Art Intimidating Life - The Ruins of my Mental Empire: Part One Hundred and Eighteen

i woke up happy

there was no reason for it - when you wake up happy you take it, and don’t ask questions

how many answers do you really want to hear?

but when it happened a second time i realised i had created my own personal definition of success

when it happened a third time i realised i had kept my life simple, done my best to minimise my lifestyle - things were clear

when it happened a forth time i realised i keep everything in my life in perspective, and within priority - nothing really means anything other than matters of the heart, soul, and the deeper mind - i have a bad day, yet i walk outside and feel the cold melbourne air on my face, and soon hear mystic tunes of psychedelia that draw me to my loved ones - and it is the deep thoughts of those people, and the time shared with them, that help dissipate bad vibes into beautiful drizzly thick grey fog, that i walk straight through

when it happened a fifth time i realised i no longer want to change anyone’s mind - i’d sit amongst arguments and feel like i’m sinking into a heated bean-bag - i state my opinion, when i feel informed enough to do so - but im comfortable enough to change it if logic poked her/his head and winked, suggesting more - arguments aren’t competitions to be won - but if they were, i’d want to lose - i’d welcome it

when it happened a sixth time i realised i keep an open mind to everything all the time - my opinions are really flexible, because i want to keep learning and improve my thinking - i realised everyone is entitled to their opinion, but not all opinions are right, correct or good - having an opinion and changing is something substantial

when it happened a seventh time i realised i take comfort in my own company - i leant the difference between alone and lonely - i snubbed the social stigma of eating-solo and drinking-solo and cinema-going-solo - travelling solo - alone with my thoughts, alone with myself - allowing my mind to wander with no guidance or influence - losing myself with the opinion that one can never truly find themselves - and that’s infinite, and good for the soul

when it happened an eighth time i realised i rely on wild-natural-surroundings to charge my soul, and give me energy and inspiration - the world as it is, was, should and will be - seeing the oceans constant never-ending ebb and flow - seeing leafs fall - the moon shine - the rain come - the earth was it has been for millions of years, right before your eyes - true peace be

when it happened a ninth time i realised i don’t really care about anything

when it happened a tenth time i realised i need to write to keep myself happy - creative at least - do something that represents something, explores and/or discovers something new from within - do something that keeps me insane and something that keeps me abnormal - something that keeps me high from the drag of normality, the dry obvious-trends, the sickening pathetic-buzz-words and the sad-popular-coolness - nerds are cool these days, but im a fucking weirdo

when it happened an eleventh time i realised i need to keep reading books, and stockpile a collection of books so i always have something to read - my current collection of books to be read is almost 150cm high

when it happened a twelfth  time i realised i look to the stars every chance i get - the absolute infinite - true existence - are we alone?… and therefore are we the universe’s biggest (and only) mistake? - man oh man - looking to the stars will never get old - it will never hurt, always benefit you  - we are nothing but natural beings on a relatively insignificant yet beautiful planet, only in existence for the amount of time it takes to forget what you did three weeks ago

when it happened a thirteenth time i realised i contemplate death all the time - a fear of death is no reason to live life - knowing my consciousness will one day be gone, inspires me to think as much as i can, and to think properly - knowing my body will one day be shot dead by drunk police officers, motivates me to move and explore and run and walk and dance - i will experience what it feels like to die, just as you will, and just as everyone will - and death is holy and i place it on a pedestal it as a 34 year old - along with birth and love, death is the ultimate human experience

when it happened a fourteenth time i heard two simple words - whatever works - they came to me in a forgotten woody allen movie by the same name - larry david plays the main character - but those two words and the sentiment of the movie taught me to focus on whatever makes me happy, and do it - whatever works: no matter how socially unacceptable, no matter how common or uncommon, no matter how cool or uncool - do what makes you happy, and never feel the need to apologise for it or explain it - so i listen to music, fall in love, i run 40km+ a week, i have a daughter, i read, i write, i drink beers, i travel the world, i nap, i wander, i dig it all deep down

when it happened a fifteenth time i realised music is a natural drug that can help you live life, and keep you high. I love psychedelic music.

