Something's burning...IS IT ME?

The landlord asked me if I smoked before I moved in. I said No. Of course I said no. I wanted the place. It was the only place going. Amazing though that a ghetto Landlord is so fussy. The bathroom stinks of mould. If I stay here for too long I'll get a chest infection. But he's not worried about my health. He's just worried about me burning the place down. And yaknow I'm worried too because this place is a fire trap. I have every intention of giving up. As soon as life gives me something else to look forward to. Right now Smoke is the only thing that makes the fire in my belly tangible. I think I can I think I can I think I can.. I'm keeping it real with every puff...

So this morning I read an article about Bill Hicks in the Australian.


'BILL Hicks's disastrous first performance in Australia was illustrative of his entire career. The Texan stand-up comic had come to the Melbourne Comedy Festival in 1993, with the comedy fraternity waiting breathlessly. After years battling alcoholism and drug use, the prodigiously talented performer arrived with serious industry credibility, having got his act together again in the early 1990s by storming two of the world's biggest comedy festivals: Montreal's Just For Laughs and the Edinburgh Fringe.

But in front of a too-cool first-night crowd at Fitzroy's compact Universal Theatre 2, Hicks flamed out in a horrific performance. Comedy parlance says when you fail on stage, you die. Hicks died a thousand deaths that night'

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/wild-bill-hicks/story-e6frg8n6-1225949819692


That would be right. Nothing survives Australia. Not even Bill Hicks. Melbourne killed Judy Garland too. No one is beyond our dead glare and our Icey indifference. The only thing we show any sort of passion for is backstabbing. We kill creative spirits with a shrug and a stare. Show us your money or we'll ship you off to Malaysia. We are the white sheep of the brave new world and the black sheep get shorn and shafted on touch down. You can sew your fucking lips together. We don't care! We fucking hate performance art. Give us sex in the city and a recipe to your cup cakes or shut the fuck up. We're the Lucky country. And you're lucky to be here. If you're really lucky you might get a melanoma or parking fine. Just feel lucky that you're not an Aussie Citizen and subject to our tax department. We should be so lucky lucky lucky lucky. Just like Kylie. Lucky she found a way out of here alive! So don't come here thinking you're too big for your boots because we'll just yawn and treat you like we treat the locals. Then death will start setting in. That tumor you've been putting off will finally get you! The nervous system will finally unravel. The vultures will circle. There's no escape in the land of letting go (of everything you eva dreamed of.)I'm Disaster Diva. I should know....


This time last year I watched Christopher Hitchens smoke his last ciggie for the Sydney Writers Festival. He was our Darling 'Love ya book mate! You're right. There is no fucking GOD. And please smoke outside because no one's gunna save us from The Health Department or the Insurance Industry. But don't worry we won't seat you next to the garbage bins because you're Vanity Fair to us! You stink of land of milk and honey bunny wunny! Puff On Mcduff!'

And he did. I saw it. I have it on video. He sucked up that smoke like he was feeding an engine. It totally turned me on. Then we sent him home and within minutes he was diagnosed. I should have fucked him because the way Hitch was looking at me through the eye piece of my camera and puffing on that ciggie he was up for a good shagging. I hadn't had a fuck in years but I would have broken my celibacy for that hunk a hunk of burning commentary. I would have slapped him around for turning into such a pussy post Sept 11th and then let him fuck my brains out. That post coital ciggie would have really been something...That would have been the smoke of a lifetime. I just know it.

But I wasn't in New York I was in Sydney and the Feeder was watching me. If I hadv'e shagged Hitch the Feeder would have got jealous and sacked me. He owned everything within spitting distance. There's no hope of piggy backing out of Alcatraz with Vanity Fair on ya mind while the feeder is watching. The feeder is a Philistine of the Arts. Oh sorry! that's Philanthropist! He uses the writers as an entre for his meals or he sticks them out the back in the Magdelene Laundry to clean the skid marks on his undies. (and the food don't look so fine at the other end lemme tell ya) He'll stick an apple in that dead pig we call culture and serve it up for the Australia Council just to make those Gatekeeping cunts all feel special. He'll feed a Song Company but knock off a singer. He's less of a patron and more of a bouncer. He makes sure the arts aint sayin nothin. Because in Australia we kill the wild things. If nature doesn't get them first.

I digress...where was I...

The Canary in the Mine.

I'm in the Chinese Restaurant with the Hipster and The Psychopath. They're asking me questions.The Hipster's trying to work out if I'm up for having sex and The Psychopath's is just filling in time until the plates arrive.

