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?

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.

Every day an adventure of one sort or another

Boring bit upfront: I'm joining in on the 'blog every day in March' thing because I thought I might as well as not. Apparently lots of people are doing it, because of this guy, also there is a hashtag, #b03.


Another more different slightly less boring bit. I am beginning to love American public radio shows, like WNYC's Radiolab and NPR's Fresh Air and even This American Life. These shows seem to explore topics in a wandering way with genuine curiosity, I suspect this is how I prefer to think. Studying law I found I could never concentrate strictly on the topic at hand, the case in question would lead to thinking about the story of the people which lead to the topic of the story of the people which would lead to other people and their stories and then a new topic would arise and the process would start all over again. This kind of thinking is not ideal when attempting to think like a lawyer. 


Happily I no longer need to attempt to think like a lawyer, not ever again, and so I have given myself a challenge. Does this style of thinking work for writing things down? Even if it's just writing for this stupid blog? I'll find out by experimenting. For the duration of this every day in March thing I will allow the wandering to have its way and see where I end up. End official boring bit, the next bit might also be boring too but it is not official.

The harbour slides into view in the most surprising way when you catch the train from Newtown into the City Circle. It's all tunnels and communication blackout and suddenly there the fuck it is, bridge and building and shining sea all in the small box of a glass train window and you've no choice but to centre yourself geographically, floating above the quay and the unreasonable view screaming Sydney, Sydney on repeat until the train slides away and noses back underground into darkness.

I walked from St James station to the NSW Gallery with one of the Bruce Green boys, the non-Artboy one, because he was going to work at the gallery. Seems to me like he works at every gallery and museum in the city. It's a stupid walk from the station to the gallery, underground tunnels, road crossings and then a walk along a park that feels unnecessary more than pleasant as though they dropped the gallery in wrong spot by accident.

Picasso is the reason I left the kitchen table on my day off, Picasso and a strong desire to be unromantic. Recently I have been accused of being a romantic by three separate men* on three separate occasions. I despise romanticism so I left the light to slide across the floor without me, left the teapot on the shelf and marched out into the world determined to be as unromantic as possible.

A solo expedition around an exhibition is not romantic but today it was moving, in places. A sketch near the beginning of the exhibition trapped me. Slammed me into reverie and there I stayed until an elderly woman in a red hat shoved me on purpose. I think it was a self-portrait, it was called something like "The artist drawing, with hand studies". One clear bold sketch of the artist, bare-chested and youthful with disembodied hands floating around the edges of the page in more ghostly lines, some of them hesitant and pale.

The rawness of Picasso's sketch appealed to me. More than anything I love the beginnings, the sketches, the demo tapes, the first draft, when there is nothing but raw art at work. A direct line from mind to page or sound or canvas. In this stage of work you cannot lie, you can not hide behind the reworkings and the polish that inevitably comes with experience. I don't dislike finished works but the raw beginnings excite me.

My love of raw beginnings has lead me to some odd places, tiny galleries in back alleys, bands playing under buildings and in warehouses or lounge rooms, people singing in the park at midnight and then of course there is PAN magazine. The editorial team is learning, very quickly, how to have a magazine but many of our contributors for each issue have no experience and I love this. This is one way of transferring raw beginnings from garages and kitchen tables into the hands of readers. Another way of examining the unedited beginnings has been, and still is, this blog. In the beginning of this blog I was new to the city, new to being alone, I was shot from my old life without warning and I was on the edge. Of course it transformed and I let it because here I remain unedited, without expectation or rules which exactly how I find my best friendships are, with Spencer and with others, like Robert.

I don't write much about Robert, he is intensely private, much more so than any person I have ever known   but that doesn't mean he isn't around, sometimes in person and often in my thoughts or in my telephone, like today. Robert called from his hometown in another state and asked for a favour. I was inside a bookshelf when he called. I was building one of these flat-pack bookshelves in the hallway and found it necessary to lie the half-built thing down flat and slide in between the long pieces to tighten some screws. I didn't hesitate to say yes, it seems a great privilege to be asked by someone to be of help in their life. The favour involved climbing out from inside the bookshelf, out the window, the front door was blocked by the bookshelf and straight into a taxi to Kings Cross to make a cash deal with a real estate agent.