when it happened a sixteenth time i realised i’m lucky - very lucky, and if you’re reading this, you probably are too - with over 6 billion people in the world, the odds suggest we should’ve been born into a pile of shit - i’ve seen families living on traffic islands - stop and think about that - raising a family on a traffic island...
im so lucky to have a great group of family and friends who dig and come close to understanding me - on top of that, im undeservingly lucky to have lady-elle and zed ring-a-ring-a-roseying around me, and my stupid little life

and we all fall down

Art Intimidating Life - The Ruins of my Mental Empire: Part One Hundred and Seventeen

i hadn’t felt this kind of anticipation since i was a twenty-six year old going to meredith - an excuse to fall out of my mind, with people

i’m now thirty-three, coming to the end of my jesus-year - the weather was perfect, and getting better the closer we got to the weekend - nothing special, and for no reason - but our plans to head down to wilson’s prom not only excited us, but bonded us, as we sat at our desks and did our work, eyeing the time it came to leave it all behind

i kissed her goodbye and enjoyed a lazy morning of music, salad, a bit of packing, and a beer or two - as my friend picked me up, i was honered and pleased and excited to hear him suggest i sort out the music for the trip - a last minute whip-up to cater for a metal-head, a pop-star and a psychedelic princess - dead meadow, comets on fire, beck

i laughed to myself as i saw my friend just throw individual objects into the boot of the 4wd - his way of packing against my pack-less-is-more mentality - the drive down and the sleepy wrong turns were a long one in distance perhaps, but my mind was buzzing and with a six-pack of beer warming at my feet, it felt like we arrived at the booth in no time at all - the gateway to the prom is significant - even as i kid i could tell when we’d arrived, even though we were thirty kilometers away

looking for a camp site was dire, and a little sad to see so many people camping so close together, as though this was actually camping - i needed an unearthly-piss, and eventually just jumped out of the car and let my friends look for a site as i waddled to a toilet block pretending my whole body wasn’t about to explode with psychedelic-beer-urine - yeah, this’ll do, was the general consensus, as we pitched our tents at dusk

i take my beer and walk down to the river - i feel holy and secure - the wall of trees and mountain that face and surround Tidal River appear to me like art-work in an empty gallery - i sit by the boardwalk, and look at Whale Rock like the philosopher i’m falling into - in my adult boozy perspective, i finally see the whale in Whale Rock

seriously, i had been looking at it wrong, or at lest differently my whole life - i can’t shake it off though

i have potent childhood memories of wilson’s prom, and i have to hold myself back from pointing them all out to my friends - none of these memories involve camping though, and all of them involve the john gregory lodge - as we walk past it for ice-cream im silently joyed to see it hasn’t changed a bit - i get a sense of winter-cold and heater-fed-warmth and wet-rain despite being blessed with the most perfect blue sky summer sun-shine

i let my memories spill once or twice to my friends, relieved to unleash some of them, at least

i get up fairly early after nice sleep, and get ready for run - i plan to run out to oberon bay - i can’t remember ever being out there before - the weather is perfect - deep blue cloudless with the morning still waking up - the first 500m i can feel the 500 beers from the previous night, but they soon fade away - im sore, but i feel myself running somewhere between new and old memories - they’re all streaming by, like the blur outside a train window - i know despite the soreness, and the beer slugs, i could run forever if i allowed myself to - hills, rocks, tight little paths paving their way through and over some world-class earth - i allow myself to stop at some points, just to soak up some scenery - other times i just keep running, shaking my head in disbelief

at little oberon bay i interupt two guys who think they have the place to themselves and are screaming and spashing in the water like they’ve seen too many big-m commercials - they scatter up the dunes after they wave to me - i can’t find my way past little oberon bay, so make the mental plans to head back to tidal river along norman bay and run out to pillar point

the tea-trees still tent and cover the track - i still move swiftly in their shade and make it to the point on the brink of dehydration - i stand in sweat and silence as i scan the scene before me - world class - absolutely -  an older man approaches from the bushes behind me and takes in the scene as well - we talk and i do my best to quell the nausea of dehydration - he’s an old retired runner, now just cruising around australia by himself in a van with no sense of time or need - i dig that, and his plans to head down to tasmania next - he wishes me luck on breaking the 4hr mark for my next marathon, and i take off running again - curing my nausea, but eager to get back to camp for a nice cold drink

we all move down the to the beach and my friend asks me if Z, (my daughter), would be old enough to enjoy this - i have to restrain myself from saying - fuck-yes, i’ve been thinking about it all day - we stand in the water as a group of friends and talk and laugh with mindless ease - no-one knows what’s coming next, it all just happens - we drink some beers by the rocks in the shade, allowing the beach before us, and the beer, to intoxicate us into a silly, hilarious, state of mind - i hurt with laughter for the next hour or so as we find inventive and dangerous places to piss

at one point i simply interrupt the two friends next to me and, completely off topic, have to point out that “the amazing thing about wilsons prom is the way those massive rocks are embedded into the mountains” - they agree whole-heartedly, and we continue to drink until it’s time to bbq dinner

back home i read an essay by a hero of mine Robyn Davidson about nomads - i think about how being in the bush - at least a little bit - gives us a sense, and reminds us of what the world was supposed to be - a true sense of place

