Toe Lessons.

I originally took photographs to accompany this blog entry, but after viewing them again have decided to withhold the images in the name of good taste and the public interest. Dr Prisonsongbaby is in New York City so, functionally speaking, I'm a single dad.

The boys awoke today at 5am and I blearily went to the toilet, swung the door open, and caught the top of my foot under the door. I'd swung it with such force that I actually tore a toenail off - the nail of the toe next to the big toe (does it have a name? Are you eating? Stop reading) on the left foot. For the next ten or so minutes I bled a lot – far more indeed than I might have expected. I probably didn't help matters by seizing the nail, which hung on merely by threads of skin at the quick, and tugged at it, trying to pull it off. With blood all over my hands and the bathroom floor, and the nail still attached - although now upright - I began to feel a bit woozy.

I moved to the kitchen to lie down on the slate - but before I could lower myself fully I passed out, smashing my head on the tiles. Then my head started to bleed. Oblivious to it all, the boys sat on the couch, looking at their books. I lay on the ground and collected myself for ten or so minutes. I dressed my wounds, cleaned the bathroom and the small amount of blood off the tiles in the kitchen and put on Day Clothes.

The boys then requested the song "Roundabout" by 70s prog rock band Yes. They're big on Yes at the moment. I retrieved the CD from the car and placed it outside on a table. It was a lovely day and I looked up and admired two magpies frolicking in the fig tree. "It's not so bad, this life," I thought. And then one of the magpies shat on the CD - not the case, the actual CD.

So what lessons have I learned? And what can you draw from my experience?

I'm not going to answer that right now. But I will.

Nice Canada.

I'm writing this from Canada. I'm due to give a paper on Sunday morning at the University of Ottawa. I love Ottawa. The city must have the highest proportion of blondes outside of Norway and the highest number of cyclists outside of China. Everyone seems to have a tan, although - given the weather - I'm not sure where they get it from. There are also about five churches within spitting distance of my hotel on the Rue Elgin, so there's plenty of space to pray if I feel the need. It's not a hostile environment, though, and so it's unlikely that I'll need to enlist any divine support while I'm here. Everybody in Ottawa seems fit, happy, and polite. 

On Wednesday I met a blind guy while we were both waiting to cross the road. I offered assistance and he gently hit back. He first thanked me and then, very politely, said that he was capable of crossing roads. I defended myself - and added that I probably wasn't a good guide anyway, as I'd been hit by a number of cars over the years. He was on his lunch break and we ended up having coffee at Starbucks. He studied philosophy at Laurentian Uni and then international development at Oxford and now works for the Canadian government as a lawyer. He was, as expected, overwhelmingly positive, cheerful, well-humoured, intelligent, and courteous. Indeed, in that forty-five minutes he did everything he could to make me feel welcome, short of giving me cash and making love to me. He was Canada without the adventure sports. 

I don't really want to labour the point - and I know I'm playing into a cultural cliche - but Canadians often seem so happy that they sing to you, rather than just speak, sometimes with incredible pitch variations. Depending on a person's Relative Joy Quotient, their sentences often finish with a kind of soprano waver. Even the men here do this. An enormous guy in a bookstore must have covered three octaves just saying good morning to me today. I felt like applauding. Initially at least I thought that perhaps all this goodwill was class-related, but now I'm not so sure. The niceness is fairly democratically spread: rather than wolf-whistle at her, yesterday I witnessed a construction worker tip his hardhat at an attractive woman and say "Afternoon ma'am." 

Another piece of evidence: I met my first Canadian heroin addict this morning - also probably schizophrenic. She was wearing no socks but a pressed, collared shirt. (I'm sure she would have thought that Australian junkies, with their tracksuited attire, look slovenly. Or perhaps she'd be very generous about it, and attribute to a generic "Australian athleticism." Actually, that's more likely.) At first she looked like she was going to walk right past, but suddenly angled in like someone had pushed her towards me. Suddenly standing much too close, and talking straight into my chest as if it were an intercom system, she asked me if she could buy a cigarette. Unfortunately, I'd only brought down one from my room. I said I could go up and get one for her if she wanted.