Robert, having flown out this morning for a month, received a call informing him he had indeed been approved for the flat he applied for but the real estate agent needed the deposit by close of business today. This is where my and my taxi catching come into play. After crossing the city again, this time in the comfort of a motor vehicle, I found myself face to face with an astonishing man. I suppose he might not be so astonishing on meeting him a second time but that first time had my ovaries in a knot.

Here's what I know about the real estate man, he wears suits, an expensive watch and has very shiny shoes and the astonishing effect of sitting down next to him is the sudden and urgent need to breed, with him, immediately if not sooner. I don't know if he's handsome, I suppose he might be but not obviously so. His accent is thick and possibly Turkish. The hallmarks of Turkish language are vowel harmony and agglutination but I don't know what that means, he sounded deep and musical and unfamiliar. He doesn't hold himself in any particular way, his office is small and messy, he was not especially friendly nor was he too cold or overly professional. There is no logical reason for the unexpected feelings. It was raw and immediate and entirely unedited and I'll make sure it stays that way.

Sometimes the beginnings of making an acquaintance is the most profound part, before I find out that they wear novelty socks or dislike their mother or have a dull and heavy mind. Sometimes walking past someone and observing how they occupy the world in that moment is enough.


* Lex Wick is one of my accusers, the others don't have blogs.

Geographical facts in numbered list form but not in chronological order

1. The IGA on Enmore Rd smells like dill and offers cold comfort from the hot thick air.
2. Enmore Rd is swarming with beautiful boys sporting traditional 80's metal hair, bandanas and leather pants. Quite a lot of them are wearing Skid Row singlets, the kind with wide open arm holes exposing skin drawn tight across ribs.
3. The best example of the swarming men was one young one in read snakeskin pants.
4. One hour ago I was drinking coffee on King St with two people, one of them was more eccentric than I am, and also slightly creepy at times. At one point he mimed throwing a sheet, thousand count Egyptian cotton, over my head and then pressed a finger to my lips saying 'shhh, shhh'.
5. Nine hours ago I paid twice for my morning coffee on the way to work, once for today and once for yesterday when I forgot my wallet and they made me coffee anyway. This is the benefit of putting up with inane small talk from cafe owners every day.
6. Six hours ago, in my office, I was listening to Mr X's new album when a wasp flew into my dress. I performed the most remarkable dance.
7. Robert has performed his last day as a not-for-profit slave worker in Ultimo and will from this night forward be a Writer, he insisted on the capital W. I do not doubt his success.
8. Walking home the humidity was so high I feared I might at any moment sweat myself into non-existence. Vanish right into thick air.

How Slamma got her weird back

I got my weird back. For a little while there strange things happened to Grizelda while my days sailed smooth and boring. Grizelda was horrified, she thought we might have swapped, for good. Meanwhile back at The Peach I was like a painted ship, then yesterday happened.

It started on Facebook where I had a brief scare that maybe Alan Jones was the man behind the $1000 grant PAN magazine was awarded from the Awesome Foundation. I discovered, after some investigation, that The Horrible Mr Jones came on board after PAN received the grant, as one of ten trustees but I didn't learn that until today.

Cake-free and worried about Alan Jones* I headed out the Peach Gate onto the street but bumped head first into a neighbourhood friend of mine, who just happens to be Sam Cutler. Sam was talking about talking to Marianne Faithfull about his upcoming book then he offered me a chapter for the next issue of PAN. I said, "Well, if Marianne likes it then I'll take a look". Which was better than the real answer running around in my head that want a little something like this, "Holy fuck yes! WOOO".  Elegant, I know.

After Sam and I walked up the street just shooting the breeze I hopped on a bus and delivered the biggest bunch of flowers I could afford to my friend Robert at his office, because I felt like it. I can not afford a really big bunch of flowers but he didn't seem to mind.

