In Kalgoorlie, the proprietors of my local delis were larger than life. They made every purchase an adventure, and left me with a story to tell, always. In Perth, at least so far, that hasn’t been the case.
You’ll have noticed that I used ‘proprietors’ plural and ‘delis’ plural just moments ago. See, in Kalgoorlie, I lived halfway between the Carbarn deli – or ‘Carbarna’ as a housemate of mine tagged it, trying to spice up its image – and the Wilson Street deli, and was able to choose between them on a whim. Sometimes I would step out with a few dollars in my pocket and not the slightest inkling where I was going. Usually, though, the choice was clear.
I chose between the delis not on appearance, nor by the goods in stock, but by the character of the proprietor, and, more specifically, the compatability of that character with my mood at the time. My moods were, and still are, variable, but the men running the delis were constants. Old Cheeseman at Wilson Street and Old Genovese at the Carbarn, eternally jovial and eternally melancholy, respectively; predictable, like the sun and the moon. Those men were the benchmarks, the standards, the knowns, that I, the unknown, gauged myself against.
Old Cheeseman was a talker. I knew a couple of his sons and they were talkers too. They may have descended from a long line of storytellers or bards. Or cheese men. Who knew? All I knew was that, before setting off to Wilson Street, it was wise to clear the diary for half an hour, maybe more. One certainly wouldn’t leave a pot of tea to brew at home, unless one was fond of cold, bitter tea. No siree.
He had a story for every item in stock, Old Cheeseman. Bottled water: his mate invented it. Chiko rolls: he knew how the filling got in. Washing powder: his dog ate some and had to be put down. These yarns would be told to completion in a slow and methodical manner, no matter your hurry or the hurry of those waiting behind you. If unsure of a narrative detail, he would stop counting your change and sieve through his mind, carrying on the story (and the counting) only when he had extracted the elusive and entirely insignificant fact in question. You could tap your watch or naked wrist, drum your fingers on the counter, clear your throat, pass wind, or scoop out your eyeball with a teaspoon, all to no avail. Nothing would stop him.
On certain days, though, when the sun was a-shinin’, the birds were a-singin’, and the lollipops were a-plentiful, I could appreciate Old Cheeseman and his quaint, saccharine ways. Wilson Street was the optimist’s deli. Steve Irwin would have liked it. Terri Irwin and Bindi Irwin and Bob Irwin would like it. And Marcia Hines and Brad Hogg and Scooby Doo. But sometimes the thought of clanging through that flywire door and seeing Old Cheeseman’s ruddy, smiling face would cripple me. Some days the sun was a-hidin’, the birds were a-rottin’ on the pavement, and the a-plentiful lollipops were a-laced with strychnine. On those days I went to the Carbarn, the pessimist’s deli.
The Carbarn was entirely devoid of warmth: physical or conversational or atmospherical, faux or genuine. Old Genovese made sure of that – in fact, like some strange deep-sea bacteria, he positively thrived in the anoxic conditions. But, like Wilson Street, the Carbarn was therapeutic for certain states of mind. You went there stressed to be served in silence. You went there jilted to be numbed in the cold. You went there angry to mentally duel with a man angrier than you; a man who would flog you with a liquorice strap as soon as sell you one. I found his weakness, though, and visiting the Carbarn then became a fiendish game.
See, Old Genovese had an unsettling habit of cupping his hand to receive my money before I had placed my goods on the counter. There his hand would remain, unwavering, as I furrowed my brow and fumbled my coins and apologised to all and trembled like a junkie sans junk. And all the while, he wouldn’t even bother to lift his eyes from the morning paper. At least, that’s how it was to begin with.
I knew Old Genovese didn’t tolerate ill-prepared fools like me; fools who interrupted his day with their petty concerns and indecision and clumsiness. So I adopted and exaggerated these habits, giving mad performances of verbal and physical slapstick designed to make him shake and sweat like I had before his motionless palm. As I searched for a dollar in ten cent pieces or considered aloud the pros and cons of having sauce with my pie, I casually twisted a red-hot poker into his gut, eager to hear him scream. But even my wackiest performances failed to break that most determined of warriors. I just wanted to make him laugh or cry, but he did neither, and for that he has my respect. Our silent armwrestle, imperceptible to the passing observer, and perhaps even to the man-of-stone himself, remains undecided.
Characters they were, Genovese and Cheeseman - annoying characters, but characters none-the-less. They were end-members of the personality spectrum - one light, the other dark, one warm, the other cool, one licky, the other bitey – but in having and displaying personality they occupied common ground, and made the deli run an experience.
I’ve no doubt that such personalities exist in Perth, but too often they are not displayed. The deli owners are friendly, efficient and helpful, but in the fashion of the air hostess. I find that paid familiarity disturbing, a whoredom of sorts, and I wonder about the society that demands it. I wonder about the society that values homogeneity; that puts smoothness before texture; that sands the edges off its sharpest and rarest stones, when it should be dusting them off and putting them on display in fancy glass cases.
But I’ve wondered long enough, so I step now onto my soapbox and I shout: “Shine on, you crazy diamonds, you Cheesemans and Genoveses! Pay no heed to my petty critique. Shine on, shine on!”
Thursday, 21 February 2008
Saturday, 2 February 2008
Harvey's Odyssey I
The nail of his right index finger lazily scratches at the armrest of the recliner he now inhabits. Sweat-derived scum begins to peel away in distinct sections: a thick consistent top layer; a wafer-thin film; a pale and uninspiring goo; and, finally, a heterogeneous but strangely beautiful basal crust, whose peculiarities – like the pea beneath the princess’ mattress - are mimicked by the overlying strata. Blowing the scrapings away, he sees the clean black leather beneath. And he sees that it is good.
Easing back in the chair with hands clasped behind his head, the coach now forms an imposing silhouette against the grass and blinding concrete terraces of Fremantle Oval, the ground’s centre circle framed by the isosceles triangle of his left arm. His gaze drifts beneath the desk and, seeing the heavily-pilled tracksuit pants and tattered ugg boots, he eases forward again, feeling embarrassed, though no one else is around. If a visitor happened by – Pav, Rick Hart, that old water boy who looks like Yoda – he would have to remain seated.
He leans forward now, elbows on desk and fists on jaw line, forcing his cheeks high until they almost touch his furrowed brow. All of the videos and DVDs and books and papers lining the shelves loom before him, laughing and probing, coldly: “Are you ready for this?”.
“Dunno”, he whispers, stroking the patchy stubble on his chin. A short time later he resolves to stop conversing with inanimate objects. That was the downfall of Damian Drum, or so he has heard.
