“The best journeys answer questions that in the beginning you didn’t even think to ask” – Jeff
Welcome Dear Reader,
There have somehow been nearly a good dozen of these blogs written now, this being the 11th. Scrolling back over the past blogs and the year gone by I’ve started feeling the need to scrape together what it might be that I’d like to take away from my time in Australia and take stock of whatever value I can find. However, this strikes me as a tricky process. I haven’t really run up a list of bungee jumps and sky dives or certificates to hang above mantelpieces. All I’ve scarcely been able to afford is a small pile of raggedy thoughts, and maybe even a couple of realisations. I think I’m naturally drawn to a kind of self-psychotherapy but I doubt I ever really gain much meaning from it, I can imagine that if I wanted to count up what lessons I’d learnt it wouldn’t amount to much. Anyway, it’s sort of a pointless exercise until I’m in a space where I can make sense of it, only then will it become clear. 

I wish Yoda were here; he could really help me out right about now!
(Not that I compare my travels to the training of a Jedi of course)

But anyway, lets get down to brass tacks. Melbourne, let me paint a picture for you.

So I’m sat in a cold and stark room I’m renting above an art gallery, all I have is an armchair, a TV I’m using to play indulgent musings from Dylan through, my half emptied backpack, my laptop for amusement and a broken belt buckle for a rudimentary ash tray. I regret to inform you that I am once again melancholy, in a good way mind you – self-reflective & introverted, artistic even (or at least aspiring to such a removed quality).

I now rent my own little space for the first time in what seems like forever, a special little hole to call my own. It’s from here that I do most of my thinking and as such is the setting from which I will slowly recount the space between my last blog and the here & now.

So I caught a Greyhound coach down from Sydney, it was excruciatingly uncomfortable, for some reason it was a fully booked trip. I figured there’d be no one else cos who would want to head south in the peak of winter but me, especially on an overnight service. Being forced to sit upright I was treated to how it must feel to live as an Insomniac, whilst being surrounded by loud and in some cases rude people. We did however stop at some truck stop in the middle of nowhere. When I stepped out to shake off my rigor mortis the humidity had all but gone from the air, we were just south enough for the weather to feel comfortably European. At the time it was a really humble experience to stand at the side of an empty highway with a cigarette in one hand and a crappy hot chocolate in the other, I was perfectly happy to let my limbs reach total numbness, it was a joyous alternative to hours of cramp.

When I arrived I just wandered through the streets, like an awestruck immigrant just arriving off the boat or a sheltered farm boy caught in the lights of the big city, as if it was New York or something. That sounds like an exaggeration but Melbourne’s a proper city, a metropolis even. If there were such a thing as ‘The Australian Dream’ I’m sure that Melbourne would be the place to chase it. Activity is widespread, just around nearly every corner is something or someone doing something at the very least vaguely interesting. That may also sound like a fantastical version of reality but to be honest it’s true! It’s obvious that Melbournites shape the city by engaging with its spaces, unlike Brisbane where the contours of its cbd act more like a trafficking system, rarely would you see someone affect like they seem to do in Melbourne. During this initial walkabout a film student interviewing the public on what they would consider the appeal of Melbourne to be approached me. I explained to him my situation as well as my first impressions that I just detailed here. I’m terrible at actually talking articulately and my language was obviously not as neat as it appears in these blogs but I do remember saying something hopefully useful to them in the rush of experiencing Melbourne with such fresh eyes:

“I think people come here because they obviously have a hunger for culture and this is obviously the place to get it” – Copyright Charles Davis, 2010

So thankfully I was scooped up and given a bed to sleep in by a couple of splendid individuals, Amy & Joel.

(Amy Purton-Long: sister to Grace, daughter to Pam. Joel is Amy’s man, however this is simply explaining how I know them, it doesn’t do justice to how equally awesome they both are)

Staying with them was a real treat, they genuinely made me feel so at home and I cant thank them enough. They own a little 2 bedroom flat just outside one of the trendiest suburb(s) close to the city. They’ve filled their entire flat with really nice 50’s kitsch furnishings and ornaments etc, it made living and talking as a ‘contemporary’ individual surprisingly exhilarating, as if I was thinking way ahead of our time, it’s the closest I’ve come to time travel, or adult make-believe for that matter. That may make it sound gimmicky but its not at all, it’s a really comfortable and humble space, I loved it!

So it was time to jog on with the plan, after much marching around gumtree.com and the central hostels I managed to find some work with a backpacker temping agency. I ended up laying carpet tiles in this monolithic convention centre (you could fit a fair few football pitches under this roof, it was fucking huge, no understatement). It was an overnight shift and I ended up having to walk for an hour and a half back to Amy & Joel’s at about 5 in the morning, the city was unexpectedly peaceful. Having no music to listen to forced me to take note of and appreciate things that I think most people normally wouldn’t, quite a solemn experience really, I’m glad I couldn’t afford a taxi.

