The Things You Own...

“Sooner or later we all became what Tyler wanted us to be...” - Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

My heart has been heavy all day with the knowledge that the things that I have collected will not save me. The memorabilia, souvenirs, keepsakes, forget-me-nots, pet rocks, post cards, birthday cards, toy lions, toy T-Rex’s, old bottles, cricket games, books, pictures, CD’s, Band T-shirts, old letters and on and on…all this that I have carted around these many years will not alter the fact that one day I will, in all likelihood, die. I say ‘In all likelihood’ because I still cling to the possibility of a Kurzweilesque technology spike. A singularity event that might give me the option of uploading my consciousness into the digital heavens. Then I could flit around in a virtual reality environment like Second Life or maybe, even better, be downloaded into a new body. I guess that casts grave doubt on whether or not I believe in an afterlife doesn’t it?

Today I tackled the onerous task of unpacking and sorting through the boxes from our most recent house move. It is worse than packing in my opinion. I couldn’t find anywhere to put most things. Assorted random objects flowed out of the boxes like a river of shapes. I tried different drawers but the drawers quickly filled. I moved furniture around but each new move created five smaller moves. It wasn't so much the functional items like tools and stationery that were disturbing me, although I've definitely hoarded too much of that stuff, it was more the personalia: An old love letter, a movie ticket, a little rock I picked up whilst driving across the Nullarbor.

As each new article of personal memorabilia appeared I began to feel worse. I felt the old emotional conflicts rising: Where do you keep them? How do you store them? How do you honour the memories correctly? As the boxes emptied I felt like I was loading weights onto my shoulders. Finally I couldn’t take it any more, I had a long cathartic rant to Eli about how I was feeling strangled by my possessions and then I quit the process for the day.

Overnight I experienced a satori.
I have to let go. What has been upsetting me isn’t only about collecting and hoarding possessions it’s also about accepting that life is passing. It’s a bitter concept for me to digest. I am still coming to terms…think of me as a white belt novice earning his second belt on the long road to mastery.

"Latent form is the master of obvious form" - Heraclitus

My oldest friend died suddenly in August last year. His death has shocked me into acknowledging that our collections will outlive us. I can no longer place the same significance on carrying around collections of sentimental souvenirs. Trying to find cupboards to fill them with, feeling guilty anyway because it might not be the appropriate forum for a piece of genuine Denny memorabilia --then I’m swirling lost again because there's no Show-&-Tell ceremony at which to flag the significance of the items to the world…and even if there was what good would it do for more than a few minutes… maybe an hour?

Lasting change does not live in icons and statues. It might visit. It might cling residual for a few moments to the site of a great victory or linger like smoke around the edges of the podium as we hold aloft the trophy. But then we are all gone home. The game is finished and the time has past. Day's end and trophies gather dust in the night. What good is a memorial if the precious thing we are trying to honour in form doesn't live within us? ---the lights go on and I'm alone in an empty room. The room is stark white and filled with a brilliant light that doesn’t sear my eyes. You might think it’d be lonely. All that empty white space yawning out. But it isn’t. Everything that matters is here. Everything about matter…because It's me, I'm there. I'm the memorial… I am the article of faith.

In the end the things we own are but the worshiping of false icons. If I don’t come to the conception that it's all within me then I am choking, distracted --weighed down…belabouring the idea that If I have the best stamp collection in the world that I wont die. I will become the stamp collection.

I’m far from free of this paradigm. Well short of mastery. I just know that I have to try and let go. I cannot go on filling the attics of our future with stuff. I did a job last month in which I had to clear out the back shed of a deceased gentleman. Half a tonne of marble stone off-cuts that he had duly gathered hobby like from work-sites and hard rubbish piles over the years. I’m not saying that’s wrong. Because he built things with some of the stone and I hope that collecting and neatly arranging the pieces of marble gave him much pleasure. I was just struck by the fact that in the end it was his sons who were left to wonder...what to do with it all. The sense of guilt they felt as they watched us throw it in the back of a truck destined for landfill. So I asked myself: If it’s ok for it to go in the bin when I’m dead maybe some of it should be destined for the bin now?

