JULY

July 1st, Saturday

Government funding. People talk about it like we have a right to be paid by the government for being artists, like grant money should be given to us, like the government has a responsibility to fund art in this country. I can't quite see it. Businesses exist in the world because of their ability to support themselves, if artists are struggling to make ends meet financially because people aren't willing to pay for art, then art has no value. We have become irrelevant. The service we provide is no longer worth money, and whining about the lack of money being made, and wishing the government would pay us for being unsuccessful seems both spineless and deluded.

If a bakery failed to make money selling pies, should the government just give them money to support them in their failure? That hardly seems rational. That is just pouring money down a hole. I know that governments bail out banks, insurance companies, mining companies and other big business, but that seems a natural form of self defence, since their collapse would threaten the very money and power that keeps the politicians in power. It is a corruption that makes sense. Nepotism is popular because it works.

Governments build roads, start wars and construct monuments to themselves. That is what governments do, it is what governments have always done. The poor must fend for themselves while their hard work and tax money pay for the lavish lifestyles and extravagant fantasies of the leadership. If you disagree, go read a history book...any one will do, they all tell the same story.

What right have we to expect the government to pay us to be artists? We generate no economy, our industry produces hundreds of thousands of failing, debt riddled businesses with more expenses that can ever hope to be paid for through sales. Our actions stimulate dissent, even sedition, we encourage people to question their lives and their government....we actively campaign against the very organisation we seem to beg money from. Like we want to be paid to bite the hand that feeds us. Expecting to be paid by the government for being an artist seems contradictory at best.

We have chosen to opt out of the standard and popular culture of industrial work. Complaining that we can't pay our bills as a result is childish. If art has no financial value any more, then we must make our money in other financially viable industries. Do we bail out blacksmiths who can't make any money because horse-shoe sales are down this century? No, it would be ridiculous to expect any government to pay for the production or provision of a service that no longer has financial relevance.

How does the government benefit from the development of my middle eastern ukulele style? They don't. The people who do benefit from it are also irrelevant to the government, the little people who are comforted, inspired or even emotionally transformed by my music mean nothing to those in power. Governments thrive on creating division, and then exploiting the conflicts that arise as a result of the ignorance it creates. What possible good would it do any government to fund a musician who promotes cultural exchange and understanding, who identifies with the beauty, poetry and music of our enemy in this ongoing war between Islam and Christianity?

If I sang campaign songs in support of the Liberal Party, then it makes sense for the government to pay for a service that supports their goals. But feeling entitled to government grant money to produce art that actively disputes the policies, attitudes and actions of the ruling class is ridiculous. We chose to be poor when when chose to become artists, and if we cannot even convince the public to pay to be entertained by our art, then we and our work, are irrelevant and deserve no more money than the baker whose pies are tasteless, or the blacksmith whose horseshoes are no longer needed.

Now, with that said, I must also say that there are two kinds of value at play here. Economic value, of which most art seems to have very little, and personal value, of which art is literally made. The personal value of my own music is immesurable. If I did not have my music I must assume that I would have died many years ago by my own hand, either directly or passively. If I and thousands of others did not have the artistic outlets that we use to manage our own passions, then it is fair to say that there would be far fewer of us today. Once again, this is not a problem for the governent. If the population of artistic people incapable of generating taxble income shrinks, then the economic burden they place on the government is eased. Also, the scarcity of surviving artists would increase the value of the art that remains, so it is actually in the interest of the government to promote despair among poor artists. Then the money the government invests in high art would see realised profits much sooner, and the resultant reduction in articulate dissent among the poor would benefit them as well. Fewer poets means less dissent.

But like I said, there are two values at play. The values of those with power, and those without. For those of us producing art, belonging to the powerless classes, the value of art is a matter life and death survival. It is the force that we can pin our hopes to (however delusional), and through it believe that tomorrow will be a better day and that somehow, we as people have value because of the beauty we create for ourselves and those around us. This hope is more valuable to us than money, (since we have none), and so we must invest in beauty in the hope that it will keep the wolves from our door (which it won't).

What it does do is provide the illusion of meaning. If our suffering can be the wellspring for art, then our poverty has a purpose, and we can continue living in the belief that we make the world a better place, both for ourselves and for those around us. This is the illusion of meaning.

