The Broken Thing

It's a sad day when you realise
That that golden thing
That fragile thing
That amazing thing
That reliable thing
That thing you had
That forever thing

Is broken.

Ask No Question Of The Moth

Every now and then you hear a quote that speaks to you. This, for me, is one such quote:

"I have no news of my coming or passing away - the whole thing happened quicker than a breath; ask no question of the moth."

Farid al-Din Attar, courtesy of the wonderfully hilarious human, Judith Lucy, who I one day hope to hug. She is a warm and honest and very funny moth indeed.

Review of her show coming tomorrow.

Tough As Chuck

Me: OUCH!
Her: What happened?
Me: Zipper pinched me on my... manhood.
Her: Ow. You all right?
Me: Yeah, I'm fine. Bit worried about the zipper though.

Surround Me

First time I've heard the original version of this gorgeous song. Have only heard the something overdrive remix. This is beautiful songing. And yes I meant to write songing.

Been a day of music today. I really listened to Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds' Push The Sky Away for the first time today. It's a favourite album. The guy is a master song writer, story teller, singer and musician. All things considered, Surround Me by 3-11 Porter is probably shit in that it's their one and only hit, and Nick Cave has hundreds of beautiful songs and hits, but I still like it.

Been too busy to write much lately, but things are good. Another traveler co-worker left after too short a time and I was a bit unhappy about it. She was wonderful to work with, so very kind and gentle and intelligent, and her presence brought these qualities out in me, I think. Surround yourself with the kind of people you want to be, and you'll become that person. Fleur will be missed in the workplace, but unless I am badly mistaken, I think I have another friend.

It's sometimes easy to forget, but one of our motivations when starting the cafe was to make a place where we are all happy to come to. Both The Dreaded One and I had some bad experiences with employers and wanted to make sure that our workers didn't move on and feel the way we did about our bad employers. I think it's just about liking the people you choose and respecting them for who they are and what they do.

I think that they have all gone on to become friends who stay in touch after they leave, or who initiate after work drinks with us or social meets on the weekends... I think we're doing all right.

Surround yourself with good people. It's a beautiful thing.

Let Love Win

So much beauty it hurts. Hearing this, having seen these guys play live on the weekend, knowing the evil that is going on right now in the world... ergh. Headfuck.

I hope beauty and love prevails.

First World Problems? Moi?

Some aspects of this tale might come across as what some of you like to label "First World Problems" ... judgmental fuckers that you are.

So, like, I came back from an absolutely awesome dance festival feeling in absolute agony. Muscles so sore from sooo much dancing to soooo much good music. The soreness of my leg muscles triggered memories of happiness, which was horrible because my face muscles were also aching from all the smiling and laughter that had taken place over this treacherously Bacchanalian weekend.

Working in my cafe, I'd kind of hoped to ease into this short three day week after four days off, but noooooo... all of our regulars who made do with some other cafe the day before ALL came back for breakfast and coffee and then lunch as well and we got properly spanked. Jesus. It was relentless. And they told us things like how they missed us and that they were glad we were open again and I think this was their passive aggressive way of saying they think we should never close again because they like our breakfast and coffee and food so much.

Fuckers.

As if all that wasn't bad enough, I broke out in a sweat when I heard London Grammar on the radio... no doubt the torment of London Grammar cancelling their previous Melbourne gig (simply because I got all OMG OMG OMG!!! excited about them) burns in your mind, so you can possibly almost imagine the utter, utter, utter, utter, utter anguish that squished me when I suddenly wondered if perhaps their re-scheduled gig was tonight. WHAT IF LONDON GRAMMAR ARE PLAYING TONIGHT???!!! I CAN'T POSSIBLY SEE LONDON GRAMMAR TONIGHT BECAUSE OF THE SPANK AND THE SORE OF THE MUSCLES AND THE FACE-ACHE FROM SMILING AND LAUGHING AND DANCING AT AN AMAZING DANCE FESTIVAL!!! FUCK!!!

I have never - NEVER - been through such a traumatic episode in my entire life.

