Author Archives: Mark

Merv finds more family

24 Sunday Dec 2017

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Merv and family

Story by the guy at the keyboard.

Merv was standing behind the bar, washing the glasses and refreshing the spittoons when the door opened and a man walked in an ordered a beer. Merv didn’t take any notice at first but when he looked up at the man he saw a reflection of himself.

“Um, er, Mick?” asked Merv thinking it was his identical twin brother Mick from Mick’s Auto Mechanics and Florist Shop.

“No, I’m Mack, your other identical twin brother” said the man, um, er, I mean Mack.

“But doesn’t that make us identical triplets?” enquired Merv intelligently for a change.

“But wait there’s more. There are five of us, me, you, Mick, Mike and Mark. All identical twins” said Mack.

“But that makes us…”

“No, identical twins. The author can’t spell that word so we won’t mention it, okay?”

“Um, er, suppose, okay I guess. What’s brought you here Mack?”

“I went to see my doctor, Doctor Doctor and I said to her, doctor doctor give me the news I gotta bad case of lovin you but she told me that I have Stupiditis and that it runs in the family”

My Christmas outfit

“Stupiditis!!” double exclamation marks remarks Merv.

“But wait there’s more. It also affects our identical twins” counters Mack.

“You mean our qu…”

“Don’t mention that word, the author can’t spell it plus he wants an extra set of steak knifes hence the double mention of but wait there’s more”

“Stupiditis” say Merv “I don’t get it”

“Exactly” replies Mack. “It’s a disease that is so subtle that you don’t get it till it’s too late. Like what did you do this morning?”

“Dunno, got up, had a shower, got dressed, ogled granny, scratched my nuts, washed glasses and replaced the spittoons” says Merv feeling quite bewildered.

“Yes, that’s because that is what you do every day. When was Gordon here last?” presses Mack.

“Dunno”

“Stupiditis” says Mack. “Lets test it out with a few of the patrons. Hey Foodge, what did you do yesterday?”

“Smoked lots of cigarettes, drank heaps of booze, represented a fine defaulter in court, told the Prime Minister to stick his head up his arse, usual sort of thing why do you ask?” replies Foodge.

“No reason” says Mack. “See Merv, what do really remember about yesterday?”

“Dunno, I fink I got outta bed, came down here to the bar and later went back to bed”

“Stupiditis, big time” says the twins.

Merv and family

Tuna and Pear Pizza

23 Saturday Dec 2017

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Tuna and Pear pizza

 

This is one of my favourite pizzas of all time and comes from an authentic Italian cookbook that Tutu an I used a lot in our early days.

So make a pizza base. Do you need me to tell you how to do that I’m not sure. So buy one or make one. The home-made ones are better but I’ll leave that up to you.

Now as for level of ingredients, again that’s up to you and how many people you need to feed.

So lets assume you have a pizza base on a tray ready to go. The sauce that you apply goes like this.

Garlic

Onion

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

Anchovies

Tuna

Tomatoes and tomato paste

Method

Add oil to pan with salt and pepper then fry garlic for a few minutes. Add onion and keep frying for a bit longer then add tomatoes, anchovies and tuna. Add tomato paste to thicken, this needs to be spreadable. Mash and let cool.

Get you pizza base and spread the tuna paste on the base. Add slices of pear and onion rings, cheese of choice and cook for 10 minutes or so in a 220 degree oven.

When I took a trip on the Ghan I sat next to a pizza shop owner who loved the idea of the recipe. The pair softens and is sweet. The tuna is salty and adds the contrast. The tomato base is basically tuna bolonaise and is delightful as a balance to the other ingredients.

Tutu and I voted this as our second best pizza. First place was onion, capsicum and mushroom.

 

 

 

The Sociology of A Place To Call Home Part 15

22 Friday Dec 2017

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Picture of a bikie minus the bikie

 

 

The Sociology of A Place To Call Home Part 15
by Sandshoe

Still on the beach with the beach community…

A southern based bikie gang arrived one week-end and endeared themselves that they respectfully asked what could they do to help the community. To suggestion they help pick up weekend townies’ litter that otherwise would discredit the campers, they as respectfully patrolled litterers.

The female partner of the couple whose army disposals tent was meeting place was a

Aren’t nurses wonderful people

specialist nurse. She achieved a senior position at a very young age. She and I strolled along the beach and shared why we had left our professional positions and training. Her decision too she arrived at on grounds of protest and concern about the status of her profession and working conditions.

The economy of the local store at the curve of the road onto the beach boomed. The dramatic influx of domestic and international travellers brought new influences to bear on local food supply. Wholemeal and grain bread was near unheard of. My German friend I had campaigned with to alert the business world to the travesty of the seizing of the painting and the subsequent court case asked in a stentorian voice in a busy Cairns City central bakery to buy a loaf of bread. Once served, he stepped back from the counter, pushed the loaf down to its smallest possible size with two hands, rolled it into a ball he stuffed into a pocket of his khaki trousers, uttered the historic guttural statement, “It’s rubbish” and walked out. Not something I would think to do, but there again I was not yearning for a stout heavy grain loaf of bread and a beer garden.

“We are going to the pub”, R. announced one day when my partner obliged him we would be transport and helping hands on one of our friend’s wheel-dealer runs. We had arrived at a location on the Atherton Tableland. “No,” he announced firmly when we arrived. My partner and I had started towards the lounge.

On his insistence we were there to exercise it transpired the right legally awarded women in that year (1970) to drink in a hotel bar, the three of us walked in the street entrance of the pub’s front bar.

