the ’sham

Does anyone know any famous folks who live, or have lived (sorta recently) in Petersham? We’re trying to hook up for the ABC to come out to the ’sham and do a broadcast from the bowling club:

Basically, what happens is, this DJ called James O’Loghlin comes out to “your living room, your community centre, your social club” etc, and runs a whole three hour show from there. You provide “local talent”, musical acts, activities, games, etc.

Do get in touch and I’ll pass on your info to Jo and Roberta, who are putting together the Petersham Pitch.

I arrived at “Darren’s Backyard” just before five. A band was setting up to play. This was Caxton. I weaved through the cool nerdy rocker kids shuffling about on the gravel until I spotted Vanessa. I’ve never met Vanessa, but I recognised her face from her Flickr site. It was a bit like a blind date, but without the sub-plot of romance. Don’t get me wrong - it certainly is romantic to meet someone for the first time whose work you have long admired. Vanessa is something of a legend in the zine world, and I’m a big fan of her obsessive writing projects. So it was super flattering to get her email saying she’d been following my blog, and inviting me to this backyard gig. I guess it must be a bit like this for people who “meet” online and then travel halfway across the globe to eyeball each other in the flesh. All the standard mini anxious anticipations apply: What will she think of me? Will I be able to live up to the online persona I’ve constructed? Will there be misunderstandings as to our intentions vis-a-vis romance? etc etc.
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I had a steady stream of visitors yesterday. Bilateral Petersham has begun to draw folks in from the outside world. You see, if my friends want to spend time with me, they have no choice: it’s the ’sham or nothing, mate!
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Saturday, 7.21am:
An overcast morning. I open the kitchen door to survey the street. The block of flats across the way has done a big “hard rubbish” purge. An old mattress, metal ironing board frame, wooden clothes rack, dead TV. Actually, it looks like someone has moved out. That’s the second family this month. Chris said the building’s owned by the church - they house refugees there for up to six months at a time. A man shuffles past the pile of junk, noses around, selects a plastic mop, and continues on his way. Without warning, Drazic appears at my feet. Has he been out all night? I scoop some grutz into his bowl. He wolfs down his breakfast.

And now, I’m sitting in the dark, with a cup of lemon and ginger, typing. All is quiet.

So far so good.
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It’s Friday night, half past ten. You may have detected from the tardy, irregular updates, that I’ve been having a bit of a hard time knuckling down this week.

Not that it’s been “unproductive”. Sure, I’ve been meeting people. There’s been no shortage of good feedback about the project, and exciting new adventures are lining themselves up for next week. Best of all, some of the friendships I formed early on are really starting to firm up.

For example, who could believe that only a week has passed since I first met Tully (and he’s already buggin me with curly questions)? Or that things could be quite solid with Lucy, after only two cups of tea? Or that I lived in Petersham for nearly two years before starting a conversation with Carmela and her daughters from Charlie’s Deli? And who would have known that Chris (”eyes on the street”) could turn out to be such a strong local ally?
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[A technical note about images: often within blog posts, I include links to images which are hosted at my Flickr site. If you’re browsing with Mozilla Firefox, you might want to try this: right-click on the link and then “open link in a new tab”. This way you can keep on reading while the image loads in the new tab.

If, on the other hand, you’re still clinging belligerently to Internet Explorer, I’m fresh out of ideas.]
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photo from the Triangles website, showing Robert and Katherine’s wedding…

A very exciting email came thru from Vanessa. I didn’t realise she lived in the ’sham. More on her intricate and obsessive world later. In the meantime, here’s an ad for The Triangles (”energetic stage antics and a lot of yelling”) and Caxton (”piano driven post-punk”) - playing live in “Darren’s backyard” on Saturday afternoon!

Rock you there - it’ll be ’sham massive!

[The following excerpt is from an email Vanessa received about the gig, from someone called “Al”.]

Here are the details for the show we are having in Darren’s backyard:
Saturday 29th April (next Sat arvo)
Starts 3pm
Address is 2 Fredereich St Petersham (right near Petersham station)
$5 entry

If people want to check out either of the bands they are at
www.thetriangles.net
and
www.myspace.com/caxtonband
Bring people! It’s going to be such a great afternoon.
Al.

[NB: the following blog post has been rated M: for Mature Audiences. It contains Nudity, Gambling, and…Adult Themes.]

Go on. Admit it. You’ve been past there dozens of times. You’ve joked about it. You’ve used it as a landmark when giving directions between Leichhardt and Marrickville. You’ve admired the neon signs. You’ve “always wanted” to go in - to see what Jelly Wrestling at the Oxford is all about. But you just never quite got around to it, did you?

Well, last night, a brave contingent of locals and ring-ins alike finally breached the threshold of Petersham’s Oxford Tavern.

To be fair, some of us had been to the Oxford before. But on that occasion, the pub’s front room was closed off, and we perched uncomfortably in “Rita’s Late Nite Lounge” between the pokies and the door, feeling rather cheated (but also mildly relieved) at how tame the whole thing had turned out to be. The full Oxford Experience was yet to come.
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I’ve just been let back in by Luciana, who has a spare key to our place. This morning I locked myself out. So the blog is looking a little thin on updates, as a result of not being able to sit here in front of the incandescent screen. But that’s good news for tomorrow - cos while I was locked out I had lots of adventures. Stay tuned…

[apologies also to Sunny, Tully, and Bec. I know we walked the Stanmore/’sham border last Saturday, and i WILL update on that adventure soon…(lazy alternative: feel free to write your own reports n I will post em up here!)]

[click on the map to see full size]

It is with great pleasure that I announce: “Video Ezy Stanmore” is actually in Petersham. What a relief! This means two things. First, that my transgression of last week was not in fact a transgression at all. And second, that I am free to patronise the video store. Phew. I was getting towards the idea of requesting the Geographical Names Board for a shift in the boundary.

The reason for this glitch has now become clear: Video Ezy have made a mistake on their website. While on this map, the store is shown to be at the corner of Stanmore Road and Nichols Parade, in reality, the store is really at the corner of Marshall Street.

My theory is that the store was once actually situated in the location that’s indicated on the website. At that point, it really was in Stanmore. When the opportunity arose to move to the more salubrious ’sham location, they jumped at it. But for simplicity’s sake, they kept the same name. Problem solved.

[thanks to Bec for help in clearing up this one].