The only good that came out of this is that - and you are going to be so relieved to hear this - London Grammar are not playing until Saturday night. Oh what a happy ending to this nightmare of a day.

When You Have Those Memories That Make You Smile

Sitting in the Gasometer pub at the end of Smith Street, alone with my thoughts and an after-work pint of beer for company, I remembered another time in another pub. I think it was The Clock on Crown Street, Surry Hills. Sitting up there on the balcony  in full Sydney sunshine, I wasn't alone. I was with my beautiful friend Christine. What a luxury - afternoon sunshine, beer and a beautiful friend.

I remember being in a funny mood. As relaxed as I get with my closest friends. The very shy Funny Lee sometimes emerges. On this day, I was being a claws out fashionista bitch commentator on all the Crown Street fashion victims passing by. At one point during my commentary I thought Christine was being a bit quiet.

I looked sideways and saw that she was doubled over, almost crying in silent laughter at my silliness. A beautiful human, a beautiful moment, a beautiful memory.

And sitting in the Gasometer pub at the end of Smith Street, alone with my thoughts and a pint of after-work beer for company, I realised that I was smiling my head off at the memory.

Beautiful Strangers

I wanted to write something beautiful today
I wanted to write about the beautiful strangers
Who become friends
I wanted to write about the broken-getting-to-know yous in the work place,
And the eventual and lasting getting-to-know yous.

I wanted to come up with some poetic way
Of expressing my gratitude for recent and treasured encounters
(Without getting actual poetic because I am an actual shit poet)
Because my heart has been melted many times
By the kind hearts of these beautiful strangers.

I wanted to write something nice today
About these beautiful strangers
Who have enriched my life and have made me happy
With their honest individuality.

I wanted to write something beautiful today
But I was too busy.

Random Strangers

Sometimes strangers come along and they become a part of your life. And it's a beautiful thing.

Enjoy The Music While You Can

I saw Zoe years ago at a gig with Amanda Palmer and Meow Meow. Says a lot that I'd never heard of the cellist but that she stood out between such limelight personalities. I love the cello - it does wonderful things with your emotions. I loved what I was seeing someone do with the instrument. It was mesmerising. I loved seeing how absorbed by her music Zoe was. You can see it in this clip. She is obviously a passionate person.

Today she lost her partner of 17 years. The news made me incredibly sad because I had been hoping everything would be all right, but kind of thinking everything was probably not going to be all right.

Much love goes out to this beautiful soul.

Awesome Pants

Yesterday at a restaurant at Brighton beach, just as we were leaving, a young waiter dude came over to me and said, "Man - sorry but can I just ask where you got those pants? They're awesome." I told him that I got them at Rainbow, and this started a very, very, very enthusiastic conversation about festivals, Maitreya, psytrance and just how much the young guy loves psytrance and and and...

I think he'd probably had a pretty good night the night before. I didn't think he would be quite so enthusiastic later in his shift. I also thought it was pretty funny that he was having this kind of conversation with someone literally old enough to be his father.

I also recognised a kindred spirit and told him to feel free to drop into the cafe some time and we can talk some more about all things doof.

Was kind of cool meeting someone new to the scene who loves it so much.

An Unexpected Poop Of Happiness.

An Unexpected Poop Of Happiness

If your life has been like mine, you do a lot of different things. You are a lot of different people with lots of different interests. Maybe you are several different people to different people. I've never known who the fuck I am and have always craved some sort of consistency. But that consistency has never been there.

Right now I'm the co-owner of a small and banged up little cafe on a cool street in Melbourne, hands-down the coolest city in Australia. We do good, unpretentious food and good, unpretentious coffee, all served by - I hope - good, unpretentious staff. I'm enjoying my work life right now. Lately, especially, I've been humbled by the good workers I've managed to find. Properly awesome people.

But 10 years and little bit more ago, this was not what I was doing or who I was. 10 years ago I was bumbling my way through a steep learning curve of magazine editorship and writing, and starting to realise that my sense of humour was worth putting out there. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I did enjoy being in this rare position of writing stuff that amused me and putting it out there, and I enjoyed the limited feedback from friends and occasionally strangers who told me that they enjoyed my writing/humour. Most of my working days were spent writing stuff that I knew amused me, sometimes found out amused the rest of the office, and rare occasions found out amused anonymous civilians.

