I grew up in a strange old time of punks, skins, trends, goths, mods, rasta's, all these factions, added to the mix, clashed and fought and sometimes even got on. There was a time at one particular club of the time when the trends and the goths kind of lived in harmony together, or at least didn't clash. The goths hung out in the dark recesses of the club upstairs and we below.
There was one particular goth that stood out among their brethren, her name was Keira. You felt it's presence before sighting her on some occasions, a chill down the back. You would first notice their hair, a big black star of a hairstyle (think Robert Smith from the Cure, only thicker and bigger) on top it's white glowing, pale of winter head. It would move as if a ghostly apparition, drifting across the floor like ooze or on air, rather than walking. Tall and large frame, standard issue goth clothes and when sighted, white as the whitest snow skin. The rumour was that Keira could not see daylight, that she was allergic to light and henced only lived in the night, opposite to us mere mortals. She could not the leave the house apparently and chose to sleep during the day and would only venture out at night and mostly in the choice of the goth code of dress and makeup. Black eyeliner, black eyeshadow, black lipstick, black demeanour.
Other rumours were that she was a black witch, that cast spells, made potions and visited graveyards in the stealth of night. That she was a goth leader, and would hold parties in graveyards to awaken and stir the dead.
Goth's were a srange lot, she the strangest and most intriguing of all. Keira the goth - allergic to light.
Thursday 31 January 2013
kiddy muggers
A flashback from the past.
It was the early 90's, I awake slowly with the beats penetrating into my head and realise I have been asleep in a club on a fairly comfortable lounge in the corner. I remember vaguely how I got here and wonder what time it is.. judging by the amount of people still in the club it's the wee small hours, 3 or 4am. I look around to see if can see any familiar faces, not expecting to really. phheww!! what a night i think to myself, i feel tired and sleepy still and wonder what i might have got up to before crashing in the Patches club.
I decide to head home and realise I have to get one of the night buses home as i don't have enough for a taxi. I head out of the club and start heading down the street past Hyde Park South. Half way down the street i sense a group behind is getting closer, it's a group of teens looking like little gangster wannabe's, baseball caps and all, some look really small and young I think to myself.
I sense a possible danger/threat level and see that there is absolutely no-one else around. I do a quick scan around both sides of the street and the park and can only make out a security guard in the foyer of one of the buildings opposite.
It's not more than a few seconds later, that the group is running and heading towards me. There is not much i can do, I have no desire to run, they would probably catch me anyway. One of the bigger youth's has me in a headlock pretty quickly, but he can't be older than 15 I think to myself. He say's to me "Hand over all your money". I say bemusedly, tiredly "What if i don't". Rather than answer in words, he makes the headlock a little tighter. I am tired and not really happy about this situation i find myself in, I wonder if they have knives and think to myself i could probably take them all on, before thinking of the consequences if that doesn't work out. I say to them, "I don't have much money, only my bus fare home. But I'll give you all I have in my wallet". The bigger youth let's me out of the headlock and I size up the situation and think to myself i can't believe i am getting mugged by kiddies. This is absurd.
I look through my wallet and find around $4 and hand it over to the bigger youth. "Alright, cya later" I say. "yeh cya" they say and they all walk off into the Hyde Park South area. Looking for more suspects, I think to myself, or perhaps it's their home for the night. I look across the street and stare at the security guard safe and sound in the foyer of his building and wave sarcastically. "Thanks for helping mate" I think to myself, just what i expected really.
Taxi, it is then. Oh blow it, it's handover time. Not my night I think to myself.
It was the early 90's, I awake slowly with the beats penetrating into my head and realise I have been asleep in a club on a fairly comfortable lounge in the corner. I remember vaguely how I got here and wonder what time it is.. judging by the amount of people still in the club it's the wee small hours, 3 or 4am. I look around to see if can see any familiar faces, not expecting to really. phheww!! what a night i think to myself, i feel tired and sleepy still and wonder what i might have got up to before crashing in the Patches club.
I decide to head home and realise I have to get one of the night buses home as i don't have enough for a taxi. I head out of the club and start heading down the street past Hyde Park South. Half way down the street i sense a group behind is getting closer, it's a group of teens looking like little gangster wannabe's, baseball caps and all, some look really small and young I think to myself.
I sense a possible danger/threat level and see that there is absolutely no-one else around. I do a quick scan around both sides of the street and the park and can only make out a security guard in the foyer of one of the buildings opposite.
