A recent Grumpy column based on true events. Names have been changed to protect the guilty. My magazine copy has gone missing in action, so here's the draft copy.
Grumpy
From time to time the question of kids comes up. “Grumpy,” people will say to me, “do you think you'll ever have kids?” The answer is an unequivocal no. NO. Nononononono. Nope. Absolutely not. No way. Not ever. No. Fortunately Mrs Grumpy (aka The Dreaded One) feels the same way.
Sometimes, if my interrogator is particularly stupid, they might assure me in a sagacious tone that one day I will change my mind. If they say this, it's probably a safe bet they they themselves have recently become a breeder. Suddenly they have access to the true meaning of life. They have been enlightened, and I am merely yet to see the light. Not all breeders are so annoyingly sanctimonious; many react with an each-to-their-own shrug. Non-breeders with procreation on their life-timetable might ask why no Little Grumpies are on the horizon, and my reasons have nothing to do with overpopulation and the relentless and ruthless destruction humans are wreaking upon an otherwise paradisiacal planet. No, it's not that.
Recently at a family get-together. The adults are catching up on what's been going on in each others lives while the kids (lets call them Domestic Terrorist 1 and Domestic Terrorist 2) occupy themselves as they see fit. Basically this involves pulling stuff from out of cupboards and converting apparently harmless objects into potentially lethal missiles whilst hijacking the adult conversation by remote control and holding it hostage until their demands are met.
Mum and Dad's sentences become slightly surreal: “So how have you been? Are you still working at what are you doing with that? PutthatdownIsaidputdownrightnow that place you were working at? How is Mummy said no! What did Mummy say? No that going for you?”
DT 1 tells me, “Uncle Grumpy, I play golf,” and I appreciate the heads-up because a split second later a hard plastic ball zings past my head and ricochets off three walls before rolling under the couch. No relief, however, as he has an arsenal of hard plastic balls which keep us on our toes as they fly about unpredictably, whizzing through the air and conking off walls and furniture.
Meanwhile, DT 2 has been sating her voracious appetite for chips. I watch in fascination as fistful after fistful of chips are pushed into her mouth until eventually the entire family sized box has been consumed. She eyes me levelly as she methodically makes her way through the box, like she's thinking, “Yeah, I know, you wanted some of this didn't you, wanted it badly, but you ain't getting' none of it.” I look at the brie and am about to make a move for it when DT 1 moves in. He gouges a fistful of the cheese out and packs it down into a satisfying slab on a water cracker and suddenly the gouge marks render the cheese just that little less appetising.
Sometimes the chaos and carnage dies down a little, but the silence only arouses suspicion, the alarm goes up and conversation is interrupted again as search parties scatter in all directions: “Where are you? What are you doing? Whatever you're doing you'd better stop it at once!”
At one point DT 2, having run out of chips to put into her mouth, pops one of the blue golf balls into her mouth. Her mouth is so tiny and petite that she can't close her lips over the ball completely. She pops the ball back out. This has amused her so she pops the ball back in like she's one of those carnival clown games. The ball pops back out with a little more force and her shoulders shudder this time. A faint look of confusion and fear flashes across her pretty features as she gags again, and suddenly she is Reagan and we're in the vomit scene from The Exorcist. The family-sized packet of chips makes a reappearance (probably as astonished to see us again as we are to see it) and lands mostly on the mother who appears disgusted and resigned in equal parts. The father whisks DT 2 off to the bathroom (later to emerge stating, “Great. Bonus points – I get to change her nappy too.”) while the mother sits with cupped hands of vomit and trying to figure out what to do next.
What's that? Am I ever going to have kids? Um – no. Nononono.
Grumpy is Lee Bemrose, freelance writer, twobluefish@bigpond.com
When you walked into the room, something changed. I felt like I’d known you my entire life. Your gaze swept the room and came to rest on me. You had me from that moment. You looked at me and looked away, then made your languid way through drunk ones dancing. Your image lingered, burned into my mind. I didn’t follow you, not straight away. There was no need.
It was later that same night that we properly met. I was listening to some self-indulgent woes, some manufactured drama, when you sat down next to me. I was being attentive to this other one, but I knew it was you sitting down next to me even before I looked.
When finally the other one realised she was not going to get the desired response, she stood up to leave, pausing briefly to look at you. She called you Ruby, said it with a soulless smile. You replied with a similar smile, calling her by name, told her she was looking well.
When she was gone you leaned towards me, so slightly but without looking directly at me, and you told me that if I want to be your friend, never call you Ruby because your name is Ruben Jane.
You asked me what I thought of the party. You paused at the end of the question, then added my name. Letting me know that you had asked. You had pointed me out and asked. How strange that we had friends in common yet I had never met you, had never heard of you.
I told you that I was not a party person, not really much of a people person. You asked why, then, I was here. I said it’s because it’s what we do. We talk to people we don’t necessarily like. We go to parties when maybe we want to be alone, it’s just what we do.
You should do whatever you want to do, you told me. There are no rules, we just think there are.
And with that you stood up to leave.
Coming? You asked looking down at me, knowing the answer. I stood up and came with you, nothing else I could do.
You asked me where I lived and you took me back to mine. Something too funny about this to laugh at. Just struck me as pure you. Maybe I smiled. Maybe you saw my smile reflected in the taxi’s interior windows. Perhaps you smiled yourself, knowing that this was always how it was going to go.
Back at mine, drugs spilled out onto a glass tabletop. Vodka from the freezer and I knew what music to play. Rapid-fire crunchy electric guitar, throbbing bass and banshee scream. I wanted you to be surprised or at least pleased, but you simply took your place, took your pill, took in that I knew the right music to play.
