Down Under

Wed - August 4, 2004

The Long Grey Night of the Soul

Wherein our narrator 'fesses up. Finally.

There have not, for several months, been many entries in this blog. Really, only one, a humorous little ditty that I wrote basically to keep myself focused and out of an all-too-real panic attack due to an unforeseen caffeine overdose.

Why, you may well ask.

And so you might.

And this entry I've tossed over time and time again, but I've never written it. Never knew if I wanted to write it.

Only it started coming out of me. In the oddest ways.

I dreamt of writing a novel, "Half the World," thinly disguised autobiography, about a man who travels across half the world to flee himself, his actions, his broken heart.

And toyed with the idea. And sent myself a little note the other day, a bit to close to the core of the matter:

Subject: Theorem

You can reinvent yourself only up to the limit of what you’re willing to leave behind.

***

And so it goes. Because it's sitting right out there on the surface, right there, right out in the open.

I am unhappy.

And I am not unhappy because of where I am in the world. Sydney is wonderful - though it is mid-Winter, and that's less enjoyable than I might have it, it doesn't really suck at all - and my work is interesting, if somewhat draining.

But it isn't enough. And it isn't going to ever be enough. Because now I've thought about it enough, and I know it's not enough. It's not the moment of resignation. It's the moment of revelation.

I'm heartbroken because I'm still in love. And I haven't stopped being in love, not for a moment. Not ever.

On the 4th of July last year, on a rooftop in Santa Monica, after an afternoon of drinking and a little light pot smoking, one of my friends, perceptive in that witchy-sort-of-hit-the-nail-on-the-head-by-accident sort of way, said, "I bet you go crazy and break their hearts." Or words to that effect.

And it's true. And I couldn't answer her then, because i couldn't answer myself.

How can you look back on the one moment in your life which fucked everything up, and see it, and see yourself doing it, over and over again, and only understand that it was stupidity and rage and brokenness which brought you to it?

I may be a romantic, but I'm not a sentimental sort, nor am I terrifically nostalgic. Things happen, and I move on.

But somehow, I'm not able to move beyond this. The wound is still there. And it's still as fresh as the day it happened. And it's time I owned up to it.

Because whatever I was looking for here - most likely, a replacement, something to staunch the bleeding from the wound - is the one thing I'll never find.

Because I don't want to find it.

I don't want to turn the clock back. Well, not much. I don't want the past to be undone. Well, not much.

What I want is the only man I've ever really loved. I want him back. Desperately. Even if he is 13,000 km away. Because distance doesn't matter.

And I have felt this wound, from time to time, when thinking about what I am doing here, and why I am here, and how long I'll be here, and whatever made me come here. Certainty, mostly. I needed space, and money, and time to think.

Well, I've had plenty of each of those. More than enough, really.

And today the other shoe drops, as my mail client choked on a 4 MB enclosure:

Hi Mark-

I hope Australia is treating you well. How is the new program, have you got
things whipped into shape. I love getting the Yeschaton emails, which at
least paints the picture that you are doing well.

Me? I've been great. I love the time that school is allowing me, and
evidently the time to make work is paying off. I had my first piece in a
museum over the summer (a sound piece in the Musee d'art Modern de la ville
de Paris) and I'll be putting another up in LACMA in November. So that is
all going really well. Now I'm beginning to think about getting a real job
and start experimenting with prefab architecture so I can really afford a
home in LA...but that's a different story....

Right now I'm working on an experimental radio station project. The
schematic for the idea is attached, as well as the preliminary press release
from the space. Check it out.

I've been trying to organize a series of science features of scientists and
artists presenting their work- and I kept thinking of you- and specifically
becoming transhuman. Would you be interested in producing a radio show? It
would be new or old, massive of small. Let me know what you think.

Xoxo
Jeff

***

And god that pain is so fresh. It makes me double over inside. I want to call him and ask him how he's doing, all the time subtly fishing around, wondering if he's got a boyfriend. I want to know that he's free again, so I can get on my knees and beg and plead and sweep him off his feet again. I want to know that there is still a place, somewhere, in his heart, for me. His heart, which I broke so perfectly, so precisely, so completely, only because I wanted to break my own.