Later in the evening after attending one of those overly hot and crowded exhibition openings at Gaffa Gallery I headed round the corner to Dymocks on George St. I was pleased to escape the gallery. It was loud as in the inside of a firing cannon and seemed to populated by people I am calling Arthouse Bikies. They were head to toe in shades of grey and faded blue denim. Bikie like patches sewn all over their jackets, there were top hats and walnut smoking pipes and various degrees of greasy lank locks. Seriously, there were hundreds of them.

I knew my friends Andrew P Street and A.H. Cayley** were hanging around at Dymocks. Well P Street was doing one of those 'in conversation with' things with Marieke Hardy about her new book "You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead". Poor Marieke was sitting patiently behind a table signing books and being talked at by a man calling himself Edwina. 'Edwina' was sporting a balding bob and what appeared to a miniature safari dress two sizes too small. It seems to me that Ms Hardy is a patient and lovely woman.

I wound up with an invitation to dine with A.H.C, APS, Ms Hardy and her lovely publicist Kate. It was one of those restaurants that I can't afford to eat at. Seriously, I owe the A.H.C and the APS quite a bit of dinner money now. It was mildly delicious but hear this Gemma, not worth the money. The company more than made up for my horror at inadvertently spending so much on dinner. I believe I had what is called a lovely time despite feeling awkward for the poor waiter. I'm not sure how it happened but every time he arrived at our table someone was saying 'anus'.

One day later sitting here thinking about it all, inside my new haircut that makes me look like I'm five years old again, I've come to this conclusion. I've got my weird back. Grizelda, who does not enjoy unexpected events on a daily basis, is certainly glad.


* Alan Jones is the enemy of thinking, the enemy of the arts, the enemy of honest democracies and the enemy of me.
** Listen here APS and A.H.C - can we come to some kind agreement? Either you both have punctuation in your names or neither of you do. It is too hard for a fake intellectual like me to remember who does and who does not have a '.' in their name.

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.

The ideal height of a front fence is the same as the height of a good pony

The urge to walk always comes as the sun sinks. I used to walk south-west, down the short hill towards the tall footbridge where a person can stand and think with a proper horizon, one that curves with the world and doesn't end with a building. Lately though the urge to walk comes accompanied by an urge to skim near the homes of friends. Just glide by the entrance to their street or glance up at a window and see a warm glow behind curtains.

I thought it was enough to navigate around just knowing where friends will come back to at the end of each long day but I'm not sure now. Last night I swept under the grim railway line, hollow train sounds, flaking posters and a dankness not justified by the climate push me out the other side, fast. I turn up beside the railway track and follow the cyclone fence along its little journey guarding concrete sleepers bolted into beds of sharp grey rocks and the place where I imagined I once saw a severed finger.

I look hard at the street sign for Baltic St, named I guess for my ancestors. I looked hard at the dinner party guests on the weekend too, no salt from the Baltic detectable in their outlook, only the high sweep of a cheekbone or curve of a nostril would give you any idea at all.

Halfway up the slow hill Robert's Eyrie comes into view. Crazy cube of a building. I can just make out the vase full of knitting needles by the window. I only know what it is because I have a vase like that, on a shelf, full of drum sticks. From a distance they make the same pointed shapes, fat and flowerless stems.

Cutting through the meagre grounds of the old church I see signs everywhere, 'please don't steal our plants'. I wonder who would want to, desperate things hanging on to chlorophyll for dear life. I turn down alleys as it pleases me, heading North towards Spencer's strange house with its unexpected hallways and everywhere bathtubs and purple ceilings.

I come out suddenly on Probert St which sweeps a clear path downhill and back up again. Open and straight like a long wound cut by a scythe. Winter feels almost gone this night. The Frangipanis already ludicrously sprouting leaves from their bulbous ends, like trees drawn in crayon.

Crossing a thin arterial road I make a turn towards Abdullah's. His street offers me the opportunity of dodging the whip of tree branches before opening out onto flat industrial ground where his urban fortress sits in its unlikely locale. If I hadn't been politely ushered through the blank metal door in the flat brick wall I would never have imagined what lies hidden behind. Abdullah with his records and guitars and coffee machine that makes coffee the same way you get blood from a stone.