"No, no problem. That's OK. You from round here, hey?"
"No, actually - I'm just visiting here."
"Where from?"
"Australia."
"Australia, hey. Visiting family?"
"No, I'm going to a conference."
"A conference, hey?"
"Yes."
"I see. A conference. Wow. How long you staying?"
"Five days. I leave on Sunday."
"Well, enjoy your stay here, hey. Have a look around. Welcome to Canada."

With her eyes darting around and her body jerking, she swiveled 45 degrees, waved goodbye to the tree next to me and fell away down the street in pursuit of the cigarette. I saw her again a couple of hours later, in town, with her boyfriend. (I knew I didn't stand a chance with her anyway.) I stood behind the two of them on an escalator; the guy sang a few bars of Aerosmith's "Love in an Elevator" (- yes, I know, he should have changed the lyrics) and they open-mouth kissed, lips improbably pared back, tongues sliding around each other like warring slugs. Very touching. Heroin brings people together. Even in Canada. Lovely Canada.

Amateurs.

I've been writing a lot over the last few days. Almost all the time, actually - day and night. This kind of thing doesn't happen very often - about once every couple of years. Today I arrived at work late, but planned on making up for it with another burst of writing in the evening. I was relieved that office hours were over and the risk of things like people just walking into my office were therefore virtually eliminated. I use the adverb "virtually" advisedly.

At just after 7pm, a security guard entered my building, doing his rounds. I sort of know him - and sort of know that he sort of plays the guitar. Yesterday I took my own acoustic guitar in to the office to provide me with a safe and easy diversion: I write "funny" songs on it when I want a break from my "serious" work. He saw it.

"Guitar? You brought your guitar in?"

"Yes."

He didn't actually ask if he could play it. We smiled and exchanged guitarist's nods, which effectively gave him the go ahead. He stopped momentarily and apologised for one of his fingernails. It had been hanging off, getting caught on clothing. He cut it today; it might affect his playing, though.

"I'm sure you'll be fine."

He picked up the guitar and sat down.

"What kind of guitar is this?"

"It's a Maton."

"What model?" he inquired.

"I don't know, it's um..."

"Where's the pickup?"

"I'm not sure."

"Oh, it's on the bridge."

"Oh yeah, that's right."

"Hang on, no it isn't. It's inside somewhere."

He strums it, then winces.

"It needs a bit of a tune."

"Yeah, I know. [And let me just say again how sorry I was to hear about your nail.]"

He started playing. For the next twenty-five minutes he played almost non-stop, each segue invariably punctuated with a question, asked by him of both of us: "What's the name of that one?"

Me: I don't know.

Him: Oh yeah, that's right, it's My Funny Valentine.

Me: Right, of course.

Only at one point did I know what he was playing. I actually joined in and quietly sang Honey Pie. I kept singing it a little after he'd stopped to make my point.

Him: What's that you're singing?

Me: Honey Pie. You were playing Honey Pie, right?

Him: No, Blue Moon. They sound similar, though, don't they? Honey Pie actually goes like this...

He played Honey Pie, The Boy from Ipanema, and Caravan - and gave scary impersonations of Scotty Moore and Merle Travis. In short, he was spectacular - a shockingly good musician. The problem was that he couldn't stop. At the start I was smiling at him and the guitar as he played; by the end I was staring morbidly at the wall, motionless. He kept going. I announced that I needed to eat some dinner, took a tin of salmon and two slices of bread from my cupboard. I went to the staff kitchen, made a sandwich, put it on a plate and returned. I then ate the sandwich. Still he played.

Him: What's that one called again?

Me: Khe Sahn.

Him: No...what is it?

Me: [Silence]

Him: I can't remember.

Me: [Silence]

Him: Oh, that's right, All the Things You Are.

Great tune - beautifully played. Robert, I hate to say it, but all good parties have to come to an end. I've got to do some work.

Yeah, I've got to go too - I'm late.

He went to hand me my guitar, but I motioned for him to put it on the other side of the room -to lean it against one of my "consultation" chairs. I wasn't going to play after that. Or perhaps ever.

Chris, we'll have to have a jam.

Yes we must.

I'll bring my guitar in to work and we can jam in your office.