I'm very fond of the Hipster but he feels like a brother but I have zero empathy for unhappily married men. Most people don't get married for love anyway. They get married to belong. I have no such refuge. I live permanently on the outside and an unhappily married man aint gunna protect me. Not even a gay one. His real partner in life is not his wife anyway. It's the Psychopath. Those two are attached by the nervous system.

And me. I'm just here for the food. Although I must say it is a disappointment. The prawn omlette, for a start, doesn't have any gravy on it. And it's not a chinese omelette without gravy and spring onions! It's just a garden variety omelette. You can buy it in a chip shop or make if yourself and I wonder at $33.00 if the seafood is fresh. And I'm glad I'm not paying for it. But I appreciate the service. This is my first restaurant experience in Perth.  The Chinese waitresses have a familiar and comforting vibe as though they've been putting napkins in laps since the Gold Rush. They're a hospitality hybrid. A cross between Country Publican and home style Geisha. I watch the men puff up with all their attention. The waitresses don't even look at me because they know I"m not paying. The decore is white linen and mood lighting but I've had better Chinese food on plastic table cloths. 'Of course I don't say any of this'. That would be ungracious. I pop my fork in my mouth and say 'Yummm'. The Psychopath smiles like he cooked it himself. The waitress arrives with the meat plates and lays them down.. Not a shred of chicken to be found. I breathe out in relief and admire the thirty dollar dishes drowning in day-glo sauces. I have nothing to offer this situation but enthusiasm.

 So I Go for Gold.

'Well in my last book I was known as Wednesday Trouble Kennedy. It's the All Girls Adventure Tale of being a One Woman Show in a Brave New World. That was set between Sydney and New York. Snake Kennedy is my latest incarnation. That's a gonzo style road trip around Australia. A girls own adventure tale in the Land of Wild men. So you could say that I am an Adventuress!  'I've been a Post Romantic, A Cultural Refugee,  Disaster Diva and 21st Century Showgirl'. 

By giving so much away I'm breaking all the rules. 'Never tell them where you been or what you know and especially not your age'. You start giving that info away and they'll figure they have you pegged. They will gather all that information at a time of their choosing and use it against you. I know this. I know this too well.  But I keep talking. I can't shut up. I'm wreckless. I like being loose  with information. Everyone is such a damn stingy hoarder with where they've been and what they know. They're scared. I'm scared too but I don't want to be scared. I want to sing! I want to spill my guts to strangers. I want to imagine I'm safe and I'm free even when I'm not. No wonder the world conspires to sedate me.

' Showgirls are gambling women but in a vital way. They're emotional stripteasers. They have no armour. They're peeled prawns with their hearts still beating waiting to be thrown into a pot of boiling water. Dreaming is dangerous. And too much imagination will only get you into trouble. All I ever really wanted was to get my voice in the world. And all the world ever conspired to do was gag my sassy gob. Sooo I've also grown a Lobster Shell and claws with nipple pincers. To torture the truth outta people.'

I look at the Psychopath and wonder why I told him that. It's compulsive. I have personal truth tourettes. I tell people shit that they don't even care about. I give them too much information. I get excited. I can't give myself away fast enough. I'm 'like a child'. I just love to feel the world roll over my tongue and go plop. But sometimes I don't know where to stop. Which is exactly why I need a Lobster Outfit. And a Snake Skin and steel tipped boots and then once I'm fully covered I can run my mouth off 'til I run out of fuel. I can fill it up anywhere. I can take it for a spin around the world without worrying about breathalyser. I am free to be me. To speak it as I see it without danger. To live the tale and to breath it like fire. Talking to strangers is the only thrill left that I don't need a licence for. I don't wanna stop!

 Go for Gold.

