Camino Chicago

Folks,

Here's a bit I wrote on the Camino De Santiago picked up by the Chicago Sun-Times.

Life is smooth and swell in the land of 10,000 Lakes


Dool
Minneapolis, MN

Have Beard; Will Travel

Alright guys, it's been a juicy pleasure pumping out the odd harangue and onslaught on this sucker for the past couple of months.

Alas, the transformation underlying the recent eclipse season has completely overhauled daily life over here in Woodside. People are moving, shifting and altering their patterns left right and centre. And, in line with the trend, we're packing up for a couple of months and getting the heck outta here.

Destination: the secluded woods of Minnesota.

Whereas people who go to 'Montana' to live in a cabin turn out to be the Unabomber and whatnot, cabin fever in Minnesota is generally a far less criminal escapade.

New York has been a phenomenal time; wild, electric and transforming, sometimes a little too much. Having 14 planes scream over our apartment roof en route to LaGuardia between the hour of 10 and 11 in the PM gets a little overbearing after a while.

The plan is to get away from the big city madness and counter it with a rendezvous with the natural world in a cabin on a secluded lake.

Stargazing, soul nourishing, writing, painting, creating, guitaring, blaring sax through the woods, zenning out, fishing and - judging from Sarah's father's proclivity towards firearms - a decent few rounds of shooting.

It's a recipe for a good life.

So consider this a little breather from regular proceedings as i get all Bon Iver and lock myself away for a while.

The beard is rife and ready for the challenge.

And Remember: Life's too short to not be making love, making art or making a difference. Free your Henri Lee...

I'll be back when i'm back.

Mullets in Cricket

Nuggets of Australiana continue to be a welcome diversion to shake oneself from the oft over-politically-correct and irony-bankrupt American consciousness. I have my good pal the Rev to thank for this one. Knowing all too well my penchant for long, luscious neck blankets and 80s ear party moolays, this contribution focusses on the illustrious and much romanticised history of the mullet in cricket circles.

Mullets are reasonably rife here in Queens, a hotbed of hispanic ape drapes. The rest of New York, not so much.

Claymation Manboob

Ten years ago i wrote a tune called 'Captain Manboob', expounding the goodwill adventures of a superhero whose weapon of choice was a mammoth set of breasts, housed in pink spandex, adorned with yellow cape and menacing standard issue hockey mask.

The Manboob anthem was 99% Fat's early showstopper, the culmination of our early 35 minute sets at Skabar, regularly accompanied with by the visual spectacle of our mate Jim circumscribed in hot pink lycra, showering the first few rows in beer . (Thanks again to the lovely Nae for the laborious sewing and ongoing mending of that fine, one of a kind costume).

As these bones and britches get older, relics from the past seem to pop up with fury from out of nowhere to thrust me back into a world of nostalgic reflection.

I was thrilled to find recently that our old buddy Al, of Al and Bushy fame (iconic Melbourne ska fans circa 1999 - 2004) has stuck up a project from his animation course years ago on YouTube.

The claymation visual accompaniment to the Captain Manboob tale.

For posterity, and nostalgia...enjoy...

World of Pure Imagination

"A little nonsense now and then is cherished by the wisest men"

Sarah brought home 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' from Staples the other day and we spent a sultry humid Friday night in bed drinking red wine, eating Italian chocolate, reliving childhood memories as a storm barrelled wildly over our Queens roof.

Willy Wonka made my world go round when i was a boy. I would sit engulfed in my Nana Barb's floppy brown bean deficient bean bag in her suburban 1970's lounge room, entranced by her faux-wood Tecnhicolor TV on wheels, rabbit ears protruding from the top, indulging in a session of Wonka for the utmosth time via a 'cutting edge' VCR. It had a remote control that only worked when its cord was 'plugged in'. Infrared, evidently, was still a way off.

I was five years old on those lazy afternoons of carefreedom, falling away into my own little world, pretending that i too had discovered a golden ticket and was travelling through the mysteriously wonderful world of Wonka.

Miniscule detail remained firmly entrenched in my long term memory, triggered again my the repeat viewing. The quips and catchlines, the colour of the sweets, the empathic sensation of licking fruit flavoured walls, crunching my own teeth into an edible dandelion cup and saucer. The songs and lyrics, the Candyman, the freaky knife merchant at the gates of the factory, the cockney science teacher who berates Charlie for eating just two wonka bars.

It was a revelation to discover that the film was set in Munich - not cockney London as i'd thought, despite the majority of American accents dominating the cast.

It was all there, all the memories, flooding back like a chocolate river through the pure imagination of my still youthful mind.

We sailed off into slumber, wined up, singing the songs of Wonka, dreaming dreams about shooting across skies in glass elevators.

So thanks to the man in purple, and his little men in orange and green.

This imagination is once again truly free.

Woodside

Sean Ogs. Literally next door to our apartment block. Goes off on a Friday night. As i write this, Irish boozers are unleashing a rough rendition of 'Here i go Again' by Whitesnake and it filters with fury through our front flywire window. The craic is mighty.

Entourage Woodside

With a great sense of thrill I discovered the entire season Five of Entourage on the net and spent the better part of a lazy Sunday afternoon indulging in the entire 12 episodes back to back. Few television shows have the same powerfully addictive qualities as Entourage: the episodes are short and sweet, the urge to receive more and more vicarious hits of the Hollywood existence becomes too much to resist and suddenly you're left with the very real sensation that you're in on the deal, frequenting site shoots and scanty blonde Malibu beach parties, livin the dream, pimpin' fo shimpin'.

Entourage was an institution in our Fitzroy house at the time right before Pete and i dropped our Melbourne lives and hightailed to South East Asia. We'd taken to drinking a lot of 'Chang' beer in preparation, a Thai import that we later found was akin to Bangkok VB, and the arbiter of a particularly potent and frequently regrettable variety of hangover, known around Thai tourist hotspots as 'Changover'. Pete and i would down sixers of Chang on the cack green felt Slam Palace couch, getting lost in the indulgent, penis-friendly world of Vinny Chase, Johnny Drama, Turtle and E, rarely feeling any desire to to return make the depressing trek back to the alleged real world.

When my first stint of graveyard shifts began at the hostel around that time, i found myself crawling out of bed around 6pm, tucking into 4 episodes of Entourage over either dinner or breakfast (sometimes both, due to the dualistic, confused nature of my smashed nocturnal body clock), sit at a check in desk for eight hours, prevent English and Irish goon swillers from destroy the joint between 11 and 7, indulge in four more episodes of Entourage exhausted and wired...sleep, rise, rinse, repeat.

Aside from the promise of impending international liasons and adventure, Entourage was the lifeforce that kept me going through this weird period. Soon enough, Pete and i were free men, hellbound for a whirlwind stint through one of the craziest sectors of earth, then onward to London and the US respectively.

"Make it big, you bastard", Pete would frequently demand. "Make it big, so i can ride your coat tails and pimp it so we can LIVE LIKE ENTOURAGE".

The dream has yet to be realised.

It wasn't just a nostalgic reminder of good times past nourishing myself with season Five this recent weekend - I actually discovered I was closer to the wonderful, alluring world of Vinny Chase than i thought. You see, Episode 12: "Return to Queens Boulevard" was filmed not only in the haunts and streets of this Woodside neighbourhood, but Vinny Chase's mum lives in a red roofed weatherboard box house thirty seconds from my door on 41st Drive, there are shots of the gang traversing the 61st station steps where i tread every day, a shot where they cross the cafe window in which i am typing this, and down Roosevelt Av to my right under the LIRR ovepass sits the Station Cafe Pub, the site of 'Johnny Drama's' neon-signed dive bar.

With knowledge that the brothers Chase, et al hail from these very same Woodside streets, the undesirable divide between my vicarious fantasy world and sense of reality just got shaved down to within a pimp's inch.