But I did get feedback. And it's cool and nice to get positive feedback. The random text saying I've just made a twat of myself laughing at your latest column. Or talking to a new friend who, upon finding out which magazine I worked for, asked if I knew Grumpy.

And I got to say yeah... I am Grumpy.

Another friend recently said dude, always loved your writing - it was always the first thing I read in the magazine. Hearing this is weird because I didn't know this last friend at the time I was doing this writing.

But all of that is history. 10 years later I'm still Grumpy, partner of The Dreaded One in Grumpy & The Dreaded One's Little Cafe Of Awesome. The many years of my Grumpy column appearing in the pages of Tsunami mag have long ended. I make coffee now. I enjoy hospitality. I care about service and gathering a team that makes working together a pleasure. I'm not perfect on this last part, but I'm working on it and I'm getting better.

Yesterday... I get a message from the partner of a kind of oldish friend. He says that his girlfriend has mentioned that I used to write for a mag in Sydney - which one was it and what was the name of my column? I tell him about 3D World, about Acid Tongue, about Grumpy and my other writings, thinking he is maybe a writer thinking I might still have contacts, which I don't. I'm so out of the loop these days.

Turns out he was just curious. Had thought about the name of the cafe, the fact that I used to write and maybe I was a writer whose stuff he used to read. Things fell into place and his reply was something along the lines of... no fuck it I'll copy and paste... "I fuckin knew it, used to love that column. Thats why i asked.You sir are the man."

This was a little, unexpected poop of happiness. Made me wonder how many complete strangers out there enjoyed the thing and were made happy by my idiotic musings.

Now awaiting the PS: "Sorry man - I was thinking about another column written by another dude. You're probably okay, but you're not the man. Soz."

Random People And Hearts Of Gold

Although I said I wasn't going to do it again, I did it again. I chose one single potential worker from the pile of resumes dropped off based on the resume itself and The Vibe.

The Vibe, it seems, fucking rocks.

While I doubt I will ever get another front-of-house cohort as perfect as the divine Miss D, this one is quite lovely and did something today that says wonderful things about her character and has made a big impression.

We had some roadworks going on right outside the front door of the cafe and the day got off to a really slow start. Not a single customer for the first hour. Not good. A few regulars came by after that, commenting on the jackhammers and barricades.

At about 9.15 I texted Clara, our new helper of four days, and said if she wanted the day off she could have it because I think it's going to be quiet. She has made it clear that she wants some work but wants time off wherever possible to enjoy our fine city, being the traveler that she is. I really thought it was going to be a three person day today. She replied that yeah sure, if that's okay with you.

It started getting a little busy, and the roadworks situation quietened a little. They basically finished the heavy digging and left for the day. I pooped my pants a little because what if we had a busy lunch and we need four people? Goodcall?Badcall?nnnnng!!!

This is the bit that impressed. During a gap in the customer traffic, I texted Clare and said look actually it could get busy during lunch and would it be okay if you came in after all?

Most people would have switched to oh-cool-unexpected-day-off mode and said sorry, I've just made plans. I think that's what I would have done, unless this was someone I had been working for for a long time.

Her reply? "I was going to go to the beach but you guys are my priority, so if you think it's going to be busy I'll come in. I don't mind."

She came in. She was cool about it. Then we got properly fucking slammed. And she was still cool about it. I was in a happy mood because it had been a close call... and what a gesture from someone we've only had on board for a few days.

Very glad my arse was saved again. Mostly, though, impressed by the kind of person who does something like that.

The Chicken That Wasn't There.

This a story about the chicken that wasn't there.


I was looking forward to a left-over chicken snack, but, astonishingly, there was no chicken. Apparently I had already eaten the chicken, perhaps during one of my late night, gastronomic somnambulations. I don't remember eating the chicken, but all the evidence indicated that I had already eaten all the chicken. This was very confusing because I have no recollection of eating the chicken.

There was sadness, too, because I was really, really looking forward to eating some chicken.

