More missives from the basement bunker at Northcott Housing Ghetto, while civilization falls around me. My old neighbour Dolly has been warned by her doctor not to walk down side-streets from the shopping-centre as a few old woman have been attacked recently by two cavemen and their female ilk with baseball bats, robbing the shopping and purses of the frail and elderly, probably ICE zombies from the ghetto, missing links with missing humanity. And every day there is another report in the news of a child and mother murdered by some beast, all direct proof our civilization is crumbling, with Bushy brown-nose John Howard, our Prime Minister, at the steering wheel.
I myself was at "Pirates of the Carribean 2", enjoying it immensely, for I dress like a pirate and swashbuckle about the world, and if I catch the beasties who beat up old women I'll smash their ugly faces in with my bike-chain. "Pirates 2" gets 7 'dings' on my shlockometer for horrid monsters, thrills and spills, klunky story and amazing mis en scene' i.e spectacular visuals. Then I went for a drink to the Piccolo Bar where a gang of wizened pirates gather like wildcats at a watering hole, yo ho ho-ing with psychedelic glee, after all, Sydney was a South Seas pirate haunt in its early days.
I'm happy to note the Piccolo Pirate Haunt is regaining the bohemian milleu it had of old and the funky set is coming back at nights to debate art, philosophy and politics, and play music, with guitars and violins plinking and streaking away into the ether, and the curmudgeons getting their savage breasts soothed for a few short moments so that their jaundiced eyeball on the world gains some rainbow hues. Even Ayesha the Chinese dragon lady retracted her fangs, queen viper at the Cafe Nest of Vipers, she usually waits, ready to bite with vitriolic wit, and have us piss ourselves laughing. Or she'd relate some nasty gossip that had been crowed to her by the in-crowd of drag-stars about somebody's throat about to be cut. Thank nogod she spends most of her time in her manky flat waiting like a cobra atop a heap of costume jewelry to pounce upon some tradesman she's called to fix her broken-down world, the cable-guy, the plumber, the electrician, there's nothing wrong with her flat except, she merely has a ton of unsatisfiable desires like the rest of us seething humanity.
But while all the music was tinkling at our heart-strings a brainless junky came by and filched Lorenzo's leather jacket with all his keys in the pocket. The moron came back the next day to sell other stolen goods, still wearing the jacket and Tina had to tear it off him while scrabbling in the gutter, then call the cops to get the keys back. Stupidity has its blessings.
Another core member of the Curmudgeon's Club Cafe is Auntie Crack, an ancient of the old queer school of salacious writers, an American compatriot of such fag captains as William Burroughs and Tennessee Williams, often relating to his younger queer acolytes, like yours truly, hair-raising tales of being a fag in the American navy in the early 20th century, from which he got drummed out of, being made to run the gauntlet between two rows of burly sailors, after having sucked the cocks of quite a few of them. Ayesha got him screaming his tits off the other day by suggesting he was a pedophile, he had been kicked out of Mexico 50 years ago for seducing teenage boys but things were different in the old days, there were no rigid labels, p.c. rules and strict mores like today's responsible codes of conduct, so we all tend to ignore his peccadilloes, he's too senile for it these days, thank nogod.
Old Crack tells me he ran away from the circus to find a home, for he grew up in a traveling carnival, he had carnie-parents who often dumped him with a dirty old lascivious junkie in New York to look after him in the off season; and Crack's first love was a handsome 'geek', the lowest in the carnival pecking order for he bit off live chicken's heads for his act. Auntie Crack's best story was thatt he had to play the part of the 'bearded lady' for a few seasons as no one else was available, with false hair and coy manner, in one redneck town he had the local cop get enamored of him and he had to fend off the groping pig's mitts then beat it out of town before his disguise was discovered. Old Crack is one of the most hilarious curmudgeons I've had the horrible pleasure to interrogate and hopefully there will be many more tales of him in the future from the Cafe Freak-show Alley.
(P.S. Later in the night : I just got back from the Cafe Poofters Paradise where I went and had a fight with that old curmudgeon Auntie Crack, he was all chummy with Glum Bum, who I'm still on bad terms with, listening to all the ra-ra-revolution bullshit and Crack was sucking it up like a decrepit armchair-anarchist bore. I made the biggest mistake when I told the old geezer I'd recently had hot sex with a butch Lebbo guy I'd picked up while waiting for a bus in a bus shelter. I'd forgotten what a jealous old fart he could be, having not seen a dick in 20 years, except for the little one that got flashed at him at the Manly Beach toilet block. I'd got his hackles up and he was ready to tear into me over any issue. The old prick suddenly bristled when I said Glumbum was a wanker, he berated me for being a counter-revolutionary, "What have you done for the cause?" was his croaked comment. "I've bothered to befriend flaccid old dickheads like you!" I grumbled as he toddled off home in a huff. So much for my sitting at his knee to hear tales of the bad old days of swashbuckling faggotry!)
At least I survived another week of nursing, again in charge of 150 old and dying, running from floor to floor, giving succour wherever I could, pulling it all off with cool efficiency, like Nurse Batshit at the end of history. And now on my off days I'm going to have fun, get high, fuck myself stupid and bliss out on more shlock movies with great hunks of music thrown in as cosmic glue to keep it all together. Yo ho ho and a hookah of ganjha!