To cut a mundane story short I eventually found 2 jobs, the 1st as a Housekeeper at these swanky holiday / ‘rock star’ apartments. It’s about as boring as an obnoxious hipster dosed up on dud psychedelics. The 2nd is a slightly more thrilling scenario of working as a runner for a catering company at the Melbourne showground’s; it’s basically a massive event space with all these different buildings and facilities. The work is sparse but it pays well and I’ve ended up getting a kick out of helping people to the best of my ability, as if being ‘on-the-ball’ is so out of the norm for me that I’m addicted to the adrenaline of it. I can honestly say that I surprised myself in explaining this. My boss owns the title of ‘Director’ of the company, but considering how I understand that role from the film industry he has a remarkably odd sense of what ‘effective communication’ is. He’s a genuine guy and wouldn’t do wrong by anybody but his joking-around is really crude, which is something he inspires in the whole staff, I understand its needed in such an intense environment but more often than not I’m not quick or witty enough to come up with a suitable comeback, so I’ve ended up being the butt of most jokes.

So half the grand plan was now out of the way it was time to look for somewhere to rent a room and stop my incessant couch surfing / sponging accommodation. I ended striking gold on just my second house-viewing, which was shocking considering I’d be warned by Amy that I may be looking for over a month before I found somewhere. It started with an ad on gumtree with very vague details and some pictures that teased at a certain character I couldn’t quite make out. I rocked up to the address but to my surprise I was standing in front of ‘The Owl & the Pussycat’ art gallery, upon ringing the doorbell, cheap electronic chimes of classical music rang out from inside and a debonair fellow (Jason) sporting a waistcoat answered the door. I was then taken on a quick tour around the establishment; my instant reaction was that it felt dirty and looked to be falling apart. However, as the tour progressed up to and past the 3rd floor I found myself standing on a rooftop looking out over the local metro line, neighbouring shops & streets, parks, sports stadiums and the Melbourne cbd skyline, to put it simply I became smitten with the idea of living there, out of habit I said that I’d think about it & have to let them know. Walking back across the street I took a moment to realise how dumfounded I was by its features, I could see it from the station platform and so knowing that I’d regret not acting immediately I called Jason straight away and awkwardly remarked that actually I didn’t need to think about it at all, “I want it!” Sure enough, later that day he called me back and offered the room as a final say on the matter, needless to say I replied something along the lines of “fuck yea” and did a little jig around the living room.

So after three weeks I’d established a bit of a wicked set-up for my Melbourne world. So me, Amy & Joel went out for a celebratory ‘Roo-Parma’ at the local top notch drinking hole. A ‘parmigiana’ is a traditional Aussie pub meal with a plate sized fried chicken schnitzel eclipsing a huge bed of salad & chips, it then has a rich tomato sauce poured all over as well as layer of cheese grated on to seal the dish. Now a ‘Roo-Parma’ is exactly that but with medallions of sweet-smoked kangaroo meat on top of the chicken, it was ozzy cuisine bliss!

Life in the house / gallery has been an experience in itself; it started off feeling like a pretty sheltered existence. To begin with all we seemed to do was keep to our respective rooms, but as time has flown by I’ve had genuine moments of getting to know each person, I don’t think its too presumptuous to say that were now friends. There has been many a good evening of just cranking the sound system, sitting around the kitchen table, drinking wine and simply conversing. There’s no TV in the house so there wasn’t anything better to do, and by that I mean there’s nothing that I’d rather been doing – in this case at least, human interaction is the highest form of entertainment. There are also some great physical features in the house, most notably the roof – spending time up there is always rewarding, I’ll generally go up to just think but regardless I always come down feeling as though I’ve gained perspective. My bed is also of note I suppose; it hangs from the ceiling using the same method as those performance artists who suspending themselves with hooks through their skin, It’s also supported by a few 2×4’s screwed into place and to get up there every night I use a precariously rickety ladder, at first it was a bit worrying but I’m oddly used to it now. I remember as a kid drawing a diagram of what my dream bedroom would look like and a hanging bed was the main attraction, so that turned out alright, maybe I’ll build my own one-day. Also, one of the kitchen’s walls is a giant chalkboard, which has a surprisingly rich effect on how we’ve been interacting as housemates. I decided to contribute to the chalkboard with pointless questions that only I would find interesting but its ended up being a sort of regular item called Riddle Me This. My first was a resounding success; I posed the question:

“If we evolved from monkeys, then how come there’s still monkeys kicking around?”

