BEING HERE STILL

BEING HERE STILL.

The music industry commenced it’s operations for 2000 and I was incapable of chasing any kind of record deal because I was suddenly confronted with the reality that I had to find a new home.  In the end things became so neurotic and out of control at the Wisdom Gardens that I couldn’t stay focused on a thing I had to do.  In light of the captain’s financial pressures which had become all encompassing it distinctly felt like I was taking advantage of a comrade in his hour of need.   My two most practical options were to return to Byron Bay and try to secure a studio at the Epicenter or move back to Port Stephens where I could set up my base on one of the properties belonging to Quick Bucks.  The latter got my vote as it was closer to Sydney and besides I don’t really want to go and live back in the Northern Rivers until I can at least afford a deposit on some land. Young William came to the rescue and helped to transport my belongings to Port Stephens in his sparkling new Toyota van.  Tootsie was pregnant with her second litter and it was a fingers crossed affair to complete the five hour journey without her dropping puppies all over his new vehicle.  We made it to the bay without any birthing incidents and unloaded my gear into a waiting caravan beside Buck’s swampland shack.  Buck was the guy who first introduced me to the Port Stephens area about twenty years ago.  I was busking in the cross with a young bloke who didn’t really know how to play the song I wanted to sing.  Buck was in the audience that night and he managed to entice the guitar away from the other player.  We did a much applauded version of ‘Riders on the storm’ then he wandered off into the crowded street.  I was so impressed by his playing that I chased him through the cross to find out who he was.  As they say the rest is pretty much history.  I ended up singing lead vocals in his fifty’s revival band that was called, ‘A little Dab’ll Do Ya’ and Shoal Bay the town in which he lived became my regular holiday destination from the rat race of Sydney. 

In the days that followed our arrival in Taylors Beach Toot’s gave birth to nine squirming little balls of fun which inspired me to construct a cyclone wire fence around the perimeter of the van.  Buck’s property is located in densely infested mosquito territory, so the next job on my list was to fix the fly screens on his battered old caravan and construct a mozzie net extension for the dogs.  Within a week I was pretty well established and everything was perfect except for one thing.  It was the height of the mudcrab season amid the sparkling waters of Tilligery creek and my boat was still sitting in storage at Brunswick Heads.  Unable to resist the urge any longer I used the bulk of my next pension payment to hire a pantec truck and did a northbound trip to retrieve my boat and other assorted gear.  As I have come to expect thieves had been through my belongings in my absence and they walked off with a substantial haul.  The boat and outboard motor were left untouched however along with the oars and other such stuff.  I loaded what remained of my gear into the truck and hit the road amid melancholy reflections of Rufus and the time we had spent together in that town. Not far from Taylors Beach I found a fantastic secluded inlet on one of my many hikes through the wetlands with Toots.  The inaccessible mangrove setting became a permanent mooring for the boat and it was less than twenty minutes from the caravan by pushbike.  It was great to be out fishing again after many cold months in the mountains and I knew in my deepest being that I had made the right choice to drop anchor in Port Stephens.   I stayed in Buck’s caravan for about ten months but the mosquito and tick problem ensured that I always had an eye open for a better location.  With the assistance of another long standing Bay Crew mate I eventually moved out of the swamp and occupied a disused beachouse that sits right next door to old Sid’s place in Shoal Bay.  I lived there rent free for more than twelve months before the landowner got wind of my presence and called in the law to kick me out.  That’s when Sid offered me the use of his back shed and I have been here ever since. 

 In the time since first I commenced of the opening chapter of this book our old sea captain Sid has slipped into the advanced stages of dementia. Most of the time he can’t remember what he had for breakfast, let alone the simplistic threads of our conversations.  He can still attend to his daily chores around the caravan but the ravages of time are causing his once solid frame to become more frail and feeble by the day.  He is in a rapid decline and don’t think it will be long before he requires full time nursing. Sid has relatives scattered all over the continent who seldom ever come to visit but I should imagine his death will bring them swarming.  In the time that I have been here not one of his five children have made inquiries about his health or offered any assistance with his welfare. The money grabbing bastards are probably waiting for him to draw his last breath like buzzards on a branch so they can cash in on the property. At great strain to my sanity and communication skills I have managed to extract a phone number out of the old boy which belongs to the oldest of his sons.  He lives somewhere up in Queensland and I’ve got my fingers crossed that he comes to my aid if the skipper suddenly plunges into some kind of unreachable catatonic state.  For the most part Sid’s incoherent ramblings have been the only human contact I have had since I have lived in Shoal bay, other than the odd out of the blue phone calls from Morty and Young William.  My existence has been pretty much devoid of human complications and that’s exactly how it has to be, if I am to remain sane and leave an artistic legacy in the world.  Mostly unhindered by the shackles of normal life I am able to devote my full attention to creative pursuits and any unoccupied moments I may have are spent reflecting on the life I have lived. I guess middle age is the time when most men find themselves pushing the rewind button on the movie in which they have starred. They either see themselves as a hero on some imaginary silver screen, or an inconsequential extra in a film that nobody went to see.  I choose to perceive of my own being as that of an eternal spirit, who is dressed in a temporary costume of flesh and can traverse the inter-dimentional realms of the cosmos.  As best I can imagine, the purpose of my own existence apart from the inevitable gene pool duties is the quest for wisdom.  The chance of having a face to face meeting with the artist who created me would be quite a novel event as well. 

