SLAMMATOWN - Just floating

At The Peach it is so hot, I feel like each breath is drawn through a thick mist of polluted saltwater. The temperature gauge says it's thirty degrees but numbers have never been very good at conveying emotion. Even the equation for an explosion of custard looks like a dull chain of kindergarten charts disarranged.

Last night I could take the heat no longer and begged Grizelda to drive me to the water for a swim. Happily, Grizelda is not opposed to piloting Peachette night-swimming missions in the ocean. I admit swimming in the ocean after dark may not be as safe as swimming in the day, but it has its rewards.  

I was floating face up in the ocean watching scarce clouds, unable to dim the stars, meander aimlessly above. The ocean covered over my ears and buoyed my back as though it had decided it would hold me and deafen me so I could think unhindered by heat or sound for just a little while. I bobbed in the black and gentle swell thinking of something I read in Delia Falconer’s book ‘Sydney’. She says, “Sydney... is overflowing with dreams… haunted by loss like some strange plasmal marine creature. Even the northern beaches Gaimariagal clan, according to descendant Dennis Foley, spoke rarely and with sadness of the Gidgingal, people from the east whose dreaming was under the water, swallowed by the prehistoric seas.”

Dreaming, in all of its guises, might be more important here than I suspected. The first known recorded dream in Australia, according to Falconer, occurred on the 31st of January 1788. Lieutenant Ralph Clark, who had just disembarked from the First Fleet, was in the habit of dreaming about his wife and his best friend Kempster. He dreamt that his wife and Kempster were having it off and was filled with desire to ‘run Kempster through’ for this breach of friendship.

It seems dreams, here in old Sydney town, have always been marked by loss, separation, betrayal and death. Not a very good start, really. As the dark ocean held me firmly afloat in its small swell I thought about people I know who have held each other. I know only one couple that has made a success of being with each other. Everyone else I know is plagued with betrayal, intrigues and the general inability to make anything other than a momentary success of romance. I’m beginning to wonder if something was set in place even before the first building went up; if there isn’t some vital piece of information we are missing that we could use to shape our new dreams in or out of the water.

First published on RHUM.

SLAMMATOWN - On the case

I haven’t been a detective very long. Long enough to receive an email from the editor of City News asking if I’d found the man in question and if so could he run a story on it, but not long enough to solve my first case.

I’ve always wanted to be a detective. When I was ten years old I started a detective agency with my dog and my little brother. We never had a case to solve but I made excellent headquarters in the wardrobe in the spare room. My dad wrote us a theme song but the dog never wanted to stay at HQ very long; as soon as the small dish of dog biscuits ran out she was out of there.  

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SLAMMATOWN - The Final Solution

Some people say drummers can hide behind their kits, that it’s the safest place to be on stage but I don’t think a person can get much more exposed than when they’re drumming because all of them is engaged in the business. You can’t drum sitting still.

Drumming is a whole-body symphony of movement. When a good drummer is on form there is nothing left of them but beat-by-beat motion. Rhythm is the spine of music and like all good art requires at least a momentary sacrifice of self.  

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Randomly chosen bit from today's work on manuscript for no reason

The worst part is when they change their mind, the last crumpling of courage. He always found it difficult to watch this inward folding. Sprayed spider of a human dispensing with all attempts at dignity. Sometimes he would sit beside them reciting modified respiratory movements from memory.

'Sobbing', he would exlpain, ' is a series of convulsive inhalations followed by a prolonged exhalation. The rima glottidis closes earlier than normal after each inhalation, so only a little air enters the lungs with each inhalation'.

SLAMMATOWN - The World's Biggest Bastard

Nothing happened in Slammatown last night, nothing really at all. You could say less than zero happened. I was feeling kind of seasick from marching in the sun, for the sake of Julian Assange. I was feeling kind of seasick and The Lansdowne was disgusting with flesh, heat, noise and humidity. Everyone was there, just everybody anybody has ever met. I suspect it was more to do with the buzz building up to the night rather than the bands themselves, though they were rather good. 

The Lansdowne has gone and had itself a mini makeover, neon strip lights along the edge of the awning, huge speaker stacks, an actual stage and a removal of that horrific overhead bar thing. Now it is one big room, huge sound, better bands, extra heat and more patrons. Sounds good so far doesn’t it? 

