tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36866454030580896142024-03-18T22:45:22.325-07:00Snake KennedyFrom New York to Cape York.
A Girl's Own Adventure in the land of wild men.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3686645403058089614.post-14553619701171940282017-03-14T16:37:00.000-07:002017-03-14T16:37:27.351-07:00Black Cat <div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In my dream <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There was a cat. It was black cat. It</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> lay sleeping on an armchair. And for some reason I thought it was a good idea to cut off the back legs and the back half of the cat's body. I can’t remember why but it seemed urgent. So I raised the axe and chopped that cat in two. And then watched in horror as both halves of its body kept living. Its long black tail was raised up like a Cobra ready to strike. And its front paws were dragging a tangle of bloody intestines in circles. I couldn’t believe what I’d done. It had happened so quick. And I knew I had to finish it because that cat was in torture. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">So I cornered the head of the cat in this little enclosed area. But it had a lot of desks and chairs in the way. And even on two legs and with half a body that cat could move. I was about to dump a brick on its head when it looked straight up into my eyes and screamed into my face. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It was then that I realised THAT CAT WAS ME.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="http://www.myspace.com/wednesdayfkennedy/blog/501587962" title="Read Don't look back"><b><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; padding: 0cm;">Don't look back</span></b></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; padding: 0cm;">In the animal kingdom the rule is, eat or be eaten.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; padding: 0cm;">In the human kingdom, define or be defined.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; padding: 0cm;">Thomas Szasz 1920<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">So I’m sitting in the Housing Commission Office and I’m remembering when I came back to Sydney how horrified I was when my parents handed me the forms for public housing. And gently suggested I might want to sign up. ‘Who me?’ I had survived New York hadn’t I? Ok my wings may have been burnt to a crisp but still flapping! </span><span style="background: #edeff4; color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Returning to Australia was like coming down from a very long acid trip. My Manhattan Dreaming melted the minute they turned off the seatbelt sign and sprayed us all with disinfectant. Welcome to… </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<b><span style="background: #edeff4; color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">B234<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="background: #edeff4; color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Is that me? Where’s my ticket? And now I can’t even find my ticket. Shit. I’ve lost my place again? </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">You do not exit stage left to New York and then return home to Sydney without a million dollars, a husband or at least a baby. Without one of those you’d better have a return fare. Or a few good friends in Ecuador. Because once you’ve tried to escape the fatal shore and failed, you’re on your own. Your treachery will never be forgiven. Not unless you close your mouth and pull your head in. Not unless you forget everything you learned while you were gone…</span><span style="background: #edeff4; color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">N2006<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Never mind. I wasn’t planning on staying. I just had a little book to write and then once I’d sold the film rights I’d buy myself a small townhouse and all my nearest and dearest a swimming pool and floaties! And then I was going to sign up for one of those ‘Extraordinary Ability Visas.’ (the American equivalent of the Disability Pension) so I could pop back on a plane to New York and get the hell outta here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="background: #edeff4; color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">. <b>BC100</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="background: #edeff4; color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">What is it with these numbers? They don’t seem to go forwards or backwards. You can’t even anticipate when your turn will come? It required constant vigilance.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> The room was speckled with Asians and Muslim women with prams. I eyed the competition and tried to imagine us in business class on Virgin with plenty of leg room. And not standing at the same trough, grounded, hungry and elbowing each other for shelter. I never thought I’d be in competition with a boat person. How the fuck did that happen? Life imitated Art and I became the Cultural Refugee that I depicted in the show I first took to America. The critics said I was the ‘It Girl for the New Century’ and perhaps I still fit the bill. If the new century is unemployed and homeless and peri-menopausal. That’s the sort of sucker that I am. My vanity is my weakness. Give me a compliment and I’ll give you a kidney. Thank God I never went to Saudi Arabia. I’d have ended up on some White Slave run. I’m a sucker for the promise of a happy ending. </span><span style="background: #edeff4; color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I should have hitched back a ride in a boat full of Asylum Seekers. They don’t get a happy ending either but at least there’s a dollar in that story. Or a documentary on SBS or ABC. Because there’s no market for the tales of washed up Showgirls with attractions to malignant narcisissts. No Show Bags for single sluts in a full throttle Mid Life Crisis… </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Asians kept bypassing the ticket machine and going straight for the reception. I wanted to shout ‘CUE JUMPER’ which shocked me. What had I become? Mea Mea Culpa! This wasn’t how my parents raised me. They raised me to be welcoming and generous. They raised me to care about the Under Dog not to BECOME the Under dog for fucks sake! I should have been back on my feet by now. What had happened to me? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<b><span style="background: #edeff4; color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">2009<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> I finished writing the book. J<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">ust in time to watch Bernie Madoff get busted. I thought it was a sign my timing was finally right but I was wrong. I’m always mis-reading those signs. Never mind. My whole life had been a Global Financial Crisis. So I published it myself and sold 100 copies. And then I ran out of puff. </span></span><span style="background: #edeff4; color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="background: #edeff4; color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The Psychologist said it was Depression. That all my brain pathways were broken. She explained how she could put them back together with the new drugs on the market. That once my pathways were healed I would start to see my future. She made it sound like Humpty Dumpty with a happy ending so I accepted the script and I tried them. But they fucked with my muse. She didn’t like being usurped by the pill box. She was the Alchemist who could take my poison and turn it into Elixer. She was the Mercurial Diva who could put wings on a show and fly me out of here. She’d done it before and she’d do it again. She didn’t need chemicals added to her spin. That was Muse Abuse. And she is the reason I get out of bed. Without her I’m nothing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b><span style="background: #edeff4; color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">A911<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">So to shake my blues and save what was left of my muse I took myself off on a journey across the country. From FNQ down the white trash express and across to Perth and Adelaide through Melbourne and back here to Sydney. From coast to coast I rattled the bars of my cage and blogged all my tales. And I’d come home to kill the dragon and write my happy…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">B674 <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">That’s me! Once a name. Now a number! I scuttled over to Booth 4 to be processed by Grail. At least I think she said Grail? Her name tag was a little twisted and I’d left my glasses in a suitcase stored at Eddies. My life was scattered in three places. And I needed a nap. I had been sent to this office by The Angel in Boots, with the tip I would be processed on the spot. The Angel in boots knew everything about the way the system worked. She was my Angel and my advocate. Without her I’d be lost. But she also warned me that the last people she sent to this office were suing the Department for racial discrimination because they were offered a pad in miles away from a Synagogue. In Maroubra. With thirty five steps which apparently caused a Sabbath Issue? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">It sounded like bullshit to me. I was jealous. I have never really been the jealous type but that’s before I became Hhhhh.. I can’t even say that word. That word is humiliating. Now I’m jealous of everyone. Even people with a decent Cardboard box. How did they get that? Did they raid Officeworks? How could anybody in their right mind knock that back a flat in Maroubra for a reasonable rent!! I would kill to climb up those 35 steps and to lock the door behind me. Where was my ‘Sabbath Issue’. I had a good mind to convert. I had not enough Jew in me and far too much Irish! There were absolutely no perks to being part of the Church of Wayward Women. No Pink buck! No poor plate, no shalom and no day of rest. I needed to work on my sense of entitlement. Damn it! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Why should you get priority housing?’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Grail looked doubtful. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Ummm. Because I’m HOMELESS.’ I spat it like a kidney stone but I had no fire in my belly so it dribbled down my chin. Grail looked me up and down… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘You’re not staying on the street by the look of it ?’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘No I have friends. I’m staying with them’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">She didn’t look impressed. In fact she looked a little like Gina Rinehart’s shorter elder sister. I felt like Fairfax. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Well your friends can help you get you housing then’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Are you kidding me? This is Australia isn’t it? Friends don’t have any obligation to help me get housing? We are the land of come to my BBQ and bring your own sausages. We are not the land of my house is your house. He’s not heavy he’s my brother. We only come to the rescue in natural disasters. ‘Besides I’ve already been through my friends and their couches. You can only stay somewhere once. Maybe twice if they’re old friends. And then only for three days if you don’t want to wear out your welcome. You know I will need a few friends at the end of all this…’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Gayle tuned out and went back to going through my paperwork. I kept talking. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">So I’m left with facebook friends. Who are very sweet. But a mystery bag. I don’t know them from Eve. They don’t know me from Adam. They just read my blog. And they like my stories. So they ask me home. It’s all lovely. But then almost as soon as I’ve unpacked they get scared that I’ll write about them. It’s as if I spark up their dreams and then trigger their nightmares. I’m just like Julian Assange with no asylum.’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">That was a stupid thing to say but I couldn’t shut up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Besides women don’t really have friends. Not like men. They have Mateship. Girls have best friends in Primary School, up until puberty hits and they just have competition! It’s all a fight for the gene pool. So I can’t land on married girl friends or married male friends or even married pooftas. Married people are heavily insulated. They turn inwards, grow gardens, build bunkers. And you cannot gate crash a bunker. Not unless you’re a marine. And I’m just a Disaster Diva. I threaten to de-stabilise, upstage or trigger. I’m aware of this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Grail screwed her mouth up like a little cats bum as I spoke. I knew I should zip mine RIGHT NOW. But..<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">I can’t even look sideways at someone’s flabby fella without them thinking that I’ll do a Wendi Deng on them. Have they had a good look at their men? They are delusional…' Besides I’m celibate. You cannot be sexually active and homeless. That’s just asking for trouble.’<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> I thought Grail would like that. The idea of me being all stitched up. But she didn’t hear me anyway. She had already stopped listening. Her head was buried deep in my paper work. Taking notes and ticking boxes. I was nothing to her. Not a name, just a number. I folded up my ticket like a fan and slowly looked around the room. The homeless had all gone home. The room was empty. And then Grail stamped my forms and passed them over the table. I said Thankyou. In retrospect that was a little pre-mature. I took the papers in my hands and looked down at the big red stamp. It said <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #c00000; font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">PRIORITY HOUSING –REJECTED. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.1pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3686645403058089614.post-24803476005624557272017-03-14T16:23:00.000-07:002017-03-14T16:23:14.635-07:00THE BOOK LAUNCH EXPERIENCE. <br />
<br />
So I ordered a few copies of my book 21st Century Showgirl. And I'm reading it for the first time.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBPJddID4lWsRD37NY_YG8b6mceH_AsAcUgnpE_l1UCtDt4drCILNtneGw-9_1mq_9-NchSx5pxeAaZBVDeyQUei1rDuQ-LnrnK_b5k3DXtQCWXX4pOSDQVH-TQ6BUeclZbaAZxukT9wE/s1600/21st+Century+Showgirl_.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBPJddID4lWsRD37NY_YG8b6mceH_AsAcUgnpE_l1UCtDt4drCILNtneGw-9_1mq_9-NchSx5pxeAaZBVDeyQUei1rDuQ-LnrnK_b5k3DXtQCWXX4pOSDQVH-TQ6BUeclZbaAZxukT9wE/s1600/21st+Century+Showgirl_.gif" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
I must confess I haven't read it since I launched it in Cyber space. Here's a link to the launch. Slide show closed down their website so the VJ has gone home but the party is still going on. Check it out.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.myspace.com/wednesdayfkennedy/blog/475144277">http://www.myspace.com/wednesdayfkennedy/blog/475144277</a><br />
<br />
It was like the first man landing on the moon but with a smaller viewing audience.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless the reviews came in from all over the world. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.wednesdaykennedyink.com/?p=162">http://www.wednesdaykennedyink.com/?p=162</a> I sold 100 copies.<br />
<br />
After that I was so exhausted that I couldn't stand the sight of her. She was a bastard child with no Daddy Warbucks behind her. And all of the people that did LOVE the 21st Century Showgirl<br />
had no money to keep her in shoes or to send her to school. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXql5RZWEDogL0mElESOVkxRNaJDPCriuKaKAn9IB0OOr5GjHslsW-FZ6BtuqVp8FHiEDOOnKIfjezhCvMebiWDvodit7zqAHYq4LL6QSfQwIoDUtU0883HxIsB1TFAmAegPiAmYQHsHQ/s1600/China+Town+Blues+HAPPYDAYS+010_0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXql5RZWEDogL0mElESOVkxRNaJDPCriuKaKAn9IB0OOr5GjHslsW-FZ6BtuqVp8FHiEDOOnKIfjezhCvMebiWDvodit7zqAHYq4LL6QSfQwIoDUtU0883HxIsB1TFAmAegPiAmYQHsHQ/s320/China+Town+Blues+HAPPYDAYS+010_0001.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
I had worn myself for another delusion of Greatness. My drive was my illness. Which is why I took myself on the road around Australia. If you're going to behave like a train wreck then the least you can do is send postcards. Bring on....<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih3YyuNUhZ_hCLJNj6VzekpTaukg4_kXETYvEF5qaYgQlpSy2iJktDxD3LLhWC3Bs227CE0WlmJRRSsG8SnMb-1vYhl9qO9t18XohKlbsiqdthPCtdYWTpwJnOJJFpaSLgEALHo4RbrS4/s1600/myspace+diary+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih3YyuNUhZ_hCLJNj6VzekpTaukg4_kXETYvEF5qaYgQlpSy2iJktDxD3LLhWC3Bs227CE0WlmJRRSsG8SnMb-1vYhl9qO9t18XohKlbsiqdthPCtdYWTpwJnOJJFpaSLgEALHo4RbrS4/s1600/myspace+diary+cover.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
A book full of postcards that talk back. I only sold four copies of this. I'd become like the snake. Drop the eggs and run....take no prisoners....<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoa7jf5qvshYoxBKpJ7tMUU_UxA2bHTtn2wU-3whHozHfAL51DvA7MyWf-52uPciPKfK8lDCU1SHR78FYxmpv5guW_Mh9Z8EYbEeW_IFotcX7kyjFv32L3dtrS1BrfDJe06vaeG2AXLxg/s1600/showgirl+to+snake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoa7jf5qvshYoxBKpJ7tMUU_UxA2bHTtn2wU-3whHozHfAL51DvA7MyWf-52uPciPKfK8lDCU1SHR78FYxmpv5guW_Mh9Z8EYbEeW_IFotcX7kyjFv32L3dtrS1BrfDJe06vaeG2AXLxg/s320/showgirl+to+snake.jpg" width="255" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
As the journey went on I became more vagabond and more feral. I bashed my head against too many doors. It took four more years to find my way home and finally secure the room of my own. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Which is why I'm finally ready to launch 21st Century Showgirl in the real world. <br />
<br />
It is going to be more than just a book launch. It is going to be the Ultimate Book Launch Experience.<br />
I'm planning it now. I've already locked in a date.<br />
<br />
6th March @ The Bordello Theatre in Kings Cross. Up top of the Kings Cross Hotel.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3686645403058089614.post-64528030905814617932016-02-02T19:05:00.002-08:002016-02-02T19:05:46.655-08:00Bed bugs and boarding house bitchesI’d never seen Bed Bugs Before. I thought they were invisible. But they’re actually fat with round bloated bodies filled with blood, I know because I slaughtered one and rubbed my bloody finger on the window sill. As evidence. Then I folded up the worn limp sheets with the tips of my fingers and carried the crawling parcel to the lounge room where I dumped it on the floor. Finally I shifted the lumpy mattresses to the corridor and lay down on a towel on my floor. With no pillow. All soft things belonged to the vermin. Only hard surfaces could be trusted. I lay on my back and thought about the fight I was having on Facebook about Self Help books and why I hated them. . A Pro Positivity activist kept popping back in to bait me. I had wasted my rage in that thread. She was an idiot. I turned on my belly and felt my elbow crunch into the floor. ‘People in boarding houses shouldn’t throw stones’ was my very last thought. <br />
<br />
I was woken by my landlady who was not looking very happy. Her growling Dalmatian was unleashed at her side just in case I decided to run for it. ‘I put the bed in the corridor because it was crawling with bed bugs.’ I told her. ‘Can you tie him up? I’m scared of big dogs’. <br />
<br />
‘We don’t have bed bugs in this place. You must have imagined them. ‘I’ll make you up a new room she smiled. Can you just sign here on the dotted line. Serena Russo is paying your bond. <br />
<br />
‘I signed the form not because I was staying but because I had nowhere to put my luggage and the dog was making me nervous. I wasn’t really up for a fight. He followed her down the corridor and stood in front of the bathroom barking at me every time I tried to make a run for the shower. <br />
<br />
