No. 5 MORGAN and THE RETURN OF THE NOT QUITE INSIDE NOT QUITE OUTSIDE MAN

If you have read my last entry you would know that I have been pondering the future of this project.
If you haven’t read my last entry you can read it now and when you finish it you will come to learn that I have been pondering the future of this project.
Or alternatively you can read the last few sentences again and when you get to the end of this sentence you will have been informed at least three times that I have been pondering the future of this project.

Yes it’s been fun so far but seriously, how long exactly am I going to do this? And why am I really doing it? Such questions plagued me! But then if I was unsure about the future then there was someone amongst my strangers, the very people who I was unsure about who could help me!
I am talking about my first coffee recipient, "No.1 Greg," the guitarist-illustrator-screenwriter-photographer.
Why enlist a guitarist-illustrator-screenwriter-photographer to answer my questions? Because Greg can predict the future!
Yes he can!
No, I’m not nuts and no neither is he! For amongst Greg’s many other professions Greg is also an astrologer and I decided to enlist in his cosmic fortune-telling abilities!

When I first met Greg at Café Boungiorno I was initially drawn to him because his table was positioned in such a way that it was neither, inside or outside the café. It was literally smack bang in the middle of the opened glass doors. It was bizarre! I immediately became obsessed. I was bothered so much with trying to decide whether he was inside or outside that I ended up talking to him.
Needless to say when he suggested we meet at Café Boungiono again I was very intrigued to see where he would be sitting! I was FAR more excited about this than any astrological wisdom or mystical jiggery pokery he may to tell me.
But alas when I arrived there was no Greg!
It was I who had to decide where to sit. Shit!
But then I spied the very table at which Greg was sitting on that Friday night only a month ago to find it had been MOVED! It was a hot day so the glass doors were shut providing no chance for any table, man or animal to be neither outside or inside the café.

So where was the table now? Inside or Outside I sense you thinking. (I can now sense you thinking how it is that I can ‘sense you thinking.’ Just accept it. I now sense you thinking that just saying I can isn’t really adequate proof at all and that I’m talking crap. But then I just illustrated my point didn’t I! Confused aren’t you. See. I just proved it again)
However, I have decided that I will not reveal whether the table was inside or outside just yet and you will have to wait. This is because I’m an arsehole.

When "No. 1 Greg" arrived I was a bit excited.
Now whether you believe in astrology and other such hocus pocus or not, one can’t get a little bit tingly moments before their future is about to be foretold.
Now when I say tingly, I perhaps maybe mean I was carrying on like a big girls blouse.
Ooohh! Would he tell me all about my true love? Would I be rich? Famous? Would I get to meet Bert Newton? And most importantly when were they going to freakin’ release the complete series of the Wonder Years on DVD!?

Unfortunately Greg couldn’t tell me that. But the bloke at JB Hi-fi did! "Wow you should be an astrologer!’ I said to him. He didn’t seem to get what I was talking about. But I’m generally used to that kind of reaction from people now.

But back to Greg. According to his chart my sun sign is Leo, my rising sign is Aquarius and I have a number of planets aligned in my 6th and 7th houses.
Yeah I know! Who’d of thought hey!
But apparently this means my life will be dominated by creativity, the spotlight, working very hard and struggling for the approval of people in authoritative positions. That last two bits sucked balls a bit but it could have been worse. At least he didn’t say I would never meet Bert Newton.

But I was really hoping Greg’s analysis of the mighty planets would give some sort of hint about what was going on with this bothering strangers thing.
It was then that Greg looked at my immediate future and said the next two years will be mostly centered on people and relationships. He said that closeness with people would become a very dominant part of my life in the next while.
I got very excited! Bert Newton was a person! Though he didn’t say the words ‘Bert’ or ‘Newton’ at all I was convinced Greg was basically saying I would marry Bert Newton within the next two years. Brilliant! High 5’s all round!

And though the stars didn’t say "You should go and meet strangers for coffee," the idea that I’d be spending more time with people gave me a bit of a confidence boost. I mean it may have been vague, but if people were going to be my thing for the next while, then I was certainly taking a step in the right direction. I suddenly felt a lot more accepting of the whole project. I bid Greg farewell feeling more at ease and generally more positive about what I was doing.

So the next day I strode into the Myer Centre feeling more confident and self-assured. Without much thinking at all I spotted a guy wearing a brown hat reading a newspaper and waltzed right up to him.
He asked a lot of questions about why I wanted to have coffee with him and I was pretty certain he was going to reject me. Even when he’d said yes and we lined up at Gloria Jeans something seemed hesitant about him.
I was starting to feel a little bit uncomfortable. I think he sensed this because he started to look a bit uncomfortable too. This seemed to increase the closer we got to the teller.
I wanted to tell him he didn’t have to worry about having a coffee with me if he didn’t want to. And then he began to open his mouth so it looked like he was going to save me the trouble.
"I feel kinda bad about this.."
Here we go.
"..It’s just I’m getting a free coffee out of you for this.."
You got to be joking I thought! What a lame reason to bail on me! This man was clearly a disgrace, a felon, a criminal!
"That’s ok," I said, waiting to see what this vile creature would do next.
"MM.. well…maybe…I’ll buy you one as well then."
Me one as well? Me one AS WELL! I fell in love with him immediately!
He had genuinely felt bad! And he was going to have not one, but at least two coffees with me! He was in for the long haul!! This man was clearly a star, a legend, an angel!
And right from that second a great meeting of the minds took place! It was an inspired, flowing interaction full of connecting and conversing and laughing and inspiring, just the sort of communication Greg had talked about.

