THE RED LIGHT AREA OF HOLLYWOOD.

THE RED LIGHT AREA OF HOLLYWOOD.

It was like most other September nights in the bay, muggy with a slight breeze coming off the water.  I stirred from my slumber in the shed I had converted into a live in recording studio at the rear of Sid’s place in Shoal Bay and I hit the bedside light. I fired up a ciggie as I normally do when I wake up full of beans in the wee small hours, then I switched on the portable, twelve volt powered television beside my bed.  As the miniature black and white screen lit up the room the first image to hit my waking brain was the first plane penetrating the world trade centre towers. The footage was ‘American breaking news’ so it received all the attention I could muster as I put the coffee on. I was still wiping crusty shards of sleep from my eyes and piecing together the fact it was a terrorist attack when the second plane found it’s target. Talk about waking up with a bang. I knew what I was seeing was big and it was all happening so fast my waking reality took on a ‘Twilight zone’ish, almost surrealistic feel. I didn’t know it at the time, but in those drowsy, pre dawn moments I was witness not only a significant shift in human evolution but a personal transition from the relatively safe and stable world I had known to the uncertainty and dread of ‘post nine eleven consciousness’. An endless stream of news broadcasts about the attacks and the human tragedies to follow went on to dominate the media and peoples thoughts bringing the echo of blood hunting wolves howling and scratching at the door.  Even in the largely apathetic seaside township of Shoal Bay people were engaging in serious conversations down at the local about how the event might change their world.  Nine eleven was to send shock waves across the globe that I am certain will reverberate for generations to come. I sensed the first impact of those waves at a deep, instinctive level and I knew something had been irreversibly altered within my being. Two key threat factors now dominated my thoughts and they made me question how safe I was in my present reality. News of terrorist attacks at the very heart of the free world and ever increasing warnings about drought and climate change were to cause a significant shift in my perceptions of the life support system I currently inhabited. It triggered a survival instinct similar the one I experienced in hospital and it snapped me out of complacency into absolute self preservation mode.  I had been sitting pretty in my twenty dollar a week rental agreement with the old fisherman, but something was telling me I should be living closer to the water. If there was any major rise in sea levels or possible Islamic threats within Australia I would stand a far better chance of survival living at a safe distance from society. The idea of spending the remainder of my life dependent on grid power and tap water became less sustainable the more I thought about it, so I made a sincere resolution to create a life raft for my personal survival and vowed I would make self sustainability my dominant life’s dedication. It’s uncanny how minor coincidences can relate perfectly to changes you are experiencing at that particular point in time. As they interface the two factors can somehow ignite a guiding beacon that shines a light on a doorway you hadn’t seen before.  That’s exactly how it was for me just before I moved out of shoal Bay. The holiday units on Sid’s property were transformed from their normal slow moving rate of holiday season occupation to a throbbing party zone filled with thrill seeking, young backpackers.  The newly constructed resort across the road took a permeant lease on the upper and lower floors of the apartments to accommodate the kids and when they weren’t working their shifts they raised hell as young adventurers do when they are running free in the world. My quiet little existence in the bay was suddenly turned on it’s lazy arse.  The young blood grooving around the place brought with them a vibe I hadn’t felt since I was in Byron Bay and their arrival caused the travel bug within me to stir. The travelling companion who lives down my pants began to stir as well when scantily clad young babes flitted and giggled around me.  It was as if my daily reality had become re-festivalised in a beautiful invasion of vibrant young spirits.  It didn’t take long before our new neighbours detected pot smoke billowing from my corner of the property and they started making enquiries. Within just a few short days I was supplying the whole crew and my economic reality took a swan dive into increased indulgence.  Not wanting to appear like some kind of money grabbing dealer in the eyes of the crew I churned most of my profits from the pot transactions back into the collective flow.  Whenever the kids were having parties in the apartments I would roll up with bottles of whisky and bowls of weed for the whole rowdy gathering to share. Among the more alpha male contenders in the group there was a cool, young cat called Ben who came from up state New York and he was here on a three month working visa.  Ben was an artist who after receiving my permission performed an art attack on any flat surface he could find in the courtyard around the shed. With old buckets of paint he unearthed from the storeroom his creativity was unleashed from early morning till well after dark.  As he laboured tirelessly on the murals we exchanged notes about the world and a lasting bond was formed.  After he had performed the final brush stroke for the day we would sit around my campfire drinking beer and rum and the conversations would continue.  Often his young companions would join us to play their guitars and sing ever so sweetly into the Shoal Bay night.

