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ON THE ROAD
ANARCHIST GAZETTE
ISSUE NO 1
Published Quarterly
Electronic Version: free
Hard copy Subscriptions: Australia $10
Overseas airmail $20 US. per year
to: Mark Davis, PO BOX 1130 BAULKHAM
HILLS NSW AUSTRALIA 2153
Hard copies are much longer and contain graphics etc. A free
sample will be posted to you anywhere in the world by writing a
message to above address.
We also want to publish stories, articles, poetry etc, for
which we pay. These can be sent to above address or to:
[email protected]
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Hard copy also contains gossip, anti-authoritarian views,
cartoons, and there will even be some smut, from time to time.
This is the best review I could manage:
I can't see the world literary press queuing up to review it.
I heard you even had trouble getting them into the libraries for
free! It's printed pretty well, it's the best photocopied zine
I've seen, but, I was expecting to see a few things in it that the
straight press wouldn't touch.
Apart from the undercover cop fake advert, and the vandalism
competition, and the scanner frequencies, most of it's pretty
straight stuff. You also had 'Explore Creative Techniques' on
the cover. I was looking forward to getting to this part but it
was nowhere to be found. However, not too bad for a first try.
And you've created a pretty good mood, but try harder next
time. I'll send you some stuff by email. If you want to use it
you can. Bye for now.
Michael
The explore creative techniques will be in the next issue ED.
And we didn't have any trouble getting it into libraries. One
of them said she'd call the police, but we soon had her calmed
down.
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Boarding House
Prospective boarding house tenants have written in to me and
complained about the increasing complexity of reading Sydney's
newspaper accommodation columns. What do all the abbreviations
mean? What does a tenant do when he or she rings up and doesn't
even know what the landlord is saying on the telephone? Where
can you get help? This article is inserted as a public service
for those of you who, like so many of us, find the task of
getting temporary accommodation in Sydney just as daunting as
so much else in modern life.
If you haven't stayed in a boarding house before, don't
worry, just read through at your own pace. If you have stayed
in a boarding house before, don't worry, nothing has changed.
As you will know, in the old days these boarding house
operators were usually women, a particularly sagacious and
vulgar breed of the feminine form. But over the years things
have changed. Nowadays the boarding house industry has gone
'mod'. The landlords are a new breed, they have studied new
management systems, and they get around with attache cases, and
wear tinted glasses, but apart from that, everything is still
the same.
Bus couple: This does not mean that you are a couple who rides
around on buses all day. It means 'business couple'. You are a
couple who is engaged in important and highly confidential
business in office blocks all day, while the landlord is at
home going through all your gear. It means that you should be
gone by six in the morning and return mysteriously at about
eight at night, a weary yet successful business team.
Of course, if you are a successful business team the question
arises why you want to use the convenience of living in such a
dump. But this question will be politely ignored.
Share cons: This quite clearly means 'share conveniences'. A
convenience is anything that you might find convenient, e.g., a
toilet, bathroom facilities, kitchen etc. After all, I suppose,
depending on the sort of person you are, most people would find
it convenient to have a toilet, it saves having to go to the
railway station in the middle of the night, dodging ticket
inspectors, drunks and perverts - (or, perhaps drunken ticket
inspectors who loiter around railway toilets in the dead of
night.)
The Bond: This is a present that you give your landlord when
you arrive. There is still an archaic law that he is supposed
to give it back when you leave, but this is the only time
you'll find that he isn't lurking around. For this reason, some
less scrupulous lodgers, find that it is an ideal time to steal
any furniture or other fittings that could be of service to
them.
Key Deposit: This is a deposit, usually forty dollars, that you
pay your landlord for the key to ensure that he gets it back
when you leave. But he of course finds it cheaper to have
another key cut than to return your money. And because there
have been so many tenants in your room in the last year who
have only lasted a week, there are about fifty persons walking
around the city with a key to your room.
Co-tenants: When you are awoken in the middle of the night by
drunken screaming, loud nose blowing, belching and other
extraneous sounds coming through your wall, you will find that
it is these who are the source. These strange creatures will
often play Iron Maiden at a hundred thousand decibels during
the night, brawl on the front steps, and generally provide the
reputation that your rooming house enjoys in the locality.