We should go to Dawnfire sometime, you said when my warmth was kicking in and I’d wanted to say something stupid. You said it at just the right moment because it snapped me and I said instead yeah, we should go. I’ve been there before, but yeah, we should definitely go.
We didn’t fuck on that first night. I didn’t care. We were going to go to Dawnfire. We were going to be we. This was good enough for me. Much better than a fuck.
When we did fuck, it was like thunder. It was insane. It was rapidfirecrunchelectricthrob and I always wanted you to be surprised. But you were never surprised, just quietly pleased, in your way.
Hold me, you said one time as we fucked, and I held you.
No you stupid fuck! Hold me. Properly! Hold me down!
So I took your wrists and I held you down. You fought back and I held you down. My hands around your wrists, sharp tendons, deep guttural grunt, but I held you down. One hand slipped and it found your throat and grunt became a hesitant choke-laugh. You bit me. I kissed you. You kissed then bit me again. We kissed and we fucked. And you were happy. It was the first time I felt I’d made you happy.
*
Almost a year of yours-and-mine and we agreed on yours. You picked up some thing of mine you’d always liked. You paused at the door on your way out and asked if I was coming, as though you and this thing were leaving me and it was entirely up to me if I wanted to come along. I nodded and you turned and left like you always knew this was how it was going to be. And with that, yours became ours. We became a proper we. Much better than the stormy, the exhilarating fucking.
But the fucking was good.
*
Every time we were asked how we met, the story changed. We’d tell them we met on the banks of the Nile. In a Scottish Highland Village. In the ruins of Sagrada Familia in Barcelona or a cobblestone street in Monte Matre. You would take the lead and I would follow and a scenario would come to life, a conversation imagined into reality. At a point our eyes would lock and we were two actors without scripts, inventing memories, living another time now.
Invariably they would think we were joking. They would think we were a little strange or simply in love. They didn’t understand, just didn’t get it at all.
Don’t leave me, you’d tell me from time to time, don’t ever leave me. Promise me that.
And I’d hold you in that other gentler way and tell you, I’ll never leave you Ruben Jane.
*
The cracks were there a long time before I saw them. That’s the nature of cracks. But I forced myself to see them that time on Turtle Beach. Remember that time on Turtle Beach? You’d gone for a swim and I buried your things and while you swam below the surface, I imagined you were not there.
Later you asked why I had done it, why I’d buried your things and imagined you weren’t there. I shrugged; I don’t know. In the twilight you rocked back and forth, tears welling in those eyes as we looked out to sea, a water spout writhing in the distance. I’d seen your tears before; I’d kissed away their saltiness. I’d seen your clenched fists and I’d uncurled your fingers and kissed your palms. But I’d never seen you rock back and forth before, like a dark and broken angel, and I didn’t know what to do.
The thing is, you told me in a voice fighting back a tremble, it’s no good here. It’s no good and it’s not ever going to work.
But we’re on holidays, I replied, it’s just us in some clean, nice place. We’ll go back to the city where everything is all right.
No, you said, that’s not it. That won’t fix things. It’s... it’s this that won’t work.
Your hand swept at this perfect vista, at all this peace, and that’s when I forced myself to see the cracks. Fine and delicate things, like fractures in the glaze of a favourite tea cup.
*
As the blade slid beneath your skin your grip on my hand tightened. I gripped you hard too. The blue vein above your eye pushed against your pale skin as you held back from crying out. I leaned over and watched this stranger slowly slice your skin. He dabbed professionally at the blood. There was a lot of blood. Your grip eased, then tightened again as the blade went back in. I wanted him to stop, but it was what you wanted so I held on and watched and was moved by what we were doing.
We dressed the wound. We dressed you. You looked pale. You looked at me and smiled and said, now your turn.
I think my fingers trembled as I undid my buttons. I dropped my shirt to the floor and climbed onto the bench. I was determined not to squeeze your hand. It would prove something now meaningless to you, but as the searing pain set in it took over everything and I squeezed your hand so tightly. I remember looking up through a red haze of pain, and I remember seeing you smile. Not smiling at my pain, smiling at how tightly I was holding you. I forgot that smile at the time, but it would come back to me later on. Such a gentle, peaceful smile.
It took return visits, but eventually it was done. No wedding rings for us, no tattoos, no swapped vows. Scar tissue, you said, was real.
And our friends, they thought we were strange or kooky or simply in love. They didn’t get us at all.
Do you get us, you’d sometimes ask, do you really?
Yeah, I’d reply, I think I do.
Does it scare you?
Yeah, I think it does. Does it scare you?
Not really, you’d say with a shrug and that distant look.
But I’d see you sway and rock and gaze away into nothing as you absently fingered your scar, and I’d wonder about that.
*
At Dawnfire I sometimes liked to stand back and watch you, try to see you the way others saw you. Sometimes I’d catch a glimpse of how you must appear to others. They were energy, body spasms shooting at every beat. But you were still, compared to them. You were grace. You were elegance in this sweaty maelstrom. While they reacted to the auditory carnage of the surface, you found the melody, and you moved that body to the melody. You found the melody in the most jangled music, and you danced to the swirls. I thought that was some small miracle, the first time I saw it, and it comforted me every time after that.
Sometimes at Dawnfire, you’d look across and see me smiling. Well, that’s what I was smiling at.
*
All the others saw were the light times. They saw the laughter and the dancing and that special thing we had. They didn’t see the dark times, curtains drawn against the light for days at a time. They didn’t see the fear. You wouldn’t let me leave you for days on end, not even for food. We must stay together, you’d implore, and what could I do? I held you nights and days as you trembled. I gave up asking you what it was because you never knew, just knew that it was real. Sleep was an ugly hallucination. Our darkened home would become a silent nightmare of untidiness. We’d wander the rooms in search of some uncluttered space and we’d bed down there in our dank blankets and pillows and our clothes that reeked of us, and we’d wait for your fear and darkness to slowly pass.
