Something to remember me by - Page 2
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 8: People like Us
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Mark Mordue
WE SEE THAT HORACE IS CRYING. HE IS MISSING HIS FAMILY AND HIS HOME. How is it that these men whose eyes so fill with blood when they're drunk, men whose reputations for violence and volatility with alcohol is renowned across the country (around Tenant Creek the most common form of injury to an Aboriginal woman is the classical defence fracture, an injury to the arm usually incurred when it is raised to protect the head from a blow) – how is it that such men can be so gentle, so sprawlingly tender too?
Earlier in the week, when we sat around after a show and got drunk, I'd told Kenny that a guitar solo of his in a song called Pollution Free Zone had deeply affected me. "It was like I was watching you and looking up to the clouds, and I went up into them but I felt kind of sad, too. It made me think a lot about you and why you made such a sound."
Overwhelmed, Kenny held my hand. And held it softly, as most tribal Aboriginal men will do, affection that breeds awkwardness in a Western man unused to it. "Oh, Mark, I am so pleased that someone in Sydney would think about me in such a way."
Kenny's words had come out of a well, as if he thought no one cared about him, or that he was somehow worthless. His voice, I thought, was like his guitar, sweet and lost. He let go of my hand, leant over in the semi-darkness, and handed me his guitar pick. "Just something for you so that one day maybe you can say that you knew me. To remember me by."
TOM PRYCE IS YOUR ARCHETYPAL GONZO ROADIE, feverish about literature and cutting into the world with his rock'n'roll perceptions: a typically wonderful Darwin loonie where passion gone tropical and the "gone troppo" aspect of it creates a delusion in the sufferer that they've really gone sensible instead. He fails to engage me much on his future career as a science-fiction writer or his writing style, which apparently is "like Mark Twain. I love good clean, hard prose".
I think about his and Denise's positions in relation to Sunrize, the two whitefellas with a traditional Aboriginal mob. Denise has already muttered something about "a black man and a white woman" when she won't go out late for cigarettes alone with Ben because of past hassles.
Unfortunately, racism really is a "two worlds" situation, to put a twist on the common phrase for cross-cultural divides. Tom says he and Denise have caught a little of it already in Sydney, the white people working with black artists thing – like who the fuck do they think they are? I know the bad taste in the mouth that it can cause. Even the most casual encounters can become insulting as black people, with a mixture of bitterness and ideology, alienate whites willing to be involved, Aborigines who damage the cause of their fellow people in the name of exorcising their hate or anger.
At Sunrize's first solo showcase in Sydney, I try to catch an Aboriginal singer's attention for a possible story on his band in the national rock magazine Juice. Wild-eyed and smelling that heavy, sweet smell of spirits and Coca-Cola, he starts babbling about us "stepping outside". So I back off, figuring he's out of control and best avoided, a little shaken at the stupid, childish edge of aggression that's come out of nowhere at me. Later he's proclaiming me a great writer, telling Wayne I've "got all the edges" in my words. For a second I'm his best friend again as the result of a story I'd done on his group for a street music mag a while back. But he turns ugly again and I can feel the change coming way before it happens, the schizophrenic senselessness of it, the stormy blankness brewing behind his face.
"You don't know pain," he says, coming up close to me.
"Well, I don't know your pain, that's true."
Leaning even deeper into my face he emphasises, "You don't know pain. You don't know anything about pain."
I can feel his intensity and as I go to speak I realise I have to eat shit, eat any words of defence or even the mildest disagreement. He can see the words though on the edge of my mouth, and he waves his fingers near my face. "I can show you pain. I can show you pain outside. So don't fuck up."
Again words are at my mouth, and again he gestures aggressively, like a violent schoolteacher, "You're fucking up. Don't fuck up."
So I leave it be, leave my pride on the floor; feel ashamed while Wayne watches me back down. "Is this how a man would act in Aboriginal culture?" I wonder.
The event casts a pall on my night and what hopes I see in Aboriginal music when a leading figure like this singer-songwriter hates me for my skin. Was it just the piss talking? It felt like more than that. It felt like a fundamental divide that could never be crossed. ‘Building bridges'? That was the slogan for indigenous music events. Building bullshit, I thought, with this "heroic" black man burning with hate, his ego run amok as he talks non-stop cosmic babble like the Jesus Christ of Aboriginal rock that he thinks he is, failing and fucking up because that's what makes him happy. Copping out when the crunch comes and pleading racism to excuse his lack of will to make it through.
