Folks,
May i focus your attention on the NEW Dool blog, Life According To Dool . COM
Get on down and check out the goodness.
Cheers,
Dool
Melbourne, March 2011
26.4.10
Vale Bungalow 1996 - 2010
She was a strong fille - Stronger than many. Sturdy and loving. She was warm and she had heart. She was self contained, vibrant and reliable; with ne’er a second thought she provided haven for the lost, the drunk and the afflicted, accepted and endured their decadent abuse, custom to her own mistreatment for the greater good of the times. When there was nowhere else to go, people came to her. We breathed her in, lived in her presence, filled her with song, and moments, and memories. She showed us the good, the great, the rotten and the confused.
…she will not be forgotten.
Mum, Von and I bailed on Croydon in 1996 and packed up shop for the far off lands of the inner suburban north. The shift was made to a quaint Californian bungalow in the suburb of Fairfield where the night air smelled like cooked cardboard and the mornings sweetened with the waft of fresh bread loaves and danish. My experience of life thus far had been confined to the far east, where two-dollar shops thrived in duplicate and bogans festered in high numbers. Nights there by comparison smelled like fast food and rubber. Anything beyond the Maroondah electorate was foreign ground to my sheltered perspective and Fairfield was as foreign as it got for my thirteen-year-old eyes.
Our new abode had an ugly stick charm. It was a dark olive green joint w
ith thick poo-brown carpet, held together by a blend of 1970’s-inspired faux-wood décor. The yard was overgrown with shrubbery and vine, the fence, a rickety piece of patchwork that had never been replaced. Our neighbour, from what we knew, seemed welcoming and friendly, though we would later know him as a diminutive pervert assclown - that story, perhaps, for another time.
In the hum and whirr of those early December mornings it felt extremely nice to be the newest residents of Fairfield. Not especially laden with open fields, let alone fair ones, it was away from sprawling nowhere, close to the energy of civilization and had a giant trojan dog by the station. It was somewhere exciting and fresh, the beginning of a brand new chapter in life for all three of us. Four years prior, Von had sacrificed his formative shagging years to commit to a lady and her chubby ten year old, forfeiting his bachelor habitat in trendy Fitzroy for a thoroughly unglamorous life in Croydon. Thank God for him, for it was he who knew of the glory beyond, and we probably never would have gotten out of there without him.
Our new home had charm, and what it lacked in pizzazz it surely made up for in potential. Above and beyond, the deal sealer for me was that amidst the forest of creeper and dense jungle of that overgrown backyard lurked a corrugated granny flat with my young name scrawled all over it.
The bungalow was a huge room, bright and inviting, with secluded side access and privacy to boot. There was a private bathroom with a dunny and shower, and a little walk in robe to hang clothes and over time hoard my mountains of shit. It was my palace, my domain, the envy of every schoolmate. I don’t remember too much about the early bungalow years, other than perhaps that it was a lot cleaner and nicer to live in than the cesspit I eventually let
it metamorphose into once school was finished and I assumed the domestic life of a decadent degenerate.
It was when school finished that the bungalow came into its own. The champagne years, you might say. The band was playing gigs every weekend or thereabouts, and nights would run long, the crew would head back through the overgrowth down the side of the house to my HQ, and liquid would flow, much of it ending up on my long suffering carpet floor. The bungalow was a debaucherous den in those days. The red lava lamp suggested it, the interior coated from floor to ceiling with a patchwork of posters and photos, musical instruments strewn everywhere, and a smell that grew with the years that we fondly named ‘dank’.
The carpet, more than anything in that little house copped the brunt of our mercilessly hazy soirees. Stains on the floor became landmarks, signposts and artifacts of the big nights, the memorable ones. “That big one wide one near bookcase – remember? - that was where Corno mashed the bucket system in 2002… and that curvy, dense blemish by the desk…yep, yep, that’d be where Tock plunged a fresh stubby into the ground after losing motor function back in that night back in September. Good times. Good times…”
You get the picture. Pro Hart would have been proud.
When I eventually moved out of the bungalow in 2005, Von boldly got the carpet steam cleaned. The water that came out of the steam cleaner was thick, and it was black. Distilled elixir from years of party.
