The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

its already 2010
i got a friend called ricky
and one called donald
and one called nelg
and one called trevor who is also church lighting man
i live in bondi north bondi if you like
my friends come to my house
we and the fambley plus
amble off to the beach for a swim
we get there
the beach is closed because of
a) electric storm
b) jellyfish
c) tsunami
d) big sharky
e) all of the above
can you imagine
a lightning bolt strikes
a sharky bites
a jellyfish stings
the tsunami drowns
all at one time
we eat mexican n it starts to rain
cant pull a trick
do yoga this morning in the hot sun
i drift off into reveries of lives
i remember faces dimly in the interior mists
i remember nineveh
i remember albion
i remember rome
i was a slave boy
captured from somewhere else
i must have been a slave there
where i was before because i didnt mind being a slave here
we were outside of rome now
i worked in the vineyards of our owners whom we rarely saw
one day our mistress turned up in our midst unexpectedly
she looked rich with her jewelry and her robes
rumours swirled around the place about her
she had been sent home from rome
for misbehaviour nonetheless
she was suntanned and deliberate
as she made her way up the treelined avenues
of her splendid country home
they said she worshipped egyptian gods
they said she was a priestess of astarte
they said she had had an affair with some emperor
they said her husbands had been powerful men
they said she owned a house in africa
one day i was surprised to be called into her presence
what did she want with me?
would i be ever be a freed man?
would i be poisoned or promoted?
would i be flayed or fucked or fired?
it was with some trepidation therefore
that i approached her villa…..

do another sitting for andrew h today
for the big art prize
hes got 3 big pictures of me going n
small portraits of me all around the studio
andrew is one of the nicest guys i ever met
a true artist no matter what
the real deal
authenticity
his place is light n breezy
ocean zephyrs blow thru the white rooms
i discuss my face with andrew
he says “theres lots of concave isnt there?”
hed been doing me too big n hard
i point out small things to him
but hes doing a nice job
interesting to see how he works
painting in a drab greeny brown
swishing it all away with a turpsy rag
he does portraits the way i do
he starts with a very rough thing
and then he refines n refines n closes in n in
its nice to see my face emerging from the canvas
(only its board not canvas)
people walk in n make comments
an old scottish guy makes some funny cracks
ha ha
art n music
we listen to some spacious piano music by old whatsisname
ah youd know who i meant if you heard it
the french guy in the twenties monsieur whatsisname
anyway
(satie!)
deadline this friday
must go back for one more sitting tuesday night
only i mainly stand
andrew is such a lovely man
i wish he would bloody win the big prize
nah!
thatd just be too damn unlikely, wouldnt it?

been working on deadmans hand ep (duh!)
out at tims
sorry no blog yessaday …i was knackered
got 3 really good new songs ready for ya
gonna be giving this away at gigs in u.s.
really u#23 ish songs
they said it couldnt be done
you know what
i found me a new singing style
a new way of writing words
tim n me what a pair
what a modus operandi
we sculpt songs from the living rock itself
words fly to me outta i know not where
who whispers all these words to me
we worked on these songs
the gardener
stardust
dakota
the kicker
mellotron
guitarama
i played pedal bass today…its a huge sound
tim changes things all the time
i write n write n write
now i’m tired
now i need to replenish my thoughts
now i need to relax a little
its been a long day
wow i worked hard
gee me n tim are good
the weathers nice too
see ya tomorrow
sk

