A Good Thing

You're going to die soon.
Too young.
Too soon.
Have you loved enough?
Have you laughed enough?

I think you should love
And you should hold
And you should love
And laugh
And laugh


So when it's all over
The ones left behind
Will smile.

That will be a good thing.

Dear Les Murray

A million years ago I had a fire in the belly. Eye of the tiger and shit like that. I thought I was going to be a successful writer and I was punching it, baby. I've just been talking to a friend who means more to me than she probably realises and somehow these documents from the past came up.

In case you can't be bothered clicking on the images and reading the details, I sent a story called Treading Water At Turtle Bay to Quadrant. Les Murray wrote back (looking through these rejection letters, I really have a lot of detailed, encouraging letters of rejection) saying he didn't want to go with the story. I sent the story back to him with a letter in which I actually tell him that I think he got it wrong... arrogant fucker I was.

Anyway, he did accept the next story I sent to him (Love Letter) and Southerly accepted Turtle Bay. But I just wanted to share my correspondence between my humble self and Australia's most celebrated poet.

Adventures In South Durras.

For once The Dreaded One and I escaped the city for a weekend that didn't involve doofing. We went away to a little bit of paradise on the South Coast called South Durras with a lovely couple we met at a doof late last year. It was a weekend of food and wine and laughs and late-night talks.

A few hours after arriving we had a bloody nice barbecue and many bottles of wine. Talked a lot, played lots of music. Got a lot of enjoyment out of two bloody enormous moths that moved in, and who we christened Herman and Hermione. No, I don't know either. Just the first two moth names that popped into my head. Typically, I stayed up all night, talking to Christine who also fell asleep when the sun came up. The other two succumbed several hours earlier. I wandered to the beach by myself, eating a sausage from the night before and drinking a beer. Took some ambient shots of the beach because it was so damned gorgeous in the morning light.

I got back to the house and where my late-night-let's-talk-bollocks partner had been snoozing was a small pile of hats. Mysterious. Upon her return we kept talking until the others got up and we drove to Pebbly Beach. This is a beach famous not for it's pebbles (there are none) but for its friendly kangaroos which come down from the bush and onto the beach. Unfortunately there were no kangaroos while we were there either. Not to worry because there were plenty of kangaroos back in South Durras. We did a lot of wandering and bird watching and thinking and drinking and it was very cool.

My favourite photo of the weekend is, I think, the one at the top here of the sign at Pebbly Beach. It's obviously the internationally-recognised symbol for the message "Please do not shoot the local marsupials in the face with hand-held firearms. Thank you."

Oh yeah - fatigue was clearly setting in because when I first interpreted the sign for the others, I said "The sign is saying don't shoot the wombies in the face."

They others kind of laughed and kept looking at the sign, and after about half a minute, realising that something was wrong, I said "What did I just say?"

"You said wombies instead of wallabies but we knew what you meant."

Cupping

My friend in the first image showed me how to do the stuff in the second image. Back whe we first met I never would have guessed she would one day be capable of studying such weird and wonderful things. I am genuinely impressed with her knowledge, her learning, and her desire to do good things for people in far flung places.

The third image is my first attempt at cupping when Chloe was not present. The flame was big and made me make The Dreaded One move off the rug and onto the fire-proof floor. Unfortunately the little ceramic cups were not concrete floor proof. Woopsie.

17 Pings Only

My Internet access just went down big time. At first I thought it was my beloved new lapppy, but the desk top also wasn't working. I isolated the source of the problem which was the new wireless router. Red light = not good.

Don't know about the rest of you but no internet access sends a chilling fear through to the very core of my being. No. Internet. Access. Fuck. Is life really worth enduring with no internet access?

I dug out the pieces of paper that claimed to have all the relevant information to end this hellish torment. Any of you regular readers will probably already be smirking because you know very well that when it comes to things technical, I'm a bit of an idiot. I'd rather not consult pieces of paper with all the relevant information on them but fuck man - no internet access! Dire situations demand drastic action.

Armed with my pieces of paper, I logged into the router wotsit on the big computer. I entered the top secret password and username and stuff came up on the screen. There was too much to choose from. It wasn't even colour-coded so that I could work my way through my favourite colours (yes I am bunging it on just a little bit... but as a tip to techies who set these things up, colour coding would be nice for idiots like me. You know, you start off with the friendly colours like greens and blues and work your way through to the angry colours as it becomes apparent that we are dealing with a very serious problem here).

