Tattoo.

I am not going to lie. I knew.I always knew.

And as all good fairytale fans know,there are always signs if you know what you are looking for…..

There was something intoxicating and forbidden about them back then.An otherness that scared me and called to me siren sweet in equal measure. The way people parted around their thrumming presence like water around an immovable rock set in a fast running stream.I wanted that. I wanted that so much that I could taste it.

I am one thousand years old. Things were different then. What I loved had yet to be co-opted by the ones that spat upon me. Back then the marked were truly a band apart and to tar oneself with the same indelible brush  meant crossing over for keeps,never to return.

I was adopted at six weeks old into a family that had strong ties to the military.My taciturn grandfather was a decorated Major in the signal corp during World War Two.He served in the Pacific theater and came undone in a motorcycle accident.We did not like each other much as I was not of true Madden stock but I respected him greatly.  My uncles all went to military school as did their sons in turn. It was my youngest uncle,so handsome and reckless,the one who shone like a cheap cubic zirconia and had enough swagger to break and taint the tenderest of hearts,he was tattooed. I saw them smeared across his biceps  every summer and I wondered if that’s what made the men want to be his best friend and the ladies blush.

I wondered endlessly,was that were the magic came from or is that what brought it out?

All the bikers had them.That was just a given.I thought they were the be all and end all.I had devoured Hunter.S.Thompson’s “Hells Angels” in the sixth grade and decided that Sonny Barger was my real father and that one day he would find and claim me back into the leather wrapped fold… And their old ladies who were not so old and far from what I though a lady was meant to be by way of all the Byron that I had devoured. The punks locked forever in amphetamine amber of a London that they would never see or know in ’77 ,that I would see on the bus and outside the one cool record store in my Podunk town.Tartan clad birds of a paradise fallen fueled on lager and shitty sulphate speed.

Bon Scott had them.

And what it gave them? The allure and armor that it lent? Well,that was all I ever wanted right there.

I wanted to shine that bright and to be that feared. I wanted to have the secret sign hidden under my flannel sleeves ,the magic touch,the visual hand shake that granted entrance to the rooms where my money was no good,where I would sup with kings as Deep Purple jammed all night long .The deal that I would make with myself on and with the flesh that meant that I could never back down on rock’and’roll. Not just the music but the left hand path that went with it.

In the name of Ozzy,Elvis and Lemmy.Amen.

And at a held breath just under the age of fifteen (Ma,i am so sorry….) I did.

I had been kicked out of school,I believe,for seeing the lie. Those judgmental catholic child molesting motherfuckers could not wait to cut me lose. The fat balding polyester clad principle said that it was my choice,expulsion or criminal charges.My head was spinning like a tilt-a-whirl,my saint of a mother shell shocked by my side. They wanted me gone that bad. I walked. I was so young.Hung out to dry at fourteen.

During an abortive attempt at alternative education,merrily skipping my classes,I would go and hang around the one tattoo studio in the city.Creep up the dark stairwell that stunk of dirty mop water and bleach.A sullen and silent child I caused no ruckus and they let me stay. I think that they were astounded that I was there at all. Much like a  nun in a whorehouse.Incongruous. The head tattooist was a dark haired utterly foul tempered biker by the name of Lee. I would run errands for him and then go and hide in the restaurant across the way when I knew I was outstaying my welcome ,where I would hole up and write in what I believed was my exclusive booth and drink rot-gut whiskey for free (another story for another night right there…)

He is dead now but I still carry his blue mark and the shadow of his kindness to my childhood self. Ask me to show it too you some time.I am looking at it right now.A blue smudge on my left ankle surrounded by the other smudges that came a little later.I took small steps way back then.You had to earn it. Did he ever ask me how old I was ? No. I think that he recognized the hunger in me,the deep seeded need and that it was inevitable as I sat in curled in the corner day after day,silent,reading about Elvis,shaman ,wet tee shirt contests and soft-tail bikes.

That if he didn’t do it some one else would.

A slow day mixed with a moment of weakness…

An orange single blade disposable razor and green soap.That buzz,that hypnotic high whine.Alcohol on the air,on my lips.A Black Sabbath tape saturating the scene with sound.Smoking a cigarette and sweating bullets. The neon posted point of no return that I had been straining towards for fourteen and a half years.

I heard the starters pistol fire.

He turned my fine boned foot in his huge un-gloved hand beneath the smoke shot light. My picture drawn on the tender skin with blue biro. He ticked the sole and made me laugh causing my cigarette to leap from my lips and into my lap. I hastily retrieved it and tried to do the same with my meager cool.

“You get smart and tell anyone about this and your not welcome here no more” he growled and I nodded my head.

“You stupid fucking kid” he muttered,a ghost of a smile loitering beneath his moustache  and got to work….

He slapped it when he was done and laughed. I winced and laughed too ,half -lit on the adrenalin of what I had done and warm Jack Daniels and flat coke I had been steadily sipping. He drove me way across town with my shoe off on the back of his bike,my head spinning,holding on tight as the tires chewed up the road like licorice and dropped me at the bottom of my street. As I handed him back my helmet he pulled me in for a rough hug.

“Idiot” he said and I laughed.

I stood there grinning like a tool till the taillights faded and the fat throb of the engine followed suite.

I kept it hidden. Me ,the heathen. My mother, the Spanish inquisition.

