertently skipped the last three meals, so I concentrated on staying in my lane and urged my body to use the stored fat, like a bear.

Creamboy's bbq was marvelous. I swanned around in my hat drinking pink lemonade and eating vegan cheesecake. I spent a while or two chatting with Creamboy's excellent brother Superman who is very interesting and rather tall. I wandered into conversation with a flock of doctors and silently vowed to stop all my doctor hating immediately. I found myself sitting happily in a circle of clear-eyed intellect. They had straight backs and open minds.

In the diminishing hour Creamboy played the piano while a doctor sang, yet another doctor taught me to waltz and I found myself mirrored into the opposite of last night where I sat in a backyard drinking and singing with my feet in the dirt while the guitars called out for bohemia. This changing of hats and dresses and voices, this peopled crowding of being, this is a reason why.

I didn't make to the end of Crow's set at the Hopetoun tonight. I tried fanning myself with Spencer's big black hat but the heat, oh Sydney your heat, pushed me out into the night where I sat and leaned my back against the pulsing windows. I jumped into a taxi with The Cowboy and we wound up at the Iron Duke where The Cowboy's friend drooped into a lament and The Cowboy spoke of his life. The Cowboy is a sketch from a different book.

Walking home I told The Cowboy that he seemed to have a tendency to fall in love. The Cowboy said " Oh I'll tell you what I'm like, you got to listen to what Steve Earle said:
Now when I was young I took me a wife
But she never took to the high country life
So now I'm alone and I don't really mind
But her name echoes down from the canyon sometimes"

Out stupid spot

It seems that today I must imagine a purpose. Earlier the Cowboy walked past The Peach with his shirt ironed and buttoned, umbrella clasped firmly under his left arm. I stared out the window suddenly conscious of my faded pyjamas and the general disarrangement of my hair. I have been wandering in the hallway clutching a book.

I will dress in my cleanest clothes, I will brush my hair. I will walk with a long stride and a large umbrella to fetch the papers and have a coffee, I am imagining that this is my purpose.

That Ron and other possibilities

That Ron has suggested that I leave a drawing of a condom on The Cowboy's front door and see if he sticks it back on my gate with a big tick. I don't think I'll be doing that Ron but thanks for the suggestion.

Its looking like I might need to put on my wroving shoes and go off on assignment very soon. I am excited about the possibility.

Well

The cowboy was late but apologetic. He ate the last cucumber sandwich. We'd given up on him arriving and had tucked into the cucumber sandwiches in a less than delicate manner. He seemed quite thrilled to be eating his first ever cucumber sandwich, I guess they're not big on cowboy menus. He seemed slightly surprised to find himself sitting on the deck of The Peach sipping tea from a tiny yellow teacup with a tiny sandwich in his other hand.

He has a bold way of being. His calm and friendly manner only partially cloaks the mechanics of his media machine intellect. I see in him the confident striding shadow person that I drag along behind myself wishing to push into action but never do. I lack almost all of his qualities.

When he stands his feet are slightly too wide apart, he carries his centre of gravity low, I don't think he wishes for greater height. If there was a way to take my chisel and break off pieces of him I would do it. I would reassemble myself using his parts for my strong foundations. It is not often that I meet someone so sure that they want to be.

Conversation was stilted between the four of us at times, none of us sure what picture we were supposed to be making. I would like to have a go at talking to the cowboy by myself but that will have to wait until I find a way to be more sure of everything from the air I'm breathing to the path I'm walking. My hesitant and inarticulate way is no conversational match for a man like that. He seems whole and well and full of light.

Intriguing

I ran into The Cowboy on Enmore Rd, we had a little chat, he was wearing a baseball hat very high on his head.

When I got home I decided to take decisive action so I commissioned The Spatula to sketch me a teacup with a question mark on it. I stuck this to the Cowboy's front door.

Some four hours later The Spatula noticed a note stuck to the front gate of The Peach. It was my note with a big red tick on it and "That's a tick by the way" written down the side. Surely the best thing would have been if he had just knocked on the door instead of leaving another note. I am pondering my next move.

Its not fibonacci but it might be triangular or Dr Theeth and the Electric Mayhem

Something's connecting the dots. The cowboy, Mr X, Loene Carmen, Mark Mordue, The beautiful boys, work, Meanjin, Artboy, experiments, Spencer's band. Tonight they all converge and its getting curious.

There's no clear beginning but I'll start here. I began talking to a woman on the phone, at work, who was after some advice. She was starting a poetry journal. My work helped her out and I was invited to the launch party. I collected my free copy of the journal and stayed to hear the poets do their thing. I liked it so much that I go every month now.

Earlier during one of my experiments I met a girl in a pub, she was doing her own experiment asking people to pose wearing the same pair of sunglasses.

The next night I was invited to a party thrown by a member of the artist's collective Artboy and I belonged to. At the party I met a bunch of beautiful boys who were thinking about starting their own literary journal. We got to talking, their brave leader invited me for coffee to further discuss his ideas. The next time I saw him was at the poetry thing, he goes every month.

Some months ago the postman delivered my copy of Meanjin, the rock'n'roll issue.

I developed a keen interest in befriending the cowboy next door.

At one of Spencer's gigs the bass player invited me to the album launch of another band he is in, he plays bass for Loene Carmen. I spied the cowboy at the back of the crowd.

On the weekend I caught up with Spencer and he mentioned that he knows Loene Carmen's husband.

Earlier I was invited to a party at the beautiful boys' house where their brave leader introduced me to his excellent girlfriend, it was the girl I met at the pub, the one with her experiment.

Much earlier I was in a pub talking to the dreaded Mr X about rock'n'roll and writing about it. We talked about Mark Mordue.

Tonight the brave leader of the beautiful boys sent me a message to see if I was going to the poetry thing. I wasn't going to as I am still somewhat tired and ill but I changed my mind and ordered two coffees as soon as I set foot in the door. The beautiful boys were there, so was the excellent girlfriend. We sat and listened to the guest poet, Mark Mordue. The poetry journal woman introduced him and talked about his work in her journal and his guest editing spot in an issue of Meanjin, the rock'n'roll issue.

Mark Mordue was fucking spectacular. On the way home I ran into the cowboy, turns out he is Loene Carmen's brother in law. As soon as I got home I dug out my as yet unread Meanjin and poetry journal. I flipped open Meanjin and the first article I read was written by Loene Carmen.

I don't know if all these tenuous connections amount to anything tangible but it sure feels like I'm being woven into a bright tapestry I can call my own.