I suspect that art does not make the world a better place.

Art numbs the pain of life by replacing it with the heartache of love. If our unrequited desires for peace and prosperity can find voices through art, then our grief becomes a shared paradigm. Our suffering is no longer lonely, it is shared and in that sensation of commmunal grief, we find relief from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, even if by opposing them we find no end.

Yet...try to imagine a world without art. Try to imagine a world where the poor cannot treat the symptoms of their suffering with the beauty of their souls. Try to imagine the almond blossom, and the crane in flight, and the ordinary, ugly, beautiful and inexplicable dance of humanity, passing by without comment, without expression beyond their physical and temporal experience. Try to imagine a society without architecture. A socety without music. Where flowers were never printed on dresses, and where dresses did nothing but cover the skin. Try to imagine what would stand in place of the art gallery, or the theatre...try to imagine shopping malls, office blocks and factories, forever.

...

So Art does make the world a better place, and by its creation we raise ourselves out of the mud of our common ancestry and do more than create the illusion of meaning. We create the story of our existence. By the qualities of our narration, the human paradigm is built. By the methods and sincerity of our self reflection, beauty is made from suffering through the instinctual transformation of wordless experience into meaningful art, capable of communicating concepts otherwise impossible to describe.

Without art, without poetry, song, dance, painting, theatre and all the new forms of self expression being born with every generation, we could not understand or even appreciate the achievements of our rational, mathematical, scientific and economic lives. The human race could enjoy no satisfaction for the work of living.

Imagine the perfect violence of an insect colony.

If our suffering can be the wellspring for art, then it has a purpose, and we can continue living in the belief that we make the world a better place, both for ourselves and for those around us.

The imperfect meaning of love.

Human love.

　

So, why do we think the government should pay us to make art? We will make art whether we are rich or poor, we will make art rather than eat, we will rip off the bandage and dance in the blood. We are crazy for art, and it happens in us whether we are paid or not, often to our own detriment. Governments are self centred cults, interested in preserving power and manipulating economies. Stability through controlled agitation I suppose you could call it. Art is not controlled, it is an agitation that works continuously to erode the restrictions of convention, assumption and power. It works to these ends within the people who create it, and it works the same way among those who experience it.

Why on earth would any government fund Art?

　


July 2nd, Sunday
Ok, so I was a bit upset yesterday. But I think my question still needs an answer. Why do governments fund art? Of course governments do more than build roads and start wars, governments also build hospitals, schools, art galleries, museums. Although it seems that every year funding for these public institutions is reduced, while wars increase, politcians paycheques increase and the homeless flood the streets, governments still do fund art.

Winston Churchill said something along the lines of, 'If we don't continue to fund art and education, even in wartime, then what are we fighting the war to protect?'

I wrote yesterday of governments as if they were a single minded beast, one mind, one purpose, but of course this oversimplification is a falsehood. Governments are made up of people, people who need education, healthcare, roads, and even art. So I guess that in the scheme of things, art gets funding for the same reason anything else does, because people demand it. Public education is a rather modern phenomenon, as is public healthcare, both of which only exist because of the active participation in goverment by people who care enough about these things to demand their inclusion in society. In a way, Art is another kind of healthcare, a branch of the public health department. It is certainly a thermometer for public opinion and any wise government would fund art as a means to gain deeper understanding of the standards, beliefs and desires of the public. I suppose that if people have a thriving art community, it acts as a kind of pressure release valve. Generally, people will communicate their feelings through art first and only resort to petrol bombs as a last resort. Having said that, it was only ten or so years ago that a man self immolated on the streets of Sydney as a protest against the war in the Middle East.

So why fund art? I suppose the alternative can be seen in many parts of the world where people are forced to live by the dictates of their governments, instead of the government serving the will of the people. Art is the opposite of war. It's all tangled up in the idea of free speech. Even if the government ignores everything we say, if we have the freedom to say it without being imprisoned, we are less likely to cause trouble on the streets. Hakim Bey commented that in some countries, poets are imprisoned for their opinions, but in America they are ignored and it is hard to say which of the two is more punishing. Some years ago I read that in Iran, heavy metal music is illegal, and its performance can result in prison terms for the musicians. To me, this kind of heavy handed cultural police action is a backwards way of maintaining control over people. Funding music schools, even for subversive music, seems a better way to prevent frustrated and angry young people from letting their violent feelings, transform into violent actions.

