I bought my first iPod today.

It has taken me a while to afford the fashion. For a while there I was against them. So individual.

I looked around at all my fellow travellers on cattle class emersed in their own choice of music, their own soundtracks, and I thought that individualism had been taken to a new and dizzy height. A world in the West where you could even tailor the sounds to suit your taste.

Why was I against earphones?

I thought that one should immerse oneself in the sounds of the world. Others’ burps, farts, gossip, the clack, clack of the 9.10 express, the rush of buses.

I thought ‘how dare they, the ‘iPodded’, block out what the world has to offer?’

For want of a better word, I classed earphones as antisocial.

Now here I am in a pub on George Street, listening to my iPod, neglecting the pub’s choice of tunes for my own, blocking out the gabble of builders knocking off on the night before Good Friday. I am listening while I write.

Am I antisocial?

Probably.

I must say I have more Moorish and selfish reasons to listen to my iPod. I am a songwriter by trade, and my iPod is full of my own songs. For the first time I am able to walk around my city and listen to the songs I have written from within it. I have gone one step further. I have created my own soundtrack, literally.

And I must say I am finding it wonderful.

I walked through Paddy’s Markets listening to my creations:

Boys will have their heroes/ Girls will have their makeup/ Every Saturday night
Girls turn into heroes/ Boys we just get messed up/
I met my hero when I was feeling down/ She said:

It’s not like it will ever end/
Better let that sunshine in.

Does that make me uber-selfish and antisocial?

Not only am I blocking out the sounds of the town at work, I have created my own script to listen to.

And then I thought that this was the beauty of technology. It caters to our tastes and allows us to sculpt out our world to our desire. To blend what we are given with what we create, if creation you are partial to.

I walk past alleys I know so well on George Street.
 
I went through a real period in my early twenties where I romanticized living on the streets, living threadbare, living with nothing, or as Kerouac said: living like a Dharma bum.

With only my soul to sustain me.

Frankly, I never knew my soul would offer such a continuous buffet. I thought by now, it would have faded, but it only seems to get larger. As Keith Richards has said: the older I get, the older I want to get.

When I went through this phase, I not only walked great tracts of urban scapes, but I also scoped out the corners where I could live if I was ever in need.

I recently wrote the lyrics for a song about living in shadows. It is about a man who lives in alleyways watching the world get on with its life while he is happy to observe. Perhaps it is an ode to the philosopher loner I was (and am still happy to be at times).

Armed with my earphones I can now walk past my secret lanes listening to my man speak:

You are my songstress/ You are my fading light
I keep my face hidden/ I choose to hide in the night

I’m living in Shadows/ I watch the night take my day

Girl
You remind me of what I used to love
Couple
You remind me of what I dreamed of
Boys Boys Boys
You got it all wrong
My Dog
I give you a bone

I’m living in Shadows/ I watch the night take my day
I’m living in Shadows/ Don’t take my shadows away

Stranger
I gave my eyes to you
Lover
My sadness would not do

You guys can cook it up
You Dress it down
I’ll be hiding in town
Please give me
darkness
over joy

It’s the world
that employs me.                               

I’m living in Shadows/ I watch the night take my day
I’m living in Shadows/ Don’t take my shadows away

After walking past those alleyways I was lucky enough to see the traffic in the street had drawn to a halt. It seemed our glorious leader was about to walk out of the building presently home to the Cole Inquiry.

The traffic was stopped! At midday.
Why does he drive around in a white car? With the number plates C1 *?
What does that mean?
C**t number one?

For a small-footed old accountant type he doesn’t do too badly. I shall not go into politics here. This is about the luxury of earphones.

I am happy he allows us to wear them in public.

I didn’t know whether to cheer or spit. Such dilemmas.

Still it was the first time I had ever seen our dear little fuehrer in public. I was in a black shirt too. Luckily for me I had a song playing I wrote about my town. Perhaps he would enjoy it. He has said his favourite Midnight Oil song is ‘Beds are Burning’.

God knows his bed is still on fire.

While I watched him leave in a fanfare of police escort, leaving us commoners to contemplate his exhaust that I pay for I had this on my iPod:

I love your eyes and the things they say
When we’re sitting by the harbour on a sunny day
I love your hair and the smell of your jumper
The memory of the first time I kissed you in May
I hold your hand tight as the boats float by
I’m feeling kind of strange…

Because I never feel lonely when the sun’s going down.

Because the rain isn’t falling,
The gods are at play
The bridge is still standing
It’s a Sydney kind of a day.

Our breath is full with the smell of the sea salt
As we stroll down to Circular Quay
A busker is playing one of my old songs
And I ponder on how good it is to be you and me
Centrepoint tower is like a big flower
On a big blue Australian sea…

I never feel lonely when the sun’s going down.

Because the rain isn’t falling,
The gods are at play
The bridge is still standing
It’s a Sydney kind of a day.

