Big Bells and brass balls: paddling out at Bells beach on a big day.

   You crest the hill in the old Holden and you’re craning your neck to try and get that first glimpse of blue swell lines cut up and stacked upon the horizon. Powerful lumps of raw energy that have rolled relentlessly across the vast waste of the Southern ocean ready to expend all their force on the weather beaten shores of the Gadubanud  people.  You’re riding with three mates: good mates.  Peter “led balls” Leddin, John” Fozzie bear” Foster and Pete’s older brother Bernie: our surf shepherd.  More like brothers to you than your own blood. It’s bloody freezing but the steaming coffee you’re cradling is working its magic on your groggy metabolism and the building excitement boiling in your blood. Surf is up!!

  Last night’s boozy boogie in the city seems a million years and miles ago. You’ve made the morning run to the coast with your best mates and your expectations are about to be rewarded. The sun is up fresh and raw in the late April morning, the mist still wrapping its wispy tendrils around the coastal scrub. It’s the best time for waves in Southern Australia.  The pre- winter Antarctic swells are consistent and the wind still delivers pristine offshore conditions at regular intervals.  The brass balls and freezing cold ferocity of storm ravaged onshore July and August are still being safely kept at arm’s length.

  In another twenty odd years a lot of the pastures to the east will be subdivided up and parceled into ¼ acre blocks all the way back to Jan Juc. Roads will be cut in and street lights will light up the asphalt. The folks who found the “sea change” lifestyle so appealing will have cluttered the coast with houses beyond their needs, big foreign cars and clogged the waves with snotty little grommets. Kids that have grown up within sight of the waves and been lured beyond the sand will populate the line ups with snarky fuck you-ness. Sadly, they have come to take the majesty of it all for granted, over indulgence being their ruin.   Frantic little “oy mister, misters” constantly hassling inside of the older blokes: age before grace, said no one ever.  To the west the tourism pimps at head office will rebrand the undulating Great Ocean Road “The surf coast”  From the Torquay foreshore all the way out to the majestic crumbling beauty of the twelve apostles.

  The cash will come rolling in, fat green wads in metaphorical seasonal waves. Quaint little hamlets like Lorne and Apollo Bay will blow up into obscene brawling magnets for city slickers. There’ll even be rock concerts and traffic snarls limping past places whose names are cemented in your memory forever.  Wye River and its snug harbor of a pub.  Separation creek and the wreck of the W B Godfrey, her anchor still visible above the reef, a grim reminder of the wretched mismanagement of the ship.  The well rutted road cut through the bush to remote Moonlight heads, where with the right factors in play, it is easy to imagine you are the last humans on Earth. 

  I don’t know any of this is going happen.  I am still young and the world is still an unfolding mystery.  Elvis Presley will fall of his perch in but a few short months and that sad event will  forever be a reference point of departure in my life: a time of leaving and change.  For the moment my feet are firmly planted in the present.  It will be years before I realize this was one of the greatest gifts I would ever be given. I’m not looking forward beyond this moment to the changes and storms that cloud a man’s life. The long road I will travel to the future will slowly be revealed, but only as I move along it.  For the moment I am here in a special harmony, the transcendence of the blended doings not yet reduced to a memory.

  Bernie Leddin jerks the old HK Holden (the Bernie mobile) onto the gravel shoulder at the crest of  Bones road and four gangly young men tumble out pushing and shoving to be first. Fit as trout’s and eager as we will rarely ever be able to be again. Lingering summer tans rising in autum goose bumps, four mates bantering in the antique language of the times. “A hoot man. I’m stoked mate. These waves will be so pogilant. Fucking grouse mate” The boards are battened down on the racks waiting.  A motley collection representative of the trends of the day. Single fin pin tails and rounded pins all just a wee bit shy of seven feet. All with a few home patched dings.   The creations of the backyard shapers whose names have not yet built a multi billion dollar global industry. Klemm Bell and Hot buttered Terry Fitzgerald.  The morose but not yet suicidal artistry of Alan Oke planing his legacy  into foam blanks in a Mordialloc store front.  His work a wonder to those of us involved in the knowing and the doing of the surf tribes of Southern Australia.

