362 Rescue

Last Wed nite a guy got bashed in the street outside our house. I woke up to the sound of grunts and smacks and indiscernible cries. At first I thought it was the local trippers sparring again at 3am, but no. This was brutal. The cage fighting event I’d recently attended paled in comparison to what I saw unfold under the street lights that nite. It still  makes me feel sick to think about it.

My flatmate FJ knew all about  it too. His room was closer to the action then mine.  I was still half asleep and too stunned by the intensity of the violence to make a move, but FJ had the sense to get our front door open and start talking to the attacker. I couldnt quite hear what he said from my balcony, but it startled the perp enough to send him on his way after emptying the victims wallet.

Taking my cue, I fly downstairs and out into the street shouting to FJ to call the cops and an ambulance. I didnt really know what to expect when I knelt down next to the poor guy. He was very still.  His face was a pulp. His bare chest was already starting to show bruises. I cover him with a blanket and start talking to him. He resumes some degree of consciousness. He tells me his name and that he is from Barcelona.

Soon enough there are a few people milling about including my old school mate and neighbour Scottie. He lives 5 doors down. He kinda strolled up casually dressed like he’d just been shopping. I ask him if he heard the commotion and he said that he couldnt sleep and was ironing his shirts (?!). Scottie is training to be a paramedic so he took over first aid until the ambos eventually turned up.

In the meantime, the cops arrive in one of their riot trucks. Not sure what FJ told them on the phone, but they came prepared. They start taking statements when someone shoots one of those uber cool but highly illegal mega green laser beams down the sidewalk from a couple of hundred meters away. Then then cops get a call on their radio that a group of kids are igniting cars using flamethrowers along the same street that we live on. It takes them a little while to make the  link between what we have told them already and this latest development. They take off in their truck.

When the ambos arrive, Scottie gives them the full brief. No stab wounds thankfully, but our friend from Barcelona is not in a good way. He gets taken away to emergency quietly but quickly.

Afterwards we all stand around for a while in our dressing gowns and boxers. Except Scottie who is as cool as the proverbial cucumber in his jeans and Drop Kick Murphys tshirt. Seems like noone really wants to go home after that ordeal. Another neighbour takes the opportunity to introduce himself  “Hey guys, seen you round, I’m ***. Nice to meet you.”  We exchange war stories about what we’d seen and felt that gruesome hour. It was full on. Eventually we all part ways, but I doubt anyone got much shut eye. Maybe we should have cracked open a beer.

To the Max

Ha! It appears that I almost certainly jinxed myself for a few rocky months after my last post. What with my lofty proclaimations of inner peace and eternal serenity, who could have predicted Ol Fortuna’s bumpy downward spin and my subsequent stress levels peaking out in downtown Saigon?
But I digress. I just want to limber up my digits and get writing again. It is a rusty cog indeed that turns within at this hour but I felt the urge to share my latest greatest excitement… 

1. Mad Max IV is in production.

2. It is being filmed across the road from my house.

Hark! I hear the Grand wheel turning again. And I find myself in exactly the right place at the right time…

ashram

i spent last weekend at a yoga retreat. not one of your fancy massage-and-facial-after-breakfast type spa retreats. the real thing. Ashram.

this word, Ashram, has struck a chord deep within me ever since i attended a techno party of the same name at the then Les Girls in the late 90’s. boy oh boy, that party was a thumper. whilst back then i didnt really know what the word meant and only kinda gathered by the flyer and the party decor that it related to some kind of mystical place of worship, the word felt very good to say from a phonetic perspective (i was studying linguistics at the time). it seeemed to want to be whispered, those hushed sounds suggestive of precious secrets and sanctuary. nirvana. bliss.

i don’t necessarily think  i was a total stress ball before i decided to spend time at the Ashram . in fact, if anything, i have been cruising for some time in an effortless glide at work and at play. sure, some shit gets under my skin from time to time (try living with 3 males) but on the whole 08/09 has been a breeze. i have been steadily ramping up my own yoga practice for last 2 years and noticing some subtle but effective changes to the way  i  handle negativity. then a friend suggested i read Eat Pray Love. Bam. Talk about serendipity.

so, with minimal planning i whisked myself off on a little adventure. i delibratley didnt orchestrate every fine detail. i wanted to improvise as much as possible to remind myself that being out of control is actually a positive thing. a train trip, a bus ride into the wilderness, not really knowing what i was getting myself into or what to expect,  whether or not i should have brought more socks (mental note, yes) and a few hours later i found myself walking into the most beautiful place i have ever been. in every sense.

the experience was truly remarkable. i  enrolled in a program that focussed on yoga in the great outdoors which meant that along with daily practices of asana (yoga poses), prana (breathing), kirtan (chanting), mouna (silence), hatha/karma (cleansing) and nidra (meditating) i was able to dust up on my archery, spend time rambling in the bush, learn a bit of tai chi and just chill out for a few days. total mind, body and spirit rejuvenation. like a personality reset button. like oh-my-god-this-is-it-i-want-to-do-this-forever. powerful stuff this yoga.