There is no getting around this. This is this. The point of it all, the reason for being. And I know that now because I've removed all of the other factors, of place, of stress, of time, reduced myself to the basics of who and what I am. And this remains.

This remains.

Posted at 08:34 PM

Sun - July 11, 2004

Warning Signs

Wherein our narrator does a little profiling...

The trails are all shut down today, work on the downtown loop. So I'm taking the friendly 288 all the way to AFTRS, which, given it is Sunday, makes for a nice quick trip.

Jefferey Dahmer Story. Gothish friend, probably his partner.

This is how serial killers begin.

Posted at 10:50 AM

Wed - June 23, 2004

Overdose

In which our narrator really overdoes it.

Oh man oh man oh man am i gonna have a panic attack a heart attack a seizure are the lights getting all fuzzy what is this fire in my chest it feels so overwhelming or maybe the tibetan tohnkas coming to the fore knocking around in my head and giving me a drive to ESCAPE to burst the protoplasmic sack and escape in gnostic freedom into something unconstrained uncontained unbounded like Masha said in her email yesterday where she was lusting to become containerless and i said hey baby it may be a container but it's also the vehicle of evolution no container no capacity to accept the slings and arrows of life's fortunes which smooth the stone and make more perfect the square that's Duncan's ritual all out there in the open but she's missing serge and wants to join him in his busted bus dead heaven and hey who am i to stop her she who is pope and who has spoken to the aliens in her ayahuasca tourism who knows that tomorrow won't be terribly different from today unless she is somehow utterly changed and perhaps that final consummation is devoutly to be wished but here it is safe in my safe island home they sound different but feel profoundly the same just as alienated as alienating and when i find myself gabbing away with a roomful of north americans as has happened once or twice in the past week i begin to understand the lure of the voice, of the power of talking to someone who has a fundamental understanding of home or so they announce with every word they speak but well things are calming down now perhaps the train ride home or the Wilco ghost is born or perhaps because the drugs are finally wearing off as we cross the Paramatta and the sunset hides behind a huge cloud bank and i think, hey, maybe rain and maybe the drought will stop and i'll imagine that it will be alright to stay that i haven't arrived in a land just about to die but how different really is it than california with its lowest rainfalls in a hundred years and perhaps those last hundred were a blip an aberration amidst a longer cycle of pure and uninterrupted drought which is a chilling thought because then neither of my adopted homes has any future and there is no going backward no way to crawl back into the womb as suggested by that piece at the MCA a man crawling through a tight slit of carpet into the space between floor below and carpet above all snug and kicking free and it's better yes i don't feel as though death is necessarily imminent but i promise myself again yet again that i will not do this to myself again that this is more than i ever asked for even as i tempted fate and somehow called for the worst to happen but didn't really remember for whatever reason that if i play with fire i get burned and for god's sakes man you're already burning brighter than a thousand stars so you really need to pour gasoline on that?

Man - I've gotta stop drinking coffee.

Posted at 04:37 PM

Thu - April 22, 2004

All Apologies

Wherein our narrator says he's sorry.

Today was designated as "Programming Day". Meaning that I was to commune with Renderware - something I haven't done since 1993 - in search of some answers to technical questions which had been posed by various folks in digital media. I'd gotten clearance from Peter to do the work, and dealt with the normal process of getting the tools, getting them installed, testing, then settling to work. Although I started at 9 AM, it was 3 PM before I could actually begin to test anything. Such are the ways of programming.

I had disclaimed - freely - that I could not be disturbed during this process. Not because I was so precious, but because the programming mindset meant that I wasn't liable to be very sweet when disturbed. It's an enormously complex task involving fairly prodigious use of the memory, and interruptions disrupt that gentle collection of short-term memory needed to be an effective programmer.

So of course today is the day when everyone decided to call, or IM, or drop by the office. By 11 AM I was snarling at anyone who happened to stick their neck in, and my office felt like Grand Central Station. So of course I spent a fair amount of time running about and apologizing afterward. But hey, some of them had been warned.

