BACK IN OZ

BACK IN OZ.

If I’m not the one driving, my policy has always been to get tanked up whenever I embark on any kind of long distance travel and that’s just for interstate road trips within Australia.  A journey involving twenty plus hours in the air was certainly a daunting prospect so I knew I was going to need all the help I could get.  The thought of going without a ciggie for that long was starting to give this time seasoned nicotine addict the jitters and I had to come up with a practical solution to my dilemma before the plane took off. The payoff for my dangerous little stunt in Spain was sufficient to secure our airline tickets back to England and pay back the cash loans we had received from Joys relations but little besides.  With what was left of our English currency we had just enough assorted notes and small change to purchase a block of hash from a hawker I got chatting with at a newspaper stand near the terminal. Once that was sorted out we were left with a barely sufficient food and refreshments budget for the flight home but at least I had some smoko.  After the scrutiny I had received at our previous visit to Heathrow airport I was too paranoid to attempt a pre-departure smoke so I ate the tasty, little nugget of Hashish in the airport carpark before we boarded the plane.  I assumed the crumbly block of Lebanese blonde was the same brand of low grade shit we had come to expect in Britain, but as things turned out it was quite the opposite.  It looked much the same as the stuff I had been scoring around the pubs in England but it was a little stickier to the touch and it had a distinctly sharper aroma.  As the fat soluable THC molecules were slowly absorbed into my digestive system they did more than just ease the boredom of our trans continental flight.  For most of the journey I was chatting away madly to anyone who would listen, as I tinkered on the edge of a THC overdose. For the remainder of the flight I was numbed to oblivion in semi conscious extra terrestrial slumber.  

It was a good job that Joy declined to eat any of the hash because it was more like a tripping experience that just being stoned.  Jesus after all we had been through and this close to getting home, the last thing we needed was one of her emotional bum trips in mid air.  She was in extreme discomfort for the entire journey due to the cramped seating condition and she complained that her leg was beginning to throb.  The first signs of swelling and increased redness were enough to convince a flight attendant that she should dig out the strongest pain killers she could find in the medicine cabinet. Three panadine forte tablets were gulped down by our patient with a slug of Southern comfort then Joy fell asleep with her legs across my lap protruding into the aisle.  She was holding up like a real trooper in spite of the pain and I was proud of her. Our Melbourne to Adelaide flight touched down after a bumpy descent through turbulent and gut wrenching winds.  As we walked down the steps towards the landing strip it felt good to be out of the plane and savouring the familiar scent of my home soil.  I did exactly as I had promised in my intoxicated stupor and bent down to kiss the oil stained bitumen tarmac, just the same as pope what’s his face does.  The other travelers were amused by my drunken hi jinks but Joy could barely force a smile.  We were greeted at the Adelaide airport by Joy’s clan and the swollen leg was given top priority amid a flood of tears and family reconnections. 

Joys old man was generally a sedate driver but he abandoned his normal commuting speed on the way to the Flinders Medical Center and as soon as the attending doctor saw the leg Joy was admitted.  Deep vein thrombosis was not big in the news back then but any swelling associated with air travel was still given special attention.  After three days of tests and examinations it turned out that there was a well established blood clot in the injured leg that was nudging ever closer towards Joys heart.  The specialists at the hospital were amazed by the fact the clot had not been detected at the clinic in Spain and they condemned it as nothing short of criminal negligence. The head doctor suggested in his professional rage that we should sue the primitive bastards through diplomatic channel and in doing so he triggered one of Joys rarely seen but much welcomed smiles. Joy stayed with her folks for the first three weeks after she got out of hospital and I set up camp in a rehearsal studio that was being used by my old band Fusion.  When I decided to go to Europe it had caused a stir among the lads that led to my untimely departure from the band.  I guess they mistakenly assumed  I would be pouring most of my money into new music equipment for the band but I wanted to see a bit of the world while I still had the cash to enjoy it.  Before we had even finished organizing our passports and visas for the trip a friend of Peter Wibrows was recruited to fill my position at the mike. n the time we were away a manager had been appointed to promote the band and it looked like the gigs were starting to roll in.  The new frontman Greg was working out just fine and I couldn’t really hold any ill feelings towards him because he was such a bloody good singer.  Hanging with the guys was a great introduction back into the Australian swing of things and I was confident it was only a matter of time before another singing position would come my way.  Greg was an easy going and likable guy who had brought a whole new air of professionalism to the band.  We really hit it off in spite of the fact I was aching to make a lunge for the microphone the whole time.  He must have received some good reports about me from the lads in my absence and after he heard me singing he suggested that I join the band for a few guest spots at the gigs.  All of them thought it was a great idea and before long I was back under the limelight doing the thing I love most.

