lifecoach to lifecoach:
"should i stay a lifecoach?"

- greg.

Revolution no. 9

You said unless I could get into common time I could not come with you to the revolution. I said I’ll move to the rhythm of the revolution, only. You said I’d fall over in the streets if I didn’t move with you, as we duck and weave through the predictable progressions and poke our heads up for those surprising refrains. But, I said, everyone is ducking and weaving, there’s no order there. They carry different colours, shout at different pitches, write their own obituaries for that moribund political system, yelling ‘ha!’. And in the end I didn’t come with you. Because I can’t help but relish chaos. Because I am a revolution tourist. Because I do performance studies, and maybe I’d write an essay about the theatrics of the coup, and that is not the kind of thinking we need at this crucial juncture, Bron.
But mainly because I’m just really into ambient noise right now.





notes:

1. that story is inspired by cas. "ambient noise!".


2. i'd also like to quickly remind everyone of that song sexual revolution by macy gray. it's amazingly great.

"I'm so funkin' beautiful
especially when I take my clothes off
I'm so funkin' beautiful
especially when I take my clothes off

sexual revolution

got to do them before I die
got to do them before I die"

Enjoy.

I am lacking
Ambition.
I am lacking
My capitalist fist;
These palms are skyward
Like handsets for reception.
I am shapeless,
Wandering, pondering
Plundering
Naively,
Squandering privileges
In the city of villages;
The town of iniquity,
Drunks,
And fun times.
I spend my days
Into debt.
I laugh at luck,
I flip a double headed coin.
People-collages and reckless joy
Defy my endless limerick schedules;
Five line dot point yearnings for a life
More structured
And simple.
Oh my days,
Have I transcended the stress already?
Or did I learn to live
Off a coke ad?





Sometimes i worry that we're all trapped in it, no matter the mountains we climb.
/end pessimism.

lesbians.
better than equestrian,
better than the Ganges.



had two fucking great days, yesterday and today. i was still running on barely any sleep yesterday, yet for some reason i was in the best mood. has something to do with:
- running into a friend i haven't seen in 10 years, outside my house
- getting 15% of special education out of the way
- discussing john forbes' poetry in my tut, meeting an amazing girl and continuing the poetry/books/Brooks talk all the way up eastern avenue only to then discover that she is Clemmy, the famous ex-neighbour to the Grove.
- following Andy to vegsoc
- meeting Sita, whose parents own Govindas, finding out she is in 3rd year education and knows a bunch of my friends
- meeting Erin, and talking with her about veganism, the Hare Krishna stance on homosexuality, etc
- meeting Amy, a familiar firstyeartutes face, talking with her about the environment, her campaign for SRC and gender studies for a while
- finally meeting MIM, the famous friend of the Grove AND my ex-house in Enmore
then..

sad woman on the bus opposite me, cradling a 20cm high buddha statue. i tried to vibe to her, i was in this amazing mood and wanting everyone else in the world to be in it with me as well. because: being alive, and on a bus, and buddha statues, and sunlight, and oxygen. amirite? she muttered something about eye-contact and fuck so i left her alone, a little saddened. a woman two seats behind me smiled at me. strangely knowing, unexpectedly warm. later, a mother and her 8month year old daughter were sitting in the sad womans seat. the baby's whole face was stretched out, smiling at someone sitting in the unexpectedly smiling lady's old seat. a man next to me made a comment about it, they all started talking, i joined in, we all said goodbye, i went to work. people are the best people.

THEN.
- seeing the Balmain kids
- eating Sam's home made dumplings, getting high, drinking imported birthday beers
- adventuring to the Imperial Hotel, seeing the end of a band that weren't the band we went to see, but actually the band of some friends from my Dad's work
- getting more high
- sleeping


and todayyyy i had shortlist/ladyguyguy time with Andy and Cas, my ladyguys, my boyfriend/girlfriends whom i can never date but feel as though i must, in order to express to the world my adoration for them in some form it will recognise. MixSoc IGM, vegsoc, then clipper with Frankie and Holly, cigarettes and coffee and water, conversations, ridiculousness; anniversary adiversary, adderversity (snakes in mortar boards), adders and ladders. brekekekeks.

and then Austrian couchsurfers, Eva and Anna, arrived in the evening. pretty amazing.

the babe with the power (what power?)

five hours sleep in three days. five minute dinners: a capsicum like an apple or chickpeas from a mug. cigarettes for breakfast, my mouth tastes a fireplace. all my time spent facebook guitar mixtapes work blog writing, everything but essays.
there is not enough time, there is no time. and oh god when i think about it i just want to give up this game and skydive in greenland.

at the beginning, i thought i had this year.

