Saying Goodbye.

I have two parting moments lurking in my brain, both sad but beautiful in their own way.

My first trip to France in 1996 was my first solo venture with a flute, I was going to make my fame and fortune. I was stupid enough to leave the love of my life at home. We were in town just before I left, mucking around with duty free shopping when I realized I hadn't exchanged any currency. Jacqueline ran off to get it for me and came back with less than we both expected. I didn't know that money exchange with a major bank involved being mugged by fees and charges. Jack looked so nervous, worried that she'd let me down. I tried to reaasure her but she was really upset that I was going, not the money. The good news is I was back a month later because I missed her so much.

Four years later our love was on the rocks. I had some playing booked in Paris so I thought a break would be good for both of us. I stayed my last night in Melbourne at my Mum's house, Jack came for dinner, she was cheerful and so very brave all night. When I put her in a taxi she lost it, started crying just as she sat in the back seat, I had to give the driver the destination. It was truly heartbreaking, watching her driven away yet knowing it was the right thing for both of us. From that moment nothing was ever the same between us.

Next Tuesday when I head away again I'm not leaving anyone behind, sad in it's own way. Jacqueline left me behind a while back, I can't travel to where she is for a while yet. In the meantime I'm just travelling around. She is used to waiting for me.

Parkstreet.

www.myspace.com/kentparkstreet

Football And Hair Gel.

The government of South Africa spent billions to stage the World Cup of Football. I believe it was an attempt to gain international status points for a country that has received deservedly bad press for decades. The plan hasn't worked, partly because of the way the event has been staged and partly because the sport of football has become ridiculous.

Those who were dispossessed by the previous racist regime still can't afford to attend games and no discount tickets were made available to them. Those who can afford to attend have driven the sports watching  public fucking insane with those inane horns. Most will remember South Africa as the country where people never tire of making a horrible loud noise. Can't see the status value in that.

The players are princesses, pampered milliomaires who play act and dive and roll around as if Death himself tripped them up. They cheat, they whine, they behave like the children of short attention span parents as if no one will remember them pulling the same stupid stunts over and over again. If one knew nothing of football a first viewing would suggest an advertisement for hair products and other male cosmetics. Are these really sportsmen? Their off field antics and pomposity is slightly more amusing than the tedious defensive showing on the pitch, but only slightly.

The referrees are dubious. So many bad decisions smack of the betting scandals that have soiled the game for the last two decades.

The television stories from around the stadia display nothing but big business, soft drink, take away food and beer companies surrounf the event, as if we don't see enough of them every day. I've seen and felt nothing of Africa, nothing of the life of the people, of the culture of the oldest people on the planet.

Living in Sydney, a wealthy city still paying for hosting the Olympics a decade ago, I feel for the people of South Africa. They have paid a heavy price for almost no reward.

Parkstreet.

Portland Oregon #5, Lists Not Literature.

Most of what I read is just lists. Lists of what people like and don't like, lists of political ideals that won't ever be acted on, descriptive lists disguising themselves as real writing.

Right now I'm facing a list, all the stuff I have to get done before I leave home for two months. So many stupid little things, many that should have been done over the last year. I've ticked off some, getting the lining in my favourite jacket repaired, taking my saxophone into the shop, but there are many unticked items remaining.

This list is only of interest to me, it's my stuff. I wouldn't write it out for you to read. A list is only interesting when it illuminates an idea, or reinforces an argument. I guess the list of things to do before travelling could be used to display what a bureaucratic world we live in, how the romance of travel is being swallowed up by nitty gritty. Or it could be used to show how little we need to truly be happy in this life, my list is mostly about organizing a comfortable bed, work, a satisfactory instrument to play. I don't need much else.

Conversation is fast going the same way as what passes for writing. I'm overwhelmed by " I like this, I don't like that" talk every day. I don't give a shit what you like or don't like, unless you can tell me why it's important to anyone else.

I have to dash now, I have to go to the doctor to obtain an advanced script, fill out a form for the U.S. government, should I go on? Maybe I'll just tell you that life is busy and interesting and exciting travel will happen once all the items on my list are ticked off?

Parkstreet.

Repost, an old piece that has been on my mind.

I was listening to the B.B.C. World Service late last night, heard a report from the funeral of the German football (soccer) team goalie. He commited suicide last week. I know nothing of this man, his life, career, not even his name, yet I'm deeply saddened.