'I once found myself in a crack house in New York. It was curiosity that led me there and fear that led me out again. I'm not into crack myself.  I'm more a joint and a nice glass of red with a baked dinner sort of girl. I'd seen what that substance could do to a soul.  I had no romance with it at all. Besides I didn't come to New York to see the view from the penthouse in the projects. I had no ambitions to write A Day in the Life of a Crack Head. Drug stories are so 70's.  I was on a whole other trip and I didn't plan to meet this man or go up to his flat and smoke crack.  In fact I can't even remember how I began talking to him in the first place?  That part is hazy. Perhaps I'd just gone for a walk and maybe sat down for a smoke and maybe he sat down next to me? I don't know what time? From memory it was twilight. It was twilight when we said hello and twilight when we said goodbye. I wasn't one bit afraid which was strange. Because I was galaxies out of my territory once we'd arrived to his top of the town type of crib. And he took me straight to the window and waved his arm across the skyline as if he'd conjured up the city all by himself.  He was the Sky God of the Underworld in the Penthouse of the projects He reigned over crack heads all over Manhattan. They made pilgrimages to see him. And up in the clouds you could forget that the kingdom was a stinking scratching pit of cardboard boxes, you could ignore the empty desperate eyes of the endless stream of zombies who had snorted their soul and the cartilage in their nostrils. You could forget their scabby bodies. If they were meat you'd never buy them. And meat is all they were. If you were in your right mind you would have noted this. But the other mind had taken over. The mind that thought she was Bukowski or Hunter S Thompson. Cock of Osiris by any other name and his story was so damn poetic I had to hear all of it....'

The Hipster and the Psychopath are both leaning in now. The Psychopath is now looking at me with the possibility that he'll get his end in if the Hipster ever manages to lure me back to their hotel.  The Hipster is thinking about all the crack he'll never have while the Psychopath is thinking 'How am I going to grease her?'  I mean if a girl is gunna find herself in a crackhouse in New York then what's to say that she wouldn't go home with a respectable wage earning tax paying Murderer in Perth. I could read his mind. I knew that's what he was thinking. Criminal types always misinterpret me. They don't think like Poets. They think like gangsters. And I've know I've gotta wind my way outta this story so nobody can say I was looking for trouble. 'Bless me father for I..'. 

'I'm a Poet you see and the words are really all that I have so I don't really want to get high. I just want to to go deep. I'm a deep sea diver. An underground explorer, an emotional miner and I'm on my 9th life.  SoI've gotta get this story down and out. I don't know why but I feel this urgency..it's burning...it's gone way past desire. It's closer to torture.  You see my book it started with a dream. There was this cat. It was a black cat and for some reason I have no idea what it was you'll have to ask my sub conscious.  I picked up an axe and I chopped that cat in two and I don't know why I did that? Can you imagine? It was HORRIFYING.  But the cat didn't die. It just screamed from both ends and danced around in bloody entrails.  I couldn't stand it.  so I picked up a box to drop on it's head and put it out of it's misery. And when the cat looked up into my face I realised that cat was ME!

'Nup. You're not the Cat'. The Psychopath sits back.  You're definitely not the cat.

He's looking right through me. 

'What am I then?'

'You're the Canary. ' 

You're the Canary. (Part 3 of The Psychopath and the Hipster)

The Psychopath is smilling like he swallowed me.

Instantly I get a picture of Kylie.

'What do you mean I'm the Canary? Is that like a Budgie?' I'm certainly not Kylie! I couldn't smile my way through a tumor and a rat of a boyfriend. At least Britney spacked out when she was cornered. Gnash those pearly whites and dig your fangs into the bone and spit like a viper. Snakes are survivors. I'm no bird. What's the value of a bird with clipped wings and no feathers? Being a budgie didn't help Kylie. Everybody loved her but she still ended up with a Love Rat! He devalued and discarded her in public. What a french bastard! Be careful of whom you kiss lest they damp the spark in your pussy (power) He was vermin! If my head was bald I'd be bloody well using it to haunt him. Budgie Revenge!

The Psychopath is staring at me intently. He's got a half grin on his face like he cornered a live one. His fist is holding up his chin. His elbows are on the table. The Hipsters eyes are full of anticipation.

'I felt awful watching her flying career turned into a mortality play. We had a lot in common at that time. Of course she's a very rich kitchy stadium sized feathers and sequins, lazors and short legs type of Showgirl and I'm more a small room in a room full of drunken poets with two channel lighting board. Have to bomb the place to get money out of them sorta broad with pins to die for. But I can't sing either. I mostly talk.'

'I'd never have noticed'

' But nevertheless I came up with the name of my book 21st Century Showgirl before Kylie announced her Showgirl tour which I suspected was some sort of sign from the Showgirl Heavens! Like we were both tuning in to the Great Showgirl Unconscious and had found ourselves at other ends of the spotlight but in exactly the same position. Do you know what I mean?'

They don't have a clue what I'm talking about but I don't care. The Psychopath is still listening and I"m on a roll. The Hipster stopped listening ages ago. His soul is still catching up from Sydney I let it go and I focus on the Psychopath who doesn't have a soul so he's right here in the moment. Listening. It's like having an audience with the Devil. Auditioning for the Chorus line in Hades. I continue...