I may not yet have made it big in order to support the delusional world of my Chang-swilling travel-pal/uncle, but you gotta start somewhere...

As sun spills over the Roosevelt and Woodside X intersection, the streets of box weatherboards soak, tree lined and bustling, and the 7 line roars and slices into Grand Central on the steel corridor across the heart of the hood, i sip my coffee proud, take it all in and in my mind declare:

I am Queens Boulevard...

Bacchus Beats Pigasus

Dear Folks,

We're back in business. Sorry for the lack.

Though the Pugwall expose was a tough one to follow up, it wasn't the sole reason for my week-long absence.

Last Sunday I copped a hit of Swine Flu. Not officially, but this is what i'm telling people, and it makes a better story this way.

Thankfully, like Rupert Grint from Harry Potter, I was able to nip it in the bud with a weeks worth of sleeping, dozing and indulging in bad American television.

Still feeling the influence of the swine as late as yesterday, instead of staying home sniffling and feeling sorry for myself i honoured my inner Bacchus, frequented the Cuckoo's Nest for eight hours and drowned the swine out with Jameson.

It seems to have done the trick.

Meanwhile, the swine continues to linger in multiple pockets of the world. Thankfully, the real flu, ie - the fear, has slowly dissipated; i dare say we're all better off, though, perhaps not as well off as Baxter and Glaxo who sensibly shipped out all that Tamiflu well before the public stopped soiling their dacks in panic.

As 'regular run of the mill non-pig' flu continues to knock off between 250,000 and 500,000 people a year worldwide, at last some sanity and truth has chimed in to balance out the rampant hysteria of prior months.

Here is a little dig i wrote on the Swine back in its early stages.

Expect more diatribes and nuggety minutiae this week and beyond, courtesy of a de-swined writer armed with enthusiastic vigor for life post a forced week on his white ass.

Swine Flu 0. Dool 1.

Pugwall

There was a day when the sun shone brightly over Ringwood, billy-carts were fashioned and careered down steep suburban hills and Hey Hey It’s Saturday was years away from getting the ass from its revered 6.30pm Saturday Night timeslot.

Before ‘Round the Twist’, ‘Ship to Shore’, and ‘Saturday Disney’, ‘Pugwall’ and ‘Pugwall’s Summer’ were the best things an seven year old could tuck into on a given afternoon. It was also the closest thing Australia ever came to the moronic yet strangely addictive ‘Saved By The Bell’. (If you were wondering what ever happened to Screech, check this out.)

Lead singer-guitarist of fledgling suburban powerhouse ‘The Orange Organics’, Peter Unwin George Wall, aka 'Pugwall' was a regular suburban dude like you or me - a dude with a dream. Beset by painful sister Marmaloid, douchebag old man Hero Head (played to a tee by Ken James) as well as obligatory villains Con and Wazza, Pugwall overcame the odds of suburban hardship to realise his rock and roll dream.

Not the most attractive fella, nor a very good singer, Pugwall’s virtue lay in the fact that he seemed a pretty decent bloke, wailed reasonably on his cheap red Washburn copy, and got chicks, namely Jenny, the Organics permed lead singer, tambourine beater and sole sex appeal.

I don’t remember a great deal about Pugwall. I remember thinking it was awesome, and that being in a band would be sweet. Perhaps this early indoctrination was the eventual catalyst for my own musical exploits.

Notable memories include the brutal opening tune, sounding uncannily like the demo song on my 16 key Casio keyboard, as well as the cameo of a confused looking Molly Meldrum singing the Organics praises at some awards night at the closing stage of the series.

The Organics were a hell of an outfit. With huge bottom end courtesy of Stringbean and Orfo on bass and tubs and Bazza on flashy Roland Key-tar, Jenny and Pugwall were well backed up in their quest to make it big.

In real life, the dream was not so easy for Pugwall actor Jason Torrens, striving for similar success as drummer for Melbourne-based hard rockers Bugdust. The Orange Organics were always going to be a tough act to follow.

Ultimately, Pugwall had a dream and he made it. He had a chance. He took it.

It was an inspiration to us all. These were good days.

Coffee Fail

As an astute individual once affirmed, ‘in America you can buy bucket-sized cups of coffee in any flavour you like other than coffee-flavour’.

I recall a story from a bloke with whom I used to kill the lonely hours of my many hostel graveyard shifts. He was a seasoned world traveller and had found himself stuck with a North American female, who after dragging him kicking and screaming to a generic Starbuck-esque coffee sweatshop, ordered herself a ‘lite Hazelnut Mocha-Frappa-chino with cream, three pumps of chocolate and the order to brew this abomination to precisely 160 degrees’.

At any respectable café back in Melbourne, it is part of a self respecting barrista’s job to punch people who think this is acceptable. Contempt on principle aside, when you start depth charging thickened cream and shots of chocolate into your morning cup you can pretty much forget about your drink being ‘lite’. Semantics won’t shed your muffin top.

This tirade of choice encouraged by sweat-shop caffeine peddlers renders the transaction less about enjoying good coffee, and everything about how sugary and sweet you can bastardise an otherwise fine, reasonably healthy beverage.

As the reign of Starbucks and equivalents have come to soil the earth, the more I empathise with Frasier and Niles Crane’s dad Marty. I, too, hate what 'they’ve' done to coffee.

I had anticipated that New York might be different, that there might be hope for America in the heart of its most bustling, most diverse city, that lady liberty might burn her torch not just for the disenfranchised and impoverished, but for desperate lovers of a good cup. I had envisioned that contrary to the hopeless predicament rife throughout the rest of the country (barring certain precincts of the West Coast), fine, blood-coarsing, aromatic, delicious coffee might be discovered, downed and lived by daily.

My optimism was foolish.

With the exception of a handful of spots - Cafe Angelique in Greenwich Village (former haunt of the Fab Four in their heyday), and a cosy wood floored Hipster crib in Willamsburgh, most of the coffee I’ve come across has been arse awful.

Weak and watery, quantity over quality, a thousand combinations of possibility and rarely a sensation of happiness at the end. Certainly very little feeling of prolonged stimulation. If not sweet, cream dripped and foaming, then it’s weak as black piss.

A good coffee can make or break your day. The variations on what makes it good from great, tolerable from terrible are subtle. Coffee making is a complex, applied art requiring human skill. Relying on a machine to churn out decent brew before mutilating it with cream product is recipe for a good slapping.

A good morning coffee must be blacker than pitch, muddier than Irish bog. It should grab you by the beans, make you buzz and erupt internally on that first divine mouthful. If black, milky warmth doesn’t singe like a river of dark, hot zeal through your veins, then you may as well throw it away, or at someone.

I miss Melbourne coffee, a place where coffee is never ‘plain’, and rarely is there ever a terrible one. So many mornings in the States I have craved a strong flat white and instead been forced to sit multiple rounds with a filthy drip filter. It has been tolerable, but my heart longs for what it knows and loves. The coffee of home. The real deal.

Thankfully my old lady came to the rescue yesterday and sent over my new pride and joy, an Italian Stainless Steel stovetop number.

It might only make a cup at a time, but that one cup has more power than an entire pot of drip feed and leaves me wired for the better part of the day. You can keep your drip feeds and your frappa-crappa-moka-loka-lite-white-tight-delite hot jizz in a jumbo cauldron. I’m all about the quality and the extent to which it makes your eyeballs buzz.

Wake up America. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Get some decent, dignified, unabashed Joe in your system and learn about it

Grizzly Adams

People have commented en masse that I resemble Glaswegian actor Gerard Butler.

One arvo a few weeks ago I walked out to buy juice:

Woman: “Man, did you see that guy” (to me)
Man: “What?”
W: “That guy….he looked like….oh you know…that guy….you know what I mean, ‘Spartaca’ or whatever..”
M: “Oh….Spartaca? Spaaartacaaa! Yeah… maybe you’re right”.

