Bye Bye Dick. (with Illustrations)

The Real Estate Agent has a name. His name is Dick.  He also has a Chinese girlfriend who he met her in a Karaoke bar. Her name is Ling.  Together they are Dick and Ling.

Alex Gross

Ling looks Chinese, speaks like Julia Gillard but sings like a beautiful bird. I hear her sing once a week when they rehearse in the lounge room before they go to Karaoke. The first time I heard her sing I told her that she sounded just like Cyndi Lauper’. And she did. But now she sounds like a whimpering dog. That Dick is destroying her. Death by a thousand notes. Peck peck peck. 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 one of them. He picks at her gift as though it’s a scab and she dries up under his invasive tutelage. He of the tone deaf school of off key howling was telling the bird how to sing? It was quite ridiculous. But that’ll tell you something about how mediocrity rules (if you let it)

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.

Alex Gross

Apparently there’s a man shortage in Adelaide. I was told this on the first day I arrived.

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.

Stephen Shellen

 It was romance that ruined my last book 21^st 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. 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.

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.

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. 

Alex Gross

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.

‘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.

Stephen Shellen

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! 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.

 ‘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.

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. 

I knew that old trick. 

Stephen Shellen

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. 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. 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.  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.

Alex Gross

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. 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.  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. 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. 

 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 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 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.

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 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. 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.

 ‘Don’t slam the Door’.

 I never slammed the door. It was always Hellique.

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. 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 because nothing about her made sense. None of her story hung together.  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 ? 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 she dressed like an exotic El Salvadorian hen with too many feathers. 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.  The narrative she’d created for herself was empty but seamless. Nothing she said was was true but neither could it offend. She lied with a perfect fluidity and knew exactly when to shut up and walk away.

Johnny Hammer

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. 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.

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.  The night that I got my media pass to the Adelaide Festival I took Hellique to a One Man Show called Five steps to being German.' 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?  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. 

Stephen Shellen

I don't know what planet Hellique had arrived from. I just couldn't frame her.  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.  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 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.

Alex Gross

 “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. 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!'

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. 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.

Stephen Shellen

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.

I hate liars.

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. 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. 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 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. 

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. 

Truth is Amazing. 

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. 

Stephen Shellen

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...

Stephen Shellen

 But it's not like I didn't know something was cooking because that afternoon I'd returned with my shopping to a primitive 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.

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.

Slam.

‘Hello Hellique.’

‘Hello Dick’

I can hear him smile as he asks her how her day is?

I can hear her lie as she tells him she’s going in to her part time job at the United Nations.

clip clop clip clop.

Then he’ll knock on my door and growl ‘Get your clothes out of the Washing Machine’.

‘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. Stifling the urge to scream ‘Fuck Off! You disgraceful ol Prick! ‘

I am always biting my tongue these days. My tongue has permanent teeth marks etched across the middle of it.  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. 

clip clop clip clop. 

'Bye Hellique'.

'And when you've hung out your washing Wednesday we need to talk'

'I want you out by next week'.

SLAM. 

'Bye Bye Dick' 

Alex Gross

Tawdry

Most 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)

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.

She died because she'd hung off that cross for too long.

Drum Roll....

Ladies and Gentlemen...I am pleased and terrified to announce that I am finally ready to launch 21st Century Showgirl in the (lights up!)  REAL WORLD...

She has never had a REAL WORLD launch. She has only been launched on Myspace. Check it out.

(VJ has gone home because Slideshow has closed down. But punters are still gathered...)

http://www.myspace.com/wednesdayfkennedy/blog/475144277

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....

http://www.wednesdaykennedyink.com/?p=162 

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...

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....

But I realised this week that before I present The Snake Kennedy Trilogy.  I need to give the 21st Century Showgirl 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.

