I thought I’d lead with that because one of my greatest memories I associate with Dolly Parton, besides when I was her for Halloween, was when my dear darling brother and I did not act in a very Dolly-like way. It was a real humdinger of a trip though, and I’ve never let my dignity (nor my brother’s) get in the way of a good story, so let’s go.

It was in 2022 when the borders between Australia and the US had reopened after Covid and I was super eager to do all the things I’d missed in 2020 and 2021. I wanted to go to South America, to have adventures, to ride buses, and damnit, I wanted to go to Dollywood. It wasn’t THAT far from where my parents lived in Bowling Green, Kentucky. I wanted to go, badly. I wanted to write stories about it. There was one problem, though. I was visiting my family for just a couple of weeks; I didn’t have a car. I could have borrowed my parents and inconvenienced them, but that seemed far less enticing than convincing my sweet baby brother to go on a nice wholesome trip to Dollywood with me.

In hindsight, a few things would have been wise to ask at that point.

Did Zach like country music, even remotely? Did Zach like Dolly Parton? Did Zach like amusement parks? Did Zach love his big sister and her crazy ideas that required him to drive and spare his precious time and car?

If you have two cents worth of wit you will know the answer to the above questions are all, NO.

Nevertheless I was in Zach’s ear about taking me to Dollywood the week before the planned trip, and he reluctantly agreed. I even put together a powerpoint presentation explaining why it was important we took this practically biblical pilgrimage together.

Here-in lies a big problem with our brotherly sisterly dynamic. Zachary loves to tell people he’ll do kind things for them as it makes him feel good. Zachary loves less to actually do the things he claims he wants to do. Maybe he will tell me I’m incorrect in this assumption, but after multiple scenarios I feel we have come to a very big mutual agreement and understanding about our true beings. Zach now knows that it will annoy me MUCH less for him to say no upfront, than to say yes and then back out.

That day Zach said, “Alex you have this really annoying way of getting people to say yes to you.” To which I responded, defiantly “That’s your problem, not mine. It’s not my fault you can’t say no to me!”

So yeah we weren’t quite there with the Dollywood odyssey. On the day before we were meant to go, Zach quietly decided that he didn’t want to and put a request out on his Instagram asking his random followers, half of whom might be serial killers, (WHO KNOWS?) “who wants to take my sister to Dollywood?” When I saw his stories asking some random psycho to take me, I lost my god forsaken shit and he and I had the biggest screaming match in my parents’ kitchen that the house if not the entire neighborhood had ever heard. My parents cowered in the back bedroom, undoubtedly terrified/mortified they’d created such precocious drama queens. I told Zach I didn’t care whether he took me or not, but at that point I had committed to writing a story for the Newcastle Herald, and far more importantly I had committed to THE BIT. I was doing it for the plot.

Come hell or high water, I wanted a story.

Zach hummed and hawed and I Googled the price of getting a rental car to drive to Tennessee. Despite our massive brawl the day before, on the morning of, his bags were packed and he was ready(ish) to go.

I had booked an early evening musical entertainment in Pigeon Forge for ourselves. I was going to visit Dollywood for a few hours beforehand. (Zach was driving but I was paying for him to do everything.) It was my incredibly generous gift to him for joining my wonderful company on this occasion.

So we were on the road to Dollywood and high water was accurate cause I’ll be damned if there weren’t torrential downpours, not a great omen. It was a four hour or so drive, and I chose the early dinner so that we could continue on the road from there to my old stomping ground of Asheville, North Carolina later that evening. Truly it was the most incredible trip Alex ever could have imagined, mountains of both the Smokey and Blueridge variety, country music, country roads, Dolly Parton, two siblings on a glorious journey with an impeccable playlist I’d put together in anticipation. Now that Zach had finally bitten the bullet, what could possibly go wrong?

I’ll tell you what went wrong. About two hours into our trip, in the pouring rain, Zach got in a wreck with an 18 wheeler. He was flying, trying to get to where we were going fast and merged too quickly in front of this giant truck. In hindsight (again) because he wanted to get this trip over with.

Zach’s car wasn’t that damaged but the front of the 18 wheeler, if I recall, wasn’t looking too great, and what’s more the driver was not friendly. I got out to try to chat with him about what happened, but he was clearly on the clock and not interested in chewing the fat about the accident. If I remember he had a handlebar mustache and the hat he wore that said “Cherokee.” His hubcaps were adorned in flames.

In hindsight, my compassion should have kicked in, at this point. Today was not Zach’s day. But instead I was calculating the time I had to get to Dollywood and then to dinner, while Zach gave his details to the sherif. I called ahead to the Hatfield and McCoy Feud staff to see if we could lock in the later dinner instead and patted myself on the back for time and conflict management. Despite this brief hiccup, my dreams of Dolly still lay ahead.

(Zach and I agreed to wait until we returned home to tell mom and dad about the accident.)

We got to Dollywood an hour later than planned, Zach dropped me off; he had no interest in joining me. While I rode the steam train, wandered into her shops and watched families ride rollercoasters and listened to country songs blare at every corner, he went shopping. I was engrossed and intrigued observing the Dolly phenomena, thinking about culture and music and mountains.

A few hours later Zach picked me up and we went to the dinner party which was as high-falootin’ as any Hillbilly hoorah could be. I learned all about the famous feuding families along the Kentucky West Virginia border, something I later found out every true Kentuckian knew about. Zach and I more or less had quite an entertaining time, but it was really at the end of the show when the Lord tested us both.

After dinner, Zach decided that he wanted to stay in Pigeon Forge for the night and drive to Asheville in the morning, but as I had paid for the most perfect little Appalachian cabin, I’d be damned if we were going to stay in Tennessee! We’d have to drive for hours early in the morning, and knowing my brother he’d wake up and decide to head straight back to Kentucky. So when he said he wanted to stay there for the night I begged, pleaded, bartered and bitched, until at last we were on a 95 mile journey through windy mountain roads, where the phone reception cut out and Zach decided to get angrier at me than he’d ever been in his life. I had to make the call whether it was more dangerous to be stranded on the side of the road next to the Pigeon River in a service-less place near “Buzzard’s Roost” or in the car with a raving madman who happened to be my kinfolk.

But the road straightened out and the reception came back and around midnight we made it into the most cute cabin you could ever imagine. Earlier I had wondered if my death was nigh, but Zach did call out sweetly that he loved me before going to bed.

In the morning we got up and ate some great organic eggs at the Early Girl Eatery and by the end of the trip we’d seen a mama bear and her cubs from the safety of our accommodation. It was a beautiful weekend and we had gotten our good fill of the great outdoors in a way that I think Dolly Parton would have approved. Zach remembered that the Appalachians were amazing and that he loved his sister and we sang along to songs we both loved in the car on the way back and all was mostly forgiven.

If there are any lessons learned from this story I’d say it’s:
Number one, don’t ask people to do things you don’t think they’d enjoy.
Number two don’t say yes when you don’t actually want to do the thing.
Number three, when you are spending money on someone to do something YOU want, it’s not a gift, it’s a favor.
But also number four, perhaps most importantly, if we can look back and laugh now it can’t be all bad.

It was a memory we’ll never forget, and there was a hilarious irony around the feuding family story that started it all. It began as one of the worst road trips I’ve ever been on, but I can thank Dolly Parton for giving us a hilarious anecdote and teaching us a lesson or two along the way. Thanks Dollywood, thanks Pigeon Forge, and thanks Zach for trying to be a good brother even though I can see especially when writing this story that your sister isn’t perfect.

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PS
I am making a donation to Dolly’s Imagination Library after writing this Substack. May the good stories keep coming, and may we all keep reading and enjoying them!

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From head to toe I was covered in custard. As I came to, naked, sticky and strapped down under fluorescent lights and two pairs of skeptical eyes above medical masks, I reflected on how I got to this unfortunate moment in life. It could never have been anticipated when I had enrolled in Nanna Nancy’s Good Ol’ Fashioned Puddin’ Makin’ Mondays. My therapist had encouraged me to take the class to get back in touch with the moments that brought me joy, and for as long as I’ve lived, I’ve always loved pudding.

It was one of the wiser things she had suggested, far better than the Spanish lessons or the volunteering at the nursing home. I signed up because I wanted something out of character. I had had it with the blind dates, the watercolor classes and yoga. I was so desperate for something different I had contemplated ax-throwing.

The more I thought about pudding classes, the more it seemed like the ultimate WAY, a be all, end all, cure all for the blues. In the lead-up to the class, I began dreaming of the taste of banana pudding from my childhood.

On Monday afternoon I sat down in the clean, cheerful commercial kitchen in the back of the local university’s cafeteria for Nanna Nancy’s Good Ol’ Fashioned Puddin’ Makin’ Mondays. The kitchen was full of stainless steel appliances, posters for the university on the walls and an admirable line of steak knives on a magnetized strip, boldly on full display. The industrial fridges hummed, and I marvelled at the rows of shelves presumably where all the ingredients were held. Nancy was a round, cheerful lady in her 70s with rosy cheeks and a Mrs. Claus-like disposition. I immediately imagined myself sitting on her lap and telling her all I wanted for Christmas.

Upon arrival we all donned chef hats. I wrapped an apron around my growling belly. The first 15 minutes were endearing, but by 45th minute my demeanor swiftly shift, to a dangerous, more darker place. I gnawed on my fingernails, desperately wishing long-winded Nancy would cut to the chunks of butter and move on the measuring and mousse mixing. Famous for her pudding she may be, but this lady was going on and on about the secret recipe, about how people came from across the country, near and far to try her custard.

My therapist would be disappointed that I didn’t notice at this point, how close to the edge I was inching.