Abruptly, and without knocking, a deep mauve haze of melancholy enters the room, settling around him. He begins to feel strangely out-of-place, as though adrift in an ocean far from home. Frowning at his ill-fitting purple polo shirt, he plucks at its fabric, testing its reality. It all seems so foreign, so other-worldly. Doubts infest his mind, bouncing against and chewing at his skull’s inner wall. Was he good enough? Were they good enough? Why was he even here? Here, in this harsh, isolated place, far from the padded jackets and the icy breath and the sloppy, tasteless four-n-twenty pies of his earlier life? His head, involuntarily, rattles now from side to side and now from back to front and now round and round, fruitlessly attempting to expel the concerns through one or both ear holes.
Calming slightly, or perhaps advancing into a higher, Zen-like form of madness – it’s hard to say – he reaches for the phone, pining for the counsel of Kevin Sheedy. But just as his clammy fingertips touch the handset, a knock at the door jolts him.
Without awaiting his invitation, Cameron Schwab enters the room - at least, the bodily form of Cameron Schwab enters the room. The tense, squirming muscles and flickering red eyes betray his real identity: Apollo, deliverer of prophesies, cunningly disguised as Cameron Schwab. The coach is wary.
“Hi Cameron”, he says, smiling as best a former Essendon hard man can.
“We should never have sacked Troy”, booms Schwab, foregoing any niceties and displaying fury dramatically incongruous with his pale skin and delicate spectacles. “It leaves us lacking centre-square hardness.”
A droplet of sweat trembles on the tip of Schwab’s equine nose as he awaits reply. Knowing better than to engage in a shouting match with an immortal – a fiery death usually results - the coach is measured and unflinching.
“Hardness won’t be an issue Cameron. And Troy retired - he wasn’t sacked.”
“Oh”, says Schwab, noticeably slumping as Apollo, defeated, sublimes and dissipates through the open window. “Sorry, I...,” he starts, turning his flaccid body back from whence it came, “I don’t know what came over me.”
As Schwab’s shaking head is eclipsed by the closing door, the coach sits back in his chair and sighs. If he could ward off the meddling Gods – and he was certain they would interfere again – then, he reasoned, he was capable of handling anything, even a pre-derby press conference with John Worsfold. It was almost time to perform now: like a demon before the players, like a gibbon before the press, like a philosopher before the fans. Like a Docker.
With that thought lingering, he springs from his chair and strides out of his office and out of the building, possessed by supernatural energy and entirely unconscious now of his bogan attire. He would go home, roast a suckling pig for himself, cast another onto the fire to appease the Gods, and retire to enjoy the boon of sleep until the first rays of rosy-fingered dawn. Then he would awake and lay out his plan for the men, his plan to take them all to their rightful home: the MCG in late September.
Easing back in the chair with hands clasped behind his head, the coach now forms an imposing silhouette against the grass and blinding concrete terraces of Fremantle Oval, the ground’s centre circle framed by the isosceles triangle of his left arm. His gaze drifts beneath the desk and, seeing the heavily-pilled tracksuit pants and tattered ugg boots, he eases forward again, feeling embarrassed, though no one else is around. If a visitor happened by – Pav, Rick Hart, that old water boy who looks like Yoda – he would have to remain seated.
He leans forward now, elbows on desk and fists on jaw line, forcing his cheeks high until they almost touch his furrowed brow. All of the videos and DVDs and books and papers lining the shelves loom before him, laughing and probing, coldly: “Are you ready for this?”.
“Dunno”, he whispers, stroking the patchy stubble on his chin. A short time later he resolves to stop conversing with inanimate objects. That was the downfall of Damian Drum, or so he has heard.
Abruptly, and without knocking, a deep mauve haze of melancholy enters the room, settling around him. He begins to feel strangely out-of-place, as though adrift in an ocean far from home. Frowning at his ill-fitting purple polo shirt, he plucks at its fabric, testing its reality. It all seems so foreign, so other-worldly. Doubts infest his mind, bouncing against and chewing at his skull’s inner wall. Was he good enough? Were they good enough? Why was he even here? Here, in this harsh, isolated place, far from the padded jackets and the icy breath and the sloppy, tasteless four-n-twenty pies of his earlier life? His head, involuntarily, rattles now from side to side and now from back to front and now round and round, fruitlessly attempting to expel the concerns through one or both ear holes.
Calming slightly, or perhaps advancing into a higher, Zen-like form of madness – it’s hard to say – he reaches for the phone, pining for the counsel of Kevin Sheedy. But just as his clammy fingertips touch the handset, a knock at the door jolts him.
Without awaiting his invitation, Cameron Schwab enters the room - at least, the bodily form of Cameron Schwab enters the room. The tense, squirming muscles and flickering red eyes betray his real identity: Apollo, deliverer of prophesies, cunningly disguised as Cameron Schwab. The coach is wary.
“Hi Cameron”, he says, smiling as best a former Essendon hard man can.
“We should never have sacked Troy”, booms Schwab, foregoing any niceties and displaying fury dramatically incongruous with his pale skin and delicate spectacles. “It leaves us lacking centre-square hardness.”
A droplet of sweat trembles on the tip of Schwab’s equine nose as he awaits reply. Knowing better than to engage in a shouting match with an immortal – a fiery death usually results - the coach is measured and unflinching.
“Hardness won’t be an issue Cameron. And Troy retired - he wasn’t sacked.”
“Oh”, says Schwab, noticeably slumping as Apollo, defeated, sublimes and dissipates through the open window. “Sorry, I...,” he starts, turning his flaccid body back from whence it came, “I don’t know what came over me.”
As Schwab’s shaking head is eclipsed by the closing door, the coach sits back in his chair and sighs. If he could ward off the meddling Gods – and he was certain they would interfere again – then, he reasoned, he was capable of handling anything, even a pre-derby press conference with John Worsfold. It was almost time to perform now: like a demon before the players, like a gibbon before the press, like a philosopher before the fans. Like a Docker.
With that thought lingering, he springs from his chair and strides out of his office and out of the building, possessed by supernatural energy and entirely unconscious now of his bogan attire. He would go home, roast a suckling pig for himself, cast another onto the fire to appease the Gods, and retire to enjoy the boon of sleep until the first rays of rosy-fingered dawn. Then he would awake and lay out his plan for the men, his plan to take them all to their rightful home: the MCG in late September.
Thursday, 6 December 2007
Armenia Decides
(published in the Kalgoorlie Miner on election day)
I have just recieved a frantic pigeon-mail from Michael Gorey, advising that an ‘Australia Decides 2007’ feature piece is needed from my out-station. “Get out and about,” he directs from his red-brick tower, “I want the opinion of the man on the street”. The editor’s oft-criticised decision to post a foreign correspondent in Kapan, southern Armenia, will now bear fruit, most likely a lemon.
I decide immediately that to connect with the man on the street, I need to become the man on the street. I dye my hair black – if you’re blonde, you’re a hooker – and pencil in a monobrow, then don trousers, a jacket, and pointy shoes, all in black leather. The thought occurs to me that it might have been easier to meet men on the street if I’d left my hair blonde. Too late now. The finishing touches on my disguise are a packet of long, peach-scented cigarettes and a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Right to go.