I entered some numbers and sent a ping. I was quite chuffed with that. Ping indicated that something was okay but that still meant something was a bit buggered. I sent another ping because I liked the sound of sending a ping. Made me feel like Sean Connery in that submarine movie.

I ran some diagnostics which was even more impressive than sending all the pings I'd been sending for the last five minutes. This involved me hitting the diagnostics button and the computer doing something mysterious. I then attempted to analise the diagnostics. This involved me scratching my chin as I stared at some numbers on the screen and wondered what it all meant.

I sent another couple of pings.

I rebooted the router and for a short time it looked like the sun would, in fact, shine again. But nope. I switched everything off, unplugged everything, crossed my fingers and said a little prayer before hooking everything back up again.

More sadness. Another couple of pings and I stormed off in a huff to take a nice hot shower.

After my shower I returned to the computer armed with a whole lot of attitude and the light on the router was green. Green! A Happy colour!

Just goes to show, a nice hot shower can do wonders.

Justice Of The Peace, Man

So lemme get this right... the bank in another state I'm taking out a loan from wants me to get a statutory declaration signed by a Justice Of The Peace stating that I am the one and the same person. Welcome to my life. Oh wait on, this is my life.

It all started because for as long as I can remember I've loathed my middle name, and at some point in my adulthood I just stopped using it. But it does pop up from time to time and as a result on some legal documents I am Lee Mysteryname Bemrose (obviously it's not really Mysteryname... I'd probably keep that one), while on others it's just plain Lee Bemrose.

So everythings cool with the loan guys until the loan guys' legal guys notice the Mysteryname thing and go what? Could this be two people? Two people who look the same and live at the same address and who were born on the same day but are potentially two people? Hmm. Hmmmm.

So to put their minds at rest they ask me to get some Marvel Comics character called Justice Of The Peace (dunt dunt darn) to promise them that although he's never met me, I am one and the same person.

I pick a random Justice Of The Peace from a directory of Justices Of The Peaces (if only there were as many Supermans the world would be a much better place), and he obliges. Signs his name swearing I am one and the same person and I send it off to the imaginative solicitors in another state who have never met me or my Justice Of The Peace (yeah, he's my personal Justice Of The Peace now).

I try, but mostly I just don't get stuff.

Real DJing

Scared about the DJ gig I've dug myself into on the 20 somethingth of some month? Nah. Have to remind myself that I taught these guys everything they know.

Seriously, watch this clip and not smile. I dare you.

The Mysterious Fogman

Catching a cab home from The Big Pointy Building last night just before midnight, I saw a group of four people who struck me as kind of odd. They were walking purposefully down MacQuarie Street looking really outdoorsy. They were rugged up against the cold and had gear slung over their backs. First thing I thought of was hikers. Travellers with all the right gear. Obviously backpackers, but why were they sightseeing at this time of the night. They could have just stepped off the plane and be heading to their hostel, such was their look, but there was no hostel around. Just the harbour and The Big Pointy Buidling. I watched them walk by as we sat at the traffic lights and just thought there was something odd about them.

This morning I read a story about a 26 year old guy who was caught climbing the sails of The Big Pointy Building at about one o'clock this morning. Aha. Mysteryy solved. If only I'd been more on the ball I could have given the police a tip off and nipped their little criminal adventure in the bud.

But I wasn't on the ball. I was suddenly distracted by something as I watched them through the passenger window. My window was misting up. It was cold outside and I'd been working pretty hard. I watched my window as it grew increasingly difficult to see through. Then I looked at the front windscreen. The fog was creeping across the front now. I started to feel a little embarrassed about it. It just kept covering the windscreen millimetre by millimetre. I willed it to stop before it moved across to the driver's side but it just flippped me the bird and continued on its merry way. I was really embarrassed but also a little impressed.

Eventuallly the driver, unable to see very well through the by now totally fogged up windscreen, wound down one of the rear windows to let some cold air into the cabin.

"I'm sorry about that," I told the driver.

"It's okay."

Silence.

"It's like I'm Fogman."

"Who is Fogman?"

"The Mysterious Fogman. He fights crime. He uses fog to... never mind. I'm just making it up."

"Oh. Okay."

Connection

Why do we connect with some people more than others? How is it that complete strangers become close friends? What is this connection thing all about? It always works both ways. You recognise something in each other. You laugh at the similarities. You accept the differences. But there is this connection. A real connection. What is it all about?