It's not more than a few seconds later, that the group is running and heading towards me. There is not much i can do, I have no desire to run, they would probably catch me anyway. One of the bigger youth's has me in a headlock pretty quickly, but he can't be older than 15 I think to myself. He say's to me "Hand over all your money". I say bemusedly, tiredly "What if i don't". Rather than answer in words, he makes the headlock a little tighter. I am tired and not really happy about this situation i find myself in, I wonder if they have knives and think to myself i could probably take them all on, before thinking of the consequences if that doesn't work out. I say to them, "I don't have much money, only my bus fare home. But I'll give you all I have in my wallet". The bigger youth let's me out of the headlock and I size up the situation and think to myself i can't believe i am getting mugged by kiddies. This is absurd.
I look through my wallet and find around $4 and hand it over to the bigger youth. "Alright, cya later" I say. "yeh cya" they say and they all walk off into the Hyde Park South area. Looking for more suspects, I think to myself, or perhaps it's their home for the night. I look across the street and stare at the security guard safe and sound in the foyer of his building and wave sarcastically. "Thanks for helping mate" I think to myself, just what i expected really.
Taxi, it is then. Oh blow it, it's handover time. Not my night I think to myself.
Wednesday 30 January 2013
The day my leg went to sleep
i think i was in 2nd class at my Primary school and it was a morning of a school assembly and it was an exceptionally long assembly this day, as they were giving out awards. I remember we all had to sit down in our classes and it was hard as we all had our legs crossed for quite a while. At some point, while Debbie Lambert was winning the award for best speller in her year, my left leg started getting pins and needles from being crossed and sat on for so long. I went to get up for a brief moment to get some blood flow back, but was asked to sit back down quite aggressively by one of the teachers on watch... but, but I was trying to say my leg is going to sleep and i soon won't be able to feel it at all I was thinking as i sat back down. I almost started to panic as i knew i was getting an award this day as well and it was a long way to walk up and accept the award. I tried poking my leg and shifting my leg all to no avail, it was beyond pins and needles now and just felt numb.
Sure enough my name got called out and I just grinned and beared it! Got up quickly and realized i didn't have any feeling in my left leg at all.. and started dragging myself like quazamodo towards the stage. I was just hoping that some life would come back in my leg before i fell over and didn't make it. As i was looking up towards the award giver, my leg gave way and i fell over a couple of first classers.. who were pretty good about it really. I got up again and started hobbling towards the stage, so unsure on my leg that i almost gave up then and there on bothering to get the award. I think a few people by this stage in my class were laughing quite heavily and I was just the most embarrassed and unsure i have been. By the time i got to the stage, luckily some life came to my leg and i felt a bit more assurred as i excepted my award. Bloody hell I thought that was an effort. The teachers were not amused though and thought i was taking the Mickey and I was punished for my leg going to sleep and for what they believed was me goofing off.
That's what it was like in those days, we did as we were told, even if it meant your legs going to sleep on you. Sit perfectly still for 1 hour.. sure thing, no choice. I remember the people who were force fed a 400ml bottle of milk every morning, myself, I was willing (loved it).. but for those who didn't like milk and complained, for those few... it meant a vomit here or there.. all part of the daily routine.
On the plus side in those days.. remember being in 4th class and being able to hitch hike home from a football game with a friend and it all being cool and fun.
Sure enough my name got called out and I just grinned and beared it! Got up quickly and realized i didn't have any feeling in my left leg at all.. and started dragging myself like quazamodo towards the stage. I was just hoping that some life would come back in my leg before i fell over and didn't make it. As i was looking up towards the award giver, my leg gave way and i fell over a couple of first classers.. who were pretty good about it really. I got up again and started hobbling towards the stage, so unsure on my leg that i almost gave up then and there on bothering to get the award. I think a few people by this stage in my class were laughing quite heavily and I was just the most embarrassed and unsure i have been. By the time i got to the stage, luckily some life came to my leg and i felt a bit more assurred as i excepted my award. Bloody hell I thought that was an effort. The teachers were not amused though and thought i was taking the Mickey and I was punished for my leg going to sleep and for what they believed was me goofing off.
That's what it was like in those days, we did as we were told, even if it meant your legs going to sleep on you. Sit perfectly still for 1 hour.. sure thing, no choice. I remember the people who were force fed a 400ml bottle of milk every morning, myself, I was willing (loved it).. but for those who didn't like milk and complained, for those few... it meant a vomit here or there.. all part of the daily routine.
On the plus side in those days.. remember being in 4th class and being able to hitch hike home from a football game with a friend and it all being cool and fun.
mismatched cups
A long time ago, back in the day, when we were young and in love and going to University, we had visitors. My wife and I were living in a small unit in Randwick and both going to University, we somehow managed to live a fun life, without much money or things.