True, I am hairy like animal and bear some relevance to the Scotsman. Being even half- confused for a ripped Scottish lawyer known for a role as an oiled up warrior King is not a bad predicament to be in.

My beard is largely the catalyst for these generous comparisons, and has reached fairly epic lengths of late. Frothy drinks and crumbs from food struggle to wangle free from a forest of multi-coloured, borderline-public facial follicles. Thanks to the cheerleading and sanction of my Midwestern-bred girlfriend, there is no shaver in sight.

We watched ‘Urban Cowboy’ in bed last night (one of her favourites) and I have reason to believe she is stealthily transforming me into Bud Davis, the mechanical bull riding Texan played by John Travolta.

Travolta and Butler are not ugly men.

We’re heading to Minnesota to live in a cabin in the woods for a month come August and this beard will only grow in strength and might.

Here are Ten more fine reasons to keep the bad boy growin' from the Bureau of Bigger Better Beards

Pirate Metal

Avast ye!

Seriously. Does it get any better than pirate metal?





...and what of these Scottish vermin...
The main dude has a Roland strap keyboard.

No, sir. It does not get any better.

Easy Star Allstars Live in East Village

LIVE REVIEW
Easy Star Allstars @ Stuyvesant Town Oval
Wednesday June 24, 2009

Whenever I inform the uninitiated about a reggae remake of Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, the reaction is usually a raised eyebrow of quizzical scepticism.

Easy Star All-Star’s 2003’s ‘Dub Side of the Moon’ was a bold concept, the Floyd Holy Grail spruced up for the naughties with horns, offbeats, Rastafarian toasting and enough reverb to sink a ship. Covers rarely match their source, but the 9 piece New York collective nailed it artfully and respectfully, with brilliant musicianship and authenticity, breathing fresh vibe into the masterpiece and receiving a worldwide cult following for their efforts.

The Easy Stars have since built on that early headway, releasing equally courageous projects, reimagining Radiohead’s ‘Ok Computer under the moniker ‘Radiodread’, and ‘Easy Star Lonely Hearts Club Band’, a reggaefied take on the Beatles classic. Interpreted, arranged and produced by guitarist Michael Goldwasser, the Easy Stars have continually balanced an appeal to both mainstream rock fans and hardcore reggae aficionados.

On Wednesday 24th, the Lonely Heart world tour made a generous hometown pit stop for a free outdoor gig at the Stuy Town oval to an embracing New York crowd.

It was a love-fuelled, appreciative family vibe from word go, the band barrelling across Dub Side with ‘Breathe’ and ‘Great Dub in the Sky’ receiving an early run, interspersed with moments of ‘Pepper’ and ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’.

Bursting onto stage, frontman Menny More pumped the energy levels skyward with his exuberant charisma, toastin’ big tunes to inclement skies, which, thankfully returned the love by holding off on the deluge. The crowd were soon lathered into a smooth skank, Bassist/Vocalist, archetypal dread Ras I Ray, soothing all with his effortless bottom end and resonant rasta croon in ‘Time’. Guitarist Shelton Garner shone with balance, doing both Dave Gilmour and John Lennon justice in ‘Money’ and ‘Day in the Life’, on axe and lead vox respectively.

Radiodread was given its share of air, Horns Jenny Hill and Buford O’Sullivan flourishing with lush synchronicity on ‘Paranoid Android’. Crowd favourites ‘Lucky’ and Karma Police also scored a run, commanded by the velvet vocals of Kirsty Rock, her bellow in ‘Great Gig in the Sky’ one of the night’s significantly stunning events.

Ever an admirer of the sonic perfection of the Easy Star studio sound, it was a thrill to find that their live nous was equally top notch. The borderline 2 hour performance covered the spectrum, electrifying and lullabying the appreciative hometown crowd, who in turn reciprocated with the love, feeling every bit a member of the extended Easy Star family.

Larry

Larry entered our lives on a cool spring evening as sun fell to dusk and the warmth from lounge rooms and scent of burning fireplaces blew across the neighbourhood like snug blankets. We strolled across a small bike trail cordoned off by backyard fence pickets and taut hedges, my grandparents’ indefatigable Dalmatian, Basil straining at the leash.

Larry appeared in the distance from the entrance at the other end of the track, crouching to pat Basil’s proud head, his tail wagging with vehemence and gratitude at the chance meeting of a new human admirer.

He had jet-black hair middle-parted to his shoulders, a swarthy, round face and deep, percipient eyes. He drummed up congenial conversation with my grandparents over Basil’s inexhaustible energy, the curiosity and humble introspection into each other’s lives a mutual fascination.

Mellow, soft-hearted, genuine and friendly; we learned a lot about him in just one brief neighbourly interaction that my young impressionable mind would never forget.

“I am very lucky to be here”, Larry commented.

My grandparents agreed that it was a lovely area. Safe, cosy and friendly - a good place to raise kids and walk the dog.

“…A much nicer place than where I from”, he reflected as his arm motioned to the dusking sky.

“…Cambodia - very different to Australia”, he inclined to his roots, his amiable face nodding softly, belying a wounded past.

“…I am very lucky to have made it to where I am”.

Larry had no idea how old he was or when he was born. He had no parents and he wasn’t sure what happened to the rest of his family, with the exception of a few cousins that joined him on the long journey to his new Australian life. He was positive, however, that most of them were not alive.

I came to see the burden of Larry’s predicament some years later travelling through the city Phnom Penh, the capital of his bloodstained homeland, at a similar age to his, when I met him years back on that unassuming Spring night.

Between 1975 and 1979 two out of seven million Cambodians were slaughtered through forced labor, starvation and execution. As dictator Pol Pot came to power, Khmer revolutionaries – largely impoverished teenagers - were trained to re-educate the revolution ‘enemies’. Consequently, hundreds of thousands of city dwelling middle class citizens were systematically tortured and shipped off to the outskirts of the city, murdered en masse and buried in muddy fields.

A genocide memorial Stupa greets tourists at the entrance of the haunting Cheong Ek killing fields, situated 15km outside Phnom Penh. Layers of human skulls line the glass walls of the monument, recovered from muddy swimming pool sized potholes littered about the acreage.

Here time stands still, the air dense and moist. Static of deafening silence lingers, echoes of screaming and visions of cruelty on chilling mid-70’s afternoons filter through my imagination. A sign on one pothole reads: ‘This mass grave was where the children were buried.’

Most of the people who were buried here were prisoners of the notorious ‘Tuol Sleng’ interrogation centre. Its dank cells now house photographic exhibits of the victim’s faces – men and women, young and old, the elderly, the disabled. Faces of tiny girls and boys with pools of terror in their eyes.

Back in the bustling streets of Phnom Penh, shirtless, smoking men hammer nails and ride motos; women cook, attend their stalls; wily young boys and girls, play around and laugh cheekily with each other.

Little separated the faces of the present with the ones that stared back menacingly from the past.

Somewhere in between the stark memorials and the busy streets of Phnom Penh are the faces of Larry and his family.

I envision him patting Basil one last time as we waved him on into the cool night, his jacket swaying, shoulder-length hair stranding in the breeze.

Larry in leather and loneliness wandering a windswept bike trail of a foreign city, pensive and alone.

Larry, the man without a birthday.

80's Horn Chapter 2: Big Man

Last week I delved into the spectrum of 1980’s saxophone criminality, extolling the simultaneous virtue and malfeasance concerning Lost Boy’s sax mountain Tim Cappello.

In my fawning over Cappello, which was justified and timely, I regrettably ran out of space to provide an additional examination of another monumental horn stalwart of this era.

Only one man can shadow the force that is Cappello - the original Big Man, Sax hero of Bruce Springsteen’s E-Street band, Clarence Clemons

Fans of the Boss and the 80’s period diagnosticate Clemons as the barrel-chested powerhouse behind solos in tunes ‘Born to Run’, ‘Badlands’, ‘Thunder Road and ‘Junglelands’.