i am still floating. i’ve been back for 4 days now and whilst i obviously had to slip back into the regular routines of my secular life, i feel very different. things around me have changed too. i’m beginning to get it.  i hear the whisper.

four to the floor

1. passed my motorcycle p’s. woot!  janis was deemed unroadworthy ( a recurring theme) cos of her bald rear tyre.  i hadda hire one of their teeny tiny toy machines for the exam. not pretty. but i passed first go. funny, i hadnt noticed the shocking state of the back tyre even in the wet. had been fangin about fairly recklessly for months. oh well. i now have spankn new pirelli rubber to burn.
2. playground weekender happened again. this time they moved it to early feb instead of early march.  as usual we arrived just after midday on friday afternoon to secure a primo tent location in the rare shade. damn it was hot. i struggled to get the taj mahal up, took me ages cos i kept getting head spins from the heat. anyhow.  the fest was jus like the previous 2 years except we didnt get flooded and i didnt get busted.  it was also considerably more challenging in the 47 degree heat.   i experienced total amnesia on both the fri and sat nites, prob a combination of a few factors including lots of Tiger beer and heat exhaustion. i woke up on sun morning fully clothed in my space pirate costume . i then discovevered that i had been locked in my tent, with the padlock on the outside. i usually lock my tent when i’m not near it but i never lock it when i’m in it. the plot thickens. with my bladder screaming for attention i then discover that my key is missing from its usual hidey hole. GAH! i have NFI what has transpired here. i eventually find another key in some utterly random place and manage to relieve my guts. my thoughts again turn to the mystery at hand… how the fuck did i lock myself in my tent with the lock on the outside? why would i lock myself in my tent in the first place? did i even lock myslef in my tent? did someone else? why would i need to be locked in my tent? owww this conundrum is hurting my addled brain. hmmm…wait…the most logical conclusion i can come to is that i de-materialized outside my tent and then re-materialized inside it…and never unlocked it in the first place! YES! of course!  thats it! pure quantum physics! simple. (although the missing key is still at large, i have pretty much accepted this version of the truth. its not like certain parties will ever admit to locking me in there…). i am led to believe that i enjoyed myself  thoroughly on both evenings and certain footage captured on my digital camera substantiate this claim. made some new friends who were camped in our hood, we partied with less intensity on the sun day nite and stayed up till 5am listening to the boom chaka coming from the tee-pee village next door. slept in on mon morning then indulged in some camp site lootn after hordes of punters just legged it to the ferry leaving behind their entire festival set-ups. i scored a great lil esky complete with ice bricks, a brand new folding chair, 2 ace picnic blankets and a really mean red pirate flag. i would’ve got shit loads more if i could carry it but my ikea wheels were already maxxed out. committed oursleves to the last ferry so we could just lounge about a bit longer and eventually made it home. another epic weekender.
3. i had the pleasure of attending a “white party” for some 40th. the birthday boy had arranged blonde lingerie waitresses to wait on hand and foot for his guests. around midnite the cops paid a visit and shut down what was really just a mild piss-up with bad 90’s vocal house and a couple of lazers. on the way out the door en route to my waiting cab one of the cops remarked loudly that there wasnt much point hanging around after i’d left the building. a few seconds later another cop, this one was straight outta high school, runs after me and asks me how much i get paid. i ask him why, how much do you get paid? he says how much do you get paid to be a lingerie waitress? LOL i’m not sure if i should be offended or flattered. (for the record i do not moon light as a lingerie waitress, nor was i dressed like one on this particular occasion).
4. birthday shenadigans went well: had the ”annual mex fest with piratical theme” which was basically an excuse to dress like a salty wench, wear boots and get loaded. my costume included a  floor length black leather coat and tricorn hat. there wasnt much underneath, jus a lotta ribbons and corsetry. was a swell nite. suitably maggot, i won the meat tray, got a $100 voucher from the mex joint who fckd up my booking, negotiated $25 per head at gourmet turk place that normally charges $45, then scored the private cushion room with smoking terrace and complete BYO. smiles all round.

stomach acid

i can’t wait another 10 years. i want to tell him how i feel but i’m stuck waiting for him yet again to get back to me. and it is killing me. my throat feels like someone has their hands around it, its hard to talk without choking up, i feel nauseous and anxious, i can’t eat or sleep, i am distracted at work. every time my phone buzzes i feel like i’m gonna puke, and then when it isnt him, i feel like my guts have turned to acid. i can’t set myself free until i tell him how i feel. this is not healthy and i wish it would stop.

live n direkt

i am very excited about my next project. radio rek will be a reality in a few months! boo ya! naturally i will give it the launch party that it deserves when the time comes. send me your ideas for content/style or if you wanna contribute as a guest.

on another note i was under my bed the other day and found some tapes i made egons ago. one in particular had me guffawing for the full 90 mins. it was a tape i had done whilst at uni and is basically a record of me done on a dictaphone that i carried around for a couple of months. there is a lot of me talking about the music, the scene at the time, me rapping, me jammin on a geetar fx pedal and bongoes and distorting my vox. but the best bits are the snippets of conversations with friends. we were really close. if i can upload the sting of adrock and i talking about how best to record a car alarm then i most certainly will. the XXX scene would make great radio but i would prob need to run that past the significant other involved

i’m quite impressed by the quality of the audio after all these years, what with all the dust and heat and cat hair that was in that bag of tapes. tdk still does amazing things to my system.