The memories live in me. I am not my stamp collection or a box of cricket cards…I am no closer to my late Father for having carted around some of his clothes for the last 15 years. I drive past the old houses of our childhoods, the old haunts, the old parks -- We’re not there, it’s not there…It is not the place or the thing is it? It’s you and me. We are the articles of faith.


"And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea."

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - TS Eliot




~ Footynotes ~

[1] Ray Kurzweil
http://www.singularity.com/
Theory that one super computer builds a superior super computer which builds a superior super computer and on and on until technology advances exponentially in an unimaginable acceleration or spike. And that then Den can get a fully body transplant if he wants one...
[2] “Ending one minute at a time” – Tyler (Fight Club)
[3] Listening to: Roots - How I Got Up

My Cat Left Me

I meant to post this two years ago. Better late than never I guess.

In 2003 my cat Emery Henry Bird went missing. I tried hard to find him. I went to the lost cat & dog home, posted flyers around the neighborhood and searched high and low. To no avail.

Just prior to his disappearance I had shifted house. He had not taken it well. Things grew worse when my girlfriend at the time introduced a new kitten into the household. Emery freaked out. He started disappearing for a couple of days at a time. Not long after that he simply never came back.

So forward four years to 2007 and I'm not living in Melbourne anymore. But I'm over for a visit and my ex-girlfriend tells me how she thought she caught a glimpse of Emery late one night whilst walking home. She couldn't be certain but she was fairly sure it was him. It quite surprised us because we had both assumed he was long dead. So a short-while later I found myself down on Wellington street Clifton Hill near where she had made her sighting. I saw a cat sitting right near where she told me she'd seen him and as I drew closer I knew that it was him. He walked toward me then shied away and trotted over to the edge of the road. He regarded me with suspicion and what could only be described as awkwardness. It was as if he was saying "oh...its you. What are you doing here?"
I drew closer and crouched down before him. He let me pat him for a moment and then he moved back just out of my reach. I said his name "Emery...Emery?" Then I did our little cat whistle that nobody else does. My Dad used it with all our cats when I was a kid. Emery seemed perplexed, turned to leave and then rolled over in the gutter playfully as he might've done years ago. I got my mobile out and took a photo. He turned and trotted up the street. I called out to him but he ignored me. That's cats for you I guess. I followed up the street a little. He reacted coolly...like there was nothing else to say.
I said goodbye to him. Wished him well and continued on up Wellington street.

So there its is. My cat wasn't run over by a car or poisoned. My cat left me. Found himself a new home.

Listening To: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

Boba Fett

And thus ended my drawing career in 1981. I think the Picture Of The Year star was an in-house award ;-)

Listening To: Foals - Spanish Sahara

Corey Haim

I really want to say something about the death of Corey Haim... but I cant think of anything clever to say so I'm just gonna write whatever little homage I can: I always liked him when I was a kid. Other friends of mine thought he was a dick but even knowing in the back of my mind that it was sort of true I remained loyal. I loved the idea that the two Coreys became buddys because they shared the same first name. I saw an interview Corey Haim did in the mid eighties, he referred to Corey Feldman as the "Feldog". The Lost Boys is one of my favorite films ever. I dont care that it was uncool to like him. Corey Haim reminded me of good times from my childhood. He like Feldman represented for me a sort of mythic-nostalgia --An 80's that I probably didnt even really experience...but its the way I like to remember it now.
I watched the dreadful "Two Coreys" reality-tv show a couple of years ago and came away convinced that Haim was in serious trouble with prescription meds. I made a Google news alert for him in my email account. For the last couple of years I'd been reading sporadic news reports about the latest B-grade film he was working on. B-grade films, but working. Hope springs eternal.

Anyway I've got nowhere to go with this. No punchline or neat ending. I just wanted to put his name on my blog and acknowledge that I liked him and that I am sorry that he has died...way too young.