'And there I was having my own mortality nightmare in New York when we found out that Kylie had cancer. And all of a sudden Kylie and I had something in common. Tragedy! I mean not the small stuff....boys gone...boo hoo! kettle's on! What next? The BIG ONE!. The Oh No! Fuck me! I'm Dead! Finished! DOOMED! That's wrong?

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

'And once you've died on that level well you never come back again. Well you come back but you never come back as you were. That kitty is dead. She's been ahniliated and she's not a cartoon character. You can't just pick up the pencil and re-create her.. And the only difference between Kylie and me is that when she went through her Mortality Moment she handled her suffering with dignity and grace and I screamed and yelled and waved my arms around like a drowning woman and wrote a book about it. But mortality is a funny one because after you've wrestled with it you can't just pick up where you left off and pretend you're Aphrodite. I know forty is the new thirty but Kylie's last tour was ridiculous. Her through line makes no sense. She lost me again... What do you mean Canary? '

'Canary in the Coal Mine. You'll sing through everything. You won't shut up. The day you stop singing is the day that you're dead. Then we know we should get the fuck out. Mine's are dangerous. And Canarys are oblivious. You're an oblivious type. I can tell.'

'Am I ?'

I withdraw. I have nothing to say anymore. I just sit there quietly thinking. He's not very charming for a Psychopath. He musn't want anything from me. But he still wants to watch me grab for the bait. He's the cat. I'm the bird. That's the only game he knows how to play. And he's got me in a gilded chinese fucking restaurant as a canary. The prick. Singing away until I drop off my perch. Is that how he sees me? Psychopaths are tricky because they've got a very perceptive eye for who you really are. They know when you're kidding yourself. They know before you do. They're clever like that. They get into your psyche through your vanity and weakness. They gently prod for pecadillo, the poke around your pockets of corruption. So you'd better know how deep those pockets are, because soon enough they'll empty them onto your lap. With a gag in your mouth and your hands tied behind I know their caper. That's why I give everything away so there's nothing to ransak. No corner to hide in. No silent and festering scabs to stick fingers in. I have offered my life on a plate. And then watched him come in for the kill. He even offered to knock off my enemies over prawn toast. He was checking my need for revenge but murder is so not my style and his offer repulsed me. But Magical Thinking sure has been a problem. Not to mention Malignant Optimism. And I have to admit to times when I've been just a tad Oblivious. So he might have got me there. But I don't think it's who I am. I'm less a song bird and more a screamer. I wonder what time it is and what time the trains run to? The plates have been cleared and the glasses are empty.

'Thankyou. I have to go now. '

'Come back with us? says the Hipster. 'We have a spare room at our apartment'. And some more Mount Gay rum in the bar there. ' We can all kick on. Come On. It'll be fun. We'll drive you back home in the morning.'

'Yeah sure'. That's a great idea!'

I'll go back to the apartment so they can both take turns raping me and then go to the Police I don't trust in the morning. That is if they Psychopath hasn't killed me already. I mean I know I'm a little dizzy but what do they think I am? Oblivious or something?

This is my 9th life.

The Godfather and The Hipster.

I'm sitting alone during Happy Hour in a beer garden somewhere in Freemantle. I can't tell you the name of the pub or what end of Freemantle this is.  It could be West but feels like North. I feel direction in my waters. I don't need a compass.  I know it is happy hour but I can't tell you the time. I haven't worn a watch since 1983 and I don't know how to set the clock that comes with my phone. I can't tell you where I'm going to eat tonight because after walking around Freemantle for four hours I'm yet to find an eating place I can afford but I can tell you about the two men who turn up at my table just as I was about the shoot down the last of my warm white wine.

One of the men is thin and wirey and my vintage. He's the Hipster.

He takes a seat and strikes up conversation.  He gives everything away about himself before he's even finished his first beer.  He loves his children but he doesn't love his wife. He stays with her just for the kids. The kids are what he lives for.   He grows some plants. Not for selling, just for smoking...

I tell him he wouldn't do that in WA. He'd probably get jailed in this state. The laws are heavy here. The Mines drug test their workers every day. That's the culture . Bali is where we send the Pot Smokers to rot in jail. Every day it seems to me we're moving further and further away from the Californian model and closer to the Indonesian school of tolerance. I have no idea how one would find themselves a smoke here. It feels too dangerous. Everything feels dangerous to me these days.

