BATTLE SPONGE: I left my heart and soul in New Jersey

I'm now writing a film...

"I’m riding down Kingsley,
figuring I’ll get a drink
Turn the radio up loud,
so I don’t have to think"

- Something in the night - Springsteen

"Someday i'll buy you that house on Cookman,

and we can sleep on the beach all night"

- Blue Jeans and White T-Shirts - The Gaslight Anthem

I didn't even know that there's an intersection in Asbury Park where the streets mentioned in two of my favourite songs actually meet! It's like an alignment of stars must be in the sky directly above.

'Honey put on your red dress, and your diamond soled shoes,

Climb on outta that window, climb on outta your room'

So my musical pilgrimage to New Jersey was amazing!

I saw two unforgettable gigs and made some fun new friends.

Did lots of wandering around and listening to music and just enjoying having all the time in the world to myself, with nobody or nothing to distract me or pull me away from my daydream. What a rare gem of time!

Wrote a lot, I actually wrote two songs which I really like, it's just a shame I can't play guitar! Maybe one day I will share them.

Here are some random excerpts from my notebook...

'...storing poison and glitter and dreams in your skin and blood and smile lines...'

'... suburban Australian nights listening to new records that make you cry...'

'...been dancing on this burning earth for years...'

'...dark guitar skate park saints put their piercings back in and head up over the river...'

'...tattooed jean-jacket wizards from backstreets and frontiers...'

'...change your mind or make it up...'

All the writing I did and ideas I had is forming into a body of work that resembles a film script.

I have characters, a location and a scenario and context, and sub texts... I'm writing a film but perhaps I never want to make it. (More on WHY film and the cinema is important and useful as a communicative art form in days to come...)

I will illustrate my film.

It will unfold in the context of a future earth, stricken by environmental damage (but it won't be too gloomy at all!) and the story will focus mainly on characters who were victims of colonialism and white supremacy in the 'fight' on climate change... so those who lost their indigenous rights.

I will also incorporate my love of soap operas and how important I think they are to our daily mindset.

I will also incorporate the notion that it's very hard to balance your desire to be a ruthlessly creative independent human who lives out their dreams, and to sacrifice personal ambition in order to aid the fight for climate preservation.

The character that represents this will likely be my idol - a punk rock saint who has fallen out from the dark end of the failed American Dream.

And lastly it will include an exploration of behavioural and psychological coping mechanisms that people make use of to try and get through a bad situation or to own some power over an otherwise helpless situation. Such coping mechanisms include humour and irony.

And the setting for the film will be a landscape that I will use to reflect the character's emotions: I'll try to put the landscape across in a way that it can be read as an emotion.

The landscape is populated by about 6 characters who are either left-behind climate change victims or climate fugitives, who fled or were exiled for their opposition to ruthless destructive government.

I was also reading All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy while I was away, which is very atmospheric in terms of the landscape and emotion, and is visually strong and cinematic.

"Lone Cowgirl rides up a desert rain storm arriving in the night at a campfire sight. She sleeps in the damp sand with her horse breaking the elements next to her, the fresh air cooled by the storm in the dark. She wakes to a wild desert sun baking the earth's floor dry"

I particularly feel like I began to subconsciously write this film script when I was in New Jersey for a specific reason: I was listening to music right in the places that it was written, and walked down the streets referenced in those songs, so I felt this kind of puzzle coming together. I also read about approaches to songwriting and one things that Brian Fallon (one of the musicians I went to see) said was that when he writes lyrics and music he has these glimmers of imagined stories and scenarios (often inspired by real people or events, or himself) and the trick is to find the clues as to WHY that imagined scenario or character is the way they are.

Now because I trained in graphic design i've been moulded into this analytical observer who break down everything I see and tries to find meaning or specific context in every element of a created product (be it a poster, a film, a song, a painting, a novel). So Brian's approach to songwriting appeals - it's kind of the reverse: it's searching for those clues and gathering those elements to tell a story.

So to me, that clue-finding process is very beneficial as a communicative device - not always necessarily in terms of factual information, but in terms of enticing someone to understand a specific atmosphere, emotion or scenario.

So.... As I absorbed New Jersey I felt like I was in this film i'd made about myself and I was finally meeting the people and seeing the places i'd imagined - I'd worked out WHY everything was the way it was. And then I realised I had a clear picture because I have all these clues from the songs...

So... in a reverse fashion, if someone can see a film, they can search for the clues and dismantle the elements of the film's scenario and context, to arrive at the reasons WHY things have happened a certain way.

For example, I can present a character in a situation, with certain behavioural habits and hints of that person's history... and with the right images and text the viewer can search into what they see and uncover the character's past and what has happened to them. So If I make a character who is a victim of climate change... a viewer can have a FUN time deciphering the character and work out WHY and HOW they became a victim. Making climate change fun, seductive and filmic might be helpful in getting more people to understand a few things about it.

Oh and I'm also choosing film because film is visual and textual and i'm good with words and images (I could never write an album cos I can't even hod a guitar!)

Although, I do have an imaginary band and an imaginary album coming out - which may be part of the film i'm writing!

I think this is Lone Cowgirl's prologue story... the before bit.

'She sat with her back to the encroaching dusk and placed her white leather (black poet coat?) to one side. The great strawlike sun was flinging its low early autumn light across the crop fields. A sheet grey cloud followed it down; intimidating in its purpose but comforting as if she could reach her static hands into its gently swirling body and feel fresh lukewarm droplets of precipitation enliven her hesitant fingers, and get under the filthy nails and wash them clean. With every passing thought of hers, the grey grew greyer and the night drew closer. A few gnarled sparked trees stood silhouetted, magnifying the last of the day’s rays. The scene appeared as a cross section of an R.B.Kitaj painting, as if coloured partially by nature, and partially by tears coloured by his malcontent, from his sad large eyes. If not, not.

She did feel his malaise; a certain trepidation, perhaps induced by the dulling effect of alcoholic nights and too little exercise. What worried her most was the possible inexistence of all the worlds and provinces she imagined, and that others had imagined which her imagination has entered so
readily into...'

Character 1

Character 3

***

And here are some photos from the MET and inside the lobby of the Michael Werner gallery on the upper east side - went to see the new Peter Doig exhibition there and it was obviously utterly amazing because I think Peter Doig is a great painter and a big chiller and he has nice boots and isn't pretentious in the slightest. Come to think of it he's probably very good at making campfires, and probably he can skateboard too.