To truly embrace the path of an art monk I have concluded that a man must shake off all worldly attachments and that includes the all consuming quest to find a feminine counterpart in the world. With the decline of physical strength, youthful looks and virility I have started reflecting on my encounters with the fairer sex through the years.  A montage of happy snaps is currently taking shape on the studio wall and it consists of photographs of all my past loves. Starting with early shots of Anna Maria and Joy in Adelaide the photographic display features happy times with Anne Charline, Beth. E. and Alicia.  It contains numerous others I have not mentioned and concludes with a blurred shot of Sylvia and I dancing and laughing at the New millennium celebrations.  Like notches on Valentino’s bedpost the pictures are a visual anthology of my adult life and they are a constant reminder that I knew how to woo them in my prime.  I guess I should be grateful for the assorted, romantic experimentations I have had since first my balls dropped and all I can say about love is …’I’m in love with the idea of it’.  That odd phenomenon we describe as ‘Love’ is the illusion of infinite euphoria by which our biology lures us into the nurturing of a new generation.  The only thing that separates a life of freedom from the slog of a family routine is a group of molecular troublemakers that you can look up in any high school biology book. 

After much internal debate I have concluded that Anne Charline was probably the closest I ever came to finding the perfect partner.  In our short three months together we never had a serious argument due to her limited English and the fact we lived on opposite sides of the globe ensured that we would never be subject to post honeymoon friction.  If that sounds like an arrogant and insensitive perspective on human relations, then I stand guilty as charged and sweet memories are all I deserve.  When you are young and caught in the grip of chemically induced delirium nothing else matters but getting your genitalia wet and your ego pampered by as many lovers as you can snare. 

Talk about chance. A couple of days ago I was dutifully banging away on the computer composing these the last few pages and trying to convince myself that love is futile, when a new reality suddenly presented itself. This new twist in my story now threatens to make the whole 'Art Monk' rave sound like the discontented ramblings of some socially alienated jerk, who is too lazy to get off his arse and find himself a root.  A woman with whom I had a quite in depth affair at the Wisdom Gardens decided to call me up out of the blue. The sexual innuendos that were blurted forth in our initial phone conversation were such that I was inspired to jump on the first available train headed for the mountains.  I woke up the following morning to warm coffee and a post coital smooching session, sufficient to convince me that nothing in the world is more powerful than the drive to get your rocks off.  My bed partners name is Robyn and it would seem that we have embarked on a second attempt at that illusive, holy grail of human relations. 

A sane and easygoing relationship.  Things should be a lot easier this time around because her young daughter 'Rosie' is sixteen with a boyfriend and this means that Robyn is less prone to the stresses of trying to appear like some kind of 'single parent supermum'. My present perspective on the rekindled romance is that it doesn't feel so much like I am back tracking, as I have been granted an opportunity to put the fruits of my experience into practice.  In more intimate moments we talk about the importance of mutual respect and basic human friendship as the basis for any healthy partnership. Then we get down to the serious business of trying to locate the most sensitive little nooks and crannies of each others erogenous zones.  With the reignition of the old flame between us I have decided to follow through on the plans I was making when we first met to have the'Big V' and get my reproductive functions terminated.  There are far too many children being born into the world and our fragile little home in the sky has been too severely plundered to support them all.   Besides I want a relationship with a woman who is exploring her own potential outside the restrictions of motherhood.  Someone who has performed her nurturing duties and wants to engage in a bit of post parental fun.   Alas the hay day of my public notoriety has faded to distant, flickering memories. Just like the time worn photographs on my wall.  Dreams of international success are but empty bubbles, floating in the still backwaters of my mind.  I suppose by not achieving my dreams of absolute glory I avoided a life of pre-fabricated, public respectability and that brings a certain sense of contentment.  The way I see things I was very lucky to have travelled the path I did because I got to fulfill my artistic ambitions as a singer/songwriter and an advocate of what is good in the world.   As I recount the crazy years I lived through the thing that most astounds me is the amazing chain of coincidental events that brought me in contact with those I knew and worked with. 

