Dipping my toe in

Oh, hi there. Is this thing still on?

Lately I've been experiencing a rather annoying desire to start expressing myself all over the place again (be careful you don't tread in it teeheehoho). Annoying because I'm still not over my recently reactivated phobia about revealing my thoughts and feelings to strangers/people I have complicated relationships with/people who might read this who hate my guts or whom I hate. I wonder if I can start to use this blog to say what I want to say without really saying it. CYFLYMI – an experiment in fudging.

Writing is also the best way I know (as opposed to the best way full stop) to try to wrestle back a sense of self that seems intent on slipping away. Yes, this sense of self has to be tended to vigilantly and kindly, otherwise it's likely to disappear in the cacophony of other, extroverted personalities that (statistics show!) are the norm in our society.

This realisation has led to other thoughts about the nature of identity. I've been thinking about the identity we construct for ourselves based on what we do, the milieu we exist in, our tastes and interests, versus what I can only describe as a core identity. I suspect I've spent far too long confusing the former with the latter, when the latter is actually all that's important and/or real. But more on that in a future post, maybe.

Obviously, my first experiment at fudging has failed. It seems that I can't help but be gauchely, recklessly honest. So be it.

subtext

A friend of mine once told me that he feels violence in the air almost everywhere he goes. I feel sure he would have felt the violence in the close, humid air of Friday night just past. I could.

It was there at the Public Bar, thick in the atmosphere between me and the two men trying to chat me up. They were doing the faux-friendly, faux-jovial schtick, and even admitted that they enjoyed trying out the techniques from The Game on women they met in bars. I told them that I didn't think that kind of thing would work on me and we all had a little laugh about it. But all the while I could tell they hated me. I was just waiting for them to turn on me, to call me a slut or a bitch. One of them, in particular, had eyes full of fear, loathing, bitterness. Misogynist's eyes.

Later, on the tram, I tuned into a "friendly" exchange between the black driver and a white Aussie bloke holding a stubbie. "Nah, mate, they keep comin' in, and we don't want 'em. I mean, mate, you seem ok ... but this is our country." And the driver was laughing nervously and half-agreeing, although he was clearly a recent immigrant himself. But what was he going to do? He obviously knew that this man would immediately turn on him if he made one false move. I thought back to that scene in This Is England, where neo-Nazi Combo bonds with Jamaican Milky over a spliff, only to suddenly snap and bash Milky into unconsciousness. I looked around the tram and caught the eye of a young Indian man. I had the feeling he'd been observing me observing them. He smiled at me sadly.

So much for the season of peace and good will to all men.

***

Thankfully, closer to home, all is full of love.

I hope the same is true for you.

Merry Christmas.

x

Scared of a font

As a child I was plagued by numerous irrational fears. "All kids are," you may say, but I am convinced my fears were stranger than those of other children. For example, I was scared of men with glasses (especially Rolf Harris on the British Paints ad), vacuum cleaners and the knots in the wood panels that comprised the interior walls of our house.

When I got a bit older I became terrified of people with tattoos, the bogans who used to always sit outside the real estate agent in Gisborne, and loud rock 'n' roll with sexual lyrics. Sometimes all three of these things would come together in a single being/scenario, sending me into a state of near-meltdown.

In about 1982 we got one of the early video recorders, and thus started making visits to the newly established video stores. One day, as dad and I were heading to the Hollywood oldies aisle, I caught sight of a video whose cover scared the living fuck out of me. The film was called Christiane F.

Great, another fear to add to the list.

15 years pass

As an adult I started becoming interested in the work of David Bowie, and one day, perusing his discography, I saw that he had done the soundtrack for a film entitled Christiane F. "That's that film," I thought to myself.

A couple of years ago I finally got round to exploring Christiane F properly. I bought a DVD of it when I was in New York, but there was something NQR about the cover, in that it didn't seem nearly as sinister as I'd remembered it. I didn't think it was simply because I was looking at it with an adult's eyes, either. When I got back to Australia I did some Google searches on the film, and found some images of alternative video covers/movie posters. My discovery of this ...



... filled me with a sense of morbid familiarity. This was THE cover, the real one. And I identified straight away why it had terrified me - it was the title font.

Am I/was I nuts? To me, there is something about that font that conjures up evil, death and general unremitting horror. I guess the image of poor, blank-faced Christiane may have also contributed to my distress, but I'm positive now that it was the font that was the main problem.