So I gave up, washed my face in the sink and got back on my bicycle to go back to Serena Russo. When Denise saw my face she gave me a hug, and her Personal Assistant went to make me coffee. They were really very nice. ‘Don’t worry darling’, said Denise as Chris handed me a box of tissues and a steaming mug of instant coffee. Go back to Spring Hill and pack up your stuff. We’ll find you somewhere right this time! I know a place where the woman who runs it is an absolute Nazi but it’s clean as a whistle I promise!. <br />
<br />
<br />
So Donna, my new friend from Crisis drove me to Spring Hill and I stored all my bags in her car until I’d found my new home. Then I cycled down to New Farm and arrived at a gorgeous clean Queenslander on a lovely tree lined street. I was an hour early so I sat in the front lawn falling in love with the place. But when the Landlady finally arrived a half an hour late, l knew my reputation had preceded me. Unfortunately my darling Denise had mentioned the bed bugs. She was going for the sympathy vote which I would have advised against because you can’t sell a charity case to a slumlord. They want to exploit your bad fortune, not share it. I put out my hand and she glared at it. <br />
<br />
‘I don’t want you bringing your bed bugs into my boarding house. <br />
<br />
‘Oh dear!’ . <br />
<br />
But I didn’t even unpack my luggage’ I told her. And I’ve laundered and aired it all out anyway!’ The last point was a lie and Boarding House Bitches have a good ear for bullshit so I knew that she didn’t believe me. ‘I’ve also sprayed everything with Glen 20’. <br />
<br />
‘Glen 20 doesn’t kill them! Bed bugs never die! They just move from room to room. You never get rid of them!’<br />
<br />
‘Oh lawd she was probably right. I wouldn’t want me either! I might as well be carrying funnel web spiders! It was hopeless! I had my heart set on this place and I knew it would never be mine! I was tired and emotional so I did what I always do when I’m tired and emotional. I started to cry. She stared at me utterly repulsed. ‘Now you’re really worrying me.’ She backed away from me as if my tears were infectious. ‘I don’t want to know about this’. ‘Why is Serena Russo offering to pay your bond anyway?. I do not like the sound of that! I only have people here that are working!’.<br />
<br />
‘I’ll be working by next week’ I pleaded. Now smiling and drying my eyes. ‘I just arrived in Brisbane as soon as I find a place to settle I’ll have an income. I have a business. Here’s my card!.’ But the tone of my voice was thin and pathetic. And nothing I could say would change the fact that this woman really didn’t like me. <br />
<br />
And I didn’t like her either. <br />
<br />
So I cycled back up the hill in the heatwave feeling stinky and tired. I was limp when I got back to my base camp, so I put my head down on Denise’s desk and closed my eyes.. It was late afternoon on a Friday. We were out of ideas. So they organised a budget hotel for me to stay in on the weekend. ‘You must be special’ said Chris. Serena Russo’s brother is paying for it on his credit card.’<br />
‘Really? Who is he? This man who uses his Credit card without expecting favours. There must be a God! (You know at the time I didn't even suspect that it might be a Freemason...carry on...) <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJXRoL2h-JveFmQlQAClEEvaVxb143U3lLzgn9pIpdt-JbpjyDcqIAqMfMnD9s5fzGl1Vd8fCQQtUpH6msqkS9focTcvSKnccwYkbAHGkqu5dU2YQmqE-61qE-oa9CX6F1BLSNeC2vHjY/s1600/chica2_0_by_nexusdrakeson-d84g3fy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJXRoL2h-JveFmQlQAClEEvaVxb143U3lLzgn9pIpdt-JbpjyDcqIAqMfMnD9s5fzGl1Vd8fCQQtUpH6msqkS9focTcvSKnccwYkbAHGkqu5dU2YQmqE-61qE-oa9CX6F1BLSNeC2vHjY/s320/chica2_0_by_nexusdrakeson-d84g3fy.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
‘Go and rest’ said the darling Denise. You’ve got cable and air conditioning and crisp white sheets. You can have a nice long shower and a long long sleep. We’ll sort everything out on Monday’…<br />
<br />
<br />
3/3/2010Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3686645403058089614.post-88315228117644425272016-02-02T18:52:00.001-08:002016-02-02T18:52:31.114-08:00SlowIt's getting hotter up here now. And slower. Hotter and slower and stickier. The wet season rolls in, the nutters come out, the crocs are awake, the mozzies are back. The swamps and the oceans, the air and the grass are all teeming with life that can kill you. But it's so beautiful...<br />
<br />
'Follow me' he says, taking my hand.<br />
<br />
I slip his grip and turn back. 'No way. There are crocs. I can feel them'.<br />
<br />
'There are no crocodiles, Trust me.'<br />
<br />
'Why should I trust you? What do you know? You're just a white bloke from Noosa!'<br />
<br />
He didn't like that. He was trying to make like a man and leading me into the great unknown was his primitive romance. There was a time I would have followed him. But those days are gone. This is why men like younger women.<br />
<br />
'I wish I knew you before you were hurt' he says. As if he can read my heart's history. 'I bet you do', I think. 'I probably would have given you a pity fuck. But pity you, those days are over.'<br />
<br />
I don't say this. I say 'I like me better now.'<br />
<br />
This seems to turn him on.<br />
<br />
He says 'Lets do a business together. You got a hundred and sixty grand? I'll put in a hundred and sixty and we'll get something moving!'<br />
<br />
I liked him better the way I knew him. In the yoga class, where he didn't speak.<br />
<br />
'What makes you think I've got that sort of money?'<br />
<br />
'You've got money. I can smell it on you. I can smell it in a down wind.'<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
12/24/09Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3686645403058089614.post-78144719226531248082015-07-22T16:27:00.000-07:002015-07-22T16:27:37.169-07:00You're the Canary.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The Psychopath is smilling like he swallowed me.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Instantly I get a picture of Kylie. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
'What do you mean I'm the Canary? Is that like a Budgie?' I'm certainly not Kylie! I couldn't smile my way through a tumor and a rat of a boyfriend. At least Britney spacked out when she was cornered. Gnash those pearly whites and dig your fangs into the bone and spit like a viper. Snakes are survivors. I'm no bird. What's the value of a bird with clipped wings and no feathers? Being a budgie didn't help Kylie. Everybody loved her but she still ended up with a Love Rat! He devalued and discarded her in public. What a french bastard! Be careful of whom you kiss lest they damp the spark in your pussy (power) He was vermin! If my head was bald I'd be bloody well using it to haunt him. Budgie Revenge!'</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The Psychopath is staring at me intently. He's got a half grin on his face like he cornered a live one. His fist is holding up his chin. His elbows are on the table. The Hipsters eyes are full of anticipation. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
'I felt awful watching her flying career turned into a mortality play. We had a lot in common at that time. Of course she's a very rich kitchy stadium sized feathers and sequins, lazors and short legs type of Showgirl and I'm more a small room in a room full of drunken poets with two channel lighting board. Have to bomb the place to get money out of them sorta broad with pins to die for. But I can't sing either. I mostly talk.'</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
'I'd never have noticed'<br />
<br />
The Psychopath is now leaning is holding his head on two fists and has settled in for the story. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
' But nevertheless I came up with the name of my book 21st Century Showgirl before Kylie announced her Showgirl tour which I suspected was some sort of sign from the Showgirl Heavens! Like we were both tuning in to the Great Showgirl Unconscious and had found ourselves at other ends of the spotlight but in exactly the same position. Do you know what I mean?' </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
They don't have a clue what I'm talking about but I don't care. I never know what I"m talking about but I babble on regardless. The Psychopath is still listening and I"m on a roll. The Hipster stopped listening ages ago. His soul is still catching up from Sydney so I let it go and I focus on the Psychopath who doesn't have a soul so he's right here in the moment. Listening. It's like having an audience with the Devil. Auditioning for the Chorus line in Hades. I continue...</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
'And there I was having my own mortality nightmare in New York when we found out that Kylie had cancer. And all of a sudden Kylie and I had something in common. Tragedy! I mean not the small stuff....boys gone...boo hoo! kettle's on! What next? The BIG ONE!. The Oh No! Fuck me! I'm Dead! Finished! DOOMED! That's wrong!!!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
'And once you've died on that level well you never come back again. Well you come back but you never come back as you were. That kitty is dead. She's been ahniliated and she's not a cartoon character. You can't just pick up the pencil and re-create her.. And the only difference between Kylie and me is that when she went through her Mortality Moment she handled her suffering with dignity and grace and I screamed and yelled and waved my arms around like a drowning woman and wrote a book about it. But mortality is a funny one because after you've wrestled with it you can't just pick up where you left off and pretend you're Aphrodite. I know forty is the new thirty but Kylie's last tour was ridiculous. Her through line makes no sense. She's not in control of her destiny. Someone else is pulling her strings. What do you mean Canary? '</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
'Canary in the Coal Mine. You'll sing through everything. You won't shut up. The day you stop singing is the day that you're dead. Then we know we should get the fuck out. Mine's are dangerous. And Canary's are oblivious. You're an oblivious type. I can tell.' </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
'Am I ?' </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I withdraw. I have nothing to say anymore. I just sit there quietly thinking. He's not very charming for a Psychopath. He mustn't want anything from me. But he still wants to watch me grab for the bait. He's the cat. I'm the bird. That's the only game he knows how to play. And he's got me in a gilded chinese fucking restaurant as a canary. The prick. Singing away until I drop off my perch. Is that how he sees me? Psychopaths are tricky because they've got a very perceptive eye for who you really are. They know when you're kidding yourself. They know before you do. They're clever like that. They get into your psyche through your vanity and weakness. They gently prod for peccadillo, the poke around your pockets of corruption. So you'd better know how deep those pockets are, because soon enough they'll empty them onto your lap. With a gag in your mouth and your hands tied behind I know their caper. That's why I give everything away so there's nothing to ransack. No corner to hide in. No silent and festering scabs to stick fingers in. I have offered my life on a plate. And then watched him come in for the kill. He even offered to knock off my enemies over prawn toast. He was checking my need for revenge but murder is so not my style and his offer repulsed me. But Magical Thinking sure has been a problem. Not to mention Malignant Optimism. And I have to admit to times when I've been just a tad Oblivious. So he might have got me there. But I don't think it's who I am. I'm less a song bird and more a screamer. I wonder what time it is and what time the trains run to? The plates have been cleared and the glasses are empty. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
'Thankyou. I have to go now. '</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
'Come back with us? says the Hipster. 'We have a spare room at our apartment'. And some more Mount Gay rum in the bar there. ' We can all kick on. Come On. It'll be fun. We'll drive you back home in the morning.' </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
'Yeah sure'. That's a great idea!' </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'll go back to the apartment so they can both take turns raping me and then go to the Police I don't trust in the morning. That is if they Psychopath hasn't killed me already. I mean I know I'm a little dizzy but what do they think I am? Oblivious or something? </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This is my 9th life. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3686645403058089614.post-16680294451166405902015-06-18T00:57:00.000-07:002015-06-18T00:57:51.225-07:00The Cat The Chair and The Guido.<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
THUD</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I thought he was Adonis. But that was before he turned me into a Chair. now I see him more as a Mama's boy with a flat screen tv that he never turns off. Since I've lived in his house I've turned wooden, lost my stink and and my heartbeat. I'm not even human. I'm a Chair! And now I am a chair I can see he's no Adonis! The truth is he's more of a Guido. Smooth and sorta stupid. All his girl friends sound like Effie from Wogs outta Work. One of them laughed at my name, not knowing the walls are made of paper and I could hear her. I can hear everything.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
SWEETHEART.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
He stands outside my bedroom door and calls to the cat every morning.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
SWEETHEART.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
He yells like he's living in a double brick mansion. As if anyone has to yell to be heard in this box? We can hear each other fart and sigh with a hallway and bathroom between us</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
SWEET HEART.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
He calls me Sweetheart too so it wakes me! Then the sound of breakfast television filters into my ears. What's the point of surround sound if you don't use it? What's the point of a flat screen tv if it's not on night and day?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I measure his moods through the remote control. So does the cat. When he turns up the tv she jumps from his lap and starts pacing. I grit my teeth, close the paper doors and creep off back to my cat perch. The cat perch is comfy. I feel like I'm safe here. I was restless for a week trying to find a corner to settle into. In lieu of a room to call your own there's nothing like a perch. The cat wants it back but bad luck. She's not getting it. This perch is all I've got. It does me nicely. My needs are simple. A desk, a chair. A power point. I lived without those needs for almost a week until I found this spot. And now the cat hates me.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
THUD.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But not as much as she hates him. At least she doesn't piss on my bed. Good on her! I would piss on his bed too if all I got for dinner was dry food and water. Just because she's damaged doesn't mean that she doesn't have fine tastes. Sweetheart and I have a lot in common. He rescued her from a shelter. And he spared me from having to live in one while I find accommodation. I'm on the run from Perth. She's on the run from Adelaide..</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
THUMP.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
No doubt he loved her too in the beginning. I'm sure there was wet food and treats to begin with. The first night I moved in he cooked me mashed potato with sausages. Mashed potato is my ultimate comfort food. We drank wine and flirted. I was high on his cooking, his smell, his good looks and all the Adonis attention. I had left a beer soaked mine in Perth to come to to civilised Adelaide. What a city! What a dream land. What a hunk of a man. He made me dizzy.</div>
<div>
And then when I put down my fork he said 'You know when Leo told me that you were a Reporter for Simon Townsend's WonderWorld and all the things you do I thought I'd be sexually attracted to you. But I realised when I met you tonight that I don't find you attractive at all'. And he started clearing the plates. That was it. Conversation over.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
What a weirdo?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And from that moment on and every day I've since spent here, I slowly turned from a hot blooded woman into a chair. Yes a chair. An odd type of objectification. At least when you're sexually objectified you're still human. But a chair is just a piece of wood. It has no sex. It has no feelings. You don't ask a chair if you are going to move it. You just move it. You don't have to turn the tv down for a chair because a chair has no ears. You can ignore a chair. You can shift it to one side without apologising. You don't ask a chair how they're feeling? A chair is there for your arse to have somewhere to sit. Nothing more. Nothing less. If I sat down on his couch and a re-run of 'friends' came on the tele he would sit on my head until he heard my muffled screams and then he'd say...</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
'Oh sorry Sweetheart. Didn't see you!'</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It's not a very dignified position to be in. So I hung out in the courtyard like an odd piece of furniture and paired up with the Cat Perch. It's the only spot that Adonis won't wipe down and sanitise my stink. There's no point wiping down chip board. It reflects nothing and leaves splinters in your cloth. So I am safe here. Around Adonis I feel feral and swampy. Like I leave a snail trail. In his house I am always re-tracing my steps with cloth and a bottle of Windex. You'd think I had the arms of Medusa I leave so many finger prints. That's why I like the Cat Perch. You can't scratch it or stain it. Well you can but the cat doesn't care. She just wants me off it because the smooth surfaces are driving her crazy too. There's barely room for one cat in this house. Let alone two. She has no space at all now. But I'm not taking responsibility for all her issues. That cat needs a shrink.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Since Adonis is training to be one so you'd think they'd be the perfect couple. But Adonis doesn't have a zit of empathy. He doesn't have a zit either. Or a wrinkle. He's Adonis. He's beautiful. Just don't scratch the surface or leave any crumbs on the bench in the kitchen. He likes his surfaces. empty, smooth and glassy so he can see himself in them. Cats, on the other hand, subscribe to the Quentin Crisp version of Happiness which 'consists of living in the continuous present all over your body for as long as possible.' Cats understand this instinctively. Cats need to rub up against things that rub them back and to climb and to play hide and seek and feel shrubs rub up against their faces.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But in this box there's nothing to play with. The small courtyard we share is closed in by a clear corrugated awning and hot tin walls. A table sits in the middle. The table is clean and bare and smooth like everything else. When the sun hits the table in the morning you can look down and see the shadow of your face in it. Through the awning the heat burns a hole the back of your head.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The cat has only polished floorboards, hot stone and concrete to rub herself up against. So she rolls around in the litter box and gets gravel and shit in her fur. I try to comb it out with my fingers. She's stopped caring for herself. I can relate to this. Since living with Adonis I've stopped looking in the mirror. I'm a chair. Who cares what I look like? Adonis absorbs everything around him. Including me.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The Cat meowls at the top of the hot tin fence. She wants to climb that fence but it's smooth and shiny and she's been de-clawed. She's double thwarted. Every time she makes a leap for the fence she lands with a THUMP on the concrete. Then she picks herself up and tries it again. Wild vines peep over the top of the fence from the neighbors. It looks cool and luscious. The vines reach like fingers to beckon her. She looks up in despair trying to gage the jump. The white cat next door can manage to do it. But that cat has confidence, strong legs and sharp claws. That cat leaps over the hot tin fence at least three times a day. Her mobility mocks us.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I have nowhere to go yet. And Sweetheart has no claws. Just two soft pads like a cartoon cat. They slide down the shiny surface of the fence. She falls to the ground with a thump. Picks herself up, flings herself at the fence again and again. Thump Thump. THUMP. It's unbearable. I want to fling her over the fence just to have it over with. I can't stand it. But it's not like I have any say. I'm just a chair. It's not like I'm PETA. And Adonis is watching...</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