'La, … Cantari.'

The band performed at the most popular of Adelaides drinking holes where four on the floor progressive metal was the order of the day.  As I watched them go through the motions of trying to get famous I actually found myself relieved that I had left the group before we went overseas.  Their highly aggressive and overly market conscious, new manager was a little too draconian in his approach and it occurred to me that the lads were turning into just another pack of trained seals.  They were forfeiting their own creativity to satisfy market trends and they became increasingly more mediocre in the process. The group had obviously lost the magic and the fire in their attempts to bend to public approval.  The role that would have been required of me if I had of stayed with the band was almost too embarrassing to think about and it’s a part I would have been incapable of playing having tasted the power of calling the shots so early in the game.  Besides the pursuit of stardom in the guise of a metal rock, sex machine now seemed extremely limited.  The accumulated teachings of my mentors had planted a seed among my thoughts that there was a higher and more significant purpose waiting for me just a little further up the track.  If I could only see it.  After months of waiting around and having to inter-react with yet another time consuming bureaucracy I received a substantial insurance payout for our Spanish mis-adventure.  It came through a travel policy that Joy had convinced me to buy just before we left.  The policy originally cost me one hundred and twenty seven dollars and I came away with about nine grand cash in hand. It was a welcomed score to top up my account, but barely adequate to replace the twenty odd thousand I had lost to those corrupt, rip off, mother fucking judges back in Spain. Joys new teeth and assorted medical bills ended up costing about four thousand dollars so with what was left of my cash reserves plus the insurance payout I had about nineteen grand left to work with.  Joy wanted to use it all as down payment on a quiet little plot in the country, but I cringed at the thought of being committed to any kind of debt.

Being so close to a working band I soon came to realize who was making all the money and it wasn’t my struggling muso mates or their success hungry manager.  It was the pub owners who were selling the booze to the punters and the guys behind the scenes who hired out all of the PA systems, lighting rigs, trucks and everything else that make your average rock and roll show happen.  Becoming a publican was out of the question because I would probably end up drinking the beer barrels dry and at the end of the day I would be just another mug who was busting his arse to pay off a bank.  The only real option available to me and within my means was to buy a van and a PA system and start learning how to be a sound technician.   In the role of the Musical hire man come knockabout roadie I would be able to further explore the workings of the entertainment industry and probably make more money than I would as frontman in a new band.  I put the idea to Joy and she thought it sounded like a wonderful idea.  Before I had even finished telling her about my plan she was suggesting that we should use the first twelve moths profit as down payment on some land and we would have a steady income to cover the monthly repayments.  Jesus fucking Christ! There’s no escape from it.  I was struck with the same feeling of being trapped and controlled that I used to experience every time Anna Maria spotted a new born infant.

                                                                                                                                                                                                             'EEEK! … I’m Doomed.'