So if art is the opposite of war, then funding art is funding peace. It is a multi-faceted investment into public health, societal cohesion and cultural development. Art promotes education, it promotes community involvement, it promotes active participation in life, both socially and politically. This definitely causes trouble for those whose active interests are maintained through the concentration of political power, but it is a kind of trouble far preferable to petrol bombs.

Am I proud of Australia? I suppose the peace we have enjoyed for so many decades is something to be proud of. Even our dull, backwards, racist, sexist politicians are preferrable to the maniacs that seem to rule other parts of the world. Is the peace we enjoy a direct result of the funding and support given to art? It might be. Will we see an increase in violent conflict if art funding continues to shrink? Is investing in art, investing in peace?

I think it is.

I have invested my life to this purpose. Every dollar I have has gone into my participation in art, I put my money where my mouth is, and while it has not kept me well fed, it has fed the peace, beauty and happiness of my community. It has fed the imaginations of young and old, and in turn, I have been nourished by the artists I have been involved with. My loneliness, madness, and frustration have continuously been transformed through the steady application of art, into beautiful music, paintings, poetry and fiction. I have never made a petrol bomb (a few home made fireworks for sure....but no actual bombs), and my years of protesting in the streets has always been accompanied by the playing of drums and the holding of hands in solidarity with the refugee communities with which I identified, sympathised and supported.

Do I expect government funding? No. Do I feel entitled to it, also no. I am held in place by my misguided pride in poverty and cannot bring myself to go begging for money from anyone, plus the paperwork you have to fill out for grant money is crazy. But I guess, after all my ranting, I am glad that such funding does exist, and that those who are willing to jump through the hoops to get it, are able to. This year, Ink Pot Arts, a local theatre company, successfuly applied for grant money to have an air-conditioner installed into their central office/performance space. Now those who use the room no longer shiver in winter, nor wilt in summer and the woman who runs the whole operation has an office that she can actually work in all year round without getting pnumonia or heat-stroke. It's a little thing, but every little thing helps.


July 3rd, Monday
I must be going crazy. I'm getting worked up over the meaning and purpose of art, a sure sign that I have not been working enough.

Another morning in the Gawler Street Cafe, playing every song I have on ukulele, then a couple on Setar and finishing up with a harmonica dance piece. It's as good a way as any to pay for my coffee I suppose, although I am exchanging music for drugs while I still have no money for food. I have borrowed money to pay my mechanic. Too poor to dream, too cracked in the head to earn enough to support myself, sitting in my car in the library car-park sending emails to venues I don't expect to get replies from. The Coffee Pot has closed, so I emailed the Crown and Anchor. The weather report is for rain all week and the new owner of the farm still hasn't called me and didn't answer when I rang him this morning....

Stuck in my own rut. Trying to get out of the depression caused by being a musician, by playing more music. The quickest way out of the bottom of the barrel, is through the bottom. I'm sure that if I just get good enough at ukulele everything will turn around and people will start calling me back....what a sick joke.


　

July 7th, Friday
Sitting in the Gawler St Cafe, I've been playing ukulele all morning, the place is full of customers, laughing, talking, eating. Outside the rain is falling. Winter is most definitely here, but inside this small room, warm from the wood fire oven and smelling of the mornings fresh baked bread and cakes, I play my songs like my life depends on them and the people eat like they have all the time in the world.

　

July 9th, Sunday
I find Avalanche sweeping the concrete sand from his newly laid pavers, his shed door wide open and jazz music playing on a little stero in the corner. The shed is full of art supplies and harware, a lot of pottery equipment and old paintings, but there is a neat order to the jumble. His long gray hair is woven neatly in a long pony tail, his clothes are dirty from the morning's work. Avalanches life is art, and the home he shares with his wife Carrie is the gallery of their love.

