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The Best of Captain Goodvibes
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sean doherty
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Re: The Best of Captain Goodvibes
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sean doherty
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- Joined: Sun May 03, 2009 4:50 pm
Re: The Best of Captain Goodvibes
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sean doherty
- newbie
- Posts: 31
- Joined: Sun May 03, 2009 4:50 pm
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sean doherty
- newbie
- Posts: 31
- Joined: Sun May 03, 2009 4:50 pm
Re: The Best of Captain Goodvibes
- Escher meets scozza.
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sean doherty
- newbie
- Posts: 31
- Joined: Sun May 03, 2009 4:50 pm
Re: The Best of Captain Goodvibes
One of Tony Edwards' anecdotes from the book...
WINDYRIDGE
"There’s a small painting in tne Art gallery of NSW by Roy De Maistre called “Above Palm Beach 1927”. It shows a woman sitting on a curved balcony with her back to the view, dressed in a Kimono and holding a painted silk umbrella. I remember the balcony well, and the view. We lived in that same house 50 years later, and by the way, the woman was a man.
Windyridge eclipsed every house we’ve lived in since. Nothing could live up to it and I still dream about it regularly. Shortly after The Captain was first published the place fell into our lap. The rent was low. the leaks were many, the possums in the roof were beyond number and the view went on forever. We were young, broke and in heaven. Wildly beautiful and sitting on five acres it made our hearts skip a beat every time we came home. There were secret caves, ancient trees and an atmosphere that made your spine tingle. It was many things, but not a place to be industrious. Somehow the perpetual sound of waves breaking in league with the mysterious ambience swept away the desire to work and made one surrender to the heathen pleasures. Fred Nile would not have enjoyed living there, but The Captain thought it was just right.
It was a dangerous place for a party; crash helmets and chastity belts were always recommended. There was something in the air. It became a cross between a madhouse and a railway station. Hordes of visitors dropped by; fairweather friends, complete strangers, backpackers who’d heard about it in Kathmandu or Fez, Japanese photoraphers, local loons. Someone who knew that Jesus was going to land on our balcony in a golden rocket, the exotic, the strange, the rare beauties, the sad and bewildered.
The surroundind houses were being snapped up by film industry types. Bob Ellis bought the local shooting gallery and used to shuffle around muttering to the food stains that decorated his shirt. Peter Wier bought a cottage a little to our south. Accustomed to prosperity, he drove a beautiful old convertible Merc. He picked me up at the bottom of the hill one day and as we floated up Sunrise Road I observed that Hitler must have felt like this on his way up to Berchteshgarten. Peter was not amused.
Rainbow was our black australorp hen, or he was supposed to be according to the bloke who sold him. He and Luigi – a magnificent white leghorn – were to be our first venture into sustainable living. It was only when they started crowing that our doubts emerged. Rainbow would only let forth at dawn and dusk, but Luigi crowed all night. Finally after weeks of broken sleep I borrowed his head. We ate him with some difficulty. A jackhammer would have helped.
Rainbow grew up with no role models so naturally he thought he was human… or that we were chooks.When he reached puberty the problems started. If something black appeared he would fcuk it. He loved a gumboot or a black hat, he didn’t mind a BMW, a raincoat or a dog, as long as the colour was right he was ready for it. Some little brat left a plastic machine gun in the yard one day, and it became the love of Rainbow’s life. You can guess the colour.