I  bought an ex Mr. Juicy Ford Transit van which had been battered by years of  service, but the engine and the rest of the mechanics seemed to be in really good nick.  My driving underwent a remarkable transformation after I acquired the new set of wheels.  From my previous incarnation as a piss tank, speed freak who was a surefire bet for disaster I became a moderate, mostly sober and excessively cautious motorist, who was allowing past experience be his guide.  Joy and I rented a one bedroom flat at Moana Beach which was right next door to friendly little kiosk and just a stones throw from the pounding surf.  As part of our chummy little nest building routine we adopted a full breed golden cocker spaniel pup from the local dog pound whom we named ‘Lady’ after the movie ‘Lady and the Tramp’.  The dog was soon to become Joys replacement off spring and my little traveling companion as we explored the coastal fringe.  A short walk up the beach from our flat the weathered, sandstone cliffs at Maslins beach towered high above the surf like a scene from some exotic movie.  It’s the first location in Australia to become a fully legalized nudist beach courtesy of the late Don Dunstan. As I looked out my front door in quieter and more reflective moments I decided that the view I beheld in my front yard was equal to anything I had seen in my world travels.  I placed an order with one of the local music shops for a PA system, which I was assured would take less than three weeks to assemble and would end up costing me about thirteen grand.  As you might expect more weeks than were quoted dragged on as we waited for some component or other to arrive from the states. I was getting extremely tired of all the feeble excuses for the delay because I wanted to get up and running with my new enterprise.  External forces were holding me down and steering me towards the path of excess.  I needed to get creative to replace the sense of helplessness I was feeling, so I decided to act on an idea I had a couple of days earlier while Lady and I were banging around out on the beach.  There’s a little rocky beach between Moana and Maslins known as ‘Ochre cove’ and I had heard from one of the locals that it was the place where the local Aborigines used to go for the colored dirt they used in their face paint and the like.  Sure enough when Lady and I climbed over the dunes and went high up into the sandstone crevasses I found a seemingly infinite range of colors.  With just a little scraping the oxides were easily separable from the sandstone bed rock and as much as possible I concentrated on retaining the distinction between the colors.  I placed the ochre in individual snap seal bags and after we rolled home that evening I started seeing what I could do with them. 

The kitchen table became my work station as the earlier sense of boredom I had been enduring was replaced by creative frenzy. The colors began to flow and merge on large sheets of newly purchased carbon paper like a Mississippi delta of melting rainbows. Swirling and spiraling into each other and creating virtual landscapes formed by millions of tiny sand granuals.  When the painted sheets I was churning out had dried enough they were placed all over the walls of the kitchen, dining room, even in the toilet.  Anywhere one could be hung it was.  The effect was astounding. Joy said it made her feel like she was flashing back to an acid trip and I knew exactly what she was talking about, because it was making me feel the same way.  I started wondering weather I had tapped into some hidden, magical ritual of the ‘Ooga, Booga’ tribe up the track, but that was probably more a case of wishful thinking than any kind of actual reality.  The music shop who were supposed to have by PA built in “less than three weeks” were blaming the continuing delays on some cargo container dispute in America.  I just hung up the phone in anger and disgust. I rolled a joint to calm down from the hassle then I went back to my painting.  The ‘Organic psychedelia’ collection as I named the first pieces had used up a lot of my ochre supply but I still had plenty in the plastic bags and there was an endless supply just up the beach.  The new edition I was working on were based on the authentic works of the aborigines with lines and dots being the main feature throughout.  I was making regular trips to the Adelaide museum and Art gallery so as to make detailed sketches of the work before me and to associate the pieces with the legends they illustrated. Joy and I were sitting around in the beer garden at the British hotel on a Friday night hopping into steaks and drinking Liebfrauwine. We were waiting for the band to kick off over in the corner and for Steve White to get home from work. When last we spoke on the phone he said he was interested in seeing the work I was doing with the ochre, so I had brought a couple of my favorite selections along. They were sitting rolled up on the table out of harms way of the splash fest happening all around. Steve finally arrived in his work clothes from the Coke factory and he ordered a big juicy steak.  The Friday night crowd had really started to roll in and it was turning into a quite a rowdy scene.  After we had eaten and the plates were cleared away I pulled out the paintings to show them to Steve, but what followed took us all by complete surprise. 

