Just like a house but in a shoebox
He was leaning back in his chair holding his arms out to the describe the length of a shoebox while I sipped solemnly at my snake bite. He said "the way to a man's heart is through a diorama" and then he nodded as if to close the matter but I wouldn't let it drop. If this is in fact true why are there not millions of people all over the world sitting bent over tables busy with scissors, paint and glue? I suppose there is the possibility that he is right and all this time I had no idea which would of course explain quite a few things. I have never once made a man a diorama.
An absence of disaster and other further doings of Dale R Slamma
So all this time you thought it couldn't be done. You were convinced that one could not shampoo one's hair whilst jumping up and down and dancing in the shower without some terrible crashing consequence occurring. You were wrong.
Hello happiness my old friend
It is possible to be diffused with happiness in a plain and simple way. Essential and humble as a small and favourite teapot taken down from a high shelf and held between two cupped palms.
I think I need a brain wash
I have decided to give my brain this one chance to explain to me why it woke up at 7:45am this morning, a Sunday morning, after we (my brain and I) went to bed after 3am. I'm wide awake, ready to throw on shoes and run out into the world but I'm not going to. Rational thought tells me I need to rest and drink approximately seven thousand litres of water.
It was never my intention to drink about a bottle of champagne before going to the Excelsior last night but the waitstaff just kept cruising past. There were round and shining silver trays seamlessly floating past my elbow approximately every three minutes with free drinks. I was starving and the food was much slower to circulate than the wine. I was crammed into The Argyle with five million people dressed in sailor suits, formation shark unitards or Hawaiian shirts. The Argyle is one of those divine buildings where the floorboards seem like they're constantly being crossed by the ghosts of convicts but of course they've turned it into a hideous bar for shiny people. It was one of those work Christmas parties that have a budget so large it's frightening. I'm more used to the annual staff lunch where all five staff at a non-profit arts organisation go across the road to a pub and choose the cheapest things off the menu and share one bottle of wine, then go back to work in the afternoon. I wasn't ready for the shock of five million gyrating people in full fancy dress throwing back as much booze as is humanly possible.
I left after an hour and discovered, as I walked along the quay that it wasn't the green harbour swaying in waltz time but me. I made it up three flights of stairs, onto a train and then up the hill to The Excelsior. I arrived with a lilt, a pocket full of miniature plastic sea creatures and a plan. Each miniature plastic sea creature was assigned to a specific person based on strict criteria that made a hell of a lot of sense at the time. One seahorse for Daisy, one shark for Spencer, another shark for Madam Squeeze and the sparkly lilac seahorse for Halogen. Spencer, Madam Squeeze and Daisy hadn't arrived yet so I presented a bemused Halogen with his seahorse then sat down and proceeded to talk such nonsense that several people offered to go and fetch me a glass of water. Three hours and seven glasses of water later I was decidedly more sober and beginning to regret my decision to present Halogen with a lilac sparkly plastic seahorse, Spencer, Madam Squeeze and Daisy are of course more used to my ways and present no problems in the area of miniature plastic sea creature presentation regret.
After I had achieved an ideal state of kind of sobered up I found myself having a real good time. Spencer's band was magnificent, as always (seriously people if you don't own a copy of Damn You, Ra yet then I don't know what you are doing) I had one of those nights where conversation is easy, interesting and free. The music did it's job of providing a reason to breathe. I keep rediscovering how live music builds my bones, kind of courses through me like temporary architecture holding up my ceiling.
It was never my intention to drink about a bottle of champagne before going to the Excelsior last night but the waitstaff just kept cruising past. There were round and shining silver trays seamlessly floating past my elbow approximately every three minutes with free drinks. I was starving and the food was much slower to circulate than the wine. I was crammed into The Argyle with five million people dressed in sailor suits, formation shark unitards or Hawaiian shirts. The Argyle is one of those divine buildings where the floorboards seem like they're constantly being crossed by the ghosts of convicts but of course they've turned it into a hideous bar for shiny people. It was one of those work Christmas parties that have a budget so large it's frightening. I'm more used to the annual staff lunch where all five staff at a non-profit arts organisation go across the road to a pub and choose the cheapest things off the menu and share one bottle of wine, then go back to work in the afternoon. I wasn't ready for the shock of five million gyrating people in full fancy dress throwing back as much booze as is humanly possible.