I suppose I also should mention that I hadn’t eaten in three days in anticipation of this custard class. I was building up the pudding anticipation! I had planned to waltz into the cake class, get to cooking, and then just inhale every liter of it, and then, after I had dazzled my fellow bakers with my chef prowess, my plan was to maybe go home and bake my own batch five times over and impress all my neighbours in my apartment.

It was me and five or six other participants, all of them drooling over Nancy’s every word, looking slightly less dishevelled and deranged than myself (did I mention I also hadn’t been sleeping?) Everyone else had clearly had not only breakfast, but also had been having very stable, normal weeks as human beings. Unlike me, they were NOT being distracted by the enormous bowl of custard on display behind Nancy. They were drooling over Nancy, I was drooling (literally I’m afraid) over the custard behind her perfectly styled bob. I am not exaggerating when I say that it had started to call out to me in a delightful little squeaky voice that only a custard could have.

It was when Nancy reiterated for the 14th time how her pudding won the national dessert prize in 1995, that I began to hallucinate. We’d been there nearly an hour and she hadn’t even handed out one sample. My eyes clouded over in a gelatinous, vanilla-ish way. Everything went murky, sloppy, creamy.

What happened next was later reported to me from the medical facility, sadly I have no memory of this. Apparently I said to Nancy and the pudding participants, “YOU WANT ATTENTION FOR YOUR CUSTARD, YOU GOT IT BABE!”

I interrupted her lecture and dove, for lack of a better word, into the enormous bowl of custard behind her where I began to chortle, choke and writhe with joy, free from the self-inflicted cage of starvation, the evil chains of forced normalcy in a world that’s anything but. As the custard sloshed over the bowl and towards the participants and Nancy, all who had begun to quickly leave the scene, I began to disrobe to become more one with the pudding. There I would stay until the authorities (whatever that means) arrived to take me away.

Yes it’s all a bit blurry and squishy, until I woke up, head to toe, covered in custard. My legs and arms were bound, but my spirit was free at last.

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“No, just yoga!”

He laughed and made a comment about “You Americans” and I faked a smile back with no clue what he meant.

I looked at my phone as I walked down the hill, trying to decide what music to listen to on my way. I opted for a Zach Bryan song and was deeply engaged with the music as I walked past the cafes. Suddenly I yanked off my headphones, because, I realized, an unhinged person was in front of me. He was marching back and forth through traffic, ranting loudly.

I froze.

He was a short man, maybe mid-40s, full of rage and ready to fight. I noted another man at the bus stop, eyeing him cautiously. I kept walking and noted also that I was now alone on the street.

It was 8:45am and I was solo with a very angry man.

I contemplated the best way to get to yoga on time without drawing attention to myself. I watched cars slow down and break in front of him as he hurled abuse at someone or something. He advanced into the street and then back to the sidewalk again, raging about money someone owed him. I crossed the street momentarily, back-tracking, hoping to stay out of his way. To my dismay he was walking towards the side of the street I had crossed.

”Fuck,” I thought. “Is this guy gonna mess with me?”

And then, more selfishly, “Is this junkie gonna make me miss my yoga class?!”

He walked up the street, down it, into traffic, out of it. I decided to run in my flip flops, to get past this limbo I was in with him. I got to the main intersection, looked back and confirmed I was out of his orbit. Then I watched two older ladies passing me quickly, out for a power walk.

I felt an awful combination of protection for them and guilt for the guy. I felt guilty because dude was out of his mind and he couldn’t help it; I felt protective because also, what if he, in his delusional state, came for these ladies?

What role could I play in this situation? How could I be useful?!

I called my partner.

”Should I call the police? I don’t really want to be a snitch; I don’t want to get him in trouble.”

”That’s up to you,” he said, “If you think he’s a danger to himself or others, yes. What if someone runs him over?”

I didn’t want him to hurt himself or anybody else. I was close to my class now (the running had caught me up). I called triple zero.

They quickly determined I didn’t need an ambulance and passed me along to the local police. We had a three minute conversation about what he was doing (screaming, aggressively running into traffic) what he looked like (short white male, probably in his 40s) and where exactly he was, (I have decided not to include those specifics) and if they could call my number back if they needed (they could).

Plot Twist! In retrospect I think I told the cops THE WRONG street! My heightened state of awareness combined with my eternal abysmal sense of direction had me mixing up my street corners. Typical Alex.

Worst snitch EVER.

Would you believe it, I made it to yoga with two minutes to spare, but as we chaturanga dandasana-ed and forward folded, I struggled to be present. My mind was with “old mate” as the Aussies say, who was off his face, and needed help of some kind which I undoubtedly did nothing to assist with.

I don’t like that I called the cops on this guy. Would I have felt worse if I hadn’t? Would it have niggled at my consciousness in the same way that it currently has since? I wish there was a mental health hotline that had a compassionate and impeccably trained person immediately on the way to help as quickly as the police do. Some charitable organization I could have called instead at 8:50 on a Saturday morning.

I particularly dislike that I made this call on the way to my yoga class, could you get any more cliche?!

During yoga I thought about the different outcomes that might have happened. He could have made the older ladies feel nervous. Would he have actually attacked them? I somehow doubt it.

Maybe one of the drivers had called the police before I had. If I were driving and a guy ran out in front of me, I’d call the police for sure.

Maybe he would have met up with the guy who owed him money and let him have it. Maybe if the police came they would have stopped a worse altercation.

Maybe he would have slept it off on a park bench, and woken up none the wiser. Maybe that’s actually what did happen. I mean, I had given the cops the wrong address. Maybe they didn’t find him.

Was it really that necessary to call the cops? Heaven knows I’ve been inebriated in public before. I don’t know that I’ve been shouting and playing in traffic, but I have surely been annoying on the train and rude in the park. Who the hell was I to cast the first stone? With friends at the age of 20, I snuck into a fancy hotel somewhere in Belfast. We desperately needed to use the restroom. A staff member opened the door and called out, asking if we were patrons at the hotel.

”Not at the moment,” I yelled, as my friends laughed in the stalls next to me.

”Then you,” he said with a strong Northern Irish accent, “are breaking the law.”

We rushed away giggling, giddy with our bad behavior and emptied bladders.

After yoga I returned home the way I’d come. The sun was bright, people were everywhere and the guy was nowhere to be seen. I felt silly for feeling alarmed and thought about other times when I was in public and succumbed to self-doubt and fear. One afternoon, I fell into step with a group of rambunctious young men, because they made me feel safer than the addict close behind us, screaming at the top of his lungs. I walked with the men into a shop on the corner and waited for the guy to pass. In a different moment, those men might have made me feel uneasy, but at that instant I 100 percent wanted to be walking with them rather than alone.

My partner doesn’t love that public transport and footpaths are my modus operandi. But I plan to keep walking. As non-addicted pedestrians, numbers are our power. And despite moments of fear, I usually feel blissfully independent navigating through places without needing a car or another person to guide me.

Urban streets have always been a home for both power-walking grandmas and unstable addicts. There are streetwalkers and street walkers, if you will. The city center is a great way to see the depth and breadth of humanity. Ironically, walking around with others, regardless of where they perch on the coo coo’s nest, that usually makes me feel more sane.

But days later, still, my mind is with the junkie on the street.

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I just finished my very first Toni Morrison book, Song of Solomon. I am ashamed it’s taken me this long to read her, but I finally did and it was beautiful. Each character is complex and disturbed, yet completely understandable and relatable in their unhappiness. One character was happy, Pilate, and she was my hero. Plenty of threads unwind in this book, but my favorite yarn is the story of how two siblings from the same parents, experiencing the same tragedy can go on to live such big lives that are the total opposite to one another. Pilate Dead is named after Pontius Pilate, (yes the one who killed Jesus) although the name choice was not intentional. Her illiterate father picked a word out of the bible; he liked the shape of the letters. Pilate has rejected wealth, materialism, and other white people pleasures and instead lives the life of a bootlegger in a house on the rough side of town with her daughter and granddaughter. They have no electricity or luxuries, but plenty of joy. Her brother is the antithesis, obsessed with money, property, status and getting more at all costs. Macon married Ruth, the richest black woman in town, the daughter of the town’s only black doctor, and he hasn’t touched her since they conceived their son nicknamed Milkman, the protagonist in the novel. In Macon’s eyes, when you live in the grossly unfair and prejudiced 1950s, the only way to get even is for black folks to get that money. But not Pilate. She had a completely different truth and way. And yet they were kin, with the same childhood.

Which one do you think lived a happier existence?

Isn’t it funny who we decide to become.

Speaking of the stories, I performed stand-up comedy last Sunday night, and while I didn’t win the $1000 that was actually the motivation to have me get up and do it, I was shocked out how little I cared that I didn’t win. I’ve stumbled on a new creative challenge! I’ve attempted comedy before, but what I liked about this time around was that my bit wasn’t really mean to any specific demographic. I didn’t punch down, I didn’t punch up, I didn’t punch at all! This time I just tried to be self deprecating and curiously quirky! I suppose I might have punched myself a bit, but I can take it. I feel like I have something different and new to work towards. Who knows maybe I’ll perfect this in New Orleans. I did incorporate the harmonica which I also can’t play. (Thanks to Newcastle Comedy Club for this video!)

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After the Comedy on Sunday, Tuesday night my friend Laura and several others came over. We made Pisco Sours and talked about politics and friendships and memories. Oh how we laughed! Laura and I used to be housemates, and she moved to the UK years ago, but we were very close at one point in our lives. She was one of the first friends I made in Newcastle when I was looking for people to practice Spanish with. As an extrovert with two homelands, I struggle juggling friends and countries, and while I hadn’t seen her in at least seven years, it was like it always was with her, and she looked exactly the same too. We drank more than we should have, but I regret nothing.

Friendships can’t always be a casual drop in full of rainbows and cocktails. But we are allowed to be in the right place at the right time and to love each other without worrying too much about why we do so.

