train rain

I read this in an old journal the other day and it kind of amused me so I'm going to share it.

"Slept for about an hour last night. Woke up at 3, walked from the team house to Waratah train station in the rain..with no umbrella. I put my bags in a trolly I found. I coasted down the hills where I could. A man pulled over and was yelling something to me about if I wanted a lift. I ignored him and made it to the station. The rain got heavier. The man drove past the station about 4 times hooting the horn at me.

I wrote a C.S Lewis quote on the seat. On the first train I caught a man had his Bike stolen. At the station where I got off and waited a drunk man with a bike was talking to another man and giving him swigs of something out of a sports bottle. A kind of fat guy came with no shirt on, his white pants were stained with a big brown mark on the bottom.. Like he'd fallen on his ass in the mud. He cursed and yelled to no one in particular about some 'junkie hooker' that had 'screwed him over'.

I sat in a different carriage to him when the train finally came at 4 something AM. This second train trip was uneventful. I took off my shoes and tried to dry my feet, soaked from my walk in the rain. I got out my sleeping bag and slept most of the way listening to Sufjan Stevens."

It just kind of amused me in it's report-like-ness. It was a very strange, surreal kind of experience. The bizarre and grotesque characters that haunt the streets in the early hours of the morning. The rain and the oily sheen of the wet road.. And how weirdly similar the feeling of riding a bike on a clear day was to the freedom of coasting down the long hilly streets, in the rain, in the middle of the night, on the back of this old trolly packed with my luggage.

Hmm anyway..

Thats pretty freaky Bowie..

I was on a Bowie high today. I watched The Life Aquatic last night so.. enough said yeah?

But then tonight I was telling my boss about how much I liked the Life Aquatic and the sound track with all the acoustic Bowie and how I like him in general and the first time I saw Bowie in the Labyrinth and aren't all the puppets so cool etc.. And she stops me mid sentence and casually brings up the time he came to Coonabarabran???????

Bowie in Coonabarabran? huh? I think I said "What? What? What?" about 5 times.

Is this true? Are we thinking of the same person?

I didn't believe it.. But then I read this --> http://www.bowiedownunder.com/letsdancevideos/letsdancevideos.htm

For those too lazy to read the entire article.. He was around the area (Mostly not Coona but I'm going to ignore that) filming the 'Lets Dance' film clip.. --

"ON THE FINAL DAY OF SHOOTING, THE crew sets out from its motel base in Coonabarabran, on the banks of the Castlereagh River, for the Warrumbungle range, a national preserve located thirty-odd kilometers away. It is a place of surrealistically spectacular sights: rock-topped hills rising in eccentric formations against the enormous blue sky, heat-shattered glim trees clawing the air or keeled over in droves on the arid plains, puff Mushrooms bigger than baseballs, meat ants the size of termites and march flies that can chew right through your clothes to the flesh and blood below. There is Much rendering of the 'Australian salute" in an effort to fend off flying pests, and the heat is an autonomous and oppressive presence.

...."What a ridiculous bird!" Bowie shouts delightedly, as an emu - a kind of bizarre, humpbacked turkey - goes trotting off through some nearby scrub."

Crazy town I tell you.. Crazy town. I just can't imagine it. Coona just became 10% more awesome bringing it's awesome rating to a total of 10% awesome!

Thank you Bowie.

-Han

they keep telling me it will get colder..

It's July. How can it get colder after this point? I thought that after July (it being the middle month of winter) things should warm up? But apparently not. Apparently it will get colder. In September. September??? That's Spring! This crazy town.

Now that is out my my system.. Read this:

Trails of troubles
and roads of battles.
They lead to paths of victory.
We shall walk.


And then this:

The mountain was a movin'
The hummin' of its wheels
Told me of the new day
That was comin' across the fields

What do you think??

That will be all today I think.
-Han

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