  In hindsight we probably looked like a bunch of dags, living as we were in what would come to be considered the least fashionable decade of the twentieth century.  Shagged hair cut like a mutated amalgam of poor doomed john Lennon and Greg Brady, whiskers sprouting. Decked out from head to toe in finery that would send a hippie bolting for the nearest showers and spa boutique.  Beanies and knit caps too warm the noggin.  Eyes still too eager for life too require hiding behind the fade of sunglasses. Puka shells adorning necks not yet fattened by the demands of work and responsibility.  Gaudy Hawaiian print shirts worn under snugly buttoned duffel coats warm corduroy dag daks and either thongs with socks or the precursor of the green recycling of future days. “Treads” Old radial tires cut into sturdy footwear.  Sweet Jesus, what a ratty mob.

  Surf trips are ritualistic affairs. Be it an after work scoot to Point Leo, a romp around a continent, or for the lucky cashed up few, exotic global jet setting.  It usually begins with a discussion and a loose plan between mates.   Destinations and options debated much like parliamentarians enact the laws that bind us.  Necessities and provisioning to be considered and equity for the passage pooled in a kitty.  The needs of the group and personal preferences discussed and passed in code along rotary dialed phone lines.  The days of a click on the computer mouse and a surf cam shot of the beach are still things belonging to an alien future some of the mates would not live to see. 

  On this April day we had collectively delivered our self by way of the isobars and dead reckoning of wind and tide to the west coast: gateway of the yet to be named and exploited  surf coast. Our bountiful option of waves lay like a smorgasbord before a fat man.  Slightly to the East lay “Boobs and Steps”. A crunchy left and right hand combo that smashed against a sharp shallow reef. It was just a sly unlocking of a farmers gate away but it could be a dicey day there if the swell kicked up a bit. The peeling fast right of  “Winkipop”  named after  a slang word for quick  available sex in the sixties beckoned  and even lazy centreside  and its neighbor Southside showed a flash of attraction to surf horny young men. But our direction today was cast in stone much as the sword in the mythical stone of Arthurian legend.  Bells beach and all her naked power lay but two clicks down the hill baiting us with her siren song.

  Bern pulled the HK past the welcoming white wave at the west car park. Really nothing more than a misshapen mud packed flat above the cliff. It was stacking up line on line to the horizon. A relentless surge of roaring classical foaming shapes easy 8 to ten feet and rising. We watched as a monster set closed out the bay all the way to winkipop. To be honest each man left to his own devices would probably have snuck back around the headland to gentle Anglsea or Point Roadknight but like the men of the western front who had gone before us, who answered their superiors whistling summons to action, retreating from the call could not be considered. One lonely bloke stood on the sands below us eying his options: he did not look too keen looking back to us atop the cliff and waving.

  Foz Foster unstrapped the boards and we pulled the thick neoprene wetsuits from back packs and began suiting up much like astronauts preparing for the hostile void of space. Jerky banter, observations and challenges being dished out to a man: this was a big day rising. Another car pulled in, two blokes got out blowing into and rubbing cold hands.  They didn’t say much to our tribe.  Just a “G’day grumbled into the dirt as they began to prepare with a watchful eye on the horizon.   
  The sand at Bells when a big swell is running cuts the beach violently so as when you face the water it’s a mad scramble down to the shore break and a banzai leap of faith across the top of the crashing wave. You scramble madly arms digging and scratching to gain the momentum too pass beyond the breaker.  When clear of the soup you start paddling purposefully forward a glance across your shoulder and the quiet bloke in the car park is now jabbering in your ear, bonding with you as you paddle strung out in a line.

  Lead balls Leddin is leading the way and you feel the quick relief of pissing in your wetsuit. Warm and sobering for just a moment around shrinking private parts.  The first guy off the beach is now far out beyond the lineup and for a quick moment he reminds you of an un-moored sphinx drifting off to Tasmania. A set pulls up, a big one, and the poor bugger is too slow to get over. He duck dives under, you blink and see his purple board sucked up over the falls his leash dragging him like a rag doll behind it. While the wave, a perfect creation, delivers itself to the shore. And for a moment you believe in a God you thought you had left behind in dusty Sunday school books.