Corey Haim Pictures


"Look at your reflection in the mirror. You're a creature of the night Michael, just like out of a comic book! You're a vampire Michael! My own brother, a goddamn, shit-sucking vampire. Oh You wait 'till mom finds out, buddy!"
- Sam Emerson (Haim) The Lost Boys

Memories of Max

This is the blog my Mum wrote for Max recently:

My first memory of Max goes back to Shenton Park.

I don't remember where, or how, Max and Denny first met, but one day he turned up in our backyard and was a welcome fixture in our Onslow Road home for all the years we lived there.

He was snowy haired and barely eight at the time. A right little "fireball".

Over the next ten years, Max all but moved into Denny's room. Sleeping Over endless nights. Playing cricket for hour after hour in the side street. Summer days spent swimming in the backyard pool. Summer evenings spent putting snags on the BBQ at Shenton Park Lake. Winter brought its own delights. Keeping the fireplace in Denny's bedroom going for days on end while they, and other boyhood friends, played Dungeons and Dragons well into the night.

The fireplace in Denny's bedroom must have had its own special magic because

one memorable winter they managed to feed into it our entire stock of wood in a roughly seven day period!

Max was so much a part of our family that my store of memories is massive.

However some memories are so sharply etched in my heart and mind they will be with me forever.

Max ordering a Hamburger, at the Jolly Friar on Onslow Road, is one such gem:-

"Hamburger please mister -

Hold the lettuce

Hold the tomato

Hold the onion

Hold the pickle"

Max's aversion to anything "green or salad like" stayed with him well into manhood.

But perhaps my most poignant memory of Max was six weeks before he died.

We had caught up for coffee in Subiaco.

We spent a lovely couple of hours together enjoying the reminiscence of times past. Talking about his life and job in Melbourne and just generally "Chewing the Fat".

I remarked later in a phone conversation with Denny, how well I thought Max looked and, even more importantly, how contented he seemed.

How could I possibly have known, that as I dropped Max off at his Mother's home, turned the car around and waved goodbye, that Max would, shortly, "exit stage left" from my life.

God Bless you Max. I pray that your soul has been freed for new adventures.

Sue Carr




There are more comments for Maxie on a previous blog entry from November 2009. Or you can click HERE to jaunt straight there.


For more photos of Max Flory or to contribute a photo please visit this flickr page

Shooting the shooters

Shooting the shooters
Originally uploaded by Diggers Abroad

Ok so this is a fairly crass thing to do in Phnom Penh and I'll take the blame for it. I'd always wanted to fire a machine gun and David was keen too. It would also be fair of me to mention that Eli didn't want to do it at all.

We paid our penitence However. As soon as we'd done shooting we went and visited the Killing Fields. A sobering experience and the perfect contra-distinction to the narcissistic pleasure of firing a gun.

Also quick note: Our stand in camera guy didn't put much stock in composition...you might say he was more of a 'point and shoot' sort of fellow ;-)

*Originally posted on my Flickr page



Listening To: Cambodia Rocks - Various Artists

SAVE LIVE MUSIC

PROTEST RALLY THIS TUESDAY FEBRUARY 23RD

We march in protest. Our small venues and community must be protected, empowered and respected.

Assemble at the State Library, cnr Swanston and Latrobe Sts.

ARRIVE EARLY - MARCH LEAVES AT 4PM

This is a peaceful protest. Families welcome and encouraged to join the march.

STRICTLY NO ALCOHOL. It’s illegal to drink in the street and important to show the broader community that WE ARE NOT HIGH RISK.

S.L.A.M.

is Save Live Australian Music, a non-politically aligned, independent entity made up of musicians and music-lovers.

In a bid to address street violence Liquor Licensing Victoria (LLV) has introduced sweeping changes with unintended consequences for the local music scene.

LLV should admit its mistake and make simple changes immediately, acknowledging that there is no link between live music and high risk. The Tote is gone, who’s next?

On 23 February, coinciding with the 34th anniversary of AC/DC’s famous ‘It’s A Long Way To The Top’ film clip shoot down Swanston Street, S.L.A.M. is protesting in support and celebration of Victoria’s music scene, where new liquor licensing laws threaten to pull the plug on live music.

Meet at 4pm outside the State Library to make your way along Swanston Street and up Bourke Street to Parliament House to hear guest speakers from 6 to 7pm.