THE MORGAN FACT FILE!
AGE: 24
STATUS: Married.
FAVORITE SONG: Humming Birds by Seals and Crofts
FAVORITE FILM: The Big Lebowski
FAVORITE BOOK: The Mold in Dr Florey’s Coat: The Discovery of Penicillin
FAVORITE YEAR OF LIFE: Each year has been an improvement on the last. Three years ago life was great and now life is even better and he has been getting happier and happier which has been very gratifying for him.

GOAL FOR NEXT 12 MONTHS: To be useful. Morgan is on holidays now and he feels that he isn’t doing much and wants to contribute as much as he can to the world. He doesn’t feel complete in himself unless he’s doing something good for someone. What a great guy!!
I told Morgan I didn’t feel complete without my arms, legs and head.
Morgan laughed at what was really a lame joke.
I liked him even more now.

SOMETHING THAT EXCITES MORGAN IS: Learning how things work. He’s fascinated by popular science and the where’s, why’s and how’s of the world around him.

SOMETHING THAT PISSES MORGAN OFF IS: Morgan tries hard not to think about these things, but he is frustrated by people who never question things or who don’t consider that perhaps where, when and to whom they were born may be a significant reason behind the beliefs they have.

A BELIEF MORGAN WOULD INSTILL IN PEOPLE IF HE HAD THE POWER OF BRAINWASHING IS: To make people question things and the world around them.
To Morgan it doesn’t matter what you believe but it’s how you chose to believe it.

A QUESTION MORGAN DECIDED TO ASK ME WAS… My life story. ANSWER: My life story.

THOUGHTS WHEN I INITIALLY ASKED HIM FOR COFFEE: That I wanted his newspaper. Then that someone had dared me to approach him. Then that he might be on some TV program. Then guilt for getting a free coffee out of me.

THOUGHTS AFTERWARDS: That I have a title and structure for what I’m doing but that my motivations for doing it are probably somewhat deeper. That I should keep this as an ongoing project because it seems that I am searching for something that I may not quite know yet.

OTHER THINGS YOU MIGHT LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT MORGAN!
*Morgan finds a parrot that sings the theme song to ‘The Golden Girls’ more threatening than a kitten whose paws leak out red biro.
*His wife however is PETRIFIED of kittens! In fact she has nightmares about them regularly!
*Morgan is obviously not a kitten (or he’d have a different wife)
* Morgan is from Newcastle and has been here two years to study dentistry.
* Morgan used to regularly rock up at peoples houses with a bunch of mates and some gardening equipment and offer to do their gardening for free.
* Some of his mates are of Middle-Eastern background and after September 11 the extent of people not accepting their offer declined so radically that it just became to ‘awkward’ and they sadly decided to stop doing it.

I was touched by Morgan’s genuine interest in humanity and goodwill and was saddened that he wasn’t mowing other people’s lawns anymore.
Mainly because it meant the chances of someone doing my lawn for free had now decreased, but also the idea of people losing their will to do good for others didn’t sit to well with me.
But then Morgan told me that his fellow do-gooders met every 3rd Sunday of the month at the State Gallery for an event called ‘Soul Food.’
I was pretty hungry so my eyes lit up when he mentioned food.
So Morgan went on to say it was put on by the Baha’i society.
Baha'i was obviously some new restaurant and so I asked him to tell me more.
Somehow I’d got it wrong, (a rare occurrence) and The Baha'i Society was actually a sort of new religion with a goal to unite humanity and to acknowledge that all religions, people, cultures and nations were equal and had something important to say.
With eyes somewhat watering Morgan talked of a hope for a world where humans loved and appreciated each other and the environment around them.
I couldn’t help be moved by Morgan’s passion and he offered to meet the same time the next day and give me books I might find equally as inspirational.
I told him I couldn’t as I was going to be walking around with a giant eyeball on my head.

(See above. Ha! And you thought I was a lier!)

But I could an hour after that.

So we arranged to meet again and he promised to get ME a coffee when we did.
This was awesome! My strangers were asking me for coffee now!
And this was just the beginning! Who knows if I played my cards right maybe they’d be giving me cars and helicopters soon too!
I hoped this is what Morgan meant by there being something deeper to what I was doing.
I wasn’t sure if there actually was or wasn’t something deeper but it didn’t matter. To just be interacting and strengthening my closeness to people generally as Greg suggested was good enough for me. Particularly if I was getting free stuff every now and then!

Until next time Mark, Morgan and Greg (again!)

PS. It was Inside.