Reasons to be cheerful could easily include achievement, career, travel, glamour, money. I wouldn't kick these things out of bed if they farted. Naturally this man had all these things, and a world cup approaching.

The obvious connotation is that wealth and fame don't immunize against depression. I for one am willing to try wealth and fame as a cure if I can get it on medicare. The question is what does work? If striving for success isn't the opposite of depression, what is? This footballer would have trained his body and mind everyday for most of his life to become one of the best, all the time suffering depression.

Wouldn't it be great if some hack blogger from Sydney had the answer? It would become the most read blog in history. I don't have the answer. I can see that it doesn't matter what you do unless you do it in a true spirit, that being open to life and love is essential, that you have to feed the white dog and be wary of the black, but not deny the black's existence. I can see that it is a solo mission, and that a whole lot of knowledge is like a whole lot of paint in a whole lot of tins, it does nothing until you pick up a brush and splash it about on the walls.

Being true to yourself sometimes means being a whole lot of other things to yourself; your own friend, advisor, adult hand up, sadly even your own lover at times. Depression is real, you are real, being real and honest with yourself is the only path I see. It isn't available on medicare. It does come at a price.

Parkstreet.

.

Portland Oregon #4, Rain.

I don't mind the rain. I get pretty wet every morning in my shower so what the hell?

I don't dig the rain so much in Sydney. It isn't the wetness, rather the way people here react to it. Folks who are usually pushy and rude become pushing rudeness machines. Getting out of the rain is the prime directive, any who stand in the way of the prime directive are fair game for pushing. The pointy bits on the edges of umbrellas are everyome else's problem, the umbrella users know the pointy bits are there but pretend they don't. It's like a dragon pretending it doesn't notice the potential fire hazard.

Umbrellas are considered uncool in Portland. Rain is a constant for nine months of the year, so get used to it. People there are aware of cool, aware of other people, aware that other people are more important than getting a little wet.

Which city would I rather get wet in?

Parkstreet.

Portland Oregon #3, I Love Physics.

I recently brought my saxophone home from saxophone hospital. All the tiny leaks and mechanical kinks have been stitched up by the saxophone doctor and all is well with the world. Having ignored the fundamental maintenance of my tool of work for four years I feel like I've just completed my tax returns late and gotten away with it.

The physics of a saxophone are quite remarkable, it is a clumsy, cobbled together chunk of metal that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I like it just the same. When the genius at Temby Saxophones masters the physics of my own instrument and the sound is coming out pure and sweet I am a visibly happy man.

A friend once told me of a car accident. One person in the front seat died, the other didn't. She put it down to fate, some mystical force that decides when it is "our time". It was physics, that decided who lived and who died, not fate. There is no point praising or cursing physics.

In a couple of weeks I'll board a giant flying machine that will take me from one hemisphere to the other. The concepts of lift and thrust are simple to understand, I'll be a little nervous just the same. I'll trust the folks who took the simple physics and designed the flying machine. What choice do I have? I have to put my faith in something.

The physics of vibrating air that affects the ear as sound makes me a living. The instrument that vibrates the air for me is present and correct, the machine that will transport me has been thoroughly thought through, my mind is seeing clearly and free of superstition.

I do believe it is time to travel.

Parkstreet.

www.myspace.com/kentparkstreet  .

Le Tour Digital.

I watch Le Tour de France every year on television. Motorcyclists armed with cameras follow every pedal movement for three weeks of very late night viewing here in Australia. Signals are sent from the motorbikes to a helicopter above. The last couple of years the system that handles this data has switched to digital technology. Occasionally a signal is interrupted by overhanging trees or high mountain weather. Previously the picture would stutter, in the digital age the images simply stop. They are on or off. On or off, one or zero, all or nothing is the nature of digital technology, and the nature of our age.

We live in a "with us or against us" era, a time when love is on or off and nowhere in between, where trends start and stop as if a switch has been thrown. Religious zealots tell us we are on the correct path or not worthy to live. Moral assessments come down to right or wrong, the mass media reports two sides, two opposing sides to every story. Zero, one, zero, one.

What place for romance, nuance, uncertainty in this time? It seems almost no place at all. Art in all forms is in a fashion based, popular or unpopular holding pattern. The sporting field is one of the last places where the human comes to the fore, the result uncertain, so much dependant on human vagueness.