Anyway, it's good to do a little programming every once in a while. It keeps me honest.

And now, I realize, I have to master Flash. Which is so overdue.

Posted at 05:05 PM

Wed - April 14, 2004

Queer Jungle Supermind

Wherein our author has an epiphany of mixes and beats.

Saturday evening - or, more precisely, very shortly after Easter Sunday began - with friends Chris, John and Lionel (the last two of whom seem to be turning into very fine friends indeed) - I got into a taxi and rode over to Kensington, which isn't all that far away - just a few Ks down the Anzac Parade - to a weird little restaurant known as the Grotto Capri. The Grotto Capri, it appears, is famed throughout Sydney for having a nautically-themed interior. And if you think that dining *inside* a coral reef is nautically-themed, well, baby, I have got the place for you. Stalagmites on the floor, and stalactites on the ceiling. (Or is that reversed?) All encrusted with an odd array of seashells, and some inset lighting in the floor, and supposedly, under glass, a stream. (We never saw it.) A few fishtanks. And so forth. It's the kind of place that a down-on-his-luck old-school Mafia don might pick for his headquarters, taking a corner booth, keeping himself protected by walls on two sides. That sort of place. It reminds me, in some ways, of the restaurants back in Massachusetts and Rhode Island - designed with the presumption of taste, and missing the mark by so wide a margin that it is immediately recognized and loved as kitsch.

I haven't had an opportunity to write about the Bad Dog party (grrr) I went to a few weeks back, which is a semi-monthly affair where the art-fag-queers-dykes-freaks of Sydney go out and dance to some fine music. On that afternoon at the Waverly Bowling Club I realized that I would have a place & time in Sydney - here, in my newly-adopted home - when I could cut loose. (Shirt off, of course.) I had a great time -- and wanted more. So when I saw John & Lionel on Friday afternoon - and got in my first swim at Bondi Beach (waves really too big to have fun, but that's something I'll get used to) - they mentioned that there was another party - "Evildoers" - which wasn't exactly a Bad Dog affair, but would be very much like one.

Sign me up, I said.

So we were not at the Grotto Capri to dine; we were there to dance. We got there shortly after midnight - fortunately, as it turned out - and took our time looking around at the strange decor, grabbed a drink or two, and waited for the mix. We didn't have long to wait. The two DJs - who are relatively well-known in Sydney - began to create a mix that I'd never heard before, taking jungle beats and the queerest of queer disco and slamming them together, like two overweight atoms only to happy to fuse into some super-heavy nucleus that gave off a shower good vibes. Queer jungle, I thought. This is it: I'm hearing something new.

It went on, and got better. There were moments when I felt myself opening up inside, and all of the happiness of yoga/alcohol/cannabis/ketamine/music/pretty-dancing-boys/smiles-on-the-faces/the-kitsch-surroundings took me into a transcendent space.

Flash back, now, to dinner with Rachel & Jeremy, earlier in the week. Rachel her normal ray-of-sunshine self, whinging about the slow death of civilization. Trouble is, she's smart enough that I can't easily coddle her with smooth words; she wants solutions. And even catastrophe, my final fallback solution to all problems, won't work for her. "Trouble is, Mark," she proclaimed, "the catastrophes never make anything better. They only make things worse."

Put that into your DMT pipe and smoke it.

And so, because she had saddled me with such a philosophical imponderable, I had no choice but to chew on it, ruminating about this and that, feeling the enclosing claustrophobic zeitgeist, and knowing that somehow, somewhere, there must be an exit.

Then, on the dance floor, in the midst of the mix, it all clicked: the opening is above, it is translinguistic, gnostic and experiential. It can't be bought or sold, it can't be recorded or reproduced. It has the absolute authenticity of the utterly ephemeral. It can not be touched, but it can touch you. In the humble surroundings of the Grotto Capri, the supermind was coming down to Earth and entering me, on that dance floor, filling me with the godshatter of ideas which I have only just begun to sort through. I know this: even in its articulation into the world of forms, it remains itself. Like the Tao, it can not be named, though its manifold forms can be observed, and their constant, changing glories keep the channel of communication open.