somedays i feel there is nothing left to write
you know it all
you know me through n through dont you
you read about how i single handedly saved rocknroll
but as i was about to claim my rewards
some strange quirk undid me
i was robbed
if only if only if only
if only once
i sold my lies to you and charged you for poetry
who me….nah….i never done any of that stuff i said
wrestling boas in some mayan jungle…who me….?
i been sitting here all along
look i never ever left canberra
i just made it all up what i wanted
and somehow you the audience came to life
with lives you imagine youre having
look theres nothing out there but a soft quiet afternoon
the house is empty and mercifully silent
i alone with me
all of us sitting here
on the other end of some computer
the real steve kilbey died in a horrific crash
they have a contest to replace him
you dont see him for a while
suddenly they bring on this new geezer
a spritely old coot bearing little resemblance
to his supposed former self
suddenly there he is everywhere
with his white beard n floaty hair
whatever happened to the real guy?
he must of written loads of po before he go, you kno?
i mean thats the stuff theyre dishing out now kilbos old stuff
i mean i’m saying i’m not him
it was a different man etc
even tho those are not my words or anybodys
kilbey was a construct designed by engineers
but they got the ratios wrong
too much malarkey not enough “oooh mama its satday nite!’
anyway i must be raving on again
i’m glad they let me use this ancient computer once a week
in here
in my tower where i am imprisoned within my own life
i never did yoga
i never wrote songs
i never smoked dope
i never even kissed a girl
i’m a doctored photo
i’m a whole pack of lies for a poker hand
i’m a guess at what a real kilbey may say
things are going wrong up here
sometimes they forget to feed me
sometimes they forget to lock me up
and i wander freely through the cities of these worlds
but like all cagey birds i cant fend for myself
i need my keepers to feed me
i need their assent
i need the stern hand of the system to guide me
i need my 3 square meals and my 2 round abouts
ha ha ha
whatever it is it aint gonna happen here
typey typey typey
should do something used full
bye-i

finally i meet my dental waterloo
my four front upper teeth reduced to pins
to accommodate my new crowns
(what a king)
i spend 3 hours in the chair
after a bit of an argument
my dentist gives me the maximum gas
while he drills my teeth away
and takes impressions etc
meanwhile where do i go…?
i recede away from this world as is my wont
i breathe in the gas and i evaporate behind my screaming teeth
i finally realize …just like the walrus said…
theres nothing to get hung about
action seems unnecessary
all my wriggling jiggling where will it get me but the grave
i dissociate from myself
whoever i am today
wherever i was
its 2010 the distant future
my mouth is full of chemicals
pre-anesthetic
anesthetic itself
impression paste
my old n rotten teeth as they are drilled
glue and cloves and god knows what
the gas mask is hurting
pushing down on my partially numbed nose
inside my head
i think of one thousand things
my old lives yes
or my old lies i cannot tell
i was a soldier who laid waste ilium
covered in other mens blood
i hooked charioteers with my barbed spear
i burned heifers to lord zeus
who seemed to answer my prayers
i raped the women in the city
i looted the houses
and i sat back drinking red wine
while some quack stitched up my leg and my arm
miles away somewhere the dentist
is drill drill drilling
my mouth is open
my lip is split
the assistant sucks the saliva out of my mouth
the city of sydney looms around grey n faceless
my face hurts in every world
i must write this down in my blog i say to myselves
but what was it i wanted to write?
music from a terrible radio station filters through n down
down in my head where i’m drowning in gas
i walk the streets of russia
i live in my little apartment where i drink tea
i am quite mad
but i write lovely music on my piano
its cold today
i’m freezing in here
the music i write turns into birds that fly away
the snow falls down outside and i am quietly sad
i see myself in the mirror
some shadow in the candlelight
the sound of horses and sleighs
the taste of stale bread
no firewood left
the grate grows cold
i retire to my bed to keep warm
even sleep does not come
i lie awake in some confused reverie
when the drill interrupts my life
the dentists is saying
can you open a little wider please
i long for it to end
all of it
the lights in my eyes
the noise inside my mouth
resonating in enamel
the sensation of helplessness
finally its over
i stumble out into cold daylight
and walk about 5 kms in a daze
i take codeine when i get home
more drugs
more haze
more daze
less days