I love the vagueness of human beings, the Shroedinger's Cat silliness of not knowing what is inside the head of another. I love that a cyclist can climb a mountain, but only if his mind is in the right state as well as his body. I love that when the men in racing strips line up none of them know how the others are feeling on that day, how they'll perform, that most of them really aren't sure how they are feeling themselves.

I don't want a life of on off one zero. I dig the digital technology that allows me to sit in a Sydney lounge room and cycle up Alp Duez at the same time, but I hope we can find room for humanity in the digital age.

Parkstreet.


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Portland Oregon #2.

I can't help but feel sorry for the entire nation of South Africa. A country that is trying to emerge from years of international disgrace by spending billions on hosting the football world cup only to be remembered as the dickheads with the horns.

So, four gigs booked in Portland for July, and offers from three working bands to play a little saxophone, I can only be thrilled. Portland is a very welcoming town, happy to give a couple of strange Australians a crack. Many other music scenes are a closed shop where everyone protects their own gigs.

I'm at the excited but a little nervous stage. Everyone reacts differently to nerves, I tend to play the game on my cell phone until I'm so annoyed I forget what I was nervous about.

This trip is a financially difficult venture for both Scott and myself. No complaints, it is money well spent, but it's really money we don't have. I'm hoping to find an act that can sponsor me to stay in the U.S.A., or return soon anyway. All I need is a contract somewhere outside my own country so I qualify as an international musician and I can apply for a U.S. artist's visa. I'm sure I'll work something out. Allowing money to prevent one doing anything is not a good enough excuse. If it isn't for blowing on extravagant jaunts to foreign climes and to self knowledge what the hell is money for?

I can't wait to sit out on the balcony at Tiny's, drink too much coffee, watch the pretty girls in sundresses go by.

Parkstreet.

www.myspace.com/kentparkstreet

Portland Oregon #1.

In two and a half weeks my friend Scott Leishman and I will be setting off for America. We'll spend a few days in San Francisco then head up to Portland Oregon. It's my third trip to Portland in three years, there is something about that town.

For the next three months I'll be blogging about the trip, I think it will be a great one, something of a turning point in my life and hopefully Scott's too.

Here is an article I wrote for Reviewer Magazine http://www.reviewermagazine.com/ last year, more of this sort of stuff from day to day.

Not An Englishman In New York, An Australian In Portland.




By Kent Parkstreet.







About seventeen years ago I was at a soundcheck at The Punter's Club, a groovy inner city music pub in Melbourne Australia. To get away from the noise I slipped next door to the public bar. It was unusually quiet. I looked up to see The Simpsons was on the television. The cult was just taking on, but the debate as to which U.S. state Springfield is in had started. Someone suggested that the show's creator, Matt someoneorother, was from Portland Oregon, so it must be there.



Portland Oregon. Something in my imagination told me I'd go there some day. It took sixteen years, but last Spring I made it, and returned this summer. I figure that if Matt Groening spent an entire episode taking the piss out of my country I have the right to jot down a few of my impressions of his hometown.



I'm in a seedy late night bar, the kind where dreams go to die. On one side is a young, pale skinny celery stalk of a guy, on the other a truly vast bearded fellow. One has hitchhiked from his priviliged east coast home to live an alternative lifestyle, the other has taken a few days off from cutting down trees for a living to go on a bender. I feel like the filling in a collateral damage sandwich. They are drinking in rounds, the greeny manfully matching the logger beer for beer, chaser for chaser. Their differences are ignored as they share their love of drinking heavily and singing along with Springsteen.



I'm at Tiny's Coffeehouse. Twenty people inside, a dozen bicycles parked outside. It's April but there is late snow. The discussion is of how snow makes it difficult to see when riding, the physics of prisms and how they distort light. No one mentions that snow is cold and wet and a fine reason to take the car. Pushbikes are a cult. I see a cyclist moving a small wardrobe on a front end trailer. Old enough to walk is old enough to ride on the road. I hear a band made up of upturned bikes fitted with contact microphones, the wheels are spun and the spokes feathered with found objects, creating dinosaur moans of music. Many things that are accepted as art in Portland may not be accepted as art in other towns.



The well oiled pushbike and the electric car are the enemy of the blind man who wants to cross the road.