But I'll have to spend some more time dancing to understand it fully. Somehow the knowledge enters through the body - my body.

As is inevitably the case when breakthroughs happen, when you know that you're in the space where anything is possible - if only briefly - the police came and shut us down as an "illegal club" around 4 AM. All of us could have gone on till the 6 AM close - but this way we knew, beyond all doubt, that we had touched the magick beating heart of Sydney on Easter Morning, and, like Christ ejected from the tomb, walked the glittering pre-dawn streets back to our homes.

Posted at 05:36 PM

Thu - March 25, 2004

Your Kids and My Ass

Wherein our narrator catches us up with what's been going on.

So much, so very much transpired in the last week. On Saturday I had my first party in Sydney, a lovely 2-stage affair: after 4 PM for families with small children (Peter & Ann with Liam & Raphie, Shilo and James with Connor), after 7 PM for everyone else. When I threw Big & Viveka out at 3:15 AM, I pronounced the whole affair a complete success - people came, had a very good time, drank a whole lot of wine (but true to form, they left me with more alcohol than I started with, something that is a bit of an Australian tradition).

(My god. Mahler's 9th on the Train. It's like a revelation.)

So the weekend was mch consumed by preparing for and cleaning up after the party. But on Sunday brunch - I should have been dreadfully hungover, but wasn't, thankfully - I joined Rachel and Jeremy for lunch. If there is any person (besides Shilo) I have to thank for being in Sydney, it'd be Rachel. She took care of me in 1997 when Grant (a former boyfriend I was staying with) turned into a bitch-on-wheels when his own boyfriend broke up with him (because Grant was pathetically unable to keep it in his pants). Ah, she was so young then, single but shacked up with Jeremy, and making her way in the world, a path that led to San Francisco, and marriage, and their delightful year-old daughter, Claire Christmas, so named because her birthdate is 25/12/2002.

And an interesting point: this is the cross-over axis of two blogs - my own and Rachel's (www.yatima.org), and I wonder how each of us will come across in the other's.

But this is all so much obfuscation. Burying the lead, as Tony would say. I've met a lovely man. And this presents an enormous annoyance.

First: he violates the rule: never date someone with your own first name. So his name is Mark. He's tall & thin and forty years old. (Which, right there, marks him as different, because I do normally date much younger.) He's absolutely gorgeous, that is, with the most amazing eyes, that I can't really stop looking into, except that I really do stop looking into them pretty quickly because I feel myself falling, falling, falling every time I do.

(Do I sound like a goofy 16 yearl-old yet? I hope so.)

But here's the pisser: he's a resident of San Francisco, and although he's been in Australia very nearly the same length of time I have, he returns to California on the 5th of April - we'll actually cross paths in the airport in Auckland on that Monday afternoon. So he's got nine-days-and-counting left on his clock, and here we are each of us finding ourselves both irresistibly attracted to each other and really enjoying each other's company.

What to do? There are all sorts of issues to consider here. One of them is the three-date rule, another is the long-distance rule, another is the I-don't-want-it-to-get-weird rule. So many rules. But we talked about it, somewhat elliptically, somewhat plainly, last night, after a lovely dinner on Crown Street. We're both agreed that it's quite a shame that this is all coming to an end, and neither of us particularly wants to ruin it (or rather, have it get weird) by rushing the whole shagging thing. And as promiscuous as I may be from time to time (something that's only alluded to in this blog, because goodness knows who might be reading it) I don't like to handle my affairs of the heart in the same way.

Third, he's a Cancer. But I've decided not to hold that against him.

So here the two of us are, ready to throw ourselves at each other. But not doing it. Because we like each other enough not to do it. This makes sense if in a very Jane Austen-y sort of way. But when he goes home, he might never come back. We might never see each other again. And while I'm not so deeply emotionally involved that it'll just break my heart, it will hurt.