It seems the magical occurrences of my life continue to pop up and something just happened which offers a fine example of what I mean.  I am amped up to the max at the moment as my story nears it’s end and I struggle to get everything I wanted to say into print.  As I have powered along with my work I have been listening to all of my techno compilation tapes as a kind of relaxation therapy. Just by chance I picked up a cassette produced by a fellow busker that I have not heard in ages.  The name of the performer is India Bharti and he is a Shiva devotee who sings wild ancient chants and plays an assortment of home crafted instruments.  At the very moment I placed the tape in the player my eye was caught by the minature TV that I keep next to the computer.  It was Billy Connolly’s new show ‘The World Tour of Australia’ and he was doing a feature on India Bharti as he did his busking show in Circular Quay.  How fucking amazing is that?  The coincidence is pretty spectacular in itself, but an equally mind blowing aspects is that Billy and I also knew each other in the early days.  We met at the peak of the busking years while he was touring our fair shores and putting the population in stitches.  The particular moment in which we crossed each others paths is probably as embarrassing as hell for Billy to reminisce on but I’m going to tell the story anyway, confident that he will forgive me. 

I was walking down Darlinghurst road on my way to the Piccadilly nightclub and I spotted our ever hilarious Scottish clown stretched out on the pavement next to a banjo strumming old guy with a sawn off leg.  The mean spirited old fart regularly made it his practice to scream abuse at the audience if they didn’t pay up, but he was in a particularly good mood this night as Billy had dropped a twenty dollar note in his hat.  As I arrived on the scene Billy was literally rolling in the gutter dressed up to the nines in expensive threads and cowboy boots. From a reclining position on the pavement he was declaring to the world that he was a, ‘Famous Rock and Roll Celebrity” and I thought it’s only a matter of time before some fast moving gutter snipe relieves him of his wallet.  I reached down and helped him up in his paralytic stupor and arm in arm we staggered up the street towards the Sebel Town House.  Once we were at his penthouse suite he insisted that we have ‘goodnight dinkies’ but at that stage he was incapable of even finding the bar fridge.  He crashed out after a final rendition of, “I’m a famous celebrity” and I left my name on a drink coaster beside his bed. 

The following night at the Capital theater I was delighted to find that Billy had discovered the note and he had kindly left my name at the box office.  I was escorted to the back stage area by an usherette and was greeted by Billy with a big hug as I entered his pre-performance environment.  Now all sobered up and respectable he thanked me for escorting him home and I was staggered by the notion that he remembered a single thing about his drunken escapade.  As we were speaking an irate American promoter interrupted our chat by declaring in less than hushed tones that Billy had,“No right to announce any late arrivals to the show”.  He said that it was a full house and there was absolutely nowhere for me to sit.  Instantly Billy fired up and went into the same kind of vocal display we have all seen on our television screens.  He said,“Well if there’s no fucking room for the man to sit down you poor excuse for a fucking entrapanuer, then he can stand right at the front of the goddamned stage as if he’s by bodyguard”.  The promoter stormed off in a huff and I stood exactly where Billy had suggested, with the best front row position I ever could have wished for. 

Aye  belang  te  glasgeeee!

While on the subject of highly strung individuals Morty popped in to look me up over the Christmas period that just passed. We spent a couple of days together getting out of it and going through some of the old songs, but it didn’t quite feel the same as it has in days gone by.  He was travelling in the company of a Latin performer known as ‘Ho hey’ who plays wonderful traditional tunes and can sketch a mans portrait in about three minutes flat.   The likeness he captured of me was very good, but I was so badly hungover when they left that I forgot to get it photo-copied.   The two were on their way to perform at the New years eve celebrations in Byron Bay which offered far more excitement than I could ever imagine around this neck of the woods.  I asked Morty if he could fit me in for the ride but the police were blitzing holiday road users and he was worried about getting busted with an unseatbelted passenger.  Middle age it seems has made my once thrill seeking, delinquent partner think twice before running off on the next irresponsible adventure.  I can remember a time when he hung out of my old Futura giving lip to some coppers at the lights while I had a kilo slab of imported hashish concealed in the boot.  Another time while he was driving on the narrow winding roads to Palm Beach I asked if he could slow down a bit and he began the most terrifying game of chicken I have ever experienced.  He was gunning his old Morris convertible down through the slippery, mist engulfed bends while laughing his stupid head off and saying,“Does this scare you?, ... How about this? Having been so long away from any kind of live performance or busking activities the visit by Mort and Ho hey stirred dormant creative instincts which left me feeling restless and ill at ease.  Since I began my life away from the busking trail I have been teaching myself to ignore the call of the street, but the occasional hot and steamy friday night will find me wishing I could be entertaining a bustling street crowd.  Sometimes as the weekend comes around I am tempted to jump on the first available bus to Sydney and look up my old players. Bright sunny saturdays try to entice me away to sing in the marketplace, but common sense always kicks in to remind me, you can’t recapture golden moments. It doesn’t do anything to subdue the knowledge, I’ve still got what it takes to impress an audience.