My trusty donkey, Alby Mangels, bucks as I drag him from his pile of cabbage stubs and cast an Iranian tapestry across his midriff. It takes three quick shots of vodka to settle him down - one more than usual. I jump on side-saddle, in observance of Armenian traffic regulation 1.1(a), and begin the ride to town, lighting up a cigarette and pop-pop-popping a few birds with the Kalashnikov, just to show I’m one of the boys.
The ride takes me down a pot-holed concrete footpath, past a crumbling concrete apartment building, through a damp concrete tunnel, and beside a long concrete wall, pocked-marked with bullet holes from Azerbaijan. “We showed them though,” a local once told me, aiming his imaginary AK-47 at the mountain side, “Three years ago, the nearest Azeri was up there. Now, he is 200 kilometres away.” I laughed for five minutes – any less would be considered un-Armenian.
The central markets are abuzz when I arrive. The local currency, the ‘Cucumber’ (CBR), has strengthened against the greenback in recent times, and inflation – long the enemy of former Soviet states – has steadied, with a standard basket of pickled green tomatoes only CBR 2.15 more than this time last year. So men and women and transvestites are spending Cucumbers like there’s no tomorrow, which may well be the case if Iran, just 30 kilometres away, goes nuclear.
Amongst the throng I spot my language coach Cher, named after the singer Cher, the greatest living Armenian. She is a pretty young thing (this Cher, not that Cher): facial desiccation – the curse of Armenian women – has not yet taken hold, and her moustache is fashionably styled. I slither through the crowd and reveal myself to her, and by that I mean reveal my identity. With a little encouragement, in the form of a cabbage leaf dipped in vodka, she agrees to follow and interpret for me.
I canvas several market-goers, and most seem to favour the Coalition. In a country where brides must be virgins, and flatulence brings shame to you and your family (as I discovered during dinner at the mayoral palace), it is natural that Armenians favour the Howard Government’s social conservatism. I discover that WorkChoices is also revered: earning AUD $5.00 (approximately CBR 12.00) an hour is a dream here, where most take home less than twelve Cucumbers per week.
Moving across to the stalls, I meet Armen (after Great Armenia), a greying, 50-something vendor who specialises in cabbages and vodka. I show him pictures of John Howard, Kevin Rudd, and Bob Brown. I’d show him a picture of the Democrats leader but I don’t know who it is. Slapping each photo in turn, Armen speaks with great animation.
“In Armenia, we call these men The Shun, The Esh, and The Katu,” Cher translates, “That is The Dog, The Donkey, and The Cat. Howard is The Shun because, like an Armenian dog, he is rabid and wiley, but will whimper and lay down when cracked with a cane. Rudd is The Esh because, like an Armenian donkey, he is painful to listen to, and will bite off your fingers if provoked. Brown is The Katu because, like an Armenian cat, he pisses on all of your favourite things.”
I nod in agreement with Armen, and continue pushing through the crowd. At the far side of the market square I spot a group of old men – good for political comment in any culture - enjoying a traditional lunch of boiled cabbage and vodka. I greet the men, and reveal photos of some prominent candidates.
At the sight of Barry Haase, the men, all called Armen (after Great Armenia), giggle and mock his baritone voice. I show Alexander Downer and they laugh for a solid half-hour, stopping only when I fire a few warning rounds from the Kalashnikov. When everyone has their breath back I show Julia Gillard, and things suddenly get crazy.
The Armens descend upon me, tearing Gillard’s image from my hand and nailing it to a length of two-by-four. They parade it through the square, bouncing to the beat of spontaneous gunfire, and the crowd ascends into frenzy. As I flee the dizzying scene, leaving Alby Mangels behind, I remember that in Armenia, ginger hair is considered a virtue, a sign of The Chosen One. I sense a strong swing to Labor.
On the way home, I stop on the bridge and peer into the Kapan river. The water is a vivid azure blue, not because it’s sourced from melting alpine glaciers, but because it runs through the local mine, and contains enough copper sulphate to kill a man. A rotten cabbage races an empty vodka bottle through the eddies, and I am reminded of the local proverb: “In Kapan, look up - don’t look down”.
That wisdom, I decide as I wander off, applies equally to this election: we shouldn’t look down into the poison torrent of fear, we should look up at the brilliant mountain and aspire to reach its summit. We’ve been slipping down the slope for the past ten years. Now is the time to stick the ice-pick in, and claw back some national pride. I’m just sorry I won’t be on the ground to see it. I was gonna have a sick election party.
I have just recieved a frantic pigeon-mail from Michael Gorey, advising that an ‘Australia Decides 2007’ feature piece is needed from my out-station. “Get out and about,” he directs from his red-brick tower, “I want the opinion of the man on the street”. The editor’s oft-criticised decision to post a foreign correspondent in Kapan, southern Armenia, will now bear fruit, most likely a lemon.
I decide immediately that to connect with the man on the street, I need to become the man on the street. I dye my hair black – if you’re blonde, you’re a hooker – and pencil in a monobrow, then don trousers, a jacket, and pointy shoes, all in black leather. The thought occurs to me that it might have been easier to meet men on the street if I’d left my hair blonde. Too late now. The finishing touches on my disguise are a packet of long, peach-scented cigarettes and a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Right to go.
My trusty donkey, Alby Mangels, bucks as I drag him from his pile of cabbage stubs and cast an Iranian tapestry across his midriff. It takes three quick shots of vodka to settle him down - one more than usual. I jump on side-saddle, in observance of Armenian traffic regulation 1.1(a), and begin the ride to town, lighting up a cigarette and pop-pop-popping a few birds with the Kalashnikov, just to show I’m one of the boys.
The ride takes me down a pot-holed concrete footpath, past a crumbling concrete apartment building, through a damp concrete tunnel, and beside a long concrete wall, pocked-marked with bullet holes from Azerbaijan. “We showed them though,” a local once told me, aiming his imaginary AK-47 at the mountain side, “Three years ago, the nearest Azeri was up there. Now, he is 200 kilometres away.” I laughed for five minutes – any less would be considered un-Armenian.
The central markets are abuzz when I arrive. The local currency, the ‘Cucumber’ (CBR), has strengthened against the greenback in recent times, and inflation – long the enemy of former Soviet states – has steadied, with a standard basket of pickled green tomatoes only CBR 2.15 more than this time last year. So men and women and transvestites are spending Cucumbers like there’s no tomorrow, which may well be the case if Iran, just 30 kilometres away, goes nuclear.
Amongst the throng I spot my language coach Cher, named after the singer Cher, the greatest living Armenian. She is a pretty young thing (this Cher, not that Cher): facial desiccation – the curse of Armenian women – has not yet taken hold, and her moustache is fashionably styled. I slither through the crowd and reveal myself to her, and by that I mean reveal my identity. With a little encouragement, in the form of a cabbage leaf dipped in vodka, she agrees to follow and interpret for me.