I was short of 21. The legal age was not dropped to 18 until 1974. None of us gave it a thought. My age was not challenged. I might have been however the first femme in the bar. The entire attention of the patrons was rivetted on us. The silence was

The Cans Hotel

audible. Served, the three of us awkwardly sat on the bar stools available to sit one next to the other. We sipped on our beers. R. said abruptly, “Come on. I can’t stand it.” His voice was so replete with quiet determination to leave, my partner and I stood and followed him as he walked out. We were all glad to exit. We left three beers unfinished on the bar counter top.

Yet R. favoured the look of an Australian worker in khaki work shirt and trousers and work boots. His headwear was always a battered Australian bushman’s felt hat. Nothing to see there. Perhaps my partner’s abundance of over the shoulder curls was not so usual in a country pub in 1970.

The diversity of stories shared grew in kind. The community’s members and local residents were swept up in experience that evolved out of their neighbourly relationships, become actors in real life dramas as moving as any we find where humans group; great love was seen to be found, love triangles were absorbed, trysts negotiated, international intelligence agency (not too intelligent) revealed, a history of individuals who shed their anxieties, abandoned their worldly goods, collected new accoutrements. The red double decker London bus conversion that was a mobile home and mechanics workshop double parked.

The stories of the double decker bus and our new friend’s varied fortunes are legend. News was an ice cream shop was opening in Cairns. The double decker was driven to town for the clamouring purchase of different flavours of icecream in cones for a busload.

Pizza enhancer

A report in the local newspaper, The Cairns Post, cited the bus driver who picked up schoolchildren in the morning as noting ‘they’ were all still in the same place when he returned in the afternoon. ‘They’ hadn’t moved from where ‘they’ waited for mangos or coconuts to fall into their hands to feed ‘them’. Other reports fabricated or interpreted people smoking roll-your-own tobacco were smoking drugs. I recall someone’s voice enquiring ‘What’s marijuana?’

We read standing in a group, craning our necks to see the one newspaper, that we were hippies.

“Hippies!”

I remained alcohol and drug free with exception I once experimented in the period, on my request supervised and ingested a small number, perhaps three, of the psychadelic mushroom, ‘the blue meanie’. I lay on my back in the grass of the back yard and my neighbour looked over the fence and laughed as I laughed. I found a fascination in the shapes of clouds that seemed to speed from one composition to the next. In the cottage bedroom blemishes in old paint on the walls assumed crocodile-like skin patterns that made me laugh for the absurdity. I lay on the floor to look at the ceiling. I was entirely engaged in the moment and realised I was lying on the floor gurgling in delight. My only further memory of it is that I sobered. The interesting thought occurred to me I had regressed. I do further believe that regardless happy chance I stumbled on recall of the baby within.

Such an outcome would not be everybody’s experience or mind construct. As result of

Hmm, these mushrooms are magic

observation and over the course of my life hearing of the experience of others my viewpoint is the ingestion of psychadelic mushrooms or any other common hallucinogenic is potentially dangerous.

If I was not habitually sober and drug free I would not have enjoyed the ease and depth of of relationship I did with the key members of the community who were as well habitually sober. Discussion increasingly turned to how and where to buy land.

Someone’s idea to buy a block of land as a collective we would manage as a camping ground appealed to the group. We would provide harbour to anybody in immediate need of safety from persecution.

Our land scouts brought back stories of being apprehended by police personnel and harrassment. One real estate office telephoned the police and when the two men emerged from the office after making their enquiries they found the street barricaded at both ends by police cars. They were arrested on suggestion of vagrancy and spent the night in jail. In the pocket of one was a list of all the names of the people keen to contribute money, thought to be their list customers and they drug dealers. We, instead, early identified key identities in the real estate industry we thought suspect of collusion with authorities, of rigging land values, and bidding up land auctions.

Meanwhile, the observation thought newsprint worthy that the “hippies” when the bus driver drove past were always in the same place hoping for coconuts and mangoes to

A couple of hippies

fall into their hands held the smallest grain of truth.

The couple who had established the army disposals tent as living space … that the surround of became a gathering place … were establishing a screen print design clothing business. The bus driver’s return journey coincided with afternoon tea.

A resident supplied the assistance of his premises for manging the screens and printing. Among the women of the community were experienced industrial machinists. Bikinis were stock-in-trade. Men’s and women’s shirts and women’s dresses were added. I enquired of interest in a line of children’s clothing. I drafted small girls’ sundresses and supplied the front panel for printing with a design I was asked to first approve or reject. The printed panel was returned to me for assembly.
An order came in from a local flag shop. I sewed small marine flags when they were printed.

Another of the community adept with a movie camera assembled a technical team and a movie was made intended for commercial promotion.

to be continued…
Christina Binning Wilson

Is that dress ready Shoe, tides comin’ in

The Sociology of A Place To Call Home Part 14

14 Thursday Dec 2017

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Me? Offensive? You must be joking.

The Sociology of A Place To Call Home Part 14
by Sandshoe

The writer apologises for the delay in presenting Part 14. Here provided is a link for readers to the previous Part 13.

The Sociology of A Place To Call Home Part 13

The accused had purchased the painting from the artist, the same one-time friend of my brother and a local resident. The artist was fearful, especially concerned he may become the next target of police attention and potential vandalism.

I had known of the artist’s intention to the painting. I critiqued it for him as he asked of me when it was completed. I thought the work was excellent, regardless a departure. The artist was a landscape painter. He did win a major award with a

Sorry, I don’t do nudes

beautiful seated female nude. This instead was of a female nude lying across a bed on her back and her head hanging back over the bed edge at the forefront of the painting; a figure barely more than a semblance visible in a doorway at some distance from the main subject I knew was female. I am unsure in recall if that could be easily determined.