Inside, the smell of delicious roasting chicken and vegetables makes me salivate, but today I do not have time to linger as guest to Carrie's homely kitchen art. Ava finishes his sweeping and changes his clothes as a plate of chicken is laid out for him on the dining table. The nearby coffee table is cluttered with books and harmonicas and a beautiful 3/4 size guitar rests on the window seat beside the back doors. Through the back wall of broad windows, the garden can be seen in early winter bloom, a profusion great purple flowers cover the shrub closest and further back amidst the pathways and hidden beneath bushes, dozens of large ceramic heads stare hollow eyed and curious, products of Avalanche's unstoppable creative power.

He and I drive to the flop-house beside the dance studio to film some poems and music. I've said it before, but the atmosphere in that building is electric. There is friction in making art in a room where men and women have lain soaking in the despair of homelessness, drunk, high, shivering in the freezing night air, wrapped up in layers of sleeping bags upon a rotting foam mattress, burning timbers from the collapsed ceiling trying to keep warm. It seems right to bring the self love of art into such a space, and though I never see those who use this building for real shelter, I feel compassion, comraderie and sympathy for them, knowing that it is only by the luck of my birth and the love of my woman that I do not share their grim threadbare existence.

　


Flophouse Blues

　

Now hear my story
and hear it true
this tale I tell you
The Flophouse Blues

I seen the bottom
I swum the deep
the hidden basement
beneath my feet

I saw what's in there
I touched the dirt
i found I didn't
know its worth

so i gave it
all i could
gave up wanting
all the good

all the easy
things in life
i chose trouble
i chose strife

i chose the devil
i took his deal
i made music
my daily meal

I told the river
i told the sea
i told my woman
she said to me

go tell the mountain
go tell the sky
just don't bother
askin' why

I told the valley
i told the trees
they gave me nothing
for my need

i dug the iron
i lit the fire
i forged the hammer
of my desire

what i wanted
could not be seen
could not be spoken
only dreamed

I walked through water
I crawled beneath
took the crossroads
down to the beach

I told the ocean
and it said to me
go tell the mountain
go tell the tree

tell the river
tell the sky
just don't bother
asking why

You heard my story
and heard it true
this tale I told you
The Flophouse Blues
　
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsbuOjS_BGw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS-RLrR252I

Monday July 17th
Rain, rain, rain.

I have been sick for a long time, two months, three?. A lingering cold, a hacking cough of foul tasting flegm that keeps me awake at night. An asthmatic fist clutching tight around my lungs. Week after week with only glimpses of sleep each night. A broken tooth leaking a foul taste into my mouth. Two weeks ago I visited the doctor and had blood tests done to reveal what allergies I am really suffering from, the results were unexpected.

I am allergic to nothing. My blood mineral levels are excellent, my kidneys are healthy, by all accounts I am in perfect youthful health. The doctor prescribed asthma meds, which certainly help to relax my lungs, but treating the symptom is not the same as curing the cause. I have to look deeper into the cause of my stress, the cause of my anxiety and the reason I am suffocating in the relaxing atmosphere of my partner's home.

Today I finally applied at Centrelink for the Family Tax benefit, and the rent assistance that comes with it, and the healthcare card that I have needed for years, but which I have been too stubbornly proud to ask for. I have let myself fall apart, stressing day and night about my seeming inability to earn a living wage no matter what I do. My back and neck and shoulders are a roadmap of anxiety, a mountain range of knots and hard lumps compunded each night by my near incessant coughing. I gobble vitamin C, ginger and garlic, but still my body does not want to get well. The stress keeps me locked in sickness. I keep myself locked in my stress.

Sitting in the cafe again, smelling the delicious food I cannot afford. Still, I am grateful for the warm air, the comfortable place to play my music and to write. I am grateful for the free coffee and the kind friendship of the owner, Dylan. I am grateful for my loving partner who feeds me and shelters me in my poverty. Grateful for my loving children who laugh and play and tumble around on the floor with me in the evening.

　


Friday July 21st
　

A devil dressed in black, clinging tooth and nail upon my back
calling me by names profane

His brother, smoke upon the air, doubt and ever failed despair
entrap and assault my brain

Yet music hangs upon the wind, willing now to find the end
by which the means may show

The valuing of my hearts song, the melody played all along
the dancer points the way to go

A challenge hung upon the door, a footprint burned upon the floor
a sacrificial offering
a sacrificial offering
and nothing more.

