The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

our net could hold silk stars

another hot place

another hot day

another gig

not complaining

just saying

just saying i had enough i guess

lost my motivation somewhere

lost my self

lost my way

now i’m stuck here inside of me

play a gig

get on the bus

go to wherever else is next

this one left me numb

wheres my jini?

yeah rocknroll

the noise the travel the repetition

on the bus off the bus

the audience claps

the people meet n greet

the mouths say words

the hands shake

the wheels turn around

existential doubts

the miles pass by

i think of times in the past

as much as i want to get back there i cant

i’m stuck here in the freezing blackness of a bunk

i’m stumbling out in the sunshine somewhere lost

i’m walking on stage with my head full of haze

i watch the days pass and melt away

it will be so nice to get home

i can see my kitchen now with the red door

and hear the seagulls and the endless traffic

and i’m walking down the hill to the ocean

revved up

i am in some lovely place called santa cruz

already a few gigs behind in my writings

i struggle with myself

feel myself falling apart in this whirl

i am here its 4 pm in the afternoon i walked round n had a meal

bored listless stateless sleepless

sometimes wondering what it all means

and why am i anywhere i ever am?

the music the words the conversations

meeting and greeting and sweet talking em

not feeling too hungry despite everything

nice to play on an empty stomach

people i say i look good

but inside my anxieties multiply

everything always needing so much attention

i try to remember all i forget

immune to california i remain hermetically sealed

my life speeds up and ebbs away before me

minutes like entire aeons

days like a beat of a hummingbirds wing

onstage energy is rushing to me at least

onstage i get healed for a while in the noise of it all

i get caught up in it all

the sound and the lights

i can’t remember much of it now

i feel a deep detachment coming on

look out as a stranger

husbands n wives IT guys n girl drummers

the old woman and the young boy

the hospitality lady and the nutty stalkers

the old friends and the merely curious

someone you used to know

someone you hadn’t met yet

the ears ring on

the eyes blur

the voice falters

the dream coalesces

the good times in kodak chrome seen as from years away

the bad times frozen in over saturation on the screen in yer mind

all the pain and the junk and the lies and the tears

all the twists and mists and sisters i shouldna kissed

all the gigs where i really came on like i was big

all the halls that made me feel small

our bus hurtles along through outskirts of towns

i dream of the remote and inaccessible  things

the things i can’t have

the things no one can have

the things that are now all lost

i dream of the things I’ve been told

as they all try to come true around me

i am lonely in this crowd

the air is incredibly still

the temperature is perfect

a night off in nowhere

mesa boogie

another fine rocking gig

we were pretty damn good

the crowd loved us

etc etc

great venue we play just as sun is sinking down

yeah a great time was had by all

now in san diego waiting for tomorrow nights gig y’all

ok

sometimes life is good

oh no its me

las vegas is the city of sin sun and strippers

yeah yeah yeah

as hot as all fuck

lotsa weird people running around

we play in a place half bowling alley half gig

strike baby!

the church kick a bit of a goal

we certainly transcend and for 30 minutes i feel like apollo

the crowd are going nuts

i turn to my right and blonde with big knockers and tattoos

she’s screaming and waving her arms at me having an orgasm or sump thing (i presume?)

cool

we are pretty damn slick and good

tantalised back in the set gets things off sizzlingly

and we never look back

i run around truly pointlessly

just letting em admire my fitness and flexibility

the lunges and swoops and stumbling around

while holding down that beat

for a while it seems I’m doing the most important thing in the world

afterwards outside in a courtyard smoking weed with a friend

it seems like a million degrees and i’m living in the future

the weed the gin the jet lag all multiply each other

i’m falling pleasantly asleep under the desert moon and stars

the ferris wheel goes round slowly

the billboards pump new products

i go back in and watch the last bit of the furs who are having a good night

at about 2 i jump on the bus and my bunk swallows me whole

until i arrive here in costa mesa cal at some festival thingy

about to have me veg dinner

lotsa love

steven

cable hogue

we roll up to flagstaff AZ

its fuckin hot o my malchicks fuckin hot

yeah your humble hero does ‘is yoga in the heat

its like bikrams for free

yeah i don’t feel much like eating and the altitudey is making me lite-headed

we play pretty good

there are a few train wrecks i am afraid

a few mistakey wakeys

afterwards we hang with the lovely locals

before hitting the road at 2am to vegas

haugie and i sat down the back of bus and watched videos

until at about 4 i crashed in my bunk

which is either too damn hot or with AC too damn cold

now I’m here in Vegas

(a place I’ve never been to overfond of)

doing my yoga again n drinking chocky soy milk

ready to start it all over again

love

sk

sleep please

flew over

took forever

got here

need to rest

constant racket

lovely hotel but noisy like hell

hell is a place on earth

soon this will all pass i tell myself

now i’m going out with some people

looking for amusement

if i can’t find it here

i might as well give right up

you’d have to think

kneed to no

in a few days time i will be touring again with that lovely band the P.Furs

i love em

man they had all those great hits

richard butler he’s still got it in spades

those brilliant literate lyrics

hes got the moves hes got the cool

what a voice !