  It’s getting bigger and you’re in a cluster bobbing and waiting together, eyes pinned and glued to the wraith like shifts on the horizon. You look back to the beach and more black neoprene bodies are making the trek from the shore.  Some cars pull away cutting new ruts into the mud. Bernie and Pete are a little to the outside as the monster rears up and it’s time to go. The other unknown bloke from the car park hoots encouragement. A banshee screams of unbridled adrenalin.  You turn, back neck and shoulders arched, feet kicking  for a little more momentum, arms scalloping into the blue water in a biting frenzy and you rise, and rise brutally aware of the energy sweeping you up, up and on. The wave feathers and peaks steep. You are alone looking down the line, committed as you step into the liquid.

Waiting for the great leap forward

 I I am getting coffee in a funky little coffee house in San Diego. I spy one of those community billboards. You know, where folks post things, like it is the old fashioned 1980's on the local campus. Business cards, posters for local events, babysitters, self help groups for uninsured people who suffer with Bipolar disorder and the hopeful little flyers with the tab at the bottom with a phone number. It looks interesting; you yank it off and whack it in the fob pocket of your jeans which promptly go into the wash. You never ever do get around to collaborating with John Lennon, or the 72 year old guitar player that is into RATT, Van Halen and Bela Bartok. I figure I’ll pin a couple of business cards onto the cork board. Out of the corner of my eye I see a flyer with a picture of a beat down dog. Now I am, like Mark Twain, a big believer in the pure true love a dog gives willingly to a man. Nothing raises my hackles like a mistreated dog. So I am reading through the text and it turns out it is a flyer for the Occupy San Diego group. They have a pretty compelling script as to why you should rip the tab off the flyer. Bailouts of huge trans global corporations who crashed the school bus, taking the future of a generation not yet born with them off of dead man's curve. Indebtedness to Brazil, of all places and some Godless communists, to the tune of 15 trillion dollars. Homelessness, poverty foreclosure, outsourcing. The failure too muster the energy and national will to put a miner on the moon, and the sad plight of 54 million people who can't go see a Doctor. There is one pitiful tab pulled off the flyer. It's dated February 14th, the flyer next it, as I squish my business card in between them (also whacked up on Valentines Day) offers tennis lessons. All the little pull off tabs are gone. Tucked safely into wallets, jeans, saved to the I-Phone. I'm a little perplexed and leave a little troubled that the local tennis pro is whacking balls across the net backwards and forwards too no good purpose beyond cardiac health, while an earnest person who's trying to save America is sitting in the coffee shop waiting for the phone to ring. I wonder if the lonely heart occupier is texting his/her Tea party booty call for some anonymous, angry, yet somehow satisfying discourse. The radio in the car is jammed up with talk show stations. So I start humming a tune I hadn't thought of in years, as the traffic stalls in front of the ARCO station where people are lining up like compliant communists too buy gas from Mr. Chavez.( It's cheaper by a nickel than the pan handling SHELL MOB across the road.) Suddenly I find the words. "It may have been Camelot for Jack & Jacqueline but on the Che Guevara highway filling up with gasoline Fidel Castro's brother sees a rich lady who's crying over luxuries disappointments, and he walks over too remind her, that the third world is just around the corner." The announcer on the radio parrots a bunch of nonsense about these disembodied wraiths that are running for President in about 10 odd states. Taking time off from the golf course, or a working day in congress, telling me they're on my kid’s side. But they're not. They are liars, hypocrites and carpetbaggers. Who spend money assassinating each others character on the radio, the TV, internet and the Santee drive in. Millions of fucking dollars. And I’m thinking my 3rd graders teacher's aide, as opposed to a well appointed congressional aide, has asked me if I could fix the leaking pipes in her apartment because she's scared her fucking rent farming "landlord" will jack the rent on her if she asks for it to be fixed. (Renting is the new hot commodity too speculate on.) I load up some tools, thank her for the work she is doing helping my kid catch up for the weeks she missed when she was out sick with her epilepsy. I fix the pipe with a bunch of parts that all shipped in like bed bugs from China. I drive away and the man on the radio is still talking about a bunch of narcisstic fucking sociopaths, who do not give a fucking rat’s ass about a teacher’s aide making 22 K a year and the pipe leaking fecal matter into her apartment. Maybe she should hire an attorney. Hell, they run the country and look where that has gotten America. And the name of the song pops into my mind. 'WAITING FOR THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD."

Waiting for the great leap forward.

