Sunny Breaks

10am
Scene: Digby and Dexter Poindexter are in a large airey delicatessed/continental supplies shop. Digby has his own, well seasoned in appearance, coffee pot in hand and unscrewed into two parts. He’s looking closely at its broken rubber washer.
He digs it out and tries matching it for size with various sized new washers hanging on hooks on the wall.
Dexter Poindexter, in another area has unhooked a large, long cabana sausage but only has a hold on it at the very bottom. He runs this way and that, trying to keep it balanced and upright — not wanting it to hit the floor.
Digby takes several washers and his own used one to the counter and asks the guy which one is the right size for his coffee pot. The guy looks at the assortment and places the old washer over the others, but like Digby, can’t find a perfect match.
Some come close but no banana.
Digby: I think maybe it shrunk from the heat of use
Guy: Maybe
Digby buys four of the washers that are closest to the original in size.

1pm
Scene: Scorpio detective agency head quarters. Dexter sits on the couch, hunched over the coffee table, scanning through newspaper classifieds looking for potential private dick jobs – lost dogs, psychotic sounding messages from one jilty lover to another pleading for reunion, and the like.
Digby, inexplicably, is wearing a from-the-waist-down-only apron and is standing still by the stove, watching/listening to the coffee pot percolate.
Dig: coffee, Dex?
DP: er yes please.
Digby sets down two cups on the kitchen bench and tilts the now finished percolating coffee pot over them. The coffee oozes out. It’s viscous, low on volume and concentrated.
Digby grunts in mild disapproval, milks them and hands one to DP.
Dig: It’s a bit thick.
DP looks down into the cup and swirls it around a little then slugs it down quickly. He goes back to the paper. Digby also drinks his, before using a tea-towel to pull apart the pot to inspect the new, but imperfectly sized washer. He forks it out and sits it near the old broken one. Beside them sit a pile of six new, unused wahsers.

2pm : The pot on the stove, with steam puring out in several places. Digby lifts up the lid to see what’s happening. The steam gets him.
Dig: Phooey!

2:30pm : Pouring more thick black coffee into cups.
[jumpcuts] Cue baba brooks band, ‘guns fever’ – Digby holding up two washers in front of his face, looking back on forth between them. – DP drinking down a coffee; facial expression of grimace at bitterness, but liking it at the same time. – Digby spooning more coffee grinds into the pot. – Digby running to the sink, half-juggling the red-hot pot cradled in a tea-towel. The cold water in the sink hitting it and steam pluming. – DP drinking another coffee. – Digby drinking a coffee – Thick coffee oozing from the pot into cups.

Digby stands at the kitchen bench with the top half of the coffee pot in one hand and a used washer in the other. Dexter stands diagonally behind him watching. We see dusk happening outside the window.
DP: But you’ve already tried that one twice.
There’s a subtle tone of urgency to their voices. They’re both highly focussed in on what they’re doing.
Dig: Yes. However I now believe the previous theories based on contraction were wrong. See! See!
He holds the washer close to DP’s glasses.
Dig: This washer is made out of a different kind of rubber. I think the heat is stretching it — a couple more pots and it’ll have expanded to fit the groove perfectly.
DP: Alright then. But we’re out of bikkies [in a begrudged tone of acceptance].

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this thing writes itself. It’s uncanny how these small themes will roll through for an entry or two, a day or two, or a whole week. I’ve noticed it happening for ages now. I have no bearing on it.

It’s evening, it’s warm and black outside—30 centigrade. A track from one of those ‘ultralounge’ type compilations came on and I punched ‘private dick’ into google. True, I knew the chances were great for getting something faggish back. But I didn’t expect it to be so funny.
Private dick.

At thought scraps I saw a link to this page of antique weirdness – a bunch of bawdy images. Hehe – ride a cockhorse to banbury cross.

I watched a doco on Unkie Joe Stalin (and yes I know he was terrible and killed a lot of people, but lets face it — these days at least, who isn’t doing that?) It focussed on the propaganda side which I’d not heard a lot about. Was looking for net stuff on the movies made under him, including The Oath and others I can’t remember the names of, but found little. Just this collection of mainly allied propaganda posters.

In that current, I saw this link to nazi propaganda posters at adland ages ago. Despite the evilness, some of them come across as kinda kooky.

I know it’d never happen because of the opposing viewpoints, but to me, this one’s begging to be resampled into a gay nightclub promotional poster.

So anyway, Stalin as a media construction was interesting. He changed his name to stalin which means ‘man of steel’ — I think I’d heard that before but forgot it. In a stranger than fiction situation, there was this guy, an actor, who’s one and only ever role was playing stalin in the movies. That’d be a weird life.

I came across this page of explanation of santa in parts of north and western europe, but I can’t vouch for its factuality. I actually think it’s a rather neat troll. Get this:
“Iceland is quite a big exception. They don’t have a Santa Claus. They have a mean witch family – mother, father and 13 sons – who live on the mountain. In the middle of December sons come one by one down from the mountain and steel from houses and scare people. Besides this Icelander have also a huge christmas cat who also lives on the mountain. If child doesn’t have new clothes in christmas eve this cat come and eat child.”
“The biggest competitor to Finnish Santa Claus is Greenland’s Santa. He has an office in Greenland but he actually lives in the North Pole but because there is so cold he doesn’t meet visitors there. And this is The Santa Claus who is very popular in North-America.”

Note to self: write up oulandish, preposterous page of “christmas in australia” in time for it to be properly indexed by search engines for christmas this year.

Of late my dreams have been leaving strange little puddles on the floor of my daytime mind. Finland. Friendly mice — mice are very very nice, 2 or 3 suffice, they’re alright. Giving a woman oral and digital pleasure. A chance meeting with Geoff Lynne which became a really terrible interview, mostly due to me knowing nothing about ELO.
Me: And .. so, then you started doing stuff with The Travelling Wilburys…?
He was very distraught about something – on the verge of crying. What the hell is it about my subconscious and messed-up pop stars?

I had to go back to the institution today. Didn’t go very well. Shoelaces kept getting untied. On seperate occasions two people stopped me to tell me I had big candles of bright green snot coming out of my nose and extending to the top of my lip.
Then at hometime I accidentally got on bus no.17 instead of 16 and ended up going somewhere and I don’t know where it was. Eventually everyone else got off and I still couldn’t see my house yet. The scenery started to get sparse, then gave out completely. The bus stopped, the doors opened and the driver looked around at me, so I got out.
It was a blank white space.