Quiet Entertainment: This is the thing that your room is
legally provided for. You can do anything in your room provided
that it is quiet entertainment. This may include reading the
Bible, thinking, or thinking about how to get out of the place
without strangling the landlord, a co-tenant, or yourself.
The Park: This is a place where your landlord says you will
finish up if you don't pay your rent, but it is a place where
you often finish up anyway when your co-tenants play Iron
Maiden at a hundred thousand decibels at two o'clock in the
morning.
The Stove: This is an instrument that you theoretically cook
your dinner on. But you know that if you were ever mad enough
to actually use it, then your landlord would assume that you
were the only one who ever used it, and in future it would be
your job to keep it clean, and to pay the electricity
surcharge.
Door Flung Open: This could mean that the police are looking
for some long gone fly-by-nighter, or, that your landlord
suspects that you are using an electric heater, or, that two or
more of your co-tenants are having an altercation in the
hallway and lose balance before crashing through your door, or
Social Security inspectors, or perhaps burglars who thought you
were down at the dole office.
Rent Rise: These will come whenever our friend the landlord
suspects that we are down on our luck, and cannot afford to
move to another abode and pay new lease money, new bonds, new
key money etc etc.
And your arrangement will also say there will be a rent rise
after six months anyway, so in other words what this means, is
that if you are still in the place after six months you must be
down on your luck.
The Talk: You get this just after you pay your bond and sign
your 'agreement.' It is usually carried out in a monotone
voice, because the landlord has many parts to play here. Not
only is he a mate of yours, but he wants to impress on you at
the same time the serious need to keep the stove clean, to pay
your rent on time, to clean the toilet once a week etc., and he
wants to patronise you, find out your business etc., all at the
same time as well. This calls for so many role changes and
their accompanying voice inflexions that he settles for just an
audible monotone. This also helps to intimidate you, because
you feel that you are dealing with a Clint Eastwood type.
You look each other in the eye for what seems a considerable
time then, before the landlord asks you to call him Tom, or
Shirl, or Alf or whatever the name may be, so that everything
gets along on matey terms.
Because you will have many other matey talks in the future.
You imagine it will be about an umpire's decision or something
over a beer on the verandah. But the matey talks usually come
about because of 'the state of the stove' - who spilt this,
Mark? - "Oh, I don't know, Tom. Barry was using the stove
last."
(You therefore kill two birds with the one stone here. Not
only will Barry have to clean it, but he is also likely to get
lumbered with the surcharge.)
A Clem: You will always find a Clem in every boarding house. He
is the Polish intellectual type. You can easily recognise a
Clem - he is the one who weighs about eighteen stone and walks
around the kitchen in underpants and thongs. You will find him
to be a rather large gentleman in every respect. Therefore, if
you are eating soup don't let him let too close to the table,
otherwise he might burn himself.
Clem means Klemawow*!ski!* - and he wears thin-rimmed glasses
and shouts loudly about Catholicism verses Freudianism. He is
also responsible for that smell you encounter every time you
enter the toilet because Clem neglects to press the button
after every service.
He also sits about twelve inches away from you at the corner
of the table while you are eating your soup, and argues
empiricism verses Nietzscheism, and prods with his finger. And
in the politest way he calls you a bumpkin, uneducated, a
village philosopher, because he reads the classics all the
time, and then he looks at you through those thin spectacles of
his and finds that you don't measure up to the profound
profundities that he has been reading in Tolstoy and
Dovstoyevsky all week. He has come to Australia to instruct all
us backward people in the ways of civilisation, but when he
gets here he is disappointed to find that the only audience he
can manage is in the kitchen of a rooming house.
There is only one way to get rid of him. And that is what is
known as to kick him in the Bolly Bollingers. Clem will object
to this of course, and this will explain the next heading, but
you have tried everything else to get rid of him. You have
ignored him, threatened him, pretended that you were a
homicidal maniac on a work release program, teased him, abused
him, intimidated him, but nothing, absolutely nothing will keep
him away from you.