No, they didn’t see the dark times. They didn’t see how scared you were and how much it broke my heart. All those times we’d vanish, all they saw was the eventual re-emergence into the light. They thought it was so romantic, how all we needed was each other and our love. They imagined sex and laughter and good times, just you and me.
They’d smile at how cute we were. They’d smile and admire us, maybe they’d envy us. But they didn’t understand at all.
*
One time, coming down through a cocktail of euphoria, coming down for a smooth landing in our home with chilled sounds in the air, coming down to some piece of Earthly perfection, you asked me the very last question I wanted to hear.
If I wanted to leave, you began in a way that ended the peace, would you do it for me?
My thoughts went from silver to shit in moments. I couldn’t process this.
What do you mean, I asked. Would I let you go?
No, if I wanted to leave all this, would you do it for me? I’d want you to do it for me.
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want you to say anything. I wished you hadn’t said anything. And yet, I knew. I knew by then that it’s what you wanted. The late night talks when peaceful minds slept, the trouble inside that found its way to the surface in little ways, the constant flow of it all. The reaction from others, I knew, would be dismissive: get over it, get on with it, get help.
We lay there coming down, silent for so long that I thought you must have fallen asleep. I turned and expected closed eyes, but you were staring at me, waiting for my answer. I turned away and thought of other times, the banks of The Nile, a Highland Village, the streets of Paris.
Don’t get me wrong, you whispered when the music had stopped, I want you to come with me. You want to come with me, don’t you?
Looking away from you, I nodded, resigned to the way of things. It was not such a bad thing. It was inevitable. Things end. An end is a beginning. To end a person’s unhappiness is a good thing.
You must come, you said as you ran fingertips lazily across my skin. The sensation was exquisite.
Of course I’ll come, Ruben Jane, you know that. Followed with a hug, two bodies together, breath merging with breath, two heartbeats colliding. Sleep. Dreams of other times, other places.
*
The time came. No words. Few thoughts. One limb here, another there. Wrists bound. Ankles bound. There would be struggle in spite of everything. I had suggested taking drugs together but that’s not how you wanted to do it. I was to send you first and then I would follow. It just wasn’t right any other way, you said. It was a test of my commitment to you, a test of my love for you.
Your eyes didn’t leave my face as I went about securing you. No expression. What were you thinking? Were you scared? Did you want this to stop? Did you doubt I would go through with it? It’s what you wanted.
I laid down beside you. I caressed your skin, your beautiful skin. I conjured goosebumps, ran my lips over them. I could feel the thud of your heart through skin and bone, could feel the warmth of your blood as it raced through your body. We kissed one last time, so softly, so gently.
You wanted me to look into your eyes, so that’s what I did. I looked into your eyes as you started to struggle. You resisted the struggle at first, but then something took over. Some primal thing possessed us both. It was like it wasn’t me. I became something darker, something greater, something savage. My tears on your skin. Eyes, so wide. And then as it wore on a change, an expression I couldn’t make out. A shake of the head? Stop? Don’t stop? That look. That look in your eyes as you left me – what did it mean?
And you were gone. Just gone. I fell back and a howl came from somewhere deep within. I felt like my entire body would to crack. I wanted it to break.
Then numbness. An acute sense of time. Never before have I been so aware of the utterly blinding speed of time. You were gone, moving further away with each flicker of time. Not coming back. Gone.
Now my turn.
I poured bitter liquid into sweet and drank it. I sank down beside you, unbound your wrists and held you in that gentle way. Still warm. Your hair against my skin. Your scent.
*
I tried to follow you, Ruben Jane. They don’t understand. They don’t understand us at all.
When you have an open house inspection at Midday on Saturday, it's probably a good idea to have the place buffed and polished and in sparkling condition the day before. It's probably a good idea to have a quiet night in. What's probably not the best idea is to go out clubbing on Friday night and invite everyone back to your place for an after party. That would be a ridiculous thing to do.
"It's okay to come back to ours and get messy," I tell everyone, "you just have to promise to do it neatly."
The Dreaded One didn't look so sure about this little plan, and I knew where she was coming from. We want to sell our home so we can travel, first stop Boom festival in Portugal. We have to be responsible about our dance festival travel plans, so you know, really, this after party back at ours was probably not my finest idea. But I liked to think it was all a bit rock 'n roll. The Dreaded One looked at me like she thought it was all a bit bloody stupid. Still, she didn't exactly say no. She just did that eyes-rolling-under-closed-lids-accompanied-by-shake-of-the-head thing she does so often.
I think the neighbours must be very happy with the For Sale sign for our cosy little apartment. I especially thought about this as the music thundered through my Musical Fidelity amp and out of my JM Lab floor speakers as the new day dawned. There was booze and crazy talk and dancing and some mystery guy sprawled on the couch for the duration... it was a lovely after party.
Still, it never quite left my mind that Warren the Real Estate Agent would be here at 11.45am to pick up the keys and show our home to prospective buyers. I looked around with growing concern, wondering how this was all going to pan out. Maybe, I started to think, this wasn't the best thing to do after all. Maybe we should have had the after party at someone else's place. Someone who wasn't having an open house inspection in a few short hours. Holy crap - what have we done? Also, we're almost out of booze!
Someone went for booze so that was one less thing to worry about. But what was the other thing? Oh yeah, the small matter of Warren.
"I'm not going to be here for Warren," The Dreaded One told me at a random point.