I loved it . I love it still.I looked at in and touched it reverently every chance I got.I loved that I had ruined myself for a world that had never wanted me in the first place.That I was finally free.

That I was home.

Later came the forearms.They were the real job stoppers. They were the jaw droppers. The ink has wound around me like ivy.It has taken me almost a life time to have what I have now. In the age of the GPS no one really takes time to think and ponder upon the majesty of maps anymore. This saddens me greatly At the turn of the century,the last one,high quality globes were at times made of tenderly cured hides. What are we but not so much of the same? I can trace every heartbreak and heart shattering loss via the cartography of my own dermis. Nothing covered and nothing removed. Every drop of ink a city,a night,a kiss,a shovel of dirt into an open gave,a eulogy,a forever truncated,a celebration.

And its all mine.

It cannot be stolen or repossessed. Every minute under every needle belongs to me alone.

And in the end we are all that we have.

Can I tell you with every tattoo I felt more like me? That being adopted and hence free of the shackles of heredity and all the expectation it inadvertently contained enabled me to construct myself to the utmost? I became my own red light fueled Sistine Chapel?  Before it became so popular and people started asking me what they meant because reality television had given them,they thought,  some kind of right,they would avoid me,shuffle their children away from me. Avert their eyes.

Exactly what I wanted. Mission accomplished.

Its harder now. When I was a kid if I saw another lank haired loser in a faded well loved Slayer tee-shirt there was a pretty red hot chance that I would not only be in a band with them by the end of the week but sleeping on their floor and smoking all their weed . Now I see kids in band tee shirts when I work my door and quiz them about the bands that they sport only to be met with blank stares (“Ok homeschool,name one song by Zepplin then….and NOT Stairway to heaven!”) Sue me. I still live and die by this shit.

Well ,way back when,tattoos used to be the same.

Times long gone.

On a bad day when halfwits yell out of their car windows while I wait for the lights to change (“Hey Kat von D!!!!”)  I think that if I had of known what it was going to become that I would have stayed a clear skin but I know deep down that that is a lie. Even now the slinky symmetry of my epic grey and black sleeves wrapped around one of my innumerable white damask pillows when I wake up makes a sly grin settle on my fat lips.

No one told me what to be. No one even knew due to my secrecy shrouded birth who I was or where I came from. I did this. I gave myself to myself. When I had no faith I put myself under the needle again and again till I got right,The Stooges screaming through my brain,every pore and fucked up follicle of my being.I pulled myself back form the brink over and over again.

I am mine.

People and possessions will come and go,that is a given. I am an ornery ol’ thing so more likely than not love shall continue to pass me by.The world is lead online and people still  continue to suck. But every once in a while on a train or stuck on a stop over in some godforsaken airport I will look up from the page that more often than not holds my attention and I will see some girl child devouring me with her eyes.

The tee shirt hanging threadbare from my lean frame most likely older than she is,the weathered silver on my long fingers,the belt buckle the size of a dinner plate, hair dark and wild falling to the waistband of skintight jeans. Boot clad with  a hatbox by my side that a hooker named Crazy Charlie gave me when I first moved out of home that has circumnavigated  the world several times over and is now held together with nothing but prayers,a thousand band stickers,backstage passes and duct taped dreams.

She eats the whole table that I am bare with her pre-teen eyes and I make no sudden moves. I am languid.I am a feast and she had no idea she was starving till she saw me. I let her gorge herself until her sense of possibility becomes distended and sleepily sated.

For now.

Her parents occupied with a snot nosed sibling and ticketing concerns the world henceforth consists of the two of us alone. I casually put down my pen and she freezes. So slowly I look up,I raise my eyes to her and I smile. She shyly sends it back to me gift wrapped in cherry chap-stick and the bloom of youth. She laughs as I pretend to catch it and stick it in my pocket.

Her gate arks up with light and commences boarding and she looks panicked. “Its cool” I mouth and salute her. She laughs and it hurts way down where I thought the light could no longer reach,where the bodies are buried. She is marked. Just like I was when the punks winked at me in the city while my mother looked away and I stared slack jawed at their perfect Mohawks.I won’t tell her how hard it will get just like no one told me. It is the lot of our kind.You have to have it hard. Hard is the black velvet under the diamond of the amazing highs that come with being to thine own self true.

I decide to give her the whole package before she leaves. I uncurl myself to my full formidable six foot seven in  heels and wave goodbye to her. She walks backwards slack jawed,her parents ignoring her.

At the gate she blows me a kiss and keeps waving till the doors swallow her from my sight. She takes a piece of my coal black heart with her.

I sigh and scoop all my crap into my hatbox.The tannoy crackles and announces the first boarding call for Los Angeles International.

I know that all is as it should be.That there will always be another gypsy child to take my place.She gives me faith that the line of women with un-tameable blood tempered with a heavy dose of equal parts Iggy Pop and Fleetwood mac will never be broken.

That in her, Lee,the Punks,the Slayer lank haired losers and me….that we will never die.We will all live forever.

I lock my hatbox and fish my boarding pass and passport from my black tasseled handbag. Ice blue eyes hidden behind my silver aviators,I square my shoulders and let a Mona Lisa smile settle on my mouth.

“Where eagles dare” blasts out of my i-pod and I saunter,hips swinging down the concourse  followed by a million eyes and whispers.