After this episode of course, you are not game to go into the
kitchen for the next week, but you can hear him shouting in
there even if you have your door closed - no doubt with much
finger prodding - that there should be a special gaol for
people like you. Where you could go for three months and come
back a new man, and no doubt be polite and respectful to Clem,
and never dreaming of kicking anyone in the Bolly Bollingers
again.
Cecil: Cecil weighs fifty stone and habitually wears shorts and
thongs. He is the alleged business partner of Alf, and he also
doubles as the bouncer of the establishment. When Alf suspects
that there might be trouble in the house he will appear at the
front door while Cecil, presumably to head off anyone trying to
escape, will enter at the rear.
Alf lets you know at every available opportunity that Cecil
is also an ex-policeman. There are rumours about his reasons
for leaving the police force, and this only adds to the general
apprehension, because it is reasoned that he must be one nasty
customer if even the NSW Police Force won't have him.
The Girl: You have heard everyone talking about her in hushed
tones. She lives out the back in the caravan and comes in at
night to cook dinner. You imagine cooking your meals at the
same time and starting up conversations - then quietly perhaps,
offering her a drink, and then no doubt falling in love just
like in An Officer and a Gentleman, (or something), and the
stories of your lives changing forever. The only trouble is
however - that everyone else has the same idea, and you can't
get a word in edgeways.
And neither can anyone else, because Clem is standing about
twelve inches away from her in his underpants and thongs and
prodding with his finger as he explains Catholicism verses
Freudianism in pre-war Poland. And what should be done with any
communists found in the locality. And concentration camps for
anyone who disagrees with him. And the setting up of special
prisons for people like you. And the special powers that should
be given to the police to crack down on misfits in society.
House Rules: These state that anyone can have their amplifier
going at one hundred thousand decibels. They state that anyone
and everyone can make themselves a disagreeable nuisance to
you, but that you must stay in your room for the purposes of
quiet entertainment, such as reading the house rules, listening
to yourself think, or watching television with an earplug,
provided that the light from the screen does not reflect off
your venetian blinds into an adjacent room and thus upset the
hoodlums in it who are playing Iron Maiden at a hundred
thousand decibels, or interfere with the quiet entertainment of
our Polish friend when he isn't in the kitchen.
Settling in: This is an unofficial term which is also known as
the honeymoon period. It is a period in which the landlord lets
you know that he is so pleased to have a decent lodger in for
once. And you let him know that it is reassuring to find a
landlord who keeps undesirables out by charging a slightly
excessive amount of rent, and always collects it when it is
due.
The period varies. In some places it can be as little as an
hour. The end could come when he sees you using the stove, or
it could last as long as a week until he finds that you don't
have a job and sleep in till ten every morning.
Just a word of warning here however - never, if possible,
move into a lodging house where the landlord - or lady; I won't
be sexist here - lives on or near the premises. Because if you
pictured that in your new residence the twitter of birds will
wake you every morning, you are in for an awakening of a
different kind. What will wake you even more reliably is a
knock on the door, inquiring whether you gave your landlord the
rent last Friday - "Oh yes, that's right you did. Have you
thought about employment, then?"
You will have no option here but to come out with the 'whole
truth.' That your grandfather died several months ago and left
you large sums of money and other property, but his solicitors
are fouling around with the paperwork, and you won't get it for
several months yet. Then you can have a five minute grumble
about the ethics of solicitors and he will retreat for a couple
of hours until he churns all this over in his head and finds
that something doesn't quite ring right. Then he will return to
your door with a query, but you can't talk any more about your
case because that could be construed as sub judice - (a bit
like the movie Serpico.)
This is all what is called, "getting on with your landlord."
And what will make the relationship so difficult is that your
landlord will have quite a narrow definition of decency. One
thing strikes me about my landlord, is that he is such a
remarkable clean fellow. I think that he has three showers a
day at a duration of forty-five minutes each, as well as seven
baths per week. So clean these Germans - sorry, I mean
Austrians. Even in his gardening clothes he seems so immaculate
and clean.
