The Coffee Spoon Addendum

I've always had a fair bit of trouble making friends. This is because I can be considered something of an oddball. So when I did befriend people, they tended to be slightly off-centre themselves. High school was a time of particular difficulty; the first couple of years saw me bouncing around amongst all the usual adolescent suspects and never completely fitting in. And then one day, I found some people just as strange as me, and it felt like coming home. I wasn't especially academically gifted, I wasn't a sportsman, and I was too timid to even find out whether I'd be popular with the opposite sex (my guess: no). But my mates respected me, shared my interests and laughed at my jokes. What else did I need?

I prided myself on the fact that my friends were crazy: every single one of them. When I say that, I don't mean that we went nuts and jumped off buildings, or had parties that involved the police being called, or blew anything up. We were actually pretty tame in that regard. When we got together we saw local bands, went to the movies, got drunk at each others' houses and walked around the neighbourhood late at night. (On some of those walks we may have been half-naked, but that's as far as it went.) And that suits me fine, because I think an evening that doesn't end in you sitting in a police cell is a fine one indeed.

No, my friends were crazy in a quieter, but I think much more genuine way. We came up with our own language, which half the time we didn't understand. We danced as badly as we dared in public to make soon-to-be-forgotten local bands feel good. We invented insanely complex games; one of these we played at our school, which at first simply puzzled all our classmates until they decided they desperately wanted to learn how to play. In one of our finest moments, we created something approaching a philosophical movement based on the words "cake" and "non-cake". We were crazy because we pooled our collective imagination and didn't see why we had to keep it to ourselves.

The effect this had on me was huge. I started to come out of a shell I'd been living in all my life. I had an identity that was confirmed and encouraged by the people around me. And I somehow believed that it would last forever. It didn't occur to me that we were all teenagers, and that what seems fulfilling in a school environment is less exciting when you encounter the real world.

Long story short, I started to feel my friends were less cool than they once had been. I still liked them, enjoyed their company, recognised that, compared to a lot of people who really were the same as they'd been in high school, they were an incredible collection of personalities. But the odd sensibility I'd always identified with was being replaced with hobbies that I didn't share, worries that I didn't want to think about and concepts that - would you believe? - other people would understand. I felt like everyone had changed while I hadn't. And, as I've learned to my benefit, that is exactly what had happened.

My perspective altered last year, when I did something I'd pretty much promised myself I would never do: I grew up. Not entirely, mind you. I'm still something of an insecure man-boy. But for the last twelve or so months I, almost by accident, have been trying things I've never done before. I started taking chances. I met new people. I stepped out of my comfort zone - in some cases, way, way out. I got dissatisfied, which is not a first for me, but this time I started asking myself why and how I could change it. I made some mistakes. Some things happened that were really great, and some things happened that really sucked, and some of them were the same thing. And it was only when I thought about writing a blog about my friends and how they used to be that it dawned on me: "Oh, that's it. They all did this years ago. I've just caught up."

So what I'm saying, in a long-winded fashion, is that they're not the same people they used to be, and finally, neither am I. Whether or not the process ever truly ends, I don't know, but I'm sure it hasn't for me. I am, happily, still trying new things, and I'm most definitely still making mistakes. (A recent one landed me in hospital and looks like costing me quite a bit of money.) I'll always cherish the old days, and I'll always miss them too, but there's a trade off. I may no longer be able to spend an hour or two talking with my mates about "Sex: The Musical" (an idea I think still has merit), but next time I get broken hearted or fired or realise I don't know what I'm doing with my life, I know I have people to turn to. With all that in mind, I have a couple of messages to give out. To my old friends: I couldn't have coped without you then, and I doubt I would now. You always have in me, a friend, a confidant and an admirer. And you're still all fucking nuts as far as I'm concerned. To new friends and possible future friends: if ever I do or say something bizarre, or something that you'd expect from an adolescent, I hope this all explains it.

Here's to being a little bit strange, forever.