The RocKwiz Orchestra with guest performers will lead the rally, repeating the three chords from ‘It’s A Long Way to the Top’ in the back of a flatbed truck as we follow – ALL 10,000 PLUS OF US – holding placards and instruments chanting down these ridiculous laws. Over the famous riff new lyrics will be created, such as ”So the Tote’s been shut down, send Sue MacLellan [LLV Director] on her way”.

Lack of support for this precious industry has gone on for too long! Celebrate the diversity of Victorian music. Be one of the thousands of musicians and music supporters who will make this a day to remember!

Music means many things to many people, but the most important is that it IS passion, creativity, happiness and life for many people. So please come and help support one of the best things that Australia has to offer: live & local music.

Invite everyone and if you can’t attend please sign the petition. If you are reading this you love music. Keep it alive by keeping it live.

- http://www.slamrally.org/

TOTE HOTEL CLOSURE. Contact List

If you are upset about the Tote Hotel closing then register your protest by contacting the following people:

Emailing is good but letter writing and phone calls are best...faxes too!

Please feel free to email me with any alterations or additions.

Richard Wynne MP

State Member For Richmond:

richard.wynne@parliament.vic.gov.au

Postal PO Box 1474 Collingwood 3066
Phone 03 9415 8901
Fax 03 9415 8918

~

Minister for the Arts:

* PLEASE NOTE : it may not be worth writing to Lynne Kosky since she announced her resignation today. A new Arts Minister will be announced soon.

lynne.kosky@parliament.vic.gov.au

Suite 603, level 1, 2 Main St. Point Cook Town Centre, Point Cook 3030

(08)9395 0221

FAX: 9395 3061

~

Victorian Minister for Consumer Affairs and the Minister for Gaming:

tony.robinson@parliament.vic.gov.au

Electorate Office Address

9 Blackburn Road, Blackburn, 3130

Ph: 9878 4113

Fax: 9878 9135

Ministerial Office Address

Level 5, 1 Macarthur Street

East Melbourne 3002

Ph: 8684 1400

Fax: 8684 1444

~

Director of Liquor Licensing:

sue.maclellan@justice.vic.gov.au

Phone (03) 9655 6600

Fax (03) 9655 6978

General inquiries Liquor Licensing:

liquor@justice.vic.gov.au

~

Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal General Inquiries:

vcat@vcat.vic.gov.au

The Victorian State Premier John Brumby:

Email: john.brumby@parliament.vic.gov.au

Ministerial office –
Level 1, 1 Treasury Pl, Melbourne 3002
Tel: 9651 5000
Fax: 9651 5054

Electorate office –
145A Wheatsheaf Rd, Glenroy 3046
Tel: 9300 3851
Fax: 9300 3915

Your Voice Victoria "Contact The Premier":

http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/your-voice/contact-the-premier.html

---

The Victorian Deputy Premier &

Attorney General

Rob Hulls :

Email: rob.hulls@parliament.vic.gov. au.

Electorate Office Address:
473 Keilor Road, Niddrie VIC 3042
Ph: 9379 5879

Fax: 9379 4434

Ministerial Office Address:
Level 3, 1 Treasury Place
East Melbourne VIC 3002
Ph: 9651 1222
Fax: 9651 1188

---

Gallaga 1981 Kicks Darkness

Hit my PB (Personal Best kids!) on Gallaga at the Tru-Mould Factory tonight! I Was never much chop at the game when I was a kid. Rich Giliberto loaned a vintage cocktail table edition of the game to the Tru-Mould factory a couple of years ago. Tone tells me that it is a first generation 1981 edition.

For some reason the fire-button and joy stick are back the front so we play with our hands & wrists crossed over and overlapping.

Anyway this is my second retro computer game post. The previous one was from 2007 when I was taking on the Bentley Tavern staff at Bombjack and had also just hit a PB (and finally crushed my main rival's ambitions...teehee thanks Callum!)