　


Saturday July 22nd
My asthma is receeding, as night after night I sleep beside the fireplace and keep myself wrapped in warm robes. I meditate upon the thought patterns that lead to the suffocating feeling in my lungs, the stress that preceeds my sickness. After weeks of continual coughing, choking and hacking up phlegm I finally went back to the doctor who gave me a more powerful preventative asthma medicine, which seems to be working.

I have no work at all now. Next fortnight I cannot pay my rent. Next week I will meet with the new owners of Peechabella and discuss what job I might have in the future with them. I have been contacting friends asking about any available work, a nibble here, a nibble there, but nothing has manifested yet. So I spend my days playing music, reading, sleeping, playing Playstation. In the evenings I play cards, listen to radio plays and eat home baked cupcakes. I edit this journal, upload videos to youtube, upload writing and photos to my blog, email videos to Regan for the WOMAD application.

Every day I add a drop of water to the ocean.

　


Sunday July 23rd
Plagued by sense of hopelessness that has no foundation
Just a malingering despair
a wasted feeling that effort produces only exhaustion,
never advancement

I waste whole weeks submerged beneath doubt.
I doubt that what I think, see, hear and feel is real
that I am not real
that everything about me is delusion
that I am a fraud selling the idea of myself, to myself
and no-one is buying.

Then for one day the sun comes out and I can see my body
outlined in black, a definite drawing upon the flat-screen of reality.

I am real.
but only for a moment.

the day passes and when I awake the next morning,
I am an unconvincing story of myself
a street-corner hawker with nothing to sell
but the notes my fingers pluck from the strings

and as i watch them float away, they too fade into nothing
and I am left holding an awkward wooden box,
a silent tension of timber and string

an emptiness I cannot fill.

　

Monday July 24th

I busked outside the cafe today. The street was strangely empty at midday and I made $12 in two hours. meh. Long moments in absolute solitude, playing my music, sitting in the sunshine, sipping coffee. The manager of Hills Radio came down with a Xoom recorder and got a sample of my playing, and a short interview. This week the local council have been promoting busking in the street. Posters have been in the windows of shops and the radio station got on board to help promote and book the musicians. I got my photo in the Weekend Herald. I had a long conversation with a couple who have travelled extensively, who have seen the wonderful differences that are the most exciting part of cultural exchange. Integration is not sameness, it is sharing, adapting, evolving, celebrating. We are all one people, though we grew up in different houses, we all live together in the same world.

I Met up with Alice afterwards and played some Bridgewater Trio songs, which was simply wonderful. It is always a pleasure to speak with Alice, and to play music. We communicate very easily I think. We jammed together on one of my setar songs, and the results were surprisingly good for our first attempt, an intriguing sound.

* * *

In the studio with Gardy doing overdubs on Street Dance Karsilamas. He is a Perfectionist. The challenge of the song is monumental, not only in terms of the manic escalating tempo, but the greatest peak, nigh insurmountable, is the goal Gardy sets for himself. Polishing the dust from the gleaming edge of sound, he refines his finger movements over and over, muttering under his breath as he develops a new technique to play the melody he hears in his head. Reprogramming physics to suit his funk. He wrestles with a great beast, crocodile teeth, hooves and horns, a force perpetually greater than himself, yet to which he continually aspires.

The result is a weird Arab Jazz Funk, with a gypsy 9/8 swing. Dizzying. I think I might send it to Mat Jacob.

I also recorded Song of the South, the very first piece I wrote on Setar, and which I have been playing over and over for years without ever satisfactorily pinning down either its exact melodies, or structure. I have left it 'til last out of fear and doubt, the Setar is such a sensitive instrument that all my weaknesses are revealed through it and it has taken this long to find the confidence to record it. I also recorded The Bridge, which now means that I have recorded every song I inteneded to include on the album. There are still overdubs to do, and everything that comes after that, but tonight saw the completion of part one.

Stompy has listened to the 23 track demo I gave him, and after one week of listening he gave me this advice.


There is the album that the public wants, then there is the album that you want to release. Somewhere in between is the album that should come out.
Or something to that effect. I consider that I will need to pare the song selection back, and that the final release will be less rambling, more focussed. A more intense collection of songs, a well edited story told through music.