Marvellous.

I'll announce it here if we do.

Where Were They Then?

On Tuesday this week I sat in a coffee shop and picked up a magazine and read a thoughtful, extended retrospective on a band called Captain Beyond. By the time I got to a discussion of their seemingly limitless number of former drummers (one improbably named "Brian Glasscock") I couldn't shake the feeling that the whole thing was being made up by the writer: Captain Beyond never existed and neither did the 847 former members of the band. Later I investigated and found out that they did indeed exist. Even the 1999 (Swedish-release) tribute album to the band, Thousand Days of Yesterday, existed.

I thought it might be a good opportunity here to construct a series of retrospectives on bands that never existed but could have (unlike Captain Beyond, who did exist but probably didn't need to):

Retrospective: Pax Dukey
Until his 1972 song “I Hate My Father, Even Though He’s Dead” came out, most people hadn’t heard of Pax Dukey. Most people still haven't.

Retrospective: Exploding Cock
Seminal punk band Exploding Cock proved to be hugely influential on bands that were to follow them, but not on those bands that immediately followed them. Indeed, post-Cock bands like The Ballbags and Pubic Tube had nothing but contempt for Cock and the band’s many hangers-on. (The Tube’s vocalist Grotto Capri remarking that Exploding Cock were “unique in music history for their staunch advocacy of the shittest music yet made.” Cock-heads were undeterred – and later Pre-and Post-Slag bands (see ELECTRIC SLAG) often cited the Cock as an important influence on their music.

Even now, Exploding Cock tends to polarise people. Advocates of the band have long argued that the French nationality of their lead singer (Michéle LeCoq) have always put the band in a precarious state. When the Cock were hot, LeCoq was crowned “British Punk Queen,” but just like Marie Antoinette, when feeling for the band waned, one always suspected that LeCoq might be hauled off to the Revolutionary Tribunal. In the end, however, it was LeCoq herself who was charged with lopping off someone else’s head – her mother’s.

Conventional rehearsal and recording denied her, LeCoq embarked upon an intense period of spoken word performances, which her once cellmate Sharon Lukes described as “always sounding very intelligent.” Others thought it rubbish. But it was then Lukes’ turn to kill – this time, LeCoq’s father. Although appearing distraught, LeCoq was soon after charged with organising a homicide herself. Although the evidence against this former punk star looks, by most standards, very clear-cut, a movement has begun to protest her innocence. If the campaign to free her is successful, LeCoq promises to make another album, although not with former bandmates, as she says they’re “all stupid arseholes and bullshit artists.” Spoken like royalty.

Retrospective: O/S
O/S claim to be the first band in the world to have had a website. A heady mix of synth programming and a vision of the future that could be drawn straight from the pixellated poetry of Space Invaders and Pac Man, O/S claimed a lot of other things about themselves: that they were the “first techno band” (which they later modified to the “first real techno band”); the first to have a video-clip (which, presumably, was a joke); and the first to do a cover of a piece of classical music and have a big hit with it. (The flimsy basis of the last claim is O/S head-man Finbar Burke’s early involvement in a Dino-Music release of “Modern Pop Christmas Carols,” a TV-advertised family album that precedes Burke meeting Robbie Rengger, O/S programmer and co-founder.) Of all the claims, the one about being the first to have a website is probably the one closest to the truth – O/S are arguably the third Australian band to have their own website. This is, of course, still a considerable achievement.

O/S always proved themselves to be early adopters of technology. Before it was even released in Australia, Burke got his parents to order him an IntelliVision computer games console and the steering wheel for the Indy500 racing game. Critics said that the band were highly immature – themselves trapped in their own pre-pubescent techno-science fantasies and game-scenarios. Burke and Rengger responded to the charges in different ways. Burke was fond of saying to such critics “I know you are. But what am I?” and Rengger warned them that “such statements” didn’t “put them in the most advantageous position when the Machine Uprising comes.”