Tonight I txtd my high score to Maxie's mobile too...of course his phone number is still in my phone and shall remain for the remainder of my life. I know he wouldve appreciated my 'knock' on Galaga tonight. We played many such games together when we were kids in Shenton Park...(Vale the Jolly Friars and the old Onslow road deli) Alas Max is not even the only dead person in my phone contacts list. My Dad is in there also.

All things must pass: Even the Tote Hotel as it happens, which I have just heard is closing its doors due to the ongoing pressure that Liquor Licensing Victoria has placed on it and the general lack of support from the Victorian state government -- the fucktards at Yarra city council and the various undead yuppie scum-zombies who have invaded this fair city and beguiled it with their tedious white bread desires and horrible mainstream sensibilities. Fuck you all. "When I am king you will be first against the wall" Or as my friend Robbie wrote on Facebook tonight "farewell another rock god on our road to banality"

I will do another post about the demise of the Tote but this ere' bit blogged off in that direction of its own independent free spirit so. Bop Prosody...so be it.

Remember when we were young and Brunswick Street wasn't only for the wealthy? Ahh those heady days of cultural diversity (Vale the Punters Club & the Evelyn indie band room)

But enough of this tangent, heartfelt joy kicks darkness though it maybe, I hit 325,750 on Gallaga tonight and got to stage 37 and saw a Challenging Stage that I'd never seen before and Tommy Rushford witnessed the whole glorious innings, my finest and according to him, one of his favourites.

"Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince; 
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest"

- Hamlet - Horatio, scene ii

Den & Eli's

2009

World Tour

AKA

"Diggers Abroad"

~ Photographic Highlights ~

...An ongoing retrospective

Available for your viewing pleasure

at

FLICKR

Peace in 2010 Friends.

Listening to: Jenny Wilson "Like a fading rainbow"

BANKSY

BANKSY
Originally uploaded by paul le chien

Contemplating the jump...

Contemplating the jump...
Originally uploaded by Diggers Abroad

Dalat, Vietnam: My third free jump of the day and the one that gave me the most pause. When you jumped you had to clear some rocks and a secondary ledge before plummeting 11 metres into the waterfall pool below. It tapped into all my fears of heights and was eerily similar to a dream I had a couple of years ago. See my cliff jumping blog post from 2007.

Anyway its not quite the 60 to 80ft jump I failed to make in my dream with Tom Westman, but close to 40ft will do you right? Well, it'll do me for now...I was stoked. :-)

Sideline postscript: I just noticed while doing this post that Survivor Palau's

Tom Westman might be back for Survivor's 20th anniversary series Heroes Vs Villains All Stars

Acronymizable

Tone-A-Tronic's Electronic Muscle Stimulation TM is an advanced acronymizable technique used world wide for toning, reshaping, and firming thighs, buttocks, and for maintaining muscle definition. Tone-A-Tronic has been used for many years by professional athletes, physiotherapists, chiropractors, travelling tinkers and Bruce Lee. Home Ontological Muscle Orgonic Stimulation systems (HOMOSS) allow you to supplement your regular slump into depressive-body dismorphia, without putting stress on your joints, lower back or neck and shoulders. EMS machines are ideal for today's Nordic lifestyle. When time is limited and you can't get it up, you can hook up to your Tone-A-Tronic exerciser in the privacy of your home, classroom, super-market, office-toilet, while catching up on the dirty paper work, talking on the phone, watching TV or surfing porn. Tone-A-Tronic Electronic Muscle Stimulation systems are great for physically disabled people to prevent consumer atrophy. Many of these EMS units include a TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) to re-wire your versatile solution to living. The Tone-A-Tronic system works by sending minute electrical impulse(s) to the chosen muscle(s) and by depositing huge sticky wads of cash in a smashing little bank in Varosha, just south of the Cayman Islands. These impulses copy the message your brain (if you had one) would send to the muscle(s) to make them erect with ectoplasmic gear. Most units come with their own carrying minority hill tribe and larger models have briefcases with a Hemi-donk.