I am now more obsessed with Christiane F than ever. (For those who don't know, the film is based on the true story of a 13-year-old Berlin girl who becomes hooked on heroin and then descends into prostitution. It's all set to an ace Bowie soundtrack mainly comprised of tracks from his Berlin period albums - Low, Heroes and Lodger). I have watched Christiane F numerous times, I have made others watch it, I have done extensive internet research on the actors and the real Christiane, and today I bought a Christiane F poster to put in my bedroom.

Me and Christiane F, we are one.

(Aside: I have found that I often fetishise that which I feared as a child; this film, as well as tattoos and loud rock 'n' roll with sexual lyrics. I've yet to develop a fixation on knots in wood, however.)

Not Quite Art

No, this isn't about the ABC series, though I thoroughly enjoyed that and got a little bit excited in my soul to see my home town represented (or should that be REPRAZENTED, or just MELBOURNE REPRAZENT [hand signal]? I dunno, I'm old, I don't understand this stuff anymore). Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I was excited to see Melbourne and all its fab NQA in the show, as well as some familiar faces and an issue of Is Not magazine on a wall featuring an article by yours truly. It's actually quite silly how excited I was about that. LOOK - THERE'S MY ARTICLE! NO-ONE KNOWS IT'S BY ME AND YOU CAN'T READ IT ANYWAY, BUT IT'S THERE! Dork.

The real point of this post, however, is to express my sheer terror/anguish at having to do MY OWN PIECE OF (VISUAL) ART! My friend Emma is having an exhibition at her house, you see, and has invited a bunch of us to create artworks for it. We're having a little 'gallery' soiree on Saturday at which we will drink champagne, eat canapés and stroke our chins contemplatively at the work on display.

Now, the fact is that I am very bad at visual art. VERY VERY BAD. I cannot paint or draw to save myself. Therefore, I've decided to do a collage. I thought that would be much easier, but I'm still so scared of v*sual a*t that I haven't even started the ruddy thing. I'm also worried that I don't have all the right accoutrements, so I have to go back to the art supplies shop tomorrow. What if still can't do this silly picture once I've bought them?

On top of this I have a fuckload of work to do and myriad personal issues to deal with. SOMEBODY HELP ME.

Please.

two sentences

So as I reach the tail end of yet another weekend of making the effort to drag my tired, apathetic frame out of the front door into the social whirl, and when I get there, yet again finding myself enervated by the wilfully out-there, tattooed coolness of all those around me, wondering if any of them are as interesting as they so desperately try to appear to be, and lacking the will to even try to find out, I thank God for this electronic medium, since it's enabled me to meet the few new people I've had a genuine connection with. I hope that sooner or later it will bring me the person, and then I won't have to ever, ever go out again, though I probably still will, because I'll want to experience the novelty of being amongst people and being able turn to that one person and smile and think "you are with me, you are for me" and of revelling in the profound sense of security and fullness of heart that will render all others players in my story, as opposed to me being a minor character in theirs …

Back to the old house

Oh dear, my poor neglected blog. What have you done to deserve this? You always meant well, what with being a handy platform for my angst and pop cultural obsessions 'n all, and I swanned off and left you for dead. I have to confess that the rumours are true - I've been seeing other websites.

Apart from that though, and more seriously, I think I just got sick of everyone knowing what I was thinking and feeling. Being able to vent here has been highly cathartic, and in fact crucial for me at various points (especially during those early days), and I feel grateful to have had such kindly, caring readers, but I was starting to feel like, well, a prostitute. I wanted to keep a bit of me for me. And it's quite possible that I'll keep doing that. Maybe the blog has in fact served its purpose, but I can't quite let go yet, just as our tragic old Prime Minister can't quite let go.

A not-particularly-revealing summary of the last few months is as follows: work is going well, and I seem to be picking up new and interesting stuff all the time. It's almost a year to the day that I quit my old job to go freelance, and I've managed not to end up living in a cardboard box. And yes, there have been 'happenings' in my personal life, the result of which is that I've made an absolutely awesome, awesome friend whom I hope to know for the rest of my life.

I think that's about all I can manage right now. I hope you are all happy and well.

Lesson for today

Hi kids! As you have probably noticed I tend to be of a somewhat philosophical bent. Today, I will share with you a life lesson that you probably have all already learned but I IS DUM LOLZ and I have to keep learning it over and over again.

Mental stability is a special and tenuous thing.

In life, when you've been on a reasonably even keel for a while (not exactly happy, perhaps, but coping/not feeling like you're trying to stay upright during an earthquake), you can sometimes start to kid yourself that you can handle anything. So you tug at the strings that keep your life tightly bound and controlled. And then, before you know it, everything starts to unravel at a rate of knots.

Luckily, this time, I managed to stop the unravelling mid-stream. The status quo has now been re-established. I hope.

It was a close one.