I canvas several market-goers, and most seem to favour the Coalition. In a country where brides must be virgins, and flatulence brings shame to you and your family (as I discovered during dinner at the mayoral palace), it is natural that Armenians favour the Howard Government’s social conservatism. I discover that WorkChoices is also revered: earning AUD $5.00 (approximately CBR 12.00) an hour is a dream here, where most take home less than twelve Cucumbers per week.
Moving across to the stalls, I meet Armen (after Great Armenia), a greying, 50-something vendor who specialises in cabbages and vodka. I show him pictures of John Howard, Kevin Rudd, and Bob Brown. I’d show him a picture of the Democrats leader but I don’t know who it is. Slapping each photo in turn, Armen speaks with great animation.
“In Armenia, we call these men The Shun, The Esh, and The Katu,” Cher translates, “That is The Dog, The Donkey, and The Cat. Howard is The Shun because, like an Armenian dog, he is rabid and wiley, but will whimper and lay down when cracked with a cane. Rudd is The Esh because, like an Armenian donkey, he is painful to listen to, and will bite off your fingers if provoked. Brown is The Katu because, like an Armenian cat, he pisses on all of your favourite things.”
I nod in agreement with Armen, and continue pushing through the crowd. At the far side of the market square I spot a group of old men – good for political comment in any culture - enjoying a traditional lunch of boiled cabbage and vodka. I greet the men, and reveal photos of some prominent candidates.
At the sight of Barry Haase, the men, all called Armen (after Great Armenia), giggle and mock his baritone voice. I show Alexander Downer and they laugh for a solid half-hour, stopping only when I fire a few warning rounds from the Kalashnikov. When everyone has their breath back I show Julia Gillard, and things suddenly get crazy.
The Armens descend upon me, tearing Gillard’s image from my hand and nailing it to a length of two-by-four. They parade it through the square, bouncing to the beat of spontaneous gunfire, and the crowd ascends into frenzy. As I flee the dizzying scene, leaving Alby Mangels behind, I remember that in Armenia, ginger hair is considered a virtue, a sign of The Chosen One. I sense a strong swing to Labor.
On the way home, I stop on the bridge and peer into the Kapan river. The water is a vivid azure blue, not because it’s sourced from melting alpine glaciers, but because it runs through the local mine, and contains enough copper sulphate to kill a man. A rotten cabbage races an empty vodka bottle through the eddies, and I am reminded of the local proverb: “In Kapan, look up - don’t look down”.
That wisdom, I decide as I wander off, applies equally to this election: we shouldn’t look down into the poison torrent of fear, we should look up at the brilliant mountain and aspire to reach its summit. We’ve been slipping down the slope for the past ten years. Now is the time to stick the ice-pick in, and claw back some national pride. I’m just sorry I won’t be on the ground to see it. I was gonna have a sick election party.
Monday, 15 October 2007
Dear Sam [former housemate]
Your letter really got me thinking about what I am doing out here: Am I here because it's something I want to do, or am I here because society expects it of me? I genuinely believe I am here because I enjoy it; because, exactly as you and Tim discussed, you never know what a time you've had until you tell somebody about it. While sometimes it may be difficult, there is always a story to tell and laugh at years from now. While some prefer events to run smoothly, I prefer everything to be crazy and difficult and for shit to go wrong. The best travel adventure stories are always about shit going wrong: The time you got the shits, the time a rabid monkey scratched your face, the time you ate magic mushrooms and thought a googly-eyed German was the Devil himself. No-one cares for stories about beautiful sunsets, nice hotels, or friendly locals...
... But back to the question of why I am here - and, perhaps, why you are there. A lot of people, when I say I am finding the fly in-fly out a little bit difficult, will say something like "You'll get used to it", but I have concluded there is a great difference - a huge terrifying chasm - between "getting used" to something and letting it kill your spirit and soul. Do you know what I mean? If I keep doing this work and, after a while, it doesn't bother me, is it because I am "used to it", or because I have let it grab my soul, tear the skin away, and leave it hanging to dry from a meat hook, like a great piece of beef jerky, or "soul jerky", as it were?
Yes, this "soul jerky" is what we have to stop ourselves becoming my dear boy. There's people I work with out here who are definitely in the latter stages of becoming hard, dry soul jerky, and the sight of them causes me to dry-retch. They are career FIFO workers, whose lives have so subtely eroded away that they don't even notice it happening, until one day they find they have nothing left - no friends, no lovers, no passions. They have no reason and no desire to go home because they have no home. This lack of a centre to their lives is like the blazing sun to the meat of their souls. Without a spiritual hub, one is dangerously close to becoming soul jerky.
But enough of this depressing talk of soul jerky, though I do like the term I invented just now by the campfire, after a few beers. Aah beer, the lubricant to the cogs of my brain...
... But back to the question of why I am here - and, perhaps, why you are there. A lot of people, when I say I am finding the fly in-fly out a little bit difficult, will say something like "You'll get used to it", but I have concluded there is a great difference - a huge terrifying chasm - between "getting used" to something and letting it kill your spirit and soul. Do you know what I mean? If I keep doing this work and, after a while, it doesn't bother me, is it because I am "used to it", or because I have let it grab my soul, tear the skin away, and leave it hanging to dry from a meat hook, like a great piece of beef jerky, or "soul jerky", as it were?
Yes, this "soul jerky" is what we have to stop ourselves becoming my dear boy. There's people I work with out here who are definitely in the latter stages of becoming hard, dry soul jerky, and the sight of them causes me to dry-retch. They are career FIFO workers, whose lives have so subtely eroded away that they don't even notice it happening, until one day they find they have nothing left - no friends, no lovers, no passions. They have no reason and no desire to go home because they have no home. This lack of a centre to their lives is like the blazing sun to the meat of their souls. Without a spiritual hub, one is dangerously close to becoming soul jerky.
But enough of this depressing talk of soul jerky, though I do like the term I invented just now by the campfire, after a few beers. Aah beer, the lubricant to the cogs of my brain...
Dear Gerard [former workmate]
... The shame is that after 9000 metres of RC drilling since my last letter I am not quite so excited about geology. I think I mentioned then that I had stopped reading high-brow literature between drillholes, taking to the hills instead, yes? Well guess who is currently sitting on the passenger side of my Landcruiser? Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It's official: I am burnt out.
Speaking of books, I have read but two about Africa [Gerard had just got back from a trip there]: Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and a biography of Cecil Rhodes. Neither, you will understand, endears me to the continent, but both were thoroughly excellent. The Rhodes biography was read at the tail end of a long period in my mid-late teens when I read only non-fiction, declaring to all that there was no need for escape to fiction - then I became an adult and discovered Aldous Huxley, who could tease the joy out of a dinner party, and Henry Miller, who could make it out to be a fiery pit of terror. So I altered my stance: The only books worth reading are those that find the joy, the terror, and the magic in the everyday world. Hmm, a tangent.