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SLAMMATOWN - I'll take a cup of kindness yet

Resolutions are terrible things - they come hanging with ready guilt and daily obligation. I have been trying to be more kind but am discovering that where I am most unkind is silently, in my head, where there are no actions or observers. I do not like the daily obligation of trying to be more kind, it is like trying to quit smoking but without any health benefits or encouragement from friends.

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Peachette Detective Agency

Mysteries are generally quite easily solved, when you have the right people on the case, like me for example. I decided to open my detective agency some weeks ago but I've been waiting for a good case. Vanessa Berry offered me my first case but I declined due to the unsolvable nature of the mystery. It was a cold case involving private jets, telephones and Big Ben. I hope that someday the culprit will be found. If you have any information that might assist Vanessa with her enquiries please write to Vanessa at PO Box 1879, Strawberry Hills NSW 2012 Australia.

Now for the case I have agreed to take on.

Case #1: Searching for Nick of Camperdown

Have you seen this man?

  I am charged with finding a man named Nick. Nick once bought a   young woman, not me, a vegie burger in a busy place somewhere  south of Sydney. 

 Here are the known facts:

Nick ordinarily resides in Camperdown, he hopes to one day write a   novel exploring solitude and existential dilemmas, this is not what he is doing for work right now. Nick sometimes drinks at the Courthouse   Hotel in Newtown and is thirty six years old.

Distinguishing physical characteristics at time of burger purchase

• a hat
• a beard with one small white patch where no colour grows

If you know of Nick's whereabouts please contact Dale Slamma at The Peachette Detective Agency.

PO Box 1003, Newtown, NSW 2042 Australia, or by email.

Important news flash of no consequence to anyone except members of the pigeon race

The cat caught a bird, I don't recall ever doing this before, maybe once when she was a kitten, but not in all the long adult years of her life has the cat subjected me to the horror of having to chases her up and down the hallway while a dying bird feebly flaps in her clenched jaw.

It was Grizelda who first heard the flutter-thump. I followed her out onto The Peach Deck to see what was wrong, this was our first mistake. The cat, seeing we were interested in her catch, ran into the house at top speed and headed straight for my bedroom at the other end of the long hall. Armed with brooms we chased the cat up and down the hallway, around the kitchen, under the dining table and then finally back out onto The Peach Deck.

Mercifully the bird was dead by this time, the poor thing must have expired from shock quite quickly. I did not have an opportunity to inspect the injuries to the bird because the cat ate it, the whole dead and feathered thing, except for the flight feathers and one foot.

I'm not talking to the cat right now but I am thinking about how much cheaper it would be if I could catch my own food in a similar manner, watch out fruit bats, here I come.

On a small tray place one teapot and one cup, carry to the best room for light

I think I've had my fill of people, for the year. So many parties, so many people, so much loud chatter and falling about drinking and dancing with each other. I think I've had enough of anything more than tete-a-tete. Since New Year's Eve I have not spoken to more than one person at once, I'm not counting The Peachettes because  it doesn't count as a social outing to walk down the hall and make a cup of tea in the kitchen.

I have telephoned people, people have telephoned me, I have sat at my drums while Robert instructs me in the art of deliberately moving my limbs in careful order but I have not attended one cafe, one party, one dinner or tea. I have slept late every morning and then done exactly as I liked, sometimes keeping the affairs of PAN in order, sometimes writing columns but mostly undertaking those minute to minute intrigues like examining a seashell, placing coloured pencils in spectrum order, drawing one blue line on ivory paper. These kinds of things are best done now, before proper work begins, before February drops its heavy blanket of super-heated atmosphere, before all traces of celebration have vanished and I get dragged up under the wheel arches of ordinary motion and my new desk becomes old.

This afternoon I might examine a translucent plastic cassette case, listen to the slide of plastic dragging before the satisfying clack of closure. A cassette case is more pleasing than a cd case, better to hold in the palm of the hand, proportions more similar to a book, feels more open when opened with that slim exposure of plastic return holding fast the album art. It is almost as good as sliding a key into a post office box.

