1.
Thursday. A favourite of album lately has been Mule Variations. Released in 1999 by Tom Waits. I love his music, his poetry, his creations. I love the whacky turns he has taken. His pure piano bar stuff and his bonkers Black Rider stuff. All of it. I love that he did those things.
Mule Variations covers a mix of styles. The other night I’m enjoying a meal and listening to Mule Variations, when a grinding blues number comes on called Cold Water. Who knows why these things happen, but that song gets into me. It has me. I listen to it again. And again. The 12-bar blues. I look up the chords online and swing over to my electronic keyboard. I’m a bit rusty, but before long, I’m playing along. The piano bass chords for these 12-bar blues, in the band with Tom Waits. I could walk on air.
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2.
Every day. Very much loving this World Cup 2026. Loving the dancing in the aisles. The national identities on display. All of us telegraph towers. What is it to be a human?
Who knows what will happen? (Aside from creators of The Simpsons).
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3.
Saturday. This across my feed by Kurt Vonnegut.
“When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archaeological dig. I was talking to one of the archaeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sport? What’s your favourite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sport. I do theatre, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.
And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”
And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”
And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.”
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4.
Monday. How happy I am to read contemporary quotes from Paul Hogan. I’ve always enjoyed his comedy, his delivery. But he’s been out of sight, out of mind for a couple of decades.
He was brought back into the conversation by right-wing shill and lightning rod for the disaffected, Pauline Hanson, in the Australian Senate last week. She named him (along with fictional character Norman Gunston, played by Garry McDonald) as being representative of an ideal Australian monoculture – in her racist way.
Afterwards, a newspaper from Australia sought Paul Hogan’s comment. He’s 86 years old now and lives in Los Angeles. These are some brilliant lines.
“She’s a pelican, yeah. Outrageous, so racist. It sounds very much like this stupid boofhead over here, Trump.”
“My old gang was an Assyrian, a Thursday Islander, a Welshman, an Aboriginal… Italians, Greek, Irish, Chinese, a bit of everybody in there.”
“I’ve always had a very simple rule: What makes a good Australian is wanting to be one.”
Five stars.
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5.
Friday. Late at night, showered, dried, cosy, warm. The apartment is dark. Lights from the oven display, from a powerboard, from the TV on standby mode. And Radiohead’s OK Computer playing softly on the stereo.
I lay on the soft and woolly family room rug in the darkness, place my feet up on the couch seat, and turn up the volume. Paranoid android, Exit music (for a film), Karma police, No surprises. Eyes closed. No alarms and no surprises. Bliss.
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6.
Monday. I finish a book gifted to me by Shane Maloney. Elmore Leonard’s “Out of sight.” So enjoyable. Page one, chapter one, opening scene:
“Foley had never seen a prison where you could walk right up to the fence without getting shot. He mentioned it to the guard they called Pup, making conversation: convict and guard standing in a strip of shade between the chapel and a gun tower, red-brick structures in a red-brick prison, both men looking toward the athletic field. Several hundred inmates along the fence out there were watching the game of football played without pads, both sides wearing the same correctional blue, on every play trying to pound each other into the ground.
‘You know what they’re doing,’ Foley said, ‘don’t you? I mean besides working off their aggressions.’
Pup said, ‘The hell you talking about?’
This was about the dumbest hack Foley had ever met in his three falls, two state time, one federal, plus half-dozen stays in county lock-ups.”
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7.
Tuesday. The usual routine at home before leaving for work. Light rain falls from thick cloud. Car headlights are on. But when I arrive at the tram stop, I realise I’ve left my wallet (and tram ticket) at home on the kitchen bench. So I’m back across the road, back along the street, retracing my steps. In a bit of a hurry now, a little bit annoyed.
Outside my building, I see a guy I know.
“Good morning, C!”
“Good morning!”
“Would you believe it? I left my wallet at home. I’ve had to come back for it.”
Old C looks at me and raises his arms in a what-are-you-gonna-go kind of way, and says: “Oh, it happens sometimes. What are you gonna do?”
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8.
Monday. I submit a new story in another short story writing competition. The High Country Words competition, based in Mansfield. Calls for fiction stories at a maximum length of 2000 words with the theme “Wild.”
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9.
Friday. I’m first at the pub. Twenty minutes to midday. By 12 pm, I’m joined by mates in this reasonably full bar, with a large TV beaming crystal clear live footage to us from San Francisco, USA. This is Paraguay v Australia. Last game of the group phase of World Cup 2026. Finishes 0-0, and Australia qualifies for the next round.
Spectacular.
Coach Tony Popovic in his black on black. “It’s John Wick.”
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10.
Sunday. The world of music streaming services. Tidal is my app of choice – rather than Spotify or Apple Music.
Very happy with Sunday’s AI policy update.
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11.
Sunday. Cooking up lamb koftas with a warm salad of boiled baby potatoes, butter, semi-dried tomatoes, baby spinach leaves and feta. It’s for two of us. Soon Sarah will arrive with loving care, laughs, curiosity and a Barossa red.
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Go well.
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This has been Sproutings #145.
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