But yes, Rhodes - what a cunt, but what a brilliant cunt. And I mean brilliant, not as good or clever, but as 'shiny'. Yes Cecil Rhodes was a shiny, polished, flawless cunt, and if you don't know his story well then learn it. Cunts like that need to be spotted at an early age and shot. There's heaps of them out there, and all that you and I can do is buy a shotgun and read about the life and times of Cecil Rhodes. Knowledge is power...
Speaking of books, I have read but two about Africa [Gerard had just got back from a trip there]: Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and a biography of Cecil Rhodes. Neither, you will understand, endears me to the continent, but both were thoroughly excellent. The Rhodes biography was read at the tail end of a long period in my mid-late teens when I read only non-fiction, declaring to all that there was no need for escape to fiction - then I became an adult and discovered Aldous Huxley, who could tease the joy out of a dinner party, and Henry Miller, who could make it out to be a fiery pit of terror. So I altered my stance: The only books worth reading are those that find the joy, the terror, and the magic in the everyday world. Hmm, a tangent.
But yes, Rhodes - what a cunt, but what a brilliant cunt. And I mean brilliant, not as good or clever, but as 'shiny'. Yes Cecil Rhodes was a shiny, polished, flawless cunt, and if you don't know his story well then learn it. Cunts like that need to be spotted at an early age and shot. There's heaps of them out there, and all that you and I can do is buy a shotgun and read about the life and times of Cecil Rhodes. Knowledge is power...
Monday, 3 September 2007
Dear Peter [old Uni mate]
What's new pussycat? Nothing is new where I am. It's all old, weary, rotten; and there's not a thing to be done about it, but learn to love it. No, things aren't so bad - in fact it's quite good fun, apart from the whole being away from Carlie and my friends and my dog; from the beach, the shops, the football; from the realm of the sane man. The Kimberley is a hub of insanity, a Mecca to pilgrims strange and dangerous, and an accepting, womb-like hidey-hole for those on the run.
But who - this is a question that has been brewing in my head - is insane, and who is sane? And who does the judging? And how do we know they are sane? Mental state can not - must not - be thought of as a linear continuum, with sanity and insanity as the opposing end-members. Why? Because sanity and insanity so closely approach that to distinguish one from the other is an impossibility. Take the example of a man who has given up all his worldly possessions and resolved to walk the earth as a primitive man - I met such a man a few weeks ago at the Kununurra Hotel (he hadn't given up beer, obviously). Is he insane because he can't see the value and usefulness of modern technology? Or fantastically sane and clear-minded because he has recognised the evil inherent in a world run by machines? You decide.
I have decided that sanity and lunacy, if not one and the same, are at least kissing cousins. My driller is walking the blurry line that I speak of, after seven weeks out here with a total of three half days off to get supplies and spare parts from town. At the beginning of the program he fooled me a few times by saying things like "We have to stop the hole here (short of target depth) - there's too much water/the bit is broken/the ground is too hard" or "Oh no! If we stop the hole here (after a particularly short hole, which they find frustrating) then the rods will get bogged and we'll have to stand down." After about 10 seconds, or after I realised he was bullshitting me, he would laugh and tell me he was joking. He says the same things now, but with dull, pleading eyes, where before there was a sparkle; and the chuckling has gone, replaced by an uneasy silence, a scuffle of the feet, and a half-baked excuse to drift away. Yes, my driller is walking the line and beginning to list badly - towards the anoxic cesspool of insanity.
The good thing about this "isolation-style" insanity is its temporary nature. It allows a normally sane man to look through the foggy glasses of insanity; to crawl towards the edge of reason and sing "cooee" into the abyss. But, to paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, the only people who really know the limits are those who have gone over the edge...
But who - this is a question that has been brewing in my head - is insane, and who is sane? And who does the judging? And how do we know they are sane? Mental state can not - must not - be thought of as a linear continuum, with sanity and insanity as the opposing end-members. Why? Because sanity and insanity so closely approach that to distinguish one from the other is an impossibility. Take the example of a man who has given up all his worldly possessions and resolved to walk the earth as a primitive man - I met such a man a few weeks ago at the Kununurra Hotel (he hadn't given up beer, obviously). Is he insane because he can't see the value and usefulness of modern technology? Or fantastically sane and clear-minded because he has recognised the evil inherent in a world run by machines? You decide.
I have decided that sanity and lunacy, if not one and the same, are at least kissing cousins. My driller is walking the blurry line that I speak of, after seven weeks out here with a total of three half days off to get supplies and spare parts from town. At the beginning of the program he fooled me a few times by saying things like "We have to stop the hole here (short of target depth) - there's too much water/the bit is broken/the ground is too hard" or "Oh no! If we stop the hole here (after a particularly short hole, which they find frustrating) then the rods will get bogged and we'll have to stand down." After about 10 seconds, or after I realised he was bullshitting me, he would laugh and tell me he was joking. He says the same things now, but with dull, pleading eyes, where before there was a sparkle; and the chuckling has gone, replaced by an uneasy silence, a scuffle of the feet, and a half-baked excuse to drift away. Yes, my driller is walking the line and beginning to list badly - towards the anoxic cesspool of insanity.
The good thing about this "isolation-style" insanity is its temporary nature. It allows a normally sane man to look through the foggy glasses of insanity; to crawl towards the edge of reason and sing "cooee" into the abyss. But, to paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, the only people who really know the limits are those who have gone over the edge...
Dear Chris [old workmate]
... Today as I staggered over yet another spinifex-matted gabbro outcrop, I asked myself this question (no, not aloud - I am not yet COMPLETELY mad): Is what I am doing living, or am I missing out on living? Is life the experience of walking through kilometres of thick, head-high cane grass in search of a high-magnetite gabbro, or is it the steady process of progression of work and play and meeting with friends for "a cup of joe" (I like that silly word that you taught me in the Norseman kitchen)? Or is it a bit of each? Who has lived more, by the common understanding: a man who spends every week of every year in the city, or a man who spends one thrilling week out of every four in the city and the rest of his time alone in the wilderness? Who is really missing out? Oh I do propose such leading questions don't I, and I think my feelings on the matter should be quite clear to you, if you have half the understanding of me that I believe you do.
The main goal I set for myself in my life is that I continue to add to my collection of stories, and that I also improve my ability to tell them, for I believe that all we can hope for in life is to laugh with and connect with those closest to us, and maybe add some new friends along the way. Maybe many people think this way, and that's why old grandpas and grandmas are always telling useless stories. Perhaps we should pay more attention and respect to old people. Nah, we shouldn't.
So how does one go about gathering stories? Do I simply walk the trail of life, picking up stories as I happen across them, or do I veer from the trail into the dampened thicket and return at some later stage - if at all - with a bloody great sackful? I'd personally like to think that even if I were to not leave this Coleman four-person tent (with vestibule*) for the rest of my days, I could still come up with a good story or two per day - true or false or somewhere in between.