For four days, over the weekend, I found myself completely detached from The Internet.

And for four days, my life had to completely change.

And no, I wasn't completely detached from society. For one thing, I still had a mobile phone. I had already made my weekend plans, and they came off stunningly. (For example, on Saturday night I went to a party, which spilled on to the street, and ended at 5.30am in next door's lounge room discussing JP Shilo and his band Hungry Ghost with my friend's neighbour. As a result, I can now get exceptionally good pizza, walking distance from my house, at a fraction of the cost.) Little annoyances - not being able to send proofs of the first Coffee Spoon zine, about which more will be revealed later, via e-mail - were solved by taking my laptop computer to the top floor of a city café and abusing its free wireless access.

And then there is the thing where I have 24-hour access to The Internet in my office. This would have solved each and all of my problems if only my office were properly air-conditioned, or if my city had not been involved in breaking the record for the longest heatwave - 16 consecutive days of temperatures above 35-degrees-Celsius - in Australian history.*

But it is amazing how attached I have become to The Internet, how much I use it to determine my identity, and how I feel incomplete, inhuman, without it. Without The Internet, I had to do things differently. I had to watch the news, on television. I had to call people to discuss things, rather than simply blather to them in e-mail and carelessly await their response. I had to resign myself to not being on call as a freelance writer. I couldn't be an expert on every topic at a moment's notice, but had to live with whatever knowledge I have been able to retain from my seven years at university. But most of all, without The Internet I actually felt alone.

Not lonely, per se. But alone. I was in my bedroom, reading a book, and the world was happening without me. I couldn't peruse my friends' social lives, or read French-language discussions of the protests in Tibet, or discover some new band from Albuquerque whose only instrumentation is a musical saw and a marimba. It was just me and Solzhenitsyn, the two of us alone, locked in tense debate, trapped within the walls of my house.

And you know, being contained like that, shut off from society, cordoned away and left to my own devices? It actually felt a little like freedom.

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* As an aside, it is amazing how useless Occupational Health, Safety and Welfare can be. At the beginning of our Record-Breaking-Heatwave, we began to feel, well, a little hot. We called OHS&W to measure our office. Our OHS&W representative, a lovely specimen of humanity, presented us with wonderful new contraption called - now let me get this right - a Thermometer. It was placed against the single vent in our room. The air coming out of the vent was recorded at a lovely, cool 18-degrees. Then, this Thermometer was moved to measure the temperature one metre away from the vent. This time, it was a get-me-the-hell-out-of-here 34-degrees. Sure, the air conditioner can only force cool air a few centimetres into our office, but the air conditioner works, so there's Nothing We Can Do, Sorry.

But no, they did do something. They sent an e-mail telling us to drink more water, and consider whether we could work from home. Or, in my case, simply not bother working at all.

Old books are some of my greatest loves. You may often see me trawling through church-run op shops, not only for spice jars and warm winter scarves, but for books, whether well-kept and pristine or abused and tattered. There is an amazing sense of history, of purpose, wrapped up in an old book. Not only the history of the work, of its author, its context, and its place in the world of literature. But also the history of the book itself: where it was published, where it was first bought, by whom, for whom, and how many hands it went through before it ended up on my well-stocked bookshelf.

There is a mystery behind old books, a story completely separate from the story found within. One of my few criminal acts while travelling was to steal a copy of Marcel Proust's Swann's Way from the exchange library at a Stockholm hostel. (I had nothing with which to exchange it.) Not only is this a classic piece of early-twentieth-century French literature, but the book itself has a story, a gift from Rachel to Lucy in December 2006. The book may have changed Rachel's life, but through Lucy it somehow found its way to a small shelf in a Sweden, and then with me throughout Europe and back to Australia.

This is one of the great things about old books - in our modern, consumerist, price-mechanism world, old books appear to have no currency. How is it that I could find a copy of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, one of the classics of contemporary literature, in a Vinnies' store for the princely sum of $1?

