Fitting

Guy reading… Looked very much like  verse on the first pass. At Brunetti’s.  Up on a high stool in the first inner section. Thick-set; middle-aged; balding. Confirmed on the return collecting the order. Nylon biz shirt. Pleasant smile at the unexpected attention. The request obligingly met with a cover reveal. Oh! Bukowski. Sketched figure on a fancy grunge layout. Ah. That explained it. Even Google quickly corrected the typo. Tolerable, flavoursome rebel, wouldn’t hurt a fly. The techno beat wouldn’t interfere scanning those lines, while the chap hung for a bit waiting for his companion. Cuddly boozer to accompany the $5+ coffees & $15 vin quart filled glasses. Mostly new immigrants flocking to join the hard-won high life.

Accounting (of the dead)

 

The Rafa missile landing on the tent camps, described later by the Israeli PM as a tragic mistake, caused mid-30 deaths, two hundred and forty injured, in early reports. (Unknown whether the missile was the one the former Republican candidate Nikki Haley had scrawled with the message, FINISH THEM.) In the PNG landslide the numbers slid upward from low hundreds to multiple thousands, before a later report suggested the figure might have been greatly over-estimated.  A Melbourne Jewish singer in a news report in the morning’s paper contested the term “children” in counting of the dead in Gaza. If early & mid-teens were given guns by their elders—reprehensible parenting implied—could such be classified as children? 

Another report reminded of the comment from an award-winning NYT journalist from the period of the Iraq invasion. Rousing the troops to the mission, the advice to the American soldiers entering Iraqi houses with guns drawn was to tell the inhabitants, Suck on this. (Estimates of two hundred thousand Iraqi casualties had been suggested in some reports of the time.)

Cranberry & Pineapple (July25)

 

 

Some incidental / accidental smut in passing couldn’t be resisted. The matter emerged somehow or other. Either before or after the young girl Ruth’s bending for the cat, purring, caressing, she had had her sheer lime green briefs riding up over the top of her jeans. Where was I supposed to look? plumber Georgios defended himself, the raging young bull with a sweet wife at home. In the kitchen later after work, the lad happened to be offered a choice of tea or cranberry juice. Both were declined, as usual. One needed to press G. for any offering thrice at the very least. Unsuccessful on this occasion. However, the latter did raise a comment. Cranberry, hey?… It gives a sweetening to cum, you know. Quite unexpectedly. Oh. Oh. Really? Is that right?… Pineapples was similar, the Cretan added. The tale of the eight-year widow back in Singapore developing her fellatio after her husband had gone to an early grave without, despite numerous requests, failed to draw any interest for the dude. Even the unsweetened brand of the cran produced the effect, it seemed, according to the man. And he wasn’t joking. Well, OK. It would be trialled at the first opportunity back in the Republic, lad was assured; laboratory conditions. We would soon see. In this case, though some of the usual Greek love had been hinted by G, that was clearly confined to only depilated partners. And when the man made his point about the juice there was no suggestion of direct experience, on his own palate, like. Online mention had most likely been his source, as was quickly proved on a simple search. What transpired in the Cretan's matrimonial bed was not here a matter for speculation.

Performance (Nov24)

 

We all walked past the chap in Elizabeth Street as if it were a performance piece. Was he for real? It didn’t matter so much either way, he was gotten by without too much trouble. Full stretch, with nothing under his head. A trembling hand covered his eyes, some small tattoos possibly on the fingers. Shaking more than trembling, as were his feet. Was he actually begging, for coin? There didn’t seem to be any receptacle. There were all kinds of postures among the men and women along Swanston & Elizabeth, many of them striking, impossible to ignore even for the most hardened hearts. More striking many of the beggars than beautiful women, fancy cars or the window displays. Beautiful young Asians predominated along those streets in an array of dress, often simple, but strongly alluring. Half a century ago their mothers & grandmothers had appeared in newsreels hardly distinguishable from each other, just as our drab new Slav immigrants had been, lacking any kind of feminine adornment. At Brunetti’s in Flinders Lane the ladies were more polished and Turtle and some of the other ambulant beggars managed exchanges almost like passing the time of day.

Turtle

Call of Nature

After six months of fuul it was time for a change at Faisal’s. Last week one of the other diners was seen with a plate of addas  before them. Ah, yes! Of course. Good idea. That day however F. had run out of the lentils it must have been. Eventful street this afternoon with half a dozen cops landing for some unknown reason. More eventful still when a woman who was thought to be a Sudanese first stopped at the table seeking coin for food, she said. Loud, abrasive, unable to be denied. After the $2 placed in her palm she went onto the Ethiope table further along, where the old Greek gave her plenty to go on with when she tried the same thing with her. A rasping loud voice from that lady that sounded male at first and brought apologies from the beggar. Toward the end of the addas the girl returned again, this time pleading something that was not clear in the first instant. Even when she hitched up her top it was also not clear. Must have been a skirt she was wearing that she could quickly raise and that was enough for her. When you gotta pee, you gotta pee. There was no hiss or splash. A hand on the table-top to steady herself, with an apology that was squeezed in. A thought to remove indoors was let slide; something like a startled rabbit in the headlights effect operating. By the time she was finished a good puddle resulted. At the register later when Faisal was informed the correction came: the girl was not Sudanese; she was Ethiopian, arrived in the country as an orphan without family. What else? Perhaps mid-20s. During her squat she had mentioned homelessness and they making you homeless. Later she came again to ask and again on leaving  from down on the pavement just past the Viet Bottle-o. When she was denied a second time she told you to fuck off then, the little pat on her head meaning nothing to her. The young twelve year old who had knifed the woman in the apartments on the next corner had been an Islander of some kind, probably about the same skin tone and no doubt same family situation.

 

 

Hot Chilli Green Peppers (update July25) Politics#

 

The other notables & political perverts across the globe are junior grade pretenders by comparison, hardly worth a dime. The Deutschers always did / always will outstrip them all, by a veritable country mile.

Orange man’s golden showers? Completely passé. 

Jimmy Joyce’s coprophilia? Well, that was kept strictly within the matrimonial sphere. 

Bill being served by a sweet beneath the desk while weighing missile launches hinged on the button, which of course an intelligent & responsible enough leader had no intention of pressing there & then.

Breaking news. You be the judge yourself—

https://www.timesnownews.com/world/europe/martin-neumaier-germanys-fdp-politician-from-ostalb-seen-in-disturbing-video-licking-public-toilet-article-110157254/amp

(More compelling without the bald CCTV supplied; and, like the others, valuable for understanding our fellows of the species.)

Shards (31 May)

Guy sitting in the gutter by a couple of tramways people who were manning the traffic diversion. The scene recalled the gal in the lane by Woolies coming up a few minutes before. Lady there had been found down on her haunches, picking broken glass out of the gaps in the bluestone. Street gal herself that one, in somewhat better shape than the other lad, or the ones she had in company. The latter stood either side waiting on her, the one in front turned back without actually looking what she was doing. Was it feminine, housewifery instinct, thinking of bikers & children coming to grief on the shards? No other conceivable reason for it; there could not have been jewels intermixed. Green glass shards picked by pinky-red nails, which do not come cheap at the Thai & Viet salons on the street. The slide had come recently for that lady, whatever it was sent her; a good way from rock bottom. Nice to see the time the tram guys in their hivis gave the gutter chap. Sometimes different situations enable contact across the divide.