IPOD
RADIO
And the original:
One year my Dad purchased me an audio cassette as a birthday gift. I knew the minute I unwrapped it that he had gone to the shop and selected it for me himself. Instead of allowing Mom to purchase all the gifts for us kids that year, he had chosen this one, especially for me. It's hazy but I'm pretty sure it was for my eighth birthday. Perhaps my tenth.
One day, I'll find that cassette somewhere. Every time I go into my old room at home, I hunt for it hoping that one day, I'll find it.
It was called 60's Chart Toppers. It had many tracks on it that I loved and, still do.
The few titles I can remember:
Sugar, Sugar - The Archies
Green Tambourine - The Lemon Pipers
Rain on the Roof - Lovin' Spoonful
Simon Says - 1910 Fruitgum Company
And now, I'm on a kick. I'm hunting and searching google for other songs and then, I stumbled upon this write up by Amy Phillips on Tommy James & the Shondells: "Crimson and Clover".
Not gonna front: I loved Joan Jett's version first. But her cover rocks too hard. This song-- quite possibly the closest white pop musicians have ever come to approximating how making love actually feels-- is meant to be an afternoon roll in the hay, not an alleyway screw. Even though the climaxes are certainly there, "Crimson and Clover" isn't about the payoff, it's about the journey: those three chords descending like pieces of clothing hitting the floor, the sweaty droplets of reverb, the backbeat thrusts. Over and over, over and over.
I fell in love with her description immediately. She's right, you know.
It continues. The hunt and the love of music created two decades before my birth.
I was on top of the world!
Then, I went here and in the distance, saw whales.
I like Lighthouses.
And, sunsets.
---
I'm sitting in a lounge room in Perth, with two of my favourite people sitting on the couch beside me playing Mario Kart.
They're talking (semi-drunk) shit and cheering loudly. They're making me smile.
Post a day in Rockingham, lunch at the Swinging Pig, my first Guinness Pie, a train trip, a bus ride, drinks and dinner at Little Creatures and (belated) birthday presents - I'm exhausted.
Happy and exhausted.
Tomorrow night, VNV Nation in Brisbane.
Sunday Night, VNV Nation in Perth
Wednesday night, Death Cab for Cutie in Perth.
Amongst those dates, times with good people. Beer + wine at Little Creatures. Catching up. Oh, and birthdays.
I'll be in and out between now and September. With Spring shall come my return, but not a moment sooner. I'm looking forward to my break. My trip. My adventure.
... Just don't ask how many times I had to re-pack my suitcase and how many pairs of socks are coming along for the ride.
She called and said there was a scarecrow on the property.
Brushed it off as kids being kids, pulling pranks, post Friday night fun.
Only, it was a body.
He'd hung himself.
Police said that he was twenty-five.
All of a sudden, other things seem so much smaller than the ones he must have faced before those final moments on a vacant block of land, North of Brisbane, in a prestigious suburban residential development.
I can't help but wonder why he did it and at what point everything becomes too much and we break...
A: An Overnight Road trip!
I've loved the design of the little car for years. Whenever I see one on the road or in a car park, I gaze longingly and get a little excited. It has a big bum, hideous wheels (factory standard) and stylistically was ahead of it's time.
Truth be told, I don't think it ever really had it's time.
I made a semi-effort to find a co-pilot for the adventure, but gave the idea away pretty quickly.
I'm going alone.
Departing Brisbane, Thursday evening:
An overnight bag with little more than a change of clothes and a wad of cash. Many neatly folded hundred-dollar bills. My sketch book and some graphite pencils. A hire car, the open road. Windows down, the winter night tousling my hair, driving by moonlight. Loud music playing, singing at the top of my lungs when the silence or road noise starts to lull me into sleep. Stopping for a few hours rest in a park on the outskirts of town or, by the beach.
Waking up early morning, I'll have breakfast in a café, return my hire car to the Bundaberg depot and make my own way to my new car. Hopefully, this one has a name.
Then, lazily, we will drive home. I'll visit the places I remember from my childhood and learn how she likes to be driven. If she likes it gentle or rough, if she is loud or quiet. In the five-and-a-half hour drive home, I will find out what ails her and think of ways to making her feel (and run) better.
I can hardly wait to get to know her, or to get to find parts of myself long forgotten on those long highway stretches.
Because this is, the first time ever, I've been alone outside my comfort zone.
So far from home.
And, I can hardly wait.
See also: Scared shitless.
The human body is an amazing thing. I pissed mine of thoroughly a few weekends ago. My scars are healing very well, I feel fine.
Except my abdomen has swollen eighteen centimeters. I have an internal infection.
I'm mostly fascinated by it. It hurts like hell. My skin is taut and it feels like I'm about to give birth to an Alien baby.
...And all I keep thinking about is how cool it would be if this were how Predator babies were born.