Tuesday was wonderful because otherwise life feels heavy lately. There’s lots of drama happening around my work life, and I am recovering from a wicked crick in my neck. To add insult to injury, every advertisement on my social media currently seems to be a personal attack on mine and its slow deflapification towards my collarbone.

Seriously, though, I have been thinking a lot about the deaths and illnesses of people I love, and the sadness that surrounds these things. I get blue analyzing how (and why) everyone gets just one chance at living. With all this expensive neck technology, why hasn’t somebody determined what happens after we die? If we knew for sure, we could plan accordingly. (Please see my recent substack on making plans.) Post death intel would be as big as birth control.

Last but not least, I worked at the museum this weekend, and I noticed the sign as visitors leave that says “thank you for visiting.” You don’t see a sign like that at the prison or the hospital. There is an invisible acknowledgement in a sign like that, that people come here willingly, that they want to be here.

Anyway those are my talking points for the week. What are yours?

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At the beginning of this year my friend Tommy Michel was diagnosed with fast growing brain cancer. Doctors told him he had maybe a year to live, and he’s had to make fast decisions while simultaneously dealing with a rapidly-growing tumor he’s defiantly named “Brian.” A few weeks ago Tommy kindly agreed to let me interview him about his life and Brian of course.

Since he’s been diagnosed, Tommy has approached his new reality with grace, humor and calm. He’s done as much as he can with the time that he knows he has, including getting married, travelling back to Canada to visit his family, seeing so many friends in Australia and also sharing his “Life of Brian” Facebook episodes.

Tommy and I both worked for the local council for many years, but really I became close to him through our mutual friend Aaron. We officially became friends on the day of the spectacularly failing “dinner en blanc” white party one year. The idea is, everyone dresses in all white and you and a million other folks are bused to an undisclosed location where you have a massive picnic party. It’s fun and photogenic because everyone is dressed in white. Honestly I can’t think of a more bourgeois, bizarre way to spend a Saturday. It definitely wasn’t my idea, but I went along with it because Aaron can be very convincing. Aaron, Tommy and I rode the Newcastle tram to the starting point of the white party, and as people began to board the buses in their white, Sunday bests, the heavens opened up and a massive storm began and continued for the rest of the day. We three rebels made the call NOT to head to the undisclosed location and instead stayed where we were, with picnic tables, shelter and our picnic baskets. Tommy’s partner Ingrid joined us later, and while the hundreds of other well-to-do attendees were stuck on buses for hours in their ostentatious linens, growing increasingly agitated, with no access to food or wine, (sounds like the premise of a horror film) we had our own soiree which carried on late into the evening at Tommy’s house. I never got reimbursed for my $100 for the stupid white party, but I had made a new friend. Life’s funny like that.

We’ve gone on to do lots of things together! I also interviewed Tommy about his beautiful home when I was writing Homes of the Hunter for the Newcastle Herald.

Despite the awful circumstances, Brian has brought Tommy and me closer. In March when I first came to visit after his diagnosis, we had a cup of tea and he casually asked me if I could help him finish this Facebook post he was working on. Since the tumor arrived, along with syntax issues, he’s lost some of his vision. He can’t see well enough to read or write. He uses voice-to-text a lot, but that has errors. As a huge user of social media for mundane reasons, I felt meaning in his request. Helping Tommy write his posts seemed unlike all the other stupid things I post on Facebook. It didn’t feel stupid at all. Sitting next to him, talking about death, cancer, family, life, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, sometimes just riffing, feels incredibly significant.

In this hour long interview above, which I encourage you to listen to in full, Tommy reflects on his life and other things. He mentions “muggles,” which is a nickname for people who aren’t currently dying. People who see the world through the lens of having more than six months to live.

We talk about the importance of telling people you love them. We get serious quickly, discussing how doctors found the walnut-sized tumor in his brain and then he got his diagnosis with GBM. He tells me about his brain surgery, cancer treatments, and how his life has profoundly changed in the last few months, particularly with knowing the time he has left. We talk about how he has opted to go through with assisted dying, and what that entails. (Assisted dying has only been legal in NSW for two years.) We compare Australia to the US in terms of end-of-life care (spoiler alert, Australia is better). I ask Tommy about his thoughts on death and what comes after. Of course it’s always on his mind, but he’s not converting to any religion.

Talking and writing with Tommy over the past few months has been personally enlightening. It’s made me think about how I spend my time and who I choose to spend it with and also how I choose to use my communication skills. But I doubt I’ll be offering up my ghostwriting services for just anyone who’s about to kick the bucket, selfish as this may be. This project happened casually and organically as a result of terrible circumstances. In my perpetual analysis of how to be a good friend/person, this alignment makes sense. This was a chance to spend time with my friend while giving something something of value, something I know I can do. It is nice to feel helpful.

Rarely does it feel like my self-indulgent writing makes a difference, particularly beyond my own ego.

(Tommy also talks about death of the ego in the interview, btw.)

It has been a pleasure to work with Tommy on this project because he is a good person. Not that he needed to get sick for me to figure this out. After our blanc dinner debacle, I went on to witness Tommy’s generosity time and time again, with me and everyone around him.

One of my favorite memories of Tommy is when I was producing a bit of an out-there poetry dance event, and my friend and I weren’t getting the ticket sales we needed. I was on the edge of cancelling the entire thing, worried we would just have to cut our losses. I had been asking EVERYONE what I should do, and no one would give me any real advice. It was all so wishy washy; I was in need of a genuine opinion. That afternoon Tommy visited me at work, and I again expressed my concern about the event. He listened and then without hesitation said:

”Yeah I just think you should go for it, hey.”

”Yeah?” I asked. “What if I don’t get the ticket sales though?”

”To cancel wouldn’t look very good for the Alex Morris brand,” he said. “Just sell out. Just go for it.”

I loved his confidence in me, the idea of the “Alex Morris Brand,” HA and his casual attitude. And so I went for it. And it was an awesome night and I think my friend and I only lost $100 each, lol.

Tommy is brilliant; I figured that out quickly. Last year he came to hang out with me after an Awesome Newcastle event. I was trying to make a joke about how I hate bureaucracy partially because it’s so hard to spell. It seems very appropriate for a word that means what it does to be overly complicated to spell.

”What do you mean it’s hard to spell?” he asked.”It’s incredibly easy to spell!”

He went on to spell it on the spot and then explain to me how it had French origins or something, I can’t really remember, but I do remember thinking, “yes, I get it, you’re smarter than me, Tommy.”

But what a blessing to have an intelligent friend who trusts you with his words, even if you’re a little dumber than him. I felt the same when he gave me dozens of issues of his New Yorker Magazines when we had a coffee one morning.

Yes, I will take them, and I will read through them, very slowly, mind you, but it is you Tommy, not I, who is obviously the regular New Yorker reader in this friendship.

As we discuss in the interview, if it weren’t for his current brain situation, he would absolutely not need my help to communicate his ideas. Writing has always been his outlet, and he’s written plenty professionally and privately in the past. I treasure the time I’ve spent with his unpredictable brain these last few months, unreliable narrator that Brian may be. One day Tommy and I are talking about cyborgs, late capitalism, grim instructions on what to do if he loses his mind, and and then he’s telling me why I really should read Foucault. Another day we’re discussing how to actually say goodbye to the people we love.

Early on in the interview, you’ll hear Tommy discuss the epistemology of the word “understand,” which has Old English and Latin Roots and is connected to the idea of standing under a row of trees. I love it, particularly in the context of this interview.

The video of my interview with Tommy is at the top of this Substack. You can watch it by scrolling up and hitting the play button if you haven’t already. In the next few days I will be reading him some nice memories people have of him, so if you have something to share, please send it to me.

Keep an eye out for an updated link here, because I’m pretty sure we are going to put the entire Life of Brian chronicles on a Substack too.

Thanks so much, Tommy. No thanks to Brian though, you little jerk.

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The Dictionary
Every real word in the world
smashed together in the most boring way
(alphabetically)

Time
some days it flies
some days it drags
but you can never catch it
because it is invisible

The Internet
click…
click…
click…
Help! I have become depressed.

Death
Natural as it may be,
it terrifies me.

Sky
Be ye ant
or be ye man
look up as much
as ye can

Money
For what it’s worth,
it’s worthless,
but the landlord disagrees.

Enormous Mammals
The bull in the china shop
is just the elephant in the room.

Love
I have it for a few.
I want it from all.

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It’s a bit like a sabbatical. Isn’t Australia incredible?!

It’s about three months away from happening, and I have a lot to work out between then and now like figuring out where I’m gonna live, how I’m gonna make money, how I’m gonna pay for health care and most importantly how I’m gonna become the South’s best lady harmonica player. (Yes I do have a harmonica, and I am taking lessons.)

I hope to enroll in some history classes in the spring, and ideally I can find some ongoing remote freelance work to supplement the bartending or tour guiding or whatever I find, so sing out if you need a witty gal with the gift of gab and maybe just a littleeee bit too much confidence. I am applying for a few artist-in-residencencies and on the lookout for bizarre and beautiful opportunities that only come up when one is as free as a ramblin’ rainbow. I charge $50 per hour (AUD), and as always, despite the AI, despite the dying journalism, despite the feelings that nothing matters, my dream is to write about my observations and experiences, perform, have fun and maybe get paid, maybe make the world a little better along the way. Do those last few lines sound like a country song?

I often think of the Benjamin Franklin quote, “either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”

But a lot can happen between then and now. As exciting as this seems in Alexland, I’m one out of nine billion people with hopes and dreams for 2027.

A year is not very long. I think of going home with big shiny eyes, but to everyone else this choice is no different, if not less significant, than starting a family or buying a house or creating a business or starting a new job, etc. Despite what my ego loves to whisper in my ear, I know I ain’t special.