'Sweetheart what are you doing? '</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Does he really expect her to answer him. It's obvious what she's doing. What's he doing? He doesn't pick her up. He doesn't stop her. He doesn't lift a finger to try to help her or comfort her. Because it's all about him. Her need to escape is bringing up all his 'abandonment' issues. He sits there docile as a soft toy.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
'She hates me.'</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
'Maybe she's just depressed?' I offer.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
'Sweetheart?'. his voice goes up like a question mark.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
She ignores him and throws herself at the fence again.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
'She hates me. She really hates me'</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The cat falls to the floor like a sack of potatoes and wipes herself across the concrete getting ready for another suicidal leap.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
'Look. She wants to get away from me She hates me'</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
'No she doesn't. She doesn't hate you!'</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
THUD.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But what do I know? I'm just a Chair.</div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683886152466780114" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7pUX7LUb6vaPubbmtNzNIFWKc1jlaJ7GsdqeZrJ8DEAiYDEiPKAzrfe5X5OPIEs5i5pxabxAOFP7LLwMl8fohkirMlTY64a7-0-65JogUb4Ji_1x7VicwfHw7KeZ_AEv4jYNO2dXBcjg/s320/caged+cat.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 320px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 256px;" /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: grey; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 8px;"> Feral cat in a cage j hammer oil on canvas sold 150 x 120cm by Jonny Hammer.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3686645403058089614.post-54140725382455524062015-05-21T14:29:00.000-07:002015-05-21T14:29:29.199-07:0032 Flavours and then some....<br />
Feminism was a myth invented by Capitalists to send Women out to work for a minimum wage.<br />
Norman Mailer said as much before the Feminists all shot him in the head. He may have been a misogynist asshole but at least he was an asshole that spoke truth. It resonates a lot more than Anne Summers and her holy grail quest to touch the glass ceiling. She gave us one good book 'Damned Whores and God's Police' but then she started breaking bread with politicians. You'd think she joined the Mile High Club when she talks about flying in a plane with Paul Keating. 'Let them eat Bilson. You do not get a place at the table unless you're a mind controlled doll and I know this from the inside out because I've been that doll myself. I can spot a doll from 10 000 miles away now.<br />
<br />
I've been watching Nigella Lawson tortured in the gladiator pit that made her a Domestic Goddess and I find it unbearable. I can't stand to see a woman torn to pieces in this way. But that's because I relate. I'm an Empath. Even though Nigella Lawson has nothing in common with me I feel her pain.<br />
<br />
The Apaths would say (and they do) that Nigella was a Co Conspirator in her own murder. She is after all born to the ruling class. A card carrying member of the royal Jewry. She feeds off it's table and makes its lies look luscious. Her Daddy worked for Thatcher and her Mummy was jealous of her and around and round it goes until it ends up with Saatchi. The bride wore black. On some level she knew what was coming.<br />
<br />
We always do.<br />
<br />
But perhaps she was just trying to reach her destiny. As I watch her being called 'A habitual Criminal, Hi-gella. a drug addict, a bad mother' I think of the quote that I recently read from Carolyn Myss. <i> 'Unless we are prepared to be humiliated we will never reach our destiny. Only our fate'. </i><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Thanks Carolyn. But here's the truth. It's not the women who are pulling me out of that burning ring of humiliation. It's not the women who are outraged that a conquering yank should invite himself into my world and rape me on my own territory. It's not the girls who are backing me up with my excruciating and ugly truth and handing me the brass brassiere to fight back.... It's the men. <br />
<br />
Not the weak men. Not the bystanders. They're bitching in the kitchen with the goat boys and the girls . But the good men, the strong men, the men like my father are telling me to think like a Liberian Warlord. To reach in to the valley of the heart buck naked and bring it to the table so they can stick it on the BBQ between the sausages. 'Take no Prisoners' they advise which is very encouraging. But the girls are mostly keeping their distance. They're all eyeing off my pain like it's their prize. Their gaze holds both fear and envy. Fear that standing too close to me might blow their opportunity for success and envy that I was chosen to be taken for the ride. <br />
<br />
They think I'm riding the stallion. He appears like a stallion. He has pedigree, success on the track, he is able to market himself effectively which is important in a stud. He's been linked to other high level mares. But the truth is he's a donkey that just wants somewhere to pin his tail.<br />
<br />
What is it about me?<br />
<br />
Why do I always get to ride the donkey?<br />
<br />
What is it about me that makes that donkey head in my direction with his carrot between his teeth like it's a rose? Is it because he wants to watch me reach for that carrot as he swallows it? Does he like the sound of my gasp as he snaps it in half. How could a donkey be a sadist? Donkeys are harmless? Donkeys feature in fairy tales. They watched Jesus come into the world. They take donkeys to church fairs to give all the children a ride. Donkeys have a good reputation. It couldn't be the Donkey. It must be me. Everybody knows that. Especially the girls.<br />
<br />
My latest Donkey ride has been very clarifying. It didn't teach me much about the donkey but it taught me an awful lot about my gender. It taught me I can count my girlfriends on less than one hand and that the rest are just waiting for me to turn up with the donkey. They don't mind sloppy seconds. They just want to feel their clit on the saddle as he clip clops them across the gravel. I should work out how to charge for this as I suspect it's my only real talent. And if you can't charge for your talent well it's not a talent is it? It's a Disability.<br />
<br />
This week I was told by two separate girlfriends to 'Close down my facebook page and just pop in for a quick Merry Christmas. Put away my Crowd Funding as it makes me look crazy and desperate. Learn to play nice when playing with the big boys and perhaps it's time to go on medication. But failing that perhaps I might change my name or learn to breathe underwater.'<br />
<br />
I don't need to take advise from people who are not as smart as I am. Who reduce my truth to an episode. Who tell me to forget everything I know. I don't need any sort of friends who view me as a pile of bad brain cells or dodgy DNA because they have no God and their grey matter has been colonized WITHOUT resistance. I know my disability and I admit to my weakness and life may have given me a bad case of truth tourettes and a bad habit of freezing when I'm surrounded by predators but but at least I'm not jealous. At least I don't have to put anyone down to make myself feel better. At least my disability didn't rob me of my compassion. At least I can cope with difference. I don't mind if you don't agree with what I'm saying but what are you doing working in the Arts if you're trying to take away my right to say it? Why don't you leave the arts and get a job with ASIO. I hear they're hiring. They're looking for Gangstalkers, Script Writers, Lomos and Nipple Kissers. The only qualification you need is obedience to the status quo. Making people want to commit suicide is a Futures Market. It's the New Nazi. No need for concentration camps just give them a nice short rope and enough reasons to hang themselves and they'll do the job for you. If I really am soooo crazy then what does it matter what comes out of my mouth? Why is everybody working over time to shut me up? What's the story? Where are you going? What did I saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay....<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vVg7mtgEqGY/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vVg7mtgEqGY?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3686645403058089614.post-80905157125278824572014-09-22T20:31:00.000-07:002014-09-22T20:31:46.911-07:00Fat Alcatraz.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
I'm watching Excess Baggage. I never watch television. But they advertised it as a feel good show and I was feeling depressed.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It's marketed as a weight loss show but it's more like watching convicts who have eaten their ball and chain run about trying to lose it so they can jump the fence. Everyone feels bad. The Celebrities and the Ordinary Australians all feel like shit. Self loathing is the great equaliser. They've been stuffing themselves with Junk food, soft drinks and microwaved cheese. They all admit to being lazy, fat and loathsome pigs. But between a coach, a shrink and a dietitian they're all going to be whipped and humiliated into shape.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So I wouldn't say it was feel good unless you're into mainstream sado-masochism. 'See Fatty Run. Watch Fatty being screamed at. Watch Fatty weep, Fatty eat, Fatty crawl about in the dirt.' There's dignity somewhere under all those pounds of flesh. But it might take a meat hammer to get to it.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The Camera Person must have had a brief to make everyone look hideous. There is not a pimple, line or cellulite crater that the camera doesn't manage to highlight. The stylist is a prison warden who shops at Kmart. The Celebrities and Unimportant people morph into the same pasty blob.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The experts are full of cliches about how to lose the ball and chain. It's a one size fits all solution. Neat and cheap. A bottom line for big booty. Everyone is told to take responsibility as though we don't all live in a nanny state where we are regulated into submission on a daily basis. We are powerless as children and this show proves it. Junk food fills our emptiness and quells our RAGE and frustration. The dreams we can't live we will eat.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Enter K-Fed. The The man famous for impregnating Britney and sending her nuts enough to show us her puss. He used to be a dancer and now he's a blimp. His punishment is served boiling hot, in the Kimberleys of Australia. where you'll be forced to confess all the pizzas that he gorged on Britney's money and get down and dirty with a pack of Aussie bogans.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That'll teach him!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I can't say his presence adds to the convict mix in fact it's a little ridiculous. He doesn't have to lose his ball and chain because he comes from the country where he has a right to pursue happiness. He is what bliss looks like served back in bulk. Not of these measly Australian portions on America. Their plates could feed an Aussie family for a week. Their cocktails come in jugs and cost six dollars, (ours come in thimbles and cost sixteen.) It takes serious money to get fat in Australia. And serious Chutzpah to know how to swing it....</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Bring on Ajay Rochester whose taken fat from the gutter to the red carpet and back to the gutter again. But nobody really cares what size she is because she's most famous for Welfare Fraud. Which personally is I think is a little bit fabulous. I mean nobody else can do it. The peasants will tell you!You earn one dollar extra and alarm bells start to ring and the machine goes ballistic a pile of nasty envelopes shoot through your mail box. Usually it's only the One percent who get to rip off the government? All the girl was doing was trying to Occupy her bank balance. I mean Godfather Bilson has liquidated as often as Ajay's gone on liquid diets. And nobody calls him a criminal. But Ajay it seems will be tarred with that brush for the rest of her life . Which is partly why she's perfect for this program.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Which should be sold as Alcatraz for fat people.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It's terrible to see Christine Anu in the mix. For me it says a lot about how we treat Showgirls over forty. One minute you're a national singing Icon and the next you're scrabbling around the dust earning your dollar! If Showgirls were Polar Bears, Peta would have kicked in by now. But alas there is no rescue. She is paired with a weeping gay bogan and now she must play Fag Mama. Because Mummy is the only role allowed to middle aged women in Australia. Either that or Aunty and nobody listens to Aunty...</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Every body's inner child is going nuts!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The rest of the celebrities aren't even worth talking about except maybe for Darren. The gnarly pit bull paparazzi with the fake abs who is partnered with a blonde tank who can't stop crying. He yells, she weeps, she weeps, he yells. Then he gets told off for bullying. Which leaves him looking confused? And to be perfectly frank I don't blame him. The show is a head fuck.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Bring on Doctor Happy. A nerdy vibeless version of Charles Manson who sits the fatties on an uncomfortable rock to talk about Happiness and then forces them to face their fears by swimming in a billabong full of crocodiles.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And by now they have been infantilised enough to believe him.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Part of me wants someone to get eaten just to wake this mob up!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Or at least wake me up.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It's like the narcissistic cycle in reverse. Discard De-value Idealise.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If you don't get eaten by crocodiles or have a heart attack then you'll get to roll in the mud like a pig, be shamed by scales and lectured by bores. If you get through this and lose the bail and chain around your hips, you'll finally be released back into society again. Bring on the stylist. Open the curtains. A Star is Born in the final reveal.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Well that's the way the script is sposed to go.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But like all narcissistic love stories it never turns out quite the way that you imagined it.</div>
<div>
Last week the viewers turned off in droves and now Channel Nine is threatening to lose its Excess Baggage before the baggage has been lost. You can't fast forward weight loss, well not without bag of cocaine and a big bottle of weight loss pills. So the humiliation that these fat convicts have endured has no final redemption. They are forever a 'Before', never an 'After'.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The carpet pulled on the 'Make Over'.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
They will be cast back to their lives of secret midnight snacks and microwaved cheese and remain forever fat in television memory. Life is cruel.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
To call this show 'feel good' is Orwellian.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'm still depressed.</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3686645403058089614.post-47625032425116414832014-07-23T20:07:00.000-07:002014-07-23T20:25:13.042-07:00Bye Bye Dick. (with Illustrations) <div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">The
Real Estate Agent has a name. His name is Dick. </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"> He also has a Chinese girlfriend who
he met her in a Karaoke bar. Her name is Ling.</span> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Together
they are Dick and Ling.</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmSvMBkTnXJaCeKjyon1cMfc1UT-kZR4IiKIJbUFX872OZJ380nd31OsrPv2C3ayCw7yeziFwrN7uYTRlw1-QXsDqyLKVAwjQKRflIfDSvyCLZEFcvJiTP8yUGDGFrdMhL0WSKzA3seEE/s1600/Kareoke.+Alex+Gross..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmSvMBkTnXJaCeKjyon1cMfc1UT-kZR4IiKIJbUFX872OZJ380nd31OsrPv2C3ayCw7yeziFwrN7uYTRlw1-QXsDqyLKVAwjQKRflIfDSvyCLZEFcvJiTP8yUGDGFrdMhL0WSKzA3seEE/s1600/Kareoke.+Alex+Gross..jpg" height="305" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alex Gross</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">
Ling
looks Chinese, speaks like Julia Gillard but sings like a beautiful bird. I hear her sing once a week </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">when they rehearse in the lounge room before they go to Karaoke. </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
first time I heard her sing I told her that she sounded just like
Cyndi Lauper’. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And she did. But now she sounds like a whimpering
dog. That Dick is destroying her. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Death by a thousand notes. Peck peck
peck. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Any other outsider wouldn't even see the abuse. But I’ve
been listening from behind my door and there’s more than one way to
kill a voice. Jealousy masking as Critique is </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">one of them. He picks
at her gift as though it’s a scab and she dries up under his</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"> invasive tutelage. He of the tone deaf school of off key howling was
telling the bird </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">how to sing? It was quite ridiculous. But that’ll
tell you something about how mediocrity rules (if you let it)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">
If you
ask me I reckon she should Karaoke out of his life. But now she’s
in her fifties she’ll probably stick in with him. </span>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr5alc8PBLMZofjYBeI90VapOSCv-bYppLOPOAl0SU7rqKIEYfRREGhMQgYpTzAGJOGAIWuPCoOFoeuwm7UXFmK9HkGjpxeSUkbPWmvi9RzQTemrzgZkzPn0xSd8VbxQC1BBqrsEa9ACw/s1600/AlexGross_Obedience1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr5alc8PBLMZofjYBeI90VapOSCv-bYppLOPOAl0SU7rqKIEYfRREGhMQgYpTzAGJOGAIWuPCoOFoeuwm7UXFmK9HkGjpxeSUkbPWmvi9RzQTemrzgZkzPn0xSd8VbxQC1BBqrsEa9ACw/s1600/AlexGross_Obedience1.jpg" height="320" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alex Gross</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">Apparently
there’s a man shortage in Adelaide. I was told this on the first
day I arrived.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">I suspect it’s a myth, like the Irish Potato famine.
