rant over and out!
you wanted a bit of bile
come on tell the truth
its funny when i get angry
just like it was funny when my dad les kilbey got angry
but it wasnt funny when my mum got angry
unless it was really really funny
and you could get her to laugh too
then she’d get even angrier cos she’d laugh
when she wanted to be angry
we are a mixture of our mothers n fathers
and all their mothers n fathers
we must all be somehow related
and in another lifetime
i may have been your sister or your son
if you are attracted to me now
you may have known me in another lifetime
says krishna…
i know i never quite get it right, do i?
but you trust that im trying
you can feel it, right?
and if i keep trying
then one day…..
ah that perfect song
that perfect poem
and
youll go
i been listening to this guy now for a hundred lifetimes
and this is my new favourite song….
really my life is to chase this ideal
and as long as i have breath
its what im gonna do
its an easy life in some ways
i have mostly eliminated “the man” from the equation
all day long im at work
its lovely lovely work
but it still makes me anxious n despondent
i do thank the lord everyday
that i am not at a factory
or behind a desk in fluoro wilderness
and oh my fiendss
if i could make it so
that none of you had to either
i would
funny enough
tiny dancer by elton came on my ipod
now i dont like elton
but my friend marcus s in sunny stockholm
said i should have this one elton album
madman across the water
anyway i do like tiny dancer
its specialness overcomes n defeats my prejudice
and hearing this song takes me back to ‘aving a real job
after i left school
working as a tilers labourer
a blocka flats somewhere in canberra
i was taking all the old tiles outta the hallway
and they were not coming up easily
i was on my own and it was cold and a bit dark
driving to this place each day i heard 2 songs
on the radio
tiny dancer and heart of gold
and i would think about them all day
as i chiselled n scraped at the floor
in the hallway
and even then
believe me
i hated work
if they had had ipods in those days
or even walkmans…
or if i was stoned
see if ya put me in a corridor with my ipod n a spliff
i will chip out those olde tiles much more happily
than if im just straight n musicless
but in the void of nothing
i just played songs over n over in my head
and of course i didnt really realise it then
but i was deconstructing n analysing them
why did they make me feel this way
how did neil convey that lonesomeness?
why did i feel like i could fall in love with eltys tiny dancer?
the sounds, the strings, the voices
oh i was so deeply in love with music
who isnt?
who doesnt love music?
anyway
when i heard tiny dancer today
walking up my street from the pool
my head full of economic gloom
my head full of the sand patterns at the bottom of the pool
endorphins filling my system
from the coldwater n the hot sauna
and the rain that fell on me as i did chi gong
at the edge of the churning pacific ocean
and the gratitude i have that i dont have to work
at a “real” job
and with five children of my own
all girls
and my thick white beard getting long again
and the spring in my step
and the late autumn of my life
a brief burst of sunshine maybe
and all the time the muse is chucking out ideas
and im looking at things
and thinking of words
thinking about my solo album
thinking about the weird stuff my shuffle was throwing at me
civil war lament comes on
fuck grant you little bastard i still wish you hadnt gone
the pod was throwing in your bright ray at me lassa nite
and theres my mate timbo walloping the kit
so it all goes full circle
doesnt it?
i have been priveleged to work with some great people
and i think about em all the time
caino in the us
glenny bennie in melb
martin kennedy in melb
cummo in melb
polinski n the mim boys
also of …melb
(i should move there actually
its more my kinda town…intellectually
oh but im so hooked on the icebergs
im getting the equivalent of 5 grams of painkiller
in endorphins from the pool n sauna every day
i go in there a hungover stumbling wreck
i emerge a neuman
go bes just came on my ipod as we speak
even as we speak grantley
anyway im studying the pointillistic rub of the leaves
and im thinking of how can you paint that?
and im thinking about the cars that zoom past
i see the drivers
my mind automatically comes up with a possible biography
unasked for
and forgets just as quickly
a man drives past in a black wet beemer
i picture a warm living room
discreet lighting
executive position
distant wife
cleaners come in thursdays n mondays
ocean n harbour views
books lie open on the coffee table, expensive and beautiful
images of famine in africa
and the grand prix
all in glossy thick deluxe pages
slightly intensified
a pool throws rippling aqua blue light on the ceiling
then his car is gone
another splashes past
behind a foggy window
a mother n some kids
i see a cosy kitchen looking out on a lovely back lawn
trees hem in the garden giving a sunny privacy
i see nights sitting in the garden when its too hot to sleep
early morning soccer practice and
mother in law dropping in unannounced
all the time
anyway
tiny dancer comes on and shatters my reverie
im back in that hallway
chipping away at those bastard tiles
im 18 or whatever i was
i see it all
somewhere in the backa my mind
just waiting to be unlocked
this memory
clear as crystal
good on ya elton!