Finally I come to the banks of the loud metal river they named Parramatta Rd. Wishing as always that I could make this journey on a horse. Somewhere in my youth I became so accustomed to travelling on four legs that I exchanged my rhythm for their own. Every step missing the brother echo of a foot that doesn't exist.

I'm not sure now if navigating around where they come back to is what I'm really doing. If I could I would walk through the pulse of their words and songs. Walk slowly and breathe in something of their work as the words and rhythms float silently down amongst the gutters and fallen leaves.  I'm walking through ideas to make myself contemporary, with them, weaving my feet through something bigger than my own words.

It seems to me like this might be the place

Yesterday of course I had twelve tantrums in the rain but everyone arrived at all of the meetings and I believe what I experienced was progress with umbrellas, boots and a magazine. Newtown will in the end deliver what you need whether it's a poetry editor, seven and a half burritos or a permission to reprint something already delivered.

I had thought to sit quietly in a bookshop and lay down one convincing argument after another but as usual I ended pretending to tap dance in the doorway of a Mexican takeaway waving my umbrella and shouting at the rain.

Listen

By Robert (Poet Laureate of Slammatown)

There’s a door by the doorstep. This seems like a Clue.
There’s a hideous temptation to rhyme with ‘poo’.
The light is quite shiny – it shines like the light.
If we didn’t have darkness, we wouldn’t have night.
If we didn’t have night then we’d all go insane.
So let’s paint all the hearing aids purple again.

Mathematics

By Robert (Poet Laureate of Slammatown)

My legs are longer than my arms. But
my ankles are twice the diameter
of half my wrist's circumference.
How old is my father? Who
is my father? Where is my daddy?
Daddy...?

No shit Sherlock

I caught the end of the book show and I can see why Robert despises it so but it did inspire to take and finish reading 'The Outsider". I began reading it on the train to Ron & Rita's about this time last year. I caught the mountains train and sat back with my book but spent most of the journey in quiet reverie which was a grand idea as it turned out I stayed up extremely late drinking all manner of ill-advised drinks and then stumbled around the Newtown festival the next morning holding one year old Ronita in my tired and sunburnt arms.

Its the Newtown festival next weekend and I feel obliged to finish the book I started before it becomes one year but alas I have lost my Camus. It is nowhere to be found, not in the library (currently being reorganised from autoboigraphical into alphabetical order) nor in the shelves in my room. I've looked in all of my drawers, baskets and cupboards. It is impossible that one of the Peachettes should have taken it into their rooms, as a general rule the Peachettes do not read books. It is becoming a puzzling puzzle of Sherlockian proportions. My next move is to examine cigar ends, footprints and newspaper habits of all people involved. This could take a while.

submarine pt. 1

By Robert (Poet Laureate of Slammatown)

ping...

ping...

ping...

ping...

ping...

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.

Insensible

Superman was walking up and down the hallway with a raw egg in a small white bowl first thing this morning. He said "I've got this egg. Do you sometimes wish your surname was Wow?", I do so I nodded and turned left into the bathroom, Superman continued on his way down the hall, this is unrelated to my party.

At one point late on Saturday night I feared for the lives of everybody. Superman and Spencer had linked arms and were dancing in circles at an alarming velocity, jumping over furniture and narrowly missing Robert and his snare drum. Robert, Madam Squeeze and Boli were cranking out some kind of Freylekh on drum, accordion and clarinet. The Peach Deck was in danger of crashing to the ground killing everybody at once or at least horribly maiming people with large splintery bits of wood that poking right through their middles, that would teach them not to stamp their feet enthusiastically to Gypsy music whilst seated drunkenly on The Peach Deck. The stamping was repeated, the music ranged from the bizarre to the sublime but the deck and I survived.

I have never thrown a party by myself before, there has always been someone, a brother, a housemate or a partner. I anticipated that nobody would come, not just for me. I had planned in my mind how I would walk slowly from one end of The Peach Deck to the other packing away chairs and taking lanterns down from the trees. I would put away the clean glasses and plates and lock the front door. I would shower and turn on my electric blanket. I would wake in the morning diminished. I did not anticipate that every single person would turn up with a bottle under their arm and a smile on their face. I did not anticipate that sitting on a cushion on a milk crate under the curved branch of a mulberry tree I could look in any direction and see someone that I loved.