There seems to be plenty of men from where I’m standing. It’s
not Melbourne so very few of them are shnogable. But I can’t afford
a shnog until I’ve finished my book, so personally I’m not
bothered. I’m more interested in talking to Bogan men who tell me hard truth without flinching. To me, right now, these men are
Gold.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVp2nn5Y7d8Tdi-9YCd-ffFL9w7snMCCc-VslqWFrdl0IQr5pzZ9OCWZHcwYX2Hsgh-QAjhtgkyAIF1vbyepP1kmUqvsp7ElFTosTFn_D9qMwifHM7i6TPaQpek6IZrIUrSfUGkZdvJxk/s1600/hard+men+stephen+shellen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVp2nn5Y7d8Tdi-9YCd-ffFL9w7snMCCc-VslqWFrdl0IQr5pzZ9OCWZHcwYX2Hsgh-QAjhtgkyAIF1vbyepP1kmUqvsp7ElFTosTFn_D9qMwifHM7i6TPaQpek6IZrIUrSfUGkZdvJxk/s1600/hard+men+stephen+shellen.jpg" height="400" width="158" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stephen Shellen</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"> It was romance that ruined my last book 21</span><span style="color: #333333;"><sup>st</sup></span><span style="color: #333333;">
Century Showgirl. Before the man entered the scene my story was an
adventure. He climbed on board and pulled out my fuse box. I don’t
want to tell that story again. This one is an All Girls Adventure
from beginning to end. Romance is a furphy. Any man I'm attracted to inevitably turns out to be some type of Handler. </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But
for most other people the only dream left in town is the dream of
Romance and the idea of Man Famine has the women putting up with
Green Potato Men. One sized fits all mediocrities like Dick. They
seem to rule here. Between judgment and fear Mediocrity reigns and
kills everything that dares to rise above it. And single women over
forty with no children must be put back in their place. Everybody
knows that. Even the real estate agent with two peanuts for brains
and a talent only for the art of snatch and grab.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">He
tried to grab my snatch the night the girlfriend wasn't there. He
fed me liquor and then came around the table to rub my shoulders when
he thought I was drunk enough to be enamored. Then he asked me into
his skanky bed for movie and a massage. </span>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>
<span style="color: #333333;">I was
flabbergasted that he thought he had a hope in hell of getting me
naked. He was a sort of low level Willy Loman from Death of a
Salesman. At least Willy had some integrity but Dick was the type who
would sell you a tyre KNOWING it had a fat hole on the inside that you wouldn't find out about until it had blown on the middle of the
highway. In this way Dick was a dangerous dude. Even though he looked
as benign as a tele-tubby. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGi1aK9nPnWgC6JWr_GvFInSz4zjCHIXqDMQrRciRmZFUQnrnYNZLPlmh225UzUlbBzvfN_dU4TnE2N50iMhDdka3FFWRN6m85Iy-6y5EZHDj7bI1Y214QEHLbi2a0n4DHFWj4eY2aL74/s1600/alexgross+japan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGi1aK9nPnWgC6JWr_GvFInSz4zjCHIXqDMQrRciRmZFUQnrnYNZLPlmh225UzUlbBzvfN_dU4TnE2N50iMhDdka3FFWRN6m85Iy-6y5EZHDj7bI1Y214QEHLbi2a0n4DHFWj4eY2aL74/s1600/alexgross+japan.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alex Gross</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The economy was down and being a
freelancer Dick was feeling it. He’d lost his retainer at the Real
Estate and now was on pure commission for house sales. And since no
one was buying houses he got himself a part time job selling Foxtel
to couples who used their baby bonus to buy plasma tvs.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">
‘A plasma without foxtel is
like a pram without a baby’ he’d tell them. But people were
having trouble trying to feed their real life screaming offspring. So
every day he’d come back from his run a little hungrier and
crankier and needing to shake his dick at something that would bite.
Unfortunately that something just happened to be me.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq-nwumETLH3cOWsjk0fIOCQ1vORvDODq__1Y3Em0s125QXsUMoGQKUstcHnQXtJhjcIzLKTOOdNDMbzsehanh96V_-24t_Cssr8QRb0bbbwqlEolSXfFNq38Flc_S3d89vvUuB3TSTyI/s1600/stephen+shellen+snake..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq-nwumETLH3cOWsjk0fIOCQ1vORvDODq__1Y3Em0s125QXsUMoGQKUstcHnQXtJhjcIzLKTOOdNDMbzsehanh96V_-24t_Cssr8QRb0bbbwqlEolSXfFNq38Flc_S3d89vvUuB3TSTyI/s1600/stephen+shellen+snake..jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stephen Shellen</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">To
Dick I was single (see crazy or slut) over forty and a foreigner.
(see vulnerable, no back up) Easy to nab and corner. ‘Good Luck
with that Dick!’. It’s a shame that your name isn’t Shlong!</span> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m willing to wear a
little of the crazy or slut given the right inspiration but men like
Dick inspire neither love or eros. They’re only power is their
sense of masculine entitlement that allows him to make all sorts of
assumptions. They assume that we’re as desperate as they are. They
assume they’ll get lucky and we will be grateful. And they assume
we are all treacherous, desperate bitches who don’t care that they
have girlfriends.) And they must hit jackpot enough times to make
all those assumptions worth going for.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"> ‘I’m the Captain of this
ship’, he’d say. As if he was steering the love boat and not the
plastic titanic around his cracked bath tub. </span>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">In
retrospect I did look like a bit of a sucker. I’d already made one
Video clip for him for nothing. And just like he did with his
girlfriend, he’d decided my clip wasn't good enough. He picked the faults with it and pulled apart my eight hours of solid labor. I’d have to make him a second clip to prove my worth. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">I knew that old trick. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdsQhS8f9zFsE9sOHoP7o342-Jj8M0LMhQNkSrvdVqXuaxe4rvgeb0Yaxd0JcIveGxt-0XjP-lxGSY46lnMK2E_-OY35yRjqzOoQvoJ7rxh_xyP86bbuoPoUbImKTubL3SbVgWB04OnmQ/s1600/stephen+shellen.+betty+boop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdsQhS8f9zFsE9sOHoP7o342-Jj8M0LMhQNkSrvdVqXuaxe4rvgeb0Yaxd0JcIveGxt-0XjP-lxGSY46lnMK2E_-OY35yRjqzOoQvoJ7rxh_xyP86bbuoPoUbImKTubL3SbVgWB04OnmQ/s1600/stephen+shellen.+betty+boop.jpg" height="320" width="280" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stephen Shellen</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So I quietly took his video off the table but then he gave me his manuscript to edit. It sat on my desk practically breathing with bacteria. I certainly didn't want to open it. It was full of all his junkie tales, his wayward youth, his ex wife, I didn't want to know his dirty secrets. I didn't want to know how that Neanderthal brain actually ticked. It might scare me. And I had to live under his roof. It was better to be ignorant. If you don’t have any information then you’re not worth torturing. I left his manuscript on the edge of my desk praying it would disappear. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And God is good because after I declined the massage he asked for it back. It felt like a great relief to hand it over. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He wanted to be a creative but at heart he was just a Real Estate Agent. He looked at me purely as supply. Like an in-house petrol station that he could tap when he was out of gas. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So I was pleased that his grasping lack of restraint had brought things to a head. I was free to get on with my life and onto my feet.</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI0vZtstFbFSVBe6yabHwHLnqSu1YkXow9Yz9PNXXvSHHdgDTCqrCZ82vf6lXb6pCMpTPWoB23pqZanG4bt8A9ZsqiXjhmFlQQQ61mgAPdCLMJ_2jHDtH7dCVixvCDRaXITWUJjkQ-32Q/s1600/alex-gross-paradise.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI0vZtstFbFSVBe6yabHwHLnqSu1YkXow9Yz9PNXXvSHHdgDTCqrCZ82vf6lXb6pCMpTPWoB23pqZanG4bt8A9ZsqiXjhmFlQQQ61mgAPdCLMJ_2jHDtH7dCVixvCDRaXITWUJjkQ-32Q/s1600/alex-gross-paradise.jpg" height="320" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alex Gross</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">I’m
slow with manipulators. I have what you might call a blind spot. It
can be a problem. But when the penny drops it drops like a lottery.
And his hands on my shoulders were a pokie payout that sobered me
straight to my room. </span><span style="color: #333333;">
The next night I caught him in the corridor inviting Hellique to his
room for a tarot card reading. He’d only had that pack of cards for
about a week. He bought them after I offered to make a video of Ling reading the tarot. Apparently she was very good at it and I wanted to help her grow her business. The Digital Diva. I pitched it to him thinking he'd also want to help her but just like with his singing he took
no pride in his girlfriend’s gifts. Whatever she’d nurtured he
wanted to own for himself.</span> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So in response to my pitch he bought his own tarot pack and despite the fact he’d barely read
the pamphlet that came with them was now using them to seduce
Hellique into his bed. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I
walked past them in the corridor while he was tempting her with the box and then I spied on them both from the kitchen. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD04CdgSmqIAubNV-W6uNYujFomydJs8rjl7Yo3u_55VveUl9PUFCIHA4dF8ZiYdAo_sm42_OWTv3O-41vtW_P2C22aZ1gCUTxXaZBLSYXGLWcpbvfiK_tYkVog7ekvzkZ-DYG98Ef28M/s1600/stephen+shellen+free+radical+painting+with+others..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD04CdgSmqIAubNV-W6uNYujFomydJs8rjl7Yo3u_55VveUl9PUFCIHA4dF8ZiYdAo_sm42_OWTv3O-41vtW_P2C22aZ1gCUTxXaZBLSYXGLWcpbvfiK_tYkVog7ekvzkZ-DYG98Ef28M/s1600/stephen+shellen+free+radical+painting+with+others..jpg" height="242" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> She
told him that she couldn't have a reading because she was Catholic.
And there was a curse in her family handed down from a tarot card
reader through three generations. If she had a reading she’d set
off the family curse again. And she really couldn't</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> live with the
pain of that as one day she'd like to have a child’ She said all this in a lovely soft voice. I had to hand it to her. It was quite a skilled
deflection. He was dizzy on the smell of her. He couldn't</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> care less
what she said as long as she was speaking and he could look at her
breasts at the same time. From my estimation she'd better hurry up with that child as she was getting on to forty but he was holding onto the door frame because he was so cramped up in the slacks. It was something to witness.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If a picture paints a thousand words Hellique was the ultimate author. Her mouth was made for watching which was perfect for Adelaide because nobody was listening. If Enrico Morricone couldn't get this town's attention what hope was there for me. I was casting my pearls to the swine here. All I gave Dick was</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> bad dreams from a guilty conscience. Whatever promise he saw in me he had already spent. He was scared to death that I’d tell his girlfriend of his advances and he knew in one glance of my Betty Davis does Mommy Dearest eyes that if he tried laying another finger on me I would spit on his knuckles. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And for that he paid me back by making me walk about his creaky house on egg shells. I couldn't make a move without it bothering him. It was the old ‘what you can’t fuck you will kill’ routine. Murder by nagging to death. I walked too loud. I didn't fill the kettle up with water after I’d used it. I picked up a spoon. I left a mark on the bench. You’d think the house was a newly renovated castle and and not a run down dump with Salvo Furnishings. He’d run around after me handing out infringement notices like some whacky Police man.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"> ‘Don’t slam the Door’.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"> I never slammed the door. It was always Hellique.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiADw0YtZHOagU8JG8hC3xUZ7bfNPW0BRfbi9X5gAa4lnPbGTgaMGdW1c4hAqVJS3GiFj7_w3EOOHhyhyphenhyphenflU4MSq4StU8uqCYap2Gj2xQFGS-f4kSXJHyim0-WTwVvFw8XkG0mFyOiEwoU/s1600/door+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiADw0YtZHOagU8JG8hC3xUZ7bfNPW0BRfbi9X5gAa4lnPbGTgaMGdW1c4hAqVJS3GiFj7_w3EOOHhyhyphenhyphenflU4MSq4StU8uqCYap2Gj2xQFGS-f4kSXJHyim0-WTwVvFw8XkG0mFyOiEwoU/s1600/door+2.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The day she moved in she made a joke about my name as she dangled her crucifix bosom at him and I hated her instantly</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. I told Dick I hated her but he let her move in anyway. She reckons she works for the Premiers Department but that must be the name of a Gentleman's Club b</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ecause nothing about her made sense. None of her story hung together. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maybe in El Salvador she could pass as a Presidential Model but in Adelaide she just looked like a colourful call girl with all her bits and bobs and bows that were popping out of every crevice and curve. I'd never seen anything like her actually. I couldn't quite place her. It was all over done and sort of old fashioned. Her skin was flawless but her dingle dangle trinkets were dollar shop Dallas and that could have been charming but it wasn't. Even her perfume was too obvious. She certainly didn't look like an Accountant unless 'leave your money on the table counted. Only the most dog stupid man could possibly be impressed by her so I didn't believe she worked for the Premiere's Department and the UN. I mean who has a part time job at the UN in Adelaide? What sort of tripped out weird world does that happen in ? </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She hadn't been to university. She hadn't even been to make up school. And there is no way she'd be wearing that 'get up' if she'd been here since she was 16. Even I was too 'over the top' for Adelaide and s</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">he dressed like an exotic El Salvadorian hen with too many feathers. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She was always saying no no no no but the rest of her played as hard to get as a 7-11.
With her soft El Salvadorian voice and Jesus guarding her bosom the
world was her oyster. Nothing has to make sense once the blood has all gone to the head. Dick thought she was dreamy. </span><span lang="en" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
narrative she’d created for herself was empty but seamless.
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nothing
she said was was true but neither could it offend. </span><span lang="en" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She
lied with a perfect fluidity and knew exactly when to shut up and
walk away.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span lang="en" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7pUX7LUb6vaPubbmtNzNIFWKc1jlaJ7GsdqeZrJ8DEAiYDEiPKAzrfe5X5OPIEs5i5pxabxAOFP7LLwMl8fohkirMlTY64a7-0-65JogUb4Ji_1x7VicwfHw7KeZ_AEv4jYNO2dXBcjg/s1600/caged+cat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7pUX7LUb6vaPubbmtNzNIFWKc1jlaJ7GsdqeZrJ8DEAiYDEiPKAzrfe5X5OPIEs5i5pxabxAOFP7LLwMl8fohkirMlTY64a7-0-65JogUb4Ji_1x7VicwfHw7KeZ_AEv4jYNO2dXBcjg/s1600/caged+cat.jpg" height="320" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Johnny Hammer</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span lang="en" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="en"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="en">Unlike
me who could not let go of any bone until I had sucked out its marrow
and sharpened my teeth with it. I talked too much. </span><span style="color: #333333;">Adelaide
had already told me this. In fact the whole of Australia had been
telling me to shut up ever since I had arrived back home. Words were
my weapon and my mouth was a pistol. It was honestly all I had left.
