Born under a bad sign.

There’s gonna be a heartache tonight I know.

-The Eagles.

To continue like this only acts as a force for no good.

-Powderfinger.

I see a bad moon rising.

-Creedence Clearwater Revival.

I cant keep surviving if I have no one to play with.This really sucks the high hard one.

-Red zero seven.

God thinks that you are an idiot.

You DO know that don’t you?

 It doesn’t matter how many candles you light or prayers you fervently mumble your way through. He or she or it, however you see the almighty is more likely than not smoking a big fatty right now ,feet up on a cloud coffee table hanging out with Elvis and laughing his/her/its sanctified ass off at all of your efforts.

(“He he heee”)

Well, at least that’s how it looks to me.I have been surrounded by spiritual ho-ha since I watched my friend die in front of me a little over 2 weeks ago and all I am is angry.The shit that is thrown around about ,bandied, I mean give me a fucking break. “Your time to go” and so on. Ad nauseum to fucking nausea..

All I know for a fact is the woman who gave me a reason to believe in my voice again after years of being sneered at by my own ranks  is dead and tomorrow her son ,the last piece that I have of her in the flesh,leaves for Sweden with his father. Gutted?

Betcha golly gee by wow I fucking am.

Sometime in the future I can pretty much guarantee something in the ball park of drawn and fucking quartered.

All this crap is making me wonder why I even want to endeavour to care at all really.I get to thinking that if I really let go right now (” Take a deep breath Miss Madden and…..”) I would not come back.

The Metz-o-rexic (17kgs down and counting…) Tells me that I am the strongest person she knows. How? What does she see? I am blind on my life….On memories. She tells me that my city shed is filled with white dandelion spheres which makes me smile for some reason,says that the weather is crap and that I am missed.

Got up with Blooduster the other night at the Knitting factory in Hollywood.To me that is like being asked to join The Beatles in 1964. Fucking fan-boy nirvana. We Rocked the fuck out of “DFF” and I miss being up there so bad.Gene all proud of my sweating Lynard Skynard tee shirt wearing self.Filming me on his phone like the proud Daddy -o that he is….My sister there in front of me…1st time in four long years of no closure …I sidle up to her birdlike beauty at the bar. “How you doin” I smile…but that is a story for another long night I think.

I leave for Vancouver in a week.To record. Just thought I would let you know that I am still going…how I have no idea…..

“What are you gonna be when you grow up JT?” I asked tonight, My last night with him,as we colored every picture in his superhero books green and purple .Pretty cavilier about hanging inside the lines us rock types. Good times.

[ Those blond curls that I bury my whole face in and try and transmit straight to his brain how much his mother loves him,will always love him….]

“Spider-man” he replies without a second thought.

“Who are you going to be?”

“She Hulk” I replied coloring fiercely trying not to completely lose it and cry all over him.

“Then we can get married!” he crowed grinning wildly

“I thought you would never ask!” I smiled hand on my heart fluttering like a humming bird  “Gimme a kiss”

“Later” he muttered already knowing how to keep a woman keen at the grand old age of 3.

When am I gonna see you again kid? Who is gonna ask me to be a robot now? To draw crappy tattoos all over them so “Look Michele! We match!!!…” I lost your mum and now I lose you. Will you even remember who I am when we meet again next summer?

And my heart….Fuck.

While I am  loitering on the edge, on the perimeter of advice giving be warned..never,even when alone,on the crapper, at 3 am or to yourself in private EVER mutter the jinx inducing phrase that God is waiting to hear like the starters pistol at the running of the 1 billion mile trail of tears relay at the Misery Olympics.

The curse in question?

“It cant get any fucking worse.”

(“Hee he he.” God.)

I would like to now state that I no longer have a heart.Its still there but you gotta believe that its done and done…. Quote Me. I am over it. What is left of my heart is now harder than Chinese arithmetic.Deader than Latin and JFK. Fuck off.

And now fable if I may? To Illustrate that it can ALWAYS suck harder than a nymphomaniac elf who was told that Santa’s cock is a candy cane.

Thank you….pull up a pew. I am gonna be here a while and best you get comfortable.

(Oh Skoota……)

This tale finds us back at my beloved Ranch in the heady summer of 2001.

A summer of unwise affairs of the heart and mind, of a chrome vibrator and a 12″ hunting knife that I slept with clenched in my mean arsed cunning little brown fist ,nude under an open window on Egyptian cotton sheets that I bought hot off a thief up The Cross still price tagged, of chance and BB king at unholy hours. If you had of touched me you would have got a wet gardenia scented static shock.I was ripe and electric and The Ranch was full to the regal rafters of deviants,wanna be artists,perverts, pole technicians and dreamers of every caliber and wanton stripe.And I was Queen fucking Muck. (“Your Highness!”)