I turn it up.

I grin like the wolf that I am.

I make my way to the gate and the world.

Messy.

I love Japan.

Love,love,love!

I love everything about it from the most venerable and holy Hello Kitty ( which I have inked on my outlaw hide,if you are lucky I might just show ya where…)  to its dirty knicker vending machines.Its mysterious mist shrouded mountains and giggling schoolgirls sporting too many crooked teeth wedged in tiny chirping mouths. But most of all I love the food. Oh the food!  Show me a back lacquered platter of sashimi the size of a football field with a Kilimanjaro of ginger by its perfect side and I will purr like a 385. hemi….

Japan hates me.

Hates,hates,hates…..

It treated my stomach and lower colon like Pearl Harbor on Sunday morning. Torpedoed by sushi eaten before work on Saturday night.I made it to the bathroom at 7am in agony,fell off the toilet unconscious and when I came to I had Jackson Pollock-ed myself and the entire room in crap and vomit. It was epic. It was disgusting. How can anyone be full of that much crap?

Well,if you have been reading this here page for long enough that there question pretty much answers itself….

Onward!

I am terrible at being ill.I mean really bad.Its a control thing ( duh!)  not only that but I am loud,really operatic about it. Food poisoning is the uber pits not to mention the ultra shits. My bones have only just stopped aching.Aka: Errol Flynn sweetly offered to come over and take care of me.Such a kind lad. Between dizzying trips to the rain-room to re-lose my guts yet again,I informed him that it would be a cold day in Hades before I would let anyone see me looking like a pack of sadistic saber toothed tigers had been using me as a chew toy.

(“Vanity! Thy name is Michele!”)

I then informed him that I would never eat again.Which turned out to be a bold faced lie as I am now surviving on flat Sprite and rice pudding.

Blurgh.

I barfed so hard at one point that I think that I have damaged my right eardrum.Not too happy about that.I also think that I may have crapped out a five cent coin that I swallowed in the second grade which is rather impressive if you ask me. Stoked  to have lost about ten pounds though even if that  did include one of my lungs.

I have to be well enough to face the zombie like hordes of fauxhemian fucktards of Newtown tomorrow night as big brother is returning to the stage at The Sandringham with The Hard-ons for the 1st time since he was assaulted. I can’t wait to see him ,Ray and Murrey back where they belong. My ol’ mate Matt Skitz will also be up from Melbourne which always leads to a good time. Matt calls me “Michellica” and it makes my heart crack a big rubbery one. One of the last of the good guys and also one of the worlds greatest drummers. Check out the band Damaged if you want to hear just how good…We are going to see Captain Cleanoff at the Hi-fi bar on Friday night and I cant wait!

Get my metal on and so forth…

Besides almost shitting myself to death over the weekend life is actually looking pretty damn sweet. I have been astounded by all the support I have been shown in the Miss Inked competition considering that my work is not really the “norm”. I prefer to think of myself as a wayward Victoria’s Secret angel by way of “Exile on Main Street” and a fist full of Quaaludes hanging out with Iggy Pop and Michael Des Barres at Rodney’s English Disco on the Sunset strip in the early 70’s rather than yet another tubby blunt fringed maybe spilling out of a too small corset wielding a  feather fan ( yawn) …Goes to show that people can dig on quality and can get behind via la difference and may Elvis bless them for making the fine distinction! I like it. Makes me gain a little faith if you know what I mean. I think the voting finishes next week and the its all up to Elvis.

Can’t lie,I would really dig that title.

I have been campaigning like JFK with tits. I am also going to have all my compadres who have been tireless on my narcissistic behalf over for a candlelit feed when its all done and dusted to thank them. Just have to make sure the retard flatmate is out that night wooing fat chicks at the pub with his double digit IQ or whatever it is that he gets up to.

Aka: Errol Flynn asked me if I am worried that he reads this. “You are assuming that he can read.” I dryly parried back.

Beloved Miss Nina is heading stateside for Burning man and then two months of additional tomfoolery and even though she is lending me her bass rig her absence will be felt most profoundly.Big brother goes on tour soon too. I think that I may be in the grip of abandonment issues here. Not to worry. I have much to do in their lamented absence. Which includes spending quality time creating with my beloved band and whittling 20kgs off my corpulent frame.

Summer is looming and I am not having those ass-clowns from Greenpeace covering me in wet hessian sacks and trying to roll me back into the surf when I am minding my own business while working on my melanomas and crows feet at the beach this year.

Pollexia and Penny,my rock fueled partners in crime have a bitchin’ summer planned and I am going to be war ready. Was also thinking about heading home to LA before the year splutters to a close but I may have to put it off. I really miss my friends and my hound. Shame I can’t sell my other kidney as well…..

So let it come to me I say. I love summer here because all my friends come out on tour. Hearing that OFF! are on the BDO made me grin like a loon. Got mates tagging along with A Perfect Circle as well.And The Chilli Peppers….And its not just the bands. So many of my friends tech and its always a joy seeing them and going out for long gossip filled feeds. That alone will get me through the next few months of shit weather and living with a fucktard.

Muy interesting is the rancid news that my flying monkeys bring me back from the hallowed and much missed West Coast. Some people make it darn hard to give a shit about them in the long haul I gotta tell y’all. I really do have to check my head and my battered ego for that matter.Some days are easier than others.