"What do you mean you're not going to be here for Warren? We're all going to be here for Warren."
"I'm not. Got a hair appointment. I told you. You're going to have to deal with Warren by yourself."
"But I can't deal with Warren by myself... we're all in this together... even Mystery Couch Guy... does anyone actually know who that guy is?
"Relax, Grumpy, we'll help you with Warren. In fact I really want to meet Warren."
That was good enough for me. The Dreaded One could go get her fluro dreads tended to, and I would take care of Warren all by myself... with my after party flotsam.
At 11.30 the buzzer screeched. The Dreaded One got the hell out of there. I picked up the handset. It was a normal person here to inspect the flat.
"You'll have to wait 15 minutes,"I told them. "Warren isn't here yet."
I hung up and looked at the others. What the hell do we do now? There are normal people banging on the door and Warren's not here and can some body please turn the music down please?
Fortunately, just in the nick of time, the buzzer went off again, and Warren had arrived. Thank fuck for that, I thought, and wondered if I said that out loud down the handset to Warren.
I passed Warren in the stairwell and tossed the keys to him, feeling very fucking rock 'n roll. The Dreaded One? She just thinks I'm very fucking naughty.
Grumpy is Lee Bemrose, a very naughty freelance writer. You can ask him to write normal stuff for you at twobluefish@bigpond.com
Not just for cello lovers, but anyone also interested in what can be done with looping software. Pretty amazing stuff.
I love love love this piece of music. I saw Zoe Keating a couple of years ago in a show at the Sydney Opera House. It was kind of a cabaret/burlesque night MC'd, I think, by Meow Meow and Amanda Palmer. From memory, if Amanda Palmer wasn't very pissed she was doing a damn good job of faking it. Which is fine because she was hilarious and could belt out a tune regardless.
But Zoe Keating stole the show for me. Play this clip through your big speakers and you'll get where I'm coming from. If you ever have the chance of seeing Zoe Keating live, just do it. DO IT.
Our home. We are selling our home and moving to another city. So many happy memories here. Kind of can't believe we're going through with this but we are. Emotional ties to this place, but no doubt we'll start again and find ourselves in another beautiful home, in a city not too far away from our wonderful Sydney friends.
In the meantime, plans are being made for big adventures.
The finished products of a couple of recent posts which became Grumpy columns. I'm including them for my own records really. I should probably just wait and post the scan of the magazine column but I am Instantgratification Man.
Okay, so this is a tweaked version of the previous post. I had totally forgotten that my Grumpy column was due today until the editor emailed a reminder at lunchtime. The problem is I am so often in such a down mood early in the week that it can be really difficult to even imagine being able to write something silly... and this week so far has been a bit of a shocker. Still, like the sub-header on this blog says, there is funny shit everywhere, sometimes you just have to squint a little to see it. Squinty days, right now, but the silly is still about.
Short piece on a play I'm seeing this Saturday night. Feels like old times, being at the Opera House three times in a week. Used to be down there so often chefing and reviewing that I called it the Opera Home... can't say I miss those days. Kinda happy they happened, but happy they're over too. It's because I'm not chefing there anymore that I can see so much theatre again.
Anyway, this looks like a lot of fun. Looking forward to it.
Akram Khan is one of those performers you keep hearing about until you give in a go to see what all the fuss is about. The cavernous Opera Theatre appeared to be almost full on the second night of this two night season. A woman sitting next to me was telling her friends about the show with a great deal of enthusiasm; she had attended the previous night as well.
The stage was bare for this performance with Akram taking centre stage and being flanked by his musicians, all tastefully dressed and sitting bare-foot on the floor. The instruments included a cello, tabla drums, taiko drums and a sarod (which sounded like a sitar). There were vocals throughout and the sound of Akram's pants, lined as they were with rows of tiny bells that jangled rhythmically as his feet tapped and stomped.
The music was exotic and as polished as you'd expect from the best hand-picked musos from around the world. Unfortunately if you were seated even a little off to one side at least one if not two players were obscured from view. I could not see Yoshie Sunahata on the taiko drums at all, which was frustrating, especially as the dancer had really talked her drumming skills up.
The first part of the performance involved traditional dance, a bit of a slightly competitive jam session between the dancer and the tabla player, and while there was no denying Akram's skill and grace, without any clear narrative I did have moments of feeling as though it was occasionally a little repetitive. Occasionally, too, the moves veered into comical aspects of interpretive dance. Having the undisciplined mind that I do, started to amuse myself by guessing what it was that he was doing... is he introducing the moon to the Earth? This is the moon, this is the Earth, you two should get to know each other. Now he's picking fruit and giving it to the people, but he's taking the fruit back from the people and running away with the people chasing him and shouting you can't give us the fruit and then take it away again! It's just not fair! Come back here with our fruit!
He also took time out to simply chat with the audience. He is very well-spoken, appears quite humble and has a good sense of humour, even if the quite sweet story about the cab driver and his father (by coincidence a long-lost boyhood friend of the cab driver) didn't ring true somehow. Both plus 1 and I speculated on how this story could have been true; neither of us came up with a satisfying explanation.
The second act was Akram's take on the story of the wife of a blind king who wears a blindfold for her entire life to share her husband's experience. This section had a much more contemporary feel to it, And I finally got to see the Japanese taiko player as she joined the main star in what was quite a stunning dance routine. The opening scene as the two of them mirrored each others sweeping movements as they mimed beating giant taiko drums was hypnotically gorgeous. This last act was the highlight for me and went down a treat with the crowd, many of whom thought the show worthy of a standing ovation during the lengthy and rapturous round of applause at the end.
Having seen Akram Khan for the first time, I kind of regret having missed him when he was here last time performing with French actress Juliette Binoche. I'll have to settle for looking forward to his next visit.