Steve and I had been passing joints to each other under the table since he arrived and we were more vulnerable than we knew to the prevailing forces at work around us. As I unfolded the pieces onto the table and started explaining the legends behind them, a Coorie guy who resembled the legendary thunder god himself emerged into the midst of our gathering through an almost magical parting of the beer garden revellers.  I swear he was doing some kind of sacred dance as he approached our table and all three of us were left slightly gob smacked.  Not only did it look totally amazing there was dialogue forthcoming as well.  He was looking over the paintings with an air of knowledgeable foreboding, shaking his head in a mode of theatrical condemnation and saying, “Oooooh! My brother”…  “You better tread careful tonight or the Featherman gonna get you.”  Steve and Joy just cracked up as I invited ‘Gunook’ the spooky little blackfella who had zeroed in on me to sit down and join us.  I shouted him one jug of Coopers Ale after another and he gave us the full rundown on who this ‘Featherman character was and why he goes out hunting for whities who fuck around with blackfella, sacred art.  All of what Gunook told us served as a priceless insight into his world, beyond anything you will ever read in a text book.  I had no idea about the rights of passage one has to attain before they can paint certain things and that’s got nothing to do with us white blokes at all.  Out of respect for him and his customs I allowed Gunook to take the paintings away with him and we blew on a big fat scoob as everyone bid him farewell.  Steve was quick off the mark to dig his index finger deep into my ribs chanting, “All bow down to the Featherman” “Oh! Yea!”“The Featherman gonna get you”. 

After our encounter with Gunook I decided to call it a day with the ochre painting thing and get into something a little closer to my own cultural boundaries.  Still on the theme of psychedelics I replaced the multi colored pallet of the ochre with high quality, felt tipped pens. Mandela’s and other forms of sacred geometry became the new focus in my compelling need for spectral and prismic delight.  One night I started drawing after an acid trip just to see what I could come out with and I was at it for two days solid.  I kept giving myself little boosters of acid every few hours to stay awake then I crashed out exhausted for the next three days.  When I examined what I had done in the clear light of day I concluded it was the worst load of shit I had ever spewed forth.  I felt I really needed a break from everything. The delay with the assembly of the PA was really starting to get me down.  It had been almost two months since I placed the order and there was no getting out of the deal because I had paid them a seven thousand dollar deposit.  I wouldn’t have been able to cope with the ordeal of taking them to court, so I just had sit and wait until the frigging thing was finished.

Early in the morning just before sunrise Lady and I were playing chase the stick in the surf out near Ochre cove.  I was starting to get a little clearer in my head  after the big acid binge and the simplicity of just playing with the dog was enough to satisfy.  As I bent down to pick up the stick in the half light I detected a movement in the corner of my eye, high in the dunes to the west.  It looked like a well built male and he was holding some kind of implement.  I couldn’t make out all of the details of his form, just half a silhouette against the bushes.  There had been talk of people shooting wildlife among the locals in Moana so I wasted no time in putting as many sand dunes as I could between myself and this mysterious individual.  I called lady over to where I was standing near a sandstone outcrop but she had other ideas.  She had spotted the person who was by now walking down the slope and she darted off in his direction.  The light had increased by the time I came in view of her and she was rolling around at the feet of the stranger being patted and played with.  As the first blinding rays of the sun broke the horizon I could make out that it was just an old branch the bloke was holding probably to use as a walking staff. We greeted each other with a friendly good morning and I detected a foreign accent in his voice.  As I was going up the sloped towards them I passed a one man tent that was perched in a bushy flat between a couple of sand dunes. Our initial conversation was about the horrible swarms of mosquitoes that come out at night but it soon swung around to who each of us was over hot coffee beside his tent.  I was completely awe struck by the knowledge I had stumbled upon a person who described himself as an ‘Anthropological artist’ and equally blown away when he informed me that he was in Australia working on a project funded by the Tate gallery in London.  That’s the big league in anybodys language.  His name I was to discover was Nicholas Lang from Heidelberg in Germany.  As we sat drinking coffee and talking he reached into his tent and produced a folded over corn flakes box.  I thought he might be going to roll up some exotic brand of smoko but it turned out to be a fossilized emu egg that he was re-constructing with super glue. 

                                                                                                                                 

                                                                                Ochre cove.

He continued with stories of his recent travels as he tinkered away with the egg and I was quite impressed by how he could work on such a delicate and fragile thing while still maintaining a conversation.  The greatest shock to my system came when he told me the reason he was in this particular spot.  It was because of the ochre.  Fuck me sideways.  This was too much of a cosmos shaking coincidence for me to comprehend before breakfast.  I felt instantly connected to Nicholas in an artistic way, like a comrade in some kind of renaissance conspiracy.  He was equally surprised by the fact I had been gathering the ochre and using it as my main medium of expression.  I think we both knew instinctively that there was a reason for our connection and the purpose was revealed as the conversation continued.  His mission at Ochre cove was to excavate sites into the sandstone crevasses and transfer the colored vein. onto wooden and hemp gauze frames.  Once this had been achieved he intended to go to the Flinders Ranges in search of a sacred red ochre mine that had been lost in a landslide over one hundred and forty years ago. 