on par

Confirmed. Getting a brazillian done for the first time hurts way more then getting a tattoo or having your leg veins pumped with saline.
Its about on par with splitting your labia during sex, urinating whilst said wound heals, and sliding down the road sustaining a 40cm x 15cm gravel rash injury on the front of your shin.
I guess its all just a matter of perspective.

the great camping battle of barrington tops

Prologue

Once upon a time there was a big old Kookaburra who lived in the bush. His name was Kanye and in the hot summer months he made his home in the biggest tallest tree in the national park at the top of a mountain. Kanye picked this tree as his summer abode because of the sweeping views of the valley below. It also boasted cool breezes and a strong clean river nearby where Kanye could feast on fresh water eel if he was lucky. Sometimes Kanye would help himself to an abundance of leeches who lived in the marshy swamp not far from his tree.

But what Kanye loved most about his lofty penthouse was ribs. Pork ribs. In particular, pork spare ribs  from Aldi. You see, Kanye’s apartment was smack bang in down town Camping Central. And every couple of days during the summer months a different group of humans would come huffn n puffn up the mountain in their dusty cars and make camp at the bottom of Kanye’s condo. These humans were all pretty much alike. 2 Legs. 2 arms. No feathers. And they all ate these special marinated ribs from Aldi. Kanye knew this because he would listen to the humans crap on about how these ribs were the best ribs in the entire universe. And Kanye agreed. He LOVED  ribs. Smokey Barbecue, Honey Soy, Texas Ranch. Kanye liked the Texas Ranch ones best, they made his beak spasm with uncontrollable delight whenever he smelled them on the fire.

In his younger and more agile days Kanye would sometimes swoop down and  steal a rib straight off the hot plate.  He got his belly feathers burnt a fair bit, and once a human even stabbed him with a fork on the way past. Luckily it was only a superficial wound and Kanye got away with a nice fat juicy rib for his efforts. Mostly nowdays Kanye would just keep an eye on where the humans would toss their ribby scraps. He’d drop down under the cloak of darkness and  forage about after they had gone to do whatever it was they did in their sweaty stinky rainbow  floor dwellings. These pickings were no where near as plump and delectable as the ribs straight off the flame, but Kanye had grown fat and lazy in his golden years. He had also pretty much seared off all the feathers on his underside so he generally took the easy option more often then not now days.

One day Kanye was doing some circle work around the clearing when he spied a nice tender morsel of rib that had been overlooked by the previous group of humans. It was still wrapped in plastic,  twinkling in the morning sun light, attracting butterflies, march flies and pesky gnats.  Kanye recognised the morse code, extended his left wing and dropped into a nose dive landing almost on top of the shiny packet.

“SSSSSSSSS”  an annoyed hiss came from the tall grass nearby. It was Kanye’s mate, El Guerdo the Goanna. He was a big mutha licker of a lizard with super cut shoulders and arms. “Back off, Mon. Thassss ma piece o bakey tharrrrr…”

“Woah now Big Chief. Hold your horses. Its me, bro’, the K-Man!” Kanye had’nt seen El Guerdo for a few months.Last time they hooked up they got well messy down at the water tank in town and Guerdo got his tail run over by a dirt bike whilst playing chicken with it on the track.

“He he he ha ha ha ho ho ho BEEG BEAK! Wazcrackalackn?”

“Jus laxn d’hood, y’know. Howz your tail?”

El Guerdo shrugged his great shoulders and sighed ” Eeeees ok I’spose. I lossss’m feeln my toess but now the peeeesky anzzz canno huurrrt me when I rrrrraida tharrr nest. He he he.

“Nice one brother! Speaking of chown down, why don’t we share this ‘ere tasty wib together?”

” Cool mon. Eeet jus so ‘appens that I peeecked up some primo greeno from our friend Estella the Bower Bird theees very morning. Fancy a blaze w’me before we eeeeat?

“A’ight! L’ess roll!”

The 2 friends sat down and divvied up the rib between them. El Guerdo pieced together a medium sized doobie  and sparked up.

“Tha’ some decent reeeeb.” Guerdo passed the reefer across to Kanye who took it in his beak. ” Humans here yeesterday?”

“Cough. Yep, they left very late last nite. Bit weird them leaving at that time. Made a heck of a racket before they left too. The whole mountain was up”

“Yiiiiiiis, I think I heard them. Wassss’  that big bang round 3am? It wassss BOOOOOMN!”

“Well, I saw the whole thang. It all started a couple of days ago…”

Chapter One: The Kids

Chapter Two: Carnage

Chapter Three:  Revenge

e.w.j

still here

long time

try to delete you from my heart

don’t know why

i feel you

half full

still fuckn coughin up snot

totally over this flu tell u wot

my throat’s in a tether

i feel worse then the weather

but i’m very glad for the mates that i’ve got