Oh - I really wanted to use the line, so you think Akram Khan dance somewhere in the review, but that would have been silly.
Story in the current issue of Drum. They have changed Interval to Front Row. I don't mind the name change and I like that they are covering more arts, but I really liked the old font. The new look is all blocky and bold.
I'm in the cafe I work in. A regular customer leaves and waves goodbye to me. I wave back at her. Unfortunately it's a bit of a purposely gay wave. Unfortunate because a new customer standing between us thinks I am waving a greeting at her. She waves back at me. This really isn't how I greet customers. She thinks otherwise because at the completion of her meal, as she leaves, she waves at me. It's quite possible she thinks I am simple in the head. Reluctantly, I smile and wave goodbye to her. The others I work with think this is a cack and now they wave enthusiastically at me at the start and end of each day.
At an outdoor tapas bar. Perfect day. Good food and good wine. The Dreaded One (because of her fluro dreadlocks) and I are discussing moving to another city because we are bored with this one. It sounds simple enough, but the more we think about it, the more there is involved. Stuff. There is so much stuff. Stuff to get rid of, stuff to keep in storage, stuff we just don't know what to do with. Stuff to think about. Future stuff. Past stuff. The more we discuss the more stuff unfolds before our eyes. Fractals within fractals of stuff.
Mostly, we are in agreement about the stuff to keep and the stuff to get rid of. Until we get to our dining table. It's a big old wooden thing full of character and with a long history. Tears have been shed at this table. Arguments won and lost. Meals have been shared, wine has been drunk, laughter has spilled. Fierce tournaments of chess and Connect Four have been fought at this table. It is a nice table that The Dreaded One wants to keep and I want to get rid of.
“But I love that table,” she says.
“I like it too,” I reply. “But I think we should get rid of it and get something new.”
“But why?”
“It's always bothered me a bit. Haven't you ever noticed that it's a bit too tall for the chairs? Everyone says the same thing. It's just that little bit too tall... makes everyone feel like they're a kid sitting at the grown up's table.”
She concedes that this is true. And because she has given a little, I give a little too.
“If you like it that much, I suppose we could keep it. We just need to shorten it a bit. Just take a bit off the legs to drop it to the right height.”
“We'd have to get someone who knows what they're doing though.”
I'm a bit hurt by this. “How hard could it be? It's just sawing a few centimetres off each leg. I can do that.”
She smiles. “Imagine if you got it wrong. Imagine if one leg was a bit shorter than the rest.”
“I wouldn't do that. I'd just measure all -”
She giggles. “And then you have to saw off the other legs a bit more. And then you get it wrong again and one leg is stilll shorter than the others...” She is laughing now. She's really getting into this. “And then you keep trying to fix it by cutting the legs shorter and shorter and suddenly our dining table is a coffee table...”
Apparently this is the funniest thing ever, because she is rolling about laughing and making little tiny gestures with her thumb and forefinger. Apparently the idea of me doing a little manual handiwork is comedy gold.
Mind you, the night before I had decided to re-arrange the sound system. She was on her way out when I was moving the decks and the amp. I had joked about wiring stuff up the wrong way. By the time she came back, neither of the speakers were working and the amp smelled of burning.
Maybe we'll just keep our bit-too-big table after all.
Highlight of the weekend? Toss up between The Dreaded One and me playing our second Stompy & Grumpy set in front of a clubful of bouncy humans, and finding myself in a bath-warm inflatable kiddies wading pool with three gorgeous women, one of whom is a federal police officer who insists on getting her boobs out to show us her inverted nipples.
In the supermarket yesterday, The Dreaded One and I are doing the self-scan thing at the new self-scan check outs. We scan all of the stuff with the barcodes, then I come up with a brilliant idea.
"Wonder what would happen if I just kept trying to scan the potato."
"Don't," said The Dreaded One.
"No but it could be really funny."
"Just don't."
"If I just keep swiping it over the scanner like this..."
"Stop it."
"... and start looking frustrated with the potato, like this..."
"Really." (She was smirking by now).
"And then if I shrug and look around for one of the helpers..."
"Don't make them come over here."
"... and I look at him like, 'what the fuck is wrong with the potato? Stupid potato won't scan over the swiper thing like it's supposed to. Please come over and assist me with my broken potato please.'"
"Lee!"
"He's coming over."
Shakes her head.
The assistant sounds very much like Apu the Kwik-E-Mart owner in The Simpsons as he explains, "No sir, I am sorry but there is no barcode in the potato. With the potato you simply put it on the weighing device and type in potato. Then the device will calculate how much is worth the potato."
We suspect that he eventually suspects that a bit of piss-taking has been going on because both of us are feigning sincerity through suppressed smirks.
It's pretty clear I will never be a sucessful fiction writer so I'm going to post the rest of what I think are okay short stories here. Randomly. I think they are ok stories. Oh yeah, no one has ever understood this one. It's about a guy overdosing. You know when you are on the inside of the thing? That's what it's about. Inside the thing knowing there is an outside, but staying inside.
Blue Angeline
For the longest time, she waits for him to come back. She holds back the tears and waits.
*
Ben wanders slowly through the once fecund yard of his childhood. Once it was a lush and overgrown place. Back then the paths wound between huge aviaries brimming with exotic life. Back then you had to duck beneath low hanging branches heavy with fruit while on the edge of your vision you caught glimpses of scarlet, turquoise and emerald of wing or tail feather. Back then your ears were filled with the cacophony of myriad bird call, while now there is silence. The aviaries, once filled with miniature jungles, now seem filled with skeletons, everywhere dead and dying vegetation. Ben stops to peer into one of the aviaries. He waits for a sign of life, but there is nothing, not the faintest flicker of life. He has not been back since his late childhood, and the lack of life seems harsh and cruel and somehow just not possible.