Angry thoughts of mine but too full of reality – and not entirely to be dismissed by progressive sociology or politics. Not in my mind. Not tonight.
Back at the house I finally shake off his bad aura and party on with Sunrize and a few of their friends in the backyard. Exhausted, I try to go to sleep, but Horace and Kenny are out the back playing songs with a black girl who's bellowing her heart out. I've already had a minor run-in with her as she pushed in front of me on the band bus, as if being rude was her right as a black person and a woman – the double whammy of sexism and racism to hoodoo me out. Then I've felt my hackles rise back at the house as she's made demands rather than requests about everything from the state of the fire to more alcohol. Hey, welcome to my home ...
So it's one o'clock in the morning and I ask Horace, Kenny and the girl if they can ease up a bit. Horace and Kenny say sure, but the black girl boldly tells me, "You're not respecting us mob!"
"Listen," I say in an even, cold voice. "It's you who aren't respecting me. This is my home and if you don't like it, just get up and go back to yours. Simple."
And then there is silence. And I go back upstairs hating and upset. Queen Bitch. King of Pain. What a clashing and awful night. And here I am now writing about them both. My little harvest. And no matter what you do – threaten me, hit me, curse at me, call me racist or sexist because you didn't get your way – I go back into the media and my white life and feed off what you gave me. Me. It feels like some Lord of the Flies story lies deep within all that rots between us. Queen Bitch. King of Pain. We're an all-round party of losers, tonight, the three of us, oh yes we are.
SUNDAY JANUARY 31: On a ferry from Manly back into the city I pick up a salt-stained, day-old newspaper tucked behind a seat. Inside is an interview with Mandawuy Yunupingu, with a quote from the press conference after he became Australian of the Year. Asked if he had anything to say to the manager of the hotel who barred him entry in Melbourne, he held his trophy aloft and said, "Sit on this".
A little more gloriously, Mandawuy told The Sydney Morning Herald, "The colonisation that has happened, with the laws and religion and oppression, and our people becoming victims of that oppression, are part of history. But I tend to look beyond that – to stopping being a victim. Things will change."
I ask Wayne what he thinks of radio announcer Alan Jones saying the award for Yunupingu was just tokenism. Wayne shrugs his shoulders. Couldn't care less what some DJ says. Doesn't even know who this Alan Jones is!
Out on the harbour Sunrize are soaking up the views. These Arnhem Land "saltwater people" are in their element, yet far away from the coast they know. Wayne leans on Terry's shoulder and they rave in their own language, taking in the cityscape as the waves splash over the bow.
"SUNRIZE HAS BEEN GOING SINCE 1968," BEN EXPLAINS TO ME. "They first broke up in 1974, I think. That was our brothers and cousins. And ... you know how it's like when you look at the name Yothu Yindi. Well, that means ‘mother's son'. If I die, who is going to take my place, follow my tradition and keep the Sunrize name going? All right, we'll get so-and-so to be a part of our family. They can take that tradition from there. That's what it's like everywhere. If one person dies, or one leaves, we can approach a relation or family and ask if he wants to come into the group."
"So that's what happened when our closest cousin in the Pascoe family died. The band automatically split up. But Jacky Pascoe, the co-founder of the original Sunrize, the one who picked all the members, was like the band proprietor. He waited a long time for me and Terry to come back from Dhupama College in Darwin. He talked real serious to me. He wanted to see that Sunrize go a long, long way."
MONDAY FEBRUARY 1: Sunrize's live-to-air is finally being broadcast on JJJ-FM. Listening to their most triumphant set so far in the Great Southern Land, Sunrize are getting justifiably pissed and legless in celebration of both the triumph and their last night in Sydney.
You can definitely feel the unhinged air, the bristle of almost anything having the potential to happen beneath our party-down camaraderie.
Horace tells me that when the barge comes in once a fortnight with grog for the community at Maningrida, "it's like Shaka Zulu". But as Terry explains, all the Sunrize boys usually get their beer and go over to Wayne and Horace's camp, or down to Kenny's beach, even out bush, "away from all the humbug" so they can enjoy themselves.