But O/S’s detailed visions are more mature than the simple fantasies of pimply boys. The liner notes to O/S’s albums contain precise, almost angular, proclamations about man-machine hybrids and the redundancy of all “interface technology.” At the height of their powers, drawing on a sceptical – but increasingly intrigued – American public, O/S released Burn the Interface in 1992. Released to a capacity crowd at the Three Level Kitchen in New York, O/S were forced to stop their performance after only eleven minutes because of persistent mouse problems. Afterwards, a belligerent Burke said the failure “just proved his point” and “that none of this would have happened if I could have controlled the sequencer with my brain.”

Burke and Rengger haven’t made music together since 1996 and haven’t released an album since 1993. Burke has led the life of a recluse since. Of independent wealth before becoming involved in music, he has been spotted working for his living – driving cabs in the Sydney metropolitan area. After a brief return to high school teaching, Rengger soon took a job as a policy advisor in Creative Industries in Farklin’s state Labour Government. Asked about his former colleague, Rengger says “I hope I’m wrong, but I fear that Robbie has lost his strategic direction, and desperately needs to clarify his values, moving forward.” Asked whether Burke’s silence distressed him, Rengger simply said “I manage.” The book is not closed on this one. Or let’s hope not.

Retrospective: Euphoria
As huge as they were at their peak, Euphoria weren’t widely-known outside Europe, although that situation is starting to change. Euphoria were arguably the most influential German soft metal band of their generation, a brilliant and blinding flash of hair and latex that, amongst other things, shared the stage with Saxon and The Scorpions at the now-infamous 1983 Donnington Monsters of Rock festival in 1983. They also had an international hit with the song “(Now Is) Time for the Birds of Freedom” – a surprise hit in Eastern Germany. Indeed, this song was itself arguably the biggest single factor contributing to the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. But it would take more than a single song for state socialism as a whole to collapse. The demise of the communist states in East Europe was the result of a handful of the band’s songs, including a number of tracks from their seminal album “Euphoria: Live at the Gdansk People’s Arena.” Some now think that it is this album alone that precipitated wholesale political change in soviet Hungary and Romania.

However, for reasons still unclear, the band’s lead singer, Hans Schrift, fled his hometown of Duisburg and became – it is now confirmed – a mercenary fighting for the highest bidder in numerous civil wars and bloody internecine conflicts in sub-saharan Africa. He was killed, strangely, not by enemy hands, but his own: Schrift, we have learned, inadvertently decapitated himself with a machete while preparing a local staple called “Tjinywe” (authentic pronunciation demands that a popping sound precede the “T”). Local militia reported at the time that the death was “not suspicious in the least” and “had nothing to do with the police.”

But that is small comfort in the end. Corruption or not, world metal lost one of its great leaders on that day in 1993. Flawed, of course – but what geniuses aren’t? Schrift once said in an interview on Top of the Pops that he “loved democracy and the memory of his mother’s breasts” (he explained later that his poor English expression didn’t capture his point, which was about being nurtured and “washed in the dirt” of his “mummy country”). But is this proclamation – however awkward – consistent with both the champion of democratic reform and the actions of a Soldier of Fortune? Who can say? Perhaps the thing is not to attempt to resolve the contradictions inherent in the person, but simply to let them be there, and let his art speak for itself:

“I’m like an eagle coming home again,
With lots of food to eat.
I love our babies – and the way that we made them.
You’re a horny animal,
Desperate for me – like the world is for
Freedom.”
 - Hans Schrift, lyrics to “Make Children, Not War.”

Conversation Stalking

On Saturday I took the boys to Sydney Park, a large section of which has been converted into an "environmentally friendly" children's playground. It's like the water conservation technologies and whale-friendly slides are still trying to cover over the formaldehyde and dioxin which surely still sit only metres beneath the bark.

The boys quickly decided that they wanted to play in the sandpits and I obliged. While they were entertaining themselves - largely through a game I'll call "Running and Falling Over Safely" - I overheard a conversation taking place about ten metres away. Two fathers, who had obviously just met, were talking about the Easter Show with some verve and wit, shuttling effortlessly between good natured-humour and rye skepticism. They ventured some interesting observations about the child psychology of rides and I found myself quickly wanting to weigh in - to offer some crucial distinctions between those kinds of rides that spin around and those go quickly in one direction, as I feel they require different dispositions and perhaps even types of courage. Then, with a segue worthy of Frank Zappa - simultaneously graceful and surreal - they moved onto scientific calculators and what had changed about them in the last ten years. It was almost irresistible; I wanted to be included - but it was hard to justify my move across to join in.

