Market for the Cool

Today I went to Kustom Lane Gallery in Hawthorn to their Market for the Cool. I felt a bit imposterish, how can a middle aged old bag be considered cool. Although Augusten Burroughs did tell Claire she had a cool mum when we met him. Anyway as usual I am getting off track. I wore Nanna clothes to the market, I like doing that. When I go to the Black (Goth) Market, I wear daggy clothes too. It is some perversion in my personality, rebelling against the cool by being a dag. And when I was a teenager, I had to do the opposite, rebel against the daggy and mundane and be sharp. We didn't use the word 'cool' that was a word used by Surfie Shit.

Sam Biondo had lots of cool stuff, and his stall had a surf/tiki/Hawaii theme, but I did manage to find a couple of flat plastic witches that I am going to use in an art project, just gotta find a couple of white tiles or similar to mount them on. I am glad Sam is still my friend, somehow he missed out on an invitation to my birthday party and I still have pangs of panic over it.

Sam Biondo the essence of Cool

One of the regular artists at Kustom Lane Gallery is Paul Hughes, if you type Paul Hughes Kustom Lane into google images, quite a bit of his excellent art comes up.

Paul had a stall today with some great handpainted garagey memorabilia, its a bit like folk art on acid. Among his treasures, he had two small pieces, tiny oil cans with Essence of Terror and Sinister Sauce painted on them. I spotted them from afar and elbowed my way in and (rudely interrupting his conversation with someone else) asked him to put a sold sticker on them both. He told me Sinister Sauce was already sold. WHAT? That is against the known rules of the universe. How can you sell Sinister Sauce, without Essence of Terror? They are Siamese twins that should never be separated. I feel like organising an online petition for them to be re-united. They could even do one of those TV shows on it. OK I am getting carried away now.

Here is the Sinister Sauce. I will probably still get Essence of Terror, and maybe Paul might create a new Sinister Sauce and he also mentioned painting a Touch of Tenderness, so maybe one day I can have a set of three. I like having something to obsess over.

Absent

I have been neglecting my blog. And I feel bad. Because I know some people check regularly to see if I have posted. I haven't been completely idle, I have almost finished my next book about Sharpies. This one is called SNAP and it is a collection of recollections and snapshots. It will probably be in print in September.

Most likely there will be two more books after that, one called TAILS which will be stories written by other old sharpies, and another one called BLUE which will be about sharpie battles, the blokes seem to love the fight stories. I wonder if I will ever publish anything else other than sharpie stories? I just feel this unexplainable need to record as much as possible, before we are not around to tell our stories. Or maybe it is because we have lost two sharpie identities in the last four months and it makes me realise, we are not going to be here forever.

When we all found each other again in early 2009, Don was the organiser. He organised get togethers at the Ferntree Gully Hotel, the Village Green, the 2009 re-union at Young and Jackson's and our trip to Queensland, all in the first year. And it continued on after that. Now we have been friends again for longer that some of us were sharps back in the 1970s.

Don 1977 Melbourne

Chris 1971 Camberwell

Chris was a Camberwell Boy, they knew they were sharpies, but they called themselves 'boys' like most of the local suburban lads. In 1976 I was friendly with the Croydon Boys, a group of long haired local toughs - in some suburbs the 'boys' were sharps in others they were longhairs.  

Before I met Chris, I had no idea sharpies existed in the 1960s. Chris was the champion of the 60s Original Sharps, and he was so passionate about them being acknowledged (ranting = passion!) he passed the bug onto me, and I get excited when a new 1960s sharpie finds their way back to our extended family group.

RIP Don and Chris, I hope you are waiting Under the Clocks for us.