I will be the one to love you
When these bedroom lights go out
I will give you every reason to love me
I will give you no reason to doubt
When the summer comes to Sydney
And the summer storms come at noon
We’ll be swimming down at Bronte
Naked by the light
Of a good old Sydney moon…

No I never feel lonely when the sun’s going down.

Because the rain isn’t falling,
The gods are at play
The bridge is still standing
It’s a Sydney kind of a day.

OK. So you’ve caught me out. This article may be a badly disguised effort at getting some of my lyrics onto the net. But it may not be. Stick with me.

I am merely pointing out the fact that I have created my own soundtrack to my city. Does that make me not antisocial? If I wasn’t me, and I saw myself happily lost in my thoughts as I walk down the streets I know so well, would I judge me?

I guess that is my point.

For a while there I was sincerely judgemental of those who walked around in their own little world. Now I have my own thingymajiggy, I think I would be less quick to judge.

How arrogant and full of shit can one become if one does not understand the experience from another’s perspective?

Earphoned or not to be?

Well, I will probably choose to listen sometimes and choose to surround myself in the sounds of the world sometimes. Both are of equal value, yet only one is made by myself.

I have lived financially precarious for long periods of time. I do understand what it is like to be on the street. I have worn uniform and battled.

I wonder if our vainglorious leader has ever done such.

John Howard has spent a great deal of his life traipsing up and down the halls of parliament involved in decisions which greatly affect the lives of other people.

Has he spent enough time feeling the full brunt that such decisions can have on the commoners? Those without government sponsored cars and government sponsored houses?

If our Prime Minister spent any time at all walking the streets of Sydney (NOT in a green and gold tracksuit for fuck’s sake)…

If our PM spent time walking, with his iPod, listening to ‘Beds are Burning’ would he be in a better position to make decisions about
… people’s rights at work?
… people’s ability to make informed decisions about abortion?
… even how a soldier must feel being sent to Iraq?

… Would he make the same decisions?

I think not.

Therefore, I am all for iPods.

It seems there is nothing more antisocial than a PM riding in a car with the flags on the bonnet.

When I returned this evening there he was on the news. The report began with John Howard WALKING to the Cole Inquiry. How wrong was I?

The whole picture though was of Johnny striding down the road, police and security guards surrounding him. There was not an iPod in sight. And God knows, one does not stride to ‘Beds are Burning’. His suit even, in my eyes, looked like a green and gold tracksuit.

Patriotism is the easiest curse on earth, that’s what I say.

To finish I will give you more lyrics.

Maybe, just maybe, one day Mr Howard will walk the streets from dusk till dawn, from dawn to dusk, listening to such things, and feel what it is like to be lied to.

Suzy an angel only 17
woke up one morning found the man of her dreams

Gave him all just like she’d been told
Gave him her all just like the women of old

Gave him her all even after he’d gone
Had no choice for the child was born

Angel no more became the local whore
And the women of old keep crying

Singing:

It’s all over when the morning comes
It’s all over when the morning comes
Lights aren’t too bright when you look real close
You gotta keep moving on

Big old Benny was a hell of a man
200k mobile phone in his hand

Treated his people just like something he owned
But you can’t control what has a mind of its own

Do what you never should have done
Do what you never should have done
Might have been different if it had been a son
You gotta keep moving on.

It’s all over when the morning comes
It’s all over when the morning comes
Lights aren’t too bright when you look real close
You gotta keep moving on

Untold tales of silver and glory
Wear pretty thin on an ivory morning
Looking for one thing and lost for one living
Won’t console the loss of missing out

Do what you never should have done
Do what you never should have done
Might have been different if it had been a son
You gotta keep moving on.

It’s all over when the morning comes
It’s all over when the morning comes
Lights aren’t too bright when you look real close
You gotta keep moving on

On the train coming home I turned my iPod off and put it in my bag. The music was intoxicating me. I felt drunk.

Music is my life, I concede.

If I had not turned my iPod off and taken it out of my ears I would not have:

1. Overheard a conversation of 6 old men and women who had just met each other and were talking vividly (something age seems to give you) while the rest of the carriage sat silent and bored.  I realized that yes, they are probably at the prime of their lives where they start to realize essential truths a little more than the cocky young thing in pin stripes with a scowl thinking ‘Oh my God’.

2. I would not have heard the lady offering the toilet door to me because I was there first.

Australia has a purely beautiful sense of fairness and this I adore. If I had my earphones in I don’t think I would have ever noticed. Especially when people say sorry if they bump into you (as opposed to Londoners who simply bump and pass).

To be earphoned or not to be earphoned?

That is the question.

Luke Gerber is an ex private school boy who has realized that he never in his education ever came into contact with a native of this country. He was taught to be a colonial and rule over the working classes. He was also taught, in his history classes, that Aborigines were mindless savages.

He is a member of ‘The Bleeding Obvious’: a band devoted to writing good music, an experienced teacher, and an aspiring barrister.

He has a child called Charlie and a sassy wife called Sassy.

He does not appreciate the exhaust of a prime minister’s car, even though it smells as sweet as Ethanol.