Seeing my bro back on stage tonight is gonna make it a good day.

Rock and Roll solves everything.

Last.

Yeah I cried. With sweet Sammy from the cafe holding my hand.You would have too if Steve Lucas from “X” pointed at you and said in that voice “Michele,this ones for you” and then launched into the most flawless version of ” I got the blues” by my beloved Stones. Big fat tears struggling to get past my false lashes.

Plop!

What a wonderful way to end it all. Surrounded by all my friends and peers.One sweet fan traveling all the way from Bathurst to see the show and making me feel like a star asking me to sign fliers and take photos. Moments like that are so damn sweet. Big brother just perfect. He sold many albums and touched many hearts. We did a good thing.These nights set a high bar and I am glad that we shut it down now.

2 million staples 971 tea light candles,18 hello kitty picks,2 broken strings,one lost capo,11 nervous breakdowns,2 boxes of nag champra,124 drink tickets and about 17 fliers….not too shabby at all.

Blackie thanked me from the stage and I thanked him right on back.When I arrived back on these fair shores 2 years ago with my ass kicked and my spun sugar heart shattered I swore on a stack of Quaaludes and Iggy Pop that I would never play again. Pleased to say that I was wrong.Without my brother I never would have set foot back onstage .

So now all my hippy crap that I decorated the room with week in and week out is stacked up in the kitchen. I will work out what to do with it sooner or later. Who has that many candles? Jesus please us.

Really looking forward to heading down to Wollongong to play at Music Farmers on Saturday afternoon with Blackie. So many of my Club 77 infants live down there and always lamented that they couldn’t make it up here on Wednesday night. Mohammad is taking the sonic album to them.Then Miss Nina and I have to leg it back to work all night long. I know its only rock and roll but I like it…

Oh Mick! Sing it to me….

And for now I guess that is that.

Sailor.

You know its a good day to be on friendly terms with oxygen intake when someone that you feel is rather dashing in an Errol Flynn type fashion informs you that they will dream of you naked in a giant martini glass full of bubble bath.

Picture me with a grin that looks like it should have a feather stuck to the corner of my bottom lip…..

I have not courted nor attracted attention in so long that I am spasmodically and fretfully flattered. I have forgotten how to conduct myself in such situations to tell you the truth. I am only ever viewed as a buddy anyway so I should keep my irregular heartbeat down to a dull roar.

But jeepers it feels so sweet.

I have got no edit button,firewall or grace. This is it sailor.

Kindness should never be undervalued or overlooked .It is far to rare a commodity. Hens teeth and rocking horse shit capishe?

Personally? I am like a kid waiting for Santa to wrangle his big fat red butt down the chimney. I am utterly charmed and happy that I have finally said yes to leaving the house and breaking bread with a fine boned specimen that happens to be very easy on the eye and sharp as a tack.

Let the good times roll.

Lets be honest here,I wrote myself off. Let it all slide. Disappeared behind a wall of fat and a shitload of really good lyrics where as my ex got himself a heroin addicted  hooker and an altercation with the LAPD. I can lose the weight but something tells me that Price Charming is gonna be stuck with his whore for a long ass time.

And maybe,just maybe that ain’t my problem no more.

He had the gall to tell me that it would break his heart if I ever found anyone new while meanwhile he was throwing his fuck into a cunt with a head like a foot.She looks like something out of Picasso’s blue period by way of a real nasty acid trip.

Lord Elvis I am still a mess. Still can’t fuck and I hyperventilate at the thought of holding hands.

But there are good people out there and for that I am grateful.

Miss Emma,the petite minx,set me up for this one.( “He’s funny and cool! He is six foot six! Don’t be a mensch!)  He directed her in a short film. Its nice. Its nice talking to someone who thinks that me being a writer is as sexy as my high stepping ass.  Its nice not getting yelled at for using five dollar words. Who gets my “Cool hand Luke” references.

(“Nobody can eat fifty eggs”…)

Who likes me. Think that I have found a friend even if I am a romantic retard.

Gotta tell y’all,house hunting is a pain in the bahakas but after coming home to blood all over the kitchen floor? Well,that would be my notice then….

One more show to play this week and then big brother lights out on tour to take his music to the masses. He is getting better by the day and it is a joy to behold. The last show was amazing. Glad that we did it and that I got to play with him every week.

Wonders will never cease.I am cleaning today but thought that I would take a break and blather on here while imbibing ginger tea. Best that I get a shake on before the retard arrives home and clogs up my living shape with the asbestos like shroud of dumb that comes with him.

Then I am gonna take a bath and shave my legs….

Light.

You have to wait for the light to defuse.

Trust me on this.It is imperative ,it lends much to the moment. Gives it that mid 70’s Valium drenched,macrame pot-holder, tube sock wearing vibe. Feet on the sun cracked dashboard, singing at the top of your Marlboro mauled lungs and you would up and swear on a stack of bibles that you are gonna be young and full of juice forever because nothing this sweet could ever grow old……The soundtrack mashes up your very marrow and all you want to do,in no particular order is get kissed,set something large on fire and eat ice cream.

I spend so much time in my head. Making lists. Dreaming of soft suede boots with stacked heels and Anita Pallenburg being my mother. Of making out all hot and heavy with the ocean. Ernie Ball endorsements so I don’t have to boil my bass strings anymore. Silver and gold confetti.You know…the important shit.