'Mind boggling shit indeed'. 

When I enquired how Nicholas intended to journey into the Flinders Ranges he pulled out his maps and pointed at an isolated railway siding up past Hawker at the foot of the ranges.  As he described how he intended to hike the long distance from the railway depot into the ranges in the blazing heat of summer the purpose of our connection was suddenly revealed.  He was to be the master in this intriguing Anthropological genre I had started dabbling in and I would be  his traveling companion and apprentice.  I wouldn’t hear of any offers of petrol money and the like as I donated my services to his mission and he in turn offered to supply all of the marijuana we would need for the trip.  As it turned out he did have some smoking gear tucked away in his tent and over a choof or two by his smoldering campfire we made plans for the ochre excavations that would commence at sunrise the next morning. I skipped along like some stupid kid as Lady and I made our way back up the beach towards home.  I was smiling to myself at the sheer artistic majesty of the connection and at how truly impeccable the timing was.  Joy and I were desperately needing a break from each other and an excursion into the Flinders Ranges was the perfect excuse to bail out of the relationship for a well earned break.  I met up with Nicholas the following morning as we had agreed and it was straight to work after coffee and a joint with a backpack sized pick and shovel.  By midday we had located the most suitable veins of multi colored ochre and we had shaved away all of the yellowy sandstone rubbish.  The veins that Nick decided to transfer onto the frames after they were built looked almost like magnified views of opal.  As we were scraping and digging away at one of the sites on our hands and knees a strange little visitation entered my thoughts and I was distracted by an amusing apparition in my minds eye.  It was Gunook all doodied up in a traditional costume that could only have been that of, … ‘The Featherman’  I almost jumped out of my skin.  Instantly my thoughts turned to where I was and exactly what it was I was doing.  I asked Nicholas as we worked if there was any kind of permission required for his project and he was quick to put my mind at ease.  He had obtained an official permit from the Site Protection Officer before he even left Germany and the project had the full endorsement of the local Aboriginal Elders.  Apparently they were pleased that someone was doing something to preserve the ochre for future generations to see.  Where we were working had long since become a popular trail bike track and there were about six rusty old car bodies sitting around that had been pushed off the cliffs above. The following day after we completed the excavations Nick and I drove into the Adelaide hills in search of sapling pines to construct the frames that would hold the hemp gauze.  We found the perfect patch just off the road in a government plantation and harvested all we needed for the task.  On the way back to Moana we stopped at an industrial estate on the outskirts of Adelaide to get the roll of hemp fabric.  At a small hardware store he bought a spool of bailing twine and some epoxy resin which meant we were set to begin building the frames the following day.  The structures we had to build came together exactly as Nicholas had envisioned them. He was extremely easy to work with as I followed his instructions and marveled at his unshakable sense of precision.  The lengths of sapling pine were bound together with bailing twine to take the shape of three, six foot by four frames.  Lengths of hemp gauze were then laid across one side of each frame and secured into position with small tacks.  We glued the fabric into permanent position with epoxy resin and took the rest of the day off as the glue dried.  We were sitting around relaxing after a good mornings work and Nicholas announced that he was right and the end of his pot supply.  We choofed on the final dregs of what he had left and the acquiring of some more smoko became the absolute priority of our focus.  Being a foreign traveler he didn’t really know anyone he could go to. The only people he had met in Adelaide were those at ‘The Experimental Art Foundation’ but he was hesitant t make enquiries among them because he was unsure of whether they were smokers or not.  I knew a couple of dealers from the music game so we made a trip into the city in search of some laughing gear.  Nicholas was extremely fussy about the quality he purchased and after we had investigated three of my contacts he was still not satisfied with what was on offer.  In the end we managed to score a bag of what I thought was good weed from the university, but Nick was still claiming it was low grade “horse hay”. 