There is a pair of dainty red pumps on the side walk, one in front of the other, as if the owner simply walked out of them. The next day the shoes are neatly paired together, a tiny silk dress folded perfectly beside them. The day after a vintage mirror and comb join the impromptu pretty girl installation. Then it is gone.



A dozen pairs of old sneakers suspended from a power line. I take eight attempts to add my walked out Converse to the collection. It's harder than it looks.



Crossing the road a car on a sidestreet pulls back a yard or so to give me room. I'm utterly freaked out and wave a thank you. Motorists in Sydney will run you down rather than give an inch. This yard of grace is offered every time I cross a road, every time. All day I'm blessed with thank you, you're welcome, wishes for a good day. A fellow down on his luck is unsure of the time, he lost track after what he describes as a black scorpion blackout due to whisky. his cigarettes disappeared in the overnight cell. For two cigarettes he wishes me a great day and night.



A local newspaper bemoans the lack of extravagant civic architecture. I walk through Ladd's Addition, possibly the posh part of town when it was built. The homes, the gardens are perfect. There are no driveways or garages to distract the eye. Take away the power lines, add a horse or two and it could be 1909. Who needs pointy needles or scarlett bridges, the definition of civic is "of the people", and the people live in timber castles with floral moats.



An elegant slender arm delivers my steelhead trout. A velvet bell of a voice announces it. The voice doesn't match the tattoo sleeves on the young waitress. When I was growing up criminals and bikers wore tattoos. Tattoos were to be feared because of the fearsome men they appeared on. My brain has trouble interpreting them as sexy, but the evidence is all around. Pretty young girls in sundresses and dragons. I show my age by worrying what monsters will be born when that svelte figured lass is the size of her mother. I'm the only person I know here without a tattoo. I hope it somehow makes me interesting.



The Lloyd Center Mall is a time machine. I'm returned to suburban Melbourne in the 1970's. I shudder at the thought. Two generous contributors to the obesity cause sneak out of Victoria's Secret. I shudder at the thought. Two ladieswholunch stand in front of the mall map. They've run out of ideas on where to spend their money and it will be hours before they can ask a television. Shudder like Sideshow Bob. The Church's "Under The Milky Way" comes on the Sear's sound system just as the clerk asks me about Australian music. He doesn't believe that song is from Australia because he has heard it before.



So I say tomarto instead of tomayto, is it that amusing? Just make the sandwich. No, I won't say "crikey", not even for money.



He's wearing jeans, braces and a checked shirt, the classic logger's outfit from the movies. I've never seen it in real life so I'm checking it out. Next thing I'm being hit on by a gay logger. I feel I have a certain Oregon cred now.



I've never seen snow falling before so I'm in the back yard trying to catch it on my tongue. The fellows fixing the roof across the road are cursing the sudden drop. One of them says,"it's like that dude has never seen snow before."



A park? This isn't a park it's a bloody forest. For sins in a past life I am the son of a property developer. All this land, so close to downtown, potential profit, potential profit, potential profit. Washington Park is just a beautiful, green, not for profit gem.



I'm crossing N.E. Flanders St. Simpsons reminders wherever I go, I'm taken back seventeen years. I'm taken back to the airport on the lightrail for two bucks, not the usual tourist fine for coming and going. The flight home is too damn long, I won't be back soon, but I'll be back.


Parkstreet.
www,myspace.com/kentparkstreet

Learning From Mistakes?

Don't fool yourself, we mostly learn nothing from most of our mistakes. Most of the mistakes we make are intrinsic to our nature and out of our control. All we learn is how to identify the patterns earlier, back pedal faster, remember,"oh yeah, that always happens".

Maturity is really a state of resignation. While we stay true to ourselves and keep trying to create the impossible we are still alive.

Bring on the mistakes.

Parkstreet.

The Different.

On the corner of my street there is a fashionable pub with an outside dining area. Right now eight idiots are sitting there drinking large beers and hanging it on any locals who look a bit different to them. Idiots.

The weird locals know they are weird, they don't need some fool who has driven thirty miles in from the distant suburbs to tell them. I can't see the joy these loudmouthed fucks get out of shooting off their loud oouths. I suppose it is some kind of power trip. A small, pathetic kind of power trip.

The different have always been the people who make a difference. Nothing new or interesting was ever discovered by the ordinary. Maybe deep down these eight very ordinary men know they are average, below average, so they need to express their frustration somehow. Seems a poor excuse to me.

