Aces High

I've been thinking lately about old friends and the life we lived together somewhere between childhood and the great drifting into the world of seriousness and responsibility.

God knows how any of us survived our youth. Growing up as children in the 70s allowed us a sense that we were born to be wild, that the paths we blaze would be flaming with the burned debris of our parents ambition for us to succeed. We stomped into the 80s as long haired bogan louts with heavy metal T-Shirts and a surprising appreciation for Culture Club, Madona and Duran Duran. The 80s was a time of peculiar changes, a naive ignorance of the environmental realities and a capitalistic view of unlimited potential for the future. It never sat well with me and I rejected it out of hand... Which did set me apart from my mates as I always have been.

In our time together leading into late teens, we were really just kids. Before the proliferation of video games, internet, mobile phones, social media, etc... etc... we amused ourselves by hanging out with our mates, cruising around on bikes, trolling the streets, wagging school and getting into a little too much trouble. 

Some didn't make it to adulthood. Some were too wild, some had grown up in abusive homes and turned their anger in on themselves and society. 

We were intolerant of boredom and did anything possible to relieve the symptoms, usually at our own peril and in contempt for the broader community... Harm was done to neighbors, friends and family paid particularly dearly as our adolescence reigned! 

Some just had a wild curiosity and a furious lust for more of everything all the time and of those the least likely survived into adulthood. Shane was one of these but amplified by 10. His fearlessness and confidence were anomalous to me, I have no idea how he managed to survive as long as he did, but it didn't come without a price.

Image taken @ AC/DC Lane Melbourne

Farewell to a Brother -
Shane although I haven’t seen you in more than twenty years, your spirit is carved into the sinew of my youth.

In all the adventures and the scrapes, and broken teeth and laughs we shared.
So hard you lived and always fought, nothing could keep you down! You were tougher and kinder than I could ever have been. Sometimes I stood back and wondered how you dare be so sure when I was full of doubt.
You never flinched! 

Shane no one and nothing could contain you! So many times I watched as you took the hardest of blows, you always got up with a wicked grin! While I think about you now I can feel a power riff in heavy metal coursing through my veins and the memory of you rises! 

You were a loyal and loving friend. Even after all these years and the distance that has grown between us when I think of true friendship I think of you. You were at times reckless. Yes! Loyal and loving undoubtedly! But Fearless! Always! In the maelstrom of youth and for as long as I have known you… Fearless! Go NOW 

I’ll light a candle as they set your body to ashes! If I could be there to walk you to the door I would as you would hold that place for me! 

Go Grinning! Go Well!

I will sit now, put on my headphones and think of you.

Tunes:

Aces High - Iron Maiden

Hells Bells - AC/DC

Precious

The clock has ticked past 12, it's now the final
day of 2014. Just another day really.

Tonight Sam and I remembered, quietly and sadly friends who have died this year. 

It has been a tough year I have spent the past week just hanging out at home with Sam 

and the kids but in the back of my mind I worry about friends who are alone. This year we have seen too many unnecessary deaths! 

3 lost to suicide (all unrelated) and the tragic loss of two more beautiful children whose lives were cut short.

I know so many lonely people, so many people who are under pressure and too often alone, they suffer from loneliness but often they keep their despair to themselves.

When I look back over the years I have lost way too many friends to this thing! Something is wrong! Something is broken that so many would think there's no other choice but to take this most drastic step.

I don't know what I can say really, except acknowledge their passing and remember that our time here is short and soon we will all be dust.

We will all pass and before long forgotten. It's no great matter once we're gone. But while we live maybe there's room for just a little more kindness.

Candles still burning for Jenny and the kids. Morning after memorial on Rapid Creek.

