A biography, of sorts…
With no disrespect, I consider myself a South Coast refugee. Why?
Because I stood helplessly by watching every one of my good friends
die. Casualties of… peace and the filtered brutality of middle stream
suburbia's small town mentality.
I used to cobble behind the stand where the bandwagons stopped,
marvelling at folk either jumping on or falling off, and each time my
hat filled with nothing but loss, I'd wrap my scarf up around my mouth
and mumble abuse into its cloth.
But too stubborn to remain stubborn I eventually stowed away, on
Dylan by night and Difranco by day. But leading the fickle is like
feeding a stray, I'd have ridden on anyone heading that way, that way
…back;
…before Glastonbury sold out, back before Glastonbury sold out. Before the Empire struck back with its life sized cardboard cut out. Before the Red Necks and the White Coats and the Boys in Blue got permission, to slip into their khaki under the camouflage of religion.
…before music got it its hair caught in the thick of fad and
fashion and delusions of grandeur got tangled up with passion and
splattered on our television screens and paper captions the lives of
those who for the most would die to get reactions.
But how cowardly it is of me to list internal hardships, and
have a pop at people cause we make such easy targets. And how difficult
it is, to try and sing like no-one else has sung, and how brilliant it
can feel to be pleased with what you've done. And how the incidental
things will always have much more in tow and how the smallest of things
will teach you everything you know.
…and how in the hills tops of Bhaludanda, so far from fad and
fashion, there's a little boy who can dance like Michael Jackson. All
the way up there and unaware of what the fuss is, he dances to the
rhythm, and they clap until he blushes.