For the uninitiated, he is the huge bastard with the red leather vest pumping out high elbow moves and double palm claps behind The Boss and Courtney Cox in the clip for ‘Dancing in the Dark’.

It is rock folklore that Big Man got wind of Springsteen’s band performing on a stormy night in a dive bar in Asbury Park, New Jersey 1971. Rain and wind blew the door off its hinges, Clemons standing imposing, framed in the doorway, silhouetted. The Boss stared out from the stage towards Clemons. Clemons ogled back.

“I wanna play with your band”, said Clemons. “You do whatever you want”, replied the Boss.

At that electric moment, in the fury of a New Jersey storm, the Boss and the Big Man recognised that they were what each other was looking for, the missing link in each others lives.

Clemons is a legend in his own right. While exuding far less cheese and grease to that of Cappello, he is no less imposing than the long haired lummox and arguably far more solid, sprinkling an understated element of class, stoutheartedness and a badass flat-top to the ‘gallant 1980’s sax monster’ paradigm. Check out this clip of Big Man dressed in a male stripper outfit tearing it up on early 80's Letterman and tell me you don't feel it down south. (Incidentally note Paul Schaffer's daggy acid wash and retroactive hair. Is it just me or does he resemble a young Karl Rove?)




Akin to Capello’s appearance in Lost Boys, Big Man Clemons appeared notably as lead ‘Most important person in the world’ of the Future Council in the final throes of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.





He also released a swag of particular head shaking solo releases, one which I purchased on vinyl from Dave’s Boutique in Smith St last year for laughs and a prudent 50 cents. It is heavy on the synth, light on quality. Even less fantastic and ideal for a good laugh is the uber-camp film clip to the 1985 collaboration with Jackson Browne, ‘You’re a friend of Mine’. Note Browne’s terrible bowlcut and the Darryl Hannah cameo, pre-Browne-induced shiner. This is probably worse than 'Ebony and Ivory'.





These days, Big Man uses a walking cane and can't stand through a whole Springsteen gig. Considering the Boss usually wails for in excess of 3 hours every show, this is understandable.

Ailments aside, Big Man remains larger than life itself. If the speculative criteria was to credit a cocktail of growl sturdiness, tone brightness, sonic rudeness, meaty disposition and role in an 80’s flick then Clarence Clemons sits exalted and mighty right beside Capello in the pantheon of brutal 1980s saxophone deities.

Educating Seppo

Since arriving to American shores it has been a genuine indulgence of mine indoctrinating locals with a sense of redundant ‘Dundee-Australiana’, disseminating a variety of Hogan-era phrases to willing and none the wiser yanks.

Coercing Americans to refer to themselves and their fellow countryfolk as ‘Seppos’ is one of my finer achievements; having them refer to their displeasures and untoward tribulations as respective bunches of ‘Seppo bullshit’ an even more commanding exploit.

It’s mighty good fun, and you can get away with a fair bit.

My good mate and transcontinental truck driving consort Taylor has been the most attentive student so far for my Australiana 101 prosletysm. I fear that come the day he attempts to set foot onto Australian turf he will be severely punched for his command of my bastardised lingo and somewhat misrepresented take on the ways of modern day Australia.

Nonetheless, here are some core snippets from the lexicon.

Bogan

Bogan is by far the most enjoyed slang word by folk on this end, unique, easily remembered by the American mind, visually adaptable to mulleted countryfolk that dwell about the Midwest and southern nooks.

Seppo

Rhyming slang is an uncommon concept for most Americans. While many understand the premise behind ‘Septic Tank’, some have slagged me off on the basis that using ‘Yank’ in a blanket context is historically erroneous in the context of the American civil war. I usually respond with an assertion that this is a bunch of seppo bullshit. End conversation.

Yobbo

Like a bogan, but faster.

I enjoyed Urban Dictionary’s take: A loud, inconsiderate person, usually found in groups for self preservation. Sometimes prone to violence, always found with beer and cheap smokes. Usually smell.

Well said.

Drongo

Running low on new words to channel, I looked to inspiration from Home and Away’s Alf Stewart. Most Americans are confused by the term ‘drongo’ and it is not an easy one to convey.

Urban Dictionary enlists drongo as a "no-hoper" or fool, derived from a racehorse of that name in the 1920's that never won a race out of 37 starts.

Larriken

Like drongo, larriken is a comparable struggle, not terribly easy to explain without immediate context. It is also not easy to remember, Taylor doing his best and refering to some jovial loons as ‘Lazarus’ at some point. Another time he called someone a ‘Leffert’, clearly confused as we drove along ‘Lefferts avenue’ through Queens.

Streuth

Construed Streuth as being interchangeable for ‘shit’, ‘wow’ or ‘whoa’ – an expression of shock and or dismay, dependant on context and severity of subject. Understood, but unpopular so far.

Dag

Was sure to clarify the expression of dag in relation to ‘dork’, ‘doofus’ and ‘nerd’ before the literal connotation as sundried shit ensnared in the clumpy hair of a sheep’s arse. Urban dictionary describes dag as an ‘affectionate insult for an odd, idiosyncratic person’.

Dag has rapidly become a favorite mutual term of endearment between my significant other and I. Dagster, Dagette and Dagger all acceptable adaptations.

Too Right

Our favourite barman at the local pub ‘the Cuckoo’s Nest’ was a bloke named Rob. Hailing from Bendigo, it was always an absolute breath of fresh air to be served by a fellow Victorian and be able to chat with someone who can instantly appreciate the home tongue. Rob has since skipped the country, leaving me with the mantle of the last Australian in Woodside. However, his immortal catchphrase ‘Too Right’ is honoured and remembered by all who admired him and his work.

Daggy Drongo

Taylor got way too ahead of himself, attempting to harmonize terms in a simultaneous context. Efforts to dissuade him from using the expression ‘Daggy drongo’ were met with insubordination.

It's time to Blow Things Up

Andrew WK completely tore off my face the first time his song ‘It's Time to Party’ blasted through my bungalow speakers. They were Sony, solid, mounted sturdily on wood blocks attached to opposing walls and, apparently, if you turned the volume knob up too loud during this particular song, it was inevitable that WK’s 120+ multi-layered guitar tracks were going to evict and plummet them with force into nearby furniture or the crown of someone’s head, as happened to my mate Tockley late one night.

I’d thrashed that stereo to within an inch of its life in years preceding the advent of WK. Nothing had proven so powerful and mighty as to completely banish the adjoining speakers to the ground without fail, each and every time. It was a show of unprecedented force and admirable dynamism.

Since then, I’ve had a soft spot and respect for Andrew WK.

Many critics laud him an imbecile, party boy, purveyor of mindless, primal drivel marketable to drunken frat boys, rat bogans, degenerates and the like. It’s true that most of WK’s notable repertoire is dense, four on the floor pop-metal, sonically enhanced to sound bigger than Ben Hur’s bucks party and induce bouts of headbanging, heart palpitatingly brainless ecstacy. His live gig at Melbourne’s Hi-Fi bar back in 2002 was one of the greatest things I’d ever endured, the collusion of arena-strength strobe lighting in a 900 person venue searing retinas as well as my aorta.

In 2003, WK broke his foot on tour. He continued to rock the remainder of his dates in a wheelchair. This clip is testament to how awesome WK really is.



There is more to WK that the average pundit might recognise behind the brusque, Neanderthal reputation.

Since the heady, indulgent and intelligent days of ‘Party Hard’, ‘Party til you Puke’ and ‘It’s time to Party’, WK has branched out from his musical proclivity, transforming himself into a self-help, new age motivational speaker, New York club mogul and cable television personality.