My older sister Anne visited us one time, she was up in Sydney for work and brought along a guy she was having an affair with, not that i was judging. I liked Donnie her partner and thought it was pretty slack going behind his back like this, as a guy you just think i wouldn't want this happening to me. I think she brought Katie, her daughter as well this time and we may have been baby sitting her while the two of them went off somewhere.
We were all sitting down in our non-descript unit with minimum furniture and things and I was getting tea for everyone and we didn't have many cups. I managed to scrounge enough cups to get everyone tea and we were just sitting on our old sofa and chairs and chatting. Steff or I might have said something like, sorry for the cups all being different and odd.
Anne's affair guy, i think his name was Graham, quipped up, said something out of the blue, like "Don't ever change you guys" Steff and i both said, "What do you mean". He pointed to the cups we were having tea in and said "don't ever change from this", " Don't worry about ever getting sets of cups and saucers, cutlery." "This is perfect, you don't need all that stuff and things" I could sense that they saw that we had something back then, something intangible. Happiness without the need of more things or things that matched, they were older and had probably set out attaining these things and perhaps realised that these were not the things that mattered.
Here they were deep in this affair and perhaps thinking differently about their life and the choices they had made, including their current one. Maybe they realised they could never go back from where they were now, to a simpler existence and they wanted us to stay where we were at this moment in time. To protect us from our wants. As it's simple bliss is one to envy.
Your life moves on though and you go through many different incarnations, you leave Uni, you earn more and more money and sure enough you attain at some point matching cup and saucer sets. Although oddly enough, i still don't think we have 2 mugs that match. It's not just the matching cups, it's all the other things you keep wanting and neeeding. You work to maintain this lifestyle and the lifestyle isn't really much of a life or style. It's progress, It's life you can't stop and go back that would be weird.
They were naive to think we would be happy to stay like that, or could even manage to do that successfully through our life and we would be just be this blissfully happy couple without a care for matching cups.
I do miss those days though, the setting out days, now we are just setting in. The days of the metro (SMH pullout section) on a Friday, providing us free entertainment and movies.
My older sister Anne visited us one time, she was up in Sydney for work and brought along a guy she was having an affair with, not that i was judging. I liked Donnie her partner and thought it was pretty slack going behind his back like this, as a guy you just think i wouldn't want this happening to me. I think she brought Katie, her daughter as well this time and we may have been baby sitting her while the two of them went off somewhere.
We were all sitting down in our non-descript unit with minimum furniture and things and I was getting tea for everyone and we didn't have many cups. I managed to scrounge enough cups to get everyone tea and we were just sitting on our old sofa and chairs and chatting. Steff or I might have said something like, sorry for the cups all being different and odd.
Anne's affair guy, i think his name was Graham, quipped up, said something out of the blue, like "Don't ever change you guys" Steff and i both said, "What do you mean". He pointed to the cups we were having tea in and said "don't ever change from this", " Don't worry about ever getting sets of cups and saucers, cutlery." "This is perfect, you don't need all that stuff and things" I could sense that they saw that we had something back then, something intangible. Happiness without the need of more things or things that matched, they were older and had probably set out attaining these things and perhaps realised that these were not the things that mattered.
Here they were deep in this affair and perhaps thinking differently about their life and the choices they had made, including their current one. Maybe they realised they could never go back from where they were now, to a simpler existence and they wanted us to stay where we were at this moment in time. To protect us from our wants. As it's simple bliss is one to envy.
Your life moves on though and you go through many different incarnations, you leave Uni, you earn more and more money and sure enough you attain at some point matching cup and saucer sets. Although oddly enough, i still don't think we have 2 mugs that match. It's not just the matching cups, it's all the other things you keep wanting and neeeding. You work to maintain this lifestyle and the lifestyle isn't really much of a life or style. It's progress, It's life you can't stop and go back that would be weird.
They were naive to think we would be happy to stay like that, or could even manage to do that successfully through our life and we would be just be this blissfully happy couple without a care for matching cups.
I do miss those days though, the setting out days, now we are just setting in. The days of the metro (SMH pullout section) on a Friday, providing us free entertainment and movies.
Alarm clock
Long ago, one sunny summer morning filled with regret as I left for work and lined up at the bus stop, to head for work in the city... i was blissfully unaware as i got on the bus that something was about to happen. You are already thinking about work and what you have to do that day and you are thinking life sucks, why do we have to work in crap jobs we don't like.
