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2004-11-04 - 11:52 p.m.

You'll have to forgive me for all the mundane entries which read "so on Friday I did this, and then Saturday I did this" etc etc. It's important for me to keep a chronology but at the same time I'm hoping that I'll find more motivation to write more often, and once I'm up to date I can try to be a bit more creative, which is what I always intended of this diary, or at least can have you "slip inside the eye of my mind" instead of just the squares of my calendar.

But until then, I was up to Friday 1/10, and on Friday I did this...

After driving back from the Hunter in the pouring rain, and braving further drenching just to satisfy a craving for one of those famous chicken rolls you get from good Asian bakeries, Jane and I rocked up to the Basement for Tim Freedman's unofficial Whitlams Anthology. We had dinner (and more wine) with Cindy and Eegs before the show started, and I explained to both of them that I absolutely positively couldn't stay for the late show as I had to work at 6am the next morning.

At the end of my last entry I said something about a tangent I could go on. I guess it's not really a tangent, just that I've allowed myself to be more of a Whitlams fan again since the Basement show and moreso the DVD. I never wasn't one, maybe I just needed a break from it virtually defining me. Fuck I cannot believe I just wrote that- I always shook my head when people had identity crises and believed the solution was to get away from the list a while. Nah, it wasn't that, I just wasn't interested in the demographic of fan that was inhabiting the list, nor was I that interested in seeing their gigs the way I used to. Plus the lack of real b-sides on singles was giving me the shits.

But after a long hiatus I ventured out to Revesby last year, then there was the Newtown festival and earlier this year the Vanguard show. And then we have the Basement show, and I guess the main thing about this run of shows and the release of the DVD is not that our protagonist has redeemed himself any in my eyes (or at least I tell myself that, but you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise), but I was reminded what drew me there in the first place.

Tim telling the audience about him and Stevie snorting Trucker's speed off a Gregory's before driving to Newcastle to re-record one word in "Lester Walker" that was erased by a lightning strike, well, it made me sure that for him being faithful to the memory of the early days was more important than putting on his "I'm a professional now" show. And the DVD footage of Stevie and Andy is stuff I would have only dreamed of in my evangelical FOW days.

It was real enough for me to be convinced to stay for the second show (ah Blueshoe do you remember when it was me doing the arm twisting?), but the main reason behind that was that Jane was actually keen to stay, in the hope that Mark would come down and have a similar realisation that underneath a lot of bullshit there is a human side. So a few bottles of red and 45 minutes sleep later I was showing up to work a little worse for wear and almost certainly breaking the company's zero alcohol rule.

On Sunday night (3/10) I had a belated birthday dinner with the family, and watched the Bulldogs win the Rugby League grand final. I was a Bulldogs fanatic up until about Year 11, but I still get excited when I watch a game every year or so (on TV- I haven't been to a game since about 1999).

Friday 8th- Sunday 10th October I had a real weekend, mind you my last set of 3 days off before that felt like one because Jane took 3 days off too. On Friday Jane and I had dinner at the perrenial BBQ Kings, before having work drinks with Jane's work and managing to make it to Spectrum for about an hour despite Jane being fairly tired and drunk by then. Saturday we wandered up to @ Newtown (so called because it's a branch of the Petersham RSL at Newtown in case you were wondering) to catch Love Outside Andromeda. They were really good but Epicure were having a narcotic effect on us so we left early and went home to bed.

Wednesday 13/10- changeover night from work (ie finished work at 3pm that day, started at 3pm Thursday for anyone who doesn't recognise that term yet). Went down to the Rose for Bernie Hayes with special guests Karma County, ended up walking out of the Zanzibar with Eegs at 5am Thursday morning. I turned up to work under the weather again, Eegs took a sickie and her fill-in ratted on her! How terribly un-Australian :)

Saturday 16/10 after my last night shift I dropped by Steve's party for his birthday, and my old ragged crew from the Ent. Cent. were there- Stephanie, Bek and Wendy. It was great to see them, now I just have to work out where Tanya is hiding. I took two sick days on Wednesday and Thursday that week- I don't know why I always feel guilty when I am actually sick. True thousands have gone to work sicker, and I've probably felt worse on days I've been at work hungover, but I get paid sick days and that's what they're there for dammit.

Thursday night saw Jet at the Hordern- groan all you like, they may be formulaic and every song is a rip-off of one from the Sixties or Seventies (Look What You've Done = Sexy Sadie, ...Be My Girl = Lust For Life, Cold Hard Bitch = any AC/DC song from the mid-seventies and two songs sound like the Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses") but they do it well, they play the crowd and they seem like nice boys. The main reason I was there was that Jane was taking her little brother to his first concert (okay, he's like 19 but usually his interests lie elsewhere), he put the CD on his birthday list and Jane thought "we'll see about that".

Friday was my one morning at work after having the other two off. That night Jane and her other brother went to Magic Dirt, I figured I'd seen them enough times for one album so I chose the Townie instead, having drinks with Mark and Phoebe (I organised to meet them), and Erin, Ruth and a delightful Indie/ Pop Culture nerd called Chris (yes, another one) who seemed to be really into music but didn't realise that Radiohead's "Subterranean Homesick Alien" was a Bob Dylan reference.

I met Ruth at Erin's birthday drinks, we shared speed off my coffee table you may recall, got to know her reasonably well that night and when she came to my party. Sometime between then and the aforementioned Townie night she found out she had cancer. I won't go into detail but she's just been into hospital for surgery and it's not a nice thing for a young woman to have to live with. She's expected to get through it okay (although you can never know so fingers crossed) and yesterday she messaged me to say she was out already (I assume she's got to go back in for chemo) and at the Townie with Erin did I want to come. I was working so I'm going to catch up tomorrow afternoon. She has 8 months off work and I work crazy shifts so hopefully I can do my bit to keep her sane on my some of my mid-week days off when everyone else is at work.

It just occurred to me that it would be very easy for people from the Whitlams list to find their way here, and maybe I should alias more people than I do. Cindy and I worked out years ago that everybody on the list had melodramatic self deprecating depressive tendencies (ourselves included) and Diaryland is a haven for just those things. After all, I take complete responsibility for Cindy and Miss Ophelia's beautiful friendship simply because I was seeing how many people listed the Whitlams in their favourite bands :) Meh, I don't care as much as I did 2 years ago, if someone somehow finds out I've been talking about them on the internet and they don't want me to I will stop, or alias, or whatever, but it's certainly not a case of being inconsiderate- I usually only alias the guilty ones :P

Okay just to take me through to the end of October (wow, I am on a roll)- Wednesday 27/10 I had Eegs and Cindy over for dinner before Bernie and Gen Maynard, got riotously drunk (only me that is- gotta love that :) and still was home in bed by midnight. I think. Jane turned up after Uni, I ordered her dinner, Bernie started stealing her chips before she arrived and when he asked whose they were and Eegs said they were my girlfriend's who wasn't here he insinuated she was imaginary. Ah Berns :) I harrassed Cindy's pseudo namesake to get up and sing but she wouldn't, and a complete stranger insulted my hair so I got it all cut off.

It's good to be writing lots again. Goodnight possums :P

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