And then, besides all this, there's one other thing: my ass has disappeared. Evidentially the current phase of weight loss has been taking it most conspicuously off my backside. I looked into the mirror last week and said, "Where's my ass gone?" I now have a classic white-boy's ass, which is to say, it's hardly there at all - just enough to sit on, and very little more. That's good, because it was just all fat, but that's bad, too, because asses are sexy. I wonder if this is what women with small breasts feel like?

God, I'm being incredibly shallow. Oh well. Sometimes shallow is good.

Posted at 09:00 AM

Tue - March 16, 2004

You Need and You Need and You Need

Wherein our narrator muses on his own affability and being taken for a ride.

Yesterday morning I had a meeting with two lively fellows from New South Wales' State Development agency. You can think of them as business development executives, working on behalf of the state. All well and good, because one of them I'd met in a meeting during my June visit for XML 1, and the other, though new to me, was very focused. They want to promote a games industry in NSW - catching up to Victoria and Queensland, which have both put significant resources into such efforts, with at least modest successes.

I was allowed to pontificate about the state of things - this, I guess, was their price of admission - and after that we got down to nitty gritty. They asked me if I could help with a few things, to which I affably agreed. I want to help them - don't get me wrong - but this week is my busiest thus far at AFTRS, and I'll be teaching practically non-stop for the rest of the week. And some of these requests were for things that should have been handled *long ago* but have been left until just a few days before they need to be realized.

Specifically, they've asked me to find someone in California who would be willing to pimp NSW a bit at a barbecue thrown by the Australian Game Developer's Assn next week at their annual event in San Jose. What exactly do they want this person to do? I can't possibly tell you, because although a few names came to mind immediately - Coco and Kate, specifically -- I don't know what I can actually tell them about what NSW is looking for them to do at this event. In fact, I don't believe that the NSW folks know what they want to do.

Right now they're just needy, but they don't know what for. And, in my own opinion, they're as helpless as babies. I can give them some help, but there are numerous other demands on my time. And despite my desire to ingratiate myself with local officials - something that doubtless will help when I make an application for permanent residency - I can't help having the feeling that they're getting my help and advice for free. Free advice is all well and good, but I can assure you that free advice isn't valued very highly. If I were charging them $100 an hour for my time - which they couldn't afford to pay - then they'd be hanging on my every word.

But for now, I just have a list of TO DO items from these folks, and I'll do the best I can to check them off, one after another. I hope that I can be efficient,, helpful, clear and of service. And if I can't, well, I hope that it's not my planning that put them into this situation.

***

Tomorrow I'm teaching "DigiDoco" - that is, Digital Media for Documentary Filmmakers. I thought it was going to be a class of 4, but now it's up to 13 (at its peak on Thursday) and counting. In a room that really is only meant for ten folks at the most. It's going to be crammed, both with bodies and with information. If I do my work well, tomorrow they'll leave that room with their ears bleeding - figuratively at least. But it's interesting, because all through this weekend my mind was churning, churning, churning about this class, popping up in my dreams and whatnot, as a bit of a background process, which shows how important I must consider this. And it's true, I've been doing everything I can to prep myself for it. Most of this I can toss off quite easily, though some of it will involve some original thinking - on my own part - and some on the fly philosophizing.

Here's hoping. Meanwhile, I wait for a call from the aforesaid NSW State Development folks, so they can tell me what's up...

Posted at 04:58 PM

Fri - March 12, 2004

Tastes Like Victory

Wherein our narrator muses on fads and trends.

Somewhere in the period of time between 4 November and today the Atkins low-carbohydrate died reached some sort of tipping point in the mind of the English-speaking world. There are now tons of articles, discussion, diatribes, dissent about the diet. Restaurants are altering their menus. People are clucking their tongues, telling all these newly-thin people that they'll be dead of heart disease in just a few years.