My sister had open the lacquered Chinese red door to the NZ contingent while I was busily ruining my life in upstate New York, spinning devil may care circles through a million Irish bars with my adored and admired punk rock liege Toddski and upon my homecoming I fell into the whole bacchanalian cluster-fuck like Alice down the bloody rabbit hole.

I lived on 3 hours sleep a day,so many Marlboro lights that the upstairs landing always fogged and cold rice pudding.It was magnificent.I was magnificent,anorexic perfection powered by lust and the thought of so more of the same again.

Sensory gluttony ruled us all.

I handed my heart to the wrong person and could hardly stand how wonderful it was.We were all in hot and heavy trouble that summer and the good times just kept on rolling.We were picked to play the Tool after-party at Bar Broadway.Kerry the punk poser pulled me aside before we all biovacked out.Me in my suit or a version of it for the 1st time . Looking like a Clockwork Orange wraith….

“Mish, we have a mate coming it tonite and would it be cool if…?” “Tell him he is welcome here” said The Queen of Sheba with  merely the slightest nod of her desire addled head and onward into sinful summer night, like a phalanx of fuck and full blown chaos we rolled snake eyed and damp thighed.

The show was great.That was the night that  Rossco Deluxe met Maxwell Demon for the 1st time, I signed a boys heart after he crawled across the floor,sharpie clenched between his teeth like a smudged gothic puppy,I got inappropriate with my almost lover in the toilet ,hotter than hell and that was the fateful night, attended by my sister and with my  crew of miscreant pirates at my jaded side ,a crooked grin and more than likely a hand down my pants,that I met Skoota for the very 1st time.

Sitting in LA all these years later I am smiling as I write this.You couldn’t have scripted it..It was perfect.

Skoota who needed less sleep that I,who was Kerry the punk posers mate.A new Ranch hand on a mission to see The Dwarves in Sydney….A disciple of “Search and Destroy”…just like me…

He told me days later on my cloud bed hanging out listening to Turbonegro that he fell in love with my band the second that we hit the stage.I knew that it was not lip service with this one.He had that light in his ice blue eyes that marked him as a fellow believer.He tickled my wit and my funny bone over the next few days with his out and out enthusiasm for just about bloody everything.He and I hit it off from the get go.

We were tied from that moment on….

Fast forward a few years and Miss Sophia emails me from NZ to tell me that Mr Craft had just inked a huge “SF4L” on the back of Skootas neck while “Detestimony” blared in the background.I was utterly tickled.He sent me a photo that I promptly and gleefully posted in Whitetrash with an accompanying entry.

Through all of it he was always on line for me with the most spectacular support and unflinching optimism.

Cue us getting off a million years on the road and returning back home and he flew to Australia to catch our 1st 2 shows back.That laugh! It was so good to wrap my arms around such a dear friend again….

It never mattered to him that The Ranch was gone,that I had fallen out with all the people that I once shared with him,That I had got fat,thin,hopeless,burnt my brain out on pure white dispair and come back from it all…he just loved me and told me so at least once a month.What a man to have in your corner.He saw me through all my grief and triumphs…

And I loved him for it.I still do.

He was one of the 1st people to call me and congratulate me on coming out to LA to get my rock on,To write and tell me how proud he was of my Tattoo cover and that he had made his mum go and buy him a copy,he was the one who wouldn’t let me give up on “Whitetrash” Even after my lazy one year hiatus he would not let up on me to get back in the ring and write.He is the reason that you are reading this now…And as always, he was right there for me as I watched with absolute horror as Michelle slipped away.

He took me seriously when so many others had thrown me away. Saw something in me when I couldn’t bear myself.Can you grasp what this meant to a shop soiled, damaged piece of  surburban shit like me? Can you?

back to now…

I was opening my life a few days ago, chai tea and checking my-space and and so on. I saw his name on an email.Cool.Bob and Ma and Leisel in my room,me half paying attention…

Hi Michele,

You don’t know me but I am a friend of Skootas and I wanted to be the one to tell you this before you saw it on line as we all know that he loved you very…

I knew. I knew what it was going to say…I stared shaking.Conversation stopped .Lesile wrapped around me and me just keening,”Not again…Noooooo!”

They all left the room.I don’t know when .All I could see was another huge lack parting like the red sea in front of me. That I would never see him again. Did he know how much he ment to me? Did I tell him enough? His friend concluded by telling me the last time they saw him he was in His Tourettes Tee shirt.

He went to sleep and never woke up.

I,My heart is dead. For all extensive purposes…

I have to stop. Cant do this right now.

M

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