A party is a wondrous thing where it is appropriate to laugh or sing or dance or jump around for no reason and instead of staring at you weirdly people join in. I drew sharks and aeroplanes on the fridge with Ronita, I danced like pirate with Madam Squeeze, I offered round warm things that were thoughtfully provided by Rita, I showed everyone my library, my bedside table and my brand new chair, I talked and laughed and ran around waving my arms with glee.

I wanted to draw bricks in the gaps between the shoulders of my friends until I was fortress. I wanted to spin slowly in the centre of the deck until everyone I love blurred into lines of colour and it was all I could see. I didn't manage any spinning but I'm not sure that I needed to.

Strong as a helicopter

Music is trying to kill me using the television, it has been for some time now. I never know when it is safe, what channels to avoid, I can't even watch old episodes of Buffy without the cold fist of fear in my heart. At first I thought capitalism was watching me, tracing my every step, you see we haven't always had the best relationship. Two weeks ago I spent an entire Saturday afternoon waiting on the corner to take a photo of a car. I see it all the time this car, the shiny Saab with a giant home made sticker of a lemon taped to the side. I wanted to photograph the car and now television is trying to kill me.

It seemed so obvious, Saab were wreaking their revenge using television as the medium with good old capitalism calling the shots. You see television doesn't just pull a gun and try to shoot me, its using this ad. I've tried everything, I watched it over and over and over again to try and build some immunity. It didn't work and I became desperate.

I was talking to Superman on the phone, I was telling him about my immunity building advertisement watching, told him that television was trying to kill me and you know what, he was kind of super about it. Robert, who is generally the model of a modern major miracle, thinks I am mental (about this), everyone else points out the obvious overdone literal interpretation of the song or just rolls their eyes but Superman had an idea. He said, its the song, the song and her voice, its simple and you believe her.

I think he might be right but I still haven't figured out a way to stop that goddamned fist of fear or the hooks that pull me from my chair to my knees while my heart is blackhole screaming into every silent night. I might need to buy a gun. I'm gonna wear a white jumpsuit and shoot the television.

Apposite

Today today today I hit my head and rubbed engine oil in my right eye. It was an accident and I sat in the gutter with my things strewn across the road wishing for urgent rescue, none was to be had. When I finally arrived at the office, battered and with one crazed red eye I stared momentarily at the spinning lady of doom.

I can make her stop and spin the other way, at will. Superman says this is because my left and right brain functions are balanced. I am developing a different theory. All day I argued with myself out loud. I did not realise this until Robert mentioned it as I was leaving, he found it amusing, I find it alarming.

What if I am not in balance with myself but in fact locked in an eternal battle of left vs right. What if this is the reason that I can neither fall off the edge nor climb to the top. I am smashing things then tallying the cost and sweeping the floor. I am piling things neatly then setting them on fire while I call the fire brigade.

Last night in Sappho's cafe I sat at a round sandstone table, like an upturned cotton reel, with Spencer, Madam Squeeze and Superman. We were listening to poets. They were casting out words and I was flailing with my nets and traps. There were ten glasses, two wine glasses, one tall and faceted bottle, one sugar cannister round like a column and five small and flat, white ceramic saucers.

While the poets spoke low into the microphone I imagined I was standing. I imagined I was standing and hurling those glass things against the sandstone table with merry arms and infernal strength. I imagined a night illuminated by flying shards and the stunned arc of people watching in awe as the fragments froze in midair. What beautiful things we make.

What I was actually doing was sitting on my white plastic stool, my left leg folded over my right, my knee pointed towards Superman and his listening face smoking a cigarette over my small red notebook listing the number of glasses and saucers and tea spoons. My left foot was pressed against the column of the sandstone table.

Poured across an ordinary day

Liquid linchpin of coffee spilt, drunk, typed and spoken. Fumbling into morning I made coffee but it was sour and weak and scalding, I handed an apologetic cup to Superman who took it with two grateful hands. Organising my knees back under the doona I cupped my hands around the mug and carved out a small moment of stillness until Superman's coffee made its way out of his cup and onto my expensively laundered doona. It was an easy fumble, a sitting up and pushing backwards tilted nothing and the liquid slips.