postcard from heatwave
palms clouds turbulence
red roofs green trees white flowers
dogbark birdsing catcreep
i am hurting hurting hurting
dont read on if you dont want to hold my breath
oh i feel 1000 years old
the dying summer has flared up into a burning ball
ive fled sleep
i left it aching on the bed
i pull on my mansuit
and its all torn n damaged
my lip wont heal up
my heel giving me lip
my bones feel like they been x-rayed by fire
i’d eat lethargy on toast but i ran outta bread
dont read on if you dont want to read on
dont complain of my pain
dont threaten me now i’m in beyond
doctor my I’s
sea accept me
sky why wont you cry
i accomplish nothing
i wish for nothing
i long for nothingness
remove me from the constant this or that
i thought that life was a bowl of cherries…once….
flyscreen rips off in the wind
one more bill
one more call
one more message
one more waiting
one more life
one more universe
one more infinity of infinities
i been myself so many times
i want out
i want in
i want it all n i cant wait much longer
what do you want me to want
i’ll tell you what i want
energy
i want energy all youve got
give it to me ha you cant
all your energy couldnt touch my sides
every word i think of is 1 million calories
think of me as angelic beast
my appetites are the purest dew
from the dirtiest puddle
but i’m a wingless beast (now)
i cant fly except in somebody elses stupid dreams
a bedraggled hide cages an eternal strength
when i say look out you better look out
but i wont say it today
so go away
yes go away and leave here in this silvery heat
i am ulysses 4 granted
i sailed away baby
i am on my voyage now
my voyage round the traps and dips
my journey to the east
the eastern suburbs i mean
whatever happened to whatsisname anyway
and all the other whatsisnames
oh i grow tired just reckoning them
as countless as the molluscs in a stale pool
as hopeless as all the fucking muggles with their beer n tv
as oafish as a cartoon buffoon or paltry paltroon
the hoi fucking polloi
the nouveau stupid
the modern zeitgeist heist
some call me faustus
some call me steve
some call me nothing
which do you believe?

saturday night i sit by the open window
the banished poet at summers long end
lights of the city say twinkle twinkle
its quiet tonight
somewhere out there may rage wild festivities
but not up this street
the wind blows lonely
it whispers wickedly of winter
it implies some sad finality without saying a thing
doors rattle n bang in its wake
the curtains are blind
the windows see nothing
the palms nod out in the orange crescent moon
the clock becomes loud
oh god my pulse is racing away
i feel cold despite the balminess
my head feels heavy
anxiety and anger fuck with me
i have exacerbated my fieriness
i have energy yes
but sometimes it whips me on before it
today i sat for my portrait for the archibald prize
australias big portrait prize
andrew h is doing this 2 metres high painting of moi
i try to pick his brains about art
i ask him many complicated questions
i must have been distracting him
he is a truly lovely man
a gentleman in the real sense of the word
a proper artist who sells paintings in galleries
6 years of art school
but today he couldnt get me
he couldnt nail me in that painting
im going back next week
i believe in this man
i believe he will paint a marvellous picture of me
i know my face so well
because i have done so many self portraits
and because i’m a narcissistic fool
i can see where andrews going wrong
and then i do what i joked early i would never do
i offered suggestions
my nose isnt that long etc
i’m supposed to keep shut up
but i talked the whole fucking time
i realized today that picasso was the only major painter
who switched genres or created new genres all the time
i mean most guys from rembrandt down to rousseau
they get their trip n then spend their lives improving on it
but picasso was like the beatles
he invent a thing
play around with it for a little while
then get a new trip
leaving all the second tier guys to forever remain
in that one new thing he’d figured out
eg career cubists….
wow i really like andrew
softly spoken and humble to a tee
i ask him curly questions as hes trying to grok
the proportions of my face
dragging him out of the spatial n into the verbal
finally i say to him
do you ever think youre a genius ?
and he finally laughs n shakes his head
its a release for us both
i point out to him the idiosyncrasies of my face
he keeps saying
youre very chiselled
now that i’ve been a vegan
my face has become angular again
andrew said
is it that you look young
or are all the people your age looking old?
yes the latter it is
i do not look young
i have the wear n tear of 55 years on my old dial
but guess what
i finally feel happy with my face
i feel at home in it
what you see is what you get
you can have a look at me n see the kinda geezer i am
i’m quick
i ‘m sharp
i’m a bit proud n cruel
but i’m a bit sympathetic and naive too
i am an old boy
you see the discipline of yoga has somehow
done something to my face
time and drugs have fucked it up in one way
and yoga n veganism n swimming
have altered it another
sometimes i am surprised to see myself
sometimes i look so goddamn old
its ok fuck i’m coming on 56
i become old with a naive wonder
and if i continue to grow old like this well i dont mind
i put a lot into yoga and i reap the rewards of long hours
when other people are watching tv or sleeping in
or down the bloody pub
i’m on my balcony whether its hot or cold
i’m out there doing my practice
and if you did something as much as i do yoga
youd expect some results wouldnt you
its a fucking ongoing experiment to see where it could take me
its a miraculous process
it is a type of magic
the transformation of the regular old geezer
into something a bit more souped up
so now i really contain visual contradictions
someone wrote of one our shows
that i oscillate onstage between ancient and youthful
i reckon i got a bit of female mojo in me too
i aint no fucking clown drinking beer n watching tv
i’m the sensitive bloke
i got 5 daughters remember
so there you go
you paint me
you gotta get the young n the old
the masculine n the feminine
the genius n the fool
the rockstar n the nobody
the saint n the sinner
the ascetic n the hedonist
yeah i fucking fascinate myself dont i?
its understandable but its unforgivable
believe me i have more contempt than admiration
i been lucky
n most of my wounds have been self inflicted
if i ever suffered it was me who did it to me
i never been abused
i never been abandoned
i never been really sick
i been undeservedly lucky
especially in the last year
3 good men who are good at what they do
have stepped in n helped me out
i guess they like my music enough
to understand me n see
that i could certainly use some guidance
that when it comes to business n stuff
i am a bit hopeless
i want those gentlemen to know
i am very very grateful
and a fourth gentleman too
whose been helping the cause a long long time
i cant believe that our fans are often
doctors pilots scientists lawyers teachers professors
i’m glad that at the end of a long day
they can lose their brilliant minds in my work
i put a lot of secret compartments in my songs
and these guys enjoy finding them
i try my hardest to avoid cliche
i write songs for clever people
if you really like my music you must be pretty clever
otherwise you wouldnt dig it
thats why i can never be hugely popular
i yearn for great popularity n money
but in truth i knew that by doing what i do
by having my ridiculous ideals
by working with the other guys in the church
who can be scathing with criticism if i fuck up
so i….. yeah…. yeah….
more about kilbey by kilbey
nebulous flimsy
nonsense n whimsy
simultaneously important n utterly irrelevant
my songs will not change your life
they will enhance it
i have some good records waiting in the wings
i got an angular face
i’m getting some new teeth
i got some good friends
with whom i get by with a little help
i got a beautiful bass
i can speak a bit of swedish
i got tv appearances lined up
i get in the newspaper
i made over 50 records
i written a million songs
i did a million gigs
i been everywhere
i tried every drug
i been rich n poor
fuck it
i still aint happy though……
go n fuckin’ figure….

