Sheltering from the rain where the tram meets the train it occurs to me I’m at a hub, the locus of the hurrying many. A good spot to promote your goods or your services or your gig. At my feet, on a patch of dry asphalt, a sort of yellow mound takes my eye. The mound turns out to be a pile of magazines, the strong yellow blazoned with bold script in magenta. It’s intended to catch the commuter’s eye.
 

When it comes to reading material I am my mother’s son. The printed word always lured Mum from the world of people and food and things: if it was legible Mum would leg it.

Me too. This was readable material so I read. I read CHOPPED. None the wiser I peered at the words in a smaller font. These are the words I read:

 

REVEREND HORTON HEAT

 

THE MEANIES

 

Hmmm. I guessed these were musical groups, bands, we used to call them. There was more:

 

Guantanamo Baywatch. Clever. I liked it.

 

Puta Madre Bros. Rude, naughty. I liked it.

 

Drunk Mums. Why not? 

 

The Cherry Dolls. Chris Russell’s chicken Walk. Ho hum.

 

The Pinheads. If you have that originality you aren’t one.

 

West Thebarton Brothel Party. I recalled the two occasions I went window shopping in a brothel. That was Hong Kong, not Thebarton West.

 

The Shabbab. Shepparton Airplane. There’s a ring to these.

 

La Mancha Negra. What can that mean? Probably nothing. Word stuck, word-drunk, I always want to decode the metaphor. A mistake: listen to the music.

 

The Reprobettes. Pretty literate. A snob, I am mildly surprised.

 

Flour. Hmmm.

 

Amyl and the Sniffers. Naughty again, very naughty. I am enjoying my morning’s reading. 

 

Racing on (I hear my tram approaching) – Slim Customers. King Puppy & the Carnivore. Thee Cha Chas. Was that three or thee? The eye wants to see what it wants.

 

Tape Wolves. Red Brigade. Do the members of this group know much about the Red Brigades?

 

Itchy Scabs. I love it.

 

The team pulls up as I read: Double Yad. Golly. I feel no doubt at all the namegiver intends this name. Understands the acronymic coupling of the Hebrew letter yad. Knows it to be the abbreviated form of the Ineffable Name.

 

My God!