In June this year news spread of a shocking incident which took place on a friends property in Jingili. The death of Jenny and her two children left our community numb and confused. Our hearts were broken to learn what had happened. The final report stated it was double murder suicide. How do we deal with such a tragedy? Can we ever understand the effect this has had on the families of those two children? I have thought of them over the Christmas period and pray they get some respite from their suffering. For the care of children it is right to ask ourselves what more could I have done!
A couple of days after the incident an impromptu memorial was organized by close friends and held on the bank of Rapid Creek. I am sure I'm not the only one who felt ambivalent about the situation. I was angry and sad, rage swelled in me to think a parent could do this to her children, yet it happens a lot. Pain! Too much pain. By the end of the service had resolved a lot of my outrage and could only think to care for so many lonely people, I had no idea at that time I would loose two more friends just 5 months later.

I left the memorial alone, without talking to anyone but returned the next morning before dawn. 3 candles were still burning. I sat by the river and watched the sun rise. Around me life went on as usual. People jogging, cycling, walking their dogs. Over night the tide continued it's rhythm, I threw some left over flowers into the creek, the creek continued to flow and carried the petals out to sea.

Stay - Leonardo's Bride

"...And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,
  For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,
  (No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and
      about death.)

  I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,
  Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

  Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
  I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
  In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,
  I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd
  by God's name,
  And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go,
  Others will punctually come for ever and ever.

  And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to

  try to alarm me..." 

 - (Walt Whitman. from Song of Myself of the book Leaves of Grass)

5

Your hearts were torn in life, may God bless you as you rest.
Tonight we'll light 5 candles.

Rising up

Arrived back in Melbourne again last Friday...

Plenty of family time. I managed to get the bike back on the road and have been taking it on the trains. It's awesome down here, you can ride the trains both suburban and rural with your bike. The Geelong train even has a bike rack... Sorry no photos.

On Friday night I received an email to say there would be a rally against Ruds oppressive Asylum Seeker Policy to send all boat arrivals to PNG. I don't bother too much with political stuff on this blog since I am sure most of my old friends and those I grew up with are racist, bigoted pricks... Sorry guys it's just the shit you say and do... If you're wondering why we aren't friends on facebook it's because I've had a gut full of that shit and I really don't want to offend your insular sensibilities or rock your boats... and I certainly don't want to be constantly reminded of the good old days...

Anyway I rode the train into Melbourne on Saturday morning and hoofed it off to the State Library where I joined a small group of people who were setting up for the rally. It's always a bit daunting attending these things, you never know if anyone else will turn up or what kind of opposition you might meet. I was glad to see there were about 30 people with banners and placards. I noticed one of the banners was sagging so I thought I'd hold it up for them... Within 15 minutes a crowd had gathered larger than any I've seen for a very long time. By the time we marched there was a crowd of over 500 people marching on Melbourne's coldest day in 6 years... in the rain! What a buz!

Now apparently poles have been taken and despite the benefit of the doubt afforded to the Australian Public by some speakers I've heard there is an over riding sense of malice held toward asylum seekers in Australia. Back home in Darwin people have openly asserted that boats should be sunk and people shot in the water! I am not surprised. Actually I was more surprised when I heard a local public figure stating that he was sure it is only a small minority in Western Sydney who are generating most of the ill will towards Asylum Seekers. What planet has he been living on?
So friends... Here we are. At a cross roads, a turning point for our national conscience. We are not naive children or innocent unaware folk. We can't go on claiming to be the poor little country of battlers who believe in a fair go and continue to support policies that condemn people we have a moral and legal obligation to help... We will have to choose. We are not being The Good Guys!

I've just now listened to a political Rap song, not my usual style of music... but it took me back to my teenage years and reminded me of how I managed to hold to my political beliefs despite the attitudes of my friends and acquaintances... I was lucky that my parents weren't like that but what got me through feeling totally isolated was Music. I listened to heaps of music that backed up my gut feelings. Red Gum, Lou Reed, Midnight Oil, Warumpi Band, Bob Dylan.... and heaps more! Even if you grow up surrounded by ignorance maybe music will provide safe harbor.

Social F*!#ING Media

A Post Script to my F*#BOOK friends

Just another Anonymous friend

Recently I shut down my f*!#book account... Again!

It was re-opened, reluctantly, because I was continually finding that information I wanted was only available via that particular platform. But now I've decided... to hell with that crap!