Buttttt I’m still super excited and nervous as October approaches. I see videos of Louisiana swamps and my soul leaps! I watch brass bands on Frenchman Street perform through Instagram and I want to go to there! I think of living closer to my family than I have in 15 years, to be able to casually visit them any weekend, and my heart relaxes.

Hopefully by October the world still exists, hopefully the price of a flight to the US doesn’t go up to one million dollars, hopefully a plague doesn’t break out, hopefully the war ends, hopefully the world puts all tragedy and trauma on hold for the next year and a bit, just for me.

I would love God’s opinion on my upcoming plans. I hope he’s amused because it is a very Alex thing to do. Hopefully he’s smiling, but I would be just fine if he’s not laughing.

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If you are not from Australia, this name will likely hold no meaning for you, but if you are from Australia, he is an icon. When someone says “Do you know Mr Squiggle?” the Australian (so long as they were born in the 20th century) will respond with “he’s the man from the moon!”

He’s basically like a puppet, low-budget version to ET I joked to my partner, although any Aussie reading this will undoubtedly chime in and explain to me all the ways he’s not like ET. He is definitely as popular in Australia as ET was when I was growing up in the US. Broadly speaking, there are some similarities.

It’s a fascinating and free exhibition about this beloved children’s show with puppets, a grumpy blackboard and vivacious actresses who try to stop Mr Squiggle from going on space walks. Perhaps the most interesting thing about him is that his nose is made of a pencil, and kids from across the country used to send in a squiggle, and Mr Squiggle takes it and turns it into a masterpiece.

And that, y’all, is what led me to this Substack idea, so thank you for sticking around. After seeing the exhibition I decided I want to do what Mr Squiggle does with the school children’s scribbles, but I want to do it with my friends and their nonsense words.

Making up words and definitions is hardly an original idea, but hopefully the words and definitions below have never been done before! May they intrigue and entertain! Some friends have previously defined these words in their social circles, but I am redefining them. Earlier definitions of some of these words include slang for breasts and the name of my friend’s pet fish.

Presenting the Nonsense Dictionary
- with words made up by Alex’s friends and definitions by yours truly.

balearious: (noun) a glowing, sublime mist that surrounds people after they die.
e.g., “She passed quietly in bed with her husband’s hand around hers, until the balearious appeared and he stood back in awe to watch.”

baypepe: (interjection) A reaction of extreme horror and disgust, typically in association with spilled milk or shattered glass.

Buloshtic: (proper noun) a county of 20,000 in the country of Bullshitelandia. Known for its fine brandy and strapping daffodils, Buloshtic sits roughly two miles off the equator with a subtropical climate. The locals are affectionately known as Buloshvillians, and the county is notorious for a disappearance of a popular sheriff in October 2456, and the disturbing mis-truths around it are well documented by the Nigel accords.

corinthanomenon: (adjective) underrated.
e.g., “That was the most corinthanomenon film of 2024 in my humble opinion.”

chiggenbongo: (verb) to dance drunkenly under a night sky, often while in oceans, rivers and streams.

chichinini: (noun) a miniature hotdog for grasshoppers, often served at parties. In certain grasshopper cultures it is considered a rare delicacy.

disgrossting: (gerund) A contemporary exercise that combines yoga and crossfit and results in active meditation and high intensity flexibility.
e.g., “All the youngins are into disgrossting these days.”

domp:(conjunction) a word to connect one disappointing sentence with another.
e.g., “First it started raining, domp the basement flooded!

flink: (verb) to give the silent treatment.
e.g., “He’s been flinking me for weeks!”

fondelskrunt: (noun) 1. a mistress, side piece, other man/woman.
2. offensive name for a runaway turtle.

honkwibble (noun) (informal) a literal barrel of laughs.

Humintes: (proper noun) A Turkish princess from Bursa, known for her unique abilities at handling frisbees.

iggy toggles: (noun) (plural of iggy toggle) A herd of beach balls slowly deflating in a swamp.

legromp: (slur, informal) a grumpy Frenchman.

maniocleptic: (noun) a spindly, wiry purple succulent that only grows deep within the confines of washing machines, dishwashers and occasionally underneath refrigerators. Horticulturalists have famously attempted to cultivate maniocleptics elsewhere, but so far they growing in man made appliances

saludiscus: (noun) an insult to describe people age 30+ trying desperately to be like the cool kids.
(Plural) saludisci

schmendral: (verb) to maliciously seduce
e.g., “This bar is crawling with charming womanizers! I’m totes gonna be schmendraled tonight!”

sessage: (adverb) passionately and deeply.

spoingish: (adjective) 1. sponge-cake in nature.
2. Consisting of a bouncy, trampoline-like quality.

trunklebarn: (noun) when a cloud forms a distinct shape of a buttocks.
e.g., “Look up, ma! Is it a cumulus cloud? Is it a stratus? No, it’s actually a trunklebarn! Baypepe!”

Zarry: (proper noun) country music singer and vampire, forever known for his steel guitar/jaw.

Andd that’s all she’s got! If you liked what you read, please send me more nonsense words and I will write more nonsense definitions! Thank you Mr Squiggle and Newcastle Museum for this week’s Substack inspiration!

PS I am sorry I didn’t also write the pronunciations, but it is getting very late on this Monday evening, so you’ll just have to listen to my audio if you want to know how to pronounce. ;)

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Juan came to the poetry reading because another lovely poet in the local scene invited him. Her name is Gillian Swain.

I enjoyed listening to him read, and afterwards he kindly let me have a quick interview with him. He was only in town for the night and was heading home to Adelaide the next day.

When we sat down he immediately described himself as a poet of revolution. In Chile he read lots of poetry in his youth and had great admiration for a leading revolutionary poet in Latin America named Roque Dalton, killed during the guerrilla movement in El Salvador.

”I was searching to learn more about the commitment to be a poet and a revolutionary person as well,” Juan says. “I find his poetry a great form of teaching young people to commit to the revolution.”

Juan joined the revolutionary movement in Chile around 1976. A military leader named Augusto Pinochet led a coup in 1973, overthrowing socialist president Salvador Allende and creating a dictatorship. A few years after that when Juan was around 20 years old, he and others gathered in an underground movement. It had to be underground because the military police were known for torturing citizens, throwing them in prison or simply making them disappear.

”In Chile, we don’t trust anyone, don’t talk to anyone, even to your family, don’t say a thing. So that’s how I start growing up as a revolutionary poet person,” he remembers.

Juan eventually experienced it first hand as he was thrown in prison for eight months before he fled the country. He was accused of being a terrorist, although he told me he never used any bombs or violence of any kind while protesting, only ideas and words.

”It was five day under the secret police house, and they torture me with electricity in all my body, they punch. They did it not only to me, but all our people at the time,” he says.

After the five days of the torture he said he felt like a dead person; his body didn’t respond to anything. Then he spent 15 days in solitary confinement and went on to prison with others.

Juan says he was lucky because he was a street theatre performer and during this terrible time he created dialogue and characters in his head. It was an important thing to do rather than thinking about his family. He lived with his grandmother at the time, and he was very worried about her.

Eventually when he was in his thirties the Australian Embassy allowed him to come over with his family including his two young children. Now he’s lived in Australia for more than half his life and he’s a grandfather. He and his family love living in Australia, and since the Pinochet regime has ended he has returned to Chile to visit.

I asked him what it means to be a revolutionary.

He says it’s to make another world possible, where justice, solidarity and compassion is real for everyone, like in Cuba.

He said that in Cuba, despite 62 years of the US blockade they have free education and free health care.

”You know, and of course it’s a problem, but it’s not because they don’t want to make it better, it’s because of blockade; they don’t allow anything to come into Cuba,” he says.

He pointed out that before Pinochet, Chile’s president Allende was working for similar values. For example, he made education free before the coup.

Juan loves Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and Nelson Mandela.

”Mandela lived for 25 years in prison without seeing anyone, because he wants to change the world and change the condition of his people, who was oppressed by the apartheid,” Juan says. “You know, I’m the same. We don’t want to live under horrible dictatorship of Pinochet where our family or friends and neighbors was always treated horrible.”

He is happy living in Australia now, but said he is very critical of how they treat refugees and the aboriginal people.

”Even when (Australian prime minister) Kevin Rudd tried to apologise to them it was sort of flat and nothing more,” he says. “Injustice will be perpetual if we don’t change the world, or the country, to live in harmony and respect to each other and value the contribution to each other.”

While Juan and I were chatting they were packing up the bar, so we had to wrap up the interview pretty quickly. His last bit of advice for me was to look up a great revolutionary in Congo, the first prime minister. His name was Patrice Lumumba, and, before he was assassinated, he worked to change the conditions of his people.

I had never heard of him. How enlightening and insightful our brief chat was. I’m grateful to Juan for taking 10 minutes to talk with me, and also taking the time to share his beautiful poems with the poetry community of Newcastle.

Isn’t it fascinating how a casual night of poetry can get you thinking about injustice across the globe and the role each of us have to make it better?

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The story cracked me up, despite having lost valuable things in my life, often directly connected to my livelihood. I resonate with the farmer’s panicky feeling of the missing cows. Last week it took me five minutes combing my house before I found my wallet, in the pocket of a jacket I’d recently worn. Until I found it, my heart rate skyrocketed and my mind jumped to worst case scenarios.

When we read the story of the cows, we sheepishly laugh at the farmer’s misfortune, but in reality most of us are more like the farmer than the Buddha.

I romanticize the idea of owning as little as possible, although my cowboy boots begs to differ. Minimalist, I am not. I struggle to throw things out once I acquire them, too.

I really do want to reduce my possessions and attachments though!

I read No Mud, No Lotus because I’m trying to read all the books people have loaned/given to me so I can return them or pass them on. Lately I’ve been taking monthly trips to the thrift shops to donate various things cluttering what my partner has lovingly dubbed “the chaos room.” But giving away unwanted items is not a fair comparison to lost cows.

