Before I get back to my childhood stories of how I got to be a caustic wit and sour-puss I have to sing my paean to life up into the glorious heavens from my back-alley dumpster… fuuckkkkk it’s great to be alive, for all the pains and pitfalls, the sorrows and mistakes. I was reminded of this in the middle of my dark night by an e-mail informing me of the death of another friend, Nanine, who died before her time if there is ever a right time to die. Dam ENTROPY, why can’t we all live longer, as long as we deserve? I was feeling blue, hopeless, then I’m told of this sweet woman’s demise and, while sad at her terrible death, she helped me to appreciate being alive, old but still rocking, how amazing!
I know I bitch, moan, whine and howl, hiss, spit and scratch, such is the nature of a fucked up old alley-cat, but that’s only on some hard, cold days; there are other days, in the warmth of the sum, the cool of the full moon, wind-song and sapient music thrill, friend’s smile and full-body/mind dance flow, when it’s so exhilarating to be alive I orgasm with the sheer joy of it, a fountain geyser’s from my head and melds me with the universe. And I’m not such a curmudgeon after all. As a nurse I’ve sat with hundreds of people while they died, held their hands, wished them sweet journey to the Void, and walked back out into the rain, tasted it on my lips, like nectar of the gods, being alive is like being a god.
Life is precious. I swear I’m the kind of person who can’t fathom the hurting of even one person, much less the murder of millions such as occurs in wars and terrorist attacks. Watching John Pilgers’ “The War You Don’t See”, I was reminded by an interview with Julian Assange that the base purpose of these wars, past and present, such as Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and Columbia, is the laundering of money via arms sales, an elite class making a fortune from the misery of multitudes to fuel their extravagant life-styles. And anyone who stands up to them, like Assange, will be destroyed, by hook or crook. How easy and ridiculous it is to destroy him by using “SEX’, the right-wingers bugaboo. Pay off some shallow desperados to accuse him of “sexual crimes” and they can not only imprison him but destroy his credibility, only amongst the gullible that is. All because he organized blowing the whistle on mass-murderers, but Bush and cabal are the ones who should suffer rendition.
Watching the doco on Maggie Thatcher’s downfall I was reminded of the riots in London over the poll tax, and also the riots in Seattle over the G8 summit and I realized here in Auz we never have riots over anything and I wondered why. Are we so comfortable, safe, sports loving beach-bums with no pressing issues that we’re easily cowed, bought off and brain-washed into conservatism. In 1977 we rioted at White-bay to stop Uranium being shipped out of Sydney, and in about 1978 we rioted outside the Hilton Hotel as our Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser was arriving for some conference, (while some heinous ass-holes were letting off a bomb in a rubbish bin on the other side of the hotel.) They are the only riots I can remember and I participated in both, getting arrested for my beliefs and ruining any chance at a progressive career in the “SYSTEM”, including the “Arts” as AUTHORITY never forgives or forgets.
By rioting I mean wrestling with police to blockade, protest and stop some criminal enterprise like WAR, tyranny or environmental destruction by the State/Corporate-body. I protested in the name of LIFE, Justice and Freedom, and my ART was and is always on about it, I’m not ashamed of my output, the posters, graffiti, stunts, arrests, fund-raising benefits, it was all exhilarating LIFE lived large and meaningful.
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anarcho-queer, rock and roll punter and mystic adventurer in Australia and India
of the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s.