Get Yours Here

A Boys Will is the Winds Will

Toneatron and Carrot did a lot of work with stencils and paste-ups during an adventure on the West Coast in 2005. Mot of the work we did had been obliterated by the Thought Police within a matter of weeks. A couple of pieces such as the one above survive to this day. Kicking on to 5 years old now! ~ That's 36 years in Cat Years!
Dig on the way that this one has had a close encounter with someone with a pneumatic cleaning device. It seems they got half-way through erasure and had second thoughts....or maybe the Digger in them whispered ghostly... "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." - Longfellow

Max Flory Comments & Sympathy/Guestbook

G'day everyone,
For those of you who knew Max Flory and would like to leave a comment on my blog-page about him, this is the place to do it.


How it works is simple:
Select 'Comments' at the bottom of this blog-post leave your comment and details and I will add the comment(s) to this page.


Max Flory Comments & Sympathy book:


Your passing is a singularity in my world...Live in Perpetuity my old friend Florstar!!
- Denny

~*~

If we shadows have offended, think but this; and all is mended that you have but slumbered here while these visions did appear and this weak and idle theme no more yielding but a dream. Gentles--do not reprehend if you pardon, we will mend. And, as I am an honest Puck if we have unearned luck. Now to scape the serpents tongue. We will make amends ere long else the Puck a liar call. So--goodnight unto you all. Give me your hands if we be friends.
(Puck) - "A Midsummers Night Dream" William Shakespeare.
- M.Louis Darling

~*~

Max, when the world trod on me till i felt less than a maggot on a carcass, you recognized the metaphysician in me and quietly palmed into my hand my first book of philosophy.
You took the deadly serious lightly, our insignificance playfully. This life is no more than a flash of lightning in the night. The reflection of the moon in a puddle.
Journey on brother. See you on the other side.
- Sam Robb

~*~

This star of yours Max, may have been taken from the night sky, but even while vacant, the place that it held still guides this ship of mine.

Love,
Archie Brown

~*~

Hey Denny I'm really sorry to hear about Max. I remember him as a good guy and I'm absolutely amazed he is still not with us. Stay strong and remember you've got lots of support.
- Stewart Hay

~*~

Max was quick with a Simpsons quote, and i always enjoyed trying to find one he might not know. No matter how obscure, max always knew it. And his cat's breath smelt like catfood.

We'll miss ya mate, but your legacy will live on.
- Hugh Ford

~*~

Found this late but the loss of Flory is timeless. He was a gentle man. I always enjoyed talking with him. I had thought I would see him again some time. He's missed. He's missing. The world is missing out. I miss him.

- Adam Ford

~*~

A monkey, ready to be shot up into space, ready to sacrifice himself for Project Mayhem.
- Tyler Durden's words coming out of Simian Hoods mouth.

~*~

I regret that I didn't know Max all that well, but he did make a massive impression on me in high school for the time I was there. I remember him best for being a lovable goof but I know, in my heart & through reading other's comments, that there was so much more to him. I wish I knew you better. You will live on in our memories Max.
- Wanda

A Salty Salute

Disarm the settlers
The new drunk drivers
Have hoisted the flag
We are with you in your anger
Proud brothers
Do not fret
The bus will get you there yet
To carry us to the lake
The club is open
Yeah, the club is open
Hey, the club is open
A-come on, come on, the club is open
Cmon, cmon, the club is open
Cmon, cmon, cmon, the club is open...

- Guided By Voices.

Thanks Toneatron

x

Vale Max Flory

 
“He had an incredibly finely-tuned and rapidly-delivered sense of erudite tangential humour that would bring great mirth to people of our ilk, but I suspect it could have caused total bewilderment to some others.

[...] he wrote (and wrote, and wrote) for the sheer love of writing itself rather than as a profession. Whenever there were troubles among our social circle, he had a ready ear and sound advice, and whenever physical assistance was needed he had a ready hand. He brought a little magic to the lives of all those he touched and he'll be remembered with great fondness.“

- Lev Lafayette

Lev Lafayette's journal

R.I.P MAX FLORY 1973-2009

"...and then we'll be Kings and then we'll be necessary"

Bottlo *

So many people I see in this bottlo appear to be alive only because there’s nothing else to do. At least that’s what they might think. What is the point then?