I have not viewed the painting for now 47 years so I do question my memory of the exact detail , but the colour gradation and palette; however perhaps a third of the height of the canvas was painted in an almost monochromatic dark charcoal-hue other than for an implication of a source of light behind the figure in the doorway. The nude lying on the bed was a work of realism in the style of the artist’s landscape paintings. I knew he sought a Renaissance depth and perspective. Nothing is revealed of the personality of the room neither its contents. A seeming dispersal of light coated the tones of the skin. I do not remember a racial description. The hair colour was I believe dark. The artist moved about a middle third of the painting out of the dark of distance to an effect of depth beyond the bed.

My admiration of the painting remains the sense of still moment.

The painting was seized by police who searched the accused’s small wooden boat in the belief they would find drugs. They had exhibited as was anticipated of their raids little discriminatory care of his belongings. They produced no search warrant, Not finding drugs of any description and perhaps foreseeing the need to establish an alibi for their behaviour in full view on a public beach, the police alleged they were walking

Hand over your money, um paintings

not far from the water’s edge past the location of an open boat parked stern to bow facing the esplanade road. They saw the painting. They were confronted and offended.

Thus the truth was eliminated that they had pulled the accused’s belongings every which way out of a meagre forward cabin where the painting was lodged for its protection from salt encrustation and sand in a surround of clothing.

The accused was seriously frightened. The thought alone of a conviction on a charge of anything terrified anybody were they vulnerable and exposed to what was potential of being continuingly apprehended by members of the Queensland Police Force, but the accused was from the UK, not an Australian resident or citizen. Serious consequences were potential affect on his future if judgement was pronounced in favour of the prosecution, to only be deported to the UK with a highlight of a criminal prosecution for obscenity.

The criminals must have been laughing as the saying goes. Some years later, 30 years ago now the Fitzgerald Enquiry in Queensland established irrefutable proof of the long-term involvement of key figures at the highest levels of government and policing in corruption and their financing through protection rackets, gambling and prostitution.

Meanwhile, back at the beach community, resourceful individuals put their heads together as is the wont of people of integrity where community and its reputation is at stake and kin fearful of corrupt administrative governance at every level, its members living with a siege mindset, their homes in danger of ransack.

A local lawyer was engaged whose reputation met the requisite critera that his genuine interest was the accused’s welfare and social justice.

What were the qualifications of the arresting officer to establish an artwork is obscene, offensive and to whom is it offensive if so and why.

I witnessed my first life demonstration of the practical use of mathematics and

An innumerate

experienced the wonder. For anyone to see into the boat’s interior from where the police alleged they had and were concerned for the public, minors for starters were ruled out beyond reasonable doubt by trigonometry. A passer-by needed to be 12 feet tall (3.6m).

Nothing would ever cause the accused in the circumstances to even smile we were to realise. My heart went out to him as result of my assuredly announcing by way of pure instinct the next stumbling block the police would meet with was no professional artist leastwise in the immediate district would witness the painting was obscene per se. The police would present in court without that evidence. He abjectly anxious announced to me I was to remember his entire future was at stake.

The feeling of sorrowful guilt that I failed when he needed comfort to assist his anxiety has never left me, remembered of course because I nevertheless learned a valuable life lesson about the relativity of perspective.

In place of others who chose to not be recognised for fear of immediate reprisals, I attended in clothes I hoped again rendered me conservative and unrecognisable. My responsibility was to deliver my court report back to the beach community without

Shoe goes to court in disguise

being apprehended and charged on any pretence. The community’s members anticipated retaliation for what was assumed an inevitable outcome the case would be thrown out of court.

The courtroom was packed. A hotch potch of business suits and brilliantly coloured and sequinned gowns worn by people I had never in my life seen and hair styles that were glorious, dreads and shining, gleaming, beaded, braided filled the gallery standing room only and and my memory for this life time. Permission for observers to stand respectfully was further granted. Where everybody came from I do not know.

The magistrate doused periodic outbursts of guffaws. He warned contempt of court. The court fell quiet. The trigonometry was presented with grave attention to its detail by diagrammatic representation.

The accused described himself as being on holiday from the UK where he was a merchant seaman by profession. The accused made the revelation he was a former student of art at a UK art collegeof reasonable renown. The police prosecution persevered that the depiction of nudity in a public place was offensive where passers-by did not expect to view nudity; however declared the painting in the same breath as obscene. The reason was advanced that the painting showed an obscene relationship.

No apprehending police officer in their right mind would consider in my cautious viewpoint presenting themselves alone in a public courtroom as witnesses of their own assessment of an artwork. They did. Advice on the grape vine was they had tried to

A rough sketch

engage at least one local artist so what I had surmised proved true. The police officers attested when asked to having no training in art. The magistrate enquired of the arresting officer what Michaelangelo’s sculpture of David meant to him in the scheme of things. He drew an entire blank. The confused officer had no idea what that was.

The accused cross questioned by the magistrate what was the meaning to the accused of the painting advised he intended to take the painting with him on his return to the UK as a memento of his holiday in Australia. Why did he buy this painting? He bought it as a study in ochres. What did he consider was the relationship between the figures in the painting? He had not considered the subject matter of there being two figures in the painting. His interest was technical. He repeated he valued the painting as a study in ochres

The magistrate advised the accused that he, the magistrate supposed the accused would not display the painting in, say the front window of, say a department store in the main street of Cairns and the accused agreed; if the accused had not, the magistrate could not find the painting was displayed in a public place and neither intention. The accused was exonerated of the charge and free to leave the court.

