From 2004. A miracle, I know. I thought this old entry in the Angry Angry Young Lady was cute. Ringing ears are mentioned - one could argue that this is the theme of the piece? - and, of which, I still suffer from the hearing damage. But it's all perception and psychosomatic and a fact that resides purely in the mind. My mind, not yours. Unless you've got it. In which case: I'm so sorry, join me.
Please note: No line breaks - terrible apologies - but some major editing has taken place. What can I say? I must have been excited that day, night, year in particular.
Please, please note: The editing function of the old blogger has been messing up and this might look weird. If so, and, if you believe in God, I genuflect in religious contrition. And there's no sex talk contained within: you perverts.
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Saturday 10th of July
Sometimes it feels like all
I'm doing is counting down minutes and seconds. My ears have been blocked up
for the last couple of days. Sounds to me like everything is on a depressed
mute. Or, more precisely, I'm not receiving sound at the correct, stipulated
level. That's ok; I don't want to hear what my family or friends have to say,
what the commercials on the television have to tell me, or the very important
message the dirty stranger on the street has to give me. I couldn't think of a
better gift to be given, than to enter a club and not have the ability to
discern, locate and pick out singular elements that make up the soundscape of
the environment. So I can't locate the awful band mutating power-metal into
funk rock in the corner of the room. The short blonde in bright white, trying
to sell her whiskey brand of choice to me, may as well be trying to stop a speeding
train when she looks and smiles at me. When a friend of the power-metal band
talks to the singer, and tells him that she thinks that if he weren't a singer
he would have to be an actor, and the singer, without a hint of irony or
self-reflexivity or even a single blink, replies that he would "really like to get into acting" -
it's all a wee buzzing in my right ear. A distorted, tonal modulation that is
competing with the other buzz in my left ear, itself a fairly inaccurate
representation of the folks leaning against the bar, ordering their drinks, bartering
away for their social flesh and sweating, spitting and shitting out all they
have over the club floor. You had to have your car detailed because you live up
north and the red dust is everywhere in the vehicle? Do I come here often? Do
bands play here all the time? You go better at pool when you've had two drinks?
There's only one fluro light above the table? Cheap bastards? Your boyfriend?
Eighties music? Fifty cents for a glass of water? Am I enjoying myself? What do
I think of the music? Your name is Rachel by the way? You want to shake my
hand? The next band starts and I finish. I go outside the club into the night
air. A lonely road stretches past the door. In one direction this road follows
along the coast in a winding path; in the other, it reaches back into the port,
flowing over a two-lane bridge. The traffic lights, one twenty feet this way,
the other ten feet that way, flick from green to orange to red and then back
again; without the orange of course. And there are no cars driving by for a
good five minutes. I can see the lights that line the Swan River, over in the
distance, flickering without any due recourse. Everything is still; not even
the air wants to move. Who needs to hear?
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