On one barge-day evening, Kenny says he saw a man get an axe put through his chest after an argument. Maningrida is legend for such boozy chaos in the days surrounding a delivery. With full knowledge of this and a good dose of paranoia as well, I've hidden a guardsman's sword that usually hangs on the wall in a closet before Sunrize arrived. It feels like a ridiculous thing to do, and yet not entirely foolish either.
Gurrumul Yunupingu, the blind multi-instrumentalist from Yothu Yindi, arrives at the house. The Sunrize boys fuss over Gurrumul with a laughably disorganised respect, all helpful arms and voices while their crunching lead guitar-breaks blast over the radio at high volume. Gurrumul must truly think he has entered Babel. Eventually it's decided Gurrumul should be taken home, and a cab is called while the lads all help him walk back through the house and out onto Bourke Street. The effect is not unlike six men trying to change a light bulb. By the time Gurrumul realises that it's a cab he's being piled into, he's saying "No, no, no" because he wants to stay.
In the meantime, I'm trying to explain to an extremely worried and pissed-off-looking cabbie that the guy with a Tooheys Lite in his hand – and three guys supporting him – is literally blind not drunk.
I lay back with the group talking before an open fire in the backyard. We're laughing about a Perth radio journalist quizzing them "on this song called Careless Horserider". Sunrize are almost in tears as they tell the story. Finally it clicked with them that what the journalist meant was the misheard title to a song that is actually called Killer Sorcerer. It seemed best that the group's most passionate, upside-down man take on this mistake on as his nickname. Tom seems very proud. But as the laughter subsides Kenny gets serious and tells me he wants me to write a story "about a killer sorcerer. You should do that Mark. Listen to the song. You can use your ... reflection. Use your reflection."
Ben, meanwhile, thinks that maybe I am here to "save" him. "Just like Denny Laine and the journalist."
Denny who? "Denny Laine. From Paul McCartney's Wings!" he says like it's impossible I wouldn't know. "I read his biography, how Paul got sick of him taking drugs and having girls and messing up. And then a journalist saved him. I think maybe you are like that for me."
Ben's wife is in Darwin expecting a baby. He tells me he is having problems with his marriage, with the pressure of being a father and keeping the band going. "I tell her, if you want to go with someone, you go. But maybe I will find someone, some nice spunky woman who sees me playing the guitar up on stage."
At one point Ben got a thrash across his spine with a firm stick for his misbehaviours. "It fucking hurt, so I gave her one good punch in the face. Then another one too. I don't want that bullshit in my home. I'm not like these other mob hitting their women all the time, but I'd had enough and it was a piece of wood this big," he gestures solidly.
"Fuck that shit. I want everyone to be equal in my home. Not for the man to rule the woman, or for the woman to rule the man. Everybody has their place in my home, everybody is equal. That was too much."
Sunrize confess to me they are all sure the house is haunted. Wayne and Terry pull me aside to discuss things that went bump in the night, and the way their electric fan went off and on without Wayne even touching it. I can barely stop laughing at them. I'd been downstairs playing with a plug that controlled power to their room. Upstairs they'd been living in terror of the Amityville Horror.
Nonetheless they say they also feel a presence downstairs that has made them think that way ever since they arrived. Ben heard a voice in the kitchen whispering to his ear. "The spirits will talk to us Aboriginal mob when you can't see or hear them or know they are there."
Kenny then tells me he has seen a spirit come toward him in a dream. He feels that perhaps someone has come travelling with them from Arnhem Land. Someone restless. Someone not yet returned to the Dreamtime.
POSTSCRIPT: WHEN I FIRST TRIED TO PUBLISH THIS DIARY IN 1992 I sought permission from the band. They were shocked by all the drinking and swearing and took such a red pen to the story it made it unpublishable from my point of view. It wasn't the kind of thing they wanted printed about them and I understood why. Deep down I also wasn't sure it reflected that well on me either. And so I left the diary in storage till moving house recently dislodged it from a cardboard box and made me look at it with a fresh eye. I was surprised by the honesty of it, much as I cringed in a few places at the sentiments and the rawness of the writing.
Still, it had something real about it – as you would hope a diary piece should. I didn't feel I was transgressing anything sacred in wanting to publish the story now (or then), but I felt I owed it to the guys to find out how they might feel about the story today. It was a matter of respect between friends, really, rather than a cultural issue. I'd do the same with anybody.