I've booked the Bordello Theatre at the Kings Cross Hotel for March 6th.  I'm thinking 7pm. The Kings Cross Arts Guild will be presenting it!!  I'm talking to the Caterer. He's mulling over Garlic Icecream and Pancetta. I need some one to sponsor the Champayne? Bruce Davies who did the cover for the book is working on the poster as we speak!  I have a super sexy DJ.   The most exquisite Tina Harris is going to sing a song she wrote especially for the book! Tonight I meet with Andrew Worboys to edit some video for the Opener. Ru Bella is going to take us out with a bang!  I get by with a little help from my talented friends.  I have ONE MONTH. 

There will be Firemen!

In the meantime join the facebook page. All the latest news will be posted here.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Snake-Kennedy/405339756223610

Send money and guns

xxx

Sole Sista

My life is littered with Entrepreneurial Failures.  Some of them immortalised on video.

There was the Virtual Tourism Brain Wave.   (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.

http://youtu.be/m-Fft9ljwzk

There was the Digital Diva business that nobody wanted to pay for.  Everyone either does it themselves or finds some sucker to do it for free.

http://youtu.be/Z4rJ0j0H7Tc

There was the Speech Writing 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. 

Then I became a self Publisher. While I was still high on the idea that Social Networking was going to change my world..

http://youtu.be/DBkt-JCSTpQ

The first book sold 100 copies and the second book sold 4. So I got out while I was still ahead...

There was the Pet Companion Business.  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.  

http://youtu.be/gctO25aEc_A

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.  

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. 

But ever the optimist I am never short of a new business idea.  And so this week I created 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Walkabout-Australian-Back-Walking-Massage/460681010658533

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. 

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. 

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.  

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.  

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. 

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. 

But last night she told me that I'd cracked her rib. 

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. 

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.

'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.

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. 

I'm a heel. 

Bikram Brain

DANDAYAMANA-DHANURASAN

Feet together.  Side by Side. 

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.  

Living in the moment is great at twenty five but the older you get the more discipline it takes.  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. 

Lock your knees. Lock your knees. 

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. 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…

Lock your knee. Lock your knee. 

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...

Imagine you're holding a platinum credit card between your thighs.

Did the teacher actually say that?  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...  

Put out your hand. 

 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 ?

Put out your left hand.  Say (all together) Mama Give me your money'.

I bite my tongue and roll my eyes. Oh brother!

The class repeats his mantra like the pack of Ken and Barbies that they are.

MAMA GIVE ME YOUR MONEY.

 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.

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'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.

‘You also took the $99.00 special in 2008’

'Oh dear! Did I ? But that was five years ago ?  ‘Long memory these yogis. Just not for your face…

‘Yes You Did !  Look. It's all here on the screen.’

I didn't think it would help to ask him to think of me as a cat on her 9^th 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.

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.

Lock the Leg. Lock the Leg. 

‘Read the letter.  Read the letter. The receipt is in the letter!’

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.

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.

And I did.

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.

'Don't waste my time!' the Manager warns me. 'Are you going to make this easy for me?'

'Oh yes!' I cry as I empty out my pockets and hand over my card yet again.'

Four legs good and two legs bad! Just let me in that sauna…

Keep kicking, and start to pivot the upper body forward, aiming to get the abdomen parallel to the floor

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.

Lock your leg. Lock your leg.

 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.

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.

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.

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.

The Nigger The Bum and The Goddess.

And here at the end of my journey I find myself homeless. Not just homeless. But homeless at home. That’s the Nigger Experience.

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.

So when Ringo turned up at the station unshaven and grubby I was horrified.

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.

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 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.

Like his face.

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…

Oh dear.

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.

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?

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.

That’s very poetic right?

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.

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.

Until he turned up looking like a refugee from Matthew Talbert.

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…

What if they took one look at him and turned us back around?

Where would I go? What would I do?

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!?

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.

Pumpity pumpity pump…

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 .

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.

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.

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.

He stayed six days and then I asked him to leave. The Orphan went with him.

I feel like a Goddess now.