Dead Dad Dictum

  The idea, the notion, of God is something that’s been in my life from the day I was born. My parents were, and are, believers, and part of the early 70’s Pentecostal movement that sought to have a deeper, more personal relationship with the creator than what the traditional denominational church offered.   But from an early age, I never felt part of it. One of my dimmest, yet most enduring memories is from when I was four or five and I had my first existential experience. “Why wasn’t I born a cow?” I wondered. “Why am I a person?”   Questioning was and is part of my makeup. As time went on, and we went to church, were read Bible stories before bed, and prayed that God would intervene in just about every adverse situation, belief became something that wasn’t real for me.   The Bible, we were taught, was the infallible word of God, but I remember being told the story of Noah’s Ark and the flood that was supposed to purge the world of evil and thinking it didn’t make ...

  Drug use is a tricky topic to write about. It’s stigmatised, yet most Australians use drugs in the legal forms of alcohol, nicotine and caffeine.   It’s also tricky to write about drug use when you’re my age. People think it’s something you either grow out of or become so dependent on that your entire life becomes a form of mind altered slavery.   I say it’s none of those things, and the way our society approaches drug use is, at best, misguided and at worst, leads to life long criminal records and the ramifications that come with that, as well as disability and death. The reality is that people will always take drugs. In my experience, drug use has led to cioser ties and greater intimacy with the people I call friends and whom I love, as well as, to quote Aldous Huxley, opening the doors of perception. And, aside from those things, over the years, I’ve just had a great time. Music and literature hits harder; I’m transported by wonder and awe at this bizarre thing we ca...

  Schizophrenia, and the related illness, schizo-affective disorder, which I have, is generally misunderstood and sometimes people react with fear when they discover you have it.   What probably comes to mind when normies do think about it are the banner symptoms like hallucinations – hearing voices – delusions and magical thinking, and paranoia. I’ve had all those things but generally speaking, since I was hospitalised a decade ago and put on a depot injection of paliperidone, an antipsychotic medicine, every three weeks, I’ve been stable and able to lead a productive, fulfilling life. I haven’t heard voices in years and, while the paranoia comes and goes, it’s generally manageable.    But there are things about schizophrenia the meds don’t treat. Many people who have been diagnosed suffer from anhedonia, or the inability to feel pleasure. We also have flattened affect, so we don’t emotionally respond to things because we don’t feel them, and we also struggle to mak...

  I had black, multi-faceted beads I'd bought at Glebe markets around my neck. Cream coloured corduroy jeans from an op shop and a grey tee I'd home screen-printed with a Sonic Life logo, along with black Chuck Taylor All Stars, completed the look. It was January 28, 1993, and we were at Sydney Uni to see  Sonic Youth, who were touring their 1992 album Dirty. The place was packed, and me, Dudley, the Wonder and Eliminator jr huddled in a small group waiting for the doors to open. Looking back, the sheer number of people there surprises me. I'd come to Sonic a few years earlier, reading about them in a magazine, buying some albums (EVOL, Sister, Bad Moon Rising) and having my mind blown about what was possible with guitar music. Their politics also opened my mind. I began to develop an understanding of inclusion, of difference, and why so many people fear the ‘other.’ Sonic Youth changed everything for me. And yet, here we were, two major label albums in, and it seemed like ...

  The joint was in my friend group for around 25 years, a rundown, ramshackle white weatherboard house opposite the beach in Narrabeen. Tenants came and went – and sometimes came back again, unable to resist the gravitational pull of cheap rent, a great location, an acceptance of personal quirks, and the idea anything was really possible.   On the odd occasion a spare room came up and a random moved in, they were quickly indoctrinated into our micro-lifestyle, its values, vices and ways of doing things. We called this ethos “NLEG”, the Narrabeen Lifestyle Exponents’ Guild, and it was built around the idea of courtesy, a concept underpinned by a belief that what goes around, comes around. If you were broke and waiting for payday, someone would sling you a beer, or a line or a cone, with no ledgers being kept. But you had to uphold your end of the bargain too, and offer courtesy to others when you could and they needed it. And while we were very liberal when it came to substance...

  I stood in the darkness looking out over the smooth, inky waters of Broken Bay, the streetlights on the headland at Palm Beach reflected below. I could make out the silhouettes of moored boats, some with illuminated cabins. “There are people in those yachts,” I thought, suddenly overwhelmed by the sheer mass of humanity. It hit me that every one of those folks has their own hopes, fears, and dreams for the future. We’re unique, but in some ways the same.   As I gazed at the streetlights across the water, the realisation came upon me: those lights spelled out a message from God, a personal communication from the creator to me.   I lingered a little longer in the shadows thinking about what I’d seen before walking back to the low stone wall at the West Head lookout where my friends sat passing a joint back and forth, chatting in low voices. My turn came around, I took a deep drag and held the smoke in my lungs before slowly exhaling. I didn’t tell my friends what had happ...

 Love, in the middle of the afternoon / just me, my spike, my arm and my spoon / feel the warmth of the sun in the room / but I don't care 'bout you / and I got nothin'....