If the local loonies let these jerks bother them they would have to narrow their lives, fit in, change who they are. Fortunately the locals ignore such behaviour. Occasionally they blow up and someone gets attacked by a weirdo with nothing to lose, then the weirdo gets locked up, but mostly they pass on by and laugh to themselves.

I'm wondering where the closest high pressure fire hose, I think I might go back and clean up the streets, hose down some fools, take a stand for peace and goodwill.

Parkstreet.

www.myspace.com/kentparkstreet

Organ Donor Week.

I have a couple of dead guys bits in my body, a cornea in each eye to be precise. I'd be blind without them. Two families had the grace and sincerity to allow their deceased children's organs to be harvested and given to another, more alive human. Easy to make light of, and I do, but these people made an excellent decision in the most diofficult circumstances and I salute them.

It's fascinating to hear other people's opinions about organ donation. In Australia it is a decision made by the living, boxes are ticked, then confirmed by families after death, so it has to be discussed at some time.

By coincidence the person in the bed beside me after my first operation was a campaigner for organ donation. Kidneys were the most easily and often transplanted organ back then so he concentrated on those, but his organization also helped with corneas and other body parts. He was thrilled that his work might have helped me into my new eyes.

A close relative won't sign a donor card because she finds it, and I quote,"icky". Pathetic, huh?

A bloke I used to work with was paranoid that teams of guerilla surgeons were going to waylay him on a dark street and remove his liver without his consent. I tried to assure him that the donation took place after death but he wouldn't hear of it. What can I say? Old rockers get weird. Who'd want an old rocker's inside bits anyway, the way they treat them?

Soon enough we'll just grow new bits from our own stem cells. Until then just sign the fucking card, tick the box, give something you can't possibly use to someone who can, and tell your family so they do the right thing when the time comes.

Parkstreet.

Out With The Old.

People talk about starting a new life. A new life comes at a price.

It is the natural order that the old life has to die before a new one can begin. This means losing the good bits of the old life too. There is a simple question to be asked and answered. Are the good bits of the old life worth sacrificing for a new, unknown life?

In some cases the old life is so obviously broken, so void of joy that any new life will be a positive decision. In other cases a new life is a happy pipedream that helps us get through the bad days.

The next question is what will the new life be like? What do I want from all this change? This is the toughest question. Who knows what they want? It's easy to identify all we don't want, what's wrong right now, but choosing what will make us happy in an unknown future is just plain hard. Can you imagine the life that would make you happy?

Leaving behind all you know, all the unhappy certainties, that is an adventure. Looking uncertainty in the eye and creating a new reality, possibly the bravest thing a human can do.

Bring it on.

Parkstreet.

The Fart Song.

A number of years ago I had the joy of performing at a four year old's birthday party. Hey, it was a paying gig. I had to recall what I found amusing at that age. It wasn't much of a stretch to hit on the idea of writing a song about farts. I've always found fart jokes hilarious so it came pretty easily to me.

The song was based on the old question, "who did it?" The chorus involved a fartalong, getting all the kids to make the raspberry noise in unison. first once, then twice, then three times, then one great big long one. The tiny audience picked it up quickly, enthusiastically, wetly. I found myself covered in four year old's spit.

The finale of the show was a song where I tried to get the kids to imitate animals, bark like a dog, moo like a cow, dance around like a crazy monkey. Instead of being all the different creatures they just kept making the raspberry noise, up close and very damp. I was a victim of my own juvenile sense of humour. I was always told it would bite me one day.

The Wiggles can keep the kid's gigs.

Parkstreet.

A slightly more grown up Kent Parkstreet original.

Tantrum.

I usually avoid shopping malls, even supermarkets when I can. I recently had no choice, found myself in an overstimulating shopping environment.

I came across two small children tossing large tantrums. I couldn't blame them. I felt the same way. There may be a reason children freak out in these places. They haven't been conditioned yet.

Parkstreet.

Melbourne, Melbourne.

Melbourne is overflowing with individuals who are overflowing with individuality. I love it.

I'm at DeGrave's Espresso, an outdoor cafe in one of the laneways that make Melbourne what it is. I'm surrounded by students, smoking, drinking coffee, talking, being happy with their lot. It is making me happy.

Everyone is beautiful in their own way, not in a plastic, shiny way.  Groovy, grungy, slick, arty, flower child, it's all mixed up and no one cares what the label is and no one is trying too hard. Big city self consciousness and neurosis have no place here.

