The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

sorry if you cant watch it
sorry if you can
sk

a guy called richard sent me some music a while ago
and i sang some stuff n sent it back
it wasnt quite my cup of tea
but it had a certain joie de vivre that i liked
it seemed very eighties
but i didnt understand that that was its trip, did i?
i was listening to it at my daughters place in sweden
when their ears
pricked up
“daddy,THIS is really cooo-oool” they said
this is…? i say
(you see sometimes i dont know what i’m doing or
what anybody else is either)
listening to it thru a new set of ears
its a perky poppy feelgood little thing
its still got words like “inevitably ” in it
so its not a total pop out
but you know
its catchy n singalong-y
if you like that kinda thing
sometimes we all do, dont we?
so richard gets all these weird mixes down n stuff
and he asks me to help do a vid
oh the wonders of the modern age
casting my mind back twenty years
the pain n drudgery and yes
the outrageous expense
of making a video
if richard had suggested this twenty years ago
i would have to have found a camera man
a lighting man
someone to synch it up
a caterer and blah blah blah
then have to shoot it
process it
edit blah blah blah
get it over to the u.s.
blah blah blah
but wow
i did my bit last night
richard did his thing while i slept n went out for a walk
come home its already up on you tube
pocket featuring steve kilbey “hear in noiseville”
go n take a look
(warning: if you hated anchorage from th’other day
you may not like this!)
but lighten up
hey richard
i think you did a marvellous job!
the song and the vid are a real gas!
good on you, my man!
stealing a feeling a feeling
revealing a feeling i felt!
oh ha ha
the eighties live on forever
thats rocknroll, children
and everythings possible

been having one of those days
minor irritants
silly emails
annoying conversations
my blender packs it in
in a spectacular display of soymilk all over the place
the dvd player is dead thanks to scarlet forcing it open n closed
ive lost my glasses…you know the old crooked ones
the ones i wear now are blurred
i had an eye exam
i need blah blah blah lenses at twice the cost
a massive electricity bill arrives
i have things to do but i cant get em done
i look at my unfinished painting ruefully
got no mojo to start
and i need to start….
my ears ring
my right eye like fuzz
ive become very attracted to watching larry davids show
curb your enthusiasm
i know its been out a while
but im a philistine when it comes to comedy i guess
i just accidentally watched some in sweden n i got hooked
he reminds me of me
all those molehills turning into mountains
everything getting harder cos you wanted easier
white lies turn into black holes
a chance stupid remark gets amplified
ridiculous unlikely combinations of events seem to frame you
you bang yer head
you stub yer toes
people misunderstanding when you trying to be funny
and you trying to be funny to much too hard
and nobody understands ya
and you dont understand nobody else
everybody ready to blame ya or get angry
good old larry david
his young wife even has a vague resemblance to nk
larry should be happy but everything kinda goes predictably wrong
im even starting to talk like larry
i mean do ya think i’m a schmuck, c’mon!
and yet
theres gotta be a moral
theres gotta be an answer
where is that smooth life larry should have…?
why cant everything just work out…..it should do…?
theres a reason this show is so incredibly funny
theres a deep lesson of life to be learned here…
for us larry david types
the ones always ruffling feathers and getting embarrassed
the ones who dont know where to draw the line…
the ones who act like a real goose even tho theyre ostensibly “clever”
surely the answer is close at hand if not already apparent…
in the meantime i watch larry negotiate every hurdle
with his usual bad luck n bad timing
he resists the universe at every turn even if only subtly
his life should be a breeze
but hes so caught up in it all
he cant see the fucking wood for the trees
we spend all our life fussing n fighting my friend
wow its hard to count your blessings
many a guy says to me
wow! they voted your song the best of all time n space…
how you feel now, maaan?
i say
its like an icon i’m dragging into my i-tunes or something
and the icon just refuses to be there
just flies back to its original spot
thats how stuff like that is to me
i cant appreciate it
i can see but cant count all my blessings
some of which are blessings in disguise..
yeah i really love watching curb yer enthusiasm
watch it and think of me
only a bit more hair
not so jewish
a beard
with aussie accent
not nearly as wealthy
and with kids
other than that you got a kilb-ish thing
go!