The Hipster's mate is a beefed up Pom whose slightly older. Or maybe he was born looking slightly older. He is the Boss. He tells me in every job he ever had he always ends up running the joint. He looks solid, sensible and totally benign. He left England on a boat at sixteen to work in the Navy and never went home again. He fought in two wars. He killed men without blinking. He's never been out of a job and has traveled all over Australia. He gives me a sip of his Mount Gay white rum. And now I want one.

He's the Psychopath.

They sell Catering Equipment. Knives, stoves, Chef Uniforms, stuff like that. They're in Perth for three days to sell to the Mines. They've been in a plane for four hours. They're hungry and tired. Their heads are still up in the clouds.  'It takes time for the soul to catch up.' The Psychopath has already adjusted but the Hipster's still taking in the scenery like a boy in a lolly shop.

'Where am I again ?' he asks me. 

'You're in the largest state in Australia. Most of it desert. In a city surrounded by man eating sharks. Every day I open the paper and some one has been eaten. I wouldn't dip a toe into the ocean here. On land it's wall to wall Miners and Corporates. Plankton and Hammer Heads.  I've never seen so many cops. That's all I know.'

The Hipster and I reminisce about the 80s in Sydney. We remember the venues, the bands and the drugs. The Psychopath sips his drink slowly and listens. As Psychopaths do.  The Psychopath doesn't have to tell me what he's thinking. I already know that he knows what I'm thinking, who I am and what I'll be drinking next shout. The Hipster and I are back at the Trade Union Club in its hey day. I had died my hair black like Siouxie Sioux and I wanted to be on stage too so I joined a band called Saigon Childrens Choir.  The founding member was a greasy guy called Vince and his anorexic girlfriend Miriam.  He played bass. She played Keyboard. We got onto the JJJ Cooking with George compilation album at the Aquatic Club. It was a major league entry into the cool club and in Independant Music circles a big break. The only thing that broke was my heart because Vince and Miriam didn't turn up for the gig. They left me stranded.  It was the ultimate betrayal.  A major league trauma. I didn't leave the house for a month I was so depressed and humiliated.

The Hipster remembers how you could buy Amyl Nitrate in pawn shops. It was called Rush. I remember it too. It was appalling. You could hear your brain cells sizzle and then commit suicide. The next day I felt one hundred years older. He just remembers the high. His eyes are glistening. Those were the days. 'Box the Jesuit. Lubricated Goat. Early Hunters and Collectors. Celibate Rifles. Saigon Children's Choir ?' '

Never heard of it.'

'Saigon Childrens Choir!.  How could you have missed us ? Our graffiti was plastered all over town. We did it ourselves with a stencil. We stenciled walls and footpaths and telegraph poles from Annandale to Redfern.  That was our territory although  we once played the Newcastle Workers Club and that was a major league drama.  Our keyboard player had a Epileptic fit when they turned on the strobe and the audience threw green slime at my head.   They missed but the drum kit looked like jello by the end of the show. That's what I call suffering for your art. '

'Those were the days.' sighs the Hipster looking down his now empty glass.  

The Psychopath came here in 1979 and he can't remember no punk scene in Australia. He thinks we're dreaming. To Psychopaths all dreamers are liars. I turn the conversation to war to try to bring the psychopath inside it.  I'm always trying to make everyone at the table feel comfortable. I'm a born country wife in this way. I should have been a nurse or a talk show host. Instead I'm trying to keep one step ahead of the dole and off the disability pension.  I tell the Psychopath I've been writing about PTSD and ask whether he suffered PTSD after leaving the war zone?   He says the only men who suffered PTSD were the ones who felt guilty about the blood and the murder.' If nothing horrifies you then there's no flashbacks. It's simple.'

'I reckon you're just suppressing your real feelings' says the Hipster.

'No. I'm not repressing my feelings. I don't have any feelings.'

I believe him

The Conversation shits back to Mount Gay. That sip I took has melted on my tongue and my tongue wants to taste it again. mmmmm I've never been one for rum but that is the power of drinking from the glass of a Psychopath. You develop appetites you didn't know you had. Desire sneaks up from behind and starts putting a bag over your head. The bag is fur lined and it drowns out the sound of the sirens. It feels good until the cord around your neck starts to tighten. Desire is no substitute for love.

'So are you married?'

The Hipster asks the question and the Psychpopath looks at me to hear the answer.