Such decent fellows the Germans. And the accent in his voice
always suggests that he is such a law abiding fellow. He also
gives the impression that he is articulating his words so
legally and precisely.
By my tone of voice and manner I show him that I am also a
law and order man who has little time for misfits,
uncleanliness, and other petty criminal types. I also agree
that the police are doing a fine job, even though I haven't
supported them as I should have done over the years, but that
is what misdirected tolerance can do. If we tolerate vagrants,
vagabonds, dole fraudulents, where will it end? He discovers
here that we have like minds on these subjects, and now decides
to unburden his soul.
"Will it end with people not having to work at all? Will the
likes of ratepayers have to support these criminals?" 'Rent
criminals' he calls them. "Have these people got no social
development?" Ah! Ahhh aha! - I take a deep breath - 'social
development', he's a philosopher too.
I show the contempt that I have for people who tip tea leaves
down the sink, and go on the dole, and with a world-weary look
I intimate that the only thing he might have to watch for is
that if I see a fellow tenant in such a lewd act of indecency
I'm likely to speak my mind, even if it does make me the most
unpopular tenant in the boarding house.
But when all is said and done, do you think all this will get
him off your back? - no, ten minutes later he is knocking on
your door wanting to know who it was who left the saucepan
cooking last night while you were in the shower.
To assist further I have formulated an exercise below for the
prospective tenant. Decipher each word and give proper meaning
for each.
Bhse, bed sit, bus cup, shr cons, no pts, Clem bb's, P Fld 10x4
decib, ex-pol Cec, 2am park, hammer sound 7am, no t lvs snk,
three quart income rent, 50 keys to room. Ring Alf.
(Time allowed 15 mins)
---------------------------------
LITTLE OXFORD ST.
old men in the back
of abandoned cars
warm in muscat dreams
under dirty overcoats
green plastic garbage bags
tired hearts torn open
revealing tin teeth
rotted fruit, ash, broken glass
relics, letters not worth keeping
small bones
old men wake like Thomas
who had to touch to believe
John Davies
---------------------------
"The White Line"
I have had many homes. Some that I have stayed in for
years - but they were rented and temporary. And pretty soon
I found myself back on the road. The road mind you, is not
such an awful place. It can be cruel at times, but often it
is kind.
I remember many things as I stand here late at night. It
is what I call, 'deep night'. It is raining heavily outside.
It is a storm which I think will last for several days. I am
looking out the window of a Caltex garage, the owner's voice
talking in the background. Water is washing down the window
pane casting wavy shadows over my face. I am thinking - deep
in thought, cigarette smoke curling between my fingers, a
can of half-forgotten Coca Cola in my other hand.
I have a poorly paid job driving a cab in this country
town, and I have come here for a break, just to stand,
quench my thirst, and have a cigarette. Apart from the rain
outside, the only sound is the voice of the owner,
boisterous and loud. He stops only to take another sip of
beer and think of another sentence. If any soaking wet
motorist were approaching from the road with an empty petrol
can, the owner's voice would be the first thing he'd hear.
He is putting forward a scheme where we could juggle the
petrol account of the cab owner I work for. "We could go
fifty fifty," he says. "The way I look at it is that you
provide a service, a service no one has any complaints
about. And he never questions any of the accounts you sign
for with me. You're a good customer; you fill up your own
tank. I never look to see how much is on the gauge. I take
your word for it. You provide a service. I give you a couple
of extra bucks on Friday night; I don't ask whether you hand
that in at the end of your shift. You provide a service.
That's the way I look at it. Whenever you take me home from
the club Friday nights, I don't let the others say nothing
to you. They have to mind their manners while I'm around."
I wonder while watching the rain, how, after all my
travels, I come to be standing here, at this hour,
surrounded by spark plugs, and cigarettes, and drink
machines, and car wash bottles, in the middle of nowhere.
There are times when I feel I have been on the road all my
life. Temporary jobs, temporary homes, temporary enemies. I
feel I have never belonged anywhere. I like to be moving on.
Nothing is worth hanging on to, though there are small
incidents, fragments, conversations, stored away at the back
of my mind that are coming back now.
