it has to be done.

alas, I now have to get myself ready to climb on a plane and spend a week in hot northern Gloom-Land.  I know there'll be some moments of KICKS -I hope many!  But I've by now become so reclusive and content here in my big southern yard of champagne air and long naps and music and books and walks, that I would gladly never go up there again 'cept that I oughta see all those beautiful people I know up in the Q.  
  On week from now I can come home again.  I can't wait.  Everything about my life is beautiful.
  Even now, as I type this out in my dad's old chair, I can hear Ben Williams album playing in kitchen and across the road this morning walked black cow and spindly brown calf from vanishing nowhere, now gone.  Soon it'll be noon, then I'll be on a shuttle bus and away.  
  I wonder what will happen.  I wonder if I'll write much new stuff (recalling mad notes written on spew bags coming sickly home from my last visit Dec 2010...)  I wonder how much time I'll have to myself and how many people I won't get round to seeing at all!
hello, it's me.

another top weekend/afternoon/holiday...

hallo wangs.  Last night we laid down on our big rug down in City Park amongst thousands of other Launceston families and dug the sunset and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and the stars as they played a two hour set to everybody as we lazed about with pizza and kids climbed trees with glow sticks.  it was real nice.  Then this morning (which was fresh eggs on toast and mugs of coffee) just bopped around the house.  This afternoon I played loudly boom crazy Gregorian chanting music whilst clouds gathered in the late summer sky for what?  A storm perhaps?  Sat out in the yard, let the chickens out, talked to the cat and just DUG the fact that I've been here for two years now, and it's been one of the best decisions of my life!  -It was a beautiful reflection of what I want to achieve in that "Kickbook" if I can ever get all the hooks and tangles out.  -Just a handful of days and I'll be up there in the Q doing mang things with the wangs...

mangchips and gravy.

firstly, everybody better be digging this new Robert Glasper Experiment album called "Black Radio"...  Glasper is my new MANG in terms of tunes.  As I mentioned to Donnie in a letter a few weeks back, I'm delighted that even now in my 40th year, I find something exciting and new (at least new to me) about four times a year.  When I find out about someone new (and it's been like this with me since I was about 14 or so) I then have to go on a journey and discover all the other stuff that artist has done/is doing.  -I guess this follows my Mingus "bender" which got me through the spring.  Glasper through the summer then.  Great music.  In fact I've really fallen into all these new and established (yet not old) jazz players who have been coming up, like Christian Scott, Stefon Harris, Thundercat, Roy Hargrove, -also dig the Ninety Miles Project with Christian Scott AND Stefon Harris--->http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbEGkrYYzfk


and others like Ben Williams ace number one jazz bass player of our times?  -oh boy!  -so much great jazz.  Like, as if Kerouac came back just to say "hi" -in any case, if he did come back, he'd be in fine company musically!  -great great great!  
  
  On the WRITING front, I'm now considering an cut-up prose version of "Kickbook"  -got an idea to take all the flow-story out of it and present it instead as a progressive series of dialogues and texts that sort of spell it out without the BORING COHESION of traditional novel format (ironically, that sounds a lot like XONNOX in retrospect...)  -I'm also trying to get in contact with Mr Henderson -who did the artwork for XONNOX and also the great cover for the Best of Pigface -which is where I first saw his work, I hope he'll be interested in doing the cover of Kickbook.  -all in the air anyhow...  -the idea of cutting KB up into sections occurred to me recently when I was reading through the MS and trying to read it out loud with some music.  The storyline flow disrupted my delivery.
  anyhow, that's what's what.  hello.

so where does this leave us?