·                             

 I am getting coffee in a funky little coffee house in San Diego. I spy one of those community billboards. You know, where folks post things, like it is the old fashioned 1980's on the local campus. Business cards, posters for local events, babysitters, self help groups for uninsured people who suffer with Bipolar disorder and the hopeful little flyers with the tab at the bottom with a phone number. It looks interesting; you yank it off and whack it in the fob pocket of your jeans which promptly go into the wash. You never ever do get around to collaborating with John Lennon, or the 72 year old guitar player that is into RATT, Van Halen and Bela Bartok. I figure I’ll pin a couple of business cards onto the cork board. Out of the corner of my eye I see a flyer with a picture of a beat down dog. Now I am, like Mark Twain, a big believer in the pure true love a dog gives willingly to a man. Nothing raises my hackles like a mistreated dog. So I am reading through the text and it turns out it is a flyer for the Occupy San Diego group. They have a pretty compelling script as to why you should rip the tab off the flyer. Bailouts of huge trans global corporations who crashed the school bus, taking the future of a generation not yet born with them off of dead man's curve. Indebtedness to Brazil, of all places and some Godless communists, to the tune of 15 trillion dollars. Homelessness, poverty foreclosure, outsourcing. The failure too muster the energy and national will to put a miner on the moon, and the sad plight of 54 million people who can't go see a Doctor. There is one pitiful tab pulled off the flyer. It's dated February 14th, the flyer next it, as I squish my business card in between them (also whacked up on Valentines Day) offers tennis lessons. All the little pull off tabs are gone. Tucked safely into wallets, jeans, saved to the I-Phone. I'm a little perplexed and leave a little troubled that the local tennis pro is whacking balls across the net backwards and forwards too no good purpose beyond cardiac health, while an earnest person who's trying to save America is sitting in the coffee shop waiting for the phone to ring. I wonder if the lonely heart occupier is texting his/her Tea party booty call for some anonymous, angry, yet somehow satisfying discourse. The radio in the car is jammed up with talk show stations. So I start humming a tune I hadn't thought of in years, as the traffic stalls in front of the ARCO station where people are lining up like compliant communists too buy gas from Mr. Chavez.( It's cheaper by a nickel than the pan handling SHELL MOB across the road.) Suddenly I find the words. "It may have been Camelot for Jack & Jacqueline but on the Che Guevara highway filling up with gasoline Fidel Castro's brother sees a rich lady who's crying over luxuries disappointments, and he walks over too remind her, that the third world is just around the corner." The announcer on the radio parrots a bunch of nonsense about these disembodied wraiths that are running for President in about 10 odd states. Taking time off from the golf course, or a working day in congress, telling me they're on my kid’s side. But they're not. They are liars, hypocrites and carpetbaggers. Who spend money assassinating each others character on the radio, the TV, internet and the Santee drive in. Millions of fucking dollars. And I’m thinking my 3rd graders teacher's aide, as opposed to a well appointed congressional aide, has asked me if I could fix the leaking pipes in her apartment because she's scared her fucking rent farming "landlord" will jack the rent on her if she asks for it to be fixed. (Renting is the new hot commodity too speculate on.) I load up some tools, thank her for the work she is doing helping my kid catch up for the weeks she missed when she was out sick with her epilepsy. I fix the pipe with a bunch of parts that all shipped in like bed bugs from China. I drive away and the man on the radio is still talking about a bunch of narcisstic fucking sociopaths, who do not give a fucking rat’s ass about a teacher’s aide making 22 K a year and the pipe leaking fecal matter into her apartment. Maybe she should hire an attorney. Hell, they run the country and look where that has gotten America. And the name of the song pops into my mind. 'WAITING FOR THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD."