Within minutes, however, they broke up. The guy who I judged to be the more interesting of the two excused himself and wandered off. This would have made it easier to chat to the high-school physics teacher, but I had my eye on Interesting Guy and he had gone. I asked a leading question of the Sol and Dom: "Do you boys want to do something else?" When they're not mechanically contrarian, children are highly suggestible. I eyed my target across the way, at the base of the slides. "How about the slides?" "Yeahhhhh!" But as soon as we left the sandpit enclosure, Solly darted off to look at himself in the bendy mirrors. Foiled. "Dom, do you still want to go on the slides?" "Yessss! Sliiiii!" Dom and I began to wander towards the slides, but about half-way there, Interesting Guy again shifted position, now moving in the direction of Sol and the funny mirrors. "Dom. Where's Solly?" Dom saw Sol over by the bendy mirrors and began running at him. With Dom's pace, we'd beat Interesting Guy there - and so would avoid having to make the approach. Interesting Guy stopped, in fact, just near the bendy mirrors - his boy wanted to spin around on...a Spinning Around Pole Thing. The distance between us wasn't great, but it was still too far to "chat." If I already knew him I'd be able to call out a few things, but it's not the way you start an adult relationship in a playground. Dom, however, began to walk over in the direction of Interesting Guy.

It looked set. I checked myself in a bendy mirror. My head appeared enormous, but perhaps this would be seen by him as a sign of intelligence. But again, disaster. Without warning, Interesting Guy left once once more. This time I'd had enough of his toying with my affections and so I decided to give up. It was just too humiliating, and maybe he might even think I was stalking him. After a while I looked up and noticed that he'd gone back to the sandpits, to see his old flame, the maths teacher. Tart. If he couldn't see my conversational value, then that was his problem, not mine; I didn't want him, or his interesting conversation.

After about half an hour of distorting ourselves in mirrors (during which most of the time I appeared small and insignificant), Solly made an announcement: "I want to play on the bridge." OK - the bridge. We started heading over and who should we see at the top of the hill near the bridge? Right. Interesting Guy. I couldn't get my hopes up, though - he'd hurt me too much already. I hung off to the side of the hill, playing hard to get, adjusting children's clothing and applying sunscreen. When he looked towards me I coyly looked away. Eventually, contact was forced. Dom decided that he was going to climb the hill to get onto the bridge and this would require some parental supervision. Eventually I was standing almost by his side, looking at our kids and occasionally giving him a smile. His own two children were racing, with the bridge serving as part of their course. As they approached they were pushing each other out of the way. Interesting Guy gently - but firmly - intoned: "Hey, be nice." The boy gave way and then the girl shot past him on the bridge. The boy, now aggrieved, called out, "Hey!" Here was my opportunity.

Smiling at his kids - or perhaps even "Kids-in-General" - I offered. "Nice guys finish last!" He smiled, or rather winced, back at me and said "C'mon kids, it's time to go. We've got to go see Aunty Millie." Yeah right. I bet they don't even have an Aunty Millie. And it was a joke.

Dr Prisonsong baby later suggested that my relentless pursuit combined with my tight pink t-shirt might have suggested a homosexual advance. If so, I'm kicking myself. I can't believe I fell for a homophobe.

Dentistry

On Wednesday, Dr Prisonsongbaby (Dr P) and I went to a periodontist in Market Street, dragging Solly and Dom along with us. Our mouths were a disaster - and half of them still are. (Scalar root planing is fairly intense and so the good Dr C only did half of his work - concentrating on just the left sides of our mouths). The number of needles required to complete the process without toe-curling pain was five for Dr P and four for me, with Dr P lucky to even get a big shiny silver spine straight into the roof of her mouth. That must have been special.

The result was that we left the Market Street surgery mid-morning looking less like dental victims than stroke victims - with the left sides of our faces falling off like Dali's clocks. Dr P actually suggested that we looked like we'd actually met at a Young Stroke Victim Support Network and had later started a family together. Every time I tried to say a word beginning with "S" my mouth made a farting sound. The producers of Australian Story would have loved it.