I was endlessly being disarmed on every other level. They could take
everything from me. My camera, my computer, my ability to make a
creative living, my mobility, they could strip me to the bone. But
they couldn't shut my mouth. The words I owned.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih3YyuNUhZ_hCLJNj6VzekpTaukg4_kXETYvEF5qaYgQlpSy2iJktDxD3LLhWC3Bs227CE0WlmJRRSsG8SnMb-1vYhl9qO9t18XohKlbsiqdthPCtdYWTpwJnOJJFpaSLgEALHo4RbrS4/s1600/myspace+diary+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih3YyuNUhZ_hCLJNj6VzekpTaukg4_kXETYvEF5qaYgQlpSy2iJktDxD3LLhWC3Bs227CE0WlmJRRSsG8SnMb-1vYhl9qO9t18XohKlbsiqdthPCtdYWTpwJnOJJFpaSLgEALHo4RbrS4/s1600/myspace+diary+cover.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">But those too were being stolen. My life had turned into a closing down sale. It didn't matter how hard I ran I just found myself losing ground. </span>The night that I got my media pass to the Adelaide Festival<span lang="en"> I took Hellique to a One Man Show called <b>Five steps to being German</b>.' Which wasn't very funny but he put a lot of energy in to his shtick and I know what that takes. After the show I'd arranged to interview the Comic. I was two questions in when Helllique bosomed in on the interview and made a joke about Germans not having a sense of humour. Which offended him greatly. So she said it again. In fact she said it three times like a not very funny dumb bitch. . Which totally ruined the vibe and killed my interview. You'd think she'd have learned some diplomacy working as an accountant in the Premiers Department? </span> I don’t know what it is about me that has become such a magnet for sabateurs but it seemed to me that no good deed ever goes unpunished. This leave home with a hen and come home with no eggs routine was getting very boring but it had been going on for so long it had become my reality. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4vg0JvdJ5fXyuoWsb5YmwI2cFDEr-XcrTc1nBIT62ARNbdp3qcYwUZKSKNTypq0VTDrJ11PjAiPdVAvzO6pjx5b9nLtIPI0RuHwNJBvuvZ20dLWf8sggfHVqT6AoSAhb2SMV2X2ZL3gQ/s1600/stephen+shellen+rain+girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4vg0JvdJ5fXyuoWsb5YmwI2cFDEr-XcrTc1nBIT62ARNbdp3qcYwUZKSKNTypq0VTDrJ11PjAiPdVAvzO6pjx5b9nLtIPI0RuHwNJBvuvZ20dLWf8sggfHVqT6AoSAhb2SMV2X2ZL3gQ/s1600/stephen+shellen+rain+girl.jpg" height="320" width="277" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stephen Shellen</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't know what planet Hellique had arrived from. I just couldn't frame her. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The heatwave had melted her make up and it was leaking around her eyes and mouth. She looked like a wax work in the sun and I felt like someone left my cake out in the rain. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="en">So we found a pub because I needed a drink and somewhere to vent my anger and so once we'd sat down with our glass of white wine I started talking politics because that felt safe. But</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Hellique clammed up instantly, became very hot and bothered and said that she couldn't talk about politics because she worked for the Premiers Department. And then she closed her legs and grasped her crucifix as if I'd just asked to gay marry her. That trick might work with the Real Estate Agent but it didn’t work with my poor white sorry eggless arse. I was not going to be censored by an El Salvadorian in my own fucking country.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEPiNvIXprhF8GSYQxAb5vWcobLTMiwW90nc65yzSnO4AVT9IzUyCXTbgsPozHLUUOGIG1VtHZBv-421JYZbwvawF3Y0kJqAcc_Y5z4BkAtDLkBc_mLXJ86ngKKP4Zpxys_uZ5P2MWaKc/s1600/Alex+Gross+Wind+and+Turn+Clothing..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEPiNvIXprhF8GSYQxAb5vWcobLTMiwW90nc65yzSnO4AVT9IzUyCXTbgsPozHLUUOGIG1VtHZBv-421JYZbwvawF3Y0kJqAcc_Y5z4BkAtDLkBc_mLXJ86ngKKP4Zpxys_uZ5P2MWaKc/s1600/Alex+Gross+Wind+and+Turn+Clothing..jpg" height="320" width="211" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alex Gross</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="en"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="en"> “What do you mean you work for the Premiers Department and you can’t talk about Politics’. This is Australia honey. We like to pretend to be a democracy! And the last thing we need are well behaved immigrants keeping the Nazis feeling comfy. You’re from El Salvador! Shake it up baby!!. Sure you can talk about politics. </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I talk about politics all day on facebook. With ASIO and the Federal Police all watching apparently. It’s a strip show for the boys in blue. I’m probably on a list! You only need five hundred friends to draw attention and I have 2663, most of whom I've never met because I'm used to having an audience and I like to talk. I like to talk about any damn thing that I want to! Do you tell a baker not to bake? That's what I do!'</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="en"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="en">As soon as somebody tries to silence me I can’t shut up. I’ve always been like this even before I could blame PTSD for my big fat mouth. </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You're dead a long time and you don’t get to speak from the other side. Well maybe you do but nobody’s listening. We don’t have faith in an after life in Australia. We don't believe in God. We believe in China and once you’re dead you’re deady dead dead.. Done like a dogs dinner! And if the system’s going to slowly kill me then I’m going to die yelling and screaming. I’m not going silently like the rest of the lemmings.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb7cPKHPl9IrJuHYyAo_fGO6jZGDmiSpj7WiV4BStU6DxjIbEYwQBUHH8_y5CJfiUred_JuA2C7gA5_SYmp-AUO9XlnYIKi0n50dCNaPU9HZrkeDae3XwTEftfYcKO8vDWCmNUx6KLSEY/s1600/human+stephen+shellen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb7cPKHPl9IrJuHYyAo_fGO6jZGDmiSpj7WiV4BStU6DxjIbEYwQBUHH8_y5CJfiUred_JuA2C7gA5_SYmp-AUO9XlnYIKi0n50dCNaPU9HZrkeDae3XwTEftfYcKO8vDWCmNUx6KLSEY/s1600/human+stephen+shellen.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stephen Shellen</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="en"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="en">So I talked politics. I talked about Julia. Her policies, her style and why everyone hated her. Then I talked about Rudd and I talked about mining and I talked about all the liquidations that have been going down and what they’re doing to single mothers and 'How can people watch our poorest women unable to feed their children and have the gall to call Julia a FEMINIST. What does Feminist MEAN?' And the more I kept talking the more and more and more uncomfortable and sweaty she got. I think I just kept talking so I could melt her like the wax work that she was. And being a highly instinctive whore she knew exactly what I was doing. And the more I talked the more she hated me. It was sort of mutual.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="en"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="en">I hate liars.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="en"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="en">They waste my fucking time. They have me turning my brain inside out trying to work out what’s really going on when the truth is actually very very simple. </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But the worst thing about Liars is that they are always shutting down the conversation. Because they’re terrified a bit of truth might get hold and then they’re fucked. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So they are always the first to try to modify your speech. To tell you what’s appropriate and inappropriate to speak about. And to shut down any wayward opinions that might expose them. The drink didn't help much and I couldn't afford another so we went for a wander</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> through the Garden of Unearthly Delights past the Idolize tent and the market stalls and dodgem cars to the Haunted House at the end of the line. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSccAR3nzAHNUJUhsfMrahfMePb_uZhFW-pPjiY8O3phwjysAj9EDb79Y04mhwAP3EhP2dxMdREVPCkvZvQM3nAwkqKdMS9YDTRG77wylP-hBNGf-6llHg_Y-j8SzhJT1bt67aCK0WJT0/s1600/garden+one.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSccAR3nzAHNUJUhsfMrahfMePb_uZhFW-pPjiY8O3phwjysAj9EDb79Y04mhwAP3EhP2dxMdREVPCkvZvQM3nAwkqKdMS9YDTRG77wylP-hBNGf-6llHg_Y-j8SzhJT1bt67aCK0WJT0/s1600/garden+one.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And as we stood there at the at that point of no return staring at the jagged purple neon light she said ‘I don’t believe in Spirits or Ghosts or life after death. I believe in the here and now, that’s all’ And I looked at her face and for the first time since I’d met her I knew that she’d told me the truth and I liked her. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="en"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Truth is Amazing. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I actually liked her. I could have cancelled out her other lies on that truth alone. We could have re set the tables and re-booted the conversation. One hail mary and two our fathers and all is forgiven. I'm Catholic too. I know the contract. I didn't have to agree with her. But that was the moment that she hated me because in giving her my truth I had inadvertently disarmed her and against her better judgement she'd dropped her guard. If she didn't believe in the afterlife then what was Jesus doing around her neck. What's with the shtick about three generations of curses? She knew what she'd done and she knew she now had to get rid of me. So the next night I came home and I was locked out. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXIvqmrkuQ0Wy_sqdNfIRVQGikN26HVvIoSElvNM4iTsjICKlaJkU3w5LHrY0jdpqcXfIx1qx0LvfqVvAkkL0XR-K5kLZK4JuqE969dqrbIyIS6XER-N-jwfoHLOR9VjW6_z9fwJ6d5JU/s1600/hobo+life+stephen+shellen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXIvqmrkuQ0Wy_sqdNfIRVQGikN26HVvIoSElvNM4iTsjICKlaJkU3w5LHrY0jdpqcXfIx1qx0LvfqVvAkkL0XR-K5kLZK4JuqE969dqrbIyIS6XER-N-jwfoHLOR9VjW6_z9fwJ6d5JU/s1600/hobo+life+stephen+shellen.jpg" height="320" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stephen Shellen</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She'd got into Dick's ear and he'd locked the screen that I didn't have a key for. So when I returned home at midnight I couldn't get in. I mildly freaked out by knocking the door down. I wondered if my stuff had been stolen or rifled through when I was gone? That had happened before what's to say it won't happen again. There's a fine line between truth and PTSD and I had lost that line a long time before...</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVLrRdiurCRv8RGbahU00bONTCPPMWgX-zJtZBzmDsDWTYIhfZ56wFhDTgYzYj23z38nLNsBOWn-FC6QaQreGiZ_C5koMuxZEckvpq49HO_KYRcM7s51UT6GvTu7qX1rVjiRyV3E0XLbM/s1600/stephen+shellen+handle+with+care.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVLrRdiurCRv8RGbahU00bONTCPPMWgX-zJtZBzmDsDWTYIhfZ56wFhDTgYzYj23z38nLNsBOWn-FC6QaQreGiZ_C5koMuxZEckvpq49HO_KYRcM7s51UT6GvTu7qX1rVjiRyV3E0XLbM/s1600/stephen+shellen+handle+with+care.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stephen Shellen</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But it's not like I didn't know something was cooking because that afternoon I'd returned with my shopping to a primitive<span style="color: #333333;"> alarm taped to the front door. Dick had set it up to go off when somebody entered but the packing tape ripped off as I opened the door so it was like a joke or a silly trick. It hung off the door handle like the dog end of a lucky dip. He had set it up to give me a scare and I can’t say it scared me but it did give me the creeps.</span></span></div>
<div lang="en" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">One should never underestimate the intention of a cheap skate. Just because their execution may be a little dodgy doesn't mean that they don’t have more effective tricks in mind. Laugh at your own peril. This is South Australia. You can see how people ended up in barrels for their Dole Cheques.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">Slam.
</span>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">‘Hello
Hellique.’ </span>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">‘Hello
Dick’ </span>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">I
can hear him smile as he asks her how her day is? </span>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">I
can hear her lie as she tells him she’s going in to her part time
job at the United Nations. </span>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">clip clop clip clop.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">Then
he’ll knock on my door and growl ‘Get your clothes out of the
Washing Machine’. </span>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">‘They’re
not my clothes’, I growl back through the small crack that I open, ‘They’re Helliques’. And
then I close my door gently. </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stifling the urge to scream ‘Fuck Off!
You disgraceful ol Prick! ‘</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">
I am always biting my tongue
these days. My tongue has permanent teeth marks etched across the
middle of it. </span><span style="color: #333333;">I had to put up with his tone deaf karaoke nights and weekly Mormon visits and Ling a ding ding here six nights per week. Hellique made it feel like a harem. I kept to my room but he was making it harder and harder for me to concentrate. I needed to focus now I'd got my media pass for the Adelaide Fringe. I kept having my foundations pulled. If I could get some stories out of this then I might be up and back on my horse again. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">clip clop clip clop. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">'Bye Hellique'.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">'And when you've hung out your washing Wednesday we need to talk'</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">'I want you out by next week'.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">SLAM. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Bye Bye Dick' </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhriKGdW8F9YC_xOTdx_QVynJ-QrH5l1nk0WCNbg-xBHb83BQOB2mq2HF2WpeAxnkj1JEWBU-Cuf40RUCbC2upzIM13Xut_ScvJg5RWz7n-oZJ5OmRzSZqd_eBPJ-PCyejjdfA_86WzHHA/s1600/Alex-Gross-Levine-AM-13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhriKGdW8F9YC_xOTdx_QVynJ-QrH5l1nk0WCNbg-xBHb83BQOB2mq2HF2WpeAxnkj1JEWBU-Cuf40RUCbC2upzIM13Xut_ScvJg5RWz7n-oZJ5OmRzSZqd_eBPJ-PCyejjdfA_86WzHHA/s1600/Alex-Gross-Levine-AM-13.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alex Gross</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 0; widows: 0;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3686645403058089614.post-17058242206233916032014-06-30T02:26:00.003-07:002014-06-30T02:30:34.446-07:00TawdryMost dreams leave you feeling Tawdry. I love that word, I've learned to wear it like a much loved dress. You start off in the ballgown (think Paula Yates all starry eyed waiting for Bob Geldoff outside the venue) then fast forward through her life, chosen groupie, yummy mummy, wife of smelly Saint, (build up of panty juices)tv diva, in bed with Micheal Hutchence, (juices flow like Hawkesbury River) on all fours in tabloid press, (DOG steals GOD from Super MODEL) sad face, no place, blown up bosom, balldown ripped and filthy dirty (SCUMMY MUMMY WOT A SLUT!) dragged by short blonde hair with black roots showing through the bowels of Rupert's asshole. Flowers on the graveside of her lover. (KILLED BY KINK)
<br />
<br />
Life showed her so much promise but left her Tawdry. She ran like the wind with all her cards in her hand putting them on men like they were racehorses she would win! But the bets were switched and her triumph short lived. She ended up back in the box under her father's piano. The Coroners report said the drugs killed her. But we girls know much better.
