Bumble bees and toast are both kind of fuzzy and yellow

Superman sits to my left strumming the guitar and singing admirably, I am propped against the headboard typing. Last night Spencer's band had agreed to play at some mad warehouse party in Marrickville. Superman made the trek to The Peach and we set out to locate this warehouse at around 11pm. This is the part where my age pops and unfurls in a cloud of unkind streamers. I am too old to stand in a rough concrete courtyard between warehouses listening to shit bands whilst posing my limbs artistically under the deliberate architecture of my hair. Most others in attendance were clearly not too old, their sliding eyes travelled over my physical form with less than casual disinterest; these are The Callow Youth.

They were two hours behind schedule so coffee was sought back out in the real world and the electric daylight. Spencer, Madam Squeeze and Superman and I charted a course for Newtown. Here's the part where four people at a corner table sip at coffees with elbows wide and open, throats arced back in the ease of laughter and conversation. Spencer demonstrated classic frontman dance moves in a cafe format cabaret history of rock. Madam Squeeze drank her third vanilla milkshake of the day.

Meanwhile back at the warehouse The Callow Youth were disagreeing with the local constabulary. When we arrived everything was being shut down. A small mob of Callow Youth stood arguing with the police. A tall pale one towards the back called them fascists, that's when Superman and I sniggered in unison. Spencer's band did not play. The Callow Youth started some band up but it was feeling nasty in that hot metal warehouse with the uneven concrete floor and the pools and puddles of Callow Youth.

I was wearing Superman's hat but this did not help. It did not help when I introduced Superman to Artboy. It did not help when The Callow Youth swarmed in a doorway and I became stuck. It did not help when we could not get out of the complex because the gates were locked. It did not help when Spencer's band decided it was no good thing and did not play. It did not help when I realised Superman had come all this way and would not hear even one band, but I don't think it looked too bad.

The reason my sentences are stubborn and artless is simple. Superman and I headed back to The Peach. We drank wine on The Peach Deck for hours. Conversation folded into natural pleats, words rose in patterns and the cat sat quiet on the striped lawn chair under the stars. Conversation turned to hats and ear size versus face suitability for hat wearing. There was only one thing to be done. We moved inside and had a hat parade, we talked past dawn then slept until midday.

Superman is a woven thing, he is threaded and cross-threaded. There are tangles, dropped stitches and a great miraculous unfolding. Held to the light his patterns are intricate and stretch clear to the horizon impossibly large yet definite in shape. He's a tall stick of limbs spiking out heart and precisely the right amount of raw intellect and humanity.

Sylvia pounced on the bed midmorning waking me with a gentle swat of a gloved paw. She walked the length of Superman three times, placing each paw with slow precision before settling at my elbow, folding into herself with a contented breath.

Grizelda miraculously poached us eggs. The day gently turned behind shaded windows and a merry veil of happy exhaustion. I believe I had a stupendously, ridiculously good time driving, walking, drinking, talking, hat parading, sleeping, breakfasting, sitting and song writing with Superman. I sure hope we can do it again some time.


An awesome song of joy and goodness by Superman and Dale Slamma:

Bumble bees and toast are both kind of fuzzy and yellow
All the little flowers smile at me and say hello
Cutesie little bunnies bouncing all around look at them go

Sunshine, yeah sunshine

Over on the hill with a pen and pad was Rimbaud
Furiously writing something nice look at him go
Butterflies fluttering by in the meadow

a pony, yeah a pony

Optional Bridge

And then there was a thunderstorm
And I turned into Nick Cave
And I constructed a murder ballad in a lime tree arbour

Bumble bees and toast are both kind of fuzzy and yellow
All the little flowers smile at me and say hello
Cutsie little bunnies bouncing all around look at them go

Sunshine, yeah sunshine

Over on the hill with a pen and pad was Rimbaud
Furiously writing something nice look at him go
Butterflies fluttering by in the meadow

a pony, yeah a pony

Comfortable pyjamas floating by in a rainbow
A kitten in a crocodile suit playing flute in a window
Folk with guitars, peaches and stars dancing real slow


This is the best place
This is the best place
This is the best place
Yeah