I was brought up in this town, it was always headed in this direction, now it is here, arrived, ready. I predict that Melbourne will be the start of something in Australia, I hope I predict well. The rest of the country can learn from this self assured, mellow town. It could be anywhere in the world, either coast of the U.S.A., western Europe, anywhere established and at home with itself, yet it is gorgeously egalitarian and Australian.

When I return from my travels, whenever that may be, this town will be home once more, even if I have to stand at the end of DeGraves Street and busk with a saxophone to pay for it.

Parkstreet.

www.myspace.com/kentparkstreet

The Working Class Peninsula.

Australian workers receive four weeks paid annual leave. There are some families who have spent those four weeks over summer on the same caravan site on the Mornington Peninsula south of Melbourne for generations. Some were camping by these beaches before the car and caravan were commonplace.

Towns named Rye, Rosebud, Sorrento swell from sleepy winter populations to shanty town overcrowding almost overnight. Some have permanent sites, by the time canvas is stretched and outdoor grills erected these sites become sandy palaces. The summer residents all know each other. Children are communal, they have thousands of parents and none.

This gypsy migration is a Melbourne tradition. It is peculiar to some suburbs, some working class families. Tens of thousands of like minded beach lovers who never even consider going anywhere else. A few teenagers will rebel for a year or two, try the Gold Coast or Bali, but they come back once they get hitched, bring their spouse into the tradition.

I've sampled this life, just for a week.That week seemed to last a month, but in a good way. The constant smell of sausages on barbecues, fish and chips, cold beer, zinc cream, salt water, salt air, it is exactly the same each day. That four week holiday must feel like eleven months, the rest of the working year must race by. I believe these people have invented the time machine, that they've found the secret to making time serve them. I guess this is one of the purposes of tradition, to connect us to the generations before and after us, to make ourselves and our families feel timeless.

Parkstreet.
http://www.kentparkstreetblog.com/
Studio single, Drum, available for download at iTunes, all the other sites.

Mornington Peninsula.

The city of Melbourne hangs off the edge of a large bay. Head south east and you'll end up on the Mornington Peninsula, a strip of land that pokes out into the ocean, protected bays on either side.

Established Melbourne families have owned land down this way forever. It's one hour from the city, the fishing and the beaches are fantastic, why wouldn't you buy a little chunk of this paradise if you had the cash? Grand old Victorian pubs dominate the tiny towns, often overlooking long strips of sand and a ramshackle yacht club.

I recall teenage jaunts down here, my friends were from wealthy families so I tagged along. Early sexual adventures, massive new years parties on the back beach at Portsea surrounded by other juveniles who had no idea that this is where a prime minister once went swimming and never came back. Under age drinking, insignificant triumphs and tragedies.

Today I'm here to look for a house for my mother. One day my children will have a share in a house on the Peninsula. They'll find flash cafes and bars and restaurants and live music and a way of life that craps on the inner city Sydney where I reside. I'm sure the old Mornington racecourse will still have a few meetings a year, that fresh fish will be sold cheaply off the back of the boat on the jetty, that peace and goodwill will reign over this blessed piece of land.

Soon I'll be living on the other side of the world but I'll still have one foot on the Peninsula, along with my membership of the Melbourne Cricket Club enough to maintain my position as Melbourne gentry.

Parkstreet.

Time Slips By.

I'm just about to travel in a flying machine from Sydney to Melbourne. One hundred years ago this would have been unimagineable. Today it is a pretty common event.

Last night I was chatting with a mate who used to have a heroin habit, has kicked it but is reliant on methadone now. He has never flown. The time when the rest of us were making a few bucks, making a few friends, making a break from family and the same old, he was scrambling from dose to dose.

At thirty four he has let so much time slip by, all due to a drug that he never really liked anyway. He is lucky, having survived, but it's hard to imagine how many small things he has missed out on in fifteen years. I explained to him that if you look around you can fly for under thirty dollars, the cost of two packets of cigarettes here in Australia. It's as easy as booking a ticket and riding a bus. Safer than riding a bus or train to the suburb he lives in.

Sometimes we are held back by reality. One hundred years ago there weren't planes to fly us around. It was impossible to fly from Sydney to Melbourne. Mostly we are held back by our own imaginations.

Parkstreet.

Inner City Musings #2.