SLAMMATOWN - Travel, Fight, Write

I’ve never been in a fight, not a proper punch-throwing-urge-to-kill fight, but I want to be. How much can I really know about myself if I’ve never been in a fight? I have made several attempts over the last few months to get in a fight. I tried yelling rude things at people in a pub but they just laughed at me. I tried yelling rude things at Spencer but he just laughed and yelled rude things back. I tried poking people in the back and saying, "I challenge you to a fist fight!". But they never believe me.  This is starting to become problematic. Just what does a girl have to do to get in a fist fight?


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Cures

Go to sleep you bunch of black hearts.

A most interviewed year

I hate interviews, hate interviewing people and hate being interviewed by other people so it's a little mysterious how I managed to be interviewed so much in the one year. I like mysteries so to balance out things out I will now solve the mystery of the interviews.*

Interview 1 - Cleo Magazine
At the time I agreed to this interview it seemed too ridiculous to be true. I am not a fan of this kind of magazine, broader  cultural harms and that sort of thing, but in this instance I knew the journalist to be a good one, a woman of integrity with genuine journalistic intent and also the topic was about being independent and happy despite being terribly old. Too weird a chance to pass up, almost like being an anti-girl-mag topic. Take them down from the inside. I think it was the April one, can't really remember.

Interviews 2 - 5 million - Newspapers, Blogs, Websites & Radio
These interviews were all about PAN magazine. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a magazine editor will subject themselves to multiple interviews for the good of the magazine.

It did feel a tad awkward when I had to interview myself but fortunately my friend Spencer came over and pretended to be me, the interviewer me, so that I could answer myself. None of us, not me, Spencer, Spencer pretending to me or the other way around uttered the words 'Willy Wonka' but they did somehow end up being in the title of the interview. You can read it here if you can be bothered...

Interview 5 million and 1 - ABC Radio National
I am terribly fond of the Olympia Milkbar on Parramatta Rd but that alone is insufficient to convince me to go on the radio. I am petrified of going on the radio. Every single time I go slightly odd with fear on the walk there and nearly get run over or walk into large objects like buildings and public sculptures.

There are two reasons I recently agreed to risk being run over and head down to the ABC. The first  was the radio man informing me that the 'V' in the middle of his email address was for his middle name, Vince.  The second reason was that he sounded kind and slightly amused rather than annoyed by my phone call demanding to know if this was in fact a strange prank.

I had planned to say all sorts of things about the importance of the geography of sound, my larger project of map making through public memory and the texture of this city. Instead I blurted my usual mixture of incomprehensible prattle interspersed with statements surprising to both the interviewer and myself which is one of the reasons I have decided to become sophisticated next year but more of that later.

The very best part of the interview was when Radio Man Middle Name of Vince first sat me down in one of those tiny rooms full of strange electrical equipment. He produced several pieces of paper on which he had written responses to my ponderings about why he wanted to interview me. I can now reliably inform you that he is not secretly in love with Vanessa Berry, he does not want to yell in my face, bring back the dinosaurs and is not the illegitimate love child of Milkbar Man. Nor had he heard about my imaginary submarine but he does now want to blow it up with imaginary battle ships.

It is a great shame that he does not live in Newtown. I have the feeling that if he was walking down King St I would not only nod hello but also raise a hand and wave. It is probably best if I did not attempt to speak with him because who the hell  knows what is likely to come out of my mouth, it could be anything from 'Happy Christmas' to 'Your shoes are peculiar why are you wearing them?' or even worse, of course it wouldn't be on purpose but not everybody understands that.

Despite my input I will encourage everybody to listen to the Radio National documentary about the Olympia Milkbar when it goes to air next year. You never know, they might edit me out entirely.



* I am only solving the mystery of why I was interviewed and not the mystery of why I interviewed other people. It is safe to assume I interviewed people when an editor told me to and not for any other reason, except maybe the Quaoub interview. I think I had a small urge to try and share his good music with the world. I've done my part, the rest is up to him really. Can't make people listen to a record that doesn't exist yet.

SLAMMATOWN - Up your charts

There’s a new man soaring up my Tex Perkins chart. His name isBen Corbett from Gentle Ben and His Sensitive Side and the infamous Six Ft Hick. Watch out Tex Perkins Gentle Ben is coming up fast but just to be clear I’m not sure there’s anything gentle about this man at all. 


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