Blogs Never Truly Die or Who Even is Lloyd Cole

I was reading a book about a woman with a blog when the message arrived.

Please restart your blog. Lloyd Cole. Housemartins. 

The message was not sent by Lloyd Cole of the Houesmartins. It remains unclear to me why Lloyd Cole was mentioned but I'm assuming it has something to do with drinking.

The message could have been mystical, except that it was incorrect. Blogs never truly die. 

I admit writing on my blog is not something I ordinarily do, but it does still exist. See - here it is. I can't restart what never stopped. It slowed, sure, slowed to the pace of a pre-global-warming glacier, but it exists. It atrophied, and much like my person became ridiculous with age, but it didn't stop.

Blogging is not a thing I will admit in public to have ever done, despite the many perks, friends, and "career" opportunities it has made possible across the years. Blogging, like American court-sanctioned misogyny, is something one ought to be heartily ashamed of and stop doing at the earliest opportunity, which for America was today. For me, well that was probably fifteen years ago. 

After trying, and failing, to get my head into the manuscript I'm allegedly finishing next month, I made my way down to Petty Cash Cafe where both the food and the patrons are blessed by Kenny, Suspected Local Deity and Unofficial Mayor of Marrickville.

Two hours ago I sat back down with the manuscript and wrote - Victor after drowning rose up in a panic misted out into the corners of the hospital room. Rectangle and room-shaped he surrounded his parents, his sister, the wires and machines, his own empty body tucked under a blanket on the bed. 

And now I have to figure out what comes next, and how the actual fuck that relates to anything else already existing in or pegged for inclusion in the manuscript. Is Victor even a good name for a boy who may or may not have permanently drowned? Should he permanently drown or should he be revived? What else happens to Victor? Is Victor important to include or yet another weird distraction?

What would Kenny do (WWKYD)? I think he wouldn't care, about the why and how. I think he would just keep on writing and see what happens next man. Such is the gentle way of a Suspected Local Deity.

SIDEBAR A- The New Cat floated up onto the desk holding a tiny fish-shaped packet of soy sauce in her mouth. She batted the plastic sauce fish around the desk a little before piercing it with her teeth and leaking soy sauce all over the desk, my notebooks, and my second favourite pen. I scrambled for tissues and wiped the sauce up as best I could without resorting to a trip to the kitchen for cleaning supplies. The New Cat is now systematically licking the entire surface of the desk. 

SIDEBAR B - A common house martin is a migratory passerine bird. Passerine is of or relating to the largest order of birds and mostly consists of altricial songbirds of perching habits. Honestly, I'm surprised. I thought Housemartins might be referring to one of the furred and fanged martens who hang out in the forests of Europe and sometimes make appearances in Irish Murder Novels. I have no opinion about the band or Lloyd Cole.

SIDEBAR C - Now that I think about it, blogging is delightfully pointless and liberating. 

SIDEBAR D - Maybe the message was mystical?

Geopinging

 I'm not entirely sure where I am.

Not yet.

Covid Days Begun

I miss the hustle of days. The clomping asynchronous tramp of the stairs at Central Station, the stream and dam ebb of the pedestrian crossing on the corner of Elizabeth and Foveaux. The warm push of the people in front and behind. The encircling muscle of a crowd full of ear-plugs, music and beer.

I am beginning with grief.

I regret the departure of incandescent light bulbs

Having always preferred interiors it seems stupid to me now to have pushed one hand outside, palm up and asking.

Prudent pruning or Damo Suzuki came out of Can, not a can but the Can

A sample of things I did not write in my review of Damo Suzuki with The Holy Soul at The Hopetoun:

Damo Suzuki came out of Can, not a can but the Can.

My friend used to live with Jim Conway from the Backsliders! I didn't know that's who his housemate was at the time. At Woodford I was sitting in the crowd listening to him play thinking this guy is awesome, I wonder who he is. I am a doofus, a big doofus.

I got licked by Belle Phoenix. She walked up to me, smiled and then licked my arm like a puppy.

The floorboard I was standing on was less springy than other floorboards at The Hopetoun, I was disappointed and shuffled sideways in the crowd until I was standing on a springier one.

Damo dances like a one-sided Axl Rose, he only ever goes right, or stage left, or maybe it is stage right, never mind, it was only one side and not the other.