Now, in my late twenties, I often catch myself daydreaming, forever casting memory back to the early noughties. There’s often a flicker of an image of an indefinable moment that lurks around in there - whether it’s one moment, I’m not sure. It’s probably the product of multiple similar memories. It’s a tender breeze flitting the vines around my side patio, a summer squall inviting itself through the mesh wire door, rippling the poster of ‘The Castle’ hanging down from the ceiling edge where the blue tac got dusty and gave up it’s ghost. There’s rock n’ roll pumping through my mounted wall speakers, the heavy Sony ones that hurtle to the ground when the volume goes past ‘28’… and it’s the chorus to ‘Hercules’ by the Oils, Tenacious D, or Long Beach Dub and Sublime, and that Manfred Mann vinyl of Kev’s with the psychedelic organ solo, Jethro Tull ‘Thick as a Brick’…something fresh, something old newly discovered. My sax sits on it’s stand in the corner near the blue beanbag by the bookshelf; the piano motionless by the door, the couch faded and worn, with sponge pouring out of a gash that has grown larger from another bender the night before. My unkempt hair is damp still from a late morning shower, adding weight to my head mired in thought about all these precious days blending into one. Momentarily I’m irked; one frustration in a life so free and so light of burden. I don’t want the days coming and going like this. Why can’t I sup and savour and live each day like it were a whole week. The moment is golden and perfect. I read a book in the hammock, ring the guys and get a session going, crack open a $27 slab of Draught with the old labels, maybe hit up the Darebin mound and watch life happen. It’s a drug-like buzz of pure freedom sending sparks down my ethereal, burgeoning soul with an intensity unbalanced - borderline dangerous - a high I’ve yet to understand, yet to control, an addiction I’ll pay for when it comes to plunge back into me, and I realize yet again – yet again that this sartorial sentiment of youth never sustains – never can, and isn’t supposed to. I won’t learn that for years to come. I open up the top drawer of my black desk and prepare a smoke, locking myself into an indulgent world where it’s just me and no one else. And then, in that streaming sunlight I float through a wild, surging cocoon, insulated with single-minded elation, a pseudo suburban shamanistic trip. I flick the switch to my amp, strum my Gretsch with the gain on high and lose myself in a land of power chords and offbeats. The world goes on around me and everything is electric.
The halcyon days of the bungalow and everything attached to it – day, night, inside and out - were incredibly special, and indelibly bittersweet. Bitter because they will never happen like that again, sweet because they were many, and truly fucking wonderful. I will never begin to bring myself to be able to distill the magic of those coming of age years into words that elicit anywhere near the emotions associated with the events of the bungalow era. Still, I try. They were something unbelievably intoxicating that they blinded me to how anything would ever match or surpass such heights again. All these memories I had - maybe they had me. When I let them through the gates to my forefront, they creep and cosy into my nooks like silence through the back door on a brooding autumn night.
But all this is years passed.
A few months ago Mum and Von decided to get the house renovated. In extending the back of the main house, the bungalow was earmarked for departure. So spelled the end of my once dearly cherished domain.
Destroying the bungalow of 4 Lily St Fairfield is more than just killing a few sheets of corrugated iron and twelve square metres of loveless carpet; it is the physical end of a spiritual home. I’d long since made peace with the nostalgic pull of the years delineated by that sweet comfort zone, so the blow was soft. In memory of, and to pay final respect, on the eve of the bungalow’s destruction, I sat on my tiny shitter and gave my beloved ol’ abode one last loving purge.
As I sat on the John, that deafening autumn breeze filtered in through the mesh vent above the wind-out window as I peered as I’d done every day for nine years at the uneven bathroom tiles and black murk around the sink edges. A vortex of sense memory returned - nods to the wintery chills of the past; seashores of memory lapping fragments and shards and swirling imagery of life in our wild youth, getting on it, getting off, and slowly turning the carpet to a rich black.
It’s pretty wild where your mind will go to when you’re letting one last one go.
…she will not be forgotten.
RIP. Bungalow (nee’ Bongalow)
4 Lily St, Fairfield, 3078
4 Lily St, Fairfield, 3078
***
When I was a kid, I had the greatest bedroom.Mum, Von and I bailed on Croydon in 1996 and packed up shop for the far off lands of the inner suburban north. The shift was made to a quaint Californian bungalow in the suburb of Fairfield where the night air smelled like cooked cardboard and the mornings sweetened with the waft of fresh bread loaves and danish. My experience of life thus far had been confined to the far east, where two-dollar shops thrived in duplicate and bogans festered in high numbers. Nights there by comparison smelled like fast food and rubber. Anything beyond the Maroondah electorate was foreign ground to my sheltered perspective and Fairfield was as foreign as it got for my thirteen-year-old eyes.