Mystery On The 301 From Circular Quay

I was sitting on the bus after work on Friday night when a woman sat in the vacant seat next to me. The bus was filling up but there were plenty of empty seeats around. Bus continued its journey.

At a random moment, without warning and with no apparent reason, the woman got out of her seat and relocated to the seat directly in fron of us, next to another complete stranger. Just like that.

Now I know my self-confidence can occasionally be a bit wobbly, and I know I have my fair share of neuroses, but I defy those of you with the most robust self-confidence to not - in the same situation - think to yourself, "WTF was that all about? Do I smell?"

It's not like she was moving closer to the doors for a quicker exit, and she didn't know the person in the other seat any more than she knew me. I wasn't having an annoying phone conversation or playing music too loud through headphones. And I know I didn't smell because I took a surreptious sniff at my underarms.

I even came very, very close to tappping her on the shoulder and asking, "Excuse me - I couldn't help noticing you sit in this seat, then relocate to that seat. What made you do that?"

But I said nothing. I just sat there wondering why she did that. Couldn't help thinking that everyone behind us would have seen what just happened and would probably be thinking wow, he must smell, smelly man. I wanted to explain to everyone that I don't smell, that I''m a two shower a day guy and that it was just a prep day in the kitchen so I didn't even work up a sweat and I am absolutely definitely not the kind of person who farts on public transport.

I could feel them all staring at me for the rest of the journey. I was relieved to finally get off at my stop. I will never know what made the woman change seats like that. It was such a small act but it made my mood pout with sadness for the rest of the night....

Numbers

A couple of weeks ago my profile views counter stopped clicking over. It was up to 2,200 back then but in reality I'm sure there have probably been millions of Earth-dwellers just like you checking out my profile. Millions. Maybe billions. Cazillions, even.

There must have been lots of you. A few at least. One or two? Maybe just you. Yeah you. Yeah thanks. Ta.

But it's still stuck on 2,200... even though I know cajillions of you have been checking out my blog.

Nice thing is, all 20 billion of you who drop by are all cool people. I like you all.

Especially you.

An Apology...

... to the guy who asked me if I had any pingers when I was eating a nice pie in Kings Cross a couple of weeks ago. Not sure why you asked me, not sure why I said with such confidence, "Go to The Bourbon. There are people there."

Pretty sure I knew why your eyes lit up so quickly. Sorry about that.

Sorry about the disappointment, but fuck it dude, I was enjoying my pie. I needed you to be not talking to me about pingers when I was trying to enjoy my pie.

(I can't tell - was that a nice story? I think it was a nice story. Then again, I'm in a late night mood).

Lily Allen: Sexy Or Annoying?

I could post my recent interview with Bad Seed violinist Warren Ellis, but instead I'll present you with my in depth analysis of the talents of Lily Allen, as published in the current issue of Tsunami. Me high-brow? Oh yeah.

Love In All The Wrong Places

I'm awake at a stupid hour right now, writing up questions for a couple of email interviews I have to have in by the end of the week.

But I just saw on my Recent Documents bit something called Love In All The Wrong Places.

Ooh, I thought, catchy title. Obviously the start of a short story I've forgotten I'd started writing.

I opened the document and it is completely blank. And I have no idea what the story was going to be about. Other than, probably, love and how sometimes you find it in all the wrong places.

Clearly I was inspired at another ungodly hour.

I'd better go sleep and maybe I'll come up with the plot to Love In All The Wrong Places... Jesus - is it the title of a cheap pulp... You know what? I've just remembered. It was to be the new title of a noir short story I wrote. Haha. Oh dear. It is late. But this seemingly pointless post has done it's job. Mystery solved.

As you were.

From Dugongs To Doof.

More pics tomorrow. Lots of sweetness this weekend. It's life. It's good... actually, for more pics of the weekend, go here.

From Crust Pizza On Crown Street, Surry Hills: Weirdest Pizza Ever

There are some things that just should not go onto a pizza. There are some obvious things like, I dunno - cigarette butts, underpants and small dogs.

But other totally wrong pizza toppings are a little less obvious. Pizza makers out there with a sense of adventure stroke their chins and think ,"Hey, this is so crazy it might just work." That's how prawns make it onto pizza. Look, I don't mind the occasional prawn, but for the love of humanity, please keep prawns the fuck away from pizza. It's just wrong.

Likewise... I like pizza and I like shepherd's pie. I thought the crazy guys at Crust Pizza on Crown Street in Surry Hills might just have the flair to get away with this, but wrong, wrong, wrong.

