Transmissions from Worlds End

Red Hot Chili Peppers - One Hot Minute (1995)

2011-10-28T01:14:00.000-07:00

Fuck Blood Sugar Sex Magik. You wanna hear the best Red Hot Chili Peppers album you go right out and pick up One Hot Minute. Criminally, but possibly thankfully, the only album they recorded with Dave Navarro on guitar, after John Frusciante freaked out in the face of stardom and retreated into a heroin fuelled hibernation. Navarro was made for stardom, styled to within an inch of his life to be rock cool. He fucked and married Carmen Electra for gods sake. And the man can play some mean guitar. Sessions though fruitful were also apparently tense, an atmosphere that seeps into the albums sound. The artwork, a radical departure from the bands earlier covers, left the hyped up party boy image behind, it’s similarity to a children’s book somewhat disguising unease contained within.

Gone was the youthful funk energy of Mothers Milk, the highpoint of their early years that was the perfect culmination of what they’d been doing up until that point, a clearing house of those feelings and those messages and a stage setter for a new period of musical growth. Barely audible was the clean pop sheened funk of Blood Sugar Sex Magik, a semi-masterpiece containing some of the best songs the band had and has written. Navarro introduced a darker edge, metallic riffs and psychedelic overtones. Singer Anthony Keidis’ recurring drug problem had done exactly that and recurred, bringing a jaded, sombre mood to much of the lyrical content. Flea, his bass tone no longer so prominent in the sound thanks to Navarro’s dirty guitar tones (a far departure from the cleaner sound of Frusciante’s Stratocaster punch) shines in well placed bass solo’s such as the furious ending of Coffee Shop and his first lead vocal performance on Pea. Chad smith as always, played drums.

I can still clearly see in my head images from the video for first single and album opener Warped. Keidis dressed like a badly aged Madonna (pretty prophetic too, the current resemblance is uncanny) and then song explodes. Against a bright red background (the signature colour of the album, visually and aurally) the band launch into action, the jarring, almost hyper-speed Sabbath riff driving the song with Keides singing about his own world being warped by his heroin use. The way his words are drawn out to fill out the vocals lines is resonant of Alice In Chains singer Layne Stayley (RIP), heroin the common factor in both. The moment where the band comes in at the start of this song is always guaranteed to make me want to jump around, and stands as one of my favourite album openers of all time.

There’s hardly a weak moment. Aeroplane (another fantastic vocal performance and a great lyric), Deep Kick (darkly psychedelic and for me a real signature of the album) and My Friends are all great tracks. Coffee Shop is one of two towering marriages of the early Chili Peppers funk sound to the metal riffing of Navarro, the other being Shallow Be Thy Game. The aforementioned bass solo is an album highlight, powerful and dominant as the track races in chaos around it. One Big Mob (the first upbeat track of the album), Walkabout (more great performances from everyone) and Tearjerker (doing exactly what it says on the tin) lead into the shuddering, throbbing title track with it’s constant refrain of “am I all alone” and anthemic chorus. Falling In To Grace is as close as the album comes to filler, a killer bass groove and not much else, though it is a killer groove . Shallow Be Thy Game is a scathing indictment of churches and their desecration of old world cultures and traditions, and features the best lyrics Anthony Keides every sang on any song anywhere ever, sung with great passion. This song is, in my humble opinion, the greatest Red Hot Chili Peppers song ever, Flea’s bass playing rumbling along wonderfully and Navarro getting into the funk but doing it his way, with huge metallic slabs throughout. Transcending rounds out the album, written by Flea for friend River Phoenix, a moving tribute particularly with the “like no other, I love you you’re my brother” couplet.

All up, One Hot Minute is one the few albums I can always listen to from start to finish and still be emotionally, mentally and physically moved each time. It evokes memories in me of the time in which it was released, and makes me wonder what else this line up could have come up with, and would it all be so pink and mellow like the work with the returned and revitalised Frusciante.

France to Northcote

2011-08-21T04:41:00.001-07:00

* these pieces are from several years ago at university, presented as a way of charting the changes in my writing, and re-evaluating pieces I was very happy with at that stage.