<br />
<br />
She died because she'd hung off that cross for too long.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3686645403058089614.post-86060992417464819372013-02-04T16:59:00.002-08:002013-02-04T17:06:30.042-08:00Drum Roll....<br />
Ladies and Gentlemen...I am pleased and terrified to announce that I am finally ready to launch <b>21st Century Showgir</b>l in the (lights up!) REAL WORLD...<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBPJddID4lWsRD37NY_YG8b6mceH_AsAcUgnpE_l1UCtDt4drCILNtneGw-9_1mq_9-NchSx5pxeAaZBVDeyQUei1rDuQ-LnrnK_b5k3DXtQCWXX4pOSDQVH-TQ6BUeclZbaAZxukT9wE/s1600/21st+Century+Showgirl_.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBPJddID4lWsRD37NY_YG8b6mceH_AsAcUgnpE_l1UCtDt4drCILNtneGw-9_1mq_9-NchSx5pxeAaZBVDeyQUei1rDuQ-LnrnK_b5k3DXtQCWXX4pOSDQVH-TQ6BUeclZbaAZxukT9wE/s1600/21st+Century+Showgirl_.gif" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
She has never had a REAL WORLD launch. She has only been launched on Myspace. Check it out.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
(VJ has gone home because Slideshow has closed down. But punters are still gathered...)</div>
<br />
<a href="http://www.myspace.com/wednesdayfkennedy/blog/475144277">http://www.myspace.com/wednesdayfkennedy/blog/475144277</a><br />
<br />
That book launch was like the first man landing on the moon but with a smaller viewing audience. It ran for 48 hours. I sold 100 copies and the Reviews came in from all over the world....<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.wednesdaykennedyink.com/?p=162">http://www.wednesdaykennedyink.com/?p=162</a> <br />
<br />
After that I was so exhausted that I couldn't stand the sight of her. So I tied her up in the basement and I went on a road trip...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih3YyuNUhZ_hCLJNj6VzekpTaukg4_kXETYvEF5qaYgQlpSy2iJktDxD3LLhWC3Bs227CE0WlmJRRSsG8SnMb-1vYhl9qO9t18XohKlbsiqdthPCtdYWTpwJnOJJFpaSLgEALHo4RbrS4/s1600/myspace+diary+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih3YyuNUhZ_hCLJNj6VzekpTaukg4_kXETYvEF5qaYgQlpSy2iJktDxD3LLhWC3Bs227CE0WlmJRRSsG8SnMb-1vYhl9qO9t18XohKlbsiqdthPCtdYWTpwJnOJJFpaSLgEALHo4RbrS4/s1600/myspace+diary+cover.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
My readers came with me. We had so much fun that I published my blogs and our conversations in the Myspace Diaries. I sold about four copies and kept moving. I was becoming like the snake. Drop the eggs and run....<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_kdYb-18Grw3gBCm733lkELwvy_QOyl8Fy5guRudDqNe508TpTXzOBLiCCl5ZQdWL1y-vLHu_wB4s583hCgpaTrRJHx_lTAfutT6we417zLLombvtEJYFiVaT2w3j961CeREa1lECcPU/s1600/snake+kennedy+NORTH+road+ruffer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_kdYb-18Grw3gBCm733lkELwvy_QOyl8Fy5guRudDqNe508TpTXzOBLiCCl5ZQdWL1y-vLHu_wB4s583hCgpaTrRJHx_lTAfutT6we417zLLombvtEJYFiVaT2w3j961CeREa1lECcPU/s320/snake+kennedy+NORTH+road+ruffer.jpg" width="183" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
But I realised this week that before I present The Snake Kennedy Trilogy. I need to give the<b> 21st Century Showgirl</b> a launch in the real world. It's only fair. Since she's been on ice for so long it is less like a birth and more like a Christening. We'll put the baby's head under water and watch her scream. There will be music, champayne and video. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3SXZEIWOAT5fLRi9HbjKEm8HSTMz8cQk2_RzKyptPStGG8cnc6-uzWSOazF1ORXp679l_q68CrHa6W1upVHG8klXj_HB5eILjTV8PPypu4pODQy59JIThj-pYyHE9XRep77iSZgMBE4s/s1600/showlegs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3SXZEIWOAT5fLRi9HbjKEm8HSTMz8cQk2_RzKyptPStGG8cnc6-uzWSOazF1ORXp679l_q68CrHa6W1upVHG8klXj_HB5eILjTV8PPypu4pODQy59JIThj-pYyHE9XRep77iSZgMBE4s/s320/showlegs.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
I've booked the <b>Bordello Theatre</b> at the Kings Cross Hotel for March 6th. I'm thinking 7pm. The <b>Kings Cross Arts Guild</b> will be presenting it!! I'm talking to the Caterer. He's mulling over <b>Garlic Icecream and Pancetta.</b> I need some one to sponsor the <b>Champayne?</b> B<b>ruce Davies</b> who did the cover for the book is working on the poster as we speak! I have a <b>super sexy DJ</b>. The most exquisite <b>Tina Harris</b> is going to sing a song she wrote especially for the book! Tonight I meet with <b>Andrew Worboys</b> to edit some video for the Opener. <b>Ru Bella</b> is going to take us out with a bang! I get by with a little help from my talented friends. I have <b>ONE MONTH. </b><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO4jjsj4TbM5L5Tp5dzDWtyjKnJjSRqqm55dGo31kPdCiKi_MiYhyeHSshLfVzII2eTVaO0b6bmG8bjb2GIcjZsXA9T7mIcTaOGvn4fJCBa6VI-G15WwNiCLQ2-l8MPbZ55D0WrxNo87I/s1600/fire+love.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO4jjsj4TbM5L5Tp5dzDWtyjKnJjSRqqm55dGo31kPdCiKi_MiYhyeHSshLfVzII2eTVaO0b6bmG8bjb2GIcjZsXA9T7mIcTaOGvn4fJCBa6VI-G15WwNiCLQ2-l8MPbZ55D0WrxNo87I/s320/fire+love.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
There will be Firemen!<br />
<br />
In the meantime join the facebook page. All the latest news will be posted here.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Snake-Kennedy/405339756223610">https://www.facebook.com/pages/Snake-Kennedy/405339756223610</a><br />
<br />
Send money and guns<br />
<br />
xxx<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3686645403058089614.post-49270269207047918152013-01-20T16:14:00.003-08:002013-01-20T16:21:55.906-08:00Sole Sista<br />
<br />
<br />
My life is littered with Entrepreneurial Failures. Some of them immortalised on video.<br />
<br />
There was the <b>Virtual Tourism Brain Wave. </b> (Disaster Diva will take you where Oprah fears to tread) That gave everyone a laugh before it went down like a bird in a heatwave.<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1223884162"><br /></a>
<a href="http://youtu.be/m-Fft9ljwzk"><b><span style="color: red;">http://youtu.be/m-Fft9ljwzk</span></b></a><br />
<br />
There was the <b>Digital Diva</b> business that nobody wanted to pay for. Everyone either does it themselves or finds some sucker to do it for free. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/Z4rJ0j0H7Tc"><span style="color: red;"><b>http://youtu.be/Z4rJ0j0H7Tc</b></span></a><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There was the <b>Speech Writing</b> business that I started in FNQ. Which was a bit like opening a bar in a mosque. I didn't get stoned (if you don't count the spliff) but I didn't get customers either. Pig Hunters and Fishermen don't need a Speech Writer. And the white collar set all had their speech in their pocket before they flew in. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Then I became a self <b>Publisher.</b> While I was still high on the idea that Social Networking was going to change my world..</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="http://youtu.be/DBkt-JCSTpQ"><span style="color: red;"><b>http://youtu.be/DBkt-JCSTpQ</b></span></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The first book sold 100 copies and the second book sold 4. So I got out while I was still ahead...</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>There was the Pet Companion Business.</b> Cheaper than a Kennel and more love than a doting mother. I was the ultimate 'man's best friend'. But with the growing amount of homeless who were taking up pet minding in exchange for shelter that business didn't take off either. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="http://youtu.be/gctO25aEc_A"><b><span style="color: red;">http://youtu.be/gctO25aEc_A</span></b></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So I dropped the Entreprenerial Act and tried to Work for the Man. Applied for everything from tele marketing to bar work, picking fruit, holding a lolly pop stick and working in a car wash. I knocked on doors, sent resumes, made phone calls, answered Ads. Turned out that The Man didn't want me either. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
You need a certificate in Germ-ology to clean a toilet these days. You need a Drivers Licence to hold a lolly pop stick. You need a Responsible Service of Alcohol Licence to work in a bar. Every job opportunity needs a ticket and every ticket costs money and at every turn you're cornered by someone from health and safety. It makes me want to live in the third world. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But ever the optimist I am never short of a new business idea. And so this week I created </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Walkabout-Australian-Back-Walking-Massage/460681010658533"><span style="color: red;">http://www.facebook.com/pages/Walkabout-Australian-Back-Walking-Massage/460681010658533</span></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
After walking on the back of a friend at Christmas who lay down a wreck and stood up in 7th Heaven. She told me I had a gift and called me a Sole Sista. A true healer. That I'd made her feel ten years younger and light as a feather. She reminded me I had some skills I hadn't used in a long time. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'd taken up holistic massage in New York. It was growth industry in a post 911 climate. I used shiatsu, aryuvedic and swedish techniques and I also did a little bit of back walking. I learned my skills in an East Side Day Spa. And then I started my own business called Australian Bush Massage. </div>
<div>
The catch cry was 'Vacation Laying Down' I burned Eucalyptus Oil and worked to didgeridoo and I sold it as a 'Holiday Down Under. Experience the Australian Bush without leaving Manhattan!' You can feed off a novelty act in New York. They love a bit of blarney and they'll try anything once. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But when I came back to Sydney my bag of tricks didn't work. My chutz lost its pah and my shtick sounded nuts. Nobody needed healing here anyway. They were too busy feeling lucky and patting themselves on the back. How the hell do you heal the smug ? My business was over. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But after walking all over Suzie at Christmas I was once again inspired. And then I walked over my friend Misty and he too came to life. He particularly loved the part where i stood on his head and rubbed his face into the ground with my feet around his skull. His jaw clicked out for a minute but he clicked it back again. He said it was like being bumped around a spin dryer. He felt dry cleaned when I had finished with him. By this stage I was feeling very confident. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But then I walked on the petite back of my lovely friend Isabelle and when she moaned in pain I just told her to breathe. I was very arrogant when I think about it. The more pain you have, the more tension you're carrying' I told her. As if I knew what I was talking about. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But last night she told me that I'd cracked her rib. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I know. That's not funny. And I'm not joking. She had to get an xray and everything. She can't laugh without it hurting. The doctor said she'll be in pain for at least six weeks. And it's all my fault. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I said sorry about six million times but sorry isn't really enough. So I told her she should come around and punch me in the face just so we're even. But she's too kind. 'That's her problem' she said.</div>
<div>
'She's too kind. She lets people walk all over her and her cracked rib is just a metaphor. That I had taught her a lesson to speak up for herself.' Oh Gawd! she really should punch me just to drive that lesson home. Because God knows if she cracked my rib that's what I'd want to do to her.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Soooooo I'm closing down my Walkabout Massage Business. I'm putting my feet to bed. Out of respect to Isabelle and her poor cracked rib. Mea Culpa. I'm just lucky she's my friend and is too sweet to sue me. She is satisfied with a bottle of wine as long as I don't make her laugh. So we'll forget the healing and go get drunk. I got off very lightly. She told me 'I should go back to writing my show. It's what I am meant to be doing.' There's no money in shows but the main thing is she forgave me. Thousands wouldn't. She's a sista. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'm a heel. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
</h3>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3686645403058089614.post-10912386983370593992013-01-10T02:25:00.000-08:002013-01-10T02:32:18.563-08:00Bikram Brain <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;">DANDAYAMANA-DHANURASAN<br />
<br />
</span><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Feet
together. Side by Side. </span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br />
</span></i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I am
standing in a stinking hot room wearing my South Sydney Rabbitoh boxer
shorts and a black sports bra. I'm at least twenty years older than
the rest of the class and standing just close enough to the mirror to
bring on a mid life crisis. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br />
Living in the moment is great at twenty five but the older you get the more
discipline it takes. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">All I can see in the moment are the bags and
the sags and a neck that appears to be ringbarked. Life's relentless and
cruel to the very last breath. But at least I have a spine. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br />
<i>Lock your knees. Lock your knees. </i></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br />
</span></i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I had no
spine left to speak of when I started Bikram Yoga. Psychopaths melt the
spine first before they short wire the fuse box and start pulling apart
your brain.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I came into
this class as a gelatinous glob of post traumatic stress disorder. I had just
escaped from my Manhattan Psycho and flown home to seek the comforting bosom of
my mother. (well Kerouac did it! Why can’t I ?) But my Mama took one look at me
and Hollered 'DON'T YOU DIE BEFORE ME!' before booting me back into
the world to stand on my own two…</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br />
<i>Lock your knee. Lock your knee.</i> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br />
Six years later and my spine is as fluid as the snake that I have slowly
become. Since my return to Australia I've survived a cavalcade of
rejections, a bunch of thwarted business ideas, a road journey, Queensland,
Centrelink, Adelaide, Depression, Anxiety, an alcoholic Disaster
Chef who offered me a vat of Kool-aide and a very long stretch of vagabond
style homelessness. I even survived Perth and an suicidal miner. I
mean how many people can say they survived that outpost of xenophbobia!
But I have fortitude and resilience. Six years of Bikram yoga have
re-built me cell by cell from the bone to the skin. Although my nervous system
still needs a little fusing and my mind sometimes betrays me...</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br />
<i>Imagine you're holding a platinum credit card between your thighs.</i></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br />
Did the teacher actually say that? </span></i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> At
the mere mention of a credit card anxiety coils around my organs and
squeezes like a red belly black in a bad mood. She takes me forward,
takes me back, takes me anywhere but this hideous middle aged moment where
the tables have turned and I'm counting the cards that are left... </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br />
<i>Put out your hand. </i></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br />
</span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> I paid thirty five dollars in cash and
fifty dollars on my card. I promised to pay the rest tomorrow but I don't have
the rest tomorrow? Why did I promise that? I’d already paid this month. I know
I did ? Am I going mad ?<br />
<br />
</span><i><span style="background: #F1F2F6; color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Put out your left hand. </span></i><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Say (all
together) Mama Give me your money'.</span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
<i><br />
</i>I bite my tongue and roll my eyes. Oh brother!<br />
<br />
The class repeats his mantra like the pack of Ken and Barbies that they are.<br />
<br />
<i>MAMA GIVE ME YOUR MONEY</i>.<br />
<br />
Talk about rubbing salt in the wound! They just took all my money!
They took my money twice this month and when I told him the computer was wrong
he didn't believe me. In his eyes I was already guilty.<br />
<br />
<i>Raise the left arm up by the left ear and keep the left leg absolutely
straight with the thigh muscle tight. The standing leg must stay engaged
throughout the entire pose.</i></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
I'd committed the capitalist sin of taking the $99. 00 special twice.
Nobody can take the $99.00 per month special twice. It's a once in a life time
offer and there's no re-incarnation at Bikram yoga. You only get one life. You
don't get three.<br />
<br />
‘You also took the $99.00 special in 2008’<br />
<br />
'Oh dear! Did I ? But that was five years ago ? ‘L</span><span style="background: #F1F2F6; color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">ong memory these
yogis. Just not for your face…</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Yes You Did ! Look. It's all here on the
screen.’<br />
<br />
I didn't think it would help to ask him to think of me as a cat on
her 9<sup>th</sup> life. The dates on the screen swam like gold fish
before my eyes. I couldn't make head nor tail of them. All I knew was
that I had a receipt of payment on the 19th December 2012. And I had forwarded
that receipt in a letter to them the day before.<br />
<br />
<i>Start to kick the right leg back and up whilst keeping a firm grip of the
foot with the right hand. keep leveling the hips forward and keep the right
knee pointing down to the floor.</i><br />
<i><br />
Lock the Leg. Lock the Leg. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i>‘Read the letter. Read the letter. The receipt is in the letter!’<br />
<br />
But he didn't have time to read the letter. It was twenty minutes before class
but it might as well have been closing time on Wall Street. He wanted to punish
me for my greedy grab at the Once in a Life Time Special and I suspected
someone told him about the mats.<br />
<br />
I didn't have my own mat when I was homeless. I had enough to carry door to
door and I didn't need a yoga mat to add to it. So I'd re-use mats that
are hanging off the back window instead of paying two bucks for a fresh one.
But I figured if I was willing to lay on a mat with old sweat then good
luck to me. I was probably the only person in the room who was not afraid of
germs. And forking out for Bikram was already a loaves and fishes act.
It's $120 per month on concession. That's a whole heap of chump
change if you add it up over the years. I could have given that
money to an honest pot dealer or a bar! but nooooo I gave my money to Bikram
studios all over Australia! To keep me off Anti depressants and focus my inner
masochist. To maintain my spine in the land with no brain and no heart!
The world was immune to my charms and my pockets were empty but long as I
could stand on one leg with sweat pouring down my body and some yoga nazi in my
ear yelling ONE PIECE LAMP POST ONE PIECE LAMP POST I knew I would make it.<br />
<br />
And I did.<br />
<br />
But it's moments like these that I realise the parts of me that are still
broken. The part that closes down when I'm being bullied. The part called
my BRAIN.<br />
<br />
'Don't waste my time!' the Manager warns me. 'Are you going to make this easy
for me?'<br />
<br />
'Oh yes!' I cry as I empty out my pockets and hand over my card yet again.'<br />
<br />
Four legs good and two legs bad! Just let me in that sauna…<br />
<br />
<i>Keep kicking, and start to pivot the upper body forward, aiming to get the
abdomen parallel to the floor</i><br />
<i><br />
</i>In class my mind mulled it over and over. I was sure I had paid. Did I
imagine that? Had I finally cracked? If you trigger my PTSD then
it's not so difficult to convince me that black is white and night is day. It's
part of my schism. And unfortunately this practice is not designed to
make you think. The teachers pay ten thousand dollars to learn a script
written by a Yogi who wears a Rolex and who tried to copy
write the sequence so he could knock out the competition. You make a
bomb if you own the joint but I don't think the teachers make much. So why do
it ? It's a great gig for narcissists with no creativity and a sadistic
streak. And if the torture chamber of the room isn't enough they'll
happily humiliate you at the front counter for an added cost.<br />
<br />
<i>Lock your leg. Lock your leg.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> Bikram was my medicine, my discipline, my legal high. But
never mistake your dealer for your friend! Because that Dealer knows you are an
addict and that you're never going to leave them. They know you think you need
them. They know you think without them you will die. And I did.<br />
<br />
So I handed over every last cent I had on me and the last fifty dollars on my
credit card. And then I spent the entire class thinking maybe I'd gone
nuts? After class I asked the owner if he’d check the the email for my letter
but he said his wife would do it later. Now he had my money the bulls rush was
over.<br />
<br />
So I went home and I found the letter and the receipt that vindicated me.
And I checked the statement on my bank account just to be sure. And
there it was in black and white. December 19th. $99.00. . And all the gold fish
disappeared. Funny about that.<br />
<br />
When I went back to pick up the money that they now owed me I was told that it
would be credited forward to the next month. But there won’t be a next month of
Bikram yoga. I'll finish off my final classes and that will be that.
