[ High On Pooty-Weed
or Something Else ]
Fanned by winds coming in from
the deep desert country, the thermometer inched towards the magical 40
degrees centigrade mark this week. It's oh, so Christmassy in an Australian
kind of way. Ofcourse, like the eediot I am, I decide that the lawn needs
to be managed with whipper snipper, mower and hand mixed 2 stroke fuel.
(Well, we've got friends coming over for Boxing day and the place has got
to look it's best - whatever that is). I started very early to miss a total
scorching (with neighbours peering sleepily from their windows) but, even
so, at about the half way mark an hour later my mind was playing minor
heat frazzled tricks with me.
I just kept on hearing the "feet
on gravel, bleep of sax and tinny bad-disco guitar" introduction to Roxy
Music's 'Love Is The Drug'. Now, I physically hate this song. At the time
of it's release, it embodied everything that I loathed about this once
glorious band. But this revulsion was crystallized by a similar mind loop
I had during my first ever full-time job - in the weeks after high school
and before college.
The world around Allawah was
sweltering in a heat that ovens barely reach but I was also stuck inside
a large corrugated iron box amongst forges, metal presses, grinders, hurtfull
shavings of steel, thick grease stains and cigarette smoke. My job was
menial at best - hammering rivets into the innards of fold-up beds - but
I tried various tricks to make the time go faster : a little competition
amongst myself to see how quickly and securely I could rivet (rudely stopped
by my co-workers who told me to "slow down, ya bastard"); trying to make
conversation with the two slightly older blokes who were supposedly always
out of it on Aspro and Coke (now that was a dead loss) and singing my favourite
songs to myself. Until 'Love Is The Drug' came along and wouldn't go away,
that is.
I tried all the known tricks
in the mentally fatigued universe to break it's satanic hold on me. But
even the mantra of singing The Beatles 'Help' over and over again (so cleverly
moronic that it drives all other thoughts and melodies out of the brain)
didn't help. Luckily, quite soon after this started, I finished the job
and, magically, the song dissappeared from my cranium...until a couple
of days ago that is...
Oh, cursed life (or devil-Santa),
what have you brung me now?
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