'I'm married to the muse. I'm mobile and writing a book.'

'What's it called?' the Hipster asks.

'It's called Snake Kennedy. A girls own adventure in the land of wild men'

Both men laugh.

'What are you drinking?' asks the Hipster.

I point to the psychopaths now empty glass of Mount Gay. 'I'm drinking that! 

'Oh no...Do I have to ask for it again? '

Mount Gay? Yeah say it with conviction'. Or maybe you can just point to the bottle and whisper 'please sir can i have some more white rum ? But in that case..watch your arse.  This is WA.
They don't just mount Gay here. She is shark bait...

They both laugh.

The Hipster goes to fetch the drinks and its just me and The Psychopath.

Do you know sharks have more advocates than people in this state? What is that?  The people are paying ten dollars a beer for the privilege of working as a slave in a mine and the sharks are swimming free and grabbing Uncle Jo for dinner and people are protesting the culling of what stops them from being able to relax in the water. They're worried about species extinction even though the next species on the list is them.  They gather on the beaches with placcards saying 'Save the Sharks'. What about save yourself from Gina Rhineheart.  

'I"m hungry says the Psychopath. ' Do you feel like Chinese? There's a place just around the corner.'

'Round the corner?. Where am I again? ' I'm somewhere in Freemantle. I'm in a pub. I'm talking to two strangers. I'm following my bliss. I'm 100% open. Because that's how a writer has to be to exist. An writer can't be frightened of leaving the house. Of striking up conversations in public with complete strangers. A writer can't be scared of speaking her mind because her words might be used against her. A writer must be brave, truthful, open, resilient. But the problem is that almost as soon as I step out the door life throws me a Psychopath. And I don't know why it sends that same damn messenger over and over again. And I'm thinking that what the messenger is trying to tell me is that It's not enough to be open and brave and it's not enough to be positive either. There's only so long you can suspend disbelief before life snaps like an elastic in your face. But nothing ever happens if you don't leave yourself open.'

'So what you're saying is that'

The Hipster comes back to the table with Three Mount Gays. I grab mine.

So what you're saying is that you can't suffer PTSD if you don't have a conscience ?.

'What I'm saying is if the violence didn't traumatise you why flash back? It's sorted.'

'Oh'.

'He's hardcore' says the Hipster. 'He can watch a man being beaten to death in and not blink an eye. Me -I want to save the guy, I'm running out there in the middle of it. Not him. he's unmoved. He's totally cold blooded.' the Hipster looks worried.

The Psychopath doesn't. 'I've got no regrets. I've killed men. That's war. It doesn't stay in my head. I move on. I could do it again if I had to'. He looks straight in my eyes and I toss up asking him whether he could kill me but I already know the answer to that very sticky question so I ask

'Could you kill him? ' and point straight to The Hipster.

'Well not now. I could have in the early days but he made me the Godfather of his children so he's family now.'

'Oh'.

The Hipster and I both look at each other like we woke up on the other side of The Sydney Trade Union Club with no bus fare. What sort of mind fuck decision was this? To make the devil a Godfather of two tiny innocent little people. What if he's not just a murderer, what if he likes a fiddle as well? Who knows the predilections a man with no conscience. It becomes less a matter of values, more a matter of taste. Kids taste like chicken, lets hope he likes beef. I'm thinking in fast motion like a train is coming towards me, i can feel my heart thump in my chest. rum tum tum. I don't have flash backs. I have Feeling Attacks. My feelings attack me. It's like they're getting in first so there's no surprise. The Hipster looks into his empty glass.

'Sometimes I ask myself why did I make this man the Godfather of my children?'

I hunt for an answer to comfort him.

'At least you know they'll be protected?'

What else can I say. It's too late. He handed his babes to a wolf. I've done the same with my own life.  I can't imagine how I'd feel about two children.  I dread to think. Lets hope he never dies.

The Hipster and I want to drink to forget now. What else can we do . He loves his Children. Doesn't love his wife and is bonded by blood to a Psychopath and I can't save him. I can't even say myself.
I'm running around the country as the star of Bimbo's Initiation. The only clubs that seem to want to have me want me dead.  I'm black on the inside. I'm the only straight guy at the gay wedding.  Every dream only leads me like a lamb to the slaughter over and over...

'Shall we Mount Gay again?'

'Yeah why not ? Ride Em Cowboy. Just stand at that bar and Yell 'GIVE ME MOUNT GAY! BRING IT ON!! '

But the Godfather is hungry so we go for Chinese.