Professor Chicken tells me that Meldrum is going to get moving again.He tells me to write him about what I have been up to and to get ready to do press again.I felt it in my waters a while back and I am rarely wrong when I up and listen to my churning gut instincts. Gene is finally off the road and I know that that album is as precious to me as it is to him.I wonder if this means that I finally get to go home? To tour again? I am fed up with my exile on Lame street. I miss Gene,Laura and Frieda so much.Heading up to Fear Factory’s rehearsal room downtown,Huge hugs from Burton and Byron and the usual stink eye from Dino.

Would you believe that I even miss that!

But I miss Michelle the most,we all do…..

Even after all this time I still expect to see her name flash up on my phone and to pick up where we left off. To hear that laugh and for her to call me “Dear” and make me feel all goofy and nine years old.So many stages we never got to play together. It twists deep into my heart like a bitter drill-bit.

I think that it always will.

I am heading back to the haven of my dope drenched hermanos down south as soon as this last show is wrapped up and I can’t fucking wait. I need to be with my band damn it!  The spanky good news is that I think that I have it all worked out when it comes to arrangement and the last few vocals thank fuck! .Been talking to Mo Mayhem of the Hell City Glamors about recording us soon and he is keen. Just have to get it all hammered out and the boys up to speed on the songs so we can knock it out within a few days and then start playing. My manicure is a constant mess and my calluses are fire proof. That’s when you know that I have actually been playing and not just saying that I have been to assuage my guilt.

Heh.

It must be said though,singing while bassing is a whole different and far more difficult beast than singing while gitfiddling. I get lost! I am working so fucking hard at it because I hate to fail.Grrrr! Its also a lot more hypnotic.I get locked in it and forget the bridge.James Brown would fire me for sure.

Thank Elvis that I have Jase to be the Geezer to my Eric A.

I feel this band. I have never heard anything like it. I sure as shit have never played or sang like this.I was trying to explain to my much missed whiskey twin Mark Gardner,what it sounds like. I think that I was blathering on about Sabbath and Jane’s Addiction having a baby that was weened on methadone and Dr Pepper.Or something.He laughed and said that he can’t wait to hear it. I said to expect spastic postcards.He is working with Turbonegro now. I told him to say hey for me.

Remind me one day to expand on my “2851” theory.

“Oh Michele!” I hear you exclaim “Do tell us what it is!”

The jist?

Ok ,brace yourselves.Though much research while stuck in transit over many moons and miles of touring I have worked out that  there are exactly 2851 people on Planet Rock and we all know/have worked/have played with/have fallen out with/have dated each other. Its spooky in its accuracy.

It also proves that I am a social retard with too much time on their hands.

One who is also getting a shit load of new tattoos over the next month. Finally found an artist who is will to do my “Whitetrash” tattoo. Joy!

No complaints here.

Change.

What to take with you and what to leave behind?

I found out today that I am gaining a nephew. I wrote to my baby brother and his wife that I am looking into drum kits immediately.I figure the sooner we get him on the stool the better. I am so happy. One of each and I never had to go through childbirth.Bargain! I now have my beloved goddaughter and a nephew cooking as I write .That’s me covered then. Leeroy tells me that GG is carting round her hot pink ukulele (Courtesy of moi naturally ) everywhere and she is really getting into it.

Fruit not of my loins but born of my black heart. Peachy.

Stoked.

I am finally starting to look at some new options when it comes to my life and its definite lack of style.I asked Lilli if I could kill her brother tonight.

“That may take some explaining” she replied hugging me.

“Bullshit” says I “There are alot of holes in the desert…”

I venture out of my room today and there he is,retardation’s poster-child, parked on the sofa inhaling fast food. He thinks its funny. Tell you what I think, I think it sucks that I am going to have to be the one to leave after me and Lil have co-inhabited brilliantly for about a zillion years.

All my crap wedged into a million stripy bags and schlepped across town once again.Sigh.

But as my Foxcore keep drumming into my thick skull “Change is good”

Elvis only knows that I have been stagnant for long enough. I found out that OFF! are on the bill for the Big Day Out this year. Nine messages informing me of the fact on my phone when I woke up. So sweet.Which gets me to thinking that I really do have to get my shit together as the summer will be here before I know it.

Miss Blythe has ordered my new fox tail and that is always the harbinger for good times in my book.

That and getting Saint Cecilia war ready are all I have to focus on right now. I am finally getting thinner due to the fact that I am still a Dr Pepper and Red Bull free zone. Gets me to thinking if I can quit that carbonated devils piss that I can do anything…..

The gym are on my ass to pay my membership up so I will have to get onto that pronto. I have just been so bummed out at home that I think its a major achievement if I do laundry for Christs sake. I have been making myself sick ever since I moved in here.All I am doing out here in the suburbs is buying shoes and not training.This is not how the fable goes….This is not me in kick ass mode that’s for damn sure. And I need to be match fit so when the good times roll back around I will look and feel like the homecoming queen. hey,what ever gets one through the night right?

I am just nattering because I have to be up early tomorrow and of course I am not tired in the slightest. Appointments to be kept you see. Always the way. Gotta deal with ugly daytime dwellers and I am not a fan.Miss Nina and I were talking about how we always feel like criminals even when we have done nothing wrong when forced to deal with their kind. Outlaw sensibilities that hinder at the most inopportune times.