The Scene

Anxious club-eyes,
Dance with me,
You behave so
Heterosexually
Smiling, writhing
Drunkenly,
Oh baby how I want your
Docile body

We could get married,
We could get mortgaged
I have names
For our three kids.
Won’t you let me caress
Your soft hope chest,
Oh how I love your
Docile body





so maybe i read some Foucault.

"i stayed up all night to get tickets, then i slept through the show."

cas and i decided that this is THE story of my life. (actually).

I'm the scatman

Ski bi di bi di do bap do
Do bam do

Bada bwi ba ba bada bo
Baba ba da bo
Bwi ba ba ba do [x2]

(More Scatting)

Everybody stutters one way or the other
So check out my message to you
As a matter of fact
Don't let nothing hold you back
If the scatman can do it
So can you
Everybody says that the scatman stutters
But doesn't ever stutters when he sings
But what you don't know
I'm gonna tell you right now
That the stutter and the scat is the same thing
Yo, I'm the scat man
Where's the scat man? I'm the scat man.

Why should we be pleasing any politician heathens who would
Try to change the seasons if they could
The state of the condition
Insults my institution
And it only makes me crazy and my heart like wood

Everybody stutters one way or the other
So check out my message to you
As a matter of fact
Don't let nothing hold you back
If the scatman can do it, brother
So can you, I'm the scat man.

Bada bwi ba ba bada bo
Baba ba da bo
Bwi ba ba ba do [x2]

Ski bi di bi di do bap do
Do bam do [x3]

Everybody stutters one day or the other
So check out my message to you
As a matter of fact
Don't let nothing hold you back
If the scatman can do it
So can you

I hear you ask all about the meaning of scat
Well I'm the professor and all I can tell you
Is while you're still sleeping
The saints are still weeping
'Cause things you call dead haven't yet had the chance to be born
I'm the scatman


I'm the scatman

Ski bi di bi di do bap do
Do bam do

Bada bwi ba ba bada bo

Baba ba da bo
Bwi ba ba ba do [x2]

(More Scatting)

Bada bwi ba ba bada bo
Baba ba da bo
Bwi ba ba ba do [x2]

Ski bi di bi di do bap do
Do bam do [x3]

Yeah! I'm the scatman.

(Scats)

Where's The Scatman?

(Scats)

I'm the scatman

Repeat after me
It's a scoobie oobie doobie scoobie doobie melody

I'm the Scatman.

Sing along with me
It's a scoobie oobie doobie scoobie doobie melody

Yeah!

I'm the scatman [x2 Mixed with scats in background]






WHAT.

"we bet you just can't wait to catch this highly anticipated big-screen lesbian kiss"


grove expectations (poetry night) at cas's last night. got there early after zero hours of sleep the night before, boltanski'd her bannister and drank some mulled wine. that place is so warming, our world in there is beautiful. kind of like my new wife, megan washington (i may have watched her videos and died of love, a little). these things make me miss jen.

we read some poetry, in a special reading chair. spotlight and all, with an isosceles fairylight crown. i read one by this guy, and also read an old one of mine. i've had this other poem lurking around for ages, i thought about reading it, didn't. this is it:

we woke up in the park last week,
leaves in my hair, grass on my cheek.
searching for bruises i felt should be there,
i was cursing my body for failing to bear

our purple indiscretions in flesh

so that others might notice, make mention
of these marks, and of this embodied tension,
discuss and speculate on our night's lesson
(that somehow never lessened the question;

is it actually me you want?)

but i won't tell if you won't, it's just us
and yeah, you're right, it's just lust.
it's just cost trust and lost love,
we both got drunk and forgot who i was

so you should know that i don't blame you

but can you just
admit that it's
fucked.


m, i don't know, there's still a fifteen year old emoet in there.

also, later, poems from this guy:

... and others.

things have been strange of late,
i'm burning through the weeks.
though last night was a fantastic reminder that i can do things. sometimes, i feel as though we have such incredibly important fun. it is perfect and essential.

have i ever told you that i love you?

so, ALSO, things are ok, on the whole. for me. although, almost everything is spectacularly unfathomable to me these days; i am way too distracted by life-detail. ah i'd like to have you all over here in my head some time, whenever you forget that pine nuts and batteries are incomprehensibly miraculous.
mostly, today, girls amaze me.

working on the music for tomorrow night. it's going to be seriously AMAZING.