I used to be a great believer that stories should be told modestly and accurately and with minimal foul language, but not any more. Any story can gain from a little embellishment, the addition of a hero or villain, or the skillful use - but not overuse - of the word "fuck" or one of it's many variants: fucker, fuckstick, fat fucken motherfucker, and so on. See how this letter has suddenly been brought alive by that sentence? Would the effect have been the same had I opened with "How the fuck are ya?" and carried on with the obscenity from that point forth? Hardly...
* My bedside dictionary defines a vestibule as "a room or hall just inside the outer door of a building". My fieldy and I have been puzzling over it's meaning since we found it on the tent boxes.
The main goal I set for myself in my life is that I continue to add to my collection of stories, and that I also improve my ability to tell them, for I believe that all we can hope for in life is to laugh with and connect with those closest to us, and maybe add some new friends along the way. Maybe many people think this way, and that's why old grandpas and grandmas are always telling useless stories. Perhaps we should pay more attention and respect to old people. Nah, we shouldn't.
So how does one go about gathering stories? Do I simply walk the trail of life, picking up stories as I happen across them, or do I veer from the trail into the dampened thicket and return at some later stage - if at all - with a bloody great sackful? I'd personally like to think that even if I were to not leave this Coleman four-person tent (with vestibule*) for the rest of my days, I could still come up with a good story or two per day - true or false or somewhere in between.
I used to be a great believer that stories should be told modestly and accurately and with minimal foul language, but not any more. Any story can gain from a little embellishment, the addition of a hero or villain, or the skillful use - but not overuse - of the word "fuck" or one of it's many variants: fucker, fuckstick, fat fucken motherfucker, and so on. See how this letter has suddenly been brought alive by that sentence? Would the effect have been the same had I opened with "How the fuck are ya?" and carried on with the obscenity from that point forth? Hardly...
* My bedside dictionary defines a vestibule as "a room or hall just inside the outer door of a building". My fieldy and I have been puzzling over it's meaning since we found it on the tent boxes.
Postcard from Speewah
[This was sent to my workmates, who send "postcards" from wherever they are working. As you may be able to tell, this one was "polished" - drafted, re-written, unlike the letters]
It's a knife fight. Sanity in the blue corner; Lunacy resplendent in red. The bell rings; the opponents meet in a flash of silver. It's desperate. In the second round I notice something odd: Lunacy's trunks have taken on a blueish hue; Sanity's have reddened. By the third round both fighters are purple, indistinguishable. At the beginning of the fourth the combatants shake hands and call for tea and scones; in the fifth they dance a waltz.
I laugh maniacally. I laugh, and then I cry....
Cat Stevens - my lone companion and confidante - tells me thrice daily that "out on the edge of darkness, there rides the peace train". I tell Cat that had he commandeered a stallion, jumped the tracks, and flogged the whinnying beast until it's legs gave way - well beyond the edge of darkness - he'd have reached a place neither light nor dark; a place filled with God and, paradoxically, forsaken by Him. A place called Speewah.
Yes the Lord did some of His finest work when He created the Speewah Dome, pushing a large chemically-unstable mafic intrusion into flat-bedded sandstone, ensuring that the resultant ovoid valley would be fenced in by steep golden cliffs. It must be Eden in the wet season as water gushes in through the Dunham and Pentecost gorges and any number of waterfalls, but in the dry season the sunken ellipse becomes a coliseum; a super-heated crucible where Heathens - counseled only by Cat Stevens and fuelled only by sweetened condensed milk - are pitted against Brown Snakes amongst a thick mat of spinifex and spear grass*. And just when a Heathen, seemingly victorious, staggers punctured and bloodied from the thicket, his face torn with horror, Hell's Monsoon - "the other monsoon" - breaks and the creeks and rivers and waterfalls flow not with water but with despair - at first in a trickle but, before long, in a rampaging torrent that fills the cauldron to overflowing. Then, as quickly and unexpectedly as it began, the great surge ceases and all becomes quiet, still.
It is from the bottom of this Great Lake of Despair, from the lowest point on the valley floor, that I write to you now; my body, though literally tanned and upright, is metaphorically pale, limp, and laying prone in anoxic sludge, faintly idling at -273 C - absolute zero. I am embalmed in loathing; pickled in dread. But don't send help - I am comfortably numb. Forget me, please.
.... Round six and purple tuxedos are being worn for what looks like a banquet. Entree breezes by amid dazzling good manners and gaiety, but after a brief uncomfortable silence, anarchy erupts. The original colours are restored. Lunacy springs forth, plunging his desert fork into Sanity's eyeball and - oh the humanity! - splits his temple with a candelabra. It's a bloodbath!
I stop my Toyota to scream at a cow. She bucks with bewilderment and staggers backwards, her bovine sensibilities severely jangled. "Holy Jesus", her limpid eyes imply, "A madman!" I frown momentarily as a small voice - soft, fading - suggests that the cow may be right: I have gone crazy. But my own sane, sane, sane laughter drowns out the whisper and I speed onwards in a cloud of dust. But again I step on the brakes as I see a black dog in the bushes - the same black dog I have seen each of the last two days. He watches me without expression from his beady black eyes, as I begin to wonder: Is it just a black dog, or is it The Black Dog; Churchill's Black Dog; Led Zeppelin's Black Dog? My laughter is gone, replaced by solemnity, and as I chug away down the track, the dog patiently, knowingly trots behind.
* A tall savannah cover that dispenses it's all-penetrating seed pods at scrotum height.
It's a knife fight. Sanity in the blue corner; Lunacy resplendent in red. The bell rings; the opponents meet in a flash of silver. It's desperate. In the second round I notice something odd: Lunacy's trunks have taken on a blueish hue; Sanity's have reddened. By the third round both fighters are purple, indistinguishable. At the beginning of the fourth the combatants shake hands and call for tea and scones; in the fifth they dance a waltz.
I laugh maniacally. I laugh, and then I cry....
Cat Stevens - my lone companion and confidante - tells me thrice daily that "out on the edge of darkness, there rides the peace train". I tell Cat that had he commandeered a stallion, jumped the tracks, and flogged the whinnying beast until it's legs gave way - well beyond the edge of darkness - he'd have reached a place neither light nor dark; a place filled with God and, paradoxically, forsaken by Him. A place called Speewah.
Yes the Lord did some of His finest work when He created the Speewah Dome, pushing a large chemically-unstable mafic intrusion into flat-bedded sandstone, ensuring that the resultant ovoid valley would be fenced in by steep golden cliffs. It must be Eden in the wet season as water gushes in through the Dunham and Pentecost gorges and any number of waterfalls, but in the dry season the sunken ellipse becomes a coliseum; a super-heated crucible where Heathens - counseled only by Cat Stevens and fuelled only by sweetened condensed milk - are pitted against Brown Snakes amongst a thick mat of spinifex and spear grass*. And just when a Heathen, seemingly victorious, staggers punctured and bloodied from the thicket, his face torn with horror, Hell's Monsoon - "the other monsoon" - breaks and the creeks and rivers and waterfalls flow not with water but with despair - at first in a trickle but, before long, in a rampaging torrent that fills the cauldron to overflowing. Then, as quickly and unexpectedly as it began, the great surge ceases and all becomes quiet, still.