Things reached a climax so to speak one perfect winters morning. I was on the phone to the Station Manager at Double J, negotiating a wage rise, when a wedge tailed eagle landed near the back tap and started to drink. I was speechless. We made eye contact, an experience not unlike electrocution. The Manager, puzzled by the gurgling noises coming down the phone thought I’d either swallowed a live mullet or smoked a bunger. She was right on both counts. At this point Rainbow appeared. The eagle was more brown than black, but beggars aren’t choosers so he started doing the little mating dance that preceded a root. Somehow he hadn’t noticed that wedgy was 30 times bigger than him and wasn’t in the mood for love. I managed to mutter something about eagles landing, dropped the phone and raced outside. Rainbow was really pissed off that I’d cruelled his patch but a swift boot up his bum got him away from that evil beak. I chased the eagle down the yard and he lumbereed into the air like a B52. He circled the house twice, being dive bomded by smaller birds, then landed at Ellis’s place and flew away with his Muskovy duck. It was a morning like any other at Windyridge." – Tony Edwards
WINDYRIDGE
"There’s a small painting in tne Art gallery of NSW by Roy De Maistre called “Above Palm Beach 1927”. It shows a woman sitting on a curved balcony with her back to the view, dressed in a Kimono and holding a painted silk umbrella. I remember the balcony well, and the view. We lived in that same house 50 years later, and by the way, the woman was a man.
Windyridge eclipsed every house we’ve lived in since. Nothing could live up to it and I still dream about it regularly. Shortly after The Captain was first published the place fell into our lap. The rent was low. the leaks were many, the possums in the roof were beyond number and the view went on forever. We were young, broke and in heaven. Wildly beautiful and sitting on five acres it made our hearts skip a beat every time we came home. There were secret caves, ancient trees and an atmosphere that made your spine tingle. It was many things, but not a place to be industrious. Somehow the perpetual sound of waves breaking in league with the mysterious ambience swept away the desire to work and made one surrender to the heathen pleasures. Fred Nile would not have enjoyed living there, but The Captain thought it was just right.
It was a dangerous place for a party; crash helmets and chastity belts were always recommended. There was something in the air. It became a cross between a madhouse and a railway station. Hordes of visitors dropped by; fairweather friends, complete strangers, backpackers who’d heard about it in Kathmandu or Fez, Japanese photoraphers, local loons. Someone who knew that Jesus was going to land on our balcony in a golden rocket, the exotic, the strange, the rare beauties, the sad and bewildered.
The surroundind houses were being snapped up by film industry types. Bob Ellis bought the local shooting gallery and used to shuffle around muttering to the food stains that decorated his shirt. Peter Wier bought a cottage a little to our south. Accustomed to prosperity, he drove a beautiful old convertible Merc. He picked me up at the bottom of the hill one day and as we floated up Sunrise Road I observed that Hitler must have felt like this on his way up to Berchteshgarten. Peter was not amused.
Rainbow was our black australorp hen, or he was supposed to be according to the bloke who sold him. He and Luigi – a magnificent white leghorn – were to be our first venture into sustainable living. It was only when they started crowing that our doubts emerged. Rainbow would only let forth at dawn and dusk, but Luigi crowed all night. Finally after weeks of broken sleep I borrowed his head. We ate him with some difficulty. A jackhammer would have helped.
Rainbow grew up with no role models so naturally he thought he was human… or that we were chooks.When he reached puberty the problems started. If something black appeared he would fcuk it. He loved a gumboot or a black hat, he didn’t mind a BMW, a raincoat or a dog, as long as the colour was right he was ready for it. Some little brat left a plastic machine gun in the yard one day, and it became the love of Rainbow’s life. You can guess the colour.
Things reached a climax so to speak one perfect winters morning. I was on the phone to the Station Manager at Double J, negotiating a wage rise, when a wedge tailed eagle landed near the back tap and started to drink. I was speechless. We made eye contact, an experience not unlike electrocution. The Manager, puzzled by the gurgling noises coming down the phone thought I’d either swallowed a live mullet or smoked a bunger. She was right on both counts. At this point Rainbow appeared. The eagle was more brown than black, but beggars aren’t choosers so he started doing the little mating dance that preceded a root. Somehow he hadn’t noticed that wedgy was 30 times bigger than him and wasn’t in the mood for love. I managed to mutter something about eagles landing, dropped the phone and raced outside. Rainbow was really pissed off that I’d cruelled his patch but a swift boot up his bum got him away from that evil beak. I chased the eagle down the yard and he lumbereed into the air like a B52. He circled the house twice, being dive bomded by smaller birds, then landed at Ellis’s place and flew away with his Muskovy duck. It was a morning like any other at Windyridge." – Tony Edwards
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