It's raining in Sydney, raining long and hard. Only the hardy are out in the cafes, asking each other if they've ever seen it rain like this. After ten years of drought we've forgotten.

Everyone talks to each other when it rains like this. We're in it together, timing our run to the next appointment, One more coffee while we wait.

The city isn't always like this. Bring on the rain.

Parkstreet.

Artist And Work.

The term "artist" has become a joke. People think "wanker" when they hear it. I believe this is because the name is often attached to wankers who don't produce any actual work, who take on the name for other reasons.

To be an artist is a high calling, high indeed. The historical figures who are remembered in a positive light are generally artists. Politicians and warriors are remembered but their work is debated, the work of an artist stands alone, speaks for itself.

Andy Warhol and his groovy crew turned the artist into the work. It doesn't work. It turns the artist into a public masturbator. Public masturbation is o.k. if you like that sort of thing, but ti isn't art.

The choice to be an artist is a choice to create actual work.

Parkstreet.

Horner's Syndrome.

I reckon having a syndrome is much cooler than having an illness or a disease, but I would say that because I have a syndrome.

My medical knowledge is pretty sketchy but I believe a syndrome is a medical condition that has a recognized cause but the actual mechanics of that cause are not understood. Or maybe the cause is understood but not preventable or curable? Either way I have one.

Mine is named Horner's Syndrome. It makes my penis swell to twice the normal size of an adult male. Actually, it doesn't really. That's all me, Horner's Syndrome is just a post operative eye condition, it results in a permanently dilated pupil. Not so exciting, eh? Kind of dull to live with too.

For me the rock star sunglasses of insincerity are essential, not an affectation. I genuinely can't see in daylight without them. I told you syndromes are cool. I haven't seen the temperature on a television weather report for twenty years. Anything light based, like televisons and computers and movies and, well, just about every fucking thing in this modern world is a bitch to deal with. Fortunately I wasn't such a huge fan of this modern world before I scored a syndrome all of my own.

On the up side I do get to wear sunglasses everywhere.

I also appear to be half turned on all the time. It is an illusion, I'm not turned on all the time.

It also compressed the pigment in my iris making it a different colour to the unaffected eye. My permanent David Bowie impression.

I call it my Christian Brothers College eye, it has one fucked pupil.

If you come towards me out of the light you will appear to be a mystical figure of darkness, then suddenly appear. I'm easy to sneak up on.

It doesn't give me cat vision. Now that would be cool.

I'm certain that those with illnesses and diseases could mount a case for their ailments being cooler than mine, but not a successful case. Syndromes are just cooler.

Parkstreet.

Inner City Musings #1.

If one enters the convenience store with the intention of purchasing milk and cookies or with the intention of staging an armed robbery the small alarm on the door will make the same cheerful bing bong noise.

The soundtrack to life is often inane.

Parkstreet.

www.myspace.com/kentparkstreet

The Pyrmont Bridge.

Today I sat on the Pyrmont Bridge over Sydney's Darling Harbour and watched the world pass before me.

This bridge was an engineering masterpiece in it's day. A large section of it can swing around opening a channel for tall ships to pass through. The small harbour has been rebuilt for tourists, there are no tall ships and nowhere for them to go. Cars used to take this route west from the city but four lane expressways are better equipped for today's traffic insanity.

A virtually unused monorail zings overhead, a tribute to a small politician. That particular Simpson's episode rings true in my city. Cyclists have taken the bridge for their own, they see the unpredictable tourists as intruders on their morally high green ground.

I look down on the boat I used to work on. I learned to play guitar on that cruising tub, playing country and western songs for two hundred Chinese tourists seven days a week. The first year was fun, the second year not so much. Can't complain about an office like Sydney Harbour but every office becomes dull given time. That job was musical prostitution. I was in debt, it was my talent or my arse. I think I sold the one I could get the best price for. I think.

The city changes, I change, enthusiasts maintain the machinery that opens the bridge, I don't know why.

Dozens of banners flutter above me but I don't see well enough to know what they promote, or care.

I take a photograph for a sweet young Asian couple, maybe newlyweds. She wants a shot with me and my long hair, hugs me like a dear old friend. I'm uncomfortable so I make sign language gags, pretending she has pinched my butt, she thinks I'm funny, he isn't so sure.

I accept a phone call, the spell is broken, time to cross over the bridge and back to real life.

Parkstreet.