And last night, just as I was about to reach the thrilling conclusion, out dropped this note.

What Father Angelo thought of this now-discarded treasure is anyone's guess.

Many of the books I bought while travelling are now lost to me. They were bought as gifts, and although regrettably none of them were inscribed, I did send them away in a box with a hand-written letter. I wonder what might have happened to that letter. I wonder how long they will stay on that bookshelf. I wonder whether anyone will ask their current owner how she came to have so many books, from so many countries she has never visited, in so many languages she has never spoken. And I wonder how much of the story she may tell, and whether her story will be told with sadness, with pain, or even with the memory of joy.

Hey, you know what? Yes, I know, I know, you've been disappointed in my work in the past. And I realise that I haven't been the great advertising genius you expected when you employed me. But that was two months ago, when I was a shy little youngling, straight out of finishing my credit-average marketing degree. Now I've got something that will really blow your skirt up. Wait for it, wait for it... it's a horrendously cheap pun and a ridiculous phallic symbol, both at the same time!

I knew you'd be excited.

Low, Malmö, 7 August 2007. More of my photos from that show are available here.

It is no secret that for some time my favourite band, on this planet or any other, has been Low. The musical reasons for this are too great and many to mention, however there are also incidental reasons. Like how they don't ever seem to mind, and in fact encourage, show-goers to record sets and upload them to Internet Archiving sites.

Like this: http://www.archive.org/details/low2007-08-08.akg391.flac16.

When I was travelling through Europe last year, I sat in a small, poorly-ventilated Internet café in Prague, Czech Republic, and discovered that Low would be touring Scandinavia in three weeks' time. I immediately jettisoned all of my plans and began catching trains through Germany so that I could arrive in Malmö, Sweden, to catch them. I kept a travel blog at the time, and was still so captured by adrenaline that upon returning to the foyer of my hotel, I jumped straight on to the computer and wrote this.

Listen to Over The Ocean now you can actually hear Alan Sparhawk's amazing assessment of Mitt Romney. You can also hear me scream for Sunflower (among a crowd of people screaming for other songs), and then yell, 'I think it's your choice.' They proceeded to play my request. Oh, I was so proud.

Also, the Retribution Gospel Choir (the band which on record features every single member of Low, just with a skin-pounding 'real' drummer) is about to release its debut album. And the debut single? The original kick-arse, dirty-punk version of Low's Breaker.

Or for the Low version, please see one of the greatest filmclips ever made.

Or hell, you could watch this amazing live version.

Best thing ever.

This is a sign I found within the grounds of a primary school:

When Henry and I started this blog, we intended it to be a source of humorous literary joy, and not a quotidian update of our largely uninteresting lives. However, at the request of Enny, I feel I must provide our readers - all four of them! - with an update.

I did go and see the play last night. I wasn't entirely sure how the company would react to seeing me again - whether I'd be the heroic man of the crazy ambulance-calling party antics, or the sad bastard who ruined their erstwhile fantastic night. It didn't take long to realise I was comfortably in the former category. Not only did five people rush to shake my hand as soon as I got through the door, but once I had bought my ticket I was offered a free lager.

I explained to people I couldn't even remember meeting that yes, my friend was fine, and that by the end of the week it would be like nothing had ever happened. I was told that the whole place had been worried for days. If they'd known my friend's address, they would have sent flowers.

The play itself was extraordinarily good, pushing itself slowly toward a conclusion so tense it made the entire sell-out audience squirming with discomfort. (Compliment.)

And I spent the rest of the night there, drinking cheap lager and getting to know the world of theatre. As for Friday's bartender/actress, well, there was nothing much to it. In fact, for hours the actual performers were locked in deep debate with the director and the writer about the intricacies of their interpretation. From afar, these conversations seemed at times like they were going to boil over, like the candle in front of them whose flame had been dangerously doused with a wet beer cap. I had no part to play in that drama behind the drama.