Early up the following day we placed the completed frames over the excavated sites.  The rough hemp gauze on each frame was given a healthy smattering of epoxy resin before it was laid over a site and pressed hard into the sandstone surface.  We gathered up anything we could from the junk that was sitting around to lean up against the back of the wet fabric. This was to ensure the glued hemp fabric would remain flat and the veins would lift away correctly.  Nick said he wanted to leave it for at least three days before we attempted to detach the frames from the sites because any time before that they would not be dry enough.  This suited me fine in light of the fact I had received news that my new PA system was ready to be picked up.  I used the time I had away from Nicholas to do all of the stuff I had been neglecting while I was assisting him.  The first job was to pick up the PA and get it to Moana beach, but first I had to under go extensive training from the resident technician on how the whole thing worked.  Once I had a fairly good idea of the ins and outs of everything we loaded the various components into the van and I headed back towards the coast.  The system was stacked in the van as if the two were designed for each other and there was still a bit of room left over for some traveling gear.  Back at home base I stored the PA system in the pokey little dining room area of the flat and our living area started to look more like the back room of a music shop than anything you could flop out and relax in.  The larger things like speaker cabinets, mixing desk case and amp racks lined the walls without depriving us of too much space, but the twelve microphone stands proved a real problem.  In the end I buried them under our big old brass bed upstairs and they made a hell of a racket whenever Joy and I were doing the ‘wild thang’.

In the three days it took for the glue to dry on the frames we were spared any serious downpours, so when Nicholas and I investigated the sites we were pleased to find them ready to start working on.  The hemp fabric had remained relatively flat as the glue dried and the veins were now solidly attached, ready to be separated from the sandstone.  We worked through the morning to lift the frames away from where they had been placed. Nick went into little displays of pure delight as each one came free to reveal an identical image to the vein over which it had been laid.  He was proud as punch at how the works had come out and no sooner were they completed before he started projecting our focus towards the forth coming trip to the ranges.I drove the van up the beach as close as I could to Ochre cove and we loaded the frames into the back.  They were standing side by side and held in place with rope with Nicks camping gear neatly stacked next to them.  He said goodbye to the cove and I drove back up the beach as carefully as I could so as not to risk damaging any of the pieces.  After a short stop at the flat to say goodbye to Joy and to pick up the dog and my camping gear we went into the city. It had been arranged that the frames would be stored at ‘The Experimental Art Foundation’ headquarters and Nicholas was anxious to get them out of the van to a safer place.  That evening we were surprised to find a gathering had been organized in Nicks honor.  It was held in the gallery area of the E.A.F. and it was attended by the crème of the Adelaide art scene.  A couple of lovely old aboriginal elders had been invited along and they gave stirring little speeches about how happy they were that the importance of Ochre cove had finally been recognized.  The merriment progressed late into the night and those gathered were treated to a variety of performance art pieces, a string quartet and a number of other musical acts.  The newly completed ‘Ochre works’ were hung in pride of place directly behind a small stage area. Nicholas was busy chatting with everyone there but his eyes were right there with me when I caught a wiff of some potent weed circulating in the crowd. When he was free of all the attention we conspired to spilt up into separate search parties to locate the source of the pot.  We reconnected in an outside courtyard area that was a private chillout zone for the E.A.F. crew. 

Nick had already located the source and as I pulled up an easy chair he was being presented with a large brown paper bag full of grass.  He stuck his nostrals deep into the bag and after a time withdrew them sporting an enormous smile.  With those seated around him waiting in baited anticipation at what he was going to say he declared,“Istvan, In the morning we leave for the ranges and we have a new traveling companion to take along.”  He was holding the bag high in the air still grinning.  I spent a total of three months in the company of Nicholas before he had to return to Germany.  Our trip into the Flinders Ranges proved a success greater than that of Ochre Cove when he rediscovered the lost Bookatoo orchre mine and marked it’s location for the anthropological history books.  As Joy and I were seeing him off at the airport I was presented with a small ball of the sacred ochre in thanks for my assistance and he also left me with what remained of the pot.  As he departed through the barriers I became quite emotional as I was hit by the magnitude of the experience we had shared.  Our connection will always be treasured among my fondest memories and rate as the most significant event in my evolution as an artist.