I interpreted the magistrate’s inclusion of definition of a public place achieved the unexpected clarity of a finding opposed by inference to the controversial seizing of art work by the Queensland police out of display in a public art gallery and equally to its

The Magistrate

being potentially seized out of a private home or display in a private art collection. The court’s packed gallery of observers were cognisant to restrain their exuberance until they exited the court room.

In the evening I recited the court case near word for word to an assembled group sitting cross legged on the floor at my feet. My capacity with memory had been well identified as a skill of no small function. The charming detail remains in memory that the next day the accused was no longer burdened with anxiety when I commented to him that the police as I presupposed appeared no doubt perforce without an expert art witness. He asked to my surprise and in wonder how did I know.

I did not know. I interpreted the status of the intelligence and experience of the police purely on the trigonometry presented to me by the mathematicians. My immediate thought had been that if they had not thought of the detail they could not view the interior of the boat from where they had claimed the painting was visible to the public, they would have likely given little or no consideration to how difficult the next step would be of enticing a local art specialist to testify the painting was obscene.

Why did I presuppose the responsible police officers could not forward themselves as sufficient and suitable witnesses?

Perhaps it did take a local and former Queensland University student who was a victim of the Queensland Government’s Education Department to hazard an informed guess what the educational status was of the Queensland Police in 1970.

No maths. No art. No deductive reasoning. No common weal.

to be continued…
Christina Binning Wilson

Pleece HQ

Merv has a Brother

29 Wednesday Nov 2017

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Gordon is worried about somefink

 

There was a loud banging on the door at the Pigs Arms.

“Let me in, let me in” cried Gordon “I need a drink, something tragic has happened.”

Merv rouses from his slumber and opens the door. “What’s up Gordy?” he asks without a care for the answer, it’s 8 o’clock in the morning and opening time is still two hours away, one hour and 59 minutes of blissful sleep lost.

“Six pints of Special and two serves of wedges, me gizmo is broken” wails Gordon.

Merv pours a few pints for Gordon then goes out to the kitchen to fire up the ovens

Simulated Trotters Special Ale

and fryers. “What frigging gizmo is broken Gordon?” he yells.

“It’s me SPIT” replies Gordon. “My Small Personal Interplanetary Teleporter”

Thank Gord I didn’t need an explanation for that one thinks Merv as he returns to the bar and pours some more pints for Gordon.

“Well go and see my brother Mick, down the road and round the corner at Mick’s Auto Mechanics and Florist Shop, just between Rosie’s and Glenda’s” says Merv.

“I didn’t know you had a brother” says Gordon as he downs yet another glass canoe.

Nah, me neither thinks Merv but then again I don’t write this shit either.

Gordon downs his last pint and his two servings of wedgies with extra herring and

Simulated wedgies

Vegemite sauce and heads down the road and round the corner to Mick’s Auto Mechanics and Florist shop although the road seems to be acting funny, it’s swaying all over the place making it difficult for Gordon to step forward on every occasion. Maybe I should have had seven pints thinks Gordy, these planets in the Milky Way are trouble.

Gordon enters the foyer at the workshop to be greeted by a lovely display of petunias, orchids and lilies. No one is in attendance so he rings the bell on the counter.

A man appears in overalls and a sweaty face. “Yes, how may I help you?” says the man.

“Hey” says Gordon “you’re Merv in a set of overalls and some water chucked on your face to look like sweat”

“Look, I’m playing my identical twin brother Mick as Emmjay has said to cut down on

Simulated Mick

production costs so just go along with it, okay? Extra casts means extra expense, get it!” asserts Mick or Merv whoever.

“Hmm, well I need my gizmo fixed and your identical twin brother sent me here to get it fixed” blasts Gordon thinking maybe he should of had eight pints. “Don’t have any other brothers do you?”

“Not sure yet till we get to the end of the story” replies Mick. “Lilies are on special you know.”

“Fuck lilies, can you fix my gizmo?” says Gordon wishing for another pint and handing over his SPIT. Don’t ya just hate people who spit.

Simulated ripoff merchant

“Um, probably, it will be costly” replies Mick as he takes the gizmo from Gordon. Mick looks at the bottom of the device and notices that the on/off switch is in the off position and switches it back on and hands it to Gordon. “That’ll be $500 fanks.”

Haven’t we all be there at some stage.

AI Is no Chook Raffle.

15 Wednesday Nov 2017

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Only 50 cents a ticket, finger lickin’ good…

 

Story by Sandshoe.

AI is no chook raffle.

“Won’t get off the ground.”

Sandy and Gordon were gettin’ another earful. Gordon got cocky. Instead of keepin’

Gordon steadies himself to sing

strictly in time with the karaoke-singin’-to-Gordon, he went out on a limb preachin’ AI well under the stormy weather.

“What happened to Blame it on the Bossy Nova? Tell us moa, and when, now” yelled out the patrons bit under the stormy weather.

Cue the protestors.

“ALL ducks are quackers.”

“Big statement. Right on.”

Everyone in the crowd started feinting, yeah, imaginary boxing moves in the air and proved they were replaced by AI robots spoilin’ for a setup. “Go, you young turkies”, they chanted. They tick and tocked all over the place. It’s virtual reality noiseworks. Made to sound like bangin’ out a good story on a typewriter. I think not. I miss the sound of the carriage return.

(Carriage return).

Yes, this is me and my name’s Shoe and I’m here to help.