He wanders to the bottom of the yard, past the pigeon coops that once murmured and cooed and whistled with the flutter of descending wings. He expects to see his father there, on his knees cleaning the floor of his beloved racers. He can still hear the sharp scrape of the edge of the trowel across the concrete floor, the tinny talk-back of the small transistor that was a constant companion, the muttered expletive as skin was scraped from knuckle. Briefly, he wonders how it all went wrong.
Beyond the back fence, once a tangle of native bush and the adventure of a waterfall, there are townhouses. They still look new, and Ben can imagine the young families that live there, their lives filled with the false promise of reality TV. Ben guesses that this is the future of his childhood home, subdivision and invasion. Mentally he shrugs at this; what has passed has passed. And at least there will be life. This is death.
Ben finds a tap hidden by overgrown grass. It squeaks as he turns it, but the water comes through, a working relic from his past. He waits for the warm water to turn cool before cupping his hands under the flow and drinking. He turns the tap off and listens to the water drip into the rusty basin on the ground, the plips like tiny aural jewels. Staring into the shimmering puddle below, he almost remembers something. He tries to remember when it was good, tries to recall the past as he watches the glistening drops fatten at the end of the tap until set free by their own weight.
Turning the tap off a little harder, Ben straightens and heads back towards the house. It was good of the new owners to let him visit. He did not want to go inside the house; that would have been too much. It was the rambling backyard he’d wanted to see. This had been his childhood, and he had felt the need to come back and say goodbye. It was a sentimental gesture, quite out of character for him. But the pull was strong once he had heard the news. He had waited until matters had been settled and he waited longer, wondering from time to time what was happening to the belongings inside, wanting occasionally to come sooner to claim some memento. But all of that was in the hands of others, and he knew there would be no mementos. Memory and the odd sepia photograph that had somehow made its way to him, these were all that were left.
Walking back up the long, curved footpath to the rear of the house, Ben notices that the area surrounding the old fishpond is more alive than the rest of the yard. It appears almost unchanged, a small jungle oasis of Fishbone Fern and Bromeliad, of Elephant Ear, Staghorn and Maidenhair. There had always been something magical about the pond. He was frequently in trouble for spending too much time there, gazing down into water when he should have been doing homework. He can’t think what he did there. What had held him there all that time?
Ben thinks about saying goodbye to the new owners, thinks about asking what they have planned for the property, but the heavy tools leaning against the side of the raised stone wall of the pond – sledgehammer, crowbar, pick and shovel - tell him the answer. Some areas in the yard below have already been cleared. Besides, if he knocks on the back door he will see inside of the house, and he does not want to do that. He turns to leave via the side entrance.
But something stops him. He turns sharply as though someone has called his name. He knows it is some trick of the mind. It has been doing it a lot lately. It’s nothing, he thinks, but finds himself looking at the pond. He feels it is only fair that if he has said goodbye to the rest of the yard, which is already dead, it is fitting that he say goodbye to the one remaining living part.
He walks across and stands in front of the pond. The stone wall is knee height at the front, rough sandstone fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle with miniature pathways of concrete weaving their way over the surface. He remembers being surprised when he was young to find that at the back of the pond, where the ground fell away, was much higher. It is oval in shape, and the walls are concave so that it appears to be a dome, or a giant egg, mostly submerged and with the top sliced off.
Ben kneels down. He brushes a hand through the delicate Maidenhair. He runs his hand over the moist stone at the rim of the pond, crushes lichen and smells his palm. This is life, he thinks, this is life. And then the water itself. He looks into the water as the fish wriggle to the surface, pause, then turn and hurry away. He looks at the surface, the blue glassy surface and wonders again what happened here. How many hours of his life had been taken up doing this? Looking in wonder, wondering. Lost. And then his name called from some other place.
Ben’s hand slides over the edge of the rim and into the water. It’s as cool as it ever was. He rolls his sleeve up and sinks his arm in deeper. He runs his hand over the slimy inside wall and closes his eyes. He’s done this before. This is what he did. So long ago. A lifetime ago.
He remembers something. He found something. He hid something. There was a place. Was it still there? Here in the pond, there was a crevice and it held something precious, something his mother had thrown away during one of their fights. Ben feels around in the dark water, feels the shape of the wall inside fall away. He leans over, reaches deeper. He remembers it so clearly now, wonders how he forgot. A ring. There was a ring. He finds the cavity. So familiar. In reaching deeper he has turned his head to the side, but he looks back again, looks into the water, and reaches deeper.
There is a pull, a force he cannot fight. Ben slips over the wall and into the water, the ring gone, pond not deep, and yet he slides down over the slippery inside wall. He is completely submerged, torpedoing down the interior curve of the egg, and it is not possible that he can keep going. Surely the wall will level out so that he can push off from the bottom. Further down. Further until there is a leveling... and then nothing.
Panic then as Ben free-falls through dark water. He spins and twists and glares out into the inky water. The cool flesh of fish brush blindly by as he sinks and spins and can’t determine which way is up and which is down. He kicks out, scissors his legs and finally sees the white light of the surface. He is upside down. He twists again, and in the opposite direction is the blue light of the surface. Blue light, white light. Two surfaces? He needs to move quickly before he runs out of breath. Blue light. White light. The blue must be the sky, so he kicks out and pulls his arms through the water in that direction, only to realise that he is in fact swimming down, not up. He turns. The white light looks so far away. He feels something pull at him. He gives in to it then, and feels peace as he heads down towards the blue light.