robyn davidson spoke of the dreamtime as a song, as music, something that tells you something and breaks through past/present/future - the australian land is a spiritual, emotional song, where you have to sit back and relax if you want to hear it properly - and as with every work of art, we hear and see it differently - we just have to remember that our emotional responses come from the same source

a couple of days after returning from the prom, i was on the train home and there was this nut-case on the train home - calling everyone motherfuckers and calling the end of the world because of everyones iphones and eyepods - i imagine he is what i would become if i never got away for some time alone, some days to myself - i smile and laugh at him, because he’s full of shit, and im wearing sunglasses - but mostly i do it to make the mother and preteen daughter sitting opposite him a little more comfortable - they’r sitting opposite him and being polite and enduring his pathetic abusive rant - my smile and shrug comfort them - as it does me

Art Intimidating Life - The Ruins of my Mental Empire: Part One Hundred and Sixteen

while i have still been writing fair bit, not much of it has been exposed - and when i say exposed, i mean fully naked in the warm ocean at sunset, with a nice meal and a cold beer waiting at home - most my writing these days is just potent little thoughts  in a messy little notebook - this is because whenever i sit down to write (and whenever i do, i never put any thought into what i’m going to write, incase you havent picked that up yet…) i’m mostly wrestling my natural desire to write about zed, about being a father and raising a kid and hanging out with a kid - and i know that no-one really wants to read that - not really - but it’s impossible to avoid

i used to have this raging desire to talk about running to anyone and everyone - i had to tone myself down whenever someone asked me what i was doing that night… - oh not much, probably just cook dinner, go for a run, chill out - …i really i wanted to go into great detail about how i was planning to approach that night’s 15km run, and what music i had planned to listen to as i approached the 13km mark - i learnt far too late that, generally speaking, no-body cares about music any more - i could sit around all day everyday drinking beers and talking passionately about my favourite bands and albums and songs, but people just want to dress up like hippies for the weekend and hug each other at music festivals

so i’ve learnt to keep quiet and let people be - i keep my life simple and that keeps me happy - however, i get deeply miserable if i don’t (at least attempt to) do something creative with my time - the trippy little videos i make have been taken over by zed - that’s fine, they’re just for fun - photography, while easy and packed with cheap friendly praise, annoys me as now everyone with a mobile phone is a photographer - i lack the patience (and ability) it takes to paint - but since writing has always been a great true creative passion of mine, im disturbed at how zed has affected my ability to do so

it’s nothing negative, and only natural - but every time i sit down to write about the absurd wonders of the universe, and the madness of everyday life, i’m fighting a great powerful urge to write about the smile on zed’s face as she eats a handful of cheese and sways to the music of david bowie in cute little pink pants - the affect it has had on me is utterly profound, and i hate myself for writing that - because nobody cares - all i’ve done is learn something life has known since life began - but hey, we should be proud of the fact that we learnt the earth was round - that realisation is profound - i wish i was around for it, or the moon-landing, and not just acts of terrorism

im tempted to just take a deep breath, lock the door and pump the music and swig on beers and gush out my writing and my thoughts on zed and being her father - spew it all out like unicorns spewing rainbows, just like they do on the internet - screaming how adorable and cool she is when she laughs and runs and screams and talks and kisses and cuddles, as i wrap my arms around the toilet and see a sunny day with the softest clouds doing the rounds under the influence of good vibes - hurling it all into space and let it dissipate to find the stars one day - find a way to articulate the innocence of her perfect laughter, the absurdity of me being a father,  somehow responsible for this little person as i stand back and allow her to spank a kilo pack of sausages in the supermarket as people around her wait for her to finish - and i laugh to myself everyday because of her - and all those little things i've got to do, all those little things i should worry about, they disappear because she’s happy and asleep and warm and fed, and i can now write about how we always remember our nightmares, but never our dreams

Art Intimidating Life - The Ruins of my Mental Empire: Part One Hundred and Fifteen

 

what else is there other than a dull, quiet, sickly familiar frustration? - the answer? - only the daily attempt to avoid it - im surrounded by a large blue exercise ball, that we only really use to sit on and drink booze on - a foam horse, that has currently found a way to stand on it’s tail - a child’s tool/work bench that has only been used to eat cold noodles off, or at the very least stuff down our pants - a circular tube of foam, standing like the king of toys, the same way the rialto’s claim to fame was being on the front cover of the white pages around twenty years ago - and now it’s bed time, and my daily struggle to find the right time to sleep - i never really want to sleep unless it’s completely inappropriate - however, when the time is right, i’m twisting open beers and scanning my music collection

all my life i have had this balloon about to burst in my chest that pushes me to almost do and say absurd and obscene things - the energy i use to hold myself back from pulling down my pants and singing shirley temple songs with tears joy ruin from my eye-liner is immense - it’s exhausting - but i do it 