I found myself just the other day watching a bloke as he left the bottleshop. I couldn’t help muttering out loud to myself “what is the point of your life?” You see it gets to you after a while, the endless parade of hopeless souls.

- “Where’s the other bloke?” Here’s another one on the back seat of a car load of hopeless souls, having just secured their pre-lunch 6 for $10 bourbon-n-cola cans.

“I don’t know who you mean mate” He’s looking for some sort of discount or deal. I’m really not in the mood for this.

“You know…the other blokes?” He gesticulates in description. Indicates two blokes to me.

“They’re not here”

They drive out of the bottlo. When I’m sure they won’t hear me I mutter “Actually mate, I know where they are, they’re around your mum’s house working on a new mong race”

I don’t think I used to be this unsympathetic.

Is it every man for himself? Is it? It must be. Because otherwise what else could this all mean in a society where so many people are struggling through they’re lives. What am I referring to by ‘This’? The hopelessly under-educated and socially dysfunctional people I see every morning. They’ve got no money but they spend it on grog anyway. They limp and drag their feet slowly up the hill toward us. Like a scene from a zombie movie. The Dead Living.

How can we be so rich and have failed so many?

A Young guy left his wallet on the bar last night. It’s gone. Well actually he’s not sure where he left it. He’d had more than a few. He checks in the bottlo the next morning. Has anyone found it or handed it in? He had $300 in his wallet last night. The entire remains of his social security. After the young guy has left the bottlo, I’m standing there wondering how he could be so bloody stupid as to “get on the piss” with all the money he has stored in his wallet. How could anyone be that stupid? As if on cue – enter stage right: his dad. His 68 year old pensioner alcoholic father has come in to pick up his pre-breakfast 6 for $10 bourbon and cola cans …but more from him in a bit.

Why does…how can…such a wealthy society fail so many of its people?

This morning I just want to cry.

I feel paralysed by rage. What is my rage about?

My rage is about my inability to make a life with meaning. I can’t even just ‘blah’ on about financial goals and rewards anymore. Because I can see it’s not gonna be enough to just make money. On its own that is not going to give me meaning. Although as the comedic like to observe, it might dull the pain of the emptiness.

“You want a bag for that bottle mate?”

“Nah mate. We’ll smash that before we get home!”

I flew into a rage before. I’ve been doing some boxing training for a couple of years now. Just to get fit. My ex-girlfriend said to me recently that I seemed to her to be “more violent” than I used to be. “More aggressive somehow”… funny thing is, that little argument I had with her just made me want to cry…I mean I was sitting there trying to defend myself against her assessments and then that welling up in the eyes, a slight feeling you might choke, then a calm…a loss of self and then a strange sad remorse. Things lost. Things once, now gone.

“Did anyone hand in a wallet?” Now the Dad’s doing his bit. “My son was in the bar last night. He had $300 in his wallet. Says he put it on the bar. When he remembered to look, it was gone.”

I want to jump the counter and shake this poor old man. Ask him what the fuck he’s doing, why is his son a moron? What sort of fucking example are you setting by buying booze before breakfast every morning?!

I’m so full of rage at the moment. It begins to consume me.

Maybe it’s just because I have been recovering from a flu. It’s been a while since I wanted to punch anything. I came close to punching the duty manager this morning. Fortunately for us both, he scurried away. Unfair weight advantage. I guess I am more capable of violence than before. Better able. Maybe my ex was right. I felt the boxing drills this morning. I felt the boxing hands pour out of me. I was sick last night, but the hands exploded out of me. Flurry and fury. I had to write up five cans and 2 cartons to breakages.

The training probably has made a difference.

“You got any specials on beer mate?”

“Slabs?”

“What the bloody hell else would I want?”

“Just there” I wave my hand across, indicating the long line of display slabs and blocks six feet from his car window. The ones covered in paper signs marked “Specials”.

“How much is VB?”

“$38 mate”

“Bullshit” He drives off.

“Yup nice one. Petrol is $1.50 a litre mate. Enjoy that $2 you're gonna try save!”