Ben breaks the surface and retches into the air. He chokes and breathes heavily, gulping at the cool air. He kicks to stay afloat and wipes the water from his eyes, and looks around. He is in a cavern, a grotto filled with a deep blue light that seems to emanate from the walls. It is the most beautiful place he has ever seen. And he has been here before.
Ben swims to the side and pulls himself up onto a ledge. He lays back for a few minutes and waits for the dizziness to subside. When he sits up again, he sees that the water has settled back to a glassy stillness, such a deep blue it is almost black. He knows he should be trying to figure out what just happened, how to get back, but he is content for now. It’s the magic of this place. It soothes him. He wants to stay for a while. He removes his clothes and drapes them over a rock. He doesn’t think they will dry, but they are uncomfortable anyway. Naked in this strange place, he just feels right.
There is movement then. A slight movement on the ledge across from him. Ben squints through the light and makes out a shape. Just a few meters away from him, there is a person. They are sitting with their legs pulled under their chin, arms wrapped around their knees. They have lifted their head slightly to look at him. They are still again, and although Ben cannot see clearly, he knows she is looking at him.
“Ben,” she says quietly. “You’ve come back. After all this time.”
Ben remembers, and the memory crushes him. Something inside him dies. He was meant to come back so long ago but he didn’t come back. He promised and broke his promise.
“I’m sorry,” Ben tells her, knowing how weak it sounds. “I meant to... I’m so sorry...”
“Don’t be sorry,” she tells him. Her tone is one of kindness, a kindness that makes the sorrow even harsher. “You’ve come back. No need to be sorry.” Ben knows she is smiling at him. She is happy to see him, happy that he has come back.
Angeline shimmers and glistens and Ben realises there are tears running down his cheeks. A lifetime of memories fall away into insignificance. She was the most important thing, and he had forgotten. He lost his way and simply forgot. How could he have forgotten such a thing? How could he have forgotten such a promise? How could his life out there have taken over?
Angeline slides into the water. She barely disturbs the surface as she glides through the water and suddenly she is next to him. They sit side by side. Her skin is iridescent blue, just as he remembers it, and her face a creation of the strangest beauty, small features pinched and pressed in clay. He thought he knew love, out there, but that was nothing. She waited all this time; that is love.
“It’s good to see you, Ben,” Angeline tells him. She really looks at him, looks closely, looks at the changes. She has not changed at all. He wants to look away. He is self-conscious, ashamed of the changes and what they represent, but he continues to look back at her and is almost overwhelmed by his love for her.
“I can’t believe you waited,” he tells her quietly, and she smiles at this; she kept her promise.
Angeline puts one arm around his shoulders and slowly they lay back. They wrap each other in their arms and one of her legs finds its place between his and it’s all so familiar now. So comfortable, so right. Ben closes his eyes and feels that sensation again, like he is being drawn down deeper and deeper. He opens his eyes and looks at her. Such beauty, he thinks, how could he have forgotten? He wonders if she will want to know what happened, what it has been like out there, but the weight of her limbs, her flinching fingers, her heavy and regular breath tell him that she is sleeping. He smiles to and he sees her smile in her sleep.
Ben opens his eyes. He wonders how long he has been asleep. Angeline is still lying against him. From time to time she twitches, and he wonders what she dreams about. He wonders what she thinks of him, and what she thinks of his broken promise.
And then a thought sears into his mind. It shocks him with its cruel clarity. He screws his eyes shut but it is still there. He opens his eyes again, and this faintest of movements wakes her. She moves her head back, her cheek still heavy against his chest, and looks at him with that familiar inquisitiveness.
“Are you going back?” she asks. There is nothing in her tone. It’s a simple question, nothing more. No persuasion, no disappointment, no resignation, no hope, nothing. It’s as if she heard his thought. Except for the tilt of her head, she has not moved.
Ben thinks about his life out there, and strangely, the memory of it is not quite there. It’s like trying to recall a song you once knew, a name you can hear the sound of without quite recalling it. What is he forgetting? Is it her? Is she somehow making him forget? Is she letting him make the choice while taking it away from him? Does it matter? After all, he owes her. He made her wait so long.
And then through the falling sensation that has not quite gone away, Ben starts to wonder how long it has been since he was here. There is something strange about the easy familiarity. Can something from so long ago really return so easily?
“How long has it been?” he asks her. “Since I was here I mean.”
She moves her head back and her fingers move up and around his neck. “I don’t know,” she tells him, her voice sounding distant. “What is time to me? I waited. I will wait, if you go.”
She is caressing the curls at the back of his neck. This, too, seems familiar. Ben doesn’t know what is happening to his memory. He feels there is someone waiting for him out there, but there is just a shadow where there should be a face. He thinks there is more than one, but who are they? Who is he? And then this other thought: has it really been so long?
“Angeline,” Ben says, feeling like it’s been a lifetime since he said the name, even though it has always been there. “It hasn’t been so long, has it? I’ve been back. I have, haven’t I. I keep coming back.” He closes his eyes hard and the memories come back. Sometimes he has been here with her, sometimes he has walked by the pond in his dead past and merely caught a glimpse of her. But he has been back. He has kept his promise, in a sense. He knows, now, that he has been back
“Yes,” she says. “You’ve been back. But you have always left. Don’t you remember?”
“Yes,” he tells her quietly. “Yes, I think I remember.”
There is a single, distant beat, a dull thud like the single beat of a giant’s heart. Her fingers tighten around his neck, and he feels the metal of his mother’s lost ring against his skin. Something has shaken the serenity. They lay together in the blue light of the grotto and wait, knowing that there will be another beat.
