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.

Hungry Birds

Only the predators have eyes for your hunger. They hold out the crumbs not to feed you but bait you and watch for saliva.

So when they start to dangle I move on.
door
to
door
selling wednesdaykennedyink.
The Social Networking Doyenne.
I will build your facebook, utube and twitter.
I will find your people and make them welcome.
I have a Carbon Tax special. It's a Bargain!! I'll set up your facebook and get you your first hundred friends for a hundred dollars. I'll handpick those friends so you'll love each other. I'll warm up your wall and light your first fire. I'm a Doyenne!'

But I Doyenne right out of there and Doyenne myself down the block knock knock after knock 'til I come to the place I was meant to be helping. The Cafe in the back streets of Annandale that was gorgeous and empty and dying for my Digital Diva touch! This was my territory. Intimate, authentic, I fell in love with it. With all of it. Especially the Ibis named Eileen.

Eileen just turned up. Turned up at the door feeling hungry. Just like I did. And nobody was suspicious of Eileen. Nobody was scared they were going to get ripped off. They knew she was a scavanger because she was hungry. And they gave her a feed and told her to come back tomorrow. So she did.

And I think to myself 'I love this place. I love this woman!' And I want to do her marketing so everyone shares in her vibe and the cafe's not empty but crowded. I had Dexy's Midnight Runners dancing through my head...

So I say 'I will do your marketing and I will work for food. I'll set up your facebook and make you a utube clip and send everyone I know here. Maybe we could have a poetry night! The poets will love you! All you have to do is feed me when I come in. My heart was brimming with inspiration when I said it. I felt illuminated!

But she said she had to think about it.



Voice Over Coming.

He kissed like a spy.

That's why I didn't take it any further. I'm done with spies.
I'm like a magnet to them. Now I take notes.

His story was plausible but I didn't believe it. He took no photos of his journey like he didn't want to leave a trail. He couldn't remember where he'd been. He had no stories of living in Sydney. He'd been shipped over here for work and never really left the space ship. And now he was on the road. The answers to his questions were all vague and open ended. He didn't know where he was going. He didn't know where his journey would end. He wasn't running away and he wasn't running towards anything. He had no passion. So when he kissed me I thought of two slugs in a bain marie. I hoped the pimple on his lip wasn't a virus. That's all I needed. It was the country that made me want to kiss him. I was all worked up with a small town yearning, surrounded by men with the blood pumping through them. I had to kiss someone. And there he was. The Spy. In the middle of nowhere. What was I doing? Disaster Chef probably sent him. Or Centrelink! Or ASIO. Or the Dutch mafia! That'd be just my luck. He told us he was from The Netherlands. But nobody knew where that was.

'Say Holland.' I told him.

So he did.

And everyone got it.

But Gidget said . 'I don't know about those clogs. They've got no give.
She wears slippers to work. Hot Pink.
















The Platinum Cowgirl invites the Spy home with us. She does it for me. I'm 100% ambivalent. Now I know he's a spy I don't want him to come but it's too late to get out of it. She's so generous. She feeds us Maggie Beer Pate and expensive wines and cheese and crackers and cigarettes. I take notes. He tells more stories that leave no residue. He has no aura. He worked setting up people's voice mails but he couldn't remember his own phone number. Only Artists and Spys can't remember their own phone number...

But if he was a Spy the poor bastard was stuck between a paranoid Videographer and a Tracker. I had a bullet at his back and The Tracker had an imprint of his sneakers...He had no hope.

Disaster Diva (Episode One.

An episodic utube documentary about being a One Woman Show in a brave new world. An exploration of Hunger from the growling belly to the starving heart! Will Disaster DIva get up a show and take it back to New York? How will she do it ? Is it possible to reach for a star by standing on a milk crate? Can you have a dream and no money and make that dream happen from the cultural holding pen of the brave new world.
Sponsor Disaster Diva on her Journey.
Sponsor an episode be apart of the Disaster Diva Family.

Thank You.


All Donations will be announced on the blog. Unless you would prefer to be Anonymous.
Episode Two Coming Soon!