THE SUDDEN OCEAN

Okay, okay - so in my last post i was a tad harsh on the hippy stallholders at the Denmark Easter Markets. Acute hangovers will do that to you. I plead insanity.

Some mornings, around 3am, i wake in a state of total fear, verging on madness, alone in the silent claustrophobic darkness of my self-imposed self-storage hibernation in Albany City Self Storage. Locked in solitary confinement inside a darkened cell for nights on end - what does this do to a man? What are its long term mental effects? This otherworldly mental and physical deprivation is akin to the practices of those who wish to withdraw from the world in order to live the ascetic life. The monks and the hermits. Or, indeed, those trying to save enough money to print a photographic exhibition.

What if i were to die in here, i wonder. Nobody would find me for weeks. The rollerdoor is locked from the inside and no-one knows i am living here - with my motorcycle, cameras and books - inside this tiny storage unit. I turn on my battery-powered camping light and look about at the jumble of packing cartons and upside-down furniture and slowly come to my senses. I am not living in a storage unit. How can anyone call this living?

My irrational fear subsides. I switch off the light and descend once more into the abyss. I breathe deeply, and enter a meditative Zen-like state. Gradually i become at one with the mystics and ascetics, and my situation suddenly becomes clear. An all-encompassing Wisdom embraces me in its crystalline presence.

Fuck it, i think. Six hundred years from now, who'll give a rats?

I think vaguely about throwing the ham javelin for a while, but decide i really can't be bothered. I roll over and go back to sleep.



Xena The Warrior Princess lays her sword on the table and pours me another shot of tequila. I look deep into her eyes as i raise my glass. The worms are fast approaching. Yes, worms - plural. Count them, as they lie innocuously at the bottom of this elegantly shaped vessel: two worms. Now i'm not sure if the collective noun for worms is a clew of worms, a knot of worms, or simply a wiggle of worms, and to be honest i don't particularly want to open that can - I just wish to make the point that having two worms at the bottom of a bottle of Mezcal is such a tremendous idea, especially if you are drinking with a Warrior Princess. Mexicans are just so incredibly clever when it comes to alcohol. Corona with lemon is, without a doubt, the best beer beverage this side of Bavaria - and now just take a look at this Mezcal. Its warm yellow colour is a benevolent golden fire in your gullet. Just wrap your laughing gear around that for a minute and try to tell me it is not a brilliant concoction...

(Besides, i'm pretty sure that if i put any one of you lot, my trusty readers, into a sombrero, and dropped you in the middle of the Great Chihuahuan Desert with an agave plant and an empty bottle, i'd bet a bongo to a bucket you simply would not be able to come up with the goods. My average blog reader would have not a sorry inkling of how distil tequila from a plant. And there is a simple explanation for this: most of my blog readers are not Mexican.)

... and now the Mexicans have given us Mezcal For Lovers. Now, just because this bottle i share with Xena The Warrior Princess has 'for lovers' written upon it, let us not jump to any hasty conclusions ...

(But oh, the ironies and vagaries of Fate. After describing, in my last post, the arts and crafts of the Denmark Easter Markets as, and i quote, "the most inane, inept and pointless arts and crafts you can possibly imagine", the Art Director is now sharing worms with one of the aforementioned arty and crafty artists of the Denmark Easter Markets. Who has expressed an interest in reading my blog. Uh oh. Oops a daisy. Life is a cosmic Hills Hoist.)

... Xena the Warrior Princess, aka Sarah Toa, licks salt from the webbing between her thumb and forefinger, and downs her tequila. I do likewise. Darth Vader and Princess Leia are tucking into the French onion dip, while Arthur Dent, resplendent in his dressing gown, accompanies the bluegrass band on mandolin. I am wearing a silver helmet with a rotating disco ball on top, and carry a cosmic death ray, which doubles as a lighter. I am, as my faithful readers are no doubt well aware, an alien. Sucking down the last traces of the glorious tequila, i have the slice of lemon wedged firmly between my teeth, its bright yellow rind facing outwards. I turn and come suddenly face-to-face with a newcomer to the party, who looks startled. I pull the lemon from my mouth.

"Oh," he says. "I thought that was the best part of your costume."

At this moment a huge chocolate cake is brought forth as the motley assortment of space cadets sing 'Happy Birthday to Duncan You Old Bastard'. As things have transpired, this humdinger of a shindig, held at the Mud Brick Recording Studio in the wild backwoods of Albany, is a 50th for Duncan Moon. Mister Moon is the charismatic and comedic Welsh sculptor I first met but a few weeks ago, at the Ice Bar at Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe. He blows out the candles to a round of cheers, then holds up his hand for quiet.



As the crowd quietens, he addresses them with obvious warmth and affection, standing there in the soft firelight on this crystal-clear Southern Ocean night.

Mister Moon is wearing an airman's leather cap, with some kind of aluminium antenna protruding from the side, and a long silver cloak. "Since coming here to Australia, many years ago, i have been shown nothing but open-hearted goodness, from you, my dearest and closest friends," Mister Moon says.

"Good, now fuck off back to Wales," comes a voice.

"I just want to take this opportunity to thank you all for the infinite generosity and kindness you have shown, and for putting on this fabulous party for me here tonight, and for this," he looks down at the chocolate cake, "beautiful cake."

A pause. Then Mister Moon suddenly and forcefully plants his face firmly into the centre of his birthday cake, coming up with his hands full of the rich, chocolatey mixture, which he proceeds to pelt at partygoers, myself included. The Warrior Princess leaps unafraid into the fray, grabbing globs of cake flinging it at Mister Moon and other sundry parties. Pandemonium ensues. The Rabbit From Donnie Darko stares at me like a rabbit caught in the headlights. "Cake fight," he says, at grave risk of pronouncing the bleeding obvious. He cops a slice of chocolate sponge between his ears.

Dear readers, things are warming up down here on the Southern Ocean.

Now remind me to recount the story of my visit to the nudist beach with the lovely Sarah Toa ...



Ah, tequila.