I've wondered for most of my adult
life, if there is some trigger switch; or is it a gradual progression
to the point at which, at the flick of some genetic switch, one wakes
up one morning, switches on the radio, listens to the first three
syllables which are uttered and says “Here and no further!”. And from then on listens solely to the BBC?
But it hasn't happened to me yet.
So I'm sitting looking out at the most
incredibly, over-the-top clouds (as indeed are all clouds). But these
are even gilt-trimmed. Against the kind of blue sky I've only ever
really seen in, but now which makes sense of, every English painting
I've ever seen. And gulls are craarking around, and people are walking
their very English dogs (good grief! You should see what some of
these mutated 'designer' creatures look like!); and I'm listening to
Triple J.
As I've always listened to it since I
left Oz. The six years in China and now in England. I often hear them
greeting people listening in America or other countries, but I wonder
how often they really think about
what it means to people who are
living in other environments to switch on to cultural references;
music you actually know -
performed by groups and artists you're familiar with; presented by
people who sound just like the world you left behind? Especially
to those in China.
In
China you realise that everything you ever knew – including what you
thought immutable – is of no use whatsoever. Every aspect of
one's life – from going to the toilet, to getting breakfast, to the
very bed you sleep in – is unfamiliar. Except Triple J. In Triple
J-land the sun always shines; while droughts and hurricanes are
happening. In Triple J-land people are already taking off for The Big
Day Out. Or setting out on two-day or more, road trips for their
work. Radio competitions have questions that you actually know the
answers to. And people who think, and have acted upon
the fact, that MSG is sudden death are all brown skinned and glowing
and have perfect teeth. And a minimal percentage of halitosis.
Listening
to Triple J is probably responsible for stopping many people from
throwing themselves from the 26th
floor apartment building in some Chinese compound; one that is full
of similar blocks as far as the eye can see. Hey, take a bow,
TripleJ, you sunburnt little possums, you.
But
to-day I got to wondering if this is my “Switching to BBC” time?
So to speak. Because, after all, I'm a 62 year old who has just ingested
a huge Reality Bite (yes, those capitals were necessary);
who has learned to come to grips
with the fact that she is, from now until the end of her life, past
her use-by date. Extraneous. Surplus to requirements. An OAP in
other words!
O!M!G!.........I've
come out!! I have at last acknowledged it in public. Bared my shame
to the world. I'm being sensible! (I'm dying inside.)
I've reached the last phrase of the “Three ages of Women” (as
opposed to men, who accept Shakespeare's contention that there are
quite a few more Ages for men). Women get “Maid. Mother.
Crone”...and that's it for the ladies. I'm a bloody crone!
Given
the above: what the hell am I listening to sunburned Aussies for?
This is my life now. The pallid pallets of the English body. Including
my own. And the Big Day Out? When did I ever have enough money to get
to a Big Day out, anyway?
And who the hell even knows/cares what you
mean when you say that one of the Bee Gees was your first boyfriend?
(Hey, I was 14. I went to a Convent boarding school. Our
respective mothers took us for the summer to the same place on the
Goldie. It was a (slightly) upgraded Caravan Park. It was, in its own
leaflets, a “Family Resort'. It was not the stuff of which
thousand-dollar deals are made with magazines.)
And seriously, who gives a rat's arse if John Lennon helped me with a
school project? The man was born right here, faccrisake. People who
benefited from his homework skills to an 11 year old are probably
legion.
And
hey, did they even have radio stations when Lennon was alive, anyway?
Or when all of the Gibb brothers were alive at the same time?... Which
brings us back to the Coming Out thing. I'm officially past all that
now. I am at the age when all my contemporaries won't play music in
their own back gardens on a Saturday afternoon because it might
disturb the neighbours. I have no doubt that a rousing chorus of The
Sloop John B wouldn't get a few rheumy old eyes a-twinkling though.
Or a Hendrix riff bring out all those creaking old air-guitarists in
amongst the petunias and the insecticide-free tomatoes, to the
hilarity of their cardie-clad, elbow-nudging, cronies.
Oh
ye gods! Is it time I joined them, there amongst the neatly-trimmed,
sensuously-soft and yielding, English grass?
I
haven't played much music since I got here. My roomates have been: a
suicidal depressive who was taken from a jail-cell to The Bin for an
indefinite time. The next was a 22 year old mini-crim who hadn't the
sense to be good at it. There was the really great Italian chick that
packed up her things and went back to Milan after 10 days. There
still is the 18-year-old. Who actually turned 19 recently. Who is a
semi-Goth recluse. And a 22 year old Spanish cook who works such
hours that our shedules do not, ever, coincide.
I get
the feeling that they, one and all, think I'm trying to be one of
the guys by playing the radio station I do. But hey, poor ole thing,
she inadvertently plays one which no-one has ever heard of, full of
music that no-one's ever heard a great deal of the time. Poor ole
thing. Once it was determined that a) I was not actually a 25 year
old wearing a Halloween mask, and I didn't know, of course, any of
the commercial radios or presenters – let alone 'artists or DJs, I
feel like I'm expected to turn it off.
(O!M!G!
Bradley Manning is a girl???
Nah. It's National Let's-Take-The-Piss Day really. Yeah? Or a comp I missed out on? Where the winners of the Funny Headline competition
get their entry read out? Or some soap writer testing out ideas for
the next season? It is very, very delicious. No doubt my
contemporaries will expect me to rejoice because they always knew
there was something wrong with that commie-bastard.)
But
there you go again:- a) I've left Australia. b) I also have to face
up to the fact that I turned old. I have to put away childish
things. Nothing makes a wrinkly look more pathetic really (unless its
that
thing about them always having a blackhead or two in some random
place, because no-one ever looks at them that closely any more. Or
thinks that squeezing their blackheads is an act of love. In fact it
carries quite a high rank on the Yuk Factor rating.) Nothing, apart
from that, then, makes some daft Senior Citizen look even dafter than
Trying to Keep Up. Just think all those over-made up friends of your
Mum with a couple of provocatively (and titter-worthy) named
cocktails down them, advising people “Oh all the young ones think
I'm so with-it” and rolling out the decidedly downward-turning
floppy cleavage.
So no.
Seriously Tom and Alex an' Nina and Co. are not my
contemporaries. Songs of rebellion and angst should no longer
resonate. I'm past all that shit. I should be writing furious emails
about filthy language and acting like drugs are Humanities Curse, and how talking
smut on the radio is corrupting. I must stop referring to people as arseholes and
pretend I was born without one. And that at least one other orifice
healed itself up without a trace back around the DreamTime.
And I
have to accept the fact that I'm old. Most people have at least 20
years to wrap themselves around that. I've had 8 months. I stepped
on a plane as me, Cireena. And got off it old. Its time to turn off
Triple J and reach for the BBC.
It
sucks.
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