The years travlled together
fall apart to mean nothing.

Your voice from afar
through taught black lines.

No it's not alright,
I'm here and you're not.

Distance between us
becomes infinite.

And in France they
nail your coffin.

Ocean Side

2011-08-21T04:37:00.000-07:00

* these pieces are from several years ago at university, presented as a way of charting the changes in my writing, and re-evaluating pieces I was very happy with at that stage.

Moments captured in photographs.
You with a smile
and the sun setting behind you,
casting an eerie redness on everything

such tragedy in serenity
such serenity in tragedy

The waves roling wearily onto the sand
then gently receeding to come back later,
occasionally they come close enough
to lap at the tyres on your car
parked so close to the water.

Seagulls fly overhead with nowhere to go
and nowhere they need to have been.
The windows rolled up tight
and the engine pumping carbon monoxide into your lungs.
Your head slumped across the wheel,
the horn ringing solemnly.

such tragedy in serenity
such serenity in tragedy

untitled

2011-08-21T04:31:00.001-07:00

* these pieces are from several years ago at university, presented as a way of charting the changes in my writing, and re-evaluating pieces I was very happy with at that stage.

She is a slut,
whenever we have sex
she pretend's I'm someone else;
The handsom millionaire,
The burly fireman,
The wild rock musician.

I, on the other hand, love to make love to her.
No imagined Playboy bunny
or inflated Baywatch babe.
Just her on the matress on the floor.

My eyes run over her,
perfect imperfections.
I taste her breath
thick with the flavour of ashtray.

Everything she can't see in me
I see in her.

She hates me, but when
she finds herself alone
she runs to me and I
smooth the worry from her hair,
flutter butterfly kisses across her forehead
and she says she loves me.

Her love, like her happiness
is a lie.
In the morning she will fly away,
my heart and wallet go with her
both to return empty.

When I close my eyes
I still see her,
life trickling from her wrists
like that time I found her.

How can I feel so much
for someone who feels so little?
Her suicide would have been painless,
the release she wanted so much.

But mine is agony,
as the steel parts my flesh
I know I'll never see her again
but it's better than the torture of loving her.

Sea of Words

2011-08-21T04:28:00.000-07:00

* these pieces are from several years ago at university, presented as a way of charting the changes in my writing, and re-evaluating pieces I was very happy with at that stage.

Drowned and swallowed
phrases and syllables,
only breathing through the
grace of the boyant imagination
of a million writers
draining the sea of it's words,
leaving me only precious few
for my own.
I gathered them together
and fashioned this tale,
promising to return them to
the sea of words
when I was done
so a million others may drown.

By the dying light...

2011-06-25T06:43:00.000-07:00

I love smoking on cold nights. Standing on the verandah in the dark, watching the smoke rising against the distant streetlights down the road, there’s something redemptive in the chilled solace, a real dedication to your craft, even if that craft is slowly killing yourself with nicotine. The red embers flaring as you inhale, occasional glowing specks flying off into the darkness, like monkeys shot into space. Smoke rising slowly from the end of the cigarette as it rests in your fingers, like a solid white line as it leaves from just behind the burning tip, billowing out and tracing a million ever changing images and fractions of images mid air as it rises and dissipates. The almost silence of suburban sprawl at 11:30 at night, a lone semi rumbling down the highway snaking through the town, a tapestry of houses and fast food places the driver won’t be able to distinguish from a million other sprawls he’ll slice through in his metal behemoth. Police sirens are calling from the distance, the locals restless from a week of work and only two days to numb themselves to that week’s endless repetition. A dog is barking, car doors opening and closing, an engine reluctantly ticking to life and my cigarette is still radiating. A familiar tiny crimson dot at the front of a house across the road gives evidence of a fellow devotee of slow nocturnal suicide, solidarity in our exile from our own homes for our shared passion for burning and inhaling tobacco. My cigarette dies before I do, crushed under my foot and left broken and dirty like they say one day it will leave me and if I’m half as lucky, I’ll also die after being taken out of someone’s mouth. Even with the deed done, my presence will bring disdain from those inside, the smell of my transgression lingering in my clothes, my skin, my beard. I will wake up tomorrow hacking and coughing vowing one day I’ll be like them, that I won’t be the outcast banished from decent society. Then I’ll step outside, light up, and see if my neighbour is as dedicated to this is I am.