what truely amazes me about the universe is the term - point of view - this thought that every point in every spot in the eternal universe has a unique point of view - on top of that, anyone who has a point of view has a unique and personal interpretation of that point of view - my interpretation and memory of the top of mount oberon is different (though no doubt just as beautiful) as yours - every point in the universe has a point of view where “something” is happening, or occuring, or merely existing right now - it blows my mind everyday

surrounded by shadows - black statues

their faces twitch from time to time

they are having conversations with themselves in their mind

i recieve a phone call from dennis the sex-fiend

he says - if i dont have to apologise afterwards

i haven’t done it right

I should never answer phone calls from dennis

i noticed a girl wearing a crucifix around her neck

i think about how all the positive aspects of religion

are really just common sense

the rest is just  there for power, control and comfort

i see a bald man with huge head-phones on

$300 headphones for a 99 cent disposable pop song

i call dennis back, and ask him what he is listening to these days

bowie, and a bit of eno

then he says

the other parents at the playground are only staring

because they wish they were the ones drinking beer, right?

I say yes

when the tourist asks me for directions

i cant help but wonder where they

have hidden their passport

i like that i live a life where i still have to assure myself that i have shoes - i got onto a crowded train once and there was a guy sorting out his heroin - for some reason some over-weight middle class mother of too many turned to me and asked loud enough for everyone to hear “is that your friend?” - i said “no, but jesus, what the fuck?” - I’m no super-hero, and neither is jesus, nor familiar with too many hard drug users, but as designated junkie interpreter, i was happy enough to suggest to the guy he waited till he got of the train to sort out his shit  - when i got home i had a couple of beers like everyone else, but kept the tv off as i don’t like the idea of food being entertainment.

i once flippantly wrote that the only things that made me proud to be australian were music and wilsons prom related - sadly, the more i think about that fast-thought, the more it’s true - art and nature is all that australia has to offer me - but our culture is a farce, and flimsy like a younger sibling trying their best to impress anyone who’s noticing - my only faith lies in the fact that the australian bush and outback and it’s spirit, being the most powerful natural spirit i’ve ever felt, will never die and will always crush whatever metro-buzz-fad tabloid media is catching onto today - we can learn so much from it - i have, am, and will - and wish everyone  would do the same - properly - not because some website says it’s cool

 not that anyone cares, but i bought my first bowie albums with a sanity gift voucher when i was around twenty-one - it was a 3 CD set consisting of Hunky Dory, Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs - I loved certain songs, of course, but  only I liked the albums from a distance. - They were at times a little full on for me - For me, at my age in the early 2000s - I wouldn’t have hacked it in the early 70s, that’s for sure - (the 60’s would’ve been my blossoming beard time) - But it was maybe around 2010 i the albums really started to take form for me - i got my bowie passport - those early albums truly are from another world - the way five years, track one off rise and fall… fades in like it does is like a landing - touchdown - welcome spaceman - it’s incomprehensible how anyone can produce a song like life on mars? - it’s truly one of a kind - his vocals on heroes is probably my favourite vocal performances, right next to lennon on walrus, and kilbey on hotel womb -  but it was only in the last 6 months or so, thanks to some dude at work who opened is music collection up to me (digitally) that i was exposed to bowie’s later work - (all of his work actually - this guy had every single one of bowie’s releases there for my taking - every one) - so i was really getting into outside, reality, heathen, earthling (littler wonder video clip flipped me out on rage one night) - i bought the next day the day it came out, and did the same for blackstar - i had two beautiful lazy and boozy days and nights playing it around five times - i kept thinking, this sounds like a cure album - i loved it - anyway, come monday i received a strange facebook emoticon from a friend of mine on a comment i made labelling bowies new one “a killer” - i had no idea what this weird smiley face meant, as just as i was about to google it, i thought “fuck it” and moved over to twitter, where i saw the news that david bowie had died - i felt it deep - i thoughtlessly posted ashes to ashes (the song that really turned me on, one night the dandies played the video on rage - it was the bulldozer that got me) on facebook, and quietly felt sad all night - and i haven't stopped listening to his music since i heard that news - i haven't stopped reading people's comments and hearing people thoughts on it either - i liked michael stipe's the best - the most matched mine anyway

his thoughts on ashes to ashes: 

"It’s so audacious as a piece of writing. You can go into any bar in the world, and if they play that song, watch people around the room. Each will sing along to a separate part. There’s about seven parts people sing along to. It's the audacity of not only writing about Major Tom, but then making it this flawless mess."

and on his death: Right now, it feels as if the solar system is off it’s axis, as if one of our main planetary anchors has lost its orbit - That said, I am certain that wherever Bowie is now—I want to be there someday."