Cataclysmic but slowly and not without joy

We were up to our necks in love. Well that's what it felt like to me as I danced across the kitchen and down the hallway while about a dozen people sang their hearts out in my lounge room. 

The idea was simple. I wanted to drink some and sing a little. Gemma had the bright idea of throwing a singing party at The Peach, so I did. 

The night was dark and stormy (I have always wanted to write that and mean it). Some guests arrived drenched and shivering, clutching a guitar under one arm and a six pack under the other. Some swanned in shaking out umbrellas holding bottles of wine and one or two appeared in the kitchen as though teleportation was possible.

The singing began slowly but the chorus swelled until we were delirious and not one person was silent in the house. We had three people with guitars, Spencer, P. Street and Jeremy Smith, Robert on the floor with a tambourine and a snare and enthusiastic singing from no less than one dozen people at any one time. We wandered recklessly through musical history and modes of good taste, anyone got a go, anyone from Samantha Fox, David Bowie and Robyn Hitchcock to The Pixies and even Counting Crows. No one was more surprised than me to realise that all of us, without exception, knew all the words to Mr Jones.

Someone started up a Neil Young song so Spencer grabbed his bag and tipped eight harmonicas onto the ground, testing them drunkenly one by one to find the right one, he emerged from the floor in the nick of time to perform a note perfect solo. Wild applause erupted from the kitchen where some were making mulled wine and others danced as they poured chips into bowls and piled baklava onto plates.

The weather, jetlag and tour dates kept us to a small and merry band. From time to time one of us would look up and around the room and get a little misty because while we were singing just for the hell of it we were also saying goodbye. At midnight I gave a toast to The Peach and all who have sailed in her because Grizelda and I are moving out, for good.

Mr Oddweird the landlord has gone and done it this time. He has defaulted on his mortgage and The Peach is being repossessed by the bank. I have lived in fear of the day we would be forced, by one disaster or another, to leave this house but when the day arrived I surprised myself. I don't really mind. 

When I first came to The Peach I'd been most thoroughly shredded by the tragic end of a long and dramatic relationship. I wasn't sure it was possible to feel worse than I did, perhaps not even possible to feel like I did and stay alive for a whole day at a time but I did. It hasn't always been easy here in The Peach but I have loved it, every difficult, horrible, euphoric moment of it since I first walked through the door carrying nothing but a game of boggle and a plastic bottle full of water. 

Its been almost seven years since I signed the lease and handed over all of my savings for bond and two weeks rent in advance. The cat and I were both astonished by the light and noise of what we call the city when we first moved in. The cat spent the first fortnight in my wardrobe refusing to come out for anything but to use the litter tray or take a small drink of water. Now the cat roams the house freely and I can sleep through just about anything.

Mr Oddweird has let me down as a landlord over the years. The water has been turned off three times because he didn't pay the bill, he took off with the inside front door handle four years ago and never brought it back. The back door has never had a lock on it and he failed entirely to make any repairs to the bathroom after the mirrored cabinet crashed to the ground and smashed about six years ago.  Last year he began renovating the flat underneath The Peach (which has been vacant the entire time I have lived here) by removing the floors, walls, kitchen and bathroom and digging large holes in the now dirt floor. But this time I suspect he has mostly failed himself.

It seems strange to me that I am almost looking forward to the move. I'm ready for a new adventure. Grizelda and I are headed just three suburbs away but around here that's like a whole new country. We'll be setting up shop in a beautiful little house with polished floorboards, a dishwasher in the kitchen and a neat little courtyard out the back where I can plant strawberries and herbs. Sylvia the cat and Grizelda's new pain in the arse kitten Oscar will be making the move with us as will Edith the gold fish and most of our stuff.

I've been giving away belongings, throwing things out, selling furniture I've carried with me from relationship to relationship. Junking all the built-up useless things and jettisoning the ballast. When I pack my bags and make my way to the new house I'll probably be carrying a few little heartaches and a head full of memories but I'm going to put my teapot in the cupboard anyway and see what happens next.

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.

Soundcheck City

Everyone was checking sound this afternoon as I walked home to The Peach. Notes, the Greek restaurant with surprising concrete walls and the unnaturally shiny counter, were broadcasting broken horn lines and and an arrhythmic sequential tapping of drums. Buskers were unfolding themselves from hardcases, tuning up their old guitars and getting ready for the public disappearance of self into the appearance of sound. The Enmore emitted the classic 'one two tchoo two tchoo' and lost another battle in it's fifty year war to reach the number three.