This cannot possibly have been the first shepherd's pie pizza you have ever built. You must have experimented. You must have made at least one before this one. Why, I'll go out on a limb here and bet that you've probably tasted one. At least one.

And what was the result of that test run, huh, Crust Pizza people from Crust Pizza on Crown Street Surry Hills? Did you go, "Mmm - mmm! This is good pizza!"?

Or did you also realise that no matter how good your other pizzas might be, it's just madness to put big blobs of mashed potato on a pizza? If the latter is the case, which it would be if you had a clue, what the hey? Why are you still making and selling shepherd's pie pizzas?

It's not pretty to look at for a start. It looks like Frosty The Snowman has taken a few satisfying dumps on my pizza. And if you can put the snowman poo image out of your mind for a minute or two and try eating the pizza you'll quickly realise what you've been suspecting since you saw the pizza guy using something you'd buy in a hardware store to get the mashed potato onto the pizza: it's a completely shit idea. It's a rubbish idea. It doesn't work. The dried mash potato goes into your mouth just long enough to suck all the moisture out of it before you have to hack it out into your napkin.

This is pizza insanity. It's Dali-esque in its breathtaking weirdness. Please come to your senses and keep the mashed potato the fuck away from pizza.

Tim Tams & Cyberfriends

Strange weekend. It's Monday afternoon and I'm feeling unexpectedly down. Don't know why. Probably just the comedown after the high of a totally cool weekend.

I spent the weekend with a complete stranger I know pretty well. Not sure I really ever expected to meet them in the flesh. Our cyber-paths crossed and although she lived in another part of the world, suddenly she was here and we spent the weekend drinking and laughing and talking so much talk. She has a totally infectious energy about her, at times a hyper-activity. It made me smile. She's like, I don't know, like some exotic creation, a force of charm. We've chatted online, written emails, commented on each other's blogs, but it was strange to actually meet.

I met her outside the local train station. I had been going to ask if hug or handshake was preferable to get through any awkwardness, but as soon as we spotted each other there was no need to ask. We just hugged like the friends we are. Smiles and so good to finally meet you. But kind of a nervousness too. We'd been so relaxed online - what was this going to be like? We already know each other so although meeting for the first time, there wasn't really much getting-to-know-you talk to be made.

Right now, because I'm a moody fucker, I'm feeling a familiar melancholy and wondering if a friendship starts online, should it stay online? Are you risking a perfect little thing by meeting in real life?

I don't know the answer to that. I'm not sure. On one hand I think if it's a perfect friendship online, leave it that way. Maybe they have personal habits that will annoy you. Maybe they have a laugh that grates. Maybe they just won't be as perfect in real life as they are online.

Can't say any of the above applies in this case. I was charmed and captivated and drank in the energy and had a great time. The Dreaded One was tired after work on Saturday night so my cyberfriend and I went out for a few hours of dancing and drinking and oh man, what an all round totally fucking enjoyable night. Sooo many laughs. As nights out go, it couldn't have been much better. Outside the club for some fresh air, we saw the funniest fight between two grown men you could possibly imagine seeing. One guy throws his jacket down in blind rage and starts shouting at his ill-suited mate, "Come on then! Let's finish this now! Let's get it over with now!"

The other guy walks away, so the enraged guy starts flapping his arms about as he kind of boings up and down on the spot in a fit of retarded star jumps. Seriously. It was hilarious. Onlookers everywhere start laughing. But this guy is serious. He wants to sort this thing out now.

They move off down the street but have our attention, interrupting more of our getting-to-know-you chat (there is quite a lot to be had after all). So we decide to cruise past to find out what the fight is about. They're just by that dandelion fountain (El Alamein fountain?), and when we get there there's a crowd of amused onlookers sitting on the edge of the fountain. People across the road have also stopped to watch, because this guy's doing this ridiculous jumping tantrum again. We take our seats and share smiles with those around us. We take photos and some video footage. They scream at each other with faces so close they could kiss. I've already made my prediction that not a single punch will be thrown, and I'm right. You can just tell. All threat and bluster and very real anger, but they won't hit each other. More jumping. A finger poke. It's the best street theatre.

