Paul J Penton – Songwriter

Current issues, domestic issues, personal issues – all thrown into the hopper. He opens his funnel mouth to let a flow of invective spray out, his mouth is a fire hose spraying down the audience, watering down their watered down beer, as he tries to dredge a laugh from their silt pit souls. They’ve come along to be entertained to be taken somewhere else through rupturing laughter, but this one’s not doing it. It’s open mic night so its a pot pouri of good and bad flowers, some dry and some bursting with flavour like juicy grapes, unfortunately the previous woman was pretty good so now this lame gun is shooting blanks. The occasional bursts of laughter sound more like a croaking frog than a whinnying horse. Their beer seems to taste as if someone’s added dishwater, the bitey salt and vinegar chips mince around in people’s mouths like wet flags at a funeral. He’s trying hard, jokes about his wife , his mother in law, the trains, the economy, politicians, all seem to fall flat. He just hasn’t got the ‘edge’, whatever that might be. ‘It’ what ever that might be.

You know it when you’re on it, riding along a parapet somewhere between fear and exaltation, feeling as if you could scoop up the crowd in the palm of your hand and make them follow you wherever you might choose to take them, exceptional, doesn’t happen often. He can’t see them of course in the muted lights, but he does perceive their response- or lack thereof and inside him heavy weights start to hang on his heart and his hopes, they start dragging him down to depths of despair he’s not encountered before. Does he really want to do this? Is it worth it? Will I ever be any good?The usual diet of self doubt that needs to be worked through to prove your self to your self.

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A side show tent at the local town show, looks like something from the days of King Arthur and the knights, hooped edges with pointy top and folds of cloth like elelphant hide gathering in toward the door. $20 for a reading the sign says – curiosity’s head rises, its fangs ready to bite at this possible fraud, what will it be? The all seeing clear globe or the painted faces of the cards?

Inside, a there’s a small waiting area, a couple of chairs , incense sways through the air like unseen spirits. A curtain moves aside and a boney gnarled hand beckons me in. It’s dark and gloomy… why? Shouldn’t this all be out in the open, feels claustrophobic, the air close and thick. The clear globe indeed stands at table centre, but she also shuffles cards, makes me think of the witches from Shakespeare, hubble bubble toil and trouble……Somehow I have translated those mis-shapen faces onto hers, but in reality she’s a late middle aged woman with chubby cheeks and a kind persona, maybe she does believe she has some connection with something in another dimension, she can ‘ see’.

The cards tell a story and it’s easy to make the story fit the movie of your life, enough generalities, enough average facts and details could be made to jam with the reality that she perceives. Having studied it myself, I understand it’s all about pictures in the mind and your interpretation. Some part of my skin gets goose bumps when she mentions certain – non general specifics- How could she know? Is it telepathy?

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What’s for breakfast? Another mish-mash of news, information and lifestyle articles. A moving feast that swings from page to page eyes scanning left to right on jungle vines of columns and paragraphs. Hands wrapped around the greasy vines of opinion and observation that sink down to the roots, embedded in th earth and some reality somewhere. Everything in black and white, clear decisions, clear judgments from those on the spot- or are they? Pictures and words in full colour, jumping out in 3D Reality, advertisements pulling you into their vortex.

Pages turning, discarded like autumn leaves from a shedding tree, burned up like logs in a crackling winter fire. Indulged in silence like Budhhist contemplation. Ink still smells fresh on the page, residue rubs off on fingertips, your own personal FBI prints available soon. Page after page, words shoot into your eyeballs like arrows, surmounting your fortress brain, loading it down with more useless information you don’t need, as long as the advertisements get through they’re happy, the raison d’etre – nothing to do with ‘news’ , but advertising. Subconscious balloons begins to fill with the helium of persuasion for next time you sail down a narrow isthmus in a supermarket, or enter a service station convenience store and note the two for one offer, influence persuasion, opinion – all infused from the marching columns of black and white words. marching and invading the territory of your brain.