Our new abode had an ugly stick charm. It was a dark olive green joint w
ith thick poo-brown carpet, held together by a blend of 1970’s-inspired faux-wood décor. The yard was overgrown with shrubbery and vine, the fence, a rickety piece of patchwork that had never been replaced. Our neighbour, from what we knew, seemed welcoming and friendly, though we would later know him as a diminutive pervert assclown - that story, perhaps, for another time.In the hum and whirr of those early December mornings it felt extremely nice to be the newest residents of Fairfield. Not especially laden with open fields, let alone fair ones, it was away from sprawling nowhere, close to the energy of civilization and had a giant trojan dog by the station. It was somewhere exciting and fresh, the beginning of a brand new chapter in life for all three of us. Four years prior, Von had sacrificed his formative shagging years to commit to a lady and her chubby ten year old, forfeiting his bachelor habitat in trendy Fitzroy for a thoroughly unglamorous life in Croydon. Thank God for him, for it was he who knew of the glory beyond, and we probably never would have gotten out of there without him.
Our new home had charm, and what it lacked in pizzazz it surely made up for in potential. Above and beyond, the deal sealer for me was that amidst the forest of creeper and dense jungle of that overgrown backyard lurked a corrugated granny flat with my young name scrawled all over it.
The bungalow was a huge room, bright and inviting, with secluded side access and privacy to boot. There was a private bathroom with a dunny and shower, and a little walk in robe to hang clothes and over time hoard my mountains of shit. It was my palace, my domain, the envy of every schoolmate. I don’t remember too much about the early bungalow years, other than perhaps that it was a lot cleaner and nicer to live in than the cesspit I eventually let
it metamorphose into once school was finished and I assumed the domestic life of a decadent degenerate.It was when school finished that the bungalow came into its own. The champagne years, you might say. The band was playing gigs every weekend or thereabouts, and nights would run long, the crew would head back through the overgrowth down the side of the house to my HQ, and liquid would flow, much of it ending up on my long suffering carpet floor. The bungalow was a debaucherous den in those days. The red lava lamp suggested it, the interior coated from floor to ceiling with a patchwork of posters and photos, musical instruments strewn everywhere, and a smell that grew with the years that we fondly named ‘dank’.
The carpet, more than anything in that little house copped the brunt of our mercilessly hazy soirees. Stains on the floor became landmarks, signposts and artifacts of the big nights, the memorable ones. “That big one wide one near bookcase – remember? - that was where Corno mashed the bucket system in 2002… and that curvy, dense blemish by the desk…yep, yep, that’d be where Tock plunged a fresh stubby into the ground after losing motor function back in that night back in September. Good times. Good times…”
You get the picture. Pro Hart would have been proud.
When I eventually moved out of the bungalow in 2005, Von boldly got the carpet steam cleaned. The water that came out of the steam cleaner was thick, and it was black. Distilled elixir from years of party.
Now, in my late twenties, I often catch myself daydreaming, forever casting memory back to the early noughties. There’s often a flicker of an image of an indefinable moment that lurks around in there - whether it’s one moment, I’m not sure. It’s probably the product of multiple similar memories. It’s a tender breeze flitting the vines around my side patio, a summer squall inviting itself through the mesh wire door, rippling the poster of ‘The Castle’ hanging down from the ceiling edge where the blue tac got dusty and gave up it’s ghost. There’s rock n’ roll pumping through my mounted wall speakers, the heavy Sony ones that hurtle to the ground when the volume goes past ‘28’… and it’s the chorus to ‘Hercules’ by the Oils, Tenacious D, or Long Beach Dub and Sublime, and that Manfred Mann vinyl of Kev’s with the psychedelic organ solo, Jethro Tull ‘Thick as a Brick’…something fresh, something old newly discovered. My sax sits on it’s stand in the corner near the blue beanbag by the bookshelf; the piano motionless by the door, the couch faded and worn, with sponge pouring out of a gash that has grown larger from another bender the night before. My unkempt hair is damp still from a late morning shower, adding weight to my head mired in thought about all these precious days blending into one. Momentarily I’m irked; one frustration in a life so free and so light of burden. I don’t want the days coming and going like this. Why can’t I sup and savour and live each day like it were a whole week. The moment is golden and perfect. I read a book in the hammock, ring the guys and get a session going, crack open a $27 slab of Draught with the old labels, maybe hit up the Darebin mound and watch life happen. It’s a drug-like buzz of pure freedom sending sparks down my ethereal, burgeoning soul with an intensity unbalanced - borderline dangerous - a high I’ve yet to understand, yet to control, an addiction I’ll pay for when it comes to plunge back into me, and I realize yet again – yet again that this sartorial sentiment of youth never sustains – never can, and isn’t supposed to. I won’t learn that for years to come. I open up the top drawer of my black desk and prepare a smoke, locking myself into an indulgent world where it’s just me and no one else. And then, in that streaming sunlight I float through a wild, surging cocoon, insulated with single-minded elation, a pseudo suburban shamanistic trip. I flick the switch to my amp, strum my Gretsch with the gain on high and lose myself in a land of power chords and offbeats. The world goes on around me and everything is electric.