　


Friday July 28th
Playing at Casablabla tonight, two, fifteen minute sets plus a bit of roaming drumming with the dancers. I get free dinner and drinks, plus $80, the best pay for music work I've had in a long time. Also, I finally received confirmation from the new owners of the farm, that I will be kept on for 2 days a week as gardener, plus I got a call back from Bernard who runs a garden maintenance company, who offered me another 2 days a week work. So pretty soon, I'll be back on my feet. It's been a difficult start to winter, but I think things are finally turning around.

* * *

Later that night....

The footpath is crowded as I push a sack truck loaded with my gear down Hindley street at seven in the evening, weaving around the homeless men camped outside the convenience store, passing through thick clouds of delicious, sweet smelling smoke puffed into the cool night air by those seated outside the shisha bars who play cards or board games as they sip strong coffee from tiny cups. Music pulses through stone and earth from underground nightclubs, restaraunts are full and strip clubs are empty, a ratio that will reverse as the civil appeites of twilight give way to the nocturnal cravings of a friday night.

Outisde Casablabla, the tables are full of well dressed diners enjoying the atmosphere of the restaraunt strip along Leigh street, their faces lit and the air around them warmed by tall gas fired heaters. A waiter opens the door for me as I approach and I squeeze through the narrow entrance into the tall ceilinged restaraunt. Nearly every table is full, diners dressed in fine clothes eating rich moroccan food and talking loudly, joyfully over the music played by the DJ. I set up my gear by the bar, talk to the manager, plug my amp in and arrange the microphones near the wooden chair that is brought out for me. Unzipping music cases, I put my instruments on display and when everything is ready, I go to change into my costume. Kylea and Steff arrive, two dancers who have a regular gig here, and at whose invitation I am playing. We change backstage (the ladies have the use of a disabled access toilet, I take a stall in the men's toilet, the floor sticky and the air wet with the thick atmosphere of urinie and deodorant), and then I wait in the hallway until 7:45 when I take my place by the bar and begin.

The room is very noisy. At home I usually set my amp to level 2, and it is too loud to talk above, here I keep turning the amp up, and up, and up, until my drum is set at 5 and my harmoica at 7, and it is still only just audible above the din of the crowd. Still, I see feet tapping beneath tables, heads nodding and the occasional turn of a head as the diners look up to watch me. Playing in the Gawler Street Cafe has prepared me well for playing here, the tiny gestures of attentiveness are all I need to know that I am being received, and is is for those who listen that I play. The bar staff closest to me nod in appreciation and curiosity, someone stares with careful deliberation as I play my Koncovka, their eyes watching the tiny movements of my fingers at the bottom of the flute as I bend one note into another or flutter in vibrato a rising series of trills, rolling the back of my throat as I play skipping stones across the air.

My two song set complete (nice work if you can get it...?!), the dancers slink down the stairs from the mezzanine bar at the back of the restaraunt, their recorded music pumping through the house PA as they perform amidst the swerving waitresses carrying plates of food from the kitchen. Although I have seen these dances in rehearsal, I am surprised by how different they look here, the shapes and movements that seemed so familiar in the comfortable lounge room rehearsal space, now seem difficult to follow, the shapes their feet trace on the floor are muddied among the fading footsteps of customers ordering at the bar, turning to watch, drinks in hand. Their two song set complete, I take up my Darbuka and play for them as we roam from table to table, putting on our best smiles and serenading the men and women as they eat. I take a knee and drum, looking up at these beautiful women who have devoted their lives to dance, admiring their courage and their happiness. We move from table to table, eventually exiting through the side entrance to play outside for the diners on the street, returning through the front door for a flourishing finish.

With half an hour before our next set, we sit and drink, talking about the world. I have known both these dancers for many years, but I could still count the number of conversations we have shared on one hand. We perform at the same events, but conversations are usually restricted to "What time am I on?" and "Where can I get changed?" It is lovely to sit with a tall glass of Guiness in my hand, and to tallk about something other than performing. They are both lovely women and I am grateful to be in their company.

