Yesterday afternoon after finishing marking all the non-problematic essays (i.e. the ones that are not probably plagiarised) I picked up the first year exams and then drove on the Healesville to visit Pip, possibly the last time I'll see him there as he seems determined to move from that particular 'care facility'. He was looking exceptionally well, and even had quite a nice jumper on. He wants to record a new album with me, Marney, Chris and Julian. He wants to call it Left-Field Flyball and appropriately when we went to a hotel in Healesville proper he not only had three beers but also two glasses of a local sauvignon blanc called Left Field. He is determined to make a record that will make him the subject of a fatwah. En route to Healesville god told me to stop at a particular Croydon op shop and I must remember to thank god as there, for 50c, was a copy of Rocka, the jewel in the crown of Australian hits collections; I believe this thing sells for $50 or so most places if not more when AC/DC completists are involved - it contains two tracks by the Marcus Hook Roll Band. Now, I did get that MHRB single online for almost no money and it was bad, but these are different tracks I believe (haven't played it yet). Rocka also has a fantastic cover, a goanna which has apparently covered a rock with an Australian flag. A dung beetle, some ants and a frog look on. But even more amazing - I've spent quite some time looking at it since purchase, it captivates me - is Austrock '77, which I had never seen before. It's wonderful partly because it features The Saints' 'I'm Stranded' (in between Mark Holden's 'Last Romance' and The Angels' 'You're a Lady Now') but more importantly because of the cover image of four young Australians, three white girls and one black boy, seen only from the shoulders up but apparently naked. He is standing behind the girls and has his arms around two of them and his hands resting on the shoulder of the third (who has put her hand on top of his). All of them have their faces painted, with slightly cosmic designs. This is a World Record Club release, so it's not surprising I've never seen it before. It's funny to think the Saints had any kind of presence on Australian greatest hits albums in the 70s, but they did. They are on Explosive Hits, too, which has cover art by the same guy that did the Rocka cover, Alan Puckett. This time some astronauts are hovering around a spacecraft in the shape of a microphone, amongst some asteroid fragments. The Saints' 'Erotic Neurotic' is on this one, in amongst Showaddywaddy, Hot Chocolate's 'Heaven's in the Backseat...' and Pussyfoot's 'Ooh Ja Ja'. Two other albums purchased at this place: Megan Sue Hicks, who I've never heard of but who apparently recorded her album in Australia obviously some time in the early 70s (there are some Aust. musicians on the record, but there is nothing that identifies it as an Australian release) and an LP called For Mature Adults Only, which is the kind of thing that when you buy it at the op shop you want to say to the nice lady, 'I know what this looks like but as far as I can tell it's actually a Christian record of adolescents' poetry set to orchestral/choral music - look, there's a sticker on the back from the Presbyterian Bookroom!' but nothing you can say can change the general impression that you're some kind of eccentric collector of aural porn. It is a long drive back to Melbourne from Healesville (58 km) but luckily I had two tapes to keep me going: the Troyka album and the Mekons' first album. Had a lot of fun with both. Both very flawed albums, both probably about 50% unworthy. The Mekons have too many silly jokey songs (that one about outer space particularly shits me). Troyka are mesmerising. There is one song in particular about burning a witch which rhymes 'the prisoner started to burn' with a line about 'the people didn't come to learn' and then the payoff: 'they were IGNORANT!' which is hilarious. At the end of side one, someone whispers 'turn the page please'. These things are incredibly funny and appealing to me. There's another song about driving down a backroad, and seeing a pretty woman, and drinking wine with her, and getting so drunk you both roll into a ditch, and then roll out of it, into a house, upstairs and into a bed. Classic. And the whole story is repeated twice. I really want to tape this Troyka album and give a copy to everyone I know, but I expect from experience that the response is unlikely to be as ecstatic amongst my cohort. Perhaps partly because there's the big game element: I bagged it by sifting for an hour through a bunch of James Last records. It is mysterious. It is also a new addition to my slavic rock collection which is growing and which I am becoming more excited by all the time. In the evening, after feeding the animals and quickly watching Neighbours (by the way, on the promos earlier in the week they said Izzy was a murderer; I assumed they were talking about Darcy, who she put in a coma. But in last night's promo it became clear that Darcy was about to come out of the coma. So who did Izzy kill? Gus? Unclear) I decided that, since I was awake and it wouldn't be hard and so on, I would go and see Flywheel & Paper Planes (and Marc, but he had finished by the time I got there). It was at Mayfields in Smith St which is possibly a good venue but on this occasion seemed a bit drafty and echoey and strange. You had to pay $5 to get in to see the band, but the band was perfectly and utterly visible and audible from across the bar in the area that you didn't have to pay nothing to be in. Oh well. I talked with Olivia (she loves Shane) Peta (mainly about the (lack of) future of universities - my whingeing - butand I think she plays devil's advocate a lot in our discussions) Jane (Gavin writes amazing short stories and so does my brother) and Fiona (I'm not sure what she was saying as Oliva was saying stuff at the same time in my other ear, giving me a stereo-confuser experience). At 5:50 this morning I awoke to hear a woman outside saying 'drop it! drop it!' and a man saying 'just get in' and another man saying 'I don't want no trouble'. I got up and looked out the window and saw a car drive away. There is a leather studded wrist band on the footpath where the abduction took place. I went to the Vic Market with Jane (my mother) and told her about it. She is of the opinion that, partly becaue they won't do anything but also since I have no real information, there is no point in telling the police. I am in two minds. I suppose basically I would feel better if I told the police, but I basically have nothing to tell them. At the market I had a Portuges Polenta which is a new experience. It had pimentos on it. Also a ginger-celery-orange juice. I also got some great looking brussels sprouts and some red pears. I would like to provide more pictures here but after a couple of days of fiddling with the Picasa program I downloaded I think I am going to have to scrap it and start again. I might be able to augment with visuals soon, and also the long-awaited graphic novel (of which I have completed one frame in the last two days, but only because I am trying to figure out how to print out a photograph of a tram I took which I want to use as a basis for the next frame. This is the exciting part, when the small boy gets taken home by a strange woman he meets on the street with the promise of taramasalata, leading to a discussion of evolution - so Shane Moritz - Shane's life, I mean, not his writing).
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