To understand dentistry, forget the high grades, white coats, and city addresses. Dentistry is a trade. Our periodontist has good postgraduate qualifications in dental medicine - but, more importantly, lots of shiny metal tools and a pair of extraordinarily strong wrists. There's something incongruous about it all - a branch of medicine in the twenty-first century that actually looks like dentistry does. It doesn't take a massive leap of historical imagination - if we discounted, of course, the advanced degrees and a working knowledge of anaesthetics - to realise that dentistry retains much of it barbershop origins. 

Dr C sharpened his scraper on his scraper sharpener, planted the saliva sucker, and just got in there and filed and chiseled for around forty minutes. He didn't even fill. He was red and huffing by the end of this exquisite and well-credentialled pounding of my face.

"That might have been quite tiring but it's over now," he said.

"Actually, it looks kinda tiring for you."

"It is - it's exhausting, actually."

He let out a long sigh.

I wouldn't encourage you to feel pity for him. This is certainly not the moral of the blog: "feel sorry for dentists." We gave him more than $1000 bucks to go ahead with the ordeal. I doubt he'd still be so committed to the health of people's teeth and gums if it was him who was paying for the operations. 

A stupid point to finish on, no doubt.

The God of Small Things

The title of this week's blog is apt to mislead. It is not about Arundhati Roy's Booker Prize winning novel - or indeed about anything so worthy and refined. Indeed, if you are a small child (or even a large one), I'd recommend you stop reading now and get together with your friends and do something useful - like give another English word an alternate meaning that will be sure to confuse adults. (I was told this week by my students that "hectic" now means "good." I still don't believe them.) So...go run along.

Enough delays - let us begin.

When I was younger, a girl (a "young woman"?) asked me to her year 10 formal. No girl had ever even asked for so much as a potato chip from me, so I said yes. The day arrived, I showered, dressed, stuck on my cummerbund, and applied generous amounts of Brut 33. Before we were to depart she said she needed to "use the bathroom." D. disappeared behind the bathroom door while I chatted awkwardly to her parents, most likely about the rain and school and where I was going to find a park. Then without warning, a noise came from behind the door reminiscent of the one that a tennis player makes while serving - an "effort noise" if you will. I'm not sure if I grimaced,  but her parents continued on as if everything was just the same as it had been only moments before. It wasn't. I'm ashamed to admit that I no longer wanted to go to the formal with her any more. I'm not proud of my reaction; I'm not even sure I quite understand it. My son can go to the toilet and carry on a full conversation about Batman through the whole process, with his voice wavering at various stages of the process. (OK - I warned you. There's still time to stop.) 

But things were different in 1986. D. even looked different coming out of that bathroom - and I don't just mean lighter. I didn't "fancy" her, and yet she was a different woman emerging from that bathroom to the one that entered it. Did I want something more radical perhaps? A friend's mother once managed to somehow sustain a fart all the while walking through a large-sized room: a textbook rasberry, the blast began before she entered the room and was still hissing and flapping wildly at us as she left; what's more, she even managed to chastise G. about his room on the way through, just for good measure. An original multitasker. If anything, G. and I were shocked and awed - and perhaps even had more respect for her after this display of virtuosity and chutzpah. But with respect to D. I wanted to go home.

What is it about certain small things in certain places that destroy everything for us? I recall once arguing with a school friend about religion while he had a piece of beetroot stuck to his cheek. The small piece of vegetable matter somehow managed to destroy his credibility for me in ways that, even now, I find difficult to account for. Part of this is surely just a matter of attention. I couldn't put the little purple sliver out of my mind; and yet it was more than simply a matter of being distracted. Something that reframed his whole personality - sort of like a negation at the end of a sentence that inverts the whole meaning of what preceded it - like "I think that of all the people I know you have to be the greatest [long pause] at stupidity." Beetroot isn't a phoneme and faces aren't, strictly speaking, syntactic - but the analogy at least reassures me that there's some meaning to my prejudice, even if I can't quite articulate it myself.