The band constructed two joints. A real one for Damo and a fake one for the band. I was informed of this some time before the smoking took place so that I had ample time to ponder on the hilarity of such a scheme. When I witnessed the smoking of the stunt joint it was all I could do not to fall over laughing.

Mick Turner, atmospheric but unengaging, also I do not like his trousers.

Damo Suzuki told me he was scared of sharks and could not swim but thanked me none the less for the invitation to go for a swim right now, after midnight, in the ocean, where there is much water and many sharks.

There were seven of us standing on a cliff top after swimming in the ocean as an antidote to standing in The Hopetoun. We stood there in silence for a moment until someone declared that we were arrayed as though we were cast members from a tv show about share houses, confusion and being young but not too young. We then had a lively discussion as to whether or not there would be doctors and lawyers in the tv show or not. I declared that I did not want to be a lawyer in the show but would rather be a bricklayer.

Pass me my hatchet

Last night Spencer was telling me about the lyrics to How do you sleep? * by John Lennon, we agreed that sometimes John Lennon was a small man while we drank tea and ate cup cakes fresh from the oven. Last night there was nothing above us save bats, stars and darkness but today I discovered how easy it is to be small, how anger writes my emails for me while my head thinks calmly of washing dishes. I'm listening to McCartney's Fireman album Electric Arguments online as punishment.

I prefer the false intimacy of madness to those plodding people, backyards planted thick with Sunday afternoons, this as always has been my downfall.

I had a terrible time when I went to Queensland with Superman. Early on in the trip Superman ceased all the usual modes of expressing friendship, such as acknowledging my presence or consenting to conversation and abandoned me almost entirely to his beige ** and ever present relatives who eyed me suspiciously and talked quietly about the way Superman was not talking to me. The house itself had some potential but was decorated so hideously and situated so firmly in that particular kind of Queensland suburban isolation that the building itself bred oppression. The people were not unkind but I drifted through days bored, ignored, isolated and trapped. Having lost my wallet and broken my phone I was unable to plan any kind of independent escape. I watched the heavy hours pass, unwilling or unable to talk to Superman and risk his unreasonable anger in response.

When I returned to The Peach, after twelve stretched days of extreme politeness and a constant biting of my tongue, I determined to irrevocably terminate my friendship with Superman. My friends dissuaded me, counseled me with caution, begged me to take some time to think it over, the lovely Rita being a watchful guardian against impulsive action. So I did and I was until Superman messaged me out of the blue about Bill Callahan tickets and I replied in my sleep. If I had been fully conscious I would not have gone. I sat on the train opposite Superman thinking well I might as well see what kind of a time I have, and in the end it was not bad so I invited him to my birthday dinner, eventually, as instructed by friends.

I invited him to my birthday dinner but received no reply, not even Grizelda who was in charge of booking the table received a reply to her kind text message. I received no reply until almost the night itself, I did not expect him to attend but attend he did. He attended without so much as a scrawled message of happy birthday on the back of an envelope but with a battery of narkiness, a determination not to enter into conversation with me or anybody except a baffled Grizelda and then he left, straight after dinner, leaving me shrugging my shoulders on a street corner.

I thought I might try and talk to Superman about this business and to ask him to return some albums he had borrowed, but he would not take my calls, I sent an email asking if it was me he was avoiding or just people in general, thinking I would approach the issue with an enquiry instead of an assumption. Most often I have avoided writing anything of consequence about Superman, to avoid having one of his great and petulant misunderstandings, but right about now I don't really give a damn, I am quite certain that no matter what I do or say he will alter every meaning of every syllable until it sounds like the ringing in his head and he ticks off another box on his list of always being right.

A week passed before I received any reply but such a reply I most certainly did not expect to receive. I am shocked at his arrogance, petulance, selfishness and general ability to shove his head so far up his own arse whilst still uttering audible insults. I am shocked despite my knowledge of his character and temperament, I am shocked despite all of my past tongue bitings during his interminable lectures on How Superman Sees The World And Why He Is Correct And Also Why You Would Be Stupid If You Disagreed (or dared to believe in love). I once again find myself more angry than you can imagine, or at least I was until I felt embarrassed and humiliated for allowing myself to imagine that Superman and I were friends. I feel embarrassed and humiliated for all my bendings to his will, for my silences when I disagreed, for my defence of his character to all and sundry, for holding off the official Superman Is A Prick ceremony that some others attempted to invoke some time ago and for batting away my idle wonderings that such a good man has so paltry a circle of friends, that he hardly ever has any contact with.