mangs,
It's Sunday night, it's a billowy-rain gale outside.  That means the garden gets watered and everything stays a little cooler.  -which is nice.  
I've been reading Gary Snyder reader, and apart from that, I've started scribbling down little "prose" sections for WHAT???  -What is next?  WHAT?  -I know there is still a lot of word-poo I need to push out, but I'm really cautiously uncertain which toilet it'll all go down in.  -Which sounds like it's a problem, but it isn't.  'Cause I'm writing, and once that writing's writ, it's done and that's that.  -SO long as I'm putting down the WORDS and my MIND, I figure all's fine and I just gotta roll.
  -I do admit to being a little disappointed in myself for not finishing reading "Tale of Two Cities" by Dickens, despite the fact that I promised/made a deal with Beautiful Rowan that I would,  -sometimes I'm allowed to be wrong.  Besides which, I still assume that I'll beat it this winder when I'm forced to stay warm in my chair near the wood fire, reading.  -(my favourite reading scenario) -so just wait and see!
  Just four weeks until Brisbane toon visit, I can't wait to see how much it makes me dig my Lonnie home even more!  -also, Tash comes to visit this weekend, that oughta be nice.  -so I guess all's pretty cool really.
  Tomorrow seems to be a 50-50 chance of being a day off 'cause of the weather.  If I do get the day off I'm gonna soak and scrub my snips.  They're all caked up with chop-chop-muck.
  Anyhow, I'm going to sit out on the front porch and have a look at this blow-y night.  hello, it's me.

confuse

balls.
now I'm thinking about making book DOUBLE.  (as in double book)  -as in, Book (current one) PLUS "Kickbook"(next book in waiting, begging to be written) all into one, thus, instead of being almost finished first draft, I'm merely half way through!  -It's all worth consideration!  -Then I could call the whole thing "KICKBOOK"  -and that's making more and more sense to me!  -Stay tuned for readings/recordings (and prints for some special mangs) soon!  Wooty.

got a sore wrist mum!

hallo.
Wrote a new (number 21) chapter on the weekend and I'm happy, but now (Thurs) I'm having a day (or two) off to nurse ligament damage in my wrist from all the bringing home of bacon.  MY plan is to write another new and crazy chapter this weekend, and worst case scenario, be back at work for monday arooni.
  -caught up with Donnie on Monday and we had drinks and dinner and he gave me the most amazing signed first edition Gary snyder book ("reader") and so, I'm freakin' STOKED!  Gee he's good to me!  Hello all you mangs, sure were! <---this is a link to amazing review of great book etc...--->

well that just about wraps up this year I guess...

well weli well.  that's pretty much it for 2011 I guess.  and so here's me lying in the back yard on a sleeping bag with my laptop with d&b bass whomping out of the shed and the dog here and the rooster going bonkers.  What a great year.  Currently working at vineyard most of the time on the side of the amazing Tamar river, have almost (FOREVER ALMOST IT SEEMS) finished first draft of book that has taken me about seven years (I suppose) to get around to writing.  I guess I had some living to do.  -And now looking back on that seven or so years (from about 2005-until now 2011, I have done so many amazing and versitile things.  Amazing jobs and friends (and also cut a few friends loose) moved house and state, -almost moved overseas really I guess.  And now I'm living here is so much peace!  -but but but but but!  I gotta tell ya (meee) about this already NEXT book.  -not the one I'm currently almost finished, 'though it MUST be finished because it's PART of it ALL, but the next one finally could just be exactly  EXACTLY  the book I've been trying to write since King Ton.  A book purely about KICKS and living (I even have a play title for it "How to Get KICKS and Influence People") -However, I'm not sure about the influencing people bit yet...  I suppose I will want everyone to read it, so it MIGHT be true...  Yeah, this book I'm writing is all about getting rid of all the SHIT and all the Fat Cats and all the plastic disposable STUFF in my life, kind of like a soul-clean-out I guess.  -The NEXT one'll be about how I now see and really for the first time since youth DIG everything everywhere.  About my mind and my soul and the Earth and LIFE too!  I know it sounds crazy, but I've been wanting to write a book like this since about 2000.  I remember back then that I would "...some day retire to the country and write a novel about rural life..."  and that's sort of the whole thing I guess.  Only it goes DEEPER than just rural -as I'm sure you know.  Anyhow I'm pretty pumped about it, and I'm maybe going to base it around my week long trip to Queensland in March (we'll see...) so, by then I hope to have fleshed out the NOW book quite a bit.  -Just got to find the rime to write those last few chapters and then have a big crazy marathon re-read and edit flesh-out!  

  Then I also got to do readings with beats and music for internet and press package stuff and start peddaling around for publishing (or self publishing) and it's all crazy and busy and GO!  

I bet this time next year I'll have really crazy stories to tell!  -I hope so!  I feel pretty good!