Because it’s not enough to have a spine. You also need a brain and a
heart and you can’t nurture those with a platinum credit card jammed between
your thighs while you are meditating. So after six long years of locking
legs and standing up straight this cat has finally got enlightened. Mama aint
giving you all of her money. And she aint gunna take lying down either. This is
your epitaph. Thanks for the fish.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3686645403058089614.post-75627412292889047572012-08-31T21:45:00.009-07:002015-05-29T11:45:33.597-07:00 The Nigger The Bum and The Goddess. <span style="font-size: 130%;">And here at the end of my journey I find myself homeless. Not just homeless. But homeless at home. That’s the Nigger Experience. </span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: 130%;">John Lennon sang that Woman is the Nigger of the World. And as any NOW will tell you. ‘If you want to survive, you have to run faster, work harder and look cleaner and more buffed than the Master you’re serving.<br /><br />So when Ringo turned up at the station unshaven and grubby I was horrified.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><br />I wanted to stop by a Laundromat and throw him in the wash. But it was too late. We had a train to catch and strangers to meet at the other end. But every time I looked at his grey curly whiskers on his soft white skin I thought of pubes on a pimply arse. And my heart started beating with anxiety.<br /><br />I’d invited him to accompany me on my Pet Companion Gig. Why did I do that? I couldn’t remember. I don’t’ recall him ever looking this dirty? But perhaps I wasn’t looking closely. I have to start becoming more judgemental! Because those whiskers did not say Bob Marley or Brad Pitt on a lazy week. Those Whiskers matched his sloppy joe. Which was Boarding house Green. The shade of green that says ‘Hit Me. I’m worthless! Steal my sneakers while you’re at it.’ His</span><span style="font-size: large;"> sneakers were boarding House Beige. That particular shade that will never look clean, no matter how hard you scrub it. And I suspected they hadn’t been scrubbed for a while.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><br />Like his face. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: 130%;">For the very first time I looked closely at his face. I put aside my rose coloured glasses. (They never fail to fuck me up. I need to smash them.) Through those glasses I saw him as part of my Nomad tribe. But not all nomads are alike. Just like not all thieves have honour. I should have remembered this? But in the back of both our heads was the idea that maybe we could team up? That maybe he could be the tech for my one woman show? I needed a Tech and he needed a Talent. It seemed the perfect solution in theory. I could get back on the road. We could make a small living? I could carry him on my back around the country. Spend the rest of my life cleaning up skid marks and dribble…<br /><br />Oh dear.<br /><br />What the hell was I thinking? I’m into Homeless Chic myself. It’s what keeps me on the tightrope and out of the soup kitchen. I look as deadly as I can for a girl with no budget. Down on your luck doesn’t mean that you stop styling up. On the contrary. The worse things become the harder I work to fight gravity. Depression is a luxury reserved for people with houses. Reaching out to the world with no anchor or roots takes an awful lot of focus. And when I turn up to a House Sitting gig my hair is brushed, my clothes are washed and it costs me ten bucks to wax off my moustache. So what’s his excuse? All he has to do is pick up a razor and run it across his face.<br /><br />His left cheek looked as though it had taken a nap in the gravel. It’s not like he was trying to be Bukowski. He wasn’t trying to be anything. That was the problem. Part of him had given up. A very deep part by the look of it. A part that didn’t want any touching. Trying to clean him up would be like throwing a cat in the bath. You’d never get him clean and he’d never forgive you. He’d just pay you back by pissing in your sheets. What was I thinking?<br /><br />I was thinking of my Grandparents who were both Orphans and who met at a bus stop. My Grandma had just run away from Molong because she didn’t want to marry a Farmer. She wanted a city life and she dreamt of a Pen Pusher. So she came to the big smoke alone. And then Papa turned up. At the Bus stop. On his way to his job as a Clerk on the Wharves. The Bus was late (some things never change) and so that’s how they discovered they were both Orphans. So they got on that bus and they never got off. They lived happily ever after. In Forest Lodge.<br /><br />That’s very poetic right?<br /><br />And since I’ve arrived back in Sydney I’ve spent a lot of time at the Bus Stop with my Grandma. We’ve been communing. I imagine what she felt like when she first arrived in the big smoke and didn’t know a soul. I’ve been listening to her stories and getting under her skin. So when Ringo turned up I thought it was a sign. That we should get on the road together. Well who wouldn’t? He had just arrived in Sydney and staying on a friend’s couch. He was starting again with nothing. Just like I was. We were like Archetypal Orphans. I could feel Grandma egging me on.<br /><br />There were other benefits to us partnering up. For a start sex would never complicate things. We never saw each other as lovers. I was a ‘Post Romantic Celibate’ and he was ‘Too Fucking Lazy to Get it Up’ So in this way we were compatible. Traveling solo had become very hard. And teaming up seemed like the perfect solution.<br /><br />Until he turned up looking like a refugee from Matthew Talbert.<br /><br />Oh Mea Mea Culpa! His whiskers made me very nervous. I had accidently invited a bum with me to my house sitting gig. What was I thinking? My heart pumped faster and faster as the train sped to our destination and my right arm went numb from the shoulder down. I was having a full blown panic attack, triggered by a five oclock shadow. It was Crazy! It’s not like I cared that he looked like a grub. I can tolerate anyone with a good sense of humour. But the people I was dog sitting for didn’t have any humour. I could tell that on the telephone. People who treat their pets like first born children rarely do. They’re generally very serious and neurotic . They don’t care for comedy. They just care that their house will be safe and you won’t rip them off and their Pet is still alive when they return. That’s their ONLY focus. My heart was pumpity pumptity…<br /><br />What if they took one look at him and turned us back around?<br /><br />Where would I go? What would I do?<br /><br />I’d end up sleeping out in the rough with Ringo. That would be no protection! Not with him in his boarding house Green shirt that said ‘Hit Me. I’m worthless!’ The worst scenarios flashed through my head. We’d doss down under a tree. I’d be ready to sleep and his homeless mates would pop by with some beer. I know where his loyalty would be! He’d slip on his dirty sneakers and he’d leave me for dead. Oh what was I thinking!?<br /><br />I had put my own shelter at risk for a man who didn’t give a shit. Not about me. Not about the people giving us hospitality. And certainly not about himself. My felt my tightrope fraying as we walked to meet our Hostess.<br /><br />Pumpity pumpity pump…<br /><br />It all turned out ok. She let us stay. She didn’t leave the car though. She drove the spare car to the neighbors. I went to the Doctor the next day about my panic attacks and he told me that it was the weather. Apparently everyone Panics in winter. I relaxed when I realised I wasn’t going to die .<br /><br />Ringo relaxed too. He spread out in the lounge room. He coveted the ipad and snuggled in with footy tab. He wasn’t much of a Technician. He couldn’t even turn on the TV without yelling for help. He seemed to have a short fuse for problem solving. And once he’d settled in on the couch he didn’t like moving. He only moved for about ten minutes a day. But I already knew this. The whiskers said it all. They were like tea leaves all over his face predicting our future.<br /><br />The next evening when the subject came up of further travel I gently suggested that he might like to shave when we turned up at the venues? He didn’t like that suggestion one bit. He bristled with fury. People could just accept him how he was! He wasn’t changing for anyone. Why should he?’ He saw me as some bitch wanting to chop off his dick and I saw him as a spoilt self-entitled white boy who thought he didn’t have to make an effort. He thought a dick in dirty pants was enough introduction. But I’d never lived with that sort of luxury. So I had no empathy.<br /><br />Still my heart settled properly after the five o’clock shadow was out on the table. I knew then that I couldn’t ask him to scrub up without emasculating him. Which was a big problem for both of us. An emasculated man is a dangerous thing. They can really do some damage. They’re worse than jealous women. This is why I end up teaming up with Narcissists. I mistake them for Alpha men. Because a true Alpha man can take a little critique without cracking. But there aren’t very many of them. Which explains why I’m celibate. But I don’t think I’ll be truly safe until I’m a fully fledged hermit.<br /><br />He stayed six days and then I asked him to leave. The Orphan went with him.<br /><br />I feel like a Goddess now.</span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3686645403058089614.post-8813312327069898032012-08-26T04:34:00.005-07:002014-11-10T03:50:54.165-08:00Thankyou and Goodnight.<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 100%;">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">So I gatecrash the Rick Shapiro Benefit night.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">I’m always gatecrashing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">My motto is if you ever want to leave the house don’t wait to be invited. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Just invite yourself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Lawless was lovely. She welcomed me with her fabulous smile and her generous vibe. She even welcomed my Camera! Which was very brave, because she works with Comics. And Comics hate Cameras. I learned this during the Adelaide Fringe. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">It’s not that they’re afraid of over-exposure. Exposing themselves is what comics should be good at. It’s more that their shtick is a Glory Box full of jokes that they hoard like old Spinsters. They haul that box (no guts,no glory) around a tired and predictable circuit. And keep pulling those jokes out out again and again. Desperately hoping that their audience is younger and fresher than the material they’re serving. And nobody in the room has Altzeimers. Because you do not want an audience who has access to their long term memory. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">That is a Seasoned Comic’s nightmare. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">And now thanks to YOU TUBE the Glory Box is on the lawn because every pervert has a camera. Including me. Look Out! It’s a Mash Up! Hide your shtick before it turns into bubble and squeee…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">I’m not digressing. I’m RANTING. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: large;">but I figured that should be the spirit of a Rick Shapiro benefit night. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: large;">Since Shapiro is the master of the Rant and the Outlaw of the circuit. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: large;">I was there to celebrate that spirit! </span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: large;">Well it’s not like I was there for the Comedy. B</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: large;">ecause the truth is I can only love Comics from a distance. Too many issues. They’re more fucked up than Poets. At least Poets don’t work to a punch line. Unless they’re Slam Poets and then they just work to a punch in the head.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I don’t know that Poets are hideous. They drink all your wine and they bludge all your ciggies and then they want to read you their work! To get feedback! As if you haven’t given enough already. But at least they say Thanks after draining you dry ! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Unlike Comics! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">They just pull it out, wipe it. And then try to turn that soggy tissue into material. They expect unconditional love. They mistake every woman (not wearing a g.string and a fake tan) for Mother. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Comics are the reason why Judith Lucy looks so worn out. It’s from years of swanning around that big fat boys club full of whining man/children who know that they’ll never be men. So their only revenge is to ignore any woman over 25 not sporting a Brazilian. Judith Lucy would have had to sit through years of sexist jokes, pissed blokes and open mics to get where she is today. What a martyr. The smaller the cock the bigger the Booby prize. Booby being the operative word. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Not that I blame them! You only have to look at their audience to understand how Comics are formed. Poets can afford to be thinkers because they know that at least half their audience has read a book, at least once in their life, from beginning to end. Comics, on the other hand, are appealing to an audience with ADD. Three lines and they’re fading. So you gotta hit em hard and fast where they’ve still got a nerve. Which is basically below the belt . Somewhere between their clit and their pocket.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">It’s like fifty shades of ‘Spare me’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">It’s not that comedy doesn’t have its occasional Genius. But on the whole most Comics don’t think. They just reflect the culture. And the culture is Reality Television, Celebrity and Master Chef , Renovations, Strip clubs, Bald Beaver and women who have to act like porn stars to get any attention. A</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: large;">nd lets not forget Rape. Rape is Trending. Not only on stage but all over the internet. There’s the Swedish definition of rape and then there’s the idea of Rape as a form of contraception. Which was trending last week in the ol USA. There’s actually a lot to say about Rape. It’s a gold mine of material, but when you’re working to a punch line it’s important to stay superficial. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: large;">Which the US visiting Comic managed to do with aplomb. He asked not to be part of my video. I suspect that’s because I turned off my camera in the middle of his set and started drinking. So It’s like some one telling you to fuck off after you’ve already hung up on them. I cannot remember his name…</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">The female Comic had already killed any oncoming rape jokes by talking about the trapped nerve in her Lady Bits. At the end of her set I just wanted to hug her. It felt mean to laugh. It was more like a scene from Embarrassing Bodies than a Stand Up routine. Her Vagina was a war zone. It had probably heard too many rape jokes. A life in Comedy is enough to make any cunt shut shop. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Which may explain why arsehole is the new pussy? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">You could possibly blame Rick Shapiro for this. He was the first Comic in my memory to expose Ass Fucking as the new Olympic sport. Just like Russel Brand brought wheel chair sex to the world of Katy Perrry. Shapiro pulled the curtain on that dirty little back door and made us peer in where we ‘(didn’t) came from. Where’s there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. He’s like the Pied Piper of the large intestine... a million young Comics have since followed him up that ass and got lost…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Because the difference between Shapiro and his imitators is that he channels while he boxes. He lives somewhere between the gladiator pit and the art house. He may hit below the belt but he ignites and he transcends. He pulls out your liver and dangles it under the light. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;"> At least that’s how I remember him. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">I saw him one night in New York. After I’d just got off stage from a Poetry Anthology launch at The New School. I was punch drunk and dizzy and lonely and alienated. I couldn’t remember why I performed? It didn’t get me money and it didn’t get me laid. It just got me PTSD, poverty and a permanent headache. In the aftermath of 9-11 it felt dangerous and fruitless. It was the type of existential crisis that only a performer would understand. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">So we all wandered down to a late night comedy club and there was Shapiro a</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: large;">nd for his thirty minute set every thing made sense. And I’m not in the mood to describe why that is. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">But ever since then I felt grateful. Which is why I gate crashed his benefit night with my video camera when I heard about his 'heart incident'.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">But hell is paved with good intentions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">I put that video on his facebook page and everyone ignored it. Including Shapiro. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">But the You tube page has two dislikes so someone's watching. And I bet they're both Comics. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;"> In Comedy there is no love. And what love there is <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Is Lawless. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Which brings me back to the woman who made this night happen. She booked the gig, put out the hat and welcomed the punters. She’ll send off that cheque without taking a cut. She’s a trooper, a sport and a comedy legend. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">She also said Thanks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">She was the only one. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: whitefont-family:"; color: #222222; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">I rest my (camera) case. <br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/SNLQJ4wknA4" width="420"></iframe><br /><br />http://youtu.be/SNLQJ4wknA4<br /><br /><br />>And Exit stage left…</span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3686645403058089614.post-26403906429094029132012-08-14T18:39:00.002-07:002014-07-19T01:31:31.155-07:00The Big Picture<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mum said ‘You should have been Recognised years ago’. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She actually meant Diagnosed but couldn’t find the word.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Recognised is what I always wanted. But diagnosed is what I’m left with. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Still I sucked the jus out of ‘Recognised’ while I had it. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Wow. That’s so nice of you to say. Thanks Ma’. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Aunty Glad was also a bit funny. Bless her.’<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By funny she meant a bit mental. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My Ma has relaxed since I told her I was diagnosed with Depression. She couldn’t understand what had happened to me. I was always so focused? I must have been drinking. But now my Despair all makes sense to her. I come from a long line of beautiful sensitive Aunts who all had break downs in middle age. But it took Altziemers to bring them all to my attention. Memory is never so strong as when you are about to lose it. Now the living and the dead are all standing in one room and having a knees up Mother Brown. It’s gothic and it’s spooky. You have to get in to gallows humour to truly appreciate it. There’s no holding back now. All the old skeletons come rattling out of Rookwood, and none ask to be invited. The gloves are off, the veils are dropped and it goes for the jugular while it cracks you up. It’s hilarious and terrifying and all in one sentence. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s Altzeimers. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So you have to make friends with the Grim Reaper. Or at least learn to look him in the eye and stare him down. Because everywhere, at every turn that scythe wielding prick is sneaking up behind you. Except he’s not there to escort you to the other life, he’s just there to empty you of everything that once comforted you and defined you. First he takes your short term memory. And steals your words and the end of your stories. And it’s not like a hold up. There’s no ‘Hands Up and Gimme’. He just pilfers it away like a sadistic miser. And then he mocks you. He’s an asshole. He uproots your buried dreams. And lets every bogey man out of the closet to shake his limbs. It’s like a bogey man disco. You all start off crumping and end up in a barefoot tango being dragged by the hair across the dance floor. There are no steps. There is no mercy. Logic is a fucking joke and Science aint gunna save you. There is no cure for Altzeimers. Only love can gently guide you through a landscape full of mine bombs…<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Oh yes. Aunty Glad was superstitious about the colour green. I remember that.’<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Oh pet you don’t know the half of it. I’ll tell you someday’. But not now. Now I’m busy. I’ve a lot going on in my head. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Oh I know. You must. I love you. If you need me I’m here…’<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yes I love all my children. You’ve all grown into deep people. But stop drinking. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mum I’m not a drinker. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And say your prayers. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Yes I’m praying madly. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Good.’<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In prayer she never fights for words. Prayer is our bridge. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I feel yours too Ma!’<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Oh yes it works. I know it works. I’m praying all the time for you! And I’m praying that you don’t bring me any food. It gives me back ache. ‘ <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