Hold the phone I just received an email reply, the single word "fine". So fine it is, here ends the brief but eventful friendship of Dale Slamma and Superman, during which Dale Slamma lost her job, her car, her wallet, her phone, her confidence and for a short time, her backbone. Pass me my hatchet I've some work to do.


* How do you sleep?
by John Lennon - about Paul McCartney

So Sgt. Pepper took you by surprise
You better see right through that mother's eyes
Those freaks was right when they said you was dead
The one mistake you made was in your head
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?

You live with straights who tell you you was king
Jump when your momma tell you anything
The only thing you done was yesterday
And since you're gone you're just another day
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?

Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?

A pretty face may last a year or two
But pretty soon they'll see what you can do
The sound you make is muzak to my ears
You must have learned something in all those years
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?

** Superman's sister Ol' Mon Mon is not a beige person, she is an ideal person.

My new red bicycle and the landlord of doom

Flying, pain, transportation.

The constantly deflating tyre.

My new red bicycle and the landlord of doom

Slammatown

Is here now www.daleslamma.com

Squares

There's something visceral about square one. A knocked out tooth wetly sitting in the palm of my hand. So I'm standing on my little square out in the open, careful not to lean too far out to the left or the right, cradling my little bloody tooth like it's the last good thing I'll ever hold. I've been here too many times, I'm familiar with the landmarks, abyss over there, blank void above and everywhere just a backlit blur with things going on behind the haze but there's something new too. The other square, the one in the middle of that lush lawn over there with the sunlight streaming down on it. The square with paths leading this way and that connected to other busy squares with their own landscapes going on.

This time I didn't parachute myself down on this square, didn't scuba up from the depths to crawl onto it I was just kind of zapped here without warning. Seriously I was skipping along all happy on a path connected to the sunlit square and kablammy here I am with a knocked out tooth and a brand new view. I suppose it's one of those vicissitudes everyone is always talking about.

It could have been my radioactive moment

Unlucky enough to walk underneath an egg sac at the precise moment the sac burst into scurrying life, tiny spiders repelling down their own tender lines right onto my head. Thousands of them.

I shook. How I shook. My hair, my clothes, my fear. Panic passed faster than it should have but I was relieved to find myself walking down the street, shedding tiny spiders on wires like artificial stars, only mildly closer than usual to nonplussed.

I didn't feel any bite or sting but wondered mildly if this was my radioactive moment as I dipped a tiny spider with my ticket on the bus. All through the supermarket the tiny spiders repelled from limbs and extremities to meet either cardboard cereal packets or instant death. The spiders jumped without thought appearing and appearing as though I was sweating or dreaming them into being.

People started noticing when I lifted up my arm for cat biscuits that the webs were beginning to form wings. I thought about honing my technique, shooting tiny spiders as visible lines of resentment, disappointment or anger depending on what was happening. Maybe I could store dead flies in my pocket and train them to come back again. Maybe they would behind me in the exact shape of my shadow, second to second, turning only into whatever kind of spiders they are when I make the secret signal and they swarm.

One tiny spider span a tender little line from my hair to the collar of my shirt and began to run down my arm. I pointed at an annoying person in the supermarket, willing the spider to jump in his general direction instead it turned and began to make for the slotted opening between buttons on my shirt.

I pushed down on the spider with tip of my finger. Its whole body crushed into less volume than a single drop of water, I wiped my finger on a nearby box of muesli bars. My shirt remained unstained. It was that moment I made for the pesticide section and gave myself a bit of a spray.

Three Swords and a Bag of Oranges or Scary Neighbour Becomes Unexpectedly Naked

Self explanatory really.

I intend to become an adventure jeweller

I'm going to start by studying the only two existing adventure jewellers I can find.

Waris Ahluwalia

and Patrick Mavros...

I'm not sure how I am going to achieve a career in adventure jewellery but I am keen to start trying.

Smug vs happy

I might feel smug but I'm not sure.

Is it similar to happiness but with more self-assurance?

At any rate I'm sitting at my desk in the lounge room typing up an official article. By official I mean a pitch-accepted-will-pay-me-money article for a biggish publisher.

The sun is shining through my window while I write for money. The cat is asleep. I have a nice cup of tea. This is everything I ever wanted in just this one moment.

Maybe I feel happy?