Cartoon Network recently unveiled ‘Destroy, Build, Destroy’, hosted by WK, featuring high powered explosives, rocket launchers, and other dangerous weapons. WK chaperones two teams of kids who oversee the destruction of large things, whereby they gather the rubble and transform the refuse into something new and efficient.

Any excuse to blow up trucks and run over inanimate objects with tanks is a good thing in my book. And if WKs success in nailing my speakers is anything to go by, I have no doubt this show will be an absolute blast.

Live n Cultured

I was pretty darn thrilled when a cosy organic grocer called ‘Vegie Monster’ popped up in Woodside a few weeks back, just a thirty second walk from our apartment door. Since my hiatus away from New York, not only did Vegie Monster arrive out of nowhere, but the 24 hour pizza joint next to it had gone out of business.

There was hope for me yet.

The carb and beer diet I’d been riding on for some time was beginning to counterbalance and threaten my natural equilibrium. Since then I’ve been keeping regular, pumping my body full of interesting sounding nutritious compounds like antioxidants and live cultures and other things that swim around your system that aren’t sausage based.

Here are two of my favourites indulgences of late, ever reliable and guaranteed to rejuvenate the dustiest of noggins.

KOMBUCHA

According to some it tastes like a foot and is akin to drinking a douche, hippie juice ‘Kombucha’ (pronounced Kom-Boo-Chah) is tangy, tart and probably not what you’d immediately label a ‘tasty’ beverage.

Though refreshing and bubbly, it has the piquancy of juice that’s gone bad in the sun. Basically it is Chinese tea that has been fermented for 30 days and despite it's unfavourable press and acquired taste, it's mighty good for what ails ye.

My preffered concoction is G.T Dave’s Multi-Green, chock full of enzymes, viable probiotics, amino acids, antioxidants and polyphenols crammed in there together to keep your shit in gear. Hipster bars in Brooklyn have started to sell it over the counter, so you know, it must be cool.


YERBA MATE

When Kombucha started to make my stool look queer I made an astute decision to opt for an alternative. Staring me in the face from the window of the Vegie Monster refrigerator was my future new best mate, Yerba.

Yerba Mate is produced by a green company called Guyaki and not a herd of bogans from Frankston (its actually pronounced mahtay - not maaaaaayte). Though not bubbly, it tastes a lot more like tea that hasn’t gone off, which is a good thing. Plus it’s got just as much goodness and healthy stuff in it as it’s stinky cousin above.

Yerba Mate comes from the stems and leaves of a South American plant, a natural stimulant revered as ‘drink of the Gods’, good for health, vitality, and longevity. It tastes great, clears my mind and makes my poo look relatively human.

Rockin' Without a Limb

I recall a cringeworthy piece presented on the tv program ‘Australian Story’ some years back recounting a real life tale that can only be regarded as a saxophonist's worst nightmare. After returning to his Brisbane home late one evening, sax student Phil Evans had his fingers severed and mutilated by two balaclava-clad intruders, his dreams of a career playing music all but destroyed in a few violent seconds.

It turned out that Evans was an unlucky victim of mistaken identity, attacked in revenge over stolen drugs that he had nothing to do with. I was shocked at an act of such brutal randomness and bad luck.

A sax repairer heard about the student’s plight and over two years created a prototype sax to allow Evans’ debilitated fingers to perform once again in an amazing feat of patience and ingenuity. It was a spine tingling end to an otherwise devastating scenario.

Though the story of Phil Evans was a pretty severe case, a number of rock stars and performers have been served with similarly adverse situations involving the loss of body parts. Often, grievous injury has given rise to some of the most innovative and inspiring legacies.

Dool slaps a high four to some of the most notable...


Les Paul

When Les Paul’s wife took their car off Route 66 near Davenport, Oklahoma in 1948, his career of guitar innovation was thrown into jeopardy.

With a shattered right arm and elbow, broken back, ribs, nose and collarbone, a year and half sedentary recovery gave Paul the time to draft and develop the inventions that would change the face of pop music, including early technical notes for multi-track sound recording and a design for a guitar-synthesiser that could be played with one hand.

Facing possible amputation, a specialist surgeon eventually fused Paul’s arm at a right angle, salvaging his guitar playing career and ongoing ability to kick it old school.


Jerry Garcia

Les Paul wielder, hippy-era icon and Grateful Dead backbone Jerry Garcia lost half of his right middle finger in a wood chopping accident when he was four years old. An integral guitar picking finger, the compromised digit failed to stop Garcia becoming the 13th greatest guitarists of all time, according to Rolling Stone - his searing, soaring solos one of the hallmarks of The Grateful Dead’s epic live gigs. His absent finger was also inspiration for Soundgarden’s trippy instrumental, ‘Jerry Garcia’s Finger’.



Django Reinhardt

Well before influencing myriad 20th century guitarists (including Les Paul and Jerry Garcia above), Belgian gypsy Django Reinhardt caught himself in a caravan fire that fused together two of his fingers and partially paralysed his left hand.

The accident forced Reinhardt to adopt a completely different style of playing that emphasized his first three fingers, spawning the unique sound that would make him one of the earliest and most influential twentieth century European jazz musicians.


Tony Melendez

Tony Melendez was born without arms as a result of his mother taking thalidomide during pregnancy. Learning how to sing and play guitar with his feet at age 23, two years later Melendez received world wide ovation for an inspirational performance before Pope John Paul II in Los Angeles.

Melendez is an inspiring cat who performs regularly with his ‘Toe Jam Band’ and conducts motivational speeches across the United States.




Acker Bilk

British vest wearing clarinet beast Acker Bilk claims that losing his two front teeth in a school punch-up and part of his finger in a sledging accident contributed to the development of his uniquely breathy ‘chalumeau’ sound.

As someone with a particular distrust and irrational hatred of the clarinet I would say that Bilk was punched in the head for choosing this tedious instrument in the first place.

Bilk is the most un-rock bastard on this list.


Tony Iommi

Black Sabbath axe grinder and pioneer of heavy metal riffage, mollydooker Tony Iommi lost the tips of his right middle and ring fingers in an industrial accident on the final day on the job at a sheet metal factory. To soothe the pain, his boss played him a record by Django Reinhardt and convinced him to keep playing.

After giving up trying to learn right handed, Iommi changed his guitar strings to a lighter gauge and fashioned plastic finger thimbles out of melted soap bottles, enabling him to stick to his art, subsequently becoming one of most badass looking dudes in rock.

Iommi knew that a rat handlebar was just as important as having fingers.


Rick Allen

Massively famous, though few people know him by his name, Rick Allen of Def Leppard is ‘the one armed drummer from that 80's band’. Allen went careering through his Corvette windshield in 1984 after missing a tight bend trying to overtake an Alfa-Romeo. His arm didn’t follow.

Infected when doctors attempted to re-attach it, Allen became forced, and determined, to keep rocking with Def Leppard sans limb, aided by a modified, largely electronic drum kit. Lead singer Joe Thomas would later muse that Allen became a far better drummer without the amputated left arm.

Check out his tips on one-armed tub smashing and incense burning below...

Golden Simmons

You’ll be pleased to know that after auctioning his kidney stone last week for a prudent US$15,000, Kiss bass player, tongue flailer and chronic poon Gene Simmons has made headway into the urinal cake game.

Dive bars across the US have been equipped with ‘Gene Simmons’ brand urinal cakes, enabling members of the public to drain their main veins on a mug shot of the rockstar’s head.

Quote Simmons from his website: "For all of you who have always wanted to pee on my face, now you can." The cakes are a promotional bid to gain an audience for fresh TV show ‘Gene Simmons Family Jewels’ and apparently serve up backtalk upon urination.

Never short of an idea, nor a way to make a fast buck, recent developments in the star’s career are confirmation that Simmons is bereft of kidney stones and a functioning soul.

