Chameleon Father

My dad is my creational nemesis. As I have grown older, our creative souls seem to be at war; who can be the bigger philosopher, who can create the greatest work of art, who can be the biggest fuckwit to the world, who can draw the most tears out of eyes; who can be the better artist. I have always wanted to meet his level of imagination, dreamed about being half the God of aesthetic and creation that he is

Truth is, I have nothing on my dad, my 21 years is but a second in his epoch.

That’s the great hamartia of being an artist; we can never truly be happy for the creations of the others of our breed, because if their work is better than your own art; we will just resent it more, and try harder and harder to be the better creator. Imagine being in that cycle with your own father.

It’s a mind fuck.

My Dad’s name is Steve. That's him there, just above this sentence.

He is a musician, a wizard, of the word, the sound, he emits vibrations that just make your chest want to explode just by talking, he could make the seasons change if he wanted to, with nothing but a guitar, not even that. He has been around the universe, under different names and guises since the late 80s, but none of that matters. Dad isn’t a product of where he has been, or what he used to be or do; he just,

is.

My dad is a chameleon.

He is Father, the laughing Maltese man, but he is also the alchemist, the schizophrenic, the manic creator, the glamorous angel in a mirrorball suit, the junkie in the corner, the umbilicus of all imaginative creation in the room next door, the performer in the straight jacket suit, sitting on a stool, pooled in green light, with the audience sitting in the palm of his hand.

I love my Dad’s hands.

He used to hold me in the crook of his arm, with my head resting in his hand. Maybe that is when he transmitted a slither of his genius into my brain. When he was rocking me to sleep as as babe…

People ask me all the time, ‘What is it like having a Dad, like that?’ My honest thought is usually ‘ugh go away, I’m my own artist’…but I usually say something along the lines of, ‘As soon as he steps on that stage, he’s not my Dad anymore…I honestly have no idea who that person is…My dad makes coffee in the kitchen in his undies and secretly really loves painting the house…That’s not my dad.’

The adoring fans usually just smile and nod their heads at me.

But fuck me, just as you start to think that you know him again; he’s off. And I think he knows how much it screws with the head of humans, his magic. And so he goes, on a rampant pilgrimage, a boy with a face full of eyes, creating, imagining, mastering his work, salt to this earth.

My Dad could have run a cult if he wanted to; and I guess in many ways he does. What is a fan if not a follower? I watched my Dad enchant strangers to the point of euphoria, he opens the gates of Elysium, feeds them nirvana on a spoon…

He gives them Heaven on Earth at $30 a ticket.

It was in Melbourne, at some venue in the city, on a busy street, I think it was underground…that was the first time that I realised Dad could transcend, he could use music to just transcend out of the room, out of the sky, atmosphere. Gone. That was when he was angelic, like some great being, more timeless than breath.

I’d seen it before, but before that moment I hadn’t learnt enough about myself to know what it all meant.

There he was, on that stage, bathed in green light, the venue his temple, his arms stretched to the heavens. A nuclear bomb could detonate beside him and he wouldn’t even notice. He, a being who couldn't have been further from my father, a deranged, artistic reincarnation of Christ, the kind of Christ that Dali dreamed about was present.

In those moments his being is in the world of creation, not the trivial physical not around him. Even though I want to beat him in artistry, I always find myself below him in the audience, tears streaming uncontrollably down my face when I see him sing, and he too

delivers me.