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Legs Eleven’, the caller yells through popping poorly amplified microphone, balls tickle the cage as they tumble and battle each other for the next roll call, clattering about like ice being crushed in a blender. ‘Two fat ladies ‘eighty eight’….. Is there a colloquialism for each number? Do we care as we sit with pens poised ready to seek out the next number like a tracker dog, a homing missile ‘Seventy One’. What are the odds? The pen hovers over the numbered squares and finds seventy one is present – a blue cross is Biroed into place – only another three numbers needed. I can feel it happening soon, it’s my turn for some luck tonight. ‘Twelve’ – Nothing – a biting on the inside, jack in the boxes jumping inside my brain saying ‘winner, winner’ but no number twelve. ‘Fifty three’.

“BINGO!” Aww Shit! Someone else has won the game – and I was so close. A sweep of murmurs wing around the room and they announce the next game will commence in a couple of minutes. We supplement our disappointment with rounds of tea and coffee and fairy bread and Boston buns with thick crusts of sugary icing. The doughy thickness impedes any form of speech, like chewing superglue chewing gum , our jaws struggling to open and close…..

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Sinking down into a lumpy bed with fresh lemon linen, face rubbing and delighting in the newness. Sleep of the exhausted, muscles weighed down with lead from another 20 kilometers, now the safe haven. The island in the stream. Framed prints of blandness adorn walls. Toiletries supplied. Tiny shampoos and soaps in push button dispensers. Towels soft and supple wait to embrace you. Bathroom light is also a heater- a temporary sun against the bleakness outside. Bathe in its glory as streams of heat wash over. Lemon scented fragrant sheets merge into marmalade mornings with shades of bacon and egg. The sleepy feet of morning crunch over the coals of toasted bread in a dining room whiter than heaven. Hot shower pelts tired skin forming neighbouring globules of domed water. TV singing news and information from its nest in the wall. Corridors echoing with expectant footsteps of hope. Dreams and hopes safe inside the fortress wall. Private, locked inside.

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She cupped her hand and whispered in my ear. It was crystal clear, an arctic morning cracking across my ear drum. It tasted of clear mint lollies and pristine overwhite landscapes. Vowels tickled my eardrums like someone stroking a purring cat. It was sweeter and softer than melting ice cream at a movie theatre. Not so much how it was being whispered but what was being whispered. The suggestion, made the heart grow suddenly warm, the blood run more easily. Sweet perfume ideas released their fragrance in the garden of imagination and all engines were throttled forward to full on the boat of ideas. Jumping Jimminy crickets and shooting stars were going off all over the sky when she began to follow through on what she had whispered…..

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He lives a pedal to the metal life, driving a utility that trails whipping antennas, plastered with stickers belittling women in every possible way. On the road he’s a cowboy- ignoring the speed limit, weaving in and out of traffic on the highway without a care. He lives the same way at the rodeo, riding a bull or a horse with the same abandon, but he’s good. The best. No conception of losing or losers, of weakness or fear or wimpy behaviour almost pure instinct, which is why he gets into trouble with the girls. Treats ‘em too rough, expects them to do his will, doesn’t think that hard about consequences. One day the fist of the law will pick him up by the scruff of the neck and shake him harder than a bucking bronco – will he see sense then – will it be shaken into him?

Really he just wants the simple life, herding cattle across open plains in the Northern Territory – sitting round a campfire at night shooting the breeze with his cow cocky mates. He wasn’t looking for attention but he found it. He has the knack of staying on, hanging on. Tenacity rides the bull. But he loves the outdoors, staring up into the milky way with its painted white dots. Sometimes he dreams of flying off into space, riding a rocket like a bucking colt, traveling to distant galaxies Riding the joystick like a wild horse, no one else around to bother him, just some strange tether back to mission control, so many lives ago. Yep, deep in his heart he’s happier alone, none of this circus that he’s now involved in, just one more ride he tells himself, one more dice with death then it’s back to the wilds, away from all this bullshit.

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There’s a satisfaction when you lean back and look at the finished product. The smell of solvents still in the air, the delicate lines etched onto the wings, the matching camouflage colours, the precision , the detail, all courtesy of your hands and eye. Very satisfying, and sure it might not be quite as good as those super detailed pictures on the internet made by other plastic modelers who are anal to the Nth degree, but this level of completion is very tasty, a nice little chestnut roasting fire inside your heart, a warm beach in the tropics where you lie on a blanket and let your mind go blank sort of vibe.