i would like to know how many people cannot
for whatever reason
watch these videos
sk

how to get in
how to begin
how to unravel and travel beyond
how to penetrate to the heart of the start
where it all comes bubbling out like some geyser
the story
the one hundred years war
the guns to the left of em
the shields and the javelins
the net and the fork
the shot the strike the hit the vein
the rush of black death flying up to meet you
as you fall out of life
i been born
i been killed
i been you
i been me
i feel the quiet movement of this island
this prison colony
this settlement somewhat east of eden
in the short day of man
in the west of the darkening sky
clouds lit up like red gold dragon
the psalms black in shadowed outlining
crash the staggered margins of night
the dying sun shrieks out in a final scarlet orange burst
black breaks thru the purple
out pop the starry stars
like beacons in the nightie night
as the birds shut their traps
and the spiders fold their legs
and the swirling motes of dust suddenly vanish
the orange fire gone from the skies
twinkly twinkly lights come on
in cosy warm places all up in down the hills
groovy people kick back looking at glossy coffee table shots
i inhabit every room briefly
my antennae fix on each place splitting seconds
sydney flits through my mind
i drag sydney into my head
and i pull the individuals into my memory
i erase some memories to fit in the new ones
and accidentally find my childhood inaccessible
i open the page
but it is blank
in its place is nothing
let it go
nothing really you could know
i rapidly roll into my childhoods void
i reconstruct myself from a biography i red
i reconstitute august and everything after
(but ask davem not to be counting any more crows)
these are my familiars
the black crow in the mourning sky
the mangy panther with south american jesus
white hippy moses
the reluctant powerful vain confused old unprofitable prophet
struggling to lead his people to the promised blogge
given from on a high
written in pixels
transmitted all over this world instantly
as if by magic
blah blah blah blah blah
i zoom out the airport in a car
groovy music blasts from the darkness
in a little room david bowie neukoln plays
a heater pumps out hot air
all the wars i fought in
the blood pumping
straining up a ladder into an arrow through me eye
my brain babbles on even as i’m kicking the bucket
accumulation of images
sudden longing for ….ah…fleeting sensations….
a finger comes down on a symbol
type out my life in the english language
oh england neverfar
never far from my mind
like in hastings on a sunny sunday morning
and that smell of toast and eggs that hotel smell
and we just won the blimmin’ war didnt we
and our dads come home
and mums got her bloody hair done
and we go down to hastings
and we play cards at night and eat lyons family brick and…
the phone rings!
dvd burns and high quality transfer intrudes
england vanishes into the david bowie night
the tower flashes red on black blankness now the sky
this is australia mate
get over it
get into it
get downunder for stealing a loafers bread
yeah i’m a lime eating limey sublime in the limelight
yeah i’m a pomegranate eating pommy pow wallop snap
i got products coming down the pipeline
oh my black boxed set of prints and my voice
19 virgins of me and my little reveries
my so called reveries
i paint quaint in saintly pane
i speak squeak creak peak antique
i play my lay my day lay au fait le faye so frayed yet unafraid
au soy lait
perhaps i am really totally ok
and it is all of you who are
contagiously insane…..!

we adjourn to some white room
life flashes past lightspeed
(note to performers : should be done fast)
a child in mine own image
electronic symphonia
the elegaic sweep of sand n strings
the drums sombre rattle
the mournful echoes of the french horn
the women sing of fire
the men sing of ash
the world cant listen anymore
winter sunlight bleaches everything dazzling titanium
the old snake in eden would have loved the sun today
he coils around liliths black waist
he probes the air with his forked quickened tongue
he sizzles in the lovely light
in his dreams where he strangles the world
in his scales complex patterns
in his liquid eyes of evil
winter mr winter old man winter
the lion in winter
mangy moses in white hippy winter
father what is that thou holdeth?
ah childe, surely it bee the mirror of winter….
then the music stops
the ears ring on n on
listening to something from twenty years ago
now a constant electrick whine
all i have is that sunshine for now
a late burst on some winters day
falling straight into spring soon
the apple blossom in eden is lovely this time of year
maybe i am one spell away from real magic
maybe i am one asana away from real yoga
maybe i am one mile away
barque up the wrong tree
like alfred the great in the olden days
c’mon wessex !
england all ways on my mind
can we still be reconciled…?
the moors
the restaurants
the rainy streets of cambridge and sheffield
the leylines and stoned henge
how distant they seem in the colonies
in these antipodes like the south icy pole
in these obvious ends of the earth
some bizarre outpost i got exiled in
pretend and temporary cities in some old lords imagination
complete with freakish animals and hidden monsters
we look into the mirror of winter
scarlet kilbey her life all before her
me…..
maybe im one life away from you
maybe im sitting here in the sun
like in the ice of the pool
my mind goes pleasantly blank
the winter of mirror
the fleeting sun
as darkness gathers on one side
the clouds like little flocks of wandering sheepies
the moon appears like a white hole in the sky
what do you see in the winter mirror, old man?
i see that everything is how its s’posed to be
and that at the heart of everything
is something
called
nothing