Old Balls

One of the more audience appeasing ingredients of any half worthy coming of age campus comedy or asinine ‘boob n bong’ flick is the cameo presence from an archetypal frolicsome old dude.

Unexpectedly profane and lascivious, huffing joints and getting drunk, they make light of old age, deliver memorable lines and make us grin with the hope that one day, we too will be equally fun and batshit insane.

Often they are the one saving grace in an otherwise heinous film.

Here's a tip of the hat to the five most memorable.


1) Patrick Crenshaw

“You’re my Boy, Blue!”

Who could forget Crenshaw’s ‘Joseph "Blue" Palasky’ from the Ferrell-Vaughan classic ‘Old School’, an elderly fratboy who suffers a heart attack facing two topless nubiles in a tragic KY wrestling match. Crenshaw lived his final days on earth a cult figure, with fans everywhere yelling out to him ‘You’re my boy Blue’ until his dying day. Crenshaw played an equally deadpan Leslie Ward Cabot, diminutive, silent husband of MILF Jennifer Coolidge’s character in the dog show mockumentary, ‘Best in Show’.

Crenshaw died for real in April 2008. RIP Blue. You're our boy.



2) Carmen Filpi

“Women – they rip your heart out of your ass!”

Known by horror aficionados as the gaunt Reverend Jackson P. Sayer in Halloween 4, Carmen Filpo will probably be best remembered as shady Scooby Doo reprise of ‘Old Man Withers from the amusement park’ in ‘Wayne’s World’, not to mention the old drunk in the bar scene of ‘The Wedding Singer’ who offers irreverent emotional support and worn out fisticuff to Adam Sandler's Robbie.



3) Barnard Hughes

“One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach, all the damn vampires”

A seasoned broadway performer, undertaking over 400 theatre roles in his career, Barnard Hughes featured in a plethora of film and television, including Tron, Doc Hollywood the forgettable sitcom ‘Blossom’. Most importantly, Hughes was the lovably eccentric vampire hunting Grandpa in seminal 80’s flick ‘The Lost Boys’, often substituting windex for aftershave, slaying the ladies as well as the undead.




4) Jack Mather II

“He called the shit poop”

Jack Mather II nailed the role of confused geriatric ‘Old Man Clemons’ in 1995’s ‘Billy Madison’, famously stomping on a bag of burning poo (read: shit) wearing only Y-fronts and boots, waving his arm into the night at ‘those damn kids’ with pinnacle archetypal old man style.

Don't be telling him his business.



5) Edmund Lyndeck

“Hey Jack, have that bitch make us some blueberry pancakes. Right now.”

Edmund Lyndeck is yet another vintage mossback, stealing a memorable scene toking a stiff doobie as Tom Green’s grandpa, Jack Manilow in campus film ‘Road Trip’, before hallucinating on a munchie request from his pet dog. Lyndeck was also the loveable, drunken comic relief on the witness stand as the chardonnay swilling old man in the final courtroom scene of Adam Sandler’s ‘Big Daddy’.

On Sax Criminality

Love it or loathe it, top 40 charts throughout the 80s were furiously coloured with smatterings of growling, wailing, and often nauseous saxophone solos.

Sax crimes were committed en masse, polarising the listening public and offending many through its excessive presence. Introduced as a svelte novelty, the reputation of a once distinguished instrument became tarnished, transformed into a cheesy and sickeningly romantic cliché - the hallmark of 80’s overproduction.

Indeed, much of the horn work throughout the 80s is frought with headshaking inappropriateness and enough cheese to kill a Frenchman. Paradoxically, much of the same material is considered profoundly awesome by many for the very same reasons.

As many pundits as there are out there who truly hate what the saxophone did to the 80s, there are diehards like me who appreciate a good ball-tearing dose of 80’s horn for what it generally is – glorious, ridiculous, comical, fist knucklingly powerful in its fraudulence.

While enduring such criminal acts as George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper’ and Spandau Ballet’s ‘True’ sets my stomach down the path of vomitory blowout, absorbing gems such as Gerry Rafferty’s ‘Baker St’ and Springsteen’s ‘Born to Run’ unleashes something primal within me, some powerful force, something dangerous. It is this fine, oft hypocritical line of distinction that marks the truly awful from the terribly great.

As a wielder of fine horn, I often ponder what might have been had I been planted on this earth a little before 1983, given proper breeding ground through the 70’s in order to capitalise on this period of saxophonic excess.

All I can do is look back with a cocktail of wonder, admiration and jocular contempt.

Almost everything to be simultaneously loved and mocked about saxophone in the 80s can be exemplified through one man.

You may recall the vampire film ‘The Lost Boys’, and an opening beach scene featuring a sultry summer night on the beach of the Santa Carla boardwalk, a crowd of mullets and perm gyrating about a bonfire as a band fronted by a lubed up man mountain brandishing a sax gyrates the living pelvis out of a makeshift stage.

Tim Capello is that gyrator.


Reasons abound for his cringeworthy magnificence.

Capello has long hair down to his ass and wears chains around his neck and around his wrists. Few men on this earth are capable of pulling off an ensemble of pink spandex and a completely bear torso lubed to the nines with cooking grease, nor can many humans claim to be able to gyrate hips and thrust pelvically with such striking, bewildering potency.

Capello smashes horn. Few men will ever dream of nailing such gloriously soaring altissimo sax growl with the rude spunk and nonchalance as Capello, while simultaneously clenching enough casual arrogance to deem a neck strap totally unecessary.

Lost Boys aside, Capello’s major gig was working for years next to Tina Turner churning out archetypal horn blasts in tunes like ‘We Don’t need another Hero’ and songs of similar cheesy fortitude, ‘One of the Living’ and ‘Simply the Best’ coming to mind.

Capello epitomises the light-dark paradox that is rife through 80’s saxophony. The man is an ooze of horn infused sleaze and sweat. He makes me want to cut loose, bathe in Soul Glo, gyrate and wail like a dying moose.

According to his website, Capello’s band ‘The Ken Dolls’ were the only group ever banned from the New York venue CBGB’s for being ‘too outrageous’. This is saying something.

Capello is testament to the proof that the 80s were not always just bad.

They were often badass.

Ferrari Guy

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet allegedly the most photographed man on earth next to the President.

Introducing Ferrari guy…

Operating perhaps one of the greatest and most authentic limousine services in all and sundry, Ferrari guy is a rare find.

For a generous $300 an hour, Ferrari guy offers a chaperone service around the scenic views of Chicago in his sweet custom red convertible Ferrari, complete with 24kt gold rims, 3.8 litre engine and 220 mph on the dash.

Feeling the downturn pinch? Fear not. For a meagre $150, Ferrari guy will get your juices flowing with a tidy 20-minute fang around the block.

For no extra charge, he’ll probably take his shirt off.

Ultimately, you’re not just paying for the ride, you’re paying for the chauffeur. Rollin with Ferrari guy guarantees instant cred, making you look pimp as hell next to his bronzed nipples, rocking out to REO Speedwagon, inhaling 490 horsepower worth of Illinois breeze.

Ferrari guy is the real deal, an artful fusion of Kenny G, Rod Stewart and Italian engineering. According to my pal Danny, Ferrari guy would do well to offer additional mid-throttle lessons in shirtless, adult contemporary guitar.

Having downloaded a majority of tracks from the ultimate ‘Time Life’ 80’s rock ballad collection last night, coupled with the murky, overcast skies of New York City, what better a time to move to Chicago?

Don't call me Ken

When I was born into this world I came out looking like a small Asian child, 9 pound 2 and destined to receive the name ‘Ashley’. While Ashley was the preferred choice of my exhausted mother, she was certifiably knackered from the evacuation of a nine pound ball of flesh from her inner sanctum, and at that point would most likely have agreed to call me anything. Once I was thrust forth from the womb, the old man took it upon himself to declare prophetically, “he shall be called Cameron!”. The Heavens roared in agreeance.