My first port of call was their ex-manager Denise Officer (sans Brewster, she now goes purely by her maiden name). Since 1992, she had worked as executive officer of Northern Territory Arts Touring, "the boss" for 10 years. She was about to take up a post at the National Gallery of Australia as its travelling exhibitions project officer. Denise offered to take the story back to Arnhem Land for me to show Sunrize after some funeral business happening there. Quite some time after, I nervously phoned her to find out what had evolved and within a few hours I found myself linked up to Ben Pascoe and Wayne Kala Kala. That's how it often is in the Territory – nothing seems to be happening, then all of a sudden, just when you are ready to give up hope, it all happens at once.
I talked to Wayne first. He told me there was "no problem" with the story. I could hear his amused baritone idling down the phone line as he spoke. Deep and warm. Just thinking about talking to him makes me feel like crying now. I knew Wayne had lost his wife in a drowning accident last year, and that one of his daughters had committed suicide. It was hard to know what to say about all this and, despite his cheer I sensed the weight of it all upon him as he preferred to express an even more recent sorrow over the death of the Lettersticks guitarist Kumantje.
Since our time together in Sydney, Wayne had been all over the Territory, working for a while as a town clerk in Alice Springs, living on and off at Barunga, near Katherine, (where he lost his wife in a flooded river crossing) then returning north to Maningrida to take in some healing time with extended family there. When we spoke he was eagerly awaiting a phone call that might confirm whether or not he was successful in becoming a lead performer with the indigenous dance group, White Cockatoo.
Next on the phone was Ben Pascoe. No problems with the diary, he laughed. What he did want, though, was a story about Sunrize now. I said that this was difficult and that this is a story about what happened at a point in time. Then he suggested a story about when the band toured with Santana a year after the events described here. I said, "But Ben, I wasn't really with you then!" Eventually we settled on this idea of a postscript so it was clear the band was still alive and kicking, though it seemed to me it was more the band's name that was alive and that sooner or later the family energies behind Sunrize would awaken it once more. Since I had written the diary, I knew Ben had become a born-again Christian, though he said his beliefs had "eased up" in recent years. He was now a policeman.
Wayne and Ben seemed to be willing to speak on behalf of the band since the rest of them were uncontactable for one reason or another. Terry Pascoe was in the Kimberley, where he had fallen in love and recently married. I'd never seen a man chase girls so hard – and be so fast at it – as Terry Pascoe, so I was glad to hear he'd gotten good loving in the end. Horace Wala Wala was meanwhile having a very good time in Darwin, "checking it out". I'd heard apocryphal tales that Horace knew how to make himself invisible and had already encountered the powers of his storytelling around a campfire fire, a vividness of telling that seemed to reach into my dreams. Despite the levity, you wouldn't underestimate Terry or Horace, for as time had passed their authority had grown traditionally. When major ceremonial business took place, every member of Sunrize had an important role to play.
Soon after, I got through to Alan Murphy, who was "still a drummer, still a musician stroke producer, still involved in the whole indigenous music scene". He was just about to go to Maningrida to do a recording project based around language maintenance, transferring old recordings made in 1970s from reel-to-reel to digital. He, too, was upset by the death of a member of the Lettersticks band, "one of three in past few years" that had brought that group to a standstill. Alan also told me the great Black Bela Mujik guitarist Kumantje (a term of respect used for the recently departed since saying their name is forbidden in the months or years after a death lest it disturb their journey back to the Dreamtime). "It's sad for me personally," Alan explained, "these guys are my oldest friends in the Territory."
I heard from Denise that Gurrumul was still playing with Yothu Yindi and the Saltwater Band as well, and that he was even more of a legendary musician throughout Arnhem Land. That "Careless Horserider" Tom Price had moved around, running a newspaper for a while in Bundaberg, Queensland, before returning to the Northern Territory as the head technician for the Darwin Entertainment Centre. Shine on you crazy diamond.
Sadly, Kenny Smith died in 1996. Very few Aboriginal men get to the age of 50 in the Top End. Which puts all of Sunrize demographically close to the edge. They were my age, my generation, and yet here in the middle of my life I was reflecting on friends now having to cope with the end all around them.
What pleased me most when we spoke was the way Ben and Wayne both liked the way Kenny's spirit seemed to be speaking through the story. I, too, felt its murmuring energy. It made me feel something was in motion between us all, something unfinished and calling us still. ♦