Djinn Jivin'

Djinn Jivin' on New Year's Eve, 1930

What's that, I hear you say?  Have I been drinking? No, I'm just playing you a sweet little melody on my typewriter.  Biding my time till the new decade starts.  Oh, I know some people say it started the beginning of this year, but I don't follow that riff.  I see it differently, always have, in all aspects of my life.

I was born on the wrong side of the hospital, on a wild taxi ride from the end of Prahran to the beginning of Brunswick.  A chaotic, wet night that my mother never forgot.  Nor my aunt.  Nor, I expect, the taxidriver. They all had a hand in bringing me into the world; my mother, spiritually; my aunt, physically; and the highly vocal driver, mentally.  By the time we got to the hospital they were all so exhausted, and the driver didn't even bother asking for the fare.  

Wild storms are like music to me now.  Whenever I hear thunder start to roll or lightning bolts flash, I get little tunes tinkling around the edges of my brain.  I have to find one of my instruments, or at least some paper to write the notes on. There's nothing else I can do, I would end up in the madhouse otherwise.

I became Dukelele one summer on the beach when a young swimmer pulled out his ukelele from under his towel and began to strum a few chords, and then a whole magic little Hawaiian melody.  I'd never been that interested in music before then, at least, not in the sense of performance. Sure, I listened to it often but it hadn't been a spellbinder until that moment.  It wove its gentle charm on me with this bloke's playing and I felt drawn to learn how to play one of these odd little instruments.  I asked the bloke if he would show me how there and then, which he did.  It felt like coming home after a long trip away.  I was hooked, and the world seemed a far better place.  

And it seemed like all the girls looked at me with a sparkle in their eyes and an upward curve on their lips.