Your eye runs over each rivet, and the memory of holding the grinding tool spins through you, the smell of melting ground plastic, and the mixing of the paints; half turpentine, half paint, the smell pervading the room. Finger pressing into the fingerprint sized release trigger the cold metal warming underneath, the fine spray of particles drawing a picture on the bland plastic, making it come to life. The decals need to be soaked in a bowl of luke warm water and they’re applied to the gloss finish that smells like varnish – now dry, later a spray of ‘dull coat’ matts down the whole surface and blends the decals imperceptibly with the paint work- magic of the craft. Then the model is finished, this 48th scale picture of precision, this beautiful result of your handiwork is ready for display to any who may be interested to view it. Time to start on the next project- the opposition- this time a Mustang fighter- could be tricky painting it in silver chromalloy- the taste of anticipation fills my mouth as I free the spigotted pieces from a flimsy plastic wrapper.

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Bullies use words like arrows and actions like cannons to make you squirm and writhe in agony Is it something to do with size I wonder, that a bully is bigger than you, that there’s intimidation because of that, or is it an air of superiority………. Driving to the airport the other day, I was listening to a hoax call request. I was trawling through traffic at sixty, through yet more road works. The host was explaining one request he’d had from a fourteen year old to ring up this other girl who she didn’t like and tell her that her parents had just died in a car accident and that her brother was in hospital and that her house had burned down- Nice. She also explained that she should be called a real ‘so and so’ because her parents had divorced- in my book that qualifies as grade ‘A’ BITCH. What goes on in those minds? – Does a bully get the same pleasure that most of us get from drinking a fine wine when they start applying the squeeze? Crushing their opponent in a heavy press watching the life juices dribble out.

Without realizing it, I was a victim of this behaviour, being labeled with the tag ‘POM’ [English import] when I arrived in a country town, for whatever reason it made me feel different, like I didn’t belong. In high school there was a guy Owen, whose parents were divorced and his mother didn’t have much money- his school clothers were always rough his hair a mess and he was always in trouble. He was also a bit of a short arse – he got called names and picked on regularly. Even I indulged in a hate campaign against one kid in my year, just because he had an attitude. I wonder what these folks have now become? Corporate CEO’s proving their worth- professional criminals, rapists? Kids are so cruel – but it doesn’t end there- it can carry on at work, of course subtle means are employed, ways of ‘keeping people down’ or oppressing them from advancing with promotions and opportunities etc- and who do you talk to?

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Wayne used to live by the railway line and when a train came by the hammers would knock on black domes and lights would alternate from side to side hypnotically flashing a warning as the passenger train to Warranambool came or went. At other times a freight train would come clickety clunking by. They’d go slow because they couldn’t speed through the crossing. A blaring horn would shout a warning before going through and the toot would echo off roof tops and the mount until it faded away to mutter. Sometimes for fun we’d put a twenty cent piece on the tracks and later retrieve it, flat as a proverbial pancake, the queens head mangled out of shape. They always seemed to be long carolling affairs these freight trains- I seem to remember elongated rectangular open top cars with large slots down the side and A.N.R. [Australian National Railways I think] on the side. There were also black oily tankers which seemed to be magnets for dust and grime.

We’d play Cricket out in Wayne’s backyard where I usually scored pretty low and then his mum would call us in for a round of banana sandwhiches and cordial. I loved the way that she sprinkled them with brown sugar so that after you’de bitten through the smiling white ply wood layers of bread you got to a sandpapered filling of mushy banana and corrugations of sugar. The cordial was usually green and probably made us jumpy all afternoon. Time didn’t seem to matter then – in fact there was so much of it that it was a case of trying to invent things to do, hence the interest in the railway, or climbing trees; bring up so high without any fear of falling, invincible we were. Riding bikes from one end of town to the other, hanging out near the aquamarine pool during summer- daring each other to dive off the high board, waiting in line dripping and partially shivering. Swimming from one side of the pool to the other holding our breath, feeling like a furnace was in my lungs as I swam the last ten feet. So hard to do, to stay completely underwater the whole time- resistance, swimming against the tide avoiding other plodding bodies doing laps above.

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