He's the Boss.

Wound with a View.

It's Australia Day and I'm rolling around with the black dog. I can hear the fireworks going off in the distance. Facebook updates from people remind us we're lucky lucky lucky. It makes me want to throw things. My crown of thorns has grown into a vine and wrapped around my organs. When I breathe I get jabbed. I've had friends on the phone all damn week who can't pay their groceries. They have no status updates. They have no status. Their pages are silent.

My words are bombs. I'm a natural born terrorist really. give me killer heels and a plastic pen i too could tear the world asunder. I have an Aboriginal Rage but they don't want me gatecrashing their party. They've got enough problems sharing the booty with those clever white black fellas. The last thing they need is a bleeding heart Gubbah.

Well that's what they told me. In no uncertain terms I might add.

At least they say it to my face which is more than i can say for the rest of the termites.

And so now it's Australia Day. I want to wrap myself in Banana Skins and stick a dunce cap on my head. 'Keep them poor and keep them stupid'. Advance Australia (bus) fare.

I've done this country on a Greyhound Bus. I've seen it from the bottom looking up. I've skidded down the highway on the white trash express. I've been chased through kings Cross by a pig flying high on testosterone patches.

I've had my camera and computer snatched from my arms by a patron of the arts. Run Rabbit Run. I was skinned alive for a while but the year of the rabbit is over. Time to breath OUT. Don't hold Dragon breath it will charcoal your organs.

Anger is an energy. Rage can be alchemised. If I see another flag wrapped body I think i'll vomit. I'm readying myself for another escape. My friend and I are planning it as we speak. We want to be back in New York by this time next year so when the G'day Australia gang put on their Australia is so lucky and fabulous and rich celebration with Hugh Jackman and Olivia my gang will put on the FUCK YOU AUSTRALIA party. we'll serve burnt stumpy sausages with one piece of lettuce and a dab of sauce because it's all we can afford and we'll charge you for the air you breath from the moment you walk in the door. We'll carbon tax your fucking fingerprints and then cross check them with Centrelink and the taxation department. It'll be hosted by a Chinese Real Estate agent who'll sell you a glimpse of the Opera House for $7.50. If we think you are anyone of status we'll get down on our knees and lick your pussy. We can suck for days without taking breath. We know how to make the best out of a dribble down situation.....anyway it's still a patriotic work in progress but stay tuned fuckers....

SHE'S BACK FROM THE DEAD.

Well not yet but get ready....

After Life.

So I'm writing a proposal to get my show into a festival and every word that I put on the page is like stabbing myself with a blunt knife.

It starts off well enough. I cut and paste the blurb from the book and explain I want to adapt it into a show. I introduce myself and as I do I find myself annoyed that they don't already know me? I've had two shows already in your festival. Shows I wrote but my name was taken off the posters. I have reviews to prove that I existed. I google to find the originals. My body of work is perpetually erased...

By Paragraph three I'm a ghost. And my voice is a whisper. Why would they want my show anyway? Decades of rejected submissions are unearthed as I reach for the carrot...

Last time I reached for the carrot they bashed me.

Who they?

Who cares. What does it matter. They change city and outfit.; They change form, they change style, they change accents. they tag team. They are the chaos unleashed by the psychopath loose in the system. They are his slaves and his whores and his puppets. They are all following orders. They don't have to be monitored. They stuff their own gag into their own mouth. They take their own pills and they tie their own blindfold. They have mortgages to pay and children to raise and places to go before the world ends. What do you have?

I have a show.

You have NOTHING. Adjust your RAGE and moderate your tone. you don't want to scare them. If you scare them they'll run and then where will you be? You'll be back where you started. I'm always back where I started and then running very very fast to nowhere. I give it away so it doesn't die inside me.

Please sir. Can I have a stage in your festival. Will you pay for the blood that I spill and the heart on my sleeve and the words that I spit. If I make them laugh and I'm not too dark will you pay extra? Am I worth a multi media component, will the budget fit that? if not just give me a milk crate and a piano man, I'll improvise. I'm used to that. I'm ever flexible. Easy. Dish cloth Diva, I stretch the extra mile, I give the last drop, I am a regular loaves and fishes act.

I'm a fucking liar.