Stale Meatloaf served cold

Australian rules football is a unique sporting spectacle. Played through the antipodean winter months it conjures a fervent passion for the game and the participating clubs that borders on religious fanaticism. Played over 26 brutal weeks it rises to a thundering  crescendo with the two best performed teams playing off in the Grand Final, for all the marbles, on the last Saturday in September. Near 100 thousand people have  packed themselves into the Melbourne Cricket Ground hungry for the contest. Suburban and state rivalries dating back to a time when America was fighting for her life in a civil war are open like raw wounds. Game on... But first things first. As this unique Aussie "Footy" league has evolved from a parochial love fest into an internationally televised event, the suits at AFL house and their CEO Andrew Demetriou have decided that the old pre game rituals of little leaguers chasing the pigskin, retiring players doing a lap of honor and a 100 yard sprint featuring Stawell gift hopefuls is passe. Because this is the big stage, and as such, the suits decree that a pregame concert is in order for which only a truly international act will suffice. So here we are...  2011 has waned into the history books and my team came up trumps against very stiff and worthy opposition and I am rapt, but I have an axe too grind. I am sitting with my American family and they are laughing at the grotesque spectacle of Meatloaf, washed up, fucking stale Meatloaf. The question is pointed at me. "Don't you guys have any good legendary rock n roll bands in Australia?? Did the AFL suits really fork out 600 grand for this crap??"  Ah yes, we sure do have some talented musicians, says I, and they could sure as shit use 600 K. So, today a little hungover, I am hoping that my good friend WAZ owner of Greville records, can drag that fucking  idiot Demetriou, with all the money too splash on "Talent" down to his shop and give him some musical coaching . The AFL’s talent buyers, so it seems, need a big pre season.  MY A TO Z OF AUSTRALIAN BANDS WHO COULD USE 600 K TO MAKE VITAL NEW MUSIC,BUY A FEW ROUNDS FOR THEIR  MATES WHO HUMPED THE GEAR, AND EVERYTHING WITH A PULSE , AND DEFRAY THE COST OF LIVING AGAINST THEIR MEAGRE  PENSIONS!!  

A: The Allusions. They could play Gypsy woman with seductively dressed woman peering into the cup too divine the winner. BETFAIR could sponsor the odds swirling in the cup live.

B: The Band that shot Liberty Valance. Fred Negro @ the G rocking out with his cock out.

C: Chris Bailey: He could crank out "Stranded" for those who cannot manage to go back to back. (My mob included.) 

D: The Dingoes. They could play "way out west "when the Dockers eventually  make a run at it.

E: Emmanuelle: Tommy & Phil. For some shitkicking virtuosity.

F:  Fish John West rejects. Because they are from Tassie and Tasmania deserves some God damned respect on the biggest stage of all.

G: Geyer, Renee. Just because, unlike Mr. Loaf, she can really sing. She could do "heading in the right direction" to assuage all the loyal club men with their heads on the chopping block)

 H: The Hollow men. Billy Baxter at the G. He coulda been a champion.

I.  Icehouse.  Just to see if Bob Kretchmers still got it.

J: Jo Jo Zep and the falcons. The classic Wayne Burt era lineup playing "Beating around the bush." (Where all the real coaches used to come from.)

 K: KUSH. Because seeing Jeff Duff in a leotard singing MacArthur Park would be beyond priceless.

L: Little River Band. Because some American sideman ripped off the name in the board room and the royalties from "Help is on the way" will eventually give comfort to the starving ex sidemen, of whom there are many, and Pies supporters.

M: Mad Turks from Istanbul. We fought there in a war and it's been good business pimping the "Great war" for the AFL over the  years.

N: No fixed address. A nod to the pioneers of indigenous roots music would be nice, and Demetriou's suit could trot out Kev, Archie, and Paul Kelly too.

 O: Olympic sideburns. Because hearing Maurice Frawley again would be worth the corporate price of admission.

P: Painters and Dockers. They could present the Norm Gallagher medal for slowest midfielder at the stoppages.

Q: Quill, Greg. He could play gypsy queen for the all the young draftees rocking off to GWS.

R: The Radiators. Because like the players they are warriors of the road and unlike Mr. Loaf, their rider strictly stipulates. “A dozen tinnies chilled. Thanks." 

S: Salmon, Kim because blokes like him are the reason I am really composing this novella of information for the empty suits @ AFL house.

T: Taman Shud.  Because they could play Morning of the earth on the Jumbotron score board, surely a world first. 

U: Uncanny X men. There are really that few U bands in Australia. 

V: The valentines. Because they gave the world Bon Scott and could sure use a victory lap and some of Mr. Loafs 600 K.

W: Warner, Dave.  Half time at the football, mugs game = priceless. 