If I were really living the Buddha’s principle of non-attachment, tomorrow I would quit my job or my partner or give away all my money or GASP delete this Substack.

In the song “Rock Bottom,” the amazing country music star Wynonna Judd sings, “when you get down to nothing you have nothing to lose.” She had enlightenment figured out in the 90s, and she profoundly shaped my childhood.

Of course other passages in No Mud, No Lotus encourage loving relationships and meaningful work, but I bet the Buddha would totally endorse me giving away all my savings tomorrow. Soz Siddhartha, I’m not there yet.

It was a great book, quick and easy to read. I would love to give it away.

PS Here is the angry boat analogy to close, just in case one Buddhist parable wasn’t enough.

A monk is deep in peaceful meditation in a boat on a lake. Suddenly his meditation is interrupted by another boat crashing into his. He gets angry; he’s only human after all. He looks up to shout at the person who crashed into him, and then learns the boat is empty. From then on he understands that the anger he feels comes from within and is no one’s responsibility but his own.

(Maybe a fisherman was on the shore freaking out because he couldn’t find his boat, ha!)

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- Performing classic poems I’ve memorized.

- The annual 8 To Create Challenge which encourages creativity under time constraint. This is also what my Substack is.

My Substack is my biggest idea and challenge thus far, not because I’m a genius writer, but because I’ve never missed a week in four years of writing it, even if some weeks the quality is definitely better than others.

Does that feel a little boasty? Is this post examining my creative process just a total performative, horn-tootin’ fest that I should save for LinkedIn? Well damn y’all it’s now 6am on Tuesday morning and I’m still trying to pull this Substack together, so I can’t back out now!

When it comes to my creative process, I am comfortable with putting weird ideas into the world that might not be well received. That’s a big factor in how I get things done, I just don’t care that much what people think.

In a lot of my endeavors, I collaborate with a friend. We bounce ideas off each other and encourage each other throughout the work. This ideally makes any project more enjoyable.

(A Substack for another day is about how collaborating is risky. Every time you go into a creative project with someone, I suggest you consider what you might do if the friendship ends. That’s not to say you shouldn’t do it, but it is to say it’s always a possibility. It’s happened to me and to many creative people I know.)

But writing is a solitary activity which I enjoy in a different way. I love waking up knowing that I have a story to deliver by the end of the day. It can be stressful, yes, but I always pitch stories to editors that I genuinely want to write. Substack, while it doesn’t pay, does give me creative freedom to write whatever I want.

Sometimes I worry it’s too much freedom as I stroll down a meandering word path with the destination and conclusion vague. I often read my Substack to my sleepy partner at 11pm and he says “I have no idea what you are talking about, there is no point, and you need to start over.”

Yet more time does not always equal a better Substack. People have suggested that I do one Substack per month and just make it impeccably good, but knowing my creative process, I predict I would procrastinate until the night that it was due and then produce the same quality work, just less quantity. However, I do go back and reread and tweak my Substacks a few weeks/months after I’ve written them and then pitch them to new publications, which sometimes works!

I have promised myself that I will write every Monday night (or Tuesday morning) until I die. I put it out there, even when it’s bad, and pray I get better along the way. I could just write this all in my journal and not publicly publish it, but I doubt I’d keep it up. Substack is evidence that I’m committed. This is a record and a form of accountability that conveniently caters to my incessant need for attention.

I am not driven by the idea of lots of exhausting work. I am driven by a fun time and a deadline.

Ideas are best when they’re fresh in my head. Delays can make me question or give up on an idea. I should work on this. Years ago I told my friend Oliver I wanted to write a poem about socks. Every now and then he messages me asking where the sock poem is. I confess, Oliver, I do not want to write a poem about socks anymore. The sock spark has been snuffed out! It disappeared like a garment gone missing in the dryer. It’s lost like a bootee in the breeze!

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Charlotte pointed out in her closing remarks that laws don’t always work anyway.

In my last question I asked the guests what responses we can have to hate speech unrelated to legal system and passing laws.

Charlotte mentioned education, (teaching people not to hate) which is never a bad idea. But right now I’m preoccupied thinking about the recent New York Knicks basketball team win, which up until Sunday I was not following, at all. But when I watched the joyful responses in NYC it seemed infectious; it spread to the rest of the US and even the world.

For the first time in more than 50 years the Knicks won an NBA championship, injecting a huge wave of positivity into New Yorkers. I watched throngs of people singing “Empire State of Mind” at the top of their lungs. I scrolled through reel after reel of the bedlam and joy overtaking the city streets.

A man named MD Ahnaf Hossain went viral for a chant he made up on the spot.

@itsbingbotKnicks in 4 #nba #nbafinals #nbaplayoffs #knicks #newyorkknicks

”My Mayor’s Muslim
My bagel’s Jewish
My Christian Dior
Knicks in Four”

Think pieces and commentary instantly popped up everywhere discussing how the viral phrase brought people together in an incredibly divided time, how something as simple as a chant can unite humanity.

Can we combat awful words with good ones? Predictable platitudes and cliches spout generic positivity around darkness vs light and hate vs love, but as a wannabe poet, a horrifying rhymer and annoying alliterater, I urge you not to forget about the power of a catchy phrase. The opposite of propaganda is a poem. The opposite of hate speech is a message of love. The solution to bad talk is… good talk!

Below are more thoughts and observations on free speech and what it means. Here is a photo of pretty graffiti which begs questions around the laws of free speech.

No country has absolute free speech
In the lead up to the panel I read about hate speech court cases in Australia , and I further explored the first amendment in America. The US has some of the free-est freedom of speech laws in the world, although plenty of people across the political spectrum are concerned this is changing. But some people want more restrictions on speech. Here’s a fascinating article from Time Magazine about the first amendment.

Samantha Barbas writes:
”According to polls, nearly half of Americans, or even more than half, support official restrictions on hate speech. Advocates of hate speech laws argue that society is more endangered by hate speech than by limitations on it, although there is no evidence that hate speech laws have been effective in the U.S. or anywhere else in the world.”

Even progressive countries have restrictions around speech. If you spread lies publicly, you can get sued. You can’t shout into a loudspeaker after dark in urban areas. It’s illegal to lie to the police. I was once on a plane to Sydney from LA that the pilot turned around three hours in because someone intoxicatingly used words to accuse another passenger of having a bomb. The threat was bs, but the accusation added seven hours to my already long journey. It was a powerful, memorable and personal example of the real consequences that can come from the words.

American Free Speech Cases are fascinating
I’m conflicted over several high profile freedom of speech/hate speech stories in the US including the renowned ACLU case from 1978 when a Jewish lawyer defended the rights of Nazis to march in the street of a Jewish neighborhood in Skokie Illinois: “The Bill of Right is our client,” the ACLU explained. I’ve followed more recent cases like when Michelle Carter, the young woman from Massachusetts, convinced her boyfriend to kill himself via text. In Tennessee earlier this year the government eventually paid a retired police officer nearly one million dollars after he was unfairly thrown in jail for his online posts about Charlie Kirk’s death. Who will ever forget Donald Trump getting kicked off Twitter? Everyone had opinions on the teenagers from a Catholic high school in Kentucky and their interaction with a Native American in front of the Lincoln Memorial, but fewer people kept up with the defamation cases that followed.

Australian cases are interesting too!
On the panel we discussed Israel Foloa, an Australian Rugby player (and Christian), fired by the league for posting about how hell awaited homosexuals, drunks, fornicators etc. We spoke about how police put a man in jail for sporting a Nazi tattoo at a Newcastle beach. I learned about a recent “Ditch The Witch” billboard campaign in Victoria which offended plenty of people who said it was sexist.

Last week I was glued to the hysteria surrounding an Australian content creator/ aspiring comedian. She shared a video about herself, a white woman transitioning into being Aboriginal. She said it was satire but many others said was hateful, dangerous rhetoric. Instagram, a private company, took down the video at least twice, and she quickly lost her job over the sketch. But I couldn’t stop mulling over how much money people raised for her via go-fund-me after she was “cancelled.” Even if you give her the absolute benefit of the doubt and presume she was making fun of white Australians attempting to take away from legitimate and deserving First Nations Australians, the pseudonyms and comments from the people donating to her campaign told a chilling, different story. She might not be filled with hate, but her fans unquestionably are. If we had the time on Saturday night, I would have loved to ask the panelists their thoughts on the video.

In Waffly Conclusion
Each panelist had a different opinion as to which words and phrases were a bridges too far. That’s the hard thing about sizing up speech. Who gets to decide what is or isn’t said?

We founded Common Ground on the idea that people with conflicting views have the rights to not only speak, but also to be heard. The line you draw around free speech will always be blurry, and we can learn from complicated examples.

I’m grateful for the first amendment, even if it’s not always enforced. Maybe one day similar laws might be enacted in Australia and beyond.

I’ll sign off with a quote from English author Evelyn Beatrice Hall who was summarizing Voltaire:

”I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

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That annoys me as well though. Why do people need any kind of sign to do the right thing?! We should all just be good. Years ago my friend Ivey presented me with the shopping cart theory, which explains not only why most people in society are fairly well-behaved but also why a few bad apples ruin the bunch.

I shared it in my Instagram stories and my friend Laura responded, “but when it’s raining outside, we all become animals.” Lol.

At the end of this Substack I have written some politeness tips based on my life experiences, but it does get complicated. In general, the golden rule is golden, is it not? “Treat others the way you would like to be treated.” But in my early 20s, my friend and mentor Karen shared another concept that blew my mind. The platinum rule: treat others the way they want to be treated.