I left after an hour and discovered, as I walked along the quay that it wasn't the green harbour swaying in waltz time but me. I made it up three flights of stairs, onto a train and then up the hill to The Excelsior. I arrived with a lilt, a pocket full of miniature plastic sea creatures and a plan. Each miniature plastic sea creature was assigned to a specific person based on strict criteria that made a hell of a lot of sense at the time. One seahorse for Daisy, one shark for Spencer, another shark for Madam Squeeze and the sparkly lilac seahorse for Halogen. Spencer, Madam Squeeze and Daisy hadn't arrived yet so I presented a bemused Halogen with his seahorse then sat down and proceeded to talk such nonsense that several people offered to go and fetch me a glass of water. Three hours and seven glasses of water later I was decidedly more sober and beginning to regret my decision to present Halogen with a lilac sparkly plastic seahorse, Spencer, Madam Squeeze and Daisy are of course more used to my ways and present no problems in the area of miniature plastic sea creature presentation regret.
After I had achieved an ideal state of kind of sobered up I found myself having a real good time. Spencer's band was magnificent, as always (seriously people if you don't own a copy of Damn You, Ra yet then I don't know what you are doing) I had one of those nights where conversation is easy, interesting and free. The music did it's job of providing a reason to breathe. I keep rediscovering how live music builds my bones, kind of courses through me like temporary architecture holding up my ceiling.
Sometimes a drummer just wants to play guitar
Well it's close to 3am. I drank a bottle of champagne in a place where everyone except me was dressed like a sailor. I went across town to see some bands, the bands were grand but what sticks out in my mind is when a small and hideously drunk man calling himself Stanley crawled into my lap and said I shouldn't waste any time then pointed at his friend and winked at me. Now is the time to feel stupid, when I am home and still wearing red lipstick and everybody knows about the crush I have on Stanley's friend. Yep, time to feel stupid.
I wish him well and hope that everything he's worked for comes true
Somebody's paying me to check references for them so I'm sitting in a cubicle two days a week telephoning strangers and talking about other strangers but I'm not saying I don't like it. I like the top down snapshots I'm getting of these people. I like a life rated out of ten for punctuality, reliability, overall performance and their ability to meet sales targets augmented with strange and rambling personal anecdotes. Most of the applicants are young so I end up talking to the owner of the petrol station where they worked in uni holidays, or the president of the sports association where they volunteer as a junior coach. The people I'm telephoning can't wait to have their say, can't wait to rattle off the ten versions of how they're holding hope cupped in their hands for the smart young person they paid to wash cars or set up a straight line of orange cones. I feel like I'm getting a bird's eye view of something here, something I haven't seen before.
The Walk On By
The Walk On By appeared from nowhere. One day I’d never heard of them, and then suddenly they were everywhere. After only months on the Sydney scene they have lined up three international shows. I’ve seen them once before, appearing at in-store at Repressed Records with The Holy Soul. It was early afternoon and the sheer noise of them pushed me out of the record shop and into the street where I watched like a child with my face pressed against the window.
Descending into the depths of Club 77, armed with earplugs, I was determined to sit through any level of noise and see for myself what everyone is talking about. The Walk On By throw out an enormous sound. I snuck around the side of the stage to make sure that I had counted correctly. There are indeed only three of them. Leah Keramea is spectacular on drums. Her head hangs forwards leaving visible a short curtain of hair, the tied waist of a black trench coat and her elbows moving casually as though of their own accord. It is tempting to be jealous of the casual way she smacks out rhythm as though it was easy.