In the time I lived with Sid he treated me like any ships captain would relate to a common deckhand and I savored every moment with him like I had been granted special passage into the sea faring life. When he was firing orders at me each day it provided him with a sense of purpose and kept the early stages of his dementia at bay. There were a couple of brothers living in the village who were fishermen friends of Sid’s and they would often drop off a bucket or two of freshly caught fish. This pair of evolutionary throwbacks were not the brightest lights on the ocean and even if they hadn’t been out fishing for days they still carried with them a putrid, fishy smell.  The ‘Smelly undies brothers’ as I had privately nicknamed them also did maintenance work around the holiday units when they weren’t out catching fish.  I knew the brothers had invested money in the renovation of the units and it came as no surprise that my presence represented a threat to their plans. I overheard a secretive conversation that gave the first hint they were conspiring to have the old boy certified as incapable. They wanted to stick him in a retirement home and claim full ownership of the property which had suddenly escalated in value with the building of the resort.  Out of the blue one night at the Country club bar the brothers informed me that ‘Old Sid’ was too senile to manage the holiday units anymore and they were taking over the job. I was told that I had to pack up my gear and get out within two weeks because the shed was going to be demolished to make way for a carpark. The Christmas and new year period was just around the corner so I requested an extension on the two weeks eviction notice I’d been given.  The brothers became hostile and started making half pissed threats about using me as bait in their crap pots if I didn’t get out. 

'I guess a man deserves all he gets when he surrounds himself with idiots'.

In previous chapters I made reference to a character who goes by the nickname 'Quick Bucks'. He is the proprietor of a car wrecking yard and a couple of other properties in the Port Stephens area and I have been his tenant on more than one occasion in the past.  After my heated inter-reaction with the angry fishermen I made a snap decision that Bucks property out on the Salamander wetlands was my best option for a hasty retreat.  Immediately I called 'Quick Bucks' on his mobile phone and dangled the promise of some easy cash in front of his nose.  'Quick Bucks' lunged at the bait I offered being the capitalistic bastard he is and without too much fuss I established a new residential address. The move brought with it a hike of thirty five dollars a week, plus a portion of the power bill, but who’s complaining? My new home was closer to the shopping center and a far better location than Shoal Bay to access the mangrove lined inlets I wanted to explore. My plan was to only remain at Bucks place until I had established a camp near the water then I would stop paying rent and live in the wilds for free. When I departed Shoal Bay I came away with three fully packed truckloads of stuff I had accumulated from council cleanups and other recycling ventures over the five year period I was there.  Buck helped me to make the move in the stinking heat of summer which was a big plus because if he wasn't there with his two ton  truck I wouldn’t have been able to move it all. Buck recommenced his role as my landlord making it the third time I have been involved in a tenant and landlord relationship with him. 