It is from the bottom of this Great Lake of Despair, from the lowest point on the valley floor, that I write to you now; my body, though literally tanned and upright, is metaphorically pale, limp, and laying prone in anoxic sludge, faintly idling at -273 C - absolute zero. I am embalmed in loathing; pickled in dread. But don't send help - I am comfortably numb. Forget me, please.
.... Round six and purple tuxedos are being worn for what looks like a banquet. Entree breezes by amid dazzling good manners and gaiety, but after a brief uncomfortable silence, anarchy erupts. The original colours are restored. Lunacy springs forth, plunging his desert fork into Sanity's eyeball and - oh the humanity! - splits his temple with a candelabra. It's a bloodbath!
I stop my Toyota to scream at a cow. She bucks with bewilderment and staggers backwards, her bovine sensibilities severely jangled. "Holy Jesus", her limpid eyes imply, "A madman!" I frown momentarily as a small voice - soft, fading - suggests that the cow may be right: I have gone crazy. But my own sane, sane, sane laughter drowns out the whisper and I speed onwards in a cloud of dust. But again I step on the brakes as I see a black dog in the bushes - the same black dog I have seen each of the last two days. He watches me without expression from his beady black eyes, as I begin to wonder: Is it just a black dog, or is it The Black Dog; Churchill's Black Dog; Led Zeppelin's Black Dog? My laughter is gone, replaced by solemnity, and as I chug away down the track, the dog patiently, knowingly trots behind.
* A tall savannah cover that dispenses it's all-penetrating seed pods at scrotum height.
Dear Adrian [old workmate]
[I butchered some of the lyrics, but you'll get the point]
I have two tapes in my shambolic Landcruiser wagon, but I will only listen to one of them: The Best of Cat Stevens. The other tape - The Best of UB40 - rests in the magazine slot of the driver's side door, destined never to be played again and, quite frankly, that tape is lucky it hasn't been smashed and burnt, such is my disdain for the band. I WAS happy to listen to it - after all, I bought it - until I read the tape cover during a quiet day and discovered they were white men - well one token black man and five or six white men. And they are English, not Jamaican. Who knew? Not me, and boy did I fly off the handle when I found out. Here I was all this time - years Adrian - with a picture in my head of three or four stoned Rastafari tapping on steel drums, up-strumming their guitars on the off-beat, laughing, crying, and eating two-minute noodles, and then I find out they are pasty white, skinny English geezers who wear dark sunglasses. Can you imagine my fury? I don't think you can, but you might get close if I tell you I paid $15 for that tape (and for Cat Stevens) from Kununurra Music, and that both had "45 rupees" stickers on them, meaning I should have paid around $1.50...
So given that UB40 is getting no airplay - I have resolved to burn that tape tomorrow when I brew my morning tea - and my radio doesn't work, it must be clear to you that I am hearing a lot of Cat Stevens at the moment. This is not an all-together bad thing, yours truly having been a fan for some time, but it would be fair to say that The Cat and I have been experiencing some turbulent times. I have begun to see The Cat as something more than a friend or a fling or a passing interest, and this kind of relationship change is not without its problems. Allow me to quote from The Cat's own work:
"Remember the days by the old school yard,
We used to laugh a lot.
Oh, don't you remember the days by the old school yard?
When we had simplicity,
And we had warm toast for tea,
And we laughed and needed love,
Yes I do, oh, and I remember you."
Don't you see Adrian? Can you fathom the relevance of those words to my situation; their astounding foresight? For years The Cat and I have had what one might call an open relationship: a bit of Cat here, a bit of Cat there; a bit of Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin or The Beatles or Jeff Buckley; a few weeks of silence; a bit more Cat beside the fire after a cask of port; and so on. It used to be so simple and carefree. I would generally just get drunk with the boys, have a bit of Cat, and then go to bed - no strings attached. I think Cat was just happy to be let out of the bag, so to speak. But now we're full-time, basically living together, and he wants more. Where before I just sang along, now he wants me to listen and understand. I'm not sure I want that, but The Cat's all I've got and silence is not an option - again, The Cat says it all:
"Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody.
I've got some money 'cause I just got paid.
Oh how I wish I had someone to talk to.
I'm in an awful way (he's in an awful way)."
Oh Cat, how can I question my need for you when you are so wise? I will always love you and need you - I can't believe I ever doubted it!
Sorry Adrian. I am trying harder to listen and understand The Cat. For instance, I am trying to piece together the puzzle of how The Cat became a convert to Islam: listening for clues in the songs, thinking about the year they were written. In songs like Morning Has Broken, Here Comes My Baby, and I Love My Dog, there is little hint at any religious awakening. Then there is what I call "the tipping point" songs, where The Cat is sombre and full of warnings - Wild World is the type-example. In these songs he is disenchanted, struggling, helpless, but in the third series he is reflective, as if looking back at the world he has left behind eg. Where do the Children Play. My ultimate goal is to find the actual specific drum beat where The Cat becomes Yousuf Islam, and I think I'm just about there.
The Cat IS giving me more love than ever, but we do still need a couple of hours apart each day, just to renew our feelings for one another. It's been good getting to know him more intimately - certainly better than 1/4-knowing 10,000 songs off an ipod. And, as with most occasions, he has the right words to end this letter:
"Whoever I'm with boy*, I'm always talking to you.
Always talking to you, but I can't think of right words to say.
And whenever I'm near boy*, I will put my arms around you.
Put my arms around you, like the sea around the shore."
Cant fit the rest [the page was running out]. Ciao.
* "Girl" in the song, but that wouldn't have made sense.
I have two tapes in my shambolic Landcruiser wagon, but I will only listen to one of them: The Best of Cat Stevens. The other tape - The Best of UB40 - rests in the magazine slot of the driver's side door, destined never to be played again and, quite frankly, that tape is lucky it hasn't been smashed and burnt, such is my disdain for the band. I WAS happy to listen to it - after all, I bought it - until I read the tape cover during a quiet day and discovered they were white men - well one token black man and five or six white men. And they are English, not Jamaican. Who knew? Not me, and boy did I fly off the handle when I found out. Here I was all this time - years Adrian - with a picture in my head of three or four stoned Rastafari tapping on steel drums, up-strumming their guitars on the off-beat, laughing, crying, and eating two-minute noodles, and then I find out they are pasty white, skinny English geezers who wear dark sunglasses. Can you imagine my fury? I don't think you can, but you might get close if I tell you I paid $15 for that tape (and for Cat Stevens) from Kununurra Music, and that both had "45 rupees" stickers on them, meaning I should have paid around $1.50...