Community Spirit

2010-11-15T16:24:00.000-08:00

There's a small colony of shopping trolleys in the creek running off from the work site near my home. One found itself stranded by one thoughtless Jesmond bogan, so some other obviously kinder spirited samaritan bogan helped it feel at home by submerging 4 of his companions. Community spirit at play. A Telstra techie melts in the heat under the January sun beating the top of his small canvas shelter, inside the upright silver pillar open with the veins of the telecommunications network exposed to the expertise of a pissed off middle aged father of 4 who's had 3 beers at lunch. He won't dare leave the canvas tent overnight though, lest it join the colony of trolleys overnight. Instead he'll replace the silver dome and leave a small, triangular yellow metal frame that will only be shifted up the road to fraudulently block the driveway of the community centre car park. Community spirit is a fickle thing.

Jesmond's community spirit, what little there is, buzzes at the Jeso shops from dawn to dusk. Asian uni students eat at the ready made generic asian restaurant, the Woolies deli staff smoke in groups, all with their high white boots on, and groups of women drink coffee in their ugg boots. He steps out of the main entrance and sees me coming, his leathered face spreads in a smile, and I curse inside. Jesmond Jesus wants to save my soul. He's never told me, but I assume he pissed away his youth, fucked his young adulthood up with drugs and unclaimed kids and now wants redemption. His face is etched with thousands of possibilities, every crease in his haggard mug a wound from a hard lived life. His redemption will be my salvation, and my salvation comes in card form. He's too good natured to say no to when he extends his hand with them. I can't tell him I'm not interested. Instead I collect his bible quote cards (I have 17, 3 more for a complete set! I'm still waiting for a special Jesus insert card, maybe with Jesus signature printed across it in gold foil like the old footy cards) and every time he asks me "what's your name again mate?" and I realise I don't know his at all. He gives me a card and is on his way, the lord must have other work for him today.

The pace doesn't stop at Woolies. The 65 cent wafers and a handful of grapes are all I've come for today, so I grab them and head for the express counter. Kathryn is on the left counter so I take the longer wait, regardless of the fact the 2 people in front of me are clearly violating the express lane creed of 9 items or less. I eavesdrop while I wait and it turns out there's an arvo party going on over on Mordue street and it sounds like a ripper. A bloke's already in the street singing Chisel.

It's my time to be served, Kathryn says hello and I pretend to be a nice guy and wait for her to say that she's noticed me around and wants nothing more than to smoke a huge bowl and have some crazy sex all afternoon, but she just smiles politely and doesn't laugh when I pay by eftpos and ask for $1.30 cash out.

As I walk home Jesmond Jesus is giving small cards to the Telstra techie, who's erecting the small yellow barrier and heading home to finish the drinking he started at lunch. The bloke singing Chisel must have been drawn back into the party or taken off because the street is otherwise empty, and the sound of police sirens rise on the air.

Woman On The Bus

2010-09-22T16:07:00.000-07:00

On the bus, the woman in front of me smells like cigarettes and damp. Her head thrashes randomly against the window and she vents unintelligible shrieks. She hits herself in the face, and we all stare at invisible spots on the floor. The act of seeing without being seen to be seeing. No one feels sorry for her, we just feel better about ourselves.

She's a drug casualty, by the look of her teeth and her wrecked arms, likely heroin. Maybe one day she tried to go straight, but the junk had already fried her brain to this point, so even if she doesn’t use it anymore it still haunts her, always a part of her life.

She wears rings on her fingers and I wonder if she bought them herself, conscious she'd pound them into her own head on a daily basis, or if they were a present from someone, a friend, a lover, a partner in junk.