Dave Bourke is almost disturbingly energetic on bass. He seems to have mastered a precise climbing sort of bass line that walks up your bones. If I had any criticism it would be that he somehow sounds too precise, too clean and assured in the middle of such a crashing wall of sound. There was a brief pause while the band switched instruments, Keramea walking to the front swapping her drums for a guitar. She has the kind of presence that makes a crowd lean forward. I have to admit it was the highlight of the set when she started screaming ‘glass you fucking cunt’ into the microphone.
An angry American began walking around holding up a sign “Start a mosh?” There were no takers so in between songs she started yelling at the crowd to stop just standing there watching the band and nodding their heads. The crowd yelled back ‘fuck off’. I guess nobody told her about Sydney and standing around nodding your head. She then borrowed red lipstick and a mirror from some poor woman in the crowd. The American smeared her mouth red until she resembled nothing but a clown.
Frontman Soloman Barbar certainly looks the part all dressed in black with his wild and miraculously vertical hair, pointed moustache and one of those white neck-ties that you tie like a ribbon into a bow. Barbar has a tough job standing in the front with the aim of pulling focus amidst the kind of sound that crashes. It would be easy to forget that in terms of gigs this is a baby band taking its first steps. The Walk On By sound interesting enough to get away with breaking oceans of sound over my earplugged head. They would benefit from a more confident and assured vocal delivery but like I said, this is a new band beginning the hard task of earning their stripes playing in dives and late night bars. I’m all for watching them work their way up to playing in better venues, I think its going to be an interesting ride.
First published on LiveGuide
Descending into the depths of Club 77, armed with earplugs, I was determined to sit through any level of noise and see for myself what everyone is talking about. The Walk On By throw out an enormous sound. I snuck around the side of the stage to make sure that I had counted correctly. There are indeed only three of them. Leah Keramea is spectacular on drums. Her head hangs forwards leaving visible a short curtain of hair, the tied waist of a black trench coat and her elbows moving casually as though of their own accord. It is tempting to be jealous of the casual way she smacks out rhythm as though it was easy.
Dave Bourke is almost disturbingly energetic on bass. He seems to have mastered a precise climbing sort of bass line that walks up your bones. If I had any criticism it would be that he somehow sounds too precise, too clean and assured in the middle of such a crashing wall of sound. There was a brief pause while the band switched instruments, Keramea walking to the front swapping her drums for a guitar. She has the kind of presence that makes a crowd lean forward. I have to admit it was the highlight of the set when she started screaming ‘glass you fucking cunt’ into the microphone.
An angry American began walking around holding up a sign “Start a mosh?” There were no takers so in between songs she started yelling at the crowd to stop just standing there watching the band and nodding their heads. The crowd yelled back ‘fuck off’. I guess nobody told her about Sydney and standing around nodding your head. She then borrowed red lipstick and a mirror from some poor woman in the crowd. The American smeared her mouth red until she resembled nothing but a clown.
Frontman Soloman Barbar certainly looks the part all dressed in black with his wild and miraculously vertical hair, pointed moustache and one of those white neck-ties that you tie like a ribbon into a bow. Barbar has a tough job standing in the front with the aim of pulling focus amidst the kind of sound that crashes. It would be easy to forget that in terms of gigs this is a baby band taking its first steps. The Walk On By sound interesting enough to get away with breaking oceans of sound over my earplugged head. They would benefit from a more confident and assured vocal delivery but like I said, this is a new band beginning the hard task of earning their stripes playing in dives and late night bars. I’m all for watching them work their way up to playing in better venues, I think its going to be an interesting ride.
First published on LiveGuide
Pump the brakes bitch
Waking up with a mouth full of half-chewed liquorice pieces at 3 in the morning was not my finest moment. I was still wearing my dress but I had mercifully kicked off my shoes before laying down on top of the covers. I think I undertook one of those weaving walks home where I was throwing one foot out in front of the other with a casual disregard for boundaries such as straight lines or footpaths. It was just me and the cockroaches on Enmore Rd. I used to cringe at the sight of the fat black things scuttling audibly everywhere I went but like the aeroplanes and the out of town visitors it's now just one of those Newtown facts sliding through my brain like GPS.