To which Matty (housemate / all-round genuine fellow) replied:
“Humans didn’t evolve from the same chimps that exist now, we just evolved faster than others”

To which I remarked:
“So are we essentially elitist monkeys? Surely not!”

To which he concluded:
“Evolution isn’t about building spaceships, it’s about filling a niche”

He had then drawn an arrow to a copy of Darwin’s ‘The Origin Of Species” that he had rested on the shelf below. Although I should’ve maybe picked up the book and researched such a definitive answer, I couldn’t be bothered. It was at this point that I understood my role in the house was to lower the tone of any intellectual discussion and so I took comfort and glee in responding:

“To be fair, building spaceships is a niche that needs to be filled”
I then proceeded to draw an aura around the book, along with some mini spaceships floating above it and a little green alien pointing in wonder at the monolithic structure that was the book. But anyway, needless to say life in the owl and the pussycat has been something I will never forget.

So Paul & Penny were in town (friends from Uni), it was really nice to see them, all be it strange. We had both made our own arrangements for life in Melbourne generally, so it was as if we were meeting up, but this time instead of Bristol it was on the opposite side of our planet and in one of the great internationally renowned cities of the world. Still can’t get my head around that, but then again I don’t know why I expected it to be any different, its not like once you go abroad life wildly transforms somehow.

We did some exploring of the bar culture of Melbourne, I’d heard that the most premium places to have a drink are indicated through how lost you become in effort to find “this place that I heard about”, and by this measure we stumbled across some absolute gems. One highlight was a very classy establishment named Gin Palace, boasting award winning Martini’s, so we purchased a round of top dollar drinks and revelled in the prestige of alcohol bordering on art, it was fucking marvellous. Speaking of which Paul & Penny had partaken in some home brewing activities and I was lucky enough to score there leftover’s when they left, which took me a good while to run down. The stout they made was particularly good, and got better as time went on. They had found a room to rent in some apartment building, nothing to spectacular, but they did have a balcony with a view and access to numerous facilities, including an indoor swimming pool, a basketball half-court and a tennis court. Paul and me played a total of 3 full-length tennis matches; they ended up being a bit intense. We started just mucking about but with practice came increasing prowess and the employment of professional mind-games. My competitive side started to show after a while, I frequently expressed blind anger at every mistake I made. Which kind of made sense but that didn’t make it any less frustrating because I just don’t enjoy getting all riled up, a competitive spirit is one of the worst kept secrets from my Dads side of the family.

I was introduced to the HBO series Mad Men and I’m thoroughly addicted, I’ve already gotten through 3 seasons. I’ve never seen such a captivating portrayal of the 60’s; you can see so much change bubbling up in society, in everything from characters subtle emotions to the historical events of the time to the advertisements they work to create. On a side note, Roger Sterling is ‘the man’ and the sort of bloke I wish still existed today, check it out and you’ll see what I mean.

So I’ve been ‘lucky’ enough to work The Melbourne Show for this catering company. It’s a bit of a grand affair really, maybe evened one the biggest events across all Australia. Apparently it started as a big livestock-trading event for farmers but its grown into something much bigger with an onslaught of fair rides, junk food, produce stalls and a patch of grass called ‘The Coca-Cola Arena’ that schizophrenically switched between civilized equestrian activities and a nauseating monster truck / motocross show. However the most sickening part was the ‘showbags’; they were these plastic bags absolutely rammed with cheap plastic crap and tonnes of candy. There only purpose seemed to be a desperate attempt at infecting kids with consumerist culture & ideologies. All in all it wasn’t that bad, a bit intense at times, sometimes surprisingly so.

Anyway, the show kinda took over my life so once it was over I lunged at the opportunity to do shit. One day in particular was bloomin marvellous; in the morning I met up with Riki (of Mondo Organics fame) for breakfast at a classy establishment called Federal Coffee Palace, its always so nice to see Riki, she just exudes cheery vibes, I had a double-take over how good the coffee was, primo shit! The next event of the day was to meet up with Trish (again, of Mondo Organics fame) and go to the Melbourne Aquarium. Whilst I waited for her I wandered around the city and eventually got drawn into a videogame store (probably cos the latest Halo was out and I couldn’t help myself). So I see this tiny Chinese kid, probably around 5 or 7, playing smash bros on an in-store Wii, there’s another controller free and I was in a good mood so I pick it up and ask him if he’d like to have a friendly game. He was frozen to the screen and didn’t say a word, I assumed he was just a shy or something but he swiftly quit his game to start up a multiplayer session, the fight got underway and I have to admit that I was a bit confident cos I used to be pretty damn good at this particular game and the magic was all coming back to me. What followed was a master class in virtual fisty cuffs from a true professional – I got my ass kicked! It turned out this kid was some sort of undercover, mute, child prodigy of this particular game. Once he had thoroughly killed me 5 times over I politely retreated from the store feeling ashamed with a side of utter disbelief. On the upshot, the Aquarium was fucking ace! I melted down into an pure child-like state for the whole tour; penguins, see-through fish, manta rays, octopus’s, turtles and a plethora of aquatic life prime for imposing on them completely made-up but undeniably comical expressions. GEE GOLLY IT WAS SWELL! What more could an overgrown 2 year old ask for?

