Inertia

Mike’s
Pith & Wind cont.
.. David packing. (Or so the story goes – David’s recently been
giving my brother and me unsolicited hints that there’s another side to
the story). Jump forward forty years and I’m holidaying in NZ and stopping
off in Rororua on the way to see mum in Auckland. To my surprise I discover
this man living in an unprepossessing weatherboard home (not unlike my own modest
rented shack) with habits, good and bad that I’ve mystically echoed in
my own life thousands of kilometres away. (If I’d had any doubts about
where I stood in the ‘nature versus nurture’ debate, this experience
would have shunted me firmly towards the ‘nature’ lobby).
For instance, I’m in the habit of going to bed and reading for half an
hour or so with classical music playing on my clock radio. So is he. That’s
all I can think of for the moment. But, isn’t that amazing?
All right – I can see you remain unconvinced. But the balance of the picture,
with its turmoil of ongoing personal issues, (the ones I’ve been wrestling
with all my life), is much more subtle and subjective, and hence more difficult
to describe – but I’ll give it a go.
Like many men of his age, David is prone to telling stories about his past,
occasionally repeating them more than once or twice I might add. Even heard
a second or third time, they still don’t mean a lot – not having
been there and never having met the legion of colourful ‘bastards’
my dad seems to have encountered in his life as a stock & station agent
in the North Island of New Zealand, I can’t comment on their veracity.
It’s not important anyway. The thread implicit in all the stories is that,
while interesting things happened to David in the course of his peripatetic
life on the road, (another similarity with my life as an itinerant musician),
he seems to have, consciously or unconsciously, avoided opportunities to take
control of his life. He wasn’t – isn’t – an Initiative Guy.
In fact, he’s a classic Inertia Guy.
I’m the same. At crucial periods in my life I could, and should, have
taken the initiative, and things would have been very different. On the odd
occasion I have actually taken the initiative it’s because I’ve
been stung into action, sometimes by something as innocuous as a casual remark.
The Chants’ leaving New Zealand for Melbourne is a case in point. The story
of how and why we came to Australia is well documented, but had I not overheard
a remark by Trevor Courtney to the effect that I couldn’t organise a fight
in the men’s toilet, the Chants might never have left the building.
Similarly, had Stephen Nelson, (who designed the Testimonial, Terminal Buzz
and A Strange Fantastic Dream covers and who tried out for the keyboard
role in Spectrum before we settled on John Mills), had he not said how much
he admired Richard Clapton’s lyrics on his new album, I might never have
embarked on the ambitious task of writing a completely new repertoire of songs
for Ariel’s debut a matter of weeks after the demise of Spectrum with
such frenetic passion. I guess it goes partway to explaining some of the outrageous
and occasionally over the edge nature of the lyrics.
There’s more – but you get the picture.
So, I’ve identified the possible genesis of my personal brand of inertia.
Time is passing, and as I’ve observed before, at an increasing rate of
knots. The belief that a man of my advanced years has an indefinite future in
the rock music world is precarious to say the least. As Hal Todd used to say
about tomorrows, ‘Nothing happened, nothing will’. You’ve
got a plan, right? Get over it Mike – as the Nike ad says, just fucking
do it!

Dad (& Dave) Rudd
enjoys Healesville Sanctuary