Buck and I co-existed quite amicably at the swampy, wetland lot he owns known as 'Hollywood'. The property was originally christened with this name after the song 'Hollywood Seven' which was a big hit in Australia way back when. There is a ramshackle dwelling situated at the front of the lot near a busy highway and for as long as I can remember the flat rate for anyone who stayed in it was seven bucks a night. The most recent occupants in the shack were a young couple by the names of Slinky and Margaret and they owned three large dogs that wanted to rip Husky to shreds. There were a couple of rooms sitting unused upstairs in the house but I wanted to keep Hus clear of their pack. Besides I find it difficult to live in close proximity to other people especially when they are amphetamine addicted fuckwits. I eventually set up my camp in the storage area of a dilapidated old Bedford truck which had been dumped at the back of the lot many years ago.  The interior of the truck was open to the elements and it leaked more than any of my previous habitats. There were morning glory vines growing all over it and they had long ago infiltrated the inside of the vehicle.  It was more like being in some kind of exotic cave than anything that was ever registered to traverse our nations highways.  The next few weeks after I moved into the truck were spent eliminating years of accumulated dust and assorted plant life. To my delight I discovered there was a seven foot diamond python living behind the seat in the trucks cabin and he became my second pet after Husky.   I labored through the filthy heat of the day to construct a chicken wire enclosure for 'Beelzebub' the snake which covered the whole underside of the truck. It encircled a couple of occupied rat holes in the process and formed a living larder for the snake.  At night I would hear him pounce on some unsuspecting rodent and a couple of times I got to see his rat devouring routine in the middle of the day.  The large, heavy duty tarps I pilfered from the construction site of the resort were sufficient to cover the entire truck and the over hanging excess was propped up with bamboo poles to form sun protective verandas. To get a light happening so I could work in the evenings I ran a long power lead from the laundry in the house to my campsite.  When I went sniffing around looking for something to cover the glare of the light I found a red, plastic lamp cover which looked a bit like an old fashioned street light. It was reminiscent of something you might see in a nineteen fifties movie set in the darkest corner of New Orleans or some other equally sex and underworld oriented red light district.  The lantern did the job nicely to soften the glare of the light and it was to become one of my favorite possessions. I like to think I will take a little bit of the steamy nightlife with me wherever I go into the future, as it is so closely intertwined with memories of the busking  years.  Wherever there are hookers present and intoxicated punters roaming the night a street performer will never go hungry.  Not that anything like that exists anywhere in the Port Stephens area.  The place is so squeaky clean, middle class and Christian that a get down a dirty performer such as I wouldn’t make a brass razoo.

Through an old mate at a cement mixing business down the road Buck has established a way of concreting his property for free. When the trucks are returning to the depot with left over cement in the back they make a habit of pouring it on his land rather than taking it to the council tip.  He has saved untold thousands of dollars by getting his lot concreted in this way and it’s testimony to his normal brand of day to day ingenuity. The Bedford was perched at the very edge of the dried concrete flow as it cascaded off the flat land into the swamp.  Where the hardened, lava like flow ends Buck has extended the angle of the slope with a terraced embankment of old car tires. This will eventually become the landscaped surrounds for a large freshwater dam.  A roller door at the rear of the truck faced right onto the wetland swamp and it provided a sweeping view of the surrounding  area.  The entire lot would best be described as an automotive graveyard which includes everything from written off late model sedans, to British vintage saloons and pre-Castro American classics.  These gems of automotive design and craftsmanship however are barely discern able through the tangled mess of rusting metal, fading chrome, rubber, glass and the morning glory vines that enshroud the entire two acre block. 

In the months following my occupation of the truck I constructed a timber and ply board platform extending out from the rear bumper. The tall paperbarks around it served as anchor points for shade cloth cover and they were host to yet more morning glory vines. It made quite a picture as I sipped my morning coffee to see humming birds buzzing around, sipping their breakfast out of the purpley, blue flowers.  I nicknamed my swampy backyard ‘The Everglades’.  When it came time to commence work on my new garden I was happy to discover a number of areas between the end of the concrete flow and the car tires where I was able to dig holes for the platform poles. I used the dark, sedimentary swamp dirt I excavated as an additive to a soil mix I was creating for a series of perma-culture plots.  The dried out mud was mixed with fish tubs full of mulchy humus I had carted over from Shoal bay and in the end I had a healthy, nutrient rich mix. A number of thriving plots evolved out of the tyre littered terrain and before long there were pumpkins and chokos growing all over the truck. As well as being the automotive spare parts man in the bay area Buck is also the local marijuana retailer. One of his more ethical business practices is to remove any seeds he may find in the many pounds of weed that pass through his greedy little hands and I got to gather up the ones that rolled onto the floor of his office. I collected a heap of seeds from between cigarette butts, dog hair and rat droppings and often I would come across a stray bud that had slipped through undetected. I separated the best of the seeds from the pale, unhealthy ones and ended up with about two hundred big black beautys.  It was a bit too late in the season to start germinating so the seeds were stashed away in the snake pen in readiness for the first warm days of spring.