God is an Anarchist. <o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3686645403058089614.post-63237491816281208972012-05-10T05:16:00.020-07:002013-05-09T09:22:37.763-07:00Door Bitch.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiADw0YtZHOagU8JG8hC3xUZ7bfNPW0BRfbi9X5gAa4lnPbGTgaMGdW1c4hAqVJS3GiFj7_w3EOOHhyhyphenhyphenflU4MSq4StU8uqCYap2Gj2xQFGS-f4kSXJHyim0-WTwVvFw8XkG0mFyOiEwoU/s1600/door+2.jpg" style="line-height: normal;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5740896672855112946" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiADw0YtZHOagU8JG8hC3xUZ7bfNPW0BRfbi9X5gAa4lnPbGTgaMGdW1c4hAqVJS3GiFj7_w3EOOHhyhyphenhyphenflU4MSq4StU8uqCYap2Gj2xQFGS-f4kSXJHyim0-WTwVvFw8XkG0mFyOiEwoU/s320/door+2.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 240px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">Just a few weeks ago at a dinner party in Melbourne a retiring Rock God said to me ‘Wednesday maybe if you stopped describing yourself as an Artist then you’d get more opportunities? Three times tonight you've referred to yourself as an Artist' As if that was something very shameful and the key to all my woe. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; line-height: 115%;">His words slammed like a sucker punch and so I slapped him back with his own self-description. The room gasped but I knew I’d missed his balls. My head was reeling. Why the fuck was I even having this conversation?</span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">I knew that being seen as an Artist was akin to having a venereal disease but it was strange to hear someone who had devoted their life to the muse, chastise me for owning the fact that I’d done the same? I mean he had some volunteer scribe that he was dictating his autobiography to. </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">But maybe he knew it was his shlong she was hanging on ? Because if I looked at all the stories I'd collected on my travels he did have a point. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">Nobody likes Artists. Not even other Artists. Unless they’re rich they’re almost universally despised. </span></span><span class="textexposedshow"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">When Aussies think Artist,they think smelly needy poor lunatic whores with no ears and no sense living in garrets off tax payers money. They think wankers and bludgers and even worse…poets. There is nothing sadder than a Poet. People run from them. They’re not worth robbing and they want to read you their poetry. It’s hideous! Run for the hills! Better to be that guy on his knees at Town Hall who keeps his mouth shut and holds out a cap looking humble and fucked up. At least he has the power to make people feel guilty. Poets don’t have the power to make people feel anything Except perhaps irritated and vaguely suicidal.</span></span><br />
<span class="textexposedshow"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="textexposedshow"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="textexposedshow"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">So I went to the loo and videoed my feet as I was contemplating. And I remembered when I’d just got back from New York and was still floating on the last of my Manhattan mojo. I had organised a photo story with a magazine and the Crown Casino Day Spa. They were catering to the Melbourne Metro-sexual. And I was bringing in three handsome men for pamper, interview and photo shoot. I had scored myself a room in the Penthouse suite and dinner for everyone involved and facials and mani pedi, massages for the talent. It was a magical ride that all ran like clockwork until the Casino looked at the proof of the photos. The Rock God looked too much like a dirty artist and didn’t fit with their corporate brand so they all freaked out and pulled all the photos. Without the photos I had no story. Without a story I was cast out of the Penthouse Suite and onto a greyhound bus back to Sydney. The clock had turned midnight and it was chutzpah au go go…<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span class="textexposedshow"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="textexposedshow"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">I’m a regular Cinderella act. </span></span><span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span class="textexposedshow"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">When I returned to the table to remind the Rock God of that incident I had a napkin swiftly stuffed in my mouth by the Hostess. She tapped her knife on her glass with a ding ding ding It was time to SHUT UP! The discussion was finished. And it’s not like I could argue because I was staying on her lumpy couch. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">So I went out on the balcony for a cigarette.</span></span><br />
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">The Rock Wizard joined me and said 'Wednesday I understand when you call yourself an Artist. That makes sense to me because I see myself as an Artist too'. </span></span><span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">The Wizard was sweet and could afford to be generous because he'd escaped from Australia and been rescued by Germans They even paid him to perform and they weren’t a front for organised crime or anything! </span></span><span style="background-color: #edeff4; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">He was indeed an Artist. He embodied and owned it. </span><span style="background-color: #edeff4; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">Whereas I had become that twisted thwarted creature that Virginia Woolf once described in a Room of One’s Own.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #edeff4; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">‘I gotta get out of here’ <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">‘Out of this dinner party?’<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">‘No. Out of this country. From coast to coast it’s Ding Ding fucking Ding. She needs people like us. Artists darling ARTISTS! But she crossed the line with her 'ding ding ding'. This is why people end up throwing punches. And you know I expected more from Melbourne! I know it fancies itself as the cultural fucking capitol of the arse end of the world but this is not exactly the Round fucking table is it?' <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">The Rock Wizard listened supportively in silence because Wizards never take sides. They’re too busy looking at the big picture . <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">Then the Rock God joined us on the balcony and announced ‘A year ago I was diagnosed with Fucking Arsehole Disorder’ as if to explain himself.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"> ‘Oh really? I replied. And all this time I thought you were a GENIUS’. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">He had traded in his electric muse for a shrinks diagnosis and now he'd been reduced to a Fucking Arsehole. It was official. And then he pointed to his girlfriend and said ‘This woman saved my life’. As if that was sposed to soften the vibe and make me feel better? <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">If I’d been diagnosed with Fucking Arsehole Disorder the room would be emptied. It's hard enough being a Disaster Diva with PTSD. That didn't even win me a ticket for the Disability Pension. </span><span style="background-color: #edeff4; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">I tried for that pension TWICE but I failed the twenty point madness test. </span><span style="background-color: #edeff4; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="background-color: #edeff4; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">It’s very hard to pass that test. They’re not even taking Cutters these days. You could crawl into Centrelink </span><span style="background-color: #edeff4; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="background-color: #edeff4; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">hanging off a cross and nobody would blink. They’d just call security. So forget slashing your wrists. It leaves them cold. You’ve got to chop off the whole hand off and poke out your eye and get gangrene in at least one foot and even then you might only add up to nineteen points. It’s a risk.</span><span style="background-color: #edeff4; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="background-color: #edeff4; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">But then once you’re in, you’re officially mental. It’s like a club.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #edeff4; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">Hi I’m Wednesday PTSD. Pleased to meet you.</span></span><br />
<span class="commentbody"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="background-color: #edeff4; color: #333333; line-height: 21px;">Nuts is the new black but unfortunately I’m not quite nutty enough. I’m in a sort of nut limbo. Can’t spit and can’t swallow. I’m one of those nuts who sees themselves as an Artist. Who will show you her stigmata at the slightest provocation.</span><span style="background-color: #edeff4; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"> Who is married to the muse and who doesn't make a single choice without his consultation. I'm a regular moon mama. And I may be delusional. But I aint the one feeding Big Pharma. </span><span style="background-color: #edeff4; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">It’s a game, it’s a dream, it’s a faustian deal, it’s an art, it’s a calling it’s an addiction. We’re back to mental illness. All roads lead to the nut house. Buy your tickets, take your ride and suffer your ridicule</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #edeff4; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: #edeff4; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">I AM AN ARTIST! <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #edeff4; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; line-height: 115%;">So put your money where mouth is.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; line-height: 115%;"></span></span></div>
<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="line-height: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div style="line-height: normal;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; line-height: 115%;"><input name="cmd" type="hidden" value="_s-xclick" /><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; line-height: 115%;"><input name="hosted_button_id" type="hidden" value="GH35ELZMX53ME" /><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; line-height: 115%;"><input alt="PayPal — The safer, easier way to pay online." border="0" name="submit" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_AU/i/btn/btn_donateCC_LG.gif" type="image" /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="line-height: 18px;"> Please. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div>
</form>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3686645403058089614.post-89836556619788891082010-07-10T21:19:00.000-07:002010-07-10T21:20:46.269-07:00If you<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xDXf8Lj9ixA&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/xDXf8Lj9ixA&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3686645403058089614.post-87647768978185850642010-07-10T21:14:00.000-07:002010-07-10T21:15:02.881-07:00Winter Again Sarah Noxx<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/skg6g9mMKE8&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/skg6g9mMKE8&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3686645403058089614.post-38814814908196779012010-03-15T21:51:00.000-07:002014-06-30T02:54:48.000-07:00Goodbye Brisbane.I was going to spend my last night in Brisbane at a Performance Event. But then I got a last minute phone call from Franky. He’d left his controlling girlfriend, booked himself into rehab and found out he had cirrhosis of the liver.
<br />
<br />
So of course I had to go seem him. Franky was my main man. He booked me my ticket on the White Trash Express. He was the one who sold me the Crisis Centre, (cheap as chips,gorgeous grounds, lovely old Queenslander) and talked it up like a five star resort. He has a heart of gold and I love him to bits but If I started out on the wrong foot I owed it all to Franky.
<br />
<br />
Besides I had to finish Brisbane the way I started it. There was no point going for a happy ending in a tale with no redemption. Brisbane and I had a narrative going on that involved Crisis Centres, Rehabs , Boarding House bitches and conversations with bashed women, stand over men and people that live in Caravan Parks. It’s everything I ever imagined when I actually think about it?
<br />
<br />
It’s like way back (about ten months ago) when I was an arrogant up myself Sydney sider, I'd always imagined Brisbane as this back wards, scar neck, redneck, narrow minded lynchville, white trash, back water sort of city and that’s the Brisbane I’d discovered.
<br />
<br />
Creative Visualisation right?
<br />
<br />
It seemed every time I left the house I ran into some one who’d just got out of jail or who was visiting someone in jail, or who had been bashed or stolen from by someone who should have been locked up. Only that morning I had met this woman who was sitting outside Coles nursing a swollen purple foot that she’d won in a car accident. She had been sitting there all morning and would possibly sit there all night, because a group of homeless guys had stolen her wheelchair to hock at Cash Converters.
<br />
<br />
Nice.
<br />
<br />
I would have helped her but I was scared those homeless guys would come back to grab my shopping. I’ve become a sort of magnet to people who have hit hard luck or hard luck has hit them or they’ve been shacked up with hard luck for so long that it doesn’t even feel like hard luck anymore. It just feels like life.
<br />
<br />
Not that I should talk because my luck has been surfing the toilet bowl ever since I crawled off a Greyhound bus and into that overpriced capsule hotel in Fortitude Valley. From there I flew down hill to a Crisis Centre and fled right back out of there as soon as I’d worked out it was only a cut above a Detention Centre to find myself a nice boarding house with dirty toilets. An errant complaint to the landlady had me packing my bags again and moving straight into a boarding house with bed bugs. After a bit of lateral thinking I found myself a few days reprieve with a nice middle class boy who wanted a hand job. Only to move in with a dead man in Paradise. Brisbane’s just another name for Heaven! What a lovely welcoming place !
<br />
<br />
But I have to admit my hard luck had become most confronting. Most people have to have had a serious drug addiction to be in my position. Whereas I’ve just had this on going delusion that ANY DAY NOW my talents are all going to pay off and I’m going to be a rip roaring fucking success. I might as well have spent the past twenty odd years on crack cocaine. Because at the end of the road there’s not much difference…
<br />
<br />
It was like my flatmate saying to me ‘I don’t care about your books. I don’t care about your Stories’. He was the messenger sent to tell me that my Gig Was Up! They’re the sort of messengers sent to delusional Australians. Tax Payers in serviceable state issued uniforms handing out Zoloft and threatening to quarantine your pension cheque.
<br />
<br />
That’s the difference between Brisbane and a Hollywood movie. Hollywood calls them Dreamers and Brisbane calls them Delusionals. In Hollywood movies the messenger arrives just before the closing credits to reward you for sustaining your delusion against all odds. He hands over a big fat cheque, gives you a story in the paper and the deeds to a happy ending. (see Crazy Heart)
<br />
<br />
So I cycled over to see Frankie and we wailed over a bottle of Greyhound water that I’d got free with my Sydney ticket. I told him not to worry, that livers know how to regenerate. He just had to just take up yoga and the rot would start to reverse. We had a hug, wished each other good luck, then I cycled back to West End for a liver punch with Kazza.
<br />
<br />
Kaz is a tranny. But I’m not sure which equipment she was born with? She looks like a bloke who has changed into a woman but she tells me that she was born as a female lesbian, who started to take testosterone to attract the straight girls and then stopped when the attraction didn’t work. Now she’s stuck in this no man’s land between Tuck Shop lady and Truck Driver and nobody knows what to call her? But if you get it wrong, she’ll threaten to punch all your lights out.
<br />
<br />
So she’s a little complicated, but that’s the woman in her and I’m quite happy to see her the way that she sees herself. The only problem is that I bring out her Lesbian tendencies. So she started getting jealous when I struck up a conversation with the Acid freak.
<br />
<br />
The Acid freak just sat down at our table and started telling us how he was at the crossroads of his life. He’d lived in Byron Bay for 23 years where he’d taken a daily cocktail of mind altering drugs. His brain had been frying for as long as he could remember. But after Monday he was killing the sizzle for good. He was booking himself into rehab. And he was terrified! From then on everything he liked about himself would be over. No more visions, visitations, astral travel and epiphanies. He would never be able to share another mind altering idea, conversations would be cold cuts served to idiots.
<br />
<br />
I found his raw confession totally fascinating but Kazza didn’t like him at all. Mostly because he was taking up all my attention. So she snuck off to the bar when we weren’t looking and reported him for being drunk and disorderly.
<br />
<br />
He may have been a little drunk but he wasn’t actually disorderly. In fact I found him succinct and very articulate. I could completely relate to the appalling idea of being stone cold sober in Brisbane. And to show my support I bought him a pint of Guinness.
<br />
<br />
But then the management came and took it off him and kicked him out of the pub for being drunk while drinking. This sort of turned me into an accomplice which was quite unexpected. So I exited stage left with Kaz glowering at the rear of me.
<br />
<br />
She exploded when we got outside.
<br />
<br />
‘Do you like trouble? Why do you talk to these losers?
<br />
<br />
‘For the same reason I talk to you.’
<br />
<br />
I didn’t say that.
<br />
<br />
But it’s true.
<br />
<br />
The only reason I started talking to her was because nobody else was talking to her. It seemed a little rude to point this out but I was getting pretty tired of finger pointing Briz Vegans. I do not like to be judged by people I once made fun of and I’m sick of trying to explain myself.
<br />
<br />
The fact is it’s not actually trouble I’m seeking! It’s a heart that’s still beating! And at least losers at the crossroads have a pulse! I came on a journey looking for the heart of Australia. But I’ve come to the end of my journey and all I have in my hands is Franky's rotting liver. And I’m trying to work out what it's trying to tell me?
<br />
<br />
It seems to me the deader and more conservative things become on the inside. The darker and more dangerous the outside becomes. The inside is 69 Paradise Street. And my flatmate stands for everything it represents. Parochial, narrow minded, boring, highly judgemental, non empathetic and oblivious to the world outside his window. And on one level it’s hard to blame him.
<br />
<br />
Because just down the road from Paradise Street, drowned out by a cacophony of garden tools are the people who will smash in your lights and knock off your wheelchair. You sort of get why the middle class have retreated.
<br />
<br />
But how can I say all this to Kaz. She doesn’t even have the choice of being on the inside. Her permanent abode is a Crisis Hostel. She has two broken front teeth from where she was living in a caravan park and this woman hit her in the face with a cricket bat.
<br />
<br />
So I tell her another truth. I tell her that I prefer people who wear their badness on the outside it because the most evil man I’d ever met looked totally benign.
<br />
<br />
Then Kaz confessed that she knew what I meant because she once had a six year relationship with a Serial Killer. At night he was a lovely nurturing husbandly type, but during the day he was murdering Granny’s underneath the guise of as a television repair man. He would get into their houses to put in an aerial and come back later to murder them. For six peaceful years she thought he was a sweetheart until his mug shot turned up on the six o’clock news. Then she left him.
<br />
<br />
And with that final Bedtime story I said Goodnight.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2