I want to make this bumper sticker:

Why are you
letting these people
run your world?


I’ve always had trouble separating the personal from the political, the outside. Because I do, more often than not, believe that this reality is probably pretty small. About my size. But in the end it doesn’t matter, because some of the people in my reality are making my reality hell. They are running my world, political and personal.

Teenage Feelings


1. Fear

I get scared of famous people

The same way as I get scared
of hell;

When I’m worried it’s real.


2. Love

We chose who we’d die for
When each breath
was need.

And it took a year,
Darling

But they watched your terry cloth mouth
Swallow death
and me.



Teenage Dreams

There are things I want to tell you:

Everything about you is sexy,

And in my American teen dream
We get together at prom.

(Please remember this
as a role play possibility
if we get married.)

This is a 90s rap about belonging.

I always slept for the same amount of time,
because before that I never slept at all.
My parents said I had to lie in bed
And catch the sleeps as they fall.

A sleep is like a sheep but asleep,
and if I didn’t catch them they would... surely die!
But when the sun came up then the sleeps would speak,
“We’re all saved now, goodbye!”

When I told kids at school they just laughed at me,
only a fool would believe that tale about sleep!
You gotta keep yo head to the ground, homie,
You gotta keep yo head to the grouuuund

So it was the 90s, these guys said homie, whatever,
We all said things that now sound less than clever.
I just wanted to feel like a part of the group,
So me and my new homies stayed up the night through.

The next night in bed I dreamed of the cliff
But there were no sleeps there, and I keep thinking if
There was no one to save them, they’re all dead and gone
I’ll never be forgiven for the murder I’ve done

I just wanted to belong,
I just wanted to belong.

games

i still remember your tall corduroy walk
your yawning laughs at after thoughts
god if you'd only wear your acid wash
we could go back to where we left off

because in the meantime, i am worn out by non-love. threadbare, a little, stripped. and probably still willfully nihilistic, because it means there's less to get over.

but oh, her.
with perfect teeth and torso
quick wit attractive more so.

i simply must
forget her magazine's made honest, forward,
and my tyrant heart's made chased and awkward

yet i'm so unappealed by the un-games that last night i dreamed we were the last two living. killer machines were on our cavestep, but you were enigmatically aloof. i rolled you a cigarette and we watched TV nervously outdoors, you loved me but you wouldn't ever show it. oh wow, aloof dream shorty, you looked like marion cotillard.
that CHEST.
what incredible sexy fun!

I
Just
Want
To draw
You
To draw
You
Out
To draw
You
Out
Of this
Sick
Dream.

beast bees, bead lords, sweet cakes, maste lakes, O ma ma ma ma ma ma ma ma

raaa. why can i not just... DO things. i feel like withdrawing from the world for a long long time. i feel like painting. i feel like screaming. i feel like six weeks is an eternity. i feel like all i eat is bread. i feel like a failure when i procrastinate. i feel like i've been here before. i feel like getting drunk, all the time.
i am in love with dan deacon.

and now. this is something i wrote for class.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