“Nah, it’s untrue.” Gordon was unusually loud for a man and woman of science. He looked same as the tablecloth with Sandy’s beer that fell accidental on him in the name of science. Which was when Sandy threw it at Babel. More beer per chook more production.

Babel was already the best layer. Sandy’s judgement was affected by cosmicness and

Princess Layer

the lightness, Merv had too much to do to be affected, he had to run a pub. He kept saying it into the mirror behind the bar. He got Angler and Gib back from Hornsby. Someone did because they are both round the place.

Mangled, melodic mountains rock.

So Merv put up with a lot of addressin’ himself in the mirror. Granny was brewin’ up a sunny day. Foodge helped Granny titrate.

It’s a full-on battle now. AI reckons the brewin’ is not a generic statement of factual engagement, but a politico-fraco-fungal statement revealin’ unrest and the cellar is a metaphor.

Nice try.

Granny’s brewin’ be buggered it’s simple and it’s science. Sandy’s spewin’ about Babel pooping in his beer it’s that simple be buggered not a lot of science. Ok, Gord is the

A fresh beer Merv!

whole works, reality speakin’ in a runny eggshell. AI test checked Gordon O’Donnell as she and he.

Yeah, hahaha, likely story and we won’t fall for it. We’re too sofistickated.

Intelligent Gordon O’Donnell

11 Saturday Nov 2017

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Intelligent Gordon O’Donnell

A Short Story
by Hung

Gordon O’Donnell was thinking about Sandy O’Way again. Sandy was a smart knight with vast hands and pretty toenails.

Gordon walked over to the window and reflected on his unusual surroundings. He had always loved distant in space with its mangled, melodic mountains. It was a place that encouraged his tendency to feel ambivalent.

Then he saw something in the distance, or rather someone. It was the a smart figure of Sandy O’Way.

Gordon gulped. He glanced at his own reflection. He was an intelligent, funny, beer drinker with blonde hands and tall toenails. His friends saw him as a defiant, decaying deity. Once, he had even brought a watery blind person back from the brink of death.

But not even an intelligent person who had once brought a watery blind person back from the brink of death, was prepared for what Sandy had in store today.

The drizzle rained like cooking lizards, making Gordon fuzzy. Gordon grabbed an odd rock that had been strewn nearby; he massaged it with his fingers.

As Gordon stepped outside and Sandy came closer, he could see the shallow glint in his eye.

Sandy gazed with the affection of 6230 peculiar handsome hamsters. He said, in hushed tones, “I love you and I want peace.”

Gordon looked back, even more fuzzy and still fingering the odd rock. “Sandy, I ate your puppy,” he replied.

They looked at each other with surprised feelings, like two drab, damaged dogs smiling at a very stupid wake, which had jazz music playing in the background and two brave uncles chatting to the beat.

Gordon regarded Sandy’s vast hands and pretty toenails. “I feel the same way!” revealed Gordon with a delighted grin.

Sandy looked jumpy, his emotions blushing like a kindhearted, klutzy knife.

Then Sandy came inside for a nice drink of beer.

THE END

The Boys go to Blat

03 Friday Nov 2017

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Off you go boys but I’ll be waiting

 

“Well I think that wheeze boys should have a weekend away for all that male bonding stuff” says Emmjay as he sips his glass canoe.

Oh fuck no, thinks Hung all that pretend bullshit about how great wheeze all were back in jail, oops I mean high school. ”I’m bored” says Hung reading from the script that he wrote. “Can’t we just put on some Dirt Air and Heat and pretend?”

Dirt Air and Heat

“Bloody good idea” says Gib ”Lets go out and shoot some cats, drink lots of piss and cook some critters on the barbeque.”

Cheers all round, well from the boys anyway.

”Not a bad idea” says Angler ”Lets get Gordon, Gez and Sandy and, and go camping.”

”None of that poofter stuff” pipes in Merv, who by the way hasn’t actually been invited, as he has to run the pub and granny wouldn’t let him go anyway seeing

This is the bit before the tzatziki

he is a juvenile delinquent or that he is from Deniliquin.

“An, an, an, how come Foodge and O’Hoo haven’t been invited?” pushes Merv.

“Ewes ain’t invited Merv, ewes have to stay behind and run the pub” replies Emmjay ticking over the dollars.

“And Merv, my young friend, someone has to keep the business fluid, if you get my drift” informs Gordon.

“But Gordon, camping is crap, flies in your caviar, no Macca’s for your hangovers and sleeping can be uncomfortable” pipes in Sandy.

“Not when you travel to a different solar system in the SS He Who Cannot be Named II” replies Gordon. “I have activated the ship and we off the the planet Blat, to kill cats.”

“Count us in” say the boys.

So we do all the science fiction stuff, you know beam up to the ship, fly so fast your

Looks more like snot to me

nose bleeds and then descend to the planet surface in a space pod, fully self sustaining so that no evidence, oops, rubbish is left behind to damage the environment. Wheeze clean, mean and green. Sounds like a slogan for a certain political party.

The pod lands and settles itself gently on a grassy patch next to a pristine river estuary flowing out to sea. Crikey, sounds like Summer Bay.

“What’s for dinner?” asks Geez trying to get his word count up and who has been in absentia (or is that dementia) for the last few stories.

“Ask auto cook” Emmjay contributes being much in the same bracket.

“Auto cook responding. Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened up to you.”

“Stop, none of that religion bullshit” affirms Hung, smoke absolutely pouring out of his cigarette.

“How about roasted leg of beast with potatoes, carrots served with jus and mulled

Roasted Beast

wine” Gib pontificates “Oh and greens for fun, followed by a peach frangipane with

home made ice cream and raspberry compote covered with crushed almonds and icing sugar.”