Where all that came from I remain unsure to this day. I'm not even certain that Cameron was on their shortlist. All i know is that I'm mighty happy I never ended up an Ashley. The only half cool Ash I've ever come across was the dude with the boomstick in 'Evil Dead', and even then he was played in real life by a guy named Bruce.

Thanks to my old man’s act of seemingly destined spontaneity, I was dealt an instantly more fortuitous existence. Cam is solid. Cam is your mate. Cam likes a good time, and he'll look out for your best interests. Classy, upbeat, responsible, jovial. Uncommon enough when faced with Jim, John or Mick; far from the wilderness of Hazari, Siberio and Moon-Unit. I don't think i could have scored better.

However there was a period back in primary school when I had my doubts. Alongside ‘10-pens’, snap bands and Roll Ups, finding out the original meaning behind your name was all the rage, and posessing a cool meaning was of utmost importance, in my head, anyway. Unfortunately i missed the boat with ‘Cameron’ - it turned out to be a Gaelic derivative of ‘cam sròn’ and meant, literally, ‘Crooked Nose’. I felt deeply shafted. The Joshuas and Johns of the class sat high and mighty in their ivory nooks blessed with their glorious Biblical etymology. One kid in my class, Ryan Kogelman, really came out on top - not only did he play footy, score chicks and have cool hair, but his name meant ‘King’ - King! I just couldn't compete. There would be no chicks or glory for crooked nose here, stranded with a bad name and a shithouse bowl haircut.

But that was a long time ago. I've since recouped from my early malaise and have recognised that the Cam-pros definitely outweigh the Cam-cons. I’ve been fortunate enough to cop a good dose of nicknames over the years, most of them genial and unoffensive. Camel, Cambo, Camus, Camshaft, Sharp View-Cam, Camel Toe, Camelot, just to name a few.

According to Namipedia, Cameron was the 53rd most popular boys name in the United States in 2008, wedged between Thomas below and Hunter above. Within the categories ‘smart’, ‘sexy’, ‘friendly’, ‘creative’, ‘strong’ and ‘sophisticated’, babynames.com rates me generously, an impressive 75% approval rating overall.

All in all America enjoys a good Cam. Just as well they enjoy a good Aussie accent. Unfortunately, they don't actually understand anything I'm saying, as my south-hemispheric drawl continually confuses the bejesus out of most of the people I attempt to acquaint with.

It is a rare yank that gets my name correct right off the bat. In order of frequency, here is what i usually get called instead:

1) Ken
2) Kim
3) Jam
4) Con
5) Cain
6) Cyan
7) Len
8) Callum
9) Kieron
10) Glenn

It still beats the hell out of Ashley...and I can handle Jam. But please, please stop calling me Ken.

Farewell, Tumbleweed

It's a wet and nasty day out there in the streets of Woodside. An ugly day to boot.

Let the murky rains mark a day of rejuvenation, a washing of this blog's sloth.

As you might have noticed, there's been a relentless, restless series of overhauls on the dool page of late. I've finally settled on this half decent looking overhaul and I'm goin' with it.

This blog is hereby purged of all tumbleweed.

The Chafo De Santiago

The 'Chafo' series was first published in 2008 after an inglorious series of peril through the far reaches of Northern Spain. Presenting the official Author's cut - a nostalgic reminder of the pain that was...



My smashed vertebrae pinches with throbbing bouts of deep, piercing torment. Knees are adrift in a mess of ligament, my ‘hobbit-foot’ bunions crunch and burn inside sweat stained Asics that buckle beneath a ridiculously over-packed bag floating on a rill of sweat coursing down the ridge of my back.

Forty degree Basque sun sears my face pink, surging salty beads of perspiration over faux ‘Ray Bon’ aviators. It is a quivering mess down south. Hairs of my inner thigh and butt cheek grind on skin raw and red like a punched Matador, chafing furiously like two hands hell-bent on friction over campfire.

With a crack of the neck I stare up to scrutinize the sun and unleash a barrage of apoplectic expletive, a calibre I would have previously thought humanly impossible. I swear like a sailor on heat, biting my chapped bottom lip and ruffling the sand and murk from my filthy, un-showered head. Zoning deep into a world of meditative denial, I dodder left and right up the one final incline for the day with legs splayed comically wide. I prefer that passer-bys think I’ve got bad rickets rather than endure any further sandpapering of my inner thighs.

This is pain, my friend. Real pain

I mutter. I groan. I bleat like a sheep. Corns blister under my arch-less soles, making acquaintance with gritty pustules on my big toes and blisters on the edge of my poor, demoralised pinkies. Muscles show up in places I didn’t even know about. Biological nooks and crannies I never knew could produce fluid began to divulge their worst.

Too much?

For most people, getting through the first day of the Camino de Santiago is hardly a walk in the park. Getting through it on a whim, unplanned and unprepared is truly begging for punishment.

Existing for over 1000 years, the Camino, or ‘Way of St James’ was one of the most important medieval Christian pilgrimages. It was believed that if you walked the entire length of the trail in St James’ footsteps, it would void a mandatory spell in purgatory, a sure-fire plenary indulgence to grant the remission of one’s sins. (I would later ponder in the thick of heat and pain how many pilgrims paradoxically fast-tracked the onset of their own passing as a result of pushing their bodies through such intense punishment.) Today, it is walked for myriad reasons, as much about leisure and tourism as it is spiritual odyssey. Over 70,000 take the journey each year, commencing from the edge of the French Pyrenees to the Cathedral of Santiago 790 km West.

I met a lanky American hippy named Brandon in Edinburgh days before my own sweaty, Spanish ordeal. For four weeks he had plundered his way across the Camino and looked like a dog’s breakfast: rugged, dirty, sun-glazed, sporting a filthy moustache that generated both scorn and ironic respect. Recounting his many magical stories of traipsing through lush vineyard and desert tracks, stunning peaks, endless golden fields and Hemingway-frequented villages atop foothills in the middle of nowhere, I became spellbound, enchanted by the glory and challenge surrounding his mystical, enlightening journey along the long, dusty Camino trail.

Edinburgh’s thick chill and proclivity to rampant alcohol consumption had sent me directionless, bereft of a charged soul and pining for challenge. Seizing the day, I booked a flight and left the next morning.

Eight hours at Barcelona’s Arc De Triomphe station, two four hour buses and a 45 minute taxi ride with two random Spaniards later, I set foot with great spirits at the Camino starting line, a town 40 km outside Pamplona called Roncevalles. Tender afternoon sun baked on the lone bluestone pilgrim hostel (called an ‘Albergue’) as folk of generations and races lay about on grassy knolls and café chairs, connecting, learning, indulging in each other’s presence and soaking up the remaining light of day.

Randomly, I dined that night with two middle-aged Italian women and an eccentric French deviant named Henri. The Italians were lovely, drawing out my suppressed elementary grade Italian, in accordance with a healthy use of mime, confused laughter and head nods exacerbated to feign a conversation that actually contained shared comprehension. When the four of us got stuck into the red wine things began to make a lot more sense. We laughed and smiled at each other, gave each other confused looks, and through knowing glances, the Italians and I deduced shared belief in the fact that Henri was certifiably deranged.

The red wine failed to inspire much the next morning, rising at the crack of dawn with 100 other largely middle aged Spaniards, baggy eyed and weary, lethargically packing their pilgrim sacks, prepped and primed to plant boot into gravel and be off on their own private adventures. With the bunks clamped so closely together, I literally did wake up at Dawn’s crack. I’m pretty sure she was French.

Armed with a hubris and a heavy sack I set forth valiantly in the unknown, a green road sign greeting me ominously in the dark pitch and eerie sleet with the daunting indication: “Santiago de Compostella – 790km.”