So here we are, about 4 months after starting on the low-carbohydrate diet, and I'm as thin as I've been since at least 1989. That's 15 years folks. Back then, when I was just 26, I weighed - at my lowest - 178 pounds. My body seems optimized for that weight. Today I'm probably somewhere under 190, but I can't tell you exactly where, because I don't have ready access to a scale, nor would I care to weigh myself, even if I did. I know that my waist is somewhere under 34", and approaching 32". Which is really, honestly where I intend to stop.

But there's a problem: I've become addicted to being thin, to losing weight. I really don't want to stop. Yes, sometimes at 9 PM at night I'm practically going nuts, wanting some sweets. But then I just have some berries & cream with a bit of Splenda on top, and the craving goes away. Last night I ate a half pint of blueberries, which I did without the littlest bit of regret, because there's only about 7 grams of carbs in the whole lot of them. Not so bad. And certainly well within the tolerances for my body - which can easily handle at least 50 to 60 grams of carbs a day.

Furthermore, this diet seems to be healthy for me. We already know that it's stabilized my moods. But it seems that when I eat carb-rich meals, I get gassy. Now we all know that I have a tendency to be gassy, but that tendency has faded with the imposition of the low-carb diet. And if gas is a sign that my body isn't really digesting something (or having trouble digesting it) then I can see no reason to start eating carbs, and every reason to stay away from them.

You can criticize my diet, if you like, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And all this eating is making me thin and healthy. So tell me it's a fad, if you like, but I'm beginning to believe, at the dawn of the 21st century, we've figured out how to feed ourselves.

Posted at 09:19 AM

Tue - March 9, 2004

The Regular Swing

Wherein our narrator enjoys a brief holiday on the surface of the Sun.

Yes, I did get up at 4:15 AM this morning. Yes, I did my yoga. And put in most of a full day of work. I'm such a good do-bee, I'll probably get a gold star.

I watched the mercury climb, climb, climb during the day. Nic and I ate lunch on the veranda, and she said, "This weather - this is like Perth." I said, nah, it's too humid. Not warm enough. Well I was hilariously wrong: the humidity's only at 25%, but the mercury is getting up near to 40 degrees. (That's 102 for the metrically-impaired. Or thereabouts.)

Last week I was bitching where had Summer gone? Well, it's back, and with a vengance. If it had been like this on Mardi Gras, I really would have been pissed, because it would have been perfect party weather, and I'd have been missing it. Now at least I get my summer back. Yay! And I can go for a nice nighttime swim in the pool this evening, just the thing to take the edge off. Whee.

It's getting on towards evening now (well, late arvo, at least) and I'm on the train back to Central Station from Epping, typing away on my iBook, writing another blog entry. This feels right, because this is the rhythm that I established when I first came to Sydney, nearly five months ago. It just feels like I'm back into the regular swing of things. Even though I woke up this morning in Adelaide, and took a 1200 km plane flight to get back here in time for work (arriving only an hour late).

And perhaps that's the lesson here: I do enjoy being a jet-setter, being invited hither and yon to dispense advice, provide inspiration, But I really do need that home base to return to, that place called home. I can't live out of a suitcase, at least, not indefinitely. And maybe that means I truly am beginning to feel at home.

Posted at 04:25 PM

Mon - March 8, 2004

The Information Field

Wherein something begins to dawn on our narrator.

The big moment this morning was when the AirPort in the Little Theatre went live, able to communicate with the wider internet. The three of us with Macs (David Barda and Tom Kennedy with their G4s, me with my cute little G3) immediately popped them open and began to check our email, surf the web, etc. For the rest of the day, as the presenters talked, and websites scrolled by, I popped open the iBook, went to the site on view, bookmarked it in Safari, then closed the iBook again, until the next time. I must have 20 or 30 new bookmarks, plus a whole host of business cards of folks who will (I hope) be coming into AFTRS to lecture in the "Producing for Interactive" course next month. Over all, a very successful day.

Now, there's just few things going on - an Announcement about South Australia and ABC having funding for mobile gaming - but network went away promptly at 5 PM. Which really truly sucks because I was just getting used to bathing in all the WiFi here and having the constant high-speed connectivity. I got MySQL working on this puppy, tested the PHP/Apache interfaces - also working - downloaded 2 episodes of "Red vs. Blue" from my server in Sydney, and whipped together some web pages to show them off. I didn't need them, after all, but it was nice to know they were there in case I did.

