Is
that all there is?
Since I've started writing
these, well, we'll call them columns, I've
not encountered the writers' block syndrome, something that I'm very
familiar with in my other so-called career as a musician/songwriter.
Until now, that is. It seems I've not got a subject that I'm fired up
enough about to grizzle about at length in print. So I guess it's time
to tackle an issue that is becoming as familiar a background noise as
the musicians' curse of tinitis - that is the nagging realisation that
life is finite, that the better part of it's already gone, and that
all one has to look forward to is the inevitable deterioration of bodily
functions and the whole grim picture, commonly described as intimations
of mortality.
(Speaking of writers' block, the good thing about the musical version
is that even if the words dry up, you always have recourse to your instrument
of choice, and you can noodle, even distractedly in front of the TV,
and eventually something will pop up. As testament to that, I've got
cassette tapes piling up round the place with nifty chord sequences
and melodies just waiting to be rediscovered at some later date, presumably
when I'm inspired and brimming with business, and moulded into something
meaningful - or even meaningless and popular would suffice right now).
But, I digress. I think it was Ian McCausland's 60th that got me going
this time round. Not so much the actual party mind you, although that
was salutory enough, encountering long-unseen fellow-travellers and
musicians in the dim light of the Yak Bar, (I don't even want to imagine
what that might have been like in the cold light of day). As it turned
out, circumstances dictated I left the party fairly early, but at the
party someone had tipped me off that there was a program on SBS at 10.00
about the enigma that was Bruno Lawrence. (If that name means nothing
to you, your most likely point of reference would be the ABC series
Frontline - Bruno played Brian, the show's producer).
Anyway, I ended up watching the program in its entirety, (I've met quite
a few people since who saw the show as well - it must have been a quiet
night on TV), and Bruno's troubled life and its impact on the people
who knew him, got me thinking. Well, what a contrast to party boy Ian
McCausland for a start. Ian is a beautiful man - I think gentleman
is an apt description - and I guess the kind of person back in the '70s
you'd hope that the ideal of a hippie might grow into. A perceptive,
talented draftsman/artist with a gentle sense of humour and, I imagine,
a very short list of people who could possibly dislike him for any reason
- with the possible exception of jealousy.
And then there's Bruno. The Bruno comet burned fiercely, across the
southern firmament at least, and then, just as abruptly ceased to exist.
Friends, family and colleagues forgave him his many excesses, because
there was something of the human condition that Bruno was able to communicate
to an audience that defied prediction and expert opinion. It was something
spontaneous and self-revelatory that seemed to by-pass the irrelevancy
of the camera and go straight to the soul, something sitting mysteriously
between perplexed and quizzical on the unfashionable pate, and hurt
and defiance in the big, unexpectedly deep brown eyes.
Some people might describe it as genius - in fact I'm not sure that
some people didn't describe it as genius on the program - but the word
genius is diminished by its overuse these days, and anyway, I don't
think it's the right word in this case. And, in any case, that's not
what I was getting at.
The point I'm trying to make here is that Bruno burned out early. It
was like he chose to do that. I, on the other hand, have chosen
to live less spectacularly, much less spectacularly in fact,
but I still reckon l've got more to offer, that my best years are ahead
of me etc., despite the worrying signs of impending infirmity.
I even have the temerity to imagine that I'm doing some things better
than I ever have, and that I will continue to do even more things better
than I ever have before, or indeed some things I've never even done
before. (Whaaaa..?)
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