The morning came to life some kilometres out in the middle of nowhere, and through resplendent fields and exquisite valleys I was enthralled by some of the most amazing scenes of my life; alluring ridges and spurs winding down at the culmination of the French Pyrenees, woods and clearings, hayfields and sand gravel tracks. Sun rose higher and flitted through the wind-arched forests. At one with the natural world, I was electrified and ecstatic. When energy waned, I would seek sweet motivation from the I-Pod for a little aural stimulation. Lou Reed chimed in at one point very nicely…

“Yes I am a nature’s son…and I’m the only one…. I do what I want and I want what I see…. it could only be me. I’m so Free”

This collusion of visual and aural stimuli washed my soul with wonder, the gravity of the concurrent event barrelling me with previously unexperienced profundity. I was doing this! So Free! Free from the rut of cotton-lined comfort and inebriant conviviality of Edinburgh, the sloth and breakfasts at four in the afternoon. Free in the wild with my wits, my senses, two legs to move me, two thighs to grind, and a mind sparked with the alchemy of excitement and surreal sensation of being alone in the heart of the rousing Spanish countryside. If my friends and family could only see me now.

However, as morning became noon the sun began to sear and scorch and my ability to sustain enthusiasm grew onerous. Early grade chafing made its presence felt and by mid afternoon, in purposeful exhausted ignorance of distance travelled, I’d reached both Pamplona and personal breaking point. Ready to drop in a heap, I attempted to register a night’s sleep at a local Albergue, and was subsequently horrified to find not a single vacant bed in town. I was seemingly not the only one with the first day blues, the Albergues replicating war infirmaries, choc full of trail-weakened, broken humans, crying in pain and unable to move.

Dejected, exhausted and sunburned, I has no choice but to soldier on up another steep incline at a snail’s pace in searing Spanish heat, each stride sanding away at some of the reddest, rawest, thighs known to man. Thoughts of self-defeat filtered through my primal consciousness, leaking energy like a sieve. In my zone of meandering madness I hadn’t eaten for eight hours.

Somehow I mustered the gumption to stagger over the last of that God forsaken hill, sorely ricketed and malfunctioning. Elderly locals of the petite town of Cizur Menor looked on with amused bewilderment, witness to a very broken Australian crawling through their city gates.

But I had made it. And on a lone patch of grass in the back garden of a vacant Albergue, my obliterated frame sunk long, deep into the earth. The grass was silk, the oxygen sugar. I heaved in sweet gasps and stared into the infinity of sky. Never before had I relished so much in the pleasure of sitting down on my own ass. It was sheer, absolute, unadulterated bliss.

Later I learned that Roncevalles to Cizur Menor is a three-day endeavour. I had smashed it in one, and smashed myself in the process. In the futility of Camino lunacy, it had not occurred to me that walking 49km in one stretch was the action of an unbalanced masochist.

Home and hosed, I set out to fix my ailing body. After gasping dismay at the fact I had walked all the way from Roncevalles in one day, the friendly lady in charge of the hostel - clearly well versed in fixing the feet of the foolish, not only taped up my feet but lined my walking shoes with the added insulation of female sanitary pads for additional shock absorption. With feet fixed, I hobbled across the street to sort out my horrid chafing. Without the ability to elocute my bleeding peril in native tongue, the poor woman at the ‘Pharmacia’ must have thought I was an outright sex criminal as I gestured furiously around my groin region asserting the word ‘cream’.

With thighs cooled, it began to dawn on me that I’d signed up for more than I initially bargained for. I was galumphing across rural Spain armed with an array of useless, indulgent items including a denim jacket and laptop computer, plus stupidly failed to supply some of the very basics. Bereft of a sleeping bag, I dozed heavily that night in my beach towel, unwashed since the early days of Edinburgh and now marinated in sweat from the post-45k-chafe shower.

The Camino seemed so wonderful in theory and imagination, so romantic, so ripe for glory. I was juiced up to take on 500 miles of Spanish countryside like it was a casual stroll, ready to bellow primal screams of victory to the staid Atlantic horizon at the foot of the Western coast. I dreamed that I could become an instant conqueror, a hero, a veritable Don Pelayo! But Instead I’d become Don Quixote - mad as a cut snake and borderline hallucinatory.

Notwithstanding the filthy, moist consistency of my bedding, that night I drifted off to instant slumber, bewildered by the task ahead, pondering how on earth I could possibly be in any condition to walk at all the following morning, or indeed, the following week.

741km to Santiago, an 18kg backpack, shoes full of sanitary pads and enough thigh cream to sink a small ship. A potentially insurmountable task at hand, this beaten carcass would rise again valiantly at dawn’s crack. It may prove to be my finest hour yet.

Or the perilous end of my body as I knew it.

Dear Burnie

Attn: Mel Bourne
Victoria, Australia
Southern Hemisphere
3000

Dear ‘Burnie.

Got some news for ya. Start spreadin’ it. I left you again the other day. Yeah, that’s right. It’s been real. Lookin’ to find me a new pair of shoes because my old pair of vagabond’s fell apart – the gaping holes in the souls were soaking up your wet puddles ‘n made my mismatched socks stink like wet dog. Can’t blame you for that I guess. I go through vagabond shoes like boxes of Savoys. It was great to see you again, though I can’t deny that you and the whole wet dog foot situation gave me a nasty bout of the little town blues in those weeks I came back to ya.
Thankfully, they’ve pretty much melted away and, once again, I feel a part of it.
I gotta say though, you sleep too much for my liking. I want to wake up somewhere that doesn’t. So I’m gunna be over here some time, and if I can make it here, I reckon I’ll make it anywhere.
It’s ain’t up to you anymore, bud.
Seeya round Mel.

Love,

King of the Hill,

A Number 1
‘Top of the Heap’
New York, New York

Sounds of the Backyard

In Fairfield the city mellows with the oaks and the gentle hum of inner suburbia.

The whistling chirp of birds mucking around in my backyard scurries about an afternoon as rich dropping-away sun melts and basks rays spilling and bursting over my right cheek. Humble wind sways the draping green trees, flitting the rays of the sky, glittered in warmth. Stalks and branches scrunch and fondle, kissing each other.

On cue, the 5.49 express barges its way into the chaotic symphony en route to Flinders street Station. Bells chime with the beat of a metronome evoking the flashing of duel red lamps and meeting of wooden drawbars. Horn calls yawn and shrill intermittently through the neighbourhood, a wavering ballsy B-flat that lumbers and startles as it swims over the sub-hum textures. Triplets of rumble and clack percuss over wooden girders at the mouth of Station St, an intermittent slicing of steel denoting speed and the due intention of it’s course.

In the distance, the under-roar of peak hour commodores and falcons pulse past Chandler Highway overpass, deep and fast through the main artery to the eastern wing of the city’s sprawl. It is a gentle hum, like the static roar of a far off ocean, each vehicle a passing wave, ebbing in unison down a tried and tested trajectory to each organism’s rightful dwelling.

A phone rings; it reminds me of an old cack olive unit with the handset vertically spread, and dial twists bereft of luxurious modern buttons. Someone picks up and it is silenced. Neighbours next door arrive back home in their car and throttle each other with stern Italian dialect, slamming their doors and ranting. I struggle to translate what they’re saying, whether or not the tone is one of frustration or basic assertion, whether they’re actually having a laugh and joking on each other. Another neighbour in the distance sneezes from pollen rife in the summer ether. The bellowing catharsis reverberates around their tiled interior and booms out from the open back door to my earshot.

The birds now fly in flocks overhead, alone in the sky but for endless baby blue and a couple of smudges of white cloud; setting off for the night to another part of town. When they get there, the sun will have dwindled and the tones of the sky will have changed, and someone, somewhere will be watching them and breathing in and taking note of their shared existence. Breathing in the air in their vicinity and noting the sweet, unique symphony of sound of their own backyard.