She shows no shame in her sickness, won’t scowl or chastise the child looking wide-eyed in wonder, doesn't flinch when the school kids at the back snicker and call her a retard.

With a flurry of obscenity directed at nothing in particular she exits the bus at her stop, the smell of cigarettes and damp lingering.

Drowning

2010-09-19T15:52:00.000-07:00

Last night I dreamt we were both drowning. We thrashed against the endless, non-resisting water, each buoyant on our own but somehow dragging the other down, tethered to each other by visually imperceptible hooks and barbs embedded deep in internal organs, pulling eachother down from the inside. Our eyes met, mine fixed in terror, hers resolved, as calm and serene as the water that refused to resist my flailing limbs to propel us upward. With a silent turn of her eyes, the hooks and barbs retracted, and the water began to churn violently, pushing against her kicking limbs as she lifted herself toward the surface, toward some distant shore that the now furiously raging currents pushed me away from. My own motion now sent me upward on columns of rising water, upward to thankful lungfuls of air and dry land, far from where she had surfaced. I awoke with a start, alone in my bed, the thin layer of sweat bringing the water from dream to reality.

Cigarettes and Karma

2010-07-07T16:05:00.000-07:00

Rule 1: Don't walk out of Mayfield Woolies with your new pack of smokes on display. As soon as the eftpos says "approved' put them in your back pocket and pretend you didn't buy smokes, you bought a lighter, or a phone recharge. I learn this rule the hard way, and field five requests for a smoke before I get to the back car park. I'm feeling karmic and grant each one, turning down the offer of a dollar twice, I'll get money tomorrow to buy more anyway.

I change my mind and go back to the main road to get the bus instead of the train. The lady security guard stands on duty at the building across the way. Everyday opening the door for, and talking to the endless parade of Mayfield head cases. I try to imagine someone worked up enough about their insurance that a security guard is required, and if the small woman in her mid 30's , one broken nose away from Extreme Makeover, would actually do anything. I wonder if I could take her out, decide I'd get my arse kicked, and wander off to get a cheese and bacon roll. When I get back to the bus stop the 100 bus has stopped and a wiry man with a face like a beaten leather bag gets off. The security guard bristles visibly as soon as he steps to the footpath. He sees her suddenly, and yells "SORRY! I didn't mean to" and leaps back into the bus between the closing doors. The security guard relaxes, and I wonder what bizarre circumstance I've intruded on.

Rule 2: Don't buy cigarettes from school girls. They're all of fifteen, looking older than fifteen year olds should look, but still visibly unsure of themselves. I approach and they instantly go to defensive positions, though I don't take it personally. Strangers in Mayfield are usually worth the defensive approach. As soon as I offer a dollar and it's clear there's no sex in my proposal, they fight to be the first to produce a smoke and claim the golden coin. The transaction complete, and the 3 old ladies on the other seat looking at me as though I'd crapped on the street in front of them, I'm on way and can't help but feel disappointed they took the dollar, my karmic efforts all in vain.

I smoke the 8, and miss the harsh embrace of the 16s I usually smoke. I rationalise my actions internally for the benefit of the old crones, one less cigarette for those poor young girls to smoke. They can miss cancer, I'll take the bullet. The bus arrives before the bullet.

Rule 3: Don't ask snooty old ladies for a free smoke. My karma completely deserts me and she sneers at me like I'd proposed a full cavity search. A taxi pulls up to the rank and I don't wait, grab the front door handle and wear a full body assault of verbal rage from the old lady. She rants and yells about being at the rank before me, I open the door and the cabby says "taxi for Mr Pink". I laugh and look back at the old lady and tell her about the merits of calling ahead. She latches onto the back door handle, throws her bag in and leaps behind it to the back seat, and says firmly that she's not leaving.