“Swap the mulled wine for Shiraz and you got me” says Angler.

Cheers and beers all round.

“Auto cook responding, go the mass has ended, thanks be to Gordon…”

“No, no, no, no religion. I told you Mark, no fucking religion okay!” reinforces Hung.

“Hung, I’m not even in this episode, I’m on holidays at Long Bay but point taken” says Mark.

Seven days later, no one had thought to go outside, shoot cats, discover the

Here kitty

environment, meditate, do yoga, kill cats, look out the window, debate Chaos theory, find an algorithm that actually works but no matter everyone returned to Inner Cyberia in a totally happy mood.

So Honshades approaches the boys on return from space. “So boys, how many cats did you kill?”

“Coupla hundred” lies Gib.

“At least a thousand” lies Angler.

“Tens of thousands, wheeze run out of ammo” lies Gordon.

“Well none actually but wheeze brought one home” says the ever truthful Emmjay.

“Don’t tell Helvi but I’m in love with auto cook” says Gez.

One too many beers I fink…

 

Picture is from left to right, Sandy, Gib, Emmjay (at rear, as usual), Angler, Gordon, Foodge, Neville and Gez. O’Hoo is the stiff.

This is the cat that Emmjay brought back, aw we how cute, now they infest the whole planet, oh well.

How cute, we nick named her Cockroach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sociology of A Place To Call Home Part 13

02 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by in Sandshoe

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Home is home

The Sociology of A Place To Call Home Part 13
by Sandshoe

I was offered a job in a prawn processing operation. The manager insisted my Japanese language qualification was why he wanted to employ me.

I was applying only for a job sorting prawns on a conveyor belt. I made it clear I could not converse in Japanese. He would have it that it mattered not a whit. I would be circulated through the operations to learn the business. They dealt a lot with Japanese

Dem is yummy

clients he said. He added I would not be standing all day, every day sorting prawns.

In the days following, I considered the effect on me of inevitable, as I saw it, failure. A competent mental health practitioner would have identified I was in no condition to decide either way. I mistrusted the manager regardless his pleasant reception of me and enthusiasm. I longed to trust him. Fear consumed me. I telephoned from a public telephone box and declined the employment. I feel in memory the horror, the immense anxiety I suffered making the call because I had failed.

With the steady accompaniment of the lull of waves breaking on the beach sand as I fell asleep, woken by a drench of sunshine blazing through the verandah lattice, I was in recovery. When rain drummed on the roof in a tropical downpour, the waves crashed

Some gentle waves breaking on the shore

accordingly and I listened, watched lightning illuminate the lattice on stormy nights. If I wanted to access companionship I walked through the sand to the community camped along the beach to meet with groupings of itinerents and residents of every level of education and professional background, siblings, singles, de factos, marrieds, children.

The campers slowly spread along the edge of the esplanade road that was intact from where the road off the highway curved right at the beach front. Set back at the curve to allow a traffic turn-around was the local store. Where the road straightened past the curve, the first camp in the line had been set up a couple who secured a second tent for sleeping and converted their original accommodation in an army disposals tent into a day-to-day shelter by rolling up and fixing the sides of it permanently open. A wooden cable reel made a serviceable table. A few steps away, a free standing tap on the beachside provided a source of water. Directly over the road was a public toilet block.

The surround of the opened tent became a gathering place. Twists of humour were shared with cocoa at night for the regulars as an occasional treat, honed was the risque and profane in displays of impromptu theatre, ideas flowed. I relaxed in companionship that bred a sense of belonging and identity, kinship based on empathy. Life long friendships were established.

My partner was 15 years my senior. He had walked out of his business address at North Ryde in Sydney one day result of an affair of the heart and returned north. He had only recently returned to Sydney from an expedition collecting orchid samples.

His promising career as a landscaper/nurseryman and nursery owner whose abiding passion was flowers began with gardening as a small child with his mother and after a short stint as a clerical assistant when he left High School with 12 years apprenticeship in the Sydney Botanic Gardens. Among the books in his small library were two that

Sydney Botanic Gardens

were fascinating and beautiful and may be rare that I cannot find either listed. One was an early type of American Home Manual, a source of knowledge of conventional European and native American Indian herbal remedies and medicines, veterinary advice, cultivation techniques, lifestyle wisdoms, exotic recipes. The other was a handbook of the Royal Botanic Gardens of Ceylon. Both were published at the turn of the nineteenth century.

When we met, he worked as a glass house attendant for the Department of Primary Industries in a position of underemployment that was not well paid. He was not always well treated in a junior position. His work environment was so torturous in the middle of a tropical summer he fainted and swooned in fitful rest periods on the concrete floor under a bench laden with plant specimens that variously included confiscated Customs items.

He was a yoga exponent. Allan Watts was his go-to. The mystics of sub-continent India and Tibet, Madame Blavatsky, the Theosophical Movement, the entertaining politics of

Just call me Helen

the vibrant local Healthy Food Society and Healthy Soil Society were his afternoon conversations with neighbours, an artist/writer who was also an emigré from the south and carried his afternoon jug of beer the few houses down for a break from his work, an emigré political activist from the field of aboriginal land rights, a one time friend of my older brother when they worked for the railways who had retired to paint. On the beachfront in the early evenings convivial time was equally and as easily spent peopled by road trip travellers and one described of the highways to the south a stream of hitch hikers on their way north, the movement of youth out of cities. The swelling population was supplemented by people from Cairns’ suburbs they drove from to join the conversation on week-ends.