I've fallen in love with Rendevous, which is zero-configuration IP networking; the best of AppleTalk lives again! And that means that my web sever on the iBook is available to everyone else in the room, on the AirPort, just by typing "luna.local" into the URL field of their browser. Very, very, *very* nifty.

I am continually frustrated by having these tantalizing glimpses of the information field - which I soak up greedily when I have it - and which disappears again, just as I've begun to regard it as perfectly normal. I incorporate it so quickly into my operational ontology that it seems as though I'm already *there*. Only the rest of the world hasn't quite caught up.

I want a Google implant, so I can know everything. Potentially, at least. And we're going to need a lot more *unmetered* broadband, and pervasive WiFi before I get my wish.

Posted at 05:46 PM

Sun - March 7, 2004

Shaking Da Tree

Wherein our narrator experiences a moment of musical synchronicity.

Tonight is the full moon, and it's rising high above the crystal clear skies of Adelaide. Last night I thought the better of trying to do my Lunar rituals in the grey, rainy weather of a Mardi Gras Sydney, and took a chance that I'd actually perform it once I got down here. And this evening, after having shopped for some bare-minimum preparations (no candles, just some water and fruit for offerings) I set to work. My cell, on the 11th floor of the Residence Building at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, looks out onto the Botnanical Garden. And this evening, in the Botanical Garden, the WOMADelaide concert series is drawing to a close. This is the famous concert series started by Peter Gabriel and WOMAD records back in the mid-1990s. I arguably went to the first WOMAD concert, in Golden Gate Park, back in...1993? 1994? (It all runs together now.) So the sounds of the concert are drifting up into my window, and were doing so, even as I cast the circle and drew back the veil between the worlds. It wasn't as though I needed to ignore the music; indeed, WOMAD music is pagan in its spirit, and harmonizes quite well with the Rites of the Moon. But what was special - very special - was that Youssun N'Dour came onstage during the middle of my working (he's still playing now) and, as I finished up, and drew the circle back into myself, I did so to the strains of "Shaking the Tree".

You really can't ask for more than that.

Blessed be!

Posted at 11:17 PM

The Cell

Wherein our narrator finds consistency maintained.

I'm in the residence wing of the Royal Adelaide Hospital. Which is really a series of monastic cinder-block cells, each containing a cot-like bed with only one (!!!) pillow, and a common bathroom / shower for the 15-or-so units on this wing of the floor. I could be in hospital - except if I were, I'd at least have my own bathroom! Gah, I haven't shared a bathroom in a public facility since I toured Japan with my sister, 16 years ago.

Well, I knew it was going to be like this. I just don't know if I'm happy seeing my expectations so utterly fulfilled.

Posted at 10:51 AM

Sat - March 6, 2004

The Best Party I Never Went To

In which our narrator gets a little snappish about people who make unreasonable demands on his time.

This is my own fault. I know it. I'm going to great lengths to make myself very amenable here in Australia, open to all comers. (Read that as you will.) So part of that involved my agreeing to speak at the FUTUREPROOF symposium, part of the Adelaide Fringe Festival, on this coming Monday. I agreed to do the speaking gig, and was then informed that I would be flown out at 8 AM on Sunday morning, and flown back at 6 AM on Tuesday morning. That's two and a half days of my time taken up so that I can speak on a 90 minute panel in the middle of Monday afternoon.

Why? As near as I can figure it out, the FUTUREPROOF organizers could only afford very cheap plane flights; therefore I'm flying very much off-peak hours. The fact that I'll be in Adelaide for a few days is neither here nor there to them; my time is less important than their budget.