The halcyon days of the bungalow and everything attached to it – day, night, inside and out - were incredibly special, and indelibly bittersweet. Bitter because they will never happen like that again, sweet because they were many, and truly fucking wonderful. I will never begin to bring myself to be able to distill the magic of those coming of age years into words that elicit anywhere near the emotions associated with the events of the bungalow era. Still, I try. They were something unbelievably intoxicating that they blinded me to how anything would ever match or surpass such heights again. All these memories I had - maybe they had me. When I let them through the gates to my forefront, they creep and cosy into my nooks like silence through the back door on a brooding autumn night.
But all this is years passed.
A few months ago Mum and Von decided to get the house renovated. In extending the back of the main house, the bungalow was earmarked for departure. So spelled the end of my once dearly cherished domain.
Destroying the bungalow of 4 Lily St Fairfield is more than just killing a few sheets of corrugated iron and twelve square metres of loveless carpet; it is the physical end of a spiritual home. I’d long since made peace with the nostalgic pull of the years delineated by that sweet comfort zone, so the blow was soft. In memory of, and to pay final respect, on the eve of the bungalow’s destruction, I sat on my tiny shitter and gave my beloved ol’ abode one last loving purge.
As I sat on the John, that deafening autumn breeze filtered in through the mesh vent above the wind-out window as I peered as I’d done every day for nine years at the uneven bathroom tiles and black murk around the sink edges. A vortex of sense memory returned - nods to the wintery chills of the past; seashores of memory lapping fragments and shards and swirling imagery of life in our wild youth, getting on it, getting off, and slowly turning the carpet to a rich black.
It’s pretty wild where your mind will go to when you’re letting one last one go.
24.4.10
Vag Mong
After an extraordinary amount of deliberation on how to kick the doolblog back into gear, I figured last night’s inspired viewing of the Vagina Monologues at the Butterfly playhouse was as good an impetus as any. Back on. Straight in.
***
The Vagina Monologues, acclaimed byproduct of interviews by playwright Eve Ensler with over 200 women about their experiences of sexuality and identity has become an unparalleled expression of female power since it’s virginal showing in Greenwhich Village in 1996. Some stories wrench the heart, others breed chuckles - all are inspired and empowering in their own measure.
Ensler's word continues to spread; tonight's adaption of vag mong is another call to arms for female-kind, a frank exposition and an overdue dialogue to prize open minds, hearts, sexuality, and of course, vaginas.
Victorian terrace-gone-cabaret-salon the Butterfly club is every bit the swanky labyrinth it purports to be, and we're instantly charmed by the promised intrigue and kitsch delight. Thin hallways, skewif staircases and lounge sports mustachioed busts, dust-caked prints and a cache of hundreds of figurines and dolls clustered atop an open fire with stunning OCD scrupulousness. A mischievous barkeep with afro mushrooming from his modest s
ized head supplies me with a chilled Boags instead of a signature vag-mong ‘Shanghai Butterfly’ and dubs me ‘beard-man’. Heavy on the vajutz vibe, patron gender tonight sits well over a six to one ratio. I surmise that a deficiency of manly camaraderie has enamored the barkeep of disproportionate follicle with my rugged ranga beardliness.
Before too long we are ushered into a quaint playhouse, finding cosiness in the form of pre-war brown leather antique pews. Attention is immediately usurped by the thirty-eight miscellaneous plaster vaginas surrounding us on the walls like playful eyes– hairy, sleek, pert, wide, lush, long, fluffy and lazy - a plethora of pussynalities, gritty, raw and real. Not unlike the soliloquies of the ‘Vagina Monologues’ themselves.
In place of lead Vee Cybulski, opening night understudy Mel Calia treads the boards early and proves her class in spades; director-lead Hayley Deutrom kicks the show into gear with signature chutzpah, while effusive Nina Vallins’ no- bullshit, boisterous sass charms the pants off us all. Heartwrenching, pensive and profound, Ting Cheng’s 'comfort women' stirs at the depths, while Grace Travaglia’s retrospective 'My vagina is my village' is vehement and utterly devastating. Powerhouse Tereza Jancar, plunging fresh zest into a delicious deconstruction of the word ‘cunt’, may well have stolen the night.