One immediate neighbour was an avid reader of 50s and contemporary 60s American novels. He introduced me to science fiction and a range of counter-culture writers I knew of, but was schooled in by his passion for them. I re-read Vance Packard and took out of the frontispiece of The Morning of the Magicians by Pauwels and Bergier that the relationship between them necessary to write it was their primary outcome.

Around me was endless stimulation to think a tolerant and creative community is the key to human success and greater happiness.

I learned to sew by making my partner a pair of white sail cloth zippered, placketed, banded, Bogart-pleated, cuffed, formal/casual dress trousers I drafted the pattern of

Adam Gilchrist’s mum Enid

out of an Enid Gilchrist Pattern Book. I had conceived the idea of home employment dress making. When I made next a princess style short and white cotton dress, my client said she loved the gament. I doubted she honestly was happy with my work and sought no other customised sewing.

For the kitchen window instead I made scalloped-topped calico cafe curtains I orange tie-dyed with my partner’s help and next a multi-coloured-tie-dyed calico curtain that divided the front latticed veranda into bedroom and living room.

The flooring was sea grass matting. The cottage took on a look of creativity. Not until I was told six years later by a mother of a schoolfriend of my oldest daughter that I am a creative individual did I wonder I should think that through and why she said so. She was an Art teacher. The notion I was creative per se was alien to me.

An administration that sends a teacher trainee out into the field without formal training in the principles of creativity has to be wondered at in this retrospect.

Yet on the beach surrounded by technicians from a range of professions and artists and believing I could not draw let alone master the mediums of the trades, paint or sculpture, I lent my sincerity and encouragement. The return was I began a transformation and I was delighted I was sought after to critique for them in person

A bad Q’lander

what I thought of their newly produced works. I believed in art and its appreciation as expression of self and societal mores no different from spoken word. I was an ideal audience and supporter, differentiating between ‘good’ and ‘bad’, willing to view creative artistry without prejudice more especially that Queensland’s repressive regime, its manipulation of outmoded law, was stirring up vociferous protest against the closing down of art exhibitions and theatre performances to suppress dissent. I understood the politics of art.

The artist who knew me first in the context he was a one-time friend of my brother knew me as a small child. As he left the beach cottage one day after enquiring of my viewpoint on a new project, he made the quixotic comment that the only place my father went wrong was to educate his children. My father was point of fact no different in respect of his passion for art from his earliest childhood that we spent hours together trawling through travelling art exhibitions for the excitement, the turn-on of a famed or little known portrait, a landscape, brushstroke, colour palette. My thoughts went to considering he and I together gave equal regard to a draughted straight line if a work demanded either his or my attention. I had taken to entire heart the role of audience as an emotive and aesthetic discipline.

My mother was sensible and sensitive. She showed me the beauty of the Australian bush and I learned the outcomes of benefit to be found of isolation in the bush environment she grew up in. She loved the naive artists who with no formal training work out of only the creative impulse. As I now formed into an an adult in an environment of acceptance of me as I was and sufficient I carried my parents’ legacies in their individual and greater parts right into the centre of my activity as a dissident. Theirs were the qualities that gave me the place of tolerance and belonging where I was safe.

The Council stopped accepting camping fees. Developers were vying for land to build spec houses on in place of the campers in the way and heavy earth movers their anticipated contracts to raze the scrub that stretched untouched from the beach front to the highway. On week-ends we watched nervous to protect ourselves from a growing number of hoodlums on Sunday drives disturbing the peace. Screaming obscenities in regard to women was popular sport. The police showed up more frequently and drummed up charges of infinitely petty content. It became impossible to ignore gently behaved and slim younger men who were handsome in their white cheesecloth and light cotton outfits and wore their hair long seemed targets because they were attractive looking; more especially in comparison with their malicious tormentors. The men were treated with the scare tactic of mockery of their girlfriends’ fidelity. Women were propositioned. We abhorred the police. Court attendances were on the increase. The most well known ploy was the selection of harmless individuals off the streets of small towns and charging them under the Vagrancy Laws that specified the carrying of a specific amount of cash that if not found on the apprehended person would suffice to make an arrest. The Vagrancy Laws were blatant discrimination. As an ABC Producer announced to introduce an interview in 2004 referencing the Vagrants Act:

If you’ve woken up in a Queensland stable this morning wearing a pair of felt slippers, here’s the good news.

The Queensland Parliament is repealing its Vagrants Act, so that being found in a stable or wearing felt slippers outside at night will no longer be a crime. 

Insight onto a period that represents one of the most significant of my life that I found a place and people I felt great trust in that my peers and mentors respected and treated me with courtesy cannot be better provided than by describing the way we were thrown together in solidarity to resist the attempts made by the Queensland police to discredit the community. One significant incident was the wrecking of the

A mess if ever

contents of the cupboards of a young pregnant woman in a neighbouring rental home she had recently moved into out of a temporary home-made house built for her in the foreshore scrub. Coffee, custard powder, salt, spices, everything that was foodstuff and recently installed was upended and strewn the surface of her kitchen bench allegedly in the interests of the police finding drugs. She was pushed aside. No drugs were found. She was shown no search warrant. A skilled activist of senior years and neighbour instigated a successful move to support her. Question was asked of impropriety in the Legislative Assembly of the Queensland parliament recorded in Hansard under Notice, 2 September 1970, headed ‘Forcible Entry of Residence by Police’.

The senior police officer who led the invasion was a regular nuisance. The community desired he lose his job. I know only of hearsay that was the result. He reappeared in my personal experience of him in different employment some time later. I find some small gratification only that it did seem he lost his credibility as an alleged champion of what is right.