So given that UB40 is getting no airplay - I have resolved to burn that tape tomorrow when I brew my morning tea - and my radio doesn't work, it must be clear to you that I am hearing a lot of Cat Stevens at the moment. This is not an all-together bad thing, yours truly having been a fan for some time, but it would be fair to say that The Cat and I have been experiencing some turbulent times. I have begun to see The Cat as something more than a friend or a fling or a passing interest, and this kind of relationship change is not without its problems. Allow me to quote from The Cat's own work:
"Remember the days by the old school yard,
We used to laugh a lot.
Oh, don't you remember the days by the old school yard?
When we had simplicity,
And we had warm toast for tea,
And we laughed and needed love,
Yes I do, oh, and I remember you."
Don't you see Adrian? Can you fathom the relevance of those words to my situation; their astounding foresight? For years The Cat and I have had what one might call an open relationship: a bit of Cat here, a bit of Cat there; a bit of Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin or The Beatles or Jeff Buckley; a few weeks of silence; a bit more Cat beside the fire after a cask of port; and so on. It used to be so simple and carefree. I would generally just get drunk with the boys, have a bit of Cat, and then go to bed - no strings attached. I think Cat was just happy to be let out of the bag, so to speak. But now we're full-time, basically living together, and he wants more. Where before I just sang along, now he wants me to listen and understand. I'm not sure I want that, but The Cat's all I've got and silence is not an option - again, The Cat says it all:
"Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody.
I've got some money 'cause I just got paid.
Oh how I wish I had someone to talk to.
I'm in an awful way (he's in an awful way)."
Oh Cat, how can I question my need for you when you are so wise? I will always love you and need you - I can't believe I ever doubted it!
Sorry Adrian. I am trying harder to listen and understand The Cat. For instance, I am trying to piece together the puzzle of how The Cat became a convert to Islam: listening for clues in the songs, thinking about the year they were written. In songs like Morning Has Broken, Here Comes My Baby, and I Love My Dog, there is little hint at any religious awakening. Then there is what I call "the tipping point" songs, where The Cat is sombre and full of warnings - Wild World is the type-example. In these songs he is disenchanted, struggling, helpless, but in the third series he is reflective, as if looking back at the world he has left behind eg. Where do the Children Play. My ultimate goal is to find the actual specific drum beat where The Cat becomes Yousuf Islam, and I think I'm just about there.
The Cat IS giving me more love than ever, but we do still need a couple of hours apart each day, just to renew our feelings for one another. It's been good getting to know him more intimately - certainly better than 1/4-knowing 10,000 songs off an ipod. And, as with most occasions, he has the right words to end this letter:
"Whoever I'm with boy*, I'm always talking to you.
Always talking to you, but I can't think of right words to say.
And whenever I'm near boy*, I will put my arms around you.
Put my arms around you, like the sea around the shore."
Cant fit the rest [the page was running out]. Ciao.
* "Girl" in the song, but that wouldn't have made sense.
Dear Brendan [old housemate]
I write to you from aboard QF1074 enroute from Perth to Broome...
... There is a swollen sickness in my guts at the moment, due, I think, to the eggs and gnocchi I had for breakfast, and the sweet, milky coffee that I felt obliged to drink at the airport. Do you feel this obligation to drink coffee? The drink physically sickens me and mentally disgusts me, but I drink it regardless because everyone else seems to be doing it. This behaviour disgusts me because it shows me that I, too, am a bloated consumer and slave to fashion. I don't need the caffeine - I'm sure it's not a physical addiction - but I need the camaraderie with my fellow hollow shells of people, who took up the habit, like me, after seeing Americanos - Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Eva Longoria, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler, and other such modern icons - drinking the stuff by the litre in mindless journals of our time like the favourite of Carlie, you, and I, New Weekly. Everyone's doing it man, and we'd be fools to do any different.
My nine days off in Perth were cluttered with the sorts of disgusting excesses that had become fantastically foreign to me during the preceding three weeks: sweet, milky coffees, as discussed above; thick, rich pastas and Asian dishes; cakes of all descriptions; sublime and ridiculous bouts of alcoholism, where I felt compelled to continue drinking, far beyond any reasonable limits, whether they be internal or imposed upon me by others; and, of course, all of this was underlain by a base of sedentary living. Sleep-ins were the norm; even the smallest task was too much. So, as I return to the bush now, I do so carrying extra weight around my waist - though I am still, as many folks observed, skinnier than usual - and, more disturbingly for me, weight around my brain.
At the end of my last three weeks, my mind was sharper than that of a fox. I felt able, in an instant, to slice through difficult situations, removing slabs and swathes of useless information with one or two sweeping strokes of my mental sword - the "slash" finale of the bayonet technique you once taught me in the loungeroom - leaving only the meaty core of the issue at hand. But the city, Brendan, the city dulled my blade almost instantly, and I couldn't summon the will to tend to it, or even the will to care...
... There is a swollen sickness in my guts at the moment, due, I think, to the eggs and gnocchi I had for breakfast, and the sweet, milky coffee that I felt obliged to drink at the airport. Do you feel this obligation to drink coffee? The drink physically sickens me and mentally disgusts me, but I drink it regardless because everyone else seems to be doing it. This behaviour disgusts me because it shows me that I, too, am a bloated consumer and slave to fashion. I don't need the caffeine - I'm sure it's not a physical addiction - but I need the camaraderie with my fellow hollow shells of people, who took up the habit, like me, after seeing Americanos - Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Eva Longoria, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler, and other such modern icons - drinking the stuff by the litre in mindless journals of our time like the favourite of Carlie, you, and I, New Weekly. Everyone's doing it man, and we'd be fools to do any different.
My nine days off in Perth were cluttered with the sorts of disgusting excesses that had become fantastically foreign to me during the preceding three weeks: sweet, milky coffees, as discussed above; thick, rich pastas and Asian dishes; cakes of all descriptions; sublime and ridiculous bouts of alcoholism, where I felt compelled to continue drinking, far beyond any reasonable limits, whether they be internal or imposed upon me by others; and, of course, all of this was underlain by a base of sedentary living. Sleep-ins were the norm; even the smallest task was too much. So, as I return to the bush now, I do so carrying extra weight around my waist - though I am still, as many folks observed, skinnier than usual - and, more disturbingly for me, weight around my brain.
At the end of my last three weeks, my mind was sharper than that of a fox. I felt able, in an instant, to slice through difficult situations, removing slabs and swathes of useless information with one or two sweeping strokes of my mental sword - the "slash" finale of the bayonet technique you once taught me in the loungeroom - leaving only the meaty core of the issue at hand. But the city, Brendan, the city dulled my blade almost instantly, and I couldn't summon the will to tend to it, or even the will to care...
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