i like to play with the furs there are many similarities between us

we are in some ways coming from the same place although we arrive differently

i’m happy to be part of this great show 2 of the best 80s bands ever

if you like intelligent tuneful music with an edge n a bite

the p.furs like the church have subtext they imply many things

we have become really good friends i’m looking forward to catching up

its a win/win jobby i guess and although i hate to leave sydney

its wintery and i’m looking forward to the heat of american summertime

all those gigs all those rides all those audiences

all that legal weed in colorado…am i going there..?

the ultimate adolescent trip

on tour with a bunch of cool types

i dont know where i’m going

everything is arranged for me

i just gotta walk onstage and uncage my self

thats my only responsibility

i love to play music i love to be around all those musicians and the crew

let me tell you we have a blast

usually

yeah we hit rough patches but so what

most of the time we rolling along singing our song

side by side ha ha

maybe i’ll get to ride on their bus sometime

people ask me will the P.Furs come to australia and tour ?

i dunno

it would be good idea but i’m just a soldier in the frontline

let someone else decide all that

i go where i’m told and i will wander through the streets of america

taking it all in as usual

trying to stay outta trouble

and saving my mojo for the one hour a day that i am needed

for that hour i fast i meditate i do yoga and blah blah blah

i also get high and have a drink before i go on

then

the sweet spirit possesses me and i lay my trip on the crowd

we lay on em our interweaving collective thing which is full of romance and promise

as you all know

afterwards ah…

when i’m empty of all that energy

i quietly recuperate with a nice meal and catch up with old friends sometimes

when its all over i sink into my bunk which is in the middle at the back

and i dream as the bus shoots down the freeway like cupids bolt in the darkness

*

as i was saying some people never climb back out

the ravine claims em and destroys em each in their own way

fallen into perpetual night fallen into its darknesses

fallen through the crack into some other world

some futile dream of escape

cause and effect

you can simply not escape cause and effect

yes i believe in all possible things

yes ive done everything you could ever imagine and even more

yeah  i imagined more than you ever did

i have lived it right up to the hilton

and i have paid for my knowledge and my luck in sorrow n misery

everything i gained i lost

every time i win i lose

we are paradoxes

so much good so much wickedness

so clever so stupid

charisma until its repulsive

they love  they hate

they whisper they taunt

they use trickery to delude but it doesnt stand actual daylight

none of it means much in the sun and in the sea

or  standing on some stage somewhere singing magic songs

or when  hurtling along in this world in a bus with the boys

plucking a fucking bass guitar which resonates through a million watts of sound

i dream it all up and even if ya could take it away i just dream up some more

i practise generosity now where i was only before selfish

life hammered me down it beat me into shape

oh how they love my face because every battle is now etched on there

oh how they (exone)rate a man who can crawl out of the ravine

oh how they love my old silky voice singing to em in the blackest night

holding their hand throughout their life

i was made to do all this and something greater has sustained me

i return to this earth time after time to do whatever service i can

sometimes a lowly minstrel sometimes a dispossessed king

sometimes a boy i eat turkish delight with a witch who brings winter

sometimes i search through the ruins of troy for a fragment of a vase

i get hit and hit on and hit up as i stumble mumbling down the high street

i amaze myself i bore myself i am ugly i am handsome weak and strong

i pray and do more yoga and the secret and confidential transmission continues

incessantly exercising

a natural speed accelerates me into their minds

i am real you can trust me i am honest now

vote for me i am the 13 of hearts

watch out for me once i am in i am in

one day i will play you my best song

i will use it to harpoon em when theyre least ‘specting it

parrying and thrusting

i just laugh when my money flies off into the ether

sure i wouldnt mind some more

and some more and some more

you never know who or what is just beyond your door

i will in any case prevail as surely as i will fail

i will get what i wanted as the stuff i had gets washed away

alone or love locked its all the same

they all get in the way of what i’m trying to give em

and then they give it all back so i can give even more

life goes round and round

i am willfuly naive i want to believe in everything they all tell me

i see them burning themselves and i try to quench the flames with my tears of salty compassion