X: X. Because we could confuse newly rocking Andy D’s suit. Get him thinking he was really booking Exene, John Doe and Dave Alvin. (The American X.) Steve Lucas could pocket the 600K and tour the world setting the record straight.

Y: Young Home buyers. Because that’s where Greg Champion got his start and a young homebuyer could not afford the price of admission to the game that is required to provide for the upkeep of Meatloaf’s ranch in Texas. 

Z: Zoot. Because they won the Hoadley’s battle of the sounds in 1969 in pink tutus and it would be wonderful to see the worlds most well preserved man, Rick Springfield, bring his American soap opera voice back to Australia one last time before oxygen tents and  golf carts impinge on the performance.

So, there you have it. About 160 Australian musicians more worthy af a tilt at the 600 K than the faded and unfortunate Mr. M Loaf. To quote Gary Gray. “Nothing grows in Texas” Feel free to forward this to Mr. Demetriou’s suit. Thanks, this has been a public service announcement. Hey, and if he still has a hard on for American bands from back in the day, I can set him up with a Beat Farmers reunion tour. They don’t suck ass.

911,Dan Quayle and me.

911 remembered. It was our generations Pearl Harbor, but it was different. It was not an attack on a military installation by a nation state, it was an attack on civilian aviation and buildings of commerce. Orchestrated by, if you believe the 911 commission, a bunch of well financed lunatics drunk on their religion.  Or, if you follow other more skeptical lines of enquiry, anyone from the MOSSAD and Larry Silverstein, to nebulous cells within our own nations governance. Heavily cloaked and hidden from scrutiny, hopped up on a desire for revenge and control of far flung oil fields and their black gold. No matter how you slice it and dice it, what you choose to believe, or choose not too believe, it was a gob smacking human tragedy, especially for the children orphaned on that bitter day.

    A beautiful clear morning, full of promise 10 years ago, turned into fire and hatred that endures and intrudes daily into our lives a decade on. We all have that “where were we” moment etched into our memories and thankfully for most of us they are remote and not personal beyond the impotent rage of seeing the nation attacked. This is my memory, of that ill fated day.  I had just moved in with Graces mum and our future was bright and hopeful. I was working on a luxury condominium conversion in the Peoples Republic of Berkeley. Grace's mum was working as an architectural designer doing work for financial leviathan Morgan Stanley. I hit the radio in the shower and heard the first reports of the attack. Quick i said. "Turn on the TV, a plane has crashed into the World Trade Centre." (The Television was all snow as we were waiting for the cable guy who was scheduled to come sometime between 12 & 6 PM.)  Gracie’s mum says to me. “Oh, they are not going to be happy with me, I did not Fed EX my plans to the WTC yesterday.”   “Honey”, I said, divining the scope of the unfolding emergency from the snowy TV screen. “They have bigger problems than your FED EX boo boo.”

    We drink some coffee and eat some cereal, without saying much, probably just like all the folks whose lives have just been devoured on the East Coast, had done a scant few hours before us. It was scheduled to be a busy day on the job, so I kissed my girl goodbye and went about my business. There really was not much else one could do in far off Berkeley, California except try to glean some perspective and carry on. The news on the car radio is not good. The South tower had just collapsed, the Pentagon is on fire and it is obviously an overt act of war.  Confusion and speculation that planes are missing over the pacific bound for the West Coast is being reported as fact.  I arrive at the jobsite and it is mad confusion, outrage and anger. The guy I work for, Seth, is an interesting mish mash of personalities.  Part hard nosed businessman, with a portion of mystical Buddhist by way of Berkley yoga dude, with a splash of sinister sauce.

    He is arguing with Pat Downs an old Vietnam Vet as the Nth Tower crumbles into oblivion.  Pat wants to fly Old Glory above the building and is already talking about “fucking rag heads” and payback. Seth does not want to fly the flag as, in his mind, it would appear nationalistic and perhaps be offensive to the uppity, yet progressive neighbors. The ones who have already had enough of this awful construction nonsense intruding into their specialness. Seth, with an eye, as always, on the clock and the dollar, is trying to rally his shell shocked troops. “We don’t know that it was terrorists, let’s just do a good days work men” No one is buying it. This is a national tragedy.  We can already see that it is right up there with the Kennedy shooting and Pearl Harbor. Some of the crew have family on the East Coast and Levon Carters Dad even works at the Pentagon.   All of a sudden the boss mans phone rings; he steps aside to take the call. He is quiet, and this is the first time I have ever seen motor mouth Seth with no words tumbling from his lips. He calls my name and throws me the keys.  He says. “I don’t care what you do, just lock up the building.” He has a strange sad frown and takes off running at a good clip. We don’t see him for days and only find out later that his best friend and neighbor has been killed on flight 93.