Anyway, on this day i got on the already crowded bus and i was thinking, great, no seat again, I'll have to stand all the way to the city. The bus took off and we were crawling through traffic, most of the bus was very quiet as no one talks, we are all strangers, lost in our own transient thoughts. Like a jolt, an alarm starts ringing and I am awoken from my commuter's daydream. It sounds familiar this alarm, an old school manual alarm, it sounds insistent and loud and unstoppable. The whole bus appears to have awoken from their slumber and generally looking in my direction, where the sound appears to be coming from. I take off my backpack and fumble for the zipper to open the bag and see my big alarm clock from home and shut it down quick smart and try to act like nothing just happened, very casual (nothing going on here), to the rest of the bus. I am thinking to myself "bitch", fuck, my wife got me a good one, wait till i get my hands on her. I laugh to myself and think, I will have to get my revenge and it will have to be good. At least it added to what would have otherwise been just another drab working day and gave the rest of the bus something to think about as well.
I was thinking, God, my wife is so mature (not), why did i marry her again? Why am i always the victim of her pranks and antics? What will happen if this keeps up forever? What if she never grows out of this? Surely she has to at some point, you can't keep doing pranks through your adult life can you? Would it be really, really boring if she did mature all of a sudden and started being all intellectual and forgot to have fun.
Anyway, on this day i got on the already crowded bus and i was thinking, great, no seat again, I'll have to stand all the way to the city. The bus took off and we were crawling through traffic, most of the bus was very quiet as no one talks, we are all strangers, lost in our own transient thoughts. Like a jolt, an alarm starts ringing and I am awoken from my commuter's daydream. It sounds familiar this alarm, an old school manual alarm, it sounds insistent and loud and unstoppable. The whole bus appears to have awoken from their slumber and generally looking in my direction, where the sound appears to be coming from. I take off my backpack and fumble for the zipper to open the bag and see my big alarm clock from home and shut it down quick smart and try to act like nothing just happened, very casual (nothing going on here), to the rest of the bus. I am thinking to myself "bitch", fuck, my wife got me a good one, wait till i get my hands on her. I laugh to myself and think, I will have to get my revenge and it will have to be good. At least it added to what would have otherwise been just another drab working day and gave the rest of the bus something to think about as well.
I was thinking, God, my wife is so mature (not), why did i marry her again? Why am i always the victim of her pranks and antics? What will happen if this keeps up forever? What if she never grows out of this? Surely she has to at some point, you can't keep doing pranks through your adult life can you? Would it be really, really boring if she did mature all of a sudden and started being all intellectual and forgot to have fun.
Tuesday 29 January 2013
the christmas tree
Many years ago when my son was very little, he would have been around 4 or 5. We lived near a nice park that wound through 2 blocks through to next street. One day as my wife and I were walking through the park we noticed something under a tree over to the left of the park, out of the way. I went over to investigate and found a new pair of levi's 501 jeans. After discussing options with the wife, we decided to take the offering. They were a perfect fit when i got them home, what a score. We decided we would call this tree the christmas tree as it offerred up gifts. A week later sure enough there was something else left under the tree, this time something for my son. We only ever saw one other thing under this tree and I don't think we took it on that occasion. For that time, it was a source of much amusement and discussion, who was leaving this stuff under the tree, who was it for? It was indeed magical and i almost expected to one day find a bundle of money under this tree.
Many years later, thinking about this again, i now wonder if perhaps it wasn't my wife as she is a bit of a joker. But can't see how really, as there would have been a big risk of someone else taking the stuff before us. Oh well, i guess it's one of those things that we'll never know, but it added a bit of intrigue to our daily lives and was a lot of fun while it lasted.
Many years later, thinking about this again, i now wonder if perhaps it wasn't my wife as she is a bit of a joker. But can't see how really, as there would have been a big risk of someone else taking the stuff before us. Oh well, i guess it's one of those things that we'll never know, but it added a bit of intrigue to our daily lives and was a lot of fun while it lasted.
expensive
I was hopping on the ferry one day to go to work and i was on the top deck and bumped into my brother in law who was sitting on the inside seat. I went over to sit down next to him and notice there was a lady sitting 2 seats down and it was going to be a tight squeeze. I then noticed she also had her handbag next to her and it was going over on to the seat i was going to sit down on. I made my intention clear, at least I thought that i was going to sit down in that seat to talk to my relative. I gave her a few seconds to move her handbag and when that wasn't forthcoming i sat down anyway. I got a bit of the handle of her bag as i sat down, she pulled her bag out and exclaimed "expensive handbag!" I paused for like 2 seconds and said back to her, pointing at my behind "expensive ass". Turned to my brother in law and we both started laughing. She went very quiet and didn't say a word the rest of the trip.
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