Log Book
Log Entry 08/01/2009 - 08:56:55
I report from Bondi Junction Depot. Here all today for truck spotting and things. So far the morning audio is that of waste collecting vehicles (i.e. garbage trucks) collecting refuse. Clanking, groaning, ploughing through rubble. The rear-loader sighs in the diesel. More sounds of thick plastic bins knocking against brick;deep throated shouts, a mixture of Pirate like 'Ahoy! There!' and a Train Station Master's - 'All Aboard'. Imagine Ancient Days when a garbo truck was a two-wheel card pulled by slaves. As a truckie-poet told me yesterday, drivers of Garbage Trucks are never thanked enough for their life in scum and scraps, about dusty roads of every country everywhere. I wonder when a cash-for-trash system will be implemented, we have to pay for our rubbish to be taken away and knowing how penny obsessed we are, will reduce what we bin.
Log Entry 07/01/2009 - 14:26:18
Our media release calling for truck driving poets is circulating the media roads. Read what The Age reports on our project by clicking on The Age .
A few drivers phoned the Depot today, two from Perth who told me about loneliness and petrol prices. Concert at Sydney's Fox studios last night. Me in a sea of glitter and SantoGold, infamous singer of 'Drive Thru' which featured in the marketing campaign for Converse in 2008. Yet, no trucks driving through, moving or parked. Just taxis and girls with very tanned, taut legs and boys too scared to show their skinny white knees so they sweated the music out in jeans. A possom safe from being run over by trucks sat high in a tree looking on me as I unlocked the front door then found this comically distressing ditty just after eating dinner.
Verse 1:
My children are hungry, my dog ain't gota bone.
Ain't got no job, and I'm just travelin on.
Its an hour after sundown, what to my delight,
why there's five pound of possum in my headlights tonite!
Chorus:
Oh theres five pound of possum in my headlites tonite.
If I could run him over, everything would be all right.
Oh we'll make some possum gravy, oh whata wonderful sight.
cause ther's five pound of possum in my headlights tonite.
Log Entry 05/01/2009 - 16:18:26
Truck out front replaced by a 'No Birds' tin car into which cushions for a leather sofa were being loaded in the afternoon breeze. Moments ago I yakked on the phone to a retired truckie. A true truck driver is unable to ever retire from the road, 'the diesel gets in the bone and the blood' I am told. Poems are in the muscles of our imagination, I think. The 2UE promotion read by Mr John Laws broadcast today. Two phone calls to the Depot thus far. Slim Dusty was has been mentioned for the first time (in relation to this project) today so I hunted out Diesaline Dreams. Via YouTube I got lost in a truck montage and then had a memory moment - of the oily rainbow as it appears, always a thick and pretty immiscibility when diesal is mixed with rain on hot road.
Road Trains
Log Entry 28/12/2008 - 09:52:59
Depot Director here. Am logging in from the Bondi Junction terminal. Birds chirp. Back track to yesterday. Truck Poet Brendan Ryan rattled the iron door of 583 at 11:00. He wore: 1 bone toned Panama hat, 1 green cream cotton shirt. Pair of shorts, shoes, socks. Bonny, myself and Brendan sipped hot tea in a pretty but not functional cups. Brendan almost burnt his fingers off. Door rattled again. Truck Poet Judith Bishop arrived in summer frock, silken hair and without her just born. Malt biscuits were nibbled. (n.b. Better biscuits at Lithgow Depot). We discussed other project poets - trucking elders and industry neophytes.Brendan is an ex-truck driver. Judith is unsure about reading her poem before a crowd of 45 thousand, an optino for project launch on 21.3.09 at 18:00. We listened to .30 seconds of Mr John Laws' 'Dust Poems' audio promotion soon to broadcast on 2UE and affiliated stations. Truck loads of thanks to the mighty support of our Patron, Mr John B Fairfax. Other dust poets were not present. Good wishes with Lindsay for a recent death in her family. Departed midday. On street: a yellow white striped delivery truck. A lovely sized machine with a fun fair feel. I restrained myself from taking the truck for a spin. Fellow driver and Depot Manager to the upstairs where Bonny and I rejoiced in Dust delight that comes only from trucking on the weekend. Toot.
Log Entry 23/12/2008 - 14:04:35
See what LA truckers have to say about the robust US truckin' poetry scene: Truck Driving Poets
Log Entry 19/12/2008 - 16:41:14
Here we are, calling in from the Red Room depot! We have a whole fleet of original poems getting ready to take to the road over early 2009. Our three non-trucking poets are hard at work on their initial ideas, and we are very excited about the trucking talent that's brought itself to our attention. So far, "knowledge" seems to be an important quality of any driver-poet: knowledge of the job, the life, the demands, the responsibilities - and the link between this and experience. Do we think of professional poets or poets from other industries in the same way? Often it seems as though a pen and a page, or a keyboard are considered qualifications enough for the pedestrian poet. And what poems will roll in from visitors to the Olympic Park? Perhaps they will they be proclamations of special knowledge, insights into life experience, or a glimpse of some blurred reflection...Roger Wilco, over.
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