I thought about this on Friday night as I sat in the car with Soph (who politely and generously) had given me a lift home. After my vacation last month and waiting on a few payments, I was overjoyed that some money had finally come through to my bank account. Later that night I was taking my partner out for a fancy meal, Jana Bar, to do something nice for him as he has been feeding me and ordering me lots of Uber Eats these past few weeks while I had been tight as hell with money. Sophie noted that it was indeed a very nice (and expensive) restaurant. Then it dawned on me that while I’ve been thinking about being kind and polite lately, taking Josh out to a nice meal is actually what I want to do. Josh doesn’t mind to go out, but if I wanted to generously be kind and loving based on the platinum rule I should have bought him some weird cool old gadget that he could play with, as that is actually what he really loves.

This is very on trend in our relationship. When it comes to gifts, I always buy him trips to places, and he always buys me practical things like a coffee maker or headphones. We’re like the opposite of the couple in The Gift of The Magi.

So anyway, clearly I am not as polite, kind and generous as I would like to be, but I do think I comprehend the rules of engagement. Without spending years refining and reflecting on how to have good manners as a nice feminist without becoming a subservient tradwife, here are some tips, in theory, I would like to live by.

1. Say please and thank you as much as you can.

2. In a workforce or in everyday life, ask people to help rather than telling them.

3. Try not to take things personally, in the workforce or in everyday life.

4. Offer to help. If you have the capacity to help, do so, whether it is washing dishes or helping someone get on the bus. Look for ways to be of assistance.

5. If someone feels that you have hurt or wronged them, apologize immediately. Even if you think they are over-reacting, or you are in the right, a few words of remorse and acknowledgement go a long way.

6. When meeting anyone for the first time, offer to get the drinks/coffee, if you can afford to do so. If you can’t afford to do so, consider inviting them for a stunning walk or showing them a cool place. Try to do something generous that will benefit their time.

7. In conversations, ask questions. Listen more than you talk. Even in the most god-awful boring topic, there is something interesting that you can ask about. Challenge yourself to find the compelling angle. Do not disengage and look at your phone. (Also I regularly break this rule. These are ideals, folks!)

8. When you like something about someone, tell them. Their style, their personality, their hot body, etc. ;)

9. Always bring something to a gathering, even if it just chocolates or tea.

10. If you can afford to be generous with your friends, do so. Ideally they will remember your kindness and return the favor but even if they don’t, just be generous because it is the right thing to do. I recommend reading Seneca’s On Benefits to explore this more. *I am obnoxiously good at keeping tabs on who owes me what. I dislike this about myself, and I am trying to get better about it. If I were a truly generous person I would just give selflessly at all times. I think I just need to make more money so I can give it all away to the people I love and not keep a running tally.

11. When someone you care about is suffering, reach out. It is hard to always know how to say the right thing, but it is better to reach out than to not. A helpful thing to say is “would you like a hug?” or “You are not alone.”

12. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Hanlon’s Razor is helpful when I am at odds with someone: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

13. The digital world of politeness is different than in person. There is etiquette related to response time, leaving people on read, commenting on posts, watching stories, the group chat etc. Digital etiquette changes fast, and I am no expert. But the above list, to a degree, can be applied. Say please, thank you and try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Emails generally have a different sense of urgency to any social media message. One can be rude by not getting back to someone, but also please see this fabulous article from The Guardian last year: I’m not ignoring your message – I’m overwhelmed by the tyranny of being reachable.

14. No matter how kind and generous you are, no matter how impeccable your manners, try not to judge and keep your expectations low. No one owes you anything, and everyone is going through stuff you know nothing about.

15. Last but not least, remember unasked for advice is seldom appreciated, so if this list annoyed you, I do apologize. ;)

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Classic Beauties
When someone buys her drinks or swoons in the street, what else can she say while giggling at the absurdity, but “it's just genetics."
For a pleasant portion of her life, she'll sit in her powder room,
showered by the blessings and curses of her heart-breaking body,
her show-stopping stare and her jaw-dropping power.

Little-waisted women have a harder time with morality,
being good, that is.
Some actions tell us less about character and more about opportunities.
The proverbial angel and devil on each shoulder wait in mirrors as sinister suggestions and innocent ideas.

She gets away with murder and more
cause she can.

Soft
spewing pixie dust
phantoms of babes in swaddling cloth
a coat hanger and the mother motif
serpents, sex and good ol’ Victorian chastity
think it’s time to throw myself gracefully off the bridge of feminine expectations,
swim with the sharks until
they smell my blood

An interest in ourselves
Today one of the kids at the gallery asked us
”Why are so many people naked in art?”
We, the wise adults, tried to explain in a language young people would understand,
that the human form has always been imitated and replicated, that it reflects an interest in ourselves, which, tonight, now that I’m thinking back on it, is most of art anyway, is it not?
The boy was unimpressed. He said it was “disgusting.”
Then a girl piped up, shyly, slyly, said that she loves to draw the female form.
I think of them both, and the male gaze, and the divine, and the defaced and how sometimes the best pieces make people squirm.
”There’s no wrong way to feel in the art gallery,” I always say.
The same work that makes one kid’s skin crawl
makes another one want to draw.

Hideout
your memories are monsters
the present is a mystery
the future isn’t real
the past will always find you
no matter the disguise

Thanks to Heidi, Chelsea, Kate, Luke and the rest of the great artists in the exhibition for your hard work and talent. If you live in Newcastle and would like to see these masterpieces in the flesh, the exhibition is on until June 28th.

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The Omelette
It was a Saturday or maybe a Sunday morning in 2009 in Washington, DC. I was 22. I had moved into a sharehouse weeks before and that morning I had been to the gym in the office building where I had just started my new internship. The gym was one of the perks of my new employer. It was a perfect sunny day, and a chill in the air instantly cooled my sweating body. Fall was on its way. I must have just received my first paycheck and, blissfully, could afford a greasy omelet at a little corner diner near my work. I paid something like $8 and sat at a little table on the sidewalk, gazing out at the quiet street. Downtown DC tends to be sleepier on the weekends; many residents work in town during the week but live on the outskirts of the city. I seasoned my breakfast and thought about how it was a nice day in a new city I’d just moved to. For the first time in my life I was completely independent, paying my own bills and answering to no one but myself. A new feeling simmered in my belly as I dug in hungrily. I was on my own, alive and invincible.

Unconventional Dreams
I was in Italy with a friend who I had inadvertently fallen in love with. We had teased each other when we met in the US, but I was never sure how I felt about him. Suddenly, in his home turf where he spoke the language, had friends, knew the culture, the food, everything, and I was foreign, he was the boss. I had gone to visit not knowing if I would want him and then was shocked by my own intoxicating demanding desire. We went to Venice for the day but missed the early trains out. We took a late night train back to his town. I sat across from him and listened to two men speak Italian in the mostly empty carriage. I looked out the window and spotted a full moon. I thought about how I was leaving soon, and how I might never see him again (I haven’t). Here I was, newly graduated from college but never really having a serious relationship. It was becoming evident that I was not following the typical trajectory some expected me to pursue, especially with my upbringing and religion. So many people had visions of who I should be. I kept an eye on the moon which was along for my journey under this unfamiliar sky. It watched me, amused and unconcerned. I felt terrified at the truth I was facing and a future I was chasing. But also I found an odd peace in the loneliness and hope in this awareness of who I was. I wanted to pursue a life of unconventional dreams, even if I didn’t quite understand what they were.

Slipping
Behind the green counter of a bookshop in Australia, I stood by the register. Only a few customers were in the store, and none of them had a clue that my universe as I knew it was ending. Twenty seven and failing spectacularly in my first long-term relationship, I had moved out of our house and was bumming around with friends. It was just weeks after the breakup, and my family were shocked, devastated and far away in the US. I got through my days in a fog, feeling intense bouts of everything and nothing. Yet it was also educational. I had discovered a new superpower: I could convince everyone around me I was totally fine! In fact, many colleagues and friends hadn’t even noticed my life had drastically changed.

My best friend witnessed my only public moment of slipping; she was with me and other girlfriends at a park. We were about to do a hike, and I got anxious. I couldn’t understand what was happening, maybe I needed to eat? Someone had some bread, and she and I went to the public toilet. Not the most sanitary place for a snack, but really we went because I needed privacy. I was cracking. Damp sunlight leaked through the bathroom rafters as I leaned against the gross, cold concrete wall, heaving, gasping and crying. I was guilt-racked and wrecked. But then we came out and carried on. Nothing to see here.

Days later, during that slow morning at the bookshop, I opened every book on a shelf, looking for distractions from myself and my present reality. A prologue to one book suddenly yanked me out of my gloom. I wish I could remember the exact words. It was just a few paragraphs, about destruction and rubble and what comes from it. How cathedrals and cities rise up from chaos and that chaos is a part of natural order. Chaos is a part of everything. I read and reread it, remembering why I always wanted to be a writer. Words can be a lifeline. I wish I could remember them verbatim. I stood in the bookshop, waiting to greet customers, just another day at work. Pillars in my life were dissolving, but the Alex facade remained pretty damn solid. Collapse is natural, inevitable, and in my case, necessary. I was gonna have to fake it through the fog.

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Bitches be vindictive…
if you love my presence
as you claim
then my absence
will bring you pain
and if my silence
gives you peace
then may you have
a lengthy, ugly
life of grief

I love you the way a pretty girl loves her phone

the way a drunk loves the first glimpse of the bar

I love you the way a child loves his mama on the first day of daycare

the way the farmer loves the sky as the heavens finally open and the parched crops drink

I love you like a lunatic loves the voices, like a photographer loves Tokyo, like a poet loves the moon, like the sinners love something bigger than themselves

my love is as lonesome as the minor key, as light as sunrise and as dead as the oldest man in the graveyard

my love sings on a blue porch swing
hymns for other hearts nearby
for any one or thing who might accept
this imaginary heady, heavy love
that is mine alone to carry.