I was enjoying the winter sunset beside a warm fire and sipping my usual fill of brown Champagne when I had a sudden, conceptual flash reminiscent of the head trips we used to engage in back in the magic mushroom days.  I was struck by the notion that I had somehow escaped the fate of the doomed masses and arrived at the very edge of civilization.  Perhaps the survival instinct I felt back in Shoal Bay and my decision the hit the water were a doorway to self preservation at the absolute fringe of the known world.  My inner gypsy has always strived to exist outside of mainstream society and it was like I had reached the outermost perimeter of normality.  I reasoned that you don't have to be living in some remote place that is far from big cities or other pockets of human habitation to be detached from the world.  The edge of civilization is a concept, a state of mind and it's one that I am happy to entertain. I like the idea that I am disproving the theory ... 'No man is an island'.  The 'Edge of civilisation' theory included my capitalist landlord 'Buck' who is part of a rat bag minority within the mainstream flow of the business world. He operates outside of what is defined as 'normal' by most clean living people because his interests extend into areas other than mere commerce and family affairs. His outside interests include being part of a rock band, recreational drug usage, radical politicial views and science fiction inspired conspiracy theories. Like myself and the rest of the abnormal minority Quick Bucks and the Hollywood homestead are at the outer edge of social acceptability. We occupy an outpost at the perimeter of civilization and I guess we deserve all the weird looks we get from those who follow the path most traveled.  Any praise I may assign to Quick Bucks is based on the explorative nature of conversations we used to have about life and the mysteries of the great unknown.  It is definitely not applicable to his army of car dismantling workers who would go into a state of catatonic bewilderment if you used words any bigger than ”Suck more piss”.

No sooner was the domestic reality of my truck and garden established before a shift in the winds of chance caught my sails and altered my course through life. I was browsing close to closing time at my favorite little establishment, need I say ... 'The Tip Shop Recycle Depot' when I spotted an unusual item you don't come across everyday. Right out the back, between the depot yard and the landfill area I spied the 'You fucking beauty!' ...‘Bargain of the Millennium’.  There was a fully rigged tri-maran yacht sitting on a boat trailer amid busted up old caravans, the odd car body and a mountain of long extinct refrigerators.  Excavators and spiked landfill rollers were moving heart stoppingly close to it which inspired me to make haste towards the office of my old mate Dave at the front of the complex.  I located him and the rest of the volunteer staff relaxing in easy chairs around the counter area, sucking on beers. Dave is the resident fork lift operator and his vintage vehicle is adorned with plastic models of Godzilla and other such dinosaur oriented creatures that have been donated to the community based organisation over the years. When I inquired about the price of the boat I was given the exiting news that I could have it for a mere three hundred dollars.  What a fantastic deal, but it sounded too good to be true.  From what I had seen on just a brief outside inspection it looked like the kind of rig you see on the side of the road for five to seven grand.  The trailer looked in really good condition and it would have been valued at more than five or six hundred bucks without a boat on it.  Once the price was established I asked about the history of the boat and received the full story on how it came to be there.  Apparently some punter had left it in the carpark area of a local storage facility. The owner of the place had ordered that a number of illegally parked cars, caravans and boats be removed but the bloke had nowhere to take it.  Rather than have it carted off and disposed of he donated it to the Tip shop in the hope it might find a good home. Dave made mention of the fact the boat owners predicament was the result of a messy divorce. Poor bastard.  Such is life I guess, his loss is my gain and once time payment details were established I was the proud new owner of a run down, but highly salvageable yacht. 

