Steve’s Stories - Issue II: Snake Pits, Tomorrow's Promises and A Dude Called ejip
It was the last Saturday of the Aussie school holidays, so all the campsites were booked out. After calling a dozen places, and receiving a lot of "sorry, we're fulls” and one “yeah mate, we’re actually a pub, not a campsite”, we finally found an open spot in a place called Shallow Creek campground. Now, finding somewhere like this always comes with mixed emotions. Initially it's: "Woo, we found a place to stay" but this is shortly followed by: "Oh god, what's wrong with this place that it has availability when everywhere else is full?".
To check into the campground, we approach an old, beaten-up caravan with a small camp table out front. We ring a bell on the table and a shadow emerges from the caravan. He's all dungarees and "gdays". After some Aussie pleasantries he jumps on his quad bike and we follow him down a winding road, through denser and denser trees, eventually arriving at our site. He pulls his quad bike alongside us and as it idles gives us all the info we need - "water’s here, toilets are there and by the way, no Irish parties" - whatever that means. All good with us. He revs his bike to head off, then turns over his shoulder and shouts back "by the way, there's a bloody lot of snakes on the property. So if ya see one, yano what to do… just wave it away!".
Great... Not only are we about to set up camp in a snake pit, but our only tactic for deterrence is to wave at them...
Tomorrow is a bad promise. I was reminded of this at a sunset in Wilson's Prom, the beautiful National park in southern Victoria. After marinading in the shower after a long surf, I got out and started making my way back to camp. As I came out of the shower block, I looked up and to the west. The sky was on fire. Someone had taken paintbrushes of pinks, purples and oranges and streamed them across the sky’s canvas. The sky was melting in these warm, vibrant colours and they were changing every second.
Now my campsite was super close to the beach, but it was behind a big set of sand dunes. This sunset was happening over the sea, behind these sand dunes, meaning the view was largely obstructed from where I was in the campsite. But at the beach, I'd have an unobstructed view of this phenomenon. Just as I was frothing over the thought of this view, I walked past a couple sitting out at their camp table.
"Honey, look at the sky! It's amazing".
"Wow, yeah you're right. It’s gorgeous."
"We should go down to the beach to see it. It would be awesome down there."
"Yeh.... ".
"So you wanna go?".
"Um.... yeh… like... kinda".
"Yeh, I guess we could just see it tomorrow instead".
Then they both took a sip of their red wine - the colour of which was now also appearing in the sky - and sank a little deeper into their chairs and the failure of their marriage... just kidding!
As for me, I sprinted back to my car, threw on some pants and set off for the beach. I ran over the dunes and down the little wooden pathway that emerged onto the beach. What a few minutes ago had been a sky on fire, was now a raging inferno. The colours exploded on the horizon, streaking left to right. I turned to look along the beach and saw that the sun had also lit up the huge mountainous rock face that flanked the eastern side of the beach. It turned these massive rocks a glowing orangey-pink, like stones that had just been taken out of a fire. I was on the beach, watching this scene for a grand total of sixty seconds before the sun dipped down behind the horizon, flicked the switch and turned off the light show.
As for the couple, they didn't go to the beach. They didn't see the sunset. And guess what, they didn't go the next day either.
Tomorrow is a bad promise. It sounds cliché, but who knows what will happen tomorrow. It might be cloudy, there might not be a sunset, you might just be dead. Fuck Tomorrow. I'm guilty of believing Tomorrow's promises but the more I get to know this guy called Tomorrow, the less I trust him. As for the dude called Today however, I can rely on him every single time.
I like rap music. I especially like watching YouTube videos of rappers before they made it. Mikey - my brother - shares this hobby with me and we always dream of witnessing one of these moments in real life. This is exactly what happened one Thursday night in Melbourne.