   We agree to call it a day and head home to our loved ones. Just in case our dose is still coming I stop for Gas, which has already spiked 35 cents in a matter of hours and get last into line for groceries at Andronicos. I make sure too buy  beer, for today we will drown a lot of sorrows. I get home and there is no cable guy and we are stuck with sleet on the screen while history is smacking us hard in the face. Grace’s mum is worried about her colleagues working for Morgan Stanley at WTC 1. Not surprisingly they are not answering their phones. Beers are cracked and I am happy to be sitting safely in our house, on our purple couch with the woman I love.

    We have KTUV 20 on, as it is a little less hyper than the networks. A nice lady is interviewing a man I do not know, but he is calm and reassuring. He is talking about how the POTUS will immediately have to re task satellites over global trouble spots to gather intelligence. The need to get the air corridors on both Coasts secured. He yalks of the strategic capabilities of carrier strike groups, air wings and the scope of the various cabinet portfolios and the critical roles the will play in the dark days we have ahead of us. I say to my girl. “Hey this guys on top of it, he should be in charge. He should be POTUS” ( At this point George W Bush was MIA in Nebraska.) He sounds so poised and resolute, some how hardened.  The interviewer concluded the broadcast. “Thank you Mr. Vice President. “  And advises viewers that her interview subject, the engaging and wise in the way of international affairs and the nation’s governance, former Vice President Dan Quayle, has cancelled his speech at the Commonwealth club in San Francisco in light of the day’s tragic events.  My girl and i who have both been paying rapt attention  say as one did she just say Dan Quayle? Yes she did, and on September 11, 2001 the nation could have done far worse than have him in the oval office based on what i heard with my own ears.
   The day wears on and the unfolding horror of the event begins to shut down the senses. The catastrophe and its consequences, and hopefully the TV picture, will surely be clearer tomorrow. The cable guy never comes, we’ve given up on him, but do not bother too call a complaint in to his bosses. How could you?  It is obviously a small inconvenience that can wait until tomorrow. A new day whose challenges and frustrations I am yet to aspire too, and I realize that thousands of the yet uncounted dead will never know its promise.  About 11pm the phone rings and it is Graces mother’s MIA colleague. Some folks are still not accounted for, but he has temporary offices in mid town Manhattan and wants his plans. Hell, he wanted them yesterday, and he’s in no mood for left coast slackers. The sun rises, life goes on and a bruised nation endures. But for some, the widowed, the orphans of 911 and the wars that will soon follow that day of rage, nothing will ever truly be the same again.

Jimmy's gone for a Soldier.

The Coffin ship is found

Ahoy Shipmates. Most of you who have played music with me over the years, or been to a Rubbles/Starboard watch/Cactus 5 gig somewhere in my travels, have probably heard my song "The Wreck of the Steamship Coramba". This song has always been very dear to me, in part because it links me to a part of my family that is forever lost to me, and yet keeps that history and family alive in my heart. It also allows me to share with the listener a story from a different time. A time of hardship and deprivation: the Great Depression. When the Coramba was lost seventeen men never came home from the sea, seventeen families lost their sole economic support and over 70 children were orphaned. Uncle Henry Jensen, who raised my mum as his own ,and her sisters, was, sadly among the doomed crew of the little ship when she disappeared on the perilous night of November 30th 1934. One of the great tragedies of the wreck of the Cormaba is that she was safe in port at Warnambool, and her Captain was ordered to put to sea, despite his expressed concerns about the approaching storm. Thanks to the dedicated efforts of Des Williams, Mark Ryan and southern Ocean Exploration the ship has been found. Her find bringing peace and closure to the surviving orphans of the Coramba. I've attached an article and a video of the first dive to the wreck o f the Steamship Coramba. Enjoy.  http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/sweet-relief-as-wreck-find-ends-76year-mystery-20110604-1fmal.html