This wouldn't be such big deal, but, as I write this, the big Mardi Gras party is going on. Now, about two weeks ago, in a fit of pique - or perhaps just good judgment - I made the decision that I wouldn't go to the Mardi Gras party, because I'd have to leave it early (it doesn't really get going till after midnight - about right now, actually - and goes until 10 AM) and I wouldn't be able to enjoy myself - entheogenically - the way I might like to, because, well, I'd rather not board an airplane with a brainpan of still-leaking-out substances. It wouldn't be pretty. I'd have been up all night, etc. I've done it before, and I don't really want to do it here, right now. Not that I'm too old for such excesses, but I have noticed that my recovery time isn't what it used to be. Which probably has something to do with the fact that I am 41. (Even if I do look years younger, there's no fooling the DNA.)

So I didn't put my foot down. I'm being a good boy, but I am seething with rage at the missed opportunity - I'll have to wait another year for another Mardi Gras - and I have a feeling that this will come out, in some classically passive-agressive behavior, while I'm in Adelaide. Which isn't going to do my reputation one bit of good, either way.

Damned if I do, damned if I don't. And right now, I'm just damned pissed off.

Of course, there's another root to the problem: I don't know anyone who *is* going to the party tonight. I've never been good at making "gay" friends. Most of my friends are and have always been heterosexual. I've always had a few close friends who happen to be gay, but that's always been an accidental sort of thing, nothing very planned or methodical. And I have always resisted getting methodical about it, because, well, it's just not a good enough basis for friendship to pique my interest. "Oh, you like to suck cock? So do I! Isn't that terribly amazing?" Feh.

And so I stew, in a steamy Mardi Gras Sydney, basting in my own juices.

Posted at 12:09 AM

Fri - March 5, 2004

The Noise, Noise, Noise, Noise

Wherein our narrator experiences Sydney going nuts for Mardi Gras.

There are, I believe, 3 or 4 parties within earshot of my balcony. I have already heard any number of really trashy songs - ABBA, The Archies, etc. - blasted from the party over somewhere near Devonshire Street.

I wonder if I will get any sleep tonight.

I can't complain, because it is Mardi Gras, the big party of the year in a city that does seem to love parties.

I'm torn. I don't have any fabulous fag friends to drag me out and show me around. Last evening I went out with Tim - who definitely is quite fabulous, but at 39, considers his partying years behind him. Me, I've spaced my partying years out, across the Playa, various weirder conferences, and my occasional sprees.

And, with my natural shyness (yes this shocks you) it's not as though I'm going to go out on my own and seek some party full of people I don't know. Or nightclub. Or whatever.

And besides, I'm tired. I had some fun last night (brief, but fun). And perhaps my horns have grown a bit as a result. But I'm tired, and I want a good night's sleep.

And I do hope I get some tonight.

God. I sound like an old man!

Posted at 10:37 PM

Thu - March 4, 2004

The Long Nightmare...continued?

Wherein the narrator experiences still more computer-related sturm und drang...

At almost one week to the minute, the iBook died again. Startup sound...then nothing. This was getting tiring. But I dutifully brought it in to the Apple Centre for repairs. "Again," they asked? "Man, you gotta call Apple Customer Relations". Which I did, on Monday morning, expressing my desire to have my faulty unit replaced. They seemed...unimpressed? I guess one has to be bleeding to death to get any real help out of Apple Customer Relations - another black strike against them. But whatever. I got a call from the Apple Centre later in the day - my additional RAM had gone. Was it under waranty? (Yes, but not theirs.) How much to replace? AUD $220 - the price went up recently because this model of iBook is now an orphan. But whatever, I told them to fix it. And so, on Monday afternoon, I picked up the iBook again. So far, so good.

Of course, the RAM wouldn't have blown out - in all likelyhood - if the iBook case hadn't been repeatedly opened for repairs. RAM doesn't like disturbances. It wants to sit, snug in its slot, and play with bits. But whatever. At least it's all working. For now.

Posted at 07:54 PM

The Nightmare Ends

Industrial Action

Happy...Yulithia?

Queer Shoulder to the Wheel

I'm Going Home (Probably)

Pimp Daddy and the Summerside

Neither a Borrrower nor...

Closing the Sale

Jim Morrison's 60th Birthday

Thin Again

Don't Cry for Me, California