Ben has the faintest memory from out there. This man-made pond, those tools lying against the side, the stillness surrounding the pond like the stillness of a cemetery on a hot summer day. He sees it as a ghostly, two-tone flash. Death all around… but, it suddenly occurs to him, not death. Just a kind of eternity where everything is part of everything else. It’s not so bad, he thinks, you just have to stop resisting it, this flow, this flux. The falling is not falling, but simply the unstoppable force of life and death, and it’s all the same, and our emotions and desires, our fear and our love and our hate and all the things we think we’ll miss are all there. That’s the truth of it, Ben realises. It’s all there, even if we can’t recall what it is. Ben smiles to himself, reassured that there is nothing to fear and that nothing will be missed, and he gently strokes the back of Angeline’s head.
Another distant beat. And another. Slow. Ben hears his name. So distant, such a familiar voice. The question is not asked, but it is there.
Not this time, Ben thinks, I’m not going back this time, because I understand now. He feels the weight of it again. He feels himself sinking deeper and deeper.
*
And on the outside her tears finally fall as she realises that this time, he is not coming back.
Just came across this clip on youtube, the first of many this person took of Soulclipse in 2006. It captures the experience beautifully. The rain, the mud, that ridiculous storm that swept through the place and destroyed mainstage, sitting on the bank of that green river, the smiles and dancing... even that bloody awful Effes beer I hated so much, I loved every minute of it. Ann and I were in that crowd watching the birdpeople dancing to Simon Posford's gorgeous music. I've just properly wandered down memory lane with tears in my eyes and a smile on my face. Amazing to think we made it to that festival. Wonder if we'll make it to Easter Island for the next eclipse party.
Latest Acid Tongue in the current issue of 3D. Ya know, I miss the days when the designers played with the Acid Tongue logos. All this straight typeface... it's just not rock 'n roll, isit.
THE TITLE OF BENITO DI FONZO'S LATEST PLAY IS QUITE A MOUTHFUL: THE CHRONIC ILLS OF BOB ZIMMERMAN: AKA BOB DYLAN (A LIE) – A THEATRICAL TALKING BLUES AND GLISSENDORF. IT'S A TITLE THAT'S AS ENIGMATIC AS THE SUBJECT OF THE PLAY. LEE BEMROSE CAUGHT UP WITH WITH THE WORDSMITH BEHIND THE PLAY.
A shorter version of the play had a brief but successful run in Sydney before it was extended to its current one hour and taken to The Adelaide Fringe Festival. Adelaide audiences have been loving it with reviews from critics and punters alike being pretty damned enthusiastic. The thumbs have been unanimously up. Well almost unanimously.
“We've only had one negative review,” Di Fonzo says casually, possibly enjoying this one negative one as much as the postive ones. “We've had no paying customers ever think it was anything short of brilliant, but we had this industry showcase and we invited some producer from America and he was confused and possibly offended by the fact that we had Abraham Lincoln speaking Yiddish like Lenny Bruce. I think he thought we were disrespecting... I'm not sure who he thought we were disrespecting. But Bob Dylan's father was Abraham Zimmerman who did speak Yiddish as his first language, so it all makes perfect sense.”
Yes, perfect sense.
The play came about after Di Fonzo read Dylan's Chronicles 1, the first in a planned three part autobiography. He was fascinated by what was going on in those pages and immediately re-read it. When asked to contribute a short play to the Short & Sweet festival, he really wanted to do something Dylanesque, fascinated as he was by the self-mythologisation contained in Chronicles as well as the style it was written in – described by Di Fonzo as more Kerouac than Kerouac.
But Chronic Ills is no straight bio. Indeed, as the title would suggest, it's a little difficult to get your head around just what the play is. First and foremost, Chronic Ills is by all accounts (excluding that of the confused American producer) very funny. It has emerged from reality but is very fictional, following, as it does, the journey of our hero as he encounters some of those figures who have been most influential to him: Woody Guthrie, Joan Baez, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Jesus Christ and more. The characterisations have been lauded as hilarious (Lennon dopleganger John Waters of Glass Onion fame even had a hand in nurturing the John Lennon character into believability)... and yet it's not quite a pisstake either. Not completely. Dylan and Co are treated fondly... somewhat.
Naturally, dealing with one of the most influential musicians of modern times, there has to be music. There is a double bass, a ukelele and a theremin (naturally) as well as around a dozen or so songs or fragments of songs. But settle all you Dylan haters – due to issues with rights there is no sign of Blowin' In The Wind or Tangled Up In Blue. Rather there are numbers that Dylan performed and recorded, but none that he wrote.
But Chronic Ills is not a musical either. Well it is. Sort of.
“If you look at one of the subtitles,” Di Fonzo explains, “you'll see it's 'a theatrical talking blues'. Talking blues pieces are basically stories spoken while someone plays blues under it, so it's almost like one long piece of music. It's a classic folk tradition, so it's like a one hour song, in a way.”
You've probably made it this far thinking uh-huh, okay, but what the hell's a Glissendorf? I would say Google it but this will only add to the confusion... in fact no, Google it. Have fun with that.
There are enough Dylan references in the script to keep the Bobcats busy Bobspotting, as well as enough broader humour to keep the rest of us laughing. One can only wonder what the man himself would make of it.
WHAT: The Chronic Ills Of Bob Zimmerman: AKA Bob Dylan (A Lie) – A Theatrical Talking Blues and Glissendorf
WHERE & WHEN: Old Fitzroy, Woolloomooloo from April 7
Random writings, stories, magazine theatre reviews and interviews, fiction, and occasionally my bi-weekly column Grumpy, which used to appear in the pages of Tsunami mag. Oh and be sure to check out my ebook, 17 Stories Of Love & Crime.
