Paul J Penton – Songwriter

He carries around a bag like a baby in a sling, full of new hopes for some and disappointments for others. Some of these things he’s delivering are gonna be ugly babies that people won’t want – some will be beautiful. He’s not on a bike or a motor bike or anything, just on foot . The sentry on our round. He reaches into his pouch, a dark cave where I presume the mail is layered by address. His hand reaches in and feels the rough texture of envelopes, the lumpiness of packages, the cellophane windows of hopeful bills. Sometimes bonded together with rubber bands.

I imagine him sitting back at the office before his round, organising these deliveries. A wide open bench under naked fluorescent lights the mutlicoloured envelopes being sorted into address order and placed in the bag . Hustling next to each other bobbing up and down as he’s out on his rounds , rain or shine he delivers on time. In the rain he wears an orange jacket and hood. The rain pelts away on the hood making a hollow middle dripping sound that by the end of this round might be reverberating around inside his head. On boiling summer days, his deodorant can’t handle it and his underarms become a stain of sweat. A shirt change is required. Winter gloves keep out the cold. He likes the freshness the aliveness of walking in the brisque air. It all keeps him fit for his weekend bushwalking obsession. Leading groups of less experienced walkers through swampy bogs and straggly confused thickets. Feeling like Indiana Jones with a machete in his hand , working through his weekday frustrations of misplaced envelopes and indecipherable addresses. ‘Whack’, another sappling gets it, the blade sending a judder up his right arm……

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Just 12 more sleeps ’til I return to the working world and how far have I got on my quest…..

I said I would have the ‘bones’ for the two albums done by the end of the 107 days. After going through archives and cassettes and even journals from yesteryear! I think I have a final list for the ‘olde’ stuff:

1. Distant galaxy – bones track recorded
2. Myra – bones track in Ableton Live – needs to be redone
3. Lemonade – bones track recorded
4. Someday Someday [Claire] – bones track done
5. If we had a Kombi – bones track in Ableton Live- needs to be redone
6. A lot on your mind – bones track in Cubase to be redone
7. A Hundred times a day [what are U thinking] Bones track done
8. Alone in my room – bones track in ‘live- to be redone
9. Come to their sense – no track yet
10. Life on TV – no tack yet
11. Act Naturally – no track yet [ damn that 11/4 timing!]
12. More than sometimes – Deluxe bones track done
13. You shall be rewarded – no track yet
14. Hungry for some love – bones track in Live [might stay there]

So obviously I need to do some arse moving in the next 12 sleeps to meet target-that doesn’t include the songs for the other album ! That’s about 70% there.

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At the book bazaar the shelves are closely packed, almost as tight as sitting on the seats on a cut price airline flight – jam packed. Cardboard categories conjure imaginings from the air. The eye follows a plumb-line to the ground. Packed in among the packed in books there’s the musty smell of age. Opening the yellowing pages of books from yesteryear can reveal scribblings and notes embedded on pages – the thoughts of a ‘once life’ somebody had way back when – fascinating. Those yellowed pages almost want to crumble in your hand they seem as fragile as dried out lavender.

The bookshelves seem to each be doing their part to keep the world on their shoulders. I think I can see their well tuned muscles straining just a bit – caught at a constant tension the way those thick steel cables hold up a bridge – reminds me of ‘the thinker’ and in a way isn’t that what they are? Each of these shelves holds an armada of information and they’re waiting for us to come and indulge in this take way food of the literary world. Feed our hungry minds that long for learning, the blanket of learning we can wrap around cold minds we develop to get through the routines of the day. Minds that need to come alive again after work-time immersion and drowning of creativity. Maybe I could start a campaign to free the shelves, to walk right out of this prison they’re trapped in and lead a march down Chapel street. Give each shelf a banner instead of a category, have them marching behind me. But, maybe they like it here in this close nestled family atmosphere, so familiar. Maybe this is their freedom, being nestled here together where they know one another and are known. We passing customers, we passengers are the only strokes of affection they need. They give up a part of themselves like an organ when we buy a book, but a new one will be along soon.

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On the journey back from Camperdown I often stop in at the Batesford roadhouse. Gerty the Getz crunches onto an expansive gravel apron where semi trailers with there adopted children lie snoozing while their tattooed drivers eat hungrily in the cafe. I too am bound there for a steak sandwich with the lot -no cheese- of course. A television hangs in the air like a U.F.O and pumps out inannities from the days events or whatever TV game show happens to be on while my steak cooks through. Scrapings of chairs and knifes and forks dent the china of other diners. The walls are a mosaic of truck pictures. Big huffng men standing proudly next to their rigs in all manner of locations from the Harbour Bridge to Ayers rock. There’s a picture from every point around the country it seems. Almost like these are badges of honour in the trucking world- maybe they are.

