Pirate.

Ugh.

Must I?

Time to re-enter the filthy frey once again.Bugger it.

I have actually felt quite chipper the last two days with my demented sleeping pattern that shakes me awake from eight in the evening till twelve midday the next day when I pass out in a fever fatigued heap.There is one pill left in the blister pack and alas the rent ain’t gonna pay itself so you know the drill…hi ho hi ho etc.As I type this,my period Mike Tyson-ing my womb like a pigskin speed-bag and I am surrounded by pyramids of paper and guitars that are threatening to avalanche off my bed at the slightest wrong move.The thing is here is that I have written and practiced more in the last week and felt better about my self as an artist in said seven days than I have in the last two years.

Which leads me to fervently believe that someone should pay me for being myself. A “sugar person” so to speak,I ain’t sexist.Someone to pay for my every wild hearted whim but without the fucking thank you most kindly.A patron! That was the word I was looking for.A Peggy Guggenheim of my very own.A benefactor.Yes bloody please..So ,if there are any offers? Do not hesitate to reach out from beneath the burden of your millions and allow me to relive you of some of the bothersome weight,to assist in shouldering your tiring load.Why,its no trouble at all…

I am a virtual saint am I not?.I should be canonized as generation bum’s answer to Mother Theresa.

I look up and catch sight of myself in the massive mirrors that adorn the wardrobe at the foot of my bed.Resplendent in my ex’s manky navy blue track pants and my excellent Plasmatics tour tank top from 1984,my stark boned visage peering out from behind a fast hardening grey mud mask,my mane an electrocuted mess.What a prize.Now I ask of you,who wouldn’t want to invest in such a fine and rare specimen.? (“What do you call an Italian astronaut?)

Ex-actly.

I can just see it now…….

I wake up,push my silk sleep mask up onto my forehead and there, at the foot on my California king-sized bed on the art deco beveled mirrored table is a silver salver.Upon it is a card of Tiffany’s blue folded in half.I crawl down to it,flop on my stomach and open it.”Good morning gorgeous” it reads in bold black print akin to the labels on the bottles in Alice in wonderland. My eyes scroll to the next line “You look fabulous,have you lost weight? Have a great day!” I grin and glace down at the not insignificant pile of the crisp 100 dollar notes delightfully green and rude against the reflective riot of surfaces. Smiling ,I slither over wanton acres of Porthault sheets back up to the head of the bed and press the bell for my manservant to serve my breakfast and run my bath.

“The Bulgari oil mum?” he inquires in his charming clipped British tone while placing my breakfast tray down gently on the football field of bed at my side complete with the days papers.”Yes please James,that sounds lovely” I reply. Walking softly across the room he draws the heavy theatre grade velvet curtains back from the panoramic windows and I sigh at the sheer majesty of the view before me.Central Park looks like a giants jewellery box from this high up. Crammed with evergreen emeralds ,deciduous rubies all surrounding the huge sapphire of the lake. I peruse the black Chinese  lacquered tray before me inlaid with fierce curling  mother of pearl dragons My egg white omelet a cloud of protein perfection.I throw my wheat-grass shot back like the reformed alcoholic that I am and suck on a quarter of blood orange to quell the bitterness. I languidly lean back into my damask nest of swan down pillows and peruse the front page of The New York Times as my peppermint tea steams and cools……

I have loved being a shut in though.Thrived on it.Doing my Warhol phone -as-a-lifeline thing once again.I have chewed up hours to my most missed Miss Bliss who is marooned in the winter-struck South of France and who is gestating my second goddaughter as we speak.I don’t even know if she wants me to be the bebe’s godmother,I have just assumed the mantle in static bothered long distance conversation and she is too polite to tell me to fuck off.I make a great godmother.Just ask me and I will tell you.Granted,I never get to see GG and the Fish but they know that I am in for life. Being GG’s godmother is actually one of my proudest achievements.

Amongst being able to tie a cherry stem in a knot with my tongue , conduct entire conversations in fluent “Het-feild-UH!”, and provide a home for smashing shoes and strange clothes…

I am on a ridiculously generous and strangely cheap phone plan that bestows oodles of hours of credit that need to be spent before a certain date or they cruelly cancel them.Which is how I ended up on the wire to California for about three hours.My ear actually hurt by the time I hung up. Brilliant.Rebuilding bridges that I thought were irreparable.