i burnt too

i lost too

i hurt too

as a ghost i watch on and you dont know it but i will you to succeed

all of you all of you

forgiveness dispensed

mercy included

i used to hide in a room

now i sit in the rain with a lovely daughter  watching an angry sea

i walk in the wind i travel the world

i consult with the people

i meet the big ones the small ones the angels the monsters

i live and i learn and i learn to live

dont deny my shortcomings

dont blame any of them for my spectacular disasters

dont sell my friends out for pieces of silver

try to make peace with a universe probably only i apprehend

someone up there likes me but it dont stop em fucking with me

when its all inevitably over this energy will re-coalesce as another me

and all the players will take up their positions

and the whole damned thing will start up all over again

take it or leave it

i hope i can remember at least some of it

whatever

its raining tonight its winter its cold

wherever i am i’m always a long way from home

leaving arriving disappearing

trying to find redemption out there in the rain

its all added up to zero

the pointlessness of just about everything

the brutality of addiction

and what it does to people i care about

the crippling useless sonofabitch putting the boot in always

10 years in the wilderness for me

misery on misery all brought on by myself

i can hardly complain i fucked myself up good and there was no one to blame

fucking booze fucking drugs fucking any addiction

my family my friends my colleagues

watch me thrash around uselessly in a dirty little puddle

i coulda just climbed out

something kept me in there my addiction

i was powerless

i could not control it with all the willpower in the world

all the lies i told could never set me free

au fucking contraire they enmeshed and embroiled me deeper and deeper

it all went down the drain

you all already know

youve heard it all before

we all have our turn in this obstacle course of a universe

it seems like there isnt any purpose

but there must be surely some reason…right?

then when by some miraculous unknown power i was let off the hook

i was cured hooray!

i have to stand back and watch other people i care about

get back in the ring taking another swing at their nemesis

the addiction like a shadow living between spirit mind and body

man its got you all figured out yes baby you thats right..!

yeah all of you fools out there ingesting pernicious substances

i tell you heroin is a fucking bitch but i have discovered there are even worse things

crafty little voices whispering to you and boy they have one aim

and that is your total obliteration yeah i’m talking jail institution n death

you think you can hide it?

i thought i could hide it but man i cringe in embarrassment now

i fucked things up over and over and over

i was the worst of the worst

i admit that

by the grace of god and no other reason

if there is another reason someone tell me

because i was let off the hook one day just like that

it was over

i had no dough no property no instruments no nothing

i had 4 beautiful daughters thats all i had to my name

i woke up with a jolt from the idiocy i was involved in

i aint no saint and everyone knows that

but ive been free of that evil spirit now for 17 years

i beat the odds but i didnt do anything to deserve it

something seemed to decide i had had enough misery

listen…being an addict is no goth fairytale

not for me at any rate

it was lie after denial after being sick after being broke after being useless

a total drag to everyone who has to deal with ya

always miserable complaining blaming

coming up with the most pathetic farfetched imbecilic alibis

not having enough money to pay the bills

not having enough money to eat decent food

not having enough money to spend one cent on anything other than your precious

my addiction gave me a bloated sweaty appearance and i ruined my veins

when i have a blood test now its a total palaver trying to find a vein in my arm

they all moved elsewhere where i couldnt get at em

i hit arteries which is a nightmarish thing i cant even bear to think of it

and every other absolutely unbelievably sordid thing you can imagine

there i was in the big cities of the world having a fix in a toilet

hustling and bustling about trying to score and dealing with cutthroats and ratbags

there are no friends in the world of addiction

there are only other wretches going down the plughole with you

some faster some slower

some got some money some are by now broke

some are prostitutes and thieves and swindlers and dealers

some are still dentists and teachers and plumbers and parents

but brothers n sisters we are all going down that drain if we do not find a way to stop

hard liquor hard drugs thats what i’m talking about

its frightening what this stuff can do and how quickly

inside and out an addiction to these things will suck on you

like a flame sucking on wood

they will blow you up and they will leave you frazzled fried and brittle

they feed on your youth your vitality your soul

but you are powerless

i am powerless

i am powerless to stop anyone else as well

stop them going to loneliness and despair and nothingness

nothing will ever come of any of it

anyone reading this who feels themselves sliding into it

stop

anyone who once was an addict and is now free

rejoice

but curing it..?

ah well that is quite a mystery…

the enemy is indeed cunning

its ruthless too

its got you figured out

it knows your worst and darkest fears

and in the very act of whispering to you

i will protect you from your fears

it is in fact actualising them

bringing them out of the abstract realm

and crashing them into your life