On closer inspection I found the vessel was complete in all it's rigging except for the existence of any sails.   I figured I had enough large, white tarps to remedy the situation and besides my imaginings for the boat were more as a flat water fishing vessel I could live on than any kind of racing vessel, bound for the high seas.  I have always maintained a healthy contempt for gail force winds as they tend to happen at precisely the wrong moment.  Mighty gusts have rendered many a campsite unliveable with their fury and on three separate occasions I have narrowly escaped injury when my sleeping quarters were demolished by large, windswept branches.  To further fuel my contempt for the wind I only ever fish with handlines which makes it a hindrance even at moderate speeds. It's almost impossible to penetrate the resistance with a light sinker and more often than not you end up with a tangled line. With the realization that the necessary sailing equipment was where it was meant to be it brought a reassessment of my perception that the wind is some kind of enemy. By setting myself to the task of learning how to sail the new boat I could reduce my outboard fuel bill considerably and this thought that gave rise to the notion I should make the wind my friend.

The mast was laying across the central hatch leading into the cabin which made entry difficult so I went in through the rear entrance and crawled through to the cabin. I was barely inside the inner compartment before I was imagining where my bed and all of my other belongings would go. The whole boat inside and out were painted white except for the sea blue that covered the hull to the level of the waterline. This color combination is indicative of the fisherman’s choice across the globe it was a big feature in the portside harbors when I was travelling in Europe.  My passion for the sea faring life was further ignited when I realized that the blue and white color scheme was the same as it had been at the rear of old Sid's place. This exciting revelation somehow signaled that I had graduated from the role of a mere deckhand to the new position of a fully fledged, ships Captain. 

Dave appointed a couple of ‘Work for the dole’ assistants to the task of towing the boat out to Hollywood and the yacht was unhooked at the towbar alongside the old Bedford. I spent the next few days unloading stuff from the truck to the boat, but a dramatic reduction in storage and living space meant I had to dispose of all but the most essential things I owned.  It was quite an odd sensation throwing a host of unwanted man made objects down the concrete and tire bordered slope into the swamp, because I'm supposed to be a greenie. It felt like an act of environmental vandalism that threatened the validity of all I believe.  I drew a modicum of comfort from the knowledge the whole embankment is going to be covered in cement with local council approval so I wasn't creating any kind of ‘illegal’ pollution.  Clinging to this flimsy defense in a mood of relative innocence I didn't feel quite so guilty discarding of my rubbish in the once pristine setting.  Old cassette decks and computer parts were cast out along with CD players, speaker cabinets and other outdated technology. Clothes I hadn't worn for ages were thrown on top and at the end of my labors it felt like a valuable unburdening ritual.  An attitude of non attachment can be a valuable asset if you don’t want to spend your whole life carting shit around.  Yet another once in a lifetime bargain came my way when I told Dave I wanted something to make an enclosure for the boat.  A little light went on above his head then he escorted me to some piles of heavy duty netting up against a back fence. The nets had flowering vines growing all over them but they were still in usable condition. We struggled to haul the heavy rolls out and once free of the vines I estimated there was enough to completely enclose the boat. They might also protect my garden on the slope from invading armies of hungry pests.  In the following days I erected the nets on lengths of wire rope that were attached high in the paperbarks. As well as enclosing the yacht and my garden plots they formed a perfect barrier to keep Husky off the highway.