Strange days indeed.

Metz is sending me handbags. I question not and welcome the little orphans into my home. I am to accessories what Richard Burton was to drinking. What Jenna Jamerson is to porn.

I will be tired around the time that I need to be getting up.Shit.Shit.Shit.

Daylight burning my dishy blue peepers,the mediocrity burning my retinas to a crisp..

Ahhhh….wish me luck and I will see you on the other side.

Change is good. Right?

Measure.

I worry about them all.

But at that age you are willing to test the limits of your mortality.To punch it till it pukes.I did it far worse than they do it back in my slay day so all I can do is keep watch and yell a lot.

If you had of told me even a year ago that I would invest so much into caring about these kids every Saturday night I would have laughed in your face,taken the money and run. But they astound me and it saddens me on one level. The level being that I don’t think that they have enough honest human contact with any of their peers on a day to day basis.I could be wrong but when I see how they light up when I enquire about new partners,jobs,grades…it batters my black heart to a midnight pulp.

I was given a single perfect white rose last night from one of the boys that resides in my ‘hood and makes the trek into the city every weekend. I mentioned in passing eons ago that they were my favorite. His sweet girlfriend looked on bemused so I swept them both into a giant hug and didn’t let go of the cellophane wrapped sweetness all night.

One of the same crew drove me home later on. Me loaded down with a fruit tray that one of my work mates had kindly constructed for me.I am eating fat red grapes by the fist-full as I type. Caligula style.

Oh my Wollongong crew who make the journey up every week and fuss over me endlessly.Who post and re-post my picture for Miss Inked and get all of their friends to vote. Who paint,concrete and sand the whole week away only to come and find what they have lost through hours of back breaking labour on the dance-floor. So polite and courteous.

When I am done for the night,converse clad and exhausted sitting on the end of the bar they arrive one by one for back breaking hugs and to see if I am ok.To trade Will Farrel lines and make me laugh.

The tall redheaded brothers who dote on me and make me swoon with stereo hugs.

Yeah,you got me,I care.

One of them told me that it would break his heart if I left. I thought of all the leaving that I have done in my life and smiled.Passport crammed with stamps,so much lost along the way.That they don’t know who I am what I do away from here .That to them I am “Their” door-girl. Their “Se7en” Its a sweet break from my own reality.

My heinous teen-aged reality.

Two more shows to go at The Sandringham. I have to get all my crap home after that,all the candles and fabric. Rickard’s will be rolling his eyes as I stuff all my gypsy crap into his car.I know that Sue would like me to keep going but I want to bail on it while I am still in love with it. I don’t want it to get old. I really have to get to work on my band.Time is slipping away yet again and I have a fistful of amazing songs that need to find their way into a studio. I have to free myself up to journey back to “The Cat Palace” and be the low end dominant Alpha that I am.

I was spooked by weird dreams of playing pool in Hollywood with Fat Mike and miss-placing lyric books. The light was summer struck,Xanaxed  and grainy and I wonder if I will ever get to go home again.Letters from my twin Mark G making me smile,Tim S back on tour,so many amazing people that I miss so very much….

I try and draw solace by small measure that this is where I am meant to be right now and to hone what I have on this side of the planet. Saved by infants on a Saturday night and a fist full of fine friends that make me cut the shit and get my ass into gear.Saved by my band with its dream line up.

Don’t think that I am going to go back out into the world for a few days. My bedroom is a disaster zone and I have to get grocery’s. I want to stay up all night and write.Get my crotchety 12-string into some semblance of tune that doesn’t sound like cats being boiled in oil. Just lie here and daydream.I am good at that….

My felonious lost boy seems to be doing just fine without me. I have read some disastrous reviews of his new album which made me sad. A shame that he forgot to hone the many amazing colors he has in his formidable palate and just chose to scream his hot head off. I hope that he is well and unhindered by vampires,powder and peroxided whores but I severely doubt it.

I think that he has or is trying to forget me. Good luck with that Brat.

I don’t want to be forgotten much like I chose not to forget. And it is a choice. You have to be vigilant with memories lest they slip away and they will given half the chance.

I think that I should jam my earplugs back in my head.Is it just me or does Lynx deodorant smell like looming nonconsensual sex? Yep, you guessed it! I just heard my roommate come home. The banal dreck that falls from his cake-hole sets my teeth on edge so best I block it out.No one ever told me that the pay off for cheap rent was living next to a fucktard of biblical magnitude.

Guess that’s the price that I am being forced to pay in light of all the cool stuff that befalls me.

Quel bummer.

But after nights like last night? Its almost worth it……

Covert.

All that takes place here is much like the credits at the beginning of Star Wars.

Well,if Star Wars was a porno with a fine line in longing,a tasty soundtrack,Gibson guitars,the tirany of distance and secrecy.It takes place long,long ago and in a galaxy far away.(Libido centuri?)  I wish that this text was yellow and scrolling back into the ether just to set the scene…..

I wanted him more than he wanted me.I always did or so I thought. My desire was far too raw,a butchers bloody window of fleshy desire, no subtlety to me whatsoever. He was far too cool for that kind of action and I wanted him far too much to put on the dog and try to play some bullshit reindeer game.It was never my forte. Me,raised around too many men,sturdy with logic and no time for my whims or locked in my imagination I had neither the protocol let alone the right wiles. In hindsight and much retrospect I cant be sure if he really ever wanted me at all or if the blunt force trauma of my determination KO’d him and got him disorientated and high on the attention.