Perhaps Friday night was just one of those moments that leaves as soon as it arrives, a glimpse at a surface which reveals nothing underneath. Personally, I like it that way. But still, everyone there - including the girl - wants us to come back this weekend. So perhaps there'll need to be an afterword to this afterword.

On Saturday morning I woke at 7am. I was on a chair, in the waiting room, of the emergency department at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

On Friday night, I had made no plans, except to see a one-hour comedy show as part of the Adelaide Fringe. As comedy goes, this was disappointingly mild, a poorly executed mish-mash of mediocre stand-up and obnoxious pre-filmed sketches. The gathered crowd left as quickly as it had arrived, and by 8pm an old friend and I found ourselves at the end of our schedule. After a quick coffee, it was decided to get a drink, somewhere else, somewhere far away from the bustle of the festival scene.

However, we didn't quite get to escape the festive spirit which March (the festival month) in South Australia (officially 'The Festival State') provides. For on our way we spotted a curious, unfamiliar room, named only by its address, located somewhere just next to the beaten track. Peeking inside, we saw warm crimson walls, a few slightly confronting sketches, and a bar serving boutique drinks out of an ice-filled coffin. We asked if we could have two lagers. We were asked, in turn, whether we had seen the play. Looking left, we discovered that the bar was in fact merely a front for a theatre located deeper inside. Of course, we hadn't seen the play, but we were welcomed nonetheless.

The next round was mine. Upon ordering, I was asked, 'are you an artist?' Taken aback, I meekly replied, 'well, I do fancy myself as a writer.' The girl behind the bar enthusiastically replied, 'a writer!' Luckily for me, she didn't ask any questions about what I might ever have written, or where I might ever have been published. What she did do was introduce me to the play's writer - 'he's a writer too!' The girl behind the bar was an actress. 'You have to come back and see the play,' she demanded. 'And then we can go for a drink afterwards.'

And from there on in, the beer magically became cheaper.

We kept drinking. Before long, two DJs set up speakers in the corner. The steady sound of familiar tunes permeated the room. Then began the dancing. The girl behind the bar took me by the arm, and had me twirl her around. From this quiet beginning, the night raged. A few rounds of introductions, more than a few rounds of drinks, and suddenly we were crashing the after-party of a play we hadn't even seen.

The girl was flirtatious, and I was one of the few people there she didn't know. And yet for all the generosity of her affections, it did seem some of her glances were meant only for me. We moved closer, and then further apart. And then closer again. As I went to get another drink, she moved across and told her colleague that I was, indeed, an artist. I peered at her questioningly. Smiling, she reached out and rubbed my hair, from the back of my neck to the tip of my glasses, and cheekily explained, 'the drinks are cheaper that way.'

I excused myself to the bathroom. As I was about to walk out, I saw my friend tripped over. It was clearly only an accident, but he was cut badly. I rushed to get help, and with another happy customer took him to the front of the room. After several minutes of communal panic, the bar staff called emergency.

At 2am, I left this magic party to ride in the front seat of an ambulance.

Of course, I had also been drinking. I was able to tell the paramedics my friend's name, his address, his date of birth. They let me follow them into the room where they were to take tests. I sat next to him while they went to find a doctor. With the pressure of the moment over, I began to feel quite seedy. I leaned down and let go of some of my red wine into the wastepaper basket next to me.

When the doctor arrived, he quickly spotted my rather unpleasant effort. I was removed and planted in a chair in the waiting room, where I promptly fell asleep.

I woke, as I might have mentioned, at 7am. I was dishevelled and slightly off-balance, but I still managed to get myself up and find a nurse. I made sure my friend was okay. His stitches would only be in for a week, and he'd been given tablets for the pain. I caught the bus home at 8.03am.

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And sure, I'll be a little bashful, and more than a little embarrassed. But tonight, I'm going to go back, and actually see the play. And see if her offer still stands. At least I'll have a story to tell.

Remember what I was saying about French President Nicolas Sarkozy?

I think this photo sums it up nicely (thanks to Le Figaro.)