Tag: Rhodes

The Dream Is Dead – 19th April 2023

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

My grandparents took their dreams
And able to make them real
Fought the good fight for freedom
And allowed their pain to heal

Each generation wants for its young
To climb up ever higher
When dreams could come true
Those values would inspire

But now those dreams are fading
I’ll never see the top
Members of the last generation
Before we come to a stop

Today I’m feeling:

Better than yesterday though still subject to darkness. Unenthused and flat. By evening I was feeling pretty good.

Today I’m grateful for:

Aircon. How did people survive without aircon!? Folks here are used to it and I’m getting more used to it but it’s 40 degrees today and even riding a bike around in the shade has no cooling effect. It reminds me of the time riding around in Rhodes back in 1994.
I rode past a pineapple factory where hill tribe people sit around tables cutting up the fruit. They are undercover but outdoors, many wearing clothes to cover much of their skin so as not to look so tan which is virtually impossible for them!

The best thing about today was:

Just generally feeling better than yesterday.   I hope the rest of the week continues like this.

What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?

Somehow I’ve ended up going through the day without eating a meal. I’ve had a few snacks but perhaps the heat has tempered any hunger. I’m wondering how this might affect my mood tomorrow. I need to consider my eating habits and how it can change my mood.

Something I learned today?

I read about the Drowning Child thought-experiment about how we might choose to help someone in need right in front of us but not even consider them if it is out of sight. Or more provocatively that we might choose not to help them because we can’t help everyone. Also to consider if we should try to save someone if they have a life ahead of them as opposed to someone nearer the end of their life. It reminds me of someone who saves another person from drowning but themselves drown during the action.

I think I would be someone who tries to help someone who is struggling right in front of me. It would depend on a lot of factors many of which could even make me freeze with fear at the time. I can struggle with making fast decisions sometimes.

Did I make a good decision today?

Some days, yesterday for instance, just feel like they have you beat. Today I woke up with a different feeling and it’s difficult to pin down why. I took my computer to Utopia and pushed myself to do some work. This was a positive step. After coffee, I came home and much as every other day during this holiday watched some YouTube videos. But by the afternoon, still feeling reasonably ok, I again pushed myself along to take advantage of this slight upswing in mood and decided on an afternoon coffee but taking the long way there. With the slightly improved air conditions, things felt a bit less oppressive than in recent weeks. Sun was actually breaking through to cast shadows on the ground. Of course, this meant the heat was trapped and pushed the temperature up to 40 degrees and the feeling of it being even hotter. The daily promised storms still haven’t arrived and even the tokays have given up asking for relief. It’s too hot for mosquitoes.

Anyway, whilst the decision to get out felt quite natural and normal it was definitely a better choice than staying at home today.

I took this picture because the sky is clearing a little to produce some colour in things again. These blooms stand out around this fishing lake. I’m not sure of the type of tree but it has long bean-like seed pods like an acacia.

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

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 2 Comments

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.

My time held dreams were full of you – 22nd August 1994

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

For some reason, on Friday we felt in celebratory mood and blew the expense. I tailed it down to the bottle shop and picked us up a bottle of Seaview sparkling wine and a bottle of Wolf Blass Chardonnay, a beautiful tasting dry white wine, oak and butterscotch flavour with no bite at all and anyone who says wine has got to have a bite should try this stuff.

We ate and drank and because of our usual rush we polished off the Seaview before 7 o’clock so ran up to the shop and picked up a couple of videos to watch, content we were on a pleasant night in. So we proceeded to finish off the Wolf Blass during the first movie which I don’t recall its name or even what it was about but in my dim memory, I do remember it being good, entertainment-wise.

I made us a smoke while Broni talked to David on the phone, how she managed to be coherent she has no idea! She was very drunk and was also sick soon after getting off the phone, but she convinced me she was okay and we had a smoke and sat down to watch the next film, which I do remember was Jacob’s Ladder. Unfortunately, we had to cut short as Broni sicked up all the lovely food we’d eaten into her clean white dress!

I put her to bed and watched some more of the movie but was worried some that my little girl might stop breathing in her sleep, smoking paranoia, so jumped in bed beside her and put my hand on her chest so’s I could feel her breathing. In my paranoia, I lay awake for an hour or so, my mind racing at the size of my situation, and the immense task ahead in the following 12 weeks or so. These thoughts hit me at odd moments, surprisingly not too often, I don’t seem to be too worried at all. In fact, I think it will be when I get there things might take on a different outlook. Like for the first three or four months, things will still be new and vital and fresh but then your normal humdrum existence routine might take over and it’s then I’ll start thinking about home and my friends (while I’m here I’ve been calling Oz home!) Anyway, too fucking late by then, hey!?

Saturday day time slips us by with us just buying some shorts to wear in Rhodes. Fuck, I can’t believe we’re going there. I couldn’t have foreseen such great adventure a couple of years ago that’s for sure. In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever been on a holiday of this sort (to Rhodes). I’ve only ever been out of this country for about a week before, back in 1989 I think it was when the band went on tour into Holland and Belgium. Still, that’s the madness of the age, reckon?

Gradually people started turning up at the house for our planned Indian meal out, so it was, all the record fair crew turned up, Simon, Rich, Baz, Gaz, Mark, Roger and Adelaide and soon after Rob too. Excellent – everyone as expected, it really fills me that these people, who some I don’t really know that well, make the effort to come and see me before I leave, I should say ‘we’ and ‘us’ there because they come to see Broni too. In fact, I must apologise to her now if she may feel left out of this diary in my writings, we’re really a unit and where I may write ‘I’ and ‘me’, you can be fairly certain I mean ‘us’ and ‘we’. Do you feel how bloody brilliant she makes me feel, do you recognise that feeling? No amount of petty squabbles dim my love for her.

Well, Gaz and particularly Baz were on rocking hot form tonight and had us choking on our food while we ate, with their jokes and comedy routines. Every little thing you said was turned into a joke of some sort, we laughed til our sides were aching. And time passed us so quickly again that we only had time for one drink in the pub before we had to make our way back and we all crammed into the front room and continued with the jokes and coffees until the early hours, listening to Django Reinhardt much to Baz’s dismay! Very relaxing and therapeutic.

All the guys had gone except Rob who woke us up with breakfast and then fed, we walked down through the park to watch people lazying away their Sundays walking dogs, flying kites and taking in the sun. There’s been some powerboat racing around the harbour and also out on the sea over to the Isle of Wight. We fed up again in the Jolly Sailor, ambling slowly back to the park where we endangered ourselves with more fun by hiring out a row boat and rode ourselves into the night. No, not really. We rowed over to the other side to catch the cygnets and then back around everywhere, like Rob says, covering every inch of water.

Sunday is a fun day on our agenda, me and Broni feel like we’re on permanent holiday. Rob leaves us to go and practice with Fatty. They’re writing some songs together which sound good from what Rob’s told me. I’ve also told Rob not to get involved in any gossip Fatty might indulge in, didn’t explain that very well but the idea is that Rob doesn’t get emotionally involved in any bullshit between me and Fatty. I told Rob that it’s not my problem, which I truly believe, and as far as I’m concerned if he wanted to be friends now that’s no problem with me but apparently Fatty still has some bee in his bonnet that I can’t be forgiven for and some of the things I have heard are plain ridiculous. If I told you it all you’d think it was real school playground stuff. All I need to say is that the guy’s not very forgiving (for whatever it is I’ve done cos I still don’t know!)

Me and Broni laxed out the rest of the night, oh, actually we went up to the movies and saw The Mask which was great entertainment, with excellent animation and reasonable story too.

Ah, Monday morning, just me and Django and my imagination, life’s soooooo good!

Horizon is oblivious – 19th August 1994

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Hey, hey, hey, back to the old typewriter to save ma poor wrist, which is, as a matter of fact, feeling much better, thank you very much. Now’s a Friday, another week rushes by. It’s great to be at home, even if this house doesn’t feel much like home, at least it’s not at work right? And it’s a shame the poor Broni has to leave me each morning to go to her work but I get up at the same time too and organise myself.

Broni did try and leave me lists of things to do but I’m proving to her that I am a domesticated little bunny anyway and even presented her with a delicious curry meal last night that I slaved over in the kitchen (not true really, I just picked some recipe and cooked ’em, this cooking business is a piece of piss if you’ve got all the ingredients – that’s the hardest thing to organise I reckon and I remember zip from doing Home Economics at school).

We got into our heads we were going to get on a train and travel around Scandinavia until Wednesday when Broni got home from work early and we dashed into town to find out info when it dawned on us quite how expensive it was going to be and how little time we had to organise (time and organisation – keywords in my life right now). So we walked across the street into a travel agent and booked us a ticket to Rhodes – just like that, no messing about here. No time, no organisation!

We both talked to Rob for ages that night as prom music blasted out from the TV – Cool! I typed up my column for the STE Bulletin next day which was my first use of a normal typewriter in a zillion years, can’t beat computers. Hopefully, it will stir a few people up. You know, sometimes I write down some stuff and just run along thought processes and end up with some really enlightened stuff, stuff I wouldn’t normally think of. I wonder how I can run that process without having to write it down. It would be a definite advantage to be able to analyse the situation immediately but my mind’s always in such a blur of speed (not the drug) that thoughts get lost before they’re even thunk! Broni calls me impulsive, which is probably nicer than what some people would call it!