Another camper who lived in a small wooden boat pulled up on the beach was charged with having shown a painting alleged to be offensive in a public place. The community went into ‘heads together’ mode naturally. A lawyer was identified who was known to represent social justice. The argument for the defendant was established. To the entire anticipatory delight of the rest of us any argument the police put forward could only be

Boat life can be rocky at times

discredited and potential, again, was their downfall. The accused albeit was miserable. He thought optimism was unwarranted and right enough he suffered through the merest thought of having a criminal charge against his name and further on the wrong side of the law in Queensland. Another camper and I volunteered to our meetings held at the tent to traipse one mid-week day around the city of Cairns to businesses where we thought it likely the manager/retailer would be sympathetic to our promoting the upcoming trial date. The brief we went with on behalf of the accused and the community was to fill the public gallery.

We were driven to respond with passion on behalf of the arts and theatre communities of Queensland and Australia entire. In 1969 a series of moves against the arts community and its audiences had seen the banning of recordings of the musical “Hair” and the fining of an actor on a stage in Sydney for uttering an allegedly obscene word. Aubrey Beardsley posters had been seized out of an exhibition in Brisbane. A responsibility had fallen our way to contribute to the defeat of prudery and its manipulation by powerful interests waging no less than a war against the least evidence of gatherings of people suspected of conspiring against corruption believed to be rife within every level of Government the length and breadth of Australia.

Any number of persons out of the community on the beach could well have been agents however to promote the trial to the wider public. The collective political skills and sense of justice of the campers and sympathetic residents were manifest. My now fellow agent in this exercise lived on the beach esplanade roadside in a Combi van. He and I had formal business clothes primarily. We were ofttime companions on excursions he made collecting and buying scrap metal he sold on to a scap metal merchant so I knew him to be a skilful negotiator. He was held in the highest regard on the beach for his personal and professional skills that had initiated his original entry into Australia from Europe. Nevertheless as we set out I felt a moment of angst at thought of his fascination with the capacity of Australians to swear. I lightly wondered his pattern of usual beach speak as an ESL speaker might not be entire unto the needs of presentation we were looking towards did he become defiant … always comedically … whereupon might he lapse into scattered use of the one swear word that impressed him most. It occupied spaces needs be where the English word escaped him and the rapid flow of a sentence was at risk, so much so he was fondly nicknamed ‘Fuck “Fuck” [Surname: a model of motor vehicle]’.

We would have been seen in such a good light that day, earnest and sincere, in wholesome good health, dressed in formal civvies, tall and good looking, as pretty as a picture. We were similar in age. We were a team and very good friends. We could not

Cairns Magistrates Court

together have shown more skill seeking to charm the birds out of the trees to fly down at the appointed time and fill the public gallery of the Cairns Magistrates Court.

Still, unsure what the response would be of the proprietors who could not leave their business address at the time, I contented myself word of an upcoming censorship trial would spread like wildfire and the police involved would be a laughing stock, best if a raft of the business people of Cairns witnessed it.

to be continued…
Christina Binning Wilson

Didn’t think you were going to get away without a cat picture did you

 

This is Deep.

22 Sunday Oct 2017

Posted by in Mark

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Ofta Church we go…baa baa

Traffic seems heavy this morning. You know wot happens. If you have  one car then you will get another therefore you will have two one cars that will interrupt your day. But hey, don’t mind me. I’m Sandy, your local parish priest that doesn’t believe in God. Pretty cool hey. A parish priest that doesn’t believe in God. Go up to your CEO and tell him or her that they don’t actually exist. Check out the facial expressions. Thems is so good they get paid thousands of times more than any one else in the company that actually does something. Can you believe that? Well I can.

Are you coming over to the Way of Gordon and the Church of Saint Generic Brand, hint, hint, come over and join in the festivities, kidding me if ya don’t?

A one car

 

I’m sitting in the front bar at the Pigs Arms. Bloody disgusting place, that’s why I visit. Now now, no, to try and convert these poor souls over to the Way of Gordon to the Church of Saint Generic Brand. Bring your own religion and tacos and we can have a meal after, sound okay?

Gordon is recanting in his usual highly religious way, tongues and betadines instead of uvulas and metaphors. “Hey, and did ya see Hacker’s face when wheeze told him that hees don’t exist know more, talk about double en titre with BBQ sauce…” and so the word was of Gordon.

Gordon can speak under water with a mouth full of pebbles, hmm.

“Well, yeah look I mean right okay for sure I really do think so, perhaps if I had more time but I agree you won’t see me wavier unless I see a better  argument for sure please trust me, I’m a nurse, lets forget that little brown paper bag but yes I agree with whatever I said” says Gib.

Wow, that got my word count up. “thanks Gib”. “No worries Hung”.

“Has the story actually started yet?” asks Honshades.

Lets see if I have all angles covered.

“No, well I don’t think so” says Angler. “Oh, hang on yes, Sandy’s here to convert us the Way of Gordon when really he just wants to drink ale.” Aren’t some parts of stories just real shit, er, um, if you know what I mean.

“Has anyone feed the chooks yet?” enquires Nurse Barbara who will be feeding the chooks for some time in the coming episodes.

“I think that if you change the name down at the railway station from Hornsby to Bondi that no one will really notice. Imagine the thrill of getting off at Hornsby, the wild surf, fresh air and blonde babes, yes I can see it now, what could possibly go wrong.” says Sister Yvonne.

Lets extrapolate this across other things like lets change the name of Ferrari to Datsun 120Y. Oh yes, this is real folks.

That’s right, nothing happened…