The petrol station is empty. The air tank is fucked. The patron of the arts stole my camera ad computer. I had to borrow money to replace them. I can only afford to eat every second day and my smoke is rationed. Poverty must be good for my health they will tell me. Then why do i feel so depleted. I am running out of everything and I can't replace it. My debts climb and climb and I still can't put a price tag on my skills and sell them without having a nervous breakdown. This isn't normal is it? I know really stupid people who have no problem with this. But I reach a certain point and I get thwarted. The carpet gets pulled and I don't see it coming.

I must have a blind spot.

I'm crazy. I'm damaged. I'm munted. That's how I ended up In Barrel town. Here There's no shame in the pain and self loathing. Damage has currency. People wear their cripple on their sleeve. Up and Out. It's only Adelaide. Nobodies looking you might as well flaunt what you're good at. Even the serial killers eventually stand up to be counted.

By paragraph four I'm a ball of scar tissue. So I erase every single word and start again.

Sony and the Sisters of Perpetual Dysfunction.

11am Monday Morning Still waiting for my computer to be delivered.


Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

admin@LCEservices.com

Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 553 553 sorry, that address is not in my list of allowed recipients; no valid cert for gatewaying (#5.7.1) (state 14).

----- Original message -----

MIME-Version: 1.0
Received: by 10.52.97.197 with SMTP id ec5mr3693180vdb.259.1309731278491; Sun,
03 Jul 2011 15:14:38 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.52.181.226 with HTTP; Sun, 3 Jul 2011 15:14:38 -0700 (PDT)
Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2011 08:14:38 +1000
Message-ID:
Subject: Job Number 84724 LCE. Life's Bad!
From: wednesday kennedy
To: admin@LCEservices.com
Cc: wednesdaykennedy@gmail.com
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=20cf307f39089b0f6a04a731933a


Attention Jo the Manager. At LCE services.


Dear Jo,

For some reason Matthew won't give me your surname. Perhaps this is wise policy because I imagine there are a lot of angry clients, some who prefer the sword to the pen. Lucky I can write because a PEN is all I am left with. It's Monday morning and I have two clients to ring in an hour to tell them why they won't get their work today.

Then I have to ring up Couriers Please AGAIN. I don't know why they call themselves Couriers Please because it doesn't matter if you're on your knees and begging for your goods they still won't deliver them. Apparently I don't have my computer back because that computer was not fixed in time to make that courier. A parcel delivery service that makes as many trips a day as the train to Tamworth and that only works 2 hours in the morning on a Saturday between 6am and 8am.

Do I live in the third world? .

Because they would not deliver on Friday I rang them Friday and organised to pick up the computer myself from their warehouse in Homebush Bay. I organised my father to get out of bed at the crack of dawn and drive me there on Saturday and the place was hermetically sealed. The woman that I spoke to told me to go around the back. And promised me that my time would not be wasted. There was no back. My time was wasted. Not only My time but my Father's time. My Clients time. Everyone seems to be paying for this fiasco except the PEOPLE WHO ARE BEING PAID to fix it.

What is an International company like LCD doing working with a cheap dodgy no service courier company like Couriers Please?

Let me guess? To save money. To give your executives a bigger bonus and keep your surplus nice and fat. Because it sure isn't to keep your customers happy or to advance your good name and reputation. And now because of your cheap decisions and your dysfunctional chain of command my good name and reputation as somebody who finishes the job on time and delivers on time will be finished. Because unlike big companies like Sony and LCE I have nobody to pass the buck onto. I work for myself and there are no excuses. Which is why I chose a brand of computer I thought I could trust not only with goods but with service.

But all I have experienced since I bought my new Sony Vaio Computer from Harvey Norman less than six months ago are problems. My hard disc fails is fixed again and then breaks down again within the week. Two weeks of work I have lost. This has has caused me enourmous and ONGOING stress.

So who is going to take responsability for this fiasco? Sony, the brand that cannot be trusted to sell me fully functional goods or LCE who doesn't fix my computer properly the first time and so has to fix it again and then not deliver it. Every link in this chain has failed me. Everybody is blaming every body else. If Harvey Norman is nothing more than the pimp at the door of a branded junk shop then why should I trust Harvey Norman?

If Sony, a company that I have been loyal to for the past ten years cannot look after me when it breaches my trust then why should I be loyal any longer? My colleagues who use Mac don't have problems like this. EVER. They all say 'I told you so.' And it looks like they were right. At least Mac doesn't pass the buck.

Where does this buck stop and who is going to compensate me for bucks lost.

I am waiting for your answer.

AND MY COMPUTER! Hopefully fixed this time.


Wednesday Kennedy.