Dylan And Donovan – 2nd September 2025

Emo sisters to a nostalgic Dad,
lost, revisiting Highway 61;
he loves his old groovy shirts,
but loves his eye-rolling daughters more;

Having once lived the hippie dream,
ending up in a suburban schism,
looking for some form of connection
with those unable to express affection;

Excitement must be kept a secret
withheld for a diaries’ pages,
and those milestones maintained
as mundane as a microwave meal;

It wasn’t what was expected;
Isn’t this the good life once sold?
Is there anything new since the 90s?
No comprehension of what went wrong.

Inspired after reading the titular Adrian Tomine piece from Optic Nerve, from which a panel is included above.

It’s just the rising tide of mediocrity, just a sign of the times – 19 September 1994

Stratosphere, Ionosphere, Semisphere! Up here I can see the stars, I’m touching space with my iris, black drunk peehole iris. Europe’s mighty murky down below, I’m stuck in the sun, still on alcholiday. Could be fuckin’ anything down there. We could be time warped back one whole week and we’ll meet our previous selves in a 30,000 feet mid air collision at 580 miles per hour. In the sun! In space, man!

How can I ever dream to read every word ever wrote by anybody ever worth a shit? How do we dream – such strange dreams, more and more my dreams touch reality, particularly when reality is so far removed from normal humdrum, but when, at what point does being away from humdrum become normalcy?

So I think to write to Lou, never wrote him before, but I have an idea after seeing him smash his favourite guitar in rage and whatever I can’t face how his simple songs touched hearts of thousands who come to pray at his altar now, so I’ll tell him of my holiday, how people have to exist on the double edged sword I was explaining to you about before remember? Economy of tourists. So I’ll tell him go out and play, play your music, for yourself, play what you want to hear, for yourself, all others are superfluous, ignore them. He loves us, he told us, sad man, we love him, once again, it’s all life isn’t it?


So, what I’m trying to say. Me and Broni, have worked out is, consumerism – see the connection, don’t sell out to the people who want to pay, do it for your own reasons. Greece, our island, is sold out, presenting us with what we want to see, catering to the big market, but we’re (Me and Broni), we’re small fish.


8th Jan 2021 – Bronwyn and I went to the island of Rhodes in Greece for a quick holiday. This was only the third time in my life I’d been on an airplane and only two weeks later I would be on another couple more for a 23-hour journey to the opposite side of the world!

On Rhodes we messed around on hired motorbikes, saw some ruins and historic buildings. As the Greeks seem to love to eat meat with everything I was stuck with Greek Salad for many lunches and dinners. Ho Hum.

It was damn hot too. Nice preparation for arrival in Australia. We slept with no sheets, even moving the mattress onto the balcony one night. The hotel was my first experience with toilets where you weren’t allowed to throw your toilet paper down the toilet. It was this experience that got me more closely checking what was going on down there in the cleanliness department.

We were drunk every evening, definitely experimenting with the local Ouzo. The nearest beach to the hotel was huge and deserted and mostly pebble. I got naked – why not? There was no one else around to see my little dick.

At the main beach we didn’t know that we were supposed to pay someone to sit under an umbrella and we laid our towels out away from them and Bronwyn got into water for a swim. She soon came back due to two little kids that had been sent by the umbrella owners and started throwing stones at her in the water. Jesus – they don’t fuck around for a dollar. We packed up and left and that kinda summed up much of our feeling about the island.

Rhodes

One thing Bronwyn warned me about was the beaches and oceans in Australia. Everyone loves to go there but they can be very dangerous especially for poor swimmers. Having skipped swimming classes at school for most of my life (we had to pay for swimming lessons at school and I told my mum that it was too expensive for us and to save her money but really I was just body shy) Bronwyn taught a few basic things about swimming – most Aussies appear to be good at swimming – and by the end of the week stay at the hotel I was easily doing the five metre widths in the pool! OK – we have to start somewhere.

Hotel Pool

We bought ourselves and our friends some souvenirs but the bottle of Ouzo we had wrapped in towels and clothes and packed in our suitcase didn’t survive the journey and we sadly washed our clothes when we got back home. That suitcase would soon be packed again.

The time is so little, the time belongs to us – 28th June 1994

The Chase

What a sad affair yesterday’s entry was but now it is written the emotion has passed. If you’d like to know, writing things down helps you to sort things out, makes things clear – hell, you probably know all this already.

But now let me tell you about the sky. Oh sweet sky, sapphire desire. Last night I happen to glimpse the sky at what must’ve been a quintessential moment in time, just as Saturn went through Jupiter (or some such nonsense). I could see miles onto the horizon where the blue was hazy, light and white, like a faded blue, sunbleached by time. And up, slowly becoming substantial, deepening, a brief flurry of fluffy white and on and up til oh, so deep the colour, like eyes, big, deep pools of the vivescense (if there is no such word – imagine it, goddamn) and my breath was taken away. I looked and looked and loved and my attitude changed. I filled up on good feelings and daydreamt about Australia and blue and water and life. Soon these dreams will turn into reality – easy!

Well, besides these things I can tell you the following that destiny threw at me and I faced proud and strong (god, Shaun, you are dramatic). Here’s some tiny things I did!

Munched out at the Thai restaurant with both the women in my life, my sweetheart and my mum! Being the only customers, we were waited on hand and foot by the whole staff (could have been the whole family) and served up delicious delicacies, beers and dessert. But remember to speak slowly and in sign language or better still, learn their language. They were sweet and willing though.

Of course, there’s been fucking tons of football on and I’ve been watching as much as possible. Too much to tell you about here – buy the video!

Broni fell off her bike in the middle-of-the-road – luckily not the busy one but I watched in despair as she keeled over unable to put her foot down, her laces being wrapped ’round the pedal and so sweet, her baby crying face as she sat, dumped on her back, on the tarmac. A couple of bruises to show now. You know, she bruises so easily – I have to be very careful when I pick her up and turn her upside down.

I was thinking anyway, about us, and fuck, there’s magic between us. I think some of the more cynical of you out there might think we’re like soppy sloppy teenagers but I reckon you just haven’t come across this feeling before (and fuck I love this feeling, I just want to suck it all up, more more more). But you know, you’re all okay too. You can guess we’re both still madly, badly in love with each other. If that makes you sick, you make me sad. I still have faith in the human spirit. Some of my friends out there give me that faith.

Hell, went to see ‘The Chase’ too, with Henry Rollins playing some meathead cop (total fucking irony – who said Americans don’t understand irony!), with a soundtrack featuring NOFX, Bad Religion, Down by Law, Rancid and a ton more. You know it’s punk to go to the cinema, don’t you! Yes, it’s true – everything you do with your life is punk.

You know me, I probably did a million other things though now I’m not in such a fucking hurry. Taking it easy up until launch date – no stress for me and my baby. As always will keep you informed.