Alas, the chicken wasn't there.

And that's my romantic tragedy - perhaps the greatest romantic tragedy ever told involving chicken -  titled The Chicken That Wasn't There.

Grumpy & The Dreaded One's Little Cafe Of Awesome, Review

Holy fuck. So much positive feedback from customers about the food today that I'm thinking about having the food drug tested. The Dreaded One is obviously seasoning everything with some properly wicked shit, man.

Also, here is our first review of the year. Not a bad one either.

Happy Friday, mofos.

Why I Hate My Best Friends

Dear All Best Friends From The Future,

Can we not meet please? Kind of breaks my heart a little bit when you go away. Will love you anyway because I know you're out there, somewhere. It just makes me sad when we actually meet. Because you always go.

Much love always,

Lee.

Conversations With Our Customers: The Complaint

So we got a complaint in the cafe today. Apparently a customer didn't really like our Mexican tacos very much because of the rich, smoky flavour (that would be the chipotle in amongst all the other ingredients). She also found the soft tacos wraps to be a bit too... (struggles with what she is trying to say)... a bit too authentic. Apparently she was expecting - from our Mexican soft tacos - something "a bit more Australian."

Some complaints, you can live with. Like the time in our catering years when someone complained that our blue cheese had a bit of mold in it.

Love humans sometimes. They can be hilarious.

The Happy And The Sad

The happy and the sad... it's all part of the thing. Happy that they are here, will be sad when they have gone away. And they always go away.

This is the dialogue that goes with the clip: " Do you want to see the most beautiful thing I've ever filmed? It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing, and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was just, dancing with me, like a little kid beggin' me to play with it - for fifteen minutes. And that's the day I realized that there was this entire life behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know that there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember - I need to remember. Sometimes, there's so much beauty in the world - I feel like I can't take it, like my heart is just going to cave in."

Maximum Spank

Last week our banged up little cafe was the busiest it has been. Record week. Would like to be doing it every week. With the right team, we can do it.

At one point, stuck on coffees, exhausted and almost overwhelmed, I closed my eyes and said thank you to the cosmos. Not because we might be looking at a record week, but because of the help we had been given. A random traveler had left her resume, as so many of them do, and sensing we were going to be spanked this week, having had a good impression of said random traveler, I asked her to come in and help out.

These things can go either way. Some trial-shifters have done my head in after 10 minutes. But this one, she was a good one. There was zip. There was bang. There was energy and intelligence and that thing that happens when you know what they're doing and why they are doing it, and they know the same about you. You feel like two parts of a unit. It's a good feeling.

And that's why at one point, maybe more, I closed my eyes and said thank you to the cosmos.

The Health Inspectors - A Black Comedy Farce.

If I ever write again, I think I'll write a savage black comedy about the life of the average (and they are very average humans) council health inspector. They swan into your place of work dressed like they're going to the opening night of the opera, even though in reality they should be wearing overalls or other similar mundane attire, and find their special area of annoyance and begin to tell you - as you try to keep up with the busy, service-time influx of customers - that you must make this change or that change. They look so smugly chuffed that they get to tell you this as they consult their snappy electronic device as if to say "See? See? There it is. There's the rule in the regulations that stipulates why you have to change this thing, and aren't you impressed with my vast knowledge of the myriad rules and regulations that rule and regulate my world?"

They never know the actual, practical arguments for these rules and regulations (it's never anything major in a reasonably run place; just niggly changes that must be made because surely you want them to smile and pat you on the back on their next irritating visit). They don't consult the previous inspection report (common sense? Fuck common sense!) to realise they are directly contradicting previous sage recommendations. They clip-clop about on their teetering heels and mneh mneh mneh as if they are doing something meaningful like... anything remotely meaningful. Which they are not.

Ever worked in a commercial kitchen, Miss Poindexter? Ever run a business? What, exactly, qualifies you to even think you have a fucking clue?

This is what you think as you nod and say sure, we'll move the thing over there that the last council numpty made us move to where it is now, as we try to focus on the job of serving our customers.

This is probably what I will write about if I ever write again.