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Australians are often amused at the way I can still recite the pledge of allegiance. (I started my school day with it every morning from kindergarten well into my high school years.) A New Orleans girls’ choir sang the “Star Spangled Banner” last weekend at Jazz Fest. The crowd intuitively stood and some put their hands on their heart; that’s what is done where we are from. Even in Trump’s America that many believe is damned to hell, I don’t hate the American flag, and I don’t hate American pride.

I don’t hate America either. I have liked it less and more at certain points in my life. Some things I have never loved about America, like our government’s eternal imperialistic tendencies. People often talk about the current administration meddling in other countries’ affairs, like it’s exclusively a Trump thing. Are you kidding me? Imperialism is as American as apple pie.

During my last few weeks in the States, I would speak with Americans of a certain political persuasion, and they predictably reiterated to me how lucky I was to be in Australia right now. They aren’t wrong. Yes, I am lucky to be in Australia, but also, I’m just lucky. Maybe it’s my cheerful disposition or other factors out of my hands, but I love the universe and in return it looks out for me. Knock on a paperbark tree and sing praises to naively-raised-me who knows that most folks are kind and have good intentions.

Hornsby is on the horizon and I can’t wait for the train to go across the Hawkesbury River, at which point I’ll listen to some some cowgirl music and look wistfully out the window. I love Australia; I love America too. Matter of fact, I love every place I’ve ever been. As I stood in the customs line to transit through to Sydney in the Fiji airport, I was the lone passenger to cheer for the two ukulele-playing airport workers who sang in their native language at 6am for the weary travellers. It’s never too early to extend a welcome.

My delusional imagination allows me to pretend to be the heroine in my own life, to tune into the details that I want to, like little American flags dotting SUVs at the car dealership and orange leaves by the train tracks.

A three hour train ride nudges even the most practical of people towards reflection and retrospection.

My mind wanders towards my last week in the States and how my brother and I attended church with my parents last Sunday. I went to atone for all the drinking and dancing I was doing the week before in Nashville and New Orleans. My brother probably went because I was going. It was nice to be there, the four of us in the pew together like we used to do, when Zach and I were growing up.

The amazing poet and writer Darby Hudson said on one of his podcasts that many writers repeat themselves, reiterating one idea in different ways, and how that’s okay. I felt relief listening to him say those things. As I look out into the valleys and lakes and the Lantana, I recognize that most of my writing could be drilled down into three themes: where we’re from, where we’re going and how we’re getting there.

My Gran, rest her soul, her voice regularly pops up in my head. I hear her extolling Dolly Parton. One of the reasons she loved her so much was, no matter how famous she got, “she never forgot where she came from.”

Yeah, I got some issues with it, but I don’t hate America. The longer I live and the longer I’m gone the more my past defines and intrigues me.

Imagine telling 22-year-old Alex as she boarded the flight to Melbourne, “you think you know who you are and where you’re going but, baby girl, you don’t have a clue!”

(There’s a fourth theme I regularly write about, how I’m an idiot.)

Nearly 100 American flags on the way to the Nashville Airport, surely more if you got off the interstate. Now as my train leaves Morisset Station I am almost done with the 100 mile journey from Sydney to Newcastle.

Thomas Wolfe said “You can’t go home again” but also home is where the heart is. This lucky, tired heart of mine is just another fool in a state of flux on another train somewhere, missing where I’ve been and wondering where I’m going.

PS My wonderful brother made a button, so that kind folks with money to spare can tip me at their leisure without feeling the pressure to regularly pay! Thanks Zach!

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In the bayous, the bars and the mausoleums of deep Louisiana dwells a spirit different from everywhere else in the US. It hangs like the Spanish moss on the oak trees and the beads on the balconies. It lights some folks up like the hand-crafted gas lanterns that still burn every night. It’s the architecture, the distinct sounds of horns from both street performers and steamboats, the reverence towards spooky, vampires and voodoo, the dedication to debauchery, the French phrases, the courtyards, the cameras on every street corner, the National Guard walking in threes, the strong police presence, the intoxication, the disorder, the downtrodden, the trolley cars and relatively reliable public transportation that gets you further than any other southern public transit system will. I was there for ten days this last time, partially because I had a press pass to Jazz Fest, partially to see girlfriends, and partially because I love how, in this city, I can sit on a park bench for hours smelling the heavy jasmine just watching, watching, watching.

How many times in one day will you see the Fleur-de-lis of French royalty, as you stroll down the old, strange-to-pronounce streets of the most populous city in one of the poorest states in America?

I know, I know I sound like the most stereotypical of tourists. Last week was my third time here as an adult, and the novelty is yet to wear off. After nights of sitting on barstools sipping Sazeracs and eating fried pickles and bread pudding, I can see how the tourists could easily get on locals’ nerves.

So many things beyond Bourbon Street intrigue me. Separate Substacks will come dedicated to the art galleries and then the musicians.

In 2023 when I turned 36 in New Orleans alongside having my own private birthday party, I met up with a local woman who worked with at-risk youth. A drink with her on a picturesque white-columned porch reminded me that the charms that seduced me personally are completely out of reach to many people who actually live around here.

During my visit this time around, I watched a reality TV show in my hotel room on Sunday morning called “Louisiana Lockdown”, all about the lives of inmates and staff at Angola, America’s largest and most notorious maximum-security penitentiary, located in Louisiana. I learned that for many men growing up in this State, going through Angola was a right of passage. Fascinated and sad, I wondered about the ethics of producing the show and if it was popular around here. Part of me wondered if this might be something positive, deterring future people from getting locked up. Part of me worried I was watching it for the wrong reasons.

The show came out over ten years ago, but Louisiana is still the second most incarcerated state per capita in America, just after Mississippi.

The experience of riding the bus to the University of New Orleans was just as interesting as the pretty campus and the classes I sat in on. Never have I seen so many people with visible disabilities regularly board the bus or the trolley, and also with such willing and compassionate drivers who helped buckle people in and assist them. I have read that time slows down in New Orleans, and it’s apparent in the way the public transport drivers halt everything to make sure people get on and off okay.

On my way to Jazz Fest Friday morning I got the trollies and buses confused and rushed across the street to try to get the correct bus. I waved emphatically while crossing the street, but the bus driver ignored me. A kind young woman crossing the street beside me saw my distress and screamed out at the top of her lungs, “HEY, WAIT FOR HER!” The bus slammed on brakes and let on a grateful Alex. “Thank you so much,” I said sheepishly to the driver.

“I see you had somebody vouchin’ for you,” he said with a grin nodding at the girl.

I chatted with anyone who would let me, from the guests by the pool (also in for Jazz Fest) to the people behind the counters of restaurants, bars and liquor stores, who seemed generally less enthusiastic about having a heart-to-heart, with the exception of one long-bearded man at a liquor store. He explained to me in detail how he was recovering from a black eye he received last week from a “hoodrat” who came into his store. My mouth dropped as I listened to his recount, how he doesn’t usually believe in hitting women but after the third time she attacked him it was very hard for him to restrain. By the time the police came she and her crew were gone, and he showed me his patched up glasses she’d stomped on the floor. I asked him if he was okay. He shrugged as he bagged my wine, “what can ya do?”

I browsed $120 rooster feather earrings and bejewelled cowboy boots that would make Dolly Parton jealous. Oh how friendly people are when they think you might buy their product. I came to New Orleans with a budget for booze and beignets and that’s about it, but at a night market on Frenchman Street a woman with the most glittery lips I’d ever seen told me that I could either buy her sparkly lipstick or the book she was also selling about her and other Black women’s stories, Sister to Sister Black Women Speak to Young Black Women. My heart cracked and my cheap resolve failed as I handed her the cash and she handed me the book, which she kindly signed. Later that night my girlfriend Laura and I sat at a nearby bar taking turns reading snippets of the book while a band also played.

“This is so sad.” she said while she read.

But there is clearly joy, of course! If I ever became a musician, New Orleans would be the first place I would move. Jazz Fest was an educational experience in and of itself, introducing me to the music of New Orleans, not just better familiarizing me with the big headliners like Jon Batiste, but also the choir groups from the Gospel Tent or the deeply respected acts like the Mardi Gras Indians who performed several times at the Jazz & Heritage stages.

The moments of spontaneity could never happen anywhere else. I’ve loved New Orleans for a long time but “jazz fan” I don’t know if I would call myself. However I was transformed after I received an impromptu instrument lap dance/horn serenade of sorts from an (at least) 6-piece band playing at a bar on Frenchman Street. They pulled me to the front of their stage, sat me on a chair and blasted their horns and sang while a crowd screamed encouragement. Growing up I judged the kids in the marching band as dorks, compared to the more sophisticated members of the orchestra like myself, but in this moment I saw those instruments and their players in a different light. Aerophones can be sexy as hell.

My girlfriends and I danced on balconies and people threw beads at me! Laura and I got thin green, gold and purple strands from a day parade below on Decatur Street.

Later that week as Ivey and I danced in the rain on the Bourbon Street balcony of Huge Ass Beer bar, a couple across the street on a different balcony sent fat pearly white beads flying. That night as we left Bourbon street, new women were dancing on the same balcony, and I did my best to throw my hard-earned beads to them. I’m better at catching than throwing.

On Friday Ivey and I drank Bloody Marys and ate deep fried devilled eggs on the wrap around porch of the Audobon Clubhouse, a country club by a beautiful park. The rain let loose in a way I’d never seen in New Orleans. As it poured off the roof in sheets it felt like a drizzly, dreamy day deep in dixieland, but then I thought about Katrina and how, if you know about New Orleans, you know the threat of storms are anything but picturesque. I remembered a steamboat cruise I took in 2023. On the way to Chalmet Battlefield, the tour guide broadcasted throughout the ship stories of the New Orleans’ colonial history. Then on the way back you could hear the history of Katrina. If you didn’t want to be reminded of the hurricane that killed over 1,000 people, you could sit inside the dining area where they muted the tale. At the Ogden Gallery of Southern Art last Saturday one of the labels said “Louisiana loses an area of land the size of a football field every 30 minutes to coastal erosion due to both man made intervention and natural disaster.”

