~ dog related cinema

Since Sunday, I’ve been doing the bare bones, eating, taking the child to school, napping, eating again, putting the child to bed. These days. even a moderate expenditure of social energy impacts on me for many days hence. Unlike, I’m sure, powerful, well-seasoned campaigners like Nurin and Emma de Clario.

Seeing Dogs in Space afresh was a surprising pleasure. It was fast moving, it didn’t sag and, strangely, it seemed a far better film today than it did at the time. Perhaps current audiences [by that I mean me] are more accustomed to films without a strong narrative spine.

The documentary We’re Livin’ on Dog Food was utterly fascinating. It returned me to the early eighties a lot more efficiently than the fictionalisation. Footage of the freshly squeezed Ollie Olsen and Rowland Howard [then of The Young Charlatans] daubed in makeup, bursting with romantic sensibilities and dreams of glory, was just wonderful. The two were to go their different ways, one to the North of the Yarra to pursue hard-edged no-quarter-given industrial mayhem, the other South to inspire a more flamboyant generation of post-punks, including my band The Ears. The film was a box of memories as complete as anything like that could ever be expected to be. Pierre, who was sitting a few seats down from me, ought to have been interviewed. He was one of the few key figures who didn’t get sufficient mention, and the film would doubtless have benefited from his wit and his bitchiness.

Sometimes, I wonder if the medications I take are disordering the functions of my amygdalae which, I am told, are the seat of emotion. There is a section of the documentary in which I describe the circumstances surrounding the death of my girlfriend Christine. My reaction was a kind of stunned fear or horror, as if some dark uniformed figure was about to enter the theatre and call me out. Over the intervening decades, the grief I felt at the time has attenuated to a keening note on the wind. What remains is a statue of sorrow rather than the sorrow itself. They say time heals all wounds, but I wish … not so completely.

* 23 April 1981 Thursday 12.30am

After spending most of the day drinking with Pierre, I spent most of the evening drinking with Pierre. He has a vital, but diseased and cynical attitude to life. Through those many hours I shared with him, he must have described in detail at least twenty of his most memorable fucks. There is much to be said for his way of life. I wish I were capable of allowing myself such wanton shallowness.

I don’t think I even like Cathy D--- any more – perhaps because I associate her with Pierre and his bunch of cronies – perhaps because I’ve just lost faith.

I think it’s better to be alone and lonely rather than to be intimate with fools. I drank a bottle of whiskey with old Mick Lewis later that night

I slept with Tobsha on Monday night. We were celibate. She’s a dominant kind of girl. Lovely in many ways, but just not my type.

My voice is better now. It’s exciting to be able to sing again.

I am hating too many people now… or else I am feeling nothing for them… not caring – not at all –their lives seem so bleak and desolate… it depresses me – I keep looking to their deaths, or their old age. It is just one of those times; I cannot keep all those brutal facts of life out of my mind.

It’s to do with fear, you know – feeling so cold towards them …


*

I’ve mentioned the remarkable Pierre Voltaire before. He was a charismatic rake with a charming manner and with a goatish sexuality. To be succinct, a devil. At this time or very soon after he would be singing with The Fabulous Marquises, a pretty cool group which also boasted the talents of Ed Clayton-Jones, [who was later to play for The Wreckery and, briefly, the Bad Seeds].

I recall that night with Tobsha vividly. It was a clean, very white, very comfortable bed in a small room. There was definitely some form of attraction there, but nothing ever happened - I think, in a way, we were polar opposites. And I know I was intimidated by her sexual predation.

Mick Lewis reminded me of something amusing the other day. At some point around this time, [it may even appear later in the diary,] The Crystal Ballroom hosted a battle of the bands, with the voting done by the audience. The Ears took first place and the Serious Young Insects came second. First prize was a record contract with Laurie Richards and second was a crate of cider. There was no way we were going to get into a legal situation with Laurie [as Mick tells it] so we negotiated with the SYI to swap. In those days of short term goals, pennilessness and the necessity of immediate gratification, a crate of cider was magnificent recompense.

Diary of 1981 - index

* 20 April 1981 Monday 4.00pm

I am spending very little time here at my mother’s house, accounting for the rarity of my entries. I have been sick. This has retarded my house hunting efforts. Nor has singing been easy.

We played at the Central Club on Thursday with the Models and on Saturday at the Jump Club with The Reels. Though my vocals fell below standard, they were good nights. We have a new song called This Time Tomorrow.

On Thursday strange things happened with Cathy D----, and I can’t say I’m not afraid. I suspected my feelings for others would be dampened but they are not. It is by no means love, but it’s more than nothing.

People like Pierre and Anne Harding dislike Cathy D---; I find it annoying. Anne had the immeasurable gall to say that “Christine would turn in her grave.”. It makes me suspect that she has an insensitive side I had not previously seen. But then, she is grieving too.

On Thursday we tracked each other down. Cathy D---, when she left for the country at four am, gave me a thought provoking goodbye…

My eyes scan right and left as she kisses me … am I waiting for the men with knives …?

I think, even if I found someone to love, it would take me some time to find the courage to admit it. As Christine would have said, ‘I am afraid to be hurt’. It is the first month’s anniversary of her death. Seven months with. One without.

We did an interview and photographs with VOX on Saturday before we played at the Jump Club. That night I slept in a bed with Lachelle – I dared not touch her – I cannot follow myself sexually. This girl is mad, sure enough, but enough of a dreamer to almost be an inspiration. By comparison, she made me feel earthbound and pragmatic.

On Good Friday, I attended a picnic in the Botanical Gardens. Troy’s friends mainly. He spent most of his time baiting skinheads.

Matthew Flinders on Thursday; t-shirt and jeans I think.


*

I think this is the first time I’ve mentioned Lachelle in these diaries. She was a gorgeous creature - dark-haired, petite, sharp-featured - but she lived on an entirely different planet. Nicque Needles quoted her as saying, ‘unicorns wander through the valley of broken hearts’ while talking in her sleep.

I think we were supporting La Femme at that Matthew Flinders gig. What I recall is that one of their members had an abscess under a tooth. There was a tube coming out of his jaw, draining the pus, and he was pissed off. I remember being fascinated by this tube and by the ingenuity of his bitter cursing.