Lou Reed, New York, Track 7

I said holly hey

Only her name wasn’t Holly, it was just a greeting. My name’s not Holly either, it’s Louis van Buren. Yes actually, before you ask, I am related to that van Buren, but only very distantly. I think he was a fourth great uncle. And her name was Flo. Good god, I mean what a name! The great crazy romances always seem to have a girl with a stand out name and a matching body and mine’s no different. Flo Vale, the ebony blonde occasional redhead. Flo Emerson Vale, the tiger of the Jungle nightclub down on Walker street. Fucking crazy Flo Emerson Vale, the girl who laughed like the morning and bit like a hyena, the girl whose calves were as well formed and enticing as her breasts, the girl who was always in the right dress, the girl I loved. And probably still do.

She said hey sugar

I felt like I had to be sweet enough to live up to the name. Maybe if I’d been drinking mixers all night instead of straight fast Jack’s and cool gradual beers I would have had the sweetness in me. It was a real old shanty of a bar, the kind you wanna write about and sing about in simple rolling songs played in bars of its ilk. It was thankfully smoky, protected from the whining of the law, and thankfully cheap, which is probably why we made it ours despite how far it was to stumble and how full it was of sagging AC/DC fans. We were there to celebrate someone’s birthday, but I don’t recall whose, I think it was John Wilkes Booth’s. We did that most nights, when we needed a reason to drink at what we called the Tattooed Arms, celebrate the birthday of whoever had been born on that day. And we really did increase the trivia bank of dates and people both for us and a lot of bearded barflies. So I wasn’t feeling as sweet as I could have been, which was good in a way because it let me surprise her by raising the bar later.

Please allow me to introduce myself

Getting to know a complete stranger who is so stomach-crampingly attractive you want to burst, without at all bringing up the obvious point that you’re only speaking as a means to a very carnal end, is like trying to stop a headache by thinking really hard about it. I always try to get the hints and important information in as subtle stowaways in my innocent life-story introductions. For instance, if asked what music I like I’ll always say “mostly the slow and sexy stuff, but sometimes the kind that thumps and pounds all night”. Which is a pretty honest and accurate summation of what music I do like, among other things.

I’m now taking over

It was roughly here that I lost whatever fumbling striving grasp I had on the conversation, and let her do what she did best and talk about her opinions. I learnt her name was Flo, which was short for nothing-thank-you-very-much-why-did-you-just-assume-everyone-just-assumes. I agreed, Flo is much easier to pronounce. I learnt she’d been spending the last few weeks on a fact-finding expedition in South America, and that she was a sometime freelance journalist. Just how ‘sometime’ and what those facts were (hint: Cocaine counts as a fact) I didn’t find out until a little later. She told me how she weighed exactly 54.4 kilograms that afternoon and how she was on a record streak of five weeks without more than a 0.4 variation of that. Then she looked surprised at herself for saying that, apologized, and bought me a weird blue cocktail I’d never heard of and that the bartender had to look up. I guess that said a lot about her too.

Go Johnny go

Anyway, some nights you just feel the world in the air, and the universe in the room, and live it. With this wild blue cocktail in one hand and this wild red girl in the other I stood on tables and danced. The whole lot of us were there – Mikey, Maya, Johnny, Soho, Sleepy and all the periphery. We ruled that Booth’s Birthday like madmen writhing between ringing bells, in tortured ecstasy, in blind living. These are rare nights, and sometimes lately I’ve been realizing just how much of those nights was in her. It wasn’t just Flo that made us dance hard and yelp for sheer joy, it was just that when we did and she was around… well it felt like we were doing it all for her. We felt like we needed to reach that high, that example. And that was how I met Flo.

Wars and rumours of wars...

Oh, and a somewhat public announcement.

Maybe you've caught rumours, or heard my longings, or maybe I've already been in touch with you personally, but if not and you're just cruising, I'm moving to Melbourne on the 15th of July. Which is around 7 weeks away.

This'll mean a few things, the relevant ones being:
- Dearth of blog posts mid-year. Not like you're reading anyway.
- Dearth of me around.

I'll obviously try and see everyone, and see them as much as possible, before I go, but I can't be everywhere and I see hardly anyone regularly as it is. There will be an array of gatherings of various formality, various levels of closeness of friendship and various levels of size at various locations. You'll know about the ones relevant to you.

Feel free to actually comment on this post. It's a good opportunity for me to avoid going into this in detail which giving you the illusion of inquiry.
Do try to miss me.