Out on the highway a car goes past every so often, wheels
throwing up a trail of spray, headlights illuminating the
dark road. But the road is now empty. I sip on the Coke
again.
You know - the highway never changes. Its life just goes
on. The white line is always the same. It seems it is
leading nowhere, but everywhere. I see another car going by,
tail lights of deep red, ghostly figures sitting inside,
reflecting signs lighting up as it passes. It reminds me of
moving on, to a place that is different. Perhaps via the
same ghostly freeway I imagine they are headed for tonight,
so alien and so deadly.
It seems that everyone lives on the road. It seems that
everyone is following that white line, but not many know it.
It seems that we have been chasing a dream all our lives,
and we are certain of finding it, but we never do.
The highway - the highway. It has a spirit of its own.
Motels with flashing signs - Vacancy, or No Vacancy. Cold
fluorescent markers - a hundred and nineteen to Newcastle. A
picture of a knife and fork, with an arrow showing the way.
I can take it to outback towns, where everything is
loneliness - where once I saw an Aboriginal girl walk a
silent and barren main street after dinner, still in her
school tunic, just to sit near a phone box and watch a
flickering street light.
I can take it to country towns to share ignorance and
isolation, to share the hates and passions of their people,
towns where one would not have expected them to live, but
where emotions have a habit of exploding at the most
unexpected times.
The road is sometimes exciting, sometimes boring, or even
threatening - but it is always there, it is always the same.
It can be a lonely place, a happy place, a sanctuary for
lost spirits on the run, because no matter who you are or
what you have done, the road holds no grudges; you can begin
again.
The road of course has devils of its own. There are
breakdowns, there is sudden death, but there is no trickery
in that. It is always what it seems. We know what the road
is and respect her for it. The road is something I always
come back to.
It all began after World War II with the invention of
cheap passenger cars - and people who did not belong. And
this is what the rain outside reminds me of - a night years
ago, when I saw two such people. I was driving along the
highway at Peat's Ridge about one o'clock. It was raining
just as it is now, and I chanced on a motorcycle accident. I
did all I could before going to get help at a farmhouse,
then returned and waited for the emergency services.
The pillion passenger was dead with head injuries. She was
probably dead before I got there. The rider was vaguely
conscious, but I knew that he didn't have long to live.
Their Triumph had smashed into a telegraph pole after it had
failed to take a bend. There was some patchy fog about that
night. Maybe it was the cause.
I felt sorry for the two, because as soon as I laid eyes
on them I knew they were people of the road. They had
nowhere to go. Nice people with nowhere to go.
I stood and watched as coarse-voiced men in yellow plastic
clothes went about their work amid flashing red and yellow
lights. I imagined that I could read the same pictures that
were flashing across the eyes of the dying man - the things
that will never be recorded, the memory of meeting a master
spirit, who was a poor but happy outcast. Perhaps a small
girl, without enough to eat, but full of joy; a struggling
young mother, not clever, but terribly beautiful; a girl on
a petrol pump who only asked for a dollar to fill his tank,
because she said, "The gauge is busted." Perhaps a nurse in
a hospital one day gave him a cup of tea and made him feel
as if he belonged. Maybe he recalled three drunken teenagers
with nowhere to go. They came across him one night while he
was changing a head gasket, and they sat on the curb and
talked because they had nothing better to do. Did he
remember a man in a wrecking yard, who removed a valve from
an engine while he passed the spanners, and only charged him
a dollar? But these are not the common run. These are all
the spirits of the road.
After finishing the Coke I go back to the cab and pull out
onto the highway. Through the misty rain I can see a freight
train making its way along next to the road.
I begin overtaking it so I will beat it to the level
crossing, and pull up level with the dark and deserted
guard's carriage. I gain speed and
pass it slowly, carriage by carriage, coal vans, and tanker
vans with Mobil Oil in blue lettering. After catching the
diesel locomotive, I hear the roar of its engines and the
gush of its exhaust shattering the midnight air. Gradually I
leave it behind, and pass through the crossing just before
the boom gates come down.
END
Copyright. All rights reserved, but may be freely distributed electronically.