Turn your snare off
If it's a clay shape then I don't want it, not even if you pushed it into being with aching fingers. Hold out your hands for the cold and moist lump, fold your fingers around the heavy weight and walk silently away.
Better run through the jungle
Today the idea of him has the hit and stick of napalm but tomorrow I plan on wearing a fireproof suit.
A blanket pinned up across a window will come down in a heavy grey fold if you let slip just one of those pins
I suppose I was seven or eight years old when he told he was a blackberry. I was confused but pleased that he was playing one of his silly jokes with me. I laughed at him and said 'don't be silly you can't be a blackberry because you are a person'. I don't remember how old I was when I found out that he had said Black Beret and not blackberry.
He died last Wednesday, curled up and snuffed out but it wasn't entirely unexpected. I didn't see him crawling towards the long night like some of the others did but I heard the change in the light some years ago. Everybody supposed that she would nurse him down gently until the breathing stopped. Everybody supposed she would pack a small suitcase and be driven across the horizon to the farm but she stayed where she was with that salt wind at her place where she watches the kangaroos graze by the sea. She said she never sees them hop on the sand, they stay clear of the sand like she does.
On Monday there'll be three of them standing hot on the inland blustering dust at the side of his open grave. They'll wear black and swat flies with their funeral programs. The middle child will sob the hardest, shaking her shoulders and frightening her children. The oldest son will be the star of the speeches and the youngest will evoke sympathy with the silent grit-tooth bowing of his head. Three hours north of where she'll be sitting by her sea I'll be swallowed in a building and thinking of her.
He died last Wednesday, curled up and snuffed out but it wasn't entirely unexpected. I didn't see him crawling towards the long night like some of the others did but I heard the change in the light some years ago. Everybody supposed that she would nurse him down gently until the breathing stopped. Everybody supposed she would pack a small suitcase and be driven across the horizon to the farm but she stayed where she was with that salt wind at her place where she watches the kangaroos graze by the sea. She said she never sees them hop on the sand, they stay clear of the sand like she does.
On Monday there'll be three of them standing hot on the inland blustering dust at the side of his open grave. They'll wear black and swat flies with their funeral programs. The middle child will sob the hardest, shaking her shoulders and frightening her children. The oldest son will be the star of the speeches and the youngest will evoke sympathy with the silent grit-tooth bowing of his head. Three hours north of where she'll be sitting by her sea I'll be swallowed in a building and thinking of her.
Ye gods and far out I was sitting next to a former Rolling Stones tour manager
I was having a relatively normal conversation with the excellent Mr Fenton when I noticed that his shoes were quite shiny. I had a scope around and confirmed that his were the shiniest shoes in the outside area at The Annandale so I asked him if he shined his shoes. You should have seen the look Spencer gave me. Mr Fenton was drinking a beer and looking at me in that quiet and quizzical way he has then gently shook his head. He'd just come offstage after playing a Billy Thorpe tribute for a book launch* where I was plagued by ghosts from the literary set but soothed, after a fashion, by live music. Mr Fenton said his shoes were shiny from use, beer swill and dropped cigarette ash. When I think about it that is the most rock'n'roll way to shine your shoes.
*"Billy Thorpe's Time On Earth" by Jason Walker
*"Billy Thorpe's Time On Earth" by Jason Walker
Change your own light bulb
It is clear to me that he desires very strongly to live. The way he watched people dancing is enough to fold you to the floor but people don't seem to watch him properly. Their eyes slide over him slowly taking measurements for memory.
I suppose he is my polar opposite. I am plagued with rude health and stubborn life yet I feel I would throw off the shackles of this life if I could, just shrug out of it like an unwanted cardigan. A situation like this is enough to make me want to change my own light bulb.
I suppose he is my polar opposite. I am plagued with rude health and stubborn life yet I feel I would throw off the shackles of this life if I could, just shrug out of it like an unwanted cardigan. A situation like this is enough to make me want to change my own light bulb.
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