The true value of the enclosure came when the Smelly undies brothers paid me an unexpected visit.  They had somehow found out where I was living and they were noticeably surprised to find me behind barrier with a locked gate. As I silenced Husky they surveyed my impenetrable compound looking for a way to get in. With voices raised and fists clenched I was told by the pair that I had to cough up more than a thousand bucks for the removal of rubbish from Sids place.  The so called rubbish they were barking about was the concreted garden plots and the fish pond I had constructed in the courtyard.  The brothers  destroyed my concreting handy work during renovations to the property and what remained wouldn’t have filled a common box trailer.  Over the shouting I informed them that the going rate for a single trailer drop off at the local tip was about fifteen dollars and I would be fucked if they were going to get a red cent more.  Mortal threats were screamed out as they departed the front gates of the property with wheels spinning furiously in the gravel. With those bilge rat fuckheads now knowing where I lived the timing was perfect for the arrival of my new boat. Life was telling me it was time to stop dreaming of living out on the water and go hands on to make it happen. I had work quickly to get the vessel sea worthy because blood hungry sea dogs were hot on my trail and the call to the water was getting much too hard to resist.  On my first night of sleeping in the cabin of the yacht I lay awake processing the chain of events that had led to my new reality. The decision to get myself living out on the water was triggered after I witnessed the nine eleven attacks and it was just after that I was forced out of my home in Shoal bay.  If those two things didn’t take place then I wouldn’t have moved to Hollywood and there’s a good chance I wouldn’t have scored the boat.  Life talks to us and steers us where it wants us to go, if only we can see it. Each day as I worked in the boatyard to repair the hull and carry out other repairs I found I was blessed with a sense of personal contentment that can only come when a man is in his element.  I had never before raised a mast from a horizontal position to it’s full vertical glory or hauled an anchor out of a storage hatch onto the upper deck.  Something else I had never done was any type of work with fibreglass.  Bucks ‘know it all’ mates used to look in on me whenever they were working on cars out on the slab.  As I experimented with the best ways to grind the hull with a sanding disk or lay fibreglass cloth and resin they would stand around outside the enclosure throwing their two bobs worth in about how it should be done. That sort of thing is fine if there is a genuine sense of kinship and camaraderie between those engaging in such an exchange of advice. The only problem was that these guys were a pack of dumb fuck yobbos, who were uneasy with the fact they had an artist living in their midst and jumped at any opportunity to send ridicule my way. Their attempts to make me appear totally incompetent was to no avail however because I was in such a positive and motivated headspace the collective snickering was of no consequence.  The hull and upper deck had surprisingly less damage than you would expect to find on a vessel that had been sold for three hundred dollars. There was a single hole in the starboard side of the hull which was as big as a golf ball, but it became larger than a volley ball with the application of a sanding disk.  At the very rear of the hull there was another hole about the same size and these it seemed were the only repairs I had to make before the structure would be water tight.  As I set about pricing estimations for things I would need I found that fibreglass resin was the most expensive item on the list.  When I first started experimenting with the stuff I was buying one litre cans for twenty bucks at the hardware store. The amount of work that needed to be done meant I had to get a quantity of it in bulk and that could run into the hundreds.  Every time I went to the recycle depot Dave and the crew made genuine inquiries about my progress with the yacht and rendered what assistance they could.  On one such visit the thing I most needed was made manifest and my restoration expenses were greatly reduced. 

There was a manufacturer of bathroom fixtures across the way in the industrial estate and at the end of each month they dropped off a truckload of forty four gallon drums which held the very type of resin I needed.  The pumps used at the factory only reached to about three inches from the bottom which meant there were at least two liters left in each drum. Dave let me drain the unused resin out at the end of each month and in time I had enough to seal the entire boat.  Before I could even think about fixing the hull the first thing I had get the boat protected from the elements and dried out enough that the resin would stick. One undetected drip in a serious downpour might ruin a drying hull so this was where all of my large tarps came into play. When the internal structure of the boat was completely dried out and I had sufficiently honed the skill of fibre glassing I started pouring large amounts of resin into the hull. The toxic smell made it impossible to sleep in the cabin any longer so I set up a makeshift shelter under a tarp extending from the mast to the bowrail.  It leaked like a motherfucker whenever the bay was battered by a passing storm but Jesus it made me feel alive.