Thursday, January 13, 2011

Spencer Return


1. Last 14th of January I went to see Al Greene with a total stranger.  How St Kilda glowed all over itself.  The 14th of January before that I took myself off to see The Saints at The Forum. It was a kicking memorial to punk and other things. This 14th of January, by weird chance, I'm going to town to see a band I've waited ten years to catch.
2. I was trying on the bad black dress and the army carry all when advice from a friend's mother echoed in my ears - never go anywhere without a cardigan and a novel.  I'm selling my novel page by page and the moths got my cardi, so I went hunting for a jacket.
3.Ten patched overalls from Tooles Disposals have been languishing, in pieces, in a rubber tub by my sewing table.  The fine embroidery on ordinary ground was from Tallangatta Op Shop. It's been sitting over me like a talisman as I wobble my way through the crewel shirt job. Unpicked overall seams looked naff when I tried to make The Working Quilt, so I'd rolled them up into rag balls, poppers and all.  These elements came together under pressure today.
4.As I sewed the last rough corner on the applique I flashed back to the early nineties, when my life was all milking sheds and nightclubs and buses in between.  After days or weeks of jumping up and down, I'd crawl back to the farm, earn some cash, learn to use some other brain cells, and sit up at night, in the grain shed, sewing costumes for my return performances.
5. Same shed, same stitching, same grotty white mirror to check progress in. Only now, the walls are clad and the floors are polished.  I'm a little wiser and happier. My son sleeps up the new stairs.
6. I'd get dropped off at the train station in Wodonga, but sometimes I'd trade in my ticket and hitch down the Hume.  Getting into town, I'd spend the fare money on a packet of Winfield Blue and light up on Spencer Street and wallow in the the long moment before deciding whether to go left, or to go right.
7. Jon Spencer (Street) Blues Explosion tomorrow night. I am very very excited. 

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