I play my Setar for the second set, turning the amp up to 8 and hearing this usually austere, delicate instrument buzz loudly in the room like an amplified, distorted guitar. I open with Flophouse Blues, then play The first day of winter, and finish with The Bridge. With the restaraunt now twice as crowded as before, the noise is huge and it feels like rock and roll, something I never expected to experience with a Setar in my hand. People groove in their seats as I play The Bridge, and a couple waiting in line to get a table nod their heads in time to the heavy, slow blues riff of Flophouse Blues, smiling and swelling with the joy of this little moment.

The brightness of atmosphere created by a dancer in a restaraunt is so very different from that of a stage. Dance is quite surreal, the movements so removed from everyday body movements, it makes me think again of the magic of street parades. Everyday life is wrapped in uniforms, movement is linear, mechanised, to a purpose. Dance is none of these things, expressing hunger for that which is not food, expressing joy for mysterious and secret triumphs, a wordless vocabulary of both passion and pain, the rush and push and undertow pull of our emotional lives. The skin tingles and a fluttering stomach make the flesh light, the bones hollow like a bird. To watch dance is to be be moved by it, the body imagines the movements, imagines it all on its own and we who watch are moved though we are still, and I can see in the eyes of the diners who turn away from their conversations, look up from their food, who close their mouths and open their eyes and ears, who watch, and in watching become a part of the performance, I can see in their eyes the magnificent magic of dance: that the movement of one, is mirrored in the stillness of the other. Performance is both public and private. In a restaraunt, since so many people do not look up, for those who do, and for those who catch our eyes and share a split second connection, it is like a private meeting, like we are playing just for that person and that no-one else knows what is happening, a secret in a public place.

After the dancers did their second set, after our second roaming vignette, I pack my gear, we change back into our street clothes and food is brought to us. How lovely to sit and chat after a gig, to relax and enjoy the beautiful atmosphere of the restaraunt as it slowly transforms itself into a nightclub, with younger and more wildly dressed people beginning to crowd the floor with drinks in their hands. Kylea, Steff and I later walk back to our cars together, weaving slowly through the running stream of people in the street. As we pass a strip club, I see through the large glass windows to the front bar. The room is thick with smoke, only the indistinct shapes of those closest to the window can be seen, dancing slowly to the pulsing vibration of sub-woofers.

　


Monday 31st July
It's amazing just how much a good gig transforms me as a person, how it balances my mind, steadies my hands, boosts my confidence beyond all previously known levels and makes me so much more of who I am supposed to be, as a happy, healthy, creative man, making my way in the world. Playing in the Gawler St Cafe this morning, it was like watching a future version of myself play the songs, my fingers stepped with confidence and precision across the frets, my right hand felt strong, precise, knowing, almost smug at the clever little tricks and smooth strides it makes across the strings.

Rain outside, sunlight streaming through the drops

I sit by the window with my ukulele and play music for the people.

When I arrived this morning the cafe was full, but everyone was silent, staring into the middle distance, staring into their phones, reading the newspaper. I started to play and the magic of music that has become reliable stirred the monday morning sleepiness and with my wistful melodies I woke them all up. My music is not cheerful, almost nothing at all in the major scale. What uplifting sensations there are come from the rhythms, and without knowing it, people respond to the rhythm, and to my songs that do not try to tell them to cheer up on a monday morning, instead saying, let it be Monday, let it be in all our tiredness, and tight lipped half hearted smiles. I say you have good reason to be pensive and grouchy, it is Monday, let us not pretend, but instead be of good cheer to know that hot food is before us, a musician plays in the corner and coffee is on our lips. Though the day is not yet really begun, we can share this moment and be happy to be here, sleepy, bored, distracted, on a rainy Monday morning in Mt Barker.

A customer who sat at the nearest table listened closely and in a moment between songs, pointed to an article in the newspaper stating that today is "Unusual Musical Instrument Day"...so I bring out my Setar and sing for her, talking afterward of the ancient origins of the lute and the intertwining paths of development that lead to the modern 6 string guitar. She asked if the Setar was related to the Mandolin, a common question that stems from the sound of paired strings, all the better for singing with.

So I sang for her, and for all those who sat with me facing the day with varying expectations and desires. Monday in a little town in South Australia. An ordinary day.