The steak and chips land in front of me, the oily residue of the fryer clearly identifiable, as I bite into the combo juices dribble down my hands. Egg and bacon and tomato and sauce and lettuce and pickle explode together in a taste bomb I just want to gulp down too rapidly so I can go back for another bite, the same way a kid wants to run back to the top of the giant slide for another elated moment of freedom. The bread has a crunchy untoasted appearance – I suspect it’s been thrown on the grill at the last moment and browned, sort of a French toast idea . I zoom out from the food while chewing to look the other way at a display of car parts for various emergencies from fan belts to wiper blades to spark plugs. Finishing I get up to pay , grabbing a cold coke from the fridge. It’s arctic chill almost burns before I get to the checkout. My wallet has been slugging around the back pocket I open pillow of bills, crisp fifties and floating twenties float in a pocket of darkness……

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If I had a choice I’d be the Nando’s inspectorate general. It’d be a job of randomly turning up to any Nando’s Franchise [that's Portuguese chicken] worldwide and sampling the quality of the fare on offer. In particular the chips [or fries as Americans like to call them] There’s something very special – in general- about the preparation of these fries; crispy and golden on the outside, dowsed in some ’secret’ salt. When your front teeth scissor through them the satisfaction meter in the mind hits full scale, the insides are creamy and fluffy almost like hot ice cream. An orgasm of taste. Now when this is combined with the Portuguese peri peri sauce [though they slant it toward the South American angle] you have a winning combo. Especially with the water or juice that hits the spot like lemonade on a boiling hot day.

When the weather is favourable I sit outside taking in the street or the view as available. If I were the inspectorate general, here’s where Iwould get into a bit of pest control. Pigeons, and seagulls seem to form an alliance an army of fluttering wings that can easily surmount an attack on you before you’re even settled in for that first bite. The pigeons – usually scrawny underfed beasts with the feathers on their necks starting to peel away – ascend onto a neighbouring table and bend there neck at unusual angles – asking, begging for a hint of what you’re indulging in. A momentary compassion is nudged aside by a stronger thought ; ‘rats of the air’. These ordinary creatures with their mostly perfect box quilted perfect feathers begin to grow tails and eyes enlarge out of proportion to say rat, vermin , filthy. Who knows what diseases they might be carrying, these carrion,yarg!

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Cruise control sorts out multitudes of sins. Just push that button in the middle of the steering wheel and you’re locked in, the engine surging and declining with the rise and fall of the road, the long stretches of nothingness between places is filled with the yawn of the radio or the Personal development guru you’re listening to on that day. Yeah it’s great if you’ve got it, but if you don’t it’s so easy to start thinking about some topic and letting your mind walk away from the wheel, playing over some concept or idea and you look down to see that needle at ten over the limit. TEN!, they’ll get you for that. It’s only 3 percent tolerance on speed cameras, on anything these days a three precent limit – what if there was a three percent limit in a relationship? Excuse me partner your behaviour is three percent over the tolerable limit and I am issuing you with a fine – no wouldn’t work at all.

So you’re locked in there behind the wheel, like you’re in a tomb or are a mummy in an Egyptian pyramid, zoned out focusing on the car ahead watching it’s tail lights wag, keeping your distance- maintain a barrier of at least three percent – three percent of what? The monotony is broken by changing lanes. You’ve raced up behind someone wearing a hat , probably headed back for the farm. They’re plodding along and you swing out over the white lines that Ker-lunka as you pass over them. There’s an occasional percussive explosion as you murder a cats-eye. You know it ‘ll still be winking for the next car body that rolls over it, so it’s care factor ZERO. The accelerator fights against you and the motor surges and you’re past. The indicator blinks and asks questions of the left lane as you slot back into place – as if nothing has happened. The radio still sighs the same tune and you become hypntoised by the rhythm of the afternoon, just keep on going , don’t break it keep going at the speed limit, but the needle starts to…..

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It seemed he had been driving for days when in reality it was hours, but each hour seemed to tire his concentration and his muscles and his attention span just a little bit more. ‘Lay hold of the goal that lays ahead’ he keeps telling himself between sweetened swigs from the almost empty 2 litre Coke bottle. His blood stream now consists almost entirely of coke and and fatty deposits from take-aways he’s stopped in at along the way on his relentless pursuing of the finishing line. In his mind a stadium of people are cheering , while in reality there’s just the washy static of the a.m. station on the country radio station he’s managed to find.

When the telephone rang twelve hours ago he didn’t imagine himself projected forward in this strung out state, driving by the nerve fibers at the end of his fingers, keyed up to receive each jolt the road would deliver him on this marathon journey – this desperate mercy dash, but as soon as he heard the situation he dropped everything. There were no months of perparation and training for this – nothing can. No bottles of soothing water along the track being handed to him by well wishers, no energy bars being dispensed and certainly no parade as he crosses the finish line. Mundane hours of boring sunbaked country with disinterested sheep being the only spectators – if they are looking at all. He breathes in the air conditioning, been living in its recycled juices the last 11 hours tasting desperation tasting hope that he’ll get there in time, there is no quicker way. Why does she have to choose now to go into a final decline? Can she hod on ’til he gets there? It’s been on the cards but why now, in the midst of this marking marathon he’s undertaking for school?.