Police arrive and it just gets funnier. They move apart. They call it quits. They come back in for more, and on it goes. One guy phones someone and tries to hand the phone to one of the cops. What is this? He's called someone to prove to the cop that the other guy started it? The cop doesn't want to take the phone. The guy tries to make the cop take the phone. But the cop really really doesn't want to take the phone. The really cranky guy has so much pent-up rage that there is blood; he's bitten his tongue and there is blood. But we crack up each time he does his jumping tanty. Which he does at totally random moments. Fucking hilarious. Up and down... flapflapflapboing boing boing. Or... FLAPFLAPFLAPBOINGBOINGBOING!!!

Oh yeah - adding to the surreal vibe of it all, a busker with a life-sized reindeer head with antlers and (I think) glowing red eyes has stopped right next to the fight to watch what's going on. Reindeer doesn't look very impressed by what's going on before his glowing red eyes. He's just all, "Hrrrmph. Whatevs."

We go back to the club and we dance and meet friends, then make our way home. My friend is amazed at the mess Kings Cross is at 4am on a Sunday, and I am too. Been ages since I was there. She takes photos of the street carnage, and we wander in awe.

We get a cab. The cabbie is a cheerful motormouth and I'm already starting to be amused. I make secret chatterbox gestures with my hands. The guy finally shuts up when his phone rings.

"Hello? Yes? I'm sorry, I can't talk now - I have customers in my car. I'll call you back later."

Silence for a few moments. Then I lean forward a little and ask, "So who was that?"

Like I've got a right to know. But I've dead panned it and my new real life cyberfriend doubles over in silent laughter at the arrogance of the question, at the deadpan conversational tone. And I start to laugh silently too.

"Oh just another cab driver," the cabbie replies earnestly, like it's perfectly normal for me to want to know who it was, like I'm perfectly entitled to know.

"Oh right. What did they want?"

My friend has lost it completely by now. I don't know if I'm conveying it here, but there and then it was the funniest thing ever. We're trying not to look at each other or make any noise, but we are totally losing it with suppressed laughter.

"He just wanted to chat about things," the cabbie says with a shrug.

Silence.

"Why don't you call him back? See what he wants. We don't mind."

Somehow I've managed to keep the laughter at bay and I just sound like the most sincere fucker you could hope to talk to. Like, you know, call him back, it might be important.

It's exquisite, forbidden laughter. We don't make any noise... not very much noise, but we are pissing ourselves. My stomach is hurting and I am sweating with the effort of keeping it in. It's all just too funny.

Anyway. Anyway.

So anyway. Yesterday, lunch and wine and laughs as The Dreaded One, cyber friend and I head out to lunch. Talk long into the night. Everything about her is endearing and charming and just generally pretty damned lovely. Mannerisms that could be potentially annoying just aren't. She's just this incredibly unique creation that I feel like I could hang out with forever. She just feels like a really good friend whose company I enjoy and who I care about a lot. It's a nice, stable feeling, because in the end it's been over a year now of getting to know each other, just not in real life.

But is it all just the novelty of someone new?

She's gone now, and I'm feeling that melancholy. I can still hear her voice. I keep expecting her to come bouncing into the room (she does bounce). I miss her but I'm glad she's heading out somewhere with friends to cause trouble. I think the melancholy is just the getting back to reality after a pretty cool weekend. A very fucking nice weekend indeed.

And I'm just left wondering, with no answer, is it better to leave it all online? If that's the nature of the thing, should that be the nature of the thing?

I'm wondering this as I sit by myself smiling at the weekend just gone and eating more Tim Tams than I should.

Update: I wrote this a couple of hours ago during which the new friend texted me to say what a great time she had. I think that answers my question, actually. If shit is meant to be it's meant to be. A reasonably excellent time was had. It was real life and it was good and I appreciate every fun moment I had. So much fun. I love this kind of stuff.

Meet Desmond

So in a really exciting piece of news... I get an email out of the blue from this guy who wants to catch up for a beer. Says we have a lot of catching up to do. I tell him I don't know anyone called Desmond but he insists we go way back.

Turns out he's my long-lost 70's pornstar identical twin brother Desmond. And I'm like, "Oh that Desmond! Desmond 'Money Shot' Bemrose! Too cool!"

Fuck, man, good times.

I'll bring him along to the next doof.

Down In Perry Park

And here, thanks to Barry, is one of my favourite photos of The Dreaded One and Me.

And another that perhaps says a lot about my attitude to stuff.

Total Eclipse Of The Heads

Plans are afoot. There is an eclipse festival just over a year away on Easter Island. The razor thin path of the total eclipse makes its way through the vast emptiness of the Pacific Ocean and crosses over the tiny speck of landmass that is Easter Island.

The Dreaded One and I plan to be there.