Had him on the ropes.

Who can say?

I would spend weeks working out what I would wear when I saw him again (“Aw! This old thing?….”) and hope that he would be nice to me. Smartypants lads are often cruel in their majesty and  what can I tell you ? It got me wet. He realized that he had the upper hand all along and he was merciless and cruel with it.Me,used to hanging out with dolts and dullards,used to settling for dim asses ,chock-o-block full to the dizzy limit with wasted potential was floored by his desert dry and staggering wit not to mention his ferocious intellect.I would get sweaty at the mere thought of our next conversation.

That look that could stop me in my tracks.A casual hand in the small of the back dropping to cup my over aerobicized runners ass when no one was looking.

Did I bewitch him? I bloody well hope so. He did me.

He inspired fantastic songs and x-rated journal entries .Postcards from around the world. Bottles of wine sent express.Incredible birthday gifts wrapped in tissue paper the color of angel farts and expensive lingerie of the black and lacy persuasion to be worn under my rock finery ,you know,just in case. We would run into each other in the dark borne on bass heavy waves of sound. At shows. Heat seeking missiles. The 1st time he ever kissed me was in a doorway outside of a Slayer show.I had been waiting for it for years and when it happened he pulled back smirking and I begged for another chance as the shock had been to great to adequately respond…

“Next time” he grinned,tucking my teen-aged heart into his pocket next to his cock and car keys and strolled off leaving me dispirited,my ears ringing and jelly kneed  in the echoing shadows. The prick.

The illicit link stayed forged and filthy between us for years.It was perfect to me as it did not exist and we as a quantity remained unknown and undiscovered.I have no idea why this was so important but it was spicy as hell. He didn’t want me,well maybe just a little ( just enough?)…so it was never solidified outside of us. No one ever knew what we meant to each other.It was ours alone. In a time of mass information and over-sharing I can’t stress how precious this was.

I knew of a  shadowy permanent thing in his real life and I am ashamed to say that I didn’t really care. There was no practicality in us.As two alphas we would have burned each other out.Boys like him went for more docile options on a day to day basis but I loved that as time went by that he wanted me more and more,as I did him…..

Our chemical reaction to each other scary in its intensity.

I would see him hanging with other girls with slightly unfortunate profiles and heavy thighs at various shows,our world so small when ever I was back in the country fresh off tour. Flattered by the fact that they were blurred facsimiles of my essence,the hair,the clothes…That I was his type come hell or high water….I would go and say hello looking devastating and being ever- so -sweet to the little chicky-poo by his side.

Flicking my hair and saying “How nice to meetcha” I would kiss him clandestinely on the cheek and saunter away leaving the girl goggled eyed in my wake “I didn’t know you were friends with her!” they would say and I would catch him rolling his eyes .He the same height as me,as fast as me,as smart as me…. and mooch back to my friends feeling his eyes burning into my  back as his ding-a-ling-du-jour twittered away by his side.

“You hot bitch!” the screen on  my phone barked as I looked up and locked eyes with him looking dangerous by the cigarette machine.

“Wheres your date?” I typed back flicking my mile of midnight hair.

“Her friends dragged her to some bar”

“Aw! Poor you….”

“Fuck you Michele,meet me upstairs in five”

“Say please….”

Of course I did.

Can I tell you that these were the stolen moments that sustained me? Over many oceans,continents and tours. Precious and seemingly eons apart.I horded them.I would have killed with my bare hands to protect them. That he had told me that I was too much for him? But that my satisfaction came from the fact that he couldn’t stay away.That we couldn’t leave each other alone and that I abstained from all other folly because no one else could come close so why bother? That we wove a world with words,riffs and electricity.That we were friends first and foremost. That I admired him as much as I desired him.That while he was out fucking all and sundry for all I know ( oh you faithless rock and roll boys…) that I actually stayed faithful to something that consisted of ,at this point, five kisses over four years.

I am not kidding.

And then we did.

Inevitable really….

And that it was as great as I knew it would be.

After six long years of mutual mental masturbation,about a zillion emails and  great friendship.It was amazing. We stole time.Two thieves. Me from my pirates life, he from his high powered civilian shackles.All care and no responsibility taken.Honey dipped bulls let loose in the china shop of fuck. We met half way and detonated. He came to me wrapped in a suit for one stolen hour. I opened the door,looking like a tight laced secretary,hair up and panties soon to be down and swooned,our eyes nothing but pupils dilated with pure greed.. He walked straight into my arms and my mouth,swept me off my high heeled feet kicking the door shut behind him.

I am surprised that we even made it to the bedroom as he tended to inspire rug burn and impassioned middle eights.

I lay half tangled on the bed,black dress peeled open,hold up stocking and black lace underwear covering all the fun parts.I got up on my knees and crawled slowly to him and stood behind him as he  undressed our eyes locked in the mirror,I draped myself over him and we burned.I licked his shoulder,his salt on my pointed tongue.My hair fell like a chestnut curtain and I smiled from behind it.I drank his scent.He turned and pushed me down onto the bed,the long awaited weight of him,his skin hot on mine.

