Coughing Up Legomen #20: Done, now the party

So as some of you may know, Ive been working hard on a new zine for months now. It was finished on Sunday night, finally. Ive gotten it offset printed for slightly better quality, and its finally done, complete with screenprinted covers and a patch and sticker with each one. First edition of 300. Done. Its a large format with an extensive interview with Seymour Butz about Klub kooky and playing at kens at Kensington, the legendary gay sauna. An interview with Mashy P about the free party scene in Sydney as well as writing about sharehousing, books, the gay scene DIY markets, warehouse living, HighanDry Festival and a whole bunch of other stuff.
So Im launching it at the Abercrombie Hotel on Saturday night with a range of my favorite DJs and friends performing. Seymour Butz and Mashy P, Zeitgeist, Franco, Mukole, The BFG, Deep Cycle, Munted Monkey and myself will be playing tunes. Live bands Lunar Module and The Gruntled will be shaking the foundations in the much loved beer garden. Justin Shoulder, Faggot Rooster and Celia Curtis will be doing their performing magic during the course of the night. Great shows and music, friendly people and zines will be finally available on the night for sale. I wont be selling friendly people on the night though...
Finally... 8pm-3am, ten bucks entry (we want to pay all these wonderful people). Whoever is reading this, please come and say high.
A variety of zine articles to be uploaded here real soon.
XXX Chris

Hmmmm

I don't think anyone actually reads this. And thats Aok. Its more for me i guess. Ive tried to keep diaries but I always seem to lose them. Anyways, back to work.

Newtown DIY Markets

So i thought it was about time i wrote about my favorite little project, the DIY markets, on the last Saturday of every month. I'll be uploading an article about it from my new zine, Coughing Up Legomen #20 when it comes out. Soon...
But at last Saturdays market I mediated an argument about space at 7am and then I thought, fuck it, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm not paid anyway as a coordinator or conflict resolution person. 7am is way too early for me to deal with that stuff. No matter how many coffees I've had. So I went around all the stalls and said that there was going to be a group greeting/meeting and chat at 8.30 and in the end about 30-35 stall-holders came down for a chat about the markets, issues about space and a round of introductions.
Perhaps I'm jumping the gun. The markets were started about five years ago by three of us, Joey Nitro, Pete and myself as a platform for local art, culture and secondhand wares. Over the years word has spread about the free market and now we get about 40 stalls every month. We used to get there at 10am and have all the space we wanted, now we get there earlier and earlier and the square opposite the station is fuller and fuller every month.
Anyways the chat was great. everyone walked off talking to each other and figuring out how we could all manage the free space we've set up every month. I organise a sound system crew to come and play music and we pass the hat for them around the stalls at about 1pm and to buy ice creams for all the marketfolk.
The photos are from the wonderful Moz's website, moz.net.nz. They are two years old but they might give you a flavour of it. There are more recent photos on the way. Hurrah for free local culture! Im wearing my 'get trucked' hat that I sadly lost. A moment of silence for my lost cap please. See you at the next market.

I love this photo.

It's like everyone has abandoned car culture at once and they are all off to find the tail end of a three-day-party in the surrounding woods...

Homosideshow! No, you are...

So Im playing at The Homosideshow, March 1st, Ruby Rabbit, Oxford Street.
Looks like more fun than you can poke a Gin and Tonic at. Whoo!! Come and say hi!

Keeping my head down, looking forward...

Ive been keeping my head down since I got back from my weekend in Melbournetown. Lots of dear friends, loud music and cold beers. I didn't see enough of my friends but that will always be true. Awww...
My days were rounded out with strong coffees and late nights. Sweet town. First time Ive been to Melbourne without coming home with a bunch of books. But I went down to decorate a party at the Glasshouse Hotel. That was the official purpose of the trip.
I thought that drinks and a free flight was pretty sweet for a 45 minute decor job. I didn't even use my own gaff tape. The party was great, and it was beautiful to catch up with a crew of old friends and chatter away. Theres always so much to catch up on.
Myself and Vix got into a laughing jag on the way down and managed to being the tone down of the flight for everyone else. We had plans to have a domestic on the plane complete with loud admissions of infidelity and relationships with the same guy but we were laughing too hard amid the turbulance. And watching the wingtips waver in the air.
But since I got back I have been accidently rewiring my body clock. It started when I thought it'd be a great idea to work my way through a few epic Steven King novels. One of which was 1200 pages. It's The Stand, a tale of the end of the world as we know/knew it and what happens after. I guess its fair that it goes for 1200 pages then...
I am a total sucker for these end-of-the-world senario stories.
So Ive been consumed by these amazing stories. I don't care if you call Steven King crap or pulp or cushy escapist crap. The man can tell a story. So even if I went to bed at 11, I would still read for hours and hours, often until i fell asleep with a book in my hand. Hence why Ive been waking up late, and cursing my loss of daylight hours, then reading until 2,3 or 4am. It has strongly reminded me of the scene from Fight Club where insomnia has set in and 'everything looks like a copy of a copy'. It feels like I'll never sleep well again. I wonder how it would be to not sleep, just rest or read for eight hours instead... See, Ive been wondering shit like that. Classic ragged tired thinking...
Amid patches of productive writing time for my new zine, (which is finished, well, um, Ive just got to transcribe two interviews and print the sucker) I have been clearing out some space in my studio/workshop room. Its amazing the stuff you can collect if you have the space. Like the mental debris you find collected in the corners of a tired brain. Bring on Mardi Gras...

Time Is Relentless

Time don't stop for nobody. Since my last post the DIY markets have come and gone twice. A member of my extended circle of friends has been drowned in a stormwater drain, another old associate from Melbourne has checked out of the game by his own hand, the New Year has been and gone with the great High and Dry festival and now we find ourselves in the peak of summer.
Life never stops. Its so tactile and sweet day to day, but so easy to stay indoors and stare at a wall, a book, a tv. We can miss so much, so easily, and then you snap out of it a month or two later and realise that it's time to get into it, among it. So easy to miss the tasty, small details that can fill a whole morning while you are asleep because you've destroyed your own sleeping patterns with the apathetic lifestyle of sleeping late and reading late. Those details could fill a dozen pages of their own, but it's so easy to take them for granted.
I'm trying to not take anything for granted. Not the taste of anything, not a late night at the local secret bar, not a decadent Sunday night out dancing until 4am. Not one single kiss or hug on the dancefloor. Not a single moment of lust or one quiet ice cold beer. I never want to take anything for granted again. So many people will never get to do what I get to do or have the sweet combination of experiences that I get to have.
I'm going to write more about High and Dry and the DIY Markets soon.
But tonight I'm thinking about seizing every minute. Also I'm getting ready to go to Melbourne and doing a spoken word set tomorrow.
I'm making a new zine. It's been five, or is it seven years since the last Coughing Up Legomen. Time to do it again. Ill keep you all posted about the launch.