It was at this point that I was swept up by the Hartog-Burnett family, a wholesome Australian institution based in Upper Ferntree Gully that traditionally go by the colloquial alias of ‘Pete & Frankie’, and of course there 2 kids Kynan & Dane. Before this particular outing I had been to see them a couple of times for stellar grub and hospitality. Pete and my parents go way back, Pete recalled to me how they took him in as a traveller in England and was eager to return the favour, so I humbly obliged and as a result I hope to one day return the favour once again, it’s a fantastic cycle that I’d like to continue. Anyway, they invited me to their old family home 3-hour drive out of Melbourne on the coast in a little town called Lakes Entrance. It was a great time to soak up some solace as well as simply humbling to be a part of a family holiday like I myself used to have. I got a couple of short but sweet chances at body boarding again, something that if you’ve read my previous blogs you will know acts as a pretty healing experience for me. All in all it was a great weekend away, and I let them know how thankful I was.

So that’s just about it for now, everything you’ve read here is surprisingly just the basics of my time in Melbourne, I’d like to share new film and music I’ve come to find as well as a lot of other stuff that I deem integral but I just wouldn’t be able to fit it all into this blog.

Story’s for another time I suppose.

In the meantime I’ll leave you with an incredibly vivid dream I had whilst at Lakes Entrance. It was one of those absolute saga’s that felt like reality, when I woke up I couldn’t remember most of it but I’ll try my best to describe the detail’s of its final chapter for you.

Take it easy people, much love

over n out,

Silly Old Bear

The earliest part of the dream I can recall was ‘present day me’ carefully pursuing and studying the spectacle of these 2 godlike scale giraffes with bizarre features, like an otherworldly looking colossal seahorse. The closest situation I can relate it to is a scene out of War of the Worlds or 28 Days Later but with creatures from somewhere between Hellboy and Avatar, bare in mind though that at the same time feeling nothing like any of those films because it was all serenely occurring on Kingsbridge’s ‘Buckwell Road’ (where I used to play growing up). Anyway, they eventually disappeared through these trees at the end of road (as a kid, nobody was allowed past this bank / hedge / trees so in this dream it may as well of been the edge of the world). Then I found myself surrounded by a sea of wildlife grudgingly floating along behind the giraffes as if they were caught in their wake or some kind of pull, I stood back and observed, unaffected, not knowing what to do until everything eventually disappeared out of sight and it was deadly silent. The Hartog-Burnett (who I was at Lakes Entrance with) family pulled up shortly after in their rugged 4wd and promptly decided they’d help me search for evidence that the event had even occurred, next thing I knew we were driving over my old schools property and somehow crushing the classrooms & buildings underneath our wheels (which I distinctly remember being pretty nonchalant about; it seemed only natural that my old school be destroyed for a good cause). We then broke off from the destruction to get a better view of the area and began speeding down a cliff-like grassy hill toward the bottom of a suburb-clad valley, it went on forever, by the time we got to the bottom it was as though we were re-entering the earths atmosphere at face melting speeds. At the base of the valley we somehow used a houses roof as a ramp, catapulting us into the stratosphere for a better look, when we crashed back down in the town we went on this extreme ride / crashing with grace, jumping from roof to roof across the entire local area (my memory of this is vague because my point of view was in the back of the car, being violently thrown around and it generally all being a bit fucking intense). So eventually we lost momentum, came to a halt; the giraffe gods were nowhere to be seen so we decided to call it a day and just go to the fair instead. At the entrance we found Bill Murray talking with his weedy businessman-like agent, arguing over why he was really hesitant to go in. We walked past feeling star-struck, not knowing whether to say something, at this point he noticed me and called out my name with great relief and surprise. The dream ends here with Bill Murray nervously asking me “could I come in with you”; I mutter something like “of course”. So he just fires his agent, drapes his arm over my shoulder and we waltz into the fair together as if we were lifelong friends. Just before I jump out of bed itching to write this all down Bill whispers in my ear:

“Hey, Charlie, can you guess what my drug of the day is?”