well i was tired
and some other things going on
we were more evenhanded than canberra
but canberra had the oomph!
sydney i was just too spaced out to focus
it had been a long day
sometimes everything else gets in the way
the other guys thought it was good
i was just a bit underwhelmed with myself
i expected a secret cache of energy to fill me when i hit stage
but it never arrived
nevertheless
thats it
its over for a while
enmore theatre on 20, 21 march for rockwiz
a tour of perth/wa with ricky in early march
recording for down to cardboard n deadmans hand ep next week
getting teeth started on next week
trying to get everything else done before usa april
boy
today i am one drained tired worn out old rocker
in spades!!

back to canberra
back to lyneham
where it all began
tilley devines a great venue
sold out in 2 hours
i arrive a little early
walk round my old schools
primary n high
my friend nelg has filmed me waxing rhapsodic
on the ill kept lawns
cant find any real nostalgia
its all dried up n moved on
we go into venue
a creature with a long blonde wig approaches me
the face of a man
breasts of a lady
voice not too ladylike
steve do you remember me?
uh ,…err no…oh god…no
you knew me before i was a girl says the person
i think: a girl is one thing you are not
the person twirls around in front of me
showing off the new bits
turns out i did know this geezer
oh god i say
the person was a musician who once played with peter k
nice to meet you again man i say
whoops i mean i dont mean man i mean….err… um….
how confusing!
we botch our soundcheck
technical issues etc
they let the crowd in n we slink off
nice tofu dinner on sidewalk cafe
eventually do gig
very small stage
hey we rocked
it was acoustic too
the crowd really erupts during 1st song
and stays a great audience all night long for us
we play well
i get carried away start jumping about
wow it was a good gig
afterwards i meet some old pals of mine
shouldnt have had that coffee for 3 hour drive home
get back home at 3 something n cannot sleep
tired like a donkey but cant sleep
well i got my second wind now
hope i dont sag tonite in sydney
notes in enmore
please come
this is a kinda one off show tonite
or stay home see if i care…
ok gonna try for some rest now
lotsa love etc
sk