“You do not have a visa.”
Who was this person, saying this most strange, ridiculous thing at me? Do I really need a visa to get from Central to Strathfield?
Let’s get some context happening. I’m on the train to work. Just an average, graffiti encrusted – no, you know what, I shouldn’t say encrusted, because that has somewhat of a negative connotation to it, something about the “crust” part, crusts get such a tough break, and to be honest I really quite like a lot of graffiti and of course I get that it’s territorial and anarchic and maybe even post-colonial and we’ve all seen that picture of the guy throwing a bunch of flowers like it’s a grenade, so let’s go back for a second – graffiti covered carriage, and a graffiti covered girl strides up to me while I’m in the process of lazing. One leg stretched out on the seat in front of me and one leg bent. If you picture that properly, I’m sitting exactly how the sign in front of me pictures I properly shouldn’t. I’m not sitting like this to be inconsiderate but because it’s seriously all kinds of uncomfortable to ride public transport and not pretend to be the coolest person in the world: I’m too cool for you to talk to me. Way to cool for you. Ok. And you’re too cool for me as well with your pretty white headphones, I can hear your Bad Romance and your Tales of Brave Ulysses and, well, right now I can’t top that because I’ve been recently into psy-trance so hard that I don’t care if no one else understands but the point is that at the very least we can wordlessly acknowlegde that we’re both much too cool for the remote prospect of an interaction to occur.
Now, I’m exceptionally lazed. Legs out like I already mentioned, shoulders slouched, arms poised at the very freest most heightened moment of an outward flail. Perfection. But here comes this girl, walking toward me, calling my cool bluff, and she’s speaking nonsense about visas.
“What do you mean I don’t have a visa.” I’m actually trying not to talk to her like she’s crazy, because despite all evidence heretofore produced, she’s wearing some pretty cute black and white striped boots and there’s a sparkle in her eye and I just don’t find that those two things corroborate the crazy-girl hypothesis. Perhaps that’s a ridiculous naïvety.
“I mean, you need a visa to move anywhere. Permission to go places, permission to leave this one. I’m the inspecting officer, I’ll be assessing your situation and I’ll only be taking reasonable bribes. I quite like your hat.”
“Thanks, so do I,” I mutter, suspicious.
“Hmm. How insolent. I think it’s best you come with me,” she says with a grin, clasping my arm like a mother clasps her child in a crowd. She’s talking too fast for me to get in any words of protest, dragging me through carriage after carriage. Other passengers stare at us, drawn out of their morning commuter coma as the girl’s speech gets louder and more excited.
“I know that you’re pretending like you didn’t expect something like this to happen. But I’ve seen you catch this train every day at the same time, and then eight hours later you get back on this same train, and you read a book and you laze with your feet up, and did you know that it was the same train? Because it is, we never leave. And now, you might think that I’m jumping to conclusions about you, but trust me, I have an eye for these kinds of things, and you’re definitely someone who doesn’t really want to move anywhere in particular. I mean, you’re quite comfortable doing the exact same thing every day, so of course you were going to encounter us at some point-”
“What do you mean I don’t want to move, I just have a job, that’s all. And I go to it every day, that’s normal-”
“Ok, sure, sure, it’s you’re job, fine. But what’s with your face? Your face is so bored, man, all the time. I’ve seen that face a lot on you, and you don’t do anything about it. But, oh, oh no, look, don’t think I’m being critical or anything, who wants to move anywhere, really? Who would do anything, or change anything if they didn’t have to? I just thought perhaps you might like to see what it can be like to live in a place where absolutely no one ever moves anywhere. Because it just might be your thing.”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

it's not finished.

nun more habits

so i stayed up until 6am last night with ben, watching movies and drinking etc. rewatched being john malkovich and american beauty, my two favourite films. meanwhile, the rain outside looked quite amazing, like glass, at once shattered and liquid. we talked about how i'm actually quitting smoking. this "quitting" involves allowing myself to smoke a pipe and bum cigarettes off others if they offer. we stood on the stoop, there were cigarettes burning and it was a beautiful moment. i mentioned to ben how incredible it would be if i restricted myself to only smoking in such moments. eventually, having a cigarette would become the signature of a perfect feeling. others would soon come to realise this, and then, if ever they saw me lighting a cigarette, they'd have instant knowledge of my happiness, and maybe feel pretty awesome about being a part of it. they would be amazed! and touched, and i would feed off their glad and they would feed off mine, our glads would feed each other and grow greater, so that eventually any cancer in my body could be interpreted as a bodily metaphor for our happiness. at some point however, my actions would become disingenuous. of course, i would become addicted to the reactions of others, and so begin to smoke in situations that were not quite perfect, just to sneak a peek at some tender glads. and then i would smoke in situations that were far from perfect. and finally, i would smoke in terrible situations, as a trick, to rescue someone from pain. someone that i wanted to love. later, my love would realise my fraud, and be horrified. and i'd have nothing to save them with.

ben said it was a pretty nice idea.