It is an unseasonably balmy South Melbourne night, the lone ceiling fan sputters it’s best attempts at ventilation and we find ourselves overcome by a sultry, sweaty vibe, feeling every bit as if encased in an actual vagina. Credit to the production team for consistency of context. We’re not only hearin’ it, man, we’re in it.
On this night, the Mother Noose cabal proves itself a class act, crafting Ensler’s feminist holy grail to heartfelt climes, a credit to the directorial panache of Deutrom and passion of producers Cybulski and Jancar. Holding a weighty candle to the cause, proceeds from the shows head to beneficiary non-profit Project Respect, dedicated to the empowerment and support of women in the sex industry and a world where prostitution and female exploitation need no longer apply.
Mother Noose rocked out with their vag’s out and left us hanging for more.
If my vagina could talk, it would surely say ‘bravo ladies. bravo’.
The season is short so get in if you can. In any event check out the awesome Butterfly Club and say yo to brother follicles at the bar when you do. Tell him beard-man says hi.
***Ensler's word continues to spread; tonight's adaption of vag mong is another call to arms for female-kind, a frank exposition and an overdue dialogue to prize open minds, hearts, sexuality, and of course, vaginas.
Victorian terrace-gone-cabaret-salon the Butterfly club is every bit the swanky labyrinth it purports to be, and we're instantly charmed by the promised intrigue and kitsch delight. Thin hallways, skewif staircases and lounge sports mustachioed busts, dust-caked prints and a cache of hundreds of figurines and dolls clustered atop an open fire with stunning OCD scrupulousness. A mischievous barkeep with afro mushrooming from his modest s
ized head supplies me with a chilled Boags instead of a signature vag-mong ‘Shanghai Butterfly’ and dubs me ‘beard-man’. Heavy on the vajutz vibe, patron gender tonight sits well over a six to one ratio. I surmise that a deficiency of manly camaraderie has enamored the barkeep of disproportionate follicle with my rugged ranga beardliness.Before too long we are ushered into a quaint playhouse, finding cosiness in the form of pre-war brown leather antique pews. Attention is immediately usurped by the thirty-eight miscellaneous plaster vaginas surrounding us on the walls like playful eyes– hairy, sleek, pert, wide, lush, long, fluffy and lazy - a plethora of pussynalities, gritty, raw and real. Not unlike the soliloquies of the ‘Vagina Monologues’ themselves.
In place of lead Vee Cybulski, opening night understudy Mel Calia treads the boards early and proves her class in spades; director-lead Hayley Deutrom kicks the show into gear with signature chutzpah, while effusive Nina Vallins’ no- bullshit, boisterous sass charms the pants off us all. Heartwrenching, pensive and profound, Ting Cheng’s 'comfort women' stirs at the depths, while Grace Travaglia’s retrospective 'My vagina is my village' is vehement and utterly devastating. Powerhouse Tereza Jancar, plunging fresh zest into a delicious deconstruction of the word ‘cunt’, may well have stolen the night.
It is an unseasonably balmy South Melbourne night, the lone ceiling fan sputters it’s best attempts at ventilation and we find ourselves overcome by a sultry, sweaty vibe, feeling every bit as if encased in an actual vagina. Credit to the production team for consistency of context. We’re not only hearin’ it, man, we’re in it.
On this night, the Mother Noose cabal proves itself a class act, crafting Ensler’s feminist holy grail to heartfelt climes, a credit to the directorial panache of Deutrom and passion of producers Cybulski and Jancar. Holding a weighty candle to the cause, proceeds from the shows head to beneficiary non-profit Project Respect, dedicated to the empowerment and support of women in the sex industry and a world where prostitution and female exploitation need no longer apply.
Mother Noose rocked out with their vag’s out and left us hanging for more.
If my vagina could talk, it would surely say ‘bravo ladies. bravo’.
The season is short so get in if you can. In any event check out the awesome Butterfly Club and say yo to brother follicles at the bar when you do. Tell him beard-man says hi.
6.8.09
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
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
3.8.09
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.
1.8.09
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.
26.7.09
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...
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...
24.7.09
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.
16.7.09
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.
14.7.09
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 thoug
ht. 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...
12.7.09
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 littl
e 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.
6.7.09
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.
3.7.09
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 m
ight 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
2.7.09
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
30.6.09
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.
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.
25.6.09
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.
24.6.09
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.
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.
23.6.09
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.
22.6.09
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.
20.6.09
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.
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