The office was silent and cold echoed from wall to wall. Robert was absent and the room bent and flowed around the steam from my small blue coffee cup, the one I found on a fence and washed and washed until I was sure it would be safe. I did not like my job today, the papers spiked like migraines under my fingertips so I welcomed the happy distractions offered via email, text message and the odd outlawed scrabble move.

Gemma drank her fourth caramel latte today but she does not like them. She does not like bitter coffee staining tastes in her world. Gemma was studying, I should be studying. This feels like a mistake, the kind that brings the knife down sharp on your poor finger or tumbles you off the roof onto pavers or scalds across the inside of your mouth leaving days welted and tasteless. I am flailing in this course. I'm holding my long neck up and away from human hands pushing the bridle through frustrated air.

The Peach was dark when I climbed through its thick walls. The tide is still turning, gin clear shallow waters pull across my feet. I'm holding shoes high and loose in the fingers of my left hand, I'm pretty sure I'll need them soon enough. I boiled water in the kettle standing on my toes leaning forward on the kitchen bench to watch the steam curl and stick to the windows. I made coffee sour, strong and scalding then I walked it to the armchair and sat it on a nearby bookshelf.

Dad answered the phone and kilometres clicked into anachronisms. He's made it into the newspaper's social pages, now he can move to Melbourne, he's done his city, but don't all the other men his age have grandchildren? I laugh away the place he thought he'd be by now and the invisible toy cars and miniature train tracks, I sip at my coffee and he tells me the secret is to wear a splash of red, the editors always print pictures of people wearing red.

I'm staring at the pile of textbooks on my bed and looking for Superman's coffee stain. Its nowhere to be found and perchance its a miracle. There's nothing left but the dull thudding need to plow through this work. I'll write your essays, I'll reference your information, I'll warm my face over this coffee and pour myself through another ordinary day.

Two coffees, two eggs, four pieces of toast, some greens with balsamic vinegar and five small glasses of water

Transformer is the perfect album for walking when the air is thicker than honey and the population is shiny with sweat. Lou Reed, the gaps in your synapses come in handy. I was walking towards coffee, coffee with Robert, his fabulous partner and the unknown quantity of his friend Gecko. There were orders, Robert interjecting with conducting hands saying " I brought you two together to talk about rock. Discuss."

Everyone has hard edges but when the people are not intertwined into your context the edges have points. It was not a barbed occasion in fact overall it was quite pleasant but all the edges were unexpected and me without my navigation equipment.

I've been thinking that I might not have a hard edge. It is true that there is someone in my office that I have not warmed to but I repent and repent after unpleasant thought. The people with coffee said Sufjan was wet and fey and I tried to think about this but my heartbeat is still fluttering with his wings.

One day, a long day, I remember it well. It was the day I sat on the floor and filed off my points revealing holes all over my armour; this is where the joy pours in.

Roaming the hallway this afternoon with long fractious strides I examined the texture of the carpet with the soles of my feet. Eventually I settled into the last half hour of a television movie but unknown to me my phone was ringing in the front room. I discovered the missed call like a doctor arriving to find his wife two minutes dead with no hope of resuscitation. The phone said the call was from no number. No way to know who on this planet thought of me this evening at half past six. There was no message. I am still carrying the phone tucked into the top of my underpants, just in case.

VIRMEN (Voluntarily Induced Retrospective Montage Enabling Nodule)*

Ever felt like you needed a montage, a getting things done montage ( to the tune of Eye Of The Tiger)? I do. Quite frequently. Now I have the ultimate solution.

Simply work very hard and complete all tasks, when you are finished install the nodule and your memory will be adjusted to montage format. You will believe that you achieved everything in the space of one song with the greatest of ease. Post $19.95 to PO Box Dale. The first five hundred lucky customers will receive a bonus musical interlude capsule complete with dance moves and bandanas.

* Thank you Robert for the acronym.

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.