oh wow, so i had a late night conversation on msn yesterday. do you all remember the msn? there are things in life that make me reflect on the progress of my existence thus far, and rediscovering the primary source of social procrastination from my halcion days (yes, fairly convinced they've already happened) is one of them. where did three and a half years of my life go? they've disappeared lyk unecessary vowels in the abbreviated expression of life's MEANING. maybe i've just had a couple of beers and a philosophical talk with our couchsurfer and i'm in an overly contrived frame of thinking.
it's strange. i don't know if i still believe the things that i always seem to say in conversations about life x happiness. but at least it's nice to know that i can still articulate my old thoughts with a decent level of conviction. i feel like my face is believable when i talk about the extreme/sole importance of the present, but i really wonder what it would be like to have a conversation with myself at 18. who would be stronger? it's time for another seance in search of what's dead of me, obviously. and a metaphorical wrestling match/ wet t-shirt competition. alllriiight.
also i'm going to do an intensely truncated montage of the past six months, because this blog used to reflect certain exciting aspects of my life and these days it really doesn't.
in the last six months i.
quit my job in a silent rage. in the surveillance tapes i destroy a madeira cake.
went hiking for six days and ate almost nothing but almonds and cashews. drank from a waterfall. felt alive and refreshed, glowing, excited. sat inside the colour green, white thoughts falling out of tree-tops onto my book, my diary, my orange raincoat. wrote nothing, because i felt it instead.
had a fling with a beautiful girl. had a sort-of-serious with another. avoided the word love but did that stupid thing with my hand over my heart and we both got embarassed at how clear the meaning of some cliches can be.
swam in a lake. swam in a gorge. painted walls, got drunk, home-brew alchoholic ginger beer, bicycle rides through launceston, political talks with the lights low because we're saving energy. and electricity is basically a mood-killer.
cuddled a python.
mardi-gras. WOW.
volunteered at the folk festival. yoga in the mornings, music in the daytimes, bottle-soccer and songs in the night time. played spice girls covers with jen on a caravan/stage to twenty people. met a douchebag and jammed with his nice friends. played a dulcimer. hurdy gurdy band in the chai tent.
ecstasy, acid, salvia, pot, mushrooms, cactus?
tree planting, crystal bowl healing, the holy mountain, a girl named nary gave me a massage to psytrance and shook out my soul. fire-twirled for the first time without having non-fire twirled. entrancing, noun and verb. bottle of red wine in my red pocket. held the night under my tongue. dead moths everywhere, or clinging to gigantic pulsating trance socks. mark, louise! wtf? sat in front of fires/sunrises, ate a bullrush and a witchety grub.
met a guy who taught me to swing poi, he plays the santur.
played my violin in front of people, anarchists.
made a zine. made paper. started writing and drawing again. had a party, contributed to a time-travel antonio banderas jonny depp slashfic. egyptian lotus wine.
started hanging out with a bunch of really amazing people in my degree.
hosted ben, a fairly awesome guy.

there are other things. but whatever.

in the next six months i will:
start going to life drawing at the hutch. make another zine. busk more.
start working on my essay.

prolly going to learn the bagpipes now. soz housemates.

unfortunately, every good celtic band is too busy running around windy moors with bonny lasses to build myspace pages, and so i can't prove how nice their music is. so um, IT'S REAL FUCKING NICE. although... i'm concerned that my love for folk music might be slightly in bad faith, because it's the only solid dose of fast-paced-slow-building-major-key-music i will allow myself to listen to/ enjoy without having to be ironic about it. so maybe what i want to tell you all is that, at heart, i love a catchy tune a little more than i love a complex deconstruction of song genres.

after a few hours of bagpipe listening, i watched vertigo. lol at the 50s. also, isn't it amazing that people in old movies all dress like old people do now? ho ho ho GOD I NEVER WANT TO BE OLD. what makes the aged neck so incandescently carmine? explain that one, Darwin. unless it's a defense mechanism, in case they get lost wandering in the traffic and need to be easily seen. clever.

and that's more or less all i have. but, do you see what i'm doing here? posting when i don't even really have anything to post? it's an indication of several things. one of them being that i'm bringing the blog back. that's right, i'm going to make blogging a big thing again, just watch. another thing being that i have... so much uni work to do. if by monday i have nothing overdue, i'm buying bagpipes. or a bouzouki, baby.

We had a rule. Attack,
Attack, back.
Fighting kept us suspended,
A pen over an ending,
A sentence refusing sense,
A court without law.

But you used rhythm against me
After you won words in that poker hand
And all I won were those naked photos.
You turned our fights into rhymes,
You turned your life into moments,
Weak and final.

I wanted infinity and you
Needed an apocalypse
To feel time. But
How can continuity compete,
With something so complete
As a fucking line?

Dada Spam Poem no. 3

Screw her every hole,
Cause I don’t see any changes happening
Said the Quangle Wangle Quee,
And her tears began to flow.

Try it for good luck,
They’ve killed everybody,
Wailed nicholas
in a kinder voice.

In their turn the people sent messengers to the palace;
About your college diploma,
It’s one old jug without a handle
Except now you’re four years older than me

But the Frog and the Fimble Fowl
Ventured upstairs
For the owner of the castle
Swam across the Bristol Channel.