OK. For diplomacy and to suck up to those of you I didn't really mean to upset or insult or dump here's a quick explanation...  For my real 'friends'  ;)

Firstly if you discovered that you were 'unfriended' by me, never mind, you haven't actually lost a friend. Chances are we weren't really friends anyway, maybe just someone I wanted others to know that I know, or someone who asked to be my friend and I was too polite to say no... or someone I was friends with in the past who found me when I didn't really want to be found but I stupidly accepted a friend request out of curiosity to see what you were doing with your life since we last saw each other... Or maybe I added you just to increase the number of people in my friends list so I wouldn't appear to be such a Nigel. (Nigel no mates)... But if we were actually friends that's OK too because you would know that there is no such thing as being unfriended! That's just a dumb ass word made up by the pricks who invented the airless universe you may still be subscribing to. If you're feeling bored or lonely for someone to talk to take a look out your window, you might see me riding my bike around in circles waiting for you to come out and play...  If you get a cold empty feeling while you wait for your latest app to download come out and have a yarn. The back blocks are empty and there's plenty of places left to explore, we can pinch fruit from the neigbours trees, hide from the rain in a cave on the beach or just piff  a few yonnies at some tin cans at the side of the road...

Popularity? I'm sorry to say I'm not nearly as popular as I wanted you all to think I am. The majority of you weren't actually my friends, as if you didn't already know... To set the record straight, I didn't have many friends on faecesbook, I think there were about 60, which by internet standards is pretty low... The fact is though that I actually never had that many friends, not ever, not even a fraction of that number. Are friends so easy to find that you can accumulate them by simply clicking a mouse and posting a few flattering remarks? I tried but they weren't, not really.

Finding long lost friends. I happened to link up with a few people from my past, people I spent my youth with. I friended them and was reunited with all the ignorant, bigoted, racist small minded crap I was surrounded by 20 years ago!

I discovered my old Tech school in the pages of The book. A grim reminder of violence, abuse, criminality and a my disgracefully Bogan heritage. Flicking through the long list of old class mates I was astonished by endless images of V8 muscle cars, Southern Cross Tatoos, empty whiskey bottle collections and drunken party snapshots... 

Causes... All the worthy causes I followed. My account was packed to the rafters with worthy causes... I joined them all, every one of them representing something real in the world desperately in need of protection from the voracious appetite of greedy folks. I posted them on my wall where they added to the din among the plethora of everybody else's special charity. What ever happens with all those petitions and appeals?  

None of it's real!

So, I wrote you a heartfelt goodby letter, posted it on my wall and left it there for about an hour. Then I unfriended everyone and slipped quietly out of that particular matrix without disturbing the water of your consciousness. Gone. Maybe you noticed your friend count dropped by one and you felt a little self conscious or even paranoid that there are people out there who don't like you... Don't worry I would never be so cruel in any other world.

 

 Gill Gets the last word

Farewell

Last night was the big night of the Nightcliff Seabreeze festival but for my little family there was something more important happening.

A young family who we were only just getting to know were headed back out on the road. Last night was our last chance to say goodbye.
Our friends came to Darwin while traveling the world and found themselves as caretakers at a local Church. They were here for just long enough for us to fall in love with little "M" who became a significant part of our weekend activities and play.
We'll miss them dearly. Watching the kids play together was a highlight of my week!
Introducing the kids to all kinds of fresh grown food, sampling beans, fruit and vegetables from the garden together was an absolute joy! Sharing "J's" amazing sour dough bread, and listening to him play the Mandolin as we sat in the shade while the kids scooped at tadpoles in the bathtub pond has been the greatest pleasure for me over the past few months.
Saturday and Sunday mornings just won't be the same without you guys!

So while half of Darwin was whooping it up down at the Nightcliff foreshore a small group of friends gathered to share some food, play games and enjoy the rhythm of some pretty mean Jembe bangers as we farewell our friends about to begin a new adventure.


(Playing in the parachute)