This morning The Guardian published a story on how New Orleans will be fully underwater within the next century and I thought, as many do, ‘surely there must be a way to prevent this, especially in this city!’

On the first day of Jazz Fest Jon Batiste talked with interviewer David Fricke of being from New Orleans and how it means both being rooted in ancestral traditions and also on the cutting edge. Jon spoke to the audience about how music and history are constantly evolving and becoming something new based on the old. “Nobody knows who originally wrote ‘St James Infirmary’,” he told us. I thought I didn’t know the song, but the next day at the Fest I heard New-Orleans-born Jazz singer Wendell Brunious introduce the song and realized that I did know it. I’d heard it many times in my life and could even sing along.

That’s what coming to New Orleans feels like, every time I return, like things are here that my heart knows even if my mind doesn’t. Like others who fall in love with this place, I feel a resilient beauty lies deeply in this sinking city. I want desperately to lift it up.

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I tell him I live in Australia but am originally from South Carolina. As we chat, it becomes less about selling his artwork and more about our purpose in life. Tony and his wife are a unit, a power couple it seems. He’s worked hard all his life, first in Guatemala, then Mexico, 40-60 hour weeks, and now he loves his life in America. Their adult son is also taking on an entrepreneurial venture with video games here in Louisiana.

He asks me about my lifestyle in America vs Australia. I explain the benefits; we have free health care and the minimum wage is much higher, but the US feels more expensive when I return to visit. He tells me when his wife quit her day job to paint it changed their trajectory in life, how her making art was the best thing she ever did. Now they can sell one or two of her paintings and live off it for months.

He couldn’t be prouder for the life they have made here in a beautiful gallery in the arts district in downtown New Orleans. His Spanish accent is thick and endearing; he speaks with pride. Their life is an immigrants’ fairy tale.

”I think about moving back to the US sometimes,” I say.

He asks me if I have kids, a husband? I have a partner, no kids. I tell him about the various jobs I do in Australia, (all of which I love). He’s listening, but he already knows what I should do.

“Listen, baby, you were born in the United States. You are an American girl, and that is gold!”

He repeats himself, convinced this is the land of opportunity and prosperity. It has been a long time since I have heard anyone talk about how great the US is and how much money can be made here. It was not what I expected to hear from a man selling his wife’s art. He doesn’t realize that money has never been my main priority anyway. But, also, living off your flower paintings sounds like a pretty dreamy gig.

I appreciate his enthusiasm. His narrative is the opposite of anyone’s I speak with about the United States these days. He tells me, some people leave the US to go live somewhere else because they want to pay less taxes.

“That is not me.”

”No no, that is not you. You listen to me, I’m telling you, you can have a moment with a stranger like me, and it can change everything!”

He presumes, perhaps, that this exchange will be my epiphany, my great turning point. I grin. If he only knew how many times I have considered all these things.

I thank him for his time, say bye and continue walking. I remember a conversation I once had on a plane from Raleigh to Phoenix with two Arizonian women 20 years my senior. One told me that immigrants are some of the most patriotic Americans you’ll ever meet.

Tony’s enthusiasm hovers around me for the next few hours. I go on to the Ogden Gallery of Southern Art and, like the musicians at Jazz Fest, I am impressed by these Southern creative people and what they are capable of. In the gallery I read the stories of many artists who overcame adversity. They have made history and will be forever revered, regardless of how they felt about being an American.

I leave the Ogden later that afternoon, strolling around the block, a typical tourist. The Gallery is across the street from the World War II Museum, and from the outside it looks huge and imposing. A man calls out to me as I walk past, and I look back. He is in his 50s, Black, thin, unkempt and asking for help. I struggle to understand him and come closer. He’s a veteran. He has his papers out to prove it, two ratty folded up documents covered in a plastic shield. I wonder how many people had walked past him before and doubted him. Why did he feel it necessary to prove himself? I have no small bills. I offer to go into the cafe to get him food, but he informs me that the cafe is closed. He says he is hungry; he wants eggs, bread, he lists more foods. I feel guilty and ashamed for not helping, as I often do when strangers ask for money. With no words left, I keep walking. He calls out asking if I have alcohol in my bag. It‘s just my half empty bottle of water which I offer to him and he accepts. It is a hot afternoon.

I wonder what the vet would say to Tony about America being the greatest place to make something of yourself. I wonder what Tony would say to him.

Feeling useless, naive and sad, I keep walking down the street, strolling past the elaborate World War II Museum again, that millions of dollars have no doubt gone into. My mind brims with thoughts of wonderful art, necessary money and three random humans here in New Orleans, living three very different realities.

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Country music singer songwriter Gleny Rae is a woman after my own heart. I first learned about her over ten years ago, when The Newcastle Herald asked me to do a story about the Karuah Music Festival, a little bluegrass festival up the road. Gleny was involved, and before I even heard her sing, I knew I liked her. She was fun and spunky. From then on I tried to keep up with her, as she travelled around the country/world. I saw her at the 2018 Woodford Folk Festival with her playboys.

Gleny Rae is 55, and I love the way she intentionally lives her life.

Last Saturday night she returned to Newcastle and played a free gig in my neighborhood in the Underground at the Grand Hotel. She played diverse and lively sets with local talent, doing songs from her newest album, Momentum.

Gleny was busy getting ready for her show, but I got a few minutes here and there to interview her. She’s also playing at the Gumball Festival this weekend, so if you haven’t seen her yet, this weekend is a great time to do so!

”I played at Gumball a few times, but usually it’s a bluegrass breakfast, at a very painful nine o’clock in the morning. I don’t know why bluegrass and breakfast go together, but it does. It’s good as long as the stage is near the coffee cart, you’ve got a captive audience, even though they’re hungover. But I’m so excited to be there with a big band to be launching my album,” she says.

Momentum is her fourth album and she recorded it in Australia and the US. With a bit of old and new, one side is all bluegrass and folk, and that’s called “this side.” and then her the new direction is called “the other side.”

This year at Gumball she’ll be playing at 1:55pm on Sunday, so she and her fans can finally get a sleep in.

Gleny plays multiple instruments and sings. Her love for music started when she was living in central New South Wales near a little town called Nyngan, on a property. Her parents were sheep graziers and her “mum’s mum” was a beautiful pianist.

”I got my first love of music from a Catholic nun by the name of Sister Timothy, and we were driving into Nyngan, 110k every Friday, and I’d have violin, piano, singing, theory, cups of tea. She was beautiful,” Gleny says.

She kept pursuing music. She decided that classical music was too lonely and too elitist, so she started exploring blues, gypsy jazz and folk.

”And then I discovered the country music. I lived up in Darwin and worked with a girl called Tracey Bunn in a band called The Toe Sucking Cowgirls. We toured around for about five years. And then I came back to Newcastle, and the bluegrass festival was just kicking off,” she says.

The festival pushed her to get into the bluegrass genre. The first year she performed, and then she helped organise food, to improve the options for vegetarians. She brought in home grown food straight from her family’s farm. From there she got “sucked into the vortex” and eventually became the director.

Later she felt like it was time for a change and she moved to Alice Springs. She was looking for a teaching job above the Tropic of Capricorn. She fell in love with the remote desert town of 25,000 people. She took a job with the NT Music School and continued playing gigs.

”I play in an orchestra, a string quartet, in a bush band. I play in my own band. You know, the first group that I ended up playing with there was King Marong, an African band. So, and then I met all these amazing horn players, and that kind of pushed me down this track to get a few more horn players,” she says.

The second half of her Saturday gig featured several horn players, which got the audience up and dancing!

But when she’s asked for her instrument of choice, she always returns to the fiddle.

”It’s got a unique sound. It’s the closest in timbre to the female voice, so there’s something about that. When you hear the violin, and a lot of people, they just go all gooey.” she says.

I can relate.

Musicians like Liz Stringer and Willie Nelson inspire her.

”I like to talk about Gillian Welsh and David Rawlings, because I just love the way they stay so true to everything that they represent, that they speak of, and the way they can hold the room and speak to everybody, even in the quietest way. I’ve learned so much from watching them and listening to their music, I love them, and the complexity and simplicity, the emotion that they can convey with just two voices and two instruments,” she says.

She mentioned Newcastle musicians she loves like Su Morley and new up-and-coming bluegrass bands like Midnight Chicken. (I too am a massive fan of Midnight Chicken. One of their fiddle players, Naomi Jones and I co-organised the Carrington Folk Festival in 2024.)

We spoke about similarities between Americana and Australiana music. She’s played at the Americana Music Association in Nashville. She said simply singing with an Australian accent makes the music Australiana.

”I was terrified, because I thought, ‘here I am trying to play western swing and American country music, they’re going to be in an Australian accent and songs about Australia, they’re going to think I’m fraud’,” Gleny says.

But that was not the case. She found American audiences really “get it.”

”They’re very well educated. They understand the complexities of the music and where it comes from,” she says.

Gleny plans to keep teaching and making music in Alice for a few more years while living with her dear three-legged border collie, Ziggy. She has projects she needs to finish. She helps run the Top Half Folk Festival, and in two years time she plans to do the handover, so someone else can take over. Then she’ll keep on moving, true to her troubadour lifestyle.

After Alice, she wants to work and live in a non-English speaking country for a year. I’m so inspired and happy to have had the chance to chat with her last weekend. What a cool way to live this one precious life we have!

Good luck on everything you get into, Gleny!

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