When Leizel put my “son” on speakerphone ,meaning my hound Henry and I heard his wet snuffling and LF in the background saying “Dude,that’s your mom! Say hello!” I unraveled totally and completely.This has got to be the year that I go home.Two years exile has almost done me in,I cannot stand it any more.I need that certain vapidness that only the lotus eating state of California can provide.(Read “The Odyssey” for Gods sake!) . Menstrual emotional mayhem+homesickness+the flu+ my dog and one of my best friends (read:one of my only friends) on the phone at the same time= WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Stayed on the phone last night till 3am with Miss Emma alternately planning world domination,snickering or complaining about men.I miss her company.Tonight me and Miss Nina burnt up the wire with strength,support and fearsome intellect.

That and the avalanche of daily text exchanged with Marcus,the resident guitar god of the far flung south and I am plum  tuckered out.He did the support for Scott from Neurosis last night and was brilliant as always.Blackie takes up the same mantle in Sydney on Saturday.Ah my brilliant boys,you all shine to blind….

I have never worked so hard at my lyrics and playing as I am for this band.I am a bundle of nerves but at the same time wildly excited.A heady combination to be sure.My left hand is callus central and my right wrist is crying for mercy.The bridge on my bass is quite high which makes is a real punisher but the gift of playing on my beautiful beast as she is right now is that when I get around to getting it lowered its going to feel like silk.Been finger picking on my old girl like a hillbilly as well.Just hours of acoustic noodling.Now I know why all those dirty wanna be rock-star lads were always attempting to gloam onto benevolent babes such as my romantically retarded self. We paid the bills while they got to practice for ten hours a day,pretend to be Jimmy Page and order in pizza on our dime.Boys can be such whores.

Shameless things.

Miss Emma calls me “Eric-a Avery” and we giggle like we never left the back of the bus in the 7th grade.And my bass-lines swoon and swoop like reggae loops and I stand legs braced apart and head down like the true child of the Ramones that I am . I hypnotize myself.My crackly lead bent back on its self and duct tapped for tenuous connection to my shitty shoebox of an amp.I play and the tide sucks my bottom end delivering Ophelia ass out deep  into the fathomless sonic sea.

Every note a love letter.Every riff a secret.And I call to you by way of sound my lost Chevalier and I see you everywhere I go….

Back to the hooker lads.Just like that ace Cheap Trick song.(“He’s a whore” A great track.Got to love the Trick…) Bloody hell,I’m not putting it down,not by a long shot! Christ! if I could forfeit my pride and my self respect and find some one to believe in me enough to pay my uber slacking way I would be up to exactly the same caper.Good luck to ’em ,the soul sucking life support system to riffs and dicks that they are.

Marcus and Nixon do this amazing gypsy Jazz thing acoustically which leads me to fantasies of doing encores like Led Zeppelin,sitting on the edge of the stage gazing out into a stadium sea of lighters…what? What?? Listen hombre,there is no point in dreaming if you are not going to dream big.I am the Cecil.B.De mille of dreamers,me.

I am sure that Lilli will be happy to see the back of me for a while.I have the habit,as you know,of being up all night so when the poor child trembles from her room in the morning I am bouncing round like Tigger annoying the crap out of her.Poor child.I make her tea,I jump on her bed,I loiter in the door way sprouting crap (“A piece of slice? It makes no sense small child! Well,erm,maybe it does but that doesn’t mean that I have to like it ! Its like saying “Two twins”Argh!! .Why is it not “A slice of slice? God!...etc,etc…”)

It is a Lourdes sanctioned miracle that this woman has not smothered me in my sleep.I am to the trying art of annoyance what coal is to Newcastle.

Not looking forward to the endless dullards and trash that constitute the unwashed masses.I have had such a nice time in my room which I think is the cleanest it has been since I moved in.Spent a happy hour noodling away at my dressing table,cleaning my make up brushes and lovingly wiping down the army of black NARS compacts that are lined up like soldiers with disinfectant wipes today.Heaven for a Virgo.Found a stack of my CDs that got buried in the Revesby exodus and have been drowning my snot filled senses in Glen Goldberg ‘s Bach variations and a heap of Chopin.It reminds me of living in Hamburg sitting in my window high above the sleet and dog-shit strewn cobblestone streets listening to the classical station being beamed down from Berlin,the cranes at the ship yards looking like Gods meccano set,lights winking and flirting with my solitary self in the night.

My pirates life.

So many things yet to achieve.So many shows yet to play.Time to build up the war chest and be the Captain of my destiny.Oh darlin’, it is and shall always be war all the time.

I blow as kiss to my black velvet portrait of the King and call it a day.