We were keen to find some live music and ventured out to a gig called Jamuary in a joint called Ferdydurke. It looked just dingy enough to have good music. On arrival I passed the bouncer, doing that awkward shuffle with my wallet where I don't know if I should proactively show him my ID or proceed with the confidence of a guy who would be surprised to be asked for it. Jesus, I'm 28... What scars do I have that that I still do this... Anyway, post wallet shuffle, we climbed three flights of stairs to the upstairs bar. As we came up the final flight, we saw the stage, the performers and heard their beats. They were a funky, jazz band with drums, bass, keys, a DJ, rhythm guitar and one cool lookin’ dude as a front man. This front man was a black guy with short, dark-grey hair with a spotty black-grey beard and he wore a cross on a chain around his neck - imagine an edgier version of Morgan Freeman who smoked a lot of weed. He MC'd the whole affair effortlessly conducting the crowd - we'd later learn he was 72.
After five minutes of these funky beats and guitar shredding, he stepped into the mic; "OK OK OK" he said in an accent that I assume people in somewhere cool like New Orleans speak with. "Here it is folks. You see this is what HAPPENS here at Jamuary! Alright. Are you readyyy?" The crowd in front of him starts to part and a 5ft nothing Nepalese dude in an oversized boxy white -shirt and baggy jeans takes to the stage. He grabs the mic. The beat being played by the musicians behind him doesn't change. Still jazzy. Still funky. "Alright.... Alright...." he says in a tone that makes you immediately feel that he knows what he's doing. "Listen up". Then bam! He starts rapping. I turn and look at Mikey, his jaw is on the floor, laughing in excitement with mine. This dude is spitting super clean rhymes with this unique and strong tone. He flows. He commands the room. He bops. He owwwwns the joint. He raps for five straight minutes and when he finishes, the thirty person crowd goes nuts. He hands the mic back to the MC, receiving a back slap and some assumed words of approval. Wow!
Mikey is the more extroverted of the two of us - he doesn't much competition - so he approach the guy and found out his name - "ejip". Now this name has all the lower case coolness needed for a rapper - but all I could think of was the terrible references my Dad would definitely make in relation to him being an "eejit".
Anyway, we found him on Spotify and not one of his tracks had more than 1,000 listens. No way! It happened. We saw incredible talent in the flesh, before he was big time. Of course, the assumption here is that he will go on to be big. Statistically the odds are against him, but this guy was cool as hell, loved his music and is having a hell of a go at trying to make it. I back him and I genuinely hope it works out for this dude called ejip.
That’s all for now. If you enjoyed it, drop your email below and I’ll email you each new issue.
See ya next week,
Steve
Notable mentions:
The “Road” from Dargo to Brighte: This is a 90 minute drive in the Victorian High Country. After five minutes, the bitumen disappears and it turns into a gravel road that climbs steeply into the clouds. You then drive for sixty minutes along various ridges of mountains. There is no one around - we stopped in the middle of the road for thirty minutes and not a single car passed us. You’ll spot ski villages on other ridges in the clouds and see miles and miles of burned forests from the bushfires a couple years back. It’s haunting and stunning.
Acoffee: my favourite coffee shop in Melbourne.
Aunty Pegs: $15 coffees that are worth it, but only if you convince yourself that they are
The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV): I’m usually not a fan of museums and galleries - I get bored of just looking at stuff. But not the NGV, the NGC is awesome and if you’re in Melbourne you should go.
Omaru Farm Stay & Cafe: This place is so random. It’s a tiny farm in the middle of nowhere on Philip island run by some lovely Sri Lankan women who make the tastiest curries. Sit out on the picnic benches with your popadoms and look down over the farmland to the sea. Epic.
Wilson’s Prom: Think Jurassic park meets Australian surf beaches. It’s a vast national park full of mountains, hidden coves and secret beaches. Beautiful. Just don’t go there during school holidays.
Trip Stats:
Days on the road: 18
Distance covered: 2,237km
Time spent driving: 41 hours
Camps: 10
Snakes encountered: 0