Archie

The other day I encountered Archie, who is a Koori chap who lives largely, it would seem, on the streets of Melbourne. Actually, I have no idea where he lives, I have seen him with someone who addressed him as "uncle", so maybe he has someone to look after him a little.

If you've encountered him, you'll know who I'm talking about. He's... well, it's hard to say, I'm guessing he's in his 40's. He often stands on corners starring at the sky with one arm over his head. Archie is a bit broken - I hear from the same source who told me his name, that he's schizophrenic, brain damaged and a heroin addict... Talk about a rough trot!!!!

So, anyway, I'm a bit cynical about people asking for money on the street - much to the annoyance of my girlfriend who works in homelessness services. Archie, however, is clearly a man in need.

His requests are often very specific. I ran into him outside my work last year sometime, and he gave me the following speech, in a loud slow voice:
"Excuse me mate, can you go over into that seven eleven and buy me a bottle of coke?"

Another time he was after vanilla coke. I'm happy to buy him food, the dude is clearly in need and thin as a rake. Er, in so far as coke is food.

I often don't encounter him for months at a time, but I think he's starting to recognise me. I was crossing Exhibition street on Collins street the other night, and who should be standing on the corner but Archie. I'm kinda glad to see him, in some ways, he's the sort of person who lives a high risk existence.

Anyway, I walked right up to him and said "Archie! How's it going?" He'd seen me coming and pointed at me, then grabbed me by both shoulders and almost yelled at me "Not well mate! I need $20 to get to Albury!" Being the nice guy that I am, I pulled out my wallet and gave him the seventeen dollars I had at hand (ok, so, there was more money in there, which Archie could see, but I couldn't afford to give him $50.)

I forget what else he said to me, but I wished him luck, and went on my way. He reared back his head and gaped his big mouth with its brown teeth up at the sky. I think he was struggling for form a sentence perhaps.

As I wandered off I noticed another guy, wearing a tight bandanna, who was sitting on a doorstep. He looked at me briefly, and I wandered off.

Later, when I was several blocks away, I suddenly remembered another story I'd heard about Archie. Apparently a lot of his "mates" and "friends" tend to relieve him of most of his cash. In effect, using him as a kind of begging surrogate who people find hard to ignore. Which pissed me off at the time, and then it pissed me off again - I'll bet that guy on the doorstep was one of Archie's "friends". I almost felt like doubling back and asking him to let Archie keep the money people where giving him. As I mentioned, the guy is thin as a rake, maybe he is living on soft drinks from seven elevens...

Oh well, I hope I helped him a bit this time.

Kim Salmon

Friday night, I made it out to a gig - the second one for that week, damn I'm a rock and roll animal! Kim Salmon was playing with his old band the Surrealists at the Ding Dong Lounge.

I first saw Kim back in 1992, when he did a solo thing supporting a Henry Rollins spoken word gig at a tiny, tiny dive in Collingwood called The Club. The one song I remember from that gig was called "The Cockroach", which was a rather dark piece of poetry about how the cockroaches are waiting around for us to all die, or as the song goes "When they get round to poisoning themselves, I'll have this whole place to myself."

I'm not sure that I've seen him play since. I have a vague memory that I might have done, at some smoky bar like The Tote. I know I've seen him more recently with his outfit "Salmon" - seven guitars and two drummers. Novel!

Anyway, I saw one of the support bands. And it occurred to me while they were playing that Rock and Roll essentially hasn't changed in thirty or forty years. Sometime in my dim distant past I learned a lot about guitars, not that I ever learned to play them. But I read enough books and guitar magazines to recognise guitars and basses and what have you. This support band had a Fender Telecaster (first made in the 50's), a Fender precision bass, and another Fender of a more recent model I couldn't identify. Played through at least one Marshall amp. All this stuff is still being made, but essentially hasn't changed since the 1960s. I could have been watching this band just about any time between about 1965 and, say, last Friday night. The only piece of equipment which post dates then was the Boss distortion pedal from 1978. Rock Nerd Much?

Just found some pictures of the gig which look strikingly like some I took with my phone.

Wow, this entry is wandering all over the place. Well, why stop now.

I encountered my friends and ex-housemates from the Northcote House of TISM, Richard and Barbara, which was absolutely no surprise at all.

Kim and band played, and I realised that I really only knew a couple of their songs. I also realised that I'm getting a bit old to be standing around gigs all night - I had to find a place to sit about two thirds of the way through the set because my legs got tired! I think my rock pig days are over. And in fact, I wasn't too concerned by this. I think I may well have had my fill of live music. I spent a good six or seven years of my life in the mid to late 90's following a whole bunch of bands around. I had a mighty good time and I'm sure I did permanent damage to my hearing. It might be time to admit that that was something I did rather than something I do.

Having said that, I am planning to see Saul Williams and Public Enemy in the next few months. What with being an angry suburban white boy :-)

Money Rides Segway

And you thought a dog riding a skateboard was cute...

(Hmmmm. It's moments like these I wonder that maybe I'm wasting my life...)

Dead Hard Drives

Kids, what you all need is to listen to the sounds of dying hard drives!