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They built a tunnel under the road, from the ‘information center’ through to the cliffs. It feels like you’re on the penguin parade with the other tourists waddling down the tongue of tarmac toward the place where the world drops away, and then you’re onto the planks, your feet clip clop hollowly depending on what type of sole you’re shod with. You’re hoping that there might be some sort of engagement or enlightenment for your other soul as the shrubbery begins to thin out. For balance as the steps decline you reach out for the hand rail. It’s dressed pine, worn smooth, splinter free. Annoying that; when you run your hand along a finished piece of wood and a javelin of pain starts to sting, you squint and frown trying to find the source, but sometimes it hangs in there for days, a burr in your soul, a calling card from nature -take me seriously.

Further on the boards step down and up leading to a viewing platform. The land disappears and a canvas of blue green sea stretches out to infinity. Catching your eye before it plunges over the end of the earth are the twelve apostles, skyscrapers of the sea; rock eroded by time from the sandstone cliffs, some of them on the verge of completely dissolving, their radiant yellow gold adorned with a toupe’ of foliage. They come in various sizes from a standard building to a battleship . The breezes buffet up the cliffs carrying the tang of the ocean; salty and briny it abrades your skin on its way to being puffed out somewhere inland. A bit of a gale you might become unsteady on your feet and reach out for the hand rail again. Reassured by the cool wood you continue to drink in the view.

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The concrete cutters

I’m waiting for my chicken tender-loins
looking out over Fawkner park
the trees seem to be having an afternoon nap
a lunchtime class in kick boxing is under way
merciless pounding
upward thrusting
sexual energy being released.
Is it a bunch of workmates
working out their frustrations over the boss
is he the target in the middle of the gloves
anyway

Concrete Cutters sit in a swirl of smoke
in the outdoor area
right behind me
occasional tufts of nicotine drift by
I keep up my mantra to take temptation away
there’s no consideration
in their exhalation
for other people who are eating

He’s a Larr-i-kin
a funny bugger
he’s talking about this machine
a big one – from what I can make out.
It cuts holes in concrete
probably like those things you see
when they’re fixing up a street
all hissing pipes and water
and steam
it can’t be his
he must just be one of the employees
because he keeps mouthin’ off
’bout this bloke who runs the thing
for example;

He was meant to meet him
at some job the other day at six a.m
he got there, hung around an hour went back home
turned up again at nine
just as the ‘boss’ was making his presence known
He asked the boss ‘where were you’?
‘whaddya mean’ was the reply
you told me to be here at six
oh’ yeah
I forgot ,….
DICKHEAD he says

So his current predicament revolves around blades
it seems there’s a few types
concrete,brick, tar, masonite
you name it there’s one for every occasion
the job he’s doing right now
or this morning
he starts sawing through the greyness
and has to exert a heap of additional pressure
to get the result
he would normally get

He stops the machine
looks at the giant silver ring –
BRICK emblazoned on the side
he calls the boss to say you’ve given me the wrong blade
his repsonse- ‘TURN IT ROUND’
Bloody hell says the bloke “I already tried”.
You gotta get me the right sort of blade
or this will take 5 weeks DICKHEAD –
or words to that effect.
He boasts to his lunch mate that he often calls the boss that
‘DICKHEAD’
and still has a job

The other smoking companion
laughs at appropriate moments
and tells his own story of cutting through a wall
standing on scaffolding-
probably without a safety harness on
revealing how the grinder jumps
when you hit the reinforced steel
inside the wall
sounds scarey
all those teeth
whirring away
just one buck cut cut you into pieces
they erupt from the table suddenly
and twitter their way
back to the adventure of building…

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The air is a mixture of unsettled dust and the impregnation of decades of pollution and humanity. The floor wants to applaud the air but it’s trapped, boards polished and re-polished echo footsteps of technicians as if you’re in a canyon. Gantries of over head lights resemble an operating theatre, curtains and blacks hide panelled walls in a skirt of modesty. The stage starts to come alive with players, a few violins, a double bass. Lines of rehearsal scratch their way toward sweetness. Blocks of plastic backed chairs in sets of four are being linked together the metal tie sends a chink through the air. Seat covers seem to be baked on. Pieces of fabric bubble out.

A hot black tea from the cheap place across the road still steams hot in my hand the paper container doubled to insulate it, still, the heat leaks through and lasers my hand on this cold winter day. The lip of the cup, gingerly meets mine and the tide of tea and the foreshaw of my tongue lap against one another in submission. All is OK, not too hot for this well trained tongue. The steps at the back room of the hall definitely smell of time and decay and age. It’s trapped in there…….

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