I stand outside the taxi, the driver looks at me, looks at the old lady and tells her politely that I have booked the taxi, and she gives him an earful of violent threats. She finally screams "FUCK THIS!", throws her bag to the street outside the car, and gets out. The driver looks at me again and I shrug casually, "no idea mate". The old lady spits on the cab, and I pull a bible quote card from my top pocket, a card given to me buy the local religious guy earlier that day. A puppy floats in a pool in an inflatable rubber ring, "Go With The Flow" written dreamily above, I suggest this to the old lady as the cab pulls away and toss the card to her from the window, as she launches into a fresh spate of aural abuse. The cabbie laughs, pushes the automatic windows down and offers me a smoke, as my karma comes flooding back to me.

Munchies

2010-07-01T19:47:00.000-07:00

The gate clangs behind me and 7 of the 8 billies I pulled are getting along fine, then the 8th kicks up a stink and the world turns to a wonderful slanting angle, and seems to make more sense. A black t shirt, blue hoodie and thick black coat only just dull the cut of the wind, and I hug the coat closer around me, a pleasant shiver rolling across my body like butter on a hot pan. My steps weigh nothing, and my head sways gently. The moon hangs silent high above, behind a thick blanket of clouds, and the empty streets ring with the verbal bullets of a domestic in full swing. Someone ruined some one's life and there's hell to pay. F and C bombs are dropped casually but clearly above the rapid fire abuse, someone lobs a "piece of shit" into the mix and an old lady across the road stands inside her screen door listening to the commotion. It'll all be over by the time I get back, dad will be out on the street, his toes hanging over the drive way and a smoke at his lips, removed as far as the bonds of family will allow him to go and swearing under his breath. His open, damp white robe open over his boxer shorts, his familial rage defying the cold.

I stumble at the automatic doors and straight away the security guards are looking at me, and I'm paranoid that the security guards are looking at me, which they are. It's late and the Woolies bread hasn' t been marked down for the night yet, but the 14 year old with the face like it's being pulled tight from behind is marking down the cheese and bacon rolls a few metres away.
"If I come back in a few minutes you reckon these will be marked down"? I ask, pointing at the 3 loafs left. He makes a non-descript sound and half nods his head which is assurance enough.
"Thanks mate" and I stumble away. Chocolate...the weed will want it later. I survey the purple Cadbury (TRADEMARK!!!!) blocks with their Crunchie (TRADEMARK!!!!) treasures, the Lindt with the wankish swagger of a Swiss brand name and the organic chocolates with the smug, feel good after taste. It's all too much to process just no, and it's likely there's only a few bbq chooks left. I see the last one sweating in the plastic bag in the heating rack and make a loud zooming noise as I sweep in and snatch it. The lady behind the deli counter has seen much stranger than what I'm peddling and continues wrapping slabs of sliced pig in plastic wrap, and I try to remember what else I came here for.

Aisle 3...jam, Vegitmite (TRADEMARK!!!!), cereal, Tim Cahil's kiddie appeal begging me to buy Wheet Bix (TRADEMARK!!!!), challenging kids outright to send their parents poor by eating 15 wheetbix a day. Toy Story 3 "mystery bags" beckon with the clarion call of "15 TO COLLECT" screamed from a red star on the white bag. 15 chances for it cost me $9.65 extra to just buy nappies with my kid. A guy walks past like a Bizarro-World version of me, fuller beard, darker hair, and a thick shiny jacket that says London Gangstar and a look on his face that said James Fletcher. He looks me up and down, I look at him, red eyed, smiling, don't look at him, look at him. He moves past and a low hiss wheezes from his throat, I don't look back. I take my 3 mystery bags, my bbq chook and the first block of chocolate I can lay a hand on, completely forget my bread, and fumble my way through the self serve checkout. I spend a full 5 minutes trying to get the plastic bag open to put my groceries in, and the computer shrieks I've got unexpected goods in the bagging area. The soon to be obsolete human assistant opens the bag for me, and watches to make sure the technology doesn't bamboozle me any further.

Dad is still smoking at the footpath when the gate clangs behind me again, this time as I come home. The billy is packed and waiting, and the chocolate is burning a hole in the bag I'm carrying in it. Through the open front door I hear the domestic assault restart as Dad enters the breach again across the road, and the clouds rolls across the heavy moon.