The legacy of my heady cocaine days is badly decaying teeth which has brought with it my first ever glimpse of introversion and self consciousness.  I have got to such a point of withdrawal from human inter-reaction that I pretend to scratch my nose if ever I am talking to the postman. The thought of breaking into a public smile is absolutely out of the question.  For three years or so I have been on a list awaiting free dental care and now at last my crumbling and smoke stained teeth are being removed.  I am soon to have sparkling new lower dentures instead of horrible glaring gaps and this has increased my sense of personal confidence no end. When the new dentures are in place I am going to get into some long awaited studio vocals and I’ll hook up a video camera to see how they look.  With a set of sparkling new choppers in my head I don’t imagine it will be long before I am singing at every opportunity. I have recently isolated all of the best music beds from my recorded catalog and the idea to build an act around them has become my main ambition in life.  Once up and running the show would feature yours truly singing over the music beds through a portable amp set up.  It would be a karioki type of affair with original material instead of the usual cover versions.  If my dream of coming out of retirement reaches fruition I might even be able to sell a few CDs containing my songs.

My gardening efforts in the courtyard are going from strength to strength as I master the art of growing organic produce.  Last years harvest of corn, pumpkins, spuds and tomatoes probably wouldn’t have got us through a nuclear winter, but they kept us well fed for about three months.  Organic gardening is great in theory but the hands on application is not easy work at all.  As the first warm days of spring blessed the land my corn and pumpkin crops were invaded by a host of leaf gnawing insects and rodents.  Any form of chemical was out of the question so I had to virtually watch the plants grow to maturity and remove any unwanted bugs with my fingers.  A well seasoned respect for the bio-diversity of life meant I couldn’t just kill every caterpillar I found, so I ended up keeping them in a plate glass terrarium that I picked up at the re-cycle depot.  I laid some river pebbles and soil in the bottom of the mirrored insect enclosure and they supported newly transferred pumpkin seedlings for the growing population to feed on.  In time little cocoons started appearing all around the glass as my insect guests went into their pupa stage.  Before I knew it I was bidding newly emerged butterflies a fond farewell as they flew off to lay their eggs on my tomatoes. 

'Ain’t  it  grand  nature  lovers?'

I’ve been pondering the concept of death and rebirth a fair bit lately.  One of the very few visitors I have received in Shoal Bay was a guy from Tasmania called Big Jim.  Jim was a H.E.M.P. Activist who spent most of his time promoting non THC cannabis fibre for commercial use.  He used to pop in and see me from time to time on his way through to Nimbin and when he did he would always pull out some potent Tasmanian heads.  Last week I was informed by a mutual friend that he had suddenly up and died.  Just like that he was only Fifty five.  Apparently Big Jim was just sitting around in a lounge chair packing a bong and his ticker stopped. I turn forty five in August so that makes him almost ten years older than me.  Christ I had better get cracking on releasing some albums and the publication of this book.  I am probably in a higher risk bracket than Jim was because I like everything that’s supposed to be bad for you.  I go through ciggies and pot like a smokehouse chimney and I absorb alcohol like a dry sponge.  I can’t resist all of those special treats that the heart attack lobby has condemned and I pray that I am sipping on a double Jack Daniels as I draw my last breath. As I ponder my own departure from the earth my imagination goes completely haywire trying to visualise a possible hereafter.  Logic tells me that any alternative dimension to life which could host a bodyless consciousness would have to be created in part by that very intelligence.  The best I can speculate is that an afterlife might exist for those who can create it and then imagine themselves there.  It’s either that or ‘Lights out forever’ so I’m going to hedge my bet both ways.  More than ever I’m going to live each moment as if it were my very last.  I’ll strengthen my sense of appreciation with each breath and I will sacrifice my gratitude to the stars for every nano-second I have wasted.  I was so shaken by Jim’s death that I drafted a last will and testament and hung it up at the back door of my shack.  If I suddenly departed my cosy recliner for the great unknown at least those who found me would have some family contact details to work with.  In the will I bequeathed all my worldly possessions and any future royalty payments to my daughters Kiaana and Miranda.  They haven’t seen their old man for so long it hurts but I guess that’s the price you pay for being allergic to emotional pain.   Who knows?  They might be able to make some use of my music and computer equipment.  Miranda is fourteen and she attends a school for gifted children in Sydney.  Kiaana is seven and already she has displayed the first signs of an inherent creative drive.  