Gods in the Chrysalis

We are 15 times more likely to have sex this week than receive hand-addressed mail. Only 100 years ago, people were roughly (and this can only be assumed, since there’s not a lot of pre-WW1 hanky panky data floating about) 55 times more likely to get the mail.

And we say we don’t live in the greatest of times!

I’m absolutely wrecked. My body feels like my brain is launching fireworks, and that the explosion shockwaves are sending tsunamis down my veins and arteries to wash and swamp into each other, causing me to shiver and shake like a heroin addicted Michael J Fox. My nose feels like someone’s holding an angry political protest rally inside it, and my lips are so dry I’m worried that all the water I keep drinking to try and stop this is just accumulating in hidden pockets of my body, waiting to squirt out inappropriately at anyone passing by, or worse, diluting my precious tsunami blood. Which might explain the delirious feeling that I can’t fully concentrate on my fingers typing. I just know that they are, and see this thing moving but I’m typing solely on a kind of practiced routine, a rhythm and I can’t actually see the tips hit the letters.

I feel like a large angry hairy man, made of billions of tiny virus cells, has been subsumed into my body against my will. It’s a kind of micro biotic rape. And he’s not too happy about being in there either, but my bastard brain government is holding him in my Sinus-Baxter detention centre in the hope of processing information about this intruder. DO YOU HAVE ENOUGH ANALOGIES!? I can’t hear you! No really, I can’t… I have so much gunk in my aural cavities…

I want everyone to know how the world keeps turning even when individuals lose their grip on its function. The really influential dive in and out of this title, but the force of life lift them higher even when they are not in control of their bodies and minds.
We must occasionally turn ourselves over for judgment, to a lover, to a group of strangers, to a “family” group based on blood connections, we must all be prepared to be carried when we are not walking. Otherwise, how can we expect people to watch us walk the rest of the time? If we were always walking, setting examples, being influential, we would not need them to carry us ever. And thus they would not watch us walk. I am torn under by humanity, human inadequacy, but buoyed by the re-acceptance I take on faith.
We must, as completely lonely individuals, trust in others.

I trust that if I’m doing anything right, then what is important to me will see me as the same. I’m not much of anything right now, but I have a well of passion so deep I know it rivals any living person’s, I know how few people believe in anything. But tonight I feel like crap, like a fire burning damp logs. And I still care, and I still burn, so forgive me if I can’t be every pinnacle you have come to expect. I will be higher and stronger for you in times to come.

Cold men nourish the kindling of a tiny flame, for in it is potential for them to be warm.

Come Fly!

Aw shit Roger, you know it ain’t like that. You know it ain’t!

I don’t know anything. You don’t know anything either. I don’t know what to believe from you anymore.

Bullshit! You have no right to say that! None at all.

Sun sets slowly sinking sultry silken sluice into the corner of the snow-globe and the fear is in the hearts of the men. Fear of the darkness is binding fear of the anger, the argument and answers together, gripped they shout into themselves because they are right, and being right consoles them.

Roger had set out after Don because Don had promised he could show him the origin of the number 2, and Roger had believed him. It was a pretty good goal to set out for but it got lost in the trek across the country fighting buffalo and sleeping in close proximity. The best intentions are often lost when friends spend too much time too close, and we all know what that did to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin… to think we could have landed men on the sun.

You know you did though, Don! You know you left the goddamn thing back at her place and now we’re stuck here in the fuckburning cold anf there’s not a damn thing good I can say about you.

You could say I’m a fella who’ll always share his whiskey.

But you never did! Remember back west when you gave your whole hipflask to that guy who said he’d been to Indonesia, and then it all all all went to that.

I didn’t say I always shared it with you.

Well then fuck you and this whole number 2 thing. I don’t need your knowledge, I don’t need what you can give me.

But he did so he died.



I’m so jumpy, I’m so restless. I feel like I’m about to put on a fancy suit and try to run across the country, and I guess I am.

Anyone who’s not on my team is missing out! I don’t have any enemies, but I sure don’t have enough friends, and I certainly have too many ideas. I like where we’re going, I like who I am, and I like you. I may not be much, I may not be old and wise, and I may not be able to be so close to you, but I’ll make y’all feel amazing.

All you’ll need is a lighter, a brand new jacket, a fistful of cash and a heart driven at the future. And we will all sing the Pogues.

So fill up your glasses, with brandy and wine,
And whatever it costs I will pay.
So be easy and free, when you’re drinking with me,
I’m a man you don’t meet everyday.