Later though, when I think about it more, I develop some sympathy. I can’t really blame this guy and his ilk. I mean all they want is some beers after work and the price keeps going up every three months. Then they try to remember the last time they’re wages went up.

After I punched some boxes, punched a door, pushed over the ladder and kicked the shit through a beer sign, I did some primal screaming…

Well all I really wanted was to have a cry. I must be depressed. Isn’t that what they’d say?

Rage and feelings of futility, inability to cry…or inability to stop crying. It’s gotta be a textbook outline of depression. Doesn’t it?

Fuck all that. I just want some meaning.

- “Has your son asked the bar manager if they have found a wallet this morning?”

“Yeah well I dunno you see…my son was so angry….so angry… he was screaming and yelling and carrying on. Blimey… I’m only a pensioner you know. I told him there’s nothing I can do. I’m broke. The boy’s smashing stuff up. Stupid boy does his whole fortnights money in a night!” He stares out of the bottlo at nothing in particular. We share a moment of silent contemplation.

-“What was he doing with all of his money in his wallet?” I ask.

The father taps the side of his head with his finger. Rolls his eyes back and pushes his tongue out the side of his mouth. He repeats these actions several times. I’m not sure who he is referring to but apparently somebody isn’t right in the head.

I’ve started having daily chats with this 66 year old alco' who lives across the road. He’s a nice enough bloke I suppose, but he’s bloody hopeless really. I’m pretty sure the only reason I think he’s nice enough now is because his age has taken the edge of his ability to be an aggressive drunken asshole. This is my male role model.

Where have all our fathers gone? We lost our fathers in the War. What fucking war?! Well there must’ve been one and we didn’t notice, because there’s scarcely a viable male leader in sight. I’m pretty sure I could benefit from the counsel of a male elder. There simply aren’t any though. Maybe I’ll evolve. Maybe I’ll become my own male figure, my own role model and my own source of inspiration. Or maybe I too will break apart, or be absorbed by consumption. Fade away… or whatever it is that happens to the men of this generation.

I’m scrambling for some meaning here… but this is and has become the whole point hasn’t it?

I shut the shop and go home. The lights are on but nobody’s home.

~

* "Bottlo" is an extract from a semi-fictional novel-in-progress of the same name. While it is based on some of my experiences it is not about me so please do not be alarmed ;-)

'Bottlo' First published on the creative arts blog Fabulist Savannah

Listening to: The Ramones (Mixed Mp3's) whilst brambling with a scythe in Normandy! True story ;-)

Savendi At Large

Dearest M.L Darling,

What day is it? I am awash in sensory input. The heightened sense of experience that some travellers get when the sensation of days stretch out and become as if weeks. Experiential time dilation kicks in and your head is spinning and you are left wondering when it was that you stepped out of the airplane and into this stream...this current that has ripped you along in so much broiling froth and light - a rub-a-dub dub. And sound-n-sounds and people from worldwide and imagining no countries. So much water having swept under the proverbial and now I turn to you in full flow and ask...in all sincerity...how long has it been? What day is it today?

Oyes...of course now that I actually pause to write this large upon the screen sat in Phnom Penh netcafe it gives me a small-space to remember it's only been 3 days. Mad Plumber will definitely remember this phenomenon from our last Thai expedition. Experience so dense that the normal sense of linear time bows out so that you cant remember anything but a head full of blessed experience... Stand up, fall down...a moment on your knees - And give thanks that you can experience the luxury of such travel. For I know that we are blessed just as Mad Plumber and I knew we were blessed in Thailand. Just as I'm sure that everyone who has been mad-awake in travel has taken a moment to reflect... Filled their lungs and pushed out on an eddy...into a small and gentle bay to take brief pause...long enough to catch up with oneself a moment. Bundle into a netcafe and share and give and write thanks. Love to you all and to all of you who have in some way helped me or encouraged me to persist and press on...to go and go and go...

I soldiertostandupsoldiertostandupsoldier - For this I thank you, for in its way it has helped me to here...Blessed.

You know who you are.
~
"Savendi at large" As titled by Mad Plumber, First appeared on the creative arts website Fabulist Savannah