I was laughing about the preparation of noise as I collected my drumsticks and began another assault on rhythm coordination and purpose. I was thinking of Spencer and how he can make music without notice, music enough to kickstart your heart or bend your neck in rememberance of something you haven't lived through yet. I was laughing at preparation with my joyful anarchic heart until I decided to water the front garden and the door knob came off in my hand. I am trapped in The Peach.

The Peachettes are out of town this weekend. Spencer has gone on tour and just about everybody I know is somewhere else today. I thought about panicking but instead I attended an interstate party at The Hive by telephone. I was passed around the guests like a favour and I believe that I had a grand old time. Gemma was lamenting her yesterdays' drinking as she cooked for the party tonight. Retro was feeling drunk and generous and the whole thing sounded all right.

I was tempted to panic but instead I persisted in telephoning Madam Squeeze. Luckily for me Madam Squeeze decided to sit this leg of the tour out and I knew if I kept calling that I'd eventually catch her between songs in her busking set on King St tonight. She's on her way now to rescue me and I suppose this fact has put one more fear to rest. It seems that when I am locked and alone in my house I will not die and be eaten very slowly by the cat but attend interstate parties by telephone and make pots of peppermint tea.

Panhandling public bath canoe sex

I don't like the word 'panhandling'. I feel, very strongly, that it should mean something else, something grand like: inventing something wonderful. I might write a letter to the dictionary.

I overslept this morning, by two hours. I lay dreaming of small overnight fetes and meeting an eligible man in a public bathtub (public the way toilets are with one per cubicle) only to find out that he had been sent there, by Potato who had told him that I was within the normal height range. I told the man that I thought he was a little intellectually dull for anything serious to take place so perhaps he had better hop out of my bath. I don't agree with people who only read romance novels. He said you may not agree with me but you should have sex with me at least once because I am as good as Jeff Goldblum.

I then discovered that I was in Melbourne, had been the whole time, so I hopped on a tram to visit Gemma. I was wearing my pyjamas so I yelled at The Spatula and Grizelda. What had possessed them to not inform me that I was in Melbourne, on a tram and wearing pyjamas? Fortunately I woke up soon after that, after I tripped merrily through pig circuses accessible only by speedboat, almost had sex in a canoe with bath man but was interrupted by his mother who approved of me, galloping down dried out canal beds on a horse in order to save the ocean faring circus pigs. The horse was wearing my old school jumper.

The dream was fast, one of those whirligig visions where I jump morph from scene to scene with full physical sensation. I woke feeling unsure as to whether or not I was on a tram. I have decided to deduct ten points from the part of my brain responsible for that dream.

Return to Newtown

Any type of happiness will do, even the synthetic kind caused by Mexican stairwells and an old white car. The drum kit was a surprise. I'll admit it was the last thing I was expecting to see as the door opened and the light switched on but there it sat tom upon tom like it had always been purple and covered in polka dots.

I watched diners sip at wine while I emptied my bladder, I suppose they could have seen me, if they had looked up. This is only one of the hazards of Spencer's wonderful labyrinthine house.

Spencer was waiting for me on a public chair one whole block before the cafe where we had agreed to meet. He was giving me a heads up. Said there was an unfriendly patrolling the streets, that he tried to say hello to the unfriendly but that it hadn't really worked. That must be why everyone has taken to calling him the unfriendly.

We sat in the cafe anyway, to prove that we didn't care, drinking tea and hot chocolate. We read through a review of Spencer's latest gig. I took out my pen and gave the review a double tick. Well done Paul Smith from Drum Media, you got it just about right. I was thinking about St Kilda and my discomfort on discovering how easily I slipped into feeling at home. It frightened me to think that home could be where I decide it is and not here where I have always been, give or take a 100km or so.

I've been staying at The Hive where Gemma lives with her books and vegetables and dog. We drank and slept and wandered along the beach. I was in company with writers and the feeling was strange. Up here I operate solo like an undercover agent in a land of musicians. Gemma said it doesn't have to be like that, I can move to Melbourne and find myself surrounded by people who carry small books and many pens. We ate lunch in a laneway and drank cocktails by the river. I stood on one side of the tram stop watching Gemma on the opposite platfrom. I was headed for the airport, she was headed for home. I don't like those moments where loved ones slide in the oposite direction. I am not powerful enough to overcome the mechanical will of a tram. I'll find consolation in aeroplanes, email and three small photographs of Gemma wearing pink washing up gloves safe and happy in the heart of The Hive.

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.