I got slowly unwrapped by maddeningly patient and slow hands,his lips and fingertips burning me,that eternal smirk on his face going lower and lower. My cool non existent,his power and dominion complete.

He propped himself above me “Look at you” he sighed.

When we kissed I tasted my cunt on his tongue and came undone.

He made me beg and I did.

He fucked me senseless.

His hands over mine,pushing them deep into the mattress.I watched our string callused fingers endlessly explore each other.I wanted it to last but I knew I couldn’t hold back any longer.Too many years in the making you see? I came so hard I saw stars and with a shuddering sob deep into our unbroken kiss.I felt his lips curve upward into a satisfied grin beneath mine and wrapped my mile long fishnet clad legs around his waist pulling him in deeper as he followed my trailblazing ass to orgasm city.

It was as earth shaking as I imagined it would be. Eye to eye in the shower we kissed under the spray,hands hungry and slick with soap.I tried to horde every second before he donned his grown up disguise and left me leaning jelly legged in the front doorway like a low rent Blanche Dubois,hair wrapped in a towel,newly extracted heart bloody and dripping from the sleeve of my robe……

When I saw him next we brought our A-game. Surrounded by our friends in public at his show.

” Hey!” he exclaimed hugging me breezilylooking like butter wouldn’t melt in his pants  “What have you been up to?”

“Oh,you know” I smiled back into his eyes “Not much…”

He just laughed as I stood there moist and hungry.

We made out in the bathroom before he played.

Of course.

Fumbling thumbs text clumsy post stolen moment. “You are still the best kisser” I type as I let the wall hold me up side of stage as I watch you up there yet again. You reply hours later coming down in a van on the way back to your life post show. I am in bed,slightly dazed from both the make out and the music,my ears ringing and my phone beeps.

I reach over and open the message smiling at your name on my screen,

“Duh.x”

I laugh out loud and know that I will know you forever.

Crown.

Guess that y’all have seen the link on this page thanks to my Tech Ninja Metzy. Bless her.

I am in the running alright…..

If I was walking towards you right now I would be limping due to the fact that I tore my big toe open dancing  in a raucous impromptu flash mob to Biggie Smalls in Miss Emma’s kitchen with some of the immortal Fox-core the other night while still recovering from a night of punishing southern  madness with my amazing and much admired Goatwhore.

It was the James Brown slide that sealed my fate.Now I have genuine swagger and hopefully not tetanus.

I exist in my head for much of the day. Just me and whatever music is keeping me company and I forget that there are people out there who see me and what I do. Who are interested.

Any reader of this drivel will know that I have been so low for so long that I would need stilts to walk under a snake. To put it bluntly,I am sick of feeling like that so…..

I decided to throw my hat back into the ring.”Hat” meaning “Me” and “Ring” meaning the Miss Inked competition for 2013.

I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. That I could stand up and be seen again. You know what? I ain’t gonna lie,I wanted to be wanted without any form of human contact and this seemed like the muy primo way to do it. I know that it sounds strange but it makes sense to me.

As much as I would like to pull a Thoreau and go and live alone in a shack by a lake and pontificate wildly while living on someone else’s dime I know that I have to stay in the race.Why I think this is so necessary I am not sure but its cool to play shows and be in bands so its here I will remain.

Got to catch up with my lead guitarist and one of my all round favorite guys Nixon as he played a show here on the weekend supporting Terror. His band,I Exist, has 4 guitarists and he is all over that shit making it look effortless as always. As I stood smirking side of stage once again I thought just how lucky I am  to have the people that I have.

Ah….back to my Walden-esqe pondering

As time rushes by as is its habit,I get to thinking more and more that I am going to stay alone and I am cool with that but I don’t want to fade away.I still want to be valid and both a visual and musical artist. I feel like I have paid enough dues and spent enough time in the trenches that I can “do” pretty now. And fuck me but its fun!

I have been lucky enough to work with some amazing photographers and I want to get their work out there.

And at the bottom of it all you have an ugly kid getting their revenge. I am not gonna lie.

A sweeter life than what I have had for such a long time.

I have a show tomorrow night and three pairs of shoes,well,two pairs of shoes and one utterly spanktacular pair of brown suede thigh high boots followed me home today.Closely followed by two handbags.

I hung out with dear Sammy D from Acid Bath and we watched the world go by as we sat in a doorway and laughed at it and all the folly it contains.Saw Nixon do what he does best and cherished time spent looking back over our long and loud friendship. Had my amethyst haired angel Miss Emma set me right and shine her light on me.Miss Nina behind the bar and spurring me on. My big brother always looking out for me as always.My baby brother set to make me an aunt by the end of the year.

And the mere thought of a crown making my internal barbie shit its pants.

Now, go and put on Bachman Turner Overdrive and dance.

Michele Madden for Miss Inked 2013!

Hey Guys,

Northern Tech-Head Sitewrangler stepping in for five seconds to post some fabulousness.

If you’ve been living under a rock you won’t know that Michele has been nominated for Inked Magazine’s Miss Inked  2013 competition!

To help her win and be most awesome, click this motherfucking link and like the shit out of that photo.

Share the photo, force people to like it under threat of strapping them to a chair and subjecting them to One Direction music clips Clockwork Orange style, whatever.

For every “like” she gets,  a pug will get twenty times more adorable.

Cheers,

Metz