                                                                                                                      Kiaana.

                                                                                                                           Miranda.

Perhaps as they are rummaging through the remnants of my life they will stumble upon those painfully honest songs I wrote for their mothers.  I know I shouldn’t be so concerned about life and death matters because in a technical sense I have already died.  When last I was a resident of Byron Bay I had the good fortune to gain access to a fully equipped office right in the middle of town.  The office was being rented by a local Film Producer called Peter Simon who was a good friend of mine.  I used to work on his computer late in the night then I would just lay my bedroll out on the floor when it was time to sleep.  The office was in a building that was also occupied by the regional Newspaper.  A reporter from the newspaper had recently been killed in a car crash and based on a description of what he looked like the word started circulating that it was me.  Around the same time I had secured some space on a property in the hills near Mullumbimbi, so I had stopped being such a regular feature around Byron.  The Street people knew I was using the office and they must have concluded that since I hadn’t been around it must have been me.  Word of my death spread quickly throughout the Northern rivers and it was next to emerge in Sydney via the ‘Brackets and Jam’ collective. This is a weekly gathering of folkies I regularly used to perform with.   On my next visit to Sydney everyone I connected with thought they were talking to a ghost.  Apparently the phones ran hot as news of my continued existence was shared among my network of friends.  You know folks it’s hard to be a hermit when you are this bloody popular. For those who have spent time at the ‘Piccolo Bar’ in Kings Cross it damn well serves you right.  ‘Vittorio the Magnificent’ is the Gay and extremely animated proprietor of this world renowned establishment.  Through the years Vito has put up with hell from me as I learned the art of controlling an abnormally inflated ego.  Most of the time myself and the other buskers would hit the Piccolo after our shows and all it would take was a puff on some hash to get me chattering like a know it all, two bob watch.  Not too long before my untimely death was announced Young William had been on Vito’s case for taking my picture down off the wall. 

With Alana at the Piccolo

It was situated among the cream of Sydney’s underground Cabaret performers with some great shots of Jeannie Lewis, Wendy Saddington, Reg Livermore and others.   When next I poked my head in the door of Vito’s little coffee shop he was a lot sterner than his normal short tempered self.  I assumed it was because of the photograph thing with Will but that wasn’t it.  The poor little powder puff thought that I had gone to Buskers heaven and it was simply too much for him to cope with.  He said, “Aren’t you supposed to be dead, ... you silly boy?’ in a dry, yet mildly comical way. He was noticeably shaken by my presence.  I suspect that Vito had expressed more personal grief at my passing than he would like to let on and when he found out it was a big hoax he had little choice but to feel like a real, ... ‘Shploook!’.

‘Life is a Cabaret old chum, ... Come to the Cabaret’

When everyone who knows you thinks you are dead and gone it can be quite a refreshing experience and it can provide a unique opportunity to reinvent yourself.  It’s as if my life began again when the absurdity of my personal ‘Cosmic Joke’ was revealed.  After I died and was resurrected in the hearts and minds of my friends, I felt like Jesus Christ dancing the watusi on New Years Eve.  I think it says in the bible somewhere that, ...

“A man must to lose his life so that he may find it”. 

There’s another which says, ... “ Only as a child can you enter the kingdom of heaven”. 

I must have been doing something right because in a symbolic sense I have lost my life and regained it.  As hard as I try I can’t seem to grow up, so I guess I qualify for entry through the pearly gates. 

‘The Kingdom of Heaven is Within’

holds very special meaning for me as it is a poetic description of the meditative and totally atoned state of mind that comes with artistic satisfaction.  That’s the feeling I am experiencing at this very moment.

‘Om, ... Gaia’

HERE.

It’s here I pour my heart out

as I reach for the wisdom of dreams

where I swim the illusive byways

of the never ending stream

Everything is beauty and holy for all to behold

the fragrance of life brings the kiss of existence

as heavenspace unfolds

Come to the journey of learning

from every dimension of love

open your mind let your spirit fly

and explore your desires from above

I hereby submit my vision as that before your eyes

focus your pupils upon the earth

over mountains and to the sky

There to behold the flame of perfection,

radiant fingers touch blossoms of grace

warm and evasive like glancing through crystal

yet soft as the breeze upon your face.