Addendum Issue 090

eZine lover (@eZine)

Published in 

Addendum

 · 5 years ago

  

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  3.4 / #90 / Thursday the 29th of May 2003 / http://www.adden.tr.cx 
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	 Pavement, by Steak 
	¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ 
It was a warm summers day when me and Phoenix, having walked around 
the city, at first trying to visit an art gallery but finding it 
closed so settling for the library instead, but finding that to be a 
little boring (mainly because the main reading room was, you guessed 
it; closed) had moved onto and loitered in a book shop for an hour and 
half before buying a small poetry book and a stop off at a coffee shop 
for a flat white for me a dark something-or-other for Phoenix, that we 
found ourselves sitting on a random spot off to the side of the 
pavement on a busy Melbourne walkway. 

‘It really gives you a good knee high view of people sitting down 
here’ I wrote in my little book 

Phoenix commented on how similar everybody looked from this height and 
that got my mind working. Down here sitting on the sidewalk there was 
no bullshit, there was no racism, there was no hatred, there was no 
multiculturalism this was the undiscovered utopia. 

There was a rather professional sounding busker sitting right in front 
of us, he was playing an cacophony of electric guitar notes in our 
general direction and I have to admit that it sounded kinda good. I 
had no idea what songs he was singing, or trying to sing, but it was 
just executed quite professionally, what with him playing the 
harmonica at the same time and everything. 

‘About a thousand people just waked past us while I was writing all 
that.’ I wrote in my book. ‘I didn’t talk to any of them, didn’t say a 
single word our lives were close for a fraction of a second and then 
we parted without so much as a whisper of communication’ 

Pause, clap for the busker, carry on writing. 

He’s trying to sell his CD to us, he want’s twenty bucks for it, would 
I buy it? Is it worth twenty bucks? As I said, the music sounds good, 
but is it good enough to be worth paying for. In the end it’s all 
irrelevant anyway, I have no money so he’s not going to see a cent 
from me, no matter how hard he tries. 

Some crazy smiling woman just tried to give Phoenix some money, but 
upon realising that he had food, she took it back. She wormed her way 
to the real busker and started dancing to the beat of the man’s foot- 
drum. 

The busker comes to the end of the song and when she hears the 
dwindling applause that the modest crowd shows the busker the old 
crazy lady pipes up a little. 
	'Where’s the applause?!' she yells at the top of her lungs to 
	no one in particular 
	'Where’s the fucking applause?!' she screams even louder. 

The cops pull up to the traffic lights next to us that have just 
turned red and she quietens down a little bit. I chuckle lightly to 
myself. 
	‘silly old crazy woman’ I think ‘cops have nice cars, I wonder 
	how fast I could get up to in one’ I continue. 

The silly old crazy woman has just started touching the busker on the 
shoulder, commenting on what a ‘wonderful musician’ he is and ‘how 
honoured she is to be in the presence of such a talented person’ it’s 
plainly obvious to me, Phonex, the crowd and the busker that she’s 
trying to come on to him. 

He moves on to a sadder number, the woman looks like she’s going to 
break down and cry, I catch a lyric: ‘You have to keep your head, 
while madness is there instead’. The song picks up pace and the lady 
seems to instantly feel better about herself, she actually starts to 
dance. 

That’s it; she’s completely lost it now. The song’s finished now and 
she’s telling him how much she loved it and how much it reminds her of 
past romances she has experienced. She starts to cry and whimper how 
much she would love to here a old song of her youth, a song that has 
some kind of special meaning to her. 

He tries and fails, smiling she tells him ‘it ok and he can play what 
ever he wants” she tries to kiss him but he pulls away, leaving her 
looking on with a look of slight rejection in her facial features. 

Seeming a little unsure he kicks into a more upbeat number and the 
lady continues with her dancing. A fire truck laden with fire-fighters 
pulls up to the red lights and the old lady tries to get the men to 
dance with her. Naturally, they don’t. 

The old lady walks off without paying a cent. 

 
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