Ben wanted to know why, a couple of weeks before, I had painted peace signs on the road up and around the hill across from the house.
"Just for a laugh mainly", I said, "and the really funny part was getting busted by the Mayor of Mosman Park as I was finishing the last one".
It was a hot summer night in 1985 and I was walking down Bay View Terrace on my way home from a cocktail party at Alex's house when the idea came to me...
Still dressed in my oversized black tux, and barely able to walk in a straight line, I took a 4 litre can of white paint a 3" brush and painted my way back up the hill.
2 hours later exhausted elated and covered in paint I had painted 32 peace signs on the broken centre white lines.
My joy was short lived, the only car I had seen all night was coming towards me.
It was the local newsagent out delivering the Sunday papers. The local newsagent who was also the fucken mayor! Shit...
He was pissed off, he was so pissed off he grabbed my paint can and tipped it out over the adjacent bowling green... It was at this point that I ran down that hill and into my bed.
The mayor might not have liked my work, but the public did...
Ben must have liked this story as he wrote about it in his first novel Stark, a great dystopian novel populated by pastiches of Fremantle characters.
The main character was called Colin who to gain the attention of the love interest Rachel paints dolphins on the road.
I did claim responsibility for my actions with this hand delivered letter of confession...
So there you have it, my 15 minutes of fame...
10 comments:
You sure mix in elevated circles my friend! Great story.
Thanks Sarah, may I say they were halcyon days.... fuck that's a good word...
Yeah, really good story. Reminds me of an occasion where I didn't get that sort of publicity but did something razy and public clike that.
In the early 80's my then partner & I were fitting out a yacht. There was this great brass anchor roller on the bow of an old fishing boat that had been permanently dry-docked outside Pier 21 restaurant where we lived on our yacht. We thought that anchor roller was wasted up there,especially as we needed one, so after a couple of beers we decided to steal it in full view of the restaurant patrons on a busy Friday night. We tried to be quiet, but between the loud banging needed to dislodge the large bolt and us laughing so much, I think we might have been noticed. Funny thing is, no one stopped us! Thank God Australians are either so apathetic or share my irreverance for some aspects of the law.
PS: VERY Cute dog.
Bayview Terrace eh!
Lived there in a condemned house in the early 70's. The main thing I remember, apart from the floor to ceiling cracks, is a hallucinogenic drug, a more than normally brilliant sunny morning wandering down the terrace to the jetty at the river end marveling at the impossibly colourful flowers in everybody's front garden and discovering that a housemate's jungle paradise found during the night was in fact a chook shed in a neighbouring backyard?
Oh yes and.......Gough Whitlam winning government and aboliishing conscription not a moment too soon before I was due to be called up!
Hey now these are great memories Michelle and Ramsnake...
My story takes place in a house on the corner of Johnson Pde and Glyde St Mosman Park. The Bay View Tce mentioned is the one at the top of the hill surrounding Mosman Bay.
This Google Map image has the arrow pointing to the house.
I know the Claremont one well though... Perhaps not as intimately as you Ramsnake...
mmmmmmm Jam Tarts......
As a small town escapee my very first underage foray into a pub in the city was the Sunday session at the Seaview, the band , the Jam Tarts and the Nansing Quartet! Crusted in south beach salt, sunstung and kissed by the doctor i feel in love with the barstaff for assuming i was legal, the band and their infectious tunes, and in particular a certain Gare sister you mentioned.... from then on Freo was the place for me, especially on a Sunday. I ended up living just down the road on South Terrace a little later for a few years.
Halcyon indeed Spencer!
Ah the Seaview! Does it still go off? 'Cos that was a happening place when the Jam Tarts/Nansing Quartet were holding rein. Lucky Ben Elton!
Yes CQ, the Seaview was the place